life, that you should have so many compensations to make in the closet for your former friendship with him. Your gracious master understands your character, and makes you a persecutor, because you have been a friend. Lord Chatham formed his last administration upon principles which you certainly concurred in, or you could never have been placed at the head of the treasury. By deserting those principles, and by acting in direct contradiction to them, in which he found you were secretly supported in the closet, you soon forced him to leave you to yourself, and to withdraw his name from an administration, which had been formed on the credit of it. You had then a prospect of friendships better suited to your genius, and more likely to fix your disposition. Marriage is the point on which every - rake is stationary at last; and truly, my Lord, you may well be weary of the circuit you have taken, for you have now fairly travelled through every sign in the political zodiac, from the Scorpion, in which you stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Virgin* in the house of Bloomsbury. One would think that you had had sufficient experience of the frailty of nuptial engagements, or, at least, that such a friendship as the Duke of Bedford's, might have been secured to you by the auspicious marriage of your late Duchess witht his nephew. But ties of this tender nature cannot be drawn too close; and it may possibly be a part of the Duke of Bedford's ambition, after making her an honest woman, to work a miracle of the same sort upon your Grace. This worthy nobleman has long dealt in virtue. There has been a large consumption of it in his own family; and, in the way of traffic, I dare say, he has bought and sold more than half the representative integrity of the nation. In a political view, this union is not imprudent. The favour of princes is a perishable commodity. You have now a strength sufficient to command the closet; and, if it be neces * His Grace had lately married Miss Wrottesley, niece of the Good Gertrude, Duchess of Bedford. † Miss Liddel, after her divorce from the Duke, married Lord Upper Ossory. sary to betray one friendship more, you may set even Lord Bute at defiance. Mr. Stuart Mackenzie may possibly remember what use the Duke of Bedford usually makes of his power*; and our gracious Sovereign, I doubt not, rejoices at this first appearance of union among his servants. His late Majesty, under the happy influence of a family connexion between his ministers, was relieved from the cares of government. A more active prince may perhaps observe, with suspicion, by what degrees an artful servant grows upon his master, from the first unlimited professions of duty and attachment, to the painful representation of the necessity of the royal service, and soon, in regular progression, to the humble insolence of dictating in all the obsequious forms of peremptory submission. The interval is carefully employed in forming connexions, creating interests, collecting a party, and laying the foundation of double marriagest; until the deluded prince, who thought he had found a creature prostituted to his service, and insignificant enough to be always dependent upon his pleasure, finds him at last too strong to be commanded, and too formidable to be removed. Your Grace's public conduct, as a minister, is but the counterpart of your private history; the same inconsistency, the same contradictions. In America we trace you, from the first opposition to the Stamp Act, on principles of convenience, to Mr. Pitt's surrender of the right; then forward to Lord Rockingham's surrender of the fact; then back again to Lord Rockingham's declaration of the right; then forward to taxation with Mr. Townshend; and in the last instance, from the gentle Conway's undetermined discretion, to blood and compulsion with the Duke of Bedford*: Yet if we may believe the simplicity of Lord North's eloquence, at the opening of next sessions you are once more to be the patron of America. Is this the wisdom of a great minister? or is it the ominous vibration of a pendulum? Had you no opinion of your own, my Lord? or was it the gratification of betray. ing every party with which you have been united, and of deserting every political principle, in which you had concurred? * Mr. Stuart Mackenzie was brother to the earl of Bute. The Duke of Bedford's abuse of power here referred to, is again noticed in JUNIUS, Letter xxxvI. and consisted in compelling his Majesty to displace Mr. Mackenzie from the office of Lord Privy Seal of Scotland, shortly after his appointment, in favour of Lord Frederick Campbell. In this act of coertion Mr. Grenville bore an equal part with the noble duke. Upon the resignation of these ministers, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie was reinstated in his former post. EDIT. † See notes in the preceding page. EDIT. + At the period here referred to, the American colonies had acquired such a population, and proportion of public wealth, as to render it necessary to enquire, more critically than had hitherto been done into the peculiar mode of its political connexion with the mother country, and to bind it to the latter in a more definite bond. It was found that most of the provincial departments were chartered by the crown and expressly exempted from legislative taxation, but that others were not chartered in any way, and of course possessed no such privilege. From the capacity of their being being now able to contribute to the exigencies of the state, from a desire to equalize the entire colonization, and from a professed belief that charters granted by the crown with such an exemption as above, displayed an undue stretch of the prerogative, it was determined upon, by Mr. Grenville's administration, to bring the matter boldly to an issue, and for the legislature to claim an authority over the colonies by passing an act which should immediately affect them. The statute enacted for this purpose was the Stamp Act, which imposed a duty upon many of the articles most current through the colonies. The colonies were thrown into a general commotion