A.D. 1755. CREATED AN EARL. 265 Now he was created Earl of Hardwicke and Viscount Royston.c It is said that he might sooner have enjoyed this elevation, as far as the King was concerned, had not a superior power interposed. One of his biographers, in giving an account of his two daughters and of his wife, thus explains the delay : "Both these young ladies my informer has often seen at Powis House (his town residence) opening the door of their mother's apartment (where he had the honour of attending her during the settling her domestic accounts, on Monday mornings), and, with the most graceful deference, asking what company was expected, and in what manner they should dress for the day? Having received her Ladyship's directions, they courtesied and withdrew. On this she observed, that the Lord Chancellor was in a hurry to be made an Earl, which the King would make him any day he chose it, but I delay it as much as I can. These girls you see submitting, with so much humility and observance, to consult me even in the little article of dress, would perhaps, by the acquisition of titles, be transformed into fine ladies, and abate in their respects to me. Their fortune, too, on marriage must be doubled. Ten thousand pounds, which would be deemed a sufficient fortune for a Miss Yorke, must be made twenty to a Lady Elizabeth and Lady Margaret.” These young ladies had been recently married, the one to the celebrated navigator Lord Anson, and the other to Sir Gilbert Heathcote. A.D. 1755. In the year 1755 the political horizon began to blacken. Domestic politics were much perplexed by the machinations of Leicester House, and by the Duke of Newcastle's doubts whether he should ally himself with Pitt or with Fox; while hostilities being ready to break out on the Continent, the King, for the protection of Hanover, had entered into subsidiary treaties with Russia and Hesse Cassel, which were exceedingly unpopular. On the meeting of parliament these treaties were furiously assailed in the House of Lords, and the defence of them rested chiefly on the Chancellor; for the new Prime Minister, although he had considerable volubility of gabble, was quite incapable of reasoning, A rumour being spread that he had selected the title of Earl of Clarendon, then dormant, Lady Charlotte Hyde, descended from the great Lord Chancellor Clarendon, remonstrated with him, and received from him an answer, in which he said-"Permit me to assure you that there is not one syllable of truth in the story of the title which they and was only listened to that he might be laughed at. There is no tolerable report of Lord Hardwicke's speech on this occasion, but we have what must be considered more curious and more valuable-the notes which he made for it, in his own handwriting, showing the immense pains which he still took to prepare himself, notwithstanding all his experience and all the authority which he possessed. e The last speech which Lord Hardwicke ever delivered in May 24, the House of Peers, as Chancellor, was at the close 1756. of the session of 1756, when the disagreeable task was assigned to him of throwing out the Militia Bill. Hostilities with France had now commenced: the Duke of Richelieu had sailed on his expedition against Minorca; serious apprehensions were entertained of invasion; some German mercenaries were in English pay; there was still a strong prejudice in the country against any considerable increase of the regular army; and the rage was for a national militia, in which all should be liable to serve for a limited period, which should be officered by country gentlemen, and which should not be sent out of the kingdom. A bill for establishing such a force, being introduced into the Commons and supported by Pitt, was so popular that the Government did not venture to oppose it there; but it was highly disagreeable to George II., as he thought it would interfere with his plan for hiring some additional Hanoverian regiments,—and the Duke of Newcastle was in too tottering a state to venture to thwart the King's wishes. The bill was therefore doomed to meet its fate in the Upper House. When it had been ably supported by Earl Stanhope and the Duke of Bedford, the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack, and delivered a very ingenious pleading against it, of which we have a full report corrected and circulated by himself. He first tried to show that the bill was unconstitutional, and dangerous to the just prerogative of the Crown; comparing it with the Militia Bill proposed, and at last carried without the royal assent, in the Long Parliament. "The scale of power," said he, "in this government has long been growing heavier on the democratical side. I think that this would throw a great deal of weight into it. What I contend for is, to preserve the limited monarchy entire, and nothing can do that but to preserve the counterpoise." He next attached very undue weight to the omission of a clause to take away a writ of certiorari, to remove into the King's e See 15 Parl. Hist. 643. A.D. 1756. HIS SPEECH AGAINST THE MILITIA BILL. 66 267 Bench proceedings against persons employed in the militia, whereby the Judges of that Court would be made inspectorsgeneral of this army." But he afterwards boldly and forcibly contended that it was much better that a state should be defended by a certain portion of the population, who should permanently take to arms as a profession, than that all the citizens in rotation should embrace a military life. "For my own part," said he, “I never was more convinced of any proposition than of this, that a nation of merchants, manufacturers, artisans, and husbandmen, defended by an army, is vastly preferable to a nation of soldiers. It is a self-evident proposition, that being educated and trained to arms must give a distaste for all civil occupations. Amongst the common people it introduces a love of idleness, of sports, and at last of plunder. Consider, my Lords, the case of the northern parts of Scotland, and what you have been doing there for several years past. The practice and habit of arms made that people idle, averse to the labours of agriculture as well as the confinement of a factory,-followers of sports,-next of thieving,—and last, of rebellion, as a more extensive source of plunder. I say a more extensive source of plunder, because I have always been of opinion that the love of thieving and rapine has been one main ingredient in the Highland insurrections as