CHAPTER XXIX.

The Prince's claim continued-Walpole proposes a compromise-Disliked by the King and Queen-King's message to the Prince-His answerDiscussion between the Queen and Lord Hervey on this point-The debate in the Commons-Pulteney's speech-Walpole's answer-The Prince defeated.

[ON Monday the 21st February,] the day before that which was appointed for the great debate of this important question in the House of Commons-all hopes being now lost of preventing its coming there by any methods which had hitherto been tried-Sir Robert Walpole, who feared extremely, unless something was done to alter the present situation of things, the King's party would be beaten, resolved to persuade the King to send a message to the Prince to make a sort of treaty of composition.

He sent for Lord Hervey early in the morning, communicated this design to him, and told him the particulars of this overture of accommodation were-for the King to tell the Prince he would settle a jointure forthwith on the Princess (which really had been under consideration), and at the same time to let the Prince know he would settle the 50,000l. a-year he now gave him, out of his power.

Lord Hervey said in the first place he believed Sir Robert would find great difficulty in bringing the King into this measure; in the next, that he did not believe it would alter a vote-that everybody would call it a

show of yielding in the King, and giving nothing: but that what he feared most of all was, lest the King and Queen, who hated their son so inveterately, might construe it to be a management for their son in Sir Robert Walpole, and never forgive it him.

To this Sir Robert answered, that without a measure of this kind he should certainly to-morrow lose the question-that the great cry of the most moderate people was composed of the injustice of having yet given the Princess no jointure, and the Prince being only a pensioner at pleasure on the King, by having nothing secured to him; and though, in reality, what he proposed was, as Lord Hervey said, giving the Prince nothing, and the 100,000l. was the chief point, yet these two objections and complaints which he had mentioned being removed by the King's sending this message, it would disarm the Prince's party of two arguments against which there was no answer to be found; that as to the umbrage the King and Queen might take at it, and the jealousies it might infuse in their minds of his having underhand any management for the Prince, he must risk it and do as well as he could to combat those consequences; "and as it is my way, you know, my dear Lord, and when you come to be in my place I advise you to make it your way too, to provide against the present difficulty that presses, I think I shall by this message either get the Prince to postpone to-morrow's affair and enter into treaty, or have it to say for the King to-morrow that he had made the first step to peace, and that his son had refused to parley, and sounded this Parliamentary trumpet to battle." Lord Hervey said Sir Robert Walpole was a much

VOL. II.

S

better judge what to do in this case than he pretended to be, but it was his opinion the message would neither put off the battle, nor get him one deserter; and that to his own troops it would have an air of diffidence and retreat; besides the danger which he mentioned before, and what he thought most to be avoided, which was, giving a distrust of his favouring the Prince to the King and Queen, who were too apt to be suspicious on all occasions, and were particularly so he knew wherever their son was concerned.

Sir Robert said he had talked of this measure last night to the Pelhams, and that they were both extremely for it. "You will say, I know (says he), they are always of the temporising and palliating side, and I grant you they are so, and generally there are points too on which we differ, but I really think now it is all we have left for it; and as there is no time to be lost, I will dress, go to Court this moment, and go to work upon our stubborn master."

Accordingly they went together to St. James's, where Sir Robert Walpole, by the same arguments I have already mentioned, first brought the Queen into this measure, and then the King. The Dukes of Grafton and Devonshire (Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward) were first sent to the Prince to let him know the Cabinet Council had a message to deliver to him from the King, and to desire to know when they might wait on him; and the Prince saying they might come whenever they pleased, the Lord Chancellor,' Lord President, Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain, Dukes of Richmond,

'Lord Hardwicke had on that morning received the Great Seal, and this was his first official act.

Argyle, and Newcastle, Earls of Pembroke and Scarborough, and Lord Harrington repaired immediately to the Prince's apartment, and Lord Chancellor from a written copy read the following message to his Royal Highness:

"His Majesty has commanded us to acquaint your Royal Highness, in his name, that, upon your Royal Highness's marriage, he immediately took into his royal consideration the settling a proper jointure upon the Princess of Wales; but his sudden going abroad, and his late indisposition since his return, had hitherto retarded the execution of these his gracious intentions; from which short delay his Majesty did not apprehend any inconvenience could arise; especially since no application had in any manner been made to him upon this subject by your Royal Highness; and that his Majesty hath now given orders for settling a jointure upon the Princess of Wales, as far as he is enabled by law, suitable to her high rank and dignity: which he will, in proper time, lay before his Parliament, in order to be rendered certain and effectual for the benefit of her Royal Highness.

"The King has further commanded us to acquaint your Royal Highness that, although your Royal Highness has not thought fit, by any application to his Majesty, to desire that your allowance of fifty thousand pounds per annum, which is now paid you by monthly payments, at the choice of your Royal Highness, preferably to quarterly payments, might, by his Majesty's farther grace and favour, be rendered less precarious, his Majesty, to prevent the bad consequences which he apprehends may follow from the undutiful measures which his Majesty is informed your Royal Highness has been advised to pursue, will grant to your Royal Highness, for his Majesty's life, the said fifty thousand pounds per annum, to be issuing out of his Majesty's Civil List revenues, over and above your Royal Highness's revenues arising from the Duchy of Cornwall; which his Majesty thinks a very competent allowance, considering his numerous issue, and the great expenses which do and must necessarily attend an honourable provision for his whole family."

To this message his Royal Highness returned a verbal answer, which the Lords of the Council who attended him, immediately after they received it, withdrew to put into writing to the best of their recollection, and delivered it to the King in the following words :

"That his Royal Highness desired the Lords to lay him, with all humility, at his Majesty's feet, and to assure his Majesty that he had, and ever should retain, the utmost duty for his royal person; that his Royal Highness was very thankful for any instance of his Majesty's goodness to him or the Princess, and particularly for his Majesty's intention of settling a jointure upon her Royal Highness: but that, as to the message, the affair was now out of his hands, and therefore he could give no answer to it."

After which his Royal Highness used many dutiful expressions towards his Majesty; and then added, "Indeed, my Lords, it is in other hands-I am sorry for it: or to that effect.

His Royal Highness concluded with earnestly desiring the Lords to represent his answer to his Majesty in the most respectful and dutiful manner.

It was very plain by this answer that the Prince was very willing and ready to receive any favour the King pleased to bestow upon him, and to return as good words as he received, but not to take words instead of money, or to recede from any step he had taken, or to slacken his in what he had resolved to pursue.

pace

The King and Queen were both extremely enraged at this reception of the message. The King reproached Sir Robert Walpole a little roughly for having persuaded him to send it; to which Sir Robert Walpole answered that the good he expected from it was to be reaped to-morrow, not to-day; and that he had pro