FOOTNOTES:
[21] Mr. Fox, who did not love Pratt, and paid court to Lord Mansfield, was one of the very few who gave negatives to the passing of the Bill.
[22] Till the year 1816, when this just and necessary measure passed with little notice, and no reference to the Judges.—E.
[23] The King said to Lord Waldegrave, “I never had any opinion of it; we shall brag of having burnt their ships, and they, of having driven us away.”
[24] They agreed so ill, that one day Lord George putting several questions to Howe, and receiving no answer, said, “Mr. Howe, don’t you hear me? I have asked you several questions.” Howe replied, “I don’t love questions.”
[25] The King would have hindered Lord George from going to Germany; but he preferred it to expeditions, and would go; and did, even without kissing the King’s hand.
[CHAPTER VI.]
History of Dr. Hensey—Election of a Pope—Cardinal Cavalchini excluded—Rezzonico elected—Taking of Cherbourg, and Cape Breton—Other Events in America—Disastrous Affair at St. Cas—The King of Prussia defeats the Russians at Custrin—Disputes with Holland—Assassination of the King of Portugal—Attributed to the Jesuits—The Court of Lisbon—Discovery of the Criminals—Their Punishment—The English Army in Germany—Prince Ferdinand and Lord George Sackville—Defeat of the King of Prussia at Hochkirchen—Meeting of Parliament—Addresses and Votes of Thanks—Army voted—Affair of Dr. Shebbeare—Pitt’s behaviour to Conway—Disgrace of Cardinal de Bernis—Character of the Author—His Impartiality.
During these operations, the Parliament of England rose; and nothing worth notice happened but the conviction of Dr. Hensey, a poor physician, who had been taken up in the preceding year for a treasonable correspondence. It appeared that he was a pensioner of France, who gave him but an hundred a year, and thought it too much; threatening, in answer to his repeated solicitations of invasion, that they would withdraw their allowance, unless he found means of giving them more material intelligence. The threat had such effect, that he gave them the first notice of the design on Rochfort. How he obtained it I know not; but his close connexion with D’Abreu, the Spanish Resident, whose physician he was, and who visited him often in prison, and obtained his pardon on the very morning that he was going to execution, made it probable that he was only a tool of that Minister, known to wish ill to England.
The election of a Pope drew a momentary attention to Rome, which did not use to be forgotten because Europe was embroiled. Benedict XIV. was dead. Thirty-four Cardinals wished to raise Cardinal Cavalchini to the Tiara: but he was disagreeable to the Court of France, which endeavoured to deal with the Holy Ghost in the more decent way of intrigue, to prevent his exaltation. Lanti, who had several benefices in France, was admonished not to vote for him; but Lanti was his intimate friend, and had the promise of being Secretary of State. France applied, too, to the Cardinal of York, on whom they had lately bestowed rich Abbeys: but his obstinacy always found out some virtue to justify itself; and when they pressed his father to dissuade him from voting for Cavalchini, young Stuart replied, “He had rather lose his head than violate his conscience.” For twenty-four hours, Cavalchini’s party was inflexible. The French Cardinals endeavoured to get the nomination put off till the arrival of the German Cardinal Roolt, who was supposed to have the secret of the Court of Vienna: but all was in vain. The declaration was fixed; when the Cardinal de Luynes, finding no temperate measures would have any effect, produced a formal exclusion of Cavalchini. It occasioned great amazement and disgust. Of late years, no such step had been practised. The friends of Cavalchini let him for one night enjoy the dream of empire: it was not till next morning that his friend Lanti went to his cell and announced the fatal veto. However he received the stroke in private, his public answer was sensible: he thanked the Court of France for saving him from the tremendous station of being God’s Vicar upon earth. The ostensible reason of his exclusion was his attachment to the King of Sardinia; the true one, his being devoted to the Jesuits. In the critical situation of religious affairs in France, it was not thought proper to throw the weight of the Court of Rome into the scale of those fathers, and to suffer at the head of the Church a man who had written strongly in favour of the canonization of Cardinal Bellarmine. It was said, that the same exclusion would have been urged against Cardinal Durini, had he appeared on the lists before Cavalchini. Durini’s crime was of a less public nature, but not a more remissible one: when Nuncio in France, he had refused to visit Madame Pompadour.
Rezzonico, a simple Venetian bigot, not at all less addicted to the Jesuits than Cavalchini, ascended the Papal Chair. The revolution of affairs was singular; the state of Venice had been on the point, just when the late Pope died, of incurring the penalty of excommunication for disobedience to the Holy See.
