Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third Volume II Part 8

W. YOUNG.

Six o'clock.

SIR WILLIAM YOUNG TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Tuesday, Dec. 23rd, 1788.

MY DEAR LORD,

Never did any debate of nice discussion go off better in our eye than that of last night: never was I more agreeably surprised than by the result--having gained nine on our former majority. The House was thinner by forty at twelve at night, than the debate before at three in the morning. The s.h.i.+rkers I alluded to may now come in, and we may augur our future divisions to be yet stronger and more decisive: our rats having all shown their tails on last night's motion to address the Prince.

Sir John Aubrey, rat-major, receiving his emoluments of the Treasury for five years, and declaring himself unconnected with any, afforded a subject of general laugh. Master Popham, Sir Samuel Hurmery, James Macpherson, W.G. Hamilton, &c., &c., followed the ill.u.s.trious Aubrey. Fox, after Pitt's reply, and his own rejoinder, paired off with Stevens of the Admiralty. The Marquis of Lansdowne's friends, Barre, &c., were with us. Masham, voting for the Address, declared himself not precluded thereby from voting for limitations. Drake, on the same head, not to preclude himself, left the House. We shall, therefore, have those _two_. Sir John Scott spoke with such learning, truth, and uncommon energy of reasoning and language, that he carried the House with him, and extorted from Lord North, in particular, the highest compliments ever paid to a lawyer in the House of Commons. I never heard Fox speak so temperately, or better, in point of argument. Pitt, in reply, was equally great. He stated, to conviction, "the fiction of the law, which admitted the application of the royal political authority, when the personal was disabled, as implicated in the very principles of hereditary succession, which otherwise would suffer interruption from nonage, infirmity, dotage, and every contingency in the state of man." Sheridan spoke very ill: very hot, injudicious, and _ill-heard_. Rolle, whilst adverting to Sheridan's speech, made use of a remarkable expression, and which seems to hint some future acting up to the rumours of his purpose. He said that in proper time, "He should heartily vote for the Prince's being Regent, _if_ the Prince had done no act by which he had forfeited pretensions to executive government in this country."

Our resolutions being carried to the Lords, in conference this day, on Friday next the Lords will debate thereon. Lords Townshend, Romney, Radnor, and many other occasional opponents, I understand to be decidedly with us on the second Whig resolution.

In speaking of our debate, I had forgot Burke, who, after I finished my last night's letter, finished his wild speech in a manner next to madness. He let out two of the new t.i.tles--Fitzwilliam to be Marquis of Rockingham, and Lord G.

Cavendish, jun. His party pulled him, and our friends calling "Hear, hear," we lost the rest of the twenty-five new Peers, who would all have come out.

For the King's health, the world is yet in expectation of some crisis. The St. James's notes of last night "quiet," or "unquiet,"

are disregarded, as too general, or as of course; and accounts from ladies about the Queen, and from the physicians themselves, pa.s.s in the greater circles, still mentioning violent intermitting fevers, and profuse occasional perspirations. Having generally, in my last, stated that the faculty had conspired to render the public less sanguine, I mention to _your Lords.h.i.+p only_ what T. Warner, above seventy years of age, and forty years first surgeon of Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals, told me, "Being at the head of these city hospitals, he has been often called in to meet the physicians of Bethlem, where a surgeon for scalping, &c., was required, and that a madness after fifty, without a clear a.s.signable cause--and that cause to be reached by surgery or medicine--did not admit a perfect recovery above one time in an hundred." The opinions of many others of the faculty are bandied about; but, as matter of conversation for your private ear, I give this particular one as authentically coming to my own knowledge.

You'll observe in this day's papers, a meeting advertised of the bankers. It is understood to be for the purpose of tendering W.

Pitt, on his going out of office, a transfer of 3000 per annum, Bank Stock, or a princ.i.p.al of 50,000, in the name of the commercial world.

Adieu, my dear Lord. Health and prosperity be yours, and be a.s.sured that you have no one more devotedly attached than your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant,

W. YOUNG.

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

Whitehall, Dec. 23rd, 1788.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

I received this morning your letter of the 18th; but am so much engaged to-day that it is impossible for me to enter into it, which I will, if possible, do to-morrow. I write now only to press again, in the strongest manner, that you will get Fitzgibbon and Wolfe to state all the particulars of the case, particularly as to the form of the enrolment of your patent under the Irish Great Seal, and to give you their opinions and arguments upon it. I will then take care to know Kenyon's sentiments on that paper, and if I can, the Chancellor's; but you are not ignorant of the bias of his mind, which is, on all occasions, to consider the relative situation of the two kingdoms, not such as it is, but such as it was, and as he thought it should have remained. My idea of your tie by no means went to your pledging yourself to do any act so contrary to your duty and feelings, as the recommending from the throne, in Ireland, a form of Regency varying one iota from that adopted here.

