Volume I Part 3 (1/2)
So I have given you a sketch of our employments, and answered your questions, and will with pleasure as many more as you have about you.
Adieu! Was ever such a long letter? But 'tis nothing to what I shall have to say to you. I shall scold you for never telling us any news, public or private, no deaths, marriages, or mishaps; no account of new books: Oh, you are abominable! I could find it in my heart to hate you, if I did not love you so well; but we will quarrel now, that we may be the better friends when we meet: there is no danger of that, is there?
Good-night, whether friend or foe! I am most sincerely
Yours.
_DEBATE ON PULTENEY'S MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE ON PAPERS RELATING TO THE WAR--SPEECHES OF PULTENEY, PITT, SIR R. WALPOLE, SIR W. GEORGE, ETC.--SMALLNESS OF THE MINISTERIAL MAJORITY._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.[1]
[Footnote 1: Sir H. Mann was an early friend of Walpole; and was Minister at Florence from 1740-1786.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR HORACE MANN.]
_Friday, Jan._ 22, 1742.
Don't wonder that I missed writing to you yesterday, my constant day: you will pity me when you hear that I was shut up in the House of Commons till one in the morning. I came away more dead than alive, and was forced to leave Sir R. at supper with my brothers: he was all alive and in spirits.[1] He says he is younger than me, and indeed I think so, in spite of his forty years more. My head aches to-night, but we rose early; and if I don't write to-night, when shall I find a moment to spare? Now you want to know what we did last night; stay, I will tell you presently in its place: it was well, and of infinite consequence--so far I tell you now.
[Footnote 1: Sir Robert Wilmot also, in a letter to the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, written on the 12th, says, ”Sir Robert was to-day observed to be more naturally gay and full of spirits than he has been for some time past.”]
Our recess finished last Monday, and never at school did I enjoy holidays so much--but, _les voila finis jusqu'au printems_! Tuesday (for you see I write you an absolute journal) we sat on a Scotch election, a double return; their man was Hume Campbell[1], Lord Marchmont's brother, lately made solicitor to the Prince, for being as troublesome, as violent, and almost as able as his brother. They made a great point of it, and gained so many of our votes, that at ten at night we were forced to give it up without dividing. Sandys, who loves persecution, _even unto death_, moved to punish the sheriff; and as we dared not divide, they ordered him into custody, where by this time, I suppose, Sandys has eaten him.
[Footnote 1: Hume Campbell, twin brother of Hugh, third Earl of Marchmont, the friend of Pope, and one of his executors. They were sons of Alexander, the second earl, who had quarrelled with Sir Robert Walpole at the time of the excise scheme in 1733. Sir Robert, in consequence, prevented him from being re-elected one of the sixteen representative Scotch peers in 1734; in requital for which, the old earl's two sons became the bitterest opponents of the minister. They were both men of considerable talents; extremely similar in their characters and dispositions, and so much so in their outward appearance, that it was very difficult to know them apart.]
On Wednesday Sir Robert G.o.dschall, the Lord Mayor, presented the Merchant's pet.i.tion, signed by three hundred of them, and drawn up by _Leonidas_ Glover.[1] This is to be heard next Wednesday. This gold-chain came into parliament, cried up for his parts, but proves so dull, one would think he chewed opium. Earle says, ”I have heard an oyster speak as well twenty times.”...
[Footnote 1: Mr. Glover, a London merchant, was the author of a poem ent.i.tled ”Leonidas”; of a tragedy, ”Boadicea”; and of the ode on ”Admiral Hosier's Ghost,” which is mentioned in the letter to Conway at p. 23.]
On this Thursday, of which I was telling you, at three o'clock, Mr.