The English Fleet had again sailed from St. Helen’s to attack the French coast. Prince Edward went on board Mr. Howe’s ship, and General Blighe led the land forces. They soon anchored before Cherbourg, landed, and the next day without opposition entered the town. There they destroyed the bason formed at great expense, burned some small vessels, and brought away the brass cannon and mortars, which were reposed for some days in Hyde Park, to the high amusement of the populace, and then with equal ostentation drawn through the City and deposited at the Tower. But the news of a much more considerable conquest arrived at the same time: Cape Breton was again fallen under the power of England. Admiral Boscawen and General Amherst, with a Fleet of one hundred and fifty sail and fourteen thousand men, had appeared before Louisbourg on the 2nd of June, and by the end of July made themselves masters of the place, after destroying or taking five men-of-war that lay to cover it. The bravery of the English and the want of spirit in the French never appeared in greater opposition: the former making their attacks on spots which the French deemed impregnable, threw them into utter dismay; and dictated very quick and unjustifiable submission. Boscawen’s rough courage was fully known before; Amherst was a cool, sensible man, whose conduct, now first experienced in command, shone to great advantage; and the activity of spirit in Wolfe, who accompanied him, contributed signally to the reduction of the place. The colours taken there were carried with great parade to St. Paul’s.
The other operations in America were not equally successful. Lord Howe was killed in a skirmish, in which he gained the advantage, as the Army was marching against Ticonderoga; before which place Abercrombie was defeated with the loss of two thousand men, and from whence he made a precipitate retreat. Colonel Bradstreet, however, took Fort Frontenac; and General Forbes, Fort Duquesne. The French, indeed, behaved ill everywhere. The ambitious plans of their Government, their perfidious breach of treaties, and their airs of superiority, were not at all supported by genius in their Ministers, conduct in their officers, or bravery in their troops. The most remarkable advantage they obtained against us was in an affair, in which, though the bravery of our officers and troops was gallant and firm beyond expectation, yet there certainly appeared neither genius in the Ministers who directed, nor conduct in the Commanders who were entrusted with the execution—if I may use the term execution—of an affair, in which there was neither plan nor common sense. This was the unhappy action at St. Cas.
The Fleet, after leaving Cherbourg, hovered about the coast of France; and at last the troops were landed on the other side of St. Maloes, in the bay St. Lunaire. The new Lord Howe contented himself with setting them on shore; and the weather proving very tempestuous, he left them there, with directions to come to him at St. Cas by land. What he left them there to do, or why General Blighe suffered himself to be left there, no man living could ever tell or guess. The troops, as if landed on some new-discovered coast of America, roved about the country for some days, even without artillery, till they heard that the Duc d’Aiguillon, with a considerable force, was within a few miles. A retreat to the ships was immediately ordered. The French advanced, but keeping at a distance till their prey was sure. Our troops were to descend the rocks; among which they were no sooner embarrassed, than the French appeared on the rising grounds above them; and before the Grenadier Guards, who made the last stand to cover the embarkation, could get on board, the French fell on them in a hollow way, and made a dreadful slaughter. Yet the intrepidity of the soldiers and of the young officers of the Guards was displayed in the most heroic manner—but in vain: many of the latter fell. General Dury was shot, and fell into the sea. Sir John Armitage, a young volunteer of fortune, was lost, and several officers of quality and figure were made prisoners. The folly of this exploit, the inhumanity of exposing gallant men to carnage for no end imaginable but to satisfy the obstinate ostentation of a Minister, who was as much determined to do something as he was really determined to do well, was contrasted, with great severity, on our nation, by the tender attentions, politeness, and good-nature of the Duc d’Aiguillon, who spared his victims the moment he dared to spare, and comforted and relieved the prisoners and wounded, as if he had been their own Commander. Such was the conclusion of Mr. Pitt’s invasions of France, the idleness or fruitlessness of which took off from the judgment of his other attempts and successes; though, while this country exists in independence, not even his own ambition, which prompted his attempts, can detract from the merit of his undertaking, retrieving, re-establishing, the affairs of Britain.
General Blighe, the passive tool in this Quixotism, was the only sufferer after their return. He was so ill received, that he found it necessary to resign his regiment and government, and saw himself undone by being sent, when a veteran officer of Horse, to command a naval expedition. He had been actuated, during the course of these enterprises, by a young Lord Fitz-morrice and the adventurer Clarke, who diverted himself from the ships with the difficulties his comrades found in re-embarking. But he was on the point of falling under the punishment due to his arrogance: depending on his interest in the General, he had broken the arrest under which he had been put, for some misdemeanour, by Cunningham, his commanding officer; the same Cunningham, whose handsome behaviour at Minorca I have mentioned: at his return from thence he had been preferred by the Duke, who told him he had been misinformed of his character, and was sorry he had not sooner known his merit. At their return from St. Cas, Cunningham insisted on bringing Clarke before a Court-Martial. The Princess unwisely countenanced the latter, who had made himself odious to the Army, and who escaped; Cunningham being suddenly ordered on the expedition to Martinico and Guadaloupe, at the latter of which places he unfortunately died, when his services were in the fairest train of being rewarded.
