CHAPTER IV.

Bills introduced by Mr. Herbert and Mr. Grenville.—Conversation on Secret Influence.—Remarks.—City Dinner to the Opposition.—Curious Phrase employed by Lord Chatham.—Termination of Wilkes’s Imprisonment.—Riot at Boston.—Debate on the Prorogation of the Irish Parliament.—Lord Chatham moves a Censure on Ministers.—Observations on the State of Parties.—Publication of Burke’sThoughts on the Present Discontents.—Criticism of it.—Influence of Lord Bute.—Character of the Pelham Administration.—New Party.—Their Aristocratic Tendencies.—Diminution of the Privileges of Peers and Commoners with regard to their Creditors.—Desultory Discussions on American Affairs, and the Middlesex Election.

1770.

These debates were tedious and unentertaining, and willingly I abridge them: totally omitted they could not be; they were the constituent ingredients of an inglorious reign, in which many of the most solemn questions that compose or touch the essence of our constitution were agitated—questions that will live in our law-books, when omitted in polished histories written for entertainment. These pages, therefore, will serve for a clueto writers on the laws, though they may not be so fortunate as to please the idle. I shall slightly mention some other bills that were discussed about the same time.

Mr. Herbert,78a near relation of the Earl of Pembroke, and a young man of great fortune and good principles, proposed a bill to declare that expulsion did not imply incapacitation unless for certain crimes infamous by law. Doubts were started on what those crimes were. The House was strongly inclined to the bill: the Ministers pretended not to discountenance it—but the Jesuits of the Treasury, Dyson and Jenkinson, undermined it indirectly: the latter went so far as to engraft a clause on that bill calculated to secure the rights of freeholders, which would have made it an instrument of tyranny, and would have made expulsion or imprisonment total incapacity. Lord North affected to be struck by and to approve that juggle; but Lord Beauchamp, General Conway, and even the smooth courtier Lord Barrington, resisting, and the latter declaring that it was necessary to quiet the minds of the people, Lord North gave it up. The Cabal however clogged the bill with so many subtleties andcontradictions, that Mr. Herbert abandoned it with indignation, and it was lost.79

Mr. George Grenville was more successful with a bill that the profligacy of the times loudly demanded, and which even that profligacy could not defeat. It was to take the trials of contested elections from the judicatory of the House, and vest them in a smaller number of examiners to be chosen by ballot. Important as the nature of elections is, and sacred as the property of legal votes, of the right of counties and boroughs to choose their representatives, and of the elected to his seat, yet all was overlooked, and petitions were heard and decided solely by favour or party. Nor was this accidental, but constant and universal. Grenville’s bill was generally liked. Rigby and Dyson opposed it, and at last Lord North, who endeavoured to put it off for two months; but he was defeated by 185 to 133.80The resistance of the House to the power of the Administration on those two bills, proved, with some instances I have mentioned, that that House of Commons was not implicitly servile on all occasions like the last. Grenville’s bill passed on the 2nd of April, but not without a remarkable conversation rather than a debate on political creeds and secret influence. Grenville and Dowdeswell declared they had been under none when they were in place. Samuel Martin desired the House to take notice of that declaration. It was evidence, he said, that Lord Bute was falsely accused; and that such rumours were raised to excite the mob against him on his return from abroad. Colonel Barré said thetwo gentlemenhad only declared they had not been influencedthemselves: but Lord Chatham had solemnly affirmed to the Lords that even in six weeks his schemes had been controlled; and it was evident where the secret influence lay, when Martinand Jenkinson, the servants of the Princess of Wales, and when Dyson and Sir Gilbert Elliot, were so much consulted. That was the cabinet that governed the Cabinet.81Lord North declared that he would be nominal no longer than he was real Minister. There wanted no better proof of the secret influence than that Lord Bute had the credit to maintain Oswald, Elliot, Dyson, and Jenkinson, or some of them, in the Treasury through every Administration subsequent to his own, by which he might be master of all the secrets of that important board which influences the whole Government,—atleast they were agents whom he had recommended to the King; and if the Earl himself did not preserve the same degree of credit with his Majesty, the King acted on the plan in which he had been initiated, and had cunning enough, as most Princes have, to employ and trust those only who were disposed to sacrifice the interest of the country to the partial and selfish views of the Crown; views to which his Majesty so steadily adhered on every opportunity which presented itself, that, not having sense enough to discover how much the glory and power of the King is augmented by the flourishing state of the country he governs, he not only preferred his personal influence to that of England, but risked, exposed, and lost a most important portion of his dominions by endeavouring to submit that mighty portion to a more immediate dependence on the royal will. Mystery, insincerity, and duplicity were the engines of his reign. They sometimes procured success to his purposes, oftener subjected him to grievous insults and mortifications, and never obtained his object without forfeiting some share of his character, and exposing his dignity to affronts and reproach from his subjects, and his authority to contempt from foreign nations. He seemed to have derived from his relations the Stuarts, all their perseverance in crooked and ill-judged policy without profiting by their experience, or recollecting thathisbranch had owed the Crown to the attempts made by the former Princes at extending the prerogative beyond the bounds set to it by the constitution. Nor does a sovereign, imbued with such fatal ambition, ever want a Jefferies or a Mansfield, or such less ostensible tools as the Dysons and Jenkinsons, who for present emolument are ready to gibbet themselves to immortal infamy by seconding the infatuation of their masters.

