FOOTNOTES

FOOTNOTES1Lord Weymouth was governed by Wood (author of the editions of Palmyra and Balbec), his secretary, who was suspected of having, in concert with Sullivan, betrayed the East India Company at the last peace. Wood was a great stockjobber, and now, and in the following year, was vehemently accused of bending the bow of war towards the butt of his interest. This was the more suspected, as, though we had now been the aggressors, France had for some time winked at the insult offered to their ship, and wished to receive no answer to their memorial, when Wood persisted in making a reply—which lowered the stocks. He who thus lowered them, could raise them again when he pleased.2Mainon D’Invau saw that, with a Court so entirely demoralized as that of Louis the Fifteenth, any extensive financial reforms were impracticable. He had the disinterestedness to refuse the pension usually enjoyed by Ministersen retraite.—E.3The Princess of Beauvau told me this story of him when he was Vice-Chancellor:—She found fault with the situation of his house; Maupeou replied he could see the Hôtel de Choiseul from the windows of his garrets, and that was felicity enough.4Madame d’Esparbès, a woman of quality, was one of the mistresses that succeeded Madame de Pompadour, and hated the Duc de Choiseul. As he was one day coming down the great staircase at Versailles he met her going to the King. He took her by the hand, told her he knew her designs, led her down, returned to the King, and obtained an order for her appearing no more at Court. When Madame du Barry became the favourite mistress, by the intrigues of Maréchal de Richelieu, the Duc de Choiseul, seeing her pass through the gallery at Versailles, said to the Maréchal, “N’est ce pas Madame de Maintenon qui passe?”—a satire on Richelieu, who was so old as to remember the latter, for paying court in the dregs of life to the former, and marking his contempt for both the mistress and her flatterer.5See the character of Choiseul, supra, vol. ii. p. 243.6I one evening heard the Maréchal relate the histories of his five imprisonments in the Bastille. The first was for having, at fifteen, hid himself under the bed of the Duchess of Burgundy, the King’s mother. The second, I think, was for following the Regent’s daughter in the dress of a footman when she went to marry the Duke of Modena. I forget the others, or he had not time to finish them, for though he related well, he was not concise.7Four or five years after the period I am speaking of, the Maréchal was greatly disgraced by seducing a married woman of quality, Madame de St. Vincent, descendant of the famous Madame de Sevigné. The suit between them made considerable noise. At his hotel in Paris he built a pavilion in his garden, luxuriously furnished, for his amours; as it was supposed to be built with his plunder of the Electorate of Hanover, it was nicknamedLe Pavillon d’Hanovre.8In his eighty-third year he married his third wife, who, it is said, had too much reason to complain of his infidelities. This heartless voluptuary died in 1788, at the great age of ninety-two.—E.9See supra, vol ii. p. 245.—E.10He claimed affinity with the Barrys, Earls of Barrymore, and that family did acknowledge the relationship, and had the meanness, when so many French would not, to grace the mistress’s triumph at Versailles. [This alludes to Lady Barrymore, a foolish woman, whom Walpole ridicules in his Correspondence. An amusing life of the Comte du Barry is given in the Biographie Universelle, partly from an autobiographical MS. He seems to have been a consummate blackguard. He perished by the guillotine in 1794. A more favourable account of the Du Barrys is to be found in Capefigue, the panegyrist of every Bourbon king but Henry the Fourth.—(Louis XV., et la Société du XVIII. Siècle, t. iv. pp. 106–111.)—E.]11It was a most absurd etiquette at the Court of France that the King’s mistress should be a married woman,—perhaps for fear of the precedent of Madame de Maintenon.12She was the daughter of the Comte de Chabot, and widow of a Monsieur de Clermont. The Prince de Beauvau, son of the late Prince de Craon, a Lorrainer, and one of the Colonels of the King’s guards, had been attached to her, during the life of his first wife, daughter of the Duc de Bouillon, and married her on his wife’s death. [The Prince had served with distinction in the German wars. He was made Governor of Provence in 1782, and Marshal in 1783. He died in 1793.—E.]13I once said this very thing to her. I was sitting by her at her own house at some distance from the rest of the company, and we were talking of the stand making against Madame du Barry. The Duchesse de Choiseul asked me if that opposition of the nobility to the King’s pleasure would not be reckoned greatly to their honour in England? I answered coldly, “Yes, Madam.” “Come,” said she, “you are not in earnest; but I insist on you telling me seriously what you think.” I replied, “Madam, if you command me, and will promise not to be angry, I will tell you fairly my opinion.” She promised she would. “Then,” said I, “I think this is all very well for Mesdames de Beauvau and de Grammont; butyou, Madam, had no occasion to be so scrupulous.” She understood the compliment, and was pleased—and I knew she would not dislike it, as it was no secret to me that she was violently jealous of and hated her sister-in-law; and I knew, too, that her warmth against Madame du Barry was put on, that Madame de Grammont might not appear to have more zeal against the Duc de Choiseul’s enemy than she had. When she advised her husband to resign, she was more sincere. Her warmest wish was to live retired with her husband, on whom she doted; and she perhaps thought the Duchesse de Grammont did not love her brother enough to quit the world for him. She herself was once on the point of retiring into a convent from the disgusts the Duchesse de Grammont continually gave her. The Duke always sat between his wife and sister at dinner, and sometimes kissed the latter’s hand. Madame de Choiseul was timid, modest, and bashful, and had a little hesitation in her speech. Madame de Grammont took pleasure in putting her out of countenance. When the Duke was banished, his wife and sister affected to be reconciled, that their hatred might not disturb his tranquillity. Madame de Choiseul was pretty, and remarkably well made, but excessively little, and too grave for so spirituous a man. Madame de Grammont, with a fine complexion, was coarsely made, had a rough voice, and an overbearing manner, but could be infinitely agreeable when she pleased. Madame de Choiseul was universally beloved and respected, but neglected; Madame de Grammont was hated by most, liked by many, feared and courted by all, as long as her brother was in power. Her own parts, and the great party that was attached to the Duke, even after his fall, secured much court to the Duchesse de Grammont. The Duke esteemed his wife, but was tired of her virtues and gravity. His volatile gallantry did not confine itself to either.14Madame de Mirepoix was the eldest daughter of the beautiful Princesse de Craon, mistress of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, who married her to Monsieur de Beauvau, a poor nobleman of an ancient family, whom he got made a Prince of the Empire. [She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but totally without character. Many amusing anecdotes of her may be found in the memoirs of the day, especially those of Madame de Haussez.—E.]15Madame de Monconseil was the friend and correspondent of Lord Chesterfield, whose letters to her show that he entertained a high opinion of her sense and good breeding.—(See Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, vol. iii. p. 159, note. Lord Mahon’s edition.)