freedom was the scene where all the inordinate passions of mankind operated most powerfully and with the greatest latitude. There we see luxury, ambition, faction, pride, revenge, selfishness, a total disregard to the publick good, and an universal dissoluteness of manners, first make them ripe for, and then compleat their destruction.21
In the end, it was the Epicurean atheism of the Roman upper classes which gave the coup de grâce to the Roman state; an interpretation of Roman decline which paves the way for Montagu’s censure of the irreligion of the Britons of his own day—censure which, given his own confessional history, is certainly cheeky, if probably not tongue-in-cheek.22
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Such a summary of the broad outlines of Montagu’s argument in the Reflections does little, however, to show how carefully its analyses and recommendations are not only “Adapted to the Present State of Great Britain” (as the title page states) but also tailored to the political alliances and enmities of its author’s family. Edward Wortley Montagu senior’s political career was defined by his opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. In 1716 he had composed an essay “On the State of Affairs when the King Entered,” in which he had anatomized English politics in 1714 on the accession of George I in terms of the malign influence of one ambitious and rising man:
This brief sketch … narrows into a single-minded attack on Walpole. Wortley sees him as duping and manipulating men of higher rank than himself, widening the gap between Whig and Tory, damaging the King’s popularity by his bad judgement.… Wortley regrets King William’s days, when Treasury Commissioners were “all men of great figure,” not upstarts like Walpole. [Wortley Montagu had been made a Commissioner of the Treasury on 13 October 1714.] He thinks the Treasury is a reliable ladder to greatness, and Walpole ought to be kept off it. He refers indirectly to himself as the only Treasury man who is not Walpole’s creature. He is unable to “hinder any of [Walpole’s] projects,” and can only “inform the King of his affairs.” The essay explains the rift between Court Whigs (bad) and Country Whigs (good but unrewarded).23
Wortley Montagu senior’s opposition to Walpole endured for more than two decades. Only after the eventual fall of the great minister in February 1742 would he exert himself more vigorously in the Commons.24 In the meantime, although he stood apart from the Patriot Whig circles which coalesced around Viscount Cobham in the 1730s, he must have applauded their pursuit of an implacable vendetta against Walpole.25 Conspicuous in the ranks of “Cobham’s Cubs” was a brilliant young
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orator, William Pitt, whom Walpole had driven into opposition and the arms of his uncle Cobham by depriving him of his cornetcy of horse in punishment for his outspokenness in the Commons in the summer of 1736.26 Although Pitt seems never to have been particularly close to the Montagus, they nevertheless thought well of him, and, as a natural ally, they later saw him as a possible source of patronage for their friends and connections.27
Possibly more important, however, than the enmity with Walpole and the potential affinity with Pitt, would be an alliance forged in 1736 when Montagu’s sister, Mary, married John Stuart, third earl of Bute. It was a match apparently entered into out of affection, in the teeth of at least paternal indifference if not active opposition, and without ulterior motives of either a financial or a political kind.28 The early years of the marriage were spent in the isolation and comparative poverty of the Isle of Bute, where the earl resided on his estates and pursued his interests in botany. But in the mid-1740s he and his countess moved to London, where in 1747 he struck up a friendship with Frederick, prince of Wales. Soon Bute became a leading figure at Leicester House (the
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prince’s London residence, and a center of opposition politics). After Frederick’s death in 1751 Bute remained a trusted adviser to his widow. He was appointed tutor to her son, the future George III, whom he educated in accordance with the principles of the “country” opposition: “a composite, idealistic political creed advocating an isolationist foreign policy, the abolition of party distinctions, the purging of corruption, and the enhancement of monarchial control over policy and patronage.”29 In the mid-1750s Bute and Pitt stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to Newcastle’s policies. But in the later years of the decade their alliance came under pressure as Pitt took up office and came round to supporting and indeed reinforcing Newcastle’s policy of continental engagement.
Montagu trimmed the text of Reflections with some skill in deference to the various imperatives of these family alliances and antagonisms. To echo his father’s hatred of Walpole was easy. Montagu sowed the text of Reflections with disparaging references to “late power-engrossing ministers” and “corrupt and ambitious statesmen” whose misuse of public funds, rather than “superior abilities,” allowed them to “reduce corruption into system”—language easily interpretable by the book’s first readers as attacks on the memory of Walpole.30 In a particularly felicitous moment, a glance at Walpole’s fall allowed Montagu in one breath to rejoice in the punishment of a villain and to commiserate with his father, one of the “honest men” in the opposition, whose name had been counted in the day of battle, but who had been passed over in the division of the spoils:
When the leaders of that powerful opposition had carried their point by their popular clamours; when they had pushed the nation into that war [with Spain]; when they had drove an overgrown minister from the helm, and nestled themselves in power, how quickly did they turn their backs upon the honest men of their party, who refused to concur in their measures!31
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But to pay compliments to both Pitt and Bute, who as the Reflections was being written were becoming gradually more estranged, required more careful management.32
There seemed to be no call for any perfect even-handedness, however. Although George II’s health was not robust, no one could have predicted in 1758 that his death was so imminent; and nothing but the king’s death could convert Bute’s ascendancy over the heir-apparent into that much more substantial thing, real power at court. Meanwhile, Pitt held the reins of political power as Secretary of State, and was the dominant figure in the administration. Some such calculation seems to lie behind the distribution of Montagu’s compliments, which are mainly directed toward Pitt, but which do not preclude some mildly fawning touches designed to gratify Bute, as a kind of insurance policy. The very basis of Montagu’s book, in its engagement with ancient history, could be taken as a deferential gesture toward Pitt, who in 1759 would be praised as the English Pericles, whom Horace Walpole had compared to Cicero and Demosthenes, and whose Parliamentary oratory relied heavily on allusions to ancient history.33 (Pitt is presumably excluded from Montagu’s prefatory strictures on those who have “misrepresented” historical facts and employed the “chicane of sophistry.”)34 On this foundation of implicit flattery Montagu went on to erect more overt structures of compliment to “the Great Commoner,” couching his analyses of ancient history in language associated with Pitt, expressing relief at the calling of
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“a truly disinterested patriot to the helm,” and offering vigorous support to a policy with which, as we have seen, Pitt was particularly connected, namely the creation of a national militia.35 But Montagu also had one eye on Bute, and so this lavish praise of Pitt was accompanied by a trace of reservation concerning one aspect of current British policy, namely its commitments on the continent in support of Frederick the Great.36 Here, Montagu sounded a note of troubled warning, which no doubt he hoped would gratify the isolationist ears of Leicester House. At such moments we glimpse Montagu caught in the ebb and flow of events, and, with some ingenuity but perhaps less dignity, trying to find a posture in which he might at the same time worship both the rising and the setting sun.
The Afterlife of Reflections: America and France
Montagu’s support for Pitt would by itself have recommended the Reflections to Thomas Hollis and his circle—Hollis, who had medals struck to commemorate the great military triumphs of Pitt’s administration, who thought of Pitt as one of the “old friends of liberty” and “an assertor of liberty,” and whose close friend Richard Baron had presented a copy of his edition of Milton’s Eikonoklastes