Читать книгу The History of King George the Third - Horace Walpole - Страница 19

Table of Contents

Conference between the Duke of Cumberland and Mr. Pitt.—Pitt’s lofty style and inconclusive manner.—Want of union in the Opposition.—Anxiety of the Ministers.—Debates in both Houses on the Preliminaries of Peace.—Sudden and unexpected appearance of Mr. Pitt.—Legge, Fox, and Beckford.—Prerogative.—Pitt’s Speech.—His retirement from the House when Fox rose to speak.—Speech of the latter.—Charles Townshend’s versatility.—The Minority on the Division.—Exultation of the Princess of Wales on the Preliminaries being carried.—Severe political persecution.—Numerous dismissals from place.

The rupture between the Duke of Cumberland and Fox seemed naturally to pave the way for a connection between that Prince and Mr. Pitt. They accordingly met, and had a conference of four hours; but there their amity commenced and ended. The good sense of his Royal Highness could, in spite of all his haughtiness, make him bend properly. Pitt, having less good sense than parts, and affecting more haughtiness even than he possessed, and being full of schemes rather than plans, could not be brought to any rational system. Meaning to make use of the Prince but to a certain degree,—that is, to thwart the Court, or to give it jealousy, not to erect the Duke as head of a party,—he talked in his usual vague and inconclusive manner; his nearest friends having often said, that between the uncommunicativeness of his temper and the want of suite in his reasoning faculties, it was ever impossible to pin him down to any chain of definite propositions.

This the Duke experienced, and combated in vain. All he could draw from Pitt was, a positive demand that the peace should be opposed by the now forming party. Yet would he not submit to see the Duke of Newcastle; though, in his lofty style, he said he would accept of the Duke of Cumberland’s guarantee of Newcastle’s fidelity. It was difficult for the chiefs to coalesce: Lord Hardwicke had publicly commended the preliminaries; and though he had rejected large offers made to his son, Charles Yorke, he and his friends knew not decently how to fly to Mr. Pitt’s banner, which they had so lately levelled. This want of union in the Opposition gave all the remaining advantage to the administration that they yet wanted. Mr. Pitt affected to be a chief without a party, and the party without him had no other chief; for Newcastle was worse than none, and the Duke of Cumberland had too much deference for the Crown, and was too much above courting the people, to be fit to figure as a ringleader.

In this temper of things did the Parliament meet November 25th. Lord Egmont and Lord Weymouth274 moved the Address in the Lords, where there was no opposition: Lord Carysfort275 and Lord Charles Spencer in the Commons. Nicholson Calvert made a warm speech against the peace, and was answered by Birt, who gave Mr. Pitt the honour of the first plan for taking Martinico. Beckford was yet more violent against the treaty; and compared Florida, which was to be ceded to us, for barrenness to Bagshot Heath. Charles Townshend made a trimming speech, though very personal against Beckford, and the day ended without a division; Mr. Pitt being confined at home with the gout. Without doors the scene was more turbulent: the Favourite was assaulted in his chair by a formidable mob, and had not the Guards arrived opportunely, would hardly have escaped with life.

On the 30th of the month the preliminaries were laid before both Houses, who were acquainted that the King had ordered them to be printed and distributed to the members on the morrow. The Duke of Grafton in the Lords, Calvert and Bamber Gascoyne in the Commons, objected to this; it being usual for the two Houses to give the orders for printing papers communicated to them; but the first method was acquiesced in, and the Lords resolved to take the papers into consideration on the Thursday sevennight following. Lord Pomfret276 moved to order the high bailiff of Westminster to attend, to give an account why he had taken no measures to disperse the mob on the first day of the session. At the same time the ministers endeavoured, by money and threats, to silence or intimidate the printers of newspapers, libels, and satiric prints, and succeeded with a great number.

