Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3

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The Parliament rose yesterday,-no new peers, not even Irish: Lord
Northumberland's list is sent back ungranted.(597) The Duke of
MecklenbUrgh(598) and Lord Halifax are to have the garters.
Bridgman(599) is turned out of the green cloth, which is given to
Dick Vernon; and his place of surveyor of the gardens, which
young Dickinson held for him, is bestowed on Cadogan.(600)
Dyson(601) is made a lord of trade. These are all the changes I
have heard--not of a complexion that indicates the removal of
your brother.

The foreign ministers agreed, as to be sure you have been told,
to make Monsieur de Guerchy's cause commune; and the
Attorney-general has filed an information against D'Eon: the poor
lunatic was at the Opera on Saturday, looking like Bedlam. He
goes armed, and threatens, what I dare say he would perform, to
kill or be killed, if any attempt is made to seize him.

The East Indian affairs have taken a new turn. Sullivan had
twelve votes to ten: Lord Clive bribed off one. When they came
to the election of chairman, Sullivan desired to be placed in the
chair, without the disgrace of a ballot; but it was denied. On
the scrutiny, the votes appeared eleven and eleven. Sullivan
understood the blow, and with three others left the room. Rous,
his great enemy, was placed in the chair; since that, I think
matters are a little compromised, and Sullivan does not abdicate
the direction; but Lord Clive, it is supposed, will go to Bengal
in the stead of Colonel Barr`e, as Sullivan and Lord Shelburne
had intended.

Mr. Pitt is worse than ever with the gout. Legge's case is
thought very dangerous:--thus stand our politics, and probably
will not fluctuate much for some months. At least-I expect to
have little more to tell you before I see you at Paris, except
balls, weddings, and follies, of which, thank the moon! we never
have a dearth: for one of the latter class, we are obliged to the
Archbishop,(602) who, in remembrance, I suppose, of his original
profession of midwifery, has ordered some decent alterations to
be made in King Henry's figure in the Tower. Poor Lady Susan
O'Brien is in the most deplorable situation, for her Adonis is a
Roman Catholic, and cannot be provided for out of his calling.
Sir Francis Delaval, being touched with her calamity, has made
her a present--of what do you think?--of a rich gold stuff! The
delightful charity! O'Brien comforts himself, and says it will
make a shining passage in his little history.

I will tell you but one more folly, and hasten to my signature.
Lady Beaulieu was complaining of being waked by a noise in the
night: my lord(603 replied, "Oh, for my Part, there is no
disturbing be; If they don't wake me before I go to sleep, there
is no waking me afterwards."

Lady Hervey's table is at last arrived, and the Princess's trees,
which I sent her last night; but she wants nothing, for Lady
Barrymore(604) is arrived.

I smiled when I read your account of Lord Tavistock's expedition.
Do you remember that I made seven days from Calais to Paris, by
laying out my journeys at the rate of travelling in England,
thirty miles a-day; and did not find but that I could have gone
in a third of the time! I shall not be such a snail the next
time. It is said that on Lord Tavistock's return, he is to
decide whom he will marry. Is it true that the Choiseuls totter,
and that the Broglios are to succeed; or is there a Charles
Townshend at Versailles? Adieu! my dear lord.

(596) No doubt Mr. George Grenville is here meant. See ant`e, p.
257, letter 184.-E.

(597) This list was, Sir Ralph Gore, Sir Richard King, and Mr.
Stephen MOOTE, all created peers in this summer by the respective
titles of Bellisle, Kingston, and Kilworth.-C.

(598) Adolphus Frederick III. Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, the
Queen's brother. He died in 1794.-C.

(599) Mr. George Bridgman, brother of the first Lord Bradford.
He had been many years surveyor of the royal gardens, and was
celebrated for his taste in ornamental gardening. He died at
Lisbon, in 1767.-C.

(600) Probably Charles Sloane Cadagan, son of the second Lord
Cadogan, who was treasurer to Edward Duke of York.-C.

(601) Jeremiah Dyson, Esq. afterwards a privy-counsellor.-E.

(602) See ant`e, p. 262, letter 185.

(603) Mr. Hussey was an Irishman. See ant`e, p. 251.-E.

(604) Margaret Davis, sister and Heiress of Edward, the last
Viscount Mountcashel of that family, and widow of James Earl of
Barrymore.-C.

