Life of William, Earl of Shelburne/Volume 1/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
THE PIOUS FRAUD
1762–1763
"Mr. Fox," Shelburne wrote many years afterwards,[1] "was infinitely able in business, clear, penetrating, confident, and decisive in all his dealings with mankind, and of most extraordinary activity. His first connection was among the Torys. Everybody knows his origin. In 1727 he was elected for Hindon,[2] and on a petition being preferred against him supported by Government, he made by his activity and his connections among the young men of fashion, such interest in the House of Commons, that to the amazement of the Minister, who looked upon it as a common petition easily carried as he should direct, he found the two first questions carried against him, and was not able to carry it at last without a very strong exertion of the power of Government. He thus felt the power of the Minister, and in seven years after, on his coming in, attached himself closely to him, and ever afterwards looked up to him as his model, insomuch that it was common to Mr. Winnington to say that the Foxes thought nobody could read or write except it was Walpole. His ambition was quite of a modern kind, narrow, interested: in short the ambition of office, which had the Court for its object, and looked on corruption as the only means to attain it.[3] 'I give you so much, and you shall give me in return, and so we'll defy the world, and sing Tol de rol,' &c. His abilities and his conversation taking this turn, habit had so confirmed it that, when I knew him, he looked upon every other reasoning as mere loss of time, or as a sure mark of folly or the greatest knavery, 'for every set of men are honest; it's only necessary to define their sense of it to know where to look for it; every man is honest and dishonest, according to the sentiments of the man who speaks of him; every man is artful too to the extent of his abilities. God made man so, and has given it to him in lieu of force; only one man places his art in deceiving publick assemblies, another in deceiving particular men, another women, &c. Nor are honesty and art absolutely opposite qualities, but I can conceive a sensible man very easily to do what is called honest, that is punctual in his dealing, and meaning well to the man he deals with to the best of his abilities, and very artful at the same time.' Mr. Fox was thus extremely honest in all his dealings with individuals. His good sense made him so, if his nature did not. He was extremely artful too, and for this purpose was really to the greatest degree open, except in cases of the greatest necessity. Possessed by this means of this short road to power, he despised as it were knowledge, or at least put men of that stamp in a second class, and looked on all publick spirit as the spirit of faction. This was his political creed in which he believed himself, and recommended to others. He excelled in everything that came within it. He was clear, had a great spirit of order, arrangement, and economy in regulating everything that came before him; but formed to this his ambition was a mean one, never daring to look very high, ready to submit to everything, consequently timid, with a certain dread of the publick: the natural consequence of his system, for how could it be otherwise? His sense told him it was necessary to deal with individuals, and secure them each by particular services of consequence. He must have been apprehensive of such of them as were unsecured by bribes and promises, which being far the greatest part, his very conduct made him afraid of the publick, if he was not naturally so, which however there is the greatest reason to believe. He was proud to a great degree, envious even to bitterness, and revengeful, which, if well considered, will be found perfectly agreeable to his other qualities, and both of them illustrated by every action of his life. He had, however, an extraordinary degree of shrewdness and sagacity.
"As to foreign affairs, Mr. Fox had always entirely trusted to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, first Envoy in Saxony, afterwards in Russia.[4] He was a man of wit, but nothing else. He was bred up the same as Mr. Fox, in the profligate school of Lord Hervey, and lost his senses while abroad in the midst of negotiations without anybody in England knowing it. His ingenuity and wit rather increased than lessened with his madness, so that he deceived all sides. Mr. Fox put an entire confidence in him, by which way he was enabled to spend immense sums under pretence of Secret Service, which no one knows how he disposed of. His dispatches which remain in the Secretary's Office are a series of romances stating favours and bonnes fortunes which he never had, all which he pretended to turn to political account. Mr. Fox's private letters to him and many others were lately discovered by a singular accident in Wales. Mr. Hanbury, who inherits his family estate, wanted to fit up a room, and looking for a chimney-piece opened some deal boxes which he had conceived an idea contained one, having laid for a long time in some storehouse; and proved instead of what was wanted to contain all Sir Charles's papers, which it seems had been left in the possession of some French mistress, who returned them very honestly to the family; a proof that there is more honesty in the world that may be expected among a description which are very unjustly branded with everything that is bad, because they originally believed too readily the honesty of others.
"What passed in the year 1757, in the struggle between Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt, is too long to recapitulate. Mr. Pitt told him then he did not look upon him a man sui juris, because of the Duke of Cumberland. The fact is, Mr. Fox was not formed to be a man sui juris, else he would have been so. I have often thought Mr. Pitt then saw he could get the better of Mr. Fox when he pleased, but that he could not of the Duke of Cumberland. Mr. Fox bore all from Mr. Pitt which the superiority of his line, the favour of the people, on the great majority of whom he stood, the daringness of his temper, ready to risk everything, enabled him to surround himself with every time they appeared in publick.
"Not one of Mr. Fox's maxims did he dare to profess in publick, or if he did they were immediately run down by the great body of the people (while Mr. Pitt was in the midst of his system), and men were thus ashamed to perform in publick what they had promised to do in private, or did it as if they were ashamed. Mr. Fox's system was built upon the ridicule of those very qualities the professing of which enabled Mr. Pitt to gain the heart of every disinterested man, at a time when the publick was supposed to be in the greatest danger. Mr. Fox retired laughing, as it were, and talking of Mr. Pitt as a madman, but necessarily conscious of his own inferiority. He abandoned all hope of returning to power, and gave himself up to his next passion, which was covetousness. He had an opportunity of satisfying this to the greatest degree in the Pay-Office, and exerting all his abilities in the pursuit, by his management taking proper advantage of the rise and fall of the Publick Stocks, with the publick money, a great deal of which necessarily lay in his hands. This, together with the fondness for his family, which was without bounds, together with the connection of some friends whom he still kept attached to him, were sufficient resources to occupy his mind. He was therefore prevailed on with the greatest difficulty to alter his resolution and to come to Court to assist Lord Bute in October 1762, and these reasons made him so very determined in making it a condition that he should retire at the year's end. I have dwelt the longer on his character, because, if it's well understood together with Lord Bute's, it will not be at all difficult to comprehend every event that happened to the end of the Session."
Whatever his merits or demerits may have been, Fox was not a man of hesitations. Having accepted the lead of the House of Commons, he determined to force the peace through at any cost, and did so by those arts which in the eighteenth century were known as political management. The condition of the House of Commons and—with a few exceptions—of the constituencies rendered his task easy. The last election had dethroned the Duke of Newcastle. A judicious use of rewards and punishments among members did the rest. But, in the opinion of Bute, the fall of the Duke of Newcastle was not enough. The Whig aristocracy were to be utterly trampled under foot, and the Minister eagerly awaited the moment when, after the signature of the preliminaries of peace, he would be able to assure the King that he was now at length his own master. Even before the meeting of Parliament a heavy blow had been struck. The King became suddenly convinced, or professed to be so, that some dark intrigue was on foot to hand him over again to the Whigs, and the resignation of their appointments at Court by the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord George Cavendish, and Lord Bessborough came as the match to light the powder magazine of royal resentment. George III. determined to anticipate his real or supposed enemies, and without consulting the Ministers, struck the names of the Whig Duke and the Whig Marquis from the Council book.[5] But though the deed originated with the King, it was undeniably accepted by Bute and Fox and Shelburne. The first was ready to defend whatever his royal master thought fit to do; the second sacrificed his old friendship to the prospect of immediate gain; and the third weakly allowed his disgust for the old Whig system to persuade him of the real existence of the cabal. The two following letters shew the position of the three statesmen:[6]
Bute to Shelburne.
November 3rd.
My dear Lord,—In a few hours after I saw you I received a note from the King, telling me he had executed his intentions concerning the Privy Councillors, and this he explain'd in a manner that shows me no man alive could have prevented it, nor would I for the world hint to Him Mr. Fox's opinion, not only as the thing is over, but as He looks on this whole affair as personal insult to Himself. Suffer me now, far from excusing, to justify strongly the King's conduct. Was ever a punishment so justly adapted to an offence? The oath of Counsellor broke, the name is erased, the real Lex Talionis. The Duke of Cumberland is represented to me, my dear Lord, as growing more placid, and yet the certain account I have of Newmarket carries no equivocal marks to me of that sweet temper talked of. The King is insulted on every side. I own I feel for Him, I know you do; I wish all who serve Him did the same; and then we should not hear these lamentations, these timid halfmeasures. I will not screen myself under my Prince. I advised not indeed the measure, but that I won't own, and I most heartily approve it.
Adieu, my dear Lord,
Yours, &c.,
Bute.
Shelburne to Bute.
November 4th.
My dear Lord,—I am this moment honored with yours. I was in hopes His Majesty had seen the Duke of Rutland to-day, but I entirely agree with your Lordship that he should see him as soon as possible. Perhaps if twelve hours were given him to consider after the King had seen him and the change offered him, his female friend would probably influence him to accept. Mr. Fox says: "If the Duke of Rutland's behaviour warrants it, let him be summoned to the Conciliabulum, and let Lord Granby, by your Lordship (meaning me), Calcraft, and others be made more drunk with praise than he ever was with champagne. Let Lord Bute get them to declare, and we will with these Simpletons distance the other old Families, those Phantoms they talk of so much." He is certainly very sorry about the Duke of Devonshire, and wishes it had been first debated and considered, " What good can it do? What harm may it do? " but that, not out of regard to his Grace, nor meaning to extenuate the offence, nor at present even to lessen the King's resentment, but merely with a view to what is to come, and from being of opinion that he is the most timid of those who may be now considered as endeavouring by the basest means to take His Majesty prisoner, and therefore that this indignity should be reserved for those who, though they had deserved, had not received any as yet. But as it is done, your Lordship may depend upon it, he will join you in justifying, not defending, it to the world. As to the Duke of Cumberland, I always told your Lordship, if Mr. Fox connected himself with you, His Royal Highness could not prevail to make him do anything contrary to the spirit of his engagements with you, but I never said that Mr. Fox's judgment of the Duke was to be taken. He feels that the Duke dishonors himself by such a conduct as you describe, and therefore halts to think it possible. And I believe I described his conduct so warmly and so home to the Duke, by adding what the King had said of him, as to make him of another opinion for the moment, though I readily believe your Lordship that it is changed. This is the case not only with regard to the Duke, but with anybody whom he has lived in friendship with, which you will find him, as I have often assured your Lordship, most uncommonly sincere in. For my own part I see it in most odious colours, but not less serious for their being odious. I do believe it requires the utmost activity and versatility in your Lordship to rescue the King from being liable the whole of his reign to such insults.
