Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume II Part 5

"EDMUND BURKE."

_Gerard Street, Thursday Morning_.]

It was immediately upon this motion that Mr. Fox advanced that inconsiderate claim of Right for the Prince of Wales, of which his rival availed himself so dexterously and triumphantly. Having a.s.serted that there existed no precedent whatever that could bear upon the present case, Mr. Fox proceeded to say, that "the circ.u.mstance to be provided for did not depend upon their deliberations as a House of Parliament,--it rested elsewhere. There was then a person in the kingdom, different from any other person that any existing precedents could refer to,--an Heir Apparent, of full age and capacity to exercise the royal power. It behoved them, therefore, to waste not a moment unnecessarily, but to proceed with all becoming speed and diligence to restore the Sovereign power and the exercise of the Royal Authority. From what he had read of history, from the ideas he had formed of the law, and, what was still more precious, of the spirit of the Const.i.tution, from every reasoning and a.n.a.logy drawn from those sources, he declared that he had not in his mind a doubt, and he should think himself culpable if he did not take the first opportunity of declaring it, that, in the present condition of His Majesty, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had as clear, as express a Right to exercise the power of Sovereignty, during the continuance of the illness and incapacity, with which it had pleased G.o.d to afflict His Majesty, as in the case of His Majesty's having undergone a natural demise."

It is said that, during the delivery of this adventurous opinion, the countenance of Mr. Pitt was seen to brighten with exultation at the mistake into which he perceived his adversary was hurrying; and scarcely had the sentence, just quoted, been concluded, when, slapping his thigh triumphantly, he turned to the person who sat next to him, and said, "I'll _un-Whig_ the gentleman for the rest of his life!"

Even without this anecdote, which may be depended upon as authentic, we have sufficient evidence that such were his feelings in the burst of animation and confidence with which he instantly replied to Mr.

Fox,--taking his ground, with an almost equal temerity, upon the directly opposite doctrine, and a.s.serting, not only that "in the case of the interruption of the personal exercise of the Royal Authority, it devolved upon the other branches of the Legislature to provide a subst.i.tute for that authority," but that "the Prince of Wales had no more right to exercise the powers of government than any other person in the realm."

The truth is, the a.s.sertion of a _Right_ was equally erroneous, on both sides of the question. The Const.i.tution having provided no legal remedy for such an exigence as had now occurred, the two Houses of Parliament had as little right (in the strict sense of the word) to supply the deficiency of the Royal power, as the Prince had to be the person elected or adjudged for that purpose. Const.i.tutional a.n.a.logy and expediency were the only authorities by which the measures necessary in such a conjuncture could be either guided or sanctioned; and if the disputants on each side had softened down their tone to this true and practical view of the case, there would have been no material difference, in the first stage of the proceedings between them,--Mr. Pitt being ready to allow that the Heir Apparent was the obvious person to whom expediency pointed as the depository of the Royal power, and Mr. Fox having granted, in a subsequent explanation of his doctrine, that, strong as was the right upon which the claim of the Prince was founded, His Royal Highness could not a.s.sume that right till it had been formally adjudicated to him by Parliament. The principle, however, having been imprudently broached, Mr. Pitt was too expert a tactician not to avail himself of the advantage it gave him. He was thus, indeed, furnished with an opportunity, not only of gaining time by an artful protraction of the discussions, but of occupying victoriously the ground of Whiggism, which Mr. Fox had, in his impatience or precipitancy, deserted, and of thus adding to the character, which he had recently acquired, of a defender of the prerogatives of the Crown, the more brilliant reputation of an a.s.sertor of the rights of the people.

In the popular view which Mr. Pitt found it convenient to take of this question, he was led, or fell voluntarily into some glaring errors, which pervaded the whole of his reasonings on the subject. In his anxiety to prove the omnipotence of Parliament, he evidently confounded the Estates of the realm with the Legislature, [Footnote: Mr. Grattan and the Irish Parliament carried this error still farther, and founded all their proceedings on the necessity of "providing for the deficiency of the Third _Estate_."] and attributed to two branches of the latter such powers as are only legally possessed by the whole three in Parliament a.s.sembled. For the purpose, too, of flattering the people with the notion that to them had now reverted the right of choosing their temporary Sovereign, he applied a principle, which ought to be reserved for extreme cases, to an exigence by no means requiring this ultimate appeal,--the defect in the government being such as the still existing Estates of the realm, appointed to speak the will of the people, but superseding any direct exercise of their power, were fully competent, as in the instance of the Revolution, to remedy. [Footnote: The most luminous view that has been taken of this Question is to be found in an Article of the Edinburgh Review, on the Regency of 1811,--written by one of the most learned and able men of our day, Mr. John Allen.]

