Chapter XXVIII (4)

[337] Had Lord Egremont been a liar of the “monstrous magnitude” stated in the text, he certainly would never have had the opportunity of refusing the offer of being Secretary of State from a man of such strict honour and integrity as Lord Waldegrave; an offer, be it observed, which Walpole notices in his Memoirs of George the Second without censure. It was to his refusal of that offer, and to his subsequent connection with Mr. Grenville, that Lord Egremont owed this severe imputation. He was proud, obstinate, and hot-tempered; but that he was not without talent is proved by his answer to the Spanish memorial, a State paper of acknowledged merit. Bishop Newton, who knew him well, says, “that if he had entered earlier into business, he might have made as considerable a figure as his father had. He had seldom occasion to speak in Parliament, but, when he did, it was with great clearness, force, and energy; and he was thought to resemble his father in manner as well as in good matter, having a little catch and impediment in his voice, as his father had.”--Newton’s Mem. p. 89.--E.

[338] Many interesting anecdotes of Lord Halifax are given in the Memoirs of Mr. Cumberland, who had been his private secretary for many years. He describes him thus: “I am persuaded he was formed to be a good man, he might also have been a great one: his mind was large, his spirit active, his ambition honourable; he had a carriage noble and imposing; his first approach attracted notice; his consequent address ensured respect. If his talents were not quite so solid as some, nor altogether so deep as others, yet they were brilliant, popular, and made to glitter in the eyes of men: splendour was his passion; his good-fortune threw opportunities in his way to have supported it; his ill-fortune blasted all those energies which should have been reserved for the crisis of his public fame. The first offices of the State, the highest honours which his Sovereign could bestow, were showered upon him when the spring of his mind was broken; and his genius, like a vessel overloaded with treasure, but far gone in decay, was only precipitated to ruin by the very freight that, in its better days, would have crowned it with prosperity and riches.” Vol. i. p. 242. This is a generous portrait, considering that Cumberland had certainly been unkindly treated by Lord Halifax; and, had he always felt thus, he would not have furnished Sheridan with the model of Sir Fretful Plagiary.--E.

[339] The figures 45 became the hieroglyphics of Wilkes’s party.

[340] Queen Anne’s speech on the treaty of Utrecht told a similar lie; so exactly was the parallel maintained throughout. [It was consequently made one of the subjects of Lord Orford’s impeachment. Vide fifteenth Article, Journals, vol. xviii. p. 214.--E.]

[341] The following passages are those to which the text refers: “This week has given the public the most abandoned instance of official effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind. The minister’s speech last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am in doubt whether the imposition is greater on the Sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament that a Prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his name to the most odious measures, and to the most unjustifiable public doctrines, from a Throne ever renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue. I am sure all foreigners, especially the King of Prussia, will hold the minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our Sovereign declare, ‘_My expectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown have derived from the salutary measure of the definitive treaty. The powers at war with my good brother the King of Prussia have been induced to agree to such terms of accommodation as that great Prince has approved, and the success which has attended my negotiation has necessarily and immediately diffused the blessings of peace throughout Europe._’ The infamous fallacy of this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind; for it is known that the King of Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dictated as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No advantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous Prince from our negotiation; but he was basely deserted by the Scottish Prime Minister of England. He was known by every Court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms here than at Vienna, and he was betrayed by us in the treaty of peace. What a strain of insolence, therefore, is it in a minister to lay claim to what he is conscious his efforts tended to prevent, and meanly to arrogate to himself a share in the fame and glory of one of the greatest Princes the world has ever seen!”--E.

[342] Robert Wood, author of the accounts of Balbec and Palmyra, and Under-Secretary of State. He had been so made by Lord Chatham, but had deserted him. [Mr. Wood was still, and for some time after, on most friendly terms with Lord Chatham. Vide his letters of the 3rd and 6th of September, 1763, in the second volume of the Chatham Correspondence, p. 246.--E.]

[343] Philip Carteret Webbe, M.P. for Hazlemere, and Solicitor to the Treasury. The part he took in the proceedings against Wilkes savoured too much of the practice at the Old Bailey, and made him very unpopular. His character was otherwise unexceptionable. He published various tracts on law and antiquities, and was a great collector of books and medals. He died in 1770, aged 70.--E.

[344] When Charles King of Naples, on the death of his brother King Ferdinand, succeeded to the crown of Spain, he set aside his eldest son as an idiot, made the second Prince of Asturias, and the third King of Naples.

[345] He was appointed King’s Counsel in May, 1757, and Baron of the Exchequer in Hilary Term, 1762. He resigned in May, 1764. We cannot find anything more about him. His praise of the peace seems to have been on his first circuit; probably, while his surprise and gratitude were fresh. There are no Exchequer reports of that time. Except on the circuit, a Baron of the Exchequer was then, and long after, almost a sinecurist.--E.

[346] Ralph Allen, of Prior Park, near Bath, Master of the Cross-posts.

[347] Mr. Pitt had openly pronounced the peace _inadequate_, and it seemed to be personally levelled at him, that the address affected to call it _adequate_. [Bishop Warburton insists on Allen’s ignorance of Mr. Pitt having applied the term “inadequate” to the peace, and disclaims any concern in it himself; though he admits having drawn up, promoted, and advised a similar address from the clergy of Gloucester, whose interference, on this occasion, “had the fate,” Mr. Pitt observed, “not to be imitated by any other episcopal see in the kingdom.” Allen, who was now an old man, felt Mr. Pitt’s resentment acutely, and immediately withdrew from this corporation. He died on the 29th June of the following year, having bequeathed to Mr. Pitt a legacy of 1000_l._ Mr. Pitt’s letter of condolence to his widow shows, that whatever coolness the address might have produced in their intercourse was short-lived. The correspondence between Mr. Pitt and Allen is in the Annual Register for 1763, p. 208; and in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 256.--E.]