—E.16It is due to the satisfaction of the reader that I should give an account how a stranger could become so well acquainted with the secret history of the Court of France. I have mentioned my intimacy with the Prince and Princesse de Craon. It was in the years 1740 and 1741, when the Prince was head of the Council there, and my father was Prime Minister of England, I resided thirteen months at Florence, in the house of Sir Horace Mann, our resident and my own cousin—passed almost every evening at the Princesse’s, and being about two years older than their son the Prince de Beauvau, contracted a friendship with him, and was with the whole family at Rome when the Prince went thither to receive the toison d’or from the Prince of Santa Croce, the Emperor’s Ambassador. That connection with her family soon made me as intimate with Madame de Mirepoix on her arrival in England, which my frequent journeys to Paris kept up. Madame de Monconseil had been in correspondence with my father; I was acquainted with her in 1739, and renewed my visits in 1765, and often since. Her house was the rendezvous of the Duc de Choiseul’s enemies, and I have supped there with Maréchal Richelieu and Madame de Mirepoix. The Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon was an intimate friend of my friend Lady Hervey, and was remarkably good to me. In England I was as intimate with the Comte and Comtesse du Châtelet, the bosom friends of the Duc de Choiseul, and was regularly of their private suppers twice a-week, just at the beginning of Madame du Barry’s reign; and as they knew how well I was at the Hôtel de Choiseul, and consequently better acquainted than almost any man in England with what was passing, it was an entertainment to them to talk to me on those affairs; at the same time that I had had the prudence never to take any part which would not become a stranger, and was thus well received by both parties. The Maréchal Richelieu was an old lover of the Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon, and constantly at her house; and yet she acted a handsome and neutral part; and it was at last that with great difficulty her son could make her go to Madame du Barry. But the great source of my intelligence was the celebrated old blind Marquise du Deffand, who had a strong and lasting friendship for me. As she hated politics, she entered into none, but being the intimate friend of the Duchesse de Choiseul, who called her “granddaughter” (Madame du Deffand having had a grandmother Duchesse de Choiseul), of the Prince of Beauvau and of Madame de Mirepoix, I saw them all by turns at their house, heard their intrigues, and from her: and on two of my journeys I generally supped five nights in a week with her at the Duchesse de Choiseul’s, whither the Duke often came—and in those, and in the private parties at Madame du Deffand’s I heard such extraordinary conversations as I should not have heard if I had not been so very circumspect, as they all knew. I shall mention some instances hereafter. Here are two. Madame de Mirepoix soon grew not content with Madame du Barry. I was one evening very late on the Boulevard with Mesdames du Mirepoix and Du Deffand. The latter asked the former, “Que deviendroit Madame du Barry, si le Roi venoit à mourir?” “Que deviendroit elle?” replied she, with the utmost scorn; “elle iroit à la Salpetrière, et elle est très faite pour y aller.” On the death of Louis the Fifteenth Madame de Mirepoix was disgraced; on which her brother, the Prince de Beauvau, in compassion, was reconciled to her, and she and the Princess pretended to be reconciled, and always kissed when they met. I saw them and their niece, the Viscomtesse de Cambis, act three of Molière’s plays two nights together, to divert Madame du Deffand, who was ill. This was in 1775. Yet when I went to take leave of Madame de Mirepoix, she opened her heart to me, and showed me how heartily she still hated her sister-in-law.17He died in 1769. He was a virtuous man, and a great mathematician—qualities equally uncommon in a courtier of the days of Louis the Fifteenth.—E.18The Comte du Châtelet told me that the Duc de Choiseul having learnt from Madame de Pompadour that she intended the disgrace of the Cardinal, and the Duke for his successor, and observing that the Cardinal had no apprehension of his approaching fall, was so generous as to give him warning of it.19See, however, vol. iii. p. 367, note.—E.20This indifference to the public credit was a fatal error in the reforms of the Abbé Terray, and alone sufficed to prove his ignorance of the elementary principles of finance. He is represented to have been morose, disagreeable, and dissolute. His dismissal from office was one of the earliest and certainly most popular acts of Louis the Sixteenth.—E.21The Princesse de Lamballe had married the eldest son of the Duc de Penthièvre. She perished in the Revolution. Her Memoirs, an agreeable if not a perfectly authentic work, were published in 1826.—E.22The Emperor Joseph the Second, after the death of his second wife. He had been passionately fond of his first wife, who was very amiable. The second was as disagreeable.23Not the present Queen of France, but an Archduchess, her eldest sister. The double marriage was much talked of, and this letter proves that the King had had it in his thoughts.24Louis the Fourteenth, who married Madame de Maintenon.25He was at this time supporting the Government against what he considered the anti-popular party.—E.26Junius, Letter xxxvi.—E.27Lord Rockingham had prepared another motion, but did not produce it, though offended at Lord Chatham’s.28When Lord Chatham’s motion was shown to Grenville, he lifted up his eyes at seeing Wilkes’s name in it. It was no doubt inserted to soothe Wilkes, who had lately abused him in a rancorous letter to Grenville; for nothing exceeded Lord Chatham’s pusillanimity to those who attacked him, except his insolence to those who feared him. At this time he did not avoid holding out hopes to the King’s favourites, that he would not remove them if he came into power. “I will not,” said he, in his metaphoric rhodomontade, “touch a hair of the tapestry of the Court.”29It might be inferred from this statement that it was the practice of the Lord Chancellor to examine the election writs before they pass the Great Seal. This is a duty, however, which neither Lord Camden nor any other Chancellor ever imposed upon himself, and I am informed that there is no instance of the Great Seal having been withheld from a writ which had passed through the Crown-office. In fact, whatever may have been the original intention of the law in requiring the Great Seal to be affixed to the Parliamentary writs, the Lord Chancellor’s office in this respect has of late years become merely executive.—E.30Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 645.—E.31Lord Granby had just accepted a very considerable obligation from the Ministers. At the end of the last session they and their creatures in the House of Commons had most unjustly voted him the borough of Bramber, so legally the property of Sir Henry Gough, that he had been offered forty thousand pounds for it.32Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Wyndham, and sister of the Earls of Egremont and Thomond. She was a woman of sense and merit, with strong passions.33A brief report of these debates is given in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 668, note. It is obviously partial to the Opposition.—E.34This spirited debate is reported in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 668.—E.35It appears from Lord Camden’s MS. letters to the Duke of Grafton, that he had in the first instance underrated the importance of Wilkes’s case. He next entered heartily into the general indignation which Wilkes had excited. On the 3rd of April he writes, “If the precedents and the constitution warrant an expulsion, that perhaps may be right. A criminal flying his country to escape justice—a convict and an outlaw—that such a person should in open daylight throw himself upon the county as a candidate, his crime unexpiated, is audacious beyond description.” Still, he believes that the public excitement on the subject will soon subside.The proceedings in the Court of King’s Bench, when Wilkes’s counsel gave notice of a motion for a reversal of the outlawry and an arrest of judgment, made a deep impression on Lord Camden. His feelings had by this time cooled, and he viewed the case as a lawyer. He communicated his change of opinion to the Duke in a letter of the 20th of April, and although the communication was confidential, the bent of his mind seems to have been pretty well understood by his colleagues. As the difficulties increased he took the matter more to heart, and on the 9th of January 1769 he writes again to the Duke, expressing great uneasiness, and announcing distinctly his opposition to the view taken by the Cabinet of Wilkes’s case. He pronounces it “a hydra multiplying by resistance, and gathering strength by every attempt to subdue it.” “As the times are,” he says, “I had rather pardon Wilkes than punish him. This is a political opinion independent of the merits of the case.” These representations were fruitless. The Duke had taken his part, was committed to the King and the Cabinet, and, besides being of a hot temper, had become so exasperated by Wilkes’s conduct as to consider his honour would suffer from making the slightest concession to such a man. Unhappily this difference of opinion materially affected the intercourse of the Duke with Lord Camden. The former admits and laments in his Memoirs that they seldom met during the summer of 1769. The Duke’s marriage and frequent absence from London kept them still more apart, and in the autumn it is obvious from the tone of Lord Camden’s letters that he felt the separation to be inevitable.