TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of each chapter.

The Appendix has sections marked B to K; there is no section A, and no section J.

As the Editor notes in his Preface, “Some, though very few, coarse expressions, have been suppressed by the Editor, and the vacant spaces filled up by [3 or 4] asterisks.” A few names have been editorially omitted; these are sometimes indicated by —— and sometimes by ****.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]

MEMOIRS
OF THE REIGN OF
KING GEORGE THE SECOND.

VOL. I.

GEORGE II.
London. Henry Colburn, 1846.

MEMOIRS

OF THE REIGN OF

KING GEORGE THE SECOND.

BY

HORACE WALPOLE,

YOUNGEST SON OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD.

EDITED, FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS.

WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES,

BY THE LATE

LORD HOLLAND.

Second Edition, Revised.

WITH THE ORIGINAL MOTTOES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1847.

EDITOR’S
PREFACE.

The work now submitted to the public is printed from a Manuscript of the late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford.

Among the papers found at Strawberry Hill, after the death of Lord Orford, was the following Memorandum, wrapped in an envelope, on which was written, “Not to be opened till after my Will.”

“In my Library at Strawberry Hill are two wainscot chests or boxes, the larger marked with an A, the lesser with a B. I desire, that as soon as I am dead, my Executor and Executrix will cord up strongly and seal the larger box, marked A, and deliver it to the Honourable Hugh Conway Seymour, to be kept by him unopened and unsealed till the eldest son of Lady Waldegrave, or whichever of her sons, being Earl of Waldegrave, shall attain the age of twenty-five years; when the said chest, with whatever it contains, shall be delivered to him for his own. And I beg that the Honourable Hugh Conway Seymour, when he shall receive the said chest, will give a promise in writing, signed by him, to Lady Waldegrave, that he or his Representatives will deliver the said chest unopened and unsealed, by my Executor and Executrix, to the first son of Lady Waldegrave who shall attain the age of twenty-five years. The key of the said chest is in one of the cupboards of the Green Closet, within the Blue Breakfast Room, at Strawberry Hill, and that key, I desire, may be delivered to Laura, Lady Waldegrave, to be kept by her till her son shall receive the chest.

(Signed) “Hor. Walpole, Earl of Orford.

“August 19, 1796.”

In obedience to these directions, the box described in the preceding Memorandum was corded and sealed with the seals of the Honourable Mrs. Damer and the late Lord Frederick Campbell, the Executrix and Executor of Lord Orford, and by them delivered to the late Lord Hugh Seymour, by whose Representatives it was given up, unopened and unsealed, to the present Earl of Waldegrave, when he attained the age of twenty-five. On examining the box, it was found to contain a number of manuscript volumes and other papers, among which were the Memoirs now published.

Though no directions were left by Lord Orford for the publication of these Memoirs, there can be little doubt of his intention that they should one day or other be communicated to the world. Innumerable passages in the Memoirs show they were written for the public. The precautions of the Author to preserve them for a certain number of years from inspection, are a proof, not of his intention that they should remain always in the private hands of his family, but of his fears lest, if divulged, they might be published prematurely; and the term fixed for opening the chest seems to mark the distance of time when he thought they might be made public without impropriety. Ten years have elapsed since that period, and more than sixty years since the last of the historical events he commemorates in this work.[1] No man is now alive whose character or conduct is the subject of praise or censure in these Memoirs.

The printed correspondence of Lord Orford contains allusions to this work. In a letter written in 1752,[2] he informs Mr. Montagu, that “his Memoirs of last year are quite finished,” but that he means to “add some pages of notes that will not want anecdotes;” and in answer to that gentleman,[3] who had threatened him in jest with a Messenger from the Secretary’s Office to seize his papers, after a ludicrous account of the alarm into which he had been thrown by the actual arrival of a King’s Messenger at his door, he adds, “however, I have buried the Memoirs under the oak in my garden, where they are to be found a thousand years hence, and taken, perhaps, for a Runic history in rhyme.”

