Chapter 242

Arlington Street, April 18, 1765. (page 388)

Lady Holland carries this, which enables me to write a little more explicitly than I have been able to do lately. The King has been in the utmost danger; the humour in his face having fallen upon his breast. He now appears constantly; yet, I fear, his life is very precarious, and that there is even apprehension of a consumption. After many difficulties from different quarters, a Regency-bill is determined; the King named it first to the ministers, who said, they intended to mention it to him as soon as he was well; yet they are not thought to be fond of it. The King is to come to the House on Tuesday, and recommend the provision to the Parliament.(796) Yet, if what is whispered proves true, that the nomination of the Regent is to be reserved to the King's will, it is likely to cause great uneasiness. If the ministers propose such a clause, it is strong evidence of their own instability, and, I should think, would not save them, at least, some of them. The world expects changes Soon, though not a thorough alteration; yet, if any takes place shortly, I should think It would be a material One than not. The enmity between Lord Bute and Mr. Grenville is not denied on either side. There is a notion, and I am inclined to think not ill founded, that the former and Mr. Pitt are treating. It is certain that the last has expressed wishes that the opposition may lie still for the remainder of the session. This, at least, puts an end to the question on your brother,(797) of which I am glad for the present. The common town-talk is, that Lord Northumberland does not care to return to Ireland,--that you are to succeed him there, Lord Rochford you, and that Sandwich is to go to Spain. My belief is, that there will be no change, except, perhaps, a single one for Lord Northumberland, unless there are capital removals indeed.

The Chancellor, Grenville, the Bedfords, and the two Secretaries are one body; at least, they pass for such: yet it is very lately, if one of them has dropped his prudent management with Lord Bute. There seems an unwillingness to discard the Bedfords, though their graces themselves keep little terms of civility to Lord Bute, none to the Princess (Dowager). Lord Gower is a better courtier, and Rigby would do any thing to save his place.

This is the present state, which every day may alter: even to-morrow is a day of expectation, as the last struggle of the Poor-bill. If the Bedfords carry it, either by force or sufferance, (though Lord Bute has constantly denied being the author of the opposition to it,) I shall less expect any great change soon. In those less important, I shall not wonder to find the Duke of Richmond come upon the scene, perhaps for Ireland, though he is not talked of.

Your brother is out of town, not troubling himself, though the time seems so critical. I am not so philosophic; as I almost wish for any thing that may put an end to my being concerned in the m`el`ee--for any end to a most gloomy prospect for the country: alas! I see it not.

Lord Byron's trial lasted two days, and he was acquitted totally by four lords, Beaulieu, Falmouth, Despenser,(798) and Orford,(799) and found guilty of manslaughter by one hundred and twenty. The Dukes of York and Gloucester were present in their places. The prisoner behaved with great decorum, and seemed thoroughly shocked and mortified. Indeed, the bitterness of the world against him has been great, and the stories they have revived or invented to load him, very grievous. The Chancellor has behaved with his usual, or, rather greater vulgarness and blunders. Lord Pomfret(800) kept away decently, from the similitude of his own story.

I have been to wait on Messrs. Choiseul(801) and De Lauragais,(802) as you desired, but have not seen then yet. The former is lodged with my Lord Pembroke, and the Guerchys are in terrible apprehensions of his exhibiting some scene.

The Duke of Cumberland bore the journey to Newmarket extremely well, but has been lethargic Since,; yet they have found out that Daffy's Elixir agrees with, and does him good. Prince Frederick is very bad. There is no private news at all. As I shall not deliver this till the day after to-morrow, I shall be able to give you an account of the fate of the Poor-bill.

The medals that came for me from Geneva, I forgot to mention to you, and to beg you to be troubled with them till I see you. I had desired Lord Stanhope(803) to send them; and will beg you too, if any bill is sent, to pay it for me, and I will repay it. you. I say nothing of my journey, which the unsettled state of my affairs makes it impossible for me to fix. I long for every reason upon earth to be with you.

April 20th, Saturday.

The Poor-bill is put off till Monday; is then to be amended, and then dropped: a confession of weakness, in a set of people not famous for being moderate! I was assured, last night, that Ireland had been twice offered to you, and that it hung on their insisting upon giving you a secretary, either Wood or Bunbury. I replied very truly that I knew nothing of it, that you had never mentioned it to me and I believed not even to your brother. The answer was, Oh! his particular friends are always the last that know any thing about him. Princess Amalie loves this topic, and is for ever teasing us about your mystery. I defend myself by pleading that I have desired you never to tell me any thing till it was in the gazette.

They say there is to be a new alliance in the house of Montagu: that Lord Hinchinbrook(804) is to marry the sole remaining daughter of Lord Halifax; that her fortune is to be divided into three shares, of which each father is to take one, and the third is to be the provision for the victims. I don't think this the most unlikely part of the story. Adieu! my dear lord.

(796) In a letter to his son, of the 22d of April, Chesterfield says:--"Apropos of a minority: the King is to come to the House tomorrow, to recommend a bill to settle a regency, in case of his demise while his successor is a minor. Upon his late illness, which was no trifling one, the whole nation cried out aloud for such a bill, for reasons which will readily occur to you, who know situations, persons, and characters here. I do not know the provisions of this intended bill; but I wish it may b(@ copied exactly from that which was passed in the late King's reign, when the present King was a minor. I am sure there cannot be a better."-E.

(797) As to his dismissal.-C.

(798) Sir Francis Dashwood, lately confirmed in this barony, as the heir of the Fanes by his mother. He had been chancellor of the exchequer in Lord Bute's administration.-E.

(799) George, third Earl of Orford, Mr. Walpole's nephew; on whose death, in 1791, he succeeded to the title.-E.

(800) George, second Earl of Pomfret, while Lord Lempster, had the misfortune to kill Captain Grey, of the Guards, in a duel: he was tried at the Old Bailey in April 1752, and found guilty of manslaughter only. See vol. ii. p. 124, letter 54.-E.

(801) The son, it is supposed, of the Duc de Praslin.-C.

(802) Louis L`eon de Brancas, the eldest son of the Duc de Villars Brancas: he was, during his father's life, known as the Comte, and afterwards Duc, de Lauragais, and was a very singular and eccentric person. He was a great Anglomane, and was the first introducer into France of horseraces `a l'Anglaise; it was to him that Louis XV.--not pleased at his insolent Anglomanie-- made so excellent a retort. The King had asked him after one of his journeys, what he had learned in England? Lauragais answered, with a kind of republican dignity, "A panser" (penser).--"Les chavaux?" inquired the King. On the other hand, he was one of the first promoters of the practice of inoculation. stories about him, both in England and France, are endless: "He was," says M. de Segur, who knew him well, "one of the most singular men of the long period in which he lived; he united in his person a combination of great qualities and great faults, the smallest portion of which would have marked any other man with a striking originality." He died in 1823, at the age of ninety-one--his youthful name and follies forgotten in the respectable old age of the Duc de Brancas.-C.

(803) Philip, second Earl Stanhope; for a character of whom, by his great-grandson, Lord Mahon, see vol. i. p. 308, letter 96, note 771.-E.

(804) Afterwards fifth Earl of sandwich. The match with lady Eliza Savile took place on the 1st of march 1766.-E.