Death of the Pretender.--Intrigues against the Ministry.--Debates on
the Stamp Act, and the Petition from America.--First Speech of Mr.
Edmund Burke.--Character of his Oratory.--Mr. William Burke.
On the first day of the year died at Albano that sport of fortune, the
Chevalier de St. George, better known by the appellation of the Old
Pretender. He had not only outlived his hopes, but almost all those
who had given him any hopes. His party was dwindled to scarce any
but Catholics; and though he left two sons, his line was verging to
extinction. The second son was actually a Cardinal; the elder, sunk in
drunkenness, despair, and neglect at Bouillon.[214] His father’s death
seemed a little to reanimate him: but that revival was but waking to
new mortification. The Court of France did not even put on mourning for
the father; and when Prince Charles determined to set out for Rome, the
Pope despatched a courier to prevent him. The Roman nobility were not
fond of being preceded even by a phantom of royalty; and both they
and the College of Cardinals were apprehensive of the sottishness and
rashness of the young man. The Pope dreaded the resentment of England,
and feared an order to prohibit English travellers from visiting
Rome; a mighty source of wealth to that city. And he,[215] who had so
obstinately protected the Jesuits against the threats of France and
Spain, and who at last sacrificed part of his dominions[216] to his
zeal for the Order, had the timidity to renounce the most meritorious
martyr of the Church, rather than expose himself to the very uncertain
vengeance of a heretic Court. The Young Pretender persisted in his
journey: the Pope as pertinaciously refused to acknowledge him for
King of England; yet with the additional absurdity of continuing to
style him Prince of Wales--though he could not be the latter without
becoming the former. To such complete humiliation was reduced that ever
unfortunate house of Stuart, now at last denied that empty sound of
royalty by that Church and Court for which they had sacrificed three
kingdoms! Pathetically might the Prince have exclaimed,
“Hic pietatis honos! sic nos in sceptra reponis!”
The Cardinal of York ceded to his brother the annuity he received from
the Pope, whose only bounty, whose only grace was restricted to the
allowance of that exchange.
About the same time died Frederick the Fifth, King of Denmark, in the
forty-second year of his age:[217] a good prince and beloved, and void
of any capital fault but that northern vice drunkenness. If we may
believe the history of that kingdom, no nation has been blessed with so
many humane sovereigns. It is more remarkable that they have not grown
worse since they became absolute.
Before, and during the adjournment of the Parliament, the Ministers
perceived how little they could flatter themselves with the stability
of their situation. From being persecuted by both factions of the old
and new Administration, Lord Bute began to assume the style of holding
the balance between both. He meant at least to show the new Ministers,
that while they disdained to humble themselves before him, the success
of their measures would be precarious. The Crown itself seemed
inclined to consign its numbers to him against its own measures--a
wise equilibrium, that either way produced confusion to its interests.
Before Christmas, the Favourite had held a council of his creatures
at the Earl of Northumberland’s; the meeting consisted of eighteen
Lords and Commoners, and in the latter number was Charles Townshend.
Dinners were afterwards given to twenty-five Lords by Bute himself,
and others to the Commons by Lord Litchfield. And lest mankind should
misapprehend the part the Favourite intended to take on the Stamp Act,
Lord Denbigh, his standard-bearer, and Augustus Hervey, asked audiences
of the King, and leave to resign their places, as they purposed to
vote against the repeal. The farce was carried on by the King, and to
prevent any panic in those who might have a mind to act the same part,
his Majesty told them, that they _were at liberty to vote against him
and keep their places_. This was, in effect, ordering his servants to
oppose his Ministers. The latter, on this exigence, consulted Mr. Pitt,
desired his advice for their conduct on the Stamp Act, and invited him
to take the lead in their Administration. He replied, with his usual
haughtiness, that he would give no advice but to his Majesty or the
Parliament; that he would never sit at Council with Newcastle;[218]
and should think himself obliged to offer the Treasury to Lord Temple;
and that there must be _other_ arrangements. Those arrangements, he
intimated, were, that whether Lord Temple accepted the Treasury or
not, Lord Rockingham must not expect to continue there.
