The King was civil to Fox at his next levee: afterwards in his closet Mr. Fox beginning to say, “Sir, last Wednesday the Chancellor”—the King interrupted, “Oh! sir, I believe you had given him cause; it is now pretty even.” Mr. Fox said, “Sir, I shall only beg to be heard as to there being any faction or intrigue in my behaviour: I give you my honour it is not true.” “The moment you give me your honour,” replied the King, “I believe you; but I must tell you, as I am no liar, that you have been much suspected.” He then repeated to him accusations of such low caballing, of balls given at Holland House to the Duchess of Bedford, to which Mr. Pelham’s daughters had not been invited, of persons who were disagreeable to the Pelhams being invited; in short, accusations of such feminine and peevish trifles, that if Mr. Pelham was not the whisperer of them, and the Chancellor was, the latter had certainly very tender sensations, when they could extend themselves to the dancing disgusts of his friend’s wife and daughters! Mr. Fox answered these cursorily, disclaimed any political connexions with the Bedfords, and repeated with emphasis, “Such intrigues, Sir, would be worse in me, while in your service, than in any man living, as nobody blamed such intrigues in those who undermined Sir Robert Walpole so much as I.” This dialogue ended so well, that Mr. Fox asked for a little place for one of his dependents, and obtained it.
7th.—Dr. Archibald Cameron suffered death at Tyburn. He had been forced into the Rebellion by his brother Lochiel, whom he had tried to confine, to prevent his engaging in it: not that Lochiel had taken arms voluntarily: he was a man of great parts, but could not resist the desperate honour which he thought the Pretender did him, in throwing himself into his arms, and demanding his sword and interest.[234] The Doctor, who was a man of learning and very valuable humanity, which he had displayed in endeavours to civilize that part of a barbarous country, and in offices of benevolence to the soldiers employed on the Highland roads, and to the mine-adventurers established at Strontean, was torn from these sweet duties, from his profession, from a beloved and large family, and attended his rash brother at Prestonpans and Falkirk, escaped with him, and was appointed physician to Lochiel’s regiment in the French service. He ventured back, was taken as mentioned above, and underwent a forced death with as much composure as a philosopher could affect at dying a natural one.
During the course of the summer the troubles in Ireland increased. Lord Kildare returned thither towards the end of June, after having presented a Memorial to the King against the administration of the Duke of Dorset, and the ascendant of the Primate. Nothing could be worse drawn: he was too weak to compose better, and too obstinate to submit to any correction. No facts were alleged against the Lord Lieutenant, nor any crime pretended in the Primate but that he was a Churchman. Yet these no accusations, he told the King he would return to prove whenever he should be required, and would answer that the Irish House of Commons would stand by him. He had no experience; nor knew that many men will say with party heat what they will not support with party steadiness. Lord Holderness, by the King’s command, wrote to the Chancellor of Ireland, telling him, that the King had sent the Duke of Dorset to govern them, because he had pleased them so much formerly, and because he had the good of Ireland so much at heart: that his Majesty wondered at any man taking upon himself to answer for a nation; and that he expected that all who loved him would support the Lord Lieutenant: that his Majesty permitted this letter to be communicated to Lord Kildare, to anybody. Thus the absurdity of the Memorial was balanced by the haughtiness of the mandate. Lord Kildare had transfused into a State Manifesto the most licentious topics of party libels: the English Ministers adopted, in the King’s answer, the most exalted diction of French prerogative.
Whatever might be the temper in Ireland, the increasing servility in England encouraged such a spirit in the Court. Mr. Pelham, who went to Scarborough this summer for his health, received the extravagant and unprecedented compliment of being desired to recommend a member to that borough, which happened to be vacant. The people of Bristol proceeded so far as to offer the same nomination to the King himself on this occasion: riots had happened there on the erection of new turnpikes; a citizen knocked down one of the rioters, and another stabbed him. The jury brought it in wilful murder in the first. The Attorney-General moved in the King’s Bench to reverse the judgment. This so pleased both parties in that city (the condemned person being a chief Tory), that they acknowledged it by this offer, so repugnant to all ideas of freedom of elections. What followed was only ridiculous. The King recommended Nugent: the Bristol men begged to be excused, as Nugent had been the principal promoter[235] of the Bill for a General Naturalization.
Some little time before the Irish Parliament met, the Speaker’s friends gave out, that the Primate had made acknowledgments to him of his concern for the confusion that was likely to follow, that he would meddle no more with the House of Commons, but would give all his interest and influence there to the Speaker: that the latter had replied, the Primate had such underhand ways, and had deceived him so often, that he could not trust him; and for his influence he despised it. All this passed by the intervention of Luke Gardiner, who, on the Primate’s party denying it, being called on, avowed the message. However, as it was decent for the Speaker to act candour and contrition too, he went to the Duke of Dorset, and told him, that he had got a majority in the House of Commons, and that they were determined to omit in the Address to the King the usual thanks for sending his Grace; and that if his Grace would acquiesce in that omission, they would make the rest of the session easy to him. The Duke, as hardhearted as the Speaker had been to the Primate, would by no means give his own consent to being stigmatized. An hour before he went to open the Parliament, the Speaker returned and acquainted him that he had prevailed on his friends to suffer the usual Address—and it was made.
