1751.
An nescis, Mî Filî, quantillâ Prudentiâ regitur Orbis?
Chancellor Oxenstiern to his Son.
[CHAPTER I.]
State of the Ministry at the commencement of the year 1751—The Duke of Newcastle disagrees with the Duke of Bedford—Lord Sandwich’s subserviency to the Duke of Cumberland—Mr. Pelham adopts his brother’s jealousies—Removal of Lord Harrington on the King’s return to England—Some account of his career—Conclusion of the Spanish war—Meeting of Parliament—Mr. Pitt’s recantations—Circulation of a political paper, called “Constitutional Queries,” brought before the notice of Parliament—Motion for providing eight thousand seamen—The Westminster Election and Petition—Speeches of Lord Trentham and Mr. Fox—Debate on the Naval establishment—Quarrel of Pitt and Hampden—Breach of privilege—Anecdote of Onslow.
It had been much expected that on the King’s return from Hanover several changes would be made in the Ministry. The Duke of Newcastle had, for some time before his attending the King thither, disagreed with the other Secretary of State, the Duke of Bedford, not only because he had brought the latter into the Ministry (his incessant motive of jealousy,) nor from the impetuosity of the Duke of Bedford’s temper, but from the intimate connexions that Lord Sandwich had contracted with the Duke.[17] Lord Sandwich had been hoisted to the head of the Admiralty by the weight of the Duke of Bedford, into whose affection he had worked himself by intrigues, cricket-matches, and acting plays, and whom he had almost persuaded to resign the Seals in his favour. There had been a time when he had almost obtained the Duke of Newcastle’s concurrence; and if he could have balanced himself between the Duke and the Duke of Newcastle, one may, without wronging the delicacy of his political character, suspect that he would have dropped the Duke of Bedford’s confidence. But a blind devotion to the Duke’s inclinations, which he studied in all the negotiations[18] of the war and the peace, protracting the one to flatter his command, and hurrying on the other when no part of Flanders was left for the Duke’s army, and himself was impatient to come over to advance his interest in the Cabinet, this had embroiled him with the Duke of Newcastle, and consequently cemented his old attachments.
Mr. Pelham had, according to his manner, tried to soothe where his brother provoked, been convinced by trifles that his brother’s jealousy was solidly grounded, adopted his resentments, and promoted them. While the Court was at Hanover, Lord Sandwich had drawn a great concourse of the young men of fashion to Huntingdon races, and then carried them to Woburn to cricket-matches made there for the entertainment of the Duke. These dangerous practices opened Mr. Pelham’s eyes; and a love affair between one of his [relations] and a younger brother[19] of the Duchess of Bedford fixed his aversion to that family. At this period the Duke of Richmond[20] died, who besides the Duchess and his own dignity, loved the Duke of Newcastle—the only man who ever did. The Pelhams immediately offered the Mastership of the Horse to the Duke of Bedford, which he would have accepted, had they left him the nomination of Lord Sandwich for his successor.
The King came over: but though the brothers were resolved to disagree with their associates in the Ministry, they could not resolve to remove them; none of the great offices were filled up but the Lieutenancy of Ireland, from which Lord Harrington[21] was removed in the most unworthy manner. He had raised himself from a younger brother’s fortune to the first posts in the Government, without either the talent of speaking in Parliament, or any interest there. He had steered through all the difficulties of the Court and changes of Ministry, with great dexterity, till, in the year 1746, notwithstanding all his personal obligations to the King, he was the first man who broke into his closet at the head of those insulting and disloyal resignations that were calculated and set on foot by the Pelhams, in the very heat of the rebellion, to force their master, by a general desertion of his servants, to abandon Lord Granville, whom he was recalling into the Ministry. The King had brooded over this ingratitude, not with much hope of revenging it, but as he sometimes resented such indignities enough to mention them, the Pelhams sacrificed Lord Harrington to their master, astonished at their complaisance, in order to bargain for other victims on his part, which they would have forced, not purchased, if there had been any price necessary but their own ingratitude. Lord Harrington was removed, and the Lieutenancy of Ireland again heaped on the Duke of Dorset, then President of the Council.
