Then rose a man, on whom all eyes had turned during the Debate—the Duke of Argyle. How was every expectation disappointed! As his power was uncontrolled in Scotland; as partialities could only be exercised under his influence, or connived at by his intrigues; as the Bill was known to be a sacrifice made to his ascendant; as its practicability had been questioned; who but himself was answerable, for favour to Jacobites, for tyranny to the loyal, for the necessity, for the utility, or for the feasibility of the regulation in question? He looked down, seemed abashed, spoke low and but a few words, then contemptuously, and at last said nothing to refute the charge of partialities, or in defence of the Bill. He only said, “What would have happened if any Scotch Lord had spoken against it? it would have been said, they are for keeping up their old barbarity and power. Whereas, the clans are to transfer their allegiance to Commissioners appointed by the King during his pleasure. If any man suspected him to be so low, as to have private views in this, God forgive him! That with regard to taxes, such difficulties there had been on the old tax on houses, that it had never been paid: few counties had even named their Collectors. That the window tax, if paid, would raise but 6000l., and ninety-nine Collectors would have but fifteen shillings a piece. That on the coach tax there was no deficience. For himself, he despised reports.”
Lord Tweedale spoke after him, and with passion; but as nobody expected any great lights from him, so he disappointed nobody.
The Duke of Newcastle, flustered by the Duke of Bedford’s attack, and confounded by the Duke of Argyle’s no defence, seemed to speak only to mark his own confusion, and to enforce what the Duke of Bedford had urged. He said he had taken minutes of the names mentioned by his Grace, and hoped such recommendations would be taken no more. That he had already sent the King’s orders to apprehend some Rebels still resident in Scotland; but as yet they could not be taken.
Thus much effect followed: Cummings and some others in the Duke of Bedford’s list were removed. The Bill passed; but though one great argument for driving it on had been the danger of the estates lapsing, neither English nor Scotch Ministers chose to have it discussed any further in Parliament. The Duke of Cumberland, who was present, did not vote. The Court Lords were fourscore; the minority only twelve: the Dukes of Bedford and Kingston; the Earls of Bath, Chesterfield, Sandwich, and Macclesfield; with six Tory Lords, the Duke of Beaufort, the Earls of Lichfield and Oxford, and the Lords Wentworth, Ward, and Maynard. Mr. Pelham was enraged beyond measure at the Duke of Argyle; the King charmed with the Duke of Bedford; and both these sensations were heightened by the Duke giving his father a list of sixty Jacobites, who had been preferred in Scotland since the Rebellion.
26th.—The King put an end to the session; and the Speaker, in his speech to him, launched out in invectives against the management in Scotland.
I shall conclude the history of this Bill with the character of its patron, not its defender, the Duke of Argyle.
Archibald Campbell, Earl of Isla, was younger brother of the admired John, Duke of Argyle, whom he succeeded in the title, and with whom he had little in common, but the love of command. The elder brother was graceful in his figure, ostentatious in his behaviour, impetuous in his passions; prompt to insult, even where he had wit to wound and eloquence to confound; and what is seldomer seen, a miser as early as a hero. Lord Isla was slovenly in his person, mysterious, not to say with an air of guilt in his deportment, slow, steady where suppleness did not better answer his purpose, revengeful, and if artful, at least not ingratiating. He loved power too well to hazard it by ostentation, and money so little, that he neither spared it to gain friends or to serve them. He attained the sole authority in Scotland, by making himself useful to Sir Robert Walpole, and preserved it by being formidable to the Pelhams. The former had disgusted the zealous Whigs in Scotland by throwing himself into the arms of a man of such equivocal principles: the Earl pretended to return it, by breaking with his brother when that Duke quarrelled with Sir Robert: yet one chief cause of Walpole’s fall was attributed to Lord Isla’s betraying to his brother the Scotch boroughs entrusted to his management in 1741. It must be told, that Sir Robert Walpole always said, he did not accuse him. Lord Isla’s power received a little shock by Lord Tweedale’s and Lord Stair’s return to Court on that Minister’s retreat; but like other of Lord Orford’s chief associates, Lord Isla soon recovered his share of the spoils of that Administration. He had been ill with the Queen (of whom he knew he was sure while he was sure of Sir Robert Walpole) from his attachment to Lady Suffolk: he connected with Lord Granville, while Lord Granville had any sway; and as easily united with the Pelhams, when power was their common pursuit, and the humiliation of the Duke and the Duke of Bedford the object of their common resentment; for common it was, though the very cause that naturally presented them to the Duke of Argyle’s hatred, their zeal and services, ought at least to have endeared them to the brothers.
By a succession of these intrigues, the Duke of Argyle had risen to supreme authority in Scotland: the only instance wherein he declined the full exertion of it was, when it might have been of service to the master who delegated it; in the time of the Rebellion: at that juncture he posted to London: the King was to see that he was not in Rebellion; the Rebels, that he was not in arms. But when this double conduct was too gross not to be censured, he urged a Scotch law in force against taking up arms without legal authority; so scrupulously attached did he pretend to be to the constitution of his country, that he would not arm in defence of the essence of its laws against the letter of them. In his private life, he had more merit, except in the case of his wife, whom having been deluded into marrying without a fortune, he punished by rigorous and unrelaxed confinement in Scotland. He had a great thirst for books; a head admirably turned to mechanics; was a patron of ingenious men, a promoter of discoveries, and one of the first great encouragers of planting in England; most of the curious exotics which have been familiarized to this climate being introduced by him. But perhaps too much has been said on the subject of a man, who, though at the head of his country for several years, had so little great either in himself or in his views, and consequently contributed so little to any great events, that posterity will probably interest themselves very slightly in the history of his fortunes.[217]
31st.—The King set out for Hanover: the Duke of Newcastle, who attended him, would not venture himself in any yacht but the one in which Lord Cardigan had lately escaped a great storm.