Indeed, the solemn use of such language as Mr. Pitt, in his over-acted Whiggism, employed upon this occasion,--namely, that the "right" of appointing a subst.i.tute for the Royal power was "to be found in the voice and the sense of the people,"--is applicable only to those conjunctures, brought on by misrule and oppression, when all forms are lost in the necessity of relief, and when the right of the people to change and choose their rulers is among the most sacred and inalienable that either nature or social polity has ordained. But, to apply the language of that last resource to the present emergency was to brandish the sword of Goliath [Footnote: A simile applied by Lord Somers to the power of Impeachment, which, he said, "should be like Goliath's sword, kept in the temple, and not used but upon great occasions."] on an occasion that by no means called for it.

The question of the Prince's claim,--in spite of the efforts of the Prince himself and of his Royal relatives to avert the agitation of it,--was, for evident reasons, forced into discussion by the Minister, and decided by a majority, not only of the two Houses but of the nation, in his favor. During one of the long debates to which the question gave rise, Mr. Sheridan allowed himself to be betrayed into some expressions, which, considering the delicate predicament in which the Prince was placed by the controversy, were not marked with his usual tact and sagacity. In alluding to the claim of Right advanced for His Royal Highness, and deprecating any further agitation of it, he "reminded the Right Honorable Gentleman (Mr. Pitt) of the danger of provoking that claim to be a.s.serted [a loud cry of hear! hear!], which, he observed, had not yet been preferred. [Another cry of hear! hear!]" This was the very language that Mr. Pitt most wished his adversaries to a.s.sume, and, accordingly, he turned it to account with all his usual mastery and haughtiness. "He had now," he said, "an additional reason for a.s.serting the authority of the House, and defining the boundaries of Right, when the deliberative faculties of Parliament were invaded, and an indecent menace thrown out to awe and influence their proceedings. In the discussion of the question, the House, he trusted, would do their duty, in spite of any threat that might be thrown out. Men, who felt their native freedom, would not submit to a threat, however high the authority from which it might come." [Footnote: _Impartial Report of all the Proceedings on the Subject of the Regency_]

The restrictions of the Prerogative with which Mr. Pitt thought proper to enc.u.mber the transfer of the Royal power to the Prince, formed the second great point of discussion between the parties, and brought equally adverse principles into play. Mr. Fox, still maintaining his position on the side of Royalty, defended it with much more tenable weapons than the question of Right had enabled him to wield. So founded, indeed, in the purest principles of Whiggism did he consider his opposition, on this memorable occasion, to any limitation of the Prerogative in the hands of a Regent, that he has, in his History of James II., put those principles deliberately upon record, as a fundamental article in the creed of his party. The pa.s.sage to which I allude occurs in his remarks upon the Exclusion Bill; and as it contains, in a condensed form, the spirit of what he urged on the same point in 1789, I cannot do better than lay his own words before the reader. After expressing his opinion that, at the period of which he writes, the measure of exclusion from the monarchy altogether would have been preferable to any limitation of its powers, he proceeds to say:--"The Whigs, who consider the powers of the Crown as a trust for the people, a doctrine which the Tories themselves, when pushed in argument, will sometimes admit, naturally think it their duty rather to change the manager of the trust than impair the subject of it; while others, who consider them as the right or property of the King, will as naturally act as they would do in the case of any other property, and consent to the loss or annihilation of any part of it, for the purpose of preserving the remainder to him, whom they style the rightful owner."

Further on he adds:--"The Royal Prerogative ought, according to the Whigs, to be reduced to such powers as are in their exercise beneficial to the people; and of the benefit of these they will not rashly suffer the people to be deprived, whether the executive power be in the hands of an hereditary or of an elective King, of a Regent, or of any other denomination of magistrate; while, on the other hand, they who consider Prerogative with reference only to Royalty will, with equal readiness, consent either to the extension or the suspension of its exercise, as the occasional interests of the Prince may seem to require."

Taking this as a correct exposition of the doctrines of the two parties, of which Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt may be considered to have been the representatives in the Regency question of 1789, it will strike some minds that, however the Whig may flatter himself that the principle by which he is guided in such exigencies is favorable to liberty, and however the Tory may, with equal sincerity, believe his suspension of the Prerogative on these occasions to be advantageous to the Crown, yet that in both of the principles, so defined, there is an evident tendency to produce effects, wholly different from those which the parties professing them contemplate.

