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- 6. State. All the exiles were recalled, or received great mitigation of their punishments. There was one man to whom the Czar, though not so bountiful as he ought to have been, was very kind. This was Count Schouvalow, the favourite and supposed husband of the late Czarina. A man, who in twelve years of absolute power had never made an enemy; and who, had he ambitioned a crown as much as he deserved one, might have reigned. This upright man told the Czar that he had in his possession a very large sum of money, which he believed the Empress, his late mistress, had intended he should take for his own use, but not having been a specific gift, he thought it his duty to surrender it to his Majesty. The Emperor said he was in great want of money, took it, but ordered him to choose two thousand pounds a year in land wherever he pleased. I knew this amiable person afterwards, wandering about Europe, 195 possessed of nothing beyond that revenue, and sighing after a country to which it had been imprudent to return. The Czar and the King of Prussia wished to engage us in the war with Denmark; but though the Council was divided on the measure, Denmark was too intimately connected with us, and as a maritime power, was too near a neighbour to Scotland. In this exigence the King of Denmark marched with a considerable force to Hamburgh, and obliged that opulent city to furnish him with a million of rix- dollars. In Ireland seemed approaching a scene of a new kind. The jealousy of commerce had ever swayed England to keep that kingdom in a state of humiliation and restraint; consequently of poverty. The lowest class of people in no country less enjoyed the sweets of being; and in no country sought less to emerge from their state of barbarism. Proud and slothful, they created a kind of dignity to themselves from inactivity. To labour no more than noblemen, was a sort of nobility; and ignorance of a happier fate was happiness. They preserved their ancient poetry and traditional genealogies; hated the English settled amongst them as invaders, and necessarily were bigoted to their old superstitions in opposition
- 7. to the religion of their masters. In short, they wanted but luxury, to have all the passions and prejudices of great lords. A considerable part of the island was plunged in this dismal darkness and misery. As a spirit of opposition and independence had spread amongst the Protestant inhabitants, a spirit of improvement had gone forth too. Manufactures were established, roads and bridges made, and rivers rendered navigable. Inclosures for cultivation of lands had followed. Occupation of commons seemed usurpation to a race of lazy savages; and the first murmurs were carefully blown up to rage by their priests. A massacre had been the last instance in which the Catholics of Ireland had had any superiority; and Popish priests are historians enough to be ignorant of no such era. It was the cause of property to throw down inclosures; of heaven, to cut the throats of inclosers—and of France and Spain, to promote the good work. The tumults, however, began upon the single foot of their grievances. Great insurrections appeared in Waterford, the chief improvements having been made upon the Burlington estate. The rabble soon distinguished itself by the name of White Boys; and their instructors, to veil one nonsense under a greater, taught them to give out that they were subject to the Queen of the Fairies, whom they called Sieve Oltugh, in whose name their manifestoes were signed. It appeared afterwards on the trials of some of their chiefs, that this fairy sovereign resided at Versailles. French officers were discovered among them; and during the Duke of Bedford’s regency, a rising had actually been made in the same quarter just as Thurot landed. After many outrages, they proceeded to cruelty, and buried three persons up to their chins, who had declared they knew the ringleaders. As their numbers and impunity increased, so did their insolence. They obliged the town of Lismore to hang out lights, and forced a justice of peace to fix up a proclamation by which they regulated the price of provisions, and forbad any cheese to be made till after Lent, that the poor might have the milk—a proof that the devotees of the Queen of the Fairies, and of the Virgin Mary, were equally attached to the observation of the Fast.
- 8. For six weeks this insurrection was neglected; and two regiments of dragoons, that were sent against them, proved unequal to the work. At last the House of Commons took up the affair, and foot being ordered out against the seditious, the matter was quashed, though not entirely suppressed, till the Earl of Hertford 196 was Lord Lieutenant, who refusing to pardon some of the chiefs, notwithstanding very considerable intercession, an end was put to the affair—but unless that country is more civilized and reclaimed from barbarism, or better guarded before another war breaks out, it will probably be selected by France and Spain for the first scene of their operations. At the time of which I have been speaking, France was more earnest to make a general peace, than to incense us by opening a war within our very gates, 197 and which might have made it dangerous for the Favourite to second their views. He was hotly pushing his schemes to projection; and resolved not only to make the peace, but to be indisputably first minister when it should be made. Mr. Pitt was removed, who could have obstructed the first object; but while the Duke of Newcastle held the Treasury, there was a division of power, which all the lustre of favour could not entirely surmount. They who looked forward, bowed to the idol; but they who held by gratifications to the Treasury, could not but kiss the hand that dealt the bribe. At first it was designed by disgusts to drive the Duke to resign. Elliot and Oswald 198 were instructed to treat him rudely at his own board: but an old minister or an old mistress endure many shocks before they can be shaken off: 199 nor could all his own treacheries persuade the Duke of Newcastle that Lord Bute could so soon forget how instrumental his Grace had been in undermining Mr. Pitt. He still had a mind to be of the plot, though himself was become the object of it. Newcastle’s friends were quicker sighted; and foreseeing that they must again range under Mr. Pitt, if cast off by the Court, they began to have doubts and difficulties—and did but hasten their fall, by daring to resume a right of opinion. The expense of the Portuguese war administered their first pretence of complaint, and
