Chapter XII (1)

The Author’s motives for continuing his Work in the year
1754--Flattery the vice of Historians--The Author’s apprehensions
for the Constitution--His political principles--Embarrassments
caused by the death of Mr. Pelham--Difficulties in the way
of choosing his successor--Appointment and disappointment
of Mr. Fox--His audience with the King--Duke of Newcastle
sole Minister--New appointments--Character of Sir Thomas
Robinson--Affairs in Ireland--New Parliament--Origin of the
War in America--Defeat of Major Washington--Law-suit about
Richmond New Park--Debates on the Address--Prince of Hesse
turns Papist--Disturbances in the New Parliament--Debates on
the Army Estimates--Breach between Sir George Lyttelton and Mr.
Pitt--State of parties--Projected changes--Deaths of Lords Gower
and Albemarle.

Having never proposed to write a regular history, but to throw together some anecdotes and characters which might cast a light on the times in which I have lived, and might lead some future and more assiduous historian to an intimate knowledge of the men whose counsels or actions he shall record, I had determined to lay down my pen at the death of that Minister, whose fortune, situation, and genius had superinduced a very new complexion over his country, and who had composed a system of lethargic acquiescence, in which the spirit of Britain, agitated for so many centuries, seemed willingly to repose. But as the numbness of that enchantment has been dispelled by the evanition of the talisman, though so many of its mischievous principles survive, I shall once again endeavour to trace the stream of events to their secret source, though with a pen more unequal than ever to the task. A Monkish writer may be qualified to record an age of barbarity and ignorance; Sallust alone was worthy to snatch the rapid episode of Catiline from oblivion; Tacitus, to paint monsters whose lives surpassed caricatura; Livy, to embrace whole ages of patriots and heroes. Though no Catiline, I trust, will rise in my pages, to deform his country by his horrid glory; though our present minister,[240] notwithstanding he has the monkey disposition of Heliogabalus, is happily without his youth or lusts, and by the character of the age that disposition is systematized into little mischiefs and unbloody treacheries; though we have no succession of incorrupt senators; yet the times beginning to wear in some lights a more respectable face, it will require a steadier hand, and more dignified conceptions, than served to seize and to sketch out the littlenesses and trifles that had characterized the foregoing period.

The style, therefore, of the following sheets will perhaps wear a more serious aspect than I have used before: yet shall I not check a smile now and then at transient follies; nor, as much appropriated as gravity is to an historian, can I conceive how history can always be faithful, if always solemn. Is a palace a perpetual shrine of virtue, or incessantly a tribunal of severity? do not follies predominate in mankind over either virtues or vices? and whoever has been conversant in a Court, does he not know how strongly the cast of it verges towards ridiculous? Besides, I am no historian: I write casual Memoirs; I draw characters; I preserve anecdotes, which my superiors, the historians of Britain, may enchase into their weighty annals, or pass over at their pleasure. In one point I shall not vary from the style I have assumed, but shall honestly continue to relate the blemishes of material personages as they enter upon the scene: and whoever knows the interior of affairs, must be sensible to how many more events the faults of statesmen give birth, than are produced by their good intentions.

If I do not forbid myself censure, at least I shall shun that frequent poison of histories, flattery. How has it preponderated in most writers! My Lord Bacon was almost as profuse of his incense on the memory of dead Kings, as he was infamous for clouding the living with it. In the reign of Henry the Seventh, the whole strain of his panegyric (and it is more justly to be called so than Pliny’s, whose patron was really a good Prince), is to erect that sordid Monarch’s tyranny into prudence, nay, his very knavery into policy! Comines, a honester writer, though I fear by the masters whom he pleased, not a much less servile Courtier, says, that the virtues of Louis the Eleventh preponderated over his vices! Even Voltaire, who feels for Liberty more than almost ever any Frenchman did, has in a manner purified the dross of adulation, which cotemporary authors had squandered on Louis the Fourteenth, by adopting and refining it after the tyrant was dead. In his war of 1741, he paints that phantom of Royalty, the present King, extinguishing at Metz, with as much energy of concern, as if he was describing the death-bed of a Titus or an Antonine.

But how unpardonable is a flattering history!--if anything can shock one of those mortal divinities (and they must be shocked before they will be corrected), it would be to find that the truth will be related of them at last. Nay, is it not cruel to them to hallow their bad memories? one is sure they will never _hear_ truth; shall they not even have a chance of _reading_ it?

It may be wondered that I, who know and have drawn the emptiness of present Royalty, should, in the exordium to a new period, in which surely the effulgence of Majesty has not been displayed with any new lustre, detain the reader with reflections on a pageant which has so little operation on the reality of the drama. But I must be pardoned: though I now behold only a withering King, good, as far as acquiescing to whatever is the emergent humour of his people, and by no means the object of jealousy to his subjects, yet I am sensible that, from the prostitution of patriotism, from the art of Ministers who have had the address to exalt the semblance while they depressed the reality of Royalty, and from the bent of the education of the young Nobility, which verges to French maxims and to a military spirit, nay, from the ascendant which the Nobility itself acquires each day in this country, from all these reflections, I am sensible, that prerogative and power have been exceedingly fortified of late within the circle of the Palace; and though fluctuating Ministries by turns exercise the deposit, yet there it is; and whenever a Prince of design and spirit shall sit in the Regal Chair, he will find a bank, a hoard of power, which he may play off most fatally against this constitution. That evil I dread--the steps to that authority, that torrent which I should in vain extend a feeble arm to stem, those steps I mean to follow and record.

