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But the ministry had vexations still more serious to endure. The hatred which
the Tories and Scots bore to Fox was implacable. In a moment of extreme peril,
they had consented to put themselves under his guidance. But the aversion with
which they regarded him broke forth as soon as the crisis seemed to be over.
Some of them attacked him about the accounts of the Pay Office. Some of them
rudely interrupted him when speaking, by laughter and ironical cheers. He was
naturally desirous to escape from so disagreeable a situation, and demanded the
peerage which had been promised as the reward of his services.
It was clear that there must be some change in the composition of the ministry.
But scarcely any, even of those who, from their situation, might be supposed to
be in all the secrets of the Government, anticipated what really took place. To
the amazement of the Parliament and the nation, it was suddenly announced that
Bute had resigned.
Twenty different explanations of this strange step were suggested. Some
attributed it to profound design, and some to sudden panic. Some said that the
lampoons of the Opposition had driven the Earl from the field; some that he had
taken office only in order to bring the war to a close, and had always meant to
retire when that object had been accomplished. He publicly assigned ill health
as his reason for quitting business, and privately complained that he was not
cordially seconded by his colleagues, and that Lord Mansfield, in particular,
whom he had himself brought into the Cabinet, gave him no support in the House
of Peers. Mansfield was, indeed, far too sagacious not to perceive that Bute's
situation was one of great peril and far too timorous to thrust himself into
peril for the sake of another. The probability, however, is that Bute's conduct
on this occasion, like the conduct of most men on most occasions, was determined
by mixed motives. We suspect that he was sick of office; for this is a feeling
much more common among ministers than persons who see public life from a
distance are disposed to believe; and nothing could be more natural than that
this feeling should take possession of the mind of Bute. In general, a statesman
climbs by slow degrees. Many laborious years elapse before he reaches the
topmost pinnacle of preferment. In the earlier part of his career, therefore, he
is constantly lured on by seeing something above him. During his ascent he
gradually becomes inured to the annoyances which belong to a life of ambition.
By the time that he has attained the highest point, he has become patient of
labor and callous to abuse. He is kept constant to his vocation, in spite of all
its discomforts, at first by hope, and at last by habit. It was not so with
Bute. His whole public life lasted little more than two years. On the day on
which he became a politician he became a cabinet minister. In a few months he
was, both in name and in show, chief of the administration. Greater than he had
been he could not be. If what he already possessed was vanity and vexation of
spirit, no delusion remained to entice him onward. He had been cloyed with the
pleasures of ambition before he had been seasoned to its pains. His habits had
not been such as were likely to fortify his mind against obloquy and public
hatred. He had reached his forty-eighth year in dignified ease, without knowing,
by personal experience, what it was to be ridiculed and slandered. All at once,
without any previous initiation, he had found himself exposed to such a storm of
invective and satire as had never burst on the head of any statesman. The
emoluments of office were now nothing to him; for he had just succeeded to a
princely property by the death of his father-in-law. All the honors which could
be bestowed on him he had already secured. He had obtained the Garter for
himself, and a British peerage for his son. He seems also to have imagined that
by quitting the Treasury he should escape from danger and abuse without really
resigning power, and should still be able to exercise in private supreme
influence over the royal mind.
Whatever may have been his motives, he retired. Fox at the same time took refuge
in the House of Lords; and George Grenville became First Lord of the Treasury
and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
We believe that those who made this arrangement fully intended that Grenville
should be a mere puppet in the hands of Bute; for Grenville was as yet very
imperfectly known even to those who had observed him long. He passed for a mere
official drudge; and he had all the industry, the minute accuracy, the
formality, the tediousness, which belong to the character. But he had other
qualities which had not yet shown themselves, devouring ambition, dauntless
courage, self-confidence amounting to presumption, and a temper which could not
endure opposition. He was not disposed to be anybody's tool; and he had no
attachment, political or personal, to Bute. The two men had, indeed, nothing in
common, except a strong propensity towards harsh and unpopular courses. Their
principles were fundamentally different. Bute was a Tory. Grenville would have
been very angry with any person who should have denied his claim to be a Whig.
He was more prone to tyrannical measures than Bute; but he loved tyranny only
when disguised under the forms of constitutional liberty. He mixed up, after a
fashion then not very unusual, the theories of the republicans of the
seventeenth century with the technical maxims of English law, and thus succeeded
in combining anarchical speculation with arbitrary practice. The voice of the
people was the voice of God; but the only legitimate organ through which the
voice of the people could be uttered was the Parliament. All power was from the
people; but to the Parliament the whole power of the people had been delegated.
