137 As Wilkes was elected into the succeeding Parliament, and was allowed to sit, his expulsion at this time cannot be deemed a precedent to justify the expulsion of any man because he had been expelled by a former Parliament. No part of his expulsion can be turned into a precedent, unless on the argument that he was then a prisoner under sentence.
138 The arguments for and against the expulsion of Wilkes are stated with neatness and force by Mr. Burke in the Annual Register for 1769.—E.
139 Sir Joseph Mawbey had soon forgotten the favours of the Whigs:—
He professed to be independent of party, and one of the results of this independence was, that the satirical poets of the day, Whig and Tory, united in pitilessly assailing him. He died in 1817.—E.
140 See the debate in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 46–49.—E.
141 It has been supposed that the great object of the Duc de Choiseul in encouraging Turkey to engage in war with Russia, was to procure the possession of Egypt for France as a reward for her interference. The Count de Vergennes had from the first predicted the issue of this unequal conflict. He in vain laid before the Duc the military incapacity of the Sultan Mustapha, the apathy of the Ministers, and the inefficiency of the Turkish levies. “I can arm the Turks against Russia,” he said, “whenever you desire, but I forewarn you that they will be beaten.”—Lacretelle, Histoire de France, vol. iv. p. 212.—E.
142 It is deemed an etiquette in France (which must make other nations smile) that the most Christian King’s mistress must be a married woman.
143 He also said maliciously enough, “I would not put in threats of a war in order to make the funds fall, nor would I fight a duel on every the slightest affront; but I do not care to receive one affront after another, lest I should be obliged to fight at last. In private life a man who seems doubtful about fighting is more likely to fight than any other.” The most interesting part of the debate is the discussion between Mr. Stanley and Mr. Grenville on the expediency of producing papers on a negotiation still pending. (Cavendish, p. 59, &c.)—E.
144 The same attachment to liberty made him, in after years, the warm friend and supporter of Mr. Fox. He was indolent and reserved, or he might have played a great part in politics, for he possessed no common talents. He died in 1811.—E.
145 This will be explained more fully hereafter.
146 John West, second Earl of Delawar, died in 1777, aged forty-eight.—E.
147 James, third Earl Waldegrave. He had married a sister of the Duchess of Bedford.
148 Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort. [He held the office only until 1780. In 1786 he was made a Knight of the Garter. He died in 1803.—E.]
149 The debate is reported in Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 61–8. This was one of the first steps towards that fatal entanglement in which the characters of so many public men suffered by their being drawn into a line of conduct contrary to their former professions, and their known political principles.—E.
150 Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 168–75. Lord Barrington evidently wanted a vote of approbation to countenance his very injudicious letter; and judging from the tenor of his public life, as well as from the course pursued by the Ministers on this occasion, there is strong ground for suspecting that Lord Barrington had written the letter to please the King or even at his Majesty’s instigation.—See supra, p. 211.—E.
151 Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 75–76.—E.
152 Mr. Hopkins, of Oving House, near Aylesbury, M.P. for Great Bedwin. He was appointed Clerk of the Green Cloth, through the Duke’s interest. He left his estate to his nephew, General Northey, who thereupon took the name of Hopkins, and has died very recently.—E.
153 Cavendish, vol. i. p. 77, &c.—E.
154 Cavendish, vol. i. p. 100.—E.
155 It was the same day put off to the 12th. (Cavendish, vol. i. p. 78.)—E.
156 Chauncey Townshend. They were not related to Lord Townshend’s family. [Mr. James Townsend was at this time M.P. for West Looe. Lord Shelburne brought him in for Calne on Mr. Dunning’s elevation to the peerage, and he represented that borough till his death in 1787. He spoke at times with considerable effect in the House of Commons. One quality very requisite to the success of a popular leader he certainly possessed,—and that was, resolution; he showed it on all occasions. I have heard, on good authority, that a highway robbery having once been committed in his neighbourhood, he disguised himself as a countryman, and with his friend, the late Mr. Parker of Munden, in Hertfordshire, set out in search of the offender, and succeeded in overpowering and apprehending him. Mr. Parker used to dwell on the man’s ludicrous astonishment in discovering that his captors were gentlemen.—E.]
