"The late Lord Essex informed the Editor that one of the Under Secretaries of that day had often said to him, "Mr. Grenville lost America because he read the American despatches, which none of his predecessors ever did." There is no doubt that the business of the colonies was despatched in a very slovenly manner—or to use Mr. Burke's words, it was treated "with a salutary neglect;" and the many volumes of Minutes of Colonial Affairs still preserved at the Board of Trade, relate generally to such insignificant transactions as to be almost ludicrous."