for Aylesbury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very
lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and
agreeable rakes about town. He was a man of taste, reading, and engaging
manners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of greenrooms and
taverns, and pleased even grave hearers when he was sufficiently under
restraint to abstain from detailing the particulars of his amours, and
from breaking jests on the New Testament. His expensive debaucheries
forced him to have recourse to the Jews. He was soon a ruined man, and
determined to try his chance as a political adventurer. In Parliament he
did not succeed. His speaking, though pert, was feeble, and by no means
interested his hearers so much as to make them forget his face, which
was so hideous that the caricaturists were forced, in their own despite,
to flatter him. As a writer, he made a better figure. He set up a weekly
paper, called the North Briton. This journal, written with some
pleasantry, and great audacity and impudence, had a considerable number
of readers. Forty-four numbers had been published when Bute resigned;
and, though almost every number had contained matter grossly libellous,
no prosecution had been instituted. The forty-fifth number was innocent
when compared with the majority of those which had preceded it, and
indeed contained nothing so strong as may in our time be found daily in
the leading articles of the Times and Morning Chronicle. But Grenville
was now at the head of affairs. A new spirit had been infused into the
administration. Authority was to be upheld. The government was no longer
to be braved with impunity. Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant,
conveyed to the Tower, and confined there with circumstances of unusual
severity. His papers were seized, and carried to the Secretary of
State. These harsh and illegal measures produced a violent outbreak of
popular rage, which was soon changed to delight and exultation. The
arrest was pronounced unlawful by the Court of Common Pleas, in which
Chief Justice Pratt presided, and the prisoner was discharged. This
victory over the government was celebrated with enthusiasm both in
London and in the cider counties.
While the ministers were daily becoming more odious to the nation, they
were doing their best to make themselves also odious to the court. They
gave the King plainly to understand that they were determined not to be
Lord Bute's creatures, and exacted a promise that no secret adviser
should have access to the royal ear. They soon found reason to suspect
that this promise had not been observed. They remonstrated in terms less
respectful than their master had been accustomed to hear, and gave him a
fortnight to make his choice between his favorite and his cabinet.
George the Third was greatly disturbed. He had but a few weeks before
exulted in his deliverance from the yoke of the great Whig connection.
He had even declared that his honor would not permit him ever again to
admit the members of that connection into his service. He now found that
he had only exchanged one set of masters for another set still harsher
and more imperious. In his distress he thought on Pitt. From Pitt it was
possible that better terms might be obtained than either from Grenville,
or from the party of which Newcastle was the head.
Grenville, on his return from an excursion into the country, repaired to
Buckingham House. He was astonished to find at the entrance a chair, the
shape of which was well known to him, and indeed to all London. It was
distinguished by a large boot, made for the purpose of accommodating the
Great Commoner's gouty leg. Grenville guessed the whole. His
brother-in-law was closeted with the King. Bute, provoked by what he
considered as the unfriendly and ungrateful conduct of his successors,
had himself proposed that Pitt should be summoned to the palace.
Pitt had two audiences on two successive days. What passed at the first
interview led him to expect that the negotiation would be brought to a
satisfactory close; but on the morrow he found the King less complying.
The best account, indeed the only trustworthy account of the conference,
is that which was taken from Pitt's own mouth by Lord Hardwicke. It
appears that Pitt strongly represented the importance of conciliating
those chiefs of the Whig party who had been so unhappy as to incur the
royal displeasure. They had, he said, been the most constant friends of
the House of Hanover. Their power was great; they had been long versed
in public business. If they were to be under sentence of exclusion, a
solid administration could not be formed. His Majesty could not bear to
think of putting himself into the hands of those whom he had recently
chased from his court with the strongest marks of anger. "I am sorry,
Mr. Pitt," he said, "but I see this will not do. My honor is concerned.
I must support my honor." How his Majesty succeeded in supporting his
honor we shall soon see.