Beckford, the Lord Mayor, gave a great dinner to the lords and gentlemen of the Opposition: a cavalcade of the Livery fetched and escorted the company from the Thatched House Tavern in St. James’s Street; and at night many houses were illuminated, and a few had their windows broken for not being lighted. Lord Chatham had, by earnest entreaties, engaged Lord Granby to carry him to the Mansion House in his chariot, but was prevented by the gout from joining in the procession, which his pressing a popular general to head, did not seem calculated to promote tranquillity. In fact, no efforts were spared to keep up the spirit. The freeholders of Westminster met and voted a remonstrance, which, omitting the most exceptionable parts of that from the City, was immediately presented to the King. Another was voted by the freeholders of Middlesex; but no answer was given by his Majesty to either.

A few of the Opposition, who acted with decency and impartiality, condemned the violences of their party. Sir William Meredith complained of the letters ofJunius, ofThe Whisperer, and ofThe Parliamentary Spy. Thurlow, the new Solicitor-General, in the room of Dunning, said a prosecution was commenced against the first. General Howard again complained ofThe Whisperer; and a conference being desired with the Lords, it was voted an infamous and seditious paper.

Lord Chatham, who seemed to imbibe faction from disappointment, desired the Lords might be summoned for after the holidays, as he intended to propose a bill to endeavour to repair the mischief done by the iniquitous decision of the House of Commons on the Middlesex election; nor was he less intent on raising jealousies of the designs of France. He pronounced, in the month of March, that by that very day on which he was speaking, the French hadsomewherestruck a hostile stroke. This asseveration making great noise, alarmed the merchants, who sent a deputation to him, to inquirewherethe blow was struck. He denied having said so; and some who were present, declared they had not heard him say it. This was merely negative and personal to themselves, for, in general, his audience were positive as to the words; and it was not less remarkable, that a year afterwards, when theseizure of Falkland’s Island by the Spaniards became public, Lord Chatham’s partisans affirmed that he had made such a declaration, but had accused Spain, not France, of having committed hostilities. He did not even spare the King, but accused him of duplicity. The Duke of Grafton defended the royal accused. The King soon afterwards asked General Conway if he ever saw the Duke, and where he lived? Conway said he knew nothing of him: “Nor I,” said his Majesty; “he has not come near me these six weeks; nay, when I heard of his defending me against Lord Chatham, I wrote a letter of thanks to the Duke; he not only did not answer my letter, but has taken no notice of it since.”

On the 17th of April ended the imprisonment of Wilkes, and he was discharged from the King’s Bench, whence he retired privately into the country, affecting to decline the congratulations of his fellow citizens. The next night many houses of the lower rank were illuminated, but without any tumult. The Court had taken care to prevent any disturbance, by stationing numbers of constables, and by holding the Guards and Light Horse in readiness. Beckford had affected like solicitude, giving out orders for peaceable behaviour, but on pretence of the Easter holidays; while his own house in Soho Square was decorated with the wordLiberty, in ample capitals. Wilkes, now enteringagain on the scene, published an address of thanks to the county of Middlesex, and another to the ward of Farringdon. In those and former addresses, he had the assurance to talk of protecting ourreligiousas well as civil liberties. When Lord Sandwich informed against the “Essay on Woman,”hetoo talked religion. It was impossible to decide which was the more impudent, the persecutor or the martyr! The release of Wilkes was celebrated at Lynn, Norwich, Swaffham, Bristol, and a few other towns, but not universally. At the end of the month, he was sworn in Alderman of Farringdon ward. The solid retribution was the work of the Society of the Bill of Rights. They paid or compromised a great part of his debts, disbursing seven thousand pounds for him.

Zeal for his cause reigned almost as strongly in the city of Westminster. Having lost one of their members by the death of Lord Sandys, whose son, one of their representatives, succeeded to his father’s title, they elected Sir Robert Barnard, a knight of Huntingdonshire, known to them only as an enemy to Lord Sandwich, in his own county,82and byhaving presented its remonstrance to the King. The Court did not dare to set up a counter candidate, though seated in the heart of Westminster, amidst their own and the tradesmen of the nobility.

