FOOTNOTES:
[4] It was but seven months since Pitt had insisted on the dismission of Lord Holderness, who now resigned against Pitt’s rival, who had been his own associate at that time!
[5] Fox kissing hands was to be the signal.
[6] He used this expression again soon after. Making Lord Orford Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, he told him, he was of a family that had always stood by him; hoped he would too, and not behave like those footmen of the Duke of Newcastle.
[7] [Sic in MS.] E.
[8] This sarcasm is most unmerited and absurd. The Prince had no means of sending men, arms, and ammunition, nor was it any part of his duty to do so. Even if it had been, a regard for religion and literature, and some liberality in rewarding genius, are surely not incompatible with a due attention to public affairs.—E.
[9] John Home.
[CHAPTER III.]
Expedition to surprise Rochfort—Officers employed—The Fleet off the Isle of Oleron—Council of War—Difficulties of the Enterprise—Conway proposes an Attack on Fouras—Failure of the Expedition—Affairs in the East Indies—Victory of the Prussians over the Russians—Convention of Closter Seven—The King disavows it—The Duke of Cumberland’s return—His reception at Court, and subsequent conduct—Resigns all his Employments—Affairs of Ireland—State of Parties—Inquiry into the Miscarriages at Rochfort—Court-Martial—Lord Mansfield becomes a Cabinet Minister—Victories of the King of Prussia—Sir John Ligonier made a Field-Marshal and a Viscount—Death of Princess Caroline.
The measure was settled in July; but it was the 8th of September before the Fleet sailed. The French, though they did not learn the specific spot of destination, had ample time for preparation; and having a chain of garrisons along the coast, and being never totally destitute of supernumerary troops, hoped to be able to draw together a sufficient body wherever the storm should fall. As the event occasioned much discourse, I shall be excusable for detailing it; yet I shall do it with brevity; and, as much proceeded from the personal characters of the commanders, I shall describe them shortly, and with the more satisfaction, as their faults flowed from no want of courage; on the contrary, they possessed amongst them most of the various shades of that qualification. Mordaunt, as I have said, had a sort of alacrity in daring, but from ill health was grown more indifferent to it. He affected not Mr. Pitt, and from not loving the projector, was more careless than he should have been of the success of the project, presuming, unfortunately for himself, that if it should appear impracticable, the original mover would bear the blame.
Conway, secure of his own intrepidity, and of no ostentation, could not help foreseeing that from the superiority of his talents to those of Mordaunt, the good conduct of the expedition would be expected from him. The more answerable he thought himself, the more he guarded against objections. Cold in his deportment, and with a dignity of soul that kept him too much above familiarity, he missed that affection from his brother officers, which his unsullied virtues and humanity deserved; for he wanted the extrinsic of merit. Added to these little failings, he had a natural indecision in his temper, weighing with too much minuteness and too much fluctuation whatever depended on his own judgment. Cornwallis was a man of a very different complexion: as cool as Conway, and as brave, he was indifferent to everything but to being in the right. He held fame cheap, and smiled at reproach. General Howard was one of those sort of characters who are only to be distinguished by having no peculiarity of character. Under these was Wolfe, a young officer who had contracted reputation from his intelligence of discipline, and from the perfection to which he had brought his own regiment. The world could not expect more from him than he thought himself capable of performing. He looked on danger as the favourable moment that would call forth his talents.
Sir Edward Hawke commanded the fleet—a man of steady courage, of fair appearance, and who even did not want a plausible kind of sense; but he was really weak, and childishly abandoned to the guidance of a Scotch secretary. The next was Knowles, a vain man, of more parade than real bravery. Howe, brother of the Lord of that name, was the third on the naval list. He was undaunted as a rock, and as silent; the characteristics of his whole race. He and Wolfe soon contracted a friendship like the union of a cannon and gunpowder.
September 20th.—The Fleet appeared off the isle of Oleron; but it was the 23rd before they got in. Knowles, the Vice-Admiral, with his division, was ordered to attack the little isle of Aix. Howe, who led this detachment, sailed up with a steady magnanimity without firing till within pistol-shot of the fort. Greaves followed, and Keppel pressed forward to get in between them: Knowles kept a little more distant. Howe began a dreadful fire, and in less than two hours the garrison surrendered. Conway pressed them to proceed immediately on some further enterprise, and proposed directly to go and consult Sir Edward Hawke, who lay more out at sea. Knowles replied, that he was so fatigued that he could not go till next morning; when he reposed himself till ten. When Conway got him to Sir Edward Hawke’s ship, they found Sir Edward had sent Broderick with their only pilot to see where they could land—and these men did not return till noon. Mordaunt appeared incapable of forming any opinion, and said he was ready to take any officer’s advice.
