The National Register.
London, England, 1812-06-14 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

UNE 14.

n some measure with the choice of the servants of the Crown ; but the
motion of the Noble Lord opposite (Folk stone) went, in his opinion, ra-
ther prematurely, to take away confidence from the persons upon whom
the duties bf Government may be thrown. The Administration was
son open for the admission of great and Noble Persons; and surely to
desire assistance in promoting the aims of the Government, could not lie
metamorphosed, without violence, into an acknowledgment of their
own incapacityo conduct the affairs of the nation. Accession of talents
was voted and required ; but any such condescension of persons pesses-
sing those qualifications was discovered, upon application, to be hopeless.
Three various proposals for address had been submitted to the House,
some of them containing a mighty catalogue of national infelicities,
which no person would be sorry to learn were half fabulous, all of which
be hoped would be disposed of in the negative.
Lord YARMOU t 11 said that the Officers of his Majesty's Household
had manifested all possible inclination to accommodate themselves to 1
the pending negotiation. ( Hear ! J He spoke in the name of a large
portion of the Household, who only desired ten minutes warning to
surrender their situations; <load cheering) but the removal of tLe House-
hold, so strenuously inidsted upon as a preliminary of service of the
Noble Earls, appeared to him be designed to go to a much greater
extremity than ever was meditated in a new Administration before.
He declared, before God, that to insist upon suds an extensive dis-
missal was for no other purpose but to offer humiliation to his Royal
Highness himself.
Mr. Po N sorter bad hearkened to expressions of a dubious complexion,
employed by the Noble Lord (Yarmouth) and which he had assured the
House, passed his lips for the first time. Who the Right Hon. Gentleman
mentioned by the IJoble Lord was, who possessed such transcendent
talents, who was such delightful company, he could not conjecture, but
he would affirm, in the nettles of my Lento Grey and Grenville, that no
conjecture or assertion was ever made so erroneously than that those No-
ble Persons determined to have the Household Officers dismiesed for the
sole purpose of humbling that person to whom all respect was due.—
17pon tire 21st of last month, the Parliament, upon the motion of the
Hon. Gentleman opposite, came to a resolution to address his Royal
Highness to form a snore strong and efficient Administration, so that
the great concerns of the nation might be dispatched with ability and
confidence. That Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wortley) he now saw oppo-
site to him, he had been accused of concerting the motion mutually
with him, and he called upon that Hon. Gentleman to declare upon his
ensullied and spotless honour, as a Gentleman, whether he had ever made
any such communication, either to him or to those with whom he lived
the intimacy of private and political friendship. The motion of the
Address did not emanate from the side of the House on which he had
the honour of sitting, neither did it find its strongest support from those
persons usually denominated Members of the Opposition. It was not
laboriously patronized by the Opposition, two Gentlemen only rose and
delivered their opinions. He never recollected any question of such im-
portance from which there were so many of the Opposition absent; the
intimation was so short, that Gentlemen, who were at a distance, had
not time to receive intelligence of it; and the Ministerial side of the
House had the honour of passing a vote of incapacity upon the Minis-
try almost without the participation of the Opposition. He begged to
spy for his friends and for himself,- that they had no secret--no reserve
upon the subject ; the more extensive the capacities were which the
Administration could admit, the more would they be gratified, and the
country assisted. It had been impressed upon the people's minds by
the vote of the House, that a coalition of public men, of hitherto
dissonant parties, was to take place, and a strong Administration, ful-
filling the expectancy of the nation, would be the consequence. It cer-
tainly was the wish of all those persons with whom he lived in friendly
habits, to coalesce with the other Gentlemen who might be called to the
Administration. It was the determination of his two Noble Friends and
of himself to act with any men who could unite cordially upon some
of the great and pending questions at present in agitation in the public
mind. They were desirous to cast their portion of assistance into the
grand political balance, and aid all the resplendent talents which came
to the support of the Government. When the formation of such an Ad-
ministration was entrusted to the capacity of his Noble Friend (the Mar-
quis Wellesley), that Noble Person requested the assistance of his two
Noble Friends (Grey and Grenville), informing them, that all party
redilections were suppressed, ant' a general union of talents was to
take place for the furtherance of the common cause of their country.
Upon the cad of last month, the Marquis of Wellesley communicated
to Lords Grey and Grenville the plan of an Administration, adapted,
.
as was described, to the present posture of affairs. The Noble Mar-
qea said that he had been entrusted, by his Royal Highness, to collect
together_. an Administration of strength and character, for the more happy
dispatch of public affairs, but in which he did not desire to take any
situation. This Administration was to be totally unmarked by political
dissensions. In the first place, the claims of the Roman Catholics were
to be brought to a situation of adjustment and conciliatien, and in the
second place the war upon the Peninsula was to be carried on in a more
extensive scale of enteeprize, with an augmentation of the British Armies
in Spain and Portugal. Throughout all that communication to his Noble
Friends, the Marquis had not stated that lie had any authority to form an
Ad ministration at that very time. He communicated only the views
intended
to be entertained by the coalition of parties. Upon the 24th of
May, Without either cavilling or delay, the Lords Grey and Grenville
"Pitched the Mowing answer ;—That they considered it to be the

