Читать книгу Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third (Vol. 1-4) - Horace Walpole - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Countenance shown to Tories.—Effect of Tory Politics on the Nation.—Plan to carry the Prerogative to an unusual height.—Unpopularity and Seclusion of the Princess of Wales.—Difficulty of access to the King.—Manœuvres of his Mother.—Character of Lord Bute, and his Schemes to conciliate the King.—Archbishop Secker.—Character of George III.—Intended Duel between the Earl of Albemarle and General Townshend.—Cause of the Quarrel.—The King’s Speech.—Pitt and Beckford.—Increase of the Court Establishment.—The Dukes of Richmond and Grafton.—Interview between Lord Bute and the Duke of Richmond.—Advice to the latter by the Duke of Cumberland.—The King’s Revenue.—The Princess Dowager’s Passion for Money.—The Earl of Lichfield.—Viscount Middleton.—Partiality to the Tories.—Inconsistency of the Duke of Newcastle.—Irish Disputes.—The King of Prussia’s Victory over Marshal Daun.—Mauduit’s Pamphlet on the German War.—Ways and Means for the ensuing Year.

The countenance shown to the Tories, and to their citadel, the University of Oxford, was at first supposed by those who stood at distance from the penetralia, the measure of Mr. Pitt, as consonant to his known desire of uniting, that was, breaking all parties. But the Tories, who were qualified for nothing above a secret, could not keep even that. They came to Court, it is true; but they came with all their old prejudices. They abjured their ancient master, but retained their principles; and seemed to have exchanged nothing but their badge, the White Rose for the White Horse. Prerogative became a fashionable word; and the language of the times was altered, before the Favourite dared to make any variation in the Ministry.

These steps did not pass unnoticed: nor was the nation without jealousy, even in the first dawn of the reign. Papers were stuck up at the Royal Exchange and in Westminster-hall, with these words, no Petticoat Government, no Scotch Favourite. An intemperance which proceeded so far afterwards, that, as the King passed in his chair to visit his mother in an evening, the mob asked him if he was going to suck? The Princess herself was obliged to discontinue frequenting the theatres, so gross and insulting were the apostrophes with which she was saluted from the galleries.

The views of the Court were so fully manifested afterwards, that no doubt can be entertained but a plan had been early formed of carrying the prerogative to very unusual heights. The Princess was ardently fond of power, and all its appanages of observance, rank and wealth. The deepest secrecy and dissimulation guarded every avenue of her passions; and close retirement was adapted to these purposes. She could not appear in public (after the arrival of the Queen) as the first woman of the kingdom: her unpopularity made her pride tremble; and privacy shrouded such hours as were not calculated to draw esteem; and it contracted her expenses. After the King’s marriage she appeared seldom or never at St. James’s, nor deigned to accompany the ceremony of the coronation. The attendance of her ladies was dispensed with except on drawing-room days; and by degrees even her maids of honour and women of the bedchamber were removed from her palace, where she lived in a solitude that would have passed for the perfection of Christian humility in the ages of monkish ignorance. Jealousy of her credit over her son made her impose almost as strict laws of retirement on him. He was accessible to none of his Court but at the stated hours of business and ceremony: nor was any man but the Favourite, and the creatures with whom he had garrisoned the palace, allowed to converse with the King. Affection had no share in this management.

The Princess, who was never supposed to disclose her mind with freedom,18 but on the single topic of her own children, had often mentioned her eldest son with contempt; and during the life of her husband, had given in to all his partiality for the Duke of York. When her views of governing by her husband were cut off, she applied to the untutored inexperience of his heir: and the first step towards the influence she meditated, was by filling his mind with suspicions and ill impressions of all mankind. His uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, was made another instrument. The young Prince had a great appetite: he was asked if he wished to be as gross as his uncle? Every vice, every condescension was imputed to the Duke, that the Prince might be stimulated to avoid them.

The Favourite, who had notions of honour, and was ostentatious, endeavoured to give a loftier cast to the disposition of his pupil, though not to the disparagement of the vassalage in which he was to be kept. Lord Bute had a little reading,19 and affected learning. Men of genius, the arts and artists were to be countenanced. The arts might amuse the young King’s solitary hours: authors might defend the measures of government, and were sure to pay for their pensions with incense, both to their passive and active protectors. The pedantry and artifice of these shallow views served but to produce ridicule. Augustus fell asleep over drawings and medals, which were pushed before him every evening; and Mæcenas had so little knowledge, and so little taste, that his own letters grew a proverb for want of orthography; and the scribblers he countenanced, were too destitute of talents to raise his character or their own. The coins of the King were the worst that had appeared for above a century; and the revenues of the Crown were so soon squandered in purchasing dependents, that architecture, the darling art of Lord Bute, was contracted from the erection of a new palace, to altering a single door-case in the drawing-room at St. James’s. Yet, his emissaries the Scotch were indefatigable in coining popular sayings and sentences for the King. It was given out that he would suffer no money to be spent on elections. Circumstances that recoiled with force, when every one of those aphorisms were contradicted by practice.

But the chief engine to conciliate favour was the King’s piety. The Princess, no doubt, intended it should be real, for she lived in dread of a mistress. But mankind was not inclined to think that her morals could have imprinted much devotion on the mind of her son: nor was any man the dupe of those professions but Secker, the Archbishop, who for the first days of the reign flattered himself with the idea of becoming first minister in a Court that hoisted the standard of religion. He was unwearied in attendance at St. James’s,20 and in presenting bodies of clergy; and his assiduity was so bustling and assuming, that having pushed aside the Duke of Cumberland to get at the King, his Royal Highness reprimanded him with a bitter taunt. The prelate soon discovered his mistake. Nor were the Princess or the Favourite inclined to trust the King in the hands of a Churchman, whom they knew so well, and whose sanctity was as equivocal as their own.

As far as could be discerned of the King’s natural disposition, it was humane and benevolent. If flowing courtesy to all men was the habit of his dissimulation, at least, it was so suited to his temper, that no gust of passion, no words of bitterness were ever known to break from him. He accepted services with grace and appearance of feeling: and if he forgot them with an unrestrained facility, yet he never marked his displeasure with harshness. Silence served him to bear with unwelcome ministers, or to part with them. His childhood was tinctured with obstinacy: it was adopted at the beginning of his reign, and called firmness; but did not prove to be his complexion. In truth, it would be difficult to draw his character in positive colours. He had neither passions nor activity. He resigned himself obsequiously to the government of his mother and Lord Bute: learned, and even entered with art into the lessons they inspired, but added nothing of his own. When the task was done, he relapsed into indifference and indolence, till roused to the next day’s part.21

The first gust of faction that threatened the new era, was an intended duel between the Earl of Albemarle22 and General George Townshend.23 A pamphlet was published against the latter,24 reflecting bitterly on the vanity with which he had assumed a principal share in the conquest of Quebec, though the honour of signing the capitulation had only fallen to him by the death of Wolfe and the wounds of Monckton; an honour so little merited, that he had done his utmost to traverse Wolfe’s plans. The pamphlet, too, set forth the justice of taking such freedom with a man whose ill-nature had seized every opportunity of ridiculing those he disliked by exhibiting their personal defects in caricatures, which he had been the first to apply to politics. His uncle the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Cumberland, and Mr. Fox, had been the chief objects of those buffoon satires. The pamphlet was certainly written under the direction of the last, and could not fail to be agreeable to the partizans of the second. It wounded so deeply, that Townshend, in the first blindness of his rage, concluded it came from the person he hated most and had most offended: that was the Duke of Cumberland: and as Lord Albemarle was the first favourite of his Royal Highness, thither Townshend addressed his resentment, though no man was less an author than the Earl. A challenge passed, was accepted, and prevented in time by Townshend’s want of caution.

On the 18th of November the Parliament met. Many Tories, though they had received no formal invitation, appeared at the Cockpit to hear the King’s speech read. It was composed, as usual, by Lord Hardwicke, was long and dull, and had received additions from Pitt. On the Address Beckford proposed to push the war with more vigour, the end of the last campaign having, he said, been languid. Pitt fired at this reproach from his friend, though certainly not levelled at him, and asked Beckford what new species of extravagance he wished for? The Address from Oxford had other objects in view. They boasted openly of their attachment to Monarchy. As all places were already filled with Whigs, the Court was forced to increase the establishment, in order to admit their devotees. The King’s Bedchamber received six or eight additional Grooms and seven Gentlemen. Most of the late King’s were continued; the King’s own were joined with them; the rest were taken from the Tories.