My reflections led me early towards, I cannot quite say Republicanism, but to most limited Monarchy; a principle as much ridiculed ever since I came into the world, as the profligacy of false patriots has made patriotism--and from much the same cause. Republicans professed to be saints, and from successful sainthood became usurpers: yet Republicanism, as it tends to promote Liberty, and Patriotism as far as it tends to preserve or restore it, are still godlike principles. A Republican who should be mad, should be execrable enough to endeavour to imbrue his country in blood merely to remove the name of a Monarch, deserves to excite horror; a quiet Republican, who does not dislike to see the shadow of Monarchy, like Banquo’s ghost, fill the empty chair of state, that the ambitious, the murderer, the tyrant, may not aspire to it; in short, who approves the name of a King, when it excludes the essence; a man of such principles, I hope, may be a good man and an honest; and if he is that, what matters if he is ridiculous? A Republican, who sees monarchy realizing, who observes all orders of men tending to exalt higher, what all orders had concurred to depress; who has found that the attempts of the greatest men to divert the torrent, have been turned afterwards to swell it; who knows the inefficacy of all endeavours to thwart the bent of a nation, and who is but too sensible how unequal his own capacity and virtue would be to so heroic a character; such a man may be pardoned, I hope, if he contents himself with the silent suffrage and wishes of his heart, though he has not the parade of martyrs, nor the courage of a Roman, in as _un-Roman_--(why should it be beneath the dignity of history to say?) in as _un-British_ an age as ever was.

* * * * *

Mr. Pelham’s death was unexpected; he was healthy, and not old: all men had concurred to serve under him; none had prepared any intrigues to succeed him. The King had found it comfortable to be governed absolutely, as long as the _viceroy[241] over him_ could govern the kingdom as absolutely: being told of his Minister’s death, he said with a sigh, that could not excite much compassion, “I shall now have no more peace!”

London. Henry Colburn, 1846.]

The Houses, who certainly were not to be consulted on the successor, adjourned themselves for a week--who _should_ be consulted, was the question--for nobody pretended to suppose that the Sovereign was to choose his delegate himself. What was as ridiculous as this state of doubt, was the measure taken for solving it--the Duke of Devonshire was sent for--a proper dictator, had the only business of the State been to drive a nail into a wall! The event put the finishing stroke to the ridicule. In the meantime, the Lord Chief Justice Lee was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, the forms depending on that office not admitting an interregnum. Lord Chief Justice Pratt had been supplied in like manner on the demission of Aislabie.[242]

As the temper of the age did not admit the ancient folly of that presumptuous officer called a King’s favourite; and as Ministers in late times had towered to power from ascendants gained by abilities or address in the House of Commons, it was natural for the nation to turn its eyes thither: three subjects there presented themselves before the rest, as candidates for the first Ministership; but each attended with almost insuperable difficulties: these were Fox, Pitt, and Murray. The Chancellor hated the first: the Scotch and the Law, two formidable bodies, whom Fox had wantonly and repeatedly provoked, readily listed under that banner: the Princess could not love him from his connexion with the Duke; and though he had been the ostensible second to Mr. Pelham, he had never lived upon any terms with the Duke of Newcastle: but he was the ablest man in Parliament, at least the craftiest Parliament-man, had acted steadily with the Whigs, and had in their eyes the seeming right of succession. Pitt had, or had unluckily acted, very ill health; and was now at Bath. Mr. Pelham, who had adopted him, had, however, died without removing, probably without trying to remove, his Majesty’s excommunication; and that was now allowed all its force, as Pitt had no party that wished his elevation. Murray was a Scot, and too lately been the object of clamour on the worst species of Scotch principles. The Chancellor was already jealous of him; and both Fox and Pitt would have concurred for his exclusion. He was timid himself, and always waving what he was always courting. This Gordian Knot was soon cut; and the world that had pretended to look out for a genius worthy to govern them, in six days descended from their ambition, and submitted to be ruled by no abilities at all.

Fox acted reserve and retirement, and expected to be wooed. His enemies indulged this humour, and deceived him. Stone went to him, and in Murray’s name disclaimed all emulation of that kind, that he never meant to quit his profession, that he aspired _only_ to be Chancellor. The Chancellor on his part contributed: he sent Lord Anson to Fox, to offer reconciliation, though justifying himself on the former quarrel. Between the King and Fox several messages passed by the intervention of Lady Yarmouth. The Princess, however, expressed her dislike; and the Duke of Argyle was warm against his promotion. The late beloved Minister was in the meantime totally forgot, or only remembered by daily discoveries of the duplicity of his conduct. Even his brother, who whimpered for him like a child during the first hours, like a child forgot him, as soon as he had formed the plan of inheriting his power: and nothing tended so much to unravel the mystery of devotion which the nation had conceived for Mr. Pelham, as its appearing, that it had not been the genius of the man, but the servility of the times, which had established his authority--in a fortnight the whole country was prostrate before his brother.