On the 1st of December, Calvert moved to defer considering the preliminaries till the Thursday sevennight following, as Mr. Pitt was not able to attend; but the ministers, and for that very reason, insisted on bringing them on upon the same day with the Lords, and carried their motion by 213 to 74; so unpromising was this outset of the new Opposition, in which appeared the families of Cavendish, Fitzroy, and Townshend.

The memorable day, December 9th, being arrived, both Houses sat on the preliminaries. Lord Shelburne and Lord Grosvenor moved to approve them. The Duke of Grafton, with great weight and greater warmth, attacked them severely, and, looking full on Lord Bute, imputed to him corruption and worse arts. The Duke was answered by the Earl of Suffolk; and then Lord Temple spoke with less than usual warmth. The Favourite rose next, and defended himself with applause, having laid aside much of his former pomp. He treated the Duke of Grafton as a juvenile member, whose imputations he despised; and, for the Peace, he desired to have written on his tomb, “Here lies the Earl of Bute, who, in concert with the King’s ministers, made the Peace.” A sentence often re-echoed with the ridicule it deserved, and more likely to be engraven on his monument with ignominy than approbation. The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke censured the preliminaries, which the latter said were worse than could have been obtained the last year; and he reflected on the assiduity with which prerogative was cried up, more than it had been by the most ductile Parliaments. Henley the Chancellor abused them both: but the fine defence of the treaty was made by Lord Mansfield, which, he said, though he had concurred to make, he should still retain his old connections and attachments; a promise he soon violated, with as little decency as his late friends had censured prerogative. At ten at night the preliminaries were approved by the Lords without a division.

But it was the other House on which expectation hung. The very uncertainty whether Mr. Pitt’s health would allow him to attend, concurred to augment the impatience of the public on so serious a crisis. The Court, it was true, had purchased an effective number of votes to ratify their treaty; but, could Mr. Pitt appear, he might so expose the negotiation, and give breath to such a flame, that the ministers could not but be anxious till the day was decided, and they knew all that they had to apprehend from Mr. Pitt. Their hopes grew brighter as the debate began, and he did not appear. The probability of his absence augmented as Beckford proposed to refer the preliminaries to a committee of the whole House; a measure that seemed calculated to gain time, and that was seconded by James Grenville, who told the courtiers that it did not look as if they were very desirous of praise, so eager were they to hurry through the question. The demand was opposed by Ellis, Sir Francis Dashwood, and Harris of Salisbury, when the House was alarmed by a shout from without! The doors opened, and at the head of a large acclaiming concourse was seen Mr. Pitt, borne in the arms of his servants, who, setting him down within the bar, he crawled by the help of a crutch, and with the assistance of some few friends, to his seat; not without the sneers of some of Fox’s party. In truth, there was a mixture of the very solemn and the theatric in this apparition. The moment was so well timed, the importance of the man and his services, the languor of his emaciated countenance, and the study bestowed on his dress, were circumstances that struck solemnity into a patriot mind, and did a little furnish ridicule to the hardened and insensible. He was dressed in black velvet, his legs and thighs wrapped in flannel, his feet covered with buskins of black cloth, and his hands with thick gloves. He said a few words in support of the motion for sending the preliminaries to a committee; not in order to give time for raising animosities, but as it was for the dignity of the King and the country to weigh them maturely. Parts of the treaty, he confessed were, beyond his expectation, good; but his mind was wounded by what regarded our trade and our allies. He wished for a committee, that he might call merchants to the bar to state the importance of what we were to keep, of what we were to give away. He would be convinced we were doing right, or he would inflexibly arraign. Legge said, he should cavil less than most men, but could not bestow approbation in the lump. Fox answered as briefly, that nothing could ever be finished, if perfection was insisted on. Beckford replied, that the House was as insignificant as a parliament of Paris, if treaties were not laid before them for advice, but only for approbation; and he and Calvert laid themselves out on the defence made by the ministers, that it was the King’s prerogative to conclude peace or war; and, indeed, no occasion was lost of sounding high any branch of prerogative.

