LORD AUCKLAND'S CORRESPONDENCE.
11WAR are upwards of a thousand pages of miscellaneous Letters, without an index ! We know not what excuse the editors can offer for this most reprehensible omission. Certainly they cannot plead want of time, for there was no pressing need of immediate publication ; on the contrary, the public could very well have waited any required number of months or years, on condition of its at last receiving the Correspondence in a readable shape. At present, we regret to say, it is scarcely readable, except by de- puty; for though it is by no Means devoid of interesting _ matter, this, is only to be got at by an amount of tedious *Ming, for which few but professional readers will have patience. An index would have enabled many readers to pick out some amusement from the book, who will now lay it down with a yawn ; and the want.of such a help will be a perpetual grievance to graver stu- dents, who shall hereafter refer to this crnde mass of Correspon- dence, for the elucidation of polifical, or- sooial history. In one respect, the book will probably nal, to some extent, the intention °tits principal editor, by exhibiting the public and private cha- racter of the first Lord Auckland in a more favourable light than' has been shed upon it by some of his contemporaries. It was chiefly 'with a view to this result, as the Bishop states in his pre- face, that he gave the Correspondence to the world, and not with- out reason does he rely upon it as creditable in all respects to his father's memory. It is the Bishop's belief "that if Lord Auckland's The Journals and Correspondence of William, First Lord Auckland.'With a PVatiee and. IntiednetiOn by the Right honourable and Right Reverend the Bishop of Bath and Wells. In two molunaes. Published by Bentley. life were fairly and dispassionately written, he would be found to have been an able, valuable and honest publicservant, as he was, unques- tionably in private life, an amiable and excellent man." Take away one epithet, LordAnckland's title to which has been disputed but not disproved, and the readers of his Correspondence will readily acquiesce in all the rest of the eulogy. The two points on which he has been most strongly condemned by unfriendly contempo- raries, are, the immoderate eagerness with whioh he urged Me claims to public honours and rewards, and the facility with which he shifted his political convictions so as always to be on the strongest side. Now we are afraid that judgment must be given against him upon the first count, on the testimony of his own Letters published in George Rose's Diary ; but the fault was not a very grave one, after all. It is true that he was the first member of the Coalition party who set the example of defection from its ranks, and that throughout his public career it happened that-his interests coincided with his avowed convictions, but it Is not a necessary inference that those convictions were insincere. Upon this charge he is at least entitled to a verdict of Not Proven ; and, if these volumes do not supply the materials for his complete justification, they at least prove that however covetous he may have been of self-advancement, his public conduct was largely actuated by much higher motives. William Eden born in 1745, was the third son of Sir Robert Eden Baronet, Of West Auckland. Called to the bar in 1768, he wenethe Northern circuit for three years, and published, before his retirement from the profession a pamphlet on the disgraceful state of the penal law' which "made a great sensation both at home and abroad, and in fact caused the beginning of that reform which has since made such progress." Subsequently, as Under Secretary of State, he continued to support the mitigation of our harsh laws, and in 1778 he carried an Act, 19 George III, for the improvement of prison discipline, in framing whiek he had the aid of Mr. Howard and Sir Williaim Blackstone. About the time he published his pamphlet, he obtained his first official appointment as one of the directors of Greenwich Hospital, and in the following year became Under-Secretary of State, Member for Woodstock, and committed himself entirely-to political life. In 1776, he married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, Treasurer of the Navy, and sister of the first Earl of Minto, and was made a Lord of the Board of Trade and Plantations. In 1778, he went out to America as one of the Commissioners for negoeiating a peace ; and two years afterwards he was chosen by LortiNorth to fill the place of Chief Secretary in Ireland under Lord Carlisle at a very-critical period. of Irish politics. As a Member of the Coalition govern- ment, he can hardly have been so servile as his enemies alleged, for he appears to have remonstrated against Mr. Fox's India Bill which afterwards caused its downfal. It is rather amusing, how- ever, to find Adam Smith "heartily congratulating" Mr. Eden, "on the triumphant manner in which the East India Bill has been carried through the Lower House." He did not remain out of office long, but joining Mr. Pitt, was named Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Versailles. In this capacity, he concluded a treaty. of Commerce which was signed on the 26th of September, 1786,another treaty in the following year, by which our rights of sovereignty in the Fast Indies were for the first time acknowledged by the French Government; and he mainly contributed by his able and conciliatory conduct to prevent a war between this country and France witirre- sped to the affairs of Holland. Previously to his embassy to
in 1788, he was made an Irish peer, and was promoted to an
