[205] The communication made by Lord Bute to the Court of Vienna,

appears to have originated in the belief that the Austrians were, on

national grounds, more inclined to peace than any of the other powers.

Considering the close connection existing between the Courts of Vienna

and Paris, and the certainty that such a step would be viewed in the

worst light by the King of Prussia, it must be regarded as a blunder.

The correspondence that passed on the occasion is printed in the

Appendix to Adolphus, vol. i. p. 578. There is an able Essay on the

subject in the Appendix to the 1st vol. of Belsham.--E.

[206] Sir Edward Noel, Bart., Baron Wentworth of Nettleshead, created

Viscount Wentworth of Welsborough, county of Leicester.

[207] Sir William Courtenay, Bart., chief of the great house of

Courtenay. He had, like his father, represented the county of Devon for

many years. He survived his creation only ten days. The title became

extinct on the decease of his grandson, the late Earl of Devon.--E.

[208] John Percival, Earl of Egmont.--An amusing account of the

importunities and intrigues by which he wrung his title from Lord Bute,

is given by his friend Dodington, in the Diary of the latter.--E.

[209] Joseph Damer, Lord Milton, created Baron Milton of Milton Abbey,

county Dorset: married Caroline, third daughter of Lionel Duke of

Dorset. Sat in several Parliaments, from 1741 to 1754. He claimed a

descent from the ancient Barons d’Amorie; but his wife’s genealogy, and

his own wealth, of which the origin had certainly nothing distinguished

in it, were the more probable causes of his elevation.--Banks, vol.

iii. p. 516. He died in 1798. The title became extinct upon the death

of his son George second Lord, unmarried, in 1808.--E.

[210] Created Baron Beaulieu, of Beaulieu, county Southampton, 11th

May, 1762, to hold to him and the heirs male of his body by Isabella

Duchess Dowager of Manchester, eldest daughter of John late Duke

of Montagu, deceased, his then wife. In 1743, on the death of his

father-in-law, the Duke of Montagu, he had taken the name and arms of

that noble family, by Act of Parliament. Installed a K.B. 1753. In

1784 advanced to the dignity of Earl Beaulieu, and died 1803, when

his honours became extinct. He was a comely, athletic, and spirited

Irishman, and his marriage with the Duchess disappointed many aspirants

to that honour. One of them, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, revenged

himself by a well-known lampoon.--E.

[211] Francis Vernon, (some time M. P. for Ipswich,) created Baron

Orwell, of Newry, county Down, in the kingdom of Ireland, 7th April,

1762. He was second son of James Vernon, of Great Thurlow, county

Suffolk, Esq., by Arethusa, daughter of Charles Lord Clifford, only son

of Richard first Earl of Burlington, which James was younger brother of

the well-known Admiral Vernon.--E.

[212] George Fox Lane, created Lord Bingley--he had married the only

daughter and heiress of the last Lord of the same name. He died in

1773, S.P.--E.

[213] George Venables Vernon, Lord Vernon of Kinderton. He was the

son of Henry Vernon, Esq., M. P., and therefore grand-nephew of Peter

Venables, last Baron of Kinderton. He died in 1780.--E.

[214] John Olmius, many years director of the Bank. In 1737, M. P.

for the Weymouth boroughs. Created 8th May, 1762, Baron Waltham of

Philipstown, and died in September following.--E.

[215] Charles Lewis Frederick, Prince of Mecklenburg, brother of the

Duke of Mecklenburg and of Queen Charlotte. Born 1741.--E.

[216] Buckingham House, in St. James’s Park, built by John Sheffield,

Duke of Buckingham, was purchased of his natural son, Sir Charles

Sheffield, and named the Queen’s Palace. The mob called it in derision,

Holyrood House.

[217] James Stuart Mackenzie, only brother of the Earl of Bute. He

had been Minister at Turin from 1758 to 1762, when he was appointed

to Venice; but, before he could leave Turin, the death of the Duke

of Argyle caused Lord Bute to bring him home abruptly to take

the direction of the Government in Scotland; an exercise of the

Favourite’s power, which proved him to be virtually at the head of

the Administration. From the same feelings of exclusiveness, Lord

Bute subsequently selected Mr. Mackenzie, in preference to any of his

colleagues in the Cabinet, to assist him in the early part of the

negotiations for peace. Whatever points were settled by his Lordship

with the King, were then communicated, through Mr. Mackenzie, to the

Count de Virri, by whom they were transmitted, through the Bailli de

Solar, to the Duke of Choiseul, and it was only after an article had

been actually agreed upon that it came officially under the cognizance

of the Foreign Department; so that these two foreigners appear to have

possessed more of Lord Bute’s confidence, as well as more influence

over the negotiation, than the Secretary of State, Lord Egremont; a

circumstance which rather explains the jealousy shown by the Cabinet,

when the preliminaries had been settled, of any independent authority

being given to the Duke of Bedford. These duties Mr. Mackenzie

discharged irreproachably, and, far from sharing his brother’s

unpopularity, was much esteemed by all parties. He is described by his

secretary, M. Dutens, as having been most amiable, remarkably cheerful

and pleasant in society, with very simple tastes, and no ambition;

“well versed in the sciences, particularly in mathematics, algebra,

and astronomy.” He took little part in public affairs after Lord

Bute’s resignation, and died in 1800, at the age of 81 years, only a

few months after the death of his wife, the daughter of John Duke of

Argyle. Memoirs of a Traveller now in Retirement, vol. i. p. 159; vol.

iv. p. 229.--E.

[218] Meaning Lord Bute, who was introducing the Tories in the place of

the Whigs.

[219] Nicholson Calvert, of Hunsdon House, Hertfordshire, member for

Tewkesbury, and sheriff for Hertfordshire in 1749. He was the second

son of Felix Calvert of Furneaux Pelham Hall, but succeeded to the

family property by the death of his elder brother. It is a pity that

his madness was not catching, for he was one of the most honest and

independent members in the House, an eminent agriculturist, and an

active county magistrate. In politics he was “a Whig, and something

more.” He died without issue in 1793.--E.

[220] This speech “is said to have silenced all future attacks by the

poet either on Mr. Pitt or his administration, and was well received on

all sides.”--Hansard’s Par. Hist. xv., p. 1227, note.--E.

[221] Of Newcastle.

[222] George Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the Second.

[223] Frederick Prince of Wales, against whom the Duke of Newcastle

carried the chancellorship of Cambridge.

[224] Lord Bute had the ill-natured arrogance to compliment him on his

retirement: the Duke replied with a spirit that marked his lasting

ambition, “Yes, yes, my Lord, I am an old man; but yesterday was my

birth-day, and I recollected that Cardinal Fleury _began_ to be prime

minister of France just at my age.”

[225] Frederick, brother of Earl Cornwallis, and afterwards Archbishop

of Canterbury. Young, of Norwich, was out of town, but adhered

faithfully to Newcastle.

[226] Sir Francis Dashwood’s want of knowledge of finance opened a fine

field for the wits of the day, and was of course greatly exaggerated.

One of them describes him as “a man to whom a sum of five figures

was an impenetrable secret.” His vocation, certainly, was not to

the Exchequer; and he was unfortunate in having Mr. Legge for his

predecessor. There were other high offices of the Government which he

would have filled with credit, for he had respectable talents, was

“spirited, frank, and manly,” and had gained the consideration of

the House. (Smollet.) He was the only son of Sir Francis Dashwood,

Baronet, M.P. for Winchelsea, by Lady Mary Fane, sister of the Earl of

Westmoreland, often mentioned in these Memoirs. In his youth he had

travelled much, especially in Italy, and passed some time at Rome,

where he was long recollected from the following anecdote, which made

a great noise at the time. “It was on Good Friday, when each person

who attends the service in the Sistine Chapel, as he enters, takes

a small scourge from an attendant at the door. The chapel is dimly

lighted, and there are three candles which are extinguished by the

priest, one by one: at the putting out of the first, the penitents

take off one part of their dress; at the next still more; and, in the

darkness which follows the extinguishing of the third candle, lay

on their own shoulders, with groans and lamentations. Sir Francis

Dashwood, thinking this mere stage effect, entered with others,

dressed in a large watchman’s coat; demurely took his scourge from

the priest, and advanced to the end of the chapel; where, on the

darkness ensuing, he drew from beneath his coat an English horsewhip

and flogged right and left quite down the chapel and made his escape,

the congregation exclaiming ‘Il diavolo! il diavolo!’ and thinking

the Evil one was upon them with a vengeance! The consequence of this

frolic might have been serious to him, had he not immediately fled the

Papal dominions.”--(Private Information.) His political life was by no

means discreditable; and, in the unfortunate affair of Admiral Byng, he

exhibited kindness of feeling not less than tact and decision, which

Walpole has elsewhere handsomely noticed.--Memoirs, ii. p. 145. He had

a taste for the arts, and brought sculptors and painters from Italy to

decorate his country-seat at West Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, where he

laid out an extensive park with skill and effect, and built a church

and mausoleum. His private life was reported to be very licentious.

He married the widow of Sir Richard Ellys, Baronet, by whom he had

no children, and died in 1781. The peerage, to which his claim is

mentioned in a following page, descended to the Stapylton family.--E.

[227] They called themselves the Dilettanti. In the year 1770, they

published a pompous volume on some rubbish remaining of two or three

temples in Ionia.

[228] William Henry, third son of Frederick Prince of Wales; afterwards

Duke of Gloucester.

[229] Lord Bute held his levées at the Cockpit, Whitehall, as did

afterwards the Duke of Grafton and Lord North. Till then, each minister

saw company at his own house; but Lord Bute, who lived in a small house

in Audley Street, Grosvenor Square, had not room enough.

[230] Mr., afterwards Sir Gilbert, Elliot, father of the late Earl of

Minto. His connection with Lord Bute does credit to that nobleman’s

discernment, for he was a most useful coadjutor; and Professor Stewart

says of him, that he “seems to have united with his other well-known

talents and accomplishments, a taste for abstract disquisitions which

rarely occurs in men of the world, accompanied with that soundness and

temperance of judgment which in such researches are so indispensably

necessary to guard the mind against the illusions engendered by its own

subtility.”--Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 530.--E.

[231] Dr. Smollet, originally a ship-surgeon, was an abusive Jacobite

writer, author of a compilation of the History of England, in which he

had spoken most scurrilously of the Duke of Cumberland for suppressing

the Rebellion, and had been punished by the King’s Bench for slandering

Admiral Knowles. [His “genius,” however, to use the words of Walter

Scott, “has raised an imperishable monument to his memory,” in the

poems and novels which Walpole does not deign to notice in this

allusion to his works. Nor is the criticism just in other respects.

Smollet’s tracts are not more virulent than most publications of a

similar character of that day. His censure of the Duke of Cumberland

has been confirmed by subsequent historians, and his punishment for

the libel on Admiral Knowles reflects discredit on the Admiral rather

than on himself.--See Walter Scott’s Lives of the Novelists, vol. i. p.

143.--E.]

[232] Murphy, once an actor, was turned hackney writer, and had engaged

in a paper called _the Contest_, in behalf of Lord Holland. He stole

many plays from the French, and published other things long since

forgotten. [“The Way to keep Him,” and “All in the Wrong,” are alone a

sufficient refutation of the above harsh criticism on Murphy. He was a

person of considerable accomplishments, and wanted only a better temper

and more independence of character to have risen to eminence. He died

at an advanced age in 1805.--E.]

