Conversation of the King with Mr. Fox on his Regency
Bill--Some account of Lord Hardwick--The Pelhams determine
to remove the Duke of Bedford and Lord Hardwick--Character
of the Duke of Newcastle, and of Mr. Pelham--Sketch of Lord
Granville, his former administration, and other events of
1745--Mr. Winnington--The resigners restored--The King’s
self-command--Character of George the Second, of the Duke
of Grafton, and of Princess Emily--The Duke of Newcastle
determines to remove his colleagues--The Duke of Bedford and Lord
Sandwich--The Pelhams foment family disputes.
The day after the Committee in the House of Commons, the King said
aloud in the drawing-room at Kensington, that the amendments to
the præmunire clause were rightly made. The Chancellor answered,
“the insertion of the word _unlawfully_ was unnecessary.” “That,”
replied the King, “is a distinction only for lawyers to make.” Mr.
Pelham would have explained it to him in a low voice, but he would
talk upon it publicly.
About the same time, the King talking to Mr. Fox in his closet upon
the Bill, asked him, whom he would have made Regent? “Sir,” said
Mr. Fox, “I never thought I should be asked, and therefore never
thought--if it was impossible the Duke should!” The King replied,
“My affection was there;” but avoided talking on the impossibility.
He assumed to himself the chief direction of the Bill, and added,
“I have a good opinion of the Princess, but I don’t quite know
her.” He then spoke largely and sensibly on the restrictions, and
gave reasons for them. “That a Council was necessary for her, even
in cases of treason: women are apt to pardon; I myself am always
inclined to mercy; it is better to have somebody to refuse for her.
As to the power of peace and war, I never would declare either
without consulting others. And as to the objection of the Council
being irremoveable, who knows it will be composed of the present
people? It will be the Ministers I shall leave: had you rather
have those I shall leave, or have the Princess at liberty to go
and put in Lord Cobham or Lord Egmont? What did you say against
the Bill?--do you like it? tell me honestly.” Fox answered, “If
you ask me, sir--no. What I said against it was, because what was
said for it was against the Duke.” The King told him, “I thank you
for that: my affection is with my son: I assure you, Mr. Fox, I
like you the better for wishing well to him. The English nation is
so changeable! I don’t know why they dislike him. It is brought
about by the Scotch, the Jacobites, and the English that don’t love
discipline; and by all this not being enough discouraged by the
Ministry.”
To complete the history of this memorable Bill, I shall subjoin
some account of its author.
Sir Philip Yorke, Baron of Hardwick, and Lord Chancellor, was
* * * * the son of an attorney at Dover. He was a creature of the
Duke of Newcastle, and by him introduced to Sir Robert Walpole,
who contributed to his grandeur and baseness, in giving him an
opportunity of displaying the extent of the latter, by raising
him to the height of the former. He had good parts, which he laid
out so entirely upon the Law in the first part of his life, that
they were of little use to him afterwards, when he would have
applied them to more general views. He was Attorney-General, and
when the Solicitor Talbot was, after a contest, preferred to him
for the Chancellorship (the contest lay between their precedence,
for Talbot was as able a man, and an honest one), Sir Robert
Walpole made Yorke Chief-Justice for life, and greatly encreased
the salary. Talbot dying in a short time after his advancement,
to the great grief of all good men, Yorke[134] succeeded. In his
Chief-Justiceship he had gained the reputation of humanity, by
some solemn speeches made on the Circuit, at the condemnation
of wretches for low crimes; a character he lost with some when
he sat as Lord High Steward at the trials of the Scotch Lords,
the meanness of his birth breaking out in insolent acrimony. On
his promotion, he flung himself into politics; but as he had no
knowledge of foreign affairs, but what were whispered to him by
Newcastle, he made a very poor figure.
In the House of Lords, he was laughed at; in the Cabinet,
despised.[135] On the Queen’s death, he went deep into the Duke’s
shallow scheme of governing the King by the Princess Emily; for
this cabal thought that he must necessarily be ruled by a woman,
because the Queen was one, not considering it was because she was
a wise one. This scheme was to be built on the ruin of Sir Robert
Walpole, who had no other trouble to make it miscarry than in
making the King say “_Pho!_” to the first advice this junto gave
him. Their next plot was deeper laid, and had more effect: by a
confederacy with the chiefs of the Opposition, they overturned Sir
Robert Walpole; and in a little time, the few of their associates
that they had admitted to share the spoils. When Yorke had left
none but his friends in the Ministry, he was easily the most
eminent for abilities. His exceeding parsimony was qualified by his
severity to and discouragement of usurers and gamesters; at least,
he endeavoured to suppress that species of avarice that exists by
supplying and encouraging extravagance. The best thing that can be
remembered of the Chancellor is his fidelity to his patron; for let
the Duke of Newcastle betray whom he would, the Chancellor always
stuck to him in his perfidy, and was only not false to the falsest
of mankind.
The Pelhams having thus secured the duration of their power by Act
of Parliament, determined at least to remove every object that
gave any interruption or uneasiness to their enjoyment of it. It
will not easily be understood how the Duke of Bedford and Lord
Sandwich, who were the present objects of offence, could give them
any uneasiness. The latter was willing to submit to any indignities
to keep his place; and the former neither had, nor pretended to any
power, though Secretary of State. No measure, foreign or domestic,
but was transacted without his participation. So far from having
had any share in the nomination of Officers and Governors to the
young Prince of Wales, the Duke of Bedford was not even told he was
to have any, nor acquainted when they were actually appointed. He
was not consulted upon any one step of the Regency Bill; only when
it was entirely resolved, and had been actually communicated to the
Cabinet Council, at which Lord Sandwich, his friend, was present,
the Chancellor went to impart it to him at his own house, where he
was confined with the gout. Indeed, at first he was pleased with
this farce of attention, till his friends pointed out the insult of
it. Notwithstanding all this submission, the Duke of Newcastle had
no peace till they were removed. As he had no cause from _their_
characters, we must seek it in his own; and to show the force of
his jealousy, it will be necessary to give a deduction of his
several treacheries.