lish peerge in 1793, for his successful labours in the interim, as representative of England in Holland, and at the Congress of Ant- werp. For the next seven years he was "the confidential ad- viser of Mr. Pitt, under whom he took office as Postmaster-Gene- ral in 1798," and had even hopes of becoming his father-in-law, for, warmed by the smiles of one of Lord Auckland's daughters, the cold-blooded premier for a while imagined himself a lover, and drank to the health of the beautiful Miss Eden, after the gal- lant fashion of the day, out of the fair lady's shoe. But this was the acme of the love-fit ; it died away without further conse- quences, as did also the intimacy between the lover and the lady's father ; and when the former went out of office in 1801, the latter went over to his successor Mr. Addington, professedly because he dissented from the views of his late chief on the Catholic question. Mr.' Pitt returned to office in 1804, and then Lord Auckland, for the first time in two and thirty years, was numbered among the placeless. Under the brief premiership of Lord Grenville in 1806, Lord Auckland held the post of President of the Board of Trade, but the demise of the Ministry in the following year put an end to his public career. His last years were embittered by the mysterious death of his eldest son William, who was found drowtied in the Thames, in 1810. He never recovered from the shock and died. suddenly in May, 1814. Lord. Auckland's success in life was well earned by his valuable and very varied public. services. Wm efficiency in these was not due to the brilliancy of his talents, but to his good sense, and to the indefatigable use he made of a fair average capacity, as also in a very great measure to his engaging manners and. amiable disposition. Lord Sheffield, writing to him about Lord Mansfield in 1785, says' "We agreed that you are a most efficient man ; that you have done yourself the highest credit during the last session. He spoke in a very high style of' yea. I was of opinion the House of Commons could not do without y but rclidUot mention a word of your being so inferxally civil you _do not appear to be in earnest, or that your only dead WM ,being,aa violent asIsyseifi: This conodiant suavity of maws um,
evidently not artificial, but the spontaneous expression of a kindly nature ; and not the less on that account was it an admirable in- strument of polioy. Without it, he could never have successfully conducted, for instance, that exceedingly difficult negotiation of 1787 respecting Holland, in which he brought the French to make the most humiliating concessions to this country instead of adopting the alternative of war to which they were strongly inclined. On the first of November in that year, Sir James Harris writes to Mr. Eden, "I heartily congratulate you on having so largely contributed towards the preservation of the general tranquillity, so nearly being interrupted from the intrigues and designs of the Court where you reside." Mr. Eden's son expresses a hope and implies a doubt that these congratulations were sincere. "Sir James Harris," says the Bishop, is very severe in his correspon- dence because Mr. Eden was friendly with the French ministers. Sir James ought to have seen that this was the reason of Mr. Eden's success." Mr. Eden himself touches upon this subject in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 10th October, 1787.
"My dear Sir—I feel rather awkwardly situated till the despatches ar- rive from Berlin, for I am unluckily in constant intercourse with the French ministers,. which leads me to pass a great part of every day with them. M. de Breteml, M. de Montmorin, &c. &c., have been some time engaged to a din- ner here today,'d'une tortue accommodee a l'anglaise.' M. de Montmorin hinted to me yesterday, whether, in the present undecided state of things, it would be proper for him to come: he said that his own feelings held such oblections in great disregard, but that the temper of others was more sen- sitive: arid, in the evening, when Mr. Eden and I went to Madame de Po- lignac's' the ladies made war upon our whole nation with considerable vio- lence. The Queen was present, and was too polite to seem to hear it, but was exceedingly silent and reserved. Madame de Polignae told me that she could not give it to me here, but that she would write a letter to Spain, to state all the perfidy of England towards a nation that wished to be in friend- ship with her. I could only desire her to recollect (personally) that,'lea petites brouilleries sent presque toujours suivies des plus etroites amities.' If you had been twenty months in France, you would think these female politics are not immaterial. I am anxious to know whether M. de Mont- morin will come."
Turning from politics to the more amusinc•b matter scattered through these volumes, we first light upon some letters illustrative of the state of the Irish Parliament during the stormy time of the Volunteers. One of Mr. Eden's correspondents gives a lively ac- count of the unparalleled scene of mutual vituperation between Flood and Grattan ; but that would probably not be so new to our readers as the following- " Lord Bellamont entertained the Lords on Saturday with an attack on
m i Lord Farnha concerning some immaterial paragraph n the newspapers, and his passions growing warm, the Archbishop of Cashel moved for clear- ing the House, on which his Lordship exclaimed, 'By—, my Lords, if you clear the House, the throat of a man must be cut.' They, however, pacified him, and brought him to terms, which Lord Farnham readily ac- cepted, being most pacifically disposed."
