The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 41

Letter 191 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Arlington Street, Feb. 6, 1764. (page 279)

You have, I hope, long before this, my dear lord, received the immense letter that I sent you by old Monin. It explained much, and announced most part of which has already happened; for you will observe that when I tell you any thing, very positively, it is on good intelligence. I have another much bigger secret for you, but that will be delivered to you by word of mouth. I am not a little impatient for the long letter you promised me. In the mean time thank you for the account you give me of the King's extreme civility to you. It is like yourself, to dwell on that, and to say little of M. de Chaulnes's dirty behaviour; but Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy have told your brother and me all the particulars.

I was but too good a prophet when I warned you to expect new extravagances from the Due de Chaulnes's son. Some weeks ago he lost five hundred pounds to one Virette, an equivocal being, that you remember here. Paolucci, the Modenese minister, who is not in the odour of honesty, was of the party. The Duc de Pecquigny said to the latter, "Monsieur, ne jouez plus avec lui, si vous n''etes pas de moiti'e." So far was very well. On Sat.u.r.day at the Maccaroni Club(461) (which is composed of all the travelled young men, men who wear long curls and spying-gla.s.ses,) they played again: the Duc lost, but not Much. In the pa.s.sage at the Opera, the Duc saw Mr. Stuart talking to Virette, and told the former that Virette was a coquin, a fripon, etc. etc. Virette retired, saying only, "Voil'a un fou." The Duc then desired Lord Tavistock to come and see him fight Virette, but the Marquis desired to be excused. After the Opera, Virette went to the Duc's lodgings, but found him gone to make his complaint to Monsieur de Guerchy, whither he followed him; and farther this deponent knoweth not. I pity the Count (de Guerchy,) who is one of the best-natured amiable men in the world, for having this absurd boy upon his hands!

Well! now for a little politics. The Cider-bill(462) has not answered to the minority, though they ran the ministry hard;(463) but last Friday was extraordinary. George Grenville was pushed upon some Navy bills; I don't understand a syllable, you know of money and accounts; but whatever was the matter,(464) he was driven from entrenchment to entrenchment by Baker,(465) and Charles Townshend. After that affair was over, and many gone away, Sir W. Meredith moved for the depositions on which the warrant against Wilkes had been granted. The ministers complained of the motion being made so late In the day; called it a surprise; and Rigby moved to adjourn, which was carried but by 73 to 60. Had a surprise been intended, one may imagine the minority would have been better provided with numbers; but it certainly had not been concerted: however, a majority, shrunk to thirteen, frightened them out of the small senses they possess.

heaven, earth, and the treasury, were moved to recover their ground to-day, when the question was renewed. For about two hours the debate hobbled on very lamely, when on a sudden your brother rose, and made such a speech(466)--but I wish any body was to give you the account except me, whom you will think partial: but you will hear enough of it, to confirm any thing I can say. Imagine fire, rapidity, argument, knowledge, wit, ridicule, grave, spirit; all pouring like a torrent, but without clas.h.i.+ng. Imagine the House in a tumult of continued applause imagine the ministers thunderstruck; lawyers abashed and almost blus.h.i.+ng, for it was on their quibbles and evasions he fell most heavily, at the same time answering a whole session of arguments on the side of the court. No, it was unique; you can neither conceive it, nor the exclamations it occasioned. Ellis, the forlorn hope, Ellis presented himself in the gap, till the ministers could recover themselves, when on a sudden Lord George Sackville led up the Blues;(467) spoke with as much warmth as your brother had, and with great force continued the attack which he had begun. Did not I tell you he would take this part? I was made privy to it; but this is far from all you are to expect.

Lord North in vain rumbled about his mustard-bowl, and endeavoured alone to outroar a whole party: him and Forrester, Charles Townshend took up, but less well than usual. His jealousy of your brother's success, which was very evident, did not help him to s.h.i.+ne. There were several other speeches, and, upon the whole, it was a capital debate; but Plutus is so much more persuasive an orator than your brother or Lord George, that we divided but 122 against 217. Lord Strange, who had agreed to the question, did not dare to vote for it, and declared off; and George Townshend who had actually voted for it on Friday, now voted against it. well! upon the whole, I heartily wish this administration may last: both their characters and abilities are so contemptible, @at I am sure we can be in no danger from prerogative when trusted to such hands!

