you. That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased, betrayed him sometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 1765, had been an advocate for the stamp act. Things and the disposition of mens minds were changed. In short, the stamp act began to be no fa attended at the private meeting, in which the resolutions moved by a right hon. gentleman were settled; resolutions leading to the repeal. The next day he voted for that repeal; and he would have spoken for it too, if an illness, (not as was then given out a political) but to my knowledge, a very real illness had not prevented it, never saw that prodigy Charles which is the most disgustful to Townshend; nor of course know what a ferment he was able to excite in every thing by the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and failings. For failings he had undoubtedly-many of us remember them; we are this day considering the effect of them. But he had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate pas-vourite in this house. He therefore sion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. He worshipped that goddess wheresoever she appeared; but he paid his particular devotions to her in her fayourite habitation, in her chosen temple, the House of Commons. Besides the characters of the individuals that compose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe, that this house, has a collective character of its own. That character too, however imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public collections of men, you possess a marked love of virtue, and an abhorrence of vice. But, among vices, there is none, which the house abhors in the same degree with obstinacy. Obstinacy, Sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence: and, in their excess, all these virtues very easily fall into it. He, who paid such a punctilious attention to all your feelings, certainly took care not to shock them by that vice The very next session, as the fashion of this world passeth away, the repeal began to be in as bad an odour in this house as the stampact bad heen in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to prevail, and to prevail most amongst those most in power, he declared, very early in the winter, that a revenue must be had · out of America. Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some who had no objection to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for whom they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated state, until something of the kind should be done. Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to C 3 please, 圈 please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. However, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable to the partizans of American revenue,, he made a preamble stating the neces. sity of such a revenue. To close with the American distinction, this revenue was external or port-duty; but again, to soften it to the other party, it was a duty of supply. To gratify the colonists, it was laid on British manufactures; to satisfy the merchants of Britain, the duty was trivial, and (except that on tea, which touched only the devoted East Ind's Company) on none of the grand objects of commerce, To counterwork the American contraband, the duty on tea was reduced from a shilling to threepence. But, to secure the favour of those who would tax America, the scene of collection was changed, and, with the rest, it was levied in the colonies, What need I say more? This fine-spun scheme had the usual fate of all exquisite policy. But the original plan of the duties, and the mode of executing that plan, both arose singly and solely from a love of our applause. He was truly the child of the house. He never thought, did, or said any thing but with a view to you. He every day adapted himself to your disposition, and adjusted himself before it, as at a looking glass. ་ to principles; from any order or system in their politics; or from any sequel or connection in their ideas, what part they were going to take in any debate. It is astonishing how much this uncertainty, especially at critical times, called the attention of all parties on such men. All eyes were fixed on them, all cars open to hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately for their vote, almost to the end of their speeches. While the house hung in this uncertainty, now, the Heur-hims rose from this side, now they re-bellowed from the other; and that party to whom they fell at length from their tremulous and dancing balance, always received them in a tempest of applause. The fortune of such men was a temptation too great to be resisted by one, to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave much greater pain, than he received delight, in the clouds of it, which daily rose about him from the prodigal superstition of innumerable admirers. He was a candidate for contradictory honours; and his great aim was to make those agree in admitation of him who never agreed in any thing else. Hence arose this unfortunate act, the subject of this day's debate; from a disposition which, after making an American revenue to please one, repealed it to please others, and again revived it in hopes of pleasing a third, and of catching something in the ideas of all. He had observed (indeed it could not escape him) that several persons, infinitely his inferiors in all respects, had formerly rendered themselves considerable in this house by one method alone. They were a race of men (I hope in God the Memoirs of Allen Bathurst, Earl species is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, no man living could divine, from any known adherence to partics, to opinions, or TH Bathurst. HIS nobleman, one of the last worthies of Queen Anne's - reign reign, that shining period of triumphs, taste, genius, and elegance, was born in the year 1654. His studies and his education were equally conducive to the brilliant figure he was destined to make in social life and in the senate, as a polite scholar, a patriot, and a statesman. These talents he had an opportunity to display as early as the year 1705; when, at the request of His father, Sir Benjamin Bathurst, and the solicitation of the constituents of Cirencester, he served in parliament for that borough, his native soil, with reputation and integrity. He distinguished himself particularly in the struggles and debates relative to the union between the two, kingdoms, firmly supporting this measure, calculated to strengthen the vigour of government by uniting its force. Though he was contented to act a subordinate character in the great opposition planned by Mr. Harley and Mr. St John, his intimate friends, to sap the credit of the Duke of Marlborough and his adherents, he was of infinite service to his party in arraigning, with spirit and eloquence, the conduct of the General and the Earl of Godolphin, who had long governed the Queen, and lavished the treasures of the nation on conquests more splendid than service able. The loss of the battle of Almanza seconded his efforts, to dispel the intoxication of former successes. His personal regard for Lord Somers, President of the Council, was never altered, though they were of different opinions, in politics; and when he was divested of his office, Mr. Bathurst acted with such tenderness and delicacy, as to preserve the estem of Lord Somers in a private station. In considera tion of his zeal and services, the Queen advanced him, in 1711, to the dignity of