TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This is Volume 2 of 3. The first volume can be found in Project Gutenberg at: [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57016]

The List of Illustrations has been copied from Volume I. This list describes six illustrations, two in each volume.

As the Editor notes in his Preface in Volume I, “Some, though very few, coarse expressions, have been suppressed by the Editor, and the vacant spaces filled up by asterisks.” There is one such occurrence in this volume (on [page 205]). Some omitted text is indicated by * * * (on [page 416].)

The Editor has also inserted the occasional [word] in brackets, when that makes the passage more sensible.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of each chapter.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]

MEMOIRS
OF THE REIGN OF
KING GEORGE THE SECOND.

VOL. II.

M^R. FOX.
London, Henry Colburn, 1846.

MEMOIRS

OF THE REIGN OF

KING GEORGE THE SECOND.

BY

HORACE WALPOLE,

YOUNGEST SON OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD.

EDITED, FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS.

WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES,

BY THE LATE

LORD HOLLAND.

Second Edition, Revised.

WITH THE ORIGINAL MOTTOES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1847.

CONTENTS
OF
THE SECOND VOLUME.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

MEMOIRS

OF THE REIGN OF

KING GEORGE THE SECOND.

1755.

Invenies etiam disjecti membra.—Hor.

[CHAPTER I.]

Fruitlessness of our efforts to maintain Peace with France at the commencement of the year 1755—Lord Hartington, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—Debate on King Charles’s Martyrdom—Scotch Sheriff-Depute Bill—Speeches in the House of Commons—The St. Michael Election—History of Earl Powlett—Preparations for War—The King’s Journey to Hanover—Duke of Cumberland at the head of the Regency—Affairs of Ireland.

The tranquillity of the Administration continued to be disturbed by repeated accounts of great armaments preparing in France for the West Indies; of which General Wall was believed to have given us the first intimation. Their marine grew formidable, but their insults unwisely outstripped their increasing power. We took the alarm; two regiments were ordered from Ireland; and by the beginning of February a fleet of thirty ships of the line was fitted out with equal spirit and expedition. Lord Anson had great merit in that province where he presided. The Earl of Hertford, a man of most unblemished morals, but rather too gentle and cautious to combat so presumptuous a Court, was named Embassador to Paris, whither Monsieur de Mirepoix was desired to write, that if they meaned well, we would send a man of the first quality and character.

The Duke of Marlborough succeeded Lord Gower in the Privy Seal, and the Duke of Rutland, a nobleman of great worth and goodness, returned to Court, which he had long quitted, yet without enlisting in any faction, though governed too much by a mercenary brother; and was appointed Lord Steward.

France sent a haughty answer, accompanied with these inadmissible proposals; that each nation should destroy all their forts on the south of the Ohio, which would leave them in possession of all the north side of that river; and whereas the Five Nations were allotted to the division of England by the Treaty of Utrecht, and the French had built forts amongst them contrary to that Treaty, and we agreeably to it, they demanded that we should destroy such forts, while they should be permitted to maintain theirs. Lord Hertford’s journey was suspended; at the same time that his brother, Colonel Conway, rose merely on the basis of his merit to a distinguished situation, entirely unsought, uncanvassed. The Ministry had perceived that it was unsafe to venture Ireland again under the Duke of Dorset’s rule; and they had fixed on Lord Hartington to succeed, as the most devoted to their views, and as the least likely, from the wariness of his temper, to throw himself into the scale of either faction. He refused to accept so uncommon an honour, unless Mr. Conway, with whom he was scarce acquainted, would consent to accompany him as Secretary and Minister. Mr. Conway’s friends would not let him hesitate.

January 29th.—Mr. Fox having proposed that the House should sit the next day, to read some Bill for which the time pressed, the Speaker urged the Act of Parliament that sets apart that day for the commemoration of what is ridiculously termed King Charles’s Martyrdom. It occasioned a warm squabble between the Speaker and Fox, and between Sir George Lyttelton[1] and General Mordaunt; and though Sir Francis Dashwood talked of moving for a repeal of the Act, the Speaker prevailed for observing the solemnity. One can scarce conceive a greater absurdity than retaining the three holidays dedicated to the house of Stuart. Was the preservation of James the First a greater blessing to England than the destruction of the Spanish Armada, for which no festival is established? Are we more or less free for the execution of King Charles? Are we at this day still guilty of his blood? When is the stain to be washed out? What sense is there in thanking Heaven for the restoration of a family, which it so soon became necessary to expel again? What action of Charles the Second proclaimed him the—Sent of God? In fact, does not the superstitious jargon, rehearsed on those days, tend to annex an idea of sainthood to a worthless and exploded race? and how easy to make the populace believe, that there was a divine right inherent in a family, the remarkable events of whose reigns are melted into our religion, and form a part of our established worship!

February 20th.—The new Lord Advocate of Scotland moved that the Bill, passed seven years before, for subjecting their Sheriffs-depute to the King’s pleasure during that term, and which was on the point of expiring, after which they were to hold their offices for life, should continue some time longer on the present foot. It was opposed with great eloquence and knowledge by one Elliot, a young Scotch civilian, lately chosen into Parliament. The measure had been one of the steps taken after the late Rebellion, to create greater dependence on the Crown, and to empower it to commit places of trust to more loyal hands, as it should be found necessary.

26th.—The House went again upon the Scotch Bill. Charles Townshend warmly opposed the Ministerial plan, urged that the independence of the Sheriffs-depute was a case connected with every thing sacred, and hoped that the most habitually-attached to a Ministry, who are generally the most unfeeling, would think on this. What signifies the best constitution, if the Judges [are] not independent, and their judgments [not] impartial? If the people are oppressed, what matters it by whom? That this alteration was a breach of faith to Scotland—that these Sheriffs are formed according to the claim of right, and to the Act of Settlement; would not the King have sufficient power over them if they were to hold their offices only quam diù se benè gesserint? that he was sorry to see that basis shaken, on which this Administration stands, or it ought to stand on none. That this will be regarded with fear and amaze; with fear, for the people will not know what is to follow, or whether this is not an attempt to try how far they will bear: with amaze, for Murray had pronounced that there was not one Jacobite left in Scotland. That he neither meaned ambition nor courted popularity, but looked upon himself as an executor of those who had planned the Revolution.

Lord George Sackville replied well, and ridiculed the importance with which Mr. Townshend had treated so immaterial a business, the utmost extent of the jurisdiction of the Sheriffs not extending to decide finally upon property of above the value of 12l. Yet, whoever had come into the House, not knowing the subject, would have concluded that a question was agitating for taking away the Judges from Westminster-hall. The lawyers, he said, were not agreed as to the extent of their criminal jurisdiction: in cases of treason, it is agreed, they have none. That the Sheriffs-depute, if supported by military authority, might have suppressed the last Rebellion. With such resources for good, and so tied up from ill, would you not entrust the disposition of them with the Crown? The more this family encroaches illegally, the more they lessen their tenure in the Crown. But this measure was taken at the request of the people of Scotland; have any there petitioned against it? Nor is it a breach of faith, for one Parliament may correct the acts of a preceding.

The Attorney-General laboured, in a speech extremely artful, to convince the Speaker, whose Whig spirit had groaned over this attempt, that it was no breach of the principles of the Revolution; and he insisted that it was by no means the sense of Scotland, that these little magistrates should be for life. He owned, that Judges, who are to decide on questions of State, should be for life, as in cases of treason, where it is not fit to trust the Crown with its own revenge; in cases of charters, &c.; but it is not necessary to be so strict in mere cases of meum and tuum. Even Charles, and James the Second, permitted other Judges to be for life, as the Master of the Rolls, the Judge of the Marshalsea, &c., because the Crown could remove trials into the King’s Bench.

This, with many more details of law, too long to rehearse, were poorly answered by Lord Egmont; by Pitt, with great fire, in one of his best-worded and most spirited declamations for liberty, but which, like others of his fine orations, cannot be delivered adequately without his own language; nor will they appear so cold to the reader, as they even do to myself, when I attempt to sketch them, and cannot forget with what soul and grace they were uttered. He did not directly oppose, but wished rather to send the Bill to the Committee, to see how it could be amended. Was glad that Murray would defend the King, only with a salvo to the rights of the Revolution; he commended his abilities, but tortured him on his distinctions and refinements. He himself indeed had more scruples; it might be a Whig delicacy—but even that is a solid principle. He had more dread of arbitrary power dressing itself in the long robe, than even of military power. When master principles are concerned, he dreaded accuracy of distinction: he feared that sort of reasoning: if you class everything, you will soon reduce everything into a particular; you will then lose great general maxims. Gentlemen may analyze a question till it is lost. If I can show him, says Murray, that it is not My Lord Judge, but Mr. Judge, I have got him into a class. For his part, could he be drawn to violate liberty, it should be regnandi causâ, for this King’s reigning. He would not recur for precedents to the diabolic divans of the second Charles and James—he did not date his principles of the liberty of this country from the Revolution: they are eternal rights; and when God said, “let justice be justice,” he made it independent. The Act of Parliament that you are going to repeal is a proof of the importance of Sheriffs-depute: formerly they were instruments of tyranny. Why is this attempted? is it to make Mr. Pelham more regretted? He would have been tender of cramming down the throats of people what they are averse to swallow. Whig and Minister were conjuncts he always wished to see. He deprecated those, who had more weight than himself in the Administration, to drop this; or besought that they would take it for any term that may comprehend the King’s life; for seven years, for fourteen, though he was not disposed to weigh things in such golden scales.

Fox said, that he was undetermined, and would reserve himself for the Committee; that he only spoke now, to show it was not crammed down his throat; which was in no man’s power to do. That in the Committee he would be free, which he feared Pitt had not left it in his own power to be, so well he had spoken on one side. That he reverenced liberty and Pitt, because nobody could speak so well on its behalf.

Nugent made an impertinent and buffoon speech, though not without argument, the tenour of which was to impeach professors of liberty, who, he said, (and which he surely could say on knowledge,) always became bankrupts to the public. He perceived, he said, that the House was impatient to rise—they were not worthy of liberty!—yet, what were they to stay to hear? vague notions of liberty, which my Lord Egmont could even admire in Poland, and in the dungeons of the Barons! The Craftsman[2] and Common Sense, which had often very little common sense, had wound the notions of liberty too high. That he had read the Craftsman over again two years ago, and had found it poor stuff! that this was no more a breach of public faith, than the innovations which had been made in the Act of Settlement. Though the House sat till ten at night, no division ensued.

27th.—The Chancellor and Newcastle acquainted the Duke of Dorset that he was to return no more to Ireland. He bore the notification ill, and produced a letter from the Primate, which announced a calmer posture of affairs, and mentioned a meeting of the Opposition, at which no offensive healths had been suffered. Lord George Sackville, who was present, had more command of himself, and owned, that one temperate meeting did not afford sufficient grounds to say, that animosities were composed; and he agreed to the prudential measure of their not going over again. His father rejoined, that if the situation of affairs should prove to be mended, he hoped his honour might be saved, and he be permitted to return to his government. The next morning Andrew Stone conceded for his brother the Primate, who, he owned, was sufficiently elevated, and would be better without power. At last the Duke of Dorset begged a little respite, and that the King might not yet be acquainted with the scheme. He wanted to fill up Malone’s place of Prime Serjeant, and to obtain the dismission of Clements.

The next business in Parliament did not deserve to be noticed for any importance in itself; the scenes, to which it gave rise, made it very memorable. Lord Sandwich, who could never be unemployed, but to whose busy nature any trifle was food, and who was as indefatigable in the election of an Alderman, as in a Revolution of State, had been traversed at Mitchel[3] in Cornwall, a borough belonging to his nephew, by the families of Edgecombe and Boscawen. His candidates were returned by his intrigues, but a petition was lodged against them. He had scarce effected their return, but he applied to all parties for support, against the cause should be heard in Parliament; and had even worked so artfully as to engage the Chancellor on his side; and having once engaged him, pleaded his countenance, as a proof that it was a private affair, unconnected with party. Mr. Fox eagerly supported him as a creature of the Duke, which soon threw the whole into a cause of faction. The Duke of Newcastle at first did not appear in it; but Lord Lincoln, pretending to espouse the Edgecombes, commanded all their dependents to vote against Lord Sandwich. The second hearing of the petition was on the 28th, when Mr. Fox, attacking and attacked by the law, of which body was Hussey, one of the petitioners, beat four lawyers and Nugent, and carried a division by 26; in which he was aided by Potter, one of the tellers, who counted five votes twice.

The Tories, who had promised their votes indiscriminately as their affections led them, perceiving that this election was to decide whether Fox or Newcastle should carry the House of Commons, and that at least in this affair the members were nearly balanced, came to a sudden resolution of giving their little body importance, and at once, as if to add to their weight, threw all their passions and resentments into the scale. Northey, the representative of their anger, proposed to the Duke of Newcastle, that if he would give up the Oxford election, and dismiss both Fox and Pitt, they would support him without asking a single reward. The proposal was tempting—the Tories did not hate Fox and Pitt, the one for always attacking, the other for having deserted them, more than the Duke of Newcastle hated both for acting with him. The defect of the proposal was, that besides disgusting the whole body of Whigs by sacrificing the Oxford election, the Jacobites would deprive his Grace of the two ablest speakers in the House, with all their followers, and could replace them with nothing but about a hundred of the silentest and most impotent votes. Though his Grace would have embraced a whole majority of mutes, he took care not to fling himself away on such a forlorn hope. This notable project being evaporated, the Tories were summoned, on the 5th of March, to the Horn Tavern. Fazakerley informed them that they were to take measures for acting in a body on the Mitchel election: he understood that it was not to be decided by the merits, but was a contest for power between Newcastle and Fox: whoever carried it, would be Minister: that he for every reason should be for the former. Beckford told him, he did not understand there was any such contest: that he did not love to nominate Ministers: were he obliged to name, he would prefer Mr. Fox. The meeting, equally unready at speeches and expedients, broke up in confusion. This business, however remarkable, does not deserve to be dwelt upon too long; and therefore I shall finish it at once, though it spun out near a month longer. Mr. Fox, who apprehended these Tory cabals, proposed to Murray a compromise of one and one; but Admiral Boscawen, the most obstinate of an obstinate family, refused it. Murray’s friends suspected, that the Chancellor’s unnatural support of Lord Sandwich was only calculated to inflame a division between Murray and Fox.

7th.—Sixty-two Tories met again at the Horn, where they agreed to secrecy, though they observed it not; and determined to vote, according to their several engagements, on previous questions, but not on the conclusive question in the Committee.

12th.—The last day in the Committee Lord Sandwich triumphed by 158 to 141. Of the Tories all retired but eight, who were equally divided. Forty of them, having omitted to summon twenty-nine, had met again to consider if they should adhere to their last resolution.

24th.—The morning of the report, the Tories met again at the Horn, and here took the shameless resolution of cancelling all their engagements, in order to defeat Fox. The merits of elections have long been out of the question: promises, private friendships, reasons of party, have almost always influenced in their decision. However, a decency was observed, and conscience always pretexted. It was reserved to the wretched remnant of the Tories, who having suffered most by, had been most clamorous against, engagements and bias in elections, to throw off the mask entirely, and crown their profligacy by breach of promises. Only twelve of them stood to their engagements; the Duke of Newcastle, assisted by the deserters, ejected Lord Sandwich’s members, by 207 to 183; the House, by a most unusual proceeding, and indeed by an absurd power, as the merits are only discussed in the Committee, setting aside what in a Committee they had decided.

I return to the Scotch Bill, which was finished in the foregoing month, after another long Debate, though the Ministry had given up the point of its being durante benè placito. Sir Francis Dashwood pronounced that the Revolution had not gone half far enough; and proposed to suspend the Act for seven years more. General Mordaunt, with his usual frankness, attacked the Scotch principles, and would extend the suspension for fifteen. Campbell, of Calder, a worthy man, and formerly of the Treasury, would have moderated for nine, lest it should seem that the suspension was perpetually to be renewed for seven years. His son warmly defended the Highlanders, and said, (what perhaps was no very great hyperbole,) that Middlesex contained more Jacobites than the Highlands. Elliot defended them still better, and called on Mordaunt for a local remedy, as he affirmed that twenty-five counties of thirty-three know nothing of, have nothing in common with, the Highlands: and he asked how it happened, that when the Duke could suppress the Rebellion pending the jurisdictions, the Ministry, with those and other impediments demolished, could not quash Jacobitism, though seven years had rolled away since the Rebellion? The Attorney-General said, he would yield to great authority, (the Speaker’s,) would agree, though not convinced, as he saw everybody meaned the same end, though by different means.

The Speaker uttered one of his pompous pathetics couched in short sentences; declared he was against the principle, as it was against the Revolution. It was against the principle of the constitution, of society, of liberty. No farther against the Revolution, than as it is against liberty. It always was true, it always will be. What is liberty, but that the people may be sure of justice? Other officers of justice should be for life like this; not this at pleasure, like others. If the Judge of Gibraltar decided on property, he should be for life. Shall the accidental union of the ministerial office and of police reduce this to their standard, and have the preference? We are all united with regard to the principle. If he thought that these last seven years had united Scotland, he would not give a day more to this suspension. Would not have it thought that this Act is ever to be renewed; but when this additional term shall be expired, that the Sheriffs-depute are to be for life. Would say with that great man, Lord Somers, what I cannot have to-day I will be contented to have to-morrow. The people of Scotland are within our patronage; it is generous to make no distinction between them and our countrymen. Whoever thinks to preserve justice here by denying it there, is unjust. He would be content with suspending the Act for fifteen years for this once.

Fox replied, laughing at the Speaker, that he could not think these Judges of such a magnitude. If they were within the Speaker’s description, he would not consent to subject them to the Crown for any term. That the Lord Chancellor is not for life, and yet nobody is discontent with his decisions on that account. That he was content to get to-day what he might have to-morrow too. That this was the truest triumph of Revolution principles, for it was the sound that triumphed, not the sense. That perhaps it was honourable deceit in those who opposed this; they made it serious, as they thought no harm could come from their opposition. That his deference for the Speaker was such, that he should even malle cum Platone errare, quam cum cæteris rectè sentire; but that if Plato did not err, if sense and reason were with him and his sect, it would be following sense and reason with so few, that for his part he chose to follow them no farther.

Pitt talked on the harmony of the day, and wished that Fox had omitted anything that looked like levity on this great principle. That the Ministry giving up the durante benè placito was an instance of moderation. That two points of the Debate had affected him with sensible pleasure, the admission that judicature ought to be free, and the universal zeal to strengthen the King’s hands. That liberty was the best loyalty; that giving extraordinary powers to the Crown, was so many repeals of the Act of Settlement. Fox said shortly, that if he had honoured the fire of liberty, he now honoured the smoke. Dr. Hay, a civilian, lately come into Parliament with great character, began to open about this time: his manner was good; as yet he shone in no other light. Nugent declared that liberty was concerned in this question, just as Christianity had been in the Jew Bill—Oswald replied rudely, “If he will define to what species of Christianity he chooses to belong,”—but Nugent calling him to order, Oswald said, “My very expression admitted that he was a Christian.” No division following, the Committee resolved that the suspension should be enacted for seven years.

March 6th.—The Marquis of Hartington was declared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and the same day, the Earl of Rochford, Minister at Turin, having been appointed to succeed the late Lord Albemarle, as Groom of the Stole; Earl Poulet, First Lord of the Bed-chamber, resenting that a younger Lord had, contrary to custom, been preferred to him, resigned his employment. He had served the King twenty years in that station; and yet his disgrace was not lamentable, but ridiculous. He did not want sense, but that sense wanted every common requisite. He had dabbled in factions, but always when they were least creditable; he had lived in a Court, without learning the very rudiments of mankind; and was formal upon the topics which of all others least admit solemnity. For about two months the town was entertained with the episode of his patriotism: it vented itself in reams of papers without meaning, and of verses without metre, which were chiefly addressed to the Mayor of Bridgewater, where the Earl had been dabbling in an opposition. His fury died in the fright of a measure which I shall mention presently.

25th.—Sir Thomas Robinson, by the King’s command, acquainted the Commons with the preparations of France for war, and demanded assistance. He did not inform them that there were actually then but three regiments in England, and that the Duke of Newcastle, from jealousy of the Duke’s nomination, would not suffer any more to be raised. Lord Granby and George Townshend moved the Address and a vote of credit. Doddington spoke with much applause on the insignificance into which Parliaments were dwindled, and of the inattention to public affairs. Every sentence trimmed between satire on, and a disposition towards, the Court: he concluded, “Let us carry the zeal of the people to St. James’s, with such spirit, that it may be heard at Versailles!” The torrent was for revenge; even Sir John Philipps felt against the French. Prowse desired it might be observed that we were advising a war. It was a puerile Debate. In the House of Lords, the Duke of Bedford attacked the inadvertence of the Ministry. The next day the Committee of Supply gave a million.

