Zeal for his cause reigned almost as strongly in the city of Westminster. Having lost one of their members by the death of Lord Sandys, whose son, one of their representatives, succeeded to his father’s title, they elected Sir Robert Barnard, a knight of Huntingdonshire, known to them only as an enemy to Lord Sandwich, in his own county,[82] and by having presented its remonstrance to the King. The Court did not dare to set up a counter candidate, though seated in the heart of Westminster, amidst their own and the tradesmen of the nobility.
Samuel, Lord Sandys, died by a hurt from an overturn. He had formerly been the head of the republican party, and a leader against Sir Robert Walpole, on whose fall, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, a promotion that cost him his character, both as a patriot and a man of business. He was soon removed for his incapacity, and made a peer; and, at different times, filled other posts, as Chief Justice in Eyre and Speaker of the House of Lords; but never recovered any weight, and at last was laid aside with a pension.[83]
At the end of the month arrived a very alarming account from Boston. Some young apprentices had, incited to it, as it seemed, insulted the soldiers quartered there. After repeated provocations, the tumult increasing, some of the soldiers fired, and killed four of the lads, and apprehended some others. In an instant the sedition spread through the whole town, clamouring for the instant removal of the garrison, with which the Deputy Governor and the commanding officer were forced to comply, not only intimidated by the actual riot, but receiving intelligence that the neighbouring towns were taking up arms, and would march to the assistance of the Bostonians, who already imprisoned Colonel Preston, who, they affirmed, had given orders to the soldiers to fire. That he strenuously denied; and being a man of a mild and prudent character, his case excited great pity and indignation here. Nor, though the seditious charged the military with sanguinary intentions, was it credited; the soldiers, it appearing, being so little prepared to attack, that when they ran to the assistance of their comrades, some were armed only with shovels, and others with tongs. Volumes of inflammatory informations were sent over hither and reprinted; and Alderman Trecothick moved in the House of Commons for a sight of the instructions sent to Boston, which, after some debate, were granted with restrictions; but shortly after came letters, in which the Bostonians endeavoured to palliate their violence; and it was known that Colonel Preston would not be tried till August, which might and did give time to the more moderate there to soften his case, and interpose in his favour. After a formidable suspense, he was honourably acquitted.
On the 28th died Marshal Ligonier, aged ninety-two.[84] The first regiment of Guards was given to the King’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester, and the third to Lord Loudun. Lord Edgcumbe was made Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, to the scandal of the Rockingham party, the Duke of Portland having resigned on the dismission of Lord Edgcumbe, who, in truth, had long been too ready to abandon that party, and at all times professed himself too solicitous to keep or obtain a place; yet as his old friends had joined Lord Chatham, who had turned him out, he seemed as much at liberty to take on with those whom Lord Chatham opposed.
Lord Chatham, in consequence of the notice he had given, moved for a bill to rescind all the various resolutions of the House of Commons on the Middlesex election, and was supported by Lord Camden and Lord Shelburne; Lord Mansfield and the Ministers opposed and rejected the bill by 89 to 43.
