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Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2

T >> Thomas Moore >> Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2




The government, too, had lately given countenance to writers, the absurd
slavishness of whose doctrines would have sunk below contempt, but for
such patronage. Among the ablest of them was Arthur Young,--one of those
renegades from the cause of freedom, who, like the incendiary that set
fire to the Temple with the flame he had stolen from its altar, turn the
fame and the energies which they have acquired in _defence_ of
liberty _against_ her. This gentleman, to whom his situation as
Secretary to the Board of Agriculture afforded facilities for the
circulation of his political heresies, did not scruple, in one of his
pamphlets, roundly to assert, that unequal representation, rotten
boroughs, long parliaments, extravagant courts, selfish Ministers, and
corrupt majorities, are not only intimately interwoven with the practical
freedom of England, but, in a great degree, the causes of it.

But the most active and notorious of these patronized advocates of the
Court was Mr. John Reeves,--a person who, in his capacity of President of
the Association against Republicans and Levellers, had acted as a sort of
Sub-minister of Alarm to Mr. Burke. In a pamphlet, entitled "Thoughts on
the English Government," which Mr. Sheridan brought under the notice of
the House, as a libel on the Constitution, this pupil of the school of
Filmer advanced the startling doctrine that the Lords and Commons of
England derive their existence and authority from the King, and that the
Kingly government could go on, in all its functions, without them. This
pitiful paradox found an apologist in Mr. Windham, whose chivalry in the
new cause he had espoused left Mr. Pitt himself at a wondering distance
behind. His speeches in defence of Reeves, (which are among the proofs
that remain of that want of equipoise observable in his fine, rather than
solid, understanding,) have been with a judicious charity towards his
memory, omitted in the authentic collection by Mr. Amyot.

When such libels against the Constitution were not only promulgated, but
acted upon, on one side, it was to be expected, and hardly, perhaps, to
be regretted, that the repercussion should be heard loudly and warningly
from the other. Mr. Fox, by a subsequent explanation, softened down all
that was most menacing in his language; and, though the word
"Resistance," at full length, should, like the hand-writing on the wall,
be reserved for the last intoxication of the Belshazzars of this world, a
letter or two of it may, now and then, glare out upon their eyes, without
producing any thing worse than a salutary alarm amid their revels. At all
events, the high and constitutional grounds on which Mr. Fox defended the
expressions he had hazarded, may well reconcile us to any risk incurred
by their utterance. The tribute to the house of Russell, in the grand and
simple passage beginning, "Dear to this country are the descendants of
the illustrious Russell," is as applicable to that Noble family now as it
was then; and will continue to be so, I trust, as long as a single
vestige of a race, so pledged to the cause of liberty, remains.

In one of Mr. Sheridan's speeches on the subject of Reeves's libel, there
are some remarks on the character of the people of England, not only
candid and just, but, as applied to them at that trying crisis,
interesting:--

"Never was there," he said, "any country in which there was so much
absence of public principle, and at the same time so many instances of
private worth. Never was there so much charity and humanity towards the
poor and the distressed; any act of cruelty or oppression never failed to
excite a sentiment of general indignation against its authors. It was a
circumstance peculiarly strange, that though luxury had arrived to such a
pitch, it had so little effect in depraving the hearts and destroying the
morals of people in private life; and almost every day produced some
fresh example of generous feelings and noble exertions of benevolence.
Yet amidst these phenomena of private virtue, it was to be remarked, that
there was an almost total want of public spirit, and a most deplorable
contempt of public principle.

* * * * *

"When Great Britain fell, the case would not be with her as with Rome in
former times. When Rome fell, she fell by the weight of her own vices.
The inhabitants were so corrupted and degraded, as to be unworthy of a
continuance of prosperity, and incapable to enjoy the blessings of
liberty; their minds were bent to the state in which a reverse of fortune
placed them. But when Great Britain falls, she will fall with a people
full of private worth and virtue; she will be ruined by the profligacy of
the governors, and the security of her inhabitants,--the consequence of
those pernicious doctrines which have taught her to place a false
confidence in her strength and freedom, and not to look with distrust and
apprehension to the misconduct and corruption of those to whom she has
trusted the management of her resources."

