vourite meant to feize the helm; he immediately invaded their feveral departments; corrupted their fecretaries and confidents, to betray to him the bufinefs or fecrets tranfacting in each. Indeed, men of lefs difcernment than the minifters faw, and faid, that their date in office was but very fhort, when the Favourite had given fuch a proof of his power, as the banishment of Lord TEMPLE and Mr. PITT. But for reafons, which only concern themfelves, they chofe to enjoy their SALARIES by permiffion. It is nonsense to say that they enjoyed POWER; for it is notorious, that the Favourite arbitrarily difpofed of every place, as it became vacant, not only without complimenting them with any kind of folicitation, but even without their knowledge and in juftice it must be said, that for some time, at least, they not only filently, but meanly, acquiefced in all his measures. At length fome of them became uneafy under his yoke, and finding that they should shortly be turned out, refolyed to refign. . The The Duke of NEWCASTLE, who was firft Lord of the Treasury, refigned on the 26th of May 1762; for this plain reason, which his friends gave out, "Be be caufe he found his influence was gone fore him." Indeed, his Grace had met with fuch kind of treatment, as was no longer fufferable. But this he might have foreseen: for no fenfible man about St. James's doubted, (three days after Mr. PITT's refignation) that his Grace held the very poft, which the Favourite was determined to occupy himself. And had his Grace, with his adherents, as firmly attached themselves in the hour of danger, as they had done during the courfe of the war, to those true friends of their country, who manifested by their early retirement their disapprobation of the Favourite, and his destructive measures, they might, in all probability, have prevented thofe fatal confequences, which fuch an unhappy want of fidelity occafioned. CHAP. ter. C H A P. VI. The Favourite made a Knight of the GarNote from the Monitor, and an account of the profecution of that paper. The Favourite made first Lord of the Treafury. Sweeps the Cocoa Tree for a Miniflry. Curious account of him. Turns out all who had been put in by the Duke of Newcastle. Bars up all the avenues to the Royal Clofet. Peace is his only object. A number of Peers created. Lords of the Bedchamber increafed. The power of the crown extended,and the law evaded. HE Treasury being now vacated in T form, the Favourite, although eager to mount this pinacle of power, refolved not to do it, until decorated with the most noble English order of the garter; and for this purpose, the very day after the Duke's refignation, a chapter was fummoned to meet at St. James's, and the Earl of Bute was invested by his Sovereign, with the enfigns of the order, at the fame time with Prince William Henry, E third third brother of his Majesty. TheFavourite was before a Knight of the ancient Scottish order of the Thistle; therefore this circumftance of changing the colour of his ribband, was such a ridiculous parade of his own folly and vanity; fuch an empty display of the wantonness of power, as could only serve to inflame mankind, without fecuring to either his Royal Master or himself, any folid advantages whatever*. On the second day after his decoration, he entered the Treasury, with a scourge in A few days after this extraordinary tranfaction, there was, in a periodical paper called The MONITOR, the following fingular paffage, concerning the Abbot de Bernis, the French minifter and Favourite of M. de Pompadour : “The exaltation of de Bernis, who was naturally of a very amorous conftitution, and feemed to have no other recommendation than his perfon, and art to please the fair fex, provoked the nobility and gentry beyond all moderation: so that when he was invefted with the order of the Holy Ghoft, in the chapel of Versailles, there was, during the ceremony, a fcroll of paper thrown out of the gallery among the Knights, on which was wrote a French parody, on the hymn called Veni Creator, and is thus tranflated in the third volume of M. de Pompadour's history, page 52. Thou in one hand, and a purse in the other; which by the advice of his virtuous afso Thou holy fpirit, power divine, Of twelve unlearn'd thou heretofore His bofom with thy flames poffefs; On him the love of Heaven pour, And leaft of all-La Pompadour. ciate, "Bernis invested with the rank of a minifter, and decked out with a blue ribbon, could not, doubtless, but appear, more agreeable in the eyes of his protectrefs: and fhe, never eafy, day and night, out of his company, looked upon his athletic conftitution, and confummate knowledge in the art of love, to be fuch fuperior talents, as made him extremely capable of unravelling the moft knotty, and conducting the most arduous affairs of ftate; imagining with great reason, that in the course of an administration, which fhe alone had put into his hands, he would certainly take no tep without first confulting her." This paffage, together with fome others less remarkable, which certain great perfonages pretended to understand, were the occafion of Lord Halifax, then Secretary of State, iffuing feveral warrants, and fending one Carrington, a noted old meffenger, with three other meffengers, to feize the authors, printers E 2 and |