- 9. the protection given to the King of Prussia by the Czar, changed the posture of his affairs so advantageously, that it had no gross appearance, when the Dukes of Cumberland, Newcastle, Devonshire, and their faction grew earnest for the continuance of the war in Germany. The Duke of Bedford, who was more than half-gained to the Court, but who always added some contradiction of his own, was averse to both wars, Portuguese and German; and Fox, who was willing to preserve an interest in the Duke of Cumberland, had a difficult part to act. He said to me, “The Duke of Devonshire says it is a Tory measure to abandon the Continent; for my part I do not know who are Whigs; they bore the partiality of the Pelhams 200 to the Tories, and Mr. Pitt’s declaration in their favour, who had complained that they enjoyed none of the favours of Government.” Lord Mansfield would have preserved Newcastle to the Court, but Lord Hardwicke pulled the other way. Lord Lincoln 201 was devoted to Pitt, and wished to unite him and his uncle Newcastle. The Duke of Devonshire advised the latter to resign; but so great was his inclination to keep even the dregs of power with the dregs of life, and so great his fear of being called to account for the waste of money on the German war, that though the King, as a fresh affront, declared seven new peers, without acquainting him, he not only overlooked it, but begged his cousin, Mr. Pelham, 202 might be added to the number, and got the barony of Pelham bestowed on himself, with reversion to that relation. I am forced to detail these intrigues, because the moment was critical, and because it gave birth to a new party, and to many subsequent events. The Court was the more stiff, because they had conveyed a message through Count Virri, 203 the Sardinian minister in England, to the Bailli de Solar, 204 the Sardinian minister at Paris, desiring to renew the negotiation where it had been broken off. Lord Bute had gone farther: he had ordered Sir Joseph Yorke to treat privately with the Court of Vienna, without the knowledge of the King of Prussia. For some time the Court of Vienna did not vouchsafe an answer. To the confusion of the Favourite, the first news he had
- 10. of any answer to come, was from the Baron de Knyphausen, the King of Prussia’s minister here. 205 April 28th, the new peers kissed hands. Lord 206 Wentworth and Sir William Courtenay, 207 Tories, were made Viscounts. Lord Egmont, 208 Lord Milton, 209 Lord Brudenel, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Edward Hussy Montagu, 210 Mr. Vernon, 211 of Sudbury, and Mr. Lane, 212 the two latter Tories, were made Barons, and Lady Caroline Fox, a Baroness. Lord Ligonier’s Irish peerage was entailed on his nephew. Mr. Vernon, 213 clerk of the Council, and Mr. Olmius, 214 were created Irish Barons. The Prince of Mecklenburg, 215 brother of the Queen, was made a Major-General. Lord Bute had often waved her request. She was advised to apply to the Princess, and the favour was immediately granted. Soon after, Buckingham House 216 was purchased and bestowed on her Majesty, St. James’s not seeming a prison strait enough. There the King and Queen lived in the strictest privacy, attended absolutely by none but menial servants; and never came to the palace but for the hours of levies and drawing-rooms. The King’s younger brothers were kept, till they came of age, in as rigid durance. Prince Henry, the third, a very lively lad, being asked if he had been confined with the epidemic cold, replied, “Confined! that I am, without any cold;” and soon after, when the Garter was bestowed on Prince William and Lord Bute, Prince Henry said, “I suppose Mr. Mackenzie 217 and I shall have the green ribands.”
- 11. CHAPTER XI. Debate in the House of Commons on a Vote of Credit and the Support of Portugal.—The German War.—Pitt’s Speech.— Colonel Barré’s Reply to Mr. Pitt.—Lord Bute’s Ambition.— The Duke of Newcastle’s Resignation.—Fox and the Duke of Devonshire.—Ingratitude of the Clergy to Newcastle.— Unwise conduct of Lord Bute.—He is declared First Lord of the Treasury.—Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer.—His unfitness for that Office.—His general Character.—His establishment of a Society of Young Travellers. May 12th. The House of Commons debated on a vote of credit, and the support of Portugal. Glover the poet pleaded against Portugal’s claim to our assistance, from their many infractions of treaties, from their cramping our trade, and from the impossibilities our merchants had found of obtaining redress; a complaint that seemed to bear hard on the late ministry: to which he added reflections on the extravagance of the German war, which, contrary to the professions of ministers, had grown from £200,000 to six or seven millions. Pitt was offended, and corrected Glover, who threw his information on some nameless merchants, by whom he had been told that their remonstrances on the difficulties of the Portuguese trade had not been read by the ministers. Wilkes censured the weakness and irresolution of the ministry; their abandoning Belleisle, and neglecting to send over the officers to Germany. It was even said, he affirmed, that they had been humiliating themselves at the Court of Vienna. Legge more gently, and Beckford with more
- 12. rhodomontade, pressed the same accusations. The latter was for invading Spain by sea; declared that the City suspected the ministry of wavering, and demanded to have their old minister again. Grenville answered finely, and compared the smallness of the sum demanded, £300,000, with the expense in Germany. Belleisle had cost more than what was now asked for Portugal. That Court knew how we were embarrassed, and asked not more than she knew we could give. What proof was there of irresolution? was not Martinico conquered? was not the Havannah likely to follow? or did Beckford think that great words, blustered in Parliament, constituted resolution? Fluctuating reports were rather owing to stockjobbers than to fluctuation in the measures of Government. He affirmed that not one step had been taken at Vienna derogatory to any of our connections. We had only tried to feel how they relished the family- compact among the Bourbons. But whether the resolution was taken to recall our troops from Germany, or at all events to go on, would it be prudent to declare which was to be the measure? Lord George Sackville was liberal in blaming the expense of the German war, which he compared with that of Queen Anne; the whole of which, he maintained, except in 1711 and 1712, did not amount to what this German war had cost alone, though we had then employed more British and other troops than at present. Queen Anne’s war had never exceeded eight millions, including garrisons, fleet, &c. The expense of 172,000 men from 1709 to 1711 had not gone beyond what one year had recently cost in Germany. If there had not been new inventions for expense, we should not now be ready to beg peace. Pitt, in a very capital style, took up the cause of Portugal: he did not stoop to that little hackneyed practice of party, opposing whatever was the measure of the adversary. He had stood forth for general war, and for reduction of the House of Bourbon. To advise still larger war was constancy to the same plan; and it was still safer to advise it, when he was no longer answerable for the event. To oppose vigorous steps would have been more truly lending aid to the Court, who wanted to get clear of the war.
