St. James's Square, June 13th, 1792.
MY DEAREST BROTHER,
I know you share the happiness I feel, in learning that _my
travellers_ were to be at Brussels in the course of last week, and
did not purpose making more than four or five days' stay there, so
that I may reasonably expect them here from day to day. I am
rejoiced that my holidays have begun before they are arrived. We
prorogue on Friday, and have finished all our business to-day,
which is a great load off my shoulders. The Chancellor is to give
up the Seals immediately, and they will be put into Commission with
Eyre, Buller, and Wilson, as I imagine, though the names are not
yet quite settled. We shall have the summer to look about us; and I
feel no great uneasiness even at the thoughts of meeting them again
precisely as we are, if that should be the case.
There is no news of any sort, except the continuance of the French
follies, which you read day by day in their papers, as fully, and
indeed often much more so, than I could detail them. There have
been some great failures at Bordeaux, and some at Paris, which
makes those few of our merchants who are concerned with them look
about them a little.
Our Addresses are going on swimmingly, and it will, I think, soon
be time for the loyal county of B. to show itself. They expect a
dust in Surrey, which my good Lord Onslow does not seem to have
quite wit enough to lay.
Ever most affectionately yours,
G.
Two days after the date of this letter, Parliament was prorogued, and
the Chancellor sent in his resignation.
The events that were taking place in France had recently awakened in
England a spirit of sympathy amongst the lower classes, which it was
apprehended might lead to disastrous consequences, if strong measures
were not adopted for its suppression. Several associations were
established in London and elsewhere to give practical effect to the
democratic and revolutionary doctrines of the day, under such titles as
the Corresponding Society, the Revolution Society, and the Society for
Constitutional Information; and some of them carried their views so far
as to transmit congratulatory addresses to the National Assembly. The
Government, seeing the peril that was impending over the country, took
immediate measures for the suppression of seditious correspondence
abroad, and revolutionary publications at home. A proclamation embodying
these objects was laid before Parliament towards the end of May, and
carried without a division, notwithstanding a violent opposition from
Mr. Grey and others, who had formed themselves into a Society called
"The Friends of the People," for the ostensible purpose of appeasing the
discontents, by obtaining a reform in the representation.
Immediately after the prorogation of Parliament, meetings were held all
over the country, to testify to the King the loyalty and gratitude of
the population, and to return thanks to His Majesty for the activity and
decision with which the dangers of the crisis had been met. In the
course of two or three months, the number of addresses that were voted
at these meetings and presented to the King amounted to three hundred
and forty-one.
It is to these circumstances Lord Grenville alludes in the closing
paragraph of the last letter. In the next communication he urges Lord
Buckingham to move the Address in his own county; and in the letters
that follow he touches upon the progress of the sanguinary drama that
was then enacting in Paris. The domestic allusions refer to his
approaching marriage.