He succeeded young to an estate of about thirty thousand pounds a
year, and to great influence and interest in several counties. This
account in reality contains his whole character as a Minister; for
to the weight of this fortune he solely owed his every-other-way
most unwarrantable elevation. His being heir to his uncle, the
old Duke of Newcastle, obtained from the Crown a new creation
of the title in his person; and, though he was far from having
parts to procure him a Peerage, his Peerage and vast income
procured him the first posts in the Government. His person was
not naturally despicable; his incapacity, his mean soul, and the
general low opinion of him, grew to make it appear ridiculous. A
constant hurry in his walk, a restlessness of place, a borrowed
importance, and real insignificance, gave him the perpetual air
of a solicitor, though he was perpetually solicited; for he never
conferred a favour till it was wrested from him, but often omitted
doing what he most wished done. This disquiet and habit of never
finishing, which, too, proceeded frequently from his beginning
everything twenty times over, gave rise to a famous _bon mot_ of
Lord Wilmington,--a man as unapt to attempt saying a good thing, as
to say one. He said, “the Duke of Newcastle always loses half an
hour in the morning, which he is running after the rest of the day
without being able to overtake it.”
He early distinguished himself for the House of Hanover, and in the
last years of Queen Anne retained a great mob of people to halloo
in that cause. He and his brother Harry raised a troop for King
George on the Preston Rebellion, where the latter gave proofs of
personal courage. The Duke was rewarded with the Garter, and some
time after made Lord Chamberlain. The late King chose him for the
honour of being Godfather to a new-born son of the Prince of Wales,
which his Royal Highness much disapproving, was the immediate cause
of that famous breach in the Royal Family, when the Prince and
Princess left the palace very late at night. On Lord Carteret’s
being sent into honourable banishment as Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, by the power of Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole, the
latter proposed to make the Duke of Newcastle Secretary of State,
having experienced how troublesome a man of parts was in that
office. The Viscount’s first wife having been the Duke’s sister
was another reason for their depending the more on his attachment
to them; but that very relation had given Lord Townshend too many
opportunities of discovering how little he was to be trusted,
particularly from his having betrayed Lord Sunderland, his first
patron, to Lord Townshend, who earnestly objected to the choice of
him, and endeavoured to convince Sir Robert Walpole how much his
falsehood would give an edge to his incapacity. As the disagreement
increased between those two Ministers, the Duke in every instance
betrayed his brother-in-law to Sir Robert. The Viscount was not of
Walpole’s forgiving temper, and was immediately for discarding the
Duke. He pressed both King and Queen to it; exclaimed against his
childishness and weakness, and insisted upon his dismission as the
only terms of reconciliation with Sir Robert. The King, who always
hated him, easily yielded to make Sir Paul Methuen Secretary of
State in his room; but the greater power of Sir Robert with the
Queen (whose policy had long been employed in keeping open the
breach, in order to govern both), saved the Duke for future scenes
of perfidy[136] and ingratitude.
Towards the decline of Sir Robert Walpole’s Ministry, the Duke of
Newcastle, who feared to fall with him, and hoped to rise upon
his ruins, dealt largely with the Opposition, to compass both.
The late Duke of Argyle, after that Minister’s defeat, and his
own disappointment in not succeeding to a greater portion of
power, commissioned his brother, Lord Islay, to tell Sir Robert,
that the Duke of Newcastle and the Chancellor had long been in
league with himself and Lord Granville to effect his ruin. Lord
Granville was scarce warm in power before Newcastle betrayed
him to Lord Chesterfield; and the latter having introduced Lord
Sandwich, who was sent Minister to the Hague, this young statesman
and the Duke of Newcastle kept the secrets of his own office from
Lord Harrington, who had been restored to the place of Secretary
of State, for the assistance he had lent in overturning Lord
Granville. On Lord Harrington’s discovering and resenting this
treachery, the Seals were given to Lord Chesterfield; but he being,
like his predecessors, excluded from all trust the moment he had
a right to be trusted, soon resigned them. The Duke of Newcastle,
who had newly entered into connexions with the Duke of Bedford,
(as he and his brother did successively with every chief of a
faction, till they had taken out their stings by dividing them from
their party, and then discarded them) wished to give the Seals
to Murray, who was, or to Pitt, who was canvassing to be, his
creature; but the Duke of Bedford abruptly and positively insisted
on having them--and had [them, together with] their constant
perquisites,--the Duke of Newcastle’s suspicions and treachery.
The Duke of Newcastle had no pride, though infinite self-love:
jealousy was the great source of all his faults. He always caressed
his enemies, to list them against his friends; there was no service
he would not do for either, till either was above being served by
him: then he would suspect they did not love him enough; for the
moment they had every reason to love him, he took every method to
obtain their hate, by exerting all his power for their ruin. There
was no expense to which he was not addicted, but generosity. His
houses, gardens, table, and equipage, swallowed immense treasures:
the sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted. He loved
business immoderately, yet was only always doing it, never did it.
