Mr. Alexander Murray summoned to the bar of the House of Commons,
and committed to Newgate--Sir William Yonge--Debate on the
Army--Evidence of the witnesses against Mr. Murray, and remarks
in Parliament upon it--Quarrel of Lord Coke and the Speaker--The
party of the Prince of Wales--Murray’s behaviour in the House
of Commons considered contemptuous; he is sentenced to closer
confinement--Sir John Cotton--Report on Murray’s case--Character
of Lord Egmont--Colonels Lyttleton, Townshend, and Conway--Sir
Henry Erskine--Charge against General Anstruther--Vices of the
people--Sir John Barnard--Factions--Subsidy to Bavaria--Lord
Chesterfield’s bill for reforming the calendar; his
character--Naturalization Bill.
February 4th.--An army of 18,850 men was proposed. Lord
Limerick[38] moved for 15,000. Ever since the defeat of Lord Bath,
he had been listed under the Prince, but for the last three or
four years had lived retired in Ireland. He had preserved a sort
of character from the impossibility of his being dismissed with
the rest of his friends, as he had secured the reversion of a
large sinecure for life, and, consequently, had less occasion to
be intriguing after new preferment. His speeches were reckoned
severe, and it was not his fault if they did not answer the
character; he meant to wound, but his genius did not carry equal
edge with his temper. Martin, a West Indian lawyer, attached to the
Prince, made a speech of great wit against standing armies, with
very new arguments. The eighteen thousand men were voted in the
committee by 240 to 117, and carried next day on the report, after
a long debate, by 175 to 75.
6th.--The High Bailiff produced eight witnesses against Mr. Murray,
who gave the strongest evidence of his menaces and seditious
behaviour. He was then heard by his Counsel, who brought the High
Constable, Carne, Mr. Gascoyne, Lord Carpenter, and Sir John
Tyrrel, to invalidate the charge. The first only proved that the
words might have been said without his hearing them; the second
confirmed the accuser’s charge in some particulars. Lord Carpenter,
with the greatest decency, gave the most unconscientious evidence;
but though he confined it to negatives, he at last contradicted
himself, and was materially contradicted by Sir John Tyrrel, a
foolish young Knight, who did not know how to reconcile his awe
of the House with the little regard he had for what he was ready
to depose. Lord Carpenter was undertaking Westminster, and having
lately succeeded to a large estate, seemed to think elections the
most equal way of restoring the sums which his father had amassed
by excessive usury. The Counsel made small defence; one of them
even made an excuse for engaging in that cause. Mr. Murray then
advanced to the bar, and said he was ashamed of nothing he was
accused of having said, but calling Lord Trentham a rogue to the
chimney-sweeper, which was below him to have done.
The High Bailiff made short, clear, and fair observations on the
evidence. Colonel Richard Lyttleton then moved a long resolution
of the proofs being full, and was seconded by Colonel George
Townshend. Sir Francis Dashwood opposed it, and would have reduced
all the proofs to immaterial words, and the probability of one of
the witnesses having mistaken the sound of a voice when he did
not see the face of the person who spoke them, though he turned
immediately and saw Mr. Murray, whose voice he had recollected.
Lord Duplin replied. Sir John Cotton reflected on the length of
the motion brought ready drawn, and complained of the House not
having paid due regard to his evidence for Gibson; and both he and
Sir Francis laid great stress on the dignity and character of Lord
Carpenter. Mr. Fox answered in one of the finest, most spirited,
and artful speeches that he ever made; set Lord Duplin’s evidence
against Cotton’s; summed up the whole charge and proofs, and
instead of ridiculing Sir John Tyrrel’s ridiculous evidence, as
less able speakers would have done, he enforced it, commented it,
and then produced it against Lord Carpenter’s. Lord Egmont made an
artful speech, W. Pitt a florid one, T. Pitt a dull one.
During the debate, the strangers in the gallery were called to,
to withdraw; the Speaker said that was his business, unless any
gentleman would move it, and then he would be obliged to him. Lord
Coke rose, moved it, and said, “Sir, I am that gentleman, and grant
your request.” The Speaker immediately ordered them to withdraw,
and said with a smile, “and, my Lord, I have obeyed your commands.”
But as soon as they were gone, he fell into a pompous passion, and
complained of Lord Coke’s repeating his words; having mistaken a
disposition to pomp in another for burlesque, which he did not
perceive was the result of the thing, and not of the intention. The
episode concluded with Lord Coke’s begging his pardon, and with his
being content to have thought himself affronted, as at all events
it had procured him submission.
Of the Prince’s people only thirteen stayed to vote; and towards
midnight, the resolution was carried by 210 to 74. It was then
moved to send Mr. Murray close prisoner to Newgate. Sir John Cotton
and others divided on the word _close_, but were only 52 to 169:
Lord Egmont and his faction had retired. The young Whigs, angry
at this second division, determined to bring Murray on his knees;
and it was proposed to Mr. Pelham in the lobby: he consented, and
it was moved by Colonel Lyttleton and Lord Coke. The Tories were
enraged, and divided again, after Mr. Dowdeswell had moved for
the Tower; but a precedent having been quoted of Middleton, the
Sheriff of Denbigh, being sent to Newgate (in times[39] that the
Whigs loved now to imitate, from the aversion they had felt to the
first example), while they were disputing on the word _close_, and
Mr. Harding had made the Clerk read the journal till it came to the
resolution of addressing the King even to take away an office from
Middleton, Mr. Fox recurred to that precedent, and said, “If the
gentlemen of North Wales, where the Middletons of Chirk Castle are
one of the most ancient families, would yield the precedence to the
Murrays, he would consent that the latter should go to the Tower.”