- 13. As having been a public minister, he must not, he said, intrench himself within his present private situation, but speak his opinion. He should not wait for events, but speak boldly as a counsellor. If he voted for this measure, it was giving the Crown his advice, as if he was called to Council. He did think we ought to support Portugal, both for commercial and political reasons. Portugal is in the immediate predicament of nearness to us after Ireland and our Colonies. It assists, without draining us. Assistance was a matter of justice due from us to an oppressed, insulted ally. There had not been such an infraction of treaties as would release us from the ties of treaties. Should we sit with folded arms while the two branches of Bourbon, those proudest of the proud, would exclude us from neutral ports? We must set Portugal on its legs, not take it on our shoulders. He then expatiated on the character of Carvalho, the prime minister of Portugal, his inflexibility to danger, his intrepidity; and drew a picture that might almost have passed for his own, as he seemed to mean it should. Would there be danger in this measure? he was a co-operator in it. If you, as a maritime power, cannot protect Portugal, Genoa will next be shut against you; and then the ports of Sardinia:—what! ports shut against the first maritime power in the world! He then turned Glover into ridicule; said he admired his poetry, but quanto optimus omnium poeta, tanto—he would not, he said, go on. For the sum demanded, it might easily be raised, or a million more: and he would give the same opinion, whether the Duke of Newcastle continued minister, or should be succeeded by Mr. Fox, as was generally said to be the intention. The only difficulty was to find funds. It had been predicated for three years that we could not raise more money; therefore it was plain we could. Lord George should have put into the scale what our enemies had lost; they had been losing, we acquiring. He hoped we should keep up our officers and our marine, and not decrease the latter, as we had done after the last peace. France had last year spent eight millions in Germany. To outlast an enemy was worth perseverance. But we would not distinguish between contracting our expenses and contracting our operations. He paid great compliments to the officers of land and sea, and pleaded earnestly against relinquishing Germany. It would
- 14. be turning loose an hundred and forty thousand French to overrun the Low Countries and Portugal. If there was any odium from the German war, he begged it might fall on him; though he had never seen a contractor, yet he would not disculpate himself by censuring others; and he spoke in mitigation of the blame thrown on the Treasury, owning he thought some little might have been saved, but not suspecting them of dishonesty. Yet, were an inquiry moved, he would second it; he would screen nobody. After the King of Prussia had been so ill-treated on our account, would we throw such a power out of our alliance, only to save three or four hundred thousand pounds? But he thought he had heard the army was not to be recalled—was transported to find Lord Granby was going to it. Himself was the only man that agreed with the whole administration, for he approved both of war in Germany and war in Portugal; and he was so far from meditating opposition, that he should regard the man who would revive parties as an enemy to his country. Himself had contributed to annihilate party, but it had not been to pave the way for those who only intended to substitute one party to another. 218 Should the least cloud arise between London and Berlin, he prayed for temper and reconciliation. He wished to move that the continuation of the subsidy to Prussia might be added to the vote of credit; but it did not become him to move for more than was asked by the King’s servants: yet he wished the vote of credit had been greater, and knew the Duke of Newcastle wished so too. He should rejoice to see the session closed with the grant of a large sum of money, because England could not well treat but at the head of all her force. Russia had acceded to Prussia—how much wiser to give money to that monarch now, when he is in a better situation, than, as you would do, if he were still more distressed! Nay, that little teazing incident, Sweden, was removed by dread of the Czar. Sweden is a free nation, but factions and a corrupted senate have lowered it from the great figure it made an hundred years ago. Act now, continued he, upon a great system, while it is in your power! A million more would be a pittance to place you at the head of Europe, and enable you to treat with efficacy and dignity. Save it not in this
- 15. last critical year! Give the million to the war at large, and add three, four, or five hundred thousand pounds more to Portugal; or avow to the House of Bourbon that you are not able to treat at the head of your allies. This speech, so artful, elevated, so much in character, and so distressful to the Junto that were endeavouring to steal disgrace upon themselves and their country in the face of the world, by setting up one war against another, and dividing the attention of the public, till impotence and mismanagement should render peace welcome,—this speech did Colonel Barré attempt to answer; and did answer it, only in length. He was sensible that he had disgusted mankind by his indecent brutality to so great a statesman: his friends had told him that his invectives, illiberal as they had been, were reckoned the produce of study; and that he must shine in cool argument, lest he should be thought a bully rather than an orator. If they apprehended this, the result of their lessons was a proof that their apprehensions had not been ill-founded. Nothing could be more cold and dull than Barré’s reply to Mr. Pitt. It revenged the latter for the former insult. Calvert, 219 a mad volunteer, who always spoke what he thought, and sometimes thought justly, was so struck with Barré’s phlegmatic impropriety, that he told the House it had put him in mind of a poet, who being at sea in a tempest, and being missed while all hands were on deck, was found half asleep in the cabin; and, being asked why he did not assist to save the ship, replied, he was thinking how to describe the storm? 220 The money was voted, and nothing more of consequence passed that session in Parliament. Both Houses thus complaisant and submissive, there wanted but the office of prime minister to glut the Favourite’s ambition: and no wonder that he, who had dared to strike the name of the first monarch in military glory in Europe from the list of Great Britain’s pensioners, only to gratify the feminine piques of the backstairs; and who had ventured successfully to remove Mr. Pitt from the command of that country which he had saved, restored, exalted;—no wonder such a Phaëton should drive over a ridiculous old dotard, who had
