78 Humphry Sturt, Esq., M. P. for the county of Dorset, where the family has long enjoyed considerable wealth and parliamentary influence.—E.

79 Query whether instead of John Pitt, it ought not to be George Pitt, Mr. Sturt’s colleague, and afterwards Lord Rivers, and Minister at Turin. He died in 1801.—E.

80 This man became much more known about a dozen years after this period. [His character has not yet ceased to be a subject of controversy; and those who wish to know all that can be said for and against him, may consult Mr. Hunt’s recent biographical work, and Mr. Keppel’s Life of Lord Keppel. His generous and constant patronage of Captain Cook has given more interest to his memory than belongs to his political squabbles. The King’s favour, Lord Sandwich’s friendship, and lastly his own merit, raised him among other distinctions to the honourable post of Governor of Greenwich Hospital. He was made a Baronet in 1773, and died unmarried in 1796.—E.]

81 By the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham.

82 Grenville was of Buckinghamshire.

83 This must be confined to the following period of fluctuations in the Administration. When it became resettled under Lord North, who was a Tory, the Court’s system of prerogative predominated entirely.

84 The præmunire clauses of the Regency Act (24 George II. c. 24) are in the 4th and 22nd sections. By the 4th section these penalties attach on any person having the custody of the King’s appointment of the Council of Regency, that ventures to open the same without his Majesty’s order, or to neglect or refuse to deliver up the same after his Majesty’s death. The 22nd section is more important, and as it contains the clause to which the text applies, and was the subject of much discussion in the House of Commons, where it met with warm opposition, even from the Speaker, Mr. Onslow, the following transcript of it may not be without interest: “All commissions, letters patent, orders, matters, and things to be made, passed, had, or done by the said Regent, either with or without the consent of the said Council of Regency, in order unlawfully to set aside, change, or vary the order and method of Government, and administration of Government settled by this Act during such minorities as aforesaid, shall be absolutely null and void; and every person advising, concurring, promoting, or assisting therein shall incur the penalties of a præmunire.” An animated report of the debates on this clause is given by Walpole, Mem. Geo. II. vol. i. p. 191.—E.

85 This is no doubt the truth.—E.

86 With his brother Henry Pelham, and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.

87 Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain, and K.G., grandson to Charles the Second, whom he appears to have resembled in some of the better parts of that monarch’s character.—See the account of him in Walpole’s Geo. II. vol. i. p. 157. He died May 6, 1757, aged 78.—E.

88 Lionel Sackville, first Duke of Dorset, K.G., son of the celebrated Earl. He had gone through most of the great posts, having been successively Lord Steward, Lord President, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, besides being employed on several foreign missions. Walpole describes him (Mem. Geo. II. vol. i. p. 244) as a man of dignity, caution, and plausibility, who, when left to himself, as in his first Lord-Lieutenantcy, had ruled Ireland to the universal satisfaction of that people. He was less successful when his son Lord George Germaine and Primate Stone were his advisers. He died on the 10th of October, 1763, aged 75. See more of him in Wraxall’s Hist. Mem. vol. ii. p. 415, and in Collins’s Peerage.—E.

89 Such a post would certainly not have suited the modest, scrupulous, and pious author of the “Analogy,” and as his character was well known, it is very unlikely to have been destined for him,—though he was highly esteemed at Court. Had his friend Dr. Clarke filled the Archbishopric of Canterbury, which Queen Caroline is said to have so much desired, he would probably have been preferred, and with his parts and decision of character, might have become a very considerable man.—E.

90 The King had then four brothers living: Edward Duke of York, and the Princes William, Henry, and Frederick.

91 William Duke of Cumberland.

92 John third Earl of Waldegrave, brother-in-law of the Duchess of Bedford.

93 Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 52.—E.

94 The Address of both Houses.

95 Edward Duke of York, the Princes William, Henry, and Frederick, and William Duke of Cumberland, son of George the Second.

96 Henry Howard, Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, a young lord attached to Mr. Grenville, [afterwards Secretary of State. (See more of him infra.)—E.]

97 Lord Northington.

98 Sir Philip Yorke, then Lord Chancellor. His son, Lord Hardwicke, kept away from this bill; Charles Yorke, the second brother, voted for it.

