Farmer George, Volume 1

by Lewis Melville

So persistent were the attacks made upon Pitt by Bute's henchmen, who distorted almost out of recognition the story of his resignation, that the ex-minister thought it advisable to meet the misrepresentation by stating the facts in a letter to one of his supporters:—

"Finding, to my great surprise, that the cause and manner of my resigning the seals is grossly misrepresented in the city, as well as that the most gracious and spontaneous remarks of his Majesty's approbation of my services, which marks followed my resignation, have been infamously traduced as a bargain for my forsaking the public, I am under the necessity of declaring the truth of both those facts, in a manner which, I am sure, no gentleman will contradict. A difference of opinion with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, of the highest importance to the honour of the Crown, and to the most essential national interests (and this, founded on what Spain has already done, not on what that court may further intend to do) was the cause of my resigning the seals. Lord Temple and I submitted, in writing, and signed by us, our most humble sentiments to his Majesty; which being overruled by the united opinion of all the rest of the King's servants, I resigned the seals on the 5th of this month, in order not to remain responsible for measures which I was no longer able to guide. Most gracious public marks of his Majesty's approbation followed my resignation. They are unmerited and unsolicited, and I shall ever be proud to have received them from the best of sovereigns."

Pitt's popularity was shown on the Lord Mayor's Day following his resignation when the King, who had been married only two months, went with his Consort in state to the City to dine at the Guildhall. "Men's hopes and fears are strongly agitated at this critical juncture," Alderman Beckford[157] wrote to Pitt; "but all agree universally that you ought to make your appearance at Guildhall on Monday next with Lord Temple; and, upon the maturest reflection, I am clear you ought not to refuse this favour by those who are so sincerely your friends."[158] To this solicitation, backed by the advice of Lord Temple, Pitt yielded, though, as he afterwards admitted, against his better judgment.[159] The King and Queen were received indifferently, Bute was saved from violence only by his guard of prize-fighters, ministers were greeted with cries of "No Newcastle salmon!" but Pitt was welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm, and the mob, a contemporary noted, "clung about every part of the vehicle, hung upon the wheels, hugged his footmen, and even kissed his horses." Though this occurred so early in the reign, it showed a marked difference to the feeling aroused by the King's accession,[160] and it is not to be wondered at that the sovereign, when he referred to this visit to the City, spoke of "the abominable conduct of Mr. Pitt" in joining the procession.

Lord Egremont took Pitt's place, and the Duke of Newcastle made no secret of his delight and relief at having ridded his Cabinet of so overshadowing a subordinate; but the Duke's joy was at least premature, since, as he might have foreseen, the loss of Pitt so greatly weakened the Ministry that within a few months the King was able to remove from the direction of affairs that nobleman of whom George II had said, "He loses an hour every morning, and is running after it the rest of the day," and whom George III now treated with scarcely veiled contempt. "For myself I am the greatest cipher that ever walked at Court. The young King is hardly civil to me, talks to me of nothing, scarcely answers me upon my own Treasury affairs," the Prime Minister wrote on November 7, 1760: and about the same time he complained that, with one exception, he could not remember a single recommendation of his which had taken place since the accession.[161]

Bute, however, gave the minister the coup de grâce when the latter strongly advocated the appointment of a certain clergyman to the Archbishopric of York. "If your Grace has so high an opinion of him," said he, "why did you not promote him when you had the power?" This was the last straw, and the Duke of Newcastle resigned on May 26, 1762, when Lord Bute became First Lord of the Treasury, with Lord Egremont and George Grenville as Secretaries of State, the incapable and worthless Sir Francis Dashwood,[162] as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Henry Fox as Leader of the House of Commons. The Admiralty, after the death of Lord Anson, was offered to Lord Halifax[163] who, aspiring to be a Secretary of State, declined the office, and persisted in his refusal until Lord Bute assured him that next to the Treasury it was the most lucrative post on the Administration. A humorous description of this incident is given in the "Fables for Grown Gentlemen."