I am with great esteem and regard,
My dear Lord,
Ever yours,
Shelburne.
The preliminaries were submitted to both Houses of Parliament on December 9th. Shelburne was entrusted with the motion approving them in the House of Lords.[7] No record of his speech on this occasion is preserved. The preliminaries were approved in both Houses. "Now," said the Princess Dowager, "my son is King of England."[8] "Strip the Duke of Newcastle of his three Lieutenancies immediately," wrote Fox, anticipating the victory. "I'll answer for the good effect of it, and then go on to the general rout, but let this beginning be made immediately.[9] I should not wish your Lordship," he continued, when sure of the event, "so entirely well as I do (and hope you think I do), if I did not touch upon the subject of turning out, lest these scenes should ever come to be acted over again. The impertinence of our conquered enemies last night was great, but will not continue so if His Majesty shows no lenity. But, my Lord, with regard to their numerous dependents in Crown employments, it behoves your Lordship in particular to leave none of them. Their connections spread very wide, and every one of them, their relations and friends, is in his heart your enemy. They all think themselves secure, and many talk with their own mouths, all by those of their relations and acquaintances, against your Lordship. Turn the tables, and you will immediately have thousands who will think the safety of themselves or their friends depends upon your Lordship, and will therefore be sincere and active friends. I have very little to do with this personally, but willing to take upon myself all the odium of the advice, as I am sure it is the only way to make the rest of His Majesty's reign or of your Administration easy. And I don't care how much I am hated if I can say to myself, I did His Majesty such honest and essential service."[10]
Bute needed no encouragement. "Party," he had said, "will be well explored, and everything the King detests gathered into one ostensible heap, and formed either to be destroyed by him, or by getting the better to lead him in chains. I see every prospect of the first event in the most flattering view, and nothing but despair and too late repentance hanging over the other."[11]
Much has been written on the subject of the political proscription of 1762. Considered in detail, it will be at once seen that a wide distinction should be drawn between the two classes of dismissals by which Bute and Fox at this period sought to strengthen their position. When, on the one hand, every one holding a business place was dismissed, a course was adopted which, though new indeed at the time, was one which became a precedent, and has since been gradually extended so as to include even those officials of the Court who happen to occupy seats in Parliament.[12] The evil effects of official members voting against the Government to which they belonged had been frequently and severely felt, and threatened, if tolerated any longer, to render government impossible. When, on the other hand, the Lord Lieutenants of counties were dismissed from their posts, not only was the practice new, but no real argument could be found to justify it, and though frequently followed in the period of history which these volumes cover, it gradually ceased to be a recognised accompaniment of a change of Ministry. The former class of dismissals Shelburne strenuously urged on Bute, and few will blame him, but it cannot be denied that he consented to the latter as well, at least by silence. "Before another question comes," he writes, "let the 213 taste some of the plunder of the 74. Without you do somewhat of that kind, you'll find your cause want a necessary animation and your friends want encouragement.[13] … The Tories, as well as other more material ones, will suspect you leave the door open for those against whom they were brought to shut it. If there is any opposition, Mr. Pitt will certainly be the soul of it, and has not he even got credit by his treatment of these gentlemen? I express myself to you in a hurry, going to the country; as Mr. Fox told me last night, he thought the King relaxed very much in regard to the Lieutenancies and to the plan of those who voted, and some who are professedly every hour labouring against you. At least, I would not suffer their conduct on Thursday to wipe off all the other acts which they have attempted."[14]
But Fox was not even satisfied with the fall of the great Whig Peers; and here he and Shelburne parted company.
"The majority," writes Shelburne, "on the side of the government may be fairly said to have turned Mr. Fox's head. He thought he had performed everything he promised, and that he could not be sufficiently rewarded. He therefore, being still determined to retire at the end of the year, that is to go to the House of Lords, no longer took any trouble about the individuals or the business of the House of Commons. His neglect of every individual with whom he was not particularly connected by relationship or interest hurt his character extremely, as it took off from the most amiable part of it, which was generally believed too. He was averse even to take the trouble of seeing them, and from that moment thought of nothing but what he should ask for himself, his brother, his nephews, his own and his wife's relations, and his immediate dependents. With these he filled up most of the employments, which he prevailed on Lord Bute to turn the Duke of Newcastle's friends out of, without the least regard to the future carrying on of the King's business. One event, however, happened which interrupted these considerations a little. Lord Bute's Tory friends had pressed him to have an enquiry into the publick expenses as a popular and in every respect a very wise measure. Sir J. Philipps, the silliest of them, was so bent upon this silly idea, for so it certainly was considering it on the side of Government—as Government was composed—that he was determined to propose it, and propose it in his own way. Lord Bute felt so hampered, having committed himself on this subject, as he had very imprudently done on many of the same purport to Sir F. Dashwood and other people of the same stamp, that he thought he could not cleverly get off without appearing at least to come into it to a certain degree. He had a confused notion likewise that he might gain some popularity by it, and that he might deceive the world. Mr. Fox was most unaccountably afraid of it, insomuch that he could not conceal it from anybody, and was very imprudent in his opposition to it in the House of Commons, where he was left almost single, being deserted by Grenville, Elliot, and most of the second people. He deprecated it in vain with Lord Bute. It ended without doing him any publick harm, however, and has left in the world the impression of the most useless, contemptible, ridiculous, childish, and absurd measure ever proposed by Government, as attempts of that sort usually do, having failed."[15]
On the 10th of February 1763 the definitive Peace with France was concluded, but the troubles of home politics had by that time changed the "confused notion of imitating the Due de Sully," entertained by Lord Bute, into a determination to resign. A fierce outcry against him, against the Peace and against the Scotch, was resounding from one end of the country to the other. Nothing was too absurd to obtain credence. It was, for example, reported that the Minister had sent orders down to Scotland for a good many people to come up armed and set fire to the transfer books of the Stock at the Bank. A thousand other equally wild and absurd stories filled the air, and were believed. At the same time Fox was urgently pressing on his patron at the Treasury that the moment had come to give him the promised reward and allow him to retire. Already, in January, he had written to Bute: "Though your Lordship's goodness and strict honour made it unnecessary, yet that I may not be liable to the least mental reproach, let me tell you, and through you His Majesty, as with the strictest truth I can, that what I feel from sitting in a full House of Commons till nine o'clock at night—though with a vacant mind—were of itself enough to convince me of the impossibility of my continuing there."[16]
The threatened motion of Sir J. Philipps came, in addition to the condition of his health, as an incentive to Fox to resign; and though he took little or no share in the debates on the Cyder Tax, "which was proposed because Sir Francis Dashwood, who had completely lost his nerve at the outburst of popular fury against the tax, could not be made to understand a tax on linen, which was first intended, sufficiently to explain it to the House, and it had to be laid aside in consequence,"[17] he certainly had no inducement to remain and share the discredit attaching to the Government which had proposed the obnoxious impost. While in this frame of mind he was suddenly informed of the determination taken by Bute to accompany him into retirement. Against this he strenuously protested, and stated his opinion in the following paper, which he handed to the Minister:[18]
"Too sure of the sincerity of your intentions to retire, yet I cannot see how it is possible that you should leave the Ministry this year. But you bid me suppose that you was dead. I choose to write this paper on a supposition that you will stay. If you were to die the King would do well to execute this plan or something like it, putting into your place some person apparently a stop-gap, until he had that experience of some men, which to gain is the foundation of this paper. For it seems to me that it were eligible to put most, if not all of the great and efficient offices which give daily access to the King, into other hands. Whilst you stay to control them it is another thing; but your going will open to them views which they are, some of them, weak enough to be looking for already; and whilst they are struggling for power, such intrigues, cabals, and bad arts would subsist as it would be miserable to His Majesty to live amongst, and as must be very prejudicial to his affairs. I would find honest and proper men for these places, nor is it surely impossible to find them. Yet I would not be so sure I had found them as to pronounce them such till His Majesty should be able by experience to know them. The persons I would put into great places now, and give access to His Majesty that he might observe and know them, are Lord Gower, Lord Shelburne, and, I think, Lord Waldegrave. Your Lordship will add to these such as occur to you. These are men of honour and veracity. The first is of a humour and nature the most practicable, and if any man could do the office of Southern Secretary without either quarrelling with Charles Townshend, or letting down the dignity of his own office, he would. His being in such a station is the thing (and perhaps the only thing) that would fix that capricious being, the Duke of Bedford, whose present intention is to resign and take no other employment. If that should be the case he would dine a fifth Duke at Devonshire House within this twelvemonth.
"The second, Lord Shelburne, has uncommon abilities, great activity, and loves you sincerely. I need say no more to you of him than that he cannot with decency or ability remain as he now is; if he has an employment it must be a very high one, and he will fill it well.
"The third is a man of strict honour, will go through what he engages in without any indiscretion, has great firmness, with great gentleness of manner, is by his friends both respected and beloved, has few enemies, and no view to popularity.
"Those who are, and should not remain where they are at Court, are Lord Halifax, Lord Egremont, G. Grenville.
"The first is vain and presumptuous, aiming at the highest degree of power, and secure in his own mind of universal applause, taking no connections seriously, or that may bind him whenever they become in the least inconvenient to his views, and parting with no connections which he thinks may one day serve him, however they may be offensive or injurious to those he acts with. Such is his present intimacy with Legge, and his leaning to the Duke of Newcastle, &c. Insincere, regardless of his word to a supreme degree, and regardful only of what may serve his vanity and ambition, which are without bounds.
"Of Lord Egremont, you who was witness of his conduct in the summer do not want to be informed. He was then undoubtedly led by Lord Mansfield, through G. Grenville, to very bad purposes, and talked publicly of the necessity of widening your bottom by reconciliation with the Duke of Newcastle. Since I came he has been rather an useless, lumpish, sour friend, than an enemy. But he certainly has not that cordiality that I wish; whenever friendship is professed it ought to be sincere, as of my conscience his ought to be towards you.
