: His authority would either sanctify or disgrace the measures of government. The people would look up to him as their protector and a virtuous prince would have one honest man in his dominions, in whose integrity and judgment he might safely confide. If it should be the will of Providence to afflict him with a domestic misfortune, he would submit to the stroke with feeling, but not without dignity. He would consider the people as his children, and receive a generous, heart-felt consolation, in the sympathizing tears and blessings of his country. Your Grace may probably discover something more intelligible in the negative part of this illustrious character. The man I have described would never prostitute his dignity in parliament, by an indecent violence, either in opposing or defending a minister. He would not at one moment rancorously persecute, at another basely cringe, to the favourite of his Sovereign. After outraging the royal dignity with peremptory conditions, little short of menace and hostility, he would never descend to the humility of solicit The Duke had lately lost his only son by a fall from his horse. ing an interview* with the favourite, and of of fering to recover, at any price, the honour of his friendship. Though deceived, perhaps, in his youth, he would not, through the course of a long life, have invariably chosen his friends from among the most profligate of mankind.IIis own honour would have forbidden him from mixing his private pleasures or conversation with jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. He would then have never felt, much less would he have submitted to, the dishonest necessity of engaging in the interests and intrigues of his dependents; of supplying their vices, or relieving their beggary, at the expence of his country. He would not have betrayed such ignorance, or such contempt, of the constitution, as openly to avow, in a court of justice, the purchaset and sale of a borough. He would not have thought it consistent with his rank in the state, or even with his personal importance, to be the little At this interview, which passed at the house of the late Lord Eglingtoune, Lord Bute told the Duke, that he was determined never to have any connexion with a man who had so basely betrayed him. In an answer in Chancery, in a suit against him to recover a large sum, paid him by a person whom he had undertaken to return to parliament for one of his Grace's boroughs, he was compelled to repay the money. tyrant of a little corporation*. He would never have been insulted with virtues which he had laboured to extinguish; nor suffered the disgrace of a mortifying defeat, which has made him ridiculous and contemptible even to the few by whom he was not detested. I reverence the afflictions of a good man ; his sorrows are sacred. But how can we take part in the distresses of a man whom we can neither love or esteem; or feel for a calamity of which he himself is insensible? Where was the father's heart, when he could look for, or find, an immediate consolation for the loss of an only son, in consultations and bargains for a place at court, and even in the misery of balloting at the India House! Admitting, then, that you have mistaken or deserted those honourable principles which ought to have directed your conduct; admitting that you have as little claim to private affection as to public esteem, let us see with what abilities, with what degree of judgment, you have carried your own system into execution. A great man, in the success, and even in the magnitude, of * Of Bedford, where the tyrant was held in such contempt and detestation, that, in order to deliver themselves from him, they admitted a great number of strangers to the freedom. To make his defeat truly ridiculous, he tried his whole strength against Mr. Horne, and was beaten upon his own ground. his crimes, finds a rescue from contempt. Your Grace is every way unfortunate. Yet I will not look back to those ridiculous scenes, by which, in your earlier days, you thought it an honour to be distinguished*; the recorded stripes, the public infamy, your own sufferings, or Mr. Rigby's fortitude. These events undoubtedly left an impression, though not upon your mind. To such a mind, it may, perhaps, be a pleasure to reflect, that there is hardly a corner of any of his Majesty's kingdoms, except France, in which, at one time or other, your valuable life has not been in danger. Amiable man! we see and acknowledge the protection of Providence, by which you have so often escaped the personal detestation of your fellow-subjects, and are still reserved for the public justice of your country. Your history begins to be important at that auspicious period, at which you were deputed to represent the Earl of Bute at the court of *Mr. Heston Humphrey, a country attorney, horsewhipped the Duke, with equal justice, severity, and perseverance, on the course, at Litchfield. Rigby and Lord Trentham were also cudgeled in a most exemplary manner. This gave rise to the following story: "When the late King heard that Sir "Edward Hawke had given the French a drubbing, his Majesty, who had never received that kind of chastisement, "was pleased to ask Lord Chesterfield the meaning of the "word." "Sir," says Lord Chesterfield," the meaning of "the word.----But here comes the Duke of Bedford, who is better able to explain it to your Majesty than I am.” Versailles. It was an honourable office, and executed with the same spirit with which it was accepted. Your patrons wanted an ambassador who would submit to make concessions, without daring to insist upon any honourable condition for his sovereign. Their business required a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity, as for the welfare of his country; and they found him in the first rank of the nobility. Belleisle, Gorec, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, the Fishery, and the Ilavannah, are glorious monuments of your Grace's talents for negociation. My Lord, we are too well acquainted with your pecuniary character, to think it possible that so many public sacrifices should have been made without some private compensations. Your conduct carries with it an internal evidence, beyond all the proofs of a court of justice. Even the callous pride of Lord Egremont was alarmed*. He saw and felt his own dishonour in corresponding with you: and there certainly was a moment at which he meant to have resisted, had not a fatal lethargy prevailed over his faculties, and carried all sense and memory away with it. *This man, notwithstanding his pride and Tory principles, had some English stuff in him. Upon an official letter he wrote to the Duke of Bedford, the Duke desired to be recalled, and it was with the utmost difficulty, that Lord Bute could appease him. |