His friend Lord Sandwich[162] was of a very different character; in nothing more than in the inflexibility of his honesty. The Duke of Bedford loved money, to use it sensibly and with kindness to others; Lord Sandwich was rapacious, but extravagant when it was to promote his own designs. His industry to carry any point he had in view was so remarkable, that for a long time the world mistook it for abilities; but as his manner was most awkward and unpolished, so his talents were but slight, when it was necessary to exert them in any higher light than in art and intrigue. The King had never forgiven his indecent reflections[163] upon the Electorate when he was in Opposition, and as soon as ever he found his Ministers would permit him to show his resentment, he took all occasions to pay his court to them by treating Lord Sandwich ill, particularly by talking to Lord Anson before him on all matters relating to the fleet. An incident (one should have thought quite foreign to the Administration) contributed to give the King a new handle to use Lord Sandwich with indignity: the Bedfords had transacted a marriage between one of the Duchess’s sisters[164] and Colonel Waldegrave, against the consent of her father, Lord Gower; and Lord Sandwich had been so imprudent as to let the ceremony be performed at his apartments at the Admiralty. The Pelhams, who always inoculated private quarrels on affairs of state, dispatched my Lord Gower to ask a formal audience of the King, and complain of Lord Sandwich’s contributing to steal his daughter. Lord Gower[165] was a comely man of form, had never had any sense, and was now superannuated. He had been educated a stiff Jacobite, elected their chief on his first coming into the King’s service, and had twice taken the Privy Seal before he could determine to change his principles. The King entered into his quarrel; and the Pelhams by this artifice detached him from his family, and persuaded him that to resign with them would be sacrificing himself in the cause of Lord Sandwich, who had offered him such an indignity. When Lord Sandwich found his disgrace unavoidable, and even had got intelligence of the day on which he was to be dismissed, he endeavoured by his own solicitations, and by the interposition of the Duke, to prevail on the Duke of Bedford to throw up the Seals first. This finesse, which did not succeed, was calculated to prevent the appearance of the Duke of Bedford’s resigning upon his account, and consequently the new obligations to be laid upon him by that measure: governing that Duke no longer, he chose to be no longer connected with him; but Bedford now would neither stay in, nor go out by his advice. FOOTNOTES: