This triumph quite overset the little discretion of which Wilkes had been master. He seemed to put himself into the situation of a King, who, not content with the outworks with which the law has surrounded his person, attempts to employ the law as offensive artillery. Affecting to have been robbed of moveables when his papers were seized, Wilkes entered into a virulent controversy, by letter, with the Secretaries of State; and even endeavoured, though in vain, to obtain warrants for searching their houses. This wild conduct did not help his cause. His next step fell more perniciously on his own head. He erected a printing-press in his own house; and, against the remonstrances of Lord Temple, who never wanted fear where there was room for it, and who had no taste for anything that did not lead directly home to faction, indulged himself in realizing those sallies of his humour and intemperance, which are scarcely excusable when transient and confined to the jollity of intoxicated moments at table. The Court regarding Lord Temple as the instigator, not as the Socrates, of this Alcibiades, removed him from the lord-lieutenancy of the county of Buckingham. The printers, who had been vexed in their business by the orders of the Secretaries of State, and encouraged by the victory of Wilkes, prosecuted the messengers, and obtained damages to the value of 300l.
The same spirit spread into the west. In the cider counties they dressed up a figure in Scotch plaid, with a blue riband, to represent the Favourite, and this figure seemed to lead by the nose an ass royally crowned. At the same time they voted instructions to their members to try to obtain a repeal of the act. The circumstance of the act being passed under so unpopular an administration was most unfortunate. It had taken thirty years to open the eyes of mankind to the benefits of excise: the only, at least the best, method of improving the revenue without imposing new burthens. Being started at so ungracious a moment, the old prejudices were industriously revived.
The Court at the same time met with some mortifications in their pursuit of congratulatory addresses on the peace, which they sedulously promoted. One Judge Perrot[345] was so servile as to recommend it from the bench on the circuit. The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke, the one Chancellor, the other High Steward of the University of Cambridge, refused to go to St. James’s with the address of that body. Allen,[346] the ostentatious patron of Pope and Warburton, the latter of whom had married his natural daughter, prevailed on the city of Bath to thank the King for the adequate[347] peace, and had himself the insolence or folly to send that address, so profligately worded, to Mr. Pitt, with whom he had maintained a mutual intercourse of flattery. Mr. Pitt disdained to present their compliment to the King, and even declared he would represent their city no more.
Wilkes, in the meantime, had gone to France to visit his daughter. There he received a challenge from one Forbes[348] an outlawed Scot in the French service, who could not digest the torrents of abuse which Wilkes had poured forth on his country. Alexander Murray, brother of Lord Elibank, and an outlaw too since the Westminster Election in 1751,[349] was the go-between in this quarrel, not without being suspected of inflaming it. Wilkes accepted the defiance for the next morning, but, when Forbes called on him, affected to laugh it off, saying, he was bound to fight Lord Egremont by preference before any other man. When that excuse availed not, he asked Forbes if he had provided a second; to which the other replied, such preparation was too dangerous in France. Altercations thickened, till at last the lieutenant de police was sent for, who obliged Forbes to promise not to proceed any farther.
Had the duel with Lord Egremont been seriously intended, from that too would Wilkes have been delivered; for the earl, who was of a sanguine and apoplectic complexion, of which he had felt attacks, and though warned in vain to moderate the indulgence of his palate, to which he was ungovernably prone, died suddenly on the 21st of August, and put an end to a triumvirate which had involved their master and themselves in such a labyrinth of knotty and undecided questions.
CHAPTER XX.
Perplexity of the “Triumvirate.”—Lord Bute’s unsuccessful Manœuvres.—Lord Halifax and Mr. Grenville remonstrate with the King.—The Duchess of Bedford’s animosity to Lord Bute and the Princess of Wales.—Schemes of the Bedford Faction.—Mr. Pitt sent for by the King.—Negotiation with the former.—The Treaty broken off.—Causes of the Rupture.—The King’s Account of his Interviews with Pitt.—Pitt’s Proposals.—Proscriptions.—Machinations of Lord Sandwich.—Ministerial Arrangements.—Grenville’s Power.—Lord Temple’s Conduct.
But it was not the affair of Wilkes which had alone perplexed the Triumvirate. They found they were by no means in the confidence of the King. He was continually suggesting new measures to them, which plainly came from a hidden quarter. A fortnight before the death of Lord Egremont, his Majesty had hinted to Grenville that he wished to prevail on Lord Hardwicke to return, if not to his service, at least to his councils. Whether the blow received from the Common Pleas had alarmed the Favourite (who had made but a very short stay at Harrowgate), and had warned him to look out for more support; or whether he thought the three ministers insufficient; or whether, which is most likely, he wished already to get rid of them, especially having detected the underhand practices of Grenville against his son’s patent;—in short, whatever was the motive, Grenville could not be ignorant who was author of the advice, and only replied, it would not do. The King insisted, and the overture was made; Hardwicke rejected it, and said he would not abandon Newcastle. The King then commanded the same trial to be made on Newcastle, but with exclusion of Mr. Pitt; an early proof of those crooked councils of division with which the Favourite was afterwards so often charged, and which were so agreeable to the King’s natural insincerity. Newcastle haughtily refused the offers made to him. Still were the King’s discourses dark and ambiguous; and, though affecting to call out for new strength by extending preferments, he had refused, at Grenville’s recommendation, to make the Duke of Leeds[350] President of the Council, and Lord Hyde[351] Chief Justice in Eyre.
On this behaviour the three ministers had determined to bring his Majesty to an explanation. Lord Halifax broke the ice; complained of their not having his countenance, and concluded with telling him that he had but three options: to support them; to try a coalition of parties, which was impracticable; or to surrender himself, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Grenville went much farther; reproached him with violating the assurances he had given them that Lord Bute should meddle no more, and with abandoning the ministers he had himself chosen. The King renewed his professions, and promised to be firm to them. Grenville said he should go into the country for a fortnight, and begged the King to take his final resolution against that time. At Grenville’s return the King had renewed his protestations, and, the very day before Lord Egremont died, Grenville had been to assure him of the King’s promise to be true to them; but, on the 25th, Grenville, through great professions to him, perceived that his Majesty was not without a disposition of recalling Pitt, against which Grenville made a warm, not to say indecent, remonstrance and protest.