Jjft^js? */ V THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HIS LATE MAJESTY, GEORGE THE FOURTH: ^ WITH ANECDOTES OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS. BY THE REV. GEORGE CROLY, A.M. LONDON: JAMES DUNCAN, 37, PATERNOSTER ROW. M.DCCC.XXX. LONDON: J. MOYES, TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANK. Many of the anecdotes in this volume are from the recollection of public individuals honoured by a personal intercourse with his late Majesty. In other instances, the best authorities have been applied to. The Prince's speech on " Seditious Meetings ' (p. 78), has been dated, by mistake, 1783. It should be 1792. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. P.AGK The Brunswick Line 1 CHAPTER II. Birth of the Prince 10 CHAPTER III. The Prince's Education 19 Public Schools. Cyril Jackson. Character of Swift. CHAPTER IV. The Prince's Establishment 30 Character of Lord North's Administration. Colonel de la Motte, the French Spy. Manners in England at the beginning of the French Revolution. European Discoveries in Science. CHAPTER V. The Prince's Embarrassments 52 Eloquence of Fox and Sheridan. CHAPTER VI. The Prince's Frien ds 60 Anecdotes of Pitt. Tlie Pavilion. Sir Richard Hill and the Rolliad. Political Character of Fox. Literary Society of Frederic the Great. VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGK The Prince's Friends 105 Bons-mots of Hare, Fox, Sir John Doyle, Curran, Sheridan, the Prince, &c. Character of Erskine. Bons-mots of Arthur O'Leary. Rise of Bishop O'Beirne. Flood, Grattan. Character of Irish Eloquence. Character of Sheridan's Wit and Eloquence. Story of Morgan Prussia. Burke as a Parliamentary Speaker. Colonel Fitzpatrick's Poetry. Junius and Sir Philip Francis. CHAPTER VIII. The Illness of George the Third 176 Mrs. Fitzherbert. Character of Lord Thurlow. Burke's celebrated Letter. Poem on the Irish Delegates. CHAPTER IX. The Prince's Marriage 224 The Duke of Orleans. Death of the Duke of Lauzun. Duchesses of Devonshire, Gordon, and Rutland. Ode to the Duchess of Rutland. CHAPTER X. The Royal Separation 256 The Lennox Duel. Lady Jersey, Dr. Randolph, and the Princess's Letters. CHAPTER XI. The French Revolution 276 The Volunteers of England. The Prince's Offer of Service. CONTENTS. VI 1 CHAPTER XII. PAGE Parliament 300 The Deaths of Burke, Pitt, and Fox. Lord Erskine's Character of Fox. The Abolition of the Slave Trade. The Slave-traders, France, Spain, and Portugal. CHAPTER XIII. The Whig Cabinet 321 Lord Grenville's Auditorship of the Exchequer. Lord Ellenborough in the Cabinet. Lord Yarmouth's Negotiation with Talleyrand. Canning's Satire on " All the Talents." CHAPTER XIV. The Spanish War 344 The Berlin and Milan Decrees. Napoleon at Erfurt. Moore's Retreat to Corunna. Lords Stewart's and Paget's Defeat of the French Guard. CHAPTER XV. Th e Regency 367 Character of George the Third. The Prince's Letter on the Regency. Assassination of Mr. Perceval. CHAPTER XVI. The British Empire 390 CHAPTER XVII. Queen Caroline 415 Sir Walter Scott — The Coronation. VI 11 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVIII. PAGE Na poleon 435 Waterloo. French Anecdotes. CHAPTER XIX. The Reign 462 The Battle of Algiers. The Panic. Death of Lord Liverpool. Death of Mr. Canning. CHAPTER XX. The Catholic Question 475 The Wellington Ministry. Speeches of Messrs. Peel, Dawson, &c. Protestant Defence of Idolatry. Death of Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford. Death of His Majesty. APPENDIX, Containing Anecdotes of George IV., his present Majesty, Queen Adelaide, &c. &c. A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. CHAPTER I. i ilE BRUNSWICK LINE. The origin of the Brunswick Family is lost in the fabulous asres of the north. The first occurrence of the name has been dimly traced by the Ger- man antiquaries to the invasion of the Roman empire under Attila, in the middle of the fifth century. Among the tribes which that almost universal chieftain poured down upon Italy, the Scyrri (Hirri or Heruli) are found, whose king, Eddico, was sent as one of Attila's am- bassadors to the court of Theodosius. The native country of the Scyrri was, like that of the prin- cipal invaders, in the North of Europe ; and they are supposed, on Pliny's authority, to have pos- sessed the marshes of Swedish Pomerania, and some of the islands near the mouth of the Baltic. n A GEORGE THE FOURTH. On the sudden death of Attila and the dis- memberment of his conquests, the Scyrri seized upon a large tract bordering on the Danube. But the possession was either too tempting or too carelessly held, to be relinquished without a struggle by the fierce chieftains, who, in returning from Italy, had seen the fertility of Pomerania. The Scyrri were involved in a furious war, which seems to have spread from the Adriatic to the Euxine. The calamities of Rome were mer- cilessly revenged by the wounds inflicted in this mutual havoc of her conquerors ; and in one of those battles, in which extermination or victory were the only alternatives, the tribe of the Pomeranian Scyrri were totally cut off, with Eddico, their king, at their head, and Guelph, his son, or brother, whose name is then first heard in history. But the fortunes of the Scyrri were destined to be rapidly revived by one of the most singular and fortunate conquerors of a time remarkable for striking changes of fortune. A remnant of the tribe, unable or unwilling to follow their king in the Roman invasion, had, by remaining in Pomerania, escaped the general extinction. Odo- acer, the son of the fallen king, put himself at their head, and marched from the Baltic to revenge the slaughter of his countrymen. Like many of the northern chieftains, he had been educated, probably as a hostage, in the Roman THE BRUNSWICK LINE. 6 camps, and had been familiar with the habits of the accomplished but profligate court of the Western Empire. His address and valour raised him to the command of the German troops in the service of the throne. Some slight which he received from Orestes, his former general, but now the father of the emperor ; or, more probably, his own lofty and daring ambition, stimulated him to the seizure of a diadem disgraced by the feebleness of its possessor. Sword in hand, he forced Au- gustulus to abdicate ; and, under the name of the Patrician, Odoacer ascended the throne of the Caesars. Power won by the sword is naturally lost by the sword ; and Theodoric, the Goth, disputed the sovereignty. After a succession of battles, in which the courage and military skill of Odoacer earned the praise of history, artifice circumvented the soldier; he was assassinated at a banquet, within ten years of his triumph, his dynasty extinguished, and his tribe, with his brother Guelph at their head, driven out once more to create a kingdom for themselves by their valour. But this expulsion was the true origin of that singular fortune by which the Guelphic blood has been the fount of sovereignty to the most re- nowned quarters of Europe. Guelph (variously called Anulphus, Wulfoade, and Onulf,) saw, with a soldier's eye, the ad- vantage which a position in the Tyrolese hills 4 GEORGE THE FOURTH. gave to the possessor, for the purposes of invasion or defence. Expelling the Roman colonists, he established his kingdom in the mountains, formed alliances with the neighbouring tribes, and, look- ing down upon Germany on one side, and upon the loveliness and magnificence of Italy on the other, calmly prepared his people for future supremacy.* Without following the progress of this dis- tinguished line through the conflicts of the dark ages, and the restless revolutions of power in the Italian sovereignties; we come to the authorised conclusion, that the house of Brunswick have held rank among the German princes for six hundred years. From George the First the ascent is clear up to the first Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg- who received his investiture from the Emperor Frederick the Second in the middle of the thir- teenth century. Still, this investiture was less an increase of honours than a shade on the ancient splendour of a family, whose dominions had once numbered Bavaria and Saxony, then of the size of kingdoms, and whose influence was felt from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. But the direct male line of the Brunswick princes is Italian. The marquesses or sovereigns of Este, Liguria, and perhaps of Tuscany, were among its first Halliday's Annals of the House of Hanover. THE BRUNSWICK LINE. 5 branches. " In the eleventh century the primi- tive stem was divided into two. The elder mi- grated to the banks of the Danube and the Elbe ; the younger more humbly adhered to the shores of the Adriatic. The dukes of Brunswick and the kings of Great Britain are the descendants of the first : the dukes of Ferrara and Modena are the offspring of the second."* A singular compact in the sixteenth century added to the celebrity of the house of Brunswick Lunenburg. William, the reigning duke, fourth son of Ernest, who had obtained for himself a title more illustrious than that of thrones, the Confessor, by his support of the great Protestant Confession of Augsburg; had left fifteen children, seven of whom were sons. The young princes, on the death of their father in 1593, resolved, for the purpose of keeping up their house in undi- minished dignity, that but one of them should marry : the marriage to be decided by lot, and the elder brother to have the undivided inheritance, and be succeeded by the next survivor. The lot was drawn by the sixth brother, George, who married Anne Eleanora, daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, by whom he had five children. The compact was solemnly kept by the brothers, and drew so much notice by its romantic fidelity, that the sultan Achmet the First pronounced it Gibbon's Posthumous Works. GEORGE THE FOURTH. " worth a man's while to take a journey through Europe to be an eye-witness of such wonderful brotherly affection and princely honour." The accession of George the Third to the throne of these realms was welcomed by the whole Bri- tish empire. The difficulties which had thwarted the popularity of his two immediate predecessors were past ; the party of the exiled dynasty had been wasted away by time, or alienated by the proverbial selfishness and personal folly of the Stuarts; a war was just closed, in which all the recollections of England were of triumphs and territories won from the habitual disturber of Europe ; commerce was rising from the clouds always thrown round it by war, but rising with a strength and splendour unseen before, shooting over the farthest regions of the world those beams which are at once light and life, brightening and developing regions scarcely known by name, and filling their bosom with the rich and vigorous fer- tility of European arts, comforts, and knowledge. All the acts of the young king strengthened the national good -will. His speech from the throne was deservedly applauded as the dictate of a manly and generous heart; and this cha- racteristic was made a wise topic of congratu- lation in the corresponding addresses of the people. " It is our peculiar happiness," said the London Address, " that your Majesty's heart is THE BRUNSWICK LTNE. 7 truly English; and that you have discovered in your earliest years the warmest affection to the laws and constitution of these kingdoms." An expression in the king's address to the privy council was seized with peculiar avidity as a proof alike of his head and heart. " I depend," said he, " on the support of every honest man' — a sentiment which united republican simplicity with kingly honour. He prohibited the court flat- tery then customary in the pulpit to the sovereign, reprimanding Wilson, one of his chaplains, in the expressive words, — " That he came to church to hear the praises of God, and not his own." The independence of the judges was among his first objects; and on the dissolution of parliament he consummated the national homage, by forbidding all ministerial interference in the elections, and magnanimously declaring that " He would be tried by his country." The royal marriage now became a considera- tion of public importance. A bride was sought among the immediate connexions of the Royal Family, and the Princess Dowager proposed Sophia Charlotte, daughter of the Duke of Meck- lenburg Strelitz. Lord Harcourt was made the bearer of the proposal, which was unhesitatingly accepted. The future queen arrived at St. James's on the 8th of September, 1761. At nine on the same evening, with the formal rapidity of court marriages, she was wedded ; and from that time, 8 GEORGE THE FOURTH. through half a century, became an object of in- terest and respect to the British nation. It was one of the striking features of the Hanover line, that it for the first time united the blood of the four races of kings, — the British, the Cambro -British, the Scottish, and the En- glish ; deducing the succession from Cadwaldr, last king of the Britons, through the seventeen princes of Wales, to Guledys Ddu, sister and heiress of Dafydd, married to Ralph Mortimer, and thence through 19. Roger, their son. 20. Edmund Mortimer, his son. 21. Roger, son of Edmund, first Earl of March. 22. Edmond, son of Roger, married to Phi- lippa, daughter and heiress of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward the Third. 23. Roger, their son. 24. Anne, daughter and heiress of Roger, mar- ried to Richard of Conisburg, Earl of Cambridge. 25. Richard, Duke of York, their son. 26. Edward the Fourth, eldest son of Richard. 27. Elizabeth, Edward's eldest sister, married to Henry the Seventh. 28. Margaret, their eldest daughter, married to James the Fourth of Scotland. 29. James the Fifth of Scotland, their son. 30. Mary, Queen of Scots, daughter of James. 31. James the First of England, son of Mary by Lord Darnley. THE BRUNSWICK LINE. . 9 32. Elizabeth, daughter of James, married to Frederick, Elector Palatine. 33. Sophia, their daughter, married to Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. 34. George the First, their son. 35. George the Second, his son. 36. Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of George the Second. 37. George the Third, his son-. 38. George the Fourth, his son.* * " Yorke's Royal Tribes." Those who desire to search deeper into the antiquities of the Hanoverian line, may examine " Eccard's Origines Guelficse," " Muratori's Antichita Estense," for the Italian branch ; and Sir Andrew Halliday's " Annals of the House of Hanover," for a detail of the various possessions and alliances of the northern. 10 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 17G2. CHAPTER II. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE. On the 12th of August, the birth of the heir- apparent was announced ; her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales, the ladies of her majesty's bedchamber, and the chief lords of the privy council, being in attendance. On this occasion the king's popularity, inde- pendently of the great interests connected with the royal succession, had excited the most uni- versal public feeling. As the time of the queen's accouchement drew nigh, the national anxiety in- creased. It was raised to its height by the intel- ligence, on the evening of the 11th, that her majesty's illness was immediately at hand. The great officers of state were now ordered to await the summons in the neighbourhood of the royal bedchamber; a precaution which sounds strangely to our ears, but which has been considered a matter of propriety, from the imputations thrown on the birth of the son of James the Second. The palace was crowded during the night. At four in the morning the Princess Dowager of Wales arrived. The queen had been taken slightly ill some time before. The great officers of state were 1762. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE. 11 in attendance in the ante-room of the royal chamber from five ; and at twenty-four minutes past seven the joyful news was spread through the palace that an heir was born to the throne. The sound was caught with enthusiasm by the people, who had long since thronged the avenues of St. James's, was instantly conveyed through London, and was hailed by all as an event which accomplished the singular public prosperity of the new reign. On those occasions popular feeling delights in seizing on every fortunate coincidence. The day was deemed auspicious, as the anniversary of the Hanover succession. But a more direct popular triumph occurred while the king was yet receiving the congratulations of the nobility. Of all wars, in those times, the most popular was a Spanish war ; and of all prizes, the most magnificent was a Spanish galleon. The Her- mione, one of those treasure ships, sailing from Lima, had been taken in May, off Cape St. Vin- cent, by three English frigates. Rumour had exaggerated the wealth on board to the enormous DO sum of twelve millions sterling in silver, besides the usual precious merchandise from the Spanish settlements. But the actual treasure was im- mense ; the officers made fortunes, and even the share of a common sailor, though three crews were to divide the capture, was computed at nearly one thousand pounds. The chief cargo was silver, but many bags of gold were found 12 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 17G2. hidden in the dollar chests, probably to evade some impost at Cadiz, which largely increased the value to the fortunate captors. The waggons conveying the treasure had ar- rived in London on the night before, and were on this morning to have passed before the palace in their way to the Tower. Almost at the mo- ment of announcing the royal birth, the cavalcade was seen entering St. James's Street, escorted by cavalry and infantry with trumpets sounding, the enemy's flags waving over the waggons, and the whole surrounded by the multitude that such an event would naturally collect. The sudden spectacle (a striking and even triumphant one) led the king and the nobility to the palace win- dows. The news of the prince's birth was now spread like flame ; and innumerable voices rose at once to wish the young heir prosperity. A Roman would have predicted, that an existence begun under such omens must close without a cloud. The king, in the flower of youth, and with the exultation of a sovereign, and the still deeper delight of a father, was conspicuous in exhibiting his feeling of the public congratula- tion ; and the whole scene was long spoken of as one of the most natural and animated exhi- bitions of national joy known in the reign. George the Third had commenced his sove- reignty with a manly and generous declaration of his pride in being born a Briton, — a declaration 1762. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE. 13 in which he had the more merit from its being his own, and from its being made in defiance of the cold-blooded statesmanship which objected to it in the privy council, as a reflection on the Hanoverian birth of the two former kings. The result shewed the superior wisdom of a warm heart to a crafty head ; for this single sentence superseded the popular memory of every other syllable in the royal speech, and became instantly the watchword of national affection to the throne. But the king followed the principle into the details of life. He loved to be a thorough Englishman. Like every man of sense, he scorned all affectation ; and, above all, scorned the affectation of foreign manners. The lisping effeminacy, the melancholy jargon, the French and German foppery of the moustached and ci- gared race that the coffee-house life of the con- tinent has propagated among us, would have found no favour in the eyes of this honest and high-principled king. Honour to God and justice to man, public respect for religion and private guid- ance by its spirit, public decorum and personal virtue, a lofty and generous zeal for the dignity of his crown and people, and a vigilant yet affec- tionate discipline in his family and household, were the characteristics of George the Third. But even in his royalty he loved to revive the simple customs of English domestic life : and his famous speech from the throne scarcely gave more na- 14 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1762. tional delight and assurance of an English heart, than the homely announcement, which followed in a few days after the queen's recovery ; that the royal infant was to be shewn in its cradle to all who called at the palace ; and that their majesties, after the old English custom, invited the visitors to cake and caudle. On the 17th of August, a few days after his birth, his royal highness had been created Prince of Wales by patent, in addition to that weight of honours which devolves on the heir of the British and Hanoverian sovereignties. The title of Prince of Wales was one of the trophies of the conquest of Llewellyn, and was originally conferred by the first Edward upon his son in 1284, investing him by cap, coronet, verge, and ring. The title is exclu- sively devoted to the eldest son of the throne, except where it has been engrossed by the throne itself. The eldest son is also, as inheriting from the Scottish kings, hereditary Steward of Scotland, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, and Baron of Renfrew ; titles conferred by Robert the Third, king of Scotland, on the prince his eldest son, in 1399; and appropriated for ever to the princes of Scotland from their birth. The heir apparent is born Duke of Cornwall, and possessor of the revenues of the duchy. But it is singular that he has no Irish title, while all the junior branches of the royal family enjoy honours from Ireland. 1762. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE. 15 Addresses rapidly flowed in from the leading public bodies : that of the city seemed to have embodied the substance of the chief popular testimonials. After congratulating his majesty on the birth, it alluded to the Hanover suc- cession. " So important an event, and upon a day ever sacred to liberty, fills us with the most grateful sentiments to the Divine Goodness, which has thus early crowned your majesty's domestic happiness, and opened to your people the agree- able prospect of permanence and stability to the blessings which they derive from the wisdom and steadiness of your majesty's victorious reign." This was courteous. But the addresses of the clergy were observed to be generally in a higher tone ; and the address of the clergy of the pro- vince of Canterbury was distinguished by a direct appeal to those great doctrines on which the constitution stands. The king's answer was manly, and suitable to the free king of a free people. " He saw with peculiar pleasure their gratitude to Heaven for the birth of a Protestant heir. Their confidence in his fixed intention to educate the prince in every principle of civil and religious liberty, was truly acceptable to him ; and he desired them to rely upon him for observ- ing his pledges to the empire, and for leaving no- thing undone that could promote the sacred interests of Christian piety and moral virtue, and transmit to posterity our most happy constitution." 16 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1762. The fickleness of popularity is the oldest les- son of public life : yet the sudden change of pub- lic feeling towards George the Third is among its most remarkable and unaccountable examples. No European throne had been ascended for the last hundred years by a sovereign more qualified by nature and circumstances to win "golden opi- nions" from his people. Youth, striking appear- ance, a fondness not less for the gay and graceful amusements of court life than for those field sports which make the popular indulgence of the En- glish landholder, a strong sense of the national value of scientific and literary pursuits, piety un- questionably sincere, and morals on which even satire never dared to throw a stain, were the claims of the king to the approbation of his people. In all those points also the contrast of the new reign with those of the two preceding monarchs was signally in its favour. Horace Walpole, a man rendered caustic by a sense of personal failure, and whose pen delighted to fling sarcasm on all times and men ; for once forgets his nature, and gives way to panegyric in speaking of the young king. " The new reign begins with great propriety and decency. There is great dignity and grace in the king's manner. I don't say this, like my dear Madame de Sevigne, because he was civil to me ; but the part is well acted. The young king has all the appearance of being amiable. There is great grace to temper 17G2. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE. 17 much dignity, and a good nature which breaks out upon all occasions." The choice of Lord Bute as his prime mi- nister, tarnished all the king's qualities in the general eye. Insinuations that this hansdome nobleman owed his rank at once to the passion of the princess dowager, and to arbitrary prin- ciples in the king, — insinuations never substan- tiated, and in their nature altogether improbable, were enough to turn the spirit of that multitude who take their opinions from the loudest clamourer. Wilkes, a man broken in fortune, and still more broken in character, hopeless of returning to the ranks of honourable life, and both too notorious and too intemperate to be fit for any thing but faction, had been buoyed up into a bastard in- fluence chiefly by the national jealousy of Scot- land.* But Lord Bute had soon ceased to be the object. A nobler quarry was found in the king. The " eagle towering in his pride of place, was by the mousing owl hawked at ;" and though not degraded in the opinion of men of honour and virtue, yet, with the multitude, his intentions were vilified, his personal qualities were turned into caricature, and i " No petticoat government — no Scotch minister — and no Lord George Sackville," were the watchwords of the time, pla- carded on the walls, and echoed by the mob : the three com- bining all the grievances of a party, afflicted by that most angry of all distempers — the desire to get into place. C 18 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1762. his popularity was suddenly obscured, if not extinguished, by the arts of a demagogue, scan- dalous and criminal in every mode by which the individual can earn exclusion from society. Princes soon become public personages ; and it cannot be denied that his royal highness dis- played himself at a sufficiently early age ; for in 1765 he received a deputation from the Society of Ancient Britons, on St. David's day. The prince's answer to their address was certainly not long, for it was simply — "He thanked them for this mark of duty to the king, and wished prosperity to the charity." Though probably an earlier speech has been seldom made ; for the speaker was not quite three years old. But it was not lost on the courtiers. They declared it to have been delivered with the happiest grace of manner and action ; and that the features of future oratory were more than palpable : all which we are bound to believe. In December of the same year he was invested with the order of the garter, along with the Earl of Albemarle and the hereditary Prince of Brunswick. 1771. THE PRINCE'S EDUCATION. 19 CHAPTER III. THE PRINCE S EDUCATION. The prince had now reached a period when it became necessary to commence his education. Lord Holderaesse, a nobleman of considerable attainments, but chiefly recommended by his dignity of manner and knowledge of the court, was appointed governor : Dr. Markham and Cyril Jackson were the preceptor and sub-pre- ceptor. Markham had attracted the royal notice by his celebrity as a schoolmaster. At the age of thirty he had soared to the height of professional glory ; for he was placed at the head of West- minster School, where he taught for fourteen years. The masters of the leading schools are generally cheered by some church dignity, and Markham received the deanery of Christ Church : from this he had been transferred to Chester; and it was while he was in possession of the bishopric, that he was selected for the preceptor- ship of the Prince of Wales. But this private plan of education was severely criticised. It was pronounced to be a secluded, solitary, and narrow scheme for court thraldom, 20 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1771. fitter to make the future sovereign a bigot or a despot, than the generous and manly leader of a generous and manly people. The old controversy on the rival merits of public and private education was now revived; and, to do the controversialists justice, with less of the spirit of rational inquiry than of fierce and prejudiced partisanship. The great schools were panegyrised, as breed- ing a noble equality among the sons of men of the various ranks of society ; as inspiring those feelings of honour and independence, which in after-life make the man lift up his fearless front in the pre- sence of his superiors in all but knowledge and vir- tue ; and as pre-eminently training the youth of the land to that personal resolution, mental resource, and intellectual dignity, which are essential to every honourable career ; and are congenial, above all, to the free spirit and high-minded habits of England. All those advantages must be conceded, though burlesqued and tarnished by the fantastic and sel- fish tales of extraordinary facilities furnished to the man by the companions of the boy ; of the road to fortune smoothed, the ladder of eminence miracu- lously placed in his grasp, the coronet, the mitre, the highest and most sparkling honours of states- manship, held forth to the aspirant by the hand of early association. — Hopes, in their conception mean, in their nature infinitely fallacious, and in 1771. the prince's education. 21 their anticipation altogether opposed to the open- ness and manly self-respect, which it is the first duty of those schools to create in the young mind. Yet the moralist may well tremble at that con- tamination of morals which so often defies the vigilance of the tutor; the man of limited in- come is entitled to reprobate the habits of extra- vagance engendered in the great schools ; and the parent who values the affections of his children, may justly dread the reckless and unruly self- will, the young insolence, and the sullen and heartless disdain of parental authority, which spring up at a distance from the paternal eye. But the question is decided by the fact, that without public education a large portion of the youth of England would receive no education whatever; while some of the more influential would receive, in the feeble indulgences of opu- lent parentage and the adulation of domestics, an education worse than none. The advantages be- long to the system, and to no other ; while the disadvantages are accidental, and require nothing for their remedy beyond increased activity in the governors, and a more vigorous vigilance in the nation. But of the education of a British prince there can be no question. It ought to be in its whole spirit public. Under all circumstances, the heir to a throne will find flatterers ; but at Eton, or Westminster, the flattery must be at times sig- 22 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1771. nally qualified ; and his noble nature will not be the less noble for the home truths which no homage can always restrain among the rapid passions and fearless tongues of boys. The chance of his falling into the snares of early favouritism is trivial. School fondnesses are easily forgotten. But, if adversity be the true teacher of princes, even the secure heir to the luxurious throne of England may not be the worse for that semblance of adversity which is to be found in the straight- forward speech, and bold, unhesitating competi- torship of a great English school. Under Lord Holdernesse and the preceptors, the usual routine of classical teaching was care- fully inculcated, for Markham and Jackson were practised masters of that routine ; and the prince often afterwards, with the gratitude peculiarly graceful in his rank, professed his remembrance of their services. But, though the classics might flourish in the princely establishment, it soon became obvious that peace did not flourish along with them. Rumours of discontent, royal, princely, and preceptorial, rapidly escaped from even the close confines of the palace ; and, at length, the public, less surprised than perplexed, heard the formal announcement, that the whole preceptor- ship of his royal highness had sent in their re- signations. Those disturbances were the first and the in- evitable results of the system. • Lord Holdernesse 1771. THE PRINCE'S EDUCATION. 23 obscurely complained that attempts were made to obtain an illegitimate influence over the prince's mind. Public rumour was active, as at all times, in throwing light on what the courtly caution of the noble governor had covered with shade. The foreign politics of the former reigns, the Scotch premier, and the German blood of the queen, were easy topics for the multitude ; and it was loudly asserted, that the great object of the in- trigue was to supersede the prince's British prin- ciples by the despotic doctrines of Hanover. Similar charges had occurred in the early life of George the Third. That prince's governors were alternately accused of infecting his mind with arbitrary principles, and with a contempt for the royal authority; with excessive deference to the princess his mother, in opposition to the due respect for the sovereign ; and with a humiliating subserviency to the will of the sovereign, in neg- lect of the natural affection for his mother. Pre- ceptors had been successively dismissed ; com- mittees of inquiry held upon their conduct; books of hazardous political tendency, — Father Orleans' Revolutions of the House of Stuart, Ramsay's Travels of Cyrus, Sir Robert Fil- mer's Works, and Pcre Perefixe's History of Henry the Fourth, — had been reckoned among the prince's peculiar studies ; and the whole scene of confusion ended, as might be expected, in the greater misfortune of Lord Bute's appointment to 24 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1771. the governorship — an appointment which gave a form and colour to all the popular discontents, alarmed the public friends of the constitution, furnished an unfailing fount at which every na- tional disturber might replenish his eloquence, and for many years enfeebled the attachment of the empire to a king whose first object was the good of his people. A new establishment of tutors was now to be formed for the Prince of Wales. It bore striking- evidence of haste ; for Lord Bruce, who was placed at its head, resigned within a few days. Some ridicule was thrown on this rapid secession, by the story that the young prince had thought pro- per to inquire into his lordship's attainments, and finding that the pupil knew more of classics than the master, had exhibited the very reverse of courtiership on the occasion. Lord Bruce was succeeded by the Duke of Montague ; with Hurd, Bishop of Lichfield, and the Reverend Mr. Arnald, as preceptor and sub-preceptor. The choice of the preceptors was harmless. Hurd was a man of feeble character, but of scho- larship sufficient for the purpose. He contributed nothing to his profession but some " Sermons," long since past away ; and nothing to general litera- ture but some " Letters on Chivalry," equally superseded by the larger research and manlier disquisition of our time. It had been his fortune to meet in early life with Warburton, and to be 1771. THE PRINCE'S EDUCATION. 25 borne up into publicity by the strength of that singularly forcible, but unruly and paradoxical mind. But Hurd had neither inclination nor power for the region of the storms. When Warburton died, his wing drooped, and he rapidly sank into the literary tranquillity which, to a man of talents, is a dereliction of his public duty ; but to a man stimulated against his nature into fame, is policy, if not wisdom. Arnald was the prince's tutor in science. He had been senior wrangler at Cambridge, an ho- nour which he had torn from Law, the friend of Paley, and brother of the late Lord Ellenborough. It is a curious instance of the impression that trifles will make, where they are not superseded by the vigorous and useful necessities of active life; to find the defeated student making a topic of his college overthrow to the last hour of his being. Not even Law's elevation to the opulent Irish bishopric of Elphin could make him forget or forgive the evil done at Cambridge to his bud- ding celebrity. To the last he complained that the laurel had not fallen on the right head, that some unaccountable partiality had suddenly veiled the majestic justice of Alma Mater, and that he must perish without adding the solid glories of the wranglership to the airy enjoyments of the peerage and ten thousand pounds a year. Lord North's spirit was peace, though plunged in perpetual quarrel at home and abroad, in the 26 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1771. palace, in parliament, with the people, with the old world, and with the new. On this occasion he softened the irritation of the exiled governors and tutors by lavish preferment. The Marquess of Carmarthen, married to Lord Holdernesse's daughter, obtained the appointment, valuable to his habits, of Lord of the Bedchamber ; Markham was made Archbishop of York ; and Cyril Jack- son received the rich preferment of the deanery of Christ Church. Even Lord Bruce's classical pangs were balmed by the earldom of Aylesbury, an old object of his ambition. The name of Cyril Jackson still floats in that great limbo of dreams, college remem- brance. He was Dean of Christ Church during twenty-six years, and fulfilled the duties of his station, so far as superintendence was concerned. In this period he refused the Irish primacy — a refusal which was idly blazoned at the time as an act of more than Roman virtue. But heroic self- denial is rare among men ; and Jackson had obvious reasons for declining the distinction. His income was large, his labour light, and his time of life too far advanced to make change easy or dig- nified. Preferment in Ireland, too, is seldom a strong temptation to the opulent part of the English clergy. The remoteness from all their customary associations, and the perplexity of mingling among a new people, with new habits, and those not 1771. the prince's education. 27 seldom hostile to the churchman, naturally repel the man of advanced life. The probability of being speedily forgotten by the great distributors of ecclesiastical patronage makes Irish preferment equally obnoxious to the younger clergy who have any hopes at home. Swift's correspondence is a continual complaint of the misfortune of having the Channel between him and the life he loved : and his language has been echoed by almost every ecclesiastic who has suffered his English interest to be expended in Irish pro- motion. If Swift at length abandoned his complaints, it was only for revenge. He cured his personal querulousness by turning it into national disaf- fection. Gifted with extraordinary powers of inflaming the popular mind, he resolved to shew the British government the error which they had committed in sending him into what he to the last hour of his life called " his banishment." In the fierce recollections and national misery of Ireland, then covered with the unhealed wounds of the civil war, and furious with confiscations and party rage, Swift found the congenial armoury for the full triumph of embittered genius. His sense of ministerial insult was balmed by being- expanded into hatred to the English name. Despairing of court favour, his daring and un- principled spirit made occupation for itself in mob patriotism. Swift's was the true principle for 28 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1771. a great demagogue. From the time of his first drawing the sword he shewed no wavering, no inclination to sheathe it, no faint-hearted tendency to make terms with the enemy. He shook off the dust of his feet against the gates of England, and once excluded, never deigned to approach them again, but to call down the fires of popular hatred upon their battlements. Even at this distance of time, and with the deepest condemnation of Swift's abuse of his talents, it is difficult to look upon him without the reluctant admiration given to singular ability, and inflexible and inexorable resolve, let the cause be what it may. For good or evil he stood completely between the government and the nation. The shadow of this insolent and daring dictator extinguished the light of every measure of British benevolence, or transmitted it to the people distorted, and in colours of tyranny and blood : and unquestionably, if popular idolatry could repay a human heart for this perpetual paroxysm of revenge, no idol ever enjoyed a thicker cloud of popular incense. Swift was the virtual viceroy, in whose presence the English repre- sentative of the monarch dwindled down into a cipher. And this extraordinary superiority was not a mere passing caprice of fortune. Among a people memorable for the giddiness of their public attachments, his popularity continued unshaken through life. To the last he enjoyed his criminal indulgence in thwarting the British government; 1771. the prince's education. 29 exulted in filling with his own gall the bosoms of the generous, yet rash and inflammable race, whom he alternately insulted and flattered, but whom, in the midst of his panegyrics, he scorned ; libelled the throne, while he bore the sentence of court exile as the keenest suffering of his nature ; solaced his last interval of reason by an epitaph, which was a libel on the human species ; and died, revenging his imaginary wrongs, by be- queathing to the people a fierce and still unex- pired inheritance of hatred against the laws, the institutions, and the name of England. Jackson, in 1809, finding age coming heavy upon him, resigned his deanery at sixty-four, and then had the merit, which deserves to be acknow- ledged, of feeling that there is a time for all things, and that man should interpose some space between public life and the grave. Refusing a bishopric, offered to him by his former pupil, the Prince Regent, the old man wisely and decorously retired to prepare himself for the great change. He lived ten years longer, chiefly in the village of Felpham, in Sussex, amusing himself by occasional visits to his old friends in London, or to the prince at Brighton, by whom he was always received with scarcely less than filial respect; and then returning to his obscure, but amiable and meritorious life of study, chanty, and prayer. He died of a brief illness in 1819. 30 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1777. CHAPTER IV. THE PRINCE'S ESTABLISHMENT. The lavish distribution of patronage among the successive tutors and servants of the prince ex- cited some angry remark, and much ridicule, at the time. But the minister rapidly overwhelmed this topic of public irritation by supplying the empire with injuries on a larger scale. North's propensity to govern by favours was the weakness of his nature ; and this weakness was soon urged into a diseased prodigality by the trials of his government. America had just taken the bold but guilty step of declaring her independence ; France was almost openly preparing for war. Every lurking bitterness of fancied wrong, or hopeless rivalry, throughout Europe, was starting into sudden life at the summons of America. The beacon burning on the American shores was reflected across the Atlantic, and answered by a similar blaze in every corner of the continent. Even at home, rebellion seemed to be rising, scarcely less in the measured hostility of the great English parties, than in the haughty defiance and splendid menace of Ireland, then half-frenzied with a sense of young vigour, and glittering in her first mail. 1777. the prince's establishment. 31 Lord North was now at the head of the Trea- sury, and on him rested the whole weight of the British administration ; a burden too heavy for the powers of any one man, and in this instance less solicited by his own ambition than urged upon him by the royal command. The king, abandoned by the Duke of Grafton, insulted by Chatham, tyrannised over by the great party of the nobility, and harassed by the perpetual irri- tation of the people, had soon felt the severe tenure of authority ; and there were times when, in mingled scorn and indignation, he was said to have thought of laying down the galling circle of an English crown, and retiring to Hanover. In this emergency his choice had fallen upon North, a man of rank, of parliamentary experience, and probably of the full measure of zeal for the public service, consistent with a personal career essen- tially of caution, suspicion, and struggle; — but of undoubted respect for his royal master, and loyal attachment to the throne. North had been all but born in the legislature, and all his efforts had been early directed to legislatorial distinction. " Here comes blubbering North,'' was the observation of some official person to George Grenville, as they saw the future premier in the Park, evidently in deep study. " I'll be hanged if he's not getting some harangue by heart for the House." He added : " that he was so dull a dog, that it could be nothing of his 32 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1777. own." The latter remark, however, Grenville more sagaciously repelled by giving tribute to North's parliamentary qualities, and saying, that, " If he laboured with his customary diligence, he might one day lead the councils of the country." But the injurious yet natural result of North's official education was, his conceiving that the empire must be prosperous so long as the minister was secure, and that the grand secret of human government was a majority. At a distance of time, in which the clouds that then covered public affairs with utter mystery have melted away, we can discover that the minister, with all his intrepidity, would gladly have taken refuge under any protection from the storm that was already announcing itself, as if by thunder- claps, round the whole national horizon. But the competitors for his power were too certain of possession to suffer him to take shelter among them ; and his only alternative was to resign his place, or make a desperate use of the prerogative. Whatever may be the virtue of later ministers, the temptation would have been irresistible by any administration of the last century ; and we can scarcely blame North, so much as human nature in his day, if he embraced the evil oppor- tunity in all its plenitude. Ten peers at once were called up to the English house. But it was in Ireland, a country then as much famed for the rapid production of 1777. the prince's establishment. 33 patriotism and its rapid conversion to official zeal, as now for the more tangible product of sheep and oxen ; where the perpetual defalcation of revenue was proudly overpaid by the perpetual surplusage of orators ready to defend the right at all hazards and all salaries, and rally round government to its last shilling, — it was in Ire- land, where the remoteness of the Treasury table seems never to have dulled the appetite of the guests for the banquet, that the minister dazzled the eyes of opposition at home, by the display of his unchecked munificence. One day, the 2d of July, 1777, saw the Irish peerage reinforced by eighteen new barons, seven barons further secured by being created viscounts, and five viscounts advanced to earldoms ! Against the wielder of patronage like this, what party fidelity could stand ? There never had been such a brevet in Ireland : and every man suddenly discovered the unrighteousness of resistance to a minister so gifted with wisdom, and the privilege of dispensing favours. The fountain of honour had often before flowed copiously in ministerial emergencies ; but now, as one of the Irish orators said on a similar occasion, in the curious pleasantry of his country, " It flowed forth as freely, spontaneously, and abundantly as Holy- well, in Wales, which turns so many mills. " It fairly washed Irish opposition away. In Eng- land it softened even the more stubborn material D 34 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1777. of Opposition to an extraordinary degree of plas- ticity. In the midst of popular outcry, the in- crease of public expenses, and disastrous news from America, the address was carried by a ma- jority of three to one. But a more powerful and inflexible antagonist than political partisanship soon rose against this feeble system of expedients ; public misfor- tune was against the ministry. The American revolt had rapidly grown from a scorned insur- rection into a recognised war ; Washington's triumphs over the ignorance of a succession of generals, who should never have been trusted out of sight of Hyde Park, legitimated rebellion. Victory threw a covering of dignity and justice over the original nakedness of a revolt not more against England than against every principle of right and honour ; and popular indignation at unexpected defeat turned round and revenged itself on the premier. In this emergency, North undoubtedly exhibited powers which surprised and often baffled his parliamentary assailants. If fancy and facetiousness could have sustained an administration, his might have triumphed, for no man ever tossed those light shafts with more pungent dexterity. But his hour was come. Every wind that blew from America brought with it evil tidings for the minister. Opposition, paralysed by its first defeats, now started up into sudden boldness. Every new disaster of the 1781. THE PRINCE'S ESTABLISHMENT. 35 cabinet recruited the ranks of its enemies. There was treachery too within the camp. Every man who had any thing to lose provided for the future by abandoning the falling cause. Every man who had any thing to gain established his claim by more open hostility. The king alone stood firm. At length, worn out by this perpetual assault, North solicited leave to resign, left his power to be fought for by the parties that instantly sprang out of Opposition ; and, after one more grasp at office, which shewed only how ineradicable the love of power is in the human heart, retired — to make apologues on political oblivion, and, like a sage of Indian fable, tell children that the world was governed by sugar-plums, and that the sugar-plums were always forgotten when their distributor had no more to give. On the first of January, 1781, the prince, though but little more than eighteen, had been declared of age, on the old ground that the heir apparent knows no minority. A separate establishment, on a small scale, was assigned to him, and he was, for the first time, allowed to feel that the domestic discipline of Kew was about to be exchanged for the liberty suitable to his age and station. The measure was be- ginning to form an angry topic ; but it was acci- dentally extinguished by another which is given, as having attracted the whole curiosity of the time. This topic was the seizure of Ue la Motte, a 36 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1781. French spy, of remarkable adroitness and some personal distinction. De la Motte had been a colonel in the French regiment of Soubise, and behaved with gallantry on several occasions in the preceding war. On the peace his regiment was reduced ; but a considerable estate falling to him, with the title of baron, he flourished for a while in Paris. Play, at length, broke down his resources; and, at once to evade his creditors and to profit by the gaming propensities of this country, he fixed himself in London ; where, on the breaking out of the American war, he yielded to the temptation of acting as a private agent to the French ministry. An intercourse was soon established with a clerk in the navy department, through one Lutterloh, a German. This person figured as a country gentleman, of no slight im- portance. He took a villa at Wickham, near Portsmouth, to be on the spot for intelligence of the fleets ; he lived showily, even kept a pack of hounds, and gave entertainments, by which he ingratiated himself with the resident gentry and officers, and was considered a prodigious acqui- sition to the hilarity and companionship of the country. De la Motte remained in London, at- tracting no attention, but busily employed in forwarding the information received from his con- federate ; until full information of his treason reached government, a messenger was despatched for him, who found him tranquilly studying at his 1781. the prince's establishment. 37 lodgings in Bond Street, and conveyed him to the secretary of state's office, then in Cleveland Row. He was evidently taken by surprise, for he had his principal papers about his person, and could find no better way to get rid of them than by dropping them on the stairs of the office. They were of course immediately secured, and given to the secretary, Lord Hillsborough. His dili- gence as a spy was sufficiently proved by their value. They contained particular lists of all mat- ters relating to the British dock-yards, the force and state of every ship, with their complements of men at the time of their sailing ; and his accuracy was urged so far as even to details of the number of seamen in the various naval hospitals. An order was now issued for Lutterloh's ap- prehension. He was found following the usual easy pursuits of his life, with his hunters and pack waiting for him, and his boots ready to be drawn on. The messengers prohibited his hunting for that day, and ordered him to deliver the keys of his desks, where they found but money, cash and bills for 300/. ; but on looking more carefully at the bills, they perceived that they were all drawn payable to the same person, and dated on the same day, with those of the baron. Lutterloh now felt that he was undone, and offered to make a general disclosure of the trea- son. His garden was dug up, and a packet of papers was produced in his hand-writing, the 38 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1781. counterparts of those already seized on De la Motte. He acknowledged his employment by the French ministry, at the rate of fifty guineas a month ; and pointed out the inferior agents. Ryder, the clerk, who had furnished the principal intelligence, was next arrested : this was the blackest traitor of them all ; for he was in the receipt of a pension of 200/. a year, a consider- able sum at that period, for services rendered in sounding the enemy's coasts, and had been put into an office in the navy at Plymouth, where he was employed by the Admiralty in contriving signals, which signals, it appears, he immediately communicated to the enemy. The last link was detected in the conveyancers of the intelligence across the channel, Rougier, a Frenchman, and his mistress, by whom the letters were despatched by way of Margate and Ostend. This affair derived a peculiar public interest from the rumour that high names were behind the curtain, which the attorney-general's speech was deemed to substantiate, by his dwelling strongly upon the " very great and dangerous lengths" to which De la Motte's money and connexions en- abled him to go. The attorney and solicitor- generals were employed by government, and the celebrated Dunning was counsel for the prisoner. The confession of Lutterloh certainly shewed an extraordinary command of information. He had been first employed by De la Motte, in 1778, to ■ 1783. the prince's establishment. 43 movers of the world, England and France, and feeling the return of life in the new activity of all interests, public, personal, and commercial. But a deeper and fearful influence was at work, invisibly, but resistlessly, inflaming this feverish vividness of the European mind. The story of the French Revolution is still to be told ; and the man by whom that tale of grandeur and atrocity is told, will bequeath the most appalling lesson ever given to the tardy wisdom of nations. But the first working of the principle of ruin in France was brilliant ; it spread an universal animation through the frame of foreign society. All was a hectic flush of vivacity. Like the Sicilian landscape, the gathering fires of the volcano were first felt in the singular luxuriance and fertility of the soil. Of all stimu- lants, political ambition lays the strongest hold on the sensibilities of man. The revolutionary doctrines, still covered with the graceful robes of patriotism and philosophy, seemed to have led the whole population of France into enchanted ground. Every hour had its new accession of light ; every new step displayed its new wonder. Court formality — hereditary privilege — the solemnity of the altar — all that had hitherto stood an obstacle to the full indulgence of natural impulses, all the rigid and stately barriers established by the wis- dom of elder times against popular passion, were seen suddenly to shrink and fade away before 44 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1783. the approach of the new regeneration, like mists before the sunbeams. The listless life of the man of rank was suddenly supplied with an ex- citement that kindled all the latent activities of his nature ; the man of study found, with delight, his solitary speculation assuming a life and sub- stantial shape before his eye, and the long arrears of fortune about to be paid in public fame and power ; the lower classes listened with fierce avidity to the declaration, that the time was at hand for enjoying their share of that opulent and glittering world on which they had hitherto gazed, with as little hope of reaching it as the firmament above their heads. Thus was prepared the Revolution. Thus was laid under the foundation of the throne a deadly compound of real and fantastic injury, of offended virtue and embittered vice, of the honest zeal of general good, and the desperate determination to put all to hazard for individual license, rapine, and revenge, — a mighty deposit and magazine of explosion, long visible to the eyes of Europe, invisible to the French government alone, and which only waited the first touch of the incen- diary, to scatter the monarchy in fragments round the world. " Philosophy" was the grand leader in this progress of crime ; and it is a striking coinci- dence, that at this period its title to national homage should have been, as if by an angry 1783. THE PRINCE'S ESTABLISHMENT. 45 destiny, suffered to aid its popular ambition. Europe never teemed with more illustrious dis- coveries : the whole range of the sciences, from the simplest application of human ingenuity up to the most sublime trials of the intellect, found enthusiastic and successful votaries : the whole circle was a circle of living flame. The French philosophers collected the contributions of all Europe, and, by embodying them in one mag- nificent work, claimed for themselves the pecu- liar guardianship and supremacy of human ge- nius. Law, policy, and religion, had long pos- sessed their codes : the French philosophers boasted that in the " Encyclopedic" they had first given the code of science. With all our hatred of the evil purposes of Diderot and D'Alembert, and all our present scorn of the delusions which their fierce malignity was devised to inflict upon mankind, it is impossible to look upon their labours without wonder. France had within a few years outstripped all competition in the higher branches of mathematical learning, a pursuit eminently fitted to the fine subtlety of the national genius : but she now invaded the more stubborn precincts of English and German research ; seized upon chemistry and natural history ; and, by the success of Lavoisier and Buff on, gave science a new and eloquent power of appeal to the reason and imagination of man. 46 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1783. A multitude of minor triumphs, in the various provinces of invention, sustained the general glow of the scientific world ; but all were to be extin- guished, or rather raised into new lustre, by three almost contemporaneous discoveries, which to this hour excite astonishment, and which, at some fu- ture time decreed for the sudden advancement of the human mind to its full capacity of knowledge, may be among the noblest instruments of our mastery of nature. Those three were, Franklin's conductors, Mongoliier's balloon, and Herschel's Georgium sidus. Never was there an invention so completely adapted to inflame the most fan- tastic spirit of a fantastic people as the balloon. It absolutely crazed all France — king, philoso- phers, and populace. The palpable powers of this fine machine, its beauty as an object, the theatrical nature of the spectacle presented at the ascents, the brilliant temerity of the aerial navigators, soli- citing the perils of an untried element, and rising to make the conquest of an unexplored region in a floating " argosie" of silk and gold, rich as the pa- vilions of a Persian king, filled the quick fancy of France with dreams. A march to the moon, or a settlement among the stars, was scarcely too high for the national hope. The secrets of the atmosphere were only lingering for French dis- covery; but the immediate propagation of the French name and power through the earth was regarded less as a probable achievement than as 1783. the prince's establishment. 47 an inevitable result of this most dazzling of all inventions.* Among the innumerable observations to which those discoveries gave rise, it was remarked that there was something of curious appropriateness in their respective countries. — That the young auda- city of America claimed the seizure of the lightning; a sentiment not forgotten in Franklin's motto : " Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." That the balloon was an emblem of the showy volatility and ambitious restlessness of France : — while the discovery of a new planet, the re- velation of a new throne of brightness and beauty in the firmament, was not unsuited to the solemn thought and religious dignity of the people of England. But to England was given the substantial triumph : Cook's southern discoveries were made in this era; and the nation justly hailed them, less as cheering proofs of British intelligence and enterprise, than as a great providential donative * The topic superseded all others for the time. The answer of one of the city members to Lord Mansfield was a long-standing- jest against the city. The earl, meeting him immediately on his return from France, asked, "Was the Anglomania as prevalent as ever?" The honest citizen not recognising the word, and con- ceiving that France could furnish but one theme, answered, " that Anglomanies were to be seen every day in some part of Paris, and that he had seen a prodigious one go up on the day he left it." 48 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1783. of empire — dominion over realms without limit, and nations without number, — a new and superb portion of the universe, unveiled by science, and given into the tutelar hand of the British people, for the propagation of British arts and arms through the world, and for an eternal repository of our laws, our literature, and our religion. The peace of 1782 threw open the conti- nent ; and it was scarcely proclaimed, when France was crowded with the English nobility. Versailles was the centre of all that was sump- tuous in Europe. The graces of the young queen, then in the pride of youth and beauty; the pomp of the royal family and the noblesse ; and the costliness of the fetes and celebrations, for which France has been always famous, rendered the court the dictator of manners, morals, and politics, to all the higher ranks of the civilised world. But the 4 Revolution was now hastening with the strides of a giant upon France : the torch was already waving over the chambers of this morbid and guilty luxury. The corrective was terrible : his- tory has no more stinging retrospect than the contrast of that brilliant time with the days of shame and agony that followed — the untimely fate of beauty, birth, and heroism, — the more than serpent-brood that started up in the path which France once emulously covered with flowers for the step of her rulers, — the hideous suspense of the dungeon, — the heart-broken farewell to life 4) X 1781. THE PRINCE'S ESTABLISHMENT. 39 furnish the French ministers with secret intelli- gence of matters relating to the navy. His first allowance for this was trivial, — but eight guineas a month. But his information had soon become so valuable, that his allowance was raised to fifty guineas a month, besides occasional presents of money. He had been in Paris, and held confer- ences with De Sartine, the French naval minister- There he had struck a bold bargain, not simply for the casual returns of ships and dock-yards, but for whole fleets, offering a plan for the cap- ture of Commodore Johnson's squadron, on con- dition of his receiving eight thousand guineas, and a third of the value of the ships for himself and his associates. But the bargain was thrown up by the economy of the Frenchman, who hesitated at giving more than an eighth of the ships ! Offended by this want of due liberality in his old employers, he sought out new, and had offered a plan to Sir Hugh Palliser for taking the French fleet. Dunning's cross-examination of this villain was carried on with an indignant causticity which was long reckoned among his finest efforts. He tore the approver's character in pieces, but he could not shake his evidence. At length Dunning himself gave way ; he became exhausted with dis- gust and disdain : broke away from the court, and was taken home overpowered and seriously ill. Lutterloh was one of those specimens of des- perate principle, restless activity, and perpetual 40 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1781. adventure, which might have figured in romance. He had tried almost every situation of life, from the lowest; he had been in various trades, and roved between France, England, and America, wherever there was money to be made by cunning or personal hazard. From the book-keeper of a Portsmouth inn, he had started into a projector of war; had offered his agency to the revolted colonies ; and as their chief want, in the early period of the struggle, was arms, he had gone to America with a plan for purchasing the arms in the magazines of the minor German states. The plan was discountenanced by Congress, and he re- turned to Europe, to engage in the secret agency of France, through the medium of De la Motte. Radcliffe, a smuggler, who had a vessel con- stantly running to Boulogne, was the chief carrier of the correspondence. His pay was 20/. a trip. Rougier, the carrier to Radcliffe, received eight guineas a month. Yet it is a striking instance of the blind secu- rity in which the most crafty may be involved, and of the impossibility of relying on traitors, that De la Motte's whole correspondence had for a long time passed through the hands of the Eng- lish secretary of state himself; the letters being handed by Radcliffe to a government clerk, who transmitted them to Lord Hillsborough, by whom again, after having taken copies of them, they were forwarded to their original destination ; and, 1783. the prince's establishment. 41 thus anticipated, had undoubtedly the effect of seriously misleading the French ministry. De la Motte was executed. As the prince was now to take his place in the legislature, arrangements were commenced for supplying him with an income. The times were hostile to royal expenditure, and the king, for the double reason of avoiding any unnecessary in- crease to the public burdens, and of discouraging those propensities which he probably conjectured in the prince, demanded but 50,000/. a year, to be paid out of the civil list. The proposition was strongly debated in the cabinet, long given down to scorn by the name of the Coalition Cabinet, and Fox insisted on making the grant 100,000/. a year. But his majesty was firm, and the ministry were forced to be content with adding 40,000/. and a complimentary message, to the GO, 000/. for outfit proposed by the king. The Duke of Portland, on the 23d of June, brought down the following message to the lords. " G. R. His majesty having taken into con- sideration the propriety of making an immediate and separate establishment for his dearly beloved son, the Prince of Wales, relies on the experience, zeal, and affection of the house of lords, for their concurrence in and support of such mea- sures as shall be most proper to assist his majesty in this design." The question was carried without a dissenting 42 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1783. voice iii the lords ; and the commons voted the sums of 50,000/. for income, and 100,000/. for the outfit of the Prince's household. Now fully began his checkered career. There are no faults that we discover with more proverbial rapidity than the faults of others ; and none that generate a more vindictive spirit of virtue, and are softened down by fewer attempts at palliation, than the faults of princes in the grave. Yet, without justice, history is but a more solemn libel; and no justice can be done to the memory of any public personage without considering the peculiar circumstances of his time. The close of the American war was the com- mencement of the most extraordinary period of modern Europe : all England, all France, the whole continent, were in a state of the most powerful excitement: England rejoicing at the cessation of hostilities, long unpopular and gall- ing to the pride of a country accustomed to conquer ; yet with the stain of transatlantic de- feat splendidly effaced by her triumph at Gibral- tar, and the proof given in that memorable siege, of the unimpaired energies of her naval and mili- tary power, — France, vain of her fatal success, and exulting in the twofold triumph of wresting Ame- rica from England, and raising up a new rival for the sovereignty of the seas, — the continental states, habitually obeying the impulses of the two great 1781. the prince's establishment. 49 and royalty upon the scaffold. But France was the grand corruptor ; and its supremacy must in a few years have spread incurable disease through the moral frame of Europe. The English men of rank brought back with them its dissipation and its infidelity. The im- mediate circle of the English court was clear. The grave virtue of the king held the courtiers in awe ; and the queen, with a pious wisdom, for which her name should long be held in honour, indignantly repulsed every attempt of female levity to approach her presence. But beyond this sacred circle the influence of foreign asso- ciation was felt through every class of society. The great body of the writers of England, the men of whom the indiscretions of the higher ranks stand most in awe, had become less the guardians than the seducers of the public mind. The "Ency- clopedic," the code of rebellion and irreligion still more than of science, had enlisted the majority in open scorn of all that the heart should practise or the head revere ; and the Parisian atheists scarcely exceeded the truth, when they boasted of erecting a temple that was to be frequented by worshippers of every tongue. A cosmopolite, infidel republic of letters was already lifting its front above the old sovereignties, gathering under its banners a race of mankind new to public struggle, — the whole secluded, yet jealous and vexed race of labourers in the intellectual field, i: 50 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1781. and summoning them to devote their most unex- hausted vigour and masculine ambition to the service of a sovereign, at whose right and left, like the urns of Homer's Jove, stood the golden founts of glory. London was becoming Paris in all but the name. There never was a period when the tone of our society was more polished, more animated, or more corrupt. Gaming, horse- racing, and still deeper deviations from the right rule of life, were looked upon as the natural embellishments of rank and fortune. Private theatricals, one of the most dexterous and assured expedients to extinguish, first the delicacy of woman, and then her virtue, were the favourite indulgence; and, by an outrage to English de- corum, which completed the likeness to France, women were beginning to mingle in public life, try their influence in party, and entangle their feebleness in the absurdities and abominations of political intrigue. In the midst of this luxu- rious period the Prince of Wales commenced his public career. His rank alone would have se- cured him flatterers ; but he had higher titles to homage. He was, then, one of the handsomest men in Europe : his countenance open and manly; his figure tall, and strikingly proportioned; his address remarkable for easy elegance, and his whole air singularly noble. His contemporaries still describe him as the model of a man of fashion, and amusingly lament over the degene- 1781. the prince's establishment. 51 racy of an age which no longer produces such men. But he possessed qualities which might have atoned for a less attractive exterior. He spoke the principal modern languages with sufficient skill ; he was a tasteful musician ; his acquaint- ance with English literature was, in early life, unusually accurate and extensive ; Markham's discipline, and Jackson's scholarship, had given him a large portion of classical knowledge ; and nature had given him the more important public talent of speaking with fluency, dignity, and vigour. Admiration was the right of such qualities, and we can feel no surprise if it were lavishly offered by both sexes. But it has been strongly asserted, that the temptations of flattery and pleasure were thrown in his way for other objects than those of the hour ; that his wander- ings were watched by the eyes of politicians; and that every step which plunged him deeper into pecuniary embarrassment was triumphed in, as separating him more widely from his natural con- nexions, and compelling him in his helplessness to throw himself into the arms of factions alike hostile to his character and his throne. 52 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. CHAPTER V. THE PRINCE'S EMBARRASSMENTS. In 1787, the state of the prince's income began to excite the anxious attention of parliament and the country. The allowance given three years before had been found totally inadequate to his expenditure, and there was at length no resource but to apply to the nation. On the original proposal of 50,000/. a year, the " prince's friends," for he had already found political protectors, had strenuously protested against the narrowness of the sum. But the prince decorously reprehended their zeal, and declared his readiness to submit entirely to the will of his father, and his extreme reluctance to be the cause of any misunderstanding between the king and his ministers. Yet a short experience shewed that the in- come was altogether inadequate to the expenses of Carlton House. The prince was now upwards of 150,000/. in debt. His creditors, perhaps in some degree alarmed by the notorious alienation of the court, had begun suddenly to press for pay- ment. The topic became painfully public ; the king was applied to, and by his command a full statement was laid before him. But the result 1787. the prince's embarrassments. 