In this dilemma they called a Council of War. In their deliberation, it appeared that Clarke, and Thierri, a French Pilot, had not seen Rochfort in three years and half: it was longer since the latter was there: that the nature of the road of Basques, the country, the state of the troops and garrison, were entirely unknown to them: that the expedition had been projected on the sole footing of a surprise, a view now entirely vanished, for our troops had lain near two months in the Isle of Wight, and many letters and neutral vessels had been intercepted, which spoke the alarm spread along the coast: that no man of war could lie within two miles of the landing to assist that or secure a retreat; and that if the wind came to the west, as was usual at that season, all communication with the Fleet would be cut off; a point recommended to them to guard against by the express instructions of Marshal Ligonier: that there were sand-hills on the shore equivalent to an entrenchment, from behind which a small body of men might prevent a descent of 2000 men, the most the boats could contain at a time; and that even more troops than were sufficient for that purpose had been seen by the captains who went to sound and reconnoitre the coast: and what was even more discouraging than all these impediments, the chief engineer declared that they had not brought artillery sufficient for a regular attack.
As to Rochfort, many difficulties were foreseen from the state of the place; and considering how long the fleet had lain off the coast, it was highly probable that not only the approach was guarded in a manner to have our troops cut to pieces, as they must have landed in small divisions; but that a strong garrison must have been thrown into the place, if not provided with one before. Bonville, a French volunteer, declared there were sluices with which they could flow the place all round; and he and the pilot of the Neptune had seen the ditch full of water. The dock-men were numerous, and five ships lay in the river, whose crews amounted to near 3000 men; besides the Militia of the country. We should have been two days marching to the place, and could have carried up to it but 7400 men. The nights were as light as day; and a letter found in a Priest’s house at Aix, dated from Rochfort on the 18th, spoke expressly of the precautions the Governor had taken.
No reasonable man could hope to surmount all these difficulties. Those, who had carried the same opinion from home with them, were not likely to find the objections weaker when mustered together on the spot. Both land and sea concurred in voting the surprisal of Rochfort impracticable, and then would have returned to England; but Conway, who the evening before had proposed to make themselves masters of Fouras, a little fort on the shore, where, when once established, they might examine what further damage could be done to the enemy, persuaded the Council that it was necessary to do something before they retired. To that they all agreed except Cornwallis, who had seen no attainable object, or none worth attaining, from the beginning to the end of the plan. Yet, that he might not stand single in a vote for retreating, he was induced to acquiesce:—however, Sir Edward Hawke’s secretary, who took the minutes of the deliberation, inserted Cornwallis’s real opinion into their votes, and without reading them to the Council, sent them to the English Admiralty, by whom they were shown to the King; and what Cornwallis’s associates had advised him to depart from, lest it might turn to his prejudice, was, after their return, construed into the only sensible opinion.
Conway renewed his proposal of an attack on Fouras, as, when once entrenched there, they might with more preparation march to Rochfort; or at least from thence hope to burn the five ships and the magazines on the Charente. Nobody approved the scheme. In these discussions three or four days were wasted. Conway perpetually pressed for some action—at last Mordaunt said carelessly, “Ay, let us go stretch our legs on the Isle of Oleron.” Conway said, a feigned diversion towards the Isle of Rhée would be more advisable; it would draw the French troops, who by this time must be alarmed, to that side; and then some surprise might be practicable. To this the rest would not agree. Conway then offered to make a real attack on the Isle of Oleron: they disputed on it till two in the morning; and though the first proposal had come from the others, he could not obtain their acquiescence. They wasted time even in dining; Sir Edward Hawke’s table lasted till late in the evening. Conway’s[10] importunity at last prevailed for an attack on Fouras; and all the Generals, to show that want of spirit had not operated in their Councils, resolved to be present. The first division embarked, but being moonlight, and the nights clear, and the wind turning against them, Howe himself told them it was not safe at that time; and Wolfe pronounced it would be bloody work. They were ordered back from their boats. Yet Conway persisting for an attempt on Fouras, Mordaunt offered to undertake it, if Conway would take the advice solely on himself. Conway, eager for the danger, was averse to being the author of it. Mordaunt then artfully desired him to relinquish proposing it. Neither to that would he yield. Mordaunt solicited him with strange earnestness, either to abandon the project, or to undertake it as his own; Mordaunt offering to share the danger of the execution, not of the opinion. Conway at last said, if Mordaunt would call Wolfe and any other man, and they would advise him to advise the attack he would; or if they advised him to desist from proposing it, he would; but either Mordaunt declined—in truth, it was a contest to be pitied rather than blamed: both saw the rashness of the project, to which they were willing to sacrifice themselves and their soldiers. Mordaunt, from esteem of Conway’s abilities, hoped to be excused if he executed what the latter advised—and the latter was too happy in not being commanding officer, to take that charge upon himself in a hopeless bravado. Conway then proposed to submit to the same alternative from the opinions of Cornwallis and Howard; to which the General acquiesced; and they, as he foresaw, concurring with him, Conway submitted, but desired they would observe, he acquiesced against his opinion—and it was determined to return, Sir Edward Hawke having often pressed the Generals to come to some resolution, the bad season approaching so near that he could not venture to keep the great ships much longer at sea. Wolfe and Howe had borne the dilatoriness of the chief commanders with indignation; yet seeing the minute lost, made no objection to a retreat; and the Fleet arrived at Portsmouth October 3rd—in the meantime, many important events had happened.
