FOOTNOTES:
[17] William, second son of George the Second, Commander of the army in Flanders, and Duke of Cumberland. He was, by an affectation of adopting French usages, called emphatically “The Duke,” during the latter years of George the Second and the beginning of the reign of George the Third.—E.
[18] Lord Sandwich had been Plenipotentiary at the Conference at Breda in 1747, and concluded the Peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749.
[19] Richard Levison Gower.
[20] The second son of that name, Knight of the Garter and Master of the Horse, died Aug. 8, 1750, aged 49.
[21] Yesterday morning (Dec. 8, 1756), died at his house in the Stable-yard, St. James’s, the Right Hon. William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, a General of his Majesty’s Forces, a Governor of the Charter-house, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and one of the Lords of his Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council.
His Lordship served in the reign of Queen Anne in Spain, being Captain of a Company, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, in the third regiment of Guards; and in the end of the year 1710 was constituted Colonel of a regiment of Foot.
On the accession of his late Majesty he was appointed Colonel of a regiment of Dragoons, and returned to Parliament for the town of Derby; and in 1715 was made Colonel of a regiment of Horse. On the 19th of August, 1717, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the King of Spain.
November 17, 1718, he was appointed Envoy and Plenipotentiary to the Court of Turin; from whence he returned to Paris; and, May 31, 1719, set out for the Duke of Berwick’s camp before Fontarabia. After Admiral Byng had destroyed the greatest part of the Spanish fleet, Colonel Stanhope procured an English squadron to fall upon the port of St. Anthony in the Bay of Biscay, in which were one Spanish man-of-war of seventy guns, and two of sixty, newly built, with an incredible quantity of timber, pitch, and tar, and other naval stores, for building more; all which were destroyed by the English squadron, assisted by a detachment which the Duke of Berwick spared from his army, at the solicitation of Colonel Stanhope, who contrived the design, and, serving as a volunteer in the enterprise, principally contributed to the execution of it; where, finding it necessary to encourage and animate troops which had not been used to enterprises by sea, he was the first that leaped into the water when the boats approached the shore.
At the end of that war he was declared a Brigadier-General, and returned with the same character as before to Spain. But the Spaniards having laid siege to Gibraltar, he left Madrid on the 11th of March, 1726, and his late Majesty was pleased, in May, 1727, following, to appoint him Vice-Chamberlain of his Household, and to command him to be sworn of his Privy Council.
After his present Majesty’s accession, he was nominated first Ambassador and Plenipotentiary to the Congress at Soissons; and September 9, 1729, declared Ambassador to the King of Spain. On the 20th of November following, he was advanced to the degree of a Peer of Great Britain, by the title of Lord Harrington; and on the 13th of June, 1730, was constituted principal Secretary of State. December 18, 1735, he was declared Major-General of the Horse; and Lieutenant-General, July 17, 1739. His Lordship resigned the Seals, February 12, 1741-2, and the next day was declared Lord President of the Council. February 9, 1741-2, he was raised to the dignity of a Viscount and Earl of Great Britain, by the title of Viscount Petersham, Earl of Harrington.
On the resignation of Earl Granville, October 18, 1744, his Lordship was again appointed principal Secretary of State; and in 1745 attended on his Majesty to Hanover. February 10, 1745-6, his Lordship resigned the Seals; but his Majesty was pleased to re-deliver them to him four days after.
November 22, 1746, his Lordship was declared Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in the room of the Earl of Chesterfield, in which post he continued until 1771. March 22, 1746-7, he was constituted General of his Majesty’s Foot forces.
His Lordship’s rare accomplishments were such, that it is difficult with justice to determine whether he deserved most our admiration for his political integrity in the Cabinet, or for his military conduct in the field; whether he excelled most as a perfectly fine gentleman, or as a man of letters. But, without flattery, he deserved to have it said of him—
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”
His Lordship married Anne, daughter and heir of Colonel Edward Griffith, one of the Clerks Comptrollers of the Green Cloth, by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Dr. Thomas Laurence, first Physician to Queen Anne; and by her had two sons, twins, born December 18, 1719; but their mother died in child-bed. Thomas, the younger, was in August, 1741, appointed Captain in Honeywood’s Dragoons, and going over sea, died February, 1742-3.
William, Viscount Petersham, the eldest son, succeeds his Lordship in honour and estate; and thereby makes a vacancy in the House of Commons for Bury St. Edmunds. [Extracted from some printed paper of 1756, and annexed to the MS. as a note by the author of the Memoirs.]
[22] Sir Hugh Smithson had married the Lady Elizabeth Seymour, only surviving child of Algernon, Duke of Somerset, and heiress of the house of Percy, on which account they were created Earl and Countess of Northumberland.
[23] The author of these Memoirs.
[24] Vide the [Appendix, B.] [A.] The author of these Memoirs, in a MS. note on Doddington’s Diary, asserts, that the Constitutional Queries were generally ascribed to Lord Egmont.—E.
[25] Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough and Earl of Sunderland, Knight of the Garter and Lord Steward.
[26] In the year 1744, besides several other libels and ballads, had been published two pamphlets that made much noise, called “The Case of the Hanover Troops,” and the Vindication of that Case, supposed to be written by or under the direction of Pitt, Lyttelton, Doddington, &c. The first was answered by old Horace Walpole, in a pamphlet called “The Interest of Great Britain steadily pursued.”
[27] William Barrington Shute, Viscount Barrington, one of the Lords of the Admiralty.
[28] Bosavern Penlez, condemned for stealing linen, and demolishing a bagnio in the Strand. Fielding wrote a pamphlet to justify the condemnation of him.
