conciliatory, endeavoured to mark his sense of the different conduct of
Lord Grey; and though that conduct arose from a different construction
put by the two Lords on the phraseology of Mr. Perceval’s first overture,
there was some apprehension in Lord Grey’s mind lest an inference of
more substantial difference in their views might be drawn from it. Such
a consequence was, however, entirely avoided. It happened fortunately
enough that the conduct of each on this occasion seemed to refute the
calumnies on their respective characters, which had of late been most
sedulously propagated by their enemies. Lord Grenville, so often styled
by the courtiers stiff, unbending, and repulsive, came up to town on the
summons, though his purpose was to decline the proffered negotiation.
Lord Grey, on the contrary, who had most unaccountably been accused by
the demagogues of an undue appetite for office, did not even wait to
consult his friends, but, at the risk of offending the King, peremptorily
and instantly declined all communication, and remained at the distance
of three hundred miles. Their answers were approved by the party in a
manner highly creditable to the disinterestedness of so large a body of
men. Nor were they unpalatable to the public at large. The doctrine that
all politicians will sacrifice principle to office had been recently
inculcated with great industry. The country was gratified, as it should
be, at a practical refutation of that false and degrading supposition.
Lord Westmorland, to whose understanding a combined Administration and
a loss of place were synonymous, remarked on this transaction, “What an
escape the country has had!”
Lord Grey communicated his answer to the Prince of Wales, and Lord
Grenville apprised him of his also, before they were publicly known. When
I called at Carlton House I found His Royal Highness exceedingly pleased
at this attention, and mightily disposed to thrust himself into some
negotiation either for a coalition or a new Administration. With that
view he had offered his services to the King, and expressed a readiness
to go down to Windsor; but his father in a short and dry answer declined
the offer, reminding him of some assurance, formerly made (probably at
the time of our dismissal from office), of never interfering in political
arrangements unless _expressly requested_ to do so by His Majesty. Lord
St. Vincent, to whom the Prince of Wales showed this letter of His
Majesty, said: “I admire it, sir, as a masterpiece in its way; it is the
best attorney letter I ever read.”
Mr. Sheridan took me to Carlton House to see this correspondence. He told
me in the anteroom that I should like the Prince’s letter extremely. “The
fact is,” added he, “the Prince had drawn it out at first himself, but
in a way that would never have done, awkward in expression, forgetful of
things that had passed, and pledging himself to others in future that
would have been the devil and all. I contrived, however, just by hinting
a thing here and there, to recast the whole, and he is delighted with it;
because having drawn the original sketch he fancies the picture his own,
though I left none of the outline and the colouring was never his own.”
No sooner was I admitted and seated than a scene ensued, which would
really have been worthy of Mr. Sheridan’s pencil, if he had not himself
performed a part in the original. The Prince produced the paper with
great complacency, and began by informing me that he was sure I should
like it, “For,” said he, “Sheridan will excuse me, but though he is a
clever fellow at such things, I must say he had drawn up a d——d bad paper
on this occasion. I just took the form and outline, but I have altered
it myself, and was obliged to do so.” He then read it over sentence by
sentence, and almost at every word he turned to Mr. Sheridan and said:
“You know it stood so and so, but I altered it,” or, “You will allow
that’s better, Sheridan?” To all which Mr. Sheridan nodded assent. I left
the house without being deeply impressed with the value of the article
contended for, but utterly at a loss to decide to whom the merit, such as
it was, belonged.
Lord Grenville communicated the correspondence relative to Mr.
Perceval’s overture, as it was called, to Lord Sidmouth, who said, “The
result of that step was such as was naturally to have been expected.”
He hoped, however, that Lord Grey and Lord Grenville were disposed to
afford “satisfaction and confidence” to the King’s mind on the Catholic
question, to which Lord Grenville gave no answer.
