Lord Bath then made as miscellaneous a speech as he used to do in the House of Commons; objecting to the not leaving the Regent power to displace any of the inferior Commissioners of Treasury or Admiralty; and weeping actual tears when he mentioned the possible event of the King’s death. This duteous dew was followed by a joke on Harry Vane[111], formerly his tool and spy, now in that office to the Pelhams, and a wonderful Lord of the Treasury, who, whenever he was drunk, told all he knew, and when he was sober more than he knew, and whom Lord Bath said, on seeing there, he did not mean to propose removing. Then soaring up to a panegyric on the Princess, he observed, that female reigns in England had not been the least glorious, and yet the great Princess, who was likely to figure with the Elizabeths and the Annes, would not be empowered to reward merit, or to place, if she found such an one, a proper person at the head of the Treasury: that she even would not have authority to appoint her own son, Prince Edward, Lord High Admiral, nor to grant convoys to any merchants who solicited for them: that indeed she might tell the merchants she would use her interest with Parliament to get this Bill altered, and then she would protect them. He then (it is very true he said so) wished that all employments were for life, or quam diù those who held them se benè gesserint; and professed (it is even true that he professed) having been ashamed of the struggles he had seen for places, half of which he wished were to be diminished at the King’s death, and the salaries to be applied to the Sinking Fund: that, having been lately in France, he had observed that the weight of their debt is the debts on employments. He concluded with declaring he liked the Bill, and did not mean to oppose it.
Lord Bath[112] is so known a character, that it is almost needless to draw him. Who does not know that Mr. Pulteney was the great rival of Sir Robert Walpole, whose power he so long opposed, at last overturned, and was undone with it? Who does not know that his virtue failed the moment his inveteracy was gratified? Who does not know that all the patriot’s private vices, which his party would not see while he led them, were exposed, and, if possible, magnified by them the instant he deserted them? Who does not know that he had not judgment or resolution enough to engross the power, which he had forfeited his credit and character to obtain? and who does not know that his ambition, treachery, irresolution, timidity, and want of judgment were baffled[113] and made advantage of by a man who had all those vices and deficiencies in a stronger proportion—for who does not know the Duke of Newcastle?
The Chancellor answered Lord Bath upon some points of form that he had mentioned in the drawing Commissions for the Boards of Treasury and Admiralty, but owned that it was indifferent to him whether that clause in the Bill were altered or not. Lord Bath confessed himself in a mistake, having concluded that a single alteration vacated the whole Commission. Dr. Maddox, Bishop of Worcester, who did not want parts, wanted them now, making a bad speech, and objected that the Princess, who might make a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, would not have authority to make a Baron of the Exchequer there; and he proposed her having the disposal of all offices in general. The Duke of Newcastle, who had too much good-nature, or too much jealousy, to let anybody else be eminently ridiculous where he was present, replied in a tone of raillery, “that the nomination of Bishops and Judges had been previously excepted, because the first thoughts of the compilers of the Bill had been directed to the security of our souls and properties, and had been taken from the Regent, because she might not know the true character of such Divines as were recommended to her.” And, lest even this nonsense should wear the appearance of an argument, his Grace added, that he could not help remembering what had been said when the Act of Union passed, that there were already in the English House of Lords twenty-six immortal Peers, meaning his good Lords the Bishops, who he hoped would all deserve immortality.
Lord Talbot, a Lord of good parts, only that they had rather more bias to “extravagance” than sense, opposed the clause for continuing the Parliament for three years after the King’s death; talked over the nature of Government, asserted that the contests arrived in England during minorities had not arisen from new elections; and said, that “they might make laws with relation to future Parliaments, but had no power to extend the duration of the present.” Lord Talbot[114] was a sworn enemy to the Chancellor from some family jealousies, and soon after his father’s death and Yorke’s elevation, who had made a speech against some advantages that were demanded for the Prince of Wales, Lord Talbot said, “He should certainly submit to such high authority, if he had not in his hand an opinion directly contrary, which he could not help thinking of equal weight.” It was expected that he was going to read a judgment of his father, but it was an opinion which the present Chancellor himself had given, when he was Attorney-General, on a parallel case referred to his and Talbot’s judgment in the late reign, when the present King had figured in the character of a mutinous Prince of Wales.
