The idea of a free port in America had been taken up by the Ministers, and that intention was now declared to the hearty satisfaction of the merchants. But this plan too, to humour Beckford’s local interests and his own spleen to the Ministers, was harshly and inconsiderately censured by Pitt, but with ill-success to his popularity, the scheme being grateful to the City. He was not more fortunate in his next step. The Ministers thinking themselves bound to give the last blow to General Warrants, which had now been decided in Westminster Hall to be illegal, moved a resolution of their being illegal and a breach of privilege. Grenville, hoping to squeeze out a little popularity from the same measure, moved to bring in a bill for taking them entirely away. This happening while Mr. Pitt was in his hostile mood, he seconded Grenville’s motion; but his lending himself thus to the champion of those warrants, highly offended the Ministerial Whigs, and drew on him much severity from Sir George Saville and Lord John Cavendish. Norton told Mr. Pitt privately that he had got from Carteret Webbe Mr. Pitt’s three warrants, and offered them to him; but Pitt refused to accept them, and said he had always declared he would justify his own warrants. At the same time he dropped to him that he wondered he (Mr. Pitt) had not understood Lord Bute’s speech on the Stamp Act. The Opposition, to purge Lord Temple from being the instigator of Wilkes in his attacks on the Scotch and the Tories, now produced a letter from the former to the latter, dissuading him from such national and general acrimony. This letter had been seized among Wilkes’s papers. But if it palliated the disposition to mischief in the one brother, it laid open the malice of the other; and Grenville was severely tasked for having connived at Webbe’s suppressing this letter in enmity to his brother. Mr. Pitt avowed to the House that he thought Carteret Webbe gently dealt with in not being expelled.
The night I arrived, the Duke of Richmond came to me to intreat Mr. Conway to go on without Mr. Pitt, who had offended both the Administration and the City: and he told me there were thoughts of softening towards Lord Bute, and of suffering his brother Mackenzie to have a place. The plan of diverting the enmity of Lord Bute was not at all repugnant to my opinion. From the moment the Administration had come into place, I had seen the necessity of it. Justice demanded the restitution of Mackenzie. The Ministers could neither destroy the King’s confidence in his Favourite, nor get rid of him by force. He was in no employment, nor had they any proofs in their hands that would authorize impeachment. Ungrounded impeachment would have purged him--perhaps have made him popular. Two options only remained: to quit their places, if they thought it for their honour not to temporize with Bute; or to temporize with him. Why I preferred the latter, these were the reasons: if those Ministers surrendered their power, where was there another set of honest men to replace them? They could mitigate, perhaps ward off, the evil designs of the Court, while the executive part of government remained in their hands. If they resigned it, it must fall into the hands of Mr. Pitt, who must either take his obnoxious brothers Temple and Grenville, or lean entirely on Lord Bute; and with all my admiration of Mr. Pitt, I doubted whether he would not make too complacent a Minister to prerogative; or Grenville and the Bedfords (the worst of all) must resume their power, and they had smarted too severely for their attacks on the Favourite, not to have profited of that experience. The Nation had once escaped from that coalition. Any system was preferable to the return of it.