Samuel, Lord Sandys, died by a hurt from an overturn. He had formerly been the head of the republican party, and a leader against Sir Robert Walpole, on whose fall, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, a promotion that cost him his character, both as a patriot and a man of business. He was soon removed for his incapacity, and made a peer; and, at different times, filled other posts, as Chief Justice in Eyre and Speaker of the House of Lords; but never recovered any weight, and at last was laid aside with a pension.83

At the end of the month arrived a very alarming account from Boston. Some young apprentices had, incited to it, as it seemed, insulted the soldiers quartered there. After repeated provocations, the tumultincreasing, some of the soldiers fired, and killed four of the lads, and apprehended some others. In an instant the sedition spread through the whole town, clamouring for the instant removal of the garrison, with which the Deputy Governor and the commanding officer were forced to comply, not only intimidated by the actual riot, but receiving intelligence that the neighbouring towns were taking up arms, and would march to the assistance of the Bostonians, who already imprisoned Colonel Preston, who, they affirmed, had given orders to the soldiers to fire. That he strenuously denied; and being a man of a mild and prudent character, his case excited great pity and indignation here. Nor, though the seditious charged the military with sanguinary intentions, was it credited; the soldiers, it appearing, being so little prepared to attack, that when they ran to the assistance of their comrades, some were armed only with shovels, and others with tongs. Volumes of inflammatory informations were sent over hither and reprinted; and Alderman Trecothick moved in the House of Commons for a sight of the instructions sent to Boston, which, after some debate, were granted with restrictions; but shortly after came letters, in which the Bostonians endeavoured to palliate their violence; and it was known that Colonel Preston would not be tried till August, which might and did give time to the more moderatethere to soften his case, and interpose in his favour. After a formidable suspense, he was honourably acquitted.

On the 28th died Marshal Ligonier, aged ninety-two.84The first regiment of Guards was given to the King’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester, and the third to Lord Loudun. Lord Edgcumbe was made Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, to the scandal of the Rockingham party, the Duke of Portland having resigned on the dismission of Lord Edgcumbe, who, in truth, had long been too ready to abandon that party, and at all times professed himself too solicitous to keep or obtain a place; yet as his old friends had joined Lord Chatham, who had turned him out, he seemed as much at liberty to take on with those whom Lord Chatham opposed.

Lord Chatham, in consequence of the notice he had given, moved for a bill to rescind all the various resolutions of the House of Commons on the Middlesex election, and was supported by Lord Camden and Lord Shelburne; Lord Mansfield and the Ministers opposed and rejected the bill by 89 to 43.

The next day, Captain Boyle Walsingham, in the Commons, moved for all the letters and papers sent to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, which had occasioned the prorogation of the Parliament there,and had interrupted much business of consequence,—a punishment the more severe, as the augmentation demanded had been accorded. Grenville again complained of his Majesty’s waiving his prerogative, by promising not to call over those troops but in case of rebellion,—a strange plea in an opponent! but Grenville never liked opposition so well as indefenceof prerogative; while to excuse his Majesty’s moderation, Lord Barrington and Rigby maintained that, in case of emergency, the King might disregard his promise,—a power of evasion very unnecessary to claim, when it had been so lately and so wantonly violated, merely to give a pension to Dyson, though the Irish had been promised that no more such pensions on their country should be granted. The motion was rejected by 178 to 66.85

Lord Chatham made another prolix motion, tending to censure the Ministers for the answer they had advised the Crown to make to the remonstrance from the City. His speech was long, animated with his most nervous eloquence, and patchworked with his wildest ignorance and inventions. He talked ofAndrogeus, Lord Mayor of Londonin the time of Julius Cæsar, defending theprivilegesof the City, and of the care Edward the First had of those liberties. Lord Gower toldhim that so much had been said, and such full answers given by both Houses, (who had both, indeed, approved the King’s answer,) on the Middlesex election, that it would be tiring the House to say more on that subject. The other Ministers sat silent and would not be provoked to speak, though loudly called on by Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Lyttelton, and Lord Temple. Lord Pomfret said a few words on the factious behaviour of Beckford, who was defended by Lord Shelburne:—“I shall always love him,” said that Lord, “for, when the citizens murmured at the King’s answer, as they quitted St. James’s, the Lord Mayor bade them admire his Majesty’s good humour, and told them the answer came not from himself, but from his Ministers.” That motion, too, was rejected by 85 to 37.