"Close by a kitchen fire, a dog and a cat,
Each a famous politician,
Were meditating as they sat,
Plans and projects of ambition.
By the same fire were set to warm
Fragments of their master's dinner;
Temptations to alarm
The frailty of a sinner.
Clear prurient water streamed from Pompey's jaws,
And Tabby looked demure, and lick'd her paws;
And as two Plenipo's
For fear of a surprise,
When both have something to propose
Examine one another's eyes;
Or like two maids, though smit by different swains,
In jealous conference o'er a dish of tea,
Pompey and Tabby both cudgelled their brains
Studying each other's physiognomy.
Pompey endow'd with finer sense,
Discovered in a cast of Tabby's face,
A symptom of concupiscence
Which made it a clear case
When straight applying to the dawning passion,[Pg 156]
Pompey addressed her in this fashion:
'Both you and I, with vigilance and zeal,
Becoming faithful dogs, and pious cats,
Have guarded day and night this commonweal
From robbery and rats.
All that we get for this, heaven knows,
Is a few bones and many blows;
Let us no longer fawn and whine,
Since we have talents and are able,
Let us impose an equitable fine
Upon our master's table;
And, to be brief,
Let us each choose a single dish,
I'll be contented with roast beef,
Take you that turbot—you love fish.'
Thus every dog and cat agrees,
When they can settle their own fees.
Thus two contending chiefs are seen
To agree at last in every measure:
One takes the management of the marine,
The other of the nation's treasure."

"The new Administration begins tempestuously," Horace Walpole remarked. "My father was not more abused after twenty years than Bute after twenty days. Weekly papers swarm and, like other insects, sting." The feeling against Lord Bute was indeed so great that Dr. Dempster became a popular hero for preaching on December 21, 1760, before the King from Esther v.: "Yet all this availeth nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King's gate"; and caricatures of "Mordecai at the King's gate" were immediately after to be seen in all the print-shops throughout the country; but now Bute was Prime Minister his unpopularity reached its zenith. He was hooted, and sometimes pelted, by the mob: at times even there can be no doubt his life was endangered by the fury of the populace. All England was amused by the story of Miss Chudleigh's retort to her royal mistress, the Princess Dowager, who had administered a rebuke to the maid of honour after the latter had appeared very undressed as Iphigenia at a masked ball at Somerset House: "Votre Altesse Royale sait que chacune à son—But."[164] Numerous cartoons circulated showing the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute, the latter always wearing a red petticoat, supposed to have been found under very suspicious circumstances; while lampoons were issued in considerable numbers and one enjoyed exceptional popularity: "A letter to her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales with a word or two concerning Lord Bute and the Talk of the World," with the motto:

"Hence have the talkers of this populous city
A shameful tale to tell for public sport."

Although this scandal was in full cry, it was not that which set every man's hand against the minister, but his inordinate craving for power he was ill-qualified to wield. "Bute made himself immediately Secretary of State, Knight of the Garter,[165] and Privy Purse: he gave an English peerage to his wife; and the reversion of a very lucrative employment for life to his eldest son," Chesterfield complained. "He placed and displaced whom he pleased; gave peerages without number, and pensions without bounds; by those means he proposed to make his ground secure for the permanency of his power."[166] Bute, however, did not sit down quietly under the many attacks of which he was the subject, but responded to his enemies through his band of hired literary bravos. "I am beset with a host of scribblers, and I must acknowledge that I can discern great talent in some of their productions," he wrote in February, 1761. "The fire must not be allowed to spread too far, or I know not where its devastations will end. I am at a loss at present how to stem the tide of popularity which sets in at present so strongly against the court party. The King is much disposed at times to break out very violently in his objections to certain measures, but I hope I shall succeed eventually.... Pitt got the better of me in the [debate on the] Speech which his Majesty delivered from the throne, in which, as you will have read, he is made to declare that he is determined to carry on the war with vigour. We have it now in agitation to make him say quite the contrary, for we are resolved to have a peace.... I am informed of a work which is now in the press, entitled Le Montagnard Parvenu, of which I contrive to obtain the sheets as they are printed. The author knows more than I wish him to know; he must have been oftener behind the curtain than I suspected; it must be met by corresponding talent; the King must not see it.... I am, however, by no means without literary talent on my side; most of our best authors are wholly devoted to me, and I have laid the foundation for gaining Robertson,[167] by employing him for the King, in writing the history of England; he must be pensioned."[168]

Some credit is due to Bute for his patronage of literature. He pensioned Robertson, and John Home, the author of the play, "Douglas," which is now remembered only by the passage beginning "My name is Norval," and Mallet,[169] Murphy,[170] Macpherson,[171] Tobias Smollett and Dr. Johnson, to the last of whom it was stated specifically that the award was made, "not for anything you are to do, but for what you have done."[172] But if in some cases a pension was bestowed for merit, and for merit alone, these were the exception, for bribery was as much employed by Bute as it had been by Walpole, and once again the Paymaster's office was the rendezvous for those Members of Parliament whose votes were for sale.[173]