Letter 205 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, eight o'clock, April 21, 1764.
(page 316)

I write to you with a very bad headache; I have Passed a night,
for which George Grenville and the Duke of bedford shall pass
many an uneasy one! Notwithstanding that I heard from every body
I met, that your regiment, as well as bedchamber, were taken
away, I would not believe it, till last night the Duchess of
Grafton told me, that the night before the Duchess of Bedford
said to her, "Are not you sorry for Poor Mr. Conway? He has lost
every thing." When the Witch of Endor pities, one knows she has
raised the devil.

I am come hither alone to put my thoughts into some order, and to
avoid showing the first sallies of my resentment, which I know
you would disapprove; nor does it become your friend to rail. My
anger shall be a little more manly, and the plan of my revenge a
little deeper laid than in peevish bon-mots. You shall judge of
my indignation by its duration.

In the mean time, let me beg you, in the most earnest and most
sincere of all professions, to suffer me to make your loss as
light as it is in my power to make it: I have six thousand pounds
in the funds; accept all, or what part you want. Do not imagine
I will be put off with a refusal. The retrenchment of my
expenses, which I shall from this hour commence, will convince
you that I mean to replace Your fortune as far as I can. When I
thought you did not want it, I had made another disposition. You
have ever been the dearest person to me in the world. You have
shown that you deserve to be so. You suffer for your spotless
integrity. Can I hesitate a moment to show that there is at
least one man who knows how to value you? The new will, which I
am going to make, will be a testimonial of my own sense of
virtue.

One circumstance has heightened my resentment. If it was not an
accident, it deserves to heighten it. The very day on which your
dismission was notified, I received an order from the treasury
for the payment of what money was due to me there. Is it
possible that they could mean to make any distinction between us?
Have I separated myself from you? Is there that spot on earth
where I can be suspected of having paid court? Have I even left
my name at a minister's door since you took your part? If they
have dared to hint this, the pen that is now writing to you will
bitterly undeceive them.

I am impatient to see the letters you have received, and the
answers you have sent. Do you come to town? If you do not, I
will come to you to-morrow se'nnight, that is, the 29th. I give
no advice on any thing, because you are cooler than I am--not so
cool, I hope, as to be insensible to this outrage, this villany,
this injustice You owe it to your country to labour the
extermination of such ministers!

I am so bad a hypocrite, that I am afraid of showing how deeply I
feel this. Yet last night I received the account from the
Duchess of Grafton with more temper than you believe me 'capable
of: but the agitation of the night disordered me so much, that
Lord John Cavendish, who was with me two hours this morning, does
not, I believe, take me for a hero. As there are some who I know
would enjoy my mortification, and who probably desired I should
feel my share of it, I wish to command myself-but that struggle
shall be added to their bill. I saw nobody else before I came
away but Legge, who sent for me and wrote the enclosed for you.
He would have said more both to you and Lady Ailesbury, but I
would not let him, as he is so ill: however, he thinks himself
that he shall live. I hope be will! I would not lose a shadow
that can haunt these ministers.

I feel for Lady Ailesbury, because I know she feels just as I do-
-and it is not a pleasant sensation. I will say no more, though
I could write volumes. Adieu! Yours, as I ever have been and
ever will be.

Letter 206 The Hon. H. S. Conway To The Earl Of Hertford.(605)
Park Place, April 23, 1764. (page 317)

