The Duke of Newcastle’s difficulties in forming a new
Government--Prince of Wales interferes to facilitate
arrangements--Lord Waldegrave appointed first Lord of the
Treasury--Resignation of the Duke of Newcastle’s friends--The
Author’s advice to Fox--The King reluctantly acquiesces in
the abandonment of Lord Waldegrave’s projected Ministry--The
new Ministry settled--Charge on the Public--Lord Waldegrave
has the Garter--King of Prussia repulsed by Daun--Battle of
Hastenbecke--Duke of Cumberland defeated--The King overwhelmed
with the misfortunes of Hanover--Proceedings at Leicester
House--Disturbances on the Militia Bill--France--Expedition to
Rochfort.
June 3rd.--His Grace returned to Kensington, but still fluctuating;
and begged to defer declaring his last resolution till the Tuesday
following: this was on the Friday. Preposterous as this suspense
of Government was, it occasioned no disturbance, scarce a murmur.
The people, hating Fox, neglected by Pitt, and despising Newcastle,
waited with patience to see which of them was to be their master.
The next day was the Birthday of the Prince of Wales. His Royal
Highness was told, that it would have a gracious air with the people,
if he took upon himself to facilitate measures for his grandfather’s
ease; that he must command Pitt to give up the point of George
Grenville being Chancellor of the Exchequer. Pitt, who had heard
how much he was loaded by the other factions with the accusation
of impracticable haughtiness, yielded; and had a conference at the
Prince’s drawing-room with Newcastle and Lord Bute, who acted as
mediator. Newcastle persisted that the King _would_ retain Lord
Winchelsea; and to balance the authority that he saw must fall to
Pitt, said to him, “But you will not act with Fox.”--Pitt replied,
“My lord, I never said so--but does your Grace say you would? When
you have said you will, I will consult my friends.” Newcastle, not
the most intelligible even when he was explicit, took care not to
be understood sooner than he was determined; and the conversation
ended abruptly:--however, on the 7th, though not agreed with Pitt, he
went to Kensington, and declared to the King, that he could not come
in, unless Mr. Pitt’s whole plan was accepted. The King reproached
him bitterly with all his shifts and evasions, and falsehoods; and
demanded his assistance for Fox, if he would not himself undertake
the service. He waved any such promise, and the King dismissed him in
wrath.
Fox now took the merit of venturing all to support his Majesty,
and declared he would accept the Ministry--but it seemed almost
impossible to form one, if Pitt was not to be of it, and Newcastle
withheld his assistance. It was difficult even to know whom they
should place at the head of the Treasury. In this distress the King
(probably by the suggestion of Mr. Fox,) sent for Lord Waldegrave,
and commanded him to accept that high and dangerous post. The public
was not more astonished at that designation, than the Earl himself.
Though no man knew the secrets of Government better, no man knew the
manœuvre of business less. He was no speaker in Parliament, had no
interest there, and though universally beloved and respected where
known, was by no means familiarized to the eyes of the nation. He
declined as long as modesty became him; engaged with spirit, the
moment he felt the abandoned state in which his master and benefactor
stood.
A trifling incident showed the ridiculous light in which the
new establishment appeared: it was the 8th of June when Fox’s
Administration was notified: the House of Commons was very thin;
Ellis came with an air of mysterious importance, and desired the
House to adjourn to the 13th following. Lord George Sackville and
George Townshend opposed this in joke, the latter saying that a Bill
of great consequence relating to Milbourn-port was to be considered
that day; yet if Ellis would say that a Ministry was to be formed
during the proposed recess, he would consent to it. Ellis would say
nothing; the House divided, Ellis with ten more against fifty-seven;
and thus Fox lost a question even before he was Minister.
