Family of Lord Bute.--Death of Archbishop Secker.--Trial of
a Soldier for Murder in a Riot.--Arrival of Christian the
Seventh of Denmark.--Removal of Sir Jeffery Amherst from
Virginia.--Contemplated Disgrace of Lord Shelburne.--Resignation
of Lord Chatham.--Lord Rochford made Secretary of State.--Privy
Seal given to Lord Bristol.--State of the Country.--Meeting of
Parliament.--Meditated Expulsion of Wilkes.
1768.
On the 2nd of August, the favourite Earl of Bute, whom foolish conduct,
and the odium attending it, had thrown into a real, imaginary, or
pretended ill state of health, set out for the waters of Barege. His
mortifications were, in truth, sufficient to break a firmer spirit;
nor had his fortune or wealth contributed but to his unhappiness, his
domestic griefs being as poignant as his unpopularity. His eldest
daughter, an amiable woman, was wedded to Sir James Lowther. His third
daughter, whom the Northumberlands had obtained for their son, was
discontent with her husband, and was confined by his family to the
country under pretence of a gallant disposition, though the world
suspected that the fall of her father had made the Duke and Duchess
wish to get rid of the daughter. Lord Bute’s second son, the heir of
his mother’s vast riches, had married ill, grew to hate his wife for
having drawn him into marriage, and would not live with her, though his
father forgave her, and solicited their reconciliation. It was perhaps
not the least of the Earl’s sorrows, that though, by the interest
of the Princess, Lord Bute and his Cabal retained the chief power
in the secret counsels, the King was not sorry to be delivered from
the thraldom in which the Earl had held him:--at least, it was known
that his Majesty dreaded of being suspected of retaining too great
partiality to the Favourite, though he had resolution enough to avow or
discountenance him entirely.
On the 3rd died Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose character I
have given at large before. His early life had shown his versatility;
his latter time, his ambition; but hypocrisy not being parts, he rose
in the Church without ever making a figure in the State.[124] Dr.
Frederic Cornwallis, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, a prelate
of inconsiderable talents, but a most amiable, gentle, and humane
man,[125] was preferred to the primacy by the Duke of Grafton, who
had a friendship for the Bishop’s nephew, Earl Cornwallis. Terrick of
London, the most time-serving of the clergy, was sorely disappointed in
missing the first mitre of England.
On the 9th came on at Guilford the trial of a soldier for the murder
of young Allen, in St. George’s Fields. Wilkes, impatient to signalize
himself, and by his presence to excite a tumult, procured to be
subpœnaed as a witness; though it was notorious that, being in prison
at the time, he could have distinguished nothing from his window. The
real murderer had been conveyed away by the Government, and the man
tried not being the true criminal, was acquitted. No bill was found
against the commanding officer of the party; and Wilkes returned to his
gaol without having occasioned any disturbance.
In the midst of these disorders arrived Christian the Seventh, King of
Denmark, his Majesty’s brother-in-law. This young Prince had left his
dominions some months before, intending to visit the chief nations of
Europe; and having great curiosity to see England, had proposed this
visit. The English Monarch, who had no taste for show or amusements,
and who every day sank more and more into privacy and lifeless
solitude, had waived the offer on pretence of the national confusions;
but Christian, who had both the obstinacy and caprices of youth and
royalty, had persisted, and came. Not a single nobleman--not a single
equipage was sent on the road to receive, escort, or convey the Danish
King. He arrived at St. James’s in a hired carriage. The only attention
paid to him was, that an apartment was new furnished, gilt plate
brought from the Tower, and an expensive table kept for him and his
suite. Neither the King nor Queen were at St. James’s to receive him;
and the King even arrived there to his levee an hour later than usual.
He then saw his Ministers; and the King of Denmark was at dinner before
King George would admit Lord Hertford, his own Lord Chamberlain, who
brought a message from the Dane, who had had the attention of ordering
his own lords to wait on the King at his levee. It is scarce to be
credited that though Christian was in his palace, he neither went to
him nor received him there, but coldly sent him word he would see him
at the Queen’s palace at half-an-hour after five. When common decency
was thus neglected, it is not wonderful that national interest was
forgotten. Christian, at that time, was a pensioner of France, and it
imported us to win him out of their hands. When he afterwards went to
Paris, he found every mark of respect, every instance of magnificence
and liberality that a great Court, attentive to its interest or glory,
knew how to bestow.
