1765.

THE NEGOTIATION WITH PITT FAILS.

179

that Pitt would have been content with the removal of Bute, while the agents of his system were left as before in the full exercise of power.

6

The narrative of this transaction, drawn up by the Duke of Cumberland himself, and lately The negotiation published in the Memoirs of the Marquis broken off. of Rockingham,' is somewhat obscure as to the particular ground upon which the negotiation with Pitt and Temple was finally broken off. The Duke had full authority, and seems to have offered no serious opposition to any of the terms proposed. The only article which seemed to present difficulty was the formation of new foreign alliances; but all that could be required or conceded on this head was that it should be open to the new administration to pursue such a policy. Pitt, in fact, was willing to take office; but Temple had evidently, from the first, determined that the proposed arrangement should not take place and his influence prevailed with his illustrious kinsman. The explanation of Temple's apparent perverseness is to be found in the significant fact that, two days after the Duke of Cumberland announced to the King the unsuccessful result of his commission, a reconciliation took place between

the fear of an adverse vote of the House of Commons which induced the King to consent, at the instance of one of his responsible advisers, to a slight being put upon his mother. But if he could have dismissed the ministry at his pleasure, and commanded the acquiescence of the House, he might have spared himself a degree of anxiety and annoyance far greater than any public measure had yet cost him. So far, however, was he from relying on any illegitimate influence with the Commons, that we find him up to the last moment endeavouring to conciliate Grenville, as the

only channel through which he could hope to guide that assembly.

The great measure of the peace also had been carried, not by secret influence, but by the wellestablished means of bribery and corruption, administered through the agency of one of those party chiefs, whom it was the object of the new Court system to discard. The first real trial of this system seems to have been made on the Rockingham administration, and certainly proved very successful. But it was not until after the election of 1768 that it became completely efficient,

1

180

GOVERNMENT OFFERED TO LYTTELTON. CH. VI.

Grenville and his elder brother. They both, indeed, took the pains to inform their respective friends that this was a family matter, having no connection with politics. But the event had for some time been in contemplation on either side; and it had long been the object of Temple to concentrate political power in the family of Grenville.

The Duke of Cumberland made one more attempt Lord Lyttelton to rescue the King from political duress by sent for, offering the government to Lord Lyttelton, a nobleman known as the early friend and contemporary of Pitt, and with some pretensions to oratory and literature. But Lyttelton prudently shrunk from an eminence to which he was unequal; excusing himself on the ground of his connection with the Grenvilles.

Thus was the King made to feel the vanity of his resistance to party, or rather to the great families to whom political power at this time almost exclusively belonged. In announcing to Grenville his desire that the ministers should resume their duties, His Majesty said that he had not intended to dispense with his services, an assertion which probably obtained as much credit as it deserved. But though Grenville's grumbling, jealous, and quarrelsome temper must have been to the last degree tiresome and provoking, George the Third respected his character, and entertained a high opinion of his talents for administration. Had it not been for his insufferable temper, the King would have preferred the comparative mediocrity of Grenville to the domineering genius of Pitt; and his arrogance, perhaps, was of a less offensive quality than that of the Temples and the Bedfords.

New arrange

On the same day that the reconciliation took place between Temple and his brother, the ministers assembled to consider the terms upon which they should consent to remain in His

ments of the Ministry.

1765.

CONDITIONS PROPOSED BY MINISTERS.

181

Majesty's service. The conditions were soon agreed upon, and are in. remarkable contrast with those which had been named by Pitt, as having none of them any relation to questions of public policy, but bearing in each a personal and vindictive character. The exclusion of Bute from all employment or concern in public affairs was, as usual, the first article of the new treaty. And here, again, it is remarkable that no mention was made of those mysterious men in office, by whose agency at Court, in Parliament, and in society, the Bute system was supposed to have been carried into effect, and the credit of the responsible Government undermined. But it was demanded that Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, a gentleman whose only demerit was his relationship to Lord Bute, should be dismissed from his office of Privy Seal of Scotland. Lord Holland, also, appa

rently to gratify the old enmity of Grenville, was at length to be removed from his post of Paymaster. The Marquis of Granby was named for the command of the army, an appointment intended at once to reward a new adherent, and to retaliate upon the Duke of Cumberland for the part he had lately taken in negotiating the change of ministry. The last condition was the only one which did not contain a proper name; it required that the Government of Ireland should be placed at the disposal of the Ministry, the object being, for obvious reasons, to deprive the Earl of Northumberland of the LordLieutenancy of that kingdom.

