LORD HARDWICKE ON THE KING

III

older....I am persuaded that there is much truth in my Lady Yarmouth's way of accounting for this ill-humour, the long delay of the mails and news from the army. We are so made that ill-humour arising upon one point operates upon all. Your Grace observes truly how different this is from his manner of receiving and treating you, upon the late melancholy event in your family1. That passed when he was calm and softened by tender circumstances, and I look upon it as his real disposition and way of thinking, and he would do the same again. The other is a fit, or a storm. Mr Pitt has to me sometimes allowed this, and he would not have appeared to lay so much weight upon the behaviour to himself, had it not been for the refusal of his governor of Guadeloupe. I see he is a Scotchman, and I don't like the Scotch having the government of most of our Plantations. But, to be sure, it is strange to refuse the recommendation of the Secretary of State of the Province, and upon whom the present weight of the American department so greatly lies. [He is convinced that the suspicion that the surrender of Cassel took place by the order of the King, or his German minister, is entirely baseless.]...As to Lord H[olderness], his Lordship is incomprehensible to me. He has either the best luck in the world, or has better abilities than most people have been disposed to allow him. For ought I can see, he has gained security, both with the King and his fellow ministers, by those very methods, for which they have the greatest reason to be offended with him. I cannot help suspecting that he makes a merit with the former by being in some instances (to use a coarse expression) a double spy. How long this will last, I can't tell, but I must be permitted to admire your singular Christian patience....

Major-Gen. the Hon. Joseph Yorke to the Earl of Hardwicke [H. 10, f. 110.]

HAGUE, Oct. 6th, 1760.

...Nothing gave me so much pleasure as the account you are pleased to give me of the interior, particularly that the Duke of Newcastle and Mr Pitt are upon such good terms *. Your Lordship is the only person who does not declare that that harmony is owing to yourself. As to Savile House, nobody understands it, nor will, I believe, during His Majesty's life (which God long preserve). In general, all the English who come this way in 1 The Countess of Lincoln, the Duke's niece, had died July 27.

It is [a] pity, for the sake of the public, that the harmony between these two great men was not always so great as it then seemed to be. H. (H. 75, f. 211.)

great numbers, are displeased with the conduct there, and complain of the reserve, though they do justice to the private character of the Prince, which they represent as mild and affable when he can be got at....

[On October 19, 1760 (N. 228, f. 201; H. 72, f. 96; N. 228, f. 207), Lord Hardwicke sends the Duke of Newcastle from Wimpole a long letter on the subject of the finances and the new taxation necessary to meet the enormous supply, of between 16 and 17 millions, for the coming year. In another letter of the same date he discusses the militia, and advises that the question of its continuation and permanence should be deferred till the new Parliament had assembled, and till the war had been concluded. He has the same strong dislike to it as the Duke, but advises the latter "politically" not to carry his objections too far in opposition.]

CHAPTER XXIX

THE GREAT WAR 1757-1760

We have now arrived at the threshold of those great triumphs which were to be realised at last, after many years of extraordinary national sacrifices and of individual energy and prowess, beyond the dreams of the most ardent ambition. The changed political situation offered for the first time sure hopes of success, and of results commensurate with the enormous expenditure of blood and treasure. The heir to the throne and his party, supporting the ministers, no longer obstructed their measures or led cabals. All opposition ceased in Parliament and the administration was given a free hand in its management of affairs abroad and of the war. Shortly after the inauguration of the new government, the King's Hanoverian partialities, in consequence of the Convention of Closterseven, ceased to operate, and impeded no more the British ministers in their foreign policy and military plans, over which they now, for the first time, had full control. At the same time the Duke of Cumberland's influence in military matters, and in the choice of commanders, which had long had mischievous results, terminated', and the cabinet, who were responsible to Parliament and the nation for the conduct of the war, advised by the veteran Lord Ligonier, as Commander-in-Chief, had in their own hands the military appointments. A number of young officers of merit and ability, such as Wolfe, Amherst and Coote, to whom so large a share of the great victories which followed was due, too long neglected and employed in subordinate or routine duties, were now 1 See above, p. 1. Gen. Yorke writing to his Father says he "had seen many inconveniences from the power and influence he had acquired." H. 10, f. 110. Yet Wolfe writes generously, and with loyalty to his old master, "The Duke's resignation may be reckoned an addition to our misfortunes; he acted a right part, but the country will suffer by it." R. Wright, Life of Wolfe, 398. But he was probably not acquainted with the inner history of affairs.

