FOOTNOTES:
[110] Philip Yorke. He had married the granddaughter and heiress of the Duke of Kent.
[111] Eldest son of the Lord Barnard, was made Vice-Treasurer of Ireland by Lord Bath, on the change of the Ministry, in 1742, from which place he was removed on the coalition, but not long after placed in the Treasury; and was afterwards created Earl of Darlington. He died March 6th, 1758.
[112] William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, had been persuaded by Sir Robert Walpole to apply himself to politics, in which, soon making a figure, he was appointed Secretary at War, when the Whigs came into power in the late King’s reign; but towards the end of it he went into Opposition, at the head of which he continued till the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. That Minister persuaded the King, when he took leave of him, to comply with none of Mr. Pulteney’s demands, unless he would quit the House of Commons and accept a Peerage, which he imprudently promising to do, though not without great reluctance, before the patent was passed, and raising his creatures,—Sandys, Sir John Rushout, Gybbon, Harry Vane, and Harry Furnese,—who were men of the meanest capacities, to the chief places, in preference to all the rest of the Opposition who had acted with him, they refused to follow him in his politics, and persecuted him in Parliament, and with innumerable libels and satires. On the death of Lord Wilmington, he asked for the Treasury, to which Mr. Pelham was preferred, but to which he was named in the Ministry of three days. From that time he made no figure; he was immensely rich, from great parsimony and great successions, and had endeavoured to add another to them: the Duchess of Buckingham, natural daughter to King James II., designing to take a journey to Rome, to promote some Jacobite measures, and apprehending the consequence, made over her estate to Lord Bath, by a deed which he afterwards sunk, and pretended to have lost. On this, the Duchess, after forcing a release from him, struck him out of her will as one of her Executors; and many years afterwards, on marrying her grandson to Lord Hervey’s daughter, she appointed Sir Robert Walpole one of her Executors. This happening soon after that Minister’s fall, he said to Lord Oxford in the House of Lords, “So, my Lord, I find I have got my Lord Bath’s place before he has got mine.”
[113] After the revolution of three days, Lord Bath was going to print a Diary which he had kept, in order to show all the falsehoods, treacheries, and breaches of promise of the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham, he having minuted down their conversations with him on the fall of Sir Robert Walpole.
[114] William, Lord Talbot, was eldest son of Charles Talbot, Lord Chancellor.
[115] Sir Dudley Ryder.
[116] He resigned the beneficial place of Treasurer of the Navy just after Sir Robert Walpole’s removal, because the Opposition said that his attachment to the Court arose from interest; yet that Minister always thought the Speaker not enough attached to him, and treated him very roughly, especially on his first visit after his disgrace. However, when the votes for the two last members of the secret committee were equal on the ballot for two of Sir Robert’s friends and two of his enemies, the Speaker decided in favour of the former.
[117] As was the case in 1746, when the King refused to make W. Pitt Secretary at War, and the whole Ministry resigned upon it.
[118] The different ways of reckoning the Council, as to be composed of nine, ten, or fourteen persons, arose from including, or not including the Duke, or the four to be named by the King’s will.—Vide the Act.
[119] Richard Grenville, Lord Cobham, and since Earl Temple.
[120] Grenville, a Lord of the Treasury.
[121] Grenville, Deputy Paymaster, and one of the Lords of Trade.
[122] It is remarkable that, in the next reign, Martin became a distinguished tool of the Princess’s minion, Lord Bute.
[123] Brother to Sir Robert Walpole, had been secretary to Earl Stanhope in Spain, was afterwards made Secretary to the Treasury, and Auditor of the Plantations, and was several times Ambassador in Holland and France, then made Cofferer of the Household, and lastly one of the Tellers of the Exchequer, and was created a Baron in 1756, and died February 5, 1757, aged 79.
[124] He paid the greatest court immediately to Lord Wilmington, and the instant the secret committee was voted, he set out for his house in the country, to burn, as he said in the House of Commons, dangerous papers; after which he professed himself very easy for what might happen.
[125] This was so much his foible that, when W. Pitt wanted to reconcile himself to the Whigs, he used to flatter H. Walpole in his speeches in the grossest manner; and when he was ambitious of being Secretary of State, he proposed H. Walpole for it as the only proper person, knowing that would be impossible to be effected, and hoping it would then come by rebound to himself.
[126] The decency of this censure from Lord Limerick may be gathered from the long time he had been in Opposition himself, and from his being the person who made the famous motion for removing Sir Robert Walpole, as the supposed author of all the calamities of the present reign.
[127] Eldest son of the Earl of Oxford.