The next day Lord Holderness went to Kensington and resigned the
Seals, as a declaration of the Newcastle squadron against Fox. The
King received him with the cool scorn he deserved.[4] Lord Rockingham
and many others[5] notified their intention of resigning upon the
same foot. Newcastle took pains to promote these resignations, and
told Lord Northumberland that they caught like wildfire. The latter
replied artfully, “I have great obligations to your Grace, but
should think I repaid them very ill by resigning, as it would be
contributing to make your Grace distress his Majesty.” Indeed, to the
King and others, the Duke solemnly forswore any knowledge of that
measure; and while he enjoined or inculcated it to his friends, he
prohibited it to Lord Lincoln and the Duke of Leeds, his relations,
that he might tell the King that his own family had stood by his
Majesty--a silly finesse, and blown up even by himself, he bragging
to Lord Waldegrave of the display of his power in that measure, the
very instant after he had denied it with oaths.
One resignation was made on the other hand; Sir George Lee quitted
the Princess, not brooking the influence of Pitt with her, and
finding himself a cypher at that Court, since Lord Bute had become
more than Minister there. Sir George had even once determined to make
such a remonstrance to her on her conduct, as the Fathers of the
Church had formerly assumed the impertinent familiarity of making to
Princes, in ages when insolence was reckoned a primitive virtue.
Horace Walpole saw the precipice on which Fox stood, and wished to
save him from it. He saw, too, an opening for delivering the nation
from that disgraceful man (Newcastle), who had so long perplexed
all its Councils, and been a principal cause of its misfortunes. He
sounded Lord George Sackville, and thinking him not ill-disposed to
Fox, and by no means amicable to Newcastle, he proposed his plan to
the former. It was, that the King should send _carte blanche_ to
Pitt, to place the Duke of Dorset at the head of the Treasury, with
Lord George for Secretary at War, and, by dissolving the Parliament,
dissipate at once Newcastle’s influence. Fox, who feared a popular
election, disapproved the latter part, and did not relish Lord George
in the War Office--too sharp-sighted, and who, to the desertion of
Fox, had added a refusal of making Calcraft agent to his regiment.
However, he permitted Walpole to propose all this to Lord George,
adding that he would take Paymaster (which seemed to be his nearest
wish), under Pitt, or would even act under him without an employment,
with the sole privilege reserved of abusing Newcastle as much as he
pleased.
Lord George Sackville owned he should have liked the plan, but was
now too far engaged. He confessed he had taken his part, as the
contest lay between Leicester House and the Duke; and the rather,
as he had long observed that the Duke loved none but men totally
detached from all other connexions, and had even been less kind to
Conway since his marriage; and, as an insurmountable objection, said,
that Lord Bute, who was of scrupulous honour, would now reckon their
party bound by these resignations. Thus this plan failed, though the
King, whose aversion was diverted from Pitt to Newcastle, would have
consented to anything, that might make the treacheries of the latter
fall on his own head.
Fox’s junto met two or three times: Lord Granville would have infused
his jovial intrepidity into them: Bedford wanted no inspired ardour;
but Fox himself desponded, and Bedford reproached him with it.
June 11th.--Lord Mansfield went to Kensington with the Exchequer
Seals, which Fox was to receive. The King asked the former his
opinion; Lord Mansfield told him fairly it could not do for Fox;
then, said the King, “Let them make an Administration.” Fox and Lord
Waldegrave both told him the impossibilities they found, yet would
proceed if his Majesty insisted. He said, “No, he did not desire his
friends should suffer for him: he found he was to be prisoner for
the rest of his life: he hoped, whatever he might be made to do, his
friends would not impute to him, for he should not be a free agent:
he had not thought that he had so many of Newcastle’s _footmen_[6]
about him: soon, he supposed, he should not be able to make a Page of
the Back-stairs. For Hanover, he must give it up, it cost an hundred
and twenty thousand pounds a month for forage alone: he found he must
lose his Electoral dominions for an English quarrel: while at the
same time he lost all authority in England!”
Leicester House took advantage of these difficulties: they engaged
Lord Chesterfield to negotiate between Newcastle and Pitt. The Earl,
who had lived for some time retired from business, undertook the
Embassy. It seemed a marvellous office for him, who had long broken
with the latter, and had even, in very cutting terms, acquainted the
world with his reasons for breaking with the former. But it seems he
had still stronger prejudices to the Duke of Cumberland: he undertook
the employ[7] with cheerfulness and success.