"G. Grenville is, and will be, whether in the Ministry or in the House of Commons, an hindrance, not a help, and sometimes a very great inconvenience to those he is joined with. He is a man of very weak understanding, and I wish I could impute to that alone what is wrong in him. His refusing to go on with the King's Measures towards peace your Lordship will call timidity, but when Lord Mansfield could inspire him with the thought of calling Lord Hardwicke and the Duke of Newcastle to the King's assistance, was there no permanency in employment do you believe hung out to him by Lord Mansfield, which his fears made him think would not be the case if he went on with you? Weak and fearful as he is, had he been honest, he would not have brought you into the dilemma you was in in October last.[19] When in a great office he withholds from the King and you all the use of it to Government, you will say it is a Catonical temper and mulish resolution not to depart from what he once lays down. Let no such mule be in such an office. But, my Lord, a man who can be a mule with his friend and benefactor, has neither good nature, good sense, nor honesty; and, indeed, I think him deficient in all. In the House of Commons he will ever be a tiresome incumbrance, unless the chief persons there have authority enough to set him, like other incumbrances, aside and out of the way.
"I now come to the House of Commons, and as there never was one so well disposed to be governed, it is the greatest pity there should be danger, as there is, of its becoming ungovernable. Sir Francis Dashwood is an honest man, has the best intentions, and may be recovered from any of those starts which he is subject to. But he is not fit for the station he is in, and it is too late in life for him to make himself so. I have considered it well, and do with the greatest confidence advise that Mr. Oswald be made Chancellor of the Exchequer. His abilities are so great and so well known to be so, that nobody will think he was made because he was a Scotchman;[20] many undoubtedly will say so, but when people say what everybody knows they don't themselves believe, they will be little regarded: and indeed it is time to lay aside all thoughts of that objection on every occasion. All has been said that can be said, and if you think no more of it, I believe you will hear no more of it. Whether Sir J. Turner will be governable, I don't know, he is shallow and conceited, and I should fear would not.[21] Lord North is young and interested, and his views of rising in the House of Commons will, I fancy, make him I won't say only tractable, but obsequious. There must never be a difference among the Treasury about anything. I would have all business, the whole system of the next session, settled between you and Oswald before the Parliament meets, and not a tittle of it departed from afterwards. I do not propose Oswald to have a Levée and manage, as it is called, the Members of the House. That never was, nor ever can be done but by the Minister, who is in your station; but Oswald will on all occasions take the lead, and will be supposed to speak your sense. If this scheme is punctually followed, the House of Commons will in another session gain great credit by the ability with which the business will be planned, and the steadiness with which it will be pursued, and both together will beget an opinion of discipline so established as may make things go on well, even if you should then retire, and put a less able man into your place. Who that man should be, His Majesty must judge. He is so amiable, and condescends to make himself so agreeable to those who have the honour to approach him, that it is very fit he should consider the agreeableness as well as ability of a man he is to see every day: I have endeavoured therefore to draw honest men to be under his immediate observation out of whom to choose.
"Lord Chancellor must be brought to take Judges with a view to Parliamentary interest where they are equally fit. If he will not lead he must be drove.[22]
"But, my Lord, in what way is Lord Hardwicke and his family to be considered? Are the sons to wait, with £20,000 a year from the King, for an opportunity to oppose his measures, and not taking the most trifling steps in support of them; nay saying, as they do publicly, that their father's friendship with the Duke of Newcastle is sacred, and that they shall abide by it.[23] I would bring them to explanation by removing at least Sir Joseph Yorke from his Embassy,[24] and his younger brother from the Board of Trade where you want a vacancy. But this is in some measure out of the intention with which this paper is written.
"I have said nothing of Charles Townshend. He must be left to that worst enemy, himself: care only being taken that no agreeableness, no wit, no zealous and clever behaviour, though on the right side, ever betray you into trusting him for half an hour.
"This paper may be a very silly one, because I may not know things that known would quite alter my opinion. But, as things appear to me, it is just. It is certainly my sincere opinion, and given with as much disinterested affection to His Majesty and cordiality of friendship to your Lordship as can be in the heart of any man.
"I shall ever have great satisfaction in thinking that I obeyed His Majesty's commands, and have not been quite useless, nor as I trust at all disagreeable to His Majesty in the execution of them. It will be an addition to that pleasure if I can hear that his affairs go on easily after I have left them; and think, that to their doing so, this paper of mine may have at all contributed."
Thus wrote Fox. The reply he received was an offer of the First Lordship of Treasury from Bute, sent to him through Calcraft:
"I write," says Calcraft to Shelburne, "lest I should forget any material part of a very long conference. I am just come from the Pay Office. Mr. Fox is plainly, in his own mind, much inclined to the Treasury, but Lady Holland is so much against it and so miserable at the thoughts of it, that I could not but keep my faith with her, and desist from persuading Mr. Fox to what she says would make her miserable and kill him. I am sorry to find, in the course of the whole that passed yesterday, both Lord Bute and the other think of themselves without considering what becomes of those who supported them. Mr. Fox wished me to return to work Lord Granby into taking Ireland. I replied that on your being Secretary of State or not, would depend the whole of my wishes and conduct; that I thought many people were disobliged, and still more would think well before they joined any new system under Lord Halifax or George Grenville; that your getting the rank of Secretary of State and other reasons made it advisable for you to come into employment though with such unpleasant colleagues. Was you out of the question, I would carry all the force I could to Hayes, but you and you only should be my standard. I don't find Lord Bute said any more of you than Mr. Fox had told you. Will Lord Bute stay in the summer or no? I rather guess not, and that Lord Halifax will have the Treasury. You will be Secretary of State I take for granted, but you should know, and very many matters should be so maturely weighed, that when these changes come forth, a plausible system at least should appear with them. The Torys I will suppose mean to stay at Court, but what will all those others do, who are passing between Court and Opposition, and won't the latter gain great strength by the new supposed Ministers' insincerity and indiscretion. Adieu, my dear Lord. I am sorry Mr. Fox is not to be Minister. That would have done. The next best thing would be to give Lord Waldegrave the Treasury. This, I doubt, Lord Bute won't do. With our hold on Lord Northumberland, is it possible to think of placing him as a great Lord, with Oswald his Chancellor, at the head of the Treasury, either for some short time, or till you could take it?"[25]
Fox having renounced the Treasury, and finding it impossible to move Bute from his determination to resign, now again addressed the latter on the arrangements that were to be made in the following terms:
"Finding with great concern, that Lord Bute's quitting, and quitting now, is a thing determined, and (for which Lady Caroline and I return our sincerest thanks) that the promise to us is remembered, and I am not desired to stay, I, at your Lordship's desire, write down my thoughts of what should be done considering these circumstances, and accommodating them as well as I can to what I heard from you this morning.
"The first thing to be considered, on which all the rest must turn is, Who shall be at the head of the Treasury?—Lord Halifax, Lord Waldegrave, Lord Northumberland, or G. Grenville, seem the only persons out of whom you can choose.
"If either of the three first, Oswald must be Chancellor of the Exchequer. If G. Grenville, he will be First Lord and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of all these I incline to Grenville, if I can fairly say incline to one to whom I have so many objections. He has lost the esteem of the House of Commons, where on this supposition he ought to be in the highest. He is in disgrace there from being supposed to have been tried, and found insufficient, and from the ill repute his speaking there is in. I waive other objections because not allowed by those who know him better than I do, yet they speak of great timidity, a sad quality in the Minister of the House of Commons. But upon the whole, and especially knowing Lord Bute's good opinion of him, I very reluctantly (I can hardly bring myself to it) give the preference to Mr. Grenville.
"Upon this supposition let the popular Earl of Halifax remain where he is. Let Lord Shelburne succeed Lord Egremont. If, as I hope, that should drive Charles Townshend from the Board of Trade, let Oswald succeed him, and between Lord Shelburne and Oswald, that greatest and most necessary of all schemes, the settlement of America, may be effected. Let Lord Gower, the most practicable of men, be put at the Head of the Admiralty. Suppose Lord Tavistock were made Ambassador to Paris. These two things would fix the Duke of Bedford, who might then quit if he pleased. And let Lord Egremont be President. Lord Talbot talks of nothing but how well he is with the King, and, I cannot believe thinks of quitting. If he does Lord Egremont will make the best Lord Steward that ever was, be a great economist for the King, and yet keep up great dignity. I should give the Lieutenancy of Ireland to Lord Waldegrave. And I wish it may be considered of what great use Lord Northumberland may be to Administration in Middlesex and Westminster. If there is room I would give him the Privy Seal, and put Lord Hertford in his place if it is thought worth while to give him anything. I have not said enough of Lord Waldegrave. He will do the King's business in Ireland better than anybody whatever, suaviter et fortiter, and though he will never join Devonshire House, yet the employing him will disarm and cast a damp upon them more than anything. Lord Egremont, if he were to go to Ireland, would, I believe, manage and behave worse than anybody. He has not one quality for that employment.
"When I know how these great things are settled it will be time enough (if ever requisite) to give my sentiments on less matters that depend on these. Of what relates to me and mine as far as promised or even hinted to me, I have no doubt. Unmentioned things that I will call Agréments or graces, on my departure I will hope for, as they will not be unreasonable. But at all events, let me trust that I shall retain the good opinion of the King whose benignity charms me, and the sincere friendship (for I will not be content with less) of that man of strictest truth and honour, my Lord Bute."[26]
In the midst of these compliments a sudden storm arose. It became known to Shelburne and Bute, both of whom were under the impression that Fox, on being raised to the peerage, would resign the Pay Office, that he had no such intention, and "was resolved to go to the King to assure him he never had a thought of resigning."[27] Shelburne immediately hurried to see Fox. The result of this interview he described as follows to Bute:
"Mr. Fox tells me this day he is determined to keep the Pay Office, and be a peer. He intends going tomorrow morning, and desired to know of me whether he should mention his brother, in answer to which I could say nothing more than I had already said from your Lordship on that head. He likewise wished to know, how he stood with the King and you, to which I very frankly told him my opinion, that it depended on the dignity and the grace of his going out, which depended again on his going lightly loaded. Calcraft is as much vexed as I am, and thinks it depends a great deal on your representing to him with firmness, how unreasonable it is for him to expect to go to the House of Lords, and to go abroad with a great place, and £10,000 a year for himself, his brother, and Lord Digby,[28] and that that will not fail to change matters, whatever appearance they make at present. I write your Lordship these loose thoughts, in order to inform you fully of this serious and very interested transaction, for it is nothing more or less than Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo.
