CHAPTER XVI.
Mr. Pitt proposes to Conway to remain in the Ministry.—Quarrel with Lord Temple.—Townshend Chancellor of the Exchequer.—Rockingham displaced to make way for Grafton.—Resignation of Lord John Cavendish.—Lord Rockingham affronts Pitt.—Unpopularity of the new Lord Chatham.—Changes and Preferments.—Foreign Policy.—Disturbed State of the Country.—Chatham’s Interview with Walpole.
On the 11th Mr. Pitt arrived; and on the 13th Mr. Conway came to me, and told me Mr. Pitt had been with him, had shown much frankness, and had offered him the Seals again, and the lead in the House of Commons, for he himself could not attend there. The King, Mr. Pitt said, had sent for Lord Temple; and he himself must offer him the Treasury, but protested it was without knowing whether he would accept it. Of Mr. Grenville it was delicate for him to speak; but if Mr. Conway would not conduct the House of Commons, Mr. Grenville must, though that would be subject to great difficulties. He intended something for Mr. Mackenzie when occasion should offer; thought Lord Bute had been too much proscribed, but would ever resist his having power. Changes he wished could be made without changes. The foundation of the present Ministry he hoped would remain; but he must take care of Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, Lord Bristol, and Colonel Barré. Of Lord Rockingham he thought meanly, but was sorry to displace him. Sorry, too, for the Duke of Richmond; would he take an embassy? Mr. Conway said, No. Pitt replied, he did not desire an immediate answer; he knew Mr. Conway would have difficulties. Conway avowed he had the greatest, though two months before he should have laughed at any man that had supposed he could have any. He should now prefer returning to the military; but would consult his friends.
The same moment that told me Mr. Conway’s acceptance would be an exclusion of George Grenville, decided my opinion; and the Duke of Richmond coming in at that instant, we related what had passed, and I frankly told the Duke, that I could not hesitate on pressing Mr. Conway to accept, when I knew it would be shutting the door against George Grenville. The Duke heard my opinion with concern; and with great decency to Conway, rather started objections than urged him to decline. It would break the party; Mr. Pitt, as well as Lord Bute, had always aimed at dividing all parties. Could Mr. Conway quit the Cavendishes? I told his Grace, that if Mr. Pitt did not remain in the House of Commons, which he seemed disposed to quit, Mr. Conway would be the Minister. The latter I was sure would not go into opposition. His excluding Grenville would exclude Lord Temple. Lord Hertford arrived: and desiring for his own sake, that Mr. Conway should go on as much as I desired it, from enmity to Grenville, and Conway himself inclining to go on, he easily acceded to our opinion. But in honour of the Duke of Richmond, I must add, that he was so satisfied with my plain dealing, however vexed at the event, that he neither then, nor ever after,[264] changed his countenance towards me or confidence; and was the only man I ever knew, whose friendship difference in party had no power to shake. As he was the sole person of that party for whom I had any friendship myself, I pressed Mr. Conway to ask for the Duke a promise of the Garter and of the Blue Guards; but that measure was defeated by the warmth of the heads of the party, provoked by the neglect Pitt showed them; though in truth, they were forward enough in inviting his resentment, by pressing all their friends to resign, even if Lord Temple should come in without Grenville.
On the 14th arrived Lord Temple, who, at Mr. Pitt’s earnest desire, had been sent for by the King. Mr. Pitt, who always acted like a Minister retired or retiring from power, rather than as an all-puissant, or new Minister, had begun to refine on his former conduct: and had already commenced that extraordinary scene of seclusion of himself, which he afterwards carried to an excess that passed, and no wonder, for a long access of phrenzy. It was given out that he had a fever, and he retired to Hampstead, whither Lord Temple went and saw him the day of his arrival. The next day Lord Temple had an audience of the King. On the 16th he was with Mr. Pitt till seven in the evening, dined, and took the air with him, when such high words passed, that the coachman overheard their warmth, and Mr. Pitt was so much agitated that his fever increased, and he would see nobody, not even the Duke of Grafton, whom he had sent for to town, but whom he had informed by message that he would take no step without acquainting his Grace.[265]
On the 17th Lord Temple again saw the King, made extravagant demands, which were peremptorily refused, and immediately went out of town.