Pitt retired, and the King was reduced to request the ministers, whom he
had been on the point of discarding, to remain in office. During the two
years which followed, Grenville, now closely leagued with the Bedfords,
was the master of the court; and a hard master he proved. He knew that
he was kept in place only because there was no choice except between
himself and the Whigs. That under any circumstances the Whigs would be
forgiven, he thought impossible. The late attempt to get rid of him had
roused his resentment; the failure of that attempt had liberated him
from all fear. He had never been very courtly. He now began to hold a
language, to which, since the days of Cornet Joyce and President
Bradshaw, no English King had been compelled to listen.
In one matter, indeed, Grenville, at the expense of justice and liberty,
gratified the passions of the court while gratifying his own. The
persecution of Wilkes was eagerly pressed. He had written a parody on
Pope's Essay on Man, entitled the Essay on Woman, and had appended to it
notes, in ridicule of Warburton's famous Commentary. This composition
was exceedingly profligate, but not more so, we think, than some of
Pope's own works, the imitation of the second satire of the first book
of Horace, for example; and, to do Wilkes justice, he had not, like
Pope, given his ribaldry to the world. He had merely printed at a
private press a very small number of copies, which he meant to present
to some of his boon companions, whose morals were in no more danger of
being corrupted by a loose book than a negro of being tanned by a warm
sun. A tool of the government, by giving a bribe to the printer,
procured a copy of this trash, and placed it in the hands of the
ministers. The ministers resolved to visit Wilkes's offence against
decorum with the utmost rigor of the law. What share piety and respect
for morals had in dictating this resolution, our readers may judge from
the fact that no person was more eager for bringing the libertine poet
to punishment than Lord March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry. On the
first day of the session of Parliament, the book, thus disgracefully
obtained, was laid on the table of the Lords by the Earl of Sandwich,
whom the Duke of Bedford's interest had made Secretary of State. The
unfortunate author had not the slightest suspicion that his licentious
poem had ever been seen, except by his printer and by a few of his
dissipated companions, till it was produced in full Parliament. Though
he was a man of easy temper, averse from danger, and not very
susceptible of shame, the surprise, the disgrace, the prospect of utter
ruin, put him beside himself. He picked a quarrel with one of Lord
Bute's dependents, fought a duel, was seriously wounded, and, when half
recovered, fled to France. His enemies had now their own way both in the
Parliament and in the King's Bench. He was censured, expelled from the
House of Commons, outlawed. His works were ordered to be burned by the
common hangman. Yet was the multitude still true to him. In the minds
even of many moral and religious men, his crime seemed light when
compared with the crime of his accusers. The conduct of Sandwich, in
particular, excited universal disgust. His own vices were notorious;
and, only a fortnight before he laid the Essay on Woman before the House
of Lords, he had been drinking and singing loose catches with Wilkes at
one of the most dissolute clubs in London. Shortly after the meeting of
Parliament, the Beggar's Opera was acted at Covent Garden Theatre. When
Macheath uttered the words, "That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me I own
surprised me," pit, boxes, and galleries burst into a roar which seemed
likely to bring the roof down. From that day Sandwich was universally
known by the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher. The ceremony of burning the
North Briton was interrupted by a riot. The constables were beaten; the
paper was rescued; and, instead of it, a jack boot and a petticoat were
committed to the flames. Wilkes had instituted an action, for the
seizure of his papers, against the Under Secretary of State. The jury
gave a thousand pounds damages. But neither these nor any other
indications of public feeling had power to move Grenville. He had the
Parliament with him; and, according to his political creed, the sense of
the nation was to be collected from the Parliament alone.
Soon, however, he found reason to fear that even the Parliament might
fail him. On the question of the legality of general warrants, the
opposition, having on its side all sound principles, all constitutional
authorities, and the voice of the whole nation, mustered in great
force, and was joined by many who did not ordinarily vote against the
government. On one occasion the ministry, in a very full house, had a
majority of only fourteen votes. The storm, however, blew over. The
spirit of the opposition, from whatever cause, began to flag at the
moment when success seemed almost certain. The session ended without any
change. Pitt, whose eloquence had shone with its usual lustre in all the
principal debates, and whose popularity was greater than ever, was still
a private man. Grenville, detested alike by the court and by the people,
was still minister.
