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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




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,
assuredly, 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 constitutional 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 unconstitutional 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 noblest specimens, and so are the strongest spirits
shaped by the mould in which chance and circumstances 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
principally 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 entitle 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 document, 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 documents 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 passages 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 principally 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 relationship 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 entitled to much
credit, for the internal character of the paper is too vapid and heavy
for the genius of Burke, whose ardent mind would assuredly 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 assisted 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 pass his spirit into the
station of Royalty, and to assume 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
principal 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 embarrassing
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 sturdiness
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 assent of the King forged to a Bill,
in which his incapacity to give either assent 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 fictitious assent in the royal name--and this to be binding
on the people at large!" The following remarkable passage, 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 friendship 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 sturdy 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
associate 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
passage of a letter addressed by him in the summer of this year to Lord
Charlemont, and given by Hardy in his Memoirs of that nobleman:--

"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 glass, 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 worship, turned to welcome
with her Harp the Rising Sun, was long remembered by the object of her
homage with pride and gratitude,--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 entitle 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 establishing 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 assure 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
circumstance 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 rivalship 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 assumed the shape of
a Resolution of Parliament, and therefore I am silent.

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