General Anstruther’s Government of Minorca--Petition from a
Minorchese--Speeches on the subject--State of parties--Affairs
of Nova Scotia--Sir Henry Erskine’s charge against General
Anstruther--Character of Bishop Secker--Dangerous illness of
the Prince of Wales--Council held at Bedford House--Death of
the Prince--His conduct and character--Sensation produced
by his death--Changes in Prince George’s family--Addresses
of condolence--Meeting at Lord Egmont’s--A council--German
politics--Character of Lord Albemarle.
March 4.--George Townshend moved to have all papers relating to
Courts Martial during General Anstruther’s government of Minorca
laid before the House, and complained of his still keeping his
regiment, though he had been found guilty by the Privy Council.
Sir Harry Erskine again disclaimed revenge, but, with heaping new
aggravations, said he had still more in reserve to urge against
him; defied any retaliation on his uncle St. Clair, and affirmed
that partialities had lately been exercised towards the Scotch--not
favourable ones. Mr. Pelham replied to this; said he knew little of
military promotions, but could observe from the Newspapers, that
there were at least as many Erskines and Dalrymples preferred as of
any English name; that he disliked proceeding parliamentarily in
this business, but would engage to have Anstruther tried by a Court
Martial. Mr. Pitt gave strongly into a Parliamentary Inquiry. Mr.
Fox was as warm against it, and said that if Sir Harry Erskine had
not openly disclaimed revenge, he should have much suspected him
of harbouring the bitterest, especially as Sir Harry had too much
parts to have accused out of ignorance. He urged the impropriety
of trying a man after an Act of Grace had passed, which that he
did not mention from prejudice would appear from his having voted
at Council for condemning Anstruther. The Attorney and Solicitor
Generals spoke to the same point of Law. Fazakerely endeavoured
to show that pardons from the Crown were not pleadable against
impeachments, which were now threatened by Lord Egmont and others.
The Attorney in answer showed that the Act of Grace was the act,
not of the Crown singly, but of the whole Legislature. Colonel
Haldane, who had been one of the warmest against Murray, talked
high for inquiries, more necessary, he now said, than prosecutions
on elections. Mr. Conway temporized, proposed a middle way; the
House was going to divide, when Mr. Fox moved for some fewer papers
that would serve the purpose, and that Sir Harry Erskine might
have two days to prepare a charge in form; but desired it might be
delivered in before the papers in question were brought, that they
might not be assisting to the composition. The House sat till past
nine without dividing.
5th.--George Townshend presented a vehement petition from one Don
Juan Compagni, a Minorchese, who had been barbarously treated by
Anstruther; had had his sentences reversed by the Council here;
but having run in debt while he attended the event of his suit,
had applied without success to the Treasury for money to carry on
the prosecution: this was the scope too of the petition, though
Mr. Townshend said it was only presented to be in the eye of the
House when the other trial should come on, and moved to have it
lie upon the table. Mr. Pelham owned he had refused money from
the Treasury, and observed upon the impropriety of suffering such
petitions, as it would encourage the like from all our Governments
and Plantations: that for his part he would not oppose it, unless
somebody else did, and then he should be for rejecting it. Lord
Duplin and Harding spoke against the want of order in it, as the
accused was a member, as the petition would appear at length in the
votes, a heavy accusation! and as the money must be granted without
hearing either the cause or the defendant; or if heard, you might
find a crime, and could not find a punishment.
Mr. Pitt spoke warmly for the petition, on the fitness of granting
two or three thousand pounds to a poor man oppressed by military
law, and of so good a family as the Compagnis, (so deeply was Mr.
Pitt versed in Minorchese genealogies!) and declared he would
support such a cause to the last drop of his blood. Mr. Fox
ridiculed this warmth; observed how little foundation there was
for believing the allegations of the petition, and then said he
discovered much persecution in this affair; that good men would
join in the persecution if they thought Anstruther guilty; others
would, because he had been guilty of what he did not think bad
(the vote on Porteous’s case); and that it was Anstruther-guilt,
as much as the guilt of the Governor, that had blown up this
vengeance; and then he moved for rejecting the petition, or for
the Orders of the Day. Pitt disclaimed warmth, but with so much
coolness and endeavours to be cool, that it only proved him more
angry. Colonel Haldane defended the Scotch; Oswald still more, and
called on Fox to charge them. Mr. Fox said he scorned prudence when
it was honesty to speak out; urged the notoriety of the national
inveteracy to the General, to a degree, that a petition on a
contested election having been presented against him soon after his
vote of offence, all the Scotch members had to a man voted against
him; and said, that as he himself had been warm on the affair of
Porteous’s murder, a Scotch General Officer had told him at the
time, “young man, this will never be forgiven you.”
