Bills introduced by Mr. Herbert and Mr. Grenville.--Conversation
on Secret Influence.--Remarks.--City Dinner to the
Opposition.--Curious Phrase employed by Lord Chatham.--Termination
of Wilkes’s Imprisonment.--Riot at Boston.--Debate on the
Prorogation of the Irish Parliament.--Lord Chatham moves
a Censure on Ministers.--Observations on the State of
Parties.--Publication of Burke’s _Thoughts on the Present
Discontents_.--Criticism of it.--Influence of Lord Bute.--Character
of the Pelham Administration.--New Party.--Their Aristocratic
Tendencies.--Diminution of the Privileges of Peers and Commoners
with regard to their Creditors.--Desultory Discussions on American
Affairs, and the Middlesex Election.
1770.
These debates were tedious and unentertaining, and willingly I abridge
them: totally omitted they could not be; they were the constituent
ingredients of an inglorious reign, in which many of the most solemn
questions that compose or touch the essence of our constitution were
agitated--questions that will live in our law-books, when omitted in
polished histories written for entertainment. These pages, therefore,
will serve for a clue to writers on the laws, though they may not be
so fortunate as to please the idle. I shall slightly mention some other
bills that were discussed about the same time.
Mr. Herbert,[78] a near relation of the Earl of Pembroke, and a young
man of great fortune and good principles, proposed a bill to declare
that expulsion did not imply incapacitation unless for certain crimes
infamous by law. Doubts were started on what those crimes were. The
House was strongly inclined to the bill: the Ministers pretended
not to discountenance it--but the Jesuits of the Treasury, Dyson
and Jenkinson, undermined it indirectly: the latter went so far as
to engraft a clause on that bill calculated to secure the rights
of freeholders, which would have made it an instrument of tyranny,
and would have made expulsion or imprisonment total incapacity.
Lord North affected to be struck by and to approve that juggle; but
Lord Beauchamp, General Conway, and even the smooth courtier Lord
Barrington, resisting, and the latter declaring that it was necessary
to quiet the minds of the people, Lord North gave it up. The Cabal
however clogged the bill with so many subtleties and contradictions,
that Mr. Herbert abandoned it with indignation, and it was lost.[79]
Mr. George Grenville was more successful with a bill that the
profligacy of the times loudly demanded, and which even that profligacy
could not defeat. It was to take the trials of contested elections
from the judicatory of the House, and vest them in a smaller number
of examiners to be chosen by ballot. Important as the nature of
elections is, and sacred as the property of legal votes, of the right
of counties and boroughs to choose their representatives, and of the
elected to his seat, yet all was overlooked, and petitions were heard
and decided solely by favour or party. Nor was this accidental, but
constant and universal. Grenville’s bill was generally liked. Rigby
and Dyson opposed it, and at last Lord North, who endeavoured to put
it off for two months; but he was defeated by 185 to 133.[80] The
resistance of the House to the power of the Administration on those
two bills, proved, with some instances I have mentioned, that that
House of Commons was not implicitly servile on all occasions like the
last. Grenville’s bill passed on the 2nd of April, but not without a
remarkable conversation rather than a debate on political creeds and
secret influence. Grenville and Dowdeswell declared they had been
under none when they were in place. Samuel Martin desired the House
to take notice of that declaration. It was evidence, he said, that
Lord Bute was falsely accused; and that such rumours were raised to
excite the mob against him on his return from abroad. Colonel Barré
said the _two gentlemen_ had only declared they had not been influenced
_themselves_: but Lord Chatham had solemnly affirmed to the Lords
that even in six weeks his schemes had been controlled; and it was
evident where the secret influence lay, when Martin and Jenkinson,
the servants of the Princess of Wales, and when Dyson and Sir Gilbert
Elliot, were so much consulted. That was the cabinet that governed the
Cabinet.[81] Lord North declared that he would be nominal no longer
than he was real Minister. There wanted no better proof of the secret
influence than that Lord Bute had the credit to maintain Oswald,
Elliot, Dyson, and Jenkinson, or some of them, in the Treasury through
every Administration subsequent to his own, by which he might be master
of all the secrets of that important board which influences the whole
Government,--at least they were agents whom he had recommended to
the King; and if the Earl himself did not preserve the same degree of
credit with his Majesty, the King acted on the plan in which he had
been initiated, and had cunning enough, as most Princes have, to employ
and trust those only who were disposed to sacrifice the interest of the
country to the partial and selfish views of the Crown; views to which
his Majesty so steadily adhered on every opportunity which presented
itself, that, not having sense enough to discover how much the glory
and power of the King is augmented by the flourishing state of the
country he governs, he not only preferred his personal influence to
that of England, but risked, exposed, and lost a most important portion
of his dominions by endeavouring to submit that mighty portion to a
more immediate dependence on the royal will. Mystery, insincerity,
and duplicity were the engines of his reign. They sometimes procured
success to his purposes, oftener subjected him to grievous insults
and mortifications, and never obtained his object without forfeiting
some share of his character, and exposing his dignity to affronts and
reproach from his subjects, and his authority to contempt from foreign
nations. He seemed to have derived from his relations the Stuarts, all
their perseverance in crooked and ill-judged policy without profiting
by their experience, or recollecting that _his_ branch had owed the
Crown to the attempts made by the former Princes at extending the
prerogative beyond the bounds set to it by the constitution. Nor does a
sovereign, imbued with such fatal ambition, ever want a Jefferies or a
Mansfield, or such less ostensible tools as the Dysons and Jenkinsons,
who for present emolument are ready to gibbet themselves to immortal
infamy by seconding the infatuation of their masters.
