s the
King better and more composed than he has been since he has
attended him.

Ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.

A new question and a new embarrassment now arose, as to what was to be
done about the Regency in Ireland. It was natural enough that the Prince
of Wales should be popular in Ireland as a _pis aller_, on account of
the known antipathy of the King to the Catholic claims; and it was
apprehended that the Irish Parliament, acting independently of English
precedent, would declare itself in favour of an unlimited Regency. The
anxiety to which Lord Buckingham was exposed by this disturbing prospect
(some people went so far as to cast the horoscope of an Irish
revolution), and by the delays in the receipt of intelligence, owing to
the imperfect and irregular means of communication existing between the
two countries, betrayed him into some expressions of impatience, against
which Mr. Grenville remonstrated with his habitual temperance and good
sense, throwing out at the same time some sound suggestions as to the
course it was desirable the Lord-Lieutenant should pursue. There are no
qualities in these letters, wherever reference is made to the conduct of
public men in great crises, more worthy of unmixed admiration than their
practical sagacity and complete self-control.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, Dec. 10th, 1788.
MY DEAR BROTHER,

Your messenger having been, as he says, four or five days at sea,
has just brought me your letter of the 2nd. I cannot avoid
expressing to you the mortification I felt, on finding it filled
with complaints of want of communication. It is now more than a
month that I have written to you constantly seven days in the week,
with the exception, I believe, of not four days in the whole time.
I do this, not only without reluctance, but with pleasure, because
I think it contributes to your satisfaction, and because it is a
real relief to my mind to converse with you in this manner on the
subjects which are, in the present moment, so interesting to us
both. But I do it often under circumstances of so much other
business, as makes it impossible for me to keep any copies or
memoranda of what I write. I cannot, therefore, distinctly call
back to my mind the thread of that correspondence; but, as far as
my memory serves, I solemnly protest I kno