[128] A second instance of the same kind of complaisance from the Bishops appeared in May, 1753. Lord Bath had brought in a Bill to prevent clandestine marriages, which being very exceptionable, a new one was ordered to be brought in by the Judges, and was accordingly drawn up and warmly patronized by the Chancellor, and as warmly, though ineffectually, opposed by the Duke of Bedford; the whole Episcopal Bench consenting to the Act, though there were several clauses which enjoined dissolution of marriage for temporal reasons. In the House of Commons it was opposed by Fox and Nugent; on the other hand, the Attorney-General, who had been bred a Presbyterian, supported it, and applauded the conduct of the Bishops, who, he said, had at last reduced Christianity to common sense. This sentence occasioning great astonishment, he softened it by adding, that he only meant that the Bishops had at last consented to remove a superstructure, raised on the foundation of the Gospel, which Christ and the Apostles had never projected, it being only intended by the New Testament that marriages contracted under the laws of the country should be indissoluble; and that it was nowhere said that even the intervention of a priest was essential to the validity of matrimony.
[129] Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of the Life of Cicero, of the Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers, of an Examination of the Bishop of London’s Letters on the Use and Intent of Prophecy, and of several other celebrated works. Much was written against him—nothing well; yet the University of Oxford bestowed the degree of Doctor on two of his opponents. He died July 28, 1750; and it was obvious how much personal prejudice had influenced his antagonists, for after his death some tracts, which he had held too offensive for publication, and much stronger against Christianity than any of those he had published, were printed—and nobody wrote against them!
[130] Dr. Thomas Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury. He died March 13, 1757.
[131] He died, after an illness of two hours, at his palace in Chelsea, April 17, 1761. What is here said of his being superannuated relates to the infirmities of his body, not of his mind, he retaining his senses perfectly to the last.
[132] Dr. Butler, author of the Divine Analogy, &c. He died in June, 1752.
[133] William Murray, brother to Lord Stormont, and to the titular Earl of Dunbar, the Pretender’s first Minister. Pope’s Imitation of Nil Admirari is addressed to him. He was made Solicitor-General soon after Sir Robert Walpole’s resignation.
[CHAPTER VI.]
Conversation of the King with Mr. Fox on his Regency Bill—Some account of Lord Hardwick—The Pelhams determine to remove the Duke of Bedford and Lord Hardwick—Character of the Duke of Newcastle, and of Mr. Pelham—Sketch of Lord Granville, his former administration, and other events of 1745—Mr. Winnington—The resigners restored—The King’s self-command—Character of George the Second, of the Duke of Grafton, and of Princess Emily—The Duke of Newcastle determines to remove his colleagues—The Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich—The Pelhams foment family disputes.
The day after the Committee in the House of Commons, the King said aloud in the drawing-room at Kensington, that the amendments to the præmunire clause were rightly made. The Chancellor answered, “the insertion of the word unlawfully was unnecessary.” “That,” replied the King, “is a distinction only for lawyers to make.” Mr. Pelham would have explained it to him in a low voice, but he would talk upon it publicly.
About the same time, the King talking to Mr. Fox in his closet upon the Bill, asked him, whom he would have made Regent? “Sir,” said Mr. Fox, “I never thought I should be asked, and therefore never thought—if it was impossible the Duke should!” The King replied, “My affection was there;” but avoided talking on the impossibility. He assumed to himself the chief direction of the Bill, and added, “I have a good opinion of the Princess, but I don’t quite know her.” He then spoke largely and sensibly on the restrictions, and gave reasons for them. “That a Council was necessary for her, even in cases of treason: women are apt to pardon; I myself am always inclined to mercy; it is better to have somebody to refuse for her. As to the power of peace and war, I never would declare either without consulting others. And as to the objection of the Council being irremoveable, who knows it will be composed of the present people? It will be the Ministers I shall leave: had you rather have those I shall leave, or have the Princess at liberty to go and put in Lord Cobham or Lord Egmont? What did you say against the Bill?—do you like it? tell me honestly.” Fox answered, “If you ask me, sir—no. What I said against it was, because what was said for it was against the Duke.” The King told him, “I thank you for that: my affection is with my son: I assure you, Mr. Fox, I like you the better for wishing well to him. The English nation is so changeable! I don’t know why they dislike him. It is brought about by the Scotch, the Jacobites, and the English that don’t love discipline; and by all this not being enough discouraged by the Ministry.”
To complete the history of this memorable Bill, I shall subjoin some account of its author.
Sir Philip Yorke, Baron of Hardwick, and Lord Chancellor, was * * * * the son of an attorney at Dover. He was a creature of the Duke of Newcastle, and by him introduced to Sir Robert Walpole, who contributed to his grandeur and baseness, in giving him an opportunity of displaying the extent of the latter, by raising him to the height of the former. He had good parts, which he laid out so entirely upon the Law in the first part of his life, that they were of little use to him afterwards, when he would have applied them to more general views. He was Attorney-General, and when the Solicitor Talbot was, after a contest, preferred to him for the Chancellorship (the contest lay between their precedence, for Talbot was as able a man, and an honest one), Sir Robert Walpole made Yorke Chief-Justice for life, and greatly encreased the salary. Talbot dying in a short time after his advancement, to the great grief of all good men, Yorke[134] succeeded. In his Chief-Justiceship he had gained the reputation of humanity, by some solemn speeches made on the Circuit, at the condemnation of wretches for low crimes; a character he lost with some when he sat as Lord High Steward at the trials of the Scotch Lords, the meanness of his birth breaking out in insolent acrimony. On his promotion, he flung himself into politics; but as he had no knowledge of foreign affairs, but what were whispered to him by Newcastle, he made a very poor figure.
