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Title: Walpole and Chatham (1714-1760)
Author: Esdaile, Katharine Ada
Language: English
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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by plus signs is in bold face (+bold+).
Text enclosed by equal signs is transliterated Greek
(=Greek=)
A word that includes a superscript has been spelt out
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Bell's English History Source Books
General Editors: S. E. WINBOLT, M.A., and KENNETH BELL, M.A.
WALPOLE AND CHATHAM (1714-1760)
Compiled by
KATHARINE A. ESDAILE
Some Time Scholar of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
[Illustration: bell]
London
G. Bell & Sons, Ltd.
1912
INTRODUCTION
This series of English History Source Books is intended for use with any
ordinary textbook of English History. Experience has conclusively shown
that such apparatus is a valuable--nay, an indispensable--adjunct to the
history lesson. It is capable of two main uses: either by way of lively
illustration at the close of a lesson, or by way of inference-drawing,
before the textbook is read, at the beginning of the lesson. The kind of
problems and exercises that may be based on the documents are legion,
and are admirably illustrated in a _History of England for Schools_,
Part I., by Keatinge and Frazer, pp. 377-381. However, we have no wish
to prescribe for the teacher the manner in which he shall exercise his
craft, but simply to provide him and his pupils with materials hitherto
not readily accessible for school purposes. The very moderate price of
the books in this series should bring them within the reach of every
secondary school. Source books enable the pupil to take a more active
part than hitherto in the history lesson. Here is the apparatus, the raw
material: its use we leave to teacher and taught.
Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades of
historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys
in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What
differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not so
much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can read
into or extract from it.
In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the
natural demand for certain "stock" documents of vital importance, we
hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention that
the majority of the extracts should be lively in style--that is,
personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan--and
should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for
inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under
contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates,
and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal, and social life
generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.
The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being
numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is
modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties in
reading.
We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us
suggestions for improvement.
S. E. WINBOLT.
KENNETH BELL.
NOTE TO THIS VOLUME
I have to thank the Editors of the _English Historical Review_ for
permission to reprint the passages dealing with the War of Jenkins' Ear,
published by Sir John Laughton in the fourth volume of the _Review_, and
the Scottish History Society for a similar permission with regard to the
Proclamation of James III. and the Landing of the Young Pretender. The
Letters of Horace Walpole are quoted throughout under the dates and
names of correspondents, not from any particular edition, as this
enables a letter to be found without difficulty in any edition;
otherwise the sources are given in full.
The lover of the eighteenth century is born, but he is also made. It is
the aim of this little book to help in the making.
K. A. E.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
STATE OF PARTIES AT THE QUEEN'S DEATH (1714) 1
PROCLAMATION OF GEORGE I. (1714) 4
CHARACTER AND PERSON OF GEORGE I. (1660-1727) 5
PUBLIC FEELING AS TO THE NEW DYNASTY (1714) 6
THE '15:
I. THE PRETENDER'S DECLARATION 9
II. THE PROCLAMATION OF JAMES III. 14
III. FAILURE OF THE EXPEDITION EXPLAINED 16
THE SEPTENNIAL ACT (1716) 18
DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH FLEET OFF SICILY BY ADMIRAL SIR GEORGE
BYNG, JULY 31, 1718 19
THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE (1720):
I. THE PROPOSALS: THE SECOND SCHEME OF THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY 21
II. THE BUBBLE BURST 25
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AS PRIME MINISTER (1721-1741) 27
WOOD'S HALFPENCE: THE FIRST DRAPIER's LETTER (1724) 29
CHARACTER OF GEORGE II. (1683-1760) 36
THE CONDITION OF THE FLEET PRISON, AS REVEALED BY A PARLIAMENTARY
ENQUIRY (1729):
(_a_) DESCRIPTION OF THE WARDEN, THOMAS BAMBRIDGE 38
