George Grenville

“ Some of Grenville's colleagues, indeed, looked upon his conduct as nothing short of political suicide, notably Sheridan, who is reported to have said that ‘he had known many men knock their heads against a wall, but he had never before heard of any man who collected the bricks and built the very wall with an intention to knock out his own brains against it’ (Lord Colchester, Diary, ii. 109) . In September 1809 an unsuccessful attempt was made to induce Grenville and Grey to join the ministry on the resignation of the Duke of Portland. ”

“ George Grenville saw great promise in North. He even predicted that if he did not relax in his political pursuits he was very likely to become Prime Minister. Unhappily for his country, North did not relax in his political pursuits. There was an ironic fitness in the fact that North should be admired by Grenville and should succeed to Townshend, for no man was better fitted to carry on the fatal policy of the two men who had outraged the American colonies by the Stamp Act and the tax on tea. ”

“ Such were the views of the Duke of Bedford and of the Earl of Hardwicke; but no member of the government held these opinions so strongly as George Grenville, the treasurer of the navy. George Grenville was brother-in-law of Pitt, and had always been reckoned one of Pitt’s personal and political friends. But it is difficult to conceive two men of talents and integrity more utterly unlike each other. Pitt, as his sister often said, knew nothing accurately except Spenser’s Fairy Queen. He had never applied himself steadily to any branch of knowledge. ”

“ Pitt and the King, and the Duke and the King have long conferences every day. What they will do no mortal can tell, but it's supposed that George Grenville and Mr. Pitt are very well together, as Lord Temple has made it up with him, and therefore that they won't come in to turn out Mr. Grenville and the present administration. ”

“ Thomas Pitt came under Grenville's influence at the fiercest moment of this rancour, and seems to have been the only person on record who was fascinated by him. Thomas writes of him with affectionate enthusiasm long after his death, and in his life waged his wars with zeal. One of these led to a quarrel with Horace Walpole, arising out of the dismissal of Conway, which produced a lengthy correspondence, still extant. But to become the disciple of George Grenville it was necessary to abhor William Pitt. Thomas took the test without difficulty, and adhered to it conscientiously. ”

“ His mischievous abilities soon forced him again into employment, which as naturally led him back to his old monarchic principles, to support which, he, so lately a champion of the constitution, was made Attorney-General, and at length Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
George Grenville was the very counterpart of Wedderburne. He was not only educated a Whig, but had leaned to republicanism. Becoming Prime Minister, no man had shown himself more despotic. When overturned by his own violence, he reverted to opposition ”

“ The king made various attempts to induce Pitt to come to his rescue by forming a ministry, but without success, and at last had recourse to the marquis of Rockingham, on whose agreeing to accept office Grenville was dismissed July 1765. He never again held office, and died on the 13th of November 1770. ”

“ George Grenville is minister of the House of Commons. I don't know who will be Speaker. They talk of Prowse, Hussey, Bacon, and even of old Sir John Rushout. Delaval has said an admirable thing: he blames Pitt not as you and I do; but calls him fool; and says, if he had gone into the city, told them he had a poor wife and children unprovided for, and had opened a subscription, he would have got five hundred thousand pounds, instead of three thousand pounds a year. In the mean time the good man has saddled us with a war which we can neither carry on nor carry off. ”

“ Grenville had been driven by a clamour for war to avow their pacific sentiments. Lord Chatham excused his display of our inability by pleading that France and Spain must have known our situation without his avowal of it; but it was an ill-timed modesty in him, who was not ignorant how much haughtiness and defiance from his mouth imposed on both those Courts. There was, in truth, great want of men at this time from many causes. ”

“ Mr. Murray announces The Grenville Papers; being the Private Correspondence of Richard Grenville Earl Temple, his brother George Grenville, their Friends and Contemporaries, as in the press. It will contain some letters from Junius, and Mr. Grenville's Diary, particularly during his premiership, from 1763 to 1765. The fifth and sixth volumes of Lord Mahon's History of England from the Peace of Utrecht are also at press.
Lady Theresa Lewis is nearly ready with a work which cannot but be of great interest. ”

“ He was known to all the leading men in public life as a keen politician and a well-informed man. For many years he was in the closest confidence of George Grenville, to whom he communicated from his house in Parliament Street, Westminster, an abundance of political gossip (Grenville Papers, ii. 133 to end) . ”

“ He has been bled twice or three times; the greatest pains are taken to keep this illness from the public; but my authority is good, and what I can depend upon. He looked very ill when I last saw him, and I think Lord Grenville must have found his appearance much altered. The impression of my mind is that the complaint is in the head. He has been agitated to a degree by the birth of this Clarence child, and by all the difficulties surrounding him; and not less from finding that he has no resource, but must submit to whatever his Ministers may decide as to the Queen. ”

“ The American war—for the management of which the severest reproaches were cast upon the Government—the state of Ireland, and Parliamentary Reform, were the principal public questions that agitated the term of Lord North's Administration. Amongst the Whigs who took a prominent part in these proceedings were the Grenvilles. Connected by marriage with the Pitt family, and distinguished by their own hereditary claims and high talents, they exerted as conspicuous an influence out of office as they had previously done when they had the reins of Government in their hands. ”

“ Conway’s or my own sentiments, Grenville persisted in the interview. I went accordingly to Mr. Thomas Pitt’s. It happened to be the evening of the riot on burning the North Briton. Grenville arrived in the most ridiculous and extraordinary disorder I ever saw. He could scarce articulate for passion. One would have thought the City had been taken by storm and the guards cut to pieces. Yet this was not a panic. It was rage to see authority set at nought while he was minister. His subsequent conduct gave evidence that this was his sensation: no man ever bore power with more pride. ”