On the 15th, the King wrote a note to Lord Hardwicke, desiring him,
in consideration of the state of affairs both at home and abroad, to
hasten some Administration that might not be changed again in five
months. He mentioned his promise of the Pay-Office to Fox, and his
obligations to Lord Winchelsea. Lord Hardwicke promised to wait on
his Majesty on the 17th with some plan; but the next day desired a
day longer.
At last, after an interval of above eleven weeks, the Ministry was
settled, and kissed hands on the 29th. The Duke of Newcastle returned
to the Treasury, with Legge for his Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Pitt and Lord Holderness were Secretaries of State. Lord Temple had
the Privy Seal in the room of Lord Gower, who was made Master of
the Horse, the Duke of Dorset being set aside, but with a pension
of 3000_l._ a-year, added to his Wardenship of the Cinque Ports. On
Lord George Sackville the King put a flat negative. Fox accepted
the Pay-Office, professing great content, and that he should offend
neither in thought, word, nor deed. Both Newcastle and Pitt acted
wisely in permitting him to enjoy this place: he was tied up from
giving them any trouble--and while serving for interest under Pitt,
how much did it exalt the latter! Yet the latter, too, took care to
deserve his share of reproach.
Adjusting their list with Lord Hardwicke, Pitt said, he missed a very
respectable name there, which he hoped would be placed greatly--it
was Lord Anson’s--and he was restored to the Admiralty--whether with
more opprobrium to himself, who returned to that Board with Pitt’s
set, abandoning his own, who had been disgraced with him; or to
Pitt, who restored so incapable an object to a trust so wretchedly
executed, I am in doubt to determine. Who did act with honour and
noble spirit, was Lord Winchelsea; he refused a pension, disdaining
to accept any emolument, when his associates were excluded. At that
Board he always acted with capacity, everywhere with firmness; and
was the only man who, in all these changes, acquired credit, both by
his rise and by his fall.
Lord Cholmondeley got a pension to make way for Potter: Lord Thomond
had Lord Bateman’s White Stick, who, the Duke of Newcastle said
arrogantly enough, should not carry his messages. Tennison was
removed with a pension from the Buck-Hounds, ceding them to Lord
Bateman. Pitt insisted that Pratt, a favourite lawyer at the bar of
the House of Commons, should be Attorney-General. Sir Robert Henley,
who could not decently be disgraced without any reason, was so lucky
to find that that reason (and certainly there could be no other) was
sufficient to promote him: he was made Lord Keeper. The Seals had
been offered to Murray, and to the Master of the Rolls, who refused
them, and to Willes, who proposed to be bribed by a Peerage, to be at
the head of his profession, but could not obtain it. Henley, however,
who saw it was the mode of the times to be paid by one favour for
receiving another, demanded a Tellership of the Exchequer for his
son, which was granted, with a pension of 1500_l._ a-year till it
should drop; and, as if heaping rewards on him would disguise his
slender pretensions, Lord Hardwicke told him he must be Speaker of
the House of Lords too, for Westminster-Hall would never forgive
him (Lord Hardwicke) if he suffered those offices to be disjoined.
Sandys and his son were both laid aside. Hardwicke himself took no
employment; the Seals, which it was plain from his not resuming them,
he had not resigned from mere friendship to Newcastle, were too great
a fatigue; and no other of the great offices was vacant.
It was no small mischief flowing from these disgraceful revolutions,
the additional charge entailed on the public. Here were new pensions,
of 3000_l._ a-year to Dorset, near as much to Cholmondeley, 1500_l._
to Henley, 1200_l._ to Tennison; besides others more secret. Yet all
this profusion of grants and concessions could not satisfy everybody.