On the one side, to sanction from authority the notion, that there are some powers of the Crown which may be safely dispensed with,--to accustom the people to an abridged exercise of the Prerogative, with the risk of suggesting to their minds that its full efficacy needs not be resumed,--to set an example, in short, of reducing the Kingly Power, which, by its success, may invite and authorize still further encroachments,--all these are dangers to which the alleged doctrine of Toryism, whenever brought into practice, exposes its idol; and more particularly in enlightened and speculative times, when the minds of men are in quest of the right and the useful, and when a superfluity of power is one of those abuses, which they are least likely to overlook or tolerate. In such seasons, the experiment of the Tory might lead to all that he most deprecates, and the branches of the Prerogative, once cut away, might, like the lopped boughs of the fir-tree, never grow again.

On the other hand, the Whig, who a.s.serts that the Royal Prerogative ought to be reduced to such powers as are beneficial to the people, and yet stipulates, as an invariable principle, for the transfer of that Prerogative full and unimpaired, whenever it pa.s.ses into other hands, appears, even more perhaps than the Tory, to throw an obstacle in the way of his own object. Circ.u.mstances, it is not denied, may arise when the increase of the powers of the Crown, in other ways, may render it advisable to control some of its established prerogatives. But, where are we to find a fit moment for such a reform,--or what opening will be left for it by this fastidious Whig principle, which, in 1680, could see no middle step between a change of the Succession and an undiminished maintenance of the Prerogative, and which, in 1789, almost upon the heels of a Declaration that "the power of the Crown had increased and ought to be diminished," protested against even an experimental reduction of it!

According to Mr. Fox, it is a distinctive characteristic of the Tory, to attach more importance to the person of the King than to his office. But, a.s.suredly, the Tory is not singular in this want of political abstraction; and, in England, (from a defect, Hume thinks, inherent in all limited monarchies,) the personal qualities and opinions of the Sovereign have considerable influence upon the whole course of public affairs,--being felt alike in that courtly sphere around them where their attraction acts, and in that outer circle of opposition where their repulsion comes into play. To this influence, then, upon the government and the community, of which no abstraction can deprive the person of the monarch, the Whig principle in question (which seems to consider entireness of Prerogative as necessary to a King, as the entireness of his limbs was held to be among the Athenians,) superadds the vast power, both actual and virtual, which would flow from the inviolability of the Royal office, and forecloses, so far, the chance which the more pliant Tory doctrine would leave open, of counteracting the effects of the King's indirect personal influence, by curtailing or weakening the grasp of some of his direct regal powers. Ovid represents the Deity of Light (and on an occasion, too, which may be called a Regency question) as crowned with movable rays, which might be put off when too strong or dazzling. But, according to this principle, the crown of Prerogative must keep its rays fixed and immovable, and (as the poet expresses it) "_circa caput_ OMNE _micantes_."

Upon the whole, however high the authorities, by which this Whig doctrine was enforced in 1789, its manifest tendency, in most cases, to secure a perpetuity of superfluous powers to the Crown, appears to render it unfit, at least as an invariable principle, for any party professing to have the liberty of the people for their object. The Prince, in his admirable Letter upon the subject of the Regency to Mr. Pitt, was made to express the unwillingness which he felt "that in his person an experiment should be made to ascertain with how small a portion of kingly power the executive government of the country might be carried on;"--but imagination has not far to go in supposing a case, where the enormous patronage vested in the Crown, and the consequent increase of a Royal bias through the community, might give such an undue and unsafe preponderance to that branch of the Legislature, as would render any safe opportunity, however acquired, of ascertaining with _how much less power_ the executive government could be carried on, most acceptable, in spite of any dogmas to the contrary, to all true lovers as well of the monarchy as of the people.

Having given thus much consideration to the opinions and principles, professed on both sides of this const.i.tutional question, it is mortifying, after all, to be obliged to acknowledge, that, in the relative situation of the two parties at the moment, may be found perhaps the real, and but too natural, source of the decidedly opposite views which they took of the subject. Mr. Pitt, about to surrender the possession of power to his rival, had a very intelligible interest in reducing the value of the transfer, and (as a retreating army spike the guns they leave behind) rendering the engines of Prerogative as useless as possible to his successor. Mr. Fox, too, had as natural a motive to oppose such a design; and, aware that the chief aim of these restrictive measures was to entail upon the Whig ministry of the Regent a weak Government and strong Opposition, would, of course, eagerly welcome the aid of any abstract principle, that might sanction him in resisting such a mutilation of the Royal power;--well knowing that (as in the case of the Peerage Bill in the reign of George I.) the proceedings altogether were actuated more by ill-will to the successor in the trust, than by any sincere zeal for the purity of its exercise.

