Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/89

Rh mined not to come up at all. He said that he himself had come with reluctance to town, and that he had but one reason for shewing himself in the House when the Address was moved, which was, lest people who knew the breach between your Lordship and the Rockinghams, and likewise the very general conformity of opinions between you and him, might interpret his absence as giving up or a quarrel between him and his old friends. He said that he had often differed with you, but that for these two years past he was most completely and entirely of your opinion, and added that your conduct with respect to him and his friends during that time had been distinct, fair and most honourable; that this had been uniformly and was still his language to them. He was exceedingly mortified by every thing that had interrupted or broke the union which had subsisted between us, and wished me to be (as I knew your sentiments and had great and just weight with you) an instrument of peace and re-union. 'You know,' says he, 'the force of connection and friendship, as well as any man; I have done my best; I am sorry when I hear of anything offending. I was much hurt with L Fitzwilliam's opposing with so much warmth that proposition of the 100 Knights in the Westminster committee yesterday; Lord Mahon told me of it, but he gets warm and sometimes says unpleasant things to us such as—"If we don't come into this or that measure, the public will doubt our sincerity. 'I have,' says he, 'worked night and day with Lord Rockingham; I have told him repeatedly the mischievous consequences of his not adopting this measure; that it must come forward; and that the loss of it (if it should be lost) will be laid at his door; and he will besides have the mortification of seeing most of his best friends quitting him upon the division. All that he says in answer is, that he is sure the measure is not popular without doors, to which, the Duke replies, 'You and we can soon make it so. However,' adds the Duke to me, 'for God's sake get Lord Shelburne to come to town, and then we can talk it over, the sooner the better.'