CHAP. in this part of the world are beginning to awaken, and most of III. them will, I hope, adopt the Yorkshire measures. I do not yet hear anything to the honour of the west, which I am sorry for.'1 Kent was soon in the field; and early in January Mahon was elected chairman of its committee.2 At the close of his life he wrote to his old friend, Major Cartwright: 'Though a younger man than yourself, I am your senior in reform. You first published on that subject in 1776, I in 1774.'3 No such pamphlet or publication has been found; but his categorical statement, which can hardly be gainsaid, shows how early he had begun to champion the cause. He frequently consulted Wyvill on questions of organisation and propaganda; while Fox, Burke, Dunning, Sir George Savile, Shelburne, the Dukes of Rutland and Richmond were among his other correspondents. Their letters are among his papers, with a vellum-bound volume, 'Proceedings of the Committee of the County of Kent.' On October 19, 1780, we read that the Hon. William Pitt was added to the Committee.' Each county committee deputed two or three of its members to meet in London to confer on the objects of the agitation. As one of the deputies for Kent, Mahon sedulously attended the meetings held throughout March. Besides advocating reform in his own county of Kent, he interested himself in the Buckinghamshire Association. He was candidate for Chipping Wycombe, a close borough under the influence of Lord Shelburne, to whom he wrote regarding Parliamentary Reform. Shelburne replied as follows: 'High Wycombe: April 7, 1780. 'My dear Lord,-I am very sorry that the Buckinghamshire Committee has been appointed to meet in London, as they cannot be assisted by the country members without manifest inconvenience. I cannot with any propriety ask the gentlemen in this part to go out of the country. As to the business which it meets upon, I can only repeat to your Lordship that I cannot discover in the plan of the Yorkshire Association a single exceptionable principle. General union is acknowledged to be essential to our success. To this end there must be a reasonable lead somewhere. Where can it remain so safely or so honourably as with the Meeting of the County of York, who have uniformly proceeded hitherto with a view to measures and not to men, 1 Pitt to Lady Chatham, January 12, 1780. Chatham Papers, Record Office. . Wyvill Papers, iii. 180, &c. * Cartwright's Life, i. 82, note. 4 Wyvill Papers, i. 116, 129, 426, 429. and regarding whom there does not exist the smallest well- CHAP. 'I have the honour to be, with the greatest attachment, The more far-seeing Reformers were now beginning to feel that even to obtain Economical Reform would only be to lop one head off corruption: the monster itself would not be destroyed. They commenced a further agitation for Parliamentary Reform and Parliaments of shorter duration. At this time the people had but little voice in the government of the country. Of the two great political parties of the day, Cartwright truly observed that the Tories believed in the divine right of Kings and the Whigs in the divine right of noblemen and gentry. The divine right of the people was left to be upheld by that small band of Radical pioneers who composed the early political societies. To set forth the need for Parliamentary Reform, Major Cartwright, with the assistance of Dr. John Jebb and Capel Lofft, founded the 'Society for Promoting Constitutional Information.'2 Among its members were Horne Tooke, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, the Duke of Richmond, Wyvill, and Mahon. Parliamentary Reform, however, soon divided the Reformers. All the Whigs favoured Economical Reform; but on the subject of Parliamentary Reform their opinions were at variance. While Shelburne, Fox, and their adherents were ready to give it their support, it was opposed by Rockingham and his followers, 1 Stanhope Papers. 2 Wyvill Papers, ii. 463; Bland Burges Papers, p. 178; Daly, Radical Pioneers, p. 114; Jephson, The Platform, i. 190. CHAP. including Portland and Burke. At a meeting of the BuckingIII. hamshire Association, held on May 27, at Aylesbury, Lord Temple having declared himself antagonistic to Parliamentary Reform, Mahon rose as its champion. He moved the adoption of the York programme, which demanded a fairer representation of the people by adding to the House of Commons at least a hundred members, and asked for Parliaments of shorter duration. 'Triennial Parliaments,' he declared, ' are the unalienable right of the subject and were illegally wrested from the people by the Septennial Act.'1 The value of his support was quickly recognised. 'The transaction of the business,' wrote Wyvill, many years later, 'necessarily required frequent communication between the deputies. Lord Mahon and Mr. Wyvill soon found they were agreed in their hatred to a corrupt system of administration, in their zealous attachment to liberty on the genuine principles of the constitution, and in their firm conviction that, without a radical reform of abuses in the frame of Parliament itself, the official regulation proposed by Burke, as the grand panacea for all our national complaints, would be found no better than transient anodynes, whose slight and insignificant effect would soon be overpowered by the deeply vitiated habit of our representative body. This general similarity in their principles and views produced an intimacy between the noble Viscount and the writer, which gradually became confidential. It was at Lord Mahon's house that he was first made known to Mr. Pitt ; but whether the introduction was proposed by Lord Mahon or desired by Mr. Pitt he does not distinctly recollect. At this interview the sentiments of Mr. Pitt on the dangerous situation of the country at the time, on the corrupt state of Parliament, and the necessity for reformation at the request and interposition of the people, were similar to those of Lord Mahon and the other members of the General Deputation.' 