99 He might have been asked why it was more proper to establish the Council for seventeen years, than the same Regent.

100 Alluding to Lord Chatham and Alderman Beckford.

101 Augustus Henry Fitzroy, third Duke of Grafton.

102 Charles Lennox, third Duke of Richmond.

103 Mary, fourth daughter of King George II.

104 Charles Prince of Brunswick, husband of Princess Augusta, the King’s eldest sister.

105 Frederick King of Prussia, son and grandson of the daughter and sister of King George the First.

106 Attached to the Princess Dowager.

107 Lord Bute told him he was in the right, and that a matter of such importance ought to be left under no dubiety.

108 See Letter from Walpole to Lord Hertford, of 5th May, 1765, in Correspondence, vol. v. p. 23.—E.

109 I must observe that Lord Holland has since maintained to me, that Lord Halifax alone had gone to the King, which I could never hear but from him: the contrary was the universal belief at the time, and what I learned in the House of Lords, where I arrived within five minutes after the scene I am describing had passed. It is at least evident by the ready concurrence of the Ministers, and by Grenville’s subsequent conduct in the House of Commons, that the measure had been concerted with him and Sandwich; and they both in their speeches afterwards gave indications that it had been so.

110 Memoirs of George II., vol. i. p. 166.

111 Charles Fitzroy, afterwards Lord Southampton, younger son of Lord Augustus Fitzroy, and only brother of Augustus Henry Duke of Grafton.

112 See Walpole’s Letter to Lord Hertford, of May 12, 1765, in Correspondence, vol. v. p. 28.—E.

113 Mr. Burrell, M. P. for Haslemere, made a Commissioner of Excise in 1774; became a Baronet on the death of his father-in-law, Sir Charles Raymond, and died in 1796. He was the father of Sir Charles Burrell, M. P.—E.

114 Mr. Morton, Chief Justice of Chester, had been long in the intimate confidence of the Princess. He was in extensive practice, as may be seen in Burrow, and the other reports of the day—the leader on the Oxford Circuit, and Deputy High Steward of the University. He had considerable reputation as an advocate notwithstanding the sneer of a cotemporary satire, that says—

In the House of Commons, Mr. Morton seldom spoke except on questions connected with his profession. The following account of a singular scene in which he appears as the rash and unequal assailant of Pitt, has been preserved by Mr. Butler, the great Catholic counsellor, in his interesting and not uninstructive Reminiscences of George the Third.

On one occasion, Mr. Morton happened to say King, Lords, and Commons, or (directing his eye towards Mr. Pitt) as that right honourable Member would call them, Commons, Lords, and King.—The only fault of this sentence is its nonsense. Mr. Pitt arose, as he ever did, with great deliberation, and called to order. “I have,” he said “heard frequently in this House, doctrines which have surprised me, but now my blood runs cold. I desire the words of the honourable Member may be taken down.” The Clerks of the House took down the words. “Bring them to me,” said Mr. Pitt, with a voice of thunder. By this time Mr. Morton was frightened out of his senses. “Sir,” he said, addressing himself to the Speaker, “I am sorry to have given any offence to the right honourable Member, or to the House. I meant nothing—Kings, Lords, and Commons,—Lords, Commons, and King,—Commons, Lords, and King—tria juncta in uno. I meant nothing—indeed I meant nothing.” “I don’t wish to push the matter further,” said Mr. Pitt, in a voice a little above a whisper, then in a higher tone, “the moment a man acknowledges his error he ceases to be guilty. I have a great regard for the honourable Member, and as an instance of that regard, I give him this advice.” A pause of some moments ensued; then assuming a look of unspeakable decision, he said in a kind of colloquial tone, “Whenever that Member means nothing, I recommend him to say nothing.” (Butler’s Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 156.) Mr. Morton’s last speech of any importance was on the Indemnity Bill for sending foreign troops to Minorca, in 1775. He never rose higher than the Chief Justiceship of Chester, though he was very near succeeding Mr. Justice Wilmot, in the King’s Bench; and the memoirs of the latter contain a very pleasing and well-written letter from him on the occasion. He had a house at Tackley, near Oxford, in the church of which place he is buried. He died on the 25th of July, 1780.—E.

