Conference between the Duke of Cumberland and Mr. Pitt.--Pitt’s
lofty style and inconclusive manner.--Want of union in the
Opposition.--Anxiety of the Ministers.--Debates in both Houses
on the Preliminaries of Peace.--Sudden and unexpected appearance
of Mr. Pitt.--Legge, Fox, and Beckford.--Prerogative.--Pitt’s
Speech.--His retirement from the House when Fox rose to speak.--
Speech of the latter.--Charles Townshend’s versatility.--The
Minority on the Division.--Exultation of the Princess of Wales on
the Preliminaries being carried.--Severe political persecution.--
Numerous dismissals from place.
The rupture between the Duke of Cumberland and Fox seemed naturally to
pave the way for a connection between that Prince and Mr. Pitt. They
accordingly met, and had a conference of four hours; but there their
amity commenced and ended. The good sense of his Royal Highness could,
in spite of all his haughtiness, make him bend properly. Pitt, having
less good sense than parts, and affecting more haughtiness even than
he possessed, and being full of schemes rather than plans, could not
be brought to any rational system. Meaning to make use of the Prince
but to a certain degree,--that is, to thwart the Court, or to give it
jealousy, not to erect the Duke as head of a party,--he talked in his
usual vague and inconclusive manner; his nearest friends having often
said, that between the uncommunicativeness of his temper and the want
of suite in his reasoning faculties, it was ever impossible to pin him
down to any chain of definite propositions.
This the Duke experienced, and combated in vain. All he could draw from
Pitt was, a positive demand that the peace should be opposed by the now
forming party. Yet would he not submit to see the Duke of Newcastle;
though, in his lofty style, he said he would accept of the Duke of
Cumberland’s guarantee of Newcastle’s fidelity. It was difficult for
the chiefs to coalesce: Lord Hardwicke had publicly commended the
preliminaries; and though he had rejected large offers made to his son,
Charles Yorke, he and his friends knew not decently how to fly to Mr.
Pitt’s banner, which they had so lately levelled. This want of union in
the Opposition gave all the remaining advantage to the administration
that they yet wanted. Mr. Pitt affected to be a chief without a party,
and the party without him had no other chief; for Newcastle was worse
than none, and the Duke of Cumberland had too much deference for the
Crown, and was too much above courting the people, to be fit to figure
as a ringleader.
In this temper of things did the Parliament meet November 25th. Lord
Egmont and Lord Weymouth[274] moved the Address in the Lords, where
there was no opposition: Lord Carysfort[275] and Lord Charles Spencer
in the Commons. Nicholson Calvert made a warm speech against the
peace, and was answered by Birt, who gave Mr. Pitt the honour of the
first plan for taking Martinico. Beckford was yet more violent against
the treaty; and compared Florida, which was to be ceded to us, for
barrenness to Bagshot Heath. Charles Townshend made a trimming speech,
though very personal against Beckford, and the day ended without a
division; Mr. Pitt being confined at home with the gout. Without doors
the scene was more turbulent: the Favourite was assaulted in his chair
by a formidable mob, and had not the Guards arrived opportunely, would
hardly have escaped with life.
On the 30th of the month the preliminaries were laid before both
Houses, who were acquainted that the King had ordered them to be
printed and distributed to the members on the morrow. The Duke of
Grafton in the Lords, Calvert and Bamber Gascoyne in the Commons,
objected to this; it being usual for the two Houses to give the
orders for printing papers communicated to them; but the first method
was acquiesced in, and the Lords resolved to take the papers into
consideration on the Thursday sevennight following. Lord Pomfret[276]
moved to order the high bailiff of Westminster to attend, to give
an account why he had taken no measures to disperse the mob on the
first day of the session. At the same time the ministers endeavoured,
by money and threats, to silence or intimidate the printers of
newspapers, libels, and satiric prints, and succeeded with a great
number.
On the 1st of December, Calvert moved to defer considering the
preliminaries till the Thursday sevennight following, as Mr. Pitt
was not able to attend; but the ministers, and for that very reason,
insisted on bringing them on upon the same day with the Lords, and
carried their motion by 213 to 74; so unpromising was this outset
of the new Opposition, in which appeared the families of Cavendish,
Fitzroy, and Townshend.
The memorable day, December 9th, being arrived, both Houses sat on
the preliminaries. Lord Shelburne and Lord Grosvenor moved to approve
them. The Duke of Grafton, with great weight and greater warmth,
attacked them severely, and, looking full on Lord Bute, imputed to
him corruption and worse arts. The Duke was answered by the Earl of
Suffolk; and then Lord Temple spoke with less than usual warmth. The
Favourite rose next, and defended himself with applause, having laid
aside much of his former pomp. He treated the Duke of Grafton as a
juvenile member, whose imputations he despised; and, for the Peace,
he desired to have written on his tomb, “Here lies the Earl of Bute,
who, in concert with the King’s ministers, made the Peace.” A sentence
often re-echoed with the ridicule it deserved, and more likely to be
engraven on his monument with ignominy than approbation. The Duke of
Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke censured the preliminaries, which the
latter said were worse than could have been obtained the last year;
and he reflected on the assiduity with which prerogative was cried up,
more than it had been by the most ductile Parliaments. Henley the
Chancellor abused them both: but the fine defence of the treaty was
made by Lord Mansfield, which, he said, though he had concurred to
make, he should still retain his old connections and attachments; a
promise he soon violated, with as little decency as his late friends
had censured prerogative. At ten at night the preliminaries were
approved by the Lords without a division.
But it was the other House on which expectation hung. The very
uncertainty whether Mr. Pitt’s health would allow him to attend,
concurred to augment the impatience of the public on so serious a
crisis. The Court, it was true, had purchased an effective number of
votes to ratify their treaty; but, could Mr. Pitt appear, he might
so expose the negotiation, and give breath to such a flame, that the
ministers could not but be anxious till the day was decided, and they
knew all that they had to apprehend from Mr. Pitt. Their hopes grew
brighter as the debate began, and he did not appear. The probability of
his absence augmented as Beckford proposed to refer the preliminaries
to a committee of the whole House; a measure that seemed calculated
to gain time, and that was seconded by James Grenville, who told the
courtiers that it did not look as if they were very desirous of praise,
so eager were they to hurry through the question. The demand was
opposed by Ellis, Sir Francis Dashwood, and Harris of Salisbury, when
the House was alarmed by a shout from without! The doors opened, and
at the head of a large acclaiming concourse was seen Mr. Pitt, borne
in the arms of his servants, who, setting him down within the bar, he
crawled by the help of a crutch, and with the assistance of some few
friends, to his seat; not without the sneers of some of Fox’s party. In
truth, there was a mixture of the very solemn and the theatric in this
apparition. The moment was so well timed, the importance of the man and
his services, the languor of his emaciated countenance, and the study
bestowed on his dress, were circumstances that struck solemnity into
a patriot mind, and did a little furnish ridicule to the hardened and
insensible. He was dressed in black velvet, his legs and thighs wrapped
in flannel, his feet covered with buskins of black cloth, and his hands
with thick gloves. He said a few words in support of the motion for
sending the preliminaries to a committee; not in order to give time for
raising animosities, but as it was for the dignity of the King and the
country to weigh them maturely. Parts of the treaty, he confessed were,
beyond his expectation, good; but his mind was wounded by what regarded
our trade and our allies. He wished for a committee, that he might
call merchants to the bar to state the importance of what we were to
keep, of what we were to give away. He would be convinced we were doing
right, or he would _inflexibly arraign_. Legge said, he should cavil
less than most men, but could not bestow approbation in the lump. Fox
answered as briefly, that nothing could ever be finished, if perfection
was insisted on. Beckford replied, that the House was as insignificant
as a parliament of Paris, if treaties were not laid before them for
advice, but only for approbation; and he and Calvert laid themselves
out on the defence made by the ministers, that it was the King’s
prerogative to conclude peace or war; and, indeed, no occasion was
lost of sounding high any branch of prerogative.
