CHAPTER X.
Walpole’s Separation from his Party.—His Character of Mr. Conway.—Commencement of the Troubles with North America.—Death of the Duke of Cumberland.—His Character.—Negotiations with the Courts of Versailles and Madrid respecting the Fortifications at Dunkirk and the Ransom of the Manillas.
The dissolution of our Opposition now afforded me that opportunity of retreating from those who had composed it, for which I had so eagerly longed; nor was I dilatory in executing my resolution. Many new reasons concurred to make me adhere to the plan I had formed. It was against my opinion that my friends had accepted the Administration; and though I would not peremptorily advise Mr. Conway to decline taking part, when he told me he thought himself obliged in honour to obey the King’s and Duke’s commands, still I saw so much weakness both in the leaders and the numbers, that I entertained no hopes of the permanence of their power. Chiefs who could not conduct a party with sense, seemed little qualified to govern a nation. I had given notice, that if ever they attained power, I would have nothing farther to do with them. They had attained it now, but with so little prospect of maintaining their ground, that nothing was so probable as their being soon driven to opposition again. In that I was determined to engage with them no more. If I quitted them triumphant, they would have no right to call on me should they again be defeated by their own want of skill. I had fully satisfied my honour and my engagements, and had anybody cause to complain, it was myself—but I chose to part with them on good terms; nor would I, when I was really hurt, condescend to utter a reproach. This topic truth demands that I should explain. I had entered into opposition on the view of the violent measures, and still more violent designs of the Court. Personal dislike to the Bedford faction had inflamed my natural warmth, and the oppression exercised on Mr. Conway had fixed in me an unalterable desire of overturning that Administration. Not the smallest view of self-interest had entered into my imagination. On the contrary I risked an easy ample fortune with which I was thoroughly contented. When I found unjust power exerted to wrong me, I am not ashamed to say I flattered myself that, if ever our party was successful, I should obtain to have the payments of my place settled on some foundation that should not expose me to the caprice or wanton tyranny of every succeeding Minister; for court I was resolved to make to none, whether friend or foe,—a haughtiness I maintained throughout my life, never once condescending to go to the levee of any first Minister. My wish of making this independence perfectly easy I had hinted to Mr. Conway during our opposition. He received it with silence. It was not in my nature to repeat such a hint. As disinterestedness was my ruling passion, I did hope that on the change some considerable employment would be offered to me, which my vanity would have been gratified in refusing. It was mortifying enough to me, when Mr. Conway (for I have said that during the last negotiation I was confined in bed with the gout) reported to me the proposed arrangement of places, to find that my name had not been so much as mentioned. That I would take no place was well known,—I had frequently declared it. From the Duke of Cumberland, to whom I had never paid court; from the Duke of Newcastle, whom I had constantly ridiculed; from Lord Rockingham and the Cavendishes, whom I had treated with a very moderate share of regard; I had no reason to expect much attention: and though some notice is due to all men who are respected in a party, they were excusable in proposing nothing for me, when they found nothing demanded for me by my own intimate friend and near relation. He must be supposed to know my mind best: if he was silent, what called on them to be more solicitous for my interest? But what could excuse this neglect in Mr. Conway? For him I had sacrificed everything; for him I had been injured, oppressed, calumniated. The foundation of his own fortune, and almost every step of his fortune, he owed solely to me. How thoroughly soever he knew my sentiments, was a compliment at least not due to me. Whatever was due to me, much or little, he totally forgot it; and so far from once endeavouring to secure my independence, in his whole life after he never once mentioned it. I had too much spirit to remind him of it, though he has since frequently vaunted to me his own independence. Such failure of friendship, or to call it by its truer name, such insensibility, could not but shock a heart at once so tender and so proud as mine. His ensuing conduct completely opened my eyes. When I saw him eager and anxious to exalt his brother Hertford to the Vice-royalty of Ireland, and his brother-in-law Lorn to a regiment; and when he omitted no occasion of serving them and the Duke of Argyle[175] and Lord Frederick Campbell—all four, men who had abandoned him to persecution without a pang, I saw clearly into his nature. He thought it noble, he thought it would be fame, to pardon the neglect he had met with; and that the world would applaud his generous return of their ungenerous and interested behaviour. No glory would have accrued from his serving me, as it would have been natural and no more than was expected. His heart was so cold that it wanted all the beams of popular applause to kindle it into action. I had command enough of myself not to drop a word of reproach on a friendship so frozen; but, without murmur, and with my wonted cheerfulness, as soon as my strength was tolerably recruited, I declared my intention of making a visit to Lord Hertford, at Paris, before he quitted his embassy. I acted with the same unconcern to the whole party, for I would neither suffer them nor my enemies to know that I had any cause to be dissatisfied with Mr. Conway. When I scorned to open myself, even to him, it was not likely I should be more communicative to others. As disgust with my friends did not, as most commonly happens, reconcile me to my enemies, I foresaw that I might still have occasion to make use of my power with Mr. Conway to the annoyance of the latter; for though Mr. Conway had none of the warmth of friendship, yet he had more confidence in me, and knew he might have, than in any man living; and, notwithstanding the indifference I have described, he frequently trusted me afterwards with secrets that he reserved from his wife and his brother.