In the East Indies, the fleet under Admiral Watson retrieved the damages inflicted on our settlements by a new Nabob, of which we had received notice in the preceding June. That Viceroy had seized Cossimbuzar and Calcutta; the cruelties exercised on the factory in the latter place, where 170 persons were crammed into a dungeon, and stifled in the most shocking torments of heat, will not bear to be described to a good-natured reader. Watson was seconded by Captain Clive, one of those extraordinary men, whose great soul broke out under all the disadvantages of an ugly and contemptible person.
In the north of Germany, affairs had taken a favourable turn for the King of Prussia. Lehwald, one of his Generals, defeated a mighty army of Russians, who, in the most barbarian style, were pouring into Prussia. The Germans, whatever they pretended, were not cheaply conquerors. But the consequences of the battle were decisive; the Muscovites disappeared from the campaign for the rest of the summer.
The Duke of Cumberland, after the battle of Hastenbecke, had retired with his army towards Stade, and was followed by the French. The Duchies of Bremen and Verden were at the eve of falling into their hands, and the King expected that they would be given back to Sweden. The Hanoverian Ministry did not doubt but the Duke’s high spirit would venture the Army being cut to pieces rather than surrender them prisoners, and they complained of the scanty assistance afforded by England. Lady Yarmouth even said to Lord Hertford, “Que peut on faire, my Lord! le Ministere Anglois ne nous a voulu donner que quelque tonneaux de farine.” The truth was, the King, to avoid expense, had neglected to raise the Militia of Hanover, though they had implored it, and might have given a decisive turn to the battle in his favour. Both the Sovereign and his German Council were determined at all events to save the Duchies and the troops, and the most positive orders were dispatched to the Duke in consequence of those resolutions. Yet, not trusting to what conditions his son, however obedient, might obtain, his Majesty prevailed on his son-in-law, the King of Denmark, to interpose his good offices, and accordingly, on the 7th of September, Count Lynar, Governor of Oldenburg, arrived in the Duke’s camp as mediator, and a passport being demanded for him from Marshal Richelieu, the latter sent it with an escort of a hundred horse, and by the next day a convention was obtained and signed, by which Stade and the district round it was left to the Hanoverians, with permission to the rest of those troops to repass the Elbe, observing a strict neutrality. The troops of Hesse, Brunswick, Saxe-Gotha, &c., in the King’s pay, were to retire to their several countries.
When the news of this suspension of arms arrived at Kensington, it occasioned the greatest surprise, the greatest clamour—for even the Monarch acted surprise! The Foreign Ministers acquainted those of England that it was concluded, or certainly would be. The English with great truth disavowed all knowledge, and protested entire disbelief of it. They not only had not been entrusted with the secret, but saw their master affect equal indignation, and encouraged by that dissimulation, ventured to insist on his permitting them to write to foreign Courts that he disavowed the transaction. Even this he granted. He went further: he told Dabreu, the Spanish Minister, that he would show him the rough draft of a letter which he had prepared to send to his son, with a positive command to fight. It was true, he had written such a letter; it is no less true that he never sent it.
As the Dictator of the Convention disavowed it, as the father disclaimed the son, it was natural for those who suffered by the act, and for those who hated the actor, to break out against both. The King of Prussia said we had undone him, without mending our own situation. The Princess of Wales, Lord Hardwicke, and Legge threw the strongest reflections on the Duke; the last, indeed, with appearance of reason, being extremely hampered, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, by this transaction. How should he be able, he said, next winter to propose the Hessian troops, whose hands were now tied up from assisting us? or must he wave the subsidy to them, when they were starving in our cause? The others went further; they called his Royal Highness’s Generalship in question; he was brave indeed, but that was all; he had wasted a good Army; had beaten the French, and did not know it.
But the most indecent in personal invectives was Baron Munchausen, the Hanoverian Minister in England—a man reckoned one of their ablest heads, and who had hitherto always comported himself with civility and inoffensively. He went so far as to call for a Council to examine the Duke’s behaviour; and Lord Hardwicke, to extend the insult, or to divide it amongst many, desired the whole Cabinet Council, not merely the junto, might meet: the affair was too serious. Thither Munchausen brought copies of his own letters to the Duke, to prove that his Royal Highness had acted without authority. Mr. Pitt observed, that they proved the direct contrary; and he, who certainly had never managed the Duke, nor stood on any good terms with him, acted a part nobly honest: when the King told him that he had given his son no orders for this treaty, Pitt replied with firmness, “But full powers, Sir; very full powers.”