115 Lord Temple, in a letter to Lady Chatham, of the 10th of May, (Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 308,) notices these speeches very slightingly, and says the whole debate was of the most superlative dulness. Edward Kynaston, of Hardwicke, in the county of Salop, the eldest surviving son of John Kynaston, of the same place, the claimant of the ancient Barony of Powys, was member for Montgomeryshire; he died without issue in 1772.—E.

116 He said to Onslow, in private, “Whatever you say to me, is fair; but there is one man, Martin, whose words I will never forget or forgive.”

117 This was so entirely the motive of his conduct, that he wrote to his brother, Lord Hertford, at Paris, that he had voted against the Princess from the fear of being taxed with selfish views.

118 Mr. White, M. P. for East Retford, an old member, highly respected by the Whig party in the House of Commons.—E.

119 She was divorced from him by act of Parliament, for his cruel usage, and then married John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. She was natural daughter of King James the Second.

120 William Henry Cavendish, third Duke. He had succeeded to the title on the death of his father in 1762, and was at this time only twenty-seven years of age.—E.

121 The King’s youngest brother.

122 The object of the promoters of the bill was to obtain a total prohibition of the importation of foreign silks. This was not the only instance of the Duke of Bedford’s knowledge of political economy. Horace Walpole says elsewhere, that “he spoke readily, and upon trade well.”—E.

123 Robert Henley, Earl of Northington.

124 Annual Register for 1765, p. 42.—E.

125 Gertrude Leveson, daughter of John Lord Gower, and second wife of John Russell, Duke of Bedford.

126 Bedford House stands on the north side of Bloomsbury Square. It has low walls in front, and a garden backwards, with a fossé to the fields. [It was built from a design by Inigo Jones, and has shared the fate of other great mansions in the same quarter of London.—E.]

127 Their son was married to one of Lord Bute’s daughters.

128 A broken wine merchant, brother of Admiral Cotes.

129 Lord Sandwich was the head of Mr. Wortley Montagu’s family.—E.

130 Yet the same indiscreet step did the King take again in 1783, when he dismissed the Duke of Portland and Lord North, and what was called the Coalition, before he had made sure of another Administration; and he was for a few days in danger of being obliged to recal those he had just removed; Lord Temple, son of George Grenville, not daring to undertake the Administration after he had consented; and Mr. Pitt, son of Lord Chatham, being almost as timid, and fluctuating backwards and forwards for three or four days, before he at last determined to accept.

131 In a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, of the 19th of May, the Duke of Bedford states, that he plainly charged the King on this occasion with having “very unfaithfully kept” the conditions on which he (the Duke) had accepted office, and urged on him the necessity of forming an efficient Administration. The only result was, that “I left him,” says the Duke, “as did all the rest, without being able to get an explicit answer.”—(Mem. of the House of Russell, vol. ii. p. 560.)—E.

132 In setting no bounds to his hostilities, Lord Holland’s fear operated as much as his resentment. He said to me with great earnestness, “If Mr. Pitt should not be content with taking away my place, but should say, I will have a mark set on him!”

133 This negotiation is not noticed in Lord Chatham’s published Correspondence.—E.

134 George William Hervey, second Earl of Bristol.

135 Admiral Augustus John Hervey, brother of the Earl of Bristol, on whose death he succeeded to the title. He was a gallant and able officer, and had distinguished himself at the Havannah; but he was not without some of the peculiarities of disposition that seemed to belong to his family, and his memory subsequently suffered from the trial of his widow, the Duchess of Kingston (the soi-disant Miss Chudleigh.) He died without issue in 1779.—E.

136 George Grenville was brother of Lady Hester, Mr. Pitt’s wife, lately created Baroness.

137 It has been said, that Lord Temple’s estate, by a flaw, was in his own power.

138 James Stuart Mackenzie, only brother of Lord Bute.

139 Mr. Mackenzie resigned immediately upon learning that his exclusion was an object with the Government and would accommodate the King. He was a very amiable man, and no objection was ever raised to him beyond his relationship to Lord Bute. Letter of Mr. Mackenzie, Mitchell MSS., note to vol. ii. p. 312, of Lord Chatham’s Correspondence.—E.

