96 Elizabeth Gunning, sister of the celebrated Countess of Coventry, had first married the Duke of Hamilton, and afterwards John Campbell, Marquis of Lorn, eldest son of John Duke of Argyle, whom he succeeded in the title, and thus became mother of the two heirs of the great rival houses of Hamilton and Argyle. She was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte, and had gone to fetch her from Mecklenburg, with the Duchess of Ancaster, Mistress of the Robes. Her eldest son, Duke Hamilton, died before he was of age. Lord Douglas Hamilton, his brother, succeeded him. The Duchess Elizabeth, as guardian of her sons, carried on the famous law-suit against Mr. Douglas for the succession of his (supposed) uncle, the Duke of Douglas, of which more will be said hereafter. By Duke Hamilton she had one daughter, Lady Elizabeth, afterwards married to the Earl of Derby. By Lord Lorn she had two sons, the eldest of which died an infant, and two daughters. In her widowhood she had refused the hand of the Duke of Bridgwater. She was entirely governed by the artful Lady Susan Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Galloway, afterwards Countess Gower, on whose account she much offended the Queen, as will be said hereafter; but recovering her favour, was created an English Baroness, for the benefit of her eldest son, Duke Hamilton. It is very remarkable that this great lady and her sister, Lady Coventry, had been originally so poor, that they had thoughts of being actresses; and when they were first presented to the Earl of Harrington, the Lord-Lieutenant, at the Castle of Dublin, Mrs. Woffington, the actress, lent clothes to them. They no sooner appeared in England than their beauty drew crowds after them wherever they went. Duke Hamilton married the second in such haste, that, having no ring ready, they made use of one from the bed-curtain. The Duchess was more delicate than her sister, with the most beautiful hands and arms in the world; but Lady Coventry was still handsomer, had infinite life and vivacity, the finest eyes in the world, nose, and mouth, excepting that both had bad teeth. Lady Coventry danced like a nymph, and was too kind a one. The Duchess always preserved her character. Lady Coventry died young, of a consumption. Till within a few days of her death she lay on a couch with a looking-glass in her hand. When she found her beauty, which she idolized, was quite gone, she took to her bed, and would be seen by nobody—not even by her nurse, suffering only the light of a lamp in her room. She then took leave of her husband, who had forgiven her errors, and died with the utmost resignation. It was in October. I had dined with her in the foregoing June, with my niece, the beautiful Lady Waldegrave, then just married, since Duchess of Gloucester. They stood in the window in the full sun, and though Lady Coventry was wasted and faded, and Lady Waldegrave in all her glow of beauty, in spite of my partiality to my niece, I could not but own to myself that Lady Coventry was still superior. It was a less triumph, as Lord Pembroke was so fickle, that Lady Coventry gave great uneasiness to his lovely wife, Lady Elizabeth Spencer, who, in the Madonna style, was divinely beautiful. As the Gunnings made so much noise, it may be excused in a note if I mention another anecdote. Soon after Lady Coventry was married, I was at an assembly at Bedford House, and drew together, her, the charming Lady Emily Lenox, then Marchioness of Kildare, and since Duchess of Leinster, and Mrs. Penelope Pitt, since Lady Rivers (the two last celebrated in my poem of “The Beauties;”) I said I wanted to decide which was the handsomest. They said I should declare. I replied, that was hard, but since they insisted, I would—and “I give it,” added I, “to Lady Kildare, because she does what you both try to do—blush.” These trifling anecdotes may at least be as amusing us the more serious follies committed by and about Wilkes.

97 Mr. Jenkinson had also a powerful family interest in Oxfordshire, being the eldest son of Colonel Charles Jenkinson, whose father and brother, each a Sir Robert Jenkinson, had in turn represented the county for many years. His introduction to public life has been always ascribed to the zealous and effectual support he gave to Lord Parker and Sir Edward Turner in the famous contest for the county, in 1754, when many successful poetical squibs came from his pen. Sir Edward Turner or his friend Lord Harcourt, the chief of the Oxfordshire Tories, certainly obtained for him the post of private secretary to Lord Bute.—E.

98 Lord Baltimore was properly acquitted, but the trial brought before the public such disgusting instances of his profligacy as to render the intervention of the Methodists to direct the indignation of the people against him quite superfluous. He soon after went abroad, and died at Naples in 1771, and having left no issue by his wife, a daughter of the Duke of Kingston, his title became extinct.—(Selwyn and his Contemporaries, vol. ii.)—He published in 1767 “A Tour in the Year 1763–4, with Remarks on the East, and the Turks, &c.” It was reprinted in 1768, and has since become very rare. A curious account of it and of its author is given in the “Bibliothèque des Voyages,” vol. ii. p. 79.—E.

