1756.
Laissant toujours avilir sa dignitè, pour en jouir.
Volt. Hist. Univ. vol. i. p. 140.
[CHAPTER V.]
Meeting of Parliament in the year 1756—Negotiations with France—Accommodation with the King of Prussia—Beckford’s accusation against Admiral Knowles—Grants to North America—Employment of Hessian Mercenaries—Mischiefs produced by the Marriage Act—Plan for raising Swiss Regiments debated in the Commons—Horace Walpole’s Speech on this subject—Swiss Regiment Bill passes the Commons and Lords—Anecdote of Madame Pompadour—Debates on Budget and Taxes.
The Parliament, which had adjourned during the holidays, met again January 13. The Opposition was enriched with Sir Harry Erskine, who having enlisted under Mr. Pitt, was dismissed from his post in the Army. Mr. Pelham had formerly pressed the King to break him, but in vain. His Majesty now recollected that advice, and took upon himself to order this act of authority: had it been intended to turn the new patriots into ridicule, it could not have answered the purpose better.
France began to unfold the mystery of her moderation; yet with much caution. Monsieur Rouillè sent a Memorial to Bonac, their resident at the Hague, which he delivered to Colonel Yorke, but making him give a receipt for it. It demanded, now the King was returned from Hanover, that he would punish those brigands, who had taken so many French ships, whose complaints, though often repeated, had still been disregarded. It demanded restitution. That granted, the Court of Versailles would be ready to treat with us. In answer to this Memorial, France was charged as the aggressor, by her encroachments in America. Restitution of territory on their part was demanded, before any reparation would be offered on our side.
We had begun the war with flippancy, the Duke of Newcastle’s general exordium, which he was not wont to prosecute with firmness: an unexpected event broke out, which accounted for his continuing to act with resolution. The Russians had been listed in our quarrel to awe the King of Prussia, and then our Ministers dreaded the awe they had given. The Opposition too, it was probable, intended to inflame his resentments on the Russian treaty: to obviate which, Mechell, the Prussian Minister, had been assured that nothing hostile was meant against his master; that if any word of that cast had slipped in, it was hoped he would excuse it: that we had no thought of giving him the first provocation. This had been taken well. We followed it with proposing to that Prince a treaty of guarantee for the Empire. He changed the latter word for Germany, because formerly the Low Countries had been reckoned into the Empire, and he would not be involved in a war for them. He desired that the treaty so modified might be returned to him directly, that he might show it to the Duc de Nivernois, whom France was sending to engage him in their quarrel. This guarantee for Germany, this thorn drawn out of the side of Hanover, dispelled at once the King’s aversion to his nephew. The terms were joyfully accepted, and the treaty was signed Jan. 17th.
21st.—The Committee of the whole House, preparatory to a new Bill, which George Townshend (to please him) was ordered to bring in, voted all the old Acts of Parliament relating to the Militia, useless.
23rd.—Beckford complained to the House of Admiral Knowles’s tyrannic government of Jamaica, whom he abused immeasurably, and of which he quoted many instances, and moved for several papers necessary to a prosecution. Fox said that Knowles was already recalled, and indirectly seemed to defend him. Pitt took it up with great warmth and solemnity, cast reflections on Fox for endeavouring to screen the guilty, and paid great court to Beckford, who, till now, had appeared to prefer Mr. Fox. The papers were granted. Of the affair I shall say no more; it drew out to great length; Fox openly espoused Knowles, who was cleared triumphantly, Beckford having charged him with much more than he had proofs or power to make out.
The same day Sir George Lyttelton, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, opened the Ways and Means for the supplies of the year. The matter he unfolded well, but was strangely awkward and absent in reading the figures and distinguishing the sums. Pitt ridiculed and hurt him; yet he made a good reply, and told Pitt that truth was a better answer than eloquence; and having called him his friend, and correcting himself to say the Gentleman, and the House laughing, Sir George said, “If he is not my friend, it is not my fault.” Pitt was sore in his turn; and the dialogue continued, with great professions of esteem from Lyttelton, of contempt from Pitt; who at last grew into good humour; but with regard to the imputation of eloquence, said, he found there were certain ways of answering certain men.
A day was spent without any issue on the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland, which had been lately split into three, to make a disposition for Ellis: the other two were Lords. George Grenville questioned whether a third sharer could sit in Parliament, consistently with the Act which forbids subdivisions of places. The Debate, after some hours, was put off till inquiry could be made in Ireland, whether this partition was novel or not.
28th.—The Government proposed to Parliament to bestow 120,000l. as a reward on such persons and colonies of North America as had distinguished their zeal and activity on the new commotions. Five thousand pounds was particularly destined to Sir William Johnson, the avenger of Braddock. Charles Townshend, with great warmth, opposed the gross sum, unless it was to be accounted for. Pitt pursued the attack, and said, we had a disjointed Ministry, who united only in corrupt and arbitrary measures. Fox replied with great spirit, thanking Pitt for the great service he did him by his attacks, and assuring him that he knew of no disunion; that he believed Pitt himself did not, or he would join with one part of the Administration against the other, as he had done formerly. But his complaints being general, proved a general harmony, except with one family; and their clamours would never pass for the voice of the nation: George Grenville flamed at these words, but the Speaker and Lord Strange interposed, and the Debate was adjourned, to give way to a Bill on Linens. After the Debate, Pitt and Fox talking it over, the latter told the other, that so far from any disagreement between himself and Newcastle, there were men (meaning the two Townshends) who had offered that Duke to abandon Pitt, if his Grace previously would give up Fox—and the latter would have named them; but Pitt could guess too well, not to wave such an explanation. It must not be supposed that Charles Townshend bore any inveteracy to Fox; he left all bitterness to his brother; and was content with promoting confusion. The money was granted in the next Committee without a division, but not without many reflections from the new opponents. Beckford alone would have given a larger sum; and Legge, who aimed at governing and drawing Lord Halifax into their system, approved what, he said, he was sure under that Lord’s management would be liable to no abuse.
France beginning to retaliate on our vessels, and threatening some attempt on our coast, the new Hessian mercenaries were sent for, and assistance according to treaty demanded from Holland. Lord Ravensworth, whether to reconcile himself to the King, or to distress the Administration,—for both his views and manner of disclosing them were very unintelligible,—proposed to send rather for Hanoverians; but without support or success.
A little event happened that demonstrated the mischiefs produced by the Marriage Act: one Grierson, a Minister, was convicted of solemnizing matrimony contrary to that law. No fewer than 1400 marriages were said to be dissolved on his conviction, in which number 900 women were actually pregnant. The Chancellor triumphed in punishing so many who had dared to contravene his statute: a more humane man would have sighed to have made such numbers suffer even by a necessary law.
On the next affair, though of very little importance, seven tedious days were wasted in the House of Commons, besides a Debate in the Lords. Like other fuel for Opposition, the subject, when it had once passed into a Bill, was never remembered more. Every topic is treated in Parliament as if the liberty and fate of the country depended upon it: and even this solemnity, often vented on trifles, has its use. The certainty of discussion keeps Administration in awe, and preserves awake the attention of the representatives of the people. Ministers are, and should be, suspected as public enemies: the injustice arising to them, or the prejudice to the country by such jealousy, can hardly ever be adequate to the mischief they may do in a moment, if too much is left to their power, if too much trust is reposed in their integrity. But to the point in question.
