Bathurst had been indelibly branded by George Canning’s* malevolent wit as ‘Brother Bragge’; and his inextricable connection in public life with his brother-in-law Lord Sidmouth obscured and devalued such innate talents as he possessed.
If gentlemen would look to the ... uniform system of the disaffected of this country, they would find them resort to every quarter of the world where any symptoms of a similar spirit appeared ... The feeling and example of the French Revolution were not yet done away ... While the seeds of disaffection were scattered throughout Europe, and especially in this country, a measure of this nature was indispensably necessary, to guard against commotion.
The Whig Member Sir James Mackintosh commented in his journal that Bathurst ‘outdid his usual dullness. His translation of Ward’s argumentative pleasantries into the Bathurst tongue was particularly remarkable’.
When Robert Peel* declined the half-hearted offer of the presidency of the board of control, resigned by Canning, in December 1820, the premier Lord Liverpool persuaded Sidmouth and Lord Castlereagh* that it should be filled on a temporary basis by an existing member of the cabinet, in order to keep it in reserve for a future reshuffle at a more propitious moment.
I have stated your health, and your total want of familiarity with East India subjects and concerns, but in vain. The answer, as to the former, is that the business may be done when and where, at any time and at any place you please; and, as to the latter, that [Thomas] Courtenay*, the secretary, is a perfect master of all that is necessary to be known and of the manner of conducting all the business of the board; and ... that, with the exception of the mint, the duties of the head of that department are less onerous than those of the head of any other in the government ... It was admitted both by Lord L. and Lord C. that if you yielded to their wishes ... you should not be exposed to those laborious and irksome committee duties, of which you have borne the chief burden for many years past.
Bathurst, who had ‘fully made up my mind to receive an intimation of losing one office, but had no apprehension of being called upon to hold two’, was mortified, and did his best to escape. ‘I have a great aversion’, he told Sidmouth, ‘to be placed in a ridiculous situation ... by holding an office the duties of which I should not have learned till it was time to quit it’; he had been told that ‘it takes near six months hard reading to acquire this knowledge’. He argued that if there had to be a makeshift arrangement, Indian business could perfectly well be conducted by the present members of the board, under the supervision of one of them or of a departmental minister:
What appears to me objectionable in point of appearance is the bringing a new man into this temporary situation, and particularly in the House of Commons and in the case of the chancellor of the duchy, who certainly might if properly qualified discharge permanently the duties of both offices. In these times of reform and consolidation, it would undoubtedly give rise to the observation, why should not the two offices be always consolidated; and though the saving would only be to the India Company, yet the patronage and influence of the crown would be so far diminished. If it was possible to suppose that the appointment was not understood to be temporary the objection to my taking it would be tenfold increased ... I cannot but conjure you most earnestly to save me from this exhibition, which I cannot look at without dismay.
A ‘subdued’ Sidmouth passed on this letter to Liverpool, who wrote directly to Bathurst, putting the pressing need for a temporary arrangement and insisting that he was the only member of the cabinet who could reasonably take on the additional responsibility:
Your office is one of dignity and importance, but avowedly of little official labour. It is not even paid by the public, and it is an office the abolition of which could never be contemplated; nor could it from its nature ... ever be consolidated with any other office. There would be nothing therefore extraordinary or objectionable in your taking upon you for a time the discharge of the duties of the India board ... I am ... not aware of any India topic which can become at this time of public interest or hostile discussion; and ... no office ever had an individual more completely conversant with every detail belonging to it than Mr. Courtenay ... The office must be filled up before Parliament meets, and I see my way to nothing but a permanent arrangement if you are not placed at the head of it.
Thus bullied, Bathurst reluctantly surrendered.
As he had feared, he was immediately quizzed by opposition as to why he had not sought re-election. His lame answer, 23 Jan. 1821, was that it was unnecessary because he received no salary as president. He took the same line when Hume raised the issue again, 9 Feb.
Bathurst spoke briefly against the amendment to the address calling for tax reductions, 5 Feb. 1822. He retrospectively defended the gaol sentence imposed on Henry Hunt*, 8 Feb., and opposed proceedings for breach of privilege for interference with Members’ mail, 25 Feb. He denied that the directors of the East India Company had turned a blind eye to the practice of suttee, 14 Mar., and answered criticism of an appointment at Harwich, 18 Mar.
According to Hobhouse, under-secretary at the home office, towards the end of the 1822 session Liverpool ‘conceived an idea’ of persuading Bathurst to retire, and mentioned it to Sidmouth, who asked what ‘inducement’ would be held out to him. When Liverpool said none, Sidmouth ‘refused to broach the subject’, and appealed to Londonderry (formerly Castlereagh)
whether he would consent to Mr. Bathurst’s being unhandsomely displaced. Lord Londonderry replied that he undoubtedly would not, and renewed the expression of his sentiments of the value of Mr. Bathurst’s services in the House of Commons, although he is not well heard in debate. In fact his acuteness and his knowledge were extremely useful to Lord Londonderry.
Cookson, 366; Hobhouse Diary, 99-100.
Yet in early August 1822 William Huskisson*, anxious for promotion from his subordinate post at the board of trade, told his mentor Canning that in a recent interview Liverpool, explaining ‘the particulars of what had occurred to him and Londonderry in discussions about an opening’, had said:
He did not think ... [Bathurst] would retain his present situation long, and that was also Lord S[idmouth]’s impression. He was sure that he was a man of such correct feeling that he would not remain after he found himself incapable of taking his fair share of the labour and duties which might be expected from him; and that he would certainly at any time give up his office upon the slightest hint. But his conduct had always been so true and straightforward and pure towards the government that he should be most unwilling to convey to him that hint; and that the domestic afflictions which he had met with, and under which he was still suffering, added to that unwillingness.
Cookson, 369; Add. 38743, ff. 192, 196; Croker Pprs. i. 230.
When Canning took the foreign seals on Londonderry’s suicide he initially tried to advance Huskisson, who was impatient at the prospect of waiting for ‘the millennium when B.B. will discover that his retirement might be an accommodation to government’, by removing Williams Wynn from the board of control. Frustrated in this, Canning turned to his scheme to secure Bathurst’s retirement and replacement by Vansittart, which would open the exchequer for Frederick Robinson* and the board of trade for Huskisson. At Canning’s prompting, Liverpool sounded Sidmouth at the end of October; but ‘by his answer he appeared more tenacious of office and situation for himself and friend than he was before’. Liverpool renewed the subject at a meeting with Sidmouth on 18 Nov., when he stressed the urgent need to strengthen the government before Parliament met; pointed out that Bathurst’s health, which, ‘though it improved always in the country ... invariably suffered by a continued residence in London’, was unequal to ‘the fatigue of the House of Commons and an official situation, and in times like the present’, and added that his retirement would enable Canning to transfer to Harwich to escape the ‘intolerable burden’ of representing Liverpool. He concluded:
No one can be more sensible than myself of the loss we should sustain in being deprived of Bathurst’s services. I do not consider this as any question of balance of advantages, but altogether as a question of time; and if so, that which might afford some compensation at one time, might be totally useless and unavailing at another ... I need scarcely add that it would be my most anxious desire, whether the vacancy shall occur now or at some future period, to make such an arrangement as to our friend’s family as may appear to you and to him to be just and equitable, and which may in all respects be agreeable to himself.
Cookson, 381-4; Add. 38291, ff. 218, 335; 38575, f. 78; 38743, ff. 242, 248; Arbuthnot Corresp. 32; Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 194, 194-6; HMC Bathurst, 537.
When Sidmouth put the case for honourable retirement to him Bathurst was perfectly amenable and, according to Hobhouse, ‘voluntarily offered’ to hand over his seat to Canning, of whose central role in the affair he was apparently unaware. The only condition for which he stipulated was that the proffered pension for his wife should be made inheritable by his two surviving daughters; he preferred this to the offer of a place at one of the public boards for his son. Once the legal technicalities had been ironed out a satisfactory arrangement was reached, and Bathurst retired in February 1823, ostensibly ‘on account of the state of his health’. Sidmouth reported that he was ‘quite satisfied’ with the terms of his ‘unavoidable’ retirement from affairs.
The following year Bathurst wrote to Peel from Lydney:
I have reason to be thankful, that my health enables me to enjoy, with little interruption, the comforts of a country life, and discharge some of its duties; while I am equally confident that it would not be equal to those of a public nature.
Add. 40368, f. 222.
In December 1824 Sidmouth complained to Lord Colchester of Liverpool’s ‘neglect of his own promises respecting the arrangements for Bragge Bathurst’s family two years ago’. (Bathurst’s wife had been duly granted a civil list pension of £600 8s. 9d. on 10 Feb. 1823; but the promised additional sum was not forthcoming until it was furnished by grants of £200 6s. 7d. on 7 Jan. 1825 and £100 13s. 5d. on 31 Dec. 1829. Bathurst himself received a civil list pension of £350 8s. 6d. on 5 Aug. 1826.)
The strength of his mind preserved him from foibles; his principles were settled, and his prejudices (so far as he had them) all on the right side. Still I doubt not that some years of quiet and reflection at the close of his life were valuable to him and improved by him.
Sidmouth mss, Bexley to Sidmouth, 19 Aug. 1831.
On 30 Nov. 1827 Thomas Estcourt* reported to Sidmouth on a recent ‘satisfactory’ visit to Bathurst at Lydney, where
we found Mr. Bathurst looking particularly well ... On ... two ... days ... we walked about the park, scaling the hills and botanizing, and enjoying and pointing out the fine views with as much acuteness and ardour as I ever saw him evince ... He declared himself free from all pain in the side and from rheumatic aches ... On the wet day we went through the whole of the antiquities contained in the cabinets, and in short passed three most agreeable days according to the style of former times.
Sotheron Estcourt mss F665.
Bathurst composed ‘an elaborate dissertation’ on the Roman villa and temple unearthed at Lydney.
though he did not obtain the attention he deserved in the House of Commons, his speeches were always sensible and often useful, and he was of great service in committees and whenever an intelligent, well-informed mind and sound judgement were required.
HMC Bathurst, 537-8.
Edward Littleton* (Lord Hatherton), commenting in 1847 on a review by John Croker* of Pellew’s Life of Sidmouth, noted that Bathurst was ‘not done justice’ (even though Croker recalled him as ‘a well-informed and judicious man, who spoke with considerable weight’):
He was a man of considerable power as a debater. He was shrewd and hard-headed and fluent, but he had bad enunciation and a dreary voice, so that few listed to him. Nevertheless I thought him one of the ablest debaters in the House when I first entered it [in 1812]. The cleverest man I then lived with used frequently to remark that he took better than any other the point of a case, and it was a common thing for those who followed him on his own side later at night, when the House was fuller, to use the materials of his speech over again.
Quarterly Rev. lxxix (1846-7), 513-14; Hatherton diary, 27 Apr. 1847.