FOOTNOTES:
[61] Lord Torrington.
[62] In one of the hearings on this cause, Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice, produced in court a libel published against Princess Emily, and insisted that the jury should take an oath that they had no hand in it—and yet, when they had taken the oath, he put off the cause!
[63] Elizabeth, half-sister of the Duke of Newcastle, was first wife of Charles Lord Viscount Townshend, Knight of the Garter, grandfather of Mr. Charles Townshend.
[64] Mr. Charles Townshend had married the Countess Dowager of Dalkeith, first cousin of the Earl of Bute.
[65] A Captain Cunningham, who had been ill-used in our service, and was retired to Leghorn, said, “They will want engineers,”—and immediately sold all he had, bought provisions and ammunition, and flung himself into St. Philip’s. This gallant man died in the island of Guadaloupe, at the taking of which he served, in 1759.
[66] They offered him the Duchy of Lancaster for life, with a pension of 2000l. a year; permission to remain Attorney-General (which produced 7000l. a year), and the reversion of the first Teller of the Exchequer for his nephew, Lord Stormont. At the beginning of October they bid up to 6000l. a year in pension. They pressed him to stay but a month, nay, only to defend them on the first day. Was innocence ever so extravagant, or so alarmed?—“Good God!” said Murray himself, “what merit have I, that you should load this country, for which so little is done with spirit, with the additional burthen of 6000l. a year?”
[67] Vide [Appendix.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
George Townshend’s Circular Letter—Admiral Byng publishes a Defence—The public mind prejudiced against him—Loss of Oswego—Affair of the Hanoverian Soldier at Maidstone—The King admits Lord Bute into the Prince’s Establishment—Fox discontented with Newcastle—Offers to resign—Applies to the Author—His audience with the King—Pitt’s demands—Prince of Wales’s new Household—Pitt visits Lady Yarmouth—State of Parties—Duke of Newcastle determines to resign—Pitt declines acting with Fox—Negotiations for the formation of a new Ministry—The designs of Fox to obstruct the formation of a new Ministry defeated—Changes—Pitt becomes Prime Minister—Meeting of Parliament.
Affairs at home wore the same troubled aspect. As addresses and petitions were in vogue, and the approaching session likely to be warm, George Townshend took the opportunity of writing a circular letter to great boroughs and corporations, instructing them to instruct their representatives to stickle for another Militia Bill. Besides its being drawn in a wretched style, the impropriety of a private man assuming to himself such dictatorial authority, and the indecency of a man who had the last year so severely censured Mr. Fox’s circular letter, were notorious. Townshend’s epistle met the contempt it deserved.
Mr. Byng having notice to prepare for his trial, had demanded his witnesses; and now added a list of thirty more, but they were refused. Among those he summoned was Captain Young, who had been one of his loudest censurers. If the step was injudicious, at least it did not indicate any consciousness of guilt. Yet the people and the Ministry continued to treat him as a criminal; and the former reporting that he had endeavoured to escape, the latter increased the strictness of his confinement. He complained to the Secretary of the Admiralty of the rigorous treatment he received from Admiral Townshend, the Governor of Greenwich. A creature of office was not likely to feel more tenderness than his superiors; Cleland returned the most insulting answers. Mr. Byng at last thought it time to make representations as well as to adhere to his innocence. He published his case. Of the engagement I shall not say a word, till I come to give an account of his trial. Of the arts used to blacken him, the pamphlet gave the strongest evidence, and had very great effect in opening the eyes of mankind.
It appeared, that the Admiral’s own letter, which had served as the great engine of his condemnation, had been mangled and altered in a manner most unworthy of honest men, of gentlemen. Some parts were omitted, by which others were rendered nonsense; other periods, which gave the reasons of his behaviour, as obedient to his orders, were perverted to speak the very language of cowardice,—for instance, making the best of my way to Gibraltar was substituted to the genuine passage, making my way to cover Gibraltar. And thus the Ministry sunk their own positive (and, by their neglect of Minorca, grown necessary) orders, that he might appear to have retired to save himself, not Gibraltar. Other preceding dispatches the Admiral published in the same pamphlet, in which he had represented the bad condition of the Fleet committed to him; and with much reason concluded, those expostulations had been the first causes of his ruin; they who had been guilty of the neglect determining that the first discoverer should bear the punishment. Pity and indignation took place. Mr. Byng was everywhere mentioned with moderation, the Ministers with abhorrence. But three months were to come before his trial. He was a prisoner, his adversaries powerful. His pamphlet was forgotten; new slanders replaced the old. I shall defer the prosecution of Mr. Byng’s story till the following year, for though his trial began the end of December, no material progress could be made in it.