[348] Captain Forbes, of Ogilby’s regiment, in the French service. He was of good family in Scotland, and of some merit in his profession, as may be inferred from his subsequently attaining the rank of General in Portugal, where, in common with other Scotch exiles, he was employed and trusted.--E.

[349] Vide Memoirs of the year 1751, [vol. i. p. 15-181. He was at that time residing at Paris, under the name of Count Murray. In 1771, he was recalled by letter under the King’s privy seal, and he died shortly afterwards.--E.]

[350] Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds.

[351] Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde, brother of William Earl of Jersey. [He had been Minister at Berlin in the reign of George the Second, and received various honours from Frederick the Great, whose preference of him to such men as Mr. Legge and Mr. Fox, and even to Sir Andrew Mitchell, probably arose from the same reasons that induced Napoleon to bestow the warmest praise on such of his enemy’s generals as he most wished to have as opponents. Lord Hyde was an amiable nobleman, of very comely person, and graceful deportment; he married one of the coheiresses of Lord Clarendon, was elevated to that earldom in 1776, and died in 1786.--E.]

[352] Mr. Grenville was deeply offended at this interference of the Duke of Bedford; and his friends, in consequence, took no pains to defend the Duke when the current of popular feeling afterwards turned so strongly against his Grace.--E.

[353] Mr. Pitt’s villa at Hayes, near Bromley, in Kent.

[354] Walpole is mistaken in this supposition; for the King himself proposed Lord Temple for the Treasury. (Lord Hardwicke’s letter to the Duke of Newcastle.) An impartial narrative of this transaction is given by Mr. Adolphus (vol. i. p. 127), with a reference to the contemporary authorities, of which the most important are Lord Hardwicke’s letter, and the letters in the Chatham Correspondence (vol. ii. p. 242). The “dexterity” and finesse ascribed in the text to Mr. Pitt hardly belong to his character, and certainly were not exhibited on this occasion. His private correspondence proves, as he told the King, that he felt throughout the impossibility of his making a ministry, unless it rested “on the great families who had supported the Revolution Government, and other great persons, of whose ability and integrity the country had had experience, and who had weight and credit in the nation.” This would necessarily have involved greater changes than the King then contemplated, though not greater than his Majesty subsequently found inevitable.--E.

[355] Henry Arthur Herbert, Earl of Powis.

[356] He had been succeeded as Treasurer of the Household by Lord Powis.

[357] His Majesty did not give him up in less than two years on the next change.

[358] Charles Watson Wentworth, Marquis of Rockingham.

[359] Welbore Ellis, Esq.

[360] George Keppel, third Earl of Albemarle.

[361] Walpole is in error here. Wood informed Mr. Pitt of the report, that he had proscribed Lord Gower, Rigby, and others of the Bedford party; and Mr. Pitt’s reply, though it has not been preserved, may be inferred, from Wood’s acknowledgment of it, to have amounted to a positive denial of the charge. (Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 250.)--E.

[362] Dr. Charles Lyttelton, brother of George Lord Lyttelton. They were sons of Christian, sister of Richard Lord Cobham, consequently first cousins of Lord Temple.

[363] James Grenville, the third brother.

[364] Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, had four sisters, Maria, Hester, Christian, and Penelope. Maria, widow of Sir John Langham, offended him by marrying Mr. West, a clergyman, on which he set her aside, and settled his estate, and obtained his peerage to be settled, on Hester, the second sister, and her issue, who, by Mr. Grenville, her husband, were Richard, George, James, Henry, Thomas, and Hester, the wife of Mr. Pitt. [Mr. West was the father of Gilbert West, one of the Clerks of the Council, and better known as the translator of Pindar, and author of the popular treatise “On the Resurrection.” He was a most amiable man, and the intimate friend of Pitt.--E.]

[365] Henrietta Hobart, sister of the first Earl of Buckinghamshire, widow of the Earl of Suffolk, and afterwards of George Berkeley, brother of the Earl of Berkeley, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Caroline, and mistress of King George the Second. The author lived in great friendship with her the last years of her life; her house at Marble Hill, Twickenham, and his at Strawberry Hill, near the same village, were within a mile of each other, and he passed three or four evenings every week with her, when they were in the country. She died July 26, 1767, aged 79, and was remarkable for her strict and minute veracity and memory, which she retained to the last, as well as her eyesight, teeth, and the elegance of her person.

[366] Leicester House, in Leicester Fields, the residence of the Sydneys, Earls of Leicester, was hired and inhabited by King George and Queen Caroline, when Prince and Princess of Wales, on their quarrel with George the First; as it was afterwards, on a similar occasion, by Frederick, Prince of Wales, whose widow, Augusta, also dwelled there till after the accession of her son to the Crown. George the Third, after his father’s death, lived at Saville House, the next door to her.

[367] The names of four Scotchmen appear in the same Gazette to appointments, or as Governors in the American Colonies, Johnstone being one of them. He was the third son of Sir James Johnstone, of Westerhall; he was of a hot and most pugnacious temperament, as he showed some years later by his duel with Lord George Germaine. He died in 1787.--E.

[368] Don Richard Wall, of Irish extraction, was Ambassador here from Spain in the reign of George the Second. He was a most artful, agreeable man, of much wit, and a great favourite at this Court. At his return to Madrid, he had been made Secretary of State in 1754, [upon the downfall of Enseñada. Sir Benjamin Keene, by his advice and influence, materially contributed to this event, which proved highly favourable to the British interests at Madrid. The intrigues in the Spanish Court, and the financial difficulties of the country, made Wall’s post a very irksome one. He discharged its duties at least as ably as either his predecessor or his successor. The King was unwilling to part with him, and made his retirement honourable by many marks of distinction. He passed the remaining years of his life chiefly at Soto de Roma, a royal castle, in the lovely valley of Grenada, where he maintained a splendid hospitality. Mr. Swinburne visited him there, and has given a very agreeable account of him. He died 1778.--E.]