The Opposition not choosing to risk a division on the Committee, Harris, mentioned above, who was afterwards made one of the Lords of the Treasury, moved roundly to approve the preliminaries, with the addition of words acknowledging the prerogative in question. Had the treaty been glorious or salutary, there is no doubt but the prerogative would not have been called in aid; a proof how distinct are prerogative and the welfare of the nation. This Harris had written some abstruse books on language, and possessed a good share of reputation within a certain sphere. Lord Ilchester and Fox had brought him forth, and thought to make him a man of business, but he made only a very pliant courtier and wretched orator; and in the end, attaching himself to George Grenville, closed with all his arbitrary measures, and fell with him, with no other blemish on his character than of having thought too much as a scholar, and too little as a senator.277 In his motion of approbation he said, “Peace was not made for the emolument of one country, but of many;” a truth so home, and that recoiled so forcibly on him, that it was the very reason why this country, for whose emolument it was not made, ought not to have honoured it with its acceptance.

Stanley spoke well and handsomely in defence of the treaty; and then Mr. Pitt rose. His speech it would be difficult to detail; it lasted three hours and twenty-five minutes, and was uttered in so low and faint a voice that it was almost impossible to hear him. At intervals he obtained the permission of the House to speak sitting, a permission he did not abuse; supporting himself with cordials, and having the appearance of a man determined to die in that cause and at that hour. This faintness and the prolixity with which he dwelt on the article of the fisheries, gave a handle to the courtiers to represent his speech as unmeasurably dull, tedious, and uninteresting. But it contained considerable matter, much reason, and some parts of great beauty:—but thunder was wanting to blast such a treaty, and this was not a day on which his genius thundered! His health or his choice had led him to present himself as a subject of affliction to his country, and his ungrateful country was not afflicted.