157 Daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgman. His second wife was Miss Stevenson. She died a few weeks after the marriage.—E.
158 Mr. John Sawbridge, of Olantigh, in Kent, grandson of Jacob Sawbridge, M.P., the South Sea Director. He was a man of strong understanding and upright principles. He is said to have had a coarse figure, and still coarser manners (Wraxall’s Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 105), but he did not want refinement of feeling. Highly as he prized the popular favour, he at once sacrificed it at the coalition, rather than abandon Mr. Fox. Wilkes, Townshend, and many of the leading Patriots were on this occasion found among the King’s friends; and Sawbridge, instead of being as usual at the head of the poll, saved his seat by only seven votes. He represented the City till his death in 1793. John S. W. Sawbridge Earle Drax, Esq., M.P. is his grandson and lineal representative.—E.
159 Cavendish, vol. i. p. 100.—E.
160 He was the eldest son of Lieutenant-General Richard Onslow, a younger brother of the Speaker, by Miss Walton, the niece and heiress of the gallant Admiral Sir George Walton. He succeeded his father as Member for Guilford in 1760, and continued to represent it until 1784. He died in 1792.—E.
161 Sir Edward Deering, Bart., of Surrenden Deering in Kent, and one of the representatives of New Romney. He was an opulent and influential country gentleman. He died in 1798.—E.
162 It was to excite the magistrates to do their duty against riots, promising them protection. It was interpreted as preparatory to a massacre.
163 He was called with reason the petty tyrant of the North, and the stories still related of his pride, caprice, and cruelty in Westmoreland and Cumberland, are almost incredible. If he possessed a virtue, it was as Peter Pindar said, in his well-known epistle to him, “A farthing rushlight to a world of shade.” His eccentricities were such as to cast doubts on the sanity of his intellect. He fought several duels for causes ludicrously inadequate. This did not prevent his making an impassioned appeal to the House of Commons in 1780, on the duel of Lord Shelburne and Colonel Fullarton, against the impropriety of duels arising out of language in the House of Commons, as interrupting the freedom of debate. Mr. Pitt owed to him his first introduction into public life—as his first seat was for Sir James’s borough of Appleby,—a favour amply returned, by Sir James being raised in 1784 to the Earldom of Lonsdale. He was more useful than creditable as a political adherent. No man of his day spent such large sums in election contests, or obtained greater success in them, notwithstanding his extreme personal unpopularity. It is said that above seven thousand guineas were found in his cassette at his death in 1802, destined for the approaching general election,—a vast sum to collect in gold at a time when even at the Queen’s commerce-table guineas were very rarely staked, and when specie could scarcely be procured by men of the largest fortune. (See more of him in Wraxall’s Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 28.)—E.
164 Wilkes proved himself wholly unworthy of Serjeant Glynn’s generous support. The King once related to Lord Eldon that on his saying to Wilkes at the levee that he was glad to see his friend Serjeant Glynn looking so well, Wilkes replied, “Sire, he is not my friend. He was a Wilkite, I never was.” (Twiss’s Life of Lord Eldon.)—E.
165 Sir Francis Gosling was an eminent banker in Fleet Street, where his descendants still carry on business under the same firm.—E.
166 I have seen genuine letters from the King to Mr. George Grenville, while the latter was Minister, which show how deeply his Majesty interested himself in that prosecution. In one he says, “Wilkes’s impudence is amazing, considering how near his ruin is.” (See the King’s letter to Lord North, p. 200, supra.)
167 He had murdered a man in his own castle, where he always lived, and the affair had been winked at on supposition of his insanity, and perhaps from the difficulty of bringing to justice or of getting evidence against so great a lord in the centre of his dependants, and in so remote a country.
168 Colonel, afterwards Sir John Stewart, Bart., of Grandtully. The marriage took place on the 10th of August, 1746. He died in 1764. It appears from the pleadings that when he married Lady Jane Douglas he was reduced in health, spirit, and circumstances, but was a man naturally of an ardent temperament, and had led a bustling dissipated life.—E.
169 She was delivered of twins on the 10th of July, 1748, at Paris, in the house of Madame le Brun, in the Fauxbourg St. Germains, according to the evidence in the cause.—E.
