CHAPTER IV.

       Table of Contents

      Thanks of the House of Commons to Mr. Onslow, their Speaker.—His Character.—Sir John Philipps.—Mr. Legge.—Mr. More, of Shrewsbury.—Mr. Onslow’s retirement.—His last address to the House.—Lord Bath’s Pamphlet.—Solicitations by France for Peace.—Mr. Pitt disinclined to negotiate.—Expedition against Belleisle.—Mr. Pitt’s obstinacy.—Lord Bute’s Faction.—Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Bedford.—Negotiation for Peace.—Monsieur de Bussy.—Mr. Stanley.—Death of Archibald Duke of Argyle, and of Hoadley, Bishop of Winchester.—Character of those Personages.—Their Successors.

The last day of the session, March 18th, was fixed for returning the thanks of the House of Commons to Mr. Onslow, their Speaker, who had filled the chair with unblemished integrity during the whole long reign of George the Second, and who had the prudence to quit the scene before his years and growing infirmities made him a burthen to himself and the public.80 No man had ever supported with more firmness the privileges of the House, nor sustained the dignity of his office with more authority. His knowledge of the Constitution equalled his attachment to it. To the Crown he behaved with all the decorum of respect, without sacrificing his freedom of speech. Against encroachments of the House of Peers he was an inflexible champion. His disinterested virtue supported him through all his pretensions; and though to conciliate popular favour he affected an impartiality that by turns led him to the borders of insincerity and contradiction—and though he was so minutely attached to forms, that it often made him troublesome in affairs of higher moment, it will be difficult to find a subject whom gravity will so well become, whose knowledge will be so useful and so accurate, and whose fidelity to his trust will prove so unshaken.

Sir John Philipps81 moved the address of thanks to him for his great services, but so wretchedly, that the sensibility the House showed on the occasion flowed only from their hearts, not from any impression made on them by the eloquence of their spokesman. Legge seconded the motion with his usual propriety and brevity, and commended retreat, God knows with what sincerity! Others threw in their word of panegyric; and Mr. More, of Shrewsbury, an old and acute member, proposed to erect a statue to the Speaker’s memory, with great encomiums on the authority with which he had formerly kept in order such men as then filled the Treasury-bench and composed the Opposition, naming among the former Sir Robert Walpole and Mr. Pelham, the latter of whom, he said, had the honour of dying a Commoner. More was a Whig of the primitive stamp, and though attached to Sir Robert Walpole, had withstood, and by the force of his honest abilities had defeated, the intended clemency of that Minister to some attainted Jacobite families with respect to their estates. He had long abstained from Parliament, returned to it without his former success, and now appeared there for the last time.

Henry Archer82 proposed to address the Crown to bestow a pecuniary reward on the Speaker’s services. Sir John Philipps replied, he knew that was intended; as it was; an annuity of two thousand pounds a year to him and his son. Sir George Saville approved the reward, but desired the Commons, not the Crown, might have the merit of bestowing it. Velters Cornwall made one of his absurd, ill-natured speeches, which the House was always so kind as to take for humour, teazing the Speaker under pretence of complimenting him; while the good old man sat overpowered with gratitude, and weeping over the testimonies borne to his virtue. He rose at last, and closed his public life in the most becoming manner; neither over-acting modesty, nor checking the tender sensibility which he necessarily felt at quitting the darling occupation of his life. His thanks to the House for their patient sufferance of his errors, and for their gracious acceptance of his endeavours to serve them, were shortly, but cogently, expressed; and his voice, and the tears he could not restrain, spoke still more forcibly how much his soul was agitated by laudable emotions. He begged to have the address spared, as he would accept nothing for himself, though he would not prejudice his family. He was going, he said, into the most close and obscure retreat, where he should want little; and he concluded with a pathetic prayer for the perpetuity of the Constitution. Sir John Philipps desired that what he had uttered might be inserted in the votes. The Speaker protested he could not remember his own words, but the House insisted, as Cornwall and Sir George Saville did on the address, to which the Speaker at last acquiesced, and it was voted. He ended with saying this was the greatest day and the greatest honours ever known, for they could only be conferred by a free nation.83

      The next day the Parliament was prorogued, then dissolved, and a new one chosen.

In this month was published a pamphlet called “Seasonable Hints from an Honest Man on the present Crisis.” The author, and some of the doctrines it broached—not any merit in the composition—make it memorable. It was written by Lord Bath,84 who having surprised the King into a promise of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Shropshire, was opposed by the Duke of Newcastle, who supported Lord Powis.85 The pamphlet, therefore, warmly attacked his Grace, taxed him with his cabals and resignation in the last rebellion, and it defended the measure of admitting the Tories to a participation of power. In general, the language of the pamphlet was that of the Court, who conducted themselves by the advice bequeathed by Lord Bolingbroke, who had, and with truth, assured the late Prince of Wales, that the Tories would be the heartiest in the support of prerogative. The censure passed on pensions was not equally flattering to the Court, the new reign having already bestowed them profusely. Yet much the book vaunted the King’s declaration against corruption in elections, which had gone no farther than to undermine the Duke of Newcastle’s influence. The private