When Fox thus stooped to be the Favourite’s agent, he gratified many more passions than he could be supposed to mortify. In truth, except his pride, which had seldom restrained him, what views could he have but this step would gratify? To ravish the glories of the war from his rival Mr. Pitt, to sacrifice them, and to be selected to defend that sacrifice, glutted his spirit of competition. Favourite he could not be, for the Princess241 hated, and Lord Bute feared him: but to be necessary to both was worth ambition, and the surest means of gratifying it; and to be master of the secret of the negotiation promised that superabundance of wealth, which by that secret he acquired. Should he succeed in carrying through the peace, he would have the first weight in the House of Commons (for what harmony there was between these rival friends may readily be conjectured); should he fail, it were but the loss of the Paymaster’s place, inconsiderable in peace compared with its produce in time of war: for it must be noted that he would not accept the seals, and thus stood in no responsible light; a strain of prudence that might have administered alarm to the Favourite himself!
Thus in the space of four months were the Princess and Lord Bute by their rash and ill-digested measures reduced to lean for support on Fox, whom they had most dreaded as the minister of the Duke of Cumberland; and who would add his own unpopularity to that of Lord Bute, and would necessarily determine Pitt to oppose with increased resentment.
Fox had embraced this invitation with such alacrity that he had signed the treaty with Lord Bute without consulting any of his friends; concluding, as over-refined politicians are apt to do, that he could bring them to his lure, and, while he paid too high compliments to his own abilities, setting too slight estimation on theirs. His first application was to the Duke of Cumberland. That haughty and sensible Prince received him with scorn, reproached him warmly with lending himself to support a tottering administration, and bitterly with his former declarations of having given up all ambitious views. The next trial made by Fox was on Lord Waldegrave,242 to whom he urged that his Lordship had so much ridiculed the Princess and Lord Bute, that they had more to complain of than he had; and he endeavoured to enclose the Earl in his treaty with the Court, by asking him, if it should be proposed to call his Lordship to the Cabinet Council, whether he should like it? The Earl, who had been bred a courtier, who was of too gentle manners for opposition, and too shrewd not to see that the power of the Crown was predominant, desired time to consider, and went to Windsor to consult the Duke of Cumberland. His Royal Highness acknowledged the attention with many thanks, but would give no advice. The Earl, who wanted not to be told, that not advising him to make his court when he was disposed to do it, was advising him against it, was not courtier enough to quit a Prince, his friend, for a Court that he himself despised and hated; and immediately wrote to Fox to desire the proposal might not be made to him. The Duke of Devonshire243 was in like manner endeavoured to be softened by Fox, who wished to wear the credit of reconciling his own friends to the peace, and bringing their support to the administration. But here again he was foiled. The Duke gave him a civil answer, assured him of his personal good wishes, but declined any connection with him as minister.
Abandoned by his highest and most showy friends, Fox felt the mortification of discredit both with his patron and the public, and the keenest appetite for revenge. As a politician, his credit was saved by his industry and success; and by his arts his vengeance was soon gratified on two of those that thus cast him off. But now were the seeds sown, which, though slowly, produced such bitter crops in subsequent years. Detested by the public, Fox could never recover from the stain contracted at this period:—but first we must relate his triumph, and the temporary victory he gained for the Court.
Nothing was so unpromising as the prospect of the new system at first. All the devotion of the Tories to the Court could not reconcile them to the nomination of Fox. They knew the mischief he had done them, and had not the quickness to see that a renegade is tied to make satisfaction by greater benefits. Lord Mansfield, not trusted, as he had expected to be, by Lord Bute, had blown up discontents against the peace. Lord Egremont and George Grenville had adopted those doubts; and doubts from men in high place convey extensive influence. Had the peace been instantaneously proposed to the House of Commons, there is no question but it would have been rejected; so strong a disgust was taken at the union of Bute and Fox, and so numerous were their several personal enemies. Yet in one respect Bute had chosen judiciously: Fox was not to be daunted, but set himself to work at the root. He even made applications to Newcastle; but the Duke of Cumberland244 had inspired even Newcastle and Devonshire with resolution! This, however, was the last miscarriage of moment that Fox experienced. Leaving the grandees to their ill-humour, he directly attacked the separate members of the House of Commons; and with so little decorum on the part of either buyer or seller, that a shop was publicly opened at the Pay-office, whither the members flocked, and received the wages of their venality in bank-bills, even to so low a sum as two hundred pounds for their votes on the treaty. Twenty-five thousand pounds, as Martin,245 Secretary of the Treasury, afterwards owned, were issued in one morning; and in a single fortnight a vast majority was purchased to approve the peace!
Bad as that peace proved, it was near being concluded on terms still more disadvantageous; for France, receiving earlier intelligence than we did of the capture of the Havannah, had near prevailed on the Duke of Bedford to sign the treaty,—but Aldworth,246 his secretary, had the prudence or foresight to prevent that precipitate step.247
The Court having secured the obedience of Parliament, it was determined to assume a high tone of authority; to awe, and even to punish the refractory. “The King, it was given out, would be King,—would not be dictated to by his ministers, as his grandfather had been. The prerogative was to shine out: great lords must be humbled.” Fox—whose language ever was, that the Crown must predominate whenever it would exert its influence—warmly upheld the doctrine of rewards and punishments; and, having employed the former with so much success, he was rejoiced to inflict the latter to glut his own vengeance. The first fruit of these councils struck mankind with astonishment. The Duke of Devonshire, who had kept himself in the country, coming to town on the 28th of October, went to pay his duty to the King, and, as is customary with the great officers, went to the backstairs, whence he sent the page in waiting to acquaint his Majesty with his attendance. “Tell him,” said the King angrily, “I will not see him.” The page, amazed, hesitated. The King ordered him to go and deliver those very words. If the page had been thunderstruck, it may be imagined what the Duke felt. He had, however, the presence of mind to send in the page again to ask what he should do with his key of Lord Chamberlain. The reply was, “Orders will be given for that.” The Duke went home with a heart full of rage, and tore off his key, which immediately after he carried to Lord Egremont, the Secretary of State; and the next morning his brother Lord George Cavendish, and Lord Besborough248 his brother-in-law, resigned their places. As the Court urged that the Duke’s disgrace was owing to his refusal of attending Councils, his Grace’s friends pleaded that he had asked and obtained the King’s leave not to attend them, as he seldom had attended them even in the late reign; and that, his summons having been made by a commis in Lord Egremont’s office, the Duke did not think that such a message interfered with his dispensation. Some said there had been no intention to dismiss the Duke; attributing the affront to a sudden start of passion in the King, who, coming from Richmond that morning, had met the Dukes of Devonshire and Newcastle together in a chariot, whence suspecting a Cabal, he had gone home in anger, and, at the moment the Duke arrived at St. James’s, was writing to Lord Bute that now was the time; words