MR. PITT TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
(Private.) Downing Street, Feb. 15th, 1789.
My dear Lord,
The account received this morning of the step which the Irish House of Commons have taken, has not surprised me; as it seemed before evident that the torrent was too strong to be stemmed by any exertion. Those who at the moment felt it as a triumph, perhaps already begin to repent of it, and will probably have more and more reason to do so every day. It will be abundant satisfaction to you and your friends that you have done everything which depended on you; and in the midst of so much profligacy, that you have experienced such a support as that of Fitzgibbon and a few others, which is in the highest degree honourable and manly.
I am fully aware how delicate your ground has been in all the progress of the business, of which we have hitherto learnt the result; and that it is not less so in what remained relative to the transmission of this strange Address. Whatever you may have decided on the spot will, I dare say, under all the circumstances, have been right; and in either of the alternatives, you will not want here the most cordial and decided support, whenever the measure comes into discussion. All that I am now writing is, I hope, superfluous; but I could not let the messenger go, without expressing in part the sentiments for which I trust you would at any rate have given me credit.
* * * * *
Believe me, my dear Lord,
Sincerely and affectionately yours,
W. Pitt.
Lord Buckingham, acting on the discretion thus confided to him, resolved to decline accepting or transmitting the Address. This determination, which threw the whole responsibility of the measure upon those with whom it originated, afforded the highest satisfaction in England. Letters from Lord Mornington, Lord Sydney, and others, abound in admiration of the firmness of Lord Buckingham's conduct.
As had been anticipated, the Address was voted in both Houses of Parliament, and laid before Lord Buckingham for transmission to His Royal Highness. His Lordship at once declined to receive it; and in a short and explicit answer, rested his refusal on the obligations imposed upon him by his duty and his oath, adding that he did not feel warranted in forwarding to His Royal Highness an Address, purporting to invest him with powers to take upon him the government of the realm before he should be enabled by law to do so. This answer, which had received the full approbation of Mr. Pitt, by whom it had been communicated to the Cabinet, was, as might have been expected, deeply resented by the Opposition, whose hostility to the Government had been all along assuming that shape of combination in which it now appeared without disguise.
Frustrated in their desire of transmitting this Address through the channel of the Lord-Lieutenant, they passed a resolution appointing ambassadors of their own to lay it before His Royal Highness. The persons nominated to undertake this extraordinary commission were, the Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Charlemont, Mr. Conolly, Mr. O'Neill, Mr. Ponsonby, and Mr. Stewart. Nor did they stop here. It was necessary to avenge the indignity that had been put upon them; and a resolution, declaring the conduct of Lord Buckingham unwarrantable and unconstitutional, was accordingly moved by Mr. Grattan, and carried. That a resolution still stronger than this, going to the preposterous length of declaring the commission of the Lord-Lieutenant actually void by the will of the Irish Parliament, was at one moment contemplated, would appear from a passage in a letter of Mr. Grenville's, dated the 18th of February.
I am a little alarmed by one part of your letter, in which you talk of a resolution of the two Houses being passed for avoiding your commission, and of your resigning the Government in consequence of it to Lords Justices appointed under the Act of last year. I trust, however, that these favourable accounts [of the King's health] will have put this idea out of the question. But if not, for God's sake consider whether there is any one principle in which you deny the right of the two Houses to appoint a Regent by address, which does not apply equally to prove that they cannot either appoint or remove a Lord-Lieutenant by resolution. I am persuaded, the more I think of it, that it is impossible for you to quit the Government in any other manner, than in consequence of a recal from hence, or a resignation grounded on the removal of the Ministers here, or on the Regent's acceptance of the office, under what you consider an illegal appointment.
Mr. Pitt entirely concurred in these views, and it was resolved that Lord Buckingham should remain in Ireland till he had overcome the confederacy by which the security of the British power in that kingdom was so seriously perilled. In a subsequent letter, Mr. Grenville conveys the assurances of Mr. Pitt's determination to support Lord Buckingham in any measures he should think necessary to the maintenance of the supremacy of the Crown, and the vindication of his conduct in these transactions. One of the measures which was considered indispensable, as marking the sense and upholding the authority of the Government, was the immediate dismissal of all those persons who, holding offices and emoluments under the Crown, had joined in a factious resistance to the policy of Ministers.
