The Earl of Egmont.--The Budget.--Taxation of the American
Colonies.--New Bridge at Blackfriars.--Appearance of the
“Lettres, Mémoires, et Négotiations du Chevalier d’Eon,” &c.--
Lord Clive appointed Governor General of India.--Contest at
Cambridge.--Philip Earl of Hardwicke.--Jeremiah Dyson.
While men were taken up with the politics of the age, there was a
Minister so smitten with the exploded usages of barbarous times,
that he thought of nothing less than reviving the feudal system.
This was the Earl of Egmont,[446] who had actually drawn up a plan
for establishing that absurd kind of government in the island of St.
John.[447] He printed several copies of his scheme, and sent them about
to his brother peers. And so little were they masters of the subject,
and so great was the inattention of the Ministry to the outlying parts
of our empire, that his Lordship, in the following year, had prevailed
with the Council to suffer him to make the experiment, if General
Conway had not chanced to arrive at Council and expose the folly of
such an undertaking, which occasioned its being laid aside. Lord Egmont
was such a passionate admirer of those noble tenures and customs,
that he rebuilt his house at Enmere in Somersetshire in the guise
of a castle, moated it round, and prepared it to defend itself with
cross-bows and arrows, against the time in which the fabric and use of
gunpowder shall be forgotten.
On the 9th Mr. Grenville opened the budget, fully, for brevity was
not his failing; but he did it with art and ability too, though not
disguising how much he was hurt by abuse. He said it had been written
in pamphlets that 400,000_l._ a year was dealt out in pensions;
pretending that the accusation had been levelled against the profusion
of those granted in Ireland, which he denied to be so great as alleged,
particularly in that bestowed on Lord Sandwich, which, as I have said,
had been stopped. But in truth the charge had been levelled against
that sort of corruption in England; and on that he chose to be silent.
Much art, he said, had been used to dissuade people from subscribing
to the loans of Government; but no new money was to be raised,--no
lottery; the latter to be kept in reserve for another exigence. He
hoped, therefore, people would engage in the funds, as if monied men
would not keep their cash a year longer, when it must be borrowed! He
took great merit on the revenue being managed with more frugality than
in the late reign, and on the increase of the customs, particularly in
the duties on tea, though the increase of trade had much more share
in that rise than his regulations. He stated the debt incurred by the
late war at sixty-four millions already funded, and nine that were not.
But above all he praised, and justly, the reduction of the demands
from Germany. They amounted to 1,354,803_l._ and upwards, of which
103,355_l._ had only been allowed. 263,211_l._ had been suspended, and
988,237_l._[448] had been struck off. The time had been limited for
the demands to be brought in, or more would have been asked from that
quarter: and yet our taxes, he said, exceeded by three millions what
they did in 1754. He then opened his, famous shall I call it, or fatal,
plan for collecting a revenue from America;[449] a plan which, though
it took place in the session I am describing, I will not unfold here;
for though the regulation was enacted now, the consequences did not
appear to this country till the winter following. I shall be obliged to
say so much on that head hereafter, that to avoid repetition, and to
introduce the detail where it will come in with more propriety, and be
more useful to the reader, I shall pass it over now;--and would to God
that at the moment I am writing, at the end of 1768, the subject was
not only fresh, but threatening a scene of long and terrible calamity
both to England and her colonies! His object, he said, was to make them
maintain their own army. Till the last war they had never contributed
to their army at all. The extraordinaries of the American war had cost
England 36,000_l._ a year. He had, additionally, a plan for preventing
the colonies from trading directly to France, Holland, Portugal,
or the French islands. Thus did this pedlar in revenue confound
the tranquillity both of America and Great Britain; and to realize
farthings, set both countries at variance, at the risk of treasure,
human lives, liberty, and common and mutual preservation.
On the 12th, at the East India House, which had been a theatre of
disputes and clashing interests, Mr. Amyand,[450] having quarrelled
with Sullivan, the leader of the faction opposite to Lord Clive,
suddenly proposed to give the government of Bengal, with full powers
over their affairs, to that Lord, if he would undertake the commission.
Lord Clive, then present, said, this motion was totally unexpected; yet
would he accept the offer, if a board of directors on whom he could
depend should be chosen. The election was then at hand. The train
caught so rapidly, that it was proposed directly to invest him with his
jaguire, which had been voted as precipitately too, if somebody[451]
had not observed that a lawsuit being commenced on that subject, the
law must decide it.
The City of London applied to Parliament for more money for their new
bridge at Blackfriars. James Grenville objected to it. Dr. Hay broke
out and abused the Common Council, whose late behaviour, he said,
entitled them to no favour. He alluded to their thanking their members
for voting against general warrants. This produced as warm language in
return from Beckford and Onslow. George Grenville interposed, and said,
the question was not whether the City deserved money, but whether it
could be afforded. That their temporary bridge having been burnt by
accident, they ought to have a gift of six or seven thousand pounds.