140 Rigby swore a great oath that the King should not have power to appoint one of his own footmen.

141 Yet Lord Holland could never obtain any indemnification, nor attain an earldom, though he often solicited it in the most earnest manner, and by every interest he could employ.

142 Thomas Thynne, third Viscount Weymouth. His mother had been one of the daughters and co-heiresses of the famous John Earl Granville. He had married a sister of the Duke of Portland, and was at this time about thirty-one years old. He was a man of talents, and of very lively conversation; though it is said that to profit by the latter it was necessary to follow him to White’s, to drink deep of claret, and remain at table to a very late hour of the night, or rather of the morning. His dissipated habits, indeed, were notorious. Junius has alluded to them with bitterness, and indulged in a profane jest at his expense. (Letter xxiii.) His straitened circumstances made his nomination very unpopular in Ireland, and he never went over, (Mr. Croker’s note in Walpole’s Letters, vol. v. p. 42,) which, however, did not prevent, if we are to believe Junius, his obtaining an outfit of £3000. His subsequent career was very prosperous. See Wraxall’s Historical Memoirs.—E.

143 George Montague, Duke of Manchester.

144 John Campbell, Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of John Duke of Argyle.

145 Mr. Thurlow’s nomination to this post has been denied. He had been only seven years at the bar, and was already rising rapidly in the estimation of the profession; within five years he became Solicitor-General.—E.

146 He was Lord-Lieutenant of Lincolnshire, where he had a great estate. He died in 1778.—E.

147 The original MS. states the interview to have been on the 20th of June, obviously by a clerical error, for that date would make the narrative unintelligible. In a letter to Sir Horace Mann, of the 26th (Letters, i. p. 237), the day is correctly stated to be the 12th, which is confirmed by a letter of the Duke of Bedford to the Duke of Marlborough, of the 13th, giving the details of the interview.—(Wiffen’s Memoirs of the House of Russell, p. 70.)—I have ventured to correct the text accordingly.—E.

148 If this narrative be true, Junius is not the libeller that the world has supposed, and the King was unquestionably treated by his Ministers in a manner to which a parallel is only to be found in the reign of Charles the First. George the Third, however, was not, as Lord Brougham justly observes, (Historical Sketches, &c., vol. iii. p. 144,) the monarch to submit to such treatment,—neither was Sandwich or Halifax likely to have sanctioned it. Indeed Walpole must be mistaken in making them parties to the transaction. In a letter written at the time, he intimates that the Duke of Bedford alone waited upon the King (i. 238); he takes no notice of any written paper, nor is there any trace of such a document among the archives at Woburn. The only authentic account of the interview is given in the letter of the Duke to his nephew the Duke of Marlborough, cited in the preceding note, the general tenor of which proves beyond dispute the writer to have been innocent of any design to insult the King, as well as ignorant that he had done so. His Grace says that he reminded the King of the terms on which the Ministers had consented to resume their functions, and asked whether the promise made to them on that occasion had been kept. He complained of the favour shown to the opponents of the Administration, and the very different treatment received by their friends, dwelling especially on the influence of Lord Bute; and, finally, he besought his Majesty “to permit his authority and his favour to go together, and if the last could not be given to his present Ministers to transfer to others that authority which must be useless in their hands unless so strengthened.” Strong words these, no doubt, and an offensive interpretation may have been put upon them by a youthful sovereign with the notions of prerogative inculcated by Lord Bute—a political opponent (like Burke) might not unfairly insinuate them to be “indecent.” They furnish also a colourable foundation for the statement in the text, which is not unlikely to have been derived partially from the King himself. On the other hand, a dispassionate observer must take into consideration the general truth of the Duke’s charges; the feelings of the Ministers at their dismissal on grounds which appeared to them utterly inadequate; and, above all, their sense of the public danger resulting from the unsatisfactory relations of the King with his government. The limits prescribed by the constitution to a remonstrance of this nature are very indistinct, and the Duke will be held to have outstepped them only by the opponent of the political opinions with which the House of Russell have been so long and so honourably identified.—E.

