FOOTNOTES:
[16] It seems by this passage, that in George the Second’s reign, the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland absented themselves, as a matter of course, the second year of their Viceroyalty.—E.
[17] When they returned from Ireland, the Duke of Newcastle, who was leaning from Pitt, was impatient to see Rigby. The latter went to dine at Claremont. The Duke showed him the gardens and improvements; and in the expansion of the folly of his heart, forgetting that it was himself and not Rigby that was in transports of satisfaction, he said, “Well! is not this better than going about and abusing me?” In the following summer, Newcastle carried this disposition to the Bedfords still further: at the Commencement at Cambridge he affected to take extreme notice of Lord Tavistock, a modest, but plain lad, cried up his beauty and the goodness of his coffee, and recommended him to the University for successor to himself.
[18] See the [First Volume of these Memoirs].
[19] The power of that Scotch favourite was so great at Leicester House, that the Prince of Wales went three times to Agis, a new tragedy written by John Home, and so indifferent a one, that nobody else could bear to go to it twice. Sir Henry Erskine wrote a patriot prologue to it. The Prince, from an affectation of popularity, generally went to the play on Saturdays, the opera-night.
[20] Why the Author has chosen, in this just and spirited passage, to introduce the word “sullen,” I am at a loss to discover; and believe those who had the happiness to know the late Lord Camden will be as much so.—E.
[CHAPTER V.]
Death of Archbishop Hutton—Affair of Lord Tyrawley—New Treaty with Prussia—Sequel of the Habeas Corpus Extension Question—The Bill debated in the Lords—Lord Mansfield’s Speech—The Bill dropped—Affairs at Leicester House—Operations of the King of Prussia—Expedition to St. Maloes under the Duke of Marlborough—Its failure—Passage of the Rhine by Prince Ferdinand, and his Victory at Crevelt—Defeats of Prince Ysenberg and M. Chevert.
March 20th died Dr. Hutton, Archbishop of Canterbury, after short possession of his see. The Duke of Newcastle had great inclination to give it to Dr. Hay Drummond, Bishop of St. Asaph, a gentleman, a man of parts, and of the world; but Lord Hardwicke’s influence carried it for Secker, who certainly did not want parts or worldliness.
Lord George Sackville was now rising to a principal figure. His abilities in the House of Commons and his interest with Pitt gave him great weight in Government, and everything seemed to promise him the first rank in the Army, where, since the depression of Conway, he stood without a rival. The Duke, who hated him, was removed; Marshal Ligonier was very old, and was governed by him; and by his seat in the Ordnance, and his own address, he began to balance Fox in the direction of the Duke of Marlborough. But his imperious temper was not to be restrained; and at this very period he wantonly started an enemy, under whose lash he had reason afterwards to wish he had not fallen.
A considerable officer was Lord Tyrawley, too old to give jealousy to Lord George, and who having been neglected by the Duke of Newcastle, had treated the latter with a contempt which, besides his attaching himself to Fox, had assured an entire stop to his own further advancement. Lord Tyrawley had a thorough knowledge of the world, though less of his own country than of others. He had long been Minister in Portugal, where he grew into such favour, that the late King, to keep him there, would have appointed him his general. He had a great deal of humour, and occasional good breeding, but not to the prejudice of his natural temper, which was imperiously blunt, haughty, and contemptuous, with an undaunted portion of spirit. Accustomed to the despotism of Portugal, Muscovy, and the Army, he had little reverence for Parliaments, and always spoke of them as the French do of the long-robe. He even affected not to know where the House of Commons was. He was just returned from Gibraltar, where he had ordered great additions to the works, with no more economy than Governors are apt to do, who think themselves above being responsible. Lord George Sackville caught at this dissipation, and privately instigated Sir John Philipps to censure the expense. To their great surprise Lord Tyrawley demanded to be heard at the bar of the House in his own defence. A day was named. Lord Tyrawley drew up a memorial, which he proposed to read to the House; and which in the meantime he did read to everybody else. It was conceived in bitter terms against Lord George, and attacked him roundly on having avoided all foreign command. This alarmed. Lord George got the day of hearing adjourned for near a fortnight; but Lord Tyrawley was not a man to recede from his point; and Lord George having underhand procured the report of Skinner, who surveyed the works at Gibraltar to be brought before the House, without mentioning what it was, Mr. Fox laid open the unhandsome darkness of this conduct, and Lord Tyrawley himself appeared at the bar. As the hearing was before the Committee, high words were avoided, which must have ensued had the Speaker, who was not wont to suffer disrespect to the House, been in the chair; for Lord Tyrawley made good by his behaviour all that had been taken for vapour before he appeared there. He treated the House with great freedom, their forms with still greater; and leaning on the bar (though he was allowed a chair), he browbeat Skinner his censor, who stood on his left hand, with such arrogant humour, that the very lawyers thought themselves outdone in their own style of worrying a culprit. He read his memorial, which was well drawn and somewhat softened, with great art and frankness, and assumed more merit to himself than he had been charged with blame. Such tough game tempted few hunters. Lord George was glad to wave the sport; and the House dismissed the affair with perfect satisfaction in the innocence of a man who dared to do wrong more than they dared to censure him.