"I wish you may be at leisure to see him, only you'll be so good to inform me of your resolution, that we may not afterwards appear more unkind than necessary.
"Upon the whole I see no end to my being heartily sorry for your Lordship's going out, though I admire the manner of it, and feel for the contempt with which you must see the interested views that follow you so close."[29]
Fox now once more sought the advice of his cousin Calcraft, who was then in the Pay Office, and generally regarded as his particular creature.[30] To his great indignation Calcraft supported Shelburne, and declared that rather than give any other answer he would leave the Office.[31] "I have had a very long and very firm conversation with Mr. Fox about the Pay Office," he writes to Shelburne, "and gave him my reasons for quitting it as sincerely as I feel them. Lady Holland was by and they made impressions upon her. They were not without effect on him, though he would not give way. His brother talked to him all last night to keep his place, and said your Lordship and I should yield to reason. I replied that reason was with us, that money was more Lord Ilchester's consideration than we wish'd it, and that he who liv'd out of the world was not the fittest judge what would please in it; in short, I did my best and will for Mr. Fox's sake continue my persuasion to a measure on which his credit so much depends. I stated this advice to Lord Bute and the comparison that would be drawn, that people would say he was afraid to leave the Office open to inspection, &c. Rigby promises me to speak to Mr. Fox to-night his opinion, which is strong with us."[32]
Before his audience with the King, Fox had cast about how to extricate himself from the difficulty in which he found himself, and began by settling on a scheme to be found in a memorandum submitted by him to Bute, which ran as follows:[33]
"My opinion cannot, and ought not to stand in the way of His Majesty's interest or conscience. But with regard to my private honour and feelings it must be absolute. Had I been consulted I would have found some way of reconciling His Majesty's wishes with my opinion: but that has not been the case, and I am supposed out of my employment, without being myself allowed to be a party to my own resignation. I cannot reconcile this to myself, or stand a moment against the general opinion which must prevail that I am not let to keep the office. I shall be laughed at, and laugh myself at the pretence that I resign voluntarily what I have had no opportunity given me of even speaking about. Lord Shelburne (and perhaps others with less reason) has said I intended to resign, without telling me he intended to say so, or that he had said so. I never heard of or imagined this till Thursday, and find both Lord Bute and the King had taken it for granted. It is not only true, but I can prove it to be so, that since January last I never could intend to resign now. Let me add that, if I had intended it, Lord Bute's going would have changed my resolution. It is amazing that, in all the conversations I have had with Lord Bute, he never gave me the least hint of this supposition. It is still more so that Lord Shelburne never did till Thursday last.[34] But things being in the unexpected situation they are, what am I to do? All I can do is this—if the King and Lord Bute, keeping it the greatest secret can help the King's affairs by knowing that my office shall be resigned next Xmas, His Majesty is most welcome to it, and in that case I will not be a Peer now. If His Majesty's want of my place to give away now should be so urgent that it cannot be deferred, I must submit and beg to show that it is not voluntarily, or to be called so, my Lord, that I part with it. I can wish His Majesty's affairs well in the House of Commons to as much purpose as in the House of Lords, and my imagination is so struck that, thanking His Majesty for having satisfied all that is essential of my ambition regarding Peerage, an obligation I never will forget, I desire at all events to remain myself a Commoner."
But, after deciding on the above course with the approval of his friend Mr. Nicholl, Fox changed his mind, and in the following letter addressed to Mr. Nicholl, and returned by the latter with marginal observations, he developed another scheme:
Mr. Fox's Letter.[35] "Dear Sir,—I have slept since, and though I see the usage I meet with and ever shall see it in the same light, (1) I am inclined to a very different conclusion than ours of yesterday. I impart it to you and to nobody else except Lady Caroline, and I write it thus, that you may put your thoughts in the margin; and I am far from having decided anything. |
Mr. Nicholl's Observations. "(1) If you did not, the world certainly would the moment they see what is to follow. You may dissemble with yourself, you will not impose on them. You might have compounded for a Peerage for your place at any time. What have you then for your great and late services? |
| "It is very unpleasant, after all that has happened, to go away out of humour. (2) | "(2) Are they now in humour? Could they be so wanting in the knowledge of common civility to act as they have if they were in humour? |
| "Dissembled satisfaction is better than dissatisfaction, (3) which it would be against my whole scheme of life to take any revenge of. I can undoubtedly keep my place, but they will be much out of | "(3) These are both painful; if there is any difference, perhaps the latter is less so to an honest mind than the former. Character or outward appearance will not admit of your seeming to be pleased with what ought to displease. It will be construed as a want of penetration to discover, or a want of steadiness or prudence to suffer it. It need not be resented, because you keep in a situation to resent. |
| humour, (4) and the memory of what vexes will be much more lasting than that of what once pleased them. On the other hand, common and easy civility will follow the accommodating them, and being quite out of the World. If I keep my place and remain a Commoner there will be disguising the discontent there will be on each side. | "(4) True, what then? How will this hurt you? Is it sure they will be in humour if you leave it? The pleasing part is already forgot, or they would not do as they do. What you are wished to do will be no more or longer remembered than what you have done. It would be really more convenient to your affairs (and, in truth, to the King's too), and more consistent with appearances abroad. What are the advantages on the other civility, &c. Civility and respect in the practice of the world are, it's humbly presumed, ever proportioned to the use or disuse the Person can be of. Those who are in a situation to do neither much good or harm, may depend on little civility or attention. |
| "They will be ashamed of this and hate me the more for it. (5) | "(5) They may, but won't hurt you. They won't love you, if you retire. This is the best of reasons, if it would be the consequence of your going out. But that is the very point in question. |
| "For these reasons, and above all for my own ease, (6) suppose I go on Wednesday l next, without imparting my design even to Lord Bute, and tell the King that it is not convenient to me, and was neither my design, nor as I believe His Majesty's, that this session should end in my losing my place; but that as His Majesty had been led into a belief unwarranted by me that it was my desire, and had thought of arrangements in consequence of it, I could not think of ending a session by being inconvenient to him, which I begun with so very different a view. And therefore only desiring that he would appoint A. B. to carry on my Office till Midsummer, I begged leave to resign now and my successor would be as well satisfied with a nomination to take place then as on this day. | |
| "I should have a great deal of dissembled (7) praise and desire that I would stay, which I would take as if it was sincere, but persisting in my Resolution, to disobey His Majesty, go. I think he would forgive me that disobedience, and perhaps be so pleased with it as to let me go away, with appearance of obligation to me for what | "(6) (7) There will be no dissembling on your part, you mean no harm, nor will do any, unless forced to it. If none is meant or attempted against you, all is well, and you can, when you please, release them from their fears by going into the House of Lords. |
| I have done. (8) And his joy that I resign may be mistaken for his being pleased with me that I came, which will be more favourable for us both. | "(8) With great submission, all this is not worth the hazarding one single moment of uneasiness or convenience to obtain. If you remain, the appearances will be preserved for their own sakes. If you go you will get nothing more.
"What had been right and wise, had Lord Bute continued, will be by no means equally so if he does not. Who have you obliged? Who are you to oblige? Is it those who are to come in? No. Will they be inclined then to manage you? A strong active opposition is likely to happen. They must fall on the general measures of Government, or some particular part. In either, you probably may have a large share of their ill-will. Would it be then prudent to be off your guard, and trust for fair and civil treatment to their good humour, candour, &c.? Remaining in the House of Commons all parties will be careful, at least, not to displease you you need not therefore take part, but be as much at liberty and ease as you like. |
| "My remaining in the House of Commons, and in a situation to struggle if I will, is not, my dear Mr. Nicholl, that perfect tranquillity you wish me in. (9)
"That can be only be had in the House of Lords, the world forgetting, by the world forgot. Think over this impartially. I could not think about it early yesterday, nor I believe you neither. "I really do suppose, and surely I may, that by June 24th (three months) all my money may be gone that it is necessary should go."[36] |
"(9) I grant it, but from my heart I believe it the most certain way of securing it in due time. It is seldom to be obtained the moment it is wished. The proper moment for that must be watched and catched when it offers. This (to me) seems not to be that moment. You may forget the world, but for a time it must so hang to you and you to it, that it will not forget you. When it does, go. You will have my full consent: you can at any time get into the House of Lords." |
"I never went out of your room dissatisfied till Friday.[38] I did so then, and have been fluctuating ever since in the consideration of what conduct I have left me to pursue. I will begin with that frankness which I think your Lordship has been wanting in towards me. You have seen me often since you had been informed that I intended to resign my place at the end of this Session, which I vow to God I never thought of doing, and your Lordship has never mentioned it to me or given me the most distant hint. Surely, my Lord, I had a right to be talked to upon my own business before the King had formed a notion of my intention. You heard it from several other friends of mine as well as from Lord Shelburne. It would have been kind to have mentioned it to me the next visit after you first heard of it. You would then have known how much you was misinformed. I don't desire to know who these friends of mine were, but not having the same opinion of them as Lord Shelburne, I should think they had some bad design in it. There are very few who, collecting my opinion, could tell it your Lordship on a point that regarded me so nearly without letting me know it, that I should think honest men and wishing me extremely well. I do think so of Lord Shelburne. He imagined his judgment much better than mine, and that my notions of honor (as different from his, as commonsense is from romance) must at last be got the better of; and in this warmth could think he was serving me by giving his opinion for mine, without my leave or knowledge before or afterwards. This want of knowledge of the world, or the common rules among men, would have been corrected had your Lordship communicated to me what I had not the least idea of till Friday; viz. that the King had built upon my resignation, which I had no opportunity ever given me to speak about. I am supposed out of my employment, but I think I know your Lordship to be an honest man and incapable of any insincerity, and therefore with as much frankness and sincerity as I have, I have wrote what I have wrote; I acquit your Lordship of any sinister design. I have now, my dear Lord, unburthened my mind, whether wisely or no I cannot tell, but with a view to have everything between us as well as it ever was. And in the belief that it will be so I proceed to tell you, and you only, my intention. I will go to His Majesty and tell him I am sorry he has built on a mistake, but since it has been so, I will never leave it possible for myself to think that I, who came to do Him all the service that was in my power at the beginning of the Session (and I hope did Him some), should leave him in difficulties increased by any action of mine. I shall therefore beg leave to resign now, and shall have the pride to think and the hope that His Majesty will think I have done my duty perfectly. The world will say and think I am turned out; will say this is the reward I meet with, and that such a bad man as I am ought to meet with, that the Duke of Devonshire's prophecy to my brother is fulfilled, &c., &c., &c.