On the contrary, I think you should give it explicitly to be understood, that everything in your power will be done to preserve entire this link of connection. And under this explanation only, do I think you ought to offer the proposed alternative.

I say nothing of our triumph last night. You will hear it from other quarters; and you will probably be able to judge of its extent, by knowing the confidence with which the enemy looked to gaining upon us on this occasion. It is, I think, now quite certain that we shall carry our restrictions.

Ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.

Another letter upon the Irish difficulty, into which Mr. Grenville enters in elaborate detail:

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

Whitehall, Dec. 25th, 1788.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

I am extremely anxious that you should lose no time in transmitting over to England an exact statement of the case respecting your commission, and of the points and arguments on which your lawyers ground their opinions, in order that they may be well considered here by those who are interested in your situation and character, as deeply and as warmly as Pitt and myself. You mention in your last, that it has occurred to you, that it would be right _if you are_ intemperately removed to desire the opinion of our judges on the point. But you do not seem to consider that, whenever that case occurs, you may have to decide _on the moment_, either to quit your Government, and to swear in the new Lord-Lieutenant, or to hold it against him, in contradiction to the orders of English Government.

Suppose he should himself be the messenger of his own appointment, as was the case with the Duke of Portland. The same reason exactly exists for it now as before, namely, the fear of suffering the dismissed Lord-Lieutenant to meet the Parliament, especially in a moment when their conduct is so important. The best and, indeed, almost only security that you could have in such a case for the justification of your own conduct, whatever it might be, would be the having given a full previous intimation to the English Government of the difficulties and dangers of the case.

You say that I should feel myself at liberty to act for you on the pressure of any unforeseen case. I certainly should; and my confidence in your affection, and in your persuasion of my desire to do the best for you, would encourage me to take, if it were absolutely necessary, steps even of considerable delicacy and difficulty. But I cannot but be infinitely anxious, as far as possible, to be previously in possession of your ideas on every case that can be foreseen. Besides this, I am at present unable to do the precise thing which I think would be the most desirable, because I am not myself in possession of the particular forms of your commission's pa.s.sing in England and in Ireland, so as to be able to state them to others. And yet this is the point on which, in one view of the case, the whole question turns. I confess that, in my own individual opinion, there is another point distinct from that of forms, on which I should be disposed to maintain the incompetence of any English revocation of your commission. It is this:

_We_ (that is Pitt and his friends) hold and have persuaded Parliament to declare that, in such a case as the present, the right of providing for the emergency rests in the two Houses, not as branches of the Legislature, but as a full and free representative of all the orders and cla.s.ses of the people of Great Britain. Now the moment that we admit this, we do it on the ground of this being a case unprovided for. If it is so in England, it is unquestionably equally unprovided for in Ireland; and the right of making such provision must of necessity rest in the same manner in the Lords and Commons of England. There is this difference, that here the Parliament could not be legally opened, unless the Lord Chancellor had taken upon himself to put the Great Seal to a commission for that purpose, whereas your commission enables you (as I understand) generally to open and hold Parliament. But even in your case, it seems to me to be a doubt whether you can regularly do this without having received the King's pleasure for it, and whether your opening the Parliament in such circ.u.mstances is not an act very much of the same nature as the Chancellor's would have been if he had sealed such a commission.

In the same view of the subject, I should most earnestly deprecate your taking upon yourself to issue a further prorogation. Surely, under such circ.u.mstances as the present, the two Houses should themselves decide, and not any individual for them, whether it is expedient or not to proceed to any business. My clear and decided opinion on that subject is, that you should go down on the day of meeting, and state the circ.u.mstances of the case, saying that you have ordered the several examinations of the physicians before Council and before the two Houses here, to be laid before the two Houses. Your Ministers should then, upon that, propose to adjourn to a further day, on the ground of its not being known (as it cannot then be known) what form will be adopted here, and of its being, at all events, desirable that they should be in possession of that fact before they deliberate, especially as the Government may go on in the interval without inconvenience.

If you see no objection to this, it is, I think, high time that you should write an official letter, stating all the circ.u.mstances of the situation, and that your intention is, unless you should be informed that it appears to His Majesty's servants to be improper, &c., to meet the Parliament on the 20th, for the purpose which I have stated.

It is excessively important that you should, at the same time, transmit, either publicly or privately, such a case as I have mentioned, considering the subject in the two points of view: first, with respect to the particular forms; and secondly, to the question, how far any difference in point of form can preclude the Parliament of Ireland from the exercise of the same substantive right as that which we have declared to vest in us under the existing circ.u.mstances.

I have great doubts of the propriety of what you mention of an address of the two Houses to empower you to give the royal a.s.sent to any Bills, because that would prematurely, as it seems to me, bring into discussion the great question of all--namely, how far the Lords and Commons of Ireland have the right, either of commanding the use of the _English Great Seal_, or of superseding its use, in an instance in which _that_, and the concurrence of the _English Council_, are fundamental points of the present const.i.tution of Ireland. I am quite sure that the safest of all things will be the adjournment; and I think it very improbable that such a proposal can be opposed, as it must extremely fall in with the wishes of the party who are looking to the Government immediately after the pa.s.sing the English Bill. I have no means of knowing or guessing at General Pitt's intentions, but should think they can be no other than _royal_.

You could surely find no difficulty in pledging the servants of Government in Ireland to the adjournment; because it can so clearly be argued not to preclude any future opinion on the subject, and still less to pledge anybody to the adoption of the English system; but only shows the opinion of the Irish Parliament, that a knowledge of the system adopted here, is a point which they wish should enter into their deliberations respecting Ireland.

I am much amused with the circ.u.mstance of Lord Sh. and Lord T.

having sent their proxies, as it has answered no other purpose but that of pledging them; for it now seems to be agreed, that no use can be made of proxies in a case where the Parliament does not legally meet, but is rather to be considered as an extraordinary a.s.sembly of the same persons who const.i.tute the two Houses of Parliament. It is something more than a Convention, and something less than a Parliament.

Our triumph here is very great. The indignation of the two Princes is, by what I hear, beyond all measure or bounds. The steadiness of the House of Commons on this occasion is no bad lesson to them, and I believe they will long remember it.

Ever yours, W. W. G.

In the House of Peers, Ministers did not come off so triumphantly. Lord Bulkeley communicates the result, and enumerates the _rats_.

LORD BULKELEY TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Dec. 27th, 1788.

MY DEAR LORD,

We divided last night at half-past twelve; our majority was 33, the members being 99 to 66, which in the House of Peers was certainly a large minority. The rat Peers were Duke of Queensbury, Marquis of Lothian, Bishop Watson, Lord Malmesbury, Earl of Abergavenny, Lord Chedworth, Lord Audley, Lord Eglinton; and all of the armed neutrality, who are: Duke of Northumberland, Lord Rawdon, Lord Selkirk, Lord Breadalbane, Lord Hawke, Lord Kinnaird, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Huntingdon; Lord Lonsdale absent; Lord Lansdowne with us, and spoke better than I ever heard him in my life, fewer flourishes, and less rhodomontade. The Chancellor spoke incomparably; and did give it Lord Loughborough and Lord Rawdon most completely, particularly the former, who felt it. We are in good spirits, for we fall with _eclat_, and high in public estimation. I have no time to add more; but that I am yours affectionately,

B.

The Opposition are in great hopes of a _riot_ in the Irish Parliament.

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

Whitehall, Dec. 28th, 1788.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

The messenger carries with him, as usual, the account received to-day from Kew. I do not know that I have anything material to write in addition to my former letters. I stated to you on Friday, at length, the strong objections which both Pitt and myself feel against your idea of proroguing the Parliament. If any accident should detain that letter till after you receive this, I hope you will take no step of that sort till you have received that letter, and seriously considered the nature of our objections, which seem to me to be of the utmost importance.

The belief that the Prince of Wales will certainly accept seems to gain ground. It is most probable that we shall be enabled to speak with more certainty on this subject in the course of to-morrow, as a letter is to be written to him to-day by the Ministers, stating the outlines of their plan. It will not materially differ from what I originally stated to you. Peerages, grants for life (with the necessary exceptions), and reversions, are to be restricted for a certain time, which will be about a year and a half. This time is fixed in consequence of what you will observe in the evidence both of Willis and Addington, who both state the recovery as infinitely, and beyond all calculation, less probable if it does not take place within that time. Some line is to be drawn with respect to the King's household, but what that shall be is the subject of this morning's deliberation. It is a point of delicacy and difficulty.

The entire custody, management, and government of the King's person; the appointment, &c., of his physicians, and the regulation of his actual family, &c., is to be vested in the Queen, with the advice of a Council, to be named and removable by her. The idea of a Council of Regency to a.s.sist the Prince, but to be removable by him, seems to be given up.