The Duke of Dorset was made Master of the Horse; but his faction did not fall without a convulsive pang. The primate and Lord Besborough sent a violent letter, to deny the report of their having quarrelled, and to demand some more sacrifices. As Lord Besborough’s son, Lord Duncannon, had married the new Lord Lieutenant’s sister, the latter resented this symptom of attachment to the disgraced cabal. The King said, “It was the work of that ambitious priest, the Primate.” And the Duke of Newcastle, to mark his own sacrifice of the Stones, solemnized their condemnation with a Latin quotation—Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

On the 10th, came advice that 20,000 French were ready to embark at the Isle of Rhee. Lord Rothes, and the officers on the Irish establishment, were ordered to their posts in that kingdom; whither Lord Hartington and Mr. Conway went, without ceremony, at the end of the month.

23rd.—At midnight was finished the Oxfordshire election, after hearings of near fifty days: the Jacobite members were set aside by 231 to 103.

It was the year in turn for the King to go to Hanover. The French armaments, the defenceless state of the kingdom, the doubtful faith of the King of Prussia, and, above all, the age of the King, and the youth of his heir at so critical a conjuncture, everything pleaded against so rash a journey. But, as his Majesty was never despotic but in the single point of leaving his kingdom, no arguments or representations had any weight with him. When all had failed, so ridiculous a step was taken to dissuade him, that it almost grew a serious measure to advise his going. Earl Poulet notified an intention of moving the House of Lords to Address against the Hanoverian journey. However, as the Motion would not be merely ridiculous, but offensive too, Mr. Fox dissuaded him from it. He was convinced; and though he had been disgraced as much as he could be, he took a panic, and intreated Mr. Fox and Lady Yarmouth to make apologies for him to the King. Before they were well delivered, he relapsed, and assembled the Lords, and then had not resolution enough to utter his Motion. This scene was repeated two or three times: at last, on the 24th, he vented his speech, extremely modified, though he had repeated it so often in private companies, that half the House could have told him how short it fell of what he had intended. Lord Chesterfield, not famous heretofore for tenderness to Hanover, nor called on now by any obligations to undertake the office of the Ministers, represented the impropriety of the Motion, and moved to adjourn. Lord Poulet cried, “My Lords, and what is to become of my Motion?” The House burst into a laughter, and adjourned, after he had divided it singly. The next day the Lord Chamberlain forbade him the entrées; the Parliament was prorogued; and on the 28th, the King went abroad, leaving the Duke at the head of the Regency. This was thought an artful stroke of the Newcastle faction, as it would tie up Fox, who, by being a Cabinet Councillor, became a Regent too, from censuring, in the ensuing session, the measures of the summer, in which the Duke and he would necessarily be involved: but the truth was, that the Duke of Devonshire, terrified by old Horace Walpole at the thoughts of the King’s going abroad, had proposed the Duke for sole Regent. The Duke of Newcastle, in a panic for his power, hurried to the King, and besought him to place the Duke only first in the Regency. In fact, the nomination of him for sole Regent might have been attended with this absurdity; had the King died abroad, the sole Regent must have descended from his dignity, to be at the head of the Council to the parliamentary sole Regent, the Princess.

On the 29th, it was known that the French squadron was sailed, and that our fleet was ordered to follow and attack them, if they went to the Bay of St. Lawrence, even though they designed for Louisbourg. It was a hardy step, and not expected by France: our tameness and connivance at their encroachments had drawn them into a false security; they could not believe us disposed to war, nor had calculated that it would arrive so soon: their debts were not paid, their fleets not re-established, their Ministry was divided, and the spirit of their Parliaments not abashed. These were advantages in our scale; but our incumbrances were not inferior nor dissimilar to theirs. Our debts were weighty, not to be wiped out by a De-par-le-Roy; our troops, our sailors were disbanded; our Ministry was weak and factious, if not divided; and, headed by the Duke of Newcastle’s jealousy, how long could it preserve any stability?—Our Parliament, indeed, was not mutinous; it was ready to receive any impression.

Our state at home was most naked and defenceless: the Stuart party in Scotland was humbled, not extirpated; Ireland was in a state of confusion, swarming with Papists, and the Whigs ready to burst into a civil war—a single circumstance will show how little attention had been paid to the security of so considerable a dominion: the few muskets in the hands of the King’s troops had been purchased, in the Duke of Devonshire’s Regency, at Hanover, and were so carelessly or knavishly made, that the men dared not fire them at a common review, lest they should burst in their hands: a supply was forced to be sent at this juncture from the Tower. Lord Hartington and Mr. Conway set out in haste for that kingdom, without awaiting the preparations for a new Lord Lieutenant’s entry. He was received coolly, though visited by each party: the Speaker and Malone made him great promises of not obstructing the King’s measures, and of even acquiescing to the litigated clause of the King’s consent to the disposal of the surplus money; though they wished the question, if possible, might be avoided. Lord Hartington replied, he could not engage it should. For the Primate, he would impart only a proper share of power to him. The Opposition determined to pursue that Prelate; and the difficulty of appointing him of, or omitting him in, the Regency, prevented Lord Hartington from returning immediately to England, as was intended. Mr. Conway was sent alone, commissioned to obtain concessions to the Irish patriots, and to state the posture of affairs in such a light, as should force the Duke of Newcastle to withdraw his protection from the Primate. This was not to be demanded in form, though, unless conceded, Lord Hartington determined to resign the government: if obtained, the Lord Lieutenant proposed to deal more haughtily and sparingly with the Speaker’s party on other points.

During Mr. Conway’s absence, Lord Hartington was made to expect a conference with the Speaker, who kept in the country—several delays were invented—at last he came. The Marquis told him he should expect and had understood three things: that the supplies should be raised; the previous question dropped on both sides; that no censures should be passed on the late Administration. On his side, he would obtain the restoration of the Speaker to his employments, and of the rest, as occasion should offer: he engaged that the Primate should have no obnoxious power; and that all proper communication of Government should be made to the discontented. The Speaker professed that these offers would content himself, but feared would have no effect on his friends, unless they were promised that the Primate should not be left in the Regency. “That,” replied the Marquis, “is more than I have authority to promise.” The Speaker desired till next day to consult his friends. He returned with Malone; but no acquiescence could be drawn from them without such a promise. The Primate made a specious offer of sacrificing himself for the tranquillity, if it would not be prejudicial to the dignity, of the Government. How sincere this interlude of self-denial was on either side, will appear hereafter.

Mr. Conway prevailed on the Chancellor and the Duke of Newcastle to consent to this sacrifice, which Lord Kildare, through Mr. Fox, assured Mr. Conway would content him. Newcastle wrote to the Primate, to desire he would ask his own exclusion. He was thunderstruck: he had offered it, while depending on support from England—it was the last thing he was ready to do, if his resignation was to be accepted. As he neither wanted arts nor engines, and had so fair a field to exercise his abilities on, as the Lord Lieutenant, now destitute of Mr. Conway’s advice, and beset by Lord Besborough, Mr. Ponsonby, and Lady Elizabeth, his wife, the Marquis’s sister, the junto instilled a thousand fears into the Lord Lieutenant of falling into the power of the Speaker; and drove him to write, not only to his father and Mr. Conway, to object against discarding the Primate, but even to the Duke of Newcastle, and to propose the nomination of a Lord Deputy. This childish and contradictory step confounded Mr. Conway, and transported the Duke of Newcastle. The father-Duke and Mr. Fox wrote earnestly to the Marquis to persuade him to abandon the Primate: he yielded to their advice; yet was again whirled round to the interests of that faction; for, on Lord Kildare’s returning to Ireland, and assuring Lord Hartington that his sole object was the disgrace of the Primate; the Marquis replied, that, as the Primate had supported the King’s measures, and the Speaker had defeated them, he would not give up the one, and leave the other in the Regency; but offered to omit the Primate, provided Lord Kildare would come to him in form, and offer to relinquish the Speaker too. This was a master-stroke of the Churchman: he knew Lord Kildare did not love the Speaker: yet, being punctilious, the Earl replied, he could not take such a step on his own authority. I have chosen to throw these transactions together, though they took up some months in discussion, lest the reader should be perplexed by the frequent interruption of the narrative.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] He had formerly written a letter against a Bishop’s sermon, which had carried very high the respect due to that day.

[2] Two Papers published weekly by the Opposition against Sir R. Walpole.

[3] [St. Michael, Cornwall.] E.

[CHAPTER II.]

Commencement of the War with France—War in America—Defeat and Death of General Braddock—Events at Sea—Fears for Hanover—Treaties made there—Dissensions in the Royal Family and in the Ministry—Disunion of Fox and Pitt—Ministers endeavour to procure support in Parliament—Fox made Secretary of State—Resignations and Promotions—Accession of the Bedford Party—Meeting of Parliament—New Opposition of Pitt—Debates on the Treaties—Pitt dismissed—Mr. Fox’s Circular to Members of Parliament—Debates on the number of Seamen.

July 15th, came news that three of Admiral Boscawen’s fleet, under the command of Captain Howe, had met, engaged, and taken three French men-of-war. The circumstances of this action were, that the three Frenchmen, on coming up with Howe, had demanded if it was, Peace or war? He replied, he waited for his Admiral’s signal; but advised them to prepare for war. The signal soon appeared for engaging: Howe attacked, and was victorious; but one of the French ships escaped in a fog: nine more were in sight, but, to the great disappointment of England, got safe into the harbour of Louisbourg. The Duke de Mirepoix had still remained in England, writing letters to his Court of our pacific disposition. The Duke of Newcastle, having nobody left at home undeceived, had applied himself to deceive this Minister; and had succeeded. On this hostile action, Monsieur de Mirepoix departed abruptly, without taking leave, and suffered a temporary disgrace at his own Court for his credulity. The Abbé de Bussy, formerly resident here, had been sent after the King to Hanover, with the civilest message that they had hitherto vouchsafed to dictate. Two days after he had delivered it, a courier was dispatched in haste to prevent it, and to recall him, upon the notice of our capture of the two French ships. They had meditated the war; we began it. They affected to call us pirates; their King was made to say, “Je ne pardonnerai pas les pirateries de cette insolente nation.” The point was tender, as we had at least prepared no alliances to give strength to such alertness. However, the stroke was struck; and it was deemed policy to follow up the blow. The Martinico fleet was returning: it occasioned great Debates in the Council, whether this too was not to be attacked; but the danger of giving pretence to Spain to declare against us, if we opened the scene of war in Europe, preponderated for the negative. In America we were not so delicate: the next advices brought a conquest from Nova Scotia. About three thousand of our troops, under the command of Colonel Monckton, had laid siege to the important fort of Beau-sejour, and carried it in four days, with scarce any loss: two other small forts surrendered immediately.

These little prosperities were soon balanced by the miscarriage of our principal operation in that part of the world. A resolution had been taken here to possess ourselves of the principal French forts on the Ohio, and in those parts; and the chief execution was to be entrusted to two regiments sent from hence. The Duke, who had no opinion but of regular troops, had prevailed for this measure. Those who were better acquainted with America and the Indian manner of fighting, advised the employment of irregulars raised on the spot. Unhappily, the European discipline preponderated; and to give it all its operation, a commander was selected, who, though remiss himself, was judged proper to exact the utmost rigour of duty. This was General Braddock, of the Guards, a man desperate in his fortune, brutal in his behaviour, obstinate in his sentiments, intrepid, and capable. To him was entrusted the execution of an enterprise on Fort Duquesne. His appointments were ample; the troops allotted to him most ill chosen, being draughts of the most worthless in some Irish regiments, and disgusted anew by this species of banishment.

As I am now opening some scenes of war, I must premise that it is not my intention to enter minutely into descriptions of battles and sieges: my ignorance in the profession would lead me certainly, the reader possibly, into great mistakes; nor, had I more experience, would such details fall within my plan, which is rather to develope characters, and the grounds of councils, and to illuminate other histories, than to complete a history myself. Indeed, another reason would weigh with me against circumstantial relations of military affairs: I have seldom understood them in other authors. The confusion of a battle rarely leaves to any one officer a possibility of embracing the whole operation: few are cool enough to be preparing their narrative in the heat of action. Historians collect relations from these disjointed or supplied accounts; and, as different historians glean from different relations, and add partialities of their own or of their country, it is seldom possible to reconcile their contradictions. The events of battles and sieges are certain; for of the Te Deums which are sometimes chanted on both sides, the mock one vanishes long before it can usurp a place in history. The decision of actions and enterprises shall suffice me.

At the beginning of July, Braddock began his march at the head of two thousand men. Having reached the Little Meadows, which are about twenty miles beyond Fort Cumberland, at Will’s Creek, he found it necessary to leave the greatest part of his heavy baggage at that place, under Colonel Dunbar, with orders to follow, as he should find it practicable; himself, with about twelve hundred men and ten pieces of artillery, advanced and encamped on the 8th, within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. He was warned against ambuscades and sudden attacks from the Indians: as if it were a point of discipline to be only prepared against surprises by despising them, he treated the notice as American panics, and advanced, with the tranquillity of a march in Flanders, into the heart of a country where every little art of barbarous war was still in practice. Entering on the 9th into a hollow vale, between two thick woods, a sudden and invisible fire put his men into confusion; they fired disorderly and at random against an enemy whom they did not see, and with so little command of themselves, that the greater part of the officers fell by the shot of their own men, who, having given one discharge, retreated precipitately. In vain were they attempted to be rallied by their officers, who behaved like heroes, and by Braddock, who, finding his generalship exerted too late, pushed his valour to desperation; he had five horses killed under him, and fell. Of sixty officers, near thirty perished; as many were wounded. Three hundred men were left on the field. The General was brought off by thirty English, bribed to that service by Captain Orme, his Aide-de-camp, for a guinea and a bottle of rum a-piece. He lived four days, a witness to the effects of his own rashness and to his erroneous opinion of the American troops, who alone had stood their ground. He dictated an encomium on his officers, and expired. In one respect it was a singular battle, even in that country; there was no scalping, no torture of prisoners, no pursuit; our men never descried above fifty enemies. The cannon was fetched off by the garrison of Fort Duquesne; and among the spoil were found the Duke’s instructions to Braddock, which the French published as a confirmation of our hostile designs. Colonel Dunbar hurried back in great precipitation with the heavier artillery on the first alarm from the fugitives.

What a picture was this skirmish of the vicissitude of human affairs! What hosts had Cortez and a handful of Spaniards thrown into dismay, and butchered, by the novel explosion of a few guns! Here was a regular European army confounded, dispersed by a slight band of those despised Americans, who had learned to turn those very fire-arms against their conquerors and instructors!

These enterprises on land were accompanied on our part by seizing great numbers of French vessels. Sir Edward Hawke was reprimanded for letting two East Indiamen pass; and repaired his fault by sending in two Martinico and two other ships; and these were followed by three rich captures from St. Domingo. The French with folded arms beheld these hostilities; and though our Admiralty issued Letters of Marque and Reprisal on the 29th of August, they immediately released the Blandford man-of-war, which, conveying Mr. Lyttelton to his new government of South Carolina, had been taken by some of their ships, who had not conceived that war on England and from England was not war with England. As late as the beginning of November, they persisted in their pacific civility, sending home ten of the crew of the Blandford, who had remained sick in France, and promising to dispatch another as soon as he should be recovered. Lord Anson, attentive to, and, in general, expert in maritime details, selected with great care the best officers, and assured the King that in the approaching war he should at least hear of no Courts-Martial. One happy consequence appeared of Sir Benjamin Keene’s negotiations: the Spanish court refused positively to embark in the war, having, as they declared, examined the state of the question, and found that the French were the aggressors. Had Ensenada remained in power, it is obvious with what candour the examination would have been made.

But, in the midst of all this ostentation of national resentment, symptoms of great fear appeared in the Cabinet: while Britain dared France, its Monarch was trembling for his Hanover. As we had given so fatal a blow to the navy of France in the last war; as we were undoubtedly so superior to them in America; as we had no Austrian haughtiness to feed and defend; no Dutch to betray and counteract us, we had a reasonable presumption of carrying on a mere naval war with honour—perhaps with success. As all our force was at home; as our fleet was numerous; as Jacobitism had been so unnerved by the late Rebellion, we were much less vulnerable in our island than ever: Ireland was the only exposed part, and timely attention might secure it. The King apprehended that he should be punished as Elector, for the just vengeance that he was taking as King,—the supposition was probable, and the case hard—but how was England circumstanced? was the necessary defence of her colonies to be pretermitted, lest her Ally, the Elector of Hanover, should be involved in her quarrel? While that is the case, do not the interests of the Electorate annihilate the formidable navies of Great Britain?

As the King’s Ministers had resolved on war, his Majesty, now at Hanover, precipitated every measure for the defence of his private dominions. He had no English Minister with him, at least only Lord Holderness, who was not likely to soar at once from the abject condition of a dangling Secretary to the dignity of a remonstrating patriot. One subsidiary treaty was hurried on with Hesse; another with Russia, to keep the King of Prussia in awe: while to sweeten him again, a match was negotiated for his niece, the Princess of Brunswick, with the Prince of Wales; in short, a factory was opened at Herenhausen, where every petty Prince that could muster and clothe a regiment, might traffic with it to advantage: let us turn our eyes and see how these negotiations were received at home. There the Duke of Newcastle was absolute. He had all the advice from wise heads that could make him get the better of rivals, and all the childishness in himself that could make them ashamed of his having got the better. If his fickleness could have been tied down to any stability, his power had been endless. Yet, as it often happens, the puny can shake, where the mighty have been foiled—nor Pitt, nor Fox, were the engines that made the Duke of Newcastle’s power totter. I have mentioned how early his petulant humour had humbled Legge—never was revenge more swiftly gratified. The treaties came over: as acquiescence to all Hanoverian measures was the only homage which the Duke of Newcastle paid to his master, he consented to ratify them. Being subsidiary, it was necessary that the Treasury should sign the warrants: he could not believe his eyes, when Legge refused to sign. He said, the contents had not been communicated to him, nay, not to Parliament: he dared not set his name to what the Parliament might disapprove. Nugent beseeched him to sign; he continued firm. The step was most artful; as he saw he must fall, and knew his own character, it was necessary to quit with éclat. If popularity could be resuscitated, what so likely to awaken it, as refusing to concur in a measure of profusion for interests absolutely foreign? Some coincident circumstances tended to confirm his resolution, and perhaps had the greatest share in dictating it.

I have mentioned the projected match with Brunswick: the suddenness of the measure, and the little time left for preventing it, at once unhinged all the circumspection and prudence of the Princess. From the death of the Prince, her object had been the government of her son; and her attention had answered. She had taught him great devotion, and she had taken care that he should be taught nothing else. She saw no reason to apprehend from his own genius that he would escape her; but bigotted, and young, and chaste, what empire might not a youthful bride (and the Princess of Brunswick was reckoned artful) assume over him? The Princess thought that prudence now would be most imprudent. She immediately instilled into her son the greatest aversion to the match: he protested against it: but unsupported as they were, how to balance the authority of a King who was beloved by his people, who had heaped every possible obligation on the Princess, who, in favour of her and her children, had taught himself to act with paternal tenderness, and who, in this instance, would be blindly obeyed by a Ministry that were uncontrolled? Here Legge’s art stepped in to her assistance; and weaving Pitt’s disgusts into the toils that they were spreading for the Duke of Newcastle, they had the finesse to sink all mention of the Brunswick union, while they hoisted the standard against subsidiary treaties.

Mr. Pitt, who had never contentedly acquiesced in remaining a cipher after the death of Mr. Pelham, and who was additionally inflamed at Mr. Fox’s being preferred to the Cabinet, had sent old Horace Walpole to the Duke of Newcastle the day before the King went abroad, with a peremptory demand of an explicit answer, whether his Grace would make him Secretary of State on the first convenient opportunity; not insisting on any person’s being directly removed to favour him. The response was not explicit; at least, not flattering. From that moment, it is supposed, Pitt cast his eyes towards the successor. Early in the summer Pitt went in form to Holland-house, and declared to Mr. Fox, that they could have no farther connexions; that times and circumstances forbad. Fox asked, if he had suspected him of having tried to rise above him. Pitt protested he had not. “Yet,” said Fox, “are we on incompatible lines?” “Not on incompatible,” replied Pitt, “but on convergent: that sometime or other they might act together: that for himself, he would accept power from no hands.” To others, Pitt complained of Fox’s connexion with Lord Granville; and dropped to himself a clue that led to an explanation of this rupture. “Here,” said Pitt, “is the Duke King, and you are his Minister!” “Whatever you may think,” replied Fox, “the Duke does not think himself aggrandized by being of the Regency, where he has no more power than I have.”

