The Lord Mayor attends the House.--Violent Discussion.--Alderman
Oliver sent to the Tower.--Blow to the Influence of Wilkes.--Riot
and Attack on Lord North.--Lord Mayor Committed to the Tower.--His
Injudicious Conduct.--Desultory Discussions and Riots.--Lord
Rockingham Visits the Lord Mayor in the Tower.--Princess Dowager
and Lord Bute Burnt in Effigy.--Weakness of the Opposition in
spite of the favourable Opportunity.--Observations on the Conduct
of the Court.--Education of the Prince of Wales.--Character
of Mr. Smelt.--Debate on the King’s Friends.--Alderman Oliver
declines to stand as Sheriff with Wilkes.--Dissolution of
the French Parliament.--Bill for an East Indian Regiment
rejected.--Motion for an Inquiry into the Murder of Allen.--Bill
for Triennial Parliaments.--Lord Chatham moves a Resolution
tending to a Dissolution.--Lord Chatham and the Pynsent
Estate.--Instances of the Partiality of both Houses.--Prorogation
of Parliament.--Controversy between Horne and Wilkes.--Deaths
of Lord Strange, the Earl of Halifax, and the Bishop of
Durham.--The Duke of Grafton accepts the Privy Seal.--Visit
of the Prince of Wales to Gravesend.--Wilkes and Bull elected
Sheriffs.--“Adventures of Humphrey Clinker.”--The Chevalier D’Eon
supposed to be a Woman.--State of Affairs in France.--Character
of Chancellor Maupeou.--Disgrace of the Bishop of Orleans.--The
Abbé du Terray.--Madame du Barry and her Governess.--Madame de
Mirepoix.--Popularity of the Duc de Choiseul.--Unpopularity
of the King.--Dissolution of the Parliaments of Bourdeaux
and Toulouse.--Bold Conduct of Choiseul.--Disturbed State of
France.--General Dislike of the Mistress.
1771.
On the 25th the Lord Mayor attended the House. He was now accompanied
by a prodigious concourse of people, who insulted both Lords and
Commoners, hissed Lord Rochford, and ill-treated Lord March and George
Selwyn, the latter of whom they mistook for George Onslow. He collared
and struck one of the rioters, and was with difficulty saved from their
rage. The Lord Mayor told the House that he had brought no counsel with
him: first, because he was cramped in his defence by their vote; and
secondly, because the two advocates he should have chosen were gone the
circuit. Ellis then moved a resolution that the imprisonment of their
messenger by the Lord Mayor was a breach of privilege; but before they
could proceed farther, the Lord Mayor was so ill that they suffered him
to retire. The debate, however, continuing, Sir George Saville moved
the previous question, because, the Lord Mayor being restrained in his
defence, it would be a partial trial. This being rejected on a division
of 272 to 90, Sir George, with six or seven of his friends, protesting
against their proceedings, walked out of the House. Alderman Oliver was
then called on; he adhered to his assertion of having acted according
to his duty, oath, and conscience. The Ministers wished only to
reprimand him; and Sir John Wrottesley,[171] a young member, told him
the House would be contented if he would but say he was sorry for what
he had done; but he replied, he had done what he thought right, and
would do it again. Sir Gilbert Elliot, whether to inflame his offence,
or to induce him to yield, repeated the same offer--in vain. T. Pitt
and James Grenville[172] the younger, who spoke with great applause for
the second time, endeavoured to moderate; but the warm men prevailing,
Colonel Barré rose and said he would have nothing to do with such
infamous proceedings--that no _honest_ man could sit amongst them, and
walked out of the House with four or five more. At that moment arrived
Alderman Townshend, pale and ghastly from a sick-bed, his hair lank,
and his face swathed with linen, having had his jaw laid open for an
inflammation. He said directly that all those arbitrary proceedings
were owing to the baneful influence of the Princess Dowager of Wales,
and that he would move for an inquiry into her conduct. Yet all these
insults could not dismount the passive phlegm of the Ministers; Lord
North alone said, that Townshend could not know the truth or falsehood
of his assertion, and for himself, in five years that he had been in
the Administration, he had seen no influence of the Princess. At four
in the morning they sent Alderman Oliver to the Tower, and ordered that
the Lord Mayor should attend them again on the 27th.
Still would not Wilkes obey their summons, nor did they dare to force
him before them. Sir Joseph Mawbey again pressed it, but Lord North
shuffled it off by saying Wilkes was so desperate that what would be
punishment to others, would be an advantage to him. The courtiers
repeated this, but it only displayed their timidity; and happy was
it for the constitution that so much pusillanimity reigned in their
conduct. Yet the Scotch wanted to come to blows, and were at least not
sorry to see the House of Commons so contemptible.
But the victory which the Court did not dare to push over Wilkes, his
rash and abandoned conduct threw into their hands. Shelburne’s faction,
covertly under Townshend, and undisguisedly under Horne, was warring
with him in the midst of their common attack in the House of Commons.
The Society of the Bill of Rights happened to be adjourned; Horne
and his partisans summoned a special meeting to reward the persecuted
printers, and voted a sum of money to them. Wilkes, as if he grudged
that any money should be expended but on himself, advertised against
this step, as the measure of an irregular meeting. His antagonist
replied, and published the names on each side, which proved not to
be twenty on either, and all men most inconsiderable. This not only
brought disgrace and ridicule on the Society, but fell more fatally on
the credit of Wilkes than all his persecutions, all his follies, or
all his vices, and was the destruction of his popularity itself, which
became confined to the very dregs of the people. His old patron, Lord
Temple, retaining his constancy to faction, though broken with all
factions, immediately visited Alderman Oliver in the Tower.