No Oxonian divine had ever, even in the years which immediately followed the
Restoration, demanded for the King so abject, so unreasoning a homage, as
Grenville, on what he considered as the purest Whig principles, demanded for the
Parliament. As he wished to see the Parliament despotic over the nation, so he
wished to see it also despotic over the Court. In his view the Prime Minister,
possessed of the confidence of the House of Commons, ought to be mayor of the
Palace. The King was a mere Childeric or Chilperic, who well might think himself
lucky in being permitted to enjoy such handsome apartments at Saint James's, and
so fine a park at Windsor.
Thus the opinions of Bute and those of Grenville were diametrically opposed. Nor
was there any private friendship between the two statesmen. Grenville's nature
was not forgiving; and he well remembered how, a few months before, he had been
compelled to yield the lead of the House of Commons to Fox.
We are inclined to think, on the whole, that the worst administration which has
governed England since the Revolution was that of George Grenville. His public
acts may be classed under two heads, outrages on the liberty of the people, and
outrages on the dignity of the Crown.
He began by making war on the press. John Wilkes, member of Parliament for
Aylesbury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very lately, been
known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and agreeable rakes about
town. He was a man of taste, reading, and engaging manners. His sprightly
conversation was the delight of greenrooms and taverns, and pleased even grave
hearers when he was sufficiently under restraint to abstain from detailing the
particulars of his amours, and from breaking jests on the New Testament. His
expensive debaucheries forced him to have recourse to the Jews. He was soon a
ruined man, and determined to try his chance as a political adventurer. In
Parliament he did not succeed. His speaking, though pert, was feeble, and by no
means interested his hearers so much as to make them forget his face, which was
so hideous that the caricaturists were forced, in their own despite, to flatter
him. As a writer, he made a better figure. He set up a weekly paper, called the
North Briton. This journal, written with some pleasantry, and great audacity and
impudence, had a considerable number of readers. Forty-four numbers had been
published when Bute resigned; and, though almost every number had contained
matter grossly libelous, no prosecution had been instituted. The forty-fifth
number was innocent when compared with the majority of those which had preceded
it, and indeed contained nothing so strong as may in our time be found daily in
the leading articles of the Times and Morning Chronicle. But Grenville was now
at the head of affairs. A new spirit had been infused into the administration.
Authority was to be upheld. The Government was no longer to be braved with
impunity. Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant, conveyed to the Tower,
and confined there with circumstances of unusual severity. His papers were
seized, and carried to the Secretary of State. These harsh and illegal measures
produced a violent outbreak of popular rage, which was soon changed to delight
and exultation. The arrest was pronounced unlawful by the Court of Common Pleas,
in which Chief justice Pratt presided, and the prisoner was discharged. This
victory over the Government was celebrated with enthusiasm both in London and in
the cider counties.
While the ministers were daily becoming more odious to the nation, they were
doing their best to make themselves also odious to the Court. They gave the King
plainly to understand that they were determined not to be Lord Bute's creatures,
and exacted a promise that no secret adviser should have access to the royal
ear. They soon found reason to suspect that this promise had not been observed.
They remonstrated in terms less respectful than their master had been accustomed
to hear, and gave him a fortnight to make his choice between his favorite and
his Cabinet.
George the Third was greatly disturbed. He had but a few weeks before exulted in
his deliverance from the yoke of the great Whig connection. He had even declared
that his honor would not permit him ever again to admit the members of that
connection into his service. He now found that he had only exchanged one set of
masters for another set still harsher and more imperious. In his distress he
thought on Pitt. From Pitt it was possible that better terms might be obtained
than either from Grenville, or from the party of which Newcastle was the head.
Grenville, on his return from an excursion into the country, repaired to
Buckingham House. He was astonished to find at the entrance a chair, the shape
of which was well known to him, and indeed to all London. It was distinguished
by a large boot, made for the purpose of accommodating the Great Commoner's
gouty leg. Grenville guessed the whole. His brother-in-law was closeted with the
King. Bute, provoked by what he considered as the unfriendly and ungrateful
conduct of his successors, had himself proposed that Pitt should be summoned to
the palace.
Pitt had two audiences on two successive days. What passed at the first
interview led him to expect that the negotiations would be brought to a
satisfactory close; but on the morrow he found the King less complying. The best
account, indeed the only trustworthy account of the conference, is that which
was taken from Pitt's own mouth by Lord Hardwicke. It appears that Pitt strongly
represented the importance of conciliating those chiefs of the Whig party who
had been so unhappy as to incur the royal displeasure. They had, he said, been
the most constant friends of the House of Hanover. Their power was great; they
had been long versed in public business. If they were to be under sentence of
exclusion, a solid administration could not be formed. His Majesty could not
bear to think of putting himself into the hands of those whom he had recently
chased from his Court with the strongest marks of anger. "I am sorry, Mr. Pitt,"
he said, "but I see this will not do. My honor is concerned. I must support my
honor." How his Majesty succeeded in supporting his honor, we shall soon see.