The Duke of Newcastle, who for thirty years together had sapped every Administration, could not resist having courage enough to seize it for himself now it lay so exposed. A faint offer was made to the Duke of Devonshire to sit at the head of the Treasury, which he declining, on the 12th of March at night, only six days after the death of Mr. Pelham, to the astonishment of all men, yet only to their astonishment, it was settled that the Duke of Newcastle should take the Treasury, with Legge for Chancellor of Exchequer, and that Mr. Fox should be Secretary of State, with the management of the House of Commons. Those solemn personages, the Cabinet Council, were directed to offer this disposition to his Majesty, as the result of their wisdoms and opinion--an opinion, that in two days more they were reduced to disavow. The King confirmed this establishment, with this salvo to his Royalty, that Legge should never enter his closet; to so scanty a space was his kingdom shrunk! That very night Lord Hartington was sent to notify the new regulation to Mr. Fox, with this supplement, not imparted to the Council, that his Grace would reserve to himself the disposal of the Secret-Service Money, though he would always exactly communicate to Mr. Fox how it had been employed.

The next morning, the Marquis carried Mr. Fox to the Chancellor, where a reconciliation was completed; though, as this sincere man told Lyttelton and Granville, he had made peace with Fox, yet would never act in concert with him. From thence they went to the new Vizier. On opening upon terms and measures, Mr. Fox mentioned the Secret-Service Money--the Duke cut him short with saying, that his brother had never disclosed the disposal of that money, nor would he. Mr. Fox represented, that if he was kept in ignorance of that, he should not know how to talk to members of Parliament, when some might have received _gratifications_, others not. The Duke answered ministerially, that though he would not inform Mr. Fox, he would inform no one else. Lord Hartington ventured to urge that this was not the message on which he had been sent; and Mr. Fox pushing for further explanation, asked who was to have the nomination to places? Newcastle replied, “I myself.” Fox, “Who the recommendation?” N. “Any member of the House of Commons.” Fox then inquired into the projected measures for securing the approaching Parliament, and what list Mr. Pelham had left for composing it. The Duke said, “My brother had settled it all with Lord Duplin.” Fox replied, “Not all;” and named some unsettled boroughs. The Duke said hastily, “No, no, all was settled.” Fox said, “I will come and look over the list with your Grace.” He answered, “No, I will look it over with Duplin, and then show it to you.” They came away.

Before I prosecute this barter for power, let me make one reflection. How avowed was become the traffic for Parliaments! how extensive the breach of the constitution, since Pym and Hampden presented their bosoms to cover and close the gap! Yet what has befallen this country, but what is common to sublunary establishments? How few years had rolled away between the age of Cato’s Brutus’s, Cicero’s, and the domination of that Imperial fiddler, Nero? Within how small a period did the stock-jobber, Julianus, purchase the very Empire which Trajan had extended to its utmost limits? The auction of votes is become an established commerce, and his Grace did nothing but squabble for the prerogative of being sole appraiser.

Fox felt he was bubbled--yet was irresolute. He seemed unaccountably to have lost the spirit which the Duke seemed as unaccountably to have acquired. But in this transaction, and in many subsequent instances, it appeared, that his timidity was consistent with extreme rashness: his brother’s timorousness more unallayed, had predominated, and given the colour of fear to their joint Administration. The Duke left to himself, always plunged into difficulties, before he shuddered for the consequences: the other had possessed more foresight.

Lord Hartington acquainted the Chancellor with what had passed. He seemed struck; but, as if conscious to the violation of the terms, or determined at once to profit of it, said, he could not see the Duke that evening, but would next morning. At night, the Duke sent for Lord Hartington; not repentant; he was not apt to repent of advantageous treachery. He would not deny the breach of his engagements, but honestly declared he would not stand to them. Lord Hartington, as if avowal of treachery repaired it, expressed no resentment. His impartiality was ludicrous; he thought he displayed sufficient friendship to Fox, by publishing the Duke of Newcastle’s breach of faith; and he knew he should not offend the latter, by adhering to a simple relation of his perfidy.

Fox in the meantime consulted his friends. The Duke of Cumberland dissuaded his complying with terms infringed ere ratified. Horace Walpole, the younger, laid before him the succession of the Duke of Newcastle’s wiles and falsehoods; and being persuaded that this coalition was intended only to prejudice Mr. Fox, and that he would be betrayed, mortified, disgraced, as soon as the new Minister should have detached him from his connexions, and prevented his strengthening them, urged him to refuse the Seals. Sir Charles Williams, who happened to be in England, and whose interest as a Minister in Foreign Courts, indubitably pointed to make him wish Mr. Fox Secretary of State, yet with great honesty laboured in the most earnest manner to tear him back from the precipice on which he stood. He yielded, yet never[243] forgave Sir Charles Williams, whose dissuasion having been most vehement, had made most impression on him. He sent the following letter by Lord Hartington to the Duke of Newcastle:

March 14th, 1754.

My Lord Duke,

As your Grace intends to wait upon his Majesty to-day, I must
lose no time to desire your Grace would not acquaint his Majesty
that I have accepted the office of Secretary of State. But, if
his Majesty has already been acquainted with my acceptance of
it, your Grace will, I hope, tell his Majesty that I purpose,
with the utmost submission, to beg his Majesty’s leave to decline
it. It is impossible his Majesty could think of raising me to
so exalted a station, but with a design that I should, with and
under your Grace, have the management of his affairs in the House
of Commons. This was the whole tenour of your Grace’s messages
by Lord Hartington, which, in your Grace’s conference with Lord
Hartington and me yesterday morning, and with Lord Hartington
last night, have been totally contradicted. Unable, therefore,
to answer what, I dare say, is his Majesty’s expectation (though
your Grace has frankly declared it not to be yours), that I
should be answerable for his Majesty’s affairs in the House of
Commons, I beg leave to remain where I am, heartily wishing
success to his Majesty’s affairs, and contributing all that shall
be in the power of a single man towards it. I am, &c.