The next day, Captain Boyle Walsingham, in the Commons, moved for all the letters and papers sent to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, which had occasioned the prorogation of the Parliament there, and had interrupted much business of consequence,—a punishment the more severe, as the augmentation demanded had been accorded. Grenville again complained of his Majesty’s waiving his prerogative, by promising not to call over those troops but in case of rebellion,—a strange plea in an opponent! but Grenville never liked opposition so well as in defence of prerogative; while to excuse his Majesty’s moderation, Lord Barrington and Rigby maintained that, in case of emergency, the King might disregard his promise,—a power of evasion very unnecessary to claim, when it had been so lately and so wantonly violated, merely to give a pension to Dyson, though the Irish had been promised that no more such pensions on their country should be granted. The motion was rejected by 178 to 66.[85]
Lord Chatham made another prolix motion, tending to censure the Ministers for the answer they had advised the Crown to make to the remonstrance from the City. His speech was long, animated with his most nervous eloquence, and patchworked with his wildest ignorance and inventions. He talked of Androgeus, Lord Mayor of London in the time of Julius Cæsar, defending the privileges of the City, and of the care Edward the First had of those liberties. Lord Gower told him that so much had been said, and such full answers given by both Houses, (who had both, indeed, approved the King’s answer,) on the Middlesex election, that it would be tiring the House to say more on that subject. The other Ministers sat silent and would not be provoked to speak, though loudly called on by Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Lyttelton, and Lord Temple. Lord Pomfret said a few words on the factious behaviour of Beckford, who was defended by Lord Shelburne:—“I shall always love him,” said that Lord, “for, when the citizens murmured at the King’s answer, as they quitted St. James’s, the Lord Mayor bade them admire his Majesty’s good humour, and told them the answer came not from himself, but from his Ministers.” That motion, too, was rejected by 85 to 37.
Those vague and unconcerted attacks wore out the spirit of redress, instead of keeping up its zeal. The several factions hated each other more than they did their common enemies, and most of the leaders of Opposition had, in their time, contributed to the grievances of which they now complained. It must, I think, appear evident, from the scope of the reign, that the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute had assumed the reins with a fixed intention of raising the prerogative, which they called restoring it to its ancient lustre; but nothing would have induced them to specify at what period of its influence they would have been contented to have stopped. The line of Hanover having been advanced to the throne by the forfeiture of the Stuarts, could not have the confidence to demand all the power that had been claimed by that House from which they descended, whose maxims they secretly revered, and whose want of abilities they inherited. King William had been too much controlled by his parliaments to serve them for a precedent; and the beginning of this very reign had been too servilely copied from the conclusion of Queen Anne’s, and too ingloriously to be fit for quotation, though the doctrines of her last Ministers were the rule on which the junto had intended to act, and did act whenever they found themselves strong enough. But, as recent provocations govern the actions of men more than maxims, it was the conduct of the later Ministers of George the Second that first inspired the Princess of Wales and her husband, Prince Frederic, with desires of emancipating themselves from such pupillage. I am persuaded that she, her husband, and her son (if the latter at first had any plan) meditated humbling the aristocracy, rather than invading liberty. Yet is every increase of prerogative so fatal, and so sure are the people of being trampled upon in such contest, whether the Crown or the nobility get the better, that it was true patriotism to resist the attack, and the people were in the right not to consider the motives to the attempt, since in general questions the privileges of all the subjects are equally concerned. The truth of these observations will appear from some remarks that I think it necessary to make on a pamphlet which made much noise at the time of which I am writing, and the effects of which, though the treatise may be forgotten, are felt at this day, that essay having operated considerably towards dividing, and consequently weakening the Opposition, which afterwards, by accidents, deaths, treachery, self-interest, and mismanagement, was reduced to the shadow of resistance, and[86] was disabled from stemming that torrent of intoxication, which, impelled by the wicked arts of the Court, hurried even the people into a passion for the American war, which, had it prospered, would have demolished liberty, and which, miscarrying, has destroyed the prosperity and importance of Great Britain, and engendered to the King’s comfort, more personal, though probably but momentary influence to the Crown at home, with a total degradation and loss of its dignity everywhere else.