Smollet and Murphy, with Dr. Shebbeare, who was in Newgate for abusing

King George the First, King George the Second, King William, and the

Revolution, and Dr. Johnson, another known Jacobite, who even in a

Dictionary had vented his Jacobite principles, were selected by Lord

Bute to defend his cause, and pensioned by him as a patron of learned

men. Johnson’s acceptance of a pension was the more ridiculous, as in

his Dictionary he had lashed the infamy of pensioners. [Neither Smollet

nor Murphy were pensioned by Lord Bute. The bounty of the Crown was

never more inexcusably exercised than in favour of Dr. Shebbeare--a

pamphleteer who was a disgrace to his party, and had not long before

been concerned in some fraudulent practices at Oxford, when employed

by the University to arrange the Clarendon papers. He died in 1788, at

a very advanced age. Dr. Johnson’s pension was not subjected to any

conditions.--Boswell, vol. i. p. 292.--E.]

[233] His father was a distiller.

[234] Mr. Southey, opposed as he was to the political creed of

Churchill, thought more favourably of him. He praises the generosity

and straightforwardness of his character, and says of his poems

that “manly sense is their characteristic, deriving strength from

indignation, and that they contain passages of sound morality and

permanent truth.” Cowper had a higher opinion of him than of any other

contemporary writer, and even goes so far as to style him “the great

Churchill.”--Southey’s Cowper, p. 87.--E.

[235] Groom of the Bedchamber to William Duke of Cumberland, and

Commander in America. He was afterwards Knight of the Bath, and

called Sir Joseph Amherst. He was subsequently made a Peer and

Commander-in-Chief, [and lastly Field-Marshal. He had been the

favourite aide-de-camp of Lord Ligonier during the German wars, and

bore through life the reputation of a very able and zealous officer. He

distinguished himself particularly in America. He died in 1797, in his

eighty-first year.--E.]

[236] Alluding to the defeat of the French near Giessau, by Prince

Ferdinand, on the 26th September, when he drove them from all

their posts, and obliged them to fly with precipitation behind the

Nahn.--Annual Register, 1762, p. 49.--E.

[237] This narrative of the dethronement of Peter the Third has

been confirmed in many essential points by later writers.--Tooke’s

Catherine the Second.--Castera.--Levesque, Hist. de Russie, vol.

v. 298. The precise extent of the guilt of the Empress is still a

subject of dispute. The dethronement of her husband might be an act of

self-defence, for he seems to have contemplated raising his mistress

to the throne. His murder certainly had her ready forgiveness, if not

her acquiescence, and there is nothing in her character to controvert

its having been committed at her instigation. The attempt to exculpate

her in the recently published Memoirs of the Princess Dashkau is very

far from satisfactory, though it in some degree elevates the character

of the authoress above the level of her contemporaries at the Court

of St. Petersburgh, a court in those days without a parallel for the

prevalence of the crimes and vices of a semi-barbarous age.--E.

[238] George third Earl, Augustus, and William, sons of William Anne

second Earl of Albemarle. Frederick, the fourth son, was on this

occasion promoted to the Bishoprick of Exeter. Of Augustus (afterwards

Lord Keppel) see more in the preceding reign, under the History of

Admiral Byng.--Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 174. [A very interesting account

of his life was lately published by his kinsman, the Honourable and

Reverend Thomas Augustus Keppel.--E.]

[239] Madame Geoffrin was proprietor of a great manufacture of glass;

yet by her wit, parts, riches, and cabals, and by patronizing authors,

and the modern philosophers and painters, statuaries and architects,

and by keeping an open house for foreigners of all nations, she was

much considered, and had great respect paid to her by persons of the

first rank in France. [Marmontel draws a spirited portrait of her in

his Memoirs.--E.]

[240] This is a very one-sided view of the character of the Duc de

Nivernois. He had no pretensions to the character of a soldier, having

been obliged to quit the army from ill-health at an early age. As a

diplomatist, he certainly failed at Berlin--as all other diplomatists

did, who brought proposals that did not suit the views of the King

of Prussia. In England he gave great satisfaction to all parties.

His popularity is noticed by Lord Chesterfield. He was a generous,

though not perhaps a very discriminating, patron of letters, and a

respectable writer for one who made literature only an amusement. His

private life was exemplary; and he showed no common strength of mind

in the firmness with which he bore the loss of his rank and property,

and, above all, his heavy domestic misfortunes. His second wife, to

whom he was tenderly attached, died a few days after marriage. Of his

two sons-in-law, the Count de Gisors, his destined heir, an élève of

Marmontel, fell at the battle of Crevelt: the remaining one, the Duc de

Brissac, was torn to pieces by the mob at Paris, at the beginning of

the Revolution. The Duke of Nivernois died in 1798, at a very advanced

age.--E.

[241] Besides his crime of being the favourite of the Duke of

Cumberland, Fox had deeply offended the Princess by advising Mr.

Pelham, the very day after the death of her husband, to take her son,

the present King, from her, that she might not get an ascendant over

him. I one day mentioned this fact to Lord Mansfield: he said, “It was

very true, and he believed the measure was not followed, _only_ because

Mr. Fox had advised it”--so jealous was Mr. Pelham of Fox!

[242] James Earl Waldegrave, Governor to George the Third when Prince.

[243] William Cavendish, fourth Duke of Devonshire, Lord Chamberlain.

[244] Many causes might be assigned for the Duke’s dissatisfaction. It

is not improbable that a generous Prince might resent the indignity

offered to his country. He might, too, resent the unrelenting hatred

of the Princess, and his total exclusion from power. He might feel for

Germany, his other country, which he saw neglected: or he might have

hoped that the aversion of the Princess to the House of Brunswick would

not cease without disgusting Prince Ferdinand; and that then, if the

war had continued, the command would have once more devolved on himself.

[245] Samuel Martin, a West Indian, had been in the service of the

late Prince of Wales. See more of him hereafter, and in Churchill’s

“Duellist.” [He had been brought into the Treasury by Mr. Legge

when the latter was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir George

Colebrooke’s MS. Memoirs represent him as a plain-spoken, honest man,

and more to be depended upon than his joint secretary Mr. West.--E.]

[246] Richard Aldworth Neville, of Billingbere, Berkshire, [son of Mr.

Aldworth of Stanlake, by Catherine sister of Mr. Henry Neville Grey of

Billingbere, whose estate he subsequently inherited. He filled for some

years the office of Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which

occasioned his being employed at Paris; and he represented Wallingford,

Reading, and Tavistock in different Parliaments. The Barony of

Braybrooke descended on his only son (the late Lord) by a special

limitation in the patent obtained by his relative, Sir John Griffin,

Lord Howard de Walden, whose large estates he also inherited.--History

of Audley End, p. 54.--E.]

[247] This statement rests on Walpole’s unsupported testimony. The

facts that I have been able to collect on the subject, in the quarters

likely to be the best informed, are these:--On the 7th of September

Lord Egremont wrote to the Duke of Bedford, informing him of the King’s

commands that he should not sign the preliminaries without first

sending them over for his Majesty’s approbation. On the 18th the Duke

wrote to M. de Choiseul that he was ready to sign, and that he only

_waits his answer to send his messenger to London_. On the 28th or

29th Lord Egremont wrote by the French courier of M. de Nivernois that

the Havannah was taken. On the 30th he repeats the news, and promises

fresh instructions. The Duke never pretended to sign against the King’s

orders, though he complained of their tenor. Thus Walpole’s story

becomes very improbable.--E.

[248] William Ponsonby, Earl of Besborough, one of the

Postmasters-General, had married Lady Caroline Cavendish, eldest sister

of the Duke of Devonshire.

[249] Mr. Fox did _not_ go to Devonshire House to “protest his utter

ignorance of any such design.” He wrote to the Duke at Chatsworth on

the 2nd of November, to express his sorrow at what had happened; and in

a subsequent letter of the 9th assured his Grace that “he neither knew

nor had the least suspicion” of the intention to strike his Grace’s

name out of the Privy Council.--_Note by the late Mr. Allen_, on the

manuscript copy of these Memoirs.

[250] Turned out for his opposition to the Excise Scheme in 1733.

[251] Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, Prime Minister to Queen Anne.

[252] William Keith, Earl Marichal, engaged in the rebellion of 1715.

When he came out of the King’s closet, and was asked what the King had

said, he replied in the words of the old ballad,

“The King looked over his left shoulder,

And a grim look looked he,

And cried ‘Earl Marshal, but for my oath,

Or hanged thou should’st be.’”

Lord Marichal was afterwards in the service of the King of Prussia, and

Governor of Neufchatel. He was pardoned by King George the Third. He

is one of the few persons whom Frederick appears to have really loved.

He was a philosopher after the fashion of that monarch, but a more

practical and amiable one; for he bore the loss of rank and wealth,

and the various discomforts of a long and almost hopeless exile, with

unostentatious cheerfulness, conducting himself all the while so

prudently, that amidst his many political opponents he had not a single

personal enemy. The general esteem that followed him through life

afterwards attached to his memory; and his name is rarely to be found

mentioned in the works of his contemporaries without some expressions

showing an earnest desire to represent him in the fairest colours.

D’Alembert wrote an _éloge_ in his honour. His brother, Marshal Keith,

was a man of far superior ability, and his exile was a serious loss

to the British army. Lord Marichal died at Potsdam in 1778, in his

eighty-sixth year.--Wood’s Peerage of Scotland.--E.

[253] The disgrace of the Duke of Devonshire.

[254] John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. See more of him in the preceding

reign, and in the subsequent part of this work.

[255] George Montagu, fourth Duke of Manchester.

[256] George Spencer, third Duke of Marlborough.

[257] Hugh Smithson Percy, Earl of Northumberland, afterwards Duke of

Northumberland, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

[258] John second Earl of Ashburnham, Lord of the Bedchamber,

and Ranger of the Parks, died on the 8th of April, 1802, in his

eighty-eighth year, and was succeeded by George the third Earl, K.G.,

the agreeable biographer of John Ashburnham.--E.

[259] Thomas Hay, Earl of Kinnoul, better known as Lord Dupplin. He

had, in the preceding reign, held with credit, at different times,

the offices of a Lord of the Treasury, of Paymaster, Chancellor of

the Duchy of Lancaster, &c., and was a frequent and useful speaker

in the House of Commons, “where,” says Walpole, “he aimed at nothing

but understanding business and explaining it.” The Duke of Newcastle

chiefly relied upon him in the distribution of the secret service-money

and the Government patronage among the members. His embassy to Lisbon

is remembered by the satirical verse of Pope,

“Kinnoul’s lewd cargo and Tyrawley’s crew.”

He took very little part in public affairs afterwards; residing usually

on his estates in Scotland, and devoting himself to rural improvements

and matters of local interest. He died in 1787, aged 77, without issue,

and was succeeded by his nephew.--E.

[260] Henry Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, Knight of the Garter, and one of

the Lords of the Bedchamber, was son of Henry Earl of Lincoln and Lucy

Pelham, sister of the Duke of Newcastle and Henry Pelham, First Lord of

the Treasury; and having married his first-cousin, Catherine, eldest

daughter and co-heiress of Mr. Pelham, the Duke’s estate, and a new

creation of the Duchy of Newcastle in reversion, were settled on him.

(He died in 1794, and was the grandfather of the present Duke.)--E.