99 The report of these proceedings by Sir James Burrow would in some measure justify this observation of Walpole, for there seems from it to have been much coquetting between the Bench and the Attorney-General (De Grey), and an apparent desire by each to shift the responsibility upon the shoulders of the other. In delivering judgment upon the two cross motions then before the Court, viz. that of the Attorney-General for Wilkes’s committal, and that of Serjeant Glynn that Wilkes should be admitted to bail, Lord Mansfield makes this remarkable admission:—“I have no doubt we might take notice of him upon his voluntary appearance as the person outlawed and commit or bail him, but we are not absolutely bound to do it without some reason to excuse the going out of the regular course.” And in reference to the conduct of the Attorney-General he thus expresses himself, “I don’t see why the Attorney-General should demand of the Court to commit the defendant upon the outlawry, when he himself has suffered him to go at large without any attempt to take him up, or even issuing process against him.” (Rex v. Wilkes,—Burrow’s Reports, vol. iv. p. 2531–5.)—E.

100 The reason assigned for these voluntary errors is, that the punishment of outlawry is greater than the crime on which it is inflicted—but is it more sensible to facilitate the defeat of an outlawry than to lessen too rigorous a punishment? [This was the ground mainly relied on by Mr. Justice Yates in his judgment, but was not adverted to either by Lord Mansfield, Mr. Justice Acton, or Mr. Justice Willes, in disposing of these preliminary motions. It is now admitted that the object of the process in outlawry is not penal, but to enforce the personal appearance of the party against whom it is issued.—E.]

101 This is probably a mistake for Northampton, in the contest for which and the ensuing petition Lord Spencer expended at least 70,000l.—E.

102 The Duke of Grafton says in his Memoirs, that at the first Cabinet no one contemplated the difficulties which afterwards arose out of Wilkes’s case. Many persons, among whom was Walpole himself, considered that Parliament was the very place where Wilkes would do least hurt. (Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 31st of March, vol. i. p. 384.)—E.

103 Walpole’s statement of the decided view taken by the King of Wilkes’s case from the very first is perfectly correct. In a letter to Lord North of the 25th of April, the King says, “Though entirely relying on your attachment to my person as well as in your hatred of any lawless proceeding, yet I think it highly expedient to apprise you that the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes appears to be very essential and must be effected. The case of Mr. Ward, in the reign of my great-grandfather, seems to point out the proper mode of proceeding. If any man were capable of forgetting his criminal writings, his speech in court last Wednesday, &c.”—(This extract was made by the editor from the King’s letters to Lord North,—a very curious and interesting collection, of which the friendship of Lord Brougham obtained him the perusal from Lady Charlotte Lindsay.)—E.

104 His daughter returning from France at the time of the Dauphin’s wedding, when all post-horses were stopped for the service and relays of the Dauphiness, who was expected from Vienna, Miss Wilkes was regularly furnished with post-horses to Calais. [There is no confirmation of this statement in Wilkes’s correspondence, nor is it reconcilable with the fact that he was at that period in great distress for even small sums. The suspicion, however, was very general. Lacretelle says, “Wilkes, en agitant sa patrie, servit si bien les desseins du Duc de Choiseul que quelques Anglais le regardèrent comme son agent secret.”—Histoire de France, vol iv. p. 175.—E.]

105 See infra, p. 211.—E.

106 Lord Mansfield, sitting by the Duke of Bedford in the House of Lords, said, if something vigorous was not done immediately, there would be a revolution in ten days, and the Government overturned,—yet when a motion was made against the riot, that dastardly magistrate sat still and did not utter a syllable.

107 The Duke of Grafton states in his MS. Memoirs, on the authority of Mr. Bradshaw, who was present at the meeting, that with one exception the company “were for expelling Wilkes on the double ground of outlawry and conviction. Mr. Conway declared as much before he came away. The single exception was Mr. Hussey, who expressed himself strongly against a second expulsion for the same offence in being the author of a political libel, for he said that Wilkes’s conviction for the poem could not be thought of in the House of Commons without coupling it with the means used to obtain evidence against him.”—E.

