vis) ) . . 103 V. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE : HOME AFFAIRS ( 1730-1 737) 146 VI. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE : FOREIGN AFFAIRS (l733- 1742) 190 VII. POWER (1742-1744) 238 VIII. GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS ( 1744-1754) . . 307 IX. LAST YEARS (1754-1763) 332 X. PRIVATE LIFE ; PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS . . 366 INDEX . 415 LOED CAETEEET. CHAPTER I. EAELY LIFE AiN'D WORK IN PARLIAMENT. 1690-1716. John, Loed Carteret, Earl Granville, was descended from two noble and ancient families, each of which had on various occasions risen to hii^h distinction in the political history of England. The Carterets and the Granvilles were both Norman houses ; the towns of Granville and Carteret still commemorate their names in Normandy. The Carterets, some of them accom- panying their Norman duke into England, and all of them, in the troubled times that followed, remainino; faithful to the newly established line of kings in Eng- land, gradually lost their Norman possessions on the mainland, and settled chiefly in the largest of the Channel Islands, almost within sight of their old home. They became the commanding family in Jersey, where part of their principal seat, the manor house of St. Ouen, may still be seen ; and many romantic as well as historical tales are told of their life and exploits there. Romance, perhaps, has played its accustomed part in giving picturesque embellishment to some of the family annals. But the unadorned facts of the Carterets' B 2 LORD CABTEBET actual history have nothing prosaic about them. Their loyalty was very conspicuous. George III. was not using the language of exaggerated compliment when he once said of a member of the Carteret house : ' This young man belongs to one of the most ancient and most loyal families in my dominions.' The never-falsi- fied motto of the Carterets was Loyal devoir. They kept Jersey out of the hands of Constable Bertrand du Guesclin ; and eight Carterets, Eeginald de Carteret and his seven sons, were knighted in one day by Edward TIL for this feat. Over and over again they foiled French attempts on the Channel Islands, and received many royal recognitions of their bravery and loyalty. Queen Elizabeth gave them the island of Sark, and the practical governorship of Jersey was frequently in their family. One of them was governor there when Prynnc, who had attacked plays and masques in his puritanical Histrio-mastix^ was im- prisoned from 1637 to 1640 in Mont Orgueil Castle, one of the two chief fortresses of Jersey. A terribly gloomy cell in Mont Orgueil is still sJiown as the apart- ment in wliich Prynne was confined ; but the dreariness of his imprisonment was considerably lessened by tlie kindness of Sir Philip Carteret and his family, whom Prynne is never weary of thanking ' for all your love and courtesy.' They often invited him to pass his time with them, and it seems that Lady Carteret's irresistible goodness occasionally seduced the stern pamphleteer to an unpuritanical ganie of cards. Prynne wrote, in a distressingly unpoetical manner, a metrical description of the very picturesque fortress where his confinement was thus pleasantly tempered, and dedicated his won- derful rhymes to his ' ever honoured worthy friend, Sir Philip Carteret,' and to Sir Pliilip's wife, Prynne's ' most EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PARLIAMENT 3 highly honoured, special kind friend, the truly virtuous and religious Lady Anne Carteret.' Others of Prynne's astonishing metrical productions were dedicated to the daughters of his kindly custodians ; one of them to Sweet mistress Douce, fair Margaret, Prime flower of the house of Carteret. General history, however, has dropped from its memory the story of the career of the Carterets in the Channel Islands ; and the very faint surviving recollec- tion even of the name of the family is mainly due to two such very dissimilar books as Pepys' Diary and Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. In these two books the name of a Sir George Carteret is of very frequent recurrence. This Sir George Carteret, almost more royalist than the King, was prominently connected with the two unhappy Charleses who were successive Stuart sovereigns of England. When the civil war broke out, the parliament desired to give to Carteret, who was controller of the navy, the position of vice- admiral. He thought it his duty first to ask the Kino-'s consent, and Charles, who reckoned his fleet as o-ood as lost to him, ordered Carteret to decline. A mistake on the King's part, thought Clarendon and many others ; for, if Carteret had been permitted to accept the appointment, it was commonly believed that he would have kept the greater part of the fleet true to the King, — ' his interest and reputation in the navy was so great, and his diligence and dexterity in command so emi- nent.' ^ Carteret retired to his Jersey home to raise forces for his master ; and his energetic proceedings there and in the Channel so exasperated the j^arlia- mentary authorities that in all the fruitless peace J Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion, TIL IIG. Ed. Oxford, 1826. 4 LORD CABTEBET negotiations Carteret's name was in the list of those for whom there could be no pardon. When in April 1646 the boy Prince of Wales, insecure even in the Scilly Islands, wandered as far as Jersey for safety, Sir George Carteret gladly entertained him in Elizabeth Castle, where Charles, hardly yet sixteen years old, held levees and dined in state, proving himself already a proficient in the art of obtaining popularity ; for, says the old Jersey chronicler, cetoit un prince grandement henin. Sir George Carteret got him a pleasure-boat from St. Malo, and the Prince spent hours in steering about the island-bays, but never venturing beyond range of the Castle guns. He stayed more than two months in Elizabeth Castle, and before taking leave of his host created him a baronet ; having already per- sonally confirmed the knighthood which Charles I. had only been able to bestow on Carteret by patent. Some of the Prince's exceedingly numerous retinue remained behind in Jersey when Charles himself left to go to his mother in Paris ; among these being the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Edward Hyde, who stayed in the island for two years longer. While Charles had been living in the fortress with Sir George Carteret, Hyde's quarters had been in the town of St. Helier's, from which at high water Elizabetli Castle was entirely cut off. In the evenings, when the tide was low, Hyde and the two or three English friends who were with him walked regularly upon the sands instead of supping, and often found their way to the Castle and Sir George Carteret, who received them always with unbounded kindness. When the departure of liis friends left the Chancellor somewhat solitary, Sir George Carteret invited Hyde to leave the town altogether, and come to him in Ehzabeth Castle. Hyde gladly agreed, and stayed in the Castle EABLY LIFE AND WORK IN PARLIAMENT 5 for two years ; quietly busy, seldom for less than ten hours in the day, with his books and his history ; amusing himself in spare moments with the cultivation of a minute garden of his own creation, and enjoying, as he himself used to say, the greatest tranquillity of mind imaginable. In his own words, he ' remained there, to his wonderful contentment, in the very cheer- ful society of Sir George Carteret and his lady, in whose house he received all the liberty and entertainment he could have expected from his own family ; of which he always entertained so just a memory, that there was never any intermission or decay of that friendship he then made.' ^ When Charles I. was executed. Sir George Carteret at once proclaimed King Charles II. in the Channel Islands, and the new nominal King, greatly perplexed where to find a safe refuge, remembered Carteret and his former quiet security in Jersey. Accompanied this time by his brother, the Duke of York, Charles once more arrived in the island in September 1649 ; and in that same year made to Carteret one of his too facile promises, though in this instance his word was very fairly kept. He wrote to Carteret : — ' I will add this to you under my own hand, that I can never forget the good services you have done to my father and to me, and if God bless me [which He did not] you shall find I do remember them to the advan- tage of you and yours ; and for this you have the word of your very loving friend, .' Charles E.' ^ This six months' residence with Carteret in Jersey > Clarendon's Life, I. 207-208. Ed. Oxford, 1857. 2 Brit. Museum, Add. MSS. 27,402 : fol. 124. 6 LOBD CARTEBET seems to liave been one of the pleasanter episodes of Charles's futile existence. Carteret managed affairs, while the prince-king devoted himself to amusements. He yachted round about the island, rambled with dogs and guns after wild fowl, enjoying such quiet hospitality as the families of the island could offer, and making himself very popular among the people by his easy affa- bility. Banquets and other entertainments were fre- quent at Elizabeth Castle, and diaries spent his time in busy idleness, solaced by the talk and ways of his French dwarf, and encouraging that mischievous little jester in the congenial performance of practical jokes. The only royal duty which the islanders exacted from their King was to touch them for the king's evil. Before leaving in February 1650, to start on his ten years' wanderings, Charles made Sir George Carteret treasurer of his navy ; a rather barren honour at that time, for such navy as Charles had consisted mainly of the fleet of privateers which Carteret himself had got tos^ether. But ten years later this distinction, and many others, became real enough for Carteret. If his royal navy was rather phantasmal to Charles, Carteret's frigates were exceedingly real to Cromwell. The Protector now interfered in earnest, resolved to end tliese spirited royalist proceedings in the Channel Islands. In the closing months of 1651 a parliamentary army was landed in Jersey, and one by one the island fortresses were compelled to yield. Still Sir George Carteret was undaunted and shut himself up in Eliza- beth Castle witli a garrison of 340 men. He hoped that of all the royal strongholds in the kingdom Elizabeth Castle miglit be the last to surrender to the Parhament. For three months he was besieged, the enemy making little or no impression upon him, till they brouglit EABLY LIFE AND WORK IN PAELIAMENT 7 artillery far more powerful tlian anything that had yet been seen there, and from a neighbouring height poured down into the castle what Clarendon calls ' granadoes of a vast bicfness,' and forced Carteret to submit. His little garrison surrendered in December 1651, but his ambition had been realised. He and his men were allowed honourable departure, and Carteret set out on European travels, to find his way at last to his roaming Kinj? in Holland. The Eestoration ended the wanderings of these two, and established Carteret's fortunes. He rode into London on Eestoration Day with the King, and honours and official appointments were abundantly awarded him. Politically the most important of the various posts which he held was the Treasurership of the Navy ; and thus Pepys, a young subordinate at the Admiralty, was brought into very frequent intercourse with Carteret and received much personal kindness from him. Many pleasant allusions to the Carteret family occur in the garrulous gossiping of the Diary. Sir George and his wife, who also was his cousin and a Carteret, were both very good to the young Clerk of the Acts ; and Pepys was not ungrateful, while he also was shrewd enough to put a high value on so desirable a friendship. ' I find,' Pepys writes of Sir George Carteret, ' that he do single me out to join with me apart from the rest, which I am much glad of.' Lady Carteret, tliought Pepys, was ' the most kind lady in the world,' and her daughters' friendly cheerfulness often delighted him and made him ' mighty merry.' Enthusiastic Pepys was really sorry when at times his most kind lady in the world looked around her with a somewhat dejected anxiety, ' and I do comfort her as much as I can, for she is a noble lady.' But things 8 LORD CABTEBET were generally bright in that household, and Pepys enjoyed its unstinted hospitality. The conversation current in the house of one who, like Sir George Carteret, after very varied experience of men and manners, was now in the centre of English political life, was also much to Pepys' taste ; and perhaps the Carte- rets themselves at times found a passing amusement in slightly mystifying the innocent credulity of their fre- quent guest. But this was rare, and Pepys heartily conojratulated himself on what he tliouf^ht the reallv extraordinary goodw^ill and kindness witli which the influential family treated him. ' Most extraordinary people they are,' he wrote, ' to continue friendship with, for goodness, virtue, and nobleness, and interest.' Pep3^s too introduces the next in the family line. Sir George Carteret's eldest son, Philip ; but is only particular over one episode in his career. This Sir Philip Carteret had, like his father, fought bravely in the Civil War, and had been knighted by Charles II. in Jersey. With all that Pepys had nothing to do ; but when Sir Philip came to be married to the daughter of the Earl of Sandwich, the bustling import- ance of the diarist was quite in its element. To Sir Philip Carteret the necessary preliminaries of marriage were a nuich more difficult business than fighting, and he was glad to have Pepys to advise and instruct him in the usual formalities. Pepys found him a very modest man, ' of mighty good nature and pretty under- standing ; ' but he was far readier to give Pepys an account of the sea fights with the Dutch than to be con- versationally enthusiastic over his own private prospects. But if Sir Philip was somewhat backward, the other members of the two families chiefly concerned were extremely interested in the affair. Lady Carteret could EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PARLIAMENT 9 not do enough for Lady Jemima Montagu. ' But Lord ! ' says Pepys, with his usual exclamation, ' to see how kind my Lady Carteret is to her ! Sends her most rich jewels, and j^rovides bedding and things of all sorts most richly for her ; which makes my Lady [Sandwich] and me out of our wits almost to see the kindness she treats us all with, as if they would buy the young lady.' Pepys accompanied Sir Philip Carteret on his first formal visit to Lady Jemima, and was considerably surprised by liis friend's unromantic pro- ceedings. ' But Lord ! what silly discourse we had as to ]ove-matters, he being the most awkward man ever I met with in my hfe as to that business ! ' Neither before nor after supper had the gentleman a word for the lady, whom indeed he afterwards told Pepys that he liked mightily ; ' but Lord ! in the dullest insipid man- ner that ever lover did.' The second day of their visit was a Sunday, and Sir Philip was to take Lady Jemima to church. Pepys was minute in his previous instruc- tions ; told Sir Philip what compliments he was to pay, how he was to lead the lady by the hand, and generally make the best use of his happy opportunities. Still the terribly timid wooer was not very successful ; but did better in the afternoon, when the company considerately left the two by themselves, ' and a little pretty daughter of my Lady Wright's most innocently came out after- wards, and shut the door to, as if she had done it, poor child, by inspiration : which made us without have good sport to laugh at.' Before the two days' visit was over, Pepys, who was himself distantly connected with the Sandwich family, took Lady Jemima apart, and tried to discover her feelings. ' She blushed, and hid her face awhile; but at last I forced her to tell me. She an- swered that she could readily obey wdiat her father and 10 LORD CARTERET mother liad done ; which was all slie could say, or I expect. So anon took leave, and for London. In our way Mr. Carteret did give me mighty thanks for my care and pains for him, and is mightily pleased.' Thus with the minimum of demonstration, at least before third parties, Sir Pliilip Carteret got a wife, who also seems to have been of a pleasant gravity by nature ; and the sober and refined merriment of their wedding entertain- ment struck Pepys, who was present in his finest clothes, as the most delightful thing in the world. Sir Philip Carteret's career was honourably cut short. Fighting against the Dutch in Southwold Bay in 1 672, he was drowned, along with his father-in-law. He might, like many others, have left the ship ; but he refused to desert the Earl of Sandwich. Of the short life of his eldest son, almost nothing can be told. He was born in 1667, and when only fifteen years old was inade a peer, with the style of Baron Carteret of Hawnes, in Bedfordshire. Charles had intended a similar honour for Sir George Carteret, but death had interfered ; and now this early peerage was granted to Sir Philip's son as some acknowledgment of the dis- tinguished services of his father and his grandfather. But George, this first Lord Carteret, did not live long enough to take any part in public affairs or to associate his name with history. He died at the age of twenty- six, having by his marriage united his family with that of the Granvilles, and leaving behind him an eldest son, John, the famous English statesman of the eighteenth century. The Granvilles, like tlie Carterets, were an ancient Norman family, and traced their origin, in unbroken line of honourable descent, back to Duke Eollo of Nor- mandy. Like the Carterets, also, the Granvilles had EABLY LIFE AND WORK IN PABLIAMENT 11 been conspicuous for bravery and patriotism, and had written their names on many pages of EngUsh history. One of the lieroes of their house was the famous Sir Eichard Grenville, whose single-handed battle in the little Revenge against a Spanish fleet of fifty-three vessels was the most wonderful fighting exploit of the Eliza- bethan seamen. 'At Flores, in the Azores,' with a little squadron of only six or seven ships, Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Eichard Grenville found that the Spanish fleet was close upon them. Howard, unable to fight, put to sea. Grenville, who had many of his Devonshire men sick on shore, waited to take them on board, and so was left alone, separated from the rest of the small squadron. The Spaniards soon surrounded him. From three o'clock in the afternoon of the last day of August, 1591, till next day's dawn, he fifteen times repulsed the whole Spanish fleet : — And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty- three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-buih galleons came, Shif) after ship, the whole night long, with lier battle thunder and flame ; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before ? • Grenville fought on, covered with wounds, till the little Revenge ^yas a helpless rolling hulk, Eather tlia.n jdeld to Spain, he Avished to send himself, men, and ship to ^ Tennyson : The Hevenge. 12 LOBD CARTEBET the bottom ; but the crew would not, and tlie one Englisli ship struck to the Spanish fifty-three. Gren- ville died on board the Spanish fleet three days after his wonderful fight ; and his dying words are his best memorial : ' Here die I, Eichard Grenville, with a joy- ful and quiet mind ; for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion and honour : my soul willingly departing from this body, leaving behind tlie lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in duty bound to do.' Grandson of this far-famed Sir Eichard was the almost equally renowned Sir Bevil Granville, whose death in the battle of Lansdowne deprived the Eoyalists of all rejoicing in their victory. Where, asked exag- gerative eulogy on the death of Sir Bevil — Where shall the next famed Granville's ashes stand ? Thy grandsire's fill the sea, and thine the land. Like all his family, Sir Bevil Granville was a devoted royahst; and, had he lived, he would have enjoyed such honours as his King could have given him. A letter of thanks from Charles I. Avas in Granville's pocket when he fell, and with it the patent which ap- pointed him Earl of Bath. Tlie honour passed to Sir Bevil's son, who indeed was loaded with dignities ; being by birth Sir John Granville, and by position in the peerage tlie first Earl of Bath, Viscount Lansdowne, and Baron Granville. If it had been possible, this Sir John Granville would have excelled his father in devotion to the cause of the Stuarts. He was commanding in the Scillj^ Islands wlien lie heard of the execution of the King. With passionate indignation he immediately proclaimed King Charles II., as Sir George Carteret did EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PABLIAMENT 13 in Jersey. He could not find words hard enough for Cromwell and the regicides. He wrote violently from Scilly when he heard the astonishing news : — ' The extraordinary ill news I have heard since my being here concerning the horrid murder and treason committed on the person of his most sacred majesty has transported me with grief. ... I hope God will revenge it on the heads of the damned authors and con- trivers of it. . . .As soon as I was assured of this sad truth, and had solemnly paid here our abundant griefs in infinite tears, having commanded throughout these islands a day of mourning and humihation for our most fatal and incomparable loss, I thought it my particular duty to proclaim his majesty tliat now is King.' ^ In tiie negotiations which changed Charles H.'s titular majesty into as real a one as so merely titular a being as Charles could ever make it. Sir John Granville had a prominent part. Through all the details of the Eestoration he was deep in the confidence of Charles and General Monk. He brought from Breda the royal letter of easy promises, easy to make and easy to forget ; and he received the public thanks of the House of Commons on what naturally, but too deceptively, seemed the happiest May-day that England had lately seen. He obtained the peerage which death had denied to his father, and his sisters were allowed to rank as Earl's daughters. From children of ]iis there are still liv- ing many highly distinguished descendants ; and his youngest daughter, Grace, was mother of John Lord Carteret. George, first Lord Carteret, husband of Grace Gran- ville, died at an early age in 1695. Their son John was born on April 22, 1690 ; and he thus succeeded to the 1 Brit. Mus. Egerton MSS. 2,503 ; fol. 474, v". 14 LORD GAETEBET barony of Carteret when less than five years old. His school hfe was passed at Westminster, a far more famous estab- hshment then than in more recent times. Many of the most distinguished Englishmen of the eighteenth century had their earliest education at Westminster. The school was especially prolific in bishops and statesmen. Sprat, bishop of Eoch ester, used to thank God that he was a bishop, though he had not been educated at Westminster. Many of those who in later life were closely connected with Carteret's political fortunes had been boys at the same school as himself. Pulteney, who afterwards led in the House of Commons the great opposition to Wal- pole, of which in the House of Lords Carteret was him- self the head; the Duke of Newcastle, as false as he was foolish, whose treachery and imbecility were equally disturbing factors in Carteret's political career ; Murray, more famous as Lord Mansfield ; Hervey, famous or in- famous as ' Sporus ' ; Prior and Atterbury, who touched Carteret's life more lightly than these others, were all Westminster boys. ' Pray, don't you think Westminster School to be the best school in England ? ' bookseller Lintot once asked Pope in 1714. 'Most of the late Ministry came out of it ; so did many of this Ministry.' Bentley, who was to be Carteret's intimate friend, became Master of Trinity when Carteret was ten years old ; and Bentley says that in the earlier years of his mastership the Westminster scholars gained the greater number of the fellowships. In Carteret's school-days the head master was Thomas Knipe ; the second master, who soon himself became the head, was the better known Dr. Robert Friend, celebrated chiefly for his skill in classical verse. His Sapphics, written on Carteret's younger brother, a Westminster scholar who died when only nineteen, were reckoned the most favourable specimen EABLY LIFE AND WORK IN PARLIAMENT 15 of his workmanship in elegant trifling, and have been approved by later anthorities. The connection of Westminster was specially close with Christ Church and with Trinity College, Cambridge. Carteret went to Christ Church. No details of his university life are recoverable ; but it is possible dimly to trace his friendship at ' the House ' with Lord Hatton and with Edward Harley, only son of Queen Anne's statesman. Carteret was at Oxford in 1709, the year of the terrible Malplaquet battle ; and it was perhaps in the long vacation of that or the following year, when Anne dismissed the Whigs, and when Eobert Harley and St. John became rival colleagues in power, that he wrote from Longleat ' to Mr. Harley at Christ Church in Oxford ' :— ' I now write at a venture, for I am not sure this will find you. I can never think that you are got privately again to Christ Church whilst the affairs of state are in such agitation ; and if you are not, I won't advise you to go. I rather could wish that as you imitate Apollo in some things, you would also imitate his tree : — Parnassia laurns Parva sub ingenti matris se suhjicit umhra. I need put no comment to enable you to decypher my meaning. You'll pardon my making use of so rural an image. Sometimes one may compare great tilings to little without diminution.'^ There are no details of Carteret's Oxford life ; but 1 Ilarleian MSS. 7,r)2;3 ; fol. 173. The only date is August IG. This letter is printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1779, p. 28-3, and the date 1732 is there added. This is impossible ; for in 1732 'Mr. Harley' had for eight years been Earl of Oxford. He had become Lord Harley in 1711, and the letter must have been written before that. The right date is pro- bably August 16, 1710 ; the year and month of the change of government. 16 LOUD CABTEBET he evidently did not make his residence the sinecure which his patrician position would have allowed and even encouraged. A nobleman at an English university in the eighteenth century could practically do what he liked, and many liked to do nothing. But Carteret must have worked hard. When he was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, his friend Swift, in a humorous vindication of Carteret's political conduct, wrote of him that from Oxford, ' with a singularity scarce to be justified, he carried away more Greek, Latin, and philosophy, than properly became a person of his rank ; indeed much more of each than most of those who are forced to live by their learning will be at the unnecessary pains to load their heads with.'^ Li a letter to Carteret himself, recommending Berkeley, who was about to publish a little tract containing his whole scheme of a life ' aca- demico-philosophical,' Swift adds in a parenthesis after these two words : ' I shall make you remember what you were.' No political enemy or anonymous libeller ever ventured to dispute Carteret's learning ; and the foundation of his lasting delight in the poetry, oratory, and philosophy of the great classical authors was firmly laid at Oxford. From Oxford Carteret seems to have come at once to London, and to have been received in the very best circles which London in Queen Anne's days could offer. With Swift, then in London on church business from Ireland, Carteret commenced an intimate and life-long friendship. Swift himself gives one or two glimpses of this early period of Carteret's London life. Gravely continuing liis ironical vindication. Swift has to admit that Carteret, on his first appearance in the great world, split upon the rock of learning. ' For, as soon as he 1 Swift's Works, VII. 284. EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PABLIAMENT 17 came to town, some bishops and clergymen, and other persons most eminent for learning and parts, got him among them.' From these distinguished friends, how- ever, and from London itself, Carteret vanished for a little time ; for, young as he was, he at once settled down in life, marrying at Longleat on October 17, 1710, Lady Frances Worsley, granddaughter of the first Viscount Weymouth. Then he returned to town and to politics. A few shght references to him in 1711 and 1712 occur in Swift's Journal to Stella. Carteret sets down Prior in his chariot ; and Prior, who could pun and not be ashamed, thanks him for his 'charioty.' Twice Carteret dines with the Secretary, St. John, when the very small circle of guests was on each occasion entirely selected by Swift. Swift himself jestingly exj)resses his high opinion of Carteret, who was still a young man under age. ' I will tell you,' writes Swift to Stella, ' a good thing I said to my Lord Carteret. " So," says he, " my Lord came up to me, and asked me, etc." " No," said I, " my Lord never did, nor ever can come up to you." We all pun here sometimes.' ^ For Lady Carteret also, who was married before she was seventeen, Swift, the intimate friend of her mother, had great respect and admiration. A curious glimpse of social manners in high life in the closing years of Queen Anne's reign accidentally introduces Lady Carteret's name. Swift was dining with Lady Betty Germaine, and among the company were the young Earl of Berkeley and his Countess. ' Lady Berkeley after dinner clapped my hat on another lady's head, and she in roguery put it upon ^ To Stella, Jan. 4, 1710-11. The best of all puns is connected with Carteret and Swift. When Carteret was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and was entertaining once at the Castle, a lady's impetuous mantle overset a Cremona tiddle. Swift repeated to himself Virgil's line : — Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae. c 18 LORD CARTERET the rails. I minded them not, but in two minutes they called me to the window, and Lady Carteret showed me my hat out of her window five doors off, where I was forced to walk to it, and pay her and old Lady Wey- mouth a visit.' ^ Carteret took his seat in the House of Lords on May 25, 1711, a few weeks after he had attained his majority. The previous year had produced a dramatically sudden change in the state of English political affairs. From the beginning of Anne's reign, and through the years made eventful by Marlborough's victories, the fortunes of the Whigs were aided by the success of Marlborough's career. Marlborough was nominally, as Godolphin was really, a Tory ; the first of Queen Anne's parliaments had a Tory majority. Yet the Tory ministers found themselves gradually looking for their chief support to the Whigs. Godolphin and Marlborough practically cared little about the differences of the Whig and Tory party politics of their time. They put one question to all political persons : Do you support the war or not ? The High Tories frigidly answered. No ; the moderate Tories did not profess any enthusiasm in the business. It was a Whig war. King William's war ; the Tories had little relish for a war against the chief supporter of the House of Stuart. Naturally the extreme Tories began to drop away from the ministry. Those of a milder type still supported the Government ; and in 1704 Har- ley and St. Jolm joined it. But the Wliigs were be- coming its main defence. In 1705 Cowper, the finest Whig orator in the Commons, was made Lord Chancellor, and in 1706 the Whig Sunderland, Carteret's special friend, became Secretary of State. But this union of real Whigs and real and nominal Tories did not work ^ Swift to Stella, June 6, 1711. EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PABLIAMENT 19 very well. Harley's cautiously intriguing nature very soon proved dangerous. The Whigs commonly called him the Trickster ; he was a master of backstairs cabal- ling ; solemn, reserved, and mysterious. He carefully worked on the one subject which most touched tlie sluggishly feeble nature of the Queen. His measures, privately supported by his relation, Abigail Hill, Sarah of Marlborough's needy dependant and successful rival, confirmed Anne's natural inclination to the Tories by convincing her that under the Whigs the Church was in danger. Gradually Anne withdrew her confidence from her Whig ministers ; and Harley, thinking his complete triumph sure, soon allowed himself to intrigue and manoeuvre with very little attempt at concealment. But an accident for a short time interrupted his plans. In spite of his solemn seriousness and assumption of mysterious profundity, he was incredibly careless in the performance of business, and managed his office so negligently that unscrupulous clerks found an 023portu- nity of conveying secret information to the enemy. No crime of this sort was proved against Harley personally ; but Marlborough and Godolphin refused any longer to act with him. Early in 1708 he was thus forced to resign, and St. John resigned with him, being succeeded as Secretary at War by his life-long opponent Walpole. The general election of 1708 gave again a large Whig majority, and the fortunes of the party seemed firmly established. But a dramatic change soon followed. Towards the close of 1709, Sacheverell, an extremely insignificant High Church clergyman, preached two foolishly ultra- Tory sermons, and, borrowing a nickname from Ben Jonson's famous play, alluded to Godolphin as Vol- pone. Sacheverell was an unimportant, ignorant man, c 2 20 LOBD CABTERET whose fatal stupidity was probably at times amusing ; though it is hardly worth while to read his obsolete dis- courses for the sole satisfaction of finding the simile ' like parallel lines meeting in a common centre.' To have treated him and his noisy Jacobitism with in- different contempt would have been the wiser way ; but Godolphin was irritated by the nickname, and in oppo- sition to prudent advice resolved to prosecute him. Sacheverell was convicted ; but the very light sentence was reckoned as his practical victory, and a strong Tory reaction followed the ill-advised trial. An impetus was thus given to the desires and plans of the Queen, Harley, and Mrs. Masham. Anne dismissed Sunderland, and, though the Whigs remained for some months in office, they were no longer in power. In August 1710 the Government fell ; Harley and St. John became the leaders of the new Tory administration ; and the general election of the same year gave to the Tory party an ascendency as complete as it was ephemeral. The new Government seemed to have a very firm seat in power when Carteret entered the House of Lords in May 1711. Carteret might naturally have been ex- pected to join the Tories. His not very remote ancestors had been almost passionate in their Stuart loyalty. He had himself just come from the Tory and Jacobitical influences of Christ Church and Oxford. His relative George Granville, Lord Lansdown — Pope's ' Granville the polite ' — was extreme in his devotion to the Tories, and was actually Secretary at War in the new Govern- ment. Swift was Carteret's personal friend, and was definitely relinquishing the Whigs ; and friendship with Swift had led to at least some intimacy with St. John. But Carteret throughout his career never allowed politi- cal considerations to interfere with his private friendships, EABLY LIFE AND WORK IN PARLIAMENT 21 and lie was not now inclined to the Tory party because he was privately intimate with the Tory leaders. He did not perhaps at the very first definitely attach him- self to either of the pohtical parties. On some questions of minor importance he seems to have voted with the Court. But on the one domestic question of overpower- ing interest in the closing years of Queen Anne's reign, the question of the Protestant succession, Carteret un- hesitatingly took his place among the Whigs. The Whig party, when Carteret entered parhament, was divided, though the dividing-line did not appear very distinctly till George I. was on the throne. One Whig section was then clearly seen to be headed by Sunderland and Stanhope; another, by Walpole and his brother-in-law, Townshend. The rivalries of these four leaders were destined to end in open quarrels and political changes ; but in 1711, when the Tories were in overwhelming force, the Whigs could not very well afford to quarrel among themselves. The more ad- vanced and enhghtened section was that to which Stan- hope and Sunderland belonged, and these were the two statesmen with whom Carteret, in his earlier political career, was most closely connected. Charles, Earl of Sunderland, had proved the decisive triumph of the Whig element in the Government by his appointment as Secretary of State in 1706 ; and he was the first of the Whigs whom Anne, after Sacheverell's trial, ven- tured to dismiss. A man of strong temper and restlessly vehement, he was considered in those days as being even violent in Whiggism. Lord Shelburne wrote of him : — ' Lord Sunderland was not only the most intriguing, but the most passionate man of his time. . . . Lord Holland, speaking of those times, said he once asked 22 LOBD CABTEBET Sir Eobert Walpole why he never came to an under- standing with Lord Sunderland. He answered, "You httle know Lord Sunderland. If I had so much as hinted at it, his temper was so violent, that he would have done his best to throw me out of the window.'* ' ^ Stanhope's early reputation had been made in war, the capture of Minorca in 1708 being his most notable performance. He had no special fitness for parliamen- tary management. The eager boldness which charac- terised him on the military side became, when applied to parliamentary affairs, a passionate impetuosity not too safely suitable even for quiet times, and in every way dangerous in the sudden storms of politics. He was brave and incorrupt ; his knowledge of foreign affairs was large ; but his chief distinction with posterity rests on his advocacy of religious toleration. Here he was much in advance of his time. He brought about the repeal of the educational persecution known as the Schism Act ; he would have liked, if he could, to have modified the Test and Corporation Acts, and to have offered some tolerance to Eoman Catholics and Dissenters. That proved impossible, but the fault was not Stan- hope's. Stanhope and Sunderland were leaders in the cause of the House of Hanover and the Protestant Succession. On this matter Carteret fully shared their views, and his first parliamentary work was concerned with this much and angrily debated subject. In the last years of Anne's reign, the political arrangement which had been devised to secure the succession of a Protestant sovereign seemed in considerable danger. In the very year in which Carteret took his scat, a Jacobite ^ Shelburne's Autohioyraplnj \ Lord E. Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, I. , 34-35. EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PARLIAMENT 23 agent wrote that if the Pretender would only land with 10,000 men, not a sword would be drawn against him. The Eoman Catholics, the landowners, the High Churchmen were to a large extent Jacobite. Anne her- self was more than suspected of no particular devotion to the Act of Settlement and its favoured Hanoverians. With hardly an exception, the leading statesmen of her reign had been or were intriguers, or at least corre- spondents, with St. Germains. On St. John, most of all, Jacobite hopes were now confidently inclining to rest ; St. John, who from the very formation of the Tory ministry had been in eager rivalry with Harley, and as Anne's reign drew towards its close was clearly getting the better of him. It does not seem open to doubt that if the Pretender could only have renounced his Catholic religion, the immense majority of the people would have declared for his succession. The ministry of course insisted that there was no danger ; parliament and the Government, in Avearisomely repeated debates, asserted their attachment to the Protestant cause ; but there was a great air of unreality and insincerity about these formal periodical proceedings. One moment the House of Commons declared its devotion to the Hano- verian family ; the next, it ordered Sacheverell to preach before it on Eestoration Hay. Eoyal speeches made the most satisfactory professions ; but royal manners and actions did not care to correspond too closely w^ith the royal words. When in 171 B the House of Lords, a far more liberal assembly than the House of Commons, wished Anne to urge friendly governments altogether to discountenance the Pretender, the Queen, not altogether untruly, but not at all reassuringly, replied that the best way to secure the Protestant succession would be to cease from animosities at home. The Lords were 24 LORD CABTERET told in language of conventional politeness to mind their own affairs. In such quarrelsome and contradictory cir- cumstances, the general excitement increased daily ; for the question was highly interesting then, though it is extremely dull now. Steele in 1713 produced the Crisis, a now unreadable pamphlet, in support of the House of Hanover. Swift anonymously replied in his Public Spirit of the Whigs, and severely attacked the Scotch Union, which was reckoned a great security against the schemes of the Jacobites. When the new parha- raent met in March 1714, the addresses of both Houses expressed entire confidence that the Protestant cause was not in the slightest danger ; and having thus satis- fied the demands of formality, parliament settled down to furious debates on the subject. The Lords attacked Swift for his pamphlet against the Whigs ; the Commons kept the balance even by falling foul of Steele and ex- pelling him from the House. In 1714, in one of the numberless debates on this interminable question, Carteret definitely took his place with the Whigs. He was in the minority, for the Lords at last voted that the Protestant succession was in no danger ; but the majority was only twelve, the exact number of the batch of recently created Tory peers, whom Wharton on their appearance in the House un- kindly asked if they meant to vote by their foreman. The victory of the Government was a very poor one, and the attack of the opposition was soon renewed. Oxford put his hand on his heart and protested his devotion to the Protestant cause ; but the general feeling was so strong that Wharton barbarously proposed to ofier a reward for the apprehension of the Pretender alive or dead. This encouragement to murder was indeed re- jected ; one peer, while protesting his affection to the EABLY LIFE AND WOBK IN PABLIAMENT 25 House of Hanover, declining to venture damnation for them. The milder and reasonable proposal that a reward should be offered for the arrest of James H. if he should land or attempt to land in Great Britain or Ireland was supported by Carteret. Anne at first refused her consent, but the Government found itself forced to yield, and issued the proclamation. The angry debating and real danger were ended in a dramatically sudden way. Three weeks after Anne had prorogued this parliament, she died, in August 1714, her illness aggravated by the bitter dis- putes between her two rival ministers. Bolingbroke had already triumphed so far as to obtain the dismissal of Oxford, and was planning a cabinet of his own which would really have been a Jacobite one ; but the Queen's sudden death ruined all his plots. Two days before she died, Anne appointed the Duke of Shrewsbury to Oxford's vacant place, and the whole tendency of poli- tical affairs was silently but decisively reversed. The all-powerful Bolingbroke, bantered by the amused mahce of fortune, was almost insultingly hurried out of office, and all despatches addressed to him passed into the novice hands of Addison. Not a Tory or Jacobite was ready to move, and the Whigs quietly entered upon a period of political power which lasted uninterruptedly for almost half a century. With the new reign came distinctions for Carteret. Before the coronation of George I. he was appointed one of the lords of the bedchamber ; in 1715 his mother was created Viscountess Carteret and Countess Granville in her own right, with limitation of these honours to her son ; and in 1716 Carteret was made Lord- Lieutenant of Devonshire, one of the western counties with which the Granville family had been much connected. In the 20 LORD CARTERET troubled year of 1715 Carteret, a young man of twenty- five, was in the West, doing all he could in support of the new Hanoverian establishment. While the Jacobite rebellion was at its height in the North, Carteret was writing from Stowe to Eobethon, French secretary of George I : — ' I am now two hundred long miles from you, situated on a cliff overlooking the sea, and every tide have fresh prospects in viewing ships coming home. In this corner of the earth have I received your letter, and without that I should have heard nothing since I came. ' Most of the neisrhbouring o-entlemen have been with me, and I am satisfied that the king will have no reason to expect any disturbance from the west. I did not think there was so good a company amongst [them]. I will do all I can to improve their thoughts of the ministry, and discountenance all the little seeds of faction that have been sown here.'