In fact, the Duke of Newcastle, as was mentioned before, had prevailed to have his Royal Highness named a Regent, without acquainting him or asking his consent. When Mr. Fox discovered the intention, and informed the Duke, he would not believe it, and said, “Mr. Fox, I beg your pardon, as you are to be of the number, but I shall not think myself aggrandized.” And it was so little considered as flattery to him, that the King did not name it to him, but sent Lord Holderness with the notification. After this interview and separation, Pitt and Fox imputed the rupture to each other. The truth seemed to be this: Pitt had learned, and could not forgive, Fox’s having disclaimed him; and being united with the Princess, he sought this breach; which was so little welcome to Fox, that, soon after it, a rumour prevailing that Pitt was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, Fox desired Legge to advise Pitt to accept it, offering himself to take the Paymastership. Legge was suspected of not having reported this message, to which he affirmed Pitt had not listened. What seemed to confirm the Princess’s favour being the price of Pitt’s rupture with Fox, and consequently of his disclaiming the Duke, was Pitt’s appearing to pin it down to the individual day of his visit at Holland-house, as the date from whence his connexion with Fox was to cease. It was discovered, that the very day before he had had a private audience of the Princess. The only spy in the service of the Ministry was a volunteer; Princess Amelie, who traced and unravelled the mystery of this new faction.

However, the little junto forming at Leicester House would have made small impression, if the Duke of Newcastle, in a fit of folly and fear, had not dashed down his own security. Hearing that the Duke of Devonshire, Sir George Lee, Mr. Legge, and some others, declared their disapprobation of the treaties, his Grace took a panic, which with full as little sense he poured into the King the moment he returned. To soften the Duke of Devonshire, they consented to whatever Lord Hartington should ask as terms for treating with the Irish patriots; which disposition had such immediate effect, that the Address of the House of Commons of Ireland was voted without a negative, and the body of the Opposition there manifested their readiness to sell themselves, the moment they knew that the Lord Lieutenant had authority to buy them. Some faint efforts towards tumults were made by little people, who had no chance of being included in the purchase; and the face of Lord Kildare, one of the mollifying demagogues, was blackened on sign-posts; but when chiefs capitulate, they seldom recede for such indignities. But more material was, who should defend the treaties in the English Parliament? Murray shrunk from the service—what! support them against Pitt! perhaps against Fox! They looked down to Lord Egmont—he was uncertain, fluctuating between the hopes of serving under the Princess in opposition, and jealous at the prospect of serving under Pitt too. No resource lay, but in prevailing on either Pitt or Fox to be the champion of the new negotiations. When either was to be solicited, it was certain that the Chancellor and the Duke of Newcastle would not give the preference to the latter.

In this dilemma, his Grace sent for Mr. Pitt, offered him civilities from the King, (for to that hour his Majesty had never spoken to him but once,) a Cabinet Counsellor’s place, and confidence. He, who had crowded the whole humility of his life into professions of respect to the King, was not wanting now to strain every expression of duty, and of how highly he should think himself honoured by any ray of graciousness beaming upon him from the Throne—for the Cabinet Counsellor’s place, he desired to be excused. The Duke of Newcastle then lisped out a hint of the Hessian treaty—“would he be so good as to support it?” “If,” said Pitt, “it will be a particular compliment to his Majesty, most undoubtedly.”—“The Russian?” “Oh! no,” cried Pitt, hastily; “not a system of treaties.” When the Duke of Newcastle could not work upon him, he begged another meeting in presence of the Chancellor, who, being prepared with all his pomp, and subtilties, and temptations, was strangely disconcerted by Pitt’s bursting into the conversation with great humour by a panegyric on Legge, whom he termed the child, and deservedly the favourite child, of the Whigs. A conference so commenced did not seem much calculated for harmony; and accordingly it broke up without effect. Nothing remained but to have recourse to Fox: not expecting the application, he[4] too had dropped intimations of his dislike to the treaties; and he knew they had tried all men ere they could bend their aversion to have recourse to him: yet he was not obdurate: he had repented his former refusal; and a new motive, that must be opened, added irresistible weight to the scale of ambition.

In his earlier life Mr. Fox had wasted his fortune in gaming; it had been replaced by some family circumstances, but was small, and he continued profuse. Becoming a most fond father, and his constitution admonishing him, he took up an attention to enrich himself precipitately. His favour with the Duke, and his office of Secretary at War, gave him unbounded influence over recommendations in the Army. This interest he exerted by placing Calcraft in every lucrative light, and constituting him an Agent for regiments. Seniority or services promoted men slowly, unless they were disposed to employ Mr. Calcraft; and very hard conditions were imposed on many, even of obliging them to break through promises and overlook old friendships, in order to nominate the favourite Agent. This traffic, so unlimited and so lucrative,[5] would have mouldered to nothing, if Mr. Fox had gone into Opposition; his inclination not prompting him to that part, his interest dissuading and the Duke forbidding it; when the new overtures arrived from the Duke of Newcastle, he took care not to consult his former counsellors, who had been attentive only to his honour, but listened to men far less anxious for it. Stone and Lord Granville were the mediators; the latter, at once the victim, the creature, and the scourge of the Duke of Newcastle, undertook the negotiation. The Duke in his fright had offered to resign his power to him; Lord Granville, not weak enough to accept the boon, laughed, and said with a bitter sneer, “he was not fit to be First Minister.” He proposed that Fox should be Chancellor of the Exchequer—to that the Duke, still as jealous as timid, would not listen.

At last Lord Granville settled the terms; that Fox should be Secretary[6] of State, with a notification to be divulged, that he had power with the King to help or hurt in the House of Commons; and a conference being held to ratify the conditions, Fox said, “My Lord, is it not fit that this should be the last time that we should meet to try to agree?” “Yes,” replied the Duke, “I think it is.” “Then,” said Fox, “if your Grace thinks so, it shall be so.” His other terms were moderate, for not intending to be more scrupulous than he knew the Duke of Newcastle would be, in the observance of the articles of their friendship, he insisted on the preferment or promotion of only five persons, Mr. Ellis, Sir John Wynne, George Selwyn, Mr. Sloper, and a young Hamilton,[7] who, in the preceding spring, though connected with the Chancellor’s family, had gone with a frank abruptness, and offered his service to Mr. Fox, telling him “that he foresaw he must one day be very considerable; that his own fortune was easy and not pressing; he did not disclaim ambition, but was willing to wait.” His father had been the first Scot who ever pleaded at the English bar, and, as it was said of him, should have been the last; the son had much more parts. The only impediment to the new accommodation was no obstruction; Sir Thomas Robinson cheerfully gave up the Seals, with more grace from the sense of his unfitness, than from the exorbitant indemnification he demanded. “He knew,” he said, “a year and a half before, why he was selected for that office; for the business of it, he had executed it to the best of his abilities; for the House of Commons he had never pretended capacity.” He desired to be restored to his old office, the Great Wardrobe, in which he had been placed to reform it, and had succeeded. He asked it for his own life and his son’s. They gave it him during pleasure, with a pension of 2000l. a year on Ireland for thirty-one years. When he thanked the Duke of Newcastle, he added, with a touching tenderness, “I have seven children, and I never looked at them with so much pleasure as to-day.” As Lord Barrington was to be removed from the Wardrobe to make room for Sir Thomas, he had the good fortune to find the Secretaryship at War vacant, and slipped into it.

Lord Chesterfield hearing of this new arrangement, said, “The Duke of Newcastle had turned out every body else, and now he has turned out himself.” The whole was scarce adjusted before Mr. Fox had cause to see what an oversight he had committed in extending a hand to save the Duke of Newcastle, when he should have pushed him down the precipice; asking Stone what they would have done if he had not come into them, Stone owned that they would have gone to the King and told him they could carry on his business no longer, and that he must compose a new Ministry. How sincere the coalition was, even on Mr. Fox’s side, appeared by his instantly dispatching an express for Mr. Rigby, the Duke of Bedford’s chief counsellor, to concert measures for prevailing on that Duke to return to Court, and contribute to balance, and then to overthrow, the Duke of Newcastle’s influence.

While the Ministry was in this ferment, they received accounts of a victory, little owing to their councils, and which at once repaired and contrasted Braddock’s defeat. The little Army assembled by some of our West Indian governments, and composed wholly of irregulars, had come up with the French forces to the number of 2000, and defeated them near the Lake St. Sacrament, with slight loss on our part, with considerable on theirs. What enhanced the glory of the Americans was, taking prisoner the Baron de Dieskau, the French General, an able élève of Marshal Saxe, lately dispatched from France to command in chief, while the English Commander was a Colonel Johnson, of Irish extraction, settled in the West Indies, and totally a stranger to European discipline. Both Generals were wounded, the French one dangerously. Sir William Johnson was knighted for this service; and received from Parliament a reward of 5000l.

Mr. Fox’s great point was to signalize his preferment by the accession of the Duke of Bedford and his party; the faction were sufficiently eager for such a junction, the Duke himself most averse to it; especially as the very band of concord was to be an approbation of the treaties; the tenour of his opposition had run against such measures; these were certainly not more of English stamp. When the Duchess and his connexion could not prevail on him to give up his humour and his honour, to gratify their humour and necessities, Mr. Fox and Lord Sandwich employed Lord Fane, whom the Duke of Bedford esteemed as the honestest man in the world, to write him a letter, advising his Grace to vote for the treaties; and they were careful to prevent his conversing with Mr. Pitt, which he wished, or with any other person, who might confirm him in a jealousy of his honour; indeed, he did not want strong sensations of it; they drew tears from him before they could draw compliance. Fox would have engaged him to accept the Privy Seal, which he had prepared the Duke of Marlborough to cede; but the Duke of Bedford had resolution enough to refuse any employment for himself—acquiescing to the acceptance of his friends, they rushed to Court—what terms they obtained will be seen at the conclusion of the year.

November 12th.—The night before the opening of the Parliament, Mr. Fox presided at the meeting at the Cockpit, instead of Mr. Legge, who, with Mr. Pitt, the Grenvilles, and Charles Townshend, did not appear there. They were replaced by the Duke of Bedford’s friends. From thence Mr. Rigby was sent to his Grace with a copy of the Address; and to indulge him, an expression was softened that promised too peremptory defence of Hanover.

13th.—The Houses met. The expectation of men was raised; a new scene was ready to disclose. The inactivity of the late sessions was dispelled; a formidable Opposition, with the successor and his mother at the head, was apprehended: the Ministers themselves had, till the eve of Parliament, trembled for the event of the treaties. Legge, indefatigable in closet applications and assiduity, had staggered many; the promotion of Fox, it was supposed, had revolted many more. A war commenced with France; factions, if not parties, reviving in Parliament, were novel sights to a lethargic age. The immensity of the Debates during this whole session would, if particularized, fatigue the reader, and swell these cursory Memoirs to a tedious compilation: I shall select the heads of the most striking orations, and only mark succinctly the questions and events.

The King’s Speech acquainted the Houses with the outlines of the steps he had taken to protect and regain his violated dominions in America; of the expedition used in equipping a great Maritime Force; of some land forces sent to the West Indies; of encouragement given to the Colonies; of his Majesty’s disposition to reasonable terms of accommodation; of the silence of France on that head; of the pacific disposition of the King of Spain—it very briefly touched on the tender point of the new treaties. In the House of Lords, the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Marchmont moved the Address. Lord Temple, the incendiary of the new Opposition, and Lord Halifax, who could not endure any measure that diverted attention or treasure from the support of our American Settlements, dissented from the Address on the article of the treaties. The Duke of Bedford decently and handsomely excused his approbation of them: the Chancellor, the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Bathurst, defended them; and no division ensued; yet Lord Temple protested: he had, unwarranted, expressed the Duke of Devonshire’s concern at being prevented by ill health from appearing against the treaties. His Grace was offended at, and disavowed, Lord Temple’s use of his name: he was more hurt at the property he had been made by old Horace Walpole, who no sooner snuffed the scent of new troubles on German measures, than he felt the long wished-for moment approach of wrenching a coronet from the unwilling King. He immediately worked up the Duke of Devonshire to thwart the treaties, declared against them himself, talked up the Whigs to dislike them; and then deserted the Duke and his Whigs, by compounding for a Barony, in exchange for a public defence of the negotiations.

But the clouds that only overcast the House of Lords were a tempest in the Commons; they did not rise till near five in the morning; the longest Debate on record, except on the Westminster election, in 1741. The question was opened disadvantageously for the Court, by the imprudence of Lord Hilsborough, who was to move the Address, and who arrived so late that the speech was read before he came: instead of veiling, he pointed out the tendency of the treaties as an Hanoverian measure; and seemed to describe, while he meaned to defend, the weakness of the Government. He said, the Address was so cautiously conceived, that it would not involve any man who agreed to it, in voting afterwards for the treaties. That it was plain no war on the continent was intended, or we should have seen a larger plan laid before Parliament: here we saw no names of the Queen of Hungary, or King of Sardinia: could we meditate a land war without Allies? That the Russians were only calculated to curb the King of Prussia. That such preparations both on land and sea were making in France, as bespoke a decisive stroke; that stroke could only fall here or on Hanover; here, our safety, there, our honour was concerned. That his Majesty had entered into great expense in his own particular, for defence of Hanover, though the quarrel was England’s not the Electorate’s; and he had taken his measures so successfully, that, with the junction of the Hessians, he could assemble 40,000 men.

Martin, who attended his master, Legge, into Opposition, proposed to omit that part of the Address that engaged assistance to Hanover; but forgetting the paragraph relative to the treaties, and the Court-party taking advantage of that slip, he corrected his Motion, and said, he wished to avoid any subterfuge of the Ministers; no manly Minister would steal approbation, in this surreptitious manner, to a measure that would heap destruction on his head. Young Hamilton[8] opened for the first time in behalf of the treaties, and succeeded admirably: his voice, manner, and language, were most advantageous; his arguments sound though pointed; and his command of himself easy and undaunted. Doddington, though nibbling at the negotiations, betrayed his willingness to turn defendant. He said, considering how greatly unanimity had prevailed of late, one should have thought that the ingenuity of man—or the want of it, could not have hit on means of disunion: these measures had accomplished it at once!—but the days of wantoning with the public were near at an end! That he could not frame a case where the interests of Hanover were less connected with Great Britain; and that therefore this would be a precedent to all posterity to make Hanover always in question. That all hire of troops, but for furnishing our quotas to our Allies, was wrong. That, if it was urged that this contract was cheap, as perhaps abstractedly it was, he should answer, no; you never can purchase a consumption cheap. That he sought for arguments to convince, not to inflame: that, to introduce Russians into the Empire, breaks through all the ties of the Germanic body: would the Princes of the empire submit to see Prussia overwhelmed?—but what must the people at home think, if taxed thus for foreign subsidies, when engaged in a war for defending their own property? That, acquiescing to these treaties concluded during the recess, was giving power to the Crown to raise money without Parliament. That the House was fallen into the dilemma of violating the constitution, or of disgracing the King. That he would concur for protecting Hanover, but the Journals would point out better methods of assistance: the effectual one was, to disable the enemy from attacking it. He wished to omit approbation of the treaties, but would let pass the assurances to the Electorate.

George Granville, in a fine, pathetic speech, drew a picture of the future bad peace, and made an encomium on the late cautious Minister[9]—if this was the caution of his successors, what would their imprudence be? Sir George Lyttelton owned, that, if the Hessians and Russians were retained, (as no doubt they were,) for defence of Hanover, it were a breach of the Act of Settlement; yet he approved the measure, as he urged how unpopular it would be to procrastinate a peace, till indemnification for Hanover could be obtained. Nugent recommended to differ like friends, as England had never been invaded but on supposition of our divisions. Murray, in answer to Beckford, who had wished to have the Duke Elector, argued that it was not in the King’s power to transfer his Electoral dominions, unseverable both by his Majesty and by the Empire in the present state of the Royal Family. He then painted with masterly touches the merit of the King, who might have ensured tranquillity to the evening of his life, had he studied only his own repose. The French would have accorded him fair terms—then they would have encroached a little; then referred the contested points to Commissaries—but his Majesty disdained such tranquillity as would entail greater difficulties on his successor and on the nation. How hard would it be, in return, if we declared against protecting Hanover! if we sowed his pillow with thorns! That he should be sorry if, at the peace, we were to restore our acquisitions in America, in exchange for Hanover, which we had abandoned!—He felt these pictures touched, and pursued them, till he over-acted the pathetic, almost to lamentation.

Sir George Lee (as representative of the Princess’s sentiments, though, not having declared herself openly, she frustrated her own views) was explicitly warm: he said, it was easy for the Ministers to produce unanimity, by pursuing British measures. It was necessary to take this up in a high style, to teach Ministers their duty to the House, which, under this precedent, they would every day more and more forget. Sir Thomas Robinson, still Ministerial, informed the House that the merchants of France had petitioned their Sovereign for redress—were told, “Be patient; you will have ample satisfaction from the divisions of the British Parliament.” Legge protested that he spoke not from a spirit of opposition or resentment; he disapproved the one, he despised the other. Would give his consent to distribute 500,000l., if it would make a good peace; would not give 300,000l. or 400,000l. to buy a war of ten millions. France will drive you to call for these troops, because they will undo you; and you will have superadded (having provoked) Prussia. The Crown can make treaties; it cannot issue money. The nation of money-lenders will distress you. He thought the time was come for leaving the empire to act for itself and its own interest. We ought to have done buying up every man’s quarrel on the continent.

Then ensued a variety of the different manners of speaking ill. Potter flimsily; old Horace Walpole shamelessly; Dr. Hay tritely; George Townshend poorly. The latter had concurred, he said, last year, in granting a large sum confidentially; and was shocked to see it so grossly misapplied. Lord Egmont assembled in one speech more defects than had been dispersed through all the others: he was capricious, obscure, contradictory, dubious, absurd; declared for the negotiations, but would vote against the Address, as it seemed to appropriate the treaties, which he thought beneficial to England, to the service of the Electorate.

These uninteresting discourses served to heighten what wanted no foil, Pitt’s ensuing oration. How his eloquence, like a torrent long obstructed, burst forth with more commanding impetuosity! He and Legge opened their new opposition in the very spirit of their different characters. The one, humble, artful, affecting moderation, gliding to revenge; the other, haughty, defiant, and conscious of injury, and supreme abilities. He began with his solicitude on the use that had been made of the sacred name of the King, so often and so unparliamentarily, and of the cruelty in using it so; formerly, a man would have been brought to the bar for using it so twice: but he had perceived for some time, that every art was practised to lower the dignity of the House; he had long observed it dwindling, sinking! it was to that abuse he objected. No man could feel more veneration for that name that had been mentioned. He particularly felt grateful returns for late condescending goodness and gracious openings. Nor did he as yet feel any other sensations; as yet he had no rancour to any man who had set himself at the head of this measure; as yet that man[10] had only his pity. He said, he did not propose to follow all the various flashy reasonings of the Debate, the scope of which tended to nothing but this, “Follow your leader.” He was lost amidst the number and contradictions, and should only skim over the most remarkable arguments.

One[11] had argued so strangely, as if we were to turn our eyes to these mercenaries as a reserve, if our navies should be defeated—what! must we drain our last vital drop, and send it to the North Pole! If you would traffic for succours with the Czarina, why, rather than her troops, did not you hire twenty of her ships?—he would say why? because ships could not be applied to Hanover. In the reign of Charles the Second, what efforts were made to procure fleets from Sweden and Denmark! Now, the natural system of Europe was lost! He did not know what majorities would do, but this would hang like a millstone about his neck, and sink any Minister along with the nation. We had been told, indeed, that Carthage, and that Spain in 88, were undone, notwithstanding their navies—true; but not till they betook themselves to land operations—and Carthage had, besides, a Hannibal,[12] who would pass the Alps. The present war was undertaken for the long-injured, long-neglected, long-forgotten people of America. That Hanover had been excepted as an Ally by the Act of Limitation, not so much for fear of prejudices, as for its locality. But we are told we must assist them, out of justice and gratitude—out of justice!—we can produce a charter against it—out of gratitude indeed we ought, if Hanover has done anything in our quarrel to draw upon her the resentments of France. Those expressions were unparliamentary, unconstitutional. With all his duty to his Majesty, he must say, that the King owes a supreme service to his people—would our ancestors have used adulation like this? the very paragraph ought to be taken notice of and punished.