His speeches in Council and Parliament were flowing and copious
of words, but empty and unmeaning: his professions extravagant,
for he would profess intentions of doing more service to many men,
than he even did hurt to others. Always inquisitive to know what
was said of him, he wasted in curiosity the time in which he might
have earned praise. He aimed at everything; endeavoured nothing.
Fear,[137] a ridiculous fear, was predominant in him; he would
venture the overthrow of the Government, and hazard his life and
fortunes rather than dare to open a letter that might discover a
plot. He was a Secretary of State without intelligence, a Duke
without money, a man of infinite intrigue, without secrecy or
policy, and a Minister despised and hated by his master, by all
parties and Ministers, without being turned out by any!
It may appear extraordinary that Mr. Pelham, who had not so much
levity in his character, should consent to be an accomplice in
his brother’s treacheries, especially as upon every interval of
rivalship, the Duke grew jealous of him. The truth was, that Mr.
Pelham, who had as much envy[138] in his temper, and still more
fondness for power, was willing to take advantage of his brother’s
fickleness, and reaped all the emolument without incurring the
odium of it. He had lived in friendship with Sir Robert Walpole,
Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Bedford; while his brother was
notoriously betraying them shrugged up his shoulders, condemned the
Duke, tried to make peace, but never failed to profit of their ruin
the moment it was accomplished. The falsehood and frivolousness of
their behaviour can never appear in a stronger light than it did
in the present instance, and in all the transactions that relate
to Lord Granville. That Lord had hurried into power on Sir Robert
Walpole’s disgrace, and declared he would be a Page of the Back
Stairs rather than ever quit the Court again. He had no sooner
quitted his party, who had long suspected him, than he openly
declared himself a protector of Sir Robert Walpole; and to give the
finishing stroke to his interest with the King, drove deep into
all his Majesty’s Hanoverian politics, persuaded, in spite of the
recent instance before his eyes, that whoever governed the King,
must govern the kingdom.
His person[139] was handsome, open, and engaging; his eloquence at
once rapid and pompous, and by the mixture, a little bombast.[140]
He was an extensive scholar, master of classic criticism, and of
all modern politics. He was precipitate in his manner, and rash in
his projects; but, though there was nothing he would not attempt,
he scarce ever took any measures necessary to the accomplishment.
He would profess amply, provoke indiscriminately, oblige seldom.
It is difficult to say whether he was oftener intoxicated by wine
or ambition: in fits of the former, he showed contempt for every
body; in rants of the latter, for truth. His genius was magnificent
and lofty; his heart without gall or friendship, for he never tried
to be revenged on his enemies, or to serve his friends. One of
the latter, Lord Chief-Justice Willes, being complimented on Lord
Granville’s return to Court, replied, “He my friend! He is nobody’s
friend: I will give you a proof. Sir Robert Walpole had promised me
to make my friend Clive one of the King’s Council; but too late! I
asked him to request it of Mr. Pelham, who promised, but did not
perform. When Lord Granville was in the height of his power, I one
day said to him, ‘My Lord, you are going to the King; do ask him
to make poor Clive one of his Council.’ He replied, ‘What is it
to me who is a Judge, or who a Bishop? It is my business to make
Kings and Emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.’ Willes
replied, ‘Then they who want to be Bishops and Judges will apply to
those who will submit to make it their business.’” I will mention
one other short instance of his style. When, during his power, he
had a mind to turn out the Chancellor, and prefer Willes, he said
to Mr. Pelham, “I made Willes Chief Justice.” “You may make him
more if you please, and perhaps will,” replied Mr. Pelham, “but I
thought Sir Robert Walpole made him Chief Justice.” “No, it was I:
I will tell you how: I knew him at Oxford; Queen Anne’s Ministry
had caught him scribbling libels: I had even then an interest with
men in power--I saved him from the pillory--now, you know, if he
had stood in the pillory, Sir Robert Walpole could never have made
him a Judge.”
He carried this extravagance into his whole behaviour: divided
Europe, portioned out the spoils of the King of Prussia, conquered
France--and all these visionary victories, without deigning to
cultivate the least interest in the House of Commons, where the
Pelhams were undermining like moles, and thinking as little of
Europe--as ever they did afterwards. Pitt, who was building fame by
attacking this Quixote Minister, received profuse incense from Mr.
Pelham; while Lord Granville kept no measures of decency with his
new associates. He treated the Duke of Newcastle, the Chancellor,
and Lord Harrington, with unmeasurable contempt, and would not
suffer their patience to be, what their tempers inclined them to
be, the humblest of his slaves. These men, who, if they had any
talents, had the greatest art that ever I knew at decrying those
they wanted to undo, soon kindled such a flame in the nation, that
the King was forced to part with his favourite, and all his airy
schemes of German glory. Lord Granville had endeavoured early, by
the intervention of Lord Hervey, to unite with Sir Robert Walpole,
but he absolutely declined it, being persuaded that Lord Granville
had connexions with the Pretender,[141] which, if he ever had, he
now and long since had undoubtedly broken off. In their distress
to get rid of their great antagonist, the Pelhams had recourse to
Sir Robert Walpole. I don’t know whether the Duke of Newcastle,
like another King-making Warwick, would not even have offered to
raise him again to the height from which he had tumbled him, had he
stipulated for any terms. Lord Orford, who the year before had by
his single interest prevented the rejection of the Hanover troops,
now came again to town, and having been instructed by John Selwyn,
who was dispatched to meet him upon the road, wrote a letter to the
King, which prevailed upon him to dismiss his Minister.
