Читать книгу Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third (Vol. 1-4) - Horace Walpole - Страница 21

Table of Contents

Mr. Pitt’s opinion on the Army Reductions.—Address to the King.—Symptoms of disunion among Ministers.—Fox’s rage.—Apprehensive of treachery, he seeks to propitiate his old connections.—Sir Francis Dashwood’s Budget.—Tax on Cider.—Discussion on Ways and Means.—Pitt and George Grenville.—Ardent opposition to the Cider-tax.—Petition from Newfoundland.—Humiliation of Fox.—Debate in the House of Lords on the Cider-bill.—Passing of the Bill.—Lord Bute’s alarm.—His resignation.—Its effect on Fox.—George Grenville first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.—Removal of Sir Francis Dashwood.—Ministerial changes and promotions.

When the day came for voting the army, Mr. Pitt attended. He approved the measure, he said, as far as it went, but wished more troops were allotted to America. That he had a very different opinion from many of the peace: thought it hollow and insecure, and that it would not last ten years. He showed no acrimony to Fox, he and Lord Temple both seeming more hostile to Lord Bute; but he dropped, that if any body would point out the right way to inquire what was the cause of so many dismissions, he would second the motion. Beckford having wished the army more reduced, Pitt said, such reductions had hurt us formerly. After the peace of Ryswick the army was lessened to seven thousand; but war followed in three years. After the treaty of Utrecht, but eight thousand men were kept up, but that reduction produced a rebellion and an army of fifteen thousand. Charles Townshend, dreading the lash of Pitt on his late inconsistencies, retired early in the debate; but the General, his brother, just arrived from Portugal, was lavish in encomiums on the peace and peacemakers.

In a few days after, Beckford, seconded by Pitt, moved to address the King to prefer officers on half-pay to those whose commissions were fresher; and though Fox and the ministers objected, it was suffered to pass. Sir Henry Erskine in the course of the debate frequently sounding the King’s name, Mr. Pitt severely reprimanded the Speaker for not stopping him.

In the progress of these debates, it was observed, that at least the Favourite’s faction, if not himself, were hostile to Fox. On the committee of accounts, Elliot and Lord North had been so personal to him, that he lost his temper; and Beckford desiring him to save appearances, he replied, he never minded appearances, but—he was going to say, realities, when a loud burst of laughter from the whole House interrupted him. His rage was so great, that, sitting down, he said to Onslow,296 though an enemy, “Did you ever see a man so treated in my situation? but, by G—, I will have an explanation and ample submission, or I will never set my foot in this House again.” Another symptom of disunion was, that Lord Ravensworth297 having moved for the whole accounts of the war, Lord Hardwicke said it was impossible to produce them yet; the paymaster had a deputy abroad who could not have made them up. This being understood as a reflection on Fox, Lord Hardwicke said, on the contrary, he had meant to vindicate him. Lord Talbot concurred with this explanation; adding, “Nobody can imagine that I want to screen Mr. Fox;” an expression warmly taken up by Lord Hilsborough, one of Fox’s friends.

If Lord Bute countenanced these hostilities, it was but consonant to the folly of his character. Fox had boldness and wickedness enough to undertake whatever the Court wished to compass. Fox seemed so apprehensive of treachery, that he cast about to recover his old connections. By Lord Albemarle, Lord Frederick Cavendish,298 and Lord Waldegrave, he laboured to be reconciled to the Duke of Cumberland and the Duke of Devonshire. He asked Lord Waldegrave if the former was still incensed against him. The other replied, he had not heard the Duke mention him of late, but supposed his Royal Highness could not be ignorant how much he had been abused by Murphy, known to write under Fox’s direction. “Formerly he did so,” said Fox, “but I had not seen him in a year and a half, till hearing how violent the ‘Auditors’ were, I sent for him and stopped them;”—an excuse too weak for a sensible man to make to a sensible man through a sensible man. Lord Waldegrave suspected that Fox’s views went deeper than reconciliation; for shortly after this conversation Rigby came to the Earl, and sounded him whether he would not take the Treasury, Lord Bute, he said, not being able to stand his ground. As Lord Waldegrave had married my niece,299 I knew all these intrigues from him, and was actually in his house at the time of this overture, of which he immediately told me with an expressive smile, which in him, who never uttered a bitter word, conveyed the essence of sense and satire.

We must now quit Fox, to make room for a doughty hero of more comic cast, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.300 Hitherto he had but just acted enough as minister, to show that he neither was one nor was fit to be one. The time was now come for opening the budget, when it was incumbent on him to state the finances, debts, and calls of Government; and to chalk out a plan of proper supplies. All this he performed so awkwardly, with so little intelligence or clearness, in so vulgar a tone, and in such mean language, that he, who had been esteemed a plain country gentleman of good sense, said himself afterwards, “People will point at me, and cry, there goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that ever appeared!” His famous measure was the tax on cider; and whoever would know more of his ability in conducting that business, will find it amply detailed in the North-Britons; a coarse and satiric picture, yet but little exaggerated. The tax itself deserves far more than the author of it to live in the memory of English history, for the crisis it occasioned or drove on.