The Postscript, printed in this edition at the end of the Preface, but annexed by the Author to his Memoirs of the year 1751, evidently implies, that what he had then written was destined for publication. It is addressed in the usual style of an author to his reader, and contains an answer to objections that might be made to him. In this answer or apology for his work he justifies the freedom of his strictures on public men, vindicates the impartiality of his characters and narrative, claims the merit of care and fidelity in his reports of parliamentary proceedings, and explains the sources of information from which he derived his knowledge of the many private anecdotes and transactions he relates.

In the beginning of his Memoirs of 1752, he again speaks of his work as one ultimately destined for the public. “I sit down,” he says, “to resume a task, for which I fear Posterity will condemn the Author, at the same time that they feel their curiosity gratified.”

Many other passages might be quoted that imply he wrote for Posterity, with an intention that at some future time his work should be given to the public. “These sheets,” he remarks, “were less intended for a history of war than for civil annals. Whatever tends to a knowledge of the characters of remarkable persons, of the manners of the age, and of its political intrigues, comes properly within my plan. I am more attentive to deserve the thanks of Posterity than their admiration.”—“I am no historian,” he observes in another place; “I write casual memoirs, I draw characters, I preserve anecdotes, which my superiors, the historians of Britain, may enchase into their mighty annals, or pass over at pleasure.”—“To be read for a few years is immortality enough for such a writer as me.”—“Posterity, this is an impartial picture.”

At the conclusion of his Memoirs of 1758, where the Author makes a pause in his work, and seems uncertain whether he should ever resume it or not, he again addresses himself to his readers in the style of an author looking forward to publication. If he should ever continue his work, he warns his readers “not to expect so much intelligence and information in any of the subsequent pages as may have appeared in the preceding.”—“During the former period,” he goes on to observe, “I lived in the centre of business, was intimately acquainted with many of the chief actors, was eager in politics, indefatigable in heaping up knowledge and materials for my work. Now, detached from these busy scenes, with many political connexions dropped or dissolved, indifferent to events, and indolent, I shall have fewer opportunities of informing myself or others.”

He then proceeds to give a character of himself, and to “lay open to his readers his nearest sentiments.” He acknowledges some enmities and resentments, confesses that he has been injured by some, and treated by others with ingratitude, but assures his readers, as he probably thought himself, that he has written without bias or partiality, “that affection and veneration for truth and justice have preponderated above all other considerations,” and that when he has expressed himself of particular men with a severity that may appear objectionable, it was “the unamiableness of the characters he blames that imprinted the dislikes,” to which he pleads guilty. Can it be supposed, he asks, that “he would sacrifice the integrity of these Memoirs, his favourite labour, to a little revenge that he shall never taste?” Whatever may be thought of the soundness of this reasoning, and whatever opinion may be formed of the impartiality of his work, it seems impossible that anything short of a positive injunction to commit his Memoirs to the Press could have conveyed a stronger indication of the intention and desire of the Author, that, at some future period after his decease, this his favourite labour should be communicated to the public.

The extraordinary pains taken by Lord Orford to correct and improve his Memoirs, and prepare them for publication, afford no less convincing proof of his intentions in the legacy of his work. The whole of the Memoirs now published have been written over twice, and the early part three times. The first sketches or foul copies of the work are in his own hand-writing; then follows what he calls the corrected and transcribed copy, which is also written by himself; and this third or last copy, extending to the end of 1755, is written by his secretary or amanuensis, Mr. Kirkgate, with some corrections by himself, and the notes on the blank pages, opposite to the fair copy, entirely in his own hand. This last copy was bound into two regular volumes, with etchings from designs furnished by Bentley and Muntz, to serve as a frontispiece to the whole work, and as head-pieces for each chapter, explanations of which were subjoined at the end.

So much for the authenticity of the present work, and obvious intention of the Author that after a sufficient lapse of years it should be published. Of the Author himself, so well known by his numerous publications, little need be said, except to give the dates of his entrance into Parliament, and of his retirement from public life, with some few observations on his political character and connexions.

Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, was third son of the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole. He was born on the 5th of October, 1717, and brought into Parliament in 1741, for the borough of Callington. At the general election in 1747, he was returned a second time for the same borough; and in 1754 he came into Parliament for Castle Rising. On the death of his uncle, Lord Walpole, of Wolterton, in 1757, he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, in order to succeed his cousin, become Lord Walpole, in the representation of Lynn Regis, “the Corporation of which had such reverence for his father’s memory, that they would not bear distant relations while he had sons living.”[4] At the general election for 1761, he was again returned for Lynn without opposition; but being threatened with a contested election, and heartily tired of politics, from which he had in a great measure withdrawn after the accession of his friends to office in 1765, he voluntarily retired from Parliament in 1768. In 1791 he succeeded his nephew as Earl of Orford, and died on the 2nd of March, 1797, in the eightieth year of his age.

The House of Commons, in which Mr. Walpole first sat, was the one that overturned his father’s Administration. In the very first week of the session, the Minister was left in a minority. He still, however, kept his place, and so nearly were parties balanced, that for two months he maintained, with alternate victories and reverses, a contest with his adversaries. At length, secretly betrayed by some of his colleagues, who had entered into private engagements with his enemies, and defeated in an election question, which had been made a trial of strength between Ministry and Opposition, he retired from office, and became Earl of Orford.

His son Horace, though exempt from ambition, was roused by his father’s danger, and, while the struggle lasted, took a lively interest in all that passed. In his letters, he gives an entertaining and not uncandid account of the Debates that took place, and communicates freely to his Correspondent the hopes and fears, the good and bad success of his party; his anticipations of their strength in the different questions as they arose, are followed by his explanations of their failures, as far as he could account for them at the time; the desertion and falling off of their friends are stigmatized as they occurred, with the severity such conduct deserved; and when Sir Robert was compelled to resign, his son records with satisfaction the successful efforts used to secure him from the vengeance of his enemies, by disuniting the parties coalesced against him, and rendering them odious to the public, and hostile to one another.

But, though assiduous in his attendance on Parliament during this period, and sincerely anxious for his father, Mr. Walpole, who had no turn for public speaking, once and once only addressed the House. It was on a motion of Lord Limerick, seconded by Sir John St. Aubin, to appoint a Committee of Inquiry into the conduct of Robert, Earl of Orford, during the last ten years of his Administration.[5] A similar motion to inquire generally into the conduct of affairs at home and abroad for the last twenty, had been made and rejected a fortnight before.[6] The selection of this occasion for his maiden speech, did credit to the judgment and feelings of Mr. Walpole; and, though there is little force in his arguments against the motion, there is modesty, right feeling, and some happiness, both of thought and expression, in what he said. The speech, as he delivered it, is preserved in his Correspondence; and as it has no sort of resemblance to the speech published in his name by the London Magazine, and since reprinted in the Parliamentary History, we subjoin it for the satisfaction of our readers. The report of it, given by Mr. Walpole himself the day after it was made, is as follows:—

“Mr. Speaker,

“I have always thought, Sir, that incapacity and inexperience must prejudice the cause they undertake to defend; and it has been diffidence of myself, not distrust of the cause, that has hitherto made me so silent upon a point on which I ought to have appeared so zealous.

“While the attempts for this inquiry were made in general terms, I should have thought it presumption in me to stand up and defend measures in which so many abler men have been engaged, and which, consequently, they could so much better support: but when the attack grows more personal, it grows my duty to oppose it more particularly; lest I be suspected of an ingratitude, which my heart disdains. But I think, Sir, I cannot be suspected of that, unless my not having abilities to defend my father can be construed into a desire not to defend him.