—E.36He was the direct heir of George Duke of Clarence, whose daughter, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, was mother of Henry Pole, Lord Montacute, whose eldest daughter and heiress married an Earl of Huntingdon.37Lord Huntingdon had flattered Lord Bute for some time that he would marry his second and favourite daughter, Lady Jane, afterwards married to Sir George Maccartney.38George William Coventry, Earl of Coventry. He was the senior Peer, but Lord Robert Bertie was an older Lord of the Bedchamber than Lord Coventry; the post of Groom of the Stole was never given but to a peer. [Walpole describes him in 1752 as “a grave young Lord of the remains of the patriot breed.” Little of the spirit of his ancestors seems to have descended to him. He was a Lord of the Bedchamber in two reigns, and led an easy luxurious life, being hardly known, except as the husband of one of the most beautiful women of the day. He died in 1809, at the advanced age of eighty-seven.—E.]39Sir John Cust died on the morning of the 22nd.—(See a more favourable account of him in a note to vol. i. p. 87.)—E.40For the Great Seal was never affixed to the patent of his barony, and the King had not the generosity to make atonement to his family by confirming the promise, for having forced the unhappy person to take a step that cost him his life.41Very few days after the accident Mr. Edmund Burke came to me in extreme perturbation, and complained bitterly of the King, who, he said, had forced Mr. Yorke to disgrace himself. Lord Rockingham, he told me, was yet more affected at Mr. Yorke’s misfortune, and would, as soon as he could, see Lord Hardwicke, make an account public, in which the King’s unjustifiable behaviour should be exposed. I concluded from his agitation that they wanted to disculpate Lord Hardwicke and Lord Rockingham of having given occasion to Mr. Yorke’s despair. They found it prudent, however, to say no more on the subject. An astonishing and indecent circumstance that followed not very long after that tragedy was, that Lord Hardwicke, whose reproaches had occasioned his brother’s death, attached himself to the Court, against Lord Rockingham, and obtained bishopricks for another of his brothers!42General John Waldegrave, third Earl of Waldegrave.43Conway’s disinterestedness did not on this, as on other occasions, obtain very general praise. It seems to have been expected that he would take the salary as soon as he decently could.—(Burke’s Correspondence, vol. i. p. 136.)—E.44If the report in Cavendish (vol. i. p. 458) be correct, the motion was made on the 16th of February.—E.45Mr. Stonehewer’s name has been handed down to posterity by his friendship with the poet Gray, who owed to his interest with the Duke of Grafton the appointment of Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge. Many letters to him are to be found in Gray’s works. He long held the post of a Commissioner of Excise. He died a bachelor, leaving a considerable fortune to his nephew, who took his name.—E.46The continuance of the Duke’s intimacy with Bradshaw surely furnishes very strong evidence that he soon discovered his suspicions to be without foundation. I am informed by the present Duke of Grafton that his grandfather entertained an affectionate regard for Mr. Bradshaw’s memory, and a portrait of that gentleman still forms part of the collection at Euston.—E.47The Duke probably had no direct connection with Lord Bute, but had every reason to believe that the latter still enjoyed the King’s confidence—at least, through his tools, Jenkinson, Dyson, &c.; and he had no reason to doubt, and yet submitted to, that secret influence. Bradshaw was certainly the Earl’s creature, though the Duke did not then know it; but it is not probable that a pension to Dyson would have been added to the Duke’s last disposition, had Dyson not been admitted to his Grace’s confidence. Of Dyson’s attachment to Lord Bute the Duke was assured by Dyson’s being saved by the King when the Duke and Lord Rockingham came into Administration together.—(Seeinfra.)48The Duke of Grafton’s motives for resigning were no doubt of a mixed character. His own statement of them will be found in the Appendix. It is easy to believe that he had for some time been anxious to be released from a position which could not be otherwise than most painful to a man of honour. The business of the Government, always onerous to a chief not used to much application, nor having served any apprenticeship in subordinate offices, was made particularly irksome to him by his being left without a single colleague in the great departments of the State whom he could call his friend. On the leading questions of public policy, he often found himself in a minority. His proposition for the immediate repeal of all the American import duties was rejected by the casting vote of Lord Rochford, whom he had himself recently introduced into the Cabinet. Lord North and the Bedford party, by superior attention to the details of business, had also drawn the management of affairs into their hands; and, at the same time, ingratiated themselves with the King, so that the Duke received no support from his Majesty against them, and was subjected to mortifications, which must have been most trying to his irritable temper. It was only after much persuasion that he could be induced to accept the Treasury; he regarded his acceptance as a concession to his political friends and to the King; and, finding himself now virtually deserted by both, it is not surprising that he should seek to divest himself of a character which had ceased to be even respectable. No doubt he committed a serious blunder in withholding from the public the real grounds of his resignation. It has, irreparably, damaged his name with posterity. He was by no means the insignificant or worthless personage that he appears in the pages of Walpole and of Junius. That he had talents is proved by the single fact of his being able during, at least, one session to resist the whole force of the Opposition in the Lords with no assistance, except from Lord Camden. There is a letter from Mr. Fox among the Grafton MSS. saying, that there is no public man whom he should prefer as a Leader. The spirit with which he entered the lists with Lord Chatham betrayed no want of courage. His political principles were those of the Revolution; and where he departed from them, it was from an error of judgment rather than of intention. A genuine love of peace, and hatred of oppression, either civil or religious, marked the whole of his public life; and, great as were the errors which Walpole and Junius have justly denounced in his private conduct, it is only just to state that, from the date of these memoirs to his death, which comprises a period of near forty years, there were few individuals more highly and generally esteemed.—E.49Mr. Dyson’s pension was taken away by a resolution of the Irish House of Commons, on the 25th of November 1771, by a majority ofone.—E.50The following is the King’s note to Lord North on the following morning:—“1st. Feb. 1770—A majority of forty on the old ground, at least ten times before, is a very favourable auspice on your taking a lead in Administration. A little spirit will soon restore order in my service. I am glad to find Sir Gilbert Elliot has again spoke.”—(MS.)—E.51I presume that there were more than one of this name who had been thus discreditably employed by the Grenvilles. One had already obtained the Deanery of Norwich (vol. ii. p. 6).—E.52When the Government was formed, Sir Gilbert Elliot had said to Lord North that he wished Mr. Grenville could have been included. “Lord North agreed, but said it was impossible.”—(Elliot’s MS. Journal.)