The Townshends were furious: George, at any amnesty for Fox; Charles,
at not being promoted himself. Lord Halifax, who demanded to be
Secretary of State for the West Indies, a theatre on which Pitt
meditated to shine himself, threw up on being refused; but, having
outlived his income, was forced to re-accept, what, unless he had
persisted, he had done more wisely to retain. The Duke of Bedford was
warm against the new system, but was soon composed. The City, too,
was indignant at the re-establishment of Lord Anson: but when the
chiefs are accorded, the mob of a faction are little regarded. Men
could not but smile observing Pitt return to Court, the moment he
had been made free of so many cities for quitting it, exactly as he
accepted an employment there before old Marlborough was scarce cold,
who had left him 10,000_l._ as a reward for his patriotism.
The King gave the Garter to Lord Waldegrave, an almost unprecedented
favour, as it was given alone--but he deserved it--and this act of
royalty, almost the only flower of the Crown unviolated, gave the
King double satisfaction, for he had before given hopes of it to Lord
Holderness, who being, like Lord Harrington, the mere creature of
his Majesty’s bounty, had, like Lord Harrington, been the first to
insult his master with an offensive resignation.
I here close the scene on these Court squabbles; and perhaps have
described them too minutely. Passages, in which one has been
conversant, often appear too interesting. I can only say, that I have
preferred offending in this extreme to the contrary. Nothing is more
easy than to pass over what is too diffuse--but, as many men love
these details, their curiosity would be unsatisfied with abridgments.
Probably these anecdotes will amuse for some years, till they are
lost in the mass of books, and when the affairs of this little spot,
which we call Britain, shall appear of no more importance than our
island itself in a geographic picture. To be read for a few years is
immortality enough for such a writer as me!
A greater field was now opened. That formidable confederacy of
France, Austria, Russia, and Sweden, seemed determined to enclose
and crush the King of Prussia. The Duke of Cumberland, with the
forlorn Hanoverian army, was a slight barrier against such alarming
advances. Coloredo, the Austrian Minister at London, was ordered
to retire without taking leave; and as a further earnest of their
hostile intentions to England, Ostend and Nieuport were resigned
into the hands of France. Count Daun, the Austrian Fabius, was sent
with 45,000 men to raise the siege of Prague. The King of Prussia,
too impetuous to await their cautious approach, flew with about
30,000 men to meet them; and finding Daun strongly entrenched on a
hill, thought ardour and his name sufficient to dislodge them. He
returned seven times to the attack after as many repulses, performed
actions of extravagant bravery himself; and when forced at last, by
an impregnable situation, by superior numbers, and by equal valour,
to abandon his purpose, he crowned the splendour of the enterprise by
modestly confessing how unadvisedly he had undertaken it. He raised
the siege of Prague, and retired to Leutmeritz. Daun had the good
sense to know that his country was not to be saved by the rules of
romance. Rashness might immortalize a Monarch whose crown and life
were at stake, and were at the same time less objects than his glory:
a subject would be unpardonable, and of all subjects an Austrian had
the least chance of pardon, who should suffer his fame to weigh one
moment against his duty.
The French in the meantime advanced in such formidable numbers,
that the Duke of Cumberland was obliged to retire and leave Hanover
at their mercy. However, they came up with him at Hastenbecke, and
a battle ensued. The Duke never showed himself so able a General,
and though exceedingly inferior in force, disputed his ground till
the French, who had great difficulty to carry up their men to the
charge, despaired of the victory. But fresh squadrons pouring in upon
him, and more approaching, his Royal Highness, apprehensive of being
enclosed, resigned the success, though not the glory, of the day to
D’Etrées, who was happy to find his enemy take a step that he was
deliberating whether it would not be prudent for him to take himself.
The Hanoverian statesmen, in the wildness of their despair for the
destruction of their country and of their fortunes, not caring whom
they charged, accused _that_ Prince of timidity, whom all England
had all his life accused of rash and German appetite for fighting;
and the French with no less injustice decried their own victorious
General, till Madame Pompadour and the Courtiers took advantage to
supplant him; and Richelieu was sent to become those laurels which
had been earned by the best officer in their service.