[261] “This honest old General,” as he is called by Lord Chesterfield,

owed his high rank entirely to his own merit, being a French Huguenot,

of not distinguished parentage, and without connections in this

country. He was a very brave, zealous, and intelligent officer. He had

served with Marlborough in the German wars, and his conduct afterwards

at Dettingen attracted the particular notice of George the Second,

who invested him with the insignia of the Bath on the field, in front

of the whole army. As an additional mark of the King’s favour, he was

also raised to a high command in Flanders, from which time all the

skill shown in the Duke of Cumberland’s military operations,--which at

Fontenoy was not inconsiderable, for the battle was only lost by the

misconduct of General Ingoldsby,--the army ascribed exclusively to him,

his Royal Highness being believed to act in a great measure under his

guidance: and, indeed, he was usually called the Duke’s military tutor.

In the Duke’s absence during the Scotch rebellion of 1745, he succeeded

to the command of the British troops in Flanders, and was present with

ten battalions in the unfortunate battle of Raucoux, where he almost

retrieved the errors of Prince Charles of Lorraine, and is admitted to

have saved the army from total destruction. The brilliant charges of

cavalry by which he protected the retreat of the allies have obtained

the praise even of the French historians. (Coxe’s Pelham, vol. i. p.

322; Lacratelle, vol. ii. p. 350.) The Duke returned in the following

year, as if only to lose the battle of Lafeldt; on which occasion Sir

John Ligonier reaped the same melancholy glory that had attended him

at Raucoux. At seventy years of age, he led a charge of cavalry that

broke the enemy’s line, and had he not been taken prisoner, might have

turned the fortune of the day. Louis the Fifteenth received him with

distinction; and, though a rebellious subject, made him the bearer

of the overtures of the peace, which, on the following year, was

concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. The remainder of his life was passed in

less active service, and in the enjoyment of the rank and honours he

had so well earned. In 1757 he was made Commander-in-chief; in 1759,

Field-Marshal; in 1766, after passing through the subordinate steps

in the peerage, he was created Earl Ligonier. He retained to the last

the gaiety and amiability which had made him the favourite both of the

army and the Court. His tastes were simple; one of his chief amusements

being the embellishment of his country-seat in Surrey, of which his

gardens were the admiration of the neighbourhood. He died in 1770, aged

92; and was succeeded in his title by his nephew, an estimable and

popular nobleman, who had been Aide-de-camp to Prince Ferdinand at the

battle of Minden, and on whose death, without issue, the title became

extinct.--E.

[262] Welbore Ellis. See his character in the preceding

reign.--Memoirs, vol. i. p. 484.

[263] Charles second Duke of Richmond, and Sarah Cadogan his Duchess.

Fox had stolen their eldest daughter, Lady Caroline Lenox.

[264] For the borough of Lynn, in Norfolk.

[265] On the contested election for the borough of St. Michael, in

Cornwall, Lord Orford, my nephew, had quarrelled with me for taking

part with Fox. I offered to resign my seat, but would not give up the

liberty of voting as I pleased.

[266] As Usher of the Exchequer, I advanced a very large sum of money

every year to furnish the Treasury with paper, stationery wares, &c.,

and to pay the workmen; so that, if the payments are kept back, I am a

considerable sufferer.

[267] The Rangership of St. James’s and Hyde Parks. This post was not

worth two thousand two hundred pounds a year by itself, but with the

Bedchamber; as Lord Ashburnham had held it. Lord Orford was already

Lord of the Bedchamber; so, though I did not know it at that time, the

offer was grossly fallacious. Fox, however, might be ignorant too of

this circumstance.

[268] George Walpole, third Earl of Orford, grandson of Sir Robert

Walpole. Not only his grandfather and father had left great debts, but

his own dissipation had involved him in many more.

[269] He scarce ever had any thoughts about politics, but lived almost

always in the country and at Newmarket, wasting his time and fortune

by carelessness, rather than in pleasures and expenses. With a most

engaging figure and address, he profited of no one advantage to which

he was born; and, without any view of advantage to himself, disgusted

every friend he had by insensibility, and every friend he might have

had by insincerity.

[270] Charles Boone, brought into Parliament by Lord Orford for

Castlerising. Fox _had already_ sounded Lord Orford through Mr. Boone,

but without receiving any answer.

[271] This alludes to my having projected a match for Lord Orford

with Miss Nicholl, an heiress worth one hundred and fifty thousand

pounds, whom Lord Orford would not marry; and in the course of which

negotiation I had a great quarrel with my uncle, old Horace Walpole,

who endeavoured, though trusted with her by me, to marry her to one

of his own younger sons. This quarrel had made very great noise, and

many persons were engaged in it. The young lady afterwards married the

Marquis of Caernarvon.

[272] Mr. Fox had supported Mr. Sullivan at a borough in the West

against Mr. T. Walpole; I forget whether it was Callington or

Ashburton. Lord Orford was heir to estates in both by his mother.

[273] Mr. Boone had acquainted me with this, and Mr. Fox thought I did

not know it, but I chose to let him see I did.

[274] Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, afterwards one of the

Secretaries of State.

[275] Sir John Probyn, K.B., Lord Carysfort of Ireland. His son and

successor was ambassador at St. Petersburgh at the beginning of the

present century.--E.

[276] George Fermor, second Earl of Pomfret, brother-in-law to Earl

Granville. He was clever, and a ready speaker; but so hot, headstrong,

and injudicious, that his support was of very questionable benefit

to his political friends. Vide an amusing anecdote of him in George

Selwyn’s Correspondence, vol. i. p. 352.--E.

[277] Mr. Harris did not enter Parliament until he had passed his

fiftieth year, or he would probably have better supported in the House

the reputation he had acquired in society and literature. He was an

accomplished and truly amiable man. He did not rise beyond subordinate

offices in the Government, having been made Lord of the Admiralty in

1762, Lord of the Treasury in 1763. The change of administration in

1765 displaced him, but he was appointed Controller to the Queen in

1774. He died in 1780, in his seventy-second year. An elegant account

of his life is prefixed to the edition of his works by his son, the

first Earl of Malmesbury.--E.

[278] Son of the Marquis of Lothian. He had been aide-de-camp of the

Duke at Fontenoy, where he was severely wounded, and commanded the

cavalry at Culloden. He died in 1775, aged sixty-five.--E.

[279] John Fitzwilliam, brother of the Viscount of that name.

[280] If there was any hardship in this step, it consisted in these

gentlemen not having received previous notice from Mr. Fox that he

should regard opposition to the vote in the light of such direct

hostility to the Government as would be incompatible with the tenure of

office under it. Previously, there appears to have been no settled rule

as to the claims of the Government on the support of members in office.

Mr. Pitt, when Paymaster, not only voted but frequently spoke against

the Government. It would now be considered very extraordinary in any

member of the administration, however subordinate, to vote against a

Government measure without a previous intimation to the premier of his

readiness to resign.--E.

[281] Fourth daughter of John Leveson, first Earl Gower, wife of

General John Waldegrave, who succeeded his brother in the Earldom of

Waldegrave.

[282] Giles Earle.

[283] Eldest son of Thomas, one of the Tellers of the Exchequer, second

son of Charles Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State to George I. and

II.

[284] Younger son of the Earl of Granard.

[285] A sufficient reason against his original appointment, but a bad

one for his dismissal. Mr. Schutz was very rich, having succeeded by

bequest to a large estate in Essex, from Sir J. Tyrrel.--E.

[286] This certainly was a very harsh proceeding. No Lord Lieutenant

has since been dismissed without far more decided provocation.--E.

[287] This character of Lord Granville is not one of the author’s

happiest efforts. He has, however, hit off some of the more salient

traits of that nobleman’s character with great cleverness in his

“Correspondence.” Lord Mahon and Mr. Macaulay have subsequently gone

over the same ground with brilliant success, but the following sketch

by Lord Chesterfield, to which they are both indebted, is so full of

life and spirit, that the editor cannot refrain from inserting it.

“He had great parts and a most uncommon share of learning for a man

of quality. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords,

both in the declamatory and the argumentative way. He had a wonderful

quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a question, which no

art, no sophistry, could disguise in him. In business he was bold,

enterprising, and overbearing. He had been bred up in high monarchical,

that is, tyrannical principles of government, which his ardent and

imperious temper made him think were the only rational and practical

ones. He would have been a great first Minister in France, little

inferior, perhaps, to Richelieu; in this government, which is yet free,

he was neither ill-natured nor vindictive, and had a great contempt for

money--his ideas were all above it. In social life he was an agreeable,

good-humoured, and instructive companion, a great but interesting

talker.

“He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with

a great stock of Greek and Latin, he had brought from Oxford, and

practised ever afterwards. By his own industry he had made himself

master of all the modern languages, and had acquired great knowledge

of the law. His political knowledge of the interests of princes and

of commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His

character may be summed up in nice precision, great decision, and

overbearing presumption.”--Chesterfield’s Miscell. Works, vol. iv. p.

49.--E.

[288] This persecution is inexcusable, and very unlike Mr. Fox, who was

a very good-humoured man.--E.

[289] Son of Heneage Legge, one of the Barons of the Exchequer.

[290] I shall give two instances of my assertions. Sir William Milner

held a place of about 2000_l._ a year in the Custom-house, the greater

portion of which had been allotted to his wife’s aunt, Mrs. Poyntz,[a]

as a jointure on the death of her husband, who had been governor to the

Duke of Cumberland. This was now taken away, and bestowed by Lord Bute

on Mr. Poole, to make him amends for the ravage made on his family[b]

in this new persecution; Lord Bute intending at the same time to

reserve 600_l._ a year out of it for Mrs. Poyntz. Lord Spencer, who

had married her daughter, wrote to the King representing the case,

and begging his protection for Mrs. Poyntz. The petition concluded

with telling the King that this application was made to _him_, because

probably his Majesty would hear of the grievance no other way. On this

the whole was stopped; but that Fox might bear all the odium, and Lord

Bute have all the merit, the latter sent a message by Lord Ancram to

the Duke of Cumberland,[c] to say, that if his Royal Highness would

take it as a favour, the King would continue the pension to Mrs.

Poyntz; and it was accepted.

The other was the case of Mrs. Cavendish, widow of an Admiral of that

name. She had for many years enjoyed a housekeeper’s place in one of

the offices, in lieu of a pension as an Admiral’s widow. Fox, hunting

after employments for his dependents and objects of vengeance for

himself, lighting on the name of a Cavendish, took away her place. The

lady, of a respectable family, and sister of Mrs. Cartwright, Maid of

Honour to the late Queen, sent the latter to Lady Suffolk,[d] from whom

I heard this account, immediately to entreat by her means an audience

of Lady Elizabeth Mackenzie.[e] Mrs. Cavendish herself, living in

devotion and unknown _to_, proved to be a relation _of_ Lady Bute;

to whom Lady E. Mackenzie had instantly applied. Lady Bute, no less

surprised, sent for her lord up stairs. He said the story could not be

true: it was one Mrs. Greening that was displaced, to make room for

Mrs. Goldsworthy, a companion of the late Duchess of Richmond.[f] It

proved that Fox had thus imposed on Lord Bute, to whom the name of Mrs.

Cavendish had never been mentioned, and who gave her immediate redress.

[a] Anna Maria Mordaunt, Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline, and widow

of Stephen Poyntz. She had been a great beauty; the poem of “The

Fair Circassian” was written by a gentleman who was in love with

her.