170 It should be observed, however, that in the judgments they delivered in the House of Lords, both Lord Camden and Lord Mansfield argue very strongly from Lady Jane’s conduct to her children that she was their mother.—E.
171 This was the general impression. Lord Mansfield, on the contrary, was satisfied that the children in every way resembled Sir John Stewart and Lady Jane,—“the one was the finished model of Sir John, the other the exact picture in miniature of Lady Jane.” (See his Speech.)—E.
172 The Douglas cause began in 1762. The judges in the Court of Session were divided—being seven to seven. The casting vote of the Lord President gave the decision to the Hamiltons. This judgment was reversed in the Lords on Feb. the 27th, 1769.—E.
173 Lady Susan Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Galloway, and third wife of Earl Gower, was the intimate friend of the Duchess of Hamilton, and governing her in all other points, was very zealous for her in this cause, and had engaged the Bedford connection to support it.
174 The speeches of Lord Mansfield and Lord Camden are to be found in the Collectanea Juridica, vol. ii. p. 386, and Parliamentary History, vol. xvi. p. 518. It is scarcely possible that the report of Lord Mansfield’s can be correct. It is equally poor both in composition and in argument; the main argument, indeed, being that a woman of Lady Jane’s illustrious descent could not be guilty of a fraud. The report contains none of the invectives against Andrew Stuart to which the text refers,—an omission which has been attributed to Lord Mansfield’s extreme caution or timidity,—and had no other effect than to encourage Mr. Stuart to attack him afterwards with greater fierceness; whilst against Lord Camden, whose speech was at least equally severe, he made no assault whatever.—(Lord Brougham’s Historical Sketches, vol. iii. p. 195.) Lord Camden’s speech has been reported with unusual care, and is no doubt a fine specimen of judicial eloquence. Still, it does not fairly grapple with the difficulties of the case, and some of the strongest objections, too, in the way of the Douglas claim are left entirely untouched.—E.
175 Mr. Johnstone Pulteney was the second son of Sir James Johnstone, Bart., of Westerhall, and brother of Governor Johnstone. He married the rich heiress and niece of Lord Bath, whose frugal habits he seems to have closely imitated. Wraxall says that his figure and dress answered Pope’s description of Sir John Cutler, his whole wardrobe being threadbare.—(Posthumous Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 280.) He died in 1805, at the age of eighty-four. His daughter was created Countess of Bath.—E.
176 These letters are intituled “Letters to Lord Mansfield on the Douglas Cause, 1773,” 4to. They partly deserve the commendation bestowed on them by Walpole, and may still be read with almost unabated interest. Mr. Stuart had been a Writer of the Signet in Edinburgh. He was the proprietor of a fair estate called Torrence, in Lanarkshire, and for some years he represented the county in Parliament. In the Letters cited above, he calls himself “one whose birth entitles him, when provoked by injury, to feel no inferiority” to Lord Mansfield. The Appendix to his work contains letters to him from Charles Yorke, Dunning, Wedderburne, and Sir Adam Ferguson (who had all been of counsel for the Hamiltons), testifying to his honour in the conduct of the cause. It is difficult, nevertheless, to acquit him of very reprehensible tampering with the evidence. He wrote several tracts on Indian affairs, and likewise “A Genealogical History of the Stuarts, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time,” a work more curious than valuable. It led to some controversy long since forgotten. He died in 1801.—E.
177 Without examining the records of France this fact cannot safely be altogether denied; but after many inquiries both among Scotch and English lawyers, the authenticity of it seems to rest with Walpole alone. Had it happened before Mr. Stuart’s Letters was published in 1773, of course he would never have omitted so important a fact; but neither in his Letters, nor in a French account of the Douglas cause published in 1786, nor in any other publication that has fallen in the editor’s way, is there the least notice of any such thing: besides this, nobody remembers even to have heard of it; and it is not a story likely to be forgotten, had it ever been mentioned.—E.
178 He was the fifth son of the Earl of Shannon, [and M.P. for Knaresborough. He went out to the West Indies some years afterwards as Commodore, in the Thunderer, seventy-four, and perished with all his crew in the celebrated hurricane of 1779. He had married one of the daughters and co-heirs of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.—E.]
179 The trial is reported in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1768, p. 587; 1769, p. 51–53, 108. Certainly the execution of these men would have been an act of gross injustice.—E.