[369] Grimaldi was a Genoese. He had been educated for the church, and always retained the soft and insinuating manners of an Italian ecclesiastic. It was to his address, rather than to his talents, that he was indebted for high situations he filled. In negotiating the celebrated treaty of Paris, he appears to have been overmatched by Choiseul, and the loss of the Havannah, and the other misfortunes of the war, were the immediate fruits of his eagerness for a French alliance. His administration in Spain was neither popular nor successful. It ended with the failure of the expedition to Algiers. His chief merit lay in the encouragement he gave to literature, his patronage of the arts, his love of justice, and the mildness and generosity of his disposition. On his resignation, in 1777, he was created a Duke, and a Grandee of Spain. Having been allowed to nominate his successor, he was at his own request appointed Ambassador at Rome. Coxe’s Spain, vol. v. c. 63; and Memoirs of a Traveller now in Retirement, vol. iv. p. 109.--E.

[370] He had particularly distinguished himself in the command of his regiment at Fontenoy, where his valour and good fortune are noticed by Voltaire:--

“_Guerchy n’est pas blessé, la vertu peut te plaire._”--E.

[371] See an account of him in the notes, _infra_.--E.

[372] This Vergy was a French spy. In 1771, I heard Mr. Phelps, secretary to Lord Sandwich, relate that Vergy had offered him to act, too, as a spy on Guerchy, of which Mr. Phelps gave the ambassador warning. Vergy remained here several years, and wrote pamphlets and novels for a livelihood.

[373] When they talked to D’Eon of a breach of the peace, he understood English so imperfectly, that he thought Lord Halifax threatened to break the peace between the two nations, of which he, D’Eon, had been the messenger, and that inflamed his madness.

[374] Augustus the Third, a weak and unfortunate monarch, whose reign forms one of the most melancholy epochs in the annals of Saxony. His incapacity was more remarkable from his being opposed to Frederick the Great and Catherine the Second. He died in 1763, and with him ended the independence of Poland--his successor Stanislaus being merely the nominee of Russia.--E.

[375] Count Bruhl.--[This worthless courtier, who exercised for many years an arbitrary sway over Saxony and Poland, and inflicted irreparable injuries on both countries, died in October, 1764.--E.]

[376] Rezzonico, Pope by the name of Clement the Thirteenth, [filled the Papal Chair from 1758 to 1769, when he died, in his 76th year. His life was decent, and his intentions appear to have been honest, but his policy was unenlightened and vacillating, and is strikingly contrasted by that of his illustrious successor.--E.]

[377] Sir Hugh Smithson, who assumed the name of Percy on marrying Lady Elizabeth Seymour, daughter of Algernon Duke of Somerset, and heiress of the house of Percy by her grandmother. They were created Earl and Countess of Northumberland.

[378] Thomas Potter--see more of him in the preceding reign. [Memoirs of George II. vol. i. p. 61. He was the second son of Archbishop Potter, whose fortune he inherited, owing to his elder brother having disobliged his father by an imprudent marriage. In 1748 he had been appointed secretary to the Prince of Wales, then the patron of all the talent in the House opposed to the Government, and from that time he took an active part in the political contests of the day. He was a clever and impressive speaker, and, with application and steadiness of conduct, might have become one of the leaders of his party. Unfortunately, he had contracted, in early life, habits of dissipation, under which his constitution sunk, just as his ambitious hopes bade fair to be realized. He died Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, in June, 1759. Some interesting letters from him to Mr. Pitt are given in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. i.--E.]

[379] James Douglas, Earl of March and Ruglen, Lord of the Bedchamber to the King, [afterwards the too well-known Duke of Queensberry--an appropriate patron of such a divine.--E.]

[380] Lord Despencer said, he never heard the devil preach before. Yet Lord Sandwich had a precedent in a great Reformer of the Church: “Calvin eut par trahison les feuilles d’un ouvrage que Servet faisait imprimer secrètement. Il les envoya à Lyon avec les lettres qu’il avait reçues de lui: action qui servirait pour le deshonorer à jamais dans la Société. Calvin fit accuser Servet par un emissaire. Quel rôle pour un Apôtre!”--Voltaire, Essai sur l’Hist. Générale, chap. 113.

[381] A broken wine-merchant, brother of Admiral Cotes, an intimate of Wilkes.

[382] Only son of the Duke of Chandos. [He afterwards succeeded to the Dukedom, and died in 1789, when his titles became extinct. His only daughter married the late Duke of Buckingham.--E.]

[383] Mr. Pitt’s speech had the very dubious merit of pleasing his opponents rather than his friends. Lord Barrington, in a letter to Sir Andrew Mitchell, says, that if fifty thousand pounds had been given for it, the sum would have been well expended. It secures us a quiet session. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 262, and Walpole’s Letters, vol. iv. p. 313.--In fact Mr. Pitt’s interviews with the King had necessarily blunted the edge of his opposition, and he found it as difficult to give an intelligible defence of his proceedings, as all succeeding ministers, in the same predicament, have experienced since.--E.

[384] The Lords on the same account put off the hearing of Wilkes’s defence on the Essay on Woman, to the 22nd; and then for a week longer.

[385] Frederick, second son of George the Third.

[386] Edward Duke of York, next brother to the King.

[387] Frederick Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guilford.

[388] Mr. Morton, or Moreton, M.P. for Abingdon, a barrister of eminence, who was appointed Chief Justice of Chester in 1763. His name will hereafter occur in the debates on the Regency. He must not be confounded with Sir William Moreton, of Moreton, in Cheshire, Recorder of London, who died in 1763.--E.