This pique created a constant opposition between Fox and Oswald,
a man who was master of a quickness and strength of argument, not
inferior to Fox, or any speaker in the House. The rapidity of his
eloquence was astonishing; not adorned, but confined to business.
He had come into Parliament about the time of Sir Robert Walpole’s
fall, and had consulted a friend, whether the Minister or the
Opposition were likely to prevail. His friend recommended him to
the former; his own sagacity conducted him to the latter, which
being soon after victorious, he reproached his friend with the
scrape into which he had near drawn him. On the change he was made
a Commissioner of the Navy, which he resigned on the New Place
Bill, to keep his seat; but wavering in his connexions, had no new
preferment. Mr. Conway spoke for the Orders of the Day; but asking
if the intention was to hear the cause, and Pitt telling him it
was, he then spoke and voted for the petition. Lord Egmont made a
very fine and inflammatory speech for it, and said the nation would
so much resent its being rejected, that no man who voted for the
rejection would dare to show his face. Mr. Pelham took this up,
said he would serve the King and his line faithfully, in place and
out of place too, without opposing from resentment, and then should
always dare to show his face any where. Pitt then endeavoured to
prevent a division, but was disregarded; and towards seven o’clock
it was carried by 97 to 58 for reading the Orders of the Day. Lord
Ankram, Carneguy, Hope Weir, and M’Cleod, voting in the majority,
and no English Whigs but Pitt, Conway, and the three Grenvilles in
the minority. When the House was up, Pitt, in a dispute with Mr.
Pelham, defended parliamentary inquiries, and said, “he would never
consent to lop the bough on which he stood.”
The King asked Mr. Fox “with whom it was that Pitt meant to
ingratiate himself? was it with Lord Egmont?” and he told the Duke
of Bedford that he would not, even if addressed by the House, take
away Anstruther’s regiment, who had got his favour by the vote that
had so much offended his countrymen. The General, after that vote,
had been obliged on his return to Scotland, to pass in disguise
to his own estate, and crossing a firth, he said to the waterman,
“This is a pretty boat; I fancy you sometimes smuggle with it.” The
fellow replied, “I never smuggled a Brigadier before.”
Pitt’s behaviour, who at this time had the chief influence with
the Duke of Newcastle, had extremely offended both the King and
the Whigs. The tide of popularity was running with the Duke of
Bedford and Mr. Fox; and without the great event[59] that soon
after happened, possibly the charm might have been broken, that
held a whole nation enchanted to such phantoms, either of honesty
or abilities as the two Pelhams.
The 7th was appointed for the Naturalization Bill, but the House
adjourned to attend at Drury-lane, where Othello was acted by a Mr.
Delaval and his family, who had hired the theatre on purpose. The
crowd of people of fashion was so great, that the Footman’s Gallery
was hung with blue ribbands.
8th.--The Bill was read in the Committee. Mr. Fox spoke against
it, but said he was open to conviction. Mr. Pelham mentioned the
forfeited estates in Scotland, which might be improved by a colony
of Foreigners. Mr. Fox declared himself convinced by this argument.
Pitt ridiculed Fox’s conviction, and did it well. The Bill was
carried in the Committee by 123 to 52. While Pitt was speaking, Fox
said to one who sat next to him, “He is a better speaker than I am;
but, thank God, I have more judgment!”
Lord Halifax had been soliciting to have a fifty and a sixty gun
ship sent to Nova-Scotia, upon a report that the French were
sending a fleet thither: the Admiralty had refused, for fear of
drawing on a new war. The Board of Trade presented a long Memorial
to promote their demand, which the Duke of Bedford carried to the
King; the Duke of Newcastle was present, but said not a word. The
Duke of Bedford said to the King, “Sir, this paper is too long for
your Majesty to read, but I will tell you the purport of it: it is
a project of the same faction, who have endeavoured to increase the
Navy this year: I have desired your Majesty’s servants to meet at
my House next Wednesday; I believe they will not think it proper
to come into this proposal.” “No,” replied the King, “they are the
most troublesome, impracticable fellows I ever met with; there is
no carrying on the measures of Government with them.” Mr. Pelham
wrote the Duke of Bedford word, on his summons, that he would wait
upon him, but did not believe[60] he should think Lord Halifax’s
proposal fit to be complied with.
11th.--A proposal came from the South Sea Company for lowering
their interest after a term of seven years. Mr. Pelham moved
to accept it, provided they gave up all demands on the King of
Spain. Belchier desired time till the next General Court; but the
resolution passed.
