His greatest Opponents in Parliament are Mr. P——y in the House of Commons, and my Lord St——d in the House of Peers. This Lord, you know, was for a long time Ambassador from Queen Anne to the Court of Berlin, and afterwards to the States General; and that it was he that sign’d the Treaty of Peace at Utrecht: He was a Member of the Privy Council when the Queen died; but King
George I. did not think fit continue him; at which his Lordship being disgusted, absented from Court, and became in Parliament the Censor of the Ministers. After the Death of King George I. the Earl paid his Respects to their present Majesties, who received him with very great Marks of Distinction; which however did not hinder his constant Opposition to the Measures of the Court: Yet it cannot be deny’d that his Lordship behav’d with very great Prudence in the Changes that happened upon the Accession of the Brunswic Family to the Throne. This Lord, speaking to me one Day of those Alterations, in the Voyage which I made hither in 1728, told me, that if he had been rul’d by the Duke of Ormond, he would have been in the same miserable Circumstances as that Duke. “He did all he could, said he, to persuade me to quit the Kingdom with him; but he was so far from decoying me away, that I made use of all the Rhetoric I was Master of, to persuade him to stay at home, because we had neither of us done any thing but by Order of the Queen our Mistress; that therefore we had nothing to fear, and that the worst that could happen to us would be a Censure. But the Duke had such a Terror upon him, that all these Arguments were not powerful enough to encourage him; and but a few Hours before he went off, he came and conjured me to leave the Kingdom with him. I made him this Answer: I have nothing to reproach myself with, my Lord, I have obeyed the Queen, and I have too high an Opinion of the Justice of my Country, and too great a Confidence in the Equity of the King, to fear any Thing. The Answer which the Duke made me was, Well then, my Lord, I must take the same Farewel of you as the Prince of Orange did of Count Egmont. Farewel,
Count without a Head. To which I replied, Farewel, Duke without a Duchy. The Event has shewn, that I was a better Prophet than the Duke of Ormond: For I enjoy my Estate in Peace, whereas what he had is taken from him.” In the same Conversation the Earl talked a great deal to me of their Majesties, and in Terms of the profoundest Respect. He expressed an infinite Value for the King, who when Prince of Wales, said he, always treated him with very great Regard and Goodness. Nevertheless this Lord seldom appears at Court: He spends the Summer in the Country, and the Winter at London, where once a Week he has an Assembly; but in other respects he lives very retired, and at no great Expence.
The Duke of Newcastle is Secretary of State. This Nobleman is extremely civil, very rich, and lives grand. He has the Province of foreign Affairs, in Conjunction with my Lord Harrington, who, when he was only Colonel Stanhope, gain’d Reputation as Ambassador in Spain, and at the Congress of Soissons. I knew this Minister at Madrid in 1719, and can vouch for him, that he is one of the worthiest and soberest Men in the World. He is good-natur’d, modest, generous, and mighty sincere. He is shy of new Acquaintance, but when once a Man knows him, the better he will like him.
I don’t think that the Ministers of this Country, or the Nobility, are so haughty as they are represented in our Country; and have Reason to think, that they who say the English are not civil to Foreigners, have not been very conversant with ’em. ’Tis true, they are not so engaging as the French; but when a Man is known among them, gives into their Ways, and courts their Favour,
in short, they are, methinks, as courteous and civil as any other People in the World. An Englishman won’t be saying at every Turn, That he has the Honour to be your most humble Servant; that he has the Honour to say, to hear, and so of the rest. He will say it perhaps once in a Conversation, and that’s all; nor, on the other hand, does he want to be loaded with Compliments, Acknowledgments, and impertinent Bows. As he is above Trifles, he looks upon all those frothy Expressions as frivolous; and this it is that makes our young Travellers think, that the English are not polite. Such far-fetcht and bombast Phrases are commonly all that those Sparks have learnt at a great deal of Expence in their Travels to France, and they are perfectly astonished, when they come into a Land of good Sense, and see so little Notice taken of what they have paid for so dear, and what has cost them so much Pains to acquire.
There are some English People, who upon certain Occasions seem to forget the Persons they were great with but the Day before. In my former Voyage to this Country, I was at first surprised at this sort of Behaviour, and ascribed the Cause of it to the Pride of the English; but I was convinced afterwards, that it was owing much more to a melancholy Temper, which is general to almost the whole Nation. An Englishman of this Cast is not the less a Friend upon that Account, and if one does not take Notice of that Unevenness of Temper, he will naturally come to himself, and they readily forgive their Friend for any Absence of Thought. In short, the English have their Failings, because they are but Men; but I shall always pay very great Credit to an Englishman, when he tells me, that he is my Friend. In order to acquire the Friendship of these People, ’tis absolutely necessary to speak
their Language. Many of them understand French and Italian, but they don’t care to speak foreign Languages; and when they do, ’tis either from Necessity or Constraint. Now Constraint is what the English don’t at all like; for as they enjoy the greatest Liberty of any People in the World, they have an Aversion to every Thing which cramps it.
Their Manners differ extremely from those of the French, which is what the latter are at a Loss to account for; because they have been always so much imitated by all other Nations, that they think themselves the Directors of Mankind, and that the English do them an Injustice in not following their Copies. To give you my Judgment as to the Manners of these two Nations, is what I shall not undertake, being restrained from it by several Considerations, especially the Fear of doing Wrong either to the one or the other, and that I should not give a right Judgment in so great a Cause. They are both perhaps not exempt from very great Failings; but it seems to me, that the English are not the Slaves of that Tyrant, Custom, and chuse to follow their Genius and good Sense. They don’t surfeit themselves with those Nothings which the French call Politeness, and which seem to be invented only to pass away the Time. In fine, to speak my Mind plainly, if I was but twenty Years of Age, I could like to be a complete Frenchman; but now that I am forty, I am perfectly reconciled to the Manners and Customs of the English.
A Zeal for Religion seems to me to be the only Point in which there is a Conformity of Temper between the two Nations: And tho’ they differ widely in Principles, yet they both cry out loudly for the Privileges of their Church, and both have equally their Fanatics. For tho’ London has not