The Pelhams then entered into a coalition with the Duke of Bedford,
Lord Chesterfield, Pitt, and that faction, which went on tolerably
smooth, till Pitt’s impatience to be Secretary at War opened the
door to a new scene. Lord Bath and Lord Granville, who still
preserved connexions with the King, through the intervention of
my Lady Yarmouth, persuaded him not to admit that incendiary into
his closet. The Pelhams discovered from whence the rub came; and
growing apprehensive that as soon as the session should be closed,
and the Supplies completed, they should be discarded, not only
determined to resign their own places, but engaged the whole body
of the King’s Ministers and servants, down to the lowest clerks in
offices, in a league of throwing up their employments in order to
distress their master: and the whole nation, which for four years
together had seemed possessed with a madness of seizing places,
now ran into the opposite phrensy of quitting them--and must not
it be told:--or will it be credited, if it is told?--The period
they chose for this unwarrantable insult, was the height of a
Rebellion; the King was to be forced into compliance with their
views, or their allegiance was in a manner ready to be offered to
the competitor for his Crown, then actually wrestling for it in the
heart of his kingdom! A flagrancy of ingratitude and treachery not
to be paralleled, but by the behaviour of the Parliament at the
beginning of the Civil War, who connived at the Irish Rebellion, in
order to charge King Charles with fomenting it. What attention they
had already exerted for suppressing the Rebellion, appears from Sir
John Cope’s trial, where, in answer to his repeated memorials for
succours, and representations of the young Pretender being actually
in Scotland and in arms, the Council tell him, “That they are
unwilling to send him supplies, for fear of alarming people.”
This general banding of the King’s servants against him, joined to
Lord Granville’s neglect of all precaution to strengthen himself
by a party, had the desired effect. He had offered the Seals to
Willes but the very day of the execution of their scheme, who
prudently declined them. Winnington, though far from being a
friend to Mr. Pelham, and wishing well to Lord Granville, yet
understood his own interest too well to undertake the management of
the House of Commons, and was at last forced to mediate the parley
between the King and the mutineers. Lord Granville took the Seals,
which Lord Harrington had been the first to resign, and sent for
Lord Cholmondeley from Chester to take the others. This was[142]
a vain empty man, shoved up too high by his father-in-law, Sir
Robert Walpole, and fallen into contempt and obscurity by his own
extravagance and insufficiency. Lord Winchelsea,[143] who had been
at the head of the Admiralty on the first change, and the only man
who had raised his character (by his conduct at that Board) when
the rest of his friends had sunk theirs, was again named to that
dignity; and Lord Bath at last obtained that object of his every
passion, the government of the Treasury. The other employments they
had not time to fill up, for on the third day of this meteor-like
Ministry, no volunteers coming in, business at a stand, the nation
in astonishment, and the Parliament in indignation, the two Lords
were forced to tell the King, that he must once more part with
them, and submit to his old governors. Lord Granville left St.
James’s laughing; Lord Bath slipped down the back stairs, leaving
Lord Carlisle in the outward room, expecting to be called in to
kiss hands for the Privy Seal.
The King sent for Winnington, and commissioned him to invite the
deserters to return to their posts. Winnington[144] had been bred
a Tory, but had left them in the height of Sir Robert Walpole’s
power: when that Minister sunk, he had injudiciously, and to please
my Lady Townshend, who had then the greatest influence over him,
declined visiting him in a manner to offend the steady old Whigs;
and his jolly way of laughing at his own want of principles had
revolted all the graver sort, who thought deficiency of honesty
too sacred and profitable a commodity to be profaned and turned
into ridicule. He had infinitely more wit than any man I ever knew,
and it was as ready and quick as it was constant and unmeditated.
His style was a little brutal; his courage not at all so; his
good-humour inexhaustible: it was impossible to hate or to trust
him. He died soon after by the ignorance of a quack,[145] when he
stood in the fairest point of rising, to the great satisfaction of
Mr. Pelham, whom he rivalled and despised.
The _ligue_, who had retired for no other end, did not make
the King expect them long. Lord Harrington alone, when Mr.
Pelham announced to him the summons for their return, said, “Go
back!--yes, but not without conditions.” One was, that Lord
Granville should give up the promise of the Garter; which he
did--but got while out of place, and saw Lord Harrington sacrificed
to the King’s resentments.
The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to
hoard them better than any man who ever sat upon a Throne. The
insults he experienced from his own, and those obliged servants,
never provoked him enough to make him venture the repose of his
people, or his own. If any object of his hate fell in his way, he
did not pique himself upon heroic forgiveness, but would indulge
it at the expence of his integrity, though not of his safety.
He was reckoned strictly honest; but the burning his father’s
will[146] must be an indelible blot upon his memory; as a much
later instance of his refusing to pardon a young man[147] who had
been condemned at Oxford for a most trifling forgery, contrary to
all example when recommended to mercy by the Judge; merely because
Willes, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him, and
assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though
in general his disposition was merciful, if the offence was not
murder. His avarice was much less equivocal than his courage: he
had distinguished the latter early;[148] it grew more doubtful
afterwards: the former he distinguished very near as soon,[149]
and never deviated from it. His understanding was not near so
deficient, as it was imagined; but though his character changed
extremely in the world, it was without foundation; for [whether] he
deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had been in the former part
of his reign, or so respected as in the latter, he was consistent
in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd.