2 At this moment occurred an unfortunate episode, which seriously injured Reformers in the estimation of Parliament. In 1778 Sir George Savile had carried a Bill to relieve Roman Catholics from some of the unjust penalties inflicted upon them by the law. But the spirit of bigotry was not dead. There sprang into existence the society known as the Protestant Association, which elected as president Lord George Gordon, a fanatical youth of questionable sanity, who represented Ludgershall in Parliament. He was a tiresome speaker and one rarely listened to until he became noted for his vehement 2 Wyvill Papers. 1 London Courant, May 29, 1780. 'No Popery' harangues. On June 2, 1780, many thousands CHAP. assembled in St. George's Fields, and marched in four divisions III. to the Houses of Parliament. They filled the lobbies while Lord George presented to the Commons a voluminous petition against Savile's Bill. The House voted to adjourn its consideration until the sixth. A scene of alarm and excitement ensued. Lord George, running backwards and forwards to a window, informed the mob what was taking place, and held up certain politicians to execration. The House of Lords,' wrote Horace Walpole in his sprightly way, 'was sunk from the temple of dignity to an asylum of lamentable objects. There were Lords Hillsborough, Stormont, and Townshend without their bags and with their hair dishevelled about their ears, and Lord Willoughby without his periwig, and Lord Mansfield, whose glasses had been broken, quivering on the woolsack like an aspen. Lord Ashburnham had been torn out of his chariot, the Bishop of Lincoln had been ill-treated, the Duke of Northumberland had lost his watch in the holy hurly-burly, and Mr. Mackenzie his snuff-box and spectacles. Alarm came that the mob had thrown down Lord Boston and were trampling him to death-which they almost did. They had diswigged Lord Bathurst on his answering them stoutly, and told him he was the pope and an old woman.'1 Without the rabble thundered on the doors of both Houses, while within the members were considering if they must open the doors and fight their way out, sword in hand. 'Some of their Lordships with their hair about their shoulders, others smutted with dirt, most of them as pale as the Ghost in Hamlet, crowded together all speaking at the same moment and none listening to the other.' 2 While others were shaking in their shoes, each palpitating peer uncertain who would be the next victim, Lord Mahon seems to have been the only person who acted with any decision or initiative. Fear was unknown to him. From the balcony of a neighbouring coffee-house he addressed the disorderly rabble. He was well-fitted for such an effort. His voice was stentorian, his language energetic, his gestures forcible Westminster Election of 1774 had made him known to many of the crowd. His eloquence was remarkably effective in quelling the tumult, and we are told by Walpole that 'Lord Mahon chiefly contributed by his harangues to conjure down the tempest.' Before the arrival of the Guards' he had prevailed on so many of the people to disperse ' that the Lords were able to depart in quiet. 1 The '4 The same night these 'pious ragamuffins' destroyed some 1 Walpole's Letters. 3 Walpole's Letters, xi. 189. 2 Parl. History, xxi. 669, note. Ibid., xi. 192 and 195. CHAP. Catholic chapels, and the riot became more and more formidable. III. On the sixth they burnt Newgate and opened other prisons, besides destroying and pillaging the houses of Lord Mansfield, Sir George Savile, and others. The mob, recruited by some 2,000 criminals, was out for plunder, and on the seventh, besides destroying King's Bench and New Bridewell, threatened the Bank. Finally 20,000 troops were collected and the rioters subdued. Insignificant and abortive in itself, the tumult did infinite damage to the cause of Reform. The Gordon Riots, it was said, originated in an agitation, an association, and a petition. These were the methods used by the Reformers, and would they not culminate in a similar result? In truth the largest share of the blame was due to dilatory ministers and an inadequate police, who suffered the riots to assume the proportions of an insurrection. The Government took the hint, and exerted itself to form a police sufficient to control mobs without the interposition of the military. At a county meeting held at the Star Inn, Maidstone,1 on July 3, Mahon moved and carried that it be strongly recommended to all Noblemen, Gentlemen, Yeomen Freeholders, and Householders in the County of Kent, and to the sons of such persons, to provide themselves with a good musket and bayonet for the purpose of strengthening the Civil Power, and maintaining the peace of the said county; so that good order may without the aid or interposition of the military be effectually preserved within the same.' During these early years Pitt and his brother-in-law were on terms of the closest intimacy. In London he was constantly at Harley Street, and in the country he often rode over from Hayes to Chevening to see his little nieces, to whom he was tenderly attached. They were an uproarious party, and Pitt frequently alludes to their high spirits. His eyes told him they were in health,' says Lady Stanhope, and his ears told him they were in spirits.' Hester was the tomboy,' the Jockey Girl,' Griselda the little Book-devourer,' and Lucy the Beauty.' Hester was always her uncle's favourite. When Griselda was born, he writes: I am told my little niece is a perfect beauty, though I own I am hardly persuaded of it, and have extremely offended the nurse by not preferring her to Hester.' 2 Mahon was tenderly attached to his wife, and was alarmed by any signs of illness. Poor Charles,' writes Lady Stanhope on one occasion, ' is in the utmost distress.' 3 While Lord and Lady Mahon were 1 Wyvill Papers, i. 254. 2 W. Pitt to Lady Chatham, October 14, 1778. Chatham Papers. Lady Stanhope to Lady Chatham. December, 1776. |