This Danish King was, in truth, an insipid boy; and there appeared no
cause for his expensive ramble, though to support it he had laid a tax
on all his placemen and pensioners. He took notice of nothing, took
pleasure in nothing, and hurried post through most parts of England
without attention, dining and supping at seats on the road, without
giving himself time enough to remark so much of their beauties as would
flatter the great lords who treated him. This indifference was excused
in a whisper by Bernsdorffe,[126] his Prime Minister, who attributed it
to his Majesty’s extreme short sight, which Bernsdorffe confessed was
the great secret of the State. Yet the King’s manner was very civil;
and though his person was diminutive and delicate, he did not want
graceful dignity. He had taken an early dislike to his Queen, and had
disgraced his cousin, the Prince of Hesse, for espousing her interest.
Himself was then influenced by the Russians, Bernsdorffe and the
Russian Minister governing him entirely; the latter even with rudeness
to the Queen. But the King had a favourite, who had still more power
over him, Baron Holke, a handsome young man, who attended him in his
travels.
Princess Amelie, who felt the dishonourable treatment of her nephew,
and who did not dislike to mark it to the public, made a ball and great
entertainment for him at Gunnersbury. The King and the Princess Dowager
then paid him the same civilities; but to show how much they disliked
the precedent, left Princess Amelie out of their entertainments. In
France, whither he went next, the literati cried up this young Monarch
as a pattern of a patriot King; and it was probably from their praises
he imbibed so much merit that at his return to his kingdom he granted
to his subjects free liberty of the press.[127] The idea was certainly
not instilled into him here by the King or the Princess Dowager.
The promotion of Lord Bottetort to the Government of Virginia had
started a new difficulty. Sir Jeffery Amherst was their Governor.
His eminent services and the rank of Commander-in-chief, which he had
held in the American war, had placed him too high for residence in a
single province. Yet the mutinous spirit of that Colony in particular
required the presence of a Governor. Lord Hillsborough had hinted
this necessity to Sir Jeffery, adding that if he did not choose to go
thither, the King would give him a pension equal to that of Governor.
Amherst had ever behaved with as much coolness and modesty as sense.
His honour started at the word pension--yet not so fiercely but it was
thought he would acquiesce; at least Lord Hillsborough, who had not
so much delicacy, too lightly conceived the bargain struck, and too
officiously to make his court, as Lord Bottetort was a favourite, named
him Governor. The event was unfortunate to Amherst, whose wounded pride
drew him into discovering too full a fund of vanity, self-interest,
and vehement obstinacy. His first step was to resign his regiment. The
next, on the Duke of Grafton’s trying to soften him, was to demand a
peerage, a grant of the coal mines in America (which it was thought
might produce thirty thousand pounds a-year more) and an American
peerage, if any were bestowed. To the last the Duke replied at once,
that the King had forbidden his naming a peerage for any man.
Sir Jeffery’s intrinsic merit, the removal of him in favour of a
Court tool, and his scorn of the pension, immediately presented him as
a beloved victim to the Opposition. Lord Hillsborough in particular
was acrimoniously pursued by the younger Burke in many publications.
General Conway, a friend of Amherst, and who felt for him, undertook
to reconcile the breach, and at last prevailed on him to accept as
reparation a promise of the first vacant regiment, and a peerage when
any peers should be made. Amherst stickled for having his brother
included in the patent, but could not obtain it. At first he acquiesced
and suffered Mr. Conway to acquaint the King with his acceptance of the
terms; but in three days flew off again and insisted on his brother
being in the patent. Conway urged that his own last words to him had
been “Sir Jeffery, take notice your brother is not included in the
peerage,” and showed him the impropriety of the pretension, the younger
Amherst having neither services nor an estate to entitle him to such
distinction. He now asked both an American and English peerage for
himself and his brother, and it was not till after many conferences
and fluctuations, that he at last submitted to the terms Conway had
proposed.[128] Even before the affair was finally concluded, Conway
himself was on the point of quitting the Court with equal disgust.
