Secret power of Lord Bute.--His rupture with Pitt.--The late
Prince of Wales’s character of Bute.--Extraordinary Anecdote.--
Mr. Legge’s imprudent Manœuvre.--Unanimous attempt to destroy
Wilkes.--Governor Johnstone.--General Wall.--The Comte de
Guerchy.--His character.--Madame de Guerchy.--The Duke de
Nivernois, and the Chevalier d’Eon.--Death of Augustus the
Third, of Saxony.--The Pope invites the Duke of York to Rome.--
Humiliation of the helpless Line of Stuart.--Charles Yorke resigns
the Attorney-Generalship.--Trimming conduct of the Yorke Family.--
Unfavourable Commencement of the new Lord-Lieutenant’s power in
Ireland.
Still did the same grievance remain, the favour and secret power of
Lord Bute. Grenville and Lord Halifax insisted that he should go
abroad; and it was said to be promised. At least his refusal, or
breach of promise, was made the pretence for depriving him of the
custody of the King’s Privy-purse, an office he yet retained. The
nomination of a successor showed how little the ministers had gained,
and how vainly they endeavoured to destroy his credit, the Purse
being immediately given to Sir William Breton, who was Groom of the
Bedchamber to the King, as he had been to the King’s father, and who
was a most devoted tool of the Princess and her favourite. A stronger
proof of the latter’s confidence in his own power was given by himself.
George Grenville having written a very voluminous letter to Sir John
Phillips, giving an account of the negotiation with Mr. Pitt and its
miscarriage, of which letter the King had seen and approved every
paragraph, Sir John wrote a warm expostulation to Lord Bute (who he did
not know had been concerned in that treaty), blaming the timidity of
sending for Mr. Pitt. Lord Bute returned a haughty answer, in which he
said, _whatever the ministers might think, they should find he himself
was minister still_. A memorable sentence, confirmed by facts, and of
which the contrary assertion was vainly attempted afterwards to be
imposed upon the world.
The mysteries of this man’s conduct, and the reserve and eccentric
starts of Mr. Pitt, have made any lights valuable that can be thrown
on this part of our history. Mr. Pitt’s was the character suited to
support and colour over the pusillanimity of the Favourite, but his
jealousy and their mutual pride threw them at a distance. The affair of
Lord George Sackville, who was attached to Lord Bute, and proscribed by
Pitt in compliment to Prince Ferdinand, had given the finishing stroke
to their rupture; hastened too, by that very attachment of Mr. Pitt
to the foreign house of Brunswick. Nor, with all the disposition of
Pitt to forgive the Favourite’s offences, could they meet again, while
Lord Temple hung upon his brother-in-law, and was the _sine quâ non_
of Mr. Pitt’s return to Court. On every occasion of moment appeared
the justness of the character drawn of Lord Bute by the late Prince of
Wales, who did not want parts, nor ill-nature to sharpen those parts,
nor insolence to utter what either of them dictated. Growing tired of
Lord Bute a little before his death, he said to him, “Bute, you would
make an excellent ambassador in some proud little Court where there is
nothing to do.” It had been happy for England, and for Lord Bute too,
if the Prince could have made that destination of him--I mean, without
living to execute it himself.
I shall relate another very extraordinary anecdote, which will not be
mentioned improperly in this place, though I do not know the precise
time in which it happened. The Princess Dowager dreamed that she was
in the palace of Saxe Gotha: the window was open, and the moon, level
to it, shook with a tremulous motion before her eyes, to her great
disquiet. She bade Lord Bute try to fix it. Extending his arms to stop
its motion, it burst in his hand into ten thousand fiery splinters; on
which, turning to the Princess, he said reproachfully, “See, Madam, to
what you have brought me!” This dream was the Princess so weak as to
repeat the next morning to some of her women; one of whom, I guess the
wife of Velters Cornwall, told it to Lady Suffolk,[365] who trusted it
to me. She did not name her authority, but said she heard it from one
of the Princess’s bedchamber; and Mrs. Cornwall I know was the one with
whom Lady Suffolk was the most connected. I repeat this vision, not as
prophetic or divine, but as a strong picture of what passed in the mind
on which it painted itself.
