1782.
The Close of Lord North's Administration--The Second Rockingham
Cabinet--Mr. Thomas Grenville's Mission to Paris--The Shelburne
Administration--Lord Temple Appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--Irish
Affairs.
1783.
The Renunciation Bill--The Fall of the Shelburne Administration--The
Cabinet Interregnum--The Coalition Ministry--Resignation of Lord Temple.
1784.
Mr. Pitt's Administration--Lord Temple Created Marquis of
Buckingham--His Private Notes on the Coalition.
1785.
The Breach Between the Marquis of Buckingham and Mr. Thomas Grenville.
1786.
Mr. W. W. Grenville Joins Mr. Pitt's Administration.
1787.
The Dawn of Free Trade--The Assembly of Notables--Affairs of
Holland--Arthur Wellesley--The Marquis of Buckingham Assumes the
Government of Ireland for the Second Time.
1788.
Irish Correspondence--The India Declaratory Bill--Trial of Warren
Hastings--Contemplated Changes in the Administration--The King's
Interference in Military Appointments--The Irish Chancellorship--The
King's Illness--Views of the Cabinet Respecting the Regency.
1782.
The Close of Lord North's Administration--The Second Rockingham
Cabinet--Mr. Thomas Grenville's Mission to Paris--The Shelburne
Administration--Lord Temple Appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--Irish
Affairs.
As no inconsiderable portion of the Correspondence contained in these
volumes relates to the structure and conduct of Cabinets, throwing light
upon public affairs from those secret recesses to which historians
rarely have access, it may be useful, by way of introduction, to glance
at certain circumstances which, during the period embraced in the work,
exercised a special influence over the Government of the country: an
influence no less directly felt in the councils of Ministers than in the
measures and combinations of the Opposition.
The history of Administration in the reign of George III. presents some
peculiarities which distinguish it in a very striking degree from that
of most other reigns. The key to these peculiarities will be found in
the personal character of the Sovereign. To that character, and its
immediate action upon political parties, may be traced, to a greater
extent than has been hitherto suspected, the parliamentary agitation and
ministerial difficulties which were spread over nearly the whole of that
long and eventful period. The means of forming an accurate judgment on
matters of this nature exist only in confidential details, such as are
disclosed in the collection of letters now for the first time laid
before the public. In order, however, to render intelligible the
allusions that are scattered through them, and to point out their real
value as materials for the political history of the time, it is
necessary to offer a few preliminary remarks on the circumstances to
which reference has been made.
George III.--whose admirable business habits and inflexible integrity
inspired the highest deference and attachment amongst the personal
friends he admitted to his confidence--was remarkable in no one
particular more than in his jealousy of the prerogatives of the Crown.
He carried his zeal in that matter so far as even to draw upon himself
the charge of desiring to strain the rights of the Crown beyond
constitutional limitations. But as these limitations have never been
accurately defined, and as it has always been difficult to prescribe the
precise privileges which would relieve the Sovereign, on the one hand,
from being a mere state puppet, without giving him, on the other, too
great a preponderance of executive power, we need not discuss the
justice of an imputation which refers to the general complexion of the
King's views rather than to any particular acts of arbitrary authority.
That it was the great aim of His Majesty's life to preserve the royal
prerogatives from encroachment is undeniable; but it should be
remembered that when George III. ascended the throne, the relative
powers and responsibilities of the Sovereign and his advisers were not
so clearly marked or so well understood as they are at present; and if
His Majesty's jealousy of the rights which he believed to be vested in
his person led him to trespass upon the independence of his servants, or
to resist what he considered the extreme demands of the Parliament, it
was an error against the excesses of which our Constitution affords the
easiest and simplest means of redress.