[29] During Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, a troop of French Players had been brought over, but the audience and populace would not suffer them to perform. Another company came over in 1750, but with no better success. Several young men of quality had drawn their swords in the riot, endeavouring to support them: Lord Trentham’s being present had been exaggerated into his being their chief protector. French Players had been no uncommon spectacle in England. The foundation of the late animosity against them was this. The opposition to the Court had proceeded so far, as to be on the point of ridiculing the King publicly on the stage of the little theatre in the Haymarket, in a dramatic satire, called the “Golden Rump,” written by Fielding. Sir R. Walpole, having intelligence of this design, got the piece into his hands—[I have in my possession the imperfect copy of this piece, as I found it among my father’s papers after his death]—and then procured the act to be passed for regulating the stage, by which all theatres were suppressed but such as should be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. This provoked the people so much, that the French company having a licence granted soon after, when several English companies were cashiered, it was made a party point to silence foreign performers.
[30] Granville Leveson Gower, eldest son of John, Earl Gower.—A. Created Marquis of Stafford in 1786. Died, 1803.—E.
[31] Alexander Hume Campbell, brother to the Earl of Marchmont, a very masterly speaker and able lawyer, had been Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales, which post he resigned when his Royal Highness erected his last Opposition, and was supposed to have a considerable pension, on which he neglected the House of Commons, giving himself up entirely to his profession.
[32] Nugent very absurdly told the House, “that he could not help recollecting the epitaph on Lord Brooke, Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, which he begged leave to apply, by acquainting them that Mr. Crowle was the friend of that excellent man, Lord Lonsdale, who then lay dying, and that he hoped they would not disturb his death-bed by any harsh treatment of his friend.” Henry, the last Lord Viscount Lonsdale, died soon after this. He had been Constable of the Tower and Lord Privy Seal, which he resigned with outgoing into Opposition. He was a man of very conscientious and disinterested honour, a great disputant, a great refiner—no great genius. Nugent published two or three poems on his virtues.
[33] Crowle was a noted punster. Once, on a circuit with Page, a person asked him if the Judge was not just behind? He replied, “I don’t know; but I am sure he never was just before.”
[34] When Sir Charles Wager and Lord Sundon were declared illegally chosen by military influence, on the prevailing of the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole; and the Justices of Peace who had called in the soldiers were committed at five o’clock in the morning, the Speaker having been seventeen hours in the chair.
[35] Sir John Cotton and Sir Charles Fynte.
[36] August 10, 1755.—Sunday died at his seat at Escott, near Honiton in Devonshire, the Right Hon. Sir William Yonge, Bart., LL.D., F.R.S., Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, one of his Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, and Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Carnarvonshire. He was chosen to represent the borough of Honiton in the sixth Parliament of Great Britain, which was summoned to meet on the 10th of May, 1722, and served for that borough in the five succeeding Parliaments; for though chosen for Ashburton in the eighth, and Tiverton in the seventh and tenth, he each time made his election for Honiton, and was five times re-elected on his accepting places. In the present Parliament he represented Tiverton. He was appointed to be one of the Lords of the Treasury in March, 1724; a Lord of the Admiralty in May, 1728; again a Lord of the Treasury in May, 1730; Secretary at War in May, 1735; and in May, 1746, joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. He is succeeded in his estates and title of Baronet by his only son, now Sir George Yonge, member for Honiton.—[From a printed paper of 1755, annexed as a note to MS. text by the author of the Memoirs.]
[37] He was vain, extravagant, and trifling: simple out of the House, and too ready at assertions in it. His eloquence, which was astonishing, was the more extraordinary, as it seemed to come upon him by inspiration, for he could scarce talk common sense in private on political subjects, on which in public he would be the most animated speaker. Sir Robert Walpole has often, when he did not care to enter early into the debate himself, given Yonge his notes, as the latter has come late into the House, from which he could speak admirably and fluently, though he had missed all the preceding discussion. He had been kept down for some time by the prevailing interest of General Churchill with Sir Robert Walpole, on the following occasion. Yonge, in a poetic epistle (to which he had great proneness, though scanty talents) addressed to Hedges, who was supposed to be well with Mrs. Oldfield, said, speaking of that actress in the character of Cleopatra,
“But thou who know’st the dead and living well.”
[The dead and living Cleopatra.]—This coming to the fair one’s knowledge, she never ceased, till she had made such a rupture between her fond General and Yonge, as had like to have ended in the total ruin of the latter.
[CHAPTER II.]
Mr. Alexander Murray summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, and committed to Newgate—Sir William Yonge—Debate on the Army—Evidence of the witnesses against Mr. Murray, and remarks in Parliament upon it—Quarrel of Lord Coke and the Speaker—The party of the Prince of Wales—Murray’s behaviour in the House of Commons considered contemptuous; he is sentenced to closer confinement—Sir John Cotton—Report on Murray’s case—Character of Lord Egmont—Colonels Lyttleton, Townshend, and Conway—Sir Henry Erskine—Charge against General Anstruther—Vices of the people—Sir John Barnard—Factions—Subsidy to Bavaria—Lord Chesterfield’s bill for reforming the calendar; his character—Naturalization Bill.