The Duke of Richmond,25 haughty and young, was offended that his cousin, Colonel Keppel,26 was removed from Gentleman of the Horse, which the King destined for one of his own servants. The Duke asked an audience; but began it with objecting to the distinction paid to Sir Henry Erskine.27 This so much disgusted, that the King would not hear the Duke on the subject of Keppel. On cooler thoughts, Lord Bute was sent to the Duke, to offer him to be of the King’s Bedchamber. He accepted it, on condition that Keppel should remain Gentleman of the Horse, which was likewise granted. But this pacification lasted few days. Lord Fitzmaurice,28 a favourite of Lord Bute, was made Equerry to the King; though inferior in military rank to Lord George Lenox29 and Charles Fitzroy,30 brothers of the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton. The latter31 had been of the Bedchamber to the King, when Prince, but had quitted it, from dislike of Court attendance, and disgusted with the haughty stateliness affected by Lord Bute. Richmond and Grafton were much of an age; each regarded himself as Prince of the Blood; and emulation soon created a sort of rivalship between them. The Duke of Richmond’s figure was noble, and his countenance singularly handsome. The Duke of Grafton was low, but manly, and with much grace in his address. The passions of both were strong, but of the first, ardent; of the latter, slow and inflexible. His temper was not happy; but the Duke of Richmond’s, which was thought worse, because more impetuous, was pliant, and uncommonly easy and accommodating in his family and society. Both were thought avaricious; but the latter very unjustly, generally approaching nearer to the opposite extreme of profusion. His parts, too, were quicker and more subtle than Grafton’s and more capable of application, though his elocution was much inferior. The Duke of Grafton had a grace and dignity in his utterance that commanded attention, and dazzled in lieu of matter; and his temper being shy and reserved, he was supposed to be endued with more steadiness than his subsequent conduct displayed. Neither of them wanted obstinacy; but their obstinacy not flowing from system, it was in both a torrent more impetuous in its course than in its duration.

The Duke of Grafton made a decent representation to the King, on the wrong done to his brother, and demanded rank for him. The other Duke carried a violent memorial, and commented on it in a manner, which some years afterwards he found had never been forgotten or forgiven. The next day he resigned the Bedchamber, but not his regiment. In a few days he repented this step, and went to Lord Bute to explain away his resignation, which, he said, might not be known. Lord Bute replied, all the world knew it. The Duke, thinking this coldness proceeded from a suspicion that he was influenced by Fox,32 his brother-in-law, disclaimed all connexion with him, and said, he had never approved his sister’s marriage. Lord Bute, who even then probably had views of Fox’s support, as a counterbalance to Pitt, replied, that Mr. Fox’s alliance could be a disgrace to no man; as he must always be of great use and weight in this country. Yet the Duke’s youth and frankness made him avow what he had said to Fox himself, in the presence of Lord Albemarle, who, though not much older, had far more worldly cunning, and no doubt reported the conversation to his master, the Duke of Cumberland; for Richmond and Albemarle, though first cousins, were no friends; and the latter possessed all the arts of a Court. The Duke, rebuffed by the Favourite, next consulted the Duke of Cumberland, who told him prudently, that he was sorry the Duke of Richmond, at twenty-three, had quarrelled with the King, at twenty-two; and advised him to retire into the country, which he did. The effects of these squabbles will appear hereafter, which made it proper to state them here.

The King’s revenue was settled and fixed to eight hundred thousand pounds a year, certain. In the late reign any overplus was to accrue to the Crown, but had ever produced so trifling an augmentation, that the present boasted restriction, which was often quoted as one great merit of the new Government, was not worth mentioning. It is true, this revenue was by no means ample, considering the large incumbrances with which it was loaded. The Duke of Cumberland’s annuity (exclusive of the parliamentary grant of twenty-five thousand pounds a year) was fifteen thousand pounds; Princess Amalie’s, twelve thousand. The King’s brothers were to be provided for out of it; so was a future Queen; and the Princess Dowager’s jointure was of fifty thousand pounds a year from the same fund. Yet, though her dower was so great—though she reduced her family, and lived in a privacy that exceeded economy, and though she had a third of the Dutchy of Cornwall, which produced four thousand pounds a year more, her passion for money was so great, that she obtained an additional annuity of ten thousand pounds a year from her son.33 The Electorate suffered for these exigences of the Crown. Whatever money could be drawn from thence was sunk in the privy purse, which was entirely under the direction of Lord Bute.

