Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

hearted policy calls for a sacrifice. He must die. I send you my account of Arnold's affair; and, to justify myself to your sentiments, I must inform you that I urged a compliance with André's request to be shot, and I do not think it would have had an ill effect. But some people are only sensible to motives of policy, and sometimes, from a narrow disposition, mistake it.

When Andre's tale comes to be told, and present resentment is over, the refusing him the privilege of choosing the manner of his death will be branded with too much obstinacy.

It was proposed to me to suggest to him the idea of an exchange for Arnold; but I knew I should have forfeited his esteem by doing it, and therefore declined it. As a man of honour, he could not but reject it; and I would not for the world have proposed to him a thing which must have placed me in the unamiable light of supposing him capable of meanness, or of not feeling myself the impropriety of the measure. I confess to you I had the weakness to value the esteem of a dying man, because I reverenced his merit.

This extract was kindly communicated to me by my friend, the Hon. W. B. Reed, of Philadelphia, in a letter dated December 16, 1854. I do not remember to have seen that letter of General Hamilton's before, and I think it of importance in weighing the question at issue.

S.

MR. PITT'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH
EARL TEMPLE.

1783.

THESE letters, with many others of historical value which had been long preserved at Stowe, and which had never been published, were disposed of by public sale at Messrs. Puttick's auction rooms in August, 1862, when I had the good fortune to secure the best part of the collection.

S.

Dowager Countess of Chatham to Earl Temple.

MY DEAR LORD,

Burton Pynsent,
June 21, 1783.

My sensibility from the expressions of your very kind letter on my own subject, and the circumstance of that agreement in sentiment between yourself and my son William, will not admit of my being satisfied without assuring you of the very great happiness I receive from it. You will not have wanted these lines to have persuaded you of my feelings upon it, as you have given me the pleasure of knowing you was perfectly acquainted with my wishes, which have, indeed, invariably been such as you believe them. Union in families is strength, and private happiness, if it fails of

obtaining public happiness, which sooner or later I believe it generally does, where there is ability to frame the necessary plans. I have vanity sufficient to think that there is enough to be found for that end in those whom I am happy enough to claim as belonging to me. You will, I flatter myself, excuse a trouble which you owe entirely to the impression made upon me by finding the wish of my heart accomplished by that union which I trust will be too strongly cemented for the changes of a political course ever to dissolve. I beg my affectionate compliments to Lady Temple and Mr. William, and desire, my dear Lord, you will believe me, most truly,

Your most obliged and affectionate,

HESTER CHATHAM.

I have writ in haste, forgive mistakes.

MY DEAR LORD,

Mr. Pitt to Earl Temple.

Saville Street, Sunday, July 20, 1783.

I found a note from Lord Thurlow on Friday, desiring to call upon me yesterday. I had a long conversation with him, of which it would be difficult to give a full detail, but from the leading parts of it, your Lordship will easily judge of the result. Almost in the beginning of it he told me that he had been at the Levee the day before, and (as he added in the course of the conversation) in the King's closet, having imagined

(he said), from some words the King dropped at the Levee, that His Majesty wished to talk to him. He represented, however, their conversation to have been quite general, though he acknowledged it to have been very long; and said that by what he collected from it the King had not altered his sentiments with regard to his present Ministry. He affected to treat it as if his audience had had no particular view, and had been in a manner casual. I am persuaded, however, from all the circumstances, and from some parts which he glanced at occasionally, that it was much more particular than he chose to state; and his having appointed me for Saturday, and then seen the King on Friday, confirms that opinion.

In different parts of his conversation he expressed very strongly, as he has so often before, the necessity of a stable government; but at the same time. threw out doubts whether objections to particular persons being brought forward might not be in the way of it. He also dropped, in a passing way, and at separate times, that the King had no insight into the means of forming a Government; that his directly turning out his Ministers was different from their resigning or being pressed in Parliament; and that the King had gone through the worst in the struggle which ended in bringing them in. Yet he said, when I hinted that they might succeed in their endeavour to reconcile the King to them, that the King could never forgive their conduct; and mentioned as an instance, Mr. Fox's language in the House of Commons relative to the Prince of Wales's establishment, of

which the King, he said, had expressed his resentment to him the day before. When I endeavoured to learn from him what part Lord Gower or Lord Weymouth would be disposed to take, he studiously declined particulars. His principal object seemed to be to turn the conversation on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and of the influence of the Crown, especially the latter. He went into a great deal of general speculation, but without much pledging his own opinion, and seeming to take every way of sounding whether any ground would be gained for the Crown on that article.

Your Lordship will form your judgment on these particulars, though related so much more shortly than they passed. They struck me as a full proof that Lord Thurlow's object was to insinuate that a change was not so necessary to the King, and to endeavour to make it (if it should take place) rather our act than his, and on that ground to try whether terms might not be imposed that could not otherwise. This is so totally contrary to every idea we both entertain, that I thought it necessary to take full care to counteract it. I stated in general, that if the King's feelings did not point strongly to a change, it was not what we sought; but that if they did, and we could form a permanent system, consistent with our principles, and on public grounds, we should not decline it. I reminded him how much I was personally pledged to Parliamentary Reform on the principles I had publicly explained, which I should support on every seasonable occasion. I treated as out of the question any idea of measures being taken to extend influence, though such means as are fairly in

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »