Chapter XII (2)

[8] Henry Crabb Boulton, M.P. for Worcester, died in 1773. He was chairman of the East India Company, in the same year. He also presided over the Committee appointed by the General Court of Proprietors to oppose Lord North’s Bill for the better regulation of the Company, and exerted himself most actively to defeat that measure. It was at his instigation that the Corporation of the City of London, moved by the important consideration that 1000 freemen were interested in the question, made common cause with the Company, and petitioned Parliament on its behalf.--E.

[9] Mr. Townshend had not many months before entertained a very different opinion of this great man, as appears from the following passage in the Duke of Grafton’s MS. Memoirs. “On the night preceding Lord Chatham’s first journey to Bath, Mr. Charles Townshend was for the first time summoned to the Cabinet. The business was on a general view and statement of the actual situation and interests of the various powers in Europe. Lord Chatham had taken the lead in this consideration in so masterly a manner, as to raise the admiration and desire of us all to co-operate with him in forwarding his views. Mr. Townshend was particularly astonished, and owned to me, as I was carrying him in my carriage home, that Lord Chatham had just shown to us what inferior animals we were, and that as much as he had seen of him before, he did not conceive till that night his superiority to be so very transcendent.”--E.

[10] The following more friendly account of this singular scene is transcribed from Sir George Colebrooke’s Memoirs.

“Mr. Townshend loved good living, but had not a strong stomach. He committed therefore frequent excesses, considering his constitution, which would not have been intemperance in another. He was supposed, for instance, to have made a speech in the heat of wine, when that was really not the case. It was a speech in which he treated with great levity, but with wonderful art, the characters of the Duke of Grafton and Lord Shelburne, whom, though his colleagues in office, he entertained a sovereign contempt for, and heartily wished to get rid of. He had a black ribbon over one of his eyes that day, having tumbled out of bed, probably in a fit of epilepsy, and this added to the impression made on his auditors that he was tipsy, whereas it was a speech he had meditated a great while upon, and it was only by accident that it found utterance that day. I write with certainty, because Sir George Yonge and I were the only persons who dined with him, and we had but one bottle of champagne after dinner, General Conway having repeatedly sent messengers to press his return to the House.”--E.

[11] Francis Bernard, Esq. He had been Governor of New Jersey from 1758 to 1760 when he was promoted to Massachusets. He is praised by the writers unfavourable to the Americans for his zeal in maintaining the authority of the mother country.--(Stedman’s History of the American War, vol. i. p. 58.) Unhappily this zeal was not tempered by judgment. He has been justly censured by Mr. Burke. He was made a Baronet in 1769, died in 1779. The late benevolent Sir John Bernard was his second son.--E.

[12] This speech will long be memorable, as it again opened the wounds scarce skinned over by the repeal of the Stamp Act. The loss of the land-tax occasioned this speech and the ensuing taxes; those taxes produced opposition; that opposition gave a handle to the friends of prerogative to attempt despotism in America; and that attempt has caused a civil war in America, whence is just arrived notice of the first bloodshed, as I transcribe these Memoirs--in June, 1775.

At this later period (when thirteen provinces are actually lost) the leading steps may be summed up thus: Grenville (who had adopted from Lord Bute a plan of taxation formed by Jenkinson) had provoked America to resist. The Rockingham Administration had endeavoured to remedy that mischief by repealing the Stamp Act; and perhaps might have prevented a farther breach, though ambitious leaders, and perhaps some true republican patriots, might have entertained hopes of separating the Colonies from Great Britain; and France had certainly fomented those designs. The pernicious mischief of lowering the land-tax gave a handle to Charles Townshend to propose his new taxes (instigated, as was supposed, by the secret cabal at Court, or officiously to make his court there.) Thus the ambition of the Court began the quarrel; Grenville was a second time, though then without foreseeing it, an instrument of renewing it; and the Crown, that delighted in the mischief, ended with being the great sufferer, and America happily became perfectly free.--W.

[It is not unlikely, as Sir George Colebrooke observes, “that as the Court had never intended to abandon the principle of taxation. Mr. Townshend was not sorry to have an opportunity of ingratiating himself at St. James’s, by proposing taxes which, though levied in America, were not laid on American growth, or American industry, and so far he hoped they would find admittance into the Colonies.”--(Sir George Colebrooke’s MS. Memoirs.) Many of the Americans attached to the British connexion were also of that opinion, and told Mr. Townshend “Only let the tax bear the appearance of port duties, and it will not be objected to.”--(Cavendish’s Debates, vol. i. p. 213.) At home the measure was opposed by a very slender minority in Parliament representing no powerful interests exclusive of the merchants engaged in the American trade, whose fears for the debts owing to them in the Colonies made them so tremblingly apprehensive, that their remonstrances carried less weight with the Government than would otherwise have been due to their intelligence and wealth. The country also had taken umbrage at the intemperate language of the Colonists, and regarded with some distrust the moderate policy of the Government; so that Mr. Townshend had to contend with the taunts of the Opposition, the popular voice, and the wishes of the Court--a combination far too strong for a statesman of his temperament to resist.]--E.

[13] The third resolution was, “That until provision shall have been made by the Assembly for furnishing the King’s troops with all the necessaries required by the said Act (of 5 Geo. III.) the Government, and Council, and Assembly be restrained and prohibited from passing or assenting to any act of Assembly, &c.” It was opposed at considerable length by Mr. Pownall, late Governor of Massachusets, on the ground that the provisions of the Act were incompatible with the nature of the people and the circumstances of many parts of the country, and that its object might be effectually obtained by a colonial act, such as the Assembly of Massachusets had passed at his recommendation some time before. Governor Pownall’s speech is reported, probably by himself, in Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 331.--E.

