Page images
PDF
EPUB

character to think it possible that so many pub. lic sacrifices should have been made withou some private compensation. Your conduct carries with it an interior evidence, beyond all the legal proof of a court of justice. Even the cal

pression, though not upon your mind. To such a mind, it may perhaps be a pleasure to reflect, that there is hardly a corner of any of his Majesty's kingdoms, except France, in which, at one time or other, your valuable life has not been in danger. Amiable man! we see and acknowl-lous pride of Lord Egremont was alarmed. He edge the protection of Providence, by which you have so often escaped the personal detestation of your fellow-subjects, and are still reserved for the public justice of your country.

Your history begins to be important at that auspicious period at which you were deputed to represent the Earl of Bute at the court of Versailles. It was an honorable office, and executed with the same spirit with which it was accepted. Your patrons wanted an embassador who would submit to make concessions without daring to insist upon any honorable condition for his sovereign. Their business required a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity as for the welfare of his country; and they found him in the first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, the Fishery, and the Havana, are glorious monuments of your Grace's talents for negotiation. My Lord, we are too well acquainted with your pecuniary rise to the following story: When the late King heard that Sir Edward Hawke had given the French a drubbing, his Majesty, who had never received that kind of chastisement, was pleased to ask Lord Chesterfield the meaning of the word. 'Sir,' said Lord Chesterfield, 'the meaning of the word-But here comes the Duke of Bedford, who is better able to explain it to your Majesty than I am.'"

"Soon after Lord Chatham was driven from office in the midst of his glorious ministry, Lord Bute sent the Duke of Bedford to negotiate a treaty of peace

saw and felt his own dishonor in corresponding with you; and there certainly was a moment at which he meant to have resisted, had not a fatal lethargy prevailed over his faculties, and carried all sense and memory away with it.

I will not pretend to specify the secret term、 on which you were invited to support an administration which Lord Bute pretended to leave in full possession of their ministerial authority, and He was not perfectly masters of themselves." of a temper to relinquish power, though he retired from employment. Stipulations were certainly made between your Grace and him, and certainly violated. After two years' submission, you thought you had collected a strength sufficient to control his influence, and that it was your turn to be a tyrant, because you had been a slave. When you found yourself mistaken in your opinion of your gracious master's firmness, disappointment got the better of all your humble discretion, and carried you to an excess of outrage to his person, as distant from true spirit, as from all decency and respect. After robbing him of the rights of a King, you would not permit him to preserve the honor of a gen tleman. It was then Lord Weymouth was nominated to Ireland, and dispatched (we well remember with what indecent hurry) to plunder the treasury of the first fruits of an employment which you well knew he was never to execute.s

with France, which was signed November 3d, 1762. This sudden declaration of war against the FaThe concessions then made, which are here enumer- vorite might have given you a momentary merit ated by Junius, were generally considered as highly with the public, if it had been either adopted dishonorable to the country. They were not, how-upon principle, or maintained with resolution. ever, chargeable to the Duke of Bedford personally, Without looking back to all your former servilthough he may have been liable to censure for consenting to negotiate such a treaty.

The insinuation which follows, respecting the Duke's having received "some private compensation," refers to a report in circulation soon after the treaty was signed, that the Duke had been bribed by the French, in common with the Princess Dowager of Wales, Lord Bute, and Mr. Henry Fox. The story was too ridiculous to be seriously noticed, but the matter was investigated by a committee of the House of Commons, and found to rest solely on the statement of a man named Musgrave, who had "no credible authority for the imputations of treachery and corruption which he was willing to propa gate."-See Heron's Junius, i., 269. Still, Junius revived the story at the end of six years, and, when called upon for proof, had nothing to allege, except that the Duke was understood to love money. "I combined the known temper of the man with the extravagant concessions of the embassador." There was another and perfectly well-known reason for these "concessions." Lord Bute could not raise funds to carry ca the war. The moneyed men would not trust him. He was, therefore, compelled to make peace on such terms as he could obtain. The downright dishonesty of Junius in this case naturally leads us to receive all his statements with distrust, unless supported by other evidence.

10 Junius here refers to the time when Lord Bute resigned, April 8th, 1763, and the Duke of Bedford and his friends came into power in connection with Mr. George Grenville. It was at this period that the Duke compelled the King, as mentioned in a former letter, to displace Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, brother of Lord Bute, who had received the roya promise of never being removed. This arose out of the Duke's jealousy of Lord Bute at that time, and a determination to show that he was not governed by him.

11 Note by Junius. "The ministry having endeav ored to exclude the Dowager out of the Regency Bill, the Earl of Bute determined to dismiss them. Upon this the Duke of Bedford demanded an audience of the King-reproached him in plain terms with his duplicity, baseness, falsehood, treachery, hypocrisy-repeatedly gave him the lie, and left him in convulsions." How far there is any truth in this statement, it is not easy now to say. It is probable there was a rumor of this kind at the time; but no one will believe that the King would ever have invited the Duke of Bedford again into his service (as he afterward did), if a tenth part of these inaig nities had been offered him.

12 He received three thousand pounds for plats and equipage monev,

ty, we need only observe your subsequent conduct, to see upon what motives you acted. Apparently united with Mr. Grenville, you waited antil Lord Rockingham's feeble administration should dissolve in its own weakness. The moment their dismission was suspected, the moment you perceived that another system was adopted in the closet, you thought it no disgrace to return to your former dependence, and solicit once nore the friendship of Lord Bute. You begged an interview, at which he had spirit enough to treat you with contempt.13

It would now be of little use to point out by what a train of weak, injudicious measures it became necessary, or was thought so, to call you back to a share in the administration. The friends, whom you did not in the last instance desert, were not of a character to add strength or credit to government; and at that time your alliance with the Duke of Grafton was, I presume, hardly foreseen. We must look for other stipulations, to account for that sudden resolution of the closet, by which three of your dependents (whose characters, I think, can not be less respected than they are) were advanced to offices, through which you might again control the minister, and probably engross the whole direction of affairs.

The possession of absolute power is now once more within your reach. The measures you have taken to obtain and confirm it are too gross to escape the eyes of a discerning, judicious prince. His palace is besieged; the lines of circumvallation are drawing round him; and unless he finds 3 resource in his activity, or in the attachment of the real friends of his family, the best of princes must submit to the confinement of a state prisoner, until your Grace's death, or some less fortunate event, shall raise the siege. For

13 A negotiation was opened between Lord Temple and Mr. Grenville on the one hand, and Lord Bute on the other. Mr. Grenville, however, refused to go forward without the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Bute, as stated above, refused to have any connection with his Grace. Horace Walpole makes a similar statement in his Memoirs of George III.

14 This refers to the call of the Duke of Bedford into the administration about a year before, which created so much disappointment to the Rockingham Whigs, and was probably the occasion, as already stated, of the first letter of Junius. The King is understood to have recommended that measure; and Junias intimates that the close existing alliance with the Duke of Grafton had not then been con

templated. Three of the Duke of Bedford's dependents, viz., Lords Weymouth, Gower, and Sandwich, were now placed in very important stations. The Duke of Bedford was also suspected of being again united in full confidence with Lord Bute. Thus Junius insinuates, a plan was formed for giving him the absolute control over the government in conjunction with the Duke of Grafton, but with authority over him. The whole paragraph was intended to alarm | the people on the one hand, and those who were considered "the King's friends" on the other. It need not be repeated that these suspicions of Lord Bute's continued secret influence were, to a great extent, unfounded.

the present, you may safely resume that style of insult and menace, which even a private gentleman can not submit to hear without being contemptible. Mr. Mackenzie's history is not yet forgotten, and you may find precedents enough of the mode in which an imperious subject may signify his pleasure to his sovereign. Where will this gracious monarch look for assistance, when the wretched Grafton cou'd forget his obligations to his master, and desert him for a hollow alliance with such a man as the Duke of Bedford?

Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness." Let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified, in the fear as well as the hatred of the people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? and is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, my Lord! Let it not be recorded of you, that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider, that, although you can not disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigor of the passions.

Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis, where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If he returns to Woburn [his country seat], scorn and mockery await him. He must create a solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honest Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. At every town he enters, he must change his liveries and his name. Whichever way he flies, the Hue and Cry of the country pursues him.

In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt, his virtues better understood; or, at worst, they will not, for him alone, forget their hospitality.16 As well might Verres have returned to Sicily You have twice escaped, my Lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, insulted, and oppressed as they have been, will not always be disappointed.

