The substance reported was, that Mr. Pitt had proscribed almost all the ministry then existing, and yet had been very cool in recommendations of the Opposition. The first part was not very credible, for though his haughtiness rendered him indifferent to those who affected to call themselves his party, his nature, on the other hand, was not vindictive: and it was true, that he had not been worse treated by the one set than by the other. On his second audience, I believe it might be true to a good degree that he had been dictatorial; but at first he had been far more moderate. However, it was given out that he proscribed all who had made, or had voted for the peace: whereas he had spoken tenderly of some of the negotiators; and had said of the treaty itself, that he would take it, and make the best he could of it.
The King himself relating the two conversations, took care to dwell on any circumstances that would most affect the persons to whom he made the confidence. Thus, to Lord Hertford, at that time Lord of the Bedchamber in waiting, the King said, “Mr. Pitt proscribed several, particularly your friend Lord Powis:355 I told him, continued his Majesty, that he might restore Lord George Cavendish;356 but Lord Powis had stuck by me, and I never would abandon him.357 I will stand by those who have stood by me. He said little,” continued the King, “of Legge (another of Lord Hertford’s friends, consequently the King intended Legge should be informed), only, having recommended Lord Temple for the Treasury, Mr. Pitt said, Mr. Legge may be his Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he pleases—if not, Lord Temple will name another. He surprised me,” pursued the King to Lord Hertford, “with saying still less of your relation the Duke of Grafton; and more, with crying up to me for one of the first men of business in the kingdom, Lord Rockingham,358 whom he intended for First Lord of the Admiralty. I thought,” said his Majesty, “I had not two men in my bedchamber of less parts than Lord Rockingham.” The King spoke handsomely of both the Dukes of Grafton and Devonshire, and laid his treatment of the latter on passion, that Duke not having made the least excuse for not coming to council when he had been summoned. Knowing that Lord Hertford was not well with Fox, the King affirmed that he had taken the latter last winter against his inclination; and he told Lord Hertford that the Duke of Newcastle had urged the Duke of Bedford to make a worse peace than Mr. Pitt had projected, and had promised to defend it: and that the Duke of Devonshire had recommended to the Duke of Bedford to make any peace; and then, fearing to be reproached with that advice, always avoided conversation with that Duke. “When he took leave of me,” added the King, “Mr. Pitt said to me, Sir, the House of Commons will not force me upon your Majesty, and I will never come into your service against your consent.” “You see,” said Lord Hertford, when he repeated this conversation to me, “that if they did not shut the King up, he would talk enough to any body!”—but if they sometimes debarred him from talking, he was now instructed to talk—and every grain he sowed brought forth an hundred-fold.
I must observe that his Majesty had told Lady Holland, in the drawing-room, that he should never forget Mr. Fox’s undertaking the House of Commons and the Peace in the last winter. It is certain that in this interview with Mr. Pitt, the King proposed to take the Paymaster’s place from Fox, and bestow it on George Grenville.
Of the persons really proscribed, the chief was Lord Mansfield. “He is a Jacobite,” said Pitt, “and means sir, to ruin your family.” He recommended Pratt for a peerage, and in future for the Chancellor’s Seals; would have saved the Duke of Marlborough, as a young man misled; Elliot, for having tried to preserve union between him and Lord Bute; and of Lord Halifax he had said, “that he was a pretty man, and, as in bad circumstances, might be Groom of the Stole or Paymaster.” “The Duke of Newcastle,” he said, “would take any place not of business.” Charles Townshend he proposed for Secretary of State with himself. The Secretary at War should not be of consequence, as it was now under Ellis,359 that clerk of Fox the Paymaster, but should depend on him whom his Majesty should think proper to command his army. “Then,” said the King, “we shall agree in Lord Granby;” “or,” said Pitt, “in Lord Albemarle.”360 This was the sole approach he seemed to make towards the Duke of Cumberland; but never would his Majesty have trusted his army with a creature of his uncle.