[b] Sir Francis Poole, related to the Duke of Newcastle, had been

turned out, with others of the same connection.

[c] Eldest son of the Marquis of Lothian, and groom of the bedchamber

to the duke.

[d] Henrietta Hobart, Countess of Suffolk, Mistress of the Robes to

Queen Caroline.

[e] Wife of James Stuart Mackenzie, brother of the Earl of Bute.

[f] Sarah Cadogan, Duchess of Richmond, mother of Lady Caroline Fox.

[291] The same charge is brought against Sir Fletcher Norton by Junius

(Letter 39), who applies to him the lines of Ben Jonson, describing the

lawyer who

Gives forked counsel; takes provoking gold

_On either hand_, and puts it up;

So wise, so grave, of so perplexed a tongue,

And _loud_ withal, that would not wag, nor scarce

Lie still, _without a fee_.

Though Norton had the character at the bar of being the reverse of a

liberal practitioner, it is very improbable that Walpole’s assertion,

“that he took money from both parties” in a suit, should be literally

correct. He had too many rivals as well as enemies in the profession,

to admit of such conduct remaining unpunished; but it is not uncommon

for a counsel to feel himself bound _in honour_ to refuse a brief which

he could not accept without using knowledge acquired while employed by

parties who had a different interest, until he has given those parties

the option of employing him again; and Norton’s eagerness for gain made

him take a very narrow view of such questions.--E.

[292] Only son of the Earl of Derby, and Chancellor of the Duchy of

Lancaster.

[293] William Aislabie, auditor of the imprest, son of Mr. Aislabie,

who was concerned in the South-Sea scheme in the reign of George I.

[294] The Report of the Committee is given in the Parliamentary

Debates, vol. xv. 1286. It is a very interesting document, but the only

fruit of it was a Resolution, “That it is the opinion of the House

that the present state of the mad-houses in this kingdom requires the

interposition of the Legislature.”--E.

[295] This does not include those who died of their wounds.

[296] George Onslow, only son of the late Speaker.

[297] Sir Henry Liddel, Lord Ravensworth, father of the Duchess of

Grafton, a connection to which he probably owed the favourable notice

of him in the author’s Memoirs of George II., vol. i. p. 265.--E.

[298] One of the Duke of Devonshire’s brothers, and Lord of the

Bedchamber to the Duke. A very gallant officer, who had frequently

distinguished himself during the war.--E.

[299] Maria, second daughter of Sir Edward Walpole.

[300] Sir Francis Dashwood.

[301] Hugh Hume, Earl of Marchmont; called in his father’s time Lord

Polwarth, and a great friend of Pope. He generally succeeded best

in reply, for he could then best employ the fire and acrimony which

formerly made him shine in opposition.--E.

[302] George Lord Lyttelton, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the late

reign; another friend of Pope, and Author of Dialogues of the Dead,

Life of King Henry II., &c. [Vide Walpole’s Memoirs of Geo. II., vol.

i. p. 175, for his character, and many particulars of his public life,

written in no friendly spirit.--E.]

[303] William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, nephew of Henry Legge; and

much attached to the Methodist sect; but of an excellent character.

[Richardson is reported to have said of him, when asked if he knew an

original answerable to his portrait of Sir Charles Grandison, that he

might apply it to him if he were not a Methodist. (Southey’s Life of

Cowper, vol. i. p. 234.) He was afterwards Secretary of State.--E.]

[304] Charles Paulet, Duke of Bolton, K.B. He died without issue in

1765.--E.

[305] The best defence of his resignation is given by Mr. Adolphus,

vol. i. p. 115, from private information. It by no means exculpates

him from the charges in the text, and is also at variance with the

statement of a writer who lived on terms of the closest intimacy with

the Bute family. M. Dutens says, “That he resigned, because he was

disgusted with the bustle of business, indignant at the behaviour

of those who endeavoured to obtain his favour, at the baseness of

some, and the duplicity of others.”--Memoirs of a Traveller now in

Retirement, vol. iv. p. 181. This corresponds with all that has

transpired of Lord Bute’s character.--E.

[306] Thomas Orby Hunter.

[307] Henry Lord Digby, nephew of Mr. Fox.

[308] Richard Viscount Howe.

[309] Thomas Pitt, of Boconnock, nephew of Mr. William Pitt, with

whom he was at variance. [To this gentleman, when a student at the

University, Mr. Pitt addressed the beautiful letters subsequently

published by Lord Grenville.--E.]

[310] General George Townshend, afterwards Viscount.

[311] Simon Lord Harcourt, who had been Governor to the King.

[312] Charles Douglas, Duke of Queensberry; he had been Lord of the

Bedchamber to the late Prince of Wales.

[313] James Duke of Athol.

[314] A friend of Mr. William Pitt.

[315] He had been Groom of the Bedchamber to the late Prince.

[316] James Douglas, Earl of March and Ruglin [afterwards Duke of

Queensberry].

[317] Charles Shaw, Lord Cathcart, had been one of the hostages to

France, and Lords of the Bedchamber to William Duke of Cumberland; he

was afterwards Ambassador in Russia. [Died July 21, 1776.--E.]

[318] Gertrude Leveson Duchess of Bedford.

[319] George Spencer, Duke of Marlborough.

[320] John Manners, Duke of Rutland, father of Lord Granby.

[321] Granville Leveson Gower, Earl Gower, brother of the Duchess of

Bedford.

[322] John Calcraft began with being clerk in the War Office at 40_l._

a year. [He was a very shrewd, intelligent man, and gained great

popularity with the army by his liberal conduct and hospitality to the

officers.--E.]

[323] This charge is entirely unfounded. Had there been any truth in

it, the connection between Mr. Fox and Mr. Calcraft would not have been

so easily dissolved.--E.

[324] It is in reference to Mr. Rigby’s conduct that Lord Holland

probably alludes to the following passage of a letter to Mr. Selwyn

of October 5, 1763: “I drop all politics that may not go by the post,

till I see you, when I will tell you all I know of them, with the

_trait_ I mentioned. Had it been from a political friend only, I should

be ashamed to be hurt by it. No politics will or can mortify me; I

thought this man’s friendship had not been only political. I loved him;

and whether to feel or not to feel, to despise or grieve, on such an

occasion, be most worthy of a man, I won’t dispute; but the fact is

that I have been, and still am, whenever I think of it, very unhappy.”

Selwyn Correspondence, vol. i. p. 267.--E.

[325] Lady Isabella Fitzroy, second daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton.

[326] Then held by Mr. Aislabie for life.

[327] Secretary to the Treasury. [He derived no benefit from this

appointment, having died some years before Walpole.--E.]

[328] Collector of the Customs. Sir Robert Walpole held it for his

own life, and for the lives of his two eldest sons, with power of

bequeathing it for their lives to any child he pleased.

[329] Charles Jenkinson, private secretary to Lord Bute [afterwards

Earl of Liverpool.--E.]

[330] It was again offered to me afterwards, and I again refused it.

[331] This was not the only favour that the count owed to the English

Government, for they prevented his recall soon after the king’s

accession; and it was entirely at their instance that he obtained

permission to give up his embassy to his son. He had also received a

portrait set in diamonds, and a suite of Gobelin hangings from the King

of France. Upon his resignation he retired to his estates in Savoy,

where he intrigued until he succeeded in replacing the Count de St.

Germaine as first Minister of Savoy.--Mem. of a Traveller, vol. ii. p.

70.--E.

[332] The negotiation was conducted by Count Virri (Duke?) Envoy in

England, and by the Bailli de Solar, the Sardinian Minister at Paris,

the intimate friend of the Duchess de Choiseul; and that convenience

was probably a reason why Lord Bute yielded to the treaty being

settled at Paris, though the King of France had offered to treat here

_vis-à-vis du Roi de la Grande Brétagne_. [_Vide_ notes in p. 157 and

160, _supra_, for more details respecting the part taken by these

Sardinian Ministers in the negotiation.--E.]

[333] These Memoirs were published in 1821, with a very able

introduction by the late Lord Holland. A critic, who cannot be

suspected of partiality (Quarterly Review, vol. xxv. p. 413),

pronounces them “a model of this species of writing.” It is to be

regretted that they embrace only four years, and those not the most

interesting, of the reign of George II. Lord Waldegrave possessed

sound sense and respectable abilities. He was highly esteemed by his

contemporaries, and few men have passed through life, and, above all,

public life, with a character so entirely unblemished.--A masterly

critique of Lord Waldegrave’s Memoirs is given in the seventy-third

number of the Edinburgh Review, from the pen of the late Mr. John

Allen.--E.

[334] George Grenville, next brother of Richard Earl Temple. He married

Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Windham, and sister of Charles Earl

of Egremont, and of Percy Windham Obrien, Earl of Thomond.

[335] Treasurer of the Navy.

[336] Sir Charles Windham, Earl of Egremont, eldest son of the

celebrated orator, Sir William Windham, Chancellor of the Exchequer

in the four last years of Queen Anne, and of Lady Catherine Seymour,

daughter of Charles Duke of Somerset, the proudest man of his age.

[337] Had Lord Egremont been a liar of the “monstrous magnitude”

stated in the text, he certainly would never have had the opportunity

of refusing the offer of being Secretary of State from a man of such

strict honour and integrity as Lord Waldegrave; an offer, be it

observed, which Walpole notices in his Memoirs of George the Second

without censure. It was to his refusal of that offer, and to his

subsequent connection with Mr. Grenville, that Lord Egremont owed this

severe imputation. He was proud, obstinate, and hot-tempered; but

that he was not without talent is proved by his answer to the Spanish

memorial, a State paper of acknowledged merit. Bishop Newton, who

knew him well, says, “that if he had entered earlier into business,

he might have made as considerable a figure as his father had. He had

seldom occasion to speak in Parliament, but, when he did, it was with

great clearness, force, and energy; and he was thought to resemble his

father in manner as well as in good matter, having a little catch and

impediment in his voice, as his father had.”--Newton’s Mem. p. 89.--E.

[338] Many interesting anecdotes of Lord Halifax are given in the

Memoirs of Mr. Cumberland, who had been his private secretary for many

years. He describes him thus: “I am persuaded he was formed to be a

good man, he might also have been a great one: his mind was large, his

spirit active, his ambition honourable; he had a carriage noble and

imposing; his first approach attracted notice; his consequent address

ensured respect. If his talents were not quite so solid as some, nor

altogether so deep as others, yet they were brilliant, popular, and

made to glitter in the eyes of men: splendour was his passion; his

good-fortune threw opportunities in his way to have supported it; his

ill-fortune blasted all those energies which should have been reserved

for the crisis of his public fame. The first offices of the State,

the highest honours which his Sovereign could bestow, were showered

upon him when the spring of his mind was broken; and his genius, like

a vessel overloaded with treasure, but far gone in decay, was only

precipitated to ruin by the very freight that, in its better days,

would have crowned it with prosperity and riches.” Vol. i. p. 242.

This is a generous portrait, considering that Cumberland had certainly

been unkindly treated by Lord Halifax; and, had he always felt thus,

he would not have furnished Sheridan with the model of Sir Fretful

Plagiary.--E.

[339] The figures 45 became the hieroglyphics of Wilkes’s party.

[340] Queen Anne’s speech on the treaty of Utrecht told a similar lie;

so exactly was the parallel maintained throughout. [It was consequently

made one of the subjects of Lord Orford’s impeachment. Vide fifteenth

Article, Journals, vol. xviii. p. 214.--E.]

