CHAP. CLXXIII. Lord Loughborough's speech to soothe him. the Regency question might be speedily renewed; and, at any rate, he disliked the notion of encountering the frowns A. D. 1795. of the Sovereign in a new reign. He was therefore anxious to soothe the heir apparent, and he thought he had an opportunity of doing so in supporting the bill for granting an annuity to his Royal Highness, and for preventing him from assigning or charging it. In this courtly strain did he answer certain objections of Thurlow, who had become a great favourite at Carlton House, and was by no means without hope of resuming the Great Seal: "The restrictions complained of by the noble and learned Lord, so far from being insulting to his Royal Highness, testify the profoundest respect for his feelings, as well as his dignity. The reason for the extraordinary circumspection complained of, is because a deeper interest is taken in the conduct of princes than of private individuals. If they outrun their fortune, their ruin is seen by the public with cold indifference; but all sympathise with the imprudence of a Prince. He is constantly tempted to expense without habits of economy. Even his virtues here are against him. His taste, his love of the arts, his liberality, his munificence - all lead to expense. In fact, he is educated to expense in every possible shape, and is often reduced to the option of acting with imprudence and extravagance, or appearing mean and narrow-minded. The latter imputation the nation would never wish to see cast upon an English prince. They neither expect nor desire that he should count over pounds, shillings, and pence with the minuteness of a petty tradesman. The restrictions are intended not to wound the honour of the Prince of Wales, but to shield him in future from the perils to which men of his exalted rank are exposed. They are, properly speaking, restrictions not on his Royal Highness, but on those about him-to restrain the hand of extravagance, and to guard against profusion."- Lord Loughborough, finding that the Prince of Wales was not in any degree appeased by this flattery, never afterwards attempted a reconciliation with him, but leaving him under the undisputed sway of Thurlow, during all the subsequent disputes which disturbed the Lord Loughborough takes a decided part with the King against the Prince. CLXXIII. royal family, he in a very decided manner took the opposite CHAP. side. Ever striving to gain the personal favour of George III., he openly enlisted himelf in the band of the "King's friends" - which still subsisted, though much diminished in influence, by the lofty ascendency of Pitt. It is curious to observe, from the following note, the terms of distant civility on which he now was with the Chief under whose banner he had some years gallantly fought : A. D. 1795. Lord "Mr. Fox presents his compliments to the Lord Chancellor, Note from and as a meeting of his constituents is to assemble to-morrow in Mr. Fox to Westminster Hall, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament, Loughtakes the liberty of submitting to his Lordship that it would be a borough. great accommodation to the meeting, and a civility for which the gentlemen who mean to attend it would be much obliged to his Lordship, if the Court of Chancery could, without injury to public business or inconvenience to his Lordship, be adjourned at an early hour. "South Street, 15th Nov. 1795." * of Loughborough. the barony In fulfilment of a promise made to Lord Loughborough, Re-grant of when he led over the "alarmists" to Mr. Pitt, he received a re-grant of his barony of Loughborough, with a remainder to his nephew, Sir James St. Clair Erskine. On this occasion, he had, for some reason that I am not aware of, consulted the Earl of Moira, and he received from him the following congratulation: "MY DEAR LORD, 66 Donington, Oct. 7th, 1795. "The letter with which you have honoured me claims acknowledgments that, as I trust you will believe, are not merely matter of form. The delicacy of your hesitation respecting the extension of your present title, so very different from the fashionable tone of the day, is a particular and most kind compliment to me. You will feel that, esteeming it such, I could not repay it otherwise than by meeting it with entire frankness: so that you will give full trust to my answer. With the interest which I must take in • The inconvenience of such political meetings while the Courts were sitting was found to be so great, that afterwards an act was very properly passed forbidding the holding of them in the vicinity of Westminster Hall. CHAP. CLXXIII. the credit of the title of Loughborough, I should grieve that you transmitted any other to your family. The further destination of A. D. 1795. your honours is an event that in itself gives me unfeigned gratification. But I assure you I shall have additional satisfaction if the continuance of the title of Loughborough may be supposed to imply any reciprocation of regard between us. The respect which my uncle bore to you was inherited by me, and has never been shaken by any diversity of public opinion. I always flattered myself that I possessed your friendship. I feel it very sensibly in the present instance, and I only wish that my acquiescence, in a case where certainly you were perfect master to make the decision without reference to me, could have any pretension to being considered as a testimony of esteem. But in the mean "The matter shall not be mentioned by me. time I beg you to accept my sincerest congratulations on a circumstance which must justly afford you peculiar pleasure. "I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, with high esteem, your Lordship's very faithful and obedient servant, "Lord Loughborough, &c. &c. &c." t "MOIRA. The following are letters written by the