rest of his life, though in office, the mere spectator of others' greatness the mere ghost of his own. On the 12th of December in this year died Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. To the last philosophy was the ornament of his discourses, but ambition the mainspring of his life. Only a few months before he had been secretly mingling with and in some degree directing the cabals of the Prince of Wales, and eagerly planning his own advancement in the peerage. His great anxiety seemed to be that he might die an Earl. Yet in the progress of a painful and at length fatal disease he showed a far higher degree of courage and firmness than might have been expected from a spirit which rested not on hopes of immortality. 66 In the Recess, the Pelham brothers did not relax their hold of power, nor could the Opposition repair its shattered strength. Thus the ensuing Session is styled by a contemporary, perhaps the most unanimous ever "known." The main difficulty was, the Saxon subsidy. By a recent treaty Newcastle had agreed to pay the Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, the annual sum of 32,000l. for four years, all for his vote at the expected election of a King of the Romans. Other treaties of subsidy with Treves, with Cologne, with the Palatine, were clearly seen in prospect. Yet had Pelham, as the elder Horace Walpole ventured to remind him, given a solemn pledge in formerly proposing the Bavarian subsidy that it should be the last of its kind. It seemed strange that the Court of St. James's (let us rather here call it of Hanover) should be far more forward and eager in this cause than the Court of Vienna.† It seemed hard that the ultimate object in question - the security of the Germanic Empire and of the German Princes themselves, could only be obtained by payments and promises to these very German Princes. Hard as it seemed, however, no more than 54 Members of Parliament were found to vote against it. But some expressions that fell in the debate from Pelham should not pass unnoticed.-Arguing in favour of treaties of alliance, he added: "I must declare "that in my opinion it would be impossible for us by our 66 *Tindal's Hist., vol. ix. p. 444. t "The Austrians themselves thought the measure of little consequence." (Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 43.) 1752. MR. ALEXANDER MURRAY. 19 "selves alone to support a war of any continuance against "the united power of France and Spain."* Little did Pelham think that at this very time there sat beside him one, in his own administration, though not deemed worthy of his Cabinet, who would not only brave the combined hostility of France and Spain, but make those haughty powers to quail before the British name. Ancther discreditable business with which the House of Commons became entangled in this Session, as in the last, was not of the Minister's seeking, but of its own. There had been in 1749 a vacancy for Westminster, when Lord Trentham, son of Earl Gower, had accepted a place at the Board of Admiralty, and Sir George Vandeput had opposed his Lordship in his re-election. Trentham had 66 66 been returned, but Vandeput had demanded a scrutiny; when, after much delay and expense, the original decision was confirmed. In the course of these proceedings the High Bailiff, being examined at the Bar of the House, denounced as one of the persons who had obstructed and insulted him in the discharge of his duty the Honourable Alexander Murray. Witnesses were immediately summoned in corroboration of the charge. "I never," writes Dodington, saw an accusation worse supported by any thing but numbers."† But these numbers were forward and eager in their hostility, Mr. Murray's brother, Lord Elibank, being obnoxious to them, as one of the most noted Jacobites in Scotland. They voted that Murray should be confined a close prisoner in Newgate, and should receive his sentence on his knees. Against this last indignity, however, the high spirit of the Scottish gentleman rose. Sir," he answered, "I never kneel "but to God. . . When I have committed a crime I "kneel to God for pardon, but, knowing my own innocence, I can kneel to no one else." + This refusal inflamed to the highest pitch the resentment of his accusers. Even Onslow, the Speaker, who had hitherto seemed inclined to lenient measures, now earnestly exhorted the House to uphold its privileges. Some members even went so far as to propose that Mur* Parl. Hist., vol. xiv. p. 1134. † Diary, February 6. 1751. Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 24. ray should be confined in a dungeon of the Tower called "Little Ease;' ,, so called because it was too small for the prisoner to stand upright or to lie at length. But, Pelham, much to his honour, stood firm against a proposal worthy of a savage people or of the dark ages. It was at length resolved that Murray should go to Newgate under the closest restrictions, debarred from the use of pen, ink, and paper, the attendance of his servant, or the visits of his friends. Only two days after, the House, by one of those sudden whirls to which all popular assemblies are prone, turned to the opposite course of compassion, admitted Murray's plea of sickness, and allowed his friends' visits, with almost every other indulgence. At the close of the Session he was of course, according to law, set free. He passed through the City in triumphal procession, attended by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, and a numerous train of exulting followers. But on the very first day of the next Session, the thirst for punishment burning anew in the House of Commons, a motion for Murray's re-committal was immediately put and carried. It was found, however, that he had withdrawn from the reach of their resentment by retiring beyond sea. And thus ended this ridiculous transaction;- so far, at least, as tyranny can ever be ridiculous. I may observe, in passing, that throughout the reign of George the Second the privileges of the House of Commons flourished in the rankest luxuriance. On one occasion it was voted a breach of privilege to have "killed a great number of rabbits " from the warren of Lord Galway, a member.