I had, yesterday evening, a long conversation with Pitt on the subject of your letter of the 25th. I have already told you that his ideas agree entirely with yours as to the proposition of your remaining in your present situation long enough to complete your victory over this combination, and to establish a Government founded on a better system. We both consider it as a point of absolute necessity and of indispensable duty, that we should resist this profligate conspiracy against the Government of both kingdoms, by every means, and to the last extremity; and we agree in thinking that this battle ought, both for your own credit and for ours, to be fought by you, preferably to any other person. He desires me to say that there cannot be the least hesitation here in adopting any proposal which you may think it right to make on the subject of dismissals, and that his opinion inclines to the immediate removal of all the people whom you have named, on the ground not of their former votes, but of the combination which is now avowed.
The King was now so much better that he was permitted, at his own request, to see the Chancellor, who, however, was prohibited by the medical attendants from talking to His Majesty on business. Even this prohibition was removed in a few days; and Willis considered him so completely recovered that he recommended, as a preliminary experiment to test the state of his mind, that the Chancellor should be authorized to communicate to His Majesty the public events which had occurred during his illness. Of all men that could have been selected for so delicate an affair, Thurlow was, perhaps, the worst qualified; but his relation to the Crown as Chancellor left Ministers no alternative.
MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Whitehall, Feb. 19th, 1789.
My dear Brother,
The account which you will receive by this post of the King, is as favourable as any of the others. This is now the thirteenth day since Warren thought him so much —
I am agreeably interrupted in my reasoning by the arrival of Pitt, who has seen Willis this morning. His account is, that as far as he is enabled to judge, the King is now actually well. That he is not sufficiently acquainted with the sort of effect which the peculiar duties of the King's situation produce upon his mind, to be able to pronounce as decidedly with respect to him as he would in other cases; but that in the instance of any common individual, he should not feel the smallest difficulty in pronouncing the cure complete, and the patient as capable of attending to his own affairs as he had been before his illness. He added that the keeping back from the King the present situation of public business and the measures which have been taken by Parliament, did him now more harm than good, because it created a degree of anxiety and uneasiness in his mind. He therefore recommended that the Chancellor, whom the King has already seen, and whom he has expressed a wish to see again, might go to him, for the purpose of explaining to him all that has passed. You will easily imagine that this will be an anxious trial for us, because if anything can bring back the agitation of his mind, it must be such a recital as Thurlow must have to make. It must, however, be made, and we can do no more than follow the opinion of the physicians, and of Willis in particular, as to the time of making it.
If the experiment succeeds, you need not be told that we shall not feel ourselves disposed, nor indeed at liberty, to give up the King's authority (he being well) into the hands of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and the less so, because we now know that he and his friends, as he calls them, have taken the resolution of making the change at all events, and of taking all the offices of the country into their own hands, even (as they express themselves) if they are to hold them only twelve hours.
Certainly, if we looked only to the objects of party, and had nothing more important to attend to than the exposing in their true colours this profligate and unfeeling set of men, we could desire no fairer opportunity of doing it than by showing how much their ambition, or revenge, overbear any other sentiment, when it leads them to overturn the whole Government of their country, and to bring on the confusion which must attend a double change of Government in the space of a few weeks, merely in order to set the Prince of Wales and Pitt more at variance; for that can be their only object, unless indeed they look to that of drawing the line of separation between His Royal Highness and his father stronger than it was before.
