It will be observed that his Lordship on this occasion avoids making any assertion as to the competence of the Sovereign-does not at all disclose what the rule of rectitude and duty was which he had covenanted with himself to observe-nor exclude the possibility of his having obtained a release from the covenant-which it is so easy to obtain when covenantor and covenantee happen to be the same individual. However, the clerk having read the commission, concluding with the words, "By the King himself-signed with his own hand," and "Le Roy le voet," being pronounced over each of the Bills, they all became law. The following is an account of this transaction, written by Lord Eldon many years after; and, even assuming that he has neither coloured nor suppressed any of the circumstances of the interview, it is plain that he relied mainly upon what he considered "the competency of the King as king, notwithstanding his indisposition," and that he would by no means have become witness to the act and deed of a private individual in such a state of mind: "During one of his Majesty's indispositions, and when there was a doubt whether he was sufficiently recovered to make it fit to take his royal sign-manual to a commission for passing Acts of Parliament, the time approached when, if the Mutiny Bills were not renewed and passed, the establishments of the army and navy, in the midst of war, must be broken up. It became, therefore, absolutely necessary to have his royal sign-manual to acts for continuing those establishments. The Chancellor is the minister responsible for that. I waited upon his Majesty, and carried with me the commission, and a brief abstract of the several intended acts, but in much more of detail than the previous statements made upon such occasions. I began reading that abstract—a caution not usual when the King was well; and he said, My Lord, you are cautious.' I entreated his Majesty to allow that, under the then circumstances. 'Oh!' he said, 'you are certainly right in that; but you should be correct as well as cautious.' I said I was not conscious that 1 was not correct. 6 No,' said he,' you are not: for if you will look into the commission which you have brought me to sign, you will see that I there state that I have fully considered the bills proposed to receive my sign manual to be correct; therefore, I should have the bills to peruse and consider." I stated to him that he never had had the bills whilst I had been Chancellor, and that I did not know that he had ever had the bills. He said, during a part of his reign he had always had them, until Lord Thurlow had ceased to bring them; and the expression his Majesty used was, that Lord Thurlow had said it was nonsense his giving himself the trouble to read them. I said his Majesty had satisfied me that I had used caution enough, took the sign-manual and went to the House of Lords; and when about passing the commission, Lord Fitzwilliam rose and said, 'I wish to ask whether the Chancellor declares his Majesty is equal to the act of signing the commission with full knowledge upon the subject,' or to that effect. I answered, Your Lordship will see the commission executed immediately.' "I have committed this to paper, having been much abused on ac count of this transaction, and for the purpose of stating that it was my determination, if I thought his Majesty sufficiently well as an individual to give his assent, to take the royal sign-manual to the commission, and execute it without making observation; if, on the other hand, I did not think him so well as an individual-inasmuch as the competency of the King, as king, was what the law authorized me to consider as belonging to him, notwithstanding his indisposition-I determined to take the royal sign-manual to the commission, and, after executing it, to state to the House in what condition of his Majesty I had taken this step, and to throw myself on Parliament's consideration of my case, and my` having so acted, in order, in a most perilous period, to prevent the establishments necessary for the defence, and indeed the existence, of the country from going to pieces. Many thought I acted too boldly in this proceeding; but I could not bring myself to think that I ought to countenance the notion that the King's state of mind, considering him as an individual, was such as I in my conscience did not believe it to be; and I did think that it was my duty to expose myself to all that might happen, rather than give a false impression of the actual state of my Sovereign and Royal Master to his people. God grant that no future Chancellor may go through the same distressing scenes, or be exposed to the dangerous responsibility which I went through, and was exposed to, during the indispositions of my Sovereign! My own attachment to him supported me through those scenes. Such and so cordial was the love and affection his people bore to him, that a servant meaning well, and placed amidst great difficulties, would have been pardoned for much, if he had occasion for indemnity. "When I went to take the King's sign manual, some other ministers wanted it in their department. They sent the papers to me, instead of coming themselves to support me by their acts. I refused to tender any of them to the King.”