The Opposition not choosing to risk a division on the Committee,
Harris, mentioned above, who was afterwards made one of the Lords of
the Treasury, moved roundly to approve the preliminaries, with the
addition of words acknowledging the prerogative in question. Had the
treaty been glorious or salutary, there is no doubt but the prerogative
would not have been called in aid; a proof how distinct are prerogative
and the welfare of the nation. This Harris had written some abstruse
books on language, and possessed a good share of reputation within
a certain sphere. Lord Ilchester and Fox had brought him forth, and
thought to make him a man of business, but he made only a very pliant
courtier and wretched orator; and in the end, attaching himself to
George Grenville, closed with all his arbitrary measures, and fell with
him, with no other blemish on his character than of having thought too
much as a scholar, and too little as a senator.[277] In his motion
of approbation he said, “Peace was not made for the emolument of one
country, but of many;” a truth so home, and that recoiled so forcibly
on him, that it was the very reason why this country, for whose
emolument it was _not_ made, ought not to have honoured it with its
acceptance.
Stanley spoke well and handsomely in defence of the treaty; and then
Mr. Pitt rose. His speech it would be difficult to detail; it lasted
three hours and twenty-five minutes, and was uttered in so low and
faint a voice that it was almost impossible to hear him. At intervals
he obtained the permission of the House to speak sitting, a permission
he did not abuse; supporting himself with cordials, and having the
appearance of a man determined to die in that cause and at that hour.
This faintness and the prolixity with which he dwelt on the article of
the fisheries, gave a handle to the courtiers to represent his speech
as unmeasurably dull, tedious, and uninteresting. But it contained
considerable matter, much reason, and some parts of great beauty:--but
thunder was wanting to blast such a treaty, and this was not a day on
which his genius thundered! His health or his choice had led him to
present himself as a subject of affliction to his country, and his
ungrateful country was not afflicted.
Some passages of his speech I shall mention, though, for the reasons
I have hinted at, and for that I sat at a great distance, I could but
very imperfectly collect what he said. He allowed the prerogative of
the Crown in making peace or war, though something he saw squint at
what would subvert the liberties of this country; and, although such
prerogative there was, still was it gracious to lay the Treaty before
Parliament. The Crown might finally sign the Treaty; but at the same
time it was a fundamental right of the House of Commons to offer their
opinion. If this was not the question confessed, he would stop the
debate to insert in these words, _as it is also the indubitable and
fundamental right of Parliament to offer advice_. From this he launched
out on _this venerable, this lovely Constitution_, and referred to
the journals to show what answers were made by Parliament to James
the First and Charles the Second; particularly to the unkingly and
unconstitutional messages of the former, as when he bade them not
meddle beyond their province, with a _ne sutor ultra crepidam_. He
hoped we had no new cobbler of this old Constitution, and (looking at
Fox) if we had, that man should not stand unaccused, unarraigned. With
regard to the peace, it could not be called a question of humanity,
for one campaign more might have prevented seven hereafter. In all
other wars our commerce had been interrupted; in this alone, increased;
and in respect of commerce, four of the best provinces in old France
were not worth the acquisitions we had made. Those France might have
reconquered; Guadaloupe she could not retake. We had got possession
of their four trades of the world. Thanks to God, General Amherst had
recovered Newfoundland! Thanks to Providence, Amherst’s brother had
behaved like _his_ brother! Thus had we secured two of those trades,
the fisheries and the sugar, all but at St. Domingo, and that we must
have taken the next campaign. Our conquests in Africa gave us the
Slave Trade; and those in India the exclusive trade of the Indies.
