DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
London, Henry Colburn, 1846.
Legge, who officially made the Motion, did not escape Pitt’s anger; but he was protected by Newcastle, to whom he had newly attached himself. The first interview passed with such privacy, that they met at Lord Dupplin’s without candles. Yet Newcastle discovered it to Pitt, and others to Lord Bute, which completed the ruin of Legge with both. Lord Bute immediately showed his resentment by excluding Oswald, though a Scot, from the Treasury, because recommended by Legge; and even to Pitt, Lord Bute made use of the name of the Prince of Wales to fortify the exclusion. Legge, however, was indemnified by obtaining the vacant post for his friend Lord North.[49]
These were the most remarkable, and not very interesting events of that session, which concluded with a Message from the King to desire to be enabled to march the Militia out of their several counties on the apprehension of an invasion from France. Notice of such an intention had been received so early as February last. Fifty thousand men were said to be destined for that service, which formerly had been a plan of Marshal Belleisle in the last war, had been communicated to the King of Prussia, and approved of by him. Pitt made a pompous speech on delivery of the Message, and distinguished between the various kinds of fear: this, he said, was a magnanimous fear. The Address in return was still more lofty. Vyner and Cooke added an Address, that his Majesty would quicken such Lords Lieutenant as were dilatory with their Militias—there were several of them; the measure was far from being generally popular. When they did come to march, several country gentlemen would have excused themselves on the season of hay harvest. Pitt answered, that if any such objection were made, he would, move the next session to have the Bill repealed—a dreadful threat to his Tory friends, who, by the silent douceurs of commissions in the Militia, were weaned from their opposition, without a sudden transition to ministerial employment.
The invasion, though it ended in smoke, was very seriously projected, and hung over us for great part of the summer; nor was it radically baffled till the winter following. Immense preparations were made along their coasts of flat-bottomed boats. They even notified their design to the Dutch; but at the same time informing the States, that they did not intend to disturb the established succession, but to punish England for her attempts on their coasts the last year. This notification had the least serious air in the whole transaction, but accorded with those weak councils, which knew not how to conduct any of their operations. We were defenceless at home, and could not assemble above twelve thousand men. Our towns were crowded with French prisoners. They were removed up into the country, and committed to the guard of the Militia. The Earl of Orford,[50] with the Militia of Norfolk, was garrisoned at Portsmouth, whence they addressed the King with offers and promises of service—a zeal somewhat unconstitutional, and indicating how far from impossible it might be to divert this national force to the same purposes as are always reasonably apprehended from a standing Army. In the present case the apprehension was the more pregnant, as the officers of the Militia were chiefly Tory gentlemen.
To ward off or dissipate the invasion, Admiral Rodney[51] was dispatched to the French coast; and arriving off Havre de Grace, he with two bomb-ketches set fire to the town in two or three places, though the fire from the forts was very warm. He threw so prodigious a number of bombs into the place, that he almost melted his own mortars; but the flat-bottomed boats, which were not finished, proved to be out of his reach; and he returned with having done but inconsiderable damage. About the same time advice being received that Monsieur Thurot, with 1500 men under his command, had escaped out of Dunkirk, another battalion was flung into Dover Castle, and two more were ordered into the lines at Chatham—but Thurot was not then sailed.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] The story of Lord George Sackville.
[33] The late Earl of Arran was only brother of the last Duke of Ormond, and had been elected Chancellor of Oxford, on the forfeiture of his brother, to show the devotion of the University to that family, and to the Jacobite cause.