but

In the spring of the preceding year Frederick Prince of Wales, who had fixed his heart upon his cousin, Frederica of Prussia, reluctantly married, at the instigation of his father, Augusta Princess of Saxe Gotha, whose beauty and accomplishments seem soon to have made him forget his former unhappy passion. But marriage increases expense; and, as out of a civil list of 800,000l., the prince received only 50,000l. a-year, he was much straitened, and the opposition, who had fastened upon him almost from the first moment of his arrival in England, easily led him to consider himself as ill used by a grasping and avaricious father. Two years before, Bolingbroke, who had been one of the prince's chief admirers, had recommended him to set his father at defiance, and apply to parliament for a settled revenue of 100,000l. a-year independent of him. It is probable that Bolingbroke's friend Wyndham gave the same advice, and that Pulteney and Chesterfield, Carteret and Cobham, and the other members of the mixed opposition of Whig and Tory who called themselves "the patriots," and who maintained a close intercourse with the prince, were equally regardless of the Fifth Commandment. Bubb Dodington, who has been justly described as a man of some talent, and a patron of two boroughs,' who, by a severer pen, might be set down as one of the most thorough-going jobbers of those jobbing days, takes to himself the credit of attempting to dissuade the prince from following the advice of Bolingbroke. Bubb confesses, however, that his royal highness requested his assistance," and designed partly to employ him in the measure," which would have been dangerous at that moment to his own interests. "The prince,' he says, "entered into very bitter complaints of the usage he had all along met with from the administration, and even from their majesties: that he was not allowed wherewithal to live, &c., that he was resolved to endure it no longer, and had determined to make a demand in parliament of a jointure for the princess, and of 100,000l. per annum for himself, which his father had when prince, and which he looked on to be his right, both in law and equity. I objected to the very great danger of such an undertaking; put his royal highness in mind, how strongly I had always been against it, when he formerly mentioned it; and was going to show the fatal consequences it must produce, besides the great improbability of success. But he interrupted me, and said, that it was too far gone for those considerations; that he did not ask my advice, but my assistance; he was determined upon the measure, and designed to send and speak with my particular friends, namely, Sir Paul Methuen, Lord Wilmington, and the Duke of Dorset; but chose out of kindness to me, to acquaint me first with it: that he would send to Sir Paul by Sir Thomas Frankland, and asked me if I would break the matter to them, and what, I believed, they would think of it." Bubb Dod

Lord Mahon.

ington continues in a style which is exceedingly characteristic of the man :-" Sensible of the danger and difficulties that attend negotiations of this delicate nature, even among the best friends, I replied, as to the first part, that I humbly begged to be excused from breaking it; that, whatever friendship those gentlemen did me the honour to admit me to, I thought it a matter too high to undertake; that, as he had mentioned his intentions of sending to them, and as they were, by their rank, and affection to his royal highness, every way qualified to be consulted, I thought it highly proper that he should know their sentiments from their own mouths, in an affair of this very great importance; that then what they said to his royal highness could not be mistaken, and what he was pleased to say to them could not be misrepresented. As to what they would think of it, I was confident, by what I felt myself, that they would be infinitely surprised: too much so, in my judgment, to give his royal highness any positive and determinate opinion." According to Bubb, his royal highness then said he did not want their opinion, but their assistance, and asked him what his friend the Duke of Argyll, who was now much out of favour with the court and ministry, would do for him? To which Dodington replied, that the duke would be as much surprised as himself; that he did not know what his grace would do, but was confident he knew what he would not do, which was to advise his highness to this dangerous measure. The minute recorder of his own shame, who had a moral obtuseness which seems to have made him insensible to the disgrace of his most shameful proceedings, then continues: -"He (the prince) answered, that the measure was fixed, that he was resolved, and wanted no advice; but he would not send to him, nor to Lord Scarborough, but to the Duke of Dorset and Lord Wilmington he would send, being resolved it should come into the House of Lords the same day, or soon after, let the fate of it be what it would in the House of Commons. He stopped here a little, and used some expressions, as if he would have me understand that he had said enough about all those that he thought I lived with in the closest connexion. I endeavoured, after assuring him with what affectionate duty we had always been his sincere servants, to show the great improbability of success in such an undertaking; but he cut me short, and said, none at all, that there were precedents for it, and mentioned that of the Princess of Denmark, in King William's time; that all the opposition and the Tories were engaged in it; that as it was his own determination, and he had been advised by nobody, when he had resolved it in his own mind he thought it necessary to speak to people himself; he had done so to Mr. Pulteney, Lord Carteret, Lord Chesterfield, Master of the Rolls (Jekyll), and Sir William Wyndham; that they were all hearty in it; that Mr. Pulteney, at the first notice, expressed himself so handsomely, that he should never forget it; but said he could,