We left the King of Prussia in apprehension of seeing his own dominions become the theatre of war. To detail his actions would destroy the idea of their rapidity. He had flown from the siege of Olmutz to invade Bohemia, attacking his enemies everywhere, while his Generals could scarce preserve themselves on the defensive. Dohna was watching the Russians rather than opposing them: Manteuffel could scarce make a firmer stand even against the Swedes. Prince Henry was threatened as he covered Dresden. The King, always present where the nearest danger pressed, appeared before the ruined walls of Custrin, gave battle to the Russians, and after a bloody contention from nine in the morning till seven at night, obliged that savage and undaunted people to retire. Above twenty thousand had fallen,[26] yet slaughter seemed to inspire them with fierceness rather than with dismay; when obliged at last to avoid a butchery which they had tempted rather than repelled, they retired in good order, and even claimed the honour of the day. The trifling loss suffered by the King’s troops, and the consequences of the victory, which delivered him from those barbarians for that campaign, contented a Prince who had been forced into a hero, and who knew that many such successes were necessary before he could lay aside the sword. He left Dohna to adjust the controversy of victory, and marched to the relief of his brother. He accomplished it by joining him, and Daun retired. The Swedes marched back with precipitation on the defeat of the Muscovites.
About this time we were on the point of a rupture with Holland. That country was sunk in power and reputation, laboured with debts and factions, was influenced by no genius, and had lost all military spirit. In such a situation, no wonder they were not desirous of again beholding the Armies of their neighbour King on the frontiers of Flanders; the only spot where those universal aspirers, the French, know how to shine. Animated by no zeal of a common cause, the Dutch, who were determined not to engage on our side, thought the second step of prudence was to profit of our calamities. The States winked commercially at supplies furnished by their merchants to the French colonies, and a little more than commercially, transported,[27] not only their commodities, but military stores. Our privateers, as apt to infringe treaties as the wisest Burgomaster, and who distinguished between friendship and enmity by no rule but that which constituted contraband goods, made very free with the ships of our friends employed by our enemies. Those friends complained with as little modesty as if they had acted like friends: we replied with firmness, and advised them to avoid giving provocation. They grew more violent, without growing more impartial. Their ships were condemned as legal captures. Their merchants presented remonstrance after remonstrance to the Princess Gouvernante, pressing her to proceed to more open declarations. She, who knew that clamour was not power but in its own country, told them she would not declare, unless they would augment their forces.
The Dutch endeavoured to draw Spain and Denmark, who had suffered in the same manner from the same causes, though in a less degree, into an association against what they called our piracies. The Princess was dying: it was apprehended that her death would let loose all the interested fury of the Dutch traders. The Duke of Newcastle ordered Mr. Yorke to make strong promises of satisfaction to Holland: this was without communicating with Mr. Pitt; who receiving duplicates of complaints, empowered Mr. Yorke to give assurances of much fainter complexion. Mr. Yorke answered, that was now too late; he had been commissioned to give, and had accordingly given encouragement to hope for fuller redress. Pitt, with becoming warmth, expostulated with Newcastle, and bade him get out of the scrape as he could. More of this dispute will appear hereafter.
While Europe was attending to the scenes of blood exhibited by most of its formidable powers, its attention was called off by an event very foreign to those struggles. An attempt of assassination was made on the person of the King of Portugal. One night, as he was returning in his chaise, with very few attendants, from an affair of gallantry, he was attacked and shot through the arm: the assassins thought their work completed. The King was not wounded mortally, and recovered in a few weeks. The Court’s ignorance of the murderers, and of the cause of the blow, prompted them to endeavour to conceal the fact. Their Ministers in foreign Courts were ordered to give out that the King had had a fall in his palace, had hurt his arm, and that during his incapacity of signing papers, the Queen would assume the reins of Government. A tale too ill-concerted, not to divulge the secret, supposing the assassination of a King could have remained a secret. Yet the notoriety of the fact led the public to no light into it. Revenge was undoubtedly the groundwork: but whether the revenge of an injured husband, of a dishonoured house, or of more holy murderers, all the curiosity of the public could not ascertain.
