Countenance shown to Tories.--Effect of Tory Politics on the
Nation.--Plan to carry the Prerogative to an unusual height.--
Unpopularity and Seclusion of the Princess of Wales.--Difficulty
of access to the King.--Manœuvres of his Mother.--Character of
Lord Bute, and his Schemes to conciliate the King.--Archbishop
Secker.--Character of George III.--Intended Duel between the
Earl of Albemarle and General Townshend.--Cause of the Quarrel.--
The King’s Speech.--Pitt and Beckford.--Increase of the Court
Establishment.--The Dukes of Richmond and Grafton.--Interview
between Lord Bute and the Duke of Richmond.--Advice to the latter
by the Duke of Cumberland.--The King’s Revenue.--The Princess
Dowager’s Passion for Money.--The Earl of Lichfield.--Viscount
Middleton.--Partiality to the Tories.--Inconsistency of the Duke
of Newcastle.--Irish Disputes.--The King of Prussia’s Victory
over Marshal Daun.--Mauduit’s Pamphlet on the German War.--Ways
and Means for the ensuing Year.
The countenance shown to the Tories, and to their citadel, the
University of Oxford, was at first supposed by those who stood at
distance from the penetralia, the measure of Mr. Pitt, as consonant to
his known desire of uniting, that was, breaking all parties. But the
Tories, who were qualified for nothing above a secret, could not keep
even that. They came to Court, it is true; but they came with all their
old prejudices. They abjured their ancient master, but retained their
principles; and seemed to have exchanged nothing but their badge, _the
White Rose_ for _the White Horse_. _Prerogative_ became a fashionable
word; and the language of the times was altered, before the Favourite
dared to make any variation in the Ministry.
These steps did not pass unnoticed: nor was the nation without
jealousy, even in the first dawn of the reign. Papers were stuck up
at the Royal Exchange and in Westminster-hall, with these words, _no
Petticoat Government, no Scotch Favourite_. An intemperance which
proceeded so far afterwards, that, as the King passed in his chair to
visit his mother in an evening, the mob asked him if he was going to
suck? The Princess herself was obliged to discontinue frequenting the
theatres, so gross and insulting were the apostrophes with which she
was saluted from the galleries.
The views of the Court were so fully manifested afterwards, that no
doubt can be entertained but a plan had been early formed of carrying
the prerogative to very unusual heights. The Princess was ardently fond
of power, and all its appanages of observance, rank and wealth. The
deepest secrecy and dissimulation guarded every avenue of her passions;
and close retirement was adapted to these purposes. She could not
appear in public (after the arrival of the Queen) as the first woman
of the kingdom: her unpopularity made her pride tremble; and privacy
shrouded such hours as were not calculated to draw esteem; and it
contracted her expenses. After the King’s marriage she appeared seldom
or never at St. James’s, nor deigned to accompany the ceremony of the
coronation. The attendance of her ladies was dispensed with except
on drawing-room days; and by degrees even her maids of honour and
women of the bedchamber were removed from her palace, where she lived
in a solitude that would have passed for the perfection of Christian
humility in the ages of monkish ignorance. Jealousy of her credit over
her son made her impose almost as strict laws of retirement on him. He
was accessible to none of his Court but at the stated hours of business
and ceremony: nor was any man but the Favourite, and the creatures with
whom he had garrisoned the palace, allowed to converse with the King.
Affection had no share in this management.
The Princess, who was never supposed to disclose her mind with
freedom,[18] but on the single topic of her own children, had often
mentioned her eldest son with contempt; and during the life of her
husband, had given in to all his partiality for the Duke of York.
When her views of governing by her husband were cut off, she applied
to the untutored inexperience of his heir: and the first step towards
the influence she meditated, was by filling his mind with suspicions
and ill impressions of all mankind. His uncle, the Duke of Cumberland,
was made another instrument. The young Prince had a great appetite:
he was asked if he wished to be as gross as his uncle? Every vice,
every condescension was imputed to the Duke, that the Prince might be
stimulated to avoid them.
The Favourite, who had notions of honour, and was ostentatious,
endeavoured to give a loftier cast to the disposition of his pupil,
though not to the disparagement of the vassalage in which he was to
be kept. Lord Bute had a little reading,[19] and affected learning.
Men of genius, the arts and artists were to be countenanced. The arts
might amuse the young King’s solitary hours: authors might defend the
measures of government, and were sure to pay for their pensions with
incense, both to their passive and active protectors. The pedantry
and artifice of these shallow views served but to produce ridicule.