His other passions were, Germany, the Army,[150] and women. Both
the latter had a mixture of parade in them: he [treated] my Lady
Suffolk, and afterwards Lady Yarmouth, as his mistresses, while
he admired only the Queen; and never described what he thought a
handsome woman, but he drew her picture. Lady Suffolk[151] was
sensible, artful, and agreeable, but had neither sense nor art
enough to make him think her so agreeable as his wife. When she had
left him, tired of acting the mistress, while she had in reality
all the slights of a wife, and no interest with him, the Opposition
affected to cry up her virtue, and the obligations the King had to
her for consenting to seem his mistress, while in reality she had
confined him to mere friendship--a ridiculous pretence, as he was
the last man in the world to have taste for talking sentiments,
and that with a woman who was deaf![152] Lady Yarmouth[153] was
inoffensive, and attentive only to pleasing him, and to selling
Peerages whenever she had an opportunity. The Queen had been
admired and happy for governing him by address; it was not then
known how easily he was to be governed by fear.
Indeed there were few arts by which he was not governed at some
time or other of his life; for not to mention the late Duke of
Argyle, who grew a favourite by imposing himself upon him for
brave; nor Lord Wilmington,[154] who imposed himself upon him for
the Lord knows what; the Queen governed him by dissimulation,
by affected tenderness and deference:[155] Sir Robert Walpole by
abilities and influence in the House of Commons; Lord Granville by
flattering him in his German politics; the Duke of Newcastle by
teazing and betraying him; Mr. Pelham by bullying him,--the only
man by whom Mr. Pelham was not bullied himself. Who indeed had
not sometimes weight with the King, except his children and his
mistresses? With them he maintained all the reserve and majesty of
his rank. He had the haughtiness of Henry the Eighth, without his
spirit; the avarice of Henry the Seventh, without his exactions;
the indignities of Charles the First, without his bigotry for his
prerogative; the vexations of King William, with as little skill in
the management of parties; and the gross gallantry of his father,
without his goodnature or his honesty:--he might, perhaps, have
been honest, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved
his son.
Of all the resigners, the Duke of Grafton had treated his master
with the greatest decency: he had retired to hunt, according to his
custom, on the first scent of a storm; and it was with the greatest
reluctance that he was forced to declare himself for any Ministry
that was in a disputable situation: nothing could have forced him
to it but the inequality of the dispute. When he went into the
closet, he told the King, as if laughing at those he sided with,
“Sir, I am come to direct you who shall be your Minister.”
The Duke of Grafton[156] was a very extraordinary man; with very
good common sense and knowledge of mankind, he contrived to be
generally thought a fool, and by being thought so, contrived to
be always well at Court, and to have it not remarked that he was
so: yet he would sometimes boast of having been a short time in
Opposition, and of having early resolved never to be so again.
He had a lofty person, with great dignity; great slowness in
his delivery, which he managed with humour. He had the greatest
penetration in finding out the foibles of men that ever I knew,
and wit in teazing them. He was insensible to misfortunes of
his own[157] or of his friends: understood the Court perfectly,
and looking upon himself as of the Blood Royal, he thought
nothing ought to affect him, but what touched them: as he had no
opportunity of forsaking them for a family to which he was more
nearly related, one must not say he would have forsaken them:
betraying was never his talent; he was content to be ungrateful,
when his benefactors were grown unhappy. He was careless of his
fortune, and provided against nothing but a storm that might remove
him from his station. An instance once broke out of his having
ambition to something more than barely adorning the Court. On the
Queen’s death, whom he always hated, teazed, yet praised to the
King, he was imprudent enough in a private conversation with Sir
Robert Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle, to dispute with the
latter, whose the power should be, both silently agreeing, fools as
they were, in his very presence, that it was no longer to be Sir
Robert’s. Grafton thinking to honour him enough by letting him
act under him, said at last in a great passion to t’other Duke,
“My Lord, sole Minister I am not capable of being; first Minister,
by G--, I will be.” The foundation of either’s hopes lay in their
credit with Princess Emily, who was suspected of having been as
kind to Grafton’s love, as she would have been unkind in yielding
to Newcastle’s, who made exceeding bustle about her, but was always
bad at executing all business. The Queen had in reality a thorough
aversion to the Duke of Grafton for the liberties he took with
one of her great blood; and if she had not been prevented by Sir
Robert Walpole, would one night have complained to the King, when
the Princess and the Duke, who hunted two or three times a week
together, had staid out unusually late, lost their attendants,
and gone together to a private house in Windsor Forest. The Queen
hated him too for letting her see he knew her. He always teazed
her, and insisted that she loved nobody. He had got a story of some
Prince in Germany,[158] that she had been in love with before her
marriage: “G--, madam,” he used to say, “I wish I could have seen
that man that you _could_ love!” “Why,” replied she, “do you think
I don’t love the King?” “G--, I wish I was King of France, and I
would be sure whether you do or not!”
Princess Emily detached herself from that cabal, and united with
her brother the Duke and the Bedfords. She was meanly inquisitive
into what did not relate to her, and foolishly communicative
of what was below her to know: false without trying to please,
mischievous with more design, impertinent even where she had no
resentment; and insolent, though she had lost her beauty, and
acquired no power. After her father’s death, she lived with great
dignity; but being entirely slighted by her nephew, who was afraid
of her frankness, she soon forbore going to Court or to keep a
Drawing-room herself, on pretence of her increased deafness.
