[107] The Duke of Grafton states in his MS. Memoirs, on the authority of Mr. Bradshaw, who was present at the meeting, that with one exception the company “were for expelling Wilkes on the double ground of outlawry and conviction. Mr. Conway declared as much before he came away. The single exception was Mr. Hussey, who expressed himself strongly against a second expulsion for the same offence in being the author of a political libel, for he said that Wilkes’s conviction for the poem could not be thought of in the House of Commons without coupling it with the means used to obtain evidence against him.”—E.
[108] The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 5–17. The disunion that prevailed among the Opposition, some treating the riots as most alarming, others as comparatively unimportant, gave the Government great advantage in the discussion. It may be inferred from the Duke of Grafton’s MS. Memoirs that the Government had been taken by surprise. He says, “It was extraordinary that this combination of the seamen was not foreseen by the merchants in a case wherein they were so much interested; for if the slightest information had reached the Admiralty, a few frigates and light vessels brought up the river would have easily supported the civil power in preventing any outrage.”—E.
[109] Mr. Harley was the fourth son of Edward, third Earl of Oxford. He had been bred a merchant, his father having succeeded to the title late in life through a collateral limitation on the death of the second Earl without male issue. His success in business, and his personal worth, and perhaps still more, his birth, made him a considerable person in the City. As a politician he seems to have given an unvarying and indiscriminate support to almost every Administration. In 1776 he had the good fortune to extricate himself from City politics by being elected Member for Herefordshire, where he had a large estate, and he continued to represent the county almost till the time of his death, at an advanced age, in 1804.—E.
[110] See Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 21–26. After Lord Barrington, as Secretary at War, had moved for leave to bring in the bill, Lord North said that he did not know whether he should or should not oppose the motion! On the second discussion, when the measure was virtually dropped, Lord Barrington assured the House that the bill did not proceed from any consultation of the Ministers, but from himself as a Minister of the Crown, and on that ground he protested against the Opposition claiming a triumph from its withdrawal,—a declaration that enabled Mr. Burke to say fairly enough that there could be no triumph over such weak and broken troops. If, however, the statement made by Lord Barrington was correct, it strengthens the suspicion elsewhere expressed in these notes that he acted on this as on other occasions at the King’s instigation. See p. [273].—E.
[111] Charles Wolfran Cornwall was of an ancient family in Herefordshire, being the son of Job Cornwall, a younger son of Charles Cornwall of Benington, to which estate Mr. Cornwall eventually succeeded. He was bred to the bar, but left it on his marriage. This was his first Parliament. He soon gained the ear of the House, and his name may be found in most debates of any importance even in this session. He had an agreeable address, and a neat clear persuasive style, which if it seldom rose to eloquence always ensured him attention, which he had the tact not to abuse by speaking at great length. He was exceedingly well informed, especially on all points of constitutional law. Notwithstanding his connection with Mr. Jenkinson, whose sister he had married, he joined in opposition to the Government, having attached himself to Lord Shelburne, who already aspired to be the patron of the rising talent of the day, and adopting the views of that nobleman, he distinguished himself by his speeches against the course pursued by the Ministers in their contest with Mr. Wilkes, and in their policy towards America. His speeches, as reported by Cavendish, are able, temperate, and manly. In 1774 he separated himself rather abruptly from his political friends by accepting a Lordship of the Treasury. In 1780 he was proposed by Lord North for the Speakership, to succeed Sir Fletcher Norton and elected without opposition. His acknowledged abilities and experience, with the advantages of a sonorous voice, a fine figure, and commanding deportment, seemed to give him every qualification for his office. For a time the public were not disappointed, but as his physical strength yielded to the fatigues of the long and constant sittings of that period, his reputation also declined, until it was wrecked in the furious party conflicts that succeeded the Coalition. If the frequent changes of Government rendered his position embarrassing, he aggravated these difficulties by his irresolution, so that all parties attacked him in turn. He certainly lost the consideration of the House, and from the suspicions entertained by Pitt of his bias towards Fox during the King’s illness, he would probably have been removed from the Chair at the next dissolution: but he was spared this blow. The following extract from Mr. Wilberforce’s diary is the only record that has come under my notice of the conclusion of his public and private life:—
“January 1st.—Last night the Speaker put off the House by a note in Warren’s handwriting, after he had sent word that he had passed a good night—we suspect a trick.
“January 2nd.—Cornwall the Speaker died after a short illness this morning. We had laughed at his indisposition the day before, thinking him be-Warrened.”—(Life of Wilberforce, i. 199.)
By a singular coincidence his predecessor in the Chair, Lord Grantley, died only the day before him. The Speaker left no children. He had sold the Benington estate some years before to Alderman Harley. (See more of him in Wraxall’s Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 53; vol. iii. p. 258.)—E.
[112] Captain the Hon. Constantine Phipps, R.N., M.P. for Lincoln, eldest son of Lord Mulgrave, a nephew of Lord Bristol. His knowledge of law could not have been very deep, considering that he was at this time barely twenty-two years old; still it was remarkable for a sailor, and he lost no opportunity of displaying it or indeed any of his other attainments, for he put himself forward in every debate of public interest with unwearied and systematic pertinacity. His speeches have gained him a place in history from their being almost the only records extant of some very important debates, and he deserves credit for the pains which, with a forethought then rare, he took in revising them for the press; but even with this advantage, they bear no traces of eloquence. He is said to have been a dull debater. There was little of animation or interest in his manner of expressing himself, and his deportment was as destitute of grace as his figure, the heavy colossal scale of which gained him the appellation of Ursa Major, to distinguish him from his younger brother, who had also a seat in the House. His voice also was particularly inharmonious. He had, indeed, two distinct voices,—the one strong and hoarse, the other weak and querulous, of both of which he occasionally availed himself. So extraordinary a circumstance probably gave rise to a story of his falling into a ditch on a dark night, and calling for aid in his shrill voice. A countryman coming up was about to have assisted him, but Captain Phipps addressing him in a hoarse tone, the man immediately exclaimed, “If there are two of you in the ditch you may help each other out of it.” His merit lay in his industry, information, and acuteness; these were indisputable, and made him a formidable opponent, especially as he was a man of great resolution. No superiority in talent or position could intimidate him, and it was with equal indifference that when almost a boy he used to provoke the patience of Lord North; and in maturer years he courted the indignation of Fox, then in the zenith of his fame. Notwithstanding his obligations to Lord Bristol, by whom his father had recently been raised to the peerage, he generally went with the popular party,—a line of conduct that would have gained him lasting honour, had he not afterwards accepted office under Lord North, and thenceforward supported the Government with the same zeal and vigour which he had previously shown in opposing it. His “tried integrity and worth” are sarcastically noticed in the Rolliad. After the fall of Lord North, he, in common with other friends of that Minister, joined Mr. Pitt. He proved an useful ally, especially in the debates on the Westminster scrutiny, in which he took a very active part, and thus brought upon himself the resentment and attacks of the Opposition wits, as well as a prominent place in the Rolliad. He was consoled, however, by the lucrative post of Joint-Paymaster, and a British peerage. Lord Mulgrave died in 1792. He is the author of “A Narrative of a Voyage of Observation and Discovery to the North Pole, in 1773,” a work of considerable merit. The expedition failed, owing to the ships getting entangled in the ice near Spitsbergen; but the philosophical observations made on the voyage received no addition during more than half a century afterwards.
Lord Mulgrave having died without issue, was succeeded in his Irish title by his brother Henry, whose career was at least equally successful, for he raised himself to the highest posts in the Government, as well as an English Earldom. The Marquis of Normanby is his eldest son.—E.