CHAPTER XIX.
Desultory Discussions on American and East Indian Affairs.—Debates on the Land Tax.—Defeat of the Ministers.—Conduct of Lord Chatham.—Offer made by the East India Company.—Motion for Papers.
When the Parliament met again on the 16th of January, nothing was ready to be presented for their discussion on the East India Company. Lord Chatham, on his journey from Bath, was, or pretended to be, seized with the gout, and returned thither. Whether ill or not, it was plain he had determined to give no directions, for he sent none. He corresponded with none of the Ministers; and they were not eager to anticipate his intentions. The Duke of Grafton was charmed to be idle, Conway was disgusted, Townshend delighted in the prospect of confusion; however, on the 21st Beckford laid before the House of Commons the papers he intended to employ against the Company. Townshend moved to have the consideration put off for some time, to which Beckford acquiesced.
On the 26th, the disposition of the troops in America being laid before the House, Grenville proposed that the Colonies should pay the regiments employed there. Beckford told him he was mad on the Stamp Act, and could think of nothing else: Charles Townshend ridiculed and exposed him infinitely on the same topic. Lord George Sackville blaming the disposition of the troops in that part of the world, Lord Granby told him the plan had been drawn by his own friend, General Amherst: the Court had a majority of 106 to 35. The next day, on the report, Grenville, dividing the House, had the mortification of being followed but by sixteen members, the Rockingham squadron declining union with him, and the Bedfords being kept back by the Duchess, still restless to return to Court.
On the 3rd of February the House of Lords decided a great cause in favour of the Dissenters against the City of London, who asserted a right of fining them for refusing to act as Sheriffs;[318] Lord Mansfield made another Whig oration.
It happened at this period that Mr. Conway, who talked of nothing but resigning, became in want of a secretary, William Burke quitting his service to follow his cousin Edmund into opposition. My surprise was very great when Mr. Conway declared his resolution of making David Hume, the historian, who had served his brother, Lord Hertford, in the same capacity at Paris, his secretary. This by no means wore the air of an intention to quit himself; Lord Hertford, I believe, had started the thought, and on tracing the scent, I found there had been some indirect negotiation between the King and Lord Hertford to engage Mr. Conway to be Prime Minister himself. Lord Hertford thought his brother not averse to the idea, though extremely weary of the Seals of Secretary. Himself told me that the King had asked him if Lord Chatham was not very tedious in Council, and had complained of the long speeches he made to him, as Mr. Grenville had been used to do. Conway, no doubt, at three or four different periods, might have been Minister; but though nobody was inwardly more hurt at superiors, he never had a settled ambition of being first, nor whenever we talked to him with that view, could he determine to yield to the temptation. I was pleased, however, with the designation of Hume, as it would give jealousy to the Rockinghams, who had not acted wisely in letting Burke detach himself from Mr. Conway; and I prevailed on Lady Hertford to write a second letter, more pressing than her Lord’s, to Mr. Hume to accept. The philosopher did not want much entreaty; but it was in vain that I laboured to preserve any harmony between Lord Chatham and Conway; the wildness of the former baffled all policy. On the 6th of February Beckford was again forced to put off the consideration of Indian affairs, and not a word was said against it; his warmest opponents waiting maliciously to see where this strange interlude would end. Lord Chatham at last announced, though he would not deign to send any answer to the letters or solicitations of the Ministry, that he would be in town on the 12th; Beckford, however, gave out that he had received a letter from him, which said the terms offered by the Company were inadmissible;—they were left to guess in what particulars. To Lord Bristol this mysterious Dictator was more condescending, and wrote to him that he would come, dead or alive—a notification the more ridiculous, as having at last quitted Bath, he was again seized with the gout, as he said, and confined himself to the inn at Marlborough, still inaccessible and invisible, though surrounded by a train of domestics that occupied the whole inn, and wore the appearance of a little Court. This was the more remarked, as on his setting out from Bath he had at first left most of his servants behind, and they declared that they expected him back.
