Note 134 — Chapter VI

As these Memoirs will not be continued, it may be worth while to give a short abstract of the rest of Lord George’s life. Though in Opposition, he kept a door open for his return to Court without his associates, by not joining them against the American war. When that war grew more and more hopeless, Lord George was offered to undertake that province, and most injudiciously accepted it. This was the more surprising to me, as, besides his having retrieved his character by the affair with Johnstone, and acquired a large fortune from Lady Elizabeth Germaine, with the additional favourable circumstance of changing his name, whence his sons, if dropping that of Sackville, might avoid great part of the disgrace that had fallen on their father, he himself not three years before, in a conversation, in which he had given me many instances of the King’s duplicity, had said to me, “Sir, whoever lives to see the end of this reign, will see one of the most unfortunate that ever was in England!” The position of the American war certainly countenanced his prediction. Yet his native ambition, or the vanity of supposing that he could give a new turn to affairs, overpowered his judgment, and shut his eyes on the torrent of abuse that would again be let loose against him—and was. He did recommence his career with great spirit and activity, but with no success at all; and it was only in his deportment that he did show spirit. In Parliament he was browbeaten by daily insults; and his former parts so entirely forsook him, that younger men, who had not seen his outset, would not believe what was attested to them of his precedent abilities. Disappointed of the glory he had promised to himself, and quarrelling with Lord Sandwich, the head of the Admiralty, who counteracted or would not concur in his plans, Lord George relaxed, and finding his associates inclined to sacrifice him as a scapegoat (though they could not save their own places), he yielded to the storm, and was so far fortunate, that being the first victim before the general crash, he made terms for himself, and retired into the House of Lords with a Viscount’s coronet; yet even that lucky retreat could not be obtained without a new, and most cruel, and unprecedented insult. The Marquis of Caermarthen objected to his admission into the House of Lords on the old sentence of the court martial. What heightened the flagrancy of that attack on the foundation of so almost obsolete a stigma was, that Lord Caermarthen had actually been in the King’s service with Lord George while recently Secretary of State. Lord Caermarthen made himself odious; and Lord George found at least that mankind were not so abandoned as to enjoy such wanton malevolence.

Lord George, become Viscount Sackville, died in the autumn of 1785, of a short illness, and in a manner that once more did him honour. He spoke of the bitter scenes through which he had passed, and with great firmness declared how resigned he was to death. Of Prince Ferdinand he spoke with singular candour; said his Highness had undone him from resentment; yet was so great a man, that he not only forgave but admired him. General Sloper, his enemy, he said, was a very black man; for Lord Caermarthen, he was so weak, that he felt nothing for him but contempt. It was remarkable that Lord Caermarthen, moderate as his abilities were, disgustful as his assault on Lord Sackville had been, and though disliked by the King, was by the last collision of parties become at that very moment Secretary of State.

[A long note on the character of Lord George Sackville is also given by Walpole in the Memoirs of George the Second (vol. ii. p. 432). He evidently bore that nobleman no good will, and falls in the course of his remarks into some inconsistencies, which, as Lord Holland remarks, “it would be difficult to explain, if it were any part of the duty of an editor to explain the contradictions of an author.” A well-written and interesting, though partial, account of Lord George is contained in the Memoirs of his friend and secretary, Richard Cumberland. Many additional and curious particulars have been collected by Mr. Coventry in that ingenious work, “Critical Enquiry regarding the real Author of Junius, proving them to have been written by Lord Viscount Sackville.”—E.]