Besides, is there anything in the speech about Hanover, that calls for this resolution? Grotius declares it is not necessary even socium defendere si nulla spes boni exitus—then half-turning with an air of the greatest contempt towards Sir George Lyttelton, he said, “A gentleman near me has talked too of writers on the Law of Nations—Nature is the best writer; she will teach us to be men, and not to truckle to power. The noble lord who moved the Address seemed inspired with it! I,” continued he, “who am at a distance from that sanctum sanctorum, whither the priest goes for inspiration, I who travel through a desert, and am overwhelmed with mountains of obscurity, cannot so easily catch a gleam to direct me to the beauties of these negotiations—but there are parts of this Address that do not seem to come from the same quarter with the rest—I cannot unravel this mystery—yes,” cried he, clapping his hand suddenly to his forehead, “I too am inspired now! it strikes me! I remember at Lyons to have been carried to see the conflux of the Rhone[13] and Saone;[14] this, a gentle, feeble, languid stream, and though languid, of no depth—the other, a boisterous and impetuous torrent—but they meet at last; and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and security of this nation! I wanted indeed to know whence came the feebleness of what goes upon too many legs; whose child it is—I see who breeds it up.

“These incoherent un-British measures are what are adopted instead of our proper force—it was our Navy that procured the restoration of the barrier and Flanders in the last war, by making us masters of Cape Breton. After that war, with even that indemnification in our hands, we were forced to rejoice at a bad peace; and bad as it was, have suffered infractions of it every year; till the Ministers would have been stoned as they went along the streets, if they had not at last shown resentment. Yet how soon have they forgotten in what cause they took up arms! Are these treaties English measures? are they preventive measures? are they not measures of aggression? will they not provoke Prussia, and light up a general war? If a war in Europe ensues from these negotiations, I will always follow up the authors of this measure. They must mean a land-war—and how preposterously do they meditate it? Hanover is the only spot you have left to fight upon. Can you now force the Dutch to join you? I remember, everybody remembers, when you did force them: all our misfortunes are owing to those daring wicked councils.[15] Subsidies annihilated ten millions in the last war; our Navy brought in twelve millions. This is the day, I hope, shall give the colour to my life; though it is a torrent, I fear, nothing will resist. Out of those rash measures sprung up a Ministry—what if a Ministry should spring out of this subsidy! I saw that Ministry; in the morning it flourished; it was green at noon; by night it was cut down and forgotten! But it is said, it will disgrace the King to reject these treaties—but was not the celebrated treaty of Hanau transmitted hither, and rejected here? If this is a preventive measure, it was only preventive[16] of somebody’s exit. A coalition followed; and long may it last!” He taxed Murray’s pathetic commiseration of the evening of the King’s life, with being premeditated—“he too,” he said, “could draw a pathetic commiseration of his Majesty; he had figured him far from an honest Council, had figured him surrounded all the summer with affrighted Hanoverians, and with no advocate for England near him—but, alas! we cannot suspend the laws of Nature, and make Hanover not an open defenceless country.” He then opposed a pathetic picture of the distressed situation of this country; and reverting to Murray’s image of the King, said, he believed that within two years his Majesty would not be able to sleep in St. James’s for the cries of a bankrupt people. He concluded with saying, that we imitated everything of France but the spirit and patriotism of their Parliament; and that the French thought we had not sense and virtue enough, perhaps he thought so too, to make a stand in the right place.

This speech, accompanied with variety of action, accents, and irony, and set off with such happy images and allusions, particularly in the admired comparison of the Rhone and Saone, (though one or two of the metaphors were a little forced,) lasted above an hour and a half, and was kept up with inimitable spirit, though it did not begin till past one in the morning, after an attention and fatigue of ten hours. The lateness of hours was become a real grievance, few Debates of importance commencing before three in the afternoon. It was a complaint so general, that some of the great money-offices in the city were forced to change their time of payment from the hours of ten to twelve, to those of from twelve to two.

Fox, tired and unanimated, replied in few words, that we were no longer a representative, if a great majority is not declarative of the sentiments of the nation. Are we to feel no justice and gratitude, unless the King asks it of us? that nobody had used the King’s name so often as Pitt. That the latter had showed a strange curiosity to know whose the measure was, while he said he intended to arraign only the measure. Legge having compared the treaty, (in the light of prevention to a man who, having quarrelled with another, tells him, I am going to such a place with sword and pistol, but don’t you come thither,) Fox said, that many a duel had been prevented, by knowing that your enemy will fight. The attention of the House was entirely put an end to, as it generally was, by Admiral Vernon; and then Doddington and Sir Francis Dashwood moving to leave in the words relative to Hanover, and to omit those that regarded the treaty; and the former question being first put, Pitt and those who were for leaving them out, but did not intend to divide on that, as the least unpopular question, said, no, faintly. The Speaker, who was strongly for leaving out the Hanoverian words, gave it for the noes; so they were forced to divide, and were but 105 to 311. The first division is generally understood as the sense of the House, though in this case it evidently was not; for though the majority for the Court was notorious, yet the real number that dissented from the treaties did not appear; for after the first division, many going away through fatigue, and from having seen the superiority of the Court, on the question of the treaties there were but 89 against 290. After the Debate, Fox said to Pitt, “Who is the Rhone?” Pitt replied, “Is that a fair question?” “Why,” said Fox, “as you have said so much that I did not desire to hear, you may tell me one thing that I would hear: am I the Rhone or Lord Granville?” Pitt answered, “You are Granville.” Lord Temple, no bad commentator of Pitt’s meaning, said that the Rhone meaned the Duke, Fox, and Lord Granville; the Saone, the Duke of Newcastle, the Chancellor, and Murray. Yet it was generally understood that the former was personal to Fox, the latter to Newcastle; the description, languid, yet of no depth, was scarce applicable to the Chancellor, by no means to Murray.

On the 15th, Mr. Fox received the Seals; and on the 20th, Lord Holderness wrote to Mr. Pitt, Mr. Legge, and George Granville, that his Majesty had no further occasion for their service. Pitt answered the letter with great submission. The next day James Granville resigned the Board of Trade. This was all the party that followed voluntarily. Charles Townshend made an offer to Mr. Pitt, (which being offered could not be accepted,) of resigning: Mr. Pitt chose to turn an offer so made into a colour for having so few followers; thanked him, but said, he desired nobody to resign on his account. Lord Temple wrote a supplicatory letter to his sister Lady Hesther, to use her interest with Mr. Pitt, whose fortune was very narrow, to accept a thousand pounds a year. It was accepted. But while this connexion was revolving to patriotism, a fatal ignis fatuus misled poor Sir George Lyttelton to clamber over the ruins of his old friends. Not able to resist his devotion to the Duke of Newcastle, or the impulse of his own ambition, he accepted the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer—had they dragged Dr. Halley from his observatory, to make him Vice-Chamberlain, or Dr. Hales from his ventilators, to act Bayes in the Rehearsal, the choice would have been as judicious: they turned an absent poet to the management of the revenue, and employed a man as visionary as Don Quixote to combat Demosthenes!

These changes had not been made before the opening of the Session, not so much with a view to what temper Mr. Pitt might observe, as to prevent the vacating Mr. Fox’s seat, which would have occasioned his absence on the first day. He had written the circular letters to the Court members, desiring their early attendance, as is usually practised by the ruling Minister in the House of Commons, but had marked that direction so much beyond the usual manner, and had so injudiciously betrayed his own aspirings, that the letter gave general offence. George Townshend, his personal enemy, and who was dragging his brother Charles into opposition to their uncle the Duke of Newcastle, merely on the forced connexion of the latter with Fox, determined to complain of the letter in Parliament. He chose the very day after Mr. Pitt’s dismission, when, under pretence of moving for a call of the House, he said, When a system was likely to be grafted on these treaties, unadopted and proscribed by the constitution, he wished the House should be full. Our Ministers, indeed, had taken upon them to add to the usual respectable summons, not only the Ministerial invitation, but invitation of their own. That they endeavoured to gain approbation individually, which formerly was acquired collectively. That he did not suppose such letters would greatly influence: who would engage themselves so precipitately? Whoever should, their country would despise them. That this was an unconstitutional act of a Minister as desirous of power as ever Minister was, and who was willing to avail himself of his colleague’s friends, though not fond of owning his colleague’s measures. However, that the foundation of his power was laid on a shattered edifice, disfigured by his novelties.

After these and some more such harsh and studied periods, he produced the letter; it did not want its faults, but he knew not how to relieve them; his awkward acrimony defeated his own purpose, and what had seemed so offensive, now ceased to strike any body. The letter was as follows:—

Sir,

The King has declared his intention to make me Secretary of State, and I (very unworthy as I fear I am of such an undertaking) must take upon me the conduct of the House of Commons: I cannot therefore well accept the office till after the first day’s Debate, which may be a warm one. A great attendance that day of my friends will be of the greatest consequence to my future situation, and I should be extremely happy if you would for that reason show yourself among them, to the great honour of,

Dear sir, your, &c. &c.

He did not know, continued Townshend, whose the letter was; he had heard of such a letter—he did not know that the first day of the Session he was electing a Minister; he thought he was called to express his duty to the King on the Address: now he was uncertain whether we were voting measures, or more people into place—but when gentlemen would not obey such letters, was not it necessary to issue other summons? He would advise a Minister to make the constitution the rule of his conduct.

Fox answered, with proper severity, that “it was usual for the informer to acquaint the House who signed such a letter, (though, said he, that is pretty well known,) and to whom it was addressed; though he should not insist on this; but,” continued he, “don’t let this additional imprudence be imputed to me, that I should be thought to have addressed one to that gentleman. I hope too that it is not a necessary part of prudence, that when one writes to a gentleman, one should consider what figure that letter will make, if shown. However, there was no undue influence in these letters; nor were they sent promiscuously, but to gentlemen of great consideration. But indeed the objectionable part proceeded from a false writing; between the words conduct and House of Commons, other[17] words which I will not name, were accidentally omitted.” He added, “I don’t believe that any gentleman gave a copy of this with a design of having it shown. Mr. Townshend allows me common sense; does he think I would say, conduct of the House of Commons? It is very early to treat me as Minister; but I should be proud of his advice. Was showing this letter behaving with the exactness of a gentleman? I protest I don’t know[18] who it was: whoever it was, I am persuaded he is very sorry for what he has done. I may have writ a silly letter; I am sure one of them was sillily addressed.”

Townshend replied, the man who received it was astonished; but hundreds at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles could repeat it by heart. He was sorry he did not receive one. He hoped there would be no more such. Beckford said, it was usual for those in great offices to be imprudent; he had a great regard for the gentleman in question; he has abilities; the rest have not: we have a better chance with a man of sense.

The same day, Mr. Ellis having moved for 50,000 seamen, including 9113 marines, and saying, that in peace we have but a fund of 40,000 sailors, it occasioned some talking, and people were going away, when Pitt rose and said, he shuddered at hearing that our resources for the sea service were so narrowed, especially as Murray had pronounced that we ought to be three times as strong as France, to cope with her. He remembered the fatal[19] measure of the reduction to 8000; he had stated the danger then in the face of power, and against that combined Administration, and that collusion[20] of power that was playing the land and sea into one another’s hands. He would pursue up the authors of such measures as make the King’s Crown totter on his head. That never was a noble country so perniciously neglected, so undone by the silly pride of one man,[21] or the timidity of his colleagues, who would share his power but not his danger. That this must one day be answered for, unless a fatal catastrophe from our hereditary enemy overtakes us. The peril comes from little struggles for a thing called power—is it the power of doing good? On an English question he would not hinder, but implore unanimity; would ask favours of any Minister for his country; would have gone that morning[22] to the honourable gentleman’s levée, to desire him to accept 50,000 seamen, not including marines. If he could obtain it, it would be the first thing done for this country since the peace of Aix. There would be proofs that this war had been colluded and abetted, till broad shame had stared them in the face, till shame and danger had come together. That he had been frightened into these sensations from the highest authority; that the House had adopted those terrors, and was willing to grant more assistance. The House indeed is a fluctuating body, but he hoped would be eternal. It was different from our councils, where everything was thought of but the public. On the contrary, we were a willing, giving House of Commons: the King might call for anything for an English object. That he did not dare to move for 10,000 more seamen, because he would not blemish unanimity. He concluded with a prayer for the King, for his posterity, for this poor, forlorn, distressed country.

Fox said, he was surprised that such a trifle as the reduction of 2000 seamen in 1751 should be made of such moment. So, not voting 2000 more, in a year after the war, was betraying this country! If voting one man more would raise one man, he would agree to it: but voting more, if they could not be raised, would only increase expense. That this number was greater than we had ever had on foot, even in declared wars against France and Spain. That he would never hear Mr. Pelham’s measures censured without defending them. That the reduction mentioned had been the consequence of Mr. Pelham’s economy, and of his provision against a war. He had discharged, too, artificers from the dockyards, and when Lord Anson represented against it, Mr. Pelham answered, you will never pay your debt, if you always go to the extent of what you can do. He had wanted, the same year, to reduce the garrison of Port Mahon, but was told by a great officer that Port Mahon could bear no diminution. With regard to struggles, he said, What the motives of these struggles have been, let those, who have struggled most and longest for power, tell. That for himself, he had been called to his present situation, and exerted his strength with cheerfulness upon a melancholy occasion. That we had been told that nobody who approached the King had sense and virtue; that sense and virtue are somewhere else—but how shall the King hear of them? he feared this House would not inform him. What conversation will lead him to that superior degree of it? that he would exert his degree as cheerfully as if he had struggled for it. Perhaps he had expressed his wishes for earlier augmentation. Mr. Pitt had asked, why it was not made sooner? he would ask, why not demanded sooner? why did Mr. Pitt not call sooner to arms? It came too late now, for no sense and virtue could be added to the reigning spirit of augmentation.

Mr. Pitt rose again, and said, that neither that day nor ever had he said that there were no sense and virtue near the Throne. If he had been misunderstood, he might too have been misrepresented. That if ever man had suffered by those stillettos of a Court which assassinate the fair opinion of a man with his master, he had. That the accusation of his having struggled for power had been received with such assent by the House, that he must speak to it. Was he accused of it, because he had not yielded to poor and sordid measures which he saw tended to destroy his country? That if he had, he might have been introduced to that august place. That it was impossible to go into all the private details of a whole summer, though compelled by such an uncandid manner. He should only say, he might have had, what the honourable gentleman at a long distance of time so gladly accepted. He had been unfortunate, but the measures were so ruinous that he could not with conscience and honour concur in them: would have strained the former a little, as far as to make a compliment, in order to be admitted to that august conversation. That having struggled for power was not the cause of his present situation. Was it not, that he could not submit to these treaties? The challenge, said he, is a bold one; let those who know the truth, tell it!—if they did not, he desired not their suffrage.

Fox rejoining, that the mention of struggles had called him up again, and that he had chosen to forget the gentleman’s former words of no sense and virtue near the Throne, Pitt interrupted him, and speaking to order, said, he averred on his honour those words were not his: his words had been, that France would found her hopes on the want of sense, understanding, and virtue, in those that govern here. That he had not interrupted Mr. Fox before, because he did not love to stop those whom plain truth would answer. Fox’s modesty had taken those words to himself. That nobody feared personal invectives less than himself, nor was he fond of using them. That he would not put the gentleman in mind of struggles to limit the power at which he had hinted. That he had urged these things strongly, in order to ground judicial proceedings. That Sir Thomas Robinson’s notable information of the answer of the Court of France to their merchants, had descended to the public papers. He must congratulate the Government on having some intelligence. Would France build too on his wishing for 50,000 seamen? He did believe our information would improve now Mr. Fox had got the Seals. Wished the latter would tell him what language to hold, which, instead of encouraging, would terrify France. He could not say he had treated Mr. Fox as the Minister—it was not quite that yet. He never went to the[23] place where so many bets were made, but, if he might talk familiarly, would bet on Mr. Fox’s sense and spirit—though some little things were against him.

“But he asks,” continued Pitt, “why I did not call out sooner? My calling out was more likely to defeat than promote. When I remonstrated for more seamen, I was called an enemy to Government: now I am told that I want to strew the King’s pillow with thorns: am traduced, aspersed, calumniated, from morning to night. I would have warned the King: did he? If he with his sense and spirit had represented to the King the necessity of augmentation, it would have been made—but what! if there is any man so wicked—don’t let it be reported that I say there is—as to procrastinate the importing troops from Ireland, in order to make subsidiary forces necessary! This whole summer,” continued he, “I have been looking for Government—I saw none—thank God! his Majesty was not here! the trade of France has been spared sillily—there has been a dead stagnation. Orders contradicting one another were the only symptoms of spirit. When his Majesty returned, his kingdom was delivered back to him more like a wreck, than as a vessel able to stem the storm. Perhaps a little sustentation of life to this country will be obtained by a wretched peace. These,” said he, “are my sentiments; and when a man has truth on his side, he is not to be overborne by quick interrogatories.” That he had not said a word of personality to Fox: that want of virtue was not only the characteristic of the Ministry, but of the age. That he was happy to show a zeal not inferior to that of the Ministers. Let them show him how to contribute to the King’s service, and then tax him with strewing the royal pillow with thorns! But what were the services of those who were so alert in loading him? Murray, indeed, had vaunted that 140,000 of the best troops in Europe were provided for the defence of Hanover—who boasts of what numbers are prepared for England? for America? Compare the countries, compare the forces that are destined for the defence of each! Two miserable battalions of Irish, who scarce ever saw one another, had been sent to America, had been sent to be sacrificed—if this parallel was exaggerated, he desired to be made happy by being told so.

Fox, with great temper, observed how unparliamentary it was to speak so long to order: said, he was glad to hear that he was not Minister, though he certainly had been treated so. That upon his honour he did not know to the offer of what Mr. Pitt had said no. He himself had stayed till everybody had said no. That he had lived near town[24] all the summer, as happy as any man that then heard him. His opinion had been for subsidies—was asked if it was: on affirming it, was told, “Then support them.” Would quit, when his opinion should be otherwise. Wished every ill might happen to him, if he had done Mr. Pitt any hurt in the closet: thought it the strongest point of honour not to accuse a man where he could not defend himself. If he underwent any loss of power, should be amply recompensed by not being treated as if he had it.

Fox, keeping thus almost wholly on the defensive, was chiefly to be admired for his great command of himself, which the warmth he had used to show now made remarkable. Murray, who had laid in wait to profit of any slips that Pitt might make in this contest, rose with an artful air of affected doubt; hinted at the irregularity of the Debate; observed that Mr. Pitt’s proposal of more seamen was unnecessary; “do not all estimates come from the Crown? The Ministers must know what supplies they shall want, and what to demand; invectives to be slighted—how great the power of eloquence that could dress up the want of 2000 men, in 1751, into the source of the war!—that there never was an honester man than the Minister who determined that reduction; thought he had died in friendship with that gentleman.” Pitt could not stand this severe reflection, but interrupted him to say, his friendship for Mr. Pelham had been as real as Murray’s. The latter, as if corrected, continued coolly, that Mr. Pelham had wanted to introduce a system of economy: were he alive, perhaps, we should have fewer struggles, if all who supported under him did still. He begged to ask one question; it was to clear up something to himself, and for the information of others: he believed those who sat near him understood that Mr. Pitt said he had refused Secretary of State;—pray had he? This cut still deeper. Pitt had certainly intended to insinuate so, but being pushed, replied, no, he had only refused to come into measures.[25]

I have dwelt the longer on this Debate, (though so little was said to the question, and though indeed there scarce was a question,) as it greatly opened the characters of the speakers, and tended to confirm the accounts I have given above.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] [This is inconsistent with his own account of the matter in his correspondence with Lord Hartington, for which see the Appendix to Lord Waldegrave’s Memoirs, where letters from Mr. Fox relating the whole of the transactions between him and Mr. Pitt in 1755 have been lately printed.]—E.

[5] It was strongly denied afterwards that Fox had any advantage from this, and Calcraft’s vast riches seemed to acquit Fox of that suspicion. Fox’s great fortune was accumulated during the time he was Paymaster, and at the peace in the next reign. (Author.)

[6] [If the motives of Mr. Fox were as sordid as they are described in the text, would they have induced him to quit “so unlimited and so lucrative a traffic,” for an office higher in rank, and greater in importance, but infinitely less profitable than the Author pretends the Secretaryship at War to have been?]—E.

[7] William Gerard Hamilton.

[8] William Gerard Hamilton.

[9] Mr. Pelham.

[10] Fox.

[11] Lord Egmont.

[12] Alluding to the Duke.

[13] Mr. Fox

[14] Duke of Newcastle.

[15] Lord Granville’s.

[16] Duke of Newcastle.

[17] Conduct of his Majesty’s affairs in the House of Commons.

[18] The letter produced by Mr. Townshend was given to him by Sir Edward Turner, who, on receiving it, said, “I am surprised he writes to me; I don’t know the gentleman,”—yet Mr. Fox had been the chief manager in the Oxford election, and had had the principal hand in bringing Sir Edward into the House.