[341] The following passages are those to which the text refers: “This

week has given the public the most abandoned instance of official

effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind. The minister’s

speech last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of this

country. I am in doubt whether the imposition is greater on the

Sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament

that a Prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England

truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his name to the

most odious measures, and to the most unjustifiable public doctrines,

from a Throne ever renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue. I

am sure all foreigners, especially the King of Prussia, will hold the

minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our Sovereign declare,

‘_My expectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which

the several allies of my crown have derived from the salutary measure

of the definitive treaty. The powers at war with my good brother

the King of Prussia have been induced to agree to such terms of

accommodation as that great Prince has approved, and the success which

has attended my negotiation has necessarily and immediately diffused

the blessings of peace throughout Europe._’ The infamous fallacy of

this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind; for it is known that

the King of Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dictated as

conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No advantage of any

kind has accrued to that magnanimous Prince from our negotiation; but

he was basely deserted by the Scottish Prime Minister of England. He

was known by every Court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms here

than at Vienna, and he was betrayed by us in the treaty of peace. What

a strain of insolence, therefore, is it in a minister to lay claim

to what he is conscious his efforts tended to prevent, and meanly

to arrogate to himself a share in the fame and glory of one of the

greatest Princes the world has ever seen!”--E.

[342] Robert Wood, author of the accounts of Balbec and Palmyra, and

Under-Secretary of State. He had been so made by Lord Chatham, but had

deserted him. [Mr. Wood was still, and for some time after, on most

friendly terms with Lord Chatham. Vide his letters of the 3rd and 6th

of September, 1763, in the second volume of the Chatham Correspondence,

p. 246.--E.]

[343] Philip Carteret Webbe, M.P. for Hazlemere, and Solicitor to

the Treasury. The part he took in the proceedings against Wilkes

savoured too much of the practice at the Old Bailey, and made him very

unpopular. His character was otherwise unexceptionable. He published

various tracts on law and antiquities, and was a great collector of

books and medals. He died in 1770, aged 70.--E.

[344] When Charles King of Naples, on the death of his brother King

Ferdinand, succeeded to the crown of Spain, he set aside his eldest son

as an idiot, made the second Prince of Asturias, and the third King of

Naples.

[345] He was appointed King’s Counsel in May, 1757, and Baron of the

Exchequer in Hilary Term, 1762. He resigned in May, 1764. We cannot

find anything more about him. His praise of the peace seems to have

been on his first circuit; probably, while his surprise and gratitude

were fresh. There are no Exchequer reports of that time. Except on the

circuit, a Baron of the Exchequer was then, and long after, almost a

sinecurist.--E.

[346] Ralph Allen, of Prior Park, near Bath, Master of the Cross-posts.

[347] Mr. Pitt had openly pronounced the peace _inadequate_, and it

seemed to be personally levelled at him, that the address affected to

call it _adequate_. [Bishop Warburton insists on Allen’s ignorance

of Mr. Pitt having applied the term “inadequate” to the peace, and

disclaims any concern in it himself; though he admits having drawn

up, promoted, and advised a similar address from the clergy of

Gloucester, whose interference, on this occasion, “had the fate,” Mr.

Pitt observed, “not to be imitated by any other episcopal see in the

kingdom.” Allen, who was now an old man, felt Mr. Pitt’s resentment

acutely, and immediately withdrew from this corporation. He died on

the 29th June of the following year, having bequeathed to Mr. Pitt

a legacy of 1000_l._ Mr. Pitt’s letter of condolence to his widow

shows, that whatever coolness the address might have produced in their

intercourse was short-lived. The correspondence between Mr. Pitt and

Allen is in the Annual Register for 1763, p. 208; and in the Chatham

Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 256.--E.]

[348] Captain Forbes, of Ogilby’s regiment, in the French service. He

was of good family in Scotland, and of some merit in his profession, as

may be inferred from his subsequently attaining the rank of General in

Portugal, where, in common with other Scotch exiles, he was employed

and trusted.--E.

[349] Vide Memoirs of the year 1751, [vol. i. p. 15-181. He was at that

time residing at Paris, under the name of Count Murray. In 1771, he was

recalled by letter under the King’s privy seal, and he died shortly

afterwards.--E.]

[350] Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds.

[351] Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde, brother of William Earl of Jersey.

[He had been Minister at Berlin in the reign of George the Second, and

received various honours from Frederick the Great, whose preference

of him to such men as Mr. Legge and Mr. Fox, and even to Sir Andrew

Mitchell, probably arose from the same reasons that induced Napoleon

to bestow the warmest praise on such of his enemy’s generals as he

most wished to have as opponents. Lord Hyde was an amiable nobleman,

of very comely person, and graceful deportment; he married one of the

coheiresses of Lord Clarendon, was elevated to that earldom in 1776,

and died in 1786.--E.]

[352] Mr. Grenville was deeply offended at this interference of the

Duke of Bedford; and his friends, in consequence, took no pains to

defend the Duke when the current of popular feeling afterwards turned

so strongly against his Grace.--E.

[353] Mr. Pitt’s villa at Hayes, near Bromley, in Kent.

[354] Walpole is mistaken in this supposition; for the King himself

proposed Lord Temple for the Treasury. (Lord Hardwicke’s letter to the

Duke of Newcastle.) An impartial narrative of this transaction is given

by Mr. Adolphus (vol. i. p. 127), with a reference to the contemporary

authorities, of which the most important are Lord Hardwicke’s letter,

and the letters in the Chatham Correspondence (vol. ii. p. 242). The

“dexterity” and finesse ascribed in the text to Mr. Pitt hardly belong

to his character, and certainly were not exhibited on this occasion.

His private correspondence proves, as he told the King, that he felt

throughout the impossibility of his making a ministry, unless it rested

“on the great families who had supported the Revolution Government,

and other great persons, of whose ability and integrity the country

had had experience, and who had weight and credit in the nation.” This

would necessarily have involved greater changes than the King then

contemplated, though not greater than his Majesty subsequently found

inevitable.--E.

[355] Henry Arthur Herbert, Earl of Powis.

[356] He had been succeeded as Treasurer of the Household by Lord Powis.

[357] His Majesty did not give him up in less than two years on the

next change.

[358] Charles Watson Wentworth, Marquis of Rockingham.

[359] Welbore Ellis, Esq.

[360] George Keppel, third Earl of Albemarle.

[361] Walpole is in error here. Wood informed Mr. Pitt of the report,

that he had proscribed Lord Gower, Rigby, and others of the Bedford

party; and Mr. Pitt’s reply, though it has not been preserved, may

be inferred, from Wood’s acknowledgment of it, to have amounted to a

positive denial of the charge. (Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p.

250.)--E.

[362] Dr. Charles Lyttelton, brother of George Lord Lyttelton. They

were sons of Christian, sister of Richard Lord Cobham, consequently

first cousins of Lord Temple.

[363] James Grenville, the third brother.

[364] Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, had four sisters, Maria, Hester,

Christian, and Penelope. Maria, widow of Sir John Langham, offended

him by marrying Mr. West, a clergyman, on which he set her aside, and

settled his estate, and obtained his peerage to be settled, on Hester,

the second sister, and her issue, who, by Mr. Grenville, her husband,

were Richard, George, James, Henry, Thomas, and Hester, the wife of Mr.

Pitt. [Mr. West was the father of Gilbert West, one of the Clerks of

the Council, and better known as the translator of Pindar, and author

of the popular treatise “On the Resurrection.” He was a most amiable

man, and the intimate friend of Pitt.--E.]

[365] Henrietta Hobart, sister of the first Earl of Buckinghamshire,

widow of the Earl of Suffolk, and afterwards of George Berkeley,

brother of the Earl of Berkeley, Mistress of the Robes to Queen

Caroline, and mistress of King George the Second. The author lived in

great friendship with her the last years of her life; her house at

Marble Hill, Twickenham, and his at Strawberry Hill, near the same

village, were within a mile of each other, and he passed three or four

evenings every week with her, when they were in the country. She died

July 26, 1767, aged 79, and was remarkable for her strict and minute

veracity and memory, which she retained to the last, as well as her

eyesight, teeth, and the elegance of her person.

[366] Leicester House, in Leicester Fields, the residence of the

Sydneys, Earls of Leicester, was hired and inhabited by King George and

Queen Caroline, when Prince and Princess of Wales, on their quarrel

with George the First; as it was afterwards, on a similar occasion, by

Frederick, Prince of Wales, whose widow, Augusta, also dwelled there

till after the accession of her son to the Crown. George the Third,

after his father’s death, lived at Saville House, the next door to her.

[367] The names of four Scotchmen appear in the same Gazette to

appointments, or as Governors in the American Colonies, Johnstone

being one of them. He was the third son of Sir James Johnstone, of

Westerhall; he was of a hot and most pugnacious temperament, as he

showed some years later by his duel with Lord George Germaine. He died

in 1787.--E.

[368] Don Richard Wall, of Irish extraction, was Ambassador here

from Spain in the reign of George the Second. He was a most artful,

agreeable man, of much wit, and a great favourite at this Court. At

his return to Madrid, he had been made Secretary of State in 1754,

[upon the downfall of Enseñada. Sir Benjamin Keene, by his advice and

influence, materially contributed to this event, which proved highly

favourable to the British interests at Madrid. The intrigues in the

Spanish Court, and the financial difficulties of the country, made

Wall’s post a very irksome one. He discharged its duties at least as

ably as either his predecessor or his successor. The King was unwilling

to part with him, and made his retirement honourable by many marks of

distinction. He passed the remaining years of his life chiefly at Soto

de Roma, a royal castle, in the lovely valley of Grenada, where he

maintained a splendid hospitality. Mr. Swinburne visited him there, and

has given a very agreeable account of him. He died 1778.--E.]

[369] Grimaldi was a Genoese. He had been educated for the church,

and always retained the soft and insinuating manners of an Italian

ecclesiastic. It was to his address, rather than to his talents,

that he was indebted for high situations he filled. In negotiating

the celebrated treaty of Paris, he appears to have been overmatched

by Choiseul, and the loss of the Havannah, and the other misfortunes

of the war, were the immediate fruits of his eagerness for a French

alliance. His administration in Spain was neither popular nor

successful. It ended with the failure of the expedition to Algiers.

His chief merit lay in the encouragement he gave to literature, his

patronage of the arts, his love of justice, and the mildness and

generosity of his disposition. On his resignation, in 1777, he was

created a Duke, and a Grandee of Spain. Having been allowed to nominate

his successor, he was at his own request appointed Ambassador at

Rome. Coxe’s Spain, vol. v. c. 63; and Memoirs of a Traveller now in

Retirement, vol. iv. p. 109.--E.

[370] He had particularly distinguished himself in the command of his

regiment at Fontenoy, where his valour and good fortune are noticed by

Voltaire:--

“_Guerchy n’est pas blessé, la vertu peut te plaire._”--E.

[371] See an account of him in the notes, _infra_.--E.

[372] This Vergy was a French spy. In 1771, I heard Mr. Phelps,

secretary to Lord Sandwich, relate that Vergy had offered him to act,

too, as a spy on Guerchy, of which Mr. Phelps gave the ambassador

warning. Vergy remained here several years, and wrote pamphlets and

novels for a livelihood.