The Duke of Grafton told him that it was not an absolute promise of a
peerage, and that the King had only said that when any peers should
be made, his Majesty would consider Sir Edward Hawke and Sir Jeffery
Amherst. Conway, who had received the positive promise from the King,
was hurt beyond measure, and the more as the King now affirmed that
the promise had only been provisional. I discovered the cause of this
variation. Rigby had seduced Sir Laurence Dundas, the rich Scotch
Commissary, who chose nine members into Parliament, from George
Grenville, and had offered to carry him and his suite to Court, if the
King would promise Sir Laurence a peerage. The King, who had involved
himself in so many like promises that he had tied his hands from making
any, refused to comply with the demand. Rigby resented the denial
in the warmest terms--said that Mr. Conway could make peers when he
could not, and was the effective Minister; and he fired the Duke of
Grafton’s jealousy by telling him that Lord Hertford, Mr. Conway, and
I, had done this without his Grace: to others he said, that I had drawn
the Duke to acquiesce, by telling him that the Bedfords would some
day or other betray him. I had told him when his Grace betrayed Mr.
Conway to them; since that time I had not exchanged a word with him,
and utterly avoided him. Rigby only suspected this, because he knew
how much reason I had to think so; and the event proved that I knew
them well. I did not doubt but Rigby had sent General Fitzwilliam,[129]
the first mover, to Conway to advise him to undertake Amherst’s
reconciliation. If it succeeded, Amherst would be saved to the Court;
if it failed, Conway was likely to be involved in the quarrel. Conway,
however, laboured the point so earnestly, that he satisfied Amherst,
or would have resigned his own regiment and preferments and meddled
no more. This new charge, however, contributed to exasperate the
Duke of Grafton’s alienation from Conway, and the Bedfords neglected
nothing to inflame it. As the first year of a Parliament is chiefly
engrossed by contested elections, there were two that nearly interested
the Duke--one for his friend, Lord Spencer, the other for Sir James
Lowther, against the Duke of Portland. It happened that Conway, who
was chosen for Thetford by Grafton himself, was engaged on opposite
sides in both. In the first, Sir George Rodney was antagonist to
Colonel Howe, Lord Spencer’s member. Rodney had offered himself as
evidence for Conway on the miscarriage at Rochford, and therefore had
not been examined by the opposite side. This was a debt of gratitude,
and Conway remembered it. For the Duke of Portland he had been engaged
by the Cavendishes, and to Conway that family was the law and the
prophets. Though I did not, whatever the Bedfords thought, wish to make
a breach between Conway and the Duke of Grafton, yet I was desirous
that both they and the Duke should feel the want of him. At the same
time, seeing how strict that connection grew, I thought it prudent for
Conway to leave a door open between him and the Rockingham faction: I
therefore urged him to stay away on Elections, and take no active part
in Parliament. This was particularly adapted to my views of preventing
a hearty junction of that party with Grenville. Should Conway sit
silent, whom Grenville always selected to attack on American affairs,
I knew his rage on the Stamp Act would hurry him into the indiscretion
of falling foul of that part of his allies who had contributed to its
repeal--and indeed Grenville seldom failed of confirming my conjecture,
but there is little merit in such sagacity. _The passions of men_, to
those who are much conversant with them, _write a very legible hand_.
I proved as little mistaken in what I foretold of the treachery of the
Bedfords to Grafton. The consequences to him will show the necessity
of these details. No account of _public_ measures would explain his
conduct. It must be remembered that his mind, as Lord Camden said
of it, was capable of embracing but one single object. The machine
of Government was too complicated to occupy it at all. The Bedfords
were so much the reverse, that when they had no point of cunning to
carry, they still thought it cunning to do something, and thus often
made their situation worse. At this moment to disgust Shelburne, whom
they had not yet removed, they prevailed on the King to name Mr.
Lynch,[130] one of their friends, Minister to Turin. Though this was
in Shelburne’s department, he would not resent it openly.
