No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
page 61 note 1 Both here and in a later letter Chesterfield loses sight of the fact that Frederick had his own motive for secrecy in the desire to conceal his projected desertion from France. Austria, from a desire to make mischief between Prussia and France, was much more likely to publish the transaction, and did so.
page 63 note 1 The Convention of Hanover was signed on 26 August (N.S.). Newcastle may have been misled by the fact that Harrington announced its signature in a letter dated the 27th (Add. MSS. 32,705, fo. 61).
page 64 note 1 The Grand Duke of Tuscany and ex-Duke of Lorraine was elected Emperor as Francis I on 13 September (N.S.). He received seven votes, the representatives of Prussia and the Palatinate having left Frankfort after protesting against the procedure adopted by the electoral dict.
page 65 note 1 The Marquis d'Argenson was inclined to agree with Granville. If he could have had his way, the French, instead of concentrating upon the Netherlands, would have employed their main force in Germany, partly to relieve Prussia, and partly to dominate the election. In his opinion the conquests in Flanders, which only inflamed European opinion against France and would have to be resigned at the end of the war, were no equivalent for the return of the imperial dignity to the house of Austria.
page 65 note 2 This was one of the supplementary letters which were labelled “private”, but might be shown to the King at Newcastle's discretion. They were almost always written by Chesterfield himself, and composed with great artfulness. But they are quite different in character and tone from the really confidential letters.
page 66 note 1 This is really the first of the genuinely “private” letters from Dublin. It is clear that the invitation to continue the confidential correspondence came from Newcastle, and that Chesterfield waited for such an invitation before writing anything more intimate than the friendly letter of 2nd September.
page 66 note 2 One of the arguments used to induce the King to consent to the Prussian convention was that Frederick might attack Hanover.
page 67 note 1 There was much contemporary confusion, as there has also been among historians, between Wasner, the Austrian envoy in England, and Count Wassenaer, the Dutch noble, who was prominent in European diplomacy at the time, but that Chesterfield should confuse them is almost unthinkable. It seems like a mere slip of the pen. But see below, p. 89.
page 67 note 2 See above, p. 61 note.
page 67 note 3 This means that it will necessitate the early closing of the war.
page 68 note 1 On the Finches, William and Edward (“the black funereal Finches”, as Hanbury Williams called them), see below, pp. III, 113, 115. They held the household offices of Vice-Chamberlain and Groom of the Bedchamber, and Chesterfield suspected them of serving as a channel of communication between Granville and the King. Edward Finch, the Groom of the Bedchamber, had been a diplomatist, and concluded the first (futile) treaty between England and Russia. He was at St. Petersburg during the revolution of 6 December 1741, which seated Elizabeth on the throne. See an article on “The First Anglo-Russian Treaty” in the English Historical Review, vol. xliii, no. 171 (July, 1928). The two Finches were younger brothers of the Earl of Winchilsea. Edward was M.P. for the University of Cambridge, while William sat for Cockermouth.
page 70 note 1 Charles Emmanuel of Sardinia came very near a separate peace in December 1745. See Lodge, Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, chapter iii. He would have made it if Maria Theresa had not concluded the treaty of Dresden on Christmas Day 1745.
page 72 note 1 This and the previous letter to Andrew Stone are inserted because they are essentially part of the private correspondence with Newcastle.
page 73 note 1 This must refer to Chesterfield's semi-official “private” letter of 29 September (Add. MSS. 32,705, fos. 225–229), in which he advocated the recall of Cumberland to command the army, the giving of no quarter to the rebels in the field, and the most unsparing prosecution of all who have aided or encouraged them.
page 74 note 1 For the King's Speech, delivered on 17 October (O.S.) 1745, see Parl. Hist. XIII, p. 1309. The exclusion of foreign affairs was partially due to Lord Hardwicke's ruling that the obligation of secrecy, even though it had been broken elsewhere, precluded any reference to the Convention of Hanover. Hardwicke to Newcastle, 13 October, in Add. MSS. 32,705, fo. 256.
page 75 note 1 The Battle of Soor, 30 September (N.S.). Frederick's remarkable moderation as to terms, in spite of his sensational victories in this year, is not only a proof of great practical wisdom, but it also shows how completely he was alienated by the callous neglect of his interests by France, and how convinced he was that this second war had been a blunder on his own part. Frederick himself admitted “qu' à certains égards cette guerre causa une effusion de sang inutile” (Mémoires, I. p. 371).
page 75 note 2 On the subject of English partiality for Sardinia, see my Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, pp. 34–36, 57, 105, 121, 399, 402 note.
page 75 note 3 Bedford was eager to use the capture of Cape Breton as a stepping-stone towards the reduction of Canada. See his Correspondence, I. p. 65.
page 75 note 4 It was characteristic of Newcastle to suggest that there should be no letter to Gower unless Chesterfield's views agreed with his own.
page 77 note 1 i.e. for the war against Prussia.
page 77 note 2 Lord Sandwich in 1747 argued for the surrender of Gibraltar rather than Cape Breton, but Newcastle refused to listen to him. See Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, pp. 238–240.
page 78 note 1 But it was altered in May 1747 by the restoration of a Stadholder.
page 79 note 1 Professor Basil Williams has taken this letter as the basis of his account of these negotiations in his Life of William Pitt Earl of Chatham, I. pp. 141–3.
page 80 note 1 In the original draft Newcastle stated that it fell to his lot to open the conference. This was subsequently deleted.
page 81 note 1 This parenthesis was inserted in the revised draft.
page 81 note 2 i.e. the last campaign. The Chesterfield Convention was on 30 March of the current year. See above, pp. 31, 37.
page 82 note 1 This was conclusively demonstrated in the Seven Years' War, when Pitt adopted the arguments urged by Newcastle and his friends at this conference.
page 82 note 2 Bedford was First Lord of the Admiralty. His Correspondence, edited by Lord John Russell, is a very valuable authority for this period.
page 83 note 1 On the eSorts of the Dutch to bring about such a joint peace see Lodge, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Diplomacy, chap. IV.
page 83 note 2 The last two sentences were interpolated in the revised draft.
page 85 note 1 This was Colonel Larrey, who was sent personally by van der Heim and not by the States General. On his mission and its failure see my Studies in Eighteenth-Century Diplomacy, pp. 137–141.
page 85 note 2 Lambert van Neck was Pensionary of Botterdam, and of course a staunch republican.
page 85 note 3 Fournier was a French sous-fermier, who had come to England in the summer on behalf of the ferme général to settle about a duty on tobacco from England. He was employed by Marshal Belleisle in negotiations with the British ministers, especially with Newcastle. See an intercepted dispatch from Zöhrern to Ulfeld, 3 September (N.S.) 1745, in S.P. For. Confidential, 62. Zöhrern assures the Austrian Chancellor that he will keep a careful watch on Fournier's movements.
page 86 note 1 Bussy, disguised under the name of Nelson, had been employed in 1745 in secret negotiations on the part of France. Puyzieulx, at his interview with Sandwich at Liège in 1747, proposed to send him over again, but the English ministers refused. See Studies in Eighteenth-Century Diplomacy, p. 289.
page 87 note 1 Chesterfield, punctiliously observing Newcastle's superior authority as Secretary of State, always, even in these confidential letters, describes his requests as “orders”.
page 88 note 1 A strong statement to make of a group which included so ambitious a politician as the elder Pitt. Compare below, p. 114.
page 89 note 1 Quoted from Larrey's instructions.
page 89 note 2 Terence, Andria, I, ii., 23.
page 89 note 3 This is the second time that Chesterfield has given this Dutch name to the Austrian envoy. See above, p. 67.
page 90 note 1 Bedford was Gower's son-in-law.
page 91 note 1 Nothing came of this negotiation, so that nobody was sent to Rotterdam. France refused to come to any terms with England, as long as the rebellion was going on and the tenure of the English crown was regarded in Paris as uncertain.
page 91 note 2 On account of his previous knowledge of Scotland, when he commenced the construction of his famous roads.