(_b_) HIS CRUELTY 39
(_c_) FINDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE 40
THE EXCISE BILL (1733) 42
THE PORTEOUS RIOTS (1736) 45
LORD CHESTERFIELD'S SPEECH ON THE BILL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE CENSORSHIP OF STAGE PLAYS (1737) 47
DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE (1737): HER CHARACTER DESCRIBED
BY GEORGE II. 49
THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR (1739) 51
THE OPPOSITION SUSPECTS WALPOLE OF DOUBLE-DEALING (1739) 53
ADMIRAL VERNON'S VICTORY AT PORTOBELLO (1740):
I. "ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST" 55
II. "GREAT BRITAIN'S GLORY; OR, THE STAY-AT-HOME FLEET" 58
THE NEW MINISTERS (1742):
I. HERVEY'S ACCOUNT OF THE MINISTRY 58
II. EPIGRAM ON THE MINISTRY 60
III. EPIGRAM ON PULTENEY'S ACCEPTANCE OF A PEERAGE 60
THE ORIGIN OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR (1741-1748) 61
THE '45:
I. LANDING OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER; THE RAISING OF THE
STANDARD; SURRENDER OF EDINBURGH 65
II. TREATMENT OF THE VANQUISHED--
(_a_) AFTER PRESTON PANS 74
(_b_) AFTER CULLODEN 76
III. COLLINS'S "ODE WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746" 79
IV. AN ADVENTURE OF CHARLES EDWARD 79
TRIAL OF THE REBEL LORDS (1746) 81
TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (1748):
I. LORD BOLINGBROKE ON THE PRELIMINARIES 84
II. THE ARTICLES OF PEACE 86
III. A CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF THE PEACE 88
LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ACT FOR THE REFORM OF THE CALENDAR (1751):
I. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE BILL 89
II. LORD CHESTERFIELD'S OWN ACCOUNT 93
SMOLLETT'S CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 94
THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF ADMIRAL BYNG (1759):
I. HORACE WALPOLE TO SIR HORACE MANN 97
II. THOMAS POTTER TO MR. GRENVILLE 101
THE COALITION GOVERNMENT OF 1757 102
THE ENGLISH IN INDIA (1757-1759):
I. THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA DESCRIBED BY A SURVIVOR 103
II. CLIVE TO PITT ON ENGLAND'S OPPORTUNITY 105
THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM, SEPTEMBER 13, 1759:
I. THE NIGHT ATTACK 109
II. THE BATTLE 110
"THE HEAVEN-BORN MINISTER": HORACE WALPOLE's HOMAGE TO PITT:
I. IN THE GREAT YEAR (1759) 113
II. CHARACTER OF WILLIAM PITT DESCRIBED IN THE LIGHT
OF SUBSEQUENT HISTORY 114
DEATH OF GEORGE II. (1760) 115
APPENDIX: LONDON IN 1725-1736:
(_a_) DEFOE'S DESCRIPTION OF LONDON IN 1725 117
(_b_) PRESENTMENT OF THE MIDDLESEX GRAND JURY (1736) 119
WALPOLE AND CHATHAM
1714-1760
STATE OF PARTIES AT THE QUEEN'S DEATH (1714).
+Source.+--_Letter to Sir William Windham_, Bolingbroke's Works, 1754.
Vol. i., pp. 28-31.
The thunder had long grumbled in the air, and yet when the bolt [the
Queen's death] fell, most of our party appeared as much surprised as if
they had had no reason to expect it. There was a perfect calm and
universal submission throughout the whole kingdom. The Chevalier indeed
set out as if his design had been to gain the coast and to embark for
Great Britain, and the Court of France made a merit to themselves of
stopping him and obliging him to return. But this, to my certain
knowledge, was a farce acted by concert, to keep up an opinion of his
character, when all opinion of his cause seemed to be at an end. He
owned this concert to me at Bar, on the occasion of my telling him that
he would have found no party ready to receive him, and that the
enterprise would have been to the last degree extravagant. He was at
this time far from having any encouragement: no party, numerous enough
to make the least disturbance, was formed in his favour. On the King's
arrival the storm arose. The menaces of the Whigs, backed by some very
rash declarations, by little circumstances of humor which frequently
offend more than real injuries, and by the entire change of all the
persons in employment, blew up the coals.
At first many of the tories had been made to entertain some faint hopes
that they would be permitted to live in quiet. I have been assured that
the King left Hanover in that resolution. Happy had it been for him and
for us if he had continued in it; if the moderation of his temper had
not been overborne by the violence of party, and his and the national
interest sacrificed to the passions of a few. Others there were among
the tories who had flattered themselves with much greater expectations
than these, and who had depended, not on such imaginary favor and
dangerous advancement as was offered them afterwards, but on real credit
and substantial power under the new government. Such impressions on the
minds of men had rendered the two houses of parliament, which were then
sitting, as good courtiers to King George, as ever they had been to
queen Anne. But all these hopes being at once and with violence
extinguished, despair succeeded in their room.