Intimately conversant with official routine, and thoroughly master of
the details of every department of the Government, he acquired a
familiar knowledge of all the appointments in the gift of the Ministry,
and reserved to himself the right of controlling them. Nor was this
monopoly of patronage confined to offices of importance or considerable
emolument; it descended even to commissions in the army, and the
disposal of small places which custom as well as expediency had
delegated to the heads of those branches of service to which they
belonged. His Majesty's pertinacity on these points frequently
precipitated painful embarrassments of a personal nature, entailed much
disagreeable correspondence, and sometimes produced misunderstandings
and alienations of far greater moment than the paltry considerations in
which they originated. Amongst the numerous instances in which His
Majesty insisted on the preservation of patronage in his own hands, one
of the most conspicuous was his stipulation with the Marquis of
Rockingham for unconditional power over the nomination of the household,
at a moment when the exigency of public affairs compelled him to
surrender other points of infinitely greater importance. We shall find
in the course of the following letters that His Majesty's desire to
advance the interests of particular individuals interfered seriously, on
some occasions, with the convenience of the public service.
The same spirit guided His Majesty's conduct, as far as the forms of the
Constitution would permit, in his choice of Ministers. He had strong
personal likings and antipathies, and rather than consent to have a
Ministry imposed upon him consisting of men he disapproved, he would
have suffered any amount of difficulty or inconvenience. He prevailed
upon Lord North to remain in office three years in the face of sinking
majorities, and against his Lordship's own wishes, for the sole purpose
of keeping out the Whigs, whom he regarded with a feeling of the
bitterest aversion. Good reasons, no doubt, might be suggested for this
passionate abhorrence of the Whigs, who, independently of party
antecedents, had given His Majesty much cause of uneasiness, by their
strenuous opposition to the measures of his favourite Ministers, and by
their alliance with his son. So deeply was this feeling rooted in His
Majesty's mind, that when a junction with that party seemed to be all
but inevitable in March, 1778, he threatened to abdicate rather than be
"trampled on by his enemies." Four years afterwards he explicitly
repeated the same threat under the excitement of an adverse division;
and it was supposed by those who were best acquainted with the firmness
of his resolution that, had he been forced to extremities, he would have
carried his menace into execution.
His conduct to his Ministers was equally steadfast where he bestowed his
confidence, and stubborn where he withheld it. There were certain
questions upon which he was known to be inexorable, and upon which it
was useless to attempt to move him. Of these the most prominent were the
American War, Catholic Emancipation, and Parliamentary Reform. Whether
his judgment was right or wrong on these questions, it was fixed and
unalterable; and the Ministers who took office under George III. knew
beforehand the conditions of their service, so far as these paramount
articles of faith were concerned. It was the knowledge of this rigorous
trait in His Majesty's character, that made the Marquis of Rockingham
insist upon submitting to the King a programme of the policy he intended
to pursue before he would consent to enter upon the Government in 1782.
His Majesty desired nothing more than a list of the persons Lord
Rockingham wished to propose for the Cabinet; but Lord Rockingham
thought that something more was necessary to his own security and
independence. He considered that when a statesman undertakes the duties
of Administration, he assumes a responsibility irrespective of the
Sovereign, and that his duty requires of him that he shall lay before
His Majesty, in the first instance, as the basis of negotiation, an
outline of the measures by which alone he can conduct the affairs of the
kingdom with honour and success. In the adoption of this clear and
candid line of procedure there was no coercion on the Sovereign, who was
free to accept or reject the propositions, while the constitutional
principle at stake was acknowledged and vindicated on both sides.
His Majesty's immobility on certain questions had the practical effect
of literally placing them in abeyance in the councils of his Ministers.
As it was found to be impossible to form a strong Administration that
should unanimously agree with His Majesty, and at the same time possess
the confidence of the country, no alternative remained but to enter into
a tacit arrangement, by which those questions were to be dropped out of
the list of what were called Cabinet measures, each Minister being left
at liberty to vote upon them as he pleased, without being held to have
compromised the opinions of the Government. Had it not been for such an
arrangement as this, Pitt, who was pledged to the relief of the
Catholics from their disabilities, could never have held office under
George III. And thus was introduced into the practice of Administration
a principle which is undoubtedly a violation of its theory, and which,
taking advantage of a dangerous precedent, has been acted upon since
with less justification.