Those vague and unconcerted attacks wore out the spirit of redress, instead of keeping up its zeal. The several factions hated each other more than they did their common enemies, and most of the leaders of Opposition had, in their time, contributed to the grievances of which they now complained. It must, I think, appear evident, from the scope of the reign, that the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute had assumed the reins with a fixed intention of raising the prerogative, which they called restoring it to its ancient lustre;but nothing would have induced them to specify at what period of its influence they would have been contented to have stopped. The line of Hanover having been advanced to the throne by the forfeiture of the Stuarts, could not have the confidence to demand all the power that had been claimed by that House from which they descended, whose maxims they secretly revered, and whose want of abilities they inherited. King William had been too much controlled by his parliaments to serve them for a precedent; and the beginning of this very reign had been too servilely copied from the conclusion of Queen Anne’s, and too ingloriously to be fit for quotation, though the doctrines of her last Ministers were the rule on which the junto had intended to act, and did act whenever they found themselves strong enough. But, as recent provocations govern the actions of men more than maxims, it was the conduct of the later Ministers of George the Second that first inspired the Princess of Wales and her husband, Prince Frederic, with desires of emancipating themselves from such pupillage. I am persuaded that she, her husband, and her son (if the latter at first had any plan) meditated humbling the aristocracy, rather than invading liberty. Yet is every increase of prerogative so fatal, and so sure are the people of being trampled upon in such contest, whetherthe Crown or the nobility get the better, that it was true patriotism to resist the attack, and the people were in the right not to consider themotivesto the attempt, since in general questions the privileges of all the subjects are equally concerned. The truth of these observations will appear from some remarks that I think it necessary to make on a pamphlet which made much noise at the time of which I am writing, and the effects of which, though the treatise may be forgotten, are felt at this day,thatessay having operated considerably towards dividing, and consequently weakening the Opposition, which afterwards, by accidents, deaths, treachery, self-interest, and mismanagement, was reduced to the shadow of resistance, and86was disabled from stemming that torrent of intoxication, which, impelled by the wicked arts of the Court, hurried even the people into a passion for the American war, which, had it prospered, would have demolished liberty, and which, miscarrying, has destroyed the prosperity and importance of Great Britain, and engendered to the King’s comfort, more personal, though probably but momentary influence to the Crown at home, with a total degradation and loss of its dignity everywhere else.

Let it be observed, however, that, when I impute to the King and his mother little more than a formed design of reducing the usurped authority of the great Lords, I am far from meaning that there were not deeper designs at bottom. Lord Mansfield was by principle a tyrant; Lord Holland was bred in a monarchic school, was cruel, revengeful, daring, and subtle. Grenville, though in principle a republican, was bold, proud, dictatorial, and so self-willed that he would have expected Liberty herself should be his first slave. The Bedford faction, except the Duke himself, were void of honour, honesty, and virtue; and the Scotch were whatever their masters wished them to be, and too envious of the English, and became too much provoked by them, not to lend all their mischievous abilities towards the ruin of a constitution, whose benefits the English had imparted to them, but did not like they should engross. All these individuals or factions, I do not doubt, accepted and fomented the disposition they found predominant in the Cabinet, as they had severally access to it; and the contradictions which the King suffered in his ill-advised measures, riveted in him a thirst of delivering himself from control, and to be above control he must be absolute. Thus on the innate desire of unbounded power in all princes, was engrafted a hate to the freedom of the subject,and therefore, whether the King set out with a plan of extending his prerogative, or adopted it, his subsequent measures, as often as he had an opportunity of directing them himself, tended to the sole object of acting by his own will. Frequent convulsions did that pursuit occasion, and heavy mortifications to himself. On the nation it heaped disgrace, and brought it to the brink of ruin; and should the event be consonant to the King’s wishes of establishing the royal authority at home, it is more sure that the country will be so lowered, that the Sovereign will become as subject to the mandates of France, as any little potentate in Europe.

This is my impartial opinion of the reign of George the Third, from the death of his grandfather to the end of the year 1771, when I wrote these annals; and the subsequent transactions to the commencement of the new Parliament in 1784 have but corroborated my ideas. I have spoken of every party and faction favourably or unfavourably as I thought they deserved, attached to no one of them, for I saw faults in all: and that is all I mean by calling myself impartial. My principles were solely devoted to the liberty of my country; yet I have censured even that liberty, when it degenerated into licentiousness, or asserted its rights with more probability of danger than success. That myimpartiality was divested of personalities, nobody would believe me if I asserted; they undoubtedly often lowered my zeal, and even in these cool hours of retreat and retirement, may have left impressions that reflection may not have corrected—though the overt acts of the American war have but too sadly realized the more problematic suspicions I had entertained of the evil designs of the Court, from the first ten years of the reign. Lust of power, supported by cruelty and obstinacy, marked every year of that fatal war; and its woeful event having corrected neither the bad intention nor the folly with which it was commenced and prosecuted, and a more undisguised attempt in the Crown of governing independently having distinguished the year 1784, I should have observed the whole progress of the reign hitherto with little judgment, if I had not a worse opinion of the spirit that has actuated it, than I had when I first entertained doubts of its designs against the constitution. However, instead of seeing with my eyes, I recommended to posterity to use their own discernment, abandon the author, accept what truths he has delivered, correct his mistakes, condemn his prejudices, make the best use you can of any wholesome lessons he has inculcated, avoid such errors as he has pointed out. He has written prodigiously too much, if no man shall be the wiser for his writings. He laments not hispains, nor shall deprecate censure if a single person becomes a real patriot, or a better citizen from perusing this work—of which he himself is heartily tired. Mr. Edmund Burke had published, on the 23rd of April, a long and laborious pamphlet, calledThoughts on the Present Discontents. It was designed for the manifesto of the Rockingham party, stated their opinions, their political creed, the motives of their opposition, the points for which they meant to stickle, and the conduct they meant to observe, if ever they should recover power. It was a composition of great merit for ingenuity, eloquence, and knowledge, though at once too diffuse, and too refined: it tired the informed, and was unintelligible to the ignorant. In point of judgment it was totally defective, and did no honour to the author, either as a virtuous statesman, or artful politician. It had been often read to, and, they said, discussed by, their party; but when the dictator, and indeed legislator of the faction (for Lord Rockingham was but a dignified phantom) had so little judgment, it is not wonderful that the blemishes of the work were not discerned by most of his associates. Sir George Saville was too subtly minute to comprehend a whole: Lord John Cavendish loved general maxims; and though obstinate, had no rancour; consequently, he approved the book for not dealing in personalities. I was surprisedthat the Duke of Richmond, who had a great deal of sense, could be captivated by a work calculated for no one end but to deify Lord Rockingham, and to insinuate that Mahomet87was his prophet.