January 10.—The South Sea Company having consented to receive the hundred thousand pounds on the new treaty with Spain in lieu of all their demands, thought they had a title to some favour with the King, and accordingly came to a resolution to address him, to be pleased to continue their Governor, and to take into his consideration the state of the Company. To this message they received an answer in general terms. They addressed again for one more particular: they were told in very harsh phrase, that the King had obtained for them from the Crown of Spain all that was possible to be obtained.
This was the conclusion of the Spanish war; fomented (to overturn Sir Robert Walpole) by Lord Granville, who had neglected it for a French war; by Lord Sandwich, who made a peace that stipulated for no one of the conditions for which it was undertaken; by Pitt, who ridiculed and condemned his own orations for it, and who declared for a peace on any terms; and by the Duke of Newcastle, who betrayed all the claims of the merchants and the South Sea Company, when he had got power, to get more power by sacrificing them to the interests of Germany and the Electorate. As there never was a greater bloom of virtue and patriotism than at that period, if posterity should again see as fair a show, it will be taught to expect as little fruit.
17th.—The Parliament met. The King acquainted the Houses with the new treaties concluded with Spain for terminating our differences, and with Bavaria for securing the peace of the Empire (by the meditated election of the Archduke Joseph for King of the Romans, was understood). The Address was moved in the House of Lords by the Earl of Northumberland[22] and the Lord Archer; and in the Commons by Horace Walpole[23] (son of the late Earl of Orford) and Mr. Probyn. Lord Egmont opposed the Address, on the approbation it gave to the treaties, and the subsidies it promised to pay, and proposed leaving out many of the paragraphs. The House sat till near eight; the speakers against the Address were Mr. Henley, Mr. Bathurst, Sir John Cotton, Mr. Vyner, Mr. Martin, Mr. Doddington, Mr. Potter, and Dr. Lee; for it, Mr. W. Pitt, Mr. Pelham, Sir J. Barnard, General Oglethorpe, Horace Walpole senior, and Mr. Fox. Mr. William Pitt recanted his having seconded the famous question for the no search in the last Parliament; said it was a mad and foolish motion, and that he was since grown ten years older and wiser: made a great panegyric on the Duke of Newcastle’s German Negotiations of this summer, and said he was himself so far from wishing to lessen the House of Commons, that whatever little existence he had in this country, it was owing to the House of Commons. These recantations of his former conduct were almost all he had left to make. On his first promotion he had declared against secret committees, and offered profuse incense to the manes and friends of Sir Robert Walpole. He now exploded his own conduct in contributing to kindle the Spanish war, and hymned that Hanoverian adulation in the Duke of Newcastle, which he had so stigmatized in Lord Granville. Indeed, the Duke of Newcastle had no sooner conquered his apprehensions of crossing the sea, than he adopted all Lord Granville’s intrepidity in negotiation. The Address was carried by 203 to 74.
The morning the Parliament met, great numbers of treasonable papers were dispersed by the Penny Post, and by being dropped into the areas of houses, called “Constitutional Queries,”[24] levelled chiefly at the Duke, whom they compared to Richard III. As it was the great measure of the Prince’s Opposition to attack his brother, the Jacobites bore but half the suspicion of being authors of this libel.
On the 22nd the Duke of Marlborough[25] moved in the House of Lords to have the Queries burnt by the hangman, which was agreed to, and they communicated their resolution to the Commons at a conference in the Painted Chamber. Sir John Strange, Master of the Rolls, in a lamentable discussion, seconded by the Attorney-General, Rider, moved to concur with the Lords. Sir Francis Dashwood, after much disclaiming of Jacobitism, objected to the word false in the resolution, as he thought some of the charges in the Queries not ungrounded, particularly in the complaint against alarm-posts, and the dismission of old officers, an instance of which he quoted in the person of his uncle, the Earl of Westmoreland, who had been removed seventeen years before, and under the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. General Handasyde, a blundering commander on the Prince’s side, spoke strongly against the Queries; and Colonel Richard Lyttelton, with a greater command of absurdity, spoke to the same points as Sir Francis Dashwood; like him, disclaimed Jacobitism, and wished that “even a worse punishment than burning could be found out for the paper;” told a long story of Colonel George Townshend’s having been refused leave to stay in Norfolk, “though he was cultivating the Whig interest;” and an alarming history of the Duke’s having placed two Sentinels to guard the ruins of Haddock’s Bagnio and the Rummer Tavern at Charing-cross, which had been burnt down; and then ran into a detail of the abuse on the King about the Hanover troops in the year 1744, when his own relations and friends had been at the head of the Opposition.