In the House of Lords, he was laughed at; in the Cabinet, despised.[135] On the Queen’s death, he went deep into the Duke’s shallow scheme of governing the King by the Princess Emily; for this cabal thought that he must necessarily be ruled by a woman, because the Queen was one, not considering it was because she was a wise one. This scheme was to be built on the ruin of Sir Robert Walpole, who had no other trouble to make it miscarry than in making the King say “Pho!” to the first advice this junto gave him. Their next plot was deeper laid, and had more effect: by a confederacy with the chiefs of the Opposition, they overturned Sir Robert Walpole; and in a little time, the few of their associates that they had admitted to share the spoils. When Yorke had left none but his friends in the Ministry, he was easily the most eminent for abilities. His exceeding parsimony was qualified by his severity to and discouragement of usurers and gamesters; at least, he endeavoured to suppress that species of avarice that exists by supplying and encouraging extravagance. The best thing that can be remembered of the Chancellor is his fidelity to his patron; for let the Duke of Newcastle betray whom he would, the Chancellor always stuck to him in his perfidy, and was only not false to the falsest of mankind.
The Pelhams having thus secured the duration of their power by Act of Parliament, determined at least to remove every object that gave any interruption or uneasiness to their enjoyment of it. It will not easily be understood how the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich, who were the present objects of offence, could give them any uneasiness. The latter was willing to submit to any indignities to keep his place; and the former neither had, nor pretended to any power, though Secretary of State. No measure, foreign or domestic, but was transacted without his participation. So far from having had any share in the nomination of Officers and Governors to the young Prince of Wales, the Duke of Bedford was not even told he was to have any, nor acquainted when they were actually appointed. He was not consulted upon any one step of the Regency Bill; only when it was entirely resolved, and had been actually communicated to the Cabinet Council, at which Lord Sandwich, his friend, was present, the Chancellor went to impart it to him at his own house, where he was confined with the gout. Indeed, at first he was pleased with this farce of attention, till his friends pointed out the insult of it. Notwithstanding all this submission, the Duke of Newcastle had no peace till they were removed. As he had no cause from their characters, we must seek it in his own; and to show the force of his jealousy, it will be necessary to give a deduction of his several treacheries.
He succeeded young to an estate of about thirty thousand pounds a year, and to great influence and interest in several counties. This account in reality contains his whole character as a Minister; for to the weight of this fortune he solely owed his every-other-way most unwarrantable elevation. His being heir to his uncle, the old Duke of Newcastle, obtained from the Crown a new creation of the title in his person; and, though he was far from having parts to procure him a Peerage, his Peerage and vast income procured him the first posts in the Government. His person was not naturally despicable; his incapacity, his mean soul, and the general low opinion of him, grew to make it appear ridiculous. A constant hurry in his walk, a restlessness of place, a borrowed importance, and real insignificance, gave him the perpetual air of a solicitor, though he was perpetually solicited; for he never conferred a favour till it was wrested from him, but often omitted doing what he most wished done. This disquiet and habit of never finishing, which, too, proceeded frequently from his beginning everything twenty times over, gave rise to a famous bon mot of Lord Wilmington,—a man as unapt to attempt saying a good thing, as to say one. He said, “the Duke of Newcastle always loses half an hour in the morning, which he is running after the rest of the day without being able to overtake it.”
He early distinguished himself for the House of Hanover, and in the last years of Queen Anne retained a great mob of people to halloo in that cause. He and his brother Harry raised a troop for King George on the Preston Rebellion, where the latter gave proofs of personal courage. The Duke was rewarded with the Garter, and some time after made Lord Chamberlain. The late King chose him for the honour of being Godfather to a new-born son of the Prince of Wales, which his Royal Highness much disapproving, was the immediate cause of that famous breach in the Royal Family, when the Prince and Princess left the palace very late at night. On Lord Carteret’s being sent into honourable banishment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by the power of Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole, the latter proposed to make the Duke of Newcastle Secretary of State, having experienced how troublesome a man of parts was in that office. The Viscount’s first wife having been the Duke’s sister was another reason for their depending the more on his attachment to them; but that very relation had given Lord Townshend too many opportunities of discovering how little he was to be trusted, particularly from his having betrayed Lord Sunderland, his first patron, to Lord Townshend, who earnestly objected to the choice of him, and endeavoured to convince Sir Robert Walpole how much his falsehood would give an edge to his incapacity. As the disagreement increased between those two Ministers, the Duke in every instance betrayed his brother-in-law to Sir Robert. The Viscount was not of Walpole’s forgiving temper, and was immediately for discarding the Duke. He pressed both King and Queen to it; exclaimed against his childishness and weakness, and insisted upon his dismission as the only terms of reconciliation with Sir Robert. The King, who always hated him, easily yielded to make Sir Paul Methuen Secretary of State in his room; but the greater power of Sir Robert with the Queen (whose policy had long been employed in keeping open the breach, in order to govern both), saved the Duke for future scenes of perfidy[136] and ingratitude.
