ht in little matters and very patient of the
misapprehensions of less exact people, wrote in reply a letter which
many would think entirely adequate to the matter in hand: "I have never
heard [he began] of any complaint against Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, or of
any desire to turn him out; but by the office which you tell me he holds
in North America, I believe I know the state of the case, which I will
inform you of, that you may be enabled to judge of it yourself. Heavy
complaints were last year made in Parliament of the state of our
revenues in North America which amount to between 1,000 pounds and 9,000
pounds a year, the collecting of which costs upon the establishment of
the Customs in Great Britain between 7,000 pounds and 8,000 pounds
a year. This, it was urged, arose from the making all these offices
sinecures in England. When I came to the Treasury * I directed the
Commissioners of the Customs to be written to, that they might inform
us how the revenue might be improved, and to what causes they attributed
the present diminished state of it.... The principal cause which they
assigned was the absence of the officers who lived in England by
leave of the Treasury, which they proposed should be recalled. This we
complied with, and ordered them all to their duty, and the Commissioners
of the Customs to present others in the room of such as should not obey.
I take it for granted that this is Mr. Bedford's case. If it is, it will
be attended with difficulty to make an exception, as they are every one
of them applying to be excepted out of the orders.... If it is not so,
or if Mr. Bedford can suggest to me any proper means of obviating it
without overturning the whole regulation, he will do me a sensible
pleasure."

* On the resignation of Lord Bute in April, 1763, Grenville
formed a ministry, himself taking the two offices of First
Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There is no evidence to show that Mr. Bedford was able to do Mr.
Grenville this "sensible pleasure." The incident, apparently closed, was
one of many indications that a new policy for dealing with America was
about to be inaugurated; and although Grenville had been made minister
for reasons that were remote enough from any question of efficiency
in government, no better man could have been chosen for applying to
colonial administration the principles of good business management. His
connection with the Treasury, as well as t