February 4th.—An army of 18,850 men was proposed. Lord Limerick[38] moved for 15,000. Ever since the defeat of Lord Bath, he had been listed under the Prince, but for the last three or four years had lived retired in Ireland. He had preserved a sort of character from the impossibility of his being dismissed with the rest of his friends, as he had secured the reversion of a large sinecure for life, and, consequently, had less occasion to be intriguing after new preferment. His speeches were reckoned severe, and it was not his fault if they did not answer the character; he meant to wound, but his genius did not carry equal edge with his temper. Martin, a West Indian lawyer, attached to the Prince, made a speech of great wit against standing armies, with very new arguments. The eighteen thousand men were voted in the committee by 240 to 117, and carried next day on the report, after a long debate, by 175 to 75.
6th.—The High Bailiff produced eight witnesses against Mr. Murray, who gave the strongest evidence of his menaces and seditious behaviour. He was then heard by his Counsel, who brought the High Constable, Carne, Mr. Gascoyne, Lord Carpenter, and Sir John Tyrrel, to invalidate the charge. The first only proved that the words might have been said without his hearing them; the second confirmed the accuser’s charge in some particulars. Lord Carpenter, with the greatest decency, gave the most unconscientious evidence; but though he confined it to negatives, he at last contradicted himself, and was materially contradicted by Sir John Tyrrel, a foolish young Knight, who did not know how to reconcile his awe of the House with the little regard he had for what he was ready to depose. Lord Carpenter was undertaking Westminster, and having lately succeeded to a large estate, seemed to think elections the most equal way of restoring the sums which his father had amassed by excessive usury. The Counsel made small defence; one of them even made an excuse for engaging in that cause. Mr. Murray then advanced to the bar, and said he was ashamed of nothing he was accused of having said, but calling Lord Trentham a rogue to the chimney-sweeper, which was below him to have done.
The High Bailiff made short, clear, and fair observations on the evidence. Colonel Richard Lyttleton then moved a long resolution of the proofs being full, and was seconded by Colonel George Townshend. Sir Francis Dashwood opposed it, and would have reduced all the proofs to immaterial words, and the probability of one of the witnesses having mistaken the sound of a voice when he did not see the face of the person who spoke them, though he turned immediately and saw Mr. Murray, whose voice he had recollected. Lord Duplin replied. Sir John Cotton reflected on the length of the motion brought ready drawn, and complained of the House not having paid due regard to his evidence for Gibson; and both he and Sir Francis laid great stress on the dignity and character of Lord Carpenter. Mr. Fox answered in one of the finest, most spirited, and artful speeches that he ever made; set Lord Duplin’s evidence against Cotton’s; summed up the whole charge and proofs, and instead of ridiculing Sir John Tyrrel’s ridiculous evidence, as less able speakers would have done, he enforced it, commented it, and then produced it against Lord Carpenter’s. Lord Egmont made an artful speech, W. Pitt a florid one, T. Pitt a dull one.
During the debate, the strangers in the gallery were called to, to withdraw; the Speaker said that was his business, unless any gentleman would move it, and then he would be obliged to him. Lord Coke rose, moved it, and said, “Sir, I am that gentleman, and grant your request.” The Speaker immediately ordered them to withdraw, and said with a smile, “and, my Lord, I have obeyed your commands.” But as soon as they were gone, he fell into a pompous passion, and complained of Lord Coke’s repeating his words; having mistaken a disposition to pomp in another for burlesque, which he did not perceive was the result of the thing, and not of the intention. The episode concluded with Lord Coke’s begging his pardon, and with his being content to have thought himself affronted, as at all events it had procured him submission.
Of the Prince’s people only thirteen stayed to vote; and towards midnight, the resolution was carried by 210 to 74. It was then moved to send Mr. Murray close prisoner to Newgate. Sir John Cotton and others divided on the word close, but were only 52 to 169: Lord Egmont and his faction had retired. The young Whigs, angry at this second division, determined to bring Murray on his knees; and it was proposed to Mr. Pelham in the lobby: he consented, and it was moved by Colonel Lyttleton and Lord Coke. The Tories were enraged, and divided again, after Mr. Dowdeswell had moved for the Tower; but a precedent having been quoted of Middleton, the Sheriff of Denbigh, being sent to Newgate (in times[39] that the Whigs loved now to imitate, from the aversion they had felt to the first example), while they were disputing on the word close, and Mr. Harding had made the Clerk read the journal till it came to the resolution of addressing the King even to take away an office from Middleton, Mr. Fox recurred to that precedent, and said, “If the gentlemen of North Wales, where the Middletons of Chirk Castle are one of the most ancient families, would yield the precedence to the Murrays, he would consent that the latter should go to the Tower.”
It being carried by 163 to 40, that he should be brought on his knees, he was called in. He entered with an air of confidence, composed of something between a martyr and a coxcomb. The Speaker called out, “Your obeisances! Sir, your obeisances!”—and then—“Sir, you must kneel.” He replied, “Sir, I beg to be excused; I never kneel but to God.” The Speaker repeated the command with great warmth. Murray answered, “Sir, I am sorry I cannot comply with your request, I would in anything else.” The Speaker cried, “Sir, I call upon you again to consider of it.” Murray answered, “Sir, when I have committed a crime, I kneel to God for pardon; but I know my own innocence, and cannot kneel to any body else.” The Speaker ordered the Serjeant to take him away, and secure him. He was going to reply; the Speaker would not suffer him. The Speaker then made a representation to the House of his contemptuous behaviour, and said, “However you may have differed in the debate, I hope you will be unanimous in his punishment! Pray consider on it; if he may with impunity behave thus, there is an end of the dignity and power of this House!”
