[278] Orford, i. 420.
[279] Coxe's Lord Walpole, ii. 406.
[280] Bubb, 319-21. Orford, ii. 37.
[281] The accession of Fox to the Cabinet is beset with small difficulties of chronology. Horace Walpole in his Memoirs (i. 147) tells us that the King sent for Fox on November 29, 1754, and in a letter of January 9, 1755, announces that Fox had been admitted to the Cabinet. Yet we have Fox's own letter to Pitt of April 26, 1755, announcing that the King that afternoon had signified to him his admission to the Cabinet. (Chatham Corresp. i. 132). It is evident that Horace Walpole believed, prematurely, that the matter was settled early in January. Strangely enough our surest authority in all these transactions, except Waldegrave, who is vague and dateless, is the corrupt and perfidious Bubb.
[282] Thackeray gives a different account of this interview and of that with Charles Yorke, we know not whence derived. The account in the text is that of Charles Yorke and Hardwicke themselves (Harris, iii. 29-34) and in part Bubb, on the authority of James Grenville (p. 340).
[283] Newcastle to Hardwicke, Sept. 3, 1755. Add. MSS. 32858. See too Orford, ii. 40.
[284] Add. MSS. 32858.
[285] These two sentences are transposed for the sake of clearness.
[286] Italics ours.
[287] Italics ours.