Part 9

Paris, July 9th, 1782.

My Dearest Brother,

Your letter was given to me last night, and since I have been able to read I never felt so much agitated. I hastily send back the messenger, but he carries with him a letter to Lord Shelburne, in which I formally request my immediate recal.

My dear brother, you do not know my situation, or you would see in the first instant, as you will so soon as I can speak to you, that if I continued at Paris, I should be the meanest and most contemptible wretch that was ever born into the world; I should falsify my word, I should betray my honour, I should repay the confidence that was reposed in me with the most cowardly treachery, I should disgrace every feeling that is honourable and respectable between man and man. I have no choice; my immediate return is as much a duty and obligation upon me as can in human society be laid upon one who would not renounce the character of a gentleman. Judge, then, of the distressful situation I must have been in at the time of decyphering your last lines, and judge how sacred and indispensable those circumstances must be, that do not give me even room to hesitate in a difficulty of so much delicacy. I love you, my dearest brother, with the truest and sincerest affection; my pride and ambition are ten-fold more gratified in your situation of life than in any that could be mine; nor, so help me God! do I think there is an interest, an advantage, present or future, that I would not gladly sacrifice for you, if it could add one step to your greatness; but you love me too well not to shrink at the thought of my disgracing myself, and a fouler disgrace there could not be, than I should inevitably incur by staying at Paris as Minister.

One part of my difficulty you see already; it is that I dare not write even in cypher, what would save me all the embarrassment of this letter, and you the uneasiness of its obscurity, till I see you. My dear brother, reflect, if it is not too late, upon the opinions we have held in common, upon the judgment we have formed in common, of the rectitude and integrity of some men, and the utter and absolute want of it in others. Recollect, if it is possible, the uneasiness that you felt, the doubt that you expressed and I made light of, in the very last conversations we had together. Think over all that might have happened, and be persuaded that all has; think over the most pleasing parts of your last letter, and be persuaded that a few plain words, whenever I see you, will make you blot it out with indignation. But above all, I do conjure you, in the most solemn terms, to guard against expressing the surmises this letter may suggest to you, and to drop no word of suspicion or jealousy till I see you. The caution of this letter--to which I dare not add a cypher, however it must grieve me to speak to you in the dark--every circumstance, must show you how deeply my honour, how much more deeply than human wisdom could apprehend, my honour is involved in this business.

One word more, though I think every minute an hour till the messenger is gone. Trust me till you hear me; and above all, if you are applied to persuade me to stay, do not think of so doing; it may make the delay of one post, and that will hurt me; it can do no more.

God Almighty bless you, my dearest brother; a warmer affection no man can bear you. Think of all my impatience to see you, and do not forget that in pressing my recal, you do me a more essential and honourable service than you know. Once more, God bless you, my dearest brother.

* * * * *

Before Lord Temple had received this letter he had declined the secretaryship, and accepted the appointment of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, his brother, Mr. William Wyndham Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville) accompanying him as Chief Secretary. In the reply that follows, Lord Temple expresses the profound sorrow he felt at his brother's determination to resign, of which he was confessedly not in a position to form a competent judgment.

LORD TEMPLE TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

Pall Mall, July 12th, Eleven, P.M.

I have received your letter, my dearest brother, which has sensibly--I need not say how sensibly--affected me. My letter to you did not propose to decide upon the propriety of the great question, whether you should or not continue to keep the character in which you are now employed; of that I could be no judge. The total and absolute ignorance in which I have remained, since you left England, of what was passing at Paris, and the total want of information of what was passing here, so far as concerned your mission, make me wholly incompetent to the question; of that you must be the judge, and I trust and hope that your decision will stand every test. My object was solely to prevent the possibility of your coming away precipitately, and so far my point is gained. I will say nothing of the cruel situation in which I stand; I feel it most bitterly, and feel it the more because my affection to you has no bounds. I am not Secretary at State; but think, my dearest brother, what must have been my feelings, if I had (as was much pressed upon me from every quarter) accepted that department to which your negotiation was more immediately annexed, in confidence that you would have done that for me which you have done for Mr. Fox. If I had listened to that persuasion (and surely my heart might have prompted me to have done so), I might have had the mortification of finding myself in a situation which I can hardly think of without the most violent agitation; the voice of every one had pointed out to me that department; and every reason, public and private, seemed to call me to it. Think this over, my dearest brother, and tell me if the ties of private friendship are such as would have justified you to your own feelings for fixing upon me a disgrace, the extent of which I shudder at.