Beckford, the Lord Mayor, gave a great dinner to the lords and
gentlemen of the Opposition: a cavalcade of the Livery fetched and
escorted the company from the Thatched House Tavern in St. James’s
Street; and at night many houses were illuminated, and a few had their
windows broken for not being lighted. Lord Chatham had, by earnest
entreaties, engaged Lord Granby to carry him to the Mansion House
in his chariot, but was prevented by the gout from joining in the
procession, which his pressing a popular general to head, did not seem
calculated to promote tranquillity. In fact, no efforts were spared
to keep up the spirit. The freeholders of Westminster met and voted a
remonstrance, which, omitting the most exceptionable parts of that from
the City, was immediately presented to the King. Another was voted by
the freeholders of Middlesex; but no answer was given by his Majesty to
either.
A few of the Opposition, who acted with decency and impartiality,
condemned the violences of their party. Sir William Meredith
complained of the letters of _Junius_, of _The Whisperer_, and of _The
Parliamentary Spy_. Thurlow, the new Solicitor-General, in the room of
Dunning, said a prosecution was commenced against the first. General
Howard again complained of _The Whisperer_; and a conference being
desired with the Lords, it was voted an infamous and seditious paper.
Lord Chatham, who seemed to imbibe faction from disappointment, desired
the Lords might be summoned for after the holidays, as he intended
to propose a bill to endeavour to repair the mischief done by the
iniquitous decision of the House of Commons on the Middlesex election;
nor was he less intent on raising jealousies of the designs of France.
He pronounced, in the month of March, that by that very day on which
he was speaking, the French had _somewhere_ struck a hostile stroke.
This asseveration making great noise, alarmed the merchants, who sent
a deputation to him, to inquire _where_ the blow was struck. He denied
having said so; and some who were present, declared they had not heard
him say it. This was merely negative and personal to themselves,
for, in general, his audience were positive as to the words; and it
was not less remarkable, that a year afterwards, when the seizure
of Falkland’s Island by the Spaniards became public, Lord Chatham’s
partisans affirmed that he had made such a declaration, but had accused
Spain, not France, of having committed hostilities. He did not even
spare the King, but accused him of duplicity. The Duke of Grafton
defended the royal accused. The King soon afterwards asked General
Conway if he ever saw the Duke, and where he lived? Conway said he
knew nothing of him: “Nor I,” said his Majesty; “he has not come near
me these six weeks; nay, when I heard of his defending me against Lord
Chatham, I wrote a letter of thanks to the Duke; he not only did not
answer my letter, but has taken no notice of it since.”
On the 17th of April ended the imprisonment of Wilkes, and he was
discharged from the King’s Bench, whence he retired privately
into the country, affecting to decline the congratulations of his
fellow citizens. The next night many houses of the lower rank were
illuminated, but without any tumult. The Court had taken care to
prevent any disturbance, by stationing numbers of constables, and by
holding the Guards and Light Horse in readiness. Beckford had affected
like solicitude, giving out orders for peaceable behaviour, but on
pretence of the Easter holidays; while his own house in Soho Square
was decorated with the word _Liberty_, in ample capitals. Wilkes, now
entering again on the scene, published an address of thanks to the
county of Middlesex, and another to the ward of Farringdon. In those
and former addresses, he had the assurance to talk of protecting our
_religious_ as well as civil liberties. When Lord Sandwich informed
against the “Essay on Woman,” _he_ too talked religion. It was
impossible to decide which was the more impudent, the persecutor or
the martyr! The release of Wilkes was celebrated at Lynn, Norwich,
Swaffham, Bristol, and a few other towns, but not universally. At the
end of the month, he was sworn in Alderman of Farringdon ward. The
solid retribution was the work of the Society of the Bill of Rights.
They paid or compromised a great part of his debts, disbursing seven
thousand pounds for him.
Zeal for his cause reigned almost as strongly in the city of
Westminster. Having lost one of their members by the death of Lord
Sandys, whose son, one of their representatives, succeeded to
his father’s title, they elected Sir Robert Barnard, a knight of
Huntingdonshire, known to them only as an enemy to Lord Sandwich, in
his own county,[82] and by having presented its remonstrance to the
King. The Court did not dare to set up a counter candidate, though
seated in the heart of Westminster, amidst their own and the tradesmen
of the nobility.
Samuel, Lord Sandys, died by a hurt from an overturn. He had formerly
been the head of the republican party, and a leader against Sir Robert
Walpole, on whose fall, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, a
promotion that cost him his character, both as a patriot and a man of
business. He was soon removed for his incapacity, and made a peer; and,
at different times, filled other posts, as Chief Justice in Eyre and
Speaker of the House of Lords; but never recovered any weight, and at
last was laid aside with a pension.[83]
At the end of the month arrived a very alarming account from Boston.
