The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole

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СКАЧАТЬ he did; he heartily thanked the ministers for their caution; and meaned to conciliate unanimity, which he hoped would spread from one end of the island to the other. Himself for five years had laboured successfully—but he did not mean to pride himself that way—yet he had proved not to have been so much in the wrong as his enemies had thought; and, however Lord North had disparaged his intelligence, activity, and discernment, he hoped his successors would not be endowed with worse or less; and that the people would place confidence in the administration, whose large and wide-spread connections must be followed by confidence and favour. A poor individual like himself could have no such favour and following! He should easily have been blamed, if any slip had appeared in his conduct. Now it must be the King—it must be the Administration, the Parliament, nation, army, and navy, who were to carry on the war; and he prayed to God it might all be enough! Yet he thought us equal to the whole. However, he had not sought the Spanish war; and if it were not too much for a poor individual, for an abdicated Minister, to say, he hoped it would appear, that for five years together he had made much political court to Spain, and great persons had concurred with him in those counsels. The sacrifices he had offered would show how much he and they had been in the right; and that he had not been so haughty as was represented in rejecting Bussy’s memorial. He would never call for the papers which would exemplify the temper he had used towards Spain. If his Majesty should think they would satisfy the nation, would satisfy Europe, he knew he should appear to have had the unanimous approbation of the whole Cabinet to several of the papers he had sent to Spain. But what imported it what one man or another had thought three months before? Since that era he had received such public marks of Royal approbation, together with a pension and peerage (for his wife), as few individuals could boast. The moment was come when every man ought to show himself for the whole. I do, said he, cruelly as I have been treated in pamphlets and libels. Arm the whole! Be one people! This war, though it has cut deep into our pecuniary, had augmented our military faculties. Set that against the debt, that spirit which has made us what we are. Forget everything but the public!—for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities.

      Grenville told him he would have his wish: orders were given for laying before the House all the papers from the time of Bussy’s memorial. “I have no wish for their coming,” replied Pitt, “If for the benefit of his Majesty’s affairs, let them come; and if they do come, shall it be with no farther retrospect than Bussy’s memorial? How condescending is the boon! how futile! how unsatisfactory!”

      Yet notwithstanding their affected alacrity for war on this occasion, the new Ministers took every opportunity of raising disgust in the nation against the late measures. Rigby, at the instigation of Fox, moved that Colonel Boyd should lay before the House of Commons the muster-roll of the Hessians, on whom he threw out many reflections, and affirmed that 9000 men were wanting out of the 22,000 which they ought to furnish. He said the muster-rolls of our mercenaries were not returned to the office of the Secretary at War; and complained that not a single order was gone to recruit the army in Germany, which ought to amount to 96,000 men. He hoped Prince Ferdinand would be allowed to give no more orders to British troops. He pretended to approve the declaration against Spain, but then endeavoured to show that we were unequal to a new war. It required, he said, 38,000 men to garrison our conquests; and yet those garrisons fell short by 11,000 men. Belleisle alone had cost near half a million; yet what did it furnish but sprats and little cows? Canada gave us only furs; yet hats were not become cheaper; nor were sugar or rum fallen by the acquisition of opulent Guadaloupe; nor negroes by the conquest of Goree; gum was the only commodity reduced. For Louisbourg, he hoped the fortifications would be blown up. The enemy was hurt, but were we enriched, except from the successes in the East Indies? He wished, in short, not to keep our conquests, and to put an end to a ruinous war, in which we had no allies but mercenaries.

      Charles Townshend took the same key, and said it had been fortunate, if our apprehension of Spain had driven us to make peace with France. He feared we should sink from a dream of ambition to a state of bankruptcy.

      Stanley maintained that France had been in earnest in the negotiation, but had been buoyed up by the ambition and revenge of Spain. Was France so weak, and yet not in earnest? The object of his own labours had been to keep France divided from Spain, and with that view England had offered to yield more than she had asked in return. This was a strong vindication of Mr. Pitt’s conduct, and from a competent witness.

      Grenville, in answer to Beckford, said, he would pawn his life that no assurances had been given to the City that there would be no Spanish war. Thomas Walpole166 replied, that he had never been told from the Treasury that there would not be war with Spain; yet he would say, that had the City apprehended it, they would not have lent their money so easily. The Hessian papers were ordered to lie on the table.

      In prosecution of the same hostilities to Pitt, the Duke of Bedford, resisting the most earnest entreaties of the Duke of Cumberland, and even without the approbation of the Court, determined to make his motion, which, however, he softened from a proposal of recalling the troops from Germany, into a resolution of the ruinous impracticability of carrying on the war. He might as decently have termed it an exhortation to Spain not to dread our arms. Lord Bute, to show the Court did not countenance so gross a measure, moved the previous question, and was supported by Newcastle, Melcomb, and Denbigh. Lord Temple of course opposed the Duke of Bedford. The Lords Shelburne, Pomfret, and Talbot spoke for the motion; but the previous question was carried by 105 to 16, which latter were the friends of Bedford and Fox. Six or seven even protested.

       In the course of the debate Lord Bute dropped hints of important good news, which he had received that very morning. It was supposed to mean the pacific disposition of the new Czar. Elizabeth, his aunt, was just dead, and Peter the Third had mounted the Russian throne. So far from inheriting her animosity to the King of Prussia, the young Emperor was his enthusiastic admirer, and more likely to war under his banners than to continue to overwhelm him with torrents of barbarians.

      The Duke of Bedford receiving such a rebuff from the Lords, the faction dropped the design of renewing the motion in the Commons, the consequence having been a side-wind of approbation to Mr. Pitt, and almost applause to Lord Bute for taking up the military spirit—an approbation the latter did not wish to receive, nor intend to merit. However, 5000 men were ordered for Portugal, and the command destined to Lord Tyrawley. Lord Albemarle too, and his brothers, Commodore and Colonel Keppel,167 set out for Portsmouth on the expedition to the Havannah; but they did not sail till the beginning of March. Lord Tyrawley went to Lisbon at the same time, whither M. Dunn, or Odunn, who had married a daughter of Parsons,168 a famous Jacobite alderman in the last reign, was dispatched from Versailles to traverse his negotiations.

       Dr. Osbaldiston,169 the aged Bishop of Carlisle, was translated to the See of London, on the death of Bishop Hayter; and was succeeded by Lyttelton,170 Dean of Exeter.

      In France, Marshal Broglio, and his brother, the Count, were disgraced by Court intrigues. They were the best, and almost only successful officers in the French service. The marshal171 was a mere disciplinarian, of no parts. The Count172 was lively, and earnest to inform himself; and by being quicker than his brother, with not much better parts, was only more likely to be in the wrong: but they were both men of strict honour. Having presented a memorial against the Prince of Soubize, in which they attacked Stainville, brother of the Duke of Choiseul, the latter, who possessed the favour of Madame de Pompadour, procured the marshal and his brother to be banished to their country-seats.

      The Tories, triumphing in the partiality of the Court, and rather offended СКАЧАТЬ