[307] Of these were the two Onslows, the Townshends, and T. Pelham, all connected with and related to the Duke of Newcastle, who, though sedulous in promoting the resignations, could not prevail on his own family to quit, some of them having during their opposition attached themselves particularly to Lord Chatham. A few more were friends of the Duke of Grafton. Yet with these losses, Lord Rockingham’s party remained a very respectable body for numbers and property. The weakness and incorrigible ambition of their chief, the obstinacy of Lord John Cavendish, the want of judgment in Burke, their own too great delicacy, and the abandoned venality of the age, reduced them to be of no consequence, as will appear: but the Duke of Newcastle’s impotent lust of power, Lord Holland’s daring and well-timed profligacy, Lord Chatham’s haughty folly, and Lord Temple’s unprincipled and selfish thirst of greatness, had baffled all opposition, had counterworked Lord Bute’s incapacity and cowardice; and altogether so smoothed the way, that Lord Mansfield’s superior cowardice and superior abilities at last ventured to act and effect almost all the mischief he burnt to execute against the noblest and happiest Constitution in the world.—Sept. 16th, 1774.
[308] A spirited character of Saunders is given in Walpole’s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 394. His services at Quebec had endeared him to Lord Chatham, and their political connection was renewed upon his Lordship’s retirement from office. A pleasing letter from him is printed in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 231, on his presenting his portrait for the ball-room at Burton Pynsent in 1772. He died three years after, deservedly lamented both in his profession and by the country.—E.
[309] The Duke of Bedford left an interesting account of this negotiation in his private journal. See Cavendish’s debates, vol. i. pp. 591, 596, giving more full details than this book could admit. It confirms the essential parts of Walpole’s narrative, though the reader must draw his own inferences as to the motives of the parties in the transaction.—E.
[310] The King, too, ascribed the Duke’s refusal entirely to the interference of the persons around him.—E.
[311] Thomas Brand, of the Hoo in Hertfordshire, had married Lady Caroline Pierpoint, half aunt of the Duchess of Bedford. Mr. Brand was an old Whig, but had deserted that party in hopes of getting a peerage by the Duke of Bedford’s interest. When the Duke joined the Court after this, he did obtain a promise that Brand should be a Baron on the first creation, but the latter died before that event arrived.
[312] See Walpole’s Letters to Sir Horace Mann, vol. i. p. 320.—E.
[313] Nugent was immediately after created an Irish Peer, by the title of Viscount Clare. [His coarse, clever sayings are frequently recorded in Walpole’s Correspondence. He was the friend and patron of Goldsmith, who dedicated to him the amusing jeu d’esprit the “Haunch of Venison,” and he aspired to be a poet himself, with indifferent success. The Ode to Pulteney, however, contains some spirited lines, and it was therefore pronounced by Gray not to be his. His daughter married in 1775 the first Marquis of Buckingham, to whose interest with Mr. Pitt he owed his elevation to an earldom in 1776. He died in 1788, having survived his son, Colonel Nugent. The present Lord Nugent is his grandson, and has succeeded to his Irish Barony.—E.]
[314] I include Lord Bute’s faction in the standing force of the Crown, and the Scotch in both: but the facility with which the Duke of Bedford had been ready to abandon Grenville, created a new party, or sub-division, that of Grenville and Lord Temple, and their few friends; for though on the failure of the treaty the outside of union was preserved, they evidently remained two distinct factions, as appeared more than once: nor did Lord Temple ever forgive the intended separation, regarding himself and his brother as one, though the Bedfords had frequently told Grenville that they did not look on themselves as connected with Lord Temple, who had opposed them when they were in power.
[315] See an account of this speech in a note to Lord Chatham’s Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 145.—E.
[316] If this supposition be true, it is an extraordinary coincidence that the Duke of Richmond should, eleven years later, have made the speech which unquestionably hastened Lord Chatham’s death.—E.