Thanks of the House of Commons to Mr. Onslow, their Speaker.--
His Character.--Sir John Philipps.--Mr. Legge.--Mr. More, of
Shrewsbury.--Mr. Onslow’s retirement.--His last address to the
House.--Lord Bath’s Pamphlet.--Solicitations by France for
Peace.--Mr. Pitt disinclined to negotiate.--Expedition against
Belleisle.--Mr. Pitt’s obstinacy.--Lord Bute’s Faction.--Mr.
Pitt and the Duke of Bedford.--Negotiation for Peace.--Monsieur
de Bussy.--Mr. Stanley.--Death of Archibald Duke of Argyle,
and of Hoadley, Bishop of Winchester.--Character of those
Personages.--Their Successors.
The last day of the session, March 18th, was fixed for returning the
thanks of the House of Commons to Mr. Onslow, their Speaker, who had
filled the chair with unblemished integrity during the whole long reign
of George the Second, and who had the prudence to quit the scene before
his years and growing infirmities made him a burthen to himself and the
public.[80] No man had ever supported with more firmness the privileges
of the House, nor sustained the dignity of his office with more
authority. His knowledge of the Constitution equalled his attachment to
it. To the Crown he behaved with all the decorum of respect, without
sacrificing his freedom of speech. Against encroachments of the House
of Peers he was an inflexible champion. His disinterested virtue
supported him through all his pretensions; and though to conciliate
popular favour he affected an impartiality that by turns led him to the
borders of insincerity and contradiction--and though he was so minutely
attached to forms, that it often made him troublesome in affairs of
higher moment, it will be difficult to find a subject whom gravity will
so well become, whose knowledge will be so useful and so accurate, and
whose fidelity to his trust will prove so unshaken.
Sir John Philipps[81] moved the address of thanks to him for his great
services, but so wretchedly, that the sensibility the House showed on
the occasion flowed only from their hearts, not from any impression
made on them by the eloquence of their spokesman. Legge seconded the
motion with his usual propriety and brevity, and _commended retreat_,
God knows with what sincerity! Others threw in their word of panegyric;
and Mr. More, of Shrewsbury, an old and acute member, proposed to erect
a statue to the Speaker’s memory, with great encomiums on the authority
with which he had formerly kept in order such men as then filled the
Treasury-bench and composed the Opposition, naming among the former Sir
Robert Walpole and Mr. Pelham, the latter of whom, he said, had the
honour of dying a Commoner. More was a Whig of the primitive stamp,
and though attached to Sir Robert Walpole, had withstood, and by the
force of his honest abilities had defeated, the intended clemency of
that Minister to some attainted Jacobite families with respect to their
estates. He had long abstained from Parliament, returned to it without
his former success, and now appeared there for the last time.
Henry Archer[82] proposed to address the Crown to bestow a pecuniary
reward on the Speaker’s services. Sir John Philipps replied, he knew
that was intended; as it was; an annuity of two thousand pounds a
year to him and his son. Sir George Saville approved the reward, but
desired the Commons, not the Crown, might have the merit of bestowing
it. Velters Cornwall made one of his absurd, ill-natured speeches,
which the House was always so kind as to take for humour, teazing
the Speaker under pretence of complimenting him; while the good old
man sat overpowered with gratitude, and weeping over the testimonies
borne to his virtue. He rose at last, and closed his public life in
the most becoming manner; neither over-acting modesty, nor checking
the tender sensibility which he necessarily felt at quitting the
darling occupation of his life. His thanks to the House for their
patient sufferance of his errors, and for their gracious acceptance of
his endeavours to serve them, were shortly, but cogently, expressed;
and his voice, and the tears he could not restrain, spoke still more
forcibly how much his soul was agitated by laudable emotions. He
begged to have the address spared, as he would accept nothing for
himself, though he would not prejudice his family. He was going, he
said, into the most close and obscure retreat, where he should want
little; and he concluded with a pathetic prayer for the perpetuity
of the Constitution. Sir John Philipps desired that what he had
uttered might be inserted in the votes. The Speaker protested he
could not remember his own words, but the House insisted, as Cornwall
and Sir George Saville did on the address, to which the Speaker at
last acquiesced, and it was voted. He ended with saying this was the
greatest day and the greatest honours ever known, for they could only
be conferred by a free nation.[83]
The next day the Parliament was prorogued, then dissolved, and a new
one chosen.