Yet this sincerity in a foe could infuse none into a father. Two messengers were dispatched to recall the Duke, and, October 12th, he arrived at Kensington. It was in the evening, and he retired to his own apartment, where Mr. Fox and his servants were attending. He thanked Mr. Fox for being there, and said, “You see me well both in body and mind. I have written orders in my pocket for everything I did.” (He afterwards said, his orders had been so strong, that he had not expected to obtain such good conditions.) He then dismissed Fox, saying, he would send for him again. (The shortness of this interview, he afterwards told Mr. Fox, had proceeded from his determination of seeing nobody alone who could be supposed to advise him, till he had taken the step he meditated.) At nine, the hour the King punctually goes to play in the apartment of the Princess Emily, the Duke went to her. The King, who was there, had ordered the Princess not to leave them alone, received him with extreme coldness; and when his Royal Highness went afterwards into the other room where the King was at cards, his Majesty said aloud, “Here is my son, who has ruined me and disgraced himself,”—and unless this was speaking to him, spoke not a word. At eleven, when the cards were over, the Duke went down to Lady Yarmouth, and told her the King had left him but one favour to ask, which he was come to solicit by her interposition, as he wished to make it as little disagreeable to the King as possible—it was to desire leave to resign everything, the post of Captain-General, and his regiment. The Countess was in great concern at the request, and said, “Pray, Sir, don’t determine this at once.” He replied, “He begged her pardon; he was not come for advice; he had had time to think, and was determined.” “Then, Sir,” said she, “I have nothing left but to obey.”
The King received the notification with as much real agitation as he had counterfeited before. The next morning he ordered the Cabinet Council to wait on the Duke, and pay their respects to him. Lord Holderness went in first, and kissed his hand, but was not spoken to. Pitt followed; and of him his Royal Highness took most notice, speaking to him at different reprisals with kindness, to mark his satisfaction with Pitt’s behaviour. He said a little to the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Granville, and Lord Anson. Lord Hardwicke was out of town. The Duke of Devonshire was sent to the Duke in private, to persuade him not to resign. He was inflexible. Devonshire was sent again to ask from the King as a favour that he would at least retain his regiment; he need not do the duty; but his Majesty should not think himself safe in any other hands; yet even this counterfeit of confidence was an aggravation of the cruelty. The Duke learned that this solicitude about the regiment proceeded solely from the King’s averseness to give it to Prince Edward; as would be expected, and he was not softened by such duplicity. He even determined never to be employed under his father again, telling Fox, that no collusion about the treaty should be imputed to him, by his resuming his command. To Conway he said, he could not, did not hope that the King would do what was necessary to justify him, it was therefore necessary to do all he could to justify himself. The next day, the Duke visited the Princess, and beginning to mention his resolution of resigning, she rung the bell, and asked him if he would not see the children.
When the King found his son’s resentment inflexible, he thought of nothing but making it as little uncomfortable to himself as possible: provided the interior face of the palace was not discomposed, he cared little about justifying himself or making any reparation to his son; who, he thought, might as easily forget in the ceremonies of the drawing-room what he had suffered, as his Majesty drowned all sensibility in the parade of that narrow sphere. He insisted that the Duke should appear as usual at Court, and come to him in a morning. The Duke acquiesced, saying, he should always show the utmost respect to the King as his father, but never could serve him more. When these essential forms were adjusted, the Duke sent for Munchausen, and said, “Mr. Privy-councillor, I hear the King has sent for opinions of Hanoverian Generals on my conduct; here are the opinions of the Hessian Generals, and of the Duke of Wolfenbuttle. As the King has ordered the former to be deposited among the Archives of Hanover, I hope he will do me the justice to let these be registered with them. Take them, and bring them back to me to-morrow.” Munchausen returned with them the next day, and with a message from the King that his Majesty had been better informed, and thought better of his Royal Highness than he had done; and then Munchausen falling prostrate to kiss the lappet of his coat, the Duke with dignity and anger checked him, and said, “Mr. Privy-councillor, confine yourself to that office; and take care what you say, even though the words you repeat should be my father’s; I have all possible deference for him, but I know how to punish anybody else that presumes to speak improperly of me.”
On the 15th, the Duke resigned all his commands.
I have dwelt minutely on the circumstances of this history, having learned from the best authorities, and being sure that few transactions deserve more to be remembered. A young Prince, warm, greedy of military glory, yet resigning all his passions to the interested dictates of a father’s pleasure, and then loaded with the imputation of having acted basely without authority: hurt with unmerited disgrace, yet never breaking out into the least unguarded expression; preserving dignity under oppression, and the utmost tenderness of duty under the utmost delicacy of honour—this an uncommon picture—for the sake of human nature, I hope the conduct of the father is uncommon too! When the Duke could tear himself from his favourite passion, the Army, one may judge how sharply he must have been wounded. When afterwards the King, perfidiously enough, broke that famous convention, mankind were so equitable as to impute it to the same unworthy politics, not to the disapprobation he had pretended to feel on its being made. In a former part of this history, I have said with regard to his eldest, that the King might have been an honest man, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved his son—what double force has this truth, when it is again applied to him on his treachery to the best son that ever lived! Considering with what freedom I have spoken of the Duke’s faults in other parts of this work, I may be believed in the just praise bestowed on him here.
