The same day Mr. Pitt wrote to Charles Townshend in this haughty and laconic style:—“Sir, you are of too great a magnitude not to be in a responsible place: I intend to propose you to the King to-morrow for Chancellor of the Exchequer, and must desire to have your answer to-night by nine o’clock.” Unprecedented as this method was of imposing an office of such confidence in so ungracious a manner (for it was ordering Townshend to accept 2700l. a year in lieu of 7000l., and intimated that, accepting or refusing, he must quit the post of Paymaster), yet it was singularly well adapted to the man. It was telling him that no other man in England was so fit for that difficult employment; and it was telling him at the same time that though his great abilities rendered him an useful servant, the lightness of his character made those talents not formidable in an enemy.
Pitt had judged rightly. Townshend did not dare to fling both offices in his face: but, without being incensed or flattered, fell into the most ridiculous distress imaginable. All he felt was the menace, and the loss of the Paymaster’s place; and instead of concealing the affront or his own anxiety, he sat at home in his night-gown, received all that came, showed Pitt’s mandate to them, and commented on it, despatched messengers for his brother and the Duke of Grafton, who were out of town; and as the time lapsed, ran to the window on every coach that passed, to see if they were arrived. At last he determined on suing for leave to remain Paymaster, to which Pitt listened. Then with his usual fluctuation, Townshend repented of not accepting the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, so leading a situation in the House of Commons, and begged he might have it. Pitt replied, The place was full, being then inclined to retain Mr. Dowdeswell. Townshend renewed his supplication with tears; but for some time Pitt was firm. At length he yielded to the Duke of Grafton’s intercession; and that very day Townshend told the King that Mr. Pitt had again pressed and persuaded him to be Chancellor of the Exchequer—with such silly duplicity did he attain a rank which he might have carried from all competitors, had his mind borne any proportion to the vastness of his capacity. Pitt diverted himself with these inconsistencies, and suffered him to be his Chancellor.[270]
But now Pitt’s own mind, as unballasted by judgment as Townshend’s, though expressing itself in loftier irregularities, disclosed to Grafton and Conway his plan of Administration. He told them he meant to make the present Administration the groundwork of his own, and meditated few changes; that Lord Camden[271] was to be Chancellor, and Lord Northington President: that he had asked the King what his Majesty desired for Mackenzie. The King had answered, Restoration, but without power in Scotland; to which he had consented. Something for Lord Northumberland—but he might wait. Lord Bristol was to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, when Lord Hertford should be weary of it. The Duke of Grafton was to be placed at the head of the Treasury, with Dowdeswell (on Townshend’s refusal) for Chancellor of the Exchequer: Lord Shelburne and Mr. Conway, Secretaries of State; Colonel Barré and James Grenville, Vice-Treasurers of Ireland; Lord George Sackville to be turned out. At last he acquainted them that himself was to be Privy Seal and a peer.
Two words are sufficient comments on so ill-conceived and ill-digested a plan. It was founded on a set of men whose chiefs he disgusted and displaced, without having obtained, without having even asked the consent or sounded the acquiescence of those who were to remain, and whose passions he had left to be worked upon by their several leaders: and, as if forgetting that the sole foundation of his own authority lay in his ascendant in the House of Commons, and in his popularity, he abandoned the one and risked the other; vainly presuming that he could dictate from the House of Peers, where he had no interest, and which required far different oratory from that in which his strength lay. Some argument, much decency, and great art are requisite to lull and lead Lords. The House of Commons, too, was so accustomed to see the Minister himself at their head, as not to be easily conducted by his substitutes. It was quitting the field to Grenville and every rising genius. Even his own Chancellor of the Exchequer, when not under his own lash, was almost sure to run riot. Two such capital errors in the outset, could not but embarrass his measures: they did; and yet smaller errors had greater consequences.