“My experience, Sir, is very small; I have never been conversant in business and politics, and have sat a very short time in this House. With so slight a fund, I must mistrust my power to serve him, especially as in the short time I have sat here, I have seen that not his own knowledge, innocence, and eloquence, have been able to protect him against a powerful and determined party. I have seen, since his retirement, that he has many great and noble friends, who have been able to protect him from farther violence. But, Sir, when no repulses can calm the clamour against him, no motives should sway his friends from openly undertaking his defence. When the King has conferred rewards on his services; when the Parliament has refused its assent to any inquiries of complaint against him, it is but maintaining the King’s and our own honour to reject this Motion, for the repeating which, however, I cannot think the authors to blame, as I suppose, now they have turned him out, they are willing to inquire whether they had any reason to do so.

“I shall say no more, Sir, but leave the material part of this defence to the impartiality, candour, and credit of men who are no ways dependent on him. He has already found that defence, Sir, and I hope he always will. It is to their authority I trust; and to me it is the strongest proof of innocence, that for twenty years together no crime could be solemnly alleged against him; and, since his dismission, he has seen a majority rise up to defend his character, in that very House of Commons in which a majority had overturned his power. As, therefore, Sir, I must think him innocent, I must stand up to protect him from injustice—had he been accused, I should not have given the House this trouble; but I think, Sir, that the precedent of what was done upon this question a few days ago, sufficient reason, if I had no other, for me to give my negative now.”

This speech of a son, in defence of his father, appears to have been well received by the House. Mr. Pitt, who was at that time one of the most violent against Lord Orford, said in reply, “How very commendable it was in Mr. Walpole to have made the above speech, which must have made an impression on the House; but, if it was becoming in him to remember that he was the child of the accused, the House ought to remember, too, that they are the children of their country.” “It was a great compliment from him,” adds Mr. Walpole, “and very artful, too.” The Motion was carried by a majority of 252 to 245. Nothing was made of the inquiry.

For many years after the fall of Lord Orford, Mr. Walpole took an active part in all the political intrigues and dissensions of the times. Though he had not been treated, as he frequently hints, with any great kindness or indulgence by his father, he was indignant at the persecution against him, and appears to have been warmly and affectionately attached to his memory. In his private correspondence, he continually alludes to the mild and prudent policy of Sir Robert, and contrasts it with the violence and rashness of succeeding Ministers; and, as he advanced in life, these impressions became stronger, and recur more frequently in his writings. His political connexions were originally with his father’s friends; and for many years he appears to have indulged in sentiments of bitter hostility towards his enemies. When any of them were guilty of tergiversations, either in their public conduct or political friendships, he never fails in his correspondence to mark their perfidy and inconsistencies, and seems to enjoy with delight their apostasy and disgrace. But after a certain time he became less inimical to their persons, though to the end of his life he never ceased to blame their persecution of his father, which, indeed, many of them subsequently acknowledged to have been unmerited and unjust.

At the time when these Memoirs commence, the resentments he retained on his father’s account were directed less against the enemies who had openly opposed, than against the friends who had secretly betrayed and deserted him. He appears, for instance, to have been reconciled very speedily to Lord Granville, and ultimately to have become a warm admirer of Mr. Pitt. But against the Pelhams and Lord Hardwicke, whom he repeatedly and unequivocally charges with treachery to his father, his resentment was implacable.[7] In the early part of his public life, his chief political friends appear to have been Mr. Winnington and Mr. Fox. For the former, who died in 1746, his admiration was unbounded.

In his Memoirs, indeed, where in no instance but one he ever confers praise unmixed with censure, he bestows on Mr. Winnington the character of being one “whom it was impossible to hate or to trust;” and, in a subsequent passage, he describes him “as perniciously witty, affecting an honesty in avowing whatever was dishonourable.” But, in his private correspondence, written immediately after the sudden and melancholy death of Mr. Winnington,[8] he calls him one of the first men in England, and adds, “I was familiarly acquainted with him, loved and admired him, for he had great good-nature, and a quickness of wit most peculiar to himself; and for his public talents he has left nobody equal to him, as before nobody was superior to him but my father.”

