Читать книгу The History of King George the Third - Horace Walpole - Страница 32

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Prorogation of the Parliament.—Walpole’s Conduct on the dismissal of General Conway for voting against Ministers on the Question of the legality of General Warrants.—Trial of Carteret Webbe for Perjury.—The Earl of Northumberland Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

On the 19th the Parliament rose. And now it is that I am obliged to weave the history of my own conduct into a large part of the following narration. Two considerable eras having taken their complexion from my councils, the thread of my story would be imperfect, if I omitted what relates to my own behaviour. I shall give it as briefly as the subject and clearness will permit, and hope the reader will excuse egotisms where no glory was the result of my actions. Chance, more than design, presented the means; and if the moments were luckily seized, it was from no merit, no foresight of mine, that those moments were brought on.

Having fully seen the incapacity of the Opposition, sensible how ill they were united, and foreseeing that their strength would rather diminish than augment, and at the same time flattering myself, from the resistance which the Ministry had experienced, that they would be less flippant in their innovations on liberty, which was fortified by getting rid of general warrants, I had determined to give over politics; and to withdraw myself from shallow councils. I was preparing to make a visit to my friend and relation,463 Lord Hertford, at Paris, when, two days after the rising of the Parliament, I was stunned with notice of Mr. Conway being turned out of the King’s bedchamber, and dismissed from the command of his regiment of dragoons. As I had been a principal cause of this unworthy treatment, and of this destruction of his fortunes, nothing could be more sensible to me than this blow. Nor could I remain a moment in doubt, from the complexion of some in power, but that the stroke was aimed still more at me than at Mr. Conway, though directly I was out of their reach. The Bedford faction I knew were my mortal enemies. Yet I saw, too, that Mr. Conway had a share in the resentment of others. Grenville was not of a nature to pardon the slight Mr. Conway had made both of his favour and power. He had offended Lord Sandwich, too, by refusing to influence the chaplain of his regiment to vote for him at Cambridge; and Lord Holland had long groaned for an opportunity of revenging himself on Lord Hertford for his treatment of Bunbury. The tone of the ruling Administration was despotic, nor had they forgotten how lately they had trembled with apprehension of losing their power. Here were more than motives sufficient to egg on general or particular vengeance. And in general I must leave it; for after long search and much information, I cannot fix the deed on any single man. There was but one man among the suspected that ever solemnly denied having a share in it; and he constantly did: I mean Lord Bute. All the rest have charged it on others, though still without disavowing having had a hand in it themselves. The King often afterwards protested to Lord Hertford that his Ministers464 forced him to it. Grenville declared that his Majesty was more eager for it than any of them. The Duke of Bedford alone was frank, and avowed that though he had not recommended the measure, he had told his colleagues, when they proposed to remove Mr. Conway from the bedchamber only, that it was foolish to provoke him by halves; and that to leave him his regiment, and take away the bedchamber, would be telling other officers that they might oppose the Court with impunity.

Be it as it may, the boldness of the step was almost unprecedented. Sir Robert Walpole had dismissed the Lords Westmoreland465 and Cobham466 from the command of regiments; and Mr. Pitt from a cornetcy; but it was not till by a personal, violent, and constant opposition, that they had made themselves as obnoxious as possible. Yet even that measure, provoked as it was, had occasioned great clamour; and had contributed to animate the Opposition, which at last overthrew that Minister. Mr. Grenville had joined in that Opposition, had risen on that foundation; and the Duke of Bedford had signed a protest against the measure of dismissing officers for parliamentary reasons. How different was the case now! The temper and fairness of the man disgraced, his aversion to faction, the disinterestedness of his character, his general co-operation with the measures of Government, his being recently recommended to favour by Prince Ferdinand for his services in Germany, and his being brother to the ambassador at Paris—all these were considerations that made the measure amazing. But when it was observed that this punishment was inflicted for a single467 vote in Parliament, when it was evident that that vote had been peculiarly conscientious, and given in a cause avowed by the nation, and against a practice certain of being, as it soon after was, condemned by the Courts of Law, and though maintained by Parliament in retrospect, yet given up for the future by that very Parliament as pernicious; when the context, too, appeared to be, that military men in Parliament were to forfeit their profession and the merit of their services, unless implicitly devoted to the Court; could these reflections, when coupled with the arbitrary measures which the nation had observed to be the system of the Court, fail to occasion the blackest presages? Lord Bute, in truth, had slunk away from his own victory; but Grenville remained, and had Bute’s tools, and Sandwich and Rigby, to war with on the constitution, and Lord Mansfield and Norton ready to turn the law against itself.

