his mind was then made up to decline the offer from his Majesty, and
that so decidedly, that I did not attempt to say anything further on
the subject. He expressed, however, a wish to be allowed an audience
of his Majesty. This was granted, and, at the conclusion of it, the
King, with the utmost concern, wrote to acquaint me that Mr. Yorke
had declined the Seal. On his appearing soon after at the levee, his
Majesty called him into his closet immediately after it was over. What
passed there I know not; but nothing could exceed my astonishment,
when Lord Hillsborough came into my dressing-room, in order to tell
me that Mr. Yorke was in my parlour, and that he was Lord Chancellor,
through the persuasion of the King himself in his closet. Mr. Yorke
corroborated to me what I had heard from Lord Hillsborough, and I
received the same account from his Majesty as soon as I could get down
to St. James’s. Mr. Yorke stayed but a little time with me; but his
language gave me new hopes that an Administration might shortly be
produced which the nation would approve. How soon did this plausible
hope vanish into a visionary expectation only, from the death of Mr.
Yorke before he became Lord Morden, or we could have any preliminary
discourse on the measure he earnestly desired to forward!
I had long been acquainted with Mr. Yorke, and held him in high esteem.
He certainly appeared less easy and communicative with me, from the
time of his acceptance to his death, than I might expect; but it was
natural to imagine that he would be more agitated than usual, when
arduous and intricate business was rushing at once upon him. I had not
the least conception of any degree of agitation that could bring him
to his sad and tragical end; nor will I presume to conjecture what
motives in his own breast, or anger in that of others, had driven him
to repent of the step he had just taken. By his own appointment, I
went to his house, about nine o’clock in the evening,--two days, as I
believe, after Mr Yorke had been sworn in at a Council-board, summoned
for that purpose at the Queen’s house. Being shown into his library
below, I waited a longer time than I supposed Mr. Yorke would have kept
me, without some extraordinary cause. After above half-an-hour waiting,
Dr. Watson, his physician, came into the room; he appeared somewhat
confused, sat himself down for a few minutes, letting me know that Mr.
Yorke was much indisposed from an attack of colic. Dr. Watson soon
retired, and I was ruminating on the untowardness of the circumstance,
never suspecting the fatal event which had occurred, nor the still more
lamentable cause ascribed for it by the world, and, as I fear, upon too
just grounds. I rang the bell, and acquainted one of the servants that
Mr. Yorke was probably too ill to see me, and that I should postpone
the business on which I came to a more favourable moment. Mr. Yorke, I
believe, was a religious man: it is rare to hear of such a person being
guilty of an action so highly criminal. It must, therefore, in him have
been a degree of passionate frenzy, bearing down every atom of his
reason: you will not wonder that I cannot think on the subject without
much horror still.
Here I stood again, under more perplexing difficulties than ever, and
without any expectation of additional strength, but what would arise
alone from the appointment of an able Chancellor. Lord Chief Justice
Wilmot, after Mr. Yorke’s death, declined the acceptance of the Great
Seal, from the causes I have already assigned. Under these unpromising
circumstances, I still persisted in endeavouring to fill up the vacant
Chancellor’s post by an efficient and respected character. By the
King’s commands, I saw Mr. De Grey, a most able and upright lawyer, and
as perfect a gentleman, and who afterwards became Lord Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas. In a long conference we had at his house, he appeared
inclined to undertake the situation, in spite of his frequent attacks
of gout. But, on entering something further into particulars, he put
this question to me, “Are you determined yourself to remain a certain
time in your present post?” My answer decided him at once to decline,
for I told him that I thought of retiring as soon as I could reconcile
it to my own heart, and that I foresaw this might be very near at
hand indeed, for I assured him that I should not seek for any other
Chancellor, if he refused the offer of the Great Seal.
You will feel for me in this distressing dilemma. You will perceive
that I had left nothing untried to bring the vessel to tolerable trim;
and, when you consider that, quitted by Lord Camden, and at the same
time by Lord Granby, I had no reliance in the Cabinet but on General
Conway alone, I trust you will think that, under such circumstances,
I could not proceed and be of service to the King or to the country;
and recollect that the hopes of co-operation with Mr. Yorke, to bring
about an essential addition of right principle, credit, and support,
vanished of course with himself. I laid before his Majesty directly
my difficulties, and observed that they were such as compelled me to
retire from my office, though it would be my full desire to give all
assistance to his Majesty’s Government. As it would be thoroughly
ungrateful to pass over entirely the concern his Majesty manifested
on this occasion, I am induced to observe that the King’s earnestness
with me to alter my resolution, far surpassed everything which my poor
services could possibly have merited.
Towards the end of January, 1770, I left the Treasury, but continued
to give the Administration under Lord North what support I was able.
The number of independent gentlemen, members chiefly of the House of
Commons, who came to me at this juncture, expressing their desire of
taking their part with me, both surprised and flattered me, for many of
the number were little known to me. I returned them many thanks for the
honour they did me by this proof of their good opinion, which I should
never forget, though my mind was made up, as I told them, to keep
myself as single and independent as a political man could be.
At this time, Lord Chatham’s virulence seemed to be directed against
myself; he persisted, for some days, in the intention of charging me in
Parliament with having advised the removal of Lord Camden, on account
of his vote in the House; nor was he dissuaded from this, till Lord
Camden had assured him that he knew so perfectly that the advice did
not come from me, that he should, if his Lordship made the motion,
think it incumbent on him to rise in his place, and declare that he
well knew it was not from my advice. This idea was wholly dropped in
our House on this declaration from Lord Camden, but I think that some
member of the House of Commons made a motion of the same tendency, but
met with no support.
In the last days of January, Lord Rockingham moved for a day to be
fixed when he should enter upon the consideration of the state of the
nation. Lord Chatham meant to be the seconder, but I started up myself
to second Lord Rockingham, and to profess my readiness and wish to
go into any inquiry that the House should approve. On the day fixed,
the Marquis made his motion, which related wholly to the rights of
the Commons on judicial authority in matters of election. In debate,
arguments went further; and, in particular, Lord Chatham condemned the
conduct of the Commons with much asperity, in a speech which betrayed
no want of mental or bodily powers. A great majority supported the
Ministers, and Lord Marchmont made the following motion, which was
not only approved, but said to be penned by Lord Mansfield himself,
who gave it his fullest support, in a very brilliant speech:--“That
any resolution of this House, directly or indirectly impeaching a
judgment of the House of Commons, in a matter where their jurisdiction
is competent, final, and conclusive, would be a violation of the
constitutional right of the Commons, tends to make a breach between
the two Houses of Parliament, and leads to a general confusion.”
This motion was, as I thought, highly necessary, and it received my
fullest support. Lord Chatham continued, for two months together, in
a more active opposition to the Ministry than I had ever known in his
Lordship, and, after many motions, which were all negatived, he moved
an address to his Majesty to dissolve the Parliament, on the ground
that the people had no confidence in the House of Commons, at a time
when the discontents in England, Ireland, and America were threatening
to a high degree. This motion was rejected, as you may imagine, without
much debate, and by Administration with little attention.
VI.
In the summer of 1771, the Duke of Grafton was again induced to
join the Administration, and he accepted the Privy Seal in the hope
that he might prevent the quarrel with America from proceeding to
extremities. But when he discovered that, in opposition to his earnest
remonstrances, Government resisted all conciliation, were determined
upon coercive measures, and would pay no regard even to the petition
brought over by Mr. Penn in 1775, which was emphatically called the
Olive Branch; and finally withdrew from that Administration; and
having, in a private audience, explained to the Monarch his views of
the state and dangers of the country if the present measures were
pursued,--he became a temperate but firm opposer of the Ministry which
lost America.
In the year 1782, the Duke of Grafton accepted the Office of Privy Seal
under the Administration of Lord Rockingham, and retained his situation
after the death of that truly patriotic nobleman and the resignation
of Mr. Fox. Upon the accession of the Coalition Ministry in 1783, he
resigned his office, and never afterwards resumed his seat in the
Cabinet.[221]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Lord Weymouth was governed by Wood (author of the editions of
Palmyra and Balbec), his secretary, who was suspected of having, in
concert with Sullivan, betrayed the East India Company at the last
peace. Wood was a great stockjobber, and now, and in the following
year, was vehemently accused of bending the bow of war towards the
butt of his interest. This was the more suspected, as, though we
had now been the aggressors, France had for some time winked at the
insult offered to their ship, and wished to receive no answer to
their memorial, when Wood persisted in making a reply--which lowered
the stocks. He who thus lowered them, could raise them again when he
pleased.
[2] Mainon D’Invau saw that, with a Court so entirely demoralized as
that of Louis the Fifteenth, any extensive financial reforms were
impracticable. He had the disinterestedness to refuse the pension
usually enjoyed by Ministers _en retraite_.--E.
[3] The Princess of Beauvau told me this story of him when he was
Vice-Chancellor:--She found fault with the situation of his house;
Maupeou replied he could see the Hôtel de Choiseul from the windows of
his garrets, and that was felicity enough.
[4] Madame d’Esparbès, a woman of quality, was one of the mistresses
that succeeded Madame de Pompadour, and hated the Duc de Choiseul. As
he was one day coming down the great staircase at Versailles he met
her going to the King. He took her by the hand, told her he knew her
designs, led her down, returned to the King, and obtained an order
for her appearing no more at Court. When Madame du Barry became the
favourite mistress, by the intrigues of Maréchal de Richelieu, the Duc
de Choiseul, seeing her pass through the gallery at Versailles, said to
the Maréchal, “N’est ce pas Madame de Maintenon qui passe?”--a satire
on Richelieu, who was so old as to remember the latter, for paying
court in the dregs of life to the former, and marking his contempt for
both the mistress and her flatterer.
[5] See the character of Choiseul, supra, vol. ii. p. 243.
[6] I one evening heard the Maréchal relate the histories of his five
imprisonments in the Bastille. The first was for having, at fifteen,
hid himself under the bed of the Duchess of Burgundy, the King’s
mother. The second, I think, was for following the Regent’s daughter
in the dress of a footman when she went to marry the Duke of Modena.
I forget the others, or he had not time to finish them, for though he
related well, he was not concise.
[7] Four or five years after the period I am speaking of, the Maréchal
was greatly disgraced by seducing a married woman of quality, Madame
de St. Vincent, descendant of the famous Madame de Sevigné. The suit
between them made considerable noise. At his hotel in Paris he built a
pavilion in his garden, luxuriously furnished, for his amours; as it
was supposed to be built with his plunder of the Electorate of Hanover,
it was nicknamed _Le Pavillon d’Hanovre_.
[8] In his eighty-third year he married his third wife, who, it is
said, had too much reason to complain of his infidelities. This
heartless voluptuary died in 1788, at the great age of ninety-two.--E.
[9] See supra, vol ii. p. 245.--E.
[10] He claimed affinity with the Barrys, Earls of Barrymore, and that
family did acknowledge the relationship, and had the meanness, when so
many French would not, to grace the mistress’s triumph at Versailles.
[This alludes to Lady Barrymore, a foolish woman, whom Walpole
ridicules in his Correspondence. An amusing life of the Comte du Barry
is given in the Biographie Universelle, partly from an autobiographical
MS. He seems to have been a consummate blackguard. He perished by the
guillotine in 1794. A more favourable account of the Du Barrys is to
be found in Capefigue, the panegyrist of every Bourbon king but Henry
the Fourth.--(Louis XV., et la Société du XVIII. Siècle, t. iv. pp.
106–111.)--E.]
[11] It was a most absurd etiquette at the Court of France that the
King’s mistress should be a married woman,--perhaps for fear of the
precedent of Madame de Maintenon.
[12] She was the daughter of the Comte de Chabot, and widow of a
Monsieur de Clermont. The Prince de Beauvau, son of the late Prince de
Craon, a Lorrainer, and one of the Colonels of the King’s guards, had
been attached to her, during the life of his first wife, daughter of
the Duc de Bouillon, and married her on his wife’s death. [The Prince
had served with distinction in the German wars. He was made Governor of
Provence in 1782, and Marshal in 1783. He died in 1793.--E.]
[13] I once said this very thing to her. I was sitting by her at her
own house at some distance from the rest of the company, and we were
talking of the stand making against Madame du Barry. The Duchesse de
Choiseul asked me if that opposition of the nobility to the King’s
pleasure would not be reckoned greatly to their honour in England?
