Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/111

Rh the Grenvilles. Bute had ulterior views which he only gradually avowed, and fortunately lacked the ability to carry out. Meanwhile his immediate objects were such as recommended themselves to the mind of Lord Fitzmaurice.

The Favourite had realised that it was necessary to obtain the services of some man of commanding ability in the House of Commons, and had cast his eye on Henry Fox.

Of all the statesmen of the time, Henry Fox was the least bound up with the existing system. On the formation of the Newcastle-Pitt administration in 1757, the whilom Secretary of State and leader of the House of Commons, had had to content himself with the small prestige and large emoluments of the Pay Office, a post which, indeed, he had only obtained by the decided interference of the King in his favour. Through the support of the Duke of Cumberland, he had also obtained the reversion of a wealthy sinecure in Ireland in lieu of a peerage for Lady Caroline Fox which he was eagerly pressing to obtain, but nothing appears to have been said to decide whether, when the reversion fell in, he was also to continue to hold the Pay Office as well as the sinecure. Since 1757 he had remained in a position of comparative obscurity, credited by the country with the possession of enormous gains, and the object accordingly of an unpopularity which his charm in private life only went a very short way towards redeeming; but his talents were undoubted, both as an administrator and a debater. Between Lord Shelburne and Mr. Fox there existed a family connection, and to the son of Lord Shelburne, Bute not unnaturally looked as a convenient medium of communication. Nor was there any unwillingness in the other principal to the