180 Mr. Joseph Martin, M.P. for Gatton, an ancestor of the present Member for Tewkesbury.—E.
181 The Petition from “the major part of the Council of Massachusets,” signed by Mr. Dunsford the President of the Council. Lord North contended that by the constitution of the colony the Council could not act separate from the Government except in their legislative capacity, and in that case the Governor was President of the Council. Owing to the recent dissolution, they could no longer act in their legislative capacity. The President, therefore, had no authority to sign in that character. (Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. i. p. 185.)—E.
182 The resolutions had previously been passed by the Lords, and are given in Cavendish. They cite historically the acts both of the people and legislature of Massachusets, and they were accompanied by an address to the King, praying that he would direct the Governor of the colony to transmit the names of the persons most conspicuous in commencing illegal acts since the 2nd of December 1767 to one of the Secretaries of State, and would, if the information proved sufficient, issue a special commission for trying the offenders in Great Britain, according to the statute of the 35th of Henry the Eighth. The debate was conducted with ability and spirit on both sides of the House. Governor Johnstone tersely observed that the resolutions were untrue in point of fact, improper in point of language, and inexpedient in point of time. Mr. Grenville analysed them with his usual acuteness, and condemned the conduct of the Government as weak and inconsistent. He predicted the failure of all half measures. “If you mean,” he said, “to give up the proposition that you have a right to tax America, do it like men; if you do not mean to give it up, take some proper measures to show your intention; but do not stand hesitating between both,—if you do, you will plunge both countries into confusion.” Mr. Burke advocated the cause of the colonists with indignant eloquence. “Why,” he asked, “are the provisions of the statute of Henry the Eighth to be put in force against the Americans? Because you cannot trust a jury of that country. Sir, that word must carry horror to every feeling mind. If you have not a party among two millions of people, you must either change your plan of government, or renounce your colonies for ever.” Governor Pownall delivered a treatise full of information, which he took care should be accurately reported, and it has accordingly had more readers than it is likely to have found hearers. The resolutions were defended by Hussy, with judgment, good taste, and ability. Nor was Lord North deficient in making a plausible case for the Government. The House was as thin as when it passed the Stamp Act. (Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 191–225.)—E.
183 The Speaker decided this to be an improper expression.—E.
184 Alluding to the Paymaster’s place, which had been split into two, but was again given to Rigby alone.
185 This debate is reported in Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 120–8.—E.
186 Cavendish, vol. i. p. 128–31.—E.
187 This surely was more disgraceful to the Prince than to Sir Laurence Dundas; but the Prince would no doubt have hanged, and with more reason, Lord George Sackville, if he had dared, and this did not obstruct that nobleman’s promotion.—E.
188 Author of the Commentaries on the Law. He was a very uninteresting speaker, and was afterwards made a judge. [His principles being strongly Tory, drove him into a line of conduct on Wilkes’s affair unlike the rest of his life, for in other respects he showed himself an honest, able, and amiable man. He probably regretted his subserviency to the directions of the Ministers, for he refused the office of Solicitor on Dunning’s retirement, and was delighted to be raised on the following year to one of the Judgeships of the Common Pleas, which he held till his death, in 1780. An interesting life of him is prefixed to his Reports.—E.]
189 Mr. (afterwards Sir Ralph) Payne, (K.B.,) M.P. for Shaftesbury. He seems to have soon discovered his failure, for in 1771 he accepted the government of the Leeward Islands, where he possessed a considerable estate, an ancestor of his having settled in Antigua during the civil wars. His splendid hospitality and imposing deportment, not less than his good nature, made him very popular with the West Indians, and it was to their great regret that he returned to England in 1775 to resume his political career. This, however, proved far from successful. All he obtained was the Clerkship of the Green Cloth, which he subsequently lost in consequence of his connecting himself with Fox. His house, however, became the favourite resort of the leaders of the Opposition, partly from his own agreeableness, and more so from the attractions of his wife, a highly accomplished Austrian lady, who was a very general favourite. It was on seeing her in tears, which she placed with more adroitness than truth to the account of her monkey, who had just died, that Sheridan wrote the well-known ludicrous distich:—
In 1795 Sir Ralph made his peace with Pitt, and was raised to the Irish peerage by the title of Lord Lavington. In 1801 he returned to his former government, and in 1807 died at Antigua, without issue. Lady Lavington survived him, and was left in circumstances so embarrassed, that she applied to the legislature of Antigua for a small pension. (See more of him in a work recently published under the title of “Antigua and the Antiguans.”)—E.