[19] In the year 1751.

[20] See the Memoirs for that year.

[21] Duke of Newcastle.

[22] It was the morning of Mr. Fox’s first levée.

[23] To the club at Arthur’s, formerly White’s.

[24] At Holland-house.

[25] [Page 41].

[CHAPTER III.]

Earthquake at Lisbon—Debates on a Bill for distributing Prizes taken at Sea to the Captors—Speeches of Charles Townshend—George Granville, Fox, and Pitt—Debates on the Army Estimates—Speeches of Pitt, Fox, Charles Townshend, Lord George Sackville, and Beckford—Debates on the new Militia Bill, introduced by George Townshend—Speech of Pitt—Homage of Sir George Lyttelton to Pitt.

Towards the end of November came letters from Sir Benjamin Keene, confirming the dreadful accounts of the earthquake at Lisbon, on the first of the month—a catastrophe most terrible, and completed by the flames, that laid waste the remains of that miserable city. The Royal Family had escaped death by being at a villa without the town; but the richest sovereign in Europe beheld himself in a moment reduced to the most deplorable indigence. He wrote to his sister the queen of Spain, “Here I am, a King, without a capital, without subjects, without raiment!” The horror of the survivors was increased by the murders committed by robbers and assassins, to whom even this tragedy was a theatre of gain. The shocks and vibration of the earth continued for many months. It seemed some great and extraordinary convulsion of nature: many towns in Portugal and Spain, were destroyed, at least greatly damaged; but some degree of the concussion was felt even from Dantzic to the shores of Africa. In England it occasioned very novel phenomena: in some counties the waters of ponds and lakes were heaved up perpendicularly.

28th.—Mr. Fox read to the House of Commons Sir Benjamin Keene’s letter, and delivered a Message from his Majesty, desiring to be enabled to assist the distressed Portuguese and the English residing at Lisbon, to which the House immediately assented, and one hundred thousand pounds, part in money, part in provisions and utensils, were destined to that service, and dispatched as soon as possible.[26]

December 2nd.—Lord Pulteney moved for leave to bring in a Bill to encourage seamen, and to man the Navy—by distributing all prizes to the captors, was understood. “The Bill,” he said, “was not to take place till the present riddle of politics should be disclosed—till war should be declared in form.” The Bill was a copy of one introduced by his father, to cultivate popularity, and distress the Ministry, at the beginning of the late war with Spain, and had then passed. Lord Pulteney had vivacity, and did not want parts. He had been brought into Parliament by the Duke of Newcastle, with whom his father, deserted by all parties, and seeming indifferent to all, lived on amicable terms. Lord Pulteney had attached himself to the new Opposition. Mr. Pitt, too, was not quite excusable in having suffered himself to be elected into Parliament by the Duke of Newcastle, when it was so probable that he would not continue to serve under him.

The Motion was opposed by the ministerial people, on the impropriety of the time. It was well supported by Elliot, another of the new minority, who urged that it would prevent pressing, and quoted the tyranny and violence of that custom as practised in Scotland, though the people there [were] not backward to list. He said, it was with difficulty that he had prevailed on himself to mention this; but seeds of danger are generally sown in dangerous times. Ellis replied, that application ought to be made to the proper officers when there are grievances from soldiers; if redress denied, then to Parliament. That sailors were not backward to list till the number was exhausted. That pressing had been in use ever since the reign of Edward the Third. The Scotch Lord Advocate, Dundas, said, that his place would have let him know, if there had been complaints in Scotland of the nature mentioned: had heard but of three complaints, and on those, two had been released; the other was of a man pressed at the suit of his wife, to prevent his wasting hers and the subsistence of her children. That not a sixth part would have been enlisted without [the] assistance of the military. Elliot replied that he knew none of those three instances; he could quote twenty examples of towns invested by soldiers; had not meant to complain, but to encourage seamen without pressing.

Charles Townshend spoke severely and admirably on the long acquiescence of the Administration under the insults of France, and on the similar acquiescence of Parliament; yet, he said, he could not discover whether the Ministers intended peace or war. If war, was it wrong to defend ourselves? If peace, as he believed,—if they could get it—did they mean to command or to supplicate it?—did they mean to make the Navy as useless as the Army? What a situation! Administration weakening Government, and Opposition supporting it! and Opposition discountenanced for supporting it! If a gentleman, with virtue unparalleled, offered anything for his country, he was to be removed, as if whoever would strengthen Government was obnoxious to it. What would the people think if our Ministers professed being alarmed, and yet refused to accept support? Could it be supposed that France was still to receive her first impression of our warlike disposition from leave that the House might give for a Bill that was to be brought in, that should say, that if there shall be a war, and we shall make any prizes, we would then divide them amongst the captors? Of no consequence would the Bill be, if the Administration should have power to get a peace, which he did not believe they would, as they refused to accept the power. That the only prematurity was in getting the Bill ready against it was necessary. He desired to leave to others the sort of spirit that did not strengthen, and the sort of moderation that did not prepare for war: the latter was only submission, miscalled moderation, and had brought on a system which our united Ministers could not undo.

Nugent said, when war should be declared, the same thing would be done in part, and, therefore, was no encouragement now. Captures before a declaration are generally given up. Nobody but the Ministers knew how little farther you could go, without engaging Spain against us. What had been done was to prevent invasion, and the manning of the French Navy. This war was unpopular in France: don’t make it popular. Stanley declared for the previous question, as a negative would make the present seamen think that they are not to share as well as the future. Sir Richard Lyttelton vaunted much the service he had done in getting the word lawful restored in the Mutiny Bill, which had he desired at the office he should have been thought impertinent. Sir Robert Walpole, with a venal Parliament, had not stifled the former Bill thus. Beckford said, nobody would suspect him of being an enemy to the Navy, who had the greatest part of his fortune afloat. That he would not give the whole prize to the captors, but would regulate it. That this Bill had not had a good effect in the last war; it had made our men attack the enemy, but neglect our own trade. That the Jehoiakim and other Spanish prizes had been condemned before the declaration of the last war; and these would be so. He preferred war to uncertain peace.

The chief passages of a fine emphatic speech of George Grenville were, “That we were in a state of war for subsidies, of peace for our Navy. When we should come to debate the treaties, all the talk would be war; to-day, all was peace. France had much to restore before she had any right to restitution; ought to refund all the expense she had driven us into. Sir Robert Walpole was not too precipitate, yet two years before the war he did not call this Bill premature. Why this overstrained civility to France? The Newspapers said 250,000l. had been remitted from France to create divisions in Parliament. He did not complain of such scandal as this—nay, was glad that freedom of writing was encouraged by authority. The time was come when our calamities would open the mouths of all that could speak, and would incite the pens of all that could write; yet he did not mean to speak indecently, or write licentiously. He should thank Heaven, with Timoleon, if Syracuse were so free, that the most profligate in it might abuse the best and highest. For the previous question: would seamen, he asked, understand the meaning of it, when it was scarce clear enough for the comprehension of the House?”

Fox censured the irregularity of the Debate, and sneered at pathetic discourses upon such immaterial occasions. He said he should be for giving the whole capture of those who made, or should attempt to make, prizes; that is, he would reserve a portion for those who sought them without success. That the whole dispute turned upon the word now. If sailors did not understand the previous question, the more pity that the Bill should be moved, when it was necessary to put that question. He wished that all who remembered Sir Robert Walpole thought of him as he did. Was Sir Robert Walpole forced into a war by a venal House of Commons? It had hurt his country more than him. “For the Mutiny Bill, you, Sir,” said he, addressing himself to the Speaker, “would not have let me leave out the word lawful surreptitiously. He who has said what he has of Sir Robert Walpole, may say that of me in the next sentence; I shall like it the better. But the word lawful was not necessary; who is to obey unlawful commands? It was restored to please Sir Richard; he did not know, he said, if it had pleased anybody else.” He did not think it would have been remembered by Lyttelton seven years afterwards, as the great action of his life, for which this country was indebted to him. That this was making war by a Parliamentary side-wind; that if these prizes proved very considerable, he would not restore them without a good peace. Why was the previous question urged, but from the unwillingness of the Administration to reject the Bill? Would you give the seamen hopes when you are not sure that you can condemn and distribute these prizes? He was sorry they had not been called brave that day, without the mention of their views of gain! Don’t make yourselves ridiculous to Europe, by giving what you have not to give. He advised them to withdraw their Motion, and Address for declaration of war; he should not concur with them, but it would be more consistent behaviour.

Pitt said it did Granville honour to be told ironically and maliciously of his pathetic speech by Fox, who had spoken logically, not feelingly, and who, he wished, would think farther than that little, narrow now. For himself, he had always spoken, all that Minister’s family had heard him speak, with respect of Sir Robert Walpole, after the determination of his power—these last words occasioned a laugh:—Pitt angrily and haughtily told them it was a blundering laugh: was it or was it not more honourable to respect a man after his power determined? He defended Sir Richard Lyttelton as having mentioned the Mutiny Bill properly, in consequence of Elliot’s account, which he threatened should have its day of consideration. He laughed at the more than Stoic patience of the Administration, talked up the American war, and concluded that the French prizes were reserved as a deposit to recover Hanover; he could account for this unintelligible tenderness no other way. Sir Richard Lyttelton said he honoured Fox in his private character, but believed that if he had the same power as Sir Robert Walpole, he would not use it with the same moderation. Murray insisted that this Bill was taking from the King his prerogative of declaring war. Dr. Hay was warmly for the Bill, especially as it would demand much time to amend it, and as warm against what he called the detestable practice of pressing. Legge asked, what was this so critical now, that this Bill would turn the scale? had France forgot all our hostilities, and would she resent this simple Bill? Why should Spain resent it? He never, he said, could hear Sir Robert Walpole mentioned without expressing his veneration; he was an honour to human nature, and the peculiar friend to Great Britain. The previous question was put and carried by 211 to 81. The Bill was afterwards passed with modifications on the declaration of war.

December 5th.—William, Duke of Devonshire, died of a dropsy. I have nothing to add of the account given of him in the first part of these Memoirs, but what showed a conscientious idea of honesty in him; and, though the circumstance is trifling, a virtue is always worth recording. Sometime before his death he had given up to two of his younger sons 600l. a year in land, that they might not perjure themselves, if called upon to swear to their qualifications, as Knights of the Shire.

The same day the new Secretary at War moved for an Army of 34,263 men, which was an augmentation of 15,000 men, the extent of what could be raised at that time in such a country as England; in poor countries levies are made with more facility. When this should be completed, a farther increase was intended. Eight thousand eight hundred men were designed for North America; where two battalions had disgraced their country. Lord Barrington commended the North Americans, extolled Braddock, who, he said, had been basely traduced; praised Nova Scotia, Lord Halifax, and Cornwallis.

Pitt, in one of his finest florid declamations, seconded the Motion, adding, that last year he had pronounced 18,000 men not sufficient; our whole force was necessary at this dangerous and critical conjuncture. Other efforts were requisite than sending two miserable battalions to America as victims. Every step since had tended to provoke a war, not to make it—and at last the Crown itself was to be fought for by so ineffective or so raw an Army! He hoped, by alarming the nation, to make the danger reach the ears of His Majesty, who was likely, after so gracious a reign, to be attacked in his venerable age! to see such a country exposed by the neglect of his Ministers! He could not avoid turning from the venerable age of the King, to his amiable posterity, born among us, yet given up by some unskilful Minister or Ministers!—yet he meaned no invectives; he made no accusation; he spoke from his feeling.

He then drew a striking and masterly picture of a French invasion reaching London, and of the horrors ensuing, while there was a formidable enemy within the capital itself, as full of weakness as full of multitude; a flagitious rabble, ready for every nefarious action: of the consternation that would spread through the City, when the noble, artificial, yet vulnerable fabric of public credit should crumble in their hands! How would Ministers be able to meet the aspect of so many citizens dismayed? How could men so guilty meet their countrymen? How could a British Parliament assemble without these considerations? The King’s Speech of last year had been calculated to lull us into a fallacious dream of repose—or had his Ministers not had understanding, or foresight, or virtue,—he repeated the words, that he might not be misquoted,—had they had none of these qualifications to prompt them to lay the danger before his Majesty? Was it not a proof of his assertions, that where his Majesty himself had a foresight even of fancied, not threatened, danger, we knew what provision, vast provision had been made? did the subjects of the Crown want a feeling which the subjects of the Electorate possessed in so quick a degree? did he live to see the day, when a British Parliament had felt so inadequately? That there were but ten thousand men in this part of the United Kingdom; that not more than half would be left to defend the Royal Family and the metropolis; and half security is full and ample danger.

Accursed be the man, and he would have the malediction of his country, who did not do all he could to strengthen the King’s hands! he would have him strengthened by laying open the weakness of his Councils; would substitute reality to incapacity and futility, and the little frivolous love of power. To times of relaxation should be left that fondness for disposal of places: wisdom ought to meet such rough times as these. It was that little spirit of domination that had caused the decay of this country, that ambition of being the only figure among ciphers: when that image was first used, perhaps it was prophecy, to-day it was history. Two hundred and eighty thousand pounds, the charge of this augmentation, would last year have given us security: for that sum our Stocks would fall, and hurry along with them the ruin of this City, vulnerable in proportion to its opulence. In other countries, treasures remain where a city is not sacked; paper credit may be invaded even in Kent; it is like the sensitive plant, it need not be cropped; extend but your hand, it withers and dies. The danger had been as present last year to any eye made for public councils; for what is the first attribute of a wise Minister, but to leave as little as possible to contingents? How do thoughtlessness, folly, and ignorance, differ from wisdom and knowledge, but by want of foresight?

He would not recur, like Lord Barrington, to the Romans for comparisons; our own days had produced as great examples. In 1746, thirteen regiments raised by noblemen, who, though they did not leave their ploughs, left their palaces, had saved this country; he believed it. With what scorn, depression, cruelty, as far as contempt is cruelty, were they treated by the hour! with what calumny! He wished the Government would encourage the Nobility and Gentry to form a militia, as a supplement to the Army. He wanted to call this country out of that enervate state, that twenty thousand men from France could shake it. The maxims of our Government were degenerated, not our natives. He wished to see that breed restored, which under our old principles had carried our glory so high! What would the age think they deserved, who, after Washington was defeated and our forts taken—who, after connivance, if not collusion, had advised his Majesty to trust to so slender a force?—on cool reflection, what would they deserve? He did not call for the sagacity of a Burleigh or a Richelieu to have foreseen all that must happen—that may happen in two months. He had no vindictive purpose, nor wanted to see penal judgments on their heads: our calamities were more owing to the weakness of their heads than of their hearts.

Fox replied, he wished Mr. Pitt had made this awakening speech when we were asleep, and before France had awakened us: but the honourable gentleman had judged by the event; if he had foreseen, he would undoubtedly have made this noble speech sooner: “if he had made it,” said Fox, “I am sure I should have remembered it; I am not apt to forget his speeches. Was it ever in that House reckoned virtue to advise the King to ask more money? it was rather a mark of understanding than of virtue. Let Pitt prescribe a method to quicken recruiting; let him set to a Militia Bill. Yet,” said he, “I have been told by a wise man, that it is too nice a line to draw a scheme for a militia in the hands of the Crown; the House alone could do it.” Yet he should think it less to be despaired of, since Mr. Pitt thought it practicable. That the scheme for recruiting must be to enlist for a term of years. That the total silence of Parliament was an excuse for not having made the augmentation sooner. With regard to the thirteen regiments, he would always own if he repented, or persist if he thought his opinion right. He remembered at that time there was a noble Duke[27] able and willing, (thank God! he was able and willing now,) at the closet-door, who, as soon as it was opened, went in and offered his service, saying, he would go with his Lowlanders and see if he could not oppose those Highlanders:—he remembered another anecdote; he was now forced to tell it; it was a scheme for a cheap regiment of Dragoons, which, by another Duke,[28] was converted into two dear regiments of Horse—but he would ask, did all those Noblemen act from public spirit? did they all raise their regiments? there had been a mixture which he wanted to unmix.

Pitt answered; why had he not alarmed last year? he had been deluded by the speech. Those then in the confidence of the Minister—Fox then was not of the number—declared they did not believe we should have a war: could he believe it in defiance of that speech, smoothing over all the horrors of our situation? The Ministers could no longer secrete our danger; they had concealed it for fear of awakening speeches. Could he pronounce those speeches, till overpowered by the conjuncture? he did in private: while he was suffered to represent in private, he did—now we must sound the alarum in Parliament, when we have invited into our bowels a war that was the child of ignorance and connivance—if there is justice under Heaven, the Ministers must one day answer it.

Thus far the Debate was serious: will it be credited that the following speech was so? Will not my narrative be sometimes thought a burlesque romance? as Don Quixote had his Sancho, and Hudibras his Ralph, may not some future commentator discover, that the Duke of Newcastle was my trembling hero, and Nugent his abandoned squire? This modest personage replied to Pitt, that he thought the Administration wise and honest; that he did not think there was a more honest set of men. Could Pitt have said more, if all had happened that he thinks will? Everything was exaggerated, yet nothing had been done wrong. That he would defend the Ministry till five in the morning. Though engaged against the greatest power in the universe, in every part of the universe, have we proved weak? That this foolish—Pitt objecting that he had not used that term, Nugent continued,—he thought he had used every epithet in the English language—well then! this weak and ignorant Administration had contrived to oppose a superiority of force, and had miscarried but in one place. That he did not wonder Pitt expected everything from this Administration—but he expected more. That though the censure had been so unjust, he could not help knowing at whom it was aimed: but great history-painters are often very bad portrait-painters: he must own he knew who was meant; professed himself a friend to that great man: vowed he never heard any doubt of who ought to be First Minister—but, like the dedication of the Tale of the Tub to Lord Somers, all men agreed in the Duke of Newcastle. France never made so pitiful a figure as against this Administration. Pitt’s were but assertions; his assertions were as good; he would say, the Duke of Newcastle was honest and wise.

The burlesque increased; Sir Thomas Robinson played a base to Nugent’s thunder; his pompous rumbling made proper harmony with the other’s vociferation. The latter had exhausted flattery on another man; Sir Thomas contrived to be as bombast in a panegyric on himself. He said, he had been banished[29] for eighteen years, without a friend to communicate with; with no opportunity of practising eloquence, with no university education—yet he must speak, as complicated in the charge on the Administration of the last twelve months. He cried out, “Me, me adsum qui feci, in me convertite telum! If I am proper for anything, continued he, I am for the closet: I am proper for it from my courage, from my virtue, do not say for my understanding. I have enjoyed a happier year and half than ever I knew, for I have spoken my mind. Why should I not have dared to speak my mind in the closet, when I have dared to speak it here? Men took courage from what I said; virtue was out of my mouth. Et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis? Why is forgot what we have done by sea? We have acted fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.”

Charles Townshend observed, that every body had defended only their own part, nobody the system. Who would defend the melancholy state of America? There, when the plan of Lord Halifax, so singular in his attention, had been embraced, why was it not supported? because we chose to set up negotiation against force. He then gave a detail of the French encroachments, of our supineness, of the neglect of the Massachusets, and of our suffering the French to settle the disputed territories. If the course of all these measures was not changed, our situation would be incapable of amendment by honester hearts and wiser heads. At least, if the Administration would not change their measures, let them be defended by Sir Thomas Robinson—nobody had defended them better!

Lord George Sackville, in a manly, sensible speech, said, he should be so unfashionable as to speak to the question—if there were crimes, let them be alleged. The country was exposed; he did not know who was guilty. He knew who made provision against our danger; the King. No dispositions being made but to guard Scotland and this metropolis, evinced our weakness. But look south, look west, what defence was there? where was there any? it was all in your fleet. Where was your local defence? no country had so little. Where was your militia? only in the Orders of the Council. One recommended it to another, the Lord-Lieutenant to the Deputy-Lieutenant. In his profession it was fashionable to laugh at militias; he wished to see one. Let us not lie tempting the enemy to revenge; our most essential part, the docks, were unfortified. He recommended expedition, excused the completing the two Irish battalions, which were small, in Ireland, because if they had been recruited with Americans, it was feared they would disagree. Of Braddock he said, “he died in his country’s cause, and therefore, if I thought ill of him, I would not say it.”

It had been a day of rodomontade; Beckford finished the debate with one, declaring, that the Americans looked upon him as their representative, and transmitted their grievances to him. That a letter had been sent to him which had gone to the Plantations, and had puzzled him; they did not know how to act. Having demanded how they were to behave on the encroachments of the French, they were told, “repel force”—so far was right—what followed was the postscript of a woman’s letter—it said, “take care not to repel force, but on your own limits”—and those limits were then undecided, and were settling by Commissaries! He wished, he said, to give courage; the French were more frightened than you; and you seemed tolerably frightened. Their silence proceeded from imbecility; they had entered upon this war too soon: he hoped “we should be economic, that we should not have more than 34,000 men, and no compulsory laws.” There was no division. A day or two afterwards, the Bill for pressing, as practised in the two last wars, was revived.

