Ever most affectionately yours,
G.
LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
St. James's Square, June 13th, 1792.
My dearest Brother,
I know you share the happiness I feel, in learning that my travellers were to be at Brussels in the course of last week, and did not purpose making more than four or five days' stay there, so that I may reasonably expect them here from day to day. I am rejoiced that my holidays have begun before they are arrived. We prorogue on Friday, and have finished all our business to-day, which is a great load off my shoulders. The Chancellor is to give up the Seals immediately, and they will be put into Commission with Eyre, Buller, and Wilson, as I imagine, though the names are not yet quite settled. We shall have the summer to look about us; and I feel no great uneasiness even at the thoughts of meeting them again precisely as we are, if that should be the case.
There is no news of any sort, except the continuance of the French follies, which you read day by day in their papers, as fully, and indeed often much more so, than I could detail them. There have been some great failures at Bordeaux, and some at Paris, which makes those few of our merchants who are concerned with them look about them a little.
Our Addresses are going on swimmingly, and it will, I think, soon be time for the loyal county of B. to show itself. They expect a dust in Surrey, which my good Lord Onslow does not seem to have quite wit enough to lay.
Ever most affectionately yours,
G.
Two days after the date of this letter, Parliament was prorogued, and the Chancellor sent in his resignation.
The events that were taking place in France had recently awakened in England a spirit of sympathy amongst the lower classes, which it was apprehended might lead to disastrous consequences, if strong measures were not adopted for its suppression. Several associations were established in London and elsewhere to give practical effect to the democratic and revolutionary doctrines of the day, under such titles as the Corresponding Society, the Revolution Society, and the Society for Constitutional Information; and some of them carried their views so far as to transmit congratulatory addresses to the National Assembly. The Government, seeing the peril that was impending over the country, took immediate measures for the suppression of seditious correspondence abroad, and revolutionary publications at home. A proclamation embodying these objects was laid before Parliament towards the end of May, and carried without a division, notwithstanding a violent opposition from Mr. Grey and others, who had formed themselves into a Society called "The Friends of the People," for the ostensible purpose of appeasing the discontents, by obtaining a reform in the representation.