them. George the Third loved not unprofita- | before us it is needless to add that the King was ble servants either in his closet or his council- among the most active men in his realm. It is chamber. He bestirred himself, rising early, difficult to conceive either Philip II. or Louis and, when work was to be done, sitting up XIV. to have been more assiduous in their late; and he looked that those about him closets, or more anxiously employed in public should also bestir themselves, whether their business; and although it might have been no functions were ceremonial or official, for show worse if George the Third had written fewer or for use. Punctual, even minute, in his letters himself, and had allowed his official admode of transacting business, as his fashion of visers more liberty of action, yet I think there dating his letters shows, he expected the same can be no doubt that he acted from conscienvirtues in all who served him. He was a good tious motives, and laboured to fulfil what he hater, such as Dr. Johnson loved, and yet a believed to be his royal vocation.' (Introkind and considerate master when he respected duction, x. xv.) or liked his servants. The Chatham Correspondence proves him to have been most indulgent to a really great Minister, but also a most wayward and provoking one, and especially to one of regular habits like the King. His correspondence with Lord North displays him in the light of a warm, an anxious, and a thoughtful friend. Lord North's health, comfort, convenience, and personal interests are continually the subject of the royal letters; and it is much to be regretted that we have not the replies they cannot fail to have been cordial of the kind-hearted and imperturbably good-humoured Minister. 'For a general description of the contents of the following letters I cannot do better than transcribe the following passage from Lord Brougham's "Sketch of George III." In the main, we are disposed to agree with Mr. Donne: and certainly on one head of his remarks, namely, the 'imperturbable good humour' of Lord North, the best natured, undoubtedly, but at the same time the most indolent and complying of Ministers. When Walpole cynically terms him a man of neither ceremony nor civility' (Last Journals') he is justified probably by the excess of the first of these qualities indolence- - which made it impossible for Lord North to submit to the tram mels of ceremoniousness. But for this the King, at least, liked him none the worse. It is quite unnecessary to recall once more to our readers a figure so often portrayed, and so familiar to us all, but we may be excused for adding the sketch drawn of him by an artist who seldom flattered, Sir Philip Francis, in his manuscript remains, as yet unpublished: : North, who positively was the most good-humoured man of those whom I have known or heard of among Ministers or others who are at all likely to be remembered in history.' "The correspondence which he carried on with his confidential servants during the ten most critical years of his life proves that his attention was ever awake to all the occurrences of the Government. Not a step was taken in foreign, colonial, or domestic affairs that he did not form his opinion upon it and exercise his influence over it. The instructions to ambas'As there are looks and features in the husadors, the orders to governors, the movement man countenances which reconcile us to the of forces, down to the marching of a single absence of beauty, so, in the mixed character battalion in the districts of this country, the of which most of us are composed, a good-naappointment to all offices in Church and State, tured disposition, supposing it real and sponnot only the giving away of judgeships, bish- taneous, covers many essential faults, and aloprics, regiments, but the subordinate promo- most reconciles us to qualities and actions tions, lay and clerical. All these form the top-worse than defects; as they did many to Lord ics of his letters; on all, his opinion is pronounced decisively; on all, his will is declared peremptorily. In one letter he decides the appointment of a Scotch puisne judge; in another, the march of a troop from Buckinghamshire into Yorkshire; in a third, the nomination to the deanery of Worcester; in a fourth, he says that if Adam, the architect, succeeds Worsley at the Board of Works, he shall think Chambers ill-used."" To this comprehensive list of topics" I add that the King insisted upon University professorships not being looked upon as sinecures: upon all persons holding or expecting favours from him voting in Parliament as he thought meet; that he confides to Lord North his family troubles and private affairs; admits now and then that his purse is low, and makes no secret of his likes and dislikes to parties or members of them, sionally, rarely indeed, affords us a glimpse of his own life and habits. With these letters And it must be added, that one rises from the perusal of these letters with the opinion that the