^ Carteret's first parliamentary work had been in support of the legal Hanoverian claim to the English throne, and his first parliamentary distinction was gained in defence of the newly estalDlished line. Though George had been received in England with a languidly peaceful indifference, a good deal of disturbance and discontent was early evidence of a dangerous temper in various parts of the country. Serious outbreaks had led to the passing of the Eiot Act, and a rebellion had broken out in Scotland and England. Many of the Tories were Jacobites, and the Tories who were not Jacobites were discontented, for they were totally excluded from the Government. In these rather dis- quieting circumstances, and in accordance witli the Triennial Act, a general election was nearly due. Riots 1 Sept, 25, 1715. Brit. Mus. Sloane MSS. 4,107 ; fol. 171, v°. EARLY LIFE AND WORK IN PARLIAMENT 27 and confusion were even in untroubled times a matter of course ; but on the present occasion there was the further fear of the election of an increased number of Jacobites. Eather than risk a general election, and probably weaken the new and not very popular estab- lishment, the ministry resolved to repeal the Triennial Act. Though the matter chiefly affected the House of Commons, the Bill was introduced in the Lords. Every one knew the real reason for the repeal, but formality required that ministerial speakers should indulge in much declamation against the ruinous expense and shameful corruption and dangerous party passions which were the inevitable attendants of the frequent general elections throughout the country. Carteret supported the measure, and this first reported fragment of a speech of his is interesting as showing that at the very beginning of his career his attention was already directed to foreign affairs and European politics. He mainly urged that the increase in the average duration of each English parliament would strengthen the hands of the King and the Government in their dealings with the statesmen of Europe. The sudden changes pro- duced by very frequent general elections perplexed foreign countries, and relatively weakened England in her foreign policy ; for continental statesmen did not care to show more complaisance than was necessary to ministers whose hold on power was exposed to such frequent and capricious interruptions. Carteret's point was an important one ; though the fine old English feeling of satisfaction with everything that is English, and of condescending indifference to the pursuits and proceedings of mere foreigners, of course found a rather confused expression in demands to know why English- 28 LOBD CABTEBET men and English ministers should pay any attention to the convenience of European statesmen. The Sep- tennial Bill, however, was carried easily enough, and the question does not in itself require any consideration in an account of Carteret's life ; but the fact that Carteret's first recorded parliamentary utterance con- cerned itself with the foreign politics of England and of Europe gives an artistic symmetry and singleness to the story of his political career. For throughout his very varied public life this was the one question which in- terested him most. It formed the argument of this first youthful speech, and it was the subject of the last recorded words which he uttered on his death-bed. 29 CHAPTER 11. DIPLOMACY. 1717-1719. During the first half of the eighteenth century the great Whig party in England was divided into two main sec- tions, definable, with sufiicient accuracy, as Whigs in place, and Whigs out of place. In the earlier years of the reign of George I. one of these rival sections was headed by Walpole and Townshend, the other by Stan- hope and Sunderland. The four statesmen had all, on the accession of the King, been fellow-members of the same united Whig Government ; ToAvnshend, practically Prime Minister ; Stanhope, chief director of foreign affairs ; Walpole, Paymaster ; and Sunderland, consider- ably to his own disgust, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. But this union, never very cordial, did not last long. Differences and disputes were increased by underhand caballing and unedifying intriguing, and Walpole and Townshend fell. Their colleague-rivals came into un- divided power, and by them admission into official life was gladly offered to Lord Carteret. The schism between the four ministers had reached its crisis over the question of foreign politics. The position of George on his accession was not a reassuring one. European enemies were many ; allies few and unsatisfactory. France had recognised George as King, and was perfectly willing to recognise his rival. Spain 80 LOBD CABTEBET was a mere i)rovince of France. The German Emperor, Charles VI., had been full of irritated contempt for England ever since Harley and St. John had made their Treaty of Utrecht, and had astonished him by refusing to fight for his Spanish succession any longer. Peter of Eussia was sulkily jealous, for George stood in the way of certain Eussian schemes in Germany. Charles XII. of Sweden, though his country was now in a disastrous condition, and he himself an exile in Turkey, was enraged when he lieard that George was joining the alliance against him, and preparing to take posses- sion of Bremen and Verden. To balance all this opposition of Kings, and Czars, and Emperors, England could ojily boast of the friendship of the States-General, and, in a fitful sort of way, of the attachment of the King's son-in-law, Frederick Willi am of Prussia. Neither of these alliances was very satisfactory. Holland was now very different from the Holland of Cromwell's time ; the value of its alliance, even when the Dutch slu, v". June 29, 1723. SECRET ABY OF STATE 85 left Herrenliausen on October the 7th, 1723, and next evening arrived at Charlottenburg, one of the Prussian palaces a mile or so south of Berlin ; a palace built by George's own sister, Sophie Charlotte, first Queen of Prussia, made immortal by a pinch of snuff. The Eoyal Prussian family were all at Charlottenburg ready to receive their heavy relative from Hanover ; and though George terribly alarmed the whole household, and especially his own ministers, by his sudden illness that nig-ht, all was well a^ain next mornin^? when the sicrht- seeing and entertainments began. Carteret gives Walpole a slight programme of the proceedings : — ' All this Court is at the height of joy to see his majesty so full of health, as well as of goodness and graciousness. You will easily imagine that the time is spent in variety of entertainments, in which the King of Prussia strives to show his utmost satisfaction at his majesty's presence. I shall not enter into a description of all that passes, but his Prussian majesty's favourite pleasure, his troops, appear in their exercise and in everything exact and perfect beyond imagination. The Queen entertained his majesty yesterday at dinner at a very pretty garden-house her majesty has just out of the gates of Berlin, called Man Bijou, and in the evening there was a fine ball and supper at the Castle. To-morrow we shall attend the King to Potsdam, where his majesty will see the great grenadiers, and after dinner go onwards as far as Fehrbellin, in order to reach the Gohr^ with ease on Thursday.''"^ Frederick William's favourite hobby, his regiment of the tallest men to be bought, pressed, or kidnapped in Europe, was duly paraded before his royal visitor. * George's llano veriau hunting-seat. 2 Brit, ivius. Add. MSS. 22,524 ; fol. 10-11. 86 LOBD CARTERET 'JSTothing could make a finer appearance,' reports a feuiUet which Carteret sent to Polwarth and Whit- wortli to amuse them in their dreary work at Cambrai. 'They marched before the King and then drew up and per- formed the exercise of advancing and retreating, and firing by platoons, which they did with that order and dexterity that they fired upwards of 10,000 shot in about fifteen minutes, each man firing fourteen times.' But far the most notable sight which George saw at Berlin was of a different, though also military, order ; the Crown-Prince Cadets, some three hundred boys of good family, performing their exercise, headed by a boy of some thirteen or fourteen years old, George's own grandson, one day to be Frederick the Great. TheEngHsh King, who was probably a good deal bored by Court dinners and the painful necessity of being generally polite, was especially pleased with the behaviour of the young prince. But doubtless what pleased him most of all was his safe return to his own Hanover once more. And the double marriage, and the Prussian alliance? In spite of all the hopes and desires, not very much was done to secure the one, and absolutely nothing to secure the other. No double-marriage agreement was signed now, or ever was ; Queen Sophia's unending toil on this point soon went all to ruin. A political alliance, per- haps not of a very definite kind, was indeed arranged ; a promise between the two crowns of mutual friendship and help in dangers that might arise; signed at Charlot- tenburg by Carteret and Townshend on the English side. But that was all. Assurances of good-will were profuse on both sides ; Frederick William, who had a good heart under his exceedingly rough exterior, showed really great cordiality to his somewhat inarticulate SECBETABY OF STATE 87 father-in-law. But for practical purposes this visit, from which great things had been expected, proved to be only a more or less enjoyable episode, which left high political affairs very much where it had found them. George had chiefly been reconciled to this visit to Berlin by his alarm at certain threatening proceedings of the Czar, and it was in argument over English policy towards Peter the Great that it first became indisputably evident that Walpole and Townshend were in reality the rivals of their colleague Carteret. Well-founded informa- tion came to Hanover that Peter was fitting out a powerful expedition; there could be little doubt that its object was an attack on Sweden. In Sweden there was a considerable faction anxious to produce a change in the Government; and if this party should unite with the Czar, the result might be to place upon the Swedisli throne a nominee of Eussia ; a disastrous result for the commercial and political interests of England. George was exceedingly concerned at such a prospect, and dis^ cussed with Carteret and Townshend the necessary counter-measures. Townshend, quite as much as Car- teret, recognised the serious condition of afiairs and the dangers which might throw all the north of Europe into confusion again, and he pressed Walpole to consider some financial plan by which money might be forth- coming in case of an emergency. But Carteret was in- clined to go further. He urged that some English men-of- war should at least be pat into a state of readiness, that they might join the Danish fleet without loss of time if the Czar's action should force England to oppose liim. Townshend objected to tliis, and tlie result was a struggle between_the two Secretaries^; the first actual ghmpse of their rearopposition to each otlier. They went together 88 LORD CARTERET to the King, and argued the point before him, and greatly to Townshend's deUght, the royal opinion sided with his view. Carteret, says Townshend, was much mortified ; he went out shooting for a few days in a per- plexed condition. Townshend solaced himself with very flattering reflections, and effiisively communicated his joy to Walpole. For by this time Walpole and Townshend had begun to consider Carteret a serious danger in their way. Carteret's personal charm, his great attention to busi- ness, his perfect knowledge of European politics — a subject on which Walpole did not profess to be any special authority — had gained him the complete favour of the King. It was much in his favour, too, that he could speak German, wdiile Walpole in all his conversations with George, who had no English and spoke no French, was restricted to an unsatisfactory, and perhaps some- times unintelligible, dog-Latin. It is curious to notice how little progress German made in England under its first two German Kings. In 1736, when the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha was about to be married to Frederick, Prince of Wales, it was suggested that she might ad- visedly be taught either French or English. Her mother, however, with a ludicrous misconception of the Teutonic enthusiasm of the Englisli nation, replied that knowledge of English or French must be quite unneces- sary ; for the Hanover family had been on the English throne for more than twenty years, and to be sure most people in England, and especially at Court, must speak German as well and as often as they spoke English. Yet Lord Hervey bluntly declares that there w^ere pro- bably not three people in the kingdom who spoke a word of it better than they had done in the reign of Queen Anne, Of German, however, Carteret was an easy SECBETABY OF STATE 89 master; and amusing accounts tell with what jealous, suspicious wonder the other ministers heard Carteret conversing with the sovereign in that unknown tongue. Carteret's weight at the same time was great for another reason. The influence which Earl Stanhope had pos- sessed over Cardinal Dubois, and so over the French Court, had passed to Carteret, who thus was the chief guarantee in the Government for the continuance of the French alliance. The English ambassador at Paris had been appointed by Carteret, and was his attached per- sonal friend. And while Carteret had these striking pohtical and personal advantages, he decidedly had po- litical ambition, though it was ambition of the sort which despised the labyrinthine httlenesses of the party pohtics of the day, and was utterly above money and ribbons and garters. A man of this kind and Walpole coidd not possibly long work together, and the crisis of their disagreement came during this visit to Hanover. No English statesman of the first half of the eight- eenth century, however higli his personal character and unquestionable his abilities, could keep his head above water without a firm hold of Court favour, and in the reign of George I. this favour was only to be obtained through channels of a somewhat unsavoury kind. A minister was obliged to use self-interested agents whom, if he were a man like Carteret, he thoroughly despised, and could hardly be got to endure in his presence. A man like Walpole handled such tools with a sort of cynical good-humour, as if there were a kind of unmentioned but half-understood camar- aderie between them ; while a creature of the Bubb Dodington stamp would soil himself among them with a genial familiarity, accepting it as a first principle that dirt wab matter in the right place. No English states- 90 LOBD CAETEBEl man of the day kept his hands so clean as Carteret ; no one suffered so much for having despised dirty effrontery and back-stairs bribery. But, under the first Hanover- ian sovereign of England, to have a friend at Court was for a minister almost a necessity of political existence ; and, so far, Carteret had to follow the fashion or deform- ity of the time. From Hanover, George brought with him to England two leading favourites who are inextricably entangled in the political life of his reign. One of these Teutonic women is best remembered by the title of Countess of Darlington ; a fierce-eyed, red-faced, intolerably fat woman — a really great character if size is to be the criterion. She was so ponderous that the amused English people compared her to an elephant and castle ; but George could stand a very large quantity of fat. Some of the English ladies of larger bulk, seeing the royal predilection that way, did what they could to increase the magnitude of their attractions. ' Some succeeded and others burst,' sneers Chesterfield, less unjustifiably ^ Vxs than usual. They say that this overpowering Countess l^ '^. ''^-had been beautiful once, though now she had got into this mere giantess condition, finding all warm weatlier oppressive. The world has forgotten her in spite of her imperious influence in the Court of George I. How much did she weigh ? posterity asks with languid inter- est, and learns with the completest indifference that tlie amount is unknown. The other favourite, a woman of various German and English titles, still vaguely hangs on to memory as Duchess of Kendal. Physically, she was a great contrast to tlie Countess of Darlington. Not at all beautiful ; ' a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady,' was Horace Walpole's boyish reminiscence of iier. She was so tall, SECBETABY OF STATE 91 cyaunt, and scraggy that she was famiharly known as the ' Maypole.' Except for her insatiable appetite for money, in which the Darlington fully equalled her, there was no particular harm in this simple old crea- ture. Her abihties were too trifling to require any mention. Chesterfield plainly says that she was very little above an idiot. She was so complacently foohsh that her society was very attractive and sootliing to George I. ; and, in spite of her deficiency in fat, her influence with him was considerably greater than her rival's. She was a Lutheran, with a reputation for piety of a sort ; painfully going seven times every Sunday to Lutheran chapels in London. More curious was the tinge of superstition in the Countess, who piously cher- ished a black raven which had flown hi at her window soon after the King's death, and firmly believed that here was the soul of his departed majesty whom she was never more to see. ' Quoth the raven. Never more.' So exceedingly influential with the King were these ludicrously unprofitable German women, that states- men had to take the chances of their support or ill- will into their best and most serious consideration. In addition, therefore, to the politicians who were inclined to follow Carteret's lead, when the deaths of Sunderland and Stanhope left him as the chief repre- sentative of that section of the Whigs, it became necessary for Carteret to secure, if possible, the good- will of one of the two feminine favourites who swayed the King very much as they pleased. Carteret so far succeeded that he might reckon on the support of the Countess of Darlington, so long as it should not be her interest to favour any one else. But, on the other liand, the Duchess of Kendal was in a thorough understanding with Walpole and Townshend ; and the Duchess was 92 LORD CABTERET more influential with the King than tlie Countess. Townshend, in view of the coming contest with Carteret, was particularly well satisfied with the state of tliis feminine question. In his letters to Walpole, the Duchess of Kendal was the ' Good Duchess,' their fast friend ; and he exultantly wrote from Hanover in Octo- ber 1723 : 'I beheve I may venture to say she reposes a more entire confidence in me at present than in any other person about tlie King.' So far, the brother- ministers might fairly congratulate themselves on their probabilities of success, with all the more malicious certainty when they remembered that the Duchess of Kendal, quite apart from her Court rivalry, had a priv- ate jealousy against the family to which the Countess of Darlington belonged. It was over a rather contemptible affair, more or less connected with these uninteresting denizens of a Court where there was no Queen, that the quarrel in tlie English ministry came to its crisis. A Swiss, Sir Luke Schaub, who had been the Earl of Stanhope's private secretary, and was Carteret's intimate friend, was at this period English ambassador at Paris. He had been appointed by Carteret, and was, therefore, suspiciously regarded by Walpole and Townshend. The want of liarmony among the Enghsh ministers was, of course, known to Schaub ; and Dubois, who had become Prime Minister of France through English influence, was also perfectly aware of it. The three ministers — Walpole, Townshend, and Carteret — had. indeed, united- ly signed a letter to Dubois, after the death of Sunder- land, and liad formally announced their union and their desire to continue towards France the policy of Sun- derland and Stanhope ; but Carteret, writing to Schaub at the same time, had spoken plainly of the probability SECRET ABY OF STATE 93 of disagreements. He told Schaiib that he felt his position strong ; but he also declared himself resolved not to remain long united with his colleagues, if he were not fully persuaded of their good intentions. ^ He refused, however, to believe that Walpole and Towns- hend meant to deal dishonestly with him.^ Schaub, on his side, naturally upheld at Paris the interest and influence of Carteret ; and Schaub's own weight with Dubois, which was a considerable guarantee for the con- tinuance of good relations between England and France, no doubt seemed to Carteret a guarantee also for his own safe position in the ministry. If, then, Walpole could weaken Carteret's influence here — could give a blow to Carteret's reputation at Paris, that would be to damage Carteret where he seemed to be most strong, and to injure him in the place where he Avould feel it the most. Walpole resolved to try. One of the schemes which Schaub at Paris was anx- ious to carry out was a marriage between a niece of the Countess of Darlington and a young French nobleman, son of the Marquis de la Vrilliere. The King of England was eager for this match; but one condition the Darhngton family imperatively desired. They insisted that the Marquis de la Vrilhere must be made a Duke. There was likely to be some difficulty in gaining the assent of the French Court. George, who could not with dignity make such an application to Louis XV. unless he knew that it would be at once granted, did actually himself write a letter requesting the promotion ; the letter only to be presented if success was certain. The negotiation was thrown into the hands of Schaub, 1 Carteret to Schaub; May 4, 1722. Brit. Mus. Sloane MSS. 4,204; fol. 66, v°. ■' Id. to id. Sloane MSS. 4,204; Ibl. Q7, v". 94 LORD CABTEEET and, necessarily, of Carteret, to whom, deep in tlie affairs of the Congress of Cambrai, the thing was doubtless as insignificant as it deserved to be. Yet this merely vulgar affair, a question concerning nothing more important than the lumbering etiquette of a hand- ful of objectionable Teutonic people, served as well as anything else to overthrow an Enghsli statesman of genius, and firmly to secure Walpole in a position which he was to hold for nearly twenty years to come. The first check which Carteret received was the death of Cardinal Dubois in August 1723. Eumours of the disagreements between Carteret and Townshend at Hanover had already been floating in London and giving rise to various inconsistent conjectures. Some said that Carteret would soon be back in England to form, along with Walpole, a reorganised ministry ; others, that he was returning in disgrace. The death of Dubois, opening to the brother-ministers the possibility of procuring the recall of Scliaub from Paris, gave them also a chance to make it clear to every one that it was Carteret who was in the weak position and whose poli- tical power was declining. If the ambassador who practically was Carteret's nominee, who was devoted to Carteret's interests, could be removed, a blow would be struck which every one wovdd be able to appreciate, and all rumours of Carteret's suj)erior influence with the King would be effectually contradicted. Walpole and Townshend accordingly began to make disparaging re- presentations of Schaub ; to assert that any influence which he might have had at Paris had been destroyed by the death of Dubois, and that to retain him in his embassy there would be damaging to the King's affairs. They did not dare flatly to ask Schaub's recall, but went about the thing in an intriguing way, which they thought was SECRETARY OF STATE 95 certain, sooner or later, to produce the desired result. A special incident helped them. On the death of Dubois, the Eegent Orleans recalled to Paris one Count Noce who had been banished by the influence of the Cardinal, but now returned to renewed perfect intimacy with the Eegent. Carteret himself was rather anxious when he heard of this ; for Noce was on bad terms with Schaub, whose influence with Dubois he considered to have been the real cause of his disgrace. Walpole and Townshend gladly took advantage of this convenient occurrence. Townshend, at Hanover, suggested to the King that it would be well to send ' to Paris an envoy who with all discreetness, and concealing as far as he possibly could the real intention of his journey, should ascertain what Schaub's influence with the French Gov- ernment really was. But how could this be done with- out disgusting Carteret ? France was in his department ; any appointment to Paris was Carteret's affair. To avoid the chance of an open and premature quarrel, Towns- hend suggested that the thing should be managed as informally as possible. The envoy should not adopt a diplomatic character ; should not even go direct from Hanover to Paris, but should start from London A\dth a supposed intention to make liis way to Hanover, taking Paris only on his road, as if with merely private curiosity to see it. To explain a somewliat prolonged stay there, he should make pretence of visiting the neighbouring palaces and other objects of reasonable interest, in which an intelligent foreigner might naturally profess to find excusable attraction. And for this slightly ambiguous enterprise, Townshend very quietly proposed Horatio Walpole, Eobert Walpole's younger brother. This appointment, brought about without any pre- vious information to Carteret, was tlie second check 96 LOBD CABTERET which he received, and Townshend was very triumphant. A spy was about to be sent into Carteret's own depart- ment, and Carteret had not even been consulted in the mat- ter. Other httle incidents, trifling in themselves, pointed towards the same zealous undermining of Carteret's position. On various small occasions Townshend did all he could to thwart Carteret at Hanover, opposing his recommendations, and endeavouring to weaken his influence. Yet Carteret seems to have taken it all good- humouredly enough, and probably did not think the state of affairs too serious. Townshend, after one of his little successes over his colleague, wrote home to Walpole — ' Perhaps you may have some curiosity to know wliat my good colleague's behaviour was upon this victory. We came home very lovingly together, and he was lavish on his old topic, how well he intended to live with you and me.' At the same time, Townshend evidently did not care to appear too confident; for he begged Walpole to mention these particulars to New- castle alone. ' Nothing would give his majesty greater offence than our making any such affair a matter of triumph, and the less we boast, the more we shall cer- tainly have to boast of.' Townshend was determined to have a great deal more to boast of. Hardly had Horatio Walpole started on his ambiguous mission when Townshend, having succeeded so far, thought he might with cheerful confidence go further. He suggested that Walpole's position at Paris would be much improved if he had some credentials from the King. There was an easy excuse to make for this. Tlie King of Portugal was about to join the Quadruple Alliance; let Horatio Walpole, then, have full powers to manage from Paris the various formalities which such an occasion required. The King agreed ; spoke of it to Carteret as if it had been SECRET ABY OF STATE 97 a thouuhl of his own, and Carteret could not venture to oppose. But Townshend says that Carteret was ex- tremely mortified, and a duller man than he could easily have foreseen the end of all these little slights and irritations. Yet Townshend seems, with wishful eager- ness, to have exaggerated the effect which the appoint- ment of Horatio Walpole had on Carteret. He declared to the minister in London that Carteret had been perfectly astonished by the stroke. ' I never observed in him on any occasion such visible marks of despmr.' In ascribing despair to Carteret, Townshend was doubt- less wrong. Carteret might easily enough have been disgusted, and may very probably not have cared to conceal it — suspicious of his colleagues he had only too good reason to be ; but despair, even in far more serious circumstances than tliese, was altogether out of Carter- et's way. His own language shows that he knew well enough the plots which were being laid against him, but that he did not take them at all in the tragic manner w]iich Townshend fancied he had perceived. Writing of Horatio Wa] pole's appointment, Carteret said : ' Cette affaire ne me cause point de peine ^ quoique ines collegues aient certainement quelque chose en tete en cet egard quils ne niont point explique, et peut-etre p)as menie au roi. Voiis serez fort attentif a voir si Horatio Walpole tache me mettre mal dans I'espirit du Due cV Orleans et du Comte du Morville. Mais vous vous garderez bien de lui laisser entrevoir mes soupcons ou les votres, si votres.'^ Carteret was suspicious, but practically not much dis- turbed. It is almost amusing to see the precisely opposite views which he and Townshend took of their political circumstances. The very day after Carteret had written ' Carteret to Schaub; Oct. 24, 1723. lirit. Mus. Sloane MSS. 4,204 ; ful. 93-94. H 98 LORD CABTEBET as above to Scliaiib, Towiisliend cheerfully told Walpole that his own interest with the King was daily rising, while that of Carteret was daily sinking. '^ Before the year 1723 was ended Townshend wrote to his brother-in- law: ' I will venture to assure tlie Duke of Newcastle and you, that we have all reason to be satisfied willi our Hanover expedition.' - A month later, Carteret, referring to rumours wliicli represented his decline in influence, says to Schaub: 'All the reports to which you allude are false. I have mentioned them to the King, who expressed as much kindness as ever, and the same approbation of my conduct, and of my zealous though feeble services. . . . My colleagues instead of attacking have courted me for some time past.'^ Quite apart from the personal relations of Carteret raid Townshend at Hanover, the position of Schaub and Horatio Walpole at Paris soon became embarrassing and ridiculous. It was impossible to keep up the pre- tence that Walpole was there out of mere private curiosity. A diplomatic person sniffing about the sights of Paris, and doing mere innocent dilettantism, was something more than absurd, and could impose on no one. Every one understood that it was a trial of strength between the two men. Schaub, on his side, was naturally mortified that any one should have been sent at all, especially one of Walpole's social position and ministerial connections. His letters to Carteret are full (if [lie disgust he not unnaturally felt. On tlie other hand, Walpole Avrote that Schaub had lost all influence with the Duke of Orleans : tliat to o-et the ' MS.S. of Karl of Asliljurnham; Ili.sl. MSS. Commission. Rep, Yill. pai'l III., p. 4. " CV)xe, Walpole, II. 205. Doc. 5, 17i'3. =* Carteret to Sdiaub ; Jan. 8, 17-'4. Brit. Mas. Add. MSS. 9,151; SECRETARY OF STATE 00 desired dukedom was impossible ; that the ambassador was in no way fitted for his post. Yet the brother- ministers could not get Schaub recalled. Horatio Walpole soon began to feel his position intolerable. Whenever lie and Schaub appeared in public together people laughed in an amused, half-puzzled fashion, hardly knowing which was ambassador and Avhich was not. That Walpole had actually come was presump- tive evidence in his favoui", but that Schaub did not go w^as actual evidence in his. People were perplexed ; Walpole was annoyed, and even beginning to feel angiy. Carteret, according to the King's commands, had sent him credentials, but Walpole declared that he would not use them. He even took offence at the harmless letter with which Carteret accompanied the documents. ' His letter, by-the-bye, was the most dry, not to say the most impertinent, I ever received from a Secretary of State to a minister,' wrote Walpole to his brother in a slightly ungramraatical manner ; ' but that don't trouble me at all.' Surely official Horatio could hardly have expected lyrical congratulations from Carteret, and as a matter of fact tlie letter, which was a formal one only, had nothing in it with which Walpole, if he liad not been in a state of querulous irritation, could have found any fault. But Walpole, who had a very considerable estimation of his own diplomatic abilities and self-importance, was annoyed to find that the simple fact of his appearance on the scene did not at once brini^' about the result wliich he desired. Yet even second-rate diplomatists of an irritable turn of mind get what they want if they will only wait long enough for it. To Walpole, waiting to drop easily into a desirable appointment, the delay was undoubtedly H 2 100 LORD CARTERET provokingly long. Carteret's influence was so great that impetuous action was out of the question. There was even a rumour that Carteret himself would take the post of ambassador at Paris — a possible removal of ISchaub which to Walpole must have seemed nothing short of tragic. But tlie end of Walpole's anxieties came at last. The Regent Orleans had died in Decem- ber, and had been succeeded by the Duke of Bourbon. The new Eegent, who at first spoke vaguely, at length definitely declared that to grant the dukedom to the Marquis de la Vrilliere was absolutely impossible. Yet so powerful was Carteret's influence that even this was not enough to procure the recall of Schaub. Towns- hend therefore resolved on a decisive step. He in- structed Horatio Walpole to write home a despatch asserting that Schaub was an obstacle to the efiicient performance of the King's business, and urging his im- mediate recall: This letter was written by Walpole in March 1724, and brought the long contest to an end. Schaub was recalled in April, and the fall of Carteret was the necessary consequence. The brother-ministers had carried their point, but their success, though very considerable, was far from complete. They were not able to remove Carteret's political adherents from their oflicial posts, and they were not able to get rid of Carteret himself altogether. He ceased to be Secretary of State, and, as if it were desired to emphasise the fact that it was a man of genius wlio had been removed, the Duke_of_Newcastle was appointed to succeed him. But to dismiss Carteret altogether was what his rivals could not venture to do. Townshend wrote to the Duke of Grafton, at that time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, that to remove Carteret without giving liim a considerable equivalent was SECRETARY OF STATE 101 simply impossible, and he politely informed Grafton that he must make way for the fallen Secretary. In Dublin, Carteret would give Walpole less cause for alarm than anywhere else. He would be, for half the 5'ear at least, removed from the Court and from London political life ; and tliis was a great consideration to ministers who dreaded Carteret's remarkable personal influence, and the special friendship and approbation with which the King treated him. Carteret's forced resignation was by no means to the satisfaction of the King, and when, a few days afterwards, he was ap- pointed Lord-Lieutenant of L^eland, George told him that if he had had anything better to offer him he should have had it.^ The ni£fht after the ministerial chauQ-es were announced, the King spoke for half an hour to Carteret in the drawing-room, and had hardly a word for any other person.'^ Considerable doubt was soon current whether Carteret, though named Lord-Lieutenant, would ever go to Ireland at all. It did not seem at all un- likely that he might soon be restored to office with even more power than he had had before. Even the limited amount of self-congratulation with which Wal- pole and Townshend might perhaps cheer themselves was reckoned by many political onlookers as decidedly premature. Carteret's friends were sanguine. ' His enemies would be very glad to see his back turned, and they begin to find they have gained no strength by the late change. He is certainly as Avell if not better than ever with the King ; constant in his attendance at Court, and supported by almost all the foreign powers.' ^ Carteret's ' Papers of W. King, Archbishop of Dublin. Ili.vt. ^iSS. Conimisj;ion ; Report II. 2:i5. 2 St. John Brodrick to Lord Chancellor Midletou ; April 14, 1724 Coxe, Walpole, IT. .'JS9. =» Brodrick to Midletou; April 29, 1724. Add. MSS. 9,245; fol. 13-14. 102 J.miD CABTEBET own disposition was al\va3's hopefully sanguine, but it does not seem that on this occasion he shared the too confident expectations of some of his political adherents. The only remaining fragment of personal evidence rather shows that he judged the situation quite im- partially, and recognised the facts as they were. lie did not pretend to deny that Walpole and Townshend had played the political game ungenerously and un- fairly ; he complained much of the way in which Townshend had treated him at Hanover, and especially of the unjust and intriguing interposition of Horatio Walpole at Paris ; but he recognised that though the fair rules of the game had been broken the ])lay was over, and he had lost. He took his defeat with his usual good-humour, simply saying that as he liad no political obligations to Townshend he would never, as Secretary of State, have consented to be Townshend's mere subordinate, and, for the rest, that he had no quarrel with the ministers who had beaten him, and would do nothing to oppose their measures.^ In this good-natured frame of mind, relieved from the annoy- ances as well as from the responsibilities of an office in wliicli he had been very badly lix'ated, he remained in England foi- six nu)nths more, till the seriously threatening condition of Irisli public afl'airs called him to new duties and difliculties in Dublin. * Stephpn Poynlz to IToratii) Walpole, April .'"», \7-2\. Add. MSS. 9,151 ; io!. 15G. 103 CHAPTEE IV. LORD-LIEUTENAKT OF IRELAND. 1724-17.30. While Walpole and Townshend had thus in 1723 and 1724 devoted themselves to intrio-ue ag-ainst Carteret in London and at Hanover, Walpole's own Government in Ireland had involved itself in serious difficulties. True to his constant practice of sacrificing men, policy, and principles to his own personal hold on power, Wal- pole, fearful of offending the Duchess of Kendal, was now pushing forward an Irish scheme in which he him- self had no particular interest. He, probably, even disapproved it ; but the favourite Duchess was espe- cially solicitous, and Walpole was not inclined to irritate or alienate her. For two years the relations between England and Ireland were strained almost to the break- ing point, because the Duchess of Kendal was ravenously fond of money, and Walpole could not personally afford to annoy her. For some time there had been a great want of cop- ])er coin in Ireland. There was no doubt about this ; Swift in his Drapiers Letters admits it. While Lord Sunderland was still minister, the coinage question was under consideration ; and as Ireland had no mint of its own, various proposals were made in England for remedying the Irish want. Nothing was agreed upon 104 LORD CARTERET durin Sheridan's Stdft, 213, 214. 