W. Baring Pemberton - Lord North

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Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

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LORD NORTH

BY

W. BARING PEMBERTON

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TO MARY

Il est plus difficile de sempcher dtre gouvern que de gouverner les autres.LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

Lord North entreats His Majesty to consider him at all times not only as ready, but earnestly desirous of sacrificing every personal consideration to His Majestys service. The duty of a subject to his sovereign and the gratitude of a much favoured servant to a most indulgent master requires this of him.

SOME months ago, when informing a friend I was writing the life of Lord North, I received this singular reply: What? Not the fellow who kept a pack of hounds?

I hope, and I believe, my fox-hunting friend, in confusing the 11 th with the 8 th Lord North, is an exception. I prefer to think that most people are familiar with the name of Lord North against a less sporting background; that they know he was once Prime Minister and that he was fat; that they believe him to have been equally witty and weak; that they have a pretty strong impression he lost America but rarely his own temper and never his capacity for sleep. If I am right, then what they know of North has been to a large extent gathered from hostile and at least cold neutral sources. And this is not surprising. Lord North had during his lifetime what we should call today a bad press, and after his death there was little improvement, except in literary style. To the great Whig and Radical historians of the succeeding century he appeared to be not much more than a puppet dangled by strings in the hands of a sovereign, whose set purpose (so they alleged) was to debauch Parliament and impose autocratic notions upon his American colonies as a prelude to introducing them into Britain herself. As it was just those historians who helped to popularize the eighteenth century, their conclusions have made a durable impression. But not, I submit in Norths case, a very convincing one. A Prime Minister, not much better than a confidential clerk, commanding for twelve years and through two General Elections a substantial majority in the House of Commons, is something not quite consistent with a Constitution regarded with universal respect or with the evidence of Parliamentary proceedings and the correspondence of North himself. If it is objected that the example of Lord Liverpool proves length of office to be no indication of a Prime Ministers abilities, I agree; but at the same time I retort that much had happened between the ministries of North and Liverpool to make the Commons and (indeed their constituents) less independent and more docile. Only by adhering to the well-worn assumption that at the time of the American War members were corrupt or indifferent is it possible to deny Lord North the possession of qualities well above the ordinary. If I have not succeeded in removing such an impression from the mind of a reader by the time he has finished my book, then I shall have failed in my purpose which is to shew that, while North was not a great statesman, he is deserving of revaluation. With this slightly limited aim in mind, I have not attempted to write an exhaustive life of Lord North. Little mention has, for example, been made of Ireland, which though it occupied some of his time and thought, had practically no effect upon his career. Nor has it been considered necessary to deal with his financial policy at any great length. If overmuch space seems at first sight to have been devoted to the causes of the American War of Independence and the character of George III, it is to be hoped that, on further consideration, this will appear warranted.

I have to acknowledge the gracious permission of His Majesty King George VI to use certain materials in the Royal Archives at Windsor. I am deeply indebted to the Viscount Barrington for generously placing at my disposal papers in his possession. I have also to thank the Earl of Min to for allowing me to examine the journal of Sir Gilbert Elliot. I have likewise to express my gratitude to the Managers of Brooks Club for permitting me to study their Betting Book and to Mr. G. R. Barnes, the joint-editor of the Sandwich Papers , for enabling me to run through the galley-proofs of the fourth volume. Lastly I am indebted to my friends Mr. E. Hale of the Treasury for answering questions dealing with that Department and Mr. E. H. Goddard, Headmaster of the Haberdashers School, New Cross, for reading my manuscript and sparing it as little in criticism as he would an essay from one of his own sixth-form boys.

August 11 th , 1938,

Highgate Village.

W. B. P.

LORD NORTH from the portrait by Dance in the National Portrait Gallery

LADY NORTH from the original portrait by Reynolds (by kind permission of the Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Sassoon, Bart.)

KING GEORGE III engraved by Richard Houston after the portrait by Zoffany

LORD NORTH Aged about 26. From a portrait at Kirtling Tower, Newmarket. By kind permission of Lord North

LORD NORTH MAKING HIS 1772 BUDGET SPEECH (from a contemporary cartoon)

LORD NORTH from a caricature by Boyne.

THE FOX AND THE BADGER (Cartoon)

THE UNION (Cartoon)

A man in this country is fit for any place he can get.GEORGE II ( Selwyn Correspondence, iv. 103).

THE year 1732 was for Europe one of uncommon peace. Not a frontier was violated. Not a succession was in dispute. Even the Porte lay undisturbed. It was one of those rare cases of tranquillity which in the eighteenth century can be counted upon the fingers of a single hand. It was in fine a fitting moment for two men to be born who throughout their lives wished to live at peace and without adventure; who, if a dispute had arisen between themselves rather than between their countries, would have preferred to settle it as prosaic citizens quietly over a bottle of claret rather than as gentlemen of honour by the sword.

On February 11 (O.S.) in Westmorland County, Virginia, to Augustine and Mary Washington was born a son, George. On April 13 in Albemarle Street, Mayfair, the wife of the seventh Lord North gave birth to a son and heir, Frederick. Barely two months separated these infants; one to become the first President of the United States of America, the other the last Prime Minister of the First British Empire. Both grew up to be men of ingenuous tastes and of unquestioned integrity, who would at any moment in their long public careers have gladly exchanged the burden of responsible office for the quiet of their own homes, had not considerations of duty been involved.