ARLINGTON STREET, _Wednesday, Feb._ 15, 1764.
My dear Lord,--You ought to be witness to the fatigue I am suffering,
before you can estimate the merit I have in being writing to you at this
moment. Cast up eleven hours in the House of Commons on Monday, and
above seventeen hours yesterday,--ay, seventeen at length,--and then you
may guess if I am tired! nay, you must add seventeen hours that I may
possibly be there on Friday, and then calculate if I am weary. In short,
yesterday was the longest day ever known in the House of Commons--why,
on the Westminster election at the end of my father's reign, I was at
home by six. On Alexander Murray's affair, I believe, by five--on the
militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but then they were only
among themselves, no heat, no noise, no roaring. It was half an hour
after seven this morning before I was at home. Think of that, and then
brag of your French parliaments!
What is ten times greater, Leonidas and the Spartan _minority_ did not
make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we had like to
have been the _majority_? Xerxes[1] is frightened out of his senses;
Sysigambis[1] has sent an express to Luton to forbid Phraates[1] coming
to town to-morrow; Norton's[2] impudence has forsaken him; Bishop
Warburton is at this moment reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the
dedication to his Sermons, which he had expunged for Sandwich's; and
Sandwich himself is--at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first
thing that I expect to hear to-morrow is, that he is gone off.
[Footnote 1: "_Xerxes, Sysigambis, Phraates._" These names contain
allusions to one of Mdlle. Scudéri's novels, which, as D'Israeli
remarks, are "representations of what passed at the Court of France";
but in this letter the scene of action is transferred to England. Xerxes
is George III.; Sysigambis, the Princess Dowager; and Phraates is Lord
Bute.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker.]
Now are you mortally angry with me for trifling with you, and not
telling you at once the particulars of this _almost-revolution_? You may
be angry, but I shall take my own time, and shall give myself what airs
I please both to you, my Lord Ambassador, and to you, my Lord Secretary
of State, who will, I suppose, open this letter--if you have courage
enough left. In the first place, I assume all the impertinence of a
prophet,--aye, of that great curiosity, a prophet, who really prophesied
before the event, and whose predictions have been accomplished. Have I,
or have I not, announced to you the unexpected blows that would be given
to the administration?--come, I will lay aside my dignity, and satisfy
your impatience. There's moderation.
We sat all Monday hearing evidence against Mr. Wood,[1] that dirty
wretch Webb, and the messengers, for their illegal proceedings against
Mr. Wilkes. At midnight, Mr. Grenville offered us to adjourn or proceed.
Mr. Pitt humbly begged not to eat or sleep till so great a point should
be decided. On a division, in which though many said _aye_ to
adjourning, nobody would go out for fear of losing their seats, it was
carried by 379 to 31, for proceeding--and then--half the House went
away. The ministers representing the indecency of this, and Fitzherbert
saying that many were within call, Stanley observed, that after voting
against adjournment, a third part had adjourned themselves, when,
instead of being within _call_, they ought to have been within
_hearing_; this was unanswerable, and we adjourned.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Wood and Mr. Webb were the Under-Secretary of State and
the Solicitor of the Treasury; and, as such, the officers chiefly
responsible for the _form_ of the warrant complained of.]
Yesterday we fell to again. It was one in the morning before the
evidence was closed. Carrington, the messenger, was alone examined for
seven hours. This old man, the cleverest of all ministerial terriers,
was pleased with recounting his achievements, yet perfectly guarded and
betraying nothing. However, the _arcana imperii_ have been wofully laid
open.
I have heard Garrick, and other players, give themselves airs of fatigue
after a long part--think of the Speaker, nay, think of the clerks
taking most correct minutes for sixteen hours, and reading them over to
every witness; and then let me hear of fatigue! Do you know, not only my
Lord Temple,[1]--who you may swear never budged as spectator,--but old
Will Chetwynd, now past eighty, and who had walked to the House, did not
stir a single moment out of his place, from three in the afternoon till
the division at seven in the morning. Nay, we had _patriotesses_, too,
who stayed out the whole: Lady Rockingham and Lady Sondes the first day;
both again the second day, with Miss Mary Pelham, Mrs. Fitzroy, and the
Duchess of Richmond, as patriot as any of us. Lady Mary Coke, Mrs.
George Pitt, and Lady Pembroke, came after the Opera, but I think did
not stay above seven or eight hours at most.
[Footnote 1: Lord Temple was Mr. Pitt's brother-in-law, a restless and
impracticable intriguer. He had some such especial power of influencing
Mr. Pitt--who, it is supposed, must have been under some pecuniary
obligation to him--that he was able the next year to prevent his
accepting the office of Prime Minister when the King pressed it on him.]
