1763. TO CONSTRUCT A NEW MINISTRY. 119 the Cabinet. The peace itself was not to be broken, but to be ameliorated. The King listened to these imperious demands with apparent acquiescence. He spoke of saving his honour, indeed, and discussed some points of detail, but he suffered Pitt to depart with the belief that no insuperable difficulty was offered to his proposed arrangements. Bute, in the meantime, had begun to falter. Two of his agents, Elliott and Jenkinson, Bute begins to strongly represented to him the danger of falter. the course he was pursuing in letting in the great Whig party, with Pitt at their head. It was better, they urged, to endure the ingratitude and mediocrity of Grenville, and await the chapter of accidents, rather than make the certain sacrifice of power and influence by giving up the King and the Government to the most powerful and capable body of men in the State. Bute hurried to the King, retracted all the counsel he had been giving for months past, and urged His Majesty to dismiss Pitt, and replace his confidence in Grenville. In the morning, the King had been advised to pledge himself to Pitt: a few hours after, he was advised to withdraw from his engagement. Distracted by such vacillation, His Majesty once more sent for Grenville, who found him greatly agitated. In the conversation which ensued, the King disclosed all that had passed between himself and Pitt, declared that he could not submit to the terms on which that statesman insisted, and threw himself upon the mercy of his minister. Grenville, though he had little faith in the professions of his Sovereign, consented to remain in office on the repeated condition that there should be no 'secret influence.' This the King readily promised, and dismissed his minister, with renewed assurances of his undivided confidence and support. Bute was, of course, immediately in- Negotiations with formed of the stipulation upon which Pitt resumed. 120 NEGOTIATIONS FOR CH. IV. Grenville had insisted; and consequently made another effort towards an accommodation with Pitt. Early the next morning, he sent for Beckford, the confidential and devoted friend of Pitt, and proposed, through him, a modification of terms; but Pitt, though willing to reconsider details, would consent to no compromise of the principle he had laid down of taking office only in company with the great Whig families. The King himself was not prompt in coming to an explanation; and whether from a spirit of insincerity towards Pitt, or towards his minister, he proposed, and even pressed, that poor George Grenville' should be included in the new arrangements in his former subordinate office of Paymaster. At length His Majesty brought this shameful scene of dissimulation to a close by declaring that his honour could not admit of Mr. Pitt's propositions. The negotiation with Pitt being finally abandoned, the King and his minister were desirous of strengthening the Government by the accession of the Duke of Bedford. But that nobleman having, on the formation of the Grenville cabinet five months previously, refused to preside at its council-board, because he considered it impossible that such an administration could last,† it was Endeavour to *Grenville mentions, with just indignation, the King's duplicity in continuing to treat, or pretending to treat, with Pitt, after his solemn promises and engagements the night before. Yet Grenville would probably never have known this proof of George the Third's duplicity, had it not been for the treachery or gossip of Elliott, Bute's confidant, who mentioned the fact to him some weeks after. I have taken the account of these transactions from Grenville's own narrative, the Hardwicke, Chatham, and Bedford Correspond ence. In a letter dated April 7, 1763, in answer to one from Bute announcing his resignation, and earnestly entreating the Duke of Bedford to accept office as President of the Council, the Duke says he should deserve to be treated as a madman, should he join an administration which he knew could not last. And he 1763. A NEW MINISTRY. 121 not to be expected that, on the prompt fulfilment of his prediction, he would lend his aid to the re-construction of the Government out of the same frail materials. A shameful mode of overcoming this difficulty was resorted to by the King. In those private audiences with which Mr. Pitt had lately been honoured, the Duke of Bedford had been named by His Majesty as eligible for office. But inasmuch as Pitt had avowed his intention to modify, if not to reverse, the policy of the peace, he did not consider it expedient to act with those statesmen who had taken a leading part in the promotion of that policy; and on that plain ground he had declined to nominate the Duke of Bedford as a member of his cabinet. The King took advantage of what had passed in the confidence of the closet to gain over a public man of great mark, who, but for the means so employed, would certainly not have entered His Majesty's service. The Earl of Sandwich was the fitting instrument employed by the King to communicate to the Duke of Bedford not only the fact of his having been specially excepted by Mr. Pitt from the list of his proposed administration, but the very terms of disparagement in which the exception had been made.