Of Lord Gower Pitt spoke not favourably, having probably discovered that it was the way to make his court to the Favourite, who, having perceived that that Lord aimed at being a favourite himself, had taken care to alienate the King’s mind from him. Rigby was not excepted for mercy,361 and Lord Sandwich much less. Of the Duke of Bedford Mr. Pitt spoke properly, as of a man well-intentioned, but shamefully misguided, and who might hereafter, if in proper hands, be useful to Government. But nothing harsh did Pitt utter against the peace: he would try to meliorate it. Should a national spirit of inquiry arise, he would not resist it. He had held the same language formerly on the loss of Minorca: they were specious words then and now, but with no sanguinary intentions.
When Calcraft was reproached by the Bedford faction with having deceived them on Pitt’s disposition towards them, he could not evade the charge. A breach ensued, and he remained attached to Mr. Pitt.
Sandwich, finding himself proscribed by Pitt, made advantage of the moment, and exerting all his invention and industry, of which no man possessed a larger receipt, he set himself to persuade men of all denominations that they had been marked in black letters in the dictator’s catalogue of pains and penalties. He even drew every man’s character to himself, and selecting their faults or deficiencies, ascribed to Mr. Pitt both the recapitulation and imaginary sentence that followed it. Grenville and Lord Halifax caught the righteous flame, and diffused it: Grenville even assembling the Commissioners of the several boards, and assuring them, one and all, that they had been condemned by Mr. Pitt to be cashiered. To Woburn, where the Duke of Bedford was at this anxious moment detained by his royal visitor, the Duke of Cumberland, Lord Sandwich wrote inflammatory letters, telling Bedford that he was proscribed, and his peace to be attacked. The warm little Duke caught fire; but Rigby, to whom Sandwich had made the same report, doubted, and came to town, where he was either duped into, or persuaded to join in the imposition.
Grenville was pressed by the King to remain minister, and did not want to be pressed. The Duke of Bedford, in the hot fit of zeal and resentment, accepted the post of President; and Shelburne, who had shuffled round the compass with so ill success, and lost the favour of Lord Bute, choosing now to adhere to Pitt, and resigning the seals, they were bestowed on the only man who could replace, or excel him, Lord Sandwich. It was fortunate for Grenville and union, that the faction did not wish to place the Duke of Bedford at the head of the Treasury,—but they could not trust his warmth and absurdities. In Ireland he had disgusted everybody, and had gone so far as to tell the Irish themselves that theirs was no Parliament. The Court had wished to have Charles Townshend Secretary of State with Lord Halifax; but he too, for that time, stuck to Mr. Pitt, and refused.
Thus, from a strange concurrence of jarring causes, there sprung up out of great weakness a strong and cemented ministry, who all acquiesced in the predominant power of Grenville. The Favourite hated, had tried to shake him off, and he knew it. How much must his brother Temple have been detested at Court, when, under all these humiliating aspects, it was thought preferable to retain Grenville!
In truth, nothing could be more offensive than Lord Temple’s conduct, whether considered in a public or private light. Opposition to his factious views seemed to let him loose from all ties, all restraint of principles. Of the truth of this assertion he, at the time I am describing, gave a convincing proof. His brother George was at that moment the object of his jealousy and resentment. He had, however, been prevailed upon by his family, or rather by considerations of family, to suffer Mr. Grenville to be rechosen for Buckingham; but on this sole condition, that Mr. Grenville should give up a paper formerly received from him. When Dr. Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle,362 who had negotiated this treaty, gave him the paper, he said, after reading it, “It is true, I am bound in honour and by promise to make a firm entail of my estate,—I will; but it shall be on my brother James.”363 The case was this: it had been discovered during the life of their uncle, the late Lord Cobham, that he had made a flaw in the settlement of his estate. A meeting of his nephews was held in the presence of his sister,364 and their mother, the late Lady Temple. She said, “My son Richard is ill with my brother; if we tell my brother of this flaw, he may make a new settlement,