53 was a direct refusal to interfere, formally con- veyed through the ministers. Family quarrels are proverbial for exhibiting errors on both sides ; and even the quarrel on this occasion, high as the personages were, made no exception to the rule. The prince was treated sternly ; in return, the prince acted rashly. The royal indignation might have been justly softened by recollecting the inexperience, the almost inevit- able associates, and the strong temptations of the heir apparent; and the measure ought to have been made an act of favour, which was so soon discovered to be an act of necessity. On the other hand, the prince, impetuously, on the day after the royal answer, broke up his household, dismissed his officers in attendance, ordered his horses to be sold, shut up every apartment of his palace not required for immediate personal accommodation, and commenced living the life of a hermit, which he called that of a private gentle- man ; his political friends, that of an ancient sage ; and the court, that of a young rebel. The decided impression on the king's mind was, that this sud- den resolution was suggested by individuals whose first object was to enlist the sympathies of the nation against the minister, and who also had no reluctance to see the king involved in the disgrace of his cabinet. A remarkable incident at this period made the alienation palpable to the empire. Margaret Nicholson's attempt to assassinate the 54 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. king,* an attempt which failed only from the accidental bending of the knife, had been imme- diately communicated to all the authorities, and the principal persons connected with the royal family, with but one exception. To the prince no communication was made. He heard it at Brighton, and hastened to Windsor, where he was received by the queen alone. The king was in- accessible. But the system of seclusion was too little adapted to the great party who had now totally engrossed the direction of the prince ; and too re- pulsive to the natural habits of rank and birth, to last long. The windows of Carlton House were gradually opened, and the deserted halls gave their pomps to the light once more. His advisers prompted him to strengthen his public influence by private hospitality ; and, from all the records of those years, we must believe that no host possessed more abundantly the charm of giving additional zest to the luxuries of the banquet. He now began to give frequent entertainments ; from personal pleasure, the feeling grew into political interest ; and it was at length resolved, that the prince owed it to his own character to shew that he was not afraid of public investigation. The opening of the budget^ was considered a proper time, and the subject was confided to the ' August 2, 1786. f April 2.0, 1787. 1787. the prince's embarrassments. 55 hands of Alderman Newnham, no orator, but a man of mercantile wealth and personal respectability. This advocate contented himself, in the first in- stance, with a brief panegyric on the prince's efforts to meet his difficulties ; and a demand whether ministers intended to bring forward any proposition for retrieving his affairs. Concluding with the words, that "though the conduct of that illustrious individual under his diffi- culties reflected the highest honour on his charac- ter, yet nothing could be surer to bring indelible disgrace upon the nation, than suffering him to remain any longer in his present embarrassed cir- cumstances." Pitt's reply was short but peremptory. " It was not his duty to bring forward a subject of the nature that had been mentioned, without his majesty's commands. It was not necessary, therefore, that he should say more, than that on the present occasion he had not been honoured with any such command." The campaign was now fairly begun, and opposition determined to crush the minister. Pri- vate meetings were held, friends were summoned, and the strength of parties was about to be tried in a shock which, in its results, might have shat- tered the constitution. Pitt's sagacity saw the coming storm, and he faced it with the boldness that formed a prominent quality of his great character. He sternly denounced the subject, as 56 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. one not merely delicate but dangerous ; he warned the mover of this hazardous matter of the evils which rashness must produce ; and concluded a short but powerful address, by threatening to call for " disclosures which must plunge the nation into the most formidable perplexity." While the house were listening with keen anxiety to this lofty menace, and expecting on what head the lightnings were to be launched, Pitt renewed the charge, by turning full on the opposition bench, and declaring, that if the " honourable member should persist in his determination to bring his motion forward again, his majesty's government would be compelled to take the steps which they should adopt ; and that, for his own part, however dis- tressing it might be to his personal feelings, from his profound respect for the royal family, he had a public duty to discharge which he would dis- charge, freely, fairly, and unconditionally." A succession of debates followed, in which the whole vigour of party, and no slight portion of its virulence, was displayed. Rolle, the member for Devonshire, with a superabundant zeal, which ex- posed him naked to all the fiery wrath of Sheridan and Fox, and lifted him up as a general mark for the shafts of opposition wit, had embodied Pitt's mysterious charge into " matters by which church and state might be seriously affected, "■ — an allu- sion understood to refer to the rumoured marriage of the prince with Mrs. Fitzherbert. 1787. the prince's embarrassments. 57 Sheridan, with contemptuous pleasantry, de- nied the truth of the report, which he said — " the slight share of understanding that nature had vouchsafed to him, was altogether unable to com- prehend ; though, to be sure, something of his ignorance might be accounted for by his not being peculiarly fond of putting himself in the established school for this kind of learning. Among all the shows to which curiosity had led him in the metropolis, he had unfortunately omitted the Whispering gallery in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. He was also confident that there was a great deal of recondite knowledge to be picked up by any diligent student who had taken his degree on the back stairs, and he duly com- mended the progress the honourable gentleman had made in those profitable studies. For his own part, Heaven help him ! he had always found the treasury passages at best, cold, dark, and cheerless ; he believed the conscience as well as the body might have a rheumatic touch ; and he acknowledged that he was never the better for the experiment. But where he had heard only the ominous cries and waitings of the wind ; the ears of others, more happily disposed, might be more fortunate ; where he heard only the rage of Auster and Eurus, to others Auster might come ' the zephyr perfumed from my lady's bed- chamber;' and Eurus be the — ' purpureo spirans ab ortu, eois Eurus equis.' 58 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. There the honourable gentleman and his friends might be regaled with those snatches and silver touches of melody, which they shaped and ex- panded into harmonies on so grand and swelling a scale, for the admiration of the house and the country." The house laughed, but Rolle's remarks had made an impression ; and Fox, who had been unaccountably absent from the debates, was com- pelled to appear : he now became the challenger in turn. — " He stood there prepared to substantiate every denial that had been made by his honourable friend (Sheridan). He demanded investigation. He defied the sharpest scrutiny, however en- venomed by personal feelings, to detect in the conduct of the prince, as a gentleman, or as the hope of an illustrious line, any one act derogatory to his character. He came armed with the im- mediate authority of his royal highness to assure the house, that there was no part of his conduct which he was either afraid or unwilling to have investigated in the most minute manner." This bold defiance, delivered with the haughtiest tone and gesture, raised a tumult of applause ; which was interrupted only by his suddenly fixing his eyes full on the minister ; and, as if he disdained to pour his vengeance on minor culprits, heaping the whole reprobation upon him, whom he intimated to be the origin of the calumny. 1787. the prince's embarrassments. 59 "As to the allusions," said he, scornfully, "of the honourable member for Devon, of danger and so forth to church and state, I am not bound to understand them until he shall make them intel- ligible; but I suppose they are meant in reference to that falsehood which has been so sedulously pro- pagated out of doors for the wanton sport of the vulgar, and which I now pronounce, by whom- soever invented, to be a miserable calumny, a low, malicious falsehood." — He had hoped, that in that house a tale, only fit to impose upon the lowest persons in the streets, would not have gained credit ; but, when it appeared that an invention so monstrous, a report of what had not the smallest degree of foundation, had been circulated with so much industry as to make an impression on the mind of members of that house, it proved the extraordinary efforts made by the enemies of his royal highness to propagate the grossest and most malignant falsehoods, with a view to depreciate his character, and injure him in the opinion of the country. He was at a loss to imagine what species of party could have fabri- cated so base a calumny. Had there existed in the kingdom such a faction as an anti-Brunswick faction, to it he should have certainly imputed the invention of so malicious a falsehood ; for he knew not what other description of men could have felt an interest in first forming and then circulating, with more than ordinary assiduity, a 60 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. tale in every particular so unfounded. His royal highness had authorised him to declare, that as a peer of parliament he was ready, in the other house, to submit to any the most pointed ques- tions ; or to afford his majesty, or his majesty's ministers, the fullest assurances of the utter false- hood of the statement in question, which never had, and which common sense must see never could have, happened. After this philippic, to which Pitt listened with the utmost composure, but which produced an extraordinary interest in the house, Fox adverted to the original purpose of the applica- tion : " Painful and delicate the subject un- doubtedly was ; but however painful it might be, the consequences were attributable solely to those who had it in their power to supersede the necessity of the prince's coming to parlia- ment, to relieve him from a situation embarrass- ing to himself and disgraceful to the country." This speech may be taken as a specimen of Fox's vituperative style, — the reiterated phrases of scorn, the daring defiance, and the reckless weight of contempt and condemnation, which he habitually flung upon his adversary. But the full effect can be conceived only by those who have heard this great speaker. His violent action, confused voice, and ungainly form, were for- gotten, or rather, by one of the wonders of eloquence, became portions of his power. A 1787. the prince's embarrassments. Gl strong sincerity seemed to hurry him along : his words, always emphatic, seemed to be forced from him by the fulness and energy of his feelings ; and in the torrent he swept away the adversary. This speech decided the question. Rolle still persisted in his alarms, and still brought down upon himself the declamation of Sheridan and the retorts of Fox, who bitterly told him, that " though what he had said before was, he thought, sufficient to satisfy every candid mind, he was willing still to re-state and re-explain, and, if possible, satisfy the most perverse" The member for Devon at last declared that he had spoken only from his affection for the prince ; that " he had not said, he was dissatisfied," and that he now left, the whole matter to the judgment of the house. Pitt covered his friend's retreat, by a de- fence of the privileges of speech in the legislature. But such contests were too hazardous to be wisely provoked again. Misfortune, which in private life has a singular faculty of stripping the sufferer of his friends, in public life often gathers the national sympathy round him. The man who would have been left to perish in his cell, brought to the scaffold, is followed by the outcry of the multitude. The general voice be^an to rise against the severity of government; and in a few days after the debate,* the prince was informed by * May 3. G2 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787 the minister, that if the motion intended for the next day were withdrawn, every thing* should be settled to his satisfaction. Accordingly, Al- derman Newnham communicated to the house, in which four hundred members were present, the intelligence that his motion was now ren- dered unnecessary; and all was mutual congra- tulation. The ministerial promise was kept ; but kept with a full reserve of the royal displeasure. A stern rebuke was couched in the message to parliament. " G. R. It is with the greatest concern his ma- jesty acquaints the house of commons, that from the accounts which have been laid before his majesty by the Prince of Wales, it appears that the prince has incurred a debt to a large amount, which if left to be discharged out of his annual income, would render it impossible for him to support an establishment suited to his rank and station. " Painful as it is at all times to his majesty to propose an addition to the many expenses necessarily borne by his people, his majesty is induced, from his paternal affection to the Prince of Wales, to recur to the liberality and attach- ment of his faithful commons, for their assistance on an occasion so interesting to his majesty's feelings, and to the ease and honour of so distin- guished a branch of his royal family. 1787. the prince's embarrassments. G3 " His majesty could not, however, expect or desire the assistance of this house, but on a well- grounded expectation that the prince will avoid contracting any debts hi future. " With a view to this object, and from an anxious desire to remove any possible doubt of the sufficiency of the prince's income to support amply the dignity of his situation, his majesty has directed a sum of 10,000/. per annum to be paid out of the civil list, in addition to the allowance which his majesty has hitherto given him ; and his majesty has the satisfaction to inform the house, that the Prince of Wales has given his majesty the fullest assurances of his determina- tion to confine his future expenses within the income, and has also settled a plan for arranging those expenses in the several departments, and for fixing an order for payment, under such regula- tions as his majesty trusts will effectually secure the due execution of the prince's intentions. " His majesty will direct an estimate to be laid before this house of the sum wanting to com- plete, in a proper manner, the work which has been undertaken at Carlton House, as soon as the same can be prepared with sufficient accu- racy, and recommends it to his faithful commons to consider of making some provision for this purpose." This account was shortly after laid on the table. 64 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. Debts. Bonds and debts £1 3,000 Purchase of houses 4,000 Expenses of Carlton House 53,000 Tradesmen's bills 90,804 £160,804 Expenditure from July 1783 to July 1786. Household, &c , . . . £ 29,277 Privy purse 16,050 Payments made by Col. Hotham, particulars delivered in to his majesty 37,203 Other extraordinaries ,... 11 ,406 £93,936 Salaries 54,734 Stables 37,919 Mr. Robinson's 7,059 £193,648 On the day following the presentation of this paper, the commons carried up an address to the throne, humbly desiring that his majesty would order 161,000/. to be issued out of the civil list for the payment of the debt, and a sum of 20,000/. for the completion of Carlton House. This proceeding had the usual fate of half measures, it palliated the evil only to make it return in double force. It shewed the king's displeasure, without ensuring the prince's re- trenchment. The public clamoured at the neces- sity for giving away so large a sum of the national money ; while the creditors, whom the sum, large 1787. ' the prince's embarrassments. 65 as it was, would but inadequately pay, boldly pronounced themselves defrauded. Whether the leaders of the legislature were rejoiced or discon- tented, remained in their own bosoms. But Pitt had accomplished the important purpose of sup- pressing for the time a topic which might have deeply involved his administration; and Fox's sa- gacity must have seen in this imperfect measure the very foundation on which a popular leader would love to erect a grievance. It gave him the full use of the prince's injuries for all the purposes of opposition. Hopeless of future appeal, stung by public rebuke, and committed before the empire in hostility to the court and the minister, the prince was now thrown completely into his hands. 66 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. CHAPTER VI. THE PRINCE S FRIENDS. There seems to be a law of politics, by which the heir of the crown is inevitably opposed to the crown. This grew into a proverb in Holland, when the stadtholderate had become hereditary ; and may have found its examples in all countries where the constitution retains a vestige of freedom. The line of the Georges has furnished them for three generations. Frederic, Prince of Wales, son of George the Second, was in constant opposition to the court, was the centre of a powerful party, and was even involved in personal dispute with the king. There is a curious similitude in his life to that of his late majesty. — The origin of the alienation was, the old " root of all evil," money. The opposition, headed by Pulteney, (the Fox of his day,) adopted the prince's cause, and moved in parliament for the increase of his income to 100,000/. The king resented equally the demand and the connexion ; and the dispute was carried on with the natural implacability of a family quarrel. — The prince collected the wits round him ; the king closeted himself with a few antiquated and formal nobles. — The prince's residence, at Cliefden, in Buckinghamshire, was enlivened by perpetual 1787. the prince's friends. 67 festivity, balls, banquets, and plays ; among which was the masque of Alfred, by Thomson and Mallet, written in honour of the Hanover accession, with Quin in the part of Alfred. St. James's was a royal fortress, in which the king- sat guarded from the approach of all public gaiety. — Frederic, too, pushed the minister so closely, that he had no refuge, but in a reconciliation be- tween the illustrious belligerents ; and Walpole, perplexed by perpetual debate, and feeling the ground giving way under him, proposed to the prince an addition of 50,000/. to his income, and 200,000/. for the discharge of his debts. But Walpole's hour was come ; opposition, consci- ous of his weakness, determined to give him no respite. The prince haughtily refused any accom- modation while the obnoxious minister was suf- fered to remain in power. Walpole was crushed. The prince led opposition into the royal pre- sence ; and the spoils of office rewarded them for a struggle carried on in utter scorn alike of the king's feelings and the national interests, but dis- tinguished by great talent, dexterity, and deter- mination. Yet victory was fatal to them : they quarrelled for the spoils, and Walpole had his revenge in the disgrace of Pulteney for ever. On the death of Prince Frederic, the next heir, Prince George, became the prize of opposition, headed by Pitt (Lord Chatham), Lord Temple, and the Grenvilles. Leicester -house, the residence G8 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. of his mother, again eclipsed St. James's, and the Newcastle administration trembled at the popu- larity of this rival court. To withdraw his heir from party, the king offered him a residence in St. James's. But before the hostility could be matured into open resistance, a stroke of apo- plexy put an end to the royal life, placed the prince on the throne, and turned the eloquence of opposition into sarcasms on Scotch influence, and burlesques on the princess-mother's presumed passion for the handsome minister. In other lands the king is a despot, and the heir apparent a rebel ; in England the relation is softened, and the king is a tory, and the heir apparent a whig. Without uncovering the grave, to bring up things for dispute which have lain till their shape and substance are half dissolved away in that great receptacle of the follies and arts of mankind, it is obvious that there was enough in the contrast of men and parties to have allured the young Prince of Wales to the side of opposition. Almost prohibited, by the rules of the English court from bearing any important part in govern- ment ; almost condemned to silence in the legis- lature by the custom of the constitution ; almost restricted, by the etiquette of his birth, from exerting himself in any of those pursuits which cheer and elevate a manly mind, by the noble consciousness that it is of value to its country; 1787. the prince's friends. 69 the life of the eldest born of the throne appears condemned to be a splendid sinecure. The valley of Rasselas, with its impassable boundary, and its luxurious and spirit-subduing bowers, was but an emblem of princely existence ; and the moralist is unfit to decide on human nature, who, in estimating the career, forgets the temp- tation. It is neither for the purpose of undue praise to those who are now gone beyond human opinion, nor with the idle zeal of hazarding new conjectures, that the long exclusion of the Prince of Wales from public activity is pronounced to have been a signal injury to his fair fame. The same mental and bodily gifts which were lavished on the list- less course of fashionable life, might have assisted the councils, or thrown new lustre on the arms, of his country ; the royal tree, exposed to the free blasts of heaven, might have tossed away those parasite plants and weeds which encum- bered its growth, and the nation might have been proud of its stateliness, and loved to shelter in its shade. The education of the royal family had been conducted with so regular and minute an atten- tion, that the lapses of the prince's youth excited peculiar displeasure in the king. The family dis- cipline was almost that of a public school : their majesties generally rose at six, breakfasted at eight with the two elder princes, and then sum- 70 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. moned the younger children : the several teachers next appeared, and the time till dinner was spent in diligent application to languages and the severer kinds of literature, varied by lessons in music, drawing, and the other accomplishments. The king was frequently present ; the queen super- intended the younger children, like an English mother. The two elder princes laboured at Greek and Latin with their tutors, and were by no means spared in consequence of their rank. " How would your majesty wish to have the princes treated?" was said to be Markham's in- quiry of the king. " Like the sons of any private English gentleman," was the manly and sensible answer. " If they deserve it, let them be flogged : do as you used to do at Westminster." The command was adhered to, and the royal culprits acquired their learning by the plebeian mode. The story is told, that on the subsequent change of preceptors, the command having been repeated, Arnald, or one of his assistants, thought proper to inflict a punishment, without taking into due consideration that the infants whom Markham had disciplined with impunity were now stout boys. However, the Prince and the Duke of York held a little council on the matter, and or- ganised rebellion to the rod : on its next appear- ance they rushed upon the tutor, wrested his weapons from him, and exercised them with so 1787. the prince's friends. 71 much activity on his person, that the offence was never ventured again. Louis the Fourteenth, when, in his intercourse with the accomplished society of France, he felt his own deficiencies, often upbraided the foolish indulgence which had left his youth without in- struction ; exclaiming, " Was there not birch enough in the forest of Fontainebleau ?" George the Third was determined that no reproach of this nature should rest upon his memory ; and probably no private family in the empire were educated with more diligence in study, more attention to religious observances, and more ra- tional respect for their duties to society, than the children of the throne. This course of education is so fully acknow- ledged, that it has even been made a charge against the good sense of that excellent man and monarch ; as stimulating some of the dissipations of the prince's early life by the contrast between undue restraint and sudden liberty. Yet the princes were under no restraint but from evil. They had their little sports and companionships ; they were even, from time to time, initiated into such portions of court life as might be under- stood at their age ; children's balls were given ; the king, who was fond of music, had frequent concerts, at which the royal children were shewn, dressed in the ribands and badges of their orders ; and in the numerous celebrations at 72 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. Kew and Windsor, they enjoyed their full share. All their birthdays were kept with great fes- tivity ; and August, from its being an auspicious period for the royal family, as the month of the Hanover accession, the battle of Minden, and the birth of three of the princes, was almost a continual holyday : prizes were given to the watermen on the Thames, sports were held in Windsor and Kew, and the old English time of both rustic and royal merriment seemed to have come again. There can be no difficulty in relieving the memory of George the Third from the charge of undue restraint ; for nothing can be idler than the theory, that to let loose the passions of the young is to inculcate self-control. Vice is not to be conquered by inoculation ; and the parent who gives his sons a taste of evil, will soon find that what he gave as an antidote has been swal- lowed as a temptation. The palpable misfortune of the prince was, that on emerging from the palace, he had still to learn human character, the most essential public lesson for his rank. Even the virtues of his parents were injurious to that lesson. Through infancy and youth he had seen nothing round him that could give a conception of the infinite heart- lessness and artifice, the specious vice, and the selfish professions, that must beset him at his first step into life. A public education might have, 1787. the prince's friends. 73 in some degree, opened his eyes to the realities of human nature. Even among boys, some bitter evidence of the hollowness and hypocrisy of life is administered ; and the prince's understanding might have been early awakened to the salutary caution, which would have cast out before him, naked, if not ashamed, the tribe of flatterers and pretended friends who so long perverted his natural popularity. But there was much in the times to perplex a man of his high station and hazardous opportu- nities, let his self-control be however vigilant. The habits of society have since been so much changed, that it is difficult to conceive the cir- cumstances of that singular and stirring period. We live in a day of mediocrity in all things. The habits of fifty years ago were, beyond all comparison, those of a more prominent, showy, and popular system. The English nobleman sustained the honours of his rank with a larger display ; the English man of fashionable life was more conspicuous in his establishment, in his appearance, and even in his 'eccentricities : the phaeton, his favourite equipage, was not more unlike the cabriolet, that miserable and creeping contrivance of our day, than his rich dress and cultivated manners were like the wretched cos- tume and low fooleries that make the vapid lounger of modern society. The women of rank, if not wiser nor better than their successors, at 74 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787- least aimed at nobler objects : they threw open their mansions to the intelligent and accom- plished minds of their time, and instead of fete- ing every foreign coxcomb, who came with no better title to respect than his grimace and his guitar, surrounded themselves with the wits, orators, and scholars of England. The contrivance of watering-places had not been then adopted as an escape, less from the heats of summer than from the observances of summer hospitality. The great families returned to their country-seats with the close of parliament, and their return was a holyday to the country. They received their neighbours with opulent enter- tainment; cheered and raised the character of the humbler ranks by their liberality and their ex- ample ; extinguished the little oppressions, and low propensities to crime which habitually grow up where the lord is an absentee ; and by their mere presence, and in the simple exercise of the natural duties of rank and wealth, were the great benefactors of society. A noble family of that time would no more have thought of flying from its country neighbours to creep into miserable lodgings at a watering-place, and hide its di- minished head among the meagre accommodations and miscellaneous society of a sea-coast village, than it would of burning its title-deeds. The expenses of the French war may have done something of this ; and the reduced rent-rolls of 1787. the prince's friends. 75 the nobility may countenance a more limited expenditure. But whether the change have been in matter or mind, in the purse or the spirit, the change is undeniable ; and where it is not com- pelled by circumstances, is contemptible. The prince was launched into public life in the midst of this high-toned time. With an income of 50,000/. a year, he was to take the lead of the English nobility, many of them with twice his income, and, of course, free from the court incum- brances of an official household. All princes are made to be plundered; and the youth, generosity, and companionship of the prince, marked him out for especial plunder. He was at once fastened on by every glittering profligate who had a debt of honour to discharge, by every foreign marquess who had a bijou to dispose of at ten times its value, by every member of the turf who had an unknown Eclipse or Childers in his stables, and by every nameless claimant on his personal patronage or his unguarded finance, until he fell into the hands of the Jews, who offered him money at fifty per cent ; and from them into the hands of political Jews, who offered him the national treasury at a price to which a hundred per cent was moderation. At this time the prince was nineteen, as ripe an age as could be desired for ruin ; and in three short years the consummation was arrived at, — he was ruined. 76 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. The Prince of Wales had now reached the second period of his public life. He had felt the bitterness of contracted circumstances, and the still keener trial of parliamentary appeal. His personal feelings had been but slightly spared in either; and we can scarcely be surprised at his shrinking from the cabinet, in which he had found none but baffled castigators, and attaching himself more closely to that opposition in which he had found none but active and successful friends. It is certain, that few men of his rank had ever been more wrung by the severity of the public inquisition into the habits of their lives. Court scandals are, at all times, pre- cious ; but the power of probing the wounds of princely life was never indulged in more gene- rously for the sake of popular science. The newspapers, too, plunged fiercely into the merits on both sides, and . , " By decision more embroiled the fray." Those formidable, but salutary scourges of public error, were just beginning to assume their influ- ence; and, like all possessors of unexpected power, their first use of it was to lay on the lash without mercy. Crabbe, then young, tremulously describes the terrors that must have naturally startled the chaplain of a duke at the rise of this grand flagellator ; though, like all satirists, he over- J 787. the prince's friends. 77 looks the actual and measureless good in the picturesque evil. " But Sunday past, Avhat numbers flourish then, What wond'rous labours of the press and pen ! Diurnal most, some thrice each week affords, Some only once ; O, avarice of words ! When thousand starving minds such manna seek, To drop the precious food but once a week ! Endless it were to sing the powers of all, Their names, their numbers, how they rise and fall. Like baneful herbs, the gazer's eye they seize, Rush to the head, and poison where they please ; Like summer flies, a busy, buzzing train, They drop their maggots in the idler's brain ; The genial soil preserves the fruitful store, And there they grow, and breed a thousand more. ***** Nor here th' infectious rage for party stops, But flits along from palaces to shops ; Our weekly journals o'er the land abound And spread their plague and influenza round. The village, too, the peaceful pleasant plain, Breeds the whig farmer, and the tory swain ; Brooks' and St. Alban's boasts not, but instead Stares the red Ram, and swings the Rodney's Head. Here clowns delight the weekly news to con, And mingle comments as they blunder on ; To swallow all their varying authors teach, To spell a title, and confound a speech. One with a muddled spirit quits the News, And claims his native license, — to abuse ; Then joins the cry, that ' all the courtly race Strive but for power, and parley but for place ;' 78 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. Yet hopes, good man, that all may still be well, And thanks his stars — he has a vote to sell."* If the prince had been a man of a harsh and gloomy mind, he had already found matter to qualify him for a Timon. But his experience produced no bitterness against human nature, though it may have urged him into more intimate connexion with the party that promised at once to protect and to avenge. Long attracted to Fox by the social captivations of that singularly-gifted individual, he now completely joined him as the politician, made friends of his friends and enemies of his enemies, unfurled the opposition banner, and all but declared himself the head of the great aristocratic combination, which was now more than ever resolved to shake the minister upon his throne. In 1783 -f the prince had been introduced to the house of peers, attended by the Dukes of Cumberland, Richmond, Portland, and Lord Lew- isham, and had spoken on the Marquess of Aber- corn's motion for an address on the proclamation for repressing seditious meetings. The speech was much admired for the grace of its delivery. It was in substance that — " He was educated in the principle, and he should ever preserve it, of a * Poem of "The Newspaper," published in 1784. f November 1 1 . 1787. the prince's friends. 79 reverence for the constitutional liberties of the people ; and as on those liberties the happiness of the people depended, he was determined, as far as his interest could have any force, to support them. The matter at issue was, whether the constitution was or was not to be maintained ; whether the wild ideas of theory were to con- quer the wholesome maxims of established prac- tice ; and whether those laws, under which we had flourished for so long a series of years, were to be subverted by a reform unsanctioned by the people. " As a person nearly and dearly interested in the welfare, and he would emphatically add, the happiness and comfort of the people, it would be treason to the principles of his mind, if he did not come forward and declare his disapprobation of those seditious publications which had occa- sioned the motion now before their lordships : his interest was connected with the interests of the people ; they were so inseparable, that unless both parties concurred, happiness could not exist. " On this great, this solid basis, he grounded the vote which he meant to give ; and that vote should unequivocally be, for a concurrence with the address of the commons." He concluded by saying, with remarkable effect, — " I exist by the love, the friendship, and the benevolence of the people, and them 1 never will forsake as long as I live." 80 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. This speech, whether suggested by the Duke of Portland (as was rumoured), or conceived by the prince, was obviously ministerial. But in those days, when the lord of the treasury might in the next month be thundering at the head of its assailants, and in the month after be flinging back their baffled bolts from the se- cure height of ministerial power; when in one month he might be the rebellious Titan, and in the next the legitimate Jove, the waving of whose curls shook the Olympus of Downing-street from its summit to its base ; the rapid changes of the administration made ministerial allegiance curi- ously fugitive. Before the worshipper had time to throw himself at the foot of the altar, the idol was gone, and another was in possession ; before the cargo of fealty could reach the port, the port was in dust and ashes, or a hostile ensign waved upon its walls. North, Pitt, Shelburne, Fox, and Rockingham, successively mastered the trea- sury bench, within scarcely more months than their names ; until government had begun to be looked on as only a more serious masquerade, where every man might assume every character in turn, and where the change of dress was the chief difference between the Grand Turk and his buffoon. The prince was the great political prize. From the hour of his infancy, when he was first shewn behind his gilded lattice, at St. James's, 1787. the prince's friends. 81 to the people, he was the popular hope. The king's early illness, which made it probable that the heir might soon be the master of the crown, fixed the public interest still more anxiously upon him, and the successive cabinets felt the full im- portance of his name : but now the whole advan- tage was on the side of opposition. England had never before seen such a phalanx armed against a minister. A crowd of men of the highest na- tural talents, of the most practised ability, and of the first public weight in birth, fortune, and popu- larity, were nightly arrayed against the adminis- tration, sustained by the solitary eloquence of the young Chancellor of the Exchequer. Yet Pitt was not careless of followers. He was more than once even charged with sedu- lously gathering round him a host of subaltern politicians, whom he might throw forward as skirmishers, — or sacrifices, which they generally were. Powis, describing the "forces led by the right lion, gentleman on the treasury bench," said, " the first detachment may be called his body guard, who shoot their little arrows against those who refuse allegiance to their chief."* This light infantry were, of course, soon scattered when the main battle joined. But Pitt, a son of the aris- tocracy, was an aristocrat in all his nature, and he loved to see young men of family round him ; Wraxall's Memoirs. 82 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. others were chosen for their activity, if not for their force, and some probably from personal liking. In the later period of his career, his train was swelled by a more influential and promising race of political worshippers, among whom were Lord Mornington, since Marquess Wellesley; Ryder, since Lord Harrowby; and Wilberforce, still un- dignified by title, but possessing an influence which, perhaps, he values more. The minister's chief agents in the house of commons were Mr. Grenville (since Lord Grenville) and Dundas. Yet, among those men of birth or business, what rival could be found to the popular leaders on the opposite side of the house, — to Burke, Sheridan, Grey, Windham, or to Fox, that " Prince and chief of many throned powers, Who led the embattled seraphim to war." Without adopting the bitter remark of the Duke de Montausier to Louis the Fourteenth, in speak- ing of Versailles : — " Vous avez beau faire, sire, vous n'en ferez jamais qu'un favori sans meVite," it was impossible to deny their inferiority on all the great points of public impression. A debate in that day was one of the highest intel- lectual treats : there was always some new and vigorous feature in the display on both sides ; some striking effort of imagination or masterly reasoning, or of that fine sophistry, in which, as was said of the vices of the French noblesse, half 1787. the prince's friends. 83 the evil was atoned by the elegance. The minis- terialists sarcastically pronounced that, in every debate, Burke said something which no one else ever said Sheridan said something that no one else ought to say, and Fox something that no one else would dare to say. But the world, fairer in its decision, did justice to their extraordi- nary powers; and found in the Asiatic amplitude and splendour of Burke ; in Sheridan's alternate subtlety and strength, reminding it at one time of Attic dexterity, and another of the uncalculating boldness of barbarism ; and in Fox's matchless English self-possession, unaffected vigour, and overflowing sensibility, a perpetual source of ad- miration. But it was in the intercourses of social life that the superiority of Opposition was most incon- testable. Pitt's life was in the senate : his true place of existence was on the benches of that ministry, which he conducted with such unpa- ralleled ability and success : he was, in the fullest sense of the phrase, a public man ; and his in- dulgences in the few hours which he could spare from the business of office, were more like the necessary restoratives of a frame already shattered, than the easy gratifications of a man of society : and on this principle we can safely account for the common charge of Pitt's propensity to wine. He found it essential, to relieve a mind and body exhausted by the perpetual pressure of affairs : 84 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. wine was his medicine : and it was drunk in total solitude, or with a few friends from whom the minister had no concealment. Over his wine the speeches for the night were often concerted; and when the dinner was done, the table council broke up only to finish the night in the house. The secret history of those symposia might still clear up some of the problems that once ex- ceedingly perplexed our politicians. On one occasion Pitts silence on a motion brought for- ward by the present Earl Grey with great ex- pectation and great effect, excited no less surprise, than its being replied to by Dundas, whose war- fare generally lay among less hazardous anta- gonists. The clubs next day were in a fever of conjecture on this apparent surrender of a supre- macy, of which the minister was supposed to be peculiarly jealous. The mystification lasted until Dundas laugh- ingly acknowledged that, on the night before the debate, Pitt and some of their immediate friends had been amusing themselves after dinner with imaginary speeches for Opposition: he himself had made a burlesque speech for the motion, and Pitt enjoyed the idea so highly, that he insisted on his replying to the mover in the house, saying, "that by the law of Parliament, nobody could be so fit to make a speech against, as he who had made a speech for; and that his only chance of escaping 1787. the prince's friends. 85 the charge of being a proselyte, was by being an assailant." When the debate came on, Dundas had waited for the minister's rising, as usual ; but, to his surprise, he found that Pitt was de- termined to keep up the jest, and compel him, malgre, bongre, to speak. There was no resource, Pitt was immovable, and the festive orator, to his considerable embarrassment, was forced to lead. But wine, if a pleasant associate, is a danger- ous master : and an after-dinner frolic is men- tioned as having nearly cost the minister his life. Returning, past midnight, with his friends to Wim- bledon, from Mr. Jenkinson's, at Croydon, they found one of the turnpike gates open ; and, whether from the natural pleasure of baffling the turnpike- man, or of cheating the king, the party put spurs to their horses and galloped through. Those sportive personages were no less than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Chancellor, and the Treasurer of the Navy — Pitt, Thurlow, and Dun- das. The gate-keeper called after them in vain, until deciding, from their haste, and there having been rumours of robberies on the road, that they were three highwaymen, he summarily took the law into his own hands, and discharged a blunderbuss at their backs. However, their speed, or his being unaccustomed to shoot ministers flying, saved them ; and they had to suffer from nothing but those " paper bullets of the brain" which Benedick so much despised. 86 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. Of those they had many a volley. The Rolliad thus commemorated the adventure : " Ah think what danger on debauch attends ! Let Pitt, o'er wine, preach temperance to his friends, How, as he wandered darkling o'er the plain, His reason drowned in Jenkinson's champagne, A rustic's hand, but righteous fate withstood, Had shed a premier's tbi a robber's blood." But those were rare condescensions to society in the premier. From remaining unmarried, he was without an establishment ; for the attempt which he made to form one, with his fantastic relative Lady Hester Stanhope at its head, soon wearied him, and he escaped from it to the easier hospitality of Mr. Dundas, whose wife, Lady Jane, was a woman of remarkable intelligence, and much valued by Pitt. His official dinners were generally left to the management of Steele, one of the secretaries of the treasury. But with Fox all was the bright side of the picture. His extraordinary powers defied dissipa- tion. No public man of England ever mingled so much personal pursuit of every thing in the form of indulgence with so much parliamentary activity. From the dinner he went to the debate, from the debate to the gaming-table, and returned to his bed by day-light, freighted with parliamentary applause, plundered of his last dis- posable guinea, and fevered with sleeplessness and agitation ; to go through the same round 1787. the prince's friends. 87 within the next twenty-four hours. He kept no house ; but he had the houses of all his party at his disposal, and that party were the most opulent and sumptuous of the nobility. Cato and Antony were not more unlike, than the pub- lic severity of Pitt, and the native and splendid dissoluteness of Fox. They were unlike in aif'things. Even in such slight peculiarities as their manner of walking into the house of commons, the contrast was visible. From the door Pitt's countenance was that of a man who felt that he was corning into his high place of business. " He advanced up the floor with a quick firm step, with the head erect and thrown back, looking to neither the right nor the left, nor favouring with a glance or a nod any of the individuals seated on either side, among whom many of the highest would have been gratified by such a mark of recognition." * Fox's entrance was lounging or stately, as it might happen, but always good-humoured ; he had some pleasantry to exchange with every body, and until the mo- ment when he rose to speak, continued gaily talking with his friends. As the royal residences were all occupied by the king, or the younger members of the royal family, the prince was forced to find a country • Wraxall. 88 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. seat for himself; and he selected Brighton, then scarcely more than a little fishing village, and giving no conception of the sea-shore London that it has since become. Our national rage for covering every spot of the land with brick, and blotting out the sky with the smoke of cities linked to cities, had not then become epidemic ; and Brighton, in all its habits, was as far removed from London as Inverness : but its distance, not above a morning's drive for the rapid charioteer- ing of his royal highness, made it eligible ; and at Brighton he purchased a few acres, and began to build. Probably no man has ever begun to build, without having the prince's tale to tell. Walpole advises a man never to lay the first stone, until he has settled his children, buried his wife, and hoarded three times the amount of the estimate. There is no royal road to building ; and the prince soon found that he must undergo the common lot of all who tempt their fate with architecture. His first work was a cottage in a field. The cottage was a singularly pretty and picturesque little fabric, in a small piece of ground where a few shrubs and roses shut out the road, and the eye looked unobstructed over the ocean. But visitors naturally came, and the cottage was found small. The prince's household and visitors gradually increased, and there was then no resource but in a few additional apartments. It was at 1787. the prince's friends. 89 last found that those repeated improvements were deformities, and that their expense would be better employed in making a complete change. From this change grew the present Pavilion ; the perpetual ridicule of tourist wit, and cer- tainly unsuited in style to its present encumbered and narrow site, and perhaps to European taste. But if no man is a hero to his valet de chambre, no man is a prince to his architect. Whatever be his repugnance, he is bound hand and foot by the dictator of taste ; is accountable for nothing, but the rashness of surrendering himself at dis- cretion ; and has thenceforth nothing to do but to bear the public pleasantry as patiently as he may, and consider how he shall pay his bill. Yet the happiest hours of the prince's life were spent in this cottage. But it is not for men of his condition to expect the quiet of an humbler and more fortunate situation, the happy, honied lapse of years occupied only in cultivating the favourite tastes, or the gentle affections of the human heart. He was too important to the pub- lic, in all senses of the word, to be suffered to enjoy the " jucunda oblivia" which every man of common knowledge of life feels to be among its best privileges. He was too essential to the objects of the great competitors for power; to the multitude, who look upon the purse of princes as their own ; and even to the general eagerness of the populace for royal anecdote, to be left 90 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. unmolested in any retreat, however remote or secluded. His best quiet was only that of the centre of a vortex ; and he was scarcely suffered to make the experiment of ease, when the ques- tion of the Regency led, or rather flung, him into that sea of troubled and conflicting interests from which he was destined never to emerge. His Royal Highness had joined the Foxites almost at the commencement of his public life. The captivation of Fox's manners, the freedom from restraint which he found in the society of which Fox was the idol ; and the actual elegance and high life of the Whig circle, were probably the chief sources of his choice. For what could be the politics of a handsome boy of nineteen, living in a perpetual round of entertainments, with nothing to take care of but his beauty, and with all the world saying civil things to him, and he saying civil things to all the world ? But, once fairly in the harness of party, the only difficulty was to keep him from overturning the machine by his eagerness. In the debates on the celebrated India bill, which Fox called the pyramid of the British power, but which he might more justly have called the mausoleum of his own ; the Prince of Wales made himself conspicuous, to a degree, which brought down strong charges of influence on his friends ; and certainly embarrassed North and Fox, already almost overborne by national 1787. the prince's friends. 91 displeasure. It was remarked on the prince's frequent presence in the house of commons during this perilous discussion, that " if the great personage in question, not content with merely listening to the debates, should, on any occasion, testify by his behaviour or gesticulation, while in the house, a predilection or partiality for any set of men ; such marks of his preference would be unbecoming, and might operate as a means of influence." Lord North delicately de- fended the practice, by a panegyric on the prince's " eminent abilities," and by expressing his per- sonal gratification in seeing " a prince to whom the country must look up as its hope, thus prac- tically becoming acquainted with the nature of this limited government, rather than taking up the hearsay of the hour, or looking for his knowledge to flatterers." Fox, with his usual boldness, dashed out at once into lofty invective on the charges " perni- cious and ridiculous alike, adopted by no less the enemies of free discussion in that house, than the calumniators of the motives of a distinguished per- sonage, whose whole spirit was honour." — " Was the mind which might, at any hour, by the common chances of mortality, be summoned to the highest duties allotted to man, to be left to learn them by accident ? Was he to be sent to discover the living spirit of the constitution in the dust of libraries, or in the unintelligible compilations 92 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. of black-letter law ; or to receive it from the authority of the politicians, pious or otherwise, who had doled out doctrines to the house, which the house and the country, he believed, had heard with equal astonishment, however popular they might be in the inquisition, or perhaps in the conventicle? For his part, he rejoiced to see that distinguished personage disdaining to use the privileges of his rank, and keep aloof from the debates of that house. He rejoiced to see him manfully coming among them, to imbibe a knowledge of the constitution, within the walls of the commons of England. He, for his part, saw nothing in the circumstances which had called down so much volunteer eloquence and unnecessary reprobation, but a ground for praise; an evidence of the British mind of that high personage, and a practical pledge to the free institutions of the country." The member alluded to as the conventicle orator was Sir Richard Hill, brother of the preacher, who had the foolish and indecorous habit of introducing Scripture phraseology into his speeches, — a habit by which, without in- creasing any man's respect for the Scriptures, he naturally brought himself into constant ridi- cule. Sir Richard was often thus more trouble- some to his friends than to his enemies. One evening, in contrasting Pitt's influence at St. James's with Fox's full-blown power in the 1787. the prince's friends. 93 house, he burst upon the astonished audience with the information that " the honest Israelite, Mordecai, repaired privately to court, and averted the danger which threatened the people from Haman's ambition, who, being driven from the cabinet, was finally suspended from a gibbet." The comparison with the Israelite, intended as a matchless compliment to Pitt, was received by him without a smile; and he was probably the only man in the house whose countenance did not wear one. The Rolliad, which spared none on the minis- terial side, naturally delighted in such a victim. " Brother of Rowland ! or, if yet more dear Sounds thy new title, cousin of a peer ; Scholar of various learning, good and evil, Alike what Heaven inspired, and what the devil ; Speaker well skilled, what no man reads to write, Sleep-giving poet of a sleepless night ; Polemic, politician, saint, and wit, Now lashing Madan, now defending Pitt : Thy praise shall live till time itself be o'er, ' Friend of king George, but of king Jesus more.' ' The last line was verbally one of Sir Richard's declarations. The critical knife was again plunged deep : — ■ ****** " His reverend jokes see pious Richard cut; Let meaner talents from the Bible draw Their faith, their morals these, and those their law. His lively genius finds in holy writ A richer mine of unsuspected wit; 94 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. What never Jew, what never Christian taught, What never fired one sectary's heated thought, What not even Rowland dreamed, he saw alone, And to the wondering senate first made known, How bright o'er mortal jokes the Scriptures shine." To Fox the prince's connexion was a tower of strength. For it partially discountenanced the rumours, that in his fall he had abandoned more than place, and was embittered not only against his successful antagonists, but against the laws and the throne. As Pope said to Prince Frederic, on being asked, "how he contrived to feel so much regard for princes, and so little for kings ;" that "he was afraid of the full-grown lion, but could play with it before its teeth and claws were come ;" Fox might have liked or loved the heir to the monarchy, however indignant at the grasp of the monarch himself; but his asso- ciation with the prince may have done even more than assisted his public name. In the proverbial madness of ambition, the contumacious temper of the time, and the angry workings of utter defeat upon a powerful and impassioned mind, there was formidable temptation to the great demagogue. Too generous and too lofty in his habits to stoop to vulgar conspiracy ; perhaps, alike too abhorrent of blood, and too fond of his ease, to have exhibited the reckless vigour, or endured the long anxieties, or wrapt up his mystery in 1787. the prince's friends. 95 the profound concealment of a Catiline ; he had all the qualities that might have made a Caius Gracchus ; the eloquence, the ingenuous- ness of manner, the republican simplicity of life, and the shewy and specious zeal of popularity in all its forms. Fox would have made the first of tribunes. He, unquestionably, possessed the means, at that period, to have become the most dangerous subject of England. Fox's life is a memorable lesson to the pride of talents. With every kind of public ability, every kind of public opportunity, and an un- ceasing and indefatigable determination to be at the summit in all things, his whole life was a succession of disappointments. It has been said, that, on commencing his parliamentary course, he declared that there were three objects of his ambition, and that he would attain them all : — that he should be the most popular man in Eng- land, the husband of the handsomest woman, and prime minister. He did attain them all ; but in what diminished and illusory degree, how the " J u &o^ n §' fiend kept the promise to the ear, and broke it to the hope," is long since known. He was the most popular man in England, if the Westminster electors were the nation ; his mar- riage secured him beauty, if it secured him nothing else ; and his premiership lasted scarcely long enough for him to appear at the levee. In a life of fifty- eight years, Fox's whole existence 96 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. as a cabinet minister was but nineteen months ; while Pitt, ten years his junior, and dying at forty-seven, passed almost his whole life from his entrance into parliament, at the head of the country. The public and parliamentary language of the time was contemptuous of all government. Junius had set the example, by insulting, not only the throne, but the private habits and per- sonal feelings of the sitter on the throne. Going beyond the audacity of Cromwell, who declared that " if he saw the king opposite to him in the field, he would fire his carbine into his bosom as soon as into any other man's ;" Junius adopted the joint fierceness and insolence of Home Tooke, who declared that " he would fire it into the king's bosom sooner than into any other man's." English libel had, till then, assailed only the public life of royalty ; Junius was the subtle traitor, who dropped poison into the cup at its table. The ability of the writer is undoubted ; but its uses deprive it of all the higher admira- tion due to the exercise of ability in an honest cause. The remorseless and malignant venom of this political serpent destroys all our praise of its force and beauty. While the school of Junius continued to be the model of English political writing, a ceaseless perversion was fes- tering and enfeebling the public sense of truth, justice, and honour. 1787. the prince's friends. 97 Perhaps the safety of the constitution at that hour was owing to that personal character on which the whole host of pamphleteering turned all their artillery. A king jealous of his au- thority would have haughtily avenged it by a stretch of his power; a vindictive king would have fiercely torn away the covering from his libellers, and in lashing them have hazarded blows at higher interests ; an ambitious king would have grasped at the opportunity always offered by popular license to royal aggression, have raised up against the mob barriers from which he might afterwards menace the nation ; and have more than retaliated as a tyrant, all that he had suffered as a victim. But George the Third confided his quarrel to his virtues ; he saw deeper than the osten- tatious sagacity of those declaimers and insulters into the true character of the people ; he knew that those furious gusts and " yeasty waves" of sedition were passing and superficial things ; that the time must come when the great expanse, the depth and breadth of the public mind of the empire, would find its level, and be open to the light ; and in pious and manly resignation he awaited his time. The failure of the American war had concentered upon the king the whole weight of party obloquy. Lord North, terrified at his own responsibility, instead of standing before the throne, flung him- n 98 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. self at its feet; and exhibited the repulsive spectacle of a first minister without resource in himself or in his friends ; and after having ex- hausted the royal means by his struggle for power, encumbering the royal person by his weakness. But if we may forgive the popular ignorance in its wrath for the loss of America, with what feeling shall we listen to the language of the great senatorial authorities ? History never gave a sterner rebuke to political foresight. " What," said Lord Chatham, in the famous speech which he almost died uttering; " what is to be the compensation for the thirteen colo- nies? Where are we to look for it? I never will consent to deprive the royal offspring of the House of Brunswick of their fairest inheritance. Where is the man who dares advise such a measure ?" The sentiment branded itself on the reputa- tion of all the leading statesmen. " When I hear," said Lord George Germaine, " the topic of abandoning the colonies calmly proposed, I own my astonishment; I own that I cannot comprehend the proposal ; I see in it only national ruin. I own I have not that philosophic equanimity, that more than political nerve, which can contemplate without shuddering the opening of a gulf into which all that is valuable in the British empire must inevitably be merged. I must pause, I must tremble, when I stand on its 1787. the prince's friends. 99 edge ; for it is my firm belief, that from the moment of acknowledging the independence of America, England is ruined." Lord Shelburne, a minister not celebrated for rashly giving way to his feelings, exceeded, if possible, the melancholy prophecies of Chatham and Germaine. Even when first lord of the treasury,* and with all the restrictions of official speech; he could glow on this subject, and omi- nously pronounce, that, — " in whatever year, in whatever hour, the British parliament should lose the sovereignty of the thirteen colonies, the sun of England's glory was for ever set. He had hoped that there would be some reserve for national safety, if not for national honour ; that a spark at least would be left, which might light us up in time to a new day. But if independence were once conceded, if parliament considered that measure to be advisable, he, for his part, must avow his belief; he foresaw, in his own mind, that England was undone /" Such was the wisdom of the wise; or rather, such was at once the blindness which could not see that the growing patronage of the colonies, if they had remained a few years longer in our hands, must have given the minister a power deadly to a free constitution ; the political self- ishness of arrogating to England a perpetual ' April 1778. 100 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. dominion which no authority three thousand miles oft" could wisely administer, but which must cramp and wither the prosperity of a young- continent by the burdens and institutes of an old island; and not less the ungenerous neglect, or the narrow and ungrateful disregard of those immeasurable means of strength, happiness, and national stability, which Providence has lavished on Great Britain. But we can scarcely be surprised that opinions thus inculcated by the gravest names of politic council, voices that came like oracles, should have sunk deep into the popular bosom. A bitter repugnance to every act of the throne was rapidly engendered, thoughts of a general change began to be familiar, and the language of the principal members of opposition assumed a tone, at whose uncalled-for violence we can now only wonder. Dunning, though a lawyer, and at an age not likely to be inflamed by enthusiasm, the keen, cold man of juris- prudence, actually moved, in the House of Com- mons, that the power of dissolving parliament should be taken from the crown; his motion being, that* " the parliament should not be dis- solved, nor the session prorogued, until proper measures were adopted for diminishing the in- fluence of the crown, and correcting the other evils complained of in the petitions." Fox car- * April 1780. 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. ]0l ried his sentiments still further, and coming hot from the contact of the Corresponding Society, and full of the popular grievance of seeing a body of soldiers placed to protect the members of the house from insult, unhesitatingly declared, that " if the soldiery were to be thus let loose on the assemblages of the people, the people who at- tended them must go armed" Mirabeau's famous declaration in the national assembly, that, "if the king desired the French deputies to retire, it must be at the point of the bayonet, "' the watchword of the revolution, was scarcely more defying than this menace. But the better genius of England prevailed. The statesman shrank from the hideous worship of the devil of revolution. He could not pass at once from the princely banquet to the squalid - ness and obscene riot of the democratic carousal. He grew weary of the furious fondness and the irrational hate of the populace ; his angry tem- perament cooled, his natural tastes were restored, and long before the close of his life, Fox was, what he had begun, the high aristocrat by habit, by association, and by nature. He still conti- nued member for Westminster, and he made his customary, periodic appeals to party. But if he wore the robes of the worship, he had abandoned the fanaticism ; he no longer menaced the insti- tutions of England with the fierce fervour of his old prophecies of evil ; he no more shook against 102 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. the throne the brand snatched from the revolu- tionary altar; he still went through the established ceremonial ; but when it was done, he cast aside the vestments, and hastened to be the companion of nobles and princes again. The society at the Pavilion was remarkably attractive ; no prince in Europe passed so much of his time in society expressly chosen by him- self. Intelligent conversation is the great charm of man, the finest solace of intellectual labour, and the simplest yet most effectual and delightful mode of at once resting and invigorating the mind, whether wearied by study, or depressed by strug- gles with fortune. Next to the power of extensive benevolence, there is no privilege of princes which the wisdom of humbler life may be so justified in desiring, as their power of collecting accom- plished minds from the whole range of the com- munity. The Prince of Wales availed himself largely of this privilege. It happened that English society at this period singularly abounded with men of conspicuous ability. To his royal high- ness, of course, all were accessible ; and though his associates were chiefly men of rank or of high political name, yet talents, grace of manners, and conversational brilliancy, were the principle of selection. Frederic the Great had attempted to draw round him a circle of this kind. But he chose ill: 1787. the prince's friends. 103 for he chose dependants, and those Frenchmen. His own habits were querulous and supercilious ; and as the fashions of royalty are quickly adopted by its associates, Frederic's coterie was in a state of perpetual warfare. Voltaire led the battle, and when he had sneered his companions out of all resistance, he fell on the monarch himself. No man in a state of perfect idleness can be satisfied with his life; and the Frenchmen had nothing to do but to quarrel, invent scandals, and yawn. Thiebault, one of the chosen dwellers in the paradise of Sans Souci, tells us, that their only occupation from morning till night was conju- gating the verb sennuyer, through all persons, moods, and tenses. Frederic treated them like monkeys in a cage, came in from the council or the parade to amuse himself for the half-hour with looking at their tricks and their visages; then turned on his heel, left them to the eternal weariness of their prison, and went about the busi- ness of the world. The Frenchmen at last slipped, one by one, out of this gilded menagerie ; ran off to Paris, the only spot where a Frenchman can live ; and libelled the royal wit and infidel with a pun- gency and profligacy even superior to his own, until they turned the " Grand Frederic" into a public laugh in every corner of Europe beyond the lash of his drum-majors. Frederic, Prince of Wales, the grandfather of 104 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. his late majesty, had also attempted to collect a familiar and literary society round him. But the attempt was a reluctant one, and it naturally failed. It was Lyttleton's suggestion as a source of popularity ; and it humiliated Thomson and Mallet, by making them pensioners on an indivi- dual. Authorship, to be worthy of public honour, cannot shrink too sensitively from personal pro- tection. The past age scandalised the natural rank of genius. But a wiser, because a more dignified, feeling now prevails among men of literary name. They appeal only to the public, and honourably disdain to stoop to the degra- dation of any patronage below that of the people and the throne. 1787. the prince's friends. 105 CHAPTER VII. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. The prince's table afforded the display of men too independent by both their place in society, and their consciousness of intellectual power, to feel themselves embarrassed by the presence of superior rank. Hare, Jekyll, Fitzpatrick, Erskine, with the great parliamentary leaders, were constant guests, and the round was varied by the introduc- tion of celebrated foreigners, and other persons capable of adding to the interest of the circle. Hare, " the Hare and many friends," as he was called by the clever Duchess of Gordon, in allusion to Gay's fable, and his own universal fa- vouritism, was then at the head of conversational fame. Like Johnsons objection to Topham Beau- clerk ; " Sir, a man cannot dine with him and preserve his self-applause ; Sir, no man who gives a dinner should so overwhelm his guests;" Hare's chief fault was said to be his super- abundant pleasantry ; a talent which suffered nothing among his friends or enemies to escape, yet which had the rare goodfortune of being pointed without ceasing to be playful. Some of the sayings of the circle are still re- 106 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. membered. But if they are given here in the miscellaneous and accidental order of their trans- piring in the chances of society, it is by no means without a sufficient feeling, that the repe- tition of a bon-mot can seldom give more than a proof of the fading nature of pleasantry. The occasion is all. The promptness of the idea, the circumstances, the company, even the coun- tenance, are essential to its poignancy. The re- vived pleasantry is a portrait drawn from the dust, and the originals of whose features have passed away — the amusement of a masquerade, when we have nothing of the masquerade left but the mask and the robe. If actors " come like sha- dows, so depart;" the fame of wits is still more fugitive ; until it is scarcely paradoxical to say, that the security of their fame depends on the speed of our consigning all its specimens to obli- vion. Selwyn was the wit par excellence of his day, and so paramount, that he turns even Horace Walpole into a worshipper : Walpole, himself a wit, and as full of the keenest venom of the smallest ambition, as any man who ever pros- trated himself to a court and libelled it. Yet Selwyn's best sayings are now remarkable for scarcely more than their stiffness, their sulkiness, or their want of decorum. They are stamped with bald, dry antiquity ; and are perfectly wor- thy of the fate which has, a second time in our age, sent the skeleton to the grave. 1787. the prince's friends. 