It being carried by 163 to 40, that he should be brought on his
knees, he was called in. He entered with an air of confidence,
composed of something between a martyr and a coxcomb. The Speaker
called out, “Your obeisances! Sir, your obeisances!”--and
then--“Sir, you must kneel.” He replied, “Sir, I beg to be excused;
I never kneel but to God.” The Speaker repeated the command with
great warmth. Murray answered, “Sir, I am sorry I cannot comply
with your request, I would in anything else.” The Speaker cried,
“Sir, I call upon you again to consider of it.” Murray answered,
“Sir, when I have committed a crime, I kneel to God for pardon; but
I know my own innocence, and cannot kneel to any body else.” The
Speaker ordered the Serjeant to take him away, and secure him. He
was going to reply; the Speaker would not suffer him. The Speaker
then made a representation to the House of his contemptuous
behaviour, and said, “However you may have differed in the debate,
I hope you will be unanimous in his punishment! Pray consider on
it; if he may with impunity behave thus, there is an end of the
dignity and power of this House!”
Sir George Oxenden said he had foreseen this refusal, and had not
voted for bringing him on his knees, and was not answerable for
the consequences--a fine consolation in their dilemma! Mr. Harding
quoted three precedents where persons, and some of them members,
had received their sentence on their knees. Mr. Pelham proposed a
committee to search for precedents how to treat him, and that they
should give their opinion upon it. Mr. Cooke went out, and tried to
persuade him to submit; but he said he would sooner cut his throat.
Mr. Fox went so far as to mention a place of confinement in the
Tower, called Little Ease; but Mr. Pelham declared against such
severe corporal punishment. Sir William Yonge proposed the closest
confinement in Newgate without being visited, (a triumph which
the Tories meditated for him,) and without pen, ink, and paper.
This opinion was afterwards taken up by Lord George Sackville, and
agreed to, though Vyner urged that he would be punished twice if
they adhered to the former sentence after his submission. Alderman
Jansen moved in vain to adjourn. W. Pitt hinted at a bill to be
passed against him if he would not comply. Admiral Vernon made such
an outrageous speech against these proceedings, desiring to have
Magna Charta referred to the committee, that he was several times
taken to order by the Speaker, Sir John Mordaunt, and Mr. Pelham,
and was on the brink of falling under the sentence of the House.
The Speaker himself proposed the question on Murray’s contempt,
which Sir John Cotton tried to prevent being inserted in the votes,
but it passed, with the order for his closer confinement; and then,
after naming the committee, the House, at near two o’clock in the
morning, adjourned over the next day.
At five in the morning, Mr. Murray was carried in a hackney-coach
strictly guarded to Newgate. He sung ballads all the way; but on
entering the gaol burst into tears, kissed the Serjeant, said he
was very ill, and must have a physician. In two days the House was
mollified, permitted him to be ill, and gave leave for his brother
to visit him with a physician and an apothecary; and in five days
more, their compassion grew so tender as to indulge him with the
company of his sister, a nurse, and his own servant.
11th.--The staff was opposed by Lord Egmont, Dr. Lee, Nugent,
Potter, and Bathurst; defended by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pelham, Sir
William Yonge, Lord George Sackville, Lord Barrington, and
General Mordaunt, and carried by 205 to 88. In the night, new
Queries[40] abusing the House of Commons for their proceedings on
the Westminster affair were dispersed at several doors, but no
notice was taken of them. The Commons were not eager to have more
prisoners to nurse!
12th.--Sir George Vandeput’s and the Westminster petitions were
withdrawn. Some of the independents had tried to prevent it; and,
at a meeting on the 9th, thirty-seven divided for going on with
them against thirty-one: but Sir George declaring he would withdraw
his, and he, Lord Carpenter, and Sir Thomas Clarges leaving the
meeting, it was agreed to drop both petitions.
13th.--Sir William Yonge acquainted the House, that the committee
of which he was chairman was ready with their report on Mr.
Murray’s case; but as the prisoner was ill, they desired to
postpone it to the following Monday. Mr. Cooke presented a petition
from Gibson the upholsterer, who had not caught the infection of
heroism from his fellow captive, but begged for enlargement, which
was granted, and he was ordered to attend on the morrow, when he
was reprimanded on his knees, and discharged.
The same day Mr. Pelham opened the Ways and Means, in which he
generally shined, and did not disgrace his master, Sir Robert
Walpole, though the latter had gathered his chief laurels from his
knowledge and perspicuity in that service. Sir John Cotton piddled
with a little opposition to the land-tax of three shillings, but
it was carried by 106 to 43, and on the report by 229 to 28. They
could not conjure up a spirited division now on the most popular
points: if they were not new, they would scarce furnish a debate.
