The secret, though in so many hands, was not less well kept from the public, than it had been from the Duke and Duchess of Bedford; for though Grafton resigned on the evening of the 27th, it was not known till very late on the 30th, when Lord North was declared the successor.
Such was the conclusion of the Duke of Grafton’s Administration, which had lasted two years, and when he was but thirty-four years of age. His fall was universally ascribed to his pusillanimity; but whether betrayed by his fears or his friends, he had certainly been the chief author of his own disgrace. His haughtiness, indolence, reserve, and improvidence, had conjured up the storm; but his obstinacy and fickleness always relaying each other, and always mal à propos, were the radical causes of all the numerous absurdities that discoloured his conduct and exposed him to deserved reproaches; nor had he a depth of understanding to counterbalance the defects of his temper. The power of the Crown and the weakness of the Opposition, would have maintained him in his post, though he was unfit for it, as immediately appeared by the Court’s recovering its ascendant the moment the Duke retired; for though Lord North had far better parts, yet his indolence proved as great as Grafton’s; but having as much good humour as the Duke wanted, it was plain that the Parliament were willing to be slaves, provided they could be treated with decency. Grafton had quitted the King’s service, when Prince, disgusted with Lord Bute: had been captivated by Lord Chatham, yet came into place without him; then quitted for him, Lord Rockingham and the Whigs. He then declared against a place of business; then gave himself up to Lord Chatham, and was made his first Lord of the Treasury; grew as violently partial to Mr. Conway, yet was with difficulty persuaded to stay in place even with him—then would act with nobody but him: as abruptly and lightly consented to let him retire to make way for the Bedfords; and after a life of early decorum, dipped with every indecency into the most public and abject attachment to a common courtezan, gave himself up to Lord Bute’s influence:[47] rushed into an alliance with the Bedford’s, whom he hated, against his interest; and at last permitted them to betray him, not without suspecting, but without resenting it.
The detail of his conduct was as weak and preposterous as the great lines of it. His intrusion of Lutterell, his neglecting to call the Parliament before the petitions spread, his wasting his time at Euston and Newmarket though the tempest raged, his disgusting the Chancellor, and when he had disgusted him, not turning him out before the Parliament met, but leaving him to avail himself of the merit of martyrdom by being turned out for his speech and vote; and then turning him out when it was both too late and too soon, because no successor had been prepared in time; these wild and inconsistent steps plunged him into difficulties which yet he might have surmounted, if his inconstancy had been art, his rashness courage, or his obstinacy firmness.
He was the fourth Prime Minister in seven years who fell by his own fault. Lord Bute was seized with a panic and ran away from his own victory. Grenville was undone by his insolence, by joining in the insult on the Princess, and by his persecution of Lord Bute and Mackenzie. Lord Rockingham’s incapacity overturned him; and now the Duke of Grafton, by a complication of passions and defect of system, destroyed a power that it had depended on himself to make as permanent as he could desire. It was pretended that his secret reason was the preference given by the Queen to Lord Waldegrave for her Master of Horse over the Duke’s friend, Lord Jersey. The Duke had not asked it for him, but was capable of resenting its not being offered, and as capable of being influenced by that little reason as by any of eminent magnitude.[48] He did not quit without signalizing his retreat by two pensions that were loudly censured. One was to his tool, the traitor Bradshaw, the reversion of Auditor of the Plantations, worth 1500l. a-year. The other a pension on Ireland of 1000l. for Dyson stamped with a royal breach of promise; the King having permitted the Duke of Northumberland to pass the regal word that no more pensions for a term of years should be granted on Ireland but on extraordinary occasions.[49] Dyson’s merits were not of that noisy kind that would bear to be detailed, and yet now ranked with those of Prince Ferdinand and Sir Edward Hawke, whose names had been cited by the Attorney-General as proper precedents for his Majesty’s munificence.
CHAPTER III.