The Opposition diverted themselves with the novelty of this scene, and levelled their chief attacks at Beckford, the substitute out of place, of a Minister who would do no business. Burke indirectly shot some of his arrows at Conway; and even out of the House some satires on the Administration, in which Conway was not spared, were strongly suspected to come from the same quarter, and were much resented by the latter.
On the 18th, on the North American extraordinaries, Beckford was very abusive on George Grenville. Rigby reproached Colonel Barré with his former attacks on Lord Chatham, and with not defending him now; and he taxed Charles Townshend with his subjection to Lord Chatham, which drew a fine oration from Townshend on his own situation and on that of America. Grenville proposed two addresses to the Crown, to call the garrisons nearer to the capitals of each colony, and to employ any money that should be obtained from the East India Company in America. These motions were rejected by 131 to 67.
On the 20th, Townshend again moved to put off the East Indian affair, as the Company were on the morrow to give an explanation of their former proposals. Rigby asked, with a sneer, if the next appointed hearing was to be definitive, and abused Beckford in gross terms.
In the Lords the Duke of Bedford moved, on the 25th, for all correspondence with our Governors in America. The Duke of Grafton promised they should have all they could want; but the Chancellor, sensible that the Duke had gone too far, endeavoured to qualify the promise, and added, that since the right of taxation (which himself had denied) had been voted by Parliament, the Government was obliged to support it.
The great majorities of the Court, notwithstanding the inactivity of the Ministers, did not dishearten the Opposition so much as that supineness encouraged them to attempt a capital stroke. It was conducted with the greatest secrecy, crowned with incredible success, confounded the Administration, produced not the smallest benefit to the successful contrivers, but occasioned the expedient of another measure, that gave a deep and lasting wound to the country: not to mention that the perpetrators themselves were sensible of the mischief they should do in the first instance.
The land-tax is the surest fund of revenue to the Government. It had usually been but two shillings in the pound. The war and the increase of the National Debt had mounted it to four shillings. Grenville, during his Administration, in confidence of his economic plans, and to lull the country gentlemen with fair promises, had dropped that the land-tax, he believed, might be reduced in the year 1767 to three shillings. If the country gentlemen expected that alleviation, nobody else did; nor could Grenville, had he remained Minister, have realized the hopes he had thrown out. But what he could not have effected himself, he was now glad of distressing the Ministers by proposing.[319] He and Rigby had artfully prepared a call of the House against the day of voting the land-tax, in order to bring to town the country Members, who would not only be favourable to the diminution, but must vote for it to please their electors, as the Parliament was near its dissolution. The Tories, too, though inclined to the Court, were become enemies to Lord Chatham, who, having lost them as soon as he lost his power, had treated them with much contempt in his speeches on the Stamp Act. He had now trusted to his majorities, or that the other Ministers would take care to secure them. But besides that the land-tax had usually passed as a matter of course, no care was taken to watch the House of Commons. Conway, in the last Administration, could not be induced to traffic with Members, though offended that none of them paid court to him; much less was he inclined now to support Lord Chatham’s measures by any indirect proceedings. The Duke of Grafton was cold and ungracious; and having offered to repair to Marlborough, and earnestly solicited permission to settle the East Indian business with Lord Chatham, had been peremptorily refused access.[320]