The Lord Mayor went again to the House on the 27th at the head of a
prodigious mob, who, meeting Lord North, attacked him with a rage
that had all the appearance of being premeditated. They punched a
constable’s staff in his face, and endeavoured to tear him out of his
chariot, which they entirely demolished.[173] Sir William Meredith, a
generous enemy, and Mr. La Roche, a friend, seeing his danger from the
window of a coffee-house, went down and rescued him from the mob.[174]
The two Foxes were as rudely handled, and escaped as narrowly. Vast
numbers of constables were sent for, but it was late in the evening
before the tumult subsided; nor would the Speaker suffer the business
of the House to proceed till all was quiet. Wedderburne told the
House it had been a riot headed by the magistrates. Lord North made
a firm speech, and took notice of a report that he had resigned, and
was to be succeeded by Earl Gower; but said he should be the meanest
man living, if he quitted at that juncture; nor would he quit till
his Majesty should dismiss, or the people tear him to pieces. Lord
Hinchinbrook,[175] in answer to his uncle Seymour, who had spoken
with violence, was so indecent as to betray a secret,--that Seymour,
in Grenville’s Administration, had asked to be Vice-Chamberlain, and
imputed his animosity to having been refused that office. Yet, in
general, both parties behaved that day with moderation. The Ministers
moved that the Lord Mayor should, on account of his bad health, be
committed only to the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms; but he, rising
up, scornfully declared he was as well as ever, and chose to be sent to
the Tower with his brother Oliver. Temper could operate no farther,
and at twelve at night he was committed to the Tower. The Ministers
then proposed to elect, and did elect, by ballot, a committee to
consider of the resistance given to the orders of the House, and of the
means of redressing it. Rigby, who was named for one, refused to be of
it; and he and his friends took pains to show they would not engage in
the quarrel.
The Lord Mayor went for a few hours to the Mansion House. The mob
meditated hanging Clementson, the Deputy Serjeant-at-arms, who
conducted him, on a sign-post, and the poor man heard them debating
on it; but the Lord Mayor with difficulty obtained his safety by
representing that he was not a principal, but acting in quality of
servant to the House. At four in the morning the Mayor went to the
Tower, where the Common Council voted that tables should be kept for
him and Alderman Oliver. Brass Crosby, the Lord Mayor, was originally
a low attorney, and had married his master’s widow, and afterwards
the widow of a carcass-butcher. With their fortunes he trafficked in
seamen’s tickets,--a mean and disreputable kind of usury. Nor were
his manners more creditable than his professions. When he entered
the Tower he was half drunk, swore, and behaved with a jollity
ill-becoming the gravity of his office or cause. Had his behaviour
been solemn or dignified, the novelty of the City’s chief magistrate
imprisoned in defence of the City’s pretended franchises, might have
made a very serious sensation.[176] Oliver, though decent, was a young
fellow unknown; nor had any of their associates character or conduct
sufficient to manage a machine so important, which soon split into
squabbles, and fell to pieces without noise.
The House of Commons again ordered that Wilkes should attend them on
the Monday seven-night after the holidays, not desiring he should
attend, but as if they meant to leave a precedent which men of more
spirit might follow hereafter. Yet did they not adjourn till the
Thursday in Passion week, when they might have sent for him; but they
ordered their new committee to sit during the recess.
On the 29th the King went to the House, was violently hissed, and
had an apple thrown at him, which passed over his coach. Wedderburne
was severely abused by Colonel Barré, and made a wretched defence,
pleading that he had not deserted the Opposition but on the death of
Grenville, to whom alone he had been attached; but having asserted that
he knew taverns had been opened in Westminster for the mob, and that he
could prove there had been men hired to make a riot, a committee was
appointed to inquire into the late disturbances, of which Wedderburne
was named chairman. T. Townshend, jun., observed, that while the
Members were raging with such severity against printers, a crown-living
of 800_l._ a-year was conferred on Scott, an abandoned priest attached
to Lord Sandwich, and author of “Anti-Sejanus,” “Panurge,” “Cinna,” and
many other most scurrilous libels.[177]
On the last day of the month Lord Rockingham, with a train of Lords
and Commoners in sixteen coaches, went to the Tower to visit the
Lord Mayor. They disapproved his conduct, they said, yet paid him
that regard because he had been obstructed from making his defence;
yet these ingenious persons wondered they had not more followers and
devotees, while they took such pains to show how carefully they kept
themselves out of difficulties, and how passively they left their
friends in them!
Alderman Oliver, in answer to a compliment from the Common Council,
wrote a very bold letter to them, in which he set forth the unhappiness
of the King’s Government through the councils of an Administration,
_abject abroad and insolent at home_.
April the 1st, a great mob went to Tower Hill with two carts, in which
were figures representing the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute, attended
by a hearse. The figures were beheaded by chimney sweepers, and then
burnt. A like ceremony was performed a few days after with figures of
Lord Halifax, Lord Barrington, Alderman Harley, Lord Sandwich, De Grey,
member for Norfolk, Colonel Lutterell, and George Onslow; and their
supposed dying speeches were cried about the streets.
The committee of Common Council, appointed to guard the interests of
the Lord Mayor and Alderman Oliver, directed their solicitor to apply
to Serjeant Glynn, Dunning, or Lee, and under their direction to move
for the _habeas corpus_ of the prisoners, unlawfully (as the committee
conceived) detained in the Tower. On this the two magistrates, the writ
being obtained, were carried before the Lord Chief Justice De Grey, and
then before Lord Mansfield, but were remanded to prison by both, each
Chief Justice refusing to release them, as they had been committed by
Parliament then sitting.
The grand jury did not pay an equal deference to the House, but found
bills of indictment against their messenger for the assault and false
imprisonment of Miller, the printer; and against Edward Twine Carpenter
for a like assault on John Wheble, under pretence of the King’s
proclamation.
Still the cause of the magistrates did not gain ground. The merchants
were offended at a report spread by Wilkes’s faction that there was
a run on the Bank. But an open quarrel between Wilkes and Horne
contributed more than all the efforts of the Court to ruin their cause.
The total breach happened at the Society of the Bill of Rights, which
Horne moved to dissolve, but was overruled by 26 to 24. Horne, however,
with Townshend, Sawbridge, and others, withdrew their names, because
the other faction would not consent to rescind the vote of restricting
the subscription to the payment of Wilkes’s debts. A motion, too, that
was made in the company of City Artillery, for thanking the imprisoned
magistrates for their behaviour, was rejected by a majority of three
voices.