Duke of Portland to Lord Loughborough respecting the new grant of his peerage: "Tuesday evening, 6th Oct. 1795. "My dear Lord, I have great pleasure in assuring you that I am not aware of any circumstance which should retard the manifestation of the King's sense of your services, and that I shall be very happy in receiving his commands to carry his intentions into effect. I did not receive your letter (though dated on Friday) till yesterday. Had it reached me in its due course I must have disobeyed your orders, for I could not have deferred till Wednesday my thanks for your attention to my assurances of the part I take in an event which must so naturally and so justly contribute to your satisfaction. I am very sincerely, 66 My dear Lord,— After what you have heard from the King upon the subject of your patent, it would be very unnecessary to inform you of the very gracious manner in which he not only assented to but approved of the insertion of Mr. Erskine's name. ... His wish was, that it should be made in the manner most agreeable to yourself. . . . . I was not at the levee, but I was for half an hour in the closet; and have the satisfaction of informing you that I perceived little, if any, of that agitation which was so striking on this day se'nnight; and this opinion was fully confirmed by Lord Spencer. Rossl. MSS. "I am, &c., There are many other letters from the Duke of Portland to Lord Loughborough from 1782 downwards; but, generally speaking, they are jejune, confused, and almost unintelligible. † Rossl. MSS. CLXXIII. A. D. 1796. The Chancellor now seldom spoke in the House of Lords, CHAP. and the brilliant reputation he enjoyed as a debater in the House of Commons had much faded. Some imputed this change to a decline of mental or of physical energy, and others to the coolness between him and the Prime Minister. He took a prominent part, however, in the discussion upon the rupture of the negotiation at Paris, in the end of 1796, between Lord Malmesbury and the Directors of the French Republic. Most strenuously had he always resisted the proposals to treat with them. Like his friend, Lord Auckland, he said that "they ought to be put under the sword of the law," and he declared that it was indecent to send an ambassador to address them in the words of Antony to the assassins of Cæsar "Let each man render me his bloody hand." He therefore greatly rejoiced that the country had escaped the perils of a "regicide peace," — and an address to the Crown being moved on the occasion, he expressed much indignation against the Earl of Guilford's amendment, which threw blame upon the Ministers for the terms they had demanded, and prayed that his Majesty should make fresh overtures to the Republican Government. "Such an amendment," said he, "was never before proposed in an English Parliament. Can any gloomy imagination suppose that it will be adopted? What effect would it produce in this country and throughout Europe? The inference would be, that Great Britain is willing to submit to whatever conditions the enemy chooses to impose. It tends to humble the nation before the Executive Directory, and to call upon them to put their feet upon our prostrate necks." He then went over the circumstances of the negotiation, to show the bad faith of the French negotiators, introduced some important statistics from the Court of Chancery to prove a decrease of bankruptcies, and an increase of investments for the benefit of the suitors, and asked "whether, after the French had barred and doublebarred the door of negotiation against us, and our resources CHAP. CLXXIII. REIGN OF GEORGE III. were still unexhausted, the House was prepared to send up this grovelling amendment to the Throne in preference to A. D. 1797. declaring, by the address originally moved, that they would not submit to a faithless and arrogant enemy?" The amendment was negatived by a majority of 86 to 8. Lord firm con duct on the cash pay ments at the Bank of England. Feb. 26. 1797. * It is curious to consider that at this time the advocate of the Government was very imperfectly acquainted with the real merits of his case. It appears, among other astounding disclosures in the lately published Memoirs of Lord Malmesbury, that all the Cabinet, except Pitt, Dundas, and Lord Grenville, were kept in ignorance of that ambassador's most important despatches, and that he was obliged to write one set for the whole Cabinet, and another for the triumvirs. He adds, "The Chancellor, Lord Loughborough, walked home with me from Pitt's;- he not in the whole secret, and, as usual, questioning and apparently sanguine." Soon afterwards, a crisis arose in which Lord Loughborough borough's displayed the firmness and decision which in times of peril he always brought to the aid of the state. Mr. Pitt having disstoppage of regarded several previous warnings, was informed on a Saturday evening, that, from foreign subsidies and unfavourable mercantile operations, such was the low state of bullion and specie at the Bank of England, and so enormously had the market price of gold risen above the Mint price, that they could pay in cash no longer. On Sunday morning the King was sent for from Windsor, and a council was called, at which he presided. Mr. Pitt proposed an order by his Majesty in Council forbidding the Bank of England to make any farther payments in cash; but grave doubts were entertained how far such an order would be constitutional, as since the Revolution of 1688 there had been no instance of the Executive Government avowedly superseding Acts of Parliament and violating the law, unless where the subsistence of the people was concerned, as in prohibiting the exportation of corn or suspending the duty upon the importation of corn during the recess of Parliament, whereas Parliament was now sitting, 32 Parl. Hist. 1505. |