I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, Your most obedient and faithful humble servant, Northington.

LORD NORTH TO LORD TEMPLE.

Whitehall, May 17th, 1783.

My Lord,

Upon the receipt of your Excellency's letters of the 9th and 10th of this month, I took immediately every step in my power that might forward your Excellency's wishes, and have now the satisfaction of informing your Excellency that Lord Northington will not fail to be at Holyhead on the 1st day of next month; and I am commanded by His Majesty to express to your Excellency his wish, that you will not quit the Government of Ireland before the arrival of Lord Northington. Although your Excellency will, according to this arrangement, be detained a few days longer than the 25th of the present month, yet I hope that the time fixed by Lord Northington is not so remote as to cause any public or private inconvenience.

By my letter of the 9th instant, I flatter myself that I have removed the uneasiness which your Excellency has expressed more than once, because His Majesty's approbation of your Excellency's Government has not been notified in a manner the most agreeable to your Excellency. I am sure that when you read that letter, your Excellency was convinced that your former complaint was ill-founded; that His Majesty's gracious approbation of your Excellency's conduct has been substantially conveyed to your Excellency; and that there is nothing in the whole tenor of my letters which can justify your Excellency's opinion, that a total change of system is to be adopted both with regard to the Chief Governor, and the measures of Government in Ireland.

I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, My Lord, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, North.

P.S.—The messenger carries three letters from Lord Northington—one to your Excellency, one to Lieutenant-General Burgoyne, and another to General Baugh.

His Excellency the Earl Temple, &c., &c., &c.

LORD NORTHINGTON TO LORD TEMPLE.

St. James's Place, May 25th, 1783.

My dear Lord,

Your Excellency has not been able to remove those unpleasant and mortifying ideas I entertain at the thoughts of being obliged to pay either no attention to a day, to which all honour and respect is due, or to do it in a manner unbecoming, and not suitable to the occasion. Indeed, my information by numerous Irish gentlemen now here, tells me that, although it may not be expected that I should give (what your Lordship says) a dinner on the occasion, it will be expected I shall hold a Court, and that I shall give a ball. Then I understand likewise, from your letters, as you declare your positive and fixed resolution not to hold a Court on that day in the despatch, the last but one which I had the honour to receive, and that from strong reasons of delicacy, both public and private, which, as your Excellency does not explain, at this distance and in my state of ignorance at present I am at a loss to conceive.

I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, Your faithful and obedient humble servant, Northington.

Lord Temple's administration was too brief to enable him to develop the plans he had laid down for the benefit of Ireland; but the most conclusive testimony that can be adduced in favour of his policy is the assurance he received from Lord North, that no intention of deviating from it was entertained by the new Ministers. Although, however, Lord Northington did not openly deviate from the main points of his policy, he followed it up with a luke-warmness and insincerity that rendered it to a great extent inoperative. His Lordship appears to have betrayed, not only in his measures, but in the spirit and tone in which they were brought forward, an unworthy desire to discredit the influence and reputation of his predecessor, who pursued a line of conduct after he left Ireland which—putting aside all obligations to the public—entitled him at least to protection against such sinister attempts to undermine the confidence his zealous services had acquired. Having resigned the Government into the hands of Lord Northington, to whom he frankly offered all the assistance and information his experience enabled him to bestow, he strictly avoided all interference in Irish affairs that might be likely—even remotely—to embarrass his successor. Numerous applications were made to him on a variety of subjects; individuals and parties sought his advice and interposition; but he made the same answer to all—referring them at once to the established authority, and declining to use any influence, upon the most trifling occasions, which in his position he might have legitimately exercised. His magnanimity was thrown away upon a thankless soil. The situation he had filled with so much honour and advantage, was now occupied by a nobleman who could neither appreciate nor imitate his lofty example.

The principal objects to which Lord Temple had directed his attention were the Bill of Renunciation, and a wise economy in the public expenditure. The former he carried; the latter it was impossible to consolidate in the short term of six months. In his indefatigable labours for the good of Ireland he never stooped to conciliate faction at the cost of duty, or the sacrifice of principle. He administered his high office to promote the interests, and not to pander to the passions of the people. The Bill of Renunciation was said to have been a scheme of Mr. Flood's; but by taking charge of it himself, Lord Temple deprived it of the mischievous prestige it might have acquired under such dangerous auspices. The Bill, however, was not Mr. Flood's. Whatever merit, or demerit attaches to it, belongs exclusively to Lord Temple. Lord Northington, overlooking the fact that this Bill was simply a confirmation of the settlement of 1782, and that it really granted nothing new, endeavoured to make it a fulcrum for working further changes and more extensive concessions—not, it may be presumed, without an indirect view to the improvement of his own popularity. The mode in which he thus proposed to carry out Lord Temple's policy provoked the Government, at last, to remonstrate with him. Even Mr. Fox, who could not be suspected of any disinclination to give a patient hearing to Irish demands, seeing the part he had already taken on such questions, felt it necessary to check his exuberant zeal on behalf of the particular party, whose views and opinions he had so injudiciously adopted. On the 8th of November, he wrote to Lord Northington an admonishing letter upon a variety of points connected with Irish affairs, towards the conclusion of which he observed:

I hope, my dear Northington, you will not consider this long letter as meant to blame your conduct; but I think I owe it as much to my friendship for you as to the public, to give you fairly my opinion and advice in your most arduous situation; and I will fairly own there is one principle which seems to run through your different despatches, which a little alarms me: it is this—you seem to think as if it were absolutely necessary at the outset of your Government, to do something that may appear to be obtaining boons, however trifling, to Ireland; and what I confess I like still less, is to see that this is, in some degree, grounded upon the ampleness of former concessions. Now I see this in quite a different light, and reason that, because these concessions were so ample, no further ones are necessary. If, because the Duke of Portland gave much, are you to give something? Consider how this reasoning will apply to your successor. I repeat it again, the account must be considered as closed in 1782.[1]

[Footnote 1: Extracted from a letter published in the Life of Mr. Grattan.]

It may be observed, en parenthese, that the assertion that the Duke of Portland gave much, is a gratuitous assumption. When his Grace came into office, he found the Renunciation Bill passing through its last stages, and he suffered it to pass; but, as Mr. Fox states in this very letter, with the utmost reluctance. The Duke of Portland, in fact, gave nothing. He submitted to the measure of his predecessors because he could not avoid it, and he would have retreated from it if he could.

No useful result would be gained by a comparison between the intelligible principles and consistency evinced by Lord Temple in his government of Ireland, and the small views and tremulous policy of his successor; but it is something to the purpose of history to note that, while Lord Northington affected to adopt the economical system of Lord Temple, he secretly desired to stultify it, and that so far from being actuated by any sentiment of respect for the government of his predecessor, he suffered the motions of thanks which both Houses of Parliament voted to Lord Temple, when they met in the following October, to pass without a solitary expression of approval on the part of any member of the Administration. These facts are somewhat indignantly stated in a letter addressed to Lord Temple, by Lord Mornington, on the 18th of October, 1783. Respecting the vote of thanks, his Lordship observes:

Government had not the spirit to take a part against the motions of thanks in either House, but I have every reason to think that they would have done it, if there had been the smallest prospect of success in the attempt. You must observe that the vote of the House of Commons is much weaker than that of the Lords; Gardiner was obliged, by the interference of Government's friends, to omit several expressions which, if they had been retained, would have rendered the vote more just to your Lordship's Administration, but would have occasioned debate. The fact is, that no compliment to the Act of Renunciation, or even to the framer of it, can be borne with patience by certain supporters of the present Castle.

And in the report of his own speech on this occasion, which accompanies the letter, Lord Mornington plainly charges the Government with duplicity in reference to Lord Temple's system of economy. Referring to a passage in the Lord-Lieutenant's speech, where his Excellency, in recommending the establishment of the Genevans, reminded Parliament of their duty to "avoid unnecessary expense," his Lordship expresses a hope that in "other cases, where all profusion would be dangerous, and where the public safety demanded the most rigid economy, in the establishments of Government, his Excellency would think it HIS duty to avoid all unnecessary expense;" and then, comparing the recommendation respecting the Genevans with another passage where his Excellency applied for a supply, and in which "his Excellency's economy made no appearance," Lord Mornington goes on to say:

Comparing the two passages of the speech, he [Lord Mornington] was apt to imagine that the expression, "unnecessary expense," was dictated by another spirit, and with other views, than of saving to the public: he suspected that it was meant to insinuate by so special, and seemingly superfluous a recommendation of economy in the further progress of the establishment of the Genevans, that there had been some neglect of economy in the original foundation of the scheme; if that was meant, he called upon the confidential servants of the Castle to avow it; if not, he insisted that they should do justice to the personage who had originally framed this plan, and disclaim his construction of this ambiguous phrase. He knew what had been the language of the Castle on this subject; he knew how this scheme had been decried; and what a damp had been cast upon the proposers of it—such a damp, as he had reason to believe, that the settlement had not advanced one step since the departure of Lord Temple; and he would add, in justice both to the late and present Ministry, that he, in his conscience, believed, if the public were put to any unnecessary expense by the settlement, it must be attributed solely and entirely to the delays and impediments which had been thrown in its way by the present Castle.

On a subsequent day, moving the thanks of the House to Lord Temple, Lord Mornington delivered an eloquent panegyric upon his Government. He spoke of the Act of Renunciation as having produced an "instantaneous calm in Ireland," and, adverting to other matters, observed:

These were the great public acts of Lord Temple's Government, the nation at large had felt their effects, the Lord-Lieutenant had from the throne applauded them; the House itself had applauded them in detail, and therefore would not object to doing so in the gross, which he now called upon the House to do. With regard to the general attention of Lord Temple to the common duties of his office, and his management of the interior system of government here, he would deliver no opinion of his own; he would appeal to those whose high stations and confidential offices gave them constant access to the person and councils of Lord Temple, to testify his ability and assiduity in business, the extent of his researches, the vigilance with which he penetrated into the secrets of departments where the most gross rapine and peculation had been practised for ages with impunity, and particularly the firm integrity with which he resisted all jobs, however speciously concealed, or powerfully recommended.

Nothing need be added to this unimpeachable eulogium on the character of Lord Temple's administration of the Government of Ireland. It comes from an authority above suspicion, and its statements will guide the decisions of history.

In the midst of these political anxieties there was a private grief, arising out of the sundering of attachments consequent upon the unnatural state of parties, that preyed severely on the sensitive mind of Lord Temple. This painful matter forms the subject of a letter from Lord Temple to his brother, Mr. Thomas Grenville, which has not been inserted in its chronological place, as it would have interrupted the sequence of the preceding correspondence. The tender and affectionate feelings hitherto subsisting unimpaired between the brothers, who, in addition to the rest of their noble qualities, were distinguished beyond most men by their domestic virtues, had been interrupted by one of those fatal divisions in public life, which, during this memorable crisis, separated the closest friends.

The particular occasion which now for the first time produced disunion between Lord Temple and his brother, is not expressly stated in the letter; but it may be surmised from the correspondence which took place early in the preceding year between Mr. Thomas Grenville and Mr. Fox, when the former was employed upon the American negotiation in Paris. Mr. Thomas Grenville, devoting himself to the interests of Mr. Fox, still preserved his allegiance to him under the arrangements of the Coalition Administration; and, from certain expressions in this letter, it would appear that he had ventured to make some overture to Lord Temple, with a view to induce him to reconsider the line of action he had resolved upon, if indeed it did not amount to the distinct proposal of an office under the new Ministry. The exact nature of that offer is veiled under the language of a poignant and bitter regret, which seeks to avoid details the writer was most unwilling to enter into; but it is sufficiently explicit as to the "new connection" Mr. Thomas Grenville had formed, in an opposite direction to that which Lord Temple's devotion to the principles they held in common had led him to embrace. The sensibility manifested by Lord Temple in reference to this unhappy affair, shows that his heart was as impressionable as his judgment was clear and firm.

LORD TEMPLE TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

Ph[oe]nix Lodge, May 9th, 1783.

Dear Brother,

Your letter, which mentions one written some time since, came yesterday to my hands; and upon the same day came a monthly account from Coutts, by which I see that, by Welles's neglect, and by the delay of my stewards, I had unknowingly drawn for the expenses of my departure beyond my state; but as it is proper that your wants should be supplied, I have writ to Frogatt, to order him to let you have some L500 from some money of mine in his hands; and I will let you have more as soon as I can.

The remainder of your letter gives me, indeed, the most sensible concern, for it shows me that line broken, which I was still in hopes was only strained; for this is the only interpretation which I can put upon that offer, which (from the most honourable motives) you have made to me; and the only wish which I can now form, is that you may never reflect for whom, and for what, you have sacrificed that political and intimate connexion, which nature had pointed out, and which till this moment I had not despaired of. One opportunity presented itself in which you could have done me essential service: I never can regret the eagerness with which I entreated from you that proof of affection, because I still feel how much I would have sacrificed, to have preserved our bond inviolate; that, with many other prospects, is now gone, and I am to feel that I have lost that confidence, that good-will and attachment which you have given to a friendship, which, for obvious reasons, I must ever regret. I do not speak this in resentment and reproach, my feelings are far above them, but in sober and earnest grief of mind. I must remind you that no personal friendship, no party or political consideration, could have guided the steps which I took in June last; to which, in terms the most decisive, you marked your line of separation. The same public principles (for with no one person in England have I correspondence) have decided me in the present moment, and in neither path have we met; and parting upon such a question as that of the present system (upon which I feel everything as a public man, and as a private man have the sensations which naturally result from personal insult), I fear that we have (at least for some time) little chance of seeing those affections vibrate in unison which I feel so strongly strained. Once more let me entreat you (for I am not ashamed to entreat) to reconsider this well. If your new connexion replaces to you that affectionate interest which from my childhood I have borne to you; if your line holds out to you that honourable satisfaction, which I trust you would not have lost by a cordial union of objects and dispositions with me, I fear that I speak in vain; but if you give that play to your reason, to your affection, and to every feeling which Providence has given, as the cement of the tenderest and most intimate connexions, remember that in offering to you my heart, I mean to offer to you everything which the truest love can give you, but what must and can depend only on the closest union. Weigh this well, and may every good angel guide your decision. Adieu.

Lord Temple must have been the more distressed by the course his brother had taken on this occasion, from the evidences he received of the sanction of other friends, who were governed in their own conduct by his example. These proofs of attachment and approval, while they afforded the most gratifying testimony to the rectitude of his views, touched him deeply in contrast with the alienation of his brother.

Only a few days before he wrote this letter to Mr. Thomas Grenville, we find Lord Bulkeley addressing him in the following terms, alluding to the communication in which Lord Temple had informed him of his determination to resign. "I had great pleasure," observes the writer, "in receiving your last very kind letter, and in learning from yourself the line you meant to take at a critical conjuncture like the present, when the candidates for honour and principle are so reduced in number, that those who forego great situations to bring them forward again, have every title to confidence and support, and deserve every honest and independent encouragement. You may naturally suppose I have not been without solicitations from the Coalition Government; I have given but one answer, which was that I shall certainly act with you, and more especially as your conduct in resigning gave me, if possible, a greater opinion of and veneration for your character than I could by any means express."

Such testimonies were consolatory in the difficult position in which Lord Temple was placed; but, instead of alleviating the pain he felt at his separation from his brother in public life, they embittered it by the conviction that one whom he loved so sincerely should have adopted a line of action which he in his conscience believed to be erroneous.

It will be observed that in writing to Mr. Thomas Grenville, Lord Temple alludes to a former letter, which evidently had not reached its destination. The circumstance would be unimportant in itself, were there not reason to believe that it formed part of a regular system of espionnage to which the whole of Lord Temple's correspondence was subjected. The establishment of such an inquisition into the letters of so high a functionary as the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland seems incredible, and nothing short of the most decisive proofs of the fact could justify even a suspicion of its existence. But there are passages in these letters which leave no doubt whatever that Lord Temple's correspondence, both private and public, was inspected in London while he yet held office in Ireland, and that the same course continued to be carried on after he returned to England. Nor was the espionnage limited to mere perusal, frequent allusions to miscarriages leading to the inference that his letters were sometimes suppressed altogether.

There are no means of determining with whom this system originated. All that appears to be certain is, that it was practised during the period of the Shelburne Cabinet, and followed up under the Coalition; and that after it had been detected, no secret was made about it, either by Lord Temple or his intimate correspondents.

Writing to Colonel Dundas, Lord Temple says, apparently under the apprehension that his letter would be read by others, "Obvious circumstances will prevent my going into the discussion of details in a post letter." And to a friend in Ireland, he speaks still more explicitly: "As almost every letter," he observes, "received or written by me is opened, it is possible that this may undergo that operation in London; and if so, they will learn the real regard I bear to you." Mr. Cuff, writing to Lord Temple, from Dublin, in the November of this year, declares that he expects nothing less than that his letter will be opened and read. The passage is too remarkable to be omitted.

I should not now trouble your Lordship with a letter, but that I find to a certainty, that letters to and from your Lordship are not only opened and read, but many of them are stopped. If this should happen to get into your Lordship's hands, you will see, by what I have written on the outside of it, that I am willing to compromise with those honourable gentlemen who open and read your letters, and that I have no objections to their opening and reading, provided they will afterwards forward them to you.