The outlines of the plan were no sooner public than they gave the highest offence to those whom it most imported Mr. Pitt to keep in humour. The King owned to Mr. Conway that he much disliked Lord Shelburne. The Ministerial Whigs, or party of the late Ministers, were enraged. Rockingham was indignant at being displaced for Grafton, and Richmond for Shelburne; and was the more hurt that Mr. Conway suffered this preference. He complained to me of Conway with much anger. I said, “I could not allow Mr. Conway to be blamed, in order to disculpate myself. I did profess I had advised him, as his Grace knew, to accept Mr. Pitt’s offers. He had accepted them before any mention had been made of Shelburne; and grievous as it was to him, could he break on it with Mr. Pitt, after being the cause that the latter had broken with both his brothers, Temple and Grenville? Mr. Conway had wished to resign with his friend the Duke of Grafton; yet had stayed in at the request of the whole party, as they could not go on without him. Could they blame him for staying in now, when the Duke of Grafton returned to Administration?” The Duke replied, “The Duke of Grafton had treated Mr. Conway ill; and that his obligations were to the House of Cavendish.” I said, “My Lord, was the 5000l. bequeathed to him by the late Duke of Devonshire to be a retaining fee to make him a servant to that family?” The Duke asked, why Mr. Pitt did not turn out any of Lord Bute’s friends? Why only friends of the late Ministers? I said, “Not one had been or would be turned out for Lord Bute’s friends: that no man of half the importance of Mr. Pitt had ever brought so few dependents; he had proposed but four of any consequence, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Camden, Lord Shelburne, and Lord Bristol; and even the last he waived for a time. That himself declared he acceded to the present Administration, not they to him; and that he brought not a single man along with him, that had not voted with them all the last winter. That Mr. Conway was influenced by measures, not by men; yet these were both Whig men and Whig measures. Oppose the first arbitrary measure, my Lord, you and your friends, and you will be in the right; but hitherto of what can you complain? Three weeks ago you declared you could not meet the opening of the next Session. The Administration has now got the most creditable accession and strength, and will not accept it:” at last I said, “Desire Mr. Conway, my Lord, not to accept, and I will answer he will not.” “No,” said the Duke, with his usual goodness of heart, “I will not do that.” “Then,” said I, “my Lord, your Grace and your friends will reduce Mr. Conway to this; he will be disgusted with your ill-treatment, he will ask for his regiment again, and retire, and never enter the House of Commons more; and then what becomes of your party?” The Duke was infinitely struck with this; and though for a few days he could not conceal his dissatisfaction from Conway on the latter’s yielding to let him be removed for Shelburne, his friendly heart surmounted his chagrin, and he wrote a letter to Conway acknowledging that he had been in the wrong, and renewing their amity.
In truth, I suffered as much as the Duke in being forced to argue against him, when my heart was on his side. But nothing could have justified Conway in flying off after Pitt had sacrificed Grenville to him, and all other views of support. Every public consideration concurred to excite my endeavours, that Pitt and the late Administration should not separate. They were honest, and he inflamed with the love of national glory. All they wanted was activity and authority; he was proper to confer both. If he lost them, he must hang on Bute, or revert to his brothers and the Bedfords. He and the late Ministers were popular; all other sets were odious from past experience of their actions.
In vain did I labour to preserve so salutary an union. My evil genius, Lord John Cavendish, came across me; and though I had the private satisfaction of letting him see whose influence with Mr. Conway was the greater; it did not compensate for the mischief he did by inflaming the party against Pitt. To engage by his example to set Pitt at defiance, Lord John resigned his seat at the Treasury; and lest he should be too much in the right by resenting the ill-treatment of his friends, he sent his resignation to the Duke of Grafton in a letter, in which he told the Duke that he supposed his Grace did not desire to see a Cavendish at that board. Nothing could be more unfounded or unjust than this insinuation. Grafton had ever lived in the utmost harmony with that family, and Lord John was his particular friend. There was no intention of removing one of their relations; and the Duke had, above all, reckoned on Lord John for his associate in the Treasury. Yet the latter affected to beg nobody to resign—after firing the signal. He carried this dissimulation so far as to beg me, who felt the blow he had let fall on Conway, to do my utmost that Lord Dartmouth and Mr. Dowdeswell might be pacified, or they would both resign: and he concluded his exhortation with great professions to the Duke of Grafton, who, he said, had always distinguished him from the time he was at school. I said, “I was sorry, but did not see what I could do: that they would drive Mr. Pitt to Lord Bute, or to his brothers and the Bedfords.” “No,” he replied, “it might drive Mr. Pitt himself away, which would make confusion, and confusion did no harm in times of peace.” “That confusion,” said I, “would unite Lord Bute and the Bedfords.” “Oh!” said he, “then we should have impeachments.”