* Indignant at what seemed a personal slight, recommends that the Dukes of Newcastle, Devonshire, Grafton, and Lord Hardwicke should be called again into His Majesty's service.--BEDFORD Correspondence, vol. iii. I repeated to him [the King] most of what I had said to your Grace by his order; but, in one point, he set me right, and told me I had not expressed myself strong enough; I had said that Mr. Pitt had insisted that the Duke of Bedford should have no efficient office in his service; but his words were, that he might have no office at all; perhaps some years since he might be admitted to an employment of rank about the Court, but that now no confidence must be shown to those who had been concerned in so disgraceful a measure as the peace.'-Earl of Sandwich to the Duke of Bedford, Sept. 5, 1763.-BEDFORD Correspondence. 122 UNWORTHY CONDUCT OF THE KING. CH. IV. as well as at the apparent ingratitude, if not treachery, of Pitt, who had been sent for at his instance,* Bedford was now easily prevailed upon to Bedford appointed President of the Council. accept the office of President of the Council. Lord Sandwich was made Secretary of State, and Lord Egmont succeeded Sandwich at the head of the Board of Admiralty. Lord Hillsborough was appointed President of the Board of Trade on the resignation of Lord Shelburne. Treacherous King. The King, having thus succeeded in propping up the administration, proceeded by a furconduct of the ther breach of confidence to impair Pitt's means of opposition. His Majesty condescended, either personally or through some sure channel of communication, to inform every gentleman, whose pretensions to employment had been interdicted by Pitt, of the slight which had been put upon him, and even to insinuate the ill-will of that statesman towards individuals of whom he had said little or nothing. All this was faithfully reported to Pitt by Wood, the Under-Secretary of the department which he had lately filled; and though Pitt's letter in reply is unfortunately lost, it would seem from his answer to Lord Hardwicke, who questioned him directly on the subject, that His Majesty's statement of what had passed in the closet relative to the proscriptions, as they were termed, was not strictly true. Pitt, however, appears to have taken no further notice of *Bute had studiously concealed this fact from Pitt. What is certain is, that the King, who had hitherto been so cautious and reserved, spoke openly of Mr. Pitt's conditions, and took pains to inflame the anger of the proscribed. In particular, he told Lord Hertford that Mr. Pitt proscribed several, particularly his friend Lord Powis, had said little of Mr. Legge, and still less of the Duke of Grafton.LORD J. RUSSELL'S Introduct. to 3rd vol. BEDFORD Correspondence. (See also the GRENVILLE Correspondence, to the same effect.) Well might Lord Shelburne congratulate Pitt on the rupture of a negotiation, which carried through the whole of it such shocking marks of insincerity.'CHATHAM Correspondence, from Shelburne to Pitt. 1763. THE BEDFORD ADMINISTRATION 123 the matter. A noble nature is seldom quick in its perceptions of meanness; and the profound loyalty of the Great Commoner could not have resented, even if it had been alive to, the treachery of his Sovereign. The Court were short-sighted indeed, if they calculated upon ruining such a man by such means as they employed. His power was quite independent of party connection, resting entirely upon the public confidence in his integrity, ability, and success. By the strong pressure of public opinion, he had been elevated to supreme authority in spite of parties and the Crown itself; and his last words on quitting the Government, had been to tell the astonished council that he had been called to office by the voice of the people, and that he considered himself accountable to them alone. The administration, as re-constructed, was called by the name of the Duke of Bedford; but Dispute about Grenville jealously insisted on keeping the patronage. direction of affairs in his own hands. Within four days after the new arrangements had been completed, a dispute arose as to the dispensation of patronage. Grenville was unwilling to concede the Duke's claim to a share of what he considered the test of power; and even appealed to the King for support against His Grace's pretensions. A few weeks after, the two Secretaries of State, Halifax and Sandwich, preferred similar claims; the latter especially asserted his right to the same patronage which had been enjoyed by his predecessor, Lord Egremont. Grenville, however, prevailed so far as to retain exclusively the distribution of those offices which were required for the management of the House of Commons. The popular dislike to the new system of Government by courtiers had found vent in a John Wilkes. scurrilous press, the annoyance of which continued unabated by the sham retirement of the minister whose ascendancy had provoked this grievous kind |