The detail was, that Mr. Pitt had pressed the King to send for him; but said that was all he asked. When he and Lord Temple met, the latter insisted on bringing in his brother George; Mr. Pitt would not hear of it. Lord Temple then demanded that Lord Lyttelton should be President of the Council: nor that would Mr. Pitt grant: nor, in truth, did Lord Temple propose any conditions in earnest after the negative put upon his brother. Then, indeed, as provision for loading Mr. Pitt, Lord Temple asked him what he intended to do about Mr. Mackenzie and Lord Northumberland. He replied, Considerably. This was of a piece with what Lord Temple had lately done. In a pamphlet published by Almon, to abuse the Ministry, and called “The History of the late Minority,” it was declared that Lord Temple’s refusal of coming in with Mr. Pitt in the preceding year, had been grounded on the terms Mr. Pitt had been willing to grant to Lord Northumberland. As that refusal fully justified Mr. Pitt from not calling Lord Temple again, it was strange refinement or delicacy to invite a new quarrel by a new summons, especially as it was evident that he did not mean to grant any one facility that could tempt Lord Temple to accept.[266]
Fortunate it was, that Lord Temple did not overreach him by accepting. It was not less fortunate that he remained out of place, a check on Lord Bute, and a sure source of clamour against arbitrary measures, while discontented himself.[267] Yet Lord Temple did not act without art. Though the King saw, from the first five minutes of their conversation, that he did not mean to accept the Treasury, yet he and his brother had persuaded the Bedfords that he intended it, and that he would bring them in; and extremely were they disappointed when they heard the negotiation was at an end; but it had answered the purpose of his laying them under obligation to his intentions, especially as he endeavoured to make them believe that he had broken with Mr. Pitt for refusing to make him[268] Secretary of State; but the Bedfords, who could get over real obligations, were not men to be much enchained by fictitious intentions.[269]
Mr. Conway laboured to make some accommodation between Mr. Pitt and the fallen Ministers; and to engage the former to try at softening the ill-humour of the latter, who were great and respectable men, and whose assistance he would want. Pitt was cold and mysterious; said it would be impertinent in him to inform any of them that they were to be dismissed; it must come from his Majesty in the ordinary way of office. He should go to the King on the morrow; nothing was yet settled; he should begin with the great outlines. The Army and Law, he thought, should be left to the King. Lord Granby was very high; but if his Majesty preferred Lord Albemarle, he should not oppose it. Charles Yorke he should leave Attorney-General, unless the King disliked him.
The same day Mr. Pitt wrote to Charles Townshend in this haughty and laconic style:—“Sir, you are of too great a magnitude not to be in a responsible place: I intend to propose you to the King to-morrow for Chancellor of the Exchequer, and must desire to have your answer to-night by nine o’clock.” Unprecedented as this method was of imposing an office of such confidence in so ungracious a manner (for it was ordering Townshend to accept 2700l. a year in lieu of 7000l., and intimated that, accepting or refusing, he must quit the post of Paymaster), yet it was singularly well adapted to the man. It was telling him that no other man in England was so fit for that difficult employment; and it was telling him at the same time that though his great abilities rendered him an useful servant, the lightness of his character made those talents not formidable in an enemy.