107 The merit of Hare's jeux-cF esprit was their readiness and their oddity. — Fox, after the fall of the Coalition, coming to dinner at the Pavilion just as he had returned from London, and apolo- gising for appearing in his dishabille and without powder : " Oh," said Hare, " make no apology ; our great guns are discharged, and now we may all do without powder." " Pleasant news, this, from America," said he, meeting General Fitzpatrick on the first in- telligence of Burgoyne's defeat. The general doubted, and replied, " that he had just come from the secretary of state's office without hear- ing any thing of it." " Perhaps so," said Hare, ' but take it from me as a flying rumour." Fox's negligence of his fortune had induced his friends to find out a wife for him among the great heiresses. Miss Pulteney, afterwards Countess of Bath, was fixed upon ; and Fox, though probably without any peculiar inclination to the match, paid his court for a while. A seat was frequently left for him beside the lady, and he made his attentions rather conspicuous during Hastings's trial. Some one observed to Hare the odd contrast between Fox's singularly dark complexion, and Miss Pulteney's pale face and light hair. " What a strange sort of children they will make," was the observation. " Why, 108 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. duns, to be sure," replied Hare ; " cream-coloured bodies with black manes and tails." Fox was more celebrated for fulness of conversation, for the outpouring of an abundant mind, than for piquancy of phrase. His anima- tion was unequal, and there were periods when a stranger might have pronounced him even taci- turn. But those times were generally brief; a sudden influx of ideas would seem to fertilise his mind, and he then overbore every thing by the richness and variety of his conceptions. Yet the chief remembrances of Fox in private society are some little poems, thrown off with the care- lessness of the moment, and deriving their prin- cipal value from his name. The Duchess of Devonshire applied to him for a charade. " On what subject?" said Fox. "The happiest of all subjects — myself," was the laughing reply. Fox took his pencil, and on the back of a letter wrote the lines so often since made the property of wits and lovers in distress : My first is myself in a very short word, My second's a plaything, And you are my third. (Idol.) His lines on the Rose are pretty and pa- thetic : — The rose, the sweetly blooming rose, Ere from the tree 'tis torn, Is like the charm which beauty shews In life's exulting morn. 1787. the prince's friends. 109 But ah, how soon its sweets are gone, The rose-bud withering lies. So, long ere life's pale eve comes on, The flower of beauty dies. But, since the fairest heaven e'er made Soon withering we shall find, Be thine, sweet girl, what ne'er shall fade, The beauties of the mind. The well known lines on Poverty, and on Mrs. Crewe, are of a higher order. But all those things are trifles, which might be produced by any pen, and which can be given only as instances of the occasional lightness of a grave and power- ful mind. Fox's triumphs were all parliamentary. But his conversation, when he was " i' the vein," is always spoken of as leaving us only to regret that so little of it remains. One evening at Devonshire-house, some re- mark happening to be made on the skill of the French in emblems, the Duchess playfully said, " that it would be impossible to find an emblem for her." Several attempts were made with va- rious success. The Duchess still declared herself dissatisfied. At length Fox took up a cluster of grapes and presented it to her, with the motto, " Je plais jusqaa I'ivresse ;" his superiority was acknowledged by acclamation. Burke was contending, in his usual enthu- 110 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. siastic manner, for the possibility of raising Italy to her former rank ; and instanced, that several nations which had sunk under the sword had risen again. Fox argued that her ruin was irre- trievable, and that the very tardiness and tran- quillity of her decay made restoration hopeless. " The man," said he, " who breaks his bones by being flung from a precipice, may have them mended by his surgeon. But what hope is there when they have dissolved away in the grave ?" A high official personage, since dead, noto- rious for his parsimony, and peculiarly for his reluctance to contribute to charitable institutions, was seen at a charity sermon for some school, in which Fox and Sheridan were accidentally inte- rested. How far the sermon had acted on this noble person's liberality became a question over the table. " I think he gave his pound," said Sheridan. " Impossible," said Fox, " the rack could not have forced such a sum from him ; or, he must think that he is going to die." " Poh," was Sheridan's reply, " the sum is not much ; even Judas threw away twice the money." " Yes," returned Fox; "but how long was it before he was hanged?" Gibbon, one of the most fastidious of men, and disposed by neither party nor personal recollections to be enamoured of Fox, describes his conversation as admirable. They met at 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. Ill Lausanne, spent a day without other company, " and talked the whole day :" the test was suffi- ciently long under any circumstances, but Gibbon declares that Fox never nagged ; his animation and variety of topic were inexhaustible. Major Doyle, the present Gen. Sir John Doyle, who, after a course of renown in the field and the senate, is still the life of his circle, and abounds in the spirit and pleasantry of his early years ; was, for a long period, private secretary to the prince. The choice had nothing to do with po- litics or English connexions, for Doyle was an Irishman and a stranger, or known only by his character for wit and eloquence in the Irish parliament, where he had attained a high rank among Opposition. The prince, already ac- quainted with his name, met him in the crowd of an enormous London rout, was struck with his obvious intelligence, and invited him at the moment to accompany a large party who were going to spend the week at the Pavilion. There the first impression was so fully confirmed, that he offered him the private secretaryship, and Doyle was thenceforth one of the stars of the Brighton galaxy. It is an honour to this distin- guished gentleman and soldier, that neither time nor circumstance has worn away his feelings for his royal friend ; to whom, on all occasions, he unequivocally and eloquently gives the tribute of 112 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. having been the most attractive and accomplished man whom he ever met, in the range of a life spent in the best society of Europe ; as the most open-hearted and even-tempered of human beings, during the entire period of their intercourse ; as possessing a remarkable degree of knowledge, peculiarly on military subjects; and, on the whole, as gifted with acquirements and abilities which, if the field for their exertion had not been so sternly closed at the commencement of his public life, must have placed the Prince of Wales among the most popular and eminent individuals who ever inherited the British throne. The charges of caprice, and of those sudden checks of familiarity which have been subse- quently laid against him, if they were not founded more in the foolish presumption of those who made them, than of him who might have had no other means of repulsing unworthy society, seem to have had no existence at this period. The table was free and equal ; the prince enjoyed his witticism, and bore its reply ; and perhaps at no table in England was there more ease, live- liness, or freedom from the royal frown that looks down subjects into silence. On the king's opening the session of parlia- ment, the prince had gone in state in a military uniform with diamond epaulettes. At dinner Doyle came in late, and, to the prince's inquiry 1787. the prince's friends. 113 whether he had seen the procession ? answered, that he had been among the mob, " who pro- digiously admired his royal highness's equipage." "And did they say nothing else?" asked the prince, who was at this time a good deal talked of, from his encumbrances. " Yes. One fellow, looking at your epaulette, said, ' Tom, what an amazing fine thing the prince has got on his shoulders !' ' Ay,' answered the other, ' fine enough, and fine as it is it will soon be on our shoulders' The prince paused a moment, then looked Doyle in the face, and laughing, said, " Ah! I know where that hit came from, you rogue ; that could be nobody's but yours. Come, take some wine." Curran, the celebrated Irish barrister, was a frequent guest at the Pavilion, and all his recol- lections of it were panegyrical. He said, and this at a time when his intercourse with courts, and nearly with life, was at an end ; that, considered as a test of colloquial liveliness and wit, he had never met any thing superior to the prince's table, and that the prince himself was among the very first there ; that he had never met any man who kept him more on the qui vivc ; and if his own habits might have given him a little more prac- tice, the prince " fairly kept up at saddle-skirts with him." St. Leger, a shewy Irishman, coming to i 114 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. London, and being extensively known from his connexions and manners, had availed himself of the hospitalities of Whig and Tory alike ; and on his first dinner at the Pavilion, was laughingly taken to task for his indiscriminate taste for the burgundy of both sides. The Irishman defended himself gallantly, and said, that he saw no difference of principle in beauty or burgundy ; but that, " love or drink where he would, he would always adhere to his political friends." " St. Leger is quite right," said the prince; " he promises like the prospectus of a newspaper, — ' open to all parties, but influenced by none.' The Lewes races were thinly attended, in consequence of a rainy day. The prince and a few persons of rank were there, and underwent a drenching. On their return, some observation was made on the small number of noblemen on the course. "I beg pardon," said the prince; " I think I saw a very handsome sprinkling of the nobility." The conversation turning on some new eccen- tricity of Lord George Gordon ; his unfitness for a mob leader was instanced in his suffering the rioters of 1780 to break open the gin-shops, and, in particular, to intoxicate themselves by the plunder of Langdale's great distillery, in Holborn. 1787. the prince's friends. 115 " But why did not Langdale defend his property?" was the question. " He had not the means," was the answer. " Not the means of defence?" said the prince ; " ask Angelo : he, a brewer, a fellow all his life long at cart and tierce." The prince's regiment were expecting orders for Ireland. St. Leger said that garrison duty in Dublin was irksome, and that country quarters were so squalid, that they would destroy the lace and uniforms of the regiment, which even then were remarkably rich. " Well, then," said the prince, " let them do their duty as dragoons, and scour the country." A heavy-heeled cavalry officer, at one of the Brighton balls, astounded the room by the pecu- liar impressivencss of his dancing. A circle of affrighted ladies fluttered over to the prince, and inquired, by what possibility they could escape being trampled out of the world by this formid- able performer. " Nothing can be done," said the prince, "since the war is over: then, he might have been sent back to America, as a republica- tion of the stamp act. " Home Tooke was committed to prison on a charge of treason, which he bore so loftily, that he was said to have an intention of establishing regular club dinners in the jail. 116 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. "The parson had better give a masquerade, and appear as Tartuffe," said Sheridan. " No; a concert is the thing," said the prince : " New- gate is a capital place for a ketch club." Sheridan was detailing the failure of Fox's match with Miss Pulteney. " I never thought that any thing would result from it," said the prince. " Then," replied Sheridan, " it was not for want of sighs : he sat beside her cooing like a turtle-dove." " He never cared about it," said the prince; " he saw long ago that it was a coup manque.'''' At a later period, one of the newspapers quoted a speech of Sir Joseph Yorke, who, in his usual good-humoured style, said, at some public dinner in winter, " that, for his part, in such society, he knew no difference of politics or seasons. And that a coal fire, champagne, and good company, might turn winter into sum- mer at any day of the year." " Shakspeare and Sir Joseph agree," said the prince : " Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by the Son of Yorke." In Cyril Jackson's visits to Brighton, the con- versation frequently turned on points of literature. On one occasion, the prince quoted a phrase from 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. 117 Homer. Jackson doubted, the prince persisted. " Well, then," said the old man, with the free- dom of former preceptorship, if that be the line, you have got it by heart to puzzle me : you have parroted it." " Let the Homer be brought," said the prince, " and now see if I have parroted it." The book was brought, and he repeated half the page from memory. Jackson was delighted. " Ah !" said he, " I knew that you would be a scholar; and it was I who made you one." Fox disliked Dr. Parr; who, however, whe- ther from personal admiration, or from the habit which through life humiliated his real titles to respect — that of fastening on the public favourites of the time, persecuted him with praise. The prince saw a newspaper panegyric on Fox, evi- dently from the Dr.'s pen; and on being asked what he thought of it, observed, that " It re- minded him of the famous epitaph on Machiavel's tomb, — " Tanto nomini nullum Par elogium." If English punning be a proscribed species of wit ; though it bears, in fact, much more the character of the " chartered libertine," every where reprobated, and every where received ; yet classical puns take rank in all lands and languages. Burke's pun on " the divine right of kings and toastmasters," — the jure de -vino — per- 118 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. haps stands at the head of its class. But in an argument with Jackson, the prince, jestingly, con- tended that trial by jury was as old as the time of Julius Csesar; and even that Csesar died by it. He quoted Suetonius : " Jure csesus videtur." The late Sir William Curtis was equally known for his loyalty and his good living, his speeches and his jovial visage ; in particular, that feature which gave Bardolph his fame, was the sign of many a banquet, as it was the theme of a good deal of caricaturing and temporary pleasantry. The prince, looking over one of those caricatures, representing Sir William, with an exaggerated nose, going to the siege of Walche- ren, and singing a parody on Black-eyed Susan ; remarked, that he supposed his old friend would succeed better as an orator than a poet, for — " no man cut a greater figure in the rostrum.'''' St. Leger was repeating a fragment of a striking speech which Grattan had delivered at the Ro- tunda (a place of popular meeting in Dublin), in his parliamentary canvass. The colonel apologised for its want of the original effect, which " be- longed to the circumstances under which it had been spoken, — the place, the people, the speaker himself," &c. " Yes," said the prince, " nothing will do for a speech of Grattan's but the ore Rotundot" 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. 119 Among - the adventures to which the prince's unrestricted style of life exposed him, he was once robbed ; not by his friends or his household, for that seems to have been the daily occurrence with, at least, the lower ranks of both ; but by those professional collectors of the streets, who, fifty years ago, made a midnight walk in London as perilous as a walk in Arabia. The prince and the Duke of York had remained till a late hour at one of the St. James's Street clubs, where the duke had played, and, by an unusual fortune with that honest and open character, had won a considerable sum. The royal brothers got into a hackney coach, and were driving down Hay hill when the coach was suddenly stopped, the doors were thrown back, and the robbers, masked, presented their pistols : resistance would have been idle. The prince had a diamond watch of great value, which he cleverly slipped under the cushion, and thus saved : but the duke was obliged to refund all his winnings ; and the robbers were so well satisfied with this prize, that they forgot the prince's purse, closed the doors, and wished them a good night. They had evidently been followed from the club-house, and, it was strongly suspected, by some of the gamesters themselves. On driving off, the prince triumphantly shewed his purse. " How did you contrive to keep it ?" said the duke. " Easily enough," answered the prince, drawing his watch 120 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. from under the cushion ; " there is nothing like having; the watch in the coach with one." The leading barristers, Erskine, Adam, Pon- sonby, Curran, Butler, and others, were frequent guests at the Pavilion. The society of those accomplished men speaks not slightly for the in- tellect that could have enjoyed their company ; and innumerable anecdotes might be told of their intercourse. Erskine, always animated, full of conversation, and sportive, was then in the flower of his fame. Led by his original propensities to take the side of the Whigs, and personally attracted by Fox, Ers- kine had embraced party with a vividness natural to his character, and a sincerity new to his pro- fession. No man, within memory, had so rapidly mastered the difficulties of rising at the bar. His singular eloquence, boldness, and fervour, broke down the barriers of that most jealous and repulsive of professions ; and, from the moment of his appearing, he was visibly marked for the highest success : he less solicited popularity than was carried on its shoulders up to fame and fortune. The Dean of St. Asaph's case, the trials of Keppel, Hardy, and a succession of others, made him the idol at once of the people and the bar. By the power given to genius alone, of im- pressing its own immortality on all that it touches, he turned the dry details of law into great intel- 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. 121 lectual and historic records, exalted the concerns of private individuals into monuments of national freedom, and raised on common and temporary topics, some of the richest trophies of forensic eloquence in any age or nation. Erskine, by the result of those extraordinary displays, was a benefactor to the whole state — to the crown, the government, and the people. The times were disturbed in both the earlier and later periods of those great orations. In the former, the people were agitated by fears of the crown ; in the latter, the crown was made jealous by fears of the people ; prerogative in the one instance, and revolution in the other, were the terrors on both sides. The success of Erskine's incomparable appeals to the law shewed the people that they had a sure defence in the last extremity, and thus quieted their alarms. His effect on the common sense of the people gradually quieted the alarms of the crown, which had been excited only by the dread that revolutionary principles were largely vitiating the national allegiance. Erskine proved that those principles were but on the surface, that the depths of the soil were of the same ancient and generous mould ; and that the worst evil of the day was but the mixture of a few weeds foreign to the clime, and certain to be soon extinguished and over-grown by the native exuberance of the loyalty of England. With the common fate of* lawyers, Erskine 122 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. added nothing to his legal distinctions by his appearance in parliament. Locke, in his chapter on the association of ideas, speaks of a man who, having learned to dance in a chamber where his trunk lay, could never afterwards dance where that trunk was not present to inspire his agility. Something of this fetter, perhaps, clings to all men long accustomed to effort, mental or bodily, in a peculiar place. The barrister, divested of the array of judge, jury, counsel, and constables, loses the sources of his oratory ; the props of his invention are stricken from under him ; the spring- wells of his fancy are dried up ; the land- scape, adust as it is, on which his eye fixed with the delight of a life of litigation, fills that eye no more. He is the Arab of the desert; his hand is against every man, and every man's hand against his : but he must have the desert for his display : and thrown into the " populous ways of men," the prince of plunderers is strange and helpless, a fugitive or a mendicant. C'urran, the readiest and most versatile of human beings ; a man whom it would seem impossible to embarrass by circumstances ; pathetically declared, that " without his wig he was nothing." He said, that he felt not merely his barristerial physiog- nomy diminished, but his brains, he acknow- ledged the hand of another Delilah upon him, and the extinction of his faculties followed the curled honours of his brow. When the Dublin 1787. the prince's friends. 123 barristers were compelled to appear without their wigs in court, from the chamber where they were kept being overflowed by the river ; Curran, opening a cause, began, " My lord, and gentle- men of the jury, the counsel for the plaintiff is — what remains of me." But Erskine, like many other characters of peculiar liveliness, had a morbid sensibility to the circumstances of the moment, which sometimes strangely enfeebled his presence of mind : any appearance of neglect in his audience, a cough, a yawn, or a whisper, even among the mixed mul- titude of the courts, and strong as he was there, has been known to dishearten him visibly. This trait was so notorious, that a solicitor, whose only merit was a remarkably vacant face, was said to be often planted opposite to Erskine by the adverse party, to yawn when the advocate began. The cause of his first failure in the house was not unlike this curious mode of disconcerting an orator. He had been brought forward to support the falling fortunes of Fox, then struggling under the weight of the " coalition." The " India Bill" had heaped the king's almost open hostility on the accumulation of public wrath and grievance which the ministers had with such luckless industry been employed during the year in raising for their own ruin. Fox looked abroad for help; and Gordon, the member for Portsmouth, was dis- placed from his borough, and Erskine was brought 124 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. into the house, with no slight triumph of his party, and perhaps some degree of anxiety on the oppo- site side. On the night of his first speech, Pitt, evidently intending to reply, sat with pen and paper in his hand, prepared to catch the argu- ments of this formidable adversary. He wrote a word or two ; Erskine proceeded ; but with every additional sentence Pitt's attention to the paper relaxed ; his look became more careless ; and he obviously began to think the orator less and less worthy of his attention. At length, while every eye in the house was fixed upon him, he, with a contemptuous smile, dashed the pen through the paper, and flung them on the floor. Erskine never recovered from this expression of disdain ; his voice faltered, he struggled through the re- mainder of his speech, and sank into his seat dispirited and shorn of his fame. But a mind of the saliency and variety of Erskine's must have distinguished itself wherever it was determined on distinction ; and it is im- possible to believe, that the master of the grave, deeply-reasoned, and glowing eloquence of this great pleader, should not have been able to bring his gifts with him from Westminster-hall to the higher altar of parliament. There were times when his efforts in the house reminded it of his finest effusions at the bar. But those were rare. He obviously felt that his place was not in the legislature ; that no man can wisely hope for more 1787. the prince's friends. 125 than one kind of eminence ; and except upon some party emergency, he seldom spoke, and probably never with much expectation of public effect. His later years lowered his name ; by his retire ment from active life, he lost the habits forced upon him by professional and public rank ; and wandered through society, to the close of his days, a pleasant idler; still the gentleman and the man of easy wit, but leaving society to wonder what had become of the great orator, in what corner of the brain of this perpetual punster and story-teller, this man of careless conduct and rambling conversation, had shrunk the glorious faculty, that in better days flashed with such force and brightness ; what cloud had absorbed the lightnings that had once alike pene- trated and illumined the heart of the British nation. Erskine's well-known habit of talking of him- self often brought the jest of the table against him. He was once panegyrising his own hu- manity : " There," said he, " for instance, is my dog; I wish it to be happy in this life, I wish it to be happy in the other. Like the Indian, I wish that wherever I may go, my faithful dog shall bear me company." " And a confoundedly unlucky dog he would be," murmured Jekyll. All the London world was amused by Mingay's retort on Erskine, in one of those fits of laudation. 126 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. The trial was on some trivial question of a patent for a shoe-buckle. Erskine held up the buckle to the jury, and harangued on " the extraordi- nary ingenuity of an invention which would have astonished and delighted past ages. How would my ancestors," said he, " have looked upon this specimen of dexterity?" From this point he started into a- panegyric on his forefathers. Mingay was counsel for the opposite side ; and concluded his speech with, — "Gentlemen, you have heard a good deal to-day of my learned friend's ancestors, and of their probable astonish- ment at his shoe-buckle. But, gentlemen, I can assure you their astonishment would have been quite as great at his shoes cmd stockings." The conversation at the Pavilion once turned on the choice of professions. After a number of opi- nions in favour of the church, the army, and the other leading pursuits, Erskine pronounced for the bar, as " conducting to surer public distinctions than any other;" rather loftily adding, that "it was fitter for combining with noble blood than any of them, the army excepted." The allusion was obvious ; and Curran, on being asked his senti- ments, said, " that he had not the same reasons for cherishing the bar : he had brought to it no hereditary honours to foster; he had no infusion of noble blood to poiir into it; but he believed as much money, and as much vexation, could be 1787. the prince's friends. 127 earned at it as in any other profession. — For one thing, however," he gracefully added, " I must feel indebted to the bar, and that is, its having raised me from an humble origin into the society of persons of the highest merit, and intro- duced the son of a peasant to the friendship of his prince." Curran and Erskine had frequent opportuni- ties of meeting, and must have looked on each other's powers with respect. But this foible of the English barrister sometimes shook the Irish- man's philosophy. Grattan's name was men- tioned ; and Erskine casually asked what " he said of himself." " Said of himself!" was Cur- ran's astonished interjection ; — " nothing. Grat- tan speak of himself! Why, sir, Henry Grattan is a great man ; sir, the torture could not wring a syllable of self-praise from Grattan, — a team of six horses could not drag an opinion of himself out of him. Like all great men, he knows the strength of his reputation, and will never con- descend to proclaim its march like the trumpeter of a puppet-show. — Sir, he stands on a national altar, and it is the business of us inferior men to keep up the fire and the incense. You will never see Grattan stooping to do either the one or the other." This sally may have been stimulated in some degree by one of those fits of irritability to which 128 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. Curran was liable ; but no man could be more entitled to the praise than the speaker himself. Of course, every man of vigorous faculties knows his own powers, and knows them better than the world can. But no popular applause, and he was its idol ; no homage of his profession, and he was the acknowledged meteor of the Irish bar ; and no admiration of private society, and he was the delight of the table, could ever betray Curran into self-praise. It must be supposed, that when he was thus scrupulous in his own instance, he demanded no less reserve from others. When Lord Byron rose into fame, Curran constantly objected to his talk- ing of himself, as the great drawback on his poetry. " Any subject," said he, but " that eternal one of self. I am weary of knowing once a month the state of any man's hopes or fears, rights or wrongs. I should as soon read a register of the weather, the barometer up so many inches to- day and down so many inches to-morrow. I feel scepticism all over me at the sight of agonies on paper, things that come as regular and as noto- rious as the full of the moon. The truth is, his lordship weeps for the press, and wipes his eyes with the public." Curran, even when he found all the objects of his ambition broken up, and himself fixed in an unsuitable and uncongenial office, while his whole 1787. the prince's friends. 129 party were enjoying the rewards of political suc- cess; fixed, as he characteristically said, " in a garret-window to see the procession go by below/' he rather laughed at his mischance, than contrasted it with his ability. His services were matter of public record, and to those he appealed boldly : but his talents he left to be judged of by his countrymen, and to be replaced, if they could, by the ablest of a party, which had betrayed and defrauded the most brilliant mind of Ireland. An occasional guest, and a sufficiently singular one, was the Irish Franciscan Arthur O'Leary ; a man of strong faculties and considerable know- ledge. His first celebrity was as a pamphleteer, in a long battle with Woodward, the able bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland, on questions of the esta- blishment; in which he generally contrived to have what a Frenchman would reckon as victory, les rieurs cle son cote. — One of his retorts to the bishop's arguments against purgatory, was a recommenda- tion, that " his lordship would be content to stop Mere; for he might go further and fare ivorse." O'Leary abounded in Irish anecdote, and was a master of peasant humour, rude enough, but novel and characteristic. His chief claim, how- ever, was, that he was no unskilful medium of intercourse between his church and the Whigs ; and contributed in no slight degree to the popu- larity of the prince in Ireland. K 130 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. Curran professed, that he kept up his acquaint- ance with O'Leary, in the hope that, as St. Fran- cis occasionally holds the keys of paradise, he might let him in. " Better for you," was the reply, " that he should keep the keys of the other place, that he might let you out." An officer of remarkable stature was com- plaining at the prince's table of the neglect of some memorial at the Horse-guards. O'Leary consoled him by observing, that " no gentleman stood higher in the opinion of his friends, and no man could look down on him, at the Horse-guards or elsewhere." Sheridan said, that he considered claret the true parliamentary wine for the peerage ; " for it might make a man sleepy or sick, but it never warmed his heart or stirred up his brains. Port, generous port, was for the commons ; it was for the business of life, it quickened the circulation and the fancy together. For his part, he never felt that he spoke as he liked, until after a couple of bottles." O'Leary observed, that " this was like a porter; he could never go steady without a load on his head." Another Irishman, introduced at this period to the prince, was a memorable instance of the power of accident. This was O'Beirne, after- 1787. the prince's friends. 131 wards bishop of Meath, in Ireland. He had been educated at St. Omer's for the Roman Catholic priesthood. Returning to his college from a visit to his friends in Ireland, he happened to stop at the inn of some English village, so humble, that its whole stock of provisions was but one shoulder of mutton ; which he immediately ordered for dinner. While it was preparing, a post-chaise with two gentlemen stopped to change horses ; the roasting shoulder of mutton attracted their appetites ; they had travelled some distance, were weary, and they agreed that the next half-hour could not be better spent than in dining on what they could get. But a new difficulty arose, on their being told, that the only dinner in the house belonged to a " young Irish gentleman above stairs." The tra- vellers were at first perplexed ; but after a little consultation, agreed with the landlady's idea, that the shoulder should be theirs; but that, to save the credit of her house, the young Irishman should be invited to partake of it. She was despatched as ambassadress ; but returned, after an ineffectual attempt at persuasion, announcing, that " the young gentleman was. not to be softened; but, on the contrary, protested that no two travellers, nor any ten on earth, should deprive him of his dinner." This menacing message, however, was followed by the appearance of O'Beirne himself, good-humouredly saying, that though he could not 132 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. relinquish the shoulder of mutton to any body, yet " if they would partake of it with him, he would be happy to have their company at dinner." The proposal was pleasantly made and plea- santly accepted. The party sat down ; the bottle went round ; none of the three was deficient in topics ; and before the evening closed, the travellers were so much struck with the appear- ance and manners of their entertainer, then a very handsome young man, and always a very quick, anecdotical, and intelligent one, that they asked him, " What he meant to do with himself in the world?" His destination for the Irish priesthood was immediately set down as alto- gether inferior to the prospects which might lie before his abilities in English life. On parting, the travellers gave him their cards, and desired him to call on them on his arrival in London. We may judge of his surprise, when he found that his guests were no less personages than Charles Fox and the Duke of Portland ! Such an invitation was not likely to be declined. His two distinguished friends kept their promise honourably ; and in a short period O'Beirne enjoyed all the advantages of the first society of the empire. What his graceful appear- ance and manners gained in the first instance, was kept by his literary acquirements and the usefulness of his services. He was for a con- siderable ^period on a confidential footing in the 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. 133 Duke of Portland's household, and much em- ployed in the party negotiations of the time. Among his lighter labours were two dramas, from the French, which he assisted the Duchess of Devonshire in translating and adapting for the stage; and of whose failure, for they seem to have been blown away by a tornado of criticism, the assistant gallantly bore the blame. But O'Beirne had now securely fastened himself on prosperity, and " neither domestic treason nor foreign levy," neither the check of a negotia- tion nor the overthrow of a drama, could uproot him. On Howe's conciliatory mission to America, O'Beirne was sent with him as chaplain, and in some measure as secretary. The mission was flung into utter scorn by the Americans, as every one predicted that it would be ; but the chaplain preached a famous sermon at New York, and brought home the only laurels of the embassy. On Lord Fitzwilliam's fatal appointment to the viceroyalty of Ireland, O'Beirne accompanied him as chaplain and private secretary, and with the usual promise of the first diocese. The vice- royalty lasted but six months ; yet six months which were long enough to lay the foundations of the rebellion. The alternate feebleness and violence of this brief government, of whose re- sults the noble viceroy was probably as uncon- scious as the babe unborn, made the change one of imperious necessity. Yet O'Beirne escaped 134 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. from the wreck ; floated where all was going down round him ; and had scarcely re-appeared in London, when he was raised to the peerage, and the opulent bishoprick of Meath, valued at 8000/. a-year. Whether this accession of rank and wealth added equally to his happiness, is a graver ques- tion. It may well be presumed that they were not gained without envy, nor, at such a time, held without attack. His change of religion, though at an early period of life, and on con- viction, was not forgotten by his fellow-students at St. Omer's, who were now scattered through Ireland as priests. His political connexions were at an end ; their debt had been paid ; and except a solitary letter from the Duke of Port- land, his English intercourse was closed. The party fiercenesses of Ireland are always bitter in the degree of their unimportance ; their patriotism tears the country with the passion and the im- potence of children. And to this worthless and nameless strife was a man relegated, who had spent the flower of his days in the first society of England, among women, the " cynosures" of elegance and fashion ; in constant intercourse with men of first-rate ability and national influ- ence ; and in the centre and living glare of those great transactions which moved all Europe, and which will shape its history for ages to come. The restlessness natural to such a life, 1787. the prince's friends. 135 rather than the necessity for reform, urged him to a hasty reform in his diocese. But there is no operation more delicate, under any circum- stances; and no reliance on the value of his intentions could shield their practice from long and bitter animadversion. He died a few years ago ; after a career which might have made an instructive and curious biography, and no bad- manual of i{ the art of rising in the world." Those statements are given from public ru- mour; but the fact that OBeirne was the extin- guisher of the "commercial propositions," so well known in the history of the Irish legislature, in 1785, rests on higher authority. — Ministers, for the purpose of equalising the system of trade, and diminishing the restrictions on the commerce between England and Ireland, had transmitted a series of resolutions to the Irish viceroy, the Duke of Rutland ; whose chief secretary, Mr. Orde, was the instrument of bringing them for- ward in the house. The measures were advan- tageous ; for, in Grattan's language, who favoured them on their introduction, " They put an end to debt, they established Irish economy, and they made the British minister a guarantee to the integrity of the House of Commons and the economy of the Irish government." The address was carried unanimously. O'Beirne was at that period occupied in 136 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. writing on commercial subjects; and a pamphlet, in which he examined the " propositions," threw so strong a light on their disadvantages to the trade of some of the outports, that ministers began to be startled at their own measure. The propositions were accordingly returned to Ireland modified. But the Irish opponents of government had now found a theme, and they made unsparing use of it. Flood, a man of great natural powers, highly cultivated, and who " wielded the fierce democracy without a rival," until the spirit of Mammon came over him, and in an undeserved pension he buried his fame and his faculties together ; was vehement in his reprobation of the measure. He charged it with overthrowing the independence of Ireland. "The British parliament has declared," said he, " that the laws of British commerce shall be adopted in Ireland. There is but one thing more for the British parliament to declare, — that there shall be a slave-trade in Ireland ! The freedom of our constitution is necessary to support the freedom of our trade. But if a parliament could be so profligate, so base, as to attempt that liberty — (here Fitzgibbon, afterwards Lord Clare, the chief organ of the Irish government, contempt- ously cheered.) " I ask you," exclaimed Flood, raising his tone, " may it not be attempted ? But my voice shall be heard at the extremities of the land. My head and my heart are independent. My fortune is independent of prince or people. 1787. the prince's friends. 137 I am content to be a fellow-subject with my countrymen ; but I will not be their fellow-slave. That man shall not descend to the grave in peace who would destroy the freedom of my country." The menace was characteristic, and perfectly intelligible ; but nothing could fall lighter on Fitzgibbon, who was as fearless in the field as he was haughty in the cabinet, insolent in the house, and tyrannical every where else ; and who, being a good swordsman and a capital shot, was in all points a first-rate Irish attorney-general. But if Flood lashed the contrivers of the measure, Grattan thundered and lightened on the measure itself. " Contemplate for a moment" exclaimed this nervous orator, " the powers this bill presumes to perpetuate; — a perpetual repeal of trial by jury; a perpetual repeal of the great charter ; a perpetual writ of assistance ; a per- petual felony to strike an exciseman. " The late Chief-baron Burgh, speaking on the revenue bill, justly said, 'You give to the clip- ping rule what you should deny to the sceptre.' * * * * * " Could the parliament of England covenant to subscribe your laws? Could she covenant that young Ireland should command, and that old England should obey ? If such a proposal to England were treachery, in Ireland it cannot be constitution. I rest on the authority on which the revolution rests. Locke says, in his chapter 138 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. on the Abolition of Government, that ' The transfer of legislative power is the abolition of the state, not a transfer.' " Thus I congratulate this house and myself, that it is one of the blessings of the British con- stitution, that it cannot perish of rapid mortality, — not die in a day, like the men who should protect her. Any act which would destroy the liberty of the people is dead-born from the womb. Men may put down the public cause for a season ; but another year will see the good institution of parliament shaking off the tomb, to re-ascend in all its pomp and plenitude." Grattan then turned to the prohibitions, and smote them in a memorable passage. — " See now, what you obtain by compensation. A covenant not to trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan ! This is not a sur- render of the political rights of the constitution, but of the natural rights of man, — not of the pri- vileges of parliament, but of the rights of nations: not to sail beyond the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan, an awful interdict! Not only European settlements, but neutral countries excluded ; and God's providence shut out in the most opulent boundaries of creation ! Other interdicts go to particular places, for local reasons, because they belong to certain European states; but here are neutral regions forbidden, and a path prescribed to the Irishman in the open sea. 1787. the prince's friends. 139 Other interdicts go to a determinate period of time ; but here is an eternity of restraint ! You are to have no trade at all during the existence of any company ; and no free trade to those countries after its expiration. This resembles rather a judgment of God than an act of the legislature, whether you measure it by immensity of space or infinity of duration, and has nothing human about it but its presumption." It has been the habit of late years to scoff at Irish eloquence ; but let the scoffers produce among themselves the equal of this passage, or of a thousand others that still live in the records of the fallen parliament of Ireland. The meagre and affected style which has at length so uni- versally pervaded the departments of public speaking — parliament, bar, and pulpit — shrinks with natural jealousy from the magnificence and native power of this great faculty of appeal to the understandings of all men alike ; whose excellence was, that, at once enriched and invigorated by the noblest imagination, it awoke the reason not less than the feelings ; and even in its most fantastic decoration, lost nothing of its original strength. It was ornamented ; but its force was no more sacri- ficed to its ornament, than the solid steel of the Greek helmet to its plumage and sculptures. Grattan and Curran in Ireland, Sheridan and Burke in this country, were among the most logical of speakers ; their finest illustrations were 140 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. only more powerful arguments. The gold and jewels of that sceptre which they waved over the legislature with such undisputed supremacy, only increased the weight and substantial value of the emblem. The obnoxious resolutions were withdrawn, and the house was in an uproar of applause. Curran finished a speech, full of every attribute of oratory, with a fine peroration. " The bill is at an end. The cloud that had been collecting so long, and threatening to break in tempest and ruin on our heads, has passed harmlessly away. The siege that was drawn round the constitution is raised, and the enemy are gone : Juvat ireet Dorica castra. We may now go abroad without fear, and trace the dangers from which we have escaped. Here was drawn the line of circumvallation that cut us off for ever from the eastern world, and there the correspond- ing one that enclosed us from the west." The orator now adverted to the principal members who had contributed to the defeat of the measure ; in a few words, which, from their locality, produced an electric effect on the whole eager assemblage. " Here," said he, pointing to Mr. Conolly, a country gentleman of great public influence, and brother-in-law to the Duke of Leinster, " Here stood the trusty mariner on his old station, the mast-head, and gave the signal. Here stood Mr. Flood, the collected wisdom of the state, 1787. the prince's friends. 141 explaining your weakness and your strength, detecting every ambuscade, and pointing to the masked battery that was brought to bear on the shrine of freedom ; and here, Mr. Grattan was exerting an eloquence almost more than human ; inspiring, forming, directing, animating to the great purposes of your salvation." The introduction of a doubt of the legislative independence of Ireland into one of the resolu- tions, had produced the result of overthrowing the whole. Whether this were accident, or (as is more probable) cabinet dexterity, the purpose of the English government was answered. It was even more than answered ; for the withdrawal of the resolutions raised the popularity of the minister in Ireland. Thus the parliament exulted in the Hibernian triumph of gaining a loss ; and the English administration were relieved from the burden of a measure which might have deeply shaken their popularity at home. But the inspirer of this piece of unwilling wisdom was O'Beirne. There was still a little appendix to the debate; for Fitzgibbon having said, with his usual inso- lence, " that if Ireland sought to quarrel with Great Britain, she was a besotted nation ; and that Great Britain was not easily roused nor easily appeased :" adding the still more offensive remark, " that Ireland was easily roused, and easily appeased ;" this extra-official taunt raised a storm of indignation. The whole opposition 142 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. demanded an apology; which was tardily made by Fitzgibbon's proud heart, in the shape of an explanation. But Curran was not to be so pacified. He had been bruised by the attorney-general's official superiority in the courts, and he took a fierce delight in inflicting vengeance on him where his precedency went for nothing. He now pounced upon the oppressor, tore his character in pieces, and declared that — " the libel which he had so contumeliously ventured to fix on Ireland, was in his own person a truth ; that he was easily roused and easily put down" The result was a duel ; in which the parties fired without effect. But the hatred did not pass away with the rencontre. Fitzgibbon, on leaving the ground, said, with un- chivalric bitterness, " Well, Mr. Curran, you have escaped for this time." Curran retorted with severer pungency — " If I did, it was no fault of yours, Sir; you took aim enough" The hostility continued through life, in the house and out of the house. Fitzgibbon rose to the summit of his profession, and was, in a few years after, Lord Chancellor. But he had not the magnanimity to forget in the chancellor what he had suffered in the lower grades of office. The " king did not forgive the injuries of the Duke of Orleans;" power seemed only to reinforce his hos- tility; and Curran constantly charged him with labouring to crush, by the weight of the bench, the antagonist whom he could not overcome by 1787. the prince's friends. 143 his talents. But never man less consulted his own ease, than the chancellor by this perversion of authority. His adversary was not to be extin- guished ; the contest only roused him into the keener exertion of his great abilities. On all occasions Curran smote or stung him ; and the whole annals of vindictive oratory probably con- tain nothing more excoriating, more utterly tear- ing off the skin, and steeping the naked nerve in poison, than Curran's celebrated invective on Lord Clare, in his speech before the privy council of Ireland. The prince was fond of manly sports ; and cricket was often played in the lawn before the Pavilion, and the dinner which followed was served in a marquee. On one of those occa- sions, the Duke of York and Sheridan fell into dispute on some point of the game. The day was " a burning day in the month of September," the wine had gone round rapidly, and the disputants, who had heated themselves with play, and were both at all times easily affected by wine, began to attract the notice of the table. Sheridan at length angrily told the duke, "that he was not to be talked out of his opinion there or any where else, and that at play all men were on a par." The blood of the Brunswicks flamed, and the duke was evidently about to make some peculiarly indignant reply; when the prince stood up, and addressed them both. 144 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. The narrator of the circumstance, a person of rank who was present, himself one of the most attractive public speakers of the day, has often declared, that he never, on any occasion, saw an individual suddenly called on acquit himself with more ability. The speech was of some length, ten or fifteen minutes ; it was alternately playful and grave, expressed with perfect self-possession, and touching on the occurrences of the game, the characters of both disputants, and the conversa- tion at the table, with the happiest delicacy and dexterity. The prince made a laughing apology for Sheridan's unlucky use of the phrase " on a par," by bidding his brother remember, that the impressions of school were not easily effaced, that Dr. Parr had inflicted learning upon Sheridan, and that, like the lover in the " Wonder," who mixes his mistress's name with every thing, and calls to his valet, " roast me these Violantes;" the name of Parr was uppermost in Sheridan's sleep : he then ran into a succession of sportive quotations of the word par, in the style of — " Liulere par impar,equitare inarundine longa;" until the speech was concluded in general gaiety, and the dispute was thought of no more. Biography has, at least, not flattered She- ridan. Some of the writers of his life have evidently thought, the more libel the more truth ; and even his ablest biographer has suf- fered the clouds on Sheridan's moral character 1787. the prince's friends. 145 to spread to his intellectual. But where, in the whole compass of literature, shall we look for wit equal, not merely to what might be collected from the mass of Sheridan's dramatic efforts, but to that of any one of them. Congreve is the only dramatist who approaches him in various- ness and grace of dialogue. But in wit, in the power of condensing and refining language until it sparkles, those alone who read Congreve with a view to the comparison can conceive his infe- riority. There is, probably, more of the essence of wit in a single scene of the " School for Scandal" than in all that Congreve ever wrote. The facility and playfulness of Vanbrugh's dia- logue were often praised by Sheridan, as a model for the stage. But Vanbrugh is content with humour, seldom aims at wit, and still seldomer reaches his aim. If we are to be told, that She- ridan often covered the margin of his paper with facetiae, reserved to be used on further occasion ; what is this, more than the evidence that his fancy teemed faster than he required its offspring, that his vein was redundant, and that he deposited on the margin of his manuscript the thoughts which he could not crowd into his already crowded dia- logue ? The true test of the rarity and vigour of his talent, is how much has it done — how immea- surably has it distanced all rivalship in its tiine- how dim is the prospect of a successor; and with what native and perpetual enjoyment, the public, L 14G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. after the lapse of half a century, still look upon the polished and attic structure of the " School for Scandal." Unhappily, this opinion must be limited to its wit. The moral, the characters, and the plot, belonged to a state of public manners which no man of decorous feelings can desire to see re- vived. Sheridan's life furnished only one more of the melancholy instances, of talent rendered useless, and great opportunities turned into shame and suffering, by the want of qualities, higher than wit, and crowning the head of man with honours more enduring than the wreaths of genius. But let justice be done; let him have upon his tomb the prize for which he toiled, and for which, neither living nor dead, has he found a competitor. But it will be fully allowed, that Sheridan, of whom it was said that, " he never kept a receipt nor a key," was as careless in the aban- donment or the appropriation of wit, as of money. His seizure of the quaint expression of Sir Philip Francis on the unlucky peace of Amiens: "This is a peace which every one will be pleased with, but no one will be proud of," is well known ; though perhaps the winding up of the anecdote is not equally public. — Sir Philip, on learning Sheridan's use of his apothegm, looked upon himself as not a little injured, and said, "Ay, that is the way with the Whigs; 1787. the prince's friends. 147 those fellows suck me." Sheridan's reported answer was: " You may tell Sir Philip that I, for one, am weaned long ago ; but I think he would make an excellent dry-nurse." Sheridan's ruin was ambition ; and the ruin began at his first step into life. He launched into an expenditure beyond his means ; coped with men of ten times his fortune, for the first year ; and before it was over, was in debt for the rest of his days. His carelessness was systema- tic ; for he openly professed, as his maxim, that " debt, though an inconvenience, was no disgrace." The next rock on which his fatal ambition drove him was parliament. By attempting to combine the two characters of stage proprietor and statesman, he lost the advantages of both ; the emoluments of the stage vanished from the touch of a man whose soul was in the struggles of party ; while the substantial honours of public life were hope- less to one hourly perplexed by the task of stage management, and perpetually driven to extre- mity by the shattered finances of his theatre. By adopting the firm resolution to abandon either career, he might have made himself opulent and eminent in the other : for such were the super- abundant powers of his mind, that nothing but a steady determination was wanting, to have given him eminence in any pursuit within the reach of genius. Yet few men could plead such excuses for par- 148 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. liamentary ambition. Of all the great speakers of a day fertile in oratory, Sheridan had the most con- spicuous natural gifts. His figure, at his first in- troduction into the house, was manly and striking; his countenance singularly expressive, when excited by debate ; his eye large, black, and intellectual ; and his voice one of the richest, most flexible, and most sonorous, that ever came from human lips. Pitt's was powerful, but monotonous ; and its measured tone often wearied the ear. Fox's was all confusion in the commencement of his speech ; and it required some tension of ear throughout to catch his words. Burke's was loud and bold, but unmusical ; and his contempt for order in his sentences, and the abruptness of his grand and swelling conceptions, that seemed to roll through his mind like billows before a gale, often made the defects of his delivery more striking. But Sheridan, in manner, gesture, and voice, had every quality that could give effect to eloquence. Pitt and Fox were listened to with pro- found respect, and in silence, broken only by occasional cheers ; but from the moment of Sheridan's rising, there was an expectation of pleasure, which to his last days was seldom disappointed. A low murmur of eagerness ran round the house ; every word was watched for, and his first pleasantry set the whole assemblage on a roar. Sheridan was aware of this ; and has been heard to say, "that if a jester would never 1787. the prince's friends. 149 be an orator, yet no speaker could expect to be popular in a. full house, without a jest ; and that he always made the experiment, good or bad ; as a laugh gave him the country gentlemen to a man." It is a remarkable instance of the advantages of time and place to an orator, that his speeches on Hastings's trial, which were once the wonder of the nation, and which Pitt, Fox, and Burke, loaded with emulous panegyric, are now scarcely reckoned among his fortunate efforts. With the largest allowance for party or policy, it is im- possible to doubt that the utterers of the pane- gyric were to a great extent sincere ; or that the nation at large hailed those speeches as the most consummate work, the twelfth labour, of modern eloquence. Yet Sheridan's total carelessness, if not cautious suppression, of them, shews that his sagacity was perfectly awake to their true value ; and the remnants which have come down to us appear memorable for nothing but their success in bewildering the senatorial understanding, and deluding the national sense of justice. But in the house he was always formidable ; and though Pitt's moral or physical courage never shrank from man, yet Sheridan was the anta- gonist with whom he evidently least desired to come into collision, and with whom the collision, when it did occur, was of the most fretful nature. Pitt's sarcasm on him as a theatrical manager, and Sheridan's severe, yet fully justified retort, are 150 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. too well known to be now repeated ; but there were a thousand instances of that " keen en- counter of their wits," in which person was more involved than party. " I leave," said Pitt, at the conclusion of an attack of this kind ; "I leave the honourable gentleman what he likes so well, the woman's privilege — the last word." Sheridan started up: " I am perfectly sensible," said he, " of the favour which the right honourable gentleman means, in offering me a privilege so peculiarly adapted to himself; but I must beg leave to decline the gift. I have no wish for the last word : I am content with having the last argument." But he sometimes aimed a more sweeping blow, and assailed the minister with his whole power. In a speech on the suspension of the habeas corpus act, in the disturbances of 1795, after detailing the sources of the popular irrita- bility, he drew Pitt's portrait to his face ; of course, in the overcharged colours of a political enemy, but with great keenness and dexterity of exaggeration. " I can suppose the case," said he, " of a haughty and stiff-necked minister, who never mixed in a popular assembly, and who had therefore no common feeling with the people, no knowledge of the mode in which their inter- course is conducted ; who was not a month in the ranks of this house before he was raised to 1787. the prince's friends. 151 the first situation ; and though on a footing with any other member, was elevated with the idea of a fancied superiority. Such a minister can have no communication with the people of England but through the medium of spies and informers ; he is unacquainted with the mode in which their sentiments are expressed ; he cannot make allow- ance for the language of toasts and resolutions adopted in the convivial hour. Such a minister, if he lose their confidence, will bribe their hate ; if he disgust them by arbitrary measures, he will not leave them till they are completely bound and shackled ; above all, he will gratify the vindictive spirit of apostasy, by prosecuting all who dare to espouse the cause which he has betrayed ; and he will not desist, till he has buried in one grave, the peace, the glory, and the independence of England." But the effect of those vehement appeals was singularly heightened by the orator's facility of turning at once from the severe to the ludicrous, and by the flashings of his wit giving force and distinctness to his deepest-toned pictures of national calamity. In allusion to the state trials of 1794, he contemptuously said ; " that he never pretended to preternatural valour, and that, having but one neck to lose, he should be as sorry to find his undergoing the operation of the lamp-post, as any honourable gentleman in that house ; but that he must confess he felt himself considerably cheered 152 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. by the discovery that the danger existed all within the vision of the treasury bench. He could not help thinking, with the chief-justice, that it was much in favour of the accused, that they had neither men, money, nor zeal." He then ridiculed the fears of government. " I own," said he, " that there was something in the case, quite enough to disturb the virtuous sensibilities and loyal terrors of the right honour- able gentleman. But so hardened is this side of the house, that our fears did not much disturb us. On the first trial one pike was produced. That was, however, withdrawn. Then a terrific in- strument was talked of, for the annihilation of his majesty's cavalry ; it appeared, upon evidence, to be a te-totum in a window in Sheffield. But I had forgot, there was also a camp in a back shop; an arsenal provided with nine muskets ; and an ex- chequer containing the same number of pounds, exactly nine, no, let me be accurate, it was nine pounds and one bad shilling." On the rumours of the Scottish conspiracy, — " There is now," exclaimed he, " but one way of wisdom and loyalty, and that is panic. The man who is not panic-struck is to be incapable of com- mon sense. My honourable friend (Windham) has acquired this new faculty, and has been a sage on the new plan above a week old. Another friend (Burke) was inspired in the same fortunate man- ner. He has been so powerfully affected, that 1787. the prince's friends. 153 he saw in the sky nothing but cloud, on the earth nothing but a bleak opposition, where there was not a politic bush or a shrub to shelter him from the coming tempest. But he has luckily taken refuge in the ministerial gaberdine, where, I hope he may find security from the storm/' — " The alarm had been brought in with great pomp and circumstance on a Saturday morning. At night, the Duke of Richmond stationed him- self, among other curiosities, at the Tower! and a great municipal officer, the lord mayor, made a discovery in the east. He had found out that there was in Cornhill a debating society, where people went to buy treason at sixpence a-head ; where it was retailed to them by inch of candle ; and five minutes, measured by the glass, were allowed to each traitor to perform his part in overturning the state. — In Edinburgh an insur- rection was planned ; the soldiers were to be corrupted; and this turned out to be- — by giving sixpence for porter. Now, what the scarcity of money may be in that country I cannot tell, but it does not strike me that the system of corruption had been carried to any great extent. Then, numbers were kept in pay, they were drilled in dark rooms by a sergeant in a brown coat, and on a given signal they were to sally from the back parlour and overturn the constitution." His quotations from the classics were often happy. The allusion to the motto of the Sun 154 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. newspaper, which had been commenced under ministerial patronage, was universally cheered. — " There was one paper in particular, said to be the property of members of that house, which had for its motto a garbled part of a beautiful sentence, when it might with much more propriety have assumed the whole : Solem quis dicere falsum Audeat? Ille etiam csecos instare tumultus Ssepe monet, fraudemque et operta tumescere bella." The prince, himself remarkable for his dex- terity in telling a story, was fond of collecting- instances of the whim and humour of the Irish peasantry. One of those was — the history of Morgan Prussia. Morgan, the gay and handsome son of a low Irish farmer, tired of home, went to take the chances of the world, and seek his fortune. By what means he traversed England, or made his way to France, is not told. But he at length crossed France also, and, probably without much know- ledge or much care whether he were moving to the north or the south pole, found himself in the Prussian territory. This was in the day of the first Frederic, famous for his tall regiment of guards, and for nothing else ; except his being the most dangerous compound of fool and madman among the crowned heads of the Continent. He had but 1787. the prince's friends. 155 one ambition, that of inspecting twice a-day a resiment of a thousand grenadiers, not one of whom was less than six feet and a half high. Morgan was an Irish giant, and was instantly seized by the Prussian recruiting sergeants, who forced him to volunteer into the tall battalion. This turn of fate was totally out of the Irishman's calcula- tion ; and the prospect of carrying a musket till his dying day on the Potsdam parade, after having made up his mind to live by his wits and rove the world, more than once tempted him to think of leaving his musket and his honour behind him, and fairly trying his chance for escape. But the attempt was always found impracticable ; the frontier was too closely watched, and Morgan still marched up and down the Potsdam parade with a disconsolate heart; when one evening a Turkish recruit was brought in ; for Frederic looked to nothing but the thews and sinews of a man, and the Turk was full seven feet high. " How much did his majesty give for catch- ing that heathen?" said Morgan to his corporal. " Four hundred dollars," was the answer. He burst out into an exclamation of astonishment at this waste of royal treasure upon a Turk. "Why, they cannot be got for less," replied the corporal. " What a pity my five brothers cannot hear of it!" said Morgan, " I am a dwarf to any one of them, and the sound of half the money would bring them all over immediately." As the dis- 156 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. covery of a tall recruit was the well-known road to favouritism, five were worth at least a pair of colours to the corporal ; the conversation was im- mediately carried to the sergeant, and from him through the gradation of officers to the colonel, who took the first opportunity of mentioning it to the king. The colonel was instantly ordered to question Morgan. But he at once had lost all memory on the subject. — " He had no brothers ; he had made the regiment his father and mother and relations, and there he hoped to live and die." But he was urged still more strongly, and at length confessed, that he had brothers, even above the regimental standard, but that " nothing on earth could stir them from their spades." After some time, the king inquired for the five recruits, and was indignant when he was told of the impossibility of enlisting them. " Send the fellow himself," he exclaimed, " and let him bring them back." The order was given, but Morgan was " broken hearted at the idea of so long an absence from the regiment." He applied to the colonel to have the order revoked, or at least given to some one else. But this was out of the question, for Frederic's word was always irrevocable; and Morgan, with a disconsolate face, prepared to set out upon his mission. But a new difficulty struck him. " How was he to make his brothers come, unless he shewed them the recruiting money?" This objection was at last obviated by the advance 1787. the prince's friends. 157 of a sum equal to about three hundred pounds sterling-, as a first instalment for the purchase of his family. Like a loyal grenadier, the Irishman was now ready to attempt any thing for his colonel or his king, and Morgan began his journey. But, as he was stepping out of the gates of Potsdam, another difficulty occurred ; and he returned to tell the colonel, that of all people existing, the Irish were the most apt to doubt a traveller's story, they being in the habit of a good deal of exercise in that style themselves ; and that when he should go back to his own country and tell them of the capital treatment and sure promotion that a soldier met with in the guards, the probability was, that they would laugh in his face. As to the money, " there were some who would not scru- ple to say that he stole it, or tricked some one out of it. But, undoubtedly, when they saw him walking back only as a common soldier, he was sure that they would not believe a syllable, let him say what he would, about rising in the service." The objection was intelligible enough, and the colonel represented it to Frederic, who, doubly outrageous at the delay, swore a grenadier oath, ordered Morgan to be made a sous ojjicier, or upper sergeant, and, with a sword and epaulette, sent him instantly across the Rhine to convince his five brothers of the rapidity of Prussian promotion. Morgan flew to his home in the County Carlow, 158 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. delighted the firesides for many a mile round with his having outwitted a king and a whole battalion of grenadiers, laid out his recruiting money on land, and became a man of estate at the expense of the Prussian treasury. One ceremony remains to be recorded. Once a year, on the anniversary of the day in which he left Potsdam and its giants behind, he climbed a hill within a short distance of his house, turned himself in the direction of Prussia, and, with the most contemptuous gesture which he could con- trive, bade good-by to his majesty ! The ruse was long a great source of amusement, and its hero, like other heroes, bore through life the name earned by his exploit, Morgan Prussia. Burke was among the earliest friends of the prince ; and his admirable talents, sincere honesty, and inexhaustible zeal in whatever cause he under- took, made him one of the most valuable advocates and advisers that his Royal Highness could have found in the empire. No individual, in the me- mory of the house, had risen to such sudden fame as Burke; if the difficulties of his first years are taken into consideration. Pitt's youth was sustained by his hereditary renown, at a time when to be the son of Chatham was a passport to all honours. His early official rank also gave an extraordinary weight to his authority as a speaker; and when the house listened at once to eloquent 1787. the prince's friends. 159 language, and the sentiments of the first minister of the crown, the impression was complete. Fox had the same advantage of hereditary renown ; for, if Lord Holland was an inferior orator to Chatham, he still was a speaker of distinguished acuteness, force, and knowledge, and the most daring and able antagonist of that great man which the house had witnessed. Fox, too, as the head of opposition, had a species of official weight, scarcely less than that of the minister. He was the oracle of a party which might, within twenty-four hours, be masters of the government; and the most common declara- tion from the lips of the leader must be received with the attention due to the public will of the aristocracy of England. But Burke had nothing to depend upon but himself; he possessed none of the powerful levers of English birth and connexion, to raise him above the natural obstacles that in all lands obstruct the stranger. Of all helpless beings, an Irishman cast loose into the streets of London, at that day, was the most helpless. The Scotch- man clung to some lucky emigrant from the north colonised in the fat fertility of London ; or found protection in his national name, and patiently worked his passage to fortune. But the Irish- man landed in the metropolis, as if he landed on the shores of Africa; he was on terra fmna, but no more — the earth produced no fruits to him; 160 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. the landscape shewed him nothing but a desert ; and it was a piece of no common good fortune, if his first fraternal embrace were not from a brotherhood of banditti, and his final residence were not in a dungeon. At this period but little intercourse subsisted between the two countries. They talked of each other as if half the world lay between. To England, Ireland was, what Sicily was to the Greek — a land of monsters and marvels, of rebellious giants and desperate hazards, that made the sleek skin of England quiver to its extremities. To Ireland, England was a place of inordinate prejudice and eternal gloom ; me- morable only for license at home and ambition abroad ; lavishing her vindictiveness on Ireland in perpetual visitations of super-subtle secretaries and dull viceroys ; in unintelligible acts of par- liament, and taxes without mercy and without end ; yet, nevertheless, having certain paths knee-deep in gold-dust for the gallant adven- turers, who were bold enough to run the chance of being starved or hanged in the discovery. The romance on both sides has been much cooled by time and knowledge. England is no more the El Dorado, nor Ireland the Cyclops' cave: the peaceful annual importations of her ten thou- sand paupers and her hundred representatives, shew the generosity with which the sister country can part with her population for the sake of the 1787. the prince's friends. 161 empire ; and the zeal with which the importation of both is welcomed here, shews that England is not to be outdone in the magnanimous virtues. Burke had scarcely entered the house when he drew all eyes upon him. He was marked out for eminence, from his first speech. "A young Irish- man has just appeared here, who astonishes every body by his information and eloquence," was Fitz- patrick's account of him to his correspondent in Ireland. Parliament was Sheridan's undoing ; for it excited his vanity, already too headstrong; pre- vented him from making any rational effort to re- store his fortune, already falling into decay ; and, by its temptations alike to the peculiar species of indolence and the peculiar species of exertion which Sheridan most unwisely loved, led him from one evil to another, until his fate was de- cided. To Sheridan, parliament, in its best day, was but a larger club, where he found a ready enter- tainment, an easy fame, irregular hours, and a showy, amusing, and various society, always willing to receive his jest, and to repay it with applause. Thus he fluttered through life, as the moth round the candle, continually wheeling closer to ruin; until his flight was scorched at last, and he dropped, like the insect, withered and wingless, to writhe on the ground in misery for a while, and die. M 162 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. But Burke was created for parliament. His mind was born with a determination to things of grandeur and difficulty. " Spumantemque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem." Nothing in the ordinary professions, nothing in the trials or triumphs of private life, could have satisfied the noble hunger and thirst of his spirit of exertion. This quality was so predominant, that to it a large proportion of his original failures, and of his unfitness for general public business, which chiefly belongs to detail, is to be traced through life. No Hercules could wear the irre- sistible weapons and the lion's skin with more natural supremacy ; but none could make more miserable work with the distaff. Burke's mag- nitude of grasp, and towering conception, were so much a part of his nature that he could never forego their exercise, however unsuited to the occasion. Let the object be as trivial as it might, his first instinct was to turn it into all shapes of lofty speculation, and try how far it could be moulded and magnified into the semblance of greatness. If he had no large national interest to summon him, he winged his tempest against a turnpike bill ; or flung away upon the petty quarrels and obscure peculations of the under- lings of office, colours and forms that might have emblazoned the fall of a dynasty. 1787. the prince's friends. 1G3 It is only consistent with this power, that but few recollections of his private thoughts should remain. His conversation was remarkable for fluency and variety ; and Johnson's character of it must have been deserved. — "Sir, if a stranger were to be driven with Mun Burke under a gate- way, from a shower, he must discover him to be a great man." But his thoughts had little to do with the level of society. Where his treasure was, there were his watchings and his aspirations ; and even the fragments of his familiar talk that re- main, generally bear some reference to the public and engrossing topics of the orator and the states- man. — Windham, always high-flown, had been paying some extravagant compliment to the old French noblesse. Burke, who, with all his abhor- rence of the revolution, was fully awake to the follies of the old regime, took his pupil to task on the subject. " Sir," said he, "you should disdain levity on such a theme. I well knew the unhappy condition of those gentlemen. They were brave, gay, and graceful ; they had much more honour than those who tore them down, and hunted them like wild beasts ; and to the full as much virtue as those who libelled them most with the want of it; but, for all the true enjoyment of life, for every thing in the shape of substantial hap- piness, they might as well have been so many galley-slaves. Shut out from every natural exer- 164 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787 tion, and of course from every natural reward, of a manly understanding; from the professions; from literature, except as scribblers of love-songs; and from ambition, except as the wearers of blue and red ribands, and hangers-on about a court ; what could they enjoy? Political distinction, the noblest stirrer of the indolence of man, was closed upon them. They had nothing for it; but to die of war or ennui. They absolutely did nothing. Their very look wearied me : I would rather have looked on the skulls in the cata- combs." " Yet," retorted Windham, " I suppose not from their industry. I never heard that they did much." " True, Sir," gravely answered Burke ; " but they don't shock one's feelings by pretending to be alive /" Yet he was sometimes provoked into humour. David Hartley, who had been employed as a negotiator of the treaty with America, was re- markable for the length and dulness of his speeches. One day, when Burke was prepared to take an important part in the debate, he saw, to his infinite vexation, the house melting down, under Hartley's influence, from an immense as- semblage into a number scarcely sufficient to authorise the Speaker's keeping the chair. In the course of this heavy harangue, Hartley had 1787. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS. 165 occasion to desire that some clause in the riot act should be read at the table. Burke could restrain himself no longer. " The riot act," said he, starting from his seat; " my honourable friend desires the riot act to be read ! What would he have ? Does he not see that the mob has dispersed already ?" It was of this interminable talker against time, that Jenkinson, the first Lord Liverpool, told the amusing story, — that, seeing Hartley rise to speak, he left the house to breathe a little of the fresh air. A fine June evening tempted him on. It was no more than five o'clock. He went home, mounted his horse, and rode to his villa, some miles from town ; where he dined, rambled about the grounds, and then returned at an easy pace to London. But the hour was now nine o'clock ; and conceiving that the division must be nigh, he sent a note to the house to inquire what had been done, and who had spoken. The answer returned was, that " nobody had spoken but Mr. Hartley, and that he was speaking still." The note, however, contained the cheering con- jecture, " that he might be expected to close soon." Even that conjecture was disappointed ; for, when Jenkinson at last went down to West- minster, he found Hartley on his legs, in the same position in which he had left him half a day before, pouring out the same sleepy wisdom, and surrounded by a slumbering house. The 166 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787 story does not tell by what means this inve- terate haranguer was ever induced to conclude. But he had, by that time, been speaking five hours. Fitzpatrick was one of the prince's circle, which he adorned by his wit and courtly manners. He was a handsome man, with the air of fashion, and the acquirements which belong to a life spent in the first opportunities of cultivating both mind and manners. Like all the leading Whigs, he was distinguished for those poetical jeux ct esprit, those toyings about the foot of Parnassus, which enabled them to possess the pleasures, and some of the reputation of poetry, without chal- lenging criticism. They wrote in the spirit of the French school of " royal and noble" poets, and with that easy mixture of sportiveness and sarcasm, which raised the laugh of the moment, and passed away — the true spirit of the vers de societe. But they sometimes affected a graver strain; and Fitzpatrick's " Inscription on the Temple of Friendship, at St. Anne's Hill," has, with Horatian lightness, a touch of that melan- choly which so delicately shades the mirth of the Epicurean bard. " The star whose radiant beams adorn With vivid light the rising morn, — The season changed, with milder ray Cheers the sweet hour of parting day. 1787. the prince's friends. 167 So Friendship, (of the generous breast The earliest and the latest guest,) In youth's rich morn with ardour glows, And brightens life's serener close. Benignant power! in this retreat, Oh, deign to fix thy tranquil seat ! Where, raised above life's dusky vale, Thy favourites brighter scenes shall hail ; Think of the past but as the past, And know true happiness at last. From life's too anxious toils remote, To thee the heart and soul devote ; (No more by idle dreams betrayed), See life, what life's at best, a shade ; Leave fools to fling their hearts away ; And scorn the idol of the day. Yes ! while the flowret's in its prime, We'll breathe the bloom, redeem the time, Nor waste a single glance to know, What cares disturb the world below !" Fitzpatrick, educated with Fox, brought into public life with him, initiated at Brookes's, and familiar with the whole round of high life, was inevitably a Foxite. Fox made him secretary of war, and his faith was never impeached, among the changes of a time rich in political versatility. It would have been fortunate for this attractive personage, if he had not urged his fidelity into an imitation of more than the public life of his friend. But he played deep, and exhausted his income and his life together in a round of dissi- pation. Fox, by some marvellous power, resisted 1G8 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. the effects of gaming, politics, and pleasure alike ; misfortune seemed to rebound from him, until it was at last weary of its attacks ; and Fox was left to almost the tranquil age of a philosopher. But Fitzpatrick's powerful frame broke down into premature decay, and for some years before his death, he could be scarcely said to live. The trial of Hastings had brought Sir Philip Francis into public notice, and his strong Foxite principles introduced him to the prince's friends. His rise is still unexplained. From a clerk in the War-office, he had been suddenly exalted into a commissioner for regulating the affairs of India, and sent to Bengal with an appointment, esti- mated at ten thousand pounds a-year. On his return to England he joined Opposition, declared violent hostilities against Hastings, and gave his most zealous assistance to the prosecution ; though the house of commons would not suffer him to be on the committee of impeachment. Francis was an able and effective speaker ; with an occasional wildness of manner and eccentricity of expression, which, if they sometimes provoked a smile, often increased the interest of his statements. But the usual lot of those who have identified themselves with any one public subject, rapidly overtook him. His temperament, his talents, and his knowledge, were all Indian. With the im- peachment he was politically born, with it he lived, 1787. the prince's friends. 1G9 and when it withered away, his adventitious and local celebrity perished along with it. He clung to Fox for a few years after ; but while the great leader of opposition found all his skill necessary to retain his party in existence, he was not likely to solicit a partisan at once so difficult to keep in order and to employ. The close of his ambi- tious and disappointed life was spent in ranging along the skirts of both parties, joining neither, and speaking his mind with easy, and perhaps sincere, scorn of both ; reprobating the Whigs, during their brief reign, for their neglect of fancied promises ; and equally reprobating the ministry, for their blindness to fancied pretensions. But he was still to have a momentary respite for fame. While he was going down into that oblivion which rewards the labours of so many po- liticians ; a pamphlet, ascribing Junius's letters to Sir Philip, arrested his descent. Its arguments were plausible ; and, for a while, opinion appeared to be in favour of the conjecture, notwithstanding a denial from the presumed Junius ; which, how- ever, had much the air of his feeling no strong dislike to being suspected of this new title to ce- lebrity.* But further examination extinguished ' His note, on the occasion, to the editor of one of the newspapers, might mean any thing or nothing. It was in this style : — " Sir, yon have attributed to me the writing of Junius's letters. If you choose to propagate a false and malicious report, you may." Yours, &c. P. F." 170 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. the title ; and left the secret, which had perplexed so many unravellers of literary webs, to perplex the grave idlers of generations to come. Yet the true wonder is not the concealment ; for a multitude of causes might have produced the continued necessity even after the death of the writer ; but the feasibility with which the chief features of Junius may be fastened on almost every writer, of the crowd for whom claims have been laid to this dubious honour: while, in every in- stance, some discrepancy finally starts upon the eye, which excludes the claim. Burke had more than the vigour, the informa- tion, and the command of language ; but he was in- capable of the virulence and the disloyalty. Home Tooke had the virulence and the disloyalty in superabundance ; but he wanted the cool sarcasm and the polished elegance, even if he could have been fairly supposed to be at once the assailant and the defender. Wilkes had the information and the wit ; but his style was incorrigibly vulgar, and all its metaphors were for and from the mob : in ad- dition, he would have rejoiced to declare himself the writer : his well-known answer to an inquiry on the subject was, " Would to Heaven I had!" Utinam scripsissem ! Lord George Germaine has been lately brought forward as a candidate ; and the evidence fully proves that he possessed the dexterity of style, the powerful and pungent remark, and even the individual causes of bitter- 1787. the prince's friends. 171 ness and partisanship, which might be supposed to stimulate Junius : but, in the private correspond- ence of Junius with his printer, Woodfall, there are contemptuous allusions to Lord George's con- duct in the field, which at once put an end to the question of authorship. Dunning possessed the style, the satire, and the partisanship ; but Junius makes blunders in his law, of which Dunning must have been incapable. Gerard Hamilton (Single - speech) might have written the letters, but he never pos- sessed the moral courage ; and was, besides, so consummate a coxcomb, that his vanity must have, however involuntarily, let out the secret. The argument, that he was Junius ; from his no- toriously using the same peculiarities of phrase, at the time when all the world was in full chase of the author, ought of itself to be decisive against him ; for nothing can be clearer, than that the actual writer was determined on concealment, and that he would never have toyed with his dan- gerous secret so much in the manner of a school- girl, anxious to develope her accomplishments. It is with no wish to add to the number of the controversialists on this bluestocking subject, that a conjecture is hazarded; that Junius will be found, if ever found, among some of the humbler names of the list. If he had been a political leader, or, in any sense of the word, an inde- pendent man, it is next to impossible that he 172 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. should not have left some indication of his author- ship. But it is perfectly easy to conceive the case of a private secretary, or dependent of a political leader, writing, by his command, and for his temporary purpose, a series of attacks on a ministry; which, when the object was gained, it was of the highest importance to bury, so far as the connexion was concerned, in total oblivion. Junius, writing on his own behalf, would have, in all probability, retained evidence sufficient to substantiate his title, when the peril of the dis- covery should have passed away, which it did within a few years ; for who would have thought, in 1780, of punishing even the libels on the king in 1770? or when, if the peril remained, the writer would have felt himself borne on a tide of popular applause high above the inflictions of law. But, writing for another; the most natural result was, that he should have been pledged to extinguish all proof of the transaction ; to give up every fragment that could lead to the dis- covery at any future period ; and to surrender the whole mystery into the hands of the superior, for whose purposes it had been constructed, and who, while he had no fame to acquire by its being made public, might be undone by its betrayal. The marks of private secretaryship are so strong, that all the probable conjectures have pointed to writers under that relation; Lloyd, 1787. the prince's friends. 173 the private secretary of George Grenville ; Great- rakes, Lord Shelburne's private secretary ; Rosen- hagen, who was so much concerned in the busi- ness of Shelburne house, that he may be con- sidered as a second secretary ; and Macauley Boyd, who was perpetually about some public man, and who was at length fixed by his friends on Lord Macartney's establishment, and went with him to take office in India. But, mortifying as it may be to the disputants on the subject, the discovery is now beyond ra- tional hope ; for Junius intimates his having been a spectator of parliamentary proceedings even further back than the year 1743; which, sup- posing him to have been twenty years old at the time, would give more than a century for his experience. In the long interval since 1772, when the letters ceased ; not the slightest clue has been discovered ; though doubtless the keenest inquiry was set on foot by the parties assailed. Sir William Draper died with but one wish, though a sufficiently uncharitable one, that he could have found out his castigator, before he took leave of the world. Lord North often avowed his total ignorance of the writer. The king's reported observation to Gen. Desaguiliers, in 1772, "We know who Junius is, and he will write no more," is unsubstantiated ; and if ever made, was probably prefaced with a supposition ; for no publicity ever followed ; and what neither 174 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1787. the minister of the dav, nor his successors ever knew, could scarcely have come to the king's knowledge but by inspiration, nor remained locked up there but by a reserve not far short of a po- litical error. But the question is not worth the trouble of discovery; for, since the personal resentment is past, its interest can arise only from pulling the mask oft' the visage of some individual of political eminence, and giving us the amusing contrast of his real and his assumed physiognomy ; or from unearthing some great unknown genius. But the leaders have been already excluded ; and the composition of the letters demanded no extraor- dinary powers. Their secret information has been vaunted ; but Junius gives us no more than what would now be called the "chat of the clubs;" the currency of conversation, which any man mixing in general life might collect in his half-hour's walk down St. James's Street : he gives us no insight into the purposes of government ; of the counsels of the cabinet he knows nothing. The style was undeniably excellent for the purpose, and its writer must have been a man of ability. If it had been original, he might have been a man of genius; but it was notoriously formed on Col. Titus's letter, which, from its strong peculiarities, is of easy imitation. The crime and the blunder together of Junius was, that he attacked the king, a man so publicly honest and so personally 1787. the prince's friends. 175 virtuous, that his assailant inevitably pronounced himself a libeller. But if he had restricted his lash to the contending politicians of the day, justice would have rejoiced in his vigorous se- verity. Who could have regretted the keenest application of the scourge to the Duke of Grafton, the most incapable of ministers, and the most openly and offensively profligate of men ; to the indomitable selfishness of Mansfield ; to the avarice of Bedford, the suspicious negotiator of the scan- dalous treaty of 1763; or to the slippered and drivelling ambition of North, sacrificing an em- pire to his covetousness of power? 176 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. CHAPTER VIII. THE KINGS ILLNESS. The prince's adoption of Whig politics had deeply- offended his royal father ; for the coalition mi- nistry had made Fox personally obnoxious to the monarch, who remembered its power by a series of mortifications, so keen that they had inspired the desperate idea of abandoning England for a time, and seeking refuge for his broken spirit and insulted authority in Hanover. This conception the king was said to have so far matured as to have communicated to Thurlow ; who, however, repelled it in the most direct manner, telling his majesty, — that " though it might be easy to go to Hanover, it might be difficult to return to England ; that James the Second's was a case in point ; and that the best plan was, to let the coalition take their way for awhile, as they were sure to plunge themselves into some embarrassment, and then he might have them at his disposal." The advice was solid, and successful. The king thenceforth exhibited his aversion to the ministry in the most open manner, by steadily refusing to bestow a single English peerage, while they were 1788. THE KING'S ILLNESS. 177 in power; and it was surmised, that Fox was driven by his consciousness of this total alienation, to the rash and defying measure of the India bill, as a support against the throne. The game was a bold one ; for its success would have made Fox king of lords, commons, and people ; and George the Third, king of masters of the stag-hounds, gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and canons of Windsor. But it failed, and its failure was ruin. It not merely overthrew Fox, but it spread the ruin to every thing that bore the name. His banner was not simply borne down in the casual fortunes of the fight; but it was broken, trampled on, and extinguished. By the India bill the languors of political warfare were turned into the fierceness of personal combat ; and whig- gism, pressed by the new -armed wrath of the monarch, and losing its old refuge in the popular sympathy, hated by the throne, and repelled by the nation, feebly dispersed on the field. Such is the fate of the noblest parties, when the spirit that once animated them has passed away. The men of 1688 would have found it impossible to recognise their descendants in the shifting politicians of the eighteenth century ; but woe be to the people whose liberties depend upon the character of individuals! The revolu- tion itself would have been a mockery, but for its taking refuge in the manliness and religious virtue of the nation. All the overthrows of all N 178 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. the tyrannies of ancient or modern days were never able to make corruption free ; more than the loudest professions of principle ever made a profligate the fit trustee and champion of national freedom. The personal vice nullifies and conta- minates the public profession. No revolution ever succeeded, nor ever deserved to succeed, which was not demanded by the same natural and righ- teous necessity which demands the defence of our fireside ; and which was not conducted by men unstained by the crime of individual ambition, or the deeper crime of bartering the national blood for their own avarice, licentiousness, or re- venge ; — men who felt themselves periling their lives for an object that dignifies death ; and in the impulse of holiness and faith offering up their existence a willing and solemn sacrifice to their fellow men and their God. The success of the first French revolution is no answer to this principle ; for France had shewed only the frightful rapidity with which the name of freedom can be vitiated ; and the incalculable means of public explosion and misery which may exist under the surface of the most ostentatious patriotism. The second revolution is yet to dis- play its results; but auspicious and justifiable as has been its commencement, its only security will be found in purifying the habits of the people. If Italy, with her magnificent powers, her vivid susceptibility of character, her living genius, 1788. the king's illness. 179 and her imperishable fame — Italy, where every foot of ground was the foundation of some monu- ment of the most illustrious supremacy of the human mind, is now a prison ; the crime and the folly are her own; her own vices have rivetted the chain round her neck, her own hand has barred the dungeon ; and in that dun- geon she will remain for ever, if she wait until vice shall give vigour to her limbs, or super- stition throw back the gates of her living se- pulchre. A purer influence must descend upon her. A deliverer, not of the earth, earthy — but an immortal visitant, shedding the light of holi- ness and religion from its vesture, must come upon her darkness ; and, like the angel that came to Peter, bid her awake and follow. If Spain and Portugal are still convulsed with civil discord ; who can hope to see rational free- dom ever existing in those lands, while the cor- ruption of the people feeds the license of the throne ; while, if the king imprisons, the peasant stabs ; while, if the crown violates the privileges of the subject, the subject habitually violates the honour of the holiest ties of our nature ; while, if government is tyranny, private life is rapine, promiscuous passion, and merciless revenge? Let the changes be as specious as they may, the political suffering will only deepen, until the per- sonal reform comes to redeem the land ; until faith is more than an intolerant superstition, 180 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. courage than assassination, and virtue than con- fession to a monk. Till then, freedom will be but a name; and the fall of a Spanish or Portu- guese tyrant but a signal for his assailants to bury their poniards in each other's bosoms ; constitution will be but an upbreaking of the elements of society ; and the plunging of des- potism into the gulf, but a summons to every gloomy and furious shape of evil below, to rise upon the wing, and darken and poison the moral atmosphere of mankind. The India bill gave the final blow to the ex- istence of the Old Whigs. The name had long survived the reality ; but now even the name perished. When the fragments of the party were collected, in the course of years, after their almost desperate dispersion ; they were known by another name ; and the New Whigs, however they might claim the honours of the Old, were never recognised as successors to the estate. From this period, Pitt and Toryism were paramount. Fox, defeated in his ambition of being a monarch, was hence- forth limited to such glories as were to be found in perpetual discomfiture. Unequalled in debate, he talked for twenty years, and delighted the senate ; was the idol of Westminster, the clubs, and the conversations at Devonshire-house ; but saw himself in an inexorable minority in the only place where triumph was worthy of his abilities or dear to his ambition. Perhaps, too, if Fox had 1788. the king's illness. 181 never existed, his rival might never have risen to eminence ; for even great powers require great opportunities, and the struggle with the colossal frame and muscle of Fox's genius might be essential to mature the vigour of his young anta- gonist and conqueror. Still, when all hope of wresting the supremacy out of Pitt's hand was past, the exercise was useful; and Fox, for the rest of his days, had the infelicitous honour of keeping those powers in practice, whose inaction might have dropped the sceptre. He was the noblest captive linked to Pitt's chariot-wheel, but to that chariot-wheel he was linked for life; and no other arm could have so powerfully dragged his rival's triumphal car up the steeps of fame. The prince unhappily soon created a new grievance, that came home more directly to the royal bosom than even his politics. Rolle's allusion to his marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert* was believed by the king to be true, and no act could be calculated to give deeper offence to the * Mrs. Fitzherbert was the daughter of Wm. Smythe, Esq. of Tonge Castle, and niece of Sir E. Smythe, Bart, of Acton Burnel, Salop. Her sister was married to Sir Carnaby Hagger- stone, Bart. At an early age she married Weld, of Lulworth Castle, Dorset. On his death she married Fitzherbert, of Swin- nerton, Leicestershire, a remarkably striking person, who died of either over exertion in a walk from Bath to town, or some imprudence at the burning of Lord Mansfield's house, in the riots of 1780. The lady was a Roman Catholic. 182 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. monarch, as a parent, a Protestant, or a man of virtue. The lady was high-bred and handsome; and, though by seven years the prince's elder, and with the formidable drawback of having been twice a widow, her attractions might justify the civi- lities of fashion. But her rank and her religion were barriers, which she must have known to be impassable. The king was peculiarly sensitive to mesalli- ances in the blood royal. The Marriage Act of 1772, had originated in the royal displeasure at the marriages of his brothers, the Dukes of Cum- berland and Gloucester, with subjects ;* and the determination with which the bill was urged through the legislature against the strongest re- sistance, shewed the interest which his majesty took in preserving the succession clear. But the prince's error had gone further than the passionate violation of an unpopular law; for the marriage of the heir apparent with a Roman Catho- lic must have defeated his claim to the throne. * The Duke of Cumberland had married Mrs. Horton, Lord Irnham's daughter ; the Duke of Gloucester the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, but this marriage was not acknow- ledged for some time after. The bill passed rapidly through parliament, yet was debated with unusual perseverance in all its stages. With the public it was highly unpopular, and was assailed by every weapon of seriousness and ridicule. It was described as intolerably aristocratical ; as insulting to English birth and beauty ; as violating one of the first laws of our being ; and even as giving a direct encouragement to crime. Epigrams 1788. the king's illness. 183 To this hour the marriage has been neither proved nor disproved. It was rumoured that the lady's scruples were soothed by having the cere- monial performed according to the rites of her own church. But no Roman Catholic dispensa- tion, guiltily facile as such license is in that church, could have acquitted the parties of the crime of sustaining a connexion notoriously void by the laws of the land. Fox's declaration in the house admits of no subterfuge ; language could not have been found more distinctly repelling the and satires innumerable were showered upon the bill, and its opponents certainly had all the wit and all the women on their side. One of those jeux d 'esprit was — THE ROYAL MARRIAGE ACT. Says Dick to Tom, " This Act appears The oddest thing alive ; To take the crown at eighteen years, The wife at twenty-five. The thing a puzzle must remain ; For, as old Dowdeswell* said, ' So early if one's fit to reign, One must be fit to wed.' " Says Tom to Dick, " The man's a fool, Or knows no rubs of life ; Good friend, 'tis easier far to rule A kingdom than a wife !" * An opponent of the bill. 184 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. charge ; and that Mrs. Fitzherbert felt it to be decisive, is palpable from the anger and alienation with which she, for years after, affected to treat him. However, she still enjoys at least the gains of the connexion ; and up to the hoary age of seventy-five, calmly draws her salary of ten thou- sand pounds a-year ! The theme is repulsive. But the writer de- grades his moral honour, and does injustice to the general cause of truth, who softens down such topics into the simplicity of romance. Yet, be- tween the individuals in question there can be no comparison. The prince was in the giddiest period of youth and inexperience ; he was sur- rounded by temptation ; it was laid in his way by individuals craftily accomplished in every art of extravagance and ruin. For him to have escaped the snare would have been not less than the most fortunate of accidents, or an exhibition of the manliest sense and virtue. But, for those who ministered to his errors, or shared in them, the con- demnation must be altogether of a deeper dye. In this most unhappy intercourse originated all the serious calamities of the prince's life. From its commencement it openly drew down the indignation of his excellent father ; it alien- ated his general popularity in an immediate and an extraordinary degree ; it shook the con- fidence of the wise and good in those hopes of recovery and reformation, which such minds are 1788. the king's illness. 185 the most generous to conceive, and the most unwilling to cast away ; the cold gravity of this unlover-like connexion gave it the appear- ance of a system ; and its equivocal and offen- sive bondage was obviously a fixture for life. It embarrassed him with the waste of a double household, when he was already sinking under the expenses of one ; and precipitated him into bankruptcy. It entangled him more and more inextricably with the lower members of that cabal, who gathered round him in the mask of politics, only to plunder ; and who, incapable of the dignified and honourable feelings that may attach to party, cared nothing for the nation, or for political life, beyond what they could filch for their daily bread from the most pitiful sources of a contemptible popularity. It dis- heartened all his higher friends, the Duke of Portland, Fox, Grey, Burke, and the other leaders of opposition ; while it betrayed the prince's name and cause into the hands of men who could not touch even royalty without leav- ing a stain. Finally, it destroyed all chance of happiness in his subsequent marriage ; and was the chief ingredient in that cup of personal anxiety and public evil which was so sternly forced to his lips almost to the close of his days. Fox's declaration in the house had given the first example of the pangs which the prince was to feel. It unquestionably threw dishonour on 186 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. the connexion. Yet, to expect Fox to retract his words, and this too when their object was gained by the payment of the prince's debts, was utterly hopeless. Grey was then sounded;* but he declined this singular office. Sheridan was the next resource ; and, with that miserable pliancy, which, in him, resulted less from a casual defer- ence to the will of others, than from a total want of moral elevation, a guilty callousness to the prin- ciple of self-respect, he undertook to equivocate the house into sufferance. In allusion to the prince's offer, through Fox, to undergo an examin- ation in the lords, he affectedly said, — " that the house deserved credit for decorum, in not taking advantage of the offer, and demanding such an inquiry. But while his royal highness's feelings had been, doubtless, considered on the occasion, he must take the liberty of saying, however some might think it a subordinate consideration, that there was another person, entitled, in every deli- cate and honourable mind, to the same attention; one whom he would not otherwise venture to de- scribe, or allude to, but by saying it was a name which malice or ignorance alone could attempt to injure, and whose character and conduct claimed and were entitled to the truest respect." Nothing could be more filmy than this veil ; and nothing more contemptible than the conduct * Moore's Life of Sheridan. 1788. the king's illness. 187 of the man who exhibited himself thus ready to cast it, thin as it was, across the eyes of the house. But the question had been settled long before ; the equivocation was scornfully left un- disturbed, and the individuals were given over to that tardy prudence which will learn no lessons but from misfortune. A second and more bitter proof of the public feelings rapidly followed. In October, 1788, symptoms of that disease of the mind, which after- wards broke out into such violence, were apparent in the kinsr. In November the fears of the nation were confirmed ; and, in the midst of a strong ex- pression of public sorrow, it was declared expedi- ent to provide for the government of the country. On the occasion of a similar, but slighter at- tack, in 1765, his majesty's speech to parliament, on his recovery, declared, that the " thoughts with which the memory of his illness affected him, touching the welfare of his people and his children, urged him to propose to its considera- tion, whether it might not be expedient to vest in him the power of appointing, from time to time, by instruments in writing, under his sign manual, the queen, or some other person of the royal family usually residing in Great Britain, to be the guardian of any of his children, who might suc- ceed to the throne before the age of eighteen ; * April 24, 1765. 188 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. and to be regent of the kingdom until his suc- cessor should attain that age, subject to the restrictions and regulations specified in the act made on occasion of his father's death. — The regent so appointed to be assisted by a council, composed of the several persons who, by reason of their dignities and offices, were constituted members of the council established by that act, together with those whom they might think proper to leave to his majesty's nomination."* A bill on this principle, but with considerable modifications relative to the individuals who might be appointed to the regency and guardianship, was passed in the same year.t The recurrence of the king's illness made the immediate meeting of parliament necessary; and on the 20th of November, the day to which it had been prorogued, the session began. But the opi- nions of the royal physicians were still so dubious; and both ministers and opposition were still so imperfectly prepared for any direct measures, that a fortnight's adjournment was agreed on without difficulty. Fox was then absent on a foreign tour; but he had been sent for, and was expected hourly. In the mean time, Sheridan appears to have acted as the chief counsellor of opposition, in which capacity he addressed the following letter to the prince :J — * April 24, 1765. f May 15, 1765. t Moore's Life of Sheridan. 1788. the king's illness. 189 " Sir, — From the intelligence of to-day, we are led to think that Pitt will make something more of a speech, in moving to adjourn, on Thurs- day, than was at first imagined. In this case, we presume your royal highness will be of opinion that we must not be totally silent. I possessed Payne* yesterday with my sentiments on the line of conduct which appears to me best to be adopted on this occasion, that they might be submitted to your royal highness's consideration ; and I take the liberty of repeating my firm conviction, that it will greatly advance your royal highness's credit, and, in case of events, lay the strongest grounds to baffle every attempt at opposition to your royal highness's just claims and rights, that the language of those who may be in any sort suspected of knowing your royal highness's wishes and feelings, should be that of great moderation in disclaiming all party views, and avowing the utmost readiness to acquiesce in any reasonable delay. " At the same time, I am perfectly aware of the arts which will be practised, and the advantages which some people will attempt to gain by time. But I am equally convinced, that a third party will soon appear, whose efforts may, in the most decisive manner, prevent * Captain Payne (afterwards Admiral), the prince's private secretary. 190 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. this sort of situation and proceeding from con- tinuing long. " Payne will probably have submitted to your royal highness more fully my idea on this subject, towards which I have already taken some success- ful steps. Your royal highness will, I am sure, have the goodness to pardon the freedom with which I give my opinion ; after which I have only to add, that whatever your royal highness's judg- ment decides, shall be the pride of my conduct, and will undoubtedly be so to others." Those negotiations are now chiefly valuable for the light which they throw on human nature. Lord Chancellor Thurlow was destined to afford the chief illustration. His lordship, so well known as a lead- ing lawyer, and a clamorous partisan, was especially a boaster of immaculate principle. The present transaction shewed him to be also a low intriguer and a contemptible hypocrite. While he sat at the council-table of the ministry he was intriguing with opposition; while he was intriguing with op- position he was watching the king's physicians ; and the moment he was assured, from the king's symp- toms, that he might cheat both ministers and oppo- sition — without the loss of his place! he marched down to the house, proclaimed himself the inalien- able servant of the throne, and obtested Heaven, in language little short of blasphemy, that — " when- ever he forgot his king, might his God forget him." 1788. the king's illness. 191 Sheridan's allusion to " the third party," referred to Thurlow. This negotiation took Fox by surprise, who had been previously pledged to give the seals to Loughborough. Thurlow, how- ever, was now hired, and must have his hire ; to which Fox, after no slight struggle with himself, acceded. His letter on the subject is a striking instance of the vexatious compliances, to which men are sometimes driven, who seem to be at the height of their ambition, and whom the world looks on as carrying every thing by their will. " Dear Sheridan, — I have swallowed the pill ; a most bitter one it was, — and have written to Lord Loughborough, whose answer must, of course, be content. What is to be done next? Should the prince himself, or you, or I, or Warren, speak to the chancellor? The objection to the last is, that he must probably wait for an opportunity, and that no time is to be lost. Pray tell me what is to be done. I am convinced, after all, the negotiation will not succeed, and am not sure that I am sorry for it. I do not remember feel- ing so uneasy about any political thing I ever did in my life. Call if you can. " Your's ever, C. J. F." It is astonishing to see how feebly a sense of public decency or personal honour sometimes acts upon the minds of men accustomed to the 192 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. traffic of politics. In Thurlow, we have the in- stance of an individual at the head of an honourable profession, and therefore doubly bound to think of character; opulent, and therefore under no neces- sity of consulting the increase of his means ; ad- vanced in life, and therefore at once destitute of the excuses of young ambition, and incapable of the long enjoyment of power ; and yet involving himself in a labyrinth of falsehood and self-degra- dation, for the wretched purpose of retaining place. There is a just pleasure in being able to state after this, that he lost the object of his scandalous com- promise. He retained the name of chancellor, but he lost alike the public respect attached to his rank, and the real power of a cabinet minister. The hollowness of his colleague could not escape the eye of Pitt. He suffered him to linger for a while in a condition of half-confidence in the cabinet, which must have been a perpetual tor- ment to his haughty heart ; but even the half- confidence at length changed into open bickering, and Pitt was said to have charged him with direct inefficiency, as " a man who proposed nothing, op- posed every thing, and gave way to every thing." Thurlow's day was now done; the prize had slipped from his hands; and, with abilities and professional knowledge which might have made him one of the pillars of the state, he rapidly sank into the de- served decay of a selfish and unprincipled politician. The Chancellor's brutal manners in private life, 1788. the king's illness. 193 and insolence on the bench, were, as they always are, repaid by private and public disgust. His habit of execration on all subjects was notorious, and excited a still deeper aversion; and it was equally an error in opposition and in ministers, to have suffered themselves to negotiate with a man whose merited unpopularity must have heavily encum- bered any party which he espoused. In the crowd of pamphlets and verses produced by the struggle, Thurlow was not forgotten; he figured at great length in the " Probationary Odes," where he is represented as expectorating curses on every public name ; or, as an epigram ex- pressed it, — " Here bully Thurlow flings his gall Alike on foes and friends; Blazing, like blue devils at Vauxhall, With sulphur at both ends." The Probationary Ode, after some verses too much in the style of his lordship's vocabulary for quotation here, gives a strophe of calmer scorn : " Fired at her voice, I grow profane ! A louder yet and yet a louder strain : To Thurlow's lyre more daring notes belong. Now tremble every rebel soul, While on the foes of George I roll The deep-toned execrations of my song. In vain my brother's piety more meek, Would preach my kindling fury to repose ; Like Balaam's ass, were he inspired to speak, Twere vain, I go to curse my prince's foes." O 194 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. But Thurlow's treachery, even at the moment when he was probably surest of having hood- winked both parties, was ludicrously visible to the new and old colleagues, whom he was equally ready to deceive. He even raised an open laugh against him at the council-table, by coming in with the prince's hat in his hand, which, in the confusion of his double plot, he had carried from a Carlton-house conference. Fox and his friends were fully aware of his perfidy. A letter from Lord Loughborough, who watched him with the keenness of a rival candidate, lays bare the chancellor's policy. Thurlow had con- trived to obtain permission to visit the king dur- ing his illness, and thus ascertain the chances of recovery ; a knowledge which he employed for the due regulation of his own conscience. This privilege the letter deprecates, as giving him the entire advantage of position. It is addressed to Sheridan. " The chancellor's object evidently is to make his way by himself, and he has managed hitherto as one very well practised in that game. His conversations both with you and with Mr. Fox, were encouraging; but at the same time checked all explanations on his part, under a pretence of delicacy towards his colleagues. When he let them go to Salt-hill, and contrived to dine at Windsor, he certainly took a step that most men 1788. the king's illness. 195 would have felt not very delicate in its appear- ance ; and, unless there was some private under- standing between him and them, not altogether fair; especially if you add to it the sort of conver- sation he held with regard to them. " I cannot help thinking that the difficulties of managing the patient have been excited or im- proved, to lead to the proposal of his inspection, (without the prince being conscious of it); for, by that situation, he gains an easy and frequent access to him, and an opportunity of possessing the confidence of the queen. I believe this the more, from the account of the tenderness that he shewed at the first interview, for I am sure it is not in his character to feel any. With a little instruction from Lord Hawksbury, the sort of management that was carried on by means of the princess dowager, in the early part of the reign, may easily be practised. " In short, I think he will try to find the key of the back stairs, and with that in his pocket, take any situation that preserves his access, and enables him to hold a line between different parties." It was while all those vigilant eyes were fixed upon him, with every movement watched, ridi- culed, and scorned ; with the whole ordnance of party pointed against him, and ready to give fire at the first signal; that this noble intriguer, 19G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. plumed in the full triumph of having escaped detection, came down to the house, and astonished his brother peers by a burst of un- expected piety. But he was not suffered to remain long under this delusion. A storm of contempt and reproof was poured upon him by opposition. Thurlow had contrived to weep in the delivery of his speech. His tears were a new source of ridicule ; his reluctant piety was held up in contrast with his life; and the chancellor's name was from that day a watchword for every thing worthless in political tergiversation. An epitaph from some unknown pen, con- densed the public feelings on the occasion: — TO THE MEMORY OF Here lies, beneath the prostituted mace, A patriot, with but one base wish — for place : Here lies, beneath the prostituted purse, A peer, with but one talent, — how to curse : Here lies, beneath the prostituted gown, The guardian of all honour — but his own ; Statesman, with but one rule his steps to guide — To shun the sinking, take the rising side ; Judge, with but one base law — to serve the time, And see in wealth no weakness, power no crime ; Christian, with but one value for the name, The scoffer's prouder privilege — to blaspheme ; Briton, with but one hope — to live a slave, And dig in deathless infamy his grave. The details of the royal illness must be passed 1788. the king's illness. 197 over. There would be neither wisdom nor feeling in now recalling to the public mind the circum- stances of an affliction which then threw the empire into sorrow, and which still must give pain to bosoms which it is our duty to honour. But the transactions arising from it are invalu- able, as a lesson to partisanship. To make the prince unrestricted regent, would have been to make him virtually king for the time, and to have made Fox "viceroy over him." The prospect was dazzling, but there were difficulties in the way. The royal fortress stood upon a hill, which was not to be stormed even by the bold- ness and vigour of opposition, while it continued loaded with the restraints of law, popular rights, and personal declarations and pledges of all kinds. But the time pressed ; every hour added to the strength of the garrison ; and Fox took the gallant resolution of cutting away his Whig encumbrances, and assaulting the battlements in the unembar- rassed right of despotism. " I have heard," exclaimed he, " of prece- dents for binding the regent ; bat I can find none existing for laying a hand on an heir-apparent of full capacity and age to exercise power. It behoves then the house to waste not a moment, but to proceed with all becoming speed and dili- gence to restore the sovereign power and the exercise of the royal authority. From what I have read of history, from the ideas I have 198 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. formed of the law, and, what is still more pre- cious, of the spirit of the constitution ; I declare that I have not, in my mind, a doubt that I should think myself culpable, if I did not take the first opportunity of saying, that in the pre- sent condition of his majesty, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has as clear, as express a right to exercise the power of sovereignty, during the continuance of the illness and incapacity with which it has pleased God to afflict his majesty, as in the case of his majesty's having undergone a natural demise." This was such a palpable abandonment of the first principles of constitutional law, as is to be accounted for only by that frenzy which sometimes seizes on powerful understandings, when assailed by more powerful passions. Fox was evidently inflamed, by the sight of all the objects of his ambition within his grasp, into the desperate expe- riment of casting away his character, and leaving it to success to justify the rejection of his princi- ples. By his language he had nullified the power of parliament and the nation alike. " The cir- cumstance to be provided for," he repeated, "did not depend on their deliberations as a house of parliament, — it rested elsewhere." This " else- where" was the hereditary right of the prince to assume the throne, in scorn of parliament, and without restriction. Sheridan followed him, and presumptuously warned the house " of the danger 1788. the king's illness. 199 of provoking" the prince's assertion of his claim. But Pitt instantly threw back the menace, in lan- guage which found an indignant echo in the house and the nation. " We have now," said he, " an additional reason for asserting the authority of the house, and defining the boundaries of right; when the deliberative faculties of parliament are invaded, and an indecent menace is thrown out to awe our proceedings. I trust the house will do its duty, in defiance of any threat. Men, who feel their native freedom, will not submit to a threat, however high the authority from which it may come." But Fox was the great antagonist, and it was over him that Pitt exulted with the loftiest sense of superiority. When he heard him utter the ominous sentence, declaring the regent's in- dependence of parliament, he turned round to the member who sat next him, and, with a brightened countenance, and striking his thigh triumphantly, said, — ■ " I'll un-ivliig the gentleman for the rest of his life."* Pitt, now master of the house, and secure of the national support, urged his measures vigor- ously ; and in the committee on the state of the nation, | carried, by a division of 268 to 204, after a long debate, the two resolutions : first, " that * Moore. f Dec. 16, 1788. 200 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. there was an interruption of the royal authority;" and secondly, " that it was the duty of the two houses of parliament to supply that defect." The next step taken by the triumphant minister was to embody his intentions in a letter to his royal highness : — " Sir, — The proceedings in parliament being now brought to a point, which will render it necessary to propose to the house of commons the particular measures to be taken for supplying the defect of the personal exercise of the royal authority during the present interval ; and your royal highness having some time since signified your pleasure that any communication on this subject should be in writing, I take the liberty of respectfully entreating your royal highness's permission to submit to your consideration the outlines of the plan, which his majesty's conn- dential servants humbly conceive (according to the best judgment which they are able to form), to be proper to be proposed in the present cir- cumstances. " It- is their humble opinion, that your royal highness should be empowered to exercise the royal authority, in the name and on the behalf of his majesty, during his majesty's illness ; and to do all acts which might legally be done by his majesty ; with provisions, nevertheless, that the care of his majesty's royal person, and the 1788. the king's illness. 201 management of his majesty's household, and the direction and appointment of the officers and servants therein, should be in the queen, under such regulations as may be thought necessary. That the power to be exercised by your royal highness should not extend to the granting real or personal property of the king, (except as far as relates to the renewal of leases,) to the grant- ing any office in reversion, or to the granting, for any other term than during his majesty's plea- sure, any pension, or any office whatever, except such as must by law be granted for life, or during good behaviour; nor to the granting any rank or dignity of the peerage of this realm to any person except his majesty's issue, who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years. " Those are the chief points which have occurred to his majesty's servants. I beg leave to add, that their ideas are formed on the sup- position that his majesty's illness is only tem- porary, and may be of no long duration. It may be difficult to fix beforehand the precise period for which those provisions ought to last; but if, unfortunately, his majesty's illness should be protracted to a more distant period than there is reason at present to imagine, it will be open hereafter to the wisdom of parliament, to re- consider these provisions whenever the circum- stances appear to call for it. ' If your royal highness should be pleased to 202 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. require any further explanation on the subject, and should condescend to signify your orders that I should have the honour of attending your royal highness for that purpose, or to intimate any other mode in which your royal highness may wish to receive such explanation, I shall re- spectfully wait your royal highness's commands. " I have the honour to be, " With the utmost deference and submission, " Sir, " Your Royal Highness's most dutiful and devoted servant, " W. PITT." " Downing Street, Tuesday Night, Dec. 30, 1788." The prince's letter in answer attracted re- markable attention, from its tone of dignity, and its general grave excellence as a compo- sition. All the leading persons of the prince's councils were named as the writers, and each with some degree of plausibility ; but the votes fell chiefly on Sheridan. However, the question is cleared up at last, and the authorship is given to Burke, on the testimony of Sir J. Mackintosh, and the following note of the late Sir Gilbert Elliot (Lord Minto), Jan. 31, 1789: " There was not a word of the prince's letter to Pitt mine. It was originally Burke's, altered a little, but not improved, by Sheridan and other critics. " The answer made by the prince yesterday, 1788. the king's illness. 203 to the address of the two houses was entirely mine, and done in a great hurry, half an hour before it was to be delivered."* Answer to Mr. Pitt's Letter, delivered by his Royal Highness to the Lord Chancellor, Jan. 1, 1789. " The Prince of Wales learns from Mr. Pitt's letter that the proceedings in parliament are now in a train which enables Mr. Pitt, according to the intimation in his former letter, to communi- cate to the prince the outlines of the plan which his majesty's confidential servants conceive to be proper to be proposed in the present cir- cumstances. " Concerning the steps already taken by Mr. Pitt, the prince is silent. Nothing done by the two houses of parliament can be a proper subject of his animadversion ; but when, previously to any discussion in parliament, the outlines of a scheme of government are sent for his consi- deration, in which it is proposed that he shall be personally and principally concerned, and by which the royal authority and the public welfare may be deeply affected ; the prince would be unjustifiable, were he to withhold an explicit declaration of his sentiments. His silence might be construed into a previous approbation of a * Moore. 204 GEORGE THE FOURTH, 1788. plan, the accomplishment of which, every motive of duty to his father and sovereign, as well as of regard for the public interest, obliges him to consider as injurious to both. " In the state of deep distress in which the prince and the whole royal family were involved, by the heavy calamity which has fallen upon the king, and at a moment when government, deprived of its chief energy and support, seemed peculiarly to need the cordial and united aid of all descriptions of good subjects, it was not expected by the prince that a plan should be offered to his consideration, by which govern- ment was to be rendered difficult, if not imprac- ticable, in the hands of any person intended to represent the king's authority, much less in the hands of his eldest son, the heir-apparent of his kingdoms, and the person most bound to the maintenance of his majesty's just prerogatives and authority, as well as most interested in the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory of the people. " The prince forbears to remark on the several parts of the sketch of the plan laid before him ; he apprehends it must have been formed with sufficient deliberation to preclude the probability of any argument of his producing an alteration of sentiment in the projectors of it; but he trusts with confidence to the wisdom and justice of parliament, when the whole of this subject, and 1788. the king's illness. 205 the circumstances connected with it, shall come under their deliberation. " He observes, therefore, only generally on the heads communicated by Mr. Pitt, and it is with deep regret that the prince makes the observation, that he sees in the contents of that paper a project for producing weakness, dis- order, and insecurity, in every branch of the administration of affairs ; a project for dividing the royal family from each other, for separating the court from the state ; and therefore, by dis- joining government from its natural and accus- tomed support, a scheme for disconnecting the authority to command service from the powers of animating it by reward, and for allotting to the prince all the invidious duties of govern- ment without the means of softening them to the public by any one act of grace, favour, or benignity. " The prince's feelings on contemplating this plan are also rendered still more painful by observing, that it is not founded on any general principle, but is calculated to infuse jealousies and suspicions (wholly groundless, he trusts), in that quarter whose confidence it will ever be the first pride of his life to merit and obtain. " With regard to the motive and object of the limitations and restrictions proposed, the prince can have but little to observe. No light or in- formation is offered him by his majesty's ministers 206 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. on these points. They have informed him what the powers are which they mean to refuse him, not why they are withheld. " The prince, however, holding as he does, that it is an undoubted and fundamental prin- ciple of this constitution, that the powers and prerogatives of the crown are vested there as a trust for the benefit of the people, and that they are sacred only as they are necessary to the pre- servation of that poise and balance of the consti- tution which experience has proved to be the true security of the liberty of the subject, must be allowed to observe, that the plea of public utility ought to be strong, manifest, and urgent, which calls for the extinction or suspension of any one of those essential rights in the supreme power or its representative, or which can justify the prince in consenting, that in his person an experiment shall be made to ascertain with how small a portion of the kingly power the executive government of this country may be carried on. " The prince has only to add, that if se- curity for his majesty's repossessing his rightful government, whenever it shall please Providence, in bounty to the country, to remove the calamity with which he is afflicted, be any part of the object of this plan ; the prince has only to be convinced that any measure is necessary, or even conducive to that end, to be the first to urge it, 1788. the king's illness. 207 as the preliminary and paramount consideration of any settlement in which he would consent to share. " If attention to what is presumed might be his majesty's feelings and wishes on the happy day of his recovery be the object, it is with the truest sincerity the prince expresses his firm con- viction, that no event would be more repugnant to the feelings of his royal father, than the know- ledge that the government of his son and repre- sentative had exhibited the sovereign power of the realm in a state of degradation, of curtailed authority, and diminished energy — a state hurtful in practice to the prosperity and good govern- ment of his people, and injurious in its precedent to the security of the monarch and the rights of his family. " Upon that part of the plan which regards the king's real and personal property, the prince feels himself compelled to remark, that it was not necessary for Mr. Pitt, nor proper to suggest to the prince, the restraint he proposes against his granting away the king's real and personal pro- perty. The prince does not conceive that, during the king's life, he is by law entitled to make any such grant ; and he is sure that he has never shewn the smallest inclination to possess any such power. But it remains with Mr. Pitt to consider the eventual interests of the royal family, and to provide a proper and natural 208 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. security against the mismanagement of them by others. " The prince has discharged an indispensable duty, in thus giving his free opinion on the plan submitted to his consideration. " His conviction of the evil which may arise to the king's interests, to the peace and happiness of the royal family, and to the safety and welfare of the nation, from the government of the country remaining longer in its present maimed and de- bilitated state, outweighs, in the prince's mind, every other consideration, and will determine him to undertake the painful trust imposed upon him by the present melancholy necessity, (which, of all the king's subjects, he deplores the most,) in full confidence that the affection and loyalty to the king, the experienced attachment to the house of Brunswick, and the generosity which has al- ways distinguished this nation, will carry him through the many difficulties inseparable from this critical situation, with comfort to himself, with honour to the king, and with advantage to the public. (Signed) " G. P." " Carlton House, January 2, 1789." The minister suffered no further delay to take place; but brought in his propositions, and car- ried them by large majorities, in the face of the whole strength of opposition, armed with protests, 1788. the king's illness. 209 motions, and the formidable resistance of the blood- royal. The Dukes of York, Cumberland, and fifty- five other peers, signed a remonstrance against the restrictions. The princes of the royal family even expressly refused to suffer their names to appear in the commission for opening the session. But Pitt was not to be shaken ; the first reading of the bill was boldly carried in the commons;* and another week had brought it to the verge of com- mitment; when the struggle was stopped at once, by the cheering intelligence that the king's illness was already giving way, and that within a short time a perfect recovery might be expected. Those tidings, which diffused sincere joy through the nation, were speedily confirmed ; and within a month, a commission for holding the parliament was issued by the king. This had been the lottery of politics. If the prince had ascended the throne, even with limited powers, Fox and his friends would have obtained every wish which it was in the regent's power to realise. A turn of chance flung them into poli- tical exile ; and the minister used his first leisure unhesitatingly to punish the symptoms of wavering among his own followers : the Duke of Queens- berry, Lords Carteret and Malmesbury, and the Marquess of Lothian, were summarily dismissed from office; but it was in Ireland, where the * Feb. 12, 1789. P 210 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. defection had been more glaring, that vengeance and justice were gratified together, in a sweeping exclusion of functionaries venturous enough to speculate on London politics, and criminal enough to speculate on the wrong side. Yet the wit and eloquence of opposition were never more conspicuous than in those disastrous debates. Sheridan was in a perpetual glow ; and, whether sportive or sarcastic, was the delight of the house. " I am staggered," said he, " when I hear Dr. Willis's assertions. I hear him attribute his majesty's illness to twenty-seven years of study, abstinence, and labour ; and he tells us that his medicine has cured all this. What must I think of Dr. Willis, when I hear that his physic can, in one day, overcome the effects of seven and twenty years' hard exercise, seven and twenty years' study, and seven and twenty years' abstinence? It is impossible for me to preserve gravity on such a subject. It reminds one of the nostrums that are to cure this or that malady, and also disappointments in love, and long sea voyages /" In allusion to a charge of insincerity in the minister, he declared " that he believed the right honourable gentleman sincere in his intention, though he did not profess Dr. Willis's gift, that of seeing hearts by looking into countenances. He remembered the doctor's telling the Com- mittee, ' that he could thus see the heart of any 1788. the king's illness. 211 man, whether he was sick or not.' And the de- claration appeared to have 'particularly alarmed the right honourable gentleman." The restrictions had left the regent the power of making war and peace ; but had prohibited his making any change in the household. Sheridan treated this reserve with unceasing ridicule. " Talk of his majesty's feelings when he shall recover, and find his household changed. We are to be told that his feelings would be less shocked to learn that the constitution of the country was changed, or part of his dominions, by an unjust war, lost; or, by a foolish peace, ceded to foreign potentates. What was this, but like a man who, having entrusted his mansion to a person, in his absence, to take care of it, and finding it gone to ruin, and the winds of heaven suffered to blow through every part of it, the enclosures to be broken, the sheep to be shorn, and all exposed to ruin and decay ; yet should have no regret for those things, but feel all his anxiety awakened for a few looking-glasses and worthless gilt lumber locked up in an old-fashioned drawing room." Burke's appeals to the house were in a loftier style, and distinctly shewed that he had already formed those views, which were to be yet developed in his immortal work on the French revolution. " I consider myself," said he, " fully justified 212 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. in asserting that Great Britain is governed by a hereditary monarchy. Heaven forbid it should ever prove otherwise : it is our powerful barrier, our strong rampart, against the ambition of man- kind. It says to the most aspiring, ' thus far shalt thou go, and no farther:' it shelters the subject from the tyranny of illegal tribunals, bloody pro- scriptions, and the long train of evils attendant upon the distractions of ill-guided and unprincipled republics." His opinion of Thurlow was contemptuously avowed. " What is to be done when the crown is in a deliquium? It is intended, we are told, to set up a man with black brows, and a large wig, to be a scarecrow to the two houses, and give a fic- titious assent in the royal name." The chancellor's tears had excited great ridi- cule ; but it was left for Burke to give him the castigation due to his hoary hypocrisy. " The other house are not yet recovered from that ex- traordinary burst of the pathetic which had been exhibited the other evening; they have not yet dried their eyes, nor been restored to their pla- cidity. The tears shed on that occasion were not the tears of patriots for dying laws, but of lords for expiring places. They were the ' iron tears that flowed down Pluto's cheek,' and rather resembled the dismal bubbling of Styx, than the gentle streams of Aganippe. " In fact, they were tears for his majesty's 1788. the king's illness. 213 bread. There is a manifest difference between this house and the other, between plebeians and patricians. We, in an old-fashioned way, would have said — ' If we could no longer serve the king, we will no longer receive his wages, we will no longer eat his bread.' But the lords of the house- hold held a different language; they would stick by the king's loaf as long as a single cut of it remained. They would fasten on the crust, and gnaw it while two crumbs of it held together ; and they would proudly declare at the same time, that it was the honour of the service, the dignity of the office, which alone they regarded. The lords of the household were beyond the reach of in- fluence ; they were a set of saints and philoso- phers, ' superior to the lusts of the flesh and the vanities of this world.' ' By a fiction of law, the great seal was to represent the royal authority, and under this sem- blance of a king the session was to be opened. For this singular substitution the valid plea was, the necessity of the case. But it was too open to burlesque to escape Burke, who, amid the laughter of the house, turned it in all the lights of vindictive pleasantry. " I cannot, for my soul," he exclaimed " un- derstand the means of this art magic, any more than I can doubt the purpose. I see a phantom raised. But I never heard of one being raised in a family, but for the purpose of robbing the house. 214 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. The whole ceremonial, instead of being a repre- sentative of the forms of the constitution, is a masquerade, a mummery, a piece of buffoonery, used to ridicule every form of government. A phantom conjured up to fright propriety and drive it from the isle ; a spectre, to which, as to Ban- quo's ghost, it might be said — ' Avaunt, and quit my sight ! Let the earth hide thee ! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold, Thou hast no speculation in those eyes That thou dost glare with !' " In adopting Fox's words, that the limitations of the regency went to establish a republic, and that it would have been the manlier way to call for a republic at once ; Burke burst into a strain of lofty scorn, which may have suggested the famous apostrophe — " O calumniated crusaders! O tame and feeble Cervantes!" — in Fox's letter to the electors of Westminster. "A republic! do I hate a republic? No. But it cannot be speculated upon, according to the principles of our constitution : I love, I adore the true principles of a republic ; but is this the mode of instituting a republic ?" " O republic, how art thou libelled! how art thou prostituted, buffooned, and burlesqued! O fabric ! built after so many ages, and cemented by the blood of so many patriots, how art thou degraded! As well might it be said that the 1788. the king's illness. 