I know, I feel, that you love me; but, great God! to what have you exposed me! and, much as you value Mr. Fox, am I to think (good God! after the uniform affection, which has never felt more truly for you than at this hour) that you trust your honour and reputation in his hands to an extent that knows no bounds; and that the moment which calls upon you to withdraw yourself from your situation, is that which possibly had put your brother in that confidential public situation in which I trusted he had stood with you in private life? I cannot dwell upon this. I would have fought your quarrels, I would have felt with you every reason which may have induced you to urge this recal, possibly very prudently, justly, and honourably; but it was not necessary to convince every member of the Cabinet, that your honour, safe in the hands of Mr. Fox, was not so in mine. Good God! my dearest brother, loving me as you do, and knowing how I prize and value you, think over this picture of possibilities, and join with me (which is all I will ever say to you on a subject which cuts me to the very heart) in the happiness I feel, that motives, in which I will say that considerations for your credit, your honour, and your ease, were decisive, determined me to reject the first and to accept a second proposition. That die is cast; my opinion, my reputation, and my honour are pledged to it. I will believe, because it is my only joy at such a crisis, that your affections beat as highly to what conduces to my honour and situation as ever I could wish; and tell me, my dearest brother, if the whole tenor and every hour of my life has not proved to you how I valued your confidence, and how truly it would be my pride to consult your advancement; and if in taking this situation I have consulted what was most for the honour and ease of every one of my family, if I have peculiarly consulted the possible delicacy of your situation, and have sacrificed every favourite passion of my heart to it, think what my present feelings are, in the uncertainty of the extent of those sacrifices which you may still think yourself obliged to make. The thought, my dearest brother, distracts me; I hint it to you, but I shall not feel a moment's happiness till I see you. My letter is dreadfully incoherent, but it will paint to you the agitation of a mind struggling for its dearest and nearest object--the affection of a brother, whom from my childhood I have pressed nearest to my heart.--I cannot go on.

I called upon Lord Shelburne the moment I had your letter, and saw him soon after. I carefully obeyed every injunction, and pressed your immediate recal. He stated the necessity of calling a Cabinet, as he could not take it upon himself, and the King does not return to town till Wednesday. I urged it with every eagerness, and have prevailed that a leave of absence shall be granted to you to come away immediately, and this to prevent public mischief. But it is understood that you resign the commission on your arrival here. I have prevailed that the messenger is to return very early to-morrow morning; and most ardently do I wish to annihilate the next eight tedious days. Feel for me, my dear brother; consult your reason and your affection, and let me hope that you will feel that satisfaction which every one of my family most earnestly feels at my acceptance of the Lieutenancy of Ireland. You know what follows, and you will have time to think it over; but I conjure you, by everything which you prize nearest and dearest to your heart, by the joy I have ever felt for your welfare, by the interest I have ever taken in your uneasiness, weigh well your determination; it decides upon the complexion of my future hours. I am jealous and nice of your honour more than of my own; but think that I have staked my happiness upon this cast; and may God direct you, my dearest brother, to the only answer which can convince me that your esteem and affection equals that which I have ever borne you. God ever bless you.

RESIGNED. Mr. Fox. Lord J. Cavendish. Mr. Burke. Lord Robert Spencer. Lord Althorpe. Lord Dungannon. Mr. Townshend. Mr. Montagu. Mr. Lee.

These are all who have resigned.

APPOINTED Lord Shelburne Treasury. Mr. T. Grenville -| Mr. Jackson |Ditto. Mr. Elliott | Mr. Pitt Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. T. Townshend Secretary of State, Home Department. Lord Grantham Ditto, Foreign Department. Sir G. Yonge Secretary-at-War. Mr. Aubrey -| |Admiralty. Mr. Pratt | Lord C. Spencer Vice-Treasurer. Colonel Barre Paymaster. Vacant Treasurer of the Navy. Ditto Solicitor-General. Duke of Richmond -| Duke of Grafton | Lord Camden |Continue in their offices. Lord Keppell | General Conway _|

Mr. Sheridan's name should be included in the above list of resignations. The vacancies of the Treasurership of the Navy and the Solicitor-Generalship were respectively filled by Mr. Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville, and Mr. Pepper Arden, afterwards Lord Alvanley.

MR. FOX TO MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE.

Dear Grenville,

I am exceedingly obliged to you for your kind letter; and indeed, if political transactions put one out of humour with many, they make one love the few who do act and think right so much better that it is some compensation. I understand a messenger is just going, by whom I send this letter; he will bring you others, from whence you will learn that your brother is going Lord-Lieutenant to Ireland. If you go with him as Secretary, I hope you will be so good as to endeavour to serve my friend Dickson, who by this change has for the third time missed a Bishopric.

I called upon your brother yesterday, and left with him the letters that passed between you and me, explaining that it was at your desire that I did so. I was very glad to have your authority for this step, for to tell you the truth, I was very much inclined to take it even of my own when it was supposed he was to be my successor; now that he knows the whole of the narration, if he still chooses (as I fear he will) to go into this den of thieves neither you nor I have anything to answer for. If this transaction had been withheld from him, he might have had reason to complain of me, but much more of you. I have not heard from him since he has been au fait. His expressions, both to me personally and to the party, were so kind, that I am far from considering him as lost; but whether he is or not, and whatever part your situation may make it right for you to take in politics, I shall always depend upon your friendship and kindness to me as perfectly unalterable; and I do assure you that this consideration is one of the things that most contributes to keep up my spirits in this very trying situation.