On 16th, Fox saw the King. The former said, with humility, that in seven years he had never presumed to enter first on other affairs than of his province. The King interrupted him, “It was a great place I designed for you; I thought I did much for you; many Dukes have had it.” Fox answered, “Sir, your Majesty has been told that I asked for too much.” The King said, “You did; the Secret Service money has never been in other hands than the person’s at the head of the Treasury.” “Perhaps, Sir,” replied Fox, “I did ask too much; but they were more in fault who promised and broke their word: Lord Hartington is witness. I shall speak with truth, not with modesty. I might be a great man in the House of Commons, if I would be Secretary of State at the head of an Opposition--but I prefer serving your Majesty as a private man, without seeing the Duke of Newcastle. He promised me his confidence: I never can believe him more. I am honest, he is not.” The King concluded, “I know it cannot be made up; you are not apt to depart from your resolution--it is a great office! but I have learned _nemini obtrudere beneficium_.”

The triumphant Duke having disabled Fox, and being possessed of Murray, or rather the agent of power for him, had little trouble with the remaining competitor. Sir George Lyttelton, whose warmest prayer was to go to heaven in a Coronet, undertook to be factor for his friends. Unauthorized, he answered for Pitt’s acquiescence under the new plan. He obtained a great employment for himself, overlooked Lord Temple, and if he stipulated without commission for George Grenville, at least it was for a preferment, large beyond the latter’s most possible presumption.

All impediments thus removed, Newcastle obtained his full list of preferments; and the rest of the month was employed in forming and establishing his new court. Legge, as has been said, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer--unwillingly: he preferred his own more profitable place, less obnoxious to danger and envy. The meanness of his appearance, and the quaintness of his dialect, made him as improper for it as unwilling. Sandys’s solemn dulness had made men regret Sir Robert Walpole’s cheerful dignity: Legge’s arch gravity struck no impression after Mr. Pelham’s peevish authority: men had no notion of an epigrammatic Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Barnard, Lord Duplin, and Nugent composed the rest of the Treasury. George Grenville succeeded Legge as Treasurer of the Navy. Sir George Lyttelton was made Cofferer; Lord Hilsborough Comptroller of the Household, and Lord Barrington Master of the Great Wardrobe, in the room of Sir Thomas Robinson, who, to give some relief to Lord Holderness, and no possibility of umbrage to the fretful Duke, was nominated to the Seals, which Mr. Fox had declined.

Sir Thomas had been bred in German Courts, and was rather restored than naturalized to the genius of that country: he had German honour, loved German politics, and could explain himself as little as if he spoke only German. He might have remained in obscurity, if the Duke of Newcastle’s necessity of employing men of talents inferior even to his own, and his alacrity in discovering persons so qualified, had not dragged poor Sir Thomas into light and ridicule; yet, if the Duke had _intended_ to please his master, he could not have succeeded more happily than by presenting him with so congenial a servant: the King, with such a Secretary in his closet, felt himself in the very Elysium of Herenhausen!

The Chancellor’s sincerity and services were crowned with an Earldom; but, as Roman Consuls in the very car of Victory were coupled with a slave, to remind them of their mortality, Harry Vane (lately become Lord Barnard by the death of his father,) was created Earl of Darlington at the same hour.

While England was re-settling into a calm, the troubles continued in Ireland. A dangerous tumult was raised at the theatre; the audience called for a repetition of these lines in a translation of Voltaire’s Mahomet:

---- if, ye powers divine,
Ye mark the movements of this nether world,
And bring them to account; crush, crush these vipers,
Who, singled out by a community
To guard their rights, shall, for a grasp of ore,
Or paltry office, sell them to the foe.

Diggs, the actor, refused, by order of Sheridan, the manager, to repeat them: Sheridan would not even appear on the stage to justify the prohibition. In an instant, the audience demolished the inside of the house, and reduced it to a shell. The Lord Mayor was sent for; he said he was sick: the High-Constable; he was said to be out of town. At the same time, the King issued the contested money by his own authority; for, as the whole currency of Ireland does not amount to above 500,000_l._, the specie in question was necessary to carry on the circulation. The Castle wore so little a spirit of pacification, that the Duke of Dorset wrote to press the disgrace of the Speaker: but the English Ministry would have conjured down the storm by pressing the Earl of Hertford to go Lord Deputy, when the Duke of Dorset should return, which would have avoided the ungracious renewal of the Primate’s share in the Regency. But this was a most unwelcome measure, not to that Prelate only; Lord George Sackville foresaw that Mr. Conway, a kind of contemporary rival, and brother of Lord Hertford, would necessarily share the popular merit of restoring tranquillity; and accordingly, as was supposed, instigated the Irish Chancellor to write to England, that, if he was to carry the Seals before Lord Hertford, he should desire to come to England during that period. Not content with this, the Duke himself wrote to prevent having Lord Hertford for Deputy. The Duke of Newcastle and the Chancellor were much inclined to the pacific method, but the faction of Stone and Murray prevailed, of whom the latter always counselled authoritative measures. It was the Duke of Newcastle’s turn to be bullied. As the latter had usurped England, and the Duke of Argyle had wormed himself into the sole power in Scotland, Dorset asserted and maintained his ascendant in Ireland. The Speaker was removed, and Mr. Hill, uncle of Lord Hilsborough, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer in his room. The Primate, the Chancellor, and Lord Besborough, were constituted Lords Justices on the Duke’s return to England.

