Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third Volume I Part 4

I am, My dear brother, Ever yours, N. T.

I am anxious to inform you that the Duke of Richmond has pressed me to take the Secretary of State, as named by all our Whig friends; and I shall accept.[1] This is another reason for wishing you to stay till a few days clear up all our doubts and difficulties, in which I need not say how happy I shall be to see you so, and how cordially I love and esteem you. Adieu, my dear Tom.

[Footnote 1: This first part of the postscript is written in cypher.]

MR. SHERIDAN TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

Thursday, July 4th, 1782.

My Dear Grenville,

Knowing that you very much dislike your situation, I don't know how to call ill news what I am now going to inform you of.

Charles has this day resigned the seals; as he is much engaged, I have undertaken to let you know this event, and make the last exercise of our office the sending a messenger to you, as it would certainly be unfair to lose a single hour in a.s.sisting you in your release. I understand you cannot leave Paris without leave from hence, as you have the King's commission; but by sending this to you directly, it will be in your own hands to require that leave in as peremptory terms as you please.

What relates to Lord Rockingham's death you are informed of. The day before it happened Charles made a question in the Cabinet on the policy of not reserving the Independence of America as a matter of treaty and the price of a peace, but to grant it at once unconditionally; on which he was beat. And immediately on Lord Rockingham's death, Lord Shelburne informs them that he is to be First Lord of the Treasury and the King's Minister, though _against his wish_, &c., &c. They proposed the Duke of Portland, which the King refused; and after a great deal of idle negotiation, in which it was evident there was no power left with our friends, the measure of to-day was determined on. Lord John Cavendish goes out with Charles, Keppel follows; but, to his shame, in my opinion, the _Duke of Richmond_, I believe, will remain. Mr. Pitt joins Shelburne, and will be either Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary of State. For the rest, it is not known whether they will make up out of the old set, or take all new. Conway also will stay. But still, those who go are right; for there is really no other question but whether, having lost their power, they ought to stay and lose their characters.

And so begins a new Opposition; but wofully thinned and disconcerted, I fear. I am sure, however, that you will think what has been done was right. Fitzpatrick is here, but returning to Ireland; where, however, neither he nor the Duke will remain.

I write in great haste, which you must excuse. Yours ever truly, R. B. Sheridan.

What you hear of Cornwallis having lost some transports, is a matter of no magnitude.

MR. FOX TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

Dear Grenville,

You will not wonder at my being hurried too much at this moment to write you a detail of what has happened. I do a.s.sure you that the thing that has given me most concern, is the sort of sc.r.a.pe I have drawn you into; but I think I may depend upon your way of thinking for forgiving me; though to say one can depend upon any man, is a bold word, after what has pa.s.sed within these few days. I am sure, on the other hand, that you may depend upon my eternal grat.i.tude to you for what you have undergone on my account, and that you always must have the greatest share in my friendship and affection. I do not think you will think these [less] valuable than you used to do. I have done right, I am sure I have. The Duke of Richmond thinks very much otherwise, and will do wrong; I cannot help it. I am sure my staying would have been a means of deceiving the public and betraying my party; and these are things not to be done for the sake of any supposed temporary good. I feel that my situation in the country, my power, my popularity, my consequence, nay, my character, are all risked; but I have done right, and therefore in the end it must turn out to have been wise. If this fail me, the pillared firmament is rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble.

Adieu. Your brother disapproves too.

Yours most affectionately, C. J. Fox.

St. James's, July 5th, 1782.

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO MR. FOX.

(Private.)

Paris, July 9th, 1782.

Dear Charles,

You apologize for writing me only a few lines; I shall write you still fewer, and make no apology; for after what has pa.s.sed, I count every minute that the messenger is getting ready to return, as so much time lost, however it is employed. You are sorry you have drawn me into a sc.r.a.pe; I know of none, at least none that an honest man could keep out of, or need be either sorry or ashamed to have got into; neither do I see what you have to regret in any part of this business, farther than the late hour in which it was done. You know my system upon that subject, and how firmly it was my opinion that you should not have lost one moment, to fight the battle with advantage, which, with or without, everybody saw must be to be fought; but, as long as it is fought honourably, it is sure to be successful in the end, for one day or other, right will always come right.

I suppose I need not tell you that I have answered Lord Shelburne's letter by the official information he desires, adding to it "my fixed purpose firmly to decline any farther prosecution of this business, and requesting him, as speedily as may be, to lay before His Majesty, in all duty and humility, my earnest and unalterable prayer that he will be graciously pleased to recal me from the commission I am honoured with at Paris."