15 This and the remaining paragraphs are the most eloquent parts of the Letter. It is hardly necessary to remark how much there is in them of art, of passion, and of keen discernment into human character. There is a rapidity and glow of expression that is truly admirable. The several places are enumer ated where the Duke had formerly met with tokens of public aversion, and where he might expect again to be received with reproach and derision.

16 The Duke had been once in Ireland as Viceroy, and again when he was appointed to the princip honorary office in the University of Dublin.

It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene. You car no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my Lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger; and though you can not be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a man of honor. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last, and that, as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance.

JUNIUS.

The Duke of Bedford died four months after the publication of this letter, and Junius has succeeded in handing down his character to posterity, as a monstrous compound of baseness and folly. It has been shown, however, in the preceding notes, that some of his statements were gross falsehoods, while others were equally gross exaggerations.

The

had made a splendid provision fo the son wnon he lost, and afterward for his widow; and that he was distinguished for his bounty to his depend. ents and domestics." The most cruel charge in this Letter was that of insensibility to the loss of his son: a charge which Junius repeated with great vehemence on a subsequent occasion Upon this subject, it will be sufficient to give a note of Sir Dennis Le Marchant, editor of Wal pole's Memoirs of George III., vol. ii., p. 443 "The Duke's memory has been repeatedly vin. dicated from this cruel aspersion, and never with more generos and indignant eloquence than oy Lord Brougham, nais Political Sketches, vol iii. It has always been understood in the qua ters likely to be best informed, that he felt his son's loss deeply to the last hour of his life." Instead, however, of yielding to his grief, he endeavored to employ his thoughts upon public business, and the natural fervor of his disposition. insensibly engaged him in the scenes before him, perhaps more deeply than he was aware. meeting he attended at the India House must, as appears from the Company's books, have been that of April 8th, which determined the course to be taken by the Company on the government propositions: a great question, in which he took a lively interest. The force of mind he taus displayed is noticed with commendation in a letter written at the time by David Hume, who, from his connection with Conway, is assuredly an impartial witness. The absurd charge brought by Junius [Letter xxix.] against the Duchess, The Duke was certainly a very unpopular of making money by her son Lord Tavistock's man. He did experience the public indignities | wardrobe, originated in its having been sold for mentioned in this Letter. He was mobbed by the benefit of his valet and Lady Tavistock's the Spitalfield weavers; his life was more than maid, according to the general practice of that once put in danger; and his palace in Blooms- day." bury Square was assaulted by congregated thou- Horace Walpole, speaking of this subject, while sands. This was done because the price of silk he censures the Duke for going to the balloting goods fell greatly after the peace which he ne- at the India House, says he 66 was carried there gotiated with France in 1762, and men like Ju- by his creatures, Lord Sandwich, Earl Gower, nius taught those ignorant mechanics to believe and Mr. Rigby, to vote." He speaks also of that the Duke of Bedford was the cause, when these men and their associates, usually called the fault, if there was any, lay with Lord Bute. "the Bloomsbury gang," as having been shunned In like manner, his administration in Ireland was by Lord Tavistock, and says, "the indecent indifunfortunate. His manners were shy and cold; ference with which such a catastrophe [his sudhis temper was quick and imperious; he had den death] was felt by the faction of the family. bad friends and advisers. The Primate of Ire-spoke too plainly that Lord Tavistock had lived land united the factions of the country against him; and mobs were stirred up to break into the public buildings and set his authority at defiance. And yet Horace Walpole, who, from being his friend, had become his political enemy, states, without hesitation, that the Duke went to Ireland with the best intentions, and was really desirous to improve the condition of that miserable and distracted country. He was charged with meanness in his pecuniary concerns, and Junius sneers at his doing good “by stealth." Walpole adverts to this, and says, "his great economy was called avarice; if so, it was blended with more generosity and goodness than that passion will commonly unite with." A writer in his favor stated, without contradiction, that "he had paid his brother debts to the amount of £100,000;