Your Lordship mentions a letter you wrote to me about three or four weeks since, relative to the Genevois and their houses. I have never received a letter from your Lordship since you left Ireland, except one dated the 20th of July, and your last of the 23rd of October. I had the honour to write to your Lordship about the 20th or 25th of September, thanking you for your letter of the 20th of July, and telling you (what I can say with truth) that I prize it more than all my other possessions upon earth. I did not know, when I wrote that letter, that it would be opened and read, else I should have declared my sentiments more freely; but as I am almost certain that this one will be opened, I shall be more full.

Know all men, therefore, by these presents, openers of letters, and others, that I am more attached to your Lordship than to all the rest of the world; not because you gave me a place of L400 a year at the Barrack Board, but because I think you have more sense, honour, and firmness, than all the Viceroys I have ever seen in Ireland put together.

A month elapsed before Lord Temple answered this letter, unwilling to trust his reply to the post, and waiting all that time for an opportunity to send it by a "safe hand." His explanation of the delay furnishes additional proof of the inquisition to which his correspondence was exposed.

I should long since (he observes) have acknowledged your very kind letter to me, if I had not delayed it partly with the inclination of sending you an answer by a safe hand, and partly from the exceeding anxious state of public business, which has wholly engrossed my attention. It appears from your state[ment] of the letters which you have received, that one, written about the beginning of October, never reached you.

That Lord Temple's letters should have been secretly inspected by a hostile Administration is intelligible, if we can admit such a proceeding to be consistent with the honour of public men or reconcilable with the obligations of the public service; but it is impossible to comprehend upon what ground of expediency or from what motives of jealousy or distrust, so flagrant a breach of confidence was committed towards him by the subordinates (for it is difficult to believe it could have been officially sanctioned by Ministers themselves) of a Cabinet under which he held so responsible a situation as that of the Vice-royalty of Ireland. The fact, nevertheless, admits of no doubt, and throws a strong light on the sinister means which were adopted in those days for the "management" of the executive.

The share which Lord Temple took in public affairs after his return from Ireland, and during the existence of the Coalition, naturally enough made him a special object of suspicion and resentment to the Cabinet. We find him, in his letter to Mr. Cuff, stating that his attention has been wholly engrossed by the anxious state of public business, and the memoirs of the period show in the results how powerfully he contributed to the overthrow of that ministerial combination, which he had denounced as unnatural and infamous. But the details of his services to the King throughout this harassing crisis have never found their way into history; nor is it now possible, from their secret and confidential nature, to trace them in full. The disclosures, however, which may be gleaned from the few letters that passed to and from Lord Temple at this period, sufficiently prove that the King trusted all along to his counsel and support, and acted altogether on his advice. There was so much hazard in committing opinions and suggestions to so unsafe a medium as that of correspondence, that we can look but for scanty revelations in the papers which have been preserved. It appears that Lord Temple conducted his proceedings in reference to the struggle between the King and his Ministers chiefly by means of personal interviews and detached memoranda of his views, intended only to assist the memory in conversation, and torn up as soon as used. Lord Thurlow was sometimes employed by his Majesty as an agent on these occasions, and through him, probably to avert suspicion from the real quarter on which his Majesty relied, the intercourse with Lord Temple and his friends was occasionally carried on.

From the commencement to the close of the brief tenure of the Coalition, his Majesty held aloof from his Ministers; and it was not till the opening of the Session, on the 11th of November, that an opportunity was presented for acting effectively upon his determination to get rid of them as soon as he could. During the interval that had elapsed since the prorogation of Parliament in the preceding July, they prepared their measures; but, from the want of co-operation and confidence on the part of the Sovereign, the precise character of their policy was a matter of speculation outside the Cabinet. His Majesty either did not, or would not, know the course they intended to pursue; and it is evident, from subsequent circumstances, that the plan of operations for relieving him of their presence was kept in suspense, waiting upon events, up to the moment when they brought forward their famous India Bill. The following letter, written a few days before the opening of Parliament, shows how little was known at that moment of the views of Ministers, and enables us to perceive that, although Lord Temple was in frequent communication with the King, he had not yet decided upon the line of conduct to be adopted. The state of affairs implied in the letter is curious enough; exhibiting the Sovereign, on the one side, taking secret counsel of the Opposition, and the Ministry, on the other, coming down to Parliament with measures which they were well aware His Majesty was eagerly watching for a constitutional excuse to thwart and defeat.

LORD TEMPLE TO LORD MORNINGTON.

Stowe, Nov. 6th, 1783.

My dear Lord,

As Stephen Fremantle will deliver this to you, I have not the same difficulties which attend the writing a post letter. I go to town to-morrow, in order to settle our winter arrangements. My first principle will be to throw Ireland out of the book of opposition, unless I am attacked upon it, which I sincerely hope may be the case; although I have but little hopes that by any management in either House, Ministry will be brought to acknowledge the language which their agents uniformly hold upon my subject. Their politics are, I own, inexplicable upon Ireland; they speak the language of high crimination of me, for the concession (which I call no concession) made in the last sessions; they affect to talk loudly and strongly upon all subsequent claims or popular subjects, and to have no fear upon the event of any of those questions; and yet I know that Lord Northington is frightened, and has uniformly proposed concession on every point to the fullest extent; this communication I know directly from the King's mouth, though not to me, but to another person; consequently, it is for your private ear. It is possible that Wyndham, the professed friend to Parliamentary Reform, may have taken his resolution to resign upon that measure being negatived, which we understand certainly to have been decided here. But in all modes of turning it, how is it possible to reconcile a heap of contradictions? I shall see the King upon particular business (no idea of a change) on Friday; and if with propriety I can state anything further upon this, you shall know it. The Portugal business is really all afloat; nor do Ministry see daylight; and I know, from undoubted authority, that France, Spain, and Portugal mean to offer their trade to Ireland upon lower terms, if you will dispense with the Alien Duty, or, in so many words, with the Navigation Act, which, entre nous, I fear is no longer binding upon you, as we have partially repealed it in favour of America, and therefore, under Yelverton's Bill, it is now void. This idea, I know, has been proposed to some of your Irish factors, and I have reason to believe that Government know nothing about it. The information which I gave you upon the subject of the Treaties is likewise authentic; it is certain that the commercial system with any of the contracting parties is not advanced nor advancing: so much then for your commercial code. As to the ideas of protecting duties, East India trade, and such, &c., as Ministry affect, and I hope with truth, to hold them cheap; as to the Absentee Tax, I do not hear what they propose; but from many circumstances I should not wonder if they gave way; and if they do, the mortal blow is struck to your landed interest. I wish you would be so good as to inquire privately what became of the prosecutions I had ordered against the Kilkenny Rangers for their riot with Talbot's Fencibles, and against a Mr. Hetherington, Lieutenant of the Lowtherstown Volunteers near Inniskillen, for firing with his corps upon a party of the 105th, who came to seize his stills; for I very much suspect that Yelverton (who was very much averse to them) has smuggled them all. I rather think that you must see Grattan in opposition, as I do not see how he can fight under Scott or Fitzgibbon, who have clearly undertaken the House of Commons. If so, the restoration of Lord Carlisle's Administration is singularly perfect in all its parts, except Sheridan, vice Lees, which you will agree with me is not quite enough to constitute an essential difference. If the Post-Office gives only one Post-Master you will see Lord Northington completely puzzled, as I have reason to think that the Duke of Leinster and old Mr. Ponsonby have both asked for it. What do you suppose is in contemplation about your Chancellor? I cannot think that Lord Lifford will continue, and yet his terms (to which the Duke of Portland had acceded in July, 1782,) are immoderately high, viz., L2,000 per annum for three lives. When you will recollect that our late Chancellors, though going to the Woolsack from high offices and emoluments, received—Lord Camden L1,500 a year Irish, till a Tellership fell; Lord Bathurst nothing; Lord Thurlow a reversion of a tellership at L3,000 per annum. Compare the pretensions and the rewards!

In this kingdom you will see that there is de quoi s'amuser in Parliament: the Funds lower than in war; L30,000,000 still unfunded, consequently L1,500,000, at the least, to be raised of annual taxes, and at least L500,000 or L600,000 additional taxes to make up the deficiencies. Nothing done in Reform, except the creation of new offices, and the whole attention of ministers exclusively turned to the book of Numbers. My brother's fears were that the Opposition might be petulant. With this bill of fare, and that which the foreign questions will furnish, I do not think that we run great risk. Do not answer the detail of this letter, for it is unsafe; but I wished to take every opportunity to give you good information, and to assure you of the affectionate regard with which I am,

My dear Lord, Ever yours, N. T.

