(432) Lord Hertford had claimed certain expenses of his journey to Paris which had been allowed to his predecessors, but which were refused to him; he therefore may have expressed a suspicion that his brother’s opposition in Parliament rendered the ministers at home less favourable to him; but there never was any difference or coldness between the brothers in their private relations.  This appears from their private letters at this period.-C.

(433) In April 1763, Lord Bute surprised both his friends and his opponents by a sudden resignation.  The motive of this resolution is still a mystery.  Some have said, that having concluded the peace, his patriotic views and ambition were satisfied; others that he resigned in disgust at the falsehood and ingratitude of public men; others that he was driven from his station by libels and unpopularity.  None of these reasons seem consistent with a desire which Lord Bute appears to have entertained, to return to office with a new administration.  A clamour was long kept up against Lord Bute’s secret and irresponsible influence; but it is now generally admitted that no such influence existed, and that Lord Bute soon ceased to have any weight in public affairs.-C.

(434) Mr. Walpole was so vehement in his party feelings, that all his characters of political enemies must be read with great distrust.-C.

(435) Lord Sandwich was an able minister, and so important a member of the administration to which Mr. Walpole was now opposed, that we must read all that he says of this lord with some “grains of allowance."-C.

(436) On the 19th of January, when the ministers were about to proceed to vote Wilkes in contempt, and expel him, a motion was made by Wilkes’s friends to postpone the consideration of the affair till next day; this was lost by 239 to 102.-C.

(437) He means that the opposition had adopted Pratt’s view instead of Mr. Yorke’s.-C.

(438) This is not true; the real cause of his resignation is stated ant`e, p. 251, letter 181; he certainly disagreed from the Duke of Newcastle and others of his friends, who made the matter of privilege a party question instead of treating it as a legal one, as Mr. Yorke did.

(439) Philip Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke, elder brother of Mr. Charles Yorke.-E.

(440) George, first Marquis of Townshend, at this time a major-general in the army.  In the divisions on branches of the Wilkes question, we sometimes find General Townshend a teller on one side, and Mr. Townshend on the other.-C.