But though the fate of Mr. Byng remained in suspense, the crisis for the Ministers drew to a quicker termination, being hurried on by several circumstances that heightened public discontent, and which could not be imputed to the unhappy Admiral. Among these incidents was the loss of the important fort of Oswego, which the French seized and demolished before a design upon it was suspected. Another was of Hanoverian growth, and happening under the eye of the people, threatened very alarming consequences. There were at this time five camps in England: one at Chatham, under Lord George Sackville; another in Dorsetshire; the artillery at Byfleet in Surrey, commanded by the Duke of Marlborough, Master of the Ordnance; the Hessians at Winchester; the Hanoverians at Coxheath, near Maidstone. The sobriety and devotion of the foreigners had been remarkable, and amid such a scene of uneasiness and faction, they had even reconciled the public voice to German mercenaries. The imprudence of their superiors, up to their very chief, had like to have widened the breach for ever. A Hanoverian soldier buying four handkerchiefs at Maidstone, took by mistake the whole piece, which contained six. All parties have allowed that the fellow did it in ignorance; yet a robbery was sworn against him, and he was committed to jail. Count Kilmansegge, the commanding officer, demanded him, with threats of violence; but the Mayor, no whit intimidated out of his duty, refused to deliver him. Kilmansegge dispatched an express to Kensington. The Chancellor, Newcastle, and Fox were all out of the way; Murray, the Attorney-General, was so rashly complaisant as to draw a warrant, which Lord Holderness was ordered to copy, for the release of the man. This in a few days occasioned such a flame, being mixed, as might have been expected, even in the tumultuous addresses of the time, that it was thought proper to transfer the crime, according to the politics of the year, to the subordinate agents. Kilmansegge was ordered to retire without taking leave; and the poor soldier (as a warning to Mr. Byng) received three hundred lashes. The ignorant Secretary of State was menaced by the Opposition; the real criminal, Murray, with no ignorance to plead, found such an outrageous violation of law no impediment to his succeeding as Chief Justice.
The disturbances flowing from these blunders, neglects, and illegalities, alarmed Newcastle. He found it was no longer a season for wantoning with the resentment of the successor and his mother: he determined to gratify them. The Chancellor, who was with great difficulty drawn to make a sacrifice of his revenge, was sent to the King, to prevail on him to yield that Lord Bute might be at the head of the Prince’s family. The old man could not but observe to the Chancellor how contradictory this advice was to the refusal himself had suggested, pressed. “Sir,” replied the Judge, with sanctimonious chicane, “your Majesty has said, that you would not make the Earl of Bute Groom of the Stole, and undoubtedly your Majesty cannot make the Earl of Bute Groom of the Stole; but your Majesty has never said that you would not make the Earl of Bute Treasurer, or place him in some other great post.” However, this sophistry was too gross; and the King thought it less dishonourable flatly to break his declared resolution, than palliate it to himself by so mean an evasion.
Newcastle, not to lag behind in the race of untruths, told Fox that nothing more would be said in Council of the Prince’s family; he believed nothing more would be done in it. In the meantime, he regulated the whole establishment, though it hung awhile in suspense, as they wished to extract from the Princess a promise of giving no further trouble.
Fox now found it was time to consult his own security. He saw Newcastle flinging up works all round himself; and suspected that Pitt would be invited to defend them. He saw how little power he had obtained by his last treaty with the Duke. He saw himself involved in the bad success of measures on which he had not been consulted, scarce suffered to give an opinion; and he knew that if Newcastle and Pitt united, he must be sacrificed as the cement of their union. Indeed, his Grace, so far from keeping terms, had not observed common decency with him: a few instances, which Fox selected to justify to the King the step he was reduced to take, shall suffice. Early in the summer, Newcastle complaining of want of support, Fox told him, that if it would facilitate his Grace’s measures, he would resign Secretary of State to Mr. Pitt, and take an inferior place. This, at the beginning of October, the Duke recollected, and told Lord Barrington, that if Fox would not take it ill, he would offer his place to Pitt the next day. So far from not taking it ill, Fox made it matter of complaint that his Grace had dared to think he was sincere in the offer.
In the list for the Prince’s family, Fox saw the names of eight or ten members of Parliament, of whom he had not heard a word, till the Duke of Newcastle told him all was settled with the King; and, which though meant to soften, was an aggravation by the manner, at the same time acquainted him that the King would let Lord Digby (Fox’s nephew) be a Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince, preferably to the other competitors: “But it was at my desire,” said the Duke; “for his Majesty was very averse to do anything for you.”—Fox replied, coldly, “Lord Digby is not likely to live.”—“Oh!” said Newcastle, with a brutality which the hurry of folly could not excuse, “then that will settle it.” Fox made no reply; but the next day wrote him a letter to notify that he would go on no longer. Newcastle, thunderstruck with having accomplished what he had projected, reached the letter (he received it at the Board of Treasury,) to Nugent, and cried, “What shall I do?”—and then hurried to Lord Granville, and told him he would resign his place to him. “I thought,” said Granville, “I had cured you of such offers last year: I will be hanged a little before I take your place, rather than a little after.” Fox, too, went to vent his woes on Lord Granville, and prefacing them with a declaration of his unambitious temper, that shrewd jolly man interrupted him, and said, “Fox, I don’t love to have you say things that will not be believed—if you was of my age, very well; I have put on my night-cap; there is no more daylight for me—but you should be ambitious: I want to instil a nobler ambition into you; to make you knock the heads of the Kings of Europe together, and jumble something out of it that may be of service to this country.”
