'I lived to see him, when he wanted nothing, and ought to have had no interest or ambition but, for his own sake, to close such a life with consistency and honour, drop at once, luminous to the last, as lightning falls from heaven, not stopping half way, not catching at a stump or a twig to break the fall, not halting at the comInon landing-places of trading politicians, of midway statesmen, of de medietate patriots and orators, with half a tongue ready for either side, from which he might have mounted and soared again, as Chatham did after a peerage and a pension, which he took and might justly have claimed as his right; but down he went, Plumb down he drops, and there I heard him, in a special pleading for Hanover against England in 1806, pronounce the panegyric, and bear witness to the virtues of his Royal master George the Third! all which he did ex abundanti, without necessity or the least call for it. Neither could it possibly be of any service to him towards gaining the king, as he well knew, and must have known, if he knew anything of that gentleman. And what did he gain by it? To be suspected, if not convicted, of insincerity by every man of sense and spirit in the kingdom, even among his friends, such as Coke of Norfolk, Plummer of Herts, &c., who all knew that every word he uttered on this subject was false. And what would he have lost by acting firmly, or by dying a year or two sooner, while his reputation was entire? The short possession of a place from which the best of princes would have taken the first opportunity to expel him, as he did Grey and Grenville eight months after: His retreat from Parliament in 1797, as far as it concerned the public only, did not want a justification. The nation had no claim on him for gratitude or service, nor was his absence at all regretted by what is called the public. It was unjust to the City of Westminster to hold, and not to occupy, the place they gave him. Attendance is a duty inseparable from the station, and on no account to be waved or renounced, especially by a man so likely to be followed by so many others. It was unjust and ungrateful to his party and friends, who had lately paid his debts, and made him independent, not surely for the purpose of enabling him to desert them, to retire into the country, and to marry Mrs. Armistead. At all events he should have gone alone, and not have taken his friends and as many of his party as he could influence along with him to cover his retreat, as in fact he did, though not without airs of remonstrance, and requests to engage them to stay. ..... There, however, should have ended his political life, by quitting Parliament. He might *The allusion is probably to l'ox's speech of April 23, in that year, on the King's message relating to Prussia.' As Fox's sentiments on that occasion earned him the cordial approbation' of Lord Castlereagh, they were hardly likely to meet with that of Francis. then, though far from blameless, have died without dishonour, and no man probably would have examined the ashes of his heart.' Undoubtedly, as Mr. Donne expresses it, the King was a good hater. Some of the evidences of this quality afforded by these volumes are striking enough, some amusing. It makes the reader smile to observe how, on particular contingencies, the simple act of taking part in opposition turns a man, in the Royal opinion, into a monster. The Duke of Richmond offends him (1773) by moving that a conference be desired with the Commons upon the subject matter of the East India Company's Regulation Bill.' This, in the King's judgment, shews the Duke of Richmond's blackness, if it wanted any elucidation.' His verdict on Dundasdestined, in later days, to become a favourite is shrewd enough, but spiteful. The more I think on the conduct of the Advocate of Scotland, the more I am incensed against him; more favours have been bestowed on that man than ever were bestowed on any Scotch lawyer, and he seemed studiously to embrace an opportunity to create difficulties; but men of talents, when not accompanied with integrity, are pests instead of blessings to society, and true wisdom ought to crush them rather than encourage them!'