[ocr errors]

a reproach and terror to them." We have here the secret of a considerable portion of the Duke's misfortunes for life-those "pernicious friends" spoken of by Junius, who had a privilege to play on the easiness of his temper." He was a very ardent politician; and was reduced to "the necessity of engaging in the interest and intrigues of his dependents; of supplying their vices and relieving their beggary at the expense of his country." His ardor in politics led hin into the borough-mongering alluded to in this Letter. It also made him "at one time rancorously persecute, and at another basely cringe to, the Favorite of the Sovereign." In connection

17 Walpole says that, "on hearing of his death, the Duke for a few days almost lost his senses."

ters."

with the impetuosity of his feelings and his sudden bursts of passion, it betrayed him into "indecent violence in opposing or defending minisThese were his real faults, and they were great ones; but they by no means imply that depravity of heart imputed to him by Junius; and it will be observed, that this writer, in all the bitterness of his satire, does not charge the Duke with being personally an immoral man. Walpole says he was a man of inflexible honesty and good will to his country.' "His parts were certainly far from shining, and yet he spoke read, and upon trade, well. His foible was speak

ing upon every subject, and imagining he under. stood it, as he must have done, by inspiration. He was always governed-generally by the Duchess; though immeasurably obstinate when once he had formed or had an opinion instilled into him. His manner was impetuous, of which he was so little sensible, that, being told Lor Halifax was to succeed him, he said, 'He is too warm and overbearing: the King will never endure him.' If the Duke of Bedford would have thought less of himself, the world would proba bly have thought better of him."-Memoirs of George II., vol. i., p. 186.

LETTER

TO THE KING.1

WHEN the complaints of a brave and powerful people are observed to increase in proportion to

Dated December 19th, 1769. The Whigs had ow effected a union among themselves. Lord Chatham had so far recovered from his three years' illness as to make it certain that he would soon be able to appear in the House of Lords. A reconciliation had taken place between him and the Grenville and Rockingham Whigs; a new session of Partament was about to commence; and that voice

the wrongs they have suffered when, instead
of sinking into submission, they are roused to re-
sistance--the time will soon arrive at which ev-
ery inferior consideration must yield to the secu
rity of the sovereign and to the general safety of
the state. There is a moment of difficulty and
danger, at which flattery and falsehood can no
longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no long-
er be misled. Let us suppose it arrived.
us suppose a gracious, well-intentioned prince,
made sensible at last of the great duty he owes
to his people, and of his own disgraceful situa-

Let

was again to be heard in its councils which had so often summoned the nation to the defense of its rights. Junios, though acting by himself, would of course be acquainted with these arrangements; and to prepare the way for the approaching struggle, betion; that he looks round him for assistance, and now turns from the ministry to the Throne, and enavors at once to intimidate the King, and to rouse the people to a determined resistance of the govern

ment.

asks for no advice but how to gratify the wishes, and secure the happiness of his subjects. Ir these circumstances it may be matter of curious SPECULATION to consider, if an honest man were permitted to approach a King, in what terms he would address himself to his sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that the first prejudice against his character is removed, that the ceremonious difficulties of an audience are surmounted, that he feels himself animated his King and country, and that the great person by the purest and most honorable affections to whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention. Unacquainted with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his sentiments with dignity and firmness, but not without respect.

The leading object of this Letter is to show the King, (1.) How great an error he had committed in making the Tories (the hereditary supporters of the Stuarts) the depositories of his power, and in choosing a Favorite from among them, while he rejected the Whigs, who had brought in the Hanover family, and thus far held them on the throne. (2.) How dishonorable was the contest he was then carrying on against a man of corrupt principles and abandoned life, whose cause good men were nevertheless compelled to take up against their sovereign, in defense of the dearest rights of the subject. (3.) That the breach of the Constitution in seating Mr. Luttrell, to the exclusion of Mr. Wilkes, in the House of Commons, was one which the nation could not long endure; that a contest was coming on between the King and the English peopie, in which all his reliances throughout the empire would certainly fail aim; and that he ought in time to remember that *as his title to the throne was acquired by one revolation, it may be lost by another." Junius there fore exhorts him to turn from his ministers to the nation; to dissolve Parliament (a measure which the Whigs had now determined to press as their main point), and thus leave the people to decide the question by the choice of a new House of Commons. There is but little that is false in this Letter, except the ridiculous charge that "England had been sold to France" in making the peace of 1762, and the at-ereign, are summed up and presented. He will ob tempt to create a national animosity against the Scotch. The King had fallen into great errors, although there were palliating circumstances in his

N

early education, and his strong aversion to Wilkes as a licentious and profligate man. Still, they were errors which involved the safety of the empire; it was right to expose them; and while Junius does it with the utmost plainness, he shows comparatively little of that insulting and malignant spirit which characterized his attack upon the King in his first Letter.