Sir George Oxenden said he had foreseen this refusal, and had not voted for bringing him on his knees, and was not answerable for the consequences—a fine consolation in their dilemma! Mr. Harding quoted three precedents where persons, and some of them members, had received their sentence on their knees. Mr. Pelham proposed a committee to search for precedents how to treat him, and that they should give their opinion upon it. Mr. Cooke went out, and tried to persuade him to submit; but he said he would sooner cut his throat. Mr. Fox went so far as to mention a place of confinement in the Tower, called Little Ease; but Mr. Pelham declared against such severe corporal punishment. Sir William Yonge proposed the closest confinement in Newgate without being visited, (a triumph which the Tories meditated for him,) and without pen, ink, and paper. This opinion was afterwards taken up by Lord George Sackville, and agreed to, though Vyner urged that he would be punished twice if they adhered to the former sentence after his submission. Alderman Jansen moved in vain to adjourn. W. Pitt hinted at a bill to be passed against him if he would not comply. Admiral Vernon made such an outrageous speech against these proceedings, desiring to have Magna Charta referred to the committee, that he was several times taken to order by the Speaker, Sir John Mordaunt, and Mr. Pelham, and was on the brink of falling under the sentence of the House. The Speaker himself proposed the question on Murray’s contempt, which Sir John Cotton tried to prevent being inserted in the votes, but it passed, with the order for his closer confinement; and then, after naming the committee, the House, at near two o’clock in the morning, adjourned over the next day.
At five in the morning, Mr. Murray was carried in a hackney-coach strictly guarded to Newgate. He sung ballads all the way; but on entering the gaol burst into tears, kissed the Serjeant, said he was very ill, and must have a physician. In two days the House was mollified, permitted him to be ill, and gave leave for his brother to visit him with a physician and an apothecary; and in five days more, their compassion grew so tender as to indulge him with the company of his sister, a nurse, and his own servant.
11th.—The staff was opposed by Lord Egmont, Dr. Lee, Nugent, Potter, and Bathurst; defended by Mr. Fox, Mr. Pelham, Sir William Yonge, Lord George Sackville, Lord Barrington, and General Mordaunt, and carried by 205 to 88. In the night, new Queries[40] abusing the House of Commons for their proceedings on the Westminster affair were dispersed at several doors, but no notice was taken of them. The Commons were not eager to have more prisoners to nurse!
12th.—Sir George Vandeput’s and the Westminster petitions were withdrawn. Some of the independents had tried to prevent it; and, at a meeting on the 9th, thirty-seven divided for going on with them against thirty-one: but Sir George declaring he would withdraw his, and he, Lord Carpenter, and Sir Thomas Clarges leaving the meeting, it was agreed to drop both petitions.
13th.—Sir William Yonge acquainted the House, that the committee of which he was chairman was ready with their report on Mr. Murray’s case; but as the prisoner was ill, they desired to postpone it to the following Monday. Mr. Cooke presented a petition from Gibson the upholsterer, who had not caught the infection of heroism from his fellow captive, but begged for enlargement, which was granted, and he was ordered to attend on the morrow, when he was reprimanded on his knees, and discharged.
The same day Mr. Pelham opened the Ways and Means, in which he generally shined, and did not disgrace his master, Sir Robert Walpole, though the latter had gathered his chief laurels from his knowledge and perspicuity in that service. Sir John Cotton piddled with a little opposition to the land-tax of three shillings, but it was carried by 106 to 43, and on the report by 229 to 28. They could not conjure up a spirited division now on the most popular points: if they were not new, they would scarce furnish a debate.
Sir John Cotton had wit, and the faithful attendant on wit, ill-nature, and was the greatest master of the arts of the House, where he seldom made but short speeches, having a stammering in his elocution, which, however, he knew how to manage with humour.[41] In the end of Queen Anne’s reign he was in place;[42] during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration constantly and warmly in opposition, and was so determined a Jacobite, that though on the late coalition he accepted a place in the Household, and held it two years, he never gave a vote with the Court, which argued nice distinction, not only in taking the oaths to the King (for that all the Jacobites in Parliament do), but in taking his pay, and yet obstructing his service: and as nice in the King’s Ministers, who could discover the use of making a man accept a salary without changing his party. When the Duke of Bedford, with all my Lord Russel’s integrity of Whiggism, was involved in a Jacobite opposition, he had been so suspicious, as to mistrust Sir John’s principles, till my Lord Gower quieted his uneasiness by assuring him, “Cotton is no more a Jacobite than I am.”
18th.—Sir William Yonge read the report of the committee appointed to search for precedents on Murray’s case. It concluded with proposing to send for him again to the bar of the House: but as gentler counsels, and a candour that might have been equitable before his contempt, though absurd now, prevailed, Sir William only moved to have the report lie on the table, saying, that if Murray should not submit this session, he should move in the next to resume the sentence. Mr. Pelham spoke much for moderate proceedings—more moderate indeed it would have been difficult to pursue after the lengths themselves and Murray had gone; but they who wanted to extort a submission from him for offences which he had not acknowledged, were ready to release him after an outrage which he gloried in, and had no ways atoned. Mr. Fox read a paragraph from the Whitehall Evening Post, by which it appeared that Murray had had the use of pen, ink, and paper, and had been writing an apology for some part of his private conduct;[43] the greatest part of which his future historian may be glad to colour over with the varnish of martyrdom. Mr. Fox, on this apparent recovery of the prisoner’s nerves, moved to order the physician and apothecary to attend that day se’nnight with an account of Mr. Murray’s state of health, which was agreed to.