- 16. ever been in everybody’s way, and whose feeble hands were still struggling for power, when the most he ought to have expected, was, that his flattery and obsequiousness might have moved charity to leave him an appearance of credit. It was absurd for him to stay in place; insolent to attempt to stay there by force, and impudent to pretend to patriotism when driven out with contempt. Against his will he was preserved from having a share in the infamy of the ensuing peace. May 14th, the Duke 221 acquainted the King that he would resign, who answered coldly, “Then, my Lord, I must fill up your place as well as I can.” Still Newcastle lingered; and, as he owned afterwards to the Duke of Cumberland, his friends had laboured to prevent the fatal blow. Lord Mansfield, he said, had pleaded with Lord Bute for above an hour, and could not extract from him a wish that the Duke should continue in the Treasury. Fox asked Lord Mansfield if this was true? He replied, “Not an hour, for I soon saw it was to no purpose.” Thus disgraced, and disgracing himself, on the 26th the Duke of Newcastle resigned: and he, who had begun the world with heading mobs against the ministers of Queen Anne; who had braved the Heir-apparent 222 of the new family, and forced himself upon him as godfather to his son; who had recovered that Prince’s favour, and preserved power under him at the expense of every minister whom that Prince preferred; and who had been a victorious rival of another Prince of Wales; 223 was now buffeted from a fourth Court 224 by a very suitable competitor, and was reduced in his tottering old age to have recourse to those mobs and that popularity which had raised him fifty years before; and as almost the individual crisis was revolved, with a scandalous treaty and a new prospect of arbitrary power, it looked as if Newcastle thought himself young again, because the times of his youth were returned, and he was obliged to act with boys! Such pains, however, had been taken to disjoint his faction, that his exit from power was by no means attended with consolatory circumstances. The Duke of Devonshire would not resign, though he
- 17. declared he would seldom or never go to council. Fox had warned him not to be too hasty in embarking in a party in which Pitt must be a principal actor; and remembering his Grace how large a share Pitt had had in planting the Tories at Court, and that, speaking of Legge, Pitt had said, “I will have no more ear for Whig grievances.” The rest of Newcastle’s friends were as little disposed to follow him: but that he might taste the full mortification of being deserted by those whom he had most obliged, whom he had most courted and most patronized, the clergy gave the most conspicuous example of ingratitude. For thirty years Newcastle had had the almost sole disposal of ecclesiastic preferments, and consequently had raised numbers of men from penury and the meanest birth to the highest honours and amplest incomes in their profession. At this very period there were not three bishops on the bench who did not owe their mitres to him. His first levée after his fall was attended but by one bishop, 225 Cornwallis of Lichfield; who being a man of quality, and by his birth entitled to expect a greater rise, did but reflect the more shame on those who owed everything to favour, and scarce one of them anything to abilities. The conduct of Lord Bute was not more wise than that of Newcastle. Instead of sheltering himself under that old man’s name from whatever danger there might be in making peace, the Earl was driving together all those whom he ought to have kept divided, and really seemed jealous lest himself should not have the whole odium of sacrificing the glories and conquests of the war; an infatuation that so far excuses him, as he must have thought he did a service to his country in restoring peace: but what must his understanding have been if he could think that peace would be a benefit, let the terms be what they would? He supposed, too, that Newcastle, having in opposition to Pitt declared for peace, could not retract, and be against the peace. This was not knowing Newcastle or mankind. The situation, too, was materially changed: the weight of Russia was transferred from the hostile to the friendly scale; Martinico was fallen; and Europe could scarce amass the symptom of a fleet. A mind less versatile than Newcastle’s could not want arguments
- 18. against a precipitate treaty. Yet was it not Newcastle, nor a scandalous treaty that shook the Favourite’s power. It was his ignorance of the world; it was a head unadapted to government, and rendered still less proper for it by morose and recluse pride, and a heart that was not formed to bear up a weak head, that made him embark imprudently, and retreat as unadvisedly. Lord Bute, on the resignation of the Duke of Newcastle, was immediately declared First Lord of the Treasury. George Grenville succeeded him as Secretary of State, and Sir Francis Dashwood was made his Chancellor of the Exchequer; a system that all the lustre of the Favourite’s power could not guard from being ridiculous, though to himself mankind bowed with obsequious devotion. Grenville was ignorant of foreign affairs, and, though capable of out-talking the whole corps diplomatique, had no address, no manner, no insinuation, and had, least of all, the faculty of listening. The Favourite himself had never been in a single office of business, but for the few months that he had held the seals: of the revenue he was in perfect ignorance, knew nothing of figures, and was a stranger to those Magi to the east of Temple-Bar, who, though they flock to a new star, expect to be talked to in a more intelligible language than that of inspiration. When a Lord Treasurer or a First Lord of the Treasury is not master of his own province, it suffices if the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a man of business, and capable of conducting the revenue, of planning supplies, and of executing the mechanic duties of that high post. But in the new dispensation it was difficult to say which was the worst suited to his office, the minister or his substitute. While the former shrouded his ignorance from vulgar eyes, and dropped but now and then from a cloud an oracular sentence; the deputy, with the familiarity and phrase of a fish-wife, introduced the humours of Wapping behind the veil of the Treasury. He had a coarse, blunt manner of speaking, that, looking like honesty, inclined men to hold his common sense in higher esteem than it deserved; but, having neither knowledge 226 nor dignity, his style, when he was to act as minister, appeared naked, vulgar, and irreverent to an assembly that expects to be informed,