With Mr. Fox he appears to have lived on the most confidential terms, till that gentleman accepted the Seals in 1755 under the Duke of Newcastle. Mr. Walpole, whose inveteracy to the Pelhams was unabated, could not pardon in his father’s friend, a connexion with the man whom he regarded as the chief traitor in the accomplishment of his father’s ruin. The step too was taken without consulting him. This added to his indignation; and from that time, though he continued in habits of intimacy with Mr. Fox, he became cold to his interests, and, by his own account, was, on one important occasion, active and successful in traversing his designs.

He was, in truth, during the whole of his public life, too much under the guidance of personal feelings and resentments, and too apt to sacrifice his friendships to his aversions; and as the latter were often excited by trivial and accidental causes, his political conduct, though unexceptionable on the score of interest or ambition, was fluctuating and uncertain, and his judgment of men variable and capricious. The affair of Admiral Byng, in which he took a part that does credit to his feelings and humanity, completed his estrangement from Mr. Fox. He animadverts with great severity on the cruelty of obstructing an irregular application for mercy with the view of embarrassing an Administration. The questionable conduct of Mr. Fox on that occasion seems to have deserved some such censure; but Mr. Walpole betrays his own partiality by the comparative tenderness with which he treats the Ministers themselves. They had it in their power to save Admiral Byng, and justice as well as humanity required them to exert it if they thought him either injured or innocent. Yet they chose to sign the warrant for his execution rather than incur the odium with the King or the public of insisting on his pardon.

About the time of his separation from Mr. Fox, Mr. Walpole appears to have lost the influence he had acquired over the Duke of Bedford through the intervention of Mr. Rigby; and during the latter part of these Memoirs, detached from all political intimacies, he seems to have had no better means of information than might have been possessed by any other industrious and attentive member of the House of Commons.

On the merits of the present work it would be improper to enlarge in this place. That it contains much curious and original information will not be disputed. The intimacy which the Author enjoyed with many of the chief personages of the times, and what he calls, “his propensity to faction,” made him acquainted with the most secret intrigues and negotiations of parties; and where his resentments did not cloud his judgment, his indifference to the common objects of ambition rendered him an impartial spectator of their quarrels and accommodations. The period of which he treats was not distinguished by splendid virtues or great vices, by extraordinary events or great revolutions; but it is a part of our history little known to us, and not undeserving our curiosity, as it forms the transition from the expiring struggles of Jacobitism to the more important contests that have since engaged, and still occupy our attention.

The account of Parliamentary Debates in these Memoirs would alone be a valuable addition to our history. No one is ignorant, that from the fall of Sir Robert Walpole to the American war, our reports of the proceedings in Parliament are more barren and unsatisfactory than at any period since the reign of James the First. For the last ten years of George the Second, Mr. Walpole has supplied that deficiency in a manner equally entertaining and instructive. His method was to make notes of each speaker’s argument during the Debate, and frequently to take down his expressions. He afterwards wrote out the speeches at greater length, and described the impression they made on the House. The anecdotes interspersed in the work are numerous, and, from the veracity of the Author, when they are founded on his personal knowledge, they may always be received as authentic. When derived from others, or from the common rumour of the day, he gives his authority for them, and enables his readers to judge of the credibility they deserve.

To his portraits it will be objected, that in general they incline to severity, and though he professed, and probably intended the strictest impartiality in his delineations of character, it cannot be denied that they are sometimes heightened by friendship, and more frequently discoloured by resentment; and on many occasions it is evident, that they are dictated by the conduct of the persons he describes in the last occurrence that brought them before his eyes, rather than by a steady and comprehensive view of their merits and defects. His observations on the Cavendishes may be taken as an illustration of this remark. He seldom mentions the two Dukes of Devonshire, who flourished in his time, without some sneer or malignant reflection. The truth was, that notwithstanding his Whiggism, he held all the members of that family in detestation, on account of the part they had taken against him on his breach with his uncle Lord Walpole. Yet, within a few years after the conclusion of these Memoirs, when William, fourth Duke of Devonshire, had bequeathed five thousand pounds to his friend Mr. Conway, in approbation of his public conduct, he uses the following exaggerated expressions in speaking of the legacy.

