Note 106 — Chapter X

As that trial and sentence came remarkably into question two-and-twenty years afterwards, it may not be improper to touch slightly the occasion of its being recalled; together with a few outlines of the subsequent life of a man, whose disgrace seemed to have annihilated him for ever in a political light; and who, though his restless ambition incited him again to aspire to high employments and honours, both which he attained, will never figure in history as an admired character, since he acquired no successes, no glory for his country by his councils, strengthened[107] rather than effaced the suspicion of his courage, almost forfeited the general opinion of his parts, and obtained no honours that were not balanced by redoubled disgraces and mortifications. He was admitted into a lucrative, though subordinate, post in Lord Rockingham’s first Administration; was grossly insulted by Governor Johnson, whom he challenged and fought[107] with a coolness that with almost all men justly palliated or removed the imputation on his spirit. Not long after the commencement of the fatal American war he was suddenly hoisted to the management of it; in the course of which he was frequently exposed to most bitter apostrophes on his former imputed timidity, and did but give new handle to that imputation by the tameness or feebleness with which he bore or repelled those attacks; while the want of vigour in his defences, void of any emanations of parts, made his abilities as much questioned as his spirit by those who were too young to remember his former exertions. Whether his councils and plans were ill-grounded, impolitic, or unwise, or whether the recovery of America was unattainable when he entered on the office, it is certain that not only ill success attended almost every one of the measures he recommended or promoted, but two disgraces[108] (unparalleled so far, that two similar never happened to any country in any one war) befell the British arms, sufficient to blast, if not demolish any Minister so unauspiciously seconded by fortune. Yet misfortune and disgrace were not entirely the causes of Lord George’s fall. The mercenary intrigue and treachery of a few of his associates tumbled him in a moment from a height which he decorated so ill—while the partiality or obstinacy of a Sovereign, whose passions he implicitly obeyed, compensated his fall by the extravagant reward of a Viscount’s coronet. This exaltation was as abruptly and cruelly the occasion of recalling the former stigma. The Marquis of Carmarthen[109] proposed to the House of Lords to protest against the admission into their order of a man stamped by an indelible brand, and by a sentence that had never been cancelled. The positive Monarch precipitated the patent in defiance. The Marquis, as unshaken, pursued his hostility, solicited the Peers to condemn the indignity offered to them; and the new Viscount was reduced in the first debate, after taking his seat, to hear his former sentence read to his face, and to combat in person for the Sovereign’s prerogative right of giving, and his own competence of receiving, the conferred honour.—A.