On the 8th of April, the Chief-Justice Lee died: Sir Dudley Rider succeeded him; Murray rose to Attorney-General, and Sir Richard Loyd was made Solicitor. The same day the English Parliament was dissolved; and on the 31st of the following month, the new Parliament, chosen in the very spirit of the Pelhams, met and sat for five or six days in order to pass one Bill, and constitute their essence; for, by the Regency Bill, the last Parliament that should sit in the life of the King, was to revive on his death; and the new one was too acceptable to the Ministry, not to be insured. Mr. Legge presided at the Cockpit meeting, for reading the King’s Speech to the Court members. The little man lost his temperance of spirit, and began to deceive himself into an opinion of being a Minister: the Duke of Newcastle, as severe a monitor to Ministers of their nothingness as the most moral preacher, and more efficacious, soon shuffled him out of his dream of grandeur, and having raised him as high as was necessary to his own views, took an immediate turn of depressing and using him ill. At the Treasury Board, the Duke gave papers cross him to Lord Duplin to read, and even sent the latter into the city to negotiate the money affairs for the Government. The obsequiousness of his creatures could not exempt them from his Grace’s jealousy, as oft as he approached them too near to his own person. Legge gave an artful turn to his disgust, and vaunted to the Whigs that his want of favour was owing to his refusal of acting in concert with Stone and Murray: “But that would have been a stain,” said he, “which I thought no time could wash away.”

Pitt came to town much in discontent: Newcastle asked him his opinion of the new settlement: he declined answering; on being pressed, he replied, “Your Grace will be surprised, but I think Mr. Fox should have been at the head of the House of Commons.” Their mutual discontents soon led Pitt and Fox to an explanation on their situation, and on all who had endeavoured to inspire them with jealousy. Pitt complained most of Mr. Pelham, who, he said, had always deprecated, but always fomented their variance. The Chancellor, ever since Pitt’s return, had falsely boasted to him of having proposed him for Secretary of State.

The halcyon days of the new Administration soon began to be overcast by foreign clouds. The pacific genius of the house of Pelham was not unknown to France, and fell in very conveniently with their plan of extensive empire. They had yielded to a peace with us, only to recover breath, and to recoil with greater force after a few years of recruited strength; yet even in the short term lapsed since the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, they had not been unactive. Complaisance in Europe was to cover encroachments in both Indies. Mr. Pelham was willing to be the dupe. If the nation demanded no redress, he would neither propose nor seek it. Redress could be procured but by arms; armaments must be furnished by money; money to be raised might create murmurs; opposition might ensue--were national honour or interest worth hazarding that? And having had the merit of lessening the National Debt, he had the more justifiable and reasonable excuse of dreading to augment it again, when it was still so burthensome. In the East Indies we had lost Madras in the late war; and since the peace, under pretence of the two nations engaging on different sides in support of two contending Nabobs, hostilities had continued with various success.

During Mr. Pelham’s rapid decline of health, a small fleet had been fitted out to protect a trade, which the numerous reinforcements dispatched by the French East India Company, with equal countenance from their Crown, had already rendered very precarious, indeed desperate. In Africa, they debauched our Allies, erected forts, and aimed at embracing the whole Gold Coast and Guinea trade. But their attempts in America grew daily more open, more avowed, more alarming, indeed extended to nothing less than by erecting a chain of garrisons from Canada to the mouths of the Mississippi, to back all our settlements, cut off our communication with the Indians west of that river, and inclose and starve our universal plantations and trade: it would not be necessary to invade them, they would fall of course. The discussions left unsettled by the precipitate peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and proposed to be adjusted by those most ineffective of all negotiators, Commissaries, gave, not a pretence, rather an invitation to the French, to dispatch by force of arms the liquidation of an affair which might be explained to their disadvantage. The fatal treaty of Utrecht had left but too many of our interests in the West Indies problematic: the impetuosity of Lord Bolingbroke to betray Europe left him no moments, could inspire him with no zeal to assert our pretensions in America. The rights of either nation, as adjudged by treaties and mutual concessions, and more easily still to be defined by their actual establishments, were capable of being made tolerably clear: if explored to their source, they were mere pretensions in both. The topic, striking as it is to a mind that can philosophise, abstractedly from connexions with any particular country, is too common to be enlarged upon.

