The session of Parliament was languishing towards a conclusion, when a Bill sent down from the Lords to the Commons, and which had passed almost without notice through the former House, having been carried by an hundred Lords against the Duke of Bedford and eleven others, raised, or gave occasion to raise, extraordinary heats. This was the famous Marriage Bill; an Act of such notoriety, and on which so very much was said at the time, and on which so much has been written since, that it would be almost impossible, at least very wearisome, to particularize the Debates, and very unnecessary to enter much into the state of the question. Some of the most particular passages, such as tend to illustrate or explain the characters, the politics, and the factions of the time, I shall, according to my custom, succinctly touch.
The Bill had been originally moved by my Lord Bath, who, attending a Scotch cause, was struck with the hardship of a matrimonial case, in which a man, after a marriage of thirty years, was claimed by another woman on a pre-contract. The Judges were ordered to frame a Bill that should remedy so cruel a retrospect. They did; but drew it so ill, and it was three times printed so inaccurately, that the Chancellor was obliged to give it ample correction. Whether from mere partiality to an ordinance thus become his own, or whether in shaping a law, new views of power opened to a mind fond of power, fond of dictating; so it was, that the Chancellor gave all his attention to a statute into which he had breathed the very spirit of aristocracy and insolent nobility. It was amazing, in a country where liberty gives choice, where trade and money confer equality, and where facility of marriage had always been supposed to produce populousness,—it was amazing to see a law promulged, that cramped inclination, that discountenanced matrimony, and that seemed to annex as sacred privileges to birth, as could be devised in the proudest, poorest little Italian principality; and as if the artificer had been a Teutonic Margrave, not a little lawyer, who had raised himself by his industry from the very lees of the people; and who had matched his own blood with the great house of Kent!
The abuse of pre-contracts had occasioned the demand of a remedy—the physician immediately prescribed medicines for every ailment to which the ceremony of marriage was or could be supposed liable! Publication of banns was already an established ordinance, but totally in disuse except amongst the inferior people, who did not blush to obey the law. Persons of Quality, who proclaimed every other step of their conjugation by the most public parade, were ashamed to have the intention of it notified, and were constantly married by special licence. Unsuitable matches in a country where the passions are not impetuous, and where it is neither easy nor customary to tyrannize the inclinations of children, were by no means frequent: the most disproportioned alliances, those contracted by age, by dowagers, were without the scope of this Bill. Yet the new Act set out with a falsehood, declaiming against clandestine marriages, as if they had been a frequent evil.
The greatest abuse were the temporary weddings clapped up in the Fleet, and by one Keith,[229] who had constructed a very Bishopric for revenue in Mayfair, by performing that charitable function for a trifling sum, which the poor successors of the Apostles are seldom humble enough to perform out of duty. The new Bill enjoined indispensable publication of banns, yet took away their validity, if parents, nay, if even guardians, signified their dissent, where the parties should be under age—a very novel power!—but guardians are a limb of Chancery! The Archbishop’s licence was indeed reserved to him. A more arbitrary spirit was still behind: persons solemnizing marriages, without these previous steps, were sentenced to transportation, and the marriage was to be effectually null—so close did congenial law clip the wings of the prostrate priesthood! And as if such rigour did not sufficiently describe its fountain and its destination, it was expressly specified, that where a mother or a guardian should be non compos, resort might be had to the Chancellor himself for licence. Contracts and pre-contracts, other flowers of ecclesiastic prerogative, were to be totally invalid, and their obligations abolished: and the gentle institution was wound up with the penalty of death for all forgeries in breach of this statute of modern Draco. Quakers, Jews, and the Royal Family had the only toleration.
May 14th.—The Bill came down to the Commons. Nugent took it to pieces severely and sensibly, pointed out the impropriety of it in a commercial nation, and the ill-nature and partiality of the restrictions. He showed himself a great master of political disquisitions, and it seemed that a desire of displaying that learning was the sole cause of any opposition to the Bill. This was all that passed material the first day, and the Bill was read on a majority of 116 to 55.
21st.—A second adversary appeared against the Bill. This was Charles Townshend, second son of my Lord Townshend, a young man of unbounded ambition, of exceeding application, and, as it now appeared, of abilities capable of satisfying that ambition, and of not wanting that application: yet to such parts and such industry he was fond of associating all the little arts and falsehoods that always depreciate, though so often thought necessary by, a genius. He had been an early favourite of Lord Halifax, and had already distinguished himself on affairs of trade, and in drawing plans and papers for that province; but not rising in proportion to his ambition, he comforted himself with employing as many stratagems as had ever been imputed to the most successful statesmen.
His figure was tall and advantageous, his action vehement, his voice loud, his laugh louder. He had art enough to disguise anything but his vanity. He spoke long and with much wit, and drew a picture, with much humour at least, if not with much humility, of himself and of his own situation, as the younger son of a capricious father, who had already debarred him from an advantageous match: “were new shackles to be forged to keep young men of abilities from mounting to a level with their elder brothers?” Nugent had not shone with more parts the preceding day; Nugent on no day discovered less modesty. What will be their fates I know not; but this Mr. Townshend and Mr. Conway seemed marked by nature for leaders, perhaps for rivals in the Government of their country. The quickness of genius is eminently with the first, and a superiority of application; the propriety and amiableness of character with the latter. One grasps at fortune, the other only seems pleased to accept fortune when it advances to him. The one foresees himself equal to everything, the other finds himself so whenever he essays. Charles Townshend seems to have no passion but ambition; Harry Conway not even to have that. The one is impetuous and unsteady; the other, cool and determined. Conway is indolent, but can be assiduous; Charles Townshend can only be indefatigable. The latter would govern mankind for his own sake; the former, for theirs.
The speeches hitherto had only been flourishes in the air: at last the real enemy came forth, Mr. Fox; who neither spared the Bill nor the author of it, as wherever he laid his finger, it was not wont to be light. He was supported by Fazakerley and Sir William Yonge. Mr. Pelham, the Attorney and Solicitor, Lord Hilsborough, Hampden, and Lord Egmont, supported the Bill, and it was carried that day by 165 to 84.
On the 23rd and 25th, the House sat late each day on the Bill, Mr. Fox attacking and Mr. Pelham defending with eager peevishness. The former repeated his censures on the Chancellor, which old Horace Walpole reproved; Nugent was absurd; and the measure growing ministerial, the numbers against the Bill diminished.