Horace Walpole

“ That he did not wonder Pitt expected everything from this Administration—but he expected more. That though the censure had been so unjust, he could not help knowing at whom it was aimed: but great history-painters are often very bad portrait-painters: he must own he knew who was meant; professed himself a friend to that great man: vowed he never heard any doubt of who ought to be First Minister—but, like the dedication of the Tale of the Tub to Lord Somers, all men agreed in the Duke of Newcastle. France never made so pitiful a figure as against this Administration. ”

“ He is not beloved nor respected. His never heading his Army, and his precipitate flight from Dresden at the King of Prussia’s approach, did him more injury in the minds of the Saxons, than he will ever be able to retrieve.
Her Majesty the Queen is very devout, but not a bit the better for her devotions: she does nothing but commit small sins, and beg forgiveness for them. She is ugly beyond painting, and malicious beyond expression. Her violent hatred to the Empress-Queen, and her great love to all her enemies, make me rejoice that she has not the least influence at this Court. ”

“ I could not conceive, how men could acquit honourably and condemn to death with the same breath! How men could feel so much, and be so insensible at the same instant; and from the prejudice of education which had told me that the law of England understood that its ministers of Justice should always be Counsel for the prisoner, I could not comprehend how the members of the Court-Martial came to think that a small corner of a law ought to preponderate for rigour, against a whole body of the same law which they understood directed them to mercy ”

“ On the next affair, though of very little importance, seven tedious days were wasted in the House of Commons, besides a Debate in the Lords. Like other fuel for Opposition, the subject, when it had once passed into a Bill, was never remembered more. Every topic is treated in Parliament as if the liberty and fate of the country depended upon it: and even this solemnity, often vented on trifles, has its use. The certainty of discussion keeps Administration in awe, and preserves awake the attention of the representatives of the people. ”

“ It was the year in turn for the King to go to Hanover. The French armaments, the defenceless state of the kingdom, the doubtful faith of the King of Prussia, and, above all, the age of the King, and the youth of his heir at so critical a conjuncture, everything pleaded against so rash a journey. ”

“ It has often been remarked that whoever dies in public, dies well. Perhaps those, who, trembling most, maintain a dignity in their fate, are the bravest: resolution on reflection is real courage. It is less condemnable, than a melancholy vain-glory, when some men are ostentatious at their death. But surely a man who can adjust the circumstances of his execution beforehand; who can say, “Thus I will do, and thus;” who can sustain the determined part, and throws in no unnecessary pomp, that man does not fear—can it be probable he ever did fear? I say nothing of Mr. Byng’s duels ”

“ Did Ministers dare to avow that they made representations of the speeches of particular men? Indeed, it had now been done for a laudable purpose; but by the same rule might be practised for a bad one; and on no account must be suffered to strengthen into a precedent. He desired to be showed one instance since the reign of James the First, where the privileges of Parliament had been so sported with.
Pitt replied with great indignation, that the time had been too pressing to consult precedents. He had not thought the life of a man was to be trifled with while clerks were searching records. ”

“ Charles Townshend spoke severely and admirably on the long acquiescence of the Administration under the insults of France, and on the similar acquiescence of Parliament; yet, he said, he could not discover whether the Ministers intended peace or war. If war, was it wrong to defend ourselves? If peace, as he believed,—if they could get it—did they mean to command or to supplicate it?—did they mean to make the Navy as useless as the Army? What a situation! Administration weakening Government, and Opposition supporting it! ”

“ Murray, indeed, had vaunted that 140,000 of the best troops in Europe were provided for the defence of Hanover—who boasts of what numbers are prepared for England? for America? Compare the countries, compare the forces that are destined for the defence of each! Two miserable battalions of Irish, who scarce ever saw one another, had been sent to America, had been sent to be sacrificed—if this parallel was exaggerated, he desired to be made happy by being told so. ”

“ Oswald hurried argument along with him; Doddington teased it to accompany him. Sir George Lyttelton and Legge were as opposite in their manners; the latter concise and pointed; the former, diffuse and majestic. Legge’s speeches seemed the heads of chapters to Sir George Lyttelton’s dissertations. Lord Duplin aimed at nothing but understanding business and explaining it. Sir Francis Dashwood, who loved to know, and who cultivated a roughness of speech, affected to know no more than what he had learned from an unadorned understanding. ”

“ The neglect looked wilful, and as if they hoped that trade would call out for peace, and that Minorca to be regained would be a screen for compounding for America,—but,” continued he, “I don’t call this an Administration, it is so unsteady. One is at the head of the Treasury; one, Chancellor; one, head of the Navy; one great person, of the Army—yet, is that an Administration? They shift and shuffle the charge from one to another: says one, I am not General; the Treasury says, I am not Admiral; the Admiralty says, I am not Minister. ”

