On the 2nd of March Lord Chatham arrived from Marlborough. Any man in his senses would have concluded, that, having felt the disastrous effects of his inactivity, he had hurried to town to endeavour to retrieve his influence in the House of Commons, and to apply himself to more vigorous measures. On the contrary, as if there was dignity in folly, and magic in perverseness, as if the way to govern mankind was to insult their understandings, his conduct was the very reverse of common sense, and made up of so much undissembled scorn of all the world, that his friends could not palliate it, nor his enemies be blamed for resolving it into madness. He was scarce lame, and even paraded through the town in a morning to take the air. Yet he neither went to the King, nor suffered the Ministers to come to him.[331] After much importunity he saw the Duke of Grafton once or twice, but would not permit the other Councillors to wait even in his antichamber. A Cabinet Council being summoned on the East Indian affair, nobody could prevail on Lord Chatham to let it be held at his house. His few intimates ascribed this ill-humour to his dissatisfaction with Conway and Townshend, who had declared they thought the Company had a right to their conquests. Lord Chatham vowed he would risk his situation on that question, and would defend it himself in the House of Lords. Townshend went so far as to be unwilling to dispute their right. Conway was inclined to let them apprehend its being questioned, that they might offer more largely to the necessities of Government. Lord Chatham, who, when obstinacy failed, knew not how to make himself obeyed, privately waived the point of right, but insisted on its not being told that he had relaxed. His menaces, however, had so much effect, that the directors offered to give up half their revenues and half their trade, with the right annexed. These last words were differently interpreted: some of the Cabinet thinking the directors meant to waive, others to save their right; and in that dilemma the Cabinet broke up in confusion, though it was easy to have asked the directors the meaning of their own words. Conway declared he would not undertake the conduct of that business, but would cede his province to any man that would; and the King telling Lord Hertford that he (his Majesty) must support Lord Chatham, Conway and Townshend declined going to the meetings that were held at the Duke of Grafton’s on that subject. They were private meetings of some of the leading men in the House of Commons, the stiffness of Lord Chatham having reduced him to seek for any men in the subordinate class who would carry on the business—a disgrace which, at the moment of having lost a capital question, seemed sufficient to blast his whole Administration. Conway had in vain pressed for these meetings for four months together. Now, when the question was within two days of appearing in the House, no determination was taken, and there was no Minister to carry it through. These difficulties were increased by a rage for stock-jobbing that had seized all ranks of men. It was more shameful, that above sixty members who were to sit in judgment on the Company, were known to be engaged in that dirty practice. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself was vehemently suspected of having caught the contagion.[332]
The day of expectation arrived at last, March the 6th—but ended in smoke. As Lord Chatham’s plan was to be content with nothing the Company could offer, that he might at last get the whole into his hands, or reduce them by force to cede a much larger portion of their revenues than he could expect they would offer till driven to that necessity, he had eagerly rejected the plan presented by them to the Treasury; and Beckford now, to obtain from the House disapprobation of those offers, moved to have all papers, that had passed between the Government and the Company for the last six months, laid before the House. This motion, which had the sanction of the Ministry, for it was seconded by Colonel Fitzroy, was not only disapproved of by the Opposition, (who treated it as a measure of delay in Beckford, during the ill-humour of his friend Lord Chatham, and as a matter nugatory, since the paper being only an offer from the Treasurer of the Company to the Treasury, it was not an act of the General Court, and could consequently be disavowed by the proprietors,) but was objected to by Charles Townshend too, as the measure was incomplete; questions, he said, being asked on the proposals, and answers still more obscure returned. And to show his dissatisfaction, he desired the House to consider him as a private Member of Parliament. Conway, with more decency, let it be perceived that he was not much better content; however, to disculpate his friend the Duke of Grafton, he said, the Duke had warned the directors that the paper would come before Parliament, nor would accept it till they allowed of that condition. His own opinion, he said, he would not declare. He understood the proposal as yet was neither rejected nor accepted. He wished not to see the paper in the House, till either rejected or accepted; lamented the step taken, but could not obstruct it. Charles Yorke vindicated the Company. Grenville, Burke, and Wedderburne treated Chatham and Beckford with scorn, and laboured to raise a spirit against the idea of force to be put on the Company, and to baffle any benefit being received by the Government. In the midst of the debate, the military and naval chiefs, by their posts members of the Cabinet, but with all their merits very incompetent judges of state affairs, and still worse qualified to engage in the subtleties of a Parliamentary discussion,—both, I say, Lord Granby and Sir Edward Hawke blabbed out the secret which the Ministers were veiling, and which even the treachery and loquacity of Townshend had not dared openly to disclose. Lord Granby told the House that the offers had been found inadmissible; and Sir Edward, to engage the House to send for the paper, declared that the majority of the Council had rejected it. These blunders defeated Lord Chatham’s view, which was to steal the disapprobation of the House, or at worst, should the House admit the proposal, he would stand disculpated to the public for having made no better a bargain. This unlucky truth divulged, drew much ridicule on the managers; and now the secret was out, the Opposition suffered the motion to pass without a negative.
