of Miss Travers and Mr. Stevenson for the letters of Lord Shelburne to Dr. Price which are referred to in this volume, and I have to thank Sir E. Strachey for giving me the use of the papers in his possession which relate to the Peace of Versailles. The anecdotes for which no authority is given in the notes, have been collected from local tradition.

ERRATA.

VOL. II.

Page 204, for "defy" read "deify."

248, (note) for "inadmissible" read "admissible."

Ch. III., strike out 1769 from the heading of the chapter.

THE LIFE

OF

WILLIAM, EARL OF SHELBURNE.

CHAPTER I.

THE DEATH OF LORD CHATHAM.

1776-1779.

PARLIAMENT met on the 31st of October 1776, three months after the Declaration of Independence, the news of which was closely followed by that of the failure of Lord Howe's negotiations. The despondency which ensued upon these events was however soon effaced by the successes of the royal troops at Long Island and New York,* and the King's Speech on the first day of the Session breathed nothing but confidence regarding the war in America, and the preservation of peace in Europe. The Opposition however did not abate their former zeal for reconciliation. They attacked the speech in both Houses. Shelburne denounced it as "a piece of

* Autobiography of Grafton.

VOL. III. 21

B

metaphysical refinement, framed with a design to impose," and the defence set up for it, as nothing more than "a string of sophisms, no less wretched in their texture, than insolent in their tenor." He then proceeded to go through it clause by clause. He denied that the Americans had rejected the means of conciliation held out to them under the authority of the royal commission, with circumstances of "indignity and insult." The pretended means of conciliation were held back so long, that even if the Commissioners had been armed with sufficient powers, the Americans would have been fully justified in declaring themselves independent, from the most obvious motives of self-preservation. The language applied by the speech to the colonists was, he said, indecent; if it were not, then not only the colonists, but the Whigs of 1688 also, were rank rebels and guilty of treason. He was not going to alter his sentiments because of the recent success of the royal arms; they were unaltered. He then proceeded to ridicule the reliance placed by the Ministers on the pacific intentions of France. He said he had recently been in that country, and had seen their preparations, which were notorious to everybody, except to the English Ambassador in Paris; not only France, but Spain also, had been arming for months; a formidable fleet was fitting out at Brest; the French and Spanish ports, both in Europe and