and Carteret, before Sir Robert’s determination to resign, the coalition was effected between the 31st of January and 2d of February; for on the 2d of February it was already settled that Lord Wilmington should be at the head of the Treasury in the new administration.  So speedy an adjustment of a point of such consequence looks somewhat like previous concert.”  However much appearances might favour this opinion, another writer has shown most satisfactorily that no such previous concert existed.  The reviewer of the “Memoires” in the Quarterly Review (xxvii. p. 191) proves, in the first place, that it was Sir Robert himself who determined the course of events, and, as he emphatically said, turned the key of the closet on Mr. Pulteney; so that, if he was betrayed, it must have been by himself; and secondly, that we have the evidence of his family and friends, that he was lost by his own inactivity and timidity; in other words, the great minister was worn out with age and business.”  And these views are confirmed by extracts from the “Walpoliana,” written, be it remembered, by Philip, second Earl -of Hardwicke, son of the chancellor, from the information of the Walpole family, and even of Sir Robert himself; who, after his retirement, admitted his young friend into his conversation and confidence-a fact totally inconsistent with a belief in his father’s treachery;-by Sir Robert’s own authority, who, in a private and confidential letter to the Duke of Devonshire, dated 2d of February, 1742, giving an account of his resignation, and the efforts of his triumphant antagonists to form a new ministry, distinctly states “that he himself prevented the Duke of Newcastle’s dismissal;” and lastly, by Horace Walpole’s own pamphlet, “A Detection of a late Forgery,” etc., in which he speaks of “the breach between the King and the Prince, as open, the known, avowed cause of the resignation, and which Sir Robert never disguised;"-and again, among the errors of the writer he notices, Sir Robert Walpole is made to complain of being abandoned by his friends.  This is for once an undeserved satire on mankind:  no fallen minister ever experienced such attachment from his friends as he did."-E.

(441) Maria, natural daughter of Sir R. W. by Maria Skerret, his mistress, whom he afterwards married.  She had a patent to take place as an earl’s daughter.

(442) William Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford, of the second creation.  He married Anne Campbell, second daughter of John, Duke of Argyle.-D.

220 Letter 53 To Sir Horace Mann.  Feb. 9, 1741-2.

You will have had my letter that told you of the great change.  The scene is not quite so pleasant as it was, nor the tranquility arrived that we expected.  All is in confusion; no overtures from the Prince, who, it must seem, proposes to be King.  His party have persuaded him not to make up, but on much greater conditions than he first demanded:  in short, notwithstanding his professions to the Bishop,(443)-he