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8

Ch. 1.

1753

Chatham's affectation.

CHARACTER OF

and venal age.
But not content with foregoing
official perquisites which would have made his
fortune, and appropriating only the salary which
was his due, he must go down to the House of
Commons and vaunt in tragic style how 'those
hands were clean.' On resigning office after his
first great administration, he could not retire with
his fame, but must convert a situation full of
dignity and interest into a vulgar scene by the
ostentatious sale of his state equipages.

Sometimes, to produce an effect, he would seclude himself from public business, giving rare audience to a colleague, or some dignified emissary of the Court. Then, after due attendance, the doors were thrown open, and the visitor was ushered into a chamber, carefully prepared, where the Great Commoner himself sat with the robe of sickness artfully disposed around him. Occasionally, after a long absence, he would go down to the House in an imposing panoply of gout, make a great speech, and withdraw.

At a later period, he affected almost regal state. His colleagues in office, including members of the great nobility, were expected to wait upon him; at one time he did not even deign to grant them audience, and went so far as to talk of communicating his policy to the House of Commons through a special agent of his own unconnected with the responsible Government. The under-secretaries of his department, men of considerable official position, and sometimes proximate ministers, were

THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

expected to remain standing in his presence. When he went abroad he was attended by a great retinue; when he stopped at an inn he required all the servants of the establishment to wear his livery.

Ch. 1.

1753

reverence for

Yet all this pride tumbled into the dust before Chatham's royalty. His reverence for the sovereign was Royalty. Oriental rather than English. After every allowance for the exaggeration of his style, it is still unpleasant to witness the self-abasement of such a spirit before George the Second and his successor. 'The weight of irremoveable royal displeasure,' said he, 'is a load too great to move under; it must crush any man; it has sunk and broke me. I succumb, and wish for nothing but a decent and innocent retreat." At the time when Pitt indited these shameful words, he was the most considerable man in England, and on the eve of an administration that carried the power and glory of England to a height which it had never approached since the days of the Protector.

If it were just to resolve the character of such a man into detail, it would be easy to collect passages from the life of Chatham which should prove him a time-server, a trimmer, an apostate, a bully, a servile flatterer, an insolent contemner of royalty. All these elements are to be found in the composition, as poisons are to be detected in

e See Addenda D., p. 55.

f Pitt to Lord Hardwicke, April 6, 1754,-Chatham Correspondence.

9

ΙΟ

Ch. 1.

1753

Lord Mans

field.

LORD MANSFIELD.

the finest bodies. But taken as a whole, a candid judgment must pronounce the character of Chatham to be one of striking grandeur, exhibiting many of the noblest qualities of the patriot, the statesman, and the orator.

Last of this distinguished triumvirate was William Murray, memorable, as long as the laws of England shall endure, by the title of Mansfield. He entered Parliament soon after Pitt, with a finished reputation from the other side of Westminster Hall. During the whole of the fourteen years that he passed in the House of Commons he was a law officer of the crown; and, though in that subordinate capacity, so eminent were his parliamentary talents, that the defence of the government principally devolved upon him. This position brought him into frequent conflict with Pitt; and though he yielded, like the rest, to the irresistible ascendancy of the Opposition leader, his concession was that of moral, not of intellectual, inferiority. His eloquence was, indeed, of the most sterling kind; in it knowledge, reasoning, composition, elocution, were combined in harmonious excellence; but it wanted a coarser quality that impetuous earnestness which, whether real or simulated, is requisite for complete success in a popular assembly; accordingly, it attained its serene perfection on the judgment seat, and in the Upper House of Parliament. Still, overborne as he was by the towering genius of his rival, Murray failed not to vindicate his high pretensions; and all men assented to the probability

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

and the propriety of his advancement to the most important office in the State.

Ch. 1.

1753

statesman.

. II

The choice between these eminent persons rested The Duke of chiefly with the Duke of Newcastle, a man whose Newcastle as a absurd manner has exposed him to ridicule, but who really was not the strange compound of knave and fool which his character has been represented. Newcastle was far, indeed, from being a competent minister, but duller men have filled his office both before and since, and obtained a respectable place in history. He was the successor of Walpole in the management of that machinery of corruption by which the government was carried on. Himself a large borough proprietor, he had a principal share in all the traffic for seats in the House of Commons. Reserving to his own management exclusively the distribution of places, and the dispensation of the Secret Service fund, he administered this department with considerable skill and tact. His maxim was to avoid giving offence to, or breaking with, any man, however inconsiderable. Those whom he was unable or unwilling to gratify, he held on by promises or caresses. He evinced a shrewd perception of the characters with which he had to deal. At the time when he was doing everything in his power to supplant Pitt, he affected to carry on a confidential correspondence with him, to whisper state secrets in his ear, to pay the utmost deference to his judgment, and, above all, to ply the king's name-a spell which never failed in its influence upon the Great Commoner. Newcastle is a remark

12.

Ch. 1.

1753

Newcastle's policy.

POLICY OF THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

able instance of the success which usually attends the unwearied pursuit of one object. Without parts or knowledge, or one single quality of a statesman; notoriously false, fickle, and timid; grotesque in deportment, and absurd in speech, this man contrived to outwit his competitors, and to maintain his position at the head of affairs during a long official life. His rank, and lavish expenditure in purchasing boroughs, was, no doubt, a considerable advantage; but he had little other adventitious aid. He was not, as he has been sometimes represented, the head of the Whig party; for that party, since the Revolution, had been broken up into several sections or clans, as they are termed by a contemporary writer of the highest authority; and Newcastle influenced only one, although, perhaps, the largest, of its divisions.

Jealous of power, and conscious, it may be supposed, of intrinsic weakness, it was Newcastle's policy to have no partner in the Government, but to conduct the public business in Parliament by the medium of agents, who, without having access to the Sovereign, or any independent voice in council, should receive their instructions from him alone. While Pelham lived, some such arrangement was practicable; although the Duke's tenacious jealousy had, at one time, nearly caused a rupture between the brothers. The difficulty now was to induce either of the distinguished men who

8 Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs.

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