"To know that I am a truly honest man, and that the King and you must think me so, shall outweigh the sense of all this scurrility in my mind.
"If you think you can outweigh this opinion in other people by what His Majesty may at the same time be pleased to do with regard to my brother and Lord Digby and myself in point of rank, I shall be glad if you do it and it succeeds; at all events I shall keep a consciousness of having done right, and that good humour that always accompanies such a consciousness. I then am determined, my Lord, to resign immediately, but must beg His Majesty to appoint A. B. to carry on the Office till Midsummer (which is alone a proof how well Lord Shelburne knew my intention).[39] But my resignation known and published now will make the nomination of my successor as effectual to His Majesty's purposes as if he could immediately execute the office, which indeed was never done. Pitt, turned out in November 1756, was desired to let the Books be carried on in his name till Xmas, and, when Winnington died in April 1746, a Person was appointed, though Pitt had kissed Hands, to carry it on in Winnington's name till Midsummer. I shall see your Lordship early on Monday.
"And now, my Lord, assuring you upon my word of honour that I go out with the same inclination and the same sincere good wishes to your Lordship, as if there had been no mistake, and this had been, as you thought it, my own desire from the first, I will suppose that I am entitled to that friendship which you promised me, which I will return, and cultivate with the utmost cordiality."
To this letter Lord Bute immediately replied as follows:
"You must excuse me, if, notwithstanding all you say, I cannot feel myself in the least deficient with regard to you, in any one point of honour, friendship, or regard. I heard from your own friends a thing that suited so exactly my feelings that I never thought more about it, and when you surprised me by saying I was misinformed, I acquiesced in your being the best judge of your own conduct, knowing full well that in all events the King would leave it to your option, but I shall say more of this when we meet, that I beg may be on Tuesday at ten instead of to-morrow.[40] Suffer me in the meantime to assure you, that the last lines of your letter give me great pleasure, as they secure to me your friendship that I am most solicitous to keep and most certainly deserve."[41]
Fox had meanwhile told Calcraft to suggest to Shelburne that he might not be so unwilling after all to succeed Bute. "I will trust to your Lordship's confidence," writes Calcraft, "in my faith and attachment to you to receive and consider this letter, not from a man whose fortune is made by Mr. Fox, but as your well-wisher at this juncture in preference to all other connections, and as one who wishes to lay before you every thought that occurs on events so very material to your future credit.
"We both know Mr. Fox in lights I should rejoice we did not. Yesterday was but a confirmation of what I have before seen. Before I proceed further therefore, let me premise, if you are not sure of getting and keeping the King to yourself, at least from him, don't harbour any the smallest thought of accepting his offer. If you are, he will act agreeably, and look up to you; if not, I am sorry to say you know what will be the case you know too all his weaknesses—George Grenville's—you can only guess at. There is a possibility of our correcting and influencing the one though not the other.
"In this light it is worth your consideration whether you should or should not try to get him the Treasury. He has ability, his friends have confidence in him, and the world in general an opinion of his talents for this station. What may be his meaning at bottom of this offer, made under the influence of his brother, should be weigh'd also. I believe he'll get the Treasury, but there may be some foresight in case of its refusal, though upon my honour he has not hinted a word more than I have told you. Think upon all this, my Lord, as impartially as I write it, and with the same view, which is, that prejudice too well founded may not make you prefer the other system without due determination on the good or bad consequences that may attend Mr. Fox's being Minister. I never wrote on so delicate a subject, nor would I to any other man so commit myself, therefore burn my letter the moment you have read it. But be assured the motive of it is the sincerest regard and truest attention to your happiness and welfare, which makes me wish no thought to escape you."[42]
Of the proposition thus obscurely made by Fox, Shelburne either took no notice, or was unable to get Bute to listen to it. Fox, beginning to see the danger of his situation, broke out fiercely against Shelburne, who now drew up a brief justification of his own conduct and handed it to Calcraft. It ran as follows:
"On reflecting upon the whole of what has passed between Mr. Fox and me, I take nothing ill, but I own I am astonished. My conduct with regard to Mr. Fox's Paymastership has been most simple. I said what I thought would have been his conduct. It passed as conversation, it was not built upon, nor no arrangement made in consequence. The event plainly proves it. If Mr. Fox thinks he could have gone out with grace with more than he has by any intercession of mine, he is entirely mistaken. I am very sorry that the King, Lord Bute, and I am afraid all the world, think it should have been. … Upon the whole, my conduct has in this, as well as in former instances, been directed by my joint regard to Mr. Fox, and to the authority and dignity of the King and his administration. Let him reflect on the manner of the language of his coming in, what he has declined, and what he possesses going out, and then let him consider the conduct of his friends, and I am sure he cannot accuse them of want of communication or of the regard due to whatever friendship he may have justly expected at their hands."[43]
But Fox was not to be pacified.
"Soon after I got home," says Calcraft, "Mr. Fox came here and found Rigby and me. He began the conversation I expected, but calmly; I gave him your Paper, which he read, and dwelt on the first part; that he never imagined you had said by his authority he would quit the Pay Office. I told him, if giving the opinion was what he took ill, I must take part of the blame, for I had given it as mine that he would part with the Pay Office and that he wanted to get rid of it. He wondered Lord Bute had never mentioned this matter to him, and a great deal of the same discourse that passed in the morning, but calm. Rigby reasoned a great deal; we talked upon his brother, Lord Digby, and other requests, but he seems determined now to keep the Office, doubts or pretends to doubt whether he shall go to the House of Lords; I told him Lord Bute never harboured a thought of his keeping Paymasters' when he retired, and that the opinion you gave was to make his other requests come with better grace, and what you thought a right one. I am sorry he does not prove our opinion founded. I am sure it was his, and wish from my soul for his sake it had continued so. Adieu, my dear Lord, I am sure I have acted consistently both with friendship, gratitude, and good sense, so I only wish you may think so too."[44]
To this letter Shelburne replied:
"Upon the maturest reflection I can see nothing in your conduct or mine, which can furnish Mr. Fox with a just pretence of being offended; as to the rest I know the world enough not to be surprised at anything, and I know myself not to be afraid for anything that can happen, at least as to Mr. Fox. I feel very much for your situation, which I should not do if I did not feel it the most justifiable in the world. Charles Townshend never was a greater enemy to himself than Mr. Fox appears to be on this occasion. What says Rigby? But, in all events, believe me to be as much and sensibly obliged to you as I am capable of."[45]
Calcraft, not to be discouraged, now made one more attempt to move Fox from his design of keeping the Pay Office. "It hurts me to the soul," he writes, "to see the comparison you draw between C. Townshend and the other too well founded. With respect to me, don't have anxious thoughts, for as I have told Mr. Fox this morning, I am sure he will in a few months be convinced of our friendship, and wished he had confided in it. We have had much discourse to-day. He was cool but positive. I was unalterable in my opinion too, but I find he is determined for the present to keep the office, which, alas! ought to be the last and seems the only object. Rigby will come before dinner to-morrow, and tell you more at large what passed in both conversations, when he complained of your intimating his intention, or giving an opinion for him, which, says he, no man should do for another. I asked if I had not frequently given him my opinion of Lord Granby's intention, and whether he thought I did right or wrong; this was unanswerable, and avoided by going to fresh argument.[46] I told him no longer since than Tuesday, I thought myself sure from his own mouth he would quit now or at Midsummer at farthest, and that I was, by his request, hurrying warrants that he might do so. In short, my dear Lord, he can't think of retiring from business, and deceived both himself and us, if the present state of his mind can be reasoned upon, when he talked of ending his political career. I believe he proposes going to the King on Monday, and assuring him he never had a thought of resigning the Pay Office. How this must hurt him in the closet after all that has happened, I grieve to think, and would give the world he could be persuaded to go out with that credit we have so long laboured to gain him."
The interview with the King took place on Monday the 28th, when "Fox behaved with great sourness, and the King with great dignity as regarded Lord Shelburne."[47] The King evidently feared to let his discontented Minister stay in the House of Commons, and Fox used that fear to make the King declare his resignation of the Pay Office should "be optional."[48] But though he obtained his object he still continued to vilify Shelburne. "As every mortification I meet with," he wrote to Calcraft, "and they are many, is the consequence of Lord Shelburne's conduct, I believe it were better we should have no conversation together on the matter. I do not mean that he intended what has happened, it may be quite the contrary, but nothing disagreeable could have happened had I been trusted with my own affair. He ought to know what I take ill. That he should for months together know that the Minister and the King imagined I intended to resign and never tell me that they thought so, was not fair, and has been fatal, unless to a man determined to leave the world it may be some advantage to be quite sick of it."[49] Bute having written to him, on the subject of the appointment of Shelburne to the Board of Trade in the new Ministerial arrangements, saying that "it was a measure that he would not hear of being altered," Fox replied: "With regard to Lord Shelburne, as upon recollection I am more and more hurt with his conduct towards me, I think it quite unnecessary to say anything else, than that I am very glad he has behaved in a way so agreeable to your Lordship." The following day he again called on Bute,[50] and proposed that he should be made a Viscount as a proof of His Majesty "being more than ordinarily satisfied with him," and also "because, to those who mind precedence, it would be something that his family should stand before Pitt's in the list of Peers."[51] But this proposal did not find favour either with the King or with his Minister, for a few days after Fox began once more to suggest that he should stay in the House of Commons. This scheme, however, again proved abortive, as will be seen from the following letter written by him to Bute:
"I assure your Lordship, and will assure everybody, that in all I feel I have from you nothing to complain of, and I now write to you as my friend. I hate my situation, searching for a path that may lead me to my lost good humour and not knowing how to find it. But I must choose one, and your conversation yesterday shows me that I must not think of staying in the House of Commons without incurring the King's displeasure. It would be a great mortification to me, after I won't say sacrificing, but risking everything to please, I should be so unhappy as to fail. I therefore beg your Lordship to tell the King that I accept cheerfully whatever he thinks fit.