placid Premier deserved something like canonization, if patience and long-suffering are qualities to make a saint. No one less profusely endowed with the passive virtues could have endured, as he did the pelting of the poor King's volubility, as abundant in writing as in conversation, and indicative, no doubt, of that morbid state of mind which was gradually on though not at all inconsistent with the full possession of his faculties - for at least ten years before his great the increase 'Feather-bed 'twixt castle wall was continually tendering his plaintive offers of resignation, which were as pertinaciously rejected. We forget what distinguished Frenchman it was who descanted on the calm happiness, the repose of spirit, enjoyed by an active-minded man who is married to a béte. Certainly George the Third-though, in his own way, he fully appreciated ability, and could in no degree be deceived by pretentious folly did feel a comfort in the society of a soft-minded Minister analogous to that which the Frenchman experienced by the side of a stupid woman. The happiest intervals of his life were those in which he had escaped from the boring of a George Grenville, the alternate arrogance and servility of a Chatham, the intriguing genius of a Shelburn, the resolute superiority of a Pitt, and 'snatched a fearful joy' under the rule of King Log, en attendant the inevitable King Stork. Bute was insane and mild enough to suit his inmost wishes sed Cinara breves annos fata dederunt. Lord North, felix post Cinaram,' was certainly no bête, but he was very successful in assuming the engaging airs which belong to the character. Not wanting in sense to perceive that events were adverse to his policy, and that the men whom he employed were incapable and not to be relied on, he smiled in the same impassive way (at least outwardly) at the failure of his schemes, and the imbecility of his instruments. What excited to the highest degree the nervous irritability of the King scarcely seemed to affect at all the lymphatic constitution of the Minister. As the satirists of the time observed, he answered the description of the attendants whom Cæsar would fain have possess ed 'Let me have such about me as are fat, Sleek-headed Men, and such as sleep at night.' And when it is remembered that the individual in whom the King found these seductive qualities so largely developed, was at the same time the early associate of his boyhood, had taken his part in the children s amusements of Leicester House, and acted Syphax' to Prince George's Portius,' while 'Master Nugent' shone in Cato-we are even the less surprised that after his introduction to public life by the Duke of Newcastle he soon became the favourite and ultimately the indispensable. 'In some respects,' says Mr. Jesse, they resembled each other, not only in countenance, but in disposition. Lord North, on his part, eign for the flattering confidence, support, and could scarcely fail to be grateful to his soveraffection which he had so long extended to him; while, on the other hand, we know that the King never ceased to acknowledge the great obligations under which he lay to Lord North, for having come to his assistance when the Duke of Grafton had deserted him in 1770. Finally, during the last twelve years of their lives they odium, and share the same hazards. If I was had fought the same battles, incurred the same asked," said the late King of Hanover (in an unpublished letter to Mr. Croker) "which Minister the King, during my life, gave the preference to, I should say Lord North. But the Coalition broke up that connection, and he never forgave him.""" Still, happy as Lord North made the King for a time, there was one we cannot but suspect, destined to make him still happier. It was only in Addington that George III. discovered at last that consummate mediocrity which it might be unpolite to term betise, but which most nearly realised the imaginative Frenchman's dream of happiness in a partner. And while the King's attachment to Lord North ended in a violent quarrel, nothing but adverse destiny, separated him from the peaceful Addington. But to return to Lord North, Mr. Donne, has characterised very truly the exceedingly affectionate and considerate terms in which the King's correspondence with him is couched. From the day on which the formal address Lord North' first expands into the friendly* My dear Lord' (March 16, 1778), which is, however, rarely used, down to the approach of the final quarrel, nothing can exceed the cordiality, or rather, tenderness, *Address of Letters.