_These depended no longer on the chance of war!_ He believed there was
no disunion between France and Spain; this treaty would manifestly
increase their weight: the Havannah would add to it--the Havannah!
that would have enabled you to supply Spanish America with British
manufactures and implements! He then pronounced the preliminaries
_inadmissible_; declared he had thought it right to make peace when
Mr. Stanley went to France, and had been for the King not abusing his
prosperity. But he had _proved_ that France was not in earnest _then_;
had only meant to cajole us, and deserved no management from us, after
forcing us to the expense of this war, particularly by her iniquitous
behaviour in the two Courts of Madrid and Naples, a conduct never
paralleled in the unbridled behaviour of Louis the Fourteenth. Yet
why talk of Naples, which was Bourbon weakness coupled with Bourbon
weakness! Obstinate, however, as himself had been in pushing forward
the war with Spain, he supposed he had been in the wrong, as nobody
had joined in sentiment with him but Lord Temple. They two were for
making the entire maintenance of the fisheries the _sine quâ non_; but
all the rest had been against them, both the old Ministers and _the
favoured Minister of this King_. Soon had it been known to France that
the exclusive fisheries would not be made a _sine quâ non_. He had
not thought that France would at once give them up, but he had held
them worth trying for for another campaign or two. Before the death
of the Czarina--before the acquisition of Guadaloupe, the Havannah,
and Pondicherry, the Duc de Choiseul had asked but for one rock at
Newfoundland; he wished he had made his stand there, and refused,
though overwhelmed with most illiberal calumny and scurrility! He took
notice of the thousands of lives thrown away at the Havannah by their
being sent out at so untimely a season, when the work might have been
done in the month of April; but he had retired first, when he found
he was not permitted to have the least weight. Yes, said he again,
the French had cried _Donnez nous un rocher simplement_.--I replied,
I did not intend to give them the garden of Eden. But what they asked
for their _batiments pêcheurs_ extended to much more than a rock. They
asked for fishing vessels, now had been given them a fishery--_en toute
propriété_, in full right; I never would have granted it. Then, after
expatiating on the fisheries, he drew attention to himself, by seeming
to bid adieu to politics, and to despair of his own health. He might
never come to the House again. He was unconnected, followed no party,
respected the King’s administration, though he must remonstrate when he
saw them going on fatal ground. He prayed for the House of Brunswick;
stood on revolution principles alone against France; had a deep-rooted
alienation from France; acted on the spirit of King William, on whose
maxims, and on the maxims on which they came thither, the House of
Brunswick must rest, or could never be secure. He had seen the day on
which every unsound maxim had been disclaimed; now saw unhappy clouds
darkening our prospect; wished the Ministers would think of these
important matters before it was too late!
He then went through the points to be ceded in America and Africa;
and declared he would not have agreed to any terms approaching to
these preliminaries. He inveighed against the bad faith of France, and
showed from their losses how much they had lain at our mercy. In the
campaign of Crevelt alone they had lost forty thousand men. Every year
had cost them twenty thousand more. Would you still treat on the same
terms you would have treated, after they had put you to the expense
of fourteen additional millions, and after your arms had been crowned
with such advantages? It could not be for the sake of Portugal; for you
had been told from the throne that a stop had been put to the progress
of the Spaniards in that country. We must, say the French, have St.
Lucia, for _cela bouche Martinique_; is that a reason to be given to
a British Parliament? France should have given you Guadaloupe, or she
and Spain, Hispaniola. She had given you more in Canada than she knew
you could use, and more than he had contended for; but then she had got
the fisheries. On the coast of Bengal we should never have suffered
her to come; yet did she affect to cede all her conquests, where she
had made _none_; but, alas! no nation had ever lost an opportunity so
happy, so almost accomplished, of fixing its ascendant and commerce!
He applauded the drawing of the article of Canada, infinitely better
executed than he could have done it. Spain, too, he owned, had
acknowledged our right of cutting log-wood as fully as he could find
any authority in our records to contend for; but the negotiators had
not been equally able, in fixing Spain, to acknowledge our right of
fishery in Newfoundland. Spain does not renounce her right of fishing
there, but desists. For the King of Prussia he was disavowed! given up!
sacrificed! so melancholy was the effect of the coldness that was grown
between the two crowns! The branches of Bourbon were united; we and
our allies disunited! He had seen nothing he envied in French councils
till now. They had indulged a noble delicacy of honour, and obtained
everything for Spain; nay, had treated Austria with punctilio. We did
not so remember those who had served us! The moment the battle of
Culloden should be forgotten, this country would be undone! We ought to
have made a family compact with the King of Prussia.
