The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole

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СКАЧАТЬ was Lord Lieutenant, who refusing to pardon some of the chiefs, notwithstanding very considerable intercession, an end was put to the affair—but unless that country is more civilized and reclaimed from barbarism, or better guarded before another war breaks out, it will probably be selected by France and Spain for the first scene of their operations. At the time of which I have been speaking, France was more earnest to make a general peace, than to incense us by opening a war within our very gates,197 and which might have made it dangerous for the Favourite to second their views.

      He was hotly pushing his schemes to projection; and resolved not only to make the peace, but to be indisputably first minister when it should be made. Mr. Pitt was removed, who could have obstructed the first object; but while the Duke of Newcastle held the Treasury, there was a division of power, which all the lustre of favour could not entirely surmount. They who looked forward, bowed to the idol; but they who held by gratifications to the Treasury, could not but kiss the hand that dealt the bribe. At first it was designed by disgusts to drive the Duke to resign. Elliot and Oswald198 were instructed to treat him rudely at his own board: but an old minister or an old mistress endure many shocks before they can be shaken off:199 nor could all his own treacheries persuade the Duke of Newcastle that Lord Bute could so soon forget how instrumental his Grace had been in undermining Mr. Pitt. He still had a mind to be of the plot, though himself was become the object of it.

      Newcastle’s friends were quicker sighted; and foreseeing that they must again range under Mr. Pitt, if cast off by the Court, they began to have doubts and difficulties—and did but hasten their fall, by daring to resume a right of opinion. The expense of the Portuguese war administered their first pretence of complaint, and the protection given to the King of Prussia by the Czar, changed the posture of his affairs so advantageously, that it had no gross appearance, when the Dukes of Cumberland, Newcastle, Devonshire, and their faction grew earnest for the continuance of the war in Germany. The Duke of Bedford, who was more than half-gained to the Court, but who always added some contradiction of his own, was averse to both wars, Portuguese and German; and Fox, who was willing to preserve an interest in the Duke of Cumberland, had a difficult part to act. He said to me, “The Duke of Devonshire says it is a Tory measure to abandon the Continent; for my part I do not know who are Whigs; they bore the partiality of the Pelhams200 to the Tories, and Mr. Pitt’s declaration in their favour, who had complained that they enjoyed none of the favours of Government.” Lord Mansfield would have preserved Newcastle to the Court, but Lord Hardwicke pulled the other way. Lord Lincoln201 was devoted to Pitt, and wished to unite him and his uncle Newcastle. The Duke of Devonshire advised the latter to resign; but so great was his inclination to keep even the dregs of power with the dregs of life, and so great his fear of being called to account for the waste of money on the German war, that though the King, as a fresh affront, declared seven new peers, without acquainting him, he not only overlooked it, but begged his cousin, Mr. Pelham,202 might be added to the number, and got the barony of Pelham bestowed on himself, with reversion to that relation.

      I am forced to detail these intrigues, because the moment was critical, and because it gave birth to a new party, and to many subsequent events. The Court was the more stiff, because they had conveyed a message through Count Virri,203 the Sardinian minister in England, to the Bailli de Solar,204 the Sardinian minister at Paris, desiring to renew the negotiation where it had been broken off. Lord Bute had gone farther: he had ordered Sir Joseph Yorke to treat privately with the Court of Vienna, without the knowledge of the King of Prussia. For some time the Court of Vienna did not vouchsafe an answer. To the confusion of the Favourite, the first news he had of any answer to come, was from the Baron de Knyphausen, the King of Prussia’s minister here.205

      April 28th, the new peers kissed hands. Lord206 Wentworth and Sir William Courtenay,207 Tories, were made Viscounts. Lord Egmont,208 Lord Milton,209 Lord Brudenel, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Edward Hussy Montagu,210 Mr. Vernon,211 of Sudbury, and Mr. Lane,212 the two latter Tories, were made Barons, and Lady Caroline Fox, a Baroness. Lord Ligonier’s Irish peerage was entailed on his nephew. Mr. Vernon,213 clerk of the Council, and Mr. Olmius,214 were created Irish Barons. The Prince of Mecklenburg,215 brother of the Queen, was made a Major-General. Lord Bute had often waved her request. She was advised to apply to the Princess, and the favour was immediately granted. Soon after, Buckingham House216 was purchased and bestowed on her Majesty, St. James’s not seeming a prison strait enough. There the King and Queen lived in the strictest privacy, attended absolutely by none but menial servants; and never came to the palace but for the hours of levies and drawing-rooms. The King’s younger brothers were kept, till they came of age, in as rigid durance. Prince Henry, the third, a very lively lad, being asked if he had been confined with the epidemic cold, replied, “Confined! that I am, without any cold;” and soon after, when the Garter was bestowed on Prince William and Lord Bute, Prince Henry said, “I suppose Mr. Mackenzie217 and I shall have the green ribands.”

      CHAPTER XI.

       Table of Contents

      Debate in the House of Commons on a Vote of Credit and the Support of Portugal.—The German War.—Pitt’s Speech.—Colonel Barré’s Reply to Mr. Pitt.—Lord Bute’s Ambition.—The Duke of Newcastle’s Resignation.—Fox and the Duke of Devonshire.—Ingratitude of the Clergy to Newcastle.—Unwise conduct of Lord Bute.—He is declared First Lord of the Treasury.—Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer.—His unfitness for that Office.—His general Character.—His establishment of a Society of Young Travellers.

      May 12th. The House of Commons debated on a vote of credit, and the support of Portugal. Glover the poet pleaded against Portugal’s claim to our assistance, from their many infractions of treaties, from their cramping our trade, and from the impossibilities our merchants had found of obtaining redress; a complaint that seemed to bear hard on the late ministry: to which he added reflections on the extravagance of the German war, which, contrary to the professions of ministers, had grown from £200,000 to six or seven millions. Pitt was offended, and corrected Glover, who threw his information on some nameless merchants, by whom he had been told that their remonstrances on the difficulties of the Portuguese trade had not been read by the ministers. Wilkes censured the weakness and irresolution of the ministry; their abandoning Belleisle, and neglecting to send over the officers to Germany. It was even said, he affirmed, that they had been humiliating themselves at the Court of Vienna. Legge more gently, and Beckford with more rhodomontade, pressed the same accusations. The latter was for invading Spain by sea; declared that the City suspected the ministry of wavering, СКАЧАТЬ