Sir John Cotton had wit, and the faithful attendant on wit,
ill-nature, and was the greatest master of the arts of the House,
where he seldom made but short speeches, having a stammering in his
elocution, which, however, he knew how to manage with humour.[41]
In the end of Queen Anne’s reign he was in place;[42] during
Sir Robert Walpole’s administration constantly and warmly in
opposition, and was so determined a Jacobite, that though on the
late coalition he accepted a place in the Household, and held it
two years, he never gave a vote with the Court, which argued nice
distinction, not only in taking the oaths to the King (for that
all the Jacobites in Parliament do), but in taking his pay, and
yet obstructing his service: and as nice in the King’s Ministers,
who could discover the use of making a man accept a salary
without changing his party. When the Duke of Bedford, with all my
Lord Russel’s integrity of Whiggism, was involved in a Jacobite
opposition, he had been so suspicious, as to mistrust Sir John’s
principles, till my Lord Gower quieted his uneasiness by assuring
him, “Cotton is no more a Jacobite than I am.”
18th.--Sir William Yonge read the report of the committee appointed
to search for precedents on Murray’s case. It concluded with
proposing to send for him again to the bar of the House: but as
gentler counsels, and a candour that might have been equitable
before his contempt, though absurd now, prevailed, Sir William
only moved to have the report lie on the table, saying, that if
Murray should not submit this session, he should move in the
next to resume the sentence. Mr. Pelham spoke much for moderate
proceedings--more moderate indeed it would have been difficult
to pursue after the lengths themselves and Murray had gone; but
they who wanted to extort a submission from him for offences
which he had not acknowledged, were ready to release him after an
outrage which he gloried in, and had no ways atoned. Mr. Fox read
a paragraph from the Whitehall Evening Post, by which it appeared
that Murray had had the use of pen, ink, and paper, and had been
writing an apology for some part of his private conduct;[43] the
greatest part of which his future historian may be glad to colour
over with the varnish of martyrdom. Mr. Fox, on this apparent
recovery of the prisoner’s nerves, moved to order the physician
and apothecary to attend that day se’nnight with an account of Mr.
Murray’s state of health, which was agreed to.
On the 19th, 20th, and 21st, the Mutiny Bill was debated each day
for several hours. This Bill, which formerly had passed as quietly
as the Malt Act, had, for the two or three last years, constantly
afforded the longest contests. Lord Egmont[44] had gained his
greatest reputation by opposing it; and he was not a man to forget,
or to let any body else forget where his strength lay. His great
talent was indefatigable application, which he loved rather than
wanted, for his parts were strong, and manly, and quick: his heart
rather wanted improvement than his head; though when his ambition
and lust of Parliament were out of the question, he was humane,
friendly, and as good-humoured as it was possible for a man to be
who was never known to laugh; he was once indeed seen to smile,
and that was at chess. He did not dislike mirth in others, but
he seemed to adjourn his attention till he could bring back the
company to seriousness. He was personally very brave, as brave as
if he were always in the right.
His father had trained him to history and antiquities; and he early
suckled his own political genius with scribbling journals and
pamphlets. Towards the decline of Sir Robert Walpole’s power, he
had created himself a leader of the Independents, a contemptible
knot of desperate tradesmen,[45] many of them converted to
Jacobitism by being detected and fined at the Custom-house for
contraband practices. By those people he was shoved into Parliament
on the expulsion of Lord Sundon and Sir Charles Wager; but having
written that masterly pamphlet called “Faction Detected,” in
defence of Lord Bath’s political apostasy, the patron and champion
mutually lost their popularity, and nothing was openly remembered
of Lord Percival’s works, but a ridiculous history[46] of his own
family, which he had collected and printed at an immense expense.
Thus exploded, he was very willing to take sanctuary with his
leader in the House of Lords; but the Ministry did not think his
sting formidable enough to extract it by so dear an operation: how
often since has Mr. Pelham wished him laid up in ermine!
At the beginning of this Parliament, rejected by Westminster, and
countenanced nowhere, he bought the loss of an election at Weobley,
for which place, however, on a petition, Mr. Fox procured him to
be returned by Parliament, and had immediately the satisfaction
of finding him declare against the Court, declared a Lord of the
Bedchamber to the Prince, and, on the first occasion, the warmest
antagonist of the Duke and the Mutiny Bill. On Lord Trentham’s
being opposed at Westminster last year, Lord Egmont tried, by every
art and industry, to expiate his offences in the eyes of his old
electors, and was the great engine of the contest there. All the
morning he passed at the hustings; then came to the House, where
he was a principal actor; and all the evening he passed at hazard;
not to mention the hours he spent in collecting materials for
his speeches, or in furnishing them to his weekly mercenaries.
With this variety of life, he was as ignorant of the world as a
child, and knew nothing of mankind though he had acted every part
in it. But it is time to continue the history of the Mutiny Bill,
and to conclude with the conclusion of his Lordship’s memoirs of
his family and himself--“let us here leave this young nobleman
struggling for the dying liberties of his country!”
