Two or three days must, by their events, and by the King's letter to you, enable you to judge decisively upon the situation of the country, present and to come. The prospect is truly gloomy, and the combination of calamitous circumstances such as to leave very little reason in my apprehension to hope that this situation will be such as we must all wish—that of a settled Government, even in hands which we dislike, if it can be settled in no other. In the meantime, I do not think you called upon to transmit to the King any answer to this conversation; especially as, I suppose, you must naturally send one to his letter, whenever it arrives.
Adieu, my dearest brother,
Believe me ever most sincerely and affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
P.S.—The Treasury have written to Hamilton to give assurances of the repayment of the money advanced to Lord Rawdon's regiment, and to desire a state of that money. The natural way would have been, to have given you credit for the whole money due from them to the regiment; but as it is, I hope you will not any longer think it necessary to stop the subsistence, as it has so harsh an appearance.
Having traced the history of the coalition up to this point, we now come to His Majesty's answer to Lord Temple, referring to these transactions. It was transmitted in the following letter from Mr. Grenville.
MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO LORD TEMPLE.
Pall Mall, April 1st, 1783.
My dear Brother,
I have this evening seen the King, and received from him, with every expression both towards you and myself, the enclosed letter to transmit to you. I take it for granted that it will sufficiently inform you of the determination which he has at length taken, but not avowed, of acquiescing in the Duke of Portland's Cabinet for the present; and of his wishes, that those who act with us should hold themselves apart from such a Government, in order that he may have something else to look to whenever circumstances shall allow of it.
At all events, if there is anything in his conversation with me which is not implied in his letter, I shall so soon have an opportunity of detailing it to you at length, that I do not think it worth while to trouble you with what must for the most part be a repetition of what he has written to you. Our ground I think clear—honourable to ourselves, consistent with our principles and professions, and holding out to us the fairest prospects of honest ambition. If those prospects fail us, we shall have nothing to reproach ourselves with; if they succeed, we shall stand firmly and honourably upon the ruins of weakness and disgrace.
The King talks of their kissing hands in two or three days. I shall wait till their inferior arrangements are settled, because the difficulty about the peerages still remains. They are said to be pledged by absolute promises; on the other hand, the King neither can, will, nor I think ought, to give way on that head. Should they be so weak as to resign on that ground, their support would certainly fail them, and the road would be opened for us. As soon as this point is understood to be settled, I will go back to you; as, notwithstanding our voluminous correspondence, I wait with the utmost impatience for the moment when I may state to you in person much which I have necessarily left unsaid, and, above all, the sincere and heartfelt affection with which I am