In this action, considerable loss seems to have taken place among the officers of rank. Walpole says of Conway—"Harry Conway, whom nature always designed for a hero of romance, and who is deplace life, did wonders, but was overpowered and flung down, when one French hussar held him by the hair, while another was going to stab him. At the instant, an English sergeant, with a soldier, came up and killed the latter, but was instantly killed himself. The soldier attacked the other, and Mr Conway escaped, but was afterwards taken prisoner, and is since released on parole."
The description of the Lord Middlesex, mentioned in the letter, has all the keenness of Walpole's style. (He was the eldest son of the Duke of Dorset, and Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales.) "His figure was handsome, had all the reserve of his family, and all the dignity of his ancestors. His passion was the direction of operas, in which he had not only wasted immense sums, but had stood lawsuits in Westminster Hall with some of those poor devils for their salaries. The Duke of Dorset had often paid his debts, but never could work upon his affections; and he had at last carried his disobedience so far, in complaisance to, and in imitation of the Prince, as to oppose his father in his own boroughs."
The death of Pelham, in 1754, awoke the bustle of parties in a singular degree. The activity of Fox (Lord Holland) was remarked by every one. Pelham had died about six in the morning; Fox was at Lord Hartington's door before eight, called on Pitt at an "early hour;" and a letter from Lord Hardwicke says—"A certain person (Fox) within a few hours after Mr Pelham's death, had made strong advances to the Duke of Newcastle and myself." Pitt's letter, addressed to Lyttleton and the Grenvilles, containing the proposal for a new cabinet, thus speaks of Fox:—"As to the nomination of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Fox, in point of party, seniority in the corps, and, I think, of ability for Treasury and House of Commons business, stands, upon the whole, first of any. Dr Lee, if his health permits, would be very desirable. You, my dear Grenville, would be my nomination. A fourth idea, which, if practicable, might have great strength and efficiency for Government in it—I mean to secularise, if I may use the expression, the Solicitor-General (Murray,) and make him Chancellor of the Exchequer."
This fabric of the ministerial brain vanished, and Pitt remained in the subordinate position of Paymaster of the Forces. The ostensible cause was, the King's disinclination to have any intercourse with Pitt. That disinclination, however, ceased to be a pretext when Pitt became necessary to the Crown.
The fluctuations of memorable minds are the most interesting part of their history. Pitt's political disappointments always brought on a fit of his philosophy. When fortune smiled again, he forgot the philosophy, and grasped at the political prize. After the failure of his plan for the cabinet, he flew to Bath, and there, between disgust and distemper, he became romantic.
He thus writes to Earl Temple:—
"I am still the same indolent, inactive thing your lordship saw me; insomuch that I can hear unmoved of Parliament's assembling, and Speakers choosing, and all other great earthly things. I live the vernal day on verdant hills or sequestered valleys, where, to be poetical, for me health gushes from a thousand springs; and I enjoy the return of her, and the absence of that thing called Ambition, with no small philosophic delight. In a word, I envy not the favourites of Heaven, the few, the very few, 'quos æquus amavit Jupiter;' the dust of Kensington causey, or the verdure of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields." (The King resided at Kensington, and the Duke of Newcastle in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.) "I shall despatch my necessary business as fast as I can, and pursue you to Stowe, where the charms, so seldom found, of true taste, and the more rare joys and comforts of true friendship, have fixed their happy residence. There it is that I most impatiently long to enjoy you and your works."
Wilkes now comes on the tapis. A letter from Earl Temple congratulates him on having returned from the "expensive delights of Berwick." "I hope this will find you in good health, spirits as usual, and with an excellent cause. It is very gracious and kind in the pious Æneas, after his conversion after the love-feast, to keep up that kind of friendship with one who has so slender a claim to be admitted to the table of the saints."
The letter is written in a strain fitter for Wilkes than for a man in a public rank, and with a public character. The "expensive delights of Berwick" was an allusion to Wilkes's contest for the borough, which cost him between three and four thousand pounds, and in which he was defeated after all by the Delaval interest. Fox's description of the debate on the petition is pungent. "Mr Wilkes, a friend, it seems, of Pitt, (so little was he publicly known at this period,) petitioned against the younger Delaval, chose (chosen) at Berwick, on the ground of bribery only. Delaval made a speech, on his being thus attacked, full of wit, humour, and buffoonery, which kept the House in a continued roar of laughter."