[83] "The account of the Cabinet Council being put off--first for a match at Newmarket, and secondly because the Duke of Grafton had company in his house--exhibits a lively picture of the present administration."--George Grenville to Whately, October 20, 1767.
[84] Letter signed "Philo-Junius," June 22, 1769.
The Duke undoubtedly intended to pursue the policy of Lord Chatham, but, falling under the influence of the King--who was willing enough to forgive, for his political ends, such a flagrant insult to his consort as that narrated above--it so happened that whenever the ministry moved it was in the opposite direction to that which the Earl would have desired.
The Duke of Grafton as a matter of course now became Prime Minister, but there were not wanting signs that the administration would not long endure, and when Lord Chatham reappeared in the political arena it was obvious its days were numbered. The famous statesman's return was most unexpected, for he was still supposed to be in the country, incapable of ever again transacting business.[85] "He himself," wrote Walpole on July 7, 1769, "_in propria personâ_, and not in a straight-waistcoat, walked into the King's _levée_ this morning, and was in the closet twenty minutes after the _levée_." At his interview Chatham told George that he disapproved of the policy of the ministry, especially as regarded Wilkes and America--a statement calculated to alarm the King, who approved of the action taken. "For my part," said the Earl, "I am grown old, and unable to fill any office of business; but this I am resolved on, that I will not even sit at Council but to meet Lord Rockingham. He, and he alone, has a knot of spotless friends, such as ought to govern this kingdom." As he emerged from the Royal Closet, Chatham encountered Grafton, and, embittered especially by the remembrance of the dismissal of his personal friend, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, from the post of Governor of Virginia, greeted him with the utmost coldness. It was to be war to the death, and Chatham was too great a man to veil his enmity under the cloak of friendship.
[85] "At length the clouds which had gathered over his mind broke and passed away. His gout returned, and freed him from a more cruel malady. His nerves were newly braced. His spirits became buoyant. He woke as from a sickly dream. It was a strange recovery. Men had been in the habit of talking of him as of one dead, and, when he first showed himself at the King's _levée_, started as if they had seen a ghost. It was more than two years and a half since he had appeared in public."--Macaulay: _The Earl of Chatham_.