[14] The previous discussions of the East India question are noticed in the Second Volume pp. 394, 427, 449. They convey no exalted notion of the sagacity or virtue of the parties concerned in them. The sole object of the Ministers appears to have been to extort the largest possible sum of money from the Company, without regard to the prosperity of our commercial relations with India, the proper administration of the territories of the Company, or the welfare of the Indian population. The Company in like manner, directors and proprietors, displayed an utter unfitness for the discharge of the vast jurisdiction to which they laid claim. The venality and rapacity of their officers in India almost found a parallel in the disgraceful trafficking for votes and patronage in the Court of Proprietors, and the speculations and maladministration of the directors. Their affairs had fallen into great disorder,--the natural result of these practices on such a vicious system as the annual election of the directors and the low amount of the franchise of the proprietors. It was no wonder that all sought to escape any interference or control on the part of the Government. Strange to say, these crying evils were regarded with indifference by the public, and every effort made by Government to repress them met with determined resistance from the great mercantile interests of the City of London. Indeed the cause of the Company became so popular that many of the leading Whigs very inconsistently yielded to the general feeling, and were found among its warmest advocates. Conway wanted firmness to oppose this delusion. Of all the Ministers, Lord Chatham alone did not entirely forget that he was a statesman. He protested throughout against the rights claimed by the Company over the conquered provinces, and he did not disguise his contempt for that body. Indistinctly as his views are expressed, and extravagant as may have been his belief of the extent of the revenues of the Company, he appears to have carried his views for their appropriation beyond those of mere revenue considerations to this country, and if his health had admitted of his entering further into the controversy, and he had been assisted in matters of detail, it is not unlikely that he would have struck out a scheme worthy of his genius for the government of this vast empire.--E.

[15] William Fitzherbert, of Tissington, M. P. for Derby, and a Lord of Trade, an amiable man, whose intimate friendship with Burke, Johnson, Cumberland, and other eminent literary men of his day, has been gratefully recorded in their works. Dr. Johnson’s exquisite description of him has often been quoted. He committed suicide in a fit of phrenzy, in 1772. The late Lord St. Helens was his son.--E.

[16] Thomas Nuthall, appointed Solicitor of the Treasury, through Lord Chatham’s interest, and his lordship’s intimate friend and law adviser. Many letters to and from him are contained in the Chatham Correspondence. He was shot by a highwayman on Hounslow Heath, and expired a few hours afterwards, in March, 1775.--E.

[17] Mary, wife of Edward Duke of Norfolk, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Edward Blount of Blagden, in Devonshire. The biographer of the Blount family states that “she graced her high station by the beauty and dignity of her person, and the splendour of her wit and talents.” She had lived with her husband in the South of France, until he succeeded to the dukedom on the death of his elder brother, without issue, in 1732. She died without issue in 1773. The Duke survived her and died at the advanced age of 92, in 1777.--(History of the Croke and Le Blount Family, vol. ii. p. 150.)--E.

[18] The debate was hot and personal. Lord Denbigh threw out indirect reflections on Chief Justice Wilmot, and on being stopped as disorderly, he turned upon Lord Mansfield, and went so far as to give his lordship the lie. Eventually he was obliged to ask pardon, which Lord Mansfield seems to have given with rather unbecoming alacrity.--(Duke of Bedford’s Journal, in Cav. Parl. Deb., vol. i. Appendix.) On the following day, the Duke of Grafton communicated the result of the division by letter to Lord Chatham, and earnestly entreated an interview to consider what was to be done. Lord Chatham, as before, begged “to be allowed to decline the honour of the visit, finding himself quite unable for a conversation which he should be otherwise proud and happy to embrace.”--(Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 255, 256.)--E.

[19] The Duke says in his MS. Memoirs--

“Though I expected to find Lord Chatham very ill indeed, his situation was different from what I had imagined: his nerves and spirits were affected to a dreadful degree, and the sight of his great mind, bowed down and thus weakened by disorder, would have filled me with grief and concern even if I had not long borne a sincere attachment to his person and character. The confidence he reposed in me, demanded every return on my part, and it appeared like cruelty in me to have been urged by any necessity to put a man I valued to so great suffering. The interview was long and painful: I had to run over the many difficulties of the session, for his lordship, I believe, had not once attended the House since his last return from Bath. I had to relate the struggles we had experienced in carrying some points, especially in the House of Lords; the opposition, also, we had encountered in the East India business, from Mr. Conway as well as Mr. Townshend, together with the unaccountable conduct of the latter gentleman, who had suffered himself to be led to pledge himself at last, contrary to the known decision of every member of the Cabinet, to draw a certain revenue from the Colonies, without offence to the Americans themselves; and I was sorry to inform Lord Chatham, that Mr. Townshend’s flippant boasting was received with strong marks of a blind and greedy approbation from the body of the House; and I endeavoured to lay everything before his lordship as plainly as I was able, and assured him that Lords Northington and Camden had both empowered me to declare how earnestly they desired to receive his advice as to assisting and strengthening the system he had established by some adequate accession, without which they were satisfied it could not nor ought to proceed.

