e
shown to Townshend the draught of such a bill, which I enclose
to you with this letter. I believe his disposition is most real
and unaffected, to leave the management of the whole Irish
business to you, and to support you honestly and fairly in
whatever measures you adopt. But it is not difficult to see that
the whole administration and business of Government _roule sur
bien un autre pivot_. As far as one can separate Lord
Shelburne's intentions from his verbiage and professions, I
think I see a strong disposition to resist the least tendency
towards any further concession, or even to the appearance of it.
On the contrary, if any very good opportunity should offer
itself, I should think him more inclined to lessen than to
extend. He either has, or affects, an opinion very different
from that which I hold out to him with respect to the
difficulties of your Government, and exclaims even against the
possibility of your being driven from your ground. I can't say
that I think this situation between your official Minister and
the real Premier quite pleasant, because it seems to me that the
despatches of the one, however explicit, being all written
without the concurrence of the Cabinet, do not pledge the
opinions of the other, which are, after all, the only opinions
which are of any consequence.

I believe I stated to you in my last the reason which Townshend
gave to me, and which Lord Shelburne assigned to Jemmy, for not
calling a Cabinet immediately on my arrival, namely, their
unwillingness to meet them before they had news from Paris,
because they had been hitherto unanimous, and hoped to meet
Parliament so; and if they were called upon the subject of
Ireland, nobody knows what other hare might be started there,
however they might agree upon Irish affairs. You will certainly
think the mode of keeping a Cabinet unanimous, by never meeting
them at all, an excellent one; however, in the situation of
things here, I did not think it would be decent in me to
distress Government, especially as I really think the propriety
of the dissolution at this moment depends much on the event of
the business at Paris. I have therefore contented myself with an
explicit assurance from Townshend, that when news of that
arrives, which is now most anxiously expected every hour, a
Cabinet