The King almost sunk under this weight of misfortunes. That country,
which with so much patriotism and so little prudence he had made
the point in which his whole policy centred--that country now felt
all the bitterness of desolation! Hanover, which so long had tasted
the felicity of being conjoined to England, was now ravaged in an
English quarrel. And unless we will suppose that his Majesty hoped
to hire out his Electoral troops to his Crown in a contest which he
flattered himself would never be agitated in Germany, one cannot
conceive why with such improvident facility he had permitted the
Chancellor and Newcastle to bound into a war with France; a war
undertaken from some provocation, with no preparation; and discussed
with no more solidity, than the mob, whom it was made to captivate,
could have employed. The French had aimed at and proceeded to invade
our settlements. We returned hostilities with as slight a force as
if we had only sent a herald to denounce war. We then seized their
ships--and did nothing more; yes, we engaged some German mercenaries,
as if the Duke of Newcastle had thought that the Rhine and the Ohio
were the same river. Had we, like the French, waved expressions
of war, till we had mustered a mighty force in America, where our
superiority is exceedingly great; had we increased our Navy before we
seized theirs; had we at least imitated their arts as well as their
invasions, we might have dictated in the new world, and lived without
hostilities in the old. No wonder the King was overwhelmed with the
explosion of such calamities and blunders--still he had deserved
compassion; had he not shown that, whatever his reflection suggested,
his heart had no generous feelings--But of this anon.
The Court at Leicester House was very differently employed during
these serious transactions. Hanover was lost; in North America our
affairs went ill; England itself was in no flourishing condition.
How did the Princess occupy the heir of all these domains? She was
not Spartan enough to buckle on his armour with her own hands, and
send him to save or reconquer what he was to govern. The light of
the Gospel has emancipated mothers from such robust sensations. The
Prince was instructed to commit the care of the temporal concerns of
his subjects to Providence; and therefore, instead of sending men,
arms, ammunition to the invaded frontiers of our colonies,[8] with
more patriarchal vigilance his Royal Highness sent them an hundred
pounds’ worth of Leland’s polemic writings against the Deists. The
Princess herself bestowed an annuity of one hundred pounds on a young
Scotch[9] clergyman, who having been persecuted by the kirk for
writing a tragedy called Douglas, threw himself and his piece on the
protection of the Earl of Bute.
I have said our affairs in North America went ill; it is very
true. About this time came letters from the Earl of Loudun, the
Commander-in-Chief there, who said, he found the French were 21,000
strong; he had not so many; could not attack Louisbourg; should
return to Halifax. Admiral Holbourn, one of the sternest condemners
of Byng, wrote at the same time, that he having but seventeen
ships, and the French nineteen, he dared not attack them. These
disappointments gave great disgust. Lord Loudun had been selected
by the Duke and Fox for this command, and our expectations had been
raised high of what he would perform. Here was another summer lost!
Pitt expressed himself with great vehemence against the Earl--and we
naturally have too lofty ideas of our naval strength to suppose that
seventeen of our ships are not a match for any nineteen others.
At home there were great disturbances on the new Militia Bill. Lord
Hardwicke and the Lords, meaning to defeat it, had clogged it with
impracticabilities, absurdities, and hardships; particularly by
obliging every poor man to pay ten pounds, or find a substitute, or
go for a soldier; and yet he would be liable to serve again at the
end of three years. This was a tax of above three pounds a year.
Nor was any fund provided for the expenses of carrying the Act into
execution. These objections gave sufficient handle to the disaffected
to decry the system. The Tory gentlemen in particular, apprehending
that the Whigs would acquire influence in their counties by the
articles of clothing, &c., used their utmost endeavours to prepossess
the country against the Bill. They inculcated into the people a
belief that they would be trepanned to Gibraltar, like the two
Somersetshire regiments that I formerly mentioned; and that whoever
should give in his name, would to all intents and purposes become a
soldier for life.