[373] When they talked to D’Eon of a breach of the peace, he understood

English so imperfectly, that he thought Lord Halifax threatened to

break the peace between the two nations, of which he, D’Eon, had been

the messenger, and that inflamed his madness.

[374] Augustus the Third, a weak and unfortunate monarch, whose reign

forms one of the most melancholy epochs in the annals of Saxony. His

incapacity was more remarkable from his being opposed to Frederick the

Great and Catherine the Second. He died in 1763, and with him ended

the independence of Poland--his successor Stanislaus being merely the

nominee of Russia.--E.

[375] Count Bruhl.--[This worthless courtier, who exercised for

many years an arbitrary sway over Saxony and Poland, and inflicted

irreparable injuries on both countries, died in October, 1764.--E.]

[376] Rezzonico, Pope by the name of Clement the Thirteenth, [filled

the Papal Chair from 1758 to 1769, when he died, in his 76th year. His

life was decent, and his intentions appear to have been honest, but his

policy was unenlightened and vacillating, and is strikingly contrasted

by that of his illustrious successor.--E.]

[377] Sir Hugh Smithson, who assumed the name of Percy on marrying Lady

Elizabeth Seymour, daughter of Algernon Duke of Somerset, and heiress

of the house of Percy by her grandmother. They were created Earl and

Countess of Northumberland.

[378] Thomas Potter--see more of him in the preceding reign. [Memoirs

of George II. vol. i. p. 61. He was the second son of Archbishop

Potter, whose fortune he inherited, owing to his elder brother having

disobliged his father by an imprudent marriage. In 1748 he had been

appointed secretary to the Prince of Wales, then the patron of all

the talent in the House opposed to the Government, and from that time

he took an active part in the political contests of the day. He was a

clever and impressive speaker, and, with application and steadiness

of conduct, might have become one of the leaders of his party.

Unfortunately, he had contracted, in early life, habits of dissipation,

under which his constitution sunk, just as his ambitious hopes bade

fair to be realized. He died Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, in June, 1759.

Some interesting letters from him to Mr. Pitt are given in the Chatham

Correspondence, vol. i.--E.]

[379] James Douglas, Earl of March and Ruglen, Lord of the Bedchamber

to the King, [afterwards the too well-known Duke of Queensberry--an

appropriate patron of such a divine.--E.]

[380] Lord Despencer said, he never heard the devil preach before.

Yet Lord Sandwich had a precedent in a great Reformer of the Church:

“Calvin eut par trahison les feuilles d’un ouvrage que Servet faisait

imprimer secrètement. Il les envoya à Lyon avec les lettres qu’il avait

reçues de lui: action qui servirait pour le deshonorer à jamais dans la

Société. Calvin fit accuser Servet par un emissaire. Quel rôle pour un

Apôtre!”--Voltaire, Essai sur l’Hist. Générale, chap. 113.

[381] A broken wine-merchant, brother of Admiral Cotes, an intimate of

Wilkes.

[382] Only son of the Duke of Chandos. [He afterwards succeeded to the

Dukedom, and died in 1789, when his titles became extinct. His only

daughter married the late Duke of Buckingham.--E.]

[383] Mr. Pitt’s speech had the very dubious merit of pleasing his

opponents rather than his friends. Lord Barrington, in a letter to

Sir Andrew Mitchell, says, that if fifty thousand pounds had been

given for it, the sum would have been well expended. It secures us a

quiet session. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 262, and Walpole’s

Letters, vol. iv. p. 313.--In fact Mr. Pitt’s interviews with the King

had necessarily blunted the edge of his opposition, and he found it

as difficult to give an intelligible defence of his proceedings, as

all succeeding ministers, in the same predicament, have experienced

since.--E.

[384] The Lords on the same account put off the hearing of Wilkes’s

defence on the Essay on Woman, to the 22nd; and then for a week longer.

[385] Frederick, second son of George the Third.

[386] Edward Duke of York, next brother to the King.

[387] Frederick Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guilford.

[388] Mr. Morton, or Moreton, M.P. for Abingdon, a barrister of

eminence, who was appointed Chief Justice of Chester in 1763. His name

will hereafter occur in the debates on the Regency. He must not be

confounded with Sir William Moreton, of Moreton, in Cheshire, Recorder

of London, who died in 1763.--E.

[389] Mr. Forester had been originally recommended by Alderman Beckford

to the Duke of Bedford (when the Alderman and his Grace acted together)

for a seat in Parliament, “as a person in whom steadiness, honour,

and elocution were not exceeded by any man in the country.” (Bedford

Correspondence.)--E.

[390] Mr. Wilbraham, M.P. for Newton, and Deputy Steward of the

University of Oxford. He was an eminent lawyer, whose politics, like

those of Mr. Fazakerly, prevented his attaining the honours of his

profession.--(Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 319.)--E.

[391] Benjamin Bathurst of Lydney, in Gloucestershire, brother of the

first Lord Bathurst, and father of the late Bishop of Norwich.--E.

[392] Sir John Griffin, an officer of some distinction. He had been

severely wounded at the battle of Campen, when fighting near the

hereditary Prince of Brunswick. In 1786 he succeeded to the ancient

Barony of Howard de Walden; in 1796 he became a Field Marshal; and he

died in 1797, having devised Audley-End and his other estates to his

kinsman, Mr. Aldworth Neville, who at the same time succeeded to the

Barony of Braybrooke, which had been limited over to him on the death

of Lord Howard de Walden.--E.

[393] See _infra_.

[394] General Philip Honeywood, of Marks Hall, Essex, an officer of

distinction. He died without issue in 1785.--E.

[395] Sir John Rushout had taken an active part in the debates against

Walpole’s Excise Bill in 1732. He was made a Lord of the Treasury in

1742, and in the following year Treasurer of the Navy. He was strongly

attached to Pulteney, and had the sagacity to predict the consequences

of that statesman’s refusal to take office on the resignation of

Walpole. He lived to the great age of 91, and died on the 2nd of March,

1775. His son was created Lord Northwich.--E.

[396] In Ireland.

[397] Henly Earl of Northington.

[398] Under Lord Chatham’s administration in the war.

[399] Thomas Harley, a merchant, and brother of the Earl of Oxford.

[400] The tax on cyder.

[401] The Duke of Bedford.

[402] Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 329.

[403] Vide Wilkes v. Wood. State Trials, vol. xix. 1154.--E.

[404] Vide Mr. Croker’s note in Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. iv. p.

322.

[405] He was the second son of William de Grey, Esq., M.P., and younger

brother of Thomas de Grey of Merton Hall, M.P. for Norfolk, whose

estates he inherited, on the death of the latter without issue, in

1765.--E.

[406] This was one of the most obstinate contests of the day, and

cost Mr. Luther many thousand pounds. He had been the pupil, and

was the intimate friend, of Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Landaff, to

whom he bequeathed a considerable portion of his fortune. The Bishop

describes him correctly as a man of most upright conduct and honourable

principles. He died in 1786. Watson’s Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 235.--E.

[407] Philip Yorke, Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of

Hardwicke.--See _infra_.

[408] General A’Court, M.P. for Heytesbury, was Colonel of the 11th

Dragoons. He did not long remain an object of compassion, for he

recovered his rank and regiment, and afterwards inherited a large

estate and the borough of Heytesbury, from his uncle, Mr. Ash. He

died in 1781. The present Lord Heytesbury is his grandson and lineal

representative.--E.

[409] General Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Francis Earl of

Hertford.

[410] Thomas Pitt of Boconnock, only son of Thomas Pitt, elder brother

of the famous William Pitt, by the eldest sister of George Lord

Lyttelton. [He inherited from his father the borough of Old Sarum, for

which he brought himself into Parliament in 1761. In 1763 he was made a

Lord of the Admiralty. In 1784 created Lord Camelford. He went abroad

for his health in 1787, and died at Florence in 1793. The letters

addressed to him when a student at Cambridge, by Lord Chatham, have

attached an interest to his name beyond what belongs to his political

career; and it is singular that he should, at the very outset of his

public life, have abruptly separated from one whose opinions up to

that time he seems to have entirely shared. Their connection was not

afterwards resumed, though, as Lord Chatham’s relative, he returned

thanks (rather coldly) to the House for the marks of distinction

conferred on that great man’s memory. He is described by his

son-in-law, Lord Grenville, “as combining a steadiness of principle and

a correctness of judgment with an integrity of heart, which produced

the affectionate attachment from those who knew him that has followed

him beyond the grave.” Many of his letters during his residence abroad

are printed in Nichols’s Illustrations of Literary History, vol. vi. p.

75; they show more amiability of disposition than power of mind, and

were scarcely worth being preserved. On the death of his only son the

title became extinct.--E.]

[411] Charles Lenox, third Duke of Richmond, had married Lady Mary

Bruce, daughter of the last Earl of Ailesbury by his third wife,

Caroline Campbell, afterwards married to General Conway.

[412] Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Windham, a lady highly

respected for her virtues as a wife and mother; and whose death, not

long after, her husband never recovered.--E.

[413] Augusta, eldest daughter of Frederick Prince of Wales.

[414] Anne, eldest daughter of King George the Second.

[415] Mary, fourth daughter of George the Second, married to the Prince

of Hesse; and Louisa, his fifth, married to the King of Denmark.

[416] The Prince visited Mr. Pitt on the 22nd of January, and passed

two hours with him. On the 14th, the Prince had addressed him a very

complimentary letter. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 272, and

note.--E.

[417] The Prince succeeded to the Dukedom on the death of his father

in 1780, and for some years after resided at Brunswick, where the

Princess, who was throughout life deservedly esteemed, made his Court

very agreeable. In 1787 he commanded the Prussian forces which took

possession of Amsterdam, and put down the republican party in Holland.

His campaigns against the French republicans were less successful,

and his well-known manifesto rendered his failure more glaring. He

was mortally wounded at Auerstadt, and expired at Altona on the 10th

of November, 1806, leaving behind him the reputation of a bold and

enterprising, rather than of an able general. His Duchess took refuge

in England, where she died at an advanced age. They were not happy

in their family: of their two daughters, the eldest married the late

King of Wirtemberg, and came to a miserable end in Russia; the younger

was the unfortunate Queen Caroline. Their eldest son was of a weak

understanding, and the younger, “Brunswick’s fated Chieftain,” a Prince

of moderate abilities but signal courage, fell in middle life at

Waterloo.--E.

[418] A general officer.

[419] Sir William Meredith was elected for Wigan in 1755, and for

Liverpool in 1762. In 1765 he was appointed a Lord of the Admiralty,

an office which he resigned on the dismissal of the Rockingham

Administration. In 1774 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and made

Comptroller of the Household. He died in 1790.--Cavendish’s Debates,

(note,) vol. i. p. 52.--E.