I answered coldly, “Yes, Madam.” “Come,” said she, “you are not in
earnest; but I insist on you telling me seriously what you think.” I
replied, “Madam, if you command me, and will promise not to be angry,
I will tell you fairly my opinion.” She promised she would. “Then,”
said I, “I think this is all very well for Mesdames de Beauvau and de
Grammont; but _you_, Madam, had no occasion to be so scrupulous.” She
understood the compliment, and was pleased--and I knew she would not
dislike it, as it was no secret to me that she was violently jealous
of and hated her sister-in-law; and I knew, too, that her warmth
against Madame du Barry was put on, that Madame de Grammont might not
appear to have more zeal against the Duc de Choiseul’s enemy than she
had. When she advised her husband to resign, she was more sincere.
Her warmest wish was to live retired with her husband, on whom she
doted; and she perhaps thought the Duchesse de Grammont did not love
her brother enough to quit the world for him. She herself was once on
the point of retiring into a convent from the disgusts the Duchesse de
Grammont continually gave her. The Duke always sat between his wife and
sister at dinner, and sometimes kissed the latter’s hand. Madame de
Choiseul was timid, modest, and bashful, and had a little hesitation
in her speech. Madame de Grammont took pleasure in putting her out of
countenance. When the Duke was banished, his wife and sister affected
to be reconciled, that their hatred might not disturb his tranquillity.
Madame de Choiseul was pretty, and remarkably well made, but
excessively little, and too grave for so spirituous a man. Madame de
Grammont, with a fine complexion, was coarsely made, had a rough voice,
and an overbearing manner, but could be infinitely agreeable when she
pleased. Madame de Choiseul was universally beloved and respected, but
neglected; Madame de Grammont was hated by most, liked by many, feared
and courted by all, as long as her brother was in power. Her own parts,
and the great party that was attached to the Duke, even after his fall,
secured much court to the Duchesse de Grammont. The Duke esteemed his
wife, but was tired of her virtues and gravity. His volatile gallantry
did not confine itself to either.
[14] Madame de Mirepoix was the eldest daughter of the beautiful
Princesse de Craon, mistress of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, who married
her to Monsieur de Beauvau, a poor nobleman of an ancient family, whom
he got made a Prince of the Empire. [She was a woman of extraordinary
wit and cleverness, but totally without character. Many amusing
anecdotes of her may be found in the memoirs of the day, especially
those of Madame de Haussez.--E.]
[15] Madame de Monconseil was the friend and correspondent of Lord
Chesterfield, whose letters to her show that he entertained a high
opinion of her sense and good breeding.--(See Lord Chesterfield’s
Letters, vol. iii. p. 159, note. Lord Mahon’s edition.)--E.
[16] It is due to the satisfaction of the reader that I should give
an account how a stranger could become so well acquainted with the
secret history of the Court of France. I have mentioned my intimacy
with the Prince and Princesse de Craon. It was in the years 1740 and
1741, when the Prince was head of the Council there, and my father was
Prime Minister of England, I resided thirteen months at Florence, in
the house of Sir Horace Mann, our resident and my own cousin--passed
almost every evening at the Princesse’s, and being about two years
older than their son the Prince de Beauvau, contracted a friendship
with him, and was with the whole family at Rome when the Prince went
thither to receive the toison d’or from the Prince of Santa Croce, the
Emperor’s Ambassador. That connection with her family soon made me
as intimate with Madame de Mirepoix on her arrival in England, which
my frequent journeys to Paris kept up. Madame de Monconseil had been
in correspondence with my father; I was acquainted with her in 1739,
and renewed my visits in 1765, and often since. Her house was the
rendezvous of the Duc de Choiseul’s enemies, and I have supped there
with Maréchal Richelieu and Madame de Mirepoix. The Dowager Duchesse
d’Aiguillon was an intimate friend of my friend Lady Hervey, and was
remarkably good to me. In England I was as intimate with the Comte and
Comtesse du Châtelet, the bosom friends of the Duc de Choiseul, and was
regularly of their private suppers twice a-week, just at the beginning
of Madame du Barry’s reign; and as they knew how well I was at the
Hôtel de Choiseul, and consequently better acquainted than almost any
man in England with what was passing, it was an entertainment to them
to talk to me on those affairs; at the same time that I had had the
prudence never to take any part which would not become a stranger,
and was thus well received by both parties. The Maréchal Richelieu
was an old lover of the Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon, and constantly
at her house; and yet she acted a handsome and neutral part; and it
was at last that with great difficulty her son could make her go to
Madame du Barry. But the great source of my intelligence was the
celebrated old blind Marquise du Deffand, who had a strong and lasting
friendship for me. As she hated politics, she entered into none, but
being the intimate friend of the Duchesse de Choiseul, who called her
“granddaughter” (Madame du Deffand having had a grandmother Duchesse
de Choiseul), of the Prince of Beauvau and of Madame de Mirepoix, I
saw them all by turns at their house, heard their intrigues, and from
her: and on two of my journeys I generally supped five nights in a
week with her at the Duchesse de Choiseul’s, whither the Duke often
came--and in those, and in the private parties at Madame du Deffand’s
I heard such extraordinary conversations as I should not have heard if
I had not been so very circumspect, as they all knew. I shall mention
some instances hereafter. Here are two. Madame de Mirepoix soon grew
not content with Madame du Barry. I was one evening very late on the
Boulevard with Mesdames du Mirepoix and Du Deffand. The latter asked
the former, “Que deviendroit Madame du Barry, si le Roi venoit à
mourir?” “Que deviendroit elle?” replied she, with the utmost scorn;
“elle iroit à la Salpetrière, et elle est très faite pour y aller.” On
the death of Louis the Fifteenth Madame de Mirepoix was disgraced; on
which her brother, the Prince de Beauvau, in compassion, was reconciled
to her, and she and the Princess pretended to be reconciled, and always
kissed when they met. I saw them and their niece, the Viscomtesse de
Cambis, act three of Molière’s plays two nights together, to divert
Madame du Deffand, who was ill. This was in 1775. Yet when I went to
take leave of Madame de Mirepoix, she opened her heart to me, and
showed me how heartily she still hated her sister-in-law.
[17] He died in 1769. He was a virtuous man, and a great
mathematician--qualities equally uncommon in a courtier of the days of
Louis the Fifteenth.--E.
[18] The Comte du Châtelet told me that the Duc de Choiseul having
learnt from Madame de Pompadour that she intended the disgrace of
the Cardinal, and the Duke for his successor, and observing that the
Cardinal had no apprehension of his approaching fall, was so generous
as to give him warning of it.
[19] See, however, vol. iii. p. 367, note.--E.
[20] This indifference to the public credit was a fatal error in the
reforms of the Abbé Terray, and alone sufficed to prove his ignorance
of the elementary principles of finance. He is represented to have
been morose, disagreeable, and dissolute. His dismissal from office
was one of the earliest and certainly most popular acts of Louis the
Sixteenth.--E.
[21] The Princesse de Lamballe had married the eldest son of the Duc de
Penthièvre. She perished in the Revolution. Her Memoirs, an agreeable
if not a perfectly authentic work, were published in 1826.--E.
[22] The Emperor Joseph the Second, after the death of his second wife.
He had been passionately fond of his first wife, who was very amiable.
The second was as disagreeable.
[23] Not the present Queen of France, but an Archduchess, her eldest
sister. The double marriage was much talked of, and this letter proves
that the King had had it in his thoughts.
[24] Louis the Fourteenth, who married Madame de Maintenon.
[25] He was at this time supporting the Government against what he
considered the anti-popular party.--E.
[26] Junius, Letter xxxvi.--E.
[27] Lord Rockingham had prepared another motion, but did not produce
it, though offended at Lord Chatham’s.
[28] When Lord Chatham’s motion was shown to Grenville, he lifted up
his eyes at seeing Wilkes’s name in it. It was no doubt inserted to
soothe Wilkes, who had lately abused him in a rancorous letter to
Grenville; for nothing exceeded Lord Chatham’s pusillanimity to those
who attacked him, except his insolence to those who feared him. At this
time he did not avoid holding out hopes to the King’s favourites, that
he would not remove them if he came into power. “_I will not_,” said
he, in his metaphoric rhodomontade, “_touch a hair of the tapestry of
the Court_.”
[29] It might be inferred from this statement that it was the practice
of the Lord Chancellor to examine the election writs before they pass
the Great Seal. This is a duty, however, which neither Lord Camden nor
any other Chancellor ever imposed upon himself, and I am informed that
there is no instance of the Great Seal having been withheld from a writ
which had passed through the Crown-office. In fact, whatever may have
been the original intention of the law in requiring the Great Seal to
be affixed to the Parliamentary writs, the Lord Chancellor’s office in
this respect has of late years become merely executive.--E.
[30] Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 645.--E.
[31] Lord Granby had just accepted a very considerable obligation from
the Ministers. At the end of the last session they and their creatures
in the House of Commons had most unjustly voted him the borough of
Bramber, so legally the property of Sir Henry Gough, that he had been
offered forty thousand pounds for it.
[32] Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Wyndham, and sister of the
Earls of Egremont and Thomond. She was a woman of sense and merit, with
strong passions.
[33] A brief report of these debates is given in the Parliamentary
History, vol. xvi. p. 668, note. It is obviously partial to the
Opposition.--E.
[34] This spirited debate is reported in the Parliamentary History,
vol. xvi. p. 668.--E.
[35] It appears from Lord Camden’s MS. letters to the Duke of Grafton,
that he had in the first instance underrated the importance of Wilkes’s
case. He next entered heartily into the general indignation which
Wilkes had excited. On the 3rd of April he writes, “If the precedents
and the constitution warrant an expulsion, that perhaps may be right.
A criminal flying his country to escape justice--a convict and an
outlaw--that such a person should in open daylight throw himself upon
the county as a candidate, his crime unexpiated, is audacious beyond
description.” Still, he believes that the public excitement on the
subject will soon subside.
The proceedings in the Court of King’s Bench, when Wilkes’s counsel
gave notice of a motion for a reversal of the outlawry and an arrest of
judgment, made a deep impression on Lord Camden. His feelings had by
this time cooled, and he viewed the case as a lawyer. He communicated
his change of opinion to the Duke in a letter of the 20th of April,
and although the communication was confidential, the bent of his mind
seems to have been pretty well understood by his colleagues. As the
difficulties increased he took the matter more to heart, and on the
9th of January 1769 he writes again to the Duke, expressing great
uneasiness, and announcing distinctly his opposition to the view taken
by the Cabinet of Wilkes’s case. He pronounces it “a hydra multiplying
by resistance, and gathering strength by every attempt to subdue it.”
“As the times are,” he says, “I had rather pardon Wilkes than punish
him. This is a political opinion independent of the merits of the
case.” These representations were fruitless. The Duke had taken his
part, was committed to the King and the Cabinet, and, besides being
of a hot temper, had become so exasperated by Wilkes’s conduct as to
consider his honour would suffer from making the slightest concession
to such a man. Unhappily this difference of opinion materially affected
the intercourse of the Duke with Lord Camden. The former admits and
laments in his Memoirs that they seldom met during the summer of 1769.
The Duke’s marriage and frequent absence from London kept them still
more apart, and in the autumn it is obvious from the tone of Lord
Camden’s letters that he felt the separation to be inevitable.--E.
[36] He was the direct heir of George Duke of Clarence, whose
daughter, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, was mother of Henry Pole,
Lord Montacute, whose eldest daughter and heiress married an Earl of
Huntingdon.
[37] Lord Huntingdon had flattered Lord Bute for some time that he
would marry his second and favourite daughter, Lady Jane, afterwards
married to Sir George Maccartney.
[38] George William Coventry, Earl of Coventry. He was the senior Peer,
but Lord Robert Bertie was an older Lord of the Bedchamber than Lord
Coventry; the post of Groom of the Stole was never given but to a peer.
[Walpole describes him in 1752 as “a grave young Lord of the remains of
the patriot breed.” Little of the spirit of his ancestors seems to have
descended to him. He was a Lord of the Bedchamber in two reigns, and
led an easy luxurious life, being hardly known, except as the husband
of one of the most beautiful women of the day. He died in 1809, at the
advanced age of eighty-seven.--E.]
[39] Sir John Cust died on the morning of the 22nd.--(See a more
favourable account of him in a note to vol. i. p. 87.)--E.