He no sooner discovered that my intention was to remain in France much longer than he expected, than he broke out into complaints, entreaties, and reproaches: and, as if he had satisfied all the duties of friendship, and I had violated them, he tried with angry words to divert me from my purpose; urged the occasion he should have for my advice, and called my retreat desertion of my friends. Satisfied with making him feel the want of me, and now hardened against the calls of friendship, I treated the matter lightly, civilly, and desultorily. I reminded him of the declaration I had often made of quitting the party as soon as they should be successful, which he could not deny; and, with a little mixture of conscious scorn, I said I knew the obligations the party had had to me; I knew none I had to them. Vexed, and his pride hurt, he employed Lady Ailesbury to tell me in his presence that he looked upon my behaviour as deserting him; and himself dropped many peevish accents. Fixed in the plan I had laid down to myself, nothing could provoke me to be serious; I carried off all with good humour; and, above owing to a retort of reproaches what I ought to have owed to his sentiments, I parted with him with such inflexible, and consequently mysterious, cheerfulness, that he knew not what interpretation to put on my behaviour—if he did guess, he was more blameable than I suspected. His insensibility had made me insensible; his ingratitude would have given me stronger sensations. But it is justice to him to say, that I think he was incapable of ingratitude: his soul was good, virtuous, sincere; but his temper was chill, his mind absent; and he was so accustomed to my suggesting to him whatever I thought it was right for him to do, that he had no notion of my concealing a thought from him; and as I had too much delicacy to mention even my own security, I am persuaded it never came into his conception. His temper hurt me, but I forgave his virtue, of which I am confident, and know it was superior to my own. We have continued to this day on an easy and confidential footing; but conscious that I would not again devote myself for him, I have taken strict care never to give him decisive advice, when it might lead him to a precipice. Before I set out, and as a mark that I meant no breach with him, at the same time to serve another friend, and to wear an air of interest with the Administration which might disguise my dissatisfaction, I desired Mr. Conway to raise Sir Horace Mann, the resident at Florence, to the rank of envoy; which was immediately done. The Bedfords, however, knew me enough to surmise that my retreat was the effect of some dislike I had conceived to the new system; and at my return to England, near eight months afterwards, officiously threw out civilities that might draw me to their connection. I soon let them see that whatever my dislikes were, nothing had happened to soften my conduct, or change my opinion of them and their principles. Nor was it much longer before they found that I had lost neither inclination nor power to bar their return to Court by the weight I retained with Mr. Conway.
I left England in August, and did not return till the April following. A very interesting scene passed in the interval, on which, as I was not an eye-witness, I shall be more brief than ordinary; but as I corresponded with Mr. Conway, was consulted by him, and received other information from very good authority, I shall set down nothing but what I know to be truth; and that will be sufficient not to leave any material break in the thread of my narration.