Still, had the Opposition had sense or union, the weakness of the
Ministers would have opened a fair field to their attempts. They
adjourned over the day appointed for Wilkes’s appearance. Their two
committees came to nothing. Lord George Germaine, Lord John Cavendish,
and Frederick Montagu, whom out of candour they had added to the
quorum, would not attend it, nor even a sufficient number of their
own friends; nor though Thurlow and the stauncher courtiers suggested
bills of pains and penalties, and would have disabled the prisoners
from holding any office, would Lord North give in to any violence. As
he had been more severe before he was a principal, and as he gave other
subsequent proofs of wanting resolution, his moderation was, with some
justice, imputed to timidity.
On the 10th of April, when Lord North opened the budget, T. Townshend
reflected on Lord Holland as author of the proscriptions at the
beginning of the reign. Charles Fox said he did not believe his father
had any hand in them; but if he had, it was right to break the power
of the aristocracy that had governed in the name of the late King.
Charles Fox asked me afterwards in private if the accusation against
his father was just. I replied, I could not but say it was. In strict
truth, heavy as the reproaches were that were cast on the Court, there
was but too much foundation for them. Even the King’s virtues had a
mischievous tendency. His piety was very equivocal, and calculated, in
a great measure, to secure the influence of the clergy, and palliate
his despotic views. His economy, such as it was, for great sums he
wasted childishly, was the forced result of the expense he was at to
corrupt the Parliament, and maintain a very unwilling majority. He now
laid aside his intention of building a small palace he had begun at
Richmond; and deferred as long as he could an installation of Knights
of the Garter, and the establishment of a household for the Prince of
Wales. Every post, every office, that could be bestowed on the Scots
without immediate clamour, was heaped on them; and great gratitude
must at least be allowed to them. They steadfastly supported the parts
assigned to them, and acted upon a regular plan. In the beginning
of the reign, Lady Charlotte Edwin, a sort of favourite lady of the
bedchamber to the Princess of Wales, dropped this memorable expression
to me:--“_Things are not yet ripe_.” The swarms of Scots that crowded
and were gladly received into the army and into the corps of marines,
a body into which few English deigned to enlist, were no doubt placed
there to bring things to a maturity, or protect them when brought to it.
The care of the Prince of Wales was a trust no less important. Two
points only were looked to in his education. The first was, that he
should not be trusted to anything but a ductile cypher; the other,
that he should be brought up with due affection for regal power; in
other words, he was to be the slave of his father, and the tyrant of
his people. Praise is due even to those who execute ably their own
views, let those views be ever so bad. The governors selected for the
Prince were chosen very suitably to the plan I have mentioned. The
King pitched upon Lord Holderness to officiate as the solemn phantom
or governor; Lord Mansfield recommended Dr. Markham, the master of
Westminster School, a creature of his own, sprung out of the true
prerogative seminary, at Christchurch, Oxford, a pert, arrogant man, to
fill the post of preceptor;[178] and thus was the heir of the Crown not
likely to degenerate. Lord North, the nominal First Minister, had the
mortification of finding that he was rather a necessary than agreeable
tool, for he knew nothing of these designations till they were ready to
be notified to the public.
This arrangement had nothing in it but what was to be expected. That
a man, the very reverse of all those who were in favour at Court,
should have been admitted into this junto, was real matter of surprise;
and can only be accounted for by the security of the King and his
Cabal, in having blocked up the chief avenues to the Prince. One
Jackson, an ingenious young man, recommended by Lady Charlotte Finch,
governess of the royal children,[179] was named sub-preceptor;[180]
but the person at whom I hinted, and who was appointed sub-governor,
was Mr. Leonard Smelt, whose singular virtues and character deserve
to be recorded independently of his office. He was younger son of a
gentleman in Yorkshire, and had a commission in the Office of Ordnance,
which he threw up, finding no attention paid by his superiors to his
representation of many abuses there. He fell in love with the niece
of General Guest in Scotland, but retired thence to avoid her, as
he had not fortune sufficient to maintain her. Another young lady,
heiress to great wealth, conceived a passion for him, and obtained
her father’s consent before she acquainted Mr. Smelt with her passion,
which he had not suspected;--so far from it, he swooned away with
surprise and concern, when the father offered him his daughter. Mr.
Smelt confessed his former engagement, refused the lady, and again
retired. Soon after this his father died, and disinheriting his
elder son, who had disobliged him, bequeathed his whole fortune to
Leonard. The first act of this excellent young man was to marry his
beloved first mistress; the second to settle half his fortune on his
brother’s children. His principles in public life were as generous as
in private; a steady friend to the constitution of his country, he had
signed the Yorkshire remonstrance to the King against the intrusion
of Lutterell into the House of Commons. His next introduction to his
Majesty was as sub-preceptor to his son: happy for the Prince had
he had no other governor--at least, no other director of his morals
and opinions of government! But Mr. Smelt had neither authority to
instruct his pupil in matters of state, nor perhaps discernment enough
to baffle the insidious lessons of his associates, for he was ignorant
of the world as well as of its depravity.[181] Being a neighbour of
Lord Holderness, the latter introduced him, and he was received,
notwithstanding his disqualification as a patriot. The principles of
a subaltern were believed to be pliant. Lord Holderness himself owed
his preferment to his insignificance and to his wife, a lady of the
bedchamber to the Queen, as she did hers to her daughter’s governess,
whom the Queen had seduced from her to the great vexation of Lady
Holderness. The governess, a French Protestant,[182] ingratiated her
late mistress with the Queen, and her mistress soon became a favourite
next to the German women.
While this new seminary of favourites was arranging, those of the King
were the objects of the Opposition’s reproaches. In a debate on the
11th, in which they were attacked, Sir Gilbert Elliot defending them,
gave occasion to an admired speech of T. Townshend,[183] who, taking
for his text that line of Pope:--
“As Selkirk,[184] if he lives, will love the Prince,”
drew a severe picture of the Scotch favourites under the character of
Lord Selkirk, and applied to them a still more bitter story of Lockart,
Cromwell’s Ambassador in France, who having acted in that province
under the Parliament and Oliver, and being at last employed on a like
commission by Charles the Second, Cardinal Mazarin taunting him with
this versatility, and asking him from whom he came then, he replied
he was _le serviteur des évènemens_.[185] _The King’s friends_, said
Townshend, should not wear that title, but ought to call themselves,
_les serviteurs des évènemens_. Sir Gilbert Elliot took up the defence
of _the King’s friends_, and said, though all parties abused them,
all had courted them; and that Mr. Dowdeswell and his connection on
coming into power, had pressed them to keep their places. Dowdeswell,
with spirit not usual to him, denied the fact, and told this anecdote.
