CHAPTER XX
Provision for the King’s Brothers.—Debate.—Death of the Marquis of Tavistock.—Of the Dauphiness.—The Indian Papers.—Intrigues of Grenville.—Regulation of America.—Temper in which the Americans received the Repeal.—New Project of using Force towards the Colonies.—Discussion in the House of Lords on the American Papers.—The East Indian Question.—Real or Affected Insanity of Lord Chatham.—Interview of the Author with the Lord Chancellor.—The Latter lets out a Secret which is turned to Advantage by Walpole.—Debate on an Act of the Assembly of Massachusets.—Attempted Reconciliation between Conway and Rockingham.
During these altercations, and while the time necessary for calling and holding courts of directors or proprietors delayed the prosecution of this matter, the King sent a message to both Houses, desiring them to make a provision for his brothers. The message was taken into consideration on the 19th, and in each House Lord Temple and Mr. Grenville objected to the establishment being entailed on the issue of the Princes. On the 24th, when it was to be voted, Mr. Grenville, without directly opposing, made a very able speech and observations on the settlement. It would be an additional expense, he said, of 24,000l. a year on the Civil List, and might have been saved from other articles. The charge of ambassadors might be reduced, who each cost the Crown 13,000l. the first year. He ridiculed Lord Chatham’s magnificent plans of naming ambassadors to various Courts, and despatching none of them. He had threatened to dissolve the Family-compact; yet Sir James Grey was not yet set out for Spain, nor Mr. Lyttelton[337] for Portugal. Turn north, there were the same great plans, yet Mr. Stanley was not gone. Mr. George Pitt was alike absent from Turin; to those gentlemen he professed meaning nothing personal: the Chancellor of the Exchequer must pay them, and they were in the departments of the Secretaries of State, who, though in responsible places, he was sure were not to blame. The pensions on Ireland amounted to 88,000l. a year; the revenue of that country ought to be laid out to support the Royal Family, and Ireland would like it. Stanley, a very warm man, took this invective to himself, and showed how much he resented it. He complained that Grenville had given him no notice of the intended attack, and observed how delicate his own situation was in speaking, or not speaking, between private honour and the duty he owed to the King of secrecy. He did not care, he said, whether the attack was pointed at him, or to wound another through him; the employment he had not sought: in France he had served to his loss, and was ready to have his conduct inquired into. Had Lord Egremont (Grenville’s brother-in-law) gone, when he was named to the congress at Augsbourg? Foreign Ministers had no means of raising a fortune. Had he himself a son he would say to him, “Get into Parliament, make tiresome speeches; you will have great offers; do not accept them at first,—then do; then make great provision for yourself and family, and then call yourself an independent country gentleman.” For himself, he was ready to answer Mr. Grenville there or anywhere else. Severe as the picture was, Grenville had drawn it on himself, resenting Stanley’s having left him for Lord Chatham. Nor could Stanley be blamed for taking offence; he had been represented in a disgraceful light, while he had acted with singular honour, and yet was not at liberty to disculpate himself. The fact stood thus: Lord Chatham, as I have said, full of a grand northern alliance, had named Stanley Minister to both the Russian and Prussian Courts. The latter would not receive him: the Czarina did not like the proposed alliance, nor the expense of sending an ambassador in return: yet had she named Prince Czernicheff. Sir George Maccartney had desired leave to come home; and thus Stanley stood on the list as ambassador, in compliment to the nomination of an ambassador from St. Petersburg; yet, perceiving he was not to go, he had honourably refused to take the appointments; a state secret he could not disclose, as it would be telling the Russian Court that there was no longer an intention of sending him. Dowdeswell spoke in favour of the Princes, as he was to have made the same motion the foregoing spring. Sir Roger Newdigate, in a dull metaphorical speech, abused the Administration, and complimented Grenville. Charles Townshend turned him into the highest ridicule, analysing his metaphors, and reducing them and the whole speech, as it deserved, to nonsense. Newdigate replied, and with the obstinacy of dulness professed he had never admired any Administration but Grenville’s. Townshend enforced what he had said with new ridicule: the settlement was granted, and the King saved 9000l. a year.