We must now turn our eyes to Ireland, which Mr. Conway had left in a state of perfect tranquillity. The imprudence of the new Governors opened the wounds afresh. The Duke of Bedford set out for that Kingdom on the 20th of September, determined as he thought to observe a strict neutrality between the factions, and rigid uprightness in the conduct of his Administration. He began with exacting strict attendance on their posts from persons in employment, and with refusing leave of absence to officers and chaplains of regiments; and considering, too, how his new dominions had been loaded of late years to smooth the difficulties of the English Government, his Grace commenced his reign with strong declamations against Irish pensions. He had two difficulties to encounter before these fair views could be carried into execution: his own Court were far from being so disinterested as their master, and his new subjects were as little desirous of a reign of virtue. Nor had the Duke himself the art of reconciling them to it by his manner, which was shy, untractable, ungracious, ungenerous. The Duchess pleased universally; she had all her life been practising the part of a Queen; dignity and dissimulation were natural to her. The Irish were charmed with a woman who seemed to depart from her state from mere affability. But the person who influenced them both was the Secretary Rigby. He had ingratiated himself with the Duchess, and had acquired an absolute ascendant over her husband, who, with all his impetuosity, was governed by his favourite in a style that approached to domineering.
Rigby had an advantageous and manly person, recommended by a spirited jollity that was very pleasing, though sometimes roughened into brutality: of most insinuating good-breeding when he wished to be agreeable. His passions were turbulent and overbearing; his courage bold and fond of exerting itself. His parts strong and quick, but totally uncultivated; and so much had he trusted to unaffected common sense, that he could never afterwards acquire the necessary temperament of art in his public speaking. He had been a pupil of Winnington, and owed the chief errors of his life to that man’s maxims, perniciously witty. Winnington had unluckily lived when all virtue had been set to notorious sale, and in ridicule of false pretences had affected an honesty in avowing whatever was dishonourable. Rigby, whose heart was naturally good, grew to think it sensible to laugh at the shackles of morality; and having early encumbered his fortune by gaming, he found his patron’s maxims but too well adapted to retrieve his desperate fortunes. He placed his honour in steady addiction to whatever faction he was united with: and from the gaiety of his temper, having indulged himself in profuse drinking, (for in private few men were more temperate,) he was often hurried beyond the bounds of that interest which he meant should govern all his actions, and which his generous extravagance for ever combated. In short, he was a man who was seldom loved or hated with moderation; yet he himself, though a violent opponent, was never a bitter enemy. His amiable qualities were all natural; his faults acquired, or fatally linked to him by the chain of some other failings.
In a Court of such a complexion as I have described, no wonder the reign of virtue was violated in the outset. The Queen-Dowager of Prussia, the King’s sister, was lately dead: during the parsimonious barbarity of her husband, a pension of 800l. a year, on Ireland, had been privately transmitted to her; and she retained it to her death. The Duke of Bedford was persuaded to ask this for the Duchess’s sister, Lady Betty Waldegrave, and obtained it. His impartiality was as ill-observed as his maxims of frugality. Rigby, sacrificing to what he concluded Mr. Fox’s inclination, hurried the Lord-Lieutenant into flagrant partiality to Lord Kildare. The Primate was neglected; but he knew how to make himself of consequence. The prostitution of his opponents had raised his character, and he omitted no address to conciliate popularity. Malone had at length accepted the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer; and being the last renegade, was the most obnoxious. Being regarded as Minister in the House of Commons, the storm was intended to fall on him, for Rigby was not known as a man of business; and till Lord George Sackville affected the active part of power, and after him Mr. Conway, the Lord-Lieutenant’s secretary had been no character in Parliament.
The factions existing were, the Primate’s, Lord Kildare’s, those attached to the Speaker Ponsonby, and who in truth were a defection from Kildare; and a flying squadron of patriots, the smallest body of the four, and composed as is usual, of the discontented—that is, of those who had been too insignificant to be bought off, or whose demands had been too high—and of a few well-meaning men. Lord Kildare had still the greatest number of dependents, though inferior to those of the Primate and Ponsonby, if united; a point[11] now eagerly pursued by the Archbishop, while at the same time he underhand inflamed the patriots against the Castle: and had sufficient success. The Session no sooner opened, than French, a lawyer, proposed a trifling amendment to the Address, but with indirect reflections on Malone, whom they endeavoured to make rise, and take the Minister upon him; but he avoided it, and suffered the amendment. The next day, one Upton, a warm and obstinate Patriot, formerly a friend of Malone, moved for the list of Pensions, on which Lady Betty Waldegrave’s name must have appeared. Malone at last rose, and said, the Motion was premature, for the list would be given in with the Estimates. Upton, not being content with this answer, Malone moved to adjourn, the other threatening to renew his Motion at their next meeting. And when he did repeat it, it was rejected but by a majority of five; an advantage so slender, that the Castle did not venture to stem a torrent of violent resolutions, which the House passed a few days afterwards against pensions, absentees, and other grievances, of which they demanded redress, desiring the Lord-Lieutenant to transmit them to his Majesty in their very words. This heat was led by one Perry, a bold, troublesome, and corrupt lawyer, who had been vexatious to Mr. Conway, and between whom and Rigby there soon passed such warm altercations, that they were with difficulty prevented from going greater lengths.