When the Duke had set himself to restore the discipline of the
army, and bring it nearer to the standard of German severity, he
found it necessary to reform the military code, that whatever
despotism he had a mind to establish might be grounded in an
appearance of law. The Secretary at War, with a few General
Officers, was ordered to revise the Mutiny Bill, and (if one may
judge by their execution of this commission) to double the rigour
of it. The penalty of death came over as often as the curses in
the Commination on Ash-Wednesday. Oaths of secrecy were imposed on
Courts Martial; and even officers on half-pay were for the future
to be subject to all the jurisdiction of military law. My Lord
Anson, who governed at the Admiralty Board, was struck with so
amiable a pattern, and would have chained down his tars to a like
oar; but it raised such a ferment in that boisterous profession,
that the Ministry were forced to drop several of the strongest
articles, to quiet the tempest that this innovation had caused.
The Mutiny Bill was likely to pass with less noise; when Colonel
Richard Lyttleton, intending mischief, though without seeing half
way into the storm he was raising, took notice of the extraordinary
novelties and severity of these modern regulations. He was a
younger brother of the pious George Lyttelton, with less appearance
of, but with not much more real integrity. He was grown a favourite
of the Prince of Wales by a forwardness of flattery that had
revolted even the Duke, at whose expense on some disobligations he
was now paying court to the elder brother.
He was seconded by Colonel George Townshend, eldest son of my Lord
Townshend, a very particular young man, who, with much oddness,
some humour, no knowledge, great fickleness, greater want of
judgment, and with still more disposition to ridicule, had once
or twice promised to make a good speaker. He was governed by his
mother, the famous Lady Townshend,[47] who having been neglected by
the Duke, after some overtures of civility to him, had dipped into
all the excess of Scotch Jacobitism, and employed all her wit and
malice, the latter of which, without any derogation to the former,
had vastly the ascendant, to propagate the Duke’s unpopularity.
The Pelhams, who were very near as ill with her, had placed their
nephew, Mr. Townshend, in the Duke’s family, to remove him from her
influence; and the Duke had softened his haughtiness as much as
possible to second their views. But my Lady Townshend’s resentments
were not at all disappointed by this notable scheme, nor by the
opportunities it gave her son of learning more of his commander’s
temper, nor by the credit it gave to any reflections on him when
authorized by, or coming directly from one of his own servants and
a supposed favourite. The Duke has often said since, that he was
never hurt but by the ingratitude[48] of Mr. Townshend and Lord
Robert Sutton, whom he had made the greatest efforts to oblige.
This attack from two officers was artfully relieved by Lord
Egmont, who had stickled so vehemently against the innovations,
that one after another they were given up, or much softened one
year after another, though not till many disagreeable instances
had been publicly produced of his Royal Highness’s arbitrary
control, and though they had been defended in a masterly manner
by Mr. Fox, Lord George Sackville, and Colonel Henry “Seymour”
Conway;[49] the latter a young officer, who having set out upon
a plan of fashionable[50] virtue, had provoked the King and Duke
by voting against the Army at the beginning of the war. He was
soon after, by the interest of a near relation of his, placed in
the Duke’s family, where he grew a chief favourite, not only by a
steady defence of military measures on all occasions, but by most
distinguished bravery in the battles of Fontenoy and Laffelt (in
the latter of which he was taken prisoner), by a very superior
understanding, and by being one of the most agreeable and solid
speakers in Parliament, to which the beauty of his person, and the
harmony of his voice, did remarkably contribute.
This year a new field was opened, during the discussion of the
Mutiny Bill, by Sir Henry Erskine, another young officer, lately
brought into Parliament by the Duke of Argyle. This man, with a
face as sanguine as the disposition of the Commander-in-Chief,
had a gentle plausibility in his manner, that was not entirely
surprising in a Scotchman, and an inclination to poetry, which he
had cultivated with little success either in his odes, or from the
patrons to whom they were dedicated; one had been addressed to the
Duke, and another to an old gentlewoman at Hanover, mother of my
Lady Yarmouth. Of late he had turned his talent to rhetoric, and
studied public speaking under the baker at the Oratorical Club[51]
in Essex-street, from whence he brought so fluent, so theatrical,
so specious, so declamatory a style and manner, as might have
transported an age and audience not accustomed to the real
eloquence and graces of Mr. Pitt.
It was on the second debate on the Mutiny Bill this year, that
Sir Harry Erskine, complaining of the exorbitant power of General
Officers on Courts Martial, instanced in his own case, and severely
abused General Anstruther, who had treated him very rigorously some
years before at Minorca. The charge was so strong, that Mr. Nugent
said, if the General (who was not present) did not appear next day
and justify himself, he would move for an inquiry into his conduct.
This was so well received, that the Secretary at War thought proper
to write to General Anstruther to acquaint him with the accusation.
