December 10th.—The treaties were considered in both Houses. In the Lords, Earl Temple, in a very long and very indifferent speech, in which there was nothing remarkable but his saying, that we were become an insurance-office to Hanover, moved for a censure on the treaties. Lord Chesterfield defended them with great applause. The turn of his speech was to ascribe the clamour against Hanover to the Jacobites, and to ridicule them. He talked much on the Rebellion, on the intended insurrection, for which Sir John Cotton’s resigning his employment was to have been the signal, and of Marshal Saxe’s projected invasion, or chimère, in 1744. He was to have brought 12,000 saddles, his Lordship supposed, for disaffected horses. A Jacobite might think he could answer for horses; he does think he can answer for what is as little governable. He went through a deduction of the history of England since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, with regard to the continent—of James the First, he said, he had other things to think of—he was writing against witches and tobacco.
Lord Marchmont was more severe on Lord Temple, and said, he could not pretend to keep steady those cock-boats of eloquence. He believed their intentions right, but they might do much mischief by raising such animosities. If a man kills one, what satisfaction to be told, that he only intended to maim? If that House was burned down, what indemnification would it be, that they meaned only to set fire to these treaties with a farthing candle? He concluded with saying, that he had heard this measure compared to the Trojan horse, filled with armed men—but that was not the cause of complaint—the persons in Opposition were angry that they were not to bridle and saddle it.
The Duke of Bedford spoke for the treaties; Lord Ravensworth against them, and against the censure of them too. The Chancellor spoke severely against Lord Temple, and fulsomely and indecently; seeing the Prince of Wales there taking notes, he said, he now began to have hopes of him; hoped he would be the father of all his subjects; flattered the Duke; and said of the Ministers, they were sometimes painted like angels, sometimes like monsters. Lord Temple repaid the invective. He did not know, he said, whom he had painted as angels; he had some time ago heard one man[31] painted as a monster—he did not know how he would be represented now. Remembered how he had formerly been drawn into a measure[32] himself, for tearing away a favourite servant from the King, by those who had since adopted that Minister’s measures. He wished that Minister had remained; his measure would not be mangled now by blundering cobblers. Lord Halifax spoke warmly against German measures; and called the present the most expensive funeral of our expiring country that ever was furnished by a rash undertaker. Lord Pomfret, as earnest, called on the Bishops to prevent the effusion of Christian blood. The Duke of Newcastle, Lord Holderness, Lord Morton, and Lord Raymond, spoke for the treaties; and Lord Cathcart, in vindication of the behaviour of the Hessians in the last war; and then the censure being rejected by 85 to 12, Lord Egremont and Lord Ilchester moved for approbation of the treaties; and the House broke up at ten at night.
The Commons sat to the same hour. Lord Barrington moving to refer the treaties to the Committee; Potter opposed it, affirming that the treaties were unconstitutional acts, and express violations of the Act of Settlement, for which reason he would not enter into the merits; any treaty for Hanover, whether subsidiary or not, made without consent of Parliament, being such an infringement. He only observed that the stipulations with Hesse were so loose, that for 8000 men, we might be engaged in a war of twenty years for the Landgrave, if attacked by whomsoever. That these questions might involve us in a war for Hanover—ergo, were a violation of the Settlement. The appropriation of the late Vote of Credit to these subsidies was a violation too of that. He was running into strong censure, but checked himself, saying, he could not call it a profligate age, when such men had fallen victims to their integrity! Potter’s manner was at once important and languid, and consequently effaced impressions as fast as he made them. Sir George Lyttelton insisted that the express defence of England and her Allies was provided for by the Hessian treaty. And Lord Duplin excused the application of the Vote of Credit, as intended to enable us to furnish our contingents. Fox told Potter that his accusation was too weighty for his conclusion; was he content, after charging such crimes, with preventing the treaties from being referred to the Committee? Martin replied, that, considering what name was involved in these negotiations, a rejection was thought more decent than a censure.
The Duke of Newcastle, apprehending that Murray might skirmish too cautiously with Pitt, and that Fox, though he might combat him, might not much defend his Grace, had selected another champion, who was equal to any Philippic, and whom he would for that purpose have made Paymaster, if Fox had not withstood it. This was Hume Campbell, who for some time had deserted Opposition, and almost Parliament, and had applied himself entirely to his profession of the Law, which he was at once formed to adorn and to suit, for he was eloquent, acute, abusive, corrupt, and insatiable. He began with professing his reverence for the Act of Settlement, as the act of King William, to whom we owed our existence as a Parliament: yet, said he, “the sense of the House should be taken in form on the legality or illegality of the measure: the charge ought to be well made out: if not illegal, let the House punish the eternal invectives.” Pitt called him to order, and told him, he thought he was too good a member of Parliament, to describe Debates in that manner. Old Horace Walpole answered, that Pitt ought to be the last man in the House to complain of irregularity. This occasioned much disorder. Pitt said, he had risen to put Hume Campbell in mind of words that struck directly at the liberty of Debate: that he had him in his power if he insisted on taking down the words, but would decline, till he had explained himself. Hume Campbell then continued, in a masterly speech, to censure the unlimited reflections that were daily thrown on the Ministers; adding, that when people made charges on acts of State, they ought to be obliged to make them out. He mentioned Sir William Thompson’s accusation of Lord Lechmere, and other cases, which had been voted scandalous and malicious. Hard would it be, if that House might not resent unjust accusations of our superiors. When they happen in crowded houses,[33] strangers take notes, and the abuse is dispersed to the most mischievous purposes. In 1745, invectives scattered there, were transplanted into the Pretender’s manifestos. He lamented their misleading his unhappy countrymen;[34] and owned that he was but too apt to be warm himself.