- 19. and that generally chooses to reprehend, not to be reprehended. When a statesman ventures to be familiar, he must captivate his audience by uncommon graces, or win their good-will by a humane pleasantry that seems to flow from the heart, and to be the effusion of universal benevolence. This was the secret as well as character of Henry the Fourth of France: even the semblance of it stood his grandson, our Charles the Second, in signal stead, and veiled his unfeeling heart, and selfish and remorseless insensibility. Men were puzzled to guess at the motive of so improper a choice as this of Sir Francis Dashwood. The banner of religion was displayed at Court, and yet all the centurions were culled from the most profligate societies. Sir Francis had long been known by his singularities and some humour. In his early youth, accoutred like Charles the Twelfth, he had travelled to Russia in hopes of captivating the Czarina; but neither the character nor dress of Charles were well imagined to catch a woman’s heart. In Italy, Sir Francis had given in to the most open profaneness; and, at his return, had assembled a society 227 of Young Travellers, to which a taste for the arts and antiquity, or merely having travelled, were the recommendatory ingredients. Their pictures were drawn, ornamented with symbols and devices; and the founder, in the habit of St. Francis, and with a chalice in his hand, was represented at his devotions before a statue of the Venus of Medicis, a stream of glory beaming on him from behind her lower hand. These pictures were long exhibited in their club-room at a tavern in Palace Yard; but of later years Saint Francis had instituted a more select order. He and some chosen friends had hired the ruins of Medmenham Abbey, near Marlow, and refitted it in a conventual style. Thither at stated seasons they adjourned; had each their cell, a proper habit, a monastic name, and a refectory in common—besides a chapel, the decorations of which may well be supposed to have contained the quintessence of their mysteries, since it was impenetrable to any but the initiated. Whatever their doctrines were, their practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed. The old Lord Melcomb was one of the
- 20. brotherhood. Yet their follies would have escaped the eye of the public, if Lord Bute from this seminary of piety and wisdom had not selected a Chancellor of the Exchequer. But politics had no sooner infused themselves amongst these rosy anchorites, than dissensions were kindled, and a false brother arose, who divulged the arcana, and exposed the good Prior, in order to ridicule him as Minister of the Finances. But, of this, more hereafter.
- 21. CHAPTER XII. Honours heaped on Lord Bute.—His first Levée.—Archbishop Secker.—Lord Halifax appointed to the Admiralty.—Lord Melcomb a Cabinet Councillor.—Lord Bute’s Haughtiness.— First appearance of “The North Briton.“—Its excessive Audacity.—Sketch of its Author, John Wilkes.—Churchill, Wilkes’s Associate.—Earl Temple.—Capture and recapture of Newfoundland.—The French camp surprised by Prince Ferdinand.—Propensity of the Court for Peace.—General Conway—Peter the Third.—The Czarina Elizabeth.—The Empress Catherine.—Horrible Conspiracy against Peter.— Catherine raised to the Throne.—Murder of Peter.—Effect of the Russian Revolution on the King of Prussia. Every honour the Crown could bestow was now to be heaped on the Favourite. He was fond of his own person, and obtained the Garter in company with Prince William. 228 His first levée was crowded like a triumph. Archbishop Secker, who waited at it, pretended that, seeing a great concourse as he came from Lambeth, 229 he had inquired the occasion, and had gone in. Lincoln’s-inn-fields, where the Duke of Newcastle lived, was not now in the way to Lambeth. About the same time died Lord Anson, and left the Admiralty too at the disposal of the Favourite. He wished to bestow it on Lord Sandwich, to make room for Rigby, as Vice- Treasurer of Ireland; but the shyness of the Duke of Cumberland, whose creature Sandwich was, made that measure impracticable; and the Admiralty was bestowed on Lord Halifax, with permission to
- 22. retain Ireland for a year. Elliot, 230 a chief confident of the Favourite, was appointed Treasurer of the Chambers; and Lord Melcombe a cabinet councillor: but there ended all the ambition of the latter, he dying of a dropsy in his stomach a few weeks afterwards. These successes and the tide of power swelled the weak bladder of the Favourite’s mind to the highest pitch. His own style was haughty and distant; that of his creatures insolent. Many persons who had absented themselves from his levée were threatened with the loss of their own, or the places of their relations, and were obliged to bow the knee. But this sunshine drew up very malignant vapours. Scarce was the Earl seated but one step below the throne, when a most virulent weekly paper appeared, called the North Briton. Unawed by the prosecution of the Monitor (another opponent periodic satire, the author of which had been taken up for abusing favourites), and though combated by two Court papers called the Briton and the Auditor (the former written by Smollet, 231 and the latter by Murphy, 232 and both which the new champion fairly silenced in a few weeks), the North Briton proceeded with an acrimony, a spirit, and a licentiousness unheard of before even in this country. The highest names, whether of statesmen or magistrates, were printed at length, and the insinuations went still higher. In general, favouritism was the topic, and the partiality of the Court to the Scots. Every obsolete anecdote, every illiberal invective, was raked up and set forth in strong and witty colours against Scotland. One of the first numbers was one of the most outrageous, the theme taken from the loves of Queen Isabella and Mortimer. No doubt but it lay open enough to prosecution, and the intention was to seize the author. But on reflection it was not thought advisable to enter on the discussion of such a subject in Westminster Hall; and, as the daring audaciousness of the writer promised little decorum, it was held prudent to wait till he should furnish a less delicate handle to vengeance: a circumspection that deceived and fell heavy on the author, who, being advised to more caution in his compositions,
