A melancholy event relaxed a little the assiduity of the Opposition. The Marquis of Tavistock,[338] only son of the Duke of Bedford, was thrown from his horse as he was hunting, and received a kick that fractured his skull. He languished about a fortnight, and died at the age of twenty-seven. If there was a perfectly amiable and unblemished character in an age so full of censure, and so much deserving it, the universal esteem in which the virtues of that young Lord were held, seemed to allow that he was the person. His gentleness, generosity, and strict integrity made all the world love or admire him. Full of spirit and martial ardour, which he suppressed in deference to a father to whom his life was so important, he had the genuine bashfulness of youth, and the humility of the lowest fortune. His large fortune he shared with his cotemporary friends, assisting them in purchasing commissions. Yet he had taste for those arts whose excellence and splendour became the House of so great an heir, and indulged himself in them when they did not interfere with his more favourite liberality. His parts were neither shining nor contemptible; and his virtue assisted his understanding in preserving both from being biassed or seduced. To observers, it was clear that he much disapproved the want of principle in the relations and dependants[339] of his parents; yet so respectful was his duty to his father, and so attentive his tenderness to his mother, and so artfully had she impressed it, that Lord Tavistock’s repugnance to their connections and politics was only observable by his shunning Parliament, and by withdrawing himself from their society to hunting and country sports. He was not less exemplary as a husband than as a son, and his widow, who doated on so excellent a young man, survived him but two years.[340] The indecent indifference with which such a catastrophe was felt by the faction of the family, spoke but too plainly that Lord Tavistock had lived a reproach and terror to them. The Duke, his father, for a few days almost lost his senses—and recovered them too soon. The Duchess was less blameable, and retained the impression longer; but while all mankind who ever heard the name of Lord Tavistock were profuse in lamenting such a national calamity, it gave universal scandal when, in a little fortnight after his death, they beheld his father, the Duke, carried by his creatures to the India House to vote on a factious question. This unexampled insensibility was bitterly pressed home on the Duke two years afterwards in a public libel. Yet surely, it was savage wantonness to taunt a parent with such a misfortune; and of flint must the heart have been that could think such a domestic stroke a proper subject for insult, however inadequate to the world the anguish appeared: how steeled the nature that could wish to recall the feelings of a father on such a misfortune. In Borgia’s age they stabbed with daggers; in ours with the pen![341]
About the same time died the widow Dauphiness, a pious but unamiable Princess, and only remarkable for the various fortune that attended her. Daughter of Augustus of Poland, she was married into the same Court, where the daughter of her father’s rival, Stanislaus, was Queen. Received and treated with affection by that Princess, and possessing all the tenderness of her husband, her fruitfulness seemed to ensure her felicity; when, though seated on the step of the most formidable throne in Europe, she beheld her father again driven into exile, and her mother dying in the midst of that calamity. Her family were scarce restored when the Dauphin perished before her eyes of a lingering illness; and she outlived him too short a time to be secure that the youth of her children would not expose them to the dangers that attend a minority.
The disputes in the East India Company, which grew out of their great cause before the Parliament, produced an attack on Lord Clive, his enemies attempting to seize the Jaghire that had been granted to him by the Mogul; and it was but by a majority of about 30 voices that he saved that immense revenue on a ballot, 361 voting for the continuation of it for ten years, and 330 against it.
Towards the end of March the House began reading the East Indian papers that had been laid before them; each day of which produced much general debate, especially as witnesses were examined. The Attorney-General De Grey and Dyson shone on these occasions, and showed how much the question was a matter of state, and that the King’s Bench could have no judicature over the East Indies. Governor Vansittart[342] was examined for four hours, and gave much satisfaction: his evidence tended to strengthen the right of the Crown, and brought over many persons to that side. Colonel Monroe spoke strongly in his deposition to the same effect.
In the mean time the faction of Grenville and the Bedfords, humbled by the death of Lord Tavistock, and by the ground gained against them on the India question, began to cast about for real union with the Rockinghams. The latter, on the first overtures, and without any positive assurance of that union, sought to draw Mr. Conway into the league, affirming that Grenville, as they had lightly been made to believe, would be content with some inferior post, and would waive his hopes of being Minister. Conway, however, discontented with Lord Chatham, and fearful of offending his old friends, did not listen to a plan so improbable in its construction, and so dishonourable in its tendency. Grenville could only mean to get to Court with the view of undermining his associates when he should be there: and such a treaty would be unpardonable in Conway, while acting in the King’s service. He would not allow himself to think of the Treasury, which he knew Lord Rockingham would never cede to him; and yet on talking over the proposed arrangement with him, he said sensibly, and not unambitiously, “If I should join them, I would insist on Grenville going into the House of Lords.” He was not without fears of Grenville and Rockingham uniting and leaving him with Lord Chatham and Lord Bute. I was not so easily alarmed, though the Duke of Richmond endeavoured to persuade me that the junction would certainly take place, and that Conway would not even recover his regiment. I saw no danger comparable to that of his resigning, and consequently of dissolving the Administration; and very little to apprehend from the union of two men whom so many reasons divided, and whom the predominant one of both aiming at the first place must for ever keep asunder. So it happened then. Neither would yield a post which neither saw a prospect of attaining by his own strength. Grenville at last proposed that both should desist, and should agree in the nomination of a third person. This, no doubt, he intended should be his own brother, Temple, who might afterwards resign to him. But the least proper was the most obstinate, and the treaty came to nothing. I put the Duke of Richmond in mind of what Lord Gower had said the last year, and asked him if he thought it likely that the Bedfords would enlist under a man who was so much their contempt? Lord Sandwich having abused Lord Rockingham in the House of Lords, Lord Gower said to him, “Sandwich, how could you worry the poor dumb creature so!”