149 The most plausible explanation of Lord Temple’s conduct on this occasion is, that he acted on grounds purely personal. It appears from Lady Hervey’s Letters—an excellent authority—that as far back as March his connection with Mr. Pitt had in a great measure ceased. His pride may have been gratified by the advances made to him by the leading members of the Government, as unquestionably it was deeply wounded by the proofs he had lately received of his diminished influence over the Opposition. The gratification of his vengeance cost him dear, for the Liberal party never forgave him, and the event showed how entirely his importance with the country had arisen from his relation to Mr. Pitt. The engagements into which he immediately after entered with Mr. Grenville, only served to obstruct his return to power, and, as will be seen hereafter, to involve him in embarrassments still more prejudicial to his reputation.—E.

150 Lord Villiers was the intimate friend of the Duke of Grafton, whose attachment was to Mr. Pitt.

151 Charles (not the famous one, but his first-cousin) was the only son of Colonel W. Townshend, third son of Charles Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State. This Charles Townshend was, for distinction, called the Spanish Charles, from having been secretary to Sir Benjamin Keene, Ambassador at Madrid, and was afterwards a Commissioner of the Treasury.

152 John Earl of Ashburnham, the chief favourite of the Duke of Newcastle, whom he afterwards abandoned, being a very prudent and interested man.

153 T. Walpole was attached to Mr. Pitt.

154 It certainly was time that they should enter upon the business of their respective offices, for the country had now been more than seven weeks virtually without a government. The following chronological summary of the negotiations that passed daily at this period will bring them more distinctly before the reader.

18th May. The King announced to Mr. Grenville his intention of changing his Ministers.

19th. The Ministers acquaint the King that they would resign on the following Tuesday.

20th. The Duke of Cumberland applies to Mr. Pitt, at Hayes.

20th. The King, having failed to form a new government, recalls his Ministers.

12th June. The Duke of Bedford remonstrates with the King.

17th. The Duke of Cumberland conveys to Mr. Pitt, at Hayes, fresh overtures from the King.

19th. Mr. Pitt has an audience with the King.

21st. Lord Temple refuses to join Mr. Pitt.

22nd. Mr. Pitt waits on the King and declines office.

23rd. Mr. Pitt has another audience, with the same result.

30th. Meeting of the Opposition at Claremont, under the auspices of the Duke of Cumberland.

1st July. The Duke of Newcastle notifies to the Duke of Cumberland the result of the meeting.

8th. New Ministers sworn in.—E.

155 William Dowdeswell, formerly a Tory.

156 Thomas, eldest son of Thomas Townshend, Teller of the Exchequer, and member for the University of Cambridge, and second son of Charles Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State.

157 Henry Arthur Herbert, Earl of Powis. He died in 1772.

158 George third Lord Edgcumbe, an admiral.

159 Richard Lumley Saunderson, Earl of Scarborough; he had married the sister of Sir George Saville.

160 Thomas, afterwards Lord Pelham.

161 Next brother to Daniel Earl of Winchelsea, father of the succeeding earl.

162 Thomas Viscount Gage, attached to the Duke of Newcastle, whom he afterwards abandoned as Lord Ashburnham did, to keep their places.

163 Sir Fletcher Norton.

164 Little is now known of Mr. Dowdeswell, beyond the high estimation in which he was held by the Whig party. His epitaph is by no means the happiest of Burke’s compositions; but amidst the cloud of panegyric the rays of truth exhibit a character of genuine English mould which it is very agreeable to contemplate. In a private letter, Burke says, “There never was a soul so remote as his from fraud, duplicity, or fear, so perfectly free from any of that rapacious unevenness of temper which embitters friendship and perplexes business. Of all the men I ever knew, he was the best to act with in public and to live with in private, from the manly decision and firmness of his judgment, and the extreme mildness and pleasantness of his temper.” His speeches, imperfectly as they are reported, prove him to have been a man of plain, sound, vigorous understanding, and not without respectable powers of debate. Burke exalts his knowledge of the revenue. He certainly was one of the leading members of the House, previous to his appointment, and the distinction conferred upon him was generally approved, Charles Townshend being forward to claim the merit of having suggested it. See the interesting Memoirs of Mr. Dowdeswell, in Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, i. 575.—E.