at that time, only answer for himself, not expecting the proposition, but begged leave to consult with some of his friends, which his royal highness granted him, and he had since assured him that they were unanimous; that Sir William Wyndham had said that he had long desired an opportunity of showing his regard and attachment to his royal highness; that he would answer for his whole party, as well as for himself; and that he was very happy that an occasion presented itself to convince his royal highness, by their zealous and hearty appearance in support of his interest, how far they were from being Jacobites, and how much they were misrepresented under that name." Continuing his revelations as to the parties who had pledged themselves to assist him against his father, the prince said that Lord Winchelsea was gone down to Petworth, to bring up the old Duke of Somerset, who he expected would move the measure in the House of Lords; that Mr. Sandys, Mr. Gibbon, Sir John Barnard, and several others were acquainted with the project, of which they highly approved, and that possibly Sir John Barnard, the financier, who had recently been declaiming upon the necessity of reducing taxation, might move it in the House of Commons. The prince then asked Dodington, who was at this time about court, wearing a mask of devotion to the king and his ministers, whether he had heard nothing of this business at court; and upon Bubb's assuring him that he had not, the prince drew the consoling inference that the minister must be generally odious when nobody would tell him a thing that so nearly concerned him, though some forty-six to fifty were well acquainted with it; adding that this would make an end of Walpole's great power. Bubb wished for the minister's downfall very earnestly, but he told his royal highness that this did not seem to him the proper way of effecting it-that it would only make the king's cause and Walpole's inseparable, and rivet the minister yet faster where his only strength lay. At this very moment, George the Second was sick, and even apprehended to be in danger. Bubb says that he begged the prince to consider this circumstance, and to reflect how far it might be consistent with the greatness and generosity of his character to make such an attack, when his father was in a languishing condition. He says that the prince replied "that he was sensible of that, but he could not help it: he was engaged, and would go through: the king could not live many years, but might linger thus a good while, and he could not stay that while: that the time, indeed, had its inconveniences of one sort, and he wished it otherwise, but it had its conveniences of another, it would make people more cautious and apprehensive of offending him: that, besides, he had told the queen of it in the summer, and assured her that he designed to bring it into parliament; that she had treated it as idle and chimerical, that it was impossible that he should make anything of it, and seemed to think he was

only in jest; that if his friends stood by him he should carry it in the House, but, if he missed then, he could not fail of it in six months; that I should know the family as well as anybody; he always thought I did, but found that I did not, or would not: but he himself knew his own family best; and he would make a bet that, if he failed now, he gained his point in less than a twelvemonth by this means; in short, he was resolved, and too far engaged in honour to go back; that it was his due, and his right, absolutely necessary to make him easy the rest of his life; he could never want his friends but on this occasion; those that would stand by him in this he should always look on as his friends, and reward as such; those that would not he should not reckon to be so, they would have nothing to expect from him." Bubb made no particular answer, but expressed his alarm as to the consequences. He waited upon the prince down stairs to his horse, and begged him to consider how necessary it was to delay the motion from the great impropriety of the time. The royal and unloving son replied, "If a little time would do, it might be considered, but the king may linger out the session." Bubb suggested that no great harm would be done if the business were left over to another session; but the prince said that it could not be, that his honour was too far engaged, that he could not and would not wait.* Dodington assures us that he neither directly promised or refused to vote for the proposal, and that he left his royal highness with very great uneasiness and perplexity upon his own mind, considerably augmented by the great ease and tranquillity that appeared upon the prince's "-" which," he adds, with a glorious disregard of the feelings of nature,

