The P(rince) of W(ales) supped the night before last at Lord Derby’s; there were as I am told no less than six courses; the women were Lady Payne, Lady Jersey, perhaps Lady Mellbourne; I have not as yet been informed of particulars.  He stayed there till six, and then, I hear, carried Charles home in his coach.  He canvassed in the last Question against his father.  Lord Mellbourne stayed away at his instigation.  In this he has acted contrary to his engagements.  He says that he purchased his seat at Luggershall.(220) It is a falsehood.  If he did, he has not paid the money he ought for it; but both Lord N(orth) and Robinson have acted in this, towards me, in the most scandalous manner in the world, and I will inform the K(ing) of it myself by an audience, if I can find no other means of doing it.

I warned Lord North over and over again of this supercherie.  I knew his intention, and he was so weak as to neglect the means of pinning this fitz scrivener, [this] fitz coachman, this fitz cook to his word, and putting it in his power to use me in this manner, as if he had bought of me a seat in Parliament, which no man living ever yet did, but the King himself.

Lord Gower told me last night, that it might be a week before it was possible to guess in the least how things would [be] settled; he believed that the King would not send for you from Ireland, unless you chose it.  I think, and so I told him, that that was more than the King himself could answer for.

I am now confident they would give it to the Duke of Devonshire if he would accept it; he will not, and the Duke of Portland, that jolt-headed calf, certainly will.(221) I wish to have nothing but Buckinghams and Portlands for their subalternate ministers as long as they are at Court, and then their damned Administration will be over in six months, and they sunk into the herd of the people, and the contempt which they deserve from any man of sobriety and character.

Rigby and Lord G(ower) werd in another room in close conference a great while.  The negotiation has been carried on, but at present broke off, between the Chancellor and Lord Rock(ingham).  Burke’s Bill, they say, is insisted on, that is, a Bill which, while they promise the public to carry into execution, they are determine(d) shall be rendered (as) ineffectual as this they broke off.  The Chancellor went yesterday out of town.

The thought of a new Administration is so prevalent with Charles that he would not go to Newmarket.  I heard him last night tell his people that he saw no reason, when he was Minister, that he or his assistants in Administration should sit upon the Treasury bench.  The merry and the sad, as my Lord Clarendon says, have employment enough, while these actors are dressing themselves up for the play, and rehearsing their parts.

(220) Lord Melbourne was returned with Selwyn as M.P. for borough of Ludgershall on September 12, 1780.

(221) The Duke of Portland succeeded Lord Carlisle as Viceroy of Ireland on the formation of the Rockingham Ministry.