feel, and that whilst you keep them you may meet with rubs, but you will never find a stop. "As to my own situation (it is the last time I will trouble you upon it, so bear with me), it is as well known to me as yours. I have long made it my sole business to please the Queen and you: how well or how ill I succeeded in the first is now immaterial; but that I have on every occasion endeavoured to gain your friendship and on some lately to move your good-nature, and have succeeded alike in both, is, I fear, too true. Some honorary trifles you have refused me, and other more essential favours which you have denied, leave me too little room to doubt that either those who have always been giving you ill impressions of me have made you afraid or unwilling to distinguish me, or that your own judg ment and knowledge of me have convinced you that I am fit for nothing but to carry candles and set chairs all my life, and that I am sufficiently raised, at forty years old, by being promoted to the employment of Tom Cook,* and designed, like him, and on the same terms, to die in it. My situation often puts me in mind of three lines of Dryden, where a Prince, speaking of a very contemptible appurtenance to his Court, says― 'The Court received him first for charity, And since with no degree of honour graced, "I promised you I never would ask anything for myself of the Queen but through you, and kept my word; but I own to you I feel my pride so shocked by many things that have happened to me of late, that nothing but my not being able to afford to quit has prevented me;† not that in quitting I should have acted in anything differently from what I have done and shall now do, but would that way only have endeavoured to make you regret the slighting me for the sake of others, whom I wish you may always find deserve as well of you. I once had it in my power to serve you (or my vanity gave me the pleasure of thinking so); that time is over. I know I am now as insignificant as any other of the * Thomas Coke, last Vice-Chamberlain to George I. + There was certainly some higher reason; for it was but a little before the date of this letter that the good old Earl made him the generous offer mention. ed ante, p. 251, note, which he earnestly repeated on the Queen's death. dignified ciphers about you-as insignificant as their envy can wish me or as anything can make me; for as for the little distinctions the King has shown me during the poor Queen's illness or since her death, they are such as may serve for food to the envy of some fools of our acquaintance, but are not what I am fool enough, I promise you, to think of more value in point of an interest than the sheet of paper I am writing upon; but my interest at Court, like this paper, might have been of some consequence to me, since you might have written what you pleased upon it, though you have thought fit to leave it a blank. 66 You will be tired of reading, and I am tired of writing. Do not torture any expression in this letter, for I am not in a situation of mind to weigh or choose my words, and all I mean to say is, that I will be refused or disappointed no more, for I will ask and expect no more; that my enemies shall not conquer, for I will not struggle; that I could have made my peace with my greatest enemy,* if I would have done it at your expense; that I scorned it, and do not repent the part I have acted; that I submit to be a nothing, and wish whoever you honour with your confidence, or benefit with your favour, may always serve you with as honest a mind, as warm a heart, and as unshakable an attachment as you have been served by your neglected," &c. To this letter Sir Robert Walpole sent no answer in writing, but by a verbal message desired to speak with Lord Hervey early the next morning, and then told him, with a very well acted concern, that of all the things he had ever met with in business, this letter had surprised and afflicted him the most; that after his own children, there was nobody in England he loved so well, nor anybody to whom he thought he had done more obligations than to Lord Hervey. "As to the opinion I have of your worth and integrity, my Lord, the things with which I have trusted you, are a sufficient proof. I mean to serve you, I wish to please you, for God's sake go on with me as you used to do; and leave it to me, pray trust me to show the sincerity with which I speak to you. Let us have no éclaircissemens on what is past; commit your future interest to my care, and give me leave to think, what I wish to believe, that all the dissatisfaction expressed in your letter is rather the effect of the melancholy * I suppose the Prince, or perhaps Pulteney. present turn of your mind on this unhappy event, than a distrust of my friendship and sincerity." It would be very tedious to relate all the particulars of this long conversation, which ended in an extorted promise from Lord Hervey that he would not alter his conduct, make any complaints to anybody, or relate what had passed between them, unless he thought he had any fresh reason to be displeased with Sir Robert Walpole's behaviour; and though Lord Hervey now began to know Sir Robert Walpole too well to depend