“ What an inglorious picture for this country, to figure gentlemen driven by an invasion like a flock of sheep, and forced to send their money abroad to buy courage and defence! If this scheme should prove oppressive, provincially or parochially, he was willing to give it up: but how preferable to waiting to see if the wind would blow you subsidiary troops! You would never want them again—they are an eye-sore! He praised the Army and its constitutional inclinations; and observed what stability a Militia would give to our system. ”

“ The Court-Martial indeed did at last perceive that they might have been mistaken. Were he in their place, he should not have waited for a Bill—he should have thought a life was to be saved at any rate.
Legge declared himself free from any bias one way or other. Had Mr. Byng been found guilty, nobody would be more ready to condemn him: but it appeared that he was only a sacrifice to discipline; and we must not imagine that we should draw down blessings on our Fleets by human sacrifices. ”

“ But if this traffic for a partial revolution in a system, still upheld, was scandalously inglorious, at least it called forth a display of abilities that revived the lustre of the House of Commons, and in the point of eloquence carried it to a height it perhaps had never known. After so long a dose of genius, there at once appeared near thirty men, of whom one was undoubtedly a real orator, a few were most masterly, many very able, not one was a despicable speaker. ”

“ We are all united with regard to the principle. If he thought that these last seven years had united Scotland, he would not give a day more to this suspension. Would not have it thought that this Act is ever to be renewed; but when this additional term shall be expired, that the Sheriffs-depute are to be for life. Would say with that great man, Lord Somers, what I cannot have to-day I will be contented to have to-morrow. The people of Scotland are within our patronage; it is generous to make no distinction between them and our countrymen. ”

“ Even if successful, the popularity of Pitt would ravish half his laurels; should he miscarry, his misfortunes would all be imputed to himself. Fox snatched at this dilemma: he knew the King would pay any price to rescue Hanover, and suggested to the Duke to demand as a previous condition the dismission of Pitt;—could his Majesty hesitate between an unwelcome servant and a favourite dominion? ”

“ The Ministers bragged of unanimity, of activity, of spirit—what had all this harmony of councils and talents operated? safety? are we safe? damage to the enemy? let them show when and where. With this universal ay, all our outlying parts are exposed. But he, alas! had no particular joy on being so strong on this question: he did not want to load unhappy men who had undone their country; men most unhappy, if they did not feel it. We were told that there was no option but between this country and America and the Mediterranean—so this great country could neither provide for defence nor offence! ”

“ Pitt’s proposal of more seamen was unnecessary; “do not all estimates come from the Crown? The Ministers must know what supplies they shall want, and what to demand; invectives to be slighted—how great the power of eloquence that could dress up the want of 2000 men, in 1751, into the source of the war!—that there never was an honester man than the Minister who determined that reduction; thought he had died in friendship with that gentleman.” Pitt could not stand this severe reflection, but interrupted him to say, his friendship for Mr. Pelham had been as real as Murray’s. ”

“ Yet the very establishment of an Army inspired many with wishes for a more constitutional defence. Oppositions, from the very spirit of party, had frequently attempted a revival of the Militia. Opposition to the Duke, who had drawn his notions of war from the purest German classics, prompted his enemies to promote whatever he would dislike. Foreign forces introduced to save a country like this, made it shameful not to listen to any expedient that could place defence in the hands of the natives. ”

“ If a gentleman, with virtue unparalleled, offered anything for his country, he was to be removed, as if whoever would strengthen Government was obnoxious to it. What would the people think if our Ministers professed being alarmed, and yet refused to accept support? Could it be supposed that France was still to receive her first impression of our warlike disposition from leave that the House might give for a Bill that was to be brought in, [81] that should say, that if there shall be a war, and we shall make any prizes, we would then divide them amongst the captors? ”

“ These uninteresting discourses served to heighten what wanted no foil, Pitt’s ensuing oration. How his eloquence, like a torrent long obstructed, burst forth with more commanding impetuosity! He and Legge opened their new opposition in the very spirit of their different characters. The one, humble, artful, affecting moderation, gliding to revenge; the other, haughty, defiant, and conscious of injury, and supreme abilities. ”

“ Charles Townshend had such openness in all his behaviour, that he seemed to think duplicity the simplest conduct: he made the innocence of others look like art. But what superiority does integrity contract, when even uniformity of acting could exalt so many men above the most conspicuous talents that appeared in so rhetorical [148] an age! Mr. Townshend was perhaps the only man who had ever genius enough to preserve reason and argument in a torrent of epigrams, satire, and antithesis!
The other parliamentary chiefs were as variously distinguished by their abilities. ”

“ One [11] had argued so strangely, as if we were to turn our eyes to these mercenaries as a reserve, if our navies should be defeated—what! must we drain our last vital drop, and send it to the North Pole! If you would traffic for succours with the Czarina, why, rather than her troops, did not you hire twenty of her ships?—he would say why? because ships could not be applied to Hanover. In the reign of Charles the Second, what efforts were made to procure fleets from Sweden and Denmark! Now, the natural system of Europe was lost! ”