is the natural effect of great resolutions, when they are fixed and determined." This precious courtier thought it necessary to warn his friend, Sir Paul Methuen, of this disagreeable business, and he says that he and Sir Paul "joined in lamenting the fate of this country to be divided and torn to pieces by a disunion in this royal family, which, with so many ardent wishes, and with the profusion of so much blood and treasure, we had at last so happily placed on the throne, to end all our divisions, and protect us in union and tranquillity." They agreed that Sir Paul, when sent for by the prince, should seem not to be any ways apprised of the affair, but should lay hold on any opportunity that might be given him to represent to his royal highness the probable fate and consequences of the undertaking. Bubb and Methuen then waited upon the Duke of Dorset and the other lords, who agreed to do their utmost to prevent this ill-advised attempt, and to declare plainly to the prince that they would oppose it, as fatal to his royal highness, injurious to the king, and destructive to the quiet and tranquillity of the whole country; and they desired Dodington to speak in the same way to the

The Diary of the late George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe Regis; from March 8, 1749, to February 6, 1761. AppendixNarrative of what passed between the Prince and Mr. Dodington.

prince. A day or two after, Sir Paul Methuen had an interview with the Prince of Wales, to whom he represented the danger and impracticability of the measure, and "used all possible arguments that a good head and a good heart could suggest to dissuade him from it; but all without effect." Seeing that he could not move this most royal obstinacy, Methuen ventured to declare that he could not give the prince his vote in the House. This resolution, however, was soon modified by a promise that, as he could not vote for him, he would not vote against him that he would not vote at all.* On the very next day the prince summoned Dodington to another private conference, and insinuated that Sir Paul Methuen had appeared to be well enough satisfied with the proposition. But upon Bubb's expressing his astonishment, his royal highness receded a little, and "seemed to give him leave to think that Sir Paul did not much approve of it, but, however, had promised to be absent." The prince assured him that he had talked to several other persons, and that they all entered into the plan most heartily. Bubb was silent. After some pause the prince said that Mr. Hedges his treasurer, and Lord Baltimore of his bed-chamber, were zealously for it. Bubb said that no doubt his servants would vote for it-nobody could take it ill of them-they would have leave to do it. The prince said he cared not whose leave they had, so he had their votes. His royal highness added that there was Mr. Arthur Herbert, who would vote for him and bring in all his friends. Bubb doubted whether this gentleman could get any vote but his own: the prince said he would bet Mr. Herbert would make above five. Bubb said that, if it were so, it must be by making use of his royal highness's name. The prince rejoined that everybody was for him that he was absolutely determined to bring it in-that he would hear no advice upon it-and that if there were but seven of the Commons, and three in the Lords for him, he would do it. Dodington says that he then said that he thought it necessary to lay his humble opinion before him; and that the prince told him he did not want his opinion. "I replied," continues Bubb, "that I did not presume to offer my opinion as to what was to guide his actions, but to lay before him what was to direct and govern my own; which I should be glad to take the first opportunity of doing, this not being a proper one, because I saw one of the gentlemen coming to acquaint his royal highness that dinner was served." The prince took no notice of this, but walked further into the garden where they were talking, and showed Bubb a letter from the "humoursome, proud, and capricious,' Duke of Somerset, as he has been called, who had once played a great part by accident, but who never showed any real political capacity of a high order. Somerset entertained so extravagant an opinion

