Works

Front matter

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.

Contents

PAGB

Introduction, 1

George m., . 9

Introduction

THE affairs of men, the interests and the history of nations, the relative value of institutions as discovered by their actual working, the merits of different systems of policy as tried by their effects, are all very imperfectly examined without a thorough knowledge of the individuals who administered the systems and presided over the management of the public concerns. The history of empires is, indeed, the history of men, not only of the nominal rulers of the people, but of all the leading persons who exerted a sensible influence over the destinies of their fellow-creatures, whether the traces of that influence survived themselves, or, as in the case of lesser minds, their power was confined to their own times.

But,in another view, this kind of inquiry, this species of record, is even more important. Not only the world at large is thus instructed, but the character of statesmen and rulers is improved. Examples are held up ot the faults which they are to avoid, and of the virtues which they are to cultivate. Nor can history ever be the school of potentates, whether on or near the throne, unless the character and the conduct of their predecessors be thoroughly scrutinized. This

VOL. III. b

2 INTRODUCTION.

task has been attempted in the following work, which aspires, therefore, to a higher office than merely amusing the vacant hours of the idle (the hours a little more unemployed than the bulk of their time), and aims at recording, for the warning or for the encouragement of the great, the errors or the wisdom, the vices or the virtues, of their predecessors. It is a wellmeant contribution, of which the merit is very humbly rated by its author, to the fund of Useful Knowledge as applied to the Education of those upon whose information or ignorance the fortunes of mankind in an especial manner depend. But, how moderate soever may be the merits of the contributor, the value of the contribution cannot easily be estimated too highly, if, by only stating the facts with careful accuracy, and drawing the inferences with undeviating candour, those who voluntarily assume the government of nations are taught to regard their duties as paramount to their interests, and made to learn that ignorance of their craft is in their calling criminal, by having placed before their eyes the examples of others — their signal punishment to deter from vice, their glorious reward to stimulate in well-doing. This salutary lesson will be taught if the friends of mankind, the votaries of duty, of peace, of freedom, be held up to veneration, while their enemies, themselves the slaves of ambition or avarice, and who would forge fetters for their fellow-creatures or squander their substance or their blood, are exhibited to the scorn and hatred of after-ages.

The chief objection to such a work, undertaken so soon after the persons whom it undertakes to pourtray have left this earthly scene, arises from the difficulty of preserving strict impartiality in considering their merits. This difficulty is not denied ; its formidable magnitude is not underrated. Even if no human feelings with respect to men, between whom and ourselves there may have existed relations of amity or of hostility, swayed the mind ; yet are we ever prone to

Digitized by LjQOQIC

INTBODUCTION. 3 •

view through a distorting medium those whose principles agreed with or differed from our own upon questions still of daily occurrence — of men, too, whose party connexions united them with classes still in existence and actively engaged in the proceedings of the present day.

But, while this is admitted to render the attempt difficult, it may not be found to make it hopeless. At any rate we are placed in a choice of evils. - A postponement till the day when there should be no possibility of passion or prejudice shading the path of the historian, may extinguish the recollections, also, which alone can rive value to his narrative. The transfer of the work to mere strangers, who can be animated by no feeling of a personal kind, leaves it in hands, if not altogether incapable of performing it satisfactorily, at least incomparably inferior in the power of giving vivid likenesses of contemporary statesmen. At the very least, these portraitures may be regarded as materials for history, if not worthy of being called historical themselves ; and future penmen may work upon them with the benefit of contemporary testimony as to the facts, though free from the bias which may have influenced the conclusions. The author can only affirm, and this he does most conscientiously, thaft he has ever felt under a sacred obligation to pursue the truth of his resemblances without either exaggeration or concealment ; that he has written, or endeavoured to write, as if he had lived in a remote age or country from those whose rulers he has endeavoured to describe ; and that if any prejudices or predilections have operated upon his mind, they have Deen unknown* to himself. He is quite aware that some may consider this as a very equivocal test of his impartiality,, if they do not rather see in it an additional symptom of blind' prepossession. But he thinks the praise bestowed upon Known political adversaries, and the disapproval, admitted to be

4 INTRODUCTION.

just, of conduct frequently held by the party for whose services to the cause of freedom he is most grateful, will be taken as some evidence of general impartiality, though it may not suffice to exempt him from the charge of having sometimes unwarily fallen into the snares that beset the path of whoever would write contemporary annals. We may be permitted to add the valuable and wholly unexceptionable testimony of the surviving friends and partizans of some with whom he widely differed, but to whose merits they allow he has done justice.