215 creatures of the Opera-house were representatives of heroes, the true and perfect Caesars, Catos, and Brutuses, as that strange and jumbled chaos the representative of a real republic !" The India bill had been the death-blow of the original Whigs ; the regency question was all but the death-blow of the party which assumed the name. Disunion and discredit fell upon them from that hour ; opposition lost its final hold on the national confidence; and though partisanship was still active, and profession as loud as ever, the empire looked upon it thenceforth in its true light, that of a mere combination to drive ministers from their places, and to usurp them in their own persons. The three leaders of opposition were equally conscious that their cause was lost, and this consciousness was not relieved by the feeling that any one of them had exhibited the prudence essential to great successes. Fox's assertion of the extravagant right of the prince, had given the first advantage of the field to his antagonist. Sheridan's still more obnoxious threat of royal ven- geance had embittered the constitutional offence by personal indignation ; and Burke's wild indul- gence in the impulses of an uncontrollable fancy had dazzled his friends to the edge of a precipice, from which to retreat was ignominy, while to advance was ruin. There can now be no doubt that the triumph of opposition would have been the defeat of the law; 216 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. and that the doors of parliament might as well be closed at once, when an unlimited regent, in his own misinterpreted right, set his foot upon the step of the throne. Burke's dissatisfaction was well known ; and a brief but sufficiently expressive record of it is pre- served in a letter to his Irish friend, Lord Charle- mont.* — "Perpetual failure," said he, "even though nothing in that failure can be fixed on the improper choice of the object, or the injudicious choice of means, will detract every day more and more from a man's credit, until he ends without success and without reputation. In fact, a con- stant pursuit even of the best objects, without adequate instruments, detracts something from the opinion of a man's judgment. This, I think, may in part be the cause of the inactivity of others of our friends who are in the vigour of life, and in pos- session of a great degree of lead and authority. " I do not blame them, though I lament that state of the public mind in which the people can consider the exclusion of such talents and virtues from their service as a point gained to them. The only point in which I can find any thing to blame in these friends is, their not taking the effectual means, which they certainly had in their power, of making an honourable retreat from their pro- spect of power into the possession of reputation, * Hardy's Memoir. 1788. the king's illness. 217 by an effectual defence of themselves. There was an opportunity which was not made use of for the purpose, and which could scarcely have failed of turning the tables on their adversaries." Such are the bitter fruits of political am- bition even in a noble mind, instinctively repel- lent of all the basenesses, that, while they sti- mulate the passions of meaner spirits, envenom their punishment. Burke knew nothing of those feelings which strew scorpions on the pillow of the artificial and perfidious ; yet this is the letter of a vexed heart, ready to exclaim that all was vanity. But his triumph was to come; and the time was now fast approaching when, with prouder objects in view than a struggle for the narrow distinctions of office, he was to stand forth the champion of the surviving religion, man- liness, and loyalty of Europe; a light to England, and a redeeming honour to her legislature and her people. The king's recovery had closed the contest in the English parliament; but the luckless fortune of Ireland reserved her for one of those blunders which are supposed to be indigenous to the soil. The Irish parliament had acknowledged the un- limited right of the regent almost by acclamation. There never had been a more precipitate worship of the rising sun. The Irish ministers were over- whelmed by this rush of new-born allegiance, or suffered themselves to swell the tide. All was 218 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. principled hypocrisy and magnanimous defection ; and the holders of office, the wearers of blue and green ribands, and the bearers of gold keys, black rods, and white sticks, exulted in being able to give such costly attestation of their new faith, as the sacrifice of their badges on the altar of the regency. But from fraud the progress is easy to mountebankism, and from follv to faction. In the midst of this carnival of party success, per- fidy began to fix its eye on darker objects ; mur- murs were heard that were little short of treason, the key-note of rebellion was touched more than once in this chorus of new-born loyaby ; and in the wild resolutions of the Irish Whigs, and their still wilder speeches, were first founded those just alarms, which predisposed the English cabinet to the calamitous measure of the Union. But, whatever might have been the original plot of the drama, it finished in characteristic burlesque. The last scene of the tragedy found a substitute in farce. The lord-lieutenant having naturally refused to make himself a culprit by forwarding the " resolutions," an embassage from the lords and commons was sent with them to London. The deputation reached London, and made their first bow to the prince, a week after the announcement of the king's convalescence ! Thus vanished into thin air the fabric of place, pension, and general spoil, which patriotism had erected with such triumphant anticipation. The 1788. the king's illness. 219 rewards of the deputies were a gracious answer from the prince, informing them that they were too late; and the shrinking thanks of the Irish parliament, conscious that it had committed an irreparable folly, and trembling through all its limbs at the just indignation of the throne. But, the first infliction was the laugh of the empire : caricatures of " the six deputies riding on bulls," and satirical squibs and verses of every kind, were poured upon this unhappy failure. Some of those sports of scorn may be still re- membered. EPIGRAM.— The Bull-Riders. Though Pats are famed for sportive skulls, This feat all feats surpasses ; For, not content with breeding bulls, Those bulls are rode by asses. THE GLORIOUS HALF DOZEN. Six rogues have come over our pockets to pick, And dispose of their second-hand ware ; To play the buffoon, and jump, tumble, and trick, But they've come — the day after the fair. Productions like those are made only for the moment; but one more, as giving the names of the commission, must be quoted. It is obviously founded on Horace's Ode, " Pastor quum tra- heret." 220 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. THE PROPHECY. When the packet o'er the tide Bore Ierne's patriot pride, Harry Grattan's delegates, Pregnant with a nation's fates, Pondering all on bribes and places, Making all, all kinds of faces, Schemes of native thievery brewing, Scoundrels, made for fools' undoing ; While along the loaded deck Sickening lay the human wreck, Right beneath the pilot's nose From the wave a phantom rose ; Bull-necked, black-mouthed, water-bloated, Still buff- vested and blue-coated ; Round of belly, round of chin, Thus began the shape of sin. " Asses, from the land of asses, Ere your cargo this way passes, While your worships have an ear, Hear your true-blue Prophet, hear ! Hear me, every party hack ! Scoffed at ye shall all come back, Scoffed at as the tools of tools, All incorrigible fools ! " Hear me, purse-bound, lack -brained Leinster ! Model of an ancient spinster ; Hear me, mountebank O'Neill, Tied to every rabble's tail ; Hear me, Conolly ! the prime Of talkers against sense and time ; Hear me, sullen Ponsonby ! Thou of the place-hunting eye ; 1788. the king's illness. 221 Hear me, Stewart, of beaux supreme, Thyself thy everlasting theme, Bold defier of the wave, (Thine's a terra-jirma grave); Hear me, simpering Charlemont, With thy Machiavellian front, With thy Opera lisp and smile, Israelite that knows no guile ; Compound soft of softest cant, Faction's gentle figurant. " Hear me, dotards, one and all — Sudden scorn shall on you fall; Laughter follow on your track, Laughter drive you flying back ; Scoffs from people, king, and prince ! Till your ass-skin withers wince. Not a dinner for your pains, Not a stiver for your gains; Till, though naked, not ashamed, All your patriot fires are tamed ; Till your mob-bepelted souls Wish your senders at the poles, Curse the hour they first harangued, And long to see them drowned or hanged." Then, before their spell-bound view Dived the phantom buff and blue — Laughter from the Cambrian rocks Mingled with the name of Fox ; Laughter from the British main Came with clanks of lash and chain; Laughter in the tempest's roar Rolled from cloud, and sea, and shore. The consternation of the ministerial deserters 222 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1788. in Ireland was boundless, and for once they were not disappointed. They were cashiered in all directions. Office was cleared of every time- server of the whole tribe ; and the minister was justly said to have " made more patriots in a day than patriotism had ever made in a year." Sheridan's brother Charles, the Irish secretary of war, was among the culprits, and was cast out like the rest. But his fall was softened by some unaccountable job, which gave him a pension of 1200/. a year, with a reversion of 300/. to his wife ! In England, the king's recovery broke up as many dreams of office as were ever engendered between vanity and selfishness. Opposition had cut royal patronage into suits for every shape. Every partisan, and every partisan's partisan, was to be provided for ; and the whole loose and pauper mob who hang on the skirts of politics, were each to find a covering for his multitude of sins. To take the single instance of Sheridan him- self; he was to have the treasurership of the navy; an office totally unfit for his careless habits. But this was not the limit ; his brother-in-law, Tickell, an idler, was to have a seat in parliament ; and his associate, Richardson, another idler, was to have a commissionership of stamps. Who can regret that those caterpillars were shaken off the public tree; or that the objects of a party, which thus linked itself with avarice and intrigue, were 1788. the king's illness. 223 defeated? The man must be fertile in tears who could grieve that an association for the purposes of plunder should be deprived of the public spoil; or that mercenaries should be stripped of the honours due only to patriotism and virtue. 224 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. CHAPTER IX. THE PRINCE'S MARRIAGE. The regency question drove the prince from politics. No experiment could have been more disheartening. Fond of popularity, he saw it crush his last hope ; relying on the wisdom of his friends, he saw their councils ignominiously baffled, their connexion threatened by personal jealousy, and the great antagonist of both prince and party raised into undisputed power ; while, attached to his royal father by duty, he found his personal conduct the object of reproof, and his de- fence answered only by more open displeasure. The result was disastrous to himself, to the kingdom, and to the king. It abandoned him to pursuits still more obnoxious than those of public ambition. It encouraged his natural taste for those indulgences, which, however common to wealth and rank, are in all their shapes hostile to the practical values and high-minded purposes of life ; and it embarrassed his circumstances, until pressed by creditors, and entangled by a multitude of nameless perplexities, he suffered himself to be urged into a marriage, formed 1795. the prince's marriage. 225 without respect or attachment, and endured in bitterness and vexation until its close. It was said, that at this period a proposal was made to ministers by the prince to accept the viceroyalty of Ireland ; a situation for which he would have been highly fitted, by his attach- ment to its people, and his general knowledge of its habits and interests : but the proposal, if ever made, was discountenanced. An applica- tion was next forwarded to the king for military rank ; but the prince still remained a colonel of dragoons, while all his royal relatives were ad- vanced to the highest stations of the service. Chagrin might not unnaturally have seized upon the mind of any man thus in early life stopped in all his efforts for distinction ; and no trivial blame must fall upon the councils by which the heir of the crown was virtually consigned to either indolence or error. For some years he abjured all appearance of political feeling. He received the nobility and public persons sumptuously ; but with some- thing like a determination to forget on what political side they ranged. He spent the chief part of his time at Brighton ; came occasionally to Carlton - house ; signalised his presence by a ball or a dinner ; and then, having done his share as a leader of the fashionable world, gal- loped back to Brighton, and amused himself with pursuits that cost less trouble. Q 22G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. Here he was not companionless, though the times had changed in which his table was the scene of the highest discussions of public life. With political hope the leading names of oppo- sition had disappeared, and their places were filled up by individuals chiefly remarkable for their submission to the tastes of their royal entertainer, or their personal eccentricity. Oc- casionally guests of a higher rank appeared ; and among those were the late Duke of Orleans, the Prince de Leury, and other foreign noblemen. The Duke of Orleans had visited England some years before, nominally on a tour of plea- sure, but more probably by an order from the French cabinet, which had already suspected him of sowing disaffection in the court. He had been summoned back to France by an order of the king, after a few months' absence, and returned, laden with English fashions, and followed by a train of race-horses, English jockeys, and a whole travelling establishment ; which he displayed, to the horror of the ancient regime of jack-boots and diligences; to the infinite delight of the Parisians, who read liberty in this invasion of Newmarket caps and dock-tailed horses ; and to the universal popularity of the Anglomanie, which in the Pa- risian intellect implied English boot-making, betting, prize-fighting, and the constitution. In return, the duke had assisted the prince with his knowledge of play; and considerable 1795. the prince's marriage. 227 sums were lost at the Pavilion. From this, a transaction arose, in which, under the various names of a loan, a debt, and a present, the duke was said to have made an offer of a large sum to his royal highness : but the offer was finally declined, by the advice of Sheridan and the Duke of Portland. In 1789 the duke visited England for the last time. France was exhibiting symptoms of disturbance, which made his presence hazardous to the court; and under the pretext of a mission from the king, he was ordered to leave Paris. But the national assembly were already kings of France, and their passport too was necessary. It was at length granted ; with no slight astonish- ment, that the leading regenerator should leave his country at the moment when she was on the wing, ascending to the third heaven of poli- tical perfection. But France had another race of kings, higher than even the national assembly, — the poissardes of Boulogne. Those legislators seized the royal envoy, nullified the king's com- mission on the spot, put the passport in their pockets, and marched him to his hotel, where they placed a guard over him, until they should send a deputation from their own body to the national assembly. The deputation returned, bearing the national sanction. The fishwomen expressed themselves satisfied ; the prisoner was let loose, — fortunate if he had been taught by 228 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. this example the madness of popular license ; and was received in London with great distinc- tion by the prince and the chief nobility. The bewildered career and unhappy fate of the Duke of Orleans are now matter of history. He was born in a hazardous time for a man of weak understanding, strong passions, and liber- tine principles. — The monarch but a grown child: the queen, estimable but imperious, full of Austrian " right divine," and openly contemptu- ous of the people : the court jealous, feeble, and finding no resource for its weakness but in obso- lete artifice and temporary expedient: the nobility a mass of haughty idlers, a hundred and twenty thousand gamesters and intriguers, public de- spisers of religion and the common moral obliga- tions by which society is held together ; chiefly poor, and living on the mendicant bounty of the court ; worthless consumers of the fruits of the earth, yet monopolists of all situations of honour and emolument, and by their foolish pride in the most accidental of all distinctions, birth ; by their open meanness of solicitation for that last liveli- hood which a man of true dignity of mind would seek, a dependence on the public purse ; and by their utter uselessness for any purpose but that of rilling up the ranks of the army ; rendered at once weary of themselves and odious to the nation. But beyond those central, projecting points in the aspect of France, those fragments 1795. the prince's marriage. 229 of the old system of the monarchy, the politician saw a wilderness of living waves, a boundless and sullen expanse of stormy passions, furious aspi- rations, daring ambition, and popular thirst of slaughter ; a deluge, rising hourly round the final, desperate refuge of the state, and soon to overtop its last pinnacle. But the Duke of Orleans was not to see this consummation. He returned to France; was seized by the men of liberty ; condemned without a hearing by the votaries of immaculate justice ; and murdered on the scaffold by the purifiers of the crimes of lawgivers and kings. The son of that duke has now peaceably as- cended the magnificent throne which dazzled the ambition of his father. Whether France will long suffer a king, may be doubtful. But, while his claim is that of the national choice, entitled, by an exertion of extraordinary courage, justice, and moderation, to the disposal of the throne ; we must rejoice that France has obtained a man of virtue, and that such a man should be endowed with so illustrious an opportunity of redeeming his name, and of spreading the benefits of wisdom and power to mankind. A remarkable personage visited England at the same time, the Due de Lauzun, the finished re- presentative of the French noblesse of the higher order. Of great elegance of manners, and of strik- ing talents, but utterly prodigal and unprincipled, 230 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795 he was the chevalier whom Grammont would have delighted to draw, if his pencil could have touched the man of fashion with a shade of repub- licanism. Lauzun remained only a few months in England ; but a Frenchman is a rapid pupil, and in those months he became the most matchless specimen of the Anglomanie that had ever capti- vated the glance of Paris. Yet one step more was necessary to perfection. He retired to Passy, a village in the suburbs, and there commenced philosopher. He had succeeded to the title of Biron, and was for awhile the wonder of the pre-eminent sons of science and freedom, who enjoyed his classic banquets, and exulted in the arrival of the golden age. But the Republic was now mounted on its car, and rushing, with fiery wheels, over the frontiers of rival states, and the necks of poten- tates and armies. Biron became an avowed republican, was placed at the head of an army, fought and conquered ; was suspected, was seized by the convention, and completed the course of a revolutionary general by dying on the scaffold. He finished his career in the dramatic style of his country, en heros. Revolutionary justice suf- fered no stigma of the " law's delay;" and the ceremonial seldom consisted of more than the criminal's pronouncing his name, and the tri- bunal's ordering his execution. The scaffold followed the example of the tribunal, and the 1795. the prince's marriage. 231 condemned were generally put to death within the next five minutes. In Biron's instance, there was the delay of a whole hour; and he used it to exhibit the Epicurean ease which distinguished the wits and sages of the era. On returning to his dungeon, he ordered oysters and white wine. While he was indulging over this final meal, the executioner entered, to tell him that " the law could wait no longer." " I beg a thousand pardons, my friend," said the duke ; " but dome the honour to allow me to finish my oysters." The request was granted. " But I had forgot," observed Biron ; " you will have something to do to-day, and a glass of wine will refresh you: permit me to fill one." The offer was graciously accepted. " Again, I had forgot," added the duke; "there is our mutual friend, the turnkey." The turnkey was called in ; three glasses were filled ; the three were drunk off — a la sante ; and in a few minutes after, the head of this gay libertine, traitor, and philosopher, was rolling on the scaffold. The prince's marriage now became the na- tional topic. The Duke of York had already been married some years,* but was still childless : and the king, naturally anxious to see an undisputed succession, and leave his descendants masters of the throne, strongly urged the heir apparent to select a wife from the royal families of Europe ; October 1791. 232 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. and thus give a pledge to the empire of that change of habits, and that compliance with the popular wish, which, in those days of revolution, might even be essential to the public safety. No advice could have been more startling. His royal highness had often declared, that he would not give up " his free, unhoused condition" for any woman on earth : and he had even peculiarly turned to scorn those forms of princely marriages, which preclude previous knowledge on both sides ; and avowed himself, in the plainest terms — a " rebel to royal matrimony." But the embarrassment extended further than the princely breast. The first announcement of the possibility of his marriage threw the whole female world into confusion. Fashion trembled through all her thrones. In our present intangible state of female influence, it is hopeless to con- ceive the supremacy asserted by women of rank fifty years ago. Even our novelists, with all their eagerness to give pungency to the manners of the great, can find nothing for public curiosity beyond the common-place echo of an elopement, or the childish canvass for the entree of a ball-room. Our journals, the " brief abstracts and chronicles of the time," represent all women in the higher circles as giving head and heart to the domestic purpose of securing opulent alliances, the matrons for their daughters, and the daughters for them- selves. But the fashion of the last century was of another mould,, 1795. the prince's marriage. 233 London then saw a constellation of female luminaries, any one of which would throw our modern stars into profound eclipse. Each had her peculiar source of homage. The Duchess of Devonshire gave the most sumptuous entertain- ments, and, by her elegance and accomplishment, sustained a long reign. The Duchess of Gordon, handsome in her youth, had become a bel-esprit when she ceased to be a beauty ; and always said the cleverest, and often the keenest things, with the easiest air of any high-born wit since the days of him " Who never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one." The Duchess of Rutland, who, happily, still lives, and still gives evidence of that beauty which once made her the " rose of the fair state;" was then, by universal acknowledgment, the loveliest woman of the English court ; and completed the celebrated trio, to whom the first homage of every man who aspired to the praise of taste was paid, and of whom it was said in a popular epigram, — Come, Paris, leave your hills and dells ; You'll scorn your dowdy goddesses, If once you see our English belles, For all their gowns and boddices. Here's Juno Devon, all sublime; Minerva Gordon's wit and eyes ; Sweet Rutland, Venus in her prime: You'll die before you give the prize. 234 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. The age of English poetry had perished, and we were to wait long for its revival. But, in the interval, every one wrote verses ; and the essential tribute to a reigning belle was a poetic panegyric upon her attractions. If an English beauty could have been overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by her ornamental tributes ; the women of rank of the last century must have died under a superabundance of verse. Fortu- nately, nothing is more evanescent : but an ode by Sir Hercules Langrishe, a popular member of the Irish house of commons, — a favourite every where, and familiar with all that life has of the graceful and the gay, is among the surviving examples of this playful courtesy. The subject is not of the heroic order, ■ — a gnat's stinging the lady. TO HER GRACE THE DUCHESS OF RUTLAND. As poor Anacreon bleeding lies From the first glance of Stella's eyes, Too weak to fly, too proud to yield, Or leave au undisputed field ; He rallies, rests upon his arms, And reconnoitres all her charms. Vainly he fancies, that by peeping Through all the beauties in her keeping, He may, in such a store, collect The healing balm of one defect, One feeble point, one faulty spot, By Nature's forming hand forgot, 1795. the prince's marriage. 235 Or left, in mercy, a defence Against her soft omnipotence, Which spurns philosopher nor sage, Nor tender youth nor cautious age. He viewed her stature towering high, The liquid lustre of her eye, The rosy beauties of her mouth Diffusing sweetness like the south ; He viewed her whole array of charms, Her swan-like neck, her polished arms ; He looked through every rank and file, The look, the sigh, the grace, the smile. No advantageous pass was lost, No beauty sleeping on its post ; But all was order, all was force, — A look was victory of course. At length an incident arose That flattered him with lesser woes : The bold intrusion of a fly Had closed the lustre of an eye, And given him hopes that, thus bereft Of half her splendour, what was left He might, resist, or else evade, Or cool his passion in the shade. But while he thrills beneath her glance, He sees another foe advance; The snowy arm's sublime display Was raised to chase the cloud away. He felt how frail is hope, how vain : The vanquished lustre came again ; The living ivory supplied The splendour which the eye denied. So Savoy's snowy hills arise And pierce the clouds and touch the skies, 236 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. And scattering round the silver ray, Give added brightness to the day. Thus disappointed in his dream Of imperfection in her frame, The lover ventures to explore One final, fond expedient more. " Must lovers' eyes be always blind, — Have I no refuge in her mind ? Can. I no female error trace To heal the mischiefs of her face ; One tax, one countervailing duty, To balance her account of beauty ; One saving foible, balmy fault, One impropriety of thought, To lend its medicinal aid, And cure the wounds her eyes have made ?" Presumptuous thought ! I viewed once more The blaze that dazzled me before, And saw those very eyes impart A soul, that sharpened every dart, With every rich endowment fraught, The tender care, the generous thought, The sense of each exalted duty, The beauty that was more than beauty ; The wish, on every smile imprest, To make all happy, and one blest ! The whole was softness mixed with love, The arrow feathered from the dove. Finding no hope of safe retreat, I yield contented to my fate ; I unreluctant drag the chain, And in the passion lose the pain ; 1795. the prince's marriage. 237 Feel her sweet bondage all so light, Her fetters all so soft and bright, That, vain and vanquished, I must own I never wish to lay them down, Nor longer struggle to be free : Such chains are worth all liberty ! The announcement of a stranger, who was to be higher than the highest of those glittering and imperious rulers, produced a universal tumult. But there were others, of inferior rank and more disputable merits, who had deeper reasons for alarm ; and public report gave them the discredit of a determined conspiracy against the peace and honour of the future Princess of Wales. Even in the purer circle of the court, dis- cussions arose which boded ill for her tranquil- lity. The king, who was much attached to his sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, had proposed her daughter, the Princess Caroline Amelia Eli- zabeth ; and, in the first instance, had corre- sponded with the court of Brunswick on the subject, where the prospect was contemplated with exultation. The queen, not less attached to the honour of her own connexions, had proposed her niece, Louisa Princess of Mecklenburg, after- wards so distinguished and unfortunate as the Queen of Prussia. Yet there was still a third to be conciliated, more interested and more reluc- tant than either, the future husband. But he had a pressure upon him which no resolution 238 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. can finally resist : he was overwhelmed with demands upon his income ; his creditors were gathering round him again ; that querulous and persevering eagerness for royal anecdote which had harassed so many of his earlier years, was again invading his private life with tenfold animosity ; and at last, in an evil hour, he gave way, and suffered himself to be announced as the suitor of the Princess Caroline. The king immediately sent a formal intimation of his wishes to the court of Brunswick, and the marriage was decided on. Still, every thing in this union seemed destined to be adverse. While the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick were unmeasured in their delight at seeing the succession to the British throne in their family, and themselves the probable ances- tors of a race of kings ; the princess was said to exhibit no trivial dislike to the match. Among the innumerable rumours which float in the at- mosphere of courts on such occasions, it must be difficult to detect the truth ; but it was openly asserted, that she had already formed an attach- ment to an individual in the ducal service ; and the following letter was published, purporting to be a declaration of her feelings to a German lady residing in England. " You are aware of my destiny. I am about to be married to my cousin, the Prince of Wales. I esteem him for his generosity, and his letters bespeak a cultivated mind. My uncle is a good 1795. the prince's marriage. 239 man, and I love him much ; but I feel that I shall never be happy. Estranged from my connexions, friends, and all I hold dear, I am about to make a permanent connexion. I fear for the conse- quences. " Yet I esteem and respect my future hus- band, and I hope for great kindness and attention. But, alas ! I say sometimes, I cannot now love him with ardour. I am indifferent to my mar- riage, but not averse to it; but I fear my joy will not be enthusiastic. I am debarred from possessing the man of my choice, and I resign myself to my destiny. I am attentively studying the English language. I am acquainted with it, but I wish to speak it with fluency. I shall strive to make my husband happy, and to interest him in my favour, since the fates will have it that I am to be Princess of Wales." Whether this letter be authentic or not, it is probable that it gives a true transcript of this un- happy princess's mind. The prince's perplexities, too, might be less public, but they were not less trying; and, by that strange balance which so much equalises the variety of human condition, there were probably but few in England, even of" the waifs and strays of fortune," who would have had reason to envy the pomps and honours of two beings apparently placed on the golden summit of prosperity. But the prince's natural good humour soon 240 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. returned, and he submitted to necessity like a philosopher. The princess's portrait had been sent to him, and he made a point of praising it. On one occasion, he shewed it to an intimate friend, and asked, with some seriousness, " What he thought of it ?" The answer was, " That it gave the idea of a very handsome woman." Some observations followed, in which the homely but expressive phrase of " buying a pig in a poke" happened to escape. " However," said the prince, after a pause, " Lennox and Fitzroy have seen her, and they tell me she is even handsomer than her miniature." The newspapers, which, of course, collect much detail that naturally soon perishes, gave long accounts of the royal marriage, and are still the best authorities for the public impression at the time. One of those says: — " The Princess of Brunswick, to whom his royal highness is shortly to give his hand, is twenty-five years of age ; her person is very pleasing, and her accomplishments are exquisite. " The first thought of the prince's nuptials ori- ginated some time ago with an exalted personage, who had the first interest in seeing the prince established ; and it was accordingly hinted to him, but in so delicate a manner as to leave it entirely at his option. Juvenile pursuits at that time suspended all further discourse about it ; till one day his royal highness, praising the person 1795. the prince's marriage. 241 and accomplishments of the Princess Mary before the Duke of Clarence, the duke observed, she was very like the Princess of Brunswick, whom he had the honour of knowing and conversing much with. The prince grew more inquisitive upon the subject ; and the duke so satisfied him in all particulars as to afford him the highest gratifi- cation. " The affair seemingly dropped for this time ; but on the morning of a late great gala at Windsor, he mentioned it to a great personage, who was delighted with the proposal ; it was instantly communicated to the queen, who felt equal satis- faction : it was then agreed to keep the matter entirely out of the cabinet till it was in some train of forwardness, which was strictly complied with ; and the first notice the ministers of state had of it, was an official notice to prepare for the embassy the forms, requisitions, &c. " Presents and marriage favours, to a great amount, are preparing for the princesses, &c, as well as marks of his royal highness's remem- brance to several persons of both sexes about the court. " The Princess of Wales (we may now call her so) is esteemed one of the best harpsichord per- formers among the royal families on the continent. The prince being passionately fond of music, har- mony will of course be the order of the day. " Carlton-house is furnishing for the reception it 242 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. of the royal pair, with all possible magnificence and despatch. An estimate has been made of the whole ; and our readers will form some idea of the expensive grandeur of this new establish- ment, when they are informed that the Princess of Wales's dressing-room alone amounts to twenty- five thousand pounds. " There has been made up, intended as a present from the Prince of Wales to the princess when she arrives, a most magnificent cap, on which is a plume in imitation of his highness's crest, studded with brilliants, which play back- wards and forwards in the same manner as fea- thers, and have a most beautiful effect. It is now at a banker's in Pall Mall, carefully locked up. " The betrothed consort of the Prince of Wales is of a middling stature, and remarkably elegant in her person. Her appearance at court is ma- jestic, but accompanied with a sweetness and affability of manners which rivet the admiration of all who behold her. Her eyes are intelligent, her countenance highly animated, and her teeth white and regular. Her hair, of which she has an amazing quantity, is of a light auburn colour, and appears always dressed in a simple but ele- gant style. Her taste in every part of dress is equally graceful; so that there is no doubt but she will, on her arrival in this country, be the standard of fashionable dress and elegance." The king's speech at the opening of the session 1795. the prince's marriage. 243 of 1 795, gave the first official knowledge of the intended marriage. " I have," said his majesty, " the greatest satisfaction in announcing to you the happy event of the conclusion of a treaty of marriage of my son, the Prince of Wales, with the Princess Caro- line, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick. The constant proofs of your affection for my person and family persuade me that you will parti- cipate in the sentiments I feel on an occasion so dear to my domestic happiness; and that you will enable me to make provision for such an estab- lishment as you may think suitable to the rank and dignity of the heir apparent to the crown of these kingdoms." The princess at length left Brunswick, at- tended by an escort, and the principal persons of the court. Those who were inclined to dis- cover the future in omens, found ill fortune predicted in every point of her journey. It was commenced in the depth of winter ; and within a few days was stopped by the sudden indispo- sition of the Duchess of Brunswick, who had intended to accompany her daughter to the shore. The embarkation was to have taken place at Helvoetsluys ; but before the princess could reach Osnaburg, it was announced to her that her route must be changed, as the fleet had left the Dutch coast. She then had no resource but to take up her abode in Hanover. At last, on the arrival 244 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. of the squadron off Cuxhaven, she embarked,* after having spent three months of a German winter on her journey. Even her voyage was a specimen of the inclemency of our climate ; and fogs, billows, and gales, were her first salu- tation to the British shore. The princess arrived at Greenwich on Sunday at noon ;f and the virtue of the congregations was said to have been severely tried by the shouts and tumult in the streets. In some instances curiosity overcame decorum, and the preacher was left with a thinned audience. After a short stay at the house of the governor, Sir Hugh Palliser, the princess proceeded to London, attended by her ladies, and among the rest Lady Jersey! The roads and bridges were covered with people, who received her with acclamations ; and in this species of tri- umphal entry she passed along until she reached her apartments at St. James's. The Prince of Wales, always observant of courtesy, waited on her instantly, with all the visible ardour of a lover, complimented her on her arrival, her appearance, and her knowledge of English, and asked per- mission to dine with her. In the evening the royal family visited her, and the king was ani- mated in his congratulations. The party did not break up till near midnight. It was the English family party which his majesty loved ; and his * March 28, 1795. t April 5. 1795. the prince's marriage. 245 honest and hospitable joy communicated itself to all round him. Among princes, the hopes and fears of the passions are brief; and his royal highness had but three days for romance; for, on the third* from the arrival of the princess, he was sum- moned to St. James's, to be married ! The ceremony had every adjunct of royal mag- nificence : the bride came, covered with jewels, with a diamond coronet on her brow, and attended by four daughters of nobility as bridemaids, Lady Mary Osborne, Lady Charlotte Spencer, Lady Caroline Villiers, and Lady Charlotte Legge. The prince next appeared, in the collar of the garter, and attended by two unmarried dukes, Bedford and Roxburgh. Through the whole ceremony the king's gratification was palpable. He peculiarly attended to the bride ; and when the archbishop asked the usual question, " Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" his majesty went hastily forward to the princess, and taking her hand in both his, affectionately gave her to her husband. But another ceremonial of a sterner nature was to come. The prince had acceded to the royal commands, on a promise that his debts should be discharged. The kings natural and becoming wish to see a change in the habits of * April 8. 246 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. his heir ; the peculiar importance of rescuing royalty from public imputation in a period when the revolutionary spirit was seeking offence against all thrones; and the humane necessity of relieving the multitude of creditors who might be ruined by delay, had urged him to the promise. The statement of the debt was laid upon the table of the House of Commons. It was formidable. Debt on various securities, and bear- ing interest £500,571 19 1 Tradesmen's bills unpaid 89,745 Tradesmen's bills and arrears ot estab- lishment, from 10th of Oct. 1794, to April 5, 1795 52,573 5 3 £642,890 4 4 The only palliative of this expenditure is, that his royal highness knew but little of its extravagance, and had probably not so much actual enjoyment of it as many an English gen- tleman with a tenth of his income. He was sur- rounded by individuals whose interest it was to keep him in the dark relative to his own affairs ; in his rank, he could scarcely be expected to inquire very deeply into household details, or to scrutinise tradesmen's bills ; and those to whom the duty naturally fell, had sagacity enough in their own objects to take care that even if he had scrutinised them, he should have been not the less plundered. One instance of 1795. the prince's marriage. 247 this system of wholesale spoliation may serve as an example of the rest : his farrier's bill, for horse medicine and shoeing, was 40,000/. The condition on which the prince had yielded to the royal will was now to be performed ; and the proposal for liquidating his debts was ushered in by one of the minister's ablest speeches.* The king had sent a message to the legislature, calling on it to enable him to form an establishment for the newly married pair; but adding, that the first point was to relieve the prince from his embar- rassments, as until then he could derive no advan- tage from the settlement. The message stated also, that the only mode which the king contemplated of paying the debt was, by deducting a portion of the prince's proposed income, and by handing- over the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall for a certain period for the use of the creditors ; finally, a pledge was to be given against all future recur- rence of debt. The measure was necessary ; but no time could have been more unfortunate for the demand. The nation was fretted with the failures of the French war, and was doubly irritated at the taxes which every session imposed ; angry opinions on govern- ment had been eagerly spread through the na- tion ; the imbecility of the Bourbons was made a charge against all sovereigns ; the daring doc- * April 27, 1795. 248 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. trines, seconded by the memorable military suc- cesses, of the new republic, were already influ- encing opinion in all countries ; and England seemed on the verge of some great and fatal change. The prince's embarrassments now gave a new topic to the declaimers, and the debates in the house were long and acrimonious. On the mo- tion for the committee on the message, a formid- able array of the county members appeared in opposition; and Stanley, member for Lancashire, adverted in strong terms to the former message, in 1787, and the promises then made relative to the prince's obligations. But there was no re- medy ; and the minister, with whatever reluctance, was compelled to persevere. The heads of the proposed establishment were — Annual income of the prince, exclusive of the duchy of Cornwall, to be raised to £ 125,000 Jewels and plate for the marriage 28,000 For finishing Carlton-house 26,000 The revenue of the duchy was 13,000/. The accumulation during the prince's minority, from 1763 to 1783, was 233,764/. ; and for the liquida- tion of the debt, a sum of 78,000/. a year was to be appropriated. To this proposal were appended clauses providing for the future punctual discharge of the arrears, and for making over Carlton-house to the crown, with the furniture, as an heir-loom. 1795. the prince's marriage. 249 A jointure of 50,000/. a-year was settled on the princess. The discussion continued nearly three months before the public, and during the whole time the feelings of party within and without the house were in a perpetual ferment. The Duke of Clarence, who had seldom taken a share in the debates, attracted public notice by the generosity and boldness with which he adopted the cause of the innocent sufferer, the Princess of Wales. " Whatever may be thought," said he, " of the stipulations for the payment of the debts, there is at least one individual who ought not to be exposed to this harsh and stern inquisition, — a lovely and amiable woman, torn from her family ; for though her mother is his majesty's sister, she must still be said to be torn from her family, by being suddenly separated from all her early connexions. What must her feelings be, from finding her reception in this country followed by such circumstances, when she had a right to expect every thing befitting her rank, and the exalted station to which she was called ?" The princess herself, unused to inquiries into the conduct of courts, was alternately indignant and dejected, declaring, that " she would rather live on bread and water in a cottage, than have the character and conduct of the royal family, and especially of her husband, thus severely in- vestigated." Opposition, disheartened by perpe- 250 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. tual defeat, was now almost reduced to Fox and Sheridan; who, however, with more than their usual prudence, pointed out the only way of rational extrication; and with even more than their usual boldness, assailed higher authority than that of ministers. But Sheridan, animated by every motive that could kindle his passions or his genius, — attachment to the prince, vexation at the turn of fortune which had cast him immea- surably beyond the hope of public honours, and the still stronger offence of being charged with sharing the plunder of the prince's income, eclipsed himself. The house was kept in a state of unwearied admiration by the brilliant variety of powers which this extraordinary man displayed night after night ; in the midst of a life of that alternate embarrassment and excess, dreamy in- dolence and exhausting luxury, — that ague of the mind, which most rapidly exhausts and emascu- lates the intellectual frame. The fragments of those speeches which still remain can only do injury to the reputation of the great orator. Yet, shattered as they are, they now and then exhibit some trace of the master hand. " I disdain," said he, " all this trifling and quibbling with the common sense of the nation. Let the people not be deceived by our taking the money out of their pockets as a royal income, and paying it back as a royal debt. To-night 1795. the prince's marriage. 251 it is not my intention to vote either way. This seems to surprise some gentlemen opposite ; but, to those who make up their minds on all ques- tions before they come into the house! some sur- prise may be natural at my not making up my mind after I am in it. " The debt must be paid immediately, for the dignity of the country and the situation of the prince. He must not be seen rolling about the streets as an insolvent prodigal. But the public must not be burdened with the pressure of a hair, in affording him that relief. " In the course of these discussions, gentlemen have applied strong language to the conduct of an illustrious prince. But there are other high and illustrious characters, who, in future discussions, must be told as plainly what the public have a right to expect from them, and what their con- duct ought to have been on the present occasion, however ungracious the task may be." The plan in Sheridan's contemplation was, that an advance should be made from the privy purses of the king and queen, and that the incomes of the sinecure places should be thrown in. " The king's privy purse was 60,000/., the queen's 50,000/. ; and all their houses and para- phernalia were now finished and furnished. The first and most natural feeling of a parent would be to make some sacrifice to retrieve the imprudence of a son/' He then pounced upon the sinecures; 252 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. — ■" places which add to neither the dignity of the crown nor its strength. Let a committee of trus- tees be appointed, in whom might be placed the sinecure revenues after the death of their present holders. Posterity would look back with grati- tude to the arrangement, and with wonder that such places ever existed. This would be the way to make our constitution stable, and to prevent the wild system of Jacobinism from undermining or overturning it. While we were spilling our blood and wasting our money in support of continental monarchy, this would be a rational resource ; and prove that monarchy, or those employed under it, could shew examples of self-denial, and do some- thing for the benefit of the people. This would add lustre to the crown ; unless, indeed, ministers might think that it shone with lustre in proportion to the gloom that surrounded it, and that a king is magnificent as his subjects become miserable ! — " There is one class who love the constitu- tion, but do not love its abuses. There is another who love it, with all its abuses. But there is a third, a large and interested party, among whom I do not hesitate to place his majesty's ministers, who love it, for nothing but its abuses! But let the house, the best part of our constitution, consider its own honour. Let us destroy the sinecures. Let us build the dignity of the prince on the ruins of idleness and corruption, and not on the toils of the industrious poor, who must see 1795. the prince's marriage. 253 their loaf decreased by the discharge of his encumbrances." To the charge of sharing in the prince's expenditure he gave the most distinct denial. " He had never accepted any thing, not so much as a present of a horse. He scorned the impu- tation, and would leave it to defeat itself." He repulsed with quick sarcasm the attacks made on him in the course of the debates by the minor antagonists, who had rashly volunteered this proof of their ministerial devotion. Colonel Fullarton had said, in a long and desultory speech, that the prince's councils were secretly guided by Sheridan. i\.fter contemptuously retorting the charge, — " I, the secret counsellor of the prince ! I have never given his royal highness a syllable of advice, in which I did not wish it were pos- sible to have the king standing on one side, and the people of England on the other;" he pro- ceeded to repay the colonel. " As to certain portions of the honourable gentleman's speech, some of the sentences, I actually believe, no gentleman in this house understood, nor could understand ; and the only solution of the problem is, that somebody must have advised him to prepare a speech against what he conjectured might be said to-night. He had rifled the English language to find out pro- verbs and trite sayings ; and had so richly en- veloped his meaning in metaphor, and embel- 254 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1795. lished it with such colouring, as to render it totally unintelligible to meaner capacities." Rolle had called him to order. He did not escape. Sheridan told him, " that he was not at all surprised to hear himself called to order by that honourable gentleman ; but he should have been very much surprised to hear any rea- son for the call from that honourable gentleman." Even to Pitt, who had, on one occasion, made no other reply to his speech than moving to adjourn, he flung down the glove. — " I make no comment on the indecency of moving to adjourn, when the public relief is the topic. To desire the gentle- men on the opposite side to make provision for the prince by a reduction of useless places, would be to amerce themselves. For my part, I never thought them capable of any folly of the kind." The prince at length interposed, and by An- struther, his solicitor-general, sent a message to the house, declaring "his acquiescence in any arrangements which it might deem proper with respect to his income, and its appropriation to the payment of his debts. He was perfectly disposed to make any abatement in his personal establish- ment that was considered necessary." The prin- cess coincided in the message ; and the proceed- ings were closed by three bills.* The 1st. For preventing future Princes of Wales from incurring * June 24th, 1795. 1795. the prince's marriage. 255 debts. The 2d. For granting an establishment to the prince. And the 3d. For the princess's jointure. Commissioners were next appointed for the examination of the debts. The creditors were paid by debentures, with interest on their claims ; and the term of nine years was fixed for the final payment. Many of the claims were re- jected as groundless, many were largely reduced as exorbitant, and a per centage was taken off the whole. Thus ended a proceeding in which the minister's sagacity had failed of satisfying the nation, the creditors, or the prince. Sheridan's advice would have led to a course more generous and more popular. The debt ought not to have been brought before the nation. 256 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. CHAPTER X. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. In the period of the prince's retirement, before and after his marriage, several incidents occurred which brought him, from time to time, into the presence of the public. Some of them exhibited that want of caution which was the source of his chief vexations through life ; but all bore the redeeming character of his original good- nature. Prize fighting had become a popular, and even a fashionable amusement, by the patronage of the nobility and the Duke of Cumberland. Brutal as the habit is, and inevitably tending to barbarise the people, it was for a while con- sidered a peculiar feature of British manliness. The prince adopted this patriotic exhibition, and was honoured accordingly ; but, one display, at which a wretched man was beaten to death before his face, gave him so effectual an impres- sion of championship, that, with honest indig- nation, he declared " he would never be present at such a scene of murder again." The Lennox duel not less exhibited his good feeling. The offence received by the irritable 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 257 colonel was of the most trivial nature. The attempt on the life of the son of his king, and who might himself yet be his king, was a public crime ; and if Colonel Lennox had killed the Duke of York, nothing but the mercy of that duke's grieved parent could have saved him from an ignominious death. But the result was fortunately bloodless, and the king seemed to think it a matter of etiquette to overlook the crime. But the Prince of Wales was unable to restrain his feelings ; and on the first meeting with Colonel Lennox at court, he expressed his displeasure in the most pointed manner, con- sistent with the presence of royalty.* The transaction with Jefferys, the well-known jeweller, was one of those instances, which made the prince's connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert so perpetual a source of disaster. Nothing could be more trifling than the transaction itself — a loan of 1,600/., which was repaid at the promised * The story was thus told in the newspapers. Col. Lennox, to the surprise of every one, had appeared at the ball given at St. James's on the king's birth-day (1789). " The colonel stood up in the country dance with Lady Catherine Barnard. The prince, who danced with his sister, the princess royal, was so far down the set, that the colonel and Lady Catherine were the next couple. The prince paused, looked at the colonel, took his partner's hand, and led her to the bottom of the dance. The Duke of Clarence followed his example; but the Duke of York made no distinction between the colonel and the other gentlemen of the party. When the colonel and his partner had S 258 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. time; but the circumstances under which it was borrowed, — to save Mrs. Fitzherbert from an im- mediate process at law by a creditor, who refused to look upon her in any other light than "as a woman of no rank or consideration in the eye of the law, as to personal privilege ;" in other words, who was prepared to throw public con- tempt upon the tie by which the lady professed to be bound to his royal highness ; at once gave great pain to the prince, and supplied a topic of peculiar scandal to his enemies. Jefferys was obviously a person unfit for royal confidence. The prince had thanked him, in his good-natured language, for the service ; and the jeweller's vanity was instantly inflamed into the most extravagant expectations of patronage. The prince was as destitute of power as any gentleman in the kingdom ; but he gave him all that he could give, the order for the marriage jewels, which amounted to 64,000/. Jefferys danced down the set, the prince again took his sister's hand and led her to a seat. Observing this, the queen approached the prince, and said, ' You are heated, sir, and tired. I had better leave the apartment and put an end to the dance.' ' I am heated,' replied the prince, ' and tired, not with dancing, but with a portion of the company;' and emphatically added, ' I certainly never will countenance an insult offered to my family, however it may be regarded by others.' The prince's natural gallantry next day offered the necessary apology to Lady Catherine Barnard, and he ' regretted that he should have caused her a moment's embarrassment.'" 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 259 had, in the meantime, followed his fortunes in other ways : he had become a member of par- liament, Coventry having the honour to return him ; and he had at length thrown up trade, and become a solicitor for place. The commissioners for the payment of the prince's debts attempted to deduct ten per cent from his bill for the jewels. But this he resisted, and, by the help of Erskine, obtained a verdict in Westminster Hall for the full amount ; which, however, he complained, was but partly paid. Thus he continued for years, pamphleteering, and appealing to the prince for compensation which he had no power to give, and forcing the royal name before the public in the most perplexing and unfortunate manner.* * The prince's sale of his stud, and retirement from New- market, was a public topic for some time. This whole affair also is almost too trifling for record. — A horse belonging to his stud ran ill on one day, when heavy bets had been laid upon his winning. But. he ran well on the next day, when heavy bets had been laid on his losing. Chifney, the jockey, was immedi- ately assailed by the losers on both occasions, as having plun- dered them ; but he made an affidavit that he had won only 201. The Jockey Club sat in judgment on the case, and disbeliev- ing the jockey, ordered that he should ride there no more. The prince believing him, looked on the decision as an injustice to his servant, and as an offence to himself: he instantly withdrew from the course ; and feeling for the state to which Chifney must be reduced, gave him a yearly allowance. It was impossible to believe that the prince had been privy to the trick, if trick there were. The charge was soon and totally abandoned. 2G0 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. The royal marriage was inauspicious ; and it was soon rumoured, that the disagreements of habit and temper, on both sides, were too strong to give any hope of their being reconciled. Of an alliance contracted with predilections for others existing in the minds of both parties, the disunion was easily foreseen ; a partial separation took place, and the tongue of scandal availed itself fully of all its opportunities. Lady Jersey has been so distinctly charged with taking an insidious share in this separation, and with personal motives for taking that share, that the public voice must be acquiesced in, peculiarly as no defence was offered by herself or her husband. The charges were repeated with every aggravation, yet those noble persons suffered them to make their unobstructed way through society; much more to the scorn than to the surprise of the country. The princess had no hesitation in requiring Lady Jersey's dismissal from the household. Her first demand was that this woman should not be suffered to appear at the table, when the prince was not present. The request was not complied with. The princess next applied to the king. His majesty immediately interfered, and directed that Lady Jersey should " come no more into waiting," and should be given up. Half of this order was complied with : her ladyship was 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 261 dismissed from her waiting; but she was not given up. Never was there a more speaking lesson to the dissipations of men of rank, than the prince's involvements. While he was thus wearied with the attempt to extricate himself from Lady Jer- sey's irritations, another claimant came; Mrs. Fitzherbert was again in the field. Whatever might be her rights; since the royal marriage, at least, the right of a wife could not be included among them ; but her demands were not the less embarrassing. A large pension, a handsome outfit, and a costly mansion in Park Lane, at length reconciled her to life ; and his royal high- ness had the delight of being hampered with three women at a time, two of them prodigal, and totally past the day of attraction, even if attrac- tion could have been an excuse ; and the third complaining of neglects, which brought upon him and his two old women a storm of censure and ridicule. But the whole narrative is painful, and cannot be too hastily passed over. On the 7th of January, 1796, the Princess Charlotte was born. The usual officers of state were in attendance, and the prince was in the state chamber, awaiting the event with great anxiety. The royal infant was christened, on the 11th of February, at St. James's, receiving the names of Charlotte from the queen, and of Augusta from the Duchess of Brunswick ; the sponsors were 262 GEORGE THE FOURTH* 1796. their majesties, with the princess-royal as proxy for the duchess. A considerable number of addresses from public bodies were presented on this fortunate occasion. But the corporation of London contrived to take offence at his royal highness's expressing that, from the reduction of his establishment, he must be content with receiving a copy of their address, instead of the deputation. Birch, one of the common council, moved, upon this, " That the court could not, consistently with its dignity, suffer the compliment to be paid otherwise than in the usual form." The prince sent for the lord mayor, and stated, in apology, his reasons for the refusal. The city was consi- dered to have pushed punctilio as far as it could go : for the congratulations of the two houses of parliament had been already presented in private on the same ground, the state of the prince's household. During the dissensions of Carlton-house, the king paid the most marked civilities to the Prin- cess of Wales, visited her frequently, made her presents, wrote letters to her, and on all occasions evinced his determination to protect her under the difficulties of her circumstances. But, un- fortunately, she was totally deficient in prudence : a violent temper and a feeble understanding laid her at the mercy of the female intriguers who surrounded her, with the twofold malice of per- 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 2G3 sonal rivalry and defeated ambition. In defiance of all warnings, she still spoke with open scorn of all whom she suspected of conspiring against her; and there were few whom she did not suspect. Her opinions even of the royal family were highly sarcastic, and she had the folly to put those opinions on paper, in her correspondence with the court of Brunswick. At length a whole packet of those angry com- munications was unaccounted for. They had been intrusted to a Dr. Randolph, a clergyman, who was going to Germany; and they never reached their intended destination. But it was equally clear that they had reached another ; and the princess publicly declared that they had been intercepted by Lady Jersey, for the purpose of being scattered among the royal family. Dr. Randolph was, of course, implicated in the charge ; but the doctor had no more to say than that, having changed his mind as to his German journey, he had returned the letters to the princess by the usual Brighton conveyance. The inquiry was hotly urged by the public, with the strongest expressions of perfidy, corruption, and intrigue, against the parties ; until Lady Jersey tardily attempted to vindicate herself at the Dr.'s expense, by the following letter : — " Pall Mall. " Sir, — The newspapers being full of accusa- 264 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. tions of my having opened a letter either to or from her royal highness the Princess of Wales ; and as I cannot in any way account for what can have given rise to such a story, excepting the loss of those letters with which you were intrusted last summer, I must entreat that you will state the whole transaction, and publish the account in the newspapers you may think fit. Her royal high- ness having told me, at the time when my in- quiries at Brighton, and yours in London, proved ineffectual, that she did not care about the letters, they being only letters of form, the whole busi- ness made so little impression on me, that I do not even recollect in what month I had the plea- sure of seeing you at Brighton. I think you will agree with me, that defending myself from the charge of opening a letter, is pretty much the same thing as if I were to prove that I had not picked a pocket ; yet, in this case, I believe it may be of some use to shew upon what grounds so extraordinary a calumny is founded. As I cannot wish to leave any mystery upon this affair, you are at liberty to publish this letter if you think proper to do so." The matchless equanimity with which hus- bands of rank sometimes listen to domestic im- putations which would rouse humbler men into a burst of honest resentment, may be among the privileges of their condition ; but Lord Jersey, 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 265 at length, seemed to have made the discovery, that a wife's reputation has something to do with a husband's honour ; and his lordship came forward in the correspondence with the harassed doctor. " Sir, — Lady Jersey wrote to you early in the last week, requesting that a full statement from you of all that passed relating to the packet of letters belonging to her royal highness the Princess of Wales, might appear in public print. To that letter she has received no answer from you, nor have I learned that any such publication has appeared. The delay I have been willing to attri- bute to accident : but it now becomes my duty to call upon you, and I do require it of you, that an explicit narrative may be laid before the public : it is a justice she is entitled to, a justice Lady Jersey's character claims, and which she has, and which you have acknowledged she has, a right to demand at your hands. Your silence upon this occasion I shall consider as countenancing that calumny which the false representations of the business have so shamefully and unjustly drawn upon Lady Jersey. I am, &c." Dr. Randolph finally came before the gene- ral tribunal as a contributor to this singular exhi- bition; and discussed the matter, in a letter to her ladyship, in full form. 266 george the fourth. 1796. " Madam, ■3|r 7J» 7F 7F vF" " I need not recall to your ladyship's recol- lection the interview I had with the princess at Brighton: when she delivered to me the packet in question, all her attendants in waiting were, I believe, present, and the conversation generally turned upon the various branches of her august family, and the alteration I should find in them after an absence of ten years. This interview, if I am not mistaken, took place on the 13th of August ; and after waiting by her royal highness's desire, till the 14th, when the prince was ex- pected from Windsor, to know if he had any commands to honour me with, I had no sooner received from Mr. Churchill his royal highness's answer, than I departed for London, with the intention of proceeding to Yarmouth. " On my arrival in town, finding some very unpleasant accounts of the state of Mrs. R.'s health, I took the liberty of signifying the occur- rence to her royal highness, annexing to it at the same time a wish to defer my journey for the present, and that her royal highness would per- mit me to return the packet, or allow me to consign it to the care of a friend who was going into Germany, and would see it safely delivered. To this I received, through your ladyship, a most gracious message from her royal highness, re- questing me by all means to lay aside my inten- 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 267 tions, and return the packet. In consequence of such orders, I immediately went to Carlton-house, to inform myself by what conveyance the letters and parcels were usually sent to Brighton, and was told that no servant was employed, but that, every day, they were, together with the news- papers, committed to the charge of the Brighton post coach from the Golden Cross, Charing Cross. On the subsequent morning, therefore, I attended at the Golden Cross, previous to the departure of the coach, and having first seen it regularly booked, delivered my parcel, enclosing the prin- cess's packet, addressed to your ladyship at the Pavilion. Immediately afterwards I set out for Bath, and had scarcely been a fortnight at home, when, to my surprise and mortification, I received the following letter from your lady- ship, dated Brighton, Sept. 1 : — " ' Sir, — In consequence of your letter, I have had her royal highness the Princess of Wales's commands to desire, that as you did not go to Brunswick, you should return the packet which she had given you. I wrote accordingly, about a fortnight ago. Her royal highness not having received the packet, is uneasy about it, and desires you to inform me how you sent the letters to her, and where they were directed. If left at Carlton- house, pray call there, and make some inquiries respecting them.' 2C8 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. " To which letter of your ladyship I then returned the following answer: — <( a Madam, — I know not when I have been more seriously concerned than at the receipt of your ladyship's letter, which was forwarded to me this morning. The morning I left town, which was on the 20th of August, I went to the Brighton post coach, which I was told at Carlton-house was the usual conveyance of the princess's papers and packets, and booked a parcel, addressed to your ladyship, at the Pavi- lion, enclosing the letters of her royal high- ness. I have sent to a friend in London by this night's post, to trace the business ; and will re- quest your ladyship to let your servants call at the Ship, the inn I believe the coach drives to at Brighton, to make inquiry there, and to examine the bill of parcels for Thursday, the 20th August. If this prove not successful, I shall hold it my duty to return to town, and pursue the discovery myself. I shall not be easy till the packet is delivered safe ; and trusting that this will soon be the case, I remain,' &c." Public animadversion was inflicted with equal severity on all the individuals concerned in this luckless intrigue. The doctor was sternly asked — how he could have treated the trust of a person of the distinction, and under the peculiar 179G. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 2G9 circumstances, of the princess, with such apparent nonchalance! Why, at the easy distance of London from Brighton, he had not thought proper to restore the letters to her own hands? Why he had lingered so long in offering his explana- tion, when the first and most natural impulse of any man publicly lying under so stinging a charge, would have been to cast it from him without a moment's delay, and never desist until his vindication was complete, and the charge was substantiated against the true criminals? Finally, it was demanded, why the people at the coach-office were not brought forward to shew what had actually become of the packet, and into whose hands at Brighton it had been de- livered ? Lady Jersey was asked, — how she could have suffered so long a period as from the 20th of August to the 4th of September to elapse without making any inquiry for the fate .of a packet which she was told was to be returned, which was directed to herself, and which it was her duty to see delivered to the princess? The total improbability of its being lost was fairly argued from the usual care in those matters, and from the attention that would be naturally paid to packets for the royal household. But here discovery closed ; the only clear fact being, that the letters never returned to the writer. Her royal highness could scarcely be 270 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. supposed to preserve silence on a subject which, however innocent, had so much the air of infamy. Her indignation was unbounded ; she pronounced that there was but one name of scorn for all the agents ; and unhesitatingly declared that, from circumstances, and even phrases, which elapsed in conversation, her correspondence must have been betrayed by some malignant individual into the hands of her enemies. His majesty, with that kindliness which formed so large a portion of his character, made one attempt more to put an end to those painful dis- putes : but the highest life is, in essentials, like the lowest; and the hazard of interfering in matri- monial differences, even though the mediator were a king, was palpably shewn in the still wider alienation of the parties. After a short period, a separation was proposed by the prince, and the princess expressed her readiness to accede to the measure, with only the added condition, that the separation should be perpetual. To this his royal highness finally agreed, in the following note : — " Madam, — As Lord Cholmondeley informs me that you wish I should define, in writing, the terms upon which we are to live, I shall endeavour to explain myself upon that head with as much clearness and with as much pro- priety as the nature of the subject will admit. Our inclinations are not in our power ; nor 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 271 should either of us be held answerable to the other, because nature has not made us suitable to each other. Tranquil and comfortable society is, however, in our power ; let our intercourse, therefore, be restricted to that, and I will dis- tinctly subscribe to the condition which you required, through Lady Cholmondeley; that even in the event of any accident happening to my daughter, which I trust Providence in its mercy will avert, I shall not infringe the terms of the restriction by proposing, at any period, a con- nexion of a more particular nature. I shall now finally close this disagreeable correspondence, trusting that, as we have completely explained ourselves to each other, the rest of our lives will be past in undisturbed tranquillity. " I am, Madam, with great truth, " Very sincerely yours, " GEORGE P." " Windsor Castle, April 30, 1796." To this communication the princess, after some interval, replied : — " Sir, — The avowal of your conversation with Lord Cholmondeley neither surprises nor offends me; it merely confirmed what you have tacitly insinuated for this twelvemonth. But after this, it would be a want of delicacy, or rather an unworthy meanness in me, were I to complain of 272 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 179G. those conditions which you impose upon yourself. I should have returned no answer to your letter, if it had not been conceived in terms to make it doubtful whether this arrangement proceeds from you or from me. You are aware that the honour of it belongs to you alone. The letter which you announce to me as the last, obliges me to communicate to the king, as to my sove- reign and my father, both your avowal and my answer. You will find enclosed a copy of my letter to the king. I apprise you of it, that I may not incur the slightest reproach of dupli- city from you. As I have at this moment no protector but his majesty, I refer myself solely to him on this subject ; and if my conduct meet his approbation, I shall be, in some degree at least, consoled. I retain every sentiment of gra- titude for the situation in which I find myself, as Princess of Wales, enabled by your means to indulge in the free exercise of a virtue dear to my heart — charity. It will be my duty, like- wise, to act upon another motive — that of giving an example of patience and resignation under every trial. " Do me the justice to believe that I shall never cease to pray for your happiness, and to be, your much devoted " CAROLINE." " May 6, 1796." 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 273 The king still interposed his good intentions, and desired that the princess should, at least, re- side under the same roof with her husband. She had apartments in Carlton-house, while the prince spent his time chiefly at Brighton. But Charlton, a village near Blackheath, was finally fixed on for her residence ; and there, with the Princess Char- lotte, and some ladies in attendance, she lived for several years. In this whole transaction the prince was cul- pable. With habits of life totally opposite to those of domestic happiness, he had married for con- venience ; and, the bond once contracted, he had broken it for convenience again. Following the fatal example of those by whom he was only betrayed, he had disregarded the obligations fixed upon him by one of the most important and sacred rites of society and religion ; and without any of those attempts " to bear and forbear," and to endure the frailties of temper as well as the chances of for- tune, which he had vowed at the altar, he cast away his duties as a toy of which he was tired ; and thus ultimately rendered himself guilty of every error and degradation of the unhappy woman whom he had abandoned. After a seclusion of ten years, the princess came again before the world. In 1804, her royal husband had insisted on the necessity of with- drawing the Princess Charlotte from her super- T. 274 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1796. intendence; but the king was prompt in exhi- biting his protection, and, after some correspond- ence, he took the guardianship upon himself. But the rumours which had produced this discussion at length assumed shape in more formidable charges, which the prince, by the advice of Lord Thurlow, embodied and laid before his majesty. A committee,* consisting of Lords Erskine, Grenville, Spencer, and Ellen- borough, examined the papers ; which accused the princess of guilty intercourse with the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, Captain Manby, Sir Sidney Smith, and others ; but stating Sir Sidney to be the father of a child by her. The report of the committee fully exculpated her royal highness of crime, simply objecting — " carelessness of appearances," and " levity" in the instance of certain individuals. The king upon this declared her conduct clear, and ordered a prosecution for perjury to be instituted against Lady Douglas, the wife of an officer of marines, who had taken advantage of her hospitality to excite suspicions which might have brought the princess to the scaffold. The child was fully proved to be the son of a poor woman of the name of Austin, in Blackheath. Lady Douglas was covered with obloquy ; and her husband, who * Mav 29, 1806. 1796. THE ROYAL SEPARATION. 275 appears to have been passive on the occasion, was so deeply affected by the public scorn, that he was said to have died of a broken heart. His majesty carried on the triumphant vindi- cation to the last ; gave the princess apartments in Kensington palace, and directed that she should be received at court with peculiar atten- tion. She appeared at the next birth-day ; and so strong was the national feeling, even in those ranks where it is etiquette to suppress emotion, that as her royal highness passed through the crowd, she was received with an universal clap- ping of hands ! Fortunate for her, if that day had taught her the safety of confiding herself and her cause to a generous people ; doubly fortunate for her, if she had for ever shunned the contamination of that foreign residence, and those foreign manners, which are alike pestilent to the honour of man and the virtue of woman. 27G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. CHAPTER XI. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. The French Revolution was the offspring of infidelity. The tyranny of Louis the Fourteenth, one of those monarchs whom Providence gives in its wrath to nations destined to fall, had ex- pelled Protestantism by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1683. The first punishment of this act of consummate treachery was a general war, which broke down the military character of France, extinguished its alliances, devastated its provinces, and sent the gray hairs of the perse- cutor to the grave, loaded with useless remorse, with the scorn of his people, and the universal disdain of Europe. But the sterner punishment was to come, in the degeneracy of the national religion. From the hour in which Protestantism was exiled, the Gallican church ran a race of precipitate cor- ruption. It had lost the great check; and it cast away at once its remaining morals, and its literature. The Jansenists, a feeble reflection of Calvinism, were assailed by the Jesuits, the concentrated subtlety and fierceness of popery. But the struggle between the domineering and 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 277 the weak always excites the sympathy of man ; and the whole intelligent body of France were summoned by the contest to examine into the rights of both : they were found equally ground- less. The arguments of the Jesuits were the dungeon and the sword. The arguments of the Jansenists were pretended miracles, the hysteric follies of nuns, and the artificial enthusiasm of hirelings and impostors. Common sense turned from both the controversialists with equal scorn. The Jesuits finally trampled down their adver- saries ; but they had scarcely time to feel their triumph, when ruin fell upon themselves. Their ambition had prompted them to the lofty inso- lence of mastering the thrones of Europe. Con- spiracy and assassination were the means. Kings at length took the alarm ; and by a simultaneous resolution the Jesuits were overthrown, amid the general rejoicing of mankind. But when the national eye was no longer distracted by the minor conflict of the sects, it was raised with new-born astonishment to the enormous fabric of the Gallican church itself. All France suddenly rang with one uproar of scorn and abhorrence at the inordinate power, the shameless corruption, the contemptible fictions, and the repulsive mummeries, of the establish- ment. Like the prophet, the people had been led within the curtains of the dark chambers, and seen the secret abominations of the shrine ; but, 278 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. not with the righteous indignation of the prophet, but with the malignant joy of accusers who triumphed in their power of blackening all reli- gion with the smoke of its abuses, they proclaimed the discovery to the world. It is not to be forgotten, as an illustration of one of the greatest moral truths, that the French church found that guilt is weakness. It was utterly unequal to face the day of peril. It still had, hungup in its halls, the whole consecrated armour in which it once defied the hostility of kings and people, the sword with which it had cloven down the diadem, and the shield with which it had blunted, for ages, every lance of the chivalry of freedom. But the nerve and muscle that might have borne them were long withered by indolence and vice. The " falchion of Scanderbeg was there, but where was the arm of Scanderbeo?" The merciless warrior was now the " lean and slippered pantaloon ;" while his assailant had started up from the serf into the strong-limbed savage, wild with insolent revenge, and ravening for blood and plunder. It is among the most memorable facts of intel- lectual decline, that of the forty thousand clergy of France, not one man of conspicuous ability was roused by the imminent danger of his church. Like a flock of sheep, they relied on their num- bers ; and the infidel drove them before him like a flock of sheep. While the battlements of their 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 279 gigantic church were rocking in every blast, there was no sign of manly precaution, none of gene- rous self-exposure for the common cause, and scarcely any even of that wise suspicion which is the strength of the weak. They took it for granted, that the church would last their time, and were comforted. The pride of the day was distinction in litera- ture ; but the whole ecclesiastical body of France saw the race run, without an effort for the prize. They sat, wrapped in their old recollections, on the benches of the amphitheatre, and looked on, without alarm, while a new generation of mankind were trying their athletic limbs, and stimulating their young ambition, in the arena where they had once been unrivalled. Raynal, and the few clerics who distinguished themselves by author- ship, were avowed deists or atheists ; and osten- tatious of their complete, if not contemptuous, separation from the establishment. The last light of ecclesiastical literature had glimmered from the cells of Port Royal ; but, with the fall of the Jansenists, " middle and utter darkness" came. During half a century, no work of public utility, none of popular estimation, none of genius, none which evinced loftiness of spirit, vigour of understanding, or depth of knowledge, had been produced by a churchman. The consequence was inevitable and fatal. The old awe of the church's power was changed 280 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. into contempt for its understanding. Ten thou- sand rents were made in the fabric, still they let no light upon the voluntary slumberers within. The revolutionary roar echoed through all its chambers, but it stirred no champion of the altar. The high ecclesiastics relied upon their connexion with the court, their rank, and the formal homage of their officials ; shields of gossamer against the pike and firebrand of the people. The inferior priesthood, consigned to obscurity, shrank in their villages into cumberers of the earth, or were irri- tated into rebels. The feeble contracted them- selves within the drowsy round of their prescribed duties ; the daring brooded over the national dis- contents and their own, until they heard the trumpet sounding to every angry heart and form of ill in France, and came forth, a gloomy and desperate tribe, trampling their images and altars under foot, and waving the torch in the front of the grand insurrection. The partition of Poland, in 1773, had insulted the public honour and the Christian feeling of Europe. No act of ambition had ever sprung more directly from the spontaneous evil of the human heart. The destruction of an impotent throne, and the havoc of a helpless nation, were destitute of all the ordinary pretexts of state necessity. The country poor, the people half barbarian, the go- vernment already powerless for all objects of aggression, Poland had long been incapable of 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 281 giving rise to fear ; but it excited the deadliest and most unrelenting passion of all that make a serpent's nest of the human heart, covetousness. Prussia, Russia, and Austria, entered into the foulest conspiracy against a nation on record, and tore Poland limb from limb. But while the blood of her unfortunate people was still red upon their hands, they were to be punished by the aggression of a power unheard of in the history of vengeance, the impetuous power of popular frenzy ; France, bursting from her old dungeon, and wild, furious, and revengeful, as ever was unchained madness ; at once inflicting agonies on herself, and destruction on all in her path, was let loose against them, a naked shape of evil, brandishing its fetters, and spreading terror and desolation through the world. Christianity was maligned for the guilt of the royal conspirators against Poland. But the three were open infidels ; Frederic from his selfishness and perfidy, Catherine from her personal profli- gacy, and Joseph from his frigid metaphysics and perhaps disordered mind. But the charge came in the exact time to give the last sting to the growing hostility of the continent against sceptre and shrine. The short interval of quiet that fol- lowed the .Partition was only a preparative for that accumulation of calamity which France was to bring upon mankind ; a cataract of living fire, checked on its height, for the moment, only to rush down with irresistible ruin. 282 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. France first cleared herself of the encum- brances of her government and priesthood ; tore to the earth palace and monastery, chateau and chapel ; mowed down, with a desperate hand, her nobles and her clergy, and tossed their remnants to all the winds of heaven ; and then sent out her fourteen armies, to lay waste every surrounding state ; the new Saracens of Europe, carrying their doctrine at the sword's point, and demanding that all should be converts or captives, — republicanism the policy and the religion of mankind. It was in no presumptuous desire to guide the wrath of Heaven, that men looked for some terrible retribution on the conspirators against Poland ; nor was it without that awe, in which the religious mind listens while the thunders of eternal justice are rolling above the world, that they saw a providential vengeance in the pros- tration of the three guilty kingdoms ; in the fugitive monarchs, broken armies, and subjugated capitals, of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. But the work bore all the evidences that establish to the human understanding the agency of a mightier will than of man, — the sudden perplexity of council — the sudden disunion of interests ■ — the defeat without a cause — the loss of the race to the swift, and of the battle to the strong ; while, on the side of France, all the elements of ruin seemed to assume a new nature, and coalesce into strength and victory. Rude ignorance did 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 283 the work of knowledge ; national bankruptcy of wealth ; insubordination, wild as the waves, was more vigorous than discipline ; and the general tipbreaking of society, the sword at the throat, the scaffold in the streets, famine and feud, unhoused beggary, and the hideousness of civil bloodshed, combined and shaped themselves into a colossal power, that had but to advance its foot against the strongest bulwarks of the continent, and see them crumble into dust and ashes. The conduct of England in this great crisis was worthy of her virtue and her wisdom. For some years, a large mass of the people had seen nothing in the progress of the Revolution but an advance to rational freedom. The fall of the Bastile was, unquestionably, an achievement honourable to young liberty ; for, with a Bastile still frowning over him, no man could feel himself in the possession of those rights, without which the highest station of life is but a more conspi- cuous slavery. But when France plunged from legitimate victory into the guiltiest license, — when she mixed the cup of freedom with blood, and, not content with intoxicating herself with the draught, offered it to the lip of the base and sanguinary in all nations ; then England dis- dained the alliance, interposed her strength be- tween the ferocity of the republic and human nature, and stood in the breach for the cause of God and man ! 284 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. The declaration of war was one of those de- cided measures by which the character of the English minister was stamped for boldness and sagacity. He had not rashly solicited it; and now, when its expediency was clear, he prepared for it with all the resources of his great mind. He long had more than sufficient grounds to justify the sternest retaliation on the Republic ; seizures of ships, confiscations of property, and those innumerable minor injuries to the allies of England, which power in the hands of the mean loves to commit against the helpless. But the open effort to excite rebellion within the realm ; the affiliated societies ; the correspondence with the crowd of demagogues, whose obscurity did not disgust the haughty embrace of republi- canism, high as it held itself above the kings of Europe ; and, more than all, the pledge to revolutionise the world, were unanswerable justi- fications of hostility. At length, the unprovoked attack on Holland, an ally whom we were bound to protect, and whose fall would supply a fleet and a station for invading the British isles, compelled the decision between a hazardous war and a dishonourable submission. The choice was no longer doubtful ; war was proclaimed in the midst of national exult- ation. And the first blow that was struck, trans- muted the popular discontent into the generous sympathy of Englishmen with the public cause. 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 285 England purified herself every moment more and more from the principles of republicanism, and she found the way of honour the way of safety. The great pirate that had hoisted the signal of rapine and slaughter against all nations, shrank from an encounter with her stately force ; roved the globe for easier spoil ; and when, at last, in its vanity and arrogance, it came fairly into conflict with her, found itself crushed by her first broadside. In 1 803 it was announced to the French army that England was to be invaded. An immense force was marched to the shores of the Channel, fleets were collected — transports were built — and, to make victory secure in the eyes of the soldier, the tutelar genius of France, the son of fortune, Napoleon the " invincible," was to take the command. In the preparations for military triumph, civil benevolence too was not forgotten. The forms of the Republic still lived among the fond recollections of the French slave. Napoleon him- self was but a Jacobin upon a throne ; and the con- summate charm was given to the plan of invasion, by the promise of a republican constitution, on the model of the days of Robespierre. England was to acquire new opulence from general confis- cation, liberty from French free-quarters, and re- generation from universal chains. Of this republic, Sir Francis Burdett had the burlesque honour to be, in the judgment of Napoleon, " the fittest man in England" to fill the presidential chair! 286 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. But nothing less than miracle will ever make a foreigner, and of all foreigners a Frenchman, capable of understanding the English character. Foreign life is essentially theatrical ; the streets are a transcript of the stage. There must be, in all things, a false vividness, an abruptness, an artificial force ; or life and the business of life loses its interest in the national eye. The sober vigour and noiseless resolution of the Englishman, would be looked upon as altogether loss, by the foreign craving for perpetual excitement : and Napoleon made but the common mistake of his subjects, in conceiving that men could not love their country without harangues, and civic processions, and triumphal arches, and the fopperies of heroes and patriots glittering in the paint and tinsel of the stage. But in England, if an insane passion for re- publicanism had ever existed, it had now been cooled by experience ; or its chief exhibitors had been wisely and indignantly sent, by the national justice, where they could harm nothing but themselves. Rebellion had been stript and shorn ; and could now shew its head only to bring down the ridicule of the empire. Even the race of the philosophers had dwindled away, from the bold clamourers against every wholesome institution of the country, and every natural feeling of the human heart, into a meagre muster of clubbists, the pauperism of literature, giving symptoms of 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 287 existence only by some obscure production, to which even the virulence of its principles could no longer attract the general eye. But while those men, and their followers, were ejected, like cul- prits driven to some barren shore to glean their subsistence from the defying soil and inclement sky, and dream of future luxury and revenge in the wilderness ; the power and cultivation of the great empire that had cast them out were rising to their height. A succession of unexampled naval victories at once shewed where the true defence of England lay, and spread the national glory through the world. The British fleet solved the famous problem of the ancient legislators, — " How to make a state a conqueror, without making the conqueror itself a slave." In all the ancient and modern governments, the soldier had recoiled upon his country, and overwhelmed the citizen. But the national and peculiar force of England precluded all hazard to national free- dom, while it bore the most irresistible force against the enemy. Victory followed the career of the British fleet, upon her broadest wing. But the war had done more than shew the intrepidity of our fleets and armies; it had effected the still nobler service of totally separating the British mind from the pollutions of the continent : even the imitations of foreign manners had become obsolete ; the fantastic coxcombry that has been again introduced among us by the degenerate 288 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. portion of our higher ranks, and those diplomatic loungers who wear out their languid and con- temptible existence in awkward attempts to attain the ease of foreign profligacy ; was then to be suf- fered no longer : the conduit for the flow of French and Italian mountebankism into England was cut off. Those un-English specimens of travel, who had plagued and infested the nation for a century, who " Had wandered Europe round, And gathered every vice on Christian ground, — Seen every court, heard every king declare His royal sense of operas, and the fair ;" were laughed out of society, — were consigned, like the tawdry suits of the past age, to the dust and moths, of which alone they were worthy ; the monde perruquihre, as Voltaire named them, were brushed away before the foot of a manly genera- tion, and England was herself again. But if Napoleon miscalculated the feelings of the British people, no man could have more rapidly furnished himself with the means of dis- covering his error. The taunt of invasion shewed him of what materials the English mind was made ; its grave love of country, its patient courage, its solemn and generous conviction how much better it is to die in arms than live a slave. The taunt was as the sound of a trumpet to the empire : the whole population offered itself as 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 289 one man : all professions, all classes, men of all diversities of political opinion, were prepared with the sacrifice of their lives. Five hundred thou- sand volunteers came forward in arms, ready to be followed by ten times the number, if a foreign foot had dared to insult the shore. And in this most magnificent exhibition of the strength of freedom, there was nothing that could degrade the scene. In the popular consciousness of irresistible power, there was no alloy of popular violence ; no insub- ordination in a countless host, whose will must have been law ; no bitterness against rank, where the force was gathered from the humblest con- ditions of society ; no attempt at national spoil ; no political clamour, where the voice of the in- finite multitude might have instantly overwhelmed the voice of the constitution. The reason was, that the heart was sincere. The cause of their free country was at once the impulse, the guide, and the deliverance : they followed it, as the tribes fol- lowed the fiery pillar in the wilderness; and giving themselves wholly to its high leading, they passed triumphantly through straits and dangers, among which no other people could tread and live. The volunteer corps were chiefly headed by the gentlemen and nobles of highest considera- tion in their neighbourhood. Among the crowd of public persons, Pitt was colonel of the Cinque Port volunteers ; and the Duke of Clarence com- manded a corps near his seat, Bushy, to whom u 290 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803 he made a Spartan speech : — " My friends, wherever our duty calls, I will go with you, fight with you, and never come back without you!" The Prince of Wales took a peculiar in- terest in this little band, and presented it with a pair of colours, which he gave with a feeling and animated compliment to their loyalty and discipline. But in this national crisis he justly felt that the people required something more than approval, from a prince in the prime of life, and who had the first interest in the defence of the throne. He had, long before this period, felt the offence of being thrown into the back-ground, while all his relatives were in the front, and occupying high opportunities of public service. He now again applied for some military rank which would en- able him to stand prominently before the public eye, and shew that he too had the heart of an Englishman. But his request was not to be granted. It is difficult to conceive the political grounds of this refusal. The popular feeling demanded that the prince should exhibit a portion of that manliness which was then glowing in the breast of every sub- ject of the empire. Compliance would have given an additional grace to royalty, in its day of trial ; it would have supplied the prince with a motive for generous and patriotic exertions, which might have restored the old ties between him and the 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 291 higher classes of the English mind ; and if actual public danger were to be encountered, it must have assisted the general cause, by ability and ardour which awaited only the occasion to dis- tinguish themselves. The prince, even in the luxury of his life, had made himself master of the details of military science to an unusual de- gree. No colonel in the service kept his regiment in higher discipline ; no officer could manoeuvre a regiment better ; and it was acknowledged, among military men, that there were few finer displays than that of a field-day of the corps, with the prince at their head. The remark of a distinguished general officer who was on the ground on one of those occasions, was, " that no adjutant often years' standing could have done it better in every point." The prince was fond of military reading : he was acquainted with the chief authorities on the science ; and he had often declared, that if he had his choice among all the ways of serving his country, it would have been to serve her as a soldier. He even went further ; and it was the opinion of those who were admitted to his confidence, that if the alternative lay between the succession to the throne and a military command, he would then have gladly given up the crown for the sword. But even in this cherished and natural desire, he was to have another instance of the mortifica- tions that were to pursue him through life. 292 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. He first made his proposal, through Mr. Ad- dington, in the following manly letter : — " July 18, 1803. " Sir, — When it was officially announced to the parliament that the avowed object of the enemy was a descent on these kingdoms, it be- came obvious that the circumstances of the times required a voluntary tender of our services. Ani- mated by the same spirit which pervaded the nation at large, conscious of the duties which I owed to his majesty and the country, I seized the earliest opportunity to express my desire of under- taking the responsibility of a military command. 1 neither did nor do presume on supposed talents, as entitling me to such an appointment ; my chief pretensions are founded on a sense of those ad- vantages which my example might produce to the state, by exciting the loyal energies of the nation, and a knowledge of the expectations which the public have a right to form, as to the personal exertions of their princes, at a moment like the present. The more elevated my situation, in so much the efforts of zeal should become greater. I can never forget that I have solemn obligations imposed upon me by my birth, and that I should ever shew myself foremost in contributing to the preservation of the country. No event of my life can compensate me for the misfortune of not par- ticipating in the honours and dangers which await the brave men destined to oppose the invader." 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 293 This letter remained unanswered. After a week, the prince repeated his proposal, with an expression of surprise at the minister's neglect. Mr. Addington's answer was a brief note, that the prince was referred to his majesty's refusal of similar applications in former years ; and that his majesty's opinion being fixed, no further mention could be made to him on the subject. The minister had now discharged himself of the responsibility ; but his royal highness felt that he had a public interest in making a still higher appeal ; and he submitted his claims to the king, in the letter from which an extract is given : — ***** " I ask to be allowed to display the best energies of my character, to shed the last drop of my blood in support of your majesty's person, crown, and dignity ; for this is not a war for empire, glory, or dominion, but for existence. In this contest, the lowest and humblest of your majesty's subjects have been called on ; it would, therefore, little become me, who am the first, and who stand at the very footstool of the throne, to remain a tame, an idle, and a lifeless spectator of the mischiefs which threaten us ; unconscious of the dangers which surround us, and indifferent to the consequences which may follow. Han- over is lost, England is menaced with invasion, 294 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. Ireland is in rebellion, Europe is at the foot of France. " At such a moment, the Prince of Wales, yielding to none of your subjects in duty, — to none of your children in tenderness and affection, — presumes to approach you, and again to repeat those offers which he has already made through your majesty's ministers. A feeling of honest ambition, a sense of what I owe to myself and my family, and, above all, the fear of sinking in the estimation of that gallant army, which may be the support of your majesty's crown, and my best hope hereafter, command me to persevere, and to assure your majesty, with all humility and respect, that, conscious of the justice of my claim, no human power can ever induce me to relinquish it. Allow me to say, sir, that I am bound to adopt this line of conduct by every motive dear to me as a man, and sacred to me as a prince. Ought I not to come forward in a moment of unexampled difficulty and danger? Ought I not to share in the glory of victory, when I have every thing to lose by defeat ? The highest places in your majesty's service are filled by the younger branches of the royal family ; to me alone no place is assigned ; I am not thought worthy to be even the junior major-general of your army. " If I could submit in silence to such indig- nities, 1 should indeed deserve such treatment, 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 295 and prove, to the satisfaction of your enemies and my own, that I am entirely incapable of those exertions which my birth and the circum- stances of the times peculiarly call for. Standing so near the throne, when I am debased, the cause of royalty is wounded. I cannot sink in public opinion, without the participation of your majesty in my degradation ; therefore, every mo- tive of private feeling and public duty induces me to implore your majesty to review your de- cision, and to place me in that situation which my birth, the duties of my station, the example of my predecessors, and the expectations of the people of England, entitle me to claim." Public attention had been strongly fixed on the prince during the progress of this transaction ; and from the innumerable rumours which were propagated by his friends and enemies, it became of importance to him, that he should be enabled to bring his whole conduct on the occasion before the empire. The king, at least, gave him no cause to complain of delay. Nothing could be more prompt, nor more peremptory, than his majesty's answer : — " My dear Son, — Though I applaud your zeal and spirit, in which I trust no one can sup- pose any of my family wanting, yet, considering the repeated declarations I have made, of my 296 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. determination on your former applications to the same purpose, I had flattered myself to have heard no further on the subject. Should the implacable enemy succeed so far as to land, you will have an opportunity of shewing your zeal at the head of your regiment. It will be the duty of every man to stand forward on such an occa- sion ; and I shall certainly think it mine to set an example, in defence of every thing that is dear to me and my people. " I ever remain, my dear son, " Your most affectionate father, " GEORGE R." Application was thenceforth at an end ; but the prince addressed a strong vindication of his motives to his majesty; and after some corre- spondence with the Duke of York, whom he had hastily conceived to be the king's adviser on the occasion ; and a remonstrance on his being omitted in a list of military promotions towards the close of the year, he, at length, submitted to a necessity which perhaps no sub- ject in the empire could have felt with more pain. A final note to the minister put this offended feeling in the strongest light. The reports of invasion had been loudly renewed, at a time when the prince was known to be preparing to spend the winter at Brighton, a point which must have been considerably exposed, in the event of an 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 297 enemy's force being off the coast. Mr. Addington* wrote a few lines to beg that the journey might be delayed. The answer was spirited, soldierlike, and indignant. " Sir, — By your grounding your letter to me on intelligence which has just reached you, I apprehend you allude to information leading you to expect some attempt on the part of the enemy. My wish to accommodate myself to any thing which you represent as material to the public service, would of course make me desirous to comply with your request. " But if there be reason to imagine that in- vasion will take place directly, I am bound by the king's precise order, and by that honest zeal which is not allowed any Jitter sphere for its action, to hasten instantly to my regiment. If I learn that my construction of the word intelligence is right, I shall deem it necessary to repair instantly to Brighton." In England there can be but few state secrets, and this correspondence soon made its way to the journals. The debate, on moving for a committee on the defence of the country, introduced the prince's name ; when Tyrrwhitt, one of his house- hold, defended him from the possible charge of * October 23. 298 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1803. reluctance, by stating the nature of his appli- cations to the throne. The debate, though with closed doors, was immediately made public ; and the correspondence thus announced appeared in a few days. No sufficient light has been hitherto thrown on this inveterate rejection of his royal highness's services. The personal safety of the heir apparent could not have been the object ; for, at the head of his regiment, he would probably have only taken a more exposed share in the struggle. Con- stitutional maxims could scarcely have interfered : for the prince neither desired to obtain an exten- sive command, nor, if he had, was the authority of the Duke of York to be superseded, but by the express determination of the king. But no par- liamentary torture could force the secret from the minister. The only reply which he made to Fox's angry demands, and to the strong expres- sions of curiosity on the part of the legislature, was the old ministerial formula of defiance: "No- thing less than the united authority of the house, and the direct commands of the king, should compel him to say another word upon the sub- ject." The true cause was probably the king's personal displeasure, originating in his royal high- ness's conduct to the princess. The unhappy connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert had continued ; and was, as it had begun, a perpetual source of embarrassment to the prince, of regret to the 1803. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 299 empire, and of offence to the king. While this contumely to English feeling was daily offered, there could be no complete reconciliation between a father, who felt himself not more the guardian of the public rights than of the public morality ; and a son, who exhibited himself in the most con- spicuous point of view as an offender against the great bond of society, — that rite to which, above all the institutions of human wisdom, a hallowed sanction has been given ; and whose disregard has been universally the forerunner of national decay, as its purity and honour have been the unfailing pledges of national virtue, prosperity, and freedom. 300 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806. CHAPTER XII. PARLIAMENT. The age of parliamentary greatness was going down. Burke, Pitt, and Fox, successively dis- appeared ; and men looked no longer to parlia- ment for the old noble displays of the highest ability, exerted in the highest cause. All the forms of panegyric have been so long lavished on the memory of those illustrious statesmen, that praise would be now alike impotent and unnecessary. Their rank is fixed beyond change. It is the inseparable characteristic of the fame of those who are made for immortal remembrance, that time, which decays and darkens all fabri- cated renown, has no power over the true ; or rather, that it purifies and brightens the natural grandeur and lustre of the master mind. The tumult, the hot and misty confusion of actual life, often distort the great luminary ; and it is only when years allow us leisure to look upward, when another face of the world is offered to the heavens, and the orb has emerged from the vapours of our day, that we can see it in its glory. But time, like death, does even more than exalt and purify. By breaking the direct link between 1806. PARLIAMENT. 301 the man of genius and his country, it gives him an illustrious communion with all countries. The poet, the orator, and the hero, are no longer the dwellers of a fragment of the globe ; they be- long to the human race in all its boundaries ; the covering of this world's clay thrown off, their renown and their powers are, like their own nature, spiritualised ; they have passed out of, and above, the world ; and from their immortal height they bear healing and splendour on their wings, for all lands and all generations. Burke died in his 68th year,* with the calm- ness that belonged to a life in which he had never done intentional evil to a human being, and had done all the good that the finest qualities of head and heart could do to his country. His decline had been gradual, and he was fully aware that his hour was at hand. He had desired a paper of Addison's to be read to him ; talked for some time on the perilous aspect of public affairs; and then gave directions for his funeral. Finding himself suddenly grow feeble, he expressed a wish to be carried to his bed ; and as the attend- ants were conveying him to it, sank down in their arms, and expired without a groan. Pitt died in his 47th year,f First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. An illness which had confined him for some period, * July 26, 1797. f At Putney, Jan. 23, 1806. 302 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 180G. four years before, had left him in a state of compa- rative debility. The infinite labour of office, on his return to power, still more enfeebled a frame not naturally strong ; and the total overthrow of the Austrian armies at Ulm and Austerlitz, threaten- ing the disruption of those alliances which it had been his pride to form, and on whose firmness depended the safety of Europe, probably increased the depression of disease. His nervous system was at length so completely deranged, that for some weeks he was unable to sleep. His here- ditary gout returned ; and after struggling with water on the chest, he expired. By a vote of the House of Commons, his funeral was at the public expense ; and a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey. Fox died in his 58th year.* He had reached the prize for which he had been labouring through life ; and was, at last, prime minister. f But it came only to escape from his hand. The fatigues of office were too incessant for a frame unused to labour. He appears to have had some presentiment of this speedy termination of his existence. On hearing of his great rival's death ; " Pitt," said he, " has gone in January, perhaps I may go in June." It happened, by * At Chiswick, Sept. 13, 1806. t Lord Grenville, as First Lord of the Treasury, had the nominal rank ; but Fox, though only Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had the real one. 1806. PARLIAMENT. 303 a curious coincidence, that his disorder, a dropsy, exhibited its first dangerous symptoms in June. In the middle of that month he was forced to discontinue his attendance in parliament. About the middle of the following month he became unable to consult with his colleagues. And, after the usual efforts of the physicians to relieve him, at the end of August he fell into a state of languor, which continued until he died. It is remarkable, that the happiest period of Fox's life was that which, on ordinary principles, might be expected to prove the most painful — his retirement from the House of Commons. If ever man was born for the boldest struggles of popular life, it was he. For almost half a century of the most brilliant, yet the most difficult, time of England, he was foremost in the popular gaze. His element was the legislature. Yet we see him quietly turn from the house without a re- monstrance, and perhaps without a sigh ; begin a new career, and with books, his garden, and the occasional society of a few personal friends, forget ambition. This is an evidence of more than intellectual vigour. Of all the qualities of public men, the rarest is magnanimity. The histories of fallen statesmen are generally only histories of the miserable decrepitude of human nature, vanity wounded to the core, and trying to salve itself by mean regrets, or meaner accu- sations, or, meanest of all, by licking the dust of 304 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806. the trampler's feet, and being content to creep up into influence again; to reach by reptilism a reptile's power. On the Continent, an overthrown statesman is generally like an overthrown child ; he weeps, he tears his hair, he exclaims against every thing round him, he is undone ! When Neckar was dismissed by Louis the Sixteenth, no Ian- guage could equal his despair. He was still the most popular man in France, and one of the most opulent. But the loss of his porte-feuille ; the departed vision of bowing clerks ; the solitude of his hotel, no longer a levee of the courtiers, whom he professed to despise, and whom no man had gone further to ruin ; broke down the financial sovereign of France into a discharged menial ; and his delicious villa on the shores of the Lake of Geneva, surrounded by every charm of earth and sky, a magnificence of nature that seems given to inspire grandeur into the human mind ; was a dungeon to the cashiered minister. Neckar's is but one instance of the thousand. Even among the more composed manners of English life, the loss of public occupation has been often followed by the loss of mental dignity ; and its general result has been either a worthless lassitude, or an eager and dishonourable com- promise of principle. But Fox gave up the leadership of Opposition, a rank fully equal to the ministerial, in the popular estimate ; and 1806. PARLIAMENT. 305 seems to have settled down to the simplest occu- pations of a country life, and planted his flowers, and pruned his trees, and made his playful verses, and carried his musket as a private in the Chertsey volunteers, with as much composure as if he had never tasted the delightful draught of fame, nor soared among the fiery temptations of popular supremacy. On the failure of Lord Grey's hopeless motion for reform, in 1797, Fox expressed his determi- nation of withdrawing from parliament. This measure may have been in some degree a derelic- tion of public duty ; but it was probably adopted with the idea of forcing the nation to take some decided step against the ministry. It failed; for he had miscalculated the public attachment to Pitt; and he thenceforth remained tranquilly in his solitude ; realising at St. Ann's Hill, a small demesne near London, the life which Horace has so felicitously sketched for himself, and which, since his day, has been the dream of so many accomplished and weary minds ; the leisure, the choice literature, and the " pleasing oblivion" of the cares of life. Here he renewed his knowledge of the classics, con- quered Italian, and began Spanish. But the peace of Amiens opened France once more; and Fox, making a pretext to himself of collecting- authorities on the History of the Stuarts, but, more probably, with the common desire to see x 30G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806. the changes wrought by the Revolution, went to Paris. He was received with extraordinary civilities by all ranks ; but the chief feature of his visit, and the only one that can interest us now, was his intercourse with the " First Consul." It is difficult to know whether Napoleon formed a just conception of Fox; but it is evident that Fox formed, at least in the beginning, a curiously untrue one of Napoleon. Immediately on his appearance in the crowd at the Tuileries, the first consul singled him out, and held a marked con- versation with him. " There are in the world,"' said this disposer of the fates of empires, " but two nations, the one inhabiting the east, and the other the west. The English, French, Germans, Italians, &c. &c. under the same civil code, having the same manners, the same habits, and almost the same religion, are all members of the same family. The men who would wish to light up again the flame of war among them wish for civil war." He concluded by a compliment to him, as the distinguished friend of peace. Fox dined with him on the same day ; and the conversation turned on the trial by jury, of which Napoleon could not bring himself to approve, — " it was so Gothic, cumbrous, and might be so inconvenient to a government." Fox, with honest John Bullism, told him, that " the inconvenience was the very thing for which he liked it." 180G. PARLIAMENT. 307 But, startling as those military opinions of justice between man and man might be, Napoleon succeeded in impressing a very high idea even of his heart; and if we are to rely upon reported conversations at the time, Fox declared that — " the first consul of France was as magnificent in his means as in his ends ; that he possessed a most decided character, and that his views were not directed against Great Britain, but against the Continent ; that his commercial enmity was but a temporary measure, and was never intended to be acted upon as a permanent policy ; and that he had a. proud candour! which, in the confi- dence of success in whatever he resolved, scorned to conceal its intentions''' " I never saw," said he, " so little indirectness in any statesman as in the first consul. He makes no secret of his designs." The sparkling sentences and oracular maxims of Napoleon, the novelty of the bulletin-style, had evidently imposed on his good-natured guest; and such, by universal acknowledgment, was his brilliancy and force in conversation, that the only hope of detecting the artifice was in removing to a distance from the deceiver. But Fox enjoyed an early, and a complete, opportunity of rectifying his opinions on this most subtle of men. He had scarcely entered the whig cabinet, when he found himself intangled in a mock negotiation; saw the negotiation dexterously protracted until all things were ripe for the ruin of Prussia; and 308 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806. then saw Napoleon and Talleyrand fly together from Paris to the ruin, leaving his bewildered ambassador to be laughed at by Europe.* Fox's death closed the era of parliamentary eloquence. There have been able and animated speakers since ; but there are few examples of that lofty and original mastery of the understand- ing and the passions, which characterised the public speaking of that distinguished time : while to the speeches of Fox, Pitt, Burke, and Sheridan, we still go for the study of the art, for the highest principles of eloquence illustrated by the highest examples. Of the comparative powers of those remarkable men, the general impression among their contemporaries was, — that Fox stood in the foremost rank, as a debater. His capacity, his manner, and his language, were parliamentary, in an exclusive and unequalled degree. Pitt and Burke must have been eminent in any assembly of any age or nation, where the human intellect was to be kindled and charmed by power of thought and language. A Greek or a Roman ■ One of the plagues of popularity was felt by Fox in the applications of the French artists to take his likeness. Medal- lists, sculptors, and painters, haunted him perpetually, with all the odd vehemence of the national character. One sculptor had persecuted him to sit for a statue. Fox at last inquired whether the sitting would put him to any inconvenience. " None what- ever," said the Frenchman ; " you must only take off your shirt and sit naked, till vou are modelled !" 1806. PARLIAMENT. 309 audience would have listened to either with ad- miration, and owned the influence of their flow and grandeur; but Fox was made for England, and peculiarly for the parliament of England. Innumerable panegyrics on his public abili- ties appeared immediately after his death. But by far the closest and most critical was given by Lord Erskine, at a distance of time which precluded the immediate influence of partiality, and which allowed full leisure to compare the illustrious dead with all of surviving excellence. The whole passage itself deserves to be treasured, as an honour equally to Fox and Erskine. " This extraordinary person, generally, in rising to speak, had evidently no more preme- ditated the particular language he should em- ploy, nor, frequently, the illustrations and images by which he should discuss and enforce his sub- ject, than he had contemplated the hour he was to die. And his exalted merit as a debater in parliament did not, therefore, consist in the length, variety, or roundness of his periods, but in the truth and vigour of his conceptions ; in the depth and extent of his information ; in the retentive powers of his memory, which enabled him to keep in constant view, not only all that he had formerly read and reflected on, but every thing said at the moment, and even at other times, by the various persons whose arguments he was to answer ; in the faculty of spreading 310 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 180G. out his matter so clearly to the grasp of his own mind, as to render it impossible he should ever fail in the utmost clearness and distinctness to others ; in the exuberant fertility of his imagina- tion, which spontaneously brought forth his ideas at the moment, in every possible shape in which the understanding might sit in judgment on them; whilst, instead of seeking afterwards to enforce them by cold premeditated illustrations or by episodes, which, however beautiful, only distract attention, he was accustomed to repass his subject, not methodically, but in the most unforeseen and fascinating review, enlightening every part of it ; and binding even his adversaries in a kind of spell of involuntary assent for the time. * * * * " This will be found more particularly to apply to his speeches upon sudden and unfore- seen occasions, when certainly nothing could be more interesting and extraordinary than to wit- ness, as I have often done, the mighty and un- prepared efforts of his mind, when he had to encounter the arguments of some profound rea- soner, who had deeply considered his subject, and arranged it with all possible art, to preserve its parts unbroken. To hear him begin on such occasions, without method, without any kind of exertion, without the smallest impulse from the desire of distinction or triumph, and animated only by the honest sense of duty ; an audience 1806. PARLIAMENT. 311 who knew him not, would have expected little success from the conflict; as little as a traveller in the East, whilst trembling at a buffalo in the wild vigour of its well-protected strength, would have looked to its immediate destruction, when he saw the boa moving slowly and inertly to- wards him on the grass. But Fox, unlike the serpent in every thing but his strength, always taking his station in some fixed, invulnerable principles, soon surrounded and entangled his adversary, disjointing every member of his dis- course, and strangling him in the irresistible folds of truth. " This intellectual superiority, by which my illustrious friend was so eminently distinguished, might nevertheless have existed in all its strength, without raising him to the exalted station he held as a public speaker. The powers of the under- standing are not of themselves sufficient for this high purpose. Intellect alone, however exalted, without strong feelings, without even irritable sen- sibility, would be only like an immense maga- zine of gunpowder, if there were no such element as fire in the natural world. It is the heart which is the spring and fountain of eloquence. A cold- blooded, learned man, might, for any thing I know, compose in his closet an eloquent book ; but in public discourse, arising out of sudden oc- casions, he could, by no possibility, be eloquent. * * * * 312 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806 " It has been said, that he was frequently- careless of the language in which he expressed himself; but I can neither agree to the justice, nor even comprehend the meaning of that criti- cism. He could not be incorrect from careless- ness ; because, having lived from his youth in the great world, and having been familiarly con- versant with the classics of all nations, his most unprepared speaking (or if critics will have it so, his most negligent) must have been at least grammatical, which it not only uniformly was, but distinguished by its taste ; more than that could not have belonged to it, without the very care which his habits and his talents equally rejected. " He undoubtedly attached as little to the musical intonation of his speeches as to the lan- guage in which they were expressed. His em- phases were the unstudied effusions of nature ; the vents of a mind burning intensely with the generous flame of public spirit and benevolence, beyond all control or management when impas- sioned, and above the rules to which inferior things are properly subjected : his sentences, often rapidly succeeded, and almost mixed them- selves with one another; as the lava rises in bursts from the mouth of a volcano, when the resistless energies of the subterranean world are at their height." 1806. PARLIAMENT. 313 Fox's politics may now be obsolete : his par- liamentary triumphs may be air : his eloquence may be rivalled, or shorn of its beams by time : but one source of glory cannot be extinguished, — the abolition of the slave-trade! This victory no man can take from him. Whatever variety of opinion may be formed on his public princi- ples, whatever condemnation may be found for his personal career, whatever doubts of his great faculties;- — on this one subject all voices will be raised in his honour ; and the hand of every man of English feeling will add a stone to the monu- ment that perpetuates his name. On the 10th of June, 1806, Fox brought forward his motion, in a speech brief but decided. " So fully," said he, " am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion to-night, that if, during the forty years that I have had the honour of a seat in parliament, I should have been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only; I should think I had done enough, and should retire from public life with comfort, and the conscious satisfaction that I had done my duty." His speech concluded with the immortal reso- lution, " That this House, conceiving the African Slave-Trade to be contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy; will, with all practicable expedition, proceed to take effectual 314 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806. MEASURES FOR ABOLISHING THE SLAVE-TRADE, IN SUCH MANNER AND AT SUCH PERIOD AS MAY BE DEEMED ADVISABLE." On the division, one hundred and fourteen voted for the measure, against it only fifteen ! This was the last effort made by Fox. In a few days after, he was taken ill of his mortal disease. No orator, no philosopher, no patriot, could have wished for a nobler close to his labours. It must seem extraordinary that Pitt should have left this great duty to be done by another. Some of his ablest speeches had been in condem- nation of the slave-trade. He had pronounced it a national disgrace and calamity. And what man, not turned into a wild beast by avarice, that pas- sion alternately the meanest and the most daring, the basest and the bloodiest, — that passion which, of all, assimilates and combines the most tho- roughly with the evil of perverted human nature ; but must have looked upon that trade with horror? " This," exclaimed Burke, "is not a traffic in the labour of man, but in the man him- self." It was ascertained that from seventy to eighty thousand slaves had been carried from Africa to the West Indies in a single year ; and with what misery beyond all calculation! What agonies of heart, at the utter and eternal parting from friends, kindred, and home! What inde- scribable torture in the slave-ships, where they burned under the tropical day, packed in dens, 1800. PARLIAMENT. 315 without room to move, to stand, or even to lie clown, — chained, scourged, famished, withering with fever and thirst : human layers festering on each other; the dead, the dying, the frantic, and the tortured, compressed together like bales of merchandise; hundreds seizing the first moment of seeing the light and air, to fling themselves over- board ; hundreds dying of grief, thousands dying of pestilence ; and the rest, even more wretched, surviving only for a hopeless captivity in a strange land, to labour for life, under the whips of overseers, savages immeasurably more brutal and debased than their unfortunate victims ! With what eyes must Providence have looked down upon this tremendous accumulation of guilt, this hideous abuse of the power of European knowledge and wealth over the miserable African; and with what solemn justice may it not have answered the cry of the blood out of the ground! The vengeance of Heaven on individuals is wisely, in most instances, put beyond human discovery. But, for nations there is no judgment to come, no great after- reckoning to make all straight, and vindicate the ways of God to man. They must be punished here ; and it might be neither difficult nor unproductive of the best knowledge — the Christian's faith in the ever-waking and resistless control of Providence; to trace the punishment of this enormous crime in Europe. The slave-trade perhaps lost America to Eng- 316 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1806. land, and the crime was thus punished at its height, and within view of the spot where it was committed. But our crime was done in ignorance ; the people of this kingdom had known little of its nature ; and they required only to know it, to wash their hands of the stain. It may have been for this reason, that, of all unsuccessful wars, the American was the least marked with national loss ; and that, of all abscissions of empire, the independence of the United States was the most rapidly con- verted into national advantage. But it is upon the kingdoms which, in the face of perfect know- ledge, in scorn of remonstrances that might wake the stones to feel, in treacherous evasion of trea- ties, in defiance of even the base bargains in which they exacted the money of this country to buy off the blood of the African, have still carried on the trade ; that undisguised and un- mitigated vengeance may have fallen, and be still falling. The three great slave-traders, whom it has been found impossible to persuade or to restrain, are France, Spain, and Portugal. And in what circum- stances are the colonies for whose peculiar support this dreadful traffic was carried on ? France has totally lost St. Domingo, the finest colony in the world, and her colonial trade is now a cipher. Spain has lost all; Portugal has lost all. Mexico, South America, and the Brazils, are severed from 1806. PARLIAMENT. 317 their old masters for ever. And what have been the especial calamities of the sovereigns of those countries ? They have been, all three, expatriated, and the only three. Other sovereigns have suf- fered temporary evil under the chances of war ; but France, Spain, and Portugal, have exhibited the peculiar shame of three dynasties at once in exile: — the Portuguese flying across the sea, to escape from an enemy in its capital, and hide its head in a barbarian land ; — the Spanish dethroned, and sent to display its spectacle of mendicant and decrepit royalty through Europe ; — and the French doubly undone ! The first effort of Louis XVIII. on his restora- tion, was to re-establish the slave-trade. Before twelve months were past, he was flying for his life to the protection of strangers! On the second restoration the trade was again revived. All re- presentations of its horrors, aggravated as they are now by the lawless rapacity of the foreign traders, were received with mock acquiescence, and real scorn. And where are the Bourbons now? And what is the peace, or the prosperity, of the countries that have thus dipped their guilty gains in human miseries ? They are three vast centres of feud and revolutionary terror ; — Por- tugal, with an unowned monarch, reigning by the bayonet and the scaffold, with half her leading- men in dungeons, with her territory itself a dun- 318 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 180G. geon; and fierce retaliation and frenzied enthu- siasm hovering on her frontiers, and ready to plunge into the bosom of the land. — Spain, torn by faction, and at this hour watching every band that gathers on her hills, as the signs of a tempest that may sweep the land from the Pyrenees to the ocean. — And France, in the first heavings of a mighty change, that man can no more define, than he can set limits to the heaving of an earth- quake, or the swell and fury of a deluge. Other great objects and causes may have their share in those things. But the facts are before man- kind . The probable ground of Pitt's reluctance to crush the slave - trade at the instant, was his fear of disturbing the financial system, in the midst of a period which made all minds tremble at the name of experiment. While the whole fabric of empire was tottering, there might be rashness even in the attempt to repair the build- ing ; and it required higher feelings than are to be learned in the subterranean of politics, — the magnanimity of religious faith, — to do good without fear, and leave the rest to the great Disposer. The war had been altogether a war of finance. Pitt was, pre-eminently, a financier ; and, like all men with one object perpetually before them, he involuntarily suffered the consideration of rents and revenues to distend on his sight, until it shut out every other. The Abolition was a novelty ; and 1806. PARLIAMENT. 319 he had seen a more auspicious novelty, a free constitution, overthrow the whole establishment of the most powerful kingdom of Europe. Eng- gland was at that hour covered with the wreck of France ; prince, priest, and noble, flying from the brilliant evil. The nature of its advocates, too, justified some jealousy ; for, among the virtuous and pa- triotic, there were to be found individuals scarcely less than avowed rebels to the constitution. None are more tolerant than they who scoff at all creeds alike ; none more humane than they who have nothing to give ; none more rigorous in de- manding public sacrifices, than they who feel themselves exempt from all sacrifice. In 1792, the commencement of Mr. Wilberforce's efforts against the slave - trade, England was overrun with those cheap sages and heroes. The whole land was thick with a crop of spurious tolerance, generosity, and virtue. The slave-trade came forth a new topic, started in the fortunate hour, to cheer the sinking energies of popular outcry. It was the live coal on the lips of the seer, already weary of denouncing unperformed wrath against the throne. It supplied the whole bustling tribe of the Platos and Phocions of the streets with illustration, and it supplied them with it safe. The horrors of the trade threw an allegorical veil over the picture, while the artist was insolently limning the guilt and punishment of supposed 320 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 180C. royal and aristocratic offences at home ; the King of Dahomy prefigured a monarch, whom it was yet hazardous to denounce by name ; the smiting of West Indian planters by the popular hand led the mind's eye to loftier execution on more hated possessors of wealth and power ; and the havoc of negro insurrection lent its deepest colourings to that promised tornado of vengeance, which, " in an hour that we knew not of," was to sweep from the earth the nobility, church, and crown, of the British empire. Yet, it is to be lamented that, for the comple- tion of a fame, almost at the full, Pitt did not give more than his voice against the slave-trade ; that he had not nobly dared ; that by this solitary instance of hesitation in a cause worthy of him- self, the illustrious act, which shed glory on the close even of Fox's struggling career, was not permitted to scatter the darkness and sorrow which hung round his honoured death-bed, and finish in kindred splendour the long triumphs of the first statesman of the world. 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 321 CHAPTER XIII. THE WHIG CABINET. The Whig administration of 1807 totally failed, and deserved to fail. Its first announcement had struck the nation with surprise and scorn. Lord Grenville in alliance with Fox ! was a coalition which none could comprehend, but on the princi- ple of that all-swallowing- avidity for place which degrades alike the personal and public character of the statesman. Lord Grenville, the direct agent of Pitt for so many years, the official opponent of democracy in all its shapes, the professional speaker against reform, the secretary who had dismissed M. Chauvelin and his republican peace with justified contempt, and who, with equal contempt, had denied the competence and will of the successive tyrants of France to make peace; was it possible that this man should now exhibit himself in close connexion with the antagonist of Pitt on every point of government, with the avowed reformer, the perpetual assertor of the sin- cerity of France, Fox, the orator of the populace, the champion of Jacobin peace, and the public ad- mirer and panegyrist of Napoleon ! The very name of a Coalition jarred on the public ear. It was the Y 322 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. opening of a sluice that let out a whole torrent of scorn. The national mind of England has never yet made a wrong judgment. A whole people, fur- nished as England is with the means of know- ledge, and the invaluable freedom of expressing its thoughts, that true salt of the constitution, cannot err. It is preserved from error by something like those great contrivances of Nature which make the salubrity of the ocean and the atmosphere ; the innumerable currents and diversities of public opinion, but preserve its activity, while they impel and guide each other into the general course of national safety and wisdom. Fox's coalition with North was the original sin of his life. He never recovered from that first and fatal impression. Yet, there, little was to be compromised but personal hostility. Here the hostility was upon all the principles of state ; and no ingenuity of gloss, no declared perse- verance in principle, and no ostentatious zeal for the good of the country, could prevent the nation from looking on Lord Grenville as a fallen man ; feebly attempting to cover with the remnant of his reputation the nakedness of Whiggism; bowing down at the footstool of office a head to which old experience ought to have taught wisdom, if it could not teach dignity ; and thenceforth worth- less for all purposes, but the humiliating and melancholy one, of a warning to all who should 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 323 in future be tempted by a pitiable appetite for power. The acts of the new coalition were inevitably marked with the disgraces and tergiversations of its parentage. Lord Grenville was appointed first lord of the Treasury. But he had already secured the auditorship of the Exchequer, a place of four thousand a-year for life, and this he was determined not to give up, obnoxious as it must be to the most contemptuous reflections. The national voice demanded, — under what pre- tence Lord Grenville could retain two offices totally incompatible with each other ? Why, in this instance alone, the disbursement of the public money, and the check on that disbursement, should be in the same officer ? Why, with one hand in the public purse, he should pass his accounts with the other ; be the supervisor over his own conduct, and give himself a receipt in full for his own integrity ? His lordship bore the storm with official philosophy — listened, and kept his four thou- sand pounds a-year. A poor attempt at evading public scandal was made, by appointing a trustee for the auditorship, whom his lordship was to pay ; a rigid inspector, of course, of the possible irregularities of the man on whose money he was to live ! Another compromise followed, of a still more hazardous nature. To strengthen the administra- 324 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. tion, it had been deemed necessary to summon the aid of Lord Sidmouth's friends; and his lordship's terms were, two seats in the cabinet, one for himself and one for Lord Ellenborough, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This direct attempt to connect the ministry with the courts of law, awoke alarm throughout the em- pire. The practical value of the free consti- tution of England exists in the courts of law. If the legislature is the bulwark of English li- berty; the purity and complete independence, pecuniary and political, of the bench of judges, is liberty itself. For, as no constitution can be worth the paper that it is written upon, while the subject fears for his person or his property ; the first ground and security of national freedom must' be in that majesty of law which protects him in doing all things that are manly, honest, and lawful. And it is thus that, while legis- latures may have been weak, and ministers rash or arbitrary, the practical freedom of this first and most fortunate of countries has suffered no disturbance for a hundred years ; has continually become more precious to its people ; and has secured, and will secure, England from the desperate convulsions which the very impulse of nature forces on foreign lands, to give even a partial restoration to the powers of man. A motion on this most repulsive appointment was brought forward by Lord Bristol in the Lords, 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 325 and by Mr. Spencer Stanhope in the Commons, — " That it was highly inexpedient, and tended to weaken the administration of justice, to summon to any committee or assembly of the privy council any of the judges of his majesty's courts of com- mon law." The motion was supported in the Lords by Lord Eldon, where it was negatived without a division! — and in the Commons by Canning, Wilberforce, Lord Castlereagh, and Mr. Perceval ; where, too, it was negatived, and almost with similar contumely, — by 222 to 64 ! Nothing could be more palpable than the evil of breaking down the barriers which shut out the influence of ministers from Westminster Hall. By turning the judge into the politician, he might be altogether perverted into a place- hunter ; and his integrity must be in a continual state of temptation, from the patronage of office. By making him a cabinet minister, he might be called on to enact measures of severity against the individual whom he might be also called on to try for life or death within the week. How was he to bring an unprejudiced mind into the courts, when he had already made up his determination in the cabinet? or to decide before God and the country on the case of the man, whom he had but a few hours past condemned as a libeller or a traitor before the minister and his colleagues? — What was to prevent the persecutor in the cabinet from being the homicide on the bench ? 