A question of more importance than the Indian one was now to come on the carpet—the Regulation of America. The repeal of the Stamp Act, however necessary and salutary, had, as Grenville and his adherents foretold, instead of pacifying that continent, inspired the turbulent with presumption. With whatever joy the repeal had been received, it was not followed by that general gratitude to the Ministers who obtained it, which they deserved. Great Britain having yielded, the tribunes of America flattered themselves that new concessions might be extorted: so certain is the march of successful patriotism towards acquisition. Still the disturbances were not alarming nor universal: and if, instead of tampering with a wound not closed, emollients, restoratives, at least oblivion, and no farther essays at taxes had succeeded, harmony perhaps had again taken place. A Ministry composed of heterogeneous particles, some inclination to show authority after mildness, an eagerness to replace the loss on the land-tax, and, above all, the inconsiderate vanity of Charles Townshend, and not a small propensity in him to pay court to Grenville, all concurred to prompt rash and indigested measures; while a Parliament, so obsequious as that of the moment, was ready to enact every successive contradiction that was proposed to it by the Court, and eased Ministers of the trouble of weighing the plans they intended to pursue. Nay, the circumstances of the time recommended violence as the least obnoxious measure; Grenville being sure to give less obstruction to any intemperance which resembled his own, and secretly enjoying any indiscretion that would involve his successors in the same difficulties as those he had occasioned himself.
The first plan on which the Ministers fixed was that of force and punishment. They proposed to oblige the Provinces to furnish beer and vinegar to the soldiers; and if they refused, the governor of New York was to be prohibited from giving the royal assent for holding their assemblies. This step would, in effect, have been a dissolution of their government, and not less violent than the seizure of charters by Charles II. When the scheme was laid before the Cabinet, Conway, who adhered to the conciliating measures of the last year, and to his own mild maxims, alone opposed so arbitrary a project. When,
On the 30th of the month, the American papers which had been laid before the Houses, were taken into consideration by the Lords. The Chancellor opened the nature of them, and hinting at the disobedience of the Colonies, said, if his own sentiments should not be so lenient as formerly, it was because he had formed them anew on the Act passed in the last session. Lord Weymouth observed to him, sensibly, that last year’s had not been an Act but a Declaration. Lord Temple was more acrimonious, his language gross, telling the Chancellor that his former opinion of Parliament having no right to tax the Colonies, had been treasonable. The Duke of Grafton defended the Chancellor with great propriety, and asked why Lord Temple had not called him, if guilty of treason, to the bar? He reproached Temple, too, with blackening a most respectable character (Lord Chatham’s), from revenge. The present question, he said, was too serious for faction; but if places were the objects of opposition, and if his would reconcile Lord Temple, it was at his service. These bickerings were all that passed then. Lord Denbigh called on the Opposition to propose some plan for restoring the tranquillity and submission of America; but neither party were eager to stir in it: the Ministers were afraid, the Opposition apprehended disunion amongst themselves,—so different were the sentiments of Grenville and Rockingham on that subject.
When the settlement on the Princes passed the House of Lords, Lord Temple behaved with his usual violence. Great and deserved reflections were thrown on Lord Northington for his scandalous extortion of emoluments on the late change. Lord Temple then caused the House to be summoned without acquainting them to what purpose.
The same day, his brother and the Opposition debated in the Commons against delay on the East Indian affair till eight in the evening, and then divided the House for calling in witnesses. Many of the courtiers had gone away, and the motion was rejected but by 96 to 82! Sir W. Meredith then declared, that if Beckford did not by that day sevennight ascertain the House when he would bring on his questions, he would move to dissolve the Committee. Such inconsistent conduct in the Opposition was occasioned by its having appeared on the examination, that the Crown would be justifiable in seizing the acquisitions of the Company, so crying were the abuses, and so little was the Company itself master of its own servants. Easter, too, was now approaching, and the Opposition feared not being able to rally their forces after the holidays. Grenville, apprehending from so many concurrent circumstances favourable to Lord Chatham, that he would be able to acquire a large revenue to the Crown, laboured to instil fears of such intended force; saying, the East Indian business had begun in folly, and would end in violence.