Under such a concurrence of untoward circumstances, Charles Townshend proposed the usual tax of four shillings on land, saying, that with other savings and with what might be obtained from the East India Company, Government would be enabled to pay off the four per cents; and pledging himself, that if he should remain Chancellor of the Exchequer another year, he would be for taking off one shilling from land. The Opposition was opened by Dowdeswell, who moved for only three shillings—a man who, having been so lately the active Minister of the finances, knew but too well how ill Government could afford to make the abatement.[321] That very consideration weighed with Lord Rockingham’s faction to join even their aversion, Grenville. Edmund Burke alone had the honesty to stay away rather than support so pernicious a measure. Sir Edmund Isham[322] and Sir Roger Newdigate,[323] half-converted Jacobites, declared, as representatives of the Tories, for the lesser sum, and the latter, to blacken Lord Chatham, made a panegyric on Sir Robert Walpole. They were answered extremely well by Lord North, who began to be talked of for Chancellor of the Exchequer. De Grey, Member for Norfolk, and brother of the Attorney-General, in a strange motley speech, in which he commended Grenville, abused the Administration, blamed and commended Lord Chatham, declared for the three shillings, and vented much invective on eastern and western governors, commissaries, and placemen, who, he and Sir Roger Newdigate said, thrust all the ancient families out of their estates. Beckford, though one of the Members for the City of London, on which the tax fell heaviest, yet said he would concur in what was necessary for the State. Lord Clare showed that all taxes fall ultimately on land, and that the measure of three shillings would be popular only with gentlemen of estates, would not ease labourers, farmers, artificers, and merchants. He spoke with encomium of Lord Chatham, who had first been represented as become insignificant by his peerage, now was reviled as sole Minister. Dr. Hay artfully took notice that Townshend had said he would propose some tax this year on America. Townshend explained, that it was to be done by degrees and on mature consideration; but the loss of the question of one shilling more on land hurried Townshend into new taxes on America, which not only were not well considered by himself or the House, but furnished those repeated occasions of disgust to America, or new pretences for disgust, which opened again the wounds that the repeal of the Stamp Act had closed, and reduced the mother-country to more humiliations, and even to employ the army in curbing their mutinous brethren—happy if either experiment be tried no farther than they have yet been at the end of 1769! Grenville made a great figure on this unhappy question, and, throwing off all reserve about Lord Chatham, remembered that the first year after the Peace, he had asked why one shilling in the pound was not taken off land?[324] He also detailed all the savings himself had made, and said, he would not answer Mr. Townshend, who had asked where any new tax could be laid, with the end of an old song, “Tell me, gentle shepherd, where?”[325] That quotation had been much applauded; himself should be hissed if he made such an answer; but it had always, he said, been Lord Chatham’s style: he would spend money, but left others to raise it. A fool could ruin an estate, a fool and a knave could ruin a nation. He was not gentle on Lord North, who had deserted him for the Court. Conway answered Grenville but indifferently; and Lord John Cavendish closed the debate with an affected point of honour, advising to lessen the tax now, lest, if delayed till the next session, the House should seem to court popularity at the eve of a general election. At past nine at night the House divided, and to the extreme surprise of both sides, (for the Opposition had not dared to flatter themselves with an idea of victory,) the four shillings in the pound were lost by 188 to 206.[326] The confidence of the Court had contributed to their defeat, several of their friends, not doubting of success, having voted against their inclination, to please their constituents. Lord Granby and Sir William Maynard[327] were almost the only members for counties, who had dared to risk their popularity by voting for the larger tax. Cooke, one of the representatives for Middlesex, though devoted to Lord Chatham, had thought he might venture to go against the Court. Thomas Pelham, with the white stick in his hand, was forced by the Duke of Newcastle, as Member for Sussex, to take the same part. Some of the Duke of Grafton’s young friends, not suspecting a contest, had gone out of town that very day: but the most offensive blow to the Crown was given by the Duke of York, who, though his establishment was on the point of being settled, allowed some of his own servants to fail the Court, Colonel St. John,[328] one of the grooms of his bedchamber, voting against it; and Cadogan,[329] his treasurer, attached to Grenville, and whose place of surveyor of Kensington Garden had newly been increased to 1000l. a year, absenting himself. Two years afterwards, this same man had the modesty to accept a still more lucrative employment.[330] Morton too, a Tory, in whose favour Lord Chatham had lately quashed an opposition at Abingdon, repaid the service with similar gratitude.
