little progress had the Peers yet made in the school of religious liberty, that, to please them, he said "he was by no means prepared to carry toleration so far as Mr. Locke;"-and while Roman Catholics were to be permitted to teach music and dancing, he introduced a clause to prohibit them from keeping boarding-schools, so that they might never have Protestant children under their management.*

Soon after, a private affair of honor, wholly unconnected with any parliamentary proceeding, was brought before the House by the Chancellor, as a breach of privilege. The Earl of Pomfret, erroneously supposing that a gamekeeper, whom he had discharged, had been countenanced by the Duke of Grafton, wrote some very intemperate letters to his Grace, and insisted on fighting him either with sword or pistol. Thurlow, on the rumour of what had happened, moved that they should attend, in their places, in the House: and both parties being heard, it was resolved that the behaviour of the Duke of Grafton had been highly laudable and meritorious; and Lord Pomfret, being made to kneel at the bar, was informed that he had been guilty of "a high contempt of the House." Afterwards the Lord Chancellor, with three-cocked hat on head, administered to him a thundering reprimand.† Nowadays, I conceive, the House would refuse to take cognizance of such a quarrel. The supposed breach of privilege would be the same if the challenger were a commoner, although this circumstance would render the interference more prepos

terous.

In the beginning of the year 1781, Lord Thurlow spoke several times, and at great length, on the rupture which then took place [A. D. 1781.] with Holland. The question being one of public law [A. D. 1781.] upon the construction of treaties, he strangely said that "his pursuits and habits by no means fitted him for such an undertaking,—so that he could only treat the subject with the portion of common sense and experience Providence had endued him with, and familiarize it so as to bring it on a level with his own poor understanding." Perhaps he maliciously insinuated that, to make himself intelligible to his audience, it was necessary he should adapt himself to the meanest understandings. But the truth is, that he himself had read very little of the law of nations; that he was very little acquainted with the rights of peace and war; and that his boasted superiority was in pretension, not in knowledge.§

He succeeded better in justifying the military execution of Colonel Haynes, a British officer taken fighting for the Americans; and in crushing an attempt to censure Lord George Germaine's elevation to the

* 22 Parl. Hist. 759, 764.

† 22 Parl. Hist. 855, 866.

A remarkably acute friend of mine, formerly at the bar, the Judges having retired for a few minutes in the midst of his argument, in which, from their interruptions and objections, he did not seem likely to be successful,—went out of court too, and on his return stated that he had been drinking a pot of porter. Being asked whether he was not afraid that his beverege might dull his intellect, "That is exactly my object," said he "to bring me down, if possible, to the level of their Lordships.'

22 Parl. Hist. 1007-1078.

|| Ib. 976.

peerage, by the title of Viscount Sackville,-when he first refused to put the question, and afterwards denounced as unjust the general orders issued by the late King against that officer after his court-martial.*

But Lord North's Administration was now in the agonies of dissolution; and Thurlow began to coquet a little with the Opposition.† Lord Cornwallis had capitulated,-America was lost,-hostilities had commenced with France, Spain, and Holland,-Gibraltar was besieged,-the fleets of the enemy insulted our shores,-Ireland was on the verge of rebellion,— Russia, and the northern powers, under pretence of an armed neutrality, were combined against our naval rights, and were respectively planning the seizure of a portion of our dominions, and the utter overthrow of the British empire was anticipated. Notwithstanding the King's firm adherence to the present system, a change of ministers was considered inevitable. The Whigs were becoming stronger in the House of Commons on every division; they had been lately strengthened by the accession of the brilliant talents of Pitt the younger, and of Sheridan ; and, what was even of still greater importance, the nation, though disposed to make a gallant struggle against the Continental States, which basely sought to take advantage of our misfortunes, was heartily sick of the colonial war, and was willing to acknowledge American independence. Thurlow's official career being supposed to be drawing rapidly to a close, the lawyers began to speculate which Whig lawyer would be his successor, and how the surly ex-Chancellor would amuse and comfort himself in retirement? That he, who more zealously and uncompromisingly than any other member of the Tory Government, had supported all its most obnoxious acts, and more scornfully resisted all the popular measures of the Opposition, should retain the Great Seal, never entered the imagination of any human being except Thurlow himself and the King. Which of the two first conceived the bright thought must for ever remain unknown. When the ministerial vessel did go to pieces, [MARCH 1782.] Thurlow was the tabula in naufragio-the plank to which his Majesty eagerly clung.

* Ib. 1000, 1021.

† See his speeches on the Government Almnack Bill (22 Parl. Hist. 542), and on the Address of Thanks (ib. 672.)

CHAPTER CLVIII.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD THURLOW TILL HE WAS DEPRIVED OF THE GREAT SEAL ON THE FORMATION ON THE COALITION MINISTRY.

I AM more and more at a loss to account for Lord Rockingham, Lord Shelburne, and Mr. Fox agreeing to sit in the Cabinet with the man who had so violently denounced their [A. D. 1782.] opinions on the very important questions of foreign and domestic policy which were still pending. The great "Coalition" between the two antagonistic parties, which soon after so much shocked mankind, in reality did not involve any such incongruity as this adoption of the most odious member of the late government, without any renunciation of his principles. To do him justice, it should ever be remembered that, instead of saying "Peccavi," he continued to glory in all that he had hitherto done and said while proclaiming the Rockinghams and the Shelburnes as enemies to their country. The proposed measures on which the new Administration was founded, were four -1. An offer to America of unconditional independence as the basis of a negotiation for peace. 2. Economical reform as proposed in Mr. Burke's bill. 3. Repression of the undue influence of the Crown in the House of Commons, by disqualifying contractors to sit there, and by preventing revenue officers from voting at parliamentary elections. 4. The pacification of Ireland by a renunciation of the authority of the British parliament to legislate for that country. The subsequent fusion of Whigs and Tories was plausibly (I think not effectually) defended by the observation that, when it took place, all the questions on which Lord North and Mr. Fox had differed so widely were settled, and that there was nothing to prevent their practical co-operation for the future. But the four great measures which I have specified were still to be brought forward by the government, and Thurlow had often declared, and was still ready to declare, that they were all unconstitutional and pernicious. The King, upon a proper representation, could not have insisted (as he is said to have done) on the retention of Thurlow as the condition of his giving his consent to the introduction of Mr. Fox into the Cabinet; for although he might have executed his threat of abdicating, and retiring to Hanover, he could not at that hour have remained on the throne of England, indulging personal partialities and antipathies in the choice of his ministers.

Mr. Adolphus, in his History of George III., says, "Mr. Fox, some time before the overthrow of the late Cabinet, acknowledged that his adherents detested Lord Thurlow's sentiments on the constitution; but

added, they did not mean to proscribe him."* Fox, however, was then speaking of the Lord Advocate of Scotland, not of Lord Thurlow; and he declared that "they would proscribe no man of any principles in the present dreadful moment, but the five or six men who had been the confidential advisers of his Majesty in all the measures that had brought about the present calamities."

I can only account for the wishes of the King prevailing by supposing the existence of jealousies, rivalries, and bickerings among the Whigs themselves as to the disposal of the Great Seal. It is certainly much to be deplored if the apprehensions of the Rockinghams, that the Shelburnes would be too much aggrandised by the appointment of Dunning, deprived him of the fair reward of his exertions, and the public of the benefit of his services. From the time that he accepted the Duchy of Lancaster and a Peerage, he sunk into insignificance. He had a seat in the Cabinet, but that seldom gives much weight without important official functions and a great department to administer.

How Thurlow comported himself when he met his new colleagues at cabinets to concert their proceedings in parliament, we are left to conjecture. It must now have been very convenient for him to practise the habit he is said to have acquired of going to sleep, or pretending to go to sleep, after dinner, during discussions on which the safety of the state depended. We know that when the measures of government were brought forward in parliament he opposed them without any reserve.

