Life of William, Earl of Shelburne/Volume 1/Chapter 11

by Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice

 

CHAPTER XI

 

THE UNITED OPPOSITION

 

1768-1770

 

It was the opinion of Walpole that the resignation of Chatham was not anticipated by Shelburne as the necessary consequence of his own.^[1] The Diary of Lady Shelburne, to which it may not be unpleasant to revert, confirms the above view:—

 

Wednesday, January 21st, 1768.—I went in the evening to Madame de Walderen's, where everybody was talking of Lady Newnham's accident on the Sunday evening in her chair going from the French Ambassador's, where I had seen her. She was pursued from Soho Square to the narrow passage by Conduit Street, by a man who ran against her chair and her servants, and was several times push'd by them, once so as to be thrown down. In the passage he attack'd her first footman and stabbed him in the breast; she found herself immediately set down and surrounded by a mob who took the man. She went directly to her father Lord Vernon's house, where was only one woman servant, and remained there in the greatest distress, till the wounded man could be carried home and properly assisted. The wound appears not to be mortal, and the man who gave it to be a Mr. Ross, an attorney in the City, of good character, but very much in liquor. Amongst the many greater blessings I have to be thankful for to Providence, I rank this escape as one subject more of gratitude, having very much the same route as Lady Newnham to take that evening, but leaving the French Ambassador's later.

Wycombe, Saturday 28th.—As we were breakfasting Jack Conyers arrived from Oxford.^[2] He was as good humour'd and amiable as usual, and enliven'd us extremely. At four o'clock Lord Shelburne came and brought Lord Clare with him, and at half an hour after six our company of dancers began to assemble. We danced in the parlour to the number of fifteen couple. I began the ball dancing a minuet with Lord Clare. I must not omit that Lord Shelburne danced too, which I had never the pleasure of seeing him do before. Amongst our ladies was a very pretty bride, the wife of the Mayor Mr. Rose.^[3] Lord Clare divided his compliments between her and Miss Kitty Shrimpton. We sup'd at eleven in the India paper room, that we might not encroach upon Sunday morning. During this time my Lord Clare sung ridiculous songs, and the whole was over at twelve o'clock, and nobody the worse for this sober recreation.

March 17th (at Bowood).—Lord Bottetort breakfasted with us in his way from Hungerford to Stoke. It being Good Friday we had prayers in the morning, after which I attempted taking a little walk, but was driven back by the cold. The work they are now upon is levelling the lawn before the house, to the edge of the water, for which the weather has been very unfavourable. My Lord is very much satisfied with Farmer Manfield, by whose care the park is got into fine order, and the flock of sheep increasing very fast; these circumstances and the number of workpeople employed there, make Bowood have no appearance of the scarcity so alarmingly conspicuous in most parts of this country, and so severely felt by the poor.

22nd.—A note from Lady Louisa, who was arrived at Stoke from Ireland, determined me to go and spend the day with her there. I found her looking well, but grown thin, which I was not surprised at. She told me Lady Anne (Dawson) was at Harrowgate and surprisingly well in health; that her attendance on her daughter had been continual, and her sorrow for her of the tenderest, most permanent and reasonable kind, restrained merely by the submission she pays to the power and will of that Supreme Being, whose beneficence had granted her, for eleven years, the most promising of children. I think it right to posterity, if this Diary should by any means descend to them, to relate the most remarkable of many acts of resolution that her sincere piety enabled her to perform, as an example of how parental tenderness ought to operate on such trials, and as a proof that the Divine support can do all things even in a mind torn by grief and a body worn by sickness. In the last visit the physician made her daughter, she followed him out to ask his opinion of her state. He told her that she could not live twelve hours. She then asked him if he expected any struggle before her death. He answered she was so weak he thought she would go off in faintings. Having heard this she returned into the room, and summoning all her courage said to the child,—"My dear Henrietta, I have been asking your physician how soon he thinks you will be well, for you have been so long ill we may expect it now every day. He assures me before this time to-morrow; but as all severe illnesses have their crises, you must expect first to be extremely sick and faint, and at last to be quite overcome with sleep, which you have been so long without, that it will be the soundest you have ever had, and when you wake you will be stronger, lighter, and better than you ever remember to have been." The child, who was perfectly sensible, seemed pleased, and asked her how she could know that. To which Lady Anne answered that the course of most illnesses were well known, and that she herself always knew that it would be so in this, as it was one many people had had, but as she did not know the exact time of the crisis, would not talk of it to her for fear of making her impatient. In an hour or two the child called her and complained of extreme faintness, upon which she took her hand and said, "Well then, my dearest Henrietta, think of what I told you." The effect was so blest, that the child smiled upon her and expired.