We must not, however, be guided by these considerations. It is impossible not to know and feel how much mischief such a change would produce; and it is our duty to prevent it, both for the sake of the King and of the country. Besides which, there are other reasons which make it impossible that the present measure should go on. We cannot suffer a Bill to proceed which asserts the King's incapacity, at a time when his physicians pronounce him to be capable. He cannot pass such a Bill himself, because the mere act of passing it contradicts the averment of the Bill, and shows its provisions to be improper. Still less can the Chancellor, who has had an opportunity of being personally acquainted with the King's actual restoration to perfect health, receive the orders of any other man, or body of men, as to the use of the Great Seal for the purpose of expressing the King's pleasure.
Our idea, in the present situation, is that the House of Lords should adjourn till Monday, in consequence of the Chancellor's communicating to them that the state of His Majesty's health is such as to make it improper for them to proceed. If nothing unfavourable should have occurred by that day, a motion will then be made for an examination of the physicians; and that would be followed by an Address from both Houses, congratulating the King on his recovery. The King would then pass a Commission for proroguing the Parliament, and another for opening it again, and the business will proceed in the usual form.
I think that your object will be to use every possible endeavour, by all means in your power, debating every question, dividing upon every question, moving adjournment upon adjournment, and every other mode that can be suggested to gain time. I do not know that we can send you any communication from hence of which you can take formal notice by speech or message, till the examinations of the physicians are sent to you, which they shall be instantly on their being made.
But your Ministers, in both Houses, may certainly communicate to them what it has been thought right for the Chancellor to say to-day, and may make similar motions for adjournments; unless, indeed, which I hardly imagine, the whole business is concluded in Ireland before you receive the account of this happy event.
I have great pleasure in thinking upon the disappointment and mortification of those who have deserted you on this occasion. I hope in God that you will make up your mind to the remaining where you now are long enough to make them feel what they have done, and to show that you are not driven away. After this, we shall probably agree in thinking that the future Government of Ireland may be carried on to more advantage in other hands, because it may possibly become of absolute necessity to receive back some of these rats into favour, and that is not an occupation in which I should like to see you engaged.
Unless I understand from Fremantle that he has any business of yours to do here, I shall desire him to return to you on Tuesday with the examination of the physicians, which will, I hope, be presented on that day, or perhaps I may keep him till the Addresses are carried.
I make you no congratulations on this great event; but it has made a deep impression in my heart, and so I am sure it will in yours.
God bless you, and believe me ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
Do not say more of the King's situation than Lord Sydney's despatch authorizes, because Willis's name should not be committed after what has passed.
MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Whitehall, Feb. 20th, 1789.
My dear Brother,
The House of Commons met to-day and adjourned to Tuesday, without a word being said, except from Viner, who desired to hear from Pitt an account of the King's real situation. No answer was given, and the House adjourned.
Pitt has seen the Chancellor since his return from Kew to-day. He, Thurlow, was with the King to-day for two hours. He did not enter into particulars of what had been done, but only in general terms. He says that he never saw, at any period, the King more composed, collected, or distinct, and that there was not the least trace or appearance of disorder.
Willis, however, does not allow the cure to be yet quite complete, although he thinks it as nearly so as possible. All the other medical people seem to think him quite well; but Willis's means of information and his experience are so much greater, that we cannot but give entire credit to what he says.
The Chancellor is to be at Kew again on Sunday. I think our present idea is to adjourn the two Houses again from Tuesday to Thursday or Saturday. If that is the case, I shall send Fremantle back to you, as he tells me he has nothing to detain him here, and it is very desirable that Bernard should be on the spot soon, to make his bow at Aylesbury.
You must not expect to hear from me on any other subject than the King's recovery; for nobody here writes, talks, thinks or dreams of anything else.
Ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Whitehall, Feb. 21st, 1789.
My dear Brother,
I have little to add to Lord Sydney's letter. Your refusal to transmit the Address is generally approved here; and I have the pleasure of seeing daily proofs that the Opposition in this country are ashamed of what they and their friends have done in Ireland. Your answer, I think, much improved by the transposition, especially as it avoids the necessity of your submitting any advice to His Royal Highness, which might have been said to be an officious interference, as you are not in any situation which calls upon you to advise him.