Mrs. Macaulay, whose principles were more sound and more fixed than Burke’s, and whose reasoning was more simple and more exact, published a short tract in answer, censuring the work as compiled solely to serve the partial interests of an aristocratic faction.88It was a still strongerproof of its demerit, that the Court did not answer it at all. Though some parts of it were very offensive, yet the indemnity it bestowed on Lord Bute, and the scandal it would give to the nation and to every other faction, were so agreeable to the reigning junto, that they wisely took no exception to their own share, and left the rest to diffuse animosities on every side. The work, as Mrs. Macaulay said, avowed its patrons as an aristocratic faction; and what was worse, confessed that they adheredto mennotmeasures: incredible as this folly was, it may be seen in the book in so many words. It insinuated the influence of the Princess, took no notice of Lord Chatham, Lord Temple, Lord Camden, or Mr. Grenville; disgusted the popular partyby dereliction of Wilkes, by disclaiming triennial Parliaments and place-bills,89and encouraged no denomination of men to unite with them, as it declared in terms that should Lord Rockingham and his friends come into place, they should do little more than turn out those whom the book calledthe King’s men, who called themselvesthe King’s friends, and who, notwithstanding, the book declared were never admitted tothe King’s confidence.

But the most absurd part of all, was Burke’s discharging Lord Bute of all present influence,—a fact not only improbable, as had lately appeared by the influence of his brother Mackenzie—by Lord North’s taking Sir James Lowther’s steward for his secretary, and by Sir James’s late hostilities to the Duke of Grafton who had but half supported him, and by his co-operation with Lord North—by another clerk, whom Jenkinson had placed in Lord North’s service, and who grew to govern him;90and by the homage which all succeeding ministers wereobliged to pay to the Bute-standard91, or to risk their power: but it was extremely unwise in apolitic light, for while the book thus removed from the people’s attention an odious and ostensible object,it presented them with nothing but a vague idea, which it calleda Double Cabinet. Did Burke flatter himself that the Princess was so very sentimental, as to forgive a personal attack on herself in consideration of his tenderness to her favourite? Would their tools be content to be proscribed, to save their patron’s head? And who instructed, who disciplined, Lord Bute’s creatures, but himself? If the Princess was the intermediate agent between them and the King, who conveyed his commands or their advice from her to them, andvice versâ, but Lord Bute, Lady Bute, or Mr. Mackenzie? The exculpation of Lord Bute was therefore silly and impotent flattery, or sillier credulity instilled into Burke by Lord Holland, who always held that language.

Whether it proceeded from ignorance or partiality I do not know, but in fathoming the grounds of the reigning discontents, Mr. Burke was as defective in not going back far enough, as he was inthe inefficiency of his remedies. Though his book contained many melancholy truths, it was far from probing to the bottom of the sore. The canker had begun in the Administration of the Pelhams and Lord Hardwicke, who, at the head of a proud aristocracy of Whig Lords, had thought of nothing but establishing their own power; and who, as it suited their occasional purposes, now depressed and insulted the Crown and Royal Family, and now raised the prerogative. Their factious usurpations and insolence were even some excuse for the maxim taken up by Frederic Prince of Wales, by the Princess Dowager, and the reigning King, of breaking that overbearing combination; and so blinded were the Pelhams by their own ambition, that they furnished the Princess with men whose principles and abilities were best suited to inspire arbitrary notions into her son, and to instruct him how to get rid of his tyrants, and establish a despotism that may end in tyranny in his descendants. Though the Princess and Lord Bute gave rashly in to those views, their passions, folly, and cowardice oftener defeated the plan than promoted it; and it was in this light only that Lord Bute ought to be acquitted of raising the prerogative.Herendered it contemptible; while Stone and Murray were the real sources of those discontents, which Burke sought, but never discovered. As I havesaid so much in the first part of these Memoirs on these heads, it is unnecessary to retail them here. A few facts will evince that the Pelhams, Hardwicke, and their friends, were an aristocratic faction; that they insulted and provoked the Crown and Royal Family, and raised disgusts in them against the Whig party, at the same time planting the rankest Tories about the successor and his mother, and forcing them to throw themselves into the arms of even Jacobites.