“ I try to make my people at Hanover as happy as I can, and they deserve it of me.”
Young Hamilton pursued the argument on the Act of Settlement with great ability, and urged, that not to deviate from it would be to defeat it; the chief end of it had been to prevent men unconversant with our country and laws from having the administration of them; but now it was alleged to hinder the service of another country, America. Foreigners there had only become soldiers, because they no longer could be planters; yet gentlemen seemed to turn their eyes from existing dangers to imaginary. ”

“ Fox said, he was surprised that such a trifle as the reduction of 2000 seamen in 1751 should be made of such moment. So, not voting 2000 more, in a year after the war, was betraying this country! If voting one man more would raise one man, he would agree to it: but voting more, if they could not be raised, would only increase expense. That this number was greater than we had ever had on foot, even in declared wars against France and Spain. That he would never hear Mr. Pelham’s measures censured without defending them. ”

“ In the year 1745, Bruhl had made a partition-treaty with the Empress-queen, by which part of the King of Prussia’s dominions were to be allotted to Saxony. That treaty had produced nothing but the seizure of Dresden by Frederic. He palliated the violent possession he had taken of Silesia, to which he thought he had a right, by the moderation with which he restored Saxony, to which he had no title but provocation. Yet Augustus had scarce sworn to the articles of a peace by which he recovered his dominions, before he was tempted to a violation of them by the Court of Vienna. ”

“ His father had been the first Scot who ever pleaded at the English bar, and, as it was said of him, should have been the last; the son had much more parts. The only impediment to the new accommodation was no obstruction; Sir Thomas Robinson cheerfully gave up the Seals, with more grace from the sense of his unfitness, than from the exorbitant indemnification he demanded. “He knew,” he said, “a year and a half before, why he was selected for that office; for the business of it, he had executed it to the best of his abilities; for the House of Commons he had never pretended capacity.” ”

“ I have never known but two or three men in it who understood foreign affairs: you do not study them—and yet here comes one man (Pitt) , and says he has not so much as read Wicquefort, has all to learn, and demands to be Secretary of State! Indeed, he has proposed Sir Thomas Robinson too, who does understand foreign affairs, but then Mr. Pitt insists on taking the province which Sir Thomas understands.” In the same conversation the King said, “The Duke of Newcastle is an honest man and loves the Duke of Devonshire, but he will be jealous of him to-morrow, if the latter takes the Treasury.” ”

“ Stone, cold and never sanguine, advised Newcastle to give up a desperate game: Murray threw in censures on his conduct to Fox: the Duke of Grafton, though hating Fox, wisely suggested a reconciliation with him: the Chancellor, sullen and mortified, protested he would follow his Grace, but endeavoured to encourage him [261] to stand alone, affirming they could carry everything by their numbers; and having ever been ready to torture the law to annoy his enemies, he could not help expecting to find the same support from it for himself and his friends. ”

“ The person at the head of the Treasury is always so of the Administration; if he is not an able man, how can we go on? The city said, Minorca was betrayed—I tell them, said he, they don’t know the disability of the Administration. When we seized the ships of France, did we imagine they would not revenge themselves? Are we more secure in America for this neglect of the Mediterranean? No. In the month of May you have prepared but two regiments, and they are not gone. The French have sent two thousand five hundred men to the West Indies;—twelve sail would have saved Minorca. ”

“ The Duke of Devonshire said, with great decency, he hoped that was not the case; he hoped they were met to prevent such a rupture. “Oh! yes,” replied Lord Granville, “it must happen; the Prince has declared he will [223] use ill all that shall be placed about him; and though young Lords will ambition the situation, they will not endure to be treated like footmen: the King will treat Lord Bute like a footman; and then he will make the Prince use the others in the same manner. This family always has and will quarrel from generation to generation.” ”

“ All discussion of the neglects in America, so extensive, so numerous, and so easily to be proved, were cautiously avoided. Indication sufficient, that the late Ministers had left no evidence against themselves, was, that in a Parliament constituted almost entirely of their friends, not a single objection was made by any of their dependents against the scrutiny into their conduct. The most upright Ministers had never met popular attacks with indifference—were Newcastle, Anson, Fox, more bold, or more innocent, than any of their predecessors? ”

“ The King of Poland most ardently desires to see a peace made. He loves peace so much, that I believe he is not much concerned about what sort of a one it may be; but till that happy hour arrives, their system here (if they have any system) is to observe an impracticable neutrality; and by the fear they have of offending anybody (which is the natural consequence of such a system) , they take care to oblige nobody. The Court of Vienna is very much dissatisfied with their proceedings at Dresden; but the Ministry of Versailles are often full as discontented with the steps they take. ”