Lord Granville replied to Lord Talbot, “That it was the parliamentary clause that gave stability to the whole Bill, and hoped we should even have enacted it without a message from the Throne. That Rebellions were best carried on during elections; that it had been the policy of Louis the Fourteenth to foment them here at that season; and that he had had an opportunity, when last Secretary of State, of knowing, among the secrets which had not come to light, that it had been an advice given in the Council of France during the very last Rebellion, to wait for a general election.” He declared his approbation of the restrictions, not that they would, he hoped, be necessary in the present case, but as they would be a precedent for, and of service to posterity. The Bishop of London made no opposition, and the Bill was committed by 106 to 12, Lord Townshend voting for the latter clauses, and Lord Folkestone against them.
The Duke of Bedford was laid up with the gout and rheumatism, but was very eager to have gone to the House and opposed the whole tenour of the restrictions. His friends apprehending that it would undo him with the King (who had been made to believe that this act against his own son was of his own direction), used all their endeavours to dissuade him, and succeeded pretty easily after the first division, which had been composed of so few, and those such insignificant Lords. Lord Sandwich, who was not impatient to precipitate his own fall, voted, with the Duke’s consent, for every part of the Bill.
13th.—The Lords read the Regency Bill the third time, and sent it to the Commons, who read it immediately. Mr. Pelham opened it, and moved for its being read a second time. Sir Francis Dashwood made several objections to it, and asked “What was the intent of the Duke’s being the head of the Council of Regency? a question, he said, simply of curiosity, for he did not desire he should have any power. If this Bill was calculated to pare away the prerogative, he wished the Parliament would set about it roundly, and stickle for a new Magna Charta. He observed that there was no provision made, in case the Princess should die before the determination of her Regency; and he feared her being displeased with these very strict limitations.” He attended the Bill no more, which he foresaw would pass by a great majority, after he had satisfied himself with declaring against it. He was a man of sense without eloquence, and of humour without good humour: naturally inclined to adventures, and had early in his life made a voyage to Russia, dressed like Charles the Twelfth, in hopes of making the Czarina Anne fall in love with him—an improper hero to copy, when a woman was to be captivated! Oglethorpe found more faults in the Bill; Nugent commended it extravagantly. Lord Limerick too approved it, but observed a want of provision, in case the King died during a dissolution of Parliament, or before a new-elected one had sat.
The Attorney-General answered him, and the two other opponents, and declared his opinion, that a new chosen Parliament, even before a session, would answer the purposes described in the Bill: but the Solicitor-General thought that it must be the dissolved Parliament that should re-assemble. The Attorney[115] was a man of singular goodness and integrity; of the highest reputation in his profession, of the lowest in the House, where he wearied the audience by the multiplicity of his arguments; resembling the Physician who ordered a medicine to be composed of all the simples in a meadow, as there must be some of them at least that would be proper. T. Pitt and Sydenham spoke against the Bill; Dr. Lee in approbation of the Council, as a safeguard to the Regent, and treated the nomination to offices as a trifle. Henley spoke for the Bill, but agreeing with Lord Limerick’s observation. Mr. Pelham then proposed to read it a second time on the morrow. T. Pitt asked for a longer day, and to have the Bill printed, and was seconded by Sir John Cotton; but on Mr. Pelham’s opposing it, there was no division. The House sat till past seven.
14th.—The Regency Bill was read a second time, and opposed only by Mr. Delaval, in a very absurd speech, which he asked pardon for not having made the day before, which was the first of his sitting in Parliament.