TWO:The Marquis of Granby resigned his posts as Paymaster-General of the Ordnance and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, much to the annoyance and against the entreaties of the king and the Duke of Grafton. Camden would have done the same, but as the Ministers were anxious to be rid of him, Chatham and his friends counselled him to remain, and put the Ministry to the odium of dismissing him. This was done, and thus two of the men most popular with the publicGranby and Camdenwere lost to the Administration. The Seals, as Lord Shelburne had predicted, went a-begging. Charles Yorke, second son of the former Lord Chancellor, Hardwicke, had all his life been hankering after this prize, but as he was closely pledged to the party of Lord Rockingham, he most reluctantly declined it. Three days subsequently, however, the king, after the levee, suddenly called him into his closet, and so pressingly entreated him to accept the Seals and rescue his sovereign from an embarrassment, that he gave way. This was on the 18th of January. He was to be raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Morden, but, on encountering the keen reproaches of his party at Lord Rockingham's, he went home and committed suicide. The Seals were then successively offered to Mr. de Grey, the Attorney-General, to Sir Eardley Wilmot, and Lord Mansfield, who refused them, and they were obliged to be put in commission, Lord Mansfield consenting to occupy the woolsack, as Speaker to the House of Lords, till that was done. After some time, Sir Sidney Stafford Smythe, one of the barons of the Exchequer, the Honourable Henry Bathurst, one of the justices of the Common Pleas, and Sir Richard Aston, one of the justices of the King's Bench, were named the commissioners.
THREE:Refused in this quarter, the people proceeded to hold a meeting without such sanction, and invited Mr. "Orator" Hunt to go down and take the chair. Perhaps they could not have selected a more unsafe guide on the occasion, for personal vanity was Hunt's besetting sin. Hunt, instead of encouraging the very constitutional object of the meetingto petition Parliament for the repeal of the obnoxious lawtreated the petitioning that House as ridiculous, and persuaded the excited people to put their sentiments into the form of a remonstrance to the Prince Regent. The meeting then dispersed quietly; but Hunt found occasion to keep himself in the public eye there a little longer. Some officers of the 7th Hussars, who were posted at Manchester, treated him rudely as he appeared at the theatre, asserting that when "God Save the King" was called for, he hissed. Whether he did so or not, the conduct of the officers answered his purpose of making political capital; he wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, and then sent his letter to the newspapers. Still more, he wrote to Samuel Bamford to support him in a scheme which was particularly calculated to produce riot and bloodshed, and in this case Bamford did not exercise his usual good sense. At Hunt's suggestionto select a dozen stout fellows, and appear on the evening of the following Monday in the pit of the theatre, armed with stout cudgels, to inflict a summary chastisement on the officers in case of a second demonstration of their feelingsBamford appeared at the time appointed with ten stout, picked fellows, with knotty cudgels, marching along the streets to the theatre. The object was immediately perceived by the people, who crowded to the door of the theatre, completely filling the space in front. But the manager was too prudent to open his theatre in such circumstances. He announced[148] that there would be no performance that evening. Hunt was, therefore, disappointed of a catastrophe in the theatre; but he drove up in a carriage, mounted the box, and addressed the crowd in very exciting tones, declaring that the magistrates desired nothing so much as an opportunity of letting loose the bloody butchers of Waterloo upon themmeaning the 7th Hussars. It was not his fault that all went off quietly.In the midst of this constitution-making, famine was stalking through the country, and bankruptcy was menacing the exchequer. The first loan of thirty millions had proved a total failure; a second of eighty, according to a fresh plan of Necker's, was equally a blank. With the necessities of the Government, the necessities of the people kept pace. The whole country was revolutionising instead of working; destroying estates instead of cultivating them. Farmers were afraid of sowing what they might never reap; trade and manufactures were at an end, for there was little money and no confidence. The country was not become unfruitful, but its people had gone mad, and the inevitable consequence was an ever-increasing famine. This, instead of being attributed to the true causes, was ascribed by the mob orators to all kinds of devilish practices of the Court and the aristocracy.
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FORE:FIVE-SHILLING PIECE OF THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY.
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FORE:These points being all gained, the French were not left long in possession of Vittoria. They were pushed out of the town, and the whole united army joined in chasing them along the road towards Pampeluna. So complete was the rout that, according to Wellington's dispatch, they left behind them all their baggage, ammunition, every gun but one, and a howitzer.
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FORE:Newcastle, who wanted to retain his place in the new Cabinet, was more successful on his own behalf. Pulteney said he had no objection to himself or the Lord Chancellor, but that many changes must be made in order to satisfy the late Opposition, and to give the Cabinet a necessary majority. Pulteney then declared that, for himself, he desired a peerage and a place in the Cabinet, and thus the new Ministry was organised:Wilmington, First Lord of the Treasury; Carteret, Secretary of State; the Marquis of Tweeddale, Secretary for Scotland; Sandys, the motion-maker, Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Prince of Wales was to receive the additional fifty thousand pounds a year; and his two friends, Lord Baltimore and Lord Archibald Hamilton, to have seats at the new Board of Admiralty.
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FORE:
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FORE:
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FORE:Such, then, was the state of affairs at the meeting of Parliament in November, 1768. These events in America claimed immediate attention. The petition of the Convention of Massachusetts, on its arrival, was rejected indignantly. The Opposition called for the production of the correspondence with the civil and military authorities there on the subject, but this demand was negatived. In January, 1769, the House of Lords took up the subject in a lofty tone. They complained of the seditious and treasonable proceedings of the people of Boston and of Massachusetts generally; and the Duke of Bedford, affirming that it was clear that no such acts could be punished by the magistrates or tribunals of the colony, moved an address to the king recommending that the criminals guilty of the late outrages should be brought to England and tried there, according to an Act of the 35th of Henry VIII. On the 26th of January it was introduced to the Commons. There it excited a very spirited opposition. Pownall, who had himself been governor of Massachusetts, and knew the Americans well,[195] accused the Lords of gross ignorance of the charters, usages, and character of the Americans; and Governor Johnstone as strongly condemned the motion, which was carried by one hundred and fifty-five to eighty-nine. On the 14th of March a petition from New York, denying their right to tax America in any way, was rejected, on the motion of Lord North; and, still later in the session, Governor Pownall moved that the revenue acts affecting America should be repealed forthwith. By this time everybody seemed to have become convinced of the folly of the attempt; but Ministers had not the magnanimity to act at once on the certainty that stared them in the face. Parliament was prorogued on the 9th of May, and did not meet again till the following January, as if there were nothing of moment demanding its attention.
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