page 92 note 1 This refers to 1741, when a French army under Maillebois threatened Hanover, and George II, in his Electoral capacity, signed a treaty of neutrality with France.
page 94 note 1 Among the “advices” alluded to by Newcastle were intercepted dispatches from Scheffer, the Swedish envoy in France, to the Danish minister, Bernstorff. Hardwicke wrote to Newcastle on 29 December 1745 that some of these intercepted dispatches had fallen into the hands of the French when they captured a Dutch fishing-boat carrying mails, that their interception was thus known in Paris, and that the French might have used this channel to convey misleading information (Add. MSS. 32,705, fo. 466). By underlining these words Newcastle emphasized his rejection of the Chancellor's suggestion. Chesterfield's reply showed that he, on the other hand, agreed with Hardwicke (below, p. 100).
page 95 note 1 The Marquis d'Argenson had been Foreign Minister in France since November 1744, i.e. just before the fall of Carteret. Considering his importance in all the suggested schemes of general peace in 1745, it is not a little curious that the first mention of him in this correspondence should be delayed till January 1746.
page 95 note 2 Afterwards known as the Cardinal of York.
page 95 note 3 In all subsequent negotiations, and proposed negotiations, the English demand that France shall repudiate the cause of the Stewarts in perpetuity occupies a prominent place.
page 95 note 4 The treaties of Dresden, 25 December 1745.
page 96 note 1 See above, p. 38 and note.
page 96 note 2 The answer is in Add.MSS. 32,805, fo. 1. This answer, dated 3 January and signed by Harrington, dilates at considerable length upon the hampering troubles in England, and upon the duty of the Dutch to defend the Netherlands, which is to them a domestic task. But, apart from these distasteful excuses and exhortations, the document conveys the assurance that the English King will assist the Dutch “en tout ce qui sera de son pouvoir, vû la situation presente deses royaumes”. This was Newcastle's formula, which he had persuaded his colleagues to accept, and which he now tries to commend to Chesterfield.
page 97 note 1 The Hanoverian troops in the service of the allies received better pay than they did from their own ruler. When troops were sent by the Elector, nominally at his own expense, it was impossible to expect them to be content with lower pay than that of their fellow-countrymen serving in the same army. As George II refused to pay more than his normal rate, England had to make up the difference. This did not increase English love for the Hanoverians.
page 97 note 2 At this time Newcastle despaired of gaining Pitt and Cobham.
page 98 note 1 Tweeddale, an ally of Granville, was Secretary of State for Scotland. On his resignation the office was suppressed. In 1885 a Secretary for Scotland was re-appointed, and recently the holder of the office has been raised to the old rank of Secretary of State.
page 98 note 2 Written in full in the first draft, and then all but the initial letter erased.
page 98 note 3 This means that Newcastle will not use his authority as Secretary of State. Chesterfield, who had refused Lord Malton's request, was very indignant at the attempt to coerce him by an appeal to his official superior. See below, p. 103.
page 99 note 1 This postscript was evidently quite distinct from the rest of the letter, and was tacked on to it afterwards.
page 99 note 2 On Villiers' embassy to Berlin see Lodge, Great Britain and Prussia in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 61–63.
page 100 note 1 See above, p. 94, note.
page 100 note 2 Pitt's return to the Prince of Wales was very shortlived.
page 101 note 1 The Grenvilles were not yet Pitt's brothers-in-law, but they were closely allied with him, and served with him under the nominal leadership of Lord Cobham.
page 101 note 2 The answer to Boetzelaer concluded by expressing a hope that the Dutch would put themselves on the same footing with the British nation by declaring war against France. Nobody knew better than Chesterfield how chimerical this hope was. When he went to the Hague, he had been instructed to obtain such a declaration, but had reported it to be impossible.
page 101 note 3 This idea that the desertion of the Dutch would serve to screen the English ministry in the event of having to conclude an unpopular peace, was present to many minds. The Dutch were well aware of it, and resented it bitterly. See my Studies in Eighteenth-Century Diplomacy, pp. 132, 148.
page 102 note 1 His Grace was in the next year to show a fatal facility in accepting paper assurances as to the number of allied armies at their face value. Chesterfield's warnings on the subject had no effect.
