the King’s disorder; I think the Prince of Wales apprised him of the
character and probable duration of the complaint. It had been intended to
prorogue Parliament, which stood for November 1, but not for the dispatch
of business. The King was too ill to sign the Commission for that day,
and the two Houses on their meeting _adjourned_ for a fortnight, and
continued by successive adjournments to avoid the transaction of all
business till December 13. The physicians had in the meanwhile been
examined before the Privy Council, the report of the evidence had
been laid before the two Houses on November 29, and the news of the
King’s amendment and probable recovery was immediately afterwards very
sedulously and generally circulated.
The Prince of Wales cautiously or scrupulously abstained from all
political concert with the Opposition, till official communications
should be made to him from Ministers or from Parliament. He pushed that
delicacy so far that he did not see Mr. Sheridan, who being to the full
as desirous of appearing, as of being, his adviser, was ludicrously
anxious to cancel so mortifying a circumstance. I was at some pains to
inform both Lord Grey and Lord Grenville of this circumstance, but it
made them more negligent of Mr. Sheridan. In every rational view of the
subject it should have furnished a fresh motive, as well as facilities,
for fixing him in their interests. The goodwill of a man, alike brilliant
in society and in Parliament and very formidable at Court, might have
been propitiated and perhaps purchased at a very cheap rate, without any
sacrifice of principle or any surrender of dignity. A word of cordiality,
a mark of confidence, or even the homage of outward civility would have
done it; Mr. Sheridan, apt to resent slights more than injuries, was,
with all his impatience of real obligations, very sensible of petty
kindnesses.[78] A small favour soothed his vanity, a great one offended
his pride. Incapable of gratitude, he was yet never hard to please. His
mortification at the Prince’s neglect would have rendered him more open
to little attentions. But Lord Grenville never saw him, and Lord Grey
was hardly civil to him when he did; the first, partly from a total want
of habits with him, and partly from a certain austerity of manners which
indisposed [him] to cultivate the society of dissolute men; the latter,
from an honest but somewhat over-charged disdain of all trickery and
artificial characters.
If Mr. Sheridan regarded his interests only, he must have perceived that
favour with the Prince could alone promote them in a Ministry formed by
those two Lords. If, as is most probable, he was on this, as on other
occasions, swayed chiefly by his vanity, he must have panted for the
opportunity of gratifying it, by making those who had slighted him so
unmercifully feel his importance. When the Prince soon afterwards took
an avowed interest in the proceedings of Parliament, and communicated
to the two Lords his intention of employing them in the formation of
his Ministry, he resumed his usual habits with Mr. Sheridan. No attempt
to gain the confidence of the latter was even then made by Lord Grey or
Lord Grenville. The arrangement suggested by himself seemed to disprove
any sinister designs against the new Administration; yet it was coldly
received, and, I believe, peremptorily rejected by Lord Grenville. Before
the appointments were settled, and as if to relieve the new Government
from the painful necessity of excluding such abilities from their
Cabinet, Mr. Sheridan applied for the Secretaryship of Ireland. That
office would have removed him during the greater part of the year from
London. It bespoke, consequently, no premeditated design of securing
by assiduity that much-dreaded ascendancy over the mind of the Prince,
which, when admitted to his society, his long intimacy, delightful
conversation, and exquisite wit, ever subservient to his purposes,
enabled him to assume. There were indeed other and grave objections to
the appointment. Perhaps they were insurmountable. But Lord Grenville
and Lord Grey showed upon that and every other occasion a repugnance to
consult or to court him, and possibly a disinclination to serve him,
which he was too keen-sighted not to perceive and too vain not to resent.
