Note 48 — Chapter II

The Duke of Grafton’s motives for resigning were no doubt of a mixed character. His own statement of them will be found in the Appendix. It is easy to believe that he had for some time been anxious to be released from a position which could not be otherwise than most painful to a man of honour. The business of the Government, always onerous to a chief not used to much application, nor having served any apprenticeship in subordinate offices, was made particularly irksome to him by his being left without a single colleague in the great departments of the State whom he could call his friend. On the leading questions of public policy, he often found himself in a minority. His proposition for the immediate repeal of all the American import duties was rejected by the casting vote of Lord Rochford, whom he had himself recently introduced into the Cabinet. Lord North and the Bedford party, by superior attention to the details of business, had also drawn the management of affairs into their hands; and, at the same time, ingratiated themselves with the King, so that the Duke received no support from his Majesty against them, and was subjected to mortifications, which must have been most trying to his irritable temper. It was only after much persuasion that he could be induced to accept the Treasury; he regarded his acceptance as a concession to his political friends and to the King; and, finding himself now virtually deserted by both, it is not surprising that he should seek to divest himself of a character which had ceased to be even respectable. No doubt he committed a serious blunder in withholding from the public the real grounds of his resignation. It has, irreparably, damaged his name with posterity. He was by no means the insignificant or worthless personage that he appears in the pages of Walpole and of Junius. That he had talents is proved by the single fact of his being able during, at least, one session to resist the whole force of the Opposition in the Lords with no assistance, except from Lord Camden. There is a letter from Mr. Fox among the Grafton MSS. saying, that there is no public man whom he should prefer as a Leader. The spirit with which he entered the lists with Lord Chatham betrayed no want of courage. His political principles were those of the Revolution; and where he departed from them, it was from an error of judgment rather than of intention. A genuine love of peace, and hatred of oppression, either civil or religious, marked the whole of his public life; and, great as were the errors which Walpole and Junius have justly denounced in his private conduct, it is only just to state that, from the date of these memoirs to his death, which comprises a period of near forty years, there were few individuals more highly and generally esteemed.—E.