"And now, my dear Lord, manage for me as well as you can, the remains, if there are any, of past favour. If I may point out anything, it should be at Xmas next, or when I quit the Pay Office, and it can be so managed, His Majesty may think of giving me the Privy Seal. The Privy Seal is £2300 a year. The Pay Office is double. But this would be a distinguished mark of His Majesty's approbation of my conduct, which would at the same time make me happy, and, may I not say, do His Majesty no harm."[52]
To this letter Bute replied as follows:
"Lord Bute presents his compliments to Mr. Fox, and is glad to see his final determination taken. He has acquainted His Majesty with it, in the manner he thought most likely to be of service to him. Lord Bute wishes Mr. Fox would send the name of the Barony he proposes to take to the Secretary of State. As to the latter part of his letter he sees so little probability of the Privy Seal being open, when once the arrangement is made to fill it, that he can only say in general, whenever Mr. Fox wishes to quit the office he now holds and points to any other, the essential services he has rendered His Majesty entitle him, in Lord Bute's opinion, to meet with the most gracious reception, and to have great attention paid to any request he shall make."
Thus, the end of the controversy was that Fox became Lord Holland and retained the Paymastership, a post which he continued to hold until 1765. But although the new Peer obtained all that he desired, and notwithstanding a declaration that "he and Lord Shelburne would yet be friends,"[53] all communication between them ceased from this time, nor did Lord Holland in conversation desist from representing Shelburne as having betrayed him.
It was the tradition of Holland House, and it is asserted by Walpole that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne by telling Fox that it was "a pious fraud."[54] "I can see the fraud plainly enough," is said to have been the retort of the retired statesman; "but where is the piety?" This story repeated and exaggerated, as is usually the case with such stories, became the origin of those imputations of duplicity which pursued Shelburne through life. It was to his conduct towards Fox that his enemies, in subsequent years, appealed as the final justification of their hostility. The very unpopularity of Fox served only to heighten the force of the attack. Fox, it was said, was looked upon as the ideal of cunning, but here was the man who had outwitted Fox. It will have been seen how baseless these attacks were. Fox, in October 1762, when accepting the lead of the House of Commons, considered that this token of royal confidence—a very thankless one in itself—would under the other circumstances which accompanied it, oblige him to abandon the Pay Office, and he had already taken the preliminary steps to resignation when he thought fit to alter his mind and stay where he was. Could Shelburne, Bute, and Calcraft have reasonably doubted that the same motive, viz. the fear of public opinion, which prompted Fox to think his resignation of the Pay Office necessary on receiving a seat in the Cabinet and the lead of the House of Commons—honours which entailed no salary but a great deal of work and of abuse—would not equally lead him to think his resignation called for when, intending to abandon political life and go abroad, he was created a Peer, and saw ample provision made for himself, his relatives, and his personal followers.
That they did think so, and considered Fox had let them suppose that this was his own opinion, is clear. Even Rigby was against Fox. "The man," says Walpole, "he most loved was Rigby. He had assisted in Rigby's promotions, and wished to push him forwards and to be strictly connected with him in every political walk. In the height of his quarrel with Shelburne and Calcraft, Fox, walking along St. James's Street, met and stopped Rigby's chariot, and leaning on the door of it, began to vent his complaints; when the other, unprovoked and unconcerned in the dispute, interrupted him with these stunning sounds: 'You tell your story of Shelburne; he has a damned one to tell of you; I do not trouble myself which is the truth,' and pushing him aside ordered his coachman to drive away. From that moment Fox became the enemy of Rigby." Walpole insinuates that Shelburne wished to have the Pay Office himself.[55] There is no evidence whatever of this. Whatever his faults in the matter may have been, Shelburne was not an office-seeker. He had just refused the Secretaryship of State and the Presidency of the Board of Trade, though he subsequently accepted the latter. His independent means allowed him to be indifferent to the emoluments connected with the Pay Office. Bute, the principal of Shelburne in this unfortunate negotiation, declared to Fox "that the conduct of Lord Shelburne had been agreeable to himself,"[56] thereby identifying himself with that conduct. As against this, the vague tradition that Bute was the person who used the words "pious fraud" is valueless for the purposes of history. Fox, in the letter of March 26th, taxes Shelburne with no dishonourable conduct, but only with entertaining "a romantic idea of honour entirely repugnant to his own common-sense." It is only in a letter, written two days subsequently to that of the 27th of March, that Fox, after brooding over his supposed injuries, begins to paint the conduct of Shelburne in dark colours, while in another two days, viz. on March 3ist, he announces his intention of "being good friends with Lord Shelburne," an undertaking which he performed by abusing him all over London "as a perfidious and infamous liar."[57] Thus was the friendship of Fox for Shelburne changed into suspicion and hostility by this quarrel, the full effects of which did not make themselves felt till twenty years after. Meanwhile Charles Fox was brought up by his father to believe that the character of Shelburne was that of a man in whom no trust could be placed.[58]
Bute himself gave the most decisive proofs of his undiminished confidence in the integrity of Shelburne as a negotiator. During,the formation of the new Government under George Grenville, he resigned on the 8th of April, but he continued to employ Shelburne as his intermediary with Lord Gower, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Waldegrave, the Duke of Rutland, Lord Granby, Rigby, and the Duke of Marlborough,[59] for Bute, though surrendering the ostensible lead, intended to pull the wires under the stage.[60] If, however, these delicate negotiations succeeded, it was in a great measure owing to the tact of Lord Gower, and the King himself had to intervene before all the contending claims could be satisfied "to unravel the Gordian knot and put the finishing stroke to the new establishment."[61]
The difficulties made by the various parties to the negotiation were incomprehensible to the mind of Bute, who imagined that the King ought only to have to call in order to be obeyed. "Have we really," he writes, "Monarchy in this Kingdom, or is there only a puppet dressed out with regal robes to serve the purposes of every interested man, who on every turn is to be buffeted at pleasure. Lord Granby now acts the second part of Mr. Pitt's most offensive Drama, and if Home tells me right goes further still, for he understands Lord Granby will never be in office if Lord George has any place whatever.[62] If this be so, I repeat again the King's a phantom, and this country under a mere oligarchy. The case of Lord George I told you myself some time ago. The King two years ago had promised him, when peace came, to take off the violent proscription against him. The end of last month he sent a person to me, desiring to know what he was to depend on. I upon that got a friend to acquaint Lord George that the King remembered what he had said, but saw so many objections to it that he would not do it, nor could he give him any office as he desired; that there was no objection to his coming to Court, and when he did, he should receive him with his usual civility, and at a proper time, when convenient and unengaged, he should not be against giving him a Civil Office; that if Lord George went over to the faction after this, Lord Bute should look on him as the least of men, and believe every word his worst enemy's said. This was the purport of the message sent by me to Lord George, and what does it imply farther than a wish at this critical minute, to prevent every man of parts in the nation from flying to the common enemy.
"Adieu, my dear Lord, I refer for anything more to Home, and shall only observe that Lord George on receiving this message sank from all his hopes, and looks on himself as blasted for ever.
"This mode of quieting Lord George, both Lord Halifax and I thought the best, before I took any part in it."[63]
It would seem that, at an early period of the negotiations relating to the new ministerial arrangements, the post of President of the Board of Trade had been offered to Shelburne and refused,[64] but, on the 25th of March, Bute proposed that he should have the seals of Secretary of State. To this the cautious Grenville, the Minister designate, objected. "With regard to your question," he wrote to Bute, "relating to Lord Shelburne's being appointed Secretary of State, the difficulties arising from that arrangement at this time are not founded upon any personal consideration of my own, which I beg leave in a business of this moment to lay entirely out of the question; and I do solemnly protest to you they shall not weigh with me in the decision of it, but it imports me thoroughly to consider, and from my duty to the King and my regard to your Lordship, to state to you a much more interesting question which it is essentially necessary for us both to give the utmost attention to, I mean, how far that appointment will effect the carrying into execution that system which the King thinks of forming for his future Government, and which (whoever is employed in it) must at present unavoidably be attended with great difficulties.
"For this purpose you will allow me to represent to you the objections which will be made to this part of the arrangement in the House of Lords, the House of Commons, and the public.
"These will arise from Lord Shelburne's youth, his inexperience in business, never having held any civil office whatever, and from his situation and family, so lately raised to the Peerage, however considerable both may be in Ireland.
"The envy and jealousy of the old Peers, many of whom are already trying to band together, must naturally be excited to the highest pitch by a distinction, of which in most of its circumstances, there is I believe no example in our history. The pretensions of such as now hold offices of the second rank in the House of Lords will be raised to a degree that cannot be gratified, and their disgust and disappointment will either break out into an open resistance, or at least prevent any cordial support.
"In a discussion of this kind, it will be absolutely necessary to know the sentiments of individuals, which the secrecy you require makes it impossible for me to do; and therefore obliges me to represent things as they at present appear to me.
"You will consider how far this appointment will meet with the cordial approbation of all or any of those from whom, in that House, this system must expect assistance; from Lord Halifax, Lord Egremont, Lord Chancellor, Lord Mansfield; from Lord Egmont, Lord Marchant, Lord Denbigh, &c.; from the Duke of Bedford, Lord Gower and all their friends. I know not their sentiments, and therefore cannot decide upon them; but as far as my own uninformed judgment goes, I cannot persuade myself that many of these, even of the most congenial, would bear Lord Shelburne's being put at once over their heads with satisfaction or content. In the House of Commons the same jealousies and uneasinesses will probably arise, and I see very few, if any, of the considerable persons there whose approbation and hearty concurrence with this measure could be depended upon.