He appeared the next day, and spoke some time, but with so low a
voice, and so strong a Scotch accent, that scarce ten people heard
or understood him. He said “he had undergone a long persecution
from his countrymen, who all hated him for having been the only
Scot that, on Porteous’s affair, had voted for demolishing the
Nether Bow at Edinburgh.” He produced and read an anonymous and
bitter letter wrote against him to the late Duke of Argyle, with
two letters to himself, one from the author to own the former,
and to beg his pardon for it; the other from the council of war
at Minorca to vindicate him to the General. He said he suspected
Sir Harry Erskine of having been in the conspiracy against him,
which he had not punished near so rigorously as it deserved: and he
concluded with justifying his government, where, he affirmed, he
had eased the people of all taxes imposed by former Governors.
Sir Harry Erskine, with all the false lustre of oratory, and all
the falsehood of an orator, replied in an affected gesture of
supplication; besought the House to proceed no further in this
affair; said he had forgiven all the ill-usage, had mentioned
nothing out of revenge, and now pardoned the General’s suspicions.
This justification ill-heard, and this deprecation as ill-founded,
concluded the affair for the present as awkwardly as it had been
begun. The General’s charge against his countrymen was undoubtedly
well-grounded, and that of tyranny against him, no less. Indeed,
the Scotch would have overlooked his tyranny to the Minorchese, if
they could have forgot his supporting the Government, when it was
necessary to chastise the mutinous disposition of Scotland, where
Captain Porteous had been murdered insolently and illegally by the
mob.
Anstruther had been tried before the Council for his unwarrantable
behaviour in his government a few years ago, and a heavy number
of articles proved against him; but Lord Granville defeated the
charge by calling in a Minorchese, and talking to him for an hour
in Spanish, and then assuring the Council that the witness had
fully justified the General. The secret of Erskine’s being willing
to drop his accusation was on receiving intimation that Anstruther,
if pushed, would recriminate on General St. Clair, Sir Henry’s
uncle, who, on the expedition to Port L’Orient, had used the most
violent methods to bring a Court Martial over to his opinion, and
had abused Lord John Murray, the President of it, in the grossest
terms, who, on this occasion, begged Mr. Fox to tell the King and
Duke from him, that his only reason for having taken no steps
to complain of that usage, was for fear of increasing the heats
already raised on the Mutiny Bill; but that at a proper time he
would seek some redress.
A committee had been appointed to consider on amending the laws
enacted against the vices of the lower people, which were increased
to a degree of robbery and murder beyond example. Fielding, a
favourite author of the age, had published an admirable treatise
on the laws in question, and agreed with what was observed on this
occasion, that these outrages proceeded from gin. The depopulation
of the city was ascribed to the same cause, which gave Nugent
occasion very properly to offer again his Bill of general
Naturalization, a favourite Whig point, overthrown in the Queen’s
time by the narrow ignorance of the Tories, and defeated in the
first session of this Parliament by Mr. Pelham’s complaisance for
Sir John Barnard. It was now received, and the second reading
ordered for the 20th, the day before which a petition was presented
against it from the city of London. The next day they presented
another against gin, on which old Horace Walpole attacked Sir John
Barnard on the absurdity of their remonstrating on the decrease
of people, and their making interest against replacing them by
foreigners. Nugent ridiculed him on the same topic, and made a
distinction of humour between the good citizen in his fur gown
and corporate capacity, and really wishing well in his mercantile
capacity to trade and populousness: and he observed, that even in
this enlightened age, the city of London had not got beyond the
prejudices of the reign of Harry the Third, the laws of that age
against aliens, and the reasoning of the present petition against
naturalizing foreigners being exactly the same.
Sir John Barnard was as little ready to reply to banter, as Nugent
was inferior to him in reasoning. The citizen, with the most acute
head for figures, made that sort of speaking still more unpleasant
by the paltriness of his language, as the arrogance of his honesty
clouded the merit of it. The Irishman’s style was floridly bombast;
his impudence as great as if he had been honest. Sir John’s
moroseness looked like ill-nature, and may be was so. Nugent
affected unbounded good-humour, and it was unbounded but by much
secret malice, which sometimes broke out in boisterous railing,
oftener vented itself in still-born satires. Sir John Barnard had
been attached to Lord Granville, but had been flattered from him by
Mr. Pelham. Nugent’s attachments were to Lord Granville; but all
his flattery addressed to Mr. Pelham, whom he mimicked in candour,
as he often resembled Lord Granville in ranting. Sir John Barnard
meant honestly, and preserved his disinterestedness: he would
probably have sunk in his character of a great genius, if he had
come into business with Sandys and others--as they did. Nugent[52]
* * * * had lost the reputation of a great poet, by writing works
of his own, after he had acquired fame by an ode[53] that was the
joint production[54] of several others. One would have thought
his speeches had as different an origin; sometimes nothing finer,
generally nothing more crowded with absurdities.
At this time all was faction, and splitting into little factions.
The Pelhams were ill with one another, and ill with the Bedfords.