108 The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 5–17. The disunion that prevailed among the Opposition, some treating the riots as most alarming, others as comparatively unimportant, gave the Government great advantage in the discussion. It may be inferred from the Duke of Grafton’s MS. Memoirs that the Government had been taken by surprise. He says, “It was extraordinary that this combination of the seamen was not foreseen by the merchants in a case wherein they were so much interested; for if the slightest information had reached the Admiralty, a few frigates and light vessels brought up the river would have easily supported the civil power in preventing any outrage.”—E.

109 Mr. Harley was the fourth son of Edward, third Earl of Oxford. He had been bred a merchant, his father having succeeded to the title late in life through a collateral limitation on the death of the second Earl without male issue. His success in business, and his personal worth, and perhaps still more, his birth, made him a considerable person in the City. As a politician he seems to have given an unvarying and indiscriminate support to almost every Administration. In 1776 he had the good fortune to extricate himself from City politics by being elected Member for Herefordshire, where he had a large estate, and he continued to represent the county almost till the time of his death, at an advanced age, in 1804.—E.

110 See Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 21–26. After Lord Barrington, as Secretary at War, had moved for leave to bring in the bill, Lord North said that he did not know whether he should or should not oppose the motion! On the second discussion, when the measure was virtually dropped, Lord Barrington assured the House that the bill did not proceed from any consultation of the Ministers, but from himself as a Minister of the Crown, and on that ground he protested against the Opposition claiming a triumph from its withdrawal,—a declaration that enabled Mr. Burke to say fairly enough that there could be no triumph over such weak and broken troops. If, however, the statement made by Lord Barrington was correct, it strengthens the suspicion elsewhere expressed in these notes that he acted on this as on other occasions at the King’s instigation. See p. 273.—E.

111 Charles Wolfran Cornwall was of an ancient family in Herefordshire, being the son of Job Cornwall, a younger son of Charles Cornwall of Benington, to which estate Mr. Cornwall eventually succeeded. He was bred to the bar, but left it on his marriage. This was his first Parliament. He soon gained the ear of the House, and his name may be found in most debates of any importance even in this session. He had an agreeable address, and a neat clear persuasive style, which if it seldom rose to eloquence always ensured him attention, which he had the tact not to abuse by speaking at great length. He was exceedingly well informed, especially on all points of constitutional law. Notwithstanding his connection with Mr. Jenkinson, whose sister he had married, he joined in opposition to the Government, having attached himself to Lord Shelburne, who already aspired to be the patron of the rising talent of the day, and adopting the views of that nobleman, he distinguished himself by his speeches against the course pursued by the Ministers in their contest with Mr. Wilkes, and in their policy towards America. His speeches, as reported by Cavendish, are able, temperate, and manly. In 1774 he separated himself rather abruptly from his political friends by accepting a Lordship of the Treasury. In 1780 he was proposed by Lord North for the Speakership, to succeed Sir Fletcher Norton and elected without opposition. His acknowledged abilities and experience, with the advantages of a sonorous voice, a fine figure, and commanding deportment, seemed to give him every qualification for his office. For a time the public were not disappointed, but as his physical strength yielded to the fatigues of the long and constant sittings of that period, his reputation also declined, until it was wrecked in the furious party conflicts that succeeded the Coalition. If the frequent changes of Government rendered his position embarrassing, he aggravated these difficulties by his irresolution, so that all parties attacked him in turn. He certainly lost the consideration of the House, and from the suspicions entertained by Pitt of his bias towards Fox during the King’s illness, he would probably have been removed from the Chair at the next dissolution: but he was spared this blow. The following extract from Mr. Wilberforce’s diary is the only record that has come under my notice of the conclusion of his public and private life:—

“January 1st.—Last night the Speaker put off the House by a note in Warren’s handwriting, after he had sent word that he had passed a good night—we suspect a trick.

“January 2nd.—Cornwall the Speaker died after a short illness this morning. We had laughed at his indisposition the day before, thinking him be-Warrened.”—(Life of Wilberforce, i. 199.)

By a singular coincidence his predecessor in the Chair, Lord Grantley, died only the day before him. The Speaker left no children. He had sold the Benington estate some years before to Alderman Harley. (See more of him in Wraxall’s Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 53; vol. iii. p. 258.)—E.