Some young apprentices had, incited to it, as it seemed, insulted the
soldiers quartered there. After repeated provocations, the tumult
increasing, some of the soldiers fired, and killed four of the lads,
and apprehended some others. In an instant the sedition spread through
the whole town, clamouring for the instant removal of the garrison,
with which the Deputy Governor and the commanding officer were forced
to comply, not only intimidated by the actual riot, but receiving
intelligence that the neighbouring towns were taking up arms, and would
march to the assistance of the Bostonians, who already imprisoned
Colonel Preston, who, they affirmed, had given orders to the soldiers
to fire. That he strenuously denied; and being a man of a mild and
prudent character, his case excited great pity and indignation here.
Nor, though the seditious charged the military with sanguinary
intentions, was it credited; the soldiers, it appearing, being so
little prepared to attack, that when they ran to the assistance of
their comrades, some were armed only with shovels, and others with
tongs. Volumes of inflammatory informations were sent over hither and
reprinted; and Alderman Trecothick moved in the House of Commons for
a sight of the instructions sent to Boston, which, after some debate,
were granted with restrictions; but shortly after came letters, in
which the Bostonians endeavoured to palliate their violence; and it was
known that Colonel Preston would not be tried till August, which might
and did give time to the more moderate there to soften his case, and
interpose in his favour. After a formidable suspense, he was honourably
acquitted.
On the 28th died Marshal Ligonier, aged ninety-two.[84] The first
regiment of Guards was given to the King’s brother, the Duke of
Gloucester, and the third to Lord Loudun. Lord Edgcumbe was made
Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, to the scandal of the Rockingham party, the
Duke of Portland having resigned on the dismission of Lord Edgcumbe,
who, in truth, had long been too ready to abandon that party, and at
all times professed himself too solicitous to keep or obtain a place;
yet as his old friends had joined Lord Chatham, who had turned him out,
he seemed as much at liberty to take on with those whom Lord Chatham
opposed.
Lord Chatham, in consequence of the notice he had given, moved for a
bill to rescind all the various resolutions of the House of Commons
on the Middlesex election, and was supported by Lord Camden and Lord
Shelburne; Lord Mansfield and the Ministers opposed and rejected the
bill by 89 to 43.
The next day, Captain Boyle Walsingham, in the Commons, moved for
all the letters and papers sent to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,
which had occasioned the prorogation of the Parliament there, and
had interrupted much business of consequence,--a punishment the more
severe, as the augmentation demanded had been accorded. Grenville again
complained of his Majesty’s waiving his prerogative, by promising not
to call over those troops but in case of rebellion,--a strange plea
in an opponent! but Grenville never liked opposition so well as in
_defence_ of prerogative; while to excuse his Majesty’s moderation,
Lord Barrington and Rigby maintained that, in case of emergency, the
King might disregard his promise,--a power of evasion very unnecessary
to claim, when it had been so lately and so wantonly violated, merely
to give a pension to Dyson, though the Irish had been promised that no
more such pensions on their country should be granted. The motion was
rejected by 178 to 66.[85]
Lord Chatham made another prolix motion, tending to censure the
Ministers for the answer they had advised the Crown to make to the
remonstrance from the City. His speech was long, animated with his
most nervous eloquence, and patchworked with his wildest ignorance
and inventions. He talked of _Androgeus, Lord Mayor of London_ in the
time of Julius Cæsar, defending the _privileges_ of the City, and of
the care Edward the First had of those liberties. Lord Gower told him
that so much had been said, and such full answers given by both Houses,
(who had both, indeed, approved the King’s answer,) on the Middlesex
election, that it would be tiring the House to say more on that
subject. The other Ministers sat silent and would not be provoked to
speak, though loudly called on by Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Richmond,
Lord Lyttelton, and Lord Temple. Lord Pomfret said a few words on the
factious behaviour of Beckford, who was defended by Lord Shelburne:--“I
shall always love him,” said that Lord, “for, when the citizens
murmured at the King’s answer, as they quitted St. James’s, the Lord
Mayor bade them admire his Majesty’s good humour, and told them the
answer came not from himself, but from his Ministers.” That motion,
too, was rejected by 85 to 37.
Those vague and unconcerted attacks wore out the spirit of redress,
instead of keeping up its zeal. The several factions hated each other
more than they did their common enemies, and most of the leaders of
Opposition had, in their time, contributed to the grievances of which
they now complained. It must, I think, appear evident, from the scope
of the reign, that the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute had assumed the
reins with a fixed intention of raising the prerogative, which they
called restoring it to its ancient lustre; but nothing would have
induced them to specify at what period of its influence they would
have been contented to have stopped. The line of Hanover having been
advanced to the throne by the forfeiture of the Stuarts, could not have
the confidence to demand all the power that had been claimed by that
House from which they descended, whose maxims they secretly revered,
and whose want of abilities they inherited. King William had been too
much controlled by his parliaments to serve them for a precedent; and
the beginning of this very reign had been too servilely copied from
the conclusion of Queen Anne’s, and too ingloriously to be fit for
quotation, though the doctrines of her last Ministers were the rule
on which the junto had intended to act, and did act whenever they
found themselves strong enough. But, as recent provocations govern
the actions of men more than maxims, it was the conduct of the later
Ministers of George the Second that first inspired the Princess of
Wales and her husband, Prince Frederic, with desires of emancipating
themselves from such pupillage. I am persuaded that she, her husband,
and her son (if the latter at first had any plan) meditated humbling
the aristocracy, rather than invading liberty. Yet is every increase
of prerogative so fatal, and so sure are the people of being trampled
upon in such contest, whether the Crown or the nobility get the
better, that it was true patriotism to resist the attack, and the
people were in the right not to consider the _motives_ to the attempt,
since in general questions the privileges of all the subjects are
equally concerned. The truth of these observations will appear from
some remarks that I think it necessary to make on a pamphlet which
made much noise at the time of which I am writing, and the effects
of which, though the treatise may be forgotten, are felt at this
day, _that_ essay having operated considerably towards dividing, and
consequently weakening the Opposition, which afterwards, by accidents,
deaths, treachery, self-interest, and mismanagement, was reduced to the
shadow of resistance, and[86] was disabled from stemming that torrent
of intoxication, which, impelled by the wicked arts of the Court,
hurried even the people into a passion for the American war, which, had
it prospered, would have demolished liberty, and which, miscarrying,
has destroyed the prosperity and importance of Great Britain, and
engendered to the King’s comfort, more personal, though probably but
momentary influence to the Crown at home, with a total degradation and
loss of its dignity everywhere else.
Let it be observed, however, that, when I impute to the King and
his mother little more than a formed design of reducing the usurped
authority of the great Lords, I am far from meaning that there were not
deeper designs at bottom. Lord Mansfield was by principle a tyrant;
Lord Holland was bred in a monarchic school, was cruel, revengeful,
daring, and subtle. Grenville, though in principle a republican,
was bold, proud, dictatorial, and so self-willed that he would have
expected Liberty herself should be his first slave. The Bedford
faction, except the Duke himself, were void of honour, honesty, and
virtue; and the Scotch were whatever their masters wished them to
be, and too envious of the English, and became too much provoked by
them, not to lend all their mischievous abilities towards the ruin of
a constitution, whose benefits the English had imparted to them, but
did not like they should engross. All these individuals or factions,
I do not doubt, accepted and fomented the disposition they found
predominant in the Cabinet, as they had severally access to it; and the
contradictions which the King suffered in his ill-advised measures,
riveted in him a thirst of delivering himself from control, and to
be above control he must be absolute. Thus on the innate desire of
unbounded power in all princes, was engrafted a hate to the freedom of
the subject, and therefore, whether the King set out with a plan of
extending his prerogative, or adopted it, his subsequent measures, as
often as he had an opportunity of directing them himself, tended to the
sole object of acting by his own will. Frequent convulsions did that
pursuit occasion, and heavy mortifications to himself. On the nation
it heaped disgrace, and brought it to the brink of ruin; and should
the event be consonant to the King’s wishes of establishing the royal
authority at home, it is more sure that the country will be so lowered,
that the Sovereign will become as subject to the mandates of France, as
any little potentate in Europe.
This is my impartial opinion of the reign of George the Third, from
the death of his grandfather to the end of the year 1771, when I wrote
these annals; and the subsequent transactions to the commencement of
the new Parliament in 1784 have but corroborated my ideas. I have
spoken of every party and faction favourably or unfavourably as I
thought they deserved, attached to no one of them, for I saw faults in
all: and that is all I mean by calling myself impartial. My principles
were solely devoted to the liberty of my country; yet I have censured
even that liberty, when it degenerated into licentiousness, or asserted
its rights with more probability of danger than success. That my
impartiality was divested of personalities, nobody would believe me
if I asserted; they undoubtedly often lowered my zeal, and even in
these cool hours of retreat and retirement, may have left impressions
that reflection may not have corrected--though the overt acts of
the American war have but too sadly realized the more problematic
suspicions I had entertained of the evil designs of the Court, from
the first ten years of the reign. Lust of power, supported by cruelty
and obstinacy, marked every year of that fatal war; and its woeful
event having corrected neither the bad intention nor the folly with
which it was commenced and prosecuted, and a more undisguised attempt
in the Crown of governing independently having distinguished the year
1784, I should have observed the whole progress of the reign hitherto
with little judgment, if I had not a worse opinion of the spirit that
has actuated it, than I had when I first entertained doubts of its
designs against the constitution. However, instead of seeing with my
eyes, I recommended to posterity to use their own discernment, abandon
the author, accept what truths he has delivered, correct his mistakes,
condemn his prejudices, make the best use you can of any wholesome
lessons he has inculcated, avoid such errors as he has pointed out.
He has written prodigiously too much, if no man shall be the wiser
for his writings. He laments not his pains, nor shall deprecate
censure if a single person becomes a real patriot, or a better citizen
from perusing this work--of which he himself is heartily tired. Mr.