Soon afterwards Lord Sidmouth had to return the compliment, and
communicated an overture made to him of a very singular nature through
Lord Chatham. It was to ask him to influence his brother-in-law,
Mr. Bragge Bathurst,[45] and Mr. Hobhouse,[46] to take office. The
communication was stated to be authorised and desired by the King and
Mr. Perceval; but there was not one word in it expressive of a wish to
have the assistance of Lord Sidmouth himself. It was of course rejected:
his friends would not separate from him; but Lord Sidmouth expressed a
disinclination to listen to any proposals that did not include the Whigs,
unless it was ascertained that they adhered inflexibly to a measure on
which the King could not give way. Mr. Perceval told Lord Sidmouth, very
_frankly_ at least, that his motive for desiring the aid of his friends
_without him_ was the unsurmountable personal objection felt to Lord
Sidmouth himself by some whose support was necessary to the Government.
Lord Sidmouth, though chagrined at so preposterous a proposal and so
unmannerly an explanation of it, was yet very earnest in extorting from
Lord Grenville some declaration on the subject of the Catholics, that
is, the views and intentions of the Whigs as to what he termed _setting
the King’s mind at ease_. Lord Grenville very prudently answered that
to the principle of Mr. Perceval’s Government, that is, to a pledge in
itself unconstitutional, he could not directly or indirectly ever become
a party; but that it was not possible to enter into further explanations
of his views or of his possible conduct on the subject of Irish Catholics
in all the various circumstances that might arise; nor could any answer
be given to general phrases, such as _setting the King’s mind at ease_,
and the like, it not being known what would be required for that purpose.
On the death of the Duke of Portland, Lord Grenville was chosen
Chancellor of the University of Oxford. It was considered as a triumph
at the time, though it was perhaps owing to a persuasion in that learned
body that the object of their choice would ere long be Minister of the
country; though there was some sagacity in an apprehension of Lord
Cowper’s that it might have a pernicious effect on Lord Grenville’s
opinions even in Opposition, and yet worse if he should obtain power on
all subjects connected with the Church.[47] To remove, as far as he could
with honour and consistency, the jealousies entertained of his principles
respecting the Roman Catholics, he wrote and printed a letter on the
subject. It contained a firm exposition of his opinions, and in point of
composition did him great credit; but it revived the agitation of details
which it would have been more advantageous to postpone till further
progress was made in the main measure, and it seemed in some degree to
pledge him to support _the Veto_, which in a few years he acknowledged
to be impracticable and, though desirable, not absolutely necessary. He
valued the distinction of the Chancellorship very highly. The unbiassed
suffrages of a learned and pious body were, in his estimation, so many
testimonies to literature, taste, integrity, and virtue. Who, therefore,
of an honest mind but was gratified at seeing a man who had sacrificed
so much to a sense of public duty rewarded at last by a favourite and
innocent object of ambition?
I was not myself altogether insensible to an appointment, however
comparatively humble, which, upon the death of the Duke of Portland,
was conferred upon me by the Corporation of Nottingham. They chose me
Recorder, from respect to the memory of Mr. Fox and a persuasion that I
should never abandon his principles.
In November, 1809, died John Henry, second Marquess of Lansdowne,[48]
after possessing that title about four years, during which time he never
took any part in debate nor even voted in the House of Lords. He had been
harassed by Government or by individuals in Ireland for his incautious
expression of violent political opinions a short time before he succeeded
to his title. The lady, whom he avowed as his wife immediately upon his
father’s death, was not sorry to draw him nearer to the winning side. He
was a very accomplished man, with much general knowledge, but yet more
wit and eloquence, though both were of a very laboured kind. He had more
singularity of conduct than originality of thought, but he had much of
the latter. He was neither ambitious nor designing, and but for suspicion
might have been a good man. But he had perversely persuaded himself,
and some errors in his education had taught him, to guard against every
kind affection of the heart—a quarter in which he was not by nature very
vulnerable.
I owe much of the little useful knowledge I possess to the habits I
acquired in an intimate intercourse with him—perhaps, among other things,
the faculty, such as it is, of writing these memoirs. It is true he
afterwards used me and mine unkindly and unjustly; but it was not without
a pang that I saw a person from whom I had derived so much amusement and
instruction, and with whom I had lived in such friendship, sinking at
the age of forty-two or forty-three into an untimely grave. He told me a
fortnight before his death that he was not fool enough to imagine that he
was ever to rise from that couch; and after some sarcastic irony on the
received notions of religion in which he was apt to indulge, he assured
me that the thoughts of approaching death had never kept him awake for
a minute, though he had been aware of it for more than two months. “I
am surprised at this,” he added, “for when in health I should have
guessed that such a conviction would have harassed me exceedingly; it is
true, however, there is some little lethargy in my complaint, and that
may contribute to account for it.” He composed an epitaph for himself,
beginning,
Here lies drowned in his armchair,
and he fixed therein upon the period of his decease as well as described
the mode very nearly as it happened.[49]
Lord Henry Petty[50] was by this event removed to the House of Lords.
