A MASTERLY DEFENCE. 119 the Duke of Newcastle something more than suspected. "His name," said Sir Robert, "is perfidy." Parliament was dissolved at the end of April, and the new elections showed how disastrously the tide had turned against the Minister. When the new Par liament met, he found that his majority did not exceed sixteen; and under the influence of popular clamour, the artifices of the Opposition, and the cabals of his colleagues, it rapidly sank to zero. Yet Sir Robert was as courageous as ever. His final struggle against his enemies reminds us of Napoleon's campaign in 1814; it exhibits the same readiness, the same dash, the same fertility of resource, the same vigour in fighting every point. Never did he display a finer ability than in this hopeless defensive conflict. On the motion for electing a chairman of committees (December 16th), the Opposition mustered 242 votes against 238. "You have no idea of their huzza," writes Horace Walpole to his friend Mann,* "unless you can conceive how people must triumph after defeats for twenty years together. We had one vote shut out by coming a moment too late; one that quitted us for having been ill-used by the Duke of Newcastle but yesterday, for which, in all probability, he will use him well to-morrow-I mean, for quitting us." The son adds, "Sir Robert is in great spirits, and still sanguine. I have so little experience that I shall not be amazed at whatever scenes follow. My dear child, we have triumphed twenty years; is it strange that fortune should at last forsake us?" A day or two afterwards a Cornish election was carried in four * Horace Walpole, Letters to Sir Horace Mann, i., 51–53. 120 THE STRUGGLE CONTINUED. divisions, the Minister's majority rising from 6 to 12, then to 14, and lastly to 36. A motion of Pulteney's was defeated by 237 to 227. election the Opposition again triumphed, 220 against 216. "You see," writes Horace, "four is a fortunate number to them. We had forty-one new members in town, who would not or could not come down. The time is a touchstone for wavering consciences." The House having adjourned during the Christmas holidays, both sides were actively engaged in preparing for a renewal of the struggle. Its severity was begining to tell on Sir Robert's health and temper; but his spirit was still indomitable, and he rejected the advice of his personal friends that he should resign. He endeavoured, by an offer of an addition of £50,000 a year to his income, to detach the Prince of Wales from the Opposition; but his overtures were rejected. The Opposition were more successful in gaining over some of the Minister's adherents.* When the House met in January, Pulteney's motion, for referring to a Secret Committee the papers that had been laid on the table relating to the war, was defeated only by a majority of 3. Horace Walpole publishes a lively account of this famous debate. It was at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, he says, that Pulteney rose and moved for a * Even Lord Hervey trimmed. "With a coffin-face, he is as full of his little dirty politics as ever. He will not be well enough to go to the House till the majority is certain somewhere, but lives shut up with my Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Pulteney—a triumvirate, who hate one another more than anybody they could proscribe, had they the power."-Horace Walpole, ut supra, i., 75, 76. A FAMOUS DEBATE. 121 Secret Committee; an inquisition, a Council of Ten, that was to sit and examine whatever persons and papers they pleased, and to meet when and where they pleased. He protested much on its not being intended against any person, but merely to give the King advice, and on this foot they fought it till ten at night, when Lord Perceval blundered out that they had been cloaking with so much art, and declared that he should vote for it as a Committee of Accusation. Thereupon Sir Robert started up, and declared that but for what had just been said, he should not have spoken; as it was, he must take the matter to himself. He portrayed the malice of the Opposition, who, for twenty years, had not been able to touch him, and were now reduced to this "infamous shift." He defied them to accuse him, and desired only that if they did, they would do it in a fair and an open manner; he asked no favour but simply to be made acquainted with the charges brought against him. He spoke of Mr. Doddington,* who had called his administration infamous, as a person of great self-mortification, who, for sixteen years, had condescended to bear part of the odium. As to Mr. Pulteney,† who had just spoken a second time, Sir Robert said, he had begun the debate with great calmness, but he must give him his due, he had made amends for it in the end. In short, never was innocence so triumphant ! * George Bubb Doddington, a man of parts but of no character, sufficiently conspicuous in the "Diaries" of the Georgian period, deserted Walpole because he was refused a peerage. "Sir Robert actually dissected him, and laid his heart open to the view of the house."-Sir R. Wilmot to the Duke of Devonshire. (Quoted by Stanhope, iii. 185.) 122 PULTENEY'S SPEECH. The letter-writer adds that there were several glorious speeches on both sides: Mr. Pulteney's two, William Pitt's and George Grenville's, Sir Robert's, Sir W. Yonge's, Harry Fox's, Mr. Chute's, and Sir Dudley Ryder, the Attorney-General's. "My friend Coke, for the first time, spoke vastly well, and mentioned how great Sir Robert's character is abroad. Sir Francis Dashwood replied, that he had found quite the reverse from Mr. Coke, and that foreigners always spoke with contempt of the Chevalier de Walpole. This was going too far, and he was called to order, but got off well enough, by saying that he knew it was contrary to rule to name any member, but that he mentioned it only as spoken by an impertinent Frenchman." "But of all speeches," continues Horace Walpole, "none ever was so full of wit as Mr. Pulteney's last. He said: 'I have heard this Committee represented as a most dreadful spectre; it has been likened to all terrible things; it has been likened to the King; to the inquisition; it will be a committee of safety; it is a committee of danger. I don't know what it is to be! One gentleman, I think, called it a cloud! (this was the Attorney-General) a cloud! I remember Hamlet takes Lord Polonius by the hand and shows him a cloud; and then asks him if he does not think it is like a whale.' Well, in short at eleven at night we divided, and threw out this famous Committee by 253 to 250, the greatest number that ever was in the House, and the greatest number that ever lost a question.” It is clear from the numbers of the division that the absentees were few, and that both parties had used THE FINAL DIVISION. 123 every effort to bring up their supporters. Horace Walpole confesses it was a most shocking sight, "to see the sick and dead brought in on both sides!" Some hobbled in upon crutches; Sir William Gordon came straight from his bed, with a blister on his head, and flannel hanging out from under his wig. "I could scarce pity him," says Horace, "for his ingratitude. A few weeks before, Admiral Sir Charles Wager, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had given his son a ship, and the father afterwards came down and voted against the Ministry. The son was cast away; but the Opposition concealed the news from his father that he might not absent himself. There were good-natured men,' however, on the Ministerial side, and one of them, countryman of his own, went and told him the sad truth in the House. The old man, who looked liked Lazarus at his resurrection, bore it with great resolution, and said he knew why he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger he would not go away. As he is so near death that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or tomorrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such insensibility would have been a Roman virtue.” เ The Minister's courage and fertile capacity* compelled the admiration of his bitterest opponents. When the debate was over, Pulteney acknowledged that he had * Archbishop Porter (of Canterbury), on taking leave of Sir Robert, after an interview, said: Sir, I have been lately reading Thuanus (De Thou); he mentions a minister who, having long been persecuted by his enemies, at length vanquished them: the reason he gives, quia se non deseruit." An elegant compliment! |