326 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. Yet this appointment, which, in the public mind, amounted to the most violent departure from English principle ; which might have ra- pidly involved a total perversion of the law ; and which must have instantly shaken the na- tional confidence in the administration of justice, was carried with a high hand by the old cla- mourers for universal liberty ; the champions who, for two and twenty years, had made parliament, the hustings, and the tavern alike, ring with their more than patriotism ; the haughty challengers of the whole power of the state to lay a finger on the ark of the constitution ! The maxims which the coalition thus laboured, are worthy of being chronicled : — " The cabinet, as such, is not responsible for the measures of go- vernment! — No individual minister is respon- sible for more than his own acts, and such advice as he can be proved to have actually given! — A cabinet counsellor performs no duties, and incurs no 7*esponsibility , to which as a privy-counsellor he is not liable! — And the judges of England are not intended by the constitution of the country to be such insulated beings as speculative writers re- present them !" And those enormous absurdities were advanced and fiercely defended by the whole body of the Whigs ! Well might the nation burst into an out- cry of wonder and aversion. And well may men, yet untainted by politics, lift up their hands and 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 327 thank their God for the humble station, which has preserved them from being tempted to such betrayals of the head-long folly and short-sighted, sordid covetousness of human nature ! Compromise w 7 as the only principle which the new coalition seemed to acknowledge. The Catholic question was Fox's first bond, and to this he was pledged by the declarations of a life. But Lord Sidmouth was disinclined to it; and the King was resolved against it. That honest King had taken no degree in the new school of compromise; he left its hoods and gowns to cover the awkward procession of those " budge doctors of the stoic fur," the professors of expe- diency. He had instantly refused to concede. There was, then, no alternative but to resign, or to adjourn the question ; and it was adjourned. Ministers next required that the control of the army should be put into their hands ; in other words, that the Duke of York should be removed. This the king refused, on the obvious ground, that the army had been kept separate from the other branches of the administration since the time of the Duke of Cumberland ; and finally declared that he would not remove the Duke of York. The transaction closed, of course, in compromise; the ministers agreed that no change in the command should take place without the royal approbation. All was failure. Their financial discoveries, which had been heralded for years with all the 328 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. pomp and all the mystery of the new " Illumines" of Political Economy, — a science which has suc- ceeded to the honours and the merits of astro- logy, — - were found fit only to glitter in the pages of a review, and evaporated, upon trial, into two abortive taxes. But if the relief was visionary, not so was the burden. Whig finance left its mark in two tremendous impositions. The hated property-tax was raised from six and a half to ten per cent ! and ten per cent was added to the assessed taxes ! Their exploits as warriors were calculated to give them as high a niche in history as their financial achievements. They sent out four expeditions. The whole four failed ; some with heavy loss, some with ignominy, and all with ridicule! — Moore was compelled to fly from the mad king of Sweden in a cart, and to ship off his army at a moment's notice. — The expedition to Egypt was beaten on the old scene of British victory, was forced to lay down its arms to a rabble of Turks, and succeeded in nothing but in alienating the population. The expedition under Whitelock, to Buenos Ayres, is synony- mous with national shame : it insulted us with the scandalous spectacle of a British army beaten out of the country by a banditti. The expedition to the Dardanelles exhibited the combined dis- grace of our arms and our diplomacy ; the British ambassador baffled by the French, and even by the 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 329 brute policy of the Turkish agent; and the British fleet flying full sail down the Dardanelles, help- lessly battered by the Turkish cannon-balls. The four quarters of the globe were furnished with the trophies of a coalition ministry! There was one way more in which a cabinet could go wrong; and of that way they availed themselves with characteristic adroitness. Fox had scarcely entered upon office, when he was enticed into a negotiation by the French government ; and the finesse of the contrivance was worthy of Talleyrand. A stranger presented himself to the foreign secretary, with a proposal of assassinating the first consul. Fox, with the feelings of an English gentleman, was shocked at an idea so abominable; and ordering the proposer into custody, wrote a brief letter to the French court to mention the circumstance, and put Na- poleon on his guard against this illegitimate mode of terminating hostilities. Talleyrand's answer was equally brief, but contained a dexterous com- pliment from Napoleon on his correspondent's " honour and virtue." Another letter of equal civility, dated on the same day, conveyed an ap- propriate extract from Napoleon's speech on the opening of the legislature. The French minister's note is an exquisite specimen of the diplomatic art of " feeling the way." Note 2. " Sir, — It may be agreeable to you to receive news from this country. 330 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. " I send you the emperor's speech to the legis- lative body. You will therein see that our wishes are still for peace. / do not ask what is the pre- vailing inclination with you ; but if the advantages of peace are duly appreciated, you know on what basis it may be discussed." Note 3. — Extract from the speech. " I desire peace with England. On my part I shall never delay it a moment. I shall always be ready to conclude it, taking for its basis the stipulations of the treaty of Amiens." The snare was completely laid ; and the Whig cabinet was caught at the moment. Within a week from the receipt of those billets, a formal cabinet letter was despatched to the Tuileries, plunging headlong into the question, with all its bases, alliances, and compensations. What a sardonic smile must have sat on the lips of the two matchless confederates, as they looked over this letter together ! with what infinite bur- lesque must they have laughed at the wisdom of the wise ! We may almost forgive them their triumph, for the sake of its dexterity. Napo- leon's sworn purpose, from the day of Austerlitz, had been the fall of Prussia. He had felt his dignity molested by her threat of assisting Austria in the war ; and he was determined that, whatever capital of Europe he might seize in future, he would not have "a Prussian army of 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 331 a hundred and fifty thousand men on his flank, to frown at the operation ; Prussia was to be smitten! But by what artifice was England to be blindfolded, while the last military kingdom of the continent was turned into a kingdom of hewers of wood and drawers of water ? To sow jealousy between them, he gave Hanover to Prussia : the boon was grasped at with guilty eagerness ; and his object was effected at once. England was indignant at the treacherous ac- ceptance. Still, the approach of direct hos- tilities might rouse England, and even Russia, to her aid. It was essential to distract the atten- tion of both, while France was collecting that storm of havoc which was to sweep the monarchy of Frederic from the list of nations. A negotia- tion with England would at once paralyse the warlike preparations of the country, make Russia distrustful of our alliance, and cut off Prussia from all hope. Napoleon knew that Fox's ambition was, to be the peace-maker of Europe ; and he well re- membered, too, those conversations at the Tuile- ries, in which his guest had almost infringed on court etiquette in vindicating Pitt and Windham, with the loudest scorn and disdain, from all share in the conspiracy of " the infernal machine." It was at this sensitive point of his character that the artifice was levelled. The eloquent abhorrer of assassination was suddenly presented 332 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. in his closet with an avowed assassin. Of all the stimulants that art could devise, there was none more certain of kindling him. The calculation was incomparably true ; Fox, full of generous wrath, instantly wrote to apprise the first consul of his hazard. The letter was answered by bland homage, in which the " first consul recognised the honour and virtue" of his feelings; followed by a still blander promise of peace, from a speech made almost at the moment when the pretended assassin was sent from Paris ; and the train of artifice was begun, which left Prussia at the mercy of the destroyer. But all the details of this ludicrous negotia- tion were equally ludicrous. Talleyrand had completely involved the cabinet ; he had, with the ease of consummate skill, played on their peace-making vanity, and entrapped them even into the very folly which they had determined not to commit ; that of making the first over- tures. He had now a second pitfall for them. To make " assurance double sure," and prevent the possibility of their opening their eyes, he actually contrived to make them commission the first ambassador ! He sent for Lord Yarmouth, (since Marquess of Hertford), one of the detenus at Verdun, a nobleman of enormous fortune, but whose diplo- matic faculties were vet in the bud. Lord Yar- mouth obeyed the summons, commenced an 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 333 intercourse with Talleyrand in Paris, and was instantly meshed in the diplomatic web, and puzzled in the uti possidetis to such a profound degree, that ministers were compelled to send a superior to extract his lordship from his per- plexities ; or, in the confused phrase of office, " The necessity arose of some other negotiator, fully instructed in the sentiments of his majesty's government on all the various points of discussion that might arise," &c. &c. But the whole mystification is incomparable. Talleyrand had not chosen his diplomatist in vain ; and the familiar dexterity with which he drove his lordship into the toils, is one of the most amusing episodes in the history of negotia- tion. The wily Frenchman's purpose was to make the British cabinet answerable for every lapse of their unfledged agent; but this could not be done without the production of his powers to treat. He summoned him to a conference, and told him that the fates of Europe depended upon his instant dis- play of those weighty documents. " There was Germany," said the Frenchman, " a week ago you might have saved it, if you were empowered to negotiate : but the emperor could wait no longer: the fate of Germany was sealed : ct nous nen re- viendrons jamais .* — Russia is now in the scale. Will you save Russia ? Produce your full powers, ' We shall never recede from our decision. 334 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. or her fate will be sealed in two days ! — Switzer- land comes next : it is on the eve of undergoing a great change. Will you save it ? Nothing can do this but a peace with England : produce your full powers ! — We are on the point of invading Portugal. Nothing on earth but a peace with England can prevent our seizing it : our army is already gathering at Bayonne. All depends on England. Produce your full powers !" — But the keenest shaft was in reserve. " Prussia," said Talleyrand, " insists on our confirming her pos- session of Hanover ; and we cannot consent wan- tonly to lose the only ally France has had since the Revolution. Will you save Hanover, and thus permit us to prefer England to Prussia ? produce your full powers !" The appeal was irresistible. His lordship was remorselessly mystified. The visions of kingdoms falling and fallen round him were not to be with- stood, while he had the cheap restorative in his pocket : and, to save Europe, to arrest the pro- gress of Napoleon at the head of five hundred thousand men, and clip the wings of an am- bition that was longing to overshadow the world, Lord Yarmouth produced his full powers ; and began his career as a plenipotentiary ! How any man living could conceive, after ten years' display of Napoleon's character, that he was to be stopped by the trite fooleries of billets despatched every half hour from one hotel to 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 335 another; — how any person, walking the streets of Paris, could have escaped the knowledge that all France was ringing with preparation for a Prussian campaign, and that the most revengeful feelings against Prussia were exhibited on all occasions ; — how any man of common understanding could have doubted, that the kingdom in the jaws of destruc- tion, the ally which England should instantly seek and support, the last hope of the continent, was Prussia ; are questions which we must leave to the elucidation of noble plenipotentiaries alone. England was utterly astonished at this trans- action. Even the cabinet were forced to awake. A new diplomatist was forthwith transmitted, and a despatch written, to stop his lordship in this precipitate salvation of Europe. " I need hardly observe to your lordship," are Mr. Secre- tary Fox's emphatic words, " that it is of the utmost importance, that in the interim (till the arrival of the new ambassador) your lordship should avoid taking any step, or even holding any language, which may tend in the smallest degree to commit the opinion of his majesty's government on any part of the matters now depending." But the diplomatic depths of this unfortunate cabinet were not yet sounded. The Fabius sub- stituted for their rapid plenipotentiary was Lord Lauderdale, an old adherent of Fox, and a pam- phleteer on political economy ; and content to rest on those titles to fame. Yet this nobleman was not 336 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. to go alone ; he was to be supported by the political experience of Dugald Stewart! a lecturer of much reputation in the North, and probably a personage of formidable wisdom to an Edinburgh student of metaphysics. And those two were to combat the two ablest men in Europe ! Two dreamers of the schools, to come into conflict with two men of the first rank of political genius, invigorated by per- petual experience in the highest concerns: Lord Lauderdale and Dugald Stewart, hand to hand, against Talleyrand and Napoleon ! The negotiation was worthy of the negotiators. It was protracted for six months. All its objects might have been discussed in as many days. The ambassador was toyed and trifled with, in the most palpable and contemptuous manner. Some- times he was refused an audience ; sometimes he was kept lingering for an answer ; sometimes passports for his couriers were delayed; and at last passports for himself were withheld, until he must have begun seriously to think that his em- bassy would end in Verdun. Europe looked on in surprise ; England in mingled indignation and laughter. It is only justice to a great man's memory, to relieve Fox from the responsibility of this con- tinued burlesque. His bodily powers had been giving way, from the commencement of the year; though the direct symptoms of his mortal disease were not yet discoverable. In a letter to a friend, 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 337 soon after his accession to office, he said — " My life has been active beyond my strength; I had almost said, my duty. If I have not acted much, you will allow I have spoken much ; and I have felt more than I have either acted or spoken. My constitution has sunk under it. I find myself unequal to the business on which you have writ- ten ; it must be left to younger men." Napoleon and Talleyrand tossed those ambas- sadors between them like toys ; their object was to gain time ; and it was not till the actual hour when they had gathered the whole mass of destruction, which a touch was to let loose on Prussia, that they condescended to take the band- age from their eyes, and send them back to their insulted country. The negotiation had begun on the 20th of February, 1806. Lord Lauderdale received his passports on the 6th of October ; on the 9th, Napoleon was in sight of the Prussian army; and on the 14th he fought the fatal battle of Jena. In three hours he drove the Prussians from the field, with the loss of 60,000 killed, wounded, and prisoners ; and followed up the battle by the capture of all the Prussian soldiery, the surrender of all the fortresses, the seizure of the capital, and the pursuit of the king, — the total subjugation of the Prussian monarchy! Then was paid the long arrear of vengeance for the blood and chains of Poland. Fox was now dead, and the guidance of this disastrous administration had fallen into the hands z 338 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. of Lord Grenville. No compassion was felt for the growing embarrassments of a man who had abandoned the principles of his master. The honourable portion of the country rejoiced to see the cabinet bewilder themselves from day to day, until there was but one false step more to be made — and they made it. The Whigs had come into power under a pledge to the Catholic question. They found the king adverse to its discussion. They en- deavoured, in the first instance, to elude it, and yet retain the Catholics. They endeavoured, in the second, to grant it, and yet retain the king. They failed in both. The Catholics pronounced them deceivers : the king gave them that prac- tical proof of his opinion, which of all things they dreaded most, — he dismissed them. And thus, in the midst of general joy, perished the coalition ministry ; leaving no record of their existence, but in two bons-mots of Sheridan. On Lord Henry Petty's iron-tax being with- drawn, some one suggested a tax on coals, to make up the deficiency. " Poh," said Sheridan, " do you want to raise a rebellion in our kitchens? The cooks are worse than the blacksmiths. Tax coals instead of iron ! that would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the Jlre." But it was the Catholic question that excited his chief displeasure. None more thoroughly knew the secret of cabinet sincerity. He looked upon the question as a tub to the whale, and 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 339 had no forgiveness for the sport, in which his own office was to be wrecked. " Why did they not put it off, as Fox did," said the angry ex-trea- surer of the navy ; "I have heard of men running their heads against a wall ; but this is the first time I ever heard of men building a wall, and squaring it, and clamping it, for the express purpose of knocking out their brains against it." But the deed was done ; a Protestant ministry was established by the king. The coalition was totally broken down ; and Lord Grenville, exiled from power, never to return, was left to learn the bitter lesson, that no man can abandon even po- litical professions with impunity. All the laurels on this occasion remained with the king. Those who doubted his capacity, were now brought to their senses by the fact, that he had capacity enough to turn out the two most assuming administrations, in the shortest time known. The Fox and North coalition pronouncing itself an assemblage of all the public talent of England ; and the Fox and Grenville coalition, formed on the same contempt of public opinion, and making the same boast of matchless ability, were each turned out in little more than a year. The single step between " the sublime and the ridiculous,"* was never shorter than in the latter * The pithy maxim on this subject, which has been so often given to Napoleon's knowledge of the world, belonged to Paine. His celebrated phrase, la nation boutiquiere, belonged to Barras. 340 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807. instance. Insolence is not made to be forgiven ; and the titles of "the broad -bottomed adminis- tration," and " all the talents," threw this con- clave of self-sufficiency into national ridicule. But it was the insincerity, that sharpened, as it ought, every weapon of public scorn. The pen and the pencil were equally keen ; and if popular applause were the object of ministerial dreams, never was vanity more universally chastised. The following lines were attributed to Can- ning : ALL THE TALENTS. When the broad-bottomed junto, all nonsense and strife, Resigned, with a groan, its political life ; When converted to Rome, and of honesty tired, It to Satan gave back what himself had inspired ; The Demon of Faction, that over them hung:, In accents of anguish their epitaph sung ; While Pride and Venality joined in the stave, And canting Democracy wept on the grave. Here lies in the tomb that we hollowed for Pitt, The consistence of Grenville, of Temple the wit, Of Sidmouth the firmness, the temper of Grey, And Treasurer Sheridan's promise to pay. Here Petty 's finance, from the evils to come, With Fitzpatrick's sobriety creeps to the tomb ; And Chancellor Ego,* now left in the lurch, Neither laughs at the law, nor cuts jokes on the church." * Erskine. 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 341 Then huzza for the party that here's laid at rest — " All the talents," but self-praising blockheads at best : Though they sleep in oblivion, they've died with the hope, At the last day of freedom to rise with the Pope. The national feeling had been strongly ag- grieved by the debate on giving a public monu- ment to Pitt. On this occasion, it could not be expected that Fox should give any peculiar homage to a government which he had been opposing for so many years ; but his tribute to Pitt's personal abilities and virtues did himself honour. This manly example, however, was lost upon some of the speakers ; and Windham attracted no trivial resentment by a volunteer attack upon the me- mory of the great minister. It was a public cause, for England loved the name of Pitt, and looked upon it, as she still does, as a sacred part of her glory. Some stanzas of a poem which embodied the general sentiment had unusual popularity : — ELIJAH'S MANTLE. When, by th' Almighty's dread command, Elijah, call'd from Israel's land, Rose in the sacred flame, His mantle good Elisha caught, And, with the prophet's spirit fraught, Her second hope became. 342 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1807, In Pitt our Israel saw combined The patriot's heart — the prophet's mind, Elijah's spirit here: Now, sad reverse ! — that spirit reft, No confidence, no hope is left ; For no Elisha's near. Is there, among the greedy band Who seize on power with harpy hand, And patriot pride assume, One on whom public faith can rest — One fit to wear Elijah's vest, And cheer a nation's gloom ? Grenville ! — to aid thy treasury fame, A portion of Pitt's mantle claim, His genrous ardour feel; Resolve o'er sordid self to soar, Amidst Exchequer gold be poor ; Thy wealth — the public weal. Windham ! — if e'er thy sorrows flow For private loss or public wo, Thy rigid brow unbend ; Tears over Ceesar Brutus shed, His hatred warrd not with the dead — And Pitt was once thy friend. Illustrious Roscius of the state ! New-breech'd and harness'd for debate, Thou wonder of thv as;e ! Petty or Betty art thou bight, By Granta sent to strut thy night On Stephen's bustling stage. 1807. THE WHIG CABINET. 343 Pitt's 'Chequer robe 'tis thine to wear ; Take of his mantle too a share, 'Twill aid thy Ways and Means ; And should Fat Jack and his cabal, Cry, " Rob us the Exchequer, Hal !" Thou art but in thy teens. Sidmouth — though low his head is laid Who call'd thee from thy native shade, And gave thee second birth — Gave thee the sweets of power and place, The tufted gown, the gilded mace, And rear'd thy nameless worth ; Think how his mantle wrapp'd thee round: Is one of equal virtue found Among thy new compeers ? Or can thy cloak of Amiens stuff, Once laugh'd to scorn by Blue and Buff, Screen thee from Windham's jeers? When Faction threaten'd Britain's land, Thy new-made friends — a desperate band, Like Ahab, stood reproved : Pitt's powerful tongue their rage could check ; His counsel saved, 'mid mankind's wreck, The Israel that he loved. Yes, honour'd shade ! whilst near thy grave, The letter'd sage, and chieftain brave, The votive marble claim ; O'er thy cold corse — the public tear Congeal'd, a crystal shrine shall rear, Unsullied as thy fame !" 344 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808 CHAPTER XIV. THE SPANISH WAR. The deliverance of Europe began, when, to human eyes, it was ruined beyond hope. The continent was at peace — the dreadful peace of slavery. The sword was the only instrument of domi- nion. The final struggle had been made, for even that mutilated independence which nations could enjoy, in perpetual terror of a French army ; and watching, with feverish anxiety, every sign of wrath from a man of blood and avarice, capricious as the winds, and steady only to the one desperate purpose of turning the world into a French dungeon. The strength of the allies had been suc- cessively tried, and found wanting : Austria had been overwhelmed in a three months' campaign;* Prussia in a day. The Russian armies had been driven back on their own territory ; and even their partial escape was soon turned into worse than defeat, by the rash and ignominious treaty of Tilsit. In 1807, Napoleon possessed a power unequalled in extent by any monarchy since the * Closed at Austerlitz, December 26, 1806. 1808. THE SPANISH WAR. 345 time of Charles V., and immeasurably superior to his in point of effective strength, of opulence, in- telligence, and the facility of being directed to any purpose of his ambition. No European sovereign ever possessed such personal supremacy over the means and minds of his subjects. France was a great camp ; the people were an army ; the go- vernment was as simple, rigid, and unquestioned, as the command of a brigade ; and Napoleon was the general-in-chief. His business was, to cam- paign against Europe ; and when the campaign was done, his leisure was employed, or amused, in dis- tributing its provinces and crowns to his soldiers. In the pause after the overthrow of Russia at Golomyn and Pultusk, he divided his conquests. He gave the crown of Holland to Louis, his bro- ther ; annexing Venice to the kingdom of Italy, he gave the whole to his step-son, Beauharnois, as viceroy ; he gave the kingdom of Naples to Joseph, his brother; Berg and Cleves to Murat, his brother-in-law ; Guastalla to Prince Borghese, another brother-in-law; the principalities ofNeuf- chatel and Ponte-Corvo to Berthier and Berna- dotte; repaid the civil services of Talleyrand with Benevento ; and when this was done, resumed his preparations for the seizure of Spain, Portugal, and Poland ! England was still unconquerable ; but she had been severely tried. Her efforts to sustain the cause of Europe had pressed heavily upon her 346 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808. strength. She had paid all the allied armies; and lavished her wealth, with no return but that of seeing the continent laid at the foot of the enemy. But the struggle had been at a distance ; it was now to be brought home. By the most extraordinary measure in the annals of hostility, the Berlin and Milan decrees, a line of fire was to be drawn round the con- tinent, and England excluded from the intercourse of nations. Napoleon had felt from the beginning that this country was the great antagonist with whom, sooner or later, he must cope for existence. His object was universal despotism : but the con- tinent could not be finally enslaved while there was still one land, from which . the words of freedom and courage were perpetually echoing in the general ear ; whose trumpet was sounding to every dejected heart of the patriot and the sol- dier; and whose proud security, fearless opulence, and perfect enjoyment of peace, in the midst of the convulsions of the world, gave unanswerable evidence that freedom was worth the highest sacrifices that could be made by man. England was inaccessible to the arms of Na- poleon, and his arts were now sufficiently known: but if her spirit was not to be humbled, her re- sources might be dried up ; and to this project he applied himself with the singular perseverance and recklessness of his nature. He knew that the first evil must fall upon himself; for the 1808. THE SPANISH WAR. 347 whole of the immense line of coast stretching from the Meuse to the Vistula, lived upon English commerce ; and on the plunder of those provinces depended a large portion of the French revenue. But, at all risks, England was to be ruined. When the deputies from Hamburgh represented to him the havoc that the Berlin and Milan de- crees were making in their city, his answer was the brief one of a military tyrant : — " What is that to me ? The war must not go on for ever. You suffer only like the rest. English commerce must be destroyed." This answer was the signal of universal bank- ruptcy. The recollections of that period in Ger- many amount to the tragic and the terrible. Perhaps no single act of tyranny had ever in- flicted such sweeping misery upon mankind. The whole frame of society was rent asunder, as by a thunderstroke. Property was instantly valueless, or a source of persecution. The mer- chandise which had been purchased but the clay before, under the sanction of the French authori- ties, and paid every impost levied by the devouring crowd of prefects and plunderers, was torn from the warehouses, and burned before the unfortunate proprietors' eyes. The casual stagnations of trade, or the change of popular taste for a manufacture, are always the source of miserable suffering. But here was more than stagnation or change : it was utter 348 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808. ruin, without a hope of recovery. The result was inevitable, and dreadful. Thousands and tens of thousands were thrown loose upon the world, with all their knowledge useless, their habits broken up, and their prospects destroyed. The great merchant dismissed his clerks, shut his doors, and lived upon his decaying capital ; and even then lived in hourly expectation of some new forced loan, which should send him to beg in the streets. The inferior ranks of trade were undone at once ; and sank into paupers, living on the charity of the French barracks. Germany was one immense poor-house. But, within a short period, the humblest resources of poverty failed : the funds of the old charitable institutions either fell into decay, or were seized on by the merciless rapacity of the invader. Orphans, and old people, and even the lunatic and idiot, were driven into the fields, to take their chance with the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air. Time and season made no difference with this hideous tyranny. Hospitals have been emptied of their unfortunate tenants at the point of the bayonet, in the depth of a German winter ; and the blind and the bed-rid, the paralytic, the fevered, the wounded, and the mad, cast out to scatter themselves over a wilderness of snow, and die. Then came the conscription, another and a still more heart-breaking scourge. In all the terri- 1808. THE SPANISH WAR. 349 tories annexed to France, the yearly drawing, or some equivalent levy, was imposed. As a tax it was ruinous, for the price of a substitute was fre- quently equal to five hundred pounds sterling; and even where a wretched family had wrung this sum from their last means, to save a son or a brother from the hazards of Napoleon's sanguinary warfare ; the death or desertion of the substitute, both hourly occurring, brought a new demand on the conscript, and he must march. The accept- ance of a substitute was itself an imperial favour, generally paid for at a high rate to the French agents ; and the difficulty, in all cases, was so great, that nearly the whole youth of the country were compelled to serve in person. No language can exaggerate the wretchedness of mind felt by the families of those devoted young men, when every day brought accounts of some desperate action ; or hurried march, scarcely less ruinous than battle ; or frightful contagion, breaking out in the desolated scenes of the campaign, and extinguishing the survivors of the field by mul- titudes. But the conscription was not limited to a yearly slaughter. The first Russian campaign cost three conscriptions, each of eighty thousand men ; and they were almost totally destroyed by the enemy, the inclemency of a Polish winter, and the miseries of the French hospitals. Yet the evil of the system went deeper than the 350 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808. casualties of the field. The boy of eighteen, sud- denly thrown into contact with the profligacy of a camp, was vitiated for life : he saw before him, from day to day, every temptation that can sti- mulate the hot passions of man, and every horror that can harden the heart ; he lived in the midst of plunder, bloodshed, and promiscuous vice ; until the sabre or the cannon-ball came to sweep him out of life, he was master of all that he cast his eyes upon ; and the brief tenure of the possession only inflamed his guilty appetites the more. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," never was realised with such furious license as in the campaigns of the French imperial army. The soldier rushed on in a perpetual whirlwind of revelry, robbery, and blood. The natural consequence was, that families looked upon their sons as mere food for the sword ; and utterly neglected the morals, religion, and education, which were so soon to be made useless by massacre. The few parents who per- severed in doing their duty, watched with agony every fluctuation of the war, and lived in constant dread of the moment when they should be called on to surrender their children to death, or to what must be, in the mind of the wise and virtuous, worse than death. Even where the sword had mercy, no man could expect to see his son re- turn, the being that he had sent him : he saw him dismembered by wounds and disease, an encum- 1808. THE SPANISH WAR. 351 brance to himself and the world; or bringing back the deep corruptions of the soldier's life ; con- temptuous of morals and religion, a restless pro- fligate, unfit for any one of the rational enjoyments or generous labours of society, and longing only for the fierce excesses of the field again. But this spectacle was seldom allowed. The wars of Napoleon were computed to have cost France more than two millions of men ; they mowed down the whole rising generation. " I can afford ten thousand men a-day," was said to be the boast of this iron homicide. Nothing struck the eye of the traveller more than the almost total deficiency of youth in France. " II riy a point de jeunesse" was the universal remark of the allies, on their march through the pro- vinces. The consummate plague of the Egyp- tians, the last wrath of Heaven, had been the first infliction of France on herself : she felt the universal smiting of the first-born ; " there was not a house where there was not one dead." But if France was chastised, the whole im- mense extent of the conquered provinces, formed into French departments, or given as appanages to some worthless relative, or court-slave, was tor- tured. A system of espionage was established, subtle, and subversive of all the best feelings of society, to a fatal degree. Like another scriptural curse, " A man's chief enemies were those of his own household." The simplest word uttered 352 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808. before a menial, or even a relative, might be made the subject of an accusation, that cost a life. Even the bordering kingdoms, which enjoyed a nominal independence, were visited by this plague. It was a maxim — that no individual was safe within three days' march of a French garrison ! The continent, from the Channel to the confines of Russia, was tormented with surveillance. Through- out three-fourths of Europe, no man could be sure that he would ever eat another meal under his own roof. No man, laying down his head on his pillow, could be sure that he would not be startled before morn by some frightful domiciliary visit, under the pretext of searching for English merchandise, but in reality for his own seizure; or that he would not be whirled away to some fortress, from which he was never to emerge ; or emerge, only to be brought to a mock trial at Milan, or Mantua, or Paris, and perish before a military tri- bunal ! The French mob had demolished one Bastile, and found in it but one prisoner. Napo- leon created eight bastiles ; and the list of his state prisoners amounted to hundreds: those were never to be liberated. The imprisoned for minor offences, chiefly on political suspicion, were ascer- tained, on the fall of the empire, to be upwards of fifty thousand ! Such are the lessons of govern- ment given by a legislator from the field. It is to the honour of England, or rather of that freedom which supplies nerve and virtue to 1808. THE SPANISH WAR. 353 a people, that her determination never gave way. Yet the evils of protracted hostility were now pressing on her with a weight which it required all her fortitude to sustain. The vividness of actual conflict was gone. There was no enemy on the seas, to animate her with new triumph ; war on land was hopeless against the bulwark of steel that fenced the empire and the vassals of Napoleon. Her pillars of state and war had fallen ; Pitt, Fox, and Nelson, within a few months of each other. The Berlin and Milan decrees, after working their indescribable ruin on the continent, were gradu- ally sapping her commerce. The enemy had at last detected the vulnerable part of her strength ; and England was now less a vigorous and warlike nation, fighting her enemy round the globe, and striking active blows wherever he was to be found ; than a great blockaded garrison, waiting within its walls for the attack, forced to husband its materials of support, and preparing to display the last powers of passive fortitude. In this crisis ; when all hope of change had vanished ; when, unquestionably, mere valour and energy had done their utmost ; and slavery or eternal war seemed to be the only alternative of nations ; an interposition, a single event, unex- pected as the descent of a spirit of heaven, threw a sudden light across Europe, and sum- moned the day. It does not derogate from this high deliver- A A 354 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808. ance ; which we will believe to have been pro- vidential; that it acted by human passions. The profligate habits of the Spanish court had suffered Godoy, an adventurer, to rise to eminence. The king was a man of weak understanding, — the queen was a libertine, — and Godoy was the open ruler of both. But even in Spain, sunk as it was in the deepest slough of indolence, and kept down there by the heel of the most sullen and jealous superstition that ever oppressed the hu- man mind ; there were curses, deep yet loud enough to reach, from time to time, the ear of the minister, and make him anxious to provide some supreme power safer from the knife and the poison. He proposed the partition of Portugal to Napo- leon, securing to himself the province of Alentejo in sovereignty, as a recompense for conniving at the march of the French army through Spain. But he had to deal with one whose sagacity foresaw every thing, and whose ambition grasped at every thing. Napoleon seized Portugal, and gave the traitor no share. The treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, relieved him from the chances of northern war, and he next turned upon Spain. The tissue of artifice which he wound round the nerveless understanding of the Spanish court, is unrivalled. He alternately sided with the Prince of Asturias against the king, with the king against the prince, and with both against Godoy ; until, by mere dexterity, he induced king, queen, 1808. THE SPANISH WAR. 355 prince, and Godoy, quietly to give themselves up to him, walk into his prisons, and leave the Spanish throne at his disposal. But there was a scene of blood to come. Those royal imbeciles were not worth his fury, they had felt but the velvet of the tiger's paw ; others were to feel its talons ; and they were in- stantly darted at the throat of Spain. The first announcement of French dominion in the capital was by a massacre ! Then awoke the feelings that God has treasured in the heart of man, to save him from the last degradation. That day's blood dyed the robe of the usurper with a colour never to be washed away. The ten millions of Spain rose as one man. Without leaders, without arms, without military expe- rience, concert, or knowledge, they rushed upon the invaders, and overthrew them like a hurri- cane. The French veterans, who had seen the flight of all the disciplined armies of Europe with their princes at their head, were routed and slaughtered by shepherds and tillers of the ground, by women and children ; with no other fortresses than the rocks, no other allies than the soil and sky, and no other arms than the first rustic implement that could be caught up for the de- struction of a murderer. It is only due to the feelings of England to declare, that the whole nation rejoiced disinter- estedly in this proud attitude of Spain. What- 356 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1808. ever might be the advantages of thus recom- mencing the contest with Napoleon, on a new field, and assisted by auxiliaries in whose cause every heart of Europe sympathised ; the first and strongest impulse was an unselfish desire to sup- port the peninsula, to the last shilling and last soldier of the kingdom. Napoleon had long ascended to a height from which he might look down upon the diadems of Europe; but, as if to point the moral of ambition, he was yet suffered, for a moment, to enjoy an actual indulgence and personal splendour of sove- reignty, to which all the earlier pomps of his em- pire were pale. He now sat down to a banquet of kingship, and feasted to the full ; while, an eye which glanced through the future, would have seen his throne smitten under him, and his name a by-word among nations. But, for the moment, Europe had never witnessed so mag- nificent a spectacle of dominion as Napoleon's court at Erfurt. He was surrounded by the monarchs and princes of the continent in person. The Emperor of Russia with his brother Con- stantine, daily attended his levees ; the Emperor of Austria sent an ambassador to apologise for his absence at the feet of this universal king ; all the first military and noble names of Europe, marshals, dukes, princes, and prelates, formed his circle. The days were spent in the occupa- tions suitable to this display of royalty ; in riding 1809. THE SPANISH WAR. 357 over fields of battle, negotiating treaties, and deciding the fates of kingdoms. Prussia was forgiven, at the intercession of Alexander ; a new code was vouchsafed to Holland ; a peace was proposed to England, — which she firmly refused, unless it should include the freedom of Spain ; and the German powers were haughtily commanded to be still, and obey. No human being could feel this homage with a keener zest than Napoleon himself. The long possession of a throne had not deadened the slightest nerve of his sense of su- premacy; — "Come and play at Erfurt," he wrote to Talma, with the loftiest sneer, — " you shall play before a pitful of kings" He broke up the Conference, to pour an army of two hundred thousand men upon Spain. 1809. — The Spanish war teemed with great lessons ; and the first was, that the only security against public ruin is a free constitution. It would have saved Spain from that miserable spectacle of a depraved and effeminate court, a domineering priesthood, and a decaying people, which invited an invader ; and it would have not less supplied the only strength which renders a country uncon- querable. The enthusiasm of the Spanish pea- santry was beyond all praise ; but it expired in a year. Joseph Buonaparte, " the intrusive king," as he was named by his indignant subjects, returned to Madrid ; and Napoleon, after having brushed away the undisciplined levies of the juntas, as 358 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1809. his charger would a swarm of flies, rode through the peninsula at his ease. In one corner of Spain alone he found resist- ance, a foretaste of that fiery valour which was yet to cost him his diadem. The corps under Moore, after having been endangered alternately by the treason of the Spanish chief, the rashness of the British envoy, and the perplexity of the British general, had at length retired upon Ga- licia. Napoleon, who felt, at all times, a personal exasperation against England, determined to strike a blow at her heart, by utterly crushing this corps: in his own ruthless phrase, — "he would put all the wives and mothers of England into mourning." He thundered after Moore with a force of forty thousand men. But he found that the British soldier and sailor were men of the same blood ; the spirit of Trafal- gar was before him. He ought to have extin- guished the retreating army at once : his number amounted to nearly three times theirs : he had all the advantages of command of the country, un- limited resources, high equipment, troops flushed with uncontested victory, and, more than all, his own mighty name : before him was a small body of men, hopeless of the contest, disgusted with the country, uncertain of their general, and in re- treat — a word that of itself throws a damp upon the soldier, and pre-eminently upon the soldier of England. Yet upon that little army the con- 1809. THE SPANISH WAR. 359 queror of the continent was never able to make the slightest impression. The elements fought against them ; the rains and snows threw their battalions into disorder : famine unnerved them ; but they felt no other victors. The wild moun- tains and dreary defiles of Galicia, proverbial for barrenness, were covered with the dying and the dead, the wreck of the British army, wasted by night marches, hunger, weariness, and despair : but the bold spirit survived ; the sound of a French gun was as the sound of a trumpet ; the mutinous were instantly restored to order, the fugitive returned, the wounded forgot their wounds, the famished and the dying started from the ground, gathered their last strength, and died with the musket in their hands. Napoleon's sagacity did not fail him here. A few rencontres of the British rear-guard with the elite of his troops, soon convinced him that at least no glory was to be gained by the pursuit : and after a brief but gallant cavalry action, in which Lords Stewart and Paget broke the squa- drons of his favourite regiment of guards,* and at * This action delighted the French infantry. They saw every feature of it from the heights, and were rejoiced at the defeat of the guard. The French cavalry had assumed that air of superiority over the other branches of the service, which those branches, in all countries, so naturally repay with dislike ; and the cavalry of the imperial guard were only the more remarkable for this military coxcombry. They added to their pride in themselves 3G0 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1809. which he was said to have been present; he turned away to easier triumphs, and committed to Soult the rough experiment of " driving the British into the sea." As it was his habitual policy to keep the marshal's baton at a suf- ficient distance from the sceptre; he had, pro- bably, no disinclination to see Soult's pride, which had already given him some disturbance in Portugal, slightly lectured by the English sword. He now left him to pursue fortune to the borders of the English element. Never was commander more baffled. He was unable to gain a single and their horses, in their mustachios, and the vulgar mummeries of court soldiership, demands of a choice of quarters, and other privileges, which excited the gall of the regiments of the line more than their tinsel and feathers. On this occasion, they had rode down, under Le Clerc, a favourite aid-de-camp of the emperor, to " annihilate the Eng- lish ;" for their contempt of our dismantled troops was in the highest tone. The whole French camp ran out to see this easy victory. They were not kept long in suspense; the British hussars made quick work of it ; they no sooner saw the showy garde, than they dashed at them, broke them in all directions, drove one part back through the river, and made the rest, with their general, prisoners. The fugitives, on re-ascending the hill, were received with a general shout of scorn by the infantry; taunted with all kinds of insolent questions, and asked " how they liked annihilating the enemy?" — " whether they were pleased with the cold bath after their promenade ?" — and, above all " what quarters they would prefer for the night ?" The guards were in no condition to retort, but sullenly rode to the rear and were hazarded no more in skirmishes. 1809. THE SPANISH WAR. 36 I advantage, in the most disastrous march of the war. Moore reached Corunna, with his army in a state of almost total ruin ; without cavalry, artillery, or baggage ; without tents, shoes, me- dicine, money, or food. They had expected to find provisions on the road, — they found every hut deserted ; the fleet was to have been ready to receive them at Corunna, — from the heights they could not see a sail round the horizon. The Spaniards had nothing in their magazines but brandy, which made them frenzied and furious ; or the impoverished wine of the province, which produced disorders. — But the sight of the French columns overtopping the heights round Corunna, made them soldiers once more. They bore the shock of their well-appointed antagonists with national fortitude, rushed upon them in return, with half their numbers drove them back on every point, and, covering the ground with slaughter, remained masters of the field. Moore fell, in the moment of victory, cancelling all his errors by his gallant death, and earning for him- self a record in the hearts of his countrymen. The army embarked without a shot being fired by the enemy. Soult had received too severe a lesson to hazard a second trial. The lion had turned round on the hunter, given him a grasp that paralysed him, and then walked quietly away. The Spanish war lingered. The enthusiasm of the multitude must always be transitory. Their 362 GEORGE THE FOURTH, 1809. means of life are too dependent on daily exertion, and too much exposed to an invader, to make them capable of long enduring a warfare in the bosom of the land. The beginning of the second campaign found the insurrection melted away, the enemy masters of the chief cities, and the people in despair. The hatred subsisted ; but the lofty passion, the valour in the field, and the zeal of public sacrifice, were gone. The dagger was feebly substituted for the sword ; and the blood of Frenchman and Spaniard was spilled in the gloomy and useless interchanges of private vengeance and military retribution. Now was fulfilled the evil of a despotic go- vernment. It is the instinct of all despotisms to extinguish individual character. They have no fear of a generation of nobles ; such as cling to the skirts of foreign courts, fed on the emoluments of fictitious offices, and content to discover dignity in stars and strings. They have no fear of a peasantry ; who are too remote, and too busy in toiling for their daily bread, to be objects of alarm. But their terror is the middle order ; the natural deposit of the virtue, manliness, and vigour of a state ; the trunk of the tree, which both root and leaf were created to feed, and without which they would both be but cumberers of the ground. There was no middle order in Spain. A Roman Catholic throne and priesthood had long trampled 1809. THE SPANISH WAR. 363 it into the grave. For centuries, every vigorous intellect or free spirit that started up in Spain, had expiated its offence by the dungeons of the Inquisition, or death. The hour of national peril came ; the hero and the statesman were then wildly called for, but the call was unanswered ; they were not in existence ; the soul was in the grave, or on the winds ; and Spain, once so admi- rable for the brilliancy of its warlike and poli- tical genius, exhibited the extraordinary reverse, of ten millions of brave men without a soldier to lead them ; and juntas and councils in every province without a statesman capable of direct- i ing them to any measure of common wisdom. The burden soon fell on the British, and it was heroically sustained. But the successes of the peninsular war are too familiar to be de- tailed here. Six years of almost uninterrupted campaigns, in which all the resources of the art of war were displayed on both sides ; proved that England could be as invincible by land as on the ocean, placed the Duke of Wel- lington in a rank with Marlborough, planted the British standard in France for the first time since the Henries and Edwards, and gave the first blow, within his own frontiers, to the hitherto unchecked and unrivalled career of Napoleon. The British army alone had interposed be- tween Spain and total slavery. For some years its strength was inadequate to the extent of the 364 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1809. field, and to the vast resources of the French empire. But a large share of its difficulties arose from the Spaniards themselves. The successive parties which assumed the government were found equally feeble. The spirit of the juntas was timid, frivolous, and formalising. With the most worthless part of national pride, they felt it an insult to be saved by the sword of strangers ; with the lowest part of national prudence, they dreaded to irritate the enemy by defeating him. They hated the French, but they would not be helped by the English, and they could not help themselves. In this decrepitude, they solaced their wounded vanity by satires and ballads, determinations of future heroism, and the grand recollection, — that their forefathers had expelled the Moors, though the feat had cost them three hundred years ! Those absurdities should be remembered for higher purposes than ridicule. They shew how totally the spirit of a grave and high-hearted people may be perverted by a false system of government. The old, generous virtue of the Spanish soil had now force enough only to throw up those flaunting weeds. With liberty, it had lost the rich productiveness of liberty. The juntas differed from the courtiers of the Philips and Ferdinands in nothing but a cockade. A few years saw them sink into insignificance ; and they merited their fate. They had made no 1809. THE SPANISH WAR. 365 use of the highest advantages of their connexion with England. From the great land of freedom, literature, and religion, they borrowed nothing but money and arms. They shrank from the natural and only means of renovating the national heart. While Spain was under the foot of her enemy, with the blood gushing from a thousand wounds, they would suffer no infusion of that living stream of health and virtue which glowed under the im- pregnable corslet of England. They turned away their purblind eyes from the splendours which should have taught them to see ; and abjured her press, her legislature, and, above all, her religion. The cry of " Heresy" was as keen as in the days of Loyola. They dug up the bodies of the English soldiers, as unworthy to sleep in the same clay with a Spaniard. They repelled and suppressed the Bible ! that first book which a true legislator would put into the hands of his people, even as the noblest manual of patriotism. All the art of man was never able to reconcile religious slavery with civil freedom. What can be the independence of him who, but by the per- mission of a priest, dares not read the Bible — that first and most perennial source of freedom ; that highest fount of stainless principle, unhesitating courage, and fidelity strong as the grave ; which, while it ministers, beyond all philosophy, to the contentment of a private career, and divests the bosom of all eagerness for the trivial and vanishing 366 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1809. distinctions of public life, yet lays every man under the responsibility of exerting his best powers for the public good ; that book, which, teaching him to be zealous without violence, and aspiring without ambition, and filling his mind with calmer and loftier contemplations than the unsubstantial visions of earth, prepares him to look with com- posure on the severest sacrifices, solicit no other praise than the testimony of his own conscience, and silently devote himself to the cause of man, and of that mighty Being who will not suffer him to be tempted beyond his power. 1811. THE REGENCY. 367 CHAPTER XV. THE REGENCY. The Prince of Wales, after a long retirement from public life, was recalled by an event which created the deepest sorrow throughout the empire. The affliction which, in 1788, had made the king incapable of government, was announced to have returned.* A Regency Bill, with restrictions, to last for a year, was passed. The more than useless bitterness of the old contest was not renewed ; its leaders had perished ; a judicious declaration that the prince, from respect to the king, would make no immediate change in the ministry, at once quieted fears and extinguished hopes ; and, with all resistance at home conquered, or neutral- ised, he entered upon the great office of Regent of a dominion extending through every quarter of the globe, numbering one hundred millions of people, and constituting the grand resource of liberty, knowledge, and religion, to mankind. The reign of George the Third was now at an end, for though nominally monarch, he never resumed the throne. The lucid intervals of his * October 25, 1810. 368 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1811. malady soon ceased, and the last ten years of his life were passed in dreams. Perhaps this afflic- tion, from which human nature shrinks with such terror, was meant in mercy. He had lost his sight some years before ; and blindness, a fearful privation to all, must have been a peculiar suffer- ing to one so remarkable for his habits of dili- gence and activity. The successive deaths of those whom we love, are the bitter portion of age; and in the course of a few years the king must have seen the graves of his queen, his son, and of that grand-daughter, whose early death broke off the lineal succession of his throne. It is gratifying to the recollections which still adhere to this honest and good king, to believe that, in his solitude, he escaped the sense of those mis- fortunes. The mind, " of imagination all com- pact," is not to be reached by exterior calamities. All that human care could provide for the comfort of his age was sacredly attended to. A letter from the Princess Elizabeth to Lady Suffolk, one of the former suite of the royal family, states — " that his majesty seemed to feel perfect happi- ness ; he seemed to consider himself no longer as an inhabitant of earth, and often, when he played one of his favourite tunes, observed, that he was very fond of it when he was in the world. He spoke of the queen and all his family, and hoped that they were happy now, for he was much attached to them when in the world." 1811. THE REGENCY. 369 The character of George the Third was pe- culiarly English. Manly, plain, and pious, in his individual habits ; he was high-minded, bold, and indefatigable, in maintaining the rights of his people and the honour of his crown. He was *■ every inch a king!" The sovereign of England differs in his office and spirit from all others : he is not an idol, to be shewn forth only in some great periodic solemnity, and then laid up in stately useless- ness; but a living and active agent, called to mingle among the hearts and bosoms of men ; not a gilded bauble on the summit of the consti- tution, but a part of the solid architecture, a chief pillar of the dome. If this increase his sphere of duty, and compel him often to feel that he is but a man, it increases his strength and security. The independence of other monarchs may seem more complete, but history is full of examples of its precariousness; it is the independence of an amputated limb. The connexion of an English king with his people, is the connexion of a com- mon life, the same constitutional current running through the veins of all, a communion of feelings and necessities, which, if it compel the king to take a share in the anxieties of the people, re- turns it largely by compelling the people to take a vital interest in the honour and safety of the king. Placed by the law at the head of the common- wealth, he excites and enjoys the most remote B B 370 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1811. circulation of its fame, wealth, and freedom ; he is the highest and noblest organ of public sen- sation, but, for every impulse which he commu- nicates, he receives vigour in return. " Agitat molem, magnoque se corpore miscet." No sovereign of England was ever more a monarch, in this sense of public care, than George the Third : he was altogether a creature of the commonwealth ; his personal choice appointed his ministers, he sat in their councils, all their proceedings came under his revision ; he knew nothing of favouritism nor party ; and indulging a natural and generous interest in the fortunes of his friends to the last, he threw off with his boyhood the predilections of the boy, and thence- forth suffered no personal feelings to impede the business of the country. The king's qualities were subjected to three stern, successive tests, each exhibiting him in a different point of view, and each rising above the other in difficulty. He was thus tried as an in- dividual, as an English monarch, and as the head of the European confederacy of thrones. In the early part of his reign, the royal person was the first object of attack. All parties pro- fessed themselves alike zealous for the consti- tution, but the haters of government struck at the sitter on the throne. Ministers rose and fell too rapidly to make them a sufficient mark ; the libel, which would have been wasted upon those sha- 1811. THE REGENCY. 371 dows, was levelled at the master who summoned them ; and the manliness with which the king stood forward to take upon himself the respon- sibility of government, exposed him to every shaft of malice, disappointment, and revenge. But assailants like those are born to perish ; and the name of Wilkes alone survives, preserved, doubtless, by the real services which he involun- tarily rendered to the constitution. Wilkes would have been a courtier by inclination, if he had not been a demagogue by necessity. Witty, subtle, and licentious, he would have glittered as an appendage to the court of Charles the Second ; but the severe virtues of George the Third drove him to the populace. Yet he was altogether different from those who have since influenced the multitude. He had no natural gra- vitation to the mob : if he submitted to their con- tact, it was, like Coriolanus, for " their voices;" it was to be carried by them in triumph, that he condescended to trust himself in their hands. His object was less to overthrow the higher ranks, than to force his way among them ; less to raise an unknown name by flinging his firebrand into the temple of the constitution, than to menace government until it purchased oft' the incendiary ; he had no internecine hatred of all that was above him in genius, birth, or fortune. But, culprit as he was, there was grave oc- casion for him at the time. All power loves 372 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1811. increase : an arbitrary spirit was creeping on the constitution; that spirit which, like the toad at the ear of our first parents, is content to come in the meanest shape, but which contains within itself the powers of a giant armed. The prerogative which had been wrested from the throne was usurped by the minister, and a secretary of state's warrant differed from a lettre cle cachet only in name. While those committals were valid, no man was secure ; and liberty must either have perished, or been restored by the desperate remedy of a revolution. Wilkes fought this battle at his own risk, for the country ; and, selfish as his patriotism was, the service deserves not to be forgotten. But, from this crisis the king came out un- stained. Neither the crime nor the resistance was his. And in that calmer hour which, soon or late, comes to all men; Wilkes, satisfied and old, and with leisure to repent of faction, was in the habit of offering a ready homage to the virtues and sincerity of the king. After a few years the king was summoned to war by the revolt of America. The success of that revolt cannot justify it. If the colonies were oppressed, the oppression was retracted, and they were offered even more than they had ever asked. But their object had speedily grown, from relief into rebellion, and from alliance into independ- ence ; eventually, a fortunate result for England, 1811. THE REGENCY. 373 which might have seen the constitution overthrown by the weight of American patronage. We are not to judge of the wisdom that un- dertook the war, by its conduct in inferior hands. But the contest was altogether new, and fitted to be the disgrace of political and military calcu- lation, the " opprobrium regalis medicinte." The tactics of a peasant war were an unsolved problem in the science. The strength of army against army might be calculated ; but where was the arithmetic for the wilderness, for the swamp, the impenetrable forest, and the malignant sky ? But, while the struggle was in suspense, a new antago- nist appeared. France, in short-sighted jealousy of England, broke her treaties, and ranged herself on the enemy's side ; tyranny and democracy formed that singular alliance which was so fiercely repaid on the French throne. But the war was concluded. The king's duty had been done : he was not to see tamely the dismemberment of his empire. When the transaction was complete, the same duty made him acquiesce in the fate of battle. Yet, this partial reverse was suddenly and magnificently compensated to England by her triumphs over France and Spain. The defeats of the enemy's fleets were memorable ; and the thunders of her victory had scarcely died on the Atlantic, when they were echoed back from the battlements of Gibraltar. The spot upon her 374 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1811. fame was but a spot upon the sun, visible for a moment, and then burning into tenfold glory. The final and the heaviest trial was at hand. The middle of the eighteenth century had exhi- bited phenomena from which the most inexpe- rienced glance augured that some extraordinary change was at hand. The public mind wore nothing of the old, contented physiognomy of the fifty years before : the period began with bold doubts and giddy conclusions ; every topic that had once been approached with sacred respect, was treated with increasing familiarity and scorn; scepticism in religion, law, and government, be- came the distinction of the popular leaders ; popular opinion was the idol, and its ministers were ambition, rashness, passion, and vengeance. The treachery of the French government had recoiled upon itself; while it haughtily looked forward to the downfal of England, it found France wrapped in sudden conflagration. The army, returning from America, had brought the fire at the point of their swords. The popular im- pulse was instantly given, and it was irresistible. France had always been a licentious country, but her vices had been chiefly among the opulent and high-born ; and, as their numbers bore no proportion to the multitude whom the necessary labours of life kept pure, the higher turpitude floated on in its own region, and threw scarcely more than the shadow of a passing cloud below. 1811. THE REGENCY. 375 But now a fearful change was observed among the people : the luxurious and fantastic vice of the nobles was overwhelmed in the rude and fierce criminality of the multitude. The sneers of the refined infidel, dispensing his polished witticisms in the saloons of nobles and princes, were lost in the roar of the furious sons of car- nage in the streets. The priest, the noble, and the sovereign, together paid the penalty of neg- lecting the education of the national mind. The storm descended upon them, they felt bewildered alike, and blindly cast themselves into the hands of their executioners. And this blindness and astonishment were not limited to the effeminate dependents on the court, or the feeble and indolent possessors of the high offices of the church. The force of the multitude was an unknown element, a new-created form of evil, that terri- fied even those who had been most instrumental in calling it upon the earth. Mirabeau and the leaders of the national assembly were the first to be startled at their own work, and fly in alarm from its uncalculated and terrible energies. They had thought that they might play on the monarch's weakness in safety, by pointing to the volcano at a distance ; they suddenly felt the whole soil volcanic, and blazing up under their feet. Like the Italian poison-makers, the mask had no sooner dropped off, than they felt them- selves paralysed and dying over the fumes of 37G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1811. their own crucible. There can be no doubt that those leaders, some of whom were honest, and many able, were utterly unacquainted with the tremendous influence which resides in the roused passions of the people. With Mirabeau and his immediate faction, the whole was selfishness and charlatanism ; their magic was for its lucre ; and when they brought their deluded king, like Saul of old, to kneel in their cavern and solicit their oracle, they meditated only some new jugglery. But a mightier power was there : they saw their fictitious summons answered by a terrible reality, a vast and uncircumscribed apparition rising be- fore them, uttering words over which they had no control, and declaring to their infatuated king, that his day was done, his throne rent away, and his blood given to his enemies ! Then, they were overwhelmed with the consciousness of what they had done ; they sank at the feet of their victim, and, with vain remorse, implored his forgiveness for their guilt and his ruin. If the example of France were not followed in this country ; and if England, first enduring the hostility, afterwards became the protectress of Europe; a large portion of the merit must be attributed to the king's individual character. He stooped to no baseness, personal or political ; he preserved the tone of public morals in its highest state ; he observed the forms and wor- shipped the spirit of religion ; he was a faithful 1811. THE REGENCY. , 377 husband, a fond father, and a patriot king. On those qualities he laid the foundations of his throne, and for those we honour him in his grave. The restrictions on the regency expired in 1812, and the party under Lords Grey and Grenville confidently expected to be recalled to office ; but a clearer view would have shewn them that they had lost all influence on the prince's mind. If the regent's friendship were to be their dependence, it had nearly passed away with the death of Fox ; if similarity of political opinion, the prince, like other men, had seen the rashness of his early conceptions chastised by time, and he also must have found it difficult to comprehend a system of political faith compounded of tenets so long opposed as those of Lords Grey and Grenville ; if political wisdom, the events of every year since their dismissal had thrown their predictions into condign disgrace. Upon this last point, public opinion alone would have compelled the prince to reject them. On the first failures of the Spanish war, they had become determined prophets of ill. At the commencement of every campaign, they pro- nounced that it must end in disaster ; and when it ended in victory, they pronounced that in dis- aster the next must begin. They saw nothing 378 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1811. in the most gallant successes but a waste of national blood, an extravagant flourish of military vanity, a vulgar gladiatorship. In every trivial reverse they discovered inextricable ruin. Such are the humiliating necessities of party. It can- not afford to be honest. There was, perhaps, not an individual in opposition at that time, who, if his real sentiments were to be spoken, would not have given the fullest praise to the conduct of the Peninsular war, have rejoiced in its noble oppor- tunity of restoring the brightness of the British arms, and have exulted with natural feeling in the true British effort to crush a tyrant, and restore a brave people to the possession of their soil. But Opposition was destined to give a full display of the fetters that party rivets upon its slaves. Victory followed victory, alike of the highest importance and the most unquestionable kind : Opposition was still urged by its fate, and raised its expiring voice to depreciate those successes. The empire was in a tumult of ex- ultation at its triumphs : Opposition, shrunk into its corner, saw nothing but visions of ruin ; and continued, pitching its rebel tones at one time to the funeral song of the country, and at another to the Id pcean of Napoleon. Some of its orators put up their prayers that the French marshals would have mercy enough on the British army to let it escape to the sea- side ; others declared that they should consider 1812. THE REGENCY. *379 a repetition of the Closterseven convention, or the surrender at Saratoga, a happy alternative for the horrors of a French pursuit. One patriot distinguished himself by saying, that, "for all na- tional purposes, the soldiers might as well be shot in St. James's Park." But, if the scale sank which bore the honours of England, the glory of the enemy kicked the beam. Napoleon was pronounced, not simply, the first of mortals, but something more than mortal : he was termed "the child of providence — the man of destiny — the unconquerable — the inscrutable," — with no unfrequent intimations, that resistance to his will might involve the repugnants in impiety as well as rashness and folly. Still, the rashness was returned by victories, and the impiety left the thunders to sleep ; the nation persevered in defeating the unconquerable, and detecting the inscrutable, until their common sense revolted against the endurance of this absurdity ; and Op- position was forced to be silent at last, and wait for the contingencies that, like the Turkish provi- dence, have especial care for the halt, the lunatic, and the blind. 