To this might have been added, that when Great Britain falls, it will not
be from either ignorance of her rights, or insensibility to their value,
but from that want of energy to assert them which a high state of
civilization produces. The love of ease that luxury brings along with
it,--the selfish and compromising spirit, in which the members of a
polished society countenance each other, and which reverses the principle
of patriotism, by sacrificing public interests to private ones,--the
substitution of intellectual for moral excitement, and the repression of
enthusiasm by fastidiousness and ridicule,--these are among the causes
that undermine a people,--that corrupt in the very act of enlightening
them; till they become, what a French writer calls "_esprits exigeans
et caracteres complaisans_," and the period in which their rights are
best understood may be that in which they most easily surrender them. It
is, indeed, with the advanced age of free States, as with that of
individuals,--they improve in the theory of their existence as they grow
unfit for the practice of it; till, at last, deceiving themselves with
the semblance of rights gone by, and refining upon the forms of their
institutions after they have lost the substance, they smoothly sink into
slavery, with the lessons of liberty on their lips.

Besides the Treason and Sedition Bills, the Suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act was another of the momentous questions which, in this as well
as the preceding Session, were chosen as points of assault by Mr.
Sheridan, and contested with a vigor and reiteration of attack, which,
though unavailing against the massy majorities of the Minister, yet told
upon public opinion so as to turn even defeats to account.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick
having taken place in the spring of this year, it was proposed by His
Majesty to Parliament, not only to provide an establishment for their
Royal Highnesses, but to decide on the best manner of liquidating the
debts of the Prince, which were calculated at 630,000_l_. On the
secession of the leading Whigs, in 1792, His Royal Highness had also
separated himself from Mr. Fox, and held no further intercourse either
with him or any of his party,--except, occasionally, Mr. Sheridan,--till
so late, I believe, as the year 1798. The effects of this estrangement
are sufficiently observable in the tone of the Opposition throughout the
debates on the Message of the King. Mr. Grey said, that he would not
oppose the granting of an establishment to the Prince equal to that of
his ancestors; but neither would he consent to the payment of his debts
by Parliament. A refusal, he added, to liberate His Royal Highness from
his embarrassments would certainly prove a mortification; but it would,
at the same time, awaken a just sense of his imprudence. Mr. Fox asked,
"Was the Prince well advised in applying to that House on the subject of
his debts, after the promise made in 1787?"--and Mr. Sheridan, while he
agreed with his friends that the application should not have been made to
Parliament, still gave it as his "positive opinion that the debts ought
to be paid immediately, for the dignity of the country and the situation
of the Prince, who ought not to be seen rolling about the streets, in his
state-coach, as an insolvent prodigal." With respect to the promise given
in 1787, and now violated, that the Prince would not again apply to
Parliament for the payment of his debts, Mr. Sheridan, with a
communicativeness that seemed hardly prudent, put the House in possession
of some details of the transaction, which, as giving an insight into
Royal character, are worthy of being extracted.

"In 1787, a pledge was given to the House that no more debts should be
contracted. By that pledge the Prince was bound as much as if he had
given it knowingly and voluntarily. To attempt any explanation of it now
would be unworthy of his honor,--as if he had suffered it to be wrung
from him, with a view of afterwards pleading that it was against his
better judgment, in order to get rid of it. He then advised the Prince
not to make any such promise, because it was not to be expected that he
could himself enforce the details of a system of economy; and, although
he had men of honor and abilities about him, he was totally unprovided
with men of business, adequate to such a task. The Prince said he could
not give such a pledge, and agree at the same time to take back his
establishment. He (Mr. Sheridan) drew up a plan of retrenchment, which
was approved of by the Prince, and afterwards by His Majesty; and the
Prince told him that the promise was not to be insisted upon. In the
King's Message, however, the promise was inserted,--by whose advice he
knew not. He heard it read with surprise, and, on being asked next day by
the Prince to contradict it in his place, he inquired whether the Prince
had seen the Message before it was brought down. Being told that it had
been read to him, but that he did not understand it as containing a
promise, he declined contradicting it, and told the Prince that he must
abide by it in whatever way it might have been obtained. By the plan
then settled, Ministers had a check upon the Prince's expenditure, which
they never exerted, nor enforced adherence to the plan.