“It was with difficulty that I brought Lord Chatham to be sensible of the weakness of his Administration, or the power of the united faction against us, though we received every mark we could desire of his Majesty’s support. At last, after much discourse and some arguing, he proceeded to entreat me to remain in my present station, taking that method to strengthen the Ministry which should appear to me to be the most eligible; and he assured me that if Lords Northington and Camden, as well as myself, did not retain our high places, there would be an end to all his hopes of being ever serviceable again as a public man.”

Eventually Lord Chatham acquiesced in the Duke entering into a negotiation with the Bedford or Rockingham party--though he preferred the former,--a preference which explains the Duke’s remark in the text of p. 49.--E.

[20] Conway was right--Prince Ferdinand realized very little property during the war, and died poor. The vast sums drawn from England fell into the hands of subordinate agents.--E.

[21] They were both descendants of Charles II.

[22] A brief report of the debate is given from Lord Hardwicke’s Notes in the “Parliamentary History,” vol. xvi. p. 350, by which it appears that Lord Mansfield’s opposition was most decided and effective. He treated it as an unprecedented exertion of absolute power to set aside a legal act of private men legally empowered to dispose of their own property--they having neither violated the general principles of justice nor the bye-laws of the Company; their circumstances being amply adequate to the payment of the dividend: and he also insisted that stock-jobbing would be promoted by the bill, and left no doubt of his own impression that such was its sole object. These arguments are reproduced with great ability in the Protest, and have never been satisfactorily refuted. The insolvency of the Company--a ground afterwards abandoned by the Government--seems to be the only legitimate defence that could have been alleged for such an arbitrary act.--E.

[23] Many, if not all of these, are to be found in the third volume of Lord Chatham’s Correspondence.--E.

[24] Lord Holland had long vented this maxim, though he himself and Lord Chatham had proved the futility of it in the last reign, when they had successfully attacked the Duke of Newcastle’s Administration, on his setting Sir Thomas Robinson to lead the House of Commons. Lord Bute at the same instigation had erected himself into Minister, with Sir Francis Dashwood for his substitute, and though it is true the nation bore it for one session, it was so ridiculous an Administration, that the Earl took fright, resigned himself, and deposed his deputy. The King not having courage to repeat the system, though he liked it, had recourse to an artful expedient, which answered his purpose--which was to set up an ostensible Minister, but govern by his secret junto. Lord Rockingham had really been Minister for one year, but found he could not gain the King’s confidence without submitting to the junto, and he was removed for Lord Chatham, another real Minister, whose madness or mad conduct left the King at liberty to revert to his own system, and then the Duke of Grafton and Lord North submitted to be ostensible Ministers.

[25] This was not exactly the purport of the message: see infra pp. 87, 88, _note_. The Duke of Bedford’s construction of it may be seen from the following passage in his Journal:--“Mr. Rigby informed us of the good temper of mind in which he found Mr. Grenville with regard to any Administration which could be formed to defeat the secret influence of Lord Bute, and whose measures should be pursued conformable to his sentiments about America, &c.”--(Duke of Bedford’s Journal, 11th of July.)--E.

[26] George Lord Townshend.

[27] Lady Caroline Campbell, wife of General Conway.

[28] Lady Caroline Campbell, wife of Charles Townshend. These two ladies were daughters of two Johns Dukes of Argyll, and were widows of the Earls of Ailesbury and Dalkeith.

[29] According to the Duke of Bedford’s Journal, this meeting originated with the Duke of Newcastle: it look place at Newcastle House on the 21st, at 9 o’clock in the evening. The two Dukes, the Marquis, and Messrs. Rigby and Dowdeswell were the only persons present. The point on which they finally disagreed was Mr. Conway’s continuing Secretary of State with the lead in the Commons. “This,” says the Duke, “necessarily put an end to any further possibility of going on, and we broke up with our declaring ourselves free from all engagements to one another, and to be as before this negotiation began.”--Cavendish’s Debates, vol. i. Appendix, p. 606.--E.

[30] At the beginning of the ensuing year, being in great danger, and recovering to some degree, he resolved to give over politics; he was then seventy-four. This determination he notified by letter to Princess Amelie, Lord Rockingham, and others; for he could not quit folly but in a foolish manner. He languished near ten months, and died November 17, 1768.

[31] Many of the letters that passed between the Opposition leaders during this negotiation are preserved among the Bedford MSS. They confirm substantially the narrative in the text. The Grenvilles appear from first to last to have been the real obstacles to any satisfactory arrangement. The Duke of Bedford would probably have been satisfied with such a share of power as would (to use his own words) “rescue the King and the country out of the hands of Lord Bute, and restore strength and energy to the Government upon a constitutional footing, free from _favouritism_ and the _guidance_ of a Minister not in a responsible employment.”--(MS. Letter to the Marquis of Rockingham, July 16.) He thought less of measures than of men, and his bold, sanguine turn of mind made him underrate the difficulties inseparable from a coalition. Mr. Grenville looked much further than the exclusion of Lord Bute. He concurred in the idea of an extended and comprehensive administration on the ostensible ground that such an administration was likeliest to be a permanent one, but his concurrence hinged on the condition “that a plan of measures should be adopted to the satisfaction of Lord Temple and himself, and particularly the capital measure of asserting and _establishing_ the sovereignty of Great Britain over the Colonies,” which he insinuates had been purposely kept back by Lord Rockingham. This was the purport of the message brought from him by Mr. Rigby to Woburn.--(MS. Letter from Mr. Grenville to Mr. Rigby, July 16.) From the moment that his determination was made known, all hopes of union between the parties in Opposition were at an end.

