[88] Being told that General Conway, whose miscarriage at Rochfort it was supposed Lord George had inflamed, would be of the Court-Martial against him, he said, he should wish for no man sooner for his judge—the highest compliment that could be paid to Conway’s integrity and candour. Though at their outset, both as soldiers and parliamentary speakers, the world had marked them as rivals, there never was any open enmity between them; nor were they ever intimate: the spotless virtue of Conway, his disinterestedness, and total alienation from all political intrigues, could not assimilate with a man so different.
[89] The sister of the Duchess of Bedford had married Lord John Sackville, and had quarrelled with Lord George.
[90] The Duke of Dorset had enjoyed many great employments both in the Court and State: the Duchess had been Mistress of the Robes to the late Queen.
[91] This reasoning was not destroyed by Lord George’s being afterwards twice employed in civil employments, the second time in a very high one; for though he had occasion to prove his personal courage, the imputation of wanting it was never effaced; and was so often thrown in his face, that he never afterwards recovered spirit enough to act with dignity, nor to display the parts which had been so conspicuous in his early life.
[92] Richard Onslow, brother of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
[93] Sister of Sir William Meredith, a most amiable woman; afterwards married to Lord Frederic Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyle.—A. She was burnt to death in 1807.—E.
[94] Strange was a most undisguised Jacobite. Allan Ramsay, the painter, of as disaffected a family, (and who had set out to join the Pretender, when he heard of his defeat,) being offended that Strange had been unwilling to engrave his portrait of George III., imputed it to Strange’s Jacobitism. The latter, who certainly had been patronized by Lord Bute on the death of George II., but quarrelled with him, published a pamphlet against the Earl, in which he taxed the Earl with the ridiculous vanity of chusing to have his own portrait engraved before the King’s.
[95] It was worth remembering, that amongst the authors patronised and pensioned by George the Third, were Smollett, imprisoned for a libel; Shebbeare, who had stood in the pillory for abusing George I., King William, and the Revolution; and some other libellers.—A.
To have patronised two ingenious men of letters, though formerly convicted of political libels, is no discredit whatever to George III.—When, indeed, during his reign, new and severer laws were devised against political libel, it might have been worth remembering how many worthy, eminent, and learned men had incurred the guilt, and been exposed to the consequences, of that imperfectly defined species of offence, at various periods of our history: a circumstance from which it must naturally be inferred, that all further penalties adopted by Parliament may be inflicted on others, as worthy, as eminent, and as learned.—E.
[96] Brother of Sir Gilbert Elliot, one of the Lords of the Treasury.