Mr. Pelham answered in a very fine speech, and said, he had a new reason for condemning this paper, as he saw it already had had part of its intended effects, in catching honest minds. Lord Egmont made an extremely fine and artful speech, “That in general he disliked such methods of proceeding against libels, for two reasons; that he did not approve of Parliament taking the business of the law upon them, and because such notice only tended to spread the libel more; but that the present was of so evil a nature, that no censure could be too severe, especially as it was calculated to sow division between two brothers of the Blood Royal, where he was persuaded and hoped there was no such thing: that if there were any grounds for the accusations in the paper, he should choose a more proper day to inquire into them, and would; that as to the case of the Hanover troops,[26] he did not know why, as the same Ministry continued, that satire was left so unpunished, this so condemned; or why the author of this was so sought after, the authors of the other so promoted.” The resolution was agreed to, nemine contradicente, and an Address presented to the King, to desire him to take effectual means to discover the author, printers, and publishers of the Queries, which were burnt on the 22nd.
The same day, Lord Barrington[27] moved that the number of seamen should be but eight thousand for the present year. Nugent, Lord Egmont, Potter, and the Opposition, declared for the old number of ten thousand, on a supposition that the view of the Ministry was to erect the land army into our principal force. W. Pitt, who, with his faction, was renewing his connexions with the Prince of Wales, as it was afterwards discovered, and impatient to be Secretary of State, which he expected to carry, as he had his other preferments, by storm; and the competition between him and Fox, the principal favourite of the Duke, breaking out more and more, said (without previously acquainting Mr. Pelham with his intention) that if the motion had been made for ten thousand, he should have preferred the greater number. Potter immediately moved for them, and Pitt agreed with him. Mr. Pelham seemed to acquiesce; but when the question was put, Lord Hartington, a favourite by descent of the old Whigs, to show Pitt that he would not be followed by them if he deserted Mr. Pelham, divided the House, and the eight thousand were voted by 167 to 107; only Pitt, Lyttelton, the three Grenvilles, Colonel Conway, and eight more, going over to the minority.
On the 28th, Mr. Cooke, a pompous Jacobite, and Member for Middlesex, presented a long petition from several of the Electors of Westminster against Lord Trentham. This election and scrutiny had taken up above five months of the last year. The resentment of the Jacobites against Lord Gower for deserting their principles had appeared in the strongest colours, on the necessity of his son being rechosen, after being nominated into the Admiralty. They had fomented a strong spirit against Lord Trentham, on his declining to present a petition to the King in favour of a young fellow[28] hanged for a riot; and on his countenancing a troop of French players[29] in the little theatre in the Haymarket. Lord Egmont, who was intriguing to recover his interest in Westminster, had set up a puppet, one Sir George Vandeput; and the Pelhams were suspected of not discouraging the opposition. On Lord Trentham’s success, a petition had been framed in such treasonable terms, that Mr. Cooke himself waved undertaking it, and this new one was drawn up: Sir John Cotton opposed the party’s petitioning at all, but did not prevail. Both Mr. Cooke and the petition severely abused the High Bailiff (whose practice, as a lawyer, the Jacobites totally destroyed), and who, as Mr. Cooke said, had attempted to violate the maiden and uncorrupted city of Westminster.
Lord Trentham,[30] who had never spoken in Parliament before, replied with great manliness and sense, and spirit, reflecting on the rancour shown to him and his family, and asserting that the opposition to him had been supported by perjury and by subscriptions, so much condemned and discountenanced by the Opposition, when raised to maintain the King on the Throne during the last Rebellion. In answer to the censure on the High Bailiff, he produced and read a letter from Mr. Cooke to the High Bailiff, while he was believed in their interest, couched in the strongest terms of approbation of his conduct and integrity. This was received with a loud and continued shout. It was long before Mr. Cooke could get an opportunity of replying, and longer before he had anything to reply. He reflected on Lord Trentham’s not telling him of this letter, and justified it. Lord Egmont talked of his own obligations to Westminster, called Mr. Cooke’s letter honest flattery, to encourage a man to do his duty; and said that the opposition to Lord Trentham was the sense of the nation, expressed against the Administration.