The heartiness and warmth with which Lord Rockingham’s overtures were in the first instance received at Woburn, gave his disappointment additional bitterness. (Letter from Lord Albemarle to Mr. Rigby, July 23, Bedford MSS.) The unpleasant truth was thus also revealed to him, that his destiny was rather to correct and to advise than to administer the Government. Mr. Burke must have strangely deceived himself when he complimented the Marquis on his magnanimity in refusing office at the price of the abandonment of his friends. It was the union of the Bedford and Grenville parties that had broken up his administration and now alone prevented his reconstructing it, with the additional injury of almost destroying the Opposition. Indeed Lord Rockingham felt no little embarrassment how to give an ostensible explanation of his conduct, or to state the principles on which the Opposition ought to be conducted in future. (See his Letters to Mr. Dowdeswell.--Cavendish Debates, vol. i. Appendix 2, p. 583.) He had no feelings in common with his new allies beyond a distrust of the King, and hatred of Lord Bute. His political sympathies, and in some degree his personal friendships were with the Ministers. Thus he was brought into a false position, which made his course most difficult, and fully explains the following passage in one of his letters:--“You know I never disguised to my friends that I considered them as a forlorn hope, but that the maintenance of character and credit was in honour incumbent upon them, and would in the first place be a comfort to their own minds, and though it might appear improbable at present, yet it was not impossible that such conduct might ultimately prove the best policy.” The Duke of Richmond had strongly recommended the Marquis to come in without the Grenvilles and Bedfords (see the Duke’s Letter to Burke, in Burke, Coll. Corresp. vol. 1. p. 139): and it would seem that the party afterwards regretted that this advice had not been followed, though as long as the King continued unfavourable to them, it surely is more than doubtful that they would have succeeded better than in the preceding year.

Of the various accounts which have been published of these negotiations, Walpole’s is the most clear and impartial, as well as interesting. It is confirmed in all essential points both by Mr. Dowdeswell’s narrative in his life of his father, and the Duke of Bedford’s Private Journal,--authorities of equal authenticity, though proceeding from opposite political sources. Almon’s (Political Register, vol. i. pp. 201–208,) is justly condemned by Lord Rockingham as most unfair, and that nobleman is probably right in ascribing it to Lord Temple.--E.

[32] It appears from the Duke of Bedford’s Journal that he had a long interview with Lord Rockingham on the 23rd, in which the latter behaved very politely and cordially to him, and it was probably out of that interview that the Duke of Richmond’s communication originated. Lord Rockingham subsequently considered that nothing but the interference of the Grenvilles prevented the Duke’s concurrence with him in forming a Ministry. The Duke of Grafton seems to have been of the same opinion.--(Bedford MSS.)--E.

[33] It was after Mr. Pelham’s death, when he had joined the Duke of Newcastle, and was made Secretary of State. He came to me and told me he believed that he could procure for my own life the place I held during my brother’s, if I would be well with the Duke of Newcastle. I replied warmly and peremptorily, “Mr. Fox, do you think that, after laughing at the Duke of Newcastle all my life, I will stoop to accept a favour from him?”

[34] A distinct confirmation of Lord Bute’s statement may be found in the Memoirs of Mr. Dutens, the Secretary to Mr. Mackenzie. His Lordship assured that gentleman “that since the year 1766 he never interfered, directly or indirectly, with public affairs, nor had privately seen the King during that period. He continued to visit regularly the Princess of Wales; but when the King came to see his mother, he always retired by a back staircase.”--(Memoirs of a Traveller now in Retirement, vol. iv. p. 183.)--E.

[35] Lord Beauchamp and Lord Mountstewart, sons of the Earls of Hertford and Bute, had married the two daughters of the late Lord Windsor.

[36] Lord Chancellor Bowes; he was an Englishman who had practised at the Irish Bar, where he had successively filled the offices of Solicitor and Attorney General. He was afterwards Lord Chief Baron, and on the death of Lord Jocelyn obtained the Great Seal with an Irish Peerage. He died in 1767 without male issue. He is said to have been learned and eloquent, and to have presided in the House of Lords with great dignity. Some interesting letters from him to Mr. Dodington are printed in the Appendix to Adolphus’s History of George the Third.--E.

[37] This portrait has the broad lines of truth, and is more to be depended upon than Mr. Burke’s splendid and affectionate panegyric, (Speech on American Taxation;) and yet who can blame the warmth with which this great man claims admiration for a genius which in some points resembled his own? It is to be regretted that of the many eminent literary men who enjoyed Mr. Townshend’s intimacy, none should have left behind any memorial by which his wonderful qualities might be justly appreciated. In the absence of all biographical information, the following loose memoranda from Sir George Colebrooke’s Memoirs are not without value.