In the discussion of these ways and means, George Grenville complained that men objected to laying burthens on the sinking fund, and called rather for new taxes. He wished gentlemen would show him where to lay them. Repeating this question in his querulous, languid, fatiguing tone, Pitt, who sat opposite to him, mimicking his accent aloud, repeated these words of an old ditty—Gentle shepherd, tell me where! and then rising, abused Grenville bitterly. He had no sooner finished than Grenville started up in a transport of rage, and said, if gentlemen were to be treated with that contempt—Pitt was walking out of the House, but at that word turned round, made a sneering bow to Grenville and departed. The latter had provoked him by stating the profusions of the war. There is use in recording this anecdote: the appellation of The Gentle Shepherd long stuck by Grenville; he is mentioned by it in many of the writings on the stamp act, and in other pamphlets and political prints of the time.

The tax on cider raised a great flame in the western counties, and by management, that flame was transported to the metropolis. All the western members, however, attached to the Court, could not avoid defending the interests of their constituents; and thus joining what standing Opposition there was, the minority often divided near 120: and as every step of the bill was ardently fought, divisions happened frequently, and threw a kind of vivacity into the session. In the city Sir William Baker acted strenuously against the Court, and Wilkes’s pen was never idle.

In the meantime Fox received another humiliation. He had received a petition for relief from the sufferers at Newfoundland. It was objected to from all quarters of the House: general indemnification could not be made to all the sufferers by the war, why then partial? Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Barrington, and Nugent supported Fox faintly; Ellis and Rigby warmly; Lord George Sackville with panegyric, for which he was reproved by Lord Strange, who, with G. Grenville, Stanley, and Lord Frederick Campbell, treated Fox and his petition harshly. During this altercation Lord Middleton, casting his eye over the paper, observed that all the names to the petition were signed by the same hand. This occasioned such an uproar, that Fox was obliged to ask pardon, and withdraw the petition, pleading, that the paper had been written out fair from the original, which had really been signed by the petitioners. In private, he said that there had been a paragraph not worded with sufficient respect to the House, which occasioned his having the petition copied out by a clerk, and there had not been time to get it signed again; but he stood so ill in the public eye, that whatever he did received the worst construction.

March 28th. The Cider-bill had now laboured through the Commons, and was read for the second time by the Lords. Lord Hardwicke spoke and voted against it; but was answered well, and with severity, by Lord Marchmont.301 Lord Mansfield made a bad trimming speech, but voted for the bill. Lord Lyttelton302 spoke well against it. Lord Pomfret heaped panegyrics on the Favourite, whose own speech was languid and unargumentative. The Tory Lords who belong chiefly to the western counties were most of them against the bill, as were nine of the Bishops; but the bill was committed by a majority of 71 to 39.

It was read the third time on the 30th, and was attacked with energy by the Duke of Grafton; by Lord Dartmouth303 with decency and propriety; by Lord Lyttelton, though with censures on the political pamphlets of the time; and by the Duke of Newcastle, who complimented the rising generation. It having been reported that, on hearing the City would petition the King against the bill, as they had both Houses, on the ground of the bill being calculated to extend the excise, Lord Bute had sent word to the leading men of the City, that if they would drop their petition, the bill should be repealed the next session, he thought it necessary to explain the foundation of that report; he had only sent word, he said, that if the bill proved a bad one, which he did not believe it would, he would try to get it repealed. This was one of his best speeches, though not divested of pomp, and with much affected contempt of popularity. Lord Ravensworth expressed great scorn of the City assuming the dictatorial tone. Lord Denbigh was still more bitter, and spoke with so much wit and applause that in very few days he was made a Lord of the Bedchamber. Lord Temple having in both debates been very personal to the Favourite, and having declared in favour of excise, as Lord Bute had against it, Lord Denbigh said he hoped the King, to please the City, would remove the Minister who was against excise, and place that Lord who was for it at the head of the Treasury. The bill was passed, sixty-two lords being for it, thirty-eight against it. After the first debate, the Lords Oxford, Foley, and Willoughby protested; the first and last of the King’s bedchamber. After the second debate, the Duke of Bolton,304 Earl Temple, and Lord Fortescue protested.

Immediately after the House rose the Sheriffs hurried to St. James’s; and, though at so unusual an hour, and without having previously asked leave, presented to the King a petition not to pass the bill; but he passed it the very next morning.

Few political clouds seemed less big with mischief than this storm, unnaturally conjured up, and little likely to last; for what principle of union could there be in common between the City of London and two or three distant counties whose apples were to be taxed? The spell, excise, was pronounced, but had lost its terrors. They who sounded loudest the alarm, neither were alarmed, nor expected to breathe much dread into others. But there was a frame of nerves more easily thrown into disorder; fear seized on the Favourite; he said, “We shall have thirty thousand men come down to St. James’s!” The assault that had been made on him the first day of the session had left a lasting impression; and he had showed, early in the reign, that fortitude was not a ruling ingredient in his composition. He had appointed himself a guard of bruisers the day of his attending the King into the City in 1761, when Mr. Pitt made his insolent parade thither at the same time. Now, bating the slight distemperature occasioned by the cider-tax, England seemed to be willingly, and submissively, prostrate at the Favourite’s feet. Would she have rebelled for a partial tax, after acquiescing in the peace? Fear does not calculate, but lumps apprehensions in the gross. The panic was taken, and on the 7th of April, to the surprise of mankind, it was notified that Lord Bute intended to resign the next day, and to retire for his health, not being able to go through the fatigue of business.