A sea captain first spying a rock in the fifteenth century; perhaps a cross, or a coat of arms set up to the view of a few miles of coast by an adventurer, or even by a shipwrecked crew, gave the first claims to Kings and archpirates over an unknown tract of country. This transitory seizure sometimes obtained the venerable confirmation of an old priest at Rome (who, a century or two before, had in his infallibility pronounced that the existence of such a country was impossible), or of a still more politic, though not less interested Privy Council at home. Sometimes, indeed, if the discoverers were conscientious, they made a legal purchase to all eternity, of empires and posterity from a parcel of naked natives, for a handful of glass beads and baubles. Maryland, I think, was solemnly acquired at the extravagant rate of a quantity of vermilion and Jew’s-harps: I don’t know whether the authentic instrument may not be recorded in that Christian depository the Court of Chancery. By means so holy, a few Princes, who would be puzzled to produce a legitimate title to their own dominions in Europe, were wafted into rights and prerogatives over the boundless regions of America. Detachments were sent to take possession of the new discoveries; they peopled the seaports, they sprinkled themselves over the coasts, they enslaved or assisted the wretched natives to butcher one another, instructed them in the use of firearms, of brandy, and the New Testament, and at last, by scattered extension of forts and colonies, they have met to quarrel for the boundaries of Empires, of which they can neither use nor occupy a twentieth part of the included territory.

What facilitated the enterprises of the French was the extreme ignorance in which the English Court had kept themselves of the affairs of America. That department is subjected to the Secretary of State for the Southern Province, assisted by the Board of Trade. That Board, during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, had very faultily been suffered to lapse almost into a sinecure; and during all that period the Duke of Newcastle had been Secretary of State. It would not be credited what reams of papers, representations, memorials, petitions, from that quarter of the world lay mouldering and unopened in his office. West Indian Governors could not come within the sphere of his jealousy: nothing else merited or could fix his mercurial inattention. He knew as little of the geography of his province as of the state of it: when General Legonier hinted some defence to him for Annapolis, he replied with his evasive lisping hurry, “Annapolis, Annapolis! oh! yes, Annapolis must be defended; to be sure, Annapolis should be defended--where is Annapolis?” When the French invasions forced him to arouse a little from this lethargy, he struggled to preserve his inactivity, by ordering letters of the most abject and submissive import to be written to our Governors, who pressed for instructions, nay, for permission to defend themselves. Somewhat more of this will appear hereafter. But if he sacrificed the dignity of the Crown with one hand, he thought to exalt it with the other: the prerogative was strained unwarrantably over the Assemblies: the instructions to Sir Danvers Osborn, a new Governor of New York, seemed better calculated for the latitude of Mexico and for a Spanish tribunal, than for a free rich British Settlement, and in such opulence and of such haughtiness, that suspicions had long[244] been conceived of their meditating to throw off their dependence on their mother country.

Lord Halifax, who now presided at the Board of Trade, and who, among the concessions of the Pelhams, had wrenched much American authority from the Secretary of State, was fond of power and business, was jealous of his own and country’s honour, encouraged and countenanced plans and lights for preserving and extending our trade and dominion in that hemisphere, and as much as he could counteracted the supineness of the Administration. Had the Rulers of the State been as alert, the season was favourable; and uncommon incidents threw occasions into their hands of dispelling the dangers that hung over them from the French. Spain was revolved to its true interest; the rudder of Bourbon no longer steered their Court. The ambitious Queen Dowager, who by money, intrigues, and by the prospect of her son Carlos’s succession, as the King was likely to have no children, had preserved a potent faction in the Ministry, was sinking into impotence of power, and saw all her schemes blasted. Don Caravalho and Lancaster, the Prime Minister, died in April this year: the Duke d’Huescar succeeded, and had raised his friend General Wall to be Minister for Foreign Affairs. It is not to be told with what regret the latter quitted England, which had become his country as much by affection as by extraction. He and the Duke were fortunately old Spaniards in principle, and being obnoxious to, were consequently averse to, the Queen Dowager and her French party. One of the first effects of this new Ministry was the fall of Ensenada, the creature of the Queen Dowager. Sir Benjamin Keene discovered, and imparted by the means of General Wall to the King, that Ensenada had sent orders to their West Indian Governors to fall on our ships, and had lent great sums of the Royal treasure to the French East India Company. He was disgraced, but with great lenity, and exiled to Granada.

While the Duke of Newcastle neglected such real opportunities of popularity, he was entering into little details in the Treasury, and threatened great reformations in trifles. The first abuses to be moderated or rooted out were pensions and quarterings on places; the former to gratify his Majesty, the latter to please public opinion. This lasted a fortnight: to support his vain power, both abuses were in his very second year, as will be seen, pushed to enormity.

In August came news of the defeat of Major Washington in the Great Meadows on the western borders of Virginia: a trifling action, but remarkable[245] for giving date to the war. The encroachments of the French have been already mentioned; but in May they had proceeded to open hostilities. Major Washington with about fifty men attacked one of their parties, and slew the commanding Officer. In this skirmish he was supported by an Indian half king and _twelve_ of his subjects, who in the Virginian accounts, is called a very considerable Monarch. On the third of July, the French being reinforced to the number of nine hundred, fell on Washington in a small fort, which they took, but dismissed the Commander with military honours, being willing, as they expressed it in the capitulation, to show that they treated them like friends! In the express which Major Washington dispatched on his preceding little victory, he concluded with these words; “I heard the bullets whistle, and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” On hearing of this letter, the King said sensibly, “He would not say so, if he had been used to hear many.” However, this brave braggart[246] learned to blush for his rodomontade, and desiring to serve General Braddock as Aide-de-camp, acquitted himself nobly.