No distinguished statesman of George III.'s time has been omitted, except one very eminent person, Lord Shelburne, afterwards Marquess of Lansdowne, to whom, however, occasion has been taken of doing some justice against the invectives of mere party violence and misrepresentation by which he was assailed. The reason of the omission has been of a personal nature. The long and uninterrupted friendship which has prevailed between the writer of these pages and Lord Shelburne's son and representative, both in public and private life, would have made any account of him wear the appearance of a panegyric or a defence of his conduct, rather than a judgment pronounced on its merits. If it should be urged that a similar reason ought to have prevented the appearance of other articles, such as that upon Sir S. Romilly, Mr. Horner, and Lord King, the answer is plain. Personal friendship with those individuals themselves gave him the means of judging for himself, and that friendship was only another consequence of the merits which he was called upon to describe and to extol. But in Lord Shelburne's case, friendship for the son might have been supposed to influence an account of the father, who was personally unknown to the author.

It would be a very great mistake to suppose that there is no higher object in submitting these Sketches to the world than the gratification of curiosity respect*

INTEODUCTION. 5

ing eminent statesmen, or even a more important purpose — the maintenance of a severe standard of taste respecting Oratorical Excellence. The main object in view has been the maintenance of a severe standard of Public Virtue, by constantly painting political profligacy in those hateful colours which are natural to it, though sometimes obscured by the lustre of talents, especially when seen through the false glare shed by success over public crimes. To show mankind who are their real benefactors — to teach them the wisdom of only exalting the friends of peace, of freedom, and of improvement — to warn them against the folly, so pernicious to themselves, of lavishing their applauses upon their worst enemies, those who disturb the tranquillity, assail the liberties, and obstruct the improvement of the world — to reclaim them from the yet worser habit, so nearly akin to vicious indulgence, of palliating cruelty and fraud committed on a large scale, by regarding the success which has attended those foul enormities, or the courage and the address with which they have been perpetrated — these are the views which have guided the pen that has attempted to sketch the History of George III.'s times, by describing the statesmen who flourished in them. With these views a work was begun many years ago, and interrupted by professional avocations — the history of two reigns in our own annals, those of Harry V. and Elizabetn, deemed glorious for the arts of war and of government, commanding largely the admiration of the vulgar, justly famous for the capacity which they displayed, but extolled upon the false assumption that foreign conquest is the chief glory of a nation, and that habitual and dexterous treachery towards all mankind is the first accomplishment of a sovereign. To relate the story of those reigns in the language of which sound reason prescribes the use — to express the scorn of falsehood and the detestation of cruelty which ^the

6 INTRODUCTION.

uncorrupted feelings of oul nature inspire — to call wicked things by their right names, whether done by

imnces and statesmen, or by vulgar and more harmess malefactors — was the plan of that work. Longer experience of the world has only excited a stronger desire to see such lessons inculcated, and to help in tearing off the veil which the folly of mankind throws over the crimes of their rulers. But it was deemed better to direct the attention of the people, in the first instance, to more recent times, better known characters, and more interesting events. In this opinion these Historical Sketches had their origin. Tne other work will probably (at least as regards the author's name) be posthumous; it must, from its nature, be too dull to be patiently borne from a living writer.

It remains to be explained why the Dialogue upon Monarchical and Republican Government was originally omitted in the present publication, after being announced in the advertisement. Beside the inconvenience of increasing its bulk, it would have given the book a controversial aspect, and engendered political animosities, thus impeding the effects intended to be produced by a work avoiding all partial or/ violent discussions. For this reason the appearance of the Dialogue was postponed. It was written many years ago; its doctrines have been destined to receive material confirmation from subsequent events : they are very certain to become at no remote period the prevailing faith of the country. It now appears in the third volume of the Statesmen ; but considerable additions have been made to it, and it bears the date of 1848 instead of 1835. After Lord Spencer's death, M. Arago was asked by letter if he had any objection to be made the speaker in favour of Republick as against Monarchy, such being his decided opinion; it certainly was not Lord Spencer's ; but he had been the interlocutor in the Dialogues on Instinct, and

INTBODUCTION. 7

in all probability, he would not Have objected to the form of the discussion. By a singular accident the letter, dated 28d February, 1848, crossed the telegraphic account of M. Arago being just proclaimed the leading member of the new Republican Government.

But, although this more general discussion had been omitted, constant opportunities were afforded, in the course of these Sketches, for contemplating the comparative vices and advantages of the two forms of Government, — for holding up to Sovereigns the imminent perils into which they rush by setting up their pretensions, and gratifying their caprices, at the expense of their people's rights and interests — for reminding the people of the mischiefs occasioned to themselves oy violent and sudden changes to which the state of society has not been accommodated — for exposing the evil consequences of those abuses to which party connexions are liable — and, above all, for teaching the important duty incumbent on all men, under what Government soever they live, the sacred duty of forming their own opinions upon reflection, nor suffering them to be dictated by others whose object it is to deceive and to betray. In proportion as the People are thus educated and fitted for the task of Self-government, will it be both safe and expedient to entrust them with an increased share of power ; and it would be difficult to fix any bounds to the extent of that share, other than are set to their own improvement in political knowledge and experience^

GEORGE III.

The centre figure round which the others that compose this picture group themselves, and with which they almost all have relations, is that of George III., a prince whose long reign, during by far the most important period in the history of the human race, rendered his character and conduct a matter of thfe deepest interest, not only to the people of his vast dominions, but to all mankind. He presided over the destinies of the British Empire, the only free state in the world, during an age that witnessed the establishment of independence in the new hemisphere, and the extension of liberty over a great portion of the old. He ruled the most enlightened nation of modern times, while civilization, rapidly spreading in all directions, dispelled the remains of feudal darkness in Europe, carried its light over other quarters of the globe, and discovered and cultivated unknown regions. Wherefore, his capacity, whether to appreciate his position, or to aid in the progress of his people and his species, if he should have the wisdom to choose the right path, or to obstruct it, should he erroneously deem resistance the better course, was a matter of the greatest importance both to himself personally, to the order in which his lot was cast, and to the rest of mankind. Unhappily he took the wrong direction ; and, having once taken, persevered in it with the pertinacity that marks little minds of all ranks, but which in royal understandings often amounts to a mental disease.

Of a narrow understanding, which no culture had enlarged ; of an obstinate disposition, which no education, perhaps, could have humanized ; of strong feelings in ordinary things, and a resolute attachment to all his own opinions and predilections, George III. possessed much of the firmness of purpose which, being exhibited by men of contracted mind without any discrimination, and as pertinaciously when they are in the wrong as when they are in the right, lends to their characters an appearance of inflexible consistency, often mistaken for greatness of mind, and not seldom received as a substitute for honesty. In all that related to his kingly office he was the slave of deep-rooted selfishness ; and no feeling of a kindly nature ever was allowed access to his bosom, whenever his power was concerned, either in its maintenance, or in the manner of exercising it. In other respects, he was a man of amiable disposition, and few princes have been more exemplary in their domestic habits, or in the offices of private friendship. But the instant that his prerogative was concerned, or his bigotry interfered with, or his will thwarted, the most unbending pride, the most bitter animosity, the most calculating coldness of heart, the most unforgiving resentment, took possession of his whole breast, and swayed it by turns. The habits of friendship, the ties of blood, the dictates of conscience, the rules of honesty, were alike forgotten ; and the fury of the tvrant, with the resources of a cunning which mental alienation is supposed to whet, were ready to circumvent or to destroy all who interposed an obstacle to the fierceness of unbridled desire. His conduct throughout the American war, and towards the Irish people, has often been cited as illustrative of the dark side of his public character; and his treatment of his eldest son, whom he hated with

GEOEGE III. 11

a hatred scarcely betokening a sound mind, might seem to illustrate the shadier part of his personal disposition; but it was in truth only another part of his public, his professional conduct ; for he had no better reason for this implacable aversion than the jealousy which men have of their successors, and the consciousness that the Prince, who must succeed him, was unlike him, and, being disliked by him, must, during their joint lives, be thrown into the hands of the Whig party, the adversaries he most of all hated and feared.

Although much of the character now portrayed had its origin in natural defect, and part of it in a mind tinged with disease, yet they who had the care of his youth are deeply answerable for the neglect which both added to it many defects, and prevented those of nature from being eradicated or counteracted. His mother, the Dowager Princess, was a woman of neither knowledge, accomplishments, nor abilities; and she confided his education to her friend, Lord Bute. The want of instruction of which George III. could complain must have been great indeed ; for, if any man was little likely to overrate the value of superfluous or extensive information, it was he. Yet a witness, above all suspicion, Sir Herbert Taylor, has recorded that he lamented, while he admitted, his want of education. Can there be a more shameful thins related ? Can any parties, in the station of his royal parent and her favourite, be guilty of a more disgraceful breach of duty than to leave the future monarch of a free and enlightened people without the instruction which all but the lower classes of his subjects give to their children as a matter of course r