Before I close this account of the negotiation, I ought to assign
the reason why Mr. Pitt had so slightingly or offensively mentioned
Mr. Legge, the second in Opposition, and long the second to Mr. Pitt
himself. With all his abilities, Legge was of a creeping underhand
nature, and aspired to the lion’s place by the manœuvre of the mole.
While yet connected with Mr. Pitt, and before he had lost favour
at Leicester House,[366] he had, before the late King’s death,
brought about a secret interview with Newcastle; but with so much
circumspection, that meeting him at Lord Duplin’s, Legge had insisted
the conversation should pass without candles and in the dark. The Duke
was charmed with the mystery, and with the pleasure of betraying it to
Mr. Pitt. Mr. Elliot, as he told me himself, discovered it too, and
acquainted Lord Bute--and thus with both was Legge ruined. I now return
to the common occurrences of the year.
In one point the Favourite and his rivals agreed; that is, in the
destruction of Wilkes. The rashness and despotic conduct of the
triumvirate had made them parties in the same cause; they pursuing him
with what they called Law, and the Scotch without attention to any
law. Johnstone, one of Lord Bute’s American governors,[367] had the
same view with Forbes, but took a looser plan. Having been reflected
on in a North Briton, I think then no longer written by Wilkes, he
challenged the author, whoever it was; and, to be sure of provoking at
least one person, threw out in his challenge printed in the newspapers,
severe sarcasms on Lord Temple’s want of spirit.
About this time General Wall,[368] a true friend to the union of
England and Spain, finding the French interest daily making greater
progress at Madrid, desired leave to resign on pretence of failure of
his eyesight. Grimaldi[369] was immediately ordered home from Paris
to succeed him; a man devoted to France. To that Court Lord Hertford
set out on the 13th of October, and Monsieur de Guerchy arrived thence.
The Comte de Guerchy[370] was an amiable soldier; not to be named for
parts, but far better qualified for his situation than his own Court
believed, having a good knowledge of the world, a perpetual attention
to his employment, consummate discretion, much natural ease in his
behaviour, with either no impertinence, or with thorough mastery of
it, and a complaisance so properly applied that he was agreeable to
all parties, and yet always well with the reigning ministry here. It
gave him a ridicule at home, that he was enslaved to a penurious and
deformed wife; but that dominion of Madame de Guerchy was his greatest
felicity. She had an excellent understanding, and a talent for learning
the tempers, humours, and connections of England; her constant
application to which, and the necessary curiosity in consequence, were
concealed by the natural coldness and reserve of her disposition. Nor
did her attention to their fortune ever disgrace her husband, nor throw
even an air of economy on his table. At Paris her devotion and domestic
retirement had passed for insipid virtues that prevented her good sense
from being so much as suspected. At the Count’s first audience he told
the King, with pleasant candour, _that it was a proof of his master’s
intentions to preserve the peace, that he was sent over, who was no man
of talents or intrigue_.
Thus formed to succeed and never to offend, no man was more unfortunate
than this ambassador; and it required not only dexterity, but the
simplicity of his conduct, to surmount the most cruel and disagreeable
ideas, first carelessly dropped, and then maliciously dispersed to his
prejudice. The Duc de Nivernois had brought over and left here, to
manage the affairs of their Court till M. de Guerchy’s arrival, the
Chevalier D’Eon,[371] a military man, but who had been much employed in
secret negotiations in Russia, for which he had been largely praised
and very ill paid. The man had notable parts, great appearance of
bashful merit, and learning enough to charm the superficial pedantry
of the Duke, who had treated him with a fondness and intimacy that was
ridiculous; and that, by being over kind, proved cruel: for having to
serve him made D’Eon the courier of the peace, the Duke went farther,
and procured him to be styled plenipotentiary during the absence of
the ambassador. Vigils and vanity turned the poor young man’s head,
which was by no means ballasted by a good heart. He mistook the road of
fortune for fortune itself, and thought that highsounding titles lifted
him to a level with those that conferred them. He forgot his modesty,
and learned to talk loftily, or, as his masters thought, arrogantly.