The violence of this proceeding gave a reverberation to the stagnated politics of the Ministry: in a moment, the Duke of Newcastle assumed the hero, and breathed nothing but military operations: he and the Chancellor held Councils of War; none of the Ministers, except Lord Holderness, were admitted within their tent. They knew too well how proper the Duke was to be consulted: of course they were jealous, and did not consult him. Instead of him, they summoned one Gates,[247] a very young officer just returned from Nova Scotia, and asked his advice. He was too sensible of their absurdity, and replied, that he had never served but in Nova Scotia, and it would be impertinent to give his opinion; he was ready to answer any questions. They knew not what to ask. When this lad would not be a Marshal, they next consulted one Hanbury, a Quaker, and at his recommendation determined upon Sharpe, the Governor of Virginia, for their General. They told the King he had served all the last war, though he had never served, and that the Duke had a good opinion of him: the Duke said, “So good, that if Sharpe had been consulted, I am sure he would have refused.” We must defer the history of the campaign till its proper season.

No other event happened before the meeting of the Parliament except the decision of a famous cause. The inhabitants of Richmond and the neighbouring gentlemen, even instigated underhand by the Duke of Newcastle, had commenced a suit against Princess Amelie[248] for the right and liberty of entering into New Park at their pleasure: the case was this: Charles the First made the park, partly by pecuniary, partly by compulsory methods, and gave great disgusts by it. Queen Anne gave two or more lives in it to her relations, the Hydes, who suffered it to run to great decay. When Sir Robert Walpole became Minister, who was fond of hunting, and wanted occasional retirement and exercise, he persuaded King George the First to buy out the family of Hyde, and obtained the Rangership for his eldest son, which was confirmed to him by the present King for life. It was a bog, and a harbour for deer-stealers and vagabonds. Sir Robert Walpole drained it, and expended great sums upon it himself; but to obtain more privacy and security, he took away the ladders on the walls, and shut up the gates, but settled keepers at them, who were to open to all foot-passengers in the daytime, and to such carriages as had tickets, which were easily obtained. Princess Amelie succeeded his son Lord Orford, but preserved no measures of popularity. Her brother William had incredibly disgusted the neighbourhood of Windsor by excluding them from most of the benefits of the park there. The Princess entirely shut up New Park, except by giving very few tickets. Petitions were presented to her; she would not receive them. They were printed in the public Newspapers, but had as little effect. Subscriptions were formed, conferences were held to no purpose. At last the cause was brought to a trial. Sir John Philipps and the younger Beckford presented themselves as tribunes of the people to plead the cause, but instead of influencing the Court, they confounded the rest of their Council. The Princess carried her cause.[249]

The children of the Crown in England have no landed appanages: they naturally covet them: Rangerships for lives are the only territories the King has to bestow. Both the Duke and his sister entered more easily into the spirit of prerogative than was decent in a family brought hither for the security of liberty. To shut up Windsor or Richmond parks, if the law permits, is no violation of the constitution; but when Princes of the Blood (and the race is likely to be numerous) come to stand suits for exclusive privileges, it is easy to foresee into what excesses their ambition or their necessities may make them slide.

Nov. 14th.--The Parliament met. The King’s speech endeavoured to inculcate notions of tranquillity, yet with preserving a salvo for demanding supplies hereafter, by just hinting at the preservation of our rights in America. Sir George Lee, who moved the Address in the Commons, spoke plainly on Spain’s having given orders for restoring our ships. Mr. Conway, who seconded him, went a little farther, and descanted on the increase of France. Potter ridiculed Ministerial Addresses well; called them the late lullabies that always acquainted us with the disposition of all the European powers to preserve the peace--but France indeed had spoiled that part of the speech for this year: yet he would agree to the Address, and consider measures hereafter. The Ministers did not know which should act Minister for the day: at last Murray pushed up Legge, who said a few words without dignity; the tenour and point of which was that our conduct was to be _fortiter in re, suaviter in modo_. Beckford said, that we had had such an order for restitution from Spain two years ago; and therefore he should not trust to this. That the marine and colonies of France had not increased in proportion to ours. That we should exert naval strength instead of alliances. With those great alliances in the last war we had run thirty millions in debt. Queen Elizabeth, in her distress, did not go about begging and buying alliances.

Mr. Conway replied in a few words elegantly, that Beckford had mistaken him; that he had not said that the colonies of France had increased in proportion to ours, but along with their landed power in Europe; however, that he was far from not thinking them very formidable in America; for, if we considered their extent of country along the rivers and lakes, it was like a net, which, if drawn a little tighter, might shuffle us into the sea. Lord Egmont, who always larded, or composed his speeches with speculative topics of government, went back to the Revolution, which, he said, was Rebellion, if anything more than restitution of the old constitution. That he would not oppose the Address, because we wanted unanimity, but that too languid a spirit prevailed. That it was thought so necessary to keep peace in the Administration, that we dared not take great steps: yet now was the time, when the House was no longer under any ministerial influence: however, we must take care not to provoke France, when part of the King’s dominions (Ireland) was so discontented. Murray observed, that the new members must wonder at a Debate without a question or opposition: but, said he, how will all this be represented abroad? to Spain, that we don’t believe their offers: to Germany, that we would shake off all our Allies: to France, that we reckon the peace broken; and that we make no distinction between our rights and our possessions. For the Colonies, he believed they would sacrifice everything rather than submit to France: yet was it judicious in Lord Egmont to throw out notions of discontents? The Address passed without a negative.