Lord Duplin[61], who, considering how fond he was of forms and
trifles and being busy, was not absolutely a bad speaker, opened in
a long deduction the affairs of Nova-Scotia, and moved for a sum of
money for carrying on that new Colony, the establishment of which
had been eagerly revived by Lord Halifax on his coming to the head
of the Board of Trade, and his friend Colonel Cornwallis[62], sent
thither as Governor, who was a brave, sensible young man, and of
great temper and good-nature. Vyner alone opposed the Motion; the
Opposition favoured it, and Th. Pitt spoke much against ever giving
up that Colony to France.
Sir Henry Erskine then presented his charge against General
Anstruther, which he called only a state of his own case. It was
very trifling in comparison of what had been expected from the
parade of his first accusation; his grievances barely comprized
in a confinement of six weeks before and during his trial, and of
a few days after it. George Townshend moved to address for the
proceedings of that Court-Martial. Mr. Pitt desired there might be
no Motion till the House came to some determination how to proceed.
Mr. Fox read a letter from Anstruther, to say that he was laid up
with the rheumatism, but would attend as soon as possible, and
would send in an answer to the charge. It was agreed to send him
a copy of what they were in doubt whether to call a charge, or a
complaint, or simply a paper. Mr. Fox called upon Erskine to prove
the accusation, which he said he was ready to do. Fox then said,
that General Anstruther desired to inform the House that he had the
copy of the Court-Martial in his own possession, and would send
it whenever they pleased; though it was not necessary to preserve
sentences of acquittals, nor were they ever sent to the War-office.
Notwithstanding this voluntary offer, the House sat debating for
two hours on the method of coming at this copy, and whether they
should address the King, or order Anstruther to send it by their
own authority. Joddrell, the Prince’s Solicitor, flamed, and Lord
Egmont still more, on this notice of records of Courts-Martial not
being preserved. The House sat till eight, but came to no division.
10th.--The King would not go to Chapel, because Secker, Bishop
of Oxford, was to preach before him. The Ministers did not insist
upon his hearing the sermon, as they had lately upon his making
him Dean of St. Paul’s. Character and popularity do not always
depend upon the circumstances that ought to compose either. This
Bishop, who had been bred a Presbyterian and Man-midwife, which
sect and profession he had dropt for a season, while he was
President of a very free thinking club,[63] had been converted by
Bishop Talbot,[64] whose relation he married, and his faith settled
in a Prebend of Durham: from thence he was transplanted, at the
recommendation of Dr. Bland,[65] by the Queen, and advanced by her
[who had no aversion to a medley of religions, which she always
compounded into a scheme of heresy of her own], to the living
of St. James’s, vacant by the death of her favourite Arian, Dr.
Clarke, and afterwards to the Bishoprics of Bristol and Oxford.[66]
It is incredible how popular he grew in his parish, and how much
some of his former qualifications contributed to heighten his
present doctrines. His discourses from the pulpit, which, by a
fashion that he introduced, were a kind of moral essays, were
as clear from quotations of Scripture, as when he presided in a
less Christian society; but what they wanted of Gospel, was made
up by a tone of fanaticism that he still retained. He had made a
match between a daughter of the late Duke of Kent[67] and a Doctor
Gregory, whose talents would have been extremely thrown away in
any priesthood, where celibacy was one of the injunctions. He
had been presented with a noble service of plate for procuring
a marriage between the heiress[68] of the same Duke of Kent and
the Chancellor’s son, and was now forced upon the King[69] by the
gratitude of the same Minister, though he had long been in disgrace
for having laid his plan for Canterbury in the interest he had
cultivated at the Prince’s Court. But even the Church had its
renegades in politics, and the King was obliged to fling open his
asylum to all kind of deserters; content with not speaking to them
at his levee, or listening to them in the pulpit!
12th.--Potter produced several Physicians and Masters of Workhouses
to prove the fatal consequences of spirituous liquors, which laid
waste the meaner parts of the town, and were now spreading into
the country. Sir Joseph Jekyll had formerly carried through a
Bill against Gin, but with such danger from the populace, that
the Act had been established merely by military force, and with
little success, as informers against the retailers of it had seldom
escaped the vengeance of the mob. Mr. Sandys,[70] on succeeding Sir
Robert Walpole, had repealed this Act to increase the Revenue; but
being one of the acts of his short reign, to which he had risen by
deserting his party, he was as ill-treated by the faction as the
prohibition had been by the lower people. Lord Hervey,[71] who had
turned patriot at that season on being turned out of place, had
made three remarkably fine orations against the repeal; and Sir
Charles Williams had made a couple of ballads[72] with much wit, to
ridicule both Sandys and Lord Hervey. Mr. Pelham spoke now against
the appearance of the Physicians, &c. as he believed no remedy
could be found for the evil, and yet imposing new duties would
greatly diminish the Revenue: but they were examined.