122 LOBD CARTERET danger whatever. Ilis crime was popiilarly assumed to be his attack on Wood's half-pence, and on that issue no jury would convict him. Carteret could not listen to arguments of tliis kind. He noticeably left the question of the coinage quite alone, but tlie otlier question he could not pass over even if he liad wished to do so. ' I told him,' wrote Carteret in his account of his interview with King, ' tluit tlie libel contained such seditious, and in my opinion treasonable matter, as called upon a chief governor liere to exert his ut- most power in bringing the author of it to justice.' ^ Not that Carteret thought this w^ould be a very easy proceeding. The event, he also acknowledged, was uncertain. But he was resolved to go on vigorously. ' If the boldness of this author should be so great as the Archbishop intimates, I am fully determined to summon him before the Council, and though I should not be supported by them as I could wash, yet I shall think it my duty to order his being taken into custod}^ and to detain him, if I can by law, till his majesty's pleasure shall be further signified to me ; for if his ofler of bail should be immediately accepted, and he forth- witli set at liberty, after so daring an insult upon his majesty's Government, it is to be apprehended that riots and tumults will ensue, and that ill-disposed persons will run after tliis author and represent him to be the defender of their liberties, whicli the people are falsely made to believe are attacked in this affair of tlie half- pence. ... It is the general opinion here that Dr. Swift is author of the pampldet, and yet nobody tliinks it can be |)roved upon liim, thougli many believe he will be spirited up to own it. Your Grace by this may see what opinion the Archbishop of Dublin and Swift ' Caiteret to Newcastle ; Oct. .30, 1724. Add. MSS. 0,243 ; fol. 42. LOIW-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND 128 liave of the humour of the people, Avhose affections they liave exceedingly gained of late by inveighing against the half-pence.' ^ Archbishop King's hints proved of no real value. TheDrapier did not come forward, and it was impossible to compel him to confess himself. His printer was arrested, but the general suspicion that the grand jury would find no true bill against this insignificant man was fully justified. On the evening before the presen- tation of the bill, one of Swift's numberless manifestoes, Seasonable Advice to the Grand Jury, was Avidely dis- tributed, with such telling effect that the bill was unanimously rejected. One of the jury ventured to treat Swift's paper w^ith some coldness. lie was a banker, and immediately so violent a run was made upon his bank that it was feared he would be compelled to stop payment. The Lord Chief Justice discharged the grand jury, and summoned another ; but the second was more obstinately resolute than the first. Its first act Avas to make a presentment (of course by Swift) de- claring Wood's half-pence a nuisance, and the temper of the jurymen was so evident that the Government found it prudent to make no mention to them of the scheme or of anything whatever connected Avith it. However much Carteret might be thinking of the strictly political side of the question, the people would see nothing in the affair but Wood and his coinage. Carteret noticed that since the Government had shown some vigour, Avriters also had shown more caution ; but there Avas no diminution at all in tlie agitation. Town and country Avere both perfectly unanimous. Carteret, himself quite lukeAvarm about the coinage, Avas astonished at the passionate and ' Carteret to Newcastle ; Oct. 30, 1724. Add. MSS. 0,24-3 -, fol. 42, 43. 124 LOBD CABTEBET iniiversal excitement. The copper money then current in Ireland was, says Carteret, tlic worst that ever was seen, and much of it had been lying by — a mere loss to its owners ; yet now, with perverse patriotism, this base coinage was put into currency again as an answer to the argument that more copper coin was needed in Ireland. One of the leading men in Ireland told Car- teret that this question of Wood's patent was the only afhiir he remembered in which he could make no friends or find any one to listen to reason. Though England had already so considerably yielded, there was still a common suspicion that the currency would be forced on the nation. Trade was suffering throusjh imaginary fears which thus became real evils. Carteret, reporting home, when he had been only three weeks in Dublin, modestly declined after so very short a time to ofler any deliberate opinion, but he did not minimise the situation : — ' This rage, for I can call it no otherwise, is now working up to such a height that the best of his majesty's subjects here, who do not agree in the popular clamour, but condemn the late heat of their parliament, and dread the consequences that such another session may bring upon Ireland, say it is to be wished that his majesty, who has always made tlie law the rule and measure of his government, would now be . . . pleased to recede from that rule in this one instance.' ^ A few days later Carteret expressed his fear that an Irish jury would find treason itself not to be treason, if it were coloured over with the popular invectives against Wood's half-pence. Carteret had not ventured, after three weeks' expe- rience of Ireland, to state definitely what must be done. J Carteret to Newcastle; Nov. 14, 1724. Add. MSS. 9,243; fol. 46-48. LOBD-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND 125 But a second three Aveeks left him without a doubt. In December 1724, tlie Government in London wrote anxiously to him. The King, concerned that Carteret's endeavours had as yet produced so little effect, wished his advice ; the King and the ministers wished to know how to uphold the law, and at the same time satisfy the Irish people. Carteret, who had actively gleaned information from every source of value, could come to only one conclusion. The patent must be given up. No other advice, he said, could be given by any one who had examined the condition of Ireland. If once the 'terror' of the half-pence were withdrawn, the Irish parliament would cause no further trouble ; would vote some compensation to Wood, and so close the incident. No counsel could have been clearer and more direct than Carteret's on this matter. The Government had asked Carteret's advice ; but did not particularly like it when it was given. It liad taken a long time to convince Walpole and Townshend tliat tlie Irisli discontent was really serious. When Walpole was once convinced, he was statesman enough to decline to match liis personal views against the feelings of a whole nation. But Townshend, always passionate, wrote angrily to Carteret. Was the Enghsh King to make private bargains with the Irisli parliament ? With impotent indignation Townshend was still informing Carteret, in December 1724, that the search for some ' expedient ' to quiet the minds of the Irish people was yet going on. Carteret, speaking on this subject witli more authority than all the otlier ministers taken to- gether, had plainly told them that there was only one expedient. Boulter, the newly appointed Primate of Ireland, an Englishman, and a man not likely to advise measures of too great leniency towards the Irish people, 126 LOBD CABTERET was also strongly urging upon the Governmerjt the view which Carteret was expressing. Like Carteret, Boulter took pains to discover for himself the opinions of the leading men in Ireland, and of the various sections of the people. He found Protestants and Catholics, Whigs, Tories, and Jacobites, disagreeing in all things else, at one in tlieir views on the coinage ; and Boulter's volu- minous letters to the ministers in England insist with much emphasis upon the solution which Carteret had urged months before he had even left England : the abandonment of the patent, and some fair compensation to Wood, ' Without doing something like this, there is no prospect of any end of our present heats and animo- sities.' ^ A few days before the date of this letter Carteret had reiterated his advice, and liad told Towns- hend that the ferment among the people, only in part allayed, was ready to break out again on the slightest occasion ; while a private letter from Dublin, written on the same day as Carteret's, shows how the popular dread of the currency stood in the way of Carteret's already great personal popularity. ' My Lord-Lieutenant does all that can be tli ought on, to obtain upon the minds of the people, and with great applause ; but then, it is curious with 'em to say that all he does is with design to introduce the lialf-pence^ but that shall not do ; neither eating and drinking, civility nor good ivords, shall alter their minds as to that.' ^ In spite of the pressing appeals of Carteret and Boulter, the spring and summer of 1725 passed by, and the ministers in London made no sign. The time for the meeting of tlie Irish ])arliament was- drawing near, and on all sides there was prophecy of parliamentary ' To NeAvcastle ; Jan. 19, I":!-"). Boulter's Letters, I. 13. - MSS. Record Office. Jan. 0, 1725. LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IBELAND 127 trouble if the patent wei'e not disposed of to the satis- faction of members at the very beginning of their deliberations. Would Carteret be authorised to say in his speech that the whole scheme was cancelled ? Midleton, no longer Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and not able to boast of any special favour from Carteret, was inclined to think that the ministers in England were anxious to ruin Carteret's chance of success in Ireland and to make him appear unable to do the King service there ; and that, therefore, they would refuse to do anything which might assist Carteret to hold a successful session.^ Parliament was to meet in September ; in August nothing was yet settled. The absurd Duke of Newcastle was continuins; to write to Carteret in an irritatingly placid manner, mildly asking if Carteret had yet found any way to end this unhappy business. As if Carteret had not montlis before tokl the absurd Duke what must be done ! And not only had he told the ministers what they must do ; he had also urged upon them the necessity of doing it at once. But the Government had not acted upon his advice, and l)arliament was now about to meet while all was still in suspense. ' Carteret wrote once more in August, and plainly told the ministers that no viceroy could carry on the affairs of the session till this question was once for all settled. They had disregarded the warnings which for nine months he had been jrivincf them, and or? 7 now there was only one effectual way of freeing them- selves from their embarrassment. He desired to be authorised to declare in his speech at the opening of the session that the patent was entirely cancelled. It was impossible for the ministers any longer to ' Midleton to Thos. Brodrick, July 4, 1725. Add. MSS. 9,243 ; fol. 59-G3. 128 LOBD CABTEBET neglect Carteret's advice. The inevitable resolution, wliicli might have been taken so much more gracefully at a far earlier date, was adopted only some two or three weeks before the parliament met. On Septem- ber 21, 1725, Carteret delivered the speech from the throne with an eloquent emphasis which much delighted those who heard it ; but it needed none of the charms of rhetoric to make his very first words palatable : — ' I have his majesty's commands at the opening of this session to acquaint you that an entire end is put to the patent.' The end had come at last. A little unavoidable parliamentary wrangling followed, and Wood and his patent became extinct for ever. The House of Commons dutifully thanked the King for his goodness, and in very warm terms thanked Carteret also for what he had done for them ; but the discontented spirits in the Lords, and especially Archbishop King and ex-Chancellor Midleton, hoped to make what mischief they could. Carteret had appointed Primate Boulter to prepare and move the address of the Lords to the Kini^, and Boulter proposed gratefully to acknowledge the King's f;\vour and condescension in cancelling the patent which he had granted ; but King maliciously moved that they should thank the royal wisdom too ; clearly hinting tliat if the King had been Avise in ending the patent, his ministers had been exceedingly foolish in accepting it. The Lords agreed to King's sarcastic gratitude, but, thanks to Carteret's earnest endeavours, the addition was flung out again on a later stage of the proceedings, and the address restored to its original wordini:^. So Carteret's first Irish session opened auspiciously, and ran through its course with all the quiet that could be expected. LOED-LIEUTENANT OF IBELAND 129 Carteret was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland for six years ; but after the coinage incident was concluded, these years offer — with one exception — little or nothing of any personal interest or of any real connection with the bio- graphy of Carteret. The details of tlie official speeches which he delivered, and of the various sessions which he held, belong to parliamentary history, and only very formally to Carteret's life. It is very incidentally that anything beyond tlie barren official traces of Carteret's political connection Avith Ireland can now be recovered. But he took real interest in Ireland, and the testi- mony of both friends and enemies of the English government of L'eland agrees that he was a good viceroy. His position was by no means an easy one. To say that the two most prominent men in Dulilin during Carteret's Lord-Lieutenancy were Dean Swift and Archbishop Boulter, is almost to write in short the Irish political history of the time. Swift and Boulter were radically opposed to each other in their political views : one of them the adored delight of tlie Irish l)eople, the other the embodiment of that Enghsh policy towards Ireland wliicli found favour in the first half of the eighteenth centuiy. Boulter, an Englishman, and practically the ruler of Ireland, outdid even the Whig ministers in Euijjland in his disrerrard of Irisli interests and Irish national feelinGf. Ireland in liis view existed simply and solely for the advantage of England. The ' English interest,' as it was called, was the object of his unceasing solicitude. His copious letters are full of agitated watclifulness on behalf of the ' English part}",' the ' friends of Ensfland,' the ' Enfjlish interest.' Wlien- ever an official post of any kind fell vacant, Boulter was in a condition of fluttered anxiety till an Englishman was safely deposited in it. Even when he did anything k 130 LOBD CABTEBET that was politically or socially good for Ireland, he did it only because it was for the benefit of England also. On the other side stood Swift, also an Englishman, though, as he bitterly phrased it, he had been ' dropped ' in Ireland ; with no affection for Ireland, and cursing the exile's life which he was forced to pass there. He despised the Irish people, but he could oppose a tyranny which neglected the elements of natural justice ; and even before his memorable appearance as tlie Dublin Drapier, he had decisively joined the Irish party, and had denounced with all the force of his in- dignant irony the wrongs done by the strong country to the weak one. He allowed even the play of his casual conversation to illustrate his contempt of the English method of ruling Ireland. Lady Carteret once remarked to him on the pleasantness of the Irish air. Swift fell down on his knees and said, ' For God's sake, madam, don't say so in England, they will certainly tax it.' ^ Even if better reasons for indignation had failed him. Swift had wrongs of his own to avenge, for he had been neglected by Wal]:)olc, and he hated the Whigs. The Whig Carteret was indeed his personal friend, but that did not blunt Swift's opposition to the political system of which Carteret was the official repre- sentative. Swift never forgot anything in the nature of a personal affront, and lie never forgot that tlic Whics had manao'ed to do witliout him. Between the rival policies personified in Boulter and in Swift, the position of a Lord-Lieutenant wfio was a member of the English Cabinet, and yet, like Carteret, without prejudice and prepossession in his dealings witli Ireland, was not free from embarrassment. He could ' Anecdote told by Voltaire at Ferney in 1770. Sherlock's Letters of an Eiujlish Traveller, I. lOS. LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IBELAND 131 not be anti-Irisli enough to satisfy Boulter, or anti- English enough to please Swift. And there was not much assistance to be hoped for from the Irish parlia- ment ; an assemblajje indeed which, considering- its total Avant of legislative independence, coidd not be a very striking political body. Very many years after his own connection with Ireland was over, Carteret expressed what could not help being a very contemptuous opinion of the Irish Houses. In 1758 the Duke of Bedford w^as Lord-Lieutenant, and found his parliament very difficult to deal with. Carteret and Fox had some conversation on the subject, and Fox reported to Bedford what Carteret had said : — ' His Lordship says your Grace has nothing to do but to let them dash their loQ:£^erheads together, and to transmit wdiatever nonsense they may cook up to England to be rejected, remaining quietly and coolly at the Castle, till with the last transmiss of bills your Grace desires leave to come away.' ^ English policy towards Ireland in the reigns of the first two Georges was preparing the mischief which did not fail to follow. One political fact is as eloquent as a hundred. The Irish parliament which met in 1727 continued to sit till 1760. But things were very tran- quil during Carteret's Irisli rule. The people had triumphed over the English Government, Walpole had been forced to humble himself before Swift, and the Irisli were satisfied. Carteret had his little administrative troubles of the usual sort ; but tlie factious and the dis- affected found that lie had a mind and will of his own, and that, while he was governor, impudent meddlesome- ness was not the road to very brilliant success. A fussily ^ Lord J. Russell's Correspondence of the 'ith Duke of Bedford, II, olG, Jan. 7, 1758. K 2 132 LORD CABTEBET important section of members, elated by their victory over Wood and liis patent, with gratuitous condescen- sion offered to manage all public affairs to Carteret's complete satisfaction if only the Lord-Lieutenant would throw himself entirely into their hands. Carteret plainly replied tliat he had not come to Ireland to be put into leading-strings, and completely extinguished the insolent hopes of these ambitious busy-bodies. Of course tliey afterwards gave liiui all the trouble they could. But Carteret had a perfect temper, and was not at all dis- turbed by tlie excited extravagances of petulant passion. Absolutely refusing to make himself the tool of any faction, he endeavoured, as far as the fettered position of a Lord-Lieutenant would allow, to act with equal friendliness towards the representatives of both the English and the Irish parties. Swift and Boulter both recoo;nise his uood-will towards tliem. Carteret of course could not always do Avhat Swift would have wished ; Swift complains that lie sometimes had to speak surdis aurihus. Yet Carteret, not thinking that Tory and traitor wei'e necessarily synonymous, listened when he could to Swift's recommendations, and gained Swift's thanks for doing so. The very little which Carteret ventured to do for the so-called patriotic party in L'eland produced loud and persistent outcry from disappointed partisans ; with one excellent result so far as Carteret was personally concerned, for it drew from Swift liis humorously serious Vindication of Lord Carteret from the charge of favouring none but Tories^ High Churchmen., and Jacobites. To be praised by both Boulter and Swift was at least a proof of impartiality, and Boulter's words are : — ' We are obliged to your Lordship for the early care you took of us English here, and everybody here is LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IBELAND 133 sensible of what advantage it will be to his majesty's service that we have had a governor of your Excellency's abilities long enough amongst us to know as much of tills country as any native.' ^ When Carteret's Lord-Lieutenantship was closing, Boulter congratulated himself that in Carteret Ireland had a friend who on all occasions woidd be able to serve her. Carteret's Irish rule ended in 1730. His personal success had been unbounded, and his poliUcal manage- ment characterised by great dexterity and unwearied industry. His careful inquiry into financial and other details which were commonly let alone with contented indifference, disturbed the sluggish routine of easily satisfied officials, but gained for the Lord-Lieutenant great popularity with all other classes of the people ; wliile his affable manners, his wit, and his courteous hospitalit}^ made him the favourite in Ireland which an Em^lish governor too seldom was. Newcastle's malicious hope that Carteret's viceroyalty might prove a ruinous failure was falsified as completely as it deserved to be. Swift had prophesied differently, and Swift's anticipa- tions were realised. A pleasant incident of Carteret's Lord-Lieutenancy was the i-enewal of liis ])ersoiial intercourse with Swift. A gap of ten years liad interrupted it. The deatli of Queen Anne and the consequent ftill of Bolingbroke had made Swift's political situation hopeless, and he with- drew to the dreary exile of his Dublin deanery. After ten year^' experience of that unwelcome retirement, the announcement of his friend Carteret's appointment to Ireland was no doubt welcome to Swift. In that year he wrote a poem wliirli is a panegyric on Carteret's * Boulter to Carteret; July 15, 1727. Boulter's Letters, I. 18G. 1B4 LORD CARTE BET character and conduct at the University, at Court, and in foreign neo'otiations ; and closed his verses with a CO ' reference to Carteret's expected arrival at Dublin : — Fame now reports, the Western Isle Is made his mansion for a while, Whose anxious natives, night and day, (Happy beneath his righteous sway,) Weary the gods with ceaseless prayer, To bless him and to keep him there ; And claim it as a debt from Fate, Too lately found, to lose him late. But the renewal of the friendship of the two men was prefaced by a sliglit misunderstanding. Swift, as soon as he heard that Carteret was to be the new Lord- Lieutenant, had written to him, expressing his pleased expectation of seeing him, and promising to be neither a too frequent guest nor a troublesome solicitor. Carteret, wlio was making various excursions in the country at the time that Swift's letter reached him, was a little slow in replying ; and Swift, fancying himself slighted, wrote testily : — ' I have been long out of the w^orld, but have not forgotten wliat used to pass among those I lived with while I was in it ; and I can say that during the expe- rience of many years, your Excellency, and one more, who is not worthy to be compared to you, are the only great persons that ever ]-efused to answer a letter from me, without regard to business, party, or greatness ; and if I had not a peculiar esteem for your personal qualities, I should think myself to be acting a ver}^ inferior part in making this complaint. ... I know not liow your con- ceptions of myself may alter, by every new higli station ; but mine must continue the same or alter for the worse. I often told a great minister, whom j^ou well knew, that LOED-LIEUTENANT OF IBELAND 185 I valued him for being tlic same man tlirougli all the l)rogress of poAver and place. I expected the like in your Lordship, and still hope that I shall be the only person who will ever find it otherwise. I pray God to direct your Excellency in all your good undertakings, and especially in your government of this kingdom.' ^ This letter, in spite of its hasty assumption that Carteret was neglecting him, is ample evidence of Swift's very high estimation of Carteret. The compliment that Swift's opinion of Carteret, if it changed at all, could only change for the worse, is a very fine one. Carteret's letter of reply, with just a touch of fight sarcasm where he speaks of the ' agreea!)le freedom with which you express yourself,' is proof on liis side of his affectionate regard for Swift, and of the admirable temper with which he received Swift's unfounded suspicions : — ' To begin by confessing myself in the wrong will, I hope, be some proof to you that none of the stations which I have gone through have hitherto had the effects upon me which you apprehend. If a month's silence has been turned to my disadvantage in your esteem, it has at least had this good effect, that I am convinced by the kindness of your reproaches, as well as by the goodness of your advice, that you still retain some part of your former friendship for me, of which I am the more confident from the airreeable freedom with which you express yourself; and I shall not forfeit my pre- tensions to the continuance of it by doing anytlung that shall give you occasion to think that I am insensible of it. . . . I hope the nation will not suffer by my being in this great station, and if I can contribute to its pro- sperity, I shall think it the honour and happiness of my life. I desire you to believe what I say, and particularly ' Swift to Carteret ; June 9, 1724. Works, XVI. 432, 433. 136 LOUD CABTEBET when I profess myself to be with great truth, Sir, your most faithful and affectionate humble servant.' ^ This kind reply — tJie omitted sentences explain tlie cause of Carteret's delay in writing — made Swift ashamed of liimself and his testy assumptions ; and he wrote aiJ:ain to Carteret : — 'I humbly claim the privilege of an inferior, to be the last writer ; yet, witli great acknowledgments for your condescension in answering my letters, I cannot but complain of you for putting me in the wrong. I am in the circumstances of a waitings-woman, who told her lady tliat notliing vexed her more than to be cauglit in a lie. But what is worse, I have discovered in myself somewhat of the bully, and, after all my ratthng, you have brought me down to be as humble as the most distant attender at your levee. It is well your Excellency's talents are in few hands ; for, if it were otherwise, we who pretend to be free speakers in quality of philo- sophers should be utterly cured of our forwardness ; at least I am afraid there will be an end of mine, w^ith regard to your Excellency. Yet, my lord, 1 am ten years older tlian I was when I liad the honour to see you last, and consequently ten times more testy. Therefore I foretell that you, wlio could conquer so captious a per- son, and of so little consequence, will quickly subdue lliis whole kingdom to love and reverence you.''"^ Carteret gracefully refused to let Swift be the last writer: — ' Your claim to be the last writer is what I can never allow; that is the privilege of ill writers, and I am re- solved to give you complete satisfaction by leaving it with you, whether I shall be the last w^riter or not. Methinks I see you throw this letter upon your table in 1 Carteret to Swift ; June 20, 1724. Swift, Works, XYI. 433, 434. 2 Swift, Works, XVI. 434, 435. July 9, 1724. LOBD-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND 137 the height of spleen, because it may have interrupted some of your more agreeable thoughts. But then, in return, you may have the comfort of not answering it, and so convince my Lord-Lieutenant that you value him less now than you did ten years ago. I do not know but this mig]it become a free speaker and a philosopher. Whatever you may think of it I shall not be testy, but endeavour to show that I am not altogether insensible of the force of that genius which has outshone most of this age, and, when you will display it again, can con- vince us that its lustre and strength are still the same. ' Once more I commit myself to your censure, and am. Sir, with great respect, your most affectionate humble servant, ' Carteret.' ^ Swift manao'ed to have the last word, and soon after this last letter the two correspondents met eacli other again in Dublin. The extraordinary scene at the Castle levee probably first reintroduced Carteret and Swift; and their acquaintance was soon renewed with the old private pleasantness. Lady Carteret, who from her window thirteen years before had pointed out to Swift his hat flung u])on the railings by tlie wild boisterousness of ladies of title, was also glad to meet again her own and liei' mol lier's iViend. Lady Carteret was a special favourite with Swift, and in his intercourse with her there was no trace of the domineerinir roughness which he so commonly adopted towards ladies of rank. With her mother. Lady Worsley, Swift had been specially in- timate in tlie Queen Anne and Bolingbroke days ; and now that he was far away from nearly all his old friends he had hoped that Lady Worsley would have accom- panied her daughter to Ireland. She did not do so; but » Swift, Works, XVI. 430, 440. Aug. 4, 1724. 138 LORD CARTERET the presence of Lady Carteret was fur Swift a pleasant renewal of the friendship in the second generation. They were on terms of affectionate and, on each side, respectful intimacy. Lady Carteret bids him come to dine with her at the Castle. He goes, but his spirits fail liim at the thouijht of Vicerefral state, and he es- capes home. Lady Carteret forgives him ; and as he had not dined with her she instead visits him, and Swift, as a condition of forgiveness, turns the little incident into easy rliyme in his pleasant Apolo]it. He is certainly distressed, and with good reason.' ''^ The Earl of Stair wrote : ' The whole nation is on our side, and only Sir Robert and his gang on the other. ... I hope the time is not far off when his majesty will see clearly that he had no other enemy in this nation so much to be feared as Sir Eobert and his gang.'^ A vivid little piece of evidence from the Magazine in ^ Seeker's Manuscript ; in Parliamentary History, vol. X. Seeker's MS. is the best authority — as far as it goes — for the debates in the Lords. = Marchmont Tapers, II. 111. March 10, I7oO. "^ .7. M. Graham's Stair, II. 247, 248. P 2 212 LORD CARTEBET which Samuel Johnson had just begun to toil and drudo-e for a livelihood, serves to illustrate the uni- versal interest roused by the one question of the day. On one of the February evenings of 1739 London en- tertained itself with a grand civic masquerade : ' Where, among many humourous and whimsical characters, what seemed most to engage the attention of the com- pany was a Spaniard, very richly dressed, who called himself Knight of the Ear ; as a badge of which Order he wore on his breast the form of a Star, whose points seemed tinged with blood ; on which was j)ainted an Ear, and round it, written in capital letters, the word JENKINS ; and across his shoulders hung, instead of a ribband, a large halter, which he held up to several persons disguised like Enghsh sailors, who seemed to pay him great reverence ; and, falling on their knees before him, with many tokens of fear and submission, suffered him very tamely to rummage their pockets ; which when he had done, he very insolently dismissed them with strokes of his halter. Several of the sailors had a bloody ear hanging down from their heads, and on their hats these words : Ear for Ear ; while on the hats of others was written : iVc Search, or No Trade ; with the like sentences.'' The excitement in the nation was reflected in par- liament. A week after its meetincr, the Duke of New- castle formally presented to the Lords a copy of the Convention. A Spanish debate of necessity arose, and Carteret took an exceedingly active part in it. Even Government speakers were forced to admit the weight which attached to his views. On this particular occasion he worried the poor Duke of Newcastle in a most effectual way. The Duke presented the Conven- ^ Gentleman's Magazine for 1739; p. 103. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIRS 213 tion with its separate articles and ratifications. Is there not another paper ? asked Carteret ; some protest or declaration handed in by Spain, the acceptance of which by England is to be the condition of Spain's observance of the Convention ? How very glad, said Carteret, the Duke would be to answer such a question, and by his answer show that while the Government had consulted for the peace of the nation, it had also remembered its interest and honour. But ministeriahsts suggested that such a request was out of order, and that an informal question of that kind could not be answered. Where- upon Carteret again blandly rose : ' My lords, when I threw out my distant surmises with great simphcity of heart, I did not wish to do anything formal, or lay the Duke under any restraint ; but thought he would cheerfully take the hint, and be glad to do so.' Thus Newcastle was almost forced to rise, and, sadly protest- ing against the compulsion, he declared that the papers presented were the only ones which English officials in Spain had signed. Here was no answer to Carteret at all. Yes, these are all which English ministers have signed ; but is there not something more which Spain alone signed and handed in? Let us have them all, and see what private concessions have been made. Other- wise Carteret in his plain way remarked that he would regard the Convention and its stipulations as 'mere grimace.' The afflicted Duke rose again ; thought he had answered Carteret ; and in liis helpless, blundering fashion declared that if the English officials had signed no other paper about the Convention, no other paper on the subject could exist ! Carteret quite meekly expressed his regret that he had not made himself intelligible, and repeated his question ; to which, now, Newcastle rising once more, had to answer, 'Yes, there is another docu- 214 LOBD CARTERET ment.' ' I think it very proper,' said Carteret, who had a strong sense of humour, ' to return ray acknowledg- ments to the noble Duke for condescending so readily to answer the doubt I had proposed.' Thus Carteret had extorted from the Government the admission that even the Convention, whicli parliament and the country found so objectionable, was not ail. Beliind it, and as the sole condition on which Spain had accepted it, stood a demand on the South Sea Company for immediate payment of a large sum declared to be due to Spain as tax-money on negro slaves ; and if this were not immediately paid, the King of Spain would sus- pend the Company's Assiento treaty. Here was the Convention, with which Government expressed so much curious satisfaction, actually dependent on the result of a private negotiation between the King of Spain and the South Sea Trading Company. We are to force the Company to agree to Spain's demands, or all our nego- tiating is to be a mere farce, burst out the Duke of Argyle. A fresh point was evidently made for the op- position, and the storm steadily gathered force. Petitions against so unsatisfactory a Convention began to pour in ; tlie London magistrates petitioned ; the Liverpool merchants petitioned ; the West Lidia merchants of London tumultuously thronged about the Houses. The opposition took up the cause of the merchants, and ran the Government very close. Yet so far all the parlia- mentary proceedings had been little more than prelimi- nary skirmishings ; the real pitched battle began in the House of Lords on March 1, when the Convention itself was formally taken into consideration. Carteret led the opposition, and gathered into one impressive whole and strikingly drove home an elaborate indictment against the conduct of tlie Government. He OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE— FOREIGN AFFAIRS 215 exposed with ease the utter worthlessness of a Conven- tion which obtained neither re|)aration for the past nor security for the future ; severely blamed the Government for leaving plenipotentiaries to argue vital points that admitted no argument ; and emphatically declared the proposed agreement destructive and dishonourable to 1 he nation ; ' a mortgage of your honour, a surrender of your liberties.' ' I do not often,' he said, ' speak in the learned languages; but I am afraid, my lords, the pro- phetic phrase which I once heard a most learned lord pronounce, venit summa dies, will now be verified.' Still, remembering the strong resolutions which the Lords had passed last year — and it was one of Carteret's severest reproaches to the Grovernment that they had done absolutely nothing to give those resolutions any effect — he hoped that he might have a happiness to Avhich he had lately been unaccustomed, and find him- self and his views in the majority. Carteret spoke very powerfully, but altogether on the merits of the question, with an entire avoidance of captious or personal attack- With the Duke of Argyle it was otherwise. ' It is said in general that the whole debate was an extreme fine one, conducted with great dignity and decency as a national concern, and not personal or ministerial. The Duke of Argyle, who spoke for two hours, w^as the only one who, as I hear, took much freedom with the ministry.' ^ Argyle was indeed very vehement. ' Let who will approve of such a measure,! never will; Iwill die first.' He was very scornful as well as vehement ; and plainly intimated that it was not the ministry but the Minister who was responsible for the unsatisfactory state of affairs. Chesterfield also was eloquent against this inglorious Convention, this warlike peace, this perpetual patch- > Orlebar to Etough, March 3, 1739. Coxe's Walpole, III. 515, 516. 21G LOBD CARTERET work of a statesman who dealt only with and through the rotten hearts of sycophants and time-servers. The very tapestry on the walls, the record of former historic glories, was appealed to ; and fervid oratory gloomily hoped that patriotic looms would strike work for the present. The wit and eloquence, as well as the real weight of argument, were conspicuously on the opposition side ; yet still the Government majority, though by much smaller numbers than usual, ^ carried the day. There was undeniable force in many of the reasons and excuses put forward by the Government — the already heavy debt ; the danger from the Pretender ; the certainty that France would join Spain. These were real argu- ments of their kind, and on them the Government rested its case ; but the broad question, whether the present was not one of those occasions on which all minor hazards must be lightly regarded in the presence of one overwhelming danger, was never faced by Walpole. A hand-to-mouth policy, if only a parliamentary majority could be got to sanction it, was all that the Prime Min- ister had to propose. Yet even from the personal point of view, if from no higher, Walpole might have begun to doubt whether his action had been altogether wise. The victory which he had just gained in the Lords was not of a very triumphant character ; the success which he was about to gain in the Commons was little less than Pyrrhic. The Commons took up the Convention a week later than the Lords. On tlie first day of their real proceedings, after two days spent in formal reading of papers, more than u hundred members took their seats before seven o'clock in the morning, and nearly five hundred were present at prayers before ten. The ^ 95 to 74. The Prince of Wales voted with tlie opposition. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE— FOREIGN AFFAIBS 217 Prince of Wales sat in the gallery all day long till mid- night, and had his dinner sent to him there, rather than lose anything of the debate. Horatio Walpole was the first speaker. Slovenly Horatio did his tedions best to remove wliat he considered prejndices against the Con- vention. His general maxims on peace and war were doubtless admirable as sonorous platitudes; the circum- stances of Europe might, as he argued, be deplorable enough ; only these were not the questions at issue. ' A piece of waste paper ; that is your Convention,' re- torted the opposition. Pitt thundered against it. Are plenipotentiaries, he asked, to discuss our ' undoubted right by treaties, and from God, and from nature? ' ' Is this any longer a nation, or what is an English parlia- ment, if, with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe, with above two millions of people in your American Colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable Convention ? . . . This Convention, Sir, I think from my soul is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy ; an illusory expedient to baffle the resentment of the nation. . . . The com- plaints of your despairing merchants, tlie voice of England has condemned it ; be the guilt of it upon the head of the adviser ; God forbid that this Committee should share the guilt by approving it ! ' In spite of Pitt's invective, the Committee did share the guilt ; though Walpole's majority, in a House which had once been full of his creatures, had so far dwindled that in a vote of nearly five liundred members he was saved by only twenty-eight. Tiie opposition, disappoint- ed, and declarincr that the arc^uments were all on one side and tlie votes on the other, took the foolishly unpractical step of seceding from the House. Carteret 218 LORD CABTEBET in vain expressed his disapproval ; he could not per- suade even Pulteney to oppose such feeble folly. Sir William Wyndham, in a slightly tragic manner, bade a final adieu to that parliament, very considerably to the cynical satisfaction of Walpole ; and the ministerialists were left mainly to themselves. Yet even to the dullest of their party it could hardly now be doubtful that war was surely coming. It was now the second week in May ; the Convention which so small a parlia- mentary majority had approved named May 24 as the last day on which England woidd accept the payment of the small sum with which Spain had reluctantly agreed to compensate the English merchants. No one, not even the Government, any longer professed to believe that Spain would pay the money. Sheer neces- sity infused a little energy into the proceedings of the administration. To anticipate the probable action of France, a subsidy was offered to Denmark, and 6,000 Danish troops were thus gained over to the Englisli side. Parliament voted unusual supplies and an in- crease of the forces. Carteret earnestly advised an alliance with Frederick Wilham of Prussia, the most powerful Protestant ruler on the Continent. ' If you have no liope of Prussia, you will not have a word to say in Germany ; and he may be gained upon right and good grounds.'^ Carteret's constant and statesmanlike interest in Prussia and Germany generally has been signally justified in more modern times ; but it is need- less to say that his present prudent advice was dis- regarded. Thus the days passed on. May 24 among them ; and the Government, asked if Spain had paid the money, could only answer, No. Once more the Lords had a ' Seeker MS. ut stqn-a. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIBS 219 Spanish debate, the last that was to be necessary. Car- teret, of course, took the lead. He treated the Conven- tion as a thing which practically no longer existed, and ridiculed the paltry ministerial action which was leaving and allowing the merchant ships themselves to make reprisals on Spanish vessels for the losses which they suffered. It was a case, said Carteret, in which the royal navy of Great Britain ought to act. Yet the Government still continued its policy of dilatory indefi- niteness, and managed to close tlie session in June without any direct parliamentary condemnation of its conduct. But there was no longer any practical doubt that Spain and England must fight. The King was desirous for war ; Walpole's own colleagues were by no means unanimous in approval of his peace policy ; the feeling of the nation was dead against it. At last, during the summer recess, vigorous preparations began in earnest. The English ambassador at Madrid was instructed to require a definite renunciation of the S}>anish claim of Eight of Search, and to leave the country at once if the reply were not satisfactory. Here at length was definite action ; and immediately there was evidence of the spirit of fairness and patriotism which always marked Carteret's conduct in opposition. In August 1739 Carteret wrote to the Earl of March- mont, who, as Lord Polwarth and ambassador at Copenhagen, had been his old friend and fellow- worker in the tangled business of restoring peace to the North of Europe : — ' The ministers are at present, in all aj)pearance, I)ursuing the sense of the nation, and acting towards the Spaniards as they should have acted long ago. The nation desires no war, but yet will not be contented with such a peace as of late we have had ; and if, in 220 LOBD CARTERET vindication of our honour, and in pursuing tlie necessary measures to obtain a good peace, war should break out, which is most Hkely, we must repel force by force, from whatsoever quarter it comes, as well as we can ; and the showing internal discontents, howsoever founded, at this time, may precipitate our ruin, but can never have any tendency to save us. These are my notions ; which I do not give you as a volunteer ; that would be pre- sumption ; but I lay them before you, and those friends you may converse with, because you honour me by ask- ing my opinion. We are all sorry that we cannot make things better ; for God's sake, do not let us make them worse ; and if the nation is to be undone (which, by the way, I do not believe it will), let us act so as never to have reason to reproach ourselves of having done amiss, though out of zeal and good intentions, in this critical conjuncture.'