He was the best hope of the Whig party in the Commons; and he himself
evidently at first considered the accession of a princely fortune and
a seat in the House of Lords as a loss, till in a few years the solid
comforts of those possessions compensated for the uncertain objects with
which his ambition had occasionally dazzled his judgment.
An opinion, grounded, I suspect, on their wishes, had gone forth
among the Whigs that Mr. G. Ponsonby[51] was desirous to retire from
Parliament, or at least from the prominent station, which, in compliance
with the earnest solicitation of friends, he had consented to occupy. His
nephew, Lord Ponsonby, confirmed the report; but Mr. Ponsonby himself,
on being questioned by Lord Grey, “stated distinctly his _wish_ to
continue leader, if Lord Grey and Lord Grenville did not object to it.”
The Duke of Bedford, at my instance, brought in Mr. Brougham, who, from
his eloquence, knowledge, zeal, and activity, was a prodigious accession
to that party whose principles he had espoused and in a variety of ways
very ably maintained. He had, indeed, spoken of late very coldly of
the Catholic question, and very contemptuously of Parliament; but when
offered a seat, on the sole understanding that he was neither adverse to
the concessions to the Roman Catholics nor to an immediate agitation
of them in Parliament, he accepted it without hesitation. His conduct
there I shall have occasion to remark; but with the exception of a few
evening visits during the Walcheren inquiry, he henceforth studiously and
unaccountably avoided my society. For full six years I had no political
or private intercourse with a man whom I had been so anxious to place
and so successful in placing in the House of Commons,[52] and who never
assigned, nor, I believe, could assign, any motive for dropping all
habits and connection with me.
His treatment of Mr. Horner, though more easily accounted for, was more
unpardonable. They were of the same age, education, habits, and pursuits:
in capacity and application nearly equal, but in temper and disposition
very unlike. Mr. Horner, whose every feeling sprung from a warm heart
and whose lightest actions were regulated by a well-considered sense of
duty, promoted and rejoiced at every advancement of his friend towards
distinction and celebrity. He was zealous in forwarding his interests,
and ready to co-operate with cordiality in maintenance of the public
principles which they professed in common. Not so Mr. Brougham. He
visibly estranged himself from his early friend and companion. Where a
shade of difference existed, he loved to bring it out rather than soften
it down; and in all dealings with or about Mr. Horner, showed such want
of affection that the high, though gentle, spirit of the other perceived
it, and without stooping to any grovelling act of resentment, disdained
to court a friendship which he saw he could not preserve. To others Mr.
Horner endeared himself more and more every day, and with the House
ingratiated himself very perceptibly. Had his health, fortune, and life
permitted, he would soon have commanded the affections of his party,
and acquired a great ascendancy in Parliament, by the variety of his
attainments, the simple earnestness of his manner, the benevolence and
sweetness of his disposition, and the inflexible integrity which was as
firmly rooted in his mind as it was indicated in his stern and manly, but
not repulsive, countenance.
Mr. Brougham, by his unwearied exertions and wonderful powers, made
himself formidable to his enemies; he was frequently very serviceable to
his cause, and occasionally popular out of doors. The House did not like
him, but they always feared and sometimes admired him. Had the management
of the Walcheren inquiry devolved upon him, he thought, and perhaps
justly, that the result would have been a censure on the Ministers.