—E.53Lord North was so careless of answering letters, that he made enemies of the Dukes of Marlborough and Bridgewater by that neglect. His behaviour to the Duke of Gloucester amounted to brutality and want of feeling. In the subsequent breach between the King and his Royal Highness, the latter wrote a letter to his Majesty, begging a provision for his wife and children, and sent the letter by Lord North. The latter received the King’s answer on Friday night, but choosing to go the next morning to Bushy Park for two days for his amusement, though he could not but be sensible of the Duke’s anxiety at such a moment, and which would be increased by knowing the answer was given, Lord North only sent the Duke word on the Friday night that he had got the King’s answer, and would bring it to his Royal Highness on the following Monday. There was mean insolence, too, in the disrespect, as the Duke could not but feel that Lord North would not have treated him so rudely if his Royal Highness had not been in disgrace.54At one of the Councils held to consider what steps should be taken against Wilkes, when the Duke of Grafton was Minister and Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, and some were for violence and some for moderation, Lord North said not a word. At last Lord Camden, Lord Chancellor, asked him why he did not give his opinion? Lord North answered that he had been waiting for their Lordships’ determination, being perfectly indifferent what resolution they should take, as he was ready to adopt whatever plan they should fix on. Lord Camden was so shocked at that profligacy that he left the room. This account I received from Lord Camden.55On the death of Lord Holderness, Warden of the Cinque Ports, in 1778, the Duke of Dorset expected to succeed, having applied to Lord North previously for his interest, who gave the Duke his word he would not be his competitor; yet the post was conferred on Lord North himself. The Duke asked an audience of the King, and complained of this breach of promise. The King said Lord North had not broken any promise, for the place had been given to him without his asking it. A man of scrupulous honour would not have been contented with that evasion even if he had said, “I will notaskfor the place.” He must have known that the Duke could understand nothing but that he would not be the person to intercept the office. A refusal of his interest would have been honest; to have asked for the place, notwithstanding he had promised he would not, would have been a brave defiance of honesty; to take it after that promise was dirty, and unwise, too, for he offended the Duke more by that evasion than he would have done by refusing to assist him in obtaining the post. No Minister is bound to promise all that is asked, but every Minister is obliged to act like a gentleman, and not like an attorney or a Jesuit. [It is probable that Lord North had reason to believe that his refusal of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports would not be the means of securing that office for the Duke of Dorset. It is certain that no Minister ever held his high post with a personal character more unblemished. In the letters occasionally cited in these notes, the King often contrasts Lord North’s disinterestedness with the very different conduct which his Majesty had witnessed in some of his other servants. Lord North was far from wealthy,—a circumstance which the King had discovered, and hence his Majesty earnestly sought an opportunity of making a permanent provision for him.—E.]56If Walpole had been aware of the correspondence that passed between the King and Lord North to which I have occasionally referred, he would not have made this remark. Nothing but the entreaties of the King could have prevailed on Lord North to remain in office as long as he did. His applications for permission to resign were frequent and most urgent.—E.57The Royal Marriage Act was drawn by Lord Mansfield, and was so much against Lord North’s opinion, that he declared he would not support it—yet he did. It was reported that he was bribed by a grant of part of the Savoy, which about that time the Crown intended to sell—but that was never proved [nor believed by any impartial person.—(See the note in p. 81supra.—E.)]58Son of William Townshend, third son of Charles Viscount Townshend, Knight of the Garter. This Charles Townshend, who must not be confounded with his cousin, the famous Charles, had been employed in Spain, and was distinguished by the appellation of the Spanish Charles.59Welbore Ellis, afterwards Lord Mendip, and often mentioned in these Memoirs.—E.60The following entry occurs in Sir Gilbert’s MS. Journal:—“Friday, 3rd February. Went to Court; heard that Lord Howe had resigned. Lord North made me the offer of the Treasurership of the Navy; said the King wished I might accept, as many persons were doubtful. Though hazardous, I did accept on the spot.” The mode in which the offer is made and accepted, raises a presumption against the existence of the intimate confidence which the King was believed by Walpole to place in Sir Gilbert Elliot.—E.61A brief report of this interesting debate is given in Sir Gilbert Elliot’s MS. Journal. “The Duke of Grafton, who spoke with great gravity and weight, said, as he had before declared, that it had been less likely to occur tohimto apply to the Chancellor; persuaded he was right, he was not solicitous about more advice; but did it become a friend with the Great Seal in his hand to suffer a friend, he all the while silent, to involve the Administration in what he deemed an illegal act?” On Lord Chatham saying that the Chancellor had early told him his opinion, Lord Weymouth expressed astonishment that the Chancellor should communicate to a private man at Hayes what he had concealed from the Cabinet. The Chancellor was certainly to blame in not earlier resigning his office, since he was determined to go into opposition the moment Lord Chatham appeared; but his health making that event doubtful, possibly led the Chancellor into a conduct generally censured, and which had greatly obstructed the affairs of Government.”—(See also Lord Brougham’s remarks on this transaction in “Statesmen of the Time of George the Third,” vol. iii. p. 171.)—E.62The enormous increase of the national debt having occasioned a prodigious number of new taxes, the augmentation of officers to levy those duties, had been a very principal cause of extending the influence of the Crown, by the vast number of votes it necessarily commanded in all the great commercial towns and ports. Such a bill as this here mentioned was warmly contended for in 1781, and actually was obtained in 1782 on the change of the Administration.63This debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 443. Mr. Grenville’s speech contains much curious information.—E.64The Speaker certainly exhibited great want of temper and judgment on the occasion.—(See the details in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 461.)—E.65This is a remarkable coincidence, and nothing more. It was from no good will to Sir James Lowther that Mr. Robinson received this appointment, for Sir James’s name seldom occurs in the King’s letters to Lord North without some harsh or condemnatory expression; besides, the King says of him, even in 1779, “he is scarce worth gaining.” Mr. Robinson was long in the King’s confidence, and employed in the most secret affairs. He represented Harwich for many years, and realized a considerable fortune in office. His only daughter married Lord Abergavenny.—E.66The confidence placed by Lord North in Sir Gilbert Elliot strengthened this suspicion, but the entries in Sir Gilbert’s MS. Journal furnish strong internal evidence that Lord Bute took little or no part in public affairs at this time. An event of such importance as the Duke of Grafton’s intended resignation is not communicated to Lord Bute until six days after it had been known to Sir Gilbert, and then only through Lady Bute.—E.67He was First Lord.68See a brief report in Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 846.—E.69See the report of the debate in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 483–500. Lord North’s and Mr. Grenville’s speeches are able, particularly the latter, which contains some interesting facts explanatory and exculpatory of the passing of the Stamp Act. A fair, sensible, and impressive description of the state of public opinion in the North American Colonies was given by the Hon. Colonel Mackay (brother of Lord Reay), who had lately been serving there with his regiment. General Conway proposed to raise a colonial revenue, by a requisition to the provinces from the Crown—a plan which met with no support from any party. It is evident from the admissions made by the Ministers that they felt the impolicy of retaining the tea duty. Their difficulty was, how to abandon it without risking their own honour, or what they perhaps valued more, the King’s favour. Dr. Franklin, in a letter written a fortnight after the debate, expresses a confident opinion that it would have been repealed but for the impression made on the House by Lord North’s reading the letters to which Walpole refers.—E.70Sir James Hodges, Knt., was the town-clerk. He had been a tradesman on London Bridge, and a very forward speaker at all City meetings.—E.