The Earl of Litchfield,34 a leader of the Tories, was added to the King’s Bedchamber, as the Earl of Oxford35 and Lord Bruce36 had been before, with the Scotch Earls of March37 and Eglinton.38 The Lord Viscount Middleton,39 an Irish Peer, was the first who in the House of Commons here broached a hint of jealousy against the channel in which Court favour seemed to flow. He was ridiculed for it by Charles Townshend; but the spirit of dissatisfaction had been infused into the former by the Duke of Newcastle, who openly censured the new partiality to the Tories. Partiality there was, but the grievance came with an ill grace from Newcastle, Stone,40 suspected for more than a Tory, had been placed by him as preceptor to the King; Lord Mansfield had been his bosom favourite; and to gratify that favourite, the extension of the Habeas Corpus had been prevented. To gain the Tories had been a prudent measure, but their principles were still more welcome to the Court than their votes. Having only votes to offer, and neither numbers nor abilities, they brought much discredit on their patron, and little strength to his assistance.

In Ireland the prospect was not more promising. By Poyning’s law the Privy Council of Ireland are to transmit hither all heads of bills, particularly of money-bills. This latter was omitted by the intrigues of the Primate, courting popularity. The bills were sent back, with a severe reprimand for the omission of a money-bill. Mr. Pitt alone took up the defence of the Irish Commons, and would not sign the message, which thirty-four others of the English Privy Council who were present signed. The King thanked the Duke of Bedford for supporting his prerogative, but the Privy Council of Ireland wrote angry letters to the Duke and his minister Rigby, telling them that they must not come into that Kingdom again. The Duke, a little before, had been challenged even in print by a mad Lord Clanrickard,41 whose letter being complained of by his Grace, the Council here ordered the Attorney-General to prosecute the Earl: Rigby,42 too, sent him a challenge, which he did not accept. The Lords Justices sent over a strong remonstrance in vindication of their conduct, and there the matter ended for the present; but in the beginning of the next year the Lords Justices renewed the attack on their Governor, and he and Rigby were burned in effigy. Mr. Pitt interposed, and prevailed to have a temperate memorial sent to the Justices, arguing the point with them, and to that he offered to set his little name, which was done. The Lords Justices submitted, but with threats from the Primate of resigning his part of the government. Nor yet did they send a new bill, but a plan for raising the money already voted. Lord Clanrickard, in answer to Rigby’s challenge, which had been printed and dispersed in Ireland, replied in print likewise, excusing his not appearing at Holyhead, the appointed rendezvous, on account of the prosecution directed against him, though the prosecution in date was subsequent to the challenge by two months. The Earl affirmed that he had proposed to Mr. Rigby a new place of meeting; but a year or two afterwards, on an accidental journey of Rigby to Ireland, the Earl seemed very glad that an interposition was made, and the quarrel accommodated. The ill-humour of the country, however, determined the Duke of Bedford to quit the Government, after having amply gratified his family and dependents with pensions. The Earl of Kildare, for taking no part in these divisions, was rewarded with a marquisate.

Foreign affairs fluctuated with their old vicissitude. The Russians and Austrians made themselves masters of Berlin, and treated it with more lenity than could be expected from such barbarians and incensed enemies. But they relinquished it in a few days; and before the close of the year the King’s fortune and arms recovered their lustre by a signal victory, which he gained in person near Torgau, over his great competitor in glory, Marshal Daun, who was wounded in the thigh, and carried from the field; a circumstance that did not impeach his fame, as the loss of the day was attributed to his absence.

Yet this victory, shining as it was, could not counterbalance the new spirit that was gone forth in England to the disparagement of the war. Lord Hardwicke had long distasted it; and under his countenance had been published a Tract, setting forth the burthen and ill-policy of our German measures. It was called Considerations on the German War; was shrewdly and ably written, and had more operation in working a change on the minds of men, than perhaps ever fell to the lot of a pamphlet.43 The author was one Mauduit, formerly a Dissenting teacher, and at that time a factor at Blackwell-hall. How agreeable his politics were to the interior of the Court, soon appeared by a place being bestowed on him by Lord Bute. Still, however, the Favourite left the contest to be managed by other hands; and he had acted wisely to have adhered to that plan. A new and formidable expedition had been preparing. Newcastle and Hardwicke had quitted the Council, because they could not prevail to have it laid aside. Yet it was postponed for some time. Pitt, in the House of Commons, taking notice of the pacific spirit that he saw arising, said, “Some are for keeping Canada; some, Guadaloupe; who will tell me which I shall be hanged for not keeping?”

On opening the ways and means for the ensuing year, George Grenville opposed the intended tax on ale and beer; the first overt act of his disagreement with Mr. Pitt.