18th.--Mr. Fox acquainted the House that Mr. Moncrief attended
without, who was called in, and delivered the original copy of the
Court-Martial from General Anstruther; and (as he was not able to
come in person, being above seventy, and laid up with a rheumatism
and pain in his bowels) an answer to Sir Henry Erskine’s complaint,
in which he acknowledged the facts, but denied the aggravating
circumstances. That day se’nnight was appointed to consider the
charge and answer, and the Minutes of the Council; after Sir Harry
Erskine had declared he would say no more, though if he chanced to
prove more, it would be but the more conspicuous: to which Mr. Fox
replied, that it would be fairer to acquaint Anstruther with that
_more_. Mr. Fox then moved, at Anstruther’s desire, for a copy of
a Resolution of Council against Colonel Pinfold, a former Governor
of Minorca, who had been condemned to make satisfaction to the
oppressed parties, and had. Anstruther would have done the like,
but was prevented.
The Prince was dangerously ill.
19th.--The Council, which had been postponed, was held at
Bedford-house, whither the Duke of Newcastle would have carried
Lord Halifax and Lord Anson, but the Duke of Bedford refused to
admit them. It was proposed to hear the whole Board of Trade upon
their Memorial; but the Duke of Bedford said, that this proposal
of stationing two men of war at Nova Scotia, upon the notion of a
French fleet going thither, had not been mentioned in a long letter
that he had received from that Board in January last, since which
period there had been no letters from Governor Cornwallis. Nobody
agreed with the Duke but Lord Sandwich, not even his father-in-law,
Lord Gower, who had been with him an hour before the rest arrived,
and said to him, “Now we have caught Lord Halifax in a trap;”
(but he himself was intangled in Mr. Pelham’s snares, and did
not know it!) nor the Duke of Marlborough, though his friend and
brother-in-law, and though his connexion with Mr. Fox had made the
Duke of Bedford flatter himself with his support: but both the Duke
and Lord Sandwich were too sanguine about Mr. Fox, who had declared
to them, that if it came to a rupture, he must adhere to Mr.
Pelham. He had repeated this to Lord Sandwich in the summer, when
commissioned by him to carry a reconciling message to Mr. Pelham.
Mr. Fox had made the same declaration of his unavoidable connexion
with Mr. Pelham to the Duke of Cumberland: but the Duke of Bedford
was not only apt to forget what he did not care to hear, and even
to forget his own change of opinion, but would and did often
believe the very reverse. He told the two brothers that this was
designed as a hostile measure against him, which they then denied.
20th.--Potter[73] opened in an able manner his scheme for an
additional duty of two shillings on spirits, to be collected by way
of Excise. He was a young man of the greatest goodnature, though
he had set out with two of the severest speeches[74] that ever
were made against the Ministry and the Grenvilles, and with the
greatest applause; but his goodnature had kept up to its character
much more than his parts. He was not bashful nor void of vanity,
and had now flattered himself that he should figure like Sir Robert
Walpole by attempting to re-establish the defeated Excise Scheme;
not reflecting that the opposition to that project was levelled
at the Minister, not occasioned by the pretended inconveniences
and dangers of it. Mr. Pelham spoke greatly against it, and for
suppressing unlicensed houses, and for a visitation by parish
officers. He was seconded by the Solicitor General. Alderman Baker,
a man rather busy and confident than very able, fluctuated between
both schemes: but Mr. Pelham desiring a respite till the morrow
se’nnight for further deliberation, it was agreed to.
The Prince of Wales had been ill of a pleurisy, but was so well
recovered as to attend the King to the House of Lords on the 12th,
where he was very hot. He went to Carlton-house to unrobe, put on
only a light frock, and went to Kew, where he walked some time,
and returning to Carlton-house, laid down upon a couch for three
hours in a ground room next to the garden, caught a fresh cold,
and relapsed that night. He had had a blow upon his stomach in the
summer by a fall, from which he had often felt great pains. Dr.
Wilmot, Taylor, and Leigh attended him, and Hawkins the Surgeon. On
Monday, 18th, a thrush appeared; however, he was thought better. On
Wednesday night, between nine and ten o’clock, Wilmot and Hawkins
were with him; he had a fit of coughing. Wilmot said, “Sir, you
have brought up all the phlegm; I hope this will be over in a
quarter of an hour, and that your Royal Highness will have a good
night.” Hawkins went out of the room, and said, “Here is something
I don’t like.” The cough continued; the Prince laid his hand upon
his stomach, and said, “_Je sens la mort_.” Pavonarius, his
favourite German valet-de-chambre, who was holding him up, felt him
shiver, and cried, “Good God! the Prince is going!” The Princess,
who was at the feet of the bed, snatched up a candle, but before
she got to him, he was dead! An imposthume had broken, which, on
his body being opened, the Physicians were of opinion had not been
occasioned by the fall, but from a blow of a tennis-ball three
years before.
Thus died Frederick Prince of Wales! having resembled his pattern
the Black Prince in nothing but in dying before his father. Indeed
it was not his fault if he had not distinguished himself by any
warlike achievements. He had solicited the command of the Army
in Scotland during the last Rebellion; though that ambition was
ascribed rather to his jealousy of his brother than to his courage.
A hard judgment! for what he could he did! When the Royal Army lay
before Carlisle, the Prince, at a great supper that he gave to
his Court and his favourites, as was his custom when the Princess
laid in, had ordered for the dessert the representation of the
citadel of Carlisle in paste, which he in person, and the Maids
of Honour, bombarded with sugar plums! He had disagreed with the
King and Queen early after his coming to England; not entirely by
his own fault. The King had refused to pay what debts he had left
at Hanover; and it ran a little in the blood of the family to hate
the eldest son: the Prince himself had so far not degenerated,
though a better natured man, and a much better father, as to be
fondest of his second son, Prince Edward. The Queen had exerted
more authority, joined to a narrow prying into his conduct, than he
liked; and Princess Emily, who had been admitted into his greatest
confidence, had not forfeited her duty to the Queen by concealing
any of his secrets that might do him prejudice.
Lord Bolingbroke, who had sowed a division in the Pretender’s
Court, by the scheme for the father’s resigning his claim to the
eldest boy, repeated the same plan of discord here, on the first
notice of the Prince’s disgusts; and the whole Opposition was
instructed to offer their services to the Heir Apparent against
the Crown and the Minister. The Prince was sensible to flattery,
and had a sort of parts that made him relish the sort of parts
of Lord Chesterfield, Doddington, and Lyttelton, the latter of
whom being introduced by Doddington, had wrought the disgrace
of his protector. Whoever was unwelcome at St. James’s was sure
of countenance at the Prince’s apartments there. He was in vain
reprimanded for this want of respect. At last, having hurried the
Princess from Hampton Court, when she was in actual labour, to
the imminent danger of hers and the child’s life,[75] without
acquainting either King or Queen, the formal breach ensued; he
having added to this insult, a total silence to his mother on her
arriving immediately to visit the Princess, and while he led her
to her coach; but as soon as he came in sight of the populace, he
knelt down in the dirt and kissed her hand with the most respectful
show of duty. He immediately went all lengths of opposition and
popularity till the fall of Sir Robert Walpole, when he was
reconciled to, though never after spoken to, by the King.
On Lord Granville’s disgrace, he again grew out of humour; but
after having been betrayed and deserted by all he had obliged, he
did not erect a new standard of opposition, till the Pelhams had
bought off every man of any genius that might have promoted his
views. Indeed, his attachment to his followers was not stronger
than theirs to him. Being angry with Lord Doneraile[76] for not
speaking oftener in the House of Commons, he said, “Does he think
I will support him, unless he does as I would have him? Does not he
consider that whoever are my Ministers, I must be King?” His chief
passion was women, but like the rest of his race, beauty was not
a necessary ingredient. Miss ****, whom he had debauched without
loving, and who had been debauched without loving him so well as
either Lord Harrington or Lord Hervey, who both pretended to her
first favours, had no other charms than of being a Maid of Honour,
who was willing to cease to be so upon the first opportunity.
One of his favourites, Lady Archibald Hamilton[77] had been
neither young nor handsome within his memory. Lady Middlesex[78]
was very short, very plain, and very yellow: a vain girl, full of
Greek and Latin, and music, and painting, but neither mischievous
nor political. Lady Archibald was very agreeable and artful, but
had lost his heart, by giving him William Pitt for a rival. But
though these mistresses were pretty much declared, he was a good
husband, and the quiet inoffensive good sense of the Princess (who
had never said a foolish thing, or done a disobliging one since her
arrival, though in very difficult situations, young, uninstructed,
and besieged by the Queen, Princess Emily, and Lady Archibald’s
creatures, and very jarring interests), was likely to have always
preserved a chief ascendant over him.