The Duke, in answer to their resolutions, told them they were couched in such extraordinary terms, and aimed so high, that he should take time to consider whether he would transmit them to England; and this answer Rigby moved to have entered in the Journals, but desisted, on finding great opposition. Both the Duke and he acted with incredible intemperance; and intending to establish their authority by the weight of power, his Grace sent to England for assistance, and demanded to be invested with a latitude of rewards and punishments. The absentees were sent over to strengthen his party in the House of Commons; but the English Council meeting upon his other demand, and not being composed of many of his friends, Mr. Pitt wrote him a civil excuse, with a refusal of full powers; if his Grace would name whom he wished to displace or prefer, he should be supported; on the whole, he was advised to compose the heats that had arisen. The Primate no doubt had early intelligence from Lord George of the little attention paid to the Lord Lieutenant’s remonstrance; but being disposed to govern the Castle rather than overturn them, he retired to his country seat at Leixlip, declaring his disapprobation of the violence of the Commons; and the next day sent two of his creatures to the Duke to disavow any connexions with the Speaker, and to profess his aversion to disturbing the Government; in elections only against Lord Kildare and Malone he proposed to interfere. On the other hand, Lord Kildare protested that if the Primate was left of the Regency, he would not be of it. A menace most indifferent to the Prelate, who could forgive anything but exclusion from power, and who on his former disgrace had much resented the part his brother had acted in consenting to his being laid aside; and when it was notified to him, he broke out, “Now will my wise brother write me four sides to tell me it is all for the better.”
The dissimulation of the Primate was soon detected: the Duke of Bedford, to oblige him, had preferred Cunningham in rank, who, however, voted against the Court in the strongest questions. Yet continuing to frequent the assemblies at the Castle, the Duke took him aside, reproached him with his behaviour, and told him, the bread he eat was the King’s. The young man replied honestly, he had such obligations to the Primate and Lord George, that though he should be reduced to his pristine indigence, he would act in all things as they ordered him. Some days afterwards, the Opposition calling in question the great powers exercised by the Privy Council of Ireland, and Malone sitting silent, the Solicitor-General, a friend of the Primate, said, that, as an officer of the Crown, he could not sit still and see the prerogative attacked, without marking his disapprobation. He was joined by all the Primate’s friends, and the motion for abridging those powers was rejected by 140 to 40. This more civil way of displaying to the Castle the Primate’s interest in the House was not calculated to inspire them with less awe of his strength.
Lord Kildare (who had no talents for governing, and yet would not unite with anybody that had,) declined Mr. Fox’s advice of joining with the Speaker, by which he might have balanced the efforts of the Primate. The Earl thought of repelling the war by carrying it into the quarters of the enemy, and the Castle weakly concurred in this silly project. They determined to move for an inquiry into the conduct of the Commissioners of the Revenue for the last twenty years, in which the principal retrospect would involve the partizans of the House of Dorset. The execution of the measure was delegated to Sir Archibald Atcheson, a man so insignificant, that, having acquainted the House that he had a Motion of consequence to propose on the following Monday, he was so little regarded, that when the day came, the House was remarkably empty. The Courtiers opposed the question, till Rigby rose and said, a Motion from so respectable a person must be of consequence; the gentleman, he supposed, had some mismanagement to lay open. A secret Committee was immediately proposed and elected by ballot, when, to the great confusion of the Ministers, they carried but three out of thirty-one; the other twenty-eight were all elected from the creatures of the Primate and Speaker. The Castle had no more success in the popularity they expected from this inquisition, than they had in the choice of the inquisitors. The Lord-Lieutenant, too, increased the offence by his ungracious reception of the Commissioners of the Revenue, who waiting on him to disculpate themselves, as they feared they had been misrepresented to his Grace, he answered them dryly, if anything was wrong, he supposed it would come out; if innocent, they would clear themselves.
These transactions, which reached to the end of the year, I have chosen to throw together, as they would be little intelligible, if broken into the precise order in which they happened. I shall use the same method on the sequel of the expedition to Rochfort.
As soon as the Fleet was returned, Sir John Mordaunt was ordered to town to give an account of his conduct; and Mr. Pitt inserted in the Gazette his letter to the General and Admiral, empowering them to stay out longer if they should find it necessary. This did not allay the ill-humour in the City, where they coupled the fruitlessness of the expedition with the Hanoverian neutrality; and concluded that both flowed from the same attention to the preservation of the favourite Electorate. The Ministers affected to distinguish the naval commanders. The Generals were coldly received, particularly by the King, though he did speak to Conway, who, however, was so sensible of the injustice done to him, that, if he had not been overpersuaded by his friends, who foresaw that his resignation would be represented as a dismission, he would have immediately quitted his post in the King’s Bed-chamber.