One Prevot, a refugee adventurer, recommended by the Princess of Orange, had ingratiated himself with the Duke, and was countenanced by him in a proposal of raising four Swiss battalions to be blended with new levies in our colonies, and employed in North America: the commander to be English; Prevot, second in command. The officers to have co-equal benefits with the natives there, but to acquire here no rank or advantage. In consequence of this plan, February 9th, an estimate of the charge was presented to the House by the Secretary at War, who introduced it with a description of the advantages which the Americans, sensible of their want of discipline, would derive from being led by experienced officers. Pitt, instead of censuring the scheme, dwelt on the tardiness of it, painted the negligence of the Administration since the peace of Aix, from the very date of which they had had reason to suspect the designs of France; lamented Lord Loudun, who was placed at the head of a scroll of paper; compared two miserable battalions of 1000 men sent from hence, with 3000 dispatched thither by the French; and asked, if it was but at that day that the Administration began to defend America? Did they not know that this could not be a force before August?—yet he would take this because no better [was] to be had. The foreign officers would undergo another consideration: he should not be for them. Lord Barrington replied, that 8900 men were already voted for the service of America. Charles Townshend, a perfect master of our West Indian affairs and history, gave a detail of many enterprises that had failed by a mixture of Europeans and Americans; wherever the latter only [were] employed, the swiftness of recruiting had been incredible; when blended, in three years 2000 men had not been levied. As he knew our neglects in that quarter of the world better than Pitt, he was not less gentle in lashing them.
Pitt, as if left behind in the race, again resumed it; asked Lord Barrington if he would presume to say that there were actually 3000 men in arms in America? would he add paper to paper? He himself should pity Lord Loudun, if stated as a commander of sufficient force! He professed being hostile to no man, was friendly to his King and country; but the inadvertence of his Majesty’s Ministers had brought his age to the brink of destruction—yet it was no comfort to look back and blame; it was a pleasure to try to be of service. There had been a long series of ignorance, and incapacity, and collusion, since the treaty of Aix; our Ministers had gone on, hardly complaining, quite acquiescing! Lord George Sackville spoke very sensibly on the situation of affairs, with some reproof on Ministers, but charging more on the defects of the constitution of our colonies, which ought to have one power established there, as the French government in their settlements is one. On the Pensylvanian Quakers he was more sharp, and with great reason; they had defeated every plan of defence, were careless against the French, acrimonious out of season against their Governor, and had passed a Militia law, which they meant should be ineffectual. The estimate, amounting to 81,000l., was voted without a division.
The next day, Lord Barrington moved for leave to bring in the Bill, and explained the restrictions it was to contain. Pitt thanked the Ministry for having departed from their first plan, which had been calculated to consist entirely of foreigners: yet he ascribed the honour of this mitigation to the opposition made, and said, that ever since they had heard the first objections, the Ministers had been trying to play with poison and dilute it, yet still it was poison. If others would take it for a remedy, let the Bill be brought in; though he had thought it wrong from the first concoction. He charged the plan as a violation of the Act of Settlement, on which supposition this and all the following Debates rolled. He said, he heard that we wanted Dutch engineers for sieges—what sieges had the Dutch made? English officers had behaved everywhere with lustre—the Dutch nowhere. Were Dutch engineers of such value, that we should pro tanto repeal the Act of Settlement?—but wanted! were officers wanted? was it a symptom of scarcity of officers, when you have just broken a brave[52] officer, distinguished with marks of two wounds, and by the applause of the Duke; and who was cashiered for nothing but his vote in Parliament!
Fox called to order, and asked the Speaker, if that assertion was not a violation of it—“I ask the House their opinion,” cried Pitt; “and though the House should forbid me at the bar, as long as my mind reproaches the author of it, I will say it is my opinion that he was broken for his vote.” “He has changed his phrase,” replied Fox; “he asserted—he now believes. He cannot prove it, and it was kind to stop him.” “If the House commands me,” said the Speaker, “I will speak: who asserts, I suppose, is ready to prove. He may say he believes. They who advise a measure are responsible.” Pitt, fortified with this declaration (and without it he would not have retracted), persisted; bidding Fox, armed with arbitrary power, and with that majority of which he had heard so much, bring him to the bar: and he told him, it was the characteristic of the present Administration to break the Act of Settlement for pretended utility; and in this case the utility was so small, that it was stabbing that Act with a bodkin. Fox answered, that he should be ashamed to think this scheme had been altered for Pitt’s objections; and asked, how it was possible to Debate, without urging the expedience of what was contended for? that Pitt had asked, what pledge of fidelity these foreigners were to give: in three centuries what Swiss had ever betrayed any country? With regard to the dismission of Sir Harry Erskine, no apology was necessary. Twenty years ago, when Lord Westmoreland, Lord Cobham, and Mr. Pitt himself had been dismissed, the Opposition would have brought in a Bill to prevent such removals; but it would have been making officers independent both of the Crown and of Parliament, and was rejected. Pitt allowed, that he thought officers might be broken, even without recourse to a Court-Martial: and Sir Harry Erskine himself affected to say that he did not complain of his dismission: a civil or a military life was indifferent to him: yet he could wish, if there were any other cause than his vote, that Mr. Fox would declare it.
