"Dear Smith,—I send you the enclosed, with a large packet for Count Sarsfield. This is the last ministerial act which I shall probably perform; and with this exertion I finish my functions. I shall
not leave this country presently. Perhaps I may go over to France. Our resignation is a very extraordinary incident, and will probably occasion a total change of ministry. Are you busy?"[396:1]
His official life, however, was not so near a conclusion as he thought it was. The following letter is more full and explicit, in regard to these matters:—
"London, 28th July, 1767.
"Dear Brother,—Were my present situation any object of anxiety, I should have been very unhappy of late: so uncertain has my continuance appeared every moment, and so near did my ministerial functions seem to draw towards their conclusion. But as the matter was very nearly indifferent to me, I neither felt anxiety for my past danger, nor do I experience any joy from my present establishment; for we are now established, for some time at least, and all apprehensions of a change are removed to a distance. The history of our late transactions is, in short, as follows: About this time twelvemonth, when the last revolution of ministry took place, Mr. Conway staid in, though Lord Rockingham, and most of his friends, were turned out: But it was with reluctance, and only on the earnest entreaties of the king and Lord Chatham, and on their giving him a promise that several of his friends and party should still continue to hold their places. This engagement was broke last winter. Some of these gentlemen were turned out; and Mr. Conway, after protesting against this usage, declared, that though he would keep his office during the session, not to disturb the king's business, he would resign as soon as the parliament should rise. He accordingly desired the king, about six weeks ago,
to provide him a successor, and was entreated only to keep the seals till a proper person should be thought of. When the matter came to be discussed, it was found very difficult. The Duke of Grafton declared, that being deprived of Lord Chatham's support, he could not continue to serve without Mr. Conway: and a total dissolution of the ministry seemed to be the effect of the incident. Negotiations were accordingly set on foot with the leaders of the opposition, and a great meeting of them was held last week, at Bedford House. It was found that they could not, by any means, agree in their demands; and they separated in mutual discontent. Every body thinks that Mr. Conway has now satisfied, to the full, the point of honour, in which he is very scrupulous, and that he will cordially resume his functions, especially as he stands so well with the king and his fellow ministers, and has brought it within the choice of his old friends to accept of the ministry, if they had thought proper. I was beginning to wish for our dissolution; but upon this turn of affairs, I resume my occupations with cheerfulness."[397:1]
The remainder of this letter is devoted to a matter in which we have already frequently found him taking interest—the education of his nephews. From his earliest to his latest days, his connexion with his elder brother was cordial and affectionate. On the 6th of October we find him writing, in a tone which indicates a sympathy with some domestic calamity which his brother must have suffered:—
"The time of your going to Edinburgh approaches, which makes a great change in your way of life, and will naturally make yourself, as well as all your
friends, anxious about the issue of it. However, I cannot but think that you will there live more cheerfully, with all your children about you, than in the country, during the winter, when your boys were absent. At first only, as your spirits are not very strong at present, you may feel uneasy at the alteration, as you are at present somewhat apprehensive about it."[398:1]
There was apparently but one point in which the two brothers differed; and it was a subject on which Hume seems to have been at war with all his clan. The Laird of Ninewells, notwithstanding all the lustre that had now gathered round the name of Hume, would not adopt it in place of that of Home, which his father had borne. He was a simple, single-hearted man, moderate in all his views and wishes, and neither ambitious of distinction nor of wealth. He passed his life as a retired country gentleman; and while Europe was full of his brother's name, he was so averse to notoriety, that he is known to have objected to the domestic events of births, marriages, and deaths, in his family, obtaining the usual publicity through the newspapers.[398:2] His eldest son, Joseph, frequently mentioned in the following correspondence, succeeded him in his estate and retired habits, but not entirely in his disposition; for he indulged in many of the eccentricities and peculiarities so often exhibited by the Scottish gentry,—a characteristic they seem to derive from the circumstance, that, in the British empire, there is no person less liable to encounter an equal, and to be thwarted in his small exercise of absolute power, than a Scottish laird. It is evident from his uncle's letters, that Joseph