In the invention of this escape for the conscience of the King through
the side vent of "open questions," the direct influence of the Sovereign
upon the councils of the Administration may be clearly traced. There
were no other means of reconciling His Majesty to the appointment of a
Cabinet, demanded by the voice of the Parliament and the country. The
dilemma was obvious. There was no choice between the rejection of
Ministers who held certain doctrines adverse to His Majesty's
convictions, and compromise upon the points of difference. When it was
found impossible to conduct the Government of the kingdom with a Cabinet
that did not possess the popular confidence, the Sovereign was reduced
to the necessity of treating with men who did possess that confidence,
whether he agreed with them in opinion or not. In our own times, and
under most of the Sovereigns who have filled the throne since our
Constitution may be said to have been settled, there could be no great
difficulty in a case of this kind. Ministers undertaking office under
such circumstances would be responsible to the country for their policy,
and the Sovereign would feel himself at once relieved by that
responsibility from all further anxiety. But George III. took that
responsibility upon himself in reference to the great measures that
occupied the public mind; and when, by the exigency of circumstances,
Ministers were pressed upon him from whose views he dissented, he
accepted them upon conditions which restrained the action of the
Cabinet, as a whole, in certain directions, but left its members
individually free and unpledged. Such was the origin of "open
questions." It was a compromise on both sides; and of course it must
always depend upon the extent to which this compromise is carried, and
the necessity under which it is resorted to, whether it should be
regarded as a sacrifice of principle on the part of the Minister who
submits to it.
Another novelty originating in this reign, out of the same peculiar
state of things, and resting upon a similar theory of expediency, was
that of the formation of a Coalition Administration, in which party
differences were merged in a common agreement upon a general line of
policy. As considerable light is thrown upon this memorable incident in
the course of these volumes, it is unnecessary to dwell upon it here. It
will be abundantly elucidated in the proper place. For the present, it
is sufficient to refer to the junction, in a composite Ministry of
hostile statesman, as one of the singular results flowing from that
necessity of adaptation to circumstances which was rendered unavoidable
by the unyielding character of the Sovereign.
There were other circumstances which, combined with the personal
dispositions of the King, led to the strenuous assertion in this reign
of the prerogatives of the Executive against the interference and
control of the aristocracy and the Parliament. From the date of the
Revolution up to the accession of George III., the independent authority
of the Crown can scarcely be said to have had any practical
force--scarcely, indeed, to have had any existence. The Government of
the country was essentially Parliamentary. It was part of the compact
with William III. A foreign dynasty had been established, and the people
naturally looked to the protection of their domestic interests against
the possible preponderance of extrinsic sympathies in the reigning
power. Under William III., the claim of the United Provinces upon the
special regard of the Sovereign was the object of national jealousy; and
when the House of Brunswick ascended the throne, popular vigilance was
transferred to Hanover. The first two Princes of that House who ruled in
England scarcely spoke our language, and were so ignorant of our
Constitution and our customs, that they could not be admitted with
safety to an active participation in the Government. The Whigs, who had
brought about these changes, preserved in their own hands the entire
authority of the State. The Sovereign was merely the motionless
representative of the monarchical principle. But George III. was not an
alien. Born in the country, educated in its language and its usages, and
inspired by an ardent devotion to Protestantism, he entered life under
auspices that attracted at once towards the Crown an amount of
popularity which it had never enjoyed under his predecessors. The
qualities and dispositions of the King were favourable to the
cultivation of these opportunities. Without being profoundly versed in
the philosophy of character, he possessed a remarkable aptitude in the
discrimination of persons suited to his purposes. He had considerable
skill (to which Lord Shelburne bears special testimony) in extracting
the opinions of others, and turning the results to account. If his mind
was not vigorous and original, it was active and adaptive, inquisitive
and watchful. If his judgment was not always sound, his convictions were
strong, and the tenacity of his resolution commanded submission. An
accomplished linguist, fond of business, and having some talents as a
writer, which enabled him to express his meaning with facility and
clearness, he was well qualified to avail himself of the political
accidents which contributed to revive and strengthen the royal
prerogative.