You will hear with as much pleasure as I write it, that the King was not at all agitated by his interview with the Chancellor, and was perfectly composed and collected all yesterday evening. The accounts this morning are as good as can be.
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Duke of York have been once or twice at Kew, to desire to be admitted to see him, which you will naturally suppose was not permitted. This morning they thought proper to make a formal demand that they should be allowed to see him; or if not, insisting that the physicians should give in writing the reasons for their refusal. In consequence of this, Warren and Gisborne, who were there this morning, sent Willis in to the King, to acquaint him that the two Princes wished to see him. Willis returned with a message to them from the King, thanking them for their inquiries, but wishing to put off the seeing them till he had seen Thurlow again, which he is to do to-morrow. This was reduced to writing, and sent to them; how it will be received I know not, but it has completely defeated the avowed object of the visit, which was to prejudice his mind against the measures which have been taken.
There seems now every reason to hope that by the 6th or 7th of March he will be sufficiently recovered, or rather will have been recovered a sufficient time to make it proper to take his commands for opening the Parliament. If not, you will see by the despatch the nature of the measures which we have in contemplation; and I can have no doubt of your agreeing, that no principle which we have ever maintained would require or even justify us in putting the Prince of Wales in such a situation as to enable him to overturn the whole system of the King's Government, the King being all the while perfectly well, conscious of what is going forward, and restrained from acting himself only by the apprehension of a relapse.
You will already have seen and considered what I have said to you on the subject of remaining. You cannot form to yourself an idea how universally it is the wish of all who wish for your own personal credit, and of all who are interested for the credit of the party, that you should remain in Ireland so long as to make it appear that you have thoroughly weathered the storm. Your session need be but very short indeed. The uncertain state of everything since November last, is an ample apology for not being prepared with other business, and for deferring it till another year. But the leaving it in the middle, would convey the impression that all this difficulty had been personal to yourself, and that you were the only obstacle to the success of English Government in Ireland. Directly the reverse of this proposition is, I am convinced, the truth; but it is a truth which it is of the utmost importance to yourself to establish in the general and public opinion in this country. You have great advantages for this, from the general disposition which is prevalent here to feel the strongest indignation at the conduct which your opponents have held. I must own it would be a severe mortification to me to see you forego this opportunity.
You know the only motive which I can have for pressing this so much, and how much violence I do to my own feelings when I urge anything which may delay my seeing you again.
Ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
Lord Bulkeley, in a letter dated the 24th, describes one of these interviews of the Princes with His Majesty. The general impressions which prevailed respecting the conduct and dispositions of their Royal Highnesses in this crisis, may be gathered from these unreserved revelations.
The accounts from Kew this morning are as good as possible (but I have not got the precise words); notwithstanding, the Princes were with him half an hour yesterday, which is a proof that his miraculous recovery is not to be shaken. Lord Winchelsea, who was at Kew the whole time, told me that the Prince and Duke of York, though appointed at one, did not arrive till half-past three; and that when they came out, they told Colonel Digby that they were delighted with the King's being so well, and remarked that two things in the half-hour's conference which they had with him had struck them very forcibly: that he had observed to them how much better he played at picquet than Mr. Charles Hawkins, and that since he had been ill he had rubbed up all his Latin; and these facts, which are facts, I expect to hear magnified by the Carlton House runners into instances of insanity.
The Princes entered the King's apartment without any emotion, and came out of it with none visible in their countenances. The Queen only was present, and the conference lasted half an hour. I have not heard as yet; but conclude they were both rioting, – , and drunk last night at the masquerade, as they were at one a week ago; the truth is, that they are quite desperate, and endeavour to drown their cares, disappointments, and internal chagrin in wine and dissipation.
The Duke of York plays much at tennis, and has a score with all the blacklegs; and in the public court tells them they shall all be paid as soon as his father can settle with him some Osnaburg money which he owes him.
* * * * *
The Princes give out, that as soon as they have an opportunity of explaining their conduct to the King, they are sure he will approve of it as much as he will reprobate that of Mr. Pitt's.