It was a beautiful contrast, the behaviour of the person aggrieved. His temper, decency, and submission were unalterable and unequalled. He neither complained nor tried to instil a sense of his injuries into a single friend, though he wished they should take his part, and resent for him. He could not have entertained a wish worse founded: his friends were rejoiced at not being called upon; and had no ambition to share the crown of his martyrdom. There lived not three more interested men than the Duke of Argyle,468 Lord Lorn, and Lord Frederick Campbell, the father and brothers of Lady Ailesbury,469 Mr. Conway’s wife. The first loved money, and had incurred unpleasant suspicions in his efforts to obtain it. Lord Lorn470 was sordidly covetous, and had not sense enough to foresee a blessing in futurity beyond the first half-crown that glittered in his eyes. Lord Frederick471 was sensible, shrewd, and selfish; and on this and a subsequent crisis showed that no connection or obligation could stand against the eagerness with which he pursued immediate fortune. Nothing else weighed with him, except the inveteracy of national prejudice. As Mr. Conway had acted in opposition to Scottish measures, Lord Frederick, forgetting Mr. Conway’s friendship and kindness, and his own youthful situation, and borne away by a hot temper, often and indecently attacked him in Parliament, though without any brilliancy of parts to colour over such improper behaviour. The Duke of Richmond, who had married Lady Ailesbury’s daughter, kept himself more free from blame. He had been witness to the integrity of Mr. Conway’s conduct at the conference with Mr. Grenville, and certainly loved him, though not enough to participate his disgrace. The Duke, however, offered to take a part in Parliament if Mr. Conway’s friends would move for an inquiry into the cause of his dismission; but that offer did not include his Grace’s engaging any farther against the Court.

There was still another relation of Mr. Conway more deeply involved in his disgrace, and more immediately called upon to resent it; his brother, Lord Hertford. Yet there were both real and specious reasons for his submitting to it.472 Mr. Conway had taken this part, not only without consulting him, but when he must have known how unwelcome it would be to Lord Hertford, then in the King’s service both at home and abroad, and well treated; connected with the Ministry, and ever desirous of being so with all Administrations. Lord Hertford had even, after his brother’s first vote, made remonstrances to him, though in vain. On the other hand, honour, interest in a general sense, and personal resentment, called on Lord Hertford to espouse his brother’s quarrel. Ambassador in France, where no officer was ever broken but for cowardice or some atrocious crime, it could but strike the French Court that the Ambassador stood in little estimation at home, when such an affront was put on the family. Could he expect more consideration if he acquiesced? On the other hand, should the Opposition succeed, in which, besides his brother, were his wife’s nephew, the Duke of Grafton,473 and his old friends, whom he had already offended by not acting with them, what could he expect but, at best, the humiliating circumstance of being saved by his brother whom he had abandoned? Nor could Lord Hertford doubt but that Mr. Conway partly suffered on his account, as far as Lord Holland had any share in the measure. Yet, though there had been no instance of such a disgrace remaining unresented, much less when such a character was so unjustly treated, not a single resignation marked that the sufferer had either a friend or relation in the place. He was at once sacrificed by the Court, and abandoned by his own family.

It became the more incumbent on me to make him all the reparation in my power. I offered him six thousand pounds, which he refused; and I altered my will, giving him almost my whole fortune unless his regiment should be restored to him; a destination with which I acquainted him. And though it certainly would not augment the gift, I determined to hazard all I had rather than not revenge both him and myself. Grenville, the very day before the dismission of Mr. Conway, whether to detach me from him, or fearing I should make use of the indiscretion he had been guilty of, ordered the payment of my bills at the Treasury; a step that, far from soothing, but served to increase my resentment. I dreaded lest Mr. Conway should think I had kept any underhand measures with the Treasury; but I soon convinced both him and the world how steadily I embraced the cause of my friend. Yet for the first time in my life I acted with a phlegm of which I did not know myself capable. I shut myself up in the country for three days, till I had conquered the first ebullitions of my rage, and then returned to town with a face of satisfaction, which some thought indifference; and others joy at having dipped Mr. Conway in Opposition. Both were mistaken. I knew that both Mr. Conway and the Opposition were little formed for the business. I had everything to discourage me, and nothing but perseverance and the firmness of my own temper to carry me on. I foresaw, indeed, that the persecution he had undergone would raise the character of Mr. Conway, would lend him an importance he would never have assumed, and might one day place him at the head of this country. I foresaw that the violence and unprincipled rashness of the Ministers would conduct them to a precipice; but I should far overrate my own sagacity, if I pretended to have discovered that those prospects were near enough to administer any comfort to my impatience. I knew the folly of those I was to act with. I could not flatter myself it would be exceeded by the folly of those I was to act against.