“The ambition of Mr. Townshend would not have been gratified but by being Minister; and doubtless, had he lived to see the Duke of Grafton resign, he must have had the offer which was made to Lord North, who succeeded him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. But he never would have remained Premier as long as Lord North did. Though much his superior in eloquence and abilities, he wanted the nerve necessary to conduct business with steadiness; and instead of engaging in hostilities with America, he would have been the first to flinch from them, had he lived and been allowed to guide. So far, therefore, his death may be considered as a public loss. As a private man, his friends had used to say that they should not see his like again. Though they were often the butts of his wit, they always returned to his company with fresh delight, which they would not have done had there been either malice or rancour in what he said. He loved society, and in his choice of friends preferred those over whom he had a decided superiority in talent. He was satisfied when he put the table in a roar, and he did not like to see it done by another. When Garrick and Foote were present, he took the lead, and hardly allowed them an opportunity of showing their talents of mimicry, because he could excel them in their own art. He shone particularly in taking off the principal members of the House of Commons. Vanity was his ruling passion, and he sacrificed, even before his wife and daughter, all sense of decorum to a joke: I have seen instances of this which would have shocked Lord Rochester. Among the few he feared was Mr. Selwyn; and at a dinner at Lord Gower’s they had a trial of skill, in which Mr. Selwyn prevailed. When the company broke up, Mr. Townshend, to show he had no animosity, carried him in his carriage to White’s; and as they parted, Mr. Selwyn could not help saying, ‘Remember, this is the first set-down you have given me to-day.’ As Mr. Townshend lived at considerable expense, and had little paternal fortune, he speculated occasionally both in the French and English funds. With regard to the first, he had a concern with me in _contrats sur le cuir_, in which we lost, and he gave me his bond for his share of the difference, which was paid after his death. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer the Duke of Grafton gave a dinner to several of the principal men in the City to settle the loan. Mr. Townshend came in his nightgown, and after dinner, when the terms were settled, and everybody present wished to introduce some friend on the list of subscribers, he pretended to cast up the sums already admitted, said the loan was full, huddled up his papers, got into a chair and returned home, reserving to himself by this manœuvre a large share in the loan. Where he was really a great man was in Parliament. Nobody, excepting Mr. Pitt, possessed a style of oratory so perfectly suited to the House. He read sermons, particularly Sherlock, as models of eloquence and argumentation.”--E.

[38] Of Greenwich; a title that had been borne by her father, John Duke of Argyle.

[39] Mr. Andrews, Provost of the University of Dublin, M.P. for Derry, a man of talent and accomplishments, which he disgraced by his subserviency to the Castle and the Ministerial leaders. His agreeable conversation and conviviality made him very influential in Irish society. He died suddenly at Shrewsbury in 1774.--(Hardy’s Life of Lord Charlemont, vol. i. p. 149.)--E.

[40] A more detailed account of the Duke of York is given in George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, vol. ii. p. 195. He seems to have been a frivolous, dissipated youth, in all respects unlike the King, whose disapprobation of his conduct deserves praise rather than censure.--E.

[41] Lord North at first refused the Exchequer from a distrust of his ability to encounter Mr. George Grenville on financial questions. Lord Barrington was then applied to, and had consented, when Lord North agreed to accept.--(Lord Barrington’s Life, pp. 105–112.) The latter proved perfectly equal to his office, and had he risen no higher would have left a considerable name as a statesman of extensive “knowledge, of a versatile understanding fitted for all sorts of business, and a most accomplished debater.” Unhappily for himself and his country he wanted firmness to resist the solicitations of his Sovereign, and submitted to be the instrument of carrying into effect measures which have stamped his Administration with indelible disgrace.--An interesting account of Lord North is given in Lord Brougham’s Statesmen of the Time of George the Third, vol. i. pp. 1–49, and above all in Lady Charlotte Lindsay’s Letter in the Appendix, pp. 391–7.--E.

[42] The differences between Portugal and Spain were subsequently adjusted by an agreement that each nation should maintain the undisputed enjoyment of the country in its possession on the 28th of May, 1767. The plans of Pombal for the encouragement of the domestic trade of Portugal, such as his establishing the Oporto and other great companies, were necessarily most injurious to the interests of foreigners, and especially of the English, many of whose merchants were utterly ruined. Mr. Lyttelton was employed to obtain redress of these grievances without success.--E.

[43] Sir Thomas Sewell, formerly M.P. for Winchelsea, enjoyed most extensive practice at the Bar, and has left the reputation of a sound and acute judge. His decisions, however, are only known from the reports of them in Ambler’s collection, which unfortunately are very brief. The late Chief Baron Alexander, himself an excellent lawyer, used to mention him with great respect. He died in 1784, leaving an only son, Thomas Bailey Heath Sewell, who settled on an estate which his father had purchased in Surrey, in the neighbourhood of Chertsey, and died without issue in 1808.--E.

[44] See for an account of Lord Shannon, vol. i. p. 1.--E.

[45] Mr. Tisdall never obtained the object of his ambition; probably because the Government would not venture to promote an Irishman to such a post. He represented the University of Dublin for nearly thirty years, was a successful lawyer, and could hardly be termed an unsuccessful politician, for he steered a steady course through the tumults of his day, maintaining amidst occasional fluctuations of popularity great personal influence to the last. It is said of him that his countenance was never gay, his mind never gloomy. He died in 1777.--(Hardy’s Life of Lord Charlemont, vol. i. p 153.)--E.