James Grenville, in a formal obscure speech, produced a clause of the Act of Settlement, by which he would have proved that this Bill could not be received, unless another were first passed, by which any foreigners to be naturalized must renounce employments; and he instanced in Bills of that purport passed for the marriages of King William and the Prince of Orange. The Debate took entirely this turn, the Opposition asserting that this would be a Bill of Naturalization; and if so, not receivable: the Administration, that it gave them something more than naturalization. Pitt declared himself struck with Grenville’s remark, which had not been communicated to him; and urged the Ministry with giving to these foreigners per saltum the very excepted parts, and with bestowing on officers in the dregs of the Republic of Holland what had been withheld from the Prince of Orange. Murray would have evaded this, by asking if anything in the Bill tended to naturalization? The Speaker declared there was such an appearance. George Grenville said, by this evasion the Ministry will have only to omit the word naturalization, and it may grant what advantages it pleases to foreigners. “But,” said Lord Strange, “in Arabia none but a native can purchase a mare: suppose the Prince of the country gave me permission to buy a mare, would he naturalize me?” It passed by 165 to 57 that the Bill should be brought in.
The Bill was read for the first time on the 12th. Pitt and Charles Townshend ridiculed the various forms into which the scheme had shifted. The former asked how the blanks were to be filled up, and if it was for ever to be a floating mark never to be hit! From Lord Barrington he did not expect much information, to whom, with Hotspur, he would say, “that which thou dost not know, that thou canst not tell:” and he said, the Ministers had got something in their hands which they neither knew how to hold or drop. The other went further, and insinuated expectations of seeing more foreigners brought over by side-winds. Lord Barrington replied, that no Government presumed to fill up blanks in an Act of Parliament. Proposals were made for taking the opinion of the Colonies on this plan. The Bill was ordered to be printed, and the Debate adjourned by agreement to the second reading.
The 18th, Charles Townshend presented a petition from the agent for the settlement at Massachusets Bay against the proposed Swiss battalions. Pitt moved to have laid before the House two petitions from Pensylvania, representing the distressed situation of their province. Fox, for seven more, in which they implore assistance. Sir Richard Lyttelton, for the list of officers on half-pay, insinuating how little occasion there was to employ foreigners. Lord Barrington then moved to have the Bill committed, which Sir H. Erskine opposed.
Horace Walpole the younger discussed the question, whether this regulation would be an infringement of the Act of Settlement, of which, he said, nobody could be more tender, as he had lately shown, by opposing the treaties which he had thought clashed with that Act. A literal infringement he allowed it would be, but merely literal, and the benefits to be reaped by departing from the letter, he was of opinion would come within the very spirit of the Act, were undoubtedly consonant to the intention of the Legislators who framed it, and tended to secure the blessings of that very establishment to a considerable number of our fellow-subjects. That the Legislators may be, and generally are, the greatest men of their age, yet their notions and ideas must flow, and are taken up from the views of their own age; and though they build for posterity, yet they build with materials of their own time: that they attempt to prevent as far as they foresee: that any constitution, however wisely framed, if once declared unalterable, must become a grievance: wise and happy as our own is, did it not grow so by degrees? should we presume to pronounce that it received the last perfecting hand in the reign of King William? subsequent alterations showed it had not. That the great purpose of the patriots of that reign, when by the misrule of their native Kings they were reduced to place a Foreign Family on the Throne, had been to guard against the predilection of their new sovereigns in favour of ancient subjects, and to secure their posterity from being enslaved by those who were introduced to protect liberty. This country had experienced how little even English Kings could resist practising against English liberty; a race of German Princes, accustomed to arbitrary government, was still more likely to grasp at arbitrary power. That these apprehensions had dictated that clause in the Act of Settlement which prohibits any foreigner born from being so far naturalized as to be capable of any employment, civil or military; and there the words did clash with the scheme in question.
