at quarter sessions, and became deputy | society had ever known, they had cried lieutenants. By degrees some approaches were made towards a reconciliation. While Walpole was at the head of affairs, enmity to his power induced a large and powerful body of Whigs, headed by the heir apparent of the throne, to make an alliance with the Tories, and a truce even with the Jacobites. After Sir Robert's fall, the ban which lay on the Tory party was taken off. The chief places in the administration continued to be filled by Whigs, and, indeed, could scarcely have been filled otherwise; for the Tory nobility and gentry, though strong in numbers and in property, had among them scarcely a single man distinguished by talents, either for business or for debate. A few of them, however, were admitted to subordinate offices; and this indulgence produced a softening effect on the temper of the whole body. The first levee of George the Second after Walpole's resignation was a remarkable spectacle. Mingled with the constant supporters of the House of Brunswick, with the Russells, the Cavendishes, and the Pelhams, appeared a crowd of faces utterly unknown to the pages and gentlemen ushers, lords of rural manors, whose ale and foxhounds were renowned in the neighbourhood of the Mendip hills, or round the Wrekin, but who had never crossed the threshold of the palace since the days when Oxford, with the white staff in his hand, stood behind Queen Anne. During the eighteen years which followed this day, both factions were gradually sinking deeper and deeper into repose. The apathy of the public mind is partly to be ascribed to the unjust violence with which the administration of Walpole had been assailed. In the body politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor generally succeeds morbid excitement. The people had been maddened by sophistry, by calumny, by rhetoric, by stimulants applied to the national pride. In the fulness of bread, they had raved as if famine had been in the land. While enjoying such a measure of civil and religious freedom as, till then, no great out for a Timoleon or a Brutus to stab their oppressor to the heart. They were in this frame of mind when the change of administration took place; and they soon found that there was to be no change whatever in the system of government. The natural consequences followed. To frantic zeal succeeded sullen indifference. The cant of patriotism had not merely ceased to charm the public ear, but had become as nauseous as the cant of Puritanism after the downfall of the Rump. The hot fit was over, the cold fit had begun and it was long before seditious arts, or even real grievances, could bring back the fiery paroxysm which had run its course and reached its termination. : Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquillity. The banished heir of the House of Stuart headed a rebellion; the discontented heir of the House of Brunswick headed an opposition. Both the rebellion and the opposition came to nothing. The battle of Culloden annihilated the Jacobite party. The death of Prince Frederic dissolved the faction which, under his guidance, had feebly striven to annoy his father's government. His chief followers hastened to make their peace with the ministry; and the political torpor became complete. Five years after the death of Prince Frederic, the public mind was for a time violently excited. But this excitement had nothing to do with the old disputes between Whigs and Tories. England was at war with France. The war had been feebly conducted. Minorca had been torn from us. Our fleet had retired before the white flag of the House of Bourbon. A bitter sense of humiliation, new to the proudest and bravest of nations, superseded every other feeling. The cry of all the counties and great towns of the realm was for a government which would retrieve the honour of the English arms. The two most powerful men in the country were the Duke of Newcastle and Pitt. Alternate victories and defeats had made them sensible that neither of them could stand alone. The interest of the state, and the interest of their own ambition, impelled them to coalesce. By their coalition and selfish politicians, pining for com was formed the ministry which was in power when George the Third ascended the throne. A missionerships, gold sticks, and ribands, flocked to the great house at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There, at The more carefully the structure of every levee, appeared eighteen or twenty this celebrated ministry is examined, pair of lawn sleeves; for there was not, the more shall we see reason to marvel it was said, a single Prelate who had at the skill or the luck which had com- not owed either his first elevation or bined in one harmonious whole such some subsequent translation to Newvarious and, as it seemed, incompati- castle. There appeared those members ble elements of force. The influence of the House of Commons in whose which is derived from stainless inte- silent votes the main strength of the grity, the influence which is derived government lay. One wanted a place from the vilest arts of corruption, the in the excise for his butler. Another strength of aristocratical connection, came about a prebend for his son. the strength of democratical enthu- third whispered that he had always siasm, all these things were for the stood by his Grace and the Protestant first time found together. Newcastle succession; that his last election had brought to the coalition a vast mass of been very expensive; that potwallopers power, which had descended to him had now no conscience; that he had from Walpole and Pelham. The public been forced to take up money on mortoffices, the church, the courts of law, gage; and that he hardly knew where the army, the navy, the diplomatic to turn for five hundred pounds. The service, swarmed with his creatures. Duke pressed all their hands, passed The boroughs, which long afterwards his arms round all their shoulders, made up the memorable schedules A patted all their backs, and sent away and B, were represented by his nomi- some with wages, and some with pronees. The great Whig families, which, mises. From this traffic Pitt stood during several generations, had been haughtily aloof. Not only was he himtrained in the discipline of party war- self incorruptible, but he shrank from fare, and were accustomed to stand the loathsome drudgery of corrupting together in a firm phalanx, acknow- others. He had not, however, been ledged him as their captain. Pitt, on twenty years in Parliament, and ten in the other hand, had what Newcastle office, without discovering how the wanted, an eloquence which stirred the government was carried on. He was passions and charmed the imagination, perfectly aware that bribery was praca high reputation for purity, and the tised on a large scale by his colleagues. confidence and ardent love of millions. Hating the practice, yet despairing of The partition which the two minis-putting it down, and doubting whether, ters made of the powers of government in those times, any ministry could was singularly happy. Each occupied stand without it, he determined to be a province for which he was well qua- blind to it. He would see nothing, know lified; and neither had any inclination nothing, believe nothing. People who to intrude himself into the province of came to talk to him about shares in the other. Newcastle took the treasury, lucrative contracts, or about the means the civil and ecclesiastical patronage, of securing a Cornish corporation, were and the disposal of that part of the soon put out of countenance by his secret service money which was then arrogant humility. They did him too employed in bribing members of Par- much honour. Such matters were liament. Pitt was Secretary of State, beyond his capacity. It was true that with the direction of the war and of his poor advice about expeditions and foreign affairs. Thus the filth of all treaties was listened to with indulthe noisome and pestilential sewers of gence by a gracious sovereign. If the government was poured into one chan- question were, who should command nel. Through the other passed only in North America, or who should be what was bright and stainless. Mean ambassador at Berlin, his colleagues would probably condescend to take his | nection, of which Newcastle was the opinion. But he had not the small-head, belonged the houses of Cavendish, est influence with the Secretary of the Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Treasury, and could not venture to ask Conway, Wentworth, and many others even for a tidewaiter's place. of high note. It may be doubted whether he did not owe as much of his popularity to his ostentatious purity as to his eloquence, or to his talents for the administration of war. It was every where said with delight and admiration that the great Commoner, without any advantages of birth or fortune, had, in spite of the dislike of the Court and of the aristocracy, made himself the first man in England, and made England the first country in the world; that his name was mentioned with awe in every palace from Lisbon to Moscow; that his trophies were in all the four quarters of the globe; yet that he was still plain William Pitt, without title or riband, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he should retire, after saving the state, he must sell his coach horses and his silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint of corruption had spread, his hands were clean. They had never received, they had never given, the price of infamy. Thus the coalition gathered to itself support from all the high and all the low parts of human nature, and was strong with the whole united strength of virtue and of Mammon. Pitt and Newcastle were co-ordinate chief ministers. The subordinate places had been filled on the principle of including in the government every party and shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone excepted, nay, every public man who, from his abilities or from his situation, seemed likely to be either useful in office or formidable in opposition. There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of which might have been a nucleus for a strong opposition. But room had been found in the government for both. They were known as the Grenvilles and the Bedfords. The head of the Grenvilles was Richard Earl Temple. His talents for administration and debate were of no high order. But his great possessions, his turbulent and unscrupulous character, his restless activity, and his skill in the most ignoble tactics of faction, made him one of the most formidable enemies that a ministry could have. He was keeper of the privy seal. His brother George was treasurer of the navy. They were supposed to be on terms of close friendship with Pitt, who had married their sister, and was the most uxorious of husbands. The Bedfords, or, as they were called by their enemies, the Bloomsbury gang, professed to be led by John Duke of Bedford, but in truth led him whereever they chose, and very often led him where he never would have gone of his own accord. He had many good qualities of head and heart, and would have been certainly a respectable, and possibly a distinguished man, if he had been less under the influence of his friends, or more fortunate in choosing them. Some of them were indeed, to do them justice, men of parts. But here, we are afraid, eulogy must end. Sandwich and Rigby were able debaters, pleasant boon companions, dexterous intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing and electioneering, and both in public and private life, shamelessly immoral. Weymouth had a natural eloquence, which sometimes astonished those who knew how little he owed to study. But he was indo The Whigs, according to what was then considered as their prescriptive right, held by far the largest share of power. The main support of the administration was what may be called the great Whig connection, a connec-lent and dissolute, and had early imtion which, during near half a century, had generally had the chief sway in the country, and which derived an immense authority from rank, wealth, borough interest, and firm union. To this con paired a fine estate with the dice box, and a fine constitution with the bottle. The wealth and power of the Duke, and the talents and audacity of some of his retainers, might have seriously annoyed the strongest ministry. But | were reputed Whigs, the Tories were his assistance had been secured. He by no means excluded from employwas Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Rigby ment. Pitt had gratified many of was his secretary; and the whole party them with commands in the militia, dutifully supported the measures of the which increased both their income and Government. their importance in their own counties; and they were therefore in better humour than at any time since the death of Anne. Some of the party still continued to grumble over their punch at the Cocoa Tree; but in the House of Commons not a single one of the malcontents durst lift his eyes above the buckle of Pitt's shoe. Two men had, a short time before, been thought likely to contest with Pitt the lead of the House of Commons, William Murray and Henry Fox. But Murray had been removed to the Lords, and was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Fox was indeed still in the Commons: but means had been found to secure, if not his strenuous support, at least his silent acquiescence. He was a poor man; he was a doting