Birth of the Prince of Wales.—Treasure of the Hermione.—Conquest of the Havannah.—Indifference of the Court on that event.—Negotiations for Peace.—Not popular in England.—Reception in France of the Duke of Bedford.—The Duc de Nivernois.—Beckford elected Lord Mayor.—Duel between Lord Talbot and Wilkes.—Lord Bute’s Delegates in the House of Commons.—Grenville and Lord Bute.—Union of Lord Bute and Fox.—The latter reproached by the Duke of Cumberland.—Lord Waldegrave and the Duke of Devonshire decline the proposal of Fox.—Disgust at the union of Bute and Fox.—Purchase of a majority to approve the Peace.—Fox’s revenge against the Duke of Devonshire.—The King and the Marquis of Rockingham.—Further severity to the Duke of Devonshire.
On the 12th of August, the Queen was delivered of a Prince of Wales; and the same morning the treasure of that capital prize, the Hermione, arrived in town in many waggons, and passed through the City to the Tower. The sum taken amounted to near eight hundred thousand pounds.
In the beginning of the following month came the first news from the Havannah; and before the end of it we learned the entire conquest of that important place by the three Keppels,[238]—the Earl of Albemarle, the Commodore and the Colonel his brothers. The honour they won was a little soiled by their rapaciousness and by our great loss of men: but to Spain the blow was of the deepest consequence, and the place irrecoverable by any force they could exert. Yet such a victory seemed to infuse as little joy into the Court of St. James’s as into that of Madrid. The Favourite and his creatures took no part in the transports of the nation; and, when he declined availing himself of any merit from the conquest, it was plain he was grieved either to have more to restore at the peace, or less reason for making that peace but on the most advantageous terms: but he was infatuated, and, breaking through all the barriers of glory, he sent the Duke of Bedford to Paris to settle the preliminaries, whence the Duc de Nivernois arrived for the same purpose.
Sullen and silent as Mr. Pitt was, and feeble and impotent as the faction of Newcastle, still the City and merchants showed some symptoms of indignation at this obstinate alacrity for treating. The Duke of Bedford was hissed as he passed through the principal streets; and treasonable papers were dispersed in the villages round London. But in France the Duke was received as their guardian angel. The most distinguished and unusual honours were paid to him; and the principal magistrate of Calais, thinking him descended from the other John Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry the Fifth, complimented his Grace (and no doubt felicitated himself on the comparison) on seeing him arrive with as salutary and pacific, as his great ancestor had formerly landed there with hostile intentions.
His counterpart, the Duc de Nivernois, had been long employed in negotiations at Rome and Berlin, but had not the good fortune to please at the latter Court, where the King even turned into ridicule his puny and emaciated little figure. His ill-health, the titles that had centred in his person, and had filled him with vanity (for he was Peer of France, Prince of the Empire, Grandee of Spain, and a Roman Baron), and his affection for polite learning, had disposed him to live in a retired circle of humble admirers, to whom he almost daily repeated his works both in prose and verse; but not without having attempted to soar higher. He had assumed devotion, in hopes of being Governor to the Dauphin: but, except in concluding the peace, which, considering our eagerness, he could not avoid concluding, he had never met with brilliant success in any of his pursuits; being, as the celebrated Madame Geoffrin[239] said of him, “Guerrier manqué, politique manqué, bel esprit manqué, enfin manqué partout.” To England he bore no good-will: and though, till the treaty was signed, he concealed, as much as peevishness would let him, the disgust he took to this country, and was profuse in attentions to all, and in assiduity of court to the Favourite and his faction, yet, though he remained here a very little time after the signature, his nature broke forth, and scarce was enough good-breeding left to skin over the sore reluctance of a momentary stay.[240]
The nation was far less impatient than the Court for peace; and, though no great burst of spirit appeared against it, there were sufficient symptoms of ill-humour to warn the prime minister, that, without redoubling his industry and taking more solid measures, he might still be foiled in the attempt of forcing an inglorious peace on the nation. Beckford, who had been desirous of resigning his alderman’s gown, was, against his will, elected Lord Mayor; a mark of their good-will to his friend, Mr. Pitt. The North Briton spread the alarm as much as possible; but the flippancy of the author began to draw storms on his own head. Wilkes having in one of those papers ridiculed the flattery of Lord Talbot, who, officiating as Lord High Constable at the Coronation, had endeavoured to back his horse to the gate of Westminster Hall, that he might not turn his own back on the King, was challenged by Lord Talbot; and after a series of letters, which had more the air of a treaty than a defiance, and consequently reflected no great honour on either, they fought a bloodless duel on Bagshot Heath.
These little rubs having alarmed the Favourite, he began to consider how ill-qualified his delegates would be to support his treaty in the House of Commons, if either warmly or wittily attacked. It was too precious a cause to trust to Sir Francis Dashwood. Grenville had not much more credit, though more sense and gravity; but was tedious and ill-heard, and had been trained to such obsequious deference for Mr. Pitt, that at that time no man thought him likely or proper to be opposed to so capital a master. Grenville was besides unsatisfied; and, aiming higher, had been unwilling to risk an appearance of honesty when it was not in his own cause. He had neglected to traffic with the members of the House of Commons; had secured none of them; and, being pressed by Lord Bute on that head, fairly owned he would not deal with them, unless the power was his own, and their dependence rested on him. Lord Bute was startled, and would have compromised, as himself was unacquainted with the men, that the recommendation of members to favour,—that is, to places and pensions,—should be made through Grenville to himself. But Grenville was obstinate, and soon had cause to repent both his frankness and perverse ambition. It was instilled too into Lord Bute, that Grenville was not so much at variance with his family as he wished to be thought—an imputation of which he soon appeared to be guiltless: but the die was cast; and he heard with unspeakable astonishment, and with a rage not to be described, that he must exchange with Lord Halifax, that is, return to be First Lord of the Admiralty, and quit the seals, and with them the management of the House of Commons, which Mr. Fox had consented to undertake. The blow to Grenville was grievous, but could not be avoided or resented—then. No retreat towards his brothers Pitt and Temple was left him. Avarice decided the conflict, and he submitted to accept the Admiralty.
When Fox thus stooped to be the Favourite’s agent, he gratified many more passions than he could be supposed to mortify. In truth, except his pride, which had seldom restrained him, what views could he have but this step would gratify? To ravish the glories of the war from his rival Mr. Pitt, to sacrifice them, and to be selected to defend that sacrifice, glutted his spirit of competition. Favourite he could not be, for the Princess[241] hated, and Lord Bute feared him: but to be necessary to both was worth ambition, and the surest means of gratifying it; and to be master of the secret of the negotiation promised that superabundance of wealth, which by that secret he acquired. Should he succeed in carrying through the peace, he would have the first weight in the House of Commons (for what harmony there was between these rival friends may readily be conjectured); should he fail, it were but the loss of the Paymaster’s place, inconsiderable in peace compared with its produce in time of war: for it must be noted that he would not accept the seals, and thus stood in no responsible light; a strain of prudence that might have administered alarm to the Favourite himself!
Thus in the space of four months were the Princess and Lord Bute by their rash and ill-digested measures reduced to lean for support on Fox, whom they had most dreaded as the minister of the Duke of Cumberland; and who would add his own unpopularity to that of Lord Bute, and would necessarily determine Pitt to oppose with increased resentment.
Fox had embraced this invitation with such alacrity that he had signed the treaty with Lord Bute without consulting any of his friends; concluding, as over-refined politicians are apt to do, that he could bring them to his lure, and, while he paid too high compliments to his own abilities, setting too slight estimation on theirs. His first application was to the Duke of Cumberland. That haughty and sensible Prince received him with scorn, reproached him warmly with lending himself to support a tottering administration, and bitterly with his former declarations of having given up all ambitious views. The next trial made by Fox was on Lord Waldegrave,[242] to whom he urged that his Lordship had so much ridiculed the Princess and Lord Bute, that they had more to complain of than he had; and he endeavoured to enclose the Earl in his treaty with the Court, by asking him, if it should be proposed to call his Lordship to the Cabinet Council, whether he should like it? The Earl, who had been bred a courtier, who was of too gentle manners for opposition, and too shrewd not to see that the power of the Crown was predominant, desired time to consider, and went to Windsor to consult the Duke of Cumberland. His Royal Highness acknowledged the attention with many thanks, but would give no advice. The Earl, who wanted not to be told, that not advising him to make his court when he was disposed to do it, was advising him against it, was not courtier enough to quit a Prince, his friend, for a Court that he himself despised and hated; and immediately wrote to Fox to desire the proposal might not be made to him. The Duke of Devonshire[243] was in like manner endeavoured to be softened by Fox, who wished to wear the credit of reconciling his own friends to the peace, and bringing their support to the administration. But here again he was foiled. The Duke gave him a civil answer, assured him of his personal good wishes, but declined any connection with him as minister.