Dear Brother,
You will, I think, be much surprised at the extraordinary news I
received yesterday, of my total dismission from his Majesty's
service, both as groom of the bedchamber and colonel of a
regiment. What makes it much stronger is, that I do not hear
that any of the many officers who voted with me on the same
questions in the minority, are turned out. It seems almost
impossible to conceive it should be so, and yet, so I suspect it
is; and if it be, it seems to me upon the coolest reflection I am
able to give it, the harshest and most unjust treatment ever
offered to any man on the like occasion. I never gave a single
vote(606) against the ministry , but in the questions on the
great constitutional point of the warrants. People are apt to
dignify with Such titles any question that serves their factious
purpose to maintain; but what proved this to be really so, was
the great number of persons who voted as I did, having no
connexion with the opposition, but determined friends of the
ministry in all their conduct, and in the government's service;
such as Lord Howe and his brother, and several more. As to the
rest, I never gave another vote against the ministry. I refused
being of the opposition club, or to attend any one meeting of the
kind, from a principle of not entering into a scheme of
opposition, but being free to follow my own sentiments upon any
question that should arise. On the Cider-act I even voted for
the court, in the only vote I gave on that subject; and in
another case, relative to the supposed assassination of Wilkes, I
even took a part warmly in preventing that silly thing from being
an object of clamour. So that, undoubtedly, my overt acts have
been only voting as any man might from judgment, only in a very
extraordinary and serious question of privilege and personal
liberty; the avowing my friendship and obligation to some few now
in opposition, and my neglecting to pay court to those in the
administration; that seemed to me, both an honest and an
honourable part in my situation, which was something delicate.
My poor judgment, at least, could point out no better for me to
take, and I enter into so much detail upon this old story, that
you may not think I have done any thing lightly or passionately
which might give just ground for this extraordinary usage; and I
must add to the account, that neither in nor out of the House can
I, I think, be charged with a single act or expression of offence
to any one of his Majesty's ministers. This was, at least, a
moderate part; and after this, what the ministry should find in
their judgment, their justice, or their prudence, from my
situation, my conduct, or my character, to single me out and
stigmatize me as the proper object of disgrace, or how the merit
of so many of my friends who are acting in their support, and
whom they might think it possible would feel hurt, did not, in
their prudential light, tend to soften the rigour of their
aversion towards me, does, I confess, puzzle me. I don't exactly
know from what particular quarter the blow comes; but I must
think Lord Bute has, at least, a share in it, as, since his
return, the countenance of the King, who used to speak to me
after all my votes, is visibly altered, and of late he has not
spoke to me at all.

So much for my political history: I wish it was as easy to my
fortune as it is to my mind in most other respects; but that,
too, I' must make as easy as I can: it comes unluckily at the end
of two German campaigns, which I felt the expense of with a much
larger income, and have not yet recovered;(607) as, far from
having a reward, it was with great difficulty I got the
reimbursement of the extraordinary money my last command through
Holland cost me, though the States-General, had, by a public act,
represented my conduct so advantageously, to our court; so that
on the whole I think no man was ever more contemptuously used,
who was not a wretch lost in character and reputation. It
requires all the philosophy one can Master, not to show the
strongest resentment. I think I have as much as my neighbours,
and I shall endeavour to use it; yet not so as to betray quite an
unmanly insensibility to such extraordinary provocation. Horace
Walpole has, on this occasion, shown that warmth of friendship
that you know him capable of, so strongly that I want words to
express my sense of it. I have not yet had time to see or hear
from any of the rest of my friends who are in the way of this
bustle; many of them have, I believe, taken their part, for
different reasons, another way, and I am sure I shall never say a
word to make them abandon what they think their own interest for
my petty cause. Nor am I anxious enough in the object of my own
fortune to wish for their taking any step that may endanger
theirs in any degree. With retrenchments and economy I may be
able to go on, and this great political wheel, that is always in
motion, may one day or other turn me up, that am but the fly upon
it.(608)

I shall go to town for ,i few days soon, and probably to court, I
suppose to be frowned upon, for I am not treated with the same
civility as others who are in determined opposition. Give my
best love and compliments to all with you, and believe me, dear
brother, ever most affectionately yours, H. S. C.

(605) As two of Mr. Walpole's letters, relative to General
Conway's dismissal, are wanting, the Editor is glad to be able to
supply their place by two letters on the subject from the General
himself; and as his dismissal was, both in its principle and
consequences, a very important political event, as well as a
principal topic in Mr. Walpole's succeeding letters, it is
thought that General Conway's own view of it cannot fail to be
acceptable.

(606) General Conway and Mr. Walpole seem to have taken the
argument on too low a scale. Their anxiety seems to have been,
to show that the General was not in decided opposition; thereby
appearing to admit, that if he had been so, the dismissal would
have been justifiable. It is however clear from Mr. Walpole's
own accounts, that Conway was considered as not only in
opposition, but as one of the most distinguished leaders of the
party, --and so the public thought: witness the following extract
from "a letter" from Albemarle-street to the Cocoa-tree,
published about this period:--"Amongst the foremost stands a
gallant general, pointed out for supreme command by the unanimous
voice of his grateful country: England has a Conway, the powers
of whose eloquence, Inspired by his zeal for liberty, animated by
the fire of true genius, and furnished with a sound knowledge of
the constitution, at once entertain, ravish, convince, conquer:--
such noble examples are the riches of the present age, the
treasures of posterity."-C.

(607) On this occasion, Lord Hertford, the Duke of Devonshire,
and Mr. Horace Walpole (each without the knowledge of the others)
pressed General Conway to accept from them an income equivalent
to what he had lost.-C.

(608) Within little more than a year Mr. Conway was secretary of
state, and leader of the House of Commons.-E.