As soon as the Houses had risen, Grenville took a step which proved,
even more signally than any of his past acts, how despotic, how
acrimonious, and how fearless his nature was. Among the gentlemen not
ordinarily opposed to the government, who, on the great constitutional
question of general warrants, had voted with the minority, was Henry
Conway, brother of the Earl of Hertford, a brave soldier, a tolerable
speaker, and a well-meaning, though not a wise or vigorous politician.
He was now deprived of his regiment, the merited reward of faithful and
gallant service in two wars. It was confidently asserted that in this
violent measure the King heartily concurred.
But whatever pleasure the persecution of Wilkes, or the dismissal of
Conway, may have given to the royal mind, it is certain that his
Majesty's aversion to his ministers increased day by day. Grenville was
as frugal of the public money as of his own, and morosely refused to
accede to the King's request, that a few thousand pounds might be
expended in buying some open fields to the west of the gardens of
Buckingham House. In consequence of this refusal, the fields were soon
covered with buildings, and the King and Queen were overlooked in their
most private walks by the upper windows of a hundred houses. Nor was
this the worst. Grenville was as liberal of words as he was sparing of
guineas. Instead of explaining himself in that clear, concise, and
lively manner, which alone could win the attention of a young mind new
to business, he spoke in the closet just as he spoke in the House of
Commons. When he had harangued two hours, he looked at his watch, as he
had been in the habit of looking at the clock opposite the Speaker's
chair, apologized for the length of his discourse, and then went on for
an hour more. The members of the House of Commons can cough an orator
down, or can walk away to dinner; and they were by no means sparing in
the use of these privileges when Grenville was on his legs. But the poor
young King had to endure all this eloquence with mournful civility. To
the end of his life he continued to talk with horror of Grenville's
orations.
About this time took place one of the most singular events in Pitt's
life. There was a certain Sir William Pynsent, a Somersetshire baronet
of Whig politics, who had been a member of the House of Commons in the
days of Queen Anne, and had retired to rural privacy when the Tory
party, towards the end of her reign, obtained the ascendency in her
councils. His manners were eccentric. His morals lay under very odious
imputations. But his fidelity to his political opinions was unalterable.
During fifty years of seclusion he continued to brood over the
circumstances which had driven him from public life,--the dismissal of
the Whigs, the peace of Utrecht, the desertion of our allies. He now
thought that he perceived a close analogy between the well-remembered
events of his youth and the events which he had witnessed in extreme old
age; between the disgrace of Marlborough and the disgrace of Pitt;
between the elevation of Harley and the elevation of Bute; between the
treaty negotiated by St. John and the treaty negotiated by Bedford;
between the wrongs of the House of Austria in 1712 and the wrongs of the
House of Brandenburg in 1762. This fancy took such possession of the old
man's mind that he determined to leave his whole property to Pitt. In
this way Pitt unexpectedly came into possession of near three thousand
pounds a year. Nor could all the malice of his enemies find any ground
for reproach in the transaction. Nobody could call him a legacy hunter.
Nobody could accuse him of seizing that to which others had a better
claim. For he had never in his life seen Sir William; and Sir William
had left no relation so near as to be entitled to form any expectations
respecting the estate.
The fortunes of Pitt seemed to flourish; but his health was worse than
ever. We cannot find that, during the session which began in January,
1765, he once appeared in Parliament. He remained some months in
profound retirement at Hayes, his favorite villa, scarcely moving except
from his armchair to his bed, and from his bed to his armchair, and
often employing his wife as his amanuensis in his most confidential
correspondence. Some of his detractors whispered that his invisibility
was to be ascribed quite as much to affectation as to gout. In truth his
character, high and splendid as it was, wanted simplicity. With genius
which did not need the aid of stage tricks, and with a spirit which
should have been far above them, he had yet been, through life, in the
habit of practising them. It was, therefore, now surmised that, having
acquired all the consideration which could be derived from eloquence and
from great services to the state, he had determined not to make himself
cheap by often appearing in public, but, under the pretext of ill
health, to surround himself with mystery, to emerge only at long
intervals and on momentous occasions, and at other times to deliver his
oracles only to a few favored votaries, who were suffered to make
pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were his object, it was for a time
fully attained. Never was the magic of his name so powerful, never was
he regarded by his country with such superstitious veneration, as during
this year of silence and seclusion.
