Authors: Edward Cline
A
bout the time Hugh Kenrick arrived at Cricklegate, Samuel Johnson was hurrying back to London from a tour of Wales with his companions, Henry Thrale, a noted brewer, and his wife Hester, on word of the dissolution of Parliament. Thrale, member for Southwark, wished to be reelected. On his behalf — or perhaps at the behest of the ministry — Johnson went to work on a pamphlet addressed to British electors, “The Patriot,” which discoursed on the nature of true and fraudulent patriotism, the mendacity of Americans, the Middlesex elections, and the disgraceful conduct of the Commons over John Wilkes, whom in any event he thought ought to be thoroughly and repeatedly dunked.
“It is the quality of Patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see public dangers at a distance. The true Lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief.”
That the Americans were, by those criteria, true patriots, was not conceded by him. His remedy for the American troubles was to require of them unconditional submission to Crown authority, in payment of a debt of gratitude.
One afternoon, during a stroll with his father through Westminster Hall, Hugh Kenrick purchased a copy of the pamphlet at a bookseller’s stall there. They made their way to nearby Purgatory Tavern, to mark Hugh’s election with a dinner in honor of Dogmael Jones. He perused the pamphlet while they waited for their meal. He threw the pamphlet down on the table. “Contemptible blather,” he remarked. “I am surprised that Lord North has not contrived to find him a seat in Parliament.”
Garnet Kenrick picked it up and glanced through it. “Very likely he was approached on the matter. But I hear that Dr. Johnson is too irascible to sit in the Commons. As irascible as Mr. Wilkes.”
“Mr. Wilkes is irascible in action, but Dr. Johnson is ignorant of his own venality. Mr. Jones was a
true patriot
.” Father and son toasted the memory of the late member for Swansditch. After dinner, they hired a hackney to take them to Blackfriars Bridge, where the Baron pointed out
some of the block stones from the family quarry at Portland that had gone into construction of the bridge.
John Wilkes, while serving his 22-month sentence in King’s Bench prison for publishing the
North Briton No. 45
and his obscene parody,
Essay on Women
, conducted an election campaign from his cell, and in 1770 was not only elected an alderman of London, but in 1771 sheriff of London and Middlesex, and in 1774 Lord Mayor of the metropolis. In 1774 he finally became member for Middlesex in the Commons, after that body voted him expelled three times, in spite of his overwhelming victories at the polls.
On the fourth ballot, the Commons arbitrarily declared his opponent, Colonel Henry Lawes Luttrell, the victor, the former member of Bossiney having received about one-third of Wilkes’s votes. Luttrell had been bribed to run for the seat against Wilkes by the Duke of Grafton, with His Majesty’s blessing. The Commons, weary of opposing Wilkes and the enmity of his numerous supporters, did not contest the former convict’s fifth election. His companion member for Middlesex was John Glynn, a lawyer and a “radical” spokesman for the Bill of Rights Society and also an advocate of the colonial cause.
Wilkes’s motion in February 1775 to have the resolution of 1768 declaring him unfit to attend the Commons and expelled from it expunged from the House journals was defeated by a large majority, much to the pleasure of Lord North and His Majesty.
The colonists esteemed Wilkes as a hero and a true patriot, a man who had defied the Crown and won after a seemingly endless struggle against the formidable hydra of corruption, preferment, and the king’s will. In England and in the colonies, drinking mugs and punch bowls bore his likeness or “No. 45,” boys were given his name, and a town was named after him. His victory proved that it was not fruitless to oppose the Crown and helped to encourage the colonials in their own resistance. It also proved the depth of corruption and arrogance of Parliament. After a decade-long contest, it begrudged a single man a single seat in the Commons; would it deign to begrudge the colonies their rights? A growing number of men in the colonies did not think it would.
Henry Luttrell returned to representing Bossiney, becoming a staunch supporter of Lord North.