Before I have done with Charles Townshend, I must tell you one of his admirable bon-mots. Miss Draycote,(468) the great fortune, is grown very fat: he says her tonnage is become equal to her poundage.

There is the devil to pay in Nabob-land, but I understand Indian histories no better than stocks. The council rebelled against the governors and sent a deputation, the Lord knows why, to the Nabob, who cut off the said deputies' heads, and then, I think, was disnabob'd himself, and Clive's old friend reinstated. There is another rebellion in Minorca, where Johnson [has renounced his allegiance to viceroy d.i.c.k Lyttelton, and set up for himself.

Sir Richard has laid the affair before the King and council; Charles Townshend first, and then your brother, (you know why I am sorry they should appear together in that cause,) have tried to deprecate Sir Richard's wrath: but it was then too late. The silly fellow has brought himself' to a precipice.

I forgot to tell you that Lord George Sackville carried into the minority with him his own brother(469) Lord Middles.e.x; Lord Milton's brother;(470) young Beauclerc; Sir Thomas Hales; and Colonel Irwine.

We have not heard a word of the Hereditary Prince and Princess.

They were sent away in a tempest, and I believe the best one can hope is, that they are driven to Norway.(471)

Good night, my dear lord; it is time to finish, for it is half an hour after one in the morning - I am forced to purloin such hours to Write to you, for I get up so late, and then have such a perpetual succession Of nothings to do, such auctions, politics, visits, dinners, suppers, books to publish or revise, etc. that I have not a quarter of an hour without a call upon it: but I need not tell you, who know my life, that I am forced to create new time, if I will keep up my correspondence with you. You seem to like I should, and I wish to give you every satisfaction in my power.

Tuesday, February 7, four o'clock.

I tremble whilst I continue my letter, having just heard such a dreadful story! A captain of a vessel has made oath before the Lord Mayor, this morning, that he saw one of the yachts sunk on the coast of Holland; and it is believed to be the one in which the Prince was. The city is in an uproar; nor need one point out all such an accident may produce, if true; which I most fervently hope it is not. My long letter will help you to comments enough, which will be made on this occasion. I wish you may know, at this moment, that our fears are ill placed. The Princess was not in the same yacht with her husband. Poor Fanshawe,(472) as clerk of the green cloth, with his wife and sister, was in one of them.

Here is more of the Duc de Pecquigny's episode. An officer was sent yesterday to put Virette under arrest. His servant disputed with the officer on his orders, till his master made his escape.

Virette sent a friend, whom he ordered to deliver his letter in person, and see it read, with a challenge, appointing the Duc to meet him at an hour after seven this morning, at Buckingham-gate, where he waited till ten to no purpose, though the Duc had not been put under arrest. Virette absconds, and has sent M. de Pecquigny word, that he shall abscond till he can find a proper opportunity of fighting him. Your discretion will naturally prevent your talking of this; but I thought you would like to be prepared, if this affair should any how happen to become your business, though your late discussion With the Duc de Chaulnes will add to your disinclination from meddling with it.

I must send this to the post before I go to the Opera, and therefore shall not be able to tell you more of the Prince of Brunswick by this post.

(461) The "Maccaroni" of 1764 was nearly synonymous with the term "dandy" at present in vogue, and even become cla.s.sical by the use of it by Lord Byron; who, in his story of Beppo, written in 1817, speaks of

----"the dynasty of Dandies, now Perchance succeeded by some other cla.s.s Of imitated imitators:--how Irreparably soon decline, alas!

The demagogues of fas.h.i.+on: all below Is frail; how easily the world is lost By love, or war, and now and then by frost!"-E.

(462) A bill, pa.s.sed in the last session, for an additional duty on cider and perry, which was violently opposed by the cider counties, and taken up as a general opposition question. This measure was considered as a great error on the part of Lord Bute, and the unpopularity consequent upon it is said to have contributed to his resignation.

(463) On a motion for a committee on the Cider-bill on the 24th of January. Mr. James Grenville, in a letter to his sister, Lady Chatham, speaking of this debate says, "I should make you as old a woman as either Sandys or Rushout, if I were to state all the jargon that arose in this debate. It was plain the Court meant to preclude any repeal of the bill; the cider people coldly wished to obtain it. Sir Richard Bamfylde, at the head of them, spoke, not his own sentiments, as he declared, but those which the instructions and pet.i.tions of his const.i.tuents forced him to maintain. We divided 127 with us: against us, 167." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 282.-E.

