Fuentes, the Spanish Ambassador, quits England.--Return of Lord
Bristol from Madrid.--War declared against Spain.--Projects
of Lord Bute, Mr. Fox, and the Duke of Cumberland.--The Duke
of Bedford.--Mr. Pitt’s influence with the Nation.--Divisions
in the Council respecting the War with Spain.--Expedition to
the Havannah.--Meeting of Parliament.--Lord Bute’s harangue.--
Mr. Pitt’s Speech in the House of Commons.--Rigby’s attempt to
show the inutility of our Conquests.--Other Speakers in the
Debate.--Pacific Disposition of the new Czar.--Court Intrigues
in France against Marshal Broglio and his Brother.--Prejudices
and resentments of the Tories.--Preponderating Influence and
Haughtiness of Lord Bute.--The Duke of York’s contempt of Lord
Bute and the Scotch.--Proceedings in the Parliament of Ireland.--
Lord Halifax.--William Gerard Hamilton.--Bill for continuing the
Militia.
On the first day of the year Fuentes, the Spanish ambassador, quitted
England, and was received at Calais, and all the way to Paris, with
distinguished honours, as the saviour of France. He was a dull cold
man, and wedded to all the weakness of his religion.[156] Lord
Bristol,[157] a very Spaniard too in formality and pride, was recalled
at the same time. His abilities had never been esteemed, and were now
much called in question; but the publication of his negotiations did
him much honour. Though he stooped to be the tool of Mr. Pitt, he
had not disliked to receive instructions that authorized him to be
imperious. His very parsimony gave way to any ostentation about his own
person.
On the second, the King, in full council, declared his resolution of
making war on Spain: for the ministers, who had driven out Mr. Pitt,
rather than embrace this necessary measure, were reduced to adopt it
at the expense of vindicating him and condemning themselves; and,
what was worse to the nation than their shame, had not him, nor his
spirit, to conduct them. Nor yet were they unanimous on this point,
or on any other part of the war. Lord Bute’s object was, peace at any
rate, that he might pursue his plans of power at home. Fox aimed at
the destruction of Pitt, and at favour with and through the Favourite,
to which he sacrificed his views of wealth, as Paymaster, in the
German war. The Duke of Cumberland, who was now rather openly, than
confidentially, consulted, was inclined to support the German war;
either from partiality to the Electorate, or hoping to command there
in the room of Prince Ferdinand. His Royal Highness was reconciled to
the Duke of Newcastle, who, to please the Duke and Lady Yarmouth,[158]
fluctuated again towards the war in Germany, though he could not lead
back his friend Lord Hardwicke[159] to that side. The bias too had been
too strongly given to the Duke of Bedford, who declared he would move
in Parliament to recall our troops from Germany. Lord Bute, fearing
the Duke would gain too great popularity by this conduct, and inclined
enough to heap any mortifications on the King of Prussia and the House
of Brunswick, took the same side; but was persuaded, as the money was
already voted and the contracts made, to suffer the troops to make one
more campaign there. The Duke of Bedford was assured by the King, that
measures would be taken for recalling the troops, without recurring to
the authority of Parliament. Yet so much did they dread the effects
of Mr. Pitt’s influence with the nation, and of their own unpopular
measures, that they agreed to give the King of Prussia his subsidy
for another year, but would not renew the treaty with him, which now
expired.
They were still more divided and embarrassed on the war with Spain.
Unavoidable as it was, the Dukes of Newcastle and Bedford, Lord
Hardwicke and Lord Mansfield,[160] were against engaging in it; and
Hardwicke, when the affirmative was decided, declared he would return
no more to Council. But Lord Bute, Lord Granville,[161] Lord Egremont,
George Grenville, and, I think, Lord Ligonier, prevailed for the
declaration of war. Lord Anson[162] was ill, and the Duke of Devonshire
out of town.
Yet, though the war with Spain was a popular measure, the City and the
country had so mean an opinion of those who were to direct it, that the
stocks immediately fell to 66½, though in the Rebellion they had never
been lower than 72. The declaration from Spain luckily arrived three
days after the first subscription on the new loan had been paid--yet it
sunk four per cent.--three days sooner, and it would not have been paid
at all.