When Lord Rockingham had meditated the plan of a free port, Elliot,
Dyson, and the King’s friends declared against it. Still the Ministers
had persisted, and Cooper, Secretary of the Treasury, was ordered to
move it, but came in a fright, and said the friends would oppose it.
Dowdeswell said he had snatched the bill from Cooper, and had added,
he would be damned if they dared. He had moved it; they had not opened
their lips for or against it, but had voted for it, and so they always
would if the Ministers had courage; but Lord North, he saw, would not
take enough upon him.
On the other side, Wilkes declared his intention of standing for
Sheriff of Middlesex the following year, and applied to Alderman Oliver
to join him in that pursuit. Oliver declined the offer, saying that his
and Wilkes’s principles did not agree; and added that himself and his
brother had contributed a tenth of the subscriptions for the payment
of Wilkes’s debts, which he thought sufficient, and as the expense of
the Shrievalty was a burthen in common between both Sheriffs, he would
not subject himself to pay what Wilkes could not pay. This was a new
blow on the latter, and not balanced by a gleam of applause paid to his
imprisoned Lord Mayor. The Burgesses of Newcastle addressed him, and
Bedford complimented him with the freedom of their town. Worcester,
Stafford, Caermarthen, Pembroke, and Cardigan, addressed both him and
Alderman Oliver. The Lord Mayor was carried by _habeas corpus_ to
the Court of Common Pleas, but was remanded, the Chief Justice, De
Grey, declaring that the House of Commons had authority over their own
members. Alderman Oliver was, at the end of the same month, carried in
like manner before the Barons of the Exchequer, who remanded him for
the same reason.
The reverse of fortune was falling on the Parliaments of France,
where their resistance on one hand, and the bold despotism of the
Chancellor Maupeou on the other, had brought things to extremities.
Maréchal Richelieu in the King’s name dissolved the Cour des Aides;
fifty _mousquetaires_ had been sent to the members of that court with
_lettres de cachet_, ordering them to be assembled in their court by
seven o’clock the next morning, with injunctions not to debate or
protest, but to await in silence his Majesty’s commands. Ordinarily,
the princes of the blood were charged with those commands; but forms
were not observed when fundamentals were annihilated. Richelieu was
selected, and arriving, would have placed himself in the seat of the
First President, but the members opposed, and said none but princes of
the blood had a right to that place. He insisted; they declared they
would withdraw; he gave it up and took a lower seat. A counsellor who
had accompanied the Maréchal then harangued on the King’s power, and
on what did not appear quite so self-evident--on the King’s goodness;
and then read an edict suppressing that council, become useless, he
said, by the new establishment of six superior councils. This was
palliated by a declaration that the King did not propose to lay aside
men of their merit; on the contrary, he invited them to enter into his
new Parliament. The Advocate-General replied to this fine harangue,
urging that none of his brethren could take a part in a Parliament that
must always be illegal, as he proved by the laws and constitutions of
the kingdom. The Maréchal, then rising, ordered the members to retire,
which they refused to do; he threatened to force their obedience. They
replied, it was not their profession to fight, that they must submit
to force, and withdrew. Ten of them were banished ten leagues from
Paris. The King then held a bed of justice at Versailles, to which were
summoned the Princes of the Blood, the Dukes and Peers, and the Grand
Council. The Princes disobeyed and would not attend,--all but the Comte
de la Marche, only son of the Prince de Conti, who, being at variance
with his father, adhered to the King. The Grand Council were reinstated
and converted into a Parliament in the place of that dissolved. The
King declared this was his will, and that he should never change it.
Twelve Dukes, among whom were even Maréchal Richelieu’s own son,
Fronsac, and the courtly Nivernois, protested against this proceeding.
The Princes of the Blood were forbidden the Court for their
disobedience; the twelve Dukes were only frowned upon.[186] I shall
resume this subject again before the end of the year.
The Court of Spain now notified to us that they were satisfied of our
pacific intentions, and should disarm. Orders were immediately given
for our doing the same. Thus the distractions in France prevented a war
for which the King of Spain was personally eager.
On the 23rd of April the bill for raising an East Indian regiment was,
after many and long debates, rejected. Lord North had taken no part in
it, but the officers had raised great objections to it, as preventive
of their recruiting; and General Harvey, a favourite, had instilled
those prejudices into the King, heightened a little, probably, by
Harvey’s jealousy of Conway, who favoured the plan. Many good men
approved it likewise, as a method of putting a stop to the infamous
practice of kidnapping, which was much used by the East India Company.
Two days after this, Serjeant Glynn presented a petition to the
House from Allen, the father of the young man killed in St. George’s
Fields, praying an inquiry might be made into that murder. Burke and
Dowdeswell supported the petition. Alderman Townshend reflected on
Sir William Meredith for having interfered in behalf of the condemned
chairmen, and called it false lenity to murderers. Meredith said, he
hoped such lenity was allowable; that it was at least as excusable as
going about to stir up murder on the score of party. Townshend said in
answer, that neither did he decline challenges--alluding to Meredith’s
not having answered a challenge from Captain Allen. Lord Barrington
excused himself on the orders he had given to the soldiers; and Colonel
Onslow said the petition was calculated to tell the people that they
might mob the Parliament. The motion was so stale, and the charge of so
ancient a date, that it was rejected by 158 to 32, though the House sat
till eleven at night.
On the 28th Alderman Sawbridge proposed a bill for triennial
Parliaments, but no attention was paid to it, nor answer made by the
Ministers. It was rejected by 105 to 54, the Rockingham party not
liking the measure. Mr. Cornwall moved for a prohibition of dispensing
lottery-tickets to Members of Parliament (a list of the receivers of
which was published); but this, as a decenter species of corruption,
was maintained by 118 to 31.
