Memoirs of the Court of George IV | Page 3

change" kept the public mind in a state
of violent agitation; and a great political party was on the alert to take
advantage of any popular movement this effervescence might create. It
was well known to various influential partizans that events of unusual
gravity were "looming in the distance,"[4] by which they hoped to be
able to raise themselves to power. Rumours of a sinister import were in
constant circulation; the more alarmed looked hourly for some

mischievous demonstration, and the more reckless displayed increasing
confidence and audacity. That reports should be circulated of an
immediate change of Government, must have been only natural under
such circumstances; the wide-spread discontent of the masses of the
population, swelling and surging like a storm-driven sea, had nothing
else sufficiently prominent to direct itself against, but the authorities
who appeared to them responsible for the evils under which they
laboured; and those persons who feared, or pretended to fear, the
threatened storm, caught at the idea of removing the unpopular
Ministers as affording the only chance of re-establishing the public
tranquillity. Such, however, had long before been the tactics of
opposition, and such, we are afraid, they are likely to remain.
[4] "The Government," writes a Cabinet Minister to the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, "is in a very strange and, I must acknowledge, in
a precarious state."--Lord Sidmouth to Earl Talbot, Pellew's "Life of
Lord Sidmouth," vol. iii. p. 310.
DR. PHILLIMORE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Whitehall, Feb. 15, 1820.
MY DEAR LORD,
As your Lordship desired me to write if there was any news of any
description in circulation, I take up my pen merely to inform you that
there is a report most generally disseminated both throughout the
West-end of the town and the City, that the Ministers have resigned. Sir
W. Scott [Lord Stowell] yesterday, in expressing his apprehension (to
an acquaintance of mine) that such an event was in contemplation, said
it would not be a partial change, "but a general sweep." Excuse haste.
Ever your obliged and faithful servant,
JOSEPH PHILLIMORE.
P.S.--The Cabinet sat thirteen hours on Sunday.

The sweeping change so confidently anticipated did not take place; and
probably when it became evident to some of the most daring of the
political speculators of the time, that this was not so imminent as they
desired, they resolved to expedite it in a fashion that should leave no
necessity for a second experiment of the kind.
On the 23rd of February, the loyal citizens of the metropolis were
startled by the intelligence of the timely discovery of a plot to
assassinate his Majesty's Ministers while they were at dinner in the
house of the Earl of Harrowby, Grosvenor Square, and of a sanguinary
conflict of the police and military with the conspirators, when
attempting to seize the latter at their place of rendezvous, in an obscure
thoroughfare near Paddington, called Cato Street. The history of the
Thistlewood Conspiracy,[5] as related in the criminal annals of the
period, illustrates in a remarkable manner the diseased state of political
feeling then existing in England. It was a small copy of the Irish
rebellion,--marked by the same cut-throat policy,--having in view a
similar overwhelming revolution, with the same absurdly inadequate
means. Fortunately for the United Kingdom, the chief actors in both
succeeded only in bringing upon themselves the destruction with which
they had menaced a powerful Government.
[5] A good account of it may be found in Pellew's "Life of Lord
Sidmouth," vol. iii. p. 312.
Thistlewood proposed to slaughter the entire Cabinet at once, when
assembled at Lord Harrowby's, which was assented to; "for," said he,
"as there has not been a dinner for so long, there will no doubt be
fourteen or sixteen there; and it will be a rare haul to murder them all
together."[6]
[6] Thistlewood's Trial, p. 37. Alison's "Europe," vol. ii. p. 425.
The next communication refers to the same incident, as well as to the
various rumours then in circulation:--
MARQUIS WELLESLEY TO MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Richmond, Tuesday, Feb. 29, 1820.
MY DEAR LORD,
Not having received any commands from you, and having nothing to
communicate beyond the rumours of the day, without any authentic
information, I have not lately troubled your Lordship with any letter.
It was unnecessary to state that the stories of my being summoned to
the King, &c. &c., were all absolutely false. If I had received any such
summons, your Lordship would have been fully acquainted with the
whole transaction by express from me at the earliest moment.
I believe an attempt was made to confirm the rumours by the
circumstance of his Majesty's gracious kindness in answering my
inquiries at the moment of his greatest danger, by expresses from
Carlton House. My carriage also was in town one day in