MEMOIRS
OF THE REIGN OF
KING GEORGE THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

Appearance of “An Address to the Public on a late Dismission.”—Walpole’s Answer to that Pamphlet.—Dr. Lloyd, Dean of Norwich.—Charles Townshend’s “Defence of the Minority in the House of Commons on the Question relative to General Warrants.”—Death of the Earl of Bath.—The Chevalier d’Eon.—The Count d’Estaign.—Death of Mr. Legge.—Of the Duke of Devonshire.—Outlawry of Wilkes and Death of Churchill.

While the factions at Court thus held one another at bay, Lord Holland was endeavouring to persuade Lord Bute to take again an office of business. But the rash fit, like the small-pox, never seized him but once. He chose to insinuate opinion of his power, rather than to display it. Nor, though the Favourite professed that Lord Holland was the only man who never deceived him, could I on the nicest inspection ever discover that Lord Holland had any real weight with him; whether it was owing to Lord Bute’s want of courage, or want of confidence in the adviser.

Though I saw clouds enough to comfort me with the prospect of a storm, yet, there being no open hostilities commenced, it was difficult for me to unravel the windings and turnings of so many minds, who were all my enemies. Though I was disposed to widen any breach that might happen, by inclining our force to one side or the other, yet it was not prudent to slacken our measures against the united body. Temporizing too far might cool the zeal of our friends; and the distance of six or seven months to the meeting of Parliament might wear out the memory of Mr. Conway’s wrongs, as the Ministry had intended it should, they having forborne to dismiss him till the session was over. The public cause, as well as private injury, called for spirit. The higher we could raise the flame of Opposition, the sounder benefit we conferred on our country. Prerogative was the object of the Court; and corruption so flagrant in both Houses of Parliament, that, if the people were not animated enough to hold both in check, no resource would be left but a civil war. Early opposition was the only preservative against the latter. My nature shuddered at the thoughts of blood, and I felt what every good man will feel in civil commotions, that there is nothing so difficult as to make the people go far enough, and prevent their going too far. An opportunity presented itself that shewed me what I could have done, but, thank God! I was not so culpable as to embrace it. As one of my objects was to raise the characters and popularity of our party, I had inserted a paragraph in the newspapers observing that the abolition of vails to servants had been set on foot by the Duke of Bedford, and had been opposed and not complied with by the Duke of Devonshire and family of Cavendish. Soon after, a riot happened at Ranelagh, in which the footmen mobbed and ill-treated some gentlemen who had been active in that reformation. I was apprehensive lest any personal mischief should happen to the Duke of Bedford, and forbore to spirit up that contest, though I desired so much to make the Ministers both odious and ridiculous. To the first, indeed, their characters were open: but the worse they were, the more difficult it was to make them ridiculous. They were so profligate, that they were the first to laugh and the last to feel. It was more my business, too, to incense the people than to divert them. Our party was more popular than fashionable; and in a very corrupt age fashion is very formidable. Nor was this all the difficulty: I wished to secure liberty, and to revenge my friend without passing the bounds allowed against public enemies. My friends were timid, or cautious, or over-candid; and I experienced what I have said before, that a country will never be saved by the best men in it. Ours had been rescued by two of the worst—Lord Temple and Wilkes. I had little but my pen to carry on the cause with; and I knew any violence would not be more disrelished by my enemies than by friends. Half our party was likely to desert us; and the other half not likely to support me. When a man is borne up by party, abuse little affects him; but I did not choose to encounter it when I might be left to stand the fire alone. I had seen the fate of Wilkes, abandoned by all he had served; and had no mind to accompany him in his exile. Still, my honour and my pride would not suffer me to sit patient under the insults offered both to Mr. Conway and myself. I determined to vindicate his character and assert my own independence in a manner that should do credit to both; and I succeeded, happily, by observing at once so much firmness and decency, that while I held him up as a perfect character, I secured my own as a faithful and undaunted friend. The opportunity was offered to me by a most shameless and illiberal attack made on him officiously by the agents of the Ministry in a thing called “An Address to the Public on a late Dismission.” This I answered in a Counter-Address.[1] It was replied to by the first author, one Guthrie, in a style at once so gross and tedious, that if any man could have patience to read it, I should desire he would form his idea of that Ministry from that production. The only sentence worth refuting was my being charged with having flattered and been obliged to George Grenville. I, who had never stooped to comply with Lord Holland while connected with him; who had set at defiance the power of the Pelhams; had not bowed to the plenitude of Lord Bute’s power, nor courted even Mr. Pitt when I admired him most in the zenith of credit and victory; was not likely to have bent the knee to the prater Grenville, with whom I had broken almost as soon as he had any power at all. Let that imputation answer itself!—But I was obliged to him, said the pamphlet—hear in what manner. Almost every friend or dependent I ever had could witness my refusals of soliciting Ministers for them or for myself. But when Grenville was Treasurer of the Navy, I had, at the desire of one of my voters at Lynn, desired him to get a child into the academy at Greenwich, which he granted. Another time, for I will be rigorously sincere in stating my obligations to him, I had heard that American officers were to repair thither, or forfeit their places. My deputy, who enjoyed a sinecure in Philadelphia (I think it was), came to me in a fright, and begged I would intercede for his being excused, as he was in a deplorable state of health, which terminated in less than two years in his being bed-ridden, or seldom able to stir out of bed. Still, I would not ask his being excused, but wrote to Mr. Grenville to beg that if no fault was alleged against my deputy, and the order was not general, he might not be laid under the cruel necessity of throwing up his employment. Mr. Grenville civilly answered, that he knew of no such order or intention; that he would inquire into it, and no particular hardship should be laid on the person I interceded for. I have preserved his letter; and have thus stated my obligations. Whether they were so mighty that they ought to have balanced in my mind Mr. Conway’s ruin, the world will judge; or, if I forgot them, I must own I had not so accurate a memory as that minute Minister. The pamphlet, however, being enriched with this anecdote of my obligations, must have been directed by Grenville himself—and it was tedious enough to have been written by him too.

This was not the only instance of Grenville’s borrowing scraps of reputation by the hands of his dependents. I have some tracts corrected by himself. The writers, as they were communicated to me in confidence by the authors, I will not name. There was another scribe who laboured hard in extolling his patron. This was Dr. Lloyd, tutor to Mr. Grenville’s sons, and promoted by him to the Deanery of Norwich.[2] This Zany published a most fulsome panegyric on him, addressed to himself, crying him up as the first financier in Europe, and obliquely insinuating his enmity to Lord Bute. When Grenville was attacked in the preceding winter in a celebrated tract called the Budget,[3] written by Mr. Hartley,[4] and exposing the blunders, and fallacies, and triflingness of his system, Grenville inveighed bitterly in the House of Commons against such liberties, and protested he had never been concerned in any libels. I sat and heard these solemn falsehoods; having, I protest, seen Mrs. Grenville take out of her bureau and deliver to the author in my presence a rancorous pamphlet, written against Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt, corrected by Mr. Grenville’s own hand,[5] and published immediately afterwards. This confidence I would not abuse.

There came out, not long after my pamphlet, another piece that was to have made much noise. It was called “A Defence of the Minority in the House of Commons on the Question relating to General Warrants;” and had no meaner an author than Charles Townshend. His prodigious parts must not be judged of by this, or indeed by any of his few writings. He never was an author in proportion to his abilities. His thoughts flowed in too rapidly to give him time to digest them; nor was he ever enough in earnest about anything to consider it deliberately. This piece had poor success; and was confuted by some able retainer, if not by some able member of the Administration. Townshend was hurt by this miscarriage; and as he was, though so superior to rivals, infinitely jealous, he could not avoid conceiving a little spleen against me, though posterity may take my word, ay, and my vanity’s word, that I never felt myself so little as the moment he opened his mouth. I do not know whether they would own it with equal frankness, but many men greatly excelling me in talents, ought to have shrunk, too, into themselves, and felt their own futility when Charles Townshend was present. Yet such alloy did he bear about him to those marvellous parts, that children and women had more discretion and fewer weaknesses. Being hurt at the success of my Counter-Address, he wrote these very words to Mr. Conway: “The touches and re-touches on your character are fine; some strokes nobly free; but in general not what I expected. So Charles Yorke and others of our friends think.” Then, speaking of his own pamphlet, he added, “Mr. Pitt says it has had prodigious effect, and turned many. Grenville says it is serious, of great weight, and very hostile.” At that very instant Mr. Conway and I happened to know that Mr. Pitt declared he would not read it; and having afterwards read it, said he found it very inaccurate. There was the same want of truth in affirming that Grenville called it very hostile. Townshend was afraid his friends should perceive how far it was from being offensive.[6]

It must not be supposed that I would pass off these trifling anecdotes of myself and others for a history of England. But they contain that most useful part of all history, a picture of human minds. They shew how little men are, though riding at what is called the Top of the World. These and the following scenes were what filled me with disgust, and made me quit that splendid theatre of pitiful passions; not from having been too good for my company, but ashamed of being one of such Dramatis Personæ: and so far more inexcusable than the rest, that neither ambition nor interest had led me behind the curtain—perhaps if they had, I should have remained there still.

I have mentioned my surprise at the coldness of Lord Temple. What was become of that unwearied alacrity with which he used to unbosom all his factious soul on every man that was ill-used or discontented? Whatever his views were, they were not ripe: and therefore, to retain a party, or the appearance of it, he gave a great dinner to the Opposition. I was of it; and after dinner took occasion to explain the threats and arbitrary language tried upon Mr. Conway, and scorned by him. I forbore to name Grenville, but painted him plainly enough to fill the company with surprise and indignation. As the company was promiscuous, the discourse was circulated about the town, and reached Mr. Grenville’s ears. On the 1st of June I received a letter from Mr. Thomas Pitt, desiring me to contradict a report said to come from me, charging Mr. Grenville with having said that if Mr. Conway voted according to his conscience he must be turned out. Thus had they dressed up the real report and substance in absurd terms that nobody might believe it. I immediately comprehended that this was a mandate issued to me as an inferior officer of the Exchequer, to justify Grenville and sacrifice my friend. I perceived, too, the advantage they had put into my hands, and determined to make the most of it. Pitt’s letter was so incredibly weak, and owned so much, that nothing was easier than to confute it. To add to their confusion, I had preserved exact minutes of the two conversations with Pitt and Grenville, of which they had had no suspicion. I felt the opportunity of doing justice both to Mr. Conway and to myself; and of making Mr. Grenville understand, that if he did not do me justice in the regularity of my payments, he was at my mercy, and must expect those letters would be laid before the public, if not before the House of Commons. This I hinted obscurely, being determined that nothing but persecution should drive me to that step. Knowing, however, the narrowness of Grenville’s mind, it was useful to curb him by this menace, as I did too in the Counter-Address, and very successfully. I wrote a long, firm, and unpleasant letter in answer to Pitt’s, and received another from him before there could be time for it (as he was in Cornwall), but by Grenville’s opening mine at the post: for with him was it concerted; and yet so flimsy, so fallen from the arrogance of the former was their reply, that I enjoyed not only triumph, but, I own, the teazing amusement of keeping them in hot water many months—the only use I allowed myself to make of those letters in punishing their culpable behaviour—moderate revenge enough after such insolence! and in which, when I had suffered the period to elapse, Grenville was far from having the generosity to imitate me. My payments were carefully made before the Parliament opened. When I had let the Session pass over without making use of the materials in my hands, an embargo was laid on the income of my employment. Have I been unjust in saying that almost any steps that are lawfully taken against banditti, were justifiable against such men? But I found means to retaliate, without violating the strictest laws of honour: nor have they been able to reproach me, though I had such opportunities of resembling them. Happily, I shall not have occasion to say more of myself for many pages, for though I slept not, the Opposition did.