Had the situations of the two leaders been reversed, it is more than probable that their modes of thinking and acting would have been so likewise. Mr. Pitt, with the prospect of power before his eyes, would have been still more strenuous, perhaps, for the unbroken transmission of the Prerogative--his natural leaning on the side of power being increased by his own approaching share in it. Mr. Fox, too, if stopped, like his rival, in a career of successful administration, and obliged to surrender up the reins of the state to Tory guidance, might have found in his popular principles a still more plausible pretext, for the abridgment of power in such unconst.i.tutional hands. He might even too, perhaps, (as his India Bill warrants us in supposing) have been tempted into the same sort of alienation of the Royal patronage, as that which Mr. Pitt now practised in the establishment of the Queen, and have taken care to leave behind him a stronghold of Whiggism, to facilitate the resumption of his position, whenever an opportunity might present itself. Such is human nature, even in its n.o.blest specimens, and so are the strongest spirits shaped by the mould in which chance and circ.u.mstances have placed them.

Mr. Sheridan spoke frequently in the Debates on this question, but his most important agency lay in the less public business connected with it.

He was the confidential adviser of the Prince throughout, directed every step he took, and was the author of most of his correspondence on the subject. There is little doubt, I think, that the celebrated and masterly Letter to Mr. Pitt, which by some persons has been attributed to Burke, and by others to Sir Gilbert Elliot (afterwards Lord Minto), was princ.i.p.ally the production of Mr. Sheridan. For the supposition that it was written by Burke there are, besides the merits of the production, but very scanty grounds. So little was he at that period in those habits of confidence with the Prince, which would ent.i.tle him to be selected for such a task in preference to Sheridan, that but eight or ten days before the date of this letter (Jan. 2.) he had declared in the House of Commons, that "he knew as little of the inside of Carlton House as he did of Buckingham House." Indeed, the violent state of this extraordinary man's temper, during the whole of the discussions and proceedings on the Regency, would have rendered him, even had his intimacy with the Prince been closer, an unfit person for the composition of a doc.u.ment, requiring so much caution, temper, and delicacy.

The conjecture that Sir Gilbert Elliot was the author of it is somewhat more plausible,--that gentleman being at this period high in the favor of the Prince, and possessing talents sufficient to authorize the suspicion (which was in itself a reputation) that he had been the writer of a composition so admirable. But it seems hardly necessary to go farther, in quest of its author, than Mr. Sheridan, who, besides being known to have acted the part of the Prince's adviser through the whole transaction, is proved by the rough copies found among his papers, to have written several other important doc.u.ments connected with the Regency.

I may also add that an eminent statesman of the present day, who was at that period, though very young, a distinguished friend of Mr. Sheridan, and who has shown by the ability of his own State Papers that he has not forgot the lessons of that school from which this able production emanated, remembers having heard some pa.s.sages of the Letter discussed in Bruton-street, as if it were then in the progress of composition, and has always, I believe, been under the impression that it was princ.i.p.ally the work of Mr. Sheridan. [Footnote: To this authority may be added also that of the Bishop of Winchester, who says,--"Mr. Sheridan was supposed to have been materially concerned in drawing up this admirable composition."]

I had written thus far on the subject of this Letter--and shall leave what I have written as a memorial of the fallacy of such conjectures--when, having still some doubts of my correctness in attributing the honor of the composition to Sheridan, I resolved to ask the opinion of my friend, Sir James Mackintosh, a person above all others qualified, by relations.h.i.+p of talent, to recognize and hold parley with the mighty spirit of Burke, in whatever shape the "Royal Dane" may appear. The strong impression on his mind--amounting almost to certainty--was that no other hand but that of Burke could have written the greater part of the letter; [Footnote: It is amusing to observe how tastes differ;--the following is the opinion entertained of this letter by a gentleman, who, I understand, and can easily believe, is an old established Reviewer. After mentioning that it was attributed to the pen of Burke, he adds,--"The story, however, does not seem ent.i.tled to much credit, for the internal character of the paper is too vapid and heavy for the genius of Burke, whose ardent mind would a.s.suredly have diffused vigor into the composition, and the correctness of whose judgment would as certainly have preserved it from the charge of inelegance and grammatical deficiency."--DR. WATKINS, _Life of Sheridan_. Such, in nine cases out of ten, are the periodical guides of public taste.] and by a more diligent inquiry, in which his kindness a.s.sisted me, it has been ascertained that his opinion was, as it could not fail to be, correct.