112 Captain the Hon. Constantine Phipps, R.N., M.P. for Lincoln, eldest son of Lord Mulgrave, a nephew of Lord Bristol. His knowledge of law could not have been very deep, considering that he was at this time barely twenty-two years old; still it was remarkable for a sailor, and he lost no opportunity of displaying it or indeed any of his other attainments, for he put himself forward in every debate of public interest with unwearied and systematic pertinacity. His speeches have gained him a place in history from their being almost the only records extant of some very important debates, and he deserves credit for the pains which, with a forethought then rare, he took in revising them for the press; but even with this advantage, they bear no traces of eloquence. He is said to have been a dull debater. There was little of animation or interest in his manner of expressing himself, and his deportment was as destitute of grace as his figure, the heavy colossal scale of which gained him the appellation of Ursa Major, to distinguish him from his younger brother, who had also a seat in the House. His voice also was particularly inharmonious. He had, indeed, two distinct voices,—the one strong and hoarse, the other weak and querulous, of both of which he occasionally availed himself. So extraordinary a circumstance probably gave rise to a story of his falling into a ditch on a dark night, and calling for aid in his shrill voice. A countryman coming up was about to have assisted him, but Captain Phipps addressing him in a hoarse tone, the man immediately exclaimed, “If there are two of you in the ditch you may help each other out of it.” His merit lay in his industry, information, and acuteness; these were indisputable, and made him a formidable opponent, especially as he was a man of great resolution. No superiority in talent or position could intimidate him, and it was with equal indifference that when almost a boy he used to provoke the patience of Lord North; and in maturer years he courted the indignation of Fox, then in the zenith of his fame. Notwithstanding his obligations to Lord Bristol, by whom his father had recently been raised to the peerage, he generally went with the popular party,—a line of conduct that would have gained him lasting honour, had he not afterwards accepted office under Lord North, and thenceforward supported the Government with the same zeal and vigour which he had previously shown in opposing it. His “tried integrity and worth” are sarcastically noticed in the Rolliad. After the fall of Lord North, he, in common with other friends of that Minister, joined Mr. Pitt. He proved an useful ally, especially in the debates on the Westminster scrutiny, in which he took a very active part, and thus brought upon himself the resentment and attacks of the Opposition wits, as well as a prominent place in the Rolliad. He was consoled, however, by the lucrative post of Joint-Paymaster, and a British peerage. Lord Mulgrave died in 1792. He is the author of “A Narrative of a Voyage of Observation and Discovery to the North Pole, in 1773,” a work of considerable merit. The expedition failed, owing to the ships getting entangled in the ice near Spitsbergen; but the philosophical observations made on the voyage received no addition during more than half a century afterwards.

Lord Mulgrave having died without issue, was succeeded in his Irish title by his brother Henry, whose career was at least equally successful, for he raised himself to the highest posts in the Government, as well as an English Earldom. The Marquis of Normanby is his eldest son.—E.

113 He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Cavendish, Bart., of Doveridge Hall, Derbyshire, and afterwards had some lucrative offices in Ireland. His wife, the heiress of Mr. Bradshaw, was created Baroness in 1792. He died in 1804. It is to him that the public are indebted for the very interesting reports of the debates in Parliament, of which the first volume was published in 1841 by the late Mr. Wright,—an astonishing work for a man of his station, fortune, and pursuits, and incomparably the best—indeed the only faithful record of the proceedings in Parliament in the early part of this reign. It would have been far more valuable if he had taken the pains to give the words of the speakers in the passages of their speeches that were the most successful—his abridgment of course conveying a very imperfect and inadequate idea of any rhetorical excellence; hence, we rise from the perusal of his reports of Burke with some disappointment. Still, the work cannot be too carefully consulted by all who wish to gain an accurate insight into the history of the period which it embraces. One proof of Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Cavendish’s correctness is, that his reports of his own speeches go far to justify Walpole’s account of him.—E.

114 Eldest son of Simon Lord Irnham, who had two other sons—Temple, who was a poet, and had parts, but proved a tedious orator; and the third, who was a seaman, and had most parts of the three. He had also two daughters, of whom Anne, the elder, then married to a Mr. Horton, was very engaging, and rose afterwards to a very extraordinary rank.

115 This was very like his pitiful countryman James the First, who had disclaimed his own son-in-law, the King of Bohemia, when elected for their Prince by an oppressed nation.

116 It is true Lord Granville had provoked the Genoese in the year 1743 by the treaty of Worms, in which he had proposed to force Final from the Genoese, and give it to the King of Sardinia. France had rescued Genoa from the Austrians. Still, there was no moral or political reason for our taking part for the Genoese against the Corsicans. The despotic principles of Lord Bute suggested that preference.

117 The debate on the Adjournment is reported in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 28–31. It turned chiefly on the disturbances among sailors.—E.