His Majesty had at first been indifferent to the plan; then ridiculed it to all who came near him. Now, being in a humour of heroism and criticism, he took it up in the bitterest terms, and did the Generals the honour of treating them as ill as his own son, the Duke, seizing every opportunity of casting reflections on the one and the others; and on the news of the King of Prussia’s success, the Monarch said, “Yes, people may beat, if they do not always retreat; but there are so many cowards, I am almost afraid of growing one myself.” Pitt, though really more hurt, and apt enough to take any step to illustrate his own measures, behaved with greater decency. He pressed no violent resolutions against the officers; he prevented the City from addressing against them; and only took the more sensible, though not less severe style of punishing the miscarriage, by raising Wolfe at once over the heads of a great number of officers.[12]
Sir John Mordaunt finding no notice taken of him in any shape, went to Mr. Pitt, and told him he had waited a week to see what would be done on his affair: he found he was in disgrace, but found it only by neglect and silence. He entreated Mr. Pitt to ask the King to permit an inquiry on it. Pitt told him, this had been thought of; owned they did blame the first Council of War; but this was always the case when officers went prejudiced against a measure.
Accordingly, November 1st, a Commission of Inquiry was directed, composed of the Duke of Marlborough, Lord George Sackville, and General Waldegrave: a Court that could not be called unprecedented, for one of the very same nature had been held in the foregoing year, but most unconstitutional and dangerous; nay, absurd, for they had neither power to acquit nor condemn. As the Ministers selected whom they pleased, if the criminal was to be saved, a favourable report from this Board would exclude a legal trial; if to be condemned, was not such a preparatory inquisition likely to influence future judgment? The present Board was indeed artfully constituted. Two of the Commissioners were attached to Fox; if their majority acquitted, the odium would fall on Mr. Pitt’s antagonist—and to them he had joined Lord George Sackville, as much devoted to himself, and more than a balance to the other two in abilities. But another step Pitt took, still more novel, and as pernicious for the precedent. He sent Mr. Blair of the Secretary’s office to the Lord Mayor of London, to inform the City that an inquiry was appointed. What right the City of London had to such notification above all other towns in the kingdom could not well be told. What use they will make of such admission into the executive part of Government can easily be conceived; and what confusion may follow from incorporating the mob of London with the other parts of the Legislature, where they are already represented, and where they have no title to be more than represented.
The inquiry began on the 12th. The Generals, and Knowles, and Broderick, utterly disavowing Sir Edward Hawke’s minutes, Lord George took them to pieces severely, and censured Hay, the composer of them. The Duke of Marlborough asked many questions, with appearance of thinking ill of the conduct of the Generals. Waldegrave took no part at all. Sir John Mordaunt defended himself weakly; Conway most ably; exposed Clarke; and at last producing his own narrative, it silenced all further inquiry; yet the resolutions of the Court, which were not explicit, seemed to say, that they thought more might have been performed; or at least that there had not been sufficient reasons for desisting from the attempt. The report of these opinions was made to the King on the 21st, who, on the 30th, ordered a Court-Martial on Sir John Mordaunt alone.
The Duke of Cumberland[13] espoused the cause of the Generals, wished them to make it a common cause, and to pin down their whole defence to the impracticability of the measure. To this Conway could not consent. He had too much endeavoured to explore whether it was practicable or not, to submit to involve himself in the remissness of those for whose sake he now suffered. Yet the delicacy with which he avoided whatever might set their failings in a strong light, the management he used invariably for Sir John Mordaunt, for whom he drew up every paper he could want, the obstinacy with which he persisted to sink material articles of his own defence, rather than charge his colleagues, at the same time that no worthy mind was ever so wounded with disgrace, these and every instance of his behaviour made the solidity of his virtue appear most amiable and interesting; and it was still heightened by not meeting with an equal degree of tenderness from those in whose protection it was exerted.
The Court-Martial began its session on the 14th of December, and finished on the 18th; though it was opened again for one day to hear Sir Edward Hawke’s evidence, who had been at sea. Lord Tyrawley was President. Mr. Pitt appeared before them, as he said, to authenticate his own orders, but took the opportunity of making an imperious speech, and defended Clarke and Thierri, the pilot; who, he affirmed, had supported their information, though sifted in so extraordinary a manner. General Cholmondeley interrupted him, reminding him that he only came thither to authenticate. Pitt replied with haughtiness; and being asked, who had sifted Clarke and the pilot, he said, the military men; and often spoke of Mordaunt and Conway by name. There have been times when a Minister, in less odour of popularity, would have been impeached for presuming to awe a legal Court of Justice; but as it did Mr. Pitt no harm, neither did it produce any good to the cause he favoured. The whole Court treated the expedition as rash and childish; and acquitted the General with honour. Sir Edward Hawke reflecting on Thierri as an ignorant Fanfaron, General Cholmondeley asked if there were two Thierris? Surely, he said, this ignorant Fanfaron could not be the one so applauded by Mr. Pitt!
