P. S. I send you a decent smallish muff, that you may put in your pocket, and it costs but fourteen shillings.

(7250 Dr. John Stone, Archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, died on the 19th of December 1764.-E.

Letter 237 To The Earl Of Hertford.  Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1765. (page 364)

I should prove a miserable prophet or almanac maker, for my predictions are seldom verified.  I thought the present session likely to be a very supine one, but unless the evening varies extremely from the morning, it will be a tempestuous day—­and yet it was a very southerly and calm wind that began the hurricane.  The King’s Speech was so tame, that, as George Montagu said of the earthquake, you might have stroked it.(726) Beckford (whom I certainly did not mean by the gentle gale) touched on Draper’S(727) Letter about the Manilla money.  George Grenville took up the defence of the Spaniards, though he said he only stated their arguments.  This roused your brother, who told Grenville he had adopted the reasoning of Spain; and showed the fallacy of their pretensions.  He exhorted every body to support the King’s government, “which I,” said he, “ill-used as I have been, wish and mean to support-not that of ministers, when I see the laws and independence of Parliament struck at in the most profligate manner.”  You may guess how deeply this wounded.  Grenville took it to himself, and asserted that his own life and character were as pure, uniform, and little profligate as your brother’s.  The silence of the House did not seem to ratify this declaration.  Your brother replied with infinite spirit, that he certainly could not have meant Mr. Grenville, for he did not take him for the minister-(I do not believe this was the least mortifying part)—­that he spoke of public acts that were in every body’s mouth, as the warrants, and the disgrace thrown on the army by dismissions for parliamentary reasons; that for himself he was an open enemy, and detested men who smiled in his face and stabbed him I do not believe he meant this personally, but unfortunately the whole House applied it to Mr. Grenville’s grimace); that for his own disgrace, he did not know where to impute it, for every minister had disavowed it.  It was to the warrants, he said, he owed what had happened; he had fallen for voting against them, but had he had ten regiments, he would have parted with them all to obey his conscience; that he now could fall no lower, and would speak as he did then, and would not be hindered nor intimidated from speaking the language of Parliament.  Grenville answered, that he had never avowed nor disavowed the measure of dismissing Mr. Conway—­(he disavowed it to Mr. Harris,)(728) that he himself had been turned out for voting against German connexions; that he had never approved inquiring into the King’s prerogative on that head-(I can name a person who can repeat volumes of what he has said on the subject,)