1. When the late King intended to restore Lord Granville, the Minister of his own election, the Pelhams, leaguing with the great Lords and principal Whigs, deserted him in the very heat of the rebellion, and obliged him to surrender at discretion. What a lesson was that to the late Prince!—no wonder it laid him open to the wiles of Lord Bolingbroke!

2. Newcastle had long lain in the bosom of that dark and suspected friend of the Stuarts, Andrew Stone. The darling friend of the latter was that bright ornament of the age, that luminary of the law, that second hero of Pope and first disciple of Bolingbroke, William Murray, brother of the Pretender’s Prime Minister, the titular Earl of Dunbar. The fickle Duke and his timid brother, of whom the elder loved nothing so much as a new friend in a reconciled enemy, as the younger with still less sincerity courted every man whose parts he dreaded,were easily persuaded to give themselves up to so useful an assistant, whose walk interfered with the ambition of neither. From that hour every measure was coloured with a tincture of prerogative; and a foundation was laid for that structure against which the disciples of the Pelhams have so much declaimed since.

3. While that dangerous man92was infusing his poison into the Court of the King, his friend Lord Bolingbroke was sowing the same seeds at Leicester House. Seemingly attached to different factions, St. John and Murray were carrying on the same plan at both Courts. The death of the Prince, that threatened destruction to the scheme, facilitated its success. In truth had the advice of a man who has since been no enemy to the plan been followed, the principles instilled into a young mind might not have been so early and so deeply laid. Mr. Fox,93the very next morning after the death of the Prince of Wales, advised Mr. Pelham to make sure of the successor by sending for him to St. James’s, and keeping him there separate from his mother. The Princess, indeed, might not have secured the same influence over him as she did; but from the persons employed in the education of the young Prince, there is little reason to think that exactly the samecare would not have been taken of initiating him inproperprinciples. All Fox’s subsequent merits in the cause—even the gracious promises made to him by the young King, and broken, could not expiate that offence.94

4. The persons employed, the books put into his hands, the disgrace of the first governor and preceptor of the young Prince, the interference of Lord Mansfield, and the ensuing history of Fawcett’s deposition of the Jacobitism of Stone and Murray, the secrecy first exercised to stifle his evidence, and the mock declaration of the Cabinet Councillors when the affair got into the House of Lords, where, instead of any examination, that ordeal of an aristocracy, their word of honour, was only made use of,—all these circumstances concurred in the formation of those evils whose source Mr. Burke so ingeniously missed.

5. The ignorance, blunders, and want of spirit in Newcastle, Lord Anson, and Lord Hardwicke95atthe beginning of the war, made way for the predominant genius of Mr. Pitt: but though the osier-like nature of Newcastle stooped to act with the latter again, the gloomy and revengeful temper of Hardwicke waited for an opportunity of repaying the disgrace Pitt had inflicted on their cabal. The disgrace of his country was meditated, at least effected, by Lord Hardwicke as revenge on Mr. Pitt. The profusion of the German war (for which Mr. Pitt only demanded supplies, but which he certainly did not direct the Duke of Newcastle to suffer to be plundered and perverted, though Pitt himself was too ostentatiously or too carelessly profuse in hisdemands) was laid solely to the account of the vigorous Minister, as if it was more criminal in him to dare, than in the other to dissipate our treasure without daring. Even before the death of the late King, was published the celebrated pamphlet called “Considerations on the German War,” written under the patronage and revisal of Lord Hardwicke. That Lord Hardwicke and Lord Bute agreed about that time, at least in their measures, for the destruction of Mr. Pitt, was evident by a place being, immediately on the King’s accession, bestowed by Lord Bute on Mauduit, author of that pamphlet.

6. Nor were these the sole instances of that aristocratic spirit I have mentioned. The Duke of Newcastle who in the very dawn of the Hanoverian succession had forced himself, as godfather to his son, upon the then Prince of Wales, in the next reign set himself up as candidate for the Chancellorship of Cambridge against the next Prince of Wales, Frederic; and even caused the King to prohibit the University to elect his son. Such were the ideas a Whig aristocracy forced the Royal Family to entertain of that party; as if the revolution had been calculated to confirm the power of the nobility, rather than to secure the constitution and the liberty of the people.

7. The marriage act, schemed, drawn, and imposedby Lord Hardwicke, repugnant to the principles of a commercial country, and intended solely to guard the wealth of the nobility from being dispersed among their fellow citizens; the extension of the Habeas Corpus prevented by Lord Mansfield; and the murder of Admiral Byng96to palliate the loss of Minorca, which had been sacrificed by the negligence of Lord Anson and by the Duke of Newcastle’s panic of an invasion, were all fruits of the same spirit. Was it possible to review these facts, and affirm that the principles of arbitrary power were not sown till the present reign? The Crown, indeed, got rid of the first authors of the mischief; but then made advantage of the doctrines they had established: for though a predominant nobility often struggle with the Crown, the contest is only which shall oppress the people, and they as often abet the Crown in encroachments on liberty. The number of members in the House of Commonsnamed by great Lords, and the consequential dependence of the Lower on the Upper House, facilitated those views; and when once the resentment and interest of the Court taught them to break the Cabal, they made use of the power of those whom they had interest or art enough to detach from the faction.