A melancholy event relaxed a little the assiduity of the Opposition. The Marquis of Tavistock,[338] only son of the Duke of Bedford, was thrown from his horse as he was hunting, and received a kick that fractured his skull. He languished about a fortnight, and died at the age of twenty-seven. If there was a perfectly amiable and unblemished character in an age so full of censure, and so much deserving it, the universal esteem in which the virtues of that young Lord were held, seemed to allow that he was the person. His gentleness, generosity, and strict integrity made all the world love or admire him. Full of spirit and martial ardour, which he suppressed in deference to a father to whom his life was so important, he had the genuine bashfulness of youth, and the humility of the lowest fortune. His large fortune he shared with his cotemporary friends, assisting them in purchasing commissions. Yet he had taste for those arts whose excellence and splendour became the House of so great an heir, and indulged himself in them when they did not interfere with his more favourite liberality. His parts were neither shining nor contemptible; and his virtue assisted his understanding in preserving both from being biassed or seduced. To observers, it was clear that he much disapproved the want of principle in the relations and dependants[339] of his parents; yet so respectful was his duty to his father, and so attentive his tenderness to his mother, and so artfully had she impressed it, that Lord Tavistock’s repugnance to their connections and politics was only observable by his shunning Parliament, and by withdrawing himself from their society to hunting and country sports. He was not less exemplary as a husband than as a son, and his widow, who doated on so excellent a young man, survived him but two years.[340] The indecent indifference with which such a catastrophe was felt by the faction of the family, spoke but too plainly that Lord Tavistock had lived a reproach and terror to them. The Duke, his father, for a few days almost lost his senses—and recovered them too soon. The Duchess was less blameable, and retained the impression longer; but while all mankind who ever heard the name of Lord Tavistock were profuse in lamenting such a national calamity, it gave universal scandal when, in a little fortnight after his death, they beheld his father, the Duke, carried by his creatures to the India House to vote on a factious question. This unexampled insensibility was bitterly pressed home on the Duke two years afterwards in a public libel. Yet surely, it was savage wantonness to taunt a parent with such a misfortune; and of flint must the heart have been that could think such a domestic stroke a proper subject for insult, however inadequate to the world the anguish appeared: how steeled the nature that could wish to recall the feelings of a father on such a misfortune. In Borgia’s age they stabbed with daggers; in ours with the pen![341]
About the same time died the widow Dauphiness, a pious but unamiable Princess, and only remarkable for the various fortune that attended her. Daughter of Augustus of Poland, she was married into the same Court, where the daughter of her father’s rival, Stanislaus, was Queen. Received and treated with affection by that Princess, and possessing all the tenderness of her husband, her fruitfulness seemed to ensure her felicity; when, though seated on the step of the most formidable throne in Europe, she beheld her father again driven into exile, and her mother dying in the midst of that calamity. Her family were scarce restored when the Dauphin perished before her eyes of a lingering illness; and she outlived him too short a time to be secure that the youth of her children would not expose them to the dangers that attend a minority.
The disputes in the East India Company, which grew out of their great cause before the Parliament, produced an attack on Lord Clive, his enemies attempting to seize the Jaghire that had been granted to him by the Mogul; and it was but by a majority of about 30 voices that he saved that immense revenue on a ballot, 361 voting for the continuation of it for ten years, and 330 against it.
Towards the end of March the House began reading the East Indian papers that had been laid before them; each day of which produced much general debate, especially as witnesses were examined. The Attorney-General De Grey and Dyson shone on these occasions, and showed how much the question was a matter of state, and that the King’s Bench could have no judicature over the East Indies. Governor Vansittart[342] was examined for four hours, and gave much satisfaction: his evidence tended to strengthen the right of the Crown, and brought over many persons to that side. Colonel Monroe spoke strongly in his deposition to the same effect.