[389] Mr. Forester had been originally recommended by Alderman Beckford to the Duke of Bedford (when the Alderman and his Grace acted together) for a seat in Parliament, “as a person in whom steadiness, honour, and elocution were not exceeded by any man in the country.” (Bedford Correspondence.)--E.

[390] Mr. Wilbraham, M.P. for Newton, and Deputy Steward of the University of Oxford. He was an eminent lawyer, whose politics, like those of Mr. Fazakerly, prevented his attaining the honours of his profession.--(Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 319.)--E.

[391] Benjamin Bathurst of Lydney, in Gloucestershire, brother of the first Lord Bathurst, and father of the late Bishop of Norwich.--E.

[392] Sir John Griffin, an officer of some distinction. He had been severely wounded at the battle of Campen, when fighting near the hereditary Prince of Brunswick. In 1786 he succeeded to the ancient Barony of Howard de Walden; in 1796 he became a Field Marshal; and he died in 1797, having devised Audley-End and his other estates to his kinsman, Mr. Aldworth Neville, who at the same time succeeded to the Barony of Braybrooke, which had been limited over to him on the death of Lord Howard de Walden.--E.

[393] See _infra_.

[394] General Philip Honeywood, of Marks Hall, Essex, an officer of distinction. He died without issue in 1785.--E.

[395] Sir John Rushout had taken an active part in the debates against Walpole’s Excise Bill in 1732. He was made a Lord of the Treasury in 1742, and in the following year Treasurer of the Navy. He was strongly attached to Pulteney, and had the sagacity to predict the consequences of that statesman’s refusal to take office on the resignation of Walpole. He lived to the great age of 91, and died on the 2nd of March, 1775. His son was created Lord Northwich.--E.

[396] In Ireland.

[397] Henly Earl of Northington.

[398] Under Lord Chatham’s administration in the war.

[399] Thomas Harley, a merchant, and brother of the Earl of Oxford.

[400] The tax on cyder.

[401] The Duke of Bedford.

[402] Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 329.

[403] Vide Wilkes v. Wood. State Trials, vol. xix. 1154.--E.

[404] Vide Mr. Croker’s note in Walpole’s Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 322.

[405] He was the second son of William de Grey, Esq., M.P., and younger brother of Thomas de Grey of Merton Hall, M.P. for Norfolk, whose estates he inherited, on the death of the latter without issue, in 1765.--E.

[406] This was one of the most obstinate contests of the day, and cost Mr. Luther many thousand pounds. He had been the pupil, and was the intimate friend, of Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Landaff, to whom he bequeathed a considerable portion of his fortune. The Bishop describes him correctly as a man of most upright conduct and honourable principles. He died in 1786. Watson’s Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 235.--E.

[407] Philip Yorke, Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke.--See _infra_.

[408] General A’Court, M.P. for Heytesbury, was Colonel of the 11th Dragoons. He did not long remain an object of compassion, for he recovered his rank and regiment, and afterwards inherited a large estate and the borough of Heytesbury, from his uncle, Mr. Ash. He died in 1781. The present Lord Heytesbury is his grandson and lineal representative.--E.

[409] General Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Francis Earl of Hertford.

[410] Thomas Pitt of Boconnock, only son of Thomas Pitt, elder brother of the famous William Pitt, by the eldest sister of George Lord Lyttelton. [He inherited from his father the borough of Old Sarum, for which he brought himself into Parliament in 1761. In 1763 he was made a Lord of the Admiralty. In 1784 created Lord Camelford. He went abroad for his health in 1787, and died at Florence in 1793. The letters addressed to him when a student at Cambridge, by Lord Chatham, have attached an interest to his name beyond what belongs to his political career; and it is singular that he should, at the very outset of his public life, have abruptly separated from one whose opinions up to that time he seems to have entirely shared. Their connection was not afterwards resumed, though, as Lord Chatham’s relative, he returned thanks (rather coldly) to the House for the marks of distinction conferred on that great man’s memory. He is described by his son-in-law, Lord Grenville, “as combining a steadiness of principle and a correctness of judgment with an integrity of heart, which produced the affectionate attachment from those who knew him that has followed him beyond the grave.” Many of his letters during his residence abroad are printed in Nichols’s Illustrations of Literary History, vol. vi. p. 75; they show more amiability of disposition than power of mind, and were scarcely worth being preserved. On the death of his only son the title became extinct.--E.]

[411] Charles Lenox, third Duke of Richmond, had married Lady Mary Bruce, daughter of the last Earl of Ailesbury by his third wife, Caroline Campbell, afterwards married to General Conway.

[412] Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Windham, a lady highly respected for her virtues as a wife and mother; and whose death, not long after, her husband never recovered.--E.

[413] Augusta, eldest daughter of Frederick Prince of Wales.

[414] Anne, eldest daughter of King George the Second.

[415] Mary, fourth daughter of George the Second, married to the Prince of Hesse; and Louisa, his fifth, married to the King of Denmark.

[416] The Prince visited Mr. Pitt on the 22nd of January, and passed two hours with him. On the 14th, the Prince had addressed him a very complimentary letter. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 272, and note.--E.

[417] The Prince succeeded to the Dukedom on the death of his father in 1780, and for some years after resided at Brunswick, where the Princess, who was throughout life deservedly esteemed, made his Court very agreeable. In 1787 he commanded the Prussian forces which took possession of Amsterdam, and put down the republican party in Holland. His campaigns against the French republicans were less successful, and his well-known manifesto rendered his failure more glaring. He was mortally wounded at Auerstadt, and expired at Altona on the 10th of November, 1806, leaving behind him the reputation of a bold and enterprising, rather than of an able general. His Duchess took refuge in England, where she died at an advanced age. They were not happy in their family: of their two daughters, the eldest married the late King of Wirtemberg, and came to a miserable end in Russia; the younger was the unfortunate Queen Caroline. Their eldest son was of a weak understanding, and the younger, “Brunswick’s fated Chieftain,” a Prince of moderate abilities but signal courage, fell in middle life at Waterloo.--E.