Augustus fell asleep over drawings and medals, which were pushed before
him every evening; and Mæcenas had so little knowledge, and so little
taste, that his own letters grew a proverb for want of orthography;
and the scribblers he countenanced, were too destitute of talents to
raise his character or their own. The coins of the King were the worst
that had appeared for above a century; and the revenues of the Crown
were so soon squandered in purchasing dependents, that architecture,
the darling art of Lord Bute, was contracted from the erection of
a new palace, to altering a single door-case in the drawing-room at
St. James’s. Yet, his emissaries the Scotch were indefatigable in
coining popular sayings and sentences for the King. It was given out
that he would suffer no money to be spent on elections. Circumstances
that recoiled with force, when every one of those aphorisms were
contradicted by practice.
But the chief engine to conciliate favour was the King’s piety. The
Princess, no doubt, intended it should be real, for she lived in dread
of a mistress. But mankind was not inclined to think that her morals
could have imprinted much devotion on the mind of her son: nor was any
man the dupe of those professions but Secker, the Archbishop, who for
the first days of the reign flattered himself with the idea of becoming
first minister in a Court that hoisted the standard of religion. He
was unwearied in attendance at St. James’s,[20] and in presenting
bodies of clergy; and his assiduity was so bustling and assuming, that
having pushed aside the Duke of Cumberland to get at the King, his
Royal Highness reprimanded him with a bitter taunt. The prelate soon
discovered his mistake. Nor were the Princess or the Favourite inclined
to trust the King in the hands of a Churchman, whom they knew so well,
and whose sanctity was as equivocal as their own.
As far as could be discerned of the King’s natural disposition, it was
humane and benevolent. If flowing courtesy to all men was the habit
of his dissimulation, at least, it was so suited to his temper, that
no gust of passion, no words of bitterness were ever known to break
from him. He accepted services with grace and appearance of feeling:
and if he forgot them with an unrestrained facility, yet he never
marked his displeasure with harshness. Silence served him to bear with
unwelcome ministers, or to part with them. His childhood was tinctured
with obstinacy: it was adopted at the beginning of his reign, and
called firmness; but did not prove to be his complexion. In truth, it
would be difficult to draw his character in positive colours. He had
neither passions nor activity. He resigned himself obsequiously to the
government of his mother and Lord Bute: learned, and even entered with
art into the lessons they inspired, but added nothing of his own. When
the task was done, he relapsed into indifference and indolence, till
roused to the next day’s part.[21]
The first gust of faction that threatened the new era, was an
intended duel between the Earl of Albemarle[22] and General George
Townshend.[23] A pamphlet was published against the latter,[24]
reflecting bitterly on the vanity with which he had assumed a principal
share in the conquest of Quebec, though the honour of signing the
capitulation had only fallen to him by the death of Wolfe and the
wounds of Monckton; an honour so little merited, that he had done his
utmost to traverse Wolfe’s plans. The pamphlet, too, set forth the
justice of taking such freedom with a man whose ill-nature had seized
every opportunity of ridiculing those he disliked by exhibiting their
personal defects in caricatures, which he had been the first to apply
to politics. His uncle the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Cumberland,
and Mr. Fox, had been the chief objects of those buffoon satires. The
pamphlet was certainly written under the direction of the last, and
could not fail to be agreeable to the partizans of the second. It
wounded so deeply, that Townshend, in the first blindness of his rage,
concluded it came from the person he hated most and had most offended:
that was the Duke of Cumberland: and as Lord Albemarle was the first
favourite of his Royal Highness, thither Townshend addressed his
resentment, though no man was less an author than the Earl. A challenge
passed, was accepted, and prevented in time by Townshend’s want of
caution.
On the 18th of November the Parliament met. Many Tories, though they
had received no formal invitation, appeared at the Cockpit to hear the
King’s speech read. It was composed, as usual, by Lord Hardwicke, was
long and dull, and had received additions from Pitt. On the Address
Beckford proposed to push the war with more vigour, the end of the last
campaign having, he said, been languid. Pitt fired at this reproach
from his friend, though certainly not levelled at him, and asked
Beckford what new species of extravagance he wished for? The Address
from Oxford had other objects in view. They boasted openly of their
attachment to Monarchy. As all places were already filled with Whigs,
the Court was forced to increase the establishment, in order to admit
their devotees. The King’s Bedchamber received six or eight additional
Grooms and seven Gentlemen. Most of the late King’s were continued; the
King’s own were joined with them; the rest were taken from the Tories.
The Duke of Richmond,[25] haughty and young, was offended that his
cousin, Colonel Keppel,[26] was removed from Gentleman of the Horse,
which the King destined for one of his own servants. The Duke asked
an audience; but began it with objecting to the distinction paid to
Sir Henry Erskine.[27] This so much disgusted, that the King would not
hear the Duke on the subject of Keppel. On cooler thoughts, Lord Bute
was sent to the Duke, to offer him to be of the King’s Bedchamber.