"I cannot at present believe that it would be agreeable to the country gentlemen of any denomination, either Whigs or Tories, nor to those who for many years have holden distinguished offices of Government, even if the majority of them should acquiesce under it, which I think uncertain. As to Mr. Charles Townshend it will throw him into immediate opposition.
"What impression it will make upon many others I will not say, but I fear not a favourable one.
"I will not specify individuals, as I may be deceived, nor would I have done it in the House of Lords, if you had not mentioned the particular situation there as an inducement to you for this nomination. In the public, popular clamour will undoubtedly be raised, and from many motives will be industriously propagated as much as is possible, and the graver and more sober part of mankind will be surprised and offended at the novelty of this step in all its circumstances. These, my Lord, are some of the most obvious difficulties, which, I apprehend, cannot fail of being aggravated at this critical juncture upon the appointment of a person so young and so unknown in public business. They seem also to carry the greater weight with them at a time when so large a body of the nobility are ostentatiously combining themselves in a public avowed opposition; a measure on their part which surely makes it advisable in Government to place in the first offices at least such persons as may be free not only from real but even plausible objections. Do not believe, my Lord, that they arise in me from personal prejudice only. Were Lord Shelburne the dearest friend I had in the world, I do protest I would advise him for his own sake to decline for the present the high office of Secretary of State, and to accustom the public by degrees to see him acting in business in some office lower than what is now proposed. In such a situation he might ripen for the seals, so as to take them whenever His Majesty shall be disposed to give them, without that offence which such a sudden and unprecedented elevation I think must occasion.
"I flatter myself you will believe I am too sensible of the King's goodness to me, to pretend to put any negative upon those whom he shall approve. I do not presume to suggest who is the most proper for that high office. I make no objection to any who is, in the public eye and opinion, big enough to fill it if Lord Egremont leaves it; whether it be Lord Gower, or any other person of that connection whom the King shall wish to bring forward, or of any other connection which is most agreeable to His Majesty; but what I have said is from a real sense of my duty and of my honour. I may possibly be mistaken, though my conviction is strongly otherwise, and I should indeed be wanting to both, if before I entered upon such a situation, I did not state to you my opinion upon those parts of the system which have been opened to me, and upon the means proposed to carry them into execution. If your Lordship had allowed me to consult with some of those who must bear the greatest share in it, I should then have either verified my opinions, or from being convinced, should have changed them. But since I am not at liberty to do this, I must entreat you in the meantime, to inform yourself how this will be received by the principal persons you mean to confide in, and to ask the cool opinion of neutral and indifferent people. If they concur with me, I am confident you will not desire me to give a more positive or final answer with regard to the part I am to bear, in a system which could not then be formed in the manner it is proposed. For, if the public in general, a great part of the nobility, and some of the leading persons in the House of Commons should be indisposed to this appointment, your Lordship must see that my saying I am ready to bear any part, could be of no service whatever. But if it shall appear that what I have said on this occasion is not well founded, and that the most essential of these difficulties do not occur, I shall be glad that I have been mistaken, and the conviction that I have been so must necessarily alter my sentiments upon this subject, and you will then certainly find me, as you always have done, desirous and happy to devote myself to the service of my King and my country, thinking it the greatest honour that can befall me if I could do it with any degree of success in that high and important situation to which the King's goodness and your Lordship's friendship has destined me.
"Upon the whole, whether I bear any part in this transaction or not, which perhaps may be of little consequence to the public welfare, yet, let me beseech your Lordship, from your affection and duty to the King, and from what you owe to yourself and to your country, to give this subject a thorough examination before you determine upon a matter of this infinite moment; that if you still persist in your former resolution of retreat (which I most earnestly wish you if possible to reconsider), the establishment which the King shall now think fit to make in his Government may be such a one as will reflect honour on your Lordship who advised it, and give that permanency and stability which, in the present crisis, is essentially necessary to his administration.
"I am now only to ask pardon for the length of my letter; this interesting subject made it unavoidable, and I have explained my sentiments thus fully to your Lordship, not only that you may be apprized of them, but that you may be able to represent them in their true light to the King, if he should ever condescend to enquire about them, and that he may not think me more unworthy than I am of his royal favour; give me leave to add that I esteem it a peculiar happiness that they will be transmitted through the channel of a friend so partially disposed to me, and to whom I feel myself so sensibly obliged."[65]
Shelburne, on finding that the views of Bute as to his own advancement were not shared by Grenville, expressed his complete readiness to stand aside "that the ground might be enlarged by more necessary people."[66] Bute, however, still insisted on his forming a part of the new arrangements, and again offered him the Board of Trade.
It is probable that the anxiety of Shelburne to serve in a Ministry which was to be under the secret influence of Bute, and stood condemned by popular opinion to fall within the year, and probably even before meeting Parliament, was not very much greater than his anxiety had been to serve under Bute when Prime Minister. But the ambiguous position then occupied by the Board of Trade was another reason for declining the offer now made to him. The Board at that time had only a quasi-independent position. It framed instructions without power to enforce them, or to propose measures to put them into execution. It might investigate, and give information or advice, but it had no authority to form an ultimate decision on any political question whatever. It had been the constant object of the busy Halifax, during his long tenure of the Presidency of the Board, to make his office independent of that of the Secretary of State for the Southern department, and in 1751, on the resignation of the seals by the Duke of Bedford, he obtained an agreement that the whole patronage and correspondence of the Colonies should be vested in it. Still, the independence of the Board was not yet perfect, for on important matters Governors might address the Secretary of State, through whom also nominations to office were to be laid before the King in Council. On the formation of the Newcastle-Pitt coalition in 1757, Halifax, disappointed in his hope of becoming a third Secretary of State, was confirmed in his old post as President of the Board, and included in the Cabinet of which he had not hitherto been a member. When, in 1761, Halifax became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Lord Sandys succeeded him as President of the Board, the arrangements which had existed previous to 1751 were restored, but Charles Townshend, the successor of Lord Sandys in 1762, obtained the same powers which Halifax had enjoyed. He was also a Cabinet Minister. Still, even with the addition of this dignity, the power of the Board was not equal to the responsibility with which, in the eyes of the world, it seemed to be clothed, and the Presidency had seldom been a source of satisfaction to those who filled it; least of all was it likely to be so at a period when all the difficult questions left open by the peace were calling for settlement.[67]
"To render the Colonies still more considerable to Britain," writes a memorialist at this period, "and the management of their affairs much more easy to the King and His Ministers at home, it would be convenient to appoint particular Officers in England, only for the dispatch of business belonging to the Plantations. For often persons that come from America on purpose either to complain or to support their own just rights, are at a loss how or where to apply; this uncertainty does not only fatigue the Ministers, but frequently terminates in the destruction of the party, by his being referred from Office to Office, until both his money and patience be quite worn out. Such things in time may cool people's affections, and give them too mean an opinion of the justice of their MotherCountry, which ought carefully to be prevented; for where there is liberty, the inhabitants will certainly expect right, and still have an eye towards obtaining it one way or other.
"It may be considered, therefore, how far it would be serviceable to put all the Crown's civil Officers in the Plantations, of what kind soever, under the direction of the Board of Trade, from whom they might receive their several deputations and appointments, and unto whom they ought to be accountable both for their receipts and management; and if a particular Secretary was appointed for the Plantation affairs only, or if the first Lord Commissioner of that Board was permitted to have daily access to the King in order to receive His Majesty's commands in all business relating to the Plantations, the subject's application would be reduced into so narrow a compass, and the Board of Trade would be always so perfectly acquainted with the King's pleasure, that great dispatch might be given even to distant matters, without taking up too much of the Ministry's time and interfering, perhaps, with other more important business."[68]
Under the influence of similar feelings Shelburne made his acceptance of the Board conditional on having equal access to the King with the Secretary of State. "I have been happy," he wrote to Bute, "to accommodate in every particular, as well in the first instance as to Secretary of State, and its being mentioned to the other Ministers, or the second idea of an opening being kept for Lord Egremont, which if the Duke of Bedford accepts President cannot be. But excuse my mentioning it, because I do so to justify my making a point of having equal access to the King with the other Ministers, and I should not do that if I did not believe it in my conscience to His Majesty's advantage as well as to that of the whole system, till occasion come of his fulfilling your Lordship's very kind advice to him upon my subject."[69]
To this letter Bute replied:
"Can you doubt at present my affection to you, and yet I almost fear some of the lazy people round you will make you waver in that essential point, as I am too frank in my nature to express an idea to you I don't think. What you hint at of opening the situation I shall be required to see you in, would begin the scenes of jealousy that I wish earnestly to prevent, and be productive of no good. I am sure of what I say; but suffer me to speak plainly. When you declined accepting the Board of Trade one morning Oswald was with me, I understood it from a noble wish to leave as large a field for arrangement as possible, but on reflecting on what you said last night, and on your letter now before me, I think it seems more from not having it in your power to support your friends directly with the King, which indeed cannot be at present. Calcraft and all around you suggest these ideas. I know this from yourself. But, my dear Lord, how contradictory is this to the plan taken, how impossible for me to bring about, and how sure a nest-egg of ministerial discord at our first setting out. Shall I desire you not to listen to interested men; they live without you, and estimate their own consideration by yours. I fear my reasoning will be weak in your eyes, and yet if you enter into Government, secretly displeased at the want of something you have not, you will not, and cannot act with the cordiality necessary at this critical minute. I had the Secretaries with me to-day, and laid the foundation in their Minds of real confidence with you. Halifax was fuller than the other in his declarations, both very proper, and they will both send to you. (I mentioned your friend Gordon to Egremont.) If you care for it do the same, in short, my Lord, Concordiâ res parvæ crescunt, discordiâ, &c., &c. Alas, alas!"[70]
An interview, in consequence of this letter, took place with Grenville at which the point was finally settled on the old footing, Shelburne waiving his claims, and on April 7th he was able to write to Bute: "As to myself be assured there will not be a more good-humoured and less complaining member of the Cabinet, and very decided." He joined the Cabinet, and was sworn a Privy Councillor on April 20th. Calcraft hearing of the appointment, and of the continued outcry raised by the friends of Lord Holland, advised Shelburne to be firm at his new post notwithstanding their abuse. "I am, and ever shall be thankful, for the handsome and steady part your Lordship has acted towards me, and let what will be the fate of our Politics, we shall, I hope live happy in our friendship: and you shall in every station find me truly devoted to you. If my letter has vexed it has answered one purpose.[71] The galled horse will wince, and strong truths will affect the most hardened heart; I cannot feel sorry at your reproach, because you have shown sense and firmness as well as the utmost activity in the part you have taken this winter, and gained universal credit. You will find it more difficult to retire than you imagine, for, on cool reflection, they will not drive from them the only man whose honor and ability they can confide in. That you have stood forth in support of me does and ever will afford a satisfaction nothing can erase from my memory, and be assured, my dear Lord, that in all times and on all occasions I shall ever remain, as I now am,[72]
"Most respectfully, faithfully,
"and affectionately yours,
"J. Calcraft."