[418] A general officer.

[419] Sir William Meredith was elected for Wigan in 1755, and for Liverpool in 1762. In 1765 he was appointed a Lord of the Admiralty, an office which he resigned on the dismissal of the Rockingham Administration. In 1774 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and made Comptroller of the Household. He died in 1790.--Cavendish’s Debates, (note,) vol. i. p. 52.--E.

[420] This character of Sir George Saville is not less honourable to his memory than Mr. Burke’s well-known and brilliant panegyric at the Bristol election in 1780. Few public men received more respect from their cotemporaries--few, perhaps, have so well earned it. He devoted his time, his talents, and his purse almost exclusively to the public service. Neither the fashionable nor literary circles of London, nor the pursuits of the country, had any charm for him; he seldom resided at Rufford, the splendid seat of his ancestors: business was his passion, and whether in town or country, constituted his sole occupation; fortunately, he had abilities to perform it creditably, and his generosity, which was scarcely bounded by his great estate, had always usefulness for its object. The same discernment appears in his selection of the Parliamentary questions with which his name is identified, such as the Limitation of the Claims of the Crown on Landed Estates; the Relief of Roman Catholics as well as of Protestant Dissenters, and the Condemnation of General Warrants, and, lastly, the Improved Representation of the People: all these he advocated with an earnestness and singleness of purpose, and consistency of action, which extorted the admiration even of his opponents. Though not an impressive speaker, he was always sensible and very fluent, and he spared no pains to understand his subject. His speeches, indeed, partook of one of the characteristics of his mind, which was a simplicity approaching to austerity, and an exemption from party, or even popular prejudices. His life in all respects strictly corresponded with his principles, and was unstained by vice or even by weakness of any kind; his death was regarded as a public loss. He died in 1784, unmarried, aged 57, and with him ended the last line of the illustrious family of Saville. He was a collateral descendant of the Marquis of Halifax, to whose estates his father had succeeded.--E.

[421] This house, in which James Earl Waldegrave died, has again become remarkable by a club created there in 1769 by several ladies of first rank; the first public female club ever known, and which gave great offence, though the ladies were almost all of distinguished virtue. Nor, though the age was notorious for divorces, though most of the female members were of the greatest beauty, and though most of the young men of fashion were of the club, did any scandal happen from that society. Even gaming, which at that time raged to so enormous a degree, went to no great lengths there. So that vice and satire, which prevailed so exceedingly, did not always meet where they deserved to meet. The King and Queen marked their disapprobation of the club, while Lord Despenser, Lord Talbot, and Lord Pembroke were in place, while Lady Berkeley was of the bedchamber to the Princess Dowager, though her husband, Lord Clare, had disavowed her last child, and while Miss Chudleigh had remained Maid of Honour to her, though she had owned her marriage with Captain Hervey to her Royal Highness, till she openly married the Duke of Kingston, though Hervey was alive; and was received by all the Royal Family as Duchess, after having been publicly kept by the Duke as his mistress. No wonder the sanctity of the Court passed for hypocrisy.

[422] For an account of this debate, see Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 281.--E.

[423] A graphical description of this Debate is given by the author in a letter to Lord Hertford, vol. iv. p. 359, of his Correspondence.--E.

[424] For an account of Mr. Grenville’s speech, see James Grenville’s letter to Mr. Pitt. Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 285.--E.

[425] Sir Anthony Abdy, Baronet, of Chobham Place, Surrey, had been brought into Parliament by the Duke of Devonshire, for Knaresborough. He was a King’s Counsel, in great practice, and likewise a country gentleman of considerable estate, having inherited the property of his kinsman Gainsford, the son of Sir Anthony Thomas. He died in 1775.--E.

[426] This speech of General Conway’s appears to have made a great impression on the House. See the letter cited _supra_.--E.

[427] The Right Honourable James Oswald, of Dunnikier, already mentioned as the adviser and warm partisan of Lord Bute. This was one of the last questions of great public interest in which he took part, his health being now on the decline; indeed he retired from Parliament at the dissolution. He had been member for Kirkaldy, his native district, for more than twenty years, and possessed considerable weight in the House, as a clear, well-informed, sensible, and effective speaker. His services were rewarded with a large sinecure for his son, and a bishoprick for his brother. It is due to his memory to notice his kindness to men of letters; David Hume’s History and Political Essays were submitted to his revision before they went to press, and Lord Kaimes and Adam Smith lay under similar obligations to him. His criticisms, however, were probably the least valuable fruits of his friendship. His Correspondence was published some years ago, under the title of “Memorials of the Right Honourable James Oswald.” Most of his papers having been burnt, the book contains nothing remarkable.--E.

[428] Afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and a peer of that kingdom by the title of Lord Lifford. He filled that office with great credit. His judgments in the Court of Chancery were reported by Mr. Freeman, and the work is still one of some authority. He died in 1769.--E.

[429] Charles Lord Viscount Townshend, minister at the Hague, and afterwards Secretary of State to the Kings George the First and Second. By his eldest son, Charles, he was grandfather of General George Townshend, afterwards Viscount, and of the famous Charles Townshend. His second son, Thomas, was father of another Thomas, often mentioned in these Memoirs. William, third son, was father of another Charles Townshend, called the black or Spanish Charles, from having been Secretary to the Embassy at Madrid.

[430] Robert Wood died in September, 1771; he was writing Dissertations on Homer, since published.

[431] See what is said of them in the Advertisement prefixed to the first volume of the Anecdotes of Painting.

[432] Mr. Bouverie and Mr. Dawkins.