Towards the decline of Sir Robert Walpole’s Ministry, the Duke of Newcastle, who feared to fall with him, and hoped to rise upon his ruins, dealt largely with the Opposition, to compass both. The late Duke of Argyle, after that Minister’s defeat, and his own disappointment in not succeeding to a greater portion of power, commissioned his brother, Lord Islay, to tell Sir Robert, that the Duke of Newcastle and the Chancellor had long been in league with himself and Lord Granville to effect his ruin. Lord Granville was scarce warm in power before Newcastle betrayed him to Lord Chesterfield; and the latter having introduced Lord Sandwich, who was sent Minister to the Hague, this young statesman and the Duke of Newcastle kept the secrets of his own office from Lord Harrington, who had been restored to the place of Secretary of State, for the assistance he had lent in overturning Lord Granville. On Lord Harrington’s discovering and resenting this treachery, the Seals were given to Lord Chesterfield; but he being, like his predecessors, excluded from all trust the moment he had a right to be trusted, soon resigned them. The Duke of Newcastle, who had newly entered into connexions with the Duke of Bedford, (as he and his brother did successively with every chief of a faction, till they had taken out their stings by dividing them from their party, and then discarded them) wished to give the Seals to Murray, who was, or to Pitt, who was canvassing to be, his creature; but the Duke of Bedford abruptly and positively insisted on having them—and had [them, together with] their constant perquisites,—the Duke of Newcastle’s suspicions and treachery.
The Duke of Newcastle had no pride, though infinite self-love: jealousy was the great source of all his faults. He always caressed his enemies, to list them against his friends; there was no service he would not do for either, till either was above being served by him: then he would suspect they did not love him enough; for the moment they had every reason to love him, he took every method to obtain their hate, by exerting all his power for their ruin. There was no expense to which he was not addicted, but generosity. His houses, gardens, table, and equipage, swallowed immense treasures: the sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted. He loved business immoderately, yet was only always doing it, never did it. His speeches in Council and Parliament were flowing and copious of words, but empty and unmeaning: his professions extravagant, for he would profess intentions of doing more service to many men, than he even did hurt to others. Always inquisitive to know what was said of him, he wasted in curiosity the time in which he might have earned praise. He aimed at everything; endeavoured nothing. Fear,[137] a ridiculous fear, was predominant in him; he would venture the overthrow of the Government, and hazard his life and fortunes rather than dare to open a letter that might discover a plot. He was a Secretary of State without intelligence, a Duke without money, a man of infinite intrigue, without secrecy or policy, and a Minister despised and hated by his master, by all parties and Ministers, without being turned out by any!
It may appear extraordinary that Mr. Pelham, who had not so much levity in his character, should consent to be an accomplice in his brother’s treacheries, especially as upon every interval of rivalship, the Duke grew jealous of him. The truth was, that Mr. Pelham, who had as much envy[138] in his temper, and still more fondness for power, was willing to take advantage of his brother’s fickleness, and reaped all the emolument without incurring the odium of it. He had lived in friendship with Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Bedford; while his brother was notoriously betraying them shrugged up his shoulders, condemned the Duke, tried to make peace, but never failed to profit of their ruin the moment it was accomplished. The falsehood and frivolousness of their behaviour can never appear in a stronger light than it did in the present instance, and in all the transactions that relate to Lord Granville. That Lord had hurried into power on Sir Robert Walpole’s disgrace, and declared he would be a Page of the Back Stairs rather than ever quit the Court again. He had no sooner quitted his party, who had long suspected him, than he openly declared himself a protector of Sir Robert Walpole; and to give the finishing stroke to his interest with the King, drove deep into all his Majesty’s Hanoverian politics, persuaded, in spite of the recent instance before his eyes, that whoever governed the King, must govern the kingdom.