I have related these circumstances somewhat out of the order of time,
that I may not interrupt my narrative of events, which flowed from them
but did not occur till a later period. Lord Grey did not conceal his
chagrin at the inaction of the Prince during the first six weeks of his
father’s incapacity. In the only audience I had with the Prince of Wales,
he told me that he wished to avoid all reproach, but adhered firmly to
his opinions of 1788. He let me see, however, that meddling tale-bearers
had reported incautious expressions of Lord Grey to him. He mentioned
him, nevertheless, with regard; and though he quoted a foolish song of
Captain Morris, in which Grey had been styled, “The youth who tossed
his head so high,” or some such phrase, he spoke of his impetuosity in
terms not inconsistent with kind intentions or even with friendship and
affection. Without saying anything positive, he was always very dexterous
in conveying an impression to those he talked with.[79] Mine on this
occasion was, that he would place his Government in the hands of the
Whigs, but that he would take his own time and way of doing it, and that
he had been nettled at the observations to which his delay had given
rise, or in which their impatience had indulged.
An expression of Lord Grey had been officiously reported to the Prince
as a communication to him. “If,” said Lord Grey, “the Prince would but
hold up his finger, he would have everything his own way.” But the
Prince conveyed to him and to Lord Grenville, through Mr. Adam, his
determination not to see either of them. He hinted, at the same time,
that they might serve him, by asking questions in Parliament concerning
the steps taken by the Ministers to apprise him of the state of the
King’s health and of the public affairs. To Mr. Adair,[80] who had
injudiciously sought and obtained an audience, he spoke with acrimony
of the two Lords and of the late Administration (Lord Moira and myself
excepted). He seemed hurt at the impatience expressed at his supineness,
and said, “They think me a nervous man; by God! they shall find me an
_Homme de nerfs_,” with much that betrayed irritation and dislike.
This was early in December. Lord Grey set off soon afterwards to Lady
Grey, who was brought to bed in Northumberland. The Prince began to speak
with less reserve of his resentment at Mr. Perceval’s conduct. Some
manœuvres, and among them the introduction of the Chancellor[81] to the
King as a _medical expedient_, practised by the Queen, the Ministers, and
the physicians, without any concert with the Prince, greatly exasperated
him. He now saw Mr. Sheridan frequently, and those connected with his
Household avowed their intention of voting against Mr. Perceval’s
resolutions. They no longer scrupled to consult with the Whigs on the
means of securing an attendance. Their efforts, however, did little
against the first resolutions, which related to the mode of supplying the
deficiency of the Regal power, and which were carried on December 20,
1810, by 269 to 157.
In the debate Mr. Perceval displayed some talent and more spirit.
Several of the Grenville branch of Opposition, as well as Mr. Canning,
voted with Ministers; they both, however, announced an intention of
opposing some, if not all, the restrictions which Mr. Perceval meant to
impose. The reverence for a precedent from which Mr. Pitt had derived
popularity in 1788, together with some faint hopes of the King’s
recovery, outweighed the influence of Carlton House and the strong
objections to a clumsy and unconstitutional contrivance. The latter were
nevertheless enforced in an argumentative speech of Mr. Horner, which
remained unanswered in debate, and is not much weakened by the written
but unspoken oration attributed in _Cobbett’s Register_ to Mr. Croker. On
the same day Mr. Perceval apprised the Prince of Wales officially of his
intended motion. The Prince concerted his answer with Mr. Sheridan, and
the Princes of the Blood Royal signed and printed a sort of remonstrance
to the measure.[82]
In the House of Lords, Lord Grenville supported the resolutions; Lord
Grey was absent. The management of the debate on the part of Opposition
fell on Lord Lansdowne and myself, and we flattered ourselves that the
constitutional objections to the strange proceeding resorted to were as
clearly stated and as forcibly urged in our speeches and protest as they
had been either in 1788 or in the House of Commons. For the learning
and research I was chiefly indebted to Mr. Allen, who, assisted by some
letters written by Doctor Lawrence and printed in _Cobbett’s Register_
in 1803 and 1804, furnished me and Mr. Horner with many views of the
subject and precedents from our early history strictly in point, which
had escaped the researches of Lord Loughborough, Mr. Burke, and Mr.
Hargrave in 1788.
