everything else, a cypher, except when I can show myself,
My dear Lord,
Your very affectionate humble servant,
Horace Walpole.
To this letter, nor to the offer, did Lord Orford give himself the trouble of making the least reply; but, arriving in town on the very day the Parliament met, he came to me, and asked what he was to do? I replied very coldly, I did not know what he intended to do; but, if his meaning was to accept, I supposed he ought to go to Mr. Fox, and tell him so, I having nothing farther to do with it than barely to acquaint him with the offer. Without preface or apology, without recollecting his long enmity to Fox (it is true, he did not know why he was Fox’s enemy), and without a hint of reconciliation, to Fox he went, accepted the place, and never gave that ministry one vote afterwards; continuing in the country, as he would have done if they had given him nothing. I return from this digression.
CHAPTER XV.
Conference between the Duke of Cumberland and Mr. Pitt.—Pitt’s lofty style and inconclusive manner.—Want of union in the Opposition.—Anxiety of the Ministers.—Debates in both Houses on the Preliminaries of Peace.—Sudden and unexpected appearance of Mr. Pitt.—Legge, Fox, and Beckford.—Prerogative.—Pitt’s Speech.—His retirement from the House when Fox rose to speak.—Speech of the latter.—Charles Townshend’s versatility.—The Minority on the Division.—Exultation of the Princess of Wales on the Preliminaries being carried.—Severe political persecution.—Numerous dismissals from place.
The rupture between the Duke of Cumberland and Fox seemed naturally to pave the way for a connection between that Prince and Mr. Pitt. They accordingly met, and had a conference of four hours; but there their amity commenced and ended. The good sense of his Royal Highness could, in spite of all his haughtiness, make him bend properly. Pitt, having less good sense than parts, and affecting more haughtiness even than he possessed, and being full of schemes rather than plans, could not be brought to any rational system. Meaning to make use of the Prince but to a certain degree,—that is, to thwart the Court, or to give it jealousy, not to erect the Duke as head of a party,—he talked in his usual vague and inconclusive manner; his nearest friends having often said, that between the uncommunicativeness of his temper and the want of suite in his reasoning faculties, it was ever impossible to pin him down to any chain of definite propositions.
This the Duke experienced, and combated in vain. All he could draw from Pitt was, a positive demand that the peace should be opposed by the now forming party. Yet would he not submit to see the Duke of Newcastle; though, in his lofty style, he said he would accept of the Duke of Cumberland’s guarantee of Newcastle’s fidelity. It was difficult for the chiefs to coalesce: Lord Hardwicke had publicly commended the preliminaries; and though he had rejected large offers made to his son, Charles Yorke, he and his friends knew not decently how to fly to Mr. Pitt’s banner, which they had so lately levelled. This want of union in the Opposition gave all the remaining advantage to the administration that they yet wanted. Mr. Pitt affected to be a chief without a party, and the party without him had no other chief; for Newcastle was worse than none, and the Duke of Cumberland had too much deference for the Crown, and was too much above courting the people, to be fit to figure as a ringleader.
In this temper of things did the Parliament meet November 25th. Lord Egmont and Lord Weymouth274 moved the Address in the Lords, where there was no opposition: Lord Carysfort275 and Lord Charles Spencer in the Commons. Nicholson Calvert made a warm speech against the peace, and was answered by Birt, who gave Mr. Pitt the honour of the first plan for taking Martinico. Beckford was yet more violent against the treaty; and compared Florida, which was to be ceded to us, for barrenness to Bagshot Heath. Charles Townshend made a trimming speech, though very personal against Beckford, and the day ended without a division; Mr. Pitt being confined at home with the gout. Without doors the scene was more turbulent: the Favourite was assaulted in his chair by a formidable mob, and had not the Guards arrived opportunely, would hardly have escaped with life.
On the 30th of the month the preliminaries were laid before both Houses, who were acquainted that the King had ordered them to be printed and distributed to the members on the morrow. The Duke of Grafton in the Lords, Calvert and Bamber Gascoyne in the Commons, objected to this; it being usual for the two Houses to give the orders for printing papers communicated to them; but the first method was acquiesced in, and the Lords resolved to take the papers into consideration on the Thursday sevennight following. Lord Pomfret276 moved to order the high bailiff of Westminster to attend, to give an account why he had taken no measures to disperse the mob on the first day of the session. At the same time the ministers endeavoured, by money and threats, to silence or intimidate the printers of newspapers, libels, and satiric prints, and succeeded with a great number.
On the 1st of December, Calvert moved to defer considering the preliminaries till the Thursday sevennight following, as Mr. Pitt was not able to attend; but the ministers, and for that very reason, insisted on bringing them on upon the same day with the Lords, and carried their motion by 213 to 74; so unpromising was this outset of the new Opposition, in which appeared the families of Cavendish, Fitzroy, and Townshend.
The memorable day, December 9th, being arrived, both Houses sat on the preliminaries. Lord Shelburne and Lord Grosvenor moved to approve them. The Duke of Grafton, with great weight and greater warmth, attacked them severely, and, looking full on Lord Bute, imputed to him corruption and worse arts. The Duke was answered by the Earl of Suffolk; and then Lord Temple spoke with less than usual warmth. The Favourite rose next, and defended himself with applause, having laid aside much of his former pomp. He treated the Duke of Grafton as a juvenile member, whose imputations he despised; and, for the Peace, he desired to have written on his tomb, “Here lies the Earl of Bute, who, in concert with the King’s ministers, made the Peace.” A sentence often re-echoed with the ridicule it deserved, and more likely to be engraven on his monument with ignominy than approbation. The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke censured the preliminaries, which the latter said were worse than could have been obtained the last year; and he reflected on the assiduity with which prerogative was cried up, more than it had been by the most ductile Parliaments. Henley the Chancellor abused them both: but the fine defence of the treaty was made by Lord Mansfield, which, he said, though he had concurred to make, he should still retain his old connections and attachments; a promise he soon violated, with as little decency as his late friends had censured prerogative. At ten at night the preliminaries were approved by the Lords without a division.
But it was the other House on which expectation hung. The very uncertainty whether Mr. Pitt’s health would allow him to attend, concurred to augment the impatience of the public on so serious a crisis. The Court, it was true, had purchased an effective number of votes to ratify their treaty; but, could Mr. Pitt appear, he might so expose the negotiation, and give breath to such a flame, that the ministers could not but be anxious till the day was decided, and they knew all that they had to apprehend from Mr. Pitt. Their hopes grew brighter as the debate began, and he did not appear. The probability of his absence augmented as Beckford proposed to refer the preliminaries to a committee of the whole House; a measure that seemed calculated to gain time, and that was seconded by James Grenville, who told the courtiers that it did not look as if they were very desirous of praise, so eager were they to hurry through the question. The demand was opposed by Ellis, Sir Francis Dashwood, and Harris of Salisbury, when the House was alarmed by a shout from without! The doors opened, and at the head of a large acclaiming concourse was seen Mr. Pitt, borne in the arms of his servants, who, setting him down within the bar, he crawled by the help of a crutch, and with the assistance of some few friends, to his seat; not without the sneers of some of Fox’s party. In truth, there was a mixture of the very solemn and the theatric in this apparition. The moment was so well timed, the importance of the man and his services, the languor of his emaciated countenance, and the study bestowed on his dress, were circumstances that struck solemnity into a patriot mind, and did a little furnish ridicule to the hardened and insensible. He was dressed in black velvet, his legs and thighs wrapped in flannel, his feet covered with buskins of black cloth, and