1812. — The administration formed by the king, with Mr. Perceval at its head, had conducted public affairs with such obvious advantage during the year, that the nation would have regarded its loss as a general injury. But the prince, on the commencement of the unrestricted regency, inrlu- 380 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1812. enced by a desire to combine the whole legis- lature in the struggle against the common enemy, made an offer of employment to opposition, in union with the Perceval ministry. His sentiments were expressed in this letter to the Duke of York. "My dearest Brother, — As the restric- tions on the exercise of the royal authority will shortly expire, when I must make my arrange- ments for the future administration of the powers with which I am invested, I think it right to communicate those sentiments which I was with- held from expressing, at an earlier period of the session, by my warmest desire that the expected motion on the affairs of Ireland might undergo the deliberate discussion of parliament, unmixed with any other consideration. " I think it hardly necessary to call your re- collection to the recent circumstances under which I assumed the authority delegated me by parlia- ment. At a moment of unexampled difficulty and danger, I was called upon to make a selection of persons to whom I should intrust the functions of the executive government. My sense of duty to our royal father solely decided that choice ; and every private feeling gave way to considerations which admitted of no doubt or hesitation. " I trust I acted in that respect as the genuine representative of the august person 1812. THE REGENCY. 381 whose functions I was appointed to discharge ; and I have the satisfaction of knowing, that such was the opinion of persons for whose judgment and honourable feelings I entertain the highest respect. In various instances, as you well know, where the law of the last session left me at full liberty, I waved any personal gratification, in order that his majesty might resume, on his restoration to health, every power and prerogative belonging to the crown. I certainly am the last person to whom it can be permitted to despair of our royal father's recovery. A new era is now arrived, and I cannot but reflect with satisfaction on the events which have distinguished the short period of my restricted regency. Instead of suf- fering in the loss of her possessions, by the gigan- tic force which has been employed against them, Great Britain has added most important acqui- sitions to her empire. The national faith has been preserved inviolable towards our allies ; and if character is strength, as applied to a nation, the increased and increasing reputation of his majesty's arms will shew to the nations of the continent, how much they may achieve when animated by a glorious spirit of resistance to a foreign yoke. In the critical situation of the war in the Peninsula, I shall be most anxious to avoid any measure which can lead my allies to suppose that I mean to depart from the present system. Perseverance alone can achieve the great object in question ; and I cannot withhold my appro- 382 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1812. bation from those who have honourably distin- guished themselves in support of it. I have no predilections to indulge — no resentments to gra- tify — no objects to attain, but such as are com- mon to the whole empire. If such is the leading principle of my conduct — and I can appeal to the past as evidence of what the future will be — I flatter myself I shall meet with the support of parliament, and of a candid and enlightened nation. Having made this communication of my sentiments in this new and extraordinary crisis of our affairs, I cannot conclude without expressing the gratification I should feel, if some of those persons with whom the early habits of my public life were formed, would strengthen my hands, and constitute a part of my government. With such support, and aided by a vigorous and united administration, formed on the most liberal basis, I shall look with additional confidence to a pro- sperous issue of the most arduous contest in which Great Britain was ever engaged. You are author- ised to communicate those sentiments to Lord Grey, who, I have no doubt, will make them known to Lord Grenville. " I am always, my dearest Frederick, " Your ever affectionate brother, (Signed) " GEORGE P. R." " Carlton House, Feb. 13, 1812." " P.S. — I shall send a copy of this letter immediately to Mr. Perceval." 1812. THE REGENCY. 383 Mr. Perceval had led the attack which dis- placed the coalition ministry. To join him, and be also his subordinates, would have had all the shame of a third coalition, without the profit. The proposal was declined ; and the nation pro- ceeded, unconscious of its loss. In 1811, Portugal had been completely cleared of the enemy. In 1812, the great battle of Salamanca gave a proof that the British troops could be superior to the enemy in tactics as well as in valour ; that they were " a manoeuvring army ; ' Madrid was freed from the usurping king, and the French supre- macy in Spain approached its end. But while Mr. Perceval was thus prosper- ously directing the affairs of the empire, the hand of an assassin put an end to his blame- less and active life. On the evening of the 11th of May, as he was passing through the lobby of the house of commons, a man, who had previously placed himself in the recess of the doorway, fired a pistol into his bosom. The ball entered his heart ; he uttered but the words, " I'm murdered," tottered forwards a few steps, and fell into the arms of some persons who had rushed to his assistance. He was carried into the room of the speaker's secretary, while medical aid was sent for. But all was hopeless ; he died within a few minutes. The atrocious act was so instantaneous, that the assassin was not observed for some time ; he had retired calmly towards a 384 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1812. bench, and was looking at the scene of confusion when he was seized. He made no attempt either to escape or resist, but merely said, " I am the unhappy man ;." and surrendered himself to the members, who, on hearing the shot, had crowded into the lobby. He was, of course, committed to Newgate, and brought to trial. His conduct in this fatal transaction was a melancholy proof of the delusions to which a mind even of some intelligence may be exposed by a violent temper. He told his story with the simplicity of perfect innocence. He was an Englishman, residing for some years as a merchant at Archangel. Becoming bankfupt, and conceiving himself aggrieved by the Rus- sian government, he had applied to the British ambassador for redress ; but he having none to give, Bellingham determined to shoot him for, what he pronounced, his negligence. The ambas- sador escaped by being recalled, and Bellingham followed him to London, — to " shoot him there." Still, this obnoxious officer escaped ; and the broken merchant sent in a succession of memo- rials to the ministers. He was at last informed, that they had no means of procuring retribution from the Russian government ; and he " made up his mind to shoot the first minister who came in his way." He had spent the day walking about London ; and when the hour approached at which the business of the house of commons 1812. THE REGENCY. 385 usually begins, had stationed himself at the lobby door, with a case of pistols in his pocket. He added, that " having no personal hostility to Mr. Perceval, he would have preferred shooting the ambassador ; but that, as the matter turned out, he was satisfied that he had only done his duty, and," placing his hand on his heart, " his justification was there." He was forty-two years of age, of a pale, intelligent coun- tenance, and with the look of a gentleman. On his trial, an attempt was made by his counsel to prove him insane ; but he made no pretence of that nature, was found guilty, persisted to the last in asserting that he was justified in the murder, and died, frigid and fearless, a reasoning- madman. The prince regent, who was deeply shocked by the death of the minister, expressed his sense of the misfortune, by sending down a message to the house the day after, condoling with them on the general loss, and proposing an annuity for Mrs. Perceval and her children. The house voted four thousand pounds a-year for the widow's life, with the evident intention of her applying this munificent provision to the support of her children. But the grant would have been more wisely worded, if it had been limited to her wi- dowhood ; for, to the surprise of the country, the lady, thus amply dowered, solaced herself without Joss of time, in a second marriage, and gave a c c 38G GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1812. lesson to the house for their future dealings with the wearers of weeds. The premiership had now returned to the hands of the regent ; and the Marquess Wellesley was commissioned to form an administration. Lords Grey and Grenville, as the heads of the Whigs, were applied to : but the old fate of the party clung to them still. No combination of grave men ever possessed in such perfection the art of taming all their measures into the shape of absurdity. They loudly declared that a Whig- administration was essential to the country, and then declared that no Whig administration should be formed unless they had possession of the whole royal patronage. The regent wished to retain the officers of the household : the Whigs protested that they would not stir, hand nor foot, unless their terms for " saving their country" were instantly granted, and the household given as the first deposit. Without wandering through the whole labyrinth of an intrigue at once ridiculous and contemptible, it is enough to say, that the cabal met their usual destiny. They were de- feated, sent back ignominiously to the opposition benches, and left to meditate on the wisdom of asking too much, and losing all. What was to be thought of the patriotism of men who, on their own shewing, would postpone the preservation of the empire to the low cupidity or childish vanity of making chamberlains and 1812. THE REGENCY. 387 vice-chamberlains, — those titled valets and em- broidered menials, obsolete fragments of the ob- solete times of parade, that encumber courts, and equally fatigue the eye of king and people? Their phrase of " riding rough-shod through Carlton- house," too, had not been lost upon the regent, and he must have shrunk from such grasping claimants for the price of rescuing empires from ruin. But their defeat was directly the work of Sheridan. In all the misfortunes of that extra- ordinary man, there still survived some of that warm-heartedness which had early distinguished him from his party. His inevitable consciousness of his own great talents made him look with scorn on the sullen hauteur, and cold and frown- ing severity round him, — those entrenchments which pretension throws up against the approach of real ability. His connexion with Fox was one of personal fondness, and natural admiration; but with the death of that eminent individual, whose amenity of manners could alone popularise the Whig peerage, Sheridan's attachment perished ; and he thenceforth suffered himself less to be led than dragged along by the obligations of party. The volunteer spirit was gone, and if he appeared on the muster, or went into the field, it was simply to avoid the stigma of desertion. He had long been personally attached to the prince, to whom he observes, in a correspondence on the changes of ministry, "Junius said, in a public 388 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1812. letter of his, addressed to your royal father, * the fate which made you a king forbade your having a friend.' I deny his proposition as a general maxim. I am confident that your royal highness possesses qualities to win and secure to you the attachment and devotion of private friendship, in spite of your being a sovereign."* He felt for the situation in which the regent must find himself, with masters, who had exhibited such a disposition to have all, even before they could call themselves servants. On a similar attempt, the year before, he had let loose the following lines, in imitation of Rochester's to Charles : — ■ ADDRESS TO THE PRINCE. In all humility we crave, Our Regent may become our slave ; And being so, we trust that he Will thank us for our loyalty. Then, if he'll help us to pull down His father's dignity and crown, We'll make him, in some time to come, The greatest prince in Christendom. The demand of the household was so obvi- ously in the spirit of political extortion, that all the prince's immediate friends were indignant against it. " You shall never part with one of them," was the chivalric declaration of the Mar- * Moore. 1812. THE REGENCY. 389 quess of Hastings. Sheridan took an equally characteristic way, and which, by its very form, he clearly intended to cover the whole transaction with ridicule. The household, as a matter of etiquette, had offered their resignations ; and Sheridan, armed with this intelligence, went out to take his daily walk in St. James's -street. Some rumour of it had transpired, and Mr. Tier- ney, then high in the Whig councils, stopped him, and asked whether the news were true. " What will you bet that it is?" said Sheridan/' for /will bet any man five hundred guineas that it is not." The conversation was carried without delay to the party. The hook was completely swallowed. The treaty was broken off, and when the eyes of those noble persons were at last opened ; they found that they had been repulsed by an ima- ginary obstacle, and outwitted by a wager, and even a fictitious wager ! Their next intelligence was of a more solid kind. The Earl of Liverpool stated in the house of lords, that the prince regent had ap- pointed him first lord of the treasury/ * 8th of June, 1812. * 390 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. CHAPTER XVI. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. After ten years of solitude and mental privation, the good king, George the Third, was called from the world.* His last hours were without pain, and, fortunately, without a return of that under- standing which could have shewn him only the long state of suffering in which he had lain. His death excited universal sympathy, and the day on which his honoured remains were committed to the grave, was observed with unfeigned reve- rence and sorrow throughout his empire. The prince regent was now summoned to his inheritance, and George the Fourth was en- throned King of England, the noblest dominion that the sun looks upon ! The immense magnitude of the Roman empire might well have justified the Roman pride. It covered a million and a half of square miles of the finest portion of the globe. Stretching three thousand miles, from the Atlantic to the Eu- phrates ; and two thousand miles, from the nor- thern borders of Dacia to the tropic of Cancer ; it was the seat of all the choicest fertility, beauty, * 29th January, 1820, 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 391 and wealth, of the world. Imagination sinks under the idea of this prodigious power in the hands of a single nation, and that nation in the hands of a single man. It might be difficult, on human grounds, to dis- cover the ultimate causes of this mighty donative of supremacy to an Italian peninsula. But in the government of the Great Disposer of events, no- thing is done without a reason, and that the wisest reason. The reduction of so vast a portion of the earth under one sceptre was among the provi- dential means of extending Christianity. The easier intercourse, the similarity of law, the more complete security of life and property, the ge- neral pacification of nations, which, under sepa- rate authority, would have filled the earth with blood, — all the results of melting down the scat- tered diadems of Europe and Asia into one ; pal- pably corresponded with the purpose of propa- gating the last and greatest revelation. This purpose of the Roman empire accounts for its sudden breaking up, and the absence of all probability that it will ever have a successor. When Christianity was once firmly fixed, the use of this superb accumulation of power was at an end. None like itself shall follow it, because its use cannot return. Society has been, for the wisest purposes, reduced into fragments ; and the peaceful rivalry of nations in arts and civilisation is to accomplish that illustrious progress, which, 392 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. under the pressure of a vast, uniform dominion, must have been looked for in vain. But another paramount dominion was yet to be created, of a totally different nature; less com- pact, yet not less permanent; less directly wearing the shape of authority, yet perhaps still more irresistible ; and in extent throwing the power of Rome out of all comparison — the British empire. Its sceptre is Influence. — The old policy brought force into the field against force ; it tore down the opposing kingdoms by main strength ; it chained to the ground the neck of the barbarian, whom it had first discomfited by the sword. This was the rude discipline of times, when the stern- ness of savage human nature was to be tamed only by the dexterous and resolute sternness of civilisation. But a nobler and more softened state of our being has followed, and for it a more lofty and humane discipline has been providentially given. England is now the actual governor of the earth ; if true dominion is to be found in being the common source of appeal in all the injuries and conflicts of rival nations, the common succour against the calamities of nature, the great ally which every power threatened with war labours first to secure or to appease, the centre on which is suspended the peace of nations, the defender of the wronged, and, highest praise of all, the acknowledged origin and example to which every 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 393 rising nation looks for laws and constitution! For whose opulence and enjoyment are the ends of the earth labouring at this hour ? For whom does the Polish peasant run his plough through the ground ? For whom does the American, with half a world between, hunt down his cattle, or plant his cotton ? For whom does the Chinese gather in his teas, or the Brazilian his gold and precious stones ? England is before the eyes of all. To whose market does every merchant of the remotest corners of the world look? To whose cabinet does every power, from America to India, turn with an interest surpassing all other? Whose public feeling does every people, struggling to raise itself in the rank of nations, supplicate? The answer is suggested at once, England's. At this hour, a British cannon fired, would be the signal for plunging every kingdom of Europe into war. This sovereignty contains all the essentials of the old dominion, without its evils. It is empire, without the charges, the hazards, the profligacy, and the tyranny of empire. Nothing but despot- ism could have kept together the mass of the Roman state. The nature of its parts was re- pulsion, and the common band a chain of iron. The supremacy of England is of a more elevated kind, the supremacy of a magnificent central luminary, round which all the rest revolve, urged by impulses suitable to their various frames, and 394 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. following their common course, with a feeling that it is the course of nature. If we glance at British India, we shall find it the most important foreign possession ever ruled by an European power. The Spanish co- lonies in South America were more extensive, but they were, in a boundless proportion, wilderness ; regions of forest, swamp, and sand. In the pen- insula of Hindostan, England governs an immense realm of extraordinary fertility; for the chief part, crowded with population, and the ancient seat of wealth to the world. By a gradual progress of combined policy and conquest, she has advanced from a factory to an empire. Of all revolutions of power, this was the hap- piest for India. No country of earth had been, from the earliest periods of authentic. history, so habitually the object of invasion and plunder. Its wealth, its diversity of government, and the harm- less and un warlike habits of its people, at once ex- cited the cupidity and encouraged the violence of all the barbarian tribes of Asia. From the days of Alexander, India was overflowed by the resistless depredations of Tartar and Turcoman, on east, north, and west ; the early Persian, the Saracens under Mahomet's generals and successors, the Mogul under Zingis and Tamerlane, the Persian again under Nadir Shah. While the Western empire was sinking under the perpetual influx of the Scythian tribes, the same scene was going on 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 395 in the East ; but with the distinction, that the Italian invader became a settler on the soil, and, gradually, a bulwark against invasion. The Indian invader came like the locust, and went, like the locust, to return at the moment when the first vegetation sprang out of the withered and cankered soil. The dynasties too that rose in India from the blood of the Mahometan con- querors, inherited the savage and predatory spirit of their race, and every throne was exposed to perpetual violence. Into the midst of this chaos the power of England came like a mighty minister of good ; her system of mediation assuaged the wrath of barbarians, who till then had never thought of delaying their vengeance ; and the fear of the irresistible English arms coerced the furious, and protected the peaceable, even where an English soldier had never planted his foot. But, the territory in actual possession of the English was proverbial for its tranquillity. The land, which had seen an invader every dozen years, and been turned into a howling wilderness by those most merciless of all inflictions ; has never seen a hostile face since the days of Hyder Ali. Cavils are easily made against all things human. There must be weaknesses and defi- ciencies in all great establishments ; but it would be ungenerous and untrue to deny, that the principles of our government in the East are 396 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. conformable to the manliness, benevolence, and integrity, of the British character. Our labours have been directed to the security of property, to the inculcation of honesty and generous feeling in the public functionaries, to the sanctity of moral obligation, and to the introduction of a purer judicial code. Those are the highest benefits that nation can confer on nation. And, for those, what do we receive in return? — -power, undoubt- edly, but wealth none. The Indian treasury scarcely pays the various expenditures of its administration. Unlike the other masters of that noble country, we extract nothing from the mi- series of the people. Our revenues are refunded to the soil from which they are drawn. The only income of the India Company arises from commerce, and the only productive commerce is with China. But the expiration of the Company's charter will give a new existence to our intercourse. The strange and discordant principles which must belong to a government mixed of civil and commercial control, with a litigated sceptre, one half in the hands of ministers, and the other half in the hands of a mercantile committee, will be extinguished, and the Indian peninsula enjoy the full benefits of her fertility and her situa- tion, unencumbered by the restraints of an essen- tially jealous monopoly. Already an extension of her trade to the various ports of England has 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 397 been attended with opulent returns. Industry has been excited in India, and enterprise in England : when both shall be ripe for the total freedom of commerce, the benefits to both may be beyond calculation. A great eastern region has been, within these few years, opened to us. The archipelago that spreads almost from Ceylon to Japan, the most various, fertile, and lovely zone of islands on the face of the globe, the native country of all the richest products, the sugar-cane, and the spices, is now traversed by our vigorous adventure. The brilliant experiment of a free trade has been made among those islands, and its effect has been to create a most prosperous and pow- erful settlement in seas hitherto swept by pirates. British capital is rapidly flowing to this fortunate spot ; the trade of China and India is rushing down to it in increasing streams ; and its founders may yet be reckoned among the founders of some vast and benevolent empire, some magnificent eastern Carthage, without its criminal ambition, and safe from its fall ; a noble embodying of that commercial liberality and public honour which England alone could offer to eastern eyes, and which is at once the sign of her strength, and the security of her dominion. Even in Africa, later years have made some casual advances, which may be strengthened into substantial progress. Our settlements at 398 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. its southern promontory are still feeble, and struggling with unexpected and difficult ano- malies of climate ; droughts of three years that burn up all cultivation, followed by torrents of a single night that sweep away the harvest and the cultivator. But where English industry has once planted its step, it has seldom receded. The extravagant hopes of the first settlers have, by this time, been subdued into a fair estimate of their situation. They have fixed their standard, and it will never be plucked up. Larger exami- nation of the country has found out districts more susceptible of secure cultivation ; and we shall, before many years are passed, hear no more of Hottentot invasions, the ravages of wild beasts, or the stubbornness of the seasons. To those will succeed the vigorous fruits of English so- ciety, wise laws, active experiments on the capa- bilities of the country, commercial efforts, and the use of those admirable inventions by which the powers of nature are made the servants of man. They have already in the settlements at the Cape, the mail-coach, the steam-engine, and the gas-light ; — ten years ago, they had the naked barbarian, the lion, and the wilderness. On the western side, too, of this sullen conti- nent our late discoveries give some hope of secure and productive knowledge. Denham and Clap- perton have made their country acquainted with the central region of Africa. They have found it 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 399 comparatively temperate, though under the line ; comparatively civilised, though scarcely knowing the name of Europe ; and fertile to an extraordi- nary degree. To gain a commercial route to this country is now the most interesting problem : a part of its territory reaches to within a fortnight's journey of the coast of Benin. The great rivers run towards the Gulf of Benin ; and it is pre- sumed that the Niger, so long a subject of eager inquiry in its source, its direction, and its mouth, empties itself into this gulf. If a na- vigation into the interior can be found, important results may be looked for. Commercial advan- tages must be among the more immediate con- sequences; and the land of gold and ivory, gums, and perhaps of other valuable products, must be thrown open to England. But higher objects of general utility and honourable benevolence may be in reserve. The diffusion of the arts and knowledge of Europe among a people not yet perverted by the atrocities of the slave-trade ; a better system of morality, the spirit of law, and of Christianity, would be the gifts of British in- tercourse : a vast multitude of the human race would be elevated in their rank as social beings. The steam-navigation, which seems to have been almost especially designed for the use of pene- trating the great solid continents, would leave no recess of the whole region of central Africa unexplored. 400 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. Passing down to the east and south of the Indian isles, we come to a fifth continent, New Holland, stretching nearly thirty degrees from north to south, and nearly thirty-five from east to west! Here discovery has yet advanced only far enough to know that its interior contains but a few half-naked savages, and that an immense portion of its soil is friendly to European produce. The British settlements on its eastern coast have already assumed a vigour and stability which place them beyond the hazards of early colo- nisation : pasturage and agriculture, the natural pursuits of young states, are giving them opu- lence ; a moral population is rapidly superseding, or civilising, the original settlers ; English habits and laws are firmly planted in this boundless region ; and a dominion is rising there, which may be destined, at no long interval, to become the powerful and fortunate means of liberating the whole splendid chain of the Indian isles from the superstitions, miseries, and tyrannies, that have for so many ages defeated the unparalleled bounty of nature. An extraordinary phenomenon presented in the southern ocean may render our settlements in New South Wales of still more eminent im- portance. A sixth continent is in the very act of growing up before our eyes ! The Pacific is spotted with islands through the immense space of nearly fifty degrees of longitude, and as many 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 401 of latitude. Each of these islands seems to be merely a central spot for the formation of coral banks, which, by a perpetual progress, are rising from the depths of the sea. The union of a few of those masses of rock shapes itself into a solid circle, the seeds of plants are carried to it by birds or by the waves, and from the moment that it overtops the waters, it is covered with vege- tation. The new island constitutes in its turn a centre of growth to another circle. The great powers of nature are in peculiar activity in this region ; and to her tardier processes she often calls the assistance of the volcano and the earthquake. From the south of New Zealand to the north of the Sandwich Islands, the waters absolutely teem with those future seats of civilisation. The coral insect, the diminutive builder of all those mighty piles, is unceasingly at work : the ocean is intersected with myriads of its lines of foundation ; and when the rocky substructure shall have finally excluded the sea, then will come the dominion of man. Passing round the southern cape of America to the western Atlantic, we again find the British empire, the chain of the West Indian islands, covering the whole shore of Mexico ; the noblest breakwater in the world, stretching through nearly twenty degrees of latitude, and sixteen of longitude. The fertility, peculiar productions, and commercial value, of those islands, are matters D D 402 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. of common knowledge. But they have lately acquired a still higher value, as means of power. Until the year 1782 the whole range of the islands had been contemplated in scarcely a more elevated point of view than as supplying the English markets with surar and coffee. To their west lay a vast and obscure world, known only as the residence of Spanish pride and tyranny, and of an unhappy and decaying native popula- tion, — a boundless extent of forest and fen, of ignorance and savage life, productive for no pur- pose of good to the great family of nations. To their north lay British America, more known, more vigorously forced into the service of human nature, more abundant in prospects of national grandeur and social virtue ; yet still a series of lonely colonies, struggling with the diffi- culties of situation, with novelty of climate, with individual poverty, and the general countless disabilities of men torn painfully from an old and highly civilised country. The American war forced those colonies into new activity. The spirit and manliness, which might have been worn out in the silent and un- exciting warfare with the swamp and the forest, were suddenly turned to the most stirring of all human purposes, war for popular objects. The struggle awoke the United States to an instantaneous and lasting display of national energy. No pacific connexion with England 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 403 could have placed them so suddenly in the rank of leading powers. War seems to be the melan- choly price that every nation must pay for emi- nence. And the martial attitude of republican America, not less drew upon her the eyes of Europe, with an interest that would not have been vouchsafed, though her shoulders were stooping under the quiet wealth of the western hemisphere. But America at war with England raised the West Indies into direct importance. They offered the harbours, the magazines, and the citadels, from which the wrath of Britain was to be hurled against the rebellious continent. From this period must be dated the com- mencement of that noble national indignation, which was determined to extinguish the British slave-trade. The more frequent intercourse of our military officers and public functionaries with the islands, brought abuses and crimes to light, to which no public indignation had been turned, merely because there was no public knowledge. The Englishman, proceeding directly from his free country into the centre of the slave-commu- nity, was struck with horror at scenes, which, to the habitual avarice of the merchant, or the habitual tyranny of the planter, were un- marked and natural. The general sensibility was now awakened, and from that hour the abolition of the slave-trade was virtually decreed. The British parliament gave the first deadly blow to 404 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. this guilty traffic, and England was disburdened of a weight of crime. Since that period the keys of a still more splen- did influence have been given to the West Indian islands. The French Revolution, that strove in vain to break up the power of Spain in Europe, utterly destroyed it in the New World. In this desperate war, which tasked all the powers of the mother country, she had no strength to retain the colonies. The storm was too strong on the royal ship of Spain to leave her at liberty to keep her dependencies in her wake. She was forced to cast them adrift ; and, once left to take their own free course, no human power could hope to bring them back to their old connexion. After a war of eleven years, Mexico and the northern provinces of South America were recom- pensed for their sacrifices, by freedom. Those years were marked by strange, and sometimes bloody, reverses. The Spanish officers, released from the perpetual and perplexing supervision of their own court, often exhibited the qualities that once made Spain the model of European warfare. Signal instances of intrepidity, sagacious gene- ralship, gallant enterprise, and, above all, pa- tience of hardship and privation, were to be found among the royal armies. But they were encoun- tered, if by inferior military knowledge, by equal intrepidity, and by the spirit of independence, itself equivalent to victory. Those fine provinces 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 405 are still perplexed with dissensions ; but they have broken their bonds for ever. It is a striking and most important feature in the intercourse of this invaluable portion of the New World with England, that it promises to be wholly peaceful. There is no probable ground for war ; no intermediate territory to which both can cast a jealous eye, no ancient bickering, no rivalry of trade. The obvious interest of the re- publics is peace, and peace with England above all other nations. They have been led forward by her powerful hand from the first moment ; they have been recognised in Europe first by her, they have been sustained bv her finance, they are clothed and furnished by her manufactures. They are now rapidly filling with the enterprise and productive vigour of the English mind. In a few generations, unless some most disastrous and most unexpected event should cloud those fortu- nate prospects, they will be but England on a larger scale. But the West Indies are at once the ware- houses from which this opulent connexion will be supplied along the whole coast of the Gulf of Mexico ; and the fortresses by which it will be defended. The prospects of England in this quarter are not yet exhausted. A still more superb vision awaits her commercial grandeur. In a few years, the Isthmus of Darien will be an isthmus no more, 406 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. but the gate of the highway of all nations. The whole coast of Japan and its archipelago, hither- to so fiercely prohibited to European activity; the jealous frontier of China ; the semi-barbarous, yet opulent, states bordering the seas from Formosa to Malaya; will be inevitably thrown open. No political restraint can guard the im- mense shore of eastern and southern Asia, when once the passage shall be open through Mexico. All the forces of all the sovereignties of the East could not repel the perpetual and powerful allure- ments, that will be offered to the people by an unrestrained interchange of their produce for the manufactures and luxuries with which commerce comes full-handed. The present voyage from the Thames to China generally occupies five months. The ship's course, in that time, from the variety of winds, and other causes, is seldom less than from fifteen to twenty thousand miles. The outfit for this immense voyage, the hazards of the course through difficult seas, and the natural slowness of the returns, have hitherto restricted the commerce of Euro- pean nations with the eastern and southern coasts of Asia, more than all the follies and tyrannies of its governments. But, by the opening of the isthmus, the whole voyage will be made almost on a parallel, and with almost a single wind. This great sea-gate once passed, before the navigator lies an immense ex- 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 407 panse of ocean, that well deserves its name; the Pacific is of all seas the most unruffled. A brief period of storm comes at its regular season, as if merely to clear away the impurities of this quiet world of waters and its tepid atmosphere. Thenceforth all is calm for months together. The central zone of the Pacific is swept by the trade wind. All to the north and south is the true region for the steam-boat ; that unequalled invention, by which a new power is given to science over nature, and man is made lord of the wind and the tide, the storm and the calm. But England, sharing with all other nations in the advantages of this new and incalculable increase of the riches of the world ; or rather, taking the lead in this great path of opulent dis- covery, as she had done in all others ; must derive from the West Indian islands an influence alto- gether independent of her commercial enterprise. They intercept the whole Gulf of Mexico, and the Carribean Sea. The gate may be in the hands of Mexico, but the road to it is in the hands of England. She could shut it up at a moment. Not a sail from Europe could pass, if she pro- hibited it from her West Indian throne. Contingencies like those are deeply to be de- precated. No man friendly to human nature, or to the supremacy of England, which is identified with the freedom, happiness, and security, of human nature ; can desire to see the world again 408 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. thrown into a state of hostility. But if this reluctant necessity should arise, here stands the citadel, from which the Mistress of the seas can shake both hemispheres ! Turning to the north of this continent, the foundations of a new empire are seen in Canada. This region is, for all actual purposes, boundless ; stretching as it does from Nova Scotia, in forty- four degrees north latitude, to the Pole ; and from Newfoundland to the Pacific, through eighty de- grees of longitude. If it be objected, that the Canadas are still a wilderness, and visited with intense cold ; it is justly answered, that their whole extent is capable of sustaining life, as is shewn by the residence of the Indian tribes, and the hunters of the Hudson's Bay and North-west companies ; that the most populous portion of Russia is twenty degrees to the north of the American border of Upper Canada ; that Mon- treal lies in nearly the same parallel which cuts through the south of France, the Adriatic, and the Black Sea ! And, above all, that the colonists crowding to that country are Englishmen, — a race proverbially successful in all the tasks to be achieved by patient vigour and fearless adventure. Those men require only room ; their native ener- gies will do the rest. The forest will be cleared, the morass drained, the prairie will be a corn- field, the sandy hill will bear the vine ; the huge lakes, those Mediterraneans of the New World, will 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 409 be covered with the products of the mineral and agricultural wealth of the country ; coal has been already discovered in great abundance ; iron and the various metals are already worked ; the hills abound in every kind of limestone, up to the purest marble. The climate is singularly healthy. The higher latitude repels all the summer epidemics that ravage the United States. Even in the seve- rity of its winter, all that is injurious will yield to the thinning of the forests, the drainage of the swamps, and the other labours of the accumu- lating population. The temperature of the Eu- ropean climates has gradually given way to the same means. The north of France, at the time of the Roman conquest, was incapable of rearing the vine. The north of Germany was the habi- tual seat of winter. Its frosts and damps, more than the sword of Arminius, repelled the Roman soldier, seasoned as he was, beyond all other men, to all vicissitudes of climate. But whatever may be the dreams of England's supremacy in this quarter of the globe, in one thing she cannot be a dreamer, — in the lofty and cheer- ing consciousness that she has laid the foundation of a great society, where all before was a wilderness. Whether the Canadas shall retain their allegiance, or shake it off, there will, at least, be human beings where once was solitude ; law, where once was the license of savage life ; religion, where the Indian once worshipped in brutish ignorance ; and 410 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. England's will be the wand that struck the waters from the rock, and filled the desert with fertility and rejoicing. It becomes an interesting question, whether this singular prosperity does not contain within itself the seeds of decline ? But we have a right to distrust those prophets of evil who exert their sagacity only in seeing the seeds of ruin in the most palmy state of national fortune. If all the leading commercial powers have fallen ; England has been placed in a condition distinct from them all. All those states were exclusively commercial : they had no foundation in the land. Tyre, Carthage, Venice, Genoa, Holland, had no territory extensive enough to give them a national existence inde- pendently of the sea : they were strips of territory, inhabited by men whose natural dwelling was on shipboard; they had no population that could meet the attack of the military powers that pressed on them by land ; their whole armour was in front, their backs were naked. All the maritime states were thus compelled to the perilous expedient of employing foreign mercenaries. The mercan- tile jealousy that uniformly refused the rights of citizenship to the neighbouring states, left the merchant helpless in his day of danger. The French cavalry insulted the gates of Amsterdam at pleasure ; the Austrians seized Genoa, and be- sieged Venice, when an Austrian cock-boat dared not appear on the Adriatic. In older times, the 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 411 mountaineers of Macedon tore down the battle- ments of the Phoenician cities, when their ships were masters of all from Syria to the Pillars of Hercules. Scipio found but a solitary force of mercenaries between the shore and the walls of Carthage. From the catastrophe of those small, jealous, and tyrannical states, what argument can be drawn to the fate of the extensive, the generous, the enlightened, and, above all, the free ! The population of the British Isles is worthy of a great dominion. It probably amounts to twenty millions; and that immense number placed under such fortunate circumstances of rapid communica- tion and easy concentration, as to be equal to twice the amount in any other kingdom. Facility of in- tercourse is one of the first principles of civilised strength. The rapid returns of merchandise are not more indicative of prosperous commerce, than the rapid intercourse of human kind is essential to national civilisation and safety. In England, for whatever purpose united strength can be demanded, it is forwarded to the spot at once. It makes the whole land a fortress. If Eng- land were threatened with invasion, a hundred thousand men could be conveyed to the defence of any point of her coasts within four-and-twcnty hours ! Some common yet striking calculations evince the singular facility and frequency of this inter- 412 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. course. The mail-coaches of England run over twelve thousand miles in a single night — half the circumference of the globe ! A newspaper pub- lished in the morning in London, is, on the same day, read a hundred and twenty miles off! The traveller going at night from London, sleeps, on the third night, at a distance of more than four hundred miles. The length of canal navigation in the vicinage of London is computed as equal to the whole canal navigation of France ! The late combination of the rail-road and steam-engine systems, and the almost miraculous rapidity of passage thus attained, will increase this intercourse in an incalculable degree. Ten years more of peace may cover England with rail-roads ; relieving the country of the expenses of canals, highways, and all the present ponderous and wasteful modes of conveyance ; bringing the extremities of the land together, by shortening the time of the journey from days to hours ; and by the nature of the system, which offers the most powerful stimulant to the native ingenuity of the English mind, and summons the artificer from the rude construction of the boat and the waggon, to the finest science of mechanism ; providing, in all probability, for a succession of inventions, to which even the steam-engine may be but a toy. The secret of directing the balloon will yet be discovered ; and England, adding to her dominion of the land and the sea, the mightier 1820. THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 413 mastery of the air, will despise the barriers of mountain, desert, and ocean. But the most important distinction between the materia] of British strength and that of the old commercial republics, is in the diversity of the population. The land is not all a dock-yard, nor a manufactory, nor a barrack, nor a ploughed field : the national ship has a sail for every breeze. With a manufacturing population of three millions, we have a professional population, a naval population, and a most powerful, healthy, and superabundant agricultural population, which supplies the drain of them all. Of this last and most indispensable class, the famous commercial republics were wholly destitute, and they therefore fell. While England has been an independent and ruling kingdom since 1066, a period already longer than the duration of the Roman empire from Caesar, and equal to its whole duration from the consulate. But, if the population of our settlements be taken into account, the King of England, at this hour, commands a more numerous people than that of any other sceptre on the globe ; excepting the probably exaggerated, and the certainly in- effective, multitudes of China. He is monarch over one hundred millions of men ! With him the old Spanish boast is true : " On his domi- nions the sun never sets." But the most illus- trious attribute of this unexampled empire is, 414 • GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1820. that its principle is Benevolence ! that knowledge goes forth with it, that tyranny sinks before it, that in its magnificent progress it abates the calamities of nature, that it plants the desert, that it civilises the savage, that it strikes off the fetters of the slave, that its spirit is at once " glory to God, and good-will to man !" 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 415 CHAPTER XVII. QUEEN CAROLINE. No rank can expect to be free from the common visitations of life ; and George the Fourth, always much attached to his relatives, had suffered, within a few years, the loss of his royal mother ;* of his brother, the Duke of Kent,f but a week before the death of his father; and of his daughter, the Princess Charlotte ;{ — all regretted by the nation ; but the loss of the last creating an un- exampled sorrow. The Princess Charlotte, with a spirit of inde- pendence unusual in her rank, making her own choice, and marrying Prince Leopold of Saxe- Cobourg, had increased the popular affection for the heiress of the throne, by the remarkable propriety and domestic nature of her life during the year of her marriage. But her constitution was feeble; and when she was about to become a mother, it seems to have been unable to resist that perilous time. She gave birth to a still-born child, and, in a few hours after, unhappily sank into a state of exhaustion, and died. The nation * 17th Nov. 1818. f 23d .Ian. 18"20. J 6th Nov. 1817. 416 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. received the unexpected and painful intelligence, as if every family had lost a daughter and an heir. Before the customary orders for mourning and the other marks of public respect, could be issued, all England exhibited the deepest signs of spontane- ous homage and sorrow. All public places were voluntarily closed ; all entertainments laid aside ; the churches hung with black by the people, and funeral sermons preached every where at their request : the streets deserted ; marriages sus- pended ; journeys put off; the whole system of society stopped, as if it had received an irrepar- able blow. The English residents abroad all put on mourning ; and as the intelligence passed through the world, every spot, where an English- man was to be found, witnessed the same evi- dence of the sincerest national sorrow. If such were the loss to the people, what must it have been to him, who added his feelings as a father to those for the broken hope of his line ; and, lamenting over an innocent and fond being, dead in the most exulting moment of a woman's and a wife's existence ; saw before him the death- bed of two royal generations ! But he had scarcely ascended the throne, when perplexities, if of a less painful kind, of a more harassing one, awaited him, The Princess Caroline, his consort, who had long resided in Italy, announced her determination of returning to England, and demanding the appointments 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 417 and rank of queen. Her life abroad had given rise to the grossest imputations ; and her presid- ing at the Court of England, while those impu- tions continued, would have been intolerable. But the means adopted to abate the offence argued a singular ignorance of human nature. If we must not subscribe to the poetic extra- vaganza, that " Hell has no fury like a woman scorned," it ought to have been remembered, that woman, once thoroughly irritated, sets no bounds to her ven- geance. The " ' f wrens quid fosmina possit" is as old as human nature : yet this violent woman had been insulted by the conduct of every English function- ary abroad. The announcement of her approach to a city where an English ambassador resided, in- stantly threw his entire microcosm into a state of chaos ; diplomacy forswore her dances and dinners ; the whole accomplished tribe of attaches were in dismay ; the chief functionary shut up his doors and windows, ordered post-horses, and giving himself only time to pen a hurried despatch to the foreign office, detailing the vigour with which he had performed this national duty, fled as if he were flying from a pestilence. Foreigners, of course, with their usual adoption of the ambas- sadorial tone, added their laughter ; until, stung by universal offence, she no sooner received the announcement of the death of George the E E 418 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. Third, than, defying all remonstrance, and spurn- ing the tardy attempts of ministers to conciliate her, she rushed back to England, flaming with revenge.* Lord Liverpool was utterly unequal to the emergency :* always hitherto a feeble, unpurposed, and timid minister, he now put on a preposterous courage, and defied this desperate woman. He might better have taken a tiger by the beard. He had even the folly to bring her to trial. With what ultimate object is utterly inconceivable. That he could not have obtained a divorce by any law human or divine, the reasons were obvious. If she had been found guilty, he could have neither exiled nor imprisoned her; his only re- source must be her decapitation. But he knew that the people of England would have risen in- dignantly against so cruel and horrid a sentence. There was but one alternative remaining — to be defeated; and defeated he was, totally, help- lessly, ignominiously. The queen was probably a criminal, to the full extent of the charge. But there had been so long a course of espionage, which the English mind justly abhors ; the practices against her had been so pitiful ; and the details of the evidence were so repulsive ; that the crime was forgotten in the public scorn of the accusers. This feeling, * June 1820. 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 419 however suppressed in the higher ranks, took its open way with the multitude ; and while ministers were forced to steal down to the house, or were visible, only to receive all species of insults from the mob, the queen went daily to her trial in a popular triumph. Her levees at Brandenburgh- house, a small villa on the banks of the Thames, where she resided for the season, were still more triumphant. Daily processions of the people filled the road. The artisans marched with the badges of their callings ; the brotherhoods of trade ; the masonic lodges ; the friendly socie- ties ; all the nameless incorporations, which make their charters without the aid of office, and give their little senates laws ; down to the fish- women ; paid their respects in full costume, and assured her majesty, in many a high-flown piece of eloquence, of her "living in the hearts of her faithful people." There was, doubtless, some charlatanry in the display. Many interests are concerned in every move of the popular machine. The inn- keepers on the road were the richer for this loy- alty ; the turnpikes reaped a handsomer revenue ; the Jews sold more of that finery which has seen its best days ; the coachmakers issued more of their veteran barouches ; the horse-dealers supplied more of those hunters and chargers which have bade a Ions: farewell to all their fields. All the trades were zealous promoters of 420 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. the processions. The holyday, the summer drive, the dress, the " hour's importance to the poor man's heart," were not to be forgotten among the accessories. But the true motive, paramount to all, was honest, English disdain, at the mode in which the evidence had been collected, and the mixture of weakness and violence with which the prosecution was carried on. Concession after concession was forced from ministers. The title of Queen was acknowledged ; and finally, Lord Liverpool, beaten in the lords, and become an object of outrageous detestation to the populace, admitted that he could proceed no further, and withdrew the prosecution. The announcement was received with a roar of victory in the house. The sound was caught by the multitude, and London was filled with acclamations. The graver judgment of the country regretted, that by the rashness which suffered a question of individual vice to be mingled with one of public principle, the crime received the sanction which belonged only to the virtue. But the deed was done ; and the only hope now was, that it might be speedily forgotten. But this the queen would not suffer : the furious passions of the woman were still unappeased. She took a house within sight of the palace, that she might present the perpetual offence of her mobs to the royal eye ; she libelled the king; she pursued him to public places ; and persevered in this foolish vindictiveness, until 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 421 she completely lost the sympathy of the people. At length, advised only by her own hot and bitter heart, she determined to insult him at the Coronation,* in the presence of his nobles, and in the highest ceremonial of his throne. But this fine display of the old pomps of Eng- land has been commemorated by so celebrated a master of description, that any fragment from his pen on such a subject must supersede all other. It has a monumental value. SIR WALTER SCOTT S LETTER ON THE CORONATION. " I refer you to the daily papers for the details of the great national assembly which we witnessed yesterday, and will hold my promise absolved by sending a few general remarks upon what I saw, with surprise amounting to astonishment, and which I shall never forget. It is, indeed, impos- sible to conceive a ceremony more august and imposing in all its parts, and more calculated to make the deepest impression both on the eye and on the feelings. The most minute attention must have been bestowed, to arrange all the subordinate parts in harmony with the rest ; so that, amongst so much antiquated ceremonial, imposing singular dresses, duties, and characters, upon persons accustomed to move in the ordinary routine of * 19th July, 1821. 422 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. society, nothing occurred either awkward or ludi- crous, which could mar the general effect of the solemnity. Considering that it is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, I own I con- sider it as surprising that the whole ceremonial of the day should have passed away without the slightest circumstance which could derange the general tone of solemn feeling which was suited to the occasion. " You must have heard a full account of the only disagreeable event of the day. I mean the attempt of the misguided lady, who has lately furnished so many topics of discussion, to intrude herself upon a ceremonial, where, not being in her proper place, to be present in any other must have been voluntary degradation. That matter is a fire of straw which has now burned to the very embers, and those who try to blow it into life again, will only blacken their hands and noses, like mischievous children dabbling among the ashes of a bonfire. It seems singular, that being determined to be present at all hazards, this unfortunate personage should not have pro- cured a peer's ticket, which I presume would have insured her admittance. I willingly pass to pleasanter matters. " The effect of the scene in the Abbey was beyond measure magnificent. Imagine long gal- leries stretched among the aisles of that venerable and august pile — those which rise above the altar 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 423 pealing back their echoes to a full and magnificent choir of music; those which occupied the sides filled even to crowding with all that Britain has of beautiful and distinguished ; and the cross- gallery most appropriately occupied by the West- minster school-boys, in their white surplices, many of whom might on that day receive 'impressions never to be lost during the rest of their lives; imagine this, I say, and then add the spectacle upon the floor — the altars surrounded by the fathers of the church — the king, encircled by the nobility of the land, and the counsellors of his throne, and by warriors wearing the honoured marks of distinction, bought by many a glorious danger; — add to this the rich spectacle of the aisles, crowded with waving plumage, and coro- nets, and caps of honour, and the sun, which brightened and saddened as if on purpose, now beaming- in full lustre on the rich and varied assemblage, and now darting a solitary ray, which catched, as it passed, the glittering folds of a banner, or the edge of a group of battle-axes or partisans, and then rested full on some fair form, ' the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,' whose circlet of diamonds glistened under its influence. " Imagine all this, and then tell me if I have made my journey of four hundred miles to little purpose. I do not love your cui bono men, and therefore I will not be pleased if you ask me, in the damping tone of sullen philosophy, what good 424 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. all this has done the spectators? If we restrict life to its real animal wants and necessities, we shall indeed be satisfied with ' food, clothes, and fire;' but Divine Providence, who widened our sources of enjoyment beyond those of the animal creation, never meant that we should bound our wishes within such narrow limits; and I shrewdly suspect that those non est tanti gentlefolks only depreciate the natural and unaffected pleasure which men like me receive from sights of splen- dour and sounds of harmony, either because they would seem wiser than their simple neighbours, at the expense of being less happy ; or because the mere pleasure of the sight and sound is con- nected with associations of a deeper kind, to which they are unwilling to yield themselves. " Leaving these gentlemen to enjoy their own wisdom, I still more pity those, if there be any, who (being unable to detect a peg on which to hang a laugh,) sneer coldly at this solemn fes- tival, and are rather disposed to dwell on the expense which attends it, than on the generous feelings which it ought to awaken. The expense, so far as it is national, has gone directly and instantly to the encouragement of the British manufacturer and mechanic ; and so far as it is personal to the persons of rank attendant upon the coronation, it operates as a tax upon wealth and consideration, for the benefit of poverty and industry; a tax willingly paid by the one class, 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 425 and not the less acceptable to the other, because it adds a happy holyday to the monotony of a life of labour. " But there were better things to reward my pilgrimage than the mere pleasures of the eye and the ear ; for it was impossible, without the deepest veneration, to behold the voluntary and solemn interchange of vows betwixt the king and his assembled people, while he, on the one hand, called God Almighty to witness his resolution to maintain their laws and privileges ; and while they called, at the same moment, on the Divine Being, to bear witness that they accepted him for their liege sovereign, and pledged to him their love and their duty. I cannot describe to you the effect produced by the solemn, yet strange mixture of the words of Scripture, with the shouts and accla- mations of the assembled multitude, as they an- swered to the voice of the prelate who demanded of them whether they acknowledged as their monarch the prince who claimed the sovereignty in their presence. '* It was peculiarly delightful to see the king receive from the royal brethren, but in particular from the Duke of York, the fraternal kiss, in which they acknowledged their sovereign. There was an honest tenderness, an affectionate and sincere reverence, in the embrace interchanged between the Duke of York and his majesty, that approached almost to a caress, and impressed all 426 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. present with the electrical conviction, that the nearest to the throne in blood was the nearest also in affection. I never heard plaudits given more from the heart than those that were thun- dered upon the royal brethren when they were thus pressed to each other's bosoms — it was the emotion of natural kindness, which, bursting out amidst ceremonial grandeur, found an answer in every British bosom. The king seemed much affected at this and one or two other parts of the ceremonial, even so much so as to excite some alarm among those who saw him as nearly as I did. He completely recovered himself, however, and bore, generally speaking, the fatigue of the day very well. I learn, from one near his person, that he roused himself with great energy, even when most oppressed with heat and fatigue, when any of the more interesting parts of the ceremony were to be performed, or when any thing occurred which excited his personal and immediate atten- tion. When presiding at the banquet, amid the long line of his nobles, he looked ' every inch a king;' and nothing could exceed the grace with which he accepted and returned the various acts of homage rendered to him in the course of that long day. " It was also a very gratifying spectacle to those who think like me, to behold the Duke of Devonshire and most of the distinguished Whig nobility assembled round the throne on this occa- 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 427 sion ; giving an open testimony that the differences of political opinions are only skin-deep wounds, which assume at times an angry appearance, but have no real effect on the wholesome constitu- tion of the country. " If you ask me to distinguish who bore him best, and appeared most to sustain the character we annex to the assistants in such a solemnity, I have no hesitation to name Lord Londonderry ; who, in the magnificent robes of the Garter, with the cap and high plume of the order, walked alone, and, by his fine face and majestic person, formed an adequate representative of the Order of Edward III., the costume of which was worn by his lordship only. The Duke of Wellington, with all his laurels, moved and looked deserving the baton, which was never grasped by so worthy a hand. The Marquess of Anglesea shewed the most exquisite grace in managing his horse, not- withstanding the want of his limb, which he left at Waterloo. I never saw so fine a bridle-hand in my life, and I am rather a judge of ' noble horsemanship.' Lord Howard's horse was worse bitted than those of the two former noblemen, but not so much so as to derange the ceremony of retiring back out of the Hall. " The Champion was performed (as of right) by young Dymoke, a fine-looking youth, but bear- ing, perhaps, a little too much the appearance of a maiden-knight, to be the challenger of the 428 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. world in a king's behalf. He threw down his gauntlet, however, with becoming manhood, and shewed as much horsemanship as the crowd of knights and squires around him would permit to be exhibited. His armour was in good taste ; but his shield was out of all propriety, being a round rondache, or highland target, — a defensive weapon, which it would have been impossible to use on horseback ; instead of being a three-cornered, or heater- shield, which in time of the tilt was sus- pended round the neck. Pardon this antiquarian scruple, which, you may believe, occurred to few but myself. On the whole, this striking part of the exhibition somewhat disappointed me ; for I would have had the champion less embarrassed by his assistants, and at liberty to put his horse on the grand pas. And yet the young Lord of Scrivelsbaye looked and behaved extremely well. " Returning to the subject of costume, I could not but admire what I had previously been dis- posed much to criticise — I mean the fancy dress of the privy counsellors, which was of white and blue satin, with trunk hose and mantles, after the fashion of Queen Elizabeth's time. Separately, so gay a garb had an odd effect on the persons of elderly or ill-made men ; but when the whole was thrown into one general body, all these dis- crepancies disappeared, and you no more observed the particular manner or appearance of an indivi- dual, than you do that of a soldier in the battalion 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 429 which marches past you. The whole was so completely harmonised in actual colouring, as well as in association with the general mass of gay, and gorgeous, and antique dress, which floated before the eye, that it was next to impos- sible to attend to the effect of individual figures. Yet a Scotsman will detect a Scotsman amongst the most crowded assemblage ; and I must say, that the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland shewed to as great advantage in his robes of privy coun- sellor as any by whom that splendid dress was worn on this great occasion. The common court dress, used by the privy counsellors at the last coronation, must have had a poor effect in com- parison of the present, which formed a gradation in the scale of gorgeous ornament, from the un- wieldy splendour of the heralds, who glowed like huge masses of cloth of gold and silver, to the more chastened robes and ermine of the peers. I must not forget the effect produced by the peers' placing their coronets on their heads, which was really august. " The box assigned to the foreign ambassadors presented a most brilliant effect, and was per- fectly in a blaze with diamonds. When the sun- shine lighted on Prince Esterhazy in particular, he glimmered like a galaxy. I cannot learn positively if he had on that renowned coat which has visited all the courts of Europe, save ours, and is said to be worth 100,000/., or some 430 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. such trifle, and which costs the prince 100/. or 200/. every time he puts it on, as he is sure to lose pearls to that amount. This was a hussar dress, but splendid in the last degree, perhaps too fine for good taste, at least it would have appeared so any where else. Beside the prince sat a good-humoured lass, who seemed all eyes and ears (his daughter-in-law, I believe,) who wore as many diamonds as if they had been Bristol stones. An honest Persian was also a remarkable figure, from the dogged and imper- turbable gravity with which he looked on the whole scene, without ever moving a limb or a muscle during the space of four hours. Like Sir Wilful Witwood, I cannot find that your Persian is orthodox ; for if he scorned every thing else, there was a Mahometan paradise extended on his right hand along the seats which were occu- pied by the peeresses and their daughters, which the prophet himself might have looked on with emotion. I have seldom seen so many elegant and beautiful girls as sat mingled among the noble matronage of the land ; and the waving plumage of feathers, which made the universal head-dress, had the most appropriate effect in setting off their charms. " I must not omit, that the foreigners, who are apt to consider us as a nation enfrac, and without the usual ceremonies of dress and distinction, were utterly astonished and delighted to see the re- 1821. QUEEN CAROLINE. 431 vival of feudal dresses and feudal grandeur when the occasion demanded it, and that in a degree of splendour which they averred they had never seen paralleled in Europe. " The duties of service at the banquet, and of attendance in general, was performed by pages drest very elegantly in Henri Quatre coats of scarlet, with gold lace, blue sashes, white silk hose, and white rosettes. There were also mar- shal's men for keeping order, who wore a similar dress, but of blue, and having white sashes. Both departments were filled up almost entirely by young gentlemen, many of them of the very first condition, who took those menial characters to gain admission to the show. When I saw many of my young acquaintance thus attending upon their fathers and kinsmen, the peers, knights, and so forth, I could not help thinking of Crabbe's lines, with a little alteration — ' 'Twas schooling pride to see the menial wait, Smile on his father, and receive his plate.' It must be owned, however, that they proved but indifferent valets, and were very apt, like the clown in the pantomime, to eat the cheer they should have handed to their masters, and to play other tours de page, which reminded me of the caution of our proverb, ' not to man yourself with your kin.' The peers, for example, had only a cold collation, while the aldermen of London 432 GEORGE THE FOURTH. 1821. feasted on venison and turtle ; and similar errors necessarily befell others in the confusion of the evening. But those slight mistakes, which indeed were not known till afterwards, had not the slightest effect on the general grandeur of the scene. " I did not see the procession between the Abbey and Hall. In the morning a few voices called ' Queen ! queen !' as Lord Londonderry passed, and even when the sovereign appeared. But those were only signals for the loud and reiterated acclamations, in which these tones of discontent were completely drowned. In the return, no one dissonant voice intimated the least dissent from the shouts of gratulation which poured from every quarter ; and certainly never monarch received a more general welcome from his assembled subjects. <