^ England's final demands at Madrid obtained no satisfaction, and the decisive step was at last taken. A royal manifesto was issued at Kensington, and in London war between England and Spain was publicly declared by heralds on November 3, 1739. Parlia- ment met long before its usual time, and the eager activity of the Lords and Commons reflected the enthu- siasm of the people. Carteret, after the Government in the Lords had done its necessary official speaking, rose to express the views of the opposition. Practical common- sense was as usual at the basis of his policy. Now you have actually entered upon war, he urged, let your one consideration be the vigorous conduct of the war. Go to the best officers ; select your generals and admirals ; and, having done so, leave their actions as far as possible to themselves, and let ministers and 1 Marchmont Papers, II. 135, 130, OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIRS 221 negotiators stand aside. Do not allow the management of the war to be as perplexed and timorous as the con- duct of the negotiations. Let the war really be war. It is evident that among the opposition there was great fear of a policy of half-measures. Chesterfield bluntly expressed this when he said that it would not be a good omen if those who had been ag:ainst the war should be consulted in the conduct of it. This feeling was, however, expressed much more plainly in the House of Commons. There Sir William Wyndham desired to obtain an agreement that the war should not be ended till Spain acknowledged the right of British ships to navigate the American seas. In his plain way, Walpole declared that he knew Wyndham's speech was levelled at him, and designed to make him unpopular. ' The honourable gentleman and liis friends have a mind to take a httle diversion, and have singled me out as the deer for the sport of the day. But they may find. Sir, that I am not so easily hunted down as they imagine. I have lived long enough in the world to know that the safety of a minister lies in his having the approba- tion of this House. Former ministers neglected this, and therefore tliey fell. I have always made it my first study to obtain it, and therefore I hope to stand.' Designed to make him unpopular ? sneered Pulteney. ' I am sorry to say he has very little popularity to lose.' Pulteney was very severe on Walpole, constantly lashing the ' right honourable gentleman near me' ; for leaders of Government and of Opposition sat next one another on the same bench. Past disasters and inaction were not forgotten, and mysterious hints of impeachment were dropped. Walpole might well compare himself to a baited animal ; the political chase had never been so severe. 222 LORD CAETEEET The war, however, in spite of all these attacks on Walpole and his management, seemed to be beginning successfully. Already, in July, Admiral Yernon had sailed for the West Indies ; and when this parliamentary tumult was at its highest had just arrived at Porto Bello. Two days later, on December 3, it surrendered to his attack. An express arrived in London from victorious Vernon with the news in March 1740. The rejoicings were almost inconceivable. Parliament sent congratulatory addresses to the King ; Walpole and Newcastle gave grand entertainments in honour of the event ; the London Corporation voted the inevitable freedom in the inevitable gold box. Yet even this success was used as a blow against the Government. If Yernon, with only six ships, and no land-force but some two hundred and forty men lent him from Jamaica, had been able to do this, what miQ:ht he not have done but for a jealous, niggardly Government, which stinted him of sliips and deprived him of soldiers ? But not the most captious member of opposition could complain of inac- tivity now. All through the summer months the ports and dockyards were busy ; great preparations were on hand to assist Yernon in attacking Cartagena, a more im- portant Spanish town in the New World than Porto Bello itself. In September, Anson sailed with his three ships, to make his memorable voyage round Cape Horn ; and in November a large sea and land force left England for Yernon and the West Indies ; on board one of the ships of the line being a young surgeon's mate, not yet twenty years old, named Tobias Smollett. But during all these preparations, two very import- ant events took place on the Continent, which were destined to change the whole complexion of the quarrel. On the last day of May 1740 died Frederick Wilham, OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIRS 223 second King of Prussia, and Europe knew nothing of the character of his successor ; and on October 20 died the Emperor Charles VI., and the Pragmatic Sanction, which it had been the main business of his life to secure, went to utter ruin, and dragged almost every country of Europe to quarrel and war. In such threatening European circumstances, the English parliament met again in November 1740. The Lords in opposition were especially energetic from the very beginning of the session. Before the reading of the King's speech was well finished, before the King him- self had left the House, the Duke of Argyle was up, and, anticipating the formal harangue of the official ministerialist performer, plunged into an arraignment of the Government. Chesterfield, not too well pleased with Carteret's ascendency among the opposition leaders, had recommended this action of Aro;yle's : thinkino- that Carteret, who always represented the more moder- ate, responsible opposition, would either, by declining to follow Argyle, lose for himself the support of the more advanced party, or, by following Argyle, would seem to be surrendering the foremost place. Chester- field's somewhat malicious speculations proved fanciful merely. Carteret did support Argjde ; but he also emphatically kept the lead. Argyle, himself a soldier, confined himself chiefly to the military j)oint of view, and found it an easy task to denounce the conduct of the war from the beginning to tlie end. One success, not a very overpowering one for all the rejoicings it had caused, there had been ; but no one could fairly give the Government any credit for what Admiral Vernon had done. Argyle beat upon the Government effectively enough on this military side. Carteret also was severe on this matter, but he mainly looked at the subject in 224 LOBD C ARTE RET its strict political light. His attack upon the adminis- tration, and especially upon Walpole, was very strong. ' A minister who has for almost twenty years been de- monstrating to the world that he has neither wisdom nor conduct. He may have a little low cunning, such as those have that buy cattle in Smithfield market, or such as a French valet makes use of for managing an indulgent master ; but the whole tenour of his con- duct has shown that he has no true wisdom. This our allies know and bemoan ; this our enemies know and rejoice in.' The attack thus begun was week after week energetic- ally followed up. The state of the army, the instruc- tions to Vernon in the Caribbean Sea, to Haddock in the Mediterranean, offered countless opportunities for lively debate. Such guerilla skirmishing was of the liveliest, but could not be decisive or thoroughly satisfactory to either side. The opposition therefore resolved to put out all their strength in one grand effort, and to go to the root of all their complainings — patriotic, some of them, factious undoubtedly, others — by definitely de- manding the resignation of Walpole. On the same day, February 13, 1741, this formal attack was made in both Houses of Parliament. The House of Lords was crowded when Carteret rose to deliver his indictment against the Prime Minister in a long, elaborate speech, worthy of his unrivalled political knowledge. The whole field of foreign and domestic politics for a period of nearly twenty years lay open before him, from the bickerings between the Emperor Charles and Elizabeth Farnese, down to the Spanish Convention and the unsatisfactory management of the war. The endless treatying and counter-treatying, the imbecile Congresses, the shifting alliances, the want of anything like a clear and con- OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOEEIGN AFFAIES 225 sistent line of action on the part of the Government, offered material which a less able man than Carteret mi^ht have turned to o-ood account. The main note of his speech was the one point which is the simple and always consistent explanation of Carteret's chief views on European politics. All through Carteret's hfetime the French had been attempting to aggrandise themselves in Europe at the expense of German3^ Sometimes they had succeeded, as when Fleury had managed to get hold of Lorraine ; sometimes they failed, as was once to be very conspicuously the case while Carteret himself was at the head of affairs in England. But always and in all circumstances Carteret's policy was decided and the same : the Fi'ench must be kept out of Germany. That Walpole's line of action had not clearly kept this policy in view, but that a shilly-shally proce- dure had made France and Austria our friends and ene- mies alternately, was Carteret's chief point of reproach. As usual, Carteret did not treat the question from the personal point of view. ' I am not for appearing in anything peevish or personal,' he expressly said ; and, wdien himself in power, he proved the truth of his asser- tion by taking the lead in opposing unfair treatment of the fallen minister. But he did not shrink from the political application of his indictment. ' If one physician cannot cure a fever, take another.' ' If people fall asleep on their post, it is mild to say, Pray remove them.' Carteret distinctly declared that if Walpole could be considered competent to extricate the nation from the confusion that existed at home and abroad, he would be willing to let him do it. That could not be, and the inevitable conclusion followed : that the King be advised to remove Sir Robert Walpole from his presence and counsels for ever. Q 226 LORD CARTERET For eleven hours the Lords debated tliis excitinjj question, and were very lavish of eager rhetoric. Walpole was very severely handled. ' Except those who depend on him, there are not fifty subjects in the kingdom but most ardently wish to have him re- moved,' said one peer. ' A saucy master,' who ' hath treated with his usual buffoonery what the nation hath set its heart on,' said another. Argyle was very bitter, and pressed David into the ranks of opposition. ' Take away the wicked froni before the King,' con- cluded the too sanguine Duke, ' and his throne shall be established in ri^'hteousness.' But soon after midnii>-ht the Lords decided that this desirable establishment might very well wait. Carteret had been very elo- quent ; but the time was not yet come. ' My Lord Carteret did speak two hours as well as any man in the world could speak, but all in vain,' wrote the Duchess of Marlborough, now very old, but full of patriotism. ' One of the finest discourses I ever saw in any language,' the Earl of Stair said of Carteret's speech, though its eloquence had been unavailing. No one, certainly not Carteret himself, expected a numerical parliamentary victory for the opposition. Some lively writers even asserted that Carteret had taken up the question unwillingly and was full of vexation and chagrin at the part he played in it. One of young Horace Walpole's correspondents ventured to become particular over this view. ' Two minutes after he had made the motion he rubbed his periwig off, and has not ceased biting his nails and scratching his head ever since.' ^ Lively writing of this kind is so very amusing, and it is so agreeable to believe what one would like to believe. If Carteret did rub his periwig off, one has an 1 H. S. Conway to Horace Walpole ; Feb. 16, 1741. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIRS 227 exact, tliough a minutely insignificant, biographical fact. As far as other matters are concerned, the lively writer may be disregarded. Walpole had thus been successful in the one House, and he might reckon himself fortunate also in the other. In the Commons, many members had taken their seats by six o'clock in the morning ; and the debate, which began before noon, lasted till between three and four o'clock in the following day. Yet the result was a foregone conclusion. It was still Walpole's own parlia- ment, and he ran no real risk. He himself treated the affair in a very confident style, and, in his outspoken way, declined to listen to any arguments which pro- fessed to be based upon patriotism. The whole thing, he declared, was a mere attempt to get into office, and the less said of patriotism the better. ' A patriot, Sir ! why, patriots spring up like mushrooms ! I could raise iifty of them within the four and twenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot.' The eloquence of Pulteney and other opposition leaders was, from the division-list point of view, wasted ; many members declined to vote at all ; and even so important a member of opposition as Ches- terfield conceived — though the result showed tliat he was wrong — that Walpole had actually been strength- ened by his seeming success, and that the opposition had been broken to pieces. Walpole's levee next morning was indeed the largest he had ever been known to hold, and he himself seems to have been partly thrown off his guard ; but essentially his trium})h was superficial only.^ ' This once famous debate was tlie occasion of a very celebrated political caricature called The Motion. The scene is Whitehall and the Treasury Q 2 228 LOIW CABTEBET Walpole was safe for the time being ; but already events were in progress wliicli would add strength to the general outcry against him. The European crash which had been expected to follow the Emperor Charles's death had come without delay. Maria Theresa had instantly been proclaimed successor to her father's Austrian dominions ; but in less than two months after the Emperor's death, Frederick of Prussia had invaded Silesia. He declared his willingness to uphold the Buildings, towards which a coach is being driven at full speed. Argyle is coachman : — ' Who be dat de box do sit on ? 'Tis John, the hero of North Briton, Who, out of place, does placemen spit on.' Chesterfield is postilion ; Bubb Uodiugton is a cur between his legs. The passenger is Carteret : — * But pi'ay who in de coache sit-a ? 'Tis honest Johnny Carteritta, Who want in place again to get-a.' The furious pace is threatening to overturn the coach, and Carteret is crying : ' Let me get out ! ' Lean Lord Lyttelton is riding behind on a lean hack : — * Who's dat who ride astride de poney , So long, so lank, so lean and boney ? Oh ! he be the great orator, Little-Toney ! ' Smallbrook, Bishop of Lichfield, bows humbly as they pass : ' What parson's he dat bow so civil ? Oh ! dat's de bishop who split de devil, And made a devil and a half, and half a devil ! ' In the foreground, on foot, is Pulteney, leading figures by strings from their noses, and wheeling a barrow full of opposition writings, the Crafts- vian, Common Sense, etc. He is exclaiming : * Zounds, they are over !' ' Close by stands Billy, of all Bob's foes The wittiest far in verse and prose ; How he leads de puppies by de nose ! ' < Tell me, dear,' writes Horace Walpole from Italy to his friend Conway, ' now, who made the design, and who took the likenesses; they are admir- able ; the lines are as good as one sees on such occasions.' The Cartoon is reproduced in T. Wright's Caricature History of the Gcorfjcs, p. 128. JMany editions of it were published, slightly varying in details. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIBS 229 Pragmatic Sanction, and in the contest for tlie Empire to vote for Maria's hnsbancl, tlie Grand Duke Francis ; but the condition he required was the cession of Silesia, and Maria would not hear of such a thing. Frederick therefore advanced, first through deluges of rain, then in hard frost ; and, finding practically no opposition, was easily making himself master of Silesia. The ex- citement caused by tliis in England Avas very great. The people, who knew nothing of German histor}^, passionately took up Maria's cause. In their eyes, she was an interesting and much injured young Princess ; and Frederick was a perfidious robber. George also, though for different reasons, was eager on the same side. He had given his word to Charles, and had signed his Pragmatic Sanction ; and George, like his father, was always a man of strict honesty to his pro- mise. Above all, he had his own Hanover to think of; the slightest disturbance in Germany always threw him into a tremor of anxiety. English statesmen, too, and politicians were generally for Maria, though many of tliem would have been puzzled to say exactly why. ]jut Carteret knew his reasons very well. It was not in opposition to Frederick that Carteret su]:)ported llie cause of Austria. He was always anxious to induce Maria to come to terms with Frederick, and in little more than a year after this date it was one of the triumphs of his own ministry that he successfully ac- complished this. But France was sure to interfere in this internal German question. It Avas known that France was about to break the Pragmatic Sanction ; known, too, tliat slie would not have Maria's husband as Emperor. Support of Maria Theresa was therefore opposition to the designs of France in Germany ; and Carteret's views could not for a moment be doubtful. 230 LOBD CARTERET On April 19, 1741, the King asked parliament to assist him in supporting Maria Theresa, and next day the question was debated. Argyle was cold. Why was England to stand alone in support of the Pragmatic Sanction ? Chesterfield opposed, with oblique hints at the King's partiality for his German dominions. But Carteret approved. ' If this be not done,' he said, 'the Queen of Hungary will throw herself into the arms of France This is a case of nobody's seeking ; it arises from the Emperor's death. The King should hazard all upon it, and we should stand by him. . . . I do not look for popularity ; but am now on t]ie popular side of the question. ... If the Austrian dominions are parcelled, France gets enough Avithout getting an acre of land. We say to France, if you will keep your treaty, you cannot complain of us ; if you will not, we are safer Avith open doings.' ^ ' The Austrian thunder of my Lord Carteret,' Pitt some months later in a letter to Chesterfield called tliis speech.^ Neither Pitt nor Carteret knew at the time that the tli under of artillery had already been speaking in a far more em])]iatic manner than the thunder of eloquence ever could. Ten days before this debate there had been fought the first pitched battle in that long war which, with various rests and breatliing places, really lasted from 1740 to 1762. In drifting snowy weather, and confused circumstances on both sides, the Austrians and Prussians had fallen upon each other ; and Frederick's victory liad made the battle of Mollwitz the signal for a general European war. But news from the Continent still travelled slowly, and it was not until April 25 tliat London heard of the first ' Seeker's Parliamentary MS. nt supra. ^ Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham, I. 1. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIBS 231 real stroke in the great struggle ; on wliicli very da}', curiously enough, Parliament voted to Maria Theresa a subsidy of three hundred thousand pounds. But to subsidise the Queen of Hungary was by no means enough for George, Parliament had readily promised him the support he desired, and lie hoped, though he was terribly disappointed, to strike decisively into the quarrel at once. He hurried over in May 1741 to Hanover, attended by Secretary Harrington, and was as eager as he always was to get to war. He had a respectable army ; 6,000 Danes, 6,000 Hessians, were ready for him on subsidy, and his own Hanoverian forces made the total more than 30,000 men. Yet to his disgust George found he could do nothinir. As a first difficulty, it proved impossible to move the Dutch. It took more than two years to persuade these exceed- ingly heavy allies to stir. But even more perplexing than this was the case of Hanover. In April 1741 Frederick had established a camp of 36,000 men at Gottin, near Magdeburg, ready at once to fall upon Hanover if quarrel should arise between George and himself. So the King of England could not fight be- cause he happened to be also Elector of Hanover. He Avas effectively checkmated; and it was clear that so long as Erederick remained Maria's active enem}^ George would simply be unable to act at all. It became there- fore his most pressing necessity to remove Frederick from the scene of action. Diplomacj^ was set to work. The English ambassador at Vienna, Sir Thomas Eobinson, a heavy, dull man, still vaguely remembered for the terrible .parliamentary worryings wliich later on lie suffered from Pitt and Fox, urged and even implored Maria to come to terais with her successful enemy. Hyndford, the ambassador at Berlin, sought Frederick 232 LOBD CARTERET liiinself in liis camp near Mollwitz, and offered English mediation to restore Germanic peace. But the two ambassadors had two very determined young sovereigns to deal with, and the efforts of diplomacy seemed hope- lessly vain. Maria would not be moved ; and Frederick, far from listening lo the arguments of Hyndford, made in June a treaty with the French. The hand of France interfering in Germany w^as first visible when, after this treaty, the Elector of Bavaria appeared as a candidate for the Empire. This was a second blow to Maria ; and in such circumstances Robinson did succeed in per- suading her to some faint compliance. In August he hastened to Frederick, who was now at Strehlen, and once more put before him the small concessions which Maria was willing to make. It was quite useless. Frederick, now sure of France, would have his Silesian demands completely satisfied, and would not accept anything less. He continued his own conquests in Silesia ; and at the same time two French armies, each of 40,000 men, entered Germany ; the one crossing the Uj)per Rhine, to join the Elector of Bavaria and march towards Vienna ; the other over the Lower Rhine, to make for Hanover. What could George do, either for himself or for Maria? Clearly nothing but negotiate himself out of his difficulties, and continue to urge Maria to do the same. Very contrary to his own wislies, but seeing there was no help for it, he agreed in September to tlie neutrality of Hanover ; and tliougli for a time his importunate attempts to mediate between Austria and Prussia were an utter failure, in that same month success appeared to be at last approaching. Maria had personally appealed to Hungary, and had roused passionate loyalty there. At tlie same time Frederick, OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOREIGN AFFAIRS 233 thoiigli the French were liis aUies, was really jealous of their presence in Germany. England seized these two openings as an opportunity for one more diplomatic effort. By w^orking on Frederick s jealousy of France, and by pressing upon Maria her need of a short time of respite, the two English ambassadors successfully brought the rivals to an agreement. Thus early in October was made the secret treaty of Kleinschnellen- dorf, Maria agreeing to cede to Frederick those parts of Silesia which he already held, and Frederick accept- ing peace, though mock hostilities were for a short time to be continued, to blind and satisfy the French. While these negotiations were employhig George and Harrington at Hanover, a general election had taken place in England. The feeling against Walpole in the country was by this time very strong. Walpole had been for twenty years uninterruptedly in power ; every mistake, every failure that had marked the years from 1721 to 1741, was, justly or unjustly, assigned to him. In ecclesiastical afflxirs he had offended both Cliurchmen and Dissenters. In parliamentary manage- ment, his cynical frankness in corruption had often been a little too much for a not very puritanical period. His contemptuous neglect of literature luid enrolled all the wits and men of letters ao;ainst him at a thne when ])olitical pamphlets and news-letters and satires were lead all ovej- the Idngdom. So early as 1727 Swift wrote of Walpole that ' he has none but beasts and blockheads for his penmen.' ^ But his one unj^ardon- able offence was his conduct in the Spanish war. He had not declared war till resignation of his own power was his only alternative ; and when, after Vernon's one success at Porto Bello, the military management sank ' Swift to Dr. Sheridan; ^May 13, 1727. Swift's Works, XVIT. 107. 234 LORD CABTERET into a dreary round of inaction, failure, and confused ineffectiveness — tlie natural result of official incapacity and of the usual chaotic mismanao:einent of the English fighting departments. — the angry irritation of the people instinctively blamed tlie minister who was known to have no real heart in the business which he nominally directed. The fleet in the Mediterranean did abso- lutely nothing. Vernon's expedition against Cartagena, from which so much had been expected, had gone to utter ruin and almost disgrace. And the country, which had so eagerly adopted the cause of Maria Theresa, felt itself further humiliated by the Hanover neutrality and by the rather unheroic way in which George's first continental attempt had terminated. Prom a general election held in such circumstances, Walpole could not expect any very great success, and he seems at this time, very contrary to his usual habit, to have been full of personal anxieties. His son Horace, writing in October 1741, says that he v/ho 'was asleep as soon as his head touched the pilloAv, for I have frequently known him snore ere they had drawn his curtains, now never sleeps above an hour without waking ; and he who at dinner always forgot he was minister, and was more gay and thoughtless than all his company, now sits without speaking, and Avith his eyes fixed for an hour together. Judge if this is the Sir Eobert you knew.' ^ In October the King and Harrinorton returned from Hanover, and early in December the newly elected parliament met. From tlie \Qvy first it was clear that Walpole was surely falling. Very severe things were said against his Government. 'I see many motives for censure, none for approbation, all for distrust,' said 1 n. Walpole to :\rann: Oct. 10, 1741. OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE—FOBEIGN AFFAIRS 235 Chesterfield. Instead of an address of thanks, HaUfax sufjo-ested an address of condolence as more suitable to the occasion. 'A thing is said in the speech,' said Carteret, ' which I am sure the King believes, . . . and yet I would not confirm him in it. He says he has done all he could for the House of Austria. We shall be able to make him change his opinion.' Yet even in the gloomy condition of things Carteret saw what he called some glimmerings of hope ; hope that the King of Prussia might take alarm at the progress of the French ; hope from the King of Sardinia; hope even from the exceedingly laggard Dutch. Every one of tliese hopes was in time realised. But Carteret, now as always, had strong objections to mere pleasing, flattering words which did not really correspond to the facts of the case. ' It is fact we must see,' he declared, and he felt not the slightest disposition to compliment the Government on its military or diplomatic situation. What was the use of words ? ' There were strono^ words in tlie last address about the Queen of Hungary ; l)ut tliey did her no good, and slie will not mind these now.' ^ In tlie Commons the attack on Walpole was violent and very personal. Instead of returning thanks for the conduct of tlie Spanisli war, the opposition indignantly compelled the minister to omit from tlie address the slio;htest reference to tliat imbrosjlio of mismanagement and disaster. Pulteney made wliat Horace Walpole is compelled to admit was a fine speecli ; but it was also an exceedingly keen personal attack. Pulteney even ventured, to accuse Walpole not merely of errors or indifference, but actually of treachery and collusion with tlie enemy. Walpole, who had thoroughl}^ re- ' Seeker's Parliamentary ^IS. uf supra. 23G LOUD CABTEBET covered his liealtli and spirits, spoke for an lioiir in reply and self-defence. Yet in spite of all the heat and rhetoric there was no division. Dividing is not the way to multiply, said Pnlteney with a mild witticism. But one decision was taken. Walpole challenged Pul- teney, who had loaded him with abuse, to name a day for investigating the charges brought against him, and declared that he himself would second the proposal. Pulteney at once accepted, and the great debate was fixed for January 21, 1742. But before this day could arrive there were repeated signs that Walpole's fall was close at hand. The meet- ing of the new parliament was, as usual, followed by the inevitable debatings over many election petitions ; debates which were always decided as simple questions of party politics, without any regard to the merits of each case. In one of these divisions Walpole could only muster a majority of seven. In another, a few days later, he lost even this scanty support, and the opposition triumphed by four. Yet ' Sir Eobert is in great spirits and still sanguine,' wrote his son on this very day. Before Christmas Day Walpole was again defeated over the once famous Westminster election petition. ' AVe sat till half an hour after four,' Horace wrote to his friend Mann on Christmas Eve, ' the longest day that ever was known,' says he in those primitive parliamentary times. ' Sir Eobert was as well as ever, and spoke with as much spirit as ever at four o'clock. ... As he came out. Whitehead, the author of Manners^ and agent, with one Carey, a sur- geon, for the opposition, said, " Damn him, how well he looks ! " ' That was a curious old parliamentary scene ; the ' honourable gentleman iu the blue ribband,' in the dark small hours of a December morning, defeated yet undaunted, cominir out of the House where he had been I OPPOSITION TO WALPOLE -FOREIGN AFFAIRS 237 master for twenty years ; and beside him an enraged opposition, relieving its feelings in the dialect of tlie day. These last few weeks of Walpole's political power are the only period in his whole career during which it is possible to feel any personal enthusiasm for him. There is something decidedly attractive in the big, brave way in which he held up against tlie shoal of his enemies. 'He is a brave fellow ; he has more spirit than any man I ever knew,' once said brave httle George of his useful Prime Minister. The day for Pulteney's debate came, and the Com- mons showed the fullest House that had been known for years. Sick and dying men, in flannel, on crutches, were brought dowm to vote. Walpole's son Eobert, Lord Walpole, whose house adjoined the House of Commons, had taken there two or three members who were too ill to go through by Westminster Hall, and meant to pass them in by his own door. The opposi- tion stopped the key-hole with sand. Five hundred and three members voted, and Pulteney was defeated by a majority of three. Though such a paltry Govern- ment victory was really a defeat, Walpole would not resign, but held on, seemingly in the best of spirits, against the advice of his family and private friends. But parliamentary rebuffs continued, and Walpole at last agreed that one more election question should be made the conclusive test. On the first stage of this petition Walpole was defeated by one vote. In the next division, the result was more decisively against him ; and on February 13 he declared, as he left the House, that he would never again sit in it. Next day the King adjourned parliament for a fortnight, and before the Houses met again Walpole had resigned all his employments and had been raised to the peerage as Earl of Orford. 238 LORD CAETEBET CHAPTER VIL POWEE. 1742-1744. Even before tliefallof Walpole, one member of liis own Government had secretly attempted to come to terms w^itli the opposition. Personal political intrigue was tlie one science of which the Duke of Newcastle was an easy master. ' His name is perfidy,' said Walj)ole once. As early as the Porteous affair, Newcastle had been sniffing about Carteret in an uneasy sort of way, with a dim, dull foreboding that Carteret would pro- bably soon rise very high indeed ; and when the re- moval of Walpole became a question of days or hours only, Newcastle privately sought to negotiate himself into security witli tlie leading men of the new arrange- ment. He wrote to Pulteney tliat he had a royal message for him, and asked Pulteney to meet him in strict secrecy. But Pulteney was far t(30 prudent to enter into underhand communications with a man like Newcastle. He refused to receive any message by stealth and in the dark ; Newcastle might come, if he liked, to Pulteney's own house, by daylight, and in sight of all his servants. At this point Walpole inter- vened, anxious to do, with the knowledge of his col- leagues, what Newcastle iiad unsuccessfully attempted by private intrigue. Walpole was with very good POWER 230 reason alarmed for liis own personal safety. Lenity in politics had not yet become a favourite notion ; AValpole himself had been a parliamentary prisoner in the Tower. Political excitement was now running higher than at any time since the bursting of the South Sea Bubble, and the cry for an impeachment was very loud and persistent. ' Downing Street or the Tower,' was Horace Walpole's Uvely way of stating the probabilities of tlie ease in the last days of his father's struggle in parlia- ment. In such circumstances, Walpole had the best possible reason for attempting to bargain with his opponents before he positively laid down his power. Ten days before he resigned, Walpole began his arrangements, and during the fortnight's adjournment he busily continued them. The King knew that the successful opposition was not a united and harmonious party ; and lie himself, in language suggested by Wal- pole, said to Pulteney : ' As soon as I found you were at variance among yourselves, I saw that I had tico shops to deal ivith, and I rather chose to come to you, because I knew that your aim was only directed against my minister, but I did not know but the Duke of Argyle wanted to be King himself.' ^ The King personally dis- liked Pulteney ; but Walpole succeeded in overcoming that, and so gained his first point. A royal message was entrusted to Newcastle and Lord Chancellor Hard- wicke, and Pulteney agreed publicly to receive it ; only stipulating that, as Hardwicke was to be with New- castle, he himself should be accompanied by Carteret. The four accordingly met at Pulteney 's house. Yet at first the negotiation was quite unsuccessful. The royal offer proposed that Pulteney should succeed Walpole * Report of a couversation with Pulteney ; Add. MSS. 18,915 ; fol. 28-29. 240 LOBD CARTEBET as Prime Minister. This in itself was not likely to be accepted ; for Pulteney had frequently declared that he would never again take office. And even this proposal was clogged witli a condition. The offer was only made on the understanding that there should be no prosecu- tion of WaljDole. To this Pulteney at once refused to agree. He was not, he said, bloodthirsty, but it was beyond his power to bind his party to any such ar- rangement. On such terms nothing could be done. Newcastle found himself thirsty, and asked for wine. It was evening, and champagne was brought in ; ^ New- castle drank to their happier meeting. Pulteney smi- lingly said that he would drink to Newcastle in the w ords of Shakespeare's Brutus : — If we do meet again, wliy, we shall smile ; If not, why then, this meeting was well made. Walpole thus failed to secure Pulteney for Premier ; and it seems probable, though the accounts are confused and contradictory, that Pulteney desired Carteret to take the post. It is probable too that Carteret, while perfectly willing to serve under Pulteney, considered his own claims the highest after Pulteney 's refusal. It is not clear whether Walpole objected to this. He need not have feared Carteret personally ; Carteret was a rare instance of an eighteenth-century statesman absolutely free from vi-ndictiveness. In any case, the offer was not made. The King, when Pulteney declined the office for himself, desired that his old friend Sir Spencer Compton, now Lord Wilmington, might be allowed to slide into it. To put Wilmington at the head of a Cabinet which included Carteret and Pulteney was an arrangement which might have been quoted as a pre- ' Cliaotic Coxe says it was forenoon and negus ! I POWER 241 cedent for making Pitt and Fox subordinates of Sir Thomas Eobinson. Pulteney, liowever, agreed ; saying to Carteret, who probably did not conceal his dissatis- faction : ' You must be Secretary of State, as the fittest person to direct foreign affairs.' For himself Pulteney only required a peerage and a seat in the Cabinet with- out the seals of any department. On these conditions an arrangement was accomplished. Some of Walpole's old colleagues, Newcastle, Pelham, Lord Hardwicke, con- tinued to hold their offices ; some, like Hervey, were dis- missed ; some, like Wilmington and Harrington, changed their places. The other half of the Grovernment repre- sented the victorious opposition. Sandys, a rather in- significant man, whose ability to spell was considered an open question, became Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Carteret's friend Winch elsea took the Admiralty ; Argyle, with a good deal of angry discontent, the War Office. Pulteney became an unattached member of the Cabinet. Carteret himself received the seals which Harrington resigned, and officially was designated Secretary of State for the Northern department ; but every one understood that Wilmington was a mere cypher, and that Carteret was really the Prime Minister. The Government was always spoken of as his. But before the new arrangements had reached even this elementary settlement, internal difficulties threat- ened a troubled career to the new administration. The opposition which overthrew Walpole had itself been a conglomeration of political parties. Every one of these thought itself entitled to share the spoils, and every one of them was discontented when its claims were over- looked. Carteret and Pulteney were the leaders of the discontented Whigs or Patriots ; yet some of this party, as Chesterfield, were dissatisfied because they had not E 242 LORD CARTERET been called to council or offered places. They were offended at the evident superiority of Carteret. The Tories were offended when it became clear that they themselves were to have a very trifling share of in- fluence, and that the Jacobites were to have absolutely none. The Whigs of the Prince of Wales's party were discontented ; some, with the places assigned to them ; others, like Pitt, Lyttelton, and the Grenvilles, because they had no places at all. These parties had all willingly enough united to remove Walpole from power ; but as soon as the one object on which they were agreed was attained, they flew asunder again into discordant groups. The rumour that the necessary negotiations had been entrusted to Carteret and Pulteney threw them all into violent agitation. The news that the chief posts in the Government had already been dis- posed of filled them with impotent passion. They de- clared that they had been betrayed ; and on February 22, the very day of Walpole's resignation, and the day before Carteret received the seals, they assembled in full force to give vent to their indignation. At the Fountain, a tavern in the Strand much used for poli- tical purposes, between two and three hundred mem- bers of both Houses met, and after dinner relieved themselves of much angry eloquence. They invited Carteret and Pulteney to be present. Carteret would not go, saying that he never dined at a tavern ; but Pulteney went, only to hear himself abused. Argyle sjDoke with his usual passion. Using the cant phrase of the day, he declared that the Government should be formed upon a Broad Bottom, and that room must be made for all of them by dismissing every member of Walpole's administration. One enthusiast, who at least ought to have been a very young man, expressed the POWER 243 same thing witli a pleasantly classical flavour, and drank to cleansing the Augean stable of the dung and grooms. Argyle sneered at the opposition leaders who had al- ready accepted office ; angrily said of Pulteuey — who was exceedingly rich — that a grain of honesty was worth a cartload of gold ; and warmly demanded the prosecu- tion of Walpole. To all this abuse Pulteney replied with spirit, but with moderation ; and the meeting broke up in an excited and angry condition. If Walpole wished, as very probably he had intended, to stir up dissensions in the ranks of his opponents, he had already very fairly succeeded. Already there seemed a dangerous possibility that the heterogeneous forces of opposition would attempt to annihilate one another. To secure something like an harmonious under- standing, a meeting of the chief leaders was held under the soothing mediatorship of the Prince of Wales. Pul- teney quietly declared that the real power of the Go- vernment was in the hands of its new members, and that entirely to get rid of the friends of Walpole was, at that crisis, simply impossible. Even passionate Argyle seemed to see the truth and force of this. When the Prince declared his own satisfaction with the arrangements which Carteret and Pulteney had made, Argyle, for all his bitterness, consented to join the Government ; demanding only that for the Tory Sir John Cotton a place also should be found. An open rupture thus seemed to have been avoided, and when parliament re- sumed after its fortnight's adjournment, the late opposi- tion appeared as one united party. But this union was on the surface only. When the final official arrangements were announced, it was found that after all there was no appointment for Cotton. The King had declared that he was determined to stand by those who had set his R 2 2U LORD CABTEBET family on the throne, and positively declined to accept the Tory. This was too much for 'Argyle. He had already made no secret of his dissatisfaction with the Government of which he was himself a member. Glover, the merchant-poet, known as ' Leonidas ' Glover, from the name of a so-called epic which he had produced at the age of five-and-twenty, had found Argyle one day pacing up and down his room and thundering against Carteret as his enemy. ^ Argyle now resigned, and went into bitter opposition. He even wrote to Orford, and offered to assist him in demolishing their common eneni)'-, the new ministry.