by this measure, the duty could not be collected, and almost every province became ripe for rebellion. At home the members of opposition doubted, or affected to doubt, both the propriety and legality of the conduct of administration. Mr. Pitt denied the right, the Marquis of Rockingham admitted the right, but denied the expediency; while many politicians perplexed by the sophistry advanced by the pleaders on all sides, vacillated in their opinion, and sometimes united with one party and sometimes with another. Of this last description was the Duke of Grafton, who occasionally favoured Mr. Pitt's opinion, occasionally the Marquis of Rockingham's, and at last sided with Mr. Charles Townshend in a determined resolution to carry the system of taxation into effect at all hazards. EDIT. * Mr. Knox, in his "Extra official State Papers," from which extracts have been made in notes to Miscellaneous Letters, Nos. XXXI. and LIII. narrates the following anecdote as having happened to himself on the repeal of the Stamp Act. "The morning after the resolution passed in the House of Commons, to repeal the Stamp Act, and to bring in the declaratory bill, I was sent for to a meeting of the Opposition at Mr. Rigby's in Parliament Street; when I came there, Mr. Grenville and Mr. Rigby came out to me and told me, the Duke of Bedford and several others desired to know my opinion of the effects which those resolutions would produce in America. My ananswer was in few words-addresses of thanks and measures of rebellion. Mr. Grenville smiled and shook his head, and Mr. Rigby swore by G-d he thought so, and both wished me a good morning." EDIT. Your enemies may turn their eyes without regret from this admirable system of provincial government. They will find gratification enough in the survey of your domestic and foreign policy. If, instead of disowning Lord Shelburne, the British court had interposed with dignity and firmness, you know, my Lord, that Corsica would never have been invaded*. The French saw the weakness of a distracted ministry, and were justified in treating you with contempt. They would probably have yielded in the first instance, rather than hazard a rupture with this country; but, being once engaged, they cannot retreat without dishonour. Common sense foresees consequences, which have escaped your Grace's penetration. Either we suffer the French to make an acquisition, the importance of which you have probably no conception of, or we oppose them by an underhand management, which only disgraces us in the eyes of Europe, without answering any purpose of policy or prudence. From secret, indirect assistance, a transition to some more open decisive measures becomes unavoidable; till at last we find ourselves principals in the war, and are obliged to hazard every thing for an object, which might have originally been obtained without expense or danger. I am not versed in the politics of the north; but this I believe is certain, that half the money you have distributed to carry the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, or even your secretary's share in the last subscription, would have kept the Turks at your devotion. Was it economy, my Lord? or did the coy resistance you have constantly met with in the British senate, make you despair of corrupting the Divan? Your friends indeed have the first claim upon your bounty, but if five hundred pounds a year can be spared in pension to Sir John Moore*, it would not have disgraced you to have allowed something to the secret service of the public. * Lord Shelburne, father to the present Marquis of Lansdown, while secretary of state, instructed our ambassader at the court of Versailles to remonstrate, in very spirited terms, on the intended invasion of Corsica by the French. His Lordship's conduct, however, was disavowed by his colleagues, and he resigned his situation, Oct. 21, 1768. But see note to Letter 111. p.46. † The Ottoman Porte was at this time in the hands of French influence; the court of Tuilleries supplying it with French officers, and instructing it, through their means, in modern tactics, so as to enable it to support more You will say perhaps that the situation of affairs at home demanded and engrossed the whole of your attention. Here, I confess, you have been active. An amiable, accomplished Prince ascends the throne under the happiest of all auspices, the acclamations and united affections of his subjects. The first measures of his reign, and even the odium of a favourite, were not able to shake their attachment. Your services, my Lord, have been more successful. Since you were permitted to take the lead, we have seen the natural effects of a system of government, at once both odious and contemptible. We have seen the laws sometimes scandalously relaxed, sometimes violently stretched beyond their tone. We have seen the sacred person of the Sovereign insulted; and in profound peace, and with an undisputed title, the fidelity of his subjects brought by his own servants into public questionț. Without abilities, resolution, or interest, you have done more than Lord Bute could accomplish with all Scotland at his heels. Your Grace, little anxious perhaps either for present or future reputation, will not desire to be handed down in these colours to posterity. You have reason to flatter yourself that the memory of your administration will survive even the more successfully the war in which it was engaged with Russia. The growing extent of French influence over the continent, might in this instance perhaps have easily been curtailed by a little address, and even transferred to the court of St. James's. EDIT. * Sir John Moore was an old Newmarket acquaintance of his Grace's, where he succeeded in completely squandering away his private fortune. The Duke of Grafton, out of compassion, obtained for him the pension in question. EDIT. † The wise Duke, about this time, exerted all the influence of government to procure addresses to satisfy the King of the fidelity of his subjects. They came in very thick from Scotland; but, after the appearance of this letter, we heard no more of them. |