While Pitt was thus absent from Parliament, Grenville proposed a measure
destined to produce a great revolution, the effects of which will long
be felt by the whole human race. We speak of the act for imposing stamp
duties on the North American colonies. The plan was eminently
characteristic of its author. Every feature of the parent was found in
the child. A timid statesman would have shrunk from a step, of which
Walpole, at a time when the colonies were far less powerful, had said:
"He who shall propose it will be a much bolder man than I." But the
nature of Grenville was insensible to fear. A statesman of large views
would have felt that to lay taxes at Westminster on New England and New
York was a course opposed, not indeed to the letter of the Statute Book,
or to any decision contained in the Term Reports, but to the principles
of good government, and to the spirit of the constitution. A statesman
of large views would also have felt that ten times the estimated produce
of the American stamps would have been dearly purchased by even a
transient quarrel between the mother country and the colonies. But
Grenville knew of no spirit of the constitution distinct from the letter
of the law, and of no national interests except those which are
expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence. That his policy might give
birth to deep discontents in all the provinces, from the shore of the
Great Lakes to the Mexican sea; that France and Spain might seize the
opportunity of revenge; that the empire might be dismembered; that the
debt--that debt with the amount of which he perpetually reproached
Pitt--might, in consequence of his own policy, be doubled; these were
possibilities which never occurred to that small, sharp mind.
The Stamp Act will be remembered as long as the globe lasts. But, at the
time, it attracted much less notice in this country than another Act
which is now almost utterly forgotten. The King fell ill, and was
thought to be in a dangerous state. His complaint, we believe, was the
same which, at a later period, repeatedly incapacitated him for the
performance of his regal functions. The heir apparent was only two years
old. It was clearly proper to make provision for the administration of
the government, in case of a minority. The discussions on this point
brought the quarrel between the court and the ministry to a crisis. The
King wished to be entrusted with the power of naming a regent by will.
The ministers feared, or affected to fear, that, if this power were
conceded to him, he would name the Princess Mother, nay, possibly the
Earl of Bute. They, therefore, insisted on introducing into the bill
words confining the King's choice to the royal family. Having thus
excluded Bute, they urged the King to let them, in the most marked
manner, exclude the Princess Dowager also. They assured him that the
House of Commons would undoubtedly strike her name out, and by this
threat they wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days, it
appeared that the representations by which they had induced the King to
put this gross and public affront on his mother were unfounded. The
friends of the Princess in the House of Commons moved that her name
should be inserted. The ministers could not decently attack the parent
of their master. They hoped that the opposition would come to their
help, and put on them a force to which they would gladly have yielded.
But the majority of the opposition, though hating the Princess, hated
Grenville more, beheld his embarrassment with delight, and would do
nothing to extricate him from it. The Princess's name was accordingly
placed in the list of persons qualified to hold the regency.
The King's resentment was now at the height. The present evil seemed to
him more intolerable than any other. Even the junta of Whig grandees
could not treat him worse than he had been treated by his present
ministers. In his distress he poured out his whole heart to his uncle,
the Duke of Cumberland. The Duke was not a man to be loved; but he was
eminently a man to be trusted. He had an intrepid temper, a strong
understanding, and a high sense of honor and duty. As a general, he
belonged to a remarkable class of captains,--captains, we mean, whose
fate it has been to lose almost all the battles which they have fought,
and yet to be reputed stout and skilful soldiers. Such captains were
Coligni and William the Third. We might, perhaps, add Marshal Soult to
the list. The bravery of the Duke of Cumberland was such as
distinguished him even among the princes of his brave house. The
indifference with which he rode about amidst musket balls and cannon
balls was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless maladies,
horrible surgical operations, far from unmanning him, did not even
discompose him. With courage, he had the virtues which are akin to
courage. He spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and
upright in all his dealings. But his nature was hard; and what seemed to
him justice was rarely tempered with mercy. He was, therefore, during
many years one of the most unpopular men in England. The severity with
which he had treated the rebels after the battle of Culloden had gained
for him the name of the Butcher. His attempts to introduce into the army
of England, then in a most disorderly state, the rigorous discipline of
Potsdam had excited still stronger disgust. Nothing was too bad to be
believed of him. Many honest people were so absurd as to fancy that, if
he were left Regent during the minority of his nephews, there would be
another smothering in the Tower. These feelings, however, had passed
away. The Duke had been living, during some years, in retirement. The
English, full of animosity against the Scots, now blamed his Royal
Highness only for having left so many Camerons and Macphersons to be
made gaugers and custom-house officers. He was, therefore, at present a
favorite with his countrymen, and especially with the inhabitants of
London.