State of Parties at Lord North’s Accession to the post of First Minister.—Victory of the Court Party.—Character of Lord North.—The other Ministers.—Debate in the House of Lords on the State of the Nation.—Quarrel between the Speaker and Sir William Meredith.—Debate in the Lords.—Lord Chatham attacks the Influence of the Court.—Repeal of American Duties.—Bold Conduct of the City Authorities.—Remonstrance Presented to the King.—Debate on the Civil List.—Lord Chatham attacks the Duke of Grafton.—Indirect Censure on the City Remonstrance in the House of Commons.—Loyal Address carried.
1770.
Nothing could be more distressful than the situation into which the Duke of Grafton had brought the King, and in which he abandoned him. Whether it was owing to disgust, or whether men had conceived that the Duke could not maintain himself, the majority had suddenly dwindled away to an alarming degree, nor was any time given to prepare for the change. The 31st was appointed for going again into the committee on the state of the nation, the very business on which the failure of numbers had disclosed itself. A new arrangement without new strength was not encouraging. Lord North had neither connections with the nobility, nor popularity with the country, yet he undertook the government in a manly style, and was appointed First Lord of the Treasury on the 29th, with only one day to intervene before it would be decided whether he would stand or fall. Could he depend on men whom he had not time to canvass? Was it not probable that the most venal would hang off till they should see to which side the scale would incline? Yet Lord North plunged boldly into the danger at once. A more critical day had seldom dawned. If the Court should be beaten, the King would be at the mercy of the Opposition, or driven to have recourse to the Lords—possibly to the sword. All the resolutions on the Middlesex election would be rescinded, the Parliament dissolved, or the contest reduced to the sole question of prerogative. Yet in the short interval allowed, Lord North, Lord Sandwich, Rigby, and that faction on one side, the Scotch and the Butists on the other hand, had been so active, and had acted so differently from what the Duke of Grafton had done, that at past twelve at night the Court proved victorious by a majority of forty; small in truth, but greater by fifteen or twenty than was expected by the most sanguine, the numbers being 226 to 186.[50] The question in effect was, that a person eligible by law cannot by expulsion be rendered incapable of being rechosen, unless by act of parliament. The courtiers moved that the chairman should leave the chair, and carried it. Lord North, with great frankness and spirit, laid open his own situation, which, he said, he had not sought, but would not refuse; nor would he timidly shrink from his post. He was rudely treated by Colonel Barré, who already softened towards the Duke of Grafton, to whom he attributed weight and dignity, but expressing contempt for the new Premier, as a man of no consequence. The latter replied not only with spirit but good-humour, and evidently had the advantage, though it was obvious how much weight the personal presence of a First Minister in the House of Commons carried with it. George Grenville amazed everybody by a bitter complaint of libels and libellers hired by the Court; and this at a season when, deserve what it might, the Court undoubtedly laboured under an unparalleled load of abuse. Colonel Lutterell, on the other hand, affirmed that he had traced a most flagrant libel home to a near relation of that gentleman, who, he believed, was also privy to it. He had forced the printer to divulge the writer, one Lloyd,[51] who had confessed on his knees, with tears, that Lord Temple had forced him to practise that office. Lutterell added that he had taxed Lord Temple with it by letter, who had not deigned to make an answer. Captain Walsingham said he had gone to Lord Temple on the same errand, who had declared on his honour he was not concerned in it. Grenville flamed, and called for a committee to inquire into libels. He was answered finely by Sir Gilbert Elliot, who now, contrary to his custom of late, took a warm part. He had been much neglected by Grafton, though the confidential agent of the King and Lord Bute; and never distinguished himself, though none more able, but on cases of emergency, and when the Court ventured or chose to make its mind more known than by the Minister. Elliot told Grenville that, had he not entered into factious combinations, he knew Grenville would have been entreated to save his country. That Grenville was not pardoned and again received into favour, proved how much more the King and his mother were swayed by their passions than by their interest.[52]