The East India Bills were introduced by Mr. Fox, on the 18th of November. The extreme and almost unprecedented principle laid down in these Bills, afforded His Majesty and his private advisers the opportunity of resistance they desired. Had the Opposition themselves framed a measure for Ministers, with the express purpose of widening the distance between the Cabinet and the Sovereign, they could not have devised one better adapted to the purpose. The main object of the East India Bills was to withdraw from the Company the entire administration of the civil and commercial affairs of India, and to vest it in a board of commissioners, who should be nominated by Parliament, and rendered perfectly independent of the Crown. This scheme is said to have been devised by Mr. Burke; but even the paternity of Mr. Burke could not mitigate the odium that was heaped upon it by the Pitt and Grenville party. Mr. Pitt described it as a piece of tyranny that broke through every principle of equity and justice, that took away the security of every company in the kingdom, the Bank, the national creditor and the public corporations, and that left unsafe the great Charter itself, the foundation of all our liberties. It was not merely, however, because it struck at the principle of security so far as public companies and chartered rights were concerned, that it incurred the strenuous opposition of the King's friends. A more immediate objection was discovered in the blow it aimed at the royal prerogative. The establishment of a commission for the administration of the affairs of India, without concert with the Crown, and whose members were irremovable by the Sovereign, except upon an address from either House of Parliament, was a bold attempt to reduce and narrow the King's influence, which, in the menacing relations then subsisting between the Ministers and the King, could only be regarded as a declaration of open hostility. Upon this ill-considered measure the royal opposition took its stand. But great difficulties were to be encountered before the favourable opportunity thus afforded by the rashness of Ministers could be turned to account.

The Bills passed triumphantly through the Commons, the second reading being carried by a majority of 217 to 103; and on the 9th of December Mr. Fox, attended by a numerous train of members, presented them at the bar of the House of Lords. Here, then, the final battle was to be fought. Lord Temple protested against the measure as "infamous," and as seizing upon "the most inestimable part of the Constitution—our chartered rights;" and was energetically supported by Thurlow, Richmond, and Camden. But as something more than the ordinary parliamentary resistance was necessary to effect the rejection at once of the plan and its authors, Lord Temple obtained permission to make known the sentiments of His Majesty on the subject, in order to give additional weight and authority to the movements of the Opposition. The proverb which has come down to us from Shakspeare, that the King's name is a tower of strength, was never, perhaps, more effectively illustrated.

According to the version which is given in the accounts hitherto published of these transactions, it was not till the 11th of December, two days after the Bills had been read a first time in the Lords, that His Majesty was apprised of the real character of the measure as it affected his prerogative; and it was then, and not till then, His Majesty determined to resist it. This statement goes to the effect—that on the 11th of December, between the first and second reading, Earl Temple had a conference with the King, in the course of which he fully explained to His Majesty the nature and tendency of a measure which His Majesty had up to that time approved; that he showed His Majesty that he had been "duped" and "deceived," and that His Majesty's indignation at this discovery was excited to such a height as to induce him to authorise the Earl Temple to oppose the Bills in his name. In order to leave no doubt on this point, and to give it all possible force and authenticity, a card was written, setting forth, "That His Majesty allowed Earl Temple to say, that whoever voted for the India Bill was not only not his friend, but would be considered by him as an enemy; and if these words were not strong enough, Earl Temple might use whatever words he might deem stronger and more to the purpose."

This unusual and rather undignified proceeding admits of no other justification than the urgency and exigency of the occasion; and the best thing that can be said of it is, that it answered the end for which it was designed, although the notoriety which was given to it (and without which it would have been of no avail) produced a fierce resolution in the Commons, carried by an immense majority, declaring that it was a high crime and misdemeanour to report any opinion or pretended opinion of the King upon any proceeding depending in either House of Parliament, with a view to influence the votes of members. It did influence the votes of members very extensively, nevertheless, several proxies which had been entrusted to Ministers having been withdrawn in consequence of the royal interference.

It would appear from this statement, that up to the 11th of December, His Majesty had approved of the India Bills; and that on that day, for the first time, Lord Temple drew His Majesty's attention to the tendency of the measure. Upon the face of the proceedings themselves, such a version of the transaction is so incredible as to excite surprise at its adoption by contemporary historians. A very little reflection must have discovered the impossibility of His Majesty remaining in ignorance of the spirit, aim, and purport of a scheme which had been under discussion for three weeks in the Commons, and had been sifted, explored, and denounced by Pitt, Jenkinson, the Lord Advocate, Mr. Grenville, and others. Nor is it to be believed that, with so strong a motive operating in the minds of His Majesty's personal friends as that which was furnished by the well-known desire of His Majesty to seize upon the first opportunity to make a breach with the Cabinet, Lord Temple and those who acted with him would have suffered His Majesty to continue in the ignorance ascribed to him—assuming, which it is unreasonable to assume, that His Majesty really was ignorant of the scope and design of a ministerial proposal which had called up remonstrances and protests from all parts of the kingdom.

It is scarcely necessary to say that Lord Temple did not wait until the Bills had reached the House of Lords, to submit to the King his opinion of them; and that he had all throughout earnestly impressed upon His Majesty the objectionable spirit of those clauses that infringed the royal prerogative. This was, indeed, the only vulnerable point upon which His Majesty's direct interference could be properly invoked. The difficulty that had hitherto stood in the way was as to the manner in which the interposition of the King's authority could be brought to bear constitutionally on the measure, during its progress through Parliament. Ministers had an ascertained and decisive majority in the Commons, and Lord Temple seems to have felt that it would have been unwise in His Majesty to have interfered at that stage of the proceedings, when his interference was likely to have failed of the desired effect. The last resource was in the Peers. To have implicated the King's name in the opposition to the measure, while it yet was in the hands of the Commons, would have fatally compromised His Majesty's position; and for that excellent reason, Lord Temple reserved the declaration of His Majesty's opinion for that arena where it was most likely to exercise a practical influence. The moment chosen was just before the debate on the principle of the Bills. Had His Majesty been advised to preserve his neutrality pending the discussion in the Lords, the probability was, that the measure would have passed that House, and that he would have been ultimately reduced to the necessity of refusing his assent to it; an extremity from which he was delivered by the prompt and novel course recommended by Lord Temple.

Amongst the Grenville papers there is the rough draught of a memorandum, which reveals to us not only the suggestions upon which the King acted in this emergency, but the no less important fact that the line of action was submitted to His Majesty eight days before the Bills had passed the Commons. It is evident from the tone of this memorandum, that the subject matter of it had previously occupied much anxious consideration, that the determination to resist the Bills in some shape was already adopted, and that nothing remained to be settled but the modus operandi. It will be seen, that in this memorandum the difficulties attending the royal interference at different stages of the measure are fully designated, and that the mode of proceeding finally adopted by His Majesty is distinctly pointed out. The opening line, and the note at the foot, are in the hand-writing of Lord Temple; the body of the memorandum is in a different and not very legible hand.

Dec. 1st, 1783.

To begin with stating to His Majesty our sentiments upon the extent of the Bill, viz.:

We profess to wish to know whether this Bill appear to His Majesty in this light: a plan to take more than half the royal power, and by that means disable [the King] for the rest of the reign. There is nothing else in it which ought to call for this interposition.

Whether any means can be thought of, short of changing his Ministers, to avoid this evil.

The refusing the Bill, if it passes the Houses, is a violent means. The changing his Ministers after the last vote of the Commons, in a less degree might be liable to the same sort of construction.

An easier way of changing his Government would be by taking some opportunity of doing it, when, in the progress of it, it shall have received more discountenance than hitherto.

This must be expected to happen in the Lords in a greater degree than can be hoped for in the Commons.

But a sufficient degree of it may not occur in the Lords if those whose duty to His Majesty would excite them to appear are not acquainted with his wishes, and that in a manner which would make it impossible to pretend a doubt of it, in case they were so disposed.

By these means the discountenance might be hoped to raise difficulties so high as to throw it [out], and leave His Majesty at perfect liberty to choose whether he will change them or not.

This is the situation which it is wished His Majesty should find himself in.

Delivered by Lord Thurlow, Dec. 1st, 1783. Nugent Temple.

The sequel is matter of history. On the 17th of December, the India Bills were rejected, in the House of Peers, by a majority of 95 to 76. On the 18th, at midnight, a message was transmitted from the King to Lord North and Mr. Fox, commanding them to deliver up their seals of office; and, in order to mark emphatically the royal displeasure, they were desired to send in their seals by the Under-Secretaries, as a personal interview with them would be "disagreeable" to His Majesty. The next day the rest of the Ministry were dismissed, and the letters conveying their dismissal were signed by Lord Temple.

The circumstances under which this sudden change in the councils of the Sovereign took place, produced considerable alarm in the Commons, by whose support alone—in opposition to the feelings of the King, and the voice of the public—the late Ministry had been sustained in office. An apprehension prevailed amongst the members that the new Cabinet would advise a dissolution, and an Address to the King was accordingly passed on the 22nd, praying His Majesty not to adopt that measure; but Mr. Pitt, to whom the responsibility of constructing an Administration had been confided in the meanwhile, entertained no such project, having resolved to trust in the first instance to his strength out of doors; and His Majesty's answer to the address explicitly assured the Commons, accordingly, that he had no intention of exercising his prerogative either to prorogue or dissolve Parliament.