[420] This character of Sir George Saville is not less honourable to

his memory than Mr. Burke’s well-known and brilliant panegyric at

the Bristol election in 1780. Few public men received more respect

from their cotemporaries--few, perhaps, have so well earned it. He

devoted his time, his talents, and his purse almost exclusively to

the public service. Neither the fashionable nor literary circles of

London, nor the pursuits of the country, had any charm for him; he

seldom resided at Rufford, the splendid seat of his ancestors: business

was his passion, and whether in town or country, constituted his sole

occupation; fortunately, he had abilities to perform it creditably,

and his generosity, which was scarcely bounded by his great estate,

had always usefulness for its object. The same discernment appears

in his selection of the Parliamentary questions with which his name

is identified, such as the Limitation of the Claims of the Crown on

Landed Estates; the Relief of Roman Catholics as well as of Protestant

Dissenters, and the Condemnation of General Warrants, and, lastly, the

Improved Representation of the People: all these he advocated with an

earnestness and singleness of purpose, and consistency of action, which

extorted the admiration even of his opponents. Though not an impressive

speaker, he was always sensible and very fluent, and he spared no pains

to understand his subject. His speeches, indeed, partook of one of the

characteristics of his mind, which was a simplicity approaching to

austerity, and an exemption from party, or even popular prejudices. His

life in all respects strictly corresponded with his principles, and

was unstained by vice or even by weakness of any kind; his death was

regarded as a public loss. He died in 1784, unmarried, aged 57, and

with him ended the last line of the illustrious family of Saville. He

was a collateral descendant of the Marquis of Halifax, to whose estates

his father had succeeded.--E.

[421] This house, in which James Earl Waldegrave died, has again become

remarkable by a club created there in 1769 by several ladies of first

rank; the first public female club ever known, and which gave great

offence, though the ladies were almost all of distinguished virtue.

Nor, though the age was notorious for divorces, though most of the

female members were of the greatest beauty, and though most of the

young men of fashion were of the club, did any scandal happen from

that society. Even gaming, which at that time raged to so enormous a

degree, went to no great lengths there. So that vice and satire, which

prevailed so exceedingly, did not always meet where they deserved to

meet. The King and Queen marked their disapprobation of the club, while

Lord Despenser, Lord Talbot, and Lord Pembroke were in place, while

Lady Berkeley was of the bedchamber to the Princess Dowager, though

her husband, Lord Clare, had disavowed her last child, and while Miss

Chudleigh had remained Maid of Honour to her, though she had owned her

marriage with Captain Hervey to her Royal Highness, till she openly

married the Duke of Kingston, though Hervey was alive; and was received

by all the Royal Family as Duchess, after having been publicly kept by

the Duke as his mistress. No wonder the sanctity of the Court passed

for hypocrisy.

[422] For an account of this debate, see Chatham Correspondence, vol.

ii. p. 281.--E.

[423] A graphical description of this Debate is given by the author in

a letter to Lord Hertford, vol. iv. p. 359, of his Correspondence.--E.

[424] For an account of Mr. Grenville’s speech, see James Grenville’s

letter to Mr. Pitt. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 285.--E.

[425] Sir Anthony Abdy, Baronet, of Chobham Place, Surrey, had been

brought into Parliament by the Duke of Devonshire, for Knaresborough.

He was a King’s Counsel, in great practice, and likewise a country

gentleman of considerable estate, having inherited the property of his

kinsman Gainsford, the son of Sir Anthony Thomas. He died in 1775.--E.

[426] This speech of General Conway’s appears to have made a great

impression on the House. See the letter cited _supra_.--E.

[427] The Right Honourable James Oswald, of Dunnikier, already

mentioned as the adviser and warm partisan of Lord Bute. This was

one of the last questions of great public interest in which he took

part, his health being now on the decline; indeed he retired from

Parliament at the dissolution. He had been member for Kirkaldy, his

native district, for more than twenty years, and possessed considerable

weight in the House, as a clear, well-informed, sensible, and effective

speaker. His services were rewarded with a large sinecure for his son,

and a bishoprick for his brother. It is due to his memory to notice

his kindness to men of letters; David Hume’s History and Political

Essays were submitted to his revision before they went to press, and

Lord Kaimes and Adam Smith lay under similar obligations to him. His

criticisms, however, were probably the least valuable fruits of his

friendship. His Correspondence was published some years ago, under the

title of “Memorials of the Right Honourable James Oswald.” Most of his

papers having been burnt, the book contains nothing remarkable.--E.

[428] Afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and a peer of that kingdom

by the title of Lord Lifford. He filled that office with great credit.

His judgments in the Court of Chancery were reported by Mr. Freeman,

and the work is still one of some authority. He died in 1769.--E.

[429] Charles Lord Viscount Townshend, minister at the Hague, and

afterwards Secretary of State to the Kings George the First and Second.

By his eldest son, Charles, he was grandfather of General George

Townshend, afterwards Viscount, and of the famous Charles Townshend.

His second son, Thomas, was father of another Thomas, often mentioned

in these Memoirs. William, third son, was father of another Charles

Townshend, called the black or Spanish Charles, from having been

Secretary to the Embassy at Madrid.

[430] Robert Wood died in September, 1771; he was writing Dissertations

on Homer, since published.

[431] See what is said of them in the Advertisement prefixed to the

first volume of the Anecdotes of Painting.

[432] Mr. Bouverie and Mr. Dawkins.

[433] Pitt had issued two general warrants during the war.

[434] Alluding to the enormous debt contracted by the war.

[435] Being dependent on Lord Shelburne, Barré had, under him,

connected himself with Mr. Pitt, whom he had so savagely attacked not

long before, and had been dismissed from the army.

[436] Richard Hussey, Esq., M. P. for East Looe, Attorney-General

to the Queen, Counsel to the Admiralty, and Auditor to the Duchy of

Cornwall and Greenwich Hospital. He died in 1780. Cavendish’s Debates,

vol. i. p. 197, note.--E.

[437] Alluding to Mr. Pitt.

[438] Wilkes subsequently published a very friendly letter, dated 26th

March, 1763, addressed to him by Mr. Legge, inviting him to meet Dr.

Hay at dinner. Indeed the intimacy of Wilkes was a reproach shared at

that time with Dr. Hay by several of the most eminent persons in the

kingdom. And it was not till after the publication of the forty-fifth

number of the North Briton, on the 23rd of April, 1763, that their eyes

were open to the enormity of his offences.--E.

[439] Arthur Onslow, Speaker in the reign of George the Second.

[440] Lord Howe was then only an Irish Peer. He had succeeded to his

title on the death of his elder brother at Ticonderago in 1758. His

great services raised him to the English Peerage in 1782, as Viscount

Howe, and as Earl Howe in 1788. He died in 1799.--E.

[441] This debate is described in the author’s letters to Lord

Hertford.--Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 373.--E.

[442] This statement is probably much exaggerated. There is no doubt

that Pratt applied to the Court, according to the usual practice, to

appoint a day for Hensey’s execution. Lord Mansfield desired him to

name the day, and on Hensey’s solicitor asking that it might not be

an early day, Pratt said he was ready to give as long a day as might

be proper. At last the Court agreed that it might be a month.--Burr.

Reports, vol. i. p. 651, R. v. Hensey. The sentimentality imputed to

Pratt certainly formed no part of his character; and as the story is

without question inaccurate, we may fairly doubt whether Norton was

guilty of so curious a piece of brutality. Hensey was respited on the

very morning that he was going to execution. On the 5th of Sept. 1759,

he appeared in Court and pleaded a full pardon.--E.

[443] Hugh Smithson Percy, Earl of Northumberland. His eldest

son married a daughter of Lord Bute. Both the Earl and Brecknock

afterwards, finding their expectations not answered, turned against the

Court. Brecknock was hanged twenty years after in Ireland, for being

accessory to an atrocious murder perpetrated by Mr. Fitzgerald, who

suffered with him.

[444] The compliment was not insincere, for the King probably

entertained more enlarged views of constitutional liberty than Lord

Marchmont. His Lordship clung to his Jacobite principles to the last,

though he changed their object.--E.

[445] Lord Holland has justly observed, “that wherever that great

magistrate (Lord Hardwicke) is concerned, Lord Orford’s resentments

blind his judgment and disfigure his narrative.”--Mem. vol. i. p.

139, note. He certainly has in this instance drawn a caricature, of

which there is no merit in the execution to compensate for the faults

of the design. Lord Chesterfield, though also a political opponent,

has done Lord Hardwicke more justice.--See Miscell. Works, vol. iv.

p. 51. Admitting many of his eminent qualities, he elegantly says of

his avarice, that though it was his ruling passion, he never was in

the least suspected of any kind of corruption; a rare and meritorious

instance of virtue and self-denial, under the influence of such a

craving, insatiable, and increasing passion.--See also Lord Mahon’s

Hist. vol. iii. p. 201. The Editor has only further to observe, that

none but a lawyer who has practised in the Court where Lord Hardwicke

so long presided, can correctly appreciate his discharge of the duties

of that high office. His judgments maintain their authority to the

present hour, and furnish the earliest and clearest exposition of the

principles of the Equity Jurisdiction of this country. And whoever may

have had the opportunity of examining his Lordship’s note-books, will

see the patient attention and indefatigable research that distinguished

every part of his judicial career.--E.

[446] John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont.

[447] In America.

[448] All the sums mentioned in this speech must be carefully

re-examined, for I am not sure they are exact; [nor has the Editor been

able to verify them.--E.]

[449] A plan, of which the consequences were so little foreseen, that

Walpole does not even notice it in a letter to Lord Hertford, written

two days afterwards. Corresp. vol. iv. p. 386.--E.

[450] Afterwards Sir George Amyand. [He was one of the leading

Directors of the East India Company, and an eminent merchant in the

City. He died in 1766.--E.]

[451] It appears to have been Lord Clive himself who made this

observation: “not thinking it strictly honourable to take advantage of

this sudden spirit of generosity, and to carry merely by his popularity

a case which was depending at law, he rose and requested that they

would desist from their liberal intentions: adding, that from being

sensible of the impropriety of going abroad while so valuable a part

of his property remained in dispute, he would make some proposals to

the Court of Directors, which would, he trusted, end in an amicable

adjustment of this affair.” Malcolm’s Life of Lord Clive, vol. ii. p.

230.--E.

[452] One of the Aldermen, and member for Plympton. He had married one

of the coheiresses of Jacob Tonson, the printer.--E.

[453] The book displays cleverness rather than “_great parts_.”

D’Eon was an unprincipled coxcomb, bold, ready, and plausible; with

a smattering of literature, and more than common powers of writing.

At the outset of the dispute he was not much in the wrong, for the

difficulties raised to the payment of his disbursements as Minister

were ungenerous, if not unjust; and M. Guerchy’s lamentations over the

guinea per month lavishly expended in English Gazettes would have put

the forbearance of most men to a severe test. In his passion D’Eon

forgot the laws of decency as well as of honour, and the publication

of his book injured him certainly not less than his enemies. It had

an immense circulation, and the attempts to suppress it at Paris, of

course, served to make it more sought after. Lord Holland, who happened

to be there at that time, used to lend his copy by the hour. A reply

to D’Eon was published, under the title of “Examen des Lettres, &c.

du Chevalier d’Eon, dans une Lettre à M. N--” and is smart enough.

The Critical Review (1764) treats it as a satisfactory refutation

of D’Eon’s charges; but the public continued to laugh at the French

Ambassador and his Government, and they fell in general estimation

fully to the extent stated in the text.--E.

[454] Walpole’s hatred of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke may be traced

in this portrait of his son. Lord Hardwicke was one of the best

informed noblemen of his day. The Athenian Letters which he wrote, in

conjunction with his brother, whilst at the University, ranks next to

the Travels of Anacharsis among works of its kind. “The Correspondence

of Sir Dudley Carleton” is more curious than interesting; and the

editor seems to have correctly appreciated it, by restricting his

first edition to twenty copies, and his second to fifty. Perhaps there

was some ostentation in terming the next impression a third edition.