[40] For the Great Seal was never affixed to the patent of his barony,
and the King had not the generosity to make atonement to his family by
confirming the promise, for having forced the unhappy person to take a
step that cost him his life.
[41] Very few days after the accident Mr. Edmund Burke came to me in
extreme perturbation, and complained bitterly of the King, who, he
said, had forced Mr. Yorke to disgrace himself. Lord Rockingham, he
told me, was yet more affected at Mr. Yorke’s misfortune, and would, as
soon as he could, see Lord Hardwicke, make an account public, in which
the King’s unjustifiable behaviour should be exposed. I concluded from
his agitation that they wanted to disculpate Lord Hardwicke and Lord
Rockingham of having given occasion to Mr. Yorke’s despair. They found
it prudent, however, to say no more on the subject. An astonishing and
indecent circumstance that followed not very long after that tragedy
was, that Lord Hardwicke, whose reproaches had occasioned his brother’s
death, attached himself to the Court, against Lord Rockingham, and
obtained bishopricks for another of his brothers!
[42] General John Waldegrave, third Earl of Waldegrave.
[43] Conway’s disinterestedness did not on this, as on other occasions,
obtain very general praise. It seems to have been expected that
he would take the salary as soon as he decently could.--(Burke’s
Correspondence, vol. i. p. 136.)--E.
[44] If the report in Cavendish (vol. i. p. 458) be correct, the motion
was made on the 16th of February.--E.
[45] Mr. Stonehewer’s name has been handed down to posterity by his
friendship with the poet Gray, who owed to his interest with the Duke
of Grafton the appointment of Professor of Modern History in the
University of Cambridge. Many letters to him are to be found in Gray’s
works. He long held the post of a Commissioner of Excise. He died a
bachelor, leaving a considerable fortune to his nephew, who took his
name.--E.
[46] The continuance of the Duke’s intimacy with Bradshaw surely
furnishes very strong evidence that he soon discovered his suspicions
to be without foundation. I am informed by the present Duke of Grafton
that his grandfather entertained an affectionate regard for Mr.
Bradshaw’s memory, and a portrait of that gentleman still forms part of
the collection at Euston.--E.
[47] The Duke probably had no direct connection with Lord Bute, but
had every reason to believe that the latter still enjoyed the King’s
confidence--at least, through his tools, Jenkinson, Dyson, &c.; and he
had no reason to doubt, and yet submitted to, that secret influence.
Bradshaw was certainly the Earl’s creature, though the Duke did not
then know it; but it is not probable that a pension to Dyson would have
been added to the Duke’s last disposition, had Dyson not been admitted
to his Grace’s confidence. Of Dyson’s attachment to Lord Bute the Duke
was assured by Dyson’s being saved by the King when the Duke and Lord
Rockingham came into Administration together.--(See _infra_.)
[48] The Duke of Grafton’s motives for resigning were no doubt of
a mixed character. His own statement of them will be found in the
Appendix. It is easy to believe that he had for some time been anxious
to be released from a position which could not be otherwise than most
painful to a man of honour. The business of the Government, always
onerous to a chief not used to much application, nor having served
any apprenticeship in subordinate offices, was made particularly
irksome to him by his being left without a single colleague in the
great departments of the State whom he could call his friend. On
the leading questions of public policy, he often found himself in a
minority. His proposition for the immediate repeal of all the American
import duties was rejected by the casting vote of Lord Rochford, whom
he had himself recently introduced into the Cabinet. Lord North and
the Bedford party, by superior attention to the details of business,
had also drawn the management of affairs into their hands; and, at
the same time, ingratiated themselves with the King, so that the Duke
received no support from his Majesty against them, and was subjected
to mortifications, which must have been most trying to his irritable
temper. It was only after much persuasion that he could be induced to
accept the Treasury; he regarded his acceptance as a concession to his
political friends and to the King; and, finding himself now virtually
deserted by both, it is not surprising that he should seek to divest
himself of a character which had ceased to be even respectable. No
doubt he committed a serious blunder in withholding from the public
the real grounds of his resignation. It has, irreparably, damaged his
name with posterity. He was by no means the insignificant or worthless
personage that he appears in the pages of Walpole and of Junius. That
he had talents is proved by the single fact of his being able during,
at least, one session to resist the whole force of the Opposition in
the Lords with no assistance, except from Lord Camden. There is a
letter from Mr. Fox among the Grafton MSS. saying, that there is no
public man whom he should prefer as a Leader. The spirit with which
he entered the lists with Lord Chatham betrayed no want of courage.
His political principles were those of the Revolution; and where he
departed from them, it was from an error of judgment rather than of
intention. A genuine love of peace, and hatred of oppression, either
civil or religious, marked the whole of his public life; and, great as
were the errors which Walpole and Junius have justly denounced in his
private conduct, it is only just to state that, from the date of these
memoirs to his death, which comprises a period of near forty years,
there were few individuals more highly and generally esteemed.--E.
[49] Mr. Dyson’s pension was taken away by a resolution of the Irish
House of Commons, on the 25th of November 1771, by a majority of
_one_.--E.
[50] The following is the King’s note to Lord North on the following
morning:--“1st. Feb. 1770--A majority of forty on the old ground,
at least ten times before, is a very favourable auspice on your
taking a lead in Administration. A little spirit will soon restore
order in my service. I am glad to find Sir Gilbert Elliot has again
spoke.”--(MS.)--E.
[51] I presume that there were more than one of this name who had been
thus discreditably employed by the Grenvilles. One had already obtained
the Deanery of Norwich (vol. ii. p. 6).--E.
[52] When the Government was formed, Sir Gilbert Elliot had said to
Lord North that he wished Mr. Grenville could have been included. “Lord
North agreed, but said it was impossible.”--(Elliot’s MS. Journal.)--E.
[53] Lord North was so careless of answering letters, that he made
enemies of the Dukes of Marlborough and Bridgewater by that neglect.
His behaviour to the Duke of Gloucester amounted to brutality and
want of feeling. In the subsequent breach between the King and his
Royal Highness, the latter wrote a letter to his Majesty, begging a
provision for his wife and children, and sent the letter by Lord North.
The latter received the King’s answer on Friday night, but choosing
to go the next morning to Bushy Park for two days for his amusement,
though he could not but be sensible of the Duke’s anxiety at such a
moment, and which would be increased by knowing the answer was given,
Lord North only sent the Duke word on the Friday night that he had got
the King’s answer, and would bring it to his Royal Highness on the
following Monday. There was mean insolence, too, in the disrespect, as
the Duke could not but feel that Lord North would not have treated him
so rudely if his Royal Highness had not been in disgrace.
[54] At one of the Councils held to consider what steps should be
taken against Wilkes, when the Duke of Grafton was Minister and Lord
North Chancellor of the Exchequer, and some were for violence and some
for moderation, Lord North said not a word. At last Lord Camden, Lord
Chancellor, asked him why he did not give his opinion? Lord North
answered that he had been waiting for their Lordships’ determination,
being perfectly indifferent what resolution they should take, as he
was ready to adopt whatever plan they should fix on. Lord Camden was
so shocked at that profligacy that he left the room. This account I
received from Lord Camden.
[55] On the death of Lord Holderness, Warden of the Cinque Ports,
in 1778, the Duke of Dorset expected to succeed, having applied to
Lord North previously for his interest, who gave the Duke his word he
would not be his competitor; yet the post was conferred on Lord North
himself. The Duke asked an audience of the King, and complained of
this breach of promise. The King said Lord North had not broken any
promise, for the place had been given to him without his asking it.
A man of scrupulous honour would not have been contented with that
evasion even if he had said, “I will not _ask_ for the place.” He must
have known that the Duke could understand nothing but that he would not
be the person to intercept the office. A refusal of his interest would
have been honest; to have asked for the place, notwithstanding he had
promised he would not, would have been a brave defiance of honesty; to
take it after that promise was dirty, and unwise, too, for he offended
the Duke more by that evasion than he would have done by refusing to
assist him in obtaining the post. No Minister is bound to promise all
that is asked, but every Minister is obliged to act like a gentleman,
and not like an attorney or a Jesuit. [It is probable that Lord North
had reason to believe that his refusal of the Wardenship of the Cinque
Ports would not be the means of securing that office for the Duke of
Dorset. It is certain that no Minister ever held his high post with a
personal character more unblemished. In the letters occasionally cited
in these notes, the King often contrasts Lord North’s disinterestedness
with the very different conduct which his Majesty had witnessed in some
of his other servants. Lord North was far from wealthy,--a circumstance
which the King had discovered, and hence his Majesty earnestly sought
an opportunity of making a permanent provision for him.--E.]
[56] If Walpole had been aware of the correspondence that passed
between the King and Lord North to which I have occasionally referred,
he would not have made this remark. Nothing but the entreaties of the
King could have prevailed on Lord North to remain in office as long as
he did. His applications for permission to resign were frequent and
most urgent.--E.
[57] The Royal Marriage Act was drawn by Lord Mansfield, and was so
much against Lord North’s opinion, that he declared he would not
support it--yet he did. It was reported that he was bribed by a
grant of part of the Savoy, which about that time the Crown intended
to sell--but that was never proved [nor believed by any impartial
person.--(See the note in p. 81 _supra_.--E.)]
[58] Son of William Townshend, third son of Charles Viscount Townshend,
Knight of the Garter. This Charles Townshend, who must not be
confounded with his cousin, the famous Charles, had been employed in
Spain, and was distinguished by the appellation of the Spanish Charles.
[59] Welbore Ellis, afterwards Lord Mendip, and often mentioned in
these Memoirs.--E.
[60] The following entry occurs in Sir Gilbert’s MS. Journal:--“Friday,
3rd February. Went to Court; heard that Lord Howe had resigned. Lord
North made me the offer of the Treasurership of the Navy; said the King
wished I might accept, as many persons were doubtful. Though hazardous,
I did accept on the spot.” The mode in which the offer is made and
accepted, raises a presumption against the existence of the intimate
confidence which the King was believed by Walpole to place in Sir
Gilbert Elliot.--E.
[61] A brief report of this interesting debate is given in Sir Gilbert
Elliot’s MS. Journal. “The Duke of Grafton, who spoke with great
gravity and weight, said, as he had before declared, that it had been
less likely to occur to _him_ to apply to the Chancellor; persuaded
he was right, he was not solicitous about more advice; but did it
become a friend with the Great Seal in his hand to suffer a friend,
he all the while silent, to involve the Administration in what he
deemed an illegal act?” On Lord Chatham saying that the Chancellor
had early told him his opinion, Lord Weymouth expressed astonishment
that the Chancellor should communicate to a private man at Hayes what
he had concealed from the Cabinet. The Chancellor was certainly to
blame in not earlier resigning his office, since he was determined to
go into opposition the moment Lord Chatham appeared; but his health
making that event doubtful, possibly led the Chancellor into a conduct
generally censured, and which had greatly obstructed the affairs of
Government.”--(See also Lord Brougham’s remarks on this transaction in
“Statesmen of the Time of George the Third,” vol. iii. p. 171.)--E.
[62] The enormous increase of the national debt having occasioned
a prodigious number of new taxes, the augmentation of officers to
levy those duties, had been a very principal cause of extending the
influence of the Crown, by the vast number of votes it necessarily
commanded in all the great commercial towns and ports. Such a bill as
this here mentioned was warmly contended for in 1781, and actually was
obtained in 1782 on the change of the Administration.
[63] This debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 443. Mr.
Grenville’s speech contains much curious information.--E.
[64] The Speaker certainly exhibited great want of temper and judgment
on the occasion.--(See the details in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 461.)--E.
[65] This is a remarkable coincidence, and nothing more. It was from
no good will to Sir James Lowther that Mr. Robinson received this
appointment, for Sir James’s name seldom occurs in the King’s letters
to Lord North without some harsh or condemnatory expression; besides,
the King says of him, even in 1779, “he is scarce worth gaining.” Mr.
Robinson was long in the King’s confidence, and employed in the most
secret affairs. He represented Harwich for many years, and realized
a considerable fortune in office. His only daughter married Lord
Abergavenny.--E.
[66] The confidence placed by Lord North in Sir Gilbert Elliot
strengthened this suspicion, but the entries in Sir Gilbert’s MS.
