On the 29th the King went to the House, was violently hissed, and had an apple thrown at him, which passed over his coach. Wedderburne was severely abused by Colonel Barré, and made a wretched defence, pleading that he had not deserted the Opposition but on the death of Grenville, to whom alone he had been attached; but having asserted that he knew taverns had been opened in Westminster for the mob, and that he could prove there had been men hired to make a riot, a committee was appointed to inquire into the late disturbances, of which Wedderburne was named chairman. T. Townshend, jun., observed, that while the Members were raging with such severity against printers, a crown-living of 800l. a-year was conferred on Scott, an abandoned priest attached to Lord Sandwich, and author of “Anti-Sejanus,” “Panurge,” “Cinna,” and many other most scurrilous libels.[177]
On the last day of the month Lord Rockingham, with a train of Lords and Commoners in sixteen coaches, went to the Tower to visit the Lord Mayor. They disapproved his conduct, they said, yet paid him that regard because he had been obstructed from making his defence; yet these ingenious persons wondered they had not more followers and devotees, while they took such pains to show how carefully they kept themselves out of difficulties, and how passively they left their friends in them!
Alderman Oliver, in answer to a compliment from the Common Council, wrote a very bold letter to them, in which he set forth the unhappiness of the King’s Government through the councils of an Administration, abject abroad and insolent at home.
April the 1st, a great mob went to Tower Hill with two carts, in which were figures representing the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute, attended by a hearse. The figures were beheaded by chimney sweepers, and then burnt. A like ceremony was performed a few days after with figures of Lord Halifax, Lord Barrington, Alderman Harley, Lord Sandwich, De Grey, member for Norfolk, Colonel Lutterell, and George Onslow; and their supposed dying speeches were cried about the streets.
The committee of Common Council, appointed to guard the interests of the Lord Mayor and Alderman Oliver, directed their solicitor to apply to Serjeant Glynn, Dunning, or Lee, and under their direction to move for the habeas corpus of the prisoners, unlawfully (as the committee conceived) detained in the Tower. On this the two magistrates, the writ being obtained, were carried before the Lord Chief Justice De Grey, and then before Lord Mansfield, but were remanded to prison by both, each Chief Justice refusing to release them, as they had been committed by Parliament then sitting.
The grand jury did not pay an equal deference to the House, but found bills of indictment against their messenger for the assault and false imprisonment of Miller, the printer; and against Edward Twine Carpenter for a like assault on John Wheble, under pretence of the King’s proclamation.
Still the cause of the magistrates did not gain ground. The merchants were offended at a report spread by Wilkes’s faction that there was a run on the Bank. But an open quarrel between Wilkes and Horne contributed more than all the efforts of the Court to ruin their cause. The total breach happened at the Society of the Bill of Rights, which Horne moved to dissolve, but was overruled by 26 to 24. Horne, however, with Townshend, Sawbridge, and others, withdrew their names, because the other faction would not consent to rescind the vote of restricting the subscription to the payment of Wilkes’s debts. A motion, too, that was made in the company of City Artillery, for thanking the imprisoned magistrates for their behaviour, was rejected by a majority of three voices.
Still, had the Opposition had sense or union, the weakness of the Ministers would have opened a fair field to their attempts. They adjourned over the day appointed for Wilkes’s appearance. Their two committees came to nothing. Lord George Germaine, Lord John Cavendish, and Frederick Montagu, whom out of candour they had added to the quorum, would not attend it, nor even a sufficient number of their own friends; nor though Thurlow and the stauncher courtiers suggested bills of pains and penalties, and would have disabled the prisoners from holding any office, would Lord North give in to any violence. As he had been more severe before he was a principal, and as he gave other subsequent proofs of wanting resolution, his moderation was, with some justice, imputed to timidity.
On the 10th of April, when Lord North opened the budget, T. Townshend reflected on Lord Holland as author of the proscriptions at the beginning of the reign. Charles Fox said he did not believe his father had any hand in them; but if he had, it was right to break the power of the aristocracy that had governed in the name of the late King. Charles Fox asked me afterwards in private if the accusation against his father was just. I replied, I could not but say it was. In strict truth, heavy as the reproaches were that were cast on the Court, there was but too much foundation for them. Even the King’s virtues had a mischievous tendency. His piety was very equivocal, and calculated, in a great measure, to secure the influence of the clergy, and palliate his despotic views. His economy, such as it was, for great sums he wasted childishly, was the forced result of the expense he was at to corrupt the Parliament, and maintain a very unwilling majority. He now laid aside his intention of building a small palace he had begun at Richmond; and deferred as long as he could an installation of Knights of the Garter, and the establishment of a household for the Prince of Wales. Every post, every office, that could be bestowed on the Scots without immediate clamour, was heaped on them; and great gratitude must at least be allowed to them. They steadfastly supported the parts assigned to them, and acted upon a regular plan. In the beginning of the reign, Lady Charlotte Edwin, a sort of favourite lady of the bedchamber to the Princess of Wales, dropped this memorable expression to me:—“Things are not yet ripe.” The swarms of Scots that crowded and were gladly received into the army and into the corps of marines, a body into which few English deigned to enlist, were no doubt placed there to bring things to a maturity, or protect them when brought to it.
The care of the Prince of Wales was a trust no less important. Two points only were looked to in his education. The first was, that he should not be trusted to anything but a ductile cypher; the other, that he should be brought up with due affection for regal power; in other words, he was to be the slave of his father, and the tyrant of his people. Praise is due even to those who execute ably their own views, let those views be ever so bad. The governors selected for the Prince were chosen very suitably to the plan I have mentioned. The King pitched upon Lord Holderness to officiate as the solemn phantom or governor; Lord Mansfield recommended Dr. Markham, the master of Westminster School, a creature of his own, sprung out of the true prerogative seminary, at Christchurch, Oxford, a pert, arrogant man, to fill the post of preceptor;[178] and thus was the heir of the Crown not likely to degenerate. Lord North, the nominal First Minister, had the mortification of finding that he was rather a necessary than agreeable tool, for he knew nothing of these designations till they were ready to be notified to the public.