-William the Fourth's let ters, in the Correspondence' just quoted, are all framed in the third person: the King has received Earl Grey's letter,' &c.. &c. and signed W. B.' Lord Grey's are in that strange mixed form in which the writer speaks of himself in the third persun, and addresses his correspondent in the second: Earl Grey has the honour of submitting to your Majesty,' &c, &c., which may be convenient, and is, we suppose, peculiarly respectful, but has always in our eyes a tendency toward false grammar. It is as if we were to reform our ordinary style of invitation as follows:- Mr. requests the pleas ure of your company at dinner.' of the royal language. It approaches now and then the character of sentimental friendship with its fits of passionate jealousy 'The letter I have just received from you,' he says, on April 1, 1778, 'is in the affectionate style I used to find ever to be called forth in you when my service was concerned; and so very unlike the coldness and despondency of your correspondence for some time, that I cannot refrain the pleasure of expressing my satisfaction at it, though I shall see you this day, when I will fully talk over the conduct of Mr. Jackson.' 'I am fully convinced' (March 16, 1778) that you are actuated alone from a wish not to conceal the most private corners of your heart in writing the letter you have just sent me; but, my dear Lord, it is not in private pique, but an opinion formed on an experience of a reign of now seventeen years, that makes me resolve to run any personal risk rather than submit to opposition, which every plan deviating from strengthening the present Administration is more or less tending to; therefore I refer you to the genuine dictates of my heart which I put on paper yesterday, and transmitted to you; and I am certain that while I have no one object but to be of use to this country, it is impossible I can be deserted, and the road opened to a set of men who certainly could make me a slave for the remainder of my days and whatever they may pretend, would go to the most unjustifiable lengths of cruelty and destruction of those who have stood forth in public office, of which you would be the first victim. (Letter not before printed.) On one occasion, it must be confessed, this cordiality in high quarters assumed a character a little burdensome to the British taxpayer. On the 9th of April, 1777, Lord North delivered a message from the throne in which much concern was expressed by the King at being compelled to acquaint his faithful Commons that he was deeply in debt.' Relief afforded to American loyalists was paraded as one of the unforseen expenses in which his Majesty had been compelled to engage. The profusion and extortion which prevailed in the Royal Household,' as Lord Stanhope terms it, was a much more pressing cause. • But, beyond all this, his faithful Commons, and everybody else, shrewdly suspected that a considerable portion of the debt had been incurred in Parliamentary corruption, or from the purchase of votes at elections.' A curious illustration of this practice is afforded by the remarkable draft letter in Lord North's hand writing Apparently by mistake, for the letter dated of the same day (March 16), already printed, in which he absolutely refuses to treat personally with Lord Chatham. There are no less than three letters of March 16 and three of March 17! 'I have now signed the last warrant for paying up the arrears due on my Civil List,' he writes on Sept. 19 (in a letter already printed by Lord Stanhope), and therefore seize with pleasure this instant to insist on doing the same for you, my dear Lord. You have at times dropped to me that you had been in debt ever since your first settling in life, and that you had never been able to get out of that difficulty. I therefore must insist that you will now state to me whether 12,000l. or 15,000l. will not set your affairs in order; if it will, nay, if 20,000l. is necessary, I am resolved you shall have no other person concerned in freeing them but myself. Knowing now my determination, it is easy for you to make a proper arrangement and at proper times, or to take by degrees that sum. You know me very ill if you do not think that of all the letters I have ever wrote to you this one gives me the most pleasure; and I want no other return but your being convinced that I love you as well as a man of worth as I esteem you as a Minister. Your conduct at a critical minute I ability and the kindness of Parliament I am never can forget, and am glad that by your enabled to give you this mark of my affection, which is the only one I have ever yet been able to perform; but trust some of the employments for life will in time become vacant, that I may reward your family.' We cannot in conscience call this transac tion a particularly happy illustration of the working of that excellent constitution,' of which his Majesty always professed himself so deeply enamoured. These letters go some way towards justifying Horace Walpole's sarcastic account of the transaction (Last Journals,' ii. 107). 'Lord North had certainly wished to avoid being the mover, and had made the most of his late illness, pleading the badness of his nerves. Still the weight of the debts on the civil list, and the danger of not obtaining an addition, if delayed, were so obvious, that there had been even thoughts of making Cornwall make the motion if Lord North was unwilling or unable; but the latter saw that if he waived the office he should forfeit all the merit of his past complaisance, and even risk his place, if he let anybody else execute the most material services. He had procured none of the sinecures in the Treasury for his family; and he had dipped too far not to complete the attainment of his wages.' We can only pass the affair over with the usual plea in mitigation, that it suited well enough the political morality of that age. Probably there were few, not belonging to what his Majesty calls the desperate faction' of opposition, who would have thought the worse either of him or his ministers for continuing and accepting this tangible reward for the rectitude of their conduct.' 6 The quarrel between the two old comrades, bound by so many a tie, when it came, was, as we have said violent and irreconcilable. It is difficult to believe,' says Mr. Jesse, that they could have parted without feelings of affectionate regret on both sides.' We believe that the King of Hanover was right, and Mr. Jesse wrong the King never forgave Lord North.' He had submitted, indeed, however reluctantly, to his favourite's resignation of office in 1782. At last,' as he says (March 27) the fatal day has come which the misfortunes of the times, and the sudden change of sentiments of the House of Commons, have driven me to, of changing the Ministry. The effusion of my sorrows has made me say more than I intended; but I ever did and ever shall look upon you as a friend as well as a faithful servant.' But after these last expressions of sorrow' the friendship is evidently at an end There is a coolness,' says Mr. Donne (ii. 451), in his letters to Lord North, as merely Secretary of State, affording a strong contrast to the occasional warmth of his language to Lord North as first Lord of the Treasury. Their friendship ceased with the "Coalition Ministry." The King thenceforward described his once loved and trusted servant as a "man composed entirely of negative qualities; as one who, for the sake of procuring present case, would risk any difficulties which might threaten the future. He spoke of him as "that grateful Lord North." His "personal aversion" to him as well as Fox (he told William Grenville) was great." Nor, in later life, does he ever seem to have renewed or recognised the ties of old attachment. When his favourite died, blind and worn out at sixty, in 1792, the only observation of the King's which we have seen recorded is contained in a letter to Pitt: of the death of the Earl of Guildford, I take 'Having this morning received the account the first opportunity of acquainting Mr. Pitt that the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports is an office for which I will not receive any recommendations, having resolved to confer it on him, as a mark of that regard which his emi nent services have deserved from me.' King George has been much reproached with this hardness of heart towards one whom he had loved so well. Perhaps with justice. He certainly was not of a forgiving character. But it must be remembered, on the other hand, that posterity has confirmed the verdict which the King passed in his heart on his grateful' servant; that the Coalition with Fox was, on the part of Lord North, as profligate and shameless a measure towards the public as it was thankless towards his Royal benefactor, after all the counsel which they two had shared, and the storms which they had weathered side by side. On the other hand, Lord Sydney, as a King's friend' of 1789, speaks with the utmost bitterness of the filthy conduct of Lord North, who is led down to the House to act under Sheridan, to joke on the King's misfortunes.' (Cornwallis Correspondence, Feb. 21, 1789.) But the sting of Lord North's behaviour was undoubtedly his union with Charles Fox that bitterly hated personal enemy, over whose offences the minister and the King had exchanged so much reciprocal indignation. It is difficult even with all the light which a library of recent publications has thrown on the whole subject-to realise the intensity of that hatred, or to arrive distinctly at the cause of it. Much has been ascribed to the effect produced on the King's mind by the real or supposed connection of Fox with the early profligacies of the Prince of Wales.