- ↑ This memorandum was written many years after the events to which the chapter relates (probably in 1803), which accounts for the bitterness of the expressions used, Bute and Fox having both long since quarrelled with Shelburne.
- ↑ He was elected for Hindon on the 28th of February 1734.
- ↑ "He had not the least notion of or regard for the public good or the constitution; but despised those cares as the object of narrow minds."—Lord Chesterfield's Characters.
- ↑ Sir Charles Hanbury Williams had occupied many important diplomatic posts, and was also a writer of vers de société, in which pursuit he shone more than he did as an ambassador. See Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II., ii. 393, for some further account of him. A complete collection of his works has been published.
- ↑ See Jesse, Reign of George III., i. 144. "It was insisted by the courtiers that the King had just and ample grounds for being incensed against his Grace. Not only, they said, had the Duke of Devonshire for tome time past habitually absented himself from the meetings of the Privy Council, but he was even now, they believed, engaged in caballing with the Duke of Newcastle against the Government. Unluckily, that very morning the King, on his way from Richmond, had himself seen the two Dukes together in the same chariot."
- ↑ Lord Stanhope in his History, iv. xxx., represents the King as acting under the advice of Bute. The letters given above prove the contrary, and also exculpate Fox from the charge brought against him of having been the special adviser of the disgrace of his old patron, the Duke of Devonshire. Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 202.
- ↑ Bute to Shelburne, November 1762. Fox to Bute, December 1672.
- ↑ Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 233.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, November 1762.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, December 1762.
- ↑ Bute to Shelburne, November 19th.
- ↑ See the observations of Sir Denis Le Marchant in his edition of Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 233, 235.
- ↑ On December 1st Mr. Calvert had moved to defer considering the preliminaries and had been beaten by 213 to 74. (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 222.)
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, December 1762. The allusion to the "conduct of Thursday" means the abstention of the friends of the Duke of Newcastle from the division on the preliminaries.
- ↑ Memorandum on the events of 1762.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, January 1763.
- ↑ Memorandum on the events of 1762.
- ↑ This paper is endorsed "wrote at Lord Bute's desire and given to him March 11th, 1763."
- ↑ This allusion is to the negotiations for peace.
- ↑ James Oswald, of Dunnikier, and Gilbert Elliot (afterwards Sir Gilbert, and father of the first Lord Minto) were "Scots and Commissioners of the Treasury" (Walpole's Memoirs, i. i 55). Oswald was regarded as a great authority on all commercial and financial questions. See Life and Letters of the First Earl of Minto (Introduction), by the Countess of Minto.
- ↑ M.P. for King's Lynn.
- ↑ Lord Keeper Henley had been made Chancellor in 1761.
- ↑ Lord Royston was a Teller of the Exchequer, and Charles Yorke was Attorney-General.
- ↑ Sir Joseph Yorke was English Minister at the Hague. He remained there till the declaration of war with Holland in 1780.
- ↑ Calcraft to Shelburne, March 15th, 1763.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, March 17th, 1763.
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, March 1763.
- ↑ In April 1763 Lord Digby, Fox's brother-in-law, was made a Lord of the Admiralty with £1000 a year, and his brother Lord Ilchester, one of the Comptrollers of Army Accounts, with£ 750 a year. Fox had also in October 1762 himself succeeded to the Writership of the Tallies and Clerkship of the Rolls in Ireland, as already stated above. On his death it passed to Charles Fox. (Walpole, Correspondence, iii. 69, and Rowley Lascelles, Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniæ.)
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, March 22nd, 1763.
- ↑ Calcraft began as a clerk in the War Office on £40 a year, where he gained a great reputation. He was then transferred to the Pay Office, which he left in consequence of the transactions detailed above. He subsequently became Commissary-General of Musters, and is well known as the devoted follower of Pitt in later years.
- ↑ Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 262.
- ↑ Calcraft to Shelburne, March 15th, 1763.
- ↑ Paper endorsed "Pay Office." March 1763.
- ↑ Compare Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 258. Bute's resignation was determined upon very suddenly, and there is no reason to suppose that Shelburne had any earlier notice than Fox. See, as to Lord Bute and his retirement from office, Lord Stanhope's History of England, iv. 37.
- ↑ This letter is endorsed "about April 10th, 1763," but the real date is evidently earlier. The endorsement is not in Mr. Fox's writing.
- ↑ It should be always borne in mind that, in making a private profit by investing the exchequer balances on his own account, Fox was not only doing what every Paymaster, except Pitt, had done with the knowledge of the public, but what the public would have been very much astonished if he had not done, as it was in the case of Pitt.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, March 27th, 1763.
- ↑ Friday, March 24th, 1763.
- ↑ Because, if the accounts of the Pay Office were allowed to be carried on in the name of Mr. Fox to the end of the second quarter, it would be a proof that his resignation had not been expected in the first, the custom being to allow the accounts to be carried on for the outgoing paymaster to the end of the current quarter.
- ↑ The interview was again put off till 30th March (Thursday) by Fox. Fox to Bute, March 27th, 1763.
- ↑ Bute to Fox, March 26th, 1763.
- ↑ Calcraft to Shelburne, March 22nd, 1763.
- ↑ This paper is from a draft at Lansdowne House.
- ↑ Calcraft to Shelburne, March 25th, 1763.
- ↑ Shelburne to Calcraft, March 1763.
- ↑ It would seem that Lord Granby wished to be Paymaster.
- ↑ Bute to Shelburne, March 29th.
- ↑ Bute to Fox, March 25th and April 12th.
- ↑ April 7th, 1763.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, March 29th.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, March 31st. Lady Chatham was a Baroness.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, April 12th.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, March 31st.
- ↑ Memoirs, i. 258. In 1765 the Grenville Ministry made the immediate removal of Lord Holland from the Pay Mastership a condition of their remaining in office. Grenville Correspondence, iii. 41.
- ↑ Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 157.
- ↑ Fox to Bute, March 29th, 1763.
- ↑ Walpole, Memoirs, i. 257.
- ↑ Lord Stanhope, History of England, v. 40, says: "Fox and Bute now both appealed to Lord Shelburne … Lord Shelburne, much embarrassed, was obliged to own that he had in some degree extenuated or exaggerated the terms to each from his anxiety to secure, at all events, the support of Fox, which he thought at that period essential to Government." The passage which Lord Stanhope quotes from Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III., i. 258, in support of his statement runs as follows: "Lord Shelburne has told the Earl that Fox would quit the Pay Office for a peerage, but Fox had only stipulated to give his support for that reward." The statement is Walpole's own. Shelburne made no acknowledgment, either at the time or subsequently, of having misled Fox and Bute, as the words used by Lord Stanhope would lead the reader to imply that he did. There is a brief and, on the whole, correct summary of the above events in Bentham's Works, x. 101.
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, and Bute to Shelburne, March and April 1763.
- ↑ "Make Barré Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. This would be rewarding him very nobly certainly, but upon weighing it I am clear he would be able to return it in the execution of the office, and in the credit he would do your Lordship in a Board which you may depend upon it wants reformation more than any other; and I dread the consequence of Lord Granby's coming to it without the check of some honest, firm man who will be ready to receive your instructions." Bute to Shelburne, April 1763. Barré was made Adjutant-General and Governor of Stirling. Jenkinson owned to Grenville in July 1765 that the "intercourse in writing between His Majesty and Lord Bute always continued, telling him that he knew the King wrote him a journal every day of what passed, and as minute a one 'as if,' said he, 'your boy at school was directed by you to write his journal to you.'" (Grenville Correspondence, iii. 220.) Lord Stanhope, however, has made it clear that all personal intercourse between the King and the Earl ceased after this date, and that after 1765 his retirement was absolute. History of England, v. 176.
- ↑ Bute to Shelburne, March 30th.
- ↑ Lord George Sackville.
- ↑ Bute to Shelburne, April 1763. The admission of Lord George Sackville to Court at the accession of George III. was the chief cause of the enmity between Mr. Pitt and Lord Bute. The papers now in the possession of the Earl of Harrowby clearly establish this.
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, March 26th, 1763; Bute to Shelburne, March 29th, 1763; and the letters in the Grenville Correspondence (vol. ii.) of March 1763. It is not, however, quite clear from these letters that a positive offer of the Board of Trade had been made to Shelburne previous to his refusals of the Secretaryship of State, though it would appear to have been so. So far as Bute was concerned Shelburne could at any moment have had this or any other office.
- ↑ Grenville to Bute, March 25th, 1763. Grenville Correspondence, ii. 33.
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, March 28th, 1763.
- ↑ See a volume entitled Papers relative to the Two Offices of Secretary of State and Board of Trade. Lansdowne House MSS. Todd, Parliamentary Government, ii. 639, 789. Bancroft, History of the United States, ed. 1855, iv. ch. i., iv.—O. M. Dickenon, American Colonial Government 1696–1765, ch. i., 47-53.
- ↑ Lansdowne House MSS.
- ↑ Shelburne to Bute, March 28th, 1763.
- ↑ Bute to Shelburne, March 29th, 1763. Lord Halifax and Lord Egremont were the two Secretaries of State in this short-lived Administration, and with Grenville were known as "the Triumvirate."
- ↑ Alluding to the letter he had written to Lord Holland. See supra, p. 160.
- ↑ Calcraft to Shelburne, April 30th, 1763.