The sensation on that subject both in and out of Parliament was
exceedingly strong. Many members were unquestionably inclined to express
their disapprobation of the expedition by a vote at the commencement of
the Session, who, in the course of the long investigation, were prevailed
upon to suppress their opinions, by a persuasion that time had somewhat
softened the indignation of their constituents and that a censure would
inevitably change the government of the country. Lord Porchester,[53]
who conducted the business in the Commons, though honest, firm, and
eloquent, was not skilful in the examination of witnesses. Mr. Ponsonby
was not more adroit nor more expeditious. Mr. Brougham was more intent on
exposing their oversights and errors in private, than in rectifying them
in public. Yet the ingenuity and imagery of Mr. Windham’s speeches must
have delighted, and the sound argument and plain sense of Mr. Tierney’s
convinced, the audience. The vote, therefore, of approbation was scarcely
more at variance with the wishes of the minority and the expectations of
the public, than with the real opinions of the majority who passed it.
It was the strongest practical argument ever furnished for a reform of
Parliament: for the House of Commons on that disgraceful occasion spoke
neither the sense of the people whom it represented, nor even of the
individuals who composed its body.
[Illustration: _Francis Horner, M.P._
_Sir H. Raeburn, R.A. Pinx 1812._
_Emery Walker Ph. Sc._]
Pending the inquiry, the House of Lords was more than usually inactive.
We could not with prudence or even with propriety take up the same
subject; and the public was so engrossed with it that no other would have
excited much interest. Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, and Lord Lauderdale[54]
opposed the thanks to Lord Wellington for the victory of Talavera.
The two last, much to my regret, entered a protest to the vote. Lord
Wellesley spoke for the first time in the character of a Minister, and he
spoke with feeling, vivacity, and effect. He was designated for Secretary
for the War Department, in room of Lord Castlereagh, by Mr. Canning; but
had in the meanwhile been sent by him [as] Ambassador to Spain, where,
after indulging his bad taste in a few silly bravadoes, he showed in
essentials much foresight, and took a more accurate and comprehensive
view of the policy of the country to which he was accredited, than is
usual in an English diplomatist, and than could have been expected in
so short a residence. On the rejection of the overtures to the Whigs,
Mr. Perceval offered him the Foreign Seals. Mr. Canning and his friends
were not a little mortified at his accepting them. Lord Liverpool, who
had successively held the Foreign and Home Department, succeeded Lord
Castlereagh in the third Secretaryship; and Mr. Ryder[55] replaced him,
after Mr. Yorke had refused to resume that office which he had filled
during Mr. Addington’s Administration with some credit for talents for
business.
The melancholy death of Mr. Eden[56] in January, 1810, induced his
father, Lord Auckland, to absent himself from Parliament, and vacated a
Tellership of the Exchequer. It was rumoured at first that Mr. Perceval
would give it to another son of Lord Auckland’s; but though Mr. Perceval
was not devoid of that sort of liberality, it was not likely to make him
so far overstep the line of political interest. The Admiralty was vacated
by Lord Mulgrave succeeding to the Ordnance, which Lord Chatham had been
compelled to relinquish; and Mr. Yorke[57] was induced to accept the
Admiralty by the provision for life, which the Tellership, offered with
it, afforded.
On the first report of his vacating his seat for Cambridgeshire, a
hair-brained, zealous man of the name of Goodwin, without any connection
or acquaintance with the county, apprised the freeholders in an anonymous
advertisement that a Whig candidate would start; and thus prevailed
upon Lord Francis Osborne to come forward, who was chosen with little
expense—a circumstance not less surprising from his gallantry in
furnishing Mr. Goodwin, without any previous acquaintance with him,
with an unlimited credit on his banker. This anecdote, hardly worth
preserving, shows how activity and decision carry points little expected,
and was at the time an indication of the unpopularity of Ministry.
Much of the Session and more of the public attention were occupied
on questions of privilege. They had been very unadvisably raised by
the imprisonment of one Gale Jones,[58] who had written against the
exclusion of strangers from the House; and they were further provoked
and kept up by Sir Francis Burdett. He denied in the most offensive
form he could devise the right of the House to imprison. He forgot that
he had, the year before, directed papers to be seized and other powers
to be exerted, which, supposing no authority in Parliament to punish,
could hardly be legal and certainly could not be enforced. As Gale Jones
had been imprisoned, the House could not with decency overlook yet
more flagrant conduct in a member. Sir Francis Burdett was sent to the
Tower. Disturbances in the town, division among the Whigs, division of
public attention from the incapacity and misconduct of Ministers, and
great diminution of confidence in the House of Commons, were the natural
consequences of this ill-timed execution of an arbitrary power, which,
though in some cases necessary to the preservation of Parliament, can
scarcely ever be expedient except against the inroads of some other
authority in the State. The privileges of the Commons are intended as
means of defence against power, not as weapons of offence against liberty
or even licentiousness. Such powers must indeed be discretionary. But the
representative body, when it assumes an attitude of menace towards the
people, perverts such instruments to purposes for which they were never
entrusted to it, and runs considerable hazard of having them wrested from
their hands.
