At this conjuncture, the great office of Chief Justice being vacant by the death of Sir Dudley Rider, Murray demanded it without a competitor, because above competition; and agreeably to his constant asseverations, that he meant to rise by his profession, not by the House of Commons; though the jealousy of his aspiring in the latter had signally contributed to throw Pitt into his then opposition. As Murray was equally the buckler of Newcastle against his ally, Fox, and his antagonist, Pitt, one may conceive how a nature so apt to despond from conscious insufficience was alarmed at this event. No words can paint the distress it occasioned more strongly than what Charles Townshend said to Murray himself on the report of his intended promotion. “I wish you joy,” said he, “or rather myself, for you will ruin the Duke of Newcastle by quitting the House of Commons, and the Chancellor by going into the House of Lords.” The apostrophe was frank, considering Newcastle was his uncle;[63] but tenderness for his family seldom checked the burst of Townshend’s vivacity. It was at the same period he said, when the struggle about Lord Bute was depending, “Silly fellow for silly fellow; I think it is as well to be governed by my uncle with a blue riband, as by my cousin[64] with a green one.”
What contributed to make the want of Murray more embarrassing was the confusion that followed the loss of Minorca, of which the account came on July 14th. The French, who had kept us alarmed with the fears of an invasion, while they made immense preparations at Toulon, had sailed on the 7th of April, and landed with 16,000 men at Ciudadella on the 18th. Byng had sailed but on the same day. The garrison of Mahon, which had retired into St. Philip’s, consisted of 2800 men. Galissonière had blocked up the port from whence Captain Edgecombe, with his little squadron of three men of war and five frigates, had escaped, and were gone to meet Mr. Byng. As the roads had been broken up, and the works of the assailants were to be practised on firm rock, the trenches were not opened till the 8th of May; and from that time to the 20th they had made no impression. The engagement in sight of the fort, and the disappearance and despair of all succour which followed, had as little effect on the resolution of the garrison. They continued to fire obstinately on the besiegers till June 6th; and Marshal Richelieu gained so little immediate advantage from the retreat of the English squadron, that he was obliged to demand additional force from France. Having received it, on the 6th he opened a grand scene of batteries, which by the 14th had effectuated several breaches. Yet those brave men still held out, and in proportion as no account came of their surrender, the fame of Blakeney rose.
At last, it was determined in the French Council of War to storm the place on the 27th at night, which was performed accordingly, and three forts were taken. At the Queen’s Fort (the last of the three), the fate of Minorca, and the truth of its defence were decided. Lieutenant-Colonel Jefferies, the soul of the garrison, unwilling to trust so important a commission to another, too rashly flew with one hundred men to defend the last redoubt—he found it taken—attempted to retire, and was made prisoner. This happened about midnight: by five next morning a suspension of arms was agreed on to bury the dead, and at two in the afternoon the garrison capitulated. They obtained honourable conditions. If it is asked what part the hero Blakeney took in the event, it must be answered, that, during the whole siege, he had been in bed with the gout, and executed all his glory by deputy. But not only a Commander was wanting: when the general assault was made, many of the British soldiers had done unremitted duty for three days; and they had so few officers, that scarce a mine was fired, and some were attempted so late, that the French carried off the matches before they could take effect.[65]
If the clamours of the people rose on the confirmation of this misfortune, so did the terrors of the Administration. The very first effects of their fear showed that, if they had neglected Minorca, they were at least prepared to transfer the guilt to others. They descended even to advertise in the Gazette, that orders were sent to every port to arrest Admiral Byng, in case he should not have been met by Sir Edward Hawke. All the little attorneys on the Circuit contributed to blow up the flame against the Admiral, at the same time directing its light from the original criminals. New offers were made to Murray, if he would decline for eight months the post of Chief Justice and the Peerage that was to accompany it.[66] The very distress that made Newcastle catch so eagerly at his assistance, was sufficient warning to make him refuse. He knew it was safer to expound laws than to be exposed to them: and he said peremptorily at last, that if he was not to be Chief Justice, neither would he any longer be Attorney-General.
July 26th.—The prisoners arrived at Portsmouth; Mr. Byng was immediately committed to close confinement. His younger brother who went to meet him, was so struck with the abuse he found wherever he passed, that he fell ill on the first sight of the Admiral, and died next day in convulsions. Byng himself expressed no emotions but of surprise at the rigour of his treatment, persisting in declarations of having beaten the French. West, whose behaviour had been most gallant, was soon distinguished from his chief, and was carried to Court by Lord Anson. The King said to West, “I am glad to hear you have done your duty so well; I wish every body else had!” Anson himself did not escape so honourably: his incapacity grew the general topic of ridicule; and he was joined in all the satiric prints with his father-in-law, Newcastle, and Fox. A new species of this manufacture now first appeared, invented by George Townshend: they were caricatures on cards. The original one, which had amazing vent, was of Newcastle and Fox, looking at each other, and crying, with Peachum, in the Beggar’s Opera, “Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong.” On the Royal Exchange a paper was affixed, advertising, “Three kingdoms to be let; inquire of Andrew Stone, broker, in Lincoln’s-Inn-fields.”
From Portsmouth, Byng, strictly guarded, at once to secure him from the mob and inflame their resentment, was transferred to Greenwich. His behaviour continued so cheerfully firm and unconcerned, that those who thought most moderately of his conduct, thought full as moderately of his understanding. Yet, if he could be allowed a judge, Lord Anson had, in the year 1755, given the strongest testimonial in Byng’s favour, recommending him particularly for an essential service, as one whose head and heart would always answer. As a forerunner to the doom of the Admiral, so much demanded from, and so much intended by the Ministry, General Fowke was brought to his trial for disobedience of orders in refusing the regiment for Minorca. He pleaded the latitude and discretion allowed to him by his orders, and the imminent danger of his important government. Though the danger of that was increased by the probability that France would either offer Minorca to purchase the alliance of Spain, or assistance to recover Gibraltar, yet Fowke found neither efficient to save him; no, nor the diversity of opinions in his Judges; yet it was plain from their sentence, that they by no means thought he came under the rigour of the law, condemning him only to be suspended for a year, for having mistaken his orders. When a man is tried for an absolute breach of orders, and appears only to have mistaken them, in equity one should think that punishment ought to fall on those who gave the orders. However, as the mob was to be satiated with victims, that the real guilty might escape, Fowke was broken by the King, and his regiment given to Jefferies.
The next symptom of discontent was an address to the King from Dorsetshire, demanding an inquiry into the loss of Minorca, and justice on the culpable. This flame spread: the counties of Huntingdon, Buckingham, Bedford, Suffolk, Shropshire, Surrey, Somerset, and Lancashire, with the great towns, as Bristol, Chester, Leominster, and others, followed the example, and directed their members to promote the inquiry. But the strongest and most dictatorial was that presented from the city of London; to which the trembling Ministers persuaded the King to pledge his royal word that he would save no delinquent from justice. A promise that, being dictated by men secure of the Parliament, plainly indicated on what class of criminals punishment was not designed to be inflicted. The Duke of Newcastle, indeed, could with more propriety than the rest engage the King in a promise, seemingly indefinite, he, who with a volubility of timorous folly, when a deputation of the city had made representations to him against the Admiral, blurted out, “Oh! indeed he shall be tried immediately—he shall be hanged directly.”
While England was thus taken up with the contemplation of her own losses and misconduct, a vaster war, more ample revolutions, and a novel hero, were on the point of occupying the theatre of Europe: before I lay open this scene, a word must be said on the situation of Sweden. France had long dictated in that indigent senate. That influence, however, was too precarious and liable to too many changes, to satisfy the view of commanding a steady ally. Though senators are far from being incorruptible, the liberty of their country and its glory, will often operate, and make them feel the weight of the richest chains. A Court, at once arbitrary and necessitous, France thought could never be tempted to slip out of their hands. Accordingly, they laid a plan for making the King absolute; and the conjuncture seemed well chosen. He was much devoted to his Queen, sister of Prussia, a woman artful and ambitious—yet the King had too much gratitude and virtue to yield to the temptation—he neither desired to be arbitrary nor French.—It remained for the members of a free senate to act the ignominious part, which had been more excusable, as more natural in a King. France then threw all her weight into the faction opposite to the Court. A conspiracy was pretended to be discovered, of a design in the King to make himself arbitrary. Every affront that he would have deserved, had the aspersion been true, was offered to him and the Queen: their power was annihilated; their friends proscribed. The King added to the merit of refusing despotism the virtue of not endeavouring to recover his legal authority; nor let the weakness of his means be urged: no King is so important as not to be able to sacrifice some of his subjects to the most chimeric pretensions.
The greater scene we must trace farther back. The King of Prussia was the point of hatred in which the passions of several Courts met. The Empress-queen could never digest the loss of Silesia; the Czarina had long suspected him of tampering to set the young Czar, John, on the throne, the nephew of the Queen of Prussia. The Court of Saxony dreaded so powerful a neighbour; and, while it trembled for its manufacture of porcelain, could scarce forgive the contempt with which the King of Prussia had left it untouched, when he formerly made himself master of Dresden. Yet perhaps the two latter Princes, the one in the arms of her grenadiers, the other in his china palace, or among his bears, had suffered their apprehensions and indignation to cool, if their Ministers had had as little activity. For the Empress-queen, her Ministers might serve her passions, they could not outrun them. The war that approached must be traced to its source, ere we can fix on the original aggressor. The House of Austria had long meditated the recovery of that predominant power, which so many circumstances and intrigues had concurred to unite in the person of Charles the Fifth. Ferdinand the Second had acted with most open violence; but almost all the race had usurped whenever they saw a proper moment. Silesia had been wrested from the House of Brandenburg. At the very period that the Empire vanished from the House of Austria, the Crown of Prussia fell on the head of a man, who thought much of aggrandizing himself, more of distinguishing himself, not at all of the justice or injustice of the means of attaining either. On the contrary, he seemed to admire the subtlety of policy as much for its beauty as for its use. He at once imposed on the Queen of Hungary and invaded her. The provocation was vehement; the usurpations and arts of her House were taken from her, and turned against her; and, after a bloody war, she had no resource but in swearing to new treaties, with intention of violating them on the first opportunity:—that opportunity was so eagerly sought, that she could not wait till it arrived; and many busy emissaries conspired to hasten the crisis.