Chap. III. me who made Lansdowne House in London, as well BOOK II, akes and Bowood in the country, centres of the best Booky in the intellectual as well as in the fashionable LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFAC- rs passed on. The course of public events-and ition.' that very charge is, in fact, a tribute. WALPOLE'S tion had been excited just at that moment by the assistance which SHELBURNE had given, in the of Lords, to the efforts of BURKE in the lower in favour of economical reforms. He had brought a motion on that subject on the same night on BURKE had given notice for the introduction of ous Bill (December, 1779). He continued his and presently had to encounter a more active and ious opponent of retrenchment than Horace WAL he course of a vigorous speech on reform in the H. Walpole to Mann; March 21. Book II, Chap. III. Book PUBLIC BENEFAC TORS. LORD SHEL- administration of the army, Lord SHELBURNE had censured a transaction in which Mr. FULLERTON, a Member LOVERS AND of the House of Commons, was intimately concerned. FULLERTON made a violent attack, in his place in the House, upon his censor. But his speech was so disorderly that he was forced to break off. In his anger he sent DUEL WITH Lord SHELBURNE a minute, not only of what he had actually spoken, but of what he had intended to say, in addition, had the rules of Parliament permitted. And he had the effrontery to wind up his obliging communication with these words :-'You correspond, as I have heard abroad, with the enemies of your country.' His letter was presented to Lord SHELBURNE by a messenger. FULLERTON. HIS SECRE TARYSHIP IN THE ROCKING ISTRATION. The receiver, when he had read it, said to the bearer : 'The best answer I can give Mr. FULLERTON is to desire him to meet me in Hyde Park, at five, to-morrow morning.' They fought, and SHELBURNE was wounded. On being asked how he felt himself, he looked at the wound, and said: 'I do not think that Lady SHELBURNE will be the worse for this.' But it was severe enough to interrupt, for a while, his political labours. On the formation in March, 1782, of the Rockingham Administration, he accepted the Secretaryship of State, and ROAMIN- took with him four of his adherents into the Cabinet. But the most curious feature in the transaction was that Lord SHELBURNE carried on, personally, all the intercourse in the royal closet that necessarily preceded the formation of the Ministry, although he was not to be its head. GEORGE THE THIRD Would not admit Lord ROCKINGHAM to all audience until his Cabinet was completely formed. The man whose exclusion from the Grafton Ministry the King had so warmly urged a few years before, was now not less warmly urged by him to throw over his party, and to Chap. III. AND a cabinet of his own. He resisted all blandishment, BOOK II, irtually told the King that the triumph of the Oppo- BOOKmust be its triumph as an unbroken whole; though LOVERS ubtless felt, within himself, that the cohesion was of BENEFACarly frail tenacity. TORS. the 24th of March, SHELBURNE had the satisfaction veying to Lord ROCKINGHAM the royal concession of onstitutional demands-obtained after a wearisome ation, and only by the piling up of argument on ent in successive conversations at the 'Queen's ,' lasting sometimes for three mortal hours. Three DEATH OF s afterwards, the new Premier was dead. And with INGHAM, parted the cohesion of the Whigs. LORD ROCK 1782, 1 July. OF LORD BURNE'S * See, hereafter, in life Book III, c. 2. Secretary of State, Lord SHELBURNE's chief task FORMATION een the control of that double and most unwelcome SHELtion which was carried on at Paris with France and MINISTRY. merica.* For it had fallen to the lot of the utterer 'sunset-speech,'+' if we let America go, the sun of of T. GrenBritain is set'-to arrange the terms of American tion. And the obstructions in that path which eated at home were even more serious stumblingthan were the difficulties abroad. The cardinal of Lord SHELBURNE's policy, at this time, were to by hook or crook, some amount or other of hold merica, and at the worst to keep the Court of from enjoying the prestige, or setting up the pref having dictated the terms of peace. the split in the Whig party was really and altofamous speech was delivered on the 5th of March, 1778. Then,' Shelburne, after denouncing measures which would sever the rom the Kingdom, 'the sun of Great Britain is set. We shall ›re a powerful or even a respectable people.'-Parliamentary ol. xix, col. 850. Book II, Chap. 111. Book LOVERS AND PUBLIC TORS. gether inevitable, now that ROCKINGHAM's death had placed SHELBURNE above reasonable competition for the premiership, was made known to him when at Court, in the most abrupt manner. On the 7th of July (six days after the death of the Marquess), Fox took him by the sleeve, with the blunt question: Are you to be First Lord of the an eye wit- Treasury ?' When SHELBURNE said 'Yes,' the instant rejoinder was, Then, my Lord, I shall resign.' Fox had brought the seals in his pocket, and proceeded immediately to return them to the King. Walpole to ness), 1782, July 7. Parliamen tary Debates, MERITS OF THE SHEL BURNE MINISTRY. In his first speech as Premier, Lord SHELBURNE spoke thus: It has been said that I have changed my opinion about the independence of America. . . . My opinion is still the same. When that independence shall have been established, the sun of England may be said to have set. I have used every effort, public and private-in England, and out of it-to avert so dreadful a disaster. . . . But though this country should have received a fatal blow, there is still a duty incumbent upon its Ministers to use their most vigorous exertions to prevent the Court of France from being in a situation to dictate the terms of Peace. The sun of England may have set. But we will improve the twilight. We will prepare for the rising of that sun again. And I hope England may yet see many, many happy days.' The best achievements of the brief government of Lord SHELBURNE were (first) the resolute defence, in its diplomacy at Paris and Versailles, of our territories in Canada, and (secondly) its consistent assertion of the principle that underlay a sentence contained in a former speech of the Premier a sentence which, at one time, was much upon men's lips: I will never consent,' he had said, that the King of England shall be a King of the Mahrattas.' The ts, I venture to think, of that short Ministry, have had BOOK II, t acknowledgment in our current histories. And the on is, perhaps, not far to seek. Chap. III. BookLOVERS AND PUBLIC TORS. he popular history of GEORGE THE THIRD's reign has BENEFAC in a large degree, imbued with Whiggism. The hisas most in vogue have had a sort of small apostolical ssion amongst themselves, which has had the result of g a strong party tinge to those versions of the course of cal events in that reign which have most readily d the public ear. When the full story shall come to d, in a later day and from a higher stand-point, Lord зURNE, not improbably, will be one among several men whose reputation with posterity (in common-in measure—with that of their royal master himself, it ven be) will be found to have been elevated, rather than -d, by the process. , be that as it may, party intrigue, rather than minisincapacity, had to do, confessedly, with the rapid Tow of the Government of July, 1782. sonally, Lord SHELBURNE was in a position which, in points of view, bears a resemblance to that in which rable statesman, who had to fight against a powerful - was to find himself forty years later. But in URNE's case, the struggle of the politician did not, as NING'S, break down the bodily vigour of the man. HELBURNE had twenty-two years of retirement yet him, when he resigned the premiership in 1783. And ere years of much happiness. of that happiness was the result of the domestic ust adverted to. Another part of it accrued from Library which the research and attention of many ad gradually built up, and from the increased leisure d now been secured, both for study and for the Debates, vol. xix, col. 850. THE CLOSING YEARS OF LORD LANS DOWNE'S |