1Lord Weymouth was governed by Wood (author of the editions of Palmyra and Balbec), his secretary, who was suspected of having, in concert with Sullivan, betrayed the East India Company at the last peace. Wood was a great stockjobber, and now, and in the following year, was vehemently accused of bending the bow of war towards the butt of his interest. This was the more suspected, as, though we had now been the aggressors, France had for some time winked at the insult offered to their ship, and wished to receive no answer to their memorial, when Wood persisted in making a reply—which lowered the stocks. He who thus lowered them, could raise them again when he pleased.

2Mainon D’Invau saw that, with a Court so entirely demoralized as that of Louis the Fifteenth, any extensive financial reforms were impracticable. He had the disinterestedness to refuse the pension usually enjoyed by Ministersen retraite.—E.

3The Princess of Beauvau told me this story of him when he was Vice-Chancellor:—She found fault with the situation of his house; Maupeou replied he could see the Hôtel de Choiseul from the windows of his garrets, and that was felicity enough.

4Madame d’Esparbès, a woman of quality, was one of the mistresses that succeeded Madame de Pompadour, and hated the Duc de Choiseul. As he was one day coming down the great staircase at Versailles he met her going to the King. He took her by the hand, told her he knew her designs, led her down, returned to the King, and obtained an order for her appearing no more at Court. When Madame du Barry became the favourite mistress, by the intrigues of Maréchal de Richelieu, the Duc de Choiseul, seeing her pass through the gallery at Versailles, said to the Maréchal, “N’est ce pas Madame de Maintenon qui passe?”—a satire on Richelieu, who was so old as to remember the latter, for paying court in the dregs of life to the former, and marking his contempt for both the mistress and her flatterer.

5See the character of Choiseul, supra, vol. ii. p. 243.

6I one evening heard the Maréchal relate the histories of his five imprisonments in the Bastille. The first was for having, at fifteen, hid himself under the bed of the Duchess of Burgundy, the King’s mother. The second, I think, was for following the Regent’s daughter in the dress of a footman when she went to marry the Duke of Modena. I forget the others, or he had not time to finish them, for though he related well, he was not concise.

7Four or five years after the period I am speaking of, the Maréchal was greatly disgraced by seducing a married woman of quality, Madame de St. Vincent, descendant of the famous Madame de Sevigné. The suit between them made considerable noise. At his hotel in Paris he built a pavilion in his garden, luxuriously furnished, for his amours; as it was supposed to be built with his plunder of the Electorate of Hanover, it was nicknamedLe Pavillon d’Hanovre.

8In his eighty-third year he married his third wife, who, it is said, had too much reason to complain of his infidelities. This heartless voluptuary died in 1788, at the great age of ninety-two.—E.

9See supra, vol ii. p. 245.—E.

10He claimed affinity with the Barrys, Earls of Barrymore, and that family did acknowledge the relationship, and had the meanness, when so many French would not, to grace the mistress’s triumph at Versailles. [This alludes to Lady Barrymore, a foolish woman, whom Walpole ridicules in his Correspondence. An amusing life of the Comte du Barry is given in the Biographie Universelle, partly from an autobiographical MS. He seems to have been a consummate blackguard. He perished by the guillotine in 1794. A more favourable account of the Du Barrys is to be found in Capefigue, the panegyrist of every Bourbon king but Henry the Fourth.—(Louis XV., et la Société du XVIII. Siècle, t. iv. pp. 106–111.)—E.]

11It was a most absurd etiquette at the Court of France that the King’s mistress should be a married woman,—perhaps for fear of the precedent of Madame de Maintenon.

12She was the daughter of the Comte de Chabot, and widow of a Monsieur de Clermont. The Prince de Beauvau, son of the late Prince de Craon, a Lorrainer, and one of the Colonels of the King’s guards, had been attached to her, during the life of his first wife, daughter of the Duc de Bouillon, and married her on his wife’s death. [The Prince had served with distinction in the German wars. He was made Governor of Provence in 1782, and Marshal in 1783. He died in 1793.—E.]

13I once said this very thing to her. I was sitting by her at her own house at some distance from the rest of the company, and we were talking of the stand making against Madame du Barry. The Duchesse de Choiseul asked me if that opposition of the nobility to the King’s pleasure would not be reckoned greatly to their honour in England? I answered coldly, “Yes, Madam.” “Come,” said she, “you are not in earnest; but I insist on you telling me seriously what you think.” I replied, “Madam, if you command me, and will promise not to be angry, I will tell you fairly my opinion.” She promised she would. “Then,” said I, “I think this is all very well for Mesdames de Beauvau and de Grammont; butyou, Madam, had no occasion to be so scrupulous.” She understood the compliment, and was pleased—and I knew she would not dislike it, as it was no secret to me that she was violently jealous of and hated her sister-in-law; and I knew, too, that her warmth against Madame du Barry was put on, that Madame de Grammont might not appear to have more zeal against the Duc de Choiseul’s enemy than she had. When she advised her husband to resign, she was more sincere. Her warmest wish was to live retired with her husband, on whom she doted; and she perhaps thought the Duchesse de Grammont did not love her brother enough to quit the world for him. She herself was once on the point of retiring into a convent from the disgusts the Duchesse de Grammont continually gave her. The Duke always sat between his wife and sister at dinner, and sometimes kissed the latter’s hand. Madame de Choiseul was timid, modest, and bashful, and had a little hesitation in her speech. Madame de Grammont took pleasure in putting her out of countenance. When the Duke was banished, his wife and sister affected to be reconciled, that their hatred might not disturb his tranquillity. Madame de Choiseul was pretty, and remarkably well made, but excessively little, and too grave for so spirituous a man. Madame de Grammont, with a fine complexion, was coarsely made, had a rough voice, and an overbearing manner, but could be infinitely agreeable when she pleased. Madame de Choiseul was universally beloved and respected, but neglected; Madame de Grammont was hated by most, liked by many, feared and courted by all, as long as her brother was in power. Her own parts, and the great party that was attached to the Duke, even after his fall, secured much court to the Duchesse de Grammont. The Duke esteemed his wife, but was tired of her virtues and gravity. His volatile gallantry did not confine itself to either.

14Madame de Mirepoix was the eldest daughter of the beautiful Princesse de Craon, mistress of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, who married her to Monsieur de Beauvau, a poor nobleman of an ancient family, whom he got made a Prince of the Empire. [She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but totally without character. Many amusing anecdotes of her may be found in the memoirs of the day, especially those of Madame de Haussez.—E.]

15Madame de Monconseil was the friend and correspondent of Lord Chesterfield, whose letters to her show that he entertained a high opinion of her sense and good breeding.—(See Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, vol. iii. p. 159, note. Lord Mahon’s edition.)—E.