She was extremely deaf, and very short-sighted; yet had so much
quickness and conception, that she seemed to hear and see more
readily than others. She was an excellent mistress to her servants,
steady to her favourites, and nobly generous and charitable.
When the Pelhams were returned to Court, they for some time sat but
loose in the King’s affections. The Duke of Newcastle had long been
used to be called names by his master; and of whatever breach of
duty he was guilty, he took care to submit with patience to abuse
from his Sovereign. Mr. Pelham having more pride, was more resty
under ill treatment, and soon threatened again to resign. The King,
who would not venture again suddenly to be making Ministers upon
his own authority, asked him who he wished should succeed him? He
said peevishly, “Winnington.” “No,” said the King; “you know he is
too much your friend.” “I had rather,” replied Mr. Pelham, “you
would give my place to Lord Granville than keep it.” “That is
better still!” said the King; “you make it impossible for him to
have it, and then want me to give it to him!”
If that three-days’ Ministry had lasted, Lord Hartington, as
errant a bigot to the Pelham faction as ever Jacques Clement was
to the Jesuits, had offered to impeach Lord Granville--so soon
had Sir Robert Walpole’s friends forgot the abhorrence they had
expressed for the motion to remove him without a cause; and so
little do the silly bravos of a party foresee how soon they may be
brought to adopt and refine upon the most unjustifiable excesses of
their antagonists! This new violence was the more odious than its
precedent, as here was a man to be impeached only because he was
going to be an unpopular Minister! In four years, Lord Granville
and Lord Hartington came into place together!
The Duke of Newcastle, who had conquered every obstacle to power,
but the aversion of his master, began to think he might as well
add his favour to the other attributes of a Minister; and having
overturned Lord Granville for his German adulation, was so
equitable as to make the King amends by giving into all excess of
it himself. There was one impediment; he had never been out of
England, and dreaded the sea. After having consulted his numerous
band of physicians[159] and apothecaries, he at last ventured;
and himself and his gold plate,[160] and his mad Duchess, under
a thousand various convoys, treated Europe with a more ridiculous
spectacle than any it had seen since Caligula’s cockle-shell
triumph.
He was now at the height of his wishes, but was still unsatisfied.
The connexion of the Duke with Lord Sandwich, and through him
with the Duke of Bedford, had given him the uneasiness that was
mentioned at the beginning of these Memoirs; and the Prince’s death
having smoothed all opposition, it was determined by the brothers
in their Cabinet Council, to dismiss their rivals, whose interest
in the House of Commons could now turn no scale into which it
might be thrown. The measure was taken to remove Lord Sandwich,
and thereby provoke the Duke of Bedford to resign; or to give
the latter some more insignificant post, as Master of the Horse,
President of the Council, or Master of the Ordnance. Mr. Fox, who
saw the insult that was aimed at the Duke, endeavoured as much as
possible to save his honour, by persuading the Duke of Bedford to
acquiesce in the latter plan, as he would have more opportunities
of crossing his enemies while he staid at Court, than probability
of returning thither if once totally removed. Lord Sandwich
laboured the same point, and even hoped to be overlooked if he
could persuade the Duke of Bedford to accept one of the other less
obnoxious employments; but the Duke was swayed to the contrary
opinion.
He was a man of inflexible honesty, and good-will to his country:
his great economy was called avarice; if it was so, it was blended
with more generosity and goodness than that passion will commonly
unite with. His parts were certainly far from shining, and yet
he spoke readily, and upon trade, well: his foible was speaking
upon every subject, and imagining he understood it, as he must
have done, by inspiration. He was always governed; generally by
the Duchess,[161] though immeasurably obstinate, when once he
had formed or had an opinion instilled into him. His manner was
impetuous, of which he was so little sensible, that being told
Lord Halifax was to succeed him, he said, “He is too warm and
overbearing; the King will never endure him.” If the Duke of
Bedford could have thought less well of himself, the world would
probably have thought better of him.
His friend Lord Sandwich[162] was of a very different character;
in nothing more than in the inflexibility of his honesty. The Duke
of Bedford loved money, to use it sensibly and with kindness to
others; Lord Sandwich was rapacious, but extravagant when it was to
promote his own designs. His industry to carry any point he had in
view was so remarkable, that for a long time the world mistook it
for abilities; but as his manner was most awkward and unpolished,
so his talents were but slight, when it was necessary to exert them
in any higher light than in art and intrigue. The King had never
forgiven his indecent reflections[163] upon the Electorate when
he was in Opposition, and as soon as ever he found his Ministers
would permit him to show his resentment, he took all occasions to
pay his court to them by treating Lord Sandwich ill, particularly
by talking to Lord Anson before him on all matters relating to
the fleet. An incident (one should have thought quite foreign to
the Administration) contributed to give the King a new handle to
use Lord Sandwich with indignity: the Bedfords had transacted a
marriage between one of the Duchess’s sisters[164] and Colonel
Waldegrave, against the consent of her father, Lord Gower; and
Lord Sandwich had been so imprudent as to let the ceremony be
performed at his apartments at the Admiralty. The Pelhams, who
always inoculated private quarrels on affairs of state, dispatched
my Lord Gower to ask a formal audience of the King, and complain of
Lord Sandwich’s contributing to steal his daughter. Lord Gower[165]
was a comely man of form, had never had any sense, and was now
superannuated. He had been educated a stiff Jacobite, elected
their chief on his first coming into the King’s service, and had
twice taken the Privy Seal before he could determine to change his
principles. The King entered into his quarrel; and the Pelhams by
this artifice detached him from his family, and persuaded him that
to resign with them would be sacrificing himself in the cause of
Lord Sandwich, who had offered him such an indignity.