Sir William Baker[452] in disdain moved to adjourn, that they might not
accept it.
The printers of the London Evening Post and Gazetteer were called
before the House of Lords, on a complaint made by the Earl of
Marchmont, for printing a letter (written by Wilkes) reflecting on the
Earl of Hertford, ambassador at Paris, for employing David Hume the
historian as his secretary, and representing the embassy as totally of
Scotch complexion. Wilkes, then an outlaw, and in France, had gone to
the Earl’s chapel, who treated him civilly, but neither returned his
visits nor invited him to dinner, which it was impossible he should
do, representing the person of the King so grievously outraged by
that libeller. Lord Marchmont proposed to inflict a fine of 100_l._
on each printer. Lord Weymouth said fifty were sufficient; not more
had been imposed on a printer of a spurious speech for the King. Lord
Temple put them in mind how much himself and the Duke of Cumberland
had been abused; and in answer to the Duke of Bedford, who had
complained that names were now printed at length, said, that practice
had been begun when himself and Mr. Pitt had resigned the last time.
The Duke of Richmond said, he remembered that the period in which the
Duke of Cumberland had been most traduced, was in the year 1757. Lord
Temple and Mr. Pitt were then in power. The truth was, no side had
abstained from invectives when out of place. The difference was, that
no attempt was made to punish the authors and printers but under the
administration of Grenville, Lord Sandwich, and that set.
On the 23rd of March appeared one of the most extraordinary books
ever published, and though written by a foreigner, and in French, by
no means inferior in detraction to the North Britons. It was a large
quarto, called _Lettres, Mémoires, et Négotiations particulières du
Chevalier d’Eon_, &c.: and contained the history of his employments,
troubles, quarrel with Monsieur de Guerchy, and his own wonderfully
imprudent and insolent letters to the Duc de Praslin, the second
Minister in power at the Court at Versailles. The contempt expressed
for the Comte de Guerchy was transcendant; but yet this was not the
most reprehensible part of the work. With the most indefensible
wantonness, D’Eon had inserted the childishly fond, but friendly
letters, of his patron the Duc de Nivernois. With still greater
indiscretion, he published others of an intimate friend employed in
the office of the Secretary of State at Versailles, in which that
friend, in confidence, had familiarly censured his masters: and with
the most abominable treachery D’Eon added confidential letters between
the Ducs de Nivernois and Praslin, in which, though with goodwill
towards _him_, they spoke of their intimate friend Monsieur de Guerchy
with much contemptuous pity, which might be excused between such
near friends, though never to be pardoned by Guerchy. These letters
D’Eon, when trusted with the Duc de Nivernois’s keys, had stolen or
copied. To such lengths blind, headstrong revenge had driven the mad,
unprincipled wretch! But what satisfaction did it create here, to read,
under the hands of the chief Ministers in France, to how low an ebb
that Court was sunk in abilities! the two Dukes owning to one another
that their poor Guerchy, as they called him, was yet the fittest
man they had to employ. Among such a heap of baseness great parts
appeared; and it seemed lucky for his Court that a man so likely to
be raised, and so capable of any treachery, unbosomed himself before
he was possessed of more important secrets. In some instances, as in
a letter to his mother, D’Eon seemed to have worked himself up to a
pitch of frenzy; throughout, to be swayed by intolerable vanity.[453]
The blow to Guerchy was heavy and cruel; and scarcely less mortifying
to the Duc de Nivernois. Praslin, a hard, unfeeling man, took it with
implacable resentment; and yet, in one respect, acted sensibly and
honourably: instead of ruining St. Foix, the person whose letters
D’Eon had, unprovoked and wickedly, disclosed, he was preferred, and
never suffered any marks of his master’s displeasure. Every possible
attention was employed here to console M. de Guerchy, and to prevent
his thinking that he was lowered in the public esteem; but was it,
alas! possible he could believe so? The other foreign Ministers
demanded satisfaction for so gross an insult on one of their order;
and the Court was willing enough to grant any reparation in its power.
But what reparation could it make proportioned to the offence? All it
could, it did. The Attorney-General was ordered to file an information
against D’Eon for a libel.
The imbecility of the Opposition, notwithstanding the large accession
to their numbers on the question of the warrants, had left the Ministry
in possession of full power. The sense of the nation had in vain
appeared to be averse to them. It still continued so, wherever its
genuine voice could be heard: and never more than on the following
occasion. The death of the Earl of Hardwicke had left open the honour
of High Steward in the University of Cambridge. Lord Sandwich, on
the prospect of that event, had declared himself a candidate for that
office, though attended with neither salary nor power. Lord Royston,
son of the deceased and now Earl of Hardwicke, was his competitor.