Journal furnish strong internal evidence that Lord Bute took little or
no part in public affairs at this time. An event of such importance as
the Duke of Grafton’s intended resignation is not communicated to Lord
Bute until six days after it had been known to Sir Gilbert, and then
only through Lady Bute.--E.
[67] He was First Lord.
[68] See a brief report in Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 846.--E.
[69] See the report of the debate in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 483–500.
Lord North’s and Mr. Grenville’s speeches are able, particularly
the latter, which contains some interesting facts explanatory and
exculpatory of the passing of the Stamp Act. A fair, sensible, and
impressive description of the state of public opinion in the North
American Colonies was given by the Hon. Colonel Mackay (brother of Lord
Reay), who had lately been serving there with his regiment. General
Conway proposed to raise a colonial revenue, by a requisition to the
provinces from the Crown--a plan which met with no support from any
party. It is evident from the admissions made by the Ministers that
they felt the impolicy of retaining the tea duty. Their difficulty
was, how to abandon it without risking their own honour, or what they
perhaps valued more, the King’s favour. Dr. Franklin, in a letter
written a fortnight after the debate, expresses a confident opinion
that it would have been repealed but for the impression made on the
House by Lord North’s reading the letters to which Walpole refers.--E.
[70] Sir James Hodges, Knt., was the town-clerk. He had been a
tradesman on London Bridge, and a very forward speaker at all City
meetings.--E.
[71] “The answer was chiefly prepared by Dyson. It had received
correction from several hands, and I believe was seen by Lord
Mansfield.”--(Sir Gilbert Elliot’s MS. Journal.)--E.
[72] Eldest son of the Earl of Bute, [and created Marquis of Bute in
1796. He was for a short time Minister at Turin. He died in 1814.--E.]
[73] It is impossible not to call the attention of the reader to the
conduct of that profligate man, Wedderburne. Sprung from a Jacobite
family (his uncle having been executed for the last rebellion), he
had set out a courtly advocate, but being laid aside on the change
of times, he had plunged into all the intemperance of opposition,
and now appeared a warm partisan of liberty, and an accuser of his
own immediate patrons. His mischievous abilities soon forced him
again into employment, which as naturally led him back to his old
monarchic principles, to support which, he, so lately a champion of the
constitution, was made Attorney-General, and at length Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas.
George Grenville was the very counterpart of Wedderburne. He was not
only educated a Whig, but had leaned to republicanism. Becoming Prime
Minister, no man had shown himself more despotic. When overturned by
his own violence, he reverted to opposition; but having consummate
pride and obstinacy, and none of the flexibility of Wedderburne, but so
far more honesty, he wavered between faction and haughtiness, baffled
his own purposes by half measures, and could no more accommodate his
inflexible temper to the necessary means of regaining his power,
than he had been able to bend it to those that were requisite for
maintaining it.
[74] Colonel Clavering subsequently reaped more substantial fruits of
royal favour. He was soon raised to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and
made a Knight of the Bath, and Commander-in-chief in Bengal. He died in
Calcutta in 1777. The King, in a private letter to Lord North, notices
his death with great feeling.--Sir Thomas Clavering voted generally
with the Opposition. The King regarded his interference as a favour to
himself personally, and was very desirous that Lord North should let
him know that his conduct was appreciated.--(Sir Gilbert Elliot’s MS.
Journal.)--E.
[75] The Ministry showed great indecision in the affair of the
remonstrance. Vigorous efforts, indeed, had been made to defeat it in
the City; and when these failed, the most serious perplexity followed.
The Attorney-General’s opinion was asked whether the remonstrance was
impeachable, but no answer could be obtained from him.--(Sir Gilbert
Elliot’s MS. Journal.--Mr. Calcraft’s letter in Chatham Correspondence,
vol. iii. p. 430.) Frequent communications passed between the King and
Lord North on the subject. I shall only extract the following:--“I
shall be glad to hear what precedents you have got. I continue of
opinion that an answer must be given to the remonstrance, and that,
unless the instances are very similar of having directed a certain
number to attend, it would in every way be best to receive them on the
throne.”--(The King’s Letter to Lord North, MS., March 11.)--E.
[76] Sir Edward Blackett, Bart., of Matson Hall, M.P. for
Northumberland. He died in 1804, at the great age of eighty-five. Lord
Collingwood, who had married his niece, describes him as “one of the
kindest and most benevolent of men.”--(Correspondence and Memoirs of
Lord Collingwood, vol. i. p. 129.)--E.
[77] The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 516–45. It is to
be regretted that he has taken no notice of Dunning’s speech. Burke
makes the greatest figure in the report, but Lord North is also very
able.--E.
[78] Henry Herbert, afterwards created Lord Portchester, [and in 1793
Earl of Caernarvon. He was Master of the Horse in 1806. He died in
1811. The present Earl is his grandson.--E.]
[79] This debate took place on the 4th of February; it is reported in
Cavendish, vol. i. p. 435.--E.
[80] The debate is reported in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 505. The argument
was all on one side, little being urged against the bill deserving of
serious refutation. The measure had the good fortune to receive very
general approbation out of the House, and by many it was regarded
as giving its author an incontestable claim to the gratitude of
his country. How far all this commendation was genuine, is another
question. It has of later days been doubted whether the Grenville Act
has not been productive of more harm than good. It certainly increased
the number of petitions, without diminishing the expense of prosecuting
them, and any improvement it may have effected in the tribunal for
trying them was very short lived. As long as political parties were
split into several sections, the election committees preserved a decent
impartiality; but from the time that only two great parties were
recognised in the State, all the evils revived which it had been the
object of the Act to extirpate. Such gross injustice was committed as
at length to rouse public indignation, and after much discussion in the
House the Committees were again essentially reformed by a recent Act.
This measure was framed with care and good intentions; but some of the
decisions to which it has given rise are too startling for it to be yet
recognised as a successful piece of legislation.--E.
[81] Barré might have added, that Grenville had fallen because he was
not influenced by Lord Bute, but had been at enmity with him, and
turned out his brother Mackenzie; and that Dowdeswell had fallen from
the same cause, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord
Rockingham, who was also an enemy to Lord Bute. Fourteen years after
the period here treated, viz., in 1783–4, _the secret influence_ was
no longer secret; the Duke of Portland’s Administration was openly
overturned by the exertion of that influence, and, which is still more
remarkable, the eldest son of the very Mr. Grenville here mentioned was
the tool employed by Jenkinson (here also in question) and the secret
cabal of the King. Be it remembered, too, that Mr. Grenville’s bill
which for thirteen years had been carried into constant execution with
strict justice and applause, was impeached in the first instance of the
new Parliament of 1784, chosen in consequence of that secret influence,
and upon occasion of the scrutiny for the Westminster election, which
violation was practised by Mr. William Pitt, the second son of Lord
Chatham, in which he was supported by Mr. William Grenville, the second
son of Mr. George Grenville, author of the bill.
[82] Sir Robert Bernard, Bart., of Brampton Park, Hunts. He was a
bustling’ eager politician, and, like Sawbridge and others of the
same extreme principles, had found more scope for his activity in
London than his own county. He died without issue in 1789, having
left his estates to his nephew, Robert Sparrow, Esq., afterwards
Brigadier-General Bernard Sparrow, from whom they have descended to the
Duchess of Manchester--the General’s only surviving child.--E.
[83] Lord Sandys had been placed at the Board of Trade on the King’s
accession in 1760 (supra, vol. i. p. 44), when the _comprehensive_
principle on which the Government was formed brought men of very
different political opinions into office. He seems to have regarded
his post as a sinecure--as indeed it in a great measure became by the
withdrawal of the West Indies from the department. He left an only son,
on whose death the title became extinct.--E.
[84] For an account of Lord Ligonier see supra, vol. i. p. 208,
note.--E.
[85] The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 552.--E.
[86] This paragraph, from the words _and was disabled_, was added in
July 1784.
[87] Burke himself.
[88] Observations on a pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the Cause of the
Present Discontents,” by Catherine Macaulay, 8vo., price 2_s._
“Assume a virtue if you have it not.”
This tract has long since sunk into oblivion; no copy of it is to be
found even in the British Museum, and I have searched for it in vain
in other large repositories of ephemeral literature. As far as can be
inferred from the extracts and criticism in contemporary periodicals,
Mrs. Macaulay’s great panacea for the removal of all national
grievances consisted of short Parliaments, with the additional security
of members being made incapable of re-election under a certain number
of years. This arrangement the writer predicted would do away with the
evils generally considered to attach to frequent elections, “so that
the violent contentions for seats in Parliament, both on the side of
Government and of individuals, would sink into the quiet coolness of
nominations for parish officers.”--She overlooked the effect of such
a system on the character of the House, and the experience of France
seems to prove that it would lead to the election of few persons above
the calibre of parish officers.
The style and spirit of the work seem to be fairly represented in the
following extract:--“The wicked system of policy set on foot by the
leaders of the revolutionists in the reign of King William, and which
proceeded perhaps more from fear of personal safety than from any
very material intent against their country, was thoroughly completed
under the Administration of their sons. But whilst this State faction,
who called themselves Whigs, but who in reality were as much the
destructive, though concealed, enemies of public liberty as were its
more generous because more avowed adversaries, the Tories, whilst they
were erecting their batteries against those they termed inveterate
Jacobites and prejudiced republicans, it never came into their heads
that they were ruining their own importance, and consequently rendering
the Crown strong enough to set all parties at defiance, to put them on
their good behaviour, and to treat them with that contempt which is
natural to a Sovereign in the plenitude of independent power.”--E.
[89] Lord North, like other Prime Ministers, never attended committees
of elections. Mackenzie being pushed on a Scotch election which he
favoured, sent for Lord North late in the evening (at this very time)
to vote, though he had not heard the cause--and yet they were beaten.
[90] Brummell, chief clerk in the Treasury; the laborious and faithful
servant, and not the master of Lord North.--E.
[91] Mrs. Anne Pitt, Lady Bute’s friend, offered Lord Villiers, her
relation and son of the Countess of Grandison, that the Princess of
Wales should procure for him an English Peerage, if he would marry
one of Lord Bute’s daughters. This was in June 1771. I had it from
Lord Villiers himself, who married a daughter of Lord Hertford, my
first cousin. I have changed my opinion, I confess, various times
on the subject of Lord Bute’s favour with the King; but this I take
to have been the truth. From the death of her husband the Princess
Dowager had the sole influence over her son, and introduced Lord Bute
into his confidence; but I believe that even before his accession
the King was weary both of his mother and of her favourite, and
wanted to, and did early shake off much of that influence. After Lord
Bute’s resignation, his credit declined still more, and Lord Bute
certainly grew disgusted, though he still retained authority enough
over the King to be consulted, or to force himself into a share of the
counsels that changed so many Ministries till after Lord Chatham’s
last Administration. Lord Bute’s pride was offended at the wane of
his power; and on his last return from abroad, the King complained
to the Duke of Gloucester that _the fellow_ (that was the term) had
not once paid his duty to him. I have doubted whether that coolness
was not affected; yet it was carrying dissimulation far indeed, and
unnecessarily, if acted to his favourite brother, then living in the
palace with him, in his confidence, not hostile to Bute, nor then
likely to report the communication. Such solemn declarations had indeed
been made both by the King and Bute that they never saw each other in
private, that those visits could not be frequent, and the King no doubt
was glad of that pretext for avoiding an irksome dictator. Afterwards,
the engrossing ambition of Bute’s son, Lord Mount Stewart, was hurt at
the proscription of his father; and whenever his own suits were denied
he broke out publicly, and frequently quarrelled with Lord North, who
would not have thwarted his views had the King countenanced them; yet
as Lord Mount Stewart generally carried his points at last, it is
probable that Bute had been trusted too deeply to make it safe totally
to break with him. However, his credit was so small that, towards
the end of the American war, Mackenzie, through whom the intercourse
was chiefly carried on, retired to Scotland, and for some time came
rarely to London. But in the year 1783 Bute again saw the King often,
though very privately; and though Lord Mount Stewart warmly and loudly
espoused the party of Charles Fox, Mackenzie adhered to the King; and
Lord Bute owned that though he thought Mr. Fox the only man who could
save this country, he loved the King so much that he could not resist
his Majesty’s entreaties to support him.