[433] Pitt had issued two general warrants during the war.

[434] Alluding to the enormous debt contracted by the war.

[435] Being dependent on Lord Shelburne, Barré had, under him, connected himself with Mr. Pitt, whom he had so savagely attacked not long before, and had been dismissed from the army.

[436] Richard Hussey, Esq., M. P. for East Looe, Attorney-General to the Queen, Counsel to the Admiralty, and Auditor to the Duchy of Cornwall and Greenwich Hospital. He died in 1780. Cavendish’s Debates, vol. i. p. 197, note.--E.

[437] Alluding to Mr. Pitt.

[438] Wilkes subsequently published a very friendly letter, dated 26th March, 1763, addressed to him by Mr. Legge, inviting him to meet Dr. Hay at dinner. Indeed the intimacy of Wilkes was a reproach shared at that time with Dr. Hay by several of the most eminent persons in the kingdom. And it was not till after the publication of the forty-fifth number of the North Briton, on the 23rd of April, 1763, that their eyes were open to the enormity of his offences.--E.

[439] Arthur Onslow, Speaker in the reign of George the Second.

[440] Lord Howe was then only an Irish Peer. He had succeeded to his title on the death of his elder brother at Ticonderago in 1758. His great services raised him to the English Peerage in 1782, as Viscount Howe, and as Earl Howe in 1788. He died in 1799.--E.

[441] This debate is described in the author’s letters to Lord Hertford.--Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 373.--E.

[442] This statement is probably much exaggerated. There is no doubt that Pratt applied to the Court, according to the usual practice, to appoint a day for Hensey’s execution. Lord Mansfield desired him to name the day, and on Hensey’s solicitor asking that it might not be an early day, Pratt said he was ready to give as long a day as might be proper. At last the Court agreed that it might be a month.--Burr. Reports, vol. i. p. 651, R. v. Hensey. The sentimentality imputed to Pratt certainly formed no part of his character; and as the story is without question inaccurate, we may fairly doubt whether Norton was guilty of so curious a piece of brutality. Hensey was respited on the very morning that he was going to execution. On the 5th of Sept. 1759, he appeared in Court and pleaded a full pardon.--E.

[443] Hugh Smithson Percy, Earl of Northumberland. His eldest son married a daughter of Lord Bute. Both the Earl and Brecknock afterwards, finding their expectations not answered, turned against the Court. Brecknock was hanged twenty years after in Ireland, for being accessory to an atrocious murder perpetrated by Mr. Fitzgerald, who suffered with him.

[444] The compliment was not insincere, for the King probably entertained more enlarged views of constitutional liberty than Lord Marchmont. His Lordship clung to his Jacobite principles to the last, though he changed their object.--E.

[445] Lord Holland has justly observed, “that wherever that great magistrate (Lord Hardwicke) is concerned, Lord Orford’s resentments blind his judgment and disfigure his narrative.”--Mem. vol. i. p. 139, note. He certainly has in this instance drawn a caricature, of which there is no merit in the execution to compensate for the faults of the design. Lord Chesterfield, though also a political opponent, has done Lord Hardwicke more justice.--See Miscell. Works, vol. iv. p. 51. Admitting many of his eminent qualities, he elegantly says of his avarice, that though it was his ruling passion, he never was in the least suspected of any kind of corruption; a rare and meritorious instance of virtue and self-denial, under the influence of such a craving, insatiable, and increasing passion.--See also Lord Mahon’s Hist. vol. iii. p. 201. The Editor has only further to observe, that none but a lawyer who has practised in the Court where Lord Hardwicke so long presided, can correctly appreciate his discharge of the duties of that high office. His judgments maintain their authority to the present hour, and furnish the earliest and clearest exposition of the principles of the Equity Jurisdiction of this country. And whoever may have had the opportunity of examining his Lordship’s note-books, will see the patient attention and indefatigable research that distinguished every part of his judicial career.--E.

[446] John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont.

[447] In America.

[448] All the sums mentioned in this speech must be carefully re-examined, for I am not sure they are exact; [nor has the Editor been able to verify them.--E.]

[449] A plan, of which the consequences were so little foreseen, that Walpole does not even notice it in a letter to Lord Hertford, written two days afterwards. Corresp. vol. iv. p. 386.--E.

[450] Afterwards Sir George Amyand. [He was one of the leading Directors of the East India Company, and an eminent merchant in the City. He died in 1766.--E.]

[451] It appears to have been Lord Clive himself who made this observation: “not thinking it strictly honourable to take advantage of this sudden spirit of generosity, and to carry merely by his popularity a case which was depending at law, he rose and requested that they would desist from their liberal intentions: adding, that from being sensible of the impropriety of going abroad while so valuable a part of his property remained in dispute, he would make some proposals to the Court of Directors, which would, he trusted, end in an amicable adjustment of this affair.” Malcolm’s Life of Lord Clive, vol. ii. p. 230.--E.

[452] One of the Aldermen, and member for Plympton. He had married one of the coheiresses of Jacob Tonson, the printer.--E.

[453] The book displays cleverness rather than “_great parts_.” D’Eon was an unprincipled coxcomb, bold, ready, and plausible; with a smattering of literature, and more than common powers of writing. At the outset of the dispute he was not much in the wrong, for the difficulties raised to the payment of his disbursements as Minister were ungenerous, if not unjust; and M. Guerchy’s lamentations over the guinea per month lavishly expended in English Gazettes would have put the forbearance of most men to a severe test. In his passion D’Eon forgot the laws of decency as well as of honour, and the publication of his book injured him certainly not less than his enemies. It had an immense circulation, and the attempts to suppress it at Paris, of course, served to make it more sought after. Lord Holland, who happened to be there at that time, used to lend his copy by the hour. A reply to D’Eon was published, under the title of “Examen des Lettres, &c. du Chevalier d’Eon, dans une Lettre à M. N--” and is smart enough. The Critical Review (1764) treats it as a satisfactory refutation of D’Eon’s charges; but the public continued to laugh at the French Ambassador and his Government, and they fell in general estimation fully to the extent stated in the text.--E.

