STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 6, 1774.
It would be unlike my attention and punctuality, to see so large an
event as an irregular dissolution of Parliament, without taking any
notice of it to you. It happened last Saturday, six months before its
natural death, and without the design being known but the Tuesday
before, and that by very few persons. The chief motive is supposed to be
the ugly state of North America,[1] and the effects that a cross winter
might have on the next elections. Whatever were the causes, the first
consequences, as you may guess, were such a ferment in London as is
seldom seen at this dead season of the year. Couriers, despatches,
post-chaises, post-horses, hurrying every way! Sixty messengers passed
through one single turnpike on Friday. The whole island is by this time
in equal agitation; but less wine and money will be shed than have been
at any such period for these fifty years.
[Footnote 1: "_America_"--the discontents in that country were caused by
Mr. Charles Townshend's policy, who, before his death, had revived Mr.
Grenville's plan of imposing taxes on the Colonies, and by the
perseverance in that policy of Lord North, who succeeded him at the
Exchequer, and who had also been First Lord of the Treasury since the
resignation of the Duke of Grafton.]
We have a new famous Bill,[1] devised by the late Mr. Grenville, that
has its first operation now; and what changes it may occasion, nobody
can yet foresee. The first symptoms are not favourable to the Court;
the great towns are casting off submission, and declaring for popular
members. London, Westminster, Middlesex, seem to have no monarch but
Wilkes, who is at the same time pushing for the Mayoralty of London,
with hitherto a majority on the poll. It is strange how this man, like a
phoenix, always revives from his embers! America, I doubt, is still more
unpromising. There are whispers of their having assembled an armed
force, and of earnest supplications arrived for succours of men and
ships. A civil war is no trifle; and how we are to suppress or pursue in
such a vast region, with a handful of men, I am not an Alexander to
guess; and for the fleet, can we put it upon casters and wheel it from
Hudson's Bay to Florida? But I am an ignorant soul, and neither pretend
to knowledge nor foreknowledge. All I perceive already is, that our
Parliaments are subjected to America and India, and must be influenced
by their politics; yet I do not believe our senators are more universal
than formerly....
[Footnote 1: Mr. Grenville's Act had been passed in 1770; but there had
been no General Election since till this year. It altered the course of
proceeding for the trial of election petitions, substituting for the
whole House a Select Committee of fifteen members; but after a time it
was found that it had not secured any greater purity of decision, but
that the votes of the Committee were influenced by considerations of the
interest of the dominant party as entirely as they had been in the days
of Sir R. Walpole. And eventually, in the present reign, Mr. D'Israeli
induced the House to surrender altogether its privilege of judging of
elections, and to submit the investigation of election petitions to the
only tribunal sufficiently above suspicion to command and retain the
confidence of the nation, namely, the Judges of the High Court of Law.
(See the Editor's "Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860," pp.
36-39.)]
In the midst of this combustion, we are in perils by land and water. It
has rained for this month without intermission; there is sea between me
and Richmond, and Sunday was se'nnight I was hurried down to Isleworth
in the ferry-boat by the violence of the current, and had great
difficulty to get to shore. Our roads are so infested by highwaymen,
that it is dangerous stirring out almost by day. Lady Hertford was
attacked on Hounslow Heath at three in the afternoon. Dr. Eliot was shot
at three days ago, without having resisted; and the day before
yesterday we were near losing our Prime Minster, Lord North; the robbers
shot at the postillion, and wounded the latter. In short, all the
freebooters, that are not in India, have taken to the highway. The
Ladies of the Bedchamber dare not go the Queen at Kew in an evening. The
lane between me and the Thames is the only safe road I know at present,
for it is up to the middle of the horses in water. Next week I shall not
venture to London even at noon, for the Middlesex election is to be at
Brentford, where the two demagogues, Wilkes and Townshend, oppose each
other; and at Richmond there is no crossing the river. How strange all
this must appear to you Florentines; but you may turn to your
Machiavelli and Guicciardini, and have some idea of it. I am the
quietest man at present in the whole island; not but I might take some
part, if I would. I was in my garden yesterday, seeing my servants lop
some trees; my brewer walked in and pressed me to go to Guildhall for
the nomination of members for the county. I replied, calmly, "Sir, when
I would go no more to my own election, you may be very sure I will go to
that of nobody else." My old tune is,
Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, &c.
Adieu!
P.S.--ARLINGTON STREET, _7th_.
I am just come to town, and find your letter, with the notification of
Lord Cowper's marriage; I recollect that I ought to be sorry for it, as
you will probably lose an old friend. The approaching death of the Pope
will be an event of no consequence. That old mummery is near its
conclusion, at least as a political object. The history of the latter
Popes will be no more read than that of the last Constantinopolitan
Emperors. Wilkes is a more conspicuous personage in modern story than
the Pontifex Maximus of Rome. The poll for Lord Mayor ended last night;
he and his late Mayor had above 1,900 votes, and their antagonists not
1,500. It is strange that the more he is opposed, the more he succeeds!
I don't know whether Sir W. Duncan's marriage proved Platonic or not;
but I cannot believe that a lady of great birth, and greater pride,
quarrels with her family, to marry a Scotch physician for Platonic love,
which she might enjoy without marriage. I remember an admirable
_bon-mot_ of George Selwyn; who said, "How often Lady Mary will repeat,
with Macbeth, 'Wake, Duncan, with this knocking--would thou couldst!"
_THE POPE'S DEATH--WILKES IS RETURNED FOR MIDDLESEX--A QUAKER AT
VERSAILLES._