Mr. Fox replied with great wit and abilities, and proved that of all men in England Lord Egmont had least obligation to Westminster, which had rejected him at the last general election, and exposed the doctrine of honest flattery, which was only given, when the person it was given to was thought honest, by acting as his flatterer desired. Mr. Fox was apt to take occasion of attacking Lord Egmont, the champion against the Duke, and because, after Mr. Fox had managed and carried through his contested election, Lord Egmont had not given one vote with the Court. Mr. Cooke moved to hear the petition that day fortnight; Lord Trentham for the morrow se’nnight, which was agreed to. Lord Duplin then moved to call in the High Bailiff to give the House an account how he had executed the orders which he received last February of expediting the scrutiny as much as possible. He came, pleaded many obstructions, and being asked why he had not complained, said, he had feared being taxed with putting an end to the scrutiny.
Lord Trentham then desired he might be asked, if he remembered any threats used to him. Lord Egmont objected to the question, and the High Bailiff was ordered to withdraw. A long debate ensued, though Mr. Fox proposed to put the question in these less definite words, “how he had been obstructed.” At last it was proposed that the Speaker should decide, whether, supposing the High Bailiff accused any person, they could be heard to their defence, consistently with the orders of the House, before hearing the merits of the petition. The oracle was dumb—at last being pressed, it said, “I wish, without using many words, I could persuade gentlemen to go upon some other matter.” Lord Trentham finding the Speaker against him, and the Ministry and one or two of the old Whigs inclined to give it up, gave it up with grace and propriety. But the young Whigs, headed by Lord Coke, grew very riotous, and though the Speaker declared still more fully against them, they divided the House, and carried it by 204 to 106 to call in the High Bailiff, who, returning to the bar, charged Crowle, Sir George Vandeput’s Counsel, with triumphing in having protracted the scrutiny, and with calling the orders of the House brutum fulmen. Being further questioned, he said he had been scandalously abused; had received papers threatening his life; had been charged with running away to Holland; had been pursued into the vestry after declaring the majority for Lord Trentham; had been stoned there, and that one gentleman at the head of the mob had asked them, if nobody had courage enough to knock the dog down, and that he ought to be killed. Being asked who this was, he named Mr. Alexander Murray, brother of Lord Elibank; both such active Jacobites, that if the Pretender had succeeded, they could have produced many witnesses to testify their zeal for him; both so cautious, that no witnesses of actual treason could be produced by the Government against them: the very sort of Jacobitism that has kept the cause alive, and kept it from succeeding. Mr. Murray, with Crowle and one Gibson, an upholsterer, were ordered to attend on the Thursday following with the High Bailiff, to have his charge made out.
29th.—The report for the eight thousand seamen was made from the committee, and debated again till past eight at night, when it was agreed to by 189 to 106. Mr. W. Pitt spoke with great affectation of concern for differing with Mr. Pelham, protested he had not known it was his measure (which Mr. Pelham made many signs of not allowing), and that it was his fear of Jacobitism which had made him differ on this only point with those with whom he was determined to lead his life. He called the fleet our standing army, the army a little body of military spirit, so improved by discipline, that that discipline alone was worth five thousand men; made great panegyrics on Mr. Pelham (so did Lyttleton and George Grenville), and concluded with saying, “I do not believe the majority of this House like eight thousand better than ten.”
The times were changed! Men who remembered how Sir Robert Walpole’s fears of the Pretender and his Spithead expeditions were ridiculed by his opponents, admired Mr. Pitt’s humility and conviction, who was erecting a new opposition on those arguments.