If I have accounted rightly for so great a mystery as whether Lord
Bute had an ascendant or not from the time of his ceasing to be openly
Prime Minister, I might be asked, Who then had real influence with
the King, for his subsequent Ministers indubitably had not?--I should
answer readily, Jenkinson. He was the sole confidant of the King;
and having been the creature of Bute, might choose prudentially not
to incense his old patrons but to keep him in play enough to divert
the public eye from himself; and thence, I conclude, mediated now and
then for favours for Lord Bute’s friends, and despised his intellects
too much to apprehend his recovery of credit. Lord Mansfield no doubt
frequently, when his timidity would suffer him, was consulted and gave
advice, and especially was deep in the plan of the American war; and
though the King’s views and plans were commonly as pestilent to his own
interest as to his people, yet as they were often artfully conducted,
he and Bute were too ignorant and too incapable to have digested the
measures; and therefore, as nobody else enjoyed the royal confidence,
there can be no doubt but Jenkinson was the director or agent of all
his Majesty’s secret counsels. Jenkinson was able, shrewd, timid,
cautious, and dark; and much fitter to suggest and digest measures than
to execute them. His appearance was abject; his countenance betrayed
a consciousness of secret guile; and though his ambition and rapacity
were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that
had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he really was, his very
look would have encouraged opposition; for who can revere authority
which seems to confess itself improperly placed, and ashamed of its own
awkwardly assumed importance!
[92] William Murray, Lord Mansfield.
[93] Henry Fox, first Lord Holland.
[94] Mr. Fox wrote an account of his having given that advice to his
friend Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, then at his seat in Monmouthshire.
Sir Charles dying, his papers fell into the hands of his elder brother,
who was a very dirty fellow, and who, quarrelling with Mr. Fox,
betrayed that letter to the Princess Dowager. When Mr. Fox undertook
the support of the peace of Paris for Lord Bute in 1763, he was
promised an Earldom, but never could obtain it.
[95] The incapacity of that Administration, on which I have said so
much, has been laid open to the public, and confirmed by the Diary of
Lord Melcombe, published in 1784. Lord Melcombe seems to have been
ignorant of great part of the affair of Fawcett, and to have received
little information on it but from the Princess or those most concerned
to suppress the truth. Indeed his Diary is often obscure, and, as being
written only with a view to himself, he seldom details or explains
either debates or events, if he had nothing to do in them, or did not
attend their commencement or conclusion in the House of Commons. Yet
as far as it goes his Diary is most uncommonly authentic; and as it is
so very disgraceful to himself we cannot doubt but he believed what he
wrote to be true. Where he and I write on the same passages we shall
be found to agree, though we never had any connection, were of very
different principles, and received our information from as different
sources. My whole account of the reign of George the Second was given
about twenty years before I saw Lord Melcombe’s Diary, or knew it
existed; nor did I ever see it till published.
[96] Princess Amelie told me in October 1783 that the Duchess of
Newcastle sent Lady Sophia Egerton to her, the Princess, to beg her
to be for the execution of Admiral Byng; “They thought,” added the
Princess, “that unless he was put to death, Lord Anson could not be at
the head of the Admiralty; indeed,” added her Royal Highness, “I was
already for it: the officers would never have fought if he had not been
executed.” Am I in the wrong to speak of that act as shocking, when
such means and arts were employed to take away a life, and for such a
reason as the interest of Lord Anson?
[97] The fourth Duke.
[98] Burke’s Works, vol. ii. p. 340.--There is room for ascribing the
severity of Walpole’s criticism on these passages to the application
of which they are susceptible to the conduct of Conway. Burke is very
likely to have had him in mind when he dwelt on the suspicion that
necessarily attaches to politicians who separate themselves from men
with whom they had always before acted, on grounds which do not come
under the denomination of “leading principles in government.” In common
with the leaders of Rockingham’s party, he deeply resented Conway’s
refusal to break up the Ministry in 1767.--(See Burke’s Correspondence,
vol. i. passim.)--E.
[99] Cavendish’s report of this debate (vol. ii. p. 7) contains little
beyond the speech of Governor Pownall, of which no doubt the worthy
Governor was himself the reporter.--E.
[100] When Beckford received an account of the magnificent seat he had
built at Fonthill being burnt down, he only wrote to his steward, “Let
it be rebuilt!” Lord Holland’s youngest son being ill, and Beckford
inquiring after him, Lord Holland said he had sent him to Richmond for
the air; Beckford cried out, “Oh! Richmond is the worst air in the
world; I lost twelve natural children there last year!”
[101] Lord Mansfield’s words were,--“I have always understood, and take
it to be clearly settled, that evidence of a public sale, or public
exposing to sale in the shop by the servant, or anybody in the house
or shop, though there was no privity or concurrence in the master, is
sufficient evidence to convict him, unless he proves the contrary,
or that there was some trick or collusion.”--(“Trial of John Almon,”
8vo., London, 1770.)--The motion for the new trial was made on the
27th of June following, on the ground that the master was not liable
for the acts of his servant in _a criminal case_, where his privity
was not proved. The motion was refused. The Court then expressed an
unanimous opinion that the pamphlet being bought in the shop of a
common known bookseller, purporting on its title-page to be printed
for him, is a sufficient _primâ facie_ evidence of its being published
by him, _not indeed conclusive, because he might have contradicted it,
if the facts would have borne it, by contrary evidence_.--(Burrows’s
Reports, vol. v. p. 2686.) This is not less liberal than the present
proof of publication recognised by the courts of law; and it is
generally understood that nothing short of proof of interference, if
not of absolute _prohibition_ by the bookseller would now be received.
Abominable as the law of libel might be, it seems to have been
correctly laid down by Lord Mansfield. Fifty years earlier Almon would
have been pilloried, and probably whipped. In 1759, Mr. Beardmore, the
Under Sheriff, was fined fifty shillings, and imprisoned two months,
for pillorying Dr. Shebbeare moderately. (Burrows’s Reports, vol. ii.
p. 752.) Almon and the Doctor seem to have been much upon a par in
point of respectability.--E.
[102] All that Lord Mansfield did, was to receive the verdict of the
jury at his own house. There was not the slightest impropriety in this.
It is still a common practice on the circuit for the verdict to be
returned at the judge’s lodgings; and the old writers say, that if a
jury will not agree, the judge may carry them round the circuit in a
cart.--(Some account of this trial is given in the notes to Woodfall’s
Junius, vol. i. p. 354.)--E.
[103] The Comte de Guines had been for some years Ambassador at
Berlin--a post he procured through the intervention of Madame
Montesson, preparatory to her marriage to the Duc d’Orleans. He
belonged to the school of Choiseul, Richelieu, Soubize, and Lauzun.
His embassy to London involved him in a very unpleasant suit with his
secretary, La Forte, who, having lost large sums in stock-jobbing
speculations during the excitement caused by the expected war with
Spain on account of the Falkland Islands, declared himself bankrupt,
and endeavoured to prove that he had been the agent of M. de Guines
in these speculations. The action was eventually decided in the
Ambassador’s favour, but only after long litigation, in the course
of which it was difficult to avert strong suspicions of the truth of
the charge.--(Flassan’s Diplomatie Française, vol. v. p. 54.)--M.
de Guines emigrated during the Revolution, and died in 1806, aged
seventy-one.--(See more of him in Thiebault’s Frederic the Second, and
the Mémoires de Madame de Genlis, vol. i. p. 252, seqq. and vol. ii. p.
40.)--E.
[104] More of this trial may be seen in Woodfall’s Junius, note, vol.
ii. p. 153, and the Annual Register for 1770, p. 100–108, &c. A most
disgraceful affair it was to all parties concerned, except the King.--E.
[105] This letter being too long for a note is inserted in the
Appendix.--(See the reference to it in the Table of Contents.)--E.
[106] The spirit and talent which he showed in these altercations with
the Livery, contributed to raise him to the Bench. He died Lord Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas, in 1799, in his sixty-fifth year. His
decisions are still cited with respect. The trial of Horne Tooke is the
only instance where he seems, by common consent, to have made a poor
figure.--E.
[107] On the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland.
[108] No lines were ever more apposite than the following of Dr. Young
to Lord Granby:--
“Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid,
A soldier should be modest as a maid.”
[109]
“---- Granby stands without a flaw;
At least, each fault he did possess
Rose _from some virtue in excess_.
Pierc’d by the piteous tale of grief,
When wretches sought of him relief,
His eyes large drops of pearl distilling,
He’d give--till left without a shilling!
What most his manly heart-strings tore,
Was, when he felt, and found no more.”
_Poem by Major Henry Waller, in the Gentleman’s Magazine for September,
1784._
[110] John Calcraft.
[111] The King no doubt regarded his promise to a young courtier
absolved by the latter becoming a politician, and entering into active
opposition. It is extraordinary, too, that the Duke should not have
been acquainted with the promise made to Conway. That promise the King
certainly kept in the most honourable manner. In a letter to Lord North
of the 1st of October, his Majesty says, “You will hear of applications
for the royal regiment of Horse Guards on the death of Lord Granby.
I therefore tell you that General Conway, when Secretary, and on his
resignation, had a promise of them. I therefore shall immediately send
to Lord Barrington to make out the notification.”--(King’s MS. Letters
to Lord North.)--E.
[112] Lord Mansfield had recommended the King to take this course,
which his Majesty declined to do, on the ground that it would be
construed both by the Courts of Madrid and Versailles as indicative of
a resolution to accommodate the dispute at all events.--(King’s Letter
to Lord North, 9th November.)--E.
[113] This is confirmed by the King’s correspondence with Lord
North.--E.
[114] He was feared by all the leading men in the House, even by Mr.
Pitt, who frankly told the King, during the negotiations in 1765,
which ended in the admission of the Rockingham party into office,
that, without Mr. Grenville, he saw nothing in the Treasury either
solid or substantial; (see also _supra_, vol. ii. p. 191). His
knowledge, in revenue matters particularly, made him most formidable
in Opposition; (Sir Gilbert Elliot’s MS. Journal.) Mr. Fox did not
entertain an equally high opinion of him, and used, indeed, to speak
slightingly, both of his knowledge and abilities; but Mr. Fox was a
very young man when he knew Mr. Grenville, and they were not only,
in all respects, very unlike, but the general turn of Mr. Fox’s mind
would make him view Mr. Grenville’s defects in an exaggerated light,
and many circumstances, not the least being the disagreement between
Lord Holland and Mr. Grenville, combined to place them on far from a
friendly footing.--E.
[115] Walpole’s suspicions of Lord Barrington’s motives are probably
correct. The King (as the editor has reason to believe) always felt
great unwillingness to trust the command of the army to any officer
taking a prominent part in politics. His notion was that the army ought
to be entirely in the hands of the Crown. This must have been the
ground of his objection to the appointment of Conway. Lord Barrington’s
declaration was certainly most injudicious, but it was provoked, not so
much by his zeal to please the King, as by the taunts of Colonel Barré.
The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. ii. p. 37. The Government
seem to have had the best of the argument.--E.
[116] See more of Brass Crosby _infra_. He rivalled Wilkes in civic
popularity.--E.
[117] Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. ii. p. 54.--E.
[118] Lord Hillsborough was described by Walpole, some years before,
as “a young man of great honour and merit, remarkably nice in weighing
whatever cause he was to vote in, and excellent at setting off his
reasons, if the cause was at all tragic, by a solemnity in his voice
and manner that made much impression on his hearers.”--(Memoirs of
George the Second, vol. i. p. 70.)--With such qualifications as a
character for independence and some proficiency in public speaking,
he was able to render the Ministers essential service, and, in
return, they admitted him into their counsels, where he was believed
to exercise considerable influence. Lord Holland courted him, and he
was esteemed by Mr. Pitt. At length, in 1763, he accepted the post
of First Lord of Trade and Plantations, and in 1768, as has been
already mentioned, became Secretary of State. He did not maintain in
office the reputation he had acquired out of it. Although he made, at
times, a tolerable set speech, he proved an imprudent, and by no means
effective debater. In the Cabinet he attached himself to the Court
party, and gave the most determined opposition to the concessions to
America, recommended by the Duke of Grafton and Lord Camden, both of
whom charged him personally with exasperating the unhappy differences
between the two countries by the course he took with respect to his
circular letter of May, 1769. He was less to blame in the debate on
the Falkland Islands than Walpole supposes, for the recent publication
of Mr. Harris’s dispatches (Malmesbury Correspondence, vol. i. p. 63)
shows that he did not overrate the pacific disposition of the Spanish
Court. In Irish politics he always took an active part, and was one of
the first statesmen who sought to promote the Union. Several useful
institutions in Ireland owed their origin or prosperity to his vigorous
support. He also set a valuable example to other Irish landlords, by
his improvements on his estates in Downshire. In 1772 he was made
Earl of Hillsborough, and in 1793 he obtained from Mr. Pitt an Irish
Marquisate (of Downshire). He died in 1793.--E.