The new Ministers had scarce taken possession of their places, before they were alarmed with accounts of the mutinous behaviour of the Colonies, on the attempt to carry into execution the new Stamp Act. The Americans were determined not to submit to it; and great pains had been taken in order to bring about a general union of all the provinces, in order to oppose the admission of the tax. To all it was disagreeable; yet some Colonies accepted it. Virginia and New England were the most refractory, and precipitated themselves into great violences. In some parts, the ships that brought over the stamps were seized and the stamps burned. The officers of the new revenue were not suffered to land, or were cruelly treated, their houses forced and pillaged, and their persons menaced. The governors themselves were not secure, and trembled lest their few strongholds should be seized by the hand of rebellion. In the most mutinous towns there was no possibility of executing the Act. But the weapon with which the Colonies armed themselves to most advantage, was the refusal of paying the debts they owed to our merchants at home, for goods and wares exported to the American provinces. These debts involved the merchants of London, Liverpool, Manchester, and other great trading towns, in a common cause with the Americans, who forswore all traffic with us, unless the obnoxious Stamp Act was repealed. Nothing could be more delicate to the new Ministers than such a crisis. They themselves had opposed the Act. Should they enforce the execution, which could only be done by the sword, it would be tyrannizing against their consciences, and supporting a bad or weak act of their antagonists. They would risk lighting up a rebellion in the Colonies, would ruin the mutual intercourse and trade between the mother-country and the outlying provinces; would endanger those distant dominions flinging themselves into the arms of France or Spain, at least receiving succours thence; while they were threatened at the same time with insurrections in the trading towns at home, who loudly demanded a repeal of the bill, on which depended the payment of what was due to them, and the hopes of re-establishing so beneficial a commerce.
On the other hand, to repeal a revenue-bill, because it was distasted by those obnoxious to it, was setting a precedent of the most fatal complexion. What country, what town, what profession, what order of men, would submit to the most legal impositions, if Government once showed itself afraid, and recoiled, as soon as force was used to reject the duty? In the present case the insult was unparalleled and accompanied with every kind of aggravating circumstance. Not only payment of the duty was refused, but the very authority called in question by which it was enjoined. The Parliament of Great Britain, said the Colonists, had no right to impose internal taxes on them: they were not represented there; they would tax themselves. This was striking at the very vitals of the Constitution, for however the Colonies affected to distinguish between the King and the Parliament, the Act had been the act of the whole Legislature, and the Constitution knows not the King in a legislative capacity distinct from the two other branches of the Legislature. Here was disobedience to the law, and rebellion against the principle of all our laws. Nor was this speculative view the sole object to weigh in the decision the Ministers were to make. Should they embrace the measure of repeal, were they sure they could carry it? The Act had passed by a great majority in both Houses, and with the royal assent. Was it probable that such majorities could be induced to revoke their opinion in compliment to mutinous associations that flew in the face of their ordinance, and denied their authority? Was it likely that the King would approve of, or consent to, such diminution of his Majesty, before an attempt had been made to enforce it? When do princes bend but after a defeat? There could be no doubt but force would easily reduce the Colonies to obedience. They had no strongholds, were ill-armed, a disjointed body, not yet engaged in a common cause, nor so compact a corps as easily to be put in motion together; and from being distinct governments, habituated to different usages, and actuated by different interests, easily to be separated from a joint plan, and more likely to obstruct than to promote one general system of operations. To temporize in favour of resisting subjects would be speaking that language of Whiggism so distasteful to the Court, so dissonant from the tone of the present reign, and so much objected to the new Ministers during the late opposition. It would be opening a door to the flattery of their antagonists, who, instead of setting out by obstructing the measures of the Crown, would have an opportunity of paying their court at the expense of the Ministers themselves.
These were deep and weighty considerations, and, with this precipice on either hand, were young, artless, inexperienced men to date their career. Grenville, the parent of the Bill, and even fond of it beyond the love of a politician, was not a man to overlook so sudden a prospect of recovering the ground he had lost. Though he would have revelled in an opportunity of glutting his vengeance and enforcing obedience to his law, he could not but enjoy the distress to which the crisis reduced his adversaries. It suited his proud spirit to call for assertion of the Crown’s and Parliament’s dignity; and his revengeful spirit, to drive the Ministers on measures so repugnant to their principles and opinions, and, rather than not see the Colonies punished, he wished to have the punishment inflicted even by his adversaries. He toiled to obtain the most circumstantial evidence of the mutiny; he exaggerated every instance, and called aloud on the hand of power to vindicate the honour of the Legislature.