The subsequent resolutions in favour of restricting the Prince Regent
were carried by smaller majorities. The House of Commons had been called
over. The prospect of the Prince’s accession to power grew more certain;
his hostility to Mr. Perceval more apparent. There were, therefore,
stronger motives for resisting the second than the first string of
resolutions. They passed, however, though by scanty majorities, such
as 24, 16, 19. The fifth resolution was amended in a particular of
some importance, on the motion of Lord Gower, by a majority of 13,
the Ministry voting in the minority. Nothing remarkable occurred in
the discussions. Lord Grenville’s friends did not deem it necessary
to sacrifice the views of the party and the substantial object of a
Government, founded on the principles they approved, to a pedantic,
technical, and almost superstitious reverence for his arguments of 1788;
when, if the question was the same, the circumstances of the country and
the reasons of State were entirely dissimilar. Mr. Sheridan was observed
to be neither brilliant in his oratory nor cordial or zealous in his
conduct.
In the House of Lords, Lord Grenville allowed himself to be more harassed
by former opinions than was convenient to his party purposes, or indeed
at all necessary to the preservation of any reasonable or substantial
consistency. In deference to an ideal, prudish, and pedantic notion of
nominal rather than real consistency, he confined all his opposition to
particular words. He thus enabled Lord Liverpool, after the Committee
had, upon Lord Lansdowne’s motion, omitted the mention of restrictions
in the first resolution, in which Lord Grenville concurred, to reconcile
him to voting with Ministers on the other subsequent questions, by
moving himself to omit some few words to which Lord Grenville had taken
exception and having the whole in a shape which that Lord was pledged to
support. Lord Liverpool seized the moment and mode of accomplishing his
purpose with admirable quickness and dexterity; and as two peers, Lord
Ashburton,[83] from simplicity and blind reliance on Lord Grenville, and
Lord Auckland,[84] from a want of address truly unaccountable in so old
a politician, followed Lord Grenville’s vote and opinion against his
interests and his wishes, our small majority was lost. The resolutions
passed the Committee in a shape somewhat less consistent with themselves,
but sufficient to secure the objects of Mr. Perceval and the concurrence
of the House of Commons.
On Committees no proxies are allowed; on the Report the Ministerialists
called for them, with a hope of reinstating the words which Lord
Lansdowne’s motion in the Committee had omitted. We determined to resist
the use of proxies. But our objections could not arise till they were
called for; they could not be called for till a division; and according
to parliamentary usage, at least in the Lords, no speech can be made and
no question put during a division. It followed that when our teller,
Lord Lauderdale, peremptorily refused to mark them, a scene of great
embarrassment ensued. We were like the characters in _The Critic_, at
a “deadlock.” The altercation and confusion increased, and I am afraid
I clenched my fist, and, upon a peer offering to rise, swore aloud
that, “By God, no man should speak!” At length one of the tellers, who
had alone the right to open their mouths, moved an adjournment during
pleasure, and on the House being resumed, the discussion on the propriety
of receiving proxies commenced. We insisted that none had been called
for in 1788. We had little else to allege in favour of our doctrine, for
the notion (however constitutional) that we were a Convention and not a
Parliament, was at variance with the recent decision of the House.
Lord Stanhope,[85] however, drew a very ingenious inference from the form
of a proxy, which is grounded on “_the permission of our Lord the King,
that Session obtained_,” or some such words. He contended the privilege
could not be exerted in a case where it was manifest from the matter
in hand that the permission on which it rested could never have been
given. This argument, whether plausible or really sound, was sufficient
to satisfy what Lord Stanhope called “the Whig majority of Peers.” Those
present deserved that appellation, and proved that “_les absents ont
tort_,” by voting that the proxies, which would have placed them in a
minority, were inadmissible.[86] The resolution was, I think, tenable
and perhaps constitutional, but it was voted by persons who probably
did not require that recommendation to make it go down. Lord Stanhope,
delighted alike with the uproar and the success, embraced me with his
long arms as we went downstairs, and whispered in my ear, “This, my dear
_Citoyen_, is rare fun. If I could often have such nights as these, I
would live in the House of Lords: it is such high fun.”
This was on January 4, 1811. On the 5th, Lord Liverpool moved back the
original words of the first resolution, and they were admitted without
a division. It was a singular coincidence that these debates, arising
from the lunacy of the King, were attended by another monarch who had
been deposed in substance, if not in form, for a similar calamity. The
King of Sweden[87] was under the Throne during the greater part of these
discussions.