Pitt had judged rightly. Townshend did not dare to fling both offices in his face: but, without being incensed or flattered, fell into the most ridiculous distress imaginable. All he felt was the menace, and the loss of the Paymaster’s place; and instead of concealing the affront or his own anxiety, he sat at home in his night-gown, received all that came, showed Pitt’s mandate to them, and commented on it, despatched messengers for his brother and the Duke of Grafton, who were out of town; and as the time lapsed, ran to the window on every coach that passed, to see if they were arrived. At last he determined on suing for leave to remain Paymaster, to which Pitt listened. Then with his usual fluctuation, Townshend repented of not accepting the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, so leading a situation in the House of Commons, and begged he might have it. Pitt replied, The place was full, being then inclined to retain Mr. Dowdeswell. Townshend renewed his supplication with tears; but for some time Pitt was firm. At length he yielded to the Duke of Grafton’s intercession; and that very day Townshend told the King that Mr. Pitt had again pressed and persuaded him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer—with such silly duplicity did he attain a rank which he might have carried from all competitors, had his mind borne any proportion to the vastness of his capacity. Pitt diverted himself with these inconsistencies, and suffered him to be his Chancellor.[270]
But now Pitt’s own mind, as unballasted by judgment as Townshend’s, though expressing itself in loftier irregularities, disclosed to Grafton and Conway his plan of Administration. He told them he meant to make the present Administration the groundwork of his own, and meditated few changes; that Lord Camden[271] was to be Chancellor, and Lord Northington President: that he had asked the King what his Majesty desired for Mackenzie. The King had answered, Restoration, but without power in Scotland; to which he had consented. Something for Lord Northumberland—but he might wait. Lord Bristol was to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, when Lord Hertford should be weary of it. The Duke of Grafton was to be placed at the head of the Treasury, with Dowdeswell (on Townshend’s refusal) for Chancellor of the Exchequer: Lord Shelburne and Mr. Conway, Secretaries of State; Colonel Barré and James Grenville, Vice-Treasurers of Ireland; Lord George Sackville to be turned out. At last he acquainted them that himself was to be Privy Seal and a peer.
Two words are sufficient comments on so ill-conceived and ill-digested a plan. It was founded on a set of men whose chiefs he disgusted and displaced, without having obtained, without having even asked the consent or sounded the acquiescence of those who were to remain, and whose passions he had left to be worked upon by their several leaders: and, as if forgetting that the sole foundation of his own authority lay in his ascendant in the House of Commons, and in his popularity, he abandoned the one and risked the other; vainly presuming that he could dictate from the House of Peers, where he had no interest, and which required far different oratory from that in which his strength lay. Some argument, much decency, and great art are requisite to lull and lead Lords. The House of Commons, too, was so accustomed to see the Minister himself at their head, as not to be easily conducted by his substitutes. It was quitting the field to Grenville and every rising genius. Even his own Chancellor of the Exchequer, when not under his own lash, was almost sure to run riot. Two such capital errors in the outset, could not but embarrass his measures: they did; and yet smaller errors had greater consequences.
The outlines of the plan were no sooner public than they gave the highest offence to those whom it most imported Mr. Pitt to keep in humour. The King owned to Mr. Conway that he much disliked Lord Shelburne. The Ministerial Whigs, or party of the late Ministers, were enraged. Rockingham was indignant at being displaced for Grafton, and Richmond for Shelburne; and was the more hurt that Mr. Conway suffered this preference. He complained to me of Conway with much anger. I said, “I could not allow Mr. Conway to be blamed, in order to disculpate myself. I did profess I had advised him, as his Grace knew, to accept Mr. Pitt’s offers. He had accepted them before any mention had been made of Shelburne; and grievous as it was to him, could he break on it with Mr. Pitt, after being the cause that the latter had broken with both his brothers, Temple and Grenville? Mr. Conway had wished to resign with his friend the Duke of Grafton; yet had stayed in at the request of the whole party, as they could not go on without him. Could they blame him for staying in now, when the Duke of Grafton returned to Administration?” The Duke replied, “The Duke of Grafton had treated Mr. Conway ill; and that his obligations were to the House of Cavendish.” I said, “My Lord, was the 5000l. bequeathed to him by the late Duke of Devonshire to be a retaining fee to make him a servant to that family?” The Duke asked, why Mr. Pitt did not turn out any of Lord Bute’s friends? Why only friends of the late Ministers? I said, “Not one had been or would be turned out for Lord Bute’s friends: that no man of half the importance of Mr. Pitt had ever brought so few dependents; he had proposed but four of any consequence, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, and Lord Bristol; and even the last he waived for a time. That himself declared he acceded to the present Administration, not they to him; and that he brought not a single man along with him, that had not voted with them all the last winter. That Mr. Conway was influenced by measures, not by men; yet these were both Whig men and Whig measures. Oppose the first arbitrary measure, my Lord, you and your friends, and you will be in the right; but hitherto of what can you complain? Three weeks ago you declared you could not meet the opening of the next Session. The Administration has now got the most creditable accession and strength, and will not accept it:” at last I said, “Desire Mr. Conway, my Lord, not to accept, and I will answer he will not.” “No,” said the Duke, with his usual goodness of heart, “I will not do that.” “Then,” said I, “my Lord, your Grace and your friends will reduce Mr. Conway to this; he will be disgusted with your ill-treatment, he will ask for his regiment again, and retire, and never enter the House of Commons more; and then what becomes of your party?” The Duke was infinitely struck with this; and though for a few days he could not conceal his dissatisfaction from Conway on the latter’s yielding to let him be removed for Shelburne, his friendly heart surmounted his chagrin, and he wrote a letter to Conway acknowledging that he had been in the wrong, and renewing their amity.