Then passing to the objections raised from the Act of Settlement, he said, he should pay no compliment to it; it had been intended a censure on King William: the clause specified was only declaratory, and did not take away from the Crown the power of making treaties. In 1727, a treaty of mutual guarantee was made with the Court of Wolfenbuttle, and was signed by great men and Whigs, by the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Trevor, Lord Townshend, and by the greatest of all, Sir Robert Walpole: it was debated, written against, yet was never once thought a violation of the Settlement. Afterwards, when a Motion was made for removing Sir Robert Walpole, there wanted no abilities to charge him; there was only wanting fact and evidence; but the House called for facts, not speeches; for evidence, not assertions. No man dreamed of such a breach of the constitution; yet had it been so, the treaty was a fact, and Sir Robert’s name to it was evidence. The present treaties were a great system of preventive measures:—what was the most hostile part of them? that levelled against Prussia—yet that Prince could not be sorry that we should have future greatness: his maxim was, that no Ally can be well worth keeping, unless they can do without you. In the present case, that King may be glad to plead his fear of the Russians, against admitting the French into Germany. For his own part, he would rather censure the negotiators than the treaties themselves, which were calculated for the interests, and Navy, and commerce of Britain. But if the Ministers were so guilty as was pretended, the times were too dangerous not to remove them. He concluded with a short defence of himself, denied being in the power of any individual, and said he must plead as an excuse of his egotism that rule of Plutarch, never to say anything in defence of yourself, but when mankind could not possibly know it without; let his warmth be taken as a proof of his honesty.
Vyner remarked, that Lord Chancellor King had long refused to enrol the treaty of Wolfenbuttle. George Granville pointed out the impropriety of referring illegal papers, to see if the Committee would grant money on them; and the impossibility of forming a charge in the Committee, instead of giving money: or the absurdity of giving money, and then considering whether it was legal or not. He taxed it with being unparliamentary language to say that the Act of Settlement was formed by the enemies of the House of Hanover; were Lord Wharton, Lord Somers, enemies? If that doctrine should prevail, the same might be said of the Bill of Rights: all our Statute Books might be erased, might be called founded on disrespect. This indeed would be a way of restraining Debates, to call them acts of hostility. Why the treaty of Wolfenbuttle avoided censure was, the King’s having been empowered the year before to contract alliances for defence of Hanover. Would anybody agree to refer the treaty in question to the Committee, because they did not believe it would engage us in a war for Hanover? What had proved to be the intent of the former treaty with Russia? When England was attacked in 1745, and we did not reclaim our money from Russia (about 400,000l.), it marked that treaty to have related only to Hanover. But we made treaties when we ought to deliberate, and deliberated when we ought to act. If the Hessians were retained in June for fear of an invasion, were they ready now in December? could they be ready under three months? and wherefore had we taken no other precautions? Were these Hessians all-sufficient? He wished our situation were such, that the authors of this measure were to be envied! If their negotiations were approved by the Committee, could they afterwards be impeached? He did not wonder, therefore, that they pushed on this method.
Murray answered, that the sense of the House on the legality might be taken collaterally in the Committee—but were we engaged, or to be engaged, in a war for Hanover? The first Act of Settlement, which obliged Privy Councillors to sign their opinions, had been repealed by Lord Somers himself. That, allowing the present charge, the Act would not be infringed till the troops were reclaimed. But these arguments would disable the King from leaving a single clause in a treaty for his Electoral defence. If this treaty violated the Act of Settlement, it had been broken by all defensive treaties; had been broken by the Quadruple Alliance. That treaty engaged the contracting Powers mutually to defend all the dominions of each other; and if the stipulated succours proved insufficient, they were to engage in a war. It was the same in the treaty of Hanover. But the bare conclusion of the treaty was never charged. In the year 1739 we contracted for Hessians and Danes; it was thought prudent to secure them, though we were then involved only in a war with Spain: no previous application had been made to Parliament. All subsequent subsidiary treaties had been concluded in the same way. We could not enjoy the blessing of the present Royal Family without the inconveniences. In the year 1740 a Vote of Credit had been applied in the same manner. But granting it perverted, would the misapplication spoil the treaty?
Pitt, after Hume Campbell’s attack, had let these discussions intervene, as if taking time to collect his anger. He rose at last, aggravating by the most contemptuous looks, and action, and accents, the bitterest and most insulting of all speeches. Such little matter, he said, had been offered on the defensive side, that he did not know where to go. Had Hume Campbell had anything else to say, he would not have dwelt for half an hour on the treaty of Wolfenbuttle—and what had he produced? a list of Lords who signed it! How were their names to induce the House to refer these treaties to a Committee? such poor little shifts and evasions might do in a pie-poudre-court;[35] they were unworthy a great House of Parliament. Once Hume Campbell had been his great friend, and they had trod the same paths of invectives[36] together, which now the other wanted to have punished, so ready was he, by a side-wind, to level the laws, and so fond of superiors! Nay, he had urged that the Act of Settlement was not obligatory till the treaties were ratified! he prayed to Heaven, that doctrines, dangerous as manifestos, might not prevail there! The gentleman had dared to avow such doctrine—but a Court could never want one servile lawyer for any purpose. In the profligate, prerogative reign of James the First, when a great Duke[37] was at the head of power, even that House of Commons possessed a member who dared to call him Stellionatus.[38] And there did not want a servile lawyer to call for punishment on the honest burgess.