Letter 207 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, April 24, 1764. (page 320)

I rejoice that you feel your loss so little. That you act with
dignity and propriety does not surprise me. To have you behave
in character, and with character, is my first of all wishes; for
then it will not be in the power of man to make you unhappy. Ask
yourself--is there a man in England with whom you would change
character? Is there a man in England who would not change with
you? Then think how little they have taken away!

For me, I shall certainly conduct myself as you prescribe. Your
friend shall say and do nothing unworthy of your friend. You
govern me in every thing but one: I mean, the disposition I have
told you I shall make. Nothing can alter that but a great change
in your fortune. In another point, you partly misunderstood me.
That I shall explain hereafter.

I shall certainly meet you here on Sunday, and very cheerfully.
We may laugh at a world in which nothing of us will remain long
but our characters. Yours eternally.

Letter 208 The Hon. H. S. Conway To The Earl Of Hertford.
London, May 1, 1764. (page 320)

I wrote a letter some days ago from the country, which. I am
sorry to find, does not set out till to-,day, having been given
to M. des Ardrets by Horace Walpole, as it was one I did not
choose to send by the post just at this time, though God knows
there was less in it, I think, than almost any but myself would
have said on such an occasion. I am sorry it did not go, as it
must seem very strange to you to hear on that subject from any
body before me: had it been possible, at the same time, I should
have wished not to write to you upon it at all. It is a
satisfaction, in most situations, certainly, to communicate even
one's griefs to those friends to whom one can do it in
confidence, but it is a pain where one thinks it must give them
any; and I assure you, I feel this sincerely from the share I
know your goodness will take in this, upon my account; as well as
that which, in some respects, it may give you on your own: as
'the particular distinction with which I am honoured beyond so
many of my brother officers who have so much more directly,
declaredly, and long been in real opposition to the ministry, has
great unkindness in it to all those friends of mine who have been
acting in their support. However, I would not, on any account,
that you or any of them should, for my sake, be drove a single
step beyond what is for their actual interest and inclination.
Nay, I Would not have the latter operate by itself, as I know,
from their goodness how bad a guide that might be. I do not
exactly know the grounds upon which the ministry made choice of
me as the object of their vengeance for a crime so general, The
only one I have heard, has certainly no weight; it was, that if I
was turned out of the bedchamber, and not my regiment, it would
be a sanction given for military men to oppose--that distinction
had before been destroyed by the dismission of three military
men; nor did my remaining in the army afterwards any more
establish it, than any other man's; it was a paltry excuse for a
thing they had a mind to do: the real motives or authors I cannot
yet quite ascertain. I hope, though they turned me out, they
cannot disgrace me, as I presume they wish; at least, so (my
friends flatter me) the language of the world goes, and I have at
least the satisfaction of being really ignorant myself, by what
part of the civil or military behaviour I could deserve so very
unkind a treatment. I am sure it was not for want of any
respect, duty, or attachment to his Majesty. I shall at present
say no more on the subject.

I have heard from two or three different quarters, of a
disagreeable accident you have had in your chaise, and calling by
chance at the Duke of Grafton's this morning, he read me a
postscript in a letter of yours, wherein you describe it as a
thing of no consequence. I was rejoiced to hear @it, and should
have been obliged for a line from any of your family to tell me
so; for one often hears those things so disagreeably represented,
that it is pleasant to know the truth.

You are delightful in writing me a long letter the other day, and
never mentioning M. de Pompadour's death; so that I flatly
contradicted it at first, to those that told me of it. I am
obliged to you for your intention of showing civility to my
friend Colonel Keith; I think you will like him.

I hear in town, that we have some little disputes stirring up
with our new friends on your side the water, about the limits of
their fishery on Newfoundland, and a fort building On St. Pierre:
but I speak from no authority.

We are all sorry here at a surmise, that M. de Guerchy does not
intend to return among us, being too much hurt at the behaviour
of his friends of the ministry in those letters so infamously
published by D'Eon. I hope it is only report. Adieu! dear
brother: give my love and compliments to all your family, as also
Lady Aylesbury's; and believe me ever sincerely and
affectionately yours, H. S. C.

I am here only for a few days, having, as you will imagine, not
many temptations to keep me from the country at this time.

I hope, by this time, your pheasants, etc., are safe at the end
of their journey,.

