Another capital fault was committed in the administration of those great colonies: they had been peopled chiefly by emigrants of the humbler order. Leaving England chiefly in times of national disturbance, they had carried with them the seeds of republicanism; but all men love public honours, and Englishmen love them as much as any others. Hereditary honours, too, are the most valuable of all, from their giving a certain rank to those objects of our regard, which every honest and high-minded man values most, his children. To be the founder of a family is the most honourable, the most gratifying, and the most permanent reward of public talents. The Americans of our day affect to abhor a peerage; though no people on earth are more tenacious of the trifling and temporary titles of office. Nothing could have been easier at this period, than the creation of an aristocracy in America; and nothing could have been wiser. The landed proprietors, and there were some of vast possessions; the leading men of commerce, and there were some of great wealth; and the principal lawyers, and there were men of eloquence and ability among them—would have formed the nucleus of an aristocracy purely English, closely connected with the English throne as the fountain of honour, and not less strongly bound to English allegiance. An Episcopacy, of all ties the most powerful, required only a word for its creation. And in this manly, generous, and free-spirited connexion, the colonies would have grown with the growth of England; have shunned all the bitter collisions of rival interests; have escaped the actual wars which inflicted disaster on both; and, by the first of all benefits to America, she would have obtained the means of resisting that supremacy of faction, which is now hurrying her into all the excesses of democracy.
In Canada we are still pursuing the same system, inevitably to be followed by the same fruits. We are suffering it to be filled with men of the lowest order of society; with the peasant, the small dealer, the fugitive, and the pauper. Those men no sooner acquire personal independence, than they aim at political. But who ever hears of a title of honour among even the ablest, the most gallant, or the most attached of the Canadian colonists? The French acted more rationally. Their Canadians have a noblesse, and that noblesse to this moment keep their station, and keep up the interest of France in Canada. Our obvious policy would be, to conciliate the leading men by titles of honour, to conciliate the rising generation by giving them the offices of their own country, and make it a principle of colonial government, that while the command of the forces, or the governor-generalship should be supplied from home, every office below those ranks should be given to those brave and intelligent individuals of the colony who had best earned them. We should then hear of no factions, no revolts, and no republicanism in Canada.
It is a curious contrast to the present state of things, that during the long reign of George II. government was simply a game. Half a dozen powerful men were the players. The king was merely the looker on, the people knew no more of the matter than the passers by through Pall-Mall know of the performances going on within the walls of its club-houses. It must shock our present men of the mob to hear of national interests tossed about like so many billiard balls by those powdered and ruffled handlers of the cue. Yet every thing is to be judged of by the result. Public life was never exhibited on a more showy scale. Parliament never abounded with more accomplished ability. England never commanded higher influence with Europe. If her commerce has since become more extensive, it was then more secure, and if the victories of our own time have been on a scale of magnitude, which throws the past into the shade, our fleets and armies then gave proofs of a gallantry which no subsequent triumphs could transcend.
It cannot be doubted, that the habits of that rank to which the statesmen of that day were born, naturally influenced their views of political transactions. Though party unquestionably existed in all its force among them, there was no faction. If there was a strong competition for power, there was little of the meanness of modern intrigue; and a minister of the days of George II. would no more have stooped to the rabble popularity, than he would have availed himself of its assistance or dreaded its alienation.
We now come to one of those negociations which, like a gust of wind against a tree, while they seemed to shake, only strengthened the cabinet. A violent attack had been made in the house upon Sir Thomas Robinson, a great favourite with the king. Walpole strikes off his character with his usual spirit. Sir Thomas had been bred in German courts, and was rather restored, than naturalised to the genius of Germany. He had German honour, loved German politics, and "could explain himself as little" as if he spoke "only German." Walpole attributes Sir Thomas's political distinctions simply to Newcastle's necessity for finding out men of talents inferior to his own, "notwithstanding the difficulty of the discovery." Yet if the duke had intended to please his master, he could not have done it more happily than by presenting him with so congenial a servant. The king, "with such a secretary in his closet, felt himself in the very Elysium of Heren-hausen."
Then follows a singular conversation between the king and Fox. The Duke of Newcastle saw his power tottering, and had begun to look out for new allies. His first thought was to dismiss Pitt, the next and more natural, was to "try to sweeten Fox." Accordingly, on the morning of the 29th, the king sent for Fox, reproached him for concurring to wrong Sir Thomas Robinson, and asked him if he had united with Pitt to oppose his measures. Fox assured him he had not, and that he had given his honour that he would resign first. Then, said the king, will you stand up and carry on my measures in the House of Commons, as you can do with spirit. Fox replied, I must know, sir, what means I shall have. "It would be better for you," said the king, "you shall have favour, advantage, and confidence," but would not explain particulars, only asking if he would go to the Duke of Newcastle.
"I must, if you command me," said Fox, "go and say I have forgot every thing."
"No," replied the king, "I have a good opinion of you. You have abilities and honesty, but you are too warm. I will send a common friend, Lord Waldegrave. I have obligations to you that I never mentioned. The prince tried you, and you would not join him, and yet you made no merit of it to me."
Mingled with these memoirs are appendices of anecdote, and those anecdotes generally of remarkable characters. Among the rest is a sketch of the famous Count Bruhl, one of those men who figured in Europe as the grand burlesque of ministerial life, or rather of that life, which in the East raises a slave into the highest appointments of the state, and after showing him as a slipper-bearer, places him beside the throne. The extravagances of the court of Saxony at that period were proverbial, the elector being King of Poland, and lavishing the revenues of his electorate alike on his kingdom and person. While the court was borrowing at an interest of ten per cent. the elector was lavishing money as if it rained from the skies. He had just wasted £200,000 sterling on two royal marriages, given £100,000 sterling for the Duke of Modena's gallery of pictures, given pensions in Poland amounting to £50,000 sterling above what he received, and enabled Count Bruhl personally to spend £60,000 a-year.
This favourite of fortune, originally of a good family, was only a page to the late king, and had the education of a page. By his assiduity, and being never absent from the king's side, he became necessary to this marvellously idle monarch; he himself, next to the monarch, being, probably, the idlest man in his dominions. The day of a German prime minister seems to have been a succession of formal idlenesses. Bruhl rose at six in the morning, the only instance of activity in his career. But he was obliged to attend the king before nine, after having read the letters of the morning. With the king he staid until the hour of mass, which was at eleven. From mass he went to the Countess Moyensha, where he remained till twelve. From her house he adjourned to dinner with the king, or to his own house, where he was surrounded by a circle of profligates, of his own choosing. After dinner he undressed, and went to sleep till five. He then dressed, for the second time in the day, each time occupying him an hour. At six he went to the king, with whom he staid till seven. At seven he always went to some assembly, where he played deep, the Countess Moyensha being always of the party. At ten he supped, and at twelve he went to bed. Thus did the German contrive to mingle statesmanship with folly, and the rigid regularities of a life not to be envied by a horse in a mill, with the feeble frivolities of a child in the nursery. His expenses were immense; he kept three hundred servants, and as many horses. Yet he lived without elegance, and even without comfort. His house was a model of extravagance and bad taste. He had contracted a mania for building, and had at least a dozen country seats, which he scarcely ever visited. This enormous expenditure naturally implied extraordinary resources, and he was said to sell all the great appointments in Poland without mercy.