Hitherto the King of Prussia had lain quiet. Suspicions had even been entertained that he was meditating or concluding a separate peace. At last a new subsidiary treaty was concluded with him, and Colonel Yorke was dispatched from the Hague to fix that essential man. Luckily, Kniphausen was on the road, with his assent to the treaty, before Yorke arrived; otherwise the vainglory of Lord Hardwicke could not have imagined a more impolitic step for his country or his son. Every attempt of our sending men of parts to circumvent him had succeeded ill. The King of Prussia was so far a little genius, that he dreaded trying himself against talents. For this reason, he used Legge and Sir Charles Williams in the most ungracious manner. Lord Hyndford, Mr. Villiers, and Mitchell, were the men that suited him—and had he known him, he would not have feared Yorke. But the King made Mitchell introduce him, would talk to him on no business, and entertained him with nothing but a panegyric on Mitchell.
The treaty was laid before the Houses, and approved. Lord Denbigh commended it, and said, he was glad the Elector of Hanover was included in it, that he might not desert the King of England. He entered a claim against any Hanoverian neutrality, and rejoiced that we had another General; censuring the Duke for the convention of Closter Seven. This unjust bitterness was received with marks of approbation by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Lincoln, and Lord Temple, and was ill retorted by Lord Sandwich. Lord Lyttelton spoke well, distinguishing between the two parts of the Administration, and too ridiculously ascribing whatever had been done well to the Duke of Newcastle. Lord Temple answered him with vehement abuse, and applied to him a passage out of Tully, which Lord Lyttelton had formerly inscribed on a temple at Stowe; the gentle conclusion of it was to call him “Hominem detestabilem, imbecillum, caducum.” Lord Lyttelton, as usual, replied with firmness, but with too little asperity, considering how unrelenting towards him was the malice of that faction.
The grant of money for the treaty was followed by the Ways and Means for the year. The new taxes were laid on houses and windows, and on places; a poor tribute to popularity offered by Legge.
The Bill for explaining and extending the Act of Habeas Corpus was now got into the House of Lords, where it produced a new scene, and showed how the feelings of men differ from their professions. The constitution, as settled at present, is in a King elected by the voice of the people, without any right of succession, in opposition to an arbitrary family, and tied down from acts of violence against the liberty of individuals by that peculiar fundamental law, the act of Habeas Corpus. The House of Lords is the next branch of the Legislature. It is composed of the ancient Peerage, who have expelled their ancient Kings for the innovations of the latter, and of modern Peers, created under the new establishment by the favour of the Prince, or selected from the sages of the Law for their integrity, wisdom, and knowledge of the true rights of their country. In this House, too, sit the Bishops, who cannot be too tender of those laws, which secure the exercise of their holy religion. In this House sit the Cavendishes and Russels, renowned for their vigorous defence of the Habeas Corpus; and with them the Duke of Newcastle, the ring-leader of the mob of Whigs on the accession of the present family. The third estate is the House of Commons.