-(Feb. 24, 1778.) The following (one of those now published for the first time) gives the measure of his sentiments as to his English legal advisers about the same time (April 21, 1770), "It is impossible to be more pleased than I am with the very frank manner in which Lord North opened himself to me on the present illhumor of the Attorney-General. It had the appearance of unbosoming to a friend.. Lord North is much above any little intrigue, which certainly is very prevalent in the composition of the Attorney-General (Wedderburn), and still more so in that of his pupil Mr. Eden. What I have to recommend is, that Lord North would place his chief political confidence in the Chancellor (Thurlow), who is a very firm and fair* man, will, if called upon, give on any business his sentiments, yet not ambitious of going out of his particular line, therefore will not attempt the part of a Mentor, which the two other gentlemen have but too much aimed at not to have caused Lord North much uneasiness, and every quarrel could only be healed by some job. Let the Lord-Advocate be gained to attend the whole session, and let him have the confidence concerning measures in Parliament, but not concerning the filling of employments, which might, as in the former mode, give trouble.' *Could the King have foreseen 1788, he would hardly have used these epithets. * ness. Respecting Eden (the first Lord Auck- Bishop of Litchfield, who brought me the_melland) to whom reference is here made, there ancholy news that some difficulties from Lady are some curious evidences both of the King's Bruce had so agitated her husband that he could appreciation of men, and of the suspicious not think of being Governor to my children. way of looking at them, which long familiarThe Bishop broke it with the greatest gentleity with the political world had given him. whose secrecy I could depend upon, to acquaint I instantly sent for Lord Ashburnham, Lord Auckland,' says Mr. Jesse, had for- the Duke of Montague of this event, and to merly been held in great regard by the desire the Duke to come to me. I have so King, but had forfeited it, as he had also for-powerfully shown that my fresh distress arose feited the regard of Lord North, by his po- from his family, that I have persuaded him to litical conduct.' This is not exactly the supply the place of his brother, which he does case. George the Third seems to have had on the following conditions - not to be appointa liking for Eden, as well as a high opinion ed until Wednesday, by which he avoids apof his talents (he was sent to America in pearing on the birthday, for which he has no 1778, as one of those three unlucky Com-cloaths, and that Lord Bruce may still have the missioners whom Mr. Donne treats so se- without farther delay, order the Earldom of Earldom of Ailesbury. You will therefore, verely), but, at the same time, to have Montague for the Duke, with the remainder to thoroughly appreciated from the beginning the Duchess of Buccleugh and her male heirs. the slippery qualities which details lately I am this instant going to Kew to acquaint my brought to light, relating to much more re- sons of this change." See Walpole's Last cent days, have so fully illustrated. 'In-Journals,' ii. 53. trigue,' he says, is so prevalent in his composition. It is impossible for me (Sept. 25, 1780) to follow Mr. Eden through the mazes and turnings he is for ever treading.' The following two letters, which Mr. Donne has now for the first time made public, are curious as evincing the extreme solicitude of the King, even at the earliest period, respecting the arrangement for the education of his children, which, nevertheless, on the whole, succeeded so ill. St. James's, May 31st, 1776. We have perhaps given proof enough incidentally but much more might be added-of the King's possession of one eminently kingly quality: the knowledge of men, where favour or inveterate prejudice did not distort his judgment of them. As to the question of his general abilities, that has been thoroughly and often discussed in these pages and elsewhere. That the abundant revelations of the last twenty years have raised him in general opinion, in this respect, there can be no doubt. It was the Whig fashion of some years ago to decry him as extremely your letter, which throws me into the greatest stupid, as well as uneducated and illiterate. state of uneasiness I ever felt. Last year, when As regards the latter charge, these very letI mentioned the application of the Duke of ters (so far as they were known to the pubMontague for the Earldom of Montague, you lic) were often referred to in proof. We never reminded me of wishing that title for are now able to estimate them better. Lady Beaulien; on Wednesday was seven- George the Third was far from a well-edunight, when I mentioned that the creating Lord cated man. But the peculiarities of his Bruce an Earl would oblige me to create his style and diction, in ordinary correspondbrother Earl of Montague, and also on Wednes- ence, were by no means so much owing to day, when I directed the preparing the two war- this circumstance as to another; the extrarauts, this did [not] occasion any other remark than that it would distress Lady Beaulieu, I ordinary precipitation with which he wrote, have accordingly, through Lord Bruce, acas well as spoke.