Being far from deficient in natural quickness, and the more regularly industrious because of his habitually temperate life, he made himself thoroughly master of all the ordinary details of business ; insomuch, that

12 GEORGE in.

the same high authority has ascribed to him a more thorough knowledge of the duties of each several department in the state than any other man ever possessed ; and this is the testimony of one both singularly accurate in stating facts, and eminently qualified to form such a comparative estimate by his own intimate acquaintance with official details. We must, however, take care not to overrate the difficulty or the value of this acquirement. Kings have a peculiar interest in ascertaining the bounds of each department's duties and rights. They find protection in keeping each within its own limits. Coming, of necessity, into frequent contact with them all, monarchs can easily master the knowledge of their several

Ererogatives and functions ; so that this becomes like eraldry and etiquette, wherein they are all great proficients, emphatically a royal branch of knowledge. No proofs remain, nor has even any assertion been made, that he had any familiarity with the nobler brandies of information connected with state affairs ; the constitution and privileges of parliament; the jurisdiction of Courts ; the principles, nay, even the details of banking, or of trade generally ; the East India or Colonial affairs of his empire ; the interests of foreign countries; the statistics of his own; all of them kinds of knowledge as certainly worthy of

Erinces as they are generally despised by them. That e was a diligent man of business, punctual to his appointments, regular in the distribution of his time, never wanting when his mechanical interposition was required, always ready to continue at work until the affair in hand was despatched, nor ever suffering pleasure or distraction of any kind to interfere with the transaction of the matters belonging to his high station, is as undeniable as that all this might be predicated of one who had the most limited capacity, or the most confined information, and who had little else to recommend Him than the strict sense of his official duties, and the resolution to make everything yield to the discharge of them, those duties being much more of the hand than the head.

But it would be a great mistake to imagine that George IIL's ambition was confined within the range of his abilities. He was impressed with a lofty feeling of his prerogative, and a firm determination to maintain, perhaps extend it. At all events, he was resolved not to be a mere name, or a cipher in public affairs ; and, whether from a sense of the obligations imposed upon him by his station, or from a desire to enjoy all its powers and privileges, he certainly, while his reason remained entire, but especially during the earlier period of his reign, interfered in the affairs of government more than any prince who ever sat upon the throne of this country since our monarchy was distinctly admitted to be a limited one, and its executive functions were distributed among responsible ministers. The correspondence which he carried on with his confidential servants during the ten most critical years of his life lies before us, and it proves that his attention was ever awake to all the occurrences of the government Not a step was taken in foreign, colonial, or domestic affairs, that he did not form his opinion upon it, and exercise his influence over it. The instructions to ambassadors, the orders to governors, the movements of forces, down to the marching of a single battalion, in the districts of this country, the appointments to all offices in church and state, not only the giving away of judgeships, bishoprics, regiments, but the subordinate promotions, lay and clerical ; all these form the topics of his letters ; on all his opinion is pronounced decisively; on all his will is declared peremptorily. In one letter he decides the appointment of a Scotch puisne judge ; in another the march of a troop from Buckinghamshire into Yorkshire ; in a third the nomination to the Deanery of Worcester ; in a fourth he says that, "if Adam, the architect.

14 GEOBGE III.

succeeds Worsley at the Board of Works, he shall think Chambers ill used."*

For the greater affairs of state it is well known how substantially he insisted upon being the King de facto as well as de jure. The American war, the long exclusion of the liberal party, the French Revolution, the Catholic auestion, are aJl sad monuments of his real power. Of all his resolutions on these affairs, the desire to retain America in subjection seems to have been his strongest propensity ; during the whole contest all his opinions, all his feelings, and all his designs, turned upon what he termed the " preservation of the empire." Nor was his rooted prejudice against both the Whigs and the French unconnected with the part they both took in behalf of the colonies. Rather than quit his hold over those provinces and receive the Whigs into his confidence, or do what he called " submitting to be trampled on by his enemies," he at one time threatened to abdicate ; and they who knew him are well aware that he did not threaten without a fixed resolution to act. No less than thrice within four days, in March 1778, did he use this language, in the agony of his mind, at having a junction with the Whig party proposed by his chief minister ; and upon one occasion he says, u If the people will not stand, by me, they shall have another king, for I never will set my hand to what will make me miserable to the last hour of my life." The threat is revived upon the division against Lord North four years afterwards.

That such a sovereign was, for the servants he confided in, the best possible master, may well be supposed. He gave them his entire and hearty support. If he kept a watchful eye over all the proceedings both of parliament and the country ; if we find him one day commenting on the line taken in

* This was in 1777, in the middle of the most anxious moment of the American contest; the letter immediately preceding relates to the sum of affairs.

debate as " dangerous," at another "timid and vacillating," or discussing the composition of the majority or its numbers upon the division, or suggesting that the journey of Mr. Fox to Paris should " make the different departments bring on all their business before he comes back, as we shall have much less noise for the next three weeks ;" or expressing his conviction that " the Speaker's illness is feigned, and all to let the opposition have their pleasure at Newmarket;" he also asks, "Who deserted you last night that you thought you had a right to count upon? Give me their names, that I may mark my sense of their behaviour at the drawing-room to-morrow ;" and again, " If the utmost obsequiousness on my part, at the levee to-day, can gain over Mr. Solicitor-General to your views, it shall not be wanting." This was, indeed, efficiently supporting a favourite ministry; and when he had one forced upon him, his wholei conduct was the reverse ; all his countenance being given to their antagonists, until the moment arrived when he could safely throw them out.

The first impression which such conduct makes is unfavourable to the monarch, and may even

give rise to an opinion that it was unconstitutional, ut further reflection makes this somewhat more than doubtful. The question is, " Does the king of this country hold a real or only a nominal office? Is he merely a form, or is he a substantive power in our mixed and balanced constitution ?" Some maintain, nay, it is a prevailing opinion among certain authorities of no mean rank,« that the sovereign, having chosen his ministers, assigns over to them the whole executive power. They treat him as a kind of trustee for a temporary use, to preserve, as it were, some contingent estate ; or a provisional assignee, to hold the Eroperty of an insolvent for a day, and then divest imself of the estate by assigning it over. They regard the only power really vested in the crown to be the

16 GEOEGE III.

choice of ministers, and even the exercise of this to be controlled by the parliament. They reduce the king more completely to the condition of a state pageant or state cipher than one of Abb£ S&yes's constitutions did, when he proposed to have a Grand Functionary with no power except to give away offices; upon which Napoleon, then first consul, to whom the proposition was tendered, asked if it well became him to be made a " Cochon k l'engrais a la somme de trois millions par an?"* The English animal, according to the Whig doctrine, much more nearly answers this somewhat coarse description ; for the Abba's plan was to give his royal beast a substantial voice in the distribution of all patronage ; while our lion is only to have the sad prerogative of naming whomsoever the parliament chooses, and eating his own mess in quiet..

Now, with all the disposition in the world to desire that Royal prerogative should be restricted, and the will of the nation govern the national affairs, we cannot comprehend this theory of a monarchy. It assigns to the Crown either far too much revenue, or far too little power. To pay a million a-year, or more, for a name, seems absurdly extravagant. To affect living under a kingly government, and yet suffer no kind of kingly power, seems extravagantly absurd. Surely the meaning of having a sovereign is, that his voice should be heard, and his influence felt, in the administration of public affairs. The different orders of the state have a right to look towards that high quarter all in their turn for support when their rights are invaded by one another's encroachments, or to claim the Royal umpirage when their mutual conflicts cannot be settled by mutual concessions ; and unless the whole notion of a mixed monarchy, and a balance of three powers, is a mere fiction and a dream, the royal portion of the composition must be allowed to have some power, to • A hog to be fatted at the rate of £120,000 a-year.

fnoduce some effect upon the quality of the whole. t is not denied that George III. sought to rule too much ; it is not maintained that he had a right to be perpetually sacrificing all other considerations to the preservation or extension of his prerogative. But that he only discharged the duty of his station by thinking for himself, acting according to his conscientious opinions, and using his influence for giving these opinions effect, cannot be denied unless by those who, being averse to monarchy, and yet dreading a commonwealth, would incur all the cost, and all the far worse evils, of a form of government which they think the worst, rather than seek for a better, and would purchase the continuance of f the greatest evils at the highest price, rather than encounter the risk of a change. The example is worthy of imitation in all times, which he set, in refusing to be made a state puppet in his minister's hands, and to let his name be used either by men whom he despised, or for purposes which he disapproved. Nor could any one ever charge him with ruling by favourites ; still less could any one, by pretending to be the people's choice, impose himself on his vigorous understanding. He had. intimate friends, with whom much of his time was passed, but they were under his influence in all things, and influenced him in none. Favour in other