Edmund Burke had published, on the 23rd of April, a long and laborious
pamphlet, called _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_. It was designed
for the manifesto of the Rockingham party, stated their opinions,
their political creed, the motives of their opposition, the points for
which they meant to stickle, and the conduct they meant to observe, if
ever they should recover power. It was a composition of great merit
for ingenuity, eloquence, and knowledge, though at once too diffuse,
and too refined: it tired the informed, and was unintelligible to
the ignorant. In point of judgment it was totally defective, and did
no honour to the author, either as a virtuous statesman, or artful
politician. It had been often read to, and, they said, discussed by,
their party; but when the dictator, and indeed legislator of the
faction (for Lord Rockingham was but a dignified phantom) had so little
judgment, it is not wonderful that the blemishes of the work were not
discerned by most of his associates. Sir George Saville was too subtly
minute to comprehend a whole: Lord John Cavendish loved general maxims;
and though obstinate, had no rancour; consequently, he approved the
book for not dealing in personalities. I was surprised that the Duke
of Richmond, who had a great deal of sense, could be captivated by a
work calculated for no one end but to deify Lord Rockingham, and to
insinuate that Mahomet[87] was his prophet.
Mrs. Macaulay, whose principles were more sound and more fixed than
Burke’s, and whose reasoning was more simple and more exact, published
a short tract in answer, censuring the work as compiled solely to serve
the partial interests of an aristocratic faction.[88] It was a still
stronger proof of its demerit, that the Court did not answer it at
all. Though some parts of it were very offensive, yet the indemnity it
bestowed on Lord Bute, and the scandal it would give to the nation and
to every other faction, were so agreeable to the reigning junto, that
they wisely took no exception to their own share, and left the rest to
diffuse animosities on every side. The work, as Mrs. Macaulay said,
avowed its patrons as an aristocratic faction; and what was worse,
confessed that they adhered _to men_ not _measures_: incredible as this
folly was, it may be seen in the book in so many words. It insinuated
the influence of the Princess, took no notice of Lord Chatham, Lord
Temple, Lord Camden, or Mr. Grenville; disgusted the popular party
by dereliction of Wilkes, by disclaiming triennial Parliaments and
place-bills,[89] and encouraged no denomination of men to unite with
them, as it declared in terms that should Lord Rockingham and his
friends come into place, they should do little more than turn out those
whom the book called _the King’s men_, who called themselves _the
King’s friends_, and who, notwithstanding, the book declared were never
admitted to _the King’s confidence_.
But the most absurd part of all, was Burke’s discharging Lord Bute
of all present influence,--a fact not only improbable, as had lately
appeared by the influence of his brother Mackenzie--by Lord North’s
taking Sir James Lowther’s steward for his secretary, and by Sir
James’s late hostilities to the Duke of Grafton who had but half
supported him, and by his co-operation with Lord North--by another
clerk, whom Jenkinson had placed in Lord North’s service, and who grew
to govern him;[90] and by the homage which all succeeding ministers
were obliged to pay to the Bute-standard[91], or to risk their power:
but it was extremely unwise in a politic light, for while the book
thus removed from the people’s attention an odious and ostensible
object, it presented them with nothing but a vague idea, which it
called _a Double Cabinet_. Did Burke flatter himself that the Princess
was so very sentimental, as to forgive a personal attack on herself in
consideration of his tenderness to her favourite? Would their tools
be content to be proscribed, to save their patron’s head? And who
instructed, who disciplined, Lord Bute’s creatures, but himself? If
the Princess was the intermediate agent between them and the King,
who conveyed his commands or their advice from her to them, and _vice
versâ_, but Lord Bute, Lady Bute, or Mr. Mackenzie? The exculpation
of Lord Bute was therefore silly and impotent flattery, or sillier
credulity instilled into Burke by Lord Holland, who always held that
language.
Whether it proceeded from ignorance or partiality I do not know, but
in fathoming the grounds of the reigning discontents, Mr. Burke was as
defective in not going back far enough, as he was in the inefficiency
of his remedies. Though his book contained many melancholy truths, it
was far from probing to the bottom of the sore. The canker had begun
in the Administration of the Pelhams and Lord Hardwicke, who, at the
head of a proud aristocracy of Whig Lords, had thought of nothing but
establishing their own power; and who, as it suited their occasional
purposes, now depressed and insulted the Crown and Royal Family, and
now raised the prerogative. Their factious usurpations and insolence
were even some excuse for the maxim taken up by Frederic Prince of
Wales, by the Princess Dowager, and the reigning King, of breaking that
overbearing combination; and so blinded were the Pelhams by their own
ambition, that they furnished the Princess with men whose principles
and abilities were best suited to inspire arbitrary notions into her
son, and to instruct him how to get rid of his tyrants, and establish
a despotism that may end in tyranny in his descendants. Though the
Princess and Lord Bute gave rashly in to those views, their passions,
folly, and cowardice oftener defeated the plan than promoted it; and it
was in this light only that Lord Bute ought to be acquitted of raising
the prerogative. _He_ rendered it contemptible; while Stone and Murray
were the real sources of those discontents, which Burke sought, but
never discovered. As I have said so much in the first part of these
Memoirs on these heads, it is unnecessary to retail them here. A few
facts will evince that the Pelhams, Hardwicke, and their friends, were
an aristocratic faction; that they insulted and provoked the Crown and
Royal Family, and raised disgusts in them against the Whig party, at
the same time planting the rankest Tories about the successor and his
mother, and forcing them to throw themselves into the arms of even
Jacobites.