Pitt retired, and the King was reduced to request the ministers, whom he had
been on the point of discarding, to remain in office. During the two years which
followed, Grenville, now closely leagued with the Bedfords, was the master of
the Court; and a hard master he proved. He knew that he was kept in place only
because there was no choice except between himself and the Whigs. That under any
circumstances the Whigs would be forgiven, he thought impossible. The late
attempt to get rid of him had roused his resentment; the failure of that attempt
had liberated him from all fear. He had never been very courtly. He now began to
hold a language, to which, since the days of Cornet Joyce and President
Bradshaw, no English King had been compelled to listen.
In one matter, indeed, Grenville, at the expense of justice and liberty,
gratified the passions of the Court while gratifying his own. The persecution of
Wilkes was eagerly pressed. He had written a parody on Pope's Essay on Man,
entitled the Essay on Woman, and had appended to it notes, in ridicule of
Warburton's famous Commentary. This composition was exceedingly profligate, but
not more so, we think, than some of Pope's own works, the imitation of the
second satire of the first book of Horace, for example; and, to do Wilkes
justice, he had not, like Pope, given his ribaldry to the world. He had merely
printed at a private press a very small number of copies, which he meant to
present to some of his boon companions, whose morals were in no more danger of
being corrupted by a loose book than a negro of being tanned by a warm sun. A
tool of the Government, by giving a bribe to the printer, procured a copy of
this trash, and placed it in the hands of the ministers. The ministers resolved
to visit Wilkes's offence against decorum with the utmost rigor of the law. What
share piety and respect for morals had in dictating this resolution, our readers
may judge from the fact that no person was more eager for bringing the libertine
poet to punishment than Lord March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry. On the first
day of the session of Parliament, the book, thus disgracefully obtained, was
laid on the table of the Lords by the Earl of Sandwich, whom the Duke of
Bedford's interest had made Secretary of State. The unfortunate author had not
the slightest suspicion that his licentious poem had ever been seen, except by
his printer and a few of his dissipated companions, till it was produced in full
Parliament. Though he was a man of easy temper, averse from danger, and not very
susceptible of shame, the surprise, the disgrace, the prospect of utter ruin,
put him beside himself. He picked a quarrel with one of Lord Bute's dependants,
fought a duel, was seriously wounded, and when half recovered, fled to France.
His enemies had now their own way both in the Parliament and in the King's
Bench. He was censured, expelled from the House of Commons, outlawed. His works
were ordered to be burned by the common hangman. Yet was the multitude still
true to him. In the minds even of many moral and religious men, his crime seemed
light when compared with the crime of his accusers. The conduct of Sandwich in
particular, excited universal disgust. His own vices were notorious; and, only a
fortnight before he laid the Essay on Woman before the House of Lords, he had
been drinking and singing loose catches with Wilkes at one of the most dissolute
clubs in London. Shortly after the meeting of Parliament, the Beggar's Opera was
acted at Covent Garden theatre. When Macheath uttered the words--"That Jemmy
Twitcher should peach me I own surprised me,"--pit, boxes, and galleries, burst
into a roar which seemed likely to bring the roof down. From that day Sandwich
was universally known by the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher. The ceremony of burning
the North Briton was interrupted by a riot. The constables were beaten; the
paper was rescued; and, instead of it, a jack-boot and a petticoat were
committed to the flames. Wilkes had instituted an action for the seizure of his
papers against the Under-secretary of State. The jury gave a thousand pounds
damages. But neither these nor any other indications of public feeling had power
to move Grenville. He had the Parliament with him: and, according to his
political creed, the sense of the nation was to be collected from the Parliament
alone.
Soon, however, he found reason to fear that even the Parliament might fail him.
On the question of the legality of general warrants, the Opposition, having on
its side all sound principles, all constitutional authorities, and the voice of
the whole nation, mustered in great force, and was joined by many who did not
ordinarily vote against the Government. On one occasion the ministry, in a very
full House, had a majority of only fourteen votes. The storm, however, blew
over. The spirit of the Opposition, from whatever cause, began to flag at the
moment when success seemed almost certain. The session ended without any change.
Pitt, whose eloquence had shone with its usual luster in all the principal
debates, and whose popularity was greater than ever, was still a private man.
Grenville, detested alike by the Court and by the people, was still minister.
