ter to the Duke of Portland. Assuming this to be
correct, I do not think that there is any material difference
whether your correspondence is directly with the Emperor of
Austria, or with Count Nugent to be laid before him; and I should
certainly have given you the same advice in the year 1816, when you
were acting in hostility to Government, as strongly as I do now.

With respect to the Cabinet, the frequent complaints which you have
heard from me of the single and unconnected situation in which I
find myself, these would show you how anxiously I must wish that
you could effect your entry there, independent of every motive of
personal regard, gratitude, and attachment.

I doubt, however, whether consistently with your own dignity, you
could avail yourself of any vacancy but those of the Presidency of
the Council, Privy Seal, Admiralty, or Secretary of State. The Mint
or Chancellorship of the Duchy would, in the public eye, be
entirely below your rank and situation to accept.

I think, therefore, that you should confine your application to the
first-named offices, or (objectionable in principle as I always
think it) to Cabinet without office. You may, I think, assume the
probability of Sidmouth's retirement as a ground for pressing the
latter; but at all events it will be desirable to state very
clearly and distinctly the prospects which were held out to you by
Lord Londonderry. At the present moment you may be assured that
there will be much disinclination to admit your claim.

The Protestant party is eager, the Catholic lukewarm and hollow.
C----[124] knows not where to look for support, but is afraid that
by joining himself with us, who seem his natural allies, he would
increase the indisposition of the K---- and D---- of Y----, which
he would make any sacrifice to deprecate. Besides this, he has no
inclination to any who assume higher pretensions than those of
being his followers; and after what took place a twelvemonth ago,
he, like all other persons who have been in the wrong in a dispute
and advanced unreasonable pretensions, will be personally
disinclined to those who were in the right and resisted them, and
this will of course be increased by the difference in your former
politics. The only person to whom you can look is the D---- of
W----. If he thinks you are likel