Letter 209 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 10, 1764. (page 322)

I hope I have done well for you, and that you will be content
with the execution of your commission. I have bought you two
pictures. No. 14, which is by no means a good picture, but it
went so cheap and looked so old-fashionably, that I ventured to
give eighteen shillings for it. The other is very pretty, no,
17; two sweet children, undoubtedly by Sir Peter Lely. This
costs you four pounds ten shillings; what shall I do with them--
how convey them to you? The picture of Lord Romney, which you
are so fond of, was not in this sale, but I suppose remains with
Lady Sidney. I bought for myself much the best picture in the
auction, a fine Vandyke of the famous Lady Carlisle and her
sister Leicester in one piece: it cost me nine-and-twenty
guineas.

In general the pictures did not go high, which I was glad of;
that the vulture, who sells them, may not be more enriched than
could be helped. There was a whole-length of Sir Henry Sidney,
which I should have liked, but it went for fifteen guineas. Thus
ends half the glory of Penshurst! Not one of the miniatures was
sold.

I go to Strawberry to-morrow for a week. When do you come to
Frogmore? I wish to know, because I shall go soon to Park-place,
and would not miss the visit you have promised me. Adieu! Yours
ever, H.W.

Letter 210 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, May 27, 1764. Very late. (page 322)

My dear lord,
I am just come home, and find a letter from you, which gives me
too much pain(609) to let me resist answering it directly though
past one in the morning, as I go out of town early to-morrow.

I must begin with telling You, let me feel what I will from it,
how much I admire it. It is equal to the difficulty of your
situation, and expressed with all the feeling which must possess
you. I will show it your brother, as there is nothing I would
not and will not, do to preserve the harmony and friendship which
has so much distinguished your whole lives.

You have guessed, give me leave to say, at my wishes, rather than
answered to any thing I have really expressed. The truth was, I
had no right to deliver any opinion on so important a step as you
have taken, without being asked. Had you consulted me, which
certainly was not proper for you to do, it would have been with
the utmost reluctance that I should have brought myself to utter
my sentiments, and only then, if I had been persuaded that
friendship exacted it from me; for it would have been a great
deal for me to have taken upon myself: it would have been a step,
either way, liable to subject me to reproach from you in your own
mind, though you would have been too generous to have blamed me
in any other way. Now, my dear lord, do me the justice to say,
that the part I have acted was the most proper and most
honourable one I could take. Did I, have I dropped a syllable,
endeavouring to bias your judgment one way or the other? My
constant language has been, that I could not think, when a
younger brother had taken a part disagreeable to his elder, and
totally opposite, even without consulting him, that the elder,
was under any obligation to relinquish his own opinion, and adopt
the younger's. In my heart I undoubtedly wished, that even in
party your union should not be dissolved; for that Union would be
the strength of both.

This is the summary of a text on which I have infinitely more to
say; but the post is so far from being a proper conveyance, that
I think the most private letter transmitted in the most secure
manner is scarcely to be trusted. Should I resolve, if you
require it, to be more explicit, (and I certainly shall not think
of saying a word more, unless I know that it is strongly your
desire I should,) it must only be upon the most positive
assurance on your honour (and on their honour as strictly given
too) that not a syllable of what I shall say shall be
communicated to any person living. I except nobody, except my
Lady and Lord Beauchamp. What I should say now is now Of no
consequence, but for your information. It can tend to nothing
else. It therefore does not signify, whether said now, or at any
distant time hereafter, or when we meet. If, as perhaps you may
at first suppose, it had the least view towards making you quit
your embassy, you should not know it at all; for I think that
would be the idlest and most unwise step you could take; and
believe me, my affection for your brother will never make me
sacrifice your honour to his interest . I have loved you both
unalterably, and without the smallest cloud between us, from
children. It is true, as you observe, that party, with many
other mischiefs, produces dissensions in families. I can by no
means agree with you, that all party is founded in interest--
surely, you cannot think that your brother's conduct was not the
result of the most unshaken honour and conscience, and as surely
the result of no interested motive? You are not less mistaken,
if you believe that the present state of party in this country is
not of a most serious nature, and not a mere contention for power
and employments.(610) That topic, however, I shall pass over;
the discussion, perhaps, would end where it began. As you know I
never tried to bring you to my opinion before, I am very unlikely
to aim at it now. Let this and the rest of this subject sleep
for the present. I trust I have convinced you that my behaviour
has been both honourable and respectful towards you: and that,
though I think with your brother and am naturally very warm, I
have acted in the most dispassionate manner, and had recourse to
nothing but silence, when I was not so happy as to meet you in
opinion.