The last efforts of Mr. Windham in Parliament were in support of its
unquestionable privileges and of the unseasonable and unwarrantable
exercise of them on this occasion. He had been during the whole of the
Session at war with the public prints and reporters. Upon the exclusion
of strangers, whence directly or indirectly flowed all the embarrassing
questions concerning privilege, both he and Mr. Tierney had expressed
themselves in a way which gave great offence to that class of men, who
had been of late years, and are still, actuated by a common feeling,
an _esprit de corps_, not altogether so favourable to liberty or
advantageous to the cause of truth as formidable to those with whom they
chance to be displeased. They suppressed for a time the speeches of both
these gentlemen.[59] Cobbett disclosed some particulars of Mr. Windham’s
intercourse with him, from which it would seem that Mr. Windham was not
so incapable of courting a good word from the newspapers as he pretended,
and, above all, was not likely to be indifferent to the menaced omission
of his name in debates. He had often corrected his speeches, and
consulted both the taste and convenience of the reporters, by speaking
from the place in the House which they had informed him was best adapted
to his voice and delivery. The gratification derived from his eloquence,
which the spite of these little men had for a season interrupted, was
soon irretrievably lost. He died lamented and admired in the beginning of
June, 1810.
Mr. Malone printed a short sketch of his life and character. It is
probably very correct; it is certainly very insipid. Mr. Windham left
behind him some treatises on scientific subjects, and many volumes of a
journal, begun, it is said, at the instance of Dr. Johnson.[60] It was
entrusted to Mr. G. Ellis,[61] who, with a view of writing a life of Mr.
Windham, made many extracts from it, which I have seen. I am told that
Mr. Windham mentions in his journal, his having prayed fervently for the
soul of Dr. Johnson in Switzerland many years after that great writer’s
death. It is, I believe, well ascertained that previous to the operation
on which his own death ensued, he took the Sacrament privately at a
distant church.[62] Such circumstances prove that the extreme aversion
he always manifested to anything bordering on impiety in conversation
was not merely dictated by taste, decorum, or good breeding, but the
result of a real sense of religion. If Crawford had “known” (says
General FitzPatrick, in a letter to me of September 30, 1810) “more of
Windham, he would not have been surprised at his strict observance of the
ceremonies of religion. He held the _profession_ of it to be a high moral
duty, as did Burke, and I believe neither of them ever allowed their
sincerity to be questioned.”
I hope the Christian reader will not be scandalised, or the sceptical
disposed to scoff at my mentioning these circumstances; it is useful to
record the various sentiments held by men of integrity and capacity on
such topics in the same age. The religious and irreligious may learn
from thence to have less confidence in their own persuasion and more
toleration for opinions in which they do not concur. The passages[63]
extracted by Mr. G. Ellis from Mr. Windham’s journal, and, as I am
informed, all the other parts of that work, relate rather to the history
of his studies, his feelings, and his understanding, than to any actual
events of his life or public occurrences of his time. Self-examination
and self-reproach, magnificent projects and poor performances, designs
of study and periods of idleness, irresolution, and remorse, form
a lamentable picture of an infirm mind; and though there are some
paragraphs remarkable for their eloquence, and more observations worth
the attention of a metaphysician, the total absence of all affection
and, with the exception of Dr. Johnson, of all admiration or deference
for others, deprives this painful exposure of all his inmost thoughts
and feelings of anything like interest for the man. Few, it would
appear, have been less satisfied, but none more exclusively occupied
with themselves, than Mr. Windham. On that subject he is minute even
to tediousness, plaintive and melancholy almost to insanity. _Pauvre
humanité!_