father. The office of Paymaster-General during an expensive war was, in that age, perhaps the most lucrative situation in the gift of the government. This office was bestowed on Fox. The prospect of making a noble fortune in a few years, and of providing amply for his darling boy Charles, was irresistibly tempting. To hold a subordinate place, however profitable, after having led the House of Commons, and having been intrusted with the business of forming a ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a punctilious sense of personal dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fox. We have not time to enumerate all the other men of weight who were, by some tie or other, attached to the government. We may mention Hardwicke, reputed the first lawyer of the age; Legge, reputed the first financier of the age; the acute and ready Oswald; the bold and humorous Nugent; Charles Townshend, the most brilliant and versatile of mankind; Elliot, Barrington, North, Pratt. Indeed, as far as we recollect, there were in the whole House of Commons only two men of distinguished abilities who were not connected with the government; and those two men stood so low in public estimation, that the only service which they could have rendered to any government would have been to oppose it. We speak of Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dodington. Though most of the official men, and all the members of the cabinet, Thus there was absolutely no opposition. Nay, there was no sign from which it could be guessed in what quarter opposition was likely to arise. Several years passed during which Parliament seemed to have abdicated its chief functions. The Journals of the House of Commons, during four sessions, contain no trace of a division on a party question. The supplies, though beyond precedent great, were voted without discussion. The most animated debates of that period were on road bills and inclosure bills. The old King was content; and it mattered little whether he were content or not. It would have been impossible for him to emancipate himself from a ministry so powerful, even if he had been inclined to do so. But he had no such inclination. He had once, indeed, been strongly prejudiced against Pitt, and had repeatedly been ill used by Newcastle; but the vigour and success with which the war had been waged in Germany, and the smoothness with which all public business was carried on, had produced a favourable change in the royal mind. Such was the posture of affairs when, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1760, George the Second suddenly died, and George the Third, then twenty-two years old, became King. The situation of George the Third differed widely from that of his grandfather and that of his greatgrandfather. Many years had elapsed since a sovereign of England had been an object of affection to any part of his people. The first two Kings of the House of Hanover had neither those hereditary rights not at all for their sake, but for the At the close of the reign of George the Second, the feeling of aversion with which the House of Brunswick had which have often supplied the defect of merit, nor those personal qualities which have often supplied the defect of title. A prince may be popular with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns by birthright derived from a long line of illustrious predecessors. An usurper may be popular, if his genius has saved or aggrandised the nation which he governs. Perhaps no rulers have in our time had a stronger hold on the affection of subjects than the Emperor Francis, and his son-in-law the Em-long been regarded by half the nation peror Napoleon. But imagine a ruler had died away; but no feeling of affecwith no better title than Napoleon, and tion to that house had yet sprung up. no better understanding than Francis. There was little, indeed, in the old Richard Cromwell was such a ruler; King's character to inspire esteem or and, as soon as an arm was lifted up tenderness. He was not our countryagainst him, he fell without a struggle, man. He never set foot on our soil amidst universal derision. George the till he was more than thirty years old. First and George the Second were in His speech bewrayed his foreign origin a situation which bore some resem- and breeding. His love for his native blance to that of Richard Cromwell. land, though the most amiable part of They were saved from the fate of his character, was not likely to endear Richard Cromwell by the strenuous him to his British subjects. He was and able exertions of the Whig party, never so happy as when he could exand by the general conviction that the change St. James's for Hernhausen. nation had no choice but between the Year after year, our fleets were emHouse of Brunswick and popery. But ployed to convoy him to the Continent, by no class were the Guelphs regarded and the interests of his kingdom were with that devoted affection, of which as nothing to him when compared with Charles the First, Charles the Second, the interests of his Electorate. As to and James the Second, in spite of the the rest, he had neither the qualities greatest faults, and in the midst of the which make dulness respectable, nor greatest misfortunes, received innume- the qualities which make libertinism rable proofs. Those Whigs who stood attractive. He had been a bad son by the new dynasty so manfully with and a worse father, an unfaithful huspurse and sword did so on principles band and an ungraceful lover. Not independent of, and indeed almost in-one magnanimous or humane action is compatible with, the sentiment of devoted loyalty. The moderate Tories regarded the foreign dynasty as a great evil, which must be endured for fear of a greater evil. In the eyes of the high Tories, the Elector was the most hateful of robbers and tyrants. The crown of another was on his head; the blood of the brave and loyal was on his hands. Thus, during many years, the Kings of England were objects of strong personal aversion to many of their subjects, and of strong personal attachment to none. They found, indeed, firm and cordial support against the pretender to their throne; but this support was given, recorded of him; but many instances of meanness, and of a harshness which, but for the strong constitutional restraints under which he was placed, might have made the misery of his people. He died; and at once a new world opened. The young King was a born Englishman. All his tastes and habits, good or bad, were English. No portion of his subjects had any thing to reproach him with. Even the remaining adherents of the House of Stuart could scarcely impute to him the guilt of usurpation. He was not responsible for the Revolution, for the Act of Settlement, for the suppression of the |
