With very little parliamentary, and with less court, influence, he swayed, both at court and in parliament, with an authority unknown before to the best supported ministers. He was called to the ministry by the voice of the people; and, what is more, he held it with that approbation; and under him, for the first time, administration and popularity were seen united. Under him Great Britain carried on the most important war in which she was ever engaged alone and unassisted, with greater splendour than she had ever enjoyed at the head of the most powerful alliances. Alone, this island seemed to balance the rest of Europe. In the conduct of the war, he never fuf. fered the enemy to breathe, but overwhelmed them with reiterated blows, and kept up the alarm in every quarter. The spirit of the nation, once roused, was not suffered for a moment to subside; and the French dazzled, as it were, by the multitude and celerity of his enterprises, seemed to have lost all power of resistance. In short, he revived the military genius of our people; he supported our allies; he extended our trade; he raised our reputation; he augmented our dominions; and, on his departure from administration, left the nation in no other danger than that which ever must attend exorbitant power, and the temptation which may be to the invidious exertion of it. Happy had it been for him, for his sovereign, and his country, if a temper less austere, and a disposition more practicable, and compliant, and conciliating, had been joined to his other great virtues. The want of these qualities disabled him from acting any otherwise than alone; it prevented our enjoying the joint fruit of the wisdom of many able men, who might mutually have tempered, and mutually forwarded, each other; and finally, which was not the meanest loss, it deprived us of his own immediate services. II. Those who censured his political CHAP. conduct the most severely, could raise but few exceptions to it, none of them singly, and, perhaps, the whole united, of no great weight against a person long engaged in so great a scene of action. 'Whether the part, which, under his administration, we rather continued to act, than newly took up, with regard to the affairs of Germany, be for the real interest of Great Britain, is a question of the utmost difficulty, and which, perhaps, will never admit of a satisfactory folution: to condemn him on this head, we must be sure of this solution. It has been observed, in favour of that contested measure, that France demonstrated, through the whole progress of the late treaty, the most earnest desire that we should abandon that German connection; no trifling argument that our enemy did not look upon it to be extremely prejudicial to our interests. If he carried on that war at a vast expence, a prodigious stand has been made against the entire power of France: had less been expended, the whole expence might have been lost. How far this part of his conduct was agreeable to his former declarations, is a discussion which can avail but little. He found the nation engaged in these; it was more easy to push them forward than 'to extricate himself from them: as he proceeded, he discovered, by experience, the advantages of that plan of action, and his opinion was changed. But even admitting that, to attain the ends of opposition, he had once fallen upon popular topics, which, even then, he knew were not tenable, it can form but a very small blemish in a public character, however wrong it may be, by strict application to the rules of morality. Ill would it fare with statesmen, if this sort of consistency were to be expected from the most consistent of them. With regard to the pension and title, it is a shame that any defence should be 1761. II. 1761. CHAP. necessary. What eye cannot distinguish, at the first glance, the difference between this and the exceptionable case of titles and pensions? What Briton, with the smallest sense of honour and gratitude, but must blush for his country if such a man retire unrewarded from the public services, let the motives for that retirement be what they would? It was not possible that his sovereign could let his eminent services pass unrequited: the sum that was given was undoubtedly inadequate to his merits; and the quantum was rather regulated by the moderation of the great mind that received it, than by the liberality of that which bestowed it.' Another character, ascribed to the Irish orator Grattan, is drawn so eloquently, that it ought not to be omitted in the mention of this mighty minister. animated by ardour and enlightened by prophecy. The ordinary feelings, which make life amiable and indolent, those sensations which soften, allure, and vulgarize, were unknown to him: no domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to counsel and decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all its classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she found in this statesman many defects, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories, but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her. Nor The secretary stood alone. were his political abilities his only Modern degeneracy had not reach- talents. His eloquence was an era ed him. Original, and unaccom- in the senate: peculiar and spontamodating, the features of his cha- neous, familiarly expressing gigan. racter had the hardihood of anti- tic ideas and instinctive wisdom. quity. His august mind overawed Not like the torrent of Demosmajesty. One of his sovereigns thenes, or the splendid conflagrathought royalty so impaired in his tion of Tully-it resembled somepresence, that he conspired to re- times the thunder, and sometimes move him, in order to be relieved the music, of the spheres. Like from his superiority. No state Murray, he did not conduct the chicanery, no narrow system of understanding through the painful vicious politics, no idle contest for subtilty of argumentation; nor was ministerial victories, sunk him to he, like Townsend, for ever on the the vulgar level of the great; but, rack of invention, but rather light overbearing, persuasive, and im- ene upon the subject, and reachpracticable, his object was Eng-ed the point by the flashings of his land, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed, party. He made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite, and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate: the suggestions of an understanding mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be fol lowed. 'Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform: an understand. ing, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority: something that would establish or overwhelm an empire, and strike a blow in the world that should rea sound through its universe.” 