The lady, supposed in question, was of illustrious blood—yet, jealous and vindictive as Portuguese and Spaniards are, they seldom carry their delicacy of honour so high as to think the wound irreparable, if given by their Sovereign. But there was another order of men, on whose ideas the generality reasoned differently: an order not so scrupulous about receiving affronts, or of returning injuries, where more essential interests than their honour is concerned. These were the Jesuits: they had long assumed dominion over Paraguay, and had established an economy of government there, which, while it ensured their authority by endearing them to the governed, almost made amends, by the felicity they established among the people of that province, for the numberless mischiefs they have brought on other countries. In short, the Jesuits alone indemnified the Americans of that region for the loss of their liberty, and atoned for some of the cruelties exercised by European conquerors. But the good fathers were not content with dispensing blessings as proxies for others: the Paraguayans must own their sceptre as well as their beneficence.
I do not pretend to pierce the mysterious veil thrown over the transactions of that country, nor to assert the tale of their actually crowning one of their order. It is sufficient to say that the Court of Lisbon had entertained the strongest jealousy of their proceedings; had determined to break the charm by which they excluded their own Sovereign from interfering in his own domain; and had actually engaged that upright Pontiff, Benedict XIV., to discountenance their ambitious proceedings. The fathers even apprehended severe decrees from the Vatican. At that crisis the life of the King of Portugal was attempted—no wonder the Jesuits were suspected.
The Court of Lisbon, which in its confusion had formed so improbable a story to account for the disappearance of the King, did not act by any means, in its subsequent proceedings, with equal inconsideration. The consequences of this affair ran into the following year; but being totally unconnected with every transaction that I propose to relate, I shall throw the whole of this Portuguese history into this place. The first Minister was Carvalho,[28] a bold, politic man, who hated the Jesuits. For some months the Court observed a total silence: nobody was apprehended, no suspicion discovered. Till Carvalho had got a clue that led to the darkest recesses of the mystery, it was affected to forget or treat the whole as an accident of a private nature. How he wound himself into the secret I do not pretend to say: there were many accounts, probably mere conjectures: it is an anecdote never likely to be known. The first notification to the public that the conspiracy was discovered, was made by seizing at the same instant, at a ball, the whole families of Tavora and Aveiro, houses of the first rank and noblest birth in Portugal, and the chiefs of which were possessed of the greatest posts and employments about the King. To them, till assembled in the snare, the King wore a face of the most unsuspecting favour.
The Marchioness of Tavora was a woman of fierce and lofty spirit; one of the married young ladies, the person beloved by the King. And hence the whole dark plot was unravelled; and the two different conjectures of the public on the cause of the assassination appeared to have been both true, for they were combined together. The Jesuits had worked on the pride and jealousy of the injured husband and his house, till those rash noblemen thought to revenge themselves, while they only acted the revenge of the Jesuits. Enough was confessed to establish the guilt of both the one and the other. How far the plot was spread, and how far its views extended, perhaps the conspirators themselves knew not: whatever they discovered beyond their actual guilt, and the participation of the Jesuits, was locked up in the penetralia of the palace. The public learned enough in knowing the latter; perhaps too much in seeing the dreadful executions of several of the principal conspirators, and in not seeing some justice done on the most guilty, the instigators of the crime. The old Marchioness was beheaded, and died with as heroic spirit as if she suffered for her country. Her husband and son-in-law suffered the most exquisite torments. A hapless youth, her son, shared her fate, with others of his house. One of the actual assassins, a hired bravo, or servant, was put to extreme torture. All the Jesuits and their effects were seized, and their persons imprisoned, while leave was demanded from Rome to punish them in a more exemplary manner. But there the strong sense of Benedict was no longer on the throne—and an absolute Prince, wounded by the practices of priests, did not dare to proceed to extremities. The dress of religion guarded men, the more guilty for violating the duties of their profession. As the Pope’s permission to inflict capital punishments could not be obtained, the Court of Lisbon took upon itself to embark the whole order of Jesuits, and sent them to Rome to the patron of their crimes; reserving only a few of the most guilty, whose fate is still a secret.[29]
I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of the manifesto issued by the Court on the detection of the conspiracy. The spirit of despotic government never defined itself with so much truth, or with less modesty, than in that singular piece: I say nothing of the ridiculous bombast in which it is clothed; but the following maxims of an arbitrary Court ought to be inscribed in our seats of Legislature and of Law, by the side of the humane rules of our Government, that we might know how justly to value the one, and avoid whatever tends to approach it to the other. “Whereas,” says the Portuguese manifesto, “all presumptions of the law are held for so many every way unquestionable truths, and for so many full and uncontrovertible proofs, and lay the person who has them against him, under the incumbency of producing other contrary proofs of such strength and efficacy, as may conclusively destroy them, &c.;” and the next paragraph adds, “Whereas, the law presumes, that he who has been once bad, will be always bad in crimes of the same species with that he has already committed, &c.” Could one imagine that two assertions, so repugnant to all ideas of justice, were produced as instances of condescension and moderation? and yet, in the beginning of the first of these paragraphs, it is maintained, that the presumptions of the law, which condemn the ringleaders or heads of the said conspiracy to be punished thereby with all the rigours of the law, would amply suffice, without the proofs which the Court had obtained. Are Lisbon and London so distant as these notions, and our establishment of juries, and the methods by which the latter are bound to proceed?