- 23. replied, he had tried the temper of the Court by the paper on Mortimer, and found they did not dare to touch him. This author, who must be so often mentioned in the following pages, was John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Ailesbury. He was of a plebeian family, 233 but inherited a tolerable fortune in Buckinghamshire, and had been bred at Oxford, where he distinguished himself by humorous attacks on whatever was esteemed most holy and respectable. Unrestrained either in his conduct or conversation, he was allowed to have more wit than in truth he possessed; and, living with rakes and second-rate authors, he had acquired fame such as it was, in the middling sphere of life, before his name was so much as known to the public. His appearance as an orator had by no means conspired to make him more noticed. He spoke coldly and insipidly, though with impertinence; his manner was poor, and his countenance horrid. When his pen, which possessed an easy impudent style, had drawn the attention of mankind towards him, and it was asked, who this saucy writer was? Fame, that had adopted him, could furnish but scurvy anecdotes of his private life. He had married a woman of fortune, used her ill, and at last cruelly, to extort from her the provision he had made for her separate maintenance; he had debauched a maiden of family by an informal promise of marriage, and had been guilty of other frauds and breaches of trust. Yet the man, bitter as he was in his political writings, was commonly not ill- natured or acrimonious. Wantonness, rather than ambition or vengeance, guided his hand; and, though he became the martyr of the best cause, there was nothing in his principles or morals that led him to care under what government he lived. To laugh and riot and scatter firebrands, with him was liberty. Despotism will for ever reproach Freedom with the profligacy of such a saint! Associated with Wilkes in pleasure and in the composition of the North Briton was a clergyman named Churchill, who stepped out of obscurity about the same period, and was as open a contemner of decency as Wilkes himself, but far his superior in the endowments of
- 24. his mind. Adapted to the bear-garden by his athletic mould, Churchill had frequented no school so much as the theatres. He had existed by the lowest drudgery of his function, while poetry amused what leisure he could spare, or rather what leisure he would enjoy; for his Muse, and his mistress, and his bottle were so essential to his existence, that they engrossed all but the refuse of his time. Yet for some years his poetry had proved as indifferent as his sermons, till a cruel and ill-natured satire on the actors had, in the first year of this reign, handed him up to public regard. Having caught the taste of the town, he proceeded rapidly, and in a few more publications started forth a giant in numbers, approaching as nearly as possible to his model Dryden, and flinging again on the wild neck of Pegasus the reins which Pope had held with so tight and cautious a hand. Imagination, harmony, wit, satire, strength, fire, and sense crowded on his compositions; and they were welcome for him—he neither sought nor invited their company. Careless of matter and manner, he added grace to sense, or beauty to nonsense, just as they came in his way; and he could not help being sonorous, even when he was unintelligible. He advertised the titles of his poems, but neither planned nor began them till his booksellers, or his own want of money, forced him to thrust out the crude but glorious sallies of his uncorrected fancy. This bacchanalian priest, now mouthing patriotism, and now venting libertinism, the scourge of bad men, and scarce better than the worst, debauching wives, and protecting his gown by the weight of his fist, engaged with Wilkes in his war on the Scots; and sometimes learning, and as often not knowing, the characters he attacked, 234 set himself up as the Hercules that was to cleanse the State, and punish its oppressors: and, true it is, the storm that saved us was raised in taverns and night-cellars; so much more effectual were the orgies of Churchill and Wilkes than the daggers of Cato and Brutus. The two former saved their country, while Catiline could not ruin his,—a work to which such worthies seemed much better adapted. But while the wit and revelry of Wilkes and Churchill ran riot, and were diverted by their dissipation to other subjects of pleasantry
- 25. or satire, they had a familiar at their ear, whose venom was never distilled at random, but each drop administered to some precious work of mischief. This was Earl Temple, who whispered them where they might find torches, but took care never to be seen to light one himself. Characters so rash and imprudent were proper vehicles of his spite; and he enjoyed the two points he preferred even to power, —vengeance, and a whole skin. This triumvirate has made me often reflect that nations are most commonly saved by the worst men in them. The virtuous are too scrupulous to go the lengths that are necessary to rouse the people against their tyrants. While Wilkes and Churchill attacked the plenitude of the Favourite’s power, another cloud overcast it, which, though inconsiderable and of short duration, contributed to lower him in the estimation of the people. An account arrived of the French having surprised and made themselves masters of Newfoundland. General Amherst 235 did not wait for orders from hence, but, detaching his brother with a body of forces, recovered the island, and made the French commander prisoner. Prince Ferdinand, not less active and vigilant, had surprised the French camp, desirous of embarking us farther in the war, and hoping that new successes would animate the nation to resist the propensity of the Court for peace. General Conway took the castle of Waldeck by stratagem; and the Hessians triumphed in other attempts. 236 The Prince told Mr. Conway that we might be joined by a body of Russians for a trait de plume, but neither miscarriage nor success could beat the Favourite from his plan of pacification; though, had we been inclined to listen to that overture, a second change of scene in Russia would have disconcerted our treating with that nation. Peter the Third, with a humane heart, had neither judgment nor patience. He meant to do right, and thought absolute power could not be better employed than in doing right without delay. His
- 26. approbation and contempt were prompt and strongly marked; and, as his understanding was incapable of embracing many objects, his few ideas took the larger possession of him. Being educated a Lutheran, he despised the clergy of his empire, and had offended the soldiery by enforcing discipline, by restoring the conquests of the preceding reign, by manifesting indiscreet predilection for a regiment of Holstein, his native country, and by so blind a devotion to the King of Prussia, that himself wore that Prince’s uniform. Indolence and drunkenness were added to this want of conduct; but he had to struggle with a yet more dangerous evil. The late Czarina, his aunt, finding no issue arise from his marriage with the Princess of Anhalt Zerbst, questioned the latter; and, it is said, was informed by her that she must not expect any lineage from her nephew. Elizabeth replied, the State demanded successors, and left the Grand Duchess at liberty to procure them by whose assistance she pleased. A son and daughter were the fruits of her obedience. But, though her politics were satisfied, it is said the mind of Elizabeth was not, and that she privately saw her cousin, the dethroned Czar Yvan. The opinion is general, though at what time it happened is uncertain, that drugs to destroy his understanding had been administered to that poor Prince. Peter, though on obtaining the diadem he openly exhibited a mistress, could not but know that if his wife had spoken truth, he could have no claim to be father of her children: thence he had the same curiosity as his aunt, visited the Czar Yvan, and, as the rumour went, intended to name him his successor. Such rumours were sufficient to alarm the Empress, who was slighted by Peter, and had reason to think he meant to divorce her. That bold bad woman, who had all the talents for empire that her husband wanted, and who had been educated by a most artful and intriguing mother, and who, with a commanding person, had a heart susceptible of warm impressions, was then under the influence of Orloff, her lover, and her confident the Princess Daskau, a young woman little above twenty years of age, but of an adventurous spirit, and, what made her situation singular, sister of the Emperor’s mistress.
- 27. This junto agreed to believe that Peter would not limit his aversion for the Empress to mere divorce, but intended to put her to death; a charge most improbable, and inconsistent with the Emperor’s humane and unsuspecting nature. How early a conspiracy was formed, I pretend not to say; nor, in relating the events of so distant a country, and whence truth is so difficult to be procured, do I pretend to give more than the outlines of their general story, collected from the most credible authority. But, however dark and secret the measures were, the facts resulting from them were so glaring, so horrid, so impious, that neither the lying palliatives set forth by the criminals themselves, nor the mercenary flattery of the learned, will be able to wash off from the Empress the foul stains of treason, murder, and usurpation. The Emperor had not reigned above six months, when the plan for dethroning him was formed, and ready to break forth. One of the conspirators being arrested for another crime, the rest concluded the whole was discovered; but, instead of dispersing or seeking safety by flight, the chiefs trusted to rashness for impunity. Orloff galloped off to the Czarina, who was absent from the capital at a separate villa from the Emperor, and told her she had not a moment to lose. That virago having ordered her women to report she was confined by sickness, and placing guards upon the road to prevent notice of her march being sent to the Czar, rode directly to the army and demanded their protection. One only regiment, that of Holstein, refused their support. All the rest saluted her Empress; and the clergy who trembled for their idols, and resented the loss of their beards, ran headlong into rebellion. The senate, the nobility, the people, all concurred to raise to the throne in her own name a woman who had no one claim of any sort to be their sovereign. Nariskin, master of the horse, was the sole subject who had fidelity enough to make his escape and inform the Emperor of the catastrophe that awaited him. That poor prince was at Oraniebaum, a villa. Thunderstruck with the news, he had not presence of mind to prepare himself to save either his empire or his life. He lost both by losing a day, which he wasted in drinking and vain consultation, after
- 28. having fruitlessly sent to Peterhoff to secure the Empress. Next morning he heard that his wife at the head of fourteen thousand men was marching to seize him. He then attempted to make his escape to Holstein, and embarked for Cronstadt—but it was too late! The garrison had received orders to fire on him. Exhausted with perturbation of mind, with drink and fatigue, he sunk under his misfortunes, surrendered himself, and desired to see his wife, now his sovereign. As incapable of pity as of remorse, she refused to admit him, ordering him to sign a renunciation of his crown, and a most humiliating recapitulation of his errors. Nor did this avail: within very few days he was murdered. Thus far Catherine had acted like other monsters of both sexes. Her next measures were as weak towards men as they were profane in the face of Heaven. In very silly manifestoes she endeavoured to justify her crimes; and dared even to call on the Most High as the instigator of her abominations, speaking of her husband but as her neighbour, and of his death as a judgment. Vain and contemptible was this attempt: it could blind none but those who would be willing to acquit her without it. The Princess Daskau soon lost the favour she had so blackly merited; and Rosamouski, Hetman of the Tartars, whom many accused as the very assassin of his master, but who, as his friends urged, was forced into the conspiracy, went into a voluntary exile. Orloff had gained deeper hold on his mistress, and kept her in subjection. Panin, governor of her son, was another of the principal conspirators. Bestucheff, the late chancellor, was recalled; and thus he, Count Munich, Biron, once Duke of Courland, and master of the empire, with the various exiles of the late reigns, found themselves again together at Petersburgh. 237 After the murdered Prince himself, no man was likely to be more affected by this revolution than the King of Prussia. The Russians, so lately his enemies, had not been pleased to become his allies. But, though the new Empress was necessitated to comply with the wishes of her subjects in withdrawing them from that service, she
- 29. was not disposed in so critical a situation to renew the war, or to add provocation to a man whom she had deprived of so useful and essential a friend. She therefore only made the requisition of the thirty thousand Russians in his service, but allowed him for a few days to profit by their assistance, and extricate himself out of this new difficulty. He returned for answer, that he would only drive Marshal Daun from the hills before him, and her troops should return. He did so. This was taking his part with admirable presence of mind. He knew that Daun must in a day or two learn the departure of the Russian troops, and would attack him when weakened.
- 30. CHAPTER XIII. Birth of the Prince of Wales.—Treasure of the Hermione.— Conquest of the Havannah.—Indifference of the Court on that event.—Negotiations for Peace.—Not popular in England.—Reception in France of the Duke of Bedford.— The Duc de Nivernois.—Beckford elected Lord Mayor.— Duel between Lord Talbot and Wilkes.—Lord Bute’s Delegates in the House of Commons.—Grenville and Lord Bute.—Union of Lord Bute and Fox.—The latter reproached by the Duke of Cumberland.—Lord Waldegrave and the Duke of Devonshire decline the proposal of Fox.—Disgust at the union of Bute and Fox.—Purchase of a majority to approve the Peace.—Fox’s revenge against the Duke of Devonshire.—The King and the Marquis of Rockingham.— Further severity to the Duke of Devonshire. On the 12th of August, the Queen was delivered of a Prince of Wales; and the same morning the treasure of that capital prize, the Hermione, arrived in town in many waggons, and passed through the City to the Tower. The sum taken amounted to near eight hundred thousand pounds. In the beginning of the following month came the first news from the Havannah; and before the end of it we learned the entire conquest of that important place by the three Keppels, 238 —the Earl of Albemarle, the Commodore and the Colonel his brothers. The honour they won was a little soiled by their rapaciousness and by our great loss of men: but to Spain the blow was of the deepest
- 31. consequence, and the place irrecoverable by any force they could exert. Yet such a victory seemed to infuse as little joy into the Court of St. James’s as into that of Madrid. The Favourite and his creatures took no part in the transports of the nation; and, when he declined availing himself of any merit from the conquest, it was plain he was grieved either to have more to restore at the peace, or less reason for making that peace but on the most advantageous terms: but he was infatuated, and, breaking through all the barriers of glory, he sent the Duke of Bedford to Paris to settle the preliminaries, whence the Duc de Nivernois arrived for the same purpose. Sullen and silent as Mr. Pitt was, and feeble and impotent as the faction of Newcastle, still the City and merchants showed some symptoms of indignation at this obstinate alacrity for treating. The Duke of Bedford was hissed as he passed through the principal streets; and treasonable papers were dispersed in the villages round London. But in France the Duke was received as their guardian angel. The most distinguished and unusual honours were paid to him; and the principal magistrate of Calais, thinking him descended from the other John Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry the Fifth, complimented his Grace (and no doubt felicitated himself on the comparison) on seeing him arrive with as salutary and pacific, as his great ancestor had formerly landed there with hostile intentions. His counterpart, the Duc de Nivernois, had been long employed in negotiations at Rome and Berlin, but had not the good fortune to please at the latter Court, where the King even turned into ridicule his puny and emaciated little figure. His ill-health, the titles that had centred in his person, and had filled him with vanity (for he was Peer of France, Prince of the Empire, Grandee of Spain, and a Roman Baron), and his affection for polite learning, had disposed him to live in a retired circle of humble admirers, to whom he almost daily repeated his works both in prose and verse; but not without having attempted to soar higher. He had assumed devotion, in hopes of being Governor to the Dauphin: but, except in concluding the peace, which, considering our eagerness, he could not avoid concluding, he had never met with brilliant success in any of his pursuits; being, as
- 32. the celebrated Madame Geoffrin 239 said of him, “Guerrier manqué, politique manqué, bel esprit manqué, enfin manqué partout.” To England he bore no good-will: and though, till the treaty was signed, he concealed, as much as peevishness would let him, the disgust he took to this country, and was profuse in attentions to all, and in assiduity of court to the Favourite and his faction, yet, though he remained here a very little time after the signature, his nature broke forth, and scarce was enough good-breeding left to skin over the sore reluctance of a momentary stay. 240 The nation was far less impatient than the Court for peace; and, though no great burst of spirit appeared against it, there were sufficient symptoms of ill-humour to warn the prime minister, that, without redoubling his industry and taking more solid measures, he might still be foiled in the attempt of forcing an inglorious peace on the nation. Beckford, who had been desirous of resigning his alderman’s gown, was, against his will, elected Lord Mayor; a mark of their good-will to his friend, Mr. Pitt. The North Briton spread the alarm as much as possible; but the flippancy of the author began to draw storms on his own head. Wilkes having in one of those papers ridiculed the flattery of Lord Talbot, who, officiating as Lord High Constable at the Coronation, had endeavoured to back his horse to the gate of Westminster Hall, that he might not turn his own back on the King, was challenged by Lord Talbot; and after a series of letters, which had more the air of a treaty than a defiance, and consequently reflected no great honour on either, they fought a bloodless duel on Bagshot Heath. These little rubs having alarmed the Favourite, he began to consider how ill-qualified his delegates would be to support his treaty in the House of Commons, if either warmly or wittily attacked. It was too precious a cause to trust to Sir Francis Dashwood. Grenville had not much more credit, though more sense and gravity; but was tedious and ill-heard, and had been trained to such obsequious deference for Mr. Pitt, that at that time no man thought him likely or proper to be opposed to so capital a master. Grenville
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