118 In a letter on these proceedings written shortly before the judgment reversing the outlawry, Walpole says, “In short, my dear sir, I am trying to explain what I really do not understand.” (To Sir Horace Mann, vol. i. p. 392.) That he was not better informed at the date of these Memoirs, is proved by the statement in the text. It was, however, no disgrace to be ignorant of the absurd technicalities by which Lord Mansfield’s very able judgment is defaced; nor should they attach any stain to the memory of a judge who had to expound the law and not to make it. Lord Mansfield’s love of the prerogative did not in this instance lead him into the slightest injustice. Following the order which the form of the proceedings naturally suggested, he commenced with an elaborate and lucid examination of all the arguments which the ingenuity of the defendant’s counsel, arguing from the reversal of the outlawry, had most ably urged; and after carefully reviewing and combating each seriatim, he disposes of them in these words: “These are the errors which have been objected, and this the manner and form in which they are assigned. For the reasons I have given, I cannot allow them.” After a spirited vindication of his character, and a bold declaration of the utter indifference in which he held all the menaces by which he had been publicly and privately assailed, he proceeds to advert to a technical error in the “Writ of Exigent,” which by a series of precedents and cases ranging from the 7th of James the First to the 18th of Charles the Second (a period of sixty years), he shows to be fatal to the writ, and on that ground decides that the outlawry could not stand, adding at the conclusion of his judgment, “I beg to be understood that I ground my opinion singly upon the authority of the cases adjudged, which as they are on the favourable side, in a criminal case highly penal, I think ought not to be departed from.”—Burrow’s Reports, vol. iv. p. 2561.

The error upon which the reversal proceeded was, that after the words “at the County Court” the writ altogether omitted to state “of the County of Middlesex,” a ground obviously different from that which Walpole here suggests. It is observable, also, that the discovery of this error had not, as Walpole states, been made by Serjeant Glynn “two months before in his pleading;” it is probable, however, that Walpole may have confounded this with another error relied on by the Serjeant, but overruled by the court,—namely, that the averment “Brook Street near Holborn in the County of Middlesex” was not a sufficient averment that Brook Street was in Middlesex.

A clear account of these proceedings is given in the Life of Lord Mansfield (No. XI. of the Law Magazine), in an able and yet not servile defence by that eminent lawyer, who, with all his defects of character, will always be regarded as one of the brightest ornaments of British jurisprudence. It was written by Mr. Plunket, the author of a history of the Roman law, who has since died, a Puisne Judge of St. Lucia.—E.

119 Mr. Townshend was the eldest son of the Hon. Thomas Townshend, second son of Charles, Viscount Townshend, and M.P. for Whitchurch. He prided himself on his family and fortune, and probably resented the preference shown to a political adventurer, such as Rigby. An additional motive for his resigning was his attachment to Lord Chatham, with whom he soon entered into violent opposition to the Government. He ranked high among the second-rate speakers in the House. The Whigs proposed him for the Chair against Sir Fletcher Norton, 1770, of course unsuccessfully. He was one of the Secretaries of State in Lord Shelburne’s Administration, and distinguished himself by a most able defence of the peace.—(Wraxall’s Historical Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 289.)—In 1783, the friendship of Mr. Pitt, with whom he had become connected by the marriage of his daughter with the second Lord Chatham, raised him to the peerage as Lord Sydney, and restored him the Seals of Secretary, which he held till 1789. He died in 1800. He was an accomplished classical scholar, and indefatigably industrious.—E.

120 The Pope published a most satisfactory refutation of the claim of the French Government, but the French troops retained their conquest. A body of French troops under the Marquis de Rochecourt took possession of Avignon on the 11th of June. No resistance was offered by the papal authorities, the Legate only making a protest, accompanied by a declaration that the invaders had subjected themselves to the ecclesiastical penalties enumerated in the Bull In Cænâ Domini. The plea set up by the French was the invalidity of the original alienation of Avignon to the Pope by Jeanne of Naples in 1368. The Pope published a reply, which was thought conclusive by all but the French, who retained possession of the territory they had seized, until it suited their interests to resign it.—E.