Slight as our hopes were now of working any good on the party, Mr. Conway was urgent with Pitt to show them some civilities, and represented how much they were exasperated by his obstinate silence and coldness. Pitt said, he heard so, but could not believe it: all would come right again. Conway implored him to speak to them, or to empower him to soothe them. He was inflexible: said, the King did all. When done, he would go to Lord Rockingham; but would promise no further. Conway spoke of the Duke of Portland,[272] who, as nearly related to the Cavendishes, must be disposed to quit, and therefore required the more attention; and, as the last argument, stated the cruelty of his own situation. Nothing could move him. He replied coldly, If Portland should resign, he would be replaced by a man taken from no exceptionable quarter. This looked like no unwillingness to disgust; and though this absurdity of trampling on the greatest subjects, and even on those men on whose support he must lean, or leave himself at the mercy of the Court, was not abhorrent from Pitt’s character notwithstanding the inconveniencies it had often drawn on him; yet I have suspected that at the time in question, he might have studied or received intimations of the King’s inclination to get rid of some particular men. The Cavendishes had long been particularly obnoxious, had personally affronted the Princess on the Bill of Regency, and had been the chief obstructors of any approach to Lord Bute. The Duke of Portland, though his mother[273] was the intimate friend of Lady Bute, had wantonly piqued himself on enmity to the Favourite; and by local and county[274] circumstances was the declared rival in the North of Sir James Lowther,[275] the Favourite’s son-in-law. To these motives was added in Pitt a desire of making room for Lord Bristol; and an incidental offer to himself of support from another quarter contributed to augment his indifference to the consequences of the party’s anger.
It happened that the Bedford squadron did not give credit to the fair report Lord Temple had made of his zeal for their service. Their hopes had been raised, and seeing a door open, they were not willing to be excluded by an equivocal obligation. Lord Tavistock[276] acquainted the Duke of Grafton, that his father disclaimed the Grenvilles, and would be ready to assist his Grace on no other conditions than places for Lord Gower, Rigby, and Vernon,[277] the Duchess’s brother-in-law. This was making so capital a breach in that connection on such moderate terms, that averse as I was to the Bedfords, I wished to see it closed with before they should be apprized of the ill-blood between Pitt and the late Ministers. But if the offer swelled Pitt’s haughtiness, it did not operate much on the prudence of his measures. He at once slighted the overture, and continued his obstinacy of making no overtures to the discontented. It seemed a contest between them which should be most in the wrong. Lord Rockingham and his friends professed that they would yet be contented with civilities. Lord Frederick and Lord John Cavendish both sounded this high; and the latter, at my house, pressed Mr. Conway so much to obtain some notice of them from Mr. Pitt, that he went that very evening to the latter, and did at last prevail with him to visit Lord Rockingham. Mr. Pitt went the next morning, and was admitted into the house, but was met by a servant, who said, his Lord desired to be excused from seeing him. Thus had they forced Mr. Conway to draw in Mr. Pitt to receive an affront; and from that day the wound was incurable.
On the 30th of the month Mr. Pitt kissed hands for the Privy Seal, and the Earldom of Chatham; Grafton, Camden, Northington, and Charles Townshend for the places I have mentioned. Lord Howe was restored to his post of Treasurer of the Navy; Barré and James Grenville were made Vice-Treasurers of Ireland; and Lord George Sackville was dismissed.