Fielding’s Pleasures of the Town.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Mr. Pitt’s political Influence at the commencement of the year 1758—Five Great Men—Opening of Parliament, and Speech of Mr. Pitt—Clive’s Victories in India—Military Appointments—Affairs of Ireland—Disinterested conduct of Mr. Conway—Dr. Clayton, Bishop of Clogher—Picture of the Manners of the Age—The King’s Munificence—Affair of the Habeas Corpus—Attorney-General Pratt brings in a Bill for extending it—Anecdotes of the Navy Bill.
Pitt was now arrived at undisturbed possession of that influence in affairs at which his ambition had aimed, and which his presumption had made him flatter himself he could exert like those men of superior genius, whose talents have been called forth by some crisis to retrieve a sinking nation. He had said the last year to the Duke of Devonshire, “My Lord, I am sure I can save this country, and nobody else can.” It were ingratitude to him to say that he did not give such a reverberation to our stagnating Councils, as exceedingly altered the appearance of our fortune. He warded off the evil hour that seemed approaching; he infused vigour into our arms; he taught the nation to speak again as England used to speak to Foreign Powers; and so far from dreading invasions from France, he affected to turn us into invaders. Indeed, those efforts were so puny, so ill-concerted, so ineffectual to any essential purpose, that France looked down with scorn on such boyish flippancies, which Pitt deemed heroic, which Europe thought ridiculous, and which humanity saw were only wasteful of lives, and precedents of a more barbarous warfare than France had hitherto been authorized to carry on. In fact, Pitt had neither all the talents he supposed in himself, nor which he seemed to possess from the vacancy of great men around him. Thinly, very thinly, were great men sown in my remembrance: I can pretend to have seen but five; the Duke of Cumberland, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Granville, Lord Mansfield, and Pitt. I have expatiated on all their characters separately; and yet I am inclined to say a few words more in the light of comparison. It is by setting the same characters in different oppositions and points of view, that nearer acquaintance with them may be struck out.
Lord Granville was most a genius of the five: he conceived, knew, expressed whatever he pleased. The state of Europe and the state of literature were equally familiar to him. His eloquence was rapid, and flowed from a source of wit, grandeur, and knowledge. So far from premeditated, he allowed no reflection to chasten it. It was entertaining, it was sublime, it was hyperbole, it was ridiculous, according as the profusion of ideas crowded from him. He embraced systems like a legislator, but was capable of none of the detail of a magistrate. Sir Robert Walpole was much the reverse: he knew mankind, not their writings; he consulted their interests, not their systems; he intended their happiness, not their grandeur. Whatever was beyond common sense, he disregarded. Lord Mansfield, without the elevation of Lord Granville, had great powers of eloquence. It was a most accurate understanding, and yet capable of shining in whatever it was applied to. He was as free from vice as Pitt, more unaffected, and formed to convince, even where Pitt had dazzled. The Duke of Cumberland had most expressive sense, but with that connexion between his sense and sensibility, that you must mortify his pride before you could call out the radiance of his understanding. Being placed at the head of armies without the shortest apprenticeship, no wonder he miscarried: it is cruel to have no other master than one’s own faults. Pitt’s was an unfinished greatness: considering how much of it depended on his words, one may almost call his an artificial greatness; but his passion for fame and the grandeur of his ideas compensated for his defects. He aspired to redeem the honour of his country, and to place it in a point of giving law to nations. His ambition was to be the most illustrious man of the first country in Europe; and he thought that the eminence of glory could not be sullied by the steps to it being passed irregularly. He wished to aggrandize Britain in general, but thought not of obliging or benefiting individuals.
Lord Granville you loved till you knew him; Sir Robert Walpole, the more you knew him: you would have loved the Duke, if you had not feared him. Pitt liked the dignity of despotism; Lord Mansfield the reality: yet the latter would have served the cause of power, without sharing it: Pitt would have set the world free, if he might not command it. Lord Granville would have preferred doing right, if he had not thought it more convenient to do wrong: Sir Robert Walpole meant to serve mankind, though he knew how little they deserved it; and this principle is at once the most meritorious in oneself and to the world. I beg pardon for this digression.
The Parliament had opened on the first of December in the last year; and, as if to notify honestly, that Germany would not be proscribed by Mr. Pitt, the King’s Speech talked openly of the defence of his Majesty’s dominions of Britain and elsewhere. By that little word elsewhere, Hanover was incorporated into the very language of Parliament. Lord Westmoreland, in the Lords, spoke with applause against re-echoing Addresses, and universal submission to a Minister. In the Commons, Mr. Fox was absent on the death of his favourite nephew, Lord Digby; and elsewhere passed as if a phrase of course, like the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Yet on the 14th, when Lord Barrington, on delivering the estimate of the Army, had complaisantly reverberated the word elsewhere, Mr. Pitt himself said, he did not agree with his Lordship in that term; he meant the Army for our immediate selves. He had never been against continental measures when practicable; but would not now send a drop of our blood to the Elbe, to be lost in that ocean of gore. Other parts of this speech, admired almost beyond any of his orations, were so fine, and so bombast, that I must just mention a few, though I do not intend to fatigue the reader with more speeches: those I have given are sufficient to illustrate our oratory.
Sir John Philipps had spoken dully, Beckford wildly, dropping this expression, “He did not know in what hands we were.” Lord George Sackville had made the apology of Lord Loudun, whose idle conduct in America was much censured; yet where Lord George wished to have him remain, lest, on a change of commanders, he himself should be named. Pitt said, “In what hands were we?—in those of a most gracious King:” on whom he made a panegyric, and of which the least part was not his Majesty’s goodness to him since he last took the Seals. How the King had listened even to him, though least in Administration—though least, he hoped to continue in it with honour: and he spoke of the great concord among the Ministers. But nothing could be well till the Army was subjected to the civil power: they were to obey, not to reason. Those sent on the late expedition had laughed at it even at table—nay, so had some of the Cabinet. He warmed himself on this topic, though he knew, he said, he ought not, as the commander was actually under trial. On Lord Loudun he kept no measures at all, but loaded him with all the asperity peculiar to his style—he had scarce any hopes now, though the people paid such an army in America: not only nothing was done—nothing was attempted. We had lost all the waters; we had not a boat on them now. Every door there was open to France. Though Lord George had excused, he could not; he would not condemn, yet he believed against Lord Loudun, who might have recovered our affairs if he had not loitered from the 9th of July to the 5th of August, inquiring whether or no the French were superior: indeed, for himself, our ill success had hurt his quiet and tainted his health. He then burst out into an Eastern panegyric. There he found Watson, Pococke, and Clive:—what astonishing success had Watson had with only three ships, which had been laid up for some time on land! He did not stay to careen this, and condemn that, but at once sailed into the body of the Ganges. He was supported by Clive, that man, not born for a desk; that heaven-born General, whose magnanimity, resolution, determination, and execution would charm a King of Prussia; and whose presence of mind astonished the Indies!
These heroes soon added new wreaths to those with which Mr. Pitt had crowned them. The King of Prussia took Breslau, and made prisoners an Army of Generals and ten thousand men: and the letters of the following month brought accounts of such victories and riches acquired by Clive as astonished Europe as much as the Indies. Discovering that the Nabob who ruled in that quarter was encouraged by the French to break his alliance with us, and was actually on the march to attack our settlements, Clive bribed his first Minister, who, expediting his treachery in a more summary way than is usual in this part of the world, murdered his master; and then Clive, at the head of only three thousand men, and with a bravery that deserved a better foundation than the assassination of an enemy, attacked and defeated an army of thirty-five thousand. The new Nabob, established by Clive’s influence, made immense presents to our fleet and East India Company. Clive’s share amounted to above 200,000l. Admiral Watson, to whom the Red Riband was destined, died of a fever two days after the engagement.