If one
of those Ministers officially takes up a business with spirit, it
serves only the better to signalise the meanness of the rest, and
the discord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste to
shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of
this nature was that astonishing transaction, in which Lord
Rochford, our Ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt
upon Corsica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord
Shelburne. This remonstrance the French Minister treated with the
contempt that was natural; as he was assured, from the Ambassador of
his Court to ours, that these orders of Lord Shelburne were not
supported by the rest of the (I had like to have said British)
Administration. Lord Rochford, a man of spirit, could not endure
this situation. The consequences were, however, curious. He
returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shelburne,
who gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord
Rochford, who obeyed these orders, receives them. He goes, however,
into another department of the same office, that he might not be
obliged officially to acquiesce in one situation, under what he had
officially remonstrated against in another.
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