Volume II Part 13 (1/2)
You will already have seen and considered what I have said to you on the subject of remaining. You cannot form to yourself an idea how universally it is the wish of all who wish for your own personal credit, and of all who are interested for the credit of the party, that you should remain in Ireland so long as to make it appear that you have thoroughly weathered the storm. Your session need be but very short indeed. The uncertain state of everything since November last, is an ample apology for not being prepared with other business, and for deferring it till another year. But the leaving it in the middle, would convey the impression that all this difficulty had been personal to yourself, and that you were the only obstacle to the success of English Government in Ireland.
Directly the reverse of this proposition is, I am convinced, the truth; but it is a truth which it is of the utmost importance to yourself to establish in the general and public opinion in this country. You have great advantages for this, from the general disposition which is prevalent here to feel the strongest indignation at the conduct which your opponents have held. I must own it would be a severe mortification to me to see you forego this opportunity.
You know the only motive which I can have for pressing this so much, and how much violence I do to my own feelings when I urge anything which may delay my seeing you again.
Ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.
Lord Bulkeley, in a letter dated the 24th, describes one of these interviews of the Princes with His Majesty. The general impressions which prevailed respecting the conduct and dispositions of their Royal Highnesses in this crisis, may be gathered from these unreserved revelations.
The accounts from Kew this morning are as good as possible (but I have not got the precise words); notwithstanding, the Princes were with him half an hour yesterday, which is a proof that his miraculous recovery is not to be shaken. Lord Winchelsea, who was at Kew the whole time, told me that the Prince and Duke of York, though appointed at one, did not arrive till half-past three; and that when they came out, they told Colonel Digby that they were delighted with the King's being so well, and remarked that two things in the half-hour's conference which they had with him had struck them very forcibly: that he had observed to them how much better he played at picquet than Mr. Charles Hawkins, and that since he had been ill he had rubbed up all his Latin; and these facts, which are facts, I expect to hear magnified by the Carlton House runners into instances of insanity.
The Princes entered the King's apartment without any emotion, and came out of it with none visible in their countenances. The Queen only was present, and the conference lasted half an hour. I have not heard as yet; but conclude they were both rioting, ----, and drunk last night at the masquerade, as they were at one a week ago; the truth is, that they are quite desperate, and endeavour to drown their cares, disappointments, and internal chagrin in wine and dissipation.
The Duke of York plays much at tennis, and has a score with all the blacklegs; and in the public court tells them they shall all be paid as soon as his father can settle with him some Osnaburg money which he owes him.
The Princes give out, that as soon as they have an opportunity of explaining their conduct to the King, they are sure he will approve of it as much as he will reprobate that of Mr. Pitt's.
”It is now almost certain,” says Mr. Grenville on the 23rd, ”that we shall not pa.s.s the Regency Bill, and consequently that the Government will not be changed.” In the same letter he refers to a suggestion of Lord Buckingham's, that the answer declining to transmit the Irish Address should be laid before His Royal Highness.
On conversing with Pitt, we were both clearly of opinion, that no communication ought to be made to H.R.H. of what has pa.s.sed in Ireland, as we have uniformly considered him as not ent.i.tled, under the present circ.u.mstances, to any communication of any part of the business of Government. Nothing has accordingly been ever laid before him, except the measures which Pitt intended to _bring forward_ respecting him personally; but that principle certainly does not extend to such a communication as had been proposed in your separate letter, which I have for that reason not sent to Lord Sydney.
In so absurd a light, indeed, did the whole proceedings of the Irish Parliament appear to Ministers, that Mr. Grenville thought it highly improbable that the Irish Amba.s.sadors, as they were called, would venture to present the Address in the improved state of the King's health, or that His Royal Highness would be advised to accept it. They _did_ present it notwithstanding, and their reception is thus reported by Mr. Grenville:
Your Amba.s.sadors are arrived; and presented their Address yesterday evening to the Prince. The answer which, as I understand, he gave them, was, that he was highly gratified with the expressions of _loyalty to the King_, which the Address contained; but that with respect to the rest he could not give them an answer before Tuesday, on which day he desired to see them again. I take it for granted, he will then say, that the King being recovered, all consideration of a Regency is out of the question.
People in general here do not seem disposed to consider this transaction in any other than a ludicrous manner, and as the most absurd and ridiculous farce. It is impossible to describe how much and how universally their Excellencies are laughed at. One of them came into an a.s.sembly last night, and was received with a general roar of laughter. I did not think they would have been so foolish as to present it. The Prince and his friends must have been a good deal embarra.s.sed what answer to give them; and I do not think they have succeeded remarkably well, if the account of the answer, such as I have stated it, is true.
It was on the day after the Princes' interview that Mr. Pitt had his first audience of the King since his illness; no Minister, except the Chancellor, having hitherto been admitted to see His Majesty, on account of the jealousies with which every step they took throughout this painful interval was watched and turned to account.