* * * * *

"While Ministers never interfered to check expenses, of which they could
not pretend ignorance, the Prince had recourse to means for relieving
himself from his embarrassments, which ultimately tended to increase
them. It was attempted to raise a loan for him in foreign countries, a
measure which he thought unconstitutional, and put a stop to; and, after
a consultation with Lord Loughborough, all the bonds were burnt, although
with a considerable loss to the Prince. After that, another plan of
retrenchment was proposed, upon which he had frequent consultations with
Lord Thurlow, who gave the Prince fair, open, and manly advice. That
Noble Lord told the Prince, that, after the promise he had made, he must
not think of applying to Parliament;--that he must avoid being of any
party in politics, but, above all, exposing himself to the suspicion of
being influenced in political opinion by his embarrassments;--that the
only course he could pursue with honor, was to retire from public life
for a time, and appropriate the greater part of his income to the
liquidation of his debts. This plan was agreed upon in the autum of 1792.
Why, it might be asked, was it not carried into effect? About that period
his Royal Highness began to receive unsolicited advice from another
quarter. He was told by Lord Loughborough, both in words and in writing,
that the plan savored too much of the advice given to M. Egalité, and he
could guess from what quarter it came. For his own part, he was then of
opinion, that to have avoided meddling in the great political questions
which were then coming to be discussed, and to have put his affairs in a
train of adjustment, would have better become his high station, and
tended more to secure public respect to it, than the pageantry of
state-liveries."

The few occasions on which the name of Mr. Sheridan was again connected
with literature, after the final investment of his genius in political
speculations, were such as his fame might have easily dispensed
with;--and one of them, the forgery of the Shakspeare papers, occurred in
the course of the present year. Whether it was that he looked over these
manuscripts with the eye more of a manager than of a critic, and
considered rather to what account the belief in their authenticity might
be turned, than how far it was founded upon internal evidence;--or
whether, as Mr. Ireland asserts, the standard at which he rated the
genius of Shakspeare was not so high as to inspire him with a very
watchful fastidiousness of judgment; certain it is that he was, in some
degree, the dupe of this remarkable imposture, which, as a lesson to the
self-confidence of criticism, and an exposure of the fallibility of
taste, ought never to be forgotten in literary history.

The immediate payment of 300_l_. and a moiety of the profits for the
first sixty nights, were the terms upon which Mr. Sheridan purchased the
play of Vortigern from the Irelands. The latter part of the conditions
was voided the first night; and, though it is more than probable that a
genuine tragedy of Shakspeare, if presented under similar circumstances,
would have shared the same fate, the public enjoyed the credit of
detecting and condemning a counterfeit, which had passed current through
some of the most learned and tasteful hands of the day. It is but
justice, however, to Mr. Sheridan to add, that, according to the account
of Ireland himself, he was not altogether without misgivings during his
perusal of the manuscripts, and that his name does not appear among the
signatures to that attestation of their authenticity which his friend Dr.
Parr drew up, and was himself the first to sign. The curious statement of
Mr. Ireland, with respect to Sheridan's want of enthusiasm for
Shakspeare, receives some confirmation from the testimony of Mr. Boaden,
the biographer of Kemble, who tells us that "Kemble frequently expressed
to him his wonder that Sheridan should trouble himself _so little_
about Shakspeare." This peculiarity of taste,--if it really existed to
the degree that these two authorities would lead us to infer,--affords a
remarkable coincidence with the opinions of another illustrious genius,
lately lost to the world, whose admiration of the great Demiurge of the
Drama was leavened with the same sort of heresy.

