at may be absolutely
necessary, is not desirable; but I may be mistaken in this; and
perhaps that which has already passed may make it better that
you should preserve terms of civility towards him.

The Duke of Athol's statement of his own case has made much
impression on me: pray tell me what you think of it. He says he
can prove that, although my father passed the Bill of 1765, from
the necessity of applying an immediate remedy to the mischief of
smuggling, yet that it was his intention to have entered into a
fuller investigation of the subject the following year. He
presses me to be one of the Commissioners; but this I shall
probably decline, on the real ground of other business.

Alexander Hood is to have the red riband, and not Trevor. He
made a very good speech for it last night. There is not the
smallest ground for believing that Sir G. Howard was actuated by
anything else than a sense of the _great military character_
which he sustains, and perhaps some ground of pique at the
King's having refused to interfere with Mulgrave and myself to
give the Chaplainship of Chelsea to a friend of his. He asked an
audience of the King for the purpose of making this request, and
sent an account of it in a paragraph to the newspapers.

Ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.

You may, perhaps, have seen in "The World," a most scandalous
misrepresentation of Mornington's conduct the other evening in
the House of Commons. It will, I am sure, give you pleasure to
be assured, that there is not the smallest ground for so
infamous an imputation; and that his conduct on that occasion is
universally felt, and allowed even by those who are least
favourably disposed to him, to have been perfectly correct and
proper. He spoke remarkably well, and said exactly what his
friends could have wished him to say.

Mr. Grenville had now made up his mind to take the reversion of Lord
Clanbrassil's office (the Chief Remembrancership), in preference to the
Rolls; for which the Duke of Leinster, who had given considerable
trouble to the Government in Ireland, was rather a clamorous candidate.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, May 12th, 1788.

My dear Brother,

I have just seen Fitzherbert, and have had some conversation
with him about the Mastership of the Rolls.