He is entitled to more credit for his State Papers, published in two

volumes, quarto,--a work of value, and which still fully maintains

its consideration. Lord Hardwicke’s health was very delicate, and

he neither liked nor shone in general society, but he did not want

decision of character, and had a strong sense of honour. He was

firm in his political connections, and exemplary in private life. A

biographical account of him is given in Cole’s MSS. in the British

Museum, Donation, 5886.--E.

[455] Thomas Pitt, of Boconnock, nephew of Mr. William Pitt, but

attached to Mr. G. Grenville, and by him made a Lord of the Admiralty.

[456] Frederick Montagu, only son of Charles Montagu, of Paplewich in

Northamptonshire, Auditor to the late Prince of Wales.

[457] The chief of the Whigs in Opposition.

[458] Son of Sir Orlando Bridgman, after whose death he became Sir

Henry; [and having succeeded to the estates of his cousin Thomas, the

last Earl of Bradford, who had died without issue, was in 1794 created

Baron Bradford. He died at an advanced age in 1800. He was grandfather

of the present Earl.--E.]

[459] Younger brother of Henry Vernon, of Hilton in Staffordshire;

and married to Lady Evelyn Leveson, Countess Dowager of Ossory. [Mr.

Vernon’s later life was more creditable. He became a great traveller,

and visited the East; and he served with distinction as a volunteer in

the Spanish expedition to Algiers. He was one of the handsomest men of

his day.--E.]

[460] Charles Sloane Cadogan, only son of Charles Lord Cadogan,

[afterwards created Earl Cadogan. His second wife was Miss Churchill, a

niece of Horace Walpole. He died in 1807, aged 78.--E.]

[461] Dr. Akenside, by some thought a Poet, was of the same principles

with, and an intimate friend of, Dyson, who obtained his being named

Physician to the Queen. To that mistress and to that friend he made a

sacrifice of the word _Liberty_, in the last edition of his poem on the

Pleasures of the Imagination. It was uncourtly, a personification to be

invoked by one who felt the pulse of royalty. [The alteration to which

Walpole refers is as follows. In the old editions there is the passage--

Wilt thou, kind Harmony, descend,

And join the festive train, for with thee comes,

_Majestic Truth_; and where _Truth_ deigns to come,

Her sister Liberty will not be far.

In the later editions it stands thus--

... for with thee comes

_Wise Order_; and where _Order_ deigns to come,

Her sister Liberty will not be far.

_Nichols’s Liter. Anec._ vol. viii. p. 525.

Akenside’s political tergiversation is an unpleasant commentary on a

work so full of elevated thoughts as his poem. Personal attachment to

Dyson probably influenced him. He died in 1770, in his forty-ninth

year.--E.]

[462] Mr. Dyson had changed his politics on the King’s accession, when

he became at once a determined Tory, having previously professed the

opposite creed. He afterwards formed one of the party that went under

the name of the King’s friends, a political section which can hardly

be said to have existed in preceding reigns, and which the personal

character of George the Third rendered very influential on public

measures. A more valuable recruit could not easily have been found.

He was certainly a most able parliamentary lawyer, and the exactness

and precision that characterised his mind, caused his opinion to be

always depended upon. These qualities, added to his discretion, gave

him a moral influence over the House which could not be the result of

his political conduct. His manners were obliging, and his private life

irreproachable. It is highly to his credit that, when Clerk of the

House, he departed from the example of his predecessors, by making no

profit of his patronage. Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii. p.

523; Hatsell’s Parliamentary Precedents.--E.

[463] Catherine and Charlotte Shorter were daughters of John Shorter,

of Bybrook in Kent. Catherine was first wife of Sir Robert Walpole,

and mother of the author of these Memoirs. Charlotte was third wife

of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway, and by him mother of Francis Earl of

Hertford, and of General Henry Seymour Conway.

[464] I have seen a letter from the King to George Grenville, in which

his Majesty pressed him to turn out Conway.

[465] John Fane, Earl of Westmoreland.

[466] Sir Richard Temple, Lord Viscount Cobham.

[467] This does not mean the vote of a single day, but all the votes on

general warrants considered as one question.

[468] General John Campbell, Groom of the Bedchamber to George the

Second, and cousin and successor of John and Archibald Dukes of Argyle

when an old man.

[469] Caroline, daughter of the latter Duke John, third wife and widow

of Charles Bruce, last Earl of Ailesbury, by whom she had an only

child, Mary Duchess of Richmond. The Countess of Ailesbury married

secondly General Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Francis first

Earl of Hertford of that branch.

[470] John Campbell, Marquis of Lorn, married to the famous beauty

Elizabeth Gunning, widow of James Duke of Hamilton.

[471] Lord Frederick Campbell had been bred to the law, and succeeded

well there, but quitted the profession on his father’s attaining the

dukedom. [As he was brother in-law to General Conway, Mr. Walpole seems

to have expected him to have followed Conway’s politics.--Mr. Croker’s

note to the fourth volume of Walpole’s Letters, p. 369. Wraxall says

of him, “Devoid of shining talents, he nevertheless wanted not either

ability or eloquence in a certain degree, both which were under the

control of reason and temper. His figure and deportment were remarkably

graceful.” He married the Dowager Countess Ferrers, sister of Sir

William Meredith, and died at an advanced age in 1816.--E.]

[472] Lord Hertford could not reasonably be expected to court a share

in the consequences of an act of which he disapproved: and he was of a

temperament that too easily disposed him to shrink from any personal

sacrifice. His political principles were very indefinite. His merit was

of a different character. Lord Chesterfield was sincere when he said

of him, in a letter not intended for publication, “I verily believe

he will please as Viceroy, for he is one of the honestest and most

religious men in the kingdom, and moreover very much of a gentleman

in his behaviour to everybody.”--His administration of Ireland was

respectable, and in general approved of, and it passed away in almost

uniform tranquillity.--Hardy’s Life of Lord Charlemont, vol. i. p. 224.

He filled many high offices, and was very prosperous throughout life.

He was created Marquis in 1793, and died in the following year, leaving

a large family.--E.

[473] Lord Hertford had married Lady Isabella Fitzroy, youngest

daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton, who was succeeded in the title by

his grandson Augustus Henry, of whom much will be said in some of the

following pages.

[474] The Duke subsequently gave the best proof of the sincerity of

this offer by bequeathing General Conway a legacy of 5000_l._--E.

[475] Conway conducted himself less well than Wolfe at Rochfort, but

far better than the other generals. “Though eminently distinguished

for his gallant and indefatigable behaviour,” says Walpole, “he never

had the happiness of achieving any action of remarkable éclât, or

of performing _alone_ any act of singular utility to his country.

However, he had been engaged in six regular battles, besides smaller

affairs.”--(Counter Address to the Public on the Dismissal of a late

General.) He commanded a division with credit in the Seven years’

war. An ill-natured cotemporary critic charges him with being a

“_martinet_,” and with unnecessarily fatiguing his men, but admits that

“he would have made a very good general if he had not been spoilt by

his education under the Duke of Cumberland.” Life of Lord Chatham, Ap.

vol. iii. p. 262.--E.

[476] The Queen’s brother.

[477] Lord Pembroke was again made a Lord of the Bedchamber in 1769,

without applying; and exactly at a time when he was said to have

carried off another woman, a young Venetian bride (he was then at

Venice), the very night of her wedding. [Lord Pembroke had served in

the Seven years’ war, and was popular with the officers under him,

though not much of a soldier. He was dissolute and extravagant, and

notwithstanding his large income, left when he died heavy debts, which

his only son, the late Earl, a very respectable nobleman, honourably

paid.--E.]

[478] Dr. Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol.

[479] Twickenham.

[480] Thomas Worseley, Surveyor of the Board of Works.

[481] Sir Hugh Smithson, of a very recent family, had married Lady

Elizabeth Seymour, only daughter of Algernon Duke of Somerset, whose

mother was heiress of the Percies, Earls of Northumberland; on which

foundation Hugh and Elizabeth were created Earl and Countess of

Northumberland.

[482] Dr. Johnson said, in allusion to it, “that his Grace was only fit

to succeed himself.” Boswell, vol. ii. p. 210.--E.

[483] He had been likewise Secretary to the Earl of Halifax.

[484] Charles sixth Earl and first Marquis of Drogheda, K.P.--The

Primate had four years before importunately pressed Mr. Pitt to give

this nobleman the rank of colonel; and although the application was

supported by the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Besborough, Mr. Pitt was

firm in resisting it. “Among the very many lieutenant-colonels,” he

said, “above Lord Drogheda on the list, there were not a few who could

not be postponed without great hardship, and loud complaints in the

army. He had publicly pledged himself to that most meritorious class of

officers, that he would never contribute, from any considerations of

family or parliamentary interest, to their depression.” The Primate’s

letter and Mr. Pitt’s reply are given in the Chatham Correspondence,

vol. ii. p. 59. The transaction reflects great honour on Mr. Pitt,

and furnishes an additional proof of the high sense of public duty

entertained by that illustrious statesman, in this, as in many other

respects so superior, to most of his cotemporaries, not excepting

the Primate of Ireland. Lord Drogheda obtained his rank in 1762, and

eventually reached almost the head of the army list, having in his old

age been appointed Field-Marshal. He died at Dublin in December 1821,

in his ninety-second year. He saw little, if any, foreign service, but

he had been constantly employed in his own country, where he was much

esteemed. He preserved to the last a remarkable elegance and amiability

of deportment.--E.

[485] It must be recollected, that Walpole, from some private cause,

bore Lord and Lady Northumberland no good will, and frequently sneers

at them in his Correspondence. A childish feeling of envy at Lord

Northumberland’s brilliant success in life, was probably at the

bottom of this, and prevented Walpole’s making due allowance for the

temptations attendant on great and unexpected prosperity. His Lordship

had the tastes that became the high rank to which he was elevated. He

patronized the arts, and was generous to men of letters. His vanity

was unaccompanied by arrogance, and his feelings, though not warm,

were kind and amiable. Neither his talents nor acquirements were above

mediocrity. He died in 1786.--E.

[486] The Duchess’s defects are, no doubt, greatly exaggerated by

Walpole. M. Dutens says of her Grace, that “she possessed great

elevation of mind, natural and easy wit, a good and compassionate

heart, and, above all, a strong attachment to her friends, whom she

took every opportunity to distinguish and to serve.”--Memoirs of a

Traveller, &c., vol. ii. p. 100. She met her death, which was sudden,

with great firmness and resignation.--E.

[487] The marriage was unfortunate, and dissolved in 1779. Lord

Warkworth became Duke of Northumberland in 1786. He served as Lord

Percy in the American war. Unlike his father, he was totally devoid of

ostentation, and most simple and retiring in his habits. He died in

1817.--E.

[488] The house of Andrew Stone, in Privy Garden.

[489] George Keppel, third Earl of Albemarle. His youngest sister, Lady

Elizabeth, was married to Francis Russell, Marquis of Tavistock, only

son of John Duke of Bedford.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant

preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

The spelling of non-English words was not reviewed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced

quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of

inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

Text mostly uses “confident” where modern spelling is “confidant”, but

does use “confidant” once. Both variations retained here.

Text uses both “cotemporary” and “contemporary”; both variations

retained here.

Text sometimes has a space in “M.P.” and sometimes not; both variations

retained here.

Page 37: “dismissed the service” was printed that way.

Page 277: “villanous” was printed that way.

Page 300: “She bade Lord Bute try” was printed as “bad”; changed here.