190 This debate is reported in Cavendish, vol. i. p. 131–8.—E.
191 Secretary of the Treasury.
192 Dr. Blackstone spoke with unusual spirit, and put the case on the right grounds. Serjeant Glynn observed sensibly and fairly, “If the letter is not entirely free from all possibility of reprehension, there does not appear to be anything in it to subject the noble writer to Parliamentary censure, but I think it calculated to induce magistrates to exercise a power which ought not to be resorted to except in extreme cases. It does not sufficiently define the occasions upon which it is to be used. Most of the magistrates are uninstructed in the laws of the country, and likely to be misled by the terms of it.” (Cavendish, vol. i. p. 139–151.)—E.
193 A noted partisan of Wilkes.
194 The Ministers made a very poor figure in this debate, if any trust is to be placed in Cavendish’s Reports. Dyson seems to have acquitted himself the best. The temper of the majority may be inferred from the applause said to have been received by Mr. (afterwards Justice) Nares, on his declaring that he would “rather appear in that House as an idolater of a Minister, than as a ridiculer of his Maker.” On the Opposition side there was no speech like Mr. Grenville’s. He revised the report of it taken by Cavendish; and printed a few copies for private circulation, by which means it came into the hands of Almon, who reprinted it (Parliamentary Debates, vol. xvi. pp. 546–575). Being one of the very few of his speeches that have been preserved, it deserves the attentive study of those who desire to know how he obtained the ascendancy which he so long enjoyed in the House of Commons, combating as he did, at one time, almost alone, the extraordinary and varied powers of Pitt and Charles Townshend. It is plain that, to use an expression of Clarendon respecting Mr. Pym, whom, by the way, in many respects he closely resembled, “his parts were rather acquired by industry, than supplied by nature or adorned by art.” This he well knew, and accordingly it was not his aim to subdue the feelings or to captivate the imagination; he sought to reach the understanding, and certainly the able structure of his argument—the precision with which his points are laid down—his great power of exposition,—and above all, the abundant stores of knowledge which he always brought to the discussion, show how he excelled in the line he had adopted. This speech remained unanswered, and was indeed unanswerable. In some parts it approaches eloquence, but it can only be fairly estimated as a whole,—no extracts would furnish a just idea of its merit. The following passages, however, may be taken as a fair specimen of his style:—
“Are these, then, the proper expedients to check and to restrain the spirit of faction and of disorder, and to bring back the minds of men to a sense of their duty? Can we seriously think that they will have that effect? Surely it is time to look forward and to try other measures. A wise Government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity; but a weak one is odious in the former, and contemptible in the latter. How many arguments have we heard from the Administration in the course of the session, for conciliatory measures towards subjects in the American colonies upon questions where the legislative authority of Great Britain was immediately concerned? And is not the same temper, the same spirit of conciliation, at least equally necessary towards the subjects within the kingdom? or is this the only part of the King’s dominions where it is not advisable to show it? Let not any gentleman think that by conciliation I mean a blind and base compliance with popular opinions contrary to our honour and justice—that would indeed be unworthy of us. I mean by conciliation a cool and temperate conduct unmixed with passion or prejudice. No man wishes more than I do to stop any excess on either side, or is more ready to resist any tumultuous violence founded upon unreasonable clamour. Such a clamour is no more than a sudden gust of wind that passes by and is forgotten; but when the public discontent is founded on truth and reason, when the sky lowers and hangs heavy all around us, a storm may then arise which may tear up the constitution by the roots, and shake the palace of the King himself.” (Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. i. p. 174.) Mr. Grenville took care throughout his speech to prevent his opinion against Mr. Wilkes’s expulsion being construed into approbation of that gentleman’s conduct, on which he commented with a severity which the latter deeply resented. Lord Temple interfered, but could not prevent Wilkes from publishing an insolent pamphlet in reply to Mr. Grenville’s observations, the result of which was, that Lord Temple never spoke to him afterwards.—E.