In this month was published a pamphlet called “Seasonable Hints from
an Honest Man on the present Crisis.” The author, and some of the
doctrines it broached--not any merit in the composition--make it
memorable. It was written by Lord Bath,[84] who having surprised the
King into a promise of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Shropshire, was opposed
by the Duke of Newcastle, who supported Lord Powis.[85] The pamphlet,
therefore, warmly attacked his Grace, taxed him with his cabals
and resignation in the last rebellion, and it defended the measure
of admitting the Tories to a participation of power. In general,
the language of the pamphlet was that of the Court, who conducted
themselves by the advice bequeathed by Lord Bolingbroke, who had, and
with truth, assured the late Prince of Wales, that the Tories would
be the heartiest in the support of prerogative. The censure passed on
pensions was not equally flattering to the Court, the new reign having
already bestowed them profusely. Yet much the book vaunted the King’s
declaration against corruption in elections, which had gone no farther
than to undermine the Duke of Newcastle’s influence. The private Junto
was impatient to conclude the peace, that they might prosecute the
intended war on the old ministry at home, the established harmony
being solely produced by the war, as had often been the case at Rome.
A few pedantic examples were the sum of Lord Bute’s knowledge; yet his
partizans affected to celebrate the care he had taken of the King’s
education. A well-founded panegyric on a man who was deficient in the
orthography of his own language! The King had had able preceptors: the
Bishop of Norwich[86] was a scholar; the Bishop of Salisbury[87] not
deficient. Stone and Scott had taste and knowledge. Lord Waldegrave,
for forming a King, was not to be matched. It proved, indeed, that his
Majesty had learned nothing, but what a man, who knew nothing, could
teach him.
About the end of March, France renewed the most pressing solicitations
for peace. They frankly avowed the distress of their affairs; for
they did not apprehend hard-heartedness in the new Court. Augsburgh
they proposed for the place of congress, or any other town the King
should name, professing they would treat _vis-à-vis du Roi de la Grande
Brétagne_; for which purpose they offered to send a minister hither,
where, too, might be one from the King of Prussia: the ministers of
_their_ allies should assemble at Paris. The two Empresses, they said,
were grown more moderate in their demands; and for their own part, they
talked of yielding to us all Canada. So much ear was given to these
overtures, that the Earl of Egremont[88] and Sir Joseph Yorke[89] were
named to go to the Congress. But so little was this measure to the
inclination of Mr. Pitt, that he prosecuted with unusual warmth an
expedition he had meditated against Belleisle; a conquest of so little
value, and so inadequate to the expense with which it was attended,
that the plan was by many believed calculated solely to provoke the
Court of France, and break off the negotiation. France was more
surprised than concerned at this attack. Sir Edward Hawke had lain
before it for two years, when there were not five hundred men on the
island, without attempting it. Now they had had time to fortify it,
we persisted in the conquest. Both Hawke and Boscawen[90] earnestly
dissuaded the enterprise. Yet Pitt was obdurate; and the island was
taken at last by the beginning of June, after an enormous waste of
money, and the loss of some men. There fell Sir William Williams, a
gallant and ambitious young man, who had devoted himself both to war
and politics. The island is a barren rock; and it was only to humour
Mr. Pitt, that France, in the succeeding negotiations, condescended to
treat it as an object of the smallest importance.