It is pleasant to see how these things are put by one like Bubb Dodington:-" At the importunate and repeated request of his royal highness, and reflecting that he had not attended the House so as to give one single vote since the Excise Bill, he had been prevailed on to promise his royal highness to be absent, as he used to be.";

of his own value and importance that it was impossible any king or court should satisfy him; he was therefore discontented with the father; but he was not disposed to give himself much trouble for the son; and his letter contained one of those interminable accounts of the infirmities of his precious health, which he was accustomed to write, an assurance that it was impossible for him to come up to town, a sly reference to Lord Winchelsea for his opinion about his royal highness's intention, and wishes that his royal highness might live many years in health, prosperity, and plenty. After talking about this unmeaning letter, and saying that though his grace should not come up he was quite sure he would send his proxy, the prince talked vehemently about his difficulties, and declared (as other princes of the family have done since) that, as he had sacrificed himself to the nation in marrying, the nation ought to stand by him.* As Bubb was a placeman, the prince's next argument or invective had a direct personal application. He said that if people would value their employments more than right and justice, he could not help it; though he was so strong that he was sure the court durst not touch any one that voted for him. The supple courtier made suitable protestations of his disregard of place or of any pecuniary considerations. The prince, who evidently valued these professions for just what they were worth, brought him up by saying that it was very hard that he should be all his life in want of money. "I asked him," continues Bubb, "if he did not think it very dangerous to drive things to such an extremity between him and his father, as might make it the interest of one half of the gentlemen of England that he should never come upon the throne? He replied Why would they make themselves desperate? Why would they not do what they owed him, and what was justice? It would be their own faults: did he deserve less than the Princess of Denmark? The gentlemen stood by her. I endeavoured to show him the difference of the case, in one essential point, which I thought most likely to strike him, viz.-in that case the addition was proposed when the civil list was precarious, and not granted to King William for his life; and, upon regranting the duties, which were then in the power of parliament, that addition was demanded in her favour. But he gave no attention to it, but walked about with great precipitation, and a good deal agitated. As I saw there was no room left to make any impression upon him, I thought it was high time to put an end to the conversation." Bubb, however, says that he thought himself obliged to declare to the prince, with exceeding great concern, that if the matter came into parliament he should think himself bound in honour and conscience to give his absolute dissent to it. The prince was very angry, but curbed himself a little-said that in the Princess of Denmark's time there were gentlemen "And yet," says Bubb Dodington, the princess was the bost and most agreeable woman in the world,"

""

that valued doing right more than their employments-but he was sorry the race of them was extinct and so they went to dinner. "As soon as dinner and drinking was over," continues Bubb, we rose, and I shuffled myself into the midst of the company, in order to get away with the first of them, when he should please to make us his bow; but he dismissed them all, and ordered me to come with him into the little room." The conversation which followed lasted nearly two hours, and, according to Bubb, "contained a great deal of repetition." The prince said he should leave off talking about his own interests to talk a little about Bubb's, whose reputation in the world would suffer extremely by his leaving him at this juncture. He reminded the courtier that he had already gone great lengths with him in his opposition to his father and ministers, and that there would be no safety for him if he did not go on to finish the work and overthrow Walpole. Bubb says that he spoke about his conscience and his honour, which would both oblige him to dissent. His highness then asked whether he had never given a vote against his conscience or opinion-to which Bubb replied that he had certainly given many, and believed it to be the case with every body who acted with a party, either for or against an administration-but that he had never acted contrary to his opinion where he thought the whole immediately concerned, and never would. The prince, he says, then tried to overpower him with an array of names of men high in influence, who had promised their support; and asked him to go and consult Lord Carteret and Mr. Pulteney. Bubb shuffled out of this as well as he could; and then his royal highness tried whether the lawyers would not have more weight than laymen, and assured Bubb that the Master of the Rolls had told him that what he asked was his right in equity. But the courtier, according to his own account, was proof even against a lawyer, and represented that it could scarcely be equity to take the allotment of the estate or civil list vested in the crown out of the king's hands. Having come to this argument he suggested that it would be better for the prince to ask an addition of 50,000l. a-year from the parliament on his own account, than to attempt to make parliament forcibly deduct the money from the king's allowance; but his highness replied that he thought the nation had done enough, if not too much, for the family already that he would rather beg his bread from door to door than be a further charge to them and that he would have the money in his own way or not at all. The courtier hinted that the measure his royal highness proposed-that the family quarrel driven to desperation, might cost the nation more money than the 50,000l. per annum he wanted-that it might cost blood as well as money. Having said that he should not be surprised if the prince's friends all absented themselves from the House, his highness replied that, if they would not do their duty cheerfully, they must be frightened into it. Bubb says that he asked