Gaming was another of his passions, but his style of play did him
less honour than the amusement. He carried this dexterity[79] into
practice in more essential commerce, and was vain of it! One day
at Kensington that he had just borrowed five thousand pounds of
Doddington, seeing him pass under his window, he said to Hedges[80]
his Secretary, “That man is reckoned one of the most sensible men
in England, yet with all his parts, I have just nicked him out
of five thousand pounds.” He was really childish, affectedly a
protector of arts and sciences, fond of displaying what he knew:
a mimic, the Lord knows what a mimic!--of the celebrated Duke of
Orleans, in imitation of whom he wrote two or three silly French
songs.[81] His best quality was generosity; his worst, insincerity,
and indifference to truth, which appeared so early, that Earl
Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland from Hanover, what I shall
conclude his character with, “He has his father’s head, and his
mother’s heart.”
The Princess staid four hours in the room after he was dead, before
she could be quite convinced of it. At six in the morning they put
her to bed; but she rose again at eight, and sent for Dr. Lee,
and burnt, or said she burnt, all the Prince’s papers. As soon as
he was dead, Lord North was sent to notify it to the King, who
was playing at cards. He immediately went down to Lady Yarmouth,
looking extremely pale and shocked, and only said, “_Il est mort!_”
He sent a very kind message to the Princess, and another the
next morning in writing by the Lord in Waiting, Lord Lincoln. She
received him alone, sitting with her eyes fixed; thanked the King
much, and said she would write as soon as she was able; in the
meantime, recommended her miserable self and children to him.
The King and she both took their parts at once; she, of flinging
herself entirely into his hands, and studying nothing but his
pleasure, but with winding what interest she got with him to the
advantage of her own and the Prince’s friends: the King of acting
the tender grandfather; which he, who had never acted the tender
father, grew so pleased with representing, that he soon became
it in earnest. When he was called the morning after the Prince’s
death, they found him drest, walking about his room, and extremely
silent. Princess Emily, who had no great reason to flatter herself
with much favour if her brother had lived to be King, sent
immediately for the Duke from Windsor, who, on receiving the news,
said to Lord Sandwich with a sneer, “It is a great blow to this
country, but I hope it will recover it in time!” He little thought
that himself was to receive the greatest shock from it! He sent a
compliment by Lord Cathcart to Prince George, who cried extremely.
As soon as the Prince’s death was published, elegies were cried
about the streets, to which they added, “Oh, that it was but his
brother!”[82] and upon Change and in the city, “Oh, that it was
but the butcher!”[83] In short, the consternation that spread on
the apprehensions that the Duke would at least be Regent on the
King’s death, and have the sole power in the mean time, was near as
strong as what was occasioned by the notice of the Rebels being at
Derby.
The Houses met the next morning, but adjourned without doing any
thing.
The Duke of Bedford proposed to the King to remove Dr. Ayscough
from the young Princes, which he much approved, and nobody but
the Cobham cousins[84] disliked, who had just patched up their
peace with the Prince by his intervention. Lyttelton, whose sister
he had married, solicited Mr. Pelham to save him. Mr. Pelham
answered, “I know nothing of Dr. Ayscough--oh, yes, I recollect,
a very worthy man told me in this room two years ago that he was
a great rogue!” It was Lyttelton himself who had quarrelled with
him about an election business. Ayscough, who was an insolent man,
unwelcome to the Clergy on suspicions of heterodoxy, and of no fair
reputation for integrity, had been placed by Lyttelton and Pitt
with the Prince, into whose favour he had worked himself, chiefly
by partialities to Prince Edward; and managed his Privy Purse and
his election affairs. The Princess, finding that Prince George,
at eleven years old, could not read English, though Ayscough,
to make amends, assured her he could make Latin verses, had
already introduced a new Preceptor, one Scot, recommended by Lord
Bolingbroke, who had lately seen the Prince two or three times in
private.
22d.--The King sent a Commission to pass the Mutiny Bill. Lord
Egremont in the House of Lords, and Lord Hilsborough in the
Commons, moved the Address of Condolence; and then the Lords
adjourned to Wednesday, and the Commons till Monday. Lord Egremont,
who was son to the great Sir William Windham, and grandson to the
old Duke of Somerset, whose prodigious pride he inherited, more
than his father’s abilities, though he had a great deal of humour,
had formerly been a personal favourite with the Prince, but had
slighted that intimacy when Lord Granville his patron would not
co-operate in the Prince’s last Opposition.
Lord Hilsborough was a young man of great honour and merit,
remarkably nice in weighing whatever cause he was to vote in, and
excellent at setting off his reasons, if the affair was at all
tragic, by a solemnity in his voice and manner that made much
impression on his hearers.