In the January of this year, Mr. William Stone--the brother of the
gentleman whose letter from Paris has been given in a preceding
Chapter--was tried upon a charge of High Treason, and Mr. Sheridan was
among the witnesses summoned for the prosecution. He had already in the
year 1794, in consequence of a reference from Mr. Stone himself, been
examined before the Privy Council, relative to a conversation which he
had held with that gentleman, and, on the day after his examination, had,
at the request of Mr. Dundas, transmited to that Minister in writing the
particulars of his testimony before the Council. There is among his
papers a rough draft of this Statement, in comparing which with his
evidence upon the trial in the present year, I find rather a curious
proof of the faithlessness of even the best memories. The object of the
conversation which he had held with Mr. Stone in 1794--and which
constituted the whole of their intercourse with each other--was a
proposal on the part of the latter, submitted also to Lord Lauderdale and
others, to exert his influence in France, through those channels which
his brother's residence there opened to him, for the purpose of averting
the threatened invasion of England, by representing to the French rulers
the utter hopelessness of such an attempt. Mr. Sheridan, on the trial,
after an ineffectual request to be allowed to refer to his written
Statement, gave the following as part of his recollections of the
conversation:--

"Mr. Stone stated that, in order to effect this purpose, he had
endeavored to collect the opinions of several gentlemen, political
characters in this country, whose opinions he thought would be of
authority sufficient to advance his object; that for this purpose he had
had interviews with different gentlemen; he named Mr. Smith and, I think,
one or two more, whose names I do not now recollect. He named some
gentlemen connected with Administration--if the Counsel will remind me of
the name--"

Here Mr. Law, the examining Counsel, remarked, that "upon the
cross-examination, if the gentlemen knew the circumstance, they would
mention it." The cross-examination of Sheridan by Sergeant Adair was as
follows:--

"You stated in the course of your examination that Mr. Stone said there
was a gentleman connected with Government, to whom he had made a similar
communication, should you recollect the name of that person if you were
reminded of it?--I certainly should.--Was it General Murray?--General
Murray certainly."

Notwithstanding this, however, it appears from the written Statement in
my possession, drawn up soon after the conversation in question, that
this "gentleman connected with Government," so difficult to be
remembered, was no other than the Prime Minister, Mr. Pitt himself. So
little is the memory to be relied upon in evidence, particularly when
absolved from responsibility by the commission of its deposit to writing.
The conduct of Mr. Sheridan throughout this transaction appears to have
been sensible and cautious. That he was satisfied with it himself may be
collected from the conclusion of his letter to Mr. Dundas:--"Under the
circumstances in which the application, (from Mr. Dundas,) has been made
to me, I have thought it equally a matter of respect to that application
and of respect to myself, as well as of justice to the person under
suspicion, to give this relation more in detail than at first perhaps
might appear necessary. My own conduct in the matter not being in
question, I can only say that were a similar case to occur, I think I
should act in every circumstance precisely in the manner I did on this
occasion."

The parliamentary exertions of Mr. Sheridan this year, though various and
active, were chiefly upon subordinate questions; and, except in the
instance of Mr. Fox's Motion of Censure upon Ministers for advancing
money to the Emperor without the consent of Parliament, were not
distinguished by any signal or sustained displays of eloquence. The grand
questions, indeed, connected with the liberty of the subject, had been so
hotly contested, that but few new grounds were left on which to renew the
conflict. Events, however,--the only teachers of the great mass of
mankind,--were beginning to effect what eloquence had in vain attempted.
The people of England, though generally eager for war, are seldom long in
discovering that "the cup but sparkles near the brim;" and in the
occurrences of the following year they were made to taste the full
bitterness of the draught. An alarm for the solvency of the Bank, an
impending invasion, a mutiny in the fleet, and an organized rebellion in
Ireland,--such were the fruits of four years' warfare, and they were
enough to startle even the most sanguine and precipitate into reflection.

The conduct of Mr. Sheridan on the breaking out of the Mutiny at the Nore
is too well known and appreciated to require any illustration here. It is
placed to his credit on the page of history, and was one of the happiest
impulses of good feeling and good sense combined, that ever public man
acted upon in a situation demanding so much of both. The patriotic
promptitude of his interference was even more striking than it appears in
the record of his parliamentary labors; for, as I have heard at but one
remove from his own authority, while the Ministry were yet hesitating as
to the steps they should take, he went to Mr. Dundas and said.--"My
advice is that you cut the buoys on the river--send Sir Charles Grey down
to the coast, and set a price on Parker's head. If the Administration
take this advice instantly, they ill save the country--if not, they will
lose it; and, on their refusal, I will impeach them in the House of
Commons this very evening."

