The King went further: Prince Ferdinand was impatient for the return of the officers: General Onslow, President of the Court-Martial, was member of another on Lord Charles Hay,[101] a brave but mad officer, who having in America reflected on the dilatoriness of Lord Loudon, had been put under arrest by him. Onslow at that trial was seized with an apoplectic fit, and died. The King was so impatient of any delay on Lord George Sackville’s case, that the Duke of Newcastle, at four in the afternoon, was ordered to send to the Secretary at War, then in the House of Commons, directions to have a new commission made out that very evening, that not a day might be lost. Four more members too were added to the Court, to guard against any deficiency, the law allowing not a greater number than twenty-one, nor less than thirteen.
Ten Judges (the other two, Bathurst[102] and Clive, of which the former held Lord George’s trial illegal, being absent on the Circuit,) gave their opinions, that, as far as they could then see, he might be tried; but they reserved to themselves a further consideration, if any appeal should be made from the sentence. On the very day on which they were to deliver their opinion arrived the account of Thurot’s defeat and death. There was a great Court to congratulate the King; yet so impatient was he to learn the decision of the Bench, that he scarce stayed a moment in the Drawing-Room. In private he expressed, without decency, his apprehensions of what the German Princes would think of his want of power, should he not be able to obtain Lord George’s trial and condemnation. The moment he was certified that the trial might proceed, he named General Pulteney[103] President of the court in the room of Onslow; and Pulteney excusing himself, Sir Charles Howard[104] was appointed.
March 7th, the trial recommenced. Lord George, who treated his adversaries with little management, desired the Judge-Advocate to explain to Wintzenrode, Prince Ferdinand’s Aide-de-camp, the nature of perjury: the German replied handsomely, that he understood it both from religion and honour, and supposed it was the same in all countries.
Through the course of the trial, which being in print it is not necessary to recapitulate, the chief examinents were General Cholmondeley[105] and Lord Albemarle; both appearing unfavourable to Lord George, and the latter as little sparing Prince Ferdinand, when, by any indirect question, he could draw forth evidence of the Prince having been surprised into the battle. The rest of the Court took so little share in the examination, that Cholmondeley complained of the invidious part that was forced on him. Sloper was particularly acrimonious in his evidence against Lord George, and was believed actuated by General Mordaunt, so warmly did the latter resent Lord George’s practices on the miscarriage at Rochfort; though, if Lord George stirred up the prosecution of that affair, Mordaunt had only suffered by implication: Conway was Lord George’s object; but Conway was far from retorting that injury in the same manner.
Lord Granby, who was actually involved in the trial as evidence, showed the same honourable and compassionate tenderness. So far from exaggerating the minutest circumstance, he palliated or suppressed whatever might load the prisoner, and seemed to study nothing but how to avoid appearing a party against him—so inseparable in his bosom were valour and good-nature. That the constitution of the Court itself was not unfavourable to Lord George, appeared, when a question that bore hard against him being put by General Cholmondeley, and Lord Robert Bertie objecting to it, it was put to the vote, and by the majority not admitted to be asked.
Lord George’s own behaviour was most extraordinary. He had undoubtedly trusted to the superiority of his parts for extricating him. Most men in his situation would have adapted such parts to the conciliating the favour of his judges, to drawing the witnesses into contradictions, to misleading and bewildering the Court, and to throwing the most specious colours on his own conduct, without offending the parties declared against him. Very different was the conduct of Lord George. From the outset, and during the whole process, he assumed a dictatorial style to the Court, and treated the inferiority of their capacities as he would have done if sitting amongst them. He browbeat the witnesses, gave the lie to Sloper, and used the Judge Advocate, though a very clever man, with contempt. Nothing was timid—nothing humble in his behaviour. His replies were quick and spirited. He prescribed to the Court, and they acquiesced. An instant of such resolution at Minden had established his character for ever.