The Swiss and Germans settled in Pensylvania were excluded by the Act of Settlement from the glorious privilege of defending the country they had preferred to their own; were debarred from fighting in an English quarrel, which at the same time was become their own. He was aware, he said, that the Act only specified that they should be incapable of commissions; but a raw, undisciplined multitude, not only not commanded by officers of their own, but not understanding the commands of those under whom they were to serve, would introduce confusion instead of utility; and unless they might have proper officers, it would be rashness to employ the men. The framers of the Act of Settlement did not foresee that a time would come, when, from the too Christian spirit of the Quakers, and the too unchristian ambition of France, our most valuable colonies would be in immediate danger. They did not foresee that this danger would meet with a providential resource on the very spot: that an hundred thousand Germans and Swiss, animated by the most amiable principles, zeal for religion, passion for liberty, and a spirit of industry, would be actually settled in the heart of the province most exposed—if they had, would they have been patriots, if they had still narrowed the Act of Settlement to the rigour it now wore?
“No, Sir,” said he; “nor when they formed a great act on the plan of their fears, did they apprehend that England would ever be enslaved by an Army of Germans that should take America in their way. But putting the most extravagant of all suppositions, that there could hereafter be an intention of employing these almost constitutional troops against the constitution, whether would it be most likely, that Swiss Republicans, and Germans fled from Monarchy, would fight for a King attempting to make himself arbitrary, or in defence of liberty which they had travelled even to America to seek? What should induce a Saltzburgher, for instance, who had abjured his own ecclesiastic tyrant, to serve an English King in a still more unconsecrated cause? Nobody, he believed, was so visionary as to impute any such scheme to the royal person on the Throne; nor would he dwell on the experience which the nation had had for near thirty years of how capable his Majesty was of attempting to violate the most minute part of the constitution. In his long and happy reign he could recollect but one instance, which, in the most strained construction, could make the most jealous suspect that his Majesty meditated even to surprise us into subjection; and that was, by governing Hanover with so parental a hand, as if he meant to insinuate to Englishmen that they might be the happiest subjects in the world, though under an arbitrary Prince.”
He was persuaded, he said, that no gentleman could disapprove the deviation in question from the Act of Settlement, but from apprehensions of its being drawn into a precedent—he would state the case. Could the most designing Minister come to Parliament (for before they get rid of Parliament, they must make use of it against itself), and say, in the year 1756 you consented to allow commissions to about forty foreign officers to regiment and discipline a proportion of Swiss and Germans, none of them Hanoverians, in Pensylvania, to defend that province against the encroachments of the French, when the Quaker natives would not, and you could not, raise troops to defend them; and therefore we hope you will have no scruple to violate it again now, perhaps in the year 1800, but will let us import into England some regiments of Hanoverians already raised and disciplined?—no; they could not say this; and when a precedent does not tally, it is in no danger of becoming a precedent. King William’s patriots could not mean that any part of the West Indies should be sacrificed to France, rather than suffer it to be defended by a providential supply of foreigners whom tyranny had driven, not invited, thither. Who was there, at this day, who did not commiserate the blind bigotry of the Jews,[53] who thought God capable of giving them so absurd a precept, as a prohibition of defending their country on a Sunday?