The English Parliament, which opened on the 15th of November, was employed till the end of the year in an affair which showed how much the age, enlightened as it is called, was still enslaved to the grossest and most vulgar prejudices. The year before an Act had passed for naturalizing Jews. It had passed almost without observation, Sir John Barnard and Lord Egmont having merely given a languid opposition to it, in order to reingratiate themselves with the mobs of London and Westminster. The Bishops had honestly concurred in removing such absurd distinctions, as stigmatized and shackled a body of the most loyal, commercial, and wealthy subjects of the kingdom. A new general election was approaching; some obscure men, who perhaps wanted the necessary sums for purchasing seats, or the topics of party to raise clamour, had fastened on this Jew Bill; and in a few months the whole nation found itself inflamed with a Christian zeal, which was thought happily extinguished with the ashes of Queen Anne and Sacheverel. Indeed, this holy spirit seized none but the populace and the very lowest of the Clergy: yet all these grew suddenly so zealous for the honour of the prophecies that foretell calamity and eternal dispersion to the Jews, that they seemed to fear lest the completion of them should be defeated by Act of Parliament: and there wanted nothing to their ardour but to petition both Houses to enact the accomplishment. The little Curates preached against the Bishops for deserting the interests of the Gospel; and Aldermen grew drunk at county clubs in the cause of Jesus Christ, as they had used to do for the sake of King James. Yet to this senseless clamour did the Ministry give way; and to secure tranquillity to their elections, submitted to repeal the Bill.
It is worth while to recapitulate some instances of the capriciousness of the times. An inglorious peace had been made, and the first hostages imposed that ever this country gave: not a murmur followed. The Regency Bill, with the tremendous clause of præmunire, had been passed without occasioning a pamphlet. The Marriage Bill, that bane of society, that golden grate that separates the nobility from the plebeians, had not excited a complaint from the latter. A trifling Bill, that opened some inconsiderable advantages to a corps of men, with whom we live, traffic, converse, could alarm the whole nation—it did more: a cabal of Ministers, who had insulted their master with impunity, who had betrayed every ally and party with success, and who had crammed down every Bill that was calculated for their own power, yielded to transitory noise, and submitted to fight under the banners of prophecy, in order to carry a few more members in another Parliament.
I shall be very brief on the Debates that attended this repeal; the topic was foolish, the chief speakers not considerable, the events not memorable.
On the very day the Houses met, the Duke of Newcastle moved to repeal the Bill, which, he said, had only been a point of political policy. The Bishop of Oxford undertook the apology of his Bench, and (though in a manner too ironic) defended them well, for having given way to a Bill, which they had considered only in a political light, had never much liked, and were glad to have repealed, to quiet the minds of good people. Drummond of St. Asaph, sensibly and in a more manly style, urged that the Bishops could not have opposed the Bill without indulging a spirit of persecution, abhorrent from the spirit of the Gospel. Lord Temple, with his accustomed warmth, opposed the repeal, grew zealous for the honour of a Ministry which he wanted to censure, and protested against the Legislature listening to clamour, which was less intended to serve the Protestant Religion, than to wound the Protestant Succession. Loved he did the Liberty of the Press, yet thought the abuse in the Daily Papers ought to be noticed. He had never listened to popular clamour, nor always thought that the voice of the people was the voice of God. That the approaching general election had given foundation to this uproar, and therefore should not have wondered at a repeal being consented to by the other House, but for the Lords to consent, would be subscribing to the accusation. Lord Temple was still more violent on the second reading; pronounced the clamour disaffection clothed in superstition, and a detestable high-church spirit: trembled lest the Plantation Act should be repealed; trembled lest fires should be rekindled in Smithfield to burn Jews; shuddered at our exceeding the heinous days of Charles the Second, who, though he oppressed Presbyterians, encouraged Jews. That to give way to this spirit, would invite persecution against the Presbyterians. For him, he acted on the principles on which he had been bred, had lived, and would die. The Chancellor replied to him with temper, and defended the measure of a free government giving way. That the longer Bills of Naturalization existed, the more difficult they grow to repeal, as they have been hanging out invitation to Foreigners to accept the advantages of them: was earnest against any thought of repealing the Plantation Act, which had subsisted thirteen years, and allows seven years for settling: that as Jews are chiefly concerned in remittances, it would undo our colonies to repeal Bills made in favour of that people.