As soon as the Houses had risen, Grenville took a step which proved, even more
signally than any of his past acts, how despotic, how acrimonious, and how
fearless his nature was. Among the gentlemen not ordinarily opposed to the
Government, who, on the great constitutional question of general warrants, had
voted with the minority, was Henry Conway, brother of the Earl of Hertford, a
brave soldier, a tolerable speaker, and a well-meaning, though not a wise or
vigorous politician. He was now deprived of his regiment, the merited reward of
faithful and gallant service in two wars. It was confidently asserted that in
this violent measure the King heartily concurred.
But whatever pleasure the persecution of Wilkes, or the dismissal of Conway, may
have given to the royal mind, it is certain that his Majesty's aversion to his
ministers increased day by day. Grenville was as frugal of the public money as
of his own, and morosely refused to accede to the King's request, that a few
thousand pounds might be expended in buying some open fields to the west of the
gardens of Buckingham House. In consequence of this refusal, the fields were
soon covered with buildings, and the King and Queen were overlooked in their
most private walks by the upper windows of a hundred houses. Nor was this the
worst. Grenville was as liberal of words as he was sparing of guineas. Instead
of explaining himself in that clear, concise, and lively manner, which alone
could win the attention of a young mind new to business, he spoke in the closet
just as he spoke in the House of Commons. When he had harangued two hours, he
looked at his watch, as he had been in the habit of looking at the clock
opposite the Speaker's chair, apologized for the length of his discourse, and
then went on for an hour more. The members of the House of Commons can cough an
orator down, or can walk away to dinner; and they were by no means sparing in
the use of these privileges when Grenville was on his legs. But the poor young
King had to endure all this eloquence with mournful civility. To the end of his
life he continued to talk with horror of Grenville's orations.
About this time took place one of the most singular events in Pitt's life. There
was a certain Sir William Pynsent, a Somersetshire baronet of Whig politics, who
had been a Member of the House of Commons in the days of Queen Anne, and had
retired to rural privacy when the Tory party, towards the end of her reign,
obtained the ascendancy in her councils. His manners were eccentric. His morals
lay under very odious imputations. But his fidelity to his political opinions
was unalterable. During fifty years of seclusion he continued to brood over the
circumstances which had driven him from public life, the dismissal of the Whigs,
the peace of Utrecht, the desertion of our allies. He now thought that he
perceived a close analogy between the well remembered events of his youth and
the events which he had witnessed in extreme old age; between the disgrace of
Marlborough and the disgrace of Pitt; between the elevation of Harley and the
elevation of Bute; between the treaty negotiated by St. John and the treaty
negotiated by Bedford; between the wrongs of the House of Austria in 1712 and
the wrongs of the House of Brandenburgh in 1762. This fancy took such possession
of the old man's mind that he determined to leave his whole property to Pitt. In
this way, Pitt unexpectedly came into possession of near three thousand pounds a
year. Nor could all the malice of his enemies find any ground for reproach in
the transaction. Nobody could call him a legacy-hunter. Nobody could accuse him
of seizing that to which others had a better claim. For he had never in his life
seen Sir William; and Sir William had left no relation so near as to be entitled
to form any expectations respecting the estate.
The fortunes of Pitt seemed to flourish; but his health was worse than ever. We
cannot find that, during the session which began in January 1765, he once
appeared in Parliament. He remained some months in profound retirement at Hayes,
his favorite villa, scarcely moving except from his armchair to his bed, and
from his bed to his armchair, and often employing his wife as his amanuensis in
his most confidential correspondence. Some of his detractors whispered that his
invisibility was to be ascribed quite as much to affectation as to gout. In
truth his character, high and splendid as it was, wanted simplicity. With genius
which did not need the aid of stage tricks, and with a spirit which should have
been far above them, he had yet been, through life, in the habit of practicing
them. It was, therefore, now surmised that, having acquired all the
considerations which could be derived from eloquence and from great services to
the State, he had determined not to make himself cheap by often appearing in
public, but, under the pretext of ill health, to surround himself with mystery,
to emerge only at long intervals and on momentous occasions, and at other times
to deliver his oracles only to a few favored votaries, who were suffered to make
pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were his object, it was for a time fully
attained. Never was the magic of his name so powerful, never was he regarded by
his country with such superstitious veneration, as during this year of silence
and seclusion.
While Pitt was thus absent from Parliament, Grenville proposed a measure
destined to produce a great revolution, the effects of which will long be felt
by the whole human race. We speak of the act for imposing stamp-duties on the
North American colonies. The plan was eminently characteristic of its author.