The trial had lasted longer than was expected. The Mutiny Bill expired. A new warrant was forced to be made out, and the depositions were read over to the witnesses. It was the third of April before the whole proceeding was closed: the event different from what Lord George had presumed, and yet short of what he had reason to expect. The Court-Martial pronounced him guilty of having disobeyed Prince Ferdinand’s orders, whom by his commission and instructions he was ordered to obey, and declared it their opinion that he was unfit to serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatever.
The King confirmed the sentence, but, dissatisfied that it had gone no further, he could not resist the ungenerous impulse of loading it with every insult in his power; impotent, as circumscribed in narrower limits than his wishes; and unjust, as exceeding the bounds of a just trial; since no man ought to be punished beyond his sentence. The Court-Martial’s decision was directed to be given out in public orders to the Army, declaring the sentence worse than death. The King struck Lord George’s name out of the Council Book, and forbad his appearance at Court. The Lord Chamberlain, too, was ordered to notify that prohibition to the Prince of Wales and the Princess-Dowager; and lest that should not be sufficient, the Vice Chamberlain was sent to acquaint Lord Bute with it, who said, to be sure the Prince would not think of seeing Lord George while it was disagreeable to his Majesty. Lord George’s witnesses and friends were treated with no less cruelty. Hugo, a Hanoverian, was dismissed on his return to the Army. John Smith was obliged to quit it here; and Cunningham was sent to America, though he had been there three times already. Yet not a murmur followed: as the object was obnoxious, even the dangerous precedent of persecuting witnesses who had thwarted the inclinations of the Court made no impression—so much do liberty and power depend on circumstances and seasons.[106]
The trial of Lord Ferrers had more solemn conclusion. To one man his crimes were advantageous. Sir Robert Henley, Lord Keeper, had been hoisted to that eminence by circumstances of faction; which, however, could not give weight to his decisions in Chancery. Those, as he complained, were often reversed before his face by the House of Lords without his being empowered to defend them, he not being a Peer. It was proper to appoint him Lord High Steward for the trial of Lord Ferrers; and it was requisite, to fill that office, that he should be a Peer. Henley was accordingly created a Baron; but as the Seals had not taught him more law, a Coronet and White Staff contributed as little to give him more dignity. He despised form, even where he had little to do but to be formal. He did not want sense, and spirit still less; but he could not, or would not, stoop to so easy a lesson as that of ceremonial.
Nothing is more awful than the trial of a British Peer; yet, the mean appearance of the prisoner, and the vulgar awkwardness of the Chief Judge, made the present trial as little imposing as possible. The Earl’s behaviour conciliated no favour to him: it was somewhat sullen, and his defence contemptible, endeavouring to protract the time, though without address. At length he pleaded madness—unwillingly, but in compliance with the entreaties of his family. The audience was touched at the appearance of his two brothers, reduced to depose to the lunacy in their blood. But those impressions were effaced, and gave way to horror, when it appeared to the Court that the Earl had gloried in his shocking deed. Being easily convicted, he begged pardon of his Judges for having used the plea of madness. But if his life was odious, and during his life his cowardice notorious, he showed at his death that he did not want sense, resolution, or temper. He bore the ignominy of his fate like a philosopher, and went to meet it with the ease of a gentleman. In the tedious passage of his conveyance from the Tower to Tyburn, which was impeded by the crowds that assembled round his coach, he dropped not a rash word, nor one that had not sense and thought in it. Little was wanting to grace his catastrophe but less resentment to his wife, the peculiarity of being executed in his wedding habit too strongly marking that he imputed his calamity to that source. His relation, Lady Huntingdon, the Metropolitan of the Methodists, had laboured much in his last hours to profit of his fears for the honour of her sect; but, having renounced the plea of madness, he did not choose to resign his intellects to folly. So impudent, however, were those knavish zealots, that one Loyd, a Methodist, having been robbed by his coachman, a Methodist too, Whitfield appeared at the trial before the Lord Mayor, and read an excommunication that he had pronounced against the coachman. They would have accepted a murderer, if a proselyte from the Established Church; and flattered themselves that they could shake off the infamy of a house-breaker by casting him out from their own—so brief and effectual do enthusiasts hold their own legerdemain.