While our Army in Germany lay on the defensive, the fatal distempers incident to a camp raged there, and in particular carried off the Duke of Marlborough. The command of the English devolved on Lord George Sackville, between whom and Prince Ferdinand there was by no means any cordiality. Both liked to govern, neither was disposed to be governed. Prince Ferdinand had gained an ascendant over the Duke of Marlborough, and Lord George had lost it; sufficient groundwork for their enmity. Lord Granby, the next in rank to Lord George, was an honest, open-hearted young man, of undaunted spirit, and no capacity; and if he wanted any other recommendation to Prince Ferdinand besides these ductile qualities, he drank as profusely as a German. Lord George’s haughtiness lost this young man, as he had the Duke of Marlborough; Prince Ferdinand knew better how to bend in order to domineer.
In the mean time the King of Prussia, who had performed such shining actions in this campaign, was again reminded by Marshal Daun, that the solid glory of generalship, if not the brilliancy, might be disputed with him. As the King lay in the strong camp of Bautzen, extending to Hochkirchen, covering, as he thought, Misnia, Lusatia, and Brandenburgh, preserving a communication with his brother, and at hand to throw succours into Silesia, Daun, marching in the dead of the night, surprised his right wing, and the first notice of the attack was given in the heart of the Prussian camp. There fell Marshal Keith; and Prince Francis of Brunswick, mounting his horse on the first alarm, lost his head by a cannon ball. In this critical moment the King possessed himself, that is, coolness and ardour: he flew to the thick of the contest, and after leading on his troops four times to the most desperate service, retreated in good order. He lost 7000 men, but scarce any ground or reputation. Surprised in the night, he behaved with as much conduct as if he had made the assault, and retired from the conflict as if only from a disappointment. Twice now had he been defeated by Marshal Daun; both times he appeared greater from his activity and resources. It was still more extraordinary when, after his loss at Hochkirchen, he acted in the style of conqueror. He prevented Daun from penetrating into Silesia, and hastened into that province himself, where Neiss and Cosel were besieged by the Austrian Generals Harsch and Deville. On the King’s approach, both sieges were instantly raised. Daun, the check and illustrator of Frederick’s glory, who, by beating the King, had only precipitated his succour of his own dominions, had no choice left, but to attack Dresden. He led a great army to besiege it, but Schmettau, the Governor, having burned the suburbs and retired into the city, before Daun could begin any regular operations against the place, the King of Prussia was returned from his successes in Silesia, and concluded the campaign with obliging his conqueror to abandon Dresden. After this the several Armies went into winter quarters.
Nov. 23rd the Parliament met. Pitt opened the business of the session with art, seeming to avoid all ostentation of power, while he assumed everything to himself but the disposition of the money. That load he left on the Treasury, and vast, he said, it would be: heaps of millions must be raised,—thus affecting to heighten rather than disguise the expense and the difficulties of our situation; we could not make the same war as the French, or as our ancestors did, for the same money. He painted the distress of France, and coloured high what had been done by ourselves. He called on any who disapproved the measures taken or taking, to speak out, to discuss them, or to propose others then; not to lie in wait in hopes of distresses, and then find fault; though, for himself, he hoped he should never be judged by events. If there were any secret Austrians in the House, instead of dispersing pamphlets, he invited them to speak out. This was particularly levelled at Doddington, who had just published severe reflections on Pitt and the Prussian cause, in a piece called, “Examination of a Letter, attributed to General Blighe.” The Addresses of both Houses were couched in strong terms of panegyric. Prince Ferdinand was commended by name; and Sir Richard Grosvenor, a young converted Tory, who seconded the Address, called Mr. Pitt a blazing star. Other thanks were moved and voted to Admiral Boscawen and General Amherst, for the conquest of Cape Breton, of which Sir John Philips said, he hoped no Ministry would ever rob us. Beckford re-echoed this, and spoke on the superiority we had now attained: all the Duke of Marlborough’s battles had given us no real superiority. Pitt replied, it was too early to decide on what we would or would not restore. The Duke of Marlborough had acquired superiority; the peace of Utrecht gave it away. And then (whether equity or flattery dictated the declaration) he protested, that at the peace he would not give up an iota of our Allies for any British consideration. This, it was pretended, was to satisfy the Landgrave of Hesse, who was afraid of being abandoned. The Duke of Newcastle had early presented an Address from the University of Cambridge, in which that reverend body were by no means penurious of compliments on the Hanoverian victory. It was even resented at Court that the city of London had been more reserved—so much were times changed! a few years before, it was thought lucky if the city did not pass some censure even on success, if it came from that quarter. The victory of Dettingen had been stigmatised as an escape. The prisoners now brought from Louisburg raised the numbers of that nation captive here to twenty-four thousand; and the King of France, to increase the burthen of our expense, withdrew his allowance to them. Admiral Osborn, too, received the thanks of the Commons, for the activity with which he had guarded the Mediterranean, and by preventing succours, contributed to the conquest of Cape Breton. He was a man of singular modesty and bravery, and had lost an eye by the palsy during the hardship of his service; but being allied to Admiral Byng, not the least notice was taken of him by the King.
