ERRATA.

VOL. I.

7 (note), for "created Lord" read "who married Lady."

50 (note), for “Oxford" and "Bute" read “Orford" and "Bath.”

CHAPTER I.

1766-1767.

THE office of Secretary of State at the time that Shelburne, then twenty-nine years of age, accepted the seals under Chatham, was divided into the Southern and Northern departments. The former had the management of Home and Irish affairs and of the correspondence with the States of Western Europe, India, and the Colonies; the latter that of the correspondence with the States of Europe not included in the sphere of the Southern Department, the Secretary of which ranked officially before his colleague. During the administration of Rockingham a proposal had been made to separate the American from the European business, and to appoint Dartmouth Colonial Secretary, putting an end at the same

time to the inferior position occupied by the Board of Trade, which in fact was to be raised into a separate and independent department. This scheme however was never carried out, and the old distribution of business still existed when Rockingham resigned.

The evils of a divided administration of the Colonies had attracted the attention of Chatham. His first act on acceding to power was to determine once and for all to put an end to it. It was possible either, as Rockingham had intended, to make a third Secretaryship of State, or to reduce the Board of Trade to a mere "Board of Report upon reference to it for advice or information on the part of the Secretary of State."* The latter was the course now adopted, and Shelburne who held the seals of the Southern department, was directed to carry it out in conjunction with Hillsborough the President of the Board. Hillsborough appears to have been ready not only to accept his office reduced to even a smaller degree of importance than it had occupied before the minute of 1752,† which was now

* Marginal note by Hillsborough on a letter from Shelburne of August 16th, 1766.

† See vol. i. p. 240 for an account of the relations of the Board of Trade, and the office of the Secretary of State. For the settlement now made, see Order in Council, August 8th, 1766; Hillsborough to Shelburne, August 14th, 1766; Shelburne to Hillsborough, August 16th, 1766; Hillsborough to Shelburne, August 25th, 1766; Shelburne to Hillsborough, August 26th, 1766.