The adversaries, however, had not so soon forgotten to what they had owed their late success; and having acquiesced in the printing of the papers, they flattered themselves the Ministers would the less expect an attack in that quarter. Accordingly, on the 9th, Jones,[333] an East Indian director, a tool of Lord Sandwich, presented a petition from the Company, by surprise, against printing their papers, pleading that it would disclose their secrets to their enemies. Townshend was absent, and the whole weight of the day fell on Conway, who extricated himself from so delicate a situation with the utmost ability. Allowing greatly, as was his nature, to candour, he called on the directors to point out particular papers that might be prejudicial to them, and which, he said, he should certainly be against printing. He disclaimed violence; but observed, as did others, that their papers told nothing more than was published every day in two occasional papers called The India Observer and The Examiner. Jones denying that the directors allowed the Duke of Grafton to lay their proposals before the House, and Grenville pleading that had he known that the other day, he would not have voted for the printing, Conway and Lord Granby both affirmed that the Duke had refused on any other condition to receive their proposal; and Jones, being pressed to answer why he had not contradicted their assertion on the last debate, had nothing to say but that they had never expressed in words allowance of exposing their paper, and that he had not ventured the other day to take on himself to make objections, but had stayed till he could consult his brethren. Grenville quoted the precedent of reversing the order for printing the American papers, and others; the danger of informing France and the Mogul of the state of the Company’s transactions: but it was showed how much more they must know, the first, by the publications of Scrafton[334] and others of the Company, the latter by his situation. Rigby attacked the Ministers on their disunion, which was finely turned by Conway against him, the complaints of the Opposition having run till now on a sole dictator. Elliot distinguished himself on the same subject; and, after a debate till nine at night, the Ministers disappointed the intended surprisal, and maintained their order for printing the papers by a majority of 180 to 147.
When thus triumphant, in spite of his own absurdities, and of the variations of Charles Townshend, who now spoke of himself as turned out, and who only spoke so because he thought himself secure of not being turned out, it was evident what Lord Chatham might have done, had he known how to make the most of his situation. He might have given firmness and almost tranquillity to his country; might have gone farther towards recruiting our finances than any reasonable man could have expected; and, in indulgence of his own lofty visions, might have placed himself in—at least have restored Great Britain to, a situation of reassuming that credit which he and chance had given her some years before. But, alas! his talents were inadequate to the task. The multiplication-table did not admit of being treated in epic, and Lord Chatham had but that one style. Whether really out of his senses, or conscious how much the mountebank had concurred to form the great man, he plunged deeper and deeper into retreat, and left the nation a prey to faction, and to the insufficient persons that he had chosen for his coadjutors. Once, and but once, he saw the King after having refused a visit from Conway, though commissioned by his Majesty to talk with him on Russian negotiations. On the state of America he would hear him as little, and would give no answer but the same he had on East Indian affairs, that it would find its way through the House. Conway protested he would not conduct it there, unless some plan was previously settled, and he knew what he was to support. With Townshend Conway had little less difficulty; the former sometimes pressing him to resign, sometimes threatening to resign and leave him alone; and at others reproaching him for not undertaking his defence when he thought himself the most obliquely hinted at: for Townshend, though as prone to draw reflections on himself as Conway was sedulous not to deserve them, was equally tender and jealous of criticism.
Though the chief business of the session turned on the great affair of what was to be gotten from the Company, yet as what was gotten, was at least peaceably obtained without violence or any Parliamentary decision on their rights; and as I avow myself extremely unversed in those and all other transactions of money and revenue, I shall, as much as I can, avoid details on that subject, both in favour of my own ignorance, and to avoid misleading the reader; the spirit of the times, and the characters of the men who gave colour to events, being almost my sole objects in these Memoirs. The reader has seen, and will see, through what a labyrinth of faction, self-interest, and misconduct we were led into such a chaos of difficulties, as God knows whether I shall live to see surmounted;[335] or whether I must not leave these pages a sad memorial of those errors whose consequences posterity may trace back to their several sources. If I pause a moment to make this reflection, it is because I think at this period Lord Chatham, by a wise and vigorous exertion of himself, might still have established some permanent system, with the support of the Crown and the Favourite, without too disgraceful dependence on the latter. I think so, because even the remnant of this system, when Lord Chatham was withdrawn, still maintained its superiority. That Lord Chatham might have done much more service nine months earlier, before his wanton defiance of the Rockingham party, and his other wild actions of passion and scorn, is past a doubt with me. It will appear at a period not much later, that had his successor and pupil not been endued with almost as great impracticability, and scarce less haughtiness, the distractions that followed had never happened. They indeed dated from a subsequent Parliament; but the seeds were sown in that complaisant and prostitute one of which I am speaking, and which yet, if well conducted, might have remedied many of the evils it had countenanced; but managed as it was, it left nothing but the dis-esteem it had raised to be copied by, and stigmatised in, the Parliament that succeeded.
On the 11th Dudley and Rouse, the chairman and deputy-chairman of the Company, appeared before the House, and declaring they thought that the printing of any of their papers, except the Charters and Firmans, might be prejudicial to their affairs, Conway candidly desired the House would retract the order for printing them, and it was agreed to: he having wished for a sight of all charters, Norton eagerly seized the proposal, Lord Mansfield—ever hostile to Lord Chatham—having discovered in one of the oldest charters that a power had been granted to the Company of making war, and the old Company had transferred all their rights to the new. Dempster, and the younger Burke, who had engaged deeply in India Stock, were the persons that gave the greatest opposition to the pursuits of the Ministers. Edmund Burke, too, assisted by the friendship of Lord Verney, trafficked in the same funds, and made a considerable fortune, most part of which he lost again afterwards by a new fluctuation in the same transactions,[336] and which probably produced, as will be seen, another revolution in the factions of these times. Sullivan, a leading personage in Indian affairs, sought by various proposals to get the negotiation into his own hands, but those subordinate intrigues are foreign to my purpose.
CHAPTER XX
Provision for the King’s Brothers.—Debate.—Death of the Marquis of Tavistock.—Of the Dauphiness.—The Indian Papers.—Intrigues of Grenville.—Regulation of America.—Temper in which the Americans received the Repeal.—New Project of using Force towards the Colonies.—Discussion in the House of Lords on the American Papers.—The East Indian Question.—Real or Affected Insanity of Lord Chatham.—Interview of the Author with the Lord Chancellor.—The Latter lets out a Secret which is turned to Advantage by Walpole.—Debate on an Act of the Assembly of Massachusets.—Attempted Reconciliation between Conway and Rockingham.
During these altercations, and while the time necessary for calling and holding courts of directors or proprietors delayed the prosecution of this matter, the King sent a message to both Houses, desiring them to make a provision for his brothers. The message was taken into consideration on the 19th, and in each House Lord Temple and Mr. Grenville objected to the establishment being entailed on the issue of the Princes. On the 24th, when it was to be voted, Mr. Grenville, without directly opposing, made a very able speech and observations on the settlement. It would be an additional expense, he said, of 24,000l. a year on the Civil List, and might have been saved from other articles. The charge of ambassadors might be reduced, who each cost the Crown 13,000l. the first year. He ridiculed Lord Chatham’s magnificent plans of naming ambassadors to various Courts, and despatching none of them. He had threatened to dissolve the Family-compact; yet Sir James Grey was not yet set out for Spain, nor Mr. Lyttelton[337] for Portugal. Turn north, there were the same great plans, yet Mr. Stanley was not gone. Mr. George Pitt was alike absent from Turin; to those gentlemen he professed meaning nothing personal: the Chancellor of the Exchequer must pay them, and they were in the departments of the Secretaries of State, who, though in responsible places, he was sure were not to blame. The pensions on Ireland amounted to 88,000l. a year; the revenue of that country ought to be laid out to support the Royal Family, and Ireland would like it. Stanley, a very warm man, took this invective to himself, and showed how much he resented it. He complained that Grenville had given him no notice of the intended attack, and observed how delicate his own situation was in speaking, or not speaking, between private honour and the duty he owed to the King of secrecy. He did not care, he said, whether the attack was pointed at him, or to wound another through him; the employment he had not sought: in France he had served to his loss, and was ready to have his conduct inquired into. Had Lord Egremont (Grenville’s brother-in-law) gone, when he was named to the congress at Augsbourg? Foreign Ministers had no means of raising a fortune. Had he himself a son he would say to him, “Get into Parliament, make tiresome speeches; you will have great offers; do not accept them at first,—then do; then make great provision for yourself and family, and then call yourself an independent country gentleman.” For himself, he was ready to answer Mr. Grenville there or anywhere else. Severe as the picture was, Grenville had drawn it on himself, resenting Stanley’s having left him for Lord Chatham. Nor could Stanley be blamed for taking offence; he had been represented in a disgraceful light, while he had acted with singular honour, and yet was not at liberty to disculpate himself. The fact stood thus: Lord Chatham, as I have said, full of a grand northern alliance, had named Stanley Minister to both the Russian and Prussian Courts. The latter would not receive him: the Czarina did not like the proposed alliance, nor the expense of sending an ambassador in return: yet had she named Prince Czernicheff. Sir George Maccartney had desired leave to come home; and thus Stanley stood on the list as ambassador, in compliment to the nomination of an ambassador from St. Petersburg; yet, perceiving he was not to go, he had honourably refused to take the appointments; a state secret he could not disclose, as it would be telling the Russian Court that there was no longer an intention of sending him. Dowdeswell spoke in favour of the Princes, as he was to have made the same motion the foregoing spring. Sir Roger Newdigate, in a dull metaphorical speech, abused the Administration, and complimented Grenville. Charles Townshend turned him into the highest ridicule, analysing his metaphors, and reducing them and the whole speech, as it deserved, to nonsense. Newdigate replied, and with the obstinacy of dulness professed he had never admired any Administration but Grenville’s. Townshend enforced what he had said with new ridicule: the settlement was granted, and the King saved 9000l. a year.