Horace Walpole

“ Complaisance in Europe was to cover encroachments in both Indies. Mr. Pelham was willing to be the dupe. If the nation demanded no redress, he would neither propose nor seek it. Redress could be procured but by arms; armaments must be furnished by money; money to be raised might create murmurs; opposition might ensue—were national honour or interest worth hazarding that? And having had the merit of lessening the National Debt, he had the more justifiable and reasonable excuse of dreading to augment it again, when it was still so burthensome. ”

“ Sir Robert Walpole loved magnificence, and was generous to a fault: the other had neither ostentation nor avarice, and yet had little generosity. The one was profuse to his family and his friends, liberal indiscriminately, unbounded to his tools and spies: the other loved his family and his friends, and enriched them as often as he could steal an opportunity from his extravagant bounty to his enemies and antagonists. Indifferent people were too indifferent to him; and for intelligence, it was one of the greatest blemishes of his Administration, he wanted it so entirely—not resolution more! ”

“ The truth was, Lord Sandwich ruined his little remains of character for abilities; the Duke of Bedford was seen in a new light. The method with which he went through the Treaty, the great variety of matter of which through the whole Debate he showed himself master, and the coolness with which he mastered his own temper too, made him considered as a very formidable and able speaker.
Lord Halifax then rose and said, “They who disapprove all treaties, cannot like this: they who are for no connexion with the Continent—” the Duke of Bedford interrupted him, and said, “That is not my opinion.” ”

“ A trifling Bill, that opened some inconsiderable advantages to a corps of men, with whom we live, traffic, converse, could alarm the whole nation—it did more: a cabal of Ministers, who had insulted their master with impunity, who had betrayed every ally and party with success, and who had crammed down every Bill that was calculated for their own power, yielded to transitory noise, and submitted to fight under the banners of prophecy, in order to carry a few more members in another Parliament. ”

“ If that three-days’ Ministry had lasted, Lord Hartington, as errant a bigot to the Pelham faction as ever Jacques Clement was to the Jesuits, had offered to impeach Lord Granville—so soon had Sir Robert Walpole’s friends forgot the abhorrence they had expressed for the motion to remove him without a cause; and so little do the silly bravos of a party foresee how soon they may be brought to adopt and refine upon the most unjustifiable excesses of their antagonists! ”

“ Murray was a Scot, and too lately been the object of clamour on the worst species of Scotch principles. The Chancellor was already jealous of him; and both Fox and Pitt would have concurred for his exclusion. He was timid himself, and always waving what he was always courting. This Gordian Knot was soon cut; and the world that had pretended to look out for a genius worthy to govern them, in six days descended from their ambition, and submitted to be ruled by no abilities at all.
Fox acted reserve and retirement, and expected to be wooed. His enemies indulged this humour, and deceived him. ”

“ At the very beginning, on the Duke of Newcastle’s declining to vote in the Bill, the Chancellor told Mr. Pelham, “I will be supported in this, or I never will speak for you again.” As the Opposition had at that time been inconsiderable, this breathed a little more than a mere spirit of obstinacy, and foretold a Bill to be framed not without an interested meaning: at least a legislator is uncommonly zealous for the public good, who forgets the philosophy of his character to drive on his honest ordinances by political menaces! ”

“ Pelham only shone upon trifling and unnecessary occasions, for he did not do even that; he was obscure upon the most trivial occurrences, perplexed even when he had but one idea, and whenever he spoke well, it was owing to his being heated; he must lose his temper before he could exert his reason. Sir Robert Walpole palliated too little, Mr. Pelham too much. The one would defend his errors by a majority; the other with a greater majority would excuse his merit, and would sooner obscure and depreciate his meaning when right and clear of itself, than not apologize for it. ”

“ Spain, which surely must sometimes produce some heroic, some patriot natures, has groaned for centuries under tyranny and the Inquisition: the poor fisherboy of Naples, Massaniello, could, in the space of two days, set at defiance, overturn, a haughty, an armed, an established Government. It is certain that no innovation, no unwonted exertion of power, had provoked the Irish: but they thought themselves contemned: they saw the channel of power totally diverted from the natives: the indiscretion of the rulers presented a colour to the keenest invectives that a faction could wish to employ. ”

