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114 Sir Frederick Dashwood. Is there any objection to that? I see none. If there is, the Prime Minister being at the head of the Treasury, and Mr. Grenville a Minister in the House of Commons, it were no hard matter to find expedients for the Exchequer. I shall be at the Pay Office not at Holland House. Adieu.

Yours ever,

P.S.—Reading this letter over, I could wish you dared show it to Lord Bute.

Meanwhile the negotiations for peace were progressing, but before the preliminaries could be signed the news of the capture of the Havannah was likely to arrive. It was felt that public opinion would not suffer this important stronghold to be surrendered without an equivalent; already the rumoured stipulations of peace were freely compared to the "infamous stipulations of Utrecht," the constant object of the denunciations of Pitt, whose powerful voice was certain to echo within the walls of Parliament the clamour that was rising without. Bute "was in no way concerned as to the event of the Havannah influencing the enemy, but somewhat so as to the effect it might have on the friends of the Government, and looked on it as a want of attention in the French, not to foresee the possibility of that," but he too had his moments of doubt and perplexity. "Two things hung on him, one as to Spain, whether the affair of the Logwood would not be considered as a cession, and too much, if the Havannah were taken; the other, as to a cessation of arms in Germany, being apprehensive that, if the preliminaries were laid aside Prince Ferdinand might cry out that he had lost the moment;" but Shelburne urged him not to allow "any considerations connected with Germany to make his Council waver with regard to the most desirable of objects, peace on the present conditions," and while