On the 19th, 20th, and 21st, the Mutiny Bill was debated each day for several hours. This Bill, which formerly had passed as quietly as the Malt Act, had, for the two or three last years, constantly afforded the longest contests. Lord Egmont[44] had gained his greatest reputation by opposing it; and he was not a man to forget, or to let any body else forget where his strength lay. His great talent was indefatigable application, which he loved rather than wanted, for his parts were strong, and manly, and quick: his heart rather wanted improvement than his head; though when his ambition and lust of Parliament were out of the question, he was humane, friendly, and as good-humoured as it was possible for a man to be who was never known to laugh; he was once indeed seen to smile, and that was at chess. He did not dislike mirth in others, but he seemed to adjourn his attention till he could bring back the company to seriousness. He was personally very brave, as brave as if he were always in the right.
His father had trained him to history and antiquities; and he early suckled his own political genius with scribbling journals and pamphlets. Towards the decline of Sir Robert Walpole’s power, he had created himself a leader of the Independents, a contemptible knot of desperate tradesmen,[45] many of them converted to Jacobitism by being detected and fined at the Custom-house for contraband practices. By those people he was shoved into Parliament on the expulsion of Lord Sundon and Sir Charles Wager; but having written that masterly pamphlet called “Faction Detected,” in defence of Lord Bath’s political apostasy, the patron and champion mutually lost their popularity, and nothing was openly remembered of Lord Percival’s works, but a ridiculous history[46] of his own family, which he had collected and printed at an immense expense. Thus exploded, he was very willing to take sanctuary with his leader in the House of Lords; but the Ministry did not think his sting formidable enough to extract it by so dear an operation: how often since has Mr. Pelham wished him laid up in ermine!
At the beginning of this Parliament, rejected by Westminster, and countenanced nowhere, he bought the loss of an election at Weobley, for which place, however, on a petition, Mr. Fox procured him to be returned by Parliament, and had immediately the satisfaction of finding him declare against the Court, declared a Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince, and, on the first occasion, the warmest antagonist of the Duke and the Mutiny Bill. On Lord Trentham’s being opposed at Westminster last year, Lord Egmont tried, by every art and industry, to expiate his offences in the eyes of his old electors, and was the great engine of the contest there. All the morning he passed at the hustings; then came to the House, where he was a principal actor; and all the evening he passed at hazard; not to mention the hours he spent in collecting materials for his speeches, or in furnishing them to his weekly mercenaries. With this variety of life, he was as ignorant of the world as a child, and knew nothing of mankind though he had acted every part in it. But it is time to continue the history of the Mutiny Bill, and to conclude with the conclusion of his Lordship’s memoirs of his family and himself—“let us here leave this young nobleman struggling for the dying liberties of his country!”
When the Duke had set himself to restore the discipline of the army, and bring it nearer to the standard of German severity, he found it necessary to reform the military code, that whatever despotism he had a mind to establish might be grounded in an appearance of law. The Secretary at War, with a few General Officers, was ordered to revise the Mutiny Bill, and (if one may judge by their execution of this commission) to double the rigour of it. The penalty of death came over as often as the curses in the Commination on Ash-Wednesday. Oaths of secrecy were imposed on Courts Martial; and even officers on half-pay were for the future to be subject to all the jurisdiction of military law. My Lord Anson, who governed at the Admiralty Board, was struck with so amiable a pattern, and would have chained down his tars to a like oar; but it raised such a ferment in that boisterous profession, that the Ministry were forced to drop several of the strongest articles, to quiet the tempest that this innovation had caused.
The Mutiny Bill was likely to pass with less noise; when Colonel Richard Lyttleton, intending mischief, though without seeing half way into the storm he was raising, took notice of the extraordinary novelties and severity of these modern regulations. He was a younger brother of the pious George Lyttelton, with less appearance of, but with not much more real integrity. He was grown a favourite of the Prince of Wales by a forwardness of flattery that had revolted even the Duke, at whose expense on some disobligations he was now paying court to the elder brother.
He was seconded by Colonel George Townshend, eldest son of my Lord Townshend, a very particular young man, who, with much oddness, some humour, no knowledge, great fickleness, greater want of judgment, and with still more disposition to ridicule, had once or twice promised to make a good speaker. He was governed by his mother, the famous Lady Townshend,[47] who having been neglected by the Duke, after some overtures of civility to him, had dipped into all the excess of Scotch Jacobitism, and employed all her wit and malice, the latter of which, without any derogation to the former, had vastly the ascendant, to propagate the Duke’s unpopularity. The Pelhams, who were very near as ill with her, had placed their nephew, Mr. Townshend, in the Duke’s family, to remove him from her influence; and the Duke had softened his haughtiness as much as possible to second their views. But my Lady Townshend’s resentments were not at all disappointed by this notable scheme, nor by the opportunities it gave her son of learning more of his commander’s temper, nor by the credit it gave to any reflections on him when authorized by, or coming directly from one of his own servants and a supposed favourite. The Duke has often said since, that he was never hurt but by the ingratitude[48] of Mr. Townshend and Lord Robert Sutton, whom he had made the greatest efforts to oblige.
This attack from two officers was artfully relieved by Lord Egmont, who had stickled so vehemently against the innovations, that one after another they were given up, or much softened one year after another, though not till many disagreeable instances had been publicly produced of his Royal Highness’s arbitrary control, and though they had been defended in a masterly manner by Mr. Fox, Lord George Sackville, and Colonel Henry “Seymour” Conway;[49] the latter a young officer, who having set out upon a plan of fashionable[50] virtue, had provoked the King and Duke by voting against the Army at the beginning of the war. He was soon after, by the interest of a near relation of his, placed in the Duke’s family, where he grew a chief favourite, not only by a steady defence of military measures on all occasions, but by most distinguished bravery in the battles of Fontenoy and Laffelt (in the latter of which he was taken prisoner), by a very superior understanding, and by being one of the most agreeable and solid speakers in Parliament, to which the beauty of his person, and the harmony of his voice, did remarkably contribute.
