On the report of the American resolutions agreed to by the committee, Grenville, Conway, and the opponents proposed to recommit them, but were overruled; Charles Townshend making an admirably witty and pathetic speech to prevent a division. Fitzherbert[15] took notice that Mr. Conway’s dissent would be likely to do more harm than the resolutions could do good. Grenville then moved his test to oblige the Americans to acknowledge the sovereignty of Great Britain, but it was rejected by 141 to 40. Three days after this, arrived an account that Georgia had refused to comply with the Act in stronger terms than any other Colony, and that South Carolina would probably be equally disobedient.
At this period came to my knowledge a transaction, at which I have already hinted, and which in truth at that time persuaded me of the reality of Lord Chatham’s madness. When he inherited Sir William Pynsent’s estate, he removed to it and sold his house and grounds at Hayes, a place on which he had wasted prodigious sums, and which yet retained small traces of expense, great part having been consumed in purchasing contiguous tenements to free himself from all neighbourhood. Much had gone in doing and undoing, and not a little portion in planting by torch-light, as his peremptory and impatient temper could brook no delay. Nor were these the sole circumstances that marked his caprice. His children he could not bear under the same roof, nor communications from room to room, nor whatever he thought promoted noise. A winding passage between his house and children was built with the same view. When at the beginning of this his second administration, he fixed at North End by Hampstead, he took four or five houses successively, as fast as Mr. Dingley, his landlord, went into them, still, as he said, to ward off the noises of neighbourhood. His inconsiderate promptitude was not less remarkable at Pynsent. A bleak hill bounded his view; he ordered his gardener to have it planted with evergreens; the man asked, “With what sorts?” He replied, “With cedars and cypresses.” “Bless me, my lord!” replied the gardener, “all the nurseries in this county (Somersetshire) would not furnish a hundredth-part.” “No matter; send for them from London;” and they were fetched by land-carriage. Yet were these follies committed when no suspicion was had of his disorder. But by these and other caprices he had already consumed more than half of the legacy of Pynsent. His very domestic and abstemious privacy bore a considerable article in his housekeeping. His sickly and uncertain appetite was never regular, and his temper could put up with no defect. Thence a succession of chickens were boiling and roasting at every hour to be ready whenever he should call. He now, as if his attention to business demanded his vicinity to town, bent his fancy to the repossession of Hayes, which he had sold to my cousin, Mr. Thomas Walpole. The latter, under great inquietude, showed me letters he had received from Lady Chatham, begging in the most pathetic terms that he would sell them Hayes again. She urged that it would save her children from destruction; and that her children’s children would be bound to pray for him; requesting that he would take some days to consider before he refused. He did; and then wrote to her that he was very averse from parting with the place, on which he had laid out much money; but if the air of Hayes was the object, Lord Chatham was welcome to go thither directly for a month, or for the whole summer; that he would immediately remove his family, who were there, and Lord Chatham would find it well aired. This she declined accepting. Mr. Walpole then sent Nuthall[16] to her. She, who had never appeared to have a will or thought of her own, but to act with submission at her lord’s nod, now received Nuthall alone, and besought him not to own to her lord that she had yet received any letter from Mr. Walpole, but to deliver it as just arrived, if Lord Chatham should ask for the answer, and then carried him to her lord. He seemed in health and reasonable; but asking if Nuthall knew anything about Hayes, and being told the contents of the letter, he said, with a sigh, “That might have saved me.” Lady Chatham, seeming to be alarmed, said, “My lord, I was talking to Mr. Nuthall on that subject; we will go and finish our discourse;” and carried him out of the room. She then told him they had agreed to sell the Wiltshire estate (part of Pynsent’s), and with part of the produce re-purchase Hayes, which, however, they must mortgage, for they owed as much as the sale would amount to. Mr.