* Lord Eldon told the following anecdote, referable to the same period: "In one of his Majesty George III.'s illnesses, when he was at Buckingham House, it was conceived to be my duty as Chancellor to call at that house every day. This was constantly done, to the interruption of the business of my Court to a great extent, for which the public opinion made no allowance. Upon one day, when I went to make my call of duty, Dr. Simmons, the medical attendant constantly there, represented to me the embarrassment he was exposed to, being persuaded that if his Majesty could have a walk frequently round the garden behind the house it would be of the most essential benefit to him; that, if he took his walk with the doctor, or any of his attendants, he was overlooked from the windows of Grosvenor Place, and reports were circulated very contrary to the truth respecting his Majesty's mental health; that, on the other hand, his Majesty's family were afraid of accompanying him: and that he, the doctor, did not know how to act, as *Twiss, i. 285. the walk was of vast importance to his Majesty's recovery. It was to me plain that he wished that I should offer to attend his Majesty, and walk with him in the garden. I offered to do so, if he thought it likely to be useful to the King. He then went into the next room, where the King was, and I heard him say, Sir, the Chancellor is come to take a walk with your Majesty, if your Majesty pleases to allow it.' ' With all my heart,' I overheard the King say, and he called for his hat and cane. We walked two or three times round Buckingham House gardens. There was at first a momentary hurry and incoherence in his Majesty's talk, but this did not endure two minutes; during the rest of the walk there was not the slightest aberration in his Majesty's conversation, and he gave me the history of every administration in his reign. When we returned into the house, his Majesty, laying down his hat and cane, placed his head upon my shoulder, and burst into tears; and, after recovering himself, bowed me out of the room in his usual manner. Dr. Simmons told me afterwards that this had been of infinite use towards his recovery. The wary Chancellor, when in a communicative mood, also related that the King complained to him that a man in the employ of one of his physicians had knocked him down. "When I got up again," added the King, "I said my foot had slipped, and ascribed my fall to that: for it would not do for me to admit that the King had been knocked down by any one." His Majesty continued in this unsatisfactory state of mind till the month of June following, some members of the Cabinet not having nerve to transact business with him: but, during this period, Lord Eldon not only obtained his assent to acts of state, such as giving the royal assent to bills that had passed both Houses of Parliament, but actually induced him to dismiss Mr. Addington, and to take back Mr. Pitt as his Prime Minister. The Sovereign being sometimes better and sometimes worse, and occasionally appearing to talk and to write rationally, and the physicians all agreeing that he was likely to recover soon-although, if a private person in the care of a committee under the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, it is quite clear that he would not have been restored to liberty-perhaps Lord Eldon did well in continuing to treat him as competent fully to exercise all the prerogatives of the crown. Not being completely disabled, as he was in 1788 and in 1810, any proposal to suspend his functions, or to supersede his authority, might have led to a public convulsion; and the smaller evil to be chosen might be to consider his legal competence as unimpaired-there being advisers for every act that was done, responsible to Parliament and to the country. But I can by no means offer so good a defence to another charge against Lord Eldon-that, in the intrigue by which the change of Government was effected, he betrayed his political chief. This charge, which has been several times advanced, is reiterated in the recent Life of Lord Sidmouth, by Dr. Pellew; and, I am sorry to say, I think it is completely established. When Mr. Pitt, not pleased to see those whom he considered his own creatures assuming an independent existence, had become impatient for a return to power, and had coalesced with the two parties, in regular opposition, under Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville, the existing Government was in jeopardy, and its majorities decreased on every division. Nevertheless, the King, highly satisfied with his Prime Minister, was resolved resolutely to stand by him; and, till the result of the debate on the 25th of April respecting the defence of the country against invasion, in which the different sections of opponents heartily concurred, neither King nor Prime Minister had any thought of a change. But, long before this, Lord Eldon, without the