The following extract from a letter written by Lord Minto at the time, referring obviously to the surmise that he was, himself, the author of the paper, confirms beyond a doubt the fact, that it was written almost solely by Burke:--

"_January 31st, 1789._

"There was not a word of the Prince's letter to Pitt mine. It was originally Burke's, altered a little, but not improved, by Sheridan and other critics. The answer made by the Prince yesterday to the Address of the two Houses was entirely mine, and done in a great hurry half an hour before it was to be delivered."

While it is with regret I give up the claim of Mr. Sheridan to this fine specimen of English composition, it but adds to my intense admiration of Burke--not on account of the beauty of the writing, for his fame required no such accession--but from that triumph of mind over temper which it exhibits--that forgetfulness of _Self_, the true, transmigrating power of genius, which enabled him thus to pa.s.s his spirit into the station of Royalty, and to a.s.sume all the calm dignity, both of style and feeling, that became it.

It was to be expected that the conduct of Lord Thurlow at this period should draw down upon him all the bitterness of those who were in the secret of his ambidextrous policy, and who knew both his disposition to desert, and the nature of the motives that prevented him. To Sheridan, in particular, such a result of a negotiation, in which he had been the princ.i.p.al mover and mediator, could not be otherwise than deeply mortifying. Of all the various talents with which he was gifted, his dexterity in political intrigue and management was that of which he appears to have been most vain; and this vanity it was that, at a later period of his life, sometimes led him to branch off from the main body of his party, upon secret and solitary enterprises of ingenuity, which--as may be expected from all such independent movements of a partisan--generally ended in thwarting his friends and embarra.s.sing himself.

In the debate on that clause of the Bill, which restricted the Regent from granting places or pensions in reversion, Mr. Sheridan is represented as having attacked Lord Thurlow in terms of the most unqualified severity,--speaking of "the natural ferocity and st.u.r.diness of his temper," and of "his brutal bluffness." But to such abuse, unseasoned by wit, Mr. Sheridan was not at all likely to have condescended, being well aware that, "as in smooth oil the razor best is set," so satire is whetted to its most perfect keenness by courtesy. His clumsy reporters have, in this, as in almost all other instances, misrepresented him.

With equal personality, but more playfulness, Mr. Burke, in exposing that wretched fiction, by which the Great Seal was converted into the Third Branch of the Legislature, and the a.s.sent of the King forged to a Bill, in which his incapacity to give either a.s.sent or dissent was declared, thus expressed himself:--"But what is to be done when the Crown is in a _deliquium_? It was intended, he had heard, to set up a man with black brows and a large wig, a kind of scare-crow to the two Houses, who was to give a fict.i.tious a.s.sent in the royal name--and this to be binding on the people at large!" The following remarkable pa.s.sage, too, in a subsequent Speech, is almost too well known to be cited:--"The other House," he said, "were not yet perhaps recovered from that extraordinary burst of the pathetic which had been exhibited the other evening; they had not yet dried their eyes, or been restored to their former placidity, and were unqualified to attend, to new business. The tears shed in that House on the occasion to which he alluded, were not the tears of patriots for dying laws, but of Lords for their expiring places. The iron tears, which flowed down Pluto's cheek, rather resembled the dismal bubbling of the Styx, than the gentle murmuring streams of Aganippe."

While Lord Thurlow was thus treated by the party whom he had so nearly joined, he was but coldly welcomed back by the Minister whom he had so nearly deserted. His reconciliation, too, with the latter was by no means either sincere or durable,--the renewal of friends.h.i.+p between politicians, on such occasions, being generally like that which the Diable Boiteux describes, as having taken place between himself and a brother sprite,--"We were reconciled, embraced, and have hated each other heartily ever since."

In the Regency, indeed, and the transactions connected with it, may be found the source of most of those misunderstandings and enmities, which broke out soon after among the eminent men of that day, and were attended with consequences so important to themselves and the country. By the difference just mentioned, between Mr. Pitt and Lord Thurlow, the ministerial arrangements of 1793 were facilitated, and the learned Lord, after all his st.u.r.dy pliancy, consigned to a life of ineffectual discontent ever after.