When Lord Sandwich found his disgrace unavoidable, and even had
got intelligence of the day on which he was to be dismissed, he
endeavoured by his own solicitations, and by the interposition of
the Duke, to prevail on the Duke of Bedford to throw up the Seals
first. This finesse, which did not succeed, was calculated to
prevent the appearance of the Duke of Bedford’s resigning upon his
account, and consequently the new obligations to be laid upon him
by that measure: governing that Duke no longer, he chose to be no
longer connected with him; but Bedford now would neither stay in,
nor go out by his advice.
FOOTNOTES:
[134] A story is current, that Sir Robert, finding it difficult to
prevail on Yorke to quit a place for life for the higher but more
precarious dignity of Chancellor, worked upon his jealousy, and
said, that if he persisted in refusing the Seals, he must offer
them to Fazakerley. “Fazakerley!” exclaimed Yorke; “impossible!
he is certainly a Tory, perhaps a Jacobite.” “It’s all very
true,” replied Sir Robert, taking out his watch, “but if by one
o’clock you do not accept my offer, Fazakerley by two becomes Lord
Keeper of the Great Seal, and one of the _staunchest Whigs in all
England_.” Yorke took the Seals and the Peerage.--E.
[135] Yet, in the course of the work, the author laments Lord
Hardwick’s influence in Cabinets, where he would have us believe he
was despised, and acknowledges that he exercised a dominion nearly
absolute over that House of Parliament, which, he would persuade
his readers, laughed at him. The truth is, that wherever that
great magistrate is mentioned, Lord Orford’s resentments blind his
judgment, and disfigure his narrative.--E.
[136] Sir R. Walpole often said of the Duke of Newcastle, “His name
is Perfidy.” (Vide Appendix.)
[137] He never lay in a room alone; when the Duchess was ill, his
footman lay in a pallet by him.
[138] An instance of it: after Sir Robert Walpole was out, he often
pressed Mr. Pelham to take care of Sturt, who had been employed in
Spain, which he neglecting, Sir Robert said one day to Mr. Pelham,
“Here has been poor Sturt with me.” Mr. Pelham could not help
interrupting him, and crying out, “G-- d-- the rascal! what does he
come to _you_ for?”
[139] John Carteret, Earl of Granville, was early distinguished
in business, and sent Embassador to Denmark, and made Secretary
of State when very young; but attempting to undermine Sir Robert
Walpole, he was removed to the Lieutenancy of Ireland, and
afterwards entirely laid aside. He became the principal speaker
against the Court in the House of Lords; but towards the end of
that Opposition, he was compelled by his associates, who suspected
that he was negotiating a peace for himself, to make the famous
motion for removing Sir Robert Walpole, on whose fall he was again
made Secretary of State.
[140] In one of his speeches upon the war with Spain, he said, “We
were entering upon a war that would be stained with the blood of
Kings, and washed with the tears of Queens!” It was in ridicule of
this rant, that Sir Charles Williams, in an unfinished poem, called
the “Pandemonium,” where he introduced orations in the style of the
chief speakers of the Opposition, concluded Lord Granville’s with
the following line, at the close of a prophetic view of the ravages
of the war,
“And Visiers’ heads came rolling down Constantinople’s streets.”
[141] Sir Robert Walpole used to relate the following passage. When
Lord Granville was Secretary of State the first time, the Ministry
had made some discoveries into the schemes of the Jacobites, and
at a meeting at the Cockpit, determined to take up the Lord North
and Grey, who was deeply engaged. The instant the meeting broke up,
which was very late at night, Lord Granville rode away post all
alone to Epping Forest, where that Lord lived, to give him notice;
and when the messengers arrived soon afterwards to apprehend him,
he was fled.
[142] George, Earl of Cholmondeley, married Mary, daughter to
Sir Robert Walpole. He was Knight of the Bath, and Lord of the
Admiralty, and then Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales; but
resigning that post on the rupture between the King and Prince, he
was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Privy Seal on
the resignation of Lord Gower, which place he was forced to give
back on the coalition, and was appointed joint Vice-Treasurer of
Ireland.
[143] Daniel Finch, Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham.
[144] Thomas Winnington was first made Lord of the Admiralty, then
of the Treasury, then Cofferer, and lastly Paymaster of the Forces,
when Mr. Pelham was raised to the head of the Treasury.
[145] Dr. Thompson, who blooded and purged him to death in a very
few days, for a very slight rheumatism. Several pamphlets were
published on this case.
[146] [For an account of this curious transaction, see the author’s
Reminiscences in the fourth volume of his printed works.]--E.
It is said that there was a large legacy to his sister, the Queen
of Prussia, which was the original cause of the inveteracy between
the King and his nephew, the present King of Prussia.
[147] Paul Wells, executed at Oxford, Sept. 1, 1749, for the
following, scarce to be called forgery:--Being sued by a Mrs.
Crooke for a debt of only nine pounds odd money, he altered the
date of the year in the bond to the ensuing year, to evade the suit
for twelve months.--Vide an authentic account of his life, by a
gentleman of C. C. C. Oxon.
[148] At the battle of Oudenarde.
[149] Soon after his first arrival in England, Mrs. ****, one of
the bedchamber women, with whom he was in love, seeing him count
his money over very often, said to him, “Sir, I can bear it no
longer; if you count your money once more, I will leave the room.”
[150] He was nicknamed by the Jacobites, _the Captain_.