He was attacked by Hampden, who had every attribute of a buffoon but cowardice, and none of the qualifications of his renowned ancestor but courage. He drew a burlesque picture of Pitt and Lyttleton under the titles of Oratory and Solemnity, and painted in the most comic colours what mischiefs rhetoric had brought upon the nation, and what emoluments to Pitt. Pitt flamed into a rage, and nodded menaces of highest import to Hampden, who retorted them, undaunted, with a droll voice that was naturally hoarse and inarticulate. Mr. Pelham interposed, and, according to his custom, defended Pitt, who had deserted him; gave up Hampden, who had supported him. It was not unusual for Pitt to mix the hero with the orator; he had once blended those characters very successfully, when, having been engaged to make up a quarrel between his friend Hume Campbell[31] and Lord Home, in which the former had kissed the rod, Pitt within very few days treated the House with bullying the Scotch declaimer. On the present occasion, the Speaker insisted on the two champions promising to proceed no farther, with which Punch first, and then Alexander the Great, complied.
31st.—Mr. Crowle appeared with the High Bailiff at the bar of the House, and owned the words charged on him, but endeavoured to prove that the protraction was meant for the benefit of his client; and that the brutum fulmen was applied to those who urged him with the orders of the House impertinently. He showed great deference and submission to the House. It was then debated till six o’clock, whether any witnesses should be called in against him, and carried by 204 to 138, that there should. Three were called, who proved the words. Lord Hartington, (whose head being filled with the important behaviour of the Cavendishes and Russels at the Revolution, was determined that it should be the fault of the times, not his, if his conduct did not always figure equally with theirs in solemnity), moved, with a pomp of tragic tenderness, and was seconded by Lord Coke, who abused the independent electors, “that Mr. Crowle had wilfully protracted the scrutiny, and showed contempt of the House.”
This was opposed;[32] the lawyers pleaded in earnest for their brother, and the Ministry were inclined to give it up, till Lord Egmont made a furious speech for Crowle, and called the Whigs the Rump of their old party. Mr. Fox took this up warmly in an exceedingly fine speech of spirit and ridicule, and concluded with telling Lord Egmont, that though he intended to have interceded for Crowle (who had interest at Windsor, where Fox was chosen), he must now be for this resolution; but yet should show compassion for Mr. Crowle, if it were only on his having such a friend. The House divided at eleven at night, and the resolution passed by 181 to 129. Lord Hartington then offered to the House to take Mr. Crowle into custody, or to reprimand him immediately; the latter of which was chosen for him by Mr. Fox, and he was reprimanded on his knees by the Speaker. As he rose from the ground,[33] he wiped his knees, and said, “it was the dirtiest house he had ever been in.”
The Whigs took pleasure in copying the precedents,[34] that had been set them at the famous Westminster Election, in 1742; and the Speaker had the satisfaction both times of executing the vengeance of either party, and indulging his own dignity. On the former occasion, his speech to the kneeling Justices was so long and severe, that the morning it was printed, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams complained to him of the printer’s having made a grievous mistake—“Where?—how? I examined the proof sheet myself!” Sir Charles replied, “in the conclusion he makes you say, more might have been said; to be sure you wrote it, less might have been said.”
The King on these votes commended the young men, and said to the Duke of Newcastle before the Duke of Bedford, “they are not like those puppies who are always changing their minds. Those are your Pitts and your Grenvilles, whom you have cried up to me so much! You know I never liked them.”
February 1.—Mr. Murray appeared at the bar of the House of Commons, and heard the High Bailiff’s charge. He asserted his innocence; said he should deny nothing that was true; that much was false; smiled when he was taxed of having called Lord Trentham and the High Bailiff rascals, and desired Counsel, which, after a debate of two hours, was granted to him, and a respite till the Wednesday following, upon condition of his being taken into custody, and giving bail for his appearance. Gibson, the upholsterer, was then brought to the bar, witnesses for and against him heard, and the words proved, though some members[35] of the House, who had been present at the conclusion of the scrutiny, did not hear him speak them. Sir William Yonge moved a resolution of his guilt, which was carried by 214 to 63, and he was committed to Newgate.
Sir William Yonge[36] was still employed in any government causes where the Ministry wanted to inflict punishments and avoid odium—their method of acquiring merit! His vivacity and parts, whatever the cause was, made him shine, and he was always content with the lustre that accompanied fame, without thinking of what was reflected from rewarded fame—a convenient ambition to Ministers, who had few such disinterested combatants! Sir Robert Walpole always said of him, “that nothing but Yonge’s character[37] could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.”