The indecent and injudicious precipitation with which the Favourite’s
faction hurried towards peace, justified any steadiness Mr. Pitt
could exert to keep the balance where he had placed it, in our own
hands. Newcastle and Hardwicke, either not perceiving the symptoms
of their own fall, or hoping to ward off the evil hour, truckled to
the Favourite’s views. The Duke of Bedford (who in his heart admired
Pitt, but was made to hate him by Rigby, at the instigation of Fox,
and inflamed by the coldness with which Pitt had listened to the
representations made by his Grace, on the opposition to him in Ireland)
was, avowedly, pacific; and all of them seemed united against the
warlike minister. Lord Talbot went so far as to press the dismission
of him. But it was Lord Bute’s nature to provoke first, before he
offended. Gallitzin, the Russian minister, was reprimanded by him for
carrying the proposition of peace to Mr. Pitt, instead of to him;
though it had been usual, while Lord Holderness held the Seals, for
the foreign ministers in his department to address themselves to the
effective minister. Mr. Pitt’s temper, soured by these associations
and contradictions, broke out first against the Duke of Newcastle. At
a great council held on the 23rd of April, Mr. Pitt, who had been wont
to affirm, that too much could not be spent on the war in Germany,
made severe complaint of the extravagance in the management of it; and
imputed it to the fault of our commissaries, that Prince Ferdinand had
been disabled from making greater progress there. Himself, he said,
within six months, would move for an inquiry into the conduct of the
war. The Duke of Bedford took up the contrary side with warmth, and
made a speech that was much admired; and so little attention was paid
to the views of Mr. Pitt, that it was settled Mr. Stanley[91] and
Monsieur de Bussy should be exchanged to conduct the negotiation. Bussy
was an Abbé of parts, who had formerly resided here as minister,[92]
and had given much offence to the late King whom he treated so
impertinently, that the King, asking him one day in the circle, “Ce
qu’il y avoit de nouveau à Paris?” Bussy replied with contemptuous
familiarity, “Sire, il y gêle.” He had again been imposed on that
Prince, when the French dictated to him a neutrality for Hanover. Bussy
was not likely to be so presumptuous now. Yet France, trusting to our
pusillanimous impatience for peace, had the confidence to demand, that
the man-of-war that carried over Stanley should bring back Bussy.
But Mr. Pitt was yet minister; the proposal was rejected; and it was
settled that Stanley and Bussy should be at Dover and Calais on the
22nd.
Before the departure of Stanley, it was agitated in Council, whether he
should be entrusted with full powers. Mr. Pitt, who had named Stanley
from opinion of his abilities, though at that time disunited from him
and gone over to Newcastle, confided in this nomination, and thought it
would leave himself master of the negotiation, if Stanley, who by being
at Paris was in his department, were charged with conclusive powers;
for which, therefore, Pitt and Lord Temple pleaded. But Bute, and the
rest of the Council, who chose not to let the negotiation pass out of
their own hands, prevailed to have Stanley’s instructions limited.
During these discussions died two considerable men, Archibald Duke
of Argyle, and Hoadley Bishop of Winchester. The character of
the former[93] has been sufficiently set forth in my preceding
Memoirs. The last will be known by his writings, and as long as a
Churchman, combating for the liberties of mankind, shall be an unusual
phenomenon.[94] Argyle had the lowest opinion of his nephew, Lord
Bute, who he had foretold would rush into power without having formed
a plan. The nephew had in truth too little capacity, and too much
presumption, to let himself be guided by so shrewd a relation, though
the uncle would not have been obdurate if proper deference had been
paid to his oracle. The last effort of this great Lord’s power in
Scotland had miscarried. The city of Edinburgh had recurred, as usual,
to his nomination for the election of their representative; that is,
of thirty-three electors, twenty-two still acknowledged their ancient
dictator. He named Forester, an able Scottish counsellor, but always
resident in England. Six days before the election such violent papers
were dispersed against Forester, as too much an Englishman, that the
City did not dare to put him in nomination, but were forced to choose
their own Provost. How much did Scotland afterwards resent parallel
nationalities, when exercised against them!
The Marquis of Tweedale[95] succeeded the Duke of Argyle, as Chief
Justiciary; and Bishop Thomas, of Salisbury, the King’s former
preceptor, was made Bishop of Winchester. Drummond,[96] of St. Asaph,
whom Newcastle had destined to Winchester, succeeded. Thomas Earl
Powis was made Comptroller of the Household on the death of Lord
Edgcumbe.[97]