September 26th.—My Lord returned (to Bowood) and brought with him Mr. Hume; they read office papers together in the evening while we drew and worked.

November 25th.—This morning I had christened, at St. George's Church, a little negro boy of five years old, that was given me by Mr. Richard Wells on Friday last, by the names of Thomas Coulican Phœnix; the latter he had been called after the ship he was brought in. He is pretty and very good humoured, and I hope by proper care will turn out well.

Christmas Day.—I could no longer delay the pleasure I proposed, in giving my watch to my Lord, and accordingly produced it at breakfast, when he was vastly pleased with it, and did me the honour to accept it. Here he remained till Sunday, January the third, and in the course of that time walked out very constantly till Thursday the last of December, when a fall of snow like that of the preceding year began. Our visitors in the course of that time were Lord Clare and Sir William Codrington, Sir John Hort, Mr. Parker, Mr. Fitzmaurice, Mr. Dunning, Mr. Townshend, Mr. Radcliffe, and Col. Barre, besides ourselves, and now and then an accidental visit from our country neighbours, Dr. Rolt, Mr. Daniel Bull, &c. The intense cold killed in one night our poor ourang-outang, or man of the wood, and possibly in some measure hastened the death of old Mr. Bull, which is a serious loss to Lord Shelburne, he being a most faithful, able, and zealous agent.

July 19th, 1768. My Lord's business calling him to town, he left me very early this morning with no other company to supply his place than my dear little boy, who after the solitude of the first day was past, has done it better than could have been imagined. I spend my time as follows: At eight I rise, dress and take the child without his nurse one turn round the shrubbery before breakfast. Immediately after, I go out with him again till a little after eleven, when he sleeps. I then read my chapters in my blue dressing room below stairs, and from that time till two, the Mémoires de M^elle de Montpensier; then go to see Lord Fitzmaurice dine, and teach him afterwards to spell words, till it is time to dress for my own dinner; after which I have twice taken the air, or walk'd with him, and amused myself in planting Chinese seeds, which Mr. Sulivan gave me, in pots for the hot-house, and after working some of my Paris net trimming, and seeing the child put to bed, walk in the shrubbery till nine o'clock, and then come in and read the Adventurer, or Les Caractères de la Bruyère till supper. I have seen none of my neighbours since my Lord went. My greatest amusement has, therefore, been receiving two very kind letters from my Lord by Thursday and Saturday's posts.

Saturday, August 20th.—I had the pleasure of coming to Shelburne House from whence I continue this Diary. My Lord was just going to Council as I arrived, with Lord Granby; we had some little conversation upon the steps, and I had full time to walk over and examine the house. It is very noble, and I am much pleas'd with it, tho' perhaps few people wou'd have come to live in it in so unfurnished a state.

August 25th.—After dinner my Lord, Mr. Townshend, and Mr. Adams set out for Bowood, where he is also to give Lord Shelburne some plans of buildings, and of joyning the house and offices by an additional apartment.

September 18th.—They told me of a very extraordinary match of Augustus Harvey with Miss Hunter. In order to its being accomplished it is necessary he should own his marriage, and be divorc'd from Miss Chudleigh,^[4] which it is said he sent to her to propose. She answered that she had no objection, but must in honour acquaint him that the moment he declar'd himself her husband, he would become responsible for a debt of sixteen thousand pounds.

October 20th.—I should not omit a very essential event: Lord Shelburne's resignation of the Seals as Secretary of State. It was preceded a week before by Lord Chatham's of which, however my Lord had no intelligence, it being transacted very privately between him and the King, to whom he wrote himself.^[5] A report prevail'd in town of its having taken place in consequence of a letter to him from the Duke of Grafton, proposing to remove Lord Shelburne, which it is said Lord Chatham answered only by enclosing the above-mention'd letter of resignation to the Duke of Grafton, and desiring him to deliver it to the King.