Some passages of his speech I shall mention, though, for the reasons I have hinted at, and for that I sat at a great distance, I could but very imperfectly collect what he said. He allowed the prerogative of the Crown in making peace or war, though something he saw squint at what would subvert the liberties of this country; and, although such prerogative there was, still was it gracious to lay the Treaty before Parliament. The Crown might finally sign the Treaty; but at the same time it was a fundamental right of the House of Commons to offer their opinion. If this was not the question confessed, he would stop the debate to insert in these words, as it is also the indubitable and fundamental right of Parliament to offer advice. From this he launched out on this venerable, this lovely Constitution, and referred to the journals to show what answers were made by Parliament to James the First and Charles the Second; particularly to the unkingly and unconstitutional messages of the former, as when he bade them not meddle beyond their province, with a ne sutor ultra crepidam. He hoped we had no new cobbler of this old Constitution, and (looking at Fox) if we had, that man should not stand unaccused, unarraigned. With regard to the peace, it could not be called a question of humanity, for one campaign more might have prevented seven hereafter. In all other wars our commerce had been interrupted; in this alone, increased; and in respect of commerce, four of the best provinces in old France were not worth the acquisitions we had made. Those France might have reconquered; Guadaloupe she could not retake. We had got possession of their four trades of the world. Thanks to God, General Amherst had recovered Newfoundland! Thanks to Providence, Amherst’s brother had behaved like his brother! Thus had we secured two of those trades, the fisheries and the sugar, all but at St. Domingo, and that we must have taken the next campaign. Our conquests in Africa gave us the Slave Trade; and those in India the exclusive trade of the Indies. These depended no longer on the chance of war! He believed there was no disunion between France and Spain; this treaty would manifestly increase their weight: the Havannah would add to it—the Havannah! that would have enabled you to supply Spanish America with British manufactures and implements! He then pronounced the preliminaries inadmissible; declared he had thought it right to make peace when Mr. Stanley went to France, and had been for the King not abusing his prosperity. But he had proved that France was not in earnest then; had only meant to cajole us, and deserved no management from us, after forcing us to the expense of this war, particularly by her iniquitous behaviour in the two Courts of Madrid and Naples, a conduct never paralleled in the unbridled behaviour of Louis the Fourteenth. Yet why talk of Naples, which was Bourbon weakness coupled with Bourbon weakness! Obstinate, however, as himself had been in pushing forward the war with Spain, he supposed he had been in the wrong, as nobody had joined in sentiment with him but Lord Temple. They two were for making the entire maintenance of the fisheries the sine quâ non; but all the rest had been against them, both the old Ministers and the favoured Minister of this King. Soon had it been known to France that the exclusive fisheries would not be made a sine quâ non. He had not thought that France would at once give them up, but he had held them worth trying for for another campaign or two. Before the death of the Czarina—before the acquisition of Guadaloupe, the Havannah, and Pondicherry, the Duc de Choiseul had asked but for one rock at Newfoundland; he wished he had made his stand there, and refused, though overwhelmed with most illiberal calumny and scurrility! He took notice of the thousands of lives thrown away at the Havannah by their being sent out at so untimely a season, when the work might have been done in the month of April; but he had retired first, when he found he was not permitted to have the least weight. Yes, said he again, the French had cried Donnez nous un rocher simplement.—I replied, I did not intend to give them the garden of Eden. But what they asked for their batiments pêcheurs extended to much more than a rock. They asked for fishing vessels, now had been given them a fishery—en toute propriété, in full right; I never would have granted it. Then, after expatiating on the fisheries, he drew attention to himself, by seeming to bid adieu to politics, and to despair of his own health. He might never come to the House again. He was unconnected, followed no party, respected the King’s administration, though he must remonstrate when he saw them going on fatal ground. He prayed for the House of Brunswick; stood on revolution principles alone against France; had a deep-rooted alienation from France; acted on the spirit of King William, on whose maxims, and on the maxims on which they came thither, the House of Brunswick must rest, or could never be secure. He had seen the day on which every unsound maxim had been disclaimed; now saw unhappy clouds darkening our prospect; wished the Ministers would think of these important matters before it was too late!

He then went through the points to be ceded in America and Africa; and declared he would not have agreed to any terms approaching to these preliminaries. He inveighed against the bad faith of France, and showed from their losses how much they had lain at our mercy. In the campaign of Crevelt alone they had lost forty thousand men. Every year had cost them twenty thousand more. Would you still treat on the same terms you would have treated, after they had put you to the expense of fourteen additional millions, and after your arms had been crowned with such advantages? It could not be for the sake of Portugal; for you had been told from the throne that a stop had been put to the progress of the Spaniards in that country. We must, say the French, have St. Lucia, for cela bouche Martinique; is that a reason to be given to a British Parliament? France should have given you Guadaloupe, or she and Spain, Hispaniola. She had given you more in Canada than she knew you could use, and more than he had contended for; but then she had got the fisheries. On the coast of Bengal we should never have suffered her to come; yet did she affect to cede all her conquests, where she had made none; but, alas! no nation had ever lost an opportunity so happy, so almost accomplished, of fixing its ascendant and commerce! He applauded the drawing of the article of Canada, infinitely better executed than he could have done it. Spain, too, he owned, had acknowledged our right of cutting log-wood as fully as he could find any authority in our records to contend for; but the negotiators had not been equally able, in fixing Spain, to acknowledge our right of fishery in Newfoundland. Spain does not renounce her right of fishing there, but desists. For the King of Prussia he was disavowed! given up! sacrificed! so melancholy was the effect of the coldness that was grown between the two crowns! The branches of Bourbon were united; we and our allies disunited! He had seen nothing he envied in French councils till now. They had indulged a noble delicacy of honour, and obtained everything for Spain; nay, had treated Austria with punctilio. We did not so remember those who had served us! The moment the battle of Culloden should be forgotten, this country would be undone! We ought to have made a family compact with the King of Prussia.