At one, Sir W. Meredith moved a resolution of the illegality of the
Warrant, and opened it well. He was seconded by old Darlington's
brother, a convert to us. Mr. Wood, who had shone the preceding day by
great modesty, decency, and ingenuity, forfeited these merits a good
deal by starting up, (according to a Ministerial plan,) and very
arrogantly, and repeatedly in the night, demanding justice and a
previous acquittal, and telling the House he scorned to accept being
merely _excused_; to which Mr. Pitt replied, that if he disdained to be
_excused_, he would deserve to be _censured_. Mr. Charles Yorke (who,
with his family, have come roundly to us for support against the Duke of
Bedford on the Marriage Bill) proposed to adjourn. Grenville and the
ministry would have agreed to adjourn the debate on the great question
itself, but declared they would push this acquittal. This they announced
haughtily enough--for as yet, they did not doubt of their strength. Lord
Frederick Campbell was the most impetuous of all, so little he foresaw
how much _wiser_ it would be to follow your brother. Pitt made a short
speech, excellently argumentative, and not bombast, nor tedious, nor
deviating from the question. He was supported by your brother, and
Charles Townshend, and Lord George; the two last of whom are strangely
firm, now they are got under the cannon of your brother:--Charles, who,
as he must be extraordinary, is now so in romantic nicety of honour. His
father, who is dying, or dead, at Bath, and from whom he hopes two
thousand a year, has sent for him. He has refused to go--lest his
_steadiness_ should be questioned. At a quarter after four we divided.
_Our_ cry was so loud, that both we and the ministers thought we had
carried it. It is not to be painted, the dismay of the latter--in good
truth not without reason, for _we_ were 197, they but 207. Your
experience can tell you, that a majority of _but_ ten is a defeat.
Amidst a great defection from them, was even a white staff, Lord Charles
Spencer--now you know still more of what I told you was preparing for
them!
Crest-fallen, the ministers then proposed simply to discharge the
complaint; but the plumes which they had dropped, Pitt soon placed in
his own beaver. He broke out on liberty, and, indeed, on whatever he
pleased, uninterrupted. Rigby sat feeling the vice-treasureship slipping
from under him. Nugent was not less pensive--Lord Strange, though not
interested, did not like it. Everybody was too much taken up with his
own concerns, or too much daunted, to give the least disturbance to the
Pindaric. Grenville, however, dropped a few words, which did but
heighten the flame. Pitt, with less modesty than ever he showed,
pronounced a panegyric on his own administration, and from thence broke
out on the _dismission of officers_. This increased the roar from us.
Grenville replied, and very finely, very pathetically, very animated. He
painted Wilkes and faction, and, with very little truth, denied the
charge of menaces to officers. At that moment, General A'Court walked up
the House--think what an impression such an incident must make, when
passions, hopes, and fears, were all afloat--think, too, how your
brother and I, had we been ungenerous, could have added to these
sensations! There was a man not so delicate. Colonel Barré rose--and
this attended with a striking circumstance; Sir Edward Deering, one of
_our_ noisy fools, called out, "_Mr._ Barré."[1] The latter seized the
thought with admirable quickness, and said to the Speaker, who, in
pointing to him, had called him _Colonel_, "I beg your pardon, Sir, you
have pointed to me by a title I have no right to," and then made a very
artful and pathetic speech on his own services and dismission; with
nothing bad but an awkward attempt towards an excuse to Mr. Pitt for his
former behaviour. Lord North, who will not lose his _bellow_, though he
may lose his place, endeavoured to roar up the courage of his comrades,
but it would not do--the House grew tired, and we again divided at seven
for adjournment; some of our people were gone, and we remained but 184,
they 208; however, you will allow our affairs are mended, when we say,
_but_ 184. _We_ then came away, and left the ministers to satisfy Wood,
Webb, and themselves, as well as they could. It was eight this morning
before I was in bed; and considering that, this is no very short letter.
Mr. Pitt bore the fatigue with his usual spirit--and even old Onslow,
the late Speaker, was sitting up, anxious for the event.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Barré had lately been dismissed from the office of
Adjutant-General, on account of some of his votes in Parliament. In 1784
he was appointed Clerk of the Rolls, a place worth above £3,000 a year,
by Mr. Pitt, who, with extraordinary disinterestedness, forbore from
taking it himself, that he might relieve the nation from a pension of
similar amount which had been improperly conferred on the Colonel by
Lord Rockingham.]
On Friday we are to have the great question, which would prevent my
writing; and to-morrow I dine with Guerchy, at the Duke of Grafton's,
besides twenty other engagements. To-day I have shut myself up; for with
writing this, and taking notes yesterday all day, and all night, I have
not an eye left to see out of--nay, for once in my life, I shall go to
bed at ten o'clock....
Adieu! pray tell Mr. Hume that I am ashamed to be thus writing the
history of England, when he is with you!
_LORD CLIVE--MR. HAMILTON, AMBASSADOR TO NAPLES--SPEECH OF LOUIS XV._