The ensuing winter may possibly produce many things to amaze you; it has opened with one that I am sure will; I mean Mr. Pitt’s resignation, who delivered up the seals to the King last Monday.  The reason commonly given for this extraordinary step is a resolution taken in Council contrary to Mr. Pitt’s opinion, concerning our conduct towards the Spaniards, who upon the breaking off of the negotiations with France and our sending Mr. Bussy away, have, it is said, made some declarations to our Court which Mr. Pitt was for having the King treat in a very different manner from that which the rest of the Cabinet advised; for they are said to have been all against Mr. Pitt’s opinion, except Lord Temple.  The effect of this resignation you’ll easily imagine.  It has opened all the mouths of all the news-presses in England, and, from our boasted unanimity and confidence in the Government, we seem to be falling apace into division and distrust; in the meantime Mr. Pitt seems to have entered, on this occasion, upon a new mode of resignation, at least for him, for he goes to Court, where he is much taken notice of by the King, and treated with great respect by everybody else, and has said, according to common report, that he intends only to tell a plain story, which I suppose we are to have in the House of Commons.  People, as you may imagine, are very impatient for his own account of a matter about which they know so little at present, and which puts public curiosity to the rack.

Fresh matter for patriots and politicians!  Since writing the former part of this letter, I have been at the coffee-house, and bring you back verbatim, a very curious article of the Gazette.  “St. James’s, Oct. 9.  The Right Hon. William Pitt having resigned the Seals into the King’s hands, his Majesty was this day pleased to appoint the Earl of Egremont to be one of his principal Secretaries of State, and in consideration of the great and important services of the said Mr. Pitt, his Majesty has been graciously pleased to direct that a warrant be prepared for granting to the Lady Hester Pitt, his wife, a Barony of Great Britain, by the name, style and title of Baroness of Chatham to herself, and of Baron of Chatham to her heirs male; and also to confer upon the said William Pitt, Esq. an annuity of 3000_l_. sterling during his own life, that of Lady Hester Pitt, and that of their son John Pitt, Esq!”

A report of this matter got about the day before, and most unfortunately all the newspapers contradicted it as a scandalous report, set on foot with a design to tarnish the lustre of a certain great character.  This was the style of the morning and evening papers of Saturday, and of those who converse upon their authority; so that upon the coming in of the Gazette about ten o’clock at night, it was really diverting to see the effect it had upon most people’s countenances at Dick’s Coffee House, where I was; it occasioned a dead silence, and I think every