The latter Duke would have set up Fox against Mr. Pelham; and the
former Duke[55] was countenancing Pitt against all. Mr. Pelham
supported Pitt and his clan against the Duke of Cumberland, who
was united with the Bedfords. The Prince’s Court, composed of the
refuse of every party, was divided into twenty small ones. Lord
Egmont at the head of one, Nugent of another, consisting of himself
and two more, Lady Middlesex and Doddington of a third, the chief
ornament of which was the Earl of Bute, a Scotchman, who, having no
estate, had passed his youth in studying mathematics and mechanics
in his own little island, then simples in the hedges about
Twickenham, and at five and thirty had fallen in love with his own
figure, which he produced at masquerades in becoming dresses, and
in plays which he acted in private companies with a set of his own
relations. He became a personal favourite of the Prince, and was
so lucky just now as to give up a pension to be one of the Lords
of his Bedchamber. The Jacobites had quarrelled at Oxford on the
choice of a member, and would not join with the Prince, who courted
them. Lord Granville, Lord Chesterfield, and Lord Winchelsea, were
each separately courted by the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Oxford
by Mr. Pelham, who at the same time was making new connexions,
trying to preserve the old ones, adopting his brother’s jealousies,
and yet threatening to resign on account of them. He had once
solemnly declared in the House of Commons, that he would retire
from business as soon as the rebellion should be extinguished. When
the Duke of Grafton was told of this vow, he said, “God, I hope
my friend will see the rebellion twinkle a good while yet in the
Highlands!”
22d.--Sir Hugh Dalrymple moved for Mr. Golding (apothecary to the
Prince of Wales) to have leave to attend Murray, being used to
bleed him, which, as his veins laid low, was difficult for any
other person to do. Mr. Pelham observed on the impropriety of
this, as the doctor and apothecary were to appear on Monday. Mr.
Fox said, he had heard that they would report he was very well,
and proposed that the House should name a surgeon. It was at last
agreed that Golding should go to bleed him, but should not be
called for any account of his health.
Mr. Pelham, in the committee, opened the subsidy of forty thousand
pounds a year to be paid to Bavaria for six years, twenty by
England, and ten each by the Empress-queen and Holland. Martin
made a speech of great wit against it, Lyttleton a learned one,
and Murray, Solicitor-General, a very masterly one for it. It was
obvious that the latter, not Mr. Pelham, had been instructed in
the true secret of this negotiation by his friend Stone, secretary
to the Duke of Newcastle. They had been bred at Christ Church
together, and had tasted of the politics of Oxford as well as of
its erudition. Sir Robert Walpole, on quitting the Ministry, had
cautioned Mr. Pelham against Stone, having touched upon the scent
of some of his intrigues, as he was hunting after Jacobite cabals.
Mr. Pelham neglected the advice, as he had before rejected the
offer of having Sir Robert’s clue of secret intelligence put into
his hands. He would scarce have found either Stone’s or Murray’s
name there from this time; they were converted by their own
interest,[56] a conviction preferable to all detection. Lord Egmont
spoke ill, and owned it was rather a right than a wrong measure;
and was answered by Pitt in a good but too general a speech.
Between seven and eight the House divided, but the majority for
the subsidy appearing very great, it was given up without telling.
This treaty with some others was calculated to purchase a majority
of votes to choose the Archduke King of the Romans, but France and
Prussia defeated the scheme: our Ministry could not buy off their
opposition, as they bought off opponents at home, and they knew no
other art of baffling an enemy.
25th.--The Bavarian Subsidy was debated on the report, and carried
by 194 to 77. Then Dr. Lamont was called in and asked several
questions about Murray’s health. He said he had found him with
a cold and a fever, of which he was so well recovered this day
se’nnight, that he had since visited him only every other day; but
that going to Newgate on Saturday, he had found him with the cramp
in his stomach, to which he had been subject these seven years, and
of which his sister expected he would have died the day before:
that he thought close confinement, without riding, dangerous
for him: that he had advised him to petition the House for his
liberty, though he had heard nobody else give him the same advice;
but that Mr. Murray had replied in a passion, “he would take his
prescriptions, but not his counsel.” Sir William Yonge then moved
to restrain everybody but the Physician, Apothecary, and Nurse from
visiting him, which being opposed, particularly by Lord Egmont, who
reflected on the want of precedents, the Speaker made a warm and
solemn speech for the honour of the House, instanced in the Earl of
Shaftesbury and others, who had knelt to receive the reprimand of
the House of Lords, and said that the want of a precedent of such
behaviour as Murray’s did but conclude more strongly against him.
Sydenham, a mad High-Church zealot, taking notice of some epithets
the Speaker had used on Murray, was interrupted by him, saying, “I
called him high-spirited too; if he had been only wrong-headed, I
should have forgiven him.” The restriction was voted by 166 to 81.
The same day, Lord Chesterfield brought a Bill into the House of
Lords for reforming our Style according to the Gregorean account,
which had not yet been admitted in England, as if it were matter
of heresy to receive a Kalendar amended by a Pope. He was seconded
by Lord Macclesfield, a mathematical Lord, in a speech soon after
printed, and the Bill passed easily through both Houses. Lord
Chesterfield had made no noise since he gave up the Seals in 1748,
when he published his Apology for that resignation. It was supposed
to be drawn up by Lord Marchmont, under his direction, and was
very well written; but to my Lord Chesterfield’s great surprise,
neither his book nor his retirement produced the least consequence.