At seven o’clock of the very morning after the Prince expired,
Lord Egmont sent cards to several of the Opposition, desiring
them to meet at his house, to consult on the measures proper for
them to take on the present conjuncture. Many of them came. He did
not make any formal oration, but whispered most of them something
about taking upon themselves the protection of the Princess and
her children. The meeting passed in a sort of dumb confusion and
uncertainty, and broke up without taking any measures at all.
An Order of Council was made to omit the name of the Prince of
Wales in the prayers. As no rank was yet given to Prince George, it
created murmurs. Though the House sat, nothing was done but private
business. On the 26th, Colonel Haldane moved, as the Prince’s
servants did not yet attend the House, that Anstruther’s affair
might be postponed till after Easter, which was agreed to, though
the General was present, and earnest to have it heard sooner.
28th.--A Council was held at the Cockpit, on the Nova-Scotia
affair. They divided: the Chancellor, Mr. Pelham, the Dukes of
Newcastle, Grafton, Dorset, and Argyle, were for complying with
the request of the Board of Trade; the Duke of Bedford and Lord
Sandwich, who had now got the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Gower on
their side, against it.
The German politics went ill. What Allies we had there wanted more
money. The Elector of Cologne, who had signed a treaty with the
King, refused to execute it, and united with France. That Court
used continual evasions with us, on the evacuation of Tobago,
and the contested islands in the West Indies, and gave great
disturbance to our Colony of Nova-Scotia. In the east, they were
driving us out of our Settlements; and upon the coast of Africa
seizing our forts, raising others, inveigling away our Allies, and
working us out of our whole Negro and Gold-Coast trade. The British
Minister at Paris, Lord Albemarle,[85] was not a man to offend the
haughtiness of that Court, or the pusillanimity of his own, by
mixing more sturdiness with his Memorials than he was commissioned
to do. It was convenient to him to be anywhere but in England:
his debts were excessive, though he was Embassador, Groom of the
Stole, Governor of Virginia, and Colonel of a regiment of Guards.
His figure was genteel, his manner noble and agreeable: the rest
of his merit, for he had not even an estate, was the interest my
Lady Albemarle had with the King through Lady Yarmouth, and his
son, Lord Bury, being the Duke’s chief favourite. He had all his
life imitated the French manners, till he came to Paris, where he
never conversed with a Frenchman; not from partiality to his own
countrymen, for he conversed as little with them, living entirely
with a Flemish Columbine, that he had brought from the Army. If
good breeding is not different from good sense, Lord Albemarle,
who might have disputed even that maxim, at least knew how to
distinguish it from good nature. He would bow to his postilion,
while he was ruining his tailor.
31st.--The King went to see the Princess. A chair of state was
placed for him, but he refused it, and sat by her on the couch,
embraced, and wept with her. He would not suffer the Lady Augusta
to kiss his hand, but embraced her, and gave it to her brothers,
and told them, “They must be brave boys, obedient to their mother,
and deserve the fortune to which they were born.”
FOOTNOTES:
[59] The death of the Prince.
[60] Yet, as it will appear afterwards, Mr. Pelham supported the
demand of the Board of Trade against the Duke of Bedford.
[61] Thomas Hay, eldest son of George, Earl of Kinnoul, one of the
Lords of Trade.
[62] Edward, brother to Lord Cornwallis, and Groom of the
Bedchamber to the King.
[63] Here is my evidence. Mr. Robyns said he had known him
an atheist, and had advised him against talking so openly in
coffee-houses. Mr. Stevens, a Mathematician, who lives much in
the house with Earl Powlett, says, Secker made him an atheist at
Leyden, where the club was established.
[64] Bishop of Durham, father to Lord Chancellor Talbot.
[65] Dr. Henry Bland, Dean of Durham and Provost of Eton, a great
favourite of Sir Robert Walpole.
[66] He was nominated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, March 28,
1758.
[67] Lady Mary Grey.
[68] Annabella, daughter of the Lord Glenorchy, by the eldest
daughter of Henry, the last Duke of Kent. On this match with the
Chancellor’s son, she was created Marchioness de Grey.
[69] He was made Dean of St. Paul’s by the Chancellor’s interest
about this time.
[70] Samuel Sandys, a republican opposer of the Court, was made
Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the room of Sir Robert Walpole, in
1742, but was turned out in less than two years, and made Cofferer
and a Baron, and entirely laid aside on the disgrace of Lord
Granville.
[71] John, Lord Hervey, eldest son to the Earl of Bristol, was
removed from the post of Lord Privy Seal, to make way for Lord
Gower, in 1742, and took the place in Opposition which Lord Gower
had left.
[72] One of them was printed; the subject, Jekyll’s Ghost appearing
to Sandys, in imitation of William and Margaret: the other was the
same Ghost appearing to Lord Hervey.