“This is the light, Sir,” said he, “in which I protest I see it. I think I execute the will of those great men better by departing from, than by adhering to the letter of that valuable testament they left us. Could it be possible for them to have been narrow-minded enough to have intended such rigid minuteness, common sense would teach me to reject so prejudicial a bequest; and yet, Sir, though I have declared my opinion so strongly, if even this clause in the Act of Settlement should still occasion difficulty, as I hope it will not be efficient to obstruct the scheme, I should not be sorry to see it. Even a literal violation of such an Act is too material to be passed over lightly. We ought to show that we do not supersede a single sentence of it without weighty consideration. I never wish to see unanimity on such a measure. Unanimity is a symptom of monarchy; jealousy is constitutional; and not only constitutional, but the principle of our existence. If our ancestors had intended only an assembly of deliberation, the Privy Council, or that more compact body of wisdom, the Cabinet-Council, might have sufficed to deliberate. We were calculated to suspect, to doubt, to check. I think, Sir,” added he, “we have already shown that we do not proceed wantonly or inconsiderately. One honourable gentleman (Pitt), with whom I must ever lament to differ, by standing up for the very letter of the Act, has given all the weight that can be given to it—his dissent is sufficient deliberation—and I flatter myself that my agreeing with those who think that in the point before us the letter and the spirit jar, and who, I know, feel as warmly for the constitution, and who have taken all imaginable precaution to preserve the integrity of the Act without losing so necessary a service, will not be interpreted as any want of attachment to so essential a bulwark of our liberties.”
I am sensible how much too large a space this speech occupies in these Memoirs, and how indecently such weak arguments are displayed at length, while the opinions of many great men are sedulously contracted. Yet the author had some reasons which he hopes will excuse this seeming arrogance. He wished to give an instance that he acted freely, spoke freely; and as he seldom has had, or sought, occasion to mention himself, he trusts that this one excess will be overlooked, especially as it produced a memorable saying of the King, to whom the author is willing to do honour where he can, as he always has done justice on him when he deserved the contrary. Horace Walpole lived in friendship with Fox, in harmony with Pitt, and rather thought better of the conduct of the latter. Having declared openly against the treaties, he would not turn with Fox to a defence of them, and had surprised, by deserting him. He had now been desirous of showing that that separation had been only temporary, and yet he could not resist paying greater compliments to Pitt in the very speech intended for support of Fox; but Walpole always leaned most to a man in Opposition. Why he flattered the King in this speech is not so comprehensible; nor could he give any reason for it himself. It was unnecessary, it was out of character and without any view, for he never even went to Court. Fox repeated the compliment to the King. He was pleased; but said, he did not expect Walpole would have spoken on that side; adding, “You may blame me here, Fox, but I will tell you the truth; I try to make my people at Hanover as happy as I can, and they deserve it of me.”
Young Hamilton pursued the argument on the Act of Settlement with great ability, and urged, that not to deviate from it would be to defeat it; the chief end of it had been to prevent men unconversant with our country and laws from having the administration of them; but now it was alleged to hinder the service of another country, America. Foreigners there had only become soldiers, because they no longer could be planters; yet gentlemen seemed to turn their eyes from existing dangers to imaginary. The Debate lasted till ten at night, but neither with remarkable events nor speeches, and it passed by 215 to 63 to commit the Bill. Charles Townshend again pressed to hear Bollan and the agents and General Waldo on Monday.