"It is now almost certain," says Mr. Grenville on the 23rd, "that we shall not pass the Regency Bill, and consequently that the Government will not be changed." In the same letter he refers to a suggestion of Lord Buckingham's, that the answer declining to transmit the Irish Address should be laid before His Royal Highness.
On conversing with Pitt, we were both clearly of opinion, that no communication ought to be made to H.R.H. of what has passed in Ireland, as we have uniformly considered him as not entitled, under the present circumstances, to any communication of any part of the business of Government. Nothing has accordingly been ever laid before him, except the measures which Pitt intended to bring forward respecting him personally; but that principle certainly does not extend to such a communication as had been proposed in your separate letter, which I have for that reason not sent to Lord Sydney.
In so absurd a light, indeed, did the whole proceedings of the Irish Parliament appear to Ministers, that Mr. Grenville thought it highly improbable that the Irish Ambassadors, as they were called, would venture to present the Address in the improved state of the King's health, or that His Royal Highness would be advised to accept it. They did present it notwithstanding, and their reception is thus reported by Mr. Grenville:
Your Ambassadors are arrived; and presented their Address yesterday evening to the Prince. The answer which, as I understand, he gave them, was, that he was highly gratified with the expressions of loyalty to the King, which the Address contained; but that with respect to the rest he could not give them an answer before Tuesday, on which day he desired to see them again. I take it for granted, he will then say, that the King being recovered, all consideration of a Regency is out of the question.
People in general here do not seem disposed to consider this transaction in any other than a ludicrous manner, and as the most absurd and ridiculous farce. It is impossible to describe how much and how universally their Excellencies are laughed at. One of them came into an assembly last night, and was received with a general roar of laughter. I did not think they would have been so foolish as to present it. The Prince and his friends must have been a good deal embarrassed what answer to give them; and I do not think they have succeeded remarkably well, if the account of the answer, such as I have stated it, is true.
It was on the day after the Princes' interview that Mr. Pitt had his first audience of the King since his illness; no Minister, except the Chancellor, having hitherto been admitted to see His Majesty, on account of the jealousies with which every step they took throughout this painful interval was watched and turned to account.
MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Whitehall, Feb. 24th, 1789.
My dear Brother,
Pitt has just shown me a letter which he received last night from the King, written in His Majesty's own hand, couched in the warmest terms, thanking him for his unshaken attachment to his interests, and desiring to see him this morning. He went accordingly to Kew, and was with the King above an hour. He says that there was not the smallest trace or appearance of any disorder; that the King's manner was unusually composed and dignified, but that there was no other difference whatever from what he had been used to see. The King spoke of his disorder as of a thing past, and which had left no other impression on his mind than that of gratitude for his recovery, and a sense of what he owed to those who had stood by him. He spoke of these in such a manner as brought tears into his eyes; but even with that degree of affection of mind, there was not the least appearance of disorder.
After Pitt had left His Majesty, he conversed with Willis, who told him that he now thought the King quite well; that he could not perceive the least trace remaining of his disorder. Under these circumstances, the more I consider our actual situation and what seems due to the King's feelings, the more I am persuaded of that opinion, to which I think our friends begin in general to lean, that the King's resumption of his authority must be done purely by his own act, and that it is impossible to hear of any examination of physicians.
The two Princes were at Kew yesterday, and saw the King, in the Queen's apartment. She was present the whole time, a precaution for which, God knows, there was but too much reason. They kept him waiting a considerable time before they arrived; and after they left him, drove immediately to Mrs. Armstead's, in Park Street, in hopes of finding Fox there, to give him an account of what had passed. He not being in town, they amused themselves yesterday evening with spreading about a report that the King was still out of his mind, and in quoting phrases of his to which they gave that turn. It is certainly a decent and becoming thing, that when all the King's physicians, all his attendants, and his two principal Ministers, agree in pronouncing him well, his two sons should deny it. And the reflection that the Prince of Wales was to have had the Government and the Duke of York the command of the army during his illness, makes this representation of his actual state, when coming from them, more peculiarly proper and edifying. I bless God it is yet some time before these matured and ripened virtues will be visited upon us in the form of a Government.
