Of Spain, and he who quaffs the Rhone.
From my mock bier be far away
The loud lament, the funeral lay;
And, tribute to my fancied doom,
Far the vain honours of the tomb!—Ed.]
[The charge of Fox’s having sent Adair to St. Petersburg, to counteract the measures of Pitt’s government, first broached in Mr. Burke’s “Letter on the Conduct of the Minority,” has been vigorously contradicted, yet so late as April, 1854, it was alluded to as a fact by Lord Malmesbury in the House of Peers. It was, however, on this occasion again authoritatively denied by Lord Campbell, who took occasion to observe that Sir Robert Adair was “now in his 90th year, and for many years had served his country with great assiduity and fidelity. He had been sent by successive ministers [Mr. Fox, Lord Grey, Mr. Canning (who assisted in libelling him so often in the pages of the present work), Lord Wellesley, Lord Palmerston, the Duke of Wellington] to Vienna, to Constantinople, to Brussels, and to Berlin, and had represented the Crown of England upon some occasions of very great importance, in which he had uniformly acquitted himself to the satisfaction of the Government and for the benefit of his country. He believed a more honourable man had not lived in this country at any time.”
The following denial by Sir Robert Adair himself is copied from his autograph statement, prefixed to the Life of Wilberforce, published in 1838:—“This idle story is here accredited by Mr. Wilberforce, and inserted by his sons, without due examination. It was grounded on a journey I made to Vienna and St. Petersburg in 1791. Doctor Prettyman [sic], Bishop of Winchester, in a work entitled The Life of the Right Hon. William Pitt, published by him in 1823, brought forward the fact of my having gone upon this journey as a criminal charge against Mr. Fox, who, as he pretends, sent me upon it with the intent of counteracting some negociations then carrying on between Great Britain and Russia at St. Petersburg. I answered his accusation, I trust successfully, in two letters published by Longman & Co. [Two Letters from Mr. Adair to the Bp. of Winchester, in answer to the charge of a High Treasonable Misdemeanour brought by his Lordship against Mr. Fox and himself in his Life of the Rt. Hon. W. Pitt, 8vo., 1821], and explained the circumstances which induced me in my travels in 1791 to visit the two capitals above mentioned.—Robert Adair: 1838.”
The “Mission” was, however, firmly believed in, and Pitt was urged, but in vain, by the Duke of Richmond and others of the Government, to arrest Fox for high treason.
The following extract from the Political Memoranda of Francis, fifth Duke of Leeds, now first printed from the Originals in the British Museum; edited by Oscar Browning, for the Camden Society, 1884, is an illustration of the rumours current at the time, and many years after.
“Saty. 24 Novr. 1792. Lord St. Helens dined with me. After the Ladies were gone upstairs we conversed, for some time on Foreign affairs.... Speaking of the Russian business of last year he reprobated in the strongest terms the conduct of Fox in sending an agent, Mr. Adair, to Petersburg to counteract the negociations of this Court at that of Russia. He told me he knew for certain that Mr. Adair had shewn to some English merchants at Petersburg the Empress’ Picture set in diamonds which had been given to him. That it was not one of the sort usually given, but of much greater value, being set round with large Brilliants, and the whole Picture covered with a Table Diamond instead of Chrystal. That this was a present seldom made but on some very particular occasion or to some great favorite (I remember to have seen such a one in the possession of P. Orlow). Ld. St. H. thought it must have been worth six or seven thousand pounds, and of too much value probably to have been meant for Mr. Adair. The conclusion we both very naturally drew from this circumstance was not very favorable to Mr. Fox.”