The Houses met the next morning, but adjourned without doing any thing.
The Duke of Bedford proposed to the King to remove Dr. Ayscough from the young Princes, which he much approved, and nobody but the Cobham cousins[84] disliked, who had just patched up their peace with the Prince by his intervention. Lyttelton, whose sister he had married, solicited Mr. Pelham to save him. Mr. Pelham answered, “I know nothing of Dr. Ayscough—oh, yes, I recollect, a very worthy man told me in this room two years ago that he was a great rogue!” It was Lyttelton himself who had quarrelled with him about an election business. Ayscough, who was an insolent man, unwelcome to the Clergy on suspicions of heterodoxy, and of no fair reputation for integrity, had been placed by Lyttelton and Pitt with the Prince, into whose favour he had worked himself, chiefly by partialities to Prince Edward; and managed his Privy Purse and his election affairs. The Princess, finding that Prince George, at eleven years old, could not read English, though Ayscough, to make amends, assured her he could make Latin verses, had already introduced a new Preceptor, one Scot, recommended by Lord Bolingbroke, who had lately seen the Prince two or three times in private.
22d.—The King sent a Commission to pass the Mutiny Bill. Lord Egremont in the House of Lords, and Lord Hilsborough in the Commons, moved the Address of Condolence; and then the Lords adjourned to Wednesday, and the Commons till Monday. Lord Egremont, who was son to the great Sir William Windham, and grandson to the old Duke of Somerset, whose prodigious pride he inherited, more than his father’s abilities, though he had a great deal of humour, had formerly been a personal favourite with the Prince, but had slighted that intimacy when Lord Granville his patron would not co-operate in the Prince’s last Opposition.
Lord Hilsborough was a young man of great honour and merit, remarkably nice in weighing whatever cause he was to vote in, and excellent at setting off his reasons, if the affair was at all tragic, by a solemnity in his voice and manner that made much impression on his hearers.
At seven o’clock of the very morning after the Prince expired, Lord Egmont sent cards to several of the Opposition, desiring them to meet at his house, to consult on the measures proper for them to take on the present conjuncture. Many of them came. He did not make any formal oration, but whispered most of them something about taking upon themselves the protection of the Princess and her children. The meeting passed in a sort of dumb confusion and uncertainty, and broke up without taking any measures at all.
An Order of Council was made to omit the name of the Prince of Wales in the prayers. As no rank was yet given to Prince George, it created murmurs. Though the House sat, nothing was done but private business. On the 26th, Colonel Haldane moved, as the Prince’s servants did not yet attend the House, that Anstruther’s affair might be postponed till after Easter, which was agreed to, though the General was present, and earnest to have it heard sooner.
28th.—A Council was held at the Cockpit, on the Nova-Scotia affair. They divided: the Chancellor, Mr. Pelham, the Dukes of Newcastle, Grafton, Dorset, and Argyle, were for complying with the request of the Board of Trade; the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich, who had now got the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Gower on their side, against it.
The German politics went ill. What Allies we had there wanted more money. The Elector of Cologne, who had signed a treaty with the King, refused to execute it, and united with France. That Court used continual evasions with us, on the evacuation of Tobago, and the contested islands in the West Indies, and gave great disturbance to our Colony of Nova-Scotia. In the east, they were driving us out of our Settlements; and upon the coast of Africa seizing our forts, raising others, inveigling away our Allies, and working us out of our whole Negro and Gold-Coast trade. The British Minister at Paris, Lord Albemarle,[85] was not a man to offend the haughtiness of that Court, or the pusillanimity of his own, by mixing more sturdiness with his Memorials than he was commissioned to do. It was convenient to him to be anywhere but in England: his debts were excessive, though he was Embassador, Groom of the Stole, Governor of Virginia, and Colonel of a regiment of Guards. His figure was genteel, his manner noble and agreeable: the rest of his merit, for he had not even an estate, was the interest my Lady Albemarle had with the King through Lady Yarmouth, and his son, Lord Bury, being the Duke’s chief favourite. He had all his life imitated the French manners, till he came to Paris, where he never conversed with a Frenchman; not from partiality to his own countrymen, for he conversed as little with them, living entirely with a Flemish Columbine, that he had brought from the Army. If good breeding is not different from good sense, Lord Albemarle, who might have disputed even that maxim, at least knew how to distinguish it from good nature. He would bow to his postilion, while he was ruining his tailor.
31st.—The King went to see the Princess. A chair of state was placed for him, but he refused it, and sat by her on the couch, embraced, and wept with her. He would not suffer the Lady Augusta to kiss his hand, but embraced her, and gave it to her brothers, and told them, “They must be brave boys, obedient to their mother, and deserve the fortune to which they were born.”