On the 20th the Committee sat. Pitt ridiculed with much humour this scheme which the Ministry so greatly applauded, and yet with which the nation would not have been blessed, if by a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances Prevot had not been taken prisoner in August, and carried into Brest, if he had not been going an adventurer to America, and had not found his way from Brest hither;[54] and if, after all, he had not taken it into his head to have a regiment. He wished this Ulysses-like wanderer might be as wise! wished the Ministers would wait but till Monday, to hear the colonies! He had been told, indeed, that the immutable laws of the Medes were absurd—were the resolutions of Ministers to be more unchangeable than those of the King of Persia—of Xerxes with his multitude at his heels? He did not comprehend this modelling, rejecting, resuming, shaping, altering; he believed all this beautiful mechanism had been employed about it, but you that are to buy it, will they not let you examine and weigh it, and know the intrinsic value? Fox said, Lord Baltimore and Penn were not limited by any Act of Settlement, but could commission foreigners. The Massachusets can naturalize and then commission them. He had never wished any Ministers should be immutable; God forbid they should be so in any sense! if common sense on their side, they would be in the wrong to be immutable. But would you hear Mr. Bollan on the Act of Settlement? his whole petition was against the regiment; tended to reject the Bill, not to alter it. “Penn,” continued he, “authorizes me, Lord Baltimore authorizes me, to approve this Bill, though they did not think it decent to petition for it. I have been told that from Bollan we should hear of injustice, oppression, ingratitude—I cannot believe it, for I remember what passed in a certain assembly some time ago between two persons, one[55] not present now, the other, I believe, is—(looking about indirectly towards Charles Townshend). The person now here bad the other take the poor American by the hand and point out his grievances. He defied him; if that would not do, he beseeched him to point out a single grievance: for his part, he did not know of one. When that day shall come,” added Fox, “I hope that gentleman, who speaks as well as the honourable person himself over against me, will attend and confute both Mr. Bollan and his introductor.”
Charles Townshend at the first shock was thunderstruck;[56] they had been his own words to Lord Egmont, had been faithfully treasured in Fox’s accurate memory, and were brought out with all the art and severity imaginable; but in a moment Townshend recovered himself, struck his hand on his forehead as feeling the impulse of conception, and starting up, replied with inimitable spirit and quickness, “That every one saw whither those prepared observations pointed; he took them to himself—and what had been the case? Lord Egmont had complained of the civil government of the colonies, and of the instructions to Sir Danvers Osborn, which I, I advised, and which, cried he, I am ready to fight over. I never complained of civil oppression—I am ready to meet Fox and his aide-de-camp Lord Egmont—the oppression I mean is in the military. The soldiers have been promised rewards—they have been kept in garrison contrary to promise—have I made out the distinction? If I have, then I say this is an unmanly attack on a young man.” Fox’s friends called out, “Order! order!” Townshend rejoined, “Order! order! unmanly! is that disorderly? Upon my word, these are the nicest feelings in Xerxes’s troops that ever I knew.” This flash of wit put a whole majority out of countenance. A grain less of parts, or a scruple more of modesty, had silenced Townshend for ever. “Fox,” continued he, “cries, ‘What! hear Bollan on the Act of Settlement!’ he chose to enter on no other part of my argument—and then he talked of mutability—there was forage and joking for the troops!”
Fox with great art observed what satisfaction it gave him to hear that there was no oppression in the civil government; and thus pinned down Charles Townshend from producing a detail of grievances that he had prepared on American affairs. The rest of the Debate was most indifferent, or could not avoid appearing so: 213 against 82 voted against hearing Bollan. The Opposition then tried by four divisions to prevent the prosecution of the Bill in the Committee; but the Ministry persisting in making no further answers, at past eleven at night Pitt and his followers walked out, and the only blank in the Bill was filled up, as Lord George Sackville proposed, with the words fifty officers and twenty engineers.