This answer being reported to the Council, who had obtained the King’s
permission to make the overture, gave great offence, particularly to
Newcastle, who found himself proscribed; and to Rockingham, who cared
not whether he were proscribed or not, if he was to be divested of the
Treasury. It was warmly decided that it would wound the King’s honour
to send any more messages to a man who had thus often rejected his
Majesty’s condescension. But though this message had been suffered, it
had by no means had the King’s approbation, who now no longer wished
that Mr. Pitt should unite with the present Ministers; and it was as
little his intention to bind himself by the rules they prescribed
to his honour. He did not despair of gaining Mr. Pitt alone and
unconnected, who, the King and the Favourite flattered themselves,
would be more complaisant than either of the factions. If indulged
in his foreign plans, he was less likely than any man to interfere
in the scheme of domestic power. Anything was to be sacrificed to
accommodate the Favourite, to save his creatures, and to preserve his
influence. Could that be maintained, the Crown would be rewarded with
new extension of the prerogative. This reciprocal view was the key to
all the secrets of the closet, was the source of all the indignities
past, of the disgraceful fluctuation that ensued, and of all the
humiliations that fell on the King himself, who unfortunately had been
taught to prefer a forced authority to that which flows, and was so
disposed to flow, from the love of his subjects.
On the 14th of January the Houses met. Lord Villiers[219] and Mr.
Thomas Townshend moved the Addresses. Seymour and Bamber Gascoyne,
Nugent and Stanley, attacked the Ministers for their want of spirit
against the Americans, and for suffering the authority of Parliament
to be called in question by the rebellious Colonies. “The tax,” said
Stanley, “was not a twentieth part of what they could afford to
pay; but that was not the point: he had rather have a peppercorn to
acknowledge our sovereignty, than millions paid into the Treasury
without it.” As he was speaking, Mr. Pitt appeared in the House, and
took the first opportunity of opening his mind, not only on the Stamp
Act, but on the general situation of affairs. Though he had on other
occasions, perhaps, exerted more powers of eloquence (though he was
much admired now even in that light), yet the novelty and boldness of
his doctrines, the offence he gave by them at home, and the delirium
which they excited in America, made his speech rank in celebrity with
his most famous orations. For these reasons, and as the repeal of the
Stamp Act was the last great question on which he figured in the House
of Commons, I shall be more particular in the detail of it, having
received authentic notes from one that was present at the delivery, and
therefore more to be depended on than the printed copy.[220]
He had come to town that morning, he said, _unconcerted_ and
unconnected, and not having arrived early enough, desired to hear the
proposed Address read, which being done, he thought it, he said, a
very proper one, though he should wish to separate from it the unhappy
measure of the Stamp Act. No day had been so important since the
time, a little above a century ago, when it had been debated whether
we should be bond or free. More than ordinary circumspection was
requisite on that nice, difficult, and hardly debateable question.
Truth did extort from him that the compliment of _early_ applied to
the present meeting of Parliament did _not_ belong to the American
part of the question. _He_ would have called the Parliament sooner.
He then pronounced that _the House of Commons did not represent North
America_. It had, as the Legislature, not as representatives, taxed
North America. For him, the question was too hard; but, popular or
unpopular, he would do as he thought right. Was there a set of men in
this country by whom he had not been sacrificed? He saw before him a
set of gentlemen whom he respected--some of them his old acquaintance;
these were part of the Administration: but were there not other parts?
One day one man was uppermost, another day, another man. Was there not
an invisible influence from more quarters than one? No matter whence
they came, if they did mischief--God knew whither this country was
going! Had we not seen one Ministry changed after another, and passing
away like shadows? All that could be done for this country was to place
it in a safe situation. When he served his Majesty, he had mentioned it
as his advice that he wished to have that part of the Act of Settlement
enforced, which directs that every Minister should sign his opinion.
Liberty formerly was not made use of as a horse to ride into employment
upon; they rode into the field upon it, and left their bones there.
As he might be deprived by ill health from attending his duty in the
House when this question should come on, he begged leave to deliver his
opinion then. He would repeal the Stamp Act immediately, and accompany
it with a bill declaratory of their own high rights and privileges over
that country, which should be done upon the most extensive plan. But he
would repeat it, _That House had no right to lay an internal tax upon
America, that country not being represented_.
General Conway said, he had the honour of agreeing with almost every
word that had fallen from Mr. Pitt; but if there was any blame to be
cast for not meeting the Parliament sooner, he must bear it in common
with the rest of his Majesty’s servants who advised it. For himself
he had been unworthily and accidentally called to the high employment
he then bore; he had not studiously thrust himself into it, and could
assure the right honourable gentleman that he should think himself
happy to resign it to him whenever he should please to take it. Himself
had not made use of liberty to ride into employment; it was indifferent
to him, and he should be equally happy to turn his horse’s head and
ride out again.
