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THE KING'S POLICY.

CH. II.

undisguised reluctance, and dismissed them within the year. And he ever acknowledged, as the most signal service that had been rendered to him during his reign, the devotion of Lord North, in standing by him when the Cabinet was deserted by the Duke of Grafton, and assailed by the whole Whig alliance.

Policy of the
King.

There is no doubt he intrigued against the ministers he abhorred, and that he employed irresponsible agents to communicate with his loyal friends in Parliament, as well as with others who were disposed to his service from less honourable motives. But the deep-laid, complicated scheme of a double cabinet, as described by Burke, would have been unintelligible to the limited and practical understanding of George the Third. If he resorted to mystery and secret influence, it was not for the purpose of setting up a cabinet within a cabinet: but simply to disperse the haughty cabals which had enthralled his predecessors, and to recover what he thought fairly belonged to a king,-the right, namely, of choosing his own servants, and being their master, instead of a puppet in their hands. The double cabinet was a romance which sprang from the imagination of the great Whig orator, and Burke pays far too great a compliment to the capacity of the King's 'Friends,' when he attributes to them a design of such admirable order and consistency as that which he describes in the Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents.'

Bute.

6

Neither was the conduct of the Earl of Bute, the Conduct of Lord reputed author and manager of this abstruse policy, consistent with the part attributed to him. Instead of keeping in the background, and retaining the direction of that secret interior cabinet, in which alone real power was to reside, he put himself forward with intemperate haste as a candidate for that exposed and prominent post

1760.

LORD BUTE'S SYSTEM UNPOPULAR.

55

which is the object of a statesman's legitimate ambition. He was sworn of the Privy Council the day after the King's accession. At the first opportunity, he became Secretary of State; and a few months later, he assumed the name and office of First Minister. All this time his language and conduct were those of a High Tory. So far from seeking to dissemble his master's views, he astonished and alarmed the Duke of Newcastle by quoting the King's personal pleasure as a reason for everything that was done or ordered to be done. He named the Court candidates at the general election; and rated the First Lord of the Admiralty for having presumed to dispose of the Admiralty boroughs without the King's express directions. All this might be arrogant and unconstitutional, but nothing surely could be farther removed from subtle intrigue and clandestine management.

ment of Bute.

Bute and his system were unpopular; the vulgar clamour, however, was raised, not against The King's treatthe unconstitutional chief of a dark cabal, but against the upstart Scot, the favourite, the minion of the Princess-mother. Yet the scandal implied by the latter epithet appears to have had no other foundation than the fact, that Bute had been for many years the confidential friend of the Princess, and the chief officer of her household. Neither was Bute a favourite in the sense in which Gaveston and Carr and Villiers were favourites; although the jealousy and rage of faction did not hesitate to countenance such a prejudice. The King had, from his earliest years, been taught that his first duty as a sovereign was to cast off the thraldom in which his grandfather had been held by political combinations. Bute had no doubt inculcated this precept; and it was almost a matter of course that the chief political instructor

* Dodington's Diary.

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LORD BUTE'S ANTECEDENTS.

CH. II.

of George the Third should be the minister on whose counsel and aid he first relied in bringing the new system of government into operation. To this extent Lord Bute enjoyed favour and credit; but when he proved incompetent for the task he had undertaken, the King cast him aside and sought for abler services. It is now well ascertained that, instead of being the ruling genius of a court cabal for years subsequent to his retirement from office, Bute had scarcely any communication with the court after that period, and complained, not without reason, of the King's neglect and ingratitude.

with Scotland.

His birth, indeed, could not be denied; and was, His connection perhaps, a more serious offence than his supposed favour with the King or the Princess. Twice during the century, almost during an existing generation, had the countrymen of Bute risen in arms against England, and menaced the capital itself with an irruption of barbarians. Nor was the misfortune of his birth redeemed by personal merit. The Earl of Bute had passed some of the best years of his life in domestic retirement, and in a remote part of these islands. In 1750, he was appointed to the household of the Prince of Wales; and, after Frederick's death, he continued in the service, and rose high in the confidence of the Princess. He was the channel of communication between Leicester House and the eminent public men with whom it was the interest of that little court to maintain friendly relations; but with none of whom does it appear that he obtained credit for any political capacity. Lord Bute had once, for a short time-soon after he became of age-filled an accidental vacancy in the representation of the Peers of Scotland. Since that period he had not sat in Parliament. At the dissolution, which necessarily ensued on the demise of the Crown, he was again returned to the House of Lords as a represen

1760.

CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY.

57

tative peer, and took his seat in that assembly where he had never uttered a word, and of which he had little or no experience, virtually, as Prime Minister. Such a position was of itself unprecedented., Good sense, under these circumstances, would have dictated the plainest, most unassuming style of ora- Lord Bute as an tory in transacting the public business. orator.

Bute, however, affected a solemn, sententious elocution, than which nothing could be more foreign to the tone and taste of an English Parliament. A knowledge of affairs would nevertheless have overcome even this formidable disadvantage. But his matter was as jejune, as his manner was ridiculous. The process of reducing an able and powerful cabinet to a junto of loyal and subservient placemen was thus commenced.

No change of importance was made before the dissolution of Parliament in the ensuing spring. Changes in the Legge, the most experienced financier of Ministry. the day, was then dismissed; and Lord Barrington, who had no other pretension to the office than devotion to the King, succeeded him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Charles Townshend, a man of brilliant parts, but whose habitual levity of conduct, and want of judgment, seemed to exemplify the favourite maxim of office politicians, that men of genius are unfitted for business, was appointed Secretary-atWar. Bute himself, long intent upon high office, became Secretary of State in the room of Lord Holdernesse, whom he had induced to resign by the offer of a rich sinecure.

Pitt was not dismissed, but his power was at an end. Even on the first day of the new reign, he was kept waiting two hours before the King admitted him to an audience. He afterwards had an interview with Bute, who offered him his protection; but Pitt plainly intimated, though with profuse expressions of loyalty, that he would be satisfied with nothing less than the entire direction of the war; and

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CH. II.

they parted with mutual reserve and distrust.* The great minister, however, determined not to give the Court the advantage by a precipitate resignation, awaited the event with dignity and temper. He was not kept long in doubt as to the policy of the new Peace policy of system. Bute, with a portentous ignothe Earl of Bute. rance of public opinion, fancied that he should win popularity to the side of the Court by putting a summary period to the war, and was only afraid lest Pitt, or some other statesman, should anticipate him in this master-stroke of policy.

So eager was he to effect this object, that in the The royal speech speech to be delivered by the King to the to the Council. Privy Council, on his accession, and which was framed by Bute alone, without consulting any of the responsible advisers of the Crown, the war was referred to as 'a bloody and expensive war,' speedily to terminate in an honourable and lasting peace.' Such were the terms in which the Groom of the Stole thought fit to speak of that great struggle, which had raised the country from a state of dejection at once perilous and despicable to a position of honour and safety. And it was not without the greatest difficulty that Pitt himself, to whom it properly belonged to frame that portion of the speech which related to the war, could prevail upon the courtier to consent to a decent modification of it in the printed report.†

Pitt was not perversely opposed to peace; but the peace which he sought was something more than a mere hasty cessation of hostilities. It was not enough for him that his country was no longer in danger of insult. He thought that England was in a position to circumscribe the power of that ancient

* Lord J. Russell's Introduction to vol. iii. of Bedford Correspondence.

The words, as altered by

Pitt, were 'an expensive but just and necessary war,' and a 'peace in concert with our allies.'