But, being under the greatest obligations to the king, the many favours I had received having been conferred by him only, without any ministerial assistance, I thought it would be ungrateful, as well as impolitic, to abandon my station without his majesty's consent." That consent he at length with difficulty obtained, and had the reversion of a tellership of the exchequer given to him by his sovereign, in lieu of a pension of £2,000 a-year pressed upon him by the ministry, but which he refused to accept. After matters were accommodated betwixt the king and his grandson, he declined to be master of the horse to the latter; while, at the same time, he had the magnanimity to support the prince's request to have Lord Bute appointed groom of the stole in the new establishment provided for him when he came of age.

Within a few months after his retirement from the service of the heir-apparent, Lord Waldegrave was intrusted, under very delicate and difficult circumstances, with the formation of a new administration. The king was resolved at all hazards to get rid of Pitt and Temple, to both of whom he felt a strong personal dislike. "Go," said he to Waldegrave, "go to the duke of Newcastle and encourage him; tell him I do not look upon myself as king whilst I am in the hands of these scoundrels; that I am determined to get rid of them at any rate; that I expect his assistance, and that he may depend on my favour and protection." Waldegrave obeyed; but "I found his grace," says he, "just as I expected: eager and impatient to come into power, but dreading the danger with which it must be accompanied." The king, however, in his impatience, struck the first blow himself, by dismissing Lord Temple from the admiralty. It was imagined that Pitt would immediately, as a matter of course, resign, but he did not; and the king, finding that he would not take the hint, was obliged to turn him out. Lord Waldegrave was ultimately offered the place of first minister, and intrusted with the formation of a new ministry. His lordship, with the dukes of Devonshire and Bedford, Earls Granville, Winchelsea, and Gower, and Mr Fox, laboured hard for some time to form a government in which Pitt and Temple should have no share, and without the present aid of the duke of Newcastle; but the effort was vain. The negotiation was then put into Lord Mansfield's hands, who was to treat with the duke and Pitt, on the terms of excluding Temple and including Fox; but Mansfield had no better success. The credentials were at last transferred to Lord Hardwicke, who patched up an arrangement by which the duke of Newcastle was to be first commissioner of the treasury, and Legge once more his chancellor of the exchequer. Pitt was to be again secretary of state; Lord Temple to be privy seal; Pratt, attorney-general; and Sir Robert Henley, lord-keeper; Fox was to be paymaster; and Lord Anson, in spite of his unpopularity, to return to his old employment.

Lord Waldegrave was permitted to retire from public life, but was honoured with the Garter. In 1763 he was solicited by his old enemies, the Leicester-house faction, to coalesce with them and Fox, in opposi tion to the duke of Cumberland and Mr Pitt; but he refused the overture, and was next day seized with the small-pox, of which he died on the 8th of April, 1763.

Lord Waldegrave was not a political character in the highest sense of that term. He belonged to "that description of persons known in

-a class

our practical constitution by the name of the king's friends,' usually much more dangerous than their capacities would allow them to be in the open arena of public life; but his lordship was one of the very best of his class, never using his influence for personal or party purposes, and sincerely seeking the interests of his royal master. The editor of his memoirs justly remarks, that it reflects no small credit on the discernment and liberality of George II. that, in choosing a private friend, "he selected a man of sense, honour, and sincerity, who had few exterior graces to recommend him; and, at a period of no unreasonable aların, placed him, though a near relation to the competitor for the crown, immediately about his own person.'

John Carteret, Earl Granville.

BORN A. d. 1690.-DIED A. D. 1763.

THIS nobleman was the son of George, Lord Carteret, created Baron Carteret of Hawnes, in the county of Bedford, on the 22d of April, 1681, when only fifteen years of age. daughter of John, earl of Bath. Carteret when only in his fifth year.

He

His mother was the youngest succeeded to the title of Lord

While at Westminster school, and subsequently at Christ-church, Oxford, the young nobleman devoted himself to his studies with an ardour which few of his fellow-students exhibited. Swift humorously asserts, that he carried away from Oxford a most unbecoming quantity of erudition, greatly more Greek, Latin, and philosophy, than was fitting and beseeming a nobleman of his rank and fortune,—indeed, much more learning than those who were to live by their scholarship found it at all necessary to burthen themselves with.

Thus accomplished, our young nobleman entered upon public life. Having taken his seat in the house of peers, he soon became distinguished for the zeal and eloquence with which he on all occasions advocated the succession of the house of Hanover; and, on the accession of George I., he was among the first to experience the effects of that monarch's favour. In 1714 he was appointed one of the lords of the bed-chamber; in 1715, bailiff of Jersey; in 1716, lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Devon. His mother was also created Viscountess Carteret, and Countess Granville, with limitation of these honours to her son.