paramount duty of public men to abandon any object capable of promot-
ing personal animosity, so that sufficient effect might be given to the
vote of Address moved by the House of Commons to his Royal High-
ness ; an Administration capable of sustaining the country successfully
against the eminent peril in which it appeared to be placed, was what'
they desired much to see; they bad no disposition to cavil at the admis-
sion of ditierent parties, respecting the measures supposed to be the
determination of the new Government to adopt. They had formerly
expressed pretty amply their opinions upon the Catholic clanns, in which
they delighted to find they had the concurrence of the Noble Marquis
himself, they would willingly support any Motion of any person t hat
would lead to a conciliatory adjustment of the differences, withoet which
they found it impossible to contribute their aid. in the next place, they
,yvere of opinion, that the direction of military operations was a question
bf policy, nut of principle ; an unstable fluctuating scene of operations
hich expanded or comracted, according to the capacity or inclination
of the country ; but they believed that a careful hand to watch over the
Public Expenditure, at a period like the present, would not be unac-
ceptable to the nation. A communication of the same nature having
been made to another quantr, Lord Grey believed that he perceived
some difference between the one submitted to himself, and the other
• which he deemed to be important. He accordingly wrote to the Noble
Marquis, informing him of the distinction which he apprehended had
been made, and requested an explanation. Upon the receipt of the
letter, Marquis ‘%rellesley immediately transmitted an answer, which
l cleared up all misapprehensions, and restored the natural good under-
sta'idii:g between them.—Matters passed on without any further notifi-
cation until the first of June, when Marquis Wellesley wrote to his No-
ble Friends, informing them, that he had received ample authority to
arrange an Administration, and was specially authorized to communi-
I cate with them upon that subject; informing them of the names of these
persons designed to form the Administration. It was proposed, that if
twelve were nominated to the Cabinet, his Royal Highness was to have
the disposal of five of them; awd should thirteen he found necessary, c.f
these six were to be of the appointment of his Royal Highness. The
Noble Lords considered the whole arrangement with due deference
and, in a consultation, they concluded upon the following answer :—That
they had contemplated the whole scheme with much attention, which
had been submitted to them ; that they were not deterred either from
the distressed situation of the Public, nor from the influences of private
feeling, from accepting of the offers which had been made to them of
being employed, where they might have been serviceable to their coun-
try; but it appeared to them, that a stipulated number of Cabinet
Councillors; to be retained for nomination by his Royal Highness, was
a violation of the Address, for forming a strong and efficient Admi•
nistrationn nor could they perceive any hope of ballancing the Cabinet
with propriety, by such a stipulation. A Cabinet appeared to be a body
of' Councillors, fastened together by mutual reliance upon each other's
capacities and integrity, possessing eke the confidence of the Crown and
a concurrence in public measures ; but no hope of such a Cabinet was
presented to them by the plan snbmitted, and a certain deterioration of
character in their own estimation and in that of the Public would un-
doubtedly follow their acceptance of offices under such regulations. TMs
explanation vie.s so broad and so ample, that it anticipated almost all that
he had to say upon the subject. The Crown had hitherto been in the
habit of summoning in able men to Its Councils, but such a proposal as
that, was of a nature so dissonant, that the first glance at it re-pulsed the
mind, let it have been ever so prone to political compliance. For It took
for granted, that a certain system of opposite interests would display
themselves in the Cabinet, and attempted to raise a harier against imagi-
nary terrors. The first principle of a Cabinet was mutual confidence of
its Members in each other, a sound political agreement, and total ab-
horrence of all jealousy and distinct interests. The answer of the Noble
Lords having been dispatched to my Lord Wellesley, no further cor-
respondence took place under the auspices of the Prince Regent. But his
Noble Friend, the Earl of Moira, returned a private answer upon the sd
of June, wherein he lamented that a negotiation promising such happiness
to the country should be broken off upon points ; and hoping that no
blame could be attached to him, that letter was written with the accus-
tomed frankness and courtesy of the Noble Earl, but unhappily it was
not expressing opinions of a higher authority than his own. In answer
to which, Earl Gray immediately wrote that they were anxious to assist
in the Government, but for the failure of the negotiations they imputed
no blame to the Noble Earl ; they discovered an utter impossibility of
complying with the request upon sound constitutional principles. liTpon
the fourth of June, Lord Grey received a letter from the Noble Lot el
saying, that he had received an explanatory letter from Lord Grin , %en h
which he was gratified. He was not aware that his Re)) al Hi...lint ss
had given further orders for a renewal of the negotiations, a circum-
stance which he deeply lamented, as a very successful explanation might
have been made. He would be happy that under the sanc:ion of the
Regent he had received a commission so conciliatory as to have effected
the purpose for which theynegotiated. Lord,crey wrote an answer, in
which he and Lord Grenville professed a readiness to comply with any
desire of a conciliatory nature which /41Loyalnightiess might transmit.
Soon afterwards, under the authork47l. 03g:Regent, a meeting took place
between Lords Grey and Grenvi ,On the one side, and the Earl of
Moira, in which Lord Erskine wassresent, upon the other, o,;nlie 6th
of June. The Earl of Moira informed him that he was authorized to
arrange a Government, and was deSiked to consult with their Lordships
upon the plan. After mentioning these concessions upon the Catholic