Under this unhappy intoxication he was thunderstruck with a declaration
from the Duc de Nivernois, that on the ambassador’s arrival he was to
sink into his pristine insignificance. To laugh this off, the Duke had
familiarly pictured him to himself as sometimes a plenipotentiary and
sometimes a tool of office. Other accidents concurred to aggravate
this mortifying notice. He could obtain no arrears; and having made
free with the remittances of his new master to give dignity to his
own mission, he received a very humiliating reprimand from Monsieur
de Guerchy. To crown all, Wilkes’s writings had breathed a spirit of
independence into a poor brain born to crouch at a desk or to rise by
servility. The ambassador was no sooner arrived, than the Chevalier
behaved in a manner to which French ministers are little accustomed
from their inferiors. At the same time D’Eon took it into his fancy
that one Treyssac de Vergy,[372] an adventurer, was brought over to
assassinate him; and on this belief broke out so outrageously against
the Count after dinner at Lord Halifax’s, that the Earl, at M. de
Guerchy’s desire, was obliged to send for Justice Fielding, and put
D’Eon under arrest; and next day Vergy swore the peace[373] against
him. The consequences of this adventure will be related hereafter.
Augustus the Third[374] having enjoyed but for few months the cessation
of war, and of those misfortunes which a vain and impertinent
favourite[375] had drawn down upon him, died about this time, leaving
Poland at liberty to get rid of a family who had sacrificed their
religion for a crown, without obtaining essential benefits for
themselves, or conferring any on subjects so dearly purchased. The new
Elector of Saxony, his son, was infirm in mind and body, and survived
his father not a year.
We, on whom an empty favourite had heaped little less disgrace by peace
than Count Bruhl had inflicted on Saxony by war, had occasion to feel
how wide the terror of our arms had extended our influence. The Duke
of York, making the tour of the Mediterranean, and being expected at
Florence, the Pope[376] ordered Cardinal Albani to inform Sir Horace
Mann, the King’s minister in Tuscany, that his Royal Highness, if he
pleased to visit Rome, would be received there with all the honours due
to his birth. The nuncio at Florence was commanded too to wait on the
Prince, and repeat the same; to invite him to Rome, and to assure him
of all safety, honours, and amusements. His Royal Highness accepted
the invitation; and the son of James the Second, and his grandson, a
cardinal of that very church, had the mortification of being forced
to retire to Albano, where they had a villa, lest they should see a
heretic Duke of York courted and treated in that holy city whence the
thunders of the Vatican had been hurled against the great Elizabeth.
But this was not the last nor least humiliation which the wretched
and helpless line of Stuart received from the hands of their Pontiff,
and from that church for which they had sacrificed themselves, their
crowns, and their posterity.
On the 3rd of November Charles Yorke resigned the post of
Attorney-General, alleging to Mr. Grenville that his father and the
Duke of Newcastle had insisted upon it. Yorke, on the trial of the
printers, had made a warm speech against Wilkes, and was to carry on
the prosecution. The father and the sons were certainly in their hearts
inclined to prerogative; but interest so swayed their actions, and it
was so much the point of the whole family that Charles Yorke should be
Chancellor, that we shall find one perpetual stream of dubitation and
trimming run through their conduct. The father, indeed, more soured,
and with pride more affronted, towards this close of his life, grew
more settled in his asperity towards the Court. Nor was he the only
instrument of prerogative whom the Court lost because it could not
reward all its devotees up to their ambition.
In Ireland the scene commenced unfavourably. The new Lord Lieutenant,
the Earl of Northumberland,[377] lost a question the first day in
the House of Commons there by so considerable a number as forty, who
would not suffer the word _adequate_ to be applied to the Peace in the
address.