The difficulties of the ministry elated the Court, but its joy was premature, for the American question was too important to be settled by royal bribes. On February 7, when, after General Conway had called the attention of the House of Commons to "the calamitous condition of America," Grenville moved an address to the King to enforce the laws, the motion being rejected by 274 to 134 votes. The joy of the ministers at their victory was tempered with disgust at the treachery of the Court, for the minority had included, besides all Lord Bute's friends--the private junto--nearly a dozen of the King's household.
Again, on the following day, the Prime Minister remonstrated with the King. "I humbly presume to trouble your Majesty on the event of last night in the Commons. The appearances there fully justify what I have presumed to mention to your Majesty in some late conversations, and make it necessary for me, both as a faithful and in truth most affectionate servant, to hope that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to allow me to attend your Majesty at any time in the course of this day, that I may open to your Majesty the sentiments and opinions of a heart, which I will assert has no motive but its affection and duty to your Majesty, and its anxiety for the welfare of this country in the present critical situation."[50] The King's reply consisted of evasions and professions, which were shown by subsequent events to be merely misleading.[51]
Lord Rockingham was a patient man, but when, three days after his interview with the King, one of the supporters of the ministry, John Offley, Member of Parliament for Oxford, wrote to inform him of a report that was being spread in political circles "that Lord Strange had yesterday an interview with the King, who assured him he did not wish for the repeal of the Stamp Act, only wished that it might be altered," the Prime Minister felt that the time had come when a conciliatory attitude would be the veriest folly. Having obtained the assurance of Lord Strange that he had given publicity to the statement attributed to him, Rockingham waited on the sovereign, not once, but, Lord Albemarle thinks, three times, on each occasion obtaining some slight satisfaction. "It would seem", Lord Albemarle remarks, "as if the minister had determined not to quit the royal presence until he had secured 'the word of a King.'"[52] In vain the King endeavoured to evade a direct answer, in vain he contrived to confuse the issue: Lord Rockingham was determined that, unless the King gave him authority to contradict the report, he would forthwith resign. George at last realised it was advisable to suffer the humiliation of withdrawing from an untenable position as there was no other course open to him that was not infinitely more disagreeable. Indeed, he saw that if Lord Rockingham resigned, it would be necessary to undergo the greater ignominy of begging him to remain, for at the moment there was no one to take his place. The objections to Bute were insuperable, and even the King's courage was not great enough to attempt again to impose him on the nation; of Grenville, George had declared he "would sooner meet him at the end of his sword than let him into his closet"; while Pitt's attitude towards the repeal of the Stamp Act made him less acceptable than the present Prime Minister. In the end, therefore, he gave the desired contradiction in writing. "I desire you would tell Lord Strange that I am now, and have been hitherto, for modification; but that when many were for enforcing, I was then for a repeal of the Stamp Act."[53]