As the accounts from America grew every day worse, the Ministers, who at first were inclined to repeal the Act, were borne down by the flagrancy of the provocation. But being temperate men in themselves, fixed in their principles, forseeing not only more extensive but more immediate evils from violence, (for the danger from the clamours of the merchants and trading towns increased in proportion,) and possibly indignant at the attempts made by their antagonists to drive them to extremities, they coolly and firmly resolved to remove the grievance, rather than involve their country and outlying brethren in a series of calamities more destructive of the common good than the wound given to the authority of Government. Whoever will reflect on the state of the dangers they were to encounter, and which I have specified above, must own that their conduct was virtuous, honest, prudent, humane, and brave: it will be difficult, I believe, to discover that it could be interested.
This determination of the Ministers to attempt the repeal of the Stamp Act was putting their power to the test at once; and was the more adventurous, as they certainly had not taken any steps to secure the previous favour of the Crown. If on one hand they increased by this measure the animosity of Grenville and his party, and held out to him the means of making his cause common with that of the Legislature; on the other, they afforded an opportunity to Lord Bute and his faction of returning their hostilities, and of veiling his grievances under the mantle of the King’s and Parliament’s dignity. The Colonies, however pleased, could lend no support to their protectors, who, in truth, could stand on no ground at home, but on the popularity they had already acquired with the people, and should acquire with the mercantile part of the kingdom. In this exigence they lost the only real pillar of their Administration at Court.
Notwithstanding the services he had rendered, it is not probable that the Duke of Cumberland had made any progress in his Majesty’s or the Princess’s affections. He had driven out obnoxious Ministers, it is true, and furnished the King with a new set when no others would venture to enlist. But were not these new men more attached to his Royal Highness than to the person of the King? and had not the Duke promoted his own views in forming an Administration for his nephew? Had his Royal Highness interested himself to obtain any terms for the Favourite? Was not the latter in a manner proscribed by the friends of his Royal Highness? Had not the most select of those friends been as offensive to the Princess as the late Ministers themselves? Undoubtedly; and yet the personal character of his Royal Highness was in such estimation, his behaviour was so full of dignity, he was so attached to the Crown, and understood the Court so much better than the Ministers, and could dare to hazard language in the closet which their want of authority and favour forbad them to use, that he could have interposed in their behalf, or could have bent them to necessary submission to the Crown, which no other man in England was capable of doing. But of this mediator the Ministers were soon deprived.
On the 30th of October his Royal Highness was playing at picquet with General Hodgson.[176] He grew confused, and mistook the cards. The next day he was recovered enough to appear at Court; but after dinner was seized with a suffocation, and ordered the window to be opened. One of his valets-de-chambre, who was accustomed to bleed him, was called, and prepared to tie up his arm; but the Duke said, “It is too late!—it is all over!”—and expired.
I have spoken so much of his Royal Highness’s character in the beginning and in various parts of these Memoirs,[177] that little addition is necessary. His haughtiness and severity had made him most obnoxious in the early parts of his life. His profound understanding had taught him to profit of his mortifications; and though he never condescended to make himself amiable but to very few, he became as much respected, though deprived of power, as if his heroism had been victorious. Whether his good sense would have resisted prosperity with equal temper, I much doubt. He would have made a great King, but probably too great a King for so corrupt a Country. His indifference to death, which he had so long and so frequently had in prospect in the last years of his life, and which he seemed to invite, was, I believe, less owing to the solidity of his courage, which was intrepid, than to the unhappiness of his situation. His bodily infirmities,[178] though borne without complaint or impatience, were grievous. His mind had been more sensibly afflicted. Born with a martial spirit and fond of command, he had not only been unsuccessful in every battle, except that of Culloden; but had been forced by cruel circumstances from the favourite profession of his soul; in civil life he was kept, by the temper of his father and the aversion of the Princess Dowager, in a state of neglect and disgrace. Fox, who he had a right to expect should stickle for his power, had betrayed and abandoned him; Pitt had made it a point to bar him from all influence; and the two Pelhams, after leaning on him for a while, had sacrificed him to the Princess and to their own ambition or jealousy of credit. His mind had not been formed for idleness, and could ill digest an exclusion from all military and all civil councils; and was too lofty and too unpliant to feed on trifling amusements. It had the great, but none of the little, powers of philosophy; could bear misfortune, but could not compensate to itself for the want of its object. He used books rather than liked or valued them, and cared for none of the arts. His principles restrained him from going any considerable lengths against the Crown; nor could he stoop to bestow those caresses that are necessary to form extensive connections. He dealt his smiles to those who followed him, like a King that rewards, not like the head of a party, who has farther to go. The dignity of his conduct and behaviour gave his Court the air of a dethroned monarch’s, but had nothing of a Prince whom his nephew’s Court had suspected of having views on the Crown.