An army of near 95,000 British troops, and near 7000 foreigners, were voted, and above twelve millions of money raised for the service of the ensuing year; an enormous sum to be furnished by a country no larger than and so indebted as England, but exceeded by the great benefits to which it contributed. I mention these things in gross, and very cursorily; they will be found at large in all our common histories. Were I master of them, I should touch on them with reluctance. The system of money, the great engine on which all modern affairs turn, is become of so complicated a nature, and labours with such ungracious intricacies, that no beauties of style, scarce any clearness of expression, can reconcile it to a reader of common indolence. How such systems would have perplexed the elegance of Roman or Greek historians! what eloquent periods could they have formed, encumbered with three per-cents, discounts, premiums, South-sea annuities, and East India bonds!
Nov. 28th, Dr. Shebbear, author of several letters to the people of England, having been tried for many treasonable expressions in the sixth of them, was sentenced by the King’s Bench to stand in the pillory, to be imprisoned for three years, and then to find security of 1000l. for his good behaviour for seven years following—the latter part of the sentence importing in effect perpetual imprisonment, for both the fortune and character of the man were at the lowest ebb. Though he had been the most open champion of the Jacobite cause, though his libel tended to point out the mischiefs entailed on this country by union with Hanover,[30] and though the bitterest parts of the work were a satire on King William and King George the First, his venom by no means flowed from principle. He had long declared that he would write himself into a place or the pillory, the latter of which proved his fate, as Mr. Pelham, the purchaser of opponents, was dead, and as Shebbear’s pen, though not without force, could not find the way to be hired by the Duke of Newcastle. The most remarkable part of this trial was the Chief Justice Mansfield laying down for law, that satires even on dead Kings were punishable. Whatever obsolete statutes may pronounce, can any thing be more foreign to the genius of English constitution, nay, to the practice even of arbitrary countries? Why are tyrants sacred, when once dead? Adieu! veracity and history, if the King’s Bench is to appreciate your expressions! If the dead are not to be censured, it is only pronouncing history a libel, and the annals of Britain shall grow as civil things as the sermons at St. James’s.
It was a misfortune that Shebbear had gone such enormous lengths, that the warmest friends to the liberty of the press could scarce lament the handle taken to restrain its licentiousness. On the 5th of December the man stood in the pillory, having a footman holding an umbrella to keep off the rain. The mob received him with three huzzas: he had had the confidence to disperse printed bills, inviting the friends of the liberty of the press and of old England to be at Charing Cross by twelve o’clock of that day, to see the British champion. Colonel Robert Brudenel, a hot-headed and foolish young officer, threatened the sheriff for the indulgence allowed to Shebbear, and the King’s Bench afterwards actually punished him. Insignificant as the man, and scandalous as his cause was, such periods are often critical to liberty. The Court victorious, the Minister popular, an arbitrary magistrate, a worthless criminal, officers undiscerning and ready to act any violence when their master is affronted—how little was wanted to roll the machine of Power to any eminence!
The miscarriages at St. Maloes and St. Cas, and the slender advantages accruing even from success at Cherbourg, had a little opened Mr. Pitt’s eyes. He could not help seeing that the slaughter at St. Cas was not very preferable to the bloodless return from Rochfort. He recollected that Conway had offered to be as rash as Blighe, though having at the same time thrown judgment into his plan. If Blighe was punished for exposing his troops, and Mordaunt and Conway for bringing back theirs in safety, the implication was that Mr. Pitt would pardon nothing but victory. These or some such reflections made him change his behaviour to Conway. Both the brothers being in waiting at Kensington, Pitt took Lord Hertford aside, and told him he knew the nicety of the subject on which he was going to speak; that a new expedition being projected to the West Indies, and Hobson appointed to the command, he (Pitt) desired to explain to his Lordship, that no opposition from him had prevented Mr. Conway from being employed on it, as the latter had so earnestly solicited to be. The case had stood thus: one day finding the Duke of Newcastle, Marshal Ligonier, and the King’s Ministers, consulting who should command the expedition, he (Pitt) had said, “Perhaps my presence lays you under difficulties, but I object to nobody; pray consider who is most proper, and I shall be for him.” That he then retired to the other end of the room, while a list was formed of Conway, Cornwallis, Lord Albemarle, Hobson, and Moyston, which Lord Ligonier immediately carried to the King, who chose Hobson. Pitt added to Lord Hertford, “He was sorry things had gone so far; he now thought of Mr. Conway as he had done formerly, though he could not give up his private opinion about Rochfort, yet he should be concerned if Mr. Conway was not employed.”