well as Jacobitism and clanship. In order to cure this mischief, and to lead or compel them to be industrious, you have been obliged to disarm them by law. After having pursued these maxims, of which you are beginning to feel the benefit, will your Lordships now, by a new law, endeavour to introduce the same disposition and habit into the common people of England, hitherto remarkable for their love of industry and their love of order?" f He likewise very strenuously opposed a clause in the bill, which, though petitioned against by the Dissenters, had passed without disapprobation from the Established clergy, enacting, after the example of Switzerland and other Protestant states on the Continent, that the militia should be exercised on Sundays after divine service. "If this institution," said he, "be established among us by a law, I will venture to foretel that, notwithstanding the injunction go to church, there will be a constant fair and scene of jollity in the several parishes where those exercises are kept, and the face of religion will soon be abolished in this country." to f 15 Parl. Hist. 706-769. The bill was rejected by a majority of 59 to 23, but its rejection materially contributed to the overthrow of the administration, now at hand. Parliament being prorogued in a few days, Newcastle tried to strengthen himself by fresh negotiations with borough proprietors and with popular leaders, but news arrived of the retreat of Admiral Byng without an effort to relieve Port St. Philip's, and of the entire loss of Minorca. The nation was in a greater ferment than at the time of the Excise Bill. Not without reason, the loss and disgrace so deplored were ascribed to the inefficiency of the present head of the government; and although he was strong in numbers in the House of Commons, and could do what he chose in the House of Lords, no one would join him.” The immediate cause of the change of ministry was the sudden death of Sir Dudley Ryder, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench. Pitt was at this time in hot opposition, and, with such a theme as the disgrace of our flag, was ready on the meeting of parliament actually to crush the trembling Premier. The only person in the House of Commons who " 'had courage even to look him in the face," was Murray, the Attorney-General, who indeed had fought many a stout battle with him, and who, if so inclined, might still have entered the lists against him as the champion of the Government, but who now peremptorily insisted on his right to the vacant chiefship. He was not only, after Pitt, the best speaker in the House of Commons, but he was decidedly the greatest lawyer at the English bar; he had served many years as a law officer of the Crown with the highest distinction, and, having gallantly and faithfully exerted himself in the conflict while there was a chance of victory, now that a general defeat was inevitable, he considered that he might honourably act upon the principle ‘sauve qui peut.' Newcastle, eager to retain him in the House of Commons, as a forlorn hope, plied him When the defects of the Reform Bill are considered, the working of the old system should not be forgotten,-a striking instance of which is, that it imposed upon the King and the nation for several years, as prime minister, the Duke of Newcastle, a man disliked and despised by both. I suppose this was the weakest administration that ever was entrusted with power in a free country. Lord Hardwicke was the only man of any capacity for business in the cabinet; and, after all, he was more of a lawyer than a statesman. Lord Waldegrave gives us a lively picture of one of their deliberations, when the subject was what orders should be sent out to Admiral Hawke:-"The Chancellor had more courage than the Duke of Newcastle; but, agreeable to the common practice of the law, was against bringing the cause to an immediate decision."-Lord Waldegrave's Mem. p. 46. h Ibid. p. 82. A.D. 1756. RESIGNS THE GREAT SEAL. 269 with various proposals,―a Tellership of the Exchequer, or the Duchy of Lancaster for life, or a pension of 2000l. a year for life, in addition to the profits of his office as AttorneyGeneral. Nay, the bidding rose to 6000l. a year of pension : but Murray was inexorable; nor would he even on any terms agree to remain in the House of Commons, only one session longer, or one month, or one day to support the address. He declared, in plain terms, that if they did not choose to make him Lord Chief Justice he was determined to resign the office of Attorney-General, and that they must fight their own battles in the House of Commons, as he never again would enter that assembly. This spirited conduct had its proper effect; he was made Chief Justice, and a Peer, by the title of Baron Mansfield. On the day when he took his seat in the Court of King's Bench, the Duke of Newcastle, not daring to face parliament, resigned. Lord Hardwicke, who had prompted him in all his negotiations, finding that they had all failed, expressed a resolution to share his fate, and publicly intimated that he only retained the Great Seal for a few days to enable him to dispose of some causes which he had heard argued in the Court of Chancery. He was strongly urged to continue Chancellor, with a view to strengthen the feeble administration now forming under that very honourable-not very able-man, the fourth Duke of Devonshire; but he peremptorily refused. It is generally said that, from age, and apprehended decline of faculties, he was anxious to retire. There is not the smallest foundation for this statement. His health and strength remained unimpaired, and his mind was as active, his perception as quick, and his judgment as sound, as when he served under Walpole; and although his i "My Lord Chancellor, with whom I do every thing, and without whom I do nothing, has had a most material hand in all these arrangements. He sees and knows the truth of what I write; and he judges as I do, that no other method but this could have been followed with any prospect of success."-Duke of Newcastle to Mr. Pitt, 2nd April, 1754. Lord Waldegrave gives a curious account of Lord Hardwicke's demeanour; when, as one expedient for strengthening the government, it was proposed to bring in Lord Bute, then supposed to be not only the leader of Leicester House, but the lover of the Princess of Wales:-"The Chancellor, with his usual gravity, declared that for his own part he had no particular objection to "Dreading |