His person[139] was handsome, open, and engaging; his eloquence at once rapid and pompous, and by the mixture, a little bombast.[140] He was an extensive scholar, master of classic criticism, and of all modern politics. He was precipitate in his manner, and rash in his projects; but, though there was nothing he would not attempt, he scarce ever took any measures necessary to the accomplishment. He would profess amply, provoke indiscriminately, oblige seldom. It is difficult to say whether he was oftener intoxicated by wine or ambition: in fits of the former, he showed contempt for every body; in rants of the latter, for truth. His genius was magnificent and lofty; his heart without gall or friendship, for he never tried to be revenged on his enemies, or to serve his friends. One of the latter, Lord Chief-Justice Willes, being complimented on Lord Granville’s return to Court, replied, “He my friend! He is nobody’s friend: I will give you a proof. Sir Robert Walpole had promised me to make my friend Clive one of the King’s Council; but too late! I asked him to request it of Mr. Pelham, who promised, but did not perform. When Lord Granville was in the height of his power, I one day said to him, ‘My Lord, you are going to the King; do ask him to make poor Clive one of his Council.’ He replied, ‘What is it to me who is a Judge, or who a Bishop? It is my business to make Kings and Emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.’ Willes replied, ‘Then they who want to be Bishops and Judges will apply to those who will submit to make it their business.’” I will mention one other short instance of his style. When, during his power, he had a mind to turn out the Chancellor, and prefer Willes, he said to Mr. Pelham, “I made Willes Chief Justice.” “You may make him more if you please, and perhaps will,” replied Mr. Pelham, “but I thought Sir Robert Walpole made him Chief Justice.” “No, it was I: I will tell you how: I knew him at Oxford; Queen Anne’s Ministry had caught him scribbling libels: I had even then an interest with men in power—I saved him from the pillory—now, you know, if he had stood in the pillory, Sir Robert Walpole could never have made him a Judge.”
He carried this extravagance into his whole behaviour: divided Europe, portioned out the spoils of the King of Prussia, conquered France—and all these visionary victories, without deigning to cultivate the least interest in the House of Commons, where the Pelhams were undermining like moles, and thinking as little of Europe—as ever they did afterwards. Pitt, who was building fame by attacking this Quixote Minister, received profuse incense from Mr. Pelham; while Lord Granville kept no measures of decency with his new associates. He treated the Duke of Newcastle, the Chancellor, and Lord Harrington, with unmeasurable contempt, and would not suffer their patience to be, what their tempers inclined them to be, the humblest of his slaves. These men, who, if they had any talents, had the greatest art that ever I knew at decrying those they wanted to undo, soon kindled such a flame in the nation, that the King was forced to part with his favourite, and all his airy schemes of German glory. Lord Granville had endeavoured early, by the intervention of Lord Hervey, to unite with Sir Robert Walpole, but he absolutely declined it, being persuaded that Lord Granville had connexions with the Pretender,[141] which, if he ever had, he now and long since had undoubtedly broken off. In their distress to get rid of their great antagonist, the Pelhams had recourse to Sir Robert Walpole. I don’t know whether the Duke of Newcastle, like another King-making Warwick, would not even have offered to raise him again to the height from which he had tumbled him, had he stipulated for any terms. Lord Orford, who the year before had by his single interest prevented the rejection of the Hanover troops, now came again to town, and having been instructed by John Selwyn, who was dispatched to meet him upon the road, wrote a letter to the King, which prevailed upon him to dismiss his Minister.
The Pelhams then entered into a coalition with the Duke of Bedford, Lord Chesterfield, Pitt, and that faction, which went on tolerably smooth, till Pitt’s impatience to be Secretary at War opened the door to a new scene. Lord Bath and Lord Granville, who still preserved connexions with the King, through the intervention of my Lady Yarmouth, persuaded him not to admit that incendiary into his closet. The Pelhams discovered from whence the rub came; and growing apprehensive that as soon as the session should be closed, and the Supplies completed, they should be discarded, not only determined to resign their own places, but engaged the whole body of the King’s Ministers and servants, down to the lowest clerks in offices, in a league of throwing up their employments in order to distress their master: and the whole nation, which for four years together had seemed possessed with a madness of seizing places, now ran into the opposite phrensy of quitting them—and must not it be told:—or will it be credited, if it is told?—The period they chose for this unwarrantable insult, was the height of a Rebellion; the King was to be forced into compliance with their views, or their allegiance was in a manner ready to be offered to the competitor for his Crown, then actually wrestling for it in the heart of his kingdom! A flagrancy of ingratitude and treachery not to be paralleled, but by the behaviour of the Parliament at the beginning of the Civil War, who connived at the Irish Rebellion, in order to charge King Charles with fomenting it. What attention they had already exerted for suppressing the Rebellion, appears from Sir John Cope’s trial, where, in answer to his repeated memorials for succours, and representations of the young Pretender being actually in Scotland and in arms, the Council tell him, “That they are unwilling to send him supplies, for fear of alarming people.”