In the famous debate on the bill for lengthening the duration of parliaments, in which he supported the duke of Devonshire's motion for the repeal of the triennial act, Lord Carteret spoke with great eloquence; and he likewise highly distinguished himself in the debate on the mutiny-bill.

In 1719 he was appointed ambassador and minister-plenipotentiary to the queen of Sweden. In this office he proved so successful a negotiator, that a peace between Sweden, Prussia, and Hanover, was proclaimed at Stockholm, on the 9th of March, and a treaty of peace between Sweden and Denmark, on the 3d of July, 1720. These measures were intended to check the grasping ambition of the czar of Russia. On returning from Denmark, he took an active share in the

debates on the South sea scheme, and the state of the national credit after the bursting of that huge bubble. He argued that the estates of all who had been instrumental in deceiving the public with the South sea speculation, should be confiscated, and the proceeds divided amongst those who had suffered by it, in proportion to their losses. Whilst this affair was in agitation, he was appointed ambassador at the French court; but when on the point of setting out, was unexpectedly recalled to fill the office of home-secretary, vacant by the death of Mr Craggs. He received office on the 4th of May, 1721, and continued in it for a period of three years, during which he ably supported the measures of government, from his place in the house of lords. He vindicated the ministry from the charges brought against them, in connection with the presence of Law, the famous projector, in England; he defended the government in the debate on the navy debt; he spoke in favour of suspending the habeas corpus act for one year, on occasion of Layer's plot; he was employed to inform the house of the commitment of the bishop of Rochester, the earl of Orrery, and Lords North and Grey, to the Tower; he vindicated the proceedings of the court, in the case of Atterbury; and finally he supported the most iniquitous proposal for laying a special tax upon all papists. On the 26th of May, 1723, when the king's affairs called him abroad, Lord Carteret, in conjunction with Lord Townshend, went to Hanover; and, on their return, had several conferences at the Hague, with the Dutch administration, on affairs of state.

In 1724 when the united influence of Walpole, Townshend, and the two Pelhams, began to prevail in the cabinet, Lord Carteret resigned office, and was succeeded by the duke of Newcastle, but he was on the same day appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The 'green island' was at this moment in a state of great excitation and universal discontent, in consequence of the bugbear alarms which had been raised about Wood's copper coinage, by the pamphleteering of Swift, and some others. The duke of Grafton, the former lord-lieutenant, had found himself totally unable to stem the popular torrent. In this emergency, Walpole first endeavoured to let the scheme drop gradually, by a proclamation restricting the intended issue of half-pence to £40,000, instead of £108,000 as originally designed; and then, when this failed, he dexterously contrived to impose the task of enforcing Wood's project, and subduing the discontent of the Irish, upon a rival statesman. There was even a measure of justice in this: for Carteret was supposed to have had no small share himself in the agitation which now troubled Ireland. "He had maintained," says Sir Walter Scott, "a war of intrigue in the interior of the cabinet against Walpole and his brotherin-law, Townshend; and by caballing with the Brodericks, and furnishing, it was said, the private history of the mode in which Wood's patent was obtained, he had greatly encouraged the discontents of Ireland, trusting that all the odium would be imputed to Walpole. But his interest in the cabinet gradually sunk before that of his rival, who, unable perhaps to remove Carteret entirely from office, enjoyed the refined revenge of sending him to Ireland, as lord-lieutenant, in the room of the duke of Grafton, with the injunction of carrying on Wood's project, if it were possible; but otherwise with permission to drop it."

1 Life of Swift, Edin. 1834 p. 262.

One of the first acts of the new viceroy was to issue a prcclamation, offering £300 reward for the discovery of the author of the Drapier's fourth letter. Harding, the printer of the Drapier's letters, was thrown into prison. Swift is said to have had the boldness to upbraid his lordship with these severities, whereupon Carteret, who could have no doubt of the real author of the obnoxious letters, with much promptitude and tact replied, in the words of Virgil:

Res dura, et regni novitas, me talia cogunt
Moliri.