In truth, I suffered as much as the Duke in being forced to argue against him, when my heart was on his side. But nothing could have justified Conway in flying off after Pitt had sacrificed Grenville to him, and all other views of support. Every public consideration concurred to excite my endeavours, that Pitt and the late Administration should not separate. They were honest, and he inflamed with the love of national glory. All they wanted was activity and authority; he was proper to confer both. If he lost them, he must hang on Bute, or revert to his brothers and the Bedfords. He and the late Ministers were popular; all other sets were odious from past experience of their actions.
In vain did I labour to preserve so salutary an union. My evil genius, Lord John Cavendish, came across me; and though I had the private satisfaction of letting him see whose influence with Mr. Conway was the greater; it did not compensate for the mischief he did by inflaming the party against Pitt. To engage by his example to set Pitt at defiance, Lord John resigned his seat at the Treasury; and lest he should be too much in the right by resenting the ill-treatment of his friends, he sent his resignation to the Duke of Grafton in a letter, in which he told the Duke that he supposed his Grace did not desire to see a Cavendish at that board. Nothing could be more unfounded or unjust than this insinuation. Grafton had ever lived in the utmost harmony with that family, and Lord John was his particular friend. There was no intention of removing one of their relations; and the Duke had, above all, reckoned on Lord John for his associate in the Treasury. Yet the latter affected to beg nobody to resign—after firing the signal. He carried this dissimulation so far as to beg me, who felt the blow he had let fall on Conway, to do my utmost that Lord Dartmouth and Mr. Dowdeswell might be pacified, or they would both resign: and he concluded his exhortation with great professions to the Duke of Grafton, who, he said, had always distinguished him from the time he was at school. I said, “I was sorry, but did not see what I could do: that they would drive Mr. Pitt to Lord Bute, or to his brothers and the Bedfords.” “No,” he replied, “it might drive Mr. Pitt himself away, which would make confusion, and confusion did no harm in times of peace.” “That confusion,” said I, “would unite Lord Bute and the Bedfords.” “Oh!” said he, “then we should have impeachments.”
Slight as our hopes were now of working any good on the party, Mr. Conway was urgent with Pitt to show them some civilities, and represented how much they were exasperated by his obstinate silence and coldness. Pitt said, he heard so, but could not believe it: all would come right again. Conway implored him to speak to them, or to empower him to soothe them. He was inflexible: said, the King did all. When done, he would go to Lord Rockingham; but would promise no further. Conway spoke of the Duke of Portland,[272] who, as nearly related to the Cavendishes, must be disposed to quit, and therefore required the more attention; and, as the last argument, stated the cruelty of his own situation. Nothing could move him. He replied coldly, If Portland should resign, he would be replaced by a man taken from no exceptionable quarter. This looked like no unwillingness to disgust; and though this absurdity of trampling on the greatest subjects, and even on those men on whose support he must lean, or leave himself at the mercy of the Court, was not abhorrent from Pitt’s character notwithstanding the inconveniencies it had often drawn on him; yet I have suspected that at the time in question, he might have studied or received intimations of the King’s inclination to get rid of some particular men. The Cavendishes had long been particularly obnoxious, had personally affronted the Princess on the Bill of Regency, and had been the chief obstructors of any approach to Lord Bute. The Duke of Portland, though his mother[273] was the intimate friend of Lady Bute, had wantonly piqued himself on enmity to the Favourite; and by local and county[274] circumstances was the declared rival in the North of Sir James Lowther,[275] the Favourite’s son-in-law. To these motives was added in Pitt a desire of making room for Lord Bristol; and an incidental offer to himself of support from another quarter contributed to augment his indifference to the consequences of the party’s anger.