On the last day of the month the ministerial committee that had
been appointed to consider on the means of ascertaining the power
of Parliament, at last made their report; it was long, foolish, and
trifling, was universally ridiculed, particularly by Burke, and
ended there. They had wished to drop it, but Sir Fletcher Norton,
thinking it would inspire some awe for the House--at least, to his
person--threatened to resign the Chair if at least some effort at
an opinion was not made. The other committee, which Wedderburne had
proposed and headed, and from which he had promised great discoveries,
ended still more disgracefully in no report at all! Sir George Saville
treated him with much scorn, saying, it was extraordinary that he who,
two years ago, could discover so many grievances, could not at present
produce one, though supported by all the authority of Parliament.
On the first of May Lord Chatham moved one of his tedious and obscure
resolutions, tending to petition the King to dissolve the Parliament,
in order to allay heats between the undefined rights of Parliament
and the magistracy (of London). He said he saw the approaching
destruction of liberty, and would sooner go to Switzerland, America,
or to Constantinople, should it fall under the power of Russia. The
Chancellor, even Bathurst, answered him with contempt--Lord Mansfield
seriously--Lord Sandwich sarcastically wishing him a good journey to
Switzerland, and quoting the fate of an orator at Geneva, whose brains
had lately been knocked out by a brickbat in a tumult there. The motion
was rejected by 72 to 22.
The 6th had been appointed for the Lords’ hearing the appeal in the
cause between Lord Chatham and the relations of Sir William Pynsent,
which had been referred to the Judges. They came, prepared to deliver
their opinions, five on the one side and three on the other. They
were going to speak, when Lord Mansfield suddenly arrived, and told
them a new idea had struck him, which he was sure would reconcile
their sentiments. He gave it; they put up their papers, saying, they
should all return on the morrow of one opinion, and retired. On the
8th they concurred in Lord Chatham’s favour, and the House decided
accordingly.[187]
This proceeding was imputed to mean court or timidity in Mansfield. In
truth, this session had been notoriously marked by partialities and
personal considerations. Lord Pomfret had carried his cause by gross
favour of the Court Lords.[188] Lord Mansfield, in compliment to Lord
Lyttelton, whose daughter was married to the pretender to the title of
Anglesey,[189] had gone great lengths to serve the latter, though in
vain; and Lord Lyttelton had as openly declined opposition to secure
Lord Mansfield’s patronage. Lord Camden, though more connected with
Lord Lyttelton, had carried himself with less bias. The borough of
Shoreham had been unjustly punished by the House of Commons, who opened
the right of voting there to all Sussex, because seventy members of
what was called the Christian Club had set their votes to sale, while
ninety innocent voters remained untainted. Lord North, trusting the
Lords would not confirm the sentence, let it pass, but the Lords passed
it too.[190] A bill prohibiting divorced women from remarrying, was
thrown out by the credit of Lord Beauchamp and Charles Fox. A bill
for promoting the navigation of Chester, and which had passed the
Commons, was rejected by the Lords, solely because it would prejudice
the Duke of Bridgwater’s navigation; and Adam, the Scotch architect,
was supported by the King and the Scots with success against the City
of London, on whose territory and rights he had encroached with his
new buildings at Durham Yard, to which he and his brothers gave the
affected name of the Adelphi.
The session was to rise on the 9th of May, but as the Lord Mayor
and Alderman Oliver would _ipso facto_ be at liberty the moment the
Parliament was no longer sitting, the King, for fear of the mob, who
would be assembled to escort the suffering magistrates from the Tower,
stole unexpectedly to the House of Lords, made a very soothing speech,
and put an end to the session. The two prisoners were conducted in
ceremony to their houses; and at night the City was much illuminated,
but without any tumult.
It is difficult to say which made the more contemptible figure on
this conclusion of the City’s resistance,--the King and the House of
Commons on one side, or the Opposition and the City’s magistrates on
the other. The latter by disunion rendered themselves ridiculous and
insignificant; and yet neither the Crown nor House of Commons dared to
take advantage of the neglect into which the two martyrs were fallen.
If the King comforted himself with views of future aggrandizement by
the humiliations of the Opposition, it must be owned that he bought
those prospects with most disgraceful mortifications. Surely it
had been more glorious to have purchased the love of his people by
condescensions and reverence for the constitution. It was pitiful
consolation, and beneath the majesty of ambition, to sit a tacit
spectator of the persecution of Wilkes by his friends, when all the
artillery of Government had been vainly employed to fulminate so
worthless a man!
No sooner was the session at an end, than the paper war which had been
carried on anonymously between Wilkes and parson Horne, broke out under
their respective names with redoubled violence.[191] They told all they
knew of each other, and yet proved nothing but little tricks, foolish
vanities, and suspicions of each other. Men wondered they had nothing
worse to say. Horne appeared to have scarce any parts, and Wilkes not
much better. These peevish jarrings diverted them from exposing and
making advantage of the weakness of the Court in its conduct towards
the magistrates. All Wilkes, his Lord Mayor, or the remnant of the
Bill of Rights attempted, and that without success, was a test in all
boroughs where candidates should be sworn, to try to obtain shorter
Parliaments, the removal of pensioners and placemen from the House of
Commons, and a more equal representation.
Things being quiet, Lord Bute stole again into England; from a mixture
of timidity and pride he had been wandering about Italy incognito,
under his private name of Sir John Stuart.
At the beginning of June died three men in great offices. The first was
Lord Strange, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; a man of whom much
has been said in these Memoirs.[192] He died suddenly at Bath, aged
fifty-five. The second was George Montagu, Earl of Halifax, Lord Privy
Seal. He was of the same age, but had outlived the reputation of parts,
which in his youth he had been supposed to have, his fortune, and his
constitution, the latter of which he had destroyed by drinking, and his
fortune by waste and deliberate neglect. The third was Richard Trevor,
Bishop of Durham, a dull proud man, neither respected nor censured.
The young Earl of Suffolk succeeded Lord Halifax as Secretary of
State,--a post he had declined a few months before on the want of
languages, which he certainly had not acquired in so short an interval.
