Farmer George Volume Ii Part 5

[109] _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times._

[110] _Memoirs of George III._

However, Wraxall was, perhaps, not wrong in his belief that George III was sustained by "conviction, sense of public duty and religion," as at a first reading might be supposed. "In all that related to his kingly office he was the slave of deep-rooted selfishness; and no feeling of a kindly nature was ever allowed access to his bosom whenever his power was concerned, either in its maintenance, or in the manner of exercising it," Brougham has written. "The instant that his prerogative was concerned, and his bigotry interfered with, or his will thwarted, the most unbending pride, the most bitter animosity, the most calculating coldness of heart, the most unforgiving resentment, took possession of his whole breast, and swayed it by turns. The habits of friends.h.i.+p, the ties of blood, the dictates of conscience, the rules of honesty were alike forgotten; and the fury of the tyrant with the resources of a cunning which mental alienation is supposed to whet, were ready to circ.u.mvent or to destroy all who interposed an obstacle to the fierceness of unbridled desire."[111] Doubtless George did his duty according to his lights, with indomitable spirit, contending with unflinching courage as readily against the greatest as the weakest of his ministers. He certainly believed it was the right of a King to govern, and his narrow understanding coupled with an obstinate disposition made him hold that to achieve this any methods were justifiable.

[111] _Historical Sketches of Statesmen._

The greatest misfortune was that, while George III acquired a thorough acquaintance with the duties of each of the departments of state, there his knowledge ended. He knew how things should be done: never what to do; and the pity of it was that his ambition was not confined within the range of his abilities. He insisted upon being consulted in all matters, which was right and proper. "Not a step was taken in foreign, colonial, or domestic affairs, that he did not form his opinion upon it, and exercise his influence over it. The instructions to amba.s.sadors, the orders to governors, the movements of forces down to marching of a single battalion in the districts of this country, the appointments to all office in church and state, not only the giving away of judges.h.i.+ps, bishoprics, regiments, but the subordinate promotions, lay and clerical."[112] All these are the topics of his letters, only unfortunately on all these matters "his opinion is p.r.o.nounced decisively; on all his will is declared peremptorily."[113] When all England was troubled by the reverses of the American war the sovereign was exercising his wits upon the appointment of a Scotch puisne judge and a Dean of Worcester, or was busy drawing up the march of a troop from Buckinghams.h.i.+re into Yorks.h.i.+re. If only he had confined himself to such matters!

[112] _Historical Sketches of Statesmen._

[113] _Ibid._

"I know he was a constant consort; own He was a decent sire, and middling lord.

All this is much, and most upon a throne; As temperance, if at Apicius' board, Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown.

I grant him all the kindest can accord.

And this was well for him, but not for those Millions who found him what Oppression chose."[114]

[114] Byron: _The Vision of Judgment_.

North as a High Tory was prepared on taking office to carry out the King's policy so long as he could approve of it and even so long as he could abstain from active disapproval; but unfortunately for his reputation he remained in office and acted as the King's spokesman long after affairs were directed in a manner contrary to the dictates of his own conscience. "Submission in the Closet and corruption in the Commons"

were, according to Sir George Trevelyan, the watchwords of the Prime Minister; and this indictment cannot be contravened. In mitigation of sentence however, it may be urged that it was made very difficult for him to withdraw from office. "I certainly did not come into office by my own desire," he declared in the House of Commons. "Had I my wish, I would have quitted it a hundred times; but as to my resigning now, look at the transactions of this day, and say whether it is possible for a man with a grain of spirit, with a grain of sense, to think of withdrawing from the service of his King and his country at such a moment. Unhappy that I am, that moment finds me in this situation; and there are but two ways in which I can now cease to be minister;--by the will of my sovereign, which I shall be ready to obey; or by the pleasure of the gentlemen now at our doors, when they shall be able to do a little more than they have done this day."

Again and again the Prime Minister resigned, only to be implored not to desert his master. Many writers have spoken of North's fondness for office as the reason for his remaining at the head of affairs, but his indolence and the King's appeals to his compa.s.sion were two powerful reasons for his continuing to hold the post of Prime Minister. His position, indeed, was no bed of roses, for he was the last man in the world to find pleasure in unpopularity. "In all my memory," he said pathetically, "I do not remember a single popular measure I ever voted for;" and the truth of this remark is patent to all who are acquainted with the conduct of the affairs of state at this time, for the minister shared, or at least supported, the mistakes of the King. "To those who can for a moment forget the misfortunes which the perversity of George III entailed upon his country, there is an element of the comical in the roundness and vehemence with which he invariably declared himself upon the wrong side in a controversy," Sir George Trevelyan has put the situation admirably. "Whether he was predicting that the publication of debates would 'annihilate the House of Commons, and thus put an end to the most excellent form of government which has been established in this kingdom;' or denouncing the 'indecency' of a well-meaning senator who had protested against the double impropriety of establis.h.i.+ng state lotteries, and then using them as an engine for bribing Members of Parliament; or explaining the reluctance of an a.s.sembly of English gentlemen and landowners to plunder the Duke of Portland of his estate by the theory that there was no 'truth, justice, and even honour' among them; he displayed an inability to tolerate, or even to understand, any view but his own, which can only be accounted for by the reflection that he was at the same time a partisan and a monarch. He could never forgive a politician for taking the right course, unless it was taken from a wrong motive." The fact of the matter was that the King was always to be found in arms against liberty.