1. When the late King intended to restore Lord Granville, the Minister
of his own election, the Pelhams, leaguing with the great Lords and
principal Whigs, deserted him in the very heat of the rebellion, and
obliged him to surrender at discretion. What a lesson was that to
the late Prince!--no wonder it laid him open to the wiles of Lord
Bolingbroke!
2. Newcastle had long lain in the bosom of that dark and suspected
friend of the Stuarts, Andrew Stone. The darling friend of the latter
was that bright ornament of the age, that luminary of the law, that
second hero of Pope and first disciple of Bolingbroke, William Murray,
brother of the Pretender’s Prime Minister, the titular Earl of Dunbar.
The fickle Duke and his timid brother, of whom the elder loved nothing
so much as a new friend in a reconciled enemy, as the younger with
still less sincerity courted every man whose parts he dreaded, were
easily persuaded to give themselves up to so useful an assistant, whose
walk interfered with the ambition of neither. From that hour every
measure was coloured with a tincture of prerogative; and a foundation
was laid for that structure against which the disciples of the Pelhams
have so much declaimed since.
3. While that dangerous man[92] was infusing his poison into the Court
of the King, his friend Lord Bolingbroke was sowing the same seeds at
Leicester House. Seemingly attached to different factions, St. John
and Murray were carrying on the same plan at both Courts. The death of
the Prince, that threatened destruction to the scheme, facilitated its
success. In truth had the advice of a man who has since been no enemy
to the plan been followed, the principles instilled into a young mind
might not have been so early and so deeply laid. Mr. Fox,[93] the very
next morning after the death of the Prince of Wales, advised Mr. Pelham
to make sure of the successor by sending for him to St. James’s, and
keeping him there separate from his mother. The Princess, indeed, might
not have secured the same influence over him as she did; but from the
persons employed in the education of the young Prince, there is little
reason to think that exactly the same care would not have been taken
of initiating him in _proper_ principles. All Fox’s subsequent merits
in the cause--even the gracious promises made to him by the young King,
and broken, could not expiate that offence.[94]
4. The persons employed, the books put into his hands, the disgrace of
the first governor and preceptor of the young Prince, the interference
of Lord Mansfield, and the ensuing history of Fawcett’s deposition
of the Jacobitism of Stone and Murray, the secrecy first exercised
to stifle his evidence, and the mock declaration of the Cabinet
Councillors when the affair got into the House of Lords, where, instead
of any examination, that ordeal of an aristocracy, their word of
honour, was only made use of,--all these circumstances concurred in the
formation of those evils whose source Mr. Burke so ingeniously missed.
5. The ignorance, blunders, and want of spirit in Newcastle, Lord
Anson, and Lord Hardwicke[95] at the beginning of the war, made way
for the predominant genius of Mr. Pitt: but though the osier-like
nature of Newcastle stooped to act with the latter again, the gloomy
and revengeful temper of Hardwicke waited for an opportunity of
repaying the disgrace Pitt had inflicted on their cabal. The disgrace
of his country was meditated, at least effected, by Lord Hardwicke as
revenge on Mr. Pitt. The profusion of the German war (for which Mr.
Pitt only demanded supplies, but which he certainly did not direct
the Duke of Newcastle to suffer to be plundered and perverted, though
Pitt himself was too ostentatiously or too carelessly profuse in his
demands) was laid solely to the account of the vigorous Minister, as if
it was more criminal in him to dare, than in the other to dissipate our
treasure without daring. Even before the death of the late King, was
published the celebrated pamphlet called “_Considerations on the German
War_,” written under the patronage and revisal of Lord Hardwicke. That
Lord Hardwicke and Lord Bute agreed about that time, at least in their
measures, for the destruction of Mr. Pitt, was evident by a place
being, immediately on the King’s accession, bestowed by Lord Bute on
Mauduit, author of that pamphlet.
6. Nor were these the sole instances of that aristocratic spirit I have
mentioned. The Duke of Newcastle who in the very dawn of the Hanoverian
succession had forced himself, as godfather to his son, upon the then
Prince of Wales, in the next reign set himself up as candidate for
the Chancellorship of Cambridge against the next Prince of Wales,
Frederic; and even caused the King to prohibit the University to elect
his son. Such were the ideas a Whig aristocracy forced the Royal Family
to entertain of that party; as if the revolution had been calculated
to confirm the power of the nobility, rather than to secure the
constitution and the liberty of the people.
7. The marriage act, schemed, drawn, and imposed by Lord Hardwicke,
repugnant to the principles of a commercial country, and intended
solely to guard the wealth of the nobility from being dispersed among
their fellow citizens; the extension of the Habeas Corpus prevented by
Lord Mansfield; and the murder of Admiral Byng[96] to palliate the loss
of Minorca, which had been sacrificed by the negligence of Lord Anson
and by the Duke of Newcastle’s panic of an invasion, were all fruits of
the same spirit. Was it possible to review these facts, and affirm that
the principles of arbitrary power were not sown till the present reign?
