“It was with difficulty that I brought Lord Chatham to be sensible of the weakness of his Administration, or the power of the united faction against us, though we received every mark we could desire of his Majesty’s support. At last, after much discourse and some arguing, he proceeded to entreat me to remain in my present station, taking that method to strengthen the Ministry which should appear to me to be the most eligible; and he assured me that if Lords Northington and Camden, as well as myself, did not retain our high places, there would be an end to all his hopes of being ever serviceable again as a public man.”
Eventually Lord Chatham acquiesced in the Duke entering into a negotiation with the Bedford or Rockingham party--though he preferred the former,--a preference which explains the Duke’s remark in the text of p. 49.--E.
[20] Conway was right--Prince Ferdinand realized very little property during the war, and died poor. The vast sums drawn from England fell into the hands of subordinate agents.--E.
[21] They were both descendants of Charles II.
[22] A brief report of the debate is given from Lord Hardwicke’s Notes in the “Parliamentary History,” vol. xvi. p. 350, by which it appears that Lord Mansfield’s opposition was most decided and effective. He treated it as an unprecedented exertion of absolute power to set aside a legal act of private men legally empowered to dispose of their own property--they having neither violated the general principles of justice nor the bye-laws of the Company; their circumstances being amply adequate to the payment of the dividend: and he also insisted that stock-jobbing would be promoted by the bill, and left no doubt of his own impression that such was its sole object. These arguments are reproduced with great ability in the Protest, and have never been satisfactorily refuted. The insolvency of the Company--a ground afterwards abandoned by the Government--seems to be the only legitimate defence that could have been alleged for such an arbitrary act.--E.
[23] Many, if not all of these, are to be found in the third volume of Lord Chatham’s Correspondence.--E.
[24] Lord Holland had long vented this maxim, though he himself and Lord Chatham had proved the futility of it in the last reign, when they had successfully attacked the Duke of Newcastle’s Administration, on his setting Sir Thomas Robinson to lead the House of Commons. Lord Bute at the same instigation had erected himself into Minister, with Sir Francis Dashwood for his substitute, and though it is true the nation bore it for one session, it was so ridiculous an Administration, that the Earl took fright, resigned himself, and deposed his deputy. The King not having courage to repeat the system, though he liked it, had recourse to an artful expedient, which answered his purpose--which was to set up an ostensible Minister, but govern by his secret junto. Lord Rockingham had really been Minister for one year, but found he could not gain the King’s confidence without submitting to the junto, and he was removed for Lord Chatham, another real Minister, whose madness or mad conduct left the King at liberty to revert to his own system, and then the Duke of Grafton and Lord North submitted to be ostensible Ministers.