This was the first important question lost by the Crown since the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Pelham had been defeated in an inconsiderable tax on sugar by the treachery of Lord Granville. It was not less remarkable that the Crown, which had been able to muster 224 votes in favour of that crying grievance, General Warrants, found but 188 ready to support a tax so essential to Government, that it had been proved that unless means could be found to lessen the debt, the nation would be unable to engage in a new, however necessary, war. The Bank was ready to advance 500,000l. on the land-tax; but the weightier these arguments, the more obdurate the Opposition. Still they had no other satisfaction than in the perpetration of the mischief. No popularity ensued: the City, where the national interest was best understood, condemned such public disservice, and spread the cry of disapprobation. Many who had lent their voices to the Opposition, repented; and, what the latter alone felt with shame, the Court recovered its ascendant—a proof that surprise was the only weapon their antagonists could use to effect, and against which the Ministers were now put upon their guard. By Ministers I mean the substitutes and the alarmed friends of Lord Bute. Prone as he was to change and betray, he did not choose to be compelled to change, nor to be taken prisoner by Grenville and the Bedfords.
It was not impossible to have recovered the question by recommitting it on the report, but the Ministers did not think it prudent to venture. Charles Townshend spoke on it only to protest against the consequences of so destructive a resolution. Between Lord North and Rigby some wit passed that had no good humour for its foundation.
On the 2nd of March Lord Chatham arrived from Marlborough. Any man in his senses would have concluded, that, having felt the disastrous effects of his inactivity, he had hurried to town to endeavour to retrieve his influence in the House of Commons, and to apply himself to more vigorous measures. On the contrary, as if there was dignity in folly, and magic in perverseness, as if the way to govern mankind was to insult their understandings, his conduct was the very reverse of common sense, and made up of so much undissembled scorn of all the world, that his friends could not palliate it, nor his enemies be blamed for resolving it into madness. He was scarce lame, and even paraded through the town in a morning to take the air. Yet he neither went to the King, nor suffered the Ministers to come to him.[331] After much importunity he saw the Duke of Grafton once or twice, but would not permit the other Councillors to wait even in his antichamber. A Cabinet Council being summoned on the East Indian affair, nobody could prevail on Lord Chatham to let it be held at his house. His few intimates ascribed this ill-humour to his dissatisfaction with Conway and Townshend, who had declared they thought the Company had a right to their conquests. Lord Chatham vowed he would risk his situation on that question, and would defend it himself in the House of Lords. Townshend went so far as to be unwilling to dispute their right. Conway was inclined to let them apprehend its being questioned, that they might offer more largely to the necessities of Government. Lord Chatham, who, when obstinacy failed, knew not how to make himself obeyed, privately waived the point of right, but insisted on its not being told that he had relaxed. His menaces, however, had so much effect, that the directors offered to give up half their revenues and half their trade, with the right annexed. These last words were differently interpreted: some of the Cabinet thinking the directors meant to waive, others to save their right; and in that dilemma the Cabinet broke up in confusion, though it was easy to have asked the directors the meaning of their own words. Conway declared he would not undertake the conduct of that business, but would cede his province to any man that would; and the King telling Lord Hertford that he (his Majesty) must support Lord Chatham, Conway and Townshend declined going to the meetings that were held at the Duke of Grafton’s on that subject. They were private meetings of some of the leading men in the House of Commons, the stiffness of Lord Chatham having reduced him to seek for any men in the subordinate class who would carry on the business—a disgrace which, at the moment of having lost a capital question, seemed sufficient to blast his whole Administration. Conway had in vain pressed for these meetings for four months together. Now, when the question was within two days of appearing in the House, no determination was taken, and there was no Minister to carry it through. These difficulties were increased by a rage for stock-jobbing that had seized all ranks of men. It was more shameful, that above sixty members who were to sit in judgment on the Company, were known to be engaged in that dirty practice. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself was vehemently suspected of having caught the contagion.[332]