[454] Walpole’s hatred of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke may be traced in this portrait of his son. Lord Hardwicke was one of the best informed noblemen of his day. The Athenian Letters which he wrote, in conjunction with his brother, whilst at the University, ranks next to the Travels of Anacharsis among works of its kind. “The Correspondence of Sir Dudley Carleton” is more curious than interesting; and the editor seems to have correctly appreciated it, by restricting his first edition to twenty copies, and his second to fifty. Perhaps there was some ostentation in terming the next impression a third edition. He is entitled to more credit for his State Papers, published in two volumes, quarto,--a work of value, and which still fully maintains its consideration. Lord Hardwicke’s health was very delicate, and he neither liked nor shone in general society, but he did not want decision of character, and had a strong sense of honour. He was firm in his political connections, and exemplary in private life. A biographical account of him is given in Cole’s MSS. in the British Museum, Donation, 5886.--E.

[455] Thomas Pitt, of Boconnock, nephew of Mr. William Pitt, but attached to Mr. G. Grenville, and by him made a Lord of the Admiralty.

[456] Frederick Montagu, only son of Charles Montagu, of Paplewich in Northamptonshire, Auditor to the late Prince of Wales.

[457] The chief of the Whigs in Opposition.

[458] Son of Sir Orlando Bridgman, after whose death he became Sir Henry; [and having succeeded to the estates of his cousin Thomas, the last Earl of Bradford, who had died without issue, was in 1794 created Baron Bradford. He died at an advanced age in 1800. He was grandfather of the present Earl.--E.]

[459] Younger brother of Henry Vernon, of Hilton in Staffordshire; and married to Lady Evelyn Leveson, Countess Dowager of Ossory. [Mr. Vernon’s later life was more creditable. He became a great traveller, and visited the East; and he served with distinction as a volunteer in the Spanish expedition to Algiers. He was one of the handsomest men of his day.--E.]

[460] Charles Sloane Cadogan, only son of Charles Lord Cadogan, [afterwards created Earl Cadogan. His second wife was Miss Churchill, a niece of Horace Walpole. He died in 1807, aged 78.--E.]

[461] Dr. Akenside, by some thought a Poet, was of the same principles with, and an intimate friend of, Dyson, who obtained his being named Physician to the Queen. To that mistress and to that friend he made a sacrifice of the word _Liberty_, in the last edition of his poem on the Pleasures of the Imagination. It was uncourtly, a personification to be invoked by one who felt the pulse of royalty. [The alteration to which Walpole refers is as follows. In the old editions there is the passage--

Wilt thou, kind Harmony, descend,
And join the festive train, for with thee comes,
_Majestic Truth_; and where _Truth_ deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.

In the later editions it stands thus--

... for with thee comes
_Wise Order_; and where _Order_ deigns to come,
Her sister Liberty will not be far.

_Nichols’s Liter. Anec._ vol. viii. p. 525.

Akenside’s political tergiversation is an unpleasant commentary on a work so full of elevated thoughts as his poem. Personal attachment to Dyson probably influenced him. He died in 1770, in his forty-ninth year.--E.]

[462] Mr. Dyson had changed his politics on the King’s accession, when he became at once a determined Tory, having previously professed the opposite creed. He afterwards formed one of the party that went under the name of the King’s friends, a political section which can hardly be said to have existed in preceding reigns, and which the personal character of George the Third rendered very influential on public measures. A more valuable recruit could not easily have been found. He was certainly a most able parliamentary lawyer, and the exactness and precision that characterised his mind, caused his opinion to be always depended upon. These qualities, added to his discretion, gave him a moral influence over the House which could not be the result of his political conduct. His manners were obliging, and his private life irreproachable. It is highly to his credit that, when Clerk of the House, he departed from the example of his predecessors, by making no profit of his patronage. Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. viii. p. 523; Hatsell’s Parliamentary Precedents.--E.

[463] Catherine and Charlotte Shorter were daughters of John Shorter, of Bybrook in Kent. Catherine was first wife of Sir Robert Walpole, and mother of the author of these Memoirs. Charlotte was third wife of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway, and by him mother of Francis Earl of Hertford, and of General Henry Seymour Conway.

[464] I have seen a letter from the King to George Grenville, in which his Majesty pressed him to turn out Conway.

[465] John Fane, Earl of Westmoreland.

[466] Sir Richard Temple, Lord Viscount Cobham.

[467] This does not mean the vote of a single day, but all the votes on general warrants considered as one question.

[468] General John Campbell, Groom of the Bedchamber to George the Second, and cousin and successor of John and Archibald Dukes of Argyle when an old man.

[469] Caroline, daughter of the latter Duke John, third wife and widow of Charles Bruce, last Earl of Ailesbury, by whom she had an only child, Mary Duchess of Richmond. The Countess of Ailesbury married secondly General Henry Seymour Conway, only brother of Francis first Earl of Hertford of that branch.

[470] John Campbell, Marquis of Lorn, married to the famous beauty Elizabeth Gunning, widow of James Duke of Hamilton.

[471] Lord Frederick Campbell had been bred to the law, and succeeded well there, but quitted the profession on his father’s attaining the dukedom. [As he was brother in-law to General Conway, Mr. Walpole seems to have expected him to have followed Conway’s politics.--Mr. Croker’s note to the fourth volume of Walpole’s Letters, p. 369. Wraxall says of him, “Devoid of shining talents, he nevertheless wanted not either ability or eloquence in a certain degree, both which were under the control of reason and temper. His figure and deportment were remarkably graceful.” He married the Dowager Countess Ferrers, sister of Sir William Meredith, and died at an advanced age in 1816.--E.]