[73] Thomas Potter, second son to the late Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Secretary to the Princess of Wales.
On Sunday, June 17, 1759, died Thomas Potter, Esq., joint
Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, Principal Registrar of the province of
Canterbury, Recorder of the city of Bath, and member in the present
Parliament for Okehampton in Devonshire.--(Public Journals.)
[74] The first was on a petition for setting aside Mr. W. Pitt’s
election at Seaforth, where the Duke of Newcastle had appeared
at the poll, contrary to the resolution of the House of Commons
against Peers interfering in elections. It was printed in the
London Magazine, and old Horace Walpole published a letter to him
upon it. The other speech was on the famous bill for removing the
Assizes from Aylesbury to Buckingham, on a contest between the
Lord Chief Justice Willes and the Grenvilles. Potter talking upon
his plan for suppressing Gin, told a near relation of Sir Robert
Walpole, that he would imitate that Minister, and expose himself to
all the unpopularity of the Excise Scheme. When Mr. Fox was told
of this speech, he said it put him in mind of Sir Godfrey Kneller,
who, when his gardener was cursing himself, said to him, “God d--n
_you_! God d--ns Kings and Princes and great men; God no d--n such
poor fellows as you.”
[75] It was (Lady Augusta) the eldest, “afterwards Duchess of
Brunswick.” As it was necessary to have the Privy Councillors
present at the birth of an Heir-Apparent to the Crown, which was
prevented by this rash step, the Prince sent messengers, as he was
upon the road, to Chiswick and Lambeth, to fetch Lord Wilmington
and the Archbishop of Canterbury; but they arrived too late. The
Princess was put into a bed that had not been prepared, for which
the Prince and Lady Archibald Hamilton were forced to air the
sheets. The Queen followed them early in the morning, and asked
Lady Archibald, “how she dared to bring away the Princess in that
manner?” who turned to the Prince, and said, “You see, Sir, I told
you it would be laid upon me.”
[76] Arthur St. Leger, Lord Viscount Doneraile, Lord of the
Bedchamber to the Prince, died of a consumption at Lisbon in 1750.
He was a young man of great parts, but of no steadiness in courage,
conduct, or principles. He made a celebrated speech against the
Pelhams, on the affair of the sixteen new regiments that were to
be raised by some Noblemen during the Rebellion. These Lords had
offered to raise them at their own expense, but made a notorious
job of it, at the same time that the Earl of Kildare, who really
meant it, was not permitted, as Lord Doneraile by his authority
acquainted the House of Commons, and concluded with saying, that
“the Ministry were either too weak to do a right thing, or too
good-natured to refuse a wrong one.”
[77] Jane, daughter to Lord Abercorn, and wife of Lord Archibald
Hamilton, was Mistress of the Robes to the Princess of Wales, and
for some years governed absolutely at the Prince’s Court. She
had contrived to have the Princess told, before her arrival in
England, that Lady **** was his mistress, to divert any suspicions
from herself; and had planted so many of her own relations about
her, that one day at Carlton-house, Sir William Stanhope called
everybody there whom he did not know, _Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton_. Lady
Archibald quitted that Court soon after Mr. Pitt accepted a place
in the Administration.
[78] Grace, daughter to the Lord Viscount Shannon, and wife of
Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex, Master of the Horse to the
Prince. She succeeded Lady Archibald Hamilton as Mistress of the
Robes.
[79] The following remarkable anecdote was told me by Mr. Fox, who
said the King himself told it him, and that the late Lord Hervey
had told him the same particular from the Queen. One day, when
the Prince was but a boy, his Governor was complaining of him:
the Queen, whose way (as the King said) was to excuse him, said,
“_Ah! je m’imagine que ces sont des tours de page_.” The Governor
replied, “_Plût à Dieu, madame, que ces fûssent des tours de page!
ces sont des tours de laquais et de coquins_.”
[80] Charles Hedges had been Minister at Turin, and was Secretary
to the Prince. He was a man much in fashion, and a pretty Latin
poet.
[81] Vide the Appendix, D and E.
[82] Vide Appendix.
[83] This nickname was not given in the sense it was formerly;
“Le boucher etoit anciennement un surnom glorieux qu’on donnoit à
un general après une victoire, en reconnoissance du carnage qu’il
avoit fait de trente ou quarante mille hommes.”--Essais Histor. sur
Paris, de Saintfoix, tom. 2, p. 63.
[84] Sir George Lyttelton, whose sister Ayscough had married,
and the three Granvilles, were nephews to Lord Cobham. W. Pitt’s
brother had married Lyttelton’s sister.
[85] William Anne Van Keppel, the second Earl of Albemarle.