But though the King would not comply with the Faction, they had got
such entire possession of the Duke of Grafton, that Shelburne’s
removal[131] was determined, and at last extorted from his Majesty--a
measure that produced an event of much greater _éclat_, and little
apprehended. Lord Chatham, who had remained in voluntary confinement,
unheard of and unthought of, scarce any man knowing the situation
of his mind or intellects, offended at the meditated disgrace of
Shelburne, or thinking the reigning confusions a proper opportunity
of regaining his popularity and importance, wrote a letter to the
King on the 12th of October, couched in terms of deplorable petition,
begging mercy, begging leave to resign, begging to be delivered from
his misery. His health, he said, would not permit him to serve, and
he feared it never would. The King, with his own hand, answered his
letter, and entreated him to keep his place.[132]
To the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chatham wrote the next day in a different
style, complaining of the disgrace of Lord Shelburne, and of the
treatment of Sir Jeffery Amherst. This was sufficiently explicit, and
the moment of timing his resignation; but a month before the meeting
of Parliament announced the projects brooding in his breast, and his
hopes of distressing by so short a warning. A war had given him his
consequence, a war must restore it. America, even Corsica, presented
hopes of war. Lord Shelburne, I knew from Sir Horace Mann, had been
tampering with Paoli, the Corsican general; and, from one of Lord
Chatham’s messengers, when I was three years before in France, I had
learned his directions of inquiry into the state of their ports--a
meritorious attention, and not common to him with any other of our
Ministers.
Resign he did. Yet the Court, though embarrassed at first, felt no
inconvenience from losing him. The Duke of Grafton, as the King trusted
he would, was so earnest on procuring a divorce, that he would not risk
being defeated by parting with the power of influencing the Parliament
in his favour. Nor, whatever were his obligations to Lord Chatham,
did they call on him to take the same step. Lord Chatham had designed
him for a mere tool of office, and had not only not consulted him,
but, totally excluding him from his sight, had left him exposed to all
the difficulties into which a state of feigned or actual frenzy had
thrown the Government. Possessed of a Premier, the Court easily kept
the machine together, and with but small inconvenience filled up the
vacancies; for Shelburne, to avoid dismission, resigned on the pretext
of following Lord Chatham.
As the latter had to the King pleaded no disgust, and publicly
professed none, the Court affected to suppose he had none; and
accordingly acted as if they believed he had no hostile intentions, by
distinguishing his few remaining friends. Lord Camden, the Chancellor,
was requested to keep the Seals, and consented. The Privy Seal was
given to Lord Bristol, as a particular compliment to Lord Chatham.
Lord Rochford was made Secretary of State, and was succeeded by Lord
Harcourt, as Ambassador to France. Mr. Thomas Walpole, my cousin, who
was much connected with La Borde, the banker of the French Court,
arrived soon after from Paris, and told me that Lord Weymouth had been,
on this change, transferred to the southern province, at Choiseul’s
desire, who hated Lord Rochford. It had seemed extraordinary that Lord
Rochford, just returned from the French embassy, should not be employed
in a department he was conversant in. It was still more extraordinary,
that the Minister of France could influence the destination of our
Secretaries of State. It was most shameful, that Lord Rochford should
be so _misapplied_ in compliment to Choiseul, when the cause of the
latter’s hatred to him, was the spirit with which Lord Rochford had
behaved, particularly with regard to the affair of Corsica, against
which he had remonstrated, with more warmth than he had been encouraged
to do from home; and had he, as he told me himself, been authorised to
hold a firm language, France would not have ventured to proceed in that
conquest. Lord Rochford was a man of no abilities, and of as little
knowledge, except in the routine of office; but he meant honestly,
behaved plausibly, was pliant enough to take whatever was offered to
him, and too inoffensive to give alarm or jealousy to any party.[133]
Lord Bristol was not so fortunate: Lord Chatham disavowed him, and Lord
Temple published that disavowal, with every appendix of abuse. Yet
though, no doubt, Lord Bristol had catched with alacrity at the offer
of the Privy Seal, he had had the prudence to sanctify his acceptance
with Lord Chatham’s consent. The transaction, as I received it from
his own mouth, stood thus:--the Chancellor sent him the offer in the
King’s name, and added, that no man would be so agreeable to Lord
Chatham for a successor. Lord Bristol begged delay, and wrote to Lord
Chatham, inclosing the Chancellor’s note. Lord Chatham in his reply,
written by his wife, said, that being out of place himself, it did
not become him to give advice, but wished his Lordship success in his
Majesty’s service. No disavowal of the Chancellor’s note being made,
and the letter being signed by Lord Chatham, _with respect, esteem,
and attachment_, if it was equivocal, Lord Bristol had certainly no
reason to interpret it in an adverse sense; at least, he was as
justifiable in misunderstanding, as the other could be in equivocating.
