Autograph letter signed with initials : "Ealing" to [Mr.] Canning, 1809 Aug. 28.

Concerning the formation of a new Government should the Duke of Portland resign; saying "...the precarious state of his health necessarily warns us, that it is not likely he can continue to hold his present situation. If therefore we are desirous, as I conceive we are, of preserving the Government as nearly as possible, in the hands which at present hold it, it is next to madness not to be considering whether any arrangement, in the event of his resignation, could be made which could be at once acceptable to the King and to ourselves; and what that arrangement should be. - I confess I am the more anxious not to delay any longer opening the subject to you, because after all that has passed respecting the change in the situation of one of our colleagues, combined with the wish I believe felt by us all, to retain him among us, it appears to me that under the cover of so general an arrangement as that which would comprehend the office of First Lord of the Treasury, this change might possibly be effected in the manner least unpleasant to any of us;" discussing the urgency of putting forth a plan.