On these overtures Conway visited Pitt, neglecting nothing that might procure him to be sent on action. He was soon after commissioned to settle with the French a cartel for the exchange of prisoners, put upon the staff, and the following summer commanded in the lines at Chatham—but it went no farther: Pitt, unapt to forget or to forgive, seemed to have made these acknowledgments and reparations to his own character, not to Conway’s; and while Pitt would lend no hand to restore him to service, the Duke of Newcastle, supposing Conway more attached to the Duke of Cumberland than to him, was glad to keep him down, and to let the obstructions be imputed to Pitt. It was natural they should: Pitt took on himself the province of war and foreign operations: the whole domestic he left to Newcastle, and, except from foreign Ministers, would receive neither visits nor court. He lived in the same recluse manner as when a valetudinary patriot, indulging his own unsociable humour, and acquiring popularity, while he kept off friends and attachments. Yet some symptoms now and then appeared of deeper designs. Munchausen having presented an ample bill of extraordinaries for forage, &c., Pitt affected to be much offended at its exorbitance, said the whole should be laid before the House, and the members should be summoned to examine and consider the estimates. On this pretence he sent circular letters to the Tories, whom the Treasury never used to invite to any parliamentary attendance. Nothing could be more artful than this step. Pitt knew himself not agreeable to the Whigs, the whole body of which were cantoned out in attachments to the Dukes of Newcastle, Devonshire, and Bedford, and to Fox. The Scotch were devoted to Argyle, or looked up to Lord Bute. The Tories had no leader. This summons captivated them, and at the same time tied up their civil gratitude from exercising any rigour on the Hanoverian accounts. Nay, whatever was demanded, was granted or allowed with such inconsiderate facility, that Lord Mansfield, to stigmatise Pitt’s measures and profusion, and the Parliament’s condescension, called it The South-sea year.
At the end of the year died Lord Arran, an inoffensive old man, the last male of the illustrious House of Ormond. He was Chancellor of Oxford, and much respected by the Jacobites, who had scarce any partizans left in whom they might venerate even a noble name. Sir George Lee died at the same time.
In France happened a sudden revolution, as soon forgotten as it had been unforeseen. The Cardinal de Bernis was the new Prime Minister. He had an easy talent for trifling poetry; it was his whole merit and his whole fortune. Madame Pompadour was pleased with some of his incense offered to her, and first sent him to Venice, then to the Hague, where he distinguished himself by an intriguing vivacity. These qualifications and his attachment to her seemed solid enough to the mistress to fit the Abbé-Comte de Bernis for the government of France, where even these superficial talents were not outshined, so exhausted in that country was the vein of genius. Bernis was made a Cardinal, and amassed benefices to the amount of 14,000l. a year; but was scarce settled in that exalted station before he received a lettre de cachet as he was going to bed, ordering him to retire to his Bishopric by ten the next morning. The cause of this rapid fall was imputed to his own folly. He who had scrupled to receive no benefits from the mistress, nay, whose flatteries had obtained the greatest, and whose conscience had stooped to owe to her interest the first dignity in the church, grew at once conscientiously ungrateful, and arrogantly absurd, refusing to wait on her in her apartment, and to communicate in the dignity of the purple with a woman of so unsanctimonious a character. The world laughed at his impertinent pretences, and she punished them. Lord Granville, hearing the swift progress of this meteor, said, “Soh! his ministry has been almost as short as mine!”
At this stage I shall make a pause in my work, uncertain whether ever to be resumed, though I am rather inclined to prolong it to the conclusion of the war. I warn my readers, however, not to expect as much intelligence and information in any subsequent pages of these Memoirs as may have appeared in the preceding. During the former period I lived in the centre of business, was intimately connected with many of the chief actors, was eager in politics, indefatigable in heaping up knowledge and materials for my work. Now, detached from those busy scenes, with many political connexions dropped or dissolved, indifferent to events, and indolent, I shall have fewer opportunities of informing myself of others. And here perhaps it may not be improper, or unwelcome to the reader, if I say some words on the author of these Memoirs: the frankness of the manner will prove it flows from no vain glory; yet to take off all such appearance, and to avoid a nauseous egotism, I shall make use of the third person.