The Crown, indeed, got rid of the first authors of the mischief; but
then made advantage of the doctrines they had established: for though
a predominant nobility often struggle with the Crown, the contest is
only which shall oppress the people, and they as often abet the Crown
in encroachments on liberty. The number of members in the House of
Commons named by great Lords, and the consequential dependence of the
Lower on the Upper House, facilitated those views; and when once the
resentment and interest of the Court taught them to break the Cabal,
they made use of the power of those whom they had interest or art
enough to detach from the faction.
8. On the death of the late King, the Princess, Lord Bute, and their
junto, provoked, as I have said, by the great Whig Lords, whom they
feared, inclined to the Tories by the counsels of Bolingbroke,
Mansfield, and Stone, and disposed by the love of power to endeavour
to rise above the constitution, had one capital view--the restoration
of the prerogative; and several secondary views, as the destruction
of Mr. Pitt, who possessed the hearts of the people, the breaking of
the aristocratic Cabal, and the conclusion of a peace, without which
they could not have leisure, authority, or money to pursue their other
objects. Mr. Burke complained of the Duke of Grafton, Mr. Conway, and
other Whigs, for being duped by the Court, and for deserting _their_
connection; but that mischief was done before these came into place,
and done by those whom Burke would persuade the world were Whig
patriots, namely, Newcastle, Hardwicke, Devonshire,[97] &c. Mr. Pitt
foresaw the turn the Court would take, and prudently proposed, it
was affirmed, to the Duke of Newcastle to league against Lord Bute;
and there can be no doubt of the truth of that assertion, as Pitt
would never again hear of any connection with Newcastle. The Duke
loved present power and favour too well to listen to the overture;
and notorious it was that Newcastle, Hardwicke, Devonshire, and the
Duke of Bedford, urged on by Lord Mansfield and Mr. Fox, did assist
the Favourite against Mr. Pitt, and combined to drive him from the
Administration. That was the real breach that facilitated the views of
the Court. Newcastle, indeed, soon found his error, and was the first
sacrifice, as the Duke of Devonshire was the next; while Stone and
Mansfield, charmed to see the era arrived that they had so ardently
expected and prepared, abandoned the silly Duke and his still sillier
associates, and remained fast friends to the reviving prerogative.
Then, _and not till then_, the Whig Lords grew alarmed at the designs
of the Court. Lord Rockingham resigned with Newcastle; and Devonshire
was affronted and disgraced. These last then thought the country grew
seriously in danger; but had Newcastle and his friends been able to
keep their places, I question whether we should ever have heard _from
them_ of arbitrary schemes, any more than of Mr. Burke’s pamphlet;
though I have no more doubt of the dangerous projects of the Court,
than I believe Lord Rockingham’s party likely, or capable to prevent
them.
I shall say but little on the conclusion of a work which prescribed
unlimited voting with Lord Rockingham and his friends as the test
of _honesty_; while at the same time, conscience is disclaimed,
“_because_,” says the book, “_no man can see into the heart of
another_”--the context of which curious doctrine is, that it is more
virtuous to follow another man, or other men (into whose hearts neither
can one see), than to obey the impulse of one’s own conscience.
Nothing, or almost nothing, was promised to the Nation by that faction,
should they attain power; and yet, with so scanty a catalogue of
merits, they claimed implicit confidence from all men! “_For_,” says
the author, “_can a man have sat long in Parliament without seeing any
one set of men whose character, conduct, or disposition would lead
him to associate with them, and aid and be aided by them in any one
system of public utility_?”[98] I answer, if he is an honest man, it
is impossible for him to have sat long in Parliament, and not have seen
through the selfish or factious views of every set of men; and if he
was a sensible man, he must have seen the weakness and insufficience of
Lord Rockingham and his party. But what shall we say, if this monkish
obedience was demanded, not only to this leader and his leaders, but
to a faction composed of men of the most opposite and heterogeneous
principles? Lord Rockingham and his friends had adopted and joined in
measures concerted, proposed, imposed, now by Lord Chatham, now by Mr.
Grenville. Were Lord Chatham’s system or principles, if he had either,
the same with Lord Rockingham’s? were Mr. Grenville’s? If they were,
why were they not of our party? If they were not, why was any man bound
to vote with them? or when? Might Lord Rockingham dissent from Lord
Chatham or Mr. Grenville, and might not another man dissent from them
too? or might such men dissent only when Lord Rockingham did? What
entitled Lord Rockingham to be such a pope, such a rule of faith, such
a judge in the last resort? If Lord Chatham or Mr. Grenville might
sometimes be right, why might not the Duke of Grafton or Lord North be
so too? What enjoined a man to follow Lord Rockingham, both when he
agreed with Lord Chatham or Mr. Grenville, and when he did not? The
line of concord and the line of discord should have been marked out,
and men should have been told what were the principles, and what the
objects of each class. If they differed in principles, why did they
agree in measures? If they differed for power, how could they ever
agree? In the meantime was every man’s conscience to be enslaved, till
that blessed moment should arrive in the fullness of time, when Lord
Rockingham should come with power and glory to deliver the country by
that one single act and end of his mission, the turning out of the
King’s men?