On January 6, in compliance with commands conveyed through Mr. Adam,
Lord Grenville had an audience of the Prince of Wales at Carlton House.
His Royal Highness began by informing him that he must consider the
communication as made jointly to him and to Lord Grey, the latter
unluckily being not yet returned from Northumberland. His immediate
object was advice how to frame an answer to the address which would
shortly be presented to him by both Houses. He then spoke with much
apparent feeling of the embarrassments of his own situation, adverted
to the difficulties of forming a strong Government for the conduct of
affairs in the House of Commons, condemned all exclusions of persons,
and after acknowledging some personal dislike of Mr. Canning and
glancing at the grounds of it, _viz._, his intimacy with the Princess,
he indicated the convenience and almost recommended a coalition with
him. He spoke more directly of his wish to reinstate the Duke of York,
and he conversed on public and foreign measures, in the judgment of Lord
Grenville, both ably and satisfactorily. There was sufficient concurrence
of opinion on these topics between him and Lord Grenville to remove all
apprehension of a separate will in the Court and the Ministry, should the
Whigs possess the latter.
At the close of the conversation he directed Lord Grenville to consult
with Lord Grey and Lord Moira, and referred to him and to them the
propriety of forming a new Administration and the consideration of the
means of completing it; adding, that he hoped all their arrangements
might be prepared by the time he assumed the functions of Regent under
the authority of the Act of Parliament. Lord Grenville, after stating
generally his view of public affairs, declined entering into the details
of arrangements till further communication with Lord Grey and those of
his friends immediately conversant with the House of Commons; he deemed
it, however, an act of fairness and duty to state explicitly his views
of one subject, on which the Prince of Wales had dwelt with so much
emotion and honourable feeling—the reinstatement of the Duke of York. He
deplored, he said, the treatment the Duke had met with; he had almost
said, could such an expression be pardoned, that he felt compassion for
him, for he had been, in his judgment, misrepresented and slandered. But
notwithstanding the concurrence of many of his best friends in this view
of what had passed, he feared that the obstacles to the reinstatement of
the Duke of York, arising from the temper of the House of Commons and
from the prejudices and opinions of the great body of the public, and of
the Whigs more especially, were quite insurmountable. He would cheerfully
consult with others on that subject, and certainly with an earnest desire
to further His Royal Highness’s wishes, but he could not conceal from him
that he had little hope of finding it practicable to reinstate the Duke
of York as Commander-in-Chief.
Such was the substance of that conversation as related to me by Lord
Grenville himself. He lost no time in communicating the result of this
audience to his friends in town; and I endeavoured on that occasion to
impress on his mind the necessity of prosecuting the Spanish war, and the
propriety of discountenancing by some legislative acts the disposition,
too prevalent in our Courts, of harassing and if possible crushing the
liberty of the press. These were the two points on which I thought our
leading Whigs of that day stood most in need of admonition, and I believe
Mr. Horner and Sir Samuel Romilly agreed with me.
On Wednesday, January 9, Lord Grey arrived in London. The Prince saw
him next day, and was yet more communicative than he had been with Lord
Grenville. The result, on the subject of the Duke of York, was nearly
the same. When the Prince of Wales suggested that the accession of Mr.
Canning would strengthen his new Government in the House of Commons, Lord
Grey, ever artless, open, and manly, exposed the impolicy of weakening
the attachment of old friends by a precarious connection with new or
doubtful ones. The Prince, either designedly or accidentally, touched
on a subject of some embarrassment—Lord Grenville’s auditorship.[88] He
hinted at the difficulty or even impossibility of uniting it again with
the Treasury. He very pertinently remarked that Lord Grenville’s recent
correspondence with Mr. Perceval, in which he had scrupled to draw an
order for the issue of monies upon a warrant from the Treasury, added to
the embarrassment, by showing that one of these offices was in certain
cases a check upon the other.