For three days Lord Temple held the Seals, to facilitate Mr. Pitt's negotiations; and shortly afterwards the new Government was announced, with Mr. Pitt at its head, Lord Howe at the Admiralty, Lord Thurlow as Lord Chancellor, and the Marquis of Carmarthen and Lord Sydney in the Foreign and Home Departments. The Duke of Rutland, who for a short time held the office of Lord Privy Seal (in which he was succeeded by Lord Gower), was sent to Ireland to succeed Lord Northington early in the ensuing year.

Up to this time, notwithstanding the signal services he had rendered to the Sovereign throughout a period marked by the most extraordinary contest in our annals between the Crown and a dominant party in the Commons, Lord Temple had waited in vain for that acknowledgment of his conduct in Ireland to which he felt himself entitled. The position of the King during the conflict that had been forced upon him with his Ministers was, doubtless, no less embarrassing than painful; but now that Mr. Pitt had succeeded to office, Lord Temple expected full justice would be done to him. That he did not receive it, however, and that his proud and sensitive temper resented the neglect, will be evident from the following letter, which closes the correspondence for the year.

LORD TEMPLE TO MR. PITT.

Stowe, Dec. 29th, Half-past One.

Dear Sir,

I am sorry that you should have had the trouble of acknowledging at so late a period a letter which was indeed very interesting to me, but to which I have not even expected any answer for the last eight weeks; and I perfectly agree with you, "that it would be of little use to enter in[to] particulars" respecting the considerations so immediately affecting my credit, a[nd?] honour, which we certainly view so differently. If any communication had been wished for from me upon these points, upon which it was known by Mr. Grenville and by you that I was not indifferent, I should have thought it my duty of friendship to have stated my reasons for being confident that the new Irish arrangements cannot be useful, upon the same principles as have been thought (by you) sufficient to bury former distinctions of party in this country: I have already stated to you my reasons for considering the recal of Mr. Ponsonby and of his friends to power and confidence in Ireland as a most dangerous measure, and as a departure from a system to which His Majesty's Government was pledged, not only with your approbation, but with your strong and decided opinion. I have likewise stated the reasons why I consider such a measure, unaccompanied with any mark to me of the King's approbation of my conduct, as the strongest disavowal of my Government in Ireland, and (not to use harsh expressions) as the most personal offence to me. In that point of view I know that it has been almost universally considered in Ireland; because the natural intemperance of those to whom I feel myself sacrificed has not been controlled by any proof of the interest which it had been supposed you would have felt naturally in whatever so nearly concerned me. And with these impressions, I felt strongly the kindness of my brother, Mr. Grenville, who endeavoured to calm those feelings, and to suggest various marks of favour (if you should approve them) which did not appear to him precluded by any difficulties of which he was aware.

And by that kindness I was induced to acquiesce in his wish to be permitted to open to you an idea which I find that Mr. Grenville and you consider (in part of it) as strongly objectionable, as hazardous to Government, and as unwise on my part. As I cannot think of accepting the peerage for my second son under such circumstances, I have only to express my regrets that the idea ever has been opened to you. I was never very particularly attached to it, and certainly feel the full force of your arguments against it; but I likewise feel as fully that the arrangements which you have taken, with your eyes open to the consequences (as far as I am concerned in the question), leave me without alternative. I need not add that the consequences of this must be most painful to me from reflections embittered by the warm affection I bore to those who view all this so differently from me.

I have, from attention to you, sent back your messenger immediately. I have, therefore, hardly had time to consider the expressions of this letter. I shall, therefore, thank you if (notwithstanding your press of business) you will, from recollection of former habits, be kind enough to give me one line, to tell me whether I have made myself understood or not; and you will likewise think it necessary to give me some answer respecting your engagement to Mr. Gamon, in August last, to include him in the first list of Baronets. If you wish for a copy of your letter on that subject, you shall have it, but an immediate explanation to him from you, as well as me, is absolutely necessary.

I am, with very sincere regrets, and with the deepest sensations of pain for what has passed, and for what is yet to come,

Dear Sir, Your very obedient and humble servant, N. T.



1784.

Mr. Pitt's Administration—Lord Temple Created Marquis of Buckingham—His Private Notes on the Coalition.

The relative position of parties at the opening of 1784 was singular and unprecedented. The exultation of the public on the dismissal of the late Ministers, and the accession of Mr. Pitt to power, afforded the undeniable proof that the people were with the Sovereign and his advisers. Addresses of thanks and congratulation poured in from the municipal and corporate bodies in all parts of the kingdom, who felt their privileges endangered by the East India Bills, expressing the gratitude of the country to His Majesty for the vigour and resolution with which he had acted. The Coalition, nevertheless, still wielded a powerful majority in the Commons, with which they continued to harass the Cabinet, in spite of those demonstrations of public opinion which plainly warned them that, long as they might succeed in protracting the struggle, it could end only in disaster and defeat. The King and the Cabinet were, in short, brought into open hostility with the Commons by the persevering resistance of that unnatural and unprincipled combination which, stung by recent failure and disgrace, now manifested greater virulence than ever. Two days after the reassembling of Parliament, in January, Mr. Pitt introduced his India Bill. It was immediately rejected by the Commons. This was his first defeat. Every subsequent movement of the Government was frustrated in the same way. All the resources of parliamentary tactics were resorted to for the purpose of dislodging the Minister. Resolutions were passed declaring that the late changes were not calculated to conciliate the House, and that the continuance in office of the new Ministers was injurious to the interests of both King and people; and, finding that these resolutions failed of the desired effect, more violent measures were adopted. The Mutiny Bill was postponed, and the appropriation of the supplies was suspended.

In this desperate state of affairs, it appeared to be absolutely impossible to carry on the business of the country; and, driven to the last extremity, negotiations were opened with the Duke of Portland, in the hope of appeasing the Opposition, and strengthening the hands of Government. But the Duke of Portland made demands which were incompatible with the dignity of the Minister, and which only tended to increase the difficulty of the situation. It is believed that he went so far as to stipulate for Mr. Pitt's resignation. Mr. Pitt, however, refused to resign, and the negotiation was broken off. Throughout the whole of this contest, Mr. Pitt maintained an attitude of firmness, and displayed an amount of ability which greatly increased his popularity. The Opposition, powerful as it was, finally gave way under his undaunted spirit, their numbers daily diminishing as the inutility of perseverance became more and more evident, until at length he reduced the majority against him to one on a vote of confidence. At this point the Coalition vanished. It was not, however, till the month of March that he succeeded in crushing his formidable opponents; and having thus demonstrated the real strength of his Government by the most constitutional means, he dissolved the Parliament—an alternative which a less confident and conscientious Minister might have justifiably availed himself of long before. The appeal to the people was enthusiastically responded to; and when the next Parliament met, an amendment on the Address, moved by Lord Surrey, was rejected by a majority of 76. Mr. Pitt's Government was now established on the firmest basis.

Throughout these proceedings, Lord Temple maintained a strict reserve. Except when his opinions were solicited on the subject of Ireland, he does not appear to have tendered his advice, or in any form to have identified himself with the Government. His regard for Mr. Pitt isolated him from a prominent participation in public affairs at this crisis; for as he would not act against the Administration, and was precluded from the opportunity of serving it as he desired to do, no choice was left to him but that of a friendly neutrality. He still continued, notwithstanding, to feel a deep interest in Irish affairs; but it was limited almost exclusively to his private letters, and even in this shape he abstained from all direct interference. Lord Northington, who is said to have been invited by Mr. Pitt to retain the Lord-Lieutenancy, remained in office till February, when he was displaced by the Duke of Rutland. In the interval, Lord Temple's silence on all matters relating to the government of that country, has left scarcely any traces of his feelings or opinions in the scanty correspondence of this period.

On the 8th of January, writing to General Cuninghame, whom he had formerly recommended to the command in Ireland for his "superior fitness," and who had recently applied for it on the resignation of General Burgoyne, he intimates his position very clearly:

Variety of circumstances have placed me in a situation wholly divested of power or of official information; so that in the present moment I do not even know whether General Burgoyne is still in command or not; still less do I know the ideas of Government upon it.

General Cuninghame, in reply, expresses the regret which he felt, in common with others, that his Lordship, who had occupied so conspicuous a place in the favour of the King during the late ministerial crisis, had relinquished the power which His Majesty had invested him with.

For a thousand reasons, public and private, I am sorry you found yourself under the necessity of resigning the Seals, and for the same thousand reasons I hope your Lordship will soon again accept of office.

