When Count Kinski, therefore, by order of the Emperor, in the most obliging and most captivating manner, made this proposal to the King at Hanover, his Majesty desired Count Kinski to assure the Emperor of the great gratitude with which he received this honour; but said he could neither think of doing anything so wrong to himself as appearing at the head of an army, as King of England, in which no Englishman was to be exposed or fight under him, and could as little persuade himself to do anything so contrary to the interest of the Emperor as take the command of the Imperial troops out of the able and experienced hands in which it was at present lodged: that, if anything could induce him to take such a step, it would be the having Prince Eugene always with him, and being sure that things, though his Majesty had the nominal command, would be then done as much in pursuance of that great man's advice as before they had been in obedience to his order; but that, if he had been hitherto suspected of not doing everything in his power for the service of his Imperial Majesty, and had made himself liable to the reproach of faults of omission, it would be the highest imprudence in him to incur further reproach for faults of commission, which must be his situation if any sinister accident should happen, and he should make himself responsible for the chance of war; nor could he hope to avoid that additional demerit, however unjustly it might be imputed to him, since he had already felt the weight of being upbraided (in a manner he had as little deserved) for the hitherto ill success of his good offices towards procuring a peace.

In this manner was the King saved from the inconveniences into which he would have drawn himself and

this country had the songs of these military sirens (the songs he was always most ready to listen to) prevailed on his Majesty to follow their invitation; but Sir Robert Walpole had, before he set out, tied him so fast to the mast that he enjoyed the safety of Ulysses, though he did not, like him, owe that safety to his own prudence and foresight.

When new proposals were made to the Allies for a cessation of arms, they offered to agree to an armistice, provided things should remain just in the condition they now were, and every article of accommodation be referred to a Congress.

The policy of the Allies in this demand was, that all the Emperor's possessions in Italy might be cantoned out, and remain in the hands of the two Princes that had conquered them; that Mantua, the only place the Emperor yet retained in Italy, might not be reduced, because they did not know what to do with it if it were -the Kings of Spain and Sardinia not being able to agree about it; that the Diet of Poland, which was just going to meet, might not confirm by civil power to King Augustus what military power had acquired for him; and that the Elector of Bavaria, by the march of forty thousand Russians through his territories, might neither be obliged to abandon the interests of France nor be punished for having hitherto adhered to them.

This proposal, therefore, as the single preliminary to an armistice, of leaving things just as they were, and referring all disputes to a Congress, was rejected by the Emperor and the maritime powers; whilst the summer was protracted without anything material being done

either in the cabinet or the field: the armies on the Rhine doing nothing but looking at one another; and the great acquisition of the unopposed armies of the Allies in Italy amounting to nothing more than the taking of Mirandola, which, although the work of the whole summer, ought naturally to have been nothing more than the employment of a week.

Whatever step Sir Robert Walpole took in England with regard to all these negotiations, though concerted solely, and concluded absolutely, in reality by the Queen and him in her closet, wore the face of being always as much the act of the whole Cabinet Council as theirsnot a letter coming from Hanover relating to these things that was not communicated to the Cabinet Council, nor any piece of advice sent thither but what was signed by them; so that Sir Robert Walpole, with a dexterity equal to his power, whilst in fact he did everything alone, was responsible for nothing but in common; whilst those ciphers of the Cabinet signed everything he dictated, and, without the least share in honour or power, bound themselves equally with him in case this political merchant should be bankrupt.

4

On the other side of the water, the sagacious Lord Harrington, who, dull as he was, was not such a fool as not to know in what manner things were transacted here, set up for an interest of his own with the King, and of course pretended to have an opinion of his own in what was doing; accordingly, he was perpetually sending over despatches hither, in which he took the liberty, under the pretence of differing only with the

Who had accompanied the King to Hanover as Secretary of State.

Cabinet Council, to arraign all the acts and cavil at all the measures of the Queen.

It was thought to be by his advice, too, that the King, in several things, did acts as King at Hanover, particularly those of signing commissions for officers, which in law, to be sure, were not valid acts, the regal power not being divisible, and the instrument that constituted the Queen Regent having of course delegated all the regal power to, and vested it in, her.

Sir Robert Walpole, as well as the Lord Chancellor and Lord Hardwicke, soon hit this blot; they saw the absurdity of the proceeding, and represented it to the Queen, but she absolutely forbade them speaking of it, or endeavouring to touch this point by mentioning it to the King; knowing full well, from the temper of his Majesty, let her be ever so manifestly and indubitably in the right, the danger there would be in starting the least controversion of any power he had a mind to claim or exercise; and how much the dispute lying between him and her, though merely in a point of form, would make the path more slippery, and render the step more delicate.

Whilst the King was at Hanover there happened a marriage in England which I believe surprised his Majesty as much as it did many of his subjects; I mean Lady Suffolk's with Mr. George Berkeley, an old lover of Mrs. Pulteney. Mr. Berkeley was neither young, handsome, healthy, nor rich, which made people wonder what induced Lady Suffolk's prudence to deviate into this unaccountable piece of folly: some imagined it was

5

5 And a great friend, private and political, of Mr. Pulteney.-(Ante, vol. i. p. 10.)

to persuade the world that nothing criminal had ever passed between her and the King; others that it was to pique the King: if this was her reason, she succeeded very ill in her design, for the King, in answer to that letter from the Queen that gave him the first account of this marriage, told her, "J'étois extrèmement surpris de la disposition que vous m'avez mandé que ma vieille maîtresse a fait de son corps en mariage à ce vieux goutteux George Berkeley, et je m'en rejouis fort. Je ne voudrois pas faire de tels présens à mes amis; et quand mes ennemis me volent, plut à Dieu que ce soit toujours de cette façon."

6

Those who had a mind to abuse Lady Suffolk the most upon this occasion said she had been so long used to a companion, that she could not live without something in that style, and that at her time of life, as there was none to be lost, so she took up with the first engagement that offered. The Queen, who was the first body that told me this marriage was certainly over, and would in a very short time be publicly owned, was extremely peevish with me for saying I did not believe one word of the matter, and that I was sure it was somebody who proposed making their court, by putting Lady Suffolk in this simple light, who had told her this improbable story. "Mon Dieu," said the Queen, "what an opiniâtre devil you are, that you will never believe what one tells you one knows to be true, because you happen not to think it probable! Perhaps," continued

6 I do not find the exact date of the birth of the "vieux goutteux," but he was a college contemporary of Lord Chesterfield (Suff. Cor., i. 1), and, if he was about his age, would be now under forty. The King calls him his "ennemi" because he was in strong opposition.