In the mean time the faction of Grenville and the Bedfords, humbled by the death of Lord Tavistock, and by the ground gained against them on the India question, began to cast about for real union with the Rockinghams. The latter, on the first overtures, and without any positive assurance of that union, sought to draw Mr. Conway into the league, affirming that Grenville, as they had lightly been made to believe, would be content with some inferior post, and would waive his hopes of being Minister. Conway, however, discontented with Lord Chatham, and fearful of offending his old friends, did not listen to a plan so improbable in its construction, and so dishonourable in its tendency. Grenville could only mean to get to Court with the view of undermining his associates when he should be there: and such a treaty would be unpardonable in Conway, while acting in the King’s service. He would not allow himself to think of the Treasury, which he knew Lord Rockingham would never cede to him; and yet on talking over the proposed arrangement with him, he said sensibly, and not unambitiously, “If I should join them, I would insist on Grenville going into the House of Lords.” He was not without fears of Grenville and Rockingham uniting and leaving him with Lord Chatham and Lord Bute. I was not so easily alarmed, though the Duke of Richmond endeavoured to persuade me that the junction would certainly take place, and that Conway would not even recover his regiment. I saw no danger comparable to that of his resigning, and consequently of dissolving the Administration; and very little to apprehend from the union of two men whom so many reasons divided, and whom the predominant one of both aiming at the first place must for ever keep asunder. So it happened then. Neither would yield a post which neither saw a prospect of attaining by his own strength. Grenville at last proposed that both should desist, and should agree in the nomination of a third person. This, no doubt, he intended should be his own brother, Temple, who might afterwards resign to him. But the least proper was the most obstinate, and the treaty came to nothing. I put the Duke of Richmond in mind of what Lord Gower had said the last year, and asked him if he thought it likely that the Bedfords would enlist under a man who was so much their contempt? Lord Sandwich having abused Lord Rockingham in the House of Lords, Lord Gower said to him, “Sandwich, how could you worry the poor dumb creature so!”
A question of more importance than the Indian one was now to come on the carpet—the Regulation of America. The repeal of the Stamp Act, however necessary and salutary, had, as Grenville and his adherents foretold, instead of pacifying that continent, inspired the turbulent with presumption. With whatever joy the repeal had been received, it was not followed by that general gratitude to the Ministers who obtained it, which they deserved. Great Britain having yielded, the tribunes of America flattered themselves that new concessions might be extorted: so certain is the march of successful patriotism towards acquisition. Still the disturbances were not alarming nor universal: and if, instead of tampering with a wound not closed, emollients, restoratives, at least oblivion, and no farther essays at taxes had succeeded, harmony perhaps had again taken place. A Ministry composed of heterogeneous particles, some inclination to show authority after mildness, an eagerness to replace the loss on the land-tax, and, above all, the inconsiderate vanity of Charles Townshend, and not a small propensity in him to pay court to Grenville, all concurred to prompt rash and indigested measures; while a Parliament, so obsequious as that of the moment, was ready to enact every successive contradiction that was proposed to it by the Court, and eased Ministers of the trouble of weighing the plans they intended to pursue. Nay, the circumstances of the time recommended violence as the least obnoxious measure; Grenville being sure to give less obstruction to any intemperance which resembled his own, and secretly enjoying any indiscretion that would involve his successors in the same difficulties as those he had occasioned himself.
The first plan on which the Ministers fixed was that of force and punishment. They proposed to oblige the Provinces to furnish beer and vinegar to the soldiers; and if they refused, the governor of New York was to be prohibited from giving the royal assent for holding their assemblies. This step would, in effect, have been a dissolution of their government, and not less violent than the seizure of charters by Charles II. When the scheme was laid before the Cabinet, Conway, who adhered to the conciliating measures of the last year, and to his own mild maxims, alone opposed so arbitrary a project. When,
On the 30th of the month, the American papers which had been laid before the Houses, were taken into consideration by the Lords. The Chancellor opened the nature of them, and hinting at the disobedience of the Colonies, said, if his own sentiments should not be so lenient as formerly, it was because he had formed them anew on the Act passed in the last session. Lord Weymouth observed to him, sensibly, that last year’s had not been an Act but a Declaration. Lord Temple was more acrimonious, his language gross, telling the Chancellor that his former opinion of Parliament having no right to tax the Colonies, had been treasonable. The Duke of Grafton defended the Chancellor with great propriety, and asked why Lord Temple had not called him, if guilty of treason, to the bar? He reproached Temple, too, with blackening a most respectable character (Lord Chatham’s), from revenge. The present question, he said, was too serious for faction; but if places were the objects of opposition, and if his would reconcile Lord Temple, it was at his service. These bickerings were all that passed then. Lord Denbigh called on the Opposition to propose some plan for restoring the tranquillity and submission of America; but neither party were eager to stir in it: the Ministers were afraid, the Opposition apprehended disunion amongst themselves,—so different were the sentiments of Grenville and Rockingham on that subject.