During the short existence of the Rockingham Administration, the Lord Chancellor might truly be considered the leader of "his Majesty's Opposition" in the House of Lords. He knew the secret, which the King was at no pains to conceal, and which was loudly proclaimed by all the "King's friends," that the Administration did not possess his Majesty's confidence. His object, therefore, was to take every opportunity of disparaging it, and, above all, of sowing dissension between the different sections of the liberal party of which it was composed.

They lost a little popularity by the defeat of the motion for a reform in the representation of the people in parliament, made by their partisan, Mr. W. Pitt, then a young lawyer going the Western Circuit. This measure was supported by the Shelburne Whigs, but discouraged by the Rockinghams, who, while they were economical reformers, professed deep reluctance to touch the constitution of the House of Commons.

To evince the sincerity of their professions while in opposition, and to recover their character, Ministers re-introduced, and both their sections eagerly supported, the two bills which Thurlow had formerly thrown out in the Lords, for the disqualification of contractors as representa

* Vol. iii. 349.

†The King declared that, in the whole course of his reign, this was the only Administration which had not possessed his confidence."—Adolph. iii. 373. This statement is said to be from "private information," and his Majesty often praised the accuracy of this historian. The avowal is supposed to have been made by his Majesty after the Administration was dissolved; but, from its formation, the fact had been notorious to all the world.

tives, and of revenue officers as electors. The bill passed the Commons with acclamation; but when they came before the Upper House, although the existence of the government was declared to depend upon them, he attacked them with unabated violence. The second reading of the "Contractors' Bill" having taken place without discussion, the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack, and observed, that "he had expected that, before the bill reached that stage, some noble Lord would have had the goodness to explain to the House the principles on which it rested, and the necessity for introducing it at this particular juncture. The bill trenching on the ancient constitution of this realm, he considered it highly exceptionable in itself; and it was still more exceptionable in its form, from the very singular, imperfect, careless, and inexplicable style and phrase in which it was worded. He would not, by applying strong epithets to the bill, give it a worse character than it really deserved; but, after having perused it with all the attention he was capable of, he could find no milder words in the English language to describe the impression his perusal of it had left upon his mind, than terming it an attempt to deceive and betray the people" Having denied that there ever had been any instances of members of parliament being corrupted by Ministers through the means of contracts, he asked "if no such instance had ever occurred in the worst of times, why pay so bad a compliment to succeeding Ministers as to presume that they will be so much more depraved, so much more abandoned, so lost to all sense of shame, as to be guilty of what their predecessors would have shunned with abhorrence? Why have his Majesty's present Ministers so little confidence in themselves? Why do they believe that they are more corrupt than those they have succeeded?" A noble Lord said, "No Ministers could be more corrupt than the last."-Lord Chancellor: " Then, my Lords, I am relieved from farther arguing the question; for if there was perfect purity in such matters (as I know there was) with the last Ministers, supposing them to have been corruptly inclined (as I know they were not), the bill is confessedly unnecessary, and it is a mischievous remedy for an imaginary and impossible evil. It holds out nothing like a reform either in point of economy or influence. I must likewise, in the discharge of my duty, remind your Lordships that two years ago you rejected this very measure when it was proposed in a less exceptionable form. You are bound to act consistently. If you should now, to please the Minister, suddenly wheel round, how are you to surmount the

*This reminds me of a Westminster Hall anecdote of Mr. Clarke, leader of the Midland Circuit—a very worthy lawyer of the old school. His client long refusing to agree to refer to arbitration a cause which judge, jury, and counsel wished to get rid of, he at last said to him, "You d- -d infernal fool, if you do not immediately follow my Lord's recommendation, I shall be obliged to use strong language to you."-Once, in a council of the benchers of Lincoln's Inn, he very conscientiously opposed our calling a Jew to the bar. I tried to point out the hardship to be imposed upon the young gentleman, who had been allowed to keep his terms, and whose prospects in life would thus be suddenly blasted. "Hardship!" said the zealous churchman-" no hardship at all! Let him become a Christian, and be d―d to him!!!"