Another day, the same peer was "more beautifully nonsensical than usual in compliments to the ladies. Speaking of the civic wreath, he said, 'If you touch the laurel, the myrtle is wounded, and the olive takes the alarm.'" Here is a story of the Earl of Bristol, a furious and Right Reverend supporter of Irish inde- pendence. The Bishop of Derry had the honour of hanging Yelverton [afterwards Lord Avonmore] in effigy at Armagh on his return home ; his troop and him- self, and the Armagh corps, got all drunk ; and after Yelverton was burnt, one of his corps proposed hawing Lord Charlemont, for having given the Bishop a cool reception. A battle was near ensuing, and the night ended in confusion and drunkenness. The question which is most likely to be fought is that of protecting duties ; first, because it is a stroke against England ; and secondly, because it may ruin Ireland ; and thirdly, because it has a popular sound and not understood." Here is t is
speech of an Irish Peer after the rejection of Pitt's Irish Propositions in 1785. On tile question, "that this House will at its rising adjourn to the 5th of September," the Duke of Leinster said, "Why should we continue to sit, since the Irish Propositions, or rather English resolutions, are disposed of ?— gone to the Devil, I hope never to rise again." When the Prince of Wales persuaded Mr. Fox to deny his marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert in the House of Commons, some one said that the Prince's request to Mr. Fox was conveyed in the language of Othello—" Villain, be sure you prove my love a —!" We have seen this witticism ascribed by some recent writer (Mr. 0. Maddyn, we believe, in his Chiefs of Parties) to Mr. Pitt. Lord Auckland, with much more probability, assigns it to George Selwyn. George himself was the subject of a bon mot by George the Third. Having attended the Royal levee one day, he withdrew just as the King was about to knight the pre- senter of an address. The King afterwards expressed his asto- nishment at Mr. Selwyn's sudden departure. The ceremony of making a new knight looked so like an execution, that he took it for granted Mr. Selwyn would have stayed to see it. George heard of this joke upon his favourite pastime, and did not at all relish it.
Mr. Storer, one of Mr. Eden's liveliest correspondents, mentions a omiots stock-jobbing fraud which was perpetrated on the 22d of June 1787. There appeared on that day "a forged Gazette extraordinary, giving an account of the march of the French troops into the Low Countries ; it was soon detected but it was most probably intended to influence the Stocks. Whether the belief of its being authentic continued long enough to have that effect I don't know, but the contrivance was ingenious. The stamp, and the house of the printer, as well as the style of the author, I suppose, were all happily counterfeited." We close our extracts with an account, by the same correspondent, of an extra- ordinary batch of marriages in 1788— " We have had three runaway matches. A daughter of Lady Strath- more, Lady — Bowes, Miss Clinton, General Sir Henry Clinton's dough- ter, and Lady Augusta Campbell, at last, are married to Mr. Jessop, Mr. Dawkins, and Mr. Clavering, the youngest son of General Clavering. His being only two-and-twenty, and Lady Augusta being a good many years older, makes people imagine that she rather ran away with him than he with her. They went away from the Duchess of Ancestor's, who saw masks that night. The Duchess of Argyll went home, and thought that Lady Augusta would soon follow her, but, after sitting up till five o'clock, and no Lady Augusta returning, she sent in search of her to the Duchess of Amager's. No tidings were to be learned there of the fair fugitive. She, it seems, as soon as her mother went home, left the Duchess's with Mr. Clavering, and went with him to Bicester, in Oxfordshire, where they were married. She, it is said, was married in her domino. Accoutred as she was, she plunged in. It is to be hoped she dropped the mask. The lover had been the day before to Cranboume Alley, and had procured every kind of female dress necessary for Lady Augusta. After the marriage, they returned to Salt Hill. The Duke of Argyll has written to her to say he will receive, and so it is to be hoped it will all end well. There seems to be a fatality attending the family of Gunning. Miss Clinton had, the day before she eloped, offered to take her oath on the Bible thrit she would not marry Mr. Dawkins without Sir Henry's consent. He, after her solemn protestations, did not think it necessary to administer the oath; and she, perhaps, imagining that at some other time he might, lost no time in escaping from the sin of perjury, and likewise from her father's house. Mr. Dawkins had posted half-a-dozen hackney-coaches at the diffe- rent corners which lead into Portland Place, in order that he might elude puniuit ; for, as soon as the hackney-coach in which he was set off, all the others likewise had their orders to set off too, and go where they liked. The General, when he sallied out in quest of the runaway couple, asked the watchmen at one corner and then at another if they had seen any carriage go off? Each had seen a carriage. This went one way, that went another, a third had gone up the street, a fourth down, and so on. The General was like a dog in a rabbit warren, did not know where to follow, or which to pursue. In his perplexity, he asked the vigilant Dogberry if he had seen any man go into his house. No; but he had seen a young lady go out of it in a great hurry. I know no more of this couple. lady — Bowes lived in Fludyer Street, which you know is very narrow, and well it was, con- sidering the bridge she passed to get to her lover, Mr. Jessop. She excused herself to her father for not coming down to supper, saying that it was inconsistent with female delicacy to be in company with so many men as were to sup with her father. As soon as everybody was gone to bed, she passed a ladder which had a plank laid upon it, and which reached from her window to that of her lover. She must pass this bridge. Leander was a fool to her. She had never seen this man but at his window, before she went over to him. So much for our marriages, which have scarcely left me room for anything else."
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