However, he had too much experience of Newcastle to think it possible for Fox to go on with him, or to expect that Newcastle would let him. In my own opinion, Fox hoped to terrify, and to obtain an increase of sway. He went to Lady Yarmouth, and uttered his grievances, and appealed to her whether he had not formerly told her, that, if on the death of Mr. Pelham the Duke of Newcastle had taken him sincerely, he would have acted as faithfully under him as he had under Sir Robert Walpole:—“Ah! Monsieur Fox,” cried Lady Yarmouth, “il y avoit bien de la difference entre ces deux hommes là!” She entreated him, for the sake of the King, for the sake of the country, not to quit. Not prevailing, she begged that Lord Granville might carry the message instead of her. After recapitulating his subjects of complaint, the substance of the message was, that concluding Mr. Pitt was to come into the King’s service, and finding his own credit decrease daily, and how impossible it was for him to act any longer with the Duke of Newcastle, he was willing to serve his Majesty to the best of his abilities in any post, not of the Cabinet.
When Granville arrived with this letter at Kensington, he said, “I suppose your Majesty knows what I am bringing?” “Yes,” replied the King; “and I dare say you disapproved and dissuaded it.” “Yes, indeed, Sir,” said he, (as he repeated the dialogue himself to Fox: “And why did you say so?” asked Fox. “Oh!” said he, shuffling it off with a laugh, “you know one must—one must.”) The King, whom Newcastle had just left, seemed much irritated against Fox, talked of his ingratitude and ambition, quoted the friends of Fox that he had preferred, and particularly of his having raised so young a Peer as Lord Ilchester above so many ancient Barons; and when he had vented his anger against Fox, he abruptly asked Lord Granville, “Would you advise me to take Pitt?” “Sir,” said he, “you must take somebody.” “What!” cried the King, “would you bear Pitt over you?” “While I am your Majesty’s President,” replied the Earl, “nobody will be over me.” The King then abused Lord Temple much; and at last broke forth the secret of his heart—“I am sure,” said he, “Pitt will not do my business.” “You know,” said Lord Granville to Fox, “what my business meant;—Hanover.” The supposition did honour to Pitt; but, it seems, the King did not know him. The conversation ended with the King’s saying, he would leave it to Fox’s honour whether he would desert him now.
Fox was by no means hard-hearted on this occasion. He began to say, that he would serve for the next session, but would positively resign in the spring. In the meantime, he was casting about for means of union with Pitt. His resentment to Newcastle prescribed this; and his friend, the Duke of Bedford, who, from the moment he had lost his Turnpike Bill, saw that this country would be ruined by the Duke of Newcastle and the Chancellor, loudly dictated it. Fox applied to Horace Walpole, and told him, that as soon as he should be ready to break with Newcastle, he would desire him to acquaint Mr. Pitt that he should be willing to unite with him. Walpole, who by no means approved the adoption of such Pelham politics, as acting with a man only till an opportunity offered of undermining him; and who had for some time withdrawn himself from all participation of measures which he thought neither fair nor wise, replied, “That it was true, he admired Mr. Pitt, though he had not the honour of his friendship; that he earnestly wished to see them united; but before he carried any such message, he must be convinced it was for Mr. Fox’s honour and service.”
Walpole had uniformly persisted in detaching himself from Fox, from the moment the latter had entered into engagements with Newcastle, with whom the other had determined never to have the most minute connexion. Yet, I fear, passions of more mortal complexion had co-operated a little to his disunion (I cannot call it breach, as he never had the least quarrel) with Fox. Rigby, who had vast obligations to him, was, however, grown weary of Walpole’s ardour for factious intrigues, and wished a little to realize his politics. He had not only abandoned his friend for the Duke of Bedford, but thought it time to turn his new friendship to account; and had drawn the Duke out of that opposition to the Court, in which, by Walpole’s arts, as has been shown, he had involved him. In short, Rigby, by no means in affluence, and with too much common sense to amuse himself any longer with politics that had no solid views, sacrificed the Duke of Bedford to Fox and fortune, when Walpole wished to have him sacrificed to his humour. This had made a breach between them; and Walpole, whose resentments were impetuous, and by no means of an accommodating mould, was little desirous of serving that league, and of breaking Fox’s fall, especially by dishonourable means. It was enough to do wrong to gratify his own passions—he was not at all disposed to err, only in contradiction to them. This detail would be impertinent, if a crisis, which Fox reckoned decisive, had not turned (as will be seen) on these secret springs; and if the author did not think it his duty to avow his own failings and blemishes with the same frankness which he has used on other characters. The only difference is, that in others he would probably have treated the same faults with greater asperity, which the justice of the reader will supply.