16It is due to the satisfaction of the reader that I should give an account how a stranger could become so well acquainted with the secret history of the Court of France. I have mentioned my intimacy with the Prince and Princesse de Craon. It was in the years 1740 and 1741, when the Prince was head of the Council there, and my father was Prime Minister of England, I resided thirteen months at Florence, in the house of Sir Horace Mann, our resident and my own cousin—passed almost every evening at the Princesse’s, and being about two years older than their son the Prince de Beauvau, contracted a friendship with him, and was with the whole family at Rome when the Prince went thither to receive the toison d’or from the Prince of Santa Croce, the Emperor’s Ambassador. That connection with her family soon made me as intimate with Madame de Mirepoix on her arrival in England, which my frequent journeys to Paris kept up. Madame de Monconseil had been in correspondence with my father; I was acquainted with her in 1739, and renewed my visits in 1765, and often since. Her house was the rendezvous of the Duc de Choiseul’s enemies, and I have supped there with Maréchal Richelieu and Madame de Mirepoix. The Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon was an intimate friend of my friend Lady Hervey, and was remarkably good to me. In England I was as intimate with the Comte and Comtesse du Châtelet, the bosom friends of the Duc de Choiseul, and was regularly of their private suppers twice a-week, just at the beginning of Madame du Barry’s reign; and as they knew how well I was at the Hôtel de Choiseul, and consequently better acquainted than almost any man in England with what was passing, it was an entertainment to them to talk to me on those affairs; at the same time that I had had the prudence never to take any part which would not become a stranger, and was thus well received by both parties. The Maréchal Richelieu was an old lover of the Dowager Duchesse d’Aiguillon, and constantly at her house; and yet she acted a handsome and neutral part; and it was at last that with great difficulty her son could make her go to Madame du Barry. But the great source of my intelligence was the celebrated old blind Marquise du Deffand, who had a strong and lasting friendship for me. As she hated politics, she entered into none, but being the intimate friend of the Duchesse de Choiseul, who called her “granddaughter” (Madame du Deffand having had a grandmother Duchesse de Choiseul), of the Prince of Beauvau and of Madame de Mirepoix, I saw them all by turns at their house, heard their intrigues, and from her: and on two of my journeys I generally supped five nights in a week with her at the Duchesse de Choiseul’s, whither the Duke often came—and in those, and in the private parties at Madame du Deffand’s I heard such extraordinary conversations as I should not have heard if I had not been so very circumspect, as they all knew. I shall mention some instances hereafter. Here are two. Madame de Mirepoix soon grew not content with Madame du Barry. I was one evening very late on the Boulevard with Mesdames du Mirepoix and Du Deffand. The latter asked the former, “Que deviendroit Madame du Barry, si le Roi venoit à mourir?” “Que deviendroit elle?” replied she, with the utmost scorn; “elle iroit à la Salpetrière, et elle est très faite pour y aller.” On the death of Louis the Fifteenth Madame de Mirepoix was disgraced; on which her brother, the Prince de Beauvau, in compassion, was reconciled to her, and she and the Princess pretended to be reconciled, and always kissed when they met. I saw them and their niece, the Viscomtesse de Cambis, act three of Molière’s plays two nights together, to divert Madame du Deffand, who was ill. This was in 1775. Yet when I went to take leave of Madame de Mirepoix, she opened her heart to me, and showed me how heartily she still hated her sister-in-law.

17He died in 1769. He was a virtuous man, and a great mathematician—qualities equally uncommon in a courtier of the days of Louis the Fifteenth.—E.

18The Comte du Châtelet told me that the Duc de Choiseul having learnt from Madame de Pompadour that she intended the disgrace of the Cardinal, and the Duke for his successor, and observing that the Cardinal had no apprehension of his approaching fall, was so generous as to give him warning of it.

19See, however, vol. iii. p. 367, note.—E.

20This indifference to the public credit was a fatal error in the reforms of the Abbé Terray, and alone sufficed to prove his ignorance of the elementary principles of finance. He is represented to have been morose, disagreeable, and dissolute. His dismissal from office was one of the earliest and certainly most popular acts of Louis the Sixteenth.—E.

21The Princesse de Lamballe had married the eldest son of the Duc de Penthièvre. She perished in the Revolution. Her Memoirs, an agreeable if not a perfectly authentic work, were published in 1826.—E.

22The Emperor Joseph the Second, after the death of his second wife. He had been passionately fond of his first wife, who was very amiable. The second was as disagreeable.

23Not the present Queen of France, but an Archduchess, her eldest sister. The double marriage was much talked of, and this letter proves that the King had had it in his thoughts.

24Louis the Fourteenth, who married Madame de Maintenon.

25He was at this time supporting the Government against what he considered the anti-popular party.—E.

26Junius, Letter xxxvi.—E.

27Lord Rockingham had prepared another motion, but did not produce it, though offended at Lord Chatham’s.

28When Lord Chatham’s motion was shown to Grenville, he lifted up his eyes at seeing Wilkes’s name in it. It was no doubt inserted to soothe Wilkes, who had lately abused him in a rancorous letter to Grenville; for nothing exceeded Lord Chatham’s pusillanimity to those who attacked him, except his insolence to those who feared him. At this time he did not avoid holding out hopes to the King’s favourites, that he would not remove them if he came into power. “I will not,” said he, in his metaphoric rhodomontade, “touch a hair of the tapestry of the Court.”

29It might be inferred from this statement that it was the practice of the Lord Chancellor to examine the election writs before they pass the Great Seal. This is a duty, however, which neither Lord Camden nor any other Chancellor ever imposed upon himself, and I am informed that there is no instance of the Great Seal having been withheld from a writ which had passed through the Crown-office. In fact, whatever may have been the original intention of the law in requiring the Great Seal to be affixed to the Parliamentary writs, the Lord Chancellor’s office in this respect has of late years become merely executive.—E.

30Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 645.—E.

31Lord Granby had just accepted a very considerable obligation from the Ministers. At the end of the last session they and their creatures in the House of Commons had most unjustly voted him the borough of Bramber, so legally the property of Sir Henry Gough, that he had been offered forty thousand pounds for it.

32Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Wyndham, and sister of the Earls of Egremont and Thomond. She was a woman of sense and merit, with strong passions.

33A brief report of these debates is given in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 668, note. It is obviously partial to the Opposition.—E.

34This spirited debate is reported in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 668.—E.

35It appears from Lord Camden’s MS. letters to the Duke of Grafton, that he had in the first instance underrated the importance of Wilkes’s case. He next entered heartily into the general indignation which Wilkes had excited. On the 3rd of April he writes, “If the precedents and the constitution warrant an expulsion, that perhaps may be right. A criminal flying his country to escape justice—a convict and an outlaw—that such a person should in open daylight throw himself upon the county as a candidate, his crime unexpiated, is audacious beyond description.” Still, he believes that the public excitement on the subject will soon subside.The proceedings in the Court of King’s Bench, when Wilkes’s counsel gave notice of a motion for a reversal of the outlawry and an arrest of judgment, made a deep impression on Lord Camden. His feelings had by this time cooled, and he viewed the case as a lawyer. He communicated his change of opinion to the Duke in a letter of the 20th of April, and although the communication was confidential, the bent of his mind seems to have been pretty well understood by his colleagues. As the difficulties increased he took the matter more to heart, and on the 9th of January 1769 he writes again to the Duke, expressing great uneasiness, and announcing distinctly his opposition to the view taken by the Cabinet of Wilkes’s case. He pronounces it “a hydra multiplying by resistance, and gathering strength by every attempt to subdue it.” “As the times are,” he says, “I had rather pardon Wilkes than punish him. This is a political opinion independent of the merits of the case.” These representations were fruitless. The Duke had taken his part, was committed to the King and the Cabinet, and, besides being of a hot temper, had become so exasperated by Wilkes’s conduct as to consider his honour would suffer from making the slightest concession to such a man. Unhappily this difference of opinion materially affected the intercourse of the Duke with Lord Camden. The former admits and laments in his Memoirs that they seldom met during the summer of 1769. The Duke’s marriage and frequent absence from London kept them still more apart, and in the autumn it is obvious from the tone of Lord Camden’s letters that he felt the separation to be inevitable.—E.