This misrepresentation had too fatal effect. The peasants became
refractory beyond measure; riots were raised in several counties,
as Surrey, Kent, Leicester, Hertford, Bedford, Nottingham, and York
shires. The lists were forced by violence from the magistrates; Lord
Robert Sutton was in danger of his life at Nottingham; the Duke of
Bedford’s house, near Bedford, was threatened to be demolished, as
he had been the first to advertise for a meeting. The Blues were
ordered down to his defence; and it was worth observation, that the
standing Army was employed to impose upon the people a constitutional
force. His Grace threatened to carry the act into execution with a
high hand, but on the day of the meeting he adjourned it to December,
when he knew he should be in Ireland. The Duke of Dorset was attacked
at Knowle, but saved by a young officer, who sallied out, and seized
two-and-twenty of the rioters. The Speaker himself was insulted at
Guildford, and menaced in his own house at Ember-court, and could
not disperse the insurrection but by promising no further steps
should be taken till the next session of Parliament. But the greatest
indecencies were committed by the family of Townshend. George, the
author of the Militia, was on very ill terms with his father, who
was as wrong-headed as his son, and more mad. They wrote abusive
pamphlets against one another; and the father, attended by a parson
and a few low people, began a mob on the day the meeting for the
Militia was to be held, and pasted up one of his own libels on the
doors of four churches nearest to his seat.
Under these difficulties, Mr. Pitt began to exert his new-acquired
power, and to give symptoms of more vigorous government. France,
notwithstanding her imposing airs, and our feeble and spiritless
conduct, had carried no great point against us. Her finances were
in disorder, her marine not respectable, the flower of her armies
transported to Germany. Their King threw a damp on all operations.
Melancholic, apprehensive of assassination, desirous of resigning
his Crown, averse to the war from principles of humanity, perplexed
by factions, and still resigned to the influence of his mistress,
every measure was confirmed by him with reluctance or obtained by
intrigues; yet they had imprinted such terrors of invasion upon us,
that Mr. Pitt, concluding their own coasts might be ill-provided,
while they menaced ours, determined to strike a hardy stroke, that
should at once invert the system of fear, and restore our reputation
by carrying the war into the quarters of the enemy.
There was a young Scot, by name Clarke, ill-favoured in his person,
with a cast in his eyes, of intellects not very sound, but quick,
bold, adventurous. At the siege of Berg-op-zoom, being pursued into
a house where the enemies fired at him through a door, he opened it
and told them he was related to Marshal Lowendahl, who would reward
them for saving him. Being conducted to the Marshal, with the same
readiness he avowed the deceit, urging that he had no other method
of saving his life. Lowendahl was pleased with the man, and gave
him money. Not rising in England to his expectation, he attempted
to advance himself in Ireland under the Duke of Devonshire; where
miscarrying too, he imputed his disappointment to Mr. Conway, who
equally incapable of disserving any man, or of enduring a false
imputation, took Clarke to task, and convinced him of his error.
Clarke, in the interval of some of these adventures, had rambled
into France, and passing through Rochfort, observed a bank to which
there was no ditch, and one part of the fortification left quite
open. The adjacent country, called Little Holland, was flat, and cut
with dykes, but which he persuaded himself were easily passable.
Four years had passed since he made these remarks, and that in a
time of profound peace. He did not pretend to know the strength of
the garrison, nor what troops were stationed on the coast since the
declaration of war--and unfortunately a plan of the place procured
by the late Lord Albemarle from the King’s closet, since Clarke’s
survey, differed from his description. Yet communicating these
observations to Mr. Pitt, the latter was captivated with the idea.
The man and the project struck his notions of performing some action
of _éclat_, that might revive our sinking affairs, and throw a lustre
on the dawn of his own Administration.