If self-interest restrained Mr. Conway’s family from embracing his defence, it was as natural that the Opposition should caress him. A martyr is as creditable to a party in politics as to a sect in religion. Yet so decent and so dignified was the Opposition of that time, that they expressed none of the heat and ardour with which parties usually seize such an event. The Duke of Devonshire, indeed, came to me, and with great delicacy desired that I would in his name make an offer to Mr. Conway of a thousand pounds a year, till his regiment should be restored.474 This noble offer Mr. Conway as generously declined. However, it gave lustre to our cause; and it was my purpose to raise as high as I could the character of our party, and to spread the flames of emulation from such examples. The Ministerial tools, on the other hand, were not idle, but began to defame Mr. Conway as a spiritless and inactive General, reviving in scandalous papers the miscarriage at Rochfort.475 This artillery, however, we turned upon them, and displayed the malignity of not being content with ruining him, without proceeding to the grossest defamation. Mr. Conway, too, by my advice, called upon the detractors to avow themselves, and, if they dared, take up the weapons like men, which soon silenced that dirty kind of war.

But these prosperous beginnings were almost all I could accomplish. Every step I took I found discouragement and disappointment. There was no union in our party, nor could I bring about any. At first I laboured to form a little junto of the most considerable of our friends in the House of Commons, who should plan our future measures and conduct them. But of those I could not prevail on any three to assemble and enter into concert. Legge was dying; Charles Yorke was proud, insincere, waiting for an opportunity of making his own bargain, and offended that Mr. Pitt was disposed to make Pratt Chancellor; though the latter, for the good of the cause, was willing to waive the Seals. Charles Townshend, neglected by the Court, seemed zealously attached to us; unfortunately, we could neither do with him nor without him; yet his jealousy of Grenville and fear of Mr. Conway would have fixed him, if anything could. There was another man of whose art and abilities I had a high opinion, and who was as practicable as the others I have mentioned were little so,—I mean Lord George Sackville. But insuperable difficulties kept him from us too. Pitt had proscribed him; Newcastle did not love him; the Duke of Devonshire was too cautious to join him; and Conway, knowing Lord George had been his enemy, though it had never come to an open rupture, would not listen to any connection with him, but pleaded the stains on his character, and the enmity borne to him by Prince Ferdinand. I lost my temper at finding that, whilst our enemies stuck at nothing, every phantom and every fancy was to clog our councils and retard our advances. The dignity of great Lords, and their want of sense, the treachery of some, the piques of others, all had their operation, and not a single prejudice was removed to facilitate our attempts. I had surmounted my repugnance to Newcastle, and, though in truth to little purpose, had consented to advise with him. He was still the same; at once busy and inactive, fond of plotting, but impossible to be put in motion. Nor, indeed, propose what I would, could I obtain to have a single measure carried into execution.

But what hampered us most was Mr. Pitt. He justly resented having been abandoned by Newcastle, Devonshire, and the Whigs. He despised both Charles Yorke and Charles Townshend; and though he expressed civil applause of Mr. Conway, would neither connect with him nor see him. He at once talked of an Administration to be composed of great Whig Lords, and of his own resolution not to force himself on the King; that is, he wished the great Lords should force him on the King without his concurrence, that he might have the merit of disavowing them, and of profiting of their weight. Conway was as difficult as Pitt, and too proud to make any advances to him. Thus, wherever I turned, there were no facilities. Even Lord Temple, accustomed to run and meet faction in the highways, seemed cold and indisposed to connection with us. At the same time I heard that a treaty was carrying on between him and his brother George; a report which, though true, greatly deceived me; for, concluding that Lord Temple was too firmly united with Mr. Pitt to negotiate without him, I imputed the coldness of both to an approaching league of the whole family; whereas the truth was, though then a secret to all the world, that Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple were on bad terms; the former disapproving the violence of Temple; and Temple being enraged that Mr. Pitt would not lend himself to all his passions.

Perceiving so little hope of union amongst ourselves, I conceived a better prospect from the factions of the Court, which, by every art I could devise, I endeavoured to inflame. I soon learned how wide the breach was growing between Lord Bute and Grenville; and though I then looked on the former as the more dangerous of the two, and of all men was determined not to connect with him; yet to his friends I held a plausible language, insinuating that it was possible he might be forgiven by our great Lords, and left them to think that, if the Favourite withdrew his protection from Grenville and the Bedfords, his case would by no means be desperate with the Opposition. In the same kind of style I talked to the friends of Grenville; still imputing Mr. Conway’s disgrace alternately to the other faction, accordingly as I conversed with either. I saw that, hostile as they were, despair must cement their union. Both would be more prompt to quarrel if they thought themselves not proscribed by us.