The day of expectation arrived at last, March the 6th—but ended in smoke. As Lord Chatham’s plan was to be content with nothing the Company could offer, that he might at last get the whole into his hands, or reduce them by force to cede a much larger portion of their revenues than he could expect they would offer till driven to that necessity, he had eagerly rejected the plan presented by them to the Treasury; and Beckford now, to obtain from the House disapprobation of those offers, moved to have all papers, that had passed between the Government and the Company for the last six months, laid before the House. This motion, which had the sanction of the Ministry, for it was seconded by Colonel Fitzroy, was not only disapproved of by the Opposition, (who treated it as a measure of delay in Beckford, during the ill-humour of his friend Lord Chatham, and as a matter nugatory, since the paper being only an offer from the Treasurer of the Company to the Treasury, it was not an act of the General Court, and could consequently be disavowed by the proprietors,) but was objected to by Charles Townshend too, as the measure was incomplete; questions, he said, being asked on the proposals, and answers still more obscure returned. And to show his dissatisfaction, he desired the House to consider him as a private Member of Parliament. Conway, with more decency, let it be perceived that he was not much better content; however, to disculpate his friend the Duke of Grafton, he said, the Duke had warned the directors that the paper would come before Parliament, nor would accept it till they allowed of that condition. His own opinion, he said, he would not declare. He understood the proposal as yet was neither rejected nor accepted. He wished not to see the paper in the House, till either rejected or accepted; lamented the step taken, but could not obstruct it. Charles Yorke vindicated the Company. Grenville, Burke, and Wedderburne treated Chatham and Beckford with scorn, and laboured to raise a spirit against the idea of force to be put on the Company, and to baffle any benefit being received by the Government. In the midst of the debate, the military and naval chiefs, by their posts members of the Cabinet, but with all their merits very incompetent judges of state affairs, and still worse qualified to engage in the subtleties of a Parliamentary discussion,—both, I say, Lord Granby and Sir Edward Hawke blabbed out the secret which the Ministers were veiling, and which even the treachery and loquacity of Townshend had not dared openly to disclose. Lord Granby told the House that the offers had been found inadmissible; and Sir Edward, to engage the House to send for the paper, declared that the majority of the Council had rejected it. These blunders defeated Lord Chatham’s view, which was to steal the disapprobation of the House, or at worst, should the House admit the proposal, he would stand disculpated to the public for having made no better a bargain. This unlucky truth divulged, drew much ridicule on the managers; and now the secret was out, the Opposition suffered the motion to pass without a negative.
The adversaries, however, had not so soon forgotten to what they had owed their late success; and having acquiesced in the printing of the papers, they flattered themselves the Ministers would the less expect an attack in that quarter. Accordingly, on the 9th, Jones,[333] an East Indian director, a tool of Lord Sandwich, presented a petition from the Company, by surprise, against printing their papers, pleading that it would disclose their secrets to their enemies. Townshend was absent, and the whole weight of the day fell on Conway, who extricated himself from so delicate a situation with the utmost ability. Allowing greatly, as was his nature, to candour, he called on the directors to point out particular papers that might be prejudicial to them, and which, he said, he should certainly be against printing. He disclaimed violence; but observed, as did others, that their papers told nothing more than was published every day in two occasional papers called The India Observer and The Examiner. Jones denying that the directors allowed the Duke of Grafton to lay their proposals before the House, and Grenville pleading that had he known that the other day, he would not have voted for the printing, Conway and Lord Granby both affirmed that the Duke had refused on any other condition to receive their proposal; and Jones, being pressed to answer why he had not contradicted their assertion on the last debate, had nothing to say but that they had never expressed in words allowance of exposing their paper, and that he had not ventured the other day to take on himself to make objections, but had stayed till he could consult his brethren. Grenville quoted the precedent of reversing the order for printing the American papers, and others; the danger of informing France and the Mogul of the state of the Company’s transactions: but it was showed how much more they must know, the first, by the publications of Scrafton[334] and others of the Company, the latter by his situation. Rigby attacked the Ministers on their disunion, which was finely turned by Conway against him, the complaints of the Opposition having run till now on a sole dictator. Elliot distinguished himself on the same subject; and, after a debate till nine at night, the Ministers disappointed the intended surprisal, and maintained their order for printing the papers by a majority of 180 to 147.
