had 49 of the line fit for
service, but insufficiently manned (Coxe, _Bourbon Kings of Spain_,
iii., 245, ed. 1813).

[51] Minutes of Council, Oct. 2, 1761, Add. MS. 32,929, ff. 18-28.

[52] Newcastle to Hardwicke, Nov. 9, 1761, Add. MS. 32,929, f. 143.

[53] _Annual Register_, iv. (1761), 48.

[54] Bisset, _Memoirs of Sir A. Mitchell_, ii., 283, 286, 294 _sq._;
_Buckinghamshire Correspondence_, i., 47-52; Adolphus, _Hist. of the
Reign of George III._, i., App. 5, 79-83.

[55] Newcastle to Devonshire, April 10, 1762, Add. MS. 32,937, ff. 11,
87.

[56] Add. MS. 32,938, ff. 18, 50, 105 _sq._, 239, 262, 304, 425.

[57] Newcastle to Cumberland, May 26, 1762, Add. MS. 32,939 f. 5.

[58] Newcastle to Pitt, 1762, MS. Pitt Papers, 25, R.O.; Temple to Pitt,
Oct. 3, 1762, _ibid._, 61.

[59] As regards Manila, see _Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep._, vii., 316 _sq._

[60] Fox's Memoir in _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox_, i., 72-73.

[61] A. von Ruville, _William Pitt und Graf Bute_, pp. 55-56.

[62] _Parl. Hist._, xv., 1305; _History of the Late Minority_, p. 96;
May, _Constitutional History_, i., 382-83.

[63] Pitt to Newcastle, April 9, 1763, Add. MS. 32,948, f. 84. Bute
resigned on the 11th.

[64] Newcastle to Lord Kinnoul, June 3, 1763, Add. MS. 32,949, f. 15.

CHAPTER III.

THE GRENVILLE ADMINISTRATION.

The king appears to have received Bute's resignation without regret;
indeed it was remarked that the day before it was announced he was in
unusually good spirits, "like a person just emancipated".[65] Bute had
done all that he could do for him as prime minister; he had cleared the
ground for the establishment of the king's system of government; the
whig oligarchy was disorganised and overthrown, and the war was at an
end. George could not have wished to keep a minister in office who was
hated by his people; that would have been contrary to the idea of a
patriot king, and would in time have made him unpopular. Nor was he
perhaps altogether satisfied with Bute's conduct in office; for in later
life he observed that he was "deficient in political firmness".[66] Bute
was to continue to be useful to him in another capacity in which
political firmness was not so important; he was to be the king's private
adviser, and help him to select and manage his responsible ministers.
Through his instrumentality, George had already secured a set of
ministers who would