November 6th.—My Lord went this morning to Hayes to see Lord Chatham, return'd late, and dined only with Mr. Fitzmaurice and me, to whom he told part of his conversation with Lady Chatham, having had only a glympse of my Lord as he was coming down stairs. It tended to confirm the truth of the report I mention'd before, and to prove that neither the Chancellor nor my Lord Bristol had his authority for continuing to hold or accept a place with the present Administration. I was call'd away in the middle of this by the arrival of Lady Jane Macartney and of Miss Murray. After they were gone Lord Shelburne and Colonel Barre came and sat with me and renewed the conversation of Lord Chatham, till Mr. Price, whom we had sent for to christen our little boy,^[6] arrived from Wycombe and sup'd with us.

Tuesday, February 23rd.—Lord Rochfort told Mme. de Viri the first of a very sad story, that has since that time been but too truly verify'd, of Lady Sarah Bunbury having elop'd from Sir Charles with Lord William Gordon.

 

Graver events than elopements were soon, however, to attract the attention of Lady Shelburne. It has been seen that at the time when Shelburne resigned the Secretaryship of State the Ministry had determined to prosecute Wilkes, who on his return from France and surrender to his outlawry had been arrested on April 27th, 1768, and imprisoned. On June 8th, however, Lord Mansfield declared the outlawry void, but sentenced Wilkes to fine and imprisonment for his original offence in publishing No. 45 of the North Briton and the Essay on Woman. On May 10th Wilkes was elected for Middlesex. He was expelled from the House of Commons on February 3rd, 1769, but re-elected for Middlesex on the 16th of the same month. On the 17th his election was declared void, and himself declared incapable of being elected into the Parliament then sitting. On March 16th he was again elected, the candidate against him being Mr. Dingley. On March 17th his election was again declared void, and a new election ordered. On April 13th he was victorious over Colonel Luttrell, who on the 15th was, however, seated as member for Middlesex by the House of Commons.

"I went in the morning to the manège," Lady Shelburne writes in her Diary on Thursday, March 16th, "though I had some apprehension of being molested by the Mob, it being the day of the Brentford election, when Mr. Dingley was to offer himself as a candidate to oppose Mr. Wilkes; however it was all very quiet."

 

Friday.—I heard that Mr. Dingley, who went on the part of Administration to offer himself to represent the County of Middlesex in Parliament, in opposition to Mr. Wilkes, was received with great decency by his party when he appear'd on the hustings at Brentford; but it is most likely their dislike might be restrained by the speeches of Mr. Townshend and Mr. Sawbridge, recommending quiet and good order. Mr. Dingley, however, could get nobody to propose him, and being very suspicious of some violence, withdrew under the protection of two Sheriffs, and return'd to London by two o'clock to report his ill success and the re-election of Mr. Wilkes.

April 11th.—Ryle came in and told me that there was a great mob before the Palace at St. James; who were very riotous, and insulted the merchants who were gone to the King with an address. We therefore congratulated ourselves on being to spend the day out of town, and when my Lord was ready, Lady Jane,^[7] he and I, and dear little Monna all set out for Wycombe, where I had the pleasure of finding my dear little boy safely arrived the day before. The servants, who came down from London after us, told us that Sir Fletcher Norton had been obliged to read the Riot Act from the window over the arch of the palace, and that they had dispersed soon after.