The King, at his Royal Highness’s request, had promised the first vacant garter to the Earl of Albemarle,[179] and now with great propriety bestowed on him that of his master. The Ministers, too, were assured by his Majesty that the Duke’s death should make no alteration in the present system.
In London, the Duke’s death was deeply felt; and when the orders for mourning were issued, which, according to usage, were as for an uncle, and regulated by the late shorter ceremonial, the middling and lower people almost universally went into the closet mourning with weepers, and wore it for the whole time that had been customary before the contraction enjoined in the late reign. An attempt was made for a subscription to raise a statue to his memory, but without success:[180] and the new area in Berkeley Square being destined for the place, Adam,[181] a Scotch architect, defeated the project, from the hatred which his nation bore to their conqueror, by proposing to erect a statue[182] of his Majesty on that very spot, a compliment his Majesty too willingly accepted, and which became ridiculous by the King himself being at the expense. The Duchess of Bedford, then at Bath, distinguished her animosity as absurdly, by wearing slighter mourning for the Duke than that prescribed by the Court.
The Administration was not without difficulties with regard to the Courts of Versailles and Madrid, who delayed to demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk, to liquidate the payment on the Canada Bills, and to settle the ransom of the Manillas. But though the new Ministers were more in earnest in their attempts to obtain all these ends than their predecessors had been, the ignominy of not obtaining them lay heavier on the latter. They it was who had sacrificed so much glory and advantage to the two Courts—at least all of them had concurred with Lord Bute in that paltry Peace; and when they had retained so small a portion of our conquests, and stipulated for such slight indemnifications, on them it lay to have secured at least the accomplishment of such poor terms. Indeed they had not dared to use a vigorous tone to either Court; for could the Ministers of Louis or Charles believe that those men would seriously undertake a war for trifles, who had sacrificed so much to purchase a Peace that they might have dictated? They accordingly had hoped that they should wheedle the two Courts to save them from the reproach of having accepted fallacious conditions, rather than attempted to call loudly for execution of the Treaty. The new Ministers had less to fear in speaking out. They had nothing to manage for their own sakes; and if the nation was not in a situation or a temper to go to war for the violation of the Peace, they were not answerable for the measures that had reduced us to such a state of timidity. It would be glorious to them to extort what the peacemakers had not dared to insist on; or baffled, the shame would lie at the door of their predecessors. Our Ministers, therefore, at Versailles and Madrid were ordered to make the demands with spirit. The Duke of Richmond, though he had concurred in the Peace, wanted no alacrity to enforce the terms of it. He had had little or no connection with the late Administration, had never been favourably looked on at Court, had no predilection for Lord Bute, and now entered with warmth into alliance with the Ministers. Though possessed of the Dukedom of Aubigné, he was far from having any partiality to France: and having naturally a high and national spirit, he was ready to hold as firm a language as the Administration could choose to authorize. In truth, his friends apprehended that he would be more likely to embroil the Courts than to relax in following his instructions. Yet young, inexperienced, and high-souled as he was, no man could conduct himself with more prudence and temper. Though he negotiated with obstinacy, he bore the flippancy and evasions of the Duc de Choiseul with admirable patience, neither betraying the honour of the Crown, nor exposing it to any unwarrantable contestations. In the short period of his embassy he performed an essential service by his resolution, quickness, industry, and perseverance. It is almost sufficient to say, that he settled one point of his negotiation and was unwelcome to that Court: a proof that he neither temporized too far, nor was over-reached by men of larger experience. On his way to Paris he passed purposely by Dunkirk. The Duke of Cumberland had disapproved of that visit. “My Lord,” said the Prince, “Dunkirk is not worth going to war for: if you do not visit it, you may say it is destroyed; you cannot after seeing it with your own eyes.” This implied that his Royal Highness was convinced France did not mean to destroy it. As I had arrived at Paris before the Duke of Richmond, I had learnt the desperate