[472] Lord Hertford could not reasonably be expected to court a share in the consequences of an act of which he disapproved: and he was of a temperament that too easily disposed him to shrink from any personal sacrifice. His political principles were very indefinite. His merit was of a different character. Lord Chesterfield was sincere when he said of him, in a letter not intended for publication, “I verily believe he will please as Viceroy, for he is one of the honestest and most religious men in the kingdom, and moreover very much of a gentleman in his behaviour to everybody.”--His administration of Ireland was respectable, and in general approved of, and it passed away in almost uniform tranquillity.--Hardy’s Life of Lord Charlemont, vol. i. p. 224. He filled many high offices, and was very prosperous throughout life. He was created Marquis in 1793, and died in the following year, leaving a large family.--E.

[473] Lord Hertford had married Lady Isabella Fitzroy, youngest daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton, who was succeeded in the title by his grandson Augustus Henry, of whom much will be said in some of the following pages.

[474] The Duke subsequently gave the best proof of the sincerity of this offer by bequeathing General Conway a legacy of 5000_l._--E.

[475] Conway conducted himself less well than Wolfe at Rochfort, but far better than the other generals. “Though eminently distinguished for his gallant and indefatigable behaviour,” says Walpole, “he never had the happiness of achieving any action of remarkable éclât, or of performing _alone_ any act of singular utility to his country. However, he had been engaged in six regular battles, besides smaller affairs.”--(Counter Address to the Public on the Dismissal of a late General.) He commanded a division with credit in the Seven years’ war. An ill-natured cotemporary critic charges him with being a “_martinet_,” and with unnecessarily fatiguing his men, but admits that “he would have made a very good general if he had not been spoilt by his education under the Duke of Cumberland.” Life of Lord Chatham, Ap. vol. iii. p. 262.--E.

[476] The Queen’s brother.

[477] Lord Pembroke was again made a Lord of the Bedchamber in 1769, without applying; and exactly at a time when he was said to have carried off another woman, a young Venetian bride (he was then at Venice), the very night of her wedding. [Lord Pembroke had served in the Seven years’ war, and was popular with the officers under him, though not much of a soldier. He was dissolute and extravagant, and notwithstanding his large income, left when he died heavy debts, which his only son, the late Earl, a very respectable nobleman, honourably paid.--E.]

[478] Dr. Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol.

[479] Twickenham.

[480] Thomas Worseley, Surveyor of the Board of Works.

[481] Sir Hugh Smithson, of a very recent family, had married Lady Elizabeth Seymour, only daughter of Algernon Duke of Somerset, whose mother was heiress of the Percies, Earls of Northumberland; on which foundation Hugh and Elizabeth were created Earl and Countess of Northumberland.

[482] Dr. Johnson said, in allusion to it, “that his Grace was only fit to succeed himself.” Boswell, vol. ii. p. 210.--E.

[483] He had been likewise Secretary to the Earl of Halifax.

[484] Charles sixth Earl and first Marquis of Drogheda, K.P.--The Primate had four years before importunately pressed Mr. Pitt to give this nobleman the rank of colonel; and although the application was supported by the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Besborough, Mr. Pitt was firm in resisting it. “Among the very many lieutenant-colonels,” he said, “above Lord Drogheda on the list, there were not a few who could not be postponed without great hardship, and loud complaints in the army. He had publicly pledged himself to that most meritorious class of officers, that he would never contribute, from any considerations of family or parliamentary interest, to their depression.” The Primate’s letter and Mr. Pitt’s reply are given in the Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 59. The transaction reflects great honour on Mr. Pitt, and furnishes an additional proof of the high sense of public duty entertained by that illustrious statesman, in this, as in many other respects so superior, to most of his cotemporaries, not excepting the Primate of Ireland. Lord Drogheda obtained his rank in 1762, and eventually reached almost the head of the army list, having in his old age been appointed Field-Marshal. He died at Dublin in December 1821, in his ninety-second year. He saw little, if any, foreign service, but he had been constantly employed in his own country, where he was much esteemed. He preserved to the last a remarkable elegance and amiability of deportment.--E.

[485] It must be recollected, that Walpole, from some private cause, bore Lord and Lady Northumberland no good will, and frequently sneers at them in his Correspondence. A childish feeling of envy at Lord Northumberland’s brilliant success in life, was probably at the bottom of this, and prevented Walpole’s making due allowance for the temptations attendant on great and unexpected prosperity. His Lordship had the tastes that became the high rank to which he was elevated. He patronized the arts, and was generous to men of letters. His vanity was unaccompanied by arrogance, and his feelings, though not warm, were kind and amiable. Neither his talents nor acquirements were above mediocrity. He died in 1786.--E.

[486] The Duchess’s defects are, no doubt, greatly exaggerated by Walpole. M. Dutens says of her Grace, that “she possessed great elevation of mind, natural and easy wit, a good and compassionate heart, and, above all, a strong attachment to her friends, whom she took every opportunity to distinguish and to serve.”--Memoirs of a Traveller, &c., vol. ii. p. 100. She met her death, which was sudden, with great firmness and resignation.--E.

[487] The marriage was unfortunate, and dissolved in 1779. Lord Warkworth became Duke of Northumberland in 1786. He served as Lord Percy in the American war. Unlike his father, he was totally devoid of ostentation, and most simple and retiring in his habits. He died in 1817.--E.

[488] The house of Andrew Stone, in Privy Garden.

[489] George Keppel, third Earl of Albemarle. His youngest sister, Lady Elizabeth, was married to Francis Russell, Marquis of Tavistock, only son of John Duke of Bedford.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

The spelling of non-English words was not reviewed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.