8. On the death of the late King, the Princess, Lord Bute, and their junto, provoked, as I have said, by the great Whig Lords, whom they feared, inclined to the Tories by the counsels of Bolingbroke, Mansfield, and Stone, and disposed by the love of power to endeavour to rise above the constitution, had one capital view—the restoration of the prerogative; and several secondary views, as the destruction of Mr. Pitt, who possessed the hearts of the people, the breaking of the aristocratic Cabal, and the conclusion of a peace, without which they could not have leisure, authority, or money to pursue their other objects. Mr. Burke complained of the Duke of Grafton, Mr. Conway, and other Whigs, for being duped by the Court, and for desertingtheirconnection; but that mischief was done before these came into place, and done by those whom Burke would persuade the world were Whig patriots, namely, Newcastle, Hardwicke, Devonshire,97&c. Mr. Pitt foresaw the turn the Court would take,and prudently proposed, it was affirmed, to the Duke of Newcastle to league against Lord Bute; and there can be no doubt of the truth of that assertion, as Pitt would never again hear of any connection with Newcastle. The Duke loved present power and favour too well to listen to the overture; and notorious it was that Newcastle, Hardwicke, Devonshire, and the Duke of Bedford, urged on by Lord Mansfield and Mr. Fox, did assist the Favourite against Mr. Pitt, and combined to drive him from the Administration. That was the real breach that facilitated the views of the Court. Newcastle, indeed, soon found his error, and was the first sacrifice, as the Duke of Devonshire was the next; while Stone and Mansfield, charmed to see the era arrived that they had so ardently expected and prepared, abandoned the silly Duke and his still sillier associates, and remained fast friends to the reviving prerogative. Then,and not till then, the Whig Lords grew alarmed at the designs of the Court. Lord Rockingham resigned with Newcastle; and Devonshire was affronted and disgraced. These last then thought the country grew seriously in danger; but had Newcastle and his friends been able to keep their places, I question whether we should ever have heardfrom themof arbitrary schemes, any more than of Mr. Burke’s pamphlet; though I have no more doubt of the dangerous projectsof the Court, than I believe Lord Rockingham’s party likely, or capable to prevent them.

I shall say but little on the conclusion of a work which prescribed unlimited voting with Lord Rockingham and his friends as the test ofhonesty; while at the same time, conscience is disclaimed, “because,” says the book, “no man can see into the heart of another”—the context of which curious doctrine is, that it is more virtuous to follow another man, or other men (into whose hearts neither can one see), than to obey the impulse of one’s own conscience. Nothing, or almost nothing, was promised to the Nation by that faction, should they attain power; and yet, with so scanty a catalogue of merits, they claimed implicit confidence from all men! “For,” says the author, “can a man have sat long in Parliament without seeing any one set of men whose character, conduct, or disposition would lead him to associate with them, and aid and be aided by them in any one system of public utility?”98I answer, if he is anhonest man, it is impossible for him to have sat long in Parliament, and not have seen through the selfish or factious views of every set of men; and if he was a sensible man, he must have seen the weakness and insufficience of Lord Rockingham and his party. But what shall we say, if this monkish obedience was demanded, not only to this leader and his leaders, but to a faction composed of men of the most opposite and heterogeneous principles? Lord Rockingham and his friends had adopted and joined in measures concerted, proposed, imposed, now by Lord Chatham, now by Mr. Grenville. Were Lord Chatham’s system or principles, if he had either, the same with Lord Rockingham’s? were Mr. Grenville’s? If they were, why were they not of our party? If they were not, why was any man bound to vote with them? or when? Might Lord Rockingham dissent from Lord Chatham or Mr. Grenville, and might not another man dissent from them too? or might such men dissent only when Lord Rockingham did? What entitled Lord Rockingham to be such a pope, such a rule of faith, such a judge in the last resort? If Lord Chatham or Mr. Grenville might sometimes be right, why might not the Duke of Grafton or Lord North be so too?What enjoined a man to follow Lord Rockingham, both when he agreed with Lord Chatham or Mr. Grenville, and when he did not? The line of concord and the line of discord should have been marked out, and men should have been told what were the principles, and what the objects of each class. If they differed in principles, why did they agree in measures? If they differed for power, how could they ever agree? In the meantime was every man’s conscience to be enslaved, till that blessed moment should arrive in the fullness of time, when Lord Rockingham should come with power and glory to deliver the country by that one single act and end of his mission, the turning out of the King’s men?