Lady Yarmouth entreated Fox to see the King as soon as possible: she wished to prevent the rupture; for all the Hanoverians had contracted strange notions of the truculence of Pitt’s virtue. October 18th, Fox had an audience. The Monarch was sour; but endeavoured to keep his temper: yet made no concessions, no request to the retiring Minister to stay. At last he let slip the true cause of his indignation: “You” said he, “have made me make that puppy Bute Groom of the Stole;” for so the junto had persuaded him, when they were reduced to bend to Bute themselves. Fox protested that he had never named it in Council; he had only suggested it as a prudent measure to Newcastle. Still the King dropped suspicions of his having connexions with the Princess. “Sir,” replied Fox, “what I am so happy in, my attachment to your son,[68] might have assured you against that.” On his side, the Monarch disavowed having made any offers to Pitt. Yet so little condescension appeared, that Fox determined to quit directly; and took his leave with saying, that his intention was so much known, that now he could not avoid resigning. The King, during the whole conversation, seemed to leave open his dominion of saying, or unsaying, hereafter, as the negotiations on the anvil should have a prosperous or unfortunate issue. The Chancellor was treating with Pitt; that is, had sent to desire to see him, and plied him on the 19th and 20th with large offers. Pitt refused all in direct terms, alleging, that the Duke of Newcastle had engrossed the King’s whole confidence—and it was understood, that he meaned to put an exclusive negative on that Duke. Yet he deigned to name the price at which that diamond, his virtue, might be purchased for the Crown. Ireland he demanded for Lord Temple; for Legge, the Chancellorship of the Exchequer; for George Grenville, Paymaster; for James Grenville, Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant; for Charles Townshend, Treasurer of the Chambers, or some such thing; for himself, Secretary of State;—for his country, the Militia, and some other rattles. He named the Duke of Devonshire to the Treasury, and without consulting, answered for him.
In the meantime the Prince’s new family kissed hands. Lord Bute, as Groom of the Stole; Lord Huntingdon, Master of the Horse; Lord Euston, Lord Pembroke, Lord Digby, Lords of the Bedchamber; Mr. Monson and Mr. Ingram, Grooms; Mr. Stone, Secretary; Lord Bathurst, Treasurer; Mr. Masham, Auditor; Mr. Brudenel, Master of the Robes; besides Equerries and Clerks of the Green-cloth. Mr. Cadogan was appointed Privy-Purse to Prince Edward, who had also Grooms and Equerries. The late Governor, Lord Waldegrave, was offered a pension on Ireland, and refused it: they then gave him the reversion of a Teller’s place; and one cannot tell which was most rejoiced at the separation, he or the Princess, who had been suspicious enough to take for a spy, a man, who would even have scorned to employ one. The fate of one man was singular: the Prince of Wales himself condescended to desire Mr. Stone to prevent Scott, his Sub-Preceptor, from being continued in any employment about him—and it was granted. Scott has been mentioned in the civil wars of the tutorhood as attached to Stone: the reason given for his exclusion was, his having talked with contempt of the Prince’s understanding,[69] and with freedom of the Princess’s conduct. The truth was, Scott was a frank man, of no courtly depth, and had indiscreetly disputed with Lord Bute, who affected a character of learning. The King, who loved to mark his empire in the loss of it, refused to give the Golden Key himself to Lord Bute, as was usual, but sent it by the Duke of Grafton, who slipped it into his pocket, and advised him to take no notice of the manner. The Earl, on being wished joy, was said to reply, he felt none, while the Duke of Newcastle was Minister.
On the 21st, in the morning, the palace—not at all the scene of action, had its solitude alarmed. The Pages of the Back-stairs were seen hurrying about, and crying, “Mr. Pitt wants my Lady Yarmouth.” That great stranger made her an abrupt visit—said he was come to explain himself, lest it should be thought he had not been sufficiently explicit. He repeated his exclusion of Newcastle—and gave some civil, though obscure hints, as if, in losing his grace, Hanover might not lose all its friends. The visit itself seemed to indicate that. The mistress of the King and the friend of the Minister was not the first person to whom one should have expected a patriot would have addressed himself, who proscribed the Minister, as he had long attacked the Electorate. And, indeed, it looked as if Mr. Pitt was afraid of having been too explicit, not too little so.