This year a new field was opened, during the discussion of the Mutiny Bill, by Sir Henry Erskine, another young officer, lately brought into Parliament by the Duke of Argyle. This man, with a face as sanguine as the disposition of the Commander-in-Chief, had a gentle plausibility in his manner, that was not entirely surprising in a Scotchman, and an inclination to poetry, which he had cultivated with little success either in his odes, or from the patrons to whom they were dedicated; one had been addressed to the Duke, and another to an old gentlewoman at Hanover, mother of my Lady Yarmouth. Of late he had turned his talent to rhetoric, and studied public speaking under the baker at the Oratorical Club[51] in Essex-street, from whence he brought so fluent, so theatrical, so specious, so declamatory a style and manner, as might have transported an age and audience not accustomed to the real eloquence and graces of Mr. Pitt.
It was on the second debate on the Mutiny Bill this year, that Sir Harry Erskine, complaining of the exorbitant power of General Officers on Courts Martial, instanced in his own case, and severely abused General Anstruther, who had treated him very rigorously some years before at Minorca. The charge was so strong, that Mr. Nugent said, if the General (who was not present) did not appear next day and justify himself, he would move for an inquiry into his conduct. This was so well received, that the Secretary at War thought proper to write to General Anstruther to acquaint him with the accusation. He appeared the next day, and spoke some time, but with so low a voice, and so strong a Scotch accent, that scarce ten people heard or understood him. He said “he had undergone a long persecution from his countrymen, who all hated him for having been the only Scot that, on Porteous’s affair, had voted for demolishing the Nether Bow at Edinburgh.” He produced and read an anonymous and bitter letter wrote against him to the late Duke of Argyle, with two letters to himself, one from the author to own the former, and to beg his pardon for it; the other from the council of war at Minorca to vindicate him to the General. He said he suspected Sir Harry Erskine of having been in the conspiracy against him, which he had not punished near so rigorously as it deserved: and he concluded with justifying his government, where, he affirmed, he had eased the people of all taxes imposed by former Governors.
Sir Harry Erskine, with all the false lustre of oratory, and all the falsehood of an orator, replied in an affected gesture of supplication; besought the House to proceed no further in this affair; said he had forgiven all the ill-usage, had mentioned nothing out of revenge, and now pardoned the General’s suspicions. This justification ill-heard, and this deprecation as ill-founded, concluded the affair for the present as awkwardly as it had been begun. The General’s charge against his countrymen was undoubtedly well-grounded, and that of tyranny against him, no less. Indeed, the Scotch would have overlooked his tyranny to the Minorchese, if they could have forgot his supporting the Government, when it was necessary to chastise the mutinous disposition of Scotland, where Captain Porteous had been murdered insolently and illegally by the mob.
Anstruther had been tried before the Council for his unwarrantable behaviour in his government a few years ago, and a heavy number of articles proved against him; but Lord Granville defeated the charge by calling in a Minorchese, and talking to him for an hour in Spanish, and then assuring the Council that the witness had fully justified the General. The secret of Erskine’s being willing to drop his accusation was on receiving intimation that Anstruther, if pushed, would recriminate on General St. Clair, Sir Henry’s uncle, who, on the expedition to Port L’Orient, had used the most violent methods to bring a Court Martial over to his opinion, and had abused Lord John Murray, the President of it, in the grossest terms, who, on this occasion, begged Mr. Fox to tell the King and Duke from him, that his only reason for having taken no steps to complain of that usage, was for fear of increasing the heats already raised on the Mutiny Bill; but that at a proper time he would seek some redress.
A committee had been appointed to consider on amending the laws enacted against the vices of the lower people, which were increased to a degree of robbery and murder beyond example. Fielding, a favourite author of the age, had published an admirable treatise on the laws in question, and agreed with what was observed on this occasion, that these outrages proceeded from gin. The depopulation of the city was ascribed to the same cause, which gave Nugent occasion very properly to offer again his Bill of general Naturalization, a favourite Whig point, overthrown in the Queen’s time by the narrow ignorance of the Tories, and defeated in the first session of this Parliament by Mr. Pelham’s complaisance for Sir John Barnard. It was now received, and the second reading ordered for the 20th, the day before which a petition was presented against it from the city of London. The next day they presented another against gin, on which old Horace Walpole attacked Sir John Barnard on the absurdity of their remonstrating on the decrease of people, and their making interest against replacing them by foreigners. Nugent ridiculed him on the same topic, and made a distinction of humour between the good citizen in his fur gown and corporate capacity, and really wishing well in his mercantile capacity to trade and populousness: and he observed, that even in this enlightened age, the city of London had not got beyond the prejudices of the reign of Harry the Third, the laws of that age against aliens, and the reasoning of the present petition against naturalizing foreigners being exactly the same.
