DISSENSIONS IN THE CABINET.
Early in January of this year died the Czarina Elizabeth, one of the most bitter and inveterate enemies of our ally, the King of Prussia. She was succeeded in her empire by Peter III., who, by the month of March, had concluded a close alliance with Frederick, placing an army of 20,000 men, which had hitherto fought against him, entirely at his disposal to fight against Austria. This had no sooner become known to the English cabinet, than Bute and his party proposed that no further subsidies should be paid to Frederick; at the same time, they reminded his Prussian majesty, that he had himself declared that if he were once secured by the neutrality of Russia, he should have little need of further assistance from England. But the old Duke of Newcastle would not admit the validity of this reasoning of his colleagues. He waited on Bute, and declared his intention to resign, unless a subsidy of £2,000,000 was paid, and the continental war continued. Bute answered drily, “that if the money were granted, peace might be retarded;” but he never requested him to continue in office, nor said a civil word to the aged politician. Accordingly, the Duke repaired from the minister to his master, and resigned his office, refusing a pension which was offered as a reward for his services, and for the large sacrifices which he had made since he had been minister, out of his private fortunes. “If he could no longer be permitted to serve his country,” he said, “he was at least determined not to be a burden on it: that if his private fortune had suffered by his loyalty, it was his pleasure, his glory, and his pride; and that he desired no reward but his majesty’s approbation.” Horace Walpole says, that he retired from the royal presence comparatively a poor man, to find how solitary and deserted could be the mansion of an ex-minister. Newcastle had been more than forty-five years in the cabinet, and this utter disregard to money-making exhibits his patriotism in a strong light: few would have served their country so long without well replenishing their coffers, especially at that age, when the virtues of disinterestedness and self-abnegation were exotic rather than indigenous to the human heart.
Bute had his reasons for answering the Duke of Newcastle coldly, and the result answered his expectations. He succeeded the ex-minister at the head of the treasury, “taking the reins of government with almost as little experience as Phaeton, and meeting with a fall almost as soon.” Mr. George Grenville was appointed secretary of state; but he afterwards exchanged posts with Lord Halifax, who had recently been appointed head of the admiralty. Lord Barrington was removed from the Exchequer in which office he was succeeded by Sir Francis Dashwood, and he was appointed treasurer of the navy. Soon after the Duke of Devonshire resigned his post of lord high chamberlain, and the Earl of Hardwicke retired from public life altogether. Many of the friends of the duke retained their places or accepted others; but several noblemen and commoners of distinction before the end of the year ranged themselves in the ranks of opposition. Amongst these was the Duke of Newcastle, who, although during the summer he had abstained from opposing the government, at length formed a political connexion with the Duke of Cumberland, whom he had before invariably opposed.