* Unquestionably, as we quainted the Duke that he will be Earl of Mon- have said, this was part of the morbid side tague; I cannot retract. If you do wish an of his mind. While dashing off his notes to Earldom for Lady Beaulieu, I will grant her Lord North at the rate sometimes of three one of any other name to ease your mind; but or four a day, on every conceivable subject, fairly owne I think her conduct to me, as that he absolutely discarded the rules of spellof all her family, deserved none. Come imme-ing, and broke Priscian's head, as Mr. Donne diately, I cannot go to my levée, nor see any mortal, till you have been here.' 'Queen's House, June 2nd, 1776. *Vol. iii. p. 512. phrases it, without the slightest remorse. *This habit was always painfully remarkable in crises of political difficulty. You will easily supdescribing an important interview in March, 1783, pose. says Mr. Grenville to Lord Temple, after 'that I have not been able to recollect the precise words of a conversation so very difl'use, upou so very many subjects, and which lasted from eleven last night till past one this morning.' ('Court and Cabinets of George the Third,' i. 192.) There are many of us -men naturally or habitually accurate -to whom a slip in spelling, or even in grammar, would be an impossibility, under any pressure of hurry. But there are others, particularly men who read but little and converse much, whose propensity, more or less effectually conquered, is, when they take pen in hand, to write as they talk, ungrammatically, and to spell by the hearing. George the Third when writing hasty notes scarcely resisted at all the temptation to take his ease in these particulars. But the proof that his clerical errors arose from negligence only are simple enough. When he gave himself the pains, he both wrote and spelt as correctly as any educated and sensible man. The reader may easily ascertain this for himself, by comparing with these perfunctory scrawls such serious compositions as that spirited, though peevish, letter to Lord Temple, of April 1, 1788, which is printed in the Court and Cabinets of George III.' i. 218, and contrasting its diction with that of the notes to Lord North of the same month. Or take the following to Lord North himself, of June 11, 1770, which Sir James Mackintosh could not believe to be genuine : The original, however (says Mr. Donne), is in his Majesty's hand-writing; and as he intimates that it was deliberately composed, the absence of ungrammatical or confused sentences may be accounted for without resorting to Sir James's supposition. The King, when he took time, did not write ill.' Though, for our own parts, we cannot quite subscribe to the King of Hanover's indulgent estimate of his father's epistolary ability: No man wrote better, or knew how to express his opinion in a concise way, than George the Third.'-Jesse, ii. 47. I should think it the greatest instance among the many I have met with of ingratitude and injustice, if it could be supposed that any man in my dominions more ardently desired the restoration of peace and solid happiness in every part of this empire than I do; there is no personal sacrifice I could not readily yield for so desirable an object; but at the same time no inclination to get out of the present difficulties, which certainly keep my mind very far from a state of case, can incline me to enter into what I look upon as the destruction of the empire. I have heard Lord North frequently drop that the advantages to be gained by this contest could never repay the expence; I owne that, let any war be ever so successful, if persons will sit down and weigh the expences, they will find, as in the last, that it has impoverished the State, enriched individuals, and perhaps raised the name only of the conquerors; but this is only weighing such events in the scale of a But to pass to more important qualifications than good spelling and grammar. There is no doubt that the King had not, as he himself quaintly regrets, 'the powers of oratory of a Demosthenes, or the pen of an Addison' (ii. 321). There is a striking contrast between the dulness and narrowness, and extreme of commonplace, in which he generally expresses himself respecting matters of political interest- thetwaddle, to speak irreverently, to which he treats Lord North the truisms, which one would be tempted to call Joseph Surfacelike, were it not for the transparent honesty of the writer, respecting the beauties of the British Constitution, and the preference due to virtue over vice, with which he is wont to preface the intimation of some audacious act of autocracy and the resolute, able coup d'œil with which he sometimes seizes a Obstinate he merely practical question. was to the extreme extent of that quality, obstinate in adherence to what he deemed principles, obstinate in achieving his will for minor purposes; but between these two classes of subjects, there was another on which his good sense overcame his obstinacy. No one seems to have known better than he, at times, when to change his front in face of an enemy, when to seek to obtain by a flank movement what he had missed in a dash. It was not without truth, in this sense, that Lord Grenville observed in one of his private letters (as quoted by Lord Russell) that George the Third always knew when he must give way.' The following short letter (hitherto unprinted) in the matter of Wilkes, with Mr. Donne's commentary on it, will illustrate our meaning: than " Queen's House, March 20th, 1771. 