However, the difficulty was increased. The question seemed at first to be, whether Cæsar or Pompey should have the honour of supporting Crassus—when neither would, Crassus made a show of venturing to stand alone: and it seemed almost as easy for him, as for either of the others. For Fox could neither trust to a Parliament devoted to Newcastle; nor dared, in his own unpopular situation, to call a new one. Pitt had no party at all: a new Parliament would have suited him best, for he could not have fewer adherents than in the old one; and, considering the temper of the nation on the late miscarriages, in which he had no hand, might acquire some clamorous voices; but that very dissatisfaction made the expedient too dangerous. How each was counselled by his friends may be seen in a moment. Stone, cold and never sanguine, advised Newcastle to give up a desperate game: Murray threw in censures on his conduct to Fox: the Duke of Grafton, though hating Fox, wisely suggested a reconciliation with him: the Chancellor, sullen and mortified, protested he would follow his Grace, but endeavoured to encourage him to stand alone, affirming they could carry everything by their numbers; and having ever been ready to torture the law to annoy his enemies, he could not help expecting to find the same support from it for himself and his friends. Sir George Lyttelton concurred with him—and if that was encouragement, offered to accept any employment. Nugent and Lord Duplin, on the contrary, dissuaded such rash measures; the latter said, sensibly, “Fox and Pitt shall not need but sit still and laugh, and we must walk out of the House.” Fox’s court (except Doddington, who was too shrewd not to think ill of their cause, and who accordingly acted disgust on not having been more consulted) talked as if triumphant, the moment they heard the reconciliation of Newcastle and Pitt was desperate. The Duke of Marlborough said, Newcastle must be sent to Sussex; Claremont was too near. The Duke of Bedford would have permitted him to retire thither with a pension, and eagerly drove Fox to unite with Pitt. The party of the latter, that is, Lord Temple, was indecently forward to come into place, and having always hated by the scale of his ambition, he had only passions to sacrifice, not principles, when the terms of his advancement were to be adjusted.
Newcastle sinking, catched at feathers: his Grace proposed to Lord Egmont to be Secretary of State; but he demanded an English Peerage for his son, as the price of his own acceptance of one of the first posts in England. Ministers were become such precarious tenures, that scarce any man would list in them under places for life. The foreign Ministers, a nation not apt to joke, complained bitterly of our frequent revolutions; and D’Abreu, the Spanish Resident, said, before they ventured to negotiate, they were obliged to ask who would be Minister next Session?
At last the important point was decided, and Perfidy, after thirty years, had an intermission. The Duke of Newcastle (with all the satisfaction which must have attended the discovery that not one man of sense would trust him any longer) declared his resolution of resigning.
Oct. 27th.—The King sent for Fox, acquainted him that Newcastle would retire, and asked him if Pitt would join with him; bad him try. Fox the next day went to the Prince’s Levée, and taking Pitt apart at the head of the stairs, said to him, “Are you going to Stowe? I ask, because I believe you will have a message of consequence by persons of consequence.” “You surprise me,” said Pitt; “are you to be of the number?” Fox: “I don’t know.” Pitt: “One likes to say things to men of sense, and of your great sense, rather than to others; and yet it is difficult even to you.” Fox: “What! you mean you will not act with me as a Minister?” Pitt: “I do.” And then, to soften the abruptness of the declaration, left Fox with saying, he hoped Fox would take an active part, which his health would not permit him to do.
The next day the Duke of Devonshire was ordered by the King to try to compose some Ministry; and by the same authority sent for Mr. Pitt; at the same time endeavouring to make him accommodate with Fox. But they had given too much weight to Pitt by these submissions, for such a negotiator to be able to recover the balance. Pitt, knowing both his own strength and the weakness of the mediator, behaved with haughty warmth; complained of the indignity offered to him by sending Fox, whom he proscribed from the Cabinet; softened a little in general, yet said, he must promote the inquiries; excused himself for having named his Grace to the Treasury, but as it was necessary to place some great Lord there to whom the Whigs would look up, his partiality had made him presume to propose his Grace: professed not only duty to the King, but obligation for the person now commissioned to treat with him. The Duke took up spirit, and told him, if he refused, the King would be supported without him—Pitt did not mean to drive them to that extremity. The negotiations took up many days, all parties raising difficulties, none bringing facilities. Pitt, who wanted friends for places, more than places for his friends, seemed to think that he must figure by the greatness, since he could not by the number of his demands. Yet of his small squadron, he seemed solicitous to provide only for his allies the Granvilles, as if what filled his own little administration would suffice for the nation’s. He even affected to have forgot Charles Townshend, and, as if recollecting himself, cried, “Oh! there is one that will not like to be at the bottom of the list.” The mediator-Duke took care this neglect should not be a secret. On one point Pitt affected decency: being asked whom he wished to have Secretary at War, he replied, he did not pretend to meddle there. He relaxed on the article of sending away the Hanoverians; softened towards a war on the continent; owned the King of Prussia was a great object, but would not determine on foreign affairs till he had received more lights from the King’s servants. With regard to the inquiries, he said at last, he would neither hinder nor move them; he was not vindictive. Addresses all the while were repeated with violence. The city of London, always governed by the absurdest heads in it, demanded to have the supplies stopped, till grievances should be redressed. Indeed it was much easier to delay than to raise them: and yet nothing but the wickedness of the intention could justify the folly of the injunction.