Every feature of the parent was found in the child. A timid statesman would have
shrunk from a step, of which Walpole, at a time when the colonies were far less
powerful, had said--"He who shall propose it will be a much bolder man than I"
But the nature of Grenville was insensible to fear. A statesman of large views
would have felt that to lay taxes at Westminster on New England and New York,
was a course opposed, not indeed to the letter of the Statute Book, or to any
decision contained in the Term Reports, but to the principles of good
government, and to the spirit of the constitution. A statesman of large views
would also have felt that ten times the estimated produce of the American stamps
would have been dearly purchased by even a transient quarrel between the mother
country and the colonies. But Grenville knew of no spirit of the constitution
distinct from the letter of the law, and of no national interests except those
which are expressed by pounds, shillings, and pence. That his policy might give
birth to deep discontents in all the provinces, from the shore of the Great
Lakes to the Mexican sea; that France and Spain might seize the opportunity of
revenge; that the empire might be dismembered; that the debt, that debt with the
amount of which he perpetually reproached Pitt, might, in consequence of his own
policy, be doubled; these were possibilities which never occurred to that small,
sharp mind.
The Stamp Act will be remembered as long as the globe lasts. But, at the time,
it attracted much less notice in this country than another Act which is now
almost utterly forgotten. The King fell ill, and was thought to be in a
dangerous state. His complaint, we believe, was the same which, at a later
period, repeatedly incapacitated him for the performance of his regal functions.
The heir-apparent was only two years old. It was clearly proper to make
provision for the administration of the Government, in case of a minority. The
discussions on this point brought the quarrel between the Court and the ministry
to a crisis. The King wished to be entrusted with the power of naming a regent
by will. The ministers feared, or affected to fear, that, if this power were
conceded to him, he would name the Princess Mother, nay, possibly the Earl of
Bute. They, therefore, insisted on introducing into the bill words confining the
King's choice to the royal family. Having thus excluded Bute, they urged the
King to let them, in the most marked manner, exclude the Princess Dowager also.
They assured him that the House of Commons would undoubtedly strike her name
out, and by this threat they wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days,
it appeared that the representations by which they had induced the King to put
this gross and public affront on his mother were unfounded. The friends of the
Princess in the House of Commons moved that her name should be inserted. The
ministers could not decently attack the parent of their master. They hoped that
the Opposition would come to their help, and put on them a force to which they
would gladly have yielded. But the majority of the Opposition, though hating the
Princess, hated Grenville more, beheld his embarrassment with delight, and would
do nothing to extricate him from it. The Princess's name was accordingly placed
in the list of persons qualified to hold the regency.
The King's resentment was now it the height. The present evil seemed to him more
intolerable than any other. Even the junta of Whig grandees could not treat him
worse than he had been treated by his present ministers. In his distress, he
poured out his whole heart to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland. The Duke was
not a man to be loved; but he was eminently a man to be trusted. He had an
intrepid temper, a strong understanding, and a high sense of honor and duty. As
a general, he belonged to a remarkable class of captains, captains we mean,
whose fate it has been to lose almost all the battles which they have fought,
and yet to be reputed stout and skilful soldiers. Such captains were Coligny and
William the Third. We might, perhaps, add Marshal Soult to the list. The bravery
of the Duke of Cumberland was such as distinguished him even among the princes
of his brave house. The indifference with which he rode about amidst musket
balls and cannon balls was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless
maladies, horrible surgical operations, far from unmanning him, did not even
discompose him. With courage he had the virtues which are akin to courage. He
spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and upright in all his
dealings. But his nature was hard; and what seemed to him justice was rarely
tempered with mercy. He was, therefore, during many years, one of the most
unpopular men in England. The severity with which he had treated the rebels
after the battle of Culloden, had gained for him the name of the Butcher. His
attempts to introduce into the army of England, then in a most disorderly state,
the rigorous discipline of Potsdam, had excited still stronger disgust. Nothing
was too bad to be believed of him. Many honest people were so absurd as to fancy
that, if he were left Regent during the minority of his nephews, there would be
another smothering in the Tower. These feelings, however, had passed away. The
Duke had been living, during some years, in retirement. The English, full of
animosity against the Scots, now blamed his Royal Highness only for having left
so many Camerons and Macphersons to be made gaugers and custom-house officers.
He was, therefore, at present, a favorite with his countrymen, and especially
with the inhabitants of London.
He had little reason to love the King, and had shown clearly, though not
obtrusively, his dislike of the system which had lately been pursued. But he had
high and almost romantic notions of the duty which, as a prince of the blood, he
owed to the head of his house. He determined to extricate his nephew from
bondage, and to effect a reconciliation between the Whig party and the throne,
on terms honorable to both.
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