and am desirous of submitting to your Majesty's hetter judgment, whether there would be any inconsistency with the line of conduct your Majesty has laid down, to order Lord Rockingham to lay before your Majesty the alteration proposed in your Household, Wardrobe, Stables, and other Court Services, after consulting the persons most expe-, rienced in each of these services, with a comparative view of their present and their intended state, in regard to expense and every other circumstance. I humbly conceive that this may be done under the head of interior regulation, and need not interfere with the desire your Majesty has expressed of mixing as little as possible in the large changes proposed, which go to the reduction of Ministerial influence in Parliament. Whoever was to explain these details to the House of Commons can easily put them on paper for your Majesty's consideration, and your Majesty may refer them afterwards to the Cabinet.

"I proposed to dwell in the House of Lords on the large line of Public Expenditure, already taken up by the Commissioners, as the object worthy attention in an economical point of view, and that the proposed reduction of Ministerial influence arising from the Civil List, must make the struggle within. and without doors, who should contribute most to your Majesty's dignity, comfort, and splendour. I

VOL. III.

M

am very sorry on many accounts, that the line of the Message in the House of Commons was so much departed from, as to make it impossible for any person to take the line I proposed without hazarding a public breach.

"I have the honour to be with most respectful attachment

"Your Majesty's dutiful Subject and

"devoted Servant

"SHELBURNE."

Still further differences of opinion arose between Shelburne and Fox when the Contractors Bill reached the House of Lords. An amendment was moved and carried by Lord Ashburton, after a strong speech in favour of the Bill by Shelburne, excepting from its operation contractors selling nothing but the growth, product, or manufacture of their own estates. When however the Bill was returned to the House of Commons, the amendment was objected to with great vehemence by Fox and rejected.* The question of Parliamentary reform next ranged the two sections of the Ministerial supporters in opposition to one another. On the 7th of May, Mr. Pitt brought forward a motion on the question. It was thrown out by a majority of twenty, by a combination of the former supporters of Lord North and

• "Parliamentary History," xxii. 1356, and xxiii. 74.

those of Lord Rockingham led by Burke, though on this occasion Fox and Sir George Savile were not found voting with their usual friends.* There were also a variety of miserable differences relative to Court appointments, with reference to which Shelburne wished to humour the King, for he had discovered that the latter if treated by his Ministers with deference on small matters which concerned his personal position, was willing to support them in the large measures, which they wished to propose to Parliament. The Whigs however were determined to fill the Court entirely with the members of their own connection, and to make the King as much a slave in his own palace, as he had been in the time of George Grenville, of whose visits he about this time assured Shelburne he had a most disagreeable recollection.†

It is however possible that notwithstanding these various causes of offence, a rupture between the two sections of the Cabinet, who were popularly compared to Hanoverians and Hessians in the same camp,‡ might have been avoided, had it not been for the negotiations with America, and the belligerent powers in Europe.

* "Parliamentary History," xxii. 1416.

†The King to Shelburne, April 12th, 1782. Autobiography of Grafton. "Memorials of Fox," i. 313, 324.

"Nicholls' Recollections," i. 96.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST NEGOTIATION IN PARIS.

1782.

IN America, with the exception of New York, Charlestown, and a few other posts on the coast, the whole mainland of the Thirteen revolted Colonies by the beginning of 1782 was lost to England. The forces of Spain had overrun West Florida, had captured the Isle of Providence, the Bahamas, and also Minorca. The French fleet had taken Granada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Christopher, Nevis, and Monserrat. On the other hand, the English forces had captured St. Lucia, the French establishments in Senegal, the Island of Goree on the coast of Africa, Chandernagore, and the French establishments on the coast of Bengal and Orissa, Pondicherry, Karical, Mahé, and the Comptoir of Surat. From the Dutch they had taken Trincomalee and Negapatam. Such were the chief territorial changes which had resulted from the war. Besides

the question how far the peace was to confirm them, there were others equally certain to be brought forward in any negotiation between England and the belligerents. Such were the rights of the French fishermen off Newfoundland, under the Treaties of Utrecht and of Paris; the clauses of former treaties relating to Dunkirk; and the commercial relations between the two countries. It had never yet been definitely agreed, how far the rejection by the English House of Commons of the eighth and ninth clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht, had invalidated the other commercial clauses of that treaty. It was also more than probable that the question of the rights of neutrals would be mentioned, especially if the Northern Powers became parties to the negotiation.

After the peace of Teschen in 1779, Austria anxious to regain the prestige she had lost on the question of the Bavarian succession, had joined Russia in various attempts at mediating between the belligerent powers. These attempts were renewed in 1780 and 1781, but without result. The Court of Vienna was too intimately bound to that of Paris by family ties, and too much bent on aggressive projects against the Turkish Empire, to care to negotiate with much spirit between the belligerents. The illregulated mind of the Empress Catherine was indeed anxious to make the voice of Russia heard in every