“The die is now cast,” wrote George the Third to North in early September about North’s Coercive Acts. “The colonies must either submit or triumph. I do not wish to come to severer measures, but we must not
retreat. By coolness and unremitted pursuit of the measures that have been adopted, I trust they will come to submit…. I am clear there must always be one tax to keep up the right, and as such I approve of the tea duty.”
The political establishment in London during the summer and early fall of 1774 was as oblivious to the gravity of the colonial situation as it was to it in the summer and fall of 1765. The first hint of trouble was a report in October from the ambassador to The Hague that a consignment of cannon and powder had been loaded onto a Rhode Island merchantman in Amsterdam. But the vessel was intercepted and the episode dismissed as a bothersome anomaly.
Otherwise, Lord North and the king devoted their time and energies to forming a reliable “king’s party” in the Commons, now that a new Parliament was to be summoned for November, the general election scheduled for the second week of that month. The announcement took by surprise many of those who held seats and offices, and also those who wished to hold seats and offices, precipitating an undignified scramble from holidays and diversions to formulate alliances and plans.
Fletcher Norton, the Speaker of the Commons, had to be cajoled to stand again and continue in that role. Influential peers, such as the Duke of Athol and the Earl of Morton, had inconveniently died, as well as the bishops of Bangor and Worcester, and the candidates and members in their trains had to be persuaded to remain in the court party. Preferments and places had to be shuffled amongst, withdrawn from, or awarded to court party men. The office of Cofferer to the king was an especially difficult one to fill, its former occupant having decided to enter the polls for a seat in the Commons. Candidates had to be solicited, vetted, and bribed to stand for seats, necessitating the cooperation, arm-twisting, or bribery of sponsoring peers. Vacancies occasioned by death, resignations and refusals had to be filled.
It was very exhausting and frustrating work. But, in the end, Lord North and His Majesty triumphed — except in Middlesex, which John Wilkes at last captured — and ensconced in the Commons a bloc that would obstruct any move to placate the colonies or any motion for a substantive conciliation with them.
Also in February, the king wrote Lord North that he was pleased with the proposed Commons address to His Majesty that the colonies were in a state of rebellion. “I should imagine that after the very flagrant outrage committed by the province of New Hampshire (the capture of Fort Constitution
earlier that year by “rebels” and the sending of its ordnance to Cambridge), some notice ought to be taken of it, for whatever difference prudence may devise between the New England governments and those of the rest of North America, this cannot extend to New Hampshire.”
Hugh Kenrick and his father observed the business from a distance. Hugh wrote a letter to the
London Evening Observer
, in which he railed against “decayed peers and superannuated peerages, and a conniving throne.” On November 11 Hugh was “elected” by his father as the new member for Swansditch. He presented his credentials to a House committee, and took the loyalty oath. The oath did not matter to him.
In the meantime, news continued to assault Parliament and St. James’s Palace. General Gage had the temerity to make some recommendations to the policymakers. His Majesty wrote Lord North in mid-November, after the new Parliament was in session, “I return the private letters received from Lieutenant General Gage. His idea of suspending the acts appears to me the most absurd that can be suggested. The people are ripe for mischief upon which the Mother Country adopts suspending the measures she has thought necessary. This must suggest to the colonies a fear that alone prompts them to their present violence. We must either master them or totally leave them to themselves, and treat them as aliens. I do not by this mean to insinuate that I am for advice for new measures; but I am for supporting those already undertaken.”
In another note to Lord North, George remarked, “The line of conduct seems now chalked out; the New England governments are in a state of rebellion. Blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent.”
A month later he wrote his first minister, replying to a suggestion that the government suspend regulations for the colonies, and send commissioners there to “examine the disputes,” that he frowned on the notion, saying that such actions could be interpreted by the colonials as signs of self-doubt and weakness. “I cannot think it likely to make them reasonable. I do not want to drive them to despair but to submission, which nothing but the inconvenience of their situation can bring their pride to submit to.”
Already, in December and January, George was reviewing proposed lists of army regiments to distribute between Britain, Ireland, and Boston, and exchanging notes with North and Viscount Barrington, the Secretary-at-War, on which generals to send to North America. The king had already approved of a speech to be delivered in Lords by Mansfield that detailed a
plan for conducting a war in America.
