1752.
Pour être bon historien, il ne faudroit être d’aucune religion, d’aucun pais, d’aucune profession, d’aucun parti.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Reflections of the Author on commencing his Memoirs of the Year 1752—State of Parties—Treaty with Saxony—Duke of Bedford opposes it—Debates upon it in the Lords—Speeches of the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Sandwich, Marquis of Halifax, and Lord Granville—History of the Purchase of Scotch Forfeited Estates—Debates on the Scotch Forfeiture Bill.
I sit down to resume a task, for which I fear posterity will condemn the author, at the same time that they feel their curiosity gratified. On reviewing the first part of these Memoirs, I find the truth rigidly told. And even since they were written, I have often been struck with the censures which are passed on such historians as have fairly displayed the faulty sides of the characters they exhibit. Theopompus is called a satirist: Timæus was so severe,[204] as to be nicknamed Epitimæus, the Blamer. Some of our own annalists, as Wilson, Weldon, Osborn, (though frequently quoted,) are seldom mentioned without reproach. I defend them not: if their representations are exaggerated, they not only deserve reproach, but discredit.
On the other hand, I examined the candid authors. Two of our own, who deal wonderfully in panegyric, Clarendon and Echard, I find to have dispensed invectives with a liberal hand on men of parties opposite to their own—does then the province of praise and censure depend on the felicity of choosing one’s party? That shall never influence me—I would as soon wish to be rejected for flattering one party, as for blaming another. Nor can I, on the strictest consideration, determine to write like biographers and authors of Peerages and Compendiums, who sink all executions in a family, all blots in a ’scutcheon, and lay out their personages as fair as if they wrote epitaphs, not history. Does any noble family extinguish? One should grieve, on reading their genealogies, that such a succession of heroes, statesmen, patriots, should ever fail; if a little knowledge of mankind did not call forth the blemishes, which these varnishers have slubbered over. If I write, I must write facts. The times I describe have neither been glorious nor fortunate. Have our affairs gone ill, and yet were our Governors wise? Have Parliaments been venal, servile, and yet individuals upright? If I paint the battle of Dettingen in prosperous colours, am I an admired historian? If I mention hostages sent to France, am I an abusive one? Are there no shades, no degrees of vices and misconduct? Must no Princes be blamed, till they are Neros? Must Vespasian’s avarice pass unnoticed, because he did not set fire to the city—because he did not burn the means of gratifying his exactions?
Suppose I were to comply with this indulgent taste, and write thus:—George the Second was the most glorious Monarch that ever sat on the English Throne; his victories over the united arms of Spain and France[205] will illustrate our annals till time is no more; and his condescension and generosity will conspire to raise his private character to a level with his public. The Duke of Newcastle was a prodigy of sincerity, steadiness, and abilities. Mr. Pelham was the humblest man, the bravest Minister, the heartiest friend, the openest enemy. The Earl of Holderness the most graceful dancer that ever trod the stage of business since the days of Chancellor Hatton—avaunt, Flattery! tell the truth, my pen!
The miscarriage of the Rebellion had silenced Jacobitism; the death of the Prince of Wales had quashed opposition; and the removal of the Duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich had put an end to factions in the Ministry. The ascendant of the Pelhams drew the attention of the disaffected, who began to see a prospect of the restoration, if not of the Stuarts, at least of absolute power; and this union was not a little cemented by the harmony of hatred, in which both the Pelhams and the Jacobites concurred against the Duke and the Duke of Bedford; neither the one nor the other were disposed at this juncture to stem the torrent. The Duke was determined not to give the Pelhams so fair an opportunity of mischief, as by setting up the standard of opposition during his father’s life; and the treasures which he expected at the King’s death, and would not risk losing,[206] he knew would indemnify the delay of his revenge. The Duke of Bedford, who had been driven into contention, not sought it himself, did not feel resentment enough for the loss of power, which he had never much coveted, to make him eager in returning ill-usage; and as he thought himself distinguished by the King’s esteem, he affected gratitude to the Master, more than revenge to the Ministers. Pitt and his little faction were rather unsatisfied, than in possession of any title to complaint; and yet from that quarter seemed to lower the first small cloud that might at all obscure the present halcyon season.
A new subsidiary treaty with Saxony (a strange codicil to a general peace!) had been lately concluded; the pretence, the purchase of another Electoral vote for the Archduke Joseph, whom we persisted in making a candidate for the succession of the Empire, though his father and his mother were equally averse to see him King of the Romans. As he was immediate heir to his mother’s vast dominions, the Emperor could not but foresee, that, if the estates of the House of Austria fell to his son, it might even become difficult for himself to retain the empty diadem, when the means of grandeur should be devolved on his child; and the Empress-queen, who had not ceded a jot of power to a husband whose person she loved, was not desirous of calling her son Emperor, who might be less tractable, and more impatient to reign in earnest. Yet the dread the King felt of a new war in Germany, his jealousy of his nephew of Prussia, and even the favourite impulse of acting in contradiction to him, made his Majesty eager to hurry on the election, and profuse of subsidies, which were not to be issued from his own coffers. Lord Cobham, who, having no place to forfeit, was always used by Pitt as the trumpet of their discontents, openly sounded his disapprobation of the Treaty: and old Horace Walpole, who had waded through, and transacted so many treaties, without attaining a Peerage, was at last determined to try if he could not traverse negotiations to better purpose than he had negotiated.