particular
arrangement, which we agreed to be in so many respects
objectionable, certainly will not take place. My opinion is,
that it will end in my remaining as I am till _the other event_
happens, when it will be time enough to decide the question,
which will then occur, either of my present situation
continuing, or of the arrangement which you suggested instead of
it, which I mentioned to Pitt, and which he seemed in many
respects to like. The negotiation with respect to that _other
event_ has not yet been opened, but will immediately be so. The
period must depend upon that person's wishes as well as mine;
but mine, as far as they will have weight, are for the time
which you seemed to prefer.

I do not know whether you will understand my hieroglyphics, but
I hope to explain them to you some time next week, as Lord
Harcourt and myself have, I think, nearly settled to take our
holidays then.

We determined nothing about the Wardrobe Keeper. Lord Grimstone
has been written to about Hepburne's arrangement, but we have no
answer yet. This need not, however, delay any decision which you
may take about the other, which I am very anxious to settle
before the clannism takes place,

Adieu, my dear brother,
Ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.

1787.

The Dawn of Free Trade--The Assembly of Notables--Affairs of
Holland--Arthur Wellesley--The Marquis of Buckingham Assumes the
Government of Ireland for the Second Time.

Looking back upon the acts of past administrations, with a view to the
influence they exercised over the policy of their successors to the
present time, perhaps the most important measure introduced at this
period by Mr. Pitt was a commercial treaty with France, which may be
regarded as the first recognition by an English Minister of the
principles of Free Trade. Mr. Fox maintained that France was the natural
enemy of England, and that it was useless to attempt to veil the rivalry
of the two countries under commercial regulations. Mr. Pitt, on the
other hand, urged that it was their mutual interest to liberate their
commerce; and that if France obtained a market by this treaty of eight
millions of people for her wines and other productions, England profited
still more largely by gaining a market for her manufactures of
twenty-four millions.

The general principle of this treaty was to admit a mu