“ The excellent effect produced by the presence of the English Militia in Ireland, led Lord Grenville to desire the extension of a service which, in many points of view, was admirably calculated to check the insubordinate temper of the people. The English character offered an example of steadiness and discipline which could hardly fail to make some impression on the disordered masses of the population; while the independence of all local interests and sectarian prejudices displayed by those troops might be reasonably hoped to exercise a beneficial influence on the minds of dispassionate people. ”

“ My mother expects him every hour in London, and before this time I should hope that he had himself waited on you. Once more, my dear Lord, before I close this part of my letter, let me thank you most warmly for this flattering instance of your friendship. Grenville, I hope, has shown you my letter, in which I declare that I would not have asked you for this favour, knowing your inclination to attend to my requests, and apprehending that you might suffer your regard for me to interfere to the prejudice of your Government ”

“ George Grenville defended the former, and himself, and the Lords Egremont and Halifax:—on the latter, to pay his court, he said that libels against Ministers were not to be regarded, but against the King were serious. Dyson, as usual, was shrewd, and, as usual, ill-treated by the Opposition; Colonel Barré, the day before, having baptized him by the name of Mungo, a black slave in a new farce called “The Padlock,” who is described as employed by everybody in all jobs and servile offices. Burke ridiculed the Ministers as he had done the day before with greater316 applause ”

“ George Grenville in behalf of his friend and servant. “Though I am sensible I have no pretensions for asking you a favour, ... yet I flatter myself I shall not be thought quite impertinent in interceding for a person, who I can answer has neither been to blame nor any way deserved punishment, and therefore I think you, Sir, will be ready to save him from prejudice. The person I mean is my deputy, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, who, above five and twenty years ago, was appointed Collector of the Customs in Philadelphia by my father. I hear he is threatened to be turned out. ”

“ I trust the eyes of the nation will soon be opened, as my sorrow may prove fatal to my health if I remain long in this thraldom. I trust you will be steady in your attachment to me, and ready to join other honest men in watching the conduct of this unnatural combination, and I hope many months will not elapse before the Grenvilles, the Pitts, and other men of abilities and character will relieve me from a situation that nothing could have compelled me to submit to, but the supposition that no other means remained of preventing the public finances from being materially affected. ”

“ A majority for the peace had to be insured before the preliminaries came before parliament. Grenville was dissatisfied with some of the articles, and would in any case have been too scrupulous for the work which had to be done. Bute was driven to apply to Henry Fox, whom both the king and he cordially disliked. Fox, who had previously sold his support to Bute at the price of a peerage for his wife, was offered Grenville's place as secretary of state and a peerage for himself, if he would take the management of the commons. "We must," George said, "call in bad men to govern bad men." ”

“ Lord King's conduct is worse than your brother's, who was not at the moment aware of "his honourable friend's" intention, and really does not know the details of your father's conduct as teller. I find from Charles W—— that Lord Grenville is equally outrageous with Lord King. It is evident that the Mountain are moving heaven and earth to lower you and your friends, but it will not do. I dread all the discussions arising from the Catholic question; Canning consulted no one, and I really believe not a soul was aware of his intention previous to his giving the notice. ”

“ No man would have seconded their views with more resolution or a more vindictive spirit. This was well-known to Lord Mansfield, who had constantly aimed at the restitution of Grenville, and whose recent panic had been increased by the prospect of Grenville’s death, having probably been privy to, if not the mediator of, a secret treaty that came out after Grenville expired. ”

“ This letter contains the key to Grenville's foreign policy, and whenever the subject of peace negotiations was brought before the cabinet Grenville was always to be found at the head of the war party in opposition to Pitt.
On 13 Dec. 1791 Grenville was appointed ranger and keeper of St. James's and Hyde parks, a sinecure office, which he afterwards exchanged in February 1794 for the lucrative one of auditor of the exchequer, worth 4,000l. a year. In December 1792 he introduced the Alien Bill for the registration and supervision of all foreigners in the country, and on 24 Jan. ”

“ Grenville’s Cabinet, he had eagerly courted the accession of Mr. Pitt, whose views in many respects differed much from his own, and this was the main ground of his opposition to the Duke of Grafton. His scruples being removed by the retirement of Conway, it was now in his power to give the Government the strength which it so much wanted. This consideration was no doubt strongly urged upon him by Mr. Rigby, Lord Weymouth, and other aspirants to office. It was his nature to love his friends—not wisely, but too well ”

“ The subject of the latter, which was addressed to Lord Wycombe, was the excesses of the military in Ireland.
[245] Lord Minto mentions him in Paris, in a letter dated 1793. ‘Fish Crawfurd, with whom Madame du Deffand, being blind, was in love, was of the party the other day’ (Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot) .
[246] The Right Hon. Thomas Grenville (1755–1846) , second son of George Grenville and brother of Lord Grenville. He was sent on an embassy to Berlin in order to persuade the King to join England against the French. ”

“ Grenville that he saw no reason for proscribing all Lord North's people from office, although he objected to giving them any share in the Government. The meaning of this ingenious distinction is clear. The Administration was tottering, and the only chance they saw of strengthening their position was to buy off the opposition of the followers of the late Cabinet. To swamp their opponents and at the same time keep the actual power in their own hands, was a piece of strategy which might be expected from the general character of Lord Shelburne's tactics. ”

“ The Duke added, his party, Conway and Grenville, would be too strong for Bute. I said, the whole nation united would certainly be too strong for him; but that union would never happen, for there were not places enough to content all. The more his Grace and his friends were averse to Bute, the sooner Grenville would court him: the Tories and the Scotch would always adhere to him. I said at last; “My lord, I will not be unreasonable; offer Grenville to be Paymaster.” Still the Duke reverted to the dismission of some of Bute’s friends. ”