He had little reason to love the King, and had shown clearly, though not
obtrusively, his dislike of the system which had lately been pursued.
But he had high and almost romantic notions of the duty which, as a
prince of the blood, he owed to the head of his house. He determined to
extricate his nephew from bondage, and to effect a reconciliation
between the Whig party and the throne, on terms honorable to both.
In this mind he set off for Hayes, and was admitted to Pitt's sickroom;
for Pitt would not leave his chamber, and would not communicate with any
messenger of inferior dignity. And now began a long series of errors on
the part of the illustrious statesman,--errors which involved his
country in difficulties and distresses more serious even than those from
which his genius had formerly rescued her. His language was haughty,
unreasonable, almost unintelligible. The only thing which could be
discerned, through a cloud of vague and not very gracious phrases, was
that he would not at that moment take office. The truth, we believe, was
this. Lord Temple, who was Pitt's evil genius, had just formed a new
scheme of politics. Hatred of Bute and of the Princess had, it should
seem, taken entire possession of Temple's soul. He had quarrelled with
his brother George, because George had been connected with Bute and the
Princess. Now that George appeared to be the enemy of Bute and of the
Princess, Temple was eager to bring about a general family
reconciliation. The three brothers, as Temple, Grenville, and Pitt were
popularly called, might make a ministry, without leaning for aid either
on Bute or on the Whig connection. With such views, Temple used all his
influence to dissuade Pitt from acceding to the propositions of the Duke
of Cumberland. Pitt was not convinced But Temple had an influence over
him such as no other person had ever possessed. They were very old
friends, very near relations. If Pitt's talents and fame had been useful
to Temple, Temple's purse had formerly, in times of great need, been
useful to Pitt. They had never been parted in politics. Twice they had
come into the cabinet together; twice they had left it together. Pitt
could not bear to think of taking office without his chief ally. Yet he
felt that he was doing wrong, that he was throwing away a great
opportunity of serving his country. The obscure and unconciliatory style
of the answers which he returned to the overtures of the Duke of
Cumberland may be ascribed to the embarrassment and vexation of a mind
not at peace with itself. It is said that he mournfully explained to
Temple,--
"Extinxti te meque, soror, populumque, patresqne
Sidonios, urbemque tuam."
The prediction was but too just.
Finding Pitt impracticable, the Duke of Cumberland advised the King to
submit to necessity, and to keep Grenville and the Bedfords. It was,
indeed, not a time at which offices could safely be left vacant. The
unsettled state of the government had produced a general relaxation
through all the departments of the public service. Meetings, which at
another time would have been harmless, now turned to riots, and rapidly
rose almost to the dignity of rebellions. The Houses of Parliament were
blockaded by the Spitalfields weavers. Bedford House was assailed on all
sides by a furious rabble, and was strongly garrisoned with horse and
foot. Some people attributed these disturbances to the friends of Bute,
and some to the friends of Wilkes. But, whatever might be the cause, the
effect was general insecurity. Under such circumstances the King had no
choice. With bitter feelings of mortification, he informed the ministers
that he meant to retain them.
They answered by demanding from him a promise on his royal word never
more to consult Lord Bute. The promise was given. They then demanded
something more. Lord Bute's brother, Mr. Mackenzie, held a lucrative
office in Scotland. Mr. Mackenzie must be dismissed. The King replied
that the office had been given under very peculiar circumstances, and
that he had promised never to take it away while he lived. Grenville was
obstinate; and the King, with a very bad grace, yielded.
The session of Parliament was over. The triumph of the ministers was
complete. The King was almost as much a prisoner as Charles the First
had been, when in the Isle of Wight. Such were the fruits of the policy
which, only a few months before, was represented as having forever
secured the throne against the dictation of insolent subjects.