page 102 note 2 This was exactly what France would not do. The French had had more than enough of war in Germany.
page 102 note 3 It is possible that Chesterfield's forecast might have been fulfilled, if d'Argenson had been allowed, as he wished, to conciliate the Dutch. As the military party insisted upon a policy of intimidation, the invasion of Dutch territory enabled the Stadhouder party to prevail. But their success did not remove the military and financial weakness of the Republic.
page 104 note 1 Newcastle was apparently not pleased with the refusal, as he made no reply to this letter, and did not write again for a full month.
page 106 note 1 Under Poynings' Act, all Irish Bills required the approval of the English Council.
page 107 note 1 Chesterfield had learnt this maxim from Walpole, when he himself had suffered from it. On Walpole's implacability to opponents, whether Whig or Tory, see F. S. Oliver, The Endless Adventure, p. 256.
page 107 note 2 Lord Archibald Hamilton, M.P, for Dartmouth, was deprived at this time of his seat on the Admiralty Board.
page 107 note 3 This is extremely disputable. If the allies had pressed France immediately after Dettingen, Frederick would probably have intervened earlier, and it was Prussian intervention which gave France her ascendancy in the Netherlands.
page 108 note 1 This letter, curiously isolated, is printed in Bradshaw's edition of Chesterfield's Letters, vol. II. pp. 791–793. It is the only one of these letters which appears there.
page 108 note 2 The new session began on 14 January (O.S.) 1746.
page 109 note 1 Lord Bath was not altogether wrong. However difficult it may have been in the last two centuries for the sovereign to refuse to take a particular man as chief minister, the Crown retained a veto upon the selection of subordinate ministers. Queen Victoria is said to have exercised such a veto against Mr. Labouchere. It seems a smaller exercise of prerogative to exclude a man from a particular office.
page 110 note 1 The order is an odd one. In modern usage a Prime Minister would resign for the whole ministry. But at the time simultaneous resignations were unknown. This was the nearest approach that had yet been made, and both the King and Granville were obviously quite unprepared for it.
page 110 note 2 The King had vainly offered to make Winnington Chancellor of the Exchequer in succession to Pelham.
page 111 note 1 Charles, Duke of Grafton, an amiable nonentity, held the office of Lord Chamberlain from 1724 to 1767. His grandson, Augustus Henry, was the Grafton whom Junius denounced.
page 111 note 2 Pitt became joint Vice Treasurer of Ireland, but he only held the office until April, when on Winnington's death he became Paymaster General.
page 112 note 1 This sentence was interpolated in the revised draft.
page 112 note 2 These words are enclosed in a pencil line, and in the margin, also in pencil, is the word “omitt”.
page 114 note 1 But compare the assurances given in his letter of 25 November. Above, p. 88.
page 114 note 2 For a vivid description of Richard Grenville (later Earl Temple) and his brothers see Lord Rosebery's Chatham, pp. 130–140.
page 114 note 3 Archibald Campbell, third Duke of Argyle, had succeeded his brother John, the General, in 1743. As Earl of Islay he had been entrusted by Walpole with the control of Scottish patronage, and he ruled the northern Kingdom as absolutely as did Henry Dundas in a later generation.
page 114 note 4 Hugh, third Earl of Marchmont. As Lord Polwarth, he sat in the Commons from 1734 till 1740, when he was disqualified by succeeding to the Scottish peerage. As he did not become a representative peer till 1750, he dropped out of parliamentary life for ten years. He had made a reputation as an opponent of Walpole, and he continued to be closely associated with Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and other opposition leaders until December 1744, when many of his friends joined the ministry. He himself remained in the cold until 1747, when he received a post in Scotland. His diary (Marchmont Papers, vol. I) is a valuable and much quoted authority for this decade.
page 115 note 1 Alexander Hume Campbell was the twin brother of Lord Marchmont. He also entered Parliament in 1734 and acquired a considerable reputation as an able speaker.
page 115 note 2 Diemar was a General in the service of Hesse-Cassel, who had earned his pension by helping to maintain friendly relations between England and the Landgrave.
