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risings of 1715 and of 1745. He was | scriptions, which perfidy, oppression, innocent of the blood of Derwentwater ingratitude, could not weary out, was and Kilmarnock, of Balmerino and now transferred entire to the House of Cameron. Born fifty years after the Brunswick. If George the Third would old line had been expelled, fourth in but accept the homage of the Cavaliers descent and third in succession of the and High Churchmen, he should be to Hanoverian dynasty, he might plead them all that Charles the First and some show of hereditary right. His Charles the Second had been. age, his appearance, and all that was known of his character, conciliated public favour. He was in the bloom of youth; his person and address were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no vice; and flattery might, without any glaring absurdity, ascribe to him many princely virtues.

It is not strange, therefore, that the sentiment of loyalty, a sentiment which had lately seemed to be as much out of date as the belief in witches or the practice of pilgrimage, should, from the day of his accession, have begun to revive. The Tories in particular, who had always been inclined to Kingworship, and who had long felt with pain the want of an idol before whom they could bow themselves down, were as joyful as the priests of Apis, when, after a long interval, they had found a new calf to adore. It was soon clear that George the Third was regarded by a portion of the nation with a very different feeling from that which his two predecessors had inspired. They had been merely First Magistrates, Doges, Stadtholders; he was emphatically a King, the anointed of heaven, the breath of his people's nostrils. The years of the widowhood and mourning of the Tory party were over. Dido had kept faith long enough to the cold ashes of a former lord; she had at last found a comforter, and recognised the vestiges of the old flame. The golden days of Harley would return. The Somersets, the Lees, and the Wyndhams would again surround the throne. The latitudinarian Prelates, who had not been ashamed to correspond with Doddridge and to shake hands with Whiston, would be succeeded by divines of the temper of South and Atterbury. The devotion which had been so signally shown to the House of Stuart, which had been proof against defeats, confiscations, and pro

The Prince, whose accession was thus hailed by a great party long estranged from his house, had received from nature a strong will, a firmness of temper to which a harsher name might perhaps be given, and an understanding not, indeed, acute or enlarged, but such as qualified him to be a good man of business. But his character had not yet fully developed itself. He had been brought up in strict seclusion. The detractors of the Princess Dowager of Wales affirmed that she had kept her children from commerce with society, in order that she might hold an undivided empire over their minds. She gave a very different explanation of her conduct. She would gladly, she said, see her sons and daughters mix in the world, if they could do so without risk to their morals. But the profligacy of the people of quality alarmed her. The young men were all rakes: the young women made love, instead of waiting till it was made to them. She could not bear to expose those whom she loved best to the contaminating influence of such society. The moral advantages of the system of education which formed the Duke of York, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Queen of Denmark, may perhaps be questioned. George the Third was indeed no libertine; but he brought to the throne a mind only half opened, and was for some time entirely under the influence of his mother and of his Groom of the Stole, John Stuart, Earl of Bute.

The Earl of Bute was scarcely known, even by name, to the country which he was soon to govern. He had indeed, a short time after he came of age, been chosen to fill a vacancy, which, in the middle of a parliament, had taken place among the Scotch representative peers. He had disobliged the Whig ministers by giving some silent votes

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with the Tories, had consequently lost his seat at the next dissolution, and had never been reelected. Near twenty Scandal represented the Groom of years had elapsed since he had borne the Stole as the favoured lover of the any part in politics. He had passed Princess Dowager. He was undoubtsome of those years at his seat in one of edly her confidential friend. The inthe Hebrides, and from that retirement fluence which the two united exercised he had emerged as one of the house- over the mind of the King was for a hold of Prince Frederic. Lord Bute, time unbounded. The Princess, a woexcluded from public life, had found man and a foreigner, was not likely to out many ways of amusing his leisure. be a judicious adviser about affairs of He was a tolerable actor in private state. The Earl could scarcely be said theatricals, and was particularly suc- to have served even a noviciate in cessful in the part of Lothario. A hand-politics. His notions of government some leg, to which both painters and had been acquired in the society which satirists took care to give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But though, in our time, incorrect spelling is justly considered as a proof of sordid ignorance, it would be unjust to apply the same rule to people who lived a century ago. The novel of Sir Charles Grandison was published about the time at which Lord Bute made his appearance at Leicester House. Our readers may perhaps remember the account which Charlotte Grandison gives of her two lovers. One of them, a fashionable baronet who talks French and Italian fluently, cannot write a line in his own language without some sin against orthography; the other, who is represented as a most respectable specimen of the young aristocracy, and something of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for a lord. On the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be called a man of cultivated mind. He was also a man of undoubted honour. But his understanding was narrow, and his manners cold and haughty. His qualifications for the part of a statesman were best described by Frederic, who often indulged in the unprincely luxury of sneering at his dependents. Bute," said his Royal Highness, "you are the very man to be envoy at some small VOL. II.