a peer, by the title of Baron Bathurst, of Eatilesden, in Bedfordshire. His Lordship continued to speak his sentiments with an undaunted freedom in the upper house, and stept forth as a formidable oppo- 1 nent to the court measures in the reign of George I, and during Sir Robert Walpole's administration. The acrimony of the prosecution carried on against the Earl' of Oxford, Lord Bolingbrake, and the Duke of Ormond, stimulated his indignation and his eloquence against such vindictive proceedings; and he observed, that the king of a faction was but a sovereign of half his subjects. The South-Sea scheme having infected the whole nation with a spirit of avaricious enterprize, the people awaked from their delirium, and an infinite number of families was involved in ruin. Lord Bathurst publicly impeached the directors, whose arts had enabled these vain expectations to amass surprizing fortunes: he represented that the national honour was concerned in stripping them of their ill-acquired wealth, and moved for having all the directors of the South-Sea Company punished by a forfeiture of their estates, for such a notorious act of sordid knavery. When the bill was brought into the House of Lords against Dr..Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, that learned prelate, who joined to the graces of stile and elocution all the, elegance of a just delivery among the many friends the bishop's eloquence, politeness, and ingenuity had procured him, was Ed. Bathurst. He spoke against the bill with great C4 vehemence and propriety, observ ing, "that, if such extraordinary proceedings were countenanced, he saw nothing remaining for hun and others to do, but to retire to their country-houses, and there, if possible, quietly enjoy their estates within their own families, since the least correspondence, or intercepted letter, might be made criminal." Then turning to the bishops, he said, he could hardly account for the inveterate hatred and malice some persons bore the ingenious bishop of Rochester, unless it was, that they were infatuated like the wild Americans, who fondly believe they inherit not only the spoils but even the abilities of the man they destroy," He was one of the Lords who entered his protest against the bill. The directors of the charitable corporation having embezzled 500,000 1. of the proprietors capital, Lord Bathurst declared, in the House of Lords, his abhorrence of this most iniquitous scene of fraud, asserting, that not one shilling of the money was ever applied to the proper service, but became the reward of avarice and venality. His Lordship concurred, with all his power, in the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, who now tottered on the brink of ruin. This minister, after obstinate struggles, having been forced to resign all his employments, Lord Bathurst was sworn of the privy-counsel, and made captain of the gentlemen pensioners, which post he resigned in 1744. He was appointed treasurer to the present king, then prince of Wales, in 1757, and continued in the list of privy-counsellors at his accession to the throne; but, on account of his great age, he chose to enjoy otium cum dignitate. Lord Bathurst's integrity gained him the esteem even of his opponents; and his humanity and benevolence, the affection of all that knew him more intimately. He added to his public virtues all the good breeding, politeness, and ele. gance of social intercourse. Dr. Freind, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Swift, Prior, Rowe, Addison, Pope, Arbuthnot, Gay, and most men of genius in his own time, cultivated his friendship, and were proud of his correspondence. His Lordship was entirely averse to continental connexions, and ani. madverted severely upon the monarch whose thoughts were turned to foreign concerns and alliances which could never be useful; com, plaining of the immense sums la vished in subsidies to needy and ra, pacious princes; He accused the British ministry of a base desertion of the honour and interest of their country in the Spanish convention; alledging that the Spaniards, in stead of granting a redress, had rather extorted a release for their former conduct, as the word satis, faction had not been so much as mentioned in all the treaty. His Lordship moved to know, whether Spain had paid the sums stipulated by this convention, when the time limited for the payment was expired, The Duke of NewcastleThe sense to value riches, with the art answered in the negative, and could assign no reason for the delay, Pope, in his epistle to him on the Use of Riches, thus addresses him ; To balance fortune by a just expence, And Sterne, in his letters to Eliza, thus speaks of him : "This nobleman, says he, is an old friend of mine; he was always the protector of men of wit and genius; and has had those of the last century always at his table. The manner in which his notice began of me, was as singular as it was polite.-He came up to me one day, as I was at the Princess of Wales's court: I want to know you, Mr. Sterne; but it is fit you should know also who it is that wishes this pleasure: you have heard, continued he, of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken so much I have lived my life with geniuses of that cast, but have survived them; and despairing ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have closed my accounts, and shut up my bocks, with thoughts of never opening them again; but you have kindled a dosire in me of opening them once more before I die, which I now do, so go home, and dine with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, for at eighty-five he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others beyond whatever I knew! added to which, a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling.' His Lordship, in the latter part of his life, preserved his natural chearfulness and vivacity, always accessible, hospitable, and beneficent, Lately he delighted in rural amusements, and enjoyed, with a philosophical satisfaction, the shade of the lofty trees he had planted himself. To within a month of his death he constantly rode out on horse-back two hours before dinner, and constantly drank his bottle of Claret or Madeira after dinner. He used to declare, in a jocose manner, he never could think of adopting Dr. Cadogan's method, as Dr. Cheyne had assured him, fifty years ago, he would never live seven years longer, unless he abridged himself of his wine. Pursuant to this maxim, his Lordship having, about two years ago, invited several of his friends to spend a few chearful days with him at his seat at Cirencester; and being one evening, very loth to part with them; on his son the present Chancellor's objecting to their sitting up any longer, and adding, that health and long life were best secured by regularity; he suffered him to retire: but, as soon as he was gone, the chearful father said, Come, my good friends, since the old gentleman is gone to bed, I think we may venture to crack another bottle." His Lordship was advanced to the dignity of Earl in 1772, and lived to see the above nobleman, his eldest son, several years Lord High Chancellor of Great-Britain, and promoted to the peerage in 1771, by the title of Baron Apsley. Lord Bathurst married Catharine, daughter of Sir Peter Apsley, by whom he had two other sons, and five daughters. His death happened, after a few days illness, at his seat near Cirencester, in the 91st year of his age, and on the 16th of September, 1775. Memoirs |