George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[256] motion; but true to his character as the man

chap. XII.} 1765. May.

of compromises, always wishing to please everybody and always balancing one thing against another, he consented with no good grace that the name of the princess dowager should be inserted in the House of Commons by one of her own servants. This was done, and he advocated the alteration in a speech, which, however, seemed chiefly designed to shield the ministry from the charge of inconsistency. ‘If Lord Halifax is even reprieved,’ it was said, ‘the king is more enslaved to a cabal than ever his grandfather was.’ The ministers believed themselves strong enough to compel their sovereign to conform in all things to their advice. Bedford, therefore, in defiance, tried the experiment of mentioning to him his suspicions, that Bute had been ‘operating mischief to overthrow the government.’ Grenville also was earnest that the king's ministers should be suffered to retire, or be seen manifestly to possess his favor. But they got no satisfactory answer; though Grenville was led to believe his own services indispensable, and admitted into his mind the pleasing delusion, that they would be required, even should his old enemy, the duke of Bedford, be dismissed. On the thirteenth of May, the king, in his impatience of ministers, who did not love each other and only agreed to give him the law, invoked the aid of his uncle, the duke of Cumberland, and authorized negotiations with Pitt, with Temple, and the great Whig families, for constructing a new administration, in which Charles Townshend should be one of the secretaries of state, and Northumberland, Bute's sonin-law, at the head of the treasury.