^, Pulteney long afterwards told Lord Shelburne that it was impossible to under- stand or describe the confusion that prevailed at that political crisis ; that he himself lost his head, and was obliged to go out of town for three or four days to keep his senses.^ He returned to London only to hear that there was already a split in the new Government. The personal details of the formation of a Govern- ment, the rivalries and jealousies, the fightings for stars and ribbands and places, had never much interest for Carteret. Unfortunately, perhaps, for his own political advantage, he was very contemptuous of all that, and had his mind set on other things. 'In the upper depart- ments of Government he had not his equal,' Pitt said of Carteret long after Carteret's death. The destinies of Europe, the motions of armies, the policy of statesmen, were Carteret's department ; he very willingly let the provincialisms of politics alone. He had come into power at a very anxious time. The Treaty of Klein- schnellendorf, by which Maria had freed herself from * Glover's Memoirs of a Celebrated Liter m-y and Political Character, ■' Add. MSS. 9,224; fol. 2. ^ Shelburne's Autobioyrajjhi/ ; Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, I. 46. POWEB 245 the active opposition of Prussia, had proved a very- temporary affair. It had removed Frederick from the scene, but it left the French free to act as they pleased. While the one French army had, by threatening Han- over, checkmated George and sent him home neutral, the other had pushed on down the Danube, and joined the Elector of Bavaria, who hoped soon to be Emperor. They advanced as far as Linz ; it seemed their destina- tion was Vienna itself. Vienna was in great alarm, but was relieved when, at Linz, its enemies altered their line of march, and turned off direct north to Bohemia. Leav- ing only a small number of men in the Linz regions to hold their conquests on the Danube, French, Bavarians, and Saxons all made for the North, to meet again at Prag. And they took Prag ; but there for the time their successes ended. Maria's husband, the Grand Duke Francis, also marched for Bohemia ; and the Austrian general Khevenhiiller moved from Vienna to look after the French forces that had been left behind on the Danube. He recovered Linz itself, retaking it on January 24, 1742, the very day on which the Elector of Bavaria became Emperor Charles VH. But the new Emperor had already appealed for help to Frederick, and Frederick was ready, for he had only granted the Treaty of Kleinschnellendorf on the condition of absolute secrecy, and Austria had paid very temporary regard to this stipulation. Frederick therefore rejoined his allies, and decided, in union with the French and Saxons, to seize Moravia, and if possible sweep down upon Vienna itself. The plan was no doubt admirable ; yet the Moravian expedition turned out a complete failure. The French and Saxons gave Frederick endless trouble ; the Saxons were very backward and unwilling ; the French actually left him. Still he pressed on ; but in 240 LOBD CARTERET such circumstances could not take Briinn, the strong- hold of Moravia, and soon found himself forced to an unwilling retreat. It was just when Austrian affairs were in this greatly improved condition, when the French had turned aside from Vienna, when Khevenhuller was doing well on the Danube, when Pandours were entering the Emperor's own Bavaria, when the Saxons and the French were deserting Frederick, and when Frederick himself was about to retreat from Moravia, that the change in the English Government brought Carteret into power. He was foreign minister ; practically he was also Prime Minister. He was by no means anxious for war, but he knew his own mind, and was desirous to start his policy with a clear understanding;. In March 1742 he had an interview with the French ambassador, and while he frankly told him that England would not consent to tlie overthrow of the House of Austria, lie desired that the French Government should also plainly declare its in- tentions, that, if possible, the two countries might work togetlier. The ambassador duly reported this to his master Fleury, and Fleury wrote to Frederick : ' Voire majeste aura juge aisement par tous les discours de my Lord Carteret, quHl voudroit se rendre mediateiir, etfaire reprendre au roy son nuutre ^influence quil avoit eue dans toutes les affaires de l' Europe, et je suis Men assure (pie rien necltappera pas ses luniieresJ ^ In tliat opinion Fleury was perfectly correct ; nothing would or did escape Carteret's ' lights,' and Frederick also was soon aware of tliat. It was very early evident that Carteret's foreign policy was a factor which European Kings and statesmen would have to consider with respectful attention. 1 Add. MSS. 22,542 ; fol. 51, V. March 20, 1742. POWER 247 Carteret's decisive determination, resting upon un- rivalled political knowledge, was backed up by a warlike King and an eager nation. Half a million was at once voted for the support of Maria Theresa. The cause of the House of Austria was recognised as the cause of public good faith and security, and, strangely as such a thing sounds in these later days, as the cause of hberty. When Prince William of Hesse urged upon Carteret that England should take no active part in the continental quarrel, Carteret would not listen for a moment, but declared that it was both the glory and the duty of England to support the Empire against the ambitious interference of France. But Carteret clearly saw that one preliminary step was almost essential. Austria must make peace with Frederick. Carteret had seen this from the first. He had said in Parliament months before that if he had been in power a recon- ciliation between Prussia and Austria would have been his first care. Now that power was his, he was true to his old opinion. In his despatches to the ambassadors abroad he never wearied in pressing this view upon them.^ The detachment of Frederick from the alliance with France would, he urged, be a fatal stroke to all the French schemes in Germany. And he was very hopeful of accomplishing it ; for he shrewdly saw that Frederick's most earnest prayer might soon be a prayer for deliverance from his so-called friends. The French were certainly not at all minded to overthrow Austria in order to put Prussia in its place. Belleisle and the rather doubtful characters at the French Court, who had entered so eagerly into his scheme for partitioning ' The statements made in this chapter regarding Carteret's own opinions and policy, and the quotations from his own lanirnaiie, are almost entireh^ from his voluminous MS. correspondence in the British Museum. It is not desirable to load the page with references in each particular case. 248 LORD CARTERET Germany and making it little more than a hanger-on of Versailles, had little enthusiasm and less practical help to lavish on an ail)% except when it entirely suited their own convenience. Frederick was already feeling this in his unfortunate Moravian expedition ; and at the end of April 1742 the Earl of Stair, who had suc- ceeded Argyle at the War Office, and had gone over to the Hague to attempt to rouse the Dutch to some- thing like energy, wrote home to Carteret : ' 'Tis certain at this time his Prussian majesty is very sick of the French.' So Carteret was hopeful ; the one possible difficulty was his acknowledged inability as yet definitely to answer the question : What is the real character of this new King of Prussia ? No complete answer was at this time possible for foreign or even for Prussian ob- servers ; many of the attempted replies were ludicrous failures. Horace Walpole with easy infallibility was just laying it down to his friend Mann that Frederick's personal cowardice was a well-established fact. Car- teret's estimate is reall}^ true as far as it goes, and is interesting as the admittedly imperfect opinion of one of the keenest political observers in Europe. He writes to the English ambassador, Hyndford, at Berlin : ' From what we know of his [Frederick's] character, the way in which you can hope to make any lasting impression on him is pointing out to him his interest and his danger, rather than that of courtship and exhortation from any other principles. . . . Negotiating with him we hold to be extremely dangerous, and your Lordship must have the greatest guard upon yourself in con- ferring with him.' While Carteret was writing this letter, Frederick was retreating from Moravia. Here was another of what Carteret called Maria's unexpected happy sue- POWER 249 cesses. The King of Prussia, practically abandoned by his allies, made his way to Bohemia, there to await Maria's brother, Prince Charles, and his pursuing Aus- trians. Yet when Frederick's situation seemed most unfortunate he had a decided deliverance. Prince Charles entered Bohemia, and on May 17, 1742, fought the battle known indifferently by the names of Chotu- sitz and Czaslau. From the military point of view, the Austrians might perhaps have been more completely defeated, but on the political side Frederick might well be perfectly satisfied. Maria could no longer refuse to consider terms of peace. The English Government re- ceived the news of the battle with great concern, and at once spoke importunately at Vienna. From Frederick himself there came to the Prussian minister in London a letter, dated two days after the battle, containing an offer which was to be communicated to Carteret alone. The minister would not venture to give to Carteret a word of it in writing ; ' and was so terrified with being made responsible wdth his head for the secret of this overture, that I could only obtain from him to let me take down in writinji from his mouth the most material passage.' This was the passage in which Frederick de- clared that he could not himself take up arms against the French, who were nominally at least his allies ; but also asserted his complete willingness to make peace with Maria, ' >z on peut porter la reine cCHongrie a m'accorder des conditions avantageuses ; ' ^ in other words, if the Queen would sanction the cession of Silesia, Andrie, the Prussian ambassador, was ordered to report Carteret's reply in his very words, and Carte- ret spoke therefore very cautiously. But he agreed that Vienna ought to grant Frederick ' advantageous ' Carteret to Robinson; May 28, 1742. Add. MSS. 22,529; fol. 30. 250 LORD CARTERET conditions,' and promised that England would continue to press Maria to consent. Eeluctantly, but seeing there was no help for it, Maria yielded, and granted the peace which Frederick required. The arrangements were entrusted to the English ambassador, Hyndford, who went to Frederick at Breslau to settle all details with the due formalities. Hyndford was soon successful. On June 11 the Treaty of Breslau was signed ; Silesia was ceded to Frederick, and Austria and Prussia were at peace. ' The greatest blow" that France has received since the happy accession of the House of Hanover to the crown of Great Britain,' wrote Hyndford gladly to Carteret, two days after the signing ; and Carteret also called it a great and happy event. Frederick himself was pro- fuse in compliments to Carteret over the matter ; a work worthy, said Frederick, of Carteret's ministry and of Carteret's own '' gi^andes lumieres.' In his Histoire de mon Temps^ Frederick expressly says : ' Le Lord Carteret fut le j)rincipal promoteur de cet ouvrage.' It was indeed a very satisfactory beginning of the minis- ter's power, and it gained him great popularity in England. ' Lord Carteret,' wrote one of the permanent Government officials, ' gains great esteem and ground by his resolution and unshaken fermete, and will carry matters, I doubt not, in such a channel that the people will be, as they daily are, more and more pleased.' ^ The Earl of Bentinck wrote from the Hague to his mother, the Countess Dowager of Portland : ' I assure you that if Lord Carteret is the man that advised send- ing troops into Flanders, it is very much for his honour. .... And it was certainly a mighty well-judged 1 Mr. Porter to Robinson at Vienna; June 14, 1742. Add. MSS. 9,180; fol. 113. POWER 251 tiling to show that one is in earnest in the defence of the House of Austria. ... I heartily wish Lord Carteret good success in all his undertakings. He is in the right way as to foreign affairs. I have seen some of his despatches both in English and in French, and not without admiration as to the principles and sentiments, as well as for the turn and style, but above all for the vigour and spirit, which must save Europe at 23resent.' ^ Maria's chief enemy was thus removed ; and the French and Bavarians, left standing; alone aijainst Austria, had meanwhile been faring badly enough. Khevenhtiller, since he took Linz, had seized Passau and Munich, and was master of all Bavaria south of the Danube ; and the French, who had indeed taken Prag, were now shut up and themselves besieged in it. Could not England now, thought Carteret, strike in energetically, and make her second attemj)t to support the Queen more successful than the first had proved ? Carteret, even before these fortunate events, had re- solved at least to try. Stair, the Commander-in-Chief, held high views of attacking the French frontier towards the Netherlands, of reducing Dunkirk, and even penetrating through an undefended country to Paris. Sixteen thousand Enghsh troops were to join the Dutch in the Netherlands ; George's own Hanoverians Avere 16,000 more, and 6,000 Hessians were bound to England by subsidy. With Maria's contribution of 14,000 men, the united English and Austrians would number 52,000 in the Lowlands. Reinforced by the promised 20,000 Dutch, the force would be really more than respectable. But the terribly laggard Dutch were the one dark and doubtful spot. Their Government ' June 22, 1742. Brit. Mus. Egerton MSS. ; 1,712 ; fol. 252. 252 LOBD CARTEBET had been discussing and protesting and promising for weary months back, and httle had come of the ahnost frantic efforts of diplomacy but endless despatches and infinite futility. Only a few days after he had come into power, Carteret had received from Trevor, the English ambassador at the Hague, the welcome news that Holland had really resolved to be active ; but between resolving and carrying out resolutions there was evidently room for much. A very few days later Trevor had to write that there was a party in Holland which would take alarm at any proposal that was not as insipid and insignificant as water-gruel. Now the new, vigorous English Government, resolute to spare no effort, sent over the Earl of Stair as ambassador extraordinary, to see if Holland would not act a httle more, and talk a little less. Stair was able to give the Dutch substantial proof of England's earnestness in the cause, for parliament had voted the half-milhon to Maria on the day on which he left England. And at first it even seemed possible that Stair might be successful. In England itself the military activity was great. A camp was established on Lexden Heath, near Col- chester, and frequent reviews were held, to the huge delight of military George and his corpulent son, the Duke of Cumberland ; for Cumberland also fancied himself a soldier of genius, and made England pay con- siderably for that pleasant notion. In May the English troops began to embark in the transports at Gravesend ; the first instalment of them reached Ostend before that month was over. ' We send our forces over as fast as possible,' wrote Carteret in June to Stair, ' to be under your command, and our affairs are brought to a much better consistency than I could have hoped for in so POWER 253 short a time. . . , Our measures give satisfaction at home, as all the world now sees that we are no longer to be led by France.' ^ All through the summer the troops continued to cross the sea, and the 22,000 Hanoverians and Hessians were ready to march into Flanders to join them. Surely now the Dutch, seeing 38,000 men in British pay, and Maria's 14,000 ready also to take part, would throw off their heavy sluggish- ness, and at last co-operate in reality. In spite of all England's efforts, it seemed that after all they would not. In this same month of June Stair had to write to Carteret that not a Dutchman had been in Trevor's house for a month ; and the well-meaning, though always slightly impracticable, old soldier — he was now seventy years old — began to ask himself if it was worth while to stay among such a sluggishly ponderous people any longer. ' I shall never desire to eat the King's bread when I cannot be useful to his service. When- ever that happens, my Lord,' he wrote to Carteret, ' I shall desire to return to my plough, whence your Lord- ship knows I came unwillingly.' It was exactly in these very June days, while English statesmen could do little but gaze imploringly with a kind of despairing hope at their exceedingly lethargic allies, that the Treaty of Breslau was success- fully accomplished. Even the rather despondent Stair had reckoned that the heavy Dutchmen would stir if only Maria and Frederick could be brought to terms. Here, now, Avas this actually accomplished ; yet the Dutch remained as stolid and immovable as ever. It was exceedingly provoking, for something really im- portant might have marked the next few weeks if there had been anything like cheerful co-operation. Maille- 1 J. M. Graham's Stair, II. 286. 254 LORD CABTEBET bois and his rreiich, wlio had so lonij been threaten- ing Hanover, had left Germany altogether when the new English administration was seen to be in earnest, and had marched for Dunkirk, anticipating a possible English attack there. But now, in August, Maillebois received sudden orders to quit Dunkirk and hasten to the help of the French besieged in Prag. Carteret could hardly believe this news when first he heard it. The departure of the French left the road to Paris perfectly open — not a French soldier between Paris and the English army. From another point of view, however, Carteret strongly disliked this proceeding of Maillebois, and writing to Hyndford he says that ' it appears to his majesty to be high time to put an end to these inroads of the French upon Germany, and to clear the Empire of those already there.' At the same time the movement of the French seemed to offer England a decided military chance. Could not, at the very least, the Dunkirk question be once for all settled ? Or could not the allied armies give a good account of Maillebois if he should attempt to return there ? George himself, now that at last there seemed a prospect of fighting instead of arguing, would go over to put him- self at the head of his troops : — Give us our fiddle ; we ourselves will play ; as the opposition journals unkindly quoted. Carteret was to accompany the King, who seemed bent upon the undertaking ; the royal baggage and saddle-horses did actually get as far as Gravesend ; but they got no farther. It had been intended that Carteret should take the Hague in his way, and find out once for all what could or could not be done with the remark- able people there. But in tlie end it was decided POWER 255 that Carteret, after visiting the Dutch statesmen, should return to London before the King left Eng- land ; and it was quite well understood that the King's proposed visit to the Continent would chiefly depend upon the reports which Carteret brought home with him. Carteret arrived at the Hague on October 5, 1742. All the difficulties which he would meet with from the Dutch official people were represented to him on his arrival ; but he replied that the principle to which he had held throughout his whole life was to reject the word ' impossible.'^ Perhaps, however, he was himself surprised that he actually succeeded with the Dutch. He got from them a defi.nite undertaking to join England in paying subsidies to the Queen of Hungary, and a promise that the 20,000 Dutch troops should join the English army with all possible speed. At once, after only a week's stay, Carteret hastened to make his way home again, and nearly paid his life for his success. After being at sea for five days, he was driven by a violent storm as far north as Hull ; with great difficulty the man-of-war on which he sailed succeeded in reach- ing Yarmouth. From Yarmouth Carteret made his way to London by road ; and on the very day of his arrival had an interview with the King at Kensington. Carteret, writes gossiping Horace, ' was near being lost ; he told the King that being in a storm, he had thought it safest to put into Yarmouth Eoads, at which we laughed, hoh ! lioli ! hoh ! ' being easily amused.'-^ Of the minister's serious talk gossiping Horace can give no report ; but the day after the interview the royal horses and bag- ^ Adelung, Pragmntische Staatsgeschichfe Europens, III. a, 294. * r>uchess of Yarmouth was the English title of one of the King's Ger- man women. 256 LOBD CARTERET gage which had been shipped for Flanders were brought back again to London. There could be no thoughts of a campaign that season ; the weather itself was alone sufficient to decide that. The Dutch had at last been secured ; but for the jDresent nothing more could be done than to elaborate plans for early and, if possible, decisive action next season. The Austrian general D'Ahremberg came to London to share in the military- consultations. He was well received and feasted at many entertainments, which always took the form of suppers ; for D'Ahremberg insisted upon dining at eleven o'clock in the morninGf, an hour or more too early for the English world of fashion. He left London in November, very well satisfied with the newly devised military scheme ; the final touches were to be given by himself and Stair in union at the Hague. It had to be confessed that the campaign of 1742 had been lost; but on all sides there was fixed determination to make something of the next one. The troops which had so long idly lingered in Flanders were garrisoned in the Netherland towns for the winter, the English chiefly in the neighbourhood of Ghent ; there to wait till the spring of 1743 came round, and military action was again possible. Thus George's second attempt to help Maria Theresa with more than generous money subsi- dies had practically been as unsuccessful as his first. In the first he had been able to do absolutely nothing ; in the second he had actually got his troops upon the ground, but had not been able to use them ; in the third he was destined to be successful at last, in a very surprising manner. The interval between the cantonment of the troops in the Netherlands during the winter months, and the beginning of their march into Germany next year, was POWER 257 occupied in England by a rather stormy session of parliament. The discontented members of the late opposition were loudly asserting that Carteret and Pulteney had betrayed them, and were anxious to make Carteret at least feel their resentment. To attack Pulteney was almost superfluous. His acceptance of a peerage as Earl of Bath — his Countess was popularly known as the Wife of Batli — had been the signal for the ruin of his reputation. Satirists, pamphleteers, epi- grammatists exhausted their vocabulary, from the polite sneer down to the vulgarest ribaldry, over an event which Walpole for his own purposes was reckoned to have had a fair share in bringing about. ^ His influence even with the Cabinet in which he sat was slight. He did not know beforehand of Carteret's important com- mission to visit the Hague ; Newcastle announced it by letter to him, as an event whicli would probably surprise him. It was Carteret alone, tlierefore, who had to endure the ahnost undivided anger of a disappointed and discontented party. They had been attacking him from the very moment when he had formed his Govern- ment. In April 1742 Sandys said to Bishop Seeker til at he could not imagine why they all spoke against ' 8ir C. II. A^'illianis's lines are an inoffensive specimen of the generul feeling; — ' Great Earl of Bath, j'our reign is o'er ; Tbe Tories trust your word no more, The Whigs no longer fear ye ; Your gates are seldom now unbarr'd, No crowds of coaches fill your yard, And scarce a sovd comes neiir ye. . . . Ex])ect to see that tribe no more, Since all mankind perceives that power Is lodg'd in other hands ; Sooner to Carteret now they'll go, Or even (though that's excessive low) To Wilmington or Sands.' s 258 LORD CABTEEET Carteret, unless it were because he had better abihties than any of them. Argyle, of course, was one of these earUest assailants. ' An Emperor may grow weary of the servility of a senate,' Carteret had once said in par- liament. Hardly had Argyle resigned when, with the irritated pique of a personally disappointed man, he repeated these words of Carteret's, and bitterly added : ' A minister never will.' Throughout Carteret's first session, those who had shared in the work of over- throwing the old Government, and yet found them- selves unimportant and uninfluential under the new, were fretting with unconcealed bitterness ; in his second session their angry irritation was naturally increased. There was nothing surprising or, from one point of view, very important in all this ; the weak point of the Government Avas the disunion and discord among its own members. The old section of the Cabinet, those who had been the friends and colleagues of Walpole, could not well agree w^ith the new section who had driven Walpole from power. The views of the insignifi- cant Wilmington w^ere of no consequence ; no one knew or cared whether he had any views or not. But New- castle and Pelham and Hardwicke were rather the thwarters than the colleagues of Carteret and the new element in the Government. The Pelhams especially Avere consumed Avitli jealousy at the leading position which Carteret held. ' My Lord Carteret, who is in the strictest connection with my brother and I,' Newcastle had written some six months after the formation of the new ministry ; but even at that early date there was hardly more truth than grammar in the sentence. And their jealousy w^ent on ra])idly increasing as every month showed more clearlv that Carteret was the real master. To light against the regular Tory opposition, POWER 259 reinforced by a number of able Wliigs who fancied, or at least pretended to fancy, that they had been wronged and betrayed, and at the same time to hold on his way against the underhand intriguings of insincere colleagues, needed all Carteret's consciousness of ability and higli intentions, as well as the courageous buoyancy of dis- position which never for a moment forsook him. Parliament met at the end of November 1742. On the very first day the opposition leaders took up the subject on which they obstinately insisted all through the session. Their order of the day was denunciation of Hanover and all its works. Pitt was chosen as their spokesman. There is no report of what he said on this opening occasion, but he is not likely to have failed in severity. ' Pitt spoke like ten thousand angels,' was the enthusiastic comment of Richard Grenville, afterwards Earl Temple ; and the House of Commons on its first day was in an exceedingly animated condition. But the angelic eloquence which transported members witli admiration could not perform tlie altogether prosaic task of gaining their votes ; the rhetorical performance was no doubt very fine, but from a ministerial point of view the division-list was far finer. The Lords did not even venture to divide at all ; and Carteret was able to conoratuiate himself on a good beafinning'. This first night was indeed a fair epitome of the whole session. There was abundance of angry opposition eloquence ; abundance of personal abuse and sneering insinuations ; but the exciting rhetorical proceedings always closed witli tlie solid victory of the Government. The two cliief questions that engaged the Houses are a sufiicient illustration. One was the (juestion of the British troops in FJanders. The opposition declared that to keep the troops in garrison there till the next campaign could s -2, 260 LORD CABTEBET begin was what the parliamentary jargon of the day called a Hanoverian measure, and they insisted that the men should be disbanded. Murray's eloquence, supporting the Government, was on this occasion heard for the first time ; and the defeat of the opposition was so overwhelming that Carteret gladly reckoned on its probable good effect abroad. The other question roused angrier feelings. Was Hanover or was England to pay for the 1G,000 Hanoverian troops which George was holding under arms ? They had been sent into Flanders to join the English there ; if they were to be kept England would inevitably have to pay for them, for the King's Electoral means were in no way sufficient for such luxuries. The outcry which the opposition raised was terrible. Everything, they said, was done for Hanover, nothing by Hano\^er. England's interests were invari- ably sacrificed for the sake of a miserable little German Electorate. In his slightly elaborate style of fashionable sarcasm, Chesterfield asserted that the one effectual way of ruining the Pretender's hopes would be to make him Elector of Hanover ; for never . again would the En"'- lish people accept a King from that quarter. He even denounced Hanover and things Hanoverian in a pam- phlet which had an unbounded success then, though it is a weariness to think of now. In the House of Com- mons the opposition promised tliemselves a ' glorious day ' over this mu(ih-argued question ; and at least had the day, if they altogether missed the glory. In the Lords also there was much liveliness. It was hinted that the Government's resolve to pay the troops was the decision of Carteret alone. Bath, now in the same House with Carteret, bluntly contradicted this. ' I am personally obliged,' said Bath, ' to speak on this subject by the malice of the world, and the arts of the enemies rOWEB 2C1 of the Government. I did approve this measure, and do approve it. It was not a rash measure of one single man, but the united opinion of all the administration who were present.' Carteret's enemies were also dis- appointed in another direction. They had calculated that Newcastle would at most give only a silent vote for the Government policy. But Newcastle spoke decidedly in support of it. Horace Walpole says that Carteret in his speech was ' under great concern.' There is no evidence of that in the genuine fragments of the speech which have survived. ' The present question,' Carteret said, ' is : Will you submit to France or not ? I will always traverse the views of France in place or out of place ; for France will ruin this nation if it can.' The Government's victory was easy; and the stormy session ended in April 1743. And now began in earnest George's third attempt to check the proceedings of the French in Germany. Although the promise which the Dutch had made to Carteret had not yet been fuliilled, it was resolved at the end of 1742 that as soon as the weather allowed the English troops should leave their garrisons in the Netherlands, and march into Germany to the support of the Queen of Hungary. Stair had naturally been very much yexed at the long inaction. In his vexation he made the singularly inappropriate mistake of fancy- ing that some backwardness on Carteret's part was re- sponsible for the delay. In the last months of 1742 Stair wrote some rather querulous letters to Carteret, almost upbraiding him with a desertion of the cause which in opposition he had so strenuously supported. ' I am very sure,' said Stair in one of these letters, ' that you have everything in your power that should tempt the ambition of a great man.' Carteret good- 202 LORD CABTEBET liuinouredly enougli put him right. He had abeady ■written to Stair in July 1742 : ' I am looked upon by many of my friends and yours as too rash, though I don't carry my views so far as your Lordsliip, which may proceed from my ignorance in miUtary affairs.' ^ Stair soon found that in reproaching Carteret he had made a complete mistake, and before tlie year was over he fully acknowledged it : — ' I thank your Lordsliip for the honour of your private letter of the 22nd of jSTovcmber, O.S. ; I can assure your Lordship with great truth that for your own sake nothing can be a greater pleasure to me than to see evidently that your Lordship pursues the same system of foreign affairs which I took to be your system when your Lordship brought me into his majesty's service. . . . I am very sure the King, our master, has everything in his power for the safety and honour of Great Britain, for the good of Europe, and for his own glory ; and Lord Carteret will with justice be thought the main spring of moving the great machine.' ^ For indeed there was no backwardness in Carteret or in the King ; but, altogether apart from the slowness of the Dutcli, whose heavy sluggishness has at times sometliing almost comic about it, there were various difficulties in the way, the Queen of Hungary hersell being one of the chief of them. Maria was very chival- rous, and high minded, and interesting ; but she was not very practicable to deal with, even when it was her own interest that was chiefly concerned. Month after month Carteret had been urging her to gain over the Kinfy of Sardinia and so streng'then herself against France on the south side of the Alps ; yet she would do ' J. M. Graham's Stair, II. 287. « Add. MSS. 6,011 ; fol. 23. POWER 263 nothing but sliow what Carteret called an ill-jndged in- flexibility. Her needlessly sharp-tongiied way of speak- ing of the Emperor, the ' so-called Emperor,' the ' pre- tended head of the Empire,' might, as Carteret said, be very piquant ; yet its useless acrimony and severity tended to alienate from her the vaiions members of the Empire. Her language to George himself, her one firm ally, was often very bitter and reproachful, little as it shoidd have been so. All this very considerably in- creased the otherwise sufficient difficulties of the English Government. Frederick, too, had a word to say. He disliked the entrance of foreign troops into the Empire. But Carteret replied that his real object was to protect the Empire and to rid it of the French ; and he declined to allow any foreign power to prescribe the mode of action which England must adopt. Frederick soon softened his language, and declared that he would observe an exact neutrality. The preliminary difficulties were at length all over- come, and on March 1, 1743, the EngUsh troops, after so many w^eary months of waiting, began to leave their headquarters at Ghent, and marched slowly towards the Rhine. On March 5, in splendid weather. Stair was at Aix-la-Chapelle, while his men behind him were daily crossing the Meuse, ' in great health and great spirits,' he informed Carteret. ' With such troops one might modestly hope to do anything.' The 16,000 Hano- verians were with them ; Austrian reinforcements brought the total up to 40,000 men. In the rear, and not yet in actual union with the main body, were 6,000 hired Hessians, and 6,000 extra Hanoverians whom George himself as Elector contributed. Georgfe also was soon in motion, eager to fight. As soon as possible after the rising of parliament, he and his son Cumber- 204 LORD CARTERET land, accompanied by Carteret, left England for the Continent. While the King went on at once to Hanover, Carteret remained for a week at the Hague, once more discussing public affairs with tlie Dutch states- men, and endeavouring to infuse into their torpid lan- guor something of his own energy. He found a happy change among them since his last year's visit. Carteret expressly says that the great parliamentary majorities which had supported the English Government through- out the session had produced an excellent effect in Holland. People there had become fully convinced that England was really in earnest ; they adopted the conviction the more easily perhaps now that tlie enemies of Austria were in a generally unfortunate condition. Tlie French had indeed got out of Prag ; but their interference in Germany had so far come to little more than nothing, while the new Emperor whom they had supported was receiving ruinous blows from Prince Charles and his victorious Austrians. In these happier circumstances, the Dutch, while Carteret was still at the Haj^ue, at last named the commander for their contribution of 20,000 men. Carteret then at once made his way to Hanover. From Hanover, where he arrived at the end of May, Carteret instructed Stair to get together all his troops, English, Hanoverians, and Hessians, with the least possible loss of time. Stair had crossed the Rhine near Coblentz in the last days of April, and throughout May was encamped at Hochst, between Frankfort and Mainz, waiting for the Hessians who were following him from the Netherlands. They had been difficult to get, for they were unwilling to fight against the Emperor, and they never proved of any service to the English in the campaign. Wlien June came, Stair POWER 205 waited no lonoer for them or for tlie King's own 6,000 Hanoverians, but pusliecl on, probably himself wishing to make for Bavaria, and in nnion with Prince Charles to clear that neighbourhood of the French. Stair marched up the Mayn, reaching Aschaffenberg in the middle of June ; but there he halted. On the other side of the river stood the French general Noailles, with some 60,000 men ; Stair numbered about 43,000, all told. But Noailles would not be induced to fight. He hoped to weary out and starve his enemies, and in that way more effectually beat them. Stair would have himself attacked Noailles, and so have compelled liim to give battle ; but the Austrian general D'Ahremberg absolutely refused ; and thus for days the allied army lay inactive at Aschaflfenberg. It was during this period of inaction that the King, Cumberland, and Carteret arrived at headquarters. They found the army in a very critical condition. Stair and D'Ahrem- berg were not on cordial terms ; the English and Hanoverian troops did not get on well together. There were great sufferings among the soldiers, the commis- sariat department being in a state of very confused inefficiency. The men were beginning to throw off discipline ; robbing churches, plundering villages ; so tliat the frightened peasants left their homes, drove their cattle into the woods, and reduced the supply department to a worse condition than ever. The effi- cient force of the army was already lessened by some 5,000 men. But the arrival of the King to some extent restored matters. Strict orders on matters of discipline were read at the head of every regiment ; George liimself, if always a little ludicrous on tlie military side, knew much better how to manage an armj^ than to rule a kingdom. A letter of Carteret's gives a glimpse of .2GG LORD CARTERET things at Aschaflfenberg in tliose days of waiting before the battle of Dettingen : — ' We have forty or more deserters coming in every day from the French, but they are mostly hussars, Irish and Swiss, very few French, among them some Germans. The hussars have picked up some of our people, but the Marshal de Noailles has sent them back with much civihty, and we have sent him some of his people, with the same pohteness. . . . His majesty is in perfect health and spirits ; is always booted, and rides out to several of the most material posts twice a day. The Duke [Cumberland] is very well and very active, and so are the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Albemarle,. Lord Bury, and all your Grace's friends. I say nothing of myself, but my son is liked and does his part as a volunteer very w^ell. I make no doubt that all will end with honour and for the good of our country. The Duke D'Ahremberg and Marshal Neipperg are just gone from me (I can write nothing witliout interruption), so you must forgive any faults I make in writing. They tell me his majesty's orders for the good discipline of tlie army liave had already a very good effect, and that without it we should have been soon in confusion.' ^ After the King had been at Aschaffcnberg a week, it was clear that the army could stay there no longer. T]ie provision question proved impossible of solution there, and on June 26 George and the generals resolved to fall back down tlie river to Ilanau, where the Mayn takes its direct bend to the left to find its way into the Ehine at Mainz. At Hanau Avere the magazines, and there too the advancing Hessians had been ordered to wait. From Aschaffcnberg to Hanau, along the north bank of the river, is some sixteen EngUsh miles. Nearly 1 To Newcastle; Add. MSS. 22,53G ; fol. 73, 74. POWER 2G7 midway between the two places, close on the Mayn, was the village of Dettingen, and, just beyond Dettingen, on the other side of the river, another small village, Seligenstadt, destined to be an important little place next day. The line of march was through a cramped valley, from which the army coidd not possibly turn aside ; for their left was bounded by the Mayn, and along the right stretched the woody hills of the Spes- sart-Wald. The conditions w^ere evidently uncomfort- able ; but there was no remedy. Very silently, in the early hours of June 27, the allied army began its march. The Kino; was with the Enorlish in the rear, for it was reckoned that the enemy's chief attack would be in that quarter. Noailles did indeed seize Aschaffenberg as soon as tlie English left it, but he had no desire to try any fighting tliere. He had formed a plan Avhich seemingly could not fail. Observing that the allies meant to withdraw by way of Dettingen, he had, un- known to them, thrown two bridges across the Mayn at Seligenstadt, and sent his nephew, the Duke of Gram- mont, over with a considerable force to secure the o;round in front of the villao-e. Crossinof the road of the retreating army, just before they could gain the Dettin- gen hamlet, a brook came down from the Spessart-Wald to join the river, and so formed a ravine with rou^fh boggy land, difficult for orderly marching. Noailles intended that while the allies were confusedly struggling in this ravine and morass, and while the French batteries, which they could not avoid, were playing upon them from the other side of the river, Grammont should fall upon them in front, and in all liuman probability end the busi- ness. Noailles himself, by seizing Aschaffenberg, had shut out all chance of an escape in the rear ; he had his enemy in a ti-ap, and considered the afl'air as good as ended. 