him whether he thought such gentlemen were to be frightened, and, if they were, whether that were a just return for their attachment-that he most earnestly supplicated him not to overturn the constitution and the whole royal family together—that to bring the parliament into the king's closet to examine into his most private domestic affairs, to intrude into the government of his private estate and family, was the most fatal precedent that could be made, and the most unheard-of to be attempted by a prince that was to succeed him. But all these and many other arguments were completely thrown away upon the prince, who was resolved to proceed, though now convinced that neither the Duke of Argyll nor Lord Scarborough, the Duke of Dorset nor Lord Wilmington, Sir Thomas Frankland nor Sir Conyers Darcy would vote for him-which keeping back he attributed to their having employments at court or to their being full of fears. His father, he said, was unpopular -he himself was popular-and therefore he must succeed in the end, in spite of placemen and cowards.*

On the next day, Sunday, the 13th of February, or, at latest, on Monday, the 14th, Walpole got the first hint of what was intended; but by the 16th the whole matter was public. On that evening Bubb was stopped by several gentlemen in the House of Commons, who desired his advice and opinion; and Sir Robert Walpole requested him to stay till the House rose, that he might speak with him. When the House was almost empty these two retired behind the chair; and then Bubb took credit to himself for having done his best to prevent this " great question;" saying, that for three years and more it had been the great struggle of his life to keep the prince from it. The minister begged the pliant courtier to engage his friends-by which Dodington understood him to mean five members whom he names -not to vote for the measure; and desired him not to do the thing "by halves." From Dodington's reply we must conclude that by wholes Walpole meant bribes, for he subjoins-"I told him that they were independent gentlemen; that, though their fortunes were not large, yet they were sufficient, and they were resolved they always should be sufficient to keep them in independency; and that he best knew they had not been regarded or treated in a manner to give them any great present expectations." Here the minister interrupted him, and said,-" Well, we understand one another;" -and no doubt they did thoroughly. Bubb, however, returning to solid things, said that, as he knew his friends had no present expectations, he would by no means undertake to say how far they would care to forfeit the prospect of future favours and advantages under the Prince of Wales when he should be king. Walpole replied that there had indeed been great misunderstandings between

Appendix to the same Diary. Bubb Dodington says that all he here puts down was while the transaction was fresh, and to aid his

own memory.

him and those gentlemen; but then so great a service as this would wipe out a multitude of sins. In other words, the minister was willing to give the multitude of places, or honours, or pounds sterling, for the service he wanted, or for the preventing of the parliamentary onslaught of the prince. Bubb, like most men in similar situations, protested that he wanted nothing, expected nothing, for himself and said that he would lay the matter fairly before his friends, and plainly tell them that he intended to vote against the prince. "I did so the same night,' ," he continues, "and they, from their own judgments, entirely unbiassed, or attempted to be so by me, all determined to vote for the king." On the next Sunday Bubb attended a meeting of parliament men at the minister's, and, when the company was gone, he told Sir Robert of his success with his friends. The premier thanked him, and was going on to mention future expectations. But it is impossible to do justice to this delicate quibbler, who was perhaps even quibbling with his own conscience, in other words than his own. "I prevented his offers," continues Bubb, "by saying that, if I had been so unfortunate as to take another part in this unlucky affair than that which the real sense of my duty and zeal for the whole royal family had determined me to take, I believed he must be very sensible that the connexion between those gentlemen and me was such, that we should not have differed in opinion. He said there could be no manner of doubt of it. I added that I then left him to consider whether, beside that real sense of my duty, I had had, from the day this king came upon the throne up to that hour, any one inducement to do what I had resolved to do. He answered, To be sure not; the misunderstandings between him and me were very public, but nowand was going on, but I thought it not proper to enter into explanations, and interrupted him by saying, I did not mention this in any the least way of complaint, but thought I owed myself so much justice as to put him in mind of it: that, as I acted from a principle of honour and conscience only, I was very regardless of the consequences that might happen to me from it, though I was not so blind as not to see that I stood exposed to future resentments by it, at least as much as any gentleman in England: with which I took my leave." Was ever disinterested patriotism heightened and put forward for a bribe in a finer style than this ?** But after all, Bubb had only secured the votes of a few

