The year concluded with the dismission of General A’Court, whose regiment was taken from him for having voted for the Privilege of Parliament. The man was obscure and of no importance, had a large family and no fortune;[408] the tyranny therefore was the more flagrant, but from those very circumstances made the less noise. Lord Sandwich had carried into the King a list of sixteen officers who had dared to act with spirit and independence against the arbitrary measures of the Court. The poor man in question was selected for an example of terror; but, except in his ruin, the ministers found no cause to exult. A much more considerable man had taken the same part, of which it is necessary here to give some account.
I have said that General Conway,[409] under pretence of bringing home the troops, had been kept abroad till the peace was voted, the ministers apprehending that they should not be able to influence him to approve an event so ruinous and shameful to his country. At his return, no man being less factious, he had entered into no cabals, had attached himself to no party. His chief friendships were with the Duke of Devonshire, with his own brother the Earl of Hertford, and with me. The Duke, though grievously insulted and provoked, was of so decent and cautious a nature, that he was the last man on earth to think of exciting his friends to violent measures; and, indeed, after the first sally of passion, bore his affront with too much patience. Lord Hertford was a perfect courtier, and more likely to dissuade his brother from, than incite him to, Opposition. I, much more inclined to party-heat, had been very seriously alarmed at the strides I had seen made towards arbitrary power; but having beheld the cowardice of Lord Bute, and knowing that of Lord Mansfield, and finding the nation delivered from the influence of Fox, I had flattered myself the danger was over. I had been pleased, too, that Grenville was become the acting minister; having (I confess my blindness) entertained a most favourable opinion of his integrity. He talked nothing but reformation--which, indeed, alone, would not have duped me--I had seen too much of patriot hypocrisy! but he went beyond myself in his principles of liberty--I mean, in his discourse. I thought him a grounded Republican; had heard him harangue by the hour against the despotic doctrines of Lord Mansfield. Nor had his venal prostitution of himself to Lord Bute as yet opened my eyes. But I was again roused by the arbitrary treatment of Wilkes, committed close prisoner to the Tower by an indefinite warrant. Lord Bute, I saw, had left his cloak to his successors; yet I could not believe that my friend, Algernon Sydney, (for Grenville appeared to me as scarce a less Whig saint,) was capable of concurring in such measures. In truth, when I saw Saint Sandwich added to his rubric, I began to be startled. I saw him lean, too, on the Bedfords: them I did not love: and nothing is a more sovereign cure for blindness in friendship, than a connection between one’s friends and one’s enemies. I laboured by those most in Grenville’s confidence to detach him from so disreputable an union; but Grenville knew his interest better than I knew him. Still I had not the most distant suspicion of what his heart was capable of, nor any view of opposing his administration. Thinking him as frank and candid as myself, and thoroughly shocked at the use made of General Warrants, I desired Mr. Thomas Pitt,[410] attached to Mr. Grenville, and my own friend, to tell him fairly in the summer, that I believed I should differ with him when the point of General Warrants should be agitated in Parliament. But not content with opposing them myself, I earnestly desired that Mr. Conway should take the same step: and in bringing that about, I by no means piqued myself on the same frankness. Should Lord Hertford conceive the least suspicion of my intentions, I knew how sedulously he would labour to prevent his brother from involving himself against the Court. He might procure Mr. Conway to be again sent aside on some honourable commission, or contrive to have his gratitude dipped in favours from the King, before he should be aware with what view they were bestowed. I waited therefore in silence and patience till Lord Hertford was set out on his embassy to Paris, before I ever named the term _General Warrants_ in the presence of Mr. Conway. Then, indeed, I asked him, as by accident, how he intended to vote on that business, telling him I should wish to act as he did. I found he was disgusted at the Warrants; and thence I easily entered into agreement with him to oppose them, as we did, no other person living having any previous intimation of his intention. The Court was alarmed; and Grenville sent Mr.