Sir John Barnard was as little ready to reply to banter, as Nugent was inferior to him in reasoning. The citizen, with the most acute head for figures, made that sort of speaking still more unpleasant by the paltriness of his language, as the arrogance of his honesty clouded the merit of it. The Irishman’s style was floridly bombast; his impudence as great as if he had been honest. Sir John’s moroseness looked like ill-nature, and may be was so. Nugent affected unbounded good-humour, and it was unbounded but by much secret malice, which sometimes broke out in boisterous railing, oftener vented itself in still-born satires. Sir John Barnard had been attached to Lord Granville, but had been flattered from him by Mr. Pelham. Nugent’s attachments were to Lord Granville; but all his flattery addressed to Mr. Pelham, whom he mimicked in candour, as he often resembled Lord Granville in ranting. Sir John Barnard meant honestly, and preserved his disinterestedness: he would probably have sunk in his character of a great genius, if he had come into business with Sandys and others—as they did. Nugent[52] * * * * had lost the reputation of a great poet, by writing works of his own, after he had acquired fame by an ode[53] that was the joint production[54] of several others. One would have thought his speeches had as different an origin; sometimes nothing finer, generally nothing more crowded with absurdities.
At this time all was faction, and splitting into little factions. The Pelhams were ill with one another, and ill with the Bedfords. The latter Duke would have set up Fox against Mr. Pelham; and the former Duke[55] was countenancing Pitt against all. Mr. Pelham supported Pitt and his clan against the Duke of Cumberland, who was united with the Bedfords. The Prince’s Court, composed of the refuse of every party, was divided into twenty small ones. Lord Egmont at the head of one, Nugent of another, consisting of himself and two more, Lady Middlesex and Doddington of a third, the chief ornament of which was the Earl of Bute, a Scotchman, who, having no estate, had passed his youth in studying mathematics and mechanics in his own little island, then simples in the hedges about Twickenham, and at five and thirty had fallen in love with his own figure, which he produced at masquerades in becoming dresses, and in plays which he acted in private companies with a set of his own relations. He became a personal favourite of the Prince, and was so lucky just now as to give up a pension to be one of the Lords of his Bedchamber. The Jacobites had quarrelled at Oxford on the choice of a member, and would not join with the Prince, who courted them. Lord Granville, Lord Chesterfield, and Lord Winchelsea, were each separately courted by the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Oxford by Mr. Pelham, who at the same time was making new connexions, trying to preserve the old ones, adopting his brother’s jealousies, and yet threatening to resign on account of them. He had once solemnly declared in the House of Commons, that he would retire from business as soon as the rebellion should be extinguished. When the Duke of Grafton was told of this vow, he said, “God, I hope my friend will see the rebellion twinkle a good while yet in the Highlands!”
22d.—Sir Hugh Dalrymple moved for Mr. Golding (apothecary to the Prince of Wales) to have leave to attend Murray, being used to bleed him, which, as his veins laid low, was difficult for any other person to do. Mr. Pelham observed on the impropriety of this, as the doctor and apothecary were to appear on Monday. Mr. Fox said, he had heard that they would report he was very well, and proposed that the House should name a surgeon. It was at last agreed that Golding should go to bleed him, but should not be called for any account of his health.
Mr. Pelham, in the committee, opened the subsidy of forty thousand pounds a year to be paid to Bavaria for six years, twenty by England, and ten each by the Empress-queen and Holland. Martin made a speech of great wit against it, Lyttleton a learned one, and Murray, Solicitor-General, a very masterly one for it. It was obvious that the latter, not Mr. Pelham, had been instructed in the true secret of this negotiation by his friend Stone, secretary to the Duke of Newcastle. They had been bred at Christ Church together, and had tasted of the politics of Oxford as well as of its erudition. Sir Robert Walpole, on quitting the Ministry, had cautioned Mr. Pelham against Stone, having touched upon the scent of some of his intrigues, as he was hunting after Jacobite cabals. Mr. Pelham neglected the advice, as he had before rejected the offer of having Sir Robert’s clue of secret intelligence put into his hands. He would scarce have found either Stone’s or Murray’s name there from this time; they were converted by their own interest,[56] a conviction preferable to all detection. Lord Egmont spoke ill, and owned it was rather a right than a wrong measure; and was answered by Pitt in a good but too general a speech. Between seven and eight the House divided, but the majority for the subsidy appearing very great, it was given up without telling. This treaty with some others was calculated to purchase a majority of votes to choose the Archduke King of the Romans, but France and Prussia defeated the scheme: our Ministry could not buy off their opposition, as they bought off opponents at home, and they knew no other art of baffling an enemy.
25th.—The Bavarian Subsidy was debated on the report, and carried by 194 to 77. Then Dr. Lamont was called in and asked several questions about Murray’s health. He said he had found him with a cold and a fever, of which he was so well recovered this day se’nnight, that he had since visited him only every other day; but that going to Newgate on Saturday, he had found him with the cramp in his stomach, to which he had been subject these seven years, and of which his sister expected he would have died the day before: that he thought close confinement, without riding, dangerous for him: that he had advised him to petition the House for his liberty, though he had heard nobody else give him the same advice; but that Mr. Murray had replied in a passion, “he would take his prescriptions, but not his counsel.” Sir William Yonge then moved to restrain everybody but the Physician, Apothecary, and Nurse from visiting him, which being opposed, particularly by Lord Egmont, who reflected on the want of precedents, the Speaker made a warm and solemn speech for the honour of the House, instanced in the Earl of Shaftesbury and others, who had knelt to receive the reprimand of the House of Lords, and said that the want of a precedent of such behaviour as Murray’s did but conclude more strongly against him. Sydenham, a mad High-Church zealot, taking notice of some epithets the Speaker had used on Murray, was interrupted by him, saying, “I called him high-spirited too; if he had been only wrong-headed, I should have forgiven him.” The restriction was voted by 166 to 81.
