Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/63

 ministers of such a country as England, when promoted to so elevated a station, are only moved by the noble ambition of their country's good, and, from the first moment to the last, are ever pondering on the important measures that may best promote it. No such thing. Let us hear what Lady Hester Stanhope herself had to say on this subject.

"The very first thing Mr. Pitt did," said she, "after coming into office the second time, was to provide for Mr. Rice. We were just got to Downing Street, and everything was in disorder. I was in the drawing-room: Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out. When he came home, 'Hester,' said he, 'we must think of our dear, good friend Rice. I have desired the list to be brought to me to-morrow morning, and we will see what suits him.'—'I think we had better see now,' I replied. 'Oh, no! it is too late now.'—'Not at all,' I rejoined; and I rang the bell, and desired the servant to go to the Treasury, and bring me the list.

"On examining it, I found three places for which he was eligible. I then sent for Rice. 'Rice,' said I, 'here are three places to be filled up. One is a place in the Treasury, where you may fag on, and, by the time you are forty-five or fifty, you may be master of twenty or twenty-five thousand pounds. There is another will bring you into contact with poor