Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/170

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
144
WILLIAM, EARL OF SHELBURNE
CH. III

joined with. He is a man of very weak understanding, and I wish I could impute to that alone what is wrong in him. His refusing to go on with the King's Measures towards peace your Lordship will call timidity, but when Lord Mansfield could inspire him with the thought of calling Lord Hardwicke and the Duke of Newcastle to the King's assistance, was there no permanency in employment do you believe hung out to him by Lord Mansfield, which his fears made him think would not be the case if he went on with you? Weak and fearful as he is, had he been honest, he would not have brought you into the dilemma you was in in October last.[1] When in a great office he withholds from the King and you all the use of it to Government, you will say it is a Catonical temper and mulish resolution not to depart from what he once lays down. Let no such mule be in such an office. But, my Lord, a man who can be a mule with his friend and benefactor, has neither good nature, good sense, nor honesty; and, indeed, I think him deficient in all. In the House of Commons he will ever be a tiresome incumbrance, unless the chief persons there have authority enough to set him, like other incumbrances, aside and out of the way.

"I now come to the House of Commons, and as there never was one so well disposed to be governed, it is the greatest pity there should be danger, as there is, of its becoming ungovernable. Sir Francis Dashwood is an honest man, has the best intentions, and may be recovered from any of those starts which he is subject to. But he is not fit for the station he is in, and it is too late in life for him to make himself so. I have considered it well, and do with the greatest confidence advise that Mr. Oswald be made Chancellor of the Exchequer. His abilities are so great and so well known to be so, that nobody will think he was made because he was a Scotchman;[2] many undoubtedly will say so, but when people say what everybody

  1. This allusion is to the negotiations for peace.
  2. James Oswald, of Dunnikier, and Gilbert Elliot (afterwards Sir Gilbert, and father of the first Lord Minto) were "Scots and Commissioners of the Treasury" (Walpole's Memoirs, i. i 55). Oswald was regarded as a great authority on all commercial