55 min. pt. 9 a.m LORD NORTH, I am sorry the business of committing the Lord Mayor could not be concluded last night, for every delay in a breach of privilege of so enormous a kind seems to indicate to the bystander a less attachment in the House of Commons to its own authority every wellwisher can desire; besides, whatever time is given to the Lord Mayor is in reality allowing consultation and plans of disturbance to the factious. I own I could have wished that Wilkes had not been ordered before the House, for he must be in a jail the next term if not given new life by some punishment inflicted on him, which will bring him new supplies; and I do not doubt he will hold such a language that will oblige some notice to be taken of him.' 'His Majesty, indeed (remarks Mr. Donne), was very near the truth, and showed that, whatever the House may have done, he had learnt wisdom from the Middlesex election. There can be no doubt that the printers' business did not answer Mr. Wilkes's expectations when he caught at it. "His fortunes," says Mr. Massey (Hist. ii. p. 91), "6 were again at a low ebb; the subscriptions which had flowed so freely to his relief during the Middlesex elections had fallen off as that excitement wore away; the Society for the Support of the Bill of Rights began to think that their organization might be available for other objects than the relief of a patriot's pecuniary necessities. A dispute had arisen between Wilkes and a former friend and coadjutor, the celebrated Parson Horne; and, as usually happens with patriots when they fall out, Wilkes and Horne became implacable foes, and Horne, who had proved himself a match for Junius, was much more than a match for Wilkes." 999 Comp. 'Lord Mahon,' v. p. 299-301. We have always thought that the King's advice to Lord North as to the best mode of pursuing the contest with America after the accession of France to her alliance, furnished another and far more remarkable instance of his possession of this faculty, and comprehension of the maxim 'reculer pour mieux sauter.' It is a great pity that we are unable to ascertain what answers Lord North himself made to appeals thus frequently addressed to him, and (as we know) so entirely disregarded: Jan. 31st, 1778. 'You will remember that after the recess I strongly advised you not to bring forward a proposition for restoring tranquility to North America, not from any absurd ideas of unconditional submission my mind never harboured, but from perceiving that whatever can be proposed will be liable not to bring America back to a sense of attachment to the mother country, yet to dissatisfy this country, which has in the the contest, and therefore has a right to have most handsome manner cheerfully carried on the struggle continued until convinced that it is vain. Perhaps this is the minute of all others that you ought to be the least in a hurry to produce any plan of that kind, for every letter from France adds the appearance of a speedy declaration of war: should that event happen, it might perhaps be wise to strengthen the forces in Canada, the Floridas, and Nova Scotia : withdraw the rest from North America, and without loss of time employ them in attacking New Orleans, and the French and Spanish West India possessions. Success in those parts would repay us the great expenses incurred; we must at the same time continue destroying the trade and ports of the rebellious colonies, and thus this country, having had its attention diverted soon bring both contests to a conclusion: and to a fresh object, would be in a better temper to subscribe to such terms as administration might think advisable to offer America, who on her part will at such a time be more ready to treat than at the present hour. Perhaps,' he says in another letter of the same month, the time may come when it will be wise to abandon all North America but Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas: but then the generality of the nation must see it first in that light; but to treat with Independence can never be possible.' — See also ii. 207. Mr. Donne does the King a great deal less than justice in this matter. Lord Barrington (Secretary-at-War) wrote to Lord North on Aug. 8, 1775: 'As it is the measure of Government to have a large army in North America, it is my duty and inclination to make that measure succeed to the utmost though my opinion always has been, and still is, that the Americans may be reduced by the fleet, but never can be by the army.' On