195 Charles, second Earl Cornwallis. [He was the intimate friend of the Duke of Grafton. A pleasing portrait is drawn of him by all contemporary writers. If the failure of his American campaigns, where he certainly proved no match for the self-taught commanders, whose ignorance it was the fashion of the day to ridicule, raised a strong presumption against his military talents, he met with great success in India, both as a soldier and an administrator. His conduct in Ireland during the Rebellion likewise does honour to his sagacity and benevolence. He was one of the few statesmen who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and concession in that misgoverned country,—and the coldness with which the Ministers received his remonstrances was the cause of his resignation. The mild dignity of his demeanour faithfully represented the leading traits of his character. He died in India in 1805, at a very advanced age, leaving an only son, on whose decease, without male issue, the Marquisate became extinct.—E.]
196 Mr. Stephenson was the son of Sir William Stephenson of Kent. I have been told that later in life he met with great losses in trade, which obliged him to make a composition with his creditors, but having subsequently retrieved his circumstances he paid everything in full.—E.
197 Mr. Hollis published handsome editions of Toland’s Life of Milton, and Algernon Sidney’s Discourses on Government,—works of which the principles, political and religious, coincided with his own. He was a very honest well-meaning man, the idol of a small circle of friends, who profited largely by his bounty, and showed their gratitude by extravagant praises of his moral and intellectual merit. He died suddenly from apoplexy at his seat at Corscombe, in Dorsetshire, in 1764. An injudicious tribute was paid to his memory by the publication of his Life in two massive volumes, 4to, by Archdeacon Blackburne, in 1780—one of the dullest books of the day—and which as completely failed in its object as some of the biographies of the same cast, the introduction of which into the Biographia Britannica, drew forth the well-known lines of Cowper—
198 Henry Seymour, nephew of Edward eighth Duke of Somerset, and half-brother by the mother to Lord Sandwich, but attached to Grenville. [He was M.P. for Huntingdon.—E.]
199 Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol i. p. 226.—E.
200 This tract was understood to be written by Mr. Knox. It is but a moderate performance, and has long ceased to be read, except by those who wish to appreciate Mr. Burke’s admirable “Observations.” There are some passages in it exactly in Mr. Grenville’s manner, and probably of his composition: the sentiments of the whole were certainly his. Another tract of a similar tendency had, not long before, issued from the same mint, intituled “Considerations on Trade and Finance.”—E.
201 This brilliant composition has so many beauties, and excites throughout such deep interest, that it seems to be almost an abuse of criticism to note its defects. The author, of course, wrote under a strong bias, and for a temporary purpose; but his genius has cast a halo over his opinions and his political associates, which has enlisted posterity on his side.
The passage to which Walpole refers is in reply to some gloomy statements of the decline of our trade.—“What if all he says of the state of this balance were true? If these [custom-house entries] prove us to be ruined, we were always ruined. Some ravens, indeed, have always croaked out this kind of song. They have a malignant delight in presaging mischief, when they are not employed in doing it. They are miserable and disappointed at every instance of the public prosperity. They overlook us, like the malevolent being of the poet,—
202 The debate is reported by Cavendish, vol. i. p. 227–237.—E.
203 It would have been a wiser course in the Ministers not to have resorted to this expedient, which at least was open to strong suspicion. Mr. Burke thus comments upon it: “After a jury upon legal evidence have given their verdict, a court of judicature has determined, the judges have approved, and the party is under sentence, the mercy of the Crown interposes; ‘No, no,’ say the Government, ‘we must have a jury of surgeons—of that kind of judicature we must avail ourselves,’ and the man receives the royal pardon. When they witness these things the unfortunate people of England say, We are not seditious without reason,” &c.—(Speech on Mr. Onslow’s motion for declaring Colonel Lutterell duly elected for Middlesex, in Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. i. p. 382.)—See also Junius’s Letters, vol. i. p. 50.—E.
204 The bill was passed by the Lords without opposition, the Duke of Grafton alone saying that he thought it a very bad bill.
