to give his confidence to Lord Wellesley, then transferred it to Lord Moira,[167] and then to a certain extent included Lord Grey and Lord Grenville in it.  Nor would it be profitable to discuss the correctness or incorrectness of the suspicion expressed by Mr. Moore, in his “Life of Sheridan”—­who was evidently at this time as fully in the Regent’s confidence as any one else—­that “at the bottom of all these evolutions of negotiation there was anything but a sincere wish, that the object to which they related should be accomplished."[168] The reason avowed by Lord Grey and Lord Grenville for refusing a share in the projected administration was the refusal of Lord Moira, who had been employed by the Prince to treat with them on the subject, to allow them to make a power of removing the officers at present filling “the great offices of the household"[169] an express condition of their acceptance of ministerial office.  They affirmed that a “liberty to make new appointments” to these offices had usually been given on every change of administration.  But Lord Moira, while admitting that “the Prince had laid no restriction on him in that respect,” declared that “it would be impossible for him to concur in making the exercise of this power positive and indispensable in the formation of the administration, because he should deem it on public grounds peculiarly objectionable.”  Such an answer certainly gives a great color to Moore’s suspicion, since it is hardly possible to conceive that Lord Moira took on himself the responsibility of giving it without a previous knowledge that it would be approved by his royal master.  In a constitutional point of view, there can, it will probably be felt, be no doubt that the two lords had a right to the liberty they required.  And the very men concerned, the great officers of the household, were evidently of the same opinion, since the chief, Lord Yarmouth, informed Sheridan that they intended to resign, in order that he might communicate that intention to Lord Grey; and Sheridan, who concealed the intelligence from Lord Grey, can hardly be supposed, any more than Lord Moira, to have acted in a manner which he did not expect to be agreeable to the Prince.  But, in Canning’s opinion, this question of the household was only the ostensible pretext, and not the real cause, of those two lords rejecting the Regent’s offers; the real cause being, as he believed, that the Prince himself had already named Lord Wellesley as Prime-minister, and that they were resolved to insist on the right of the Whig party to dictate on that point to the Regent,[170] just as, in 1782, Fox had endeavored to force the Duke of Portland on the King, when his Majesty preferred Lord Shelburne.  As has been intimated in a former page, it will be seen hereafter that in 1839 a similar claim to be allowed to remove some of the ladies of the royal household, and the rejection of that claim by the sovereign, prevented Sir R. Peel from forming an administration.  And, as that transaction was discussed at some length in Parliament, it will afford a better opportunity for examining the principle on which the claim and practice (for of the practice there is no doubt) rest.  For the present it is sufficient to point out the resemblance between the cases.