The letter which Beckford mentioned had been written by Lord Holderness to the Governors of our Colonies. Charles Townshend had intended to make great use of it in his meditated attack on the Ministry, for their tame and negligent administration of the Plantations. He was hurt at Beckford’s premature disclosure of what he intended as a real charge. How his American campaign was prevented will be seen hereafter.

Another topic of the Debate calls for a few words. In the time of the Rebellion thirteen Lords had offered to raise regiments of their own dependents, and were allowed. Had they paid them too, the service had been noble. Being paid by the Government, obscured a little of the merit—being paid without raising them, would deserve too coarse a term. It is certain that not six of the thirteen regiments ever were raised—not four were employed. If, then, they saved this country, as Mr. Pitt asserted, it was by preventing risings in the counties where they were stationed. Did those that were not raised, prevent insurrections? or did those that were raised, and were led out of their counties, prevent them? The chief persons at the head of this scheme were the Dukes of Bedford and Montagu. The former raised and served with his regiment. The Duke of Montagu, who thought he could never get too much from the Government, or give away enough to the poor, had the profit of two regiments. Mr. Fox had warmly attacked this plan, especially on the design of giving rank to the officers; and had made a great breach amongst the ministerial people: yet it was carried. Pitt, at that period connected with the Duke of Bedford, had supported the scheme: it was artful in him now to revive the remembrance of it, when Fox was possessed of the Duke of Bedford.

8th.—George Townshend moved for a Committee of the Whole House to consider the Laws relating to the Militia, in order to bring in a new Bill, and establish a real Militia. It is too well known, to recapitulate what disputes this subject had occasioned in the reign of Charles the First. The apprehension of reviving those contests had contributed to let the topic lie almost in oblivion; the footing which a regular Army had gained in this country had concurred to throw disrepute upon it. The foolish exercises of the Trained Bands in the city, gave it a total air of ridicule. Yet the very establishment of an Army inspired many with wishes for a more constitutional defence. Oppositions, from the very spirit of party, had frequently attempted a revival of the Militia. Opposition to the Duke, who had drawn his notions of war from the purest German classics, prompted his enemies to promote whatever he would dislike. Foreign forces introduced to save a country like this, made it shameful not to listen to any expedient that could place defence in the hands of the natives. The difficulties of establishing a Militia in an age of customs and manners so different were almost insuperable. The country gentlemen themselves felt the impracticability, or the inconveniences, if practicable; yet the theme was become too popular to be withstood; and many gave into the scheme, trusting to its defeating itself.

Pitt, who by no means thought it feasible, yet knowing that it would either be rejected by the Ministry, or fall by its own difficulties, resolved to lose no merit with those who thought it could be effected, and accordingly unfolded a plan for it himself. He opened it with a plain precision, and went through with a masterly clearness. His memory in the details was as great as the capacity he showed for business. He had never shone in this light before.

He said, he would do himself real honour by seconding a gentleman of a family that had preserved so exact a medium between duty to the Crown and to their country. Yet, though Mr. Townshend’s friend and servant, he should have no hope, unless Government, the Army, the Law, and what in this case was most material, the Country Gentlemen, would give their assistance. He unfortunately was out of all these descriptions. He knew no secrets of Government, he had too early been driven[30] from the profession of arms, he had never studied the law; he was no country gentleman. It was perhaps rash in him, for it was dangerous for any man, to touch our constitution, which had not been the result of chance, but of the wisdom of ages: he only spoke to call Government not to sit with their arms across. But indeed here the country gentleman would be more first Minister than any Minister in the land. He would venture, too, to offer some considerations. The heads of his scheme were, that the Militia should be reduced to about 50,000 or 60,000; a kind of half-trained Army. That the Crown, which now was not at liberty to march them out of their several counties, should have that power. That there should be a compulsory call under the civil power. Should be all Foot. That he hoped never to see the standing Army less than 18,000: the Militia, as a supplement, that we may not be looking all round the world for subsidiary troops. That it must be a lasting body, paid and clothed. Should be exercised twice a week. Should be reviewed four times a year by the Lord Lieutenants of counties, and by Generals of the King’s Army. Should have the same pay as the Foot soldiers, but with plain clothing, not pretending to all the lustre of an Army. What, if they should be exercised on Sundays after church?—unless the Clergy or Dissenters disapproved it. He would retract this proposal, if it gave offence. The exercise comprehending 110 days, if they were to be exercised on Sundays, and one other day of the week, with sixpence a day, they would receive a shilling for losing one day in a week from their work.

He would have no deduction from their pay, but would have their clothes provided for them, which, with being sure of a shilling a week all the year round, might be a compensation. That they should wear their clothes three years, and only when exercised. The officers to have no pay, but a qualification in land in their own county, or being sons of a larger estate—for instance, of 1500l. a year. Not to be under military law, but subject to civil punishment in time of peace. When marched, to be subject to military discipline; for what is martial law, but growing out of the nature of the service, which is not the laws of peace? That there could not be too many Serjeants to such companies. Would have private soldiers of the Army for Serjeants of Militia. Not fewer than four Serjeants to eighty men. That the Crown should name an Army Adjutant with Serjeant’s pay. That the expense would not rise to near what would be imagined; would come under 300,000l. What millions had gone out of England for the last thirty years, which this expense would have saved! What an inglorious picture for this country, to figure gentlemen driven by an invasion like a flock of sheep, and forced to send their money abroad to buy courage and defence! If this scheme should prove oppressive, provincially or parochially, he was willing to give it up: but how preferable to waiting to see if the wind would blow you subsidiary troops! You would never want them again—they are an eye-sore! He praised the Army and its constitutional inclinations; and observed what stability a Militia would give to our system.

This speech in its material parts was made the groundwork of the subsequent Bill; the discussion of which took up many and very long days. The Speaker gave great assistance; so did Lord George Sackville. The Ministry early, at last the House itself, except about a dozen persons, totally deserted attendance upon the Bill. As it did not pass the Lords, I shall drop any farther account of it, till it came thither, except to mention some pretty homage which Sir George Lyttelton’s awe made him pay to the genius of his offended friend Mr. Pitt. After the latter’s exposition of his plan, Sir George compared a Militia to the longitude, necessary, but hitherto sought in vain. He had often, he said, heated his imagination with the topic, but his judgment had cooled it again. If soldiers assisted the plan, he should hope better of it; they might avoid the errors of civil men. That hints from Mr. Pitt were important advices; a sketch from him was almost a finished picture: but it ought to be finished, the lines should be very correct. The whole people would not betray the whole people, but sixty thousand might. The most material part of our affairs was our finances; if this institution would hurt them, it was not admissible. The smaller the number, the more practicable; yet there might be danger of another kind. He never wished to see Foreigners, but when no other force was to be had. With ever so great a Militia, you may want them; you cannot march Militia abroad.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Vide Hampton’s Polybius, p. 537, where the Rhodians, on a like catastrophe, received parallel assistance.

[27] Duke of Bedford.

[28] Duke of Montagu.

[29] Minister at Vienna, &c.

[30] He had been Cornet of Horse, and was broken at the time of the Excise, when his uncle Lord Cobham and Lord Westmorland lost their regiments.

[CHAPTER IV.]

Debates on the Treaties in the House of Lords, and in the Commons—Affair of Hume Campbell and Pitt—Hanover and our Foreign Relations—Speech of Charles Townshend—Foreign Powers subsidized by England—Changes in the Administration—Lord Ligonier and the Duke of Marlborough—Pensions granted to facilitate Ministerial Changes—Parliamentary Eloquence—Comparison of celebrated Orators—Charles Townshend, Lord George Sackville, Henry Conway, and Mr. Pitt.

December 10th.—The treaties were considered in both Houses. In the Lords, Earl Temple, in a very long and very indifferent speech, in which there was nothing remarkable but his saying, that we were become an insurance-office to Hanover, moved for a censure on the treaties. Lord Chesterfield defended them with great applause. The turn of his speech was to ascribe the clamour against Hanover to the Jacobites, and to ridicule them. He talked much on the Rebellion, on the intended insurrection, for which Sir John Cotton’s resigning his employment was to have been the signal, and of Marshal Saxe’s projected invasion, or chimère, in 1744. He was to have brought 12,000 saddles, his Lordship supposed, for disaffected horses. A Jacobite might think he could answer for horses; he does think he can answer for what is as little governable. He went through a deduction of the history of England since the reign of Queen Elizabeth, with regard to the continent—of James the First, he said, he had other things to think of—he was writing against witches and tobacco.

Lord Marchmont was more severe on Lord Temple, and said, he could not pretend to keep steady those cock-boats of eloquence. He believed their intentions right, but they might do much mischief by raising such animosities. If a man kills one, what satisfaction to be told, that he only intended to maim? If that House was burned down, what indemnification would it be, that they meaned only to set fire to these treaties with a farthing candle? He concluded with saying, that he had heard this measure compared to the Trojan horse, filled with armed men—but that was not the cause of complaint—the persons in Opposition were angry that they were not to bridle and saddle it.

The Duke of Bedford spoke for the treaties; Lord Ravensworth against them, and against the censure of them too. The Chancellor spoke severely against Lord Temple, and fulsomely and indecently; seeing the Prince of Wales there taking notes, he said, he now began to have hopes of him; hoped he would be the father of all his subjects; flattered the Duke; and said of the Ministers, they were sometimes painted like angels, sometimes like monsters. Lord Temple repaid the invective. He did not know, he said, whom he had painted as angels; he had some time ago heard one man[31] painted as a monster—he did not know how he would be represented now. Remembered how he had formerly been drawn into a measure[32] himself, for tearing away a favourite servant from the King, by those who had since adopted that Minister’s measures. He wished that Minister had remained; his measure would not be mangled now by blundering cobblers. Lord Halifax spoke warmly against German measures; and called the present the most expensive funeral of our expiring country that ever was furnished by a rash undertaker. Lord Pomfret, as earnest, called on the Bishops to prevent the effusion of Christian blood. The Duke of Newcastle, Lord Holderness, Lord Morton, and Lord Raymond, spoke for the treaties; and Lord Cathcart, in vindication of the behaviour of the Hessians in the last war; and then the censure being rejected by 85 to 12, Lord Egremont and Lord Ilchester moved for approbation of the treaties; and the House broke up at ten at night.

The Commons sat to the same hour. Lord Barrington moving to refer the treaties to the Committee; Potter opposed it, affirming that the treaties were unconstitutional acts, and express violations of the Act of Settlement, for which reason he would not enter into the merits; any treaty for Hanover, whether subsidiary or not, made without consent of Parliament, being such an infringement. He only observed that the stipulations with Hesse were so loose, that for 8000 men, we might be engaged in a war of twenty years for the Landgrave, if attacked by whomsoever. That these questions might involve us in a war for Hanover—ergo, were a violation of the Settlement. The appropriation of the late Vote of Credit to these subsidies was a violation too of that. He was running into strong censure, but checked himself, saying, he could not call it a profligate age, when such men had fallen victims to their integrity! Potter’s manner was at once important and languid, and consequently effaced impressions as fast as he made them. Sir George Lyttelton insisted that the express defence of England and her Allies was provided for by the Hessian treaty. And Lord Duplin excused the application of the Vote of Credit, as intended to enable us to furnish our contingents. Fox told Potter that his accusation was too weighty for his conclusion; was he content, after charging such crimes, with preventing the treaties from being referred to the Committee? Martin replied, that, considering what name was involved in these negotiations, a rejection was thought more decent than a censure.

The Duke of Newcastle, apprehending that Murray might skirmish too cautiously with Pitt, and that Fox, though he might combat him, might not much defend his Grace, had selected another champion, who was equal to any Philippic, and whom he would for that purpose have made Paymaster, if Fox had not withstood it. This was Hume Campbell, who for some time had deserted Opposition, and almost Parliament, and had applied himself entirely to his profession of the Law, which he was at once formed to adorn and to suit, for he was eloquent, acute, abusive, corrupt, and insatiable. He began with professing his reverence for the Act of Settlement, as the act of King William, to whom we owed our existence as a Parliament: yet, said he, “the sense of the House should be taken in form on the legality or illegality of the measure: the charge ought to be well made out: if not illegal, let the House punish the eternal invectives.” Pitt called him to order, and told him, he thought he was too good a member of Parliament, to describe Debates in that manner. Old Horace Walpole answered, that Pitt ought to be the last man in the House to complain of irregularity. This occasioned much disorder. Pitt said, he had risen to put Hume Campbell in mind of words that struck directly at the liberty of Debate: that he had him in his power if he insisted on taking down the words, but would decline, till he had explained himself. Hume Campbell then continued, in a masterly speech, to censure the unlimited reflections that were daily thrown on the Ministers; adding, that when people made charges on acts of State, they ought to be obliged to make them out. He mentioned Sir William Thompson’s accusation of Lord Lechmere, and other cases, which had been voted scandalous and malicious. Hard would it be, if that House might not resent unjust accusations of our superiors. When they happen in crowded houses,[33] strangers take notes, and the abuse is dispersed to the most mischievous purposes. In 1745, invectives scattered there, were transplanted into the Pretender’s manifestos. He lamented their misleading his unhappy countrymen;[34] and owned that he was but too apt to be warm himself.

Then passing to the objections raised from the Act of Settlement, he said, he should pay no compliment to it; it had been intended a censure on King William: the clause specified was only declaratory, and did not take away from the Crown the power of making treaties. In 1727, a treaty of mutual guarantee was made with the Court of Wolfenbuttle, and was signed by great men and Whigs, by the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Trevor, Lord Townshend, and by the greatest of all, Sir Robert Walpole: it was debated, written against, yet was never once thought a violation of the Settlement. Afterwards, when a Motion was made for removing Sir Robert Walpole, there wanted no abilities to charge him; there was only wanting fact and evidence; but the House called for facts, not speeches; for evidence, not assertions. No man dreamed of such a breach of the constitution; yet had it been so, the treaty was a fact, and Sir Robert’s name to it was evidence. The present treaties were a great system of preventive measures:—what was the most hostile part of them? that levelled against Prussia—yet that Prince could not be sorry that we should have future greatness: his maxim was, that no Ally can be well worth keeping, unless they can do without you. In the present case, that King may be glad to plead his fear of the Russians, against admitting the French into Germany. For his own part, he would rather censure the negotiators than the treaties themselves, which were calculated for the interests, and Navy, and commerce of Britain. But if the Ministers were so guilty as was pretended, the times were too dangerous not to remove them. He concluded with a short defence of himself, denied being in the power of any individual, and said he must plead as an excuse of his egotism that rule of Plutarch, never to say anything in defence of yourself, but when mankind could not possibly know it without; let his warmth be taken as a proof of his honesty.

Vyner remarked, that Lord Chancellor King had long refused to enrol the treaty of Wolfenbuttle. George Granville pointed out the impropriety of referring illegal papers, to see if the Committee would grant money on them; and the impossibility of forming a charge in the Committee, instead of giving money: or the absurdity of giving money, and then considering whether it was legal or not. He taxed it with being unparliamentary language to say that the Act of Settlement was formed by the enemies of the House of Hanover; were Lord Wharton, Lord Somers, enemies? If that doctrine should prevail, the same might be said of the Bill of Rights: all our Statute Books might be erased, might be called founded on disrespect. This indeed would be a way of restraining Debates, to call them acts of hostility. Why the treaty of Wolfenbuttle avoided censure was, the King’s having been empowered the year before to contract alliances for defence of Hanover. Would anybody agree to refer the treaty in question to the Committee, because they did not believe it would engage us in a war for Hanover? What had proved to be the intent of the former treaty with Russia? When England was attacked in 1745, and we did not reclaim our money from Russia (about 400,000l.), it marked that treaty to have related only to Hanover. But we made treaties when we ought to deliberate, and deliberated when we ought to act. If the Hessians were retained in June for fear of an invasion, were they ready now in December? could they be ready under three months? and wherefore had we taken no other precautions? Were these Hessians all-sufficient? He wished our situation were such, that the authors of this measure were to be envied! If their negotiations were approved by the Committee, could they afterwards be impeached? He did not wonder, therefore, that they pushed on this method.

Murray answered, that the sense of the House on the legality might be taken collaterally in the Committee—but were we engaged, or to be engaged, in a war for Hanover? The first Act of Settlement, which obliged Privy Councillors to sign their opinions, had been repealed by Lord Somers himself. That, allowing the present charge, the Act would not be infringed till the troops were reclaimed. But these arguments would disable the King from leaving a single clause in a treaty for his Electoral defence. If this treaty violated the Act of Settlement, it had been broken by all defensive treaties; had been broken by the Quadruple Alliance. That treaty engaged the contracting Powers mutually to defend all the dominions of each other; and if the stipulated succours proved insufficient, they were to engage in a war. It was the same in the treaty of Hanover. But the bare conclusion of the treaty was never charged. In the year 1739 we contracted for Hessians and Danes; it was thought prudent to secure them, though we were then involved only in a war with Spain: no previous application had been made to Parliament. All subsequent subsidiary treaties had been concluded in the same way. We could not enjoy the blessing of the present Royal Family without the inconveniences. In the year 1740 a Vote of Credit had been applied in the same manner. But granting it perverted, would the misapplication spoil the treaty?

Pitt, after Hume Campbell’s attack, had let these discussions intervene, as if taking time to collect his anger. He rose at last, aggravating by the most contemptuous looks, and action, and accents, the bitterest and most insulting of all speeches. Such little matter, he said, had been offered on the defensive side, that he did not know where to go. Had Hume Campbell had anything else to say, he would not have dwelt for half an hour on the treaty of Wolfenbuttle—and what had he produced? a list of Lords who signed it! How were their names to induce the House to refer these treaties to a Committee? such poor little shifts and evasions might do in a pie-poudre-court;[35] they were unworthy a great House of Parliament. Once Hume Campbell had been his great friend, and they had trod the same paths of invectives[36] together, which now the other wanted to have punished, so ready was he, by a side-wind, to level the laws, and so fond of superiors! Nay, he had urged that the Act of Settlement was not obligatory till the treaties were ratified! he prayed to Heaven, that doctrines, dangerous as manifestos, might not prevail there! The gentleman had dared to avow such doctrine—but a Court could never want one servile lawyer for any purpose. In the profligate, prerogative reign of James the First, when a great Duke[37] was at the head of power, even that House of Commons possessed a member who dared to call him Stellionatus.[38] And there did not want a servile lawyer to call for punishment on the honest burgess.

“We have a King who disdains to keep pace with such a servile lawyer—but,” said he, (turning, and directly nodding at Hume Campbell, who sat three benches above him,) “I will not dress up this image under a third person; I apply it to him; his is the slavish doctrine, he is the slave; and the shame of this doctrine will stick to him as long as his gown sticks to his back—but his trade is words; they were not provoked by me—but they are not objects of terror, but of my contempt and ridicule. Then,” said he, turning to Murray, “I would come to another learned gentleman, but it is difficult to know where to pull the first thread from a piece so finely spun. Constructions ought never to condemn a great Minister, but I think this crime of violating the Act of Settlement is within the letter. If the dangerous illegality of it is to be inquired into, it should be referred to a Committee of the Whole House, not to a Committee of Supply. Inquired into it must be: will I suffer an audacious Minister to run before Parliament? I do not say superiors, I hate that miserable poor word; but if a Cabinet have taken on them to conclude subsidiary treaties without consent of Parliament, shall they not answer it?” He affirmed that there was not the smallest similarity between these and the treaties quoted. In 1717 and 1718 the Ministers stated dangers from Sweden, and then asked for money. The treaty of Hanover was grounded on the Ostend Company, and on the negotiations about Gibraltar, &c. Time, the great discoverer of truth, had not yet discovered whether there was any truth in the assertion of the Emperor and Spain designing to set the Pretender on the Throne. Would any lawyer plead, when his Majesty speaks in a treaty and says dominions, that he can mean anything but his British dominions? we were not to be explained out of our liberties, nor by being taught to subtilize, to lose respect for the essential.