When the settlement on the Princes passed the House of Lords, Lord Temple behaved with his usual violence. Great and deserved reflections were thrown on Lord Northington for his scandalous extortion of emoluments on the late change. Lord Temple then caused the House to be summoned without acquainting them to what purpose.
The same day, his brother and the Opposition debated in the Commons against delay on the East Indian affair till eight in the evening, and then divided the House for calling in witnesses. Many of the courtiers had gone away, and the motion was rejected but by 96 to 82! Sir W. Meredith then declared, that if Beckford did not by that day sevennight ascertain the House when he would bring on his questions, he would move to dissolve the Committee. Such inconsistent conduct in the Opposition was occasioned by its having appeared on the examination, that the Crown would be justifiable in seizing the acquisitions of the Company, so crying were the abuses, and so little was the Company itself master of its own servants. Easter, too, was now approaching, and the Opposition feared not being able to rally their forces after the holidays. Grenville, apprehending from so many concurrent circumstances favourable to Lord Chatham, that he would be able to acquire a large revenue to the Crown, laboured to instil fears of such intended force; saying, the East Indian business had begun in folly, and would end in violence.
Lord Chatham himself either was not, or would not be, in a condition to strike any great stroke. Though he still continued to take the air publicly, his spirits and nerves were said to be in the lowest and most shattered condition. Added to the phrenzy of his conduct, a new circumstance raised general suspicion of there being more of madness in his case, than mere caprice and impracticable haughtiness: he had put himself into the hands of Dr. Addington—a regular physician, it is true, but originally a mad doctor, innovating enough in his practice to be justly deemed a quack. The physician, it was supposed, was selected as proper to the disease; whereas, if all was not a farce, I should think that the physician rather caused the disease, Addington having kept off the gout, and possibly dispersed it through his nerves, or even driven it up to his head. So long did Lord Chatham remain without a fit of the gout, and so childish and agitated was his whole frame, if a word of business was mentioned to him, tears and trembling immediately succeeded to cheerful, indifferent conversation. Some passages, too, which I shall specify hereafter, indicated a fond kind of dotage; yet do I very much doubt whether the whole scene was not imposition, and the dictates of disappointment, inability, and pride, rather than the fruits of a brain extraordinarily distempered. A slave to his passions, a master dissembler, and no profound statesman, his conduct was more likely to be extravagant by design than from the loss of his senses. As he reappeared in the world, and yet governed his domestic affairs with the same wild wantonness and prodigality, it is probable that there was not more folly in his secession from business, than could be accounted for in so eccentric a composition. If it was nothing but singularity and passion, Lord Chatham was certainly the first man who ever retired from business into the post of Prime Minister.
As I suspected that much of this ill-humour was founded on his disappointment in Mr. Conway, who would not receive orders from behind the veil of the sanctum sanctorum, and as I had heard that the Chancellor complained much of the latter, I desired to wait on Lord Camden, in order if possible to restore some harmony in the Administration. Having appointed me an hour, I offered all that depended on me towards reconciling my friend and Lord Chatham. The Chancellor by no means aided my good disposition. He complained much of Mr. Conway’s niceties, difficulties, and impracticability. In truth Mr. Conway allowed too much to his scruples, and the Chancellor on the other hand was a little too alert in relaxing his former principles; the one leaning towards power, the other to popularity: yet I think even the Chancellor was too much addicted to the latter, to have risked it by any signal servility.[343] He was generally firm, when pushed by the roughness of the times. A moderate degree of attention to his fortune stole into his conduct, when it did not too much clash with his professions or connections. He told me that Lord Chatham was very willing to replace Mr. Conway in the army; and being but a novice in politics, he let drop indiscreetly, that if the Ministers could weather the session, there must be a totally new Administration; adding, that Mr. Conway’s behaviour on the East Indian affair had been a stab to Lord Chatham, and had reduced him to lean on Lord Bute.
Though I did not know whether this imprudent declaration implied an intention of co-operating entirely with Bute, or might not look towards Grenville, yet I saw plainly that there was an intention of getting rid of Mr. Conway. I took no notice either to the Chancellor or to Mr. Conway of what I had discovered, lest the latter should resign immediately; but I instantly determined to keep Conway steady to his last year’s point of moderation towards America. It would preserve his connection with his old friends, who would be necessary to him, if Lord Chatham broke with him; and it was essential to him to maintain his character. Accordingly I softened extremely towards the Rockingham party, and talked to them of the necessity of Mr. Conway and their agreeing, as they had done when in Administration together, to oppose any violence against the Americans. This plan succeeded extraordinarily, and blasted all thoughts of union between Grenville and Rockingham, the former of whom had endeavoured to persuade the latter to content himself with a dukedom and the lieutenancy of Ireland. Nor was this all the success that attended the secret the Chancellor had blabbed to me. It occasioned such a breach in and discomfiture of the Opposition, as carried the Administration through the session with triumph. So often did chance throw occasions in my way, which no policy of mine could have super-induced, and which, if I preferred vanity to truth, I might represent as the effects of profound craft and foresight.
On the 10th of April, in consequence of Lord Temple’s summons, the Duke of Bedford moved to address the King to order the Privy Council to take into their consideration a recent Act of the Assembly of the Massachusets, in which they had taken on themselves to pardon the late insurrections, and to couple with that Act an ordinance for raising of money. Lord Northington affirmed, that the consideration of those Acts was still before the Board of Trade; on which the Duke of Grafton moved the previous question. In reply to a reproach made by the Duke of Bedford on the delays and inactivity of Administration, Grafton decently hinted, and it was fresh in everybody’s memory, how handsomely he had put off the American question on Lord Tavistock’s accident. Lord Halifax rudely and inconsiderately censured Conway for not having transmitted the orders of their Lordships to the Colonies. In fact, the orders had not been sent to Conway; and Halifax, the accuser, had, when Secretary of State himself, neglected orders committed to him by the King in Council. The Duke of Richmond warmly took up Conway’s defence, and led the way to a separation from the other part of the Opposition. Lord Talbot gave up all the Ministers but the Duke of Grafton. Lord Mansfield spoke finely for the motion; the Chancellor well, for acting with spirit against the Colonies; but said it would require great prudence to conduct that spirit. Lord Suffolk and Lord Lyttelton supported the motion. Lord Shelburne and Lord Botetort were against it, and Lord Townshend for it. It was rejected by the previous question, on a majority of 63 to 36. The Duke of Richmond, Lord Rockingham, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Monson, Lord Radnor, and Lord Edgcumbe voting with the Court; the Duke of Newcastle, who leaned to the Bedfords, Lord Albemarle, and others of the party, retiring. Lord Hardwicke voted with the minority.[344]
On this schism, I again pressed Conway to join the Rockinghams on the American question, and hinted my suspicion, not my knowledge, that Lord Chatham might think of dismissing him at the end of the session. Conway was enough disposed to that union; said he could not negotiate himself, but consented that I should sound the Duke of Richmond, and wished their faction would not insist on that unattainable point, the total dismission of Lord Bute’s friends. I found the Duke much incensed against Lord Temple for not having communicated to them the late motion, and provoked that Rigby, who had negotiated with them on Grenville’s part, and at first had waived the Treasury for him, had at last insisted on it. I pressed his Grace to try by his cousin Albemarle’s means to gain the Bedfords separately from Grenville. Conway wished that junction and separation. I did not at all think it practicable; but I hoped that the proposal, coming from the Rockinghams, would exasperate Grenville and widen the breach between them. The Duke approved and was eager for that alliance, but demanded that Conway should resign first, as many of their friends were averse to him while he acted with Lord Chatham. I advised him to try it himself with Conway, though I told him I would not answer for the success: but I would not undertake what I intended to impede; expecting that Lord Chatham would not be able to continue in power, and that then it must devolve on Conway: and choosing that the Rockinghams should accede to him, not he go over to them. Neither happened. I did not accomplish the junction; but I both kept Conway from resigning, and the Rockinghams from uniting with Grenville and the Bedfords.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
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