of Mr.
Grenville, whose wise and temperate letter on the occasion will be read
with admiration. Mr. Pitt also interposed, offering to appease Lord
Buckingham's feelings by any course of proceeding which, under the
circumstances, could be resorted to for the purpose of relieving the
transaction of the appearance of a personal or official indignity. The
grounds upon which the royal excuse rested were, that Lord Buckingham's
wishes were not known to his Majesty, and that military appointments
were not expressly included in the Viceroy's patronage.

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

Whitehall, July 1st, 1788.

My dear Brother,

I received yesterday morning your two letters of the 25th and
27th, and was preparing to answer them to-day, when I received a
third letter from you with its enclosures. Nothing could exceed
my surprise at reading Lord Sydney's letters. The only reason of
their having been delayed till the 23rd was, that, at my
request, Pitt had desired Lord Sydney not to write to you till
he could see him, in order more certainly to secure--what I had
understood to have been before settled with him--that the thing
should _not_ be done in the form in which it has been done. I
had never imagined that the thing itself could be pleasing to
you, although I certainly entertained no apprehensions of your
thinking of quitting your situation, because in a single
instance the King's private wishes had interfered with your
patronage. I had, on the contrary, supposed that if it was done
in such a manner as to mark, unequivocally, that it was a
personal interference of the King's in behalf of his own
aid-de-camp and equerry, and that it was not a competition for
patronage on the part of any other person, you would think it
right to do what is done in every other department of
Government--to acquiesce in it as a thing out of the ordinary
course, and as a gratification of the King's personal wishes. It
was under these impressions, that when I was informed of the
circumstance by Fitzherbert, on the Saturday morning, I thought
it infinitely more desirable for you that I should confine
myself to securing that the attention due to you should be
preserved in the mode of doing it, and that it should be stated
to you in a private letter, and afterwards be carried into
effect upon your recomm