ADVERTISEMENT.
Since the publication of the preceding volumes of this work, the Editor has been favoured with some important communications, which call for his public and most grateful acknowledgements.
The Duke of Bedford kindly granted him the use of the valuable collection of letters at Woburn, left by his ancestor, John Duke of Bedford, from which he should have been less sparing in his extracts, had not the publication of the concluding volume of that nobleman’s correspondence been expected in the course of the present year.
The Editor’s inquiries have, in many instances, been materially assisted by the Journal and Correspondence of Sir Gilbert Elliot—the counsellor and intimate friend of Lord Bute, and one of the most accomplished statesmen of his day. His papers are particularly valuable, as constituting, perhaps, the only authority which can be relied on for the views of the Court, at a time that it has been charged with originating a system of unconstitutional interference with the government of the country. Amongst them have been preserved some very interesting letters that passed between Lord Bute and Sir Gilbert, during critical periods of the political career of the former, which throw considerable light on his character and intentions. Whatever benefit may have been conferred on this work by the information thus placed at the Editor’s disposal, is due to the liberality of the Earl of Minto, who readily consented to the Editor’s consulting such of his grandfather’s papers as related to the early part of George the Third’s reign, adding at the same time several explanations which, coming from a member of Sir Gilbert’s family, were especially valuable.
Through the friendship of Lord Brougham, to whom the Editor is also indebted for many valuable suggestions, access was obtained to a collection of George the Third’s Letters to Lord North, in the possession of that nobleman’s accomplished daughter, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, from which the Editor has made rather copious extracts, illustrating, as he conceives, very forcibly, the personal character of the King, and its influence on the events of his reign.
He has also to express his deep obligations to the Duke of Grafton, for placing in his hands, without reserve, the autobiography of his grandfather (the Minister of George the Third), a work in itself of sufficient importance to deserve separate publication, and the appearance of which at an earlier period would have refuted many of the calumnies that have attached to the name of its noble writer. The extracts given in the Appendix relate, almost exclusively, to his Grace’s public conduct during his own administration and that of Lord Rockingham.
It had been the Editor’s intention to insert in the Appendix the biographies of some of the statesmen noticed in these Memoirs, of whom less has hitherto been generally known than might have been expected from their connexion with the politics of the day. With this view he had prepared a life of Marshal Conway, and a selection from his correspondence, two volumes of which were kindly entrusted to him by the Right Honourable Sir Alexander Johnstone, from whom he also obtained much interesting information respecting the Marshal’s pursuits after he quitted office. The Appendix, however, is without such an addition already too large; but should the subject appear not to have been exhausted, the Editor proposes to publish the materials he has collected in a separate volume, under the title of “Notes and Biographical Sketches illustrative of the History of the Early Years of the Reign of George the Third.”
7, Harley Street,
July, 20, 1845.