Thus ended the chimera of taking Rochfort. The public, however, were entertained for part of the following winter with a literary controversy, which it produced between General Conway and Mr. Potter. Mr. Doddington, too, flung in one or two bitter pamphlets against Mr. Pitt.
I have dwelt so long on the singular events of this year, that I shall hasten to the conclusion of this book, touching briefly the other most material passages, the chief of which, relating to the victories of the King of Prussia, will be found at large in other histories, and demand a more exalted pen than mine, sullied with the faults and follies of my countrymen, and though suited perhaps to the trifling province of catching ridicules, unequal to the lofty compass of history.
Lord Mansfield was called to the conciliabulum, or essence of the Council; an honour not only uncommon and due to his high abilities, but set off with his being proposed by Lord Hardwicke himself, who wished, he said, to get repose for three months in the country: Lord Mansfield would amply supply his place. It was about this time that this great Chief Justice set himself to take information against libels, and would sift, he said, what was the real liberty of the press. The occasions of the times had called him off from principles that favoured an arbitrary King—he still leaned towards an arbitrary Government.
At the end of October came news that our Fleet under Holbourn, blocking up a French squadron at Louisbourg, had been dispersed by a great storm, in which the Nassau was lost, the Eagle was driven home, and ten ships were dismasted.
The year concluded with a torrent of glory for the King of Prussia. On the 5th of November, he defeated the combined Imperial and French Armies at Rosbach; and though the Austrians took Schweidnitz, and beat the Prince of Bevern, the King repaired that disadvantage by a complete victory over their best Army, commanded by Prince Charles and Count Daun, at Lissa: a single month intervening between this and his success at Rosbach. His uncle’s efforts were neither exerted nor crowned with equal honour. The decline of the arms of France in the empire encouraged the King to break the convention of Closter Seven. The Hanoverians were reassembled, and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, a general of repute, appointed to command them. Some trifling infractions of the neutrality on the part of the French were pretexted to cover this notorious breach of faith—a monument to future politicians, in how short a space of time a treaty may be commanded, concluded, disavowed, made advantage of, and violated!
During these transactions, the unfortunate Queen of Poland died suddenly at Dresden; a witness of calamities to which she had not contributed, and which she had in vain remained there to temper.
In England, Sir John Ligonier, to whom the supreme command of the British armies was entrusted, was created a Viscount of Ireland, and a Marshal, with his seniors, Sir Robert Rich and Lord Molesworth. Lord George Sackville succeeded as Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance; and by that employment escaped the unwelcome command in America, which he could not with any grace have otherwise avoided.
Colley Cibber, that good-humoured and honest veteran, so unworthily aspersed by Pope, and whose Memoirs, with one or two of his comedies, will secure his fame, in spite of all the abuse of his contemporaries, dying about this time at a very great age, the Duke of Devonshire bestowed the laurel on Mr. Whitehead, a man of a placid genius. His Grace had first designed it for Gray,[14] then for Mason, but was told that both would decline it. In truth, it was not Cibber’s silly odes that disgraced the employment, but an annual panegyric venally extorted for whatever King, and with or without occasion, that debased the office. Gray, crowned with the noblest wreaths of Parnassus, could not stoop to be dubbed poet by a Lord Chamberlain; and Mason, though he had not then displayed all the powers of his genius, had too much sense and spirit to owe his literary fame to anything but his own merit.
On the 28th of December died the King’s third daughter, Princess Caroline. She had been the favourite of the Queen, who preferred her understanding to those of all her other daughters, and whose partiality she returned with duty, gratitude, affection, and concern. Being in ill health at the time of her mother’s death, the Queen told her she would follow her in less than a year. The Princess received the notice as a prophecy; and though she lived many years after it had proved a vain one, she quitted the world, and persevered in the closest retreat, and in constant and religious preparation for the grave; a moment she so eagerly desired, that when something was once proposed to her, to which she was averse, she said, “I would not do it to die!” To this impression of melancholy had contributed the loss of Lord Hervey,[15] for whom she had conceived an unalterable passion, constantly marked afterwards by all kind and generous offices to his children. For many years she was totally an invalid, and shut herself up in two chambers in the inner part of St. James’s, from whence she could not see a single object. In this monastic retirement, with no company but of the King, the Duke, Princess Emily, and a few of the most intimate of the Court, she led, not an unblameable life only, but a meritorious one: her whole income was dispensed between generosity and charity; and, till her death by shutting up the current discovered the source, the jails of London did not suspect that the best support of their wretched inhabitants was issued from the Palace.
From the last Sunday to the Wednesday on which she died, she declined seeing her family; and when the mortification began, and the pain ceased, she said, “I feared I should not have died of this!”
Finished August 8th, 1759.