121 The Duke of Grafton states in his MS. Memoirs that Lord Rochford’s instructions only stopped short of a declaration of war. “At one time Lord Rochford was confident that he should have succeeded, and wrote over that the Duc de Choiseul’s language had so much softened, that he had every hope that the French Ambassador would not risk the attempt. In the audience of the next week, he found to his great surprise the former tone taken up; and in a private letter to me, he attributed the strange change in the Duc to the imprudent declaration of a great law Lord (Lord Mansfield), then at Paris, at one of the Minister’s tables, that the English Ministry were too weak, and the nation too wise, to support them in entering into a war for the sake of Corsica.” The remonstrances thus made by Lord Rochford having failed, the Duke of Grafton dispatched Captain Dunant, a Genevese officer, who had served with distinction in the Swiss troops of the King of Sardinia, to Corsica, with the view of learning how far assistance could be surreptitiously afforded to Paoli by the English Government, and the result of the mission was, that the Corsicans obtained several thousand stand of arms from the stock at the Tower. Lord Camden seems to have been ready to have gone further. The Duke of Grafton saw no necessity for an immediate decision, being under the impression that the Corsicans might still hold out; and the events which followed, and will be mentioned hereafter, took him completely by surprise. (Duke of Grafton’s MS. Memoirs.)—E.

122 Almon says the sentence was condemned by everybody as unjustifiably severe. On the other hand, Mr. Grenville, in his celebrated speech against Lord Barrington’s motion for Wilkes’s expulsion, comments on it as very lenient, and contrasts it with Dr. Shebbeare’s, who for his Sixth Letter to the People of England was sentenced to be fined, to stand in the pillory, to be imprisoned for three years, and to give security for good behaviour for seven years. This, too, was whilst Mr. Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden) was Attorney-General. (Cavendish, vol. i. p. 160.)—E.

123 The Archbishop could with little propriety have set on foot such a prosecution, having in the early part of his life exceeded Anet in the latitude of his irreligion. Whether he incited it or not, I do not know. It is justice to his character to say that he privately allowed Anet 50l. a-year to support him in prison, where he died. [This charge against the Archbishop also made by Walpole elsewhere, has been repeatedly refuted. It appears to rest on the very slender foundation of a foolish story told by some superannuated companion of Secker’s at Leyden, where the latter, in the fulness of his passion for metaphysics, probably indulged in paradoxes by way of argumentative exercises, which it would be very unjust to regard as his real opinion. Bishop Watson, when a student at Trinity, wrote a paper to refute Clarke’s main argument to prove the existence of God, yet no one ever thought of calling him an atheist.—E.]

124 See supra, vol. i. p. 19. If Dr. Secker had not been the intimate friend of the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, his character would no doubt have obtained the warm praise instead of the constant abuse of Walpole. Bishop Hurd, who did not love him, says that he was a wise man, an edifying preacher, and an exemplary bishop.—(Life of Warburton, p. 69.)—He was very young when he left the Dissenters to join the Church, and the Dissenters never questioned the honesty of his change of opinions. Some of their most eminent writers have recorded their respect for him. The purity of his life brought on him the charge of hypocrisy from those alone who did not care to practise the same virtues. After enjoying for ten years the rich revenues of the primacy, he left an insignificant fortune, and his distribution of his patronage was equally disinterested. He was the last of the learned divines who have filled the highest dignities of the Church. (Life by Porteus, also Memoirs of Mrs. Carter, p. 402.)—E.

125 Bishop Newton, after describing him as “the not unworthy successor of Secker,” says, “When he was a young man at the University he had the misfortune of a paralytic stroke on his right side, from which he has never recovered the full use of his right hand, and is obliged to write with his left; but, this notwithstanding, he has hitherto enjoyed uncommon good health, and never fails in his attendance on the multifarious business of his station. He has greatly improved Lambeth House, he keeps a hospitable and elegant table, has not a grain of pride in his composition, is easy of access, receives every one with affability and good nature, is courteous, obliging, condescending, and as a proof of it he has not often been made the subject of censure, even in this censorious age.”—(Memoirs, p. 121.)—This description might lead one to fear that the good Bishop’s standard of Metropolitan merit was not very elevated. Archbishop Cornwallis deserved still higher commendation. He seems to have had a true sense of his religious duties. When a party in the East India Company raised an outcry against the missionary Schwarts, then a friendless and obscure foreigner, he came forward with his public testimony on his behalf. The Archbishop died in 1783, aged 70.—E.

126 The Count de Bernsdorffe was a Hanoverian. He had large estates in Mecklenburg, but had sought fortune in Denmark, where at that time foreigners were warmly welcomed, and raised to high posts. He had been Foreign Minister to Frederick the Sixth. His reputation and influence were considerable in the northern courts. Walpole describes him elsewhere (Letters to Sir H. Mann, vol. i. p. 400) as a grim old man, bowing and cringing at every word of the King with eastern obsequiousness—indeed a Mentor and Telemachus have never yet been seen in real life. Bernsdorffe died in 1772, aged sixty. His nephew, Count Andrew de Bernsdorffe, also an eminent name in the later history of Denmark, was Prime Minister in 1784, and died in 1797.—E.