The disagreement between Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox, if not actually originating now--and its foundation had been, perhaps, laid from the beginning, in the total dissimilarity of their dispositions and sentiments--was, at least, considerably ripened and accelerated by the events of this period, and by the discontent that each of them, like partners in unsuccessful play, was known to feel at the mistakes which the other had committed in the game. Mr. Fox had, unquestionably, every reason to lament as well as blame the violence and virulence by which his a.s.sociate had disgraced the contest. The effect, indeed, produced upon the public by the irreverent sallies of Burke, and by the too evident triumph, both of hate and hope, with which he regarded the calamitous situation of the King, contributed not a little to render still lower the already low temperature of popularity at which his party stood throughout the country. It seemed as if a long course of ineffectual struggle in politics, of frustrated ambition and unrewarded talents, had at length exasperated his mind to a degree beyond endurance; and the extravagances into which he was hurried in his speeches on this question, appear to have been but the first workings of that impatience of a losing cause-- that resentment of failure, and disgust at his partners in it--which soon afterwards found such a signal opportunity of exploding.

That Mr. Burke, upon far less grounds, was equally discontented with his co-operators in this emergency, may be collected from the following pa.s.sage of a letter addressed by him in the summer of this year to Lord Charlemont, and given by Hardy in his Memoirs of that n.o.bleman:--

"Perpetual failure, even though nothing in that failure can be fixed on the improper choice of the object or the injudicious choice of means, will detract every day more and more from a man's credit, until he ends without success and without reputation. In fact, a constant pursuit even of the best objects, without adequate instruments, detracts something from the opinion of a man's judgment. This, I think, may be in part the cause of the inactivity of others of our friends who are in the vigor of life and in possession of a great degree of lead and authority. I do not blame them, though I lament that state of the public mind, in which the people can consider the exclusion of such talents and such virtues from their service, as a point gained to them. The only point in which I can find any thing to blame in these friends, is their not taking the effectual means, which they certainly had in their power, of making an honorable retreat from their prospect of power into the possession of reputation, by an effectual defence of themselves. There was an opportunity which was not made use of for that purpose, and which could scarcely have failed of turning the tables on their adversaries."

Another instance of the embittering influence of these transactions may be traced in their effects upon Mr. Burke and Mr. Sheridan--between whom there had arisen a degree of emulation, amounting to jealousy, which, though hitherto chiefly confined to one of the parties, received on this occasion such an addition of fuel, as spread it equally through the minds of both, and conduced, in no small degree, to the explosion that followed. Both Irishmen, and both adventurers in a region so much elevated above their original station, it was but natural that some such feeling should kindle between them; and that, as Burke was already mid-way in his career, when Sheridan was but entering the field, the stirrings, whether of emulation or envy, should first be felt by the latter. It is, indeed, said that in the ceremonial of Hastings's Trial, the privileges enjoyed by Burke, as a Privy-councillor, were regarded with evident uneasiness by his brother Manager, who could not as yet boast the distinction of Right Honorable before his name. As soon, however, as the rapid run of Sheridan's success had enabled him to overtake his veteran rival, this feeling of jealousy took possession in full force of the latter,--and the close relations of intimacy and confidence, to which Sheridan was now admitted both by Mr. Fox and the Prince, are supposed to have been not the least of those causes of irritation and disgust, by which Burke was at length driven to break with the party altogether, and to show his gigantic strength at parting, by carrying away some of the strongest pillars of Whiggism in his grasp.

Lastly, to this painful list of the feuds, whose origin is to be found in the times and transactions of which we are speaking, may be added that slight, but too visible cloud of misunderstanding, which arose between Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan, and which, though it never darkened into any thing serious, continued to pervade their intercourse with each other to the last--exhibiting itself, on the part of Mr. Fox, in a degree of distrustful reserve not natural to him, and, on the side of Sheridan, in some of those counter-workings of influence, which, as I have already said, he was sometimes induced by his love of the diplomacy of politics to practise.

Among the appointments named in contemplation of a Regency, the place of Treasurer of the Navy was allotted to Mr. Sheridan. He would never, however, admit the idea of certainty in any of the arrangements so sanguinely calculated upon, but continually impressed upon his impatient friends the possibility, if not probability, of the King's recovery. He had even refused to look at the plan of the apartments, which he himself was to occupy in Somerset House; and had but just agreed that it should be sent to him for examination, on the very day when the King was declared convalescent by Dr. Warren. "He entered his own house (to use the words of the relater of the anecdote) at dinner-time with the news.