Let us, before we pass to the discussion of the Bill, anticipate the behaviour of all these persons and bodies of men, all engaged by common interest and common honour to support the charter, for which they had violated other inferior ties; but almost all swayed by private and separate interests to abandon the cause. The King talked openly at his Levee against the Bill; and it was understood to be offensive to him to vote for the extension of it. He was King; he did not desire to reduce the prerogative lower than it had been delivered to him. The Lords were become so much more considerable than they had been before the Revolution, that they were in no danger from the Crown; and when they do not fear it, they will always be ready to uphold it. They look on themselves as distinct from the rest of the nation; and at best, leave the people to be taken care of by their representatives, the Commons. As jealous of, and as fond of their privileges, as the King of his prerogative, they are attentive to maintain them, and deem the rights of the people rather encroachments than a common interest. Added to this general description, they were, at the time I write of, a tame, subservient, incapable set of men, governed entirely by the Duke of Newcastle, and the two lawyers, Hardwicke and Mansfield. Those lawyers were instances of the discrimination that ought to be made between the spirit of the laws and the profession of them. Nobody better read in them, nobody more warm to enforce them, nobody less actuated by the essence of them. If either of them ever took the side of liberty, or the side of mildness, I am willing to be thought to asperse them. The conduct of the Prelates had for so many years been so uniformly supple, that no man expected anything from them but complaisance for the Court—and they deceived no man! The Hierarchy behaved so nobly in the reign of James the Second, and has behaved so poorly ever since, that they seem to know no medium between a mitre and a crown of martyrdom. If the clergy are not called to the latter, they never deviate from the pursuit of the former. One would think their motto was, Canterbury or Smithfield.
The heir of the house of Russel was silent, and at last acquiesced in rejection of the Bill. His compeer, the Duke of Devonshire, who did not love Murray, and who had set out with approving the Bill, became even an emissary to procure votes against it. He wrote to Lord Hertford, to press him to come to town and oppose it; and begged him, if he had any scruples, to come to him for the clearing of them. A Cavendish soliciting against the Habeas Corpus was a phenomenon; that Cavendish supposing himself qualified for a casuist was the height of burlesque. For the other Whig Duke, Newcastle, he was the most pardonable of all. There had not been an hour of his life that laid him under the least obligation of acting consistently. The House of Commons maintained their character.
If this survey appears severe, let the motives be considered and weighed. The Bill rejected was of the most national concern; if rejected conscientiously, the grounds were those of convenience preferred to those of immutable right—and with what arms do tyrants begin to combat liberty but with those of necessity and convenience? But in the present case I cannot allow conscience to the House of Lords. The House of Commons,[21] almost to a man, approved the Bill. Five hundred men are probably as conscientious as two hundred. But it was evidently an affair of faction; and was rejected in compliment to Lord Mansfield, to mark whom it had been designed, and to gratify the private pique and public authority of the family of Yorke, the head of which always considered what was the law, never on what grounds a law had been made.
On May 9th, the Bill was read by the Lords. Lord Hardwicke, after chicaning upon it, rather than attacking it openly, proposed to ask the opinions of the Judges. Lord Temple answered him with spirit, and reproached his Peers with being so long governed by one Law Lord, now by two. He read the strong introduction of the Earl of Devonshire to the conference with the Commons on the former Bill, and concluded with showing how improper it was to take the opinions of the Judges, which must be biassed, as the new Bill inflicted penalties on them if they refused the writ. This drew on more altercation between them, and much haughtiness from Lord Hardwicke, who urged that it was an improper time to press the Bill, when civil authority wanted the utmost support: an argument that suits the worst times and the worst Ministers; and never advanced with less truth, for no man living could say in what instance civil authority had wanted assistance. Lord Granville spoke for the Bill; but discovering afterwards how unwelcome it was at St. James’s, he attended it no more. Lord Mansfield opposed the Bill, and was seconded by the Duke of Newcastle, who, though approaching to seventy, still appeared in the full vigour of his nonsense.
Lord Chief Justice Willes, in the name of his brethren, desired time to consider the question till next term, as he himself was ill, and three of the order were obliged to attend for three days at the Old Bailey. But Lord Hardwicke, who the last year would have detained Admirals under sailing orders of the utmost consequence, affected to see danger in this delay, in which by the nature of the thing there could be no danger but in not giving it sufficient deliberation, and was urgent that the Judges should have but two days to consider the point: so little decency did that man observe in pursuing the dictates of his passions. But in this, as in the former case, the House, with all its complaisance, declined acquiescence, and allowed the Judges above a fortnight. It was not expected that Lord Hardwicke would have taken up the point so strongly, as Lord Mansfield, whom he did not love, was aimed at by the Bill; but Charles Yorke, his son, who resented that Pratt was preferred to him for Attorney-General, had declared against the Bill, even without consulting his father.