127 This piece of flattery was abruptly crushed. The poor King became on his return a mere phantom of royalty, first in the hands of his wife, next of the Queen Dowager. In 1784 his son was raised to the Regency, and succeeded to the Crown on his death, in 1808.—E.

128 The Duke of Grafton’s Memoirs confirm Walpole’s account of this transaction, and he adds that “the Cabinet were unanimous in their resolution for the removal of Sir Jeffery Amherst.” It was in the manner of filling up the vacancy that they laid themselves open to the suspicion of having accommodated a private job under the pretence of reforming a public abuse, and people said, with some plausibility, “It was not Virginia that wanted a governor, but a Court favourite that wanted a salary.”—(See the clever letters in Woodfall’s Junius, vol. iii. pp. 89–123.)—Lord Bottetort’s being a follower and friend of Lord Bute, increased the cry against him.—E.

129 The Hon. General John Fitzwilliam, had been Groom of the Bedchamber to William, Duke of Cumberland, when Mr. Conway was in the same post about his Royal Highness, and had long been intimate with Rigby. [He died in 1789, and left his fortune to one of his servants. He was uncle to Viscount Fitzwilliam (of Ireland), who founded the noble museum that bears his name at Cambridge; and on the death of whose brother the title became extinct.—E.]

130 Afterwards the Right Hon. Sir William Lynch, K.B. He was the eldest son of Dr. Lynch, Dean of Canterbury, by the youngest daughter of Archbishop Wake. His family had long been settled at Groves, near Canterbury, and he represented that city in two Parliaments. He usually resided at Groves, where he had greatly embellished the house and park, and collected some fine pictures. He died abroad in 1785, leaving a widow, but no issue.—E.

131 Lord Shelburne had been on very cold terms with the Duke of Grafton since the commencement of Lord Chatham’s illness. This coldness at length grew into absolute hostility; but it was at the instigation of the King, not less than of the Bedford party, that Lord Shelburne was removed; and such, indeed, was his alienation from his colleagues, that even the Chancellor acquiesced in the necessity of his removal, and, as the following letter shows, did not much regret it. “It does behove his Lordship (Lord Shelburne) either to be cordially reconciled or to resign, for it is neither just nor honourable to confound, much less to betray, an Administration while he remains a member of it. I should wish the first on many accounts, and yet I fear that can hardly be expected, considering what has passed, especially the last affront in setting aside his Lordship’s nomination to Turin.” (Letter from Lord Camden to Duke of Grafton, MS.) I can find no confirmation of the insinuation in Mr. Burke’s “Thoughts on Popular Discontents,” that Lord Shelburne’s removal was a punishment for the warmth of his representations to the French Court on the subject of Corsica. These representations, indeed, appear to have been fully sanctioned by the Duke of Grafton, and had they been disapproved by the Cabinet, Lord Rochford who so warmly urged them on the Duc de Choiseul would certainly not have been Lord Shelburne’s successor.—E.

132 See Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 342.—E.

133 Walpole had invariably entertained a mean opinion of Lord Rochford. In a letter as early as 1746, just after the battle of Culloden, he writes, “Is it news that Lord Rochford is an oaf? He has got a set of plate buttons for the birthday, with the Duke’s (of Cumberland) head on every one. Sure my good lady carries her art too far to make him so great a dupe!”—(Collected Letters, vol. ii. p. 165.) The plate buttons, however, were not thrown away, for Lord Rochford was within three years appointed Minister at Turin, and in 1755 he obtained the lucrative office of Groom of the Stole. The new reign obliged him to give way to Lord Bute, which he did with so good a grace, as to preserve the favour of the Court. Not satisfied with a large pension, he aspired to political eminence, and in 1763 accepted the embassy at Madrid. He discharged its duties respectably—was attentive to business—vigilant, and, when occasion called for it, spirited—and his dispatches present a more faithful and interesting account of the Court of Spain than is to be found in any cotemporary work. The credit he thus acquired was the cause of his being appointed Ambassador at Paris, where he conducted himself unexceptionably. It cannot, however, be said that he left a name of any distinction in diplomacy. The same mediocrity characterized his career as Secretary of State. He made a poor figure in the House of Lords, and if he had no enemies, he had as few friends. His colleagues shuffled him from one department to the other, and at last parted with him with an indifference that was fully shared by the public. Not, however, that he was unrewarded. He received for seven years the high salary, and enjoyed the patronage of the Secretary of State. He was Lord-Lieutenant of Essex, and a Privy Councillor. In 1778 he became a Knight of the Garter. His pecuniary circumstances, indeed, appear to have been embarrassed; but he is not to be pitied, if, as was reported, this arose from his speculations in the funds on the prospect of a Spanish war (Chatham Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 80). It has been observed that he is the only statesman whom Junius has noticed in terms of unqualified praise; but it should be remembered that this was only when writing under another signature,—no such praise is to be found in “the Letters of Junius.” Being succeeded by Lord Weymouth in 1775, he retired to St. Osyths, his seat in Essex—the ancient inheritance of the Rivers’s, from whom he was maternally descended. He died in 1781 without issue, and the title became extinct on the decease of his nephew.—(Coxe’s Kings of Spain, vol. iii.)—E.