The Whigs themselves helped mainly to bring about this struggle between
the Crown and the Parliament, or rather between the Crown and the "great
families," to use Mr. Canning's phrase, who had hitherto absorbed the
power and patronage of the State. United in principle, they were divided
by personal jealousies. The long possession of office had given a sort
of impunity to their pretensions; and believing that they held a
perpetual tenure of Administration, they were weak enough, at every new
ministerial change, to contend amongst themselves for the prizes. These
internal dissensions weakened and scattered them, and prepared the way
for those experiments which were made, during the early years of George
III., to conduct the Government without their aid.
The effects were felt in an entire change of system. The accession of
George III. was followed by a _coup-d'état_, which displaced the able
Cabinet that had been organized by the elder Pitt, to make room for the
Earl of Bute, who had the credit of being the author of the scheme, and
who was utterly incapable of carrying it out. Independently of his want
of the requisite qualifications as a statesman, there were other
objections of a private nature to Lord Bute, which rendered it
impossible that he could ostensibly continue to guide the councils of
the Ministry, however he might be permitted, or retained, to influence
them from behind the curtain. But his short essay at Government had
sufficiently disturbed the _ancien régime_, to leave in the King's hands
the power of choosing his Ministers without reference to popular clamour
or the will of Parliament. The consequence was, a rapid series of
Ministerial mutations, throughout which the contest for power was
maintained on both sides with so fierce a spirit, that during the first
ten years of the reign of George III., there were no less than seven
successive Administrations.
It was not till Lord North was called to the head of the Ministry, in
1770, that the public uneasiness was allayed, and a Cabinet of the
King's own choice was founded in security. Lord North was an especial
favourite with the King, whose extraordinary regard for him originated
in the promptitude with which he responded to His Majesty's appeal, at a
moment of serious embarrassment, when the Duke of Grafton unexpectedly
threw up the Government, and Lord North consented to undertake it. "I
love you as a man of worth, as I esteem you as a Minister," writes the
King to him on one occasion; "your conduct at a critical moment I can
never forget." The Whigs were readily reconciled to Lord North's
appointment, because he was not mixed up in their differences. They
preferred a Minister who had no alliances amongst them to one of
themselves, whose elevation would have produced discontents in the camp.
At first there was a show of dissatisfaction, and some attempts were
made to foment the popular passions; but the dignified firmness of the
Sovereign, and the moderate bearing of the favourite, speedily
tranquillized the public mind, and enabled Lord North to carry on the
Government with energy and success.
In his private character, Lord North was irreproachable; as a debater,
he displayed some valuable qualities--patience and endurance, facility
of resources on occasions of emergency, great calmness and courage, and
a playful wit, which never startled by its brilliancy, but seldom failed
of its point. He betrayed no ostentation or vainglory in his position;
never offended by any undue exhibition of the powers he wielded; and
restricted himself severely to the discharge of his duties as an adviser
of the Crown, deprecating the title of Prime Minister, which he declared
was an office unknown to the Constitution of this country. As a
statesman, he never achieved a high or distinguished reputation. The
American war was the blot upon his career; nor can even his devotion to
the Sovereign entirely excuse him for remaining in office at His
Majesty's entreaty to pursue a course of colonial policy which his
reason and his conscience disapproved. This was a political fault, which
no circumstances can palliate. Others have done worse, no doubt, from
meaner motives; but the mere desire of serving the King does not absolve
the Minister from censure for having acted contrary to his own
convictions on a question of such grave importance.
Lord North continued to retain the royal favour until he entered into
the coalition with the Whigs. This was a step the King could not
forgive. No extremity could reconcile him to a measure so repulsive to
his feelings. Yet the coalition, after all, was more discreditable to
the Whigs than to Lord North, who may be pardoned for accepting it as a
tribute to his personal weight, and a recantation, in some sort, of all
the odium the Whigs had industriously heaped upon him during the whole
period of his Administration. If they really believed him to be the base
and dangerous person they had all along described him to be, the shame
was theirs for consenting to associate themselves with him, and to work
under him in the Government.
The Administration of Lord North lasted for twelve years--from 1770 to
1782. The most important consequence it effected, so far as political
parties were concerned, was to throw the Whigs into opposition, and to
draw the Tories into closer relations with the throne. This complete
exchange of position exactly suited the principles of the two great
factions; the loyalty and courtly aspirations of the Tories (now that
all hope of restoring the Stuarts was at an end) rendering them highly
acceptable in the councils of the monarch, while the popular doctrines
of the Whigs pointed to the benches of the Opposition as the appropriate
place for a party which is always more usefully employed in representing
the people than in exercising the functions of Government. Sixty years
elapsed before the Whigs recovered the ground which they had lost under
the Ministry of Lord North.
The American war--for the management of which the severest reproaches
were cast upon the Government--the state of Ireland, and Parliamentary
Reform, were the principal public questions that agitated the term of
Lord North's Administration. Amongst the Whigs who took a prominent part
in these proceedings were the Grenvilles. Connected by marriage with the
Pitt family, and distinguished by their own hereditary claims and high
talents, they exerted as conspicuous an influence out of office as they
had previously done when they had the reins of Government in their
hands. It will be necessary to retrace briefly the political heraldry of
the Grenvilles for the purpose of bringing the reader acquainted with
the character of the three brothers whose intimate correspondence forms
the substance of these volumes.
Richard Grenville succeeded his brother in the Earldom of Temple in
1752, and took an active part in the Administration of the elder Pitt
(Lord Chatham), who was married to his sister, Lady Hesther, the mother
of the "Great Commoner." He resigned office with Pitt in 1761, on the
question of the war with Spain. This circumstance estranged him from his
political connection with his only brother, George Grenville, who
remained in office under Lord Bute, as Treasurer of the Navy. Lord
Temple, espousing the cause of Wilkes (for which he was dismissed from
his Lieutenancy of the county of Bucks) continued in opposition till he
was finally reconciled to his brother in 1765. He afterwards had a
serious difference with Pitt on the formation of the Cabinet in 1766;
but a reconciliation having been effected between them in 1768, they
subsequently acted in concert except upon the taxation of America, Lord
Temple invariably supporting the policy of his brother and the Stamp
Act.
George Grenville had been educated for the bar, and entered Parliament
for the borough of Buckingham at the instance of his uncle, Lord Cobham;
joined the Administration in 1744, as a Lord of the Admiralty,
afterwards as a Lord of the Treasury, then as Treasurer of the Navy, and
continued in office at intervals till 1762, when, separating himself
from Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt, he joined Lord Bute as Secretary of
State. On the resignation of Lord Bute in 1763, he became First Lord of
the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, remaining at the head of
the Cabinet till his dismissal in 1765, after which he never again
accepted office.
He left three sons, George, Thomas, and William Wyndham, who variously
distinguished themselves in the public service, and whose letters,
chiefly those of the last, in all respects the ablest and most
celebrated, constitute the bulk of the following pages.
George Grenville succeeded to the title of Earl Temple on the death of
his uncle, and was afterwards created Marquis of Buckingham, and was
father of the late Duke of Buckingham. He twice filled the office of
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
Thomas Grenville, who died recently at an advanced age, filled several
high offices in the State, and accumulated one of the most splendid
libraries in the kingdom.
William Wyndham Grenville, afterwards Lord Grenville, was one of the
most eminent statesmen of the reign of George III., and, surviving all
his great contemporaries, died in 1834. "The endowments of his mind,"
observes Lord Brougham, "were all of a useful and commanding sort--sound
sense, steady memory, vast industry. His acquirements were in the same
proportion valuable and lasting--a thorough acquaintance with business
in its principles and in its details; a complete mastery of the science
of politics as well theoretical as practical; of late years a perfect
familiarity with political economy, and a just appreciation of its
importance; an early and most extensive knowledge of classical
literature, which he improved instead of abandoning, down to the close
of his life; a taste formed upon these chaste models, and of which his
lighter compositions, his Greek and Latin verses, bore testimony to the
last. His eloquence was of a plain, masculine, authoritative cast, which
neglected if it did not despise ornament, and partook in the least
possible degree of fancy, while its declamation was often equally
powerful with its reasoning and its statement. He was in this greatest
quality of a statesman pre-eminently distinguished, that, as he neither
would yield up his judgment to the clamour of the people, nor suffer
himself to be seduced by the influence of the Court, so would he never
submit his reason to the empire of prejudice, or own the supremacy of
authority or tradition." The character is accurately and justly
discriminated; but, however fully this searching panegyric is sustained
and justified by the public acts and recorded labours of Lord Grenville,
we must turn to his correspondence with Lord Temple for the complete
development of that sagacity and sound judgment, that intimate knowledge
of public affairs, and that remarkable comprehensiveness of view and
lucidity of statement, by which he was distinguished above his
contemporaries in an age of great political characters. This
correspondence, extending over a long period of years, is not less
remarkable for the constancy with which it was carried on than for the
minuteness of its details, and the freedom of its revelations. Written
with the ease of familiar intercourse, and in that confidential spirit
which was the exponent of one of the most touching attachments that ever
bound one man to another, it is no less valuable as a close, running
commentary on the events of the day, lighting up in its course the
hidden springs of parliamentary action and the policy of cabinets, than
it is fascinating from the teeming evidences with which it abounds of a
warm heart and a highly disciplined and accomplished mind.
The Correspondence commences in 1782, when Lord North, sinking under the
odium of the American war, found his small majorities rapidly
diminishing from 22 to 19, then to the vanishing point of 1, and finally
to a minority of 16. Every incident connected with the war, the taxes,
parliamentary reform, and all other questions upon which it was possible
to raise a discussion, were seized upon by the opposition to harass the
Ministry. The total surrender of York Town by Lord Cornwallis, with the
whole army under his command, to Washington, and of the British vessels
in the harbour to the French Admiral de Grasse in the October of 1781,
awakened universal indignation; and, when Parliament met in November, it
became evident that, however resolved the King or the Government might
be to persevere in their policy, the doom of the Administration was near
at hand. Amendments to the Address, pointing ominously to a change of
counsels, were moved in both houses by Lord Shelburne and Mr. Fox; but
nothing further was done till after the Christmas recess, with the
exception of an announcement that Ministers had resolved not to send a
fresh army to replace that surrendered by Lord Cornwallis.
About this time, very early in the session, a motion was contemplated on
the subject, the object of which, as may be gathered from the following
notes of the Marquis of Rockingham, was to relieve Lord Cornwallis from
the disgrace that impended over him, and to throw the real
responsibility upon Ministers. The Marquis of Rockingham, desirous of
proceeding upon more certain information than had at that time been
received, appears to have advised a little delay, and to have been of
opinion that if any motion were to be brought forward at that moment it
ought to have taken the shape of a motion for inquiry. It is evident
that the Marquis of Rockingham was already collecting his friends about
him. The name of Lord Rockingham's correspondent does not appear, but,
from a subsequent allusion, it may be presumed that these notes were
addressed to the Duke of Chandos.