The resignation of the Seals, here alluded to, was a step Lord Temple felt himself called upon to take by a nice and punctilious sense of honour; but which, upon a broader view of the exigencies of the public service, and the peculiar demands of the occasion, could not have been considered imperative. It had reference to the resolution of the Commons, impugning as a high crime and misdemeanour the circulation of the opinions of the King, with a view to influence the decision of Parliament. That resolution was avowedly pointed at Lord Temple; and in order that he might be enabled, without embarrassing the Sovereign or the Government, to meet any subsequent action which the Commons might think fit to found upon it, Lord Temple resigned. His chivalry, however, was a mere waste of that generous self-abnegation which characterized his whole public life. The Commons never proceeded any farther in the matter.

In another letter to General Cuninghame, dated 1st of March, Lord Temple expresses his regret that his recommendation of that officer to His Majesty had not the effect he desired, and again assures him that he possesses no power or influence with the Administration.

I am favoured with your letter upon General Pitt's appointment. I need not repeat that if I had continued in Ireland, I should have shown every attention to your wishes. In my present situation I neither have been nor can be consulted in official arrangements. My warm affection and near relationship towards the Duke of Rutland and Mr. Pitt have disposed me to give them the best advice which my experience in Ireland could suggest to me; and in the course of these communications, your pretensions to the command were stated with every advantage.

General Cuninghame replies by declaring that he considers himself very ill-used, after having supported the British Government in Ireland for thirty-three years in Parliament; but adds: "Why should I complain to my benefactor, who has it not in his power to relieve me?"

Amongst the Irish correspondents who continued to look up to Lord Temple as the statesman who best understood the circumstances and wants of the country, was Colonel Martin, the owner of the vast estates of Connemara, who afterwards acquired a special reputation in the Imperial Parliament, by his Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. At the period when he was in correspondence with Lord Temple, the humanity for which he was subsequently distinguished did not, it is said, extend to his own species; for no man, in a land notorious for feudal violence, enjoyed a wider celebrity as a duellist. From a letter written in the July of this year, the following extract may be inserted, as being strikingly characteristic both of the writer and the state of society over which, in those belligerent days, men of such grave temperaments as the Grenvilles were called upon to preside.

You have perhaps heard already of my affair at Castlebar with Mr. Fitzgerald. On the 14th I went to Castlebar, where with some difficulty and after the use of language not very consonant to my feelings, I prevailed on Mr. Fitzgerald to meet me in the barrack-yard. When I took my first ground, I was distant about eight yards from him, but on his declaring in a vaunting manner that we were not near enough, I told him he should not have reason to complain on that head, and accordingly I advanced within less than five yards to him, and said he had it in his power to make it much nearer. We both fired about the same time; he missed me, but my shot entered his waistcoat and passed along his breast and grazed his arm. He then called to me not to fire again until he recovered his pistol, on which I declared I would wait any time he chose. When he was ready, we fired as before; my shot hit him just above the waistband of his breeches and got out on the opposite side of his waistcoat. I was wounded in the breast, but very slightly; and I am at present so well as to be able to travel anywhere in my carriage.

Mr. Fitzgerald shows his clothes to every person, but declares he is not wounded; for my part, I will not declare my reasons for believing him to be unhurt. On the ground he declared himself sorry for the offence, and that he was wounded. For the last I declared my sorrow, so everything ended.

Although Lord Temple throughout this year, as he observes in one of his letters, "lived too little in the political world" to evince much interest in its vicissitudes, the honours which his official career had so well earned followed him into private life. Towards the close of 1784, he was created Marquis of Buckingham.

In his retirement, however, he was not an inattentive observer of public affairs, and seems to have contemplated the design of drawing up an account of that memorable struggle of parties of which he had been a witness, and especially of the transactions in which he had been directly and personally concerned. That he did not carry this design into execution, and that nothing remains of it but the following fragment, is much to be regretted, as few men were so well qualified by experience, knowledge and ability, to become the historian of these events. The fragment, for it is nothing more, breaking off at the most interesting point of the narrative, which it was evidently the writer's intention to pursue to the close, is printed with the title, and exactly in the form in which it was left by Lord Temple. It is hardly necessary to remark that there is an error in the date, which has reference to the months of November and December, 1783, and not 1784, a mistake which probably arose from the circumstance of these notes having been put together in the latter year.

LORD BUCKINGHAM'S PRIVATE NOTES.

I have much lamented that, during the very interesting period of November and December, of 1784, I did not keep a regular journal of the transactions of those months, in which I am supposed to have borne so principal a share. Many of the minuter springs which guided those operations have slipped my memory, from the multiplicity of them, and from the rapidity with which they crowded upon each other during the latter busy days, ending with the formation of the new Ministry on the 21st of December, 1784. It will, however, be necessary for me to take this narrative from an earlier period, necessarily connected with it—I mean the formation of the Government known by the name of the Coalition Ministry.

I was in Ireland during that period, and was not uninformed, authentically, of the disposition on the part of Lord North to have supported the Ministry of Lord Shelburne upon terms of provision for his friends, very short of those which he afterwards claimed and extorted from Mr. Fox. It was clearly known to Lord Shelburne, that no official arrangement was proposed by Lord North for himself; and, to say truth, those of his friends for whom he wished provision to be made, were at least as unexceptionable as many, I may even add as most of those whom Lord Shelburne had collected from the two former Administrations. The infatuation, however, which pervaded the whole of his Government, operated most forcibly in this instance. The affectation of holding the ostensible language of Mr. Pitt, in 1759, is only mentioned to show the ridiculous vanity of the Minister who, unsupported by public success, or by the parliamentary knowledge and man[oe]uvre of a Duke of Newcastle, not only held it, but acted upon it, professing, in his own words, to "know nothing of the management of a House of Commons, and to throw himself upon the people alone for support." This farce operated as it might be expected; and although the negotiation between Lord North and Mr. Fox was matter of perfect notoriety for several weeks, those moments were suffered to pass away without any attempt to avail himself of the various difficulties which presented themselves, at the different periods of that discussion, till, at the very eve of the ratification of it, Mr. Pitt was employed by his Lordship to open propositions, through Mr. Fox, to that party. This was rejected in toto; and the events which followed the meeting of Parliament, are too well known to make a detail of them necessary.

Before I proceed I wish to add, that although I have treated the vanity and personal arrogance of Lord Shelburne as it deserves, yet I will do him justice in acknowledging his merit, as one of the quickest and most indefatigable Ministers that this country ever saw. Many of his public measures were the result of a great and an informed mind, assisted by a firm and manly vigour. And I must ever think the Peace, attended with all its collateral considerations, the most meritorious and happiest event for a kingdom exhausted of men and of credit. I was not pledged in the slightest degree to the measure; for, by my absence in Ireland, and my little connection with his Lordship, I was enabled to judge of it with coolness and impartiality; and from the knowledge of the various difficulties attending it, I am convinced that better terms could not be obtained, and that the further prosecution of the war was impracticable, even if the combination against us allowed the hope of success. This testimony I have wished to bear, though it is not immediately connected with my purpose.

Upon the resignation of Lord Shelburne, His Majesty was placed in a situation in which, through the various events of his reign, he never had yet found himself. The man[oe]uvres which he tried, at different periods of the six weeks during which this country was left literally without a Government, are well known. Perhaps nothing can paint the situation of his mind so truly, as a letter which he wrote to me on the 1st of April: this was an answer to one which I thought it necessary to address to him from Ireland, after receiving from him a message and a general detail of his situation, through Mr. W. Grenville, to whom he opened himself very confidentially upon the general state of the kingdom.

Upon my return to England, I was honoured with every public attention from His Majesty, who ostensibly held a language upon my subject, calculated to raise in the strongest degree the jealousy of his servants. In the audience which I asked, as a matter of course, after being presented at his levee, he recapitulated all the transactions of that period, with the strongest encomium upon Mr. Pitt, and with much apparent acrimony hinted at Lord Shelburne, whom he stated to have abandoned a situation which was tenable, and particularly so after the popular resentment had been roused. This was naturally attended with strong expressions of resentment and disgust of his Ministers, and of personal abhorrence of Lord North, whom he charged with treachery and ingratitude of the blackest nature. He repeated that, to such a Ministry he never would give his confidence, and that he would take the first moment for dismissing them. He then stated the proposition made to him by the Duke of Portland, for the annual allowance of L100,000 to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. I gave to him, very much at length, my opinion of such a measure, and of the certain consequences of it: in all which, as may reasonably be supposed, His Majesty ran before me, and stated with strong disgust the manner in which it was opened to him—as a thing decided, and even drawn up in the shape of a message, to which his signature was desired as a matter of course, to be brought before Parliament the next day. His Majesty declared himself to be decided to resist this attempt, and to push the consequences to their full extent, and to try the spirit of the Parliament and of the people upon it. I thought it my duty to offer to him my humble advice to go on with his Ministers, if possible, in order to throw upon them the ratification of the Peace, which they professed to intend to ameliorate, and to give them scope for those mountains of reform, which would inevitably come very short of the expectations of the public. From these public measures, and from their probable dissension, I thought that His Majesty might look forward to a change of his Ministers in the autumn; and that, as the last resource, a dissolution of this Parliament, chosen by Lord North and occasionally filled by Mr. Fox, might offer him the means of getting rid of the chains which pressed upon him. To all this he assented; but declared his intention to resist, at all events and hazards, the proposition for this enormous allowance to His Royal Highness, of whose conduct he spoke with much dissatisfaction. He asked, what he might look to if upon this refusal the Ministry should resign: and I observed, that, not having had the opportunity of consulting my friends, I could only answer that their resignation was a proposition widely differing from their dismissal, and that I did not see the impossibility of accepting his Administration in such a contingency, provided the supplies and public bills were passed, so as to enable us to prorogue the Parliament. To all this he assented, and declared his intention of endeavouring to gain time, that the business of Parliament might go on; and agreed with me that such a resignation was improbable, and that it would be advisable not to dismiss them, unless some very particular opportunity presented itself.