MR. W. W. GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Whitehall, Feb. 24th, 1789.
MY DEAR BROTHER,
Pitt has just shown me a letter which he received last night from the King, written in His Majesty's own hand, couched in the warmest terms, thanking him for his unshaken attachment to his interests, and desiring to see him this morning. He went accordingly to Kew, and was with the King above an hour. He says that there was not the smallest trace or appearance of any disorder; that the King's manner was unusually composed and dignified, but that there was no other difference whatever from what he had been used to see. The King spoke of his disorder as of a thing past, and which had left no other impression on his mind than that of grat.i.tude for his recovery, and a sense of what he owed to those who had stood by him. He spoke of these in such a manner as brought tears into his eyes; but even with that degree of affection of mind, there was not the least appearance of disorder.
After Pitt had left His Majesty, he conversed with Willis, who told him that he now thought the King quite well; that he could not perceive the least trace remaining of his disorder. Under these circ.u.mstances, the more I consider our actual situation and what seems due to the King's feelings, the more I am persuaded of that opinion, to which I think our friends begin in general to lean, that the King's resumption of his authority must be done purely by his own act, and that it is impossible to hear of any examination of physicians.
The two Princes were at Kew yesterday, and saw the King, in the Queen's apartment. She was present the whole time, a precaution for which, G.o.d knows, there was but too much reason. They kept him waiting a considerable time before they arrived; and after they left him, drove immediately to Mrs. Armstead's, in Park Street, in hopes of finding Fox there, to give him an account of what had pa.s.sed. He not being in town, they amused themselves yesterday evening with spreading about a report that the King was still out of his mind, and in quoting phrases of his to which they gave that turn. It is certainly a decent and becoming thing, that when all the King's physicians, all his attendants, and his two princ.i.p.al Ministers, agree in p.r.o.nouncing him well, his two sons should deny it. And the reflection that the Prince of Wales was to have had the Government and the Duke of York the command of the army during his illness, makes this representation of his actual state, when coming from them, more peculiarly proper and edifying. I bless G.o.d it is yet some time before these _matured and ripened virtues_ will be _visited upon us_ in the form of a Government.
Believe me ever most affectionately yours, W. W. G.
Acting on the _carte blanche_ which he had asked, and which had been freely accorded to him, respecting dismissals, appointments, and creations, Lord Buckingham proceeded at once to redress the balance of power in Ireland, by dismissing from their offices the persons who had recently opposed the conduct of the Government on the Regency question.
A similar course had been pursued in England on His Majesty's recovery.
Mr. Grenville mentions specially ”the justice which had been executed on Lord Lothian” in this way, the King taking his troop from him, and sending him to join another in Ireland. ”The joke current here,” says Mr. Grenville, ”is, that the Irish Amba.s.sadors came over here to Lothian's hotel, and that the King sends Lothian to return the visit.”
In Ireland the disaffection had been more dangerous and extensive, and demanded more severe measures.
The moment it was known that the King was recovered, a negotiation was opened with the Government through Mr. Fitzgibbon, then Attorney-General, by the princ.i.p.al members of the Lords and Commons who had supported the Address, tendering their submission, and asking for an amnesty. It has been stated in some publications referring to these proceedings, that the negotiations were opened by Government; but Lord Buckingham's official despatch, dated the 23rd of March, not only shows that statement to be erroneous, but establishes the fact that Lord Buckingham peremptorily refused to entertain the negotiation until he should have received a positive a.s.surance that a certain defensive and hostile agreement, into which those gentlemen had entered, was to be considered as abandoned. This agreement, or a.s.sociation, was called the Round Robin (although not really a round robin, being merely a declaration, followed in the usual way by the signatures of the subscribers), pledging those who attached their names to it to ”stand by each other” (to use the phrase by which Mr. Beresford described it) in the event of their offices or pensions being taken from them, and to oppose any Administration that should resort to such a proceeding.
Finding Lord Buckingham immoveable upon the condition he stipulated for, Lords Shannon, Loftus, Clifden, and many others, authorized the Attorney-General to declare the a.s.sociation at an end, adding that they desired to be represented to His Majesty as anxious to support his Government, and to endeavour to remove by their future conduct all unfavourable impressions from his mind. In the wise exercise of the discretion reposed in him, Lord Buckingham accepted this voluntary tender of allegiance, and permitted the gentlemen who had made it to retain their offices. The Duke of Leinster, who had been only recently appointed to the Rolls, and Mr. Ponsonby, who held the situation of Postmaster-General, refusing to give the required undertaking, aggravated, in the case of the latter, by a declaration that he would not enter into any communication with Lord Buckingham, were at once dismissed from their offices. This dismissal was followed by that of a few others of less note.