The same day, Lord Chesterfield brought a Bill into the House of Lords for reforming our Style according to the Gregorean account, which had not yet been admitted in England, as if it were matter of heresy to receive a Kalendar amended by a Pope. He was seconded by Lord Macclesfield, a mathematical Lord, in a speech soon after printed, and the Bill passed easily through both Houses. Lord Chesterfield had made no noise since he gave up the Seals in 1748, when he published his Apology for that resignation. It was supposed to be drawn up by Lord Marchmont, under his direction, and was very well written; but to my Lord Chesterfield’s great surprise, neither his book nor his retirement produced the least consequence. From that time he had lived at White’s, gaming, and pronouncing witticisms among the boys of quality.
He had early in his life announced his claim to wit, and the women believed in it. He had besides given himself out for a man of great intrigue, with as slender pretensions; yet the women believed in that too—one should have thought they had been more competent judges of merit in that particular! It was not his fault if he had not wit; nothing exceeded his efforts in that point; and though they were far from producing the wit, they at least amply yielded the applause he aimed at. He was so accustomed to see people laugh at the most trifling things he said, that he would be disappointed at finding nobody smile before they knew what he was going to say. His speeches were fine, but as much laboured as his extempore sayings. His writings were—everybody’s: that is, whatever came out good was given to him, and he was too humble ever to refuse the gift. But, besides the passive enjoyment of all good productions in the present age, he had another art of reputation, which was, either to disapprove the greatest authors of other times, or to patronize and commend whatever was too bad to be ascribed to himself. He did his admirers the justice to believe that they would applaud upon his authority every simple book that was published, and every bad actor that appeared upon the stage.
His first public character was Embassador to Holland, where he courted the good opinion of that economical people by losing immense sums at play. On his return he attached himself to Lord Townshend, who was then breaking with Sir Robert Walpole, and did himself no good by that connexion: but what pinned down his disgrace, was the Queen’s seeing him one Twelfth Night, after winning a large sum of money at hazard, cross St. James’s Court, to deposit it with my Lady Suffolk till next morning:—the Queen never pardoned an intimacy there. He continued in Opposition for the remainder of Sir Robert Walpole’s Ministry, and after the ineffectual motion in 1740 for removing that Minister, Lord Chesterfield was dispatched to Avignon by the party to solicit, by the Duke of Ormond’s means, an order from the Pretender to the Jacobites, to concur roundly in any measure for Sir Robert’s destruction: they had retired without voting on the question abovementioned. Lord Chesterfield had accepted no employment till the removal of Lord Granville, when he was sent again to Holland, and then made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and became the most popular Governor they ever had. Nothing was cried up but his integrity, though he would have laughed at any man who really had any confidence in his morality: and how little he repented his negotiations at Avignon would appear, if a story told of him is authentic (which I do not vouch), that being at Dublin in the height of the Rebellion, a zealous Bishop came to him one morning before he was out of bed, and told him he had great grounds to believe the Jacobites were going to rise. The Lord Lieutenant coolly looked at his watch, and replied, “I fancy they are, my Lord, for it is nine o’clock.”
He had married the Duchess of Kendal’s niece,[57] designing to become heir to her aunt, but had not the address to succeed; yet, miscarrying with the late King’s mistress, he was rewarded by old Marlborough among the rest of the legatees,[58] whom she had selected for the prejudice they had done to the Royal Family. She was scarce cold before he returned to the King’s service. In short, my Lord Chesterfield’s being the instrument to introduce this new era into our computation of time will probably preserve his name in almanacs and chronologies, when the wit that he had but laboured too much, and the gallantry that he could scarce ever execute, will be no more remembered.
26th, 27th.—The Mutiny Bill was finished. Sir Henry Erskine declared he should postpone till next year the offer of several more clauses and amendments.
28th.—The Naturalization Bill was read a second time. Petitions for it had been presented from Bristol and Liverpool; and this day Mr. Nugent presented another from one hundred and forty-two very considerable Merchants of London. Mr. Sydenham desired to have the names read, that it might appear many of them were Foreigners. Nugent observed, that it was evident from thence that men of all denominations were for it; and Sir William Yonge, that Foreigners already composed a very serviceable and considerable part of our Merchants. Sir John Barnard spoke an hour and a half against the commitment, and then stalked away to dinner, according to his custom, without deigning to wait for any reply. To every body’s surprise, Mr. Pelham declared for the Bill, said he had always approved the principle of it, but had formerly feared its raising disturbances; but that finding no reason to apprehend that consequence now, since our trading cities concurred in petitioning for it; that we were daily in want of recruits for Nova Scotia, and to repair our losses by the war; and having last year received applications from Spitalfields for encouragement of Foreign hands and materials, and having actually encouraged the importation of the latter, he hoped we should, and he would now vote for encouraging the former. On Mr. Pelham’s having formerly offended the Whigs by opposing this scheme, the Duke of Bedford, trusting to his adhering to the same style, had eagerly taken up the protection of this Bill, and privately made great interest to carry it through. Mr. Pelham discovered this, and turned short, and carried it for the commitment. The Duke of Bedford’s faction being thus baffled, made a shorter turn, kept away, and the Bill was lost at last. Mr. Fox, who had formerly at Mr. Pelham’s desire spoken against the Bill, stuck to his former vote, at the same time showing that he approved the Bill, though he said he doubted if it would have any effect. Pitt spoke immediately after Fox for the Bill; and it was committed by a majority of 146 to 81, three only of the Whigs adhering with Mr. Fox to their former vote. The House sat till past nine.