2G8 LOBD CARTERET Uiidisturbed by Noailles, the allies continued their march, without thought of any danger in store for them ahead. By eight o'clock in the morning their advanced parties had reached Dettingen, but not to enter the village. The unexpected sight of the French and of the bridges just beyond instantly revealed to them the real position of affairs, and tliey galloped back to the army with the surprising news. The army halted, for the post of honour now was not the rear but the van, and George must come to the front. So the English and Austrians waited, facing the boggy ravine, while behind it stood Grammont, expecting their approach w4th G;rim satisfaction. The allies had not even two plans to choose between ; they could do nothing but make a desperate attempt to cut their way straight througli, at whatever cost. Scientific military arrange- ments in that narrow, cramped ground were next to impossible. The little that could be done in that direction was done, and the men were ready to advance; when suddenly, in the early afternoon, a wild mistake of the French changed all the chances of the engage- ment. Grammont, not restraining himself any longer, broke his uncle's orders, left his own strong Dettingen position, crossed the ravine, and attacked the enemy in a position quite as good as his own. For a moment his mad impetuosity had a touch of success. The allies' left line broke before the onset of tlie French cavalry. But it recovered, and Grammont had no other even temporary satisfaction to excuse his rash and fatal folly. From two o'clock till six the battle lasted, and the French could make no impression anywhere. George himself led the infantry ; his horse ran away with him early in the action, and during the rest of the fighting he was on foot. ' Don't talk to me of dancfer ; I'll be even POWER 269 with them.' Before the soUd mass of foot-soldiers the French could not stand ; they broke and hurriedly retreated. The retreat was turned into a fiiirht. Some fled into the woods, many were drowned while trying to cross the river, many were cut down before they could reach the two bridges. The English were left in undisturbed possession of the field ; and their little King, fidl of martial enthusiasm, remained on the ground till ten o'clock at night, contentedly dining there on a cold shoulder of mutton. Carteret, as a civilian, had no personal share in the battle. He sat^all through the hours of the engage- ment in his coach close to the field of action, and witnessed one of the ludicrous episodes of the day when the Archbishop of Mayence came up to his carriage window, and, in the height of the action, cried out to Carteret : ' Milord, je p7vteste contre toute violence.' ^ That same night, from the Dettingen cottage whicli he shared with the Austrian marshal Neipperg, Carteret wrote home to Newcastle a short and hurried despatch announcing the victory. The graces of style of the polite letter-writer were, in such very confused cir- cumstances, hardly to be looked for ; and Carteret's letter, though it did all that was necessary in the way of accurate information, was in style abrupt and awk- ward enough. Small wits at home made very merry over what they reckoned as its defects. Lord Shelburne, surely w^itli some exaggeration, notices it as a remark- able ffict that neitlier Pitt nor Carteret could write au ordinary letter well. But no one was more willing to recognise the imperfections of this jerky, bulletin-like little missive than Carteret himself. What is unfortu- nately the one anecdote of Carteret in Boswell's book ' Add. -MSS. 11,-'U2; ibl. VS. 270 LORD CABTEBET tells " how he exclaimed after writing his (lesj)atch : ' Here is a letter expressed in terms not good enough for a tallow-chandler to have used.' Literary defects, however, counted for little in consideration of the news which tlie letter brought. The nation went wild with joy over its remarkable victory ; illuminating the streets, lighting bonfires, firing guns. ' My Lord,' writes Horace Walpole of his father, ^ has been drinking the healths of Lord Stair and Lord Carteret; he says, since it is well done, he does not care by whom it was done. . . The mob are wild, and cry. Long live King George, and the Duke of Cumberland, and Lord Stair, and Lord Carteret, and General Clayton that's dead !' More last- ing than the noisy enthusiasm of the people was Handel's thanksgiving music ; whose Dettimjen Te Deuiii is pretty much all that is left of this once so famous victory. The allied army without loss of time safely made its way to its magazines at Hanau, where it was joined by the Hessians and the extra Hanoverians. Jealousies and recriminations between the English troops and their foreion allies were not few. and Stair in disgust re- signed and returned ' to his plough.' Many commu- nications and negotiations with the French commander Noailles thus fell necessarily into Carteret's hands, and a jealous opposition at home asked : Is Carteret the new Commander-in-Chief, then ? thinking there was considerable sprightliness in the cpiestion. The ' three Johns,' Argyle, Stair, and Carteret, offered a chance to some rather indifferent verse-monger : — John, Duke of Argyle, we admired for a while, Whose titles fell short of bis merit ; His loss to repair, we took John, Earl of Stair, AVho, like him. had both virtue and merit. POWER 271 Now lie too is gone. Ah ! wliat's to be done ? Such losses how can we supply ? But let's not repine, on the banks of the Rhine There's a third John his fortune will tr}'. By the Patriots' vagary, he was made Secretary, By himself he's Prime Minister made ; And now to crown all, he's become General, Though he ne'er was bred up to the trade. But Carteret Lad more serious arrangements than temporary military ones to make. The newly elected Emperor was now left without allies ; the French, who had set him up, were beaten and already making their way out of the Empire. It was pressingly essential for this puppet-Emperor to secure his speedy peace with England. He had been trying this by help of Prince William of Hesse, all through the year 1742. Between Carteret and the Prince there had been a copious corre- spondence ; more or less beseeching on the Prince's part, who dwelt earnestly on tlie admirable qualities of the Emperor, and begged English official commiseration for a sovereign in difficulties. But Carteret was always politely firm ; dead against an admii-able Emperor who was closely bound to the French ; whose proposed plans of arrangement were mere ' visionary and impracticable schemes,' made, too, as the English Government dis- covered, in private concert with France. As nothing came of his very self-interested appeals, the Emperor next year went further. In June 1743, while George and Carteret were still at Hanover making ready to join the army, Prince William of Hesse arrived there with a letter from the head of the Empire. The Emperor oflered to accept any terms of peace which England could procure him from Vienna, if only they were com- patible with his honour and dignity. The appeahng 272 LOBD CABTEBET vagueness of this letter was replied to by Carteret with no lack of clearness. He reported home to Newcastle : — 'When I liad read it, I told him [Prince William] plainly, that the King would never advise the Queen of Hungary to make the least cession of any part of her dominions to the Emperor ; and that no peace could be made between the Emperor and the Queen of Hungary without his Imperial Majesty's giving up all claims and pretensions to the Queen of Hungary's entire dominions ; that if his Imperial Majesty would immediately and publicly detach himself from France, we would endea- vour to do him the most good we coidd, provided it was not at the expense of the Queen of Hungary, who would not so much as sacrifice a village to him. . . . The Prince of Hesse then asked me whether the King would propose a cessation of arms between the Emperor and tlie Queen of Hungary. I answered him. No ; that the Queen of Hungary and her auxiliaries would push to the utmost all their advantages ; that if we run risks, and fought battles and succeeded, we would make the most of them ; but yet we would rather avoid those extremities ; tlierefore I could answer for nothing but the security of liis Imperial Majesty's person and liberty at Frankfort, when once he sliall get there ; but if he should be intercepted in his journey thither by the Austrians, we could not be blamed. . . . The Prince of Hesse did not talk to me upon any other subject, and I did not give him any encouragement so to do, but am to see liim to-morrow, wlien we sliall talk upon divers other things. He only told me en passant^ that we had found the true way to deal with tlie Court of Berlin, and that the King of Prussia would observe an exact neu- trality. I told him tliat we had no arts, l)ut proceeded, with relation to his Prussian majesty, as we would POWER 273 towards all other German powers, with civility, courage, and truth ; that the King and his ministers knew no other politics. I left him to dress to go and dine with the King.' This was three weeks before the battle of Dettingen. Carteret clearly let the Emperor understand that Eng- land would be no party to patching up a separate peace between himself and Maria Theresa so long as he clung to his alliance with the French. This decision would not, as the Prince said to Carteret, be fort consolant to the Emperor ; but Carteret was firm, and nothing more could be got from him. Diplomacy now yielded to arms ; and if there was little consolation to an unfortu- nate Emperor in the limited promises of statesmanship, there was less by far in a surprising battle of Dettingen. Negotiations after that decisive event became there- fore more active than ever. The Emperor had safely reached Frankfort ; the English headquarters were at Hanau, where George remained for two months after the battle. Once more Prince William of Hesse ap- peared on the scene. Carteret received him with the sincere wish to secure a definite and friendly under- standing. 'Britannic Majesty is not himself very for- ward ; but Carteret, I rather judge, had taken up the notion ; and on his Majesty's and Carteret's part, there is actually the wish and attempt to pacificate the Eeich ; to do something tolerable for the poor Kaiser.' ^ On one preliminary condition, however, Carteret was de- cisively insistent. The Emperor must altogether and at once cut himself loose from the French. Charles was eager to recover his Bavaria from Maria ; eager also for money to tide him over his present ruinous circumstances. What might be done in these directions Carteret prudently declined to say ; Prince William 1 Carlyle's Frechrick. Book XIV. Chap. V. 27i LOUD CARTERET could extract from him nothing but the promise that Enghmd would give all possible help to the Emperor as soon as he sincerely joined tlie allies in driving the French out of Germany. With this reply Prince William returned on July 7, 1743, from Hanau to Frankfort. The two or three days immediately following produced several vague, general propositions from tlie Prince, which Carteret politely refused to entertain ; till the Emperor, considering that the French were already in full retreat, and knowing that his own circumstances could by delay become only worse in- stead of better, resolved to accept Carteret's preliminary. Precisely one week after the Prince had taken Carteret's reply to Frankfort, he informed Carteret that the Em- peror agreed ; that he would renounce all his preten- sions to Austrian dominions, and entirely quit the French alliance. One week had brought matters so far. Frederick of Prussia approved ; he wrote from Berlin to Carteret, expressing his great esteem, and signing himself voire tres-affectionne ami, Federic. Carte- ret himself, though not forgetful of the obstinacy of Maria Theresa, was fully hopeful of success. 'All Europe sees what a great scene this is, what a glorious figure his majesty makes,' he wrote to Newcastle. ' France has not been for a century under so great difficulties as at present, and if the Emperor, the Empire, and the States-General will heartily join with his majesty, the Queen of Hungary, and the King of Sardinia, there is all the probability and, I will venture to say, as much certainty as human affairs will admit of, to trust that, by the blessing of God, a safe, lasting, and general peace may be procured, not impossible in this very campaign.' Such were the plans and hopes of Emperors, Kings, and statesmen ; all of them unfortunately forgetting POWER 275 that ill a high official position in Whitehall sat a ridiculous Duke of Newcastle. On July 15 the Prince went to Carteret, confident of o'ettino- the ofiicial sicfna- ' (Do C tures which would finish the afiair ; but found himself quite disappointed. There was money involved in the treaty ; a monthly subsidy to be paid to the Emperor till his present very broken circumstances could be somewhat retrieved. George and Carteret had both to tell the anxious Prince that ministers in London must first be consulted before tliey could put their hands to that ; that fifteen days must pass before a messenger could go and come. All Carteret's hopes and wishes Avere for the acceptance of the treaty ; he urged it upon his colleagues in London as the essential pre- liminary to the union of all Germany against the French. It was in vain. Why not make peace with France, and leave Germany alone altogether ? asked the ministers in England, and refused to have anything to do with the proposed arrangement. On August 1, 1743, this reply reached Hanau, and Carteret had to let Prince William know that for the present the only result was failure. A ridiculous Duke of Newcastle liad ruined the far-seeing plans of the statesman whose mastery of foreign affairs was known in every capital in Europe. A ridiculous Duke, who beheved that Han- over was north of England, and probably thought that Dettingen was on tlie top of Cape Breton (which in later years he was so refreshed to discover was an island), had interfered with the statesmanship of the one English minister to whom the intricacies of German politics were no insoluble mystery. The peddling pedanticism of the most imbecile even of political Dukes, for whom politics ranged from potwallopers to Knights of the Garter and back again, had its way ; T -1 276 LOBD CABTEBET and Carteret's liigli schemes for the pacification of the Empire and the defeat of French plans in Germany were forced to yield before the ignorant insularities of the Cockpit at Whitehall. There was, in addition, per- sonal abuse and misconception of himself involved in this failure — if Carteret had not been too proud to think or complain of that. The Emperor, Prince Wilhani of Hesse, Frederick of Prussia, all reckoned that the fault was Carteret's alone. Brochures were printed on the Continent dwelling painfully on the mystery and iniquity of the affair ; Prince William himself sent to the Hessian minister at the Hague a long indictment of Carteret and his treachery. ' Prince William's accusation of Lord Carteret makes a great noise here, and will, I hope, be duly refuted in England,' wrote Mr. Trevor, Eng:lish minister at the Ha^ue.^ The Kings and kinglets of the Continent, imperfectly ac- quainted with the beautiful working of English party politics, could not understand how it was that when the English King and the English chief minister pro- fessed to desire a certain political action they should yet be unable to realise their desires. Prince William professed to believe that Carteret had never consulted the Kegency in England at all, and that his account of the failure of the scheme was sheer falsehood. Even Frederick the Great, it is regretfully surmised,''^ felt convinced that it was all Carteret's trickery and treachery. Carteret bore it all, as well as the still more ignorant abuse whicli was awaiting him in England, in a very proud, uncomplaining way ; conscious how unjust it was, but having already lived in the thick of politics for thirty-two years. ' Carteret, for ' Sept. 15, 1744. * By Carlyle ; the only historiau who has thought it worth while to POWER "111 this Hanau business, liacl clangours enough to undergo, poor man, from Germans and from Enghsh ; whicli Avas wholly unjust. His trade, say the English — (or used to say, till they forgot their considerable Carteret alto- gether) — was that of rising in the world by feeding the mad German humours of little George ; a miserable trade ! Yes, my friends ; — but it was not quite Car- teret's, if you will please to examine ! ' ^ Carteret's high plan of reconcihng the Emperor and Maria Theresa, and of so uniting all Germany against the French, thus went to ruin, and no more negotiating at Hanau was possible. In these circumstances the English camp there was struck, and at the end of August the King and Carteret arrived at Worms. For there was still one more diplomatic effort to make, liardly of an easier, though of a much more modest kind than the Hanau one. Since all Germany could not be got to work unitedly against the French, it remained to bind together as closely as possible such anti-French powers as there were. Outside England, which always furnished the necessary supplies, Maria Theresa's chief ally was the King of Sardinia. While Germany had been busy with Silesian wars, sieges of Prag, battles of Dettingen, there had been much intri- cate and heavy fighting on the south side of the Alps ; France and Spain together doing all the hurt they could to Austria in her Italian possessions. In this southern business Maria Theresa's chief support was Charles understand and appreciate Carteret ; a great distinction for Carteret. Car- lyle regrets that on this matter of the Hanau Treaty Frederick took up such a misconception of Carteret. Frederick, Book XIV. Chap. V. According to the Marchmont Papers, however, Audri<5, Prussian Minister to England, was convinced, by Carteret himself, how the truth really lay, and wrote to Fredericlv accordingly. Marchmont Papers, I. 48. 1 Carlyle's Frederick, Book. XIV. Chap. V. 278 LORD CARTEBET Emanuel, King of Sardinia ; but for him tliis alliance was rapidly losing all its charm. The original agree- ment between the two sovereigns was of a very vague cliaracter, and left Charles Emanuel at full liberty to side with the Bourbons if Austria failed to satisfy his re- quirements. To get rid of this provisional state of things, and definitely bind the King and the Queen together, had been one of Carteret's earliest desires. In May 1742, three months after he had come into power, he urged this policy on the Vienna Court. To Austrian afiairs in Italy the Sardinian King's friendship was clearly indispensable ; while on the otlier hand Charles Emanuel stood in danger of possible Bourbon resent- ment, and was being tempted by actual Bourbon offers. Carteret earnestly pressed Maria Theresa to secure him at once by yielding him the moderate terms he re- quired ; and promised that the English King would cheerfully send a fleet to the Mediterranean, even alone, if the Dutch refused to join. Eobinson, however, found it very hard work at Vienna. The Court was suspicious of England, and angry that English fighting help was so very slow in coming ; though what could George in his then checkmated condition do ? Austria also was just about to make her cession of Silesia to Frederick, and gloomily asked if her next proceeding was to be a cession to Sardinia. Better yield a trifle of Lombardy than lose all you have in Italy, was Carteret's reply ; and Maria Theresa reluctantly found herself compelled to agree. Her promise was given, and Charles Emanuel honestly and successfully fought for his ally ; but was gradually worked into an irritated, threatening condition as the time passed by, and there came no sign that the promise was meant to be kept. Carteret was verv anxious ; he feared that Sardinia, treated with POWEB 2T.) this shabb}' ingratitude, must yield to Bourbon temp- tations. To Carteret's relief, Sardinia appealed to George, and offered to leave the decision of the case with England. If George refused, Charles Emanuel would at once go over to France ; but he expressed full confidence in English intervention. Carteret was much relieved. ' I own,' he wrote from Hanover in the weeks before the battle of Dettingen, ' I was very anxious about it, from several intelligences that I had ; but I think this letter under his own hand, at this time, and in so explicit a manner, may set us at rest if we make a good use of it, which shall not be neglected. And hereafter, when these things may become public, several ingenious persons at home, who say our measures have been mad, will see that one of the prudentest and wisest Princes in Europe has not thought so, and will risk his whole upon them.' ^ ' Which shall not be neglected,' wrote Carteret ; nor did he neglect it. Austria, of course, was difficult to manage ; the square mileage of Eobinson's despatches was largely increased by this business. But Austria, if only in self-protection, had to agree ; and the Treaty of Worms, signed on September 13, 1743, definitely secured Sardinia to the right side. George undertook to keep a strong squadron in the Mediterranean as long as it might be needed there, and to pay a large yearl}' subsidy to Charles Emanuel : Maria Theresa unreservedly ])romised him the small portions of territory which he required ; and he, in return for all this, rejected all Bourbon temptations and ranged his 45,000 men on the side of Austria. Thus, if there should be another cam- paign, Carteret had secured one important preparation for it ; 45,000 men fighting y);r instead of against made • Carteret to Newcastle ; June G, 1743. Add MSS. 22,536 ; fol. 59, GO. 280 LORD CARTERET a weighty difference of 90,000 men. With this Treaty of Worms Newcastle and the Eegency at liome did not interfere. They approved of it and ratified it ; for which complaisance Carteret was no doubt grimly grateful to them. The differences between Carteret and the Pelhams on questions of foreign politics were not a cause but only a symptom of the dissatisfaction which had from the very first existed between the two sections of the Cabinet. Tlie want of cordiality between Walpole's old colleagues and Walpole's old opponents became mere jealous disgust on the part of Newcastle, Pelham, and Hardwicke, when they discovered that Carteret, nominally Secretary of State, was practically himself the Government. They were Carteret's colleagues ; that did not hinder them from working and conspiring against him. To weaken Carteret's influence, to fjet rid of him altoscether from the Government which he led in spite of them, became the supreme object of these very feeble political personages, who fancied that the Government of England was by nature their monopoly, and that men of genius had nothing whatever to do with it. A special incident about this time happened to help them. A few days after the battle of Dettingen, Wilmington, Prime Minister and prime mediocrity, had died. Carteret hoped that Bath might succeed him ; the Pelhams wished and hoped otherwise. Bath had de- clined to make any application for the post before it was actually vacant ; but Henry Pelham, urged on by Orford, showed no such delicacy ; perhaps with excusable in- ability to discover any difference between Wilmington alive and Wilmington dead. Bath, too, applied when Wilmington was no longer even a political cypher, and his letter was sent to Carteret at Hanover. Each POWER 281 applicant felt considerable difficulties in his way, and neither could make sure of success. Bath Avas unpopu- lar with the King, unpopular everywhere. ' My Lady Townshend said an admirable thing the other day,' writes Horace Walpole. ' He [Bath] was complaining much of a pain in his side. " Oh ! " said she, " that can't be ; you have no side ; " ' such the brilliancy of political ladies. Pelham, on the other hand, knew that Carte- ret's wish in this matter was against him, and began to think it hopeless to struggle against Carteret's desire, or perhaps even to be afraid of success gained in such circumstances. The much robuster Orford had to encourage his friend. If the King should after all prefer Pelham, Carteret, wrote Orford, would never break with Pelham for that. ' But manet altcl mente r epostiw I, ' Sidded the old minister, warningly ; remem- bering what had been his own conduct in regard to all political appointments, and thinking that Carteret in that department was such another as himself. No better proof of the contrary could have been desired than Carteret's letter announcincf that the Kino's choice had fallen on Pelham. Carteret wrote from Mainz, to which town the King and he had now got, on their road liomewards to England ; and after stating frankly that he himself Avould have preferred the appointment of Bath, and that he had placed that proposal before the King, he continued : — ' You see I state the affair very truly and naturally to 5^ou, and what could anybody, in my circumstances, do otherwise? If I had not stood by Lord Bath, who can ever value my friendship ? And you must have despised me. However, as the affair is decided in your favour by his majesty, I wish you joy of it ; and I will endeavour to support you as much as I can, having 282 LOED CARTE BET really a most cordial affection for j'oiirbrotlicr and you, which nothing can dissolve but yourselves ; which I don't apprehend will be the case. I have no jealousies of either of you, and I believe that you love me ; but if you will have jealousies of me without foundation, it will disgust me to such a degree, that I shall not be able to bear it ; and as I mean to cement a union with 3'ou, I speak thus frankly. His majesty certainly makes a very great figure, and the reputation of our country is at the highest pitch ; and it would be a deplorable fatality if disputes at home should spoil all the great w^ork.' ^ This was certainly a straightforward letter ; New- castle himself, in a private note to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, confessed that it was a manly one. To Newcastle also, on the same date, Carteret wrote a kindly note, in reply to the fussy querulousness of the Duke, who fancied himself neglected if every mail did not bring from Carteret confidential letters as well as official despatches. Carteret did his best to soothe him. The business connected with the army and with the negotiations had been great ; the King had been ill ; Carteret himself had been ' so ill, that I thought I should not be able to hold out.' The interesting part of the letter is its close : — ' As to complaints upon want of concert, while the King is on this side the water, and at the head of an army, I don't look upon them as serious ; and therefore, though my friends tell me so, I shall not force the nature of things. But, as I have courage enough, God be thanked, to risk, in a good cause, my natural life, I am much less solicitous about my political life, which is all my enemies can take from me ; and if they do, it ' Carteret to Pelham, August 27, 1743. Coxa's Pdha7n, I. 85, 86. POWER 283 will be the first instance in which they hurt me ; though I must own that my friends have been near ruining me at various times ; of which I shall take care for the future, being past fifty-three.' ^ Pelham thus became nominal Prime Minister ; much to the satisfaction of Orford and the angry disgust of Bath. But Pelham at once found his position a very difficult one. His main desire was to free himself from Carteret ; and then, by reconstructing the Government, to revert as far as possible to the old lines of Walpole's policy. He had no intention whatever of accepting Carteret's frank proposals for harmonious co-operation. Consequently a struggle between Carteret and Pelham was inevitable. ' If you offer any schemes without a concert with him,' wrote Orford to Pelham, ' that will be jealousy with a witness ; and that, he has told you, he will not bear.' But that is just what the Pelhams were resolved to do. Newcastle, never so much in his element as when plotting against a colleague, was already busily scheming with Orford how to drive Carteret from the Government. In the same letter in which he ac- knowledges that Carteret had written to him in an ' open, friendly manner,' the Duke speculates what he and his brother shall do witli him when he returns. Newcastle even drew up in writing a memorial against Carteret and his policy, practically asking for his dis- missal ; and it required Pelham's stronger sense and caution to persuade his brotlier not to present this paper to the King. For Pelham and Orford clearly saw that Carteret's chief support was his great personal and political influence with the King ; any crude attempt to injure him in that quarter would only be likely to irritate George, and to do Carteret more good than 1 Coxe's Telham, I. 87, 88. 284 LOBD CAETEBET Imrm. To get rid of Carteret by personal complaints to the King, and by argumentative expostulations on the minister's influence or policy, seemed simply hope- less. The slower but probably sure way of success remained : by promises, intrigues, and plots, to weaken their own colleague's position in parliament, and so make his long continuance in power impracticable. To gain over every discontented Whig, and rally them all against the man who was a truer Whig than any of them, was Orford's reiterated advice to Pelham. This, backed by the anti-Hanoverian cursing and groaning of the Tories and Jacobites, and by endless repetition of the miserable falsehood that Carteret's foreign policy rested on his desire to gain the King's personal favour, might be expected to do what was wanted without very much loss of time. While these underground arrangements were busily proceeding, Carteret was on his way home, taking the Hague on his route, and coming to the conclusion that Dutch ability to give good help against the French was not nearly so much wanting as Dutch will. On November 26, 1743, George and the Duke of Cumberland arrived in London, Carteret following them a day later ; and with the grand ball which in the next week took place at St. James's in honour of the King's birthday (where the Duke, fairly recovered from his Dettingen wound, danced with much devotion, and indeed was reckoned not to limp nearly so much as Colley Cibber's birthday verses), the new London political season fairly began. A most confused season it seemed likely to be. ' All is distraction,' wrote Horace Walpole ; ' no union in the Court, no certainty about the House of Commons : Lord Carteret making no friends, the King making enemies : Mr Pelham in vain courting Pitt, etc. ; Pulteney unre- rOWEB 285 solved. How will it end ? ' It began witli a Babel of parliamentary abuse directed against Carteret. Jacob- ites, Tories, discontented Whigs, hopelessly discordant on almost every other matter, on this displayed an easy unanimity. Chesterfield had the first opportunity. He chose to represent the royal speech which on December 1 opened the session as particularly the speech of ' the minister,' and as a sign of a disunited Cabinet ; an un- fortunate charge, for the document was the composition of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.^ The main drift of Chesterfield's speech, that England should leave Ger- many absolutely alone and confine herself to lier war against Spain, was, as an abstract proposition, perfectly reasonable ; as a contribution to the practical politics of the day it was useless ; for England could only leave Germany severely alone if France would do the same ; which evidently France would not. Hanover, of course, under veiled insinuations, was not forgotten by Chester- field ; few political speeches of those days are free from that most wearisome of topics. Hanover and abuse of Carteret, that practically was Chesterfield's speech ; though for formality's sake he insisted that the Lords should inquire particularly into every step of the war and the negotiations, ' the Green Bag itself upon your table,' a parliamentary proceeding of frightful solemnity. Carteret's reply was triumphant. ' Easy and animated,'. Walpole's panegyrist Coxe calls it ; Yorke notes that Carteret ' spoke with great confidence and spirit, and was reckoned to g;et the better of Lord Chesterfield.' He had, indeed, an accomplished success to point to. 1 Ilardwicke's son, the Hon. Philip Yorke, expressly says so. Yorke, who often attended the debates in the Lords, and was himself anM.P.,' kept a ]\IS. parliamentary journal from Dec. 174;' to April 1745. It is printed in Vol. XIII. of the Parliamentanj Ilistonj, and is, wliile it lasts, the best authority. 286 LOBD CAliTEliET It was liis fixed policy to check the French and tlieir designs on Germany, and there was not now a French soldier in the Empire. As the first work of his ministry, Maria Theresa had been reconciled with Frederick, and that first great success had been followed up by the actual co-operation of the Dutch with England, by the decisive defeat of France in Germany, and by the suc- cessful agreement between Austria and Sardinia. Con- tinue vigorously what has so successfully been begun, was the urgent drift of Carteret's speech ; while from the personal point of view he would, he said himself, be the very first to press for a minute inquiry into all that had occurred. No second speaker ventured to carry on the attack which Chesterfield had opened, and the honours of the debate distinctly remained with Carteret. The discussion on this same occasion in the House of Commons was not limited to a parliamentary duel. Pelham, the leader of the House, was not present; his seat had been vacated by his new ofiScial appointment, and he had not yet been re-elected. But Dodington and Lyttelton and Grenville were there to attack Carteret ; Winnington, Fox, and Sandys to defend him ; tlie two sides striving with each other to endless lengths on the battle of Dettingen, the Treaty of Worms, and above all on Hanover. What Dodington or Sandys had to say on these most exciting topics is now indifferent to every one ; but Pitt also was tliere, and especially concerned himself with Carteret. This occasion prac- tically opened Pitt's period of violent invective against Carteret ; a period which lasted till Pitt himself got into office, when his tone changed. In his violent way Pitt now styled Carteret ' an execrable, a sole minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions, which POWER 287 made men forget their country.' ^ Carteret did not fail to find defenders against this excited rhetoric. ' His integrity and love to his country,' said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ' were equal to his abilities, which were acknowledged by the whole world.' Pitt's unpar- liamentary violence could not pass without rebuke, but he did not allow himself to be checked, and soon ex- ceeded the abusiveness of this first outburst. It was all in the game of party politics ; Pitt himself had not yet held any responsible office ; his eloquence was impas- sioned and reckless, and he himself was reckless and im- passioned in the use of it. Fox always spoke to the question, Pitt to the passions, said Horace Walpole. Pitt's political career, from its commencement onwards till the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, has nothing specially noticeable about it, unless heated party spirit and passionate eloquence are so ; though after that date it was noteworthy as few others are. Till the year 1756 Pitt was a free lance, fighting for his own hand ; and he never used his chartered liberty more extrava- gantly than in the session which followed the battle of Dettingen. What Yorke said of his conduct in one of these debates does equally well for his tactics in them all : ' Mr. Pitt spoke rather to raise tlie passions than convince the judgments of his hearers, which he is too apt to do, though in that way I never heard anybody finer.' Pitt found his second opportunity when parlia- ment debated if England should keep the Hanoverian troops in its pay for tlie campaign of 1744. The oppo- sition insisted that England should not, and repeated various vague, unauthenticated rumours of disagree- ments between the English and Hanoverian soldiers, on the trutli or falsehood of which tlie opposition and ' Yorke's Parliaineutary MS, 288 LORD CARTERET the military members wrangled at great length. OfFicers who had been in the camp and at the battle contradicted the vagne stories which had been so eagerly credited for party reasons ; and the proposal to dismiss 22,000 men in the middle of a war was too absurd to be successful. But it served Pitt's turn well enough. ' His Majesty,' said he, ' yet stands on the firm ground of his people's affections, though on the brink of a precipice ; it is the duty of parliament to snatch him from the gulf where an infamous minister has placed him, and not throw paltry flowers on the edge of it, to conceal the danger. It may be a rougli, but it is a friendly hand which is stretched out to remove him.' To call Carteret an ' infamous minister ' was not sufficiently abusive for Pitt ; he became so violent and personal that it was necessary to call him to order. He continued his charges with but little abatement, and ended by rhetori- cally declaring that tlie ' great person ' (the parha- mentary expression for the small person who was King) was hemmed in by German officers and by one English minister without an English heart. The same question was brought before the House of Lords by Sandwich, whose speech had Pitt's bitterness without the ability. His motion ventured to assert that faitliful Englishmen at home, and the English forces abroad, were filled witli heart-burnings and jealousies at the conduct and favoured treatment of their Hanoverian allies. Sandwich wearisomely reca- pitulated the well-worn charges : how a considerable body of Hanoverian troops had refused to obey Stair's orders during the battle ; how a Hanoverian officer had refused to obey him after it ; and so on through all the wearisome catalogue, every item of accusation being absurdly untrue, with the exception of one small inci- POWER 289 dent which had resulted simply from a misunderstand- ing and had been explained entirely to Stair's satisfac- tion. Carteret, not wishing to let the debate continue, as it had begun, on a false issue, rose at once and plainly declared that the stories and rumours which had been repeated by Sandwich were false. In spite of this, Chesterfield continued the tale which Sandwich had begun, and lamented that the joy with which the army had received its victory had been damped by the dis- contents and jealousies which had followed it. Yorke has unkindly but particularly preserved one of Chester- field's sentences. ' My lords,' said he, speaking of the English soldiers, ' the triumphal laurels yet green upon their brows were soon overshadowed by the gloomy cypress.' Chesterfield passed from these distressing botanical details to dwell on what he reckoned mili- tary defects during and after the battle ; a quite fair subject for opposition attack, but not one wliicli in any way touched Carteret personally, who was not a soldier, and had no responsibility for military arrange- ments. Perhaps for that very reason, Carteret's reply, wdiicli had mainly to concern itself with a defence of the operations of the campaign, was not reckoned to be one of his finest performances, but rhetorical rather and exaggerated ; but when Carteret left the military side for his own sure ground of statesmanship he was him- self again. ' The finest stroke in his speech was his appeal, not to the people of England who had reaped the benefit of the King's wdse counsels and vigorous measures, but to those who had received detriment from them. — France and Spain ; that thought he worked up like an orator.' ' But France and Spain would not listen. * Yorke 's Parliamentary MS. u 290 LOBD CABTERET These first two debates were closely followed by many others which were little more than variations on the same theme. Sandwich on one of these occasions declared that he would bring this subject of Hanover before the House of Lords in as many different shapes as Proteus could assume ; and that is really what the opposition did. It was in vain for the Government to defeat its enemies and fancy the thing was ended ; the discomfited opposition easily wriggled out of the Govern- ment's grasp, and instantly appeared again in an irritat- ing novelty of form. And the opposition could not, in any of its Protean disguises, refrain from attacking Carteret. When the House of Commons had decided that the Hanoverian troops should be continued in British pay, the faction of defeated discontent ventured to demand that England should not continue the war unless she was immediately joined by the Dutch. Pitt was not very zealous to push opposition so far as this, though he supported the proposal in a half-hearted way ; but he was far from being half-hearted in the language of his personal attack. He styled Carteret a ' desperate rhodomontading minister,' and solemnly asserted that for the last six months the little finger of one man had lain more heavily upon the nation than the loins of an administration which had existed for twenty years. Bubb Dodington, whose name is syn- onymous with political infamy, declared that Carteret was endeavouring to make himself despotic with the King, and the King despotic with the country. Tlie opposition was easily delivered to defeat and ridicule over its senseless proposal to make English action dependent on what it might please the Dutch to do ; but still the infatuated attacks were continued. Pitt declined to aid the more headlong spirits who wished, by refusing POWER 291 supplies for the British troops in Flanders, to make a campaign in 1744 impossible ; but he amply made up for this reticence by his violence against the renewed English payment of the Hanoverian soldiers. The opposition had made artful use of this unpopular pro- posal, and knew that everything Hanoverian excited passionate feeling in the country. Carteret had already received a threatening letter from ' Wat Tyler,' to tell him that three hundred men had sworn to tear him limb from limb if he should propose to continue the Hano- verian troops in British pay. With one exception, the ministry wavered, frightened by the noisy outcry ; but the exception was an important one, for it was Carteret himself. All but Carteret despaired of success. The others would have dropped the measure ; but that was not Carteret's way. He received, too, effective aid from one who for twenty years back had met him with nothing but opposition. Orford, who had now little more than a year to live, left his retreat at Houghton, and warmly urged his friends in London to assist the Government on this point. It was not from any love to Carteret ; but rather from statesmanlike feeling and personal regard for the King whom he had served so long. His help was undoubtedly effective ; his son, Horace, in his exagger- ating way, writes that but for Lord Orford the Hanover- ian troops would have been lost. Horace himself spoke in favour of the Government, and gained much approval for his elegant eloquence. But the dainty phrases of this amateur dabbler in politics were followed by work of a much rougher kind. One member openly attacked the King by name, and threw the House into such confusion that it was compared to nothing better than a tumultu- ous Polish Diet. Pitt spoke to the passions ; above all, to the personal passions. He very adroitly flattered the u 2 292 LOBD CABTEBET Pelhams, wliom it pleased him to call the ' amiable ' part of the administration ; against the odious part he exhausted abusive invective. Carteret was the ' Hano- ver troop minister, a flagitious task-master '; the 16,000 Hanoverian soldiers were his placemen and the only- party he had. Pitt wished that Carteret sat in the House of Commons, that he might give him more of his angry eloquence. ' But I have done ; if he were present, I would say ten times more.'