39 CHAP. III. Meeting of the new parliament.... Sir John Cust chosen speaker.... His majesty's speech.... Supplies voted.... Pension settled on the queen.... Mr. Pitt's resignation known at Madrid.... Change of behaviour in the Spanish court.... Rumours respecting the family compact spread throughout Europe.... Explanation of its nature demanded by Lord Bristol.... Military and naval preparations in Spain.... Second and ineffectual effort of Lord Bristol to obtain an explana tion of the suspected treaty.... Injunctions sent to his lordship to receive an explicit answer, what were the views of Spain with respect to joining France.... Letter sent by General Wall.... Lord Bristol leaves Madrid.... The count de Fuentes leaves London.... Delivers a vehement memorial before his departure.... Answered by Lord Egremont.... Remarks on the conduct of Spain.... Prospects of Great Bri tain at the commencement of the war with her new enemy. .... Declaration of war with Spain.... Speech from the throne to parliament.... Answer of the commons.... Memorial of the Bourbon kings to the court of Lisbon.... Magnanimous answer of the Portuguese monarch.... The Spaniards invade Portugal.... Over-run Braganza.... Are checked by the peasantry on the banks of the Douro.... Another division of their forces enter the province of Beira.... Debates of the house of commons on the vote of credit.... Mr. Pitt's speech on the necessity of vigorous measures aud liberal supplies.... Lord Tyrawley sent ambassador to Lisbon.... Dispute between the duke of Newcastle and Lord Bute, respecting the support due to Prussia.... The duke of Newcastle retires.... His expression on being offered a pension.... Succeeded in office by Lord Bute.... Mr. Grenville made secretary of state, and Sir Francis Dashwood chancellor of the exchequer.... Revolution in the fortunes of Frederic king of Prussia.... Death of the empress Elizabeth.... Succession and character of Czar Peter III. ... Successes of Prussia in Saxony and SiLesia.... Sudden dethronement and death of Czar Peter.... 40 ... Advantage taken by Frederic of his allies in the very moment of their desertion.... The siege of Schweidnitz opened.... Campaign of Prince Ferdinand with the French.... Battles of Grabenstein and Homburg.... Prince Xavier defeated in Saxony.... The prince of Conde's army called from the Lower Rhine.... Cassel surrenders to the allies.... Expedition against Martinico.... Capture of that colony, with all its dependencies.... Grenada, the Grenadines.... Tobago and St. Lucia.... Expedition against the Havannah.... Hard siege of the Moro.... Taken by mining and storm.. Gallant behaviour and death of the, governor.... The town of Havannah, and part of the island of Cuba, surrender.... Immensity of the plunder.... Capture of Leuconia by the Bri. tish.... Capture of St. John, on the coast of Newfoundland, by the French.... Recovered by Colonel Amherst.... Unfortunate expedition to Buenos Ayres.... Summer campaign in Portugal under the count de la Lippe Buckeburg.... Valentia de Alcantara surprised by General Burgoyne.... Success of Colonel Lee near Villa Vehla.... Retreat of the Spaniards to their own frontiers. THEN the ministry was upon the eve of change, W the new parliament assembled, and the com mons unanimously elected Sir John Cust for their speaker; the popular merits of this gentleman justly entitling him to hold so respectable a station. The king's speech, after noticing the happy marriage which his majesty had lately made, and congratulating the nation upon its recent triumphs in the East and West Indies, upon the conduct of General Prince Ferdinand, and the magnanimous efforts of his majesty's faithful ally, the king of Prussia, proceeded to state his majesty's entire resolution to carry on the war with unabated vigour, and to preserve the faith and honour of his crown, until his enemies, moved by their own losses and distresses, and touched with the miseries of so many nations, should yield to the equitable conditions of an honourable peace. The supplies for the year Nov. 6. being requested in due form, it was recommended CHAP. to make an adequate and honourable provision for the queen's support, in case of her surviving his 1761. majesty, as being due to her royal dignity and her own merits. The interruption of the negociations for peace was duly noticed in the course of the speech; but no mention made of the Spanish memorial, or of any probability that war was to be dreaded from that quarter. His majesty declared his resolution to support his allies; but no promise was made of a Prussian subsidy, nor indeed was the Prussian subsidy renewed. If we consider the events of the ensuing year, the happy change of fortune experienced by Frederic, the new war, and the increased expences that arose out of the dispute with Spain, we shall find a strong apology for this diminution of our subsidizing bounty. Parliament returned a dutiful and unanimous address, declaring, that, sensible of the difficult crisis in which they were assembled, they were determined to concur, with the greatest firmness and unanimity, in whatever might contribute towards the public welfare, might tend to defeat the views and expectations of their enemies, and convince the world that there were no difficulties which his majesty's wisdom and perseverance, with the assistance of his parliament, could not surmount. A pension of £100,000 a-year was settled upon her majesty, with the palace of Somerset house, and the lands and lodge of Richmond park. The supplies granted by the commons were adequate to the public exigence. Seventy thousand seamen, 67,000 land forces, besides the militia of England, two regiments of fencibles in North Britain, the provincial troops in North America, and 67,177 German auxiliaries to support the war in Westphalia, were voted for the service of 1762. For the payment of these forces, for supplying de 2 |