Y. III.

8

brought forward and trusted with independent commands1. "The employing officers of a different stamp," writes Lord Royston to Dr Birch, on September 15, 1759, “from those we unluckily set out with, has caused this great alteration in our affairs?." The navy, without which none of the great victories and conquests of these years could have been gained, at last began to show the full results of the wise and careful administration of Lord Anson3, who, fortunately for the nation, was once more placed by Lord Hardwicke's influence at the head of the Admiralty, and who promoted and gave commands to many new officers of ability, such as Boscawen, Saunders, Hardy, Rodney, Howe, Keppel and Jervis. The firm maintenance of good order and government during a long course of years had increased greatly the material prosperity of the country; while the able management of the public finances, and the reduction and conversion of the national debt, raised and strengthened the national credit, and rendered the burden of the enormous national expenditure possible and tolerable. The unsatisfactory and indecisive close of the last struggle with France had been largely occasioned by the necessity of withdrawing the whole of the British forces in the Netherlands for service in Scotland. England now for the first time entered upon a great war joined to Scotland in a real union, and with the Highlanders fighting in considerable bodies in her cause. Last, but not least, Pitt's influence and eloquence in the House of Commons were for the first time employed steadily in support. of the measures of the administration, instead of in opposition and obstruction, and his great talents given their full scope in

1 See J. Yorke's testimony, whose friends these were, and who had often urged their merits see below, pp. 198, 237-8. Wolfe had written to his father of Amherst in 1756, "Nobody deserves the King's favour better than that man." Life, by R. Wright, 334See also p. 104, Wolfe to his father, April 12, 1748, where he relates a conversation with J. Yorke, "then Adjutant-General," in which the latter speaks of Wolfe's useful services and assures him of the D. of C.'s intention to promote him. Wolfe was gazetted Major of the 20th Foot in Jan. 1749, Lieut.-Col. 1750, but passed over for the command of the regiment in 1755 and given rank of Colonel in Oct. 1757 only on his return from the expedition to Rochefort, through the recommendation of Hawke and Anson. Ib. 113, 145, 314, 394.

H. 51, f. 98; H. 69, f. 41.

3 See Lord Sandwich on being appointed head of the Admiralty to Anson, March 19, 1748, "I beg of you to consider my being there singly as an addition to your power.... I intend to depend entirely upon your Lordship, and to throw the direction of the whole as much as possible into your hands." Add. MSS. 15957, f. 53.

4 p. 159, and see vol. ii. 352, 370.

5 Barrow's Anson, 320, 350.

FAVOURABLE DOMESTIC SITUATION

115

directing the course of the war'. "I know nobody," wrote the Duke of Newcastle, "who can plan or push the execution of any plan agreed upon in the manner Mr Pitt did." How greatly these favourable circumstances were the result of Lord Hardwicke's counsels and influence has been shown in preceding chapters. He had known how to subordinate minor considerations to the great object in view, and had himself made both political and personal sacrifices. Still more, he had succeeded in impressing upon the Duke of Newcastle and Pitt, and also upon the King, the necessity for compromise, and of thorough union at this moment of national

crisis.

While therefore there was no change in the policy of the government or in its military or naval plans, a great increase of vigour and activity was seen in their execution; and Great Britain, possessing only a population of eight or nine millions, could venture upon a struggle with France which counted 20 millions of inhabitants, which possessed territory in Europe almost as extensive as at the present time, and kept on foot armies numbering more than 270,000 men.

It was some time, however, before the full results and advantages of the changed political situation were realised. The new administration, as we have seen, had been constituted only just in time to avert the triumph of the French arms and final disaster on the Continent; and the King of Prussia's victory at Prague, on May 6, 1757, had been followed by his defeat at Kolin on June 18, and by the advance of the Russians and Swedes into his territories. By the second treaty of Versailles, on May 1, 17563, with France,

1 There is no foundation for the silly legends circulated by Almon in his Anecdotes of the Life of Chatham, that Pitt sent his orders direct to the executive officers, and that the rest of the ministers merely acquiesced in his decisions. See Pitt's own disclaimer, Walpole, George III, i. 92.

* Cf. Walpole, who is always superficial, Letters, iv. 222, November 1758, "If Mr Pitt had not exerted the spirit and activity that he has, we should ere now have been past a critical situation. Such a war as ours, carried on by my Lord Hardwicke, with the dull dilatoriness of a Chancery suit, would long ago have reduced us to what suits in Chancery reduce most people"; and cf. J. S. Corbett, Lecturer in Hist. to the Royal Naval War College (England in the Seven Years' War, 1907, i. 87), "The great lawyer's grasp and modernity in strategical thought is remarkable"; and further below, pp. 247, 334; and Pitt in the House of Commons in 1761, "he had borrowed their majority to carry on their own plan." Walpole, George III, i. 83.

3 Waddington, La Guerre de Sept Ans, i. 325, who quotes part of an extraordinary letter from Kaunitz, the Austrian minister, to Mme de Pompadour, of June 14, 1757, assuring her of the Emperor and Empress's gratitude for her goodwill in effusive terms, increased, it is declared, if possible, "par la considération qu'elles ne le doivent qu'à votre inviolable attachement pour la personne sacrée de ce prince respectable."