to the companion of his youthful days. Portland had the first place
in the bed-chamber. He held high command in the army. On all great
occasions he was trusted and consulted. He was far more powerful in
Scotland than the Lord High Commissioner, and far deeper in the secret
of foreign affairs than the Secretary of State. He wore the Garter,
which sovereign princes coveted. Lands and money had been bestowed on
him so liberally that he was one of the richest subjects in Europe.
Albemarle had as yet not even a regiment; he had not been sworn of the
Council; and the wealth which he owed to the royal bounty was a pittance
when compared with the domains and the hoards of Portland. Yet Portland
thought himself aggrieved. He could not bear to see any other person
near him, though below him, in the royal favour. In his fits of
resentful sullenness, he hinted an intention of retiring from the Court.
William omitted nothing that a brother could have done to soothe and
conciliate a brother. Letters are still extant in which he, with the
utmost solemnity, calls God to witness that his affection for Bentinck
still is what it was in their early days. At length a compromise was
made. Portland, disgusted with Kensington, was not sorry to go to France
as ambassador; and William with deep emotion consented to a separation
longer than had ever taken place during an intimacy of twenty-five
years. A day or two after the new plenipotentiary had set out on his
mission, he received a touching letter from his master. "The loss
of your society," the King wrote, "has affected me more than you can
imagine. I should be very glad if I could believe that you felt as much
pain at quitting me as I felt at seeing you depart; for then I might
hope that you had ceased to doubt the truth of what I so solemnly
declared to you on my oath. Assure yourself that I never was more
sincere. My feeling towards you is one which nothing but death can
alter." It should seem that the answer returned to these affectionate
assurances was not perfectly gracious; for, when the King next wrote, he
gently complained of an expression which had wounded him severely.

But, though Portland was an unreasonable and querulous friend, he was
a most faithful and zealous minister. His despatches show how
indefatigably he toiled for the interests, and how punctiliously he
guarded the dignity, of the prince by whom he imagined that he had been
unjustly and unkindly treated.

The embass