The proceedings in the Court of King’s Bench, when Wilkes’s counsel gave notice of a motion for a reversal of the outlawry and an arrest of judgment, made a deep impression on Lord Camden. His feelings had by this time cooled, and he viewed the case as a lawyer. He communicated his change of opinion to the Duke in a letter of the 20th of April, and although the communication was confidential, the bent of his mind seems to have been pretty well understood by his colleagues. As the difficulties increased he took the matter more to heart, and on the 9th of January 1769 he writes again to the Duke, expressing great uneasiness, and announcing distinctly his opposition to the view taken by the Cabinet of Wilkes’s case. He pronounces it “a hydra multiplying by resistance, and gathering strength by every attempt to subdue it.” “As the times are,” he says, “I had rather pardon Wilkes than punish him. This is a political opinion independent of the merits of the case.” These representations were fruitless. The Duke had taken his part, was committed to the King and the Cabinet, and, besides being of a hot temper, had become so exasperated by Wilkes’s conduct as to consider his honour would suffer from making the slightest concession to such a man. Unhappily this difference of opinion materially affected the intercourse of the Duke with Lord Camden. The former admits and laments in his Memoirs that they seldom met during the summer of 1769. The Duke’s marriage and frequent absence from London kept them still more apart, and in the autumn it is obvious from the tone of Lord Camden’s letters that he felt the separation to be inevitable.—E.

36He was the direct heir of George Duke of Clarence, whose daughter, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, was mother of Henry Pole, Lord Montacute, whose eldest daughter and heiress married an Earl of Huntingdon.

37Lord Huntingdon had flattered Lord Bute for some time that he would marry his second and favourite daughter, Lady Jane, afterwards married to Sir George Maccartney.

38George William Coventry, Earl of Coventry. He was the senior Peer, but Lord Robert Bertie was an older Lord of the Bedchamber than Lord Coventry; the post of Groom of the Stole was never given but to a peer. [Walpole describes him in 1752 as “a grave young Lord of the remains of the patriot breed.” Little of the spirit of his ancestors seems to have descended to him. He was a Lord of the Bedchamber in two reigns, and led an easy luxurious life, being hardly known, except as the husband of one of the most beautiful women of the day. He died in 1809, at the advanced age of eighty-seven.—E.]

39Sir John Cust died on the morning of the 22nd.—(See a more favourable account of him in a note to vol. i. p. 87.)—E.

40For the Great Seal was never affixed to the patent of his barony, and the King had not the generosity to make atonement to his family by confirming the promise, for having forced the unhappy person to take a step that cost him his life.

41Very few days after the accident Mr. Edmund Burke came to me in extreme perturbation, and complained bitterly of the King, who, he said, had forced Mr. Yorke to disgrace himself. Lord Rockingham, he told me, was yet more affected at Mr. Yorke’s misfortune, and would, as soon as he could, see Lord Hardwicke, make an account public, in which the King’s unjustifiable behaviour should be exposed. I concluded from his agitation that they wanted to disculpate Lord Hardwicke and Lord Rockingham of having given occasion to Mr. Yorke’s despair. They found it prudent, however, to say no more on the subject. An astonishing and indecent circumstance that followed not very long after that tragedy was, that Lord Hardwicke, whose reproaches had occasioned his brother’s death, attached himself to the Court, against Lord Rockingham, and obtained bishopricks for another of his brothers!

42General John Waldegrave, third Earl of Waldegrave.

43Conway’s disinterestedness did not on this, as on other occasions, obtain very general praise. It seems to have been expected that he would take the salary as soon as he decently could.—(Burke’s Correspondence, vol. i. p. 136.)—E.

44If the report in Cavendish (vol. i. p. 458) be correct, the motion was made on the 16th of February.—E.

45Mr. Stonehewer’s name has been handed down to posterity by his friendship with the poet Gray, who owed to his interest with the Duke of Grafton the appointment of Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge. Many letters to him are to be found in Gray’s works. He long held the post of a Commissioner of Excise. He died a bachelor, leaving a considerable fortune to his nephew, who took his name.—E.

46The continuance of the Duke’s intimacy with Bradshaw surely furnishes very strong evidence that he soon discovered his suspicions to be without foundation. I am informed by the present Duke of Grafton that his grandfather entertained an affectionate regard for Mr. Bradshaw’s memory, and a portrait of that gentleman still forms part of the collection at Euston.—E.

47The Duke probably had no direct connection with Lord Bute, but had every reason to believe that the latter still enjoyed the King’s confidence—at least, through his tools, Jenkinson, Dyson, &c.; and he had no reason to doubt, and yet submitted to, that secret influence. Bradshaw was certainly the Earl’s creature, though the Duke did not then know it; but it is not probable that a pension to Dyson would have been added to the Duke’s last disposition, had Dyson not been admitted to his Grace’s confidence. Of Dyson’s attachment to Lord Bute the Duke was assured by Dyson’s being saved by the King when the Duke and Lord Rockingham came into Administration together.—(Seeinfra.)

48The Duke of Grafton’s motives for resigning were no doubt of a mixed character. His own statement of them will be found in the Appendix. It is easy to believe that he had for some time been anxious to be released from a position which could not be otherwise than most painful to a man of honour. The business of the Government, always onerous to a chief not used to much application, nor having served any apprenticeship in subordinate offices, was made particularly irksome to him by his being left without a single colleague in the great departments of the State whom he could call his friend. On the leading questions of public policy, he often found himself in a minority. His proposition for the immediate repeal of all the American import duties was rejected by the casting vote of Lord Rochford, whom he had himself recently introduced into the Cabinet. Lord North and the Bedford party, by superior attention to the details of business, had also drawn the management of affairs into their hands; and, at the same time, ingratiated themselves with the King, so that the Duke received no support from his Majesty against them, and was subjected to mortifications, which must have been most trying to his irritable temper. It was only after much persuasion that he could be induced to accept the Treasury; he regarded his acceptance as a concession to his political friends and to the King; and, finding himself now virtually deserted by both, it is not surprising that he should seek to divest himself of a character which had ceased to be even respectable. No doubt he committed a serious blunder in withholding from the public the real grounds of his resignation. It has, irreparably, damaged his name with posterity. He was by no means the insignificant or worthless personage that he appears in the pages of Walpole and of Junius. That he had talents is proved by the single fact of his being able during, at least, one session to resist the whole force of the Opposition in the Lords with no assistance, except from Lord Camden. There is a letter from Mr. Fox among the Grafton MSS. saying, that there is no public man whom he should prefer as a Leader. The spirit with which he entered the lists with Lord Chatham betrayed no want of courage. His political principles were those of the Revolution; and where he departed from them, it was from an error of judgment rather than of intention. A genuine love of peace, and hatred of oppression, either civil or religious, marked the whole of his public life; and, great as were the errors which Walpole and Junius have justly denounced in his private conduct, it is only just to state that, from the date of these memoirs to his death, which comprises a period of near forty years, there were few individuals more highly and generally esteemed.—E.

49Mr. Dyson’s pension was taken away by a resolution of the Irish House of Commons, on the 25th of November 1771, by a majority ofone.—E.

50The following is the King’s note to Lord North on the following morning:—“1st. Feb. 1770—A majority of forty on the old ground, at least ten times before, is a very favourable auspice on your taking a lead in Administration. A little spirit will soon restore order in my service. I am glad to find Sir Gilbert Elliot has again spoke.”—(MS.)—E.

51I presume that there were more than one of this name who had been thus discreditably employed by the Grenvilles. One had already obtained the Deanery of Norwich (vol. ii. p. 6).—E.

52When the Government was formed, Sir Gilbert Elliot had said to Lord North that he wished Mr. Grenville could have been included. “Lord North agreed, but said it was impossible.”—(Elliot’s MS. Journal.)—E.