[151] Henrietta, daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, and sister of John,
the first Earl of Buckinghamshire, of that family.--(Vide Appendix.)
[152] A relation of Cheselden the surgeon was condemned to be
hanged; Cheselden proposed, if the King would pardon him, to take
out the drum of his ear, in order to try what effect it would have;
and if it succeeded, the experiment was to be repeated on my Lady
Suffolk. The man was pardoned--the operation never tried!
[153] Amelia Sophia, wife of the Baron of Walmoden, created
Countess of Yarmouth. She had a son by the King, who went by
the name of Monsieur Louis, but he was not owned. The day Lord
Chesterfield kissed hands on his being appointed Secretary of
State, after so long an absence from Court, he met Sir William
Russel, one of the Pages, in the antechamber of St. James’s, and
began to make him a thousand compliments and excuses for not having
been yet to wait on him and his mamma; the boy heard him with great
tranquillity. When the speech was at an end, he said, “My Lord, I
believe you scarce designed all these honours for me. I suppose you
took me for Monsieur Louis!”
[154] Sir Spencer Compton, son of the Earl of Northampton, was
Speaker of the House of Commons and Knight of the Bath in the reign
of King George the First. On the accession of the present King,
when Sir Robert Walpole went to receive his orders, he bad him go
for them to Sir Spencer Compton. This was a plain declaration! The
first business was to prepare the new King’s speech to his Privy
Council, which the new Minister was so little able to draw, that he
was forced to apply for it to the old one, who drew it--willingly,
it may be believed; and the Queen knew how to make the request and
condescension have their effects. He was then created Baron, and
afterwards Earl of Wilmington and Knight of the Garter, and made
President of the Council. On the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole,
he succeeded him as First Lord of the Treasury, with the new
Commissioners, but had so little influence even at that Board, that
Sandys, Rushout, and Gybbon, used to put the disposal of places to
the vote, and carry them against him and his nephew Compton. He
died in about a year and a half after he had been raised to this
uneasy situation. He was the most formal solemn man in the world,
but a great lover of private debauchery: after missing the first
Ministership, he entered into a secret league with Mr. Pulteney,
which Sir R. Walpole discovered by the means of Mr. Pulteney’s
gentleman, who betrayed to him the letter he was carrying from his
master to Lord Wilmington. As this was soon after a treaty between
them, Lord Wilmington was much shocked when Sir Robert reproached
him with it, and continued so steady for the future, that when the
famous motion was made against that Minister, he went to vote in
the House of Lords with a blister on his head, after having been
confined to his bed for some days with a fever.
[155] She always affected, if anybody was present, to act (and he
liked she should) the humble ignorant wife, that never meddled with
politics. Even if Sir Robert Walpole came in to talk of business,
which she had previously settled with him, she would rise up,
curtsey, and offer to retire; the King generally bad her stay,
sometimes not. She and Sir Robert played him into one another’s
hands. He would refuse to take the advice of the one, and then
when the other talked to him again upon the same point, he would
give the reasons for it which had been suggested to him: nay, he
would sometimes produce as his own, at another conversation to the
same person, the reasons which he had refused to listen to when
given him. He has said to Sir Robert, on the curtseys of the Queen,
“There, you see how much I am governed by my wife, as they say I
am! Hoh! hoh! it is a fine thing indeed to be governed by one’s
wife!” “Oh! sir,” replied the Queen, “I must be vain indeed to
pretend to govern your Majesty!”
[156] Charles Fitzroy, the second Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain
and Knight of the Garter, grandson to Charles the Second. He died
May 6, 1757, aged 78.
[157] All his three sons died before him.
[158] It was the Duke of Saxe Gotha, father of the Princess of
Wales.
[159] It is scarce credible what sums he spent on doctors and
apothecaries, besides other emoluments bestowed on them. Mr.
Graham’s foreman was taken into the family, with the grant of an
ample place in the revenue; Dr. Shaw had an annuity of £400 per
annum, till another place of £700 per annum should fall in, with
the reversion of the latter for his son.
[160] It was generally in pawn, and only fetched out on festival
occasions. On its return from this journey to Hanover, it was
landed in Yorkshire, whither a party of Dragoons were sent to
convoy it to London.
[161] Gertrude Leveson Gower, eldest daughter of Earl Gower, second
wife of this John Duke of Bedford.
[162] John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, made a Lord of the
Admiralty on the coalition, and First Lord, on the Duke of
Bedford’s being appointed Secretary of State. He signed the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. [He was First Lord during Lord North’s
administration, and died 1792. Our author disparages his abilities.
He was a lively, sensible man, attentive to business, and not a bad
speaker in Parliament.]--E.
[163] On the Debate in the House of Lords on the Hanover troops, he
made a comparison between taking the Hanoverians into the pay of
England, and the French taking the troops of the Duke John Frederic
into their pay in 1672; and used these words,--“That _little_
Prince would have duped Lewis Fourteenth; but he treated him like a
_little_ Prince, and would not accept his troops but upon his own
terms.”
[164] Lady Elizabeth Leveson Gower, Lady of the Bedchamber to
Princess Emily, married to John Waldegrave, brother to Earl
Waldegrave, and Groom of the Bedchamber to the King.
[165] John Leveson Gower, Baron Gower, was elected President of
the Board (the Jacobite meeting) in 1742, on the death of the Earl
of Lichfield, while he was Lord Privy Seal, which he resigned soon
after; but came into the same place again on the coalition, and was
some time after created an Earl.