Mr. Burke’s pamphlet having tended to nothing but to the discredit of himself and his party, the rest of the session produced little heat, and one very commendable act of the Legislature. Mr. George Onslow had brought in a bill (a tribute to popularity) to take away the privilege of peers and members of Parliament, except for their own persons, so that they should no longer be able to screen their houses and goods from their creditors, nor be allowed to extend protection to their domestics. The bill passed easily through the Commons, many of the members who were inclined to oppose it, trusting it would be rejected in the other House—theLords being less exposed to the consequences of unpopularity, as their seats in Parliament are for life: yet though many objections were made there, Lord Mansfield undertook the support of the bill, and it was passed, though Lord Egmont, with great indignation at the diminution it occasioned in the rights of peerage, and with bitter reflections on Lord Mansfield, opposed it eagerly. The Duke of Richmond, on the contrary, demanded to have the indemnity of ambassadors retrenched likewise, urging the scandalous conduct of Count Haslang, the Bavarian Minister, who had for many years inhabited a house without paying the rent, and would not quit it, though the landlord had offered to remit the whole debt, if the Count would but give up the house. Lord Mansfield replied, that the privileges of ambassadors depended on the law of nations.

I must take this opportunity of doing justice to another instance of the Duke of Richmond’s virtues. There had been a scheme the last year of making a canal for carrying coals from Warwickshire to Oxford, and thence to London. The members for Newcastle, fearing it would lessen the demand for their coal and hurt that nursery of seamen, acquainted the Duke of Richmond, and desired his concurrence in opposition to the plan, his Grace being likely to suffer by it, as the grant to his family from Charles the Second (producing to himan income of twelve thousand pounds a year), was one shilling on every chaldron of coals entered in the port of London. The Duke answered nobly, that however detrimental the bill might be to his interest, he would not oppose it, as it might lower the price of coals to the poor.

The day before the Lords gave up their privileges, they fined some printers for abusive papers on different peers.

On May the 8th Alderman Trecothick moved the other House for the instructions given to General Gage, which, he affirmed, were repugnant to those sent to our governors in America. This drew on a long debate on American affairs; but the motion was quashed, as were, next day, eight propositions made by Mr. Burke, in a fine oration, tending to censure Lord Hillsborough and the Administration for their absurd and contradictory orders to the Governors of the Colonies, to which variations he imputed the troubles existing there. Wedderburne and Lord North had a warm altercation, in which each showed great abilities.99Those resolutions, which were strangely refined and obscure, were again moved, but with no better success, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Richmond.It again did him honour, that, above joining in the unjust violence of Opposition, his Grace made an apology for Captain Preston. Lord Chatham, who neither agreed with Mr. Grenville nor Lord Rockingham on American questions, kept away on these; but, thinking the Middlesex Election more combustible matter, he and Beckford excited the Common Council to address the King once more on his answer to the remonstrance, which on a division was agreed to, together with a resolution to compliment Lord Chatham on his strenuous defence of the rights of election. The same day, he himself crudely made a motion in the House of Lords for a dissolution of the Parliament. He was answered by the Duke of Grafton, who declared he would never more be connected in business with Lord Chatham. The latter said that declaration was unnecessary, as his own reason for quitting power had been because he would no longer serve with his Grace; adding, that he himself desired never again to be in his Majesty’s service. This was taken up with much ridicule, the Ministers protesting they had never knowntill nowwhy his Lordship had resigned. Lord Shelburne owned that the only ostensible reason for dissolving the Parliament was the Middlesex election. This Lord Egmont answered finely, and said Lord Shelburne hadblabbedwhat Lord Chathamwould not confess. The termblabbedexceedingly offended Shelburne, who menaced the Ministers on the disturbances he foretold would happen in America and Ireland—the King’s promise to which kingdom of not removing the troops he treated as illegal. Lord Weymouth, observing that Lord Camden had retired without staying to vote, said artfully, the person who could have given the best opinion on the question proposed, had not chosen to take part in it with his friends, or to stay to inform the House. The question was rejected by 60 to 20.

This was the last parliamentary effort of the session on the Middlesex election; very inadequate to the flame with which it had commenced. Not only the violence of the attack had prejudiced the cause, but so divided were the factions in Opposition, that their numbers were now diminished to one half, while the Court party, conducted coolly and rationally by Lord North, acted with some firmness and some system. Yet, outrageous as the assault had been on the House of Commons, and arbitrarily and shamefully as the House had acted, much good sprung indirectly out of the contention. The scandal deservedly thrown on the members for their corruption and servility, and their dread of losing their future elections from their unpopularity, made such impression on most ofthem, that, to compensate for their infamy, they concurred in two most wholesome acts, which, perhaps, no other moment could have wrung from them; those were, Mr. Grenville’s law for trying contested elections by select committees, and Mr. Onslow’s for the restraint of privilege. The blow to the peerage was permanent, who never lose their seats, and indiscriminately useful to creditors against members of Parliament. The less secure were the extravagant, the fewer would be exposed to corruption from necessity. It ought to be a standing rule with the public to take all advantages of forcing concessions and capitulations from the great, when the complaisance of the latter is reduced by interest or shame to court the people; and the equivalent may often be preferable to the point contended for, as well as more easily obtained.

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