“You might despise,” he writes to Mr. Conway,[9] “the acquisition of five thousand pounds simply; but when that sum is a public testimonial to your virtue, and bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is worth a million. Who says virtue is not rewarded in this world? It is rewarded by virtue, and persecuted by the bad: can greater honour be paid to it?”

There are, indeed, few persons in his Memoirs, of whom he does not vary his opinion in the course of his work. Marshal Conway, the Pelhams, and Lord Hardwicke, are almost the only exceptions. He always speaks of Marshal Conway with affection and respect; of Mr. Pelham with dislike; of Lord Hardwicke with hatred; and of the Duke of Newcastle with contempt and aversion. Of other persons mentioned in his book, there is scarcely any strong expression of commendation or censure, which in some subsequent passage he does not qualify, soften, or contradict. It is a proof, however, of his fairness, at least of his desire to give his readers the impression he formed at the time of the personages and transactions he describes, that even when he changed his opinion, he allowed his original account to remain, leaving it to be effaced in the minds of others, as it was not unfrequently in his own, by subsequent reflections and events. In some instances, but rarely, he subjoins a note correcting his first impression: more frequently he only intimates to his readers his change of sentiment by the difference of his language with respect to the person he had before described. In his Memoirs of 1752, for example, he characterizes Lord George Sackville as a man “of distinguished bravery,” and that passage he has left as originally written, though after the battle of Minden he appears to have had more than doubts of Lord George’s courage. He was, in truth, as he says of himself, a bitter, but placable enemy, a warm, but (one instance only excepted) an inconstant friend.

It remains only to say a few words of the labours of the Editor. He has added some notes marked (E), and in some very few instances added or altered a word for the sake of delicacy or perspicuity. On such occasions the word added, or substituted, is printed between brackets of this shape [ ].

The spelling of the manuscript is peculiar, and different from that in ordinary use. It was the intention of the editor to have followed this orthography in the printed book, knowing it was the result of system and affectation, and not of accident or carelessness. He has accordingly retained it in the title of the book, and in words of unfrequent recurrence; but, finding such vicious and affected orthography disfigured the text, and fearing it might perplex on perusal, he determined in common words to revert to the usual and approved mode of spelling. The word to-morrow, for instance, which Lord Orford always writes to-morow, he has printed in the usual manner.

With respect to omissions, it is right to inform the reader, that one gross, indelicate, and ill-authenticated story had been cut out by Lord Waldegrave before the manuscript was delivered to the Editor; but he is assured the Author himself acknowledged that the facts related in it rested on no authority but mere rumour. Some, though very few, coarse expressions, have been suppressed by the Editor, and the vacant spaces filled up by asterisks; and two or three passages, affecting the private characters of private persons, and nowise connected with any political event, or illustrative of any great public character, have been omitted. Sarcasms on mere bodily infirmity, in which the Author was too apt to indulge, have in some instances been expunged; and where private amours were mentioned in the notes or appendix, the name of the lady has been seldom printed at length, unless the story was already known, or intimately connected with some event of importance, to the elucidation of which it was indispensable. Such liberties would be still more necessary if the remaining historical works of Lord Orford were ever to see the light. They have been very sparingly used on the present occasion, and appeared to be warranted by the consideration, that, though the work had been obviously written for publication, it was left without directions how to dispose of it, and entirely at the discretion of those by whose authority it is now given to the public. Greater freedom might perhaps have been taken, without prejudice to the Author, or to his Memoirs. But the Editor was unwilling to omit any fact or anecdote, that had a direct or indirect tendency to illustrate the causes, or trace the progress of any political change or public event. The few omissions made are entirely of a private nature, and, in general, regard persons comparatively insignificant.

The Author had himself affixed an Appendix to the work. Some of his notes, which were of an inconvenient length, have been transferred to that part of the book, and some articles have been added by the Editor. The latter are marked with asterisks, and are for the most part taken from notes and compilations of Lord Orford himself, or of some contemporary pen.