The King, after consideration, assented to three. of the stipulations, but objected strongly to the dismissal of Mackenzie, on the ground that he had accepted office on His Majesty's promise that he should not be removed. The answer was, that His Majesty had no right to make such an engagement. The King refused to yield, and Grenville immediately tendered his resignation. His Majesty's reply was

182 THE KING SENDS FOR LORD GRANBY. CH. VI.

full of spirit and good sense. He said that, having recalled the Ministry, he felt bound to comply with their terms. But he desired Grenville distinctly to understand that his royal word had been pledged to Mackenzie, and, if that word was to be broken, the responsibility should rest upon his ministers, and not upon himself. Grenville appears to have been touched with some sense of shame and remorse on this occasion, for he muttered that something might be done for Mr. Mackenzie, upon which the King contemptuously replied that Mackenzie would trouble himself very little about the matter.

With reference to the proposed change in the command of the army, the King sent for Lord Granby, and appealed to his feelings as a soldier and a gentleman, not to lend himself to a slight intended to be put upon one who was entitled to respect, as an old and meritorious officer, if not as the near kinsman of the Sovereign. In the result, this point was ungraciously, if not indecently, compromised, by giving Granby the reversion of the command-in-chief after the Duke of Cumberland, whose life, it was well known, could hardly be prolonged many months. The King made little or no effort to disguise his repugnance to the ministers who had been

Feud between the King and the Ministry.

forced back upon him. Parliament having been prorogued immediately on their resumption of office, His Majesty had no other opportunity of showing his aversion than by disregarding their recommendation of candidates for preferment. A vacancy in the household of the Queen having been occasioned by the appointment of Lord Weymouth to the Vice-Royalty of Ireland, Grenville was desirous of naming his successor, but Her Majesty bestowed the office on the Duke of Ancaster, without consulting the Government. In like manner, a vacant a note to Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 312.

*From Mackenzie's own narrative, Mitchell MSS., quoted in

1765. THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE AT COURT. 183

regiment was given to General Keppel, in preference to Lord Waldegrave, the nominee of the minister, the former being brother to Lord Albemarle, the intimate friend of the Duke of Cumberland. The

youthful Duke of Devonshire was introduced at Court by his uncles, and treated with marked distinction, chiefly, as it would seem, for the purpose of annoying the Government, the House of Cavendish being in opposition.

strates with the

Matters could not remain in this state; the First Lord of the Treasury, indeed, seems at this Bedford remonperiod, when he had some tangible ground King. for complaint, to have laid aside that querulousness with which it had been his practice to weary and torment his royal master. But the proud and irritable spirit of Bedford could not brook the coldness and reserve with which the King treated his ministers. On the 12th of June, three weeks after the reconstruction of the Government, the Duke demanded an audience,* on the occasion of his leaving London; and

* This famous interview seems to have been much misrepresented. The mendacious exaggerations of Walpole and Junius may be at once rejected. But even Burke, with somewhat of the facile credulity of a vulgar political opponent, alludes to 'the report of a gross and brutal treatment of the--by a minister at the same time odious to the people.' Other well-informed writers have given their countenance to these coloured versions. Lord Mahon, always candid and temperate, censures the Duke of Bedford for having used the word 'favourite' in speaking of Lord Bute, and for charging the King with a breach of his promise.

The application of the term 'favourite' would no doubt have been offensive; but it is assumed

that the Duke actually used this word, from the fact of its being found in the private minute which Bedford made of his intended remonstrance. No mention, however, is made of this pointed phrase having been employed, nor of any disrespectful language having been used in the account of the interview given by Sir Gilbert Elliott (probably from the King's own information), nor in the memorandum of the interview in Grenville's diary. The Duke, as a diplomatist and a courtier, was accustomed to measure his words; and therefore was the less likely to be betrayed into a gross impropriety. And as to charging the King with a breach of his promise, that really was the whole gist of the Duke's discourse. Whether it was of an insulting character or not de