Lord Grey and Lord Grenville drew up without delay an answer to the two
Houses, which was to be delivered on the 11th. The draft arrived at
Carlton House as the Prince was sitting down to dinner on the 10th, and,
as ill-fortune would have it, Mr. Sheridan dined with him on that day.
The paper became the topic of conversation and criticism after dinner.
According to the report of Mr. Adam, who was present, Mr. Sheridan
inveighed against the substance and ridiculed both the composition and
the authors, till the Prince swore he would not send it and requested
Mr. Sheridan to alter it or to frame a new one. He seized with great
avidity and emphatically approved of a remark made by that gentleman, for
which, to say the truth, there was some foundation. “It was impossible,”
said Sheridan, “for a man who, like Lord Grenville, had voted for the
first resolutions and even for some of the most offensive restrictions,
to frame such an answer as would suit a Prince who wished to convey his
unequivocal disapprobation of both.” The Prince sent back the paper with
many alterations and comments, and much underlined; and he directed the
two Lords to improve the form, but to incorporate the substance of his
interlineations and remarks into the answer.
In the meanwhile, or rather at the same moment, Mr. Adam brought this
account to Lord Grey at my house in Pall Mall.[89] He related with some
asperity the behaviour of Mr. Sheridan, who shortly afterwards followed
him. Lord Grey, with great dignity but with much propriety and good
temper, observing that it was impossible for him or Lord Grenville to be
responsible for sentiments they had not written, drove off to Camelford
House. Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Adam, flushed with wine and irritated by
dispute, argued the question over again with considerable warmth. Mr.
Sheridan at first alleged that he did not know that the two Lords had
been directly and exclusively entrusted to draw up the paper; but Mr.
Adam contended, and indeed proved, that Mr. Sheridan was fully aware
of it. Mr. Sheridan then maintained, with some plausibility, that till
they were actually Ministers they were not technically in a responsible
situation, and that Lord Grenville’s circumstances not only did not
confer an exclusive right to advise on such a subject, but actually
disqualified him from doing so with effect or propriety. The two
Lords withdrew their paper, and one of Mr. Sheridan’s composition was
delivered. It expressed strongly enough, but not very happily either
in thought or in language, the Prince’s disapprobation of the late
proceedings.
Lord Grey and Lord Grenville, not satisfied with barely withdrawing their
paper, deemed it more fair and honourable to explain, at this very early
stage of their official connection with the Prince Regent, their sense of
the indignity and inconvenience which might arise from the interference
of unauthorised advisers in transactions for which they should be
practically and constitutionally responsible. Such a declaration, however
open, was bold and injudicious; for it was not absolutely called for,
though it might be justified by the occasion. Yet had they explained
themselves in an audience with the Prince Regent, the firmness of their
tone and the soundness of the principle they had to enforce might have
produced some salutary impression on His Royal Highness: though they
could hardly have prevented occasional recurrence of such events with
a Prince of natural levity, whose habits were formed to very familiar
intercourse not only with Mr. Sheridan but with many persons much further
removed from the character and capacity of ostensible advisers. But the
passion for pen and ink was strong upon Lord Grenville during the whole
of that season. It outweighed every other consideration. The two Lords
sent a laboured remonstrance to the Prince, in which he was taken to task
for his conduct. The respective duties of a Minister who advises and of a
Prince who is advised were expounded in a manner highly constitutional,
but not withal very conciliatory from two statesmen on the eve of their
appointment.
There can be little doubt that the first use made of this paper was to
show it to Mr. Sheridan. There can be as little that he, sore at the
whole transaction, bitterly ridiculed the performance, and laboured to
affix on the authors of it the design of riding the Prince with a sharp
curb and stinging lash which they had not even the caution to conceal
till they had reached the saddle. “He antedates the hatred due to power,”
said Pope to Lord Cobham; and the same thought was applied in fifty
different ways to his relation Lord Grenville by Mr. Sheridan, who, in
venting his resentment on this unlucky affair, gave an impression of the
haughty demeanour of the two Whig Lords which he could never afterwards
efface from the mind of the Regent. He wrote a long narrative of what
passed in a letter to me.[90]