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had been in the habit of assembling round Frederic at Kew and Leicester House. That society consisted principally of Tories, who had been reconciled to the House of Hanover by the civility with which the Prince had treated them, and by the hope of obtaining high preferment when he should come to the throne. Their political creed was a peculiar modification of Toryism. It was the creed neither of the Tories of the seventeenth nor of the Tories of the nineteenth century. It was the creed, not of Filmer and Sacheverell, not of Perceval and Eldon, but of the sect of which Bolingbroke may be considered as the chief doctor. This sect deserves commendation for having pointed out and justly reprobated some great abuses which sprang up during the long domination of the Whigs. But it is far easier to point out and reprobate abuses than to propose beneficial reforms: and the reforms which Bolingbroke proposed would either have been utterly inefficient, or would have produced much more mischief than they would have removed.

The Revolution had saved the nation from one class of evils, but had at the same time-such is the imperfection of all things human-engendered or aggravated another class of evils which required new remedies. Liberty and property were secure from the attacks of prerogative. Conscience was respected. No government ventured to infringe any of the rights solemnly recognised by the instrument which had called William and Mary to the throne.

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to cure bad by worse. The proper remedy evidently was, to make the House of Commons responsible to the nation; and this was to be effected in two ways; first, by giving publicity to parliamentary proceedings, and thus placing every member on his trial before the tribunal of public opinion; and secondly, by so reforming the constitution of the House that no man should be able to sit in it who had not been returned by a respectable and independent body of constituents.

But it cannot be denied that, under the new system, the public interests and the public morals were seriously endangered by corruption and faction. During the long struggle against the Stuarts, the chief object of the most enlightened statesmen had been to strengthen the House of Commons. The struggle was over; the victory was won; the House of Commons was supreme in the state; and all the vices which had till then been latent in the representative system were rapidly developed by prosperity and power. Bolingbroke and Bolingbroke's disScarcely had the executive govern- ciples recommended a very different ment become really responsible to the mode of treating the diseases of the House of Commons, when it began to state. Their doctrine was that a viappear that the House of Commons gorous use of the prerogative by a pawas not really responsible to the na-triot King would at once break all tion. Many of the constituent bodies factious combinations, and supersede were under the absolute control of in- the pretended necessity of bribing dividuals; many were notoriously at members of Parliament. The King the command of the highest bidder. had only to resolve that he would be The debates were not published. It was master, that he would not be held in very seldom known out of doors how thraldom by any set of men, that he a gentleman had voted. Thus, while would take for ministers any persons in the ministry was accountable to the Par-whom he had confidence, without disliament, the majority of the Parliament was accountable to nobody. In such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that the members should insist on being paid for their votes, should form themselves into combinations for the purpose of raising the price of their votes, and should at critical conjunctures extort large wages by threatening a strike. Thus the Whig ministers of George the First and George the Second were compelled to reduce corruption to a system, and to practise it on a gigantic scale.

tinction of party, and that he would restrain his servants from influencing by immoral means either the constituent bodies or the representative body. This childish scheme proved that those who proposed it knew nothing of the nature of the evil with which they pretended to deal. The real cause of the prevalence of corruption and faction was that a House of Commons, not accountable to the people, was more powerful than the King. Bolingbroke's remedy could be applied only by a King more powerful than the House of Commons. How was the patriot Prince to govern If we are right as to the cause of in defiance of the body without whose these abuses, we can scarcely be wrong consent he could not equip a sloop, as to the remedy. The remedy was keep a battalion under arms, send an surely not to deprive the House of embassy, or defray even the charges of Commons of its weight in the state. his own household? Was he to disSuch a course would undoubtedly have solve the Parliament? And what was put an end to parliamentary corruption he likely to gain by appealing to Sudand to parliamentary factions: for, bury and Old Sarum against the vewhen votes cease to be of importance, nality of their representatives? Was they will cease to be bought; and, he to send out privy seals? Was he when knaves can get nothing by com- to levy ship-money? If so, this boasted bining, they will cease to combine. But reform must commence in all probato destroy corruption and faction by bility by civil war, and, if consummated, introducing despotism would have been | must be consummated by the establish

ment of absolute monarchy. Or was the patriot King to carry the House of Commons with him in his upright designs? By what means? Interdicting himself from the use of corrupt influence, what motive was he to address to the Dodingtons and Winningtons? Was cupidity, strengthened by habit, to be laid asleep by a few fine sentences about virtue and union?

Absurd as this theory was, it had many admirers, particularly among men of letters. It was now to be reduced to practice; and the result was, as any man of sagacity must have foreseen, the most piteous and ridiculous of failures.

On the very day of the young King's accession, appeared some signs which indicated the approach of a great change. The speech which he made to his council was not submitted to the cabinet. It was drawn up by Bute, and contained some expressions which might be construed into reflections on the conduct of affairs during the late reign. Pitt remonstrated, and begged that these expressions might be softened down in the printed copy; but it was not till after some hours of altercation that Bute yielded; and, even after Bute had yielded, the King affected to hold out till the following afternoon. On the same day on which this singular contest took place, Bute was not only sworn of the privy council, but introduced into the cabinet.