In the last war the Hessians did once go into aliena castra, and except at that time when they were forced at Munich, never behaved well. He thought there was an equal violation by both treaties, but the Russian most dangerous: yet he would not avow that we were so exhausted as to declare we could not assist Holland. Because this treaty stipulated succours for England and Holland and Hanover, did the legality for the two first prove the third stipulation not illegal? But even the protection of Holland was not mentioned in the Address of last year. “Where,” said Murray, “is the harm of holding my troops ready? the Crown reserves it as an operative act.” But that was precision at which we could not arrive! was all an unmeaning verbiage! You had not the troops, therefore it was no war! but there was levy money: and raising men, without firing a gun, was constructive treason. He wished he could hear any more of the shining lights of Westminster!—the long robe was made use of in all arbitrary times. How often had they attacked Magna Charta with explanations of nisi per mandatum Domini Regis! Where, might it have been said in the late Rebellion, was the harm of a few men ready to rebel? Dr. Foigard says, “Where is the harm of being in a closet?” These vigorous measures would pull a war out of the closet. He denied that the Crown had a power of making subsidiary treaties that lead to war. That Hanover was concerned in all these treaties quoted, he was sorry to hear—then surely it was time to stop it, since we improve so much in adulation, as to be arrived at the age of speaking out and avowing Hanover in all. He wished the circumstances of this country could permit us to extend such care to Hanover; but he would not for any consideration have set his hand to these treaties.

Fox with great spirit took up the defence of Hume Campbell, who willingly abandoned it to him. “The honourable gentleman,” said he, “has nothing to answer to two such speeches but to say that he is astonished. What! nothing to so long a series of treaties as had been quoted! was it no argument that those treaties had been so debated, and had been signed by men of the greatest and most unblemished characters? Mr. Pitt’s, indeed, had been guarded, but they had been most personal invectives. Yet he would not, said he, have uttered them, unless personally called on—how was he personally called on? Eternal invectives were the words—he is a great master of invective, but is he the sole person who wages it? Hume Campbell had spoken of his superiors as an individual. Who has no superiors? Though distinctions were now so condemned, he could remember endeavours to create distinctions between Hanoverians and Englishmen, on our taking those troops into our pay: they were accursed distinctions; and the weakest conceivable, if attempted by persons who wished well to the present establishment. However we were improved, we did not improve in invectives. He hoped Ministers would never say they should be punished: let the gentlemen amuse themselves with them! they had lost their force; the people know to what they tend, by discoveries made and repeated within these fifteen years: they had been tried ineffectually on this occasion. In 1726, if Hanover was not comprehended in the word States, it was not included at all: the distinction was Pitt’s. Germans and Russians must by States understand Hanover. Would not Murray have been to blame, if he had not spoken with precision on treaties? Lord Ducie retained 200 men in arms during the late Rebellion; did he levy war? He hoped the Ministers would be disculpated from the accusation of levying war on Prussia, by hindering him from levying war! How were the Bavarian and Saxon treaties applauded, though concluded during the recess and without consent of Parliament, and the money advanced! He would do nothing to prevent invectives being used; and he hoped the King’s Ministers had virtue and understanding enough not to mind them!”

Sir George Lee and Legge spoke against the treaties: the latter said, He hoped the clause in the Act of Settlement would never be declared not prohibitory; how was that clause to be preserved, unless all steps leading to a war were laid before us? is engaging in war to be confined to mere abstinence of declaring war? If Russia is attacked, and our ships sail to the Baltic, is it not war? and whose war? of the Act of Settlement? or of prerogative and Ministers, against the Act of Settlement? He would not give so much countenance to these treaties, as to refer them to a Committee.—Several others spoke on each side; and Beckford finished the Debate with reflections on the notorious ductility of prerogative lawyers, alluding to Hume Campbell, who did not want another blow to stun him. The Court prevailed by 318 to 126.

Dec. 12th.—Lord Barrington opened the treaties in the Committee, and urged that that with Hesse was cheaper than the one in 1740; and that the chief object of them was to enable us to furnish our quotas to the Low Countries and to the Austrians. That he wished to see Foreign Troops here from our Allies rather than from our enemies. That the Russian General, though his own country should be attacked, was to obey our requisition without waiting for orders from his Court. That it was evident the Russian Empress was our Ally, not our mercenary, or she would have insisted on some such terms as the Germans; but she only wanted to be enabled to assist us. That Sweden had a well-manned fleet, Russia had not. That there were no thoughts of a continent war—and yet he owned he wished the Royal Family had been a younger branch, and that our Foreign Dominions do take off from[39] our insularity—on the other hand, their connexion with us takes away the insularity of Hanover. He drew no unflattering opposition between the advantages we derive from Hanover in the acquisition of so good a King and so great a General, and the loss to that people of such a Sovereign!

Lord Pulteney said with spirit, that he was shocked on entering life to find everything valuable, as the Act of Settlement, treated with ridicule or indifference; and he lashed the known perfidy of the Landgrave of Hesse, who had so hampered us in this treaty, that he seemed to mean only to get a sinecure or pension. The fluctuating state of Russia, and the dropsical condition of the Empress, rendered their assistance precarious: if we should obtain it, we had marked out the King of Prussia’s dominions for their quarters. He touched pretty plainly on the wealth of Hanover; said, there were two millions of Hanoverian money in the Saxon Funds—why was none of it drawn out on this occasion? why would they not exert a little love of their country?

He was answered by Edward Finch, a Groom of the Bedchamber, who gave as satisfactory and circumstantial an account of the Czarina’s health and kindred, and of his own hopes and joys on those topics, as if he dreaded the knout for want of loyalty or exactness. He had formerly been Ambassador at that Court, and united the unpolished sycophancy of it to the person and formality of a Spaniard. One may judge of his talent for negotiations, when he defended them with genealogies! The absurdity of Finch struck fire from Delaval, who never had another moment of parts. The former had sneered at Lord Pulteney’s premeditated speech; Delaval begged that another time Finch would premeditate too. For invectives, he said he would no more believe such political augury, than the Life-Guardsman who foretold the earthquake; and he did not doubt but the King might sleep in St. James’s till he should be awakened by the shouts of a grateful people. Were these Foreign Troops such a grievance? Edward III., Queen Elizabeth, had entertained German troops—were they for defence of Hanover? King William had them too, and Queen Anne—were they all influenced by a partial regard to Hanover?

Charles Townshend spoke for three quarters of an hour against the treaties with infinite rapidity, vehemence, and parts. He began with an attack on Hume Campbell, saying that he might offend his superiors, and might be misrepresented by some new convert, intemperate in his zeal, and plunging from rank abuse to adulation—yet he would not hesitate; everything dear depended on the event of that day. He touched on the misapplication of the vote of credit, and enlarged on our situation, finding us, notwithstanding our stoic patience, forced into a war, which, though mismanaged, had hitherto been successful: yet we seemed to intend to be no longer superior at sea. What was the situation of Europe? It was necessary for France to make a diversion by the means of Prussia, alienated from the King, and jealous both of Russia and France, and angry with Austria. This made him the arbiter of peace and war: his capacity made him so too; he was the most able crowned head in Europe. Spain was now governed with Spanish councils; to those we owed her neutrality. The Court of Vienna was disinclined to war: the States so sunk, they could not be the better or the worse for us. How politic had been our conduct with all! Vienna and Holland disliked a war; Spain declined it, and Prussia; France was averse to it only from the backwardness of Prussia—yet him you had provoked! how culpable were the Ministers, who, to flatter the ill disposition that they found in the Cabinet, had kept that Prince at a distance: he had begged you would not hinder him from being your Ally; he formerly offered his friendship in exchange for two Duchies: Austria refused them: that refusal had been admired by my Lord Granville, who grounded on it, and enraged him by, a partition of his dominions. What pains had been taken since to reconcile him: personal favour had been courted by encouraging prejudices against him: yet his wisdom had counteracted our folly. He determined to preserve the peace of Europe, and declined the offers of France.

Why did the Ministry add the threats of England to the disobligations of France and its temptations? why acquiesced not to the wise foot on which that King had put things? instead of that came the little petulant mechanic activity sometimes seen in the persons of some[40] Ministers. What would have prevented a war? acting with Prussia. What would make it? bullying him. He then objected to the Hessian treaty, as impracticable; for contingents, as useless; to the money having been appropriated, as unparliamentary. When the Opposition, he said, offered to the Ministers to increase the Army, they answered, it was large enough; when to increase the Fleet, it would be too much—and then, neither Army nor Fleet were sufficient, and we must have Hessians. They had evidently contracted both services to make room for Foreign Auxiliaries. He wished the Administration was in such hands as those which signed the treaty of Wolfenbuttle! He thought[41] somebody besides his ancestor presided in the Councils of those days, and foisted in that spirit which now breathed in all our Councils.

Then, reverting to Russia; Russia, he said, like a quarter-master, would make an assignation with France to come to a place called Hanover; they would say, “Prussia is in our way; we will remove him—but he is in good humour; we will provoke him.” He spoke, he said, with little premeditation; he was encouraged by the success his friend Finch had had in that manner. Our wise, economic Ministry foresaw a war, but brought it on sooner than anybody else could. The Address of last year had mentioned only America and these Kingdoms: what had been stated to the House but the clamour on the encroachments of the French? and if that should bring the war hither, we had resolved to defend the King. These had been the only motives[42] of Lord Granby and of his brother, whom he praised: he asked that Lord if he was not right; his Lordship’s assent would be a full answer to the boldness or preciseness of any Minister. Vyner had asked last year if that money was really to be applied as voted: the question was received with surprise, because nobody thought it could be misapplied. Then the King went abroad with only an unthinking and unparliamentary Minister[43] at his ear—they made the treaty. Ministers here did not dare to refuse what they would not have done. Then some servile lawyer was to be found to defend it. The Act of Settlement and everything sacred was to be infringed while the whole Cabinet was struggling for power. Report said everywhere, said abroad, that nothing but corruption prevailed in the House of Commons.[44] Instances had been brought to our Courts of Judicature how much it prevailed in our elections. But now, added he, show that you are not under any one man; show you are not part of his retinue; that you are without superiors. Imitate great examples; see the virtue and integrity of those who have refused all things inconsistent with their honour—though I have heard that their eloquence is amusement, and that it is our fault if we follow it.

Hume Campbell at last broke silence, but, though he pressed some firmness into his words, the manner, and much of the matter, was flat and mean. He complimented Charles Townshend with a mixture of irony, telling him that in some points he had no superior; in some, no equal. He should have answered Mr. Pitt in the former Debate, but he had inquired, and found it was contrary to the orders of the House. He denied having spoken on any treaties but on that of Worms; since that he had been following a profession to avoid servility. Now he returned to the service of the House, he found that Debates were cramped by expressions unbecoming men; yet no epithets should make him cease to speak his mind with resolution. He was taxed with adulation; he found that the former adulation of others was turned to run the race of invective; sudden conversion was more applicable to others than to him. He had not expected such support as Mr. Fox’s; he would study to deserve it, dum spiritus hos regit artus—but he would not take up the time of the House in fabricating words and coining verbiage: this was the last time personality should call him up. He had been told that morning by the Speaker, that everything might be said there with impunity. He had scarce ever felt what ambition was, though he knew he had been accused of it. No political variation had ever made him break a friendship: the flame of invective he had caught from his superiors. Nemo sine vitiis nascitur; optimus ille qui minimis urgetur. He had quitted the former Opposition, when he saw they aimed at men, not measures, and when he saw all confidence broken amongst them: that, and the Rebellion, had opened his eyes. He owned he had formerly thought it wrong to take Hanoverians into our pay, as it would increase the disgusts against the Royal Family. Pitt did not deign a reply.[45]

Sir George Lyttelton said he did not mean to restrain invectives; desired no man’s mouth should be free from them but his own; urged that the treaty specified, if we were attacked ourselves, that we should not be obliged to furnish twelve ships to Muscovy. That if either treaty tended to war, or to provoke Prussia, they would deserve censure; but they were merely defensive; the troops even not to move unless we required it. Defence is not injury; provision is not provocation. The King of Prussia would have a higher esteem for our Government; he knows that whoever desires peace, must prepare for war. Despair is the worst and weakest of councils. Fortitude and wisdom will find resources, as the Queen of Hungary did, in 1741: we [were] not in so bad a situation by a thousand degrees. Had we then retained the Russians, that war had been prevented. Here were no plans of partition. Unallied, we could make no diversion to France. France unassisted would not dare to disturb the peace of the Empire. Would you have trusted to France for not violating the Law of Nations? Cæsar ashamed! has he not seen Pharsalia? Our trade could not be preserved if the balance of Europe overturned, nor that balance overturned, without some assistance from hence. Subsidiary treaties must be struck at lucky moments, when the occasion offers itself.

Legge, in reply, asked if, because it was possible that France might draw us upon the continent, we ought to mark out the way for her?—but the Ministers, indeed, by way of defence, had endeavoured to reduce the treaties to no meaning. All they pretended was to make magazines of 140,000 men standing at livery, to supply our contingents; though all our Allies told us they were at peace. For Hesse-Cassel, one would think we were as ignorant of the topography of it as if it belonged to ourselves. In five weeks the Hessians might be ready to be prevented by the wind from coming to our assistance! That little country, since 1726, had received two millions of our money! When in danger, we wanted them—but they were in other pay, and did not behave quite so ill as when in ours. At Bergopzoom they behaved shamefully! We lost a good officer there—while he was endeavouring to persuade them but to look over the parapet. There was no end of objections to them! They occasioned the loss of the battle of Laffelt. In Scotland they would not fight because no cartel was settled with Rebels. The present Landgrave was old; the next would be a papist: subjects of a papist, would we wish them here to fight against the French?

Colonel Haldane bore testimony to the Hessians behaving well at Roucoux,—not so well at Laffelt, yet not very infamously: the Prince of Hesse, with tears, tried to rally them. Colonel Griffin deposed that he did see them rally there.

Nugent argued on the necessity of diverting the men and money of France by a grand alliance, in case they should obtain the superiority; and on the difficulty of our collecting any Army but of Russians. This, said he, is my way of thinking, and agreeable to one who is reckoned in the system of that rash and frantic Minister[46] who saved Europe.

George Grenville observed, how extraordinary it was in this treaty to call the King of Prussia the common enemy; but it was evident the whole was intended against him. He did not hear that our civility had engaged that Prince to pay the Silesian Loan. In four years we were to pay 340,000l. to Hesse-Cassel; besides which, they were to be indemnified: cheap bargain! If they were employed, the whole expense of Foot and Cavalry would amount to 1,180,000l. The Russians were to receive 500,000l. a-year, from the time they were required to act. Together, the expense would rise to the sum of 3,180,000l.! This was the first treaty that promised indemnification. Was our debt reduced only to furnish new subsidies? Why had a mere naval war never been tried? The moment the former treaties had been obtained, the election of a King of the Romans was laid aside. Edward the Third, who experienced the inutility and inconveniences of German auxiliaries, ordered a record to be entered that subsidia Germanorum in pace onerosa, in bello inutilia. The treaty with Russia had been commenced in 1747, but had been kept secret during the life of Mr. Pelham.

Beckford, with his wild sense, ran through some general heads; said, no affront had been intended to the Law, but to its rotten, servile limbs, such as explained away an Act of Settlement, and assisted state alchymists to render an Act of Parliament a caput mortuum. Yet there was this difference between the professors; the metallurgic artist loses gold; the State artist gets it. That it was an indignity for great nations to become tributary to little ones. That we have no barrier, but what by defending we shall enrich ourselves. That our Kings, though they have less prerogative than their predecessors, are richer, and consequently more powerful. In the late war, the Queen of Hungary’s affairs went well, till we engaged as principals, and then she left the burthen upon us. Before the present war, we had twenty men in America to one Frenchman.

Lord George Sackville, with as much spirit, and with sense as compact as the other’s was incoherent, replied, that if the question was agitating whether we should desert the war in America, and stick to the continent, nobody would dare to support such an argument. In the year 1725, the Court of Vienna leagued with Russia; we with Sweden and Denmark, and Wolfenbuttle, and Hesse. The greatest loss we had experienced was of Prussia;—but should we bear it patiently or counteract him by Russia? It might be right to trust to his inactivity, if, in 1744, after you had given him Silesia, he had not marched into Bohemia. If the Russians had then been on his back, would he have dared to go to Prague? When driven from thence by Prince Charles, he lost 30,000 men by desertion. He will always seize opportunities where he can strike with security. If all allow that Hanover is to be protected, and Hanover says, “This is the easiest way,” shall we not take it? He would not have our Allies think that we were so taken up with America, as not to be able to attend to them. He concluded handsomely with saying, “They who on this occasion have declined employments, have acted honourably; they who have gone into an unenvied Ministry, to support it, deserve not reproach: they will deserve support, if their conduct continues upright.”

George Townshend, with much warmth and threats, expressed his resentment on being drawn to make the Motion last year for a perverted Vote of Credit. Lord Granby, with great decency, said, that if anything had been done contrary to that Address, the House must judge of it: yet he was not such an enemy to Hanover, as to let the French satiate their rage on Hanoverian subjects, because their Elector had acted the part of a British King.

Old Horace Walpole, now near fourscore, had yet busy spirits enough, very late at night, to pay part of the purchase of his future title, by a speech in defence of the treaties; to which Pitt replied in a very long harangue, but was not well, and spoke with little fire. He told Fox, that it should not be his method to vilify the laws, and yet pretend to love the lawyers; that he did not pretend to eloquence, but owed all his credit to the indulgence of the House: looked with respect on the King’s prejudices, with contempt on those who encouraged them. Was everything to be styled invective, that had not the smoothness of a Court compliment? Must it be called so, unless a charge was brought judicially on paper? He complimented Charles Townshend, who, he said, had displayed such abilities as had not appeared since that House was a House. He talked much on the situation of the King of Prussia, who if well disposed, this measure was not necessary; if ill disposed, it was a war—but he would not enter into all the ambages of the Corps Diplomatique, and of the gentleman[47] wrapped up in a political cloak. He and others had said, “Talk against Hanover! oh! you will raise a Rebellion!”—it was language for a boarding-school girl! Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole had withstood Hanover: the latter, said he, thought well of me, died in peace with me. He was a truly English Minister, and kept a strict hand on the closet—as soon as removed, the door was flung open. His friends and followers transferred themselves to the Minister,[48] who transplanted that English Minister—and even his reverend brother, who still adorns this House, is gone over to the Hanoverian party!

Fox said little on the treaties; his point was to keep Pitt at bay. He again retorted on the latter, the treasonable pamphlets and songs of the former Opposition—all, to be sure, for the good of this country! But he never would forgive any man who had a heart to conceive, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute, so much mischief. That mischief was only cured by what might[49] have been worse! In his station he envied Charles Townshend nothing more than his knowledge of the Councils of the King of Prussia. His Majesty, he said, had communicated these treaties to the Prussian Minister here, with assurances of our desire of peace. That gentleman, said he of Pitt, professes being proud of acting with some here; I am proud of acting with so many. But is it the part of a wise man, because he wishes Hanover separated from England, to act as if it was separate already?

The House sat till three in the morning, when the Committee agreed to both treaties, by a majority of 289 to 121.

December 15th.—The agreement of the Committee to the treaties was reported to the House. Some of the Tories, and Elliot and Dr. Hay, with spirit opposed concurring with the Committee. Lord Egmont made a long, injudicious, and weak speech, in behalf of the treaties, all his arguments tending to a grand alliance, and war on the continent, and coupled with pedantic quotations from Greek and Roman story. Murray, though subtilizing too much, spoke with great art. Among other pleas, he asked, if the treaties should be rejected, how we were engaged in a war? Could the King make it alone? How did the House even know that the money had been advanced? It was usual to advance money out of services voted, which was replaced afterwards, when the new occasions were allowed: but this was always done at the risk of the Ministers: in the present case the Lords Justices were responsible. That it was not preventing a war to abandon the continent; it was only giving it up to France. On the growing power of Russia, he quoted an expression of Sir Joseph Jekyll, who said, he thought he saw a northern star arising, which, if properly managed, might preserve the liberties of Europe. If no war ensue, we should have displayed our force to our Allies, to our enemies. The most dangerous kind of invasion was to be apprehended from Sweden—but would she dare to attack the Ally of Russia? In territorial contests, we are not bound to assist Hanover; but in this quarrel Hanover has nothing to do; they could suffer only for us. France will not fight where we please, nor be so complaisant as to distinguish between the King and the Elector. What disgrace had fallen on the nation for abandoning the Catalans! If we should desert our most intimate Allies, what Ally would stand by us? The King of Prussia would hear of our debates; would be told that many opposed the treaties, lest offensive to him; that the rest denied there was any intention of offence; therefore he would hear that all England [was] for him. He applied with great aptness, and told with great address the fable of the shepherd treating with the wolf. The beast objected that the shepherd had damned dogs, whom he mentioned like Cossacs and Calmucs—not that he feared them!—but their barking disturbed him. The shepherd would not give up his dogs—yet the neutrality was well kept.

To Murray and Lord Egmont and other champions of the treaties, Pitt replied in a speech of most admirable and ready wit that flashed from him for the space of an hour and half; and accompanied with action that would have added reputation to Garrick. He said, the Attorney-General had spoken so long, not because he had not thought enough to shorten his discourse, but glad to lose the question in the immensity of matter. However, he hoped that the King of Prussia, who, it seems, was so well informed of our Debates, would not hear the application of this fable, and that Murray had treated him like a Fera Naturæ. But, in fact, these treaties from simple questions had become all things to all men. As a man with sleight of hand presents a card to the company, ’tis yours—now yours—and very pleasantly takes the money out of the pockets of all the spectators. But whatever explanations were used to pervert its meaning, the Act of Settlement did intend to divest the Crown of the power of declaring war for Foreign Dominions. He would quote poetry; for truth in verse was as good as if delivered in the dullest prose—

Corruption’s gilded hand

May put by Justice.

Meas. for Meas.

If to make war eventually was a breach of that act, as a juror he would find these treaties such a violation. The very payment of money to Hesse and levying troops was an overt-act—but a daring Ministry had assumed to be the Parliament of Great Britain! He desired to know whether the 12,000 men formerly stipulated for England from Muscovy were to be included in the 55,000 now engaged for Hanover. If included, the bargain was still dearer—and we were to give 500,000l. to 30,000 men to invite them to live upon murder and rapine!—but this shifting measure, like a diamond, the more brilliant the more it shone. “But come,” said he, “let us consider this northern star, that will not shine with any light of its own—Great Britain must be the sun of all this solar system:—could Russia, without our assistance, support her own troops? She will not prove the star of the Wise Men—they must go with presents. ’Tis a miserable star, that you must get to shine, that you must rub up; but the real wise man—

“Quæ desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit.

“By this measure,” continued he, “is not Prussia thrown into the power of France? What can he answer, if France proposes to march an army into Germany? If he refuses to join them, will they not threaten to leave him at the mercy of the Russians? This is one of the effects of our sage negotiations—not to mention that we have wasted between ten and eleven millions in subsidies! Were our circumstances equal to the avarice of German Courts, our system might last a little longer; but now we are lost in limine, in the first outset of the war. Shall we not set our impossibility of supporting such an extensive war against the argument of his Majesty’s honour being engaged? or shall we continue to go begging to every beggarly Court in Europe? The Ministers foresaw our ill success at sea, and prudently laid a nest-egg for a war on the continent. Indeed, to induce us, we have been told of ancient and modern story, of Greece and Carthage. I have not,” said he, “read those histories these many years; they are very well for declamation; but I think I recollect enough to see how improperly they are quoted in this Debate. Suppose Thebes and Sparta, and the other Grecian Commonwealths fallen from their former power; would Athens have gone alone and paid all the rest? Would Demosthenes have alarmed Greece, when they would no longer hear him?—but Athens put herself on board her fleet, and recovered her land, because she fought where she could be superior. Not giving succour to Hannibal indeed was wrong, because he was already on land and successful, and might have marched, as Prince Eugene proposed, with a torch to Versailles.

“Another poet,—I recollect,” continued he, “a good deal of poetry to-day,—says, Expende Hannibalem—weigh him, weigh him—I have weighed him—what good did his glory procure to his country? It puts me in mind of what the same poet says:

“—— I, demens, curre per Alpes,

Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias!”

He dwelt on his duty to the King, and how harsh it must be for Ministers to be honest—but perhaps the resistance given to these treaties might save the Administration from a continent war. Yet himself would nevermore place confidence in the authors, advisers, adopters of this measure. He ended with a prayer, that conviction might change perverted Ministers to save us; or that British spirit might exterminate such measures as shake our Government; and that British spirit might influence in British councils.

The Russian treaty was approved by 263 to 69. The Hessian by 259 to 72.

After these Debates, the Parliament adjourned for the Christmas holidays, during which the changes in the Administration were settled. Charles Townshend was dismissed: the Duke of Bedford was persuaded by Mr. Fox’s arts and friends to ask the exalted post of Lord Privy Seal for the Duchess’s brother, Lord Gower—a vast promotion for so young a man! Mr. Fox would have engaged his Grace to promise to drop all asperity to the Duke of Newcastle, but he frankly refused. The ductile Duke of Marlborough had ceded the Privy Seal, to accommodate this measure, and took the Ordnance with little ceremony from General Ligonier: a violence, deservedly esteemed hard—and not judicious, for the representative of the great Marlborough to dispossess almost the only man in England who approached the services of that hero, and who had the additional merit, though a Frenchman, of having saved the country[50] which had so humbled his own. The old man felt it sensibly—but as the King always consulted him on military affairs preferably to his son the Duke, of whom he could not stifle a little jealousy—the Duke, still less disposed to check a jealousy of preference, eagerly countenanced the removal of Ligonier. The latter had all the gallant gaiety of his nation. Polished from foppery by age, and by living in a more thinking country, he was universally beloved and respected. His successor, the Duke of Marlborough, had virtues and sense enough to deserve esteem, but always lost it by forfeiting respect. He was honest and generous; capable of giving the most judicious advice, and of following the worst. His profusion was never well directed, and a variety of changes in his political conduct having never been weighed previously, or preserved subsequently, joined to the greatest bashfulness and indistinction in his articulation, had confirmed the world in a very mean opinion of his understanding.

Lord Duplin and Lord Darlington were made joint Paymasters: Doddington, again a Courtier, returned to his old office of Treasurer of the Navy: Lord Bateman and Mr. Edgecombe, the one nephew of the Duke of Marlborough, the other equally attached to Mr. Fox, were placed in the Admiralty. The Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Bedford, the Chancellor, and a little time afterwards Mr. Fox, had each a nomination to the Board of Trade, and placed there their friends, Judge Talbot, Mr. Rigby, Soames, Jenyns the poet-laureate of the Yorkes, and young Hamilton. Lord Hilsborough was made Treasurer of the Chambers; Lord Hobart succeeded him as Comptroller of the Household: Lord Gage was made Paymaster of the Pensions; George Selwyn Paymaster of the Board of Works. That old rag of Lord Bath’s foolish quota to an administration, the mute Harry Furnese, was made a Lord of the Treasury, because he understood the French actions. To him was suddenly joined Mr. O’Brien, on the very morning that Mr. Ellis was to have kissed hands; but the Duke of Newcastle, who had recovered his insolence now the treaties were over, would not suffer a creature of Mr. Fox at the Board of Treasury. Ellis was put off with a portion of the Vice-Treasurer of Ireland: it was usually in two persons: Sir William Yonge was just dead; Lord Cholmondeley, the other, received as associates, Ellis and Lord Sandwich, who was destined for Chief Justice in Eyre by the Duke and Mr. Fox, but the same authority which had set Ellis aside marked Lord Sandwich too; and as if there was a choice between the outcasts of former silly Administrations, gave the preference to Lord Sandys.

It has been mentioned that Lord Barrington was appointed Secretary at War in the new system: he and Ellis may easily be described together; they were shades of the same character; the former a little brighter by better parts, the other a little more amiable by less interestedness. Lord Barrington was always assiduous to make his fortune; Ellis, meaning the same thing, was rather intent on not hurting his. The former did not aim at making friends, but patrons; the latter dreaded making enemies. Lord Barrington had a lisp and a tedious precision that prejudiced one against him; yet he did not want a sort of vivacity that would have shone oftener, if the rind it was to penetrate had been thinner. Ellis had a fluency that was precise too, but it was a stream that flowed so smoothly and so shallow, that it seemed to design to let every pebble it passed over be distinguished. Lord Barrington made civility and attention a duty; Ellis endeavoured to persuade you that that duty was a pleasure. You saw that Lord Barrington would not have been well-bred, if he had not been interested: you saw that if Ellis had been a hermit, he would have bowed to a cock-sparrow.

There remained one purchase to the Government to be completed, which though not terminated till the beginning of the succeeding year, I shall comprehend in the account of this expensive establishment. This was Hume Campbell; annihilated in the eyes of the world and in his own, by Mr. Pitt’s philippic; still precious to the Duke of Newcastle, who was now as injudiciously constant to an useless bargain, as he was apt to be fickle to more serviceable converts. Lord Lothian, after many negotiations and reluctances, was dismissed with a pension of 1200l. a year from the office of Lord Registrar of Scotland, which was conferred on Hume Campbell for life. Secure with such a provision, he never once provoked Pitt’s wrath; and repaid this munificence with one only scrap of an ignorant speech on the Plate-tax.

It is necessary to recapitulate the extravagant and lasting charge which this new caprice or consequence of the Duke of Newcastle’s caprices brought on the Government. Sir Thomas Robinson had a pension of 2000l. a year on Ireland for thirty years. Mr. Arundel, to make room for Lord Hilsborough, 2000l. a year. Sir Conyers Darcy 1600l. a year. Lord Lothian 1200l. Lord Cholmondeley, to indemnify him for the division of his office, 600l. a year. Here was a load of near 8000l. a year incurred for many years to purchase a change in the Administration—for how short a season will soon appear!

But if this traffic for a partial revolution in a system, still upheld, was scandalously inglorious, at least it called forth a display of abilities that revived the lustre of the House of Commons, and in the point of eloquence carried it to a height it perhaps had never known. After so long a dose of genius, there at once appeared near thirty men, of whom one was undoubtedly a real orator, a few were most masterly, many very able, not one was a despicable speaker. Pitt, Fox, Murray, Hume Campbell, Charles Townshend, Lord George Sackville, Henry Conway, Legge, Sir George Lyttelton, Oswald, George Grenville, Lord Egmont, Nugent, Doddington, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, Lord Strange, Beckford, Elliot, Lord Barrington, Sir George Lee, Martin, Dr. Hay, Northey, Potter, Ellis, Lord Hilsborough, Lord Duplin, and Sir Francis Dashwood, these men, perhaps, in their several degrees, comprehended all the various powers of eloquence, art, reasoning, satire, learning, persuasion, wit, business, spirit, and plain common sense. Eloquence as an art was but little studied but by Pitt: the beauties of language were a little, and but a little more cultivated, except by him and his family. Yet the grace and force of words were so natural to him, that when he avoided them, he almost lost all excellence. As set speeches were no longer in vogue, except on introductory or very solemn occasions, the pomp and artful resources of oratory were in a great measure banished; and the inconveniences attending long and unpremeditated discourses, must (as I have delivered them faithfully,) take off from, though they ought to add to, their merit. Let those who hear me extol, and at the same time find Mr. Pitt’s orations not answer to my encomiums, reflect how bright his talents would shine, if we saw none of his, but which, like the productions of ancient great masters, had been prepared for his audience, and had been polished by himself for the admiration of ages! Similes, and quotations, and metaphors were fallen into disrepute, deservedly: even the parallels from old story, which, during the virulence against Sir Robert Walpole, had been so much encouraged, were exhausted and disregarded. It was not the same case with invectives; in that respect, eloquence was little more chastened. Debates, where no personalities broke out, engaged too little attention. Yet, upon the whole, the style that prevailed was plain, manly, argumentative; and the liberty of discussing all topics in a government so free, and the very newspapers and pamphlets that skimmed or expatiated on all those subjects, and which the most idle and most illiterate could not avoid perusing, gave an air of knowledge and information to the most trifling speakers.

I shall not enter into a detail of all the various talents of the men I have mentioned; the genius and characters of many of them have been marked already in different parts of this work. Most of them were more or less imperfect; I pretend to consider the whole number but as different shades of oratory. Northey saw clearly, but it was for a very little way. Lord Strange was the most absurd man that ever existed with a very clear head: his distinctions were seized as rapidly as others advance positions. Nugent’s assertions would have made everybody angry, if they had not made everybody laugh; but he had a debonnaire jollity that pleased, and though a bombast speaker, was rather extravagant from his vociferation, than from his arguments, which were often very solid. Dr. Hay’s manner and voice resembled Lord Granville’s, not his matter; Lord Granville was novelty itself; Dr. Hay seldom said anything new; his speeches were fair editions of the thoughts of other men: he should always have opened a Debate! Oswald overflowed with a torrent of sense and logic: Doddington was always searching for wit; and what was surprising, generally found it. Oswald hurried argument along with him; Doddington teased it to accompany him. Sir George Lyttelton and Legge were as opposite in their manners; the latter concise and pointed; the former, diffuse and majestic. Legge’s speeches seemed the heads of chapters to Sir George Lyttelton’s dissertations. Lord Duplin aimed at nothing but understanding business and explaining it. Sir Francis Dashwood, who loved to know, and who cultivated a roughness of speech, affected to know no more than what he had learned from an unadorned understanding. George Grenville and Hume Campbell were tragic speakers of very different kinds; the latter far the superior. Grenville’s were tautologous lamentations; Campbell’s bold reprehensions. Had they been engaged in a conspiracy, Grenville, like Brutus, would have struck and wept; Campbell would have rated him for weeping. The six other chief speakers may, from their ages and rank in the House, be properly thrown into two classes.

Mr. Conway soothed and persuaded; Lord George Sackville informed and convinced; Charles Townshend[51] astonished; but was too severe to persuade, and too bold to convince. Conway seemed to speak only because he thought his opinion might be of service; Lord George because he knew that others misled, or were misled; Charles Townshend, neither caring whether himself or others were in the right, only spoke to show how well he could adorn a bad cause, or demolish a good one. It was frequent with him, as soon as he had done speaking, to run to the opposite side of the House, and laugh with those he had attacked, at those who had defended. One loved the first, one feared the second, one admired the last without the least mixture of esteem. Mr. Conway had a cold reserve, which seemed only to veil goodness: Lord George, with a frankness in his speech, had a mystery in his conduct, which was far from inviting. Charles Townshend had such openness in all his behaviour, that he seemed to think duplicity the simplest conduct: he made the innocence of others look like art. But what superiority does integrity contract, when even uniformity of acting could exalt so many men above the most conspicuous talents that appeared in so rhetorical an age! Mr. Townshend was perhaps the only man who had ever genius enough to preserve reason and argument in a torrent of epigrams, satire, and antithesis!

The other parliamentary chiefs were as variously distinguished by their abilities. Pitt, illustrious as he was in the House of Commons, would have shone still more in an assembly of inferior capacity: his talents for dazzling were exposed to whoever did not fear his sword and abuse, or could detect the weakness of his arguments. Fox was ready for both. Murray, who, at the beginning of the session, was awed by Pitt, finding himself supported by Fox, surmounted his fears, and convinced the House, and Pitt too, of his superior abilities: he grew most uneasy to the latter. Pitt could only attack, Murray only defend: Fox, the boldest and ablest champion, was still more formed to worry: but the keenness of his sabre was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard; I mean, the hesitation and ungracefulness of his delivery took off from the force of his arguments. Murray, the brightest genius of the three, had too much and too little of the lawyer: he refined too much, and could wrangle too little for a popular assembly. Pitt’s figure was commanding; Murray’s engaging from a decent openness; Fox’s dark and troubled—yet the latter was the only agreeable man: Pitt could not unbend; Murray in private was inelegant; Fox was cheerful, social, communicative. In conversation, none of them had wit; Murray never had: Fox had in his speeches from clearness of head and asperity of argument: Pitt’s wit was genuine, not tortured into the service, like the quaintnesses of my Lord Chesterfield.

I have endeavoured in this book (and consequently shall be much more concise in others, on Parliamentary Debates,) to give an idea of the manner and genius of our chief orators, particularly of Mr. Pitt, the most celebrated: his greatest failure was in argument, which made him, contrary to the rule of great speakers, almost always commence the Debate: he spoke too often, and he spoke too long. Of the above-recorded speeches, his first, on the Address, was sublime and various; on the Army, at once florid and alarming; on the Militia, clear, unadorned, and like a man of business: that against Hume Campbell, most bitter; the last, full of wit; but being hurt at the reflections on his pomp and invective, he took up in the rest of that session a style of plain and scarce elevated conversation, that had not one merit of any of his preceding harangues.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Mr. Fox, by Lord Hardwicke, on the Marriage Bill.

[32] The resignations on Lord Granville’s administration of three days.

[33] The House had very lately been much offended at a Marquis St. Simon, a Frenchman, taking notes in the gallery.

[34] The Scotch. The young Pretender, in one of his declarations, mentioned our pamphlets and libels as proofs of the dissatisfaction of the nation.

[35] A court where trifling causes are tried in the country; called so, from country fellows coming thither with dusty shoes, avec les pies poudres.

[36] It is worth remembering, that Hume Campbell, who now declaimed against invectives, and so much commended Sir Robert Walpole, had formerly in a speech called that Minister a tympany of corruption!

[37] The Duke of Bucks—alluding to the Duke of Newcastle.

[38] Spotted like a weasel.

[39] In 1744, when the great heats were raised against the Hanoverian troops, Lord Barrington, then in Opposition, used this phrase, “If an angel should come and tell us, I will separate you from Hanover, I will make you an island again.”

[40] Picture of the Duke of Newcastle, his great uncle.

[41] Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian Minister.

[42] Lord Granby and George Townshend moved the Vote of Credit in the preceding session.

[43] Lord Holderness.

[44] The Duke of Bedford had received 1500l. for electing Jeffery French at one of his boroughs in the west; but he dying immediately, his heir sued the Duke for the money, who paid it, rather than let the cause be heard.

[45] Alexander Hume Campbell died of a fever, July 19, 1760.

[46] Lord Granville.

[47] Horace Walpole.

[48] Lord Granville.

[49] The Rebellion.

[50] At Laffelt.

[51] Vide [Appendix.]

1756.

Laissant toujours avilir sa dignitè, pour en jouir.

Volt. Hist. Univ. vol. i. p. 140.

[CHAPTER V.]

Meeting of Parliament in the year 1756—Negotiations with France—Accommodation with the King of Prussia—Beckford’s accusation against Admiral Knowles—Grants to North America—Employment of Hessian Mercenaries—Mischiefs produced by the Marriage Act—Plan for raising Swiss Regiments debated in the Commons—Horace Walpole’s Speech on this subject—Swiss Regiment Bill passes the Commons and Lords—Anecdote of Madame Pompadour—Debates on Budget and Taxes.

The Parliament, which had adjourned during the holidays, met again January 13. The Opposition was enriched with Sir Harry Erskine, who having enlisted under Mr. Pitt, was dismissed from his post in the Army. Mr. Pelham had formerly pressed the King to break him, but in vain. His Majesty now recollected that advice, and took upon himself to order this act of authority: had it been intended to turn the new patriots into ridicule, it could not have answered the purpose better.

France began to unfold the mystery of her moderation; yet with much caution. Monsieur Rouillè sent a Memorial to Bonac, their resident at the Hague, which he delivered to Colonel Yorke, but making him give a receipt for it. It demanded, now the King was returned from Hanover, that he would punish those brigands, who had taken so many French ships, whose complaints, though often repeated, had still been disregarded. It demanded restitution. That granted, the Court of Versailles would be ready to treat with us. In answer to this Memorial, France was charged as the aggressor, by her encroachments in America. Restitution of territory on their part was demanded, before any reparation would be offered on our side.

We had begun the war with flippancy, the Duke of Newcastle’s general exordium, which he was not wont to prosecute with firmness: an unexpected event broke out, which accounted for his continuing to act with resolution. The Russians had been listed in our quarrel to awe the King of Prussia, and then our Ministers dreaded the awe they had given. The Opposition too, it was probable, intended to inflame his resentments on the Russian treaty: to obviate which, Mechell, the Prussian Minister, had been assured that nothing hostile was meant against his master; that if any word of that cast had slipped in, it was hoped he would excuse it: that we had no thought of giving him the first provocation. This had been taken well. We followed it with proposing to that Prince a treaty of guarantee for the Empire. He changed the latter word for Germany, because formerly the Low Countries had been reckoned into the Empire, and he would not be involved in a war for them. He desired that the treaty so modified might be returned to him directly, that he might show it to the Duc de Nivernois, whom France was sending to engage him in their quarrel. This guarantee for Germany, this thorn drawn out of the side of Hanover, dispelled at once the King’s aversion to his nephew. The terms were joyfully accepted, and the treaty was signed Jan. 17th.

21st.—The Committee of the whole House, preparatory to a new Bill, which George Townshend (to please him) was ordered to bring in, voted all the old Acts of Parliament relating to the Militia, useless.

23rd.—Beckford complained to the House of Admiral Knowles’s tyrannic government of Jamaica, whom he abused immeasurably, and of which he quoted many instances, and moved for several papers necessary to a prosecution. Fox said that Knowles was already recalled, and indirectly seemed to defend him. Pitt took it up with great warmth and solemnity, cast reflections on Fox for endeavouring to screen the guilty, and paid great court to Beckford, who, till now, had appeared to prefer Mr. Fox. The papers were granted. Of the affair I shall say no more; it drew out to great length; Fox openly espoused Knowles, who was cleared triumphantly, Beckford having charged him with much more than he had proofs or power to make out.