Two days afterwards the Bill was reported and again opposed, as it was on the last reading, when the Ministry, tired with debating, and making no reply, Charles Townshend, in a fine, animated, and provoking speech, tried to make them break silence, taunting the majority with following leaders who would not vouchsafe to give them reasons, reproaching the Ministers with the insult of their silence, and calling on the new placemen to give some proofs of being fit for their posts, the arrangement of which, and the various reasons of fear or convenience which had contributed to the late settlement, he described with much humour and wit. Fox, smiling, told him, he called so agreeably, that he should never call in vain; and yet, plainly as Mr. Townshend had spoken, he did not know under what part of the description to suppose himself included. He could not be the insolent Minister; “it requires more parts than I have,” said Fox, “to support insolence. But why am I silent? have I been so on this Bill? Have I not been reproached with talking too often on it? I ask pardon, and have nothing new to say on it, but this, that I objected to hearing Bollan, because Mr. Townshend can speak as readily and knows as much. I rest my credit on what I have said before; only observing, that the majority which Mr. Townshend calls mean, I believe he does not think a mean one.” Pitt spoke again for an hour and half, but without fire or force; and old Horace Walpole terminated this tedious affair with the lowest buffoonry, telling a long story of an old man and his wife; that the husband said to her, “Goody Barrington, for that was her name—I must not falsify my story; if it had been Onslow, I must have said it,” continued he, addressing himself to the Speaker; who replied, very properly, “Sir, one old woman may make as free as she pleases with another.” The Bill passed by 198 to 69.
In the House of Lords it was attacked by Lord Temple, and defended by Lord Halifax. Lord Dacre, a worthy, conscientious man, unpractised in speaking, asked with great modesty and diffidence, if it was true that there were orders given for listing in Germany. If it was, he should alter his vote and oppose the Bill. It occasioned confusion. At last, Lord Halifax owned he believed it was true. The Duke had given such orders without participation of the Duke of Newcastle. The Bill passed without a division; yet Lord Temple and Lord Talbot protested in words drawn by Charles Townshend.
In France, the prosecution of the war was by no means an unanimous measure. D’Argenson, the promoter of it, was on ill terms with Madame Pompadour, whose interest was to lull the King and nation in pleasures and inactivity, not to foment events that might shake her power. It received a blow from another quarter. The Cardinal de la Rochfoucault, and Sassy, the King’s confessor, played off the earthquake on his superstition. He promised to receive the sacrament at Easter, and relinquish his mistress. She, who held more by habit than passion, saw no reason why a woman might not work the machine of religion as well as a priest, and instantly gave into all his Majesty’s scruples; offered up her rouge to the demon of earthquakes, and to sanctify her conversion and reconcile it to a Court-life, procured herself to be declared Dame du palais to the Queen.
February 25th.—Sir George Lyttelton, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, opened the plan of supplies and taxes for the current year. The first, a duty on wrought plate, was calculated to bring in 30,000l. a year. Another, on bricks and tiles, and a double duty on cards and dice; the actual duty produced 10,000l. a year; but as doubling the tax would not double the produce, the addition was estimated at only 7000l. a year. This, said Sir George, some will think a tax on necessaries. The Legislature calls gaming a vice; but the legislators, who can best expound their own laws, seem, by their practice, to think otherwise. Legge objected to either tax on plate or bricks; and showed with singular art how much greater a master he was of the nature of the revenue and commerce than his successor. Sir George seemed to repeat an oration on trade that he had learned by rote; Legge talked on it like a merchant. He urged that plate was not a prejudicial commodity, but a dead treasure, to be resorted to on an emergency: if sold, it would go abroad; if coined here, did not increase the national stock. He showed that bricks would be a partial tax, as many parts of the kingdom employ only stone. But within the volume of our duties there was actually a fund of taxes that might be drawn out without any new impositions, the old were so fraudulently levied, or so injudiciously distributed. He instanced in the duty on tea, which being regulated by Sir John Barnard, produced near double, and demolished smuggling. By reduction of the duty on raw silk, it rose from 800l. per annum to 15,000l. That on hemp, if reduced, would produce much more. George Townshend proposed taxes on the number of servants, and on exportation of horses, because no French officer had fewer than two English horses. Murray asked if many of our taxes were not partial—on cyder, on malt, on coals? Lord Strange objected strongly to the brick-tax, because the houses that ought to pay most, those of the rich, are built of stone. Vyner observed, that a tax on plate was teaching servants to turn informers. The plate-tax passed. That on bricks was postponed, and at last dropped, on finding how prejudicial it would be and unpopular. It was changed for one on ale-houses.