PRIME MINISTERS AND THEIR RACE-HORSES 



downs the Minister watched the gallops of his 

 horses with an interest he never felt in the per- 

 formances of his divided and mutinous following 

 at Westminster. 



II 



The Duke of Grafton. — In the long gallery of 

 Prime Ministers there is surely no more unlovely 

 picture than that which historians have drawn of 

 the third Duke of Grafton. Upon the accession 

 to power of Chatham, in 1766, after Rockingham's 

 death, Grafton held the uneasy position of nominal 

 Chief of the Government as First Lord of the 

 Treasury. His vicarious responsibility was soon 

 terminated. Chatham fell ill, and the supreme 

 direction of affairs passed to the Duke, who con- 

 tinued in office until his resignation in 1770. It 

 was a troubled period. It saw the taxation of 

 American imports, the disturbances caused by 

 Wilkes's election for Middlesex, and the appearance 

 of the letters of " Junius." Grafton owed his 

 election partly to accident, but mainly to his 

 high rank and great fortune — qualifications of 

 the utmost weight with the Whig connection. 

 Irregular in life, capricious and indolent, he had 

 few of the qualities of a statesman, and he presumed 

 greatly on his position. Such reputation as he 

 had was mangled by " Junius," who derided his 

 descent from a Royal Mistress and jested with him 

 over the infidelity of his wife. Grafton was indeed 

 a fair mark for the measured malignity of anony- 

 mous attack, and, certainly, the libeller did not 

 spare either the matrimonial infelicities or the ama- 

 tory vagaries of the peccant Minister. The Duke 



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