me with three or four sentences, uttered with great dignity, and which carried great weight. The Dukes of Grafton and Newcastle likewise spoke; but the various onsets and heat of the battle fell to the share of Your most loving and affectionate, TEMPLE. The King goes to the House of Lords this morning. The hereditary Prince will be there, and afterwards sets out. (') (1) Walpole, in a letter to Lord Hertford, gives the following particulars of the movements and treatment of the hereditary Prince of Brunswick, during his few days' stay in England: "I now come to the foolish conduct of the ministry, during the episode of the Prince of Brunswick. The fourth question put to him on his arrival was, 'When do you go?' The servants of the King and Queen were forbid to put on their new clothes for the wedding, or drawing-room, next day, and ordered to keep them for the Queen's birth-day. Such pains were taken to keep the Prince from any of the Opposition, that he has done nothing but take notice of them. He not only wrote to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt, but has been at Hayes to see the latter; and has dined twice with the Duke of Cumberland. He and Princess Augusta have felt and shown their disgusts so strongly, and his suite have complained so much of the neglect and disregard of him, and of the very quick dismission of him, that the people have caught it, and on Thursday, at the play, received the King and Queen without the least symptom of applause, but repeated such outrageous acclamations to the Prince, as operated very visibly on the King's countenance. I saw the Prince without any difficulty. He is extremely slender, and looks many years older than he is: in short, I suppose it is his manner with which every mortal is captivated; for though he is well enough for a man, he is far from having any thing striking in his person. He is gone to-day, heartily sorry to leave every thing, but St. James's and Leicester-house." THE RIGHT HON. JAMES GRENVILLE TO MY DEAR LADY CHATHAM, January 27, 1764. SINCE I wrote my last, the House has been engaged in a debate upon the words of a motion for establishing a committee to consider of so much of a bill that passed in the last session as relates to the laying an additional duty on cider. The Treasury proposed an amendment to this motion, in order to restrain the consideration of the committee to an alteration, not to a repeal, of the duty, and to changes in the mode of collection. I should make you as old a woman as either Sandys (1) or Rushout (2), if I were to state all the jargon that arose in this debate. It was plain the court meant to preclude any repeal of the bill; the cider people coldly wished (1) Many years member for Worcester. He was an active opponent of Sir Robert Walpole, and is called by Smollett the "motion-maker." In 1741 he was appointed chancellor of the Exchequer, and in 1743 elevated to the peerage, as baron Sandys, of Ombersley. He died in 1770, at a very advanced age. (2) Sir John Rushout. He sat in ten parliaments, and particularly distinguished himself as an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme. He died in 1775, at the great age of ninety-one. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire, says, "his memory, good-humour, and politeness were then in their full bloom; old age, which in general is not to be wished for, seemed in him rather an ornament than a burden." In 1797 his son was raised to the peerage, by the title of baron Northwick. to obtain it. Sir Richard Bampfylde, at the head of them, spoke not his own sentiments, as he declared, but those which the instructions and petitions of his constituents (') forced him to maintain. He was short upon the matter in question, but longer on a more disputable point, in particular upon the politeness, open candour, plain integrity, and justice of Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, in all his transactions with them on this occasion; and to this all the rest concurred, expressing a zeal for the support of the credit and interests of the present ministers, even to adulation. Mr. Dowdeswell alone left those parts untouched, and directed his aim, if not another way, at least not point blank to the same object. In short, the Tory party showed itself in its true colour of devoted attachment to the court. Mr. Chancellor laid on his absent friends, appealed to the unvaried course of his conduct, which had always proved how much he had been, from the beginning, against those false measures which had produced such expenses, and by them occasioned such oppressive debts, and made it almost impossible for any successor to carry on the public business. He said, according to his old style, that he always declared against them in private, and added (now for the first time) in public; talked of wicked industry to excite the people, &c., &c., and resolutions to resist clamour; of his sense of the worthy labours and zeal of the good country (1) Sir Richard was member for the county of Devonshire. gentlemen to render those attempts abortive, &c. We divided, 127 with us; against us 167. Mr. Dowdeswell desired me to inform Mr. Pitt, that his view is not to contend for no new duty on cider, and explained his plan to me at large. He much wished for Mr. Pitt's approbation and assistance, and spoke in terms of warm respect for him. Adieu, my dear Lady Chatham, Ever yours most affectionately, JAMES GRENVILLE. M. DE FE'RONCE TO MR. PITT. Londres, ce 31e Janvier, 1764. il MONSIEUR, La lettre que vous me fites l'honneur de m'écrire, y a une huitaine de jours, me fut rendue au milieu des embarras multipliés qui accompagnoient naturellement le départ du Prince. S. A. S. a été très sensible à la manière dont vous vous exprimé, Monsieur, sur ce qui le concerne. Le peu d'instans que le Prince a eu la satisfaction de passer avec vous, lui ont paru très précieux, et il les rappellera toujours avec la sensibilité la plus vive. S. A. S. m'a ordonné, au moment où je l'ai quitté à Harwich, de vous réitérer, Monsieur, les assurances des sentimens d'attachement et d'admiration qu'elle conservera toute sa vie pour vous. J'ai assisté à l'embarquement de L. A. R. et S.; il a eu lieu dimanche à midi. Le capitaine du yacht ne comptoit point mettre à la voile dans la journée, la mer étant trop grosse. Depuis mon arrivée ici, nous n'avons reçu aucune nouvelle ultérieuse. (1) J'ai l'honneur d'être, &c. DE FÉRONCE. THE RIGHT HON. JAMES GRENVILLE TO MR. PITT. MY DEAR MR. Pitt, February 3, 1764. I WRITE to let you know, that the business of the inquiry relating to the breach of privilege is put off till the 13th of February. It was stirred in the House yesterday by Sir William Meredith and Sir George Savile; who applied for a longer day, upon the ground of wanting a material evidence, by the absence of Mr. Wilkes's principal servant, who was with his master in France. They succeeded in their motion, by the irresistible weight of the natural and striking justice of their demand; (1) On the 7th of February, Walpole writes to Lord Hertford: "We have not heard a word yet of the hereditary Prince and Princess. They were sent away in a tempest, and I believe the best one can hope is, that they are driven to Norway.... I tremble whilst I continue my letter; having just received such a dreadful story! A captain of a vessel has made oath before the lord mayor this morning, that he saw one of the yachts sink on the coast of Holland; and it is believed to be the one in which the Prince was. The city is in an uproar; nor need one point out all such an accident may produce, if true." The royal pair landed safely at Helvoet on the 2nd. |