Amidst this confusion the Parliament rose on the 2nd of July, after one of the longest sessions that was almost ever known. The City bestowed its freedom on Charles Townshend for his behaviour on the East India business and the Dividend Bill, for which in truth he had deserved nothing but censure. Somebody, a little more sagacious, inserted in the papers the following epigram:--
The joke of Townshend’s box is little known; Great judgment in the thing the cits have shown. This compliment was an expedient clever To rid them of the like expense for ever. Of so burlesque a choice th’ example sure For city-boxes must all longing cure. The honour’d ostracism at Athens fell Soon as Hyperbolus had got the shell.
As times show men, the fluctuation and difficulties of those I am describing brought forth some symptoms, though not so fully as it appeared afterwards, of the singular cast of the Duke of Grafton’s mind. Hitherto he had passed for a man of much obstinacy and firmness, of strict honour, devoid of ambition, and though reserved, more diffident than designing. He retained so much of this character, as to justify those who had mistaken the rest. If he precipitated himself into the most sudden and inextricable contradictions, at least he pursued the object of the moment with inflexible ardour. If he abandoned himself to total negligence of business in pursuit of his sports and pleasures, the love of power never quitted him; and when his will was disputed, no man was more imperiously arbitrary. If his designs were not deeply laid, at least they were conducted in profound silence. He rarely pardoned those who did not guess his inclination: it was necessary to guess, so rare was any instance of his unbosoming himself to either friends or confidants. Why his honour had been so highly rated, I can less account; except that he had advertised it, and that obstinate young men are apt to have high notions before they have practised the world and essayed their own virtue.
Mr. Conway telling the Duke that Lord Rockingham desired to treat with his Grace, he commissioned Conway to bring them together. In the mean time Lord Gower reproaching the Duke with negotiating at once with the Bedfords and Rockinghams, as Conway had foreseen, the Duke denied even to Conway the having authorized him to settle a meeting. We were struck with this, and recollected how easily his Grace had been engaged by Lord Chatham to accept the Treasury, after the most vehement protestations against it; and how often and how lightly of late he had refused, and then consented to remain there. Now, on having seen the King at Richmond, his Grace protested against holding the Treasury if Lord Temple was to be associated to equal power.