Pitt to be allowed to
accept the Exchequer place, which Mr. Pitt at first refused and
was only persuaded to grant finally upon the intercession of the
Duke of Grafton. The day following, Mr. Townshend accordingly
informed the King that he had decided, in view of the urgent
representations of the Earl of Chatham, to accept the office of
Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Majesty's new ministry.
No one supposed, least of all himself, that this delightful man
would have any influence in formulating the policies of the
Chatham ministry. Lord Chatham's policies were likely to be his
own; and in the present case, so far as America was concerned,
they were not such as could be readily associated with Mr.
Townshend's views, so far as those views were known or were not
inconsistent. For dealing with America, the Earl of Shelburne,
because of his sympathetic understanding of colonial matters, had
been brought into the ministry to formulate a comprehensive and
conciliatory plan; as for the revenue, always the least part of
Lord Chatham's difficulties as it was the chief of Mr.
Grenville's, it was thought that the possessions of the East
India Company, if taken over by the Government, would bring into
the Treasury sums quite sufficient to pay the debt as well as to
relieve the people, in England and America at least, of those
heavy taxes which Mr.
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