It is true, that he had at times declared, that as soon as he had made the peace, he would quit his post; but few had heard the declaration, and fewer believed it. The Ministers knew nothing of his intention till the day before it was publicly notified; and Fox was so entirely out of the secret, that he reproached the Earl bitterly for leaving him in that ignorance and dilemma. The Favourite’s own speeches in Parliament expressing a wish of retirement had rather confirmed men in the opinion that he had no thoughts of it. No one act had had the least air of his giving up his power, nor had any measures been taken to replace him or carry on the present system; but the best comment on his behaviour at that moment was his subsequent conduct. The fondness he retained for power, his intrigues to preserve it, the confusion he helped to throw into almost every succeeding system, and his impotent and dark attempts to hang on the wheels of Government, which he only clogged, and to which he dreaded even being suspected of recommending drivers, all proved that neither virtue nor philosophy had the honour of dictating his retreat; but that fear, and fear only, was the immediate, inconsiderate, and precipitate cause of his resignation.305

Yet let me not be thought to lament this weak man’s pusillanimity. I am condemning his want of policy, but rejoice at it. Had he been firm to himself, there was an end of the constitution! The hearts of Englishmen were corrupt and sold, and the best heads amongst them toiled in the cause of Despotism. A happy panic blew up the system of absolute power when it had lasted but five months; and a trifling Opposition overturned in a fortnight the work of that majority which a fortnight had purchased. Yet the struggle was not over. The rod fell into abler and more resolute hands; the mercenaries were not disbanded, though the commander-in-chief ran away. Fortunately he became incompatible with his successors; and liberty owed its salvation, not to its friends, but to discord among the conspirators.

I have mentioned how utterly Fox was disconcerted at this unexpected resignation. His first movement was to press Lord Bute to retain the Treasury, at least for six months. That attempt was fruitless. His next step was to secure his own peerage. Again was he astonished to be told that he had agreed to cede the Pay-office on going into the House of Lords. This he peremptorily denied. But he had dealt with a worthy pupil of his own. Lord Shelburne, who had negotiated between him and Lord Bute, when Fox undertook the conduct of the House of Commons, had told the Earl that Fox would quit the Pay-office for a peerage; but Fox had only stipulated to give his support for that reward. He now broke out against his scholar, reproached him for concealing Lord Bute’s intention of retiring, and spoke of Shelburne to everybody as a perfidious and infamous liar; those were his usual words. The probability was, that Shelburne intended to slip into the Pay-office himself. The Favourite, who would have declared Fox his successor, excused Lord Shelburne to him, and, in his pedantic style, called the secrecy he had observed a pious fraud; for Fox, he said, he knew would not have engaged in the management of the Parliament, had he been apprized that he (Bute) intended to retire, and it had been necessary to the King’s affairs that Fox should carry them through the session. This very offer of the Treasury to Fox showed how little the Favourite had taken any measures for carrying on his master’s business for the future, and corroborates the presumption that a sudden panic was the immediate cause of his retreat.

Fox refusing to accept them, the post of First Lord of the Treasury and the Seals of Chancellor of the Exchequer were, on April 8, the very day on which the Favourite resigned, bestowed on George Grenville. Sir Francis Dashwood was removed to the Great Wardrobe; and the barony of Despencer, then in abeyance between him and his nephew, Sir Thomas Stapleton, was granted to him: the one to repair, the other to decorate his fall.

Some other promotions were made of the Favourite’s and Fox’s adherents; and, to strengthen the new system, many favours were heaped on the Duke of Bedford’s dependents. Of the first sorts was the preferment of Oswald to be Vice-Treasurer of Ireland; of Hunter306 and Harris to the Treasury; of Lord Digby307 to the Admiralty; to which board were added, by Grenville, Lord Howe308 and young Thomas Pitt.309 The Earl of Northumberland was named to the chief government of Ireland, which had been offered to, and refused by, Lord Granby, who, as I hinted before, was now appointed Master of the Ordnance; from which old Marshal Ligonier was by force removed, but softened with a pension, which he refused to accept till accompanied with an English peerage. General Townshend,310 though only a Major-General, was made Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance; Lord Harcourt311 replaced Lord Northumberland as Chamberlain to the Queen; and, in the room of the former, Lord Weymouth was made her Master of the Horse. The Duke of Queensberry312 succeeded the deceased Lord Tweedale as Justice-General of Scotland: the Seal was given to the Duke of Athol,313 and the Privy Seal to Mr. Mackenzie, the Favourite’s brother. John Pitt314 was turned out to make room for Sir Edmund Thomas.315 Lord March316 and Lord Cathcart317 obtained green ribands.