page 116 note 1 I can find no such surname. But a certain Sewallis Shirley was at this time M.P. for Brackley, Northants, and the peculiarity of the name makes it practically certain that Chesterfield alluded to him.
page 117 note 1 Granville took both the secretaryships for two days, and actually sent out letters to the envoys in foreign courts intimating his accession to office.
page 117 note 2 The meaning of this cryptic sentence seems to be that less misunderstanding would arise if the Finches were left in posts which were obviously due to court favour, than transferred to posts which would seem to be due to ministerial partiality.
page 118 note 1 See above, p. 40.
page 118 note 2 Sir John Hynde Cotton, who had sat in Parliament since 1708, was the most consistent and active Tory in the House of Commons. He had been appointed Treasurer of the Chamber in December 1744, but was dismissed in June 1746. Newcastle's letter intimating his dismissal is in Add. MSS. 32,707, fo. 336.
page 119 note 1 Elizabeth Farnese, who hated Sardinia and clung to the letter of the treaty of Fontainebleau, was furious when she learned that France was proposing to partition the prospective endowment of Don Philip. In the end she decided to accept the terms, but it was then too late, as Charles Emmanuel had broken off the negotiation and returned to the allies.
page 120 note 1 After the return of Colonel Larrey, the States General sent Count Wassenaer-Twickel (see above, p. 44) to Paris. He was not at first more successful than his predecessor, but he continued, with a subsequently appointed colleague, Gilles, to play a part in the negotiations with France to the close of the Conference at Breda in 1747.
page 120 note 2 Saxony in the end preferred to make a subsidy treaty with France, and was rewarded in 1747 when a daughter of Augustus III was chosen to be the second wife of the Dauphin.
page 120 note 3 It had been promised to the Dutch that the Hessians should return to the Netherlands.
page 121 note 1 The Duke of Dorset.
page 122 note 1 See above, p. 118, note. Newcastle did not follow Chesterfield's advice.
page 123 note 1 The Lord Chancellor has a very considerable ecclesiastical patronage.
page 123 note 2 Solomon Dayrolles, nephew and heir of James Dayrolles, for many years Resident at The Hague, was Chesterfield's godson and favourite protégé. He attended his godfather both at The Hague and at Dublin. In 1747 when Chesterfield was Secretary of State he sent Dayrolles to be Resident at The Hague. This appointment was bitterly resented by Lord Sandwich, who was Minister to the Republic. See Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, pp. 255–258.
page 125 note 1 For this letter see below, Appendix A.
page 126 note 1 At this point Newcastle's effort came to an end, and Andrew Stone took up the pen.
page 127 note 1 The story of the mission of the younger Maillebois and its failure is told in detail in Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, pp. 114–5.
page 127 note 2 For these Idées sur la Paix entire Messieurs le Marquis d'Argenson et le Gomte de Wassenaer, see Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, p. 146. There is a copy of the document itself in the Dutch State Papers (P.R.O.), 417, fo. 101, another in Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 32,706, fo. 270, and yet another in ibid. 32,808, fos. 96–104.
page 128 note 1 The Prince of Wales, who was associated with the opposition. He had been annoyed at not receiving the command of the troops in Scotland.
page 128 note 2 The Duke of Cumberland.
page 129 note 1 Chesterfield was entitled, by experience, to speak with authority about the Dutch, but he can have had no equal or adequate knowledge of the position of Sardinia.
page 129 note 2 Sir John Barnard was M.P. for the City of London from 1722 to 1761. He was Lord Mayor in 1737. Like most of the City members in the eighteenth century, he was usually associated with the opposition. He had a reputation as an able financier, but he refused to be Chancellor of the Exchequer under Bath and Granville, when they tried to form a ministry in February 1746.
page 130 note 1 Owing to the fluidity of parties and the absence of party organization, eighteenth-century ministers were alarmed by what seems to us an insignificant opposition.
page 130 note 2 This is the “ostensible letter”, alluded to in its predecessor. As it was carefully designed for submission to the King, it does not belong to the strictly “private” letters. It is, however, included here, partly on account of its intrinsic interest, but mainly because it is an integral part of Chesterfield's answer to Newcastle's letter of 15 March.
