Pall Mall, Feb. 15th, 1783.
My dear Brother,
I have this day received your letter of the 9th, and have the
greatest satisfaction at that which you express respecting this
long-agitated Bill. Since you wrote that, but before this time,
you will have received a letter from me, enclosing a Bill
proposed by Percy. I confess his dissent alarmed me a good deal
at the time, ignorant as I was whether you might not see it in
the same light. I am convinced now that it proceeds only from
his resentment at not being consulted previous to its being
fixed upon. The second reading stands now for Wednesday; but I
doubt whether it can come on, as I understand the call
previously fixed for that day is to be insisted upon. Before
that time, I shall probably have received your letter, informing
me whom you have consulted, as that is very material,
particularly with regard to my being able to urge Grattan and
Yelverton's authority against Fox and Fitzpatrick. At all
events, however, I mean now to proceed in it on that day if I
can, if not as early as possible, and to _bring_ you the account
of the third reading in the House of Commons.
All this proceeds upon the idea that nothing of a different
nature happens before; which I still think there is every reason
to imagine. I cannot learn whether Fox and Lord North have
settled their coalition so as to act together on Monday.
Jenkinson is, I believe, secured to us; but at what price, and
with what following, I am utterly ignorant; and on that the
whole undoubtedly depends. As soon as I know anything, you shall
hear it in the most expeditious manner; but I do not give you my
conjectures when they are merely such, because I know people at
a distance are apt to give them more weight than they deserve,
and I should be sorry to mislead you.
The Duke of Rutland is Lord Steward, and it is said he is called
to the Cabinet. This, to my mind, argues great weakness indeed.
In the House of Lords, Lord Pembroke moves the Address; in the
House of Commons, T. Pitt. This, I think, does not show very
great strength. The seconders I know not.
You have several times mentioned the Pension List; and I have as
often forgot to tell you, that I inquired in the first instance
without speaking to Pitt, and found that, whatever reform is to
be made, rests wholly with Lord Shelburne, who appears to act in
it on no system, but to add or to take away at his pleasure.
Jackson and Jemmy Grenville remonstrated some days ago at the
Treasury against signing any more till they saw that the act was
to be complied with.
Upon the subject of the Fisheries, I have had a conversation
with Hunter Blair, the member for Edinburgh. There has been a
meeting of the Scotch members to support a Bill in Parliament to
extend the bounty now given in England for the Scotch coast, to
fish caught on the Irish coast, and to give the fishermen a
power of landing and drying on the Irish, as on the Scotch
coast. They went to Lord Shelburne, who referred them to me. I
desired Blair to send me a copy of the memorial, and an abstract
of the several British and Irish Acts on the subject.
The Irish are very ill done, as the two most material, in 1764
and 1776, are omitted. I do not find by any Irish Act whether
the Irish fishermen have the power of landing and drying; if
they have, I should think it _does_ extend to all the King's
subjects; as the Act of 1782, restraining the _bounty_ to Irish
ships, does not touch the power of fishing. If they have it not,
no English Act now to be made can give it them; but if they have
it, we may extend the bounty as we please.
The reason they assign for wishing it is, that the herrings
shift yearly from one part to another of the narrow seas, and
that as the Irish have, by an English Act, the privilege of
fishing on the Scotch coast, it is but just that the English and
Scotch should fish on the Irish when the fish are there, as has
been the case these two last years. The consideration presses,
as the seamen now to be discharged will, of course, many of them
return to Scotland to find employment, and the fishing cannot,
as they state, be carried on at all, but by such indulgence as
they apply for.
Lord Glandon was with me to-day, to ask whether Coppinger is one
of the new Judges, and, in that case, who he should bring in for
his borough. He told me that he had sold the other seat to Sir
W. Gleadowe. I did not dare ask whether he was engaged for the
next Parliament, because it would have given too much of a hint
of the dissolution. I therefore only said, that I did not
believe the names were fixed for the three Judges.
Lord Bellamont is outrageous about the Order, and has been _with
Townshend_ about it; but not with me. I have sent your paper
about Irvine to Lord Shelburne, but have had no answer. I
enclose you a letter from Lord Clanricarde, with my answer. Lord
Nugent has seen him, and says he is beyond measure flattered,
and well-disposed towards you.
I shall go to Lord Shelburne on Tuesday or Wednesday, and press
him about the peerages, &c., &c. As to applying to Townshend, it
is useless; for he has all the disposition in the world, but not
a jot more.
I own I think the 18th of March will be rather too soon after
the installation, and will look too like a trick, and too much
in the style of the St. Bartholemi: and yet, if you wait much
longer, you will fall among their cursed assizes; besides which,
new grounds for tests will spring up, whereas there are now
none, absolutely none.
Adieu, my dear brother,
Believe me, ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
I think our distant projects for the Government of Ireland, are
something like Horace Walpole's "Butterfly and Rose."
Hester is as well as possible.
Pray be on your guard, as I have great reason to believe that
your conduct is watched, and your language and conversation
reported to Fox, by a man about the Castle, who keeps up a
constant correspondence in that quarter. I need not name him to
you.
On the 17th of February, the terms of the peace were brought under the
consideration of both Houses of Parliament. To do Lord Shelburne
justice, he defended them with considerable ability, as being the best
the country had a right to expect, or, probably, could obtain. In the
Lords, the Address was carried by an insignificant majority: in the
Commons, Ministers were defeated. As it was upon the negotiation and
settlement of the peace that Lord Shelburne had solely relied all along
for the preservation of his Government, the effect of this defeat was
decisive. It was the doom of the Ministry; and the bolt was launched by
that strange combination which had been growing up in secret for several
weeks, which was now openly avowed for the first time, and which was too
powerful to be resisted. The coalition had, in fact, already been
determined upon. Fox frankly stated it, and supported the Amendment,
conjointly with Lord North, in a speech of considerable force and
vehemence. However the House might have been prepared by the rumours of
the day for this result, it excited universal surprise, and not a little
virtuous indignation. Mr. Powis observed that, it was "an age of strange
confederations; a _monstrous coalition_ had taken place between a noble
Lord and an illustrious commoner--the lofty asserter of the prerogative
had joined in an alliance with the worshippers of the majesty of the
people." Such words had more purpose and meaning in those days than they
would have in our own, and the startling antithesis rang through a
debate as remarkable for invective on the one side, as for the
confession of weakness on the other. Mr. Grenville and Lord Bulkeley
communicated the issue to Lord Temple, in the following hasty notes.