When thus triumphant, in spite of his own absurdities, and of the variations of Charles Townshend, who now spoke of himself as turned out, and who only spoke so because he thought himself secure of not being turned out, it was evident what Lord Chatham might have done, had he known how to make the most of his situation. He might have given firmness and almost tranquillity to his country; might have gone farther towards recruiting our finances than any reasonable man could have expected; and, in indulgence of his own lofty visions, might have placed himself in—at least have restored Great Britain to, a situation of reassuming that credit which he and chance had given her some years before. But, alas! his talents were inadequate to the task. The multiplication-table did not admit of being treated in epic, and Lord Chatham had but that one style. Whether really out of his senses, or conscious how much the mountebank had concurred to form the great man, he plunged deeper and deeper into retreat, and left the nation a prey to faction, and to the insufficient persons that he had chosen for his coadjutors. Once, and but once, he saw the King after having refused a visit from Conway, though commissioned by his Majesty to talk with him on Russian negotiations. On the state of America he would hear him as little, and would give no answer but the same he had on East Indian affairs, that it would find its way through the House. Conway protested he would not conduct it there, unless some plan was previously settled, and he knew what he was to support. With Townshend Conway had little less difficulty; the former sometimes pressing him to resign, sometimes threatening to resign and leave him alone; and at others reproaching him for not undertaking his defence when he thought himself the most obliquely hinted at: for Townshend, though as prone to draw reflections on himself as Conway was sedulous not to deserve them, was equally tender and jealous of criticism.
Though the chief business of the session turned on the great affair of what was to be gotten from the Company, yet as what was gotten, was at least peaceably obtained without violence or any Parliamentary decision on their rights; and as I avow myself extremely unversed in those and all other transactions of money and revenue, I shall, as much as I can, avoid details on that subject, both in favour of my own ignorance, and to avoid misleading the reader; the spirit of the times, and the characters of the men who gave colour to events, being almost my sole objects in these Memoirs. The reader has seen, and will see, through what a labyrinth of faction, self-interest, and misconduct we were led into such a chaos of difficulties, as God knows whether I shall live to see surmounted;[335] or whether I must not leave these pages a sad memorial of those errors whose consequences posterity may trace back to their several sources. If I pause a moment to make this reflection, it is because I think at this period Lord Chatham, by a wise and vigorous exertion of himself, might still have established some permanent system, with the support of the Crown and the Favourite, without too disgraceful dependence on the latter. I think so, because even the remnant of this system, when Lord Chatham was withdrawn, still maintained its superiority. That Lord Chatham might have done much more service nine months earlier, before his wanton defiance of the Rockingham party, and his other wild actions of passion and scorn, is past a doubt with me. It will appear at a period not much later, that had his successor and pupil not been endued with almost as great impracticability, and scarce less haughtiness, the distractions that followed had never happened. They indeed dated from a subsequent Parliament; but the seeds were sown in that complaisant and prostitute one of which I am speaking, and which yet, if well conducted, might have remedied many of the evils it had countenanced; but managed as it was, it left nothing but the dis-esteem it had raised to be copied by, and stigmatised in, the Parliament that succeeded.
On the 11th Dudley and Rouse, the chairman and deputy-chairman of the Company, appeared before the House, and declaring they thought that the printing of any of their papers, except the Charters and Firmans, might be prejudicial to their affairs, Conway candidly desired the House would retract the order for printing them, and it was agreed to: he having wished for a sight of all charters, Norton eagerly seized the proposal, Lord Mansfield—ever hostile to Lord Chatham—having discovered in one of the oldest charters that a power had been granted to the Company of making war, and the old Company had transferred all their rights to the new. Dempster, and the younger Burke, who had engaged deeply in India Stock, were the persons that gave the greatest opposition to the pursuits of the Ministers. Edmund Burke, too, assisted by the friendship of Lord Verney, trafficked in the same funds, and made a considerable fortune, most part of which he lost again afterwards by a new fluctuation in the same transactions,[336] and which probably produced, as will be seen, another revolution in the factions of these times. Sullivan, a leading personage in Indian affairs, sought by various proposals to get the negotiation into his own hands, but those subordinate intrigues are foreign to my purpose.