much on the most lavish professions of kindness and esteem, yet he had some satisfaction in Sir Robert Walpole's behaving in a manner that saved him the trouble of coming to a rupture with him, at a time when it was certainly his interest as well as his inclination to lie by and be quiet. It will be natural, then, to ask, if these were Lord Hervey's sentiments, why he wrote this letter? The answer to which is, that he thought the letting Sir Robert Walpole see he was sensible he had not been well used, was the likeliest way to prevent his being worse used; knowing that fear was the only check upon a man who was so apt to conceive jealousies and suspicions, and whose temper, though it could from that motive of fear long suspend resenting, seldom or never failed from any other to annoy and depress those against whom these jealousies and suspicions were conceived. Several of Sir Robert Walpole's enemies, as well as some of Lord Hervey's injudicious friends, tried to stimulate and persuade Lord Hervey at this time to endeavour to ruin Sir Robert Walpole in the palace, to make use of his perpetual access to the King to this purpose, and told him, as the Princesses were so irritated against Sir Robert, from his ungrateful behaviour to their mother's memory, and his indecent conduct towards themselves, that they would certainly join with Lord Hervey in promoting any scheme that tended to the subversion of his power and the punishment of his insolence; at the same time blowing up Lord Hervey's vanity and ambition, by telling him how capable he was of stepping into Sir Robert's place, and how glad the at present broken Whig party would be to unite under his banner, if he would but set up his standard. But these people knew little of the true situation of things: the Princess Emily not daring to speak of business to the King, and the Princess Caroline not caring how things went, engrossed by her melancholy, and in so bad a state of health, that nobody imagined, any more than herself, that her life would be of any long continuance.* [The conclusion seems a little abrupt; but the appearance of the Manuscript indicates that Lord Hervey considered his work as complete.] SUPPLEMENTAL CHAPTER. [What Lord Hervey designated as his Memoirs end with the Queen's death, but he left some notes and letters which carry us on to the close of his own political life, and which seem therefore to deserve a place in these volumes. See the Biographical Notice."] 66 List of the Cabinet Council, April 28, 1740. POTTER, Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord HARDWICKE, Lord Chancellor. Earl of WILMINGTON, Lord President of the Council. Duke of DORSET, Lord Steward.† Duke of GRAFTON, Lord Chamberlain. Duke of RICHMOND, Master of the Horse. Duke of DEVONSHIRE, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Duke of NEWCASTLE, Secretary of State. Earl of PEMBROKE, Groom of the Stole. * She_lived, however, though in seclusion and ill health, twenty years longer, dying on the 28th of December, 1757, in the 45th year of her age. These great household officers were at this period always in what was called the Cabinet; but there was an interior Council-of Walpole, the Chancellor, and Secretaries of State-who, in the first instance, consulted together on the more confidential points. Sir ROBERT WALPOLE, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir CHARLES WAGER, First Commissioner of the Admiralty. (Sir JOHN NORRIS,* called in as an auxiliary when anything was under deliberation relative to our present maritime war with Spain.) May 7. The Duke of MONTAGU, made Master of the Ordnance in the place of the Duke of ARGYLE, became of course one of the Cabinet Council. May 8. The Duke of BOLTON, without a right to it from his office of Captain of the Band of Pensioners, in which employment he succeeded the Duke of MONTAGU on his removal to the Ordnance, was likewise admitted of the Cabinet Council, because he had been of it seven years ago, at the time he was turned out of all his employments. An Account of the present Naval Strength of England. With Mr. Haddock in the Mediterranean, 32 ships,-22 of the line, 5 twenty-gun ships, 3 fire-ships, 2 bomb-vessels. All these are at present with Haddock to defend Minorca, except four left at Gibraltar with Captain William Hervey, brother to Lord Hervey, which properly belong to [Sir Challoner] Ogle's squadron of 10, who went with the other 6 to join Haddock. Balchen and Maine had 10, to cruise on the north-west of Spain, near Cape Finisterre and Ferrol; but Maine's 5 are returning home to refit. At home there are 30 ships for the Channel, to guard our own coasts and protect this country; but 20 only being manned, one-third of the nominal strength is absolutely useless. In the West Indies there are now with Vernon 9 ships of the line, 5 fire-ships, and 2 bomb-vessels; and dispersed in the West Indies about 16 ships more of different sizes. Spanish Strength in Europe. At Carthagena 5 ships of the line commanded by Clavijo, * A distinguished officer : he had been many years a Lord of the Admiralty, was now Admiral of the Fleet, and was appointed in the summer to the command of the Channel Fleet. |