Mr. Pitt assured him that he had not glanced at him in any word he had
uttered, he had too high an opinion of him. The only piece of advice
he would give Mr. Conway was not to be ridden, and he dared to say he
never would.[221]
Mr. Grenville said, the Stamp Act had been thoroughly considered, not
hurried at the end of a session. It had passed through the different
stages in full Houses with, he thought, only one division on it.
“Look,” said he, “into Magna Charta; you will see we have a right to
tax America; and that all laws are enacted by Commune Consilium Regni:
and will the honourable gentleman then say we have not a right”--He
was interrupted by Pitt; and, after some squabbling and explanation,
Grenville continued: “Why then I understand the gentleman’s opinion
to be, that you have a right on every other occasion except to lay an
internal tax”--Being again interrupted, Mr. Pitt begged to be indulged
in a few words by way of reply, and then, as was common with him,
launched out into a new harangue: “Though the gentleman,” said he, “is
armed at all points with Acts of Parliament, yet I will venture to say
that if he was to take the three first words that he might find in a
dictionary, they would be full as much to the purpose as his Commune
Consilium Regni. Does he consider that, at the time he speaks of, the
barons had all the land--though indeed the Church, God bless it! had
then a third, when the bishops, mitred abbots, and such things, had
influence? I laugh, sir, I laugh, when it is said this country cannot
coerce America; but will you do it upon a point that is intricate, and
in a matter of right that is disputed? Will you, after the Peace you
have made, and the small pittance of the fishery that is left you, will
you sheath your sword in the bowels of your brothers, the Americans?
You may coerce and conquer, but when they fall, they will fall like
the strong man embracing the pillars of this Constitution, and bury
it in ruin with them. Gentlemen may double down Acts of Parliament
till they are dogseared, it will have no effect upon me; I am past the
time of life to be turning to books to know whether I love liberty or
not. There are two or three lines of Prior applicable to the present
question, supposing America in the situation of a wife: they are these,
where he says--
“‘Be to her faults a little blind,
Be to her virtues very kind,
And clap the padlock on her mind.’
“I don’t know how it is,” continued he, “when I had something to do
in advising, there were always three hundred gentlemen ready to be
of my opinion--I don’t know how it came about--perhaps it was their
modesty--I wish they would not be quite so modest. Indeed there was
one person who is now gone to the House of Lords, and sits there by an
old barony,[222] who was honest enough to disagree with me, and called
it _my_ German war: I have loved him ever since for being so honest
to speak his mind; I see his employment is taken from him; had I been
employed, he is one of the first persons I should have endeavoured
to keep in, for no other reason but because he had differed with me.
When I was in power, I do not doubt but I had friends who would have
advised me to burn my fingers, and would have recommended such a tax
as this. Look at past Ministers, and see what they thought of it.
Lord Halifax,[223] educated in this House, Lord Oxford,[224] Lord
Orford,[225] a great revenue minister, never thought of THIS. If you
had the right, it would be a fatal policy; for will not that people, if
they share your taxes, claim the right of manufactures, of free trade,
of every other privilege of the mother-country? An honourable gentleman
talked of a barleycorn; I say this tax is but a barleycorn--fifty
thousand pounds are but a barleycorn. Will you have your Treasury look
big at the expense of two millions? My ideas and knowledge of America
have been chiefly learnt from gentlemen of the army. There is not the
captain of a company of foot that is not fit to be a Governor of North
America. How can you depend upon Spain after the treatment she has
shown to that brave and gallant officer,[226] who has suffered for
his lenity towards them at the Manillas, and now feels their perfidy?
It were to be wished that the heart of every grandee in Spain beat as
high as his! In the situation things are, nobody can trade in North
America but a lawyer. I hate distinctions; I do not consider the soil
or the cradle where a man is nursed; I look for sense and wisdom, if
he has it. I have done all in my power to show I hate distinctions.
Before this war it was a measure not to trust the sword in the hands
of the northern part of his Majesty’s subjects; but the late war
convinced everybody what just praise they deserved for their conduct.”
