Note 148 — Chapter IX

If this narrative be true, Junius is not the libeller that the world has supposed, and the King was unquestionably treated by his Ministers in a manner to which a parallel is only to be found in the reign of Charles the First. George the Third, however, was not, as Lord Brougham justly observes, (Historical Sketches, &c., vol. iii. p. 144,) the monarch to submit to such treatment,—neither was Sandwich or Halifax likely to have sanctioned it. Indeed Walpole must be mistaken in making them parties to the transaction. In a letter written at the time, he intimates that the Duke of Bedford alone waited upon the King (i. 238); he takes no notice of any written paper, nor is there any trace of such a document among the archives at Woburn. The only authentic account of the interview is given in the letter of the Duke to his nephew the Duke of Marlborough, cited in the preceding note, the general tenor of which proves beyond dispute the writer to have been innocent of any design to insult the King, as well as ignorant that he had done so. His Grace says that he reminded the King of the terms on which the Ministers had consented to resume their functions, and asked whether the promise made to them on that occasion had been kept. He complained of the favour shown to the opponents of the Administration, and the very different treatment received by their friends, dwelling especially on the influence of Lord Bute; and, finally, he besought his Majesty “to permit his authority and his favour to go together, and if the last could not be given to his present Ministers to transfer to others that authority which must be useless in their hands unless so strengthened.” Strong words these, no doubt, and an offensive interpretation may have been put upon them by a youthful sovereign with the notions of prerogative inculcated by Lord Bute—a political opponent (like Burke) might not unfairly insinuate them to be “indecent.” They furnish also a colourable foundation for the statement in the text, which is not unlikely to have been derived partially from the King himself. On the other hand, a dispassionate observer must take into consideration the general truth of the Duke’s charges; the feelings of the Ministers at their dismissal on grounds which appeared to them utterly inadequate; and, above all, their sense of the public danger resulting from the unsatisfactory relations of the King with his government. The limits prescribed by the constitution to a remonstrance of this nature are very indistinct, and the Duke will be held to have outstepped them only by the opponent of the political opinions with which the House of Russell have been so long and so honourably identified.—E.