* Another time, the fish of Mr. Jolliffe were honoured with a like august protection.† The same neverfailing shield of privilege was thrown before the trees of Mr. Hungerford, the coals of Mr. Ward §, and the lead of Sir Robert Grosvenor. The persons of one Member's porter and of another Member's footman were held to be as sacred and inviolable as the persons of the Members themselves. It would be neither * Journals, March 20. 1739. Ibid., April 4. 1744. Ibid., April 2. 1733. † Ibid., March 19. 1753. Ibid., December 13. 1742, and December 10. 1743. See also Mr. Hallam's Constit. Hist., vol. iii. p. 378. ed. 1832. 1752. LEICESTER HOUSE. 21 a brief nor yet a pleasing task to enumerate all the cases of the kind which in that reign the Journals of the House of Commons display. So long as men in authority are enabled to go beyond the law, on the plea of their own dignity and power, the only limit to their encroachments will be that of the public endurance. Yet we may perhaps not unfairly conclude that these cases were in reality less flagrant and oppressive than at first sight they seem to be, since we find that far less apparent grievances have raised a far higher and more general resentment. 66 66 66 The lull of political tempests during this year in Parliament did not extend to Leicester House. The new titular did not well agree with the effective servants; the Earl and Bishop-the Governor and the Preceptor—had soon begun to bicker with the Sub-Governor and the Sub-Preceptor, Scott and Stone. Scott had been appointed before the Prince's death by the late Lord Bolingbroke's influence, and Stone was suspected or at least accused of Jacobite partialities. The Princess Dowager once in a confidential conversation gave her opinion of them all as follows: "Stone is a sensible man, and capable of instructing in things as well as in books. "Lord Harcourt and the Prince agree very well, but I "think that he cannot learn much from his Lordship. Scott, in my judgment, is a very proper Preceptor; but as to the good Bishop he may be, and I suppose he is, a mighty learned man, but he does not seem to me very proper to convey knowledge to children; he has not "that clearness which I think necessary. I do not very "well comprehend him myself; his thoughts seem to be "too many for his words."* These views of Her Royal Highness in favour of Scott and Stone were confirmed by her Secretary, Cresset, a skilful courtier. At length the Earl and Bishop, finding themselves little heeded in the Household, resigned in disgust. As their successors, the King appointed Bishop Thomas of Peterborough, and Earl Waldegrave, the son of the late Ambassador at Paris. Neither much harm nor much good can be said of Thomas. Waldegrave had no oratorical or Parliamen* Dodington's Diary, October 15. 1752. 66 66 tary abilities, but his worth and probity were acknowledged by all his contemporaries, and his Memoirs are still remaining to attest his sense and shrewdness. The hostility of Stone's enemies was only the more inflamed by the steady support of the Princess. Early next year the charge of Jacobite principles was publicly brought against him, including in the charge Murray, the Solicitor General. Both of them, it was alleged, used, as young men, some twenty years before, to meet at supper with one Fawcett, an attorney, and drink the Pretender's health upon their knees. The matter was mentioned in Parliament, and tried by the Privy Council. Fawcett himself, as the accuser, underwent several examinations; in each he gave a different version of his story, and in the last he refused to sign his depositions. On the other hand, Murray and Stone declared their innocence upon their oaths. Thus the Privy Council found no difficulty in deciding and reporting to the King, that the whole charge was malicious and unfounded.* It was no doubt proper to guard against any heretical tenets either of Church or State in the preceptor of the Prince of Wales. Yet there seems something irresistibly ludicrous in the apprehensions then so gravely urged, lest the heir of the House of Hanover should be trained in Jacobite principles. Imagine - as in fact a great modern writer has imagined - some newspaper of that period hinting its fears that "the young King himself might be induced to become one of the Stuarts' faction a catastrophe from which it has hitherto pleased "Heaven to preserve these kingdoms!"† 66 66 Soon after this period, however, all other persons and all other topics at Leicester House were cast into the shade by the rising and gigantic influence of John Stuart, Earl of Bute. Hitherto this nobleman had not enjoyed nor apparently even aimed at― political distinction. In private life he had borne a blameless, cha * Lord Dover very justly observes: "This insignificant and indeed "ridiculous accusation is magnified by Walpole, both in his Letters "and Memoirs, in consequence of the hatred he bore to the persons "accused." Note to the Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, vol. iii. p. 35. † Sir Walter Scott.-Conclusion to Redgauntlet. |