I return to the Scotch Bill, which was finished in the foregoing month, after another long Debate, though the Ministry had given up the point of its being durante benè placito. Sir Francis Dashwood pronounced that the Revolution had not gone half far enough; and proposed to suspend the Act for seven years more. General Mordaunt, with his usual frankness, attacked the Scotch principles, and would extend the suspension for fifteen. Campbell, of Calder, a worthy man, and formerly of the Treasury, would have moderated for nine, lest it should seem that the suspension was perpetually to be renewed for seven years. His son warmly defended the Highlanders, and said, (what perhaps was no very great hyperbole,) that Middlesex contained more Jacobites than the Highlands. Elliot defended them still better, and called on Mordaunt for a local remedy, as he affirmed that twenty-five counties of thirty-three know nothing of, have nothing in common with, the Highlands: and he asked how it happened, that when the Duke could suppress the Rebellion pending the jurisdictions, the Ministry, with those and other impediments demolished, could not quash Jacobitism, though seven years had rolled away since the Rebellion? The Attorney-General said, he would yield to great authority, (the Speaker’s,) would agree, though not convinced, as he saw everybody meaned the same end, though by different means.
The Speaker uttered one of his pompous pathetics couched in short sentences; declared he was against the principle, as it was against the Revolution. It was against the principle of the constitution, of society, of liberty. No farther against the Revolution, than as it is against liberty. It always was true, it always will be. What is liberty, but that the people may be sure of justice? Other officers of justice should be for life like this; not this at pleasure, like others. If the Judge of Gibraltar decided on property, he should be for life. Shall the accidental union of the ministerial office and of police reduce this to their standard, and have the preference? We are all united with regard to the principle. If he thought that these last seven years had united Scotland, he would not give a day more to this suspension. Would not have it thought that this Act is ever to be renewed; but when this additional term shall be expired, that the Sheriffs-depute are to be for life. Would say with that great man, Lord Somers, what I cannot have to-day I will be contented to have to-morrow. The people of Scotland are within our patronage; it is generous to make no distinction between them and our countrymen. Whoever thinks to preserve justice here by denying it there, is unjust. He would be content with suspending the Act for fifteen years for this once.
Fox replied, laughing at the Speaker, that he could not think these Judges of such a magnitude. If they were within the Speaker’s description, he would not consent to subject them to the Crown for any term. That the Lord Chancellor is not for life, and yet nobody is discontent with his decisions on that account. That he was content to get to-day what he might have to-morrow too. That this was the truest triumph of Revolution principles, for it was the sound that triumphed, not the sense. That perhaps it was honourable deceit in those who opposed this; they made it serious, as they thought no harm could come from their opposition. That his deference for the Speaker was such, that he should even malle cum Platone errare, quam cum cæteris rectè sentire; but that if Plato did not err, if sense and reason were with him and his sect, it would be following sense and reason with so few, that for his part he chose to follow them no farther.
Pitt talked on the harmony of the day, and wished that Fox had omitted anything that looked like levity on this great principle. That the Ministry giving up the durante benè placito was an instance of moderation. That two points of the Debate had affected him with sensible pleasure, the admission that judicature ought to be free, and the universal zeal to strengthen the King’s hands. That liberty was the best loyalty; that giving extraordinary powers to the Crown, was so many repeals of the Act of Settlement. Fox said shortly, that if he had honoured the fire of liberty, he now honoured the smoke. Dr. Hay, a civilian, lately come into Parliament with great character, began to open about this time: his manner was good; as yet he shone in no other light. Nugent declared that liberty was concerned in this question, just as Christianity had been in the Jew Bill—Oswald replied rudely, “If he will define to what species of Christianity he chooses to belong,”—but Nugent calling him to order, Oswald said, “My very expression admitted that he was a Christian.” No division following, the Committee resolved that the suspension should be enacted for seven years.
March 6th.—The Marquis of Hartington was declared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and the same day, the Earl of Rochford, Minister at Turin, having been appointed to succeed the late Lord Albemarle, as Groom of the Stole; Earl Poulet, First Lord of the Bed-chamber, resenting that a younger Lord had, contrary to custom, been preferred to him, resigned his employment. He had served the King twenty years in that station; and yet his disgrace was not lamentable, but ridiculous. He did not want sense, but that sense wanted every common requisite. He had dabbled in factions, but always when they were least creditable; he had lived in a Court, without learning the very rudiments of mankind; and was formal upon the topics which of all others least admit solemnity. For about two months the town was entertained with the episode of his patriotism: it vented itself in reams of papers without meaning, and of verses without metre, which were chiefly addressed to the Mayor of Bridgewater, where the Earl had been dabbling in an opposition. His fury died in the fright of a measure which I shall mention presently.
25th.—Sir Thomas Robinson, by the King’s command, acquainted the Commons with the preparations of France for war, and demanded assistance. He did not inform them that there were actually then but three regiments in England, and that the Duke of Newcastle, from jealousy of the Duke’s nomination, would not suffer any more to be raised. Lord Granby and George Townshend moved the Address and a vote of credit. Doddington spoke with much applause on the insignificance into which Parliaments were dwindled, and of the inattention to public affairs. Every sentence trimmed between satire on, and a disposition towards, the Court: he concluded, “Let us carry the zeal of the people to St. James’s, with such spirit, that it may be heard at Versailles!” The torrent was for revenge; even Sir John Philipps felt against the French. Prowse desired it might be observed that we were advising a war. It was a puerile Debate. In the House of Lords, the Duke of Bedford attacked the inadvertence of the Ministry. The next day the Committee of Supply gave a million.
The Duke of Dorset was made Master of the Horse; but his faction did not fall without a convulsive pang. The primate and Lord Besborough sent a violent letter, to deny the report of their having quarrelled, and to demand some more sacrifices. As Lord Besborough’s son, Lord Duncannon, had married the new Lord Lieutenant’s sister, the latter resented this symptom of attachment to the disgraced cabal. The King said, “It was the work of that ambitious priest, the Primate.” And the Duke of Newcastle, to mark his own sacrifice of the Stones, solemnized their condemnation with a Latin quotation—Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.
On the 10th, came advice that 20,000 French were ready to embark at the Isle of Rhee. Lord Rothes, and the officers on the Irish establishment, were ordered to their posts in that kingdom; whither Lord Hartington and Mr. Conway went, without ceremony, at the end of the month.
23rd.—At midnight was finished the Oxfordshire election, after hearings of near fifty days: the Jacobite members were set aside by 231 to 103.
It was the year in turn for the King to go to Hanover. The French armaments, the defenceless state of the kingdom, the doubtful faith of the King of Prussia, and, above all, the age of the King, and the youth of his heir at so critical a conjuncture, everything pleaded against so rash a journey. But, as his Majesty was never despotic but in the single point of leaving his kingdom, no arguments or representations had any weight with him. When all had failed, so ridiculous a step was taken to dissuade him, that it almost grew a serious measure to advise his going. Earl Poulet notified an intention of moving the House of Lords to Address against the Hanoverian journey. However, as the Motion would not be merely ridiculous, but offensive too, Mr. Fox dissuaded him from it. He was convinced; and though he had been disgraced as much as he could be, he took a panic, and intreated Mr. Fox and Lady Yarmouth to make apologies for him to the King. Before they were well delivered, he relapsed, and assembled the Lords, and then had not resolution enough to utter his Motion. This scene was repeated two or three times: at last, on the 24th, he vented his speech, extremely modified, though he had repeated it so often in private companies, that half the House could have told him how short it fell of what he had intended. Lord Chesterfield, not famous heretofore for tenderness to Hanover, nor called on now by any obligations to undertake the office of the Ministers, represented the impropriety of the Motion, and moved to adjourn. Lord Poulet cried, “My Lords, and what is to become of my Motion?” The House burst into a laughter, and adjourned, after he had divided it singly. The next day the Lord Chamberlain forbade him the entrées; the Parliament was prorogued; and on the 28th, the King went abroad, leaving the Duke at the head of the Regency. This was thought an artful stroke of the Newcastle faction, as it would tie up Fox, who, by being a Cabinet Councillor, became a Regent too, from censuring, in the ensuing session, the measures of the summer, in which the Duke and he would necessarily be involved: but the truth was, that the Duke of Devonshire, terrified by old Horace Walpole at the thoughts of the King’s going abroad, had proposed the Duke for sole Regent. The Duke of Newcastle, in a panic for his power, hurried to the King, and besought him to place the Duke only first in the Regency. In fact, the nomination of him for sole Regent might have been attended with this absurdity; had the King died abroad, the sole Regent must have descended from his dignity, to be at the head of the Council to the parliamentary sole Regent, the Princess.