It happened that the Bedford squadron did not give credit to the fair report Lord Temple had made of his zeal for their service. Their hopes had been raised, and seeing a door open, they were not willing to be excluded by an equivocal obligation. Lord Tavistock[276] acquainted the Duke of Grafton, that his father disclaimed the Grenvilles, and would be ready to assist his Grace on no other conditions than places for Lord Gower, Rigby, and Vernon,[277] the Duchess’s brother-in-law. This was making so capital a breach in that connection on such moderate terms, that averse as I was to the Bedfords, I wished to see it closed with before they should be apprized of the ill-blood between Pitt and the late Ministers. But if the offer swelled Pitt’s haughtiness, it did not operate much on the prudence of his measures. He at once slighted the overture, and continued his obstinacy of making no overtures to the discontented. It seemed a contest between them which should be most in the wrong. Lord Rockingham and his friends professed that they would yet be contented with civilities. Lord Frederick and Lord John Cavendish both sounded this high; and the latter, at my house, pressed Mr. Conway so much to obtain some notice of them from Mr. Pitt, that he went that very evening to the latter, and did at last prevail with him to visit Lord Rockingham. Mr. Pitt went the next morning, and was admitted into the house, but was met by a servant, who said, his Lord desired to be excused from seeing him. Thus had they forced Mr. Conway to draw in Mr. Pitt to receive an affront; and from that day the wound was incurable.
On the 30th of the month Mr. Pitt kissed hands for the Privy Seal, and the Earldom of Chatham; Grafton, Camden, Northington, and Charles Townshend for the places I have mentioned. Lord Howe was restored to his post of Treasurer of the Navy; Barré and James Grenville were made Vice-Treasurers of Ireland; and Lord George Sackville was dismissed.
The same day Lord Dartmouth resigned the Board of Trade, and Charles Yorke his post of Attorney-General. Dowdeswell was asked what he should like: he replied, the King had placed him above what he had pretensions to, but having been there he could take nothing lower. Though in straitened circumstances and burthened with a numerous offspring, he adhered to his party, and refused to be First Lord of Trade, or Half-Paymaster. His character was exceedingly fair; but among many examples of that time, he had been raised above his abilities, and was more respected for his fall than for his exaltation.[278]
A pension of 4000l. a year was offered to, and rejected by, the Duke of Newcastle, who with all his faults and weaknesses was never stained with avarice and rapaciousness. The deepest tinge of that dirty vice blotted the late Chancellor Northington, who sold the Seals for the President’s place, augmented by 5000l. a year, with the contingency of 2000l. a year if he should quit the place of President, and for the reversion of the Hanaper for two lives.[279] Grants so exorbitant, and so void of any colour of merit in the fool on whom they were showered, that if they cast a shade on the dawn of Mr. Pitt’s new Administration, or recalled the memory of his former waste, they reflected lustre on the fallen Ministry, who had been beyond example sparing of such shameless profusion. It was not lessened by another contingent pension to Lord Camden in case he should lose the Seals: yet as he quitted the place of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for life, the boon was far more justifiable; especially in an age when men were paid alike for merit and demerit, for accepting or losing employments.
The services of the discarded Ministers were set forth in a small, well written tract, called “A Short History of a late Short Administration.” It did justice to their integrity, and it could not do too much.[280] The nation felt and allowed their merit. Some counties and corporations complimented them in addresses. The Parliament followed the Court, and supported whoever was the actual Minister; uniform in its way of voting, though its votes of every year were inconsistent with those of the preceding.