He accepted it, on condition that Keppel should remain Gentleman of
the Horse, which was likewise granted. But this pacification lasted
few days. Lord Fitzmaurice,[28] a favourite of Lord Bute, was made
Equerry to the King; though inferior in military rank to Lord George
Lenox[29] and Charles Fitzroy,[30] brothers of the Dukes of Richmond
and Grafton. The latter[31] had been of the Bedchamber to the King,
when Prince, but had quitted it, from dislike of Court attendance, and
disgusted with the haughty stateliness affected by Lord Bute. Richmond
and Grafton were much of an age; each regarded himself as Prince of
the Blood; and emulation soon created a sort of rivalship between
them. The Duke of Richmond’s figure was noble, and his countenance
singularly handsome. The Duke of Grafton was low, but manly, and with
much grace in his address. The passions of both were strong, but of the
first, ardent; of the latter, slow and inflexible. His temper was not
happy; but the Duke of Richmond’s, which was thought worse, because
more impetuous, was pliant, and uncommonly easy and accommodating
in his family and society. Both were thought avaricious; but the
latter very unjustly, generally approaching nearer to the opposite
extreme of profusion. His parts, too, were quicker and more subtle
than Grafton’s and more capable of application, though his elocution
was much inferior. The Duke of Grafton had a grace and dignity in his
utterance that commanded attention, and dazzled in lieu of matter; and
his temper being shy and reserved, he was supposed to be endued with
more steadiness than his subsequent conduct displayed. Neither of them
wanted obstinacy; but their obstinacy not flowing from system, it was
in both a torrent more impetuous in its course than in its duration.
The Duke of Grafton made a decent representation to the King, on the
wrong done to his brother, and demanded rank for him. The other Duke
carried a violent memorial, and commented on it in a manner, which some
years afterwards he found had never been forgotten or forgiven. The
next day he resigned the Bedchamber, but not his regiment. In a few
days he repented this step, and went to Lord Bute to explain away his
resignation, which, he said, might not be known. Lord Bute replied,
all the world knew it. The Duke, thinking this coldness proceeded from
a suspicion that he was influenced by Fox,[32] his brother-in-law,
disclaimed all connexion with him, and said, he had never approved
his sister’s marriage. Lord Bute, who even then probably had views of
Fox’s support, as a counterbalance to Pitt, replied, that Mr. Fox’s
alliance could be a disgrace to no man; as he must always be of great
use and weight in this country. Yet the Duke’s youth and frankness
made him avow what he had said to Fox himself, in the presence of Lord
Albemarle, who, though not much older, had far more worldly cunning,
and no doubt reported the conversation to his master, the Duke of
Cumberland; for Richmond and Albemarle, though first cousins, were no
friends; and the latter possessed all the arts of a Court. The Duke,
rebuffed by the Favourite, next consulted the Duke of Cumberland,
who told him prudently, that he was sorry the Duke of Richmond, at
twenty-three, had quarrelled with the King, at twenty-two; and advised
him to retire into the country, which he did. The effects of these
squabbles will appear hereafter, which made it proper to state them
here.
The King’s revenue was settled and fixed to eight hundred thousand
pounds a year, certain. In the late reign any overplus was to accrue
to the Crown, but had ever produced so trifling an augmentation, that
the present boasted restriction, which was often quoted as one great
merit of the new Government, was not worth mentioning. It is true,
this revenue was by no means ample, considering the large incumbrances
with which it was loaded. The Duke of Cumberland’s annuity (exclusive
of the parliamentary grant of twenty-five thousand pounds a year) was
fifteen thousand pounds; Princess Amalie’s, twelve thousand. The King’s
brothers were to be provided for out of it; so was a future Queen; and
the Princess Dowager’s jointure was of fifty thousand pounds a year
from the same fund. Yet, though her dower was so great--though she
reduced her family, and lived in a privacy that exceeded economy, and
though she had a third of the Dutchy of Cornwall, which produced four
thousand pounds a year more, her passion for money was so great, that
she obtained an additional annuity of ten thousand pounds a year from
her son.[33] The Electorate suffered for these exigences of the Crown.
Whatever money could be drawn from thence was sunk in the privy purse,
which was entirely under the direction of Lord Bute.
The Earl of Litchfield,[34] a leader of the Tories, was added to the
King’s Bedchamber, as the Earl of Oxford[35] and Lord Bruce[36] had
been before, with the Scotch Earls of March[37] and Eglinton.[38] The
Lord Viscount Middleton,[39] an Irish Peer, was the first who in the
House of Commons here broached a hint of jealousy against the channel
in which Court favour seemed to flow. He was ridiculed for it by
Charles Townshend; but the spirit of dissatisfaction had been infused
into the former by the Duke of Newcastle, who openly censured the
new partiality to the Tories. Partiality there was, but the grievance
came with an ill grace from Newcastle, Stone,[40] suspected for more
than a Tory, had been placed by him as preceptor to the King; Lord
Mansfield had been his bosom favourite; and to gratify that favourite,
the extension of the _Habeas Corpus_ had been prevented. To gain the
Tories had been a prudent measure, but their principles were still more
welcome to the Court than their votes. Having only votes to offer, and
neither numbers nor abilities, they brought much discredit on their
patron, and little strength to his assistance.
In Ireland the prospect was not more promising. By Poyning’s law the
Privy Council of Ireland are to transmit hither all heads of bills,
particularly of money-bills. This latter was omitted by the intrigues
of the Primate, courting popularity. The bills were sent back, with
a severe reprimand for the omission of a money-bill. Mr. Pitt alone
took up the defence of the Irish Commons, and would not sign the
message, which thirty-four others of the English Privy Council who were
present signed. The King thanked the Duke of Bedford for supporting
his prerogative, but the Privy Council of Ireland wrote angry letters
to the Duke and his minister Rigby, telling them that they must not
come into that Kingdom again. The Duke, a little before, had been
challenged even in print by a mad Lord Clanrickard,[41] whose letter
being complained of by his Grace, the Council here ordered the
Attorney-General to prosecute the Earl: Rigby,[42] too, sent him a
challenge, which he did not accept. The Lords Justices sent over a
strong remonstrance in vindication of their conduct, and there the
matter ended for the present; but in the beginning of the next year
the Lords Justices renewed the attack on their Governor, and he and
Rigby were burned in effigy. Mr. Pitt interposed, and prevailed to
have a temperate memorial sent to the Justices, arguing the point with
them, and to _that_ he offered _to set his little name_, which was
done. The Lords Justices submitted, but with threats from the Primate
of resigning his part of the government. Nor yet did they send a new
bill, but a plan for raising the money already voted. Lord Clanrickard,
in answer to Rigby’s challenge, which had been printed and dispersed
in Ireland, replied in print likewise, excusing his not appearing at
Holyhead, the appointed rendezvous, on account of the prosecution
directed against him, though the prosecution in date was subsequent to
the challenge by two months. The Earl affirmed that he had proposed to
Mr. Rigby a new place of meeting; but a year or two afterwards, on an
accidental journey of Rigby to Ireland, the Earl seemed very glad that
an interposition was made, and the quarrel accommodated. The ill-humour
of the country, however, determined the Duke of Bedford to quit the
Government, after having amply gratified his family and dependents with
pensions. The Earl of Kildare, for taking no part in these divisions,
was rewarded with a marquisate.
Foreign affairs fluctuated with their old vicissitude. The Russians
and Austrians made themselves masters of Berlin, and treated it with
more lenity than could be expected from such barbarians and incensed
enemies. But they relinquished it in a few days; and before the close
of the year the King’s fortune and arms recovered their lustre by a
signal victory, which he gained in person near Torgau, over his great
competitor in glory, Marshal Daun, who was wounded in the thigh, and
carried from the field; a circumstance that did not impeach his fame,
as the loss of the day was attributed to his absence.
Yet this victory, shining as it was, could not counterbalance the new
spirit that was gone forth in England to the disparagement of the
war. Lord Hardwicke had long distasted it; and under his countenance
had been published a Tract, setting forth the burthen and ill-policy
of our German measures. It was called _Considerations on the German
War_; was shrewdly and ably written, and had more operation in working
a change on the minds of men, than perhaps ever fell to the lot of
a pamphlet.[43] The author was one Mauduit, formerly a Dissenting
teacher, and at that time a factor at Blackwell-hall. How agreeable his
politics were to the interior of the Court, soon appeared by a place
being bestowed on him by Lord Bute. Still, however, the Favourite left
the contest to be managed by other hands; and he had acted wisely to
have adhered to that plan. A new and formidable expedition had been
preparing. Newcastle and Hardwicke had quitted the Council, because
they could not prevail to have it laid aside. Yet it was postponed for
some time. Pitt, in the House of Commons, taking notice of the pacific
spirit that he saw arising, said, “Some are for keeping Canada; some,
Guadaloupe; who will tell me which I shall be hanged for not keeping?”
On opening the ways and means for the ensuing year, George Grenville
opposed the intended tax on ale and beer; the first overt act of his
disagreement with Mr. Pitt.