The calling upon the Judges for their solemn opinions was one of those dramatic exhibitions which had twice before been played off by the Ministry with success. No man supposed that Lord Hardwicke or Lord Mansfield wished, wanted, or would be directed by the sentiments of the rest, the subordinate part of the order: but the Bill was to be thrown out, and the world to be amused by the gravity of the oracles that were to pronounce against it. The plan, I believe, in this, as in the former cases, was Lord Mansfield’s. In his own and Stone’s affair, the decorum of the Cabinet Council had made prodigious impression. The Admirals, who were rather struck with awe than inspired it, had served to give a sort of colour to the fate of Mr. Byng—but in the present instance this decoration of the theatre did not terminate so advantageously. The Cabinet Council had said little, but it was with dignity: the Admirals less, but that was the very thing desired. When the Judges came, they were to talk, to talk on law, and to explain that law by jargon. The field was so spacious and so inviting, that they ran into all the subtleties, distinctions, chicaneries, and absurdities of their profession. They contradicted one another, and no two of them but differed on some particular case. They exposed themselves and their instigators, who at last could not build upon any decision of those sages.
They began with Noel, the youngest Judge, a pompous man, of little solidity. Wilmot, whose manner was like Lord Mansfield’s, and very rapid and full of fire, spoke warmly against the Bill, though the intimate friend of Pratt and Legge. So did Legge’s brother, the Judge, and Adams, another friend of Pratt. Wilmot and Noel differed in some points of not much moment. The former spoke with great applause, though too diffusely. Bathurst was strong against Wilmot; Smyth with him. Foster could not attend, being hindered by the illness of his wife; but he was zealous for the Bill, and published a large pamphlet in support of it. The rest were discordant and inconclusive; and so little was gained by the delivery of their opinions, that Lord Temple now pleaded for the Bill on the disagreement of the Judges; and moved a long question, the purport of which was, that an affidavit of confinement ought to be a probable cause for the Judges to grant the writ. Lord Lyttelton saying, that in any other place that question would be a defamatory libel on the Judges, Lord Temple started up and said, “This is impertinence I will not bear.”—This occasioned much confusion. Lord Lyttelton explained himself handsomely, saying he had applied words to words, not to persons: he was sorry if he had given offence; he had meant less offence to Lord Temple than to anybody: he revered the manes of their former friendship; he hoped the ashes were not extinguished past return. To all this Lord Temple said nothing; and when the House insisted on their giving their words that it should proceed no further, Lord Temple sullenly endeavoured to avoid it by shifting the asking of pardon on Lord Lyttelton. The latter engaged with frankness to drop it—always the most sensible way when words have passed in public, which are sure of being prevented from further discussion. Lord Lyttelton was known to want no spirit: Lord Temple had been miserably deficient.
The fate of the Bill, which could not be procured by the sanction of the Judges, Lord Mansfield was forced to take on himself. He spoke for two hours and half: his voice and manner, composed of harmonious solemnity, were the least graces of his speech. I am not averse to own that I never heard so much argument, so much sense, so much oratory united. His deviations into the abstruse minutiæ of the Law served but as a foil to the luminous parts of the oration. Perhaps it was the only speech that, in my time at least, had real effect; that is, convinced many persons. Nor did I ever know how true a votary I was to liberty till I found that I was not one of the number staggered by that speech. I took as many notes of it as I possibly could; and prolix as they would be, I would give them to the reader, if it would not be injustice to Lord Mansfield to curtail and mangle, as I should by the want of connexion, so beautiful a thread of argumentation.