This general banding of the King’s servants against him, joined to Lord Granville’s neglect of all precaution to strengthen himself by a party, had the desired effect. He had offered the Seals to Willes but the very day of the execution of their scheme, who prudently declined them. Winnington, though far from being a friend to Mr. Pelham, and wishing well to Lord Granville, yet understood his own interest too well to undertake the management of the House of Commons, and was at last forced to mediate the parley between the King and the mutineers. Lord Granville took the Seals, which Lord Harrington had been the first to resign, and sent for Lord Cholmondeley from Chester to take the others. This was[142] a vain empty man, shoved up too high by his father-in-law, Sir Robert Walpole, and fallen into contempt and obscurity by his own extravagance and insufficiency. Lord Winchelsea,[143] who had been at the head of the Admiralty on the first change, and the only man who had raised his character (by his conduct at that Board) when the rest of his friends had sunk theirs, was again named to that dignity; and Lord Bath at last obtained that object of his every passion, the government of the Treasury. The other employments they had not time to fill up, for on the third day of this meteor-like Ministry, no volunteers coming in, business at a stand, the nation in astonishment, and the Parliament in indignation, the two Lords were forced to tell the King, that he must once more part with them, and submit to his old governors. Lord Granville left St. James’s laughing; Lord Bath slipped down the back stairs, leaving Lord Carlisle in the outward room, expecting to be called in to kiss hands for the Privy Seal.
The King sent for Winnington, and commissioned him to invite the deserters to return to their posts. Winnington[144] had been bred a Tory, but had left them in the height of Sir Robert Walpole’s power: when that Minister sunk, he had injudiciously, and to please my Lady Townshend, who had then the greatest influence over him, declined visiting him in a manner to offend the steady old Whigs; and his jolly way of laughing at his own want of principles had revolted all the graver sort, who thought deficiency of honesty too sacred and profitable a commodity to be profaned and turned into ridicule. He had infinitely more wit than any man I ever knew, and it was as ready and quick as it was constant and unmeditated. His style was a little brutal; his courage not at all so; his good-humour inexhaustible: it was impossible to hate or to trust him. He died soon after by the ignorance of a quack,[145] when he stood in the fairest point of rising, to the great satisfaction of Mr. Pelham, whom he rivalled and despised.
The ligue, who had retired for no other end, did not make the King expect them long. Lord Harrington alone, when Mr. Pelham announced to him the summons for their return, said, “Go back!—yes, but not without conditions.” One was, that Lord Granville should give up the promise of the Garter; which he did—but got while out of place, and saw Lord Harrington sacrificed to the King’s resentments.
The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to hoard them better than any man who ever sat upon a Throne. The insults he experienced from his own, and those obliged servants, never provoked him enough to make him venture the repose of his people, or his own. If any object of his hate fell in his way, he did not pique himself upon heroic forgiveness, but would indulge it at the expence of his integrity, though not of his safety. He was reckoned strictly honest; but the burning his father’s will[146] must be an indelible blot upon his memory; as a much later instance of his refusing to pardon a young man[147] who had been condemned at Oxford for a most trifling forgery, contrary to all example when recommended to mercy by the Judge; merely because Willes, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him, and assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though in general his disposition was merciful, if the offence was not murder. His avarice was much less equivocal than his courage: he had distinguished the latter early;[148] it grew more doubtful afterwards: the former he distinguished very near as soon,[149] and never deviated from it. His understanding was not near so deficient, as it was imagined; but though his character changed extremely in the world, it was without foundation; for [whether] he deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had been in the former part of his reign, or so respected as in the latter, he was consistent in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd.
His other passions were, Germany, the Army,[150] and women. Both the latter had a mixture of parade in them: he [treated] my Lady Suffolk, and afterwards Lady Yarmouth, as his mistresses, while he admired only the Queen; and never described what he thought a handsome woman, but he drew her picture. Lady Suffolk[151] was sensible, artful, and agreeable, but had neither sense nor art enough to make him think her so agreeable as his wife. When she had left him, tired of acting the mistress, while she had in reality all the slights of a wife, and no interest with him, the Opposition affected to cry up her virtue, and the obligations the King had to her for consenting to seem his mistress, while in reality she had confined him to mere friendship—a ridiculous pretence, as he was the last man in the world to have taste for talking sentiments, and that with a woman who was deaf![152] Lady Yarmouth[153] was inoffensive, and attentive only to pleasing him, and to selling Peerages whenever she had an opportunity. The Queen had been admired and happy for governing him by address; it was not then known how easily he was to be governed by fear.
