Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third Volume II Part 12

MR. PITT TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

(Private.) Downing Street, Feb. 15th, 1789.

MY DEAR LORD,

The account received this morning of the step which the Irish House of Commons have taken, has not surprised me; as it seemed before evident that the torrent was too strong to be stemmed by any exertion. Those who at the moment felt it as a triumph, perhaps already begin to repent of it, and will probably have more and more reason to do so every day. It will be abundant satisfaction to you and your friends that you have done everything which depended on you; and in the midst of so much profligacy, that you have experienced such a support as that of Fitzgibbon and a few others, which is in the highest degree honourable and manly.

I am fully aware how delicate your ground has been in all the progress of the business, of which we have hitherto learnt the result; and that it is not less so in what remained relative to the transmission of this strange Address. Whatever you may have decided on the spot will, I dare say, under all the circ.u.mstances, have been right; and in either of the alternatives, you will not want here the most cordial and decided support, whenever the measure comes into discussion. All that I am now writing is, I hope, superfluous; but I could not let the messenger go, without expressing in part the sentiments for which I trust you would at any rate have given me credit.

Believe me, my dear Lord, Sincerely and affectionately yours, W. PITT.

Lord Buckingham, acting on the discretion thus confided to him, resolved to decline accepting or transmitting the Address. This determination, which threw the whole responsibility of the measure upon those with whom it originated, afforded the highest satisfaction in England. Letters from Lord Mornington, Lord Sydney, and others, abound in admiration of the firmness of Lord Buckingham's conduct.

As had been antic.i.p.ated, the Address was voted in both Houses of Parliament, and laid before Lord Buckingham for transmission to His Royal Highness. His Lordship at once declined to receive it; and in a short and explicit answer, rested his refusal on the obligations imposed upon him by his duty and his oath, adding that he did not feel warranted in forwarding to His Royal Highness an Address, purporting to invest him with powers to take upon him the government of the realm before he should be enabled by law to do so. This answer, which had received the full approbation of Mr. Pitt, by whom it had been communicated to the Cabinet, was, as might have been expected, deeply resented by the Opposition, whose hostility to the Government had been all along a.s.suming that shape of combination in which it now appeared without disguise.

Frustrated in their desire of transmitting this Address through the channel of the Lord-Lieutenant, they pa.s.sed a resolution appointing amba.s.sadors of their own to lay it before His Royal Highness. The persons nominated to undertake this extraordinary commission were, the Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Conolly, Mr. O'Neill, Mr.

Ponsonby, and Mr. Stewart. Nor did they stop here. It was necessary to avenge the indignity that had been put upon them; and a resolution, declaring the conduct of Lord Buckingham unwarrantable and unconst.i.tutional, was accordingly moved by Mr. Grattan, and carried.

That a resolution still stronger than this, going to the preposterous length of declaring the commission of the Lord-Lieutenant actually void by the will of the Irish Parliament, was at one moment contemplated, would appear from a pa.s.sage in a letter of Mr. Grenville's, dated the 18th of February.

I am a little alarmed by one part of your letter, in which you talk of a resolution of the two Houses being pa.s.sed for avoiding your commission, and of your resigning the Government in consequence of it to Lords Justices appointed under the Act of last year. I trust, however, that these favourable accounts [of the King's health] will have put this idea out of the question. But if not, for G.o.d's sake consider whether there is any one principle in which you deny the right of the two Houses to appoint a Regent by address, which does not apply equally to prove that they cannot either appoint or remove a Lord-Lieutenant by resolution. I am persuaded, the more I think of it, that it is impossible for you to quit the Government in any other manner, than in consequence of a recal from hence, or a resignation grounded on the removal of the Ministers here, or on the Regent's acceptance of the office, under what you consider an illegal appointment.

Mr. Pitt entirely concurred in these views, and it was resolved that Lord Buckingham should remain in Ireland till he had overcome the confederacy by which the security of the British power in that kingdom was so seriously perilled. In a subsequent letter, Mr. Grenville conveys the a.s.surances of Mr. Pitt's determination to support Lord Buckingham in any measures he should think necessary to the maintenance of the supremacy of the Crown, and the vindication of his conduct in these transactions. One of the measures which was considered indispensable, as marking the sense and upholding the authority of the Government, was the immediate dismissal of all those persons who, holding offices and emoluments under the Crown, had joined in a factious resistance to the policy of Ministers.