(464) It was a proposal for converting certain outstanding navy-bills into annuities at four per cent.-C.

(465) Sir William Baker, member for Plympton; an alderman of London. He married the eldest daughter of the second Jacob Tonson, the bookseller.-E.

(466) There is no other account of this remarkable speech to be found; and indeed we have little notice of General Conway's parliamentary efforts, except Mr. Burke's general and brilliant description of his conduct as leader of the House of Commons in the Rockingham administration. As General Conway's reputation in the House of Commons has been in some degree forgotten, it may be as well to cite the pa.s.sage from Mr. Burke's speech, in 1774, on American taxation, in support of what Mr. Walpole says of the General's powers in debate:--"I will likewise do justice, I ought to do it, to the honourable gentleman who led us in this House.

Far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that phalanx. I declare for one, I knew well enough (it could not be concealed from any body) the true state of things; but, in my life I never came with so much spirits into this House. It was a time for a man to act in. We had powerful enemies; but we had faithful and determined friends and a glorious cause. We had a great battle to fight, but we had the means of fighting; not as now, when our arms are tied behind us. We did fight that day, and conquer. I remember, Sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the situation of the Honourable gentleman (General Conway) who made the motion for the repeal; in that crisis, when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies with a trembling, and anxious expectation, waited, ,almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolution. When, at length, you had determined in their favour, and your doors thrown open, showed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave mult.i.tude there arose an involuntary burst of grat.i.tude and transport, They jumped upon him like children on a long absent father. They clung about him like captives about the redeemer. All England, all America, joined in his applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly regards--the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. Hope elevated, and joy brightened his crest. I stood near him; and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, 'his face was as if it had been the face of an angel.' I do not know how others feel; but if I had Stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings, in their profusion, could bestow. I did hope, that that day's danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us all together for ever. But alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished."-C.

(467) Mr. Walpole tinges his approbation of Lord George's politics by this allusion to Minden, where his lords.h.i.+p had not "led up the Blues."-C.

(468) Miss Anna Maria Draycote, married in April, 17()3, to Earl Pomfret. To taste Mr. Townshend's jest, one must recollect, that in the finance of that day the duties of tonnage and poundage held a princ.i.p.al place.-C.

(469) Governor Vansittart, contrary to the advice of his council, had deposed the Nabob Meer Jaffier, and transferred the sovereignty to his son-in-law, Cossim Ali Cawn. The latter, however, soon forgot his obligations to the English; and in consequence of some aggressions on his part, a deputation, consisting of Mesrs Amyatt and Hay, members of council, attended by half a dozen other gentlemen, was sent to the new Nabob.

While this deputation was on its return, hostilities broke out, and these gentlemen were put to death as they were pa.s.sing the city of Mor", Moreshedabad. About the same here the English council at Patna and their attendants were made prisoners, and afterwards cruelly ma.s.sacred. These events necessitated the deposition of Cossim, and Jaffier was accordingly, after a short campaign, restored.-C. (468) Charles, afterwards second Duke of Dorset.-E.

(470) John Damer, member for Dorchester. Lord Milton had married Lord George's youngest sister, Lady Caroline.-E.

(471) The Prince and Princess landed safely at Helvoet on the 2d of February.-E.

(472) Simon Fanshawe, Esq. member for Grampound. He had married a lady of his own name.

Letter 192 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Arlington Street, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 1764. (page 283)

My dear lord, You ought to be Witness to the fatigue I am suffering, before you can estimate the merit I have in being writing to you at this moment. Cast up eleven hours in the House of Commons on Monday, and above seventeen hours yesterday--ay, seventeen at length,- -and then you may guess if I am tired! nay, you must add seventeen hours that I may possibly be there on Friday, and then calculate if I am weary.(473) In short, yesterday was the longest day ever known in the House of Commons--why, on the Westminster election at the end of my father's reign,(474) I was at home by six. On Alexander Murray's(475) affair, I believe, by five--on the militia, twenty people, I think, sat till six, but then they were only among themselves, no heat, no noise, no roaring. It was half an hour after seven this morning before I was at home. Think of that, and then brag of your French parliaments!(476)

What is ten times greater, Leonidas and the Spartan minority did not make such a stand at Thermopylae, as we did. Do you know, we had like to have been the majority? Xerxes(477) is frightened out of his senses; Sysigambis(478) has sent an express to Luton to forbid Phrates(479) coming to town to-morrow: Norton's(480) impudence has forsaken him; Bishop Warburton is at this moment reinstating Mr. Pitt's name in the dedication to his sermons, which he had expunged for Sandwich's;(481) and Sandwich himself is--at Paris, perhaps, by this time, for the first thing I expect to hear to-morrow is, that he is gone off.