From that time he had lived at White’s, gaming, and pronouncing
witticisms among the boys of quality.
He had early in his life announced his claim to wit, and the women
believed in it. He had besides given himself out for a man of great
intrigue, with as slender pretensions; yet the women believed in
that too--one should have thought they had been more competent
judges of merit in that particular! It was not his fault if he had
not wit; nothing exceeded his efforts in that point; and though
they were far from producing the wit, they at least amply yielded
the applause he aimed at. He was so accustomed to see people laugh
at the most trifling things he said, that he would be disappointed
at finding nobody smile before they knew what he was going to say.
His speeches were fine, but as much laboured as his extempore
sayings. His writings were--everybody’s: that is, whatever came
out good was given to him, and he was too humble ever to refuse the
gift. But, besides the passive enjoyment of all good productions
in the present age, he had another art of reputation, which was,
either to disapprove the greatest authors of other times, or to
patronize and commend whatever was too bad to be ascribed to
himself. He did his admirers the justice to believe that they would
applaud upon his authority every simple book that was published,
and every bad actor that appeared upon the stage.
His first public character was Embassador to Holland, where he
courted the good opinion of that economical people by losing
immense sums at play. On his return he attached himself to Lord
Townshend, who was then breaking with Sir Robert Walpole, and
did himself no good by that connexion: but what pinned down his
disgrace, was the Queen’s seeing him one Twelfth Night, after
winning a large sum of money at hazard, cross St. James’s Court,
to deposit it with my Lady Suffolk till next morning:--the Queen
never pardoned an intimacy there. He continued in Opposition
for the remainder of Sir Robert Walpole’s Ministry, and after
the ineffectual motion in 1740 for removing that Minister, Lord
Chesterfield was dispatched to Avignon by the party to solicit,
by the Duke of Ormond’s means, an order from the Pretender to
the Jacobites, to concur roundly in any measure for Sir Robert’s
destruction: they had retired without voting on the question
abovementioned. Lord Chesterfield had accepted no employment
till the removal of Lord Granville, when he was sent again to
Holland, and then made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and became the
most popular Governor they ever had. Nothing was cried up but his
integrity, though he would have laughed at any man who really
had any confidence in his morality: and how little he repented
his negotiations at Avignon would appear, if a story told of him
is authentic (which I do not vouch), that being at Dublin in the
height of the Rebellion, a zealous Bishop came to him one morning
before he was out of bed, and told him he had great grounds to
believe the Jacobites were going to rise. The Lord Lieutenant
coolly looked at his watch, and replied, “I fancy they are, my
Lord, for it is nine o’clock.”
He had married the Duchess of Kendal’s niece,[57] designing to
become heir to her aunt, but had not the address to succeed; yet,
miscarrying with the late King’s mistress, he was rewarded by
old Marlborough among the rest of the legatees,[58] whom she had
selected for the prejudice they had done to the Royal Family. She
was scarce cold before he returned to the King’s service. In short,
my Lord Chesterfield’s being the instrument to introduce this new
era into our computation of time will probably preserve his name in
almanacs and chronologies, when the wit that he had but laboured
too much, and the gallantry that he could scarce ever execute, will
be no more remembered.
26th, 27th.--The Mutiny Bill was finished. Sir Henry Erskine
declared he should postpone till next year the offer of several
more clauses and amendments.
28th.--The Naturalization Bill was read a second time. Petitions
for it had been presented from Bristol and Liverpool; and this
day Mr. Nugent presented another from one hundred and forty-two
very considerable Merchants of London. Mr. Sydenham desired to
have the names read, that it might appear many of them were
Foreigners. Nugent observed, that it was evident from thence that
men of all denominations were for it; and Sir William Yonge, that
Foreigners already composed a very serviceable and considerable
part of our Merchants. Sir John Barnard spoke an hour and a half
against the commitment, and then stalked away to dinner, according
to his custom, without deigning to wait for any reply. To every
body’s surprise, Mr. Pelham declared for the Bill, said he had
always approved the principle of it, but had formerly feared its
raising disturbances; but that finding no reason to apprehend
that consequence now, since our trading cities concurred in
petitioning for it; that we were daily in want of recruits for
Nova Scotia, and to repair our losses by the war; and having last
year received applications from Spitalfields for encouragement of
Foreign hands and materials, and having actually encouraged the
importation of the latter, he hoped we should, and he would now
vote for encouraging the former. On Mr. Pelham’s having formerly
offended the Whigs by opposing this scheme, the Duke of Bedford,
trusting to his adhering to the same style, had eagerly taken up
the protection of this Bill, and privately made great interest to
carry it through. Mr. Pelham discovered this, and turned short,
and carried it for the commitment. The Duke of Bedford’s faction
being thus baffled, made a shorter turn, kept away, and the Bill
was lost at last. Mr. Fox, who had formerly at Mr. Pelham’s desire
spoken against the Bill, stuck to his former vote, at the same time
showing that he approved the Bill, though he said he doubted if it
would have any effect. Pitt spoke immediately after Fox for the
Bill; and it was committed by a majority of 146 to 81, three only
of the Whigs adhering with Mr. Fox to their former vote. The House
sat till past nine.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] James Hamilton, Lord Viscount Limerick, a great friend of Lord
Bath, who had obtained the reversion of King’s Remembrancer for him
and his son on the change of the Ministry in 1742. He was created
Earl of Clanbrazil in 1756.