Here he was called to order by Mr. Grenville, who said, “This is
not the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time that the
honourable gentleman has mistaken or misrepresented. I have also been
misrepresented upon other subjects, particularly with regard to the
Spanish trade. I call upon gentlemen now in power to prove I gave any
orders to prevent that trade, or any other, but at the request of the
merchants themselves.” Here Mr. Grenville himself was called to order
by Lord Strange, who observed, how much Pitt and Grenville had led the
House astray from the debate; which Onslow excused by saying, that the
first day of a Session, when the King’s speech is debated, is always
understood to be a day of free conversation. Still much confusion
ensued; and at last the Chancellor of the Exchequer[227] said, in
answer to Grenville, that when accounts relative to trade should be
produced, they would prove to be in a melancholy state. Mr. Conway
said, that the explanation which Mr. Pitt had been pleased to give,
had relieved his mind; he considered from how high a drop fell that
fell from him, and what an effect it had upon the rest of the world. He
assured Mr. Pitt how ready he was, he would not say, to act with him,
but under him, and declared he knew at present of no hidden influence.
The Address passed without a negative.
Mr. Conway, then, by order of his Majesty, presented at the bar the
letters and different intelligence to and from America, and moved
to have them taken into consideration on the Thursday sevennight
following.[228] Mr. Rigby proposed to have them printed. Mr. Conway
observed, that those papers mentioned particular names of men and their
transactions, and therefore objected to the printing. Mr. Nugent said,
Too much had been done now to leave any room for secrecy; and Mr.
Conway gave it up. Huske[229] told the House very properly, that, if
they printed the names, they would never have any more intelligence: on
which the Attorney-General proposed, as was done on the inquiry into
the loss of Minorca, to print the papers, but omit names. It passed,
however, for printing all. The next day Sir George Saville, who had
been absent, and the Speaker,[230] who had been uneasy at the order for
printing the names, prevailed to have the order for the names revoked,
and the Speaker was entrusted with the supervisal.
Mr. Pitt’s speech, as I have said, gave great offence, and even to the
Scotch, though he had endeavoured to distinguish them from Lord Bute.
It was a greater disappointment to the late Ministers, who had not
expected that he would prove so favourable to their successors. Lord
Sandwich, so recently a persecutor of Wilkes and the press, had now
set up a most virulent and scurrilous paper, called Anti-Sejanus,[231]
written by one Scott, an hireling parson, and chiefly levelled at Lord
Bute. Concluding that Mr. Pitt did not approve of any men who enjoyed
the power at which he himself aimed, the new daily libel set out with
profuse encomiums on him. It now took a short turn, and involved Mr.
Pitt, too, in a medley of scurrility; but what with want of talents,
what with want of decency, this paper was one of those few vehicles of
ribaldry which was forced to put itself to death before the object of
its patron was answered.
On the 27th of January, Mr. Cooke, of Middlesex, presented a petition
from some of the North American provinces assembled in Congress,
against the Stamp Act. Jenkinson and Dyson, placemen, but creatures
of Lord Bute, opposed receiving it; as did Nugent and Ellis, who
called it a dangerous federal union. Dowdeswell, the new Chancellor
of the Exchequer, agreed with them, as there was nothing, he said,
in the petition, but what had been already received in others from
the separate provinces, and therefore he wished Cooke to withdraw
what he had offered. Mr. Pitt warmly undertook the protection of the
petition, which he affirmed was innocent, dutiful, and respectful. He
did not know the time, he said, when he had been counsellor to timid
councils; but on this occasion should have thought it happy to have
made this the first act of harmony. He painted the Americans as people
who, in an ill-fated hour, had left this country to fly from the Star
Chamber and High Commission Courts. The desert smiled upon them in
comparison of this country. It was the evil genius of this country
that had riveted amongst them this union, now called _dangerous and
federal_. He did not see but honest Wildman’s[232] or Newmarket might
be talked of in the same strain. This country upon occasion has its
meetings, and nobody objects to them; but the names of six or eight
Americans are to be big with danger. He could not guess, by the turn of
the debate, whether the Administration intended lenity or not. To him
lenity was recommended by every argument. He would emphatically hear
the Colonies upon this their petition. The right of representation and
taxation always went together and should never be separated. Except
for the principles of Government, records were out of the question.
“_You have broken_,” continued he, “_the original compact, if you have
not a right of taxation_.” The repeal of the Stamp Act was an inferior
consideration to receiving this petition.
Sir Fletcher Norton rose with great heat, and said, He could hardly
keep his temper at some words that had fallen from the right honourable
gentleman. He had said, that the original compact had been broken
between us and America, if the House had not the right of taxation.