The late Prime Minister, the Duke of Grafton,[193] succeeded Suffolk
in the Privy Seal; but, with proud humility, desired not to be called
to the Cabinet, where he would only have been subordinate. Lord Hyde
was made Chancellor of the Duchy; Dr. Egerton, Bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, was removed to Durham, and was succeeded by Dr. North,[194]
brother of the Minister.
On the 21st of April, the young Prince of Wales, and his brother, the
Bishop of Osnabrugh, were allowed, under the conduct of their new
governor, the Earl of Holderness, to go to Gravesend, and see the
men-of-war and Indiamen lying there. There was nothing remarkable
in this; but it was so that the King himself, the Sovereign of an
island and of a maritime power, had never seen the sea, nor ever been
thirty miles from London at the age of thirty-four; so great was his
indolence, and the restraint in which his mother had kept him!
On the 24th, the poll began for sheriffs of Middlesex. Wilkes from
the first had by far the greatest show of hands for him, and Alderman
Oliver the fewest,--the consequence of his connection with Shelburne’s
faction, whose opposition to Wilkes recoiled on themselves, and who
were hissed and ill-treated by the mob. The Livery assembled on that
occasion determined to make another remonstrance to the King, and the
Lord Mayor offered to present it, which was accepted. One Bull, a
devotee of Wilkes, joined him; but Kirkman, a ministerial alderman,
gained ground on them, till the indiscretion of the courtiers, who
laboured indefatigably to defeat Wilkes, overthrew their own purpose.
An imprudent letter from Lord North’s secretary to a voter being made
public, it enraged the Livery, and Wilkes and Bull were chosen. Little
less offence was taken at a party novel,[195] written by the profligate
hireling Smollett, to vindicate the Scots and cry down juries.
The remonstrance being ready, the Lord Chamberlain wrote to the Lord
Mayor, that his Majesty would not receive more persons with the
remonstrance than were allowed by law. This was resented, but complied
with.
The Chevalier D’Eon, of whom I have given an account, occasioned at
this period much and strange discourse. A notion had for some time
prevailed that he was a woman in man’s habit. The Duc de Choiseul
believed it from the report of a female English spy who pretended to be
certain of it from having washed his linen; and as the report spread,
it gained farther credit from assertions that he never dressed himself
before any witness, nor could any of his comrades recollect an instance
of his amours. His beard, though black, was inconsiderable; and though
he was strong and an excellent fencer, his legs had a feminine turn. At
first he pretended to resent the report, but afterwards spoke and wrote
so dubiously on his sex, that the most judicious suspected him for
author of the fable from interested views. Sometimes he disappeared and
returned again, till by the usual discrepancy of opinions, very great
sums were wagered on the question; and he, though he denied the charge
in print, was taxed with encouraging those bets in order to share the
spoil, according as he should pronounce on his own gender: but the
question came to no issue, and was forgotten like other legends of the
day.[196]
In August this year I again went to Paris, and was witness to the
final overthrow of their constitution. Since the removal of the Duc
de Choiseul, no Prime Minister had been named. Over the King’s mind
Madame du Barry had almost unlimited ascendant, except that she could
not prevail on him to place his confidence on the Duc d’Aiguillon,
who certainly intrigued with her husband’s sister, a very sensible
woman, and was suspected of having secured the mistress herself to his
interest by the same _attention_. Yet, whether it was owing to the
King’s aversion to strangers, or that Choiseul had instilled lasting
prejudices into his mind against D’Aiguillon, the latter could not
entirely surmount them. He was a dark, violent, and vindictive man,
with less parts than passions; but the rancour borne to him and the
mortifications it had brought on him, had taught him to curb his
temper; and he now affected universal benignity and condescension;
proceeding even to obtain the arrears of the pension due to La
Chalotais, the patriot magistrate of Bretagne, whom he had so cruelly
oppressed. Yet would not this ostentatious benevolence have expunged
the odium his persecutions had created, if another man had not
presented himself as a still more offensive object to the indignation
of the public. This was the Chancellor Maupeou, a man who had mounted
by the regular steps of villany from flattery through treachery to
tyranny. He had affected such loathsome idolatry of Choiseul that
he had been heard to declare he would on no consideration change
his house, because, from the upper windows, he could survey at least
the chimneys of the Hôtel de Choiseul. Yet while there was but a
very dubious prospect of that Minister’s disgrace, Maupeou, then
only Vice-Chancellor, had betrayed such symptoms of his ambition and
hostile designs that the friends of the Duc de Choiseul earnestly
exhorted him not to raise a secret enemy higher. Choiseul, with his
usual rashness of confidence in himself, replied, “I know Maupeou is
a rogue, but there is nobody so fit to be Chancellor;” and Chancellor
he made him. Maupeou, who thought himself fitter to be Minister,
did not pique himself on gratitude, and was a capital instrument in
the Duke’s disgrace. I never saw character written in more legible
features than in those of Maupeou. He was sallow and black, with eyes
equally penetrating, acute, and suspicious. His complexion spoke
determinate villany; his eyes seemed either roving in quest of prey
for it, or glaring on snares that he apprehended. His parts were
great and his courage adventurous. Power was his object, despotism
his road, the clergy his instruments: but the hardness and cruelty of
his nature showed that severity was as agreeable to his temper as to
his views.[197] Not being qualified like D’Aiguillon to shine in a
voluptuous Court where a woman governed, and probably having noticed
the tendency of the King’s gloomy mind to superstition, he reckoned,
not injudiciously, on the triumph that bigotry would gain over love
in a veteran Monarch; and accordingly insinuated himself into the
confidence of the King’s Carmelite daughter, Madame Louise, the almost
only engine that the Church of Rome had employed in the spirit of its
ancient maxims during its late disgraces. At that Princess’s cell,
the Chancellor obtained weekly audiences of his master: and though,
during the suspense of power, Maupeou and D’Aiguillon acted in a kind
of concert, it became notorious that the first founded his hopes on
the King’s devotion and the other on his vices. More instances than
one broke out of this contrast of piety and irreligion, not only in
the King but in his own family. His daughters had all been bred by the
Queen to habitual strictness. They were very weak women; but Madame
Adelaide, the eldest, was something more--she was gallant.[198] One or
two of her ladies had been punished many years before for furnishing
her with indecent novels; and the King, whose palace was a brothel, in
the very sight of his wife and daughters, had expressed great offence
at that scandal. Madame Adelaide, though not corrected, yet become
more wary, was suspected of covering her private history with the
cloak of religion, or rather with that of the Bishop of Senlis, an
ambitious prelate: and it was probably by his suggestions that she drew
her sister, Madame Victoire, into a step very contradictory to their
professions, for all the King’s daughters engaged warmly in hostilities
against the new mistress. Soon after the Duc de Choiseul’s fall, Madame
Victoire sent, on a feigned pretence, for the Bishop of Orleans, who
had the _feuille de bénéfices_. The Bishop, though possessed of the
recommendation of proper churchmen, was a jolly, luxurious, dissolute
priest, who kept an opera-dancer[199] publicly at a great expense,
and lodged her in a convent. He had been a favourite of Choiseul, and
remained attached to him. After the Princess had discoursed with the
Bishop on her pretended business, she asked him negligently his opinion
of the late revolution. He replied, it did not become him to meddle
with affairs of state; but the Princess insisting, and he knowing her
an enemy to Madame du Barry, ventured to open his heart to her. The
consequences were, her betraying the conversation to her father, and
the exile of the Bishop to an abbey: nor could the prayers of his aged
mother, who begged to see him before her death, obtain a permission
for him to visit her at the capital of his diocese,--a rigour of which
the Chancellor gave many more and some similar instances in cases of
banished presidents and _avocats_ of the Parliaments.