1785.

The Breach Between the Marquis of Buckingham and Mr. Thomas Grenville.

Mr. Pitt's Government was now reaping all the advantages of peace and security. The lull that followed the termination of the American War and the dispersion of the Coalition, enabled the Minister to consolidate his power and develop his plans. Lord North, who had the misfortune not long afterwards to lose his eyesight, was receding from the arena on which he had acted so remarkable a part during the preceding fourteen years; and Mr. Fox and his adherents, returning again to their own natural orbit, were vindicating their integrity and consistency in the maintenance of a constitutional Opposition. Faction, weakened and dismembered, had fallen before the genius of Mr. Pitt.

The principal measure in the Cabinet in 1785 was a Bill for the reform of the representation in Parliament, by which Mr. Pitt proposed to transfer the franchises of thirty-six boroughs to counties and unrepresented towns. A clause in this Bill, for giving pecuniary compensation to the disfranchised boroughs, was fatal to its reception. Mr. Fox laid down the maxim, that the franchise was not a property, but a trust: the House adopted that view of the question, and the Bill was lost. But Mr. Pitt, nevertheless, discharged his pledge to the public by thus initiating the principle of parliamentary reform.

The Marquis of Buckingham still continued a passive spectator of public events, and the correspondence of this period possesses consequently little political interest. We learn by a letter from his brother, Mr. W. W. Grenville, that he had placed his proxy in the hands of Lord Camelford, who was so embarrassed by the responsibility, that he took counsel with Lord Sydney and Mr. Grenville as to the course he should follow in reference to a particular vote. Mr. Grenville, exercising his usual good sense and practical judgment, strongly recommended his Lordship to withdraw his proxy altogether, rather than to have it exposed to the chance of compromising his opinions.

The unhappy difference between the Marquis of Buckingham and his brother, Mr. Thomas Grenville, was not yet adjusted; and time seems only to have widened a breach which both deplored, and were equally anxious to remove. The proud feelings of the Marquis, wounded by the injustice with which he conceived he had been treated, were peculiarly sensitive to every act on the part of his friends that departed in the slightest degree from the line he had marked out for himself. Perhaps he expected from them more in this respect than the obligations of public life could be reasonably expected to concede; in this instance, at least, he appears to have exaggerated into a personal wrong a vote which was given on pure and independent grounds, without a suspicion that it was open to so injurious an interpretation. Mr. Thomas Grenville's letter on this painful subject is an honourable testimony alike to his integrity and his affection.

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

St. James's Street, Feb. 4th, 1785.

My dear Brother,

Anything that comes from you with the least prospect of bringing back to me those sentiments of affection which, in spite of any political differences, it has always been my first wish to keep alive between us; any intimation of your looking for a brother in one who has never ceased to be so to you; I cannot but be eager to express the pleasure and satisfaction I feel in receiving from you. And if I did not feel shocked and wounded by those expressions which ascribe to my vote motives so foreign to my nature, that I can scarce bear to read or repeat them, my hopes of living with you in the affectionate intercourse of a brother would have kept my attention to that pleasing prospect only, and would have shut my lips upon every past subject of difference. Can I really have to think that you are serious in considering me as having struck at your honour and your life by any vote that I have given? That such an expression can have come from you after a year's reflection, wounds me more than anything that could be said in the first moments of anger; and it is not against such a charge that I can argue to defend myself.

I cannot say with how much concern it is, that I have felt myself obliged to allude to anything that has passed, nor could I have been forced now to do it, was it not that to have said nothing upon a charge so cruel might have looked like acquiescing in the justice of it: of that vote I have always said, and God knows, always truly said, that I made in it no personal attack, felt in it nothing hostile to you, and regretted in it only the misrepresentation and misconception of others. I have said more, and still say, that the misunderstanding of that vote is so grievous to me, that, blameless as my motives were, I would not have given it, if I had thought it liable to the misrepresentations that have been made of it; yet, God knows, I thought it could be mistaken only by those who did not know me.

I return with pleasure, my dear brother, to that part of your note, in which I hope I find again the prospect of that near affectionate relation, the renewal of which on your part, my mind has ever been anxious for, and ever eager to bring about, from the first moment that political differences had separated us; for, upon political subjects, my mind receives no impression that can stop in it the feelings of relationship, kindness, and affection, all of which I will hope, my dearest brother, the latter words of your note again open the way to—a way in which I cannot too often repeat, how gladly and happily I should go forward in.

Ever your very affectionate brother, Thomas Grenville.

The following passage, in the Marquis of Buckingham's hand-writing, apparently cut out of a former letter to which the above is the reply, seems to contain the observations from which Mr. Thomas Grenville extracted the hope of reconciliation. It is enclosed in his letter as if it had been returned to the writer.

When you joined in the vote which impeached my honour, and possibly my life, you forgot the feelings of a brother, and dissolved the ties between us. I loathe the looking back, still less do I mean to reproach: my heart is still alive to those feelings which nature and religion dictate to me.

I have no false pride, and, therefore, have no conditions to propose to you. All that I look for is a brother; but in that word I comprehend all the sentiments of affection which I feel I discharged faithfully towards you till the moment of our separation. Consult your feelings, and God direct them.

In the next letter, Mr. W. W. Grenville communicates a scrap of political gossip to his brother.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Oakley, Sunday, August 9th, 1785.

My dear Brother,

Having just heard a most curious piece of news, I take the first moment of acquainting you with it, though, perhaps, you will have been informed of it through some other channel. It is no less than a sudden resolution taken by Wyndham of resigning his office, in consequence of an inflammatory fever with which he was seized at Oxford, on his way back to Dublin. Lord Northington's friends in London have undertaken very kindly to supply his loss, and have offered his secretaryship to Tom Pelham, who has accepted, and waits only for the form of being appointed by Lord Northington to the situation of his confidential Minister and friend.

Their Irish peers are Clements, Matthew, Jonson, Pomeroy, and Mr. Hutchinson; together with Deland, Pennant, and Pennington.

The wags say that this is the second voyage to the North Pole, in which Wyndham has stopped short. I own I think he has used his principal very ill, and himself not very well. The other's accepting is not much less extraordinary.

I should not be quite surprised if Lord Northington should follow his quondam Secretary's example. At any rate, conceive the confusion in which the country must now be, with the harvest, the election, and nothing like a Government; the Secretary not appointed, and the Lord-Lieutenant doing business on Thursdays, from twelve till two.

You see Hussy Burgh is not in the list. Should not you write him an ostensible letter on the subject?

I shall go to town in a day or two at furthest, and will write to you from thence.

Adieu, my dear brother, Ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.



1786.

Mr. W. W. Grenville Joins Mr. Pitt's Administration.

While the Marquis of Buckingham abstained from active participation in public business, he maintained the most friendly relations with Mr. Pitt, warmly supporting the Minister in all matters upon which his individual adhesion, advice, and local influence could add strength and character to his Administration. That he persevered, however, in cultivating the retirement he had chosen, in preference to throwing himself personally into the ocean of action, may be inferred from the following letter, which announces the accession of Mr. Grenville to the Government as Vice-President of the Committee of Trade.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, August 10th, 1786.

My dear Brother,

I said nothing to you in my last about going to Court, because, as everybody in town had gone on Friday, I did not think it material for you to come up, considering your distance; and I was unwilling to advise your putting yourself to any inconvenience of that sort, which did not appear to be absolutely necessary.

But yesterday's levee was fuller than Friday's, and crowded with all sorts of people, particularly the Opposition, who came from all quarters of the kingdom. This being the case, I cannot help thinking that you would do right to come up for the next levee, which is Friday next; the King keeping the Duke of York's birthday on Wednesday, at Windsor. I mentioned the subject to-day to Pitt, who seemed to think it very desirable that you should do this, as a mark of attention, in return for the many civilities which we have lately received from that quarter. As several places have addressed on the occasion, I think if you would bring up an address from the loyal corporation of Buckingham, it would be a sort of apology for your absence hitherto.