If Mr. Pitt had no occasion to dismiss many, Newcastle and Fox were not careless of saving all they could; in which they found great facility, as Mr. Pitt had not cousins enough to fill the whole Administration. Neither of the former gave up their views on the power they quitted. Fox particularly laboured to throw every difficulty in Pitt’s way; and with some cause: at once excluded from Government, and menaced with a censure, it behoved him not to make over too much strength to his antagonist: and if he did not succeed in recovering his own fall, at least he left so narrow a seat to Mr. Pitt, that it required another convulsion, before the latter could fix himself with any firmness. Fox hoped first to divide Pitt and Legge: the Duke of Devonshire, who thought he had influence on the latter, tried it, but in vain. Fox too had fruitlessly endeavoured to gain Legge; and on his first thought of breaking with Newcastle, had writ a confidential letter to Legge, begging him to come to town, and concert measures with him on the deplorable situation of affairs. Legge made no answer. Fox in wrath sent for his letter back: Legge returned it at once without a word; and depending on his favour with Lord Bute, now thought himself so considerable a part of the new accession, that he hoped to engross the Treasury himself; and actually proposed Lord Hertford for First Lord. Fox laboured to engage the Duke of Devonshire to accept the Treasury, and the Duke of Bedford to go to Ireland, at once to fix another ally in the Cabinet, and to disappoint both Legge and Temple. Bedford was refractory; but luckily the Throne of Ireland was heaven itself in the eyes of the Duchess: and the vast emoluments of Secretary were full as vehement temptations to their secretary Mr. Rigby.
Fox in the mean time endeavoured to buoy up the spirits of the King, telling him he neither wanted expedients nor courage; intreated him to have patience; that Pitt would rise in his demands; that at last and at worst he would take the Treasury himself and go to the Tower, rather than they should shave his Majesty’s head—“Ah!” cried the King, sensibly, “if you go to the Tower I shall not be long behind you!” The Duke of Bedford was as courageous as Fox, and proposed warm opposition, or to support Fox in the Administration. And thus far Fox had judged right; Pitt’s demands no longer abated. He required the dismission of Lord Holderness on the affair of the Hanoverian soldier; and proposed to take Sir Thomas Robinson for coadjutor, only exchanging provinces; himself would take the northern; that was, the Hanoverian; and it is worthy remark, that formerly in a dialogue with Fox, when the Duke of Newcastle had pretended to govern the House of Commons by Sir Thomas Robinson, Pitt, with utter contempt, had said, “He may as well send his jack-boot to govern us.”
Lord Holderness wrote to Mr. Pitt, that he was willing to resign as the other great persons were to do; but if it was to be inflicted as a punishment, he would insist on having his crime proved, nor till then would resign. This comforted the King; he abhorred the thought of seeing Pitt, and complained of the hardship of being forced to tell the only secrets he had to a man whom he never would let into his closet. His expostulations on these occasions were always pathetic and sensible: “What a strange country,” said he to Fox, “is this! I have never known but two or three men in it who understood foreign affairs: you do not study them—and yet here comes one man (Pitt), and says he has not so much as read Wicquefort, has all to learn, and demands to be Secretary of State! Indeed, he has proposed Sir Thomas Robinson too, who does understand foreign affairs, but then Mr. Pitt insists on taking the province which Sir Thomas understands.” In the same conversation the King said, “The Duke of Newcastle is an honest man and loves the Duke of Devonshire, but he will be jealous of him to-morrow, if the latter takes the Treasury.”
In this situation, with no Ministry, no plan for supplies, no communication for the foreign Ministers, all Government at a stand, it was necessary to defer the meeting of the Parliament. Pitt at last condescended to acquaint the Duke of Devonshire that Lord Temple would be content to take the business of the Navy on him. Yet the more they acquiesced the more Fox laboured to defeat all accommodation by which he was to be excluded. His last effort, and a rash one it was, concluded to have the great Lords and Commoners summoned to a meeting at Lord Granville’s, where the indignities offered to the King, and the exorbitances of Mr. Pitt’s demands, were to be laid before them. They were to be entreated to stand by the King in lopping Mr. Pitt’s list; and, with their approbation, a message was to be sent to him in the name of the Council, that his Majesty would not endure the readmission of Mr. Legge; that Mr. Pitt should in other things be contented, except that Mr. Fox must be Chancellor of the Exchequer. On this foot, and on no other, the Duke of Devonshire consented to take the Treasury. Fox wished him to retain Ireland, that so, if they could weather the approaching session, the Duke might be ready to resign the Treasury into his hands, which seemed to be the drift of his intrigues:—if Devonshire could not keep Ireland, then Bedford was designed to it. The secret was kept till the very day it was to be disclosed; when the Duke of Grafton, having learnt it either from the King or Devonshire, was amazed at the wildness of mischief with which it was big, and went to lament with his son-in-law, Lord Hertford.