Soon after this Lord Holdernesse, one of the Secretaries of State, in pursuance of a plan concerted with the court, resigned the seals. Bute was instantly appointed to the vacant place. A general election speedily followed, and the new Secretary entered parliament in the only way in which he then could enter it, as one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland.* Had the ministers been firmly united it can scarcely be doubted that they would have been able to withstand the court. The parliamentary influence of

* In the reign of Anne, the House of Lords had resolved that, under the 23rd article of Union, no Scotch peer could be created a peer of Great Britain. This resolution was not annulled till the year 1782.

the Whig aristocracy, combined with the genius, the virtue, and the fame of Pitt, would have been irresistible. But there had been in the cabinet of George the Second latent jealousies and enmities, which now began to show themselves. Pitt had been estranged from his old ally Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Some of the ministers were envious of Pitt's popularity. Others were, not altogether without cause, disgusted by his imperious and haughty demeanour. Others, again, were honestly opposed to some parts of his policy. They admitted that he had found the country in the depths of humiliation, and had raised it to the height of glory: they admitted that he had conducted the war with energy, ability, and splendid success; but they began to hint that the drain on the resources of the state was unexampled, and that the public debt was increasing with a speed at which Montague or Godolphin would have stood aghast. Some of the acquisitions made by our fleets and armies were, it was acknowledged, profitable as well as honourable; but, now that George the Second was dead, a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a dispute between two German powers. What was it to her whether the House of Hapsburg or the House of Brandenburg ruled in Silesia? Why were the best English regiments fighting on the Main? Why were the Prussian battalions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed to think it beneath him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower guns were fired, as the streets were illuminated, as French banners were carried in triumph through London, it was to him matter of indifference to what extent the public burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our commissaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence of the old aristocracy

of the realm. Already had we bor- | Temple into official and parliamentary rowed, in four years of war, more than life. He was supposed to be intimately the most skilful and economical go-acquainted with the whole fiscal sysvernment would pay in forty years of tem of the country. He had paid peace. But the prospect of peace was especial attention to the law of Paras remote as ever. It could not be liament, and was so learned in all doubted that France, smarting and things relating to the privileges and prostrate, would consent to fair terms orders of the House of Commons that of accommodation; but this was not those who loved him least pronounced what Pitt wanted. War had made him the only person competent to suchim powerful and popular; with war, ceed Onslow in the Chair. His speeches all that was brightest in his life was were generally instructive, and someassociated for war his talents were times, from the gravity and earnestpeculiarly fitted. He had at length be-ness with which he spoke, even imgun to love war for its own sake, and was more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than to make peace with enemies.

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pressive, but never brilliant, and generally tedious. Indeed, even when he was at the head of affairs, he sometimes found it difficult to obtain the ear Such were the views of the Duke of of the House. In disposition as well Bedford and of the Earl of Hardwicke; as in intellect, he differed widely from but no member of the government held his brother-in-law. Pitt was utterly rethese opinions so strongly as George gardless of money. He would scarcely Grenville, the treasurer of the navy. stretch out his hand to take it; and, George Grenville was brother-in-law of when it came, he threw it away with Pitt, and had always been reckoned childish profusion. Grenville, though one of Pitt's personal and political strictly upright, was grasping and parfriends. But it is difficult to conceive simonious. Pitt was a man of excitable two men of talents and integrity more nerves, sanguine in hope, easily elated utterly unlike each other. Pitt, as his by success and popularity, keenly sensister often said, knew nothing accu-sible of injury, but prompt to forgive; rately except Spenser's Fairy Queen. Grenville's character was stern, melanHe had never applied himself steadily choly, and pertinacious. Nothing was to any branch of knowledge. He was more remarkable in him than his ina wretched financier. He never be-clination always to look on the dark came familiar even with the rules of side of things. He was the raven of that House of which he was the brightest the House of Commons, always croakornament. He had never studied pub-ing defeat in the midst of triumphs, lic law as a system; and was, indeed, and bankruptcy with an overflowing so ignorant of the whole subject, that exchequer. Burke, with general apGeorge the Second, on one occasion, plause, compared him, in a time of complained bitterly that a man who quiet and plenty, to the evil spirit had never read Vattel should presume whom Ovid described looking down to undertake the direction of foreign on the stately temples and wealthy affairs. But these defects were more haven of Athens, and scarce able to than redeemed by high and rare gifts, refrain from weeping because she could by a strange power of inspiring great find nothing at which to weep. Such masses of men with confidence and a man was not likely to be popular. affection, by an eloquence which not But to unpopularity Grenville opposed only delighted the ear, but stirred the a dogged determination, which some blood, and brought tears into the eyes, times forced even those who hated him by originality in devising plans, by to respect him. vigour in executing them. Grenville, on the other hand, was by nature and habit a man of details. He had been bred a lawyer; and he had brought the industry and acuteness of the

It was natural that Pitt and Gren ville, being such as they were, should take very different views of the situa tion of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but the trophies; Grenville could see

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