Thursday Morning, April 13th.—We breakfasted at Mr. Anson's, who gave a breakfast and concert to Mrs. Montagu, to which she very obligingly invited us. We called upon her and went together, and saw a very fine house, built and ornamented by Mr. Stuart. The company were Count Bruhl, Lord Egremont, Mr. and Mrs. Harris and their daughter, Mrs. Vesey, Mrs. Dunbar, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Scott, a M. de Vibre, M. de Maltête a President de Parlement, who came over expressly to see a Riot, but was deterred from going to Brentford by the French Ambassador, and condemned to pass this memorable morning in the calmer scene of Mr. Anson's house and entertainment. From hence I went with my Lord to return his visits, as I was apprehensive I might meet with some Mob that it would have been disagreeable to pass thro' in a chair. I must here say that this was the day when Mr. Luttrell offered himself to oppose Mr. Wilkes. As he was going out of town by Hyde Park Corner with some gentlemen who attended him, he was pelted by the Mob, and some of his company who were riding first were a little disconcerted and stop'd, which stop'd him who was following, and one of the mob took hold of the bridle of his horse. Capt. Luttrell, however, gave him a blow with the end of his whip, and disengaging himself gallop'd away to Holland House, where his friends and he breakfasted with Mr. Fox, and from thence proceeded to Brentford, accompanied by several gentlemen. Mr. Wilkes was returned Member for Middlesex, but Mr. Luttrell had 296 votes. Captain Roche withdrew, and Mr. Whitaker, who had also proposed himself, had 5 votes.

Friday.—This day they declared Mr. Wilkes incapable of sitting in the House of Commons, and the day after, Mr. Luttrell was declared member for Middlesex, and took his seat in the House of Commons. There have been some meetings of freeholders at Mile End, and it is said they mean to draw up a petition to the King to dissolve the Parliament; however, no steps are yet taken.

 

The excitement, of which the meetings described by Lady Shelburne were the sign, grew daily stronger. Grafton trembled before the storm, but George III. remained undaunted and determined to get rid of Grafton.

It has already been seen how the King on his accession abandoned the Whigs, and setting up a standard of his own, had made his Court a Cave of Adullam to which every country squire with an hereditary hatred of revolution principles, and every Jacobite sufficiently clear-sighted to recognize the hopelessness of the Stuart cause, eagerly gathered himself and his friends. Prerogative was pitted against the privilege of Parliament by the act of the King himself, and both looked round for allies.

Outside the limits of the Court and of the aristocracy lay the rising power of the Middle Classes. The party able to gain their support was certain of ultimate success. "I sell here," said Matthew Boulton to those who, like Shelburne, visited his works, "what the world desires to have, Power."^[8] The year which marked the beginning of the ascendancy of Bute had seen the commencement of Brindley's Canal between Worsley and Manchester; in the year in which he fell, Wedgwood had established the Potteries, and Hargreaves was inventing the Jenny. While Grenville was passing the Stamp Act, Watt was discovering the Steam-engine; while the House of Commons was occupied in expelling Wilkes, Arkwright was inventing the Spinning-frame; and the great English newspapers were day by day attracting to themselves a larger capital and showing increased enterprise. The old Whigs, however, forgetting that the Revolution had to a great extent been rendered successful by the support of the commercial classes, resolutely shut their eyes to the signs of the times, and seemed determined not to look beyond the charmed circle of their own family connections. George III. was no wiser. Had he been the Patriot King whose advent had been announced, had he set worthy objects before himself and known how to attain them, he might have had an easy triumph over his adversaries; nor would he have had far to go to find proper instruments for an enlightened policy in the followers of Chatham, who made "measures not men" their motto. At one moment it seemed as if he had understood the true character of the situation. "The ministry of 1766," says Shelburne, "was formed of those who recognised that the Hanover family was become English, and the old mode of false government worn out and seen through. It was proposed no longer to sacrifice all merit and worth in Army, Navy, Church and State, to the miserable purpose of corrupting a majority of the House of Commons, but that the Crown should trust to the rectitude of its own measures, taking care by a scrupulous regard to merit, and a just distribution of honors, to secure a general conviction of its good intentions, and under that conviction to restore the constitution."^[9] It is doubtful, however, whether the Ministry of 1766 could have had any other termination than failure, even had Chatham not succumbed to illness, for George III., far from resembling the Patriot King, had apparently studied the precedents of royalty in the Stuart period, but without either learning wisdom or taking warning from their example. The objects he set before himself were the extension of his prerogative, the limitation of the political liberties of his subjects, and the suppression of the rights of the Colonies. In order to attain these ends he had devoted himself to the formation of a Court party in Parliament, and to the search for a Minister ready to let the King be the President of his own Council, but with the ability necessary to push the royal mandates through the two Houses.