About this time came unwelcome news to the King: his son-in-law, Frederic, Hereditary Prince of Hesse Cassel, was discovered to be turned Papist. He was a brutal German, obstinate, of no genius, and after long treating Princess Mary, who was the mildest and gentlest of her race, with great inhumanity, had for some time lived upon no terms with her: his father, the Landgrave William, protected her: an arbitrary, artful man, of no reputation for integrity. The hereditary Prince was devoted to France and Prussia. It was not an age when conversions were common; nor were his morals strict enough to countenance any pretence to scruples; it was necessary to recur to private or political reasons for his change, and, from what has been said, it appears in what numbers they presented themselves. Yet even the King of Prussia acted zeal for the Protestant cause. The Landgrave was as outrageous as if he felt for it too. No obstructions being offered by the Catholic powers, the Landgrave and States, with the concurrence of the King, enacted heavy restrictions on the Prince, whenever he should succeed his father.

The scene began to darken at home. As the Duke of Newcastle had secured by employments almost every material speaker in Parliament, it was hoped that the session would be amused, and pass off with regulating controverted elections: there was one of much expectation. The majority in all late Parliaments, and still more in this devoted one, had been composed solely from boroughs: counties were too extensive to be ventured upon in the way of expense, and had been left to their own ill humours, and to the country gentlemen: Oxfordshire in particular had long been a little kingdom of Jacobitism. The Duke of Marlborough, prodigal, and never judicious in his extravagance, would not content himself with the offer made to him by the county, of electing his son as soon as he should be of age: he determined to choose both representatives from his own party. Mr. Pelham had received the proposal with joy: that Duke was led by Fox: if the contest succeeded, Mr. Pelham would command two more members; if it miscarried, Fox and the Duke of Marlborough would labour under all the unpopularity. After unbounded expense, the four candidates were all returned, and the House was to decide on the merits, which must take up several weeks.

There was another election depending, of still nicer discussion; that of Mitchell, in Cornwall. Lord Sandwich had long dictated there, upon the interest of his nephew, Courtney, a minor. The Duke of Newcastle had now encouraged the Boscawens and Edgcumbes to oppose him. Lord Sandwich secured the returning officer, but a petition was lodged against his members. Fox, who sought all opportunities, where the King’s name could not be pretended, of crossing the Duke of Newcastle, warmly and openly espoused Lord Sandwich. Pitt, as ill disposed, was neuter in this; but in the Reading election pretended connexions with Lord Fane, Lord Sandwich’s brother-in-law, and declared on the same side. In this temper the Parliament had opened; and Pitt, who, though ready to give words in change, was not a man to take them, had already come to some explanation with the Duke of Newcastle, and had even said to him, “Fewer words, my Lord, if you please, for your words have long lost all weight with me.”

21st.--A day was to be appointed for hearing the Mitchell election: Lord Sandwich, who tried to defer its being heard, was beat with 127 by 154.

25th.--Another petition being in agitation, the House thin and idle, a younger Delaval had spoken pompously and abusively against the petitioner, and had thrown the House into a laughter on the topics of bribery and corruption. Pitt, who was in the gallery, started, and came down with impetuosity, and with all his former fire said, “He had asked what occasioned such an uproar; lamented to hear a laugh on such a subject as bribery! Did we try _within_ the House to diminish our own dignity, when such attacks were made upon it from without? that it was almost lost! that it wanted support! that it had long been vanishing! scarce possible to recover it! that he hoped the Speaker would extend a saving hand to raise it: he could only restore it--yet scarce he! He called on all to assist, or else _we should only sit to register the arbitrary edicts of One too powerful a subject_!” This thunderbolt, thrown in a sky so long serene, confounded the audience. Murray crouched, silent and terrified. Legge scarce rose to say with great humility, “That he had been raised solely by the Whigs, and if he fell sooner or later, he should pride himself in nothing but in being a Whig.”

The evening of this novel day was still more tempestuous. The Committee of Elections opened. Mr. Gray, a steady but plausible Tory, favoured by the Chancellor and Sir George Lyttelton, desired to have the petition against him from Colchester deferred, till it was sure of being heard. Sir Thomas Robinson said, “That might be soon, for the Reading election, which was to precede it, could not last long; there was but a majority of one vote for Lord Fane, and it was a poor cause.” Pitt sprung up, and attacked Sir Thomas fiercely; told him how ignorant he was to talk in that style of a cause unheard; that he was not to be thus taught his duty by any man; but if the first officer in the State could make so gross a supposition, there would be short work with elections: he never thought to see so melancholy a day! Sir Thomas replied with pomp, confusion, and warmth, that spirit should be shown: could gentlemen, could merchants, could the House bear, if eloquence alone was to carry it? he hoped words only would not prevail! that for himself, he executed an office, of which he had never been ambitious. Pitt replied with cool art, and showed that he had only aimed the stroke at the Duke of Newcastle, through Sir Thomas, to whom he now spoke with respect, and with esteem of his integrity; adding, _that he thought him as able as any man that had of late years filled that office, or was likely to fill it_. The weapons that Pitt laid down Fox took up, and exercised them with still more inveteracy and warmth on poor Sir Thomas and his ignorance: “If one of the greatest men in the House pronounced it a poor cause, it would indeed be a poor cause; but he imputed it to his inexperience: he was the first great man, and he hoped would be the last, that ever pronounced so on a cause unheard!” It was plain that Pitt and Fox were impatient of any superior; and as plain by the complexion and murmurs of the House in support of Sir Thomas Robinson, that the inclinations of the members favoured neither of them.