Now are you mortally angry with me for trifling with you, and not telling you at once the particulars of this almost-revolution.

You may be angry, but I shall take my own time, and shall give myself what airs I please both to you, my Lord Amba.s.sador, and to you, my Lord Secretary of State, who will, I suppose, open this letter--if you have courage enough left. In the first place, I a.s.sume all the impertinence of a prophet, aye, of that great curiosity, a prophet, who really prophesied before the event, and whose predictions have been accomplished. Have I, or have I not, announced to you the unexpected blows that would be given to the administration?--come, I will lay aside my dignity, and satisfy your impatience. There's moderation.

We sat all Monday hearing evidence against Mr. Wood,(482) that dirty wretch Webb,(483) and the messengers, for their illegal proceedings against Mr. Wilkes. At midnight, Mr. Grenville offered us to adjourn or proceed. Mr. Pitt humbly begged not to eat or sleep till so great a point should be decided. On a division, in which though many said aye to adjourning, n.o.body would go out for fear of losing their seats, it was carried by 379 to 31, for proceeding--and then--half the House went away.

The ministers representing the indecency of this, and Fitzherbert saying that many were within call, Stanley observed, that after voting against adjournment, a third part had adjourned themselves, when, instead of being within call, they ought to have been within hearing: this was unanswerable, and we adjourned.

Yesterday we fell to again. It was one in the morning before the evidence was closed. CarringTon, the messenger, was alone examined for seven hours. This old man, the cleverest of all ministerial terriers, was pleased with recounting his achievements, yet guarded and betraying nothing. However, the arcana imperia have been wofully laid open.

I have heard Garrick, and other players, give themselves airs of fatigue after a long part--think of the Speaker, nay, think of the clerks taking most correct minutes for sixteen hours, and reading them over to every witness; and then let me hear of fatigue! Do you know, not only my Lord Temple,(484)--who you may swear never budged as spectator, but old Will Chetwynd,(485) now past eighty, and who had walked to the House, did not stir a single moment out of his place, from three in the afternoon till the division at seven in the morning. Nay, we had patriotesses, too, who stayed out the whole: Lady Rockingham and Lady Sondes the first day; both again the second day, with Miss Mary Pelham, Mrs. Fitzroy,(486) and the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond, as patriot as any of us. Lady Mary c.o.ke, Mrs. George Pitt,(487) and Lady Pembroke(488) came after the Opera, but I think did not stay above seven or eight hours at most.

At one, Sir W. Meredith(489) moved a resolution of the illegality of the warrant, and opened it well. He was seconded by old Darlington's brother,(490) a convert to us. Mr. Wood, who had shone the preceding day by great modesty, decency, and ingenuity, forfeited these merits a good deal by starting up (according to a ministerial plan,) and very arrogantly, and repeatedly in the night, demanding justice and a previous acquittal, and telling the House he scorned to accept being merely excused; to which Mr.

Pitt replied, that if he disdained to be excused, he would deserve to be censured. Mr. Charles Yorke (who, with his family, have come roundly to us for support against the Duke of Bedford on the Marriage-bill(491)) proposed to adjourn. Grenville and the Ministry would have agreed to adjourn the debate on the great question itself, but declared they would push this acquittal.

This they announced haughtily enough--for as yet, they did not doubt of their strength. Lord Frederick Campbell(492) was the most impetuous of all, so little he foresaw how much wiser it would be to follow your brother. Pitt made a short speech, excellently argumentative, and not bombast, nor tedious. nor deviating from the question. He was supported by your brother, and Charles Townshend, and Lord George;(493) the two last of whom are strangely firm, now they are got under the cannon of your brother Charles, who, as he must be extraordinary, is now so in romantic nicety of honour. His father,(494) who is dying, or dead, at Bath, and from whom he hopes two thousand a year, has sent for him. He has refused to go--lest his steadiness should be questioned. At a quarter after four we divided. Our cry was so loud, that both we and the ministers thought we had carried it. It is not to be painted, the dismay of the latter--in good truth not without reason, for we were 197, they but 207. Your experience can tell you, that a majority of but ten is a defeat.

Amidst a great defection from them, was even a white staff, Lord Charles Spencer(495)--now you know still more of what I told you was preparing for them!

Crestfallen, the ministers then proposed simply to discharge the complaint; but the plumes which they had dropped, Pitt soon placed in his own beaver. He broke out on liberty, and, indeed, on whatever he pleased, uninterrupted. Rigby sat feeling the vice-treasurers.h.i.+p slipping from under him. Nugent was now less pensive--Lord Strange,(496) though not interested, did not like it. Every body was too much taken up with his own concerns or too much daunted, to give the least disturbance to the Pindaric.

Grenville, however, dropped a few words, which did but heighten the flame. Pitt, with less modesty than ever he showed, p.r.o.nounced a panegyric, on his own administration, and from thence broke out on the dismission of officers. This increased the roar from us. Grenville replied, and very finely, very pathetically, very animated. he painted Wilkes and faction, and, with very little truth, denied the charge of menaces to officers.

At that moment, General A'Court(497) walked up the House --think what an impression such an incident must make, when pa.s.sions, hopes, and fears, were all afloat--think, too, how your brother and I, had we been ungenerous, could have added to these sensations! There was a man not so delicate. Colonel Barr'e rose--and this attended with a striking circ.u.mstance; Sir Edward Deering, one of our noisy fools, called out, "Mr. Barr'e,"(498) The latter seized the thought with admirable quickness, and said to the Speaker, who, in pointing to him, had called him Colonel, "I beg your pardon, Sir, you have pointed to me by a t.i.tle I have no right to," and then made a very artful and pathetic speech on his own services and dismission; with nothing bad but an awkward attempt towards an excuse to Mr. Pitt for his former behaviour.

Lord North, who will not lose his bellow, though he may lose his place, endeavoured to roar up the courage of his comrades, but it would not do--the House grew tired, and we again divided at seven for adjournment; some of our people were gone, and we remained but 184, they 208; however, you will allow our affairs are mended, when we say, but 184. We then came away, and left the ministers to satisfy Wood, Webb, and themselves, as well as they could. It was eight in the morning before I was in bed; and considering that this is no very short letter, Mr. Pitt bore the fatigue with his usual spirit(499)--and even old Onslow, the late Speaker, was sitting up, anxious for the event.

On Friday we are to have the great question, which would prevent my writing; and to-morrow I dine with Guerchy, at the Duke of Grafton's, besides twenty other engagements. To-day I have shut myself up; for with writing this, and taking notes yesterday all day, and all night, I have not an eye left to see out of--nay, for once in my life, I shall go to bed at ten o'clock.

I am glad to be able to contradict two or three pa.s.sages in my last letter. The Prince and Princess of Brunswick are safely landed, though they were in extreme danger. The Duc de Pecquigny had not only been put in arrest late on the Sunday night, which I did not know, but has retrieved his honour. Monsieur de Guerchy sent him away, and at Dover Virette found him, and whispered him to steal from D'Allonville(500) and fight. The Duc first begged his pardon, owned himself in the wrong, and then fought him, and was wounded, though slightly, in four places in the arm; and both are returned to London with their honours as white as snow.

Sir Jacob Downing(501) is dead, and has left every s.h.i.+lling to his wife; id est, not sixpence to my Lord Holland;(502) a mishap which, being followed by a minority of 197, will not make a pleasant week to him.

now would you believe how I feel and how I wish? I wish we may continue the minority. The desires of some of my a.s.sociates, perhaps, may not be satisfied, but mine are. Here is an opposition formidable enough to keep abler ministers than Messieurs the present gentlemen in awe. They may pick pockets, but they will pick no more locks. While we continue a minority, we preserve our characters, and we have some too good to part with. I hate to have a camp to plunder; at least, I am so Which I am so whig, I hate spoils but the opima spolia. I think it, too, much more creditable to control ministers, than to be ministers--and much more creditable than to become mere ministers ourselves. I have several other excellent reasons against our success, though I could combat them with as many drawn from the insufficience of the present folk, and the propriety of Mr. Pitt being minister; but I am too tired, and very likely so are you, my dear lord, by this time, and therefore good night!

Friday noon.