165 The opinion entertained of Lord Rockingham by many of the most eminent men of his time, is alone sufficient to prove him not to have been the feeble-minded and insignificant character described in the text. He had the disadvantage of coming early into the possession of a princely fortune. His youth was wasted in the pursuits too common with his rank, and the only official employment he had as yet filled was that of a Lord of the Bedchamber. From the time, however, that he applied himself seriously to politics, he gradually obtained an ascendancy over his associates such as was possessed by no cotemporary statesman,—even the opinions of Lord Chatham having less weight with the more reflecting and intelligent members of the Liberal party than those of Lord Rockingham. A singular instance of this ascendancy used to be related by the late Lord Spencer, who happened to witness it. At a meeting of the Whigs, in 1782, preparatory to Lord Rockingham’s last Administration, his Lordship read a list of the appointments which he proposed to submit to the King. As soon as he uttered the name of Mr. Sheridan as Under-Secretary of State, the latter, then a young man, justly conscious of great abilities, and expecting a much higher post, exclaimed, in an indignant tone, “I will not accept!” Lord Rockingham fixing his eye on him, calmly but emphatically exclaimed, “You shall.” Sheridan seemed perfectly daunted, bowed his head, and made no further remonstrance. It was very rare, said Lord Spencer, that Lord Rockingham’s decisions did not meet the immediate acquiescence of the party. Nor was this purchased by the arts that exhausted the revenues and lowered the character of the Duke of Newcastle. Lord Rockingham stood clear of any charge of parliamentary corruption. His mode of living, though noble as suited his rank, was simple and unostentatious, and the disinterestedness of his political supporters may be inferred from the honourable boast of one of the most needy of them, that they had derived no permanent provision from his acceptance of office.A The same friendly pen has recorded, in the noble monumental inscription at Wentworth, “that his virtues were his arts,” and no doubt he was a virtuous, high-minded, amiable man; but he owed his success mainly to “a clear, sound, unadulterated sense,” which showed itself in great discretion, sagacity, and tact. His views were generally correct, and his firmness and perseverance never yielded in the most adverse and discouraging crisis, as was strongly evinced in the great American contest; and thus without eloquence, or any large share of the qualifications which usually confer eminence on popular leaders, he retained his political supremacy to the close of his life.—E.

166 Lady Elizabeth Finch, youngest sister of Daniel Earl of Winchelsea, and of the Marchioness-dowager of Rockingham.

167 Lord Northington.

168 George Lord Townshend.

169 “The vacillation of this eminent person was so decided as materially to lessen his influence and general consideration.” (See Charles Townshend’s singular Letter to Mr. Dowdeswell. Cavendish’s Debates, i. p. 576.) It eventually drew him to that fatal step which ruined his peace of mind and hurried him to the grave.—E.

170 John Yorke. He died in 1769.—E.

171 The Marchioness of Grey, wife of Philip Yorke, second Earl of Hardwicke, was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Breadalbane by his first wife, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the last Duke of Kent.

172 Mr. Pitt’s reply, however, was cold and ungracious, and the Ministers must have been men of a very sanguine temperament to derive any comfort from it. His repudiation of the charge is clogged by such a distinct avowal of want of confidence in the Government, as must have defeated the object for which the letter was most wanted. It could hardly have been shown, except to friends.—Chatham Correspondence, ii. 319. It does more credit to the Duke than to Mr. Pitt.—E.

173 Henry Lord Digby, an Irish baron, nephew of Lord Holland.

174 The fact was this: Grenville, afraid of publishing his rapaciousness before he was sure of success, had forborne to mention the business to his brethren, the Commissioners of the Treasury, and even to inquire if the reversion was not already granted; but, going directly to the King, asked for the reversion. The King was very loth to bestow it on him; and, on being much pressed, said, “Mr. Grenville, I thought you were a severe enemy to all reversions!” Instead of being abashed, he had the confidence to reply: “Sir, if your Majesty will grant me this, I will take care you shall never give away another.” The King yielded. When Grenville notified the boon at the Treasury, he learned, to his inexpressible mortification, that the reversion was already engaged. Yet in the year 1770 he had the front, in Parliament, to censure a lucrative grant for life to Dyson!