It happened that Mr. Conway and Horace Walpole were at dinner with the Earl, and to them, as soon as the Duke was gone, he communicated what he had heard. They were no less astonished than the others had been, and saw plainly that Fox was precipitating the King and the chief persons in England upon a measure, from which it would be impossible for them to recede, to which it was impossible Pitt should submit, and that in consequence of such a rupture at such a crisis, heated as the passions of men were, even a Civil War might ensue. To crush such a plan in its embryo was, in reality, serving Fox, and certainly the nation:—these were sufficient inducements; and yet, as I have said, Walpole had the additional satisfaction of disappointing the views of that cabal, when he persuaded Mr. Conway to go directly to the Duke of Devonshire, and alarm him with the true picture of the measure in which he had been drawn to concur. His timid nature easily caught the panic: he made the intended meeting be laid aside, the message put off; and the next day, without acquainting Fox with his determination of accepting without conditions, went to Kensington, and consented to take the Treasury. Fox and the Duke of Bedford, who were waiting in the outward room, were thunder-struck—the latter expostulated warmly with Devonshire—the other, who had found Mr. Conway at Devonshire-house the night before, did not want to be told who shot the arrow; still less, when Devonshire officiously assured him it was not Mr. Conway. Fox has said to the real author of his miscarriage, that from that hour he dated all the events in the subsequent revolutions. This happened on the 2nd and 3rd of November.
The Duke of Devonshire having yielded, the new system began to range itself. Legge professed acquiescence—artfully; if Pitt acceded, he must of course: if Pitt did not, Legge would have all the merit of his own moderation. But that conqueror grew still more tractable: he first yielded to take the southern province; next, even to bear with Lord Holderness, if his Majesty insisted on it; yet hoped it would be waved, as he [otherwise] might set out with doing something disagreeable to his Majesty, [he] having engaged his honour, if a question should be moved on that Lord, not to oppose it. Some parting rays of popular virtue were still made to glimmer: the party even ordered one Evans, a lawyer, to draw up articles of impeachment against Lord Anson; and transports were ordered for the Hanoverians, as the country magistrates urged that they were not obliged by law to billet them. The nation all the while expected great services from Pitt—but even the Duke of Newcastle had talked reformation, and once had gone so far as to cashier the pensions of three old widows. Pitt’s was a nobler style; and, as Addison said of Virgil, if he did contaminate himself, he at least tossed about his dirt with an air of majesty.
DUKE OF BEDFORD.
London, Henry Colburn, 1846.
With more sincerity the little band of patriots disposed themselves to fill the conquered provinces: yet so few of them were in Parliament, and so many had difficulties of being re-chosen, that it almost promised to be an Administration out of Parliament. Fox even skirmished his borough from Dr. Hay, one of the new Admiralty; and had others been as desperate, would have opposed most of them on their re-elections. Pitt himself was distressed; and he, who had lately so warmly attacked the Duke of Newcastle from the seat which he held by one of that Duke’s boroughs, could not propose to his Grace to re-elect him, when rising on his ruins. But a little parliamentary craft of shifting boroughs, adjusted this: though Newcastle vaunted that he would show both Pitt and Fox that the Parliament was his.
The Duke of Bedford for some time impeded the entire arrangement, by warmly refusing to take Ireland. Yet he too at last was mollified, after having, as was his way, declared himself with violence enough to show, that if he changed afterwards, it was by the influence of others. Fox had gone to Woburn to persuade him;—in vain: yet, returning, and indeed, knowing what advocates he left behind, ventured (lest that kingdom should be given up before Bedford was brought to a proper temper) to assure the Duke of Devonshire that Bedford would accept the Lord-Lieutenancy.
When all was adjusted, the Duke of Newcastle resigned, Nov. 11th. As he retired without terrors and with parade, it was easy to penetrate his hopes of returning to Court. It was assiduously propagated in all the public papers, that he departed without place or pension; and his enormous estate, which he had sunk from thirty to thirteen thousand pounds a year, by every ostentatious vanity, and on every womanish panic, between cooks, mobs, and apothecaries, was now represented by his tools as wasted in the cause of the Government. To show how unrewarded he chose to relinquish the Administration, this was the catalogue of his disinterestedness. His Dukedom was entailed on his nephew, Lord Lincoln; the only one[70] conferred by George the Second. Another nephew, Mr. Shelley, had the reversion of the Pipe Office. His cousin, young T. Pelham, already of the Board of Trade, got another reversion in the Custom House. His creature, Sir George Lyttelton, was indemnified with a Peerage. His secretary, Mr. West, was rewarded with a reversion for himself and son. Jones, a favourite clerk, and nephew of the Chancellor, had another reversion. An Irish Earldom was given to Mr. O’Brien.