The grand-jury ignored the bill against Harding, and presented Wood's scheme as a fraud and imposition on the public; whereupon Carteret yielded to the storm; Wood's patent was surrendered, and the patentee indemnified by a grant of £3000 yearly, for twelve years. Carteret was by no means averse to these concessions; for he was the personal friend of Swift, and, like the dean, also the enemy of Walpole. Besides, he felt that he had been sent to Ireland, only to exercise a nominal vice-sovereignty, while the real power was lodged with the primate, Boulter. Swift knew the ground upon which he stood with the lieutenant, and was assiduous in his attendance at the castle. On one occasion, affecting to be overcome with his lordship's arguments for a certain political measure, he exclaimed: "What the vengeance brought you among us! Get you gone! Get you gone! Pray God send us our boobies back again." The dean having written two lines on a window of the castle, expressive of what he chose to hug himself upon, his absolute independence, the viceroy, who knew his man very well too, wrote under them the following couplet :

My very good dean, none ever come here,

But who've something to hope, or something to fear.

After the close of the session in March, 1726, his lordship having constituted lords-justices during his absence, embarked for England, where he received the personal thanks of his majesty for his services in Ireland. On the accession of George II. he was again named viceroy of Ireland. He quitted his high office in 1730, when he was succeeded by the duke of Dorset. In Irish affairs, Carteret seems to have been greatly governed by the dean of St Patrick's; their political sympathies were in unison on several points of personal interest.

From 1730 to 1742, Lord Carteret's career was one of opposition to the minister. He was the acknowledged leader of the discontented whigs in the house of lords; while Pulteney headed the same party in the house of commons. His genius and eloquence made him very formidable to Sir Robert Walpole. There was scarcely a motion or question on which he did not speak, and in which he did not oppose the minister. In the session of 1730-1, he supported the bill against pensioners being permitted to sit in the house, and the motion for discharging the Hessian troops in the pay of Britain. In the subsequent session he offered strenuous opposition to the act for renewing the saltduty. In the session of 1732-3 his party were engaged with a motion for the reduction of the land-forces, with the disposal of the forfeited estates of the South sea company, and the princess-royal's marriagesettlement bill; on all of which measures Carteret displayed great knowledge and political tact. In the session of 1733-4 his lordship

took the lead on the debate for inquiry as to the removal of the duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham from their respective regiments. In 1736-7 he took an active part in the discussions and questions arising out of the celebrated Porteous' mob in Edinburgh; he also moved, in the same session, for the settlement of £100,000 per annum on the prince of Wales, out of the civil list. But it was in the session of 1740-1, when the minister began visibly to totter on his seat, that Carteret put forth his utmost strength as a leader of opposition. On the 13th of February, 1741, he brought forward a motion for an address of the house, praying his majesty to dismiss Sir Robert Walpole from his councils and person for ever. His speech on this occasion was eloquent, impetuous, and vindictive; the minister, however, triumphed by a small majority; but, in the following session, he was obliged to resign, and Lord Carteret was immediately appointed secretary of

state.

There is no doubt that Carteret's sole object in opposing the former ministry, was the desire of place, and hatred of political rivals. The coadjutors of Pulteney and Carteret long suspected them of having no other views than to supplant the minister, and to succeed to his power. A letter from Chesterfield to Dodington, written in the preceding autumn, describes them as thirsting for office, and desirous "to get in with a few by negotiation, and not by victory with numbers, who might presume on their strength, and grow troublesome to their generals." The prince of Wales's support was obtained for the new administration, by placing two of his dependents in the board of admiralty; and he came at length to be so warmly attached to Carteret, that when Pitt and Lyttleton began to oppose that minister, he told them "he should follow the advice they had long ago given him, of turning out all his people who did not vote as he would have them." The new minister, however, soon became far more unpopular with the opposition than ever his predecessor had been. In the opening of the session of 1743-4, Pitt stigmatised him as "an execrable, a sole minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction, which made men forget their country."

Carteret accompanied the king to Hanover in May, 1743, and made every effort to fortify himself in his seat, by entering into the foolish German politics of his master; but the coalition of the Pelhams with what was called the patriotic party, and the eloquent and virulent declamations of Pitt in the lower house, at last overmatched the minister, who, deserted by his colleagues, was obliged most reluctantly to resign office, within a few weeks after his succession to the title of Earl Carteret, by the death of his mother.

In 1746, on the sudden resignation of the Pelham party, Lord Granville had a glimpse of office again; the seals were placed in his hands for a few days, but he could not succeed in forming an administration. One of the numerous squibs published on this occasion, entitled 'A History of the Long Administration,' concludes thus: "And thus endeth the second and last part of this astonishing administration, which lasted forty-eight hours, three quarters, seven minutes, and eleven seconds; which may truly be called the most honest of all administrations; the

2 Coxe's Sir Robert Walpole, vol. iii. p. 579.