“ Perhaps the Ministry had not more reason to triumph on the event of the day, than on the Duke of Bedford’s overlooking so fair an opening into their most vulnerable part!
At last rose the Bishop of Gloucester. If provocation often sharpens the genius, it did not in his case. Yet he was not confused, he was insolent: he spoke like a man that had governed children, [227] not like one fit to govern them. His language and circumstances were vulgar and trivial; he dwelt more on his housemaid letting in Mr. Fawcett when he came to him, than on any part of his [326] defence. ”

“ The Queen had in reality a thorough aversion to the Duke of Grafton for the liberties he took with one of her great blood; and if she had not been prevented by Sir Robert Walpole, would one night have complained to the King, when the Princess and the Duke, who hunted two or three times a week together, had staid out unusually late, lost their attendants, and gone together to a private house in Windsor Forest. The Queen hated him too for letting her see he knew her. He always teazed her, and insisted that she loved nobody. ”

“ At night, the Duke sent for Lord Hartington; not repentant; he was not apt to repent of advantageous treachery. He would not deny the breach of his engagements, but honestly declared he would not stand to them. Lord Hartington, as if avowal of treachery repaired it, expressed no resentment. His impartiality was ludicrous; he thought he displayed sufficient friendship to Fox, by publishing the Duke of Newcastle’s breach of faith; and he knew he should not offend the latter, by adhering to a simple relation of his perfidy. ”

“ Pelham alone could teach servility to a Parliament, whose privileges were yet untouched!
In Sweden there seems the same indifference for liberty. Count Tessin, the pattern of the British Minister, always affecting to resign, always entreated by his creatures to retain his power, is known to be meditating the restoration of absolute power. In France, where the Crown is despotic, and the people bigoted to whatever phantom is their King, there is a set of men, whose remonstrances, steadiness, and patriotism would figure with any senate, that Greece, Rome, or former Britain knew. ”

“ Conway seemed marked by nature for leaders, perhaps for rivals in the Government of their country. The quickness of genius is eminently with the first, and a superiority of application; the propriety and amiableness of character with the latter. One grasps at fortune, the other only seems pleased to accept fortune when it advances to him. The one foresees himself equal to everything, the other finds himself so whenever he essays. Charles Townshend seems to have no passion but ambition ”

“ That though any members of the future Council will be removeable by address to Parliament, how will such address be obtained against the most turbulent? Nay, Parliament may be under a long prorogation, and the Regent, all helpless, will see nothing but factions in the Council that should assist her. How distressed will be her condition, how distressed the condition of her children, of the nation! I wish well,” continued he, “to those who will have the power, a power that nobody will envy them! ”

“ Sir Thomas had been bred in German Courts, and was rather restored than naturalized to the genius of that country: he had German honour, loved German politics, and could explain himself as little as if he spoke only German. He might have remained in obscurity, if the Duke of Newcastle’s necessity of employing men of talents inferior even to his own, and his alacrity in discovering persons so qualified, had not dragged poor Sir Thomas into light and ridicule ”

“ He did not wonder there were but few precedents to direct them of a Prince thinking thus greatly of his own death, and providing for emergencies to arise after it: that the Law of England knows no minority: if the person of the minor King should be seized by force, his power would accompany the possession of his person: that this Bill creates a minority, and provides against the evils of it: that in private cases, no guardian has the whole power over an estate, that his ward will have when he comes of age; that no Prince, even in absolute governments, ever appointed a Regency without control ”

“ Whether their proceedings have not made a dangerous encroachment upon the freedom and independency [431] of the British people, as well as brought a lasting dishonour upon the British Parliament?
Whether their daily conduct does not tend, instead of remedying the distractions of a jarring people, to throw them into a continued confusion, and to make resentment and rebellion become habitual to Britain?
Whether there is not reason to expect that we shall soon be deprived of the most valuable right a British subject can enjoy, the right of election? ”

“ Is a palace a perpetual shrine of virtue, or incessantly a tribunal of severity? do not follies predominate in mankind over either virtues or vices? and whoever has been conversant in a Court, does he not know how strongly the cast of it verges towards ridiculous? Besides, I am no historian: I write casual Memoirs; I draw characters; I preserve anecdotes, which my superiors, the historians of Britain, may enchase into their weighty annals, or pass over at their pleasure. ”

“ Lord Ravensworth grew unquiet. Fawcett’s various and uncertain behaviour distressed him: though the world was willing to believe the accused Jacobites, the evidence did not tend to corroborate the opinion: was drinking a treasonable health all the treason committed by men from whom so much danger was apprehended? Were no proofs of disloyalty more recent than of twenty years to be found against men who were supposed involved in the most pernicious measures? ”