Amidst this confusion the Parliament rose on the 2nd of July, after one of the longest sessions that was almost ever known. The City bestowed its freedom on Charles Townshend for his behaviour on the East India business and the Dividend Bill, for which in truth he had deserved nothing but censure. Somebody, a little more sagacious, inserted in the papers the following epigram:—
The joke of Townshend’s box is little known;
Great judgment in the thing the cits have shown.
This compliment was an expedient clever
To rid them of the like expense for ever.
Of so burlesque a choice th’ example sure
For city-boxes must all longing cure.
The honour’d ostracism at Athens fell
Soon as Hyperbolus had got the shell.
As times show men, the fluctuation and difficulties of those I am describing brought forth some symptoms, though not so fully as it appeared afterwards, of the singular cast of the Duke of Grafton’s mind. Hitherto he had passed for a man of much obstinacy and firmness, of strict honour, devoid of ambition, and though reserved, more diffident than designing. He retained so much of this character, as to justify those who had mistaken the rest. If he precipitated himself into the most sudden and inextricable contradictions, at least he pursued the object of the moment with inflexible ardour. If he abandoned himself to total negligence of business in pursuit of his sports and pleasures, the love of power never quitted him; and when his will was disputed, no man was more imperiously arbitrary. If his designs were not deeply laid, at least they were conducted in profound silence. He rarely pardoned those who did not guess his inclination: it was necessary to guess, so rare was any instance of his unbosoming himself to either friends or confidants. Why his honour had been so highly rated, I can less account; except that he had advertised it, and that obstinate young men are apt to have high notions before they have practised the world and essayed their own virtue.
Mr. Conway telling the Duke that Lord Rockingham desired to treat with his Grace, he commissioned Conway to bring them together. In the mean time Lord Gower reproaching the Duke with negotiating at once with the Bedfords and Rockinghams, as Conway had foreseen, the Duke denied even to Conway the having authorized him to settle a meeting. We were struck with this, and recollected how easily his Grace had been engaged by Lord Chatham to accept the Treasury, after the most vehement protestations against it; and how often and how lightly of late he had refused, and then consented to remain there. Now, on having seen the King at Richmond, his Grace protested against holding the Treasury if Lord Temple was to be associated to equal power.
On the 5th of July the King sent likewise for Conway to Richmond, and showed him all Lord Chatham’s letters.[23] His Majesty had sent for the latter; Lady Chatham wrote to the King that it was impossible for her lord even to write. In the evening the King had offered to go to him. Lord Chatham himself then wrote to decline that honour, pleading his health was worse than ever. His Majesty then asked Conway’s advice. The latter proposed taking Lord Rockingham’s party. The King listened, but asking what the Marquis himself would expect, and Conway replying, the Treasury, the King seemed surprised, protested he had heard no mention of that, and asked, what was then to become of the Duke of Grafton? There seemed some mystery in this behaviour. Either Grafton had kept his eye on the Treasury, or the King had suffered him to allure Lord Rockingham with false hopes. The King and the Duke had misunderstood or deceived each other; which was the more likely, the characters of both will tell. One point, however, was clear, that the King had had the shrewdness to penetrate the Duke’s character earlier than anybody else had, and had found that of all the various ministers he had tried, no man would be more pliant in the closet or give him less trouble. In truth the Duke was the reverse of Grenville; acquiesced in whatever his Majesty proposed, and ever was as ready to leave the room as the King was desirous he should. He was just the minister whose facility and indolence suited the views of the King, the Princess, and the Favourite.
His Majesty next commissioned Conway to treat with Lord Rockingham, with no restrictions but that the Duke of Grafton and the Chancellor should be retained in the Administration, though the Treasury should be ceded to Rockingham. Whether the King forgot having allowed this last condition to be offered, or hoped to evade it, the following negotiations made it plain that he had never intended to fulfil it, if he could form any system without being reduced to that necessity. Two reasons combined to rivet in his Majesty an aversion to having Lord Rockingham for his First Minister; the one general and permanent, the other temporary: the Marquis and his party had and did persist in the exclusion of Lord Bute and his connection. If possessed of power at the eve of a new Parliament, he would be able to influence the elections to the exclusion of that connection. The King was not desirous of giving himself a minister who would thus be master both of him and the Parliament.
Mr. Conway having sent for the Duke of Richmond back to London, I was desired to meet him on the subject. I was averse, as having no opinion of the abilities of that party; yet yielded, as it was thought I had most weight of any man with that Duke; but though I loved and esteemed him, I knew how much he was swayed by the intemperate and inconsiderate folly of the Cavendishes; and I accordingly declared that, should the negotiation succeed, I would have nothing farther to do with that set. When Mr. Conway had opened the proposal to the Duke, the first difficulty that started was on Lord Camden. The Duke said, they would not put a negative on him, but he would be the King’s man. I asked if they expected that every man should depend on King Rockingham, and nobody on King George? “But,” said the Duke, “he will be Lord Bute’s man, as Lord Northington had been.” I said, “If Lord Bute desires to make another breach, will he ever want a tool?” “Oh! but they must have a permanency.” “I know none,” I said, “but holding the Government for life by patent.” The Duke said, a junction with the Bedfords would secure it. “How,” said I, “my lord, will their coming under you make them less impatient to be above you? But have they in their negotiation stipulated anything for your friends? Ask them; if they cannot say they did, it will be proof they did not. You have insisted on Mr. Conway’s resigning: here he is, on the point of doing so; and now you do not know what to do with him. Will you refuse the Government now when it is offered, and yet continue to oppose and impede it?” The Duke said, he had not opposed everything last session more than Mr. Conway. “No!” said Conway, eagerly and with warmth; “what does your Grace think of the land-tax?” In short, we could come to no agreement. Conway was much hurt, yet persisted in his intention of resigning, though his brother and I painted to him his obligations to the Duke of Grafton, and the unreasonableness of those who claimed his promise, though they knew not to what end; and who adhered to their resolution of proposing to the Bedfords to join them, though Conway declared against that junction, and though they had no reason to expect the King would admit them on these terms.
As we had not been able to settle even preliminaries, the King again pressed the Duke of Grafton to undertake the whole, and remain at the head of the Treasury, promising him his fullest support. The Duke replied, with vehemence, that if his Majesty proposed his being minister, he would take his horse, ride out of England, and never return. This peremptory, and, as the King thought, invincible repugnance, suggested a new plan to his Majesty, at which Mr. Conway and I were more disturbed than at all the other difficulties. It was to make Lord Hertford minister, who, we knew, was too fond of his interest, to be proper for that post. Fortunately Lord Hertford, sensible of his own unfitness, started, and said it was impossible. The King said, “You all give me advice, but none of you will serve me in my necessity.” Lord Hertford recommended Lord Egmont. “He will never accept the Treasury,” said the King, “but you may confer with him; I give you full power to do what you please.” Lord Hertford said, he himself never spoke in Parliament, and consequently could not be proper for his Majesty’s service. Yet he feared losing the King’s favour by refusing; and by expressions, which his son Lord Beauchamp dropped, we feared he would consent to take the Treasury for a time, on the grant of a ducal title. I told him there were but three options: to take the Rockinghams, and get rid of them again as soon as possible; to engage Mr. Conway to accept the Treasury, which I could scarce think practicable; or to place the Duke of Northumberland there, since, if Lord Bute would govern, he and his friends ought to stand in the front of the battle, instead of exposing others to danger for him. It would, besides, encourage others to list, as marking certainly that the King’s favour would accompany the Administration. Lord Hertford said, the King would not take that step before the new elections, lest the unpopularity should affect them; though no doubt he would willingly make the Duke of Northumberland minister afterwards.
I went at night to Lord Holland. He ranted for an hour; said the King might make a page[24] first minister, and could maintain him so; that Mr. Conway, when turned out, ought never to have been replaced; that it had been wrong to restore General A’Court and others; and that a king of England could always make what ministry he pleased;—he had forgotten that himself had tried for six weeks in the last reign with all the influence of the Crown, and could not succeed. All I could get from him was, that Lord Bute had not seen the King in private for two years—an assertion I believed as much as the rest.
In the meantime Lord Rockingham, on the strength of the overtures made to him, had sent a formal message to Woburn to invite the Bedfords to enter into the Administration with him. The Duke of Bedford returned for answer, that he was not averse to Lord Rockingham having the Treasury; for the rest, he would consult his friends.