"He ever warred with freedom and the free Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes, So that they uttered the word 'Liberty!'

Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose History was ever stained as his will be With national and individual woes?"[115]

[115] Byron: _The Vision of Judgment_.

He was against Wilkes, naturally enough against "Junius," he took an active interest in fostering opposition to the "Nullum Tempus" Bill, the object of which was to protect the subjects against dormant claims of the Crown, and he treated America like a wayward child.

"He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old: Look to the state in which he found his realm, And left it; and his annals too behold, How to a minion first he gave the helm: How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold, The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance Thine eye along America and France."[116]

[116] _Ibid._

Mistake after mistake was made by the King and his government, not the least serious of which was the persecution of Admiral Keppel. When it became known that a treaty had been entered into between America and France, Keppel was sent, in June, 1777, to watch the French coast. He discovered a large French fleet at Brest ready to set sail, and returned to Portsmouth for reinforcements. Both fleets put to sea on July 9, and sighted each other a fortnight later, when the enemy was unwilling to fight, and Keppel with a force still inferior could not force an engagement until the 27th inst. off Ushant. Much damage was done to both sides, and the fleets drew off for repairs, but when the signal was given to renew, Sir Hugh Palliser was either unable or unwilling to obey, and his delay enabled the French to escape. Keppel screened his second-in-command, but rumour could not be stilled, and letters appeared in the newspapers making serious allegations against Palliser, who demanded from his superior officer a complete vindication, which the latter declined to give. The matter was brought up in the House of Commons at the beginning of December, and there ensued an angry debate in which Palliser charged Keppel with misconduct. Keppel was a member of the Opposition, and though he had been informed in 1776 that his services might be required, no notice was taken of him at Court in the interval. Indeed, as he afterwards remarked, his "forty years'

endeavours were not marked by the possession of any one favour from the Crown except that of its confidence in time of danger."[117] Keppel was court-martialled, and the Court sat from January 7, 1779, for thirty-two days; amidst great public excitement. Though, to a great extent, the affair had been made a party question, Keppel had more than political support, for a memorial signed by twelve admirals was presented to the King by the Duke of Bolton,[118] in which they remarked on the impropriety of the Board of Admiralty sanctioning charges made by "their colleague in office" against his commander, and pointing out that, if such a practice be countenanced, it would not be easy for men attentive to their honour to serve his Majesty, particularly in situations of princ.i.p.al command.[119]

[117] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.

[118] Harry Powlett, sixth Duke of Bolton--the "Captain Whiffle" of _Roderick Random_.

[119] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds_

ADMIRAL THE HON. AUGUSTUS KEPPEL

_To face p. 94, Vol. II_]

The news of Keppel's acquittal arrived in London on February 11 between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, and before an hour had elapsed nearly every house in the metropolis was illuminated. The windows of the mansions of Lord North and Lord George Germaine were broken, the Admiralty was attacked, Palliser was hung in effigy, his house broken into, and his furniture carried into St. James's Square, and there burned by an angry, excited mob. "If you had any doubts about the truth of the accounts of the trial of Admiral Keppel, I suppose you will hardly credit the enthusiasm that has seized England and Ireland about him," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on March 9, 1779, "and yet nothing is more true than the general and wild joy that has animated all ranks of people. What a flattering thing it is to obtain much more than a Roman triumph _merely_ for being an honest man, and a just, brave and humane officer, whose conduct has won him the hearts of a whole fleet, of a whole kingdom. How much more glorious is such a triumph than the pomp of war and all its melancholy honours. It is impossible not to envy him."[120]

[120] Lady Sarah Lennox: _Life and Letters_.

After this the King regarded Keppel as his personal enemy, and, as we have said, used his influence against the Admiral when he stood as parliamentary candidate for Windsor in 1779. A certain silk-mercer, a stout Keppelite, would subsequently mimic the King's peculiar voice and manner as his Majesty entered his shop and muttered in his hurried way: "The Queen wants a gown--wants a gown. No Keppel!--no Keppel! What, what, what!" Keppel lost the election, but the King paid heavily for his victory. "With all due respect to his Majesty I say it, but in my opinion he has hurt himself a great deal more than he has hurt the admiral in using his influence and authority to make him lose Windsor,"

Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on September 22, 1780. "A seat in _this_ Parliament and in _these_ times is no such very valuable privilege as to break an honest man's heart if he loses it, particularly when, as at Windsor, the electors come to him with the most affected countenances saying, 'Sir, we honour, we esteem, we love you, we wish you were our member, but our bread depends upon our refusing you our votes; we are ordered to go against you, and you are too good to wish us ruined by his Majesty's anger.' ... There are strange reports about all the underhand and indeed some _open_ ways used to force the Windsor people to vote against him."[121]

[121] Lady Sarah Lennox: _Life and Letters_.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ROYAL FAMILY

The troubles of George III were not exclusively the result of his incursions into politics, for he had much worry in connexion with most of his brothers and sisters, sometimes through their fault and sometimes through the circ.u.mstances in which they were placed. Exclusive of his heir, Frederick, Prince of Wales, left behind him six children. His youngest son, Frederick William, died in 1765 at the age of fifteen; "an amiable youth and the most promising, it was thought, of the family. The hereditary disorder in his blood had fallen on his lungs and turned to a consumption."[122] A daughter, Louisa Anne, fell a victim to the same disease three years later; but this was a happy release, for, afflicted with bodily disease from her infancy, she was so remarkably small for her age that though she had completed her nineteenth year, she looked like a child of about thirteen.[123] There remained the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and c.u.mberland, and the Princesses Augusta and Caroline Matilda.