2 It will repay the student in oratory to review this introduction, and see how skillfully the reason which justified so remarkable an address to the sov.

serve, too, how adroitly Junius assumes the air of one engaged in "a curious speculation" on a sup posed case, giving what follows as a niere fancy

SIR,--1 is the misfortune of your life, and and political liberties depend. Had it been pos originally the cause of every reproach and dis-sible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonor. tress which has attended your government, that able to your character, we should long since you should never have been acquainted with the have adopted a style of remonstrance very dis anguage of truth until you heard it in the com- tant from the humility of complaint. The doc plaints of your people. It is not, however, too trine inculcated by our laws, that the King can late to correct the error of your education. We do no wrong, is admitted without reluctance. are stil. inclined to make an indulgent allowance We separate the amiable, good-natured prince for the pernicious lessons you received in your from the folly and treachery of his servants, and youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes the private virtues of the man from the vices of from the natural benevolence of your disposition.3 his government. Were it not for this just uisWe are far from thinking you capable of a di- tinction, I know not whether your Majesty's conrect, deliberate purpose to invade those original dition, or that of the English nation, would de. rights of your subjects, on which all their civil serve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favorable reception of truth. by removing every painful, offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your government, so you, in your turn, should distinguish between the conduct which becomes the perma. nent dignity of a King, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a minister.

sketch, in order to take off the appearance of intend ing any thing personally offensive to the King. He will be struck, also, with the dexterity shown in assuming just the requisite appearance of playing with the subject, when he says, "if an honest man were permitted to approach a King" and the delicacy and apparent respect with which he enters on the task of administering to his sovereign unsought-for counsel and humiliating reproof.

You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt not, a sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince, whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you not only from principle, but passion. It was not a cold profession of al

Note by Junius. The plan of tutelage and future dominion over the heir-apparent, laid many years ago at Carlton House between the Princess Dowager and her favorite the Earl of Bute, was as gross and palpable as that which was concerted between Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin to govern Louis the Fourteenth, and in effect to prolong his minority until the end of their lives. That prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently to blush for his own ignorance and want of educa-legiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, anition, which had been willfully neglected by his mother and her minion. A little experience, however, soon showed him how shamefully he had been treat ed, and for what infamous purposes he had been kept in ignorance. Our great Edward, too, at an early period, had sense enough to understand the

nature of the connection between his abandoned

mother and the detested Mortimer. But, since that time, human nature, we may observe, is greatly al tered for the better. Dowagers may be chaste, and minions may be honest. When it was proposed to settle the present King's household as Prince of Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was forced into it, in direct contradiction to the late King's inclination. That was the salient point from which all the mischiefs and disgraces of the present reign took life and motion. From that moment, Lord Bute never suffered the Prince of Wales to be an instant out of his sight. We need not look farther.

On this statement Mr. Heron makes the following remarks in his edition of Junins, vol. ii., 43: "There was, therefore, no dishonest plan for keeping the King in perpetual pupilage formed between his

mother and the Earl of Bute. Neither had George

the Second nor the Princess Dowager of Wales committed the education of the young Prince to the Jacobites and Tories His education was not neg. lected, but managed with admirable success and

care.

Not the young King, but their incapacity and anpopularity, drove the Newcastle party from pow.

er.

Not the King, but his own arrogance, and the opposition and dislike of the Newcastle party and others, dismissed Mr. Pitt from the administration. The union of parties, and the breaking down of the great Whig party, was originally the measure of Pitt, and arose from the natural progress of things. So unjust are the imputations with which this Let ter commences." The truth lies between the two.

mated attachment to a favorite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined by experi ence, but gave you a generous credit for the advance the dearest tribute of their affections. future blessings of your reign, and paid you in Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people, who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have labored to possess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are naturally light and inconstant ; that they complain without a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties-from ministers, favorites, and relations; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own understanding.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »