Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/186

160 Of the proposition thus obscurely made by Fox, Shelburne either took no notice, or was unable to get Bute to listen to it. Fox, beginning to see the danger of his situation, broke out fiercely against Shelburne, who now drew up a brief justification of his own conduct and handed it to Calcraft. It ran as follows:

"On reflecting upon the whole of what has passed between Mr. Fox and me, I take nothing ill, but I own I am astonished. My conduct with regard to Mr. Fox's Paymastership has been most simple. I said what I thought would have been his conduct. It passed as conversation, it was not built upon, nor no arrangement made in consequence. The event plainly proves it. If Mr. Fox thinks he could have gone out with grace with more than he has by any intercession of mine, he is entirely mistaken. I am very sorry that the King, Lord Bute, and I am afraid all the world, think it should have been. … Upon the whole, my conduct has in this, as well as in former instances, been directed by my joint regard to Mr. Fox, and to the authority and dignity of the King and his administration. Let him reflect on the manner of the language of his coming in, what he has declined, and what he possesses going out, and then let him consider the conduct of his friends, and I am sure he cannot accuse them of want of communication or of the regard due to whatever friendship he may have justly expected at their hands."

But Fox was not to be pacified.

"Soon after I got home," says Calcraft, "Mr. Fox came here and found Rigby and me. He began the conversation I expected, but calmly; I gave him your Paper, which he read, and dwelt on the first part; that he never imagined you had said by his authority he would quit the Pay Office. I told him, if giving the opinion was what he took ill, I must take part of the blame, for I had given it as mine that he would part with the Pay Office and that he wanted to get rid of it. He wondered Lord Bute had never mentioned this matter to him, and a