knowledge of the King, and without the privity of any of his colleagues, was in secret communication with Mr. Pitt, now the declared enemy of the King's Government. He might most reasonably have thought, that Mr. Addington could not longer be allowed to be at the head of affairs with safety to the state,—but then it would have been his duty, boldly and openly, to have said so to Mr. Addington, and it would have been his duty instantly to resign the Great Seal into his Majesty's hands. Retaining the Great Seal,-professing to serve under Mr. Addington,-and regardless of the "wishes of his Royal Master," about which, when it suited his purpose, he could be so pathetic, he, of his own accord, through the medium of a note sent by his son, then a member of the House of Commons, opened a negotiation with Mr. Pitt for Mr. Addington's overthrow.* This fact is incontestably established by the following letter from Mr. Pitt to Lord Eldon: "MY DEAR LORD, "York Place, Tuesday night, March 20th, 1804. "Mr. Scott was so good as to give me your note this evening in the House of Commons. I am very glad to accept your invitation for Saturday, as, whatever may be the result of our conversation, I think the sooner we hold it the better. The state of public affairs makes it impossible that the present suspense should last very long, and nothing can give me more satisfaction than to put you confidentially in possession of all the sentiments and opinions by which my conduct will be regulated. Believe me, my dear Lord, "Yours, very sincerely, "W. PITT." All that we know of their proceedings in March is, that after their secret meeting, thus arranged, they had "a tête-à-tête dinner." It is supposed that the negotiation was interrupted by the King being so much. under the influence of his malady, that he could not be produced to hold a Council, or have any political communication made to him.§ * All possibility of a coalition between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington had long gone by, Mr. Pitt having declared that he would not even become head of the Treasury without first dissolving Mr. Addington's Administration. †This refers to the Chancellor's eldest son, then M. P. for Boroughbridge. This is proved by an entry in the journal of Mr. Abbott (afterwards Lord Colchester,) copied in Pellew's "Life of Lord Sidmouth," ii. 277. The following note from the Queen to Lord Eldon seems to show that his Majesty was worse about the middle of April : On the 23d of April Mr. Fox was to lead a grand assault of the combined Opposition, which it was thought might prove fatal to the Government; and the day before, Mr. Pitt thus wrote to the Chancellor: "MY DEAR LORD, "York Place, Sunday, April 22d, 1804. "Under the present peculiar circumstances, I trust your Lordship will forgive my taking the liberty of requesting you to take charge of the enclosed letter to the King. Its object is to convey to his Majesty, as a mark of respect, a previous intimation of the sentiments which I may find it necessary to avow in Parliament, and at the same time an assurance, with respect to my own personal intentions, which I might perhaps not be justified in offering, uncalled for, under any other circumstances, but which you will see my motive for not withholding at present. I certainly feel very anxious that this letter should be put into his Majesty's hands, if it can with propriety, before the discussion of to-morrow; but having no means of forming myself any sufficient judgment on that point, my wish is to refer it entirely to your Lordship's discretion, being fully persuaded that you will feel the importance of making the communication with as little delay as the nature of the case will admit. I shall enclose my letter unsealed for your inspection--knowing that you will allow me in doing so to request that you will not communicate its contents to any one but the King himself. I am the more anxious that you should see what I have written, because I cannot think of asking you to undertake to be the bearer of a letter, expressing sentiments so adverse lo the Government with which you are acting, without giving you the previous opportunity of knowing in what manner those sentiments are stated. It would appear that Lord Eldon had sent back the letter, to have some alteration made in it,-expressing a readiness to deliver it when the King should be in a state of mind in which he could receive it. "MY DEAR LORD, "York Place, Sunday night, April 22d, 1804. "I have no hesitation in availing myself of your permission to return into your hands my letter to the King. letter to the King. My wish is to leave it entirely to your discretion, whether it can with propriety be delivered before the debate to-morrow. If not, I anxiously wish that it should be known "MY LORD, Something having occurred last night which I wish to communicate to you, I take advantage of your promise to apply to you when under any difficulty, and beg to see you for a moment, in case you call at the Queen's House this morning, before you go to the King. "Q. H., April 14th, 1804. "CHARLOTTE.” |