1770.

The King had scarce time to enjoy the favourable conclusion of the session, before a new attack was made on him. A remonstrance had been sent from Newcastle, and, on May the 23rd, the second remonstrance from the City of London was presented by the Lord Mayor and Common Council. It had been drawn up by Lord Chatham, or formed on one of his late speeches. The King made a short and firm answer, referring to his former. He had no sooner spoken it, than, to the astonishment of the whole Court, Beckford, the Lord Mayor, desired leave to say a few words. This was totally unprecedented. Copies of all intended harangues to the Sovereign are first transmitted privately to Court, that the King may be prepared with his answer. On this occasion, the King was totally at a loss how to act. He was sitting in ceremony on his throne, and had no means of consult, no time to consider what to do. Remaining silent and confounded, Beckford proceeded, with great expressions of loyalty, and of assurances of the respect and attachment borne to his Majesty by the citizens, and he besought his Sovereign not to listen to secret and malevolent insinuations against them, and humbly solicited some favourable syllable of reply. The King, however, made none, but suffered them to kiss his hand, notwithstanding the murmurs of the courtiers who surrounded him, and who were scandalized at the innovation.

The citizens assembling three days afterwards to consider of an address on the birth of a young Princess, the Aldermen Harley and Rossiter loudly censured the Lord Mayor for his novel address to the King, uncommissioned by the City. It might prevent his Majesty, they urged, from receiving their addresses in the same state with which he received those from Parliament and the Universities,—a distinction granted to no other corporation but to the City of London; and might occasion a greater inconvenience, for, as the maxim declares the King can do no wrong, should a king on any similar occasion answer improperly, it could not be imputed to his Ministers. Beckford appealed to the Common Council, who applauded his behaviour. Wilkes, who had displeased his party by not attending the remonstrance to St. James’s, and who had been reproached as gained by the Court, pleaded that he had not gone thither lest his presence should give occasion to another massacre. He objected to pay much compliment to the King on the birth of his daughter, at a time when his Majesty would lend no ear to the complaints of the City. To the Queen, Wilkes said he had no objection to their saying what they pleased. On the 30th, the address was carried; but at Temple Bar the gates were shut against the Aldermen by the people, who concurred with Beckford and Wilkes in resenting the King’s behaviour, and Harley was dragged out of his chariot and escaped with difficulty: but by order of the Lord Mayor the gates were opened, and they proceeded to St. James’s, where, before their admission to the King, the Lord Chamberlain notified to Beckford that his late behaviour having been unprecedented, his Majesty desired no such thing might happen again: to which Beckford, bowing, replied, “To be sure not.” They were then admitted to the presence; and though the address was colder than usual, the King told them that while their addresses were so loyal, the City should be sure of his protection.

This was the last public incident in the life of William Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, he dying three weeks afterwards of a violent fever, contracted, as supposed, from the agitation into which his violence had thrown his blood, and from sudden cold caught in the country, whither he had retired for a little repose. He died on the 21st of June, aged sixty-two. He had boldness, promptness, spirit, a heap of confused knowledge, displayed with the usual ostentation of his temper, and so uncorrected by judgment, that his absurdities were made but more conspicuous by his vanity. Under a jovial style of good humour, he was tyrannic in Jamaica his native country, and under an appearance of prodigality, interested. On the other side, the excesses of his factious behaviour were founded neither on principle nor on rancour. Vain glory seemed to be the real motive of all his actions.[100] His death was one of the heaviest blows Lord Chatham could receive, cutting off all his influence in the City; and it was another cause of the Opposition’s ensuing humiliation, the turbulence of Beckford, his imposing noise, and his great wealth, concurring to his authority. His successors in the party were utterly contemptible, except Trecothick, who was a decent man. This last was chosen Mayor for the rest of the year. A statue was voted to Beckford’s memory, and ordered to be placed in Guildhall, with the words he had ventured to speak to the King engraven on the pedestal,—so strong was the party as yet in the City. Lord Chatham, the day before Beckford’s death, forced himself into his house, and got away all the letters he had written to that demagogue.

The celebrated Junius alone kept up the flame of opposition with any show of parts; but having at this time satirized the King, even for his private virtues, it did but throw discredit on the author. Almon, the printer, was now tried for selling Junius’s former Address to his Majesty; and though he pleaded that the copies had been left at his shop and sold by his servant without his knowledge, the judge told the jury that a master was answerable for his servant; and they found Almon guilty.[101] This man was reckoned to have made a fortune of 10,000l. by publishing and selling libels. Woodfall, the original publisher of Junius’s Address, escaped better, being found guilty of printing and publishing only, though Lord Mansfield, who had likewise tried Almon, endeavoured by the most arbitrary constructions to mislead the jury, telling them that they had nothing to do with the intention, nor with the other words in the indictment, as malicious, seditious, &c., which he affirmed were only words of course; and which yet would have fallen heavily on the accused, had the jury paid regard to such abominable doctrine. The despotic and Jesuitic Judge went farther: he said, the business of the jury was to consider whether the blanks were properly filled up; as to the contents of the paper, whether true or false, they were totally immaterial—no wonder juries were favourable to libellers, when the option lay between encouraging abuse, and torturing law to severe tyranny! It did the jury honour that they preferred liberty to the voice of the inquisitor. Not content with open violations of justice, he carried the jurors home with him—though without effect.[102] Nor was his management of the two trials less wicked. He had selected Almon for the first sacrifice, though only a second publisher, before Woodfall, the original editor, because Woodfall being an inhabitant of the City of London, the Chief Justice had little hope of influencing a Middlesex jury: but Almon residing in Westminster, was more likely to be convicted: in which case it would be more difficult for the jury to absolve the original publisher, when even his copyist had been condemned—a shameful wile, for which the Attorney-General could not help making an apology! Almon tried to obtain a revision of his sentence, but Lord Mansfield put it off, till he should see the event of Woodfall’s trial. When the latter’s sentence was pronounced, this second Jefferies insisted that the jury should swear they thought him guilty of publishing only,—an inquisition unprecedented, unheard of! To impose new oaths on a jury! and after sentence! and after they had been dissolved! What criminal could be more heinously guilty than such a judge? Miller and Baldwin, two other printers, were brought in not guilty for the very same crime for which Almon was condemned—probably from the indignation conceived at Lord Mansfield’s illegal conduct.

Lord Holland now returned to England in a weak state, which he affected to represent as more deplorable than it was, confining himself to his house, from which he stirred no more. The embassy of the Comte du Châtelet being expired, he returned home, and was replaced by the Comte de Guines,[103] a man of less abilities, but very grateful to this country from the decency and fairness of his behaviour.

Another journey excited uncommon curiosity. The Princess Dowager of Wales, after an uninterrupted residence of thirty-four years in this country, and after having secluded herself in a manner from the world during the last nine years, set out for Germany, under pretence of visiting her brother, the Duke of Saxe Gotha, and her daughters, the Queen of Denmark, and the Princess of Brunswick. As mystery and policy were imputed to all her actions, her declarations were not believed, merely because she made them. The people concluded she went to meet Lord Bute; others expected that some stroke would be struck during her absence to which she might plead not having been privy. As she carried the Duke of Gloucester with her, some believed that it was a trial to break his connection with Lady Waldegrave: some that she was displeased at the increasing power of the Queen: and a few, though perhaps not the worst guessers, that she went to secure her wealth in Germany. That the Princess of Brunswick was included in the motives of that journey is most probable. It was settled that the Princess and her husband, the hereditary Prince, should come to England the next year; and it is as certain that the Queen prevailed on the King to forbid their coming. The Princess of Wales, who had so cordially hated both her daughter and son-in-law, had taken much affection to them, not only from the court they paid to her, but from the use she found in her daughter. The Princess Dowager having lost much of her influence over the King, was often refused favours that she asked of him. This her haughty spirit could not brook. Princess Augusta had no such reserve. Her intimacy coeval with the King had given her entire familiarity with him! and she would take no denials: her mother employed her in teazing the King till he granted whatever she asked. The ease and gaiety of the Princess Dowager during her residence abroad, showed how much share her unpopularity, fear, and sullen pride had in her recluse system,—fear, not without cause: as she passed through Canterbury she was hissed and insulted—yet at Dover she met with no affronts; nor were there any illuminations or bonfires in London for joy of her departure, as had been expected. She had a slight interview with her daughter of Denmark, an extraordinary Princess! Christian the Seventh had conceived an instantaneous aversion to her on their marriage; and had even disgraced his favourite cousin, the Prince of Hesse, for taking her part. While her husband was in England, the Russian Minister treated her disrespectfully; but though the Czarina governed the Danish King, the Queen with proper spirit commanded the insolent foreigner to quit the kingdom. Her resolution continued after her husband’s return; and at last gained the ascendant. Bernsdorffe, Prime Minister and creature of Russia, was disgraced; so was young Holke, the King’s favourite. Thus far her Majesty acted with reputation; but when the public beheld the King’s physician engross all favour, and when that physician seemed equally dear to both King and Queen, the wildest conjectures were let loose. Certain it is that the Queen showed a lofty spirit as well as singular manners. She was grown to an enormous fatness; yet when she met her mother on the frontiers, she was accoutred in a man’s habit with breeches of buckskin: and when the Princess of Wales lamented the disgrace of Bernsdorffe, the ancient Minister of the family, the Queen of Denmark said abruptly, “Pray, Madam, let me govern my own kingdom as I please.”

During the absence of her Royal Highness was decided, against her youngest son the Duke of Cumberland, the suit for adultery with a young woman of quality, whom a good person, moderate beauty, no understanding, and excessive vanity had rendered too accessible to the attentions of a Prince of the Blood. Their letters were produced at the trial, and never was the public regaled with a collection of greater folly! Yet to the lady’s honour be it said, that, bating a few oaths, which sounded more masculine than tender, the advantage in grammar, spelling, and style was all in her favour. His Royal Highness’s diction and learning scarce exceeded that of a cabin-boy, as those eloquent epistles, existing in print, may testify. Some being penned on board of ship were literal verification of Lord Dorset’s ballad,—

“To you, fair ladies, now at land
We men at sea do write;
But first would have you understand
How hard ’tis to indite.”

Grievous censure fell on his governor and preceptor, Mr. Legrand and Mr. Charles, and not less on the Princess herself, so totally had his education been neglected. He had been locked up with his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, till the age of twenty-one, and thence had sallied into a life of brothels and drunkenness, whence the decency of the elder, and his early connection with Lady Waldegrave, preserved the Duke of Gloucester. The younger was pert, insolent, senseless, and not unwillingly brutal. So little care taken of a Prince of the Blood did but confirm the opinion of the public, that the plan of the Princess, Lord Bute, and the King had been to keep down and discredit the King’s brothers as much as possible. The Duke of Cumberland, at least, did not disappoint the scheme, as will hereafter appear. As a dozen years afterwards it was evident that no greater care, though with still more rigorous confinement, had been taken of the morals and style of the Prince of Wales, who issued from that palace of supposed purity, the Queen’s house, as if he had been educated in a night-cellar, it gave but too much ground for suspecting that, undeterred by what had happened to his brother, the jealousy of his heir had not been less predominant in the King than it had been in the neglect of his brothers.