Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third (Vol. 1-4). Horace Walpole
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and more congenial in their character and bearings with those which have since engaged, and still occupy our attention. The contests between Whigs and Jacobites may not be undeserving our curiosity; yet they sink into insignificance when compared with the origin and progress of the American discontents, in which may be traced the first indistinct rudiments of the great antagonistic principles and social revolutions of our own time. The Parliamentary struggles, too, in the case of General Warrants, are important, not less on account of the stores of constitutional knowledge they elicited, than from the spirit of free inquiry into the Prerogatives of the Crown on the one hand and the Privileges of the People on the other, which necessarily sprang out of them. Nor is it an uninstructive lesson to observe the efforts made by George the Third to break up the political parties which had embarrassed the reign of his predecessor. These topics are among the most prominent in the History of England during the Eighteenth Century, and they constitute the staple of the present Work. Some of the best debates on the Stamp Act, and on the proceedings against Mr. Wilkes, are here reported with a vivacity and apparent correctness which may be sought in vain elsewhere; and we meet throughout the Work the same abundance of anecdote, and the same graphic description of men and manners, that characterise the Memoires of George the Second. It gives even more copious details of the negotiations between political parties, especially those incidental to the fall of Lord Rockingham’s Administration; the gradual alienation of that nobleman and his friends from the Duke of Grafton; and the other divisions among the Whig party, which ended in the long enjoyment of power by their opponents. The records of these transactions do not, it is true, form the most dignified department of the historian, but political history is necessarily incomplete without them; and here Walpole is on his own ground. Unlike most of the writers who have minutely chronicled their times, he can neither be charged with obtaining mere imperfect or occasional glances into the councils of men in power, nor with suffering himself to be shackled by a sense of official restraint, not to say responsibility. He possessed entirely the secret of affairs, at least as long as Conway remained Minister; and so unreservedly discloses what he knew, that he might not untruly boast, as he does elsewhere, “that the failings of some of his nearest friends are as little concealed as those of other persons.”2
I have little to add concerning my own share in these Memoirs. They are printed exactly as the Author left them, except that it has been thought right to suppress a few passages of an indecent tendency; and following the example of Lord Holland, “two or three passages affecting the private characters of private persons, and in no ways connected with any political event, or illustrative of any great public character, have been omitted.”3
The notes that occur without any distinguishing mark were left by the Author. It will be perceived that they seldom extend beyond a brief statement of the rank or relationship of the individuals noticed in the text. All the other notes are mine.
In compliance with a wish generally expressed after the publication of the “Memoires of the Last Twelve Years of the Reign of George the Second,” for additional information respecting many of the characters described in that work, I have enlarged on the meagre notices left by Walpole, and endeavoured to correct his errors—taking, as my model, the annotations of Lord Dover and Mr. Wright on the Author’s correspondence. My references to those popular works will be found to have been frequent, and I can venture to add my testimony to their impartiality and correctness.4 I may have unconsciously borrowed from them, where we are treating of the same individuals; but I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to steer an independent course, and the subject is sufficiently wide to admit of it. I have also carefully consulted all the contemporary authorities within my reach, and, in more than one instance, have received valuable communications from persons who either lived near the times described by Walpole, or were actually acquainted with him. My sole object, however, has been to contribute to the information of readers hitherto little conversant with the events and characters of the period under our notice. More detailed criticism on particular transactions, and some biographical sketches, too long for insertion in the notes, will be given in the Appendix to the Fourth Volume; but I have no pretensions to encroach on the province of the historian—especially since the publication of the last volume of Lord Mahon’s History of George the Third, and the recent article on Lord Chatham in the Edinburgh Review, both of which have appeared since this Work went to the press.
It was at first expected that this Work would be comprised in three volumes, but a more careful examination of the manuscript having proved a fourth to be indispensable, it is thought best not to delay the publication of the two volumes already printed, and to reserve the two concluding volumes until early in the Spring.
I have to acknowledge much kindness from various friends in the prosecution of my inquiries. Sir Edward Colebrooke, in particular, has favoured me with the loan of the manuscript autobiography of his grandfather, Sir George Colebrooke, M. P., Chairman of the East India Company, an active politician, who lived on confidential terms with the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Rockingham, and Mr. Charles Townshend; and I am indebted to Sir George Larpent for the perusal of the papers of his father, when Secretary to Lord Hertford, during the embassy of the latter at Paris.
Denis Le Marchant.
7, Harley Street,
December 4, 1844.
CHAPTER I.
Motives for writing these Memoirs.—Their assistance to History.—Causes of contradictory Opinions in the Writer.—Career of George II.—Auspicious circumstances under which George III. ascended the Throne.—Firmness of the Administration.—Our Glory and Fortune in War.—Precipitate Peace.—Communication to the Prince of Wales of the death of George II.—Mr. Pitt and the Princess Amalie.—Anecdotes of the Accession of the new King.—His conduct to the Duke of Cumberland.—The first Council.—George the Second’s Will.—Anecdotes.—The King’s Speech to his Council.—Mr. Pitt and Lord Bute.—Duke of Newcastle.—Duke of Devonshire.—The King’s Mother.—Earl of Bute.—Views of other Ministers.—Union of Pitt and Newcastle.—City Politics.—Inscription on Blackfriars Bridge.—Jacobites at St. James’s.
Whoever has taken the trouble of reading my Memoirs, which relate the transactions during the last ten years of King George the Second, will have seen, that I had taken a resolution of interfering no more in public affairs. It was no ambition, or spirit of faction, that engaged me in them again. Inconstancy, or weariness of retirement, were as little the motives of my return to action. I am going to set forth the true causes; and if I am obliged to make more frequent mention of myself than I should wish to do, it will be from the necessity I am under of unfolding the secret springs of many events in which I was unwillingly a considerable actor. It is to gratify no vanity that I relate them: my portion was not brilliant. And though my counsels might have been more serviceable to my country and to my friends, if they had been more followed, they were calculated to produce neither glory nor profit to myself, and were much oftener neglected than listened to. Nor should they be remembered here, if many miscarriages had not accrued from the neglect of them, as was felt and confessed by those to whom they had been suggested.
How far I have been in the right or in the wrong, I leave to the judgment of posterity, who shall be impartially informed; and who may draw some benefit from the knowledge of what I have seen; though few persons, I believe, profit much from history. Times seldom resemble one another enough to be very applicable; and if they do, the characters of the actors are very different. They, too, who read history most, are seldom performers in the political drama. Yet they who have performed any part in it, are at least able to give the best account of it, though still an imperfect one. No man is acquainted with the whole plot; as no man knows all the secret springs of the actions of others. His passions and prejudices warp his judgment, and cast a mist before the most penetrating sagacity. Yet, partial as the narratives of the actors must be, they will certainly approach nearer to