I had, yesterday evening, a long conversation with Pitt on the subject of your letter of the 25th. I have already told you that his ideas agree entirely with yours as to the proposition of your remaining in your present situation long enough to complete your victory over this combination, and to establish a Government founded on a better system. We both consider it as a point of absolute necessity and of indispensable duty, that we should resist this profligate conspiracy against the Government of both kingdoms, by every means, and to the last extremity; and we agree in thinking that this battle ought, both for your own credit and for ours, to be fought by you, preferably to any other person. He desires me to say that there cannot be the least hesitation here in adopting any proposal which you may think it right to make on the subject of dismissals, and that his opinion inclines to the immediate removal of all the people whom you have named, on the ground not of their former votes, but of the combination which is now avowed.

The King was now so much better that he was permitted, at his own request, to see the Chancellor, who, however, was prohibited by the medical attendants from talking to His Majesty on business. Even this prohibition was removed in a few days; and Willis considered him so completely recovered that he recommended, as a preliminary experiment to test the state of his mind, that the Chancellor should be authorized to communicate to His Majesty the public events which had occurred during his illness. Of all men that could have been selected for so delicate an affair, Thurlow was, perhaps, the worst qualified; but his relation to the Crown as Chancellor left Ministers no alternative.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, Feb. 19th, 1789.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

The account which you will receive by this post of the King, is as favourable as any of the others. This is now the thirteenth day since Warren thought him so much--

I am agreeably interrupted in my reasoning by the arrival of Pitt, who has seen Willis this morning. His account is, that as far as he is enabled to judge, the King is _now actually well_. That he is not sufficiently acquainted with the sort of effect which the peculiar duties of the King's situation produce upon his mind, to be able to p.r.o.nounce as decidedly with respect to him as he would in other cases; but that in the instance of any common individual, he should not feel the smallest difficulty in p.r.o.nouncing the cure complete, and the patient as capable of attending to his own affairs as he had been before his illness. He added that the keeping back from the King the present situation of public business and the measures which have been taken by Parliament, did him now more harm than good, because it created a degree of anxiety and uneasiness in his mind. He therefore recommended that the Chancellor, whom the King has already seen, and whom he has expressed a wish to see again, might go to him, for the purpose of explaining to him all that has pa.s.sed. You will easily imagine that this will be an anxious trial for us, because if anything can bring back the agitation of his mind, it must be such a recital as Thurlow must have to make. It must, however, be made, and we can do no more than follow the opinion of the physicians, and of Willis in particular, as to the time of making it.

If the experiment succeeds, you need not be told that we shall not feel ourselves disposed, nor indeed at liberty, to give up the King's authority (he being well) into the hands of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and the less so, because we now _know_ that he and his _friends_, as he calls them, have taken the resolution of making the change at all events, and of taking all the offices of the country into their own hands, even (as they express themselves) if they are to hold them only twelve hours.

Certainly, if we looked only to the objects of party, and had nothing more important to attend to than the exposing in their true colours this profligate and unfeeling set of men, we could desire no fairer opportunity of doing it than by showing how much their ambition, or revenge, overbear any other sentiment, when it leads them to overturn the whole Government of their country, and to bring on the confusion which must attend a double change of Government in the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks, merely in order to set the Prince of Wales and Pitt more at variance; for that can be their only object, unless indeed they look to that of drawing the line of separation between His Royal Highness and his father stronger than it was before.

We must not, however, be guided by these considerations. It is impossible not to know and feel how much mischief such a change would produce; and it is our duty to prevent it, both for the sake of the King and of the country. Besides which, there are other reasons which make it impossible that the present measure should go on. We cannot suffer a Bill to proceed which a.s.serts the King's incapacity, at a time when his physicians p.r.o.nounce him to be capable. He cannot pa.s.s such a Bill himself, because the mere act of pa.s.sing it contradicts the averment of the Bill, and shows its provisions to be improper. Still less can the Chancellor, who has had an opportunity of being personally acquainted with the King's actual restoration to perfect health, receive the orders of any other man, or body of men, as to the use of the Great Seal for the purpose of expressing the King's pleasure.

Our idea, in the present situation, is that the House of Lords should adjourn till Monday, in consequence of the Chancellor's communicating to them that the state of His Majesty's health is such as to make it improper for them to proceed. If nothing unfavourable should have occurred by that day, a motion will then be made for an examination of the physicians; and that would be followed by an Address from both Houses, congratulating the King on his recovery. The King would then pa.s.s a Commission for _proroguing_ the Parliament, and another for opening it again, and the business will proceed in the usual form.