which Mr. Donne observes: Had the King listened to his Secretary of War, instead of trusting Lord Ceorge Germaine, and forcing Lord North into a course of which he disapproves, much "dishonour" and infinite loss might have been spared to England even at this moment of the crisis.' That Farmer George was a cleverer fellow than Laurence and Fitzpatrick or even Fox and Sheridan gave him credit for, we can well believe. But that he was such a crowned Machiavel as this picture represents, and the magnates of Whig and Tory tradition such innocent victims in his grasp, we for our own parts can by no means supNow, if France had not joined the pose. We think that George the Third's United States, and if the British forces had undoubted mastery,' in most emergencies been handled by men of ability instead of and in the long run, over so many leading incapables like Howe and Burgoyne, it is politicians, is chiefly ascribable to a cause very possible that the rebellion, in spite of quite independent of his abilities. He was all the resolution and resources of the always determined to play out his own Americans, might have been suppressed by game; and, in doing so against private opthe army; whereas it is very certain that it ponents, he had the advantage which the never could have been by the navy. But Bank, at Homburg or Baden, possesses over when France mingled in the business, the individual players. conditions of the problem were entirely greater than theirs. changed; and we see that the King, if he afford to stand a run against him than they could have had his way, would then have severally could. Possessed of the full redone what Lord Barrington prematurely sources of royal influence and patronage, advised three years before. And had the and in the habit of making the most unKing's views prevailed, the French and sparing use of them (we avoid the word American fleets would not have been para-unscrupulous' lest we should seem to imply mount in the Chesapeake, while Cornwallis a moral judgment which we had no intenwas besieged by a force of thrice his amount in York Town. Although, however, our own estimate of King George's capacity is certainly very different from that professed by the authors of the Roliad' and their allies, and the descendants of these in the next generation, yet we were quite unprepared for the panegyric recently pronounced upon his ability by the staunchest surviving inheritor of Whig last century traditions-by Lord Russell himself-in the last volume of his 6 Life of Fox:'. 'In the resources of skill and subtlety, and of what is commonly called "kingcraft," the King was infinitely superior to Pitt. From the commencement of his reign he had practised on the statesmen of the greatest fume and popularity. He had defeated Pitt by appealing to George Grenville and the Duke of Bedford; he had got rid of Grenville by calling in Lord Rockingham; he had supplanted Lord Rockingham by calling upon Lord Chatham; upon Lord Chatham's failure, he had supplied his loss by making a tool of Lord North; and, lastly, he had defeated the coalition of Fox and North by calling upon the younger Pitt. Then, again, as to measures, he had baffled the plans of Pitt the elder, which would have pacified America, and the larger and liberal views of Pitt the younger, which would have pacified Ireland, by the intimate knowledge of men and of the national character, which gave him a mastery over the greatest and highest of his subjects.''Life of Fox,' iii. 324. was He could better tion to pass) he could overpower them by a pressure to which they must needs ultimately succumb. Only one man ever broke the king's bank at the game of politics-and that was William Pitt. And even in that instance the final victory was a divided one. The best analogy which we can find in this respect to the case of George the Third is that of one whom he in many points resembled the other bourgeois sovereign of modern days, Louis Phillippe. But the latter's difficulties were greater, and proved insuperable, though he was doubtless in many respects the more gifted man of the two. Of the determined self-will with which the king set about his self-imposed mission, to govern as well as reign, during the period now under review, it is unnecessary to speak, as no trait in history is better known. The power of a single will' (as Lord Russell truly says) was conspicuous: but the constitution afforded ample means of overruling that will, had the minister obeyed his own convictions, or had the House of Commons been true to the people whom they represented.' No doubt: but, generally speaking, king, majority of the House of Commons, and constituencies, were all of a mind. We are convinced that Mr. Donne, conversant as he is with the subject, mistakes in one important respect the real character of the sovereign. he asks, been trained to believe it his duty. |