Yours affectionately, C. J. Fox. Grafton Street, July 13th, 1782.

Lord Temple entered upon the Government of Ireland at a crisis of serious agitation. A short time before, under the Duke of Portland's Administration, a Bill had passed the Imperial Parliament, recognizing in full and in the most explicit manner the sole and exclusive right of the Parliament of Ireland to make laws for Ireland--establishing and affirming, in fact, the perfect independence of Ireland, legislative, judicial and commercial. This Bill had given complete satisfaction to the popular leaders. Even the Volunteers declared themselves appeased, and adopted final resolutions to that effect. But the factious and jealous spirit of the Irish was subsequently disturbed by indications on the part of the English Legislature of a disposition to depart in some particulars from this settlement, and by the unfortunate incident of some Irish appeals which lay over for judgment in England, the authority to adjudicate them having been relinquished, or disavowed, by the measure alluded to. The whole matter turned upon distinctions, but they were sufficient to influence the distrust of the turbulent, who were ready to seize upon any excuse for expressing their impatience of English authority. The introduction of a singular Bill by Lord Abingdon, having for its object the assertion of the sole and exclusive right of Great Britain to regulate her external commerce, and that of all countries under her sovereignty, and repealing so much of the former Bill as took that power out of the Parliament of Great Britain and vested it in the Parliament of Ireland, had the effect of affording an abundant pretext to the uneasiness which was now beginning to grow up in Ireland, and which Mr. Grattan exerted his utmost influence to dispel. Want of confidence, also, in the sincerity of Lord Shelburne's Ministry yielded an additional ground for national discontent. "Things were never more unsettled than they are at present," Mr. Perry writes to Mr. Grattan, in October, 1782; "some of the Ministry here are at open enmity with each other, and everybody seems to distrust the head." Such was the state of their affairs when Mr. William Wyndham Grenville came over to London to communicate confidentially with the Government on the part of his brother, the Lord-Lieutenant. The correspondence in which he details from day to day the results of his interviews with Ministers, and his observations upon the net-work of small difficulties in which he was involved by the want of unity in the Cabinet--especially between Mr. Townshend and Lord Shelburne on the Irish questions--is minute and voluminous; and only a few letters have been selected from the mass to show the course of ministerial diplomacy in reference to the equivocal relations subsisting at that period between the two countries. They form a running commentary upon a curious passage in Irish history; and although the circumstances to which they relate have long been completely disposed of, the Union having obliterated all the matters in dispute, the insight which they give us into the detail of Cabinet discussions, the occasional traits they bring to light of the characters of public men, and the calm and luminous views they develope of the distracting politics of Ireland, confer a permanent interest upon them. Two facts, by no means unimportant, are established in these letters--namely, the lively and judicious anxiety Lord Temple and his brother uniformly felt in their endeavours to restore the tranquillity of Ireland, and the impediments they met in their strenuous efforts to preserve the faith and honour of England in her transactions with that country.

MR. W. WYNDHAM GRENVILLE TO LORD TEMPLE.

Pall Mall, Nov. 27th, 1782.

My dear Brother,

I saw Townshend on the evening of my arrival here, which was Sunday. Lord Shelburne was then out of town, so that I was of course obliged to state what I had to say to Townshend alone. This I did very fully, in a conversation which lasted near two hours, and in which, to say truth, Townshend bore a less part than I expected and could have wished. What he did say was, however, very fair and explicit. He expressed a strong determination in the King's servants to give you every possible support. He had found no opportunity (as I understood him) of convening a Cabinet on the affairs of Ireland, but had talked separately with all the Ministers upon the subject, and found in them no difference of opinion, except perhaps in General Conway, whom he thought "a little influenced by his nephew's pamphlet, and by his own natural temper, to look towards further concession." He saw little difficulty in what you wished; thought you best able to judge of the propriety of the moment for such a measure; and said it was the King's opinion, as well as his own, "that where there was not some marked difference of opinion, the Lord-Lieutenant should be left to himself, without however being abandoned." I stated to him pretty strongly the effect of the ideas of changes of men and opinions in this country. On that point, as far as related to men, I could get little or nothing from him, although I recurred to it more than once. At last he said that the same effects were felt here, and would be so till Government should show a sufficient strength and consistency in Parliament. Scarce anything more passed on his side, except strong expressions of personal regard to you, and a warm encomium on the Duke of Portland, and the language held by him on your subject, and on that of the state of Ireland.