Rochfort lies ten miles from the sea. Of late years, we had dealt
exceeding scantily in intelligence. No measures were, possibly
could not in time be, taken to obtain better information of the
dispositions in and near the place. Pitt indeed was a Minister
to execute daringly; there wanted some men of deeper cast to
deliberate wisely. He would not lose time on taking advice; the
secret might evaporate; and its fairest chance for success lay in
the improbability that the French should suspect an attempt on one
of the most important and strongest towns in France. But did not
that very improbability intimate, that they, so provident about
their frontier towns, could not have neglected Rochfort, one of
their principal naval magazines? Objections to a genius are but
spurs. The Cabinet Council was called. Pitt proposed his conception
of surprising Rochfort, and of burning the ships that lay in the
river leading to it. The procrastinators in the Cabinet had but
too lately felt his fire, to oppose what they saw was a favourite
plan. It was determined to be executed forthwith; and the execution
offered to Lord George Sackville, who, too sagacious not to feel
the impracticability, excused himself, pleading the averseness of
the Duke to him, and therefore that he should not be supported. The
excuse was flimsy. The persons who offered him the command, would
have supported him the more for his disfavour with the Duke. Lord
George was still more blameable in talking of the design to several
persons after he had refused to undertake it; and yet though a large
number were acquainted with it, the secret was kept from the public
with uncommon fidelity.
Sir John Mordaunt and General Conway, then encamped in Dorsetshire,
were summoned to town, and acquainted by the Cabinet Council with
the service on which they were to be sent. They should take ten
old battalions, a strong Fleet should be ready in a fortnight to
convoy them; they were to attempt Rochfort, or any other place on
the coast to which they should find an opening. The Generals felt
the difficulty of the commission, saw the crowd of impediments that
must arise, and the ignorance of those that foresaw none. Conway,
as he told me himself, was satisfied he had given such indisputable
proofs of his courage, that it could not be imputed to fear, if he
discovered repugnance to the service--whatever might be imputed to
him, he was determined honestly to speak his opinion. He asked if
they would venture ten of our best battalions on so rash a hazard? If
they should perish, would it not draw the French hither, where we had
few other veteran troops? He asked, on being told the ramparts were
to be scaled, if their height was known? Ligonier, who was present,
replied, No; but they never were above twenty-five feet; and they
should have ladders high enough. Pitt said, in case they failed, they
might go to Bourdeaux. Lord Anson informed him how far that city
lay up the river--and it _was_ information, for he knew not. Was it
probable, Conway asked, that a place of that high importance should
be neglected? and he showed them the contradictions in their own
reasoning, for they pretended that it was a measure calculated to
disembarrass the Duke, by drawing off the troops of France to its own
coast, and yet all the hope of the enterprise depended on the French
being taken unprepared. Pitt was too sanguine to desist for a little
confutation. The instructions were drawn, the transports prepared.
At first, Conway had been designed to command alone, but the King
said he was too young, and insisted on joining Mordaunt with him.
Mordaunt had been remarkable for alertness and bravery, but was much
broken both in spirit and constitution, and fallen into a nervous
disorder, which had made him entreat last year not to be sent to
America, lest it should affect his head, and bring on disorders too
familiar to his family. But though he and Conway had ill conceit of
the service in question, they had both too much honour to decline
it. When their representations failed, all they could was to demand
specific orders; and not obtaining them, they drew up queries, which
if the Ministry could not answer, the Generals hoped they should be
justified in not performing what they foresaw impracticable. But
neither in this did they receive satisfaction.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] It was but seven months since Pitt had insisted on the dismission
of Lord Holderness, who now resigned against Pitt’s rival, who had
been his own associate at that time!
[5] Fox kissing hands was to be the signal.
[6] He used this expression again soon after. Making Lord Orford
Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, he told him, he was of a family that had
always stood by him; hoped _he_ would too, and not behave like _those
footmen of the Duke of Newcastle_.
[7] [Sic in MS.] E.
[8] This sarcasm is most unmerited and absurd. The Prince had no
means of sending _men_, _arms_, and _ammunition_, nor was it any part
of his duty to do so. Even if it had been, a regard for religion and
literature, and some liberality in rewarding genius, are surely not
incompatible with a due attention to public affairs.--E.
[9] John Home.