Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/18

4 at the patronage exorcised by Bute, he paid the most submissive court to him, and secretly joined in the cabal to get rid of the only real man in the ministry, Pitt, at the same time that he congratulated that great statesman on the disappearance of dissensions.

Meantime, Bute was sedulously at work to clear the way for his own assumption, not merely of office, but of the whole power of the government. He acted as already the only medium of communication with the king, and the depository of his secrets. He opened his views cautiously to Bubb Dodington, who was a confidant of the Lichfield House party, and still hungering after a title. Dodington advised him to induce lord Holderness to resign, and take his place, which, at first, Bute affected to disapprove of, but eventually acted upon. The first object was to get rid of Pitt, who, by his talents and haughty independence of manner, was not more acceptable to the king and his counsellor, Bute, than by his policy, which they desired to abandon. Pamphlets were therefore assiduously put out, endeavouring to represent Pitt as insatiable for war, and war as having been already too burthensome to the nation. Pitt was too clear-sighted not to perceive that the favourite would assuredly take the helm, and that a peace policy would be adopted, if it were only to throw a discredit on what he had done. Mediocrity hates the greatness that it can never approach. Pitt, however, gave no symptoms of resigning, and Bute and his friends became greatly jealous lest he should himself propose pacific measures, and thus forestall them in their grand manœuvre; for it was not peace for its own sake which actuated these little souls, but peace merely as a means to their own elevation. Bute communicated these miserable fears to Dodington, but he soon discovered that Pitt was as firm as ever in his old policy, and he came exultingly to his friend Bubb, exclaiming, "Pitt has no thought of abandoning the continent; he is madder than ever!" The plans of Bute and his party were therefore matured against the dissolution of parliament, which was to take place in the following March. There was some dissatisfaction expressed by the public against the present ministers, on account of an additional duty of three shillings a barrel laid on ale and beer, which told very well for a change, and the king was made sensible of the popular discontent by the cries of the multitude as he went in state to the theatres.

On the 3rd of March, 1761, George, however, did a very popular action in his own person. On this day he recommended to parliament, in a royal speech, that the commissions of the judges, which had been held, according to the act of Wilham III., since 1701, quamdin se bene gesserint—that is, according to good behaviour—should now be made totally independent of the crown, and no longer terminate on its demise. This was a great and important step in the just administration of the laws, and an act was gratefully and unanimously passed to that effect.

At the close of the session the venerable speaker of the commons, Onslow, resigned his post, after occupying it for three-and-thirty years, with a degree of ability, impartiality, and courtesy which has made his name famous in that house. The commons passed a vote expressing their sense of the retiring speaker's eminent services, and praying his majesty to grant him some signal mark of his favour. Accordingly, a pension of three thousand pounds a year was settled on him, and his son was afterwards created baron Cranley, and succeeded his cousin as baron Onslow.

On the 21st of March parliament was dissolved by proclamation, and the same day the Gazette announced several of the changes determined on in the ministry. The duke of Bedford retired from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, and his place was taken by the earl of Halifax. Legge, who was considered too much in the interest of Pitt, was dismissed on the 19th, and lord Barrington now took his place of chancellor of the exchequer. Charles Townshend took Barring- ton's former place, and Sir Francis Dashwood became treasurer of the chambers in room of Townshend. Both Townshend and Dashwood had gone over to the party of Bute. Lord Holderness was now made to do what Dodington had before suggested; he resigned his office of secretary of state, and on the 25th Bute was gazetted as appointed to that post. This was the result of all the other movements. Holderness was rewarded for his compliance by the reversion, after the death of the infirm duke of Dorset, of the wardenship of the Cinque Ports, with a salary of four thousand pounds a year. No notice of this change had been communicated to either Holderness or Pitt, the other and chief secretary, till it took place. The king said he was tired of having one secretary who could do nothing, and another who would do nothing. Pitt, who was indicated as the would-do-nothing secretary, must have felt that his own post in conjunction with Bute, who he knew aimed to do everything, could not be lasting; but he still continued to act, and determined only to resign when it should be seen that a contrary and more dishonourable foreign policy forced him from his position. He knew that that day could not be far off, for there were no ambiguous symptoms of a determination at court, under the Bute influence, that Frederick of Prussia was to be abandoned, and peace made at all costs. True, there ought to have been no such meddling, bloody, and expensive interference in continental quarrels, first on one side, and then on another, as there had been; but, to withdraw dishonourably from a connection imprudently entered into, was only adding infamy to folly. Frederick was now reduced to the verge of despair and almost of total ruin; and, having been accessory in the means of bringing him to that pass, by supporting him in his martial schemes, it was the part of an honourable government to see him through the crisis before deserting him. But Bute had no more feeling of honour than the tories Harley and Bollingbroke, who perpetrated the same course of perfidy towards our allies at the peace of Utrecht.

In addition to the ministerial changes, there were at the same time a few promotions. Three baronets of old standing, Curzon, Grosvenor, and Irby, were made barons. Sir Thomas Robinson became lord Grantham; and, after a long course of political dodging, Bubb Dodington was invested with the honours of a peerage as lord Melcombe. A new honour was also conferred on Bute, by creating his wife, the only daughter of lady Mary Wortley Montague, and an excellent woman, an English baroness. Bute had arranged with the duke of Newcastle for the management of the elections for the new parliament, and