Lord Temple made a feeble answer—yet the force of truth was still so great, that notwithstanding the visible operation of Lord Mansfield’s speech, they would not venture directly to reject the Bill. Lord Hardwicke agreed that all the Judges ought to have equal power in granting the writ, and said that he would move to order the Judges to bring in such a Bill against the next session. Lord Temple’s friends seemed glad to catch at this proposal; and the Bill was heard of no more![22]
The complexion of the rest of the year was military. Even the softest penetralia of the Court were threatened with storms. The Princess began to perceive an alteration in the ardour of Lord Bute, which grew less assiduous about her and increased towards her son. The Earl had attained such an ascendant over the Prince, that he became more remiss to the mother: and no doubt it was an easier function to lead the understanding of a youth, than to keep up to the spirit required by an experienced woman. The Prince even dropped hints against women interfering in politics. These clouds, however, did not burst; and the creatures of the Princess vindicated her from any breach with Lord Bute with as much earnestness as if their union had been to her honour.
The King of Prussia opened one of his ablest campaigns. The same enemies still crowded upon him, though much of their vigour was abated by the extraordinary efforts they had made to overwhelm him: yet obliging him to make head against so many Armies, his fall at last seemed inevitable. Sweden, involved in domestic broils, rather kept up his attention, and divided his forces, than hurt him actively. The unwieldy numbers of Muscovites again advanced. The Czarina, inflexible in resentments, which she did not attend enough to the operations of government to enforce properly, had thought herself betrayed. Apraxin was recalled; the great Chancellor Bestucheff, inclined to England, was disgraced, and new Generals commissioned to execute her vengeance. The Empress-Queen had drained her own and her husband’s dominions to collect a decisive force: yet the vivacity of the King of Prussia, instead of entrenching wholly on the defensive, though he disposed various Armies to keep the Russians at bay and to cover Saxony, led him to a hardy step: after besieging and taking Schweidnitz in thirteen days, he instantaneously appeared in Moravia, the short road to Vienna. Daun had thought him preparing to attack Bohemia, when, to his surprise, he heard the King had opened the siege of Olmutz. On this theatre the alert Monarch and the cautious Marshal displayed all the resources of their art, and by the opposition of their characters, and the balance of their talents, showed each other in every light that could create admiration.
But this is a theme, beyond my flight:—suffice it to say, that Daun repaired his oversight by cutting off the King’s convoys, and reducing him to raise the siege; and the King converted this check into new matter of glory, by suddenly starting from Daun, getting a march of two days, and piercing into Bohemia, where he made himself master of Konigsgratz, while Daun did not suspect that he had driven him from a siege to a conquest. In fact, it was not Daun alone that rescued Olmutz and saved Vienna: the Russians were pouring upon Brandenburgh, not more formidable by their designs than by their dreadful manner of executing them. Savage cruelty and devastation attended their march. They besieged Custrin with unspeakable fury, and reduced the brave Governor to defend a mountain of ashes and a few ruinous walls—the next step was Berlin. But I am advanced too far into the year, and must look back to other operations.
Mr. Pitt, no less enterprising than Frederick, but a little less informed, and a good deal less disposed to listen to information, determined to strike some mighty stroke on his part, that might combine his name with the glory of that King, and cement and justify their harmony. Unfortunately, his mind was not purged of its vision of Rochfort, and he again chose the coast of France for the scene of his romance. A strong fleet was equipped of eighteen ships of the line, thirteen frigates, three sloops, four fire-ships, and two bomb-ketches, and carrying an Army of fourteen thousand landmen and six thousand marines. The Duke of Marlborough, on whom Lord George Sackville could not avoid attending, was appointed General. Commodore Howe was destined to lead the Fleet: on which Sir Edward Hawke struck his flag; but being persuaded to resume it, accompanied Lord Anson, who took the command himself. The mode of volunteers, which the Duke had always discouraged, now revived: Sir James Lowther, master of 40,000l. a year, Lord Downe, Sir John Armitage, and others, embarked with the expedition. Lord Granby at the same time came into the service, and was appointed Colonel of the Blues; and George Townshend, now there was no more question of the Duke, returned to the Army, and was restored on the foot of his former rank. The armament sailed on the first of June. Lord Anson, with the larger ships, kept out at sea; Howe led the transports, which for some days were kept back by contrary winds, but anchored on the fifth in Cancalle-bay, near St. Maloes. The troops landed without opposition; when the Commanders (as in former expeditions) seeming dispatched, so scanty was their intelligence, to discover the coast of France, rather than to master it, soon perceived that the town was so strongly situated, and approachable only by a narrow causeway, that, after burning a parcel[23] of small vessels, they returned to their ships; and the French learned that they were not to be conquered by every Duke of Marlborough.