situation of their finances, and was witness to the disturbances occasioned to their Government by the active spirit of their Parliaments. I had written to Mr. Conway on these grounds, to advise their authorizing the Duke to talk big to the French Court, who, from the causes I have mentioned, were less in a situation than we were to recommence war. Mr. Conway heartily approved my views. The Duke had more doubts, but yielded to my reasons when he came over and found the soundness of my intelligence. The measure succeeded to my expectation. The Duc de Choiseul consented at last to settle the affair of the Canada Bills. Our merchants at home had blundered in their calculation, and asked less for themselves than they were entitled to. Sir John Lambert,[183] an English banker at Paris, pointed out the error to the Duke, who, with amazing quickness, himself discovered a method of obtaining, within twelve thousand pounds, a full indemnification for them. The French Court yielded to this new demand.[184] I persuaded the Duke to conclude the negotiation without any new transaction with our merchants at home, lest the readiness of the French should cool; and I urged him to ratify the agreement on the authority of three letters from Mr. Conway, who pressed to finish the bargain, and enjoined him to threaten the French Ministers that he (Conway) would represent it to Parliament, if they did not do us justice. The Duke doubted whether, having put the business into a new train, he could justify concluding it without again consulting the merchants. I persuaded him to despatch a courier to Mr. Conway, to say he would conclude, but not to specify in his public letter the error of the merchants, lest the Court of France should get intelligence, and repent of their facility.
With regard to Dunkirk, nothing was to be obtained. Choiseul told the Duke of Richmond that the late Ministers had not been so difficult. “But,” said the Duke, “before I came away, I saw in the Secretary’s office a strong letter to your Court on the subject of Dunkirk.” “True,” said Choiseul, “but it was not written till after Lord Halifax knew he was to be turned out.” This indiscretion flowed from Choiseul’s natural levity, not from any intention of hurting our late Ministers, whose fall he regretted, and on whose complaisance[185] he could better build than on men who had loudly condemned the Peace. Still was France not alarmed while Mr. Pitt remained without power. Their dread of him existed in all its force. To judge of it, one should have seen, as I did, the efficacy of his name to change their countenances and language. One day at dinner with the Duc de Praslin, when Mr. Pitt was accidentally mentioned, the Duc, with visible marks of alarm, asked if Mr. Pitt was coming into place again? And it is true that when any Frenchman gave a loose to their natural presumption before me, I had no occasion but to drop a careless hint that he was likely to be again employed, to strike silence through a whole company.[186]
One other point obtained by the new Ministers was a mutual exchange of envoys between England and Prussia, their first intercourse of communication since the war. Mitchell, destined for that embassy, was created a Knight of the Bath.[187] Count Malzahn came hither from Prussia.
November the 5th, Lord Camden, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, decided in that court the great cause between Wilkes and the Secretaries of State, in favour of the former.[188]
Terrick, Bishop of London, set himself to prosecute mass-houses, with what view I know not; for though noways blameable in his morals, zeal for religion by no means entered into the composition of the man. Ambition, creeping upwards by little intrigues, formed his whole character. Perhaps he thought this activity might be one step to the primacy. He had not much chance under the new dispensation.[189] The Duke of Newcastle, whose fears had surmounted his passion for the first rank in power, had told the King that he would content himself with making bishops in concert with the archbishop. Content or not, he had waived the Treasury, and Lord Rockingham, become First Minister by accepting it, was too fond of power not to engross all he could. It was a proof how old Newcastle was grown, when he bore this pre-eminence without jealousy or treachery.
Lord Rockingham had been advised, seeing the present Parliament had been chosen by Lord Bute, and recruited by Grenville, not to trust to it, but to dissolve, and call a new one; and that measure was for some time in deliberation. For his own interest he would have acted wisely, no doubt, in taking the advice; but he at last rejected the proposal, saying, that in so factious a time it would produce unheard of corruption. The sentiment was laudable, but neither faction nor corruption has decreased since that time.[190]