Horace Walpole, without the least tincture of ambition, had a propensity to faction, and looked on the mischief of civil disturbances as a lively amusement. Indignation at the persecution raised against his father, and prejudices contracted by himself, conspired with his natural impetuosity of temper to nourish this passion. But coming into the world when the world was growing weary of faction, and some of the objects dying or being removed, against whom his warmth had been principally directed, maturity of reason and sparks of virtue extinguished this culpable ardour. Balanced for a few years between right and wrong, happily for him virtue preponderated early enough to leave him some merit in the option. Arts, books, painting, architecture, antiquities, and those amiable employments of a tranquil life, to which in the warmest of his political hours he had been fondly addicted, assumed an entire empire over him. The circumstances too of the times contributed to make him withdraw from the scene of business. With Newcastle he had determined never to connect: Fox’s behaviour on the case of Mr. Byng had rooted out his esteem, and the coldness discovered by Fox on Walpole’s refusing to concur in all his politics, had in a manner dissolved their friendship. Of Pitt he retained the best opinion; but the wanton exposure of so many lives at the affair of St. Cas, and in those other visionary attempts on the coast of France, had painted Pitt on his mind as a man whose thirst of glory was inconsistent with humanity; and being himself strongly tinctured with tenderness, he avoided any further intercourse with a Minister, who was Great with so little reluctance.
Thus without disgrace, disappointment, or personal disgust, Walpole, at the age of forty-one,[31] abandoned the theatre of affairs; and retaining neither resentment to warp, nor friendship to bias him, he thinks himself qualified to give some account of transactions, which few men have known better, and of which scarce any can speak with equal impartiality. He has not falsified a circumstance to load any man; he has not denied a wrong act to excuse himself. Yet lest even this unreserve should not be thought sufficient, lest some secret motive should be supposed to have influenced his opinions, at least his narrative, he will lay open to the reader his nearest sentiments. Severity in some of the characters will be the most striking objection. His dislike to a few persons probably sharpened his eyes to their faults, but he hopes never blinded him to their virtues—lest it should have done, especially in so inflammable a nature, he admonishes the reader of his greatest prejudices, as far as they could have risen from any provocation. From the Duke of Cumberland, Mr. Pelham, and Lord Hardwicke, he had received trifling offence. To the two last he avows he had strong aversion. From Mr. Fox, as I have said, he had felt coldness and ingratitude. By his uncle and the Duke of Devonshire he had been injured—by the former basely betrayed; yet of none of these has he omitted to speak with praise when he could find occasion. Of Lord Hardwicke had he known a virtue, he would have told it: for now, when his passions are subsided, when affection and veneration for truth and justice preponderate above all other considerations, would he sacrifice the integrity of these Memoirs, his favourite labour, to a little revenge that he shall never taste? No; let his narration be measured by this standard, and it will be found that the unamiableness of the characters he blames imprinted those dislikes, as well as private distaste to some of them. The King, the Duke of Newcastle, and others, who do not appear in these writings with any signal advantage, never gave him the most distant cause of dissatisfaction.
How far his own character may have concurred towards forming his opinions may be calculated from the following picture, impartial as far as a man can know himself.
Walpole had a warm conception, vehement attachments, strong aversions; with an apparent contradiction in his temper—for he had numerous caprices, and invincible perseverance. His principles tended to republicanism, but without any of its austerity; his love of faction was unmixed with any aspiring. He had great sense of honour, but not great enough, for he had too much weakness to resist doing wrong, though too much sensibility not to feel it in others. He had a great measure of pride, equally apt to resent neglect, and scorning to stoop to any meanness or flattery. A boundless friend; a bitter, but a placable enemy. His humour was satiric, though accompanied with a most compassionate heart. Indiscreet and abandoned to his passions, it seemed as if he despised or could bear no constraint; yet this want of government of himself was the more blameable, as nobody had greater command of resolution whenever he made a point of it. This appeared in his person: naturally very delicate, and educated with too fond a tenderness, by unrelaxed temperance and braving all inclemency of weathers, he formed and enjoyed the finest and unabated health. One virtue he possessed in a singular degree—disinterestedness and contempt of money—if one may call that a virtue, which really was a passion. In short, such was his promptness to dislike superiors, such his humanity to inferiors, that, considering how few men are of so firm a texture as not to be influenced by their situation, he thinks, if he may be allowed to judge of himself, that had either extreme of fortune been his lot, he should have made a good prince, but not a very honest slave.
Finished Oct. 27, 1759.