Storer’s business is not, from what I have accidentally heard, in so great forwardness as I was in hopes that it had been.  There must be two vacancies at the Board before he has a very good chance, if he has any.  Lord Walsingham has no inclination to quit; it is a scene of business which he likes. \ Mr. Buller has been many years in Parliament, and I am afraid that his pretensions will preponderate above the friendship or good-will which Lord N(orth) professes to Storer.  I picked up this by accident as I was going out yesterday airing with Mie Mie, after my company had left me.  I met Lord Brudenel, and I collected this from his conversation, for he did not tell it me directly.  But this and everything else, trifling or not, I think myself obliged to let you know, et enfin ne n’en laisser au boute de ma plume.

But I am particularly desirous to inform you of what concerns Storer, because I am persuaded that you wish to serve him.  Your protection ought to be a valid one, and Lord N(orth) will not, I should imagine, choose to displease you; as to myself, maintenant que mes ongles sont rognes comme ils le sont, he will treat me with what indifference he pleases, and I know no remedy for it, but what is worse than the disease.  Then it is more supineness, insensibility, and natural arrogance than any desire to use me worse than another.  He has no tact in point of breeding, and he lays all his business on Robinson’s(164) shoulders, who has behaved worse to me than any man ever did; but I must take shame to myself for that, because, if I had rejected his first proposal of standing for Gloucester, by his suggestion, against my own reason and inclination, he would never have dared to have treated me ill any more.  I hope to be rich enough in a year or two more, if I live, to be as much a patriot as I happen to choose; but it is a fichu matter, as times go, and nobody of common sense ever gives you any credit for it.  I shall be contented only, if, instead of making a bargain with a Minister, I can be in circumstances good enough to sell him one, if he uses me ill.

(164) John Robinson, Secretary to the Treasury.

[1781,] June 5, Tuesday.—. . . .  I know of nothing rpmarkable at the Birthday yesterday.  I put on the best clothes which I had, about nine at night, to make a bow to their Majesties sur leur passage, as they went to the ball room, and there the Queen stopped and said some very gracious things to me, which my great deference to her Majesty made me not understand, but I bowed and thanked her, supposing that she said something that interested me.  The King’s face was turned the other way, and he did not see me, but I was taken notice of dans l’antichambre du Roi, and so it was very well, and it was there that I saw my nephew Broderick, who had just had an audience of the King.  His Royal Highness’s(165) equipages are very becoming, and give some little splendour to the Court.  I could tell poor Guerchy now that we had not des vaisseaux only, but des carro(s)es;