An incident fell out favourable to this plan. Grenville, ever averse to Lord Holland, had destined his place of Paymaster to be shared between Lord North and Stanley, and they had even taken joy on it. But Lord Bute had prevented it being carried into execution; and Lord Holland now came from France, stung with this insult: though as the passing of his accounts was in agitation, he for the present stifled his resentment, and affected to pay court to Grenville. As, however, to hoodwink me to his own share in that business, and to inflame my anger to Grenville, he laid the chief blame of Conway’s disgrace on the latter, I indulged him, as usual, in the imagination that he deceived me; and, as if to vent my own passion, blew up his as high as I could against Grenville. From Lord Holland I heard what had escaped me. Conway at the end of the Session, on a motion for thanking the King for reducing the German demand, had made a panegyric on Prince Ferdinand and the hereditary Prince, saying how hard it was that their country, which had suffered so much for us, should not have ample indemnification. Grenville had answered, that surely if the King had been content to lower the demands for Hanover, he was at liberty to reduce those of Brunswick. This had passed in a thin debate; nor had I been present. But Lord George Sackville had remarked, and said, “Conway has undone himself.” It was, it seems, an irremissible crime to applaud the hero who had commanded our armies and given them victory; and to plead for another hero who had married the King’s own sister and fought his battles!

I shall omit the detail of many other stratagems that I formed for annoying the Administration, they having been damped or annihilated by the supineness of my confederates. The summer was in every respect unfortunate to us; and by the Session following, we scarce deserved the name of a party. Death took off some of our chief leaders, who, though they would not lead us, yet, by the sanction of their names, had kept together an appearance of numbers, which dwindled away as our hopes of success vanished. What farther regards us as a party will be mentioned in its place. I now return to the other occurrences of the year.

Two vacant garters were bestowed on the Duke of Mecklenberg476 and Lord Halifax. About the same time died at Paris the King’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour. She retained her power to the last, though their amour had long been exhausted. The Duc de Choiseul, whom she had destined for Minister, succeeded her in the King’s confidence without a rival.

May 4th, Beardmore, one of the persecuted writers, carried his cause against the messengers, and recovered one thousand pounds for damages.

On the 9th Mr. Conway’s late regiment was given to the Earl of Pembroke; not without occasioning remarks a little disadvantageous to the standard of his Majesty’s piety. Lord Pembroke, one of the wildest young men of the times, had been dismissed from the King’s bedchamber for debauching and eloping with a young lady of distinction, though married to a more beautiful woman, sister of the Duke of Marlborough. Nobody could tell what the King had to do to interfere in that intrigue: but having done so, it seemed little consistent to reward a young profligate477 with the spoils of a man strictly virtuous and conscientious. It was now remembered that at the beginning of this reign, the Earl of Dartmouth, a young nobleman as pious as Lord Pembroke was licentious, had applied to be of the King’s bedchamber, but had been rejected by Lord Bute, lest so sanctimonious a man should gain too far on his Majesty’s piety. An instance that if it proved the religion of the King, did not bear witness to that of the Favourite. But in such a theatre of hypocrisy, it mattered little who was the principal impostor.

On the 15th died Dr. Osbaldiston, Bishop of London; and the next day Lord Chancellor Henley was created Earl of Northington, a step not communicated to the Duke of Bedford, who much resented it. But Grenville was more mortified, who found himself excluded from the nomination of the new Bishop of London. He had wished to raise Newton478 to that mitre, but Lord Bute procured it for Terrick. This man, with no glimmering of parts or knowledge, had, on the merit of a sonorous delivery, and by an assiduity of back-stairs address, wriggled himself into a sort of general favour; and by timing his visits luckily, had been promoted by the Duke of Devonshire to the See of Peterborough. Yet he had been of the first, notoriously obliged to that Duke, to abandon him on his fall, sailing headlong with the tide after the Favourite’s triumph. Again, when the Favourite retired, Terrick, who was minister of my parish,479 was lavish to me of invectives against that Lord; and sifted me eagerly to learn in what channel Court favour was likely to flow. Having soon perceived his mistake, he had made out a distant affinity with Worseley,480 a creature of Lord Bute, and a kind of riding-master to the King; and now to Grenville’s surprise rose, all unworthy as he was, to so eminent a station in the Church. This detail I communicated to Dr. Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle, who adhered to George Grenville amidst their family breaches; and who, being both gossiping and mischievous, kept up an acquaintance with me of ancient date, that he might from my warmth collect materials to carry to Grenville. I took care to furnish him according to his wish. It was wormwood to Grenville to learn this proof of the Favourite’s still subsisting ascendant; and when I had once set them on the scent, I knew they would touch on it in more instances than this.