Believe me ever most affectionately yours,
W. W. G.
Acting on the carte blanche which he had asked, and which had been freely accorded to him, respecting dismissals, appointments, and creations, Lord Buckingham proceeded at once to redress the balance of power in Ireland, by dismissing from their offices the persons who had recently opposed the conduct of the Government on the Regency question. A similar course had been pursued in England on His Majesty's recovery. Mr. Grenville mentions specially "the justice which had been executed on Lord Lothian" in this way, the King taking his troop from him, and sending him to join another in Ireland. "The joke current here," says Mr. Grenville, "is, that the Irish Ambassadors came over here to Lothian's hotel, and that the King sends Lothian to return the visit." In Ireland the disaffection had been more dangerous and extensive, and demanded more severe measures.
The moment it was known that the King was recovered, a negotiation was opened with the Government through Mr. Fitzgibbon, then Attorney-General, by the principal members of the Lords and Commons who had supported the Address, tendering their submission, and asking for an amnesty. It has been stated in some publications referring to these proceedings, that the negotiations were opened by Government; but Lord Buckingham's official despatch, dated the 23rd of March, not only shows that statement to be erroneous, but establishes the fact that Lord Buckingham peremptorily refused to entertain the negotiation until he should have received a positive assurance that a certain defensive and hostile agreement, into which those gentlemen had entered, was to be considered as abandoned. This agreement, or association, was called the Round Robin (although not really a round robin, being merely a declaration, followed in the usual way by the signatures of the subscribers), pledging those who attached their names to it to "stand by each other" (to use the phrase by which Mr. Beresford described it) in the event of their offices or pensions being taken from them, and to oppose any Administration that should resort to such a proceeding.
Finding Lord Buckingham immoveable upon the condition he stipulated for, Lords Shannon, Loftus, Clifden, and many others, authorized the Attorney-General to declare the association at an end, adding that they desired to be represented to His Majesty as anxious to support his Government, and to endeavour to remove by their future conduct all unfavourable impressions from his mind. In the wise exercise of the discretion reposed in him, Lord Buckingham accepted this voluntary tender of allegiance, and permitted the gentlemen who had made it to retain their offices. The Duke of Leinster, who had been only recently appointed to the Rolls, and Mr. Ponsonby, who held the situation of Postmaster-General, refusing to give the required undertaking, aggravated, in the case of the latter, by a declaration that he would not enter into any communication with Lord Buckingham, were at once dismissed from their offices. This dismissal was followed by that of a few others of less note.
These energetic measures were founded, not only on the dangerous resistance these gentlemen had carried to extremity, at a period of anxious suspense and universal excitement, against the Government, but upon a knowledge of the existence of an organized combination they had embarked in with the English Opposition to supersede the authority of the Sovereign in the person of the Regent. In order the more effectually to accomplish their objects, they had seized upon every act of the Administration, and held it up to obloquy. A pension which had been granted to Mr. Orde, and the reversion of Lord Clanbrassil's office which had been conferred on Mr. Grenville, afforded them a pretext for charging the Government with corruption and profligacy. They opened their impeachment at the very beginning of the session, in February, defeated the motion for adjournment, carried their Address at the sacrifice of their own dignity and independence, and were only arrested at last in their headlong career by those vigorous measures which broke up the combination, and once more gave a legitimate preponderance in the Senate to the saving influence of the Administration. The effect of the coup d'état– for as such these dismissals may be considered – was decisive. The hostile majority was broken down; and when Mr. Grattan, still confident in his resources, brought forward his Pension Bill, to disable persons who held pensions during pleasure, or offices that had been created after a certain time, from sitting in Parliament, he was defeated by a majority of 9. This was justly claimed as a conclusive victory by a Government that had only just before been denounced in a vote of censure in the same assembly by a majority of 32.
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