Indeed there were few arts by which he was not governed at some time or other of his life; for not to mention the late Duke of Argyle, who grew a favourite by imposing himself upon him for brave; nor Lord Wilmington,[154] who imposed himself upon him for the Lord knows what; the Queen governed him by dissimulation, by affected tenderness and deference:[155] Sir Robert Walpole by abilities and influence in the House of Commons; Lord Granville by flattering him in his German politics; the Duke of Newcastle by teazing and betraying him; Mr. Pelham by bullying him,—the only man by whom Mr. Pelham was not bullied himself. Who indeed had not sometimes weight with the King, except his children and his mistresses? With them he maintained all the reserve and majesty of his rank. He had the haughtiness of Henry the Eighth, without his spirit; the avarice of Henry the Seventh, without his exactions; the indignities of Charles the First, without his bigotry for his prerogative; the vexations of King William, with as little skill in the management of parties; and the gross gallantry of his father, without his goodnature or his honesty:—he might, perhaps, have been honest, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved his son.
Of all the resigners, the Duke of Grafton had treated his master with the greatest decency: he had retired to hunt, according to his custom, on the first scent of a storm; and it was with the greatest reluctance that he was forced to declare himself for any Ministry that was in a disputable situation: nothing could have forced him to it but the inequality of the dispute. When he went into the closet, he told the King, as if laughing at those he sided with, “Sir, I am come to direct you who shall be your Minister.”
The Duke of Grafton[156] was a very extraordinary man; with very good common sense and knowledge of mankind, he contrived to be generally thought a fool, and by being thought so, contrived to be always well at Court, and to have it not remarked that he was so: yet he would sometimes boast of having been a short time in Opposition, and of having early resolved never to be so again. He had a lofty person, with great dignity; great slowness in his delivery, which he managed with humour. He had the greatest penetration in finding out the foibles of men that ever I knew, and wit in teazing them. He was insensible to misfortunes of his own[157] or of his friends: understood the Court perfectly, and looking upon himself as of the Blood Royal, he thought nothing ought to affect him, but what touched them: as he had no opportunity of forsaking them for a family to which he was more nearly related, one must not say he would have forsaken them: betraying was never his talent; he was content to be ungrateful, when his benefactors were grown unhappy. He was careless of his fortune, and provided against nothing but a storm that might remove him from his station. An instance once broke out of his having ambition to something more than barely adorning the Court. On the Queen’s death, whom he always hated, teazed, yet praised to the King, he was imprudent enough in a private conversation with Sir Robert Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle, to dispute with the latter, whose the power should be, both silently agreeing, fools as they were, in his very presence, that it was no longer to be Sir Robert’s. Grafton thinking to honour him enough by letting him act under him, said at last in a great passion to t’other Duke, “My Lord, sole Minister I am not capable of being; first Minister, by G—, I will be.” The foundation of either’s hopes lay in their credit with Princess Emily, who was suspected of having been as kind to Grafton’s love, as she would have been unkind in yielding to Newcastle’s, who made exceeding bustle about her, but was always bad at executing all business. The Queen had in reality a thorough aversion to the Duke of Grafton for the liberties he took with one of her great blood; and if she had not been prevented by Sir Robert Walpole, would one night have complained to the King, when the Princess and the Duke, who hunted two or three times a week together, had staid out unusually late, lost their attendants, and gone together to a private house in Windsor Forest. The Queen hated him too for letting her see he knew her. He always teazed her, and insisted that she loved nobody. He had got a story of some Prince in Germany,[158] that she had been in love with before her marriage: “G—, madam,” he used to say, “I wish I could have seen that man that you could love!” “Why,” replied she, “do you think I don’t love the King?” “G—, I wish I was King of France, and I would be sure whether you do or not!”
Princess Emily detached herself from that cabal, and united with her brother the Duke and the Bedfords. She was meanly inquisitive into what did not relate to her, and foolishly communicative of what was below her to know: false without trying to please, mischievous with more design, impertinent even where she had no resentment; and insolent, though she had lost her beauty, and acquired no power. After her father’s death, she lived with great dignity; but being entirely slighted by her nephew, who was afraid of her frankness, she soon forbore going to Court or to keep a Drawing-room herself, on pretence of her increased deafness. She was extremely deaf, and very short-sighted; yet had so much quickness and conception, that she seemed to hear and see more readily than others. She was an excellent mistress to her servants, steady to her favourites, and nobly generous and charitable.
When the Pelhams were returned to Court, they for some time sat but loose in the King’s affections. The Duke of Newcastle had long been used to be called names by his master; and of whatever breach of duty he was guilty, he took care to submit with patience to abuse from his Sovereign. Mr. Pelham having more pride, was more resty under ill treatment, and soon threatened again to resign. The King, who would not venture again suddenly to be making Ministers upon his own authority, asked him who he wished should succeed him? He said peevishly, “Winnington.” “No,” said the King; “you know he is too much your friend.” “I had rather,” replied Mr. Pelham, “you would give my place to Lord Granville than keep it.” “That is better still!” said the King; “you make it impossible for him to have it, and then want me to give it to him!”