On the 22nd Philip Carteret Webbe was tried for perjury, being accused of having forsworn himself in the cause against Wilkes. The jury stayed out fifty-five minutes, but at last acquitted him: a vindication that no more cleared his character than conviction would have made it worse.

The Earl of Northumberland481 returned from Ireland, where his profusion and ostentation had been so great,482 that it seemed to lay a dangerous precedent for succeeding governors, who must risk unpopularity if more parsimonious; or the ruin of their fortune, should they imitate his example. At his departure he broke with William Gerard Hamilton,483 his secretary, and dismissed him to make way for the Earl of Drogheda,484 the favourite both of Lady Northumberland and the Primate.

Lord Northumberland had an advantageous figure and much courtesy in his address, which being supported by the most expensive magnificence, made him exceedingly popular with the meaner sort. They who viewed him nearer, were not the dupes of his affability or pretensions. The old nobility beheld his pride with envy and anger; and thence were the less disposed to overlook the littleness of his temper, or the slender portion he possessed of abilities; for his expense was a mere sacrifice to vanity, as appeared by his sordid and illiberal behaviour at play. Nor were his talents more solid than his generosity. With mechanic application to every branch of knowledge, he possessed none beyond the surface; and having an unbounded propensity to discussion, he disgusted his hearers without informing them. Yet his equals were but ill-grounded in their contempt of him. Very few of them knew so much; and there were still fewer that had not more noxious vices, and as ungenerous hearts. Lord Northumberland’s foibles ought to have passed almost for virtues in an age so destitute of intrinsic merit.485

The Countess of Northumberland was a jovial heap of contradictions. The blood of all the Percies and Seymours swelled in her veins and in her fancy; while her person was more vulgar than anything but her conversation, which was larded indiscriminately with stories of her ancestors and her footmen. Show, and crowds, and junketting, were her endless pursuits. She was familiar with the mob, while stifled with diamonds; and yet was attentive to the most minute privileges of her rank, while almost shaking hands with a cobbler. Nothing was more mean than her assiduity about the King and Queen, whom she termed her Master and Mistress; and yet, though indirectly reprimanded by the latter, she persisted in following her Majesty to the theatres with a longer retinue of domestics than waited on the Queen herself. She had revived the drummers and pipers and obsolete minstrels of her family; and her own buxom countenance at the tail of such a procession, gave it all the air of an antiquated pageant or mumming. She was mischievous under the appearance of frankness; generous and friendly without delicacy or sentiment.486

Lord Northumberland’s son, Lord Warkworth, was married to the third daughter of the Favourite;487 on which foundation the father was admitted to the private junto, which now met daily at Mr. Stone’s.488 It was composed of Lord Bute, Lord Northumberland, Lord Mansfield, Norton, Stone, and the brother of the latter, the famous Primate of Ireland, who bad followed the Lord-Lieutenant to London; coming, as he outwardly professed, to promote harmony and reconciliation. As he died soon after, before he had given any specimens of his arts here, I pretend not to say what were the real motives of his journey. He did visit Mr. Pitt; but a man so notorious for cunning as the Primate, was not likely to win on the caution of Mr. Pitt, who never was explicit, and least of all to men of abilities. It appeared, however, from the meetings I have mentioned, and other symptoms, that the Favourite was peeping out of his lurking-hole, and was disposed to let his power be felt. Grenville, though drunk with vanity, was sober enough to be stung with any competition; and yet his obstinacy disgusted those whom it was most necessary for him to attach. He offended the Duke of Bedford and Lord Halifax by refusing to let the Treasury bear the whole charge of the fines imposed on the messengers. The Duke experienced so many slights, that he kept retired in the country, and Rigby went to France, professing that it was to be absent, lest he should be blamed if the Duke should submit to such ignominious treatment; but Rigby had, no doubt, secured the Duke’s submission before he ventured to leave him, as he called it, to himself. However, the Duke of Cumberland was so much misled by those wayward humours, that before the end of the summer he sent Lord Albemarle489 to Woburn, to sound their dispositions, and endeavour to draw them from the Court. Not one, not his own sister, Lady Tavistock, would talk to him on politics; only the Duchess said drily, that her husband was Minister, and that everything was done that he desired. Mr. Pitt had said more truly, some time before, “They will disgust the Duke of Bedford in the spring, that they may not be teazed with his solicitations; and they will sweeten him again by winter, with some trifling favour, that he may give them no trouble in Parliament.”

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.