It would be without precedent to allow the year to pass without a Fast, so one was ordered for the 26th of February. The Houses of Lords and Commons attended Church, so did the Volunteers. Also “The Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, &c., attended Divine Service at St. Paul’s, from whence they returned to the Mansion House—where they dined.”
The Copper Coinage having, during the King’s long reign, become somewhat deteriorated, a proclamation of His Majesty’s appeared in the Gazette of the 10th of May, for a New Coinage of 150 tons of penny pieces, 427½ tons of halfpenny pieces, and twenty-two and a half tons of farthings. The penny pieces were to be in the proportion of twenty-four to the pound, avoirdupois, of copper, and so on with the others. It was provided that no one should be obliged to take more of such penny pieces, in one payment, than shall be of the value of one shilling, or more of such halfpence and farthings than shall be of the value of sixpence.
This year witnessed the singular sight of a Parliamentary Impeachment. Lord Melville was accused on ten different counts, and his trial commenced on the 29th of April; Westminster Hall being fitted up for the occasion. The three principal charges against him were—“First, that before January 10, 1786, he had applied to his private use and profit, various sums of public money entrusted to him, as Treasurer of the Navy. Secondly, that in violation of the Act of Parliament, for better regulating that office, he had permitted Trotter, his paymaster, illegally to take from the Bank of England, large sums of the money issued on account of the Treasurer of the Navy, and to place those sums in the hands of his private banker, in his own name, and subject to his sole control and disposition. Thirdly, that he had fraudulently and corruptly permitted Trotter to apply the said money to purposes of private use and emolument, and had, himself, fraudulently and corruptly derived profit therefrom.”
Of course Lord Melville pleaded “not guilty,” and this was the verdict of his peers.
On the 10th of June, the Abolition of the Slave Trade again passed the House of Commons, by a majority of ninety-nine. On the 24th of June the Lords debated on the same subject, and they carried, without a division, an address to His Majesty, “praying that he would be graciously pleased to consult with other Powers towards the accomplishment of the same end,” which would afford another opportunity to those who were anxious again to divide upon this question.
On the 13th of September of this year died Pitt’s great rival, Charles James Fox, a man who, had he lived in these times, would have been a giant Statesman. For him, however, no public funeral, no payment by the nation of his debts—this latter probably because in the accounts for the year figure two items of expenditure: “For secret services for 1806, £175,000,” and “For the seamen who served in the Battle of Trafalgar, £300,000.” He was buried on the 10th of October in Westminster Abbey, and the funeral, under the direction of his friend, Sheridan, was a very pompous affair—though, of course, it lacked the glitter of a State ceremonial. Still there were the King’s Trumpeters and Soldiers, whilst the Horse and Foot Guards and Volunteers lined the way. So he was carried to his grave in the Abbey—which, curiously, was dug within eighteen inches of his old opponent, Pitt. The relation between the two is well summed up by a contemporary writer. “We may pronounce of them, that, as rivals for power and for fame, their equals have not been known in this country, and perhaps in none were there two such Statesman, in so regular and equal a contention for pre-eminence. In the advantages of birth and fortune they were equal; in eloquence, dissimilar in their manner, but superior to all their contemporaries; in influence upon the minds of their hearers equal; in talents and reputation, dividing the nation into two parties of nearly equal strength; in probity, above all suspicion; in patriotism rivals, as in all things else.”[27]
It must not be thought that the year passed by without attempts being made to stop the war. They were begun by a charming act of international courtesy and friendship on the part of Fox, which cannot be better told than in his own words, contained in a letter to Talleyrand.
“Downing Street, February 20, 1806.
“Sir,—I think it my duty, as an honest man, to communicate to you, as soon as possible, a very extraordinary circumstance which is come to my knowledge. The shortest way will be to relate to you the fact simply as it happened.
“A few days ago a person informed me that he was just arrived at Gravesend without a passport, requesting me at the same time to send him one, as he had lately left Paris, and had something to communicate to me which would give me satisfaction. I sent for him; he came to my house the following day. I received him alone in my closet; when, after some unimportant conversation, this villain had the audacity to tell me, that it was necessary for the tranquillity of all crowned heads, to put to death the Ruler of France; and that, for this purpose, a house had been hired at Passy, from which this detestable project could be carried into effect with certainty, and without risk. I did not perfectly understand if it was to be done by a common musket, or by fire-arms upon a new principle.