205 The debate is well reported in Cavendish, vol. i. pp. 241–51.—E.
206 Lord Clive endeavoured to prove the agreement to be unjust towards the Company—an opinion in which Mr. Grenville seems to have concurred, but “four or five hundred thousand pounds was a bait too tempting to be rejected,” and he therefore gave no objection to the motion. Colonel Barré denounced with his usual vigour the constitution of the Company. After referring to the sentiment he had expressed in a former debate, that the management of a dominion containing sixteen millions of inhabitants, and producing a revenue of from four to eight millions a-year, could not be wisely and safely managed by twenty-four gentlemen in Leadenhall Street, he proceeded to say, “The system of direction, fluctuating as it does from year to year, must be ruinous. Faction, too, that has stolen into almost every public assembly, has found its way among them; at one time making a disadvantageous peace, at another time making one on more advantageous terms; striking out new wars; not content with the revenues which they already have, but thirsting for more,—it is impossible but India must be a scene of confusion. Instead of this, you might, by the wisdom of your laws and the sagacity of your government, bring millions lying hid in the earth into this country, and at the same time snatch the people of India from the tyranny under which they have been accustomed to live. But instead of this, there is nothing but war from the Carnatic to the Deccan.” Mr. Burke appeared as the advocate of the Company, and defended the annual election of Directors, as a system under which the Company had prospered. “Men,” he observed, “continually watched by their constituents are worked into vigour. If the Direction were established for a number of years, the Directors might form themselves into cabals.” (Cavendish’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. i. pp. 251–65.)—E.
207 It is remarkable that Walpole should overlook the violent altercation which occurred in this debate between General Conway and Mr. Burke,—in which, as far as can be collected from Cavendish, the latter had the advantage.—E.
208 In these debates on the Civil List very able speeches appear to have been made by Lord North, Mr. Grenville, Mr. Dowdeswell, and Mr. Burke. An instructive account of them is given by Cavendish, though it is evident that he has failed in his attempt to convey an adequate representation of the brilliant eloquence of Burke. The rapidity of Burke’s utterance, and the late period of the debate in which he spoke, perhaps made this impracticable. He has done more justice to Lord North, whose defence of his political conduct is so illustrative of his general views, and of the course he pursued in Parliament, that I have ventured, notwithstanding its length, to insert it here.
“Those repeated changes of Administration have been the principal cause of the present grievance [the King’s debts]. I lament it as much as any man can do. Under an Administration, whose principles I approved, ten years ago I accepted a small office, and was contented with it; those whom I served knew I never molested them on my own account. I had formed principles from which I have never deviated,—principles not at all calculated for an ambitious man. I thought the public had waged a glorious war; and that the war would be concluded by a necessary peace. It was never my idea to cry up the peace as the chef-d’œuvre of a great minister. The peace was an advantageous one; because, in the situation in which the country then stood, it was better to come to such a peace, than to run the risk of another campaign. If the Ministers had no other choice, they made a good choice; if the case was otherwise, they made a bad one. Whether they had or had not, never came to my ears. I never considered the country so reduced that we could not recover. A steady manly resistance of the impatience of those who wanted to ease themselves of the burdens left by the war, put the country at length into a situation to meet other wars. Upon this system I have ever been against popular measures. I do not dislike popularity; but for the last seven years I have never given my vote for any one of the popular measures. I supported the Cyder-tax with a view to the ease of the people, and I afterwards opposed the repeal of the tax—a vote of which I never repented. In 1765, I was for the American Stamp Act; the propriety of passing which I took very much upon the authority of the right honourable gentleman; and when, in the following year, a bill was brought in for the repeal of that act, I directly opposed it; for I saw the danger of the repeal. And when, again, in the year 1767, it was thought necessary to relieve the people from the pressure of taxation, by lessening the revenue to the extent of half a million, I was against that measure also. There appeared on the public stage a strange phenomenon—an individual grown, by the popularity of the times, to be a man of consequence. I moved the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes. Every subsequent proceeding against that man I have supported; and I will again vote for his expulsion, if he again attempts to take his seat in this House. In all my memory, therefore, I do not recollect a single popular measure I ever voted for—no, not even the Nullum Tempus Bill. I was against declaring the law in the case of general warrants. I state this to prove that I am not an ambitious man. Men may be popular without being ambitious; but there is rarely an ambitious man who does not try to be popular.” (Cavendish, vol. i. p. 298.)—E.