He remained in office as President of the Privy Council until his death on 2 January 1763. His last act was to listen while on his death bed to the reading of the preliminaries of the Treaty of Paris (1763) by the Under-Secretary to the Secretary of State, Robert Wood, author of an essay on "The Original Genius and Writings of Homer", who would have postponed the business, but Granville said that it "could not prolong his life to neglect his duty", and quoted in ancient Greek the speech of Sarpedon from the "Iliad" xii. 322–328, repeating the last word "ἴομεν" ("iomen") (the first word of verse 328) meaning "let us go forward". Wood recalled the event as follows: