George Grenville, who had reserved all his fire for Conway, attacked him with the utmost animosity. The Americans had been blameable, but were pardonable according to the Secretary of State. For his part, he did not think rebellion pardonable. He had never advised to resist taxes; had never advised people to stand to their tackle and resist. Was there not an order under the gentleman’s own hand, in papers on the table, to send a military force? and yet, forsooth, he would sooner cut off that hand! His insinuation was void of truth; there were no cutters sent to the West Indies; no such orders to cruize on the Spanish trade. He had proposed, and now called on the House to fix a day for inquiring into that affair. For shame! let it not be repeated any more. First let the business be done, and then let it be known by whose fault affairs had been brought to the present crisis.
Mr. Pitt made another oration on general liberty, and in favour of the Colonies, but not various enough from the former to demand being particularized. Sir Fletcher Norton answered him with equal warmth—and then burst out such a confutation of the lies Mr. Grenville had been venting, that it was wonderful how even his pallid features could quench the blush of shame. Conway acquainted the House that he had two letters in his hand, one from Sir William Burnaby,[240] acquainting him that the Spanish trade could not go on under the present regulations; and he offered to read them to the House, or give them to Mr. Grenville himself. “I may be mistaken,” said Conway; “but he shall not say I misrepresent.” Grenville still repeated that there were no such orders given to regulate that trade. Admiral Keppel said, he could take upon himself to affirm that that trade had suffered; and Huske undertook to prove to the House, that orders had been given by the Treasury under Mr. Grenville’s Administration, relative to the restrictions laid on the Spanish trade: and Mr. Grenville had no more to say. At near three in the morning the question was put, and the first resolution was carried without a division, Mr. Pitt’s, and four or five voices only, dissenting: the rest of the propositions were adjourned to another day.[241]
In the House of Lords the Opposition ran the Ministers nearer, and even carried one or two questions by majorities of four and five. Lord Bute himself, almost acting patriotism, said, Nothing should oblige him to be for the King’s wish if he did not approve the measures of the King’s Ministers. In the House of Commons the sittings were long, repeated, and full of warmth; but the Ministers, supported by the popularity of the measure, and by the ascendant of Pitt, (which never appeared more conspicuously, though eccentric,) pursued their point, and weak as they were from the treachery of the Court, from their own inexperience, and from deficiency of great talents, were able to weather the various storms that concurred, and concurred only, for their destruction.[242]
On the 5th the House went again on the resolutions. To the second Dyson proposed to add, whereby the execution of an Act of the last session of Parliament has in such provinces been defeated. This was opposed, particularly by Mr. Pitt, though he said his support could be of little efficacy to American liberty, standing as he did almost naked in that House, like a primæval parent, naked, because innocent; naked, because not ashamed. Elliot declared for moderating rather than for repealing the Act, and Grenville himself agreed that it might be altered; on which Burke triumphed and taunted him: and Pitt, to whom Grenville had made compliments, declaring that there he would make his stand, the amendment was withdrawn. The third resolution passed without contradiction. The fourth, Conway himself offered to give up, as too severe; and Pitt, with encomiums on his constitutional lenity, encouraging him to depart from it, it was withdrawn. The fifth occasioned more debate. Nugent proposed to correct the words, recommend to governors to recompense the sufferers, and to substitute the word require; and the Master of the Rolls declaring the whole resolution illegal, as the House could not recommend in cases of money, that motion, too, was given up. Grenville proposed others for compensation, protection, and indemnification to the officers of the revenue, &c. Pitt went away, after highly praising the Ministers, protesting how desirous he was of agreeing with them, and assuring them that, as far as he could support them, they might depend on his support. Grenville’s motions carried on the debate for two hours more; when both sides, fearing to divide, and Elliot moderating, Grenville was, with much difficulty, persuaded to suffer the amendment of his motions. Those questions and alterations may be found in the journals; nor do I pretend to great accuracy in words of that sort: the sense and substance I mean to give, the forms may be collected by historians, or corrected by critics. It is the business of the former, the existence of the latter, to be nice in minutiæ.[243]
On the 7th of February the Opposition determined to try their strength. Mr. Conway acquainted the Committee that though the voluminous quantity of his correspondences prevented his being able as yet to lay them before the House; still that they deserved the most important consideration, as representing the deplorable state of that unfortunate country, America, where all was anarchy and confusion—without courts, without laws, without justice; and yet he had not heard a breath of disloyalty,—it was the countenance of despair. They looked upon their trade and liberty as gone; and yet he thought it his duty to acquaint the House that one of his correspondents was of opinion that the Stamp Act might still be carried into execution.
Mr. Grenville, untouched and unmoved by so calamitous a picture, moved to address the King to give orders for enforcing the laws, and for carrying all Acts of the English Parliament into execution. Charles Townshend, making a merit of not having declared his opinion on the repeal, approved the Address, and yet disliked the latter words, which could be interpreted to be levelled at nothing but the Stamp Act. This was much extended by Burke; faintly taken up by Yorke; and the motion supported on the other side by Jenkinson and Norton. Mr. Pitt, who arrived under extreme pain, argued against the proposed Address with unusual strength of argument, and demonstrated the absurdity of enforcing an Act which in a very few days was likely to be repealed. He encouraged a division rather than the admission of such an Address. Such a question, followed by such a majority as he foresaw would be against the Address, would show the weakness of the wisdom, and the weakness of the numbers of those who proposed and approved it. Supposing orders should be sent out immediately, in consequence of such an Address, to enforce the Act, the scene that would ensue would make the Committee shudder; what could follow but bloodshed, and military execution in support of a law, which perhaps might be repealed in a week’s time, and our Governors abroad might go on enforcing it after it was repealed? When he was Secretary of State, the fleet lay wind-bound in the Channel for nine or eleven weeks—what would be the consequence of such an event now? He pressed Grenville to withdraw his motion; and then, excusing himself on his illness, went away.