[122] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.

[123] _Ibid._

The Princes probably inherited from their father a love of pleasure, and this had doubtless been quickened by the restrictions imposed upon them when they were in the custody of the Princess Dowager. She kept them in such rigid durance that when Prince Henry, a lively lad, was asked if he had been confined with the epidemic cold, he replied: "Confined, that I am, but without any cold." It was, therefore, only to be expected that as soon as the boys could escape from leading-strings, they would kick over the traces, and plunge gaily and unthinkingly into all the pleasures that await princes in this world.

Edward Augustus, afterwards Duke of York, as the eldest of the brothers, was the first to secure his liberty. "Sir Charles [Hanbury Williams]'s daughter, Lady Ess.e.x,[124] has engaged the attention of Prince Edward, who has got his liberty, seems extremely disposed to use it, and has great life and good-humour; she has already made a ball for him,"

Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann in January, 1757, when the Prince was eighteen; and soon William Henry, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Frederick, Duke of c.u.mberland, made their bow to society, and became much in evidence. "Every place is like one of Shakespeare's plays: Enter the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and attendants."

[124] Charlotte, Countess of Ess.e.x.

The Duke of York was of an amorous disposition and at an early age had love pa.s.sages with the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond,[125] with Lady Stanhope,[126] and with the Countess of Tyrconnel, of the last of whom Wraxall has left a description: "my particular acquaintance, feminine and delicate as her figure, very fair, with a profusion of light hair."[127] The Duke was further said to be engaged to that Lady Mary c.o.ke of whom Lady Temple wrote:

"She sometimes laughs, but never loud, She's handsome, too, but sometimes proud.

At court she bears away the bell, She dresses fine and figures well; With decency she's gay and airy; Who can this be but Lady Mary?"

And Lady Mary was said to have taken his intentions so seriously that now and then, in the belief that she was married to him, she signed her name like a royal personage.[128] "The Duke of York has 3,000 a year added to his income, which makes it 15,000," said Lady Sarah Lennox in December, 1764. "He is in great spirits and has begun giving b.a.l.l.s." He drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs, but found death in the pleasant draught. He went abroad in 1767, caught cold at a ball given by the Duc de Villars at his country seat, and, refusing to take care of himself, became ill, and died at Monaco on September 17.

[125] Wife of Charles, third Duke of Richmond.

[126] Wife of Sir William Stanhope.

[127] _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times._ "Her husband, the Earl of Tyrconnel, might be said to contribute about this time more than any n.o.bleman about the court to the recreation of the reigning family, for, while his wife formed the object of the homage of one prince of the blood, his sister, had long presided in the affections of another. Lady Almeria Carpenter, one of the most beautiful women of her time, but to whom Nature had been sparing of intellectual gifts, was the person that attracted the Duke of Gloucester, who soon forgot all he had gone through for his wife."

[128] _Letters of Lady Jane c.o.ke._

"His immoderate pursuit of pleasure and unremitted fatigues in travelling beyond his strength, succeeded without interruption by b.a.l.l.s and entertainments, had thrown his blood, naturally distempered and full of humours, into a state that brought on a putrid and irresistible fever," Walpole wrote. "He suffered considerably, but with a heroism becoming a great Prince. Before he died he wrote a penitential letter to the King (though, in truth, he had no faults but what his youth made pardonable), and tenderly recommended his servants to him. The Prince of Monaco, though his favourite child was then under inoculation at Paris, remained with and waited on him to his last breath, omitting nothing that tenderness could supply or his royal birth demand. The Duke of York had lately pa.s.sed some time in the French Court, and by the quickness of his replies, by his easy frankness, and (in him) unusual propriety of conduct, had won much on the affection of the King of France, and on the rest of the Court, though his loose and perpetually rolling eyes, his short sight, and the singular whiteness of his hair, which, the French said, resembled feathers, by no means bespoke prejudice in his favour.

His temper was good, his generosity royal, and his parts not defective: but his inarticulate loquacity and the levity of his conduct, unsupported by any countenance from the King, his brother, had conspired to place him but low in the estimation of his countrymen. As he could obtain no credit from the King's unfeeling nature, he was in a situation to do little good; as he had been gained by the Opposition, he might have done hurt--at least so much to the King that his death was little lamented. Nor can we judge whether more years and experience would have corrected his understanding or corrupted his heart, nor whether, which is most probable, they would not have done both."[129]