I think that your object will be to use every possible endeavour, by all means in your power, debating every question, dividing upon every question, moving adjournment upon adjournment, and every other mode that can be suggested to gain time. I do not know that we can send you any communication from hence of which _you_ can take formal notice by speech or message, till the examinations of the physicians are sent to you, which they shall be instantly on their being made.

But your Ministers, in both Houses, may certainly communicate to them what it has been thought right for the Chancellor to say to-day, and may make similar motions for adjournments; unless, indeed, which I hardly imagine, the whole business is concluded in Ireland before you receive the account of this happy event.

I have great pleasure in thinking upon the disappointment and mortification of those who have deserted you on this occasion. I hope in G.o.d that you will make up your mind to the remaining where you now are long enough to make them feel what they have done, and to show that you are not driven away. After this, we shall probably agree in thinking that the future Government of Ireland may be carried on to more advantage in other hands, because it may possibly become of absolute necessity to receive back some of these rats into favour, and that is not an occupation in which I should like to see you engaged.

Unless I understand from Fremantle that he has any business of yours to do here, I shall desire him to return to you on Tuesday with the examination of the physicians, which will, I hope, be presented on that day, or perhaps I may keep him till the Addresses are carried.

I make you no congratulations on this great event; but it has made a deep impression in my heart, and so I am sure it will in yours.

G.o.d bless you, and believe me ever most affectionately yours,

W. W. G.

Do not say more of the King's situation than Lord Sydney's despatch authorizes, because Willis's name should not be committed after what has pa.s.sed.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, Feb. 20th, 1789.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

The House of Commons met to-day and adjourned to Tuesday, without a word being said, except from Viner, who desired to hear from Pitt an account of the King's real situation. No answer was given, and the House adjourned.

Pitt has seen the Chancellor since his return from Kew to-day. _He, Thurlow_, was with the King to-day for two hours. He did not enter into particulars of what had been done, but only in general terms.

He says that he never saw, at any period, the King more composed, collected, or distinct, and that there was not the least trace or appearance of disorder.

Willis, however, does not allow the cure to be yet quite complete, although he thinks it as nearly so as possible. All the other medical people seem to think him quite well; but Willis's means of information and his experience are so much greater, that we cannot but give entire credit to what he says.

The Chancellor is to be at Kew again on Sunday. I think our present idea is to adjourn the two Houses again from Tuesday to Thursday or Sat.u.r.day. If that is the case, I shall send Fremantle back to you, as he tells me he has nothing to detain him here, and it is very desirable that Bernard should be on the spot soon, to make his bow at Aylesbury.

You must not expect to hear from me on any other subject than the King's recovery; for n.o.body here writes, talks, thinks or dreams of anything else.

Ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.

MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Whitehall, Feb. 21st, 1789.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

I have little to add to Lord Sydney's letter. Your refusal to transmit the Address is generally approved here; and I have the pleasure of seeing daily proofs that the Opposition in this country are ashamed of what they and their friends have done in Ireland.

Your answer, I think, much improved by the transposition, especially as it avoids the necessity of your submitting any advice to His Royal Highness, which might have been said to be an officious interference, as you are not in any situation which calls upon you to advise _him_.

You will hear with as much pleasure as I write it, that the King was not at all agitated by his interview with the Chancellor, and was perfectly composed and collected all yesterday evening. The accounts this morning are as good as can be.

Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Duke of York have been once or twice at Kew, to desire to be admitted _to_ see him, which you will naturally suppose was not permitted. This morning they thought proper to make a formal demand that they should be allowed to see him; or if not, insisting that the physicians should give in writing the reasons for their refusal. In consequence of this, Warren and Gisborne, who were there this morning, sent Willis in to the King, to acquaint him that the two Princes wished to see him. Willis returned with a message to them from the King, thanking them for their inquiries, but wishing to put off the seeing them till he had seen Thurlow again, which he is to do to-morrow. This was reduced to writing, and sent to them; how it will be received I know not, but it has completely defeated the avowed object of the visit, which was to prejudice his mind against the measures which have been taken.

There seems now every reason to hope that by the 6th or 7th of March he will be sufficiently recovered, or rather will have been recovered a sufficient time to make it proper to take his commands for opening the Parliament. If not, you will see by the despatch the nature of the measures which we have in contemplation; and I can have no doubt of your agreeing, that no principle which we have ever maintained would require or even justify us in putting the Prince of Wales in such a situation as to enable him to overturn the whole system of the King's Government, the King being all the while perfectly well, conscious of what is going forward, and restrained from acting himself only by the apprehension of a relapse.