Grenville, as obdurate as the winds of which Pitt had talked, and who, having checked a glorious war, seemed to promise himself other triumphs over his countrymen, expatiated on the haughtiness of Pitt, and denounced curses on the Ministers that should sacrifice the sovereignty of Britain over her Colonies. Conway retorted on the inhumanity of Grenville, and that sort of intrepidity that menaced two millions of people, who were not in a situation to revenge themselves; and by apt allusion to Grenville’s remorseless despotism, told him that Count d’Ocyras,[244] the most intrepid Minister that ever was, had yet rescinded the duties in the Brazils. In confirmation of Mr. Pitt’s arguments, he told the House the packet would depart in two days; was it advisable to let it carry this precipitate, and perhaps useless Address to America? useless, if the Stamp Act was repealed, as he avowed he hoped it would be. Nugent argued on the danger of giving way; on the spirit of resistance this would infuse into the Irish; and on the contempt with which France would treat our demands, if we knew not how to govern our own subjects. The resolutions of the House, unenforced, would, he said, be holding a harlequin’s sword over the heads of the Colonists. Lord Granby declared for, and Sir George Saville against, the Address. Beckford was bitter on Grenville; and Norton so abusive on Yorke, that Sir Alexander Gilmour told him, in his own famous phrase, that he could have kept company with nothing but drunken porters. Colonel Onslow with more good humour, said, he looked upon the altercation between the two learned gentleman (Yorke and Norton) as a race for the Chancellorship. Much personal heat, however, ensued, and put an end to the debate, when the motion for leaving the Chair, which had been proposed by Yorke, was carried (and the Address consequently rejected) by 274 to 134; the very majority being greater than the whole amount of the Opposition; though Lord Bute’s friends and all the Scotch and the Tories, and Lord Granby, and near a dozen of the King’s own servants, voted in the minority. It was matter of ridicule, that in the lists given out by Lord Sandwich, their faction had been estimated at 130; and Lord Bute’s tools had vaunted that he could command fourscore or ninety votes. The astonishment and mortification of Grenville and the Bedfords were unequalled. They had quarrelled with and defied the Favourite when they were in power; and were now seeking and courting his support, when he seemed to have lost his power almost as much as they had.
The Ministers, however triumphant, were with reason disgusted at the notorious treachery of the Court; and remonstrated to the King on the behaviour of his servants. Evasions and professions were all the replies; but no alteration of conduct in consequence. On the contrary, within two days after the last division in the House of Commons, a scene broke forth that exhibited a duplicity, at once so artful, and yet so impolitic, so narrow-minded in its views, and so dangerous in its tendency, that the warmest partizans of royalty, of the Princess, and of the Favourite, will never be able to efface the stain. What crooked counsels, and how insincere the mind, which could infuse or imbibe such lessons!
Lord Strange, one of the placemen who opposed the repeal of the Stamp Act, having occasion to go into the King on some affair of his office, the Duchy of Lancaster, the King said, he heard it was reported in the world, that he (the King) was for the repeal of that Act. Lord Strange replied, that idea did not only prevail, but that his Majesty’s Ministers did all that lay in their power to encourage that belief, and that their great majority had been entirely owing to their having made use of his Majesty’s name. The King desired Lord Strange to contradict that report, assuring him it was not founded. Lord Strange no sooner left the closet than he made full use of the authority he had received, and trumpeted all over the town the conversation he had had with the King. So extraordinary a tale soon reached the ear of Lord Rockingham, who immediately asked Lord Strange if it was true what the King was reported to have said to him? The other confirmed it. On that, Lord Rockingham desired the other to meet him at Court, when they both went into the closet together. Lord Strange began, and repeated the King’s words; and asked if he had been mistaken? The King said, “No.” Lord Rockingham then pulled out a paper, and begged to know, if on such a day (which was minuted down on the paper) his Majesty had not determined for the repeal? Lord Rockingham then stopped. The King replied, “My Lord, this is but half;” and taking out a pencil, wrote on the bottom of Lord Rockingham’s paper words to this effect: “The question asked me by my Ministers, was, whether I was for enforcing the Act by the sword, or for the repeal? Of the two extremes I was for the repeal; but most certainly preferred modification to either.”
It is not necessary to remark on this story. The King had evidently consented to the repeal, and then disavowed his Ministers, after suffering them to proceed half-way in their plan, unless it is an excuse that he secretly fomented opposition to them all the time. His middle way of modification, tallying exactly with what had been proposed in the House of Commons by Elliot and Jenkinson, proved that, notwithstanding all his Majesty’s and Lord Bute’s own solemn professions, the latter was really Minister still; and that no favour could be obtained but by paying court to him. In such circumstances is it wonderful that the nation fell into disgrace and confusion, or that the Crown itself suffered such humiliations? A King to humour a timid yet overbearing Favourite, encouraging opposition to his own Ministers! What a picture of weakness!