^ On the second day of the debate, Pitt abandoned the vocabulary of insult for a picturesque despair ; and said, as if he really believed it, that to pay the Hanoverian soldiers would be to erect a triumphal arch to Hanover over the mili- tary honour and independence of Great Britain. But common-sense got the better of party passion. To dis- miss 22,000 men without knowing how to replace them was too absurd ; to have refused from Hanover a benefit which would have been gladly accejDted from any other quarter would have been the triumph of pettish sense- lessness. The Grovernment majority was large ; yet Proteus only took another shape. But in the midst of all this angry rhetoric, there came an alarm which for the moment quieted party faction. While Chesterfield was sneeringly lamenting that the Crown of three Kingdoms was shrivelled beneath an Electoral cap, and, in his exquisitely refined way, was declaring that Carteret, by laying the Treaty of Worms before parliament, had at last ' voided his worms';^ while Pitt was violently perorating on the minister's ' audacious hand,' and dimly liinting at an impeachment ; and while Carteret, fearlessly defending 1 II. Walpole to Mann, Jan. 24, 1744. ^ This is in Yorke's Journal ; but the Parhaiuentary History is too polite to publish it. It is in Add. MSS. 0,198 ; fol. m, W POWER 293 his own policy, was asserting that discontents had been roused by wicked and groundless misrepresentations, news came to London that France and the Young Pre- tender together were about to attempt a descent on the English coast. Not very much in the military way had been done after the battle of Dettingen. Louis XV., his enter- prises having so thoroughly failed, withdrew his troops from Germany, and in little more than a month after the battle was applying to the Diet at Frankfort for a restoration of peace. The Queen of Hungary's response was very high and scornful. Compensation for her lost Silesia was with her a fixed idea ; why should not the compensation come from France, if it were impossible to get it from other quarters ? While George was rest- ing at Hanau, and Carteret was planning treaties for Newcastle to ruin, the King and the minister were visited by Maria's brother-in-law Prince Charles and the Austrian General Khevenh tiller, full of schemes and proposals for following up the victory and invading France itself. Li August 1743 it was rumoured every- where in London that at a grand Hanau entertainment, at which Prince Charles was present, Carteret had proposed as a toast, Dunkirk, Lorraine, and Alsace. But nothing came of all these hopes and plans, that year. The English army went into winter quarters in the Nether- lands ; and thoug;h Prince Charles tried in various places to make his way across the frontier into Alsace, he never could. He too went home in October 1743, and nothinjT remained settled but that the fifj^htimr must beo;in again next season. France, seeing the haughty way in which her pro- posals had been rejected, quite gave up the peace view, and made great preparations for the new campaign. 294 LOBD CABTERET The French plans seemed especiallj^ to threaten the frontier towards the Netherlands ; and Carteret, who had lost no courage under the unscrupulous attacks of political enemies, remained true to his undeviating line of foreign policy. On December 30 he wrote to the Enixlish minister at the Hao-ue : — ' The first plan of France was, under pretence of sustaining the Elector of Bavaria, to ruin the House of Austria. To come at that, they were willing to forfeit their faith and reputation. They have received a check in that design, have squandered immense sums ineffectu- ally, and lost whole armies in the prosecution of it. These disappointments they impute to his majesty and the States, and there is no doubt but they meditate the severest revenge, and will not fail to take it, if we have not, under the blessing of God, recourse to the forces He has given us for our security, and for reducing that ambitious power within its true bounds.' Carteret therefore urged Holland, for its own sake, to put an end to parsimony and pusillanimity, and to join heartily with England in a determination to convince France ' that we are not to be terrified into any base submission to her will, but that, as our only object is a fair and honourable peace, we are not afraid of con- tending for it by a just and vigorous war.' So far, neither France nor England had been a principal in this war. England was only the ally of Austria ; France, the ally of Bavaria. But the whole tendency of things had necessarily been drawing the two powers into direct personal antagonism ; and the action of France in the first weeks of 1744 was the prelude to the open declaration of war. In January, George was informed that the Old Pretender's son had left Rome for Paris, under pretence of sharing in a POWER 295 himting-party. It was known that France had been equipping a fleet at Brest ; it was rumoured that the Young Pretender was about to join it. The excitement in London was considerable ; the ministry met frequently ; officers everywhere were ordered to their posts. In February the Brest squadron sailed ; some twenty men- of-war, followed soon by four others. They entered the Channel on February 14, and reached Dungeness early in March, anchoring there while Comte de Saxe Avas busily putting 15,000 men on board transports at Dun- kirk. Timid persons feared the French might quickly push up t]ie river as the Dutch had done in 1667, and march direct on London. But Admiral Norris, with a larger fleet than the French one, sailed round the South Foreland to meet them. On March 5 Norris, ofi" Folke- stone, was in sight of the enemy at Dungeness ; the Kentish cliffs were crowded with gazing watchers eager to see the engagement. Fortunately or otherwise, they were disappointed. That same evening a storm began, raging all through the night ; and the planned invasion was ruined without any fighting whatever. The French fleet was driven from its Dungeness anchorage, leaving anchors and cables behind it ; Saxe's transports never ventured out of Dunkirk roads. Declaration of war by France against England soon followed this abortive attempt ; the French manifesto being characterised by Carteret as ' an insolent and im- pudent production, which contains, with regard to the views and conduct of France, a barefaced mockery and imposition upon the common-sense of mankind, and, with regard to those of his majesty, is full of misrepresenta- tions and falsehoods.' England replied with a counter- declaration. Stair, forgetting old grievances, had al- ready left his ' plough,' and, with mucli royal apprecia- 296 LORD CARTERET tion of his loyalty, liad become Commander of the troops at home. The English army in Flanders was recruited ; the Dutch troops, due by treaty to England in case of an invasion, began to arrive in the river. George sacrificed his usual visit to Hanover ; the parliament did what was necessary in the way of supplies ; and Car- teret, who was suffering from the universal malady of eighteenth-century statesmen, had lost nothing of his cheerfulness through illness. ' I have neither speech nor motion,' he wrote to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke on the day after the English declaration of war, 'leaving wliat I had with Lord Bath. My gout is not gone off, but I am in good spirits.' ^ ' I am in good spirits,' This was only another way of saying : ' I am Lord Carteret.' But Carteret's good spirits did not rest upon a false feeling of security, or upon any ignorance of the circumstances which were personally threatening him Carteret knew perfectly well that his position as a minister was at this time pre- carious. The imperfect cohesion of the mixed Govern- ment which had succeeded Walpole's had been a cause of difficulty and weakness from the very first ; in 1744 the split had become too wide to be bridged over. While England and France were declaring war against each other, the members of the English Cabinet were declaring war among themselves. Newcastle, one of whose detestable peculiarities was to treat all political differences from the personal point of view (declining private intercourse even with his brother when they were not wholly agreed on political action), could not at this time meet Carteret at dinner. The Duke D'Ahrem- berg was in London in March ; but Carteret could not go to the entertainments which the Pelhams gave liim. 1 Harris' Hardwicke, II. 65, April 12, 1744. POWER 297 It was impossible to be blind to the real meaning of all this. Government on such conditions could not last. Carteret, who had a way of putting his meaning into words too plain to be mistaken, told the brothers that they might take the Government themselves if they pleased ; but that if they either could not or would not, he himself would take it. ' There is anarchy,' he said to them, ' in Holland, and anarchy at home. The first may be removed by a Stadt-holder ; but to remove the latter things must be broui^ht to an immediate decision.' A letter from Newcastle to Hardwicke shows how plainly Carteret spoke, and how irreconcilable the difference was : — ' I had a very extraordinary conversation with my Lord Carteret, going with him yesterda}'' to Kensington ; which, with the late incidents that have passed between us, produced a more extraordinary declaration from him to my brother and me last night. He said, that if my Lord Harrington had not been gone, he intended to have spoke very fully to us ; that he would do it when your Lordship, Lord Harrington, and we should be together ; that things could not remain as they were ; that they must be brought to some precision ; he would not be brought down to be overruled and outvoted upon every point by four to one ; if we would take the Government upon us, we might ; but if we could not or would not undertake it, there must be some direction, and he would do it. Much was said upon what had passed last year, upon the probability of the King's going abroad, etc. Everything passed coolly and civill}^ but pretty resolutely, upon both sides. At last he seemed to return to his usual profession and submission. ' Upon this, my brother and I thought it absolutely necessary that we should immediately determine 298 LORD CARTERET amongst ourselves what party to take ; and he has therefore desired me to see your Lordship, and talk it over with you in the course of this day. We both look upon it, that either my Lord Carteret will go out (which I hardly think is his scheme, or at least his inclination), or that he will be uncontrollable master. My brother supposes that, in that case, he means that we should go out. I rather think he may still flatter himself that (after having had this offer made to us, and our having declined to take the Government upon ourselves) we shall be contented to act a subordinate part. Upon the whole, I think the event must be, that we must either take upon us the Government, or go out.' ^ Not to ' go out,' if in any way he could possibly stay in, was the one principle to which Newcastle was constant throughout his long parliamentary career. From this point, therefore, his vague jealousy and dis- like of Carteret cliancred into a firm determination to get rid of him. Newcastle's letters to Hardwicke, without whom he could do nothing but bribe and be ridiculous, are full of it. It was his element ; he could feel that he was in reality engaged in pohtics when he was intriguing against a colleague. He had intrigued against Walpole ; he had attempted to intrigue with Pulteney ; he was now intriguing against Carteret ; in the coming years he was to intrigue against Pitt and Fox. Craggs once said that a Secretary of State might be lionest for a fortnight, but could not possibly con- tinue such conduct for a month. Newcastle never tried it even for the fortnight. The plot against Carteret was to succeed, but only after long and difficult operations. The outbreak of the war with France was itself slightly in Carteret's 1 June 6, 1744. POWER 299 favour. There were onlookers who reckoned that his knowledge of foreign affairs would make his continuance in power necessary, and that the Pelhams would have to yield to his superiority. His position was strength- ened by the failure of the French invasion, and by the expectation of a successful campaign. But this expec- tation went all to ruin. It had been first intended that the King himself should go to Flanders ; but Newcastle and his party declared that if that were so they would all resign, and the plan had to be abandoned.^ The English commander was therefore Marshal Wade ; with him was the Austrian D'Ahremberg ; both of them ter- ribly incompetent persons, especially when a Marshal Saxe was opposed to them. Whilst Wade looked on, his army doing hterally nothing, Louis the Well-beloved and his generals were proceeding much as they pleased in the Netherlands, town after town yielding easily to their success. The only check which somewhat interrupted the victorious progress of France came from quite a different quarter. Prince Charles, Maria Theresa's brother-in-law, had been unable last year to invade France after Dettingen ; but in this new campaign he was trying it again, and on the last day of June 1744 actually succeeded in crossing the Ehine into Alsace. Louis at once ended his ornamental patronage of his army in Flanders ; left to Saxe the easy task of looking after Wade ; and himself hastened to Metz, to terrify adoring France by his illness there, and to adopt the religious view till his recovery was complete. Could not old Wade in this altered state of things now do something ? There were difficulties ; he and D'Ahrem- berg were not on the best of terms ; the Dutch were as usual demonstrating their indisputable pre-eminence ' Historical MSS. Commission ; Report III. 278, 300 LOBD CABTEBET in phlegmatic sluggishness ; the French were perhaps somewhat superior in numbers. But Wade himself was probably the chief difficulty of all. He was suspected of leaning to the Pelham side of the administration, and of showing no great anxiety to carry out the instruc- tions which he received from Carteret ; while in military matters he was quite incompetent. ' He is old and quite broke,' wrote the Earl of Bentinck from the Hague ; ' so that when he has been four hours a-horse- back, he wants two days to recover the fatigue.' ^ Wade might have been a match for Sir John Cope ; opposed to Saxe he was merely a comic figure. He did, indeed, with his Austrian and Dutch allies, continue to hold war councils that came to no decision, and to make confused military movements that resulted in no action ; more than that he did not do. When the campaign closed, the English and their alHes had done absolutely nothing ; they had simply stood by to see the French win. ' The ever-memorable campaign of 1744 is now closed in Flanders,' wrote Trevor from the Hague in October. ' What posterity or the parliament will say of it, the Lord knows.' Thus the expectation that Carteret's position at home would be strengthened by a successful campaign abroad was completely falsified. The only thing worth calling a success in the whole continental struggle was the defeat of Frederick of Prussia's first expedition in the second Silesian war ; and in that success England had no share. Frederick, clearly seeing that in Maria's haughty humour he was by no means yet secure in his hold on Silesia, had again allied himself with France, and in August, greatly to the disturbance of the Enghsh King, had struck into the quarrel once more. ' I wish 1 Brit. Mus. Egerton MSS. 1,713; fol. 61 y°. POWER 801 he was Cham of Tartary ! ' said passionate httle George once to Chesterfield of his incomprehensible cousin. This sudden diversion compelled Prince Charles to with- draw from Alsace, and Frederick, beginning brilliantly, took Prag ; but there all his success ended. The Aus- trians, trusting to weather and famine to do their business, would not fight him ; and Frederick, baffled, could do nothing but retreat to Silesia, while his garrison withdrew from the one place that he had captured. This, a success for the cause which England was sup- porting, was not a success of which England in any direct way could adopt the credit ; and, even if it had been so, it would have come too late to affect appreci- ably the course of ministerial dissensions in London. The date of Carteret's fall was coincident with that of Frederick's faikn-e. By the summer months of 1744 it had become clear that the Government as it stood could not expect to meet the new session of parliament. There was now hardly even the pretence of union between the new and the old elements in tlie ministry which Carteret directed. The political intriguing of the Pelhams had easily reinforced itself by the deliberate employment of unbounded public misrepresentation. Everything that had failed at home or abroad was laid to the charge of Carteret. It was Carteret's fault that Prussia had once more struck into the war ; Carteret's fault that Wade was old and imbecile, and the Dutch the heaviest and slowest mortals in Europe. The old falsehoods were eagerly brought out once again, and Carteret was accused of grasping at despotism, and of prolonging the war for the ends of his own selfish ambition. Carteret, on his side, imprudently perhaps but very naturally, did not care to conceal his contempt for Newcastle, 802 LORD CABTEEET and made no mock professions of confidence in other colleagues who were almost ostentatiously conspiring against him. Carteret knew that the Pelhams were toiling and plotting to remove him ; but he was not disheartened, and not at all inclined to yield without a struggle. He had the King strongly on his side ; and this more than anything vexed the souls of his rivals ; for never had George's disgust with them been so angrily evident as now. The King did not attempt to conceal it ; his per- sonal friend, Lord Waldegrave, says that his countenance could not dissemble. Newcastle bitterly complains of the King's manner, looks, and harsh expressions ; it added to the Duke's anguish that he received this treat- ment in the presence of Carteret himself. He tells his brother that they and their friends must compel the King to choose between Carteret and themselves, or Newcastle must despairingly resign. ' If nothing of the kind can be agreed upon, I must, and am determined to let the King know, that my having had the misfortune to differ in some points from Lord Carteret had, I found, made me so disagreeable to his majesty, that, out of duty to him and regard to myself, I must desire his leave to resign his employment ; for, indeed, no man can bear long what I go through every day, in our joint audiences in the closet.'^ Pelham was not much happier. He replies to his brother next day : ' I was at Court to-day, and designed to have gone in to the King, after the drawing-room was over ; but as Lord Carteret went in, and as I saw nothing particular in his majesty's countenance to make me over-forward, I chose to put it off till to-morrow.' 'To-morrow' was doubtless just as unpleasant as 'to- day' could have been. Disagreeable incidents, as ' Newcastle to Pelham ; August 25, 1744. POWER 303 Newcastle mildly termed them, occurred daily ; much to the intriguer's distress, who was alarmed at the King's contemptuous indifference. George was simply slighting him ; and it was dangerous to let the King adopt the notion that from the Pelhams there was nothing to be hoped and nothing to be feared. The brothers, therefore, having failed so far in all their attempts, now turned to more decisive measures. They appealed to the leading Whigs in opposition, to Pitt, Chesterfield, Lyttelton, and the others, to join them ; and these, after very slight delay, unreservedly agreed. Then the final step was taken. Hardwicke, at New- castle's request, drew up a long Memorial, denouncing Carteret's conduct and policy. The Pelham party resolved to present this document to the King, and to give him the option between Carteret's dismissal and their own resignations. On November 1, 1744, Newcastle handed the Memorial to the King. In little more than an hour George returned it to Newcastle House. He was not disposed to yield. On November 3, Carteret and New- castle were with the King together, and Carteret after the audience was for five minutes alone with George. Newcastle concluded that in this private interview the King told Carteret of the Pelhams' accusations and demands, ' probably with assurances of his support, and recommending management and some compliance to Lord Granville.^ I conclude this day the scheme of conduct will be settled between the King and Lord Granville, which will, I believe, be what I always fore- saw : a seeming acquiescence, depending upon Lord ^ T$y the death of his mother, Carteret became Earl Granville on October 18, 1744. Till the close of this chapter, it will be more convenient to continue to speak of him as Lord Carteret. 304 LOBD CARTEBET Granville's savoir to defeat it afterwards, and draw us on. This is what I most dread ; and I own I think nothing will prevent it but a concert entame, in a proper manner, directly with Lord Chesterfield.' ^ Pelham and Hardwicke asked audiences to enforce their written arguments, but were received w^ith unconcealed ill- humour. To Hardwicke the King expressed his great regard for Carteret, and declared : ' You would persuade me to abandon my allies ; that shall never be the obloquy of my reign, as it was of Queen Anne's ; I will sufier any extremities rather than consent.' George was no more inclined to abandon his minister than to abandon his allies. Carteret had served him well ; ingratitude was not among the King's many faults and failings. Both he and the Prince of Wales made every effort to spoil the Pelhams' plot. The Prince had already tried to mediate between the rival ministers ; but that was plainly hopeless. He then attempted to gain over to Carteret's side the leading Whigs in oppo- sition. Here again he failed, for the Pelhams had been before him. Yet Carteret still continued minister ; and Newcastle, slipping away from the bold words of the Memorial, became once more all timid anxiety. He began to speculate. Might not Carteret still remain in the Government, but in a less commanding position ? Without a glimpse of insight into his colleague's cha- racter, Newcastle was inclining to fear that Carteret, if dismissed, would throw himself into violent opposition ; and with equal obtuseness he suggested that Carteret might be induced to remain in tlie ministry if he were made Lord President, and had the offer of the Garter. But in that case, wJiat would the Walpole section say ? and without them Newcastle had sadly to confess that ' Newcastle to Hardwicke ; Nov. 3, 1744. POWEB 305 lie and his personal friends could not carry on the Government even if it were put into their hands. It was to the- head of the Walpole party that the King, as a last resource, turned. He summoned Orford from Houghton to London. Orford, reluctantly obey- ing, arrived only a few days before parliament was to meet, and very unwillingly gave his opinion. It was not in favour of Carteret. Shortly after Carteret's Government had been formed, Orford, i-eferring to a coach accident at Eichmond which had been amusing the political world, said to Carteret in the hearing of the King and Newcastle : ' My Lord, whenever the Duke is near overturning you, you have nothing to do but to send to me, and I will save you.' The promise was very badly kept, though Carteret doubtless felt little surprise at that. Carteret now could do no more. Parliamentary influence and envious personal passions were united against him, and the King, with great reluctance and ill-humour, agreed that he should resign. On November 24 the Pelhams triumphed, and Carteret ceased to be Secretary of State. ' Who would not laugh at a world where so ridicu- lous a creature as the Duke of Newcastle can overturn ministries ! ' Horace Wal[)ole may laugh ; serious on- lookers are likely to consider contemptuous disgust the more appropriate feeling. The history of the rise and fall of ministers ought to be the favourite reading of the cynical ; and their favourite episode ought to be the triumph of Newcastle over Carteret. Corruption, treachery, and imbecility triumj)hed over patriotism and jjenius. The thinii" was so false and shameless that it has extorted angry ])rotests from observers who are in no danger of being styled sentimentalists. ' It is difficult to ^ec him TCartcrct] made the victim of so X 306 LORD CABTERET contemptible an intrigue, without feeling some motions of sympathy and indignation.' ^ The fawning falseness of the Duke of Newcastle is the fitting centre of one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of political intrigue. 1 William Godwin's Life of Pitt, 34, 35. 307 CHAPTER VIII. GRANVILLE AXD THE FELHAMS. 1744-1754. Rathek more than a month before his fall, Lord Carteret had become Earl Granville. His mother, Countess of Granville in her own right, died on October 18, 1744 ; her son succeeded her in the title. When the session opened on ISTovember 27, the par- liamentary scene was very chaotic. So difficult had been the Pelhams' task, that Granville had been removed only three days before, and in that short interval the brothers had already discovered that the fall of their rival was by no means the end of their troubles and dangers. ' The King,' Horace Walpole reported to his Florence friend, 'has declared that my Lord Granville has his opinion and affection ; the Prince warmly and openly espouses him. Judge how agreeably the two brothers will enjoy their ministry ! To-morrow the parliament meets : all is suspense ! Everybody will be staring at each other ! ' A first difficulty embarrassed the Pelhams when they attempted to satisfy the heterogeneous mass of politicians who had helped them to get rid of Gran- ville. The discontented Whigs, represented by Chester- field, had joined in the intrigue ; and Pitt, whose early political career is not at all edifying, had concurred. Tories also had been of the number, and all looked for X 2 308 LORD CAETEliET their reward. With a kind of timid hopefulness the brothers therefore thouufht to streiifythen themselves against Granville, of whom they still stood in great fear, b}' forming a mixed Government chosen from each of the political parties ; a Government wdiich the cant ])hrase of the day denominated Broad Bottom. The arrangement was not altogether easy. The Whigs grumbled that tliere should be any Tories at all ; the Tories grumbled that tliey themselves were so few. But a second difficulty hampered the negotiations still more. The King was full of passionate resentment at the way in which the Pelhams and their friends had treated him ; and he was especially angry with New- castle, whom he truly enough styled a jealous puppy, unfit to be leading minister. He showed his irritated annoyance by violent opposition to many of the intended changes. When Chesterfield was proposed to him as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the King burst out, ' He siiall have nothing. I command you to trouble me no more with such nonsense. Although I have been forced to part with those I liked, I will never be induced to take those who are disagreeable to me.' Eoyally angry as he was, George in this instance had to yield, and Chesterfield, conniiissioned with an embassy to the Hague before going to Dublin, received a parting audience of less than one minute. But as for Pitt, who had ex- celled all in the unrestrained bitterness of party violence, the Kinnj declined altocjether ; and Pitt's claim for the present was not puslied. So troublesome were these various disputes and differences that it was close upon Christmas before the ministerial changes were completed. Henry Pelham was Prime Minister ; Newcastle, probably still believing that Hanover was in Scotland, became on this occasion Secretary for the Soutli, wliere tliere was GRANVILLP AND THE PELHAMS 309 a fresh geographical field to conquer. Harrington took the Northern department, as it was desirable that at least one of the Foreifm Secretaries should know some- thino; about foreign affairs. Hardwicke remained Lord Chancellor ; Chesterfield went to Ireland ; other places were filled by Bedford, Grafton, Gower, and Henry Fox. The Duke of Newcastle, who liad thus had his way and set himself with appalling self-satisfaction to the considerable task of govei'ning England, is the most curi- ously ridiculous being who ever took a leading part in English political affairs. Merely to set eyes upon the man, to hear him talk, to see him move, gave one an irresistible sense of the ridiculous. He never walked, but shuffled along with a hasty trot, in a constantly confused and bustling hurry. His talk was a bubbling stammer which added the most ludicrous emphasis to the chaotic medley of his private conversation. His public speaking was equally absurd. He could not reason ; he rambled in- conclusively through all the intricacies of his subject, perpetually contradicting himself, yet quite unconscious of his own imbecility. Hervey says that those for whom he spoke generally wished tliat he had been silent, and those who listened wished so always. The fussy, untidy hurry that marked his talk was equally conspicuous in his way of doing business. Tlie town said of him that he lost half an hour every morning, and ran about all the rest of tlie day unsuccessfully trying to overtake it. He was full of agitated eagerness to plunge into political business of all kinds, and when he had got it he did not know how to do it. Meddling Avith everything, he fretted and tormented liimself about everytliing. His jealous imagination perpetually fancied and brooded over slights which liad absolutely no existence, and tlien 310 LORD CARTERET he became peevish and miserable and quarrelsome. As suddenly he would be all emotional and maudlin friend- liness again, and flatter while he feared. In a letter of his own in which he rather curiously says, ' I am not vain of my abilities,' he remarks of himself: 'My temper is such that I am often uneasy and peevish, and perhaps what may be called wrong-headed, to my best friends, but that always goes down with the sun, and passes off as if nothing liad happened.' ^ It is true he was not naturally a bad-tempered man, and he profusely prac- tised the easy virtue of being abundantly good-natured wdienever he had his own way. Newcastle's foolishness was only equalled by his falseness. It was part of the fidgety hurry of his character that witli flurried effusiveness he scattered promises right and left ; and he never kept any of them. But more serious than the falseness of hastily stuttered assurances was his persistent and invincible treachery to his own political colleagues. His word, spoken or written, could never be believed. WaljDole said that his name was Perfidy, and Pitt plainly called him ' a very great liar.' His life Avas one lonfj intriirue ; and false- ness to every one who met him on the political road was the sole principle to which he was unswervingly con- sistent. The history of his political treachery is the story of his political life. His boldness in underhand intrio:ue was in sinijular contrast with his excessive political and personal timidity. The Duchess of Yar- mouth once told him tliat he had been brought up in the fear of God and of his brother. When Chesterfield introduced his bill for the amendment of the Calendar, Newcastle was much alarmed at such darin^f reform. He did not like new-fangled things, he said, and im- ' Rrit. Mus. Add. MSS. 9,175; fol. 77-79. Oct. 14, 1739. GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 811 plored Chesterfield to leave it alone. He was afraid to sleep in a bedroom by himself, and would rather have a footman lying on a pallet beside him than be solitary for the night. He looked ready to drop with fear on his first interview with George 11. ; for he had once offended the Prince of Wales, who now was King ; the passionate little Prince had fiercely trodden on his toe and had roared, ' You rascal, I will find you ! ' The town, to whom the ludicrous Duke was a perpetual fund of amusement, declared that while the rebels were marching south in 1745, Newcastle tremblingly shut himself up in his room for a whole day, reflecting whether he had not better declare for the Pretender. He was never out of England till he was about sixty, and then was much distressed at the thought of the Channel crossino;. Once when attendino; the Kin^ to Hanover he would only venture over in a yacht that had recently weathered a heavy storm. But his timidity took its most amusing form in his apprehensive anxiety for his health. Even those who flattered him made a jest of his frightened precautions and his troops of physicians and apothecaries. A guest at Claremont once felt somewhat unwell after eating a few mush- rooms. Newcastle immediately ordered that all the mushroom-beds at Claremont should be destroyed. He passed liis life in the constant fear of catching cold. Often in the iieat of summer, says Waldegrave, ' the debates in tlie House of Lords would stand still, till some window were shut, in consequence of the Duke's orders. The peers would all be melting in sweat, that the Duke might not catch cold.' He coddled himself everywhere and in everything. When he had con- quered his fear of tlie Channel so far as to attend the King to Hanover, he pestered those who were to be his 312 LORD CABTEBET hosts on the route with the most ehaborate directions for liis domestic security. While he was Secretary of State and leader of the Government in the House of Lords, he found time to write in his own hand letters of most minute instruction on tliis absorbing topic. The curious can still consult his manuscripts. He bids the English minister at the Hague taste wines for him ; buy a carriage for him, and be sure that the seats are quilted ; actually sends him patterns of cloth for the lining, and implores him to look anxiously to the linch- pins and have plenty of spare tackle lest anything should break. He does not leave all this to servants or secre- taries, or to tlie female portion of his household, but does it all at vast length with his own ministerial hand. Above all he never forgets the airing of the beds. ' I beg that they may be lain in every night for a month,' he writes once when announcing an approaching visit to the Hague. ' Pray let the beds be laid [sic) in from tlie time you receive this letter,' he says on another occasion. To get his feet wet, or even cold, was mar- tyrdom to him. In the Abbey, at the funeral of George n., the Duke of Cumberland suddenly felt himself weighed down from behind. It was Newcastle, who had stepped upon his train to avoid the chilliness of the marble floor. Horace Walpole saw Newcastle, then actually Prime Minister himself, at a ball in 1759, and wrote to Montagu : — ' He went into tlie hazard-room, and wriggled, and shuffled, and lisped, and winked, and spied. . . . Nobody went near him ; he tried to flatter people tluit were too busy to mind him ; in sliort, he Avas quite disconcerted ; his treachery used to be so sheathed in folly that he w^as never out of countenance ; but it is plain he grows old. To finish his confusion and anxiety, George Selwyn, GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 313 Brand, and I went and stood near him, and in half whis- pers, that he might hear, said, " Lord ! how he is broke ! how old he looks! " Then I said, "This room feels very cold : I believe there never is a fire in it." Presently afterwards I said, "Well, I'll not stay here ; tliis room has been washed to-day." In short, I believe we made liim take a double dose of Gascoigne's powder when he went home.' Tlie dreary tract of history presided over by this ridiculous yet cunningly treacherous being did not open very brilliantly for the new ministry. The King made no attempt to conceal his displeasure, and treated his advisers very badly. In little more than a month after Granville's fall, Newcastle was speculating on the prob- able date of his own dismissal ; and Hardwicke, wlien in an audience he begged the King for support and confi- dence, could not for some time obtain a Avord in reply. The royal favour was reserved entirely for Granville and his friends. And public affairs did not go well. It w^as professedly on account of his foreign policy that the Pelhams had conspired against Granville ; yet the first act-*of the reconstituted ministry declared that there would be no alteration in foreign measures. The cry was soon raised that though ministers had turned Granville out they were simply continuing Granville's policy ; and Newcastle recognised the truth and the danger of the accusation when he wrote to his brother : ' We must not, because we seem to be in, forget all we said to keep Lord Granville out.' When on February 5, 1745, the Government proposed that the English troops in Flanders should be continued during that year, their adversaries declared that this was merely an old measure from a new ministry; but Pelham found an enthusiastic supporter in Pitt. He was very ill ; came down to the 314 LORD CARTEBET House with tlie mien and apparatus of an invalid;^ some even tliought he could not Uve long, and in his speech he spoke of himself as a dying man But he used abundant gesture and rhetoric, and his eloquence bore down all opposition. He professed to believe that the whole question in 1745 differed from the question as it stood the year before; for Granville had fallen, and all romantic attempts to assist Austria in the recovery of what Pitt called the avulsa membra Imperii had fallen with him. In other words, Pitt in his rhetorical way accused Granville of having directed his foreign policy towards the recovery of Silesia for Maria Theresa; a ridiculously untrue accusation aijainst the chief accent in obtaining the Treaty of Breslau. ' Tlie object now is,' said Pitt, ' to enable ourselves, by a close connection with Holland, to hold out e(|idtable terms of peace both to friends and foes, without prosecuting the war a moment longer than is necessary to acquire a valid security for our own rights and those of our allies, as established by public treaties.' What else at any time had been Granville's object? But the necessities of party politics are stern. Pitt did not fail to flavour his compliments to Pelham with invective of the usual style against Granville. The pohcy sanctioned by the 'rash hand of a daring minister ' was reproachfully contrasted with the moderate and healing measures of the new patriotic administration. A brightening dawn of national salvation had at last met Pitt's patriotically straining eyes, and he would follow it as far as it would lead him. It first of all led him into a position wdiere a statesman with the most rudimentary respect for consistency might have felt very uncom- fortable. On no subject had Pitt so lavished his scorn- ful rhetoric as on the connection between England and ' Yorke's Parliamentarv Journal. GBANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 315 Hanover, and nothing had more scandahsed his eloquent patriotism than the English payment of Hanoverian soldiers. How bitterly he had upbraided Granville for this, and how his prophetic soul had been vexed by visions of the degradation of England before a petty Teutonic province ! Yet now, when the Pelhams, fearful of seeming to continue everything which Granville had done, with dull timidity proposed a jnggle by which England, while appearing no longer to pay these troops, should really continue to do so, Pitt at once supported them with strong approval. An annual subsidy of 300,000/. had been voted to Maria Theresa since the beginning of the war. Pelham now proposed that the Queen sliould receive 500,000/., and it was perfectly well understood that with the difference she was to su2:)port the Hanoverian troops which the English Government thereupon magnanimousl}^ resigned. Xobody was de- ceived ; England was simply paying with the left liand instead of witli the right. Ministers of course descanted, with all the solemnity of aiigurs, on the paternal regard of his majesty and the benevolent royal desire to put an end to jealousies and heart-burnings. Augurs have to talk like that. But Pitt also, who was free from any official obligation, eulogised the wisdom and goodness of tlie Prince who had so graciously condescended to accept what was a mere sham and subterfuge ; and, when he was attacked for his shameless inconsistency, he could only fall back on the pleasant and convenient desire that all that liad previously passed on this question might be buried in oblivion. The equivocal arrange- ment proposed by the Government was agreed to ; but it was easy for Granville's friends to make some very telling observations. The Pelham section of the administration had only last year strongly approved of 316 LOBD CARTERET paying the Hanoverians ; yet now they Avere making a virtue of seeming to dismiss them ; the Pitt section had seemed to consider the very personal existence of these men on the face of tlie earth as a national grievance ; yet now they were voting English money to support them. The whole transaction placed the ministry in so bad a light that it was reckoned that Granville, if he had chosen to show any resentment, could Imve taken almost any revenge he pleased. Granville did not interpose, and the Pelhams passed through the rest of tlie parliamentary session with but little trouble. But the King's displeasure with them was not lessened, and the events of the year 1745 were not of a kind to strengthen tlieir Government. Foreig'n affairs had at first seemed in a hopeful way ; Frederick's failure in Bohemia had raised Austrian expectations ; and, on January 20, the death of the Emperor Charles VTI. broke the union between France and Bavaria. The new Bavarian Elector came to terms with Maria Theresa, and sanguine observers lioped that this fortunate peace mio;ht be the forerunner of a general one. Far from it. The war still went on in its double fashion ; England against France in tlie Netherlands, Frederick against Austria in Germany ; rather like two separate wars than the co-operation of allies. And England was fortunate nowhere. The Duke of Cumberland had gone to the Hague in high spirits, to put himself at the head of the allied army ; but Saxe beat him at Fontenoy, and town after town fell into the hands of the French. Austria fared just as badly. In battle after battle Frederick was victorious ; and one Aveek before the close of the j^ear Maria Theresa was compelled to yield, and to confirm to Prussia the cession of Silesia. This state of things was sufficiently disgusting to GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 317 George, and lie reckoned his ministers mainly respon- sible for his misfortunes. The grand improvement in home and foreign affairs which was to result from the dismissal of Granville had certainly nowhere appeared. The Kino; accused Newcastle of havincr cheated and deceived him, and threw the Duke into deep distress. When parliament ended in May 1745, Newcastle and his allies told George that if he persisted in using them so badly they could not face another session. But George took no notice, and went off to Hanover with Harrington, whom he did not yet hate more than all the other ministers together. When the King returned, his ill-humour increased. In September 1745 Newcastle wrote to the Duke of Eichmond that the administration had no power ; that the King would hardly vouchsafe to them a word on business ; that he used bad language to them in their private interviews, telling Pelham further that he was incapable and a mere looker-on at other men's policy, and roundly calling his advisers ' pitiful fellows.'