Ambitious industry was never exerted so indefatigably as by Sandwich
on this occasion. There was not a corner of England, nay, not the
Isle of Man, unransacked by him for votes. He ferreted out the mad,
the lame, the diseased, from their poor retreats, and imported them
into the University. Letters on letters were written, and fawning
applications made to all who could influence a vote of any country
clergyman. Lord Hardwicke, on the other hand, was cold, proud, and void
of generosity.[454] With the clergy, indeed, he had much connection:
and, being a man of no vice, and by poring over historic MSS., supposed
to be learned, he seemed adapted to fill a nominal charge in a society
that is expected to be devout and studious. At least, the profligacy
of Sandwich could not but be unsuitable to them, whether they had the
reality, or only the semblance of religion and learning. When the day
of election came on, the votes appeared to be equal, though each side
pretended to have a majority of one. Great altercations ensued, and
the meeting broke up in confusion; on which recourse was had to common
law, where, after many months, a decision was pronounced in favour of
Lord Hardwicke. Many instances appeared of bribery practised by Lord
Sandwich; who, besides being rejected, experienced many insults and
indignities. The under-graduates who, having no votes, had not been
courted by him, were riotous, and hissed his chief agents: and when he
went to the University in the month following, and dined in the hall
of Trinity College, they marked their abhorrence of him by quitting
the hall, and refusing to dine with him! Young Thomas Pitt,[455] and
Frederick Montagu,[456] Sandwich’s own cousin, who had gone down
to support him, were so disgusted with his practices, and with the
factious confusion he had caused in the University, that they declared
they would assist his cause no longer. When the former told him he
would ruin the University, he replied, “That would be nothing to him:
it would be the better for Oxford.” Yet himself had been bred at
Cambridge--but Oxford was cherished by the Court.
On the 12th of April came on the election of East India Directors,
when Sullivan’s list was chosen, though Clive had the support not only
of the Administration, but of the Duke of Devonshire.[457] Sullivan
himself was elected by a majority of but one vote. He thought that in
the new Direction he had twelve votes to ten; but before the day of
their balloting for their chairman, Lord Clive had bought off one of
them. When the election came on, Sullivan desired to be named without
being obliged to submit to a ballot, at the same time cajoling the
other party with great professions to Lord Clive. His antagonists,
however, insisting on a ballot, the numbers appeared to be eleven and
eleven. Sullivan finding himself betrayed or overreached, retired with
heat, and Rous, his principal enemy, was chosen chairman. Had Sullivan,
who was the creature of Lord Shelburne, succeeded, Colonel Barré was to
have gone Governor to Bengal, which was given to Lord Clive, and he was
soon after decorated with the Order of the Bath, to give dignity to his
new employment.
At the same time, to mark that Parliamentary services or disobedience
were the leading steps to favour or disgrace, Mr. Bridgman[458] was
turned out of the Board of Greencloth for his vote on General Warrants;
and was succeeded by Richard Vernon,[459] formerly an officer, a
jockey, a gamester, and brother-in-law of the Duchess of Bedford. Mr.
Cadogan[460] was appointed Surveyor of the Royal Gardens; and Jeremiah
Dyson was made one of the Lords of Trade. Of this man it is necessary
to say a few more words. He was a tailor’s son, had risen under
Nicholas Hardinge from a subaltern clerk of the House of Commons, to
succeed him as first clerk, and by education and principle was thought
and had conversed as a staunch Republican.[461] In that employment he
had comported himself with singular decency and intelligence. In truth
his parts were excellent: he was quick, subtle, shrewd, clear, both in
conception and delivery, and was master of argumentative eloquence,
though void of every ornamental part of it. Being of an unhealthy
complexion, and very fretful temper, he had quitted his laborious post,
and was now come into Parliament, secretly sold to the Favourite; but
from his behaviour as their clerk, having conciliated much goodwill to
himself among the members, he was for some time heard with great favour
and satisfaction, an indulgence he lost afterwards, when his warmth
made them recollect he had once been their servant. He now appeared as
devoted to George Grenville, and indeed was excellently useful, from
his parts and great knowledge of Parliamentary business, to all who
employed him. But proving both slippery to his friends as fast as they
fell, and vexatious to his enemies, few men became equally unpopular.
Having deserted Grenville on a change of times, and happening to
convert his tied wig into a bag, Lord Gower being asked the reason,
said, “It is because no _Tye_ will hold him.”[462] Dyson will appear
again on the stage in a critical moment.