[119] The report of this debate occupies more than thirty pages in
Cavendish, vol. ii. pp. 57–88. The speeches were of a discursive
character.--E.
[120] The debate is given by Cavendish, vol. ii. p. 89. It turned more
on the law of libel as administered in the recent trials of Rex _v._
Almon than on the specific subject of the motion. The speeches of Mr.
Burke and Mr. Serjeant Glynn may still be read with interest.--E.
[121] Lord Egmont united qualifications which seldom fail to raise
their fortunate possessor to the highest offices in a constitutional
government. He was excelled by few of his time as a public speaker,
by none as a political writer. His great talent was said to lie in
indefatigable application, and yet he delighted in popular excitement,
which he could direct with consummate skill, and with courage that
proved equal to any emergency. The effect, however, of these gifts
was marred by a perversion of judgment which led him both into gross
absurdities, and the most culpable inconsistencies. When scarce a man,
Walpole says, he had a scheme of assembling the Jews and making himself
their King.--(Memoires of George the Second, vol. i. p. 30.)--It is
more certain that he regarded the restoration of feudal tenures as
the best security for the liberty and welfare of the people! After
having been the idol and the leader of mobs, he became the obsequious
follower of Lord Bute, and, although a passionate admirer of fame,
he sought no result from his political exertions beyond places,
titles, and sinecures. His mansion in Somersetshire, a monument of his
extraordinary predilection for the middle ages, was pulled down only
a few years ago. Walpole has given his character in the Memoires of
George the Second, vol. ii. p. 32, which is illustrated by some amusing
anecdotes in a letter to Sir Horace Mann (Letters, vol. ii. p. 260).--E.
[122] Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 1301.--E.
[123] This motion arose out of the debate on the power of the
Attorney-General to file informations _ex officio_. The able speeches
made by Serjeant Glynn and Burke forcibly exposed the injustice of the
law of libel, as administered by Lord Mansfield in the recent trials,
and supplied many of the arguments which were afterwards so effectually
used in procuring the alteration of the law by Lord Camden and Mr. Fox
(Cavendish vol. ii. p. 89, seqq.--E.)
[124] This is one of the few instances in which Serjeant Glynn appears
to disadvantage. No doubt he felt strongly the wrongs of the Colonists,
and shared with Lord Chatham and other leading statesmen of the day, a
most unfavorable opinion of the Parliament. No personal considerations
influenced him. He was as little tainted by the political as by the
moral profligacy of Wilkes. Few of his speeches in Parliament have
been preserved, but all are in an elevated tone, and the candour and
moderation which distinguish them are not less remarkable than their
talent and intrepidity. In these, as in many other respects, he bore a
strong resemblance to Sir Samuel Romilly. It is to be regretted that
few particulars can now be collected of this valuable man. He belonged
to a Cornish family, once settled at a seat of the same name, now the
property of Lord Vivian. His practice at the bar was very considerable.
Not only did he argue most of the political cases of the day, but it
appears, from Mr. Wilson’s and the other contemporary reports, that he
had a large share of the general business. He succeeded Mr. Eyre as
Recorder of London in 1772, when the salary of the office was raised
from 800_l._ to 1000_l._ a-year, as a mark of respect towards him. He
died in middle life, on the 16th September, 1779.--E.
[125] This confession is very memorable. The subsequent behaviour of
the Court leaves strong room to suspect that instead of profiting of
the favourable disposition of the Colonies by temperate measures,
the Court hurried into the succeeding war, and wished to provoke the
Colonies to unite, that all might be treated as rebels and conquered.
The Ministers did succeed in the provocation, but not in the conquest.
[126] Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 1319.--E.
[127] Cavendish’s Debates, vol. ii. p. 149.--E.
[128] Parliamentary History, vol. xvi p. 1321.--E.
[129] I suspect that Lord Rockingham, whose aunt Lord Mansfield had
married, and to whom Lord Mansfield always paid court, meant to save
him, though through this whole reign Lord Mansfield had constantly
laboured to sap that great palladium of our liberties, juries. As
the House of Lords would probably have protected Lord Mansfield,
perhaps his panic was a curb to him; whereas an exculpation might have
encouraged him. Still the trimming conduct of Lord Rockingham, and Lord
Camden, and Lord Chatham was inexcusable.
[130] Lord Camden, with more apparent firmness than Lord Mansfield, was
neither a brave nor a steady man; though having taken the better side,
the defence of the Constitution, he was not reduced to the artifices
and terrors of the Chief Justice. It was but rarely that Lord Camden
took a warm and active part, but often absented himself from the House
when he should have stood forth. He told me himself that he forbore
attending private causes in the House lest he should hurt the side he
supported by Lord Mansfield’s carrying the majority against the party
defended by Lord Camden, merely from enmity to him. If this tenderness
was well founded, how iniquitous was his antagonist! I do believe that
though their hatred was reciprocal, Lord Camden feared the abilities
and superior knowledge of his antagonist; and as Lord Camden was a
proud man, he could not bear inferiority. As even Lord Chatham did not
retain the deference for him he expected and deserved, their friendship
declined almost to annihilation. The Duke of Grafton and Lord
Shelburne, though still much more unjustifiably, slighted him too; and
a series of those neglects concurred to throw Lord Camden, towards the
end of his life, into a situation that did not raise his character, nor
was even agreeable to his opinion, for the moment before he joined Mr.
Pitt in 1784, he had declared his sentiments of Mr. Fox’s predominant
abilities.
[131] This was the case of Tothill _v._ Pitt, of which the details are
given in Maddock’s Reports, vol. i. p. 488; Dicken’s Reports, p. 431;
Brown’s Parliamentary Cases, p. 453. It related to the property of a
Mr. Tothill, which had come to Sir William Pynsent, as the legatee
and executor of his daughter, to whom it had been bequeathed by Mr.
Tothill. The decision of the Lords was right, and it restored the
decree of Sir Thomas Sewell, the Master of the Rolls, a lawyer whose
authority stood much higher than that of the Lord Commissioners.--E.
[132] The debate on Lord George Germaine’s motion is reported in
Cavendish, vol. ii. p. 160–172. One result of the quarrel between the
Houses was the exclusion of strangers from both, during the remainder
of the session. The public, therefore, was kept in ignorance of all
parliamentary proceedings that were not made known by the members of
either House.--E.
[133] Governor Johnstone’s subsequent actions were far from setting
his character in a better light. During half the American war he voted
in Parliament as condemning it, and in private paid great court to the
Duke of Richmond as a principal opponent; not without the Duke’s being
cautioned by his friends, who suspected Johnstone for an allowed spy
of the Court,--a jealousy that seemed well founded, as Johnstone on a
sudden was appointed by the Minister one of the commissioners to treat
for peace with America. In that department he augmented the suspicion
of his double-dealing, but without adding any credit to his judgment.
Soon after he was entrusted, as Commodore, with five ships, which he
boasted should effect the most desperate service--but effected nothing;
and he terminated his naval campaign with such flagrant tyranny and
injustice to one of his captains, whom he also despatched to the East
Indies in hopes of his complaints, that a court of law, on the poor
gentleman’s return, gave him damages to the amount of some thousand
pounds; and Johnstone appealing from the verdict, all he obtained was
an increase of his fine: however, on another appeal, the sentence was
set aside.
[134] As these Memoirs will not be continued, it may be worth while
to give a short abstract of the rest of Lord George’s life. Though in
Opposition, he kept a door open for his return to Court without his
associates, by not joining them against the American war. When that
war grew more and more hopeless, Lord George was offered to undertake
that province, and most injudiciously accepted it. This was the more
surprising to _me_, as, besides his having retrieved his character
by the affair with Johnstone, and acquired a large fortune from Lady
Elizabeth Germaine, with the additional favourable circumstance of
changing his name, whence his sons, if dropping that of Sackville,
might avoid great part of the disgrace that had fallen on their father,
he himself not three years before, in a conversation, in which he had
given me many instances of the King’s duplicity, had said to me, “_Sir,
whoever lives to see the end of this reign, will see one of the most
unfortunate that ever was in England!_” The position of the American
war certainly countenanced his prediction. Yet his native ambition,
or the vanity of supposing that he could give a new turn to affairs,
overpowered his judgment, and shut his eyes on the torrent of abuse
that would again be let loose against him--and was. He did recommence
his career with great spirit and activity, but with no success at
all; and it was only in his deportment that he did show spirit. In
Parliament he was browbeaten by daily insults; and his former parts so
entirely forsook him, that younger men, who had not seen his outset,
would not believe what was attested to them of his precedent abilities.
Disappointed of the glory he had promised to himself, and quarrelling
with Lord Sandwich, the head of the Admiralty, who counteracted or
would not concur in his plans, Lord George relaxed, and finding his
associates inclined to sacrifice him as a scapegoat (though they could
not save their own places), he yielded to the storm, and was so far
fortunate, that being the first victim before the general crash, he
made terms for himself, and retired into the House of Lords with a
Viscount’s coronet; yet even that lucky retreat could not be obtained
without a new, and most cruel, and unprecedented insult. The Marquis
of Caermarthen objected to his admission into the House of Lords on
the old sentence of the court martial. What heightened the flagrancy
of that attack on the foundation of so almost obsolete a stigma was,
that Lord Caermarthen had actually been in the King’s service with
Lord George while recently Secretary of State. Lord Caermarthen made
himself odious; and Lord George found at least that mankind were not so
abandoned as to enjoy such wanton malevolence.
Lord George, become Viscount Sackville, died in the autumn of 1785,
of a short illness, and in a manner that once more did him honour. He
spoke of the bitter scenes through which he had passed, and with great
firmness declared how resigned he was to death. Of Prince Ferdinand
he spoke with singular candour; said his Highness had undone him from
resentment; yet was so great a man, that he not only forgave but
admired him. General Sloper, his enemy, he said, was a very black man;
for Lord Caermarthen, he was so weak, that he felt nothing for him but
contempt. It was remarkable that Lord Caermarthen, moderate as his
abilities were, disgustful as his assault on Lord Sackville had been,
and though disliked by the King, was by the last collision of parties
become at that very moment Secretary of State.
[A long note on the character of Lord George Sackville is also given
by Walpole in the Memoirs of George the Second (vol. ii. p. 432). He
evidently bore that nobleman no good will, and falls in the course of
his remarks into some inconsistencies, which, as Lord Holland remarks,
“it would be difficult to explain, if it were any part of the duty of
an editor to explain the contradictions of an author.” A well-written
and interesting, though partial, account of Lord George is contained
in the Memoirs of his friend and secretary, Richard Cumberland.
Many additional and curious particulars have been collected by Mr.
Coventry in that ingenious work, “Critical Enquiry regarding the real
Author of Junius, proving them to have been written by Lord Viscount
Sackville.”--E.]
[135] He ran away with a natural daughter of Lord Baltimore, supposed
to be of weak understanding, and who, besides, was almost a child.--E.
[136] Vide the character of Lord Weymouth, supra vol. ii. pp. 176, 177,
and vol. iii. pp. 135, 136.--E.
[137] A very different account of this transaction is given in the
Appendix, from the Memoirs of the Duke of Grafton, and no doubt it is
the true one.--E.
[138] He had prevailed on Grimaldi to attempt making peace; but the
latter having the fate of Squillace before his eyes, would not take it
on himself, but advised his master to call the Castilians to council.
They, persuaded that a commercial nation, as England was, would not
make war for a rock, exhorted the King to maintain his point of honour.
D’Aranda, his favourite, agreed with the Castilians; but though the
King, who, from the time he was King of Naples, and had been humbled
into a neutrality by our navy, hated this country, yet he was at that
moment so much influenced by Grimaldi, that he rose abruptly and broke
up the council. [The King, independently of Grimaldi, was personally
inclined to come to an accommodation with England _at almost any
rate_.--(Malmesbury Dispatches, vol. ii. p. 66.)--E.]
[139] The Comte du Châtelet (Choiseul’s friend), when Ambassador in
England, told me that the Duc de Choiseul, though knowing he himself
should be the successor, gave the Cardinal de Bernis warning of his
approaching fall; but was not credited.