All this being granted, his Grace retired to Claremont, where, for about a fortnight, he played at being a country gentleman. Guns and green frocks were bought, and at past sixty, he affected to turn sportsman; but getting wet in his feet, he hurried back to London in a fright, and his country was once more blessed with his assistance.
Newcastle’s resignation was on the 19th followed by that of the Chancellor. Great endeavours had been used to retain him, or to engage Murray to succeed him; but what terrified or disgusted the former could have no temptation to the latter, who was equally a friend to Newcastle, was by no means equally ambitious, was more timorous, and still less disposed to serve with Pitt alone. Fatigue determined the scale with Lord Hardwicke, which power and profit would have kept suspended. The Great Seal was given in Commission to Lord Chief Justice Willes, Judge Wilmot, and Baron Smyth. Wilmot was much attached to Legge, and a man of great vivacity of parts. He loved hunting and wine, and not his profession. He had been an admired Pleader, before the House of Commons, but being reprimanded on the contested election for Wareham with great haughtiness by Pitt, who told him he had brought thither the pertness of his profession, and being prohibited by the Speaker from making a reply, he flung down his brief in a passion, and never would return to plead there any more. Fox procured the place of Attorney-General for Henley; the Comptroller’s staff for Mr. Edgecombe; the band of Pensioners and Treasurership of the Household for Lord Berkeley of Stratton, and Lord Bateman; an English Barony for Lord Hilsborough; and asked another for his own wife and son—too ambitious a declaration of the figure he still intended to make in the House of Commons. But this was with great indignation refused; and the King, who knew how little he should displease by it, abused him in very undignified terms to the Duke of Grafton, saying, “He now wants to set his dirty shoe on my neck.”
Lord Sandys was again shuffled to the top of the wheel, as Doddington was again to the bottom; the former being raised to Speaker of the House of Lords, the latter dismissed, with Lord Darlington, and a few others. Pitt’s list was confined to this small number: himself, Legge, and Lord Temple have been mentioned. George Grenville succeeded Doddington as Treasurer of the Navy; James Grenville, a Lord of the Treasury; Potter, a joint Paymaster of Ireland; Sir Richard Lyttelton had the Jewel-office; Martin, Secretary of the Treasury; the Admirals West and Forbes, with Dr. Hay, Elliot, and Hunter, were put into the Admiralty; John Pitt was made Surveyor of the Roads, and Charles Townshend, Treasurer of the Chambers. At the same time, Garters were given to the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Carlisle, Lord Northumberland, and Lord Hertford. A Red-Riband and an Irish Peerage to old Blakeney, who went to Kensington in a hackney-coach, with a foot soldier behind it. As Blakeney had not only lost his government, but was bed-rid while it was losing, these honours were a little ridiculed; but the new Ministers and Admiralty inclining to treat Mr. Byng with less rigour, this step was taken by the old Court to refresh the resentment of the populace. Excepting Lord Temple and Pitt himself, the Cabinet was still engrossed by the adherents of Newcastle and Fox; and little harmony was to be expected, or was designed, from a jumble of three such discordant interests. The invention was Fox’s, who, first of all men, projected to leave his friends in place, to distress his hostile successors. Formerly the dependents of a Minister resigned with affected dignity, or were abruptly dismissed,—pensions and reversions now broke the fall of the few who were disgraced.
Pitt now appeared as First Minister; yet between his haughtiness on the one hand, and the little share he assumed, except in foreign affairs, on the other; with the affected court paid by Fox’s party to the Duke of Devonshire, and with the King’s disposition to communicate himself only to his old servants, all application was made to that Duke, whom the roses of power soon charmed to a forgetfulness of the thorns. Yet the irresolution of his temper, and desire of preventing farther dissensions, made him yield so much to Pitt, that Fox, finding himself no more Minister by his proxy than he was in person, left the town in discontent; but was soon recalled by his friends, who assured him that Pitt could not long maintain his post, both from his ill health and the weakness of his party. From the first hour of his power he was confined with the gout, and remained so during greatest part of the winter; and for accession of strength he had nothing but the partiality[71] of the Tories, who, taking all opportunities of declaring for him, gave great offence; and both his gout and his new friends were topics of unlimited abuse, which was poured on him by Fox’s direction and dependents. A paper war of the most inveterate kind was opened. Two weekly papers, called The Test and Contest, besides occasional pamphlets, were the vehicles of satire. Murphy, a player, wrote the former on behalf of Fox; and Francis, a poetic clergyman, signalized himself on the same side.
The Parliament met Dec. 2nd. Pitt had prepared a long speech, which the King would not read, but sent to him to shorten it. The House of Commons soon adjourned for the re-elections; and during the few days it sat, harmony so far took place, that there was no division, scarce a debate;[72] but the seed sown in the preceding occurrences soon developed themselves in the ensuing year.