134 This correspondence between Lord Chatham and Lord Bristol has been published among Lord Chatham’s Letters (vol. iii. p. 347). Walpole’s personal dislike of Lord Bristol, which is little disguised in these Memoirs, could alone have made him regard that nobleman’s conduct in this transaction as in the slightest degree objectionable.—E.

135 Instead of being deserted by these noblemen, it would be more fair to say that Lord Chatham had deserted them. There is no excuse for his conduct to Lord Bristol. His relation to Lord Camden was of a different character, for the latter was under deep obligations to him; but all intercourse between them had long been suspended, and their friendship had, from Lord Chatham’s fault alone, withered into a mere loose political connection. Still, the severance of that tie alarmed Lord Camden; and his letters to the Duke of Grafton, on receiving the first intelligence of Lord Chatham’s resignation, betray deep anxiety. He writes from Bath on the 14th of October, after expressing a faint hope that Lord Chatham’s resolution may not be final, “Your Grace and I feel for each other. To me I fear the blow is fatal, yet I shall come to no determination. If I can find out what is fit for me to do in this most distressed situation, that I must do; but the difficulty lies in forming a true judgment.... I do assure your Grace that my mind is at present in too great an agitation to be soon settled, and therefore I do not give myself leave to form an opinion concerning my own conduct.” On the 16th, he writes in the same strain: “Nothing could give me so much satisfaction as to join with your Grace in one line of conduct, and yet I plainly see that our situations are different, and the same honour, duty to the King, regard to the public, operating upon two minds equally aiming at the same end, may draw us different ways, but I dare say your Grace will believe me in all events and circumstances what I really am, with all respect and unfeigned attachment,” &c. The regard expressed in this note for the Duke of Grafton was perfectly sincere, and when they met in London Lord Camden yielded to the Duke’s solicitations. Various considerations united to bring him to this decision. He was not insensible to the advantages of office. He had made no provision for children whom he tenderly loved. One of these children happened at the time to be alarmingly ill. The King pressed him to remain. The country, whose welfare he identified with the political principles he professed, might suffer from his resignation. It was an error of judgment, for with the name of Lord Chatham the Cabinet lost the distinction that attached to Lord Chatham’s policy; and the small minority in which Lord Camden found himself, lingered on for a while, suspected by the country, thwarted by their colleagues, and discountenanced by the King, until the resignation to which they were driven had become a matter of comparative indifference to the different parties in the State.—E.

136 The advantage of the Ministers lay in the disunion of their opponents—a fact which the speeches of Mr. Grenville and Mr. Burke, angry as each of them was with the Government, most palpably disclosed;—America, as before, being the subject of their differences. Mr. Grenville, however, disapproved of the dissolution of the American Assemblies, observing that “no corporation was bound to obey the orders of the Secretary of State further than they are enjoined by the laws of the land.” The picture he drew of the state of England is in dark colours. “Distress is among the common people; luxury among the rich; servility, licentiousness, venality, of a nature the most dangerous to the constitution; an enormous debt; a diminishing specie; an increasing paper credit.” Mr. Burke greatly overrated the importance of Corsica. “Corsica naked,” he observed, “I do not dread; but Corsica a province of France, is dreadful to me.”—(Cavendish, vol. i. p. 46.) This apprehension was very generally entertained,—time has proved it to be utterly unfounded, the French having up to this moment derived as little benefit from their conquest as has accrued to them from any of their ultramarine possessions.—E.