[140] The Duchesse de Grammont, sister of Choiseul, and the Princesse
de Beauvau, her friend.
[141] Louis Philippeaux, created Duc de la Vrillière--the
brother-in-law of Maurepas--a willing instrument of oppression, being
licentious, selfish, and unprincipled, like too many of his colleagues.
He died childless, in 1777, in his seventy-third year.--E.
[142] See some account of La Chalotais, supra, vol. ii. p. 246.
[143] Yet that was, in fact, only the ostensible weight that seemed
to turn the scale. The Cabal were willing to let the Prince have the
apparent credit of deciding his master. They had long been urging him
to dismiss Choiseul; but they did not wish that a measure distasteful
to the public should be rendered more so by their removing him
to prevent a war with England. The Administration that succeeded
Choiseul, immediately acted upon principles so consentaneous to those
of the Court of London, namely, by exalting the prerogative, and by
destruction of the Parliaments, that it was impossible but the two
Courts should grow cordial friends; and so they continued to the death
of Louis Quinze.
[144] The King ordered La Vrillière to say that it was out of regard to
the Duchesse de Choiseul that he did not send the Duke farther off.
[145] The wife and the sister pretended to make a formal
reconciliation, declaring that they gave up their own resentments that
they might not disturb the Duke’s retirement and tranquillity. That
Madame de Choiseul could not, however, forgive the injuries and insults
she had received, appeared fifteen years afterwards; for, retiring
into a convent on the Duke’s death, and Madame de Grammont, who was a
large woman, and probably grown more corpulent, going to visit her,
Madame de Choiseul excused herself from seeing her, on pretence that
the conventual stairs were so narrow that Madame de Grammont would have
difficulty to ascend them.
[146] See a character of the Duc de Choiseul, supra, vol. ii. p.
243.--E.
[147] Lord Sandwich has received similar praise, as an efficient public
servant, from Mr. Butler, a very acute and well-informed writer, who
lived on terms of intimacy with him, and was in every respect qualified
to form a just opinion of his merits. “Lord Sandwich might serve as
a model for a man of business. He rose early, and till a late dinner
dedicated his whole time to business; he was very methodical; slow,
not wearisome; cautious, not suspicious; rather a man of sense than
a man of talent; he had much real good nature; his promises might be
relied on. His manners partook of the old Court, and he possessed in
a singular degree the art of attaching persons of every rank to him.
Few houses were more agreeable or instructive than his Lordship’s; it
was filled with rank, beauty, and talent, and every one was at ease.
He professed to be fond of music, and musicians flocked to him; he was
the soul of the Catch Club, and one of the Directors of the Concert
of Ancient Music, but (which is the case with more than one noble,
and more than one gentle amateur) he had not the least real ear for
music, and was equally insensible of harmony and melody.”--(Butler’s
Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 74.)
[148] The spirit shown by the Duke of Bedford during his last illness
is very remarkable; notwithstanding the languor and depression
attendant on the complaint under which he laboured, he neglected no
part of his business, either public or private. He spoke several times
in the Lords during the session of 1770; he attended with his usual
regularity the meetings of the various institutions of which he was a
member; he superintended the management of his extensive estates, and
yet all the while never allowing himself to lose the amusements which
he enjoyed whilst in health. Some of the notices in his Journal are in
this respect very characteristic.
“31st March.--At the Trinity House for the election of Lord Weymouth to
succeed the late Lord Winchelsea. Dined at the King’s Arms. Went to the
opera--La Constanza di Rossinello--a bad one. Supped at Mr. Rigby’s in
lieu of the Club, the Waldegraves being out of town.
“4th April.--I went to Streatham, and in Charrington’s farm, Tooting, I
marked three hundred and forty-four trees, chiefly elm,--many of them
large ones. I came home to dinner; Lord and Lady Carlisle then dined
with us. In the evening I went to Lady Holderness’s.”--(Appendix to
Cavendish’s Debates, vol. i. p. 624.)
In the collection of papers at Woburn are some of his letters written
within a month of his death. One is an application to Lord Barrington
on behalf of a French officer whom he considered it a point of honour
to provide for. Neither the style nor tone is that of a dying man;
he says, “It seems next to impossible to conceive that any fresh
subterfuge can be found to avoid giving Captain Gualy the reasonable
request I have made in his favour, especially considering the offer
I have made to compensate to any officer, out of my own pocket, that
might be aggrieved by it, such loss as he shall sustain by such
promotion, more especially considering that this gentleman is kinsman
and namesake of Madame de Choiseul, and a man of credit and character.
Should it be so, I wish to have it explicitly of your Lordship, that
I may inform that lady that I have entirely lost all credit at my own
Court, and that the King’s Ministers pay no regard to my solicitations,
though ever so just and reasonable, notwithstanding the services I may
venture to assert that I did my country in negotiating and signing
the last peace, &c.” Whatever might have been the Duke’s errors of
judgment, he was a high-minded warm-hearted man, of great energy of
character and capacity for business.--E.
[149] Mr. Justice Bathurst was the second son of Allen, the first
Lord Bathurst, “one of the most amiable, as he was one of the most
fortunate men of his age,” immortalized alike by the polished poetry
of Pope and the brilliant eloquence of Burke. He had not much of his
father’s gaiety and spirit. For some years he had sat on the Bench
of the Common Pleas, with a fair reputation, and he had previously
enjoyed a considerable practice at the Bar. A very popular and useful
work, Buller’s Nisi Prius, is understood to have been compiled from his
notes. In early life he had made some figure in the House of Commons
as Attorney-General to the Prince, and Walpole notices him as a rising
man in the Opposition.--(Walpole’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 262.)--As a
Commissioner of the Great Seal he showed but moderate parts, and his
appointment as Chancellor excited much surprise. It had been believed
that the Seals would be offered to Mr. De Grey, as they had been in
the preceding year by the Duke of Grafton; and that gentleman so
perfectly expected it, that he announced himself as Lord Chancellor at
a dinner of his family. On the very day following this announcement it
was declared that the choice had fallen on Mr. Bathurst. He is not to
be ranked among the great men who have filled this high office; his
decisions are seldom cited, and indeed few of them have been preserved.
It was perhaps a disadvantage to him to preside over a bar of superior
talents to himself, the leaders of which were Thurlow and Wedderburne.
A coolness that took place between him and Lord North furnished the
King, who never liked him, with an excuse for transferring the Seals
to Lord Thurlow, and he became President of the Council. He died at an
advanced age in 1794.--E.
[150] When the writ for his re-election was moved, the House gave a
deep groan--an unprecedented mark of dislike.
[151] See some interesting observations on Wedderburne in Lord
Brougham’s Historical Sketches, vol. i. p. 70–87.--E.
[152] There appears to be no authority for this statement of Walpole’s.
Grimaldi, indeed, told Mr. Harris, on the latter acquainting him with
his recall, that “he was sure that the moment he mentioned it to the
King his Majesty would recall his Ambassador from London, when, of
course, no prospect would remain of that accommodation being brought
about which his Catholic Majesty had so much at heart.”--(Mr. Harris to
Lord Rochford, 13th of January, 1771.)--He also declined to recognise
Mr. Harris any longer as Minister, upon the pitiful plea of the absence
of his credentials. Probably he at the same time wrote to Prince
Masserano desiring him to expect an immediate recall. Far from the King
taking such a step, he manifested his satisfaction at the arrangement
in a more evident manner than Grimaldi wished, and expressed great
satisfaction at the gracious manner in which Prince Masserano had been
received at the British Court after signing the declaration.--(Mr.
Harris’s Letter, 14th February.--Malmesbury Correspondence, vol. i p.
75–6.)--E.
[153] He was afterwards Secretary of State in 1782, and in the
following year concluded the preliminaries of peace with France.
Some of his letters, very agreeably written, are published in Lord
Malmesbury’s Correspondence. He died in 1786.--E.
[154] The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. ii. p.
245.--Wedderburne not only voted for the motion, but supported it by
a very able speech, which was answered by his colleague Thurlow (the
Attorney-General). The best speech against the motion was made by Mr.
Fox, who, it may be worth noticing, never altered the strong opinion
which he expressed on this, as well as on other occasions, of the
incapacity of Mr. Wilkes.--E.
[155] William, the sixth Lord Craven. He had succeeded to the title
only in 1769. He died in 1791. His widow married the Margrave of
Anspach.--E.
[156] The object of the motion was to repeal the clause which “protects
such rights, titles, or claims, under any grants or letters patent from
the Crown, as are prosecuted with effect, within a certain time therein
(viz., in the Act) limited.” An able defence of Sir James Lowther
was made by Lord North, and a still more able defence of the Duke of
Portland by Dunning. The correctness of Walpole’s statement of the
feelings of the Court is illustrated by the following extract from a
letter of the King’s to Lord North: “11th February.--What has passed in
the House of Commons this day is a fresh proof that truth, justice, and
even honour are constantly to be given up when they relate to Sir James
Lowther.”--(MS.)--The King’s indignation, however, was directed against
what he conceived to be an encroachment on the prerogative of the
Crown, and did not arise from any partiality for Sir James Lowther.--E.
[157] Henry, first Duke of Newcastle of his family, and ninth Earl of
Lincoln. He had separated himself from his uncle’s political friends on
coming to the title. He died in 1794, aged seventy-four. The present
Duke is his grandson.--E.
[158] The House nevertheless afterwards decreed against Lord
Anglesea.--E.
[159] Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. ii. p. 311.--The King saw
the difficulties of this question, though he shared the prejudices of
the day in a letter to Lord North of the 21st. He says, “I have much
considered this affair of the printers, and in the strongest manner
recommend that every caution should be used to prevent its becoming a
serious business. It is highly necessary that this strange and lawless
method of publishing debates should be put a stop to. But is not the
House of Lords the best court to bring such miscreants before, as it
can fine as well as imprison, and has broader shoulders to support the
odium of so salutary a measure?”--(MS.)--It is easy to smile at the
King’s indignation, but the publication of the debates was not more
reasonable than the publication of the list of divisions, which many
warm friends of constitutional liberty, even in the present day, were
disposed to regard as highly objectionable.--E.
[160] Sir George Colebrooke, Bart., an eminent merchant in the
City, chairman, and for a long time a most influential director of
the East India Company. He succeeded to the Baronetcy on the death
of his brother, Sir James, who left two daughters--the Countess of
Tankerville and Lady Aubrey. Sir George was a Whig, but he made
the interests of the Company his first object in all his political
connections, and in return he made his connection with the Company
contribute to his political importance, which, at critical periods,
when parties were nicely balanced, was found to be not inconsiderable.
He had been educated at Leyden, and both wrote and spoke with spirit
and ability. The failure of some extensive speculations in which he
had been involved by a partner obliged his firm, in 1773, to suspend
their payments, and he retired for some years to the Continent; but
eventually a satisfactory arrangement was made with his creditors, and
he passed the latter years of his life in ease and independence. It was
during this period that he amused himself in composing his Memoirs, a
work that gives a curious picture of the political intrigues of the
day. He died in 1809, leaving two sons, both of whom attained high
office in India. The younger, Mr. Henry Colebrooke, was a member of the
Supreme Council in Bengal, a very eminent Oriental scholar, and the
author of some valuable works on Hindoo law and literature. The present
Baronet is his son.--E.
[161] See infra, p. 319, where Walpole expresses a more favourable
opinion of the measure. The union of Lord Barrington with Lord
Chatham’s friends eventually proved fatal to it; but their arguments
were completely refuted by Sir Gilbert Elliot.--(Cavendish, vol. ii. p.
325.)--E.
[162] They broke the glasses of Lord Townshend’s state-coach as he
passed to Parliament, and demolished Lord Annesley’s house.
[163] This case is given briefly in contemporary reports, under the
title of Smith and others _v._ Lord Pomfret and wife. It had been
originally heard before Lord Camden when he held the Great Seal. He
directed an action at law to be brought to try the right in dispute.