53Lord North was so careless of answering letters, that he made enemies of the Dukes of Marlborough and Bridgewater by that neglect. His behaviour to the Duke of Gloucester amounted to brutality and want of feeling. In the subsequent breach between the King and his Royal Highness, the latter wrote a letter to his Majesty, begging a provision for his wife and children, and sent the letter by Lord North. The latter received the King’s answer on Friday night, but choosing to go the next morning to Bushy Park for two days for his amusement, though he could not but be sensible of the Duke’s anxiety at such a moment, and which would be increased by knowing the answer was given, Lord North only sent the Duke word on the Friday night that he had got the King’s answer, and would bring it to his Royal Highness on the following Monday. There was mean insolence, too, in the disrespect, as the Duke could not but feel that Lord North would not have treated him so rudely if his Royal Highness had not been in disgrace.

54At one of the Councils held to consider what steps should be taken against Wilkes, when the Duke of Grafton was Minister and Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, and some were for violence and some for moderation, Lord North said not a word. At last Lord Camden, Lord Chancellor, asked him why he did not give his opinion? Lord North answered that he had been waiting for their Lordships’ determination, being perfectly indifferent what resolution they should take, as he was ready to adopt whatever plan they should fix on. Lord Camden was so shocked at that profligacy that he left the room. This account I received from Lord Camden.

55On the death of Lord Holderness, Warden of the Cinque Ports, in 1778, the Duke of Dorset expected to succeed, having applied to Lord North previously for his interest, who gave the Duke his word he would not be his competitor; yet the post was conferred on Lord North himself. The Duke asked an audience of the King, and complained of this breach of promise. The King said Lord North had not broken any promise, for the place had been given to him without his asking it. A man of scrupulous honour would not have been contented with that evasion even if he had said, “I will notaskfor the place.” He must have known that the Duke could understand nothing but that he would not be the person to intercept the office. A refusal of his interest would have been honest; to have asked for the place, notwithstanding he had promised he would not, would have been a brave defiance of honesty; to take it after that promise was dirty, and unwise, too, for he offended the Duke more by that evasion than he would have done by refusing to assist him in obtaining the post. No Minister is bound to promise all that is asked, but every Minister is obliged to act like a gentleman, and not like an attorney or a Jesuit. [It is probable that Lord North had reason to believe that his refusal of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports would not be the means of securing that office for the Duke of Dorset. It is certain that no Minister ever held his high post with a personal character more unblemished. In the letters occasionally cited in these notes, the King often contrasts Lord North’s disinterestedness with the very different conduct which his Majesty had witnessed in some of his other servants. Lord North was far from wealthy,—a circumstance which the King had discovered, and hence his Majesty earnestly sought an opportunity of making a permanent provision for him.—E.]

56If Walpole had been aware of the correspondence that passed between the King and Lord North to which I have occasionally referred, he would not have made this remark. Nothing but the entreaties of the King could have prevailed on Lord North to remain in office as long as he did. His applications for permission to resign were frequent and most urgent.—E.

57The Royal Marriage Act was drawn by Lord Mansfield, and was so much against Lord North’s opinion, that he declared he would not support it—yet he did. It was reported that he was bribed by a grant of part of the Savoy, which about that time the Crown intended to sell—but that was never proved [nor believed by any impartial person.—(See the note in p. 81supra.—E.)]

58Son of William Townshend, third son of Charles Viscount Townshend, Knight of the Garter. This Charles Townshend, who must not be confounded with his cousin, the famous Charles, had been employed in Spain, and was distinguished by the appellation of the Spanish Charles.

59Welbore Ellis, afterwards Lord Mendip, and often mentioned in these Memoirs.—E.

60The following entry occurs in Sir Gilbert’s MS. Journal:—“Friday, 3rd February. Went to Court; heard that Lord Howe had resigned. Lord North made me the offer of the Treasurership of the Navy; said the King wished I might accept, as many persons were doubtful. Though hazardous, I did accept on the spot.” The mode in which the offer is made and accepted, raises a presumption against the existence of the intimate confidence which the King was believed by Walpole to place in Sir Gilbert Elliot.—E.

61A brief report of this interesting debate is given in Sir Gilbert Elliot’s MS. Journal. “The Duke of Grafton, who spoke with great gravity and weight, said, as he had before declared, that it had been less likely to occur tohimto apply to the Chancellor; persuaded he was right, he was not solicitous about more advice; but did it become a friend with the Great Seal in his hand to suffer a friend, he all the while silent, to involve the Administration in what he deemed an illegal act?” On Lord Chatham saying that the Chancellor had early told him his opinion, Lord Weymouth expressed astonishment that the Chancellor should communicate to a private man at Hayes what he had concealed from the Cabinet. The Chancellor was certainly to blame in not earlier resigning his office, since he was determined to go into opposition the moment Lord Chatham appeared; but his health making that event doubtful, possibly led the Chancellor into a conduct generally censured, and which had greatly obstructed the affairs of Government.”—(See also Lord Brougham’s remarks on this transaction in “Statesmen of the Time of George the Third,” vol. iii. p. 171.)—E.

62The enormous increase of the national debt having occasioned a prodigious number of new taxes, the augmentation of officers to levy those duties, had been a very principal cause of extending the influence of the Crown, by the vast number of votes it necessarily commanded in all the great commercial towns and ports. Such a bill as this here mentioned was warmly contended for in 1781, and actually was obtained in 1782 on the change of the Administration.

63This debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 443. Mr. Grenville’s speech contains much curious information.—E.

64The Speaker certainly exhibited great want of temper and judgment on the occasion.—(See the details in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 461.)—E.

65This is a remarkable coincidence, and nothing more. It was from no good will to Sir James Lowther that Mr. Robinson received this appointment, for Sir James’s name seldom occurs in the King’s letters to Lord North without some harsh or condemnatory expression; besides, the King says of him, even in 1779, “he is scarce worth gaining.” Mr. Robinson was long in the King’s confidence, and employed in the most secret affairs. He represented Harwich for many years, and realized a considerable fortune in office. His only daughter married Lord Abergavenny.—E.

66The confidence placed by Lord North in Sir Gilbert Elliot strengthened this suspicion, but the entries in Sir Gilbert’s MS. Journal furnish strong internal evidence that Lord Bute took little or no part in public affairs at this time. An event of such importance as the Duke of Grafton’s intended resignation is not communicated to Lord Bute until six days after it had been known to Sir Gilbert, and then only through Lady Bute.—E.

67He was First Lord.

68See a brief report in Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 846.—E.

69See the report of the debate in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 483–500. Lord North’s and Mr. Grenville’s speeches are able, particularly the latter, which contains some interesting facts explanatory and exculpatory of the passing of the Stamp Act. A fair, sensible, and impressive description of the state of public opinion in the North American Colonies was given by the Hon. Colonel Mackay (brother of Lord Reay), who had lately been serving there with his regiment. General Conway proposed to raise a colonial revenue, by a requisition to the provinces from the Crown—a plan which met with no support from any party. It is evident from the admissions made by the Ministers that they felt the impolicy of retaining the tea duty. Their difficulty was, how to abandon it without risking their own honour, or what they perhaps valued more, the King’s favour. Dr. Franklin, in a letter written a fortnight after the debate, expresses a confident opinion that it would have been repealed but for the impression made on the House by Lord North’s reading the letters to which Walpole refers.—E.

70Sir James Hodges, Knt., was the town-clerk. He had been a tradesman on London Bridge, and a very forward speaker at all City meetings.—E.

Back to Index Next