Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third | Page 5

I can never forget." The Whigs were readily reconciled
to Lord North's appointment, because he was not mixed up in their
differences. They preferred a Minister who had no alliances amongst
them to one of themselves, whose elevation would have produced
discontents in the camp. At first there was a show of dissatisfaction,
and some attempts were made to foment the popular passions; but the
dignified firmness of the Sovereign, and the moderate bearing of the
favourite, speedily tranquillized the public mind, and enabled Lord

North to carry on the Government with energy and success.
In his private character, Lord North was irreproachable; as a debater, he
displayed some valuable qualities--patience and endurance, facility of
resources on occasions of emergency, great calmness and courage, and
a playful wit, which never startled by its brilliancy, but seldom failed of
its point. He betrayed no ostentation or vainglory in his position; never
offended by any undue exhibition of the powers he wielded; and
restricted himself severely to the discharge of his duties as an adviser of
the Crown, deprecating the title of Prime Minister, which he declared
was an office unknown to the Constitution of this country. As a
statesman, he never achieved a high or distinguished reputation. The
American war was the blot upon his career; nor can even his devotion
to the Sovereign entirely excuse him for remaining in office at His
Majesty's entreaty to pursue a course of colonial policy which his
reason and his conscience disapproved. This was a political fault,
which no circumstances can palliate. Others have done worse, no doubt,
from meaner motives; but the mere desire of serving the King does not
absolve the Minister from censure for having acted contrary to his own
convictions on a question of such grave importance.
Lord North continued to retain the royal favour until he entered into the
coalition with the Whigs. This was a step the King could not forgive.
No extremity could reconcile him to a measure so repulsive to his
feelings. Yet the coalition, after all, was more discreditable to the
Whigs than to Lord North, who may be pardoned for accepting it as a
tribute to his personal weight, and a recantation, in some sort, of all the
odium the Whigs had industriously heaped upon him during the whole
period of his Administration. If they really believed him to be the base
and dangerous person they had all along described him to be, the shame
was theirs for consenting to associate themselves with him, and to work
under him in the Government.
The Administration of Lord North lasted for twelve years--from 1770
to 1782. The most important consequence it effected, so far as political
parties were concerned, was to throw the Whigs into opposition, and to
draw the Tories into closer relations with the throne. This complete

exchange of position exactly suited the principles of the two great
factions; the loyalty and courtly aspirations of the Tories (now that all
hope of restoring the Stuarts was at an end) rendering them highly
acceptable in the councils of the monarch, while the popular doctrines
of the Whigs pointed to the benches of the Opposition as the
appropriate place for a party which is always more usefully employed
in representing the people than in exercising the functions of
Government. Sixty years elapsed before the Whigs recovered the
ground which they had lost under the Ministry of Lord North.
The American war--for the management of which the severest
reproaches were cast upon the Government--the state of Ireland, and
Parliamentary Reform, were the principal public questions that agitated
the term of Lord North's Administration. Amongst the Whigs who took
a prominent part in these proceedings were the Grenvilles. Connected
by marriage with the Pitt family, and distinguished by their own
hereditary claims and high talents, they exerted as conspicuous an
influence out of office as they had previously done when they had the
reins of Government in their hands. It will be necessary to retrace
briefly the political heraldry of the Grenvilles for the purpose of
bringing the reader acquainted with the character of the three brothers
whose intimate correspondence forms the substance of these volumes.
Richard Grenville succeeded his brother in the Earldom of Temple in
1752, and took an active part in the Administration of the elder Pitt
(Lord Chatham), who was married to his sister, Lady Hesther, the
mother of the "Great Commoner." He resigned office with Pitt in 1761,
on the question of the war with Spain. This circumstance estranged him
from his political connection with his only brother, George Grenville,
who remained in office under Lord Bute, as Treasurer of the Navy.
Lord Temple, espousing the cause of Wilkes (for which he was
dismissed from his Lieutenancy of the county of Bucks) continued in
opposition