The negotiation was at length completed on the 18th of December on these terms:—Mr. Conway was to remain Secretary of State till February, and then resign the Seals to Lord Weymouth. Lord Gower to be President; Lord Sandwich, Postmaster; Rigby, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, with the promise of Paymaster on the first opportunity; a Garter to the Duke of Marlborough, and a Baron’s Coronet to Mr. Brand,[59] when any Peers should be created; with some less considerable places for others of their dependants. Yet did even this arrangement cost nine thousand, others said, fifteen thousand pounds, a-year to Government. Lord Northington who enriched himself by every distress and change, got three thousand pounds a-year for ceding the post of President. Lord Hilsborough obtained as much for that of Postmaster, and Oswald was indemnified for the temporary admission of Rigby to the Vice-Treasurership; yet was Lord Bute displeased with Oswald’s dismission, though the latter was fallen into a state of dotage, and appeared no more.[60]
On the 21st the House of Commons adjourned to the 14th of January for the holidays; the Lords to the 21st, to avoid entering on Lord Weymouth’s motion for considering the state of the nation, which was fixed for the 14th.
Grenville and his few remaining friends, whether lulled by Rigby, or too weak to show resentment, declared they had no cause to complain. I asked Lord Temple’s friend, Mr. W. Gerard Hamilton, if the Grenvilles and Lord Chatham would not now be reconciled? He replied, Lord Temple and Lord Chatham might, but George Grenville never would; that his love of business and love of money would both yield to his obstinacy.
Many persons ascribed the suggestion of the treaty to Lord Mansfield, and to his weariness of opposition, which was not his turn, and in which his aversion to Lord Chatham had solely embarked him. He wished to obtain a seat among the sixteen Scotch Peers in the new Parliament for his nephew, Lord Stormont.[61] But it had been sufficient cause to Lord Mansfield to promote this new settlement that it would, as it did entirely, give the finishing blow to Lord Chatham’s Administration. The Bedfords saved Lord Eglinton in the succeeding Parliament from being omitted of the sixteen; but his place in the Bedchamber they did not recover for him, promising their friend, Lord Bolingbroke,[62] that office on the first opportunity. Lord Eglinton was shot two years afterwards on his own estate by a poacher.
On the 23rd, Lord Gower kissed hands. The King, to show how well he could dissemble, told him he had never been happy since they parted. This was overacting insincerity.
The year concluded with his Majesty making his second son, the Bishop of Osnabrugh, Knight of the Bath.
The new year was opened by the publicity of an affair which, though in agitation for some months past, had been known to very few persons. It was common, particularly in Wales, for private jobbers to apply to the Treasury, and offer to make out the title of the Crown to certain lands which had been usurped from the domain, under pretence of having been grants, though often the grantees had occupied much more than had been granted. On these occasions a new grant was the condition and reward of the informer. As these suits had regarded inconsiderable property, or rather inconsiderable persons, such transactions had never occasioned clamour. The precedent was now employed by so obnoxious a man, and to the prejudice of so puissant a lord, that no marvel it occasioned loud murmurs. Among the grants bestowed by King William on his Dutch favourite, the Earl of Portland,—grants that in their day had been sounded high by Opposition, and many of which had been cancelled by Parliament,—the Duke of Portland still enjoyed the honour of Penryn, adjoining to which he likewise possessed the forest of Inglewood, which, having been part of Queen Caroline’s jointure, she had held after Penryn had been granted to Lord Portland,—a strong presumption that it made no part of what he had obtained—though on her death he or his son had entered upon it, and had enjoyed the forest to the present time. It was estimated at about eight hundred pounds a-year; but whether of that value or not, included within its precincts a large number of freemen, a material article to the Duke, who was then contesting the interest of Cumberland and Westmoreland at an unbounded expense with Sir James Lowther, one of the most opulent subjects in Britain, and who, till now, had exercised almost sovereignty over the voters of those counties. Sir James discovered the flaw in the Duke of Portland’s title, and made the usual application to the Treasury for leave to prove the defect, on condition of being gratified with what he should recover to the Crown. The application being made some months before, while Charles Townshend was alive and Chancellor of the Exchequer, he, rash and thoughtless as he was, had yet been struck with the inconveniences likely to follow from such indulgence, and had stopped it. Sir James Lowther was not only a man of a hateful character, but lay under the unpopularity of being Lord Bute’s son-in-law. The affair, too, though simple in its own nature, ultimately regarded elections, and must revive against the Scotch favourite the odium which had attended the Dutch one, when the grant was originally made. That the Duke of Portland was in Opposition was, in prudence, an additional reason for not exerting the power of the Crown in so ungracious an act; nor was it wise in the Favourite to countenance his son in so hostile a step: a possession of land and of interest in elections ravished from a potent family was a violence that no time could obliterate. I speak of the Favourite’s connivance hypothetically, for Lowther was of so mulish a nature, that I question whether he, who treated the Favourite’s own daughter, a very amiable woman, but hardly, would have paid much deference to his father-in-law’s remonstrances. However, as Norton was supposed to have hit the blot, and certainly was the conductor of the business, it may be presumed that Lord Bute, though he denied having given his approbation, was not sorry to see the Duke of Portland’s inveteracy punished. That the King countenanced the suit may be presumed from the unparalleled wantonness and inconsideration with which the Duke of Grafton had now given it the Treasury’s sanction. The Duke of Portland, who could not ascertain his right, had desired to see the collection of grants in the office of the Surveyor-General. The Duke of Grafton had allowed it, but Mr. Herbert,[63] the surveyor, refused to communicate them, pleading that others would claim the same indulgence. Grafton would not overrule the surveyor’s objection, on which Portland reproached him, by letter, with breach of promise, in terms which the Duke of Grafton said he could scarce take as a gentleman. The Duke of Portland, though asserting his right, could never prove it, and probably had none. More of this affair will appear hereafter. Mr. Conway, who maintained his friendship with the House of Cavendish, of which the Duke of Portland had married a daughter, was much hurt at this exertion of the Crown’s power, and at the Duke of Grafton’s total silence to him on that transaction.[64]
On the 14th of January the House of Commons met. Dunning was declared Solicitor-General in the room of Willes,[65] who was made a Judge to make room for him. This was an extraordinary promotion, as Dunning was connected with Lord Shelburne, and was to be brought by him into the ensuing Parliament. The affair indeed had been agitated before the accession of the Bedfords, who wished to raise Wedderburn to the Solicitor’s place; but the great reputation of Dunning decided it in his favour. He was the most shining pleader then at the bar, and being a zealous Whig, had distinguished himself greatly as counsel for Wilkes. The fame of his eloquence sunk entirely and at once in the House of Commons, so different is the oratory of the bar and of Parliament. Lord Mansfield, Hume Campbell, and Lord Camden, maintained a superior reputation in both kinds. Wedderburn shone brightest in the House. Norton had at first disappointed the expectation entertained of him when he came into Parliament; yet his strong parts, that glowed through all the coarseness of his language and brutality of his manner, recovered his weight, and he was much distinguished. But Sir Dudley Rider,[66] the soundest lawyer, and Charles Yorke,[67] one of the most reputed pleaders, talked themselves out of all consideration in Parliament—the former by laying too great stress on every part of his diffusive knowledge, the latter by the sterility of his materials.
Dunning soon neglected the House; whether embarrassed by his attachment to Lord Shelburne, or by the affairs of Wilkes, which again became so capital an article of parliamentary debates, and in which he could take no part without offending the Crown or deserting his ancient client, or whether sensible of his own ill-success, I do not pretend to determine.[68]
Mr. Conway, who, as I have said, was disgusted at the Duke of Grafton’s not communicating to him the step taken against the Duke of Portland, received a new affront from the Bedfords, Rigby declaring he would not kiss hands till after Conway’s resignation: he would not have been so squeamish, had the post allotted to him been adequate to his desires. Of this impertinence Conway took, properly, only this contemptuous notice. He bade Grafton tell the Duke of Bedford that he ought to send for Rigby and whip him; but the impertinence was so childish, he himself should take no other notice of it. Grafton sent Weymouth to Rigby, who denied the fact, said it was too absurd, and that he would kiss hands on the 18th: but even that was an evasion, for the 18th being the Queen’s birthday, he could not kiss hands on that day; and on the 20th, Conway, impatient to be released, resigned the Seals. The King would have exceeded his usual graciousness if he had not lately showered it so insincerely on Lord Gower. He told Conway he had never liked any man so well; insisted on his continuing Minister of the House of Commons, and in the secret of affairs, and that he should depend on him for the report of what passed in Parliament: that he wished to give him the best regiment, and would give him the first that fell: did not take his resignation ill; and ordered him to attend him in his closet once a-week: asked him how the Duke of Grafton remained with regard to the Bedfords: hoped the Duke would confine them to their agreements: did not, he said, know whether Rigby spoke truth, but that he had recanted on his (Conway’s) subject.