There were present,--besides Mrs. Sheridan and his sister,--Tickell, who, on the change of administration, was to have been immediately brought into Parliament,--Joseph Richardson, who was to have had Tickell's place of Commissioner of the Stamp-office,--Mr. Reid, and some others. Not one of the company but had cherished expectations from the approaching change--not one of them, however, had lost so much as Mr. Sheridan. With his wonted equanimity he announced the sudden turn affairs had taken, and looking round him cheerfully, as he filled a large gla.s.s, said,--'Let us all join in drinking His Majesty's speedy recovery.'"

The measures which the Irish Parliament adopted on this occasion, would have been productive of anomalies, both theoretical and practical, had the continued illness of the King allowed the projected Regency to take place. As it was, the most material consequence that ensued was the dismissal from their official situations of Mr. Ponsonby and other powerful individuals, by which the Whig party received such an accession of strength, as enabled them to work out for their country the few blessings of liberty that still remain to her. Among the victims to their votes on this question was Mr. Charles Sheridan, who, on the recovery of the King, was dismissed from his office of Secretary of War, but received compensation by a pension of 1200_l_. a year, with the reversion of 300_l_. a year to his wife.

The ready and ardent burst of devotion with which Ireland, at this moment, like the Pythagoreans at their morning wors.h.i.+p, turned to welcome with her Harp the Rising Sun, was long remembered by the object of her homage with pride and grat.i.tude,--and, let us trust, is not even yet entirely forgotten. [Footnote: This vain hope was expressed before the late decision on the Catholic question had proved to the Irish that, where their rights are concerned, neither public nor private pledges are regarded.]

It has already been mentioned that to Mr. Sheridan, at this period, was entrusted the task of drawing up several of the State Papers of the Heir-Apparent. From the rough copies of these papers that have fallen into my hands, I shall content myself with selecting two Letters--the first of which was addressed by the Prince to the Queen, immediately after the communication to her Majesty of the Resolution of the two Houses placing the Royal Household under her control.

"Before Your Majesty gives an answer to the application for your Royal permission to place under Your Majesty's separate authority the direction and appointment of the King's household, and thereby to separate from the difficult and arduous situation which I am unfortunately called upon to fill, the accustomed and necessary support which has ever belonged to it, permit me, with every sentiment of duty and affection towards Your Majesty, to entreat your attentive perusal of the papers which I have the honor to enclose. They contain a sketch of the plan now proposed to be carried into execution as communicated to me by Mr. Pitt, and the sentiments which I found myself bound in duty to declare in reply to that communication. I take the liberty of lodging these papers in Your Majesty's hands, confiding that, whenever it shall please Providence to remove the malady with which the King my father is now unhappily afflicted, Your Majesty will, in justice to me and to those of the Royal family whose affectionate concurrence and support I have received, take the earliest opportunity of submitting them to his Royal perusal, in order that no interval of time may elapse before he is in possession of the true motives and principles upon which I have acted. I here solemnly repeat to Your Majesty, that among those principles there is not one which influences my mind so much as the firm persuasion I have, that my conduct in endeavoring to maintain unimpaired and undivided the just rights, prerogatives, and dignity of the Crown, in the person of the King's representative, is the only line of conduct which would ent.i.tle me to His Majesty's approbation, or enable me to stand with confidence in his Royal presence on the happy day of his recovery;--and, on the contrary, that those who, under color of respect and attachment to his Royal person, have contrived this project for enfeebling and degrading the executive authority of the realm, will be considered by him as having risked the happiness of his people and the security of the throne itself, by establis.h.i.+ng a fatal precedent which may hereafter be urged against his own authority, on as plausible pretences, or revived against the just rights of his family. In speaking my opinions of the motive of the projectors of this scheme, I trust I need not a.s.sure Your Majesty that the respect, duty, and affection I owe to Your Majesty have never suffered me for a single moment to consider you as countenancing, in the slightest degree, their plan or their purposes. I have the firmest reliance on Your Majesty's early declaration to me, on the subject of public affairs, at the commencement of our common calamity; and, whatever may be the efforts of evil or interested advisers, I have the same confidence that you will never permit or endure that the influence of your respected name shall be profaned to the purpose of distressing the government and insulting the person of your son. How far those, who are evidently pursuing both these objects, may be encouraged by Your Majesty's acceptance of one part of the powers purposed to be lodged in your hands, I will not presume to say. [Footnote: In speaking of the extraordinary _imperium in imperio_, with which the command of so much power and patronage would have invested the Queen, the Annual Register (Robinson's) remarks justly, "It was not the least extraordinary circ.u.mstance in these transactions, that the Queen could be prevailed upon to lend her name to a project which would eventually have placed her in avowed rivals.h.i.+p with her son, and, at a moment when her attention might seem to be absorbed by domestic calamity, have established her at the head of a political party."] The proposition has a.s.sumed the shape of a Resolution of Parliament, and therefore I am silent.

