It is necessary to be well acquainted with the disposition of a free, proud, fickle, and violent people, before one can conceive the indignation occasioned by this intelligence. Nothing can paint it so strongly as what was its instant consequences. Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Saunders were immediately dispatched in the Antelope to supersede Byng and West, to arrest and bring them prisoners to England. This was the first movement; the second should have been to reflect, that there was not the least ground for this information but what was communicated through the channel of Spanish agents (not very friendly to Britain,) from the vapouring letter of the enemy’s own Admiral, interested to heighten or palliate his own conduct:—this should have been the second thought, but it was long ere it was suffered to place itself. In the Antelope, a little cargo of courage, as it was called, were sent at the same time Lord Tyrawley and Lord Panmure, to supersede General Fowke, and take the government of Gibraltar. Is it credible, that Lord Tyrawley, dispatched with such vaunted expedition, was the actual Governor of Minorca, where he ought to have been from the beginning of the war?
The impression against Mr. Byng was no sooner taken, than every art and incident that could inflame it were industriously used and adopted. Though he had demanded the Mediterranean service as his right, and had pressed for it as the scene of his father’s[61] glory, his courage was now called in question, and omens were recollected to have foretold this miscarriage. A letter from him before the engagement had mentioned nothing of Minorca; it only said, that if he found the French too strong, he would retire under the cannon of Gibraltar. The King was now reported to have dashed this letter on the ground in a passion, saying, “This man will not fight!”—his Majesty, it seems, had great skill in the symptoms of cowardice! He was represented, too, as neither eating nor sleeping, and as lamenting himself that this account would be his death. As Minorca was but too likely to follow the fate of Calais, his Ministers prepared to write Mahon on that heart, which had never yet felt for any English possession. The Duke, whose sensibility on this occasion can less be doubted, took care to be quoted too: he said, “We are undone! Sea and land are cowards! I am ashamed of my profession!”
But on the arrival of the Admiral’s own dispatch, an abstract of which was immediately published, the rage of the people rose to the height. The letter spoke the satisfaction of an officer, who thought he had done his duty, and done it well—an air of triumph, that seemed little to become a man who had left the French masters of the sea, and the garrison of St. Philip’s without hope of relief. Their despair on the disappearance of the British fleet must have been extreme, and could not fail to excite the warmest compassion here. The Admiral was burned in effigy in all the great towns; his seat and park in Hertfordshire were assaulted by the mob, and with difficulty saved. The streets and shops swarmed with injurious ballads, libels, and prints, in some of which was mingled a little justice on the Ministers. Charles Townshend undertook a weekly paper, called the Test, of which only one number was published: he had too much mercury and too little ill-nature to continue a periodical war. We shall see in the following winter that some of the persons attacked were rather more settled in their passions, when they revived the title of this paper, and turned it on its patrons.
As I shall soon be obliged to open a blacker scene than what has hitherto employed my pen, I will take leave of the preceding period with these few remarks. Considering how seldom the world is blessed with a government really good, and that the best are generally but negatively good, I am inclined to pronounce the times of which I have been writing, happy. Every art and system that brings advantage to the country was permitted: commerce was in no shape checked: liberty, not being wanton, nay, being complaisant, was not restrained. The Church was moderate, and, when the Ministry required it, yielding. If the Chancellor was ravenous, and arbitrary, and ambitious, he moved too deliberately and too gravely, to bring on any eminent mischief. If the Duke of Newcastle was fond of power, and capricious, and fickle, and false, they were the whims of a child: he circumscribed the exertion of his pomp to laying perhaps the first stone of a building at Cambridge, for a benefaction to which he was forced to borrow a hundred pounds. His jealousy was not of the privileges of Parliament, but lest some second among his favourites should pay more court to his first favourite than to him; and if he shifted his confidence, and raised but to depress, and was communicative but to betray, he moved in a narrow circle, and the only victims of his whims were men who had shifted and betrayed as often, and who deserved no better fortune. If the Duke was haughty and rigorous, he was satisfied with acting within the sphere of the Army, and was content to govern it, not to govern by it. If the King was too partial to Hanover, and was unnecessarily profuse of subsidies to Germany, perhaps it was the only onerous grievance; and the King, who did no more harm, and the Ministers, who by vailing to this passion, purchased the power of doing no more harm, certainly constituted no very bad Government. The occasions of war called forth another complexion—but we must proceed with a little regularity.
The reconciliation of the King and his nephew of Prussia had given great umbrage to the Empress-Queen. England had heaped as great obligations on the House of Austria as can be conferred by one nation on another; great enough almost to touch the obdurate heart of policy, and infuse real amity and gratitude. But the Princess in question had imbibed passions still more human. Offended pride and plundered dignity had left no soft sensation in her heart. She was a woman, a queen, a bigot, an Austrian. A heretic her friend, embracing a heretic her enemy, left no shades in the colour of their heresy. France bid high for her friendship, and purchased it, by bidding up to her revenge. They made a treaty of neutrality, called only defensive during this war; as if Princes could not leap from peace to war but through a necessary medium. This news was received with indignation: England considered this desertion as almost Rebellion in a people whom she had long kept in her pay with regret. Memorable were the wise and moderate words of Lord Granville to Coloredo, the Austrian Minister, who, in a visit, endeavoured to palliate this league. The Earl said, “We understand it as only a treaty of neutrality, and can but be glad of it; the people in general look on it otherwise; and I fear a time will come when it may be right for us, and may be our inclination, to assist your mistress again; but the prepossession against her will be too strong—nobody then will dare to be a Lord Granville.”
The lawsuit with Princess Emily for free passage into Richmond Park, which I have formerly mentioned, continued. By advice of the Attorney-General, she now allowed ladders over the wall, without standing a trial.[62] I will here finish all I have to say on this head. This concession did not satisfy; the people sued for gates for foot passengers, and in the year 1758 obtained them; on which the Princess in a passion entirely abandoned the park. Her mother, Queen Caroline, had formerly wished to shut up St. James’s Park, and asked Sir Robert Walpole what it would cost her to do it. He replied, “Only a crown, madam.”
July 7th.—The attack on Leicester House was renewed. A Cabinet Council was held to consider a message which Newcastle and the Chancellor proposed should be sent in his Majesty’s name to the Prince, to know if he adhered to living with his mother, and to the demand of having Lord Bute for his Groom of the Stole. Mr. Fox asked if the Prince had ever made such a demand? “Oh! yes,” said Newcastle. “By whom?” asked Fox. Newcastle—“Oh! by Munchausen and others.” The fact was, the Prince had most privately, by Munchausen, requested it as a particular favour; and it was extraordinary that Newcastle had not seized with alacrity an opportunity of ingratiating himself with the successor, without the knowledge of his master. The truth was, he was overruled by the Chancellor, who having been slighted and frowned on by the Princess in the winter, was determined to be revenged; and the gentle method he took was to embroil the Royal Family, and blast the reputation of the mother of the Heir-apparent. Accordingly, this second message was sent by Lord Waldegrave.
The Prince answered in writing, “That since the King did him the honour to ask him the question, he did hope to have leave to continue with his mother, as her happiness so much depended on it—for the other point, he had never directly asked it—yet, since encouraged, he would explain himself; and from the long knowledge and good opinion he had of Lord Bute, he did desire to have him about his person.”
As if this letter confirmed, instead of contradicting their assertions, the two Ministers produced it at the same Council. Lord Granville opened the deliberation, and began to favour Lord Bute; but finding how unwelcome such advice was, he turned short and said, it was best to proceed no further; as there must be a quarrel in the Royal family, it was best the King should do nothing. The Duke of Devonshire said, with great decency, he hoped that was not the case; he hoped they were met to prevent such a rupture. “Oh! yes,” replied Lord Granville, “it must happen; the Prince has declared he will use ill all that shall be placed about him; and though young Lords will ambition the situation, they will not endure to be treated like footmen: the King will treat Lord Bute like a footman; and then he will make the Prince use the others in the same manner. This family always has and will quarrel from generation to generation.”
Mr. Fox then observed, that as it would fall to his province in the House of Commons to defend the King’s refusal, if his Royal Highness should petition there for a larger allowance, he must know on what ground to defend it, for the Opposition would produce his Majesty’s former message, as evidence that the King had thought it right the Prince of Wales should have 40,000l. a year. “You must explain,” said the Chancellor, “that in the first message something was meant which was known to both parties”—and then went into a formal pleading against the Prince, at the conclusion of which Newcastle prevailed to have the determination put off for the present; though, on being pressed by Fox, he agreed that it should be considered again. After sacrificing the Princess in this cruel manner, they persuaded the King that Fox was making his court to her.