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164 fail. I therefore beg your Lordship to tell the King that I accept cheerfully whatever he thinks fit.

"And now, my dear Lord, manage for me as well as you can, the remains, if there are any, of past favour. If I may point out anything, it should be at Xmas next, or when I quit the Pay Office, and it can be so managed, His Majesty may think of giving me the Privy Seal. The Privy Seal is £2300 a year. The Pay Office is double. But this would be a distinguished mark of His Majesty's approbation of my conduct, which would at the same time make me happy, and, may I not say, do His Majesty no harm."

To this letter Bute replied as follows:

"Lord Bute presents his compliments to Mr. Fox, and is glad to see his final determination taken. He has acquainted His Majesty with it, in the manner he thought most likely to be of service to him. Lord Bute wishes Mr. Fox would send the name of the Barony he proposes to take to the Secretary of State. As to the latter part of his letter he sees so little probability of the Privy Seal being open, when once the arrangement is made to fill it, that he can only say in general, whenever Mr. Fox wishes to quit the office he now holds and points to any other, the essential services he has rendered His Majesty entitle him, in Lord Bute's opinion, to meet with the most gracious reception, and to have great attention paid to any request he shall make."

Thus, the end of the controversy was that Fox became Lord Holland and retained the Paymastership, a post which he continued to hold until 1765. But although the new Peer obtained all that he desired, and notwithstanding a declaration that "he and Lord Shelburne would yet be friends," all communication between them ceased from this time, nor did Lord Holland in conversation desist from representing Shelburne as having betrayed him.

It was the tradition of Holland House, and it is asserted by Walpole that Bute justified the conduct of