The Committee of Trade is to be declared that day in council. Lord Hawkesbury is to kiss hands as President, and your humble servant as Vice-President. Lord Hawkesbury also kisses hands for the Duchy, and Lord Clarendon for the Post-Office, in the room of Lord Tankerville, who goes out upon a sort of quarrel between him and Lord Cartaret. Mornington kisses hands to-morrow for the Treasury.

I believe these are all the arrangements that will now be made. The seat on the Bench is not yet disposed of, and from what I judged by the Chancellor's looks the other day, when I saw him at council, I very much fear that a more extensive law arrangement will soon be necessary. Lord Mansfield is also said to be worse again.

Adieu, my dear brother, Believe me ever most sincerely and affectionately yours, W. W. G.

That the weight of Lord Buckingham's opinions was strongly felt in the nomination of Mr. Grenville and others to office, is abundantly testified by a letter of the same date, in which Lord Mornington ascribes to the favourable recommendations of the Marquis his seat at the Treasury.

LORD MORNINGTON TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

August 10th, 1786.

My dear Lord,

I trouble you with this letter to inform you that Pitt has offered me the vacant seat at the Board of Treasury, and that I have accepted it: nothing could be more flattering or kind than the manner in which this offer was made; I will trouble you with the circumstances which attended it when I have the pleasure of seeing you. William Grenville's friendship has been exerted with its usual warmth and sincerity on this occasion; and I feel so strongly the effect of your former activity in my favour, that although your absence from town has prevented my applying to you on this occasion, yet I must attribute this, as I shall any future success, to the ground which you laid for me, and to the uniform assiduity with which you have supported my pretensions: therefore, although you have had no immediate concern (that I know) in this specific object, I must beg of you to accept a very large share of the gratitude which I feel to those who have promoted it for me. The Vice-Treasurerships, as I suppose you know, do not go to Ireland.

I hope to have the pleasure of paying my duty to you at Stowe, in the autumn; perhaps I may have the good fortune to see you sooner in town, as I hear that you are coming up with a loyal address. I beg my best compliments to Lady Buckingham.

Believe me, my dear Lord, Ever most sincerely your obliged and affectionate Mornington.

The "object," dimly and cautiously alluded to in the annexed letters, was that of a peerage, to which the high pretensions of Mr. W. W. Grenville justified him in looking forward; but which his prudence, holding his honourable ambition in check, made him desirous of postponing until he had won even greater distinction as a statesman than he had already attained.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Thursday, Dec. 12th, 1786.

My dear Brother,

You do not say a word in your letter of Apsley and his deer.

Sir William Bowyers' man has declined the clerkship for himself, and has no son old enough for it. I have a very handsome letter from Mulgrave, leaving the Wardrobe Keeper to my disposal. On inquiry, it appears to be worth at least L100 per annum, besides apartments in Chelsea, and coals and candles. But residence is absolutely necessary.

You will therefore judge what to do with it; but the Clerk's place must be filled up without further delay. I have allowed the widow of the Wardrobe Keeper to remain in the office till March; but if you decide on the man, I can, in order to prevent accidents, appoint him now to take possession in March. I mention this the rather as I fear that, to my great sorrow, I am going to have a new colleague, which I will explain to you in ten days, by which time I hope to be at Stowe. It gives me very real concern, because it is impossible for any man to have behaved in a more gentleman-like and friendly manner than Mulgrave has done on every occasion; and I fear his successor will have a clan upon him, but that is not settled.

You know my principal object: should I press to have it opened for me now? If I did, I believe it would be done; but I am so much pleased with my present situation, that I am unwilling to quit it so soon, especially as every year removes difficulties in the way of the other. Yet, perhaps, it is not prudent to let opportunities pass by one. On the other hand, I shall, I am confident, be able in the next session, by the help of my present situation, to put myself much more forward in the House than I have hitherto done, which appears to me a great object to attain, previous to accepting of what after all, I fear, will wear the appearance of putting myself hors de combat.

I am not in the same mind about it for any ten minutes together. Pray write something to me by the return of the post.

I am much grieved to hear so unpleasant an account of Lady Buckingham, but earnestly hope that what she goes through will be confined to suffering only, and that you will not be disappointed in an object so interesting to you both.

Nothing is yet known of law enactments, nor is it by any means certain that Lord Mansfield resigns during his life, which is, however, in all probability, no very long period.

Fawcitt will have the red riband with another person, who will surprise you.

What should you think of an arrangement to be settled now, and to take place at the opening of the session of 1788? The worst is, it would be known, which would be unpleasant to me in a thousand ways. I never had a point to decide which puzzled me so much. That very circumstance will probably make me pass it, as if I take any step, I must do it within a day or two at furthest. Pray write to me.

Ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.

If it is done in the manner I last mentioned, you must understand that it will be irrevocably fixed, as a positive engagement will be taken for my present office to be given at that time; so that if I alter my mind in 1788, I shall be an independent country gentleman.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, Dec. 21st, 1786.

My dear Brother,

I have nothing decisive to say to you on the subject which we discussed so much at Stowe, except that the particular arrangement, which we agreed to be in so many respects objectionable, certainly will not take place. My opinion is, that it will end in my remaining as I am till the other event happens, when it will be time enough to decide the question, which will then occur, either of my present situation continuing, or of the arrangement which you suggested instead of it, which I mentioned to Pitt, and which he seemed in many respects to like. The negotiation with respect to that other event has not yet been opened, but will immediately be so. The period must depend upon that person's wishes as well as mine; but mine, as far as they will have weight, are for the time which you seemed to prefer.

I do not know whether you will understand my hieroglyphics, but I hope to explain them to you some time next week, as Lord Harcourt and myself have, I think, nearly settled to take our holidays then.

We determined nothing about the Wardrobe Keeper. Lord Grimstone has been written to about Hepburne's arrangement, but we have no answer yet. This need not, however, delay any decision which you may take about the other, which I am very anxious to settle before the clannism takes place,

Adieu, my dear brother, Ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.



1787.

The Dawn of Free Trade—The Assembly of Notables—Affairs of Holland—Arthur Wellesley—The Marquis of Buckingham Assumes the Government of Ireland for the Second Time.

Looking back upon the acts of past administrations, with a view to the influence they exercised over the policy of their successors to the present time, perhaps the most important measure introduced at this period by Mr. Pitt was a commercial treaty with France, which may be regarded as the first recognition by an English Minister of the principles of Free Trade. Mr. Fox maintained that France was the natural enemy of England, and that it was useless to attempt to veil the rivalry of the two countries under commercial regulations. Mr. Pitt, on the other hand, urged that it was their mutual interest to liberate their commerce; and that if France obtained a market by this treaty of eight millions of people for her wines and other productions, England profited still more largely by gaining a market for her manufactures of twenty-four millions.

The general principle of this treaty was to admit a mutual exportation and importation of commodities, at a low ad valorem duty. The Opposition made great head against it in the House of Commons, but it was finally carried by a majority of 76. Curiously enough, the treaty was negotiated by Mr. Eden, who had held the office of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland under the Coalition, and who was the first person to break away from that heterogeneous confederacy, and ally himself with Mr. Pitt. His defection was the more memorable from the fact, that the Coalition is said to have originated with him; at all events, he divides the credit of the project with Mr. Burke. Distinguished by his zeal and activity, Mr. Eden was soon afterwards raised to the peerage, under the title of Baron Auckland.

While this reciprocity treaty was in progress, the finances of France were reduced to such a state of derangement by a system of corruption and profligate expenditure, as to call for some strong and universal measure of redemption. The famous Convention of Notables was the remedial project suggested by that able but speculative financier, M. de Calonne, who had succeeded M. Necker as Minister of Finance. This assembly, by royal authority, of all the considerable persons in the kingdom, excited some curiosity in England. What was thought of it in the ministerial circles may be gathered from a passage in a letter from Mr. W. W. Grenville to Lord Buckingham, dated the 8th of January.

A resolution has been taken by the French Government, and declared by the King in his council, which occasions a good deal of speculation. It is no less than the calling an Assemblee generale, who are to consist of archbishops, bishops, nobles, and deputies from the different parliaments, &c., to the number of one hundred and fifty-nine. They are to meet at Versailles, I think in the course of next month. It is not yet declared what is to be proposed to them. But I think it probable that they will be to deliberate on two great plans which the Government have in contemplation; one for abolishing all the internal custom-houses, and the other for reducing all the import duties universally to duties from 12 per cent to 1/4 per cent, ad valorem according to certain classes. Besides this, it is probable that the state of their finances is such as to require very strong measures, both to provide for the existing debt, and to make up any deficiencies arising from either of these plans, and that Calonne thinks that he will be safer in obtaining the sanction of such an Assembly as this. His friends give out, that it is at his earnest entreaty that this measure is adopted. You will probably agree with me in thinking it a hazardous one.