The Duke himself was personally brave, and was eager to land on the first possibility; but he had neither experience nor information, nor probability on his side adequate to such a bravado. However, it was well for him that his miscarriage happened under the auspices of Pitt, not of Fox. Here, it was said, his Grace and his troops remarked that Lord George Sackville was not among the first to court danger: and Howe, who never made friendship but at the mouth of a cannon, had conceived and expressed a strong aversion to him.[24] It is certain that both the Duke and Lord George were so sick of naval expeditions, that, after parading before Granvelle and Cherbourg, they returned with the Fleet to St. Helen’s, and set out for the Army in Germany, where the Duke took the command of the English forces. General Blighe had been fetched from Ireland on that intent, but was obliged to cede to the superior influence of Marlborough;[25] and more cruelly was appointed to resume the thread of our silly expeditions, from which Mr. Pitt and the mob still expected I don’t know what of glory. Blighe was an elderly man, of no talents, brave, but in every other shape unfit for the destined service, supposing there was such a thing as fitness for that service. The armament sailed again, and Prince Edward embarked with them: and that some utility might at least be pretended from this vain expense, Prince Ferdinand, to flatter Pitt, wrote letter after letter to declare the great benefits he reaped from our expeditions, by which the attention and troops of France were divided: an affirmation of so little truth, that the Duke of Marlborough, in the hurry of their retreat, having left his silver tea-spoons behind him, the Duc d’Aiguillon, politely to mark contempt, sent them home by a cartel-ship.
But Prince Ferdinand who thus complimented the English Ministry on the wisdom of these idle measures, showed it was not from want of knowing how to perform realities. Having pushed the French beyond the Rhine, he passed it himself at Herven in sight of their whole Army, and soon eclipsed the glory of that passage by defeating them at Crevelt, where they lost seven thousand men, and the Duc de Gisors, the only son of Marshal Belleisle, an amiable and accomplished young man. The King had Knyphausen thank the King of Prussia for giving him so able a General. The Princess Gouvernante wrote to Prince Ferdinand to complain of his passing over part of the territories of the States. He replied, “He was sorry; it had been over a very small part, and he should not have violated even that, had he had the same Dutch guides that led the French to Hanover in the preceding year.”
The French were commanded by the Count de Clermont, a Prince of the Blood of no estimation: their discipline was so bad, that two-and-fifty officers went to amuse themselves at Paris without leave of the Court. D’Etrées, their best General, had been recalled by the intrigues of Madame Pompadour and her faction, whose interest was displayed in a remarkable instance. At a meeting of the Marshals of France, D’Etrées complained of a libel written against him, which he produced. Maillebois, attached to the mistress, said, “It would be right for the honour of the corps to have it inquired into; and the more so, because he believed the charge was well-grounded, as he had been informed by his son, who wrote the pamphlet.” The declaration was frank: Maillebois was banished, and his son chastised but gently; and indemnification was soon procured for both.
The victory of Crevelt did not draw on the consequences that were expected. Contades, the fourth commander despatched into Germany by the fluctuating councils at Versailles, found employment for Prince Ferdinand without risking another battle; and the Duc de Broglio and the Prince de Soubise attacked and cut to pieces seven thousand Hessians under the Prince of Ysenberg; and would, it was feared, intercept the English troops under the Duke of Marlborough, who landed at Embden. This became more probable, as Monsieur Chevert formed a plan to burn one of Prince Ferdinand’s bridges and to seize his magazines, and cut off Baron Imhoff, who was posted to secure the passage of the Rhine. But Imhoff, who soon perceived his own desperate situation, destroyed this well-concerted scheme, which failed by its very approach to success; for Imhoff would not stay to be surrounded, but with his little force attacked Chevert (who commanded twelve thousand men) and dispersed them in less than half an hour, taking eleven pieces of cannon, their baggage, and a great number of prisoners. Chevert was one of the ablest officers in the French service; Imhoff, a man of so little capacity, that the talents of his life seemed to have been reserved for this sole occasion. The junction with the English was made, and Prince Ferdinand repassed the Rhine unmolested.