Pulteney rose up, and moved for a secret committee of twenty-one. This inquisition, this council of ten, was to sit and examine whatever persons and papers they should please, and to meet when and where they pleased. He protested much on its not being intended against _any person_, but merely to give the King advice, and on this foot they fought it till ten at night, when Lord Perceval blundered out what they had been cloaking with so much art, and declared that he should vote for it as a committee of accusation. Sir Robert immediately rose, and protested that he should not have spoken, but for what he had heard last; but that now, he must take it to himself. He pourtrayed the malice of the Opposition, who, for twenty years, had not been able to touch him, and were now reduced to this infamous s.h.i.+ft. He defied them to accuse him, and only desired that if they should, it might be in an open and fair manner; desired no favour, but to be acquainted with his accusation. He spoke of Mr. Dodington, who had called his administration infamous, as of a person of great self-mortification, who, for sixteen years, had condescended to bear part of the odium. For Mr. Pulteney, who had just spoken a second time, Sir R. said, he had begun the debate with great calmness, but give him his due, he had made amends for it in the end. In short, never was innocence so triumphant!
There were several glorious speeches on both sides; Mr. Pulteney's two, W. Pitt's [Chatham's] and George Grenville's, Sir Robert's, Sir W.
Yonge's, Harry Fox's [Lord Holland's], Mr. Chute's, and the Attorney-General's [Sir Dudley Ryder]. My friend c.o.ke [Lovel], for the first time, spoke vastly well, and mentioned how great Sir Robert's character is abroad. Sir Francis Dashwood replied that he had found quite the reverse from Mr. c.o.ke, and that foreigners always spoke with contempt of the Chevalier de Walpole. This was going too far, and he was called to order, but got off well enough, by saying, that he knew it was contrary to rule to name any member, but that he only mentioned it as spoken by an impertinent Frenchman.
But of all speeches, none ever was so full of wit as Mr. Pulteney's last. He said, ”I have heard this committee represented as a most dreadful spectre; it has been likened to all terrible things; it has been likened to the King; to the inquisition; it will be a committee of safety; it is a committee of danger; I don't know what it is to be! One gentleman, I think, called it _a cloud_! (this was the Attorney) _a cloud_! I remember Hamlet takes Lord Polonius by the hand shows him _a cloud_, and then asks him if he does not think it is like a whale.”
Well, in short, at eleven at night we divided, and threw out this famous committee by 253 to 250, the greatest number that ever was in the house, and the greatest number that ever _lost_ a question.[1]
[Footnote 1: Lord Stanhope (”History of England,” i. 24) gives a long account of this debate, mainly derived from this letter.]
It was a most shocking sight to see the sick and dead brought in on both sides! Men on crutches, and Sir William Gordon from his bed, with a blister on his head, and flannel hanging out from under his wig. I could scarce pity him for his ingrat.i.tude. The day before the Westminster pet.i.tion, Sir Charles Wager gave his son a s.h.i.+p, and the next day the father came down and voted against him. The son has since been cast away; but they concealed it from the father, that he might not absent himself. However, as we have our good-natured men too on our side, one of his own countrymen went and told him of it in the House. The old man, who looked like Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it with great resolution, and said, he knew _why_ he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger, he would not go away. As he is so near death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such insensibility would have been a Roman virtue.
There are no arts, no menaces, which the Opposition do not practise.
They have threatened one gentleman to have a reversion cut off from his son, unless he will vote with them. To Totness there came a letter to the mayor from the Prince, and signed by two of his lords, to recommend a candidate in opposition to the Solicitor-General [Strange]. The mayor sent the letter to Sir Robert. They have turned the Scotch to the best account. There is a young Oswald, who had engaged to Sir R. but has voted against us. Sir R. sent a friend to reproach him; the moment the gentleman who had engaged for him came into the room, Oswald said, ”You had like to have led me into a fine error! did you not tell me that Sir R. would have the majority?”
When the debate was over, Mr. Pulteney owned that he had never heard so fine a debate on our side; and said to Sir Robert, ”Well, n.o.body can do what you can!” ”Yes,” replied Sir R., ”Yonge did better.” Mr. Pulteney answered, ”It was fine, but not of that weight with what you said.” They all allow it; and now their plan is to persuade Sir Robert to retire with honour. All that evening there was a report about the town, that he and my uncle [_old_ Horace] were to be sent to the Tower, and people hired windows in the City to see them pa.s.s by--but for this time I believe we shall not exhibit so historical a parade....