page 130 note 3 There was always a mystery about George I's will, which George II had carried away and never disclosed. Chesterfield, who had married a natural daughter of the late King, was supposed to know its provisions or to have an interest in discovering them.
page 131 note 1 The letter of 23 March is one of the semi-official letters to “my Lord”, giving an account of the measures he has taken to prevent the transport of grain and meal to Scotland in little boats. He adds, as proof of the existence of this trade, that “new Spanish pistoles and, what is more surprising, Scotch money, are pretty common now in Ulster”.
page 132 note 1 The French forces were lulled into inactivity by the confident expectation of an armistice as a preliminary to a peace with Sardinia. They were therefore completely taken by sin-prise when the Sardinians suddenly captured Asti on their way to raise the siege of Alessandria. The Spaniards denounced the French as traitors, and the consequent discord enabled the forces of Austria and Sardinia to drive the Gallispans out of Italy.
page 132 note 2 This might have been the case if the Austrians had not lost Genoa after capturing it. The failure to re-take Genoa resulted in an absolute dead-lock in Italy, and meanwhile the continued French successes in the Netherlands enabled France in the end to extort concessions to Don Philip, which the military operations in Italy had failed to obtain.
page 133 note 1 Article 6 of the treaty of Warsaw provided that, in return for the subsidy of £90,000, Saxony should send 12,000 men to the Netherlands, as soon as the danger to Bohemia was satisfactorily ended. The Saxon answer to the claim of the maritime powers was that the treaty of Dresden was not a satisfactory end.
page 133 note 2 The sending of Gilles to France was followed by a great quickening of the Franco-Dutch negotiation. Gilles himself became Pensionary in this year on the death of van der Heim, and played a prominent part in the Conference at Breda (see Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, chapter V). He was still Pensionary when the revolution of May 1747 restored the Stadholdership to William IV.
page 134 note 1 The extended coalition put an end to all fear of serious parliamentary opposition. But it tended to produce increased discord within the ministry.
page 134 note 2 i.e. commanded by Major-General Frampton.
page 134 note 3 The expedition was not ready in time to satisfy the naval authorities, and so it was postponed to the following year, and in the end never sailed. See Bedford Correspondence, Vol. I, 182, and Hardwicke to Newcastle, 24 August, 1746 (Add. MSS. 32,708, fo. 138).
page 135 note 1 For a full account of the measures taken in Scotland, see Yorke, Hardwicke, vol. I. chap. 17.
page 137 note 1 On these ministerial troubles, which arose on the death of Winnington and the consequent shuffle of offices, see Bedford Correspondence, I, pp. 78, 83, 84, 86, 88, 93, 102. The chief agent in composing them seems to have been Lord Sandwich, who pacified his cousin Halifax. There is no mention of any intervention on the part of Chesterfield.
page 138 note 1 This letter and the next are indexed in the British Museum Catalogue of Add. MSS. as if the recipient was unknown. But the internal evidence is conclusive that they were addressed to Andrew Stone.
page 138 note 2 See Sandwich's dispatch from Breda to Harrington, 6 October 1746 (P.R.O. S.P. For. Holland, 421, fo. 111). Puyzieulx was reported to be in a violent rage because his courier had been robbed of his dispatches and carried off a prisoner by Austrian hussars near Antwerp. He accused the English and Dutch plenipotentiaries of being parties to the outrage, and declared that he would take no part in the Conference until he had entire satisfaction. He was partially pacified when Gilles wrote to Waldeck and Sandwich to Ligonier urging immediate punishment and reparation. In the end the courier's bag was found thrown away with the dispatches intact. This disposes of Chesterfield's suspicions.
page 138 note 3 An ironical parody of the arguments employed to defend the retention of Cape Breton.
page 139 note 1 George Stone, Bishop of Deny. See above, p. 4.
page 138 note 2 Alluding to the notorious differences between Newcastle and Pelham on the question of an early peace.
page 138 note 3 A cousin of Chesterfield.