Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/231

Rh back to the King with a schedule of terms extremely enlarged. These were peremptorily rejected, and the treaty broke off on pretences which the one had not meant to ask, nor the other cared whether he granted or refused. The Treasury for Lord Temple was the real stone of offence."

It may be argued that the explanation of the failure of this famous negotiation thus given by Walpole is inconsistent with the then state of the relations of Pitt with the great Whig families. It is indeed true that the final rupture between him and Newcastle only took place in 1764, and that they still corresponded, though in terms which, after discounting the style of overstrained courtesy usual in the correspondence of that time, amount to little more than those of ordinary civility. But a reference to the correspondence of Lord Rockingham shows Pitt, in the end of 1762, using the following language of the Duke of Newcastle to Thomas Walpole, viz. "that he might not think it quite for His Majesty's Service to have the Duke of Newcastle succeed, though it was necessary Lord Bute should be removed from office," and it may be taken as tolerably certain that if he used such language in the end of 1762, he did not feel himself bound by any very real ties to the Duke and his friends in 1763.

But it has also been said —and this is far more important—that the conduct ascribed by Walpole to Pitt implies a "dexterity" and "finesse" which formed no part of the character of the Great Commoner. If however instead of "dexterity" and "finesse," the words "love of play" and "masquerade" were used—and they would fit the circumstances—well-known features of the character of Pitt would be immediately recognized. Nor indeed were dexterity and finesse altogether absent from his composition, as the picture left by Shelburne abund-