In political chicanery, decorum has the better cause.[134] The
Chancellor’s conduct was less reducible to a standard. It was not known
whether his friendship with Lord Chatham was at high or low water mark.
He had given many hints of his friend’s frenzy, and in the resignation
did not seem to have been consulted. But it was sufficient to throw
some blemish into his character, that the public had any doubts on his
conduct. It did not clear up as he proceeded, but was clouded with
shades of interest and irresolution; and when it veered most to public
spirit, was subject to squalls of time-serving, as by the Court it
was taxed with treacherous ambiguity. He hurt the Court often, rarely
served it to its satisfaction, but hurt himself most by halting now and
then in the career of his services to the public. To Lord Chatham it
could but be mortifying to be deserted by three men he had so highly
elevated as the Chancellor, the Duke of Grafton, and Lord Bristol--the
last two with so little merit on their parts; and, if he was just
enough to reflect on the little confidence he had placed in the two
first, it could not soften that mortification.[135]
Imperceptible almost as was the sensation occasioned by Lord Chatham’s
resignation, his dreaded name still struck other courts with awe.
Both Spain and France apprehended that his every step announced war.
Mr. H. Walpole told me, that when the news arrived at Paris, Fuentes,
the Spanish Ambassador, took him aside, and adjured him, as his father
and uncle (my father) had been lovers of peace, that he too would do
his utmost to preserve it. Fuentes owned too, that _he hoped we should
master our Colonies, or theirs too would catch the flame, and throw off
the yoke in like manner_.
I now return to the other events of the year. The ill temper of the
Colonies increased. Every mail threatened nearer union between them.
Boston took the lead in all violences, and Virginia imitated their
remonstrances; and being governed by able and independent men, these
memorials were boldly and sensibly drawn. Two regiments had been
ordered to Boston in the last August; and in November, advice came
of their being landed without opposition, of their being quartered
there, and of their having ordered the inhabitants to deliver up their
arms, with which the people had quietly complied. However unwelcome
this force was to the mutinous, a great number, who had been awed into
concurrence with the predominant spirit of the factions, were rejoiced
at daring to be peaceable; and even some few other towns had previously
declared against the Opponents. This intelligence, the reconciliation
of Sir Jeffery Amherst, and the miscarriages of the French in Corsica,
who had been thrice beaten there, were of seasonable advantage to the
resettled Administration, and enabled them to face the opening of the
session with confidence. There had been a riot, indeed, on Wilkes’s
birthday, and the Duke of Northumberland’s windows had been broken for
the part he took on the Middlesex election; but, as that great Duke
was now on ill terms with the house of Bute, the Court did not take to
heart his being insulted. A fresher instance of his Grace’s meanness
and ingratitude broke forth: Rigby had obtained a regiment for his
brother-in-law; the Duke insisted on it for Earl Percy, his son, and
told the Duke of Grafton aloud at Court, that if it was not granted,
himself would resign the Lieutenancy of Middlesex, and do all the
hurt he could on the election. The King was enraged, but was forced to
comply; but both Duke and Duchess were so ill received there after by
both King and Queen, that they resigned their post the next year.
On the 8th of November the Parliament met. The King’s speech was
blustering and empty. Lord Chatham did not appear, and Lord Temple was
absent too. In the Commons, though they talked on the general state of
affairs till eleven at night, there was no division. Grenville spoke
with acrimony against Lord Chatham, who, he said, was the source of the
troubles in America by his declaration in favour of their pretension
of not being taxed; but he was a poor man, now past everything, and
therefore he would say no more of him. But what excuse could be
made for the First Magistrate (Lord Camden), who had held the same
doctrine--at least, such a speech had been printed as his; if it was
not genuine, why was it not disavowed? The Chancellor was defended by
Dunning, who was prolix without brightness. Colonel Barré, who had
resigned with his protector, Lord Shelburne, made a better figure, as
usual, in Opposition Dowdeswell was dull and opinionative; Burke shone,
particularly on our inattention to Corsica; but the House seemed to
take no interest in that cause. Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Saunders
disputed long on the importance of that island--if it could be called a
dispute, when both wanted words to express very indistinct ideas. For
the Administration the day was very favourable.[136]
But the great question of the time, _whether Wilkes should be allowed
to be a Member_, wore a less prosperous aspect. The King, with emotion,
told Lord Hertford how much he was hurt that Wilkes must continue to
sit; for Lord Granby, Sir Edward Hawke, and General Conway, had told
the Duke of Grafton that they would oppose his expulsion: that Lord
North was willing to undertake the service, but that it could not be
attempted against three such men--who were, in truth, three of the
most respected characters in the House. The question was of great
importance, and lay between the dignity of Parliament and the right of
the freeholders to elect whom they pleased for their representative--a
fatal separation of interests that ought never to be separated; and one
of those questions which the rashness and weakness of the Reign had
brought into discussion from behind the veil of venerable uncertainty.