Without dwelling on the contrast which is so often drawn--less with a
view to elevate Sheridan than to depreciate his party--between the
conduct of himself and his friends at this fearful crisis, it is
impossible not to concede that, on the scale of public spirit, he rose as
far superior to them as the great claims of the general safety transcend
all personal considerations and all party ties. It was, indeed, a rare
triumph of temper and sagacity. With less temper, he would have seen in
this awful peril but an occasion of triumph over the Minister whom he had
so long been struggling to overturn--and, with less sagacity, he would
have thrown away the golden opportunity of establishing himself for ever
in the affections and the memories of Englishmen, as one whose heart was
in the common-weal, whatever might be his opinions, and who, in the
moment of peril, could sink the partisan in the patriot.

As soon as he had performed this exemplary duty, he joined Mr. Fox and
the rest of his friends who had seceded from Parliament about a week
before, on the very day after the rejection of Mr. Grey's motion for a
reform. This step, which was intended to create a strong sensation, by
hoisting, as it were, the signal of despair to the country, was followed
by no such striking effects, and left little behind but a question as to
its prudence and patriotism. The public saw, however, with pleasure, that
there were still a few champions of the constitution, who did not "leave
her fair side all unguarded" in this extremity. Mr. Tierney, among
others, remained at his post, encountering Mr. Pitt on financial
questions with a vigor and address to which the latter had been hitherto
unaccustomed, and perfecting by practice that shrewd power of analysis,
which has made him so formidable a sifter of ministerial sophistries ever
since. Sir Francis Burdett, too, was just then entering into his noble
career of patriotism; and, like the youthful servant of the temple in
Euripides, was aiming his first shafts at those unclean birds, that
settle within the sanctuary of the Constitution and sully its treasures:--

[Greek:
"ptaenon t'agalas
A blaptusae
Semn' anathaemata"]

By a letter from the Earl of Moira to Col. M'Mahon in the summer of this
year it appears, that in consequence of the calamitous state of the
country, a plan had been in agitation among some members of the House of
Commons, who had hitherto supported the measures of the Minister, to form
an entirely new Administration, of which the Noble Earl was to be the
head, and from which both Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, as equally obnoxious to
the public, were to be excluded. The only materials that appear to have
been forthcoming for this new Cabinet were Lord Moira himself, Lord
Thurlow, and Sir William Pulteney--the last of whom it was intended to
make Chancellor of the Exchequer. Such a tottering balance of parties,
however, could not have been long maintained; and its relapse, after a
short interval, into Toryism, would but have added to the triumph of Mr.
Pitt, and increased his power. Accordingly Lord Moira, who saw from the
beginning the delicacy and difficulty of the task, wisely abandoned it.
The share that Mr. Sheridan had in this transaction is too honorable to
him not to be recorded, and the particulars cannot be better given than
in Lord Moira's own words:--

"You say that Mr. Sheridan has been traduced, as wishing to abandon Mr.
Fox, and to promote a new Administration. I had accidentally a
conversation with that gentleman at the House of Lords. I remonstrated
strongly with him against a principle which I heard Mr. Fox's friends
intended to lay down, namely, that they would support a new
Administration, but that not any of them would take part in it. I
solemnly declare, upon my honor, that I could not shake Mr. Sheridan's
conviction of the propriety of that determination. He said that he and
Mr. Fox's other friends, as well as Mr. Fox himself, would give the most
energetic support to such an Administration as was in contemplation; but
that their acceptance of office would appear an acquiescence under the
injustice of the interdict supposed to be fixed upon Mr. Fox. I did not
and never can admit the fairness of that argument. But I gained nothing
upon Mr. Sheridan, to whose uprightness in that respect I can therefore
bear the most decisive testimony. Indeed I am ashamed of offering
testimony, where suspicion ought not to have been conceived."




CHAPTER VIII.

PLAY OF "THE STRANGER"--SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT.--PIZARRO.--MINISTRY OF
MR. ADDINGTON.--FRENCH INSTITUTE.--NEGOTIATION WITH MR. KEMBLE.

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