On the 4th, war was declared. The next day came news of the reduction
of Colberg, almost the last hope of the King of Prussia. Nor yet
were the Ministers ready to decide, whether they would blow up the
fortifications of Belleisle and abandon it, or whether they should
undertake to support Portugal. They determined first to send Lord
Tyrawley[163] thither, while Lord Albemarle[164] kissed the King’s hand
for the command of the expedition, which was so often set forth and so
often countermanded, and which at last laboured to sea. It was to take
up troops at Martinico, and thence sail to attack the Havannah.
On the 19th the Parliament met, and the King acquainted both Houses
with the new war he had undertaken; a ceremonial decorated by the
Favourite himself, who, as if he had wrenched the thunderbolt out of
Mr. Pitt’s hands only to wield it himself with mightier vigour, now
harangued the Parliament for the first time. Every preparative of pomp,
attitude, and lofty language were called in to make him worthy of
himself. His admirers were in ecstacies; the few that dared to sneer
at his theatric fustian, did not find it quite so ridiculous as they
wished. It was enough for the former that their god was not dumb, and
there was no danger that he would familiarize himself too often with
the multitude. He affected to adopt parliamentary measures, and to
wish that all the negotiations with Spain might be laid before them;
graciously promising to beseech the King that not only papers might
be produced, but that the Cabinet-councillors themselves might be
permitted to divulge the opinions they had given. This was a puny piece
of chicane, the Ministers endeavouring to prove that the hostilities
of Spain were subsequent in date to the period in which Mr. Pitt found
it advisable from their conduct to attack the Spaniards. He had early
detected their league with France, and was not of a humour to weigh
dates against facts, or memorials against combinations. Nor Hardwicke’s
forms nor Mansfield’s subtleties could persuade the seeing part of
mankind that a war at our doors ought to be treated with the same
literal circumspection as an action of trespass or battery at common
law.
Mr. Pitt himself, in the House of Commons, with much seeming modesty,
assumed the honour that was due to his intelligence and foresight;
and by disclaiming any triumph on the necessity into which the
ministers had fallen of making war, asserted the right, to which his
counsels had entitled him, of having pointed out the moment when
the war ought to have commenced--a moment, lost by his enemies,
without the benefit of having warded off the war with Spain. Lord
North,[165] who seconded the address of thanks for the King’s speech,
had injudiciously furnished Pitt with an opportunity of vindicating
his measures, calling him an abdicated minister, and violently taxing
him with a fondness for new hostilities. Nothing could be more cool
or artful than Pitt’s reply. It was all panegyric; all gratitude for
his Majesty’s resentment of Spain’s provoking conduct, and for the
_caution_ with which he promised to engage in so large a war. In his
own particular situation, he might be supposed not to like such firm,
and yet such _cautious_ measures--but he did; he heartily thanked the
ministers for their _caution_; and meaned to conciliate unanimity,
which he hoped would spread from one end of the island to the other.
Himself for five years had laboured successfully--but he did not mean
to pride himself that way--yet he had proved not to have been so much
in the wrong as his enemies had thought; and, however Lord North had
disparaged his intelligence, activity, and discernment, he hoped his
successors would not be endowed with worse or less; and that the
people would place confidence in the administration, whose large and
wide-spread connections must be followed by confidence and favour. A
poor individual like himself could have no such favour and following!
He should easily have been blamed, if any slip had appeared in his
conduct. _Now_ it must be the King--it must be the Administration,
the Parliament, nation, army, and navy, who were to carry on the war;
and he prayed to God it might all be enough! Yet he thought us equal
to the whole. However, he had not sought the Spanish war; and if it
were not too much for a poor individual, _for an abdicated Minister_,
to say, he hoped it would appear, that for five years together he had
made much political court to Spain, and great persons had concurred
with him in those counsels. The sacrifices he had offered would show
how much he and they had been in the right; and that he had not been
so haughty as was represented in rejecting Bussy’s memorial. He would
never call for the papers which would exemplify the temper he had used
towards Spain. If his Majesty should think they would satisfy the
nation, would satisfy Europe, he knew he should appear to have had the
unanimous approbation of the whole Cabinet to several of the papers
he had sent to Spain. But what imported it what one man or another
had thought three months before? Since that era he had received such
public marks of Royal approbation, together with a pension and peerage
(for his wife), as few individuals could boast. The moment was come
when every man ought to _show himself_ for the whole. I do, said he,
cruelly as I have been treated in pamphlets and libels. Arm the whole!
Be one people! This war, though it has cut deep into our pecuniary,
had augmented our military faculties. Set that against the debt,
that spirit which has made us what we are. Forget everything but the
public!--for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities.
Grenville told him he would have his wish: orders were given for laying
before the House all the papers from the time of Bussy’s memorial. “I
have no wish for their coming,” replied Pitt, “If for the benefit of
his Majesty’s affairs, let them come; and if they do come, shall it be
with no farther retrospect than Bussy’s memorial? How condescending is
the boon! how futile! how unsatisfactory!”
Yet notwithstanding their affected alacrity for war on this occasion,
the new Ministers took every opportunity of raising disgust in the
nation against the late measures. Rigby, at the instigation of Fox,
moved that Colonel Boyd should lay before the House of Commons the
muster-roll of the Hessians, on whom he threw out many reflections,
and affirmed that 9000 men were wanting out of the 22,000 which they
ought to furnish. He said the muster-rolls of our mercenaries were not
returned to the office of the Secretary at War; and complained that not
a single order was gone to recruit the army in Germany, which ought
to amount to 96,000 men. He hoped Prince Ferdinand would be allowed
to give no more orders to British troops. He pretended to approve the
declaration against Spain, but then endeavoured to show that we were
unequal to a new war. It required, he said, 38,000 men to garrison our
conquests; and yet those garrisons fell short by 11,000 men. Belleisle
alone had cost near half a million; yet what did it furnish but sprats
and little cows? Canada gave us only furs; yet hats were not become
cheaper; nor were sugar or rum fallen by the acquisition of _opulent_
Guadaloupe; nor negroes by the conquest of Goree; gum was the only
commodity reduced. For Louisbourg, he hoped the fortifications would
be blown up. The enemy was hurt, but were we enriched, except from
the successes in the East Indies? He wished, in short, not to keep
our conquests, and to put an end to a ruinous war, in which we had no
allies but mercenaries.
Charles Townshend took the same key, and said it had been fortunate, if
our apprehension of Spain had driven us to make peace with France. He
feared we should sink from a dream of ambition to a state of bankruptcy.
Stanley maintained that France had been in earnest in the negotiation,
but had been buoyed up by the ambition and revenge of Spain. Was France
so weak, and yet not in earnest? The object of his own labours had been
to keep France divided from Spain, and with that view England had
offered to yield more than she had asked in return. This was a strong
vindication of Mr. Pitt’s conduct, and from a competent witness.
Grenville, in answer to Beckford, said, he would pawn his life that no
assurances had been given to the City that there would be no Spanish
war. Thomas Walpole[166] replied, that he had never been told from the
Treasury that there would not be war with Spain; yet he would say, that
had the City apprehended it, they would not have lent their money so
easily. The Hessian papers were ordered to lie on the table.
In prosecution of the same hostilities to Pitt, the Duke of Bedford,
resisting the most earnest entreaties of the Duke of Cumberland, and
even without the approbation of the Court, determined to make his
motion, which, however, he softened from a proposal of recalling the
troops from Germany, into a resolution of the ruinous impracticability
of carrying on the war. He might as decently have termed it an
exhortation to Spain not to dread our arms. Lord Bute, to show the
Court did not countenance so gross a measure, moved the previous
question, and was supported by Newcastle, Melcomb, and Denbigh. Lord
Temple of course opposed the Duke of Bedford. The Lords Shelburne,
Pomfret, and Talbot spoke for the motion; but the previous question was
carried by 105 to 16, which latter were the friends of Bedford and Fox.
Six or seven even protested.
In the course of the debate Lord Bute dropped hints of important good
news, which he had received that very morning. It was supposed to mean
the pacific disposition of the new Czar. Elizabeth, his aunt, was just
dead, and Peter the Third had mounted the Russian throne. So far from
inheriting her animosity to the King of Prussia, the young Emperor was
his enthusiastic admirer, and more likely to war under his banners than
to continue to overwhelm him with torrents of barbarians.
The Duke of Bedford receiving such a rebuff from the Lords, the
faction dropped the design of renewing the motion in the Commons, the
consequence having been a side-wind of approbation to Mr. Pitt, and
almost applause to Lord Bute for taking up the military spirit--an
approbation the latter did not wish to receive, nor intend to merit.
However, 5000 men were ordered for Portugal, and the command destined
to Lord Tyrawley. Lord Albemarle too, and his brothers, Commodore and
Colonel Keppel,[167] set out for Portsmouth on the expedition to the
Havannah; but they did not sail till the beginning of March. Lord
Tyrawley went to Lisbon at the same time, whither M. Dunn, or Odunn,
who had married a daughter of Parsons,[168] a famous Jacobite alderman
in the last reign, was dispatched from Versailles to traverse his
negotiations.
Dr. Osbaldiston,[169] the aged Bishop of Carlisle, was translated to
the See of London, on the death of Bishop Hayter; and was succeeded by
Lyttelton,[170] Dean of Exeter.
In France, Marshal Broglio, and his brother, the Count, were
disgraced by Court intrigues. They were the best, and almost only
successful officers in the French service. The marshal[171] was a mere
disciplinarian, of no parts. The Count[172] was lively, and earnest to
inform himself; and by being quicker than his brother, with not much
better parts, was only more likely to be in the wrong: but they were
both men of strict honour. Having presented a memorial against the
Prince of Soubize, in which they attacked Stainville, brother of the
Duke of Choiseul, the latter, who possessed the favour of Madame de
Pompadour, procured the marshal and his brother to be banished to their
country-seats.
The Tories, triumphing in the partiality of the Court, and rather
offended than alarmed at the jealousy with which they were beheld by
the Whigs, who in power, property, and credit were beyond comparison
the preponderating part of the nation, took every occasion of
displaying their old prejudices and resentments. On every contested
election they acted in a body against the old Whigs, or later converts,
however attached to the Court. Thus they exerted all their interest
against Lord Gower[173] and Lord Orford[174] on election-causes, and
against the Duke of Bridgwater[175] and Lord Strange, on a bill for
a new northern navigation--points, on every one of which the Tories
were rancorous and unsuccessful. Nor was Scotland wiser. One Haldane
had stood for Bridport, lost it, and petitioned. Sir Henry Erskine,
a creature of the Favourite, had the indecency and folly to call the
English party in the House of Commons _a profligate majority_; an
offence not forgotten, though the Scots were beaten by three to one.
The inconsiderable number that in either House of Parliament adhered
to Mr. Pitt, and the almost universal acquiescence to the Favourite’s
influence, persuaded both him and his dependents, that they had but to
give the tone, and prerogative would master all opposition. Nor did
his partisans do more than was practised by the Favourite himself. If
they insulted the nation, he ruled the Court with a rod of iron. The
Queen, her brother, and the brothers of the King, were taught to feel
their total want of credit. The Duke of York, as Lord Anson was dying,
ambitioned the post of Lord High Admiral, but did not dare even to ask
it. Prince William,[176] the favourite brother of the King, wished
also to be employed abroad, and ordered Legrand,[177] his governor, to
solicit Lord Bute for a command. The haughty Earl treated Legrand with
scurrilous language for putting such things into the Prince’s head. The
Duke of York, who, though the elder, was by far the more indiscreet of
the brothers, openly expressed his resentment and contempt of Lord Bute
and the Scotch; and as a mark of disobedience, went to a hunting party
at the Duke of Richmond’s, to which he had been invited with the Prince
of Mecklenburg; but the latter was not suffered to go to a disaffected
house in disaffected company.
But while inactivity reigned in the Parliament of England, that of
Ireland was not idle. Lord Halifax,[178] their new Lord-Lieutenant,
was, like most of his predecessors very popular at first. They voted
him an additional salary of four thousand pounds a year. He had the
decency, though very necessitous, not to accept it for himself, but
desired it might be settled on his successors. The House of Commons,
however, would not wait till it should take place, to pay themselves,
but passed a vote to make their Parliaments, which existed during the
life of each King, septennial. The party attached to the Castle[179]
voted for it, concluding it would be thrown out by the Lords. The
Lords, as provident for their popularity, thinking it would be rejected
in England, passed it likewise. It was rejected here, but not without
much disposition in some of the Council to have it granted. Lord
Hilsborough,[180] who had great weight with Lord Halifax, stayed with
him in Dublin, and openly made war on the Primate;[181] while William
Gerard Hamilton,[182] the Secretary, gained such applause in that
Parliament, that a motion for augmenting the troops was carried by the
sole power of his eloquence.
March 19th, the bill for continuing the militia for seven years was
passed by the House of Commons in England; and the counties, that had
not raised theirs, were ordered to pay five pounds a man. This was
settled by a compromise, lest a longer term should be insisted on. Its
own friends were sick of it, and had clogged it with many clauses, in
hopes it would be rejected by their opponents. But the Ministers would
not risk the unpopularity of a negative, and were even afraid to part
with so large a body of men.