That Parliament should not have power to reject from their body a most
disgraceful member, whom a former Parliament had ejected for crimes of
serious dye; that it should be obliged to receive so profligate a man,
and one actually in prison and under sentence for a libel, seemed a
compulsion to which few societies would or are obliged to submit. On
the other hand, no law of the land or of Parliament disqualified such
a man from being chosen. The rule is marked to freeholders, whom they
may or may not elect. The whole body of the House of Commons is but an
aggregate of the representatives of the several counties or boroughs;
and what right had other counties or boroughs to prescribe to the
County of Middlesex whom it should or should not elect? Are not the
freeholders the best judges with whom they shall trust their interests?
Parliament was never supposed to have a right of revision but on
contested elections. Still less is it proper or safe that a majority
should have authority to expel a member duly chosen. If extended, that
idea would go to a predominant party purging the House of all that are
disagreeable to them. The danger to the Constitution is augmented when
it is notorious that the majority is, of late years, almost always sold
to the Court. There would be an end of Opposition, and consequently
of liberty, if the Crown might garble the House of Commons at will.
The difficulty increased to the Court on the present question, in that
there was no one precedent directly in point. All that could be found,
after the most intense search, were strained to make them depose in
favour of expulsion. The case of my father, Sir Robert Walpole, in
the reign of Queen Anne, came the nearest to that of Wilkes. He was
expelled and imprisoned. The town of Lynn re-elected him, and he was
again expelled--but then it was by the same Parliament, and not by
a new one.[137] It was the more unfavourable, this precedent, that
the persecution of my father was carried on in the days of, and by,
a Jacobite Administration. Was that a precedent the House of Hanover
ought to have adopted? It was not, however, the only precedent of a
Stuart reign that was copied into the code of George the Third--nor the
least obnoxious precedent that the present Court and its ductile House
of Commons established on the present question; another being engrafted
on it far less defensible, and of very dangerous example. But the
reader must be conducted by regular steps to that strange proceeding,
which, like other measures of the Reign, engendered more vexation to
the Court than was compensated by its success.[138]
On the day for fixing hearings of contested elections, Sir George
Maccartney, who was returned from Russia, and had married Lord Bute’s
second daughter, spoke for the first time, and with very bad success,
though his parts had been much cried up. He was a young and handsome
Irishman, attached to Lord Holland, with whose eldest son he had
travelled as a kind of governor. He was an amiable man, with various
knowledge, and singular memory, but no other extraordinary talents.
He was now Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in the room
of Lord Frederic Campbell, than whom there were few men who had more
grievously offended the King; but the humiliations which his Majesty
had brought on himself, obliged him at one time or other to employ or
reward those most obnoxious to him.
On the 14th, Sir Joseph Mawbey, formerly in Opposition, and made a
baronet by the Whigs, presented a petition from Wilkes, complaining
of the hard usage he had received, and couched in warm and offensive
terms. Mawbey declared he had been enjoined by his constituents of
Southwark to present the petition, intimating that his delivery of it
was not a voluntary act. The man was vain, noisy, and foolish, and
soon grew a hearty partisan of his client.[139] The House ordered the
petition to lie on the table--a mark of dislike; and Lord Strange
called for the record to show the commitment of Wilkes had been just.
The step in his favour was thought injudicious, and likely to advance
his expulsion.[140] Grenville, who by Lord Temple’s injunction was to
be against that expulsion, knew not how to digest the petition; while
the Opposition, with more reason, were for rescinding the iniquitous
vote that had taken away Wilkes’s privilege.