* * *
Throughout it all, Hugh Kenrick moved like a man in a dream. He had written Reverdy at her brother’s place on Berkeley Square, advising her of his presence and his wish to see her. James Brune replied, expressing delight that his brother-in-law was in London, and saying that he had forwarded his letter to his sister, who had gone down to Bath for a month or so. Hugh had supper with James Brune, and they traded memories of happier times. He treated his sister Alice to a production of Handel’s
Alcina
at the Opera House, and helped her grasp the meaning of some passages from Goethe’s
The Sorrows of Young Werther
, a novel which she was struggling to read in German. Alone, he attended plays at Covent Garden and Drury Lane. His father was an acquaintance of a member of the Royal Academy, and together they attended lectures there by Joshua Reynolds and other speakers.
At Lion Key in the Pool of London, he and his father discussed with Benjamin Worley the dismal future of colonial trade. Garnet Kenrick outlined a plan to increase Worley’s European trade to compensate for the expected loss of colonial custom. “My son and I do not expect the Americans to relinquish their liberties in exchange for a mess of British pottage,” he warned the agent. “So, we must look elsewhere to keep up our fortunes.”
Hugh added, “If the government does not alter its policies, Mr. Worley, you should expect it will think to prohibit any measure of trade with any portion of North America, excepting Canada. For all practical purposes, a state of war already exists between the countries.”
He accompanied his mother and sister on shopping tours in London. In one emporium, they admired an exhibition of Josiah Wedgwood’s lines of terra cotta and his first examples of jasperware. The clerk who showed them the meticulously crafted blue and white vases and tableware excitedly described the Herculean effort that Wedgwood’s factory in Etruria was making to fill an order by Empress Catherine of Russia for over 960 pieces. “They say that Mr. Wedgwood’s product has become the reigning
ton
in France, as well,” said the clerk, “and threatens to replace Sèvres porcelain there in the best houses, much to the consternation of King Louis!”
One evening, over a banquet, the Duke of Richmond said to his guests,
among them Garnet Kenrick and Hugh: “You will have observed that, in recent governments, all the ministers imbued with some measure of audacity have been cursed with short longevity in the career of first minister. I include that invidious rascal, the late Mr. Grenville, and that stalwart but cloudy advocate, Chatham
née
Pitt.” He leaned forward to whisper, “I will even include milord Rockingham in that unfortunate company.” Then he sat up again, and continued. “ But Lord North, I am afraid, will be with us for some duration, because he is not audacious, but rather a meek, fawning puppet of a malign consension.” He paused, then said with finality, “As for his policies vis-à-vis the colonies, they are a hotch potch of opaque, careless futility. There will be a war.”
“And not just with Massachusetts, your grace,” remarked Hugh.
The Duke smiled and nodded agreement. “No, sir. Not just with Massachusetts. With your Virginia, as well. Perhaps a more formidable foe than may be Massachusetts. But, please, do not convey that sentiment to the gentlemen of Boston. I would not wish to provoke them to pen pamphlets about
me
. Far be it from me to claim they steal the thunder first heard clapped in your own capital so many years ago.” He signed tiredly. “Well, all I can assure you, sirs, is that in Lords I shall oppose every coercive measure that comes up from the Commons, and every one birthed in my own House. Such measures will be numerous.”
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, proposed in Lords an address to the king to remove British troops from Boston. His proposal was defeated. He then moved that the Continental Congress be recognized as legitimate, as well as many of its grievances. That proposal was rejected, as well. General opinion in the Commons, in Lords, in the press, and among the electorate was correct in the assessment that Chatham’s influence in Parliament was not merely negligible; it was practically nil.
Instead, Parliament declared Massachusetts in a state of rebellion, and a few days later passed the New England Restraining Act, which forbade New England, and later colonies south of it, from trading with any nation other than Britain. Parliament was in no mood to compromise.
* * *