MEMOIRS
OF THE REIGN OF
KING GEORGE THE THIRD.
CHAPTER I.
Debates on East Indian Affairs.—Wilkes and the Duke of Grafton.—Expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain.—Parliamentary Discussions.—Attempts to construct a new Administration in Prospective.—The Court of Proprietors vote themselves a Dividend in spite of the Ministry.—Extraordinary Conduct of Townshend in the House of Commons.
1767.
I have said that the Opposition, perceiving how much the tide ran against them, determined to attempt putting an end to the East Indian business the moment the examination was closed; a weak and silly plan, that betrayed a jealousy of their own cause. Sir William Meredith fixed on the 14th for making that attempt. Lord Bute had been seriously alarmed, and he and the Duke of Grafton exerted themselves to defeat the Opposition. Beckford observed that the evidence had proved all he had asserted, and said he intended to make some motions in consequence, but the examination had been so voluminous, he had not had time to digest his matter. Sir William Meredith said, he doubted whether it was fit to proceed at all further or not: that it had been Beckford’s own fault if the examination had been voluminous. His questions to the evidences had been unjust, and would not have been admitted in a court of justice. It were better to stop, if violence alone was to be the consequence. The Ministers in the Treasury ought to make the motions, if any were proper; but they did not seem to be trusted in this question. The Company would not make proposals while a doubt subsisted of their having any property in the territorial acquisitions. He did not know what motion to make; he thought that the Speaker should leave the chair. Townshend and Conway spoke for allowing more time; Grenville for going into the Committee to see if any one had any proposal to make. Beckford declared he would never propose any question of forfeiture. Norton, in a very indefinite speech, said, if the Company had exceeded their charter, the Crown could call them to account. That the acquisitions were not conquest, because the King was not at war with the Mogul: they seemed to be only plunder. It seemed to be difficult to know judicially what to do with those acquisitions. They ought to be restored, but nobody wished to see that. The Attorney-General desired Norton to give his opinion how to try the case. He refused, saying, “It will be alleged that a prerogative lawyer has pointed out to the Crown a way of getting possession.” The Attorney-General showed that, by the nature of a process in the courts of law, it was impossible for the King to recover his right by law, supposing the territory were his by his prerogative, or by the forfeiture of the Company. There must be an information of intrusion: a jury must be chosen where the lands lie, and yet where there is no sheriff. The sheriff must deliver the profits; must appoint a receiver for the three provinces, who must give security for two years in a court of law to examine the necessary witnesses. The court would not order possession to be delivered. Then there must be a sequestration of the Company’s effects. Having thus exposed with much humour the fruitlessness of a legal suit, he said if nobody else would, he would move for a bill to prevent the Company from making a dividend beyond such a sum without consent of Parliament. It was necessary to frighten them: he would not violate their charter, but as he thought they had no right to their territorial revenues, he would take the half of them. Wedderburn replied, that an action might lie against the Company as a corporation: all he desired was to ascertain the right; the Legislature would settle the rest. Grenville declaimed against any violence, and said with passion, the view was not to vest money in the public, but in the Crown; and a profuse Minister had been found who wanted to give four millions to the King, a year before the general election. He should advise to take this money by taxation. Conway said boldly, he should insist on security that this money, if taken, should be vested in the public, not in the Crown. Taxation was like Mr. Grenville’s Morocco politics. Burke pleaded that in the last charter the Crown had granted the Company privileges as indemnification: what could that mean but territory, revenue, and commerce? Yet he owned there was a political reserve in the charters.
The debate lasted till one in the morning when the Opposition were beaten by 213 to 157. After the division I told the Duke of Richmond that, notwithstanding our victory, I was as ready as ever to unite Conway and his Grace’s friends on the American affairs. The King was informed of Grenville’s apprehensions that the money to be taken from the Company was designed for his Majesty, and highly resented the insinuation—perhaps resented Grenville’s dislike of such a disposition. There wanted no new aggravation of Grenville’s offences. His tediousness in the closet had left a lasting impression; and an ill-judged obstinacy of economy in an article of no great moment, but which was ever before the King’s eyes, could not be forgotten. When his Majesty took in a portion of the Green Park to form a new garden for Buckingham House, the fields on the opposite side of the road were to be sold; the price twenty thousand pounds. This sum Grenville refused to issue from the Treasury. The ground was sold to builders, and a new row of houses, each of which overlooked the King in his private walks, was erected to his great annoyance.
Wilkes had come over the last year, during the recess of Parliament, to try to obtain his pardon, and by the Duke of Grafton’s desire wrote a very submissive letter to his Grace, to be shown to the King. The Duke then told him his pardon could not be obtained without the concurrence of Lord Chatham, and wished him to write to the latter too. Wilkes, who had been abandoned and stigmatized by Lord Chatham, though formerly intimate with and flattered by him, had too much spirit to throw himself at Chatham’s feet, and refused: but, irritated at his disappointment, he published an exaggerated account of that transaction, with unjust severity on the Duke[1],—and returned to Paris. His Grace, Lord Rockingham, and others of that connexion, had yearly contributed the sum of 1000l. or 1100l. to his support. Mr. Fitzherbert collected their donations. It was now the season of collection. In defiance of the Duke, Wilkes sent over a new abusive pamphlet against the Administration.
March 16th.—The Houses adjourned for the holidays.
At this period happened the sudden and total expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain,—a measure so unexpected by them, that they were made prisoners in their convents throughout the kingdom, without having had the least intimation of their intended ruin; a moment of history that will ever be remarkable. The order, renowned for their subtlety and art, dreaded for the empire they had obtained over the consciences of princes and private persons, and seated in the most bigoted country upon earth, had neither sagacity to surmise their impending destruction, nor one penitent so weak and devout as to give them intelligence of what, for a whole year, was in agitation against them. That fabric of human policy and wickedness fell to the ground in an instant. Not a murmur was heard against the rigour of the sentence, though they were conducted to the sea-coasts like exiled malefactors, thrust into ships, and sent like cargoes of damaged goods to their proprietor, the Pope. Clement XIII. though an enthusiast, could not receive them. They were at last dispatched to Corsica, one and all, after being tossed about at sea for some months,[2] stowed in the narrow compass of a few vessels,—a fate so severe, that the greatest enemy of Catholic imposition must commiserate the sufferers. However detestable the maxims of the society, however criminal some of the order might have been, the greater part were undoubtedly innocent—many, perhaps, conscientious men; who, trusting to the establishment and laws of the country, and believing the doctrines they had been taught, had entered into religion. Let the impartial mind weigh the weight of the calamity that fell like thunder on those poor men! Torn from the tranquillity of their convents; too old or too ignorant to turn to new professions; delivered up to an element they were totally unaccustomed to, sickening with the natural effect of the waves, and with want of room and air; banished for ever from their country, relations, and friends; uncertain to what clime they were driven; finding with difficulty one that would receive them, and that one in a state of war, and the most unwholesome spot in Europe;—what a state of lamentation and hopeless misery! What, too, must the parents and friends of those unhappy men have felt? Could no middle term be found? What a horrible post is that of a minister, when the benefit or policy of the State calls for such sacrifices! No doubt was entertained but that the Court of Madrid had discovered that the Jesuits had been the incendiaries of the late insurrection there; and its ministers seemed to have learnt and imbibed the deep secrecy and resolute vigour of the Count D’Ocyras, the prime minister of Portugal, the profoundest and most desperate politician of the age. From M. de Mello, the Portuguese minister in England,[3] I received this account of the springs that first gave birth to that revolution. When D’Ocyras became all-powerful at Lisbon, he found the Portuguese settlements in America, that bordered on the French, extremely neglected. Apprehending a rupture with France from that quarter, he sent his own brother to examine the Portuguese possessions. At the same period Ferdinand’s Queen, who held the reins of the Spanish monarchy during the incapacity of her husband, had made a treaty with Portugal for an exchange of lands, in which Spain would have been gainer; intending to involve the Court of Lisbon in a quarrel with the Jesuits of Paraguay, part of which country was to be ceded to the Portuguese. The event happened as she had foreseen: the Jesuits refused the exchange; and imputing the machination to D’Ocyras, endeavoured to excite the confessors of both Kings and Queens to attempt the ruin of that minister.[4] This step drew upon them the wrath of that vindictive man, who, possessing all the spirit of intrigue which seemed to have deserted the fathers, never stopped till he had accomplished the destruction of the order. Had D’Ocyras[5] been a Jesuit instead of a statesman, the Jesuits might have subsisted till the Roman Church itself shall fall like other structures of human invention. So true it is, what I have more than once remarked in these pages, that great benefits are seldom conferred on mankind by good men. It is when the interests and passions of ambition, villany, and desperation clash, that some general advantage is struck out.
On the 28th, when the Houses re-assembled, nothing was ready for their discussion. The Duke of Grafton had passed the holidays at Newmarket, and when he returned, could not obtain admission to Lord Chatham. The Directors of the East India Company, alarmed at the strength of the evidence against them, had determined to make a compromise or bargain with the Government; and, fearing Lord Chatham would reject their proposal, had sent severally round to the members of the Cabinet, to desire to treat. At a Council held the evening before the meeting of the Parliament, Conway brought them all over to his opinion for a treaty; and he, with the Duke of Grafton, and Charles Townshend, were commissioned by the rest to negotiate. The last was grown a great advocate for the Company, and said, that now, on the death of his wife’s mother,[6] the Duchess of Argyle, he himself was become a considerable proprietor of India stock—all the truth was, that he intended to be so; the Duchess had not had a shilling in that fund. He had acted with the same lightness when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had been to open the Budget before the holidays: he had caused Onslow to make his excuse on pretence of illness, and then appeared there walking about the House. Two days after he did open it—but of that more hereafter, when I come to speak of his proposed taxes.