The other chief Ministers were, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Suffolk, Lord Gower, Lord Weymouth, Lord Sandwich, Lord Rochford, and afterwards Lord George Germaine, besides two, who, though not ostensible Ministers, had more weight with the King than Lord North himself. Of those, Lord Dartmouth only stayed long enough to prostitute his character and authenticate his hypocrisy. The Chancellor, Bathurst, was too poor a creature to have any weight; and Lord Rochford, though more employed, had still less claim to sense, and none at all to knowledge. Lord Suffolk’s soul was harrowed by ambition, and as he had not parts to gratify it, he sought the despotism of the Crown as means of gratifying his own pride. Lord Gower, Lord Weymouth, and Lord Sandwich, all had parts, and never used them to any good or creditable purpose. The first had spirit enough to attempt any crime; the other two, though notorious cowards, were equally fitted to serve a prosperous Court; and Sandwich had a predilection to guilt if he could couple it with artifice and treachery. Lord George Germaine was proud, haughty, and desperate. Success by any means was necessary to restore his credit; and a Court that was capable of adopting him, was sure he would not boggle at anything to maintain himself. Lord Mansfield was by birth, education, principle, cowardice, and revenge for the public odium, a bigot to tyranny. He would have sacrificed the universe, and everything but his personal safety, to overturn the constitution and freedom of England. But in the blindness of that rage, and from not daring to open the attempt where the danger to himself would have been imminent, he was the author of the liberty of America, and the instrument of Providence to bless a whole continent, whose destruction he sought to involve with that of his country. Jenkinson had, and deserved, no marked character; he was the tool of the King and Lord Mansfield, and had just parts enough to make his servility inexcusable. Wedderburne, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Dyson were also much implicated in the following counsels; but the two latter died early in the American war. Thurlow, Rigby, and Ellis bore their part in kindling that fatal flame—but I am anticipating what did not appear till three or four years later—though it was both necessary to specify the chief incendiaries of the ensuing calamities, and to account for Lord North’s escaping capital hatred for seeming to bear so capital a part in so criminal a scene; but as not one of the set I have recapitulated had recommended himself to the favour of the public, Lord North, by his good humour, easily drew most good will to himself, and did not, like most of the rest, push it from him by insolence and avowed profligacy. Many events intervened, before the grand scene opened, and those I must now detail.
From Lord North’s entrance into power, the Court found all their facilities of governing by corruption and influence return. Every question was carried in both Houses by more than sufficient majorities: and though the Ministers were teazed within, and the King from without, Lord Chatham was always baffled in the Lords, Dowdeswell, Burke, and Grenville in the Commons; nor could Wilkes in the City keep up more than an ineffectual flame. I will recapitulate, as briefly as I can, the chief events and debates of the following period.
Lord North was no sooner set at the head of affairs, than he solicited General Conway’s support. The latter professed great regard for him, but declared he would not sit in council with Lord Gower and Lord Sandwich, now the Duke of Grafton, to whom alone he had been obliged, was retired. Conway, accordingly, with the King’s consent, returned no more to the Cabinet Council. The Privy Seal was given to Lord North’s uncle, the Earl of Halifax. Charles Fox and Charles Townshend,[58] of Hunningham, were made Commissioners, the first of the Admiralty, the second of the Treasury. Ellis[59] succeeded James Grenville as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; but Lord Howe and Lord Cornwallis resigned their places, having, as they said, had no obligations but to Lord Chatham and the Duke of Grafton. Dr. Blackstone was made a judge, and Sir Gilbert Elliot succeeded Lord Howe as Treasurer of the Navy.[60]
On the 2nd of February, the Lords went into the state of the nation, on a question like Dowdeswell’s, and sat till two in the morning, an hour scarce ever known in that House. The Duke of Richmond principally shone, and said he concluded the Duke of Grafton had resigned from being conscious of the badness of the cause. Grafton denied the supposition; said, nobody did or ever should know the cause of his resignation—and then entered into the most vehement protestation of eternal attachment to his friends the Bedfords. Lord Shelburne and Lord Sandwich had a warm altercation; but the most disagreeable part of the day fell on the late Chancellor, Camden. Grafton, Gower, and Weymouth declared, on their honours, that he had never objected to the legality of what had been done on the Middlesex election; and the Duke affirmed that he had not suspected Lord Camden’s doubts till the month of August last. All Lord Camden could say was, that he had never been positively consulted on it, and had not thought himself obliged to give any opinion when not called upon; yet it appeared in the debate from Lord Chatham, that Lord Camden had declared the illegality to him before August—a proceeding not quite justifiable in a Chancellor, who is styled keeper of the King’s conscience, to be silent to the Ministers on so important a step, and to condemn their measures to the chief of their opponents. The motion was rejected by 96 to 47, and then the majority voted, that for the House of Lords to interfere in a resolution of the House of Commons in a matter of election would be unconstitutional, and tend to a breach between the two Houses. Two warm protests were signed on that occasion by the Lords in opposition, declaring they would never rest till the nation should obtain satisfaction on the Middlesex election.[61]
On voting the land tax, Burke complained of the new grants of pensions and reversions, and of the hardship of levying three shillings in the pound for such purposes. Lord North defended them by the precedent of Lord Camden’s pension. Dowdeswell named Dyson and Bradshaw as enjoying monstrous and exorbitant grants, and gave notice they should be inquired into. James Townshend, the Sheriff, declared that as the county of Middlesex was not fairly represented, he would not pay the land tax. Lord North answered calmly, that the law would decide whether he should pay it or not. The declaration, though intended for example, was not followed: but the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina, voted 1500l. to the Supporters of the Bill of Rights.
On the 12th, Lord Chatham moved for a resolution that the capacity of a person to be elected did not depend finally on a determination of the House of Commons. This was supported by Lord Camden, but denied by Lord Mansfield, and evaded by the previous question.
Dowdeswell the same day aimed a destructive blow at the prerogative, but one too wholesome to meet with success.[62] It was to take away votes at elections for Members of Parliament from all under-officers of the revenue, as of the excise, customs, &c. The motion was popular and constitutional; but the old artillery of the Court, the Tories, were played against the proposal, and it was rejected by 263 against 188. Dowdeswell and Grenville pledged themselves to promote such a bill, should they ever be Ministers again. Lord North told them they certainly did not think themselves likely to become so, when they supported such a measure.[63]
On the report from the committee on the state of the nation, a great quarrel happened between the new Speaker and Sir William Meredith, who were ancient enemies. Grenville had insisted on a right of separating two questions, which being contested, Meredith appealed to the Speaker. Sir Fletcher, a novice in the orders of the House, made an artful but false distinction; at the same time complaining of the hardship of being pressed for decision in the dawn of his office. Sir William said he had meant nothing uncandid; but Norton, hot and unguarded, said, “he now saw he must never expect candour from that gentleman.” Those words caused such an uproar for twenty minutes that nobody could be heard, most crying out to have the words taken down. Conway and others tried to moderate; but Barré inflamed the heat, and Dowdeswell moved that the Speaker’s behaviour had been an infringement of the liberty of debate, and a violation of the rules of the House. The Speaker was enraged, and perceiving that so violent a motion would be rejected with indignation, he insisted on putting the question on himself, which was thrown out without a division. The whole discussion lasted between four and five hours, protracted by the Speaker’s fault, who would make no concession, and who desired the House to take notice that he had made no apology to Meredith.[64]
A motion of Grenville for an account of the disbursements on the Civil List for the year 1769 was rejected by 262 to 165. Many reflections were thrown out on the new grants to Sir Fletcher Norton, Dyson, and Bradshaw; but as the majority was again risen to ninety-seven, the Court paid no regard to complaints. Lord North had flung himself into the hands of Lord Bute’s junto,[65] and had even taken for his own private secretary one Robinson, steward to Sir James Lowther[66]—not without giving offence to the Bedfords, who had meant to govern North themselves.
But if Lord North established his credit at Court by recurring to the patronage of the Favourite, it did but serve to revive jealousies of Lord Bute and the Princess; a strong instance of which broke forth. Sir Edward Hawke had declared for an addition of four thousand seamen, then retracted that opinion, but said, if he should remain in the Admiralty,[67] he should the next year be for adding five thousand men. On this declaration of so renowned an Admiral, Lord Craven and Lord Abingdon moved for two thousand seamen more. The Duke of Richmond supported their motion with great abilities, knowledge, and matter, and pointed out the encroachments and dangers from France and Spain in Corsica and the East Indies, and from the formidable Spanish fleet that seemed to threaten Jamaica, warning the Ministers that they should be answerable for refusing more seamen, if any mischief should arise. Still they refused them, but with much confusion and little argument. Lord Chatham went farther, in his best manner and with most inflammatory matter, perceiving how little he could hope either from the King or Parliament. He pronounced that since the King’s accession there had been no original Minister (a forced expression for no independent Minister) in this country; that there was a secret influence (which he described so as to point at the Princess, not at Lord Bute) which governed and impeded everything, and was greater than the King. He drew a flattering yet artfully ridiculous picture of the King’s gracious facility in granting everything in his closet, while in Council or in Parliament it was defeated by the faction of the secret influence. He himself, he said, had been duped and deceived by it; and though it was a hard thing to say of himself, confessed he had been a fool and a changeling. The Duke of Grafton, mistaking Lord Chatham, asked whether the King or himself had been pointed at by the Earl, and spoke with warmth, dignity, and grace. He declared Lord Chatham had forced him into Administration, as he had many letters to prove; but the happiest day of his life had been that of his resignation. For the words dropped by Lord Chatham, they were the effects of a distempered mind brooding over its own discontents.[68] This last expression hurt Lord Chatham deeply: he repeated it over and over, and said he had drawers full of papers to prove that he had always had sufficient vigour of mind to avoid the snares laid for him. He would neither retract, he said, nor explain away the words he had uttered; but returned the Duke’s attack with severe reflections on his Grace’s falsehood and deviations. The Ministers did not dare to take notice of what had been thrown out against the Princess, but rejected the motion by 70 to 38. The Duke of Richmond hinted that in the late war the Emperor of Morocco had offered to embark fifty thousand men on board Admiral Saunders’s fleet, and invade Spain. Lord Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, and the Cavendishes, who had kept aloof from Lord Chatham, were so charmed with his attack on the Princess, that they visited him publicly. It was more surprising that the Duke of Grafton supported the new Administration with more parts and spirit than he had done his own; and in that and the following winter recovered much of the esteem that he had lost when in power, though without having recourse to that usual restorative of character, opposition.