of

considerable duration, the regency any must necessary devolve on him I believe Lord Thurlow and Mr. Pitt were not at that time on the best terms: Mr. Pitt's conduct in the prosecution of Mr. Hastings had been disapproved of by Lord Thurlow, and this disapprobation ultimately produced an ill humour which occasioned a separation ; but this ill humour had not at that time risen to such a height, as to prevent amicable intercourse between them; and I have very little doubt but that if the Prince of Wales had listened to Lord Thurlow, the measures recommended by Mr. Pitt and the Chancellor would have been the same. But Mr. Fox returned from abroad; the Prince gave himself up to his guidance: the injudicious advice of Lord Loughborough, the incautious language of Charles Fox, and the folly and arrogance of Mr. Burke and others, brought Mr. Pitt to declare, that, although the regency should be vested in the Prince of Wales, it should be vested in him with diminished powers.

I know the Chancellor Lord Thurlow, has been much abused for his conduct on

this occasion; some members of the Opposition have gone so far as to say, that he would have acted against the opinion of Mr. Pitt, if the Opposition would have engaged to continue him in the office of Chancellor : but I do not believe this assertion to be true. Trimming was not congenial to the character of Lord Thurlow. If such a negotiation had ever taken place between Lord Thurlow and the Opposition, Mr. Fox must have been privy to it I never heard it intimated by him, and I think I should have heard it intimated if such a negotiation ever had existed; for, after my return to the House of Commons in 1796, I had, at different times, much confidential intercourse with Charles Fox, and the subject of the regency was frequently mentioned. I believe that Lord Thurlow acted with great integrity: he once told me, that if it had been ultimately necessary to pass the Regency Bill framed by Mr. Pitt, he should have acceded to it with great reluctance.

CHAP. III.

Causes of the French Revolution.

THE French Revolution took place in the month of July 1789. I date its commencement from the day on which the Etats Généraux voted themselves to be the National Assembly, and Louis XVI. accepted royalty under the form of government then voted. The causes which led to the French Revolution were many and various; they have been differently stated, according to the passions and interests of the different parties; but people are now beginning to view them calmly, and, when the passions of those who have been involved in the contest have a little more subsided, we shall be able to see them distinctly.

I have said that the causes which gradually operated to produce the French Revolution were many. I will endeavour to enumerate them as succinctly as I can: Ishall distinguish

sider those causes as principal, which must at some time or other, have necessarily produced a revolution; while I shall call those causes secondary, which only accelerated it. Among the principal causes, I shall give the first place to the distinction of Noblesse and Bourgeoisie. How or when this distinction arose, it is difficult to say: did the Franks bring it with them when they took possession of lands in France? or was it introduced at a later period in the French history? It does not seem to have been a necessary consequence of the feudal tenure. Tacitus, in his most valuable treatise, De Moribus Germanorum, has this expression, Reges ex Nobilitate sumunt. If the Germans elected their kings from among the nobles, the distinction of noble, and ignoble, must have existed before the Franks quitted their native soil. But the question carries us back to such remote ages, that I will not pretend to form an opinion on the subject. If this supposition is well founded, it is probable that the nobles among the German tribes were few in number, that they were not numerous originally in France, and that they did not possess those privileges and preferences which ren

dered the distinction so disgusting at the period immediately preceding the Revolution. The French lawyers do not recognise more than two or three hundred families as being of this ancient nobility, and they distinguish these families by the name of Les Familles Historiques; the rest of the French nobles obtained the distinction at different periods, either by grant, or by purchase; but by whatever means they obtained this distinction of noblesse, they were permitted to enjoy the same preferences as had been allowed to the more ancient nobles. At what time the kings of France first assumed the right of granting noblesse, I cannot say. But from granting, they deviated into the practice of selling it; and from thence gradually established, that noblesse should always accompany certain employments which they conferred. It is probable, that at first the sale of noblesse was not very frequent. It became more frequent in the reign of Louis XIV.; and the practice had been so much increased during the reign of Louis XV. that, a few years before the Revolution, it was computed that there were four thou