The formation of a Court party had proved the easier task of the two. The "King's Friends" soon began to be heard of as a real power which had to be reckoned with. Their leader was Jenkinson. They were chiefly recruited in the House of Commons from the venal purchasers of boroughs, who found in royal favours and distinctions a shield to their crimes in India and their frauds in England, and among the Peers, by nobles such as Lord Talbot, the worthy successors of the Favourites of the Stuart period. It was in their ranks that in 1766 the fears of the more timid and the hopes of the less liberal members of the Whig connection had found encouragement, and it was they, who by sowing dissension broadcast, and by supporting Charles Townshend and the Bedfords against Shelburne and Grafton, had made the King master of the situation, and now hoped that constitutional government was about to become an empty and useless figment. Their most recent exploit had been to force the proceedings against Wilkes on a hesitating Ministry.^[10] Hitherto, however, the ideal minister had not been discovered. Bute had been tried and found wanting. Only the odium of his unpopularity remained. Shelburne, Gower, and Egremont had once been thought of,^[11] but Shelburne had disappointed the royal expectations, Egremont was dead, and Gower seemed unwilling to aim at the highest offices. Grenville was too retentive of Parliamentary power; Chatham too independent, and Grafton too indolent, if not too liberal.

The King, however, had not to wait much longer. In the resignation of Shelburne he found his opportunity. That resignation had left Grafton in a minority in his own Cabinet. Of this an early proof was given. So threatening had the aspect of affairs in America become, that he submitted to his colleagues the propriety of repealing all the taxes imposed by Charles Townshend. By a majority of one the article of tea was excluded from the repeal.^[12] It was the history of the Declaratory Act over again. Though absolutely useless as a fiscal measure the taxation of tea was retained "to keep up the right."^[13] Nor was this all. Hillsborough despatched a Circular informing the Colonial Governors of the intentions of the Government, but avoided the use in it of the friendly terms agreed on by the Cabinet. His colleagues protested, but the King supported him. Grafton at once felt that self-respect counselled an early retirement from an impossible situation. Chatham, at the same time returning to public life, treated him with cold reserve, and Camden, thinking apparently that the Prime Minister had been wanting in decision, assumed a distant attitude, doubly painful at a moment when the proceedings against Wilkes, in and out of Parliament, were daily giving a greater importance to the cordial co-operation of the Chancellor.

While the Administration was thus divided against itself, the Opposition was for a moment more united than it had been for some time past. Soon after the refusal of Temple to serve with Pitt in 1766, a firm alliance had been formed between the former and George Grenville, and it was now suddenly announced that Chatham had acceded to that alliance.^[14] The Middlesex Election, the question which immediately occupied the public mind, rendered co-operation between them easier than it otherwise would have been, for if Temple was personally identified with Wilkes, and Chatham was not, yet they could both agree on the unconstitutional character of his expulsion from the House of Commons, and of the subsequent proceedings also, which Grenville, the original enemy of Wilkes, condemned in one of his greatest Parliamentary efforts. Nor on this question was there any risk of an immediate divergence of opinion on the part of the followers of Rockingham, who cultivated very friendly relations with the author of the North Briton, nor with Shelburne, who, though distrusting Wilkes and anxious to rescue the City from his undivided sway, recognized that he had become the representative of the political rights and liberties of the subject.