[46] Far from interfering, as Walpole states, to defeat the intrigues of Tisdall and the Irish Council, Lord Townshend wholly lent himself to them, and nearly prevailed on the Cabinet to raise that ambitious lawyer to the Chancellorship. (Duke of Grafton’s MSS.) He afterwards yielded other points with equal facility, and indeed seldom showed any vigour throughout his Administration, except in his disputes with his colleagues in England. He enjoyed advantages which had been denied to his predecessors; for the English Government were at length beginning to feel “that the time must come when a different plan of government ought to take place in Ireland. Lord Chatham had intended to begin it; and, to enable himself to contend with the powerful connexions there, proposed to establish himself upon the basis of a just popularity, by shortening the duration of Parliament, and granting other measures which the Irish appeared to have most at heart. These views went far beyond the reach of Lord Townshend.” (MS. Letter from Lord Camden to the Duke of Grafton.) Instructions were accordingly given to Lord Townshend in a spirit of great liberality for that day; but he frittered away their effect by the indiscretion with which he executed them. The firmness, consistency, and judgment--the constant exercise of perseverance and self denial, requisite for contending with the factions that stood between the Crown and the people, did not belong to him. If he could only enjoy his ease and his pleasures, and receive the homage usually paid to his station, he was content; the patronage of the Castle continued to be applied to the same unworthy purposes as before, and the interests of the people to be equally neglected. If neither harsh nor oppressive, he held the reins of Government with too careless a hand for its course to be attended with real benefit to the country.--E.

[47] John Hobart, third Earl of Buckinghamshire; he had already been Ambassador in Russia, and in 1777 succeeded Lord Harcourt as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. His Administration partook of the weakness of Lord North’s Government, as was too plainly shown by the embodying of the Irish volunteers, and the concessions made to Irish trade; the latter, however just, being too evidently extorted from the Government to obtain any lasting gratitude. Lord Buckinghamshire was an amiable nobleman of fair intentions and pleasing manners. He died in 1783, without male issue.--E.

[48] John third Duke of Roxburgh, born in 1740, succeeded his father in 1755. He was one of the handsomest men of his day, and not less remarkable for the grace and nobleness of his manners. In early life, during his travels he visited the small court of Mecklenburgh, where he is said to have gained the affections of the Princess Christiana, the Duke’s eldest daughter. Indeed, their marriage was believed to have been prevented only by the application of George the Third for the hand of her younger sister. This belief was strengthened by the Princess and the Duke remaining unmarried through life. Notwithstanding this incident, the Duke became a favourite companion of George the Third. His name is now best known as an eminent collector of books. He died in 1804, and was succeeded by his cousin, Lord Bellenden, on whose death the title was claimed by Sir James Innes, and, after a long process, the House of Lords pronounced him the fifth Duke of Roxburgh in 1812.--(Wood’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 456.)--E.

[49] Mr. Burke’s speech may be found in the Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 386, where it is stated to be the first of his speeches of which a report has been preserved. The opinions he entertained on the dearness of provisions are stated with more force and perspicuity in his celebrated “Thoughts on Scarcity.” (Works, vol, vii. p. 375.) A petition from the City was presented on the first day of the session, in which, after soliciting the continuance of the temporary acts passed in the preceding session, prohibiting the exportation of corn, and allowing its free importation, the petitioners ascribe the high price of meat in a great degree to the recent increase in the breeding of horses, owing partly to the growing practice of employing them instead of oxen in tillage, and partly to the exportations to the Continent; whereby the number of cattle for slaughter was necessarily diminished; secondly, to the unlimited consumption of ewe lambs and cow calves in all seasons of the year, merely to gratify the unreasonable appetites of the rich and luxurious. The consolidation of small farms was also deprecated in the strongest terms.--The Duke of Grafton was opposed to unlimited importation of corn, on the ground that it would encourage smuggling.--(Bedford MSS.)--E.

[50] Dr. Loyd, Dean of Norwich, who had been tutor to Mr. Grenville’s sons.

[51] He was couched during this negotiation, in which he took little or no part, though his name was often made use of. He recovered a small degree of sight, and went into public and played at cards, yet, as he said himself, saw very imperfectly.

[52] Mr. Meynell was M.P. for Stafford, and the Duke’s intimate friend, as appears in his Grace’s Memoirs. He was a man of high fashion, in which service he spent a large portion of a noble estate on the turf and other expensive amusements and vices so popular with the aristocracy of that day. Captain Meynell, M.P. for Lisburn, is his grandson and lineal representative.--E.

[53] I can find nothing among the Bedford papers to show how the negotiation of the Bedford party with the Government originated, or how it was conducted. The following are the last letters that passed between the Duke and Mr. Grenville previous to their political separation. Some unimportant matter only is omitted.

_Duke of Bedford to Mr. Grenville._

Woburn Abbey, Nov. 5th, 1767.

“I should have been very glad to have had an opportunity of talking
to you fully on the present state of political affairs, and of the
steps it may be proper to take at the beginning of the ensuing
session. If such a coalition as to unite in Opposition all those
who are adverse to the present Administration could be obtained, it
would at least have this one good effect--to render the Ministers
incapable of carrying on the business of this session, though I
fear a further coalition of what would be advisable to be done in
future would be impracticable. You see I am readier to pull down
than to set up; that is owing to the unfortunate crisis of the
times. So far as to what relates to the general plan of politics.”

_Mr. Grenville to the Duke of Bedford._

“Weston, November 6th, 1767.

