8th.—The Bill was read in the Committee. Mr. Fox spoke against it, but said he was open to conviction. Mr. Pelham mentioned the forfeited estates in Scotland, which might be improved by a colony of Foreigners. Mr. Fox declared himself convinced by this argument. Pitt ridiculed Fox’s conviction, and did it well. The Bill was carried in the Committee by 123 to 52. While Pitt was speaking, Fox said to one who sat next to him, “He is a better speaker than I am; but, thank God, I have more judgment!”
Lord Halifax had been soliciting to have a fifty and a sixty gun ship sent to Nova-Scotia, upon a report that the French were sending a fleet thither: the Admiralty had refused, for fear of drawing on a new war. The Board of Trade presented a long Memorial to promote their demand, which the Duke of Bedford carried to the King; the Duke of Newcastle was present, but said not a word. The Duke of Bedford said to the King, “Sir, this paper is too long for your Majesty to read, but I will tell you the purport of it: it is a project of the same faction, who have endeavoured to increase the Navy this year: I have desired your Majesty’s servants to meet at my House next Wednesday; I believe they will not think it proper to come into this proposal.” “No,” replied the King, “they are the most troublesome, impracticable fellows I ever met with; there is no carrying on the measures of Government with them.” Mr. Pelham wrote the Duke of Bedford word, on his summons, that he would wait upon him, but did not believe[60] he should think Lord Halifax’s proposal fit to be complied with.
11th.—A proposal came from the South Sea Company for lowering their interest after a term of seven years. Mr. Pelham moved to accept it, provided they gave up all demands on the King of Spain. Belchier desired time till the next General Court; but the resolution passed.
Lord Duplin[61], who, considering how fond he was of forms and trifles and being busy, was not absolutely a bad speaker, opened in a long deduction the affairs of Nova-Scotia, and moved for a sum of money for carrying on that new Colony, the establishment of which had been eagerly revived by Lord Halifax on his coming to the head of the Board of Trade, and his friend Colonel Cornwallis[62], sent thither as Governor, who was a brave, sensible young man, and of great temper and good-nature. Vyner alone opposed the Motion; the Opposition favoured it, and Th. Pitt spoke much against ever giving up that Colony to France.
Sir Henry Erskine then presented his charge against General Anstruther, which he called only a state of his own case. It was very trifling in comparison of what had been expected from the parade of his first accusation; his grievances barely comprized in a confinement of six weeks before and during his trial, and of a few days after it. George Townshend moved to address for the proceedings of that Court-Martial. Mr. Pitt desired there might be no Motion till the House came to some determination how to proceed. Mr. Fox read a letter from Anstruther, to say that he was laid up with the rheumatism, but would attend as soon as possible, and would send in an answer to the charge. It was agreed to send him a copy of what they were in doubt whether to call a charge, or a complaint, or simply a paper. Mr. Fox called upon Erskine to prove the accusation, which he said he was ready to do. Fox then said, that General Anstruther desired to inform the House that he had the copy of the Court-Martial in his own possession, and would send it whenever they pleased; though it was not necessary to preserve sentences of acquittals, nor were they ever sent to the War-office. Notwithstanding this voluntary offer, the House sat debating for two hours on the method of coming at this copy, and whether they should address the King, or order Anstruther to send it by their own authority. Joddrell, the Prince’s Solicitor, flamed, and Lord Egmont still more, on this notice of records of Courts-Martial not being preserved. The House sat till eight, but came to no division.
10th.—The King would not go to Chapel, because Secker, Bishop of Oxford, was to preach before him. The Ministers did not insist upon his hearing the sermon, as they had lately upon his making him Dean of St. Paul’s. Character and popularity do not always depend upon the circumstances that ought to compose either. This Bishop, who had been bred a Presbyterian and Man-midwife, which sect and profession he had dropt for a season, while he was President of a very free thinking club,[63] had been converted by Bishop Talbot,[64] whose relation he married, and his faith settled in a Prebend of Durham: from thence he was transplanted, at the recommendation of Dr. Bland,[65] by the Queen, and advanced by her [who had no aversion to a medley of religions, which she always compounded into a scheme of heresy of her own], to the living of St. James’s, vacant by the death of her favourite Arian, Dr. Clarke, and afterwards to the Bishoprics of Bristol and Oxford.[66] It is incredible how popular he grew in his parish, and how much some of his former qualifications contributed to heighten his present doctrines. His discourses from the pulpit, which, by a fashion that he introduced, were a kind of moral essays, were as clear from quotations of Scripture, as when he presided in a less Christian society; but what they wanted of Gospel, was made up by a tone of fanaticism that he still retained. He had made a match between a daughter of the late Duke of Kent[67] and a Doctor Gregory, whose talents would have been extremely thrown away in any priesthood, where celibacy was one of the injunctions. He had been presented with a noble service of plate for procuring a marriage between the heiress[68] of the same Duke of Kent and the Chancellor’s son, and was now forced upon the King[69] by the gratitude of the same Minister, though he had long been in disgrace for having laid his plan for Canterbury in the interest he had cultivated at the Prince’s Court. But even the Church had its renegades in politics, and the King was obliged to fling open his asylum to all kind of deserters; content with not speaking to them at his levee, or listening to them in the pulpit!
12th.—Potter produced several Physicians and Masters of Workhouses to prove the fatal consequences of spirituous liquors, which laid waste the meaner parts of the town, and were now spreading into the country. Sir Joseph Jekyll had formerly carried through a Bill against Gin, but with such danger from the populace, that the Act had been established merely by military force, and with little success, as informers against the retailers of it had seldom escaped the vengeance of the mob. Mr. Sandys,[70] on succeeding Sir Robert Walpole, had repealed this Act to increase the Revenue; but being one of the acts of his short reign, to which he had risen by deserting his party, he was as ill-treated by the faction as the prohibition had been by the lower people. Lord Hervey,[71] who had turned patriot at that season on being turned out of place, had made three remarkably fine orations against the repeal; and Sir Charles Williams had made a couple of ballads[72] with much wit, to ridicule both Sandys and Lord Hervey. Mr. Pelham spoke now against the appearance of the Physicians, &c. as he believed no remedy could be found for the evil, and yet imposing new duties would greatly diminish the Revenue: but they were examined.
18th.—Mr. Fox acquainted the House that Mr. Moncrief attended without, who was called in, and delivered the original copy of the Court-Martial from General Anstruther; and (as he was not able to come in person, being above seventy, and laid up with a rheumatism and pain in his bowels) an answer to Sir Henry Erskine’s complaint, in which he acknowledged the facts, but denied the aggravating circumstances. That day se’nnight was appointed to consider the charge and answer, and the Minutes of the Council; after Sir Harry Erskine had declared he would say no more, though if he chanced to prove more, it would be but the more conspicuous: to which Mr. Fox replied, that it would be fairer to acquaint Anstruther with that more. Mr. Fox then moved, at Anstruther’s desire, for a copy of a Resolution of Council against Colonel Pinfold, a former Governor of Minorca, who had been condemned to make satisfaction to the oppressed parties, and had. Anstruther would have done the like, but was prevented.
The Prince was dangerously ill.