Frederic Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guilford, was now in the thirty-eighth year of his age. Nothing could be more coarse or clumsy or ungracious than his outside. Two large prominent eyes that rolled about to no purpose (for he was utterly short-sighted), a wide mouth, thick lips, and inflated visage, gave him the air of a blind trumpeter. A deep untuneable voice, which, instead of modulating, he enforced with unnecessary pomp, a total neglect of his person, and ignorance of every civil attention,[53] disgusted all who judge by appearance, or withhold their approbation till it is courted. But within that rude casket were enclosed many useful talents. He had much wit, good-humour, strong natural sense, assurance, and promptness, both of conception and elocution. His ambition had seemed to aspire to the height, yet he was not very ambitious. He was thought interested, yet was not avaricious. What he did, he did without a mask, and was not delicate in choosing his means.[54] He had lent himself readily to all the violences of Mr. Grenville against Wilkes, had seized the moment of advancement by accepting the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer (after a very short opposition) when the Court wanted a person to oppose to the same Mr. Grenville; and with equal alacrity had served under the Duke of Grafton. When the first post became vacant by the Duke’s strange retreat, no man so ready to place himself in the gap as Lord North. It was in truth worth his ambition, though he should rule but a day, to attain the rank of Prime Minister. He had knowledge, and though fond of his amusement, seemed to have all necessary activity till he reached the summit. Yet that industry ceased when it became most requisite. He had neither system, nor principles, nor shame; sought neither the favour of the Crown or of the people, but enjoyed the good luck of fortune with a gluttonous epicurism that was equally careless of glory and disgrace.[55] His indolence prevented his forming any plan. His indifference made him leap from one extreme to another; and his insensibility to reproach reconciled him to any contradiction. He proved as indolent as the Duke of Grafton, but his temper being as good as the Duke’s was bad, he was less hurt at capital disgraces than the Duke had been at trifling difficulties. Lord North’s conduct in the American war displayed all these features. He engaged in it against his opinion, and yet without reluctance. He managed it without foresight or address, and was neither ashamed when it miscarried, nor dispirited when the Crown itself became endangered by the additional war with France. His good humour could not be good nature, for at the beginning of the war he stuck at no cruelty, but laughed at barbarities with which all Europe rung. It could not be good sense, for in the progress he blushed at none of the mischiefs he had occasioned, at none of the reproaches he had incurred. Like the Duke of Grafton, he was always affecting a disposition to retire, yet never did.[56] Unlike the Duke, who secured no emoluments to himself, Lord North engrossed whatever fell in his way, and sometimes was bribed[57] by the Crown to promote Acts, against which he pretended his conscience recoiled—but it never was delicate when profit was in the opposite scale. If he had ambition, it was of very mean complexion, for he stooped to be but a nominal Prime Minister, and suffered the King’s private junto to enjoy the whole credit of favour, while, between submission and laziness, Lord North himself was seldom the author of the measures in which he bore the principal part. This passive and inglorious tractability, and his being connected with no faction, made him welcome to the King: his having no predominant fault or vice recommended him to the nation, and his good humour and wit to everybody but to the few whom his want of good breeding and attention offended. One singularity came out in his character, which was, that no man was more ready for extremes under the administration of others, no man more temperate than Lord North during his own:—in effect, he was a man whom few hated, fewer could esteem. As a Minister he had no foresight, no consistence, no firmness, no spirit. He miscarried in all he undertook in America, was more improvident than unfortunate, less unfortunate than he deserved to be. If he was free from vices, he was as void of virtues; and it is a paltry eulogium of a Prime Minister of a great country, yet the best that can be allotted to Lord North, that, though his country was ruined under his administration, he preserved his good humour, and neither felt for his country nor for himself. Yet it is true, too, that he was the least odious of the Ministers with whom he acted; and though servile in obedience to a Prince who meant so ill, there was reason to think that Lord North neither stimulated, nor was more than the passive instrument of the black designs of the Court.