^ While the Government was in this wretched situation at home, the French were making unchecked progress in the Netherlands, and urgent appeals for assistance were coming from the Dutch. Granville counselled firmness and vigour ; but the Pel- hams did little or nothing. They even ventured to choose this period of irritation for a deliberate demand which the King felt intolerable. They required that Pitt should be made Secretary at War. The King at first absolutely declined ; Pitt, he said, might have any office but that. When the ministers continued their impor- tunities, George bitterly complained that his action was being forced ; and he lamented to Lord Bath that he ' Historical MSS. Couiiuissioii; Report I. llo. MSS. of tbe Duke of liichmond. 318 LOBD CAIITERET was not a King but a prisoner. On Bath's advice he positively refused that special appointment for Pitt, and Bath admitted to Harrington that the advice was his. ' They who dictate in private should be employed in public,' dryly replied the Secretary ; and though Pitt gave up his claim, and the Government acquiesced in the refusal, the Pelhams resolved to give the King a lesson which he would hardly be likely to forget. On January 17, 1746, Charles Stuart had de- feated General Hawley at Falkirk. It was while a serious rebellion was still successfully fighting against the sovereign that the responsible ministers of the crown resolved to resign. There was no question of principle at issue ; while English troops were fighting a Pretender the Pelhams threw up the Government as a mere specu- lation in personal and party tactics. They seem to have persuaded themselves, with good enough reason, that the King was anxious to get rid of them as soon as public affairs would allow. They resolved to anticipate him. Sacrificing every feeling of responsibility and patriotism to their jealousy of a dreaded rival and to their determination to let the King feel that they them- selves were indispensable, they produced a political crisis in the midst of a military rebellion. On February 10 their scheme, well calculated with ingenious selfishness, was started by the resignation of Lord Harrington. He angered George by the rough indecency of his behaviour. Instead of returning the purse and seals into the King's hands, he flung them down on the table and declared he could no longer serve with honour.^ Newcastle, who resigned the same day, managed better with his master. He himself wrote that in their interview the King was ' very civil, kind enougli, and we parted very good ' Lord Marchmont's Diary; Marchmont Papers, I. 182. GBANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 319 friends.' The Government had now lost both its Foreign Secretaries. Instantly the seals of both departments were sent to Granville : the one for himself, the other for whomever he miglit select. On the very next day, Granville attended at Court as minister, and de- spatched a circular to the ministers abroad, informing them that the King ' has been pleased to appoint me to resume the place of principal Secretary of State, and to execute the business of both offices for the present.' Bath was made First Lord of the Treasury ; Granville and Bath together were to rearrange the dilapidated administration. So far well ; but on this same day of Granville's appointment, Pelham, whom Granville had no wish to remove from the ministry, also resigned, and was followed by many other members of the Government. It was announced that other important resignations would take place next day. The ingenious scheme of the Pelhams was thus evident at once. In order to distress the King, and to make the formation of a new ministry impossible, they had induced every important member of the existing administration, and many who were the very reverse of important, to follow them into retire- ment. The success of such well-laid plans could hardly in any case have been long delayed, though authori- ties variously estimate the amount of support on which Granville might have fairly counted. On one event, however, Granville can hardly have reckoned. On February 12, Lord Bath, in a fit of frightened irreso- lution, resigned the office which he had only accepted the day before. He had taken Lord Carhsle with him to Court, to present liim as one of the new min- isters ; but instead of introducing him to the King, Bath himself went in alone to a private audience, resifjned 320 LOIW C ARTE BET his own seals, and then ' sneaked down the back-stair, leaving Lord Carlisle kicking his heels at the fire in the outer rooni.'^ Thus the difficult attempt which, by the King's desire, Granville was making, was practically ruined a few hours after its commencement. Horace Walpole gives a lively account of the conclusion of the affair. Lord Bath, says Walpole, in a letter very weak on the grammatical side, ' Went to the King, and told him that he had tried the House of Commons, and found it would not do. Bounce ! went all the project into shivers, like the vessels in Ben Jonson's Alchymist, when they are on the brink of the philosopher's stone. The poor King, wdio, from being fatigued with the Duke of Newcastle, and sick of Pelham's timidity and compromises, had given in to this mad hurly-burly of alterations, was confounded with having floundered to no purpose, and to find him- self more than ever in the power of men he hated, shut himself up in his closet, and refused to admit any more of the people who were pouring in upon him Avith white sticks, and golden keys, and commissions, etc. At last he sent for Winnino;ton, and told him he was the only honest man about him, and should have the honour of a reconciliation, and sent him to Mr. Pelham, to desire they would all return to their em- ployments.'^ It was on February 14, two days after Bath's resig- nation, that the King was forced to this determination ; and on that same day Granville resigned, and Newcastle and Harrington resumed their places. Lord Marcli- mont saw Granville come out from his parting audience with the King. ' He met the Duke of Newcastle going ' Marclwiont Papers, I. 174. - II. Walpole to Mann; Feb. 14, 1746. GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 321 in ; and they made eacli other a dry bow, and passed on.' That was a curious Httle scene, full of the sarcasm of politics. The imbecile Duke had once more defeated the man of genius. It is not probable tliat on this particular occasion Granville expected anything else. In obedience to the King, he had cheerfully made the attempt ; but he seems to have done it against his own judgment, and he certainly did not deceive himself with expectations of success. He did not think it necessary to inform the ambassador at Florence of his appointment ; before a courier could get there, he said, he sliould be out of power again. On a later occasion he distinctly declared that he was forced into the thing by Lord Bath,^ whose own conduct on the occasion fully justified the nickname of ' weathercock ' Pulteney. But it is not necessary to exaggerate the effect which Bath's fright and betrayal produced on the new arrangements. It only hastened what coidd not in any case have been long in coming. Against the overwhelming parliamentary influence of the Pel- hams it was impossible to stand ; and the ])rothers knew that tliey had resigned only to be recalled. They perhaps were not even much surprised that the summons came to them so very quickl3\ Bath had been First Lord of the Treasury for one day ; Gran- ville had been Secretary of State for less than four. To small wits this curious political episode was a godsend and source of mild rapture. Gentle dulness feared to walk the streets by night, lest it should be seized by the press-gang and forced into the Cabinet. In a moment of inspiration it was discovered that the friends of Granville were Gran villains. Other brillian- cies, hardly inferior to these, dazzled the political world. ' II. Walpole to Mann ; June 18, 1751. Y 3?2 LOBD CABTEBET But the King was not among tlie laughers. Granville himself took the thino- in the most fjood-humoured way ; but George was full of anger and vexation. He asked Bath to write a full account of the way in which his ministers had treated him. ' Eub it in their noses,' he said royally, ' and if it be possible make them ashamed.' To the Duke of Newcastle he called Har- rington a rascal ; to Harrington he called the Duke a fool. He treated Harrington with special incivility, and never forgot his o-rudo-e a2;ainst him : for he had been the first minister to resign. Four years later, when there was a question of some official appointment for Harrington, the King flew into a rage. ' He said the generalsliip of marines was to be the reward of every- body who flew in his face : that tliat was the case of that old rascal Stair : that my Lord Harrington should have his ears cut ofl'. ... At last he said, " He de- serves to be hanged ; and I am ready to tell him so." ' ^ Pelham, not so liardened to abuse as his brother, was soon attain threatening? resionation. He told the Kino- he would rather Granville should liave his place than keep it himself. The retort was obvious. ' You make it impossible for liini to have it, and then want me to give it to him.' Gossip of the town did indeed soon point to Granvihe as destined speedily to be minister again ; Init tlie King had received his lesson, and did not forget it. Ministers are the King in this country, he liad once said to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke ; and he now yielded with angry disgust. ' Go back? — yes. but not without conditions ! ' Harrini^ton had insisted when tlie Pelhams resumed their places after Granville's four days. One of the conditions concerned Pitt, and the sure sign of the King's surrender was the admission ' Add. MSS. 0,224 ; fol. IC).;;. Letttr of Newcastle, Oct. 2\, 1750. GBANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 323 of Pitt to office. Tears were seen in his eyes when Pitt first appeared in the drawing-room to kiss hands/ For two years more after tliis sliort ministerial crisis the war in the Netherlands dragged drearily on under the dull direction of the Pelliams. It was one long story of mismanagement and failure. Duiing the Scotch rebellion, English help was withdrawn from the Austrians in Flanders, and the French were left to do as they pleased. Their successes were numerous ; nearly all the Austrian Netherlands fell into their hands. Yet they began to think of peace. They had lost their Bavarian alliance ; they had lost Prussia when Frederick had made peace with Maria Theresa ; they lost active help from Spain by the death of the Spanish King in the summer of 1746. In these circumstances, a Congress, as futile as those at Cambrai and Soissons, was opened at Breda in September, and sat wearily there till March 1747, when it broke up, having done nothing. Tlie war, with its long list of losses and defeats, continued. The Pelliams were not happier in their management of their own domestic concerns. Party politics were in a more or less confused condition, and party feeling was running higli. It was in this year 1746 that Gibbon, a schoolboy of nine years old, was in his own words ' reviled and bufieted ' because his ancestors had been Tories. The ministers them- selves were quarrelling with one another. Harrington, tlic one Secretary, very naturally wislied to put an end to the war ; Newcastle, the otlier, terribly anxious to gain tlie King's personal fjivour, desired tliat the wretched military business sliould continue. The dispute was only closed by the dismissal of Harrington with a heavy pension ; though in official language he ' Glover's Memoirs of a Celebrated I'oliticol and Literary Character. Y 2 32-i LOED CABTEBET resioiied on account of liis afi^e and infirmities. Beini:f O o O old and infirm, lie was naturally made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. On October 29, the day after Harring- ton's resignation, Chesterfield took the vacant place ; anxiously pressed to accept by Newcastle, who feared that if he refused the King would again send for Gran- ville. Chesterfield accepted, hardly, as he said, knowing whether he was on his head or his heels ; and the chaotic condition of the ministry became every month more evident. Chesterfield's conversations with Lord Marchmont give a most curious picture of the way in wliicli the so-called Government of En<:jland conducted the nation's affairs. The King hated all liis advisers ; but, unable to get rid of them, left them to do as they pleased, bitterly saying that he was not competent to assist them in cases of difficulty. ' No real business was done,' said Chesterfield to Marchmont ; ' there was no plan ; and, in differences of opinion, the King bid them do what they thought fit, and continued very indolent, saying that it signified nothing, as his son, for whom he did not care a louse, was to succeed him, and would live long enough to ruin us all ; so that there was no Government at all.' Li October 1747 Chesterfield told Marchmont that he did not know where the Govern- ment lived. There was no Government ; they met, and talked, and then said. Lord ! it is late ; when shall we meet to talk over this asfain ? In that same month, the differences between Newcastle and his brother were so extreme that they could not speak to each other without falling into a passion, and actually declined to meet. The leader in the House of Commons would not see the leader in the House of Lords. Pelham and Chesterfield were anxious for peace ; Newcastle, not understanding what he was talking about, urged the f GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 825 continuance of the war. Before the year was out Chesterfield, disgusted with his personal situation, and declaring that what might become of the other ministers was no business of his, resolved to resio'u. He did so in February 1748; 'on account of the ill state of liis health,' wrote Newcastle with unblushino; officialism. The Secretaryships were once more shuffled. Newcastle returned to his old Northern Department; the Duke of Bedford became Secretary for the South. Chesterfield on resigning had left behind him a pro- test against the prolongation of the war. But already the war was practically over. The King's speech at the opening of the session in November 1747 had announced, without open sarcasm, tlie meeting of one more Euro|)ean Congress. This Congress duly com- menced to assemble at Aixda-Chapelle in March 174S, Lord Sandwich being the chief English representative. On the last daj^ of April, England, France, and Holland, finding it impossible to overcome the vexatious delays of Austria and Spain, privately signed preliminaries of peace on their own account, leaving the others to agree at their leisure. Fiohtinj? therefore ceased ; and on October 18 the definite Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed by all parties. Thus at length the unfortunate war was over ; yet the peace created no enthusiasm, and even little approval, in England. It was evident from tlie first that the so-called peace was only a temporary arrangement which practically concluded nothing. Eno-land had been at war with France and Spain ; this fantastic settlement left the leading ques- tions of dispute between the tliree countries still un- decided. The very question which had been the original cause of the war, the Spanish claim of Eight of Search, was not even mentioned in the treaty ; and wliilc England acquired Cape Breton, nothing was done towards defining an intelligible boundary-line between the English and French possessions in Xorth America. The treaty or armistice of Aix-la-Cliapelle left all this in the vague, and was little more than the commence • ment of a truce which managed to last for eight years. The political history of England during the two or three years which immediately followed the peace is of the very slightest interest. It is hardly to be called political history at all. Parliament was tranquil and doin^y nothincr • in the session of 1750 tlic fullest House and largest division were on a disputed turuj^ike bill. A little languid agitation accompanied the patronage which it pleased the Prince of Wales to give to such mediocre opposition as there was ; a Princely patronage from which Granville held quite aloof. Otherwise, the political world found its sole excitement in the personal squabbling of Newcastle with members of his own Government, and in the shifting schemes and combina- tions with which he was perpetually busied. Having already disgusted and alienated Harrington and Ohester- iield, Newcastle was now elaborating a quarrel witli the Duke of Bedford, As the Pelham Government origin- ally stood, Bedford had been at the head of the Admiralty. When he was promoted to the Secretaryship of State, his influence secured the Admiralty appointment for his friend Sandwich. Tlie intimacy between Sandwich and Bedford annoyed Newcastle ; and the very friendly intercourse of the Kiuij^'s favourite son Cumberland with the Bedford party roused all the Prime Minister's jealous alarm and treacherous timidity. In his usual way he becjan to scheme for Bedford's removal. He was so frightened, and so willing to humiliate himself when- GBAXVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 327 ever he seemed to see the sliglitest menace to his own personal power, that he even attempted to win over Granville to his side, and in June 1749 offered him the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland ; but Granville refused. Having ftiiled here, and finding no success in his schemes for dismissing his colleague, iSTewcastle was soon going tlirougli his favourite performance and threatening to resign. The ministers unkindly told him tliat he might do as he pleased. Of course he did not resign ; and in April 1750, overcoming his dread of the Channel for the second time in his life, he accompanied the King to Hanover. From the Hague he poured out his distresses to his brother :— ' I think it a little hard tliat the Duke of Cumber- land and the Princess Amelia should use me so cruelly as they have done : excommunicate me from all society, set a kind of brand or mark upon me and all who think with me ; and set up a new, ludvuown, factious young party [Sandwich and Bedford] to rival me, and nose me everywhere. This goes to my heart : I am sensible, if I could have submitted and cringed to such usage, the public appearances would have been better, and perhaps some secret stabs have -been avoided; but I was too proud and too innocent to do it.' ^ How could proud innocence endure the stabbing and the branding and the nosing any longer ? New- castle accordingly now began to lose and bewilder himself in a confused medley of ridiculous or impossible plans. If Bedford could not be got out of the way, Newcastle would himself cease to be Secretary of State, and become Lord President. Could not Sir Thomas Robinson, or even Chesterfield, once more take the seals ? Hardwicke immediately informed the Duke that ' Coxe's IWuun, TT. 330. Mr.y 20, 1750. 828 LOBD CAnTEBET tlie ministry would not accept Robinson, and the King would not accept Chesterfield. Then Newcastle blandly suggested Granville, and with amusing superciliousness assured Pelham that Granville would make a very good Secretary, and would be the greatest conceivable assist- ance to them in their management of foreign affairs, Newcastle even professed to be no longer afraid of Granville. ' My Lord Granville is no more the terrible man ; non eadem est fetas^ nOn menx.' When Pelham, who probably knew better, replied tliat if Granville were made Secretary of State he would himself resign, Newcastle immediately declared that Granville was of course out of the question. 'I o pinidtre nothmg,' \\q wrote in liis terrible jargon to Hardwicke. 'Lord Granville is dropped ; I will never mention him more.' ^ So schemes were sketched only to vanish ; and in November, when the King and Newcastle returned, thino;s were in a more confused condition than ever. They rapidly became worse. When Pelham at last ventured to propose to the King the removal of Bedford, the King absolutely refused. Newcastle was in despair. He would resijxn, and Granville miijht form a new minis- try. He quarrelled afresli with his brother, and tliey refused to meet except on public affairs. The confusion, tlie faction, the endless intricrnino- were so bewilderino; that even sneering and cynical onlookers of the Horace Walpole stamp confessed tliemselves sick of the contemptible scene. The political imbroglio seemed almost at its worst, when an unexpected event came to the assistance of the Pelliams. On March 31, 1751, the Prince of Wales died. Tlie Leicester House opposition, of which party Bolingbroke was the only member much above medio- ' Add. MSS. 9,224 ; fol. 80, 81. GRANVILLE AND THE PELHAMS 829 crity, was thus broken up, and the Pellianis were corre- spondingly reheved. They now felt strong enough to have their own way about Bedford, in spite of the King's refusal to dismiss liim. By dismissing Sandwich, who owed his place to Bedford, they woidd make it impossible for I^edford himself to keep office. In June Sandwich was removed, and Bedford resigned next day. Two or three days later a more startling an- nouncement was made. Pelham liad repeatedl}?- and positively declared, in public and in private, that he would never again serve as a colleague with Granville. Yet on June 17 Granville became Lord President of the Council in the Government of tlie Pelhams. Pro- bably each side felt its need of the other. Newcastle during his residence at Hanover had never been weary of urging upon his brother how useful Granville would be to them in their foreign politics, and how dangerous opposition might become if Granville should clioose to put himself at the head of it. Granville, on his side, had learnt from personal experience that it was im- possible for any statesman to hold power if opposed by the Pelhams' parliamentary influence. After all that liad passed during so many years a perfect reconciliation was hardly to be hoped for ; but a common under- standing was arranged in a very informal way. Gran- ville and Pelliam met privately at the house of a friend ; one of tlie two, it is impossible now to say which, arriving there in a mysteriously mufflcd-up condition, unrecognisable to any one. They talked to each other with considerable leserve. But their liost was deter- mined that tlie negotiation sliould not fail. At the riglit moment lie produced, with perfect success, a good supper and good wine. The preliminary coolness soon passed away, and next day it was known to all tlie 330 LORD CARTEBET world that union was restored between tliem.^ But the agreement was one of convenience and toleration far more than of eager co-operation. Gi'anville told the Pclliams that lie would Avork liarmoniously with tliem, and he kept liis word. On the day before he accepted office he wrote to Newcastle : — ' Your Grace may depend on my cordial attach- ment, which I shall explain furtlier when I see you. I am glad that Mr. Pelham has told you that he will support your measures jointly ; which is all 1 can desire, dreading nothing so much as disputes, which I will never occasion or promote.' But Granville's personal opinion of the Pelhams of course remained what it had always been ; and tlie Pelhams feared Granville hardly less as a friend than as an enemy. Observers thought that they had good ground for fear, and that Granville would soon be master again in fact if not in name. ' Lord Granville,' wrote Horace Walpole on the day after the appoint- ment, ' is actually Lord President, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more ; in short, if he don't overshoot himself, the Pelhams have ; the King's favour to him is visible, and so much credited that all the in- cense is offered to him.' Writing from memory many years later, the same observer reports that when Gran- ville was wished joy on the reconciliation he replied : ' " I am the King's President ; I know nothing of the Pelhams ; I liave nothing to do with them." The very day he kissed hands, he told Lord D , one of the dirtiest of their creatures, " Well, my lord, here is the common enemy returned." ' ^ The anecdote may be ^ Mr. Nugent, afterwards Earl Nugent, at whose house Granville and Pelham met, told the particulars as above to the House of Commons in 1784. Farlimnentary History, XXIV. 6.34. "^ Last Ten Years of Gcori/c he Second, ^. 171. GRANVILLE AXD THE PELHAMS 331 true or false ; less likely perhaps to be false than true. Henry Pelliaui at least would liave believed it. He had yielded to the King and to his brother, and had consented to Granville's return, though people found it difficult honourably to reconcile Pelham's acquiescence with his often-repeated statements on the subject ; but he was at least unfailingly consistent in his suspicion and dread of Granville. More than a year after Granville had joined the ministry, Pelham was convinced that he was only lying by, waiting his opportunity which was sure to come. In September 1752 Pelliam wrote to his brother : — ' I have no reserve with regard to Lord Granville. I am resolved to live well with him, which I can easily do if we have no public meetings ; for he takes care we shall have no private ones. My opinion of him is the same it always was ; he hurries forward all these Ger- man affairs, because he thinks he shows his parts and pleases the King ; in both which I tliink he is mistaken.^ But believe me, he lies by ; he has as much vanity and ambition as he ever had, and he sees the King's personal inclination to his ministers is as it was ; he hopes there- fore in all these contradictory circumstances that some- thing may fall out, and then he is sure to succeed ; in which I believe he is in the rio-ht. . . , Notwithstandinof this, when we meet at the Regency Council, we laugh, and are as good friends as can be.' '^ Pelham's fears and suspicions were groundless. Three years of unbroken quiet passed by, and party politics seemed no longer to be in existence. It Avas then not Granville but Pelham himself who, in a quite inevitable way, opened the gates of strife again. * In both which the mistake was Pelliara's own. - Coxe, l'e//uim, 11.452. 822 LORD CARTERET CHAPTER IX. LAST YEAES. 1764-1763. Granville lived nearly twelve years after becoming President of the Council, and held that office uninter- ruptedly till the day of his death. But his active political career was practically over. He continued to take a keen interest in political affairs ; and in the ex- citing domestic and foreign questions which filled the closing years of the reign of George H. he was always ready with witty speech and experienced counsel. But in the strife of parties he declined now to play any other part than that of adviser and mediator. He held a dignified office ; while Secretaries came and went, he continued to be the King's President ; his personal posi- tion was influential ; his advice carried with it the weight of the statesman who had been engaged in public affairs from the time when he had left the University. Prom the vulgar self-seeking of politics he had always been free; and now, when years were coming upon him and health was failing, its legitimate ambitions had no over- powering attraction for him. Tv.dce again he was asked to take the highest place, and become Prime Minister of England, but each time he refused. Political -'^ - fate had not always used him too kindly ; he had been thwarted and baulked by some of the most insignificant LAST YEABS 333 beings who ever brought pohtics down to their own low level. But he now contested it with them no longer, ' resigned, in a big contemptuous way, to have had his really considerable career closed upon him by the smallest of mankind ; ' ^ and when the blundering in- capacity of Newcastle put revenge within easy reach, Granville refused to take it. The three years' political quiet ended when Pelham unexpectedly died on March 6, 1754. 'I shall now have no more peace,' said the King ; and he spoke the exact truth. For more tlian tliree years the political world at home was a chaotic scene, where ministers and ministries rose and fell as faction and intrigue de- manded. And when the miserable exhibition was over and a strong Government held undisputed power, Eng- land was en(xao:ed in a war which was not conckided when the King died. The strictly political history of the last six years of the reign of George II. is concerned ahnost exclusively with these two series of events. They M ere unconnected at first, but soon ran into eacli other, so that the settlement of what was originally a mere vulgar rivalry in corrupt personal politics had an im- portant influence upon a war which affected three continents. It was easy to fmd a successor to Pelham's office. For a moment, Newcastle had gone into transports of grief for his brother's death, and with liis customary effu- siveness had declared that he would give up everything, and have nothing more to do with public affairs. But of course he soon recovered ; and, being evidently born to govern England, appointed liimself Prime Minister in his brother's place. But lie could not also appoint himself leader in the House of Couinions ; and as all the . ' Carlyk's Frederick, Buok XVIII. Chap. III. 334 LORD CABTEBET prominent members of the Government were now in the House of Lords there was no one to whom, as a matter of course, the leadership of the Commons seemed to belong. Political gossip was soon busy Avith many names, Chesterfield, contemplating the confusion from his comparative retirement, in his usual religious way thanked God that he was now nothing but a bystander, and found cynical amusement in watching the mysterious looks and im]:)ortant shrugs of the small blockheads of politics, whose mystic solemnity on such occasions is sometimes seiiously taken by simple persons. When all the irresponsible gossiping was over, it was found that practically there was onl}^ one man of leading- ability in the House to whom the vacant post could be offered. Murray, the Attorney- General, capable of hold- ing any position, found no attraction in politics, and re- served himself for the highest seats of his own profession. Pitt, Paymaster of the Forces, had little influence in the House where he had sat for nearly twenty years. He liad confined liis intimacy to a small knot of personal relatives, keeping himself apart from the mass of mem- bers in a hardly disguised scornful isolation. He was also angrily hated by the King, and to Pitt, with his overwhelmincT reverence for the roval oflice even in the person of George H., this seemed a calamity against Avhich it was useless to strive. It is humiliating to read the words written at tliis time by the man who, three years later, was himself the real ruler of England : — ' All ardour for public business is really extinguished in my mind, and I am totally deprived of all consider- ation by which alone I could have been of any use. The w^eight of irremovable royal displeasure is a load too great to move under ; it has sunk and broke me. I succumb, and wish for nothing but a decent and inno- LAST YEABS 335 cent retreat, wherein I may no longer, by continning in the pubhc stream of promotion, for ever stick fast agronnd, and afford to the world the ridicnlous spectacle of being passed by every boat that navigates the same river.' ^ Mnrray and Pitt being thus out of the question, Newcastle's choice seemed almost necessarily confined to Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. Strictly speaking. Fox had no more genuine political ambition than Murray, or at least lie soon renounced whatever real political aspirations may once have attracted him. But he did care very much for what could be made out of politics, and was miserably willing to drop all aims at a distin- guished career and to do dirty work in the dregs of parliamentary life simply for the money which his degradation gained him. For no higher object, he was content to earn the sneers of his contemporaries and the vexed scorn of posterity. Granville in vain urged him the otlier way. Fox had not yet, however, fallen so low as this ; and though he sliowed an excessive eagerness to seize Pelham's vacant place, his conduct in the negotiations that followed contrasts very favourably with the proceedings of Newcastle. Pell) am had died at six o'clock in the morning. Before eight Fox was at tlie Marquis of Hartington's, starting the necessary arrangements. At first they seemed to go successfully enoufrh. Fox himself was to be leader of tlie House of Commons and Secretary of State. He announced it to a friend, witli candid self-criticism : — ' Know then tlie Duke of Newcastle o-oes to the head of the Treasury, and I am to be Secretary of State, of course Cabinet Councillor, and at the head of the House of Commons. . . . Now what do you think ' Chatham Correspondence, I. lOo. April (i, 17-51. 336 LORD CARTEBET of this new Secretary of State ? Why, that lie is got into the place in England that he is most unfit for. So he thinks, I can assure you.' ^ Newcastle, though he reserved to himself the actual disposal of the money spent in parliamentary corrup- tion — the secret-sisrvice money, as official pleasantness politely called it — promised that Fox shoidd always know how the gifts of a grateful minister had been distributed. But the Duke, who watched over the bribery depart- ment with a timid and jealous exclusiveness, soon began to fear that he had offered the new Secretary too much. He was anxious to take back his word, yet he could not deny the agreement which he had made with Lord Hartington, the manager of the negotiations. With characteristic deception, Newcastle devised a subter- fuge which allowed him to slink out of his difficulty. He might, he said in his sleek way, have used words which meant what Hartington and Fox had understood them to mean ; but certainly he himself had never understood them so ; he had been thrown into such anxiety and affliction and grief by his brother's death that his memory was all upset ; but he had never in- tended that Fox should have anything to do with secret money or patronage. Fox, reasonably enough asking how he was to manage the House of Commons if he did not know who was bribed and who not, declined to accept the leadership on these niggardly terms, and resigned the seals on March 14, the day after he had received them, Newcastle then tried a most ludicrous experiment. As he could not get a man of ability to accept office on the mere footing of a clerk, he resolved to appoint a so-called minister who would do what he ' Fox to Lord Uigby : March 12, 1754. Eiyhth lirport of the Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 1?20, LAST YEARS 337 was told and ask no questions. He selected Sir Thomas Robinson, the rather dull Vienna diplomatist of the Silesian war times ; a man who knew nothing whatever about parliamentary affairs. Robinson was actually made Secretary of State, and set at the head of the House of Commons. The dual leadership was indeed most curious. The head of the Government in the House of Lords was little better than an idiot ; the leader in the House of Commons did not know the elementary lan- guage of parliamentary life, and as a speaker was so ludicrously absurd that his best friends could not keep serious faces while they listened to him. The opportunity was too tempting to be lost by Pitt and Fox. Pitt, slighted by Newcastle and neglected by the Court, could not be enthusiastic in support of the Government of which he was an inferior member ; Fox had just been refused a distinguished office because he would not accept it on ignominious conditions. The two subordinates, therefore, lately not on very good terms with each other, began to draw together. When Parliament met in November 1754, Pitt and Fox made Robinson's life a misery to him. Pitt did not spare even Murray and Newcastle himself; Fox actively assisted Robinson in making himself ridiculous. Robinson pathetically declared that he had not desired the high office which he held. Pitt coolly replied that if any one else had wished it, Robinson would not liave had it. Steady party men voted with t]ie Government, but laughed while they did so. Far less than all this was enough to frighten Newcastle, and he was perplexed between dread of dismissing the two rebels and dread of keeping them. He ended by adopting the less dangerous plan of attempting to divide them. A nego- tiation, managed by the King's personal friend Lord 338 LOPiD CARTERET Waklegrave, was opened with Fox ; and in the spring of 1755 Fox consented to enter the Cabinet and serve under Robinson without attacking him. Granville, to whom personally it was a question of no moment, had judged Fox's interest and conduct in politics by his own high standard, 'and had predicted his certain pro- motion. ' I must tell you,' wrote Fox to his wife at the end of 1754, ' a compliment of Lord Granville's ima- gination, and whether I tell you because it is pretty, or because it flatters me, or both, you may judge. I was not present. " They must," says he, " gain Fox. They must not think it keeps him under in the House of Commons. They cannot keep him under. Mix liquors together, and the spirit will be uppermost." ' ^ Granville could not have predicted that Fox would soon be willing to sink to the very bottom. Though the alliance between Pitt and Fox was thus broken, the domestic dispute was still far from settled, and at this point it became entangled in the difficulties and dangers from abroad. The long truce gained by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was nearly over ; the final stage of the war was threateningly near. The first signs of trouble came from North America. Be- tween the Encclish and the French Colonies in America there was no fixed and indisputable line of division. The French ventured to insist tliat t]ie English colonists should confine themselves to the ground East of the AUeghanies, between the mountains and the sea. What was West of the AUeghanies the French, witli magni- ficent effi'ontery, claimed as their own ; and Canada they already had. Confused conditions and conflicting demands resulted in colonial war, and it was soon clear that the war could not be limited to the colonies. In 1754 George Washington, making liis first historical ' Quoted in Trevelyan's Early Life of C. J. Fox, p. 19 n. LAST YEARS 339 appearance, was defeated by the French ; in the spring of 1755 the Enghsh Government was sending out troops to North America. The French did the same ; and war between France and England, though as yet not formally declared, had practically begun. Its opening event was not an omen of its close. On July 9, 1755, the English General Braddock was surprised and defeated by the united French and Indians at Fort Duquesne. When the war ended there was no Fort Duquesne any longer. Its name had been changed to Pittsburg. In spite of the troubled condition of public affairs, the King refused to forego his yearly visit to Hanover. In his absence, important questions came before the ministers who formed the Eegency. One of the most pressing of these referred to the relations between England and France. One English fleet had already been sent to America. In July 1755 another was ready, but the ministry, in the awkward state of affairs, with war still undeclared, w^ere much perplexed in drawing up the instructions which were to guide the admiral. When Sir Edward Hawke sailed with his fleet, what was he to do with it ? The Duke of Cumberland was for acting as if the country Avas formally at Avar. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke wished for time and recom- mended caution. Newcastle was delightfully ridicu- lous. He ' gave his opinion that Hawke should take a turn in the Channel to exercise the fleet, without having any instructions whatever.' ^ Imbecility of this descrip- tion was the Prime Minister's contribution to the government of the country. Granville first Avas of opinion that the English fleet should act hostilely, but only agninst French men-of-war. ' Lord Granville,' Fox told Dodington, ' Avas absolutely against meddling ^ Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 47. Z 2 340 LORD CABTEUET with trade — lie called it vexing your neighbours for a little muck.' ^ Granville's view seems to have been adopted ; but when the news of Braddock's disaster reached England things were recognised as serious beyond anticipation, and Granville's counsel adapted itself to the graver circumstances. ' The Duke of Newcastle in Council,' says Lord Slielburne, ' proposed seizing the French men-of-war. Lord Granville laughed at that, and was the cause of seizing the merchant-men upon the principle of common sense — if you hit, hit hard ; which measure, suggested by Lord Granville, who could not be considered as more than a looker-on in Council, saved us from ruin.' '^ Orders were sent to Hawke accordingly, who seized everything he could lay hands on ; yet France did not declare war. While his ministers were thinking of France, Georsfe was thinking of Hanover. For the protection of his inestimable possession he had been, and still was, pay- ing subsidies on all hands, offering money for men wherever a continental ruler would deal with him. It was an annoying circumstance that at the very moment when these expensive arrangements might have been of some practical use the date of the termination of some of them fell due. George saw no remedy but to make new ones. At Hanover he therefore occupied himself with this congenial business. His treaties with Saxony and Bavaria were expiring ; he entered upon new agreements with Hesse and even with Eussia. The Hessian treaty was actually concluded, and the King indiflerently sent it over to England to be ratified as a matter of course. This seemingly innocent perform- ance had a most startling consequence. It drove the ' Dodington's DiV//-?/ ; July 21, 1755. ^ hoxA'6\ni\h\xi-ms Autobiucji-aphy. Fitzuiaurice's