Pitt rose to explain--Norton continued; “The gentleman now says, I
mistook his words; I do not now understand them.” Pitt interrupted him
angrily, and said, “I did say the Colony compact would be broken--and
what then?” Norton replied, “The gentleman speaks out now, and I
understand him; and if the House go along with me, the gentleman
will go to another place.”[233] Pitt at this looked with the utmost
contempt, tossed up his chin, and cried, “Oh! oh!--oh! oh!” “I will
bear that from no man,” said Norton: “changing their place, did not
make Englishmen change their allegiance. I say the gentleman sounds the
trumpet to rebellion; or would he have the strangers in the gallery go
away with these his opinions? He has chilled my blood at the idea.”
“The gentleman,” rejoined Pitt, “says I have chilled his blood: I shall
be glad to meet him in any place with the same opinions, when his blood
is warmer.”
Hussey, Colonel Barré, Thurlow, and, of the Ministerial people, Lord
Howe and Onslow, only were for hearing the petition; but Conway
objected, as it came from the Congress, and said, if the separate
petitions had been heard last year, this would not have happened now.
He wished to have the petition withdrawn, as he should be sorry to have
a negative put upon it. George Grenville insisted on the House deciding
as the question had been proposed. Burke, who maintained that the very
presentation of the petition was an acknowledgment of the right of the
House, declared for receiving it; but Lord John Cavendish and Alderman
Baker declaring they thought it of little importance; and the former
moving for the orders of the day, that motion was carried without a
division.
There appeared in this debate a new speaker, whose fame for eloquence
soon rose high above the ordinary pitch. His name was Edmund Burke,
(whom I have just mentioned,) an Irishman, of a Roman Catholic family,
and actually married to one of that persuasion.[234] He had been
known to the public for a few years by his “Essay on the Sublime and
Beautiful,” and other ingenious works; but the narrowness of his
fortune had kept him down, and his best revenue had arisen from writing
for booksellers. Lord Rockingham, on being raised to the head of the
Treasury, had taken Burke for his private Secretary, as Mr. Conway
had his cousin William. Edmund immediately proved a bitter scourge to
George Grenville, whose tedious harangues he ridiculed with infinite
wit, and answered with equal argument. Grenville himself was not more
copious; but, with unexhausted fertility, Burke had an imagination
that poured out new ideas, metaphors, and allusions, which came forth
ready dressed in the most ornamental and yet the most correct language.
In truth, he was so fond of flowers, that he snatched them, if they
presented themselves, even from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. His wit, though
prepared, seldom failed him; his judgment often. Aiming always at the
brilliant, and rarely concise, it appeared that he felt nothing really
but the lust of applause. His knowledge was infinite, but vanity had
the only key to it; and though no doubt he aspired highly, he seemed
content when he had satisfied the glory of the day, whatever proved
the event of the debate. This kind of eloquence contented himself, and
often his party; but the House grew weary at length of so many essays.
Having come too late into public life, and being too conceited to
study men whom he thought his inferiors in ability, he proved a very
indifferent politician--the case of many men I have known, who have
dealt too much in books or a profession: they apply their knowledge to
objects to which it does not belong, and think it as easy to govern
men, when they rise above them, as they found when themselves were
lower and led their superiors by flattery. It is perhaps more expedient
for a man of mean birth to be humble after his exaltation than before.
Insolence is more easily tolerated in an inferior, than in an inferior
mounted above his superiors.[235]
William Burke, the cousin of Edmund, wrote with ingenuity and
sharpness; and both of them were serviceable to the new Administration,
by party papers. But William, as an orator, had neither manner nor
talents, and yet wanted little of his cousin’s presumption.[236]
Edmund, though the idol of his party, had nothing of the pathetic
and imposing dignity of Pitt, though possessed of far more knowledge,
and more reasoning abilities. But Pitt could awe those whom he could
no longer lead, and never seemed _greater_ than when abandoned by
all. Charles Townshend, who had studied nothing accurately or with
attention, had parts that embraced all knowledge with such quickness,
that he seemed to create knowledge instead of searching for it; and,
ready as Burke’s wit was, it appeared artificial when set by that
of Charles Townshend, which was so abundant, that in him it seemed
a loss of time to think. He had but to speak, and all he said was
new, natural, and yet uncommon. If Burke replied extempore, his very
answers, that sprang from what had been said by others, were so painted
and artfully arranged, that they wore the appearance of study and
preparation: like beautiful translations, they seemed to want the soul
of the original author. Townshend’s speeches, like the Satires of
Pope, had a thousand times more sense and meaning than the majestic
blank verse of Pitt; and yet, the latter, like Milton, stalked with a
conscious dignity of pre-eminence, and fascinated his audience with
that respect which always attends the pompous but often hollow idea of
the sublime.