The verdict, as Walpole correctly states, was given against Lord
Pomfret. His Lordship then applied to the Commissioners of the Great
Seal, who had succeeded Lord Camden, for a new trial, which they
refused. On this he appealed to the Lords, where a _new trial, and not
the estate_ in question, was granted, upon some distinction taken by
Lord Mansfield as to the original order for the action having been made
without Lord Pomfret’s consent--a point which seems to have escaped the
counsel, who had argued the case on the merits, which seem to have been
on Lord Pomfret’s side, since the new trial ended in a verdict in his
favour. There are some points of practice involved in the case which
make it probable that the decision of the Lords would not be followed
in the present day, and there is no doubt that the interference of the
_lay_ Lords in the adjudication of rights of this nature was wholly
unjustifiable. No similar instance has occurred during the present
century,--the attendance of lay peers on appeals being regarded as a
mere matter of form. The decision on the appeal rests exclusively with
the _law_ peers, otherwise the appeal would be from a court of great
authority to one of none at all.--E.
[164] Mr. Turner was M.P. for York, and a friend of Lord Rockingham.--E.
[165] The King wrote thus to Lord North on the 17th of March:--“If
Lord Mayor and Oliver be not committed to the Tower the authority of
the House of Commons is annihilated. Send Jenkinson to Lord Mansfield
for his opinion of the best way of enforcing the commitment, if these
people continue to disobey. You know very well I was averse to meddling
with the printers, but now there is no retreating. The honour of the
House of Commons must be supported.” (MS.)--E.
[166] In the year 1762.--See vol. i. pp. 109, 120.
[167] Then only Mr. Fox.
[168] The City’s claim to exemption from the jurisdiction of the House
was founded on the restitution of their charter by King William, which
had been forfeited by the Quo Warranto of Charles the Second, and which
confirmed all their ancient privileges, but gave no new; and the House
said they had never enjoyed such exemption.
[169] “They [the Spanish Ministers] also report that we have given a
_verbal_ assurance to evacuate the Falkland Islands in the space of
two months.”--(Letter from Mr. Harris to Lord Rochford, 14th February,
in Malmesbury Correspondence, vol. i. p. 77.)--This was probably the
origin of the report so generally credited at the time, and which the
Spaniards circulated as much as possible in order to save their honour.
The English Ministers, however, may have stated that the Islands
might soon be given up as not worth keeping, which indeed speedily
happened.--E.
[170] Three millions, it was said, but undoubtedly half the number,
were lost by that execrable monopoly. [Mill states that a third of the
population perished.--History of British India, vol. iii. p. 431.--E.]
[171] Sir John Wrottesley, of Wrottesley, M.P. for the county of
Stafford, afterwards a Major-General and Colonel of the 45th regiment.
He was nephew of the Duchess of Bedford, and brother-in-law of the Duke
of Grafton. He died in 1787. Lord Wrottesley is his grandson.--E.
[172] Son of James Grenville, younger brother of Lord Temple.
[173] They got his hat, and sold small pieces of it as relics and
monuments of their fury.
[174] He gave a good living to Sir William Meredith’s brother, for this
service.
[175] Eldest son of the Earl of Sandwich.
[176] He was a shrewd clever man, and seems to have succeeded in all he
undertook. His popularity during his mayoralty obtained him a second
rich widow. He died very opulent in 1793, aged sixty-five. A detailed
account of him is given in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” vol. lxiii. p.
188; and this was afterwards enlarged and printed in a 4to volume, at
the expense of his widow, for private circulation. Thus he procured
a place in the _Biographie Universelle_, a work which, with singular
want of discrimination, leaves unnoticed some of his most distinguished
contemporaries, particularly Wedderburne and De Grey.--E.
[177] Dr. Scott, Rector of Simonburn in Northumberland. Like too many
divines of his day he dabbled much in political writing. He died in
1814.--E.
[178] The estimation in which Dr. Markham was held, both as Master
of Westminster and as a scholar, is alone sufficient to justify his
appointment. He was a personal friend of Lord Mansfield, like whom he
professed Tory principles; but he was far too honest and of too high
a spirit to be guilty of any unworthiness as a courtier. He owes his
place in the Rolliad mainly to his friendship for Hastings, whom he
loved and admired, as he also did Edmund Burke. It would be unjust to
his memory to overlook that he lived on terms of affectionate regard
with General Wolfe. He was by no means an exaggerated politician. He
afterwards became Archbishop of York, and held that preferment for near
thirty years, having died in 1807.--E.
[179] She was a daughter of Lord Pomfret, and had married the Hon.
William Finch, envoy in Sweden and in Holland, second son of Lord
Winchelsea who died in 1776. She was an accomplished and most estimable
person.--E.
[180] He afterwards became Dean of Christchurch, a college over which
he presided for many years with distinguished reputation. A bishoprick
was often within his reach, but he preferred seeing that of Oxford
given to his brother, who was also a man of learning and character.--E.
[181] This appeared afterwards, when he proved to have been dazzled by
royal favour, or duped by royal hypocrisy. He broke out in the year
----, at a meeting of the association in Yorkshire, into so extravagant
a panegyric on the King, that he exposed himself to the highest
ridicule.
[182] Mademoiselle Crom of Geneva.
[183] The younger. His father, though in Parliament also, had not
spoken there for many years.
[184] Brother of the Duke of Hamilton, killed by Lord Mohun in a duel
in the reign of Queen Anne. Lord Selkirk was a fulsome old courtier.
[185] This was particularly applicable to Sir Gilbert Elliot, who had
quitted Archibald Duke of Argyle for Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt for Lord Bute,
Lord Bute for Mr. Grenville, and had again deserted from Mr. Grenville
to Lord Bute, and was at the service of the Duke of Grafton, who
neglected him, and of Lord North whom he assisted, while at the same
time he had privately more weight with the King than Lord North had.
[186] The Dauphin said exultingly to the Prince of Conti, “Papa Roi est
bien le maître pourtant.” The Prince replied, “Oui, Monseigneur, si
fort le maître, qu’il ne tient qu’à lui de donner sa couronne à M. le
Comte d’Artois, votre cadet.”
[187] See supra, p. 225.
[188] See supra, p. 284.
[189] Arthur Annesley had married Lucy, only daughter of Lord
Lyttelton. His claim to the Earldom of Anglesea, was rejected by the
House of Lords in England, but the Irish House of Lords recognised him
as Viscount Valentia. The proceedings on his claim possess considerable
interest, but still more is to be found in the contest between his
father and his cousin, which suggested to Sir Walter Scott some of the
incidents in Guy Mannering.--E.
[190] See the proceedings in Cavendish, vol. ii. p. 307. The gross
corruption of the borough, and the improbability of any improvement,
furnished a strong ground for the disfranchisement.--E.
[191] Personal abuse was carried so far in the public papers at this
time, that Monsieur Francés, the French resident, received an anonymous
letter, threatening him with defamation unless he should send 50_l._ to
the writer. He despised the menace, and heard no more of it.
[192] See particularly Memoirs of George the Second, vol. i. p. 93.--E.
[193] The Duke of Grafton was immediately attacked by his bitter
enemy, Junius; but the same paper contained a more terrible invective
on the King, whom it inhumanly taxed with the murder of Mr. Yorke,
for having forced him to accept the Great Seal, which occasioned his
death.--[Junius, Letter l. See the Duke of Grafton’s Memoirs in the
Appendix.--E.]
[194] Dr. North subsequently was preferred to the see of Winchester,
which he held until his death at a very advanced age in 1820. His
son, who is also in holy orders, has succeeded to the Earldom of
Guilford.--E.
[195] The title of it was “The Adventures of Humphrey Clinker.”
[Walpole here yields to the miserable party prejudices of his day,
which pursued poor Smollett even beyond the tomb. Humphrey Clinker, as
Sir Walter Scott elegantly and justly observes, “was the last, and,
like music sweetest at the close, the sweetest of his compositions.
It is not worth defending so excellent a work against so weak an
objection.”--(Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 162.)--E.]
[196] D’Eon was afterwards allowed to be a woman, and assumed the
habit.--[But see supra, vol. ii. p. 14, note.--E.]
[197] Maupeou’s character presents a remarkable contrast to that of his
illustrious predecessor, D’Aguessau. He lived in obscurity from the
time that he was removed from the Government, but had amassed great
wealth. He died in 1792, aged sixty-eight.--E.
[198] Madame Adelaide was not less respectable than her sister Madame
Victoire. The latter was the mother of the accomplished Comte de
Narbonne. See Memoirs of Madame D’Arblay, vol. v. p. 371.--E.
[199] Mademoiselle Guimarre. She lodged at the Communauté de St.
Joseph, Rue St. Dominique, in the same convent where lived my great
friend, Madame du Deffand.
[200] Madame de la Garde.
[201] Madame Sabatin.
[202] Her first husband was the Prince of Lixin; but she herself was
certainly daughter of Leopold, Duke of Lorrain, by his adored mistress,
the Princess of Craon, whose twenty children all resembled the Duke,
and not their supposed father, the Prince of Craon.
[203] Lord Harcourt soon afterwards went to England, though it had been
a wiser step to have kept him there to make his court, when the Spanish
Minister’s conduct must have prejudiced her so much against the Court
of Spain; but we trusted to the pacific disposition of the new French
Ministry. They kept the peace with us for the same reason that we had
made it with them,--that the King might be at leisure to crush his
Parliaments!
[204] The Comte de Fuentes. (See vol. i. p. 127.)
[205] The Marquis di Caraccioli, who had been Minister in England, from
whence he was just arrived.
[206] The Chancellors of France do not visit Foreign Ministers, both
insisting on the first visit.
[207] He dealt to the extent of 14,000_l._ a-year.
[208] He had been imprisoned for challenging Sir W. Meredith; and was a
different person from Allen killed in St. George’s Fields. (Supra vol.
iii. p. 325.)
[209] About the same time the Lieutenancy of Glamorganshire was refused
to Lord Mount Stewart, Lord Bute’s son, for the same reason. Yet that
the Favourite retained his influence with the Princess of Wales, and
that she still retained some over her son, came out by the indiscretion
of Mrs. Anne Pitt, privy-purse to the Princess, and intimate friend
of Lady Bute. Endeavouring to persuade her cousin, the young Lord
Villiers, only son of the Countess of Grandison, to marry a younger
and homely daughter of Lord Bute, she engaged that if he would, the
Princess Dowager would procure him an English peerage--he preferred a
pretty daughter of Lord Hertford.
[210] I cannot help taking notice of a faulty expression of Bishop
Burnet. He says Lord Clarendon “had too much levity of wit.” One would
think he was rather speaking of the Duke of Buckingham’s buffoonery,
when he carried the fire shovel and tongs to mimic the Chancellor’s
mace and purse. Burnet meant Lord Clarendon’s want of judgment in
venting his satiric humour too incautiously against his enemies.
(Burnet’s History of His Own Time, vol. i. p. 95.) I am disposed
to think that Burnet referred to Clarendon’s freedom in private,
especially at his own table, for he was always of very convivial
habits. This interpretation is rather strengthened by the words which
follow the passage quoted, viz., “and he did not always observe the
decorum of his post.”--E.
[211] Sir John afterwards received a Peerage from Mr. Pitt. He died
without male issue in 1808.--E.
[212] “The Princess Dowager was a woman of strong mind. When she was
very ill she would order her carriage and drive about the streets to
show that she was alive. The King and Queen used to go and see her
every evening at eight o’clock; but when she got worse they went at
seven, pretending they mistook the hour. The night before her death
they were with her from seven to nine. She kept up the conversation as
usual, went to bed, and was found dead in the morning.”--(Pinkerton’s
Walpoliana, vol. i. p. 65.--E.)
[213] Elliot MSS.
[214] Duke of Grafton’s MS. Memoirs.
[215] Pinkerton’s Walpoliana, vol. i. pp. 2, 3.
[216] See his works by Lord Mahon, vol. ii. p. 470.
[217] Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 162.
[218] Cassan’s Lives of the Bishops of Winchester, vol. ii. p. 272.
[219] Elliot MSS.
[220] A beautiful letter from the Duchess (when Lady Ossory), on the
death of Lady Holland, is published in Selwyn’s Correspondence.
[221] Belsham, Discourse on the Decease of the Duke of Grafton, p. 39,
_note_.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks were corrected when the omission was obvious, and
otherwise retained. Two missing closing parentheses and two missing
right brackets were added.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
In the original book, footnotes in the Chapters were identified
numerically, while footnotes in the Appendix were identified
symbolically. In this eBook, all footnotes are in one ascending
numerical sequence.
The Table of Contents omitted the line “CHAPTER IX” and the associated
date. The Transcriber added them to this eBook.
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