"Your Majesty will do me the honor to weigh the opinions I formed and declared before Parliament had entertained the plan, and, with those before you, your own good judgment will decide. I have only to add that whatever that decision may be, nothing will ever alter the interest of true affection and inviolable duty," &c. &c.

The second Letter that I shall give, from the rough copy of Mr. Sheridan, was addressed by the Prince to the King after his recovery, announcing the intention of His Royal Highness to submit to His Majesty a Memorial, in vindication of his own conduct and that of his Royal brother the Duke of York throughout the whole of the proceedings consequent upon His Majesty's indisposition.

"SIR,

"Thinking it probable that I should have been honored with your commands to attend Your Majesty on Wednesday last, I have unfortunately lost the opportunity of paying my duty to Your Majesty before your departure from Weymouth. The account? I have received of Your Majesty's health have given me the greatest satisfaction, and should it be Your Majesty's intention to return to Weymouth, I trust, Sir, there will be no impropriety in my _then_ entreating Your Majesty's gracious attention to a point of the greatest moment to the peace of my own mind, and one in which I am convinced Your Majesty's feelings are equally interested. Your Majesty's letter to my brother the Duke of Clarence, in May last, was the first direct intimation I had ever received that my conduct, and that of my brother the Duke of York, during Your Majesty's late lamented illness, had brought on us the heavy misfortune of Your Majesty's displeasure. I should be wholly unworthy the return of Your Majesty's confidence and good opinion, which will ever be the first objects of my life, if I could have read the pa.s.sage I refer to in that letter without the deepest sorrow and regret for the effect produced on Your Majesty's mind; though at the same time I felt the firmest persuasion that Your Majesty's generosity and goodness would never permit that effect to _remain_, without affording us an opportunity of knowing what had been urged against us, of replying to our accusers, and of justifying ourselves, if the means of justification were in our power.

"Great however as my impatience and anxiety were on this subject, I felt it a superior consideration not to intrude any unpleasing or agitating discussions upon Your Majesty's attention, during an excursion devoted to the ease and amus.e.m.e.nt necessary for the re-establishment of Your Majesty's health. I determined to sacrifice my own feelings, and to wait with resignation till the fortunate opportunity should arrive, when Your Majesty's own paternal goodness would, I was convinced, lead you even to _invite_ your sons to that fair hearing, which your justice would not deny to the meanest individual of your subjects. In this painful interval I have employed myself in drawing up a full statement and account of my conduct during the period alluded to, and of the motives and circ.u.mstances which influenced me. When these shall be humbly submitted to Your Majesty's consideration, I may be possibly found to have erred in judgment, and to have acted on mistaken principles, but I have the most a.s.sured conviction that I shall not be found to have been deficient in that duteous affection to Your Majesty which nothing shall ever diminish. Anxious for every thing that may contribute to the comfort and satisfaction of Your Majesty's mind, I cannot omit this opportunity of lamenting those appearances of a less gracious disposition in the Queen, towards my brothers and myself, than we were accustomed to experience; and to a.s.sure Your Majesty that if by your affectionate interposition these most unpleasant sensations should be happily removed, it would be an event not less grateful to our minds than satisfactory to Your Majesty's own benign disposition. I will not longer. &c. &c.

"G. P."

The Statement here announced by His Royal Highness (a copy of which I have seen, occupying, with its Appendix, near a hundred folio pages), is supposed to have been drawn up by Lord Minto.

To descend from doc.u.ments of such high import to one of a much humbler nature, the following curious memorial was presented this year to Mr.

Sheridan, by a literary gentleman whom the Whig party thought it worth while to employ in their service, and who, as far as industry went, appears to have been not unworthy of his hire, Simonides is said to be the first author that ever wrote for pay, but Simonides little dreamt of the perfection to which his craft would one day be brought.