[39] In 1742.
[40] Vide the Appendix, C.
[41] Soon after Mr. Winnington deserted the Tories, and had made a
strong speech on the other side, Sir John Cotton was abusing him
to Sir Robert Walpole, and said, “That young dog promised that he
would always stand by us.” Sir Robert replied, “I advise my young
men never to use _always_.” “Yet,” said Cotton, stammering, “you
yourself are very apt to make use of _all--ways_.”
[42] Feb. 1752.--On Tuesday night last, died at his house in
Park-place, Sir John Hinde Cotton, Bart. He was a Commissioner
of Trade and Plantations in the reign of Queen Anne; also member
in several Parliaments in that reign for the town of Cambridge;
and in the last Parliament of his late Majesty was one of the
Knights of the Shire for the county of Cambridge; and in the two
first Parliaments called by his present Majesty served again for
the town of Cambridge; in the last and present Parliaments for
Marlborough. He was also Treasurer of the Chamber to his Majesty
in 1742. He married first a daughter of Sir Ambrose Crawley, Knt.,
and has issue one son, now Sir John Hinde Cotton, and one daughter,
married to Jacob Houblon, of Hallingbury, in Essex, Esq. He married
to his second lady, the daughter of the late James Craggs, Esq.,
one of the Commissioners of the Post-office, and relict of Samuel
Trefusis, Esq., who died August 23, 1724, by whom he had only one
daughter, who died young.
[From a printed paper annexed as a note by the author of the
Memoirs.]
[43] Mr. Murray’s very first step to preferment was by presenting
himself and being received into a commission in the Army, which had
been made out for another Alexander Murray.
[44] John Perceval, the second Earl of Egmont of that name. He was
scarce a man before he had a scheme of assembling the Jews, and
making himself their King.
[45] One of the principal Independents was Blakiston, a grocer in
the Strand, detected in smuggling, and forgiven by Sir R. Walpole;
detected again and fined largely, on which he turned patriot, and
has since risen to be an alderman of London, on the merit of that
succedaneum to money--Jacobitism.
[46] It was called the “History of the House of Yvory,” in
two large volumes. The collecting and consulting records and
genealogies, and engraving and publishing, cost him (as the Heralds
affirm) near £3000. He endeavoured afterwards to recall it, and did
suppress a great many copies.
[47] Ethelreda Harrison, wife of Charles, Lord Viscount Townshend.
[48] Mr. Townshend had quitted the Army at the end of the
last year, had connected himself with the Prince, and took
all opportunities of opposing any of the Duke’s measures, and
ridiculing him, and drawing caricatures of him and his Court, which
he did with much humour. A _bon mot_ of his was much repeated. Soon
after he had quitted the Army, he was met at a review on the parade
by Colonel Fitzwilliam, one of the Duke’s military spies, who said
to him, “How came you, Mr. Townshend, to do us this honour?--but
I suppose you only come as a spectator!” Mr. Townshend replied,
“And why may not one come hither as a _Spectator_, Sir, as well
as a _Tatler_?” Lord Robert Sutton was second son to the Duke of
Rutland, and had been preferred to the command of a favourite
regiment which the Duke had nearly instituted, before Lord Robert
was of any rank in the Army; yet he deserted him, and accepted the
place of Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince.
[49] Honourable Henry Seymour Conway, second son of Lord Conway,
and brother of the first Earl of Hertford. Commander-in-Chief in
1782; Field-Marshal in 1793.--E.
[50] This is surely a slip of the pen; should we not read
_un_fashionable virtue?--E.
[51] This went by the name of the Robin Hood Society, and met every
Monday. Questions were proposed, and any persons might speak on
them for seven minutes; after which, the baker, who presided with a
hammer in his hand, summed up the arguments.
[52] Robert Nugent, bred a Roman Catholic, had turned Protestant,
and not long after married Mrs. Knight, sister and daughter to the
two Craggs’s.
[53] It was addressed to Lord Bath upon the author’s change of his
religion; but was universally believed to be written by Mallet,
who was tutor to Newsham, Mrs. Nugent’s son, and improved by Mr.
Pulteney himself and Lord Chesterfield.
[54] Had this ode been really his own, he would resemble the poet
Tynnichus in Plato’s Io, “who never composed any other poem worth
the mention or remembrance, besides that poem which every body
sings.”--See SYDENHAM’S TRANSLAT. p. 49.
[55] The Duke of Newcastle included in the word “Pelhams.”--E.
[56] Yet it was remarkable that Dr. Gally, the Minister of his
parish, could never get admitted to Murray, when he was collecting
subscriptions against the Rebellion, though he went several times
to his house at all hours.
[57] Melusina Schulemburgh, Countess of Walsingham.
[58] She left £20,000 to Lord Chesterfield, and £10,000 to William
Pitt.