ut adopting
that description to its full extent, the King might easily regard the
bill as a very unscrupulous attempt to curtail his legitimate authority
and influence. He became most anxious to prevent the bill from being
presented to him for his royal assent. And it was presently represented
to him that the knowledge of his desire would probably induce the Lords
to reject it. Among the peers who had attacked the bill on its first
introduction into their House was Earl Temple, whose father had taken so
prominent a part in the negotiations for the formation of a new ministry
in 1765, and who had himself been Lord-lieutenant of Ireland under Lord
Shelburne's administration. But he had not thought it prudent to divide
the House against its first reading, and felt great doubts as to his
success in a division on the second, unless he could fortify his
opposition by some arguments as yet untried. He had no difficulty in
finding a willing and effective coadjutor. Since the retirement of Lord
Bute from court, no peer had made himself so personally acceptable to
the King as Lord Thurlow, who had been Lord Chancellor during the last
four years of Lord North's administration, and, in consequence, as it
was generally understood, of the earnest request of George III., had
been allowed to retain the seals by Lord Rockingham, and afterward by
Lord Shelburne. What special attraction drew the King toward him, unless
it were some idea of his honesty and attachment to the King himself--on
both of which points subsequent events proved his Majesty to be wholly
mistaken--it is not very easy to divine; but his interest with the King
at this time was notorious, and equally notorious was the deep
resentment which he cherished against Fox and Lord North, of whom, as he
alleged, the former had proscribed and the latter had betrayed him. To
him, therefore, Lord Temple now applied for advice as to the best mode
of working on the King's mind, and, with his assistance, drew up a
memorial on the character of the India Bill, on its inevitable fruits if
it should pass (which it described as an extinction of "more than half
of the royal power, and a consequent disabling of his Majesty for the
rest of his reign"), and on the most effectual plan for defeating it;
for which end it was suggested that his Majesty should authorize some
one to make some of the Lords "acquainted with his wishes" that the bill
should be rejected.[85]

George III. eagerly adopted