Mr. Burke’s pamphlet having tended to nothing but to the discredit of
himself and his party, the rest of the session produced little heat,
and one very commendable act of the Legislature. Mr. George Onslow had
brought in a bill (a tribute to popularity) to take away the privilege
of peers and members of Parliament, except for their own persons, so
that they should no longer be able to screen their houses and goods
from their creditors, nor be allowed to extend protection to their
domestics. The bill passed easily through the Commons, many of the
members who were inclined to oppose it, trusting it would be rejected
in the other House--the Lords being less exposed to the consequences
of unpopularity, as their seats in Parliament are for life: yet
though many objections were made there, Lord Mansfield undertook the
support of the bill, and it was passed, though Lord Egmont, with great
indignation at the diminution it occasioned in the rights of peerage,
and with bitter reflections on Lord Mansfield, opposed it eagerly.
The Duke of Richmond, on the contrary, demanded to have the indemnity
of ambassadors retrenched likewise, urging the scandalous conduct of
Count Haslang, the Bavarian Minister, who had for many years inhabited
a house without paying the rent, and would not quit it, though the
landlord had offered to remit the whole debt, if the Count would but
give up the house. Lord Mansfield replied, that the privileges of
ambassadors depended on the law of nations.
I must take this opportunity of doing justice to another instance of
the Duke of Richmond’s virtues. There had been a scheme the last year
of making a canal for carrying coals from Warwickshire to Oxford, and
thence to London. The members for Newcastle, fearing it would lessen
the demand for their coal and hurt that nursery of seamen, acquainted
the Duke of Richmond, and desired his concurrence in opposition to
the plan, his Grace being likely to suffer by it, as the grant to his
family from Charles the Second (producing to him an income of twelve
thousand pounds a year), was one shilling on every chaldron of coals
entered in the port of London. The Duke answered nobly, that however
detrimental the bill might be to his interest, he would not oppose it,
as it might lower the price of coals to the poor.
The day before the Lords gave up their privileges, they fined some
printers for abusive papers on different peers.
On May the 8th Alderman Trecothick moved the other House for the
instructions given to General Gage, which, he affirmed, were repugnant
to those sent to our governors in America. This drew on a long debate
on American affairs; but the motion was quashed, as were, next day,
eight propositions made by Mr. Burke, in a fine oration, tending to
censure Lord Hillsborough and the Administration for their absurd
and contradictory orders to the Governors of the Colonies, to which
variations he imputed the troubles existing there. Wedderburne and Lord
North had a warm altercation, in which each showed great abilities.[99]
Those resolutions, which were strangely refined and obscure, were
again moved, but with no better success, in the House of Lords, by the
Duke of Richmond. It again did him honour, that, above joining in the
unjust violence of Opposition, his Grace made an apology for Captain
Preston. Lord Chatham, who neither agreed with Mr. Grenville nor Lord
Rockingham on American questions, kept away on these; but, thinking the
Middlesex Election more combustible matter, he and Beckford excited
the Common Council to address the King once more on his answer to
the remonstrance, which on a division was agreed to, together with
a resolution to compliment Lord Chatham on his strenuous defence
of the rights of election. The same day, he himself crudely made a
motion in the House of Lords for a dissolution of the Parliament.
He was answered by the Duke of Grafton, who declared he would never
more be connected in business with Lord Chatham. The latter said that
declaration was unnecessary, as his own reason for quitting power had
been because he would no longer serve with his Grace; adding, that he
himself desired never again to be in his Majesty’s service. This was
taken up with much ridicule, the Ministers protesting they had never
known _till now_ why his Lordship had resigned. Lord Shelburne owned
that the only ostensible reason for dissolving the Parliament was the
Middlesex election. This Lord Egmont answered finely, and said Lord
Shelburne had _blabbed_ what Lord Chatham would not confess. The term
_blabbed_ exceedingly offended Shelburne, who menaced the Ministers on
the disturbances he foretold would happen in America and Ireland--the
King’s promise to which kingdom of not removing the troops he treated
as illegal. Lord Weymouth, observing that Lord Camden had retired
without staying to vote, said artfully, the person who could have given
the best opinion on the question proposed, had not chosen to take part
in it with his friends, or to stay to inform the House. The question
was rejected by 60 to 20.
This was the last parliamentary effort of the session on the Middlesex
election; very inadequate to the flame with which it had commenced.
Not only the violence of the attack had prejudiced the cause, but so
divided were the factions in Opposition, that their numbers were now
diminished to one half, while the Court party, conducted coolly and
rationally by Lord North, acted with some firmness and some system.
Yet, outrageous as the assault had been on the House of Commons, and
arbitrarily and shamefully as the House had acted, much good sprung
indirectly out of the contention. The scandal deservedly thrown on the
members for their corruption and servility, and their dread of losing
their future elections from their unpopularity, made such impression
on most of them, that, to compensate for their infamy, they concurred
in two most wholesome acts, which, perhaps, no other moment could have
wrung from them; those were, Mr. Grenville’s law for trying contested
elections by select committees, and Mr. Onslow’s for the restraint
of privilege. The blow to the peerage was permanent, who never lose
their seats, and indiscriminately useful to creditors against members
of Parliament. The less secure were the extravagant, the fewer would
be exposed to corruption from necessity. It ought to be a standing
rule with the public to take all advantages of forcing concessions and
capitulations from the great, when the complaisance of the latter is
reduced by interest or shame to court the people; and the equivalent
may often be preferable to the point contended for, as well as more
easily obtained.