There was another man who, though not pretending to the first place,
bore, during the King’s indecision, a large share of the public
aversion both from the necessity of his office and the rigour and
partialities with which he executed it. This was the Abbé du Terray,
the new Comptroller-General, recommended by the Chancellor. It was a
considerable addition to the Comptroller’s unpopularity that he was
wholly governed by a corrupt and rapacious mistress,[200]--a woman
so notorious for the sale of offices, that her protector was at last
forced to dismiss her; while the old Duc de la Vrillière was suffered
to indulge his concubine[201] in the same infamous venality.
Madame du Barry, as I have said, was the fountain or channel of all
these disorders. The doting Monarch was enchanted with her indelicacy,
vulgarism, and indecencies, the novelty of which seemed to him
simplicity. Her mirth was childish romping; her sallies, buffoonish
insults; her conversation, solecisms and ignorance. She pulled off the
Chancellor’s wig, spat in the Duc de Laval’s face at her levee--he
deserved it, for he let her repeat it; and the King, who deserved it
still more, she called “fool!” and bade hold his tongue. Those who
offended her, she threatened with her power; those who bowed to her,
she treated little better. To none she was generous, for herself she
was rapacious. She had two governesses of very different characters
and understandings, but the congenial idiot had most weight with her.
This was the Comtesse de Valentinois, wife of, but parted from, the
brother of the Prince of Monaco, and herself sole heiress of the Duc
de St. Simon. She was a handsome woman, finely made, but mischievous,
impertinent, and too notorious for her promiscuous amours even to pass
for gallant. The Maréchale Duchesse de Mirepoix had preceded Madame
de Valentinois in the direction of the mistress. No head was better,
no temper colder than the Maréchale’s. Of great pride, but capable
of any meanness to supply her profusions at play, she had joined the
mistress to supplant the Minister; but whether Madame du Barry’s want
of generosity chilled the Maréchale’s importunities for money, or
whether her alliance with the House of Lorrain[202] made her incapable
of digesting the low familiarities of the mistress, or whether a
prospect of ingratiating herself with the young Dauphiness, governed
by Madame Adelaide, and consequently an enemy to the mistress, swayed
the Maréchale to swerve from her plan, it is certain she conceived
and expressed both aversion and contempt for Madame du Barry, and
even declined attending her to an audience of the Dauphiness, to
which Madame de Valentinois, more compliant, introduced her. While I
was now at Paris, having been long intimate with Madame de Mirepoix
and her family, at Florence, in England, and at Paris, she told me
many anecdotes of that silly and imperious favourite, most of which
I heard attested by the general voice, or at least corroborated by
similar incidents. One I will mention. At supper with the King she
drank out of the punch-ladle, and returned it into the bowl. The King
said, “Fy donc! vous donnez votre crachat à boire à tout le monde;”
she replied “Eh bien! je veux que tout le monde boive mon crachat.”
The same night my friend Madame du Deffand asking the Maréchale what
would become of Madame du Barry should the King die? she replied
bitterly, “Elle iroit à la Salpêtrière, et elle est très faite pour
y aller.” As Madame de Mirepoix was not in the odour of sincerity,
I much suspected her of being concerned in an event of that time,
which, however, she affected to assign as the cause of her resentment
to the mistress,--I mean the disgrace of her brother, the Prince of
Beauvau, which happened during this journey of mine to Paris; and of
which I was in a situation of knowing many secret particulars, Madame
du Deffand being the confidant both of the brother and sister, as she
had been before their rupture, continuing loyal to both sides, and by
both esteemed as a woman void of intrigue. As they supped alternately
at her house several times in a week, and as her friendship for me
induced her to insist on my being admitted to their most private
conferences, I was privy to the effusions of both parties: and, indeed,
they had so little reserve before me, that one evening the Prince and
Princess of Beauvau were so explicit on their situation and enemies,
that I felt uneasy, and thinking myself an improper auditor of such
secrets, I begged permission to retire, but the Princess reproved me
sensibly, saying, “Your thinking these things improper for you to hear,
is telling us that they are improper for us to speak.” I have already
given the character of that Princess, and mentioned how deeply she
had been concerned in the disgrace of the Duc de Choiseul, in whose
fall she involved herself and her husband, who was a man of honour,
very confined in his understanding, and acquired accomplishments, which
were restrained to a pedantic purity in his own language, and who was a
mixture of bashfulness and frankness, with signal courage and unbounded
pride. To introduce his story, I must revert to the situation of his
friend, the late Minister.