The glory with which the late Ministers retired was half of it plucked from the laurels of the new Earl of Chatham. That fatal title blasted all the affection which his country had borne to him, and which he had deserved so well. Had he been as sordid as Lord Northington, he could not have sunk lower in the public esteem. The people, though he had done no act to occasion reproach, thought he had sold them for a title, and, as words fascinate or enrage them, their idol Mr. Pitt was forgotten in their detestation of the Lord Chatham. He was paralleled with Lord Bath, and became the object at which were shot all the arrows of calumny. He had borne his head above the obloquy that attended his former pension—not a mouth was opened now in defence of his title; as innocent as his pension, since neither betrayed him into any deed of servility to prerogative and despotism. Both were injudicious; the last irrecoverably so. The blow was more ruinous to his country than to himself. While he held the love of the people, nothing was so formidable in Europe as his name. The talons of the lion were drawn, when he was no longer awful in his own forests.
The City of London had intended to celebrate Mr. Pitt’s return to employment, and lamps for an illumination had been placed round the Monument. But no sooner did they hear of his new dignity, than the festival was counter-ordered. The great engine of this dissatisfaction was Lord Temple, who was so shameless as to publish the history of their breach, in which he betrayed every private passage that Mr. Pitt had dropped in their negotiation and quarrel, which could tend to inflame the public or private persons against him.[281] This malignant man worked in the mines of successive factions for near thirty years together. To relate them is writing his life.
The next month was spent in changes and preferments, which I shall recapitulate as briefly as I can. Sir Charles Saunders, instigated by Lord Albemarle, resigned his seat at the Admiralty, on pretence of disliking Lord Egmont, the first Commissioner. Lord Albemarle had been refused the Rangership of the Parks at Windsor. John Yorke[282] retired from the same board. Within a few days Lord Egmont himself resigned, telling the King he disapproved of Lord Chatham’s foreign system, and should be afraid of embarrassing his Majesty’s affairs. If they were to be debated in Council, he could submit to the majority; but as he found one man was to have more weight than six,[283] he begged to be unemployed.
Lord Chatham was hurt at losing Saunders, one of his favourite and most successful admirals in the last war. Keppel,[284] too, intimated a like design of retiring. To prevent the one and recover the other, Lord Chatham, though sorely unwilling to raise Sir Charles Saunders above Sir Edward Hawke and Sir George Pocock, at last put the Admiralty into the hands of Saunders. Lord Granby was appointed Commander-in-chief, and Lord Ligonier quieted with an earldom—at near ninety, and with a reversion to his nephew of fifteen hundred pounds a year of his pension. Even the promotion of Lord Granby was a portion of another bargain, the price of his father, the Duke of Rutland’s, quitting Master of the Horse, which was given to Lord Hertford, that he might cede the government of Ireland to Lord Bristol. Nor was the post of Master of the Horse sufficient: the King promised Lord Hertford should have the Chamberlain’s staff on the next vacancy, which his Majesty added, he wished was then—a confirmation of his dislike of the Duke of Portland. Lord Hertford was too good a courtier not to acquiesce, or to be satisfied. He prevailed to have the borough of Orford, then dependant on the Crown, where Lord Hertford had an estate, ceded to him,—a boon unprecedented, and that made much noise. The ill-conduct of the Court had reduced the Crown to little more than to be able to make changes; for it could scarce make an Administration, though both Houses were ready to support any that was made.
I ought to have mentioned, that, in consequence of the Duke of Bedford’s offers, the Admiralty, on Lord Egmont’s demission, was offered to Lord Gower; Lord Chatham still deluding himself with the thought that he could detach any separate man from any connection. But if men were grown more venal, they were grown, too, to understand their own interests better than to loosen their strength by separating themselves from powerful bodies; a single and temporary emolument could not compensate for the support of their friends. Lord Gower answered that he could not stand alone in so responsible a place, and was connected with none of the present Ministry.
Lord Frederick Campbell was removed, and Mr. Mackenzie restored to his ancient place.
However alert and peremptory Lord Chatham was in offending or promoting, domestic power by no means occupied his thoughts. The stocks had fallen on his accession, from the apprehension entertained that he would hurry into war. Had his views succeeded, one cannot tell how soon it might have been his measure. I know certainly that he despatched emissaries to visit the frontier towns in France. His immediate and avowed purpose was to cement an union between England, Russia, and Prussia.
Baron de la Perriere,[285] the Sardinian Envoy, had given notice that the new Emperor[286] was much disinclined to the French system, and even disposed to break with that Court, beholding with an eye of discontent their possession of his hereditary dominion, Lorrain. It was expected that Count Kaunitz, his mother’s Prime Minister, devoted to France, would retire.[287] I had sent notice of this favourable opening, and had repeated it at my return from Paris. A short time before the change in the Ministry, an event corroborated this intelligence. Count Seilern, the Austrian Ambassador, had opened himself freely to Mr. Conway, and said, if the latter would assure him that we neither had leagued, nor would league with Prussia, his court would enter into a defensive league with us against France. Mr. Conway replied we could not advance so far at once, but assured him we were not, nor were likely to be, in league with Prussia. Seilern was to report this answer, and no reply was arrived when Mr. Pitt became Minister. The King had been so indiscreet as to tell Count Seilern in the drawing-room that Count Malzahn, the new envoy from Berlin, had had his audience, and was the first foreign Minister that ever came to him without saying anything personally civil.
Mr. Pitt, full of a grand northern alliance, without attending to the conjuncture, or above informing himself of the situation, immediately names Mr. Stanley[288] Ambassador to Russia instead of Sir George Maccartney,[289] a personal favourite of the Czarina, and who had just concluded a treaty of commerce with her; and orders Stanley, in his way to St. Petersburg, to learn if the King of Prussia was disposed to enter into strict alliance with us. The King had acquiesced in this new arrangement, for he submitted even to treat with the King of Prussia, whom he hated, rather than not accommodate Lord Bute with a more favourable Administration. Conway was thunderstruck. He saw we should miss the opportunity of recovering the Court of Vienna, and expected nothing from Prussia. To add to the mortification, the nomination was made in his own office, and he not acquainted with it till it was done; nor had he been summoned to the Council in which it was declared. So little confidence to the confidential Minister looked ill, and prognosticated how entirely the new Earl intended to engross the sole direction. Conway wrote to Lord Chatham to beg Mr. Stanley’s journey might not be precipitated, but debated in Council: if the King’s servants should approve it, he should acquiesce. The Earl returned a very civil answer, and promised they should consult on it. The event was, the King of Prussia refused to receive Stanley’s visit, and the Czarina did not like to admit an Ambassador. After a long delay, Stanley’s embassy was laid aside[290]—the union with Austria was lost. These foreign disappointments, I believe, were the chief ingredients in the strange conduct of Lord Chatham that ensued. Peace was not his element; nor did his talent lie in those details that restore a nation by slow and wholesome progress. Of the finances he was utterly ignorant. If struck with some great idea, he neither knew how nor had patience to conduct it. He expected implicit assent—and he expected more, that other men should methodise and superintend, and bear the fatigue of carrying his measures into execution; and, what was worse, encounter the odium and danger of them, while he reposed and was to enjoy the honour, if successful. The history of the ensuing winter will justify every word here asserted. His conduct in the late war had been the same. He drew the plans, but left it to the Treasury to find the means; nor would listen to their difficulties, nor hold any rein over their ill-management.
While the attention of the great world was fixed on the political revolution, the people laboured under the dearness of corn and the apprehension of famine. The two last seasons had been particularly unfavourable; and though there was not absolute want, the farmers kept back their corn, and would not bring it to market, in order to enhance the price. Great disturbances ensued in several counties: the mob rose, seized provisions by force, or obliged the venders to distribute them at the price fixed by the people. In some places they burnt the barns of those who concealed their corn, and committed other violences. The worst tumults were at Norwich and in the western counties, where the peace could only be preserved by quartering regiments in the most riotous districts. In this emergency, the Council advised the King, as Parliament was not sitting, to lay an embargo, by his own authority, on the exportation of corn; an extension of prerogative not used for a large number of years but in a war, or on the imminent approach of one. The Duke of Newcastle attended the Council, and, to his honour, spoke heartily for a measure which checked the evil. Who would believe that so essential a remedy was converted into matter of blame? That it was, reflected honour on the Administration. Such crimes can only be found in a dearth of accusation.