Let it be observed, however, that, when I impute to the King and his mother little more than a formed design of reducing the usurped authority of the great Lords, I am far from meaning that there were not deeper designs at bottom. Lord Mansfield was by principle a tyrant; Lord Holland was bred in a monarchic school, was cruel, revengeful, daring, and subtle. Grenville, though in principle a republican, was bold, proud, dictatorial, and so self-willed that he would have expected Liberty herself should be his first slave. The Bedford faction, except the Duke himself, were void of honour, honesty, and virtue; and the Scotch were whatever their masters wished them to be, and too envious of the English, and became too much provoked by them, not to lend all their mischievous abilities towards the ruin of a constitution, whose benefits the English had imparted to them, but did not like they should engross. All these individuals or factions, I do not doubt, accepted and fomented the disposition they found predominant in the Cabinet, as they had severally access to it; and the contradictions which the King suffered in his ill-advised measures, riveted in him a thirst of delivering himself from control, and to be above control he must be absolute. Thus on the innate desire of unbounded power in all princes, was engrafted a hate to the freedom of the subject, and therefore, whether the King set out with a plan of extending his prerogative, or adopted it, his subsequent measures, as often as he had an opportunity of directing them himself, tended to the sole object of acting by his own will. Frequent convulsions did that pursuit occasion, and heavy mortifications to himself. On the nation it heaped disgrace, and brought it to the brink of ruin; and should the event be consonant to the King’s wishes of establishing the royal authority at home, it is more sure that the country will be so lowered, that the Sovereign will become as subject to the mandates of France, as any little potentate in Europe.
This is my impartial opinion of the reign of George the Third, from the death of his grandfather to the end of the year 1771, when I wrote these annals; and the subsequent transactions to the commencement of the new Parliament in 1784 have but corroborated my ideas. I have spoken of every party and faction favourably or unfavourably as I thought they deserved, attached to no one of them, for I saw faults in all: and that is all I mean by calling myself impartial. My principles were solely devoted to the liberty of my country; yet I have censured even that liberty, when it degenerated into licentiousness, or asserted its rights with more probability of danger than success. That my impartiality was divested of personalities, nobody would believe me if I asserted; they undoubtedly often lowered my zeal, and even in these cool hours of retreat and retirement, may have left impressions that reflection may not have corrected—though the overt acts of the American war have but too sadly realized the more problematic suspicions I had entertained of the evil designs of the Court, from the first ten years of the reign. Lust of power, supported by cruelty and obstinacy, marked every year of that fatal war; and its woeful event having corrected neither the bad intention nor the folly with which it was commenced and prosecuted, and a more undisguised attempt in the Crown of governing independently having distinguished the year 1784, I should have observed the whole progress of the reign hitherto with little judgment, if I had not a worse opinion of the spirit that has actuated it, than I had when I first entertained doubts of its designs against the constitution. However, instead of seeing with my eyes, I recommended to posterity to use their own discernment, abandon the author, accept what truths he has delivered, correct his mistakes, condemn his prejudices, make the best use you can of any wholesome lessons he has inculcated, avoid such errors as he has pointed out. He has written prodigiously too much, if no man shall be the wiser for his writings. He laments not his pains, nor shall deprecate censure if a single person becomes a real patriot, or a better citizen from perusing this work—of which he himself is heartily tired. Mr. Edmund Burke had published, on the 23rd of April, a long and laborious pamphlet, called Thoughts on the Present Discontents. It was designed for the manifesto of the Rockingham party, stated their opinions, their political creed, the motives of their opposition, the points for which they meant to stickle, and the conduct they meant to observe, if ever they should recover power. It was a composition of great merit for ingenuity, eloquence, and knowledge, though at once too diffuse, and too refined: it tired the informed, and was unintelligible to the ignorant. In point of judgment it was totally defective, and did no honour to the author, either as a virtuous statesman, or artful politician. It had been often read to, and, they said, discussed by, their party; but when the dictator, and indeed legislator of the faction (for Lord Rockingham was but a dignified phantom) had so little judgment, it is not wonderful that the blemishes of the work were not discerned by most of his associates. Sir George Saville was too subtly minute to comprehend a whole: Lord John Cavendish loved general maxims; and though obstinate, had no rancour; consequently, he approved the book for not dealing in personalities. I was surprised that the Duke of Richmond, who had a great deal of sense, could be captivated by a work calculated for no one end but to deify Lord Rockingham, and to insinuate that Mahomet[87] was his prophet.