CHAPTER VI. LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM, CONTINUED. PREVIOUSLY to Lord Chatham's resorting to Bath, he had a conference in the royal closet, at the request of the sovereign, respecting a new ministry. The result was a precipitate formation of one, rendered famous by Mr. Burke's description of it, as a piece of diversified Mosaic-a mere tessellated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers; "king's friends" and republicans; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies. While Lord Chatham was sick at Bath, and his recovery despaired of, the administration was without a leader. The right honorable Charles Townshend assumed, in some degree, the reins of government; and he, in conjunction with General Conway, meditated some alliances, with a view to establishing the power of the former. In a word, Mr. Townshend, a gentleman of brilliant talents and lofty views, resolved to seize this opportunity to fill the place, which it was thought death would soon make. He therefore instantly joined the court, with the most full and explicit declaration of sincerity, and his alliance was favorably received. But, reader! mark the end of these things, and learn another lesson of wisdom! Charles Townshend died after a short illness, and Lord Chatham recovered! Lord Charlemont, in a letter to Mr. Flood, dated London, February the 19th, 1767, says, "Lord Chatham is daily expected, and till he arrives nothing worth informing you of is likely to happen." In another of April the 9th, 1767, that nobleman says, "Lord Chatham is still minister, but how long he may continue so is a problem that would pose the deepest politician. The opposition grows more and more violent, and seems to gain ground; his ill health as yet prevents his doing any business. The ministry is divided into as many parties as there are men in it; all complain of his want of participation. Charles Townshend is at open war; Conway is angry; Lord Shelburne out of humor, and the Duke of Grafton by no means pleased." So much for Burke's tessellated pavement; a metaphor borrowed from Lord Chesterfield. The high blown hopes of Mr. Townshend and his friends were blasted by his death, while Lord Chatham lay sick at Hampstead. Had he lived, he would very probably have been First Lord of the Treasury, and Mr. Yorke his Chancellor. We left Lord Chatham very sick at Hampstead. The king sent almost every day to inquire after his health, desiring him not to be concerned at his confinement, or absence from public business, for that he was resolved to support him. In consequence of the apprehension of resignations, his Majesty, a few days after the rising of Parliament, wrote a letter with his own hand to Lord Chatham, then confined to his bed, acquainting him with his resolution to make alterations in his ministry, and desiring his Lordship's advice and assistance. To which mark of respect and condescension, Chatham returned a verbal answer "that such was his ill state of health, *This gentleman destroyed himself. See JUNIUS. that his Majesty must not expect from him any farther advice or assistance in any arrangement whatever." On which the reverend Francis Thackeray remarks, that it is scarcely to be conceived, that the same ardent and highspirited minister, who formerly retired from office because he was not allowed to guide the measures of the country, should have sent such an answer to his sovereign, without accompanying it by the resignation of his seal. But this reverend gentleman should, as an historian, have considered the well known impression on the mind of Lord Chatham respecting the King's sincerity; and as a minister of religion he should have known, from his parochial duties, that the bed of sickness, and, in this case, apparent death, was neither the place nor the time for compliments, or the multiplication of words. While a clerical historian holds up, to his listening flock, Death as the King of Terrors! he should praise GOD in their hearing, that he is also the terror of kings! with whom there is no trifling! The Earl of Chatham, so much superior to other men, was not exempted from the frailties of us all. He had arrived at that commonly trying period of man's existence, considered, from the earliest records of medicine, climacterical, when he is most liable to stumble down the hill of life, a hazardous epoch, when an hereditary or constitutional disorder meets less resistance from those repelling powers of nature implanted within us to ward off premature destruction. Lord Chatham had "originally a healthy, sanguine constitution." But who can reason down his shattered nerves to quietude? or argue coolly and justly with his nervous symptoms? or, to express the same idea in better words, "Who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? * Shakspeare. The Earl of Chatham met that odious visitant to pre-eminent distinction in its wane of power," the marble-hearted fiend, Ingratitude." Lord Charlemont says, in a letter to Mr. Flood in Ireland, dated in February, 1767, "There has been, upon various topics, a great deal of conversation in the House of Commons, but no divisions. One thing, however, appears very extraordinary, if not indecent; no member of the opposition speaks without directly abusing Lord Chatham, and no friend ever rises to take his part. Qui non defendit alio culpante is scarce a degrce less black than absentem qui rodit amicum. Is it possible that such a man can be friendless?" As to the period of which we have been speaking, political writers of all parties agree, that there never was a time, in the reign of any of the Georges, when discontents were more generally prevalent, or when the people were more wakened to them. The causes have been explained in a masterly manner by Mr. Burke. Lord Chatham's disordered body and distempered mind needed tranquillity to recruit both. In the podagric, the total absence of arthritic pains diminishes the vigor of the mind. What is that in the gouty man which counteracts sluggishness of intellect, and wages war with stupidity? It resembles the hectic of genius in all its high pulsations of poetry and eloquence. It would seem that the great minister was all placidity with his domestic connexions, and towards his sovereign all deference and respect, whatever he was toward those with whom he had official business. He sought repose in the bosom of his beloved family in his re-purchased family residence at Hayes; and this calm retreat in a favorite spot had the happiest effects in restoring his mind, at least, to its pristine vigor. But can any one believe, that the capacious and elastic mind of Lord Chatham was as acquiescent as his body during this retirement; that he would allow "the sensible, warm emotion to become there a kneaded clod?" The idea is incredible! Within three months from this time, he returned the privy-seal to the king by the hand of his friend, Lord Camden. Behold then JUNIUS BRUTUS in retirement, brooding over the disgraces of his country and his own personal wrongs, meditating her deliverance, and fostering his own feelings of revenge,—always strong, but now rendered acrimonious by age and disease. It was at this awful period of public discontent and keen personal feelings, that JUNIUS burst upon the British public with the suddenness and violence of an American thundergust! * As Lord Chatham had not the meekness of Moses, nor the coolness of Washington, we may imagine what were the feelings of the offended minister. A man strong-willed, self-sufficient, and powerfully gifted, naturally imperious, and morbidly impatient, in the decline of life, racked with incurable gout, and living a life of decrepitude and self-denial, without one cheering prospect in his political horizon, must close his lips in everlasting silence, or if he speak at all, must "speak daggers." Under these circumstances, reflect a moment on his incessant labors, great occasional exertions, and eminent hazards; the plans of conquest he formed, and the victories achieved in consequence of them; the best fruits of which were given back to France and to Spain for money-yes, for money to pamper the pride and passions of the King's and Lord Bute's friends, for the nation had none of it. Consider also the native king, with good intentions, hurried on to error by an intriguing German mother, inculcating obstinacy under the guise of firmness, while a sordid Scotchman was littering his head with trifles, and stimulating him to exert all his constitutional powers, and somewhat more, to crush a private individual, the abetted champion of the people's rights. * January 29, 1769. See the examination of Dr. Musgrave before the House of Com mons. John Wilkes. |