• The whole transaction reminds us of another recorded of Walpole. "He wanted to carry a question in the House of Commons, to which he knew there would be great opposition, and which was disliked by some of his own dependents. As he was passing through the Court of Requests, he met a member of the contrary party, whose avarice he imagined would not reject a large bribe. He took him aside, and said, Such a question comes on this day; give me your vote, and here is a bank bill of 2000.,' which he put into his hands. The member made him this answer, Sir Robert, you have lately served some of my particular friends; and when my wife was last at court, the king was very gracious to her, which must have happened at your instance. I should therefore think myself very ungrateful (putting the bank bill into his pocket) if I were to refuse the favour you are now pleased to ask me.'"-Dr. King, Political and Literary Anecdotes of his own Times.

VOL. IV.

second or third-rate men-he had not won over Sir William Wyndham, nor had he made any impression on Pulteney or Sir John Barnard-the measure was not stopped, and the prince ran his course notwithstanding a message sent to him by the king at Walpole's persuasion, promising to settle a large jointure upon the princess, and to render his own income independent of his father's control. At the moment when this offer was made by the mouth of the lord chancellor (Hardwicke) and other great officers of state,* the king was worse than he had been, and indeed so bad that his recovery was despaired of. Yet, on the very next day, the 22nd of February, Pulteney brought forward the motion in the House of Commons, in the form of an address, beseeching the king to settle upon the prince 100,000l. a-year, and the same jointure on the princess as the queen had enjoyed when she was Princess of Wales, and assuring his majesty that that House would provide him with the necessary means. Pulteney supported his motion by a long historical speech full of references to heirs apparent and heirs presumptive, Princes of Wales, and Princesses of Wales; queens. and queen dowagers, and consorts of queens; and he endeavoured to prove that, by equity, good policy, law, and precedent, the prince had a right to what was demanded, and an indefeasible claim to a permanent and independent establishment, which the king had it not in his power either to withhold or control. Sir John Barnard, the man of finance and economy, seconded Pulteney; and Walpole replied to both. He began with a courtly fiction, saying that, from his personal knowledge of the two great characters concerned, he was convinced that neither of them would think himself injured by any gentleman's giving his opinion or voting freely in parliament upon the question at issue; and that he was convinced the Prince of Wales had so much wisdom, and such a true sense of filial duty, that he could never consider as a favour bestowed on himself anything that had the least tendency towards offering an indignity to his father. The minister then declared that it was the prerogative of the crown, and the right of the king, to dispose of his civil revenues without the interference of parliament, and to manage his family in his own way. He communicated to the House the conciliatory message which had been sent by the king to the prince, with his royal highness's answer, and gently hinted that he thought 50,000l. a-year, added to the revenues enjoyed by the prince of the duchy of Cornwall, and which amounted to about 10,000l. a-year more, was income enough even for the heir

Hardwicke had obtained the seals on the 21st of February through the death of Lord Talbot, and it appears to have been by Hardwicke's advice that the message was sent to the prince. The new chancellor, however, did not wish to go in person with the message, but George prevented all discussion by exclaiming, "My lord chancellor shall go." The prince, in his verbal reply to his father's written message, said, that the affair was now out of his hands, and therefore he could give no answer to it. And after a parade of dutiful expressions and humility to his majesty, he added "Indeed, my lords, it is in other hands, I am sorry for it." The affair, of course, was in the hands of the opposition. 3 1