The Earl of Northumberland, offended at the promotions of Lord Bristol and Lord Hertford, and that even the Chamberlain’s staff was engaged to the latter, broke out in complaints to Lord Chatham, who, with a facility that seemed to imply a secret understanding, consented that he should be created a Duke. The King did not hesitate a moment; the same day heard the grievance and the indemnification. Lord Cardigan,[291] on an old promise, obtained by Lord Bute, that he should be a Duke whenever one was made, was raised to the same rank; but Lord Chatham coupling it with a condition to both, that the one should take no employment, and the other resign the government of Windsor Castle, Lord Cardigan refused the increase of title, and would not part with his office, saying, he thought titles were honours and rewards, not punishments. Lord Northumberland acquiesced, and obtained the precedence. The other being firm, carried his point, kept his place, and got the dukedom. Had Lord Chatham intended to bar solicitation for titles by so unpleasant a restriction, he had acted wisely; but, relinquishing it in Lord Cardigan’s case, it is probable that his sole view was to disculpate himself from the imputation of too open propensity to the Favourite’s family. He offered an earldom to Lord Monson in lieu of his place, which the Earl designed for Mr. Popham; but Lord Monson would neither accept the title nor resign the office. Lord Grantham[292] was removed from the Post-office in favour of Mr. Prowse, who would not accept it, but the former was partly indemnified by his son Robinson being made a Lord of Trade.
In October Lord Chatham went to Bath, where I happened to be. He came to me, and we had a conversation of two hours. Nothing could be more frank and unreserved than his behaviour. He asked me earnestly if I did not think that France intended to keep peace with us? I replied, I was sure in the present distress of their circumstances they must keep it: and that I was as sure from the terror I had seen they felt at his name, that they would be still more disposed to keep it now he was Minister. He lamented that we could get no allies; that he saw no day-light. The session he thought he should carry through easily. To flatter me he commended Mr. Conway highly, particularly for his Whiggism—“and am not I,” said he, “Lord Camden, and Lord Shelburne, Whigs?” Yet he wished to take some of all parties. The Duke of Bedford, indeed, had made himself nobody. Lord Gower was considerable, and ought to be high. If the Duke and Duchess desired it, Rigby might be taken care of; but when Cabinet places were so scarce, they wanted one for Lord Weymouth—a very pretty man, Lord Weymouth!—but that could not be. He had been offered the embassy to Spain, but would not accept it; nor Postmaster, though it had been held by Lord Grantham, who had been Secretary of State. The King, he said, was very gracious to him, and he believed in earnest—and then dropped these remarkable words: “If I was in possession of the citadel of Lisle, and was told there was a mine under my feet, I would say, I do not believe it.” His opinion of his Majesty’s sincerity was therefore exactly the same as mine. I took great pains to cultivate harmony between him and Mr. Conway, because I feared it was little likely to last.
The negotiation with the Duke of Bedford had been renewed at Bath by Lord Northington and Mr. Nugent. The Duke himself came thither and they had an interview, in which Lord Chatham desired artfully to open himself to his Grace, and declared against Continental measures, subsidies, &c. (the very objects in which he had been disappointed, but against which the Duke’s humour then lay.) They could not agree on Lord Weymouth, which made the Duke profess his unwillingness to abandon his friends, though ready to abandon them if that point had been accorded. However Lord Chatham had made so much impression that, on the Duke’s return to London, and being instantly beset by Grenville, the Duke said he was unpopular enough already, and would not be torn to pieces for condemning the embargo on corn. He would vote for the Address, and insisted that Rigby should. The latter begged to go out of town, and said to his friends that Lord Chatham had duped the Duke of Bedford, and the King Lord Gower, who had been particularly distinguished at Court; that they were undone if they voted with Administration before their bargain was made.
Lord Temple and Lord Lyttelton went to the Lord Mayor’s feast, but were totally neglected by the citizens.