If that three-days’ Ministry had lasted, Lord Hartington, as errant a bigot to the Pelham faction as ever Jacques Clement was to the Jesuits, had offered to impeach Lord Granville—so soon had Sir Robert Walpole’s friends forgot the abhorrence they had expressed for the motion to remove him without a cause; and so little do the silly bravos of a party foresee how soon they may be brought to adopt and refine upon the most unjustifiable excesses of their antagonists! This new violence was the more odious than its precedent, as here was a man to be impeached only because he was going to be an unpopular Minister! In four years, Lord Granville and Lord Hartington came into place together!
The Duke of Newcastle, who had conquered every obstacle to power, but the aversion of his master, began to think he might as well add his favour to the other attributes of a Minister; and having overturned Lord Granville for his German adulation, was so equitable as to make the King amends by giving into all excess of it himself. There was one impediment; he had never been out of England, and dreaded the sea. After having consulted his numerous band of physicians[159] and apothecaries, he at last ventured; and himself and his gold plate,[160] and his mad Duchess, under a thousand various convoys, treated Europe with a more ridiculous spectacle than any it had seen since Caligula’s cockle-shell triumph.
He was now at the height of his wishes, but was still unsatisfied. The connexion of the Duke with Lord Sandwich, and through him with the Duke of Bedford, had given him the uneasiness that was mentioned at the beginning of these Memoirs; and the Prince’s death having smoothed all opposition, it was determined by the brothers in their Cabinet Council, to dismiss their rivals, whose interest in the House of Commons could now turn no scale into which it might be thrown. The measure was taken to remove Lord Sandwich, and thereby provoke the Duke of Bedford to resign; or to give the latter some more insignificant post, as Master of the Horse, President of the Council, or Master of the Ordnance. Mr. Fox, who saw the insult that was aimed at the Duke, endeavoured as much as possible to save his honour, by persuading the Duke of Bedford to acquiesce in the latter plan, as he would have more opportunities of crossing his enemies while he staid at Court, than probability of returning thither if once totally removed. Lord Sandwich laboured the same point, and even hoped to be overlooked if he could persuade the Duke of Bedford to accept one of the other less obnoxious employments; but the Duke was swayed to the contrary opinion.
He was a man of inflexible honesty, and good-will to his country: his great economy was called avarice; if it was so, it was blended with more generosity and goodness than that passion will commonly unite with. His parts were certainly far from shining, and yet he spoke readily, and upon trade, well: his foible was speaking upon every subject, and imagining he understood it, as he must have done, by inspiration. He was always governed; generally by the Duchess,[161] though immeasurably obstinate, when once he had formed or had an opinion instilled into him. His manner was impetuous, of which he was so little sensible, that being told Lord Halifax was to succeed him, he said, “He is too warm and overbearing; the King will never endure him.” If the Duke of Bedford could have thought less well of himself, the world would probably have thought better of him.
His friend Lord Sandwich[162] was of a very different character; in nothing more than in the inflexibility of his honesty. The Duke of Bedford loved money, to use it sensibly and with kindness to others; Lord Sandwich was rapacious, but extravagant when it was to promote his own designs. His industry to carry any point he had in view was so remarkable, that for a long time the world mistook it for abilities; but as his manner was most awkward and unpolished, so his talents were but slight, when it was necessary to exert them in any higher light than in art and intrigue. The King had never forgiven his indecent reflections[163] upon the Electorate when he was in Opposition, and as soon as ever he found his Ministers would permit him to show his resentment, he took all occasions to pay his court to them by treating Lord Sandwich ill, particularly by talking to Lord Anson before him on all matters relating to the fleet. An incident (one should have thought quite foreign to the Administration) contributed to give the King a new handle to use Lord Sandwich with indignity: the Bedfords had transacted a marriage between one of the Duchess’s sisters[164] and Colonel Waldegrave, against the consent of her father, Lord Gower; and Lord Sandwich had been so imprudent as to let the ceremony be performed at his apartments at the Admiralty. The Pelhams, who always inoculated private quarrels on affairs of state, dispatched my Lord Gower to ask a formal audience of the King, and complain of Lord Sandwich’s contributing to steal his daughter. Lord Gower[165] was a comely man of form, had never had any sense, and was now superannuated. He had been educated a stiff Jacobite, elected their chief on his first coming into the King’s service, and had twice taken the Privy Seal before he could determine to change his principles. The King entered into his quarrel; and the Pelhams by this artifice detached him from his family, and persuaded him that to resign with them would be sacrificing himself in the cause of Lord Sandwich, who had offered him such an indignity.
When Lord Sandwich found his disgrace unavoidable, and even had got intelligence of the day on which he was to be dismissed, he endeavoured by his own solicitations, and by the interposition of the Duke, to prevail on the Duke of Bedford to throw up the Seals first. This finesse, which did not succeed, was calculated to prevent the appearance of the Duke of Bedford’s resigning upon his account, and consequently the new obligations to be laid upon him by that measure: governing that Duke no longer, he chose to be no longer connected with him; but Bedford now would neither stay in, nor go out by his advice.