I write too to beg my brother to press my immediate return. I see by his letter he knows nothing of what has pa.s.sed. If you would show him my letter to you, at my request, under the strictest confidence, he will be apprized of the true state much sooner than if he waits till I come, when I shall certainly tell him; this, however, is at your own choice, if you had rather wait till I come.

Adieu. Pray thank Sheridan for his letter. I will write the first moment my messenger is gone. Well, what a time to be out of England! _et Montauciel n'y etait pas!_ I don't think I can quite forgive you. No news here. They say they have taken eighteen transports from us, but they are not yet come into Brest.

Yours most affectionately, T. Grenville.

MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE TO LORD TEMPLE.

Paris, July 9th, 1782.

My Dearest Brother,

Your letter was given to me last night, and since I have been able to read I never felt so much agitated. I hastily send back the messenger, but he carries with him a letter to Lord Shelburne, in which I formally request my immediate recal.

My dear brother, you do not know my situation, or you would see in the first instant, as you will so soon as I can speak to you, that if I continued at Paris, I should be the meanest and most contemptible wretch that was ever born into the world; I should falsify my word, I should betray my honour, I should repay the confidence that was reposed in me with the most cowardly treachery, I should disgrace every feeling that is honourable and respectable between man and man. I have no choice; my immediate return is as much a duty and obligation upon me as can in human society be laid upon one who would not renounce the character of a gentleman. Judge, then, of the distressful situation I must have been in at the time of decyphering your last lines, and judge how sacred and indispensable those circ.u.mstances must be, that do not give me even room to hesitate in a difficulty of so much delicacy. I love you, my dearest brother, with the truest and sincerest affection; my pride and ambition are ten-fold more gratified in your situation of life than in any that could be mine; nor, so help me G.o.d! do I think there is an interest, an advantage, present or future, that I would not gladly sacrifice for you, if it could add one step to your greatness; but you love me too well not to shrink at the thought of my disgracing myself, and a fouler disgrace there could not be, than I should inevitably incur by staying at Paris as Minister.

One part of my difficulty you see already; it is that I dare not write even in cypher, what would save me all the embarra.s.sment of this letter, and you the uneasiness of its obscurity, till I see you. My dear brother, reflect, if it is not too late, upon the opinions we have held in common, upon the judgment we have formed in common, of the rect.i.tude and integrity of some men, and the utter and absolute want of it in others. Recollect, if it is possible, the uneasiness that you felt, the doubt that you expressed and I made light of, in the very last conversations we had together. Think over all that might have happened, and be persuaded that all has; think over the most pleasing parts of your last letter, and be persuaded that a few plain words, whenever I see you, will make you blot it out with indignation.

But above all, I do conjure you, in the most solemn terms, to guard against expressing the surmises this letter may suggest to you, and to drop no word of suspicion or jealousy till I see you. The caution of this letter--to which I dare not add a cypher, however it must grieve me to speak to you in the dark--every circ.u.mstance, must show you how deeply my honour, how much more deeply than human wisdom could apprehend, my honour is involved in this business.

One word more, though I think every minute an hour till the messenger is gone. Trust me till you hear me; and above all, if you are applied to persuade me to stay, do not think of so doing; it may make the delay of one post, and that will hurt me; it can do no more.

G.o.d Almighty bless you, my dearest brother; a warmer affection no man can bear you. Think of all my impatience to see you, and do not forget that in pressing my recal, you do me a more essential and honourable service than you know. Once more, G.o.d bless you, my dearest brother.

Before Lord Temple had received this letter he had declined the secretaryship, and accepted the appointment of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, his brother, Mr. William Wyndham Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville) accompanying him as Chief Secretary. In the reply that follows, Lord Temple expresses the profound sorrow he felt at his brother's determination to resign, of which he was confessedly not in a position to form a competent judgment.

LORD TEMPLE TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

Pall Mall, July 12th, Eleven, P.M.