“I shall always be happy in any opportunity of explaining to your
Grace my ideas upon the public business, and of improving myself
by learning your opinion, which nobody can more highly regard
than I do. I purpose being in London on the Saturday before the
meeting of Parliament, when my first care will be to wait upon
your Grace, if you are then arrived. In the mean time, as you wish
to know my thoughts on the present state of political affairs, I
can only say that they continue to be the same that you have long
known them. I think that public measures must be the great object
of every honest man’s attention, and that from them we must derive
our security, or shortly meet with our destruction. By public
measures, I mean the maintaining the peace abroad with the utmost
vigilance, by the firmest as well as the most temperate conduct,
both of which I look on as equally necessary for that purpose;--I
mean a settled, moderate, and frugal Government at home, to heal
the grievous wounds which contrary principles have inflicted upon
us;--I mean the availing ourselves of every resource to save, if
possible, our sinking public credit, to restore our declining
trade, and to strengthen us in time of peace against that day
of danger which the first war we are engaged in must bring upon
us;--I mean the asserting and establishing the lawful authority of
the King and Parliament over every part of our dominions in every
part of the world: these, my dear lord, I am sensible are general
expressions, which few gentlemen in words will venture directly
to contradict; but I, as well as your Grace, mean the reality and
not the words, and can therefore only give an assent to a system
of measures conformable to them. I shall readily support these
principles, whoever shall propose them; and I never can support
any Ministry which act in contradiction to them. The steps to be
taken at the beginning of the ensuing session must necessarily
depend on the plan to be opened by the Ministry, if any is formed,
and on the dispositions of mankind. I am entirely ignorant of the
former; but as to the latter, it appears to me that there is a
general listlessness and supineness in all degrees of men, from
which I fear nothing but the stroke of calamity will rouse them.
The present Ministry may probably be overturned by many events,
and from their own weakness and inability, if no other cause
co-operates. But the difficulty in the present unhappy crisis, as
your Grace truly observes, is how to set up what is right; and I
must fairly own that I do not see any means of it, until the King’s
mind shall be possessed with a serious conviction of the danger,
or the people be brought to open their eyes on the brink of a
precipice before they fall into it. My course, however, will be,
at all events, to acquit myself of what I owe to them and to my
friends, as well as to my own character and opinions; but I believe
that our attendance will be very thin in the House of Commons, from
a variety of circumstances.”

No meeting took place between the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Grenville subsequently to the date of these letters, though they remained at their country seats, within a few hours’ journey of each other, for the ensuing fortnight. The tone of the correspondence is ominous of the approaching rupture; and if the Duke had been seeking a fair pretext for dissolving his connection with an impracticable associate, it was certainly presented by Mr. Grenville’s letter. Nothing could be more plain than that Mr. Grenville would oppose any Administration that might succeed the Duke of Grafton’s, unless it submitted to his dictation,--or, in other words, the little that could be gained by overthrowing the Duke of Grafton’s Government would be the substitution of one weak Government for another. The Duke of Bedford had, upon principle, long considered that of all Governments a weak one was the worst. It was from this feeling alone that, when a member of Mr. Grenville’s Cabinet, he had eagerly courted the accession of Mr. Pitt, whose views in many respects differed much from his own, and this was the main ground of his opposition to the Duke of Grafton. His scruples being removed by the retirement of Conway, it was now in his power to give the Government the strength which it so much wanted. This consideration was no doubt strongly urged upon him by Mr. Rigby, Lord Weymouth, and other aspirants to office. It was his nature to love his friends--not wisely, but too well; and he perhaps more readily yielded to their wishes from the resolution he had taken to accept nothing for himself. On the 20th of November he came to London to prepare for the operation on his eyes, which was performed on the 5th of December by Baron Wenzel, the celebrated oculist, so that, as Walpole observes, it was impossible for him to have been concerned in the details of the negotiation.--E.

[54] Lord Lisburne had been raised to an Irish Earldom in the preceding year, almost immediately on his succeeding his father. He was great-grandson of the celebrated Earl of Rochester, one of whose daughters, and eventually coheiresses, had married Mr. Vaughan, the grandfather of Lord Lisburne. He was a good scholar, and the editor has seen in the library he collected at Mamhead in Devonshire, the seat where he passed his latter years, many evidences of his attention to ancient and modern literature. He died at an advanced age in 1800. The present Lord Lisburne is his grandson.--E.

[55] He was entirely in the Grenville interest.--E.

[56] The Jockey Club was composed of noblemen and gentlemen frequenters of Newmarket.

[57] See more of Lord Weymouth vol. ii. p. 176, _note_.--E.

[58] Governor Walsh was an intimate friend of Lord Clive, through whom he probably was thus employed by Mr. Grenville, that nobleman’s political patron.--E.

[59] Thomas Brand, Esq., of the Hoo in Hertfordshire, had married Lady Caroline Pierrepont, half-aunt of the Duchess of Bedford. He died before any creation of peers, which did not happen till ten years after this date. [Mr. Brand was M.P. for Shoreham, and died in 1770; his son married Gertrude Roper, sister and heir of Lord Dacre, on whose death she succeeded to that ancient barony, which descended to her son, Thomas Brand, the present Lord Dacre, in 1819.--E.]

[60] See vol. i. p. 358, _note_.--E.

[61] Afterwards Ambassador at Vienna, and at length Secretary of State.--E.

[62] Frederic St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke. [He was nephew and successor of the famous Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, to whom he bore some resemblance, in personal graces and vivacity, as well as in laxity of morals. Several of his letters are given in “George Selwyn and his Cotemporaries,” and show a smattering of literature. His marriage with the accomplished Lady Diana Beauclerc was dissolved more from his fault than hers in 1768, and he died in 1787. The present Viscount is his grandson.--E.]

[63] Robert Sawyer Herbert, uncle of the Earl of Pembroke. [He was Surveyor-General of the Crown Lands from 1760 to 1768, and died in 1769.--E.]

[64] A clear and impartial statement of this great case is given by Mr. Adolphus, in his History, vol. i. p. 308.--E.

[65] Edward Willes, second son of Sir John Willes, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of George the Second.

[66] Attorney-General to King George the Second.

[67] Second son of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.

[68] Dunning’s relations with Wilkes and with Lord Shelburne furnish abundant reasons for the undistinguished figure he made in the House during the short period that he remained Solicitor-General. He was of course distrusted and slighted by Lord North, who would have obtained his dismissal within a few months after his appointment, but for the intervention of Lord Camden.--(Duke of Grafton’s MS. Memoirs.) Few men could have succeeded under such circumstances. As soon as he was released from this constraint, his great powers obtained the full recognition of the House. Wraxall describes him (after the date of these Memoirs) as one of the leaders of the Opposition, the constant associate, and not unworthy fellow labourer of Burke, and says, “that so powerful was reason, flowing from his lips, that every murmur became hushed and every ear attentive. Though he neither delighted nor entertained his hearers, he subdued them by powers of argumentative ratiocination which have rarely been exceeded.”--(Historical Memoirs, vol. i. p. 42.) His success was more remarkable from the extreme meanness of his person, and the badness of his voice. At the bar he excited universal admiration. Hannah More, in a letter on the Duchess of Kingston’s trial, wrote of him,--“His manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every word, but his sense and expression pointed to the last degree. He made her Grace shed bitter tears.” A great authority (Lord Brougham) has recorded that the fame of his legal arguments still lives in Westminster Hall,--(Historical Sketches, &c., vol. iii. p. 158) and one of the most accomplished of his contemporaries has left a tribute to his memory, so beautifully worded that one cannot read it without pleasure. “His language was always pure, always elegant, and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places with a fluency at all times astonishing, and when he had perfect health really melodious. That faculty, however, in which no mortal ever surpassed him, and which all found irresistible, was his wit. This relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy; this drew smiles even from such as were the objects of it, and scattered flowers over a desert, and, like sun-beams sparkling on a lake, gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting cause. Not that his accomplishments as an advocate consisted principally of volubility of speech, or liveliness of raillery. He was endued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating, clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowledge, too, was equal to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge.” (Sir William Jones’s Works, vol. iv. p. 577.)--E.

[69] Lord Bottetort’s proposal was absolutely monstrous, being nothing less than a gross fraud on his creditors. In the present day it would not have been entertained for a moment. Neither the Attorney-General nor the Home Office, however, raised any objections, and it would seem from the Duke of Grafton’s Memoirs that the case was heard before the Commissioners of the Privy Seal, and the claim allowed; but on referring to the Records in the Privy Seal Office, I find that the patent _did not_ pass.--E.

[70] Sir Thomas Stapylton, Bart., of Rotherfield Greys, Oxon, married Mary, daughter of Mr. Fane of Wormsley, and niece of the Earl of Westmoreland. His eldest son became in 1788 Lord le Despencer, the abeyance of that ancient barony having been determined in his favour.--E.

[71] The Honourable Robert Lee, uncle to the Earl of Lichfield, whom he succeeded in that title in 1772. He died without issue in 1770, and was the last of his family. The title became extinct and Ditchly has descended to Lord Dillon.--E.

[72] The proceedings are reported in Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 397. Mr. Adolphus says in a note to his History, vol. i. p. 337. “The whole matter was treated with great ridicule by writers of all parties,” a statement which may easily be believed if Mr. Grattan’s story be true, that the peccant aldermen completed their bargain with the Duke of Marlborough during their imprisonment in Newgate.--E.

[73] When this was written, it alluded only to the opposition occasioned by Lord George in Ireland. He has since engrafted himself on Mr. Grenville’s persecution of America.

[74] Sir Robert Rich, Bart., had been made Field Marshal in 1757. His Brigadier’s commission is dated as far back as 1727, so that he must have been very aged when he died. His name does not appear as having ever been employed on active service. He was succeeded in his baronetcy and estates by his eldest son, General Rich, who had lost an arm at Culloden; one of his daughters became the second wife of Lord Lyttelton.--E.

[75] Chauncy Townshend was M.P. for Wigton in Scotland. He died in 1770. The Annual Register states that he was the first Englishman that represented a Scotch borough (vol. xiii. p. 114). His son became an Alderman for the City of London, and a politician of sufficient notoriety to be often noticed in this work.--E.

[76] Thomas Fonnereau, of Christ-church Park, near Ipswich. He was out of humour with the Minister for having refused him the place of Receiver-General of Suffolk. It is said that he had the offer of being Joint Postmaster General, which did not suit or satisfy him. He had the reputation of being very acute and persevering in business; the Lizard Lighthouses were projected and erected by him, and he had a lease of the tolls, which must have been very productive; but his expenses at Aldborough and Sudbury, for which he also returned a member, kept him poor. He had made himself remarkable for his loyalty in the rebellion of 1745, when he made a speech to the grand jury of Suffolk, which was publicly distributed at their request. He was obstinate rather than peevish, and his manners were generally very agreeable. He died a bachelor in 1779, in the eightieth year of his age.--E.

[77] Nullum tempus occurrit regi et ecclesiæ: an old absurd maxim of law.

[78] Vide The Character of Wilkes as a Politician and a Writer, in Lord Brougham’s “Statesmen of the Time of George the Third,” vol. iii. p. 181.