Stanley said a few words on his own part in the negotiation; and then Mr. Fox rising to speak, Pitt, in contempt or exhausted, retired out of the house, attended by redoubled huzzas! the mob re-echoing the duration of his speech, “Three hours and a half! three hours and a half!”

The secession of Pitt struck such a damp on Opposition, that Fox had but little to do but to chant Te Deum for victory. He said little, very little, in behalf of the treaty, to which success was now ensured. He rather painted his own situation, and that of parties, ranking himself with the Whigs, but affecting to believe a general union of all factions under the King. He had been called out, he said, when men would have revived those distinctions, and torn the Tories from the support of the Crown. No desire did he know of extending prerogative; if it had been exerted unduly in signing the preliminaries, Ministers were answerable; but he vowed to God he did not know that it was in the mind of any man to enlarge the prerogative. Mr. Pitt had thought we could have gone on much longer, and that France could not; he himself thought we could not have gone on much longer: but what had Mr. Pitt given, except assertions in support of his persuasion? He himself had been told that our commerce was declined. If England would apply itself to improve this peace, it would turn out the greatest that ever had been made.

Charles Townshend, discontent, expecting much severe animadversion on the treaty, and dreading to differ with Mr. Pitt when the latter was likely to exert all his powers, had come to the House prepared to arraign the preliminaries. Finding his mistake, and secure by the retreat of Pitt, he changed his battery, defended the peace as well as it could be defended, burned incense on the altar of prerogative, and sang almost hosannahs to the praise of the King. It happened the next day that Dempster, commending Mr. Pitt, and calling him the arch-patriot, Rigby said, Mr. Pitt, it was true, had spoken three hours and a half, but an archer-patriot had said more to the purpose in twenty-five minutes.

The Duke of Newcastle had sent to his friends not to divide; on which they retired. This not being known to the Duke of Cumberland, his adherents stayed, and two of his own servants, Lord Ancram278 and General Fitzwilliam,279 were in the minority—which were but sixty-five against three hundred and nineteen. The Duke was angry that his people had been left alone: on which it was resolved to rally on the Report, but with no better success; the Court were still two hundred and twenty-seven to sixty-three, Lord Royston, Lord Hardwicke’s son, being of the majority.

Nothing can paint the importance of this victory to the Court so strongly as what the Princess of Wales said, on the news of the preliminaries being carried: “Now,” said she, “my son is King of England.” The ministers ordered that the numbers on the question should be printed—had they printed the names too, the world would have known the names of the sixty-five that were not bribed.

Fox having thus successfully employed rewards, thought the time was come for making use of the other weapon of government—punishment. A more severe political persecution never raged. Whoever, holding a place, had voted against the preliminaries, was instantly dismissed. The friends280 and dependents of the Duke of Newcastle were particularly cashiered; and this cruelty was extended so far, that old servants, who had retired and been preferred to very small places, were rigorously hunted out and deprived of their livelihood. An inquisition was held at Fox’s house; and a despotic spirit prevailed so rudely, that Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave,281 sister of the Duchess of Bedford, and a notable politician, desired to be admitted to the junto of proscription.

In particular, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Earle282 were dismissed from the Board of Ordnance for their votes; as was the younger Thomas Townshend283 from the green cloth, without the smallest notification. Some were even sacrificed who had given no offence, as the worthy Admiral Forbes,284 who was removed from the Admiralty to make room for Cotes, of the same profession and a friend of Fox. Schutz, who had been seven years of the King’s bedchamber, was turned out, for no reason but that he had not a seat in Parliament, and could be of no use there.285

But to wind up the year with more dignified rigour, the Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton and the Marquis of Rockingham were dismissed from the Lieutenancies of their several counties.286 The same affront being designed for the Duke of Devonshire, Fox affected to make a point of saving him; but the Duke, with proper spirit, scorned to be obliged to him, and resigned to accompany his friends.