* That this Mr. Jesse says (ii. 367), 'It has been affirmed (Quart. Rev., vol. cv. p. 481) that when the Prince conceived a boyish passion for Mrs. Robinson, Fox not only acted too friendly and accomodating a part on the occasion, but that the King's knowledge of this discreditable fact was the main cause of his personal aversion to the man whom he regarded as had much to do with keeping up the intensity of the aversion, we have no doubt. But the first offence was certainly political, and, apparently, arose out of Fox's early opposition to the King's favourite project of the Royal Marriage Bill. The first notice of him which we find in these pages is as early as Feb. 23, 1772. Only a year before, Fox had still been in unfledged Toryhood, had abused the City as his father used to do,' and had been mobbed in a riot upon the Lord Mayor going to the House of Common.' (Lord Russell's Memorials, i. 68). But on the 20th Feb., 1772, having quarrelled with Lord North, he resigned his place in the Admiralty; which seems to have occasioned the peculiar bitterness of the letter in question. As this letter has not been previously printed, and is curious. ly illustrative of the royal way of thinking in more ways than one, we subjoin it. The occasion was the petition presented by Sir W. Meredith for relief from subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. wards you and himself if he had absented him- Throughout this correspondence, the name Fox, which he left, and which remains in The methodical practice of dating by hours and Queen's House. Feb. 23rd, 1772. 20 min. pt. 10 p.m. 'LORD NORTH, The account I have just received from you of the very handsome majority this day gives me infinite satisfaction. I owne [sic] myself a sincere friend to our Constitution, both Ecclesiastical and Civil, and as such a great enemy to any inovations [sic], for, t It is difficult to speak of Francis and Lord in this mixed Government, it is highly neces- North without being haunted by remembrances of sary to avoid novelties. We know that all the old Junius' question; but we must forbear from indulging them at present. One observation wise nations have stuck scrupulously to their has occurred to us in reading these letters. The ancient customs. Why are we, therefore, in King took a great interest in the mission of the opposition to them, to seem to have no other Commissioners to India (1774). General Clavering was one of his especial favourites. Of Francis, the object but to be altering every rule our ances- third Commissioner, when men ioned to him as a tors have left us? Indeed, this arises trom a candidate for the appointment, he says, 'As to the general disinclination to every restraint; and, other gentlemen that have applied to you, I do not know anything of their personal qualifications, exI am sorry to say, the present Presbyterians seem so much more resembling Socinians than cept Mr. Francis, who is allowed to be a man of talents.' (June 8, 1773.) From Francis's curious, Christians, that I think the test was never so but most cautious, fragment of autobiography (as necessary as at present for obliging them to yet unprinted) we learn (in exact accordance with prove themselves Christians. I think Mr. C. this letter) that he made his application to Lord Barrington for the place on June 4; who thereupon Fox would have acted more becomingly to-wrote the handsomest and strongest letter imaginable in my favour to Lord North. Other interests his son's destroyer. It is but fair, however, to contributed, but I owe my success to Lord Barring Fox's memory to relieve him from this apparently ton.' What t ose other interests' were we must unsubstantiated charge.' The words used in the still collect by surmise as well as we can. It passage cited from this Review' are, that Fox gives you vast power and a vast salary,' writes to and Lord Malden had the credit' of the trans- him his particular ally and relation, Richard Tilghaction. It is much more broadly stated in the Life man, from Philadelphia (Sept. 29, 1773, MS.). of George the Fourth,' by H. E. Lloyd, published for the Justice, or policy, of the thing, I know nothin 1830. Charles James Fox and the Lord Malden ing about them. But how did you get this appointbrought Perdita and Florizel, as the Prince was ment? It is miraculous that a man should resign now called, together.. The King never his office in 1772, and in 1773, without any change of afterwards looked upon them in any other light the Ministry, be advanced in so very extraordinary than that of seducers. This H. E. (Hannibal Ev- a manner. Your merit and abilities I was always ans) Lloyd, was only a veteran book-maker, but he ready to acknowledge, Sir. But I was never taught was not an inventor, and moreover was a great to think much of Lord North's virtue or discernadmirer of Fox. According to the anonymous au- ment. His treatment of you has in some measure thor of the continuation of Mary Robinson's Me- redeemed him in my opinion.' One thing may be moir" when the Prince of Wales parted from the pretty clearly inferred from the King's letter as has lady after a few months, and she applied to him for been shown by other critics besides ourselves. It money, the business was submitted to the arbitra- is scarcely possible that on June 8, 1773, both he tion of Mr. Fox. Of course such loose assertions and Lord North could have known that Francis would be worth nothing on the question of fact. was Junius; and thus far the well-known story But the scandal, which had reached the public, had attributed to Gen. Desaguliers is unsupported.no doubt reached the King. (See Wade's 'Junius,' vol. i. p. lxxix.) 134.. FOURTH SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. V. A8 |