The House of Commons spent the session of 1769 in fierce debates, in which the now united Opposition appeared in full vigour and Barré was especially conspicuous. On one occasion he announced that a motion for rescinding the resolution on seditious libels was to be expected from the Treasury Bench, for the Chancellor when Lord Chief Justice had laid down the law otherwise.^[15] On another he baptized Dyson, who, with Jenkinson, had become the chief instrument of the intrigues of the Court, by the name of "Mungo," a black slave in The Padlock, who is there described as employed by everybody, in all jobs and servile offices;^[16] telling Rigby at the same time that he was a "jolly eating drinking fellow," who, finding himself in a comfortable situation, seldom spoke.^[17] Such are fair samples of the Parliamentary amenities of a period when the licence of Parliamentary language ran fierce and free. By the end of the year the excitement reached the Upper House. The news had arrived of fresh riots and bloodshed in Boston, of the spread of non-importation agreements, and of the contempt and ridicule with which the intended revival of the obsolete statute of Henry VIII. for bringing prisoners from the Colonies to trial in England had been received. The Spaniards had expelled the English garrisons from the Falkland Islands; hostile intentions were rightly attributed to France; at home the grievances of the Middlesex Election were unredressed; and from every quarter murmurs loud and deep were heard against secret influence and irresponsible advisers. Chatham, the inevitable minister in the event of the expected war with Spain, rode on the whirlwind and directed the storm. So strong did the popular feeling become that even Rockingham, who had stood aloof as long as he was able, yielded to the popular enthusiasm.^[18] On January 9th, 1770, Chatham moved an amendment to the Address to the effect that the House would inquire into grievances, especially those of the Middlesex Election, while Shelburne spoke of the alarming posture of affairs abroad, where England had not and could not get an ally. The motion was lost, but not before the Chancellor, roused by the voice of his friend, had opposed his own colleagues in debate. Rockingham next gave notice that the following day he would call attention to the state of the nation; Grafton asked for a more distant day. Then a scene of excitement and confusion arose. It was felt that the resignation of the Chancellor was impending. "The seals," exclaimed Shelburne, "are to go a-begging, but I hope there will not be found in the kingdom a wretch so base and mean-spirited as to accept of them on the conditions on which they must be offered."^[19] The example was contagious. Next day in the House of Commons, Dunning, who was already odious to the Court for his opposition to the proceedings against Wilkes, followed the example of Camden, at whose special request alone he had not resigned in 1768.^[20] As Shelburne had foreseen, the Great Seal did go a-begging. At length, after many hesitations between accepting the long-deferred object of his ambition, and standing by his old connections, Charles Yorke, under great pressure from the King, chose the former alternative, but, whether by his own hand or through illness, died before even affixing the seal to the patent of his own creation as Lord Morden. Meanwhile Dunning had resigned and Rockingham had brought forward his motion on the state of the nation, while Chatham was thundering on the Middlesex Election, on the condition of the country, bereft of every ally and become the contempt of Europe, on the oppression of the democratic part of the Constitution, and the necessity of Parliamentary Reform.^[21] Grafton said his head turned, and tendered his resignation. The King accused his minister of deserting him, but accepted his resignation.^[22] The public thought Chatham must be sent for, but it was not Chatham who was now announced to the world as First Lord of the Treasury. North was his successful rival, and from his accession to office the prospering fortunes of the Opposition began to wane.^[23] George III. had found the long-wished-for minister; but it was not to the skill of the latter alone that the King owed his escape from the difficulties which surrounded him.

 

1. Walpole, Correspondence, v. 131.
2. A cousin of Lady Shelburne.
3. They had been married on the 19th February, 1767.
4. This lady subsequently became Duchess of Kingston. See some letters on this subject in the Grenville Correspondence, iv. 343, 356.
5. Chatham had resigned on the ground that he believed that Shelburne was about to be dismissed; and he treated Shelburne's resignation under the circumstances as practically the same thing as a dismissal, and in any case as carrying with it the same results as regarded American policy.
6. The Honourable William Petty, who died 27th January, 1778
7. Lady Jane Tollemache.
8. Boswell's Johnson, iii. 158, 347. See too supra, p. 274, where the Mr. Bolden mentioned by Lady Shelburne is evidently Matthew Boulton, the friend and partner of Watt.
9. "A Fragment of Lord Shelburne's." Lansdowne House MSS.
10. Autobiography of Grafton, 198.
11. See supra, pp. 142, 143.
12. Autobiography of Grafton, 232.
13. The King to Lord North, May 1769, quoted by Bancroft, v. 193.
14. Chatham Correspondence, iii. 349.
15. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iii. 272.
16. Ibid. iii. 315.
17. Ibid. iii. 316.
18. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iv. 35.
19. Parliamentary History, 1770.
20. Autobiography of Grafton, 228. Thurlow was the successor of Dunning.
21. January 22nd, 1770.
22. Conversation of George III. with Lord Ashburton. See Vol. II. p. 318.
23. See the Remarks of Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., iv. 40, 75.