The Duc de Choiseul had been ordered to restrain himself to his wife’s
estate in Touraine, where he had built a magnificent castle. There,
though overwhelmed with debts, he lived with an increase of profusion,
retaining or affecting his constitutional spirits and levity. It
was a new scene in France, a disgraced Minister still the object of
veneration and love. It was as new to see the King unpopular, or,
which in that country is synonymous, unfashionable. While Louis could
scarcely assemble a Court round him and his mistress at Versailles, at
Compiègne, the Princes of the Blood, at their several country seats,
and the Duc de Choiseul at Chanteloup, were followed by throngs of
company. The insult to the King was doubled by the disrespect paid to
his intimations; for, as nobody was allowed to resort to Chanteloup
without previously applying for his Majesty’s permission, to which
demand this oracular response was generally given, “Je ne le defends
ni le permets,” and as that oracle was interpreted, or pretended to
be interpreted, into consent, the want of respect for his inclination
could but be deemed contempt by a Prince so accustomed to have his very
looks obeyed. The mode of visiting the Duke spread, and, for a mode,
lasted long, nor was confined to his former friends; several persons
of both sexes, many ladies whom he had loved, and others who had never
loved him, affronted the King rather than be unfashionable, and the
Duke, with too much vanity and too much indifference for his friends,
encouraged the concourse; but, as may well be supposed, this triumph
did but advance his and their destruction, of which the Prince of
Beauvau was the first example.
The resolution had been taken, by the Chancellor’s advice, of
annihilating or new modelling all the Parliaments in France, which
was now executed with rigour, or at great expense, wherever the Court
could, by bribes and pensions, persuade the members to enlist in the
new system. Bourdeaux, for a day or two, resisted, to the great terror
of Maréchal Richelieu, their governor, who retreated precipitately
and sent for troops. In Languedoc the Prince of Beauvau commanded.
The King wrote to him with his own hand, telling him that, having an
intention of dissolving the Parliament of Toulouse, and knowing the
Prince’s sentiments to be contrary to that plan, he could not employ
him any longer in that province. The rest of the letter was still more
kind, but artful, demanding his frequent attendance on his person, as
one of the four captains of the guard in whom he could most securely
rely, and adding, that his Majesty had seen the time when it was not
possible to get one of them to attend him. This sentence alluded to
their absence at Chanteloup. I called even the first part of the
epistle tender, for the dismission of the Prince from his government
was a gentle method of preventing his disobedience by refusing to
break the Parliament,--a resistance that must have drawn on his
imprisonment. The Prince’s answer was very respectful, but firm. He
gave copies of both letters to Madame du Deffand, permitting her to
communicate them to me; and he added a comment on that of the King,
which fully interpreted its meaning. He said the King was so afraid of
assassination, that he dreaded not having his attendance on his person.
“He knows,” said the Prince, “my zeal and assiduity so well, that, in
the year 17--, when the Imperialists passed the Rhine, and I begged
him to allow me to set out immediately for the army, he was three
days before he would give me an answer, and it was but by repeated
importunities that I could wring from him the permission.”
The moment the Prince’s disgrace was known, the Duc d’Orleans repaired
to him, sat all day with him and the Princess, and carried them, in
the evening, into his own box at the opera. The next day that haughty
woman sat at home, receiving the homage of half France. I went in the
crowd. All day were files of coaches passing the whole length of the
Rue St. Honoré, at the end of which she lived, and no fallen Minister
in England, just commencing patriot, could behave with more insolence
and affected satisfaction; but, though nothing could bow her spirit,
her husband was reduced to take a humiliating step, and that without
success. His paternal fortune had been little or none; all he had
was from the King’s bounty. His debts were very great--his income,
by the loss of his government, reduced to a trifle. He wrote to the
King, representing his situation and begging assistance: it was coldly
refused.
Against the Parliaments the sentence went forth. Next followed the
punishment of individuals:--40,000_l._ a-year, the King’s pension to
the Duc d’Orleans, were withdrawn; and soon afterwards the command of
the Swiss Guards was taken from Choiseul: it brought him in 5000_l._
a-year, and was for life; but the King demanded his resignation,
and perpetual imprisonment would have attended the refusal. Yet
that dauntless man dared to stipulate for terms with his master. He
insisted on a promise of not being made a prisoner, and demanded an
indemnification of what he had paid for the regiment, 300,000 livres.
He was comforted with hopes of preserving his liberty; 200,000 livres
were granted, and a pension of 50,000 livres a-year for the joint lives
of him and the Duchess, to which 10,000 more were soon added,--a fall
extremely mitigated by these indulgences, and gentle if compared with
the insolence of his conduct.
To the city of Paris, and to the ruined counsellors of the Parliaments,
the Duke remained still dear. They coupled his cause with their own,
from the unity of the time. The Chancellor adopted the same idea to
incense the King against both. The depopulation of Paris ensued. So
many families were undone by the new edicts and stoppages of payments,
and so many persons attached to the late Parliament had quitted the
capital, that in less than twelve months one hundred thousand persons
were computed to have retired into the provinces, and such as could
escape into other countries. The King’s servants were unpaid; trade at
a stand; distress and dissatisfaction in every countenance. Daggers
threatened the King and Chancellor: the Comptroller-General threatened
to plunder everybody else to prevent a national bankruptcy.
Still could not the King’s favour draw observance towards his
mistress. Not above six women of rank would accept her protection
or acquaintance. Almost all the Foreign Ministers shunned her, nor
bad attended her levee--but this cloud was easily removed: Madame
de Valentinois invited them to supper, where they found Madame du
Barry. As they were not shy to her, she in her turn gave them a like
invitation;[203] they hurried to it and to her levee, the Nuncio at
their head. The Spanish Ambassador[204] alone was absent, and it passed
for an accident, as he was not at Compiègne; but on his arrival there
with the new Neapolitan Minister,[205] the Chancellor made a supper
for the same company, and invited the two strangers. The Spaniard
sent back the card, saying, he had not the honour of visiting the
Chancellor;[206] the latter with great presence of mind said, “It is
very true, and I ordered my servant to take care not to go to the
Spanish Ambassador.” But this _finesse_ palliated nothing, for neither
the Spaniard nor Neapolitan would visit the mistress. I will conclude
this long episode with a ridiculous fact. Mademoiselle L’Ange, the
mistress, had been married to the Comte du Barry, because, by a most
absurd ceremonial, it was necessary that the King’s mistress should be
a married woman.