Ever yours,
W. W. G.
On the day on which this letter was written, the Duke of Portland was
publicly announced as First Lord of the Treasury, Fox and Lord North as
joint Secretaries of State (an arrangement which explains Mr.
Grenville's allusion to Ireland as part of the _Foreign_ Department),
Lord John Cavendish as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Keppel, First
Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Stormont, President of the Council, and
the Earl of Carlisle, Privy Seal. The King had endeavoured in vain to
retain the services of Lord Thurlow. Upon this point, which had been
ceded very reluctantly by the Shelburne Cabinet, the coalition Ministers
were inexorable. They insisted upon putting the Seal into commission,
with Lord Loughborough as First Commissioner; and, as they were in a
position to dictate their own terms, His Majesty at last gave up this
point, to which he had clung with more tenacity than all the rest.
His Majesty's attachment to Lord Thurlow may possibly have been founded
on the conviction that he could securely calculate on the allegiance of
a man who was ready to avail himself of every opportunity to promote his
own interests, and who might therefore be expected, on all occasions, to
pay a deferential attention to the wishes of the King. His Lordship's
subsequent conduct during the Regency discussions in 1788 afforded a
conspicuous proof of his unscrupulousness: when, upon hearing one night,
at Carlton House, from one of the King's physicians, of the approaching
convalescence of His Majesty, he went down at once to the House, and, to
the utter astonishment of everybody, undertook a defence of the King's
rights against the Prince and the Whigs, with whom, up to that moment,
he had been engaged actively intriguing on the other side. The same
implicit devotion to the ascendant authority might no doubt have been
looked for from Lord Loughborough, who was a thorough party-man. But
there was a certain sturdiness in Thurlow, that rendered him a more
valuable adherent, and a more formidable antagonist. He seems to have
regarded all mankind with distrust. On the Bench, his disposition vented
itself in judgments remarkable for their brevity and the irascible tone
in which they were delivered. His utterance was sonorous, with the
mysterious pomp and grandiloquence of an oracle, kindling up at times
into solemn denunciation. His "make up" must have been perfect in its
way, from the awful air of preparation for which his speeches are said
to have been so remarkable. Thurlow acted with Pitt and the Whigs, and
was pronounced equally impracticable by both. Pitt complained of him
that he was always raising difficulties, and strangely irresolute of
purpose on public measures, for a man who was so decided on the Bench.
The Whigs had the same complaint against him, and were always
embarrassed by him, and at a loss to know how he would act on particular
emergencies. Throughout these letters, numerous traces will be found of
the continual doubts and apprehensions with which he inspired them.
Lord Loughborough's career was no less remarkable for violence, and the
unconscientious pursuit of professional promotion, to which he made all
other objects subservient. He and Thurlow had been Solicitor and
Attorney-General under Lord North's Administration, and were amongst its
most strenuous supporters; although the former had entered Parliament in
uncompromising hostility to Lord North's Cabinet, and distinguished
himself for some years as one of its bitterest assailants. Having thus
opposed Ministers in the early period of their Government, when their
measures were most deserving of support, he joined them on the eve of
the American war, when their measures were most open to objection; and
carried his partizanship to such a height, that even the judicial
function did not restrain his zeal. While he was Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas, he made war upon Pitt's Administration in the Upper House,
where he headed the Foxite Opposition, and became one of the boldest
and, consequently, one of the most dangerous of the Prince's advisers on
the Regency question.
The coalition, which placed the Seals in the hands of Lord Loughborough,
is so vigorously and minutely pourtrayed in this Correspondence, that it
need not here be further alluded to. Its origin, progress and fate
present one of those instructive episodes in political history which all
statesmen may consult with advantage, and which they will find amply
detailed in these letters. The disgrace of the junction certainly lay
more heavily on the Whigs than on Lord North. Fox had spent his whole
life in assailing the person and policy of Lord North, whose principles
were utterly opposed to his own; yet he entered into a Cabinet compact
with this very Minister, because Lord Shelburne and Mr. Pitt had
endeavoured to repair the errors of his Government--the very errors Mr.
Fox had all along condemned--by negotiating a peace which, upon the
whole, was more favourable than could have been reasonably expected.
Three years before, Lord North made an overture to the Rockingham party
for a coalition, but it was rejected; and that which Lord Rockingham
considered to be a violation of consistency and an abandonment of
principle was, on this memorable occasion, not only adopted by Fox, but
negotiated under circumstances which for several weeks placed the
interests of the empire in jeopardy. We shall probably never learn with
whom the movement originated in the first instance; but that it was
pursued with equal earnestness on both sides, admits of no doubt. The
only point upon which the contracting parties appear to have differed
was the distribution of offices!
One of Lord North's first steps in office, was to address a conciliatory
and complimentary letter to Lord Temple; but it was too late--no
temptations could have induced his Lordship to retract.