I have received your letter, my dearest brother, which has sensibly--I need not say how sensibly--affected me. My letter to you did not propose to decide upon the propriety of the great question, whether you should or not continue to keep the character in which you are now employed; of that I could be no judge. The total and absolute ignorance in which I have remained, since you left England, of what was pa.s.sing at Paris, and the total want of information of what was pa.s.sing here, so far as concerned your mission, make me wholly incompetent to the question; of that you must be the judge, and I trust and hope that your decision will stand every test. My object was solely to prevent the possibility of your coming away precipitately, and so far my point is gained. I will say nothing of the cruel situation in which I stand; I feel it most bitterly, and feel it the more because my affection to you has no bounds. I am not Secretary at State; but think, my dearest brother, what must have been my feelings, if I had (as was much pressed upon me from every quarter) accepted that department to which your negotiation was more immediately annexed, in confidence that you would have done that for me which you have done for Mr. Fox. If I had listened to that persuasion (and surely my heart might have prompted me to have done so), I might have had the mortification of finding myself in a situation which I can hardly think of without the most violent agitation; the voice of every one had pointed out to me that department; and every reason, public and private, seemed to call me to it. Think this over, my dearest brother, and tell me if the ties of private friendship are such as would have justified you to your own feelings for fixing upon me a disgrace, the extent of which I shudder at.

I know, I feel, that you love me; but, great G.o.d! to what have you exposed me! and, much as you value Mr. Fox, am I to think (good G.o.d! after the uniform affection, which has never felt more truly for you than at this hour) that you trust your honour and reputation in his hands to an extent that knows no bounds; and that the moment which calls upon you to withdraw yourself from your situation, is that which possibly had put your brother in that confidential public situation in which I trusted he had stood with you in private life? I cannot dwell upon this. I would have fought your quarrels, I would have felt with you every reason which may have induced you to urge this recal, possibly very prudently, justly, and honourably; but it was not necessary to convince every member of the Cabinet, that your honour, safe in the hands of Mr. Fox, was not so in mine. Good G.o.d! my dearest brother, loving me as you do, and knowing how I prize and value you, think over this picture of possibilities, and join with me (which is all I will ever say to you on a subject which cuts me to the very heart) in the happiness I feel, that motives, in which I will say that considerations for your credit, your honour, and your ease, were decisive, determined me to reject the first and to accept a second proposition. That die is cast; my opinion, my reputation, and my honour are pledged to it. I will believe, because it is my only joy at such a crisis, that your affections beat as highly to what conduces to my honour and situation as ever I could wish; and tell me, my dearest brother, if the whole tenor and every hour of my life has not proved to you how I valued your confidence, and how truly it would be my pride to consult your advancement; and if in taking this situation I have consulted what was most for the honour and ease of every one of my family, if I have peculiarly consulted the possible delicacy of your situation, and have sacrificed every favourite pa.s.sion of my heart to it, think what my present feelings are, in the uncertainty of the extent of those sacrifices which you may still think yourself obliged to make. The thought, my dearest brother, distracts me; I hint it to you, but I shall not feel a moment's happiness till I see you. My letter is dreadfully incoherent, but it will paint to you the agitation of a mind struggling for its dearest and nearest object--the affection of a brother, whom from my childhood I have pressed nearest to my heart.--I cannot go on.

I called upon Lord Shelburne the moment I had your letter, and saw him soon after. I carefully obeyed _every injunction_, and pressed your immediate recal. He stated the necessity of calling a Cabinet, as he could not take it upon himself, and the King does not return to town till Wednesday. I urged it with every eagerness, and have prevailed that a leave of absence shall be granted to you to come away immediately, and this to prevent public mischief. But it is understood that you resign the commission on your arrival here. I have prevailed that the messenger is to return very early to-morrow morning; and most ardently do I wish to annihilate the next eight tedious days.

Feel for me, my dear brother; consult your reason and your affection, and let me hope that you will feel that satisfaction which every one of my family most earnestly feels at my acceptance of the Lieutenancy of Ireland. You know what follows, and you will have time to think it over; but I conjure you, by everything which you prize nearest and dearest to your heart, by the joy I have ever felt for your welfare, by the interest I have ever taken in your uneasiness, weigh well your determination; it decides upon the complexion of my future hours. I am jealous and nice of your honour more than of my own; but think that I have staked my happiness upon this cast; and may G.o.d direct you, my dearest brother, to the only answer which can convince me that your esteem and affection equals that which I have ever borne you. G.o.d ever bless you.

RESIGNED.

Mr. Fox.

Lord J. Cavendish.

Mr. Burke.

Lord Robert Spencer.

Lord Althorpe.

Lord Dungannon.

Mr. Townshend.

Mr. Montagu.

Mr. Lee.