Stanley said a few words on his own part in the negotiation; and then
Mr. Fox rising to speak, Pitt, in contempt or exhausted, retired out
of the house, attended by redoubled huzzas! the mob re-echoing the
duration of his speech, “Three hours and a half! three hours and a
half!”
The secession of Pitt struck such a damp on Opposition, that Fox had
but little to do but to chant _Te Deum_ for victory. He said little,
very little, in behalf of the treaty, to which success was now ensured.
He rather painted his own situation, and that of parties, ranking
himself with the Whigs, but affecting to believe a general union of
all factions under the King. He had been called out, he said, when men
would have revived those distinctions, and torn the Tories from the
support of the Crown. No desire did he know of extending prerogative;
if it had been exerted unduly in signing the preliminaries, Ministers
were answerable; but he vowed to God he did not know that it was in the
mind of any man to enlarge the prerogative. Mr. Pitt had thought we
could have gone on much longer, and that France could not; he himself
thought we could not have gone on much longer: but what had Mr. Pitt
given, except assertions in support of his persuasion? He himself had
been told that our commerce was declined. If England would apply itself
to improve this peace, it would turn out the greatest that ever had
been made.
Charles Townshend, discontent, expecting much severe animadversion
on the treaty, and dreading to differ with Mr. Pitt when the latter
was likely to exert all his powers, had come to the House prepared
to arraign the preliminaries. Finding his mistake, and secure by the
retreat of Pitt, he changed his battery, defended the peace as well
as it could be defended, burned incense on the altar of prerogative,
and sang almost hosannahs to the praise of the King. It happened the
next day that Dempster, commending Mr. Pitt, and calling him the
_arch-patriot_, Rigby said, Mr. Pitt, it was true, had spoken three
hours and a half, but an _archer-patriot_ had said more to the purpose
in twenty-five minutes.
The Duke of Newcastle had sent to his friends not to divide; on which
they retired. This not being known to the Duke of Cumberland, his
adherents stayed, and two of his own servants, Lord Ancram[278]
and General Fitzwilliam,[279] were in the minority--which were but
sixty-five against three hundred and nineteen. The Duke was angry that
his people had been left alone: on which it was resolved to rally
on the Report, but with no better success; the Court were still two
hundred and twenty-seven to sixty-three, Lord Royston, Lord Hardwicke’s
son, being of the majority.
Nothing can paint the importance of this victory to the Court so
strongly as what the Princess of Wales said, on the news of the
preliminaries being carried: “Now,” said she, “my son _is_ King of
England.” The ministers ordered that the numbers on the question should
be printed--had they printed the names too, the world would have known
the names of the sixty-five that were _not_ bribed.
Fox having thus successfully employed rewards, thought the time was
come for making use of the other weapon of government--punishment.
A more severe political persecution never raged. Whoever, holding a
place, had voted against the preliminaries, was instantly dismissed.
The friends[280] and dependents of the Duke of Newcastle were
particularly cashiered; and this cruelty was extended so far, that old
servants, who had retired and been preferred to very small places, were
rigorously hunted out and deprived of their livelihood. An inquisition
was held at Fox’s house; and a despotic spirit prevailed so rudely,
that Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave,[281] sister of the Duchess of Bedford,
and a notable politician, desired to be admitted to the junto of
proscription.
In particular, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Earle[282] were dismissed from
the Board of Ordnance for their votes; as was the younger Thomas
Townshend[283] from the green cloth, without the smallest notification.
Some were even sacrificed who had given no offence, as the worthy
Admiral Forbes,[284] who was removed from the Admiralty to make room
for Cotes, of the same profession and a friend of Fox. Schutz, who
had been seven years of the King’s bedchamber, was turned out, for no
reason but that he had not a seat in Parliament, and could be of no use
there.[285]
But to wind up the year with more dignified rigour, the Dukes of
Newcastle and Grafton and the Marquis of Rockingham were dismissed from
the Lieutenancies of their several counties.[286] The same affront
being designed for the Duke of Devonshire, Fox affected to make a point
of saving him; but the Duke, with proper spirit, scorned to be obliged
to him, and resigned to accompany his friends.