Our party began soon to act like men delivered over to their passions,
and unguided by any other principle; not like men fired by a just
resentment and a reasonable ambition to a bold undertaking. They treated
the government like men who were resolved not to live under it, and yet
they took no one measure to support themselves against it. They
expressed, without reserve or circumspection, an eagerness to join in
any attempt against the establishment which they had received and
confirmed, and which many of them had courted but a few weeks before:
and yet in the midst of all this bravery, when the election of the new
parliament came on, some of these very men acted with the coolness of
those who are much better disposed to compound than to take arms.
The body of the tories being in this temper, it is not to be wondered
at, if they heated one another and began apace to turn their eyes
towards the pretender: and if those few, who had already engaged with
him, applied themselves to improve the conjuncture and endeavour to lift
a party for him.
I went, about a month after the queen's death, as soon as the seals were
taken from me, into the country, and whilst I continued there, I felt
the general disposition to jacobitism encrease daily among people of all
ranks; among several who had been constantly distinguished by their
aversion to that cause. But at my return to London in the month of
February or March one thousand seven hundred and fifteen, a few weeks
before I left England, I began for the first time in my whole life to
perceive these general dispositions ripen into resolutions, and to
observe some regular workings among many of our principal friends, which
denoted a scheme of this kind. These workings, indeed, were very faint,
for the persons concerned in carrying them on did not think it safe to
speak too plainly to men who were, in truth, ill disposed to the
government, because they neither found their account at present under
it, nor had been managed with art enough to leave them hopes of finding
it hereafter: but who at the same time had not the least affection for
the pretender's person, nor any principle favorable to his interest.
This was the state of things when the new parliament, which his majesty
had called, assembled. A great majority of the elections had gone in
favour of the Whigs, to which the want of concert among the tories had
contributed as much as the vigor of that party, and the influence of the
new government. The whigs came to the opening of this parliament full of
as much violence as could possess men who expected to make their court,
to confirm themselves in power, and to gratify their resentments by the
same measures. I have heard that it was a dispute among the ministers
how far this spirit should be indulged, and that the king was
determined, or confirmed in determination, to consent to the
prosecutions, and to give the reins to the party by the representations
that were made to him, that great difficulties would arise in the
conduct of the session, if the court should appear inclined to check
this spirit, and by Mr. W[alpole]'s undertaking to carry all the
business successfully through the house of commons if they were at
liberty. Such has often been the unhappy fate of our princes; a real
necessity sometimes, and sometimes a seeming one, has forced them to
compound with a part of the nation at the expense of the whole; and the
success of their business for one year has been purchased at the price
of public disorder for many.
The conjecture I am speaking of forms a memorable instance of this
truth. If milder measures had been pursued, certain it is, that the
tories had never universally embraced jacobitism. The violence of the
whigs forced them into the arms of the pretender. The court and the
party seemed to vie with one another which should go the greatest
lengths in severity: and the ministers, whose true interest it must at
all times be to calm the minds of men, and who ought never to set the
examples of extraordinary inquiries or extraordinary accusations, were
upon this occasion the tribunes of the people.
PROCLAMATION OF GEORGE I. (1714).
+Source.+--Oldmixon's _History of England, George I._, 1735. P. 564.
Whereas it hath pleas'd Almighty God to call to his Mercy our late
Soveraign Lady Queen _Anne_, of blessed Memory; by whose Decease, the
Imperial Crowns of _Great Britain_, _France_, and _Ireland_, are solely,
and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Prince _George_, elector of
_Brunswick-Lunenburg_: We therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of
the Realm, being here assisted with those of her late Majesty's Privy
Council, with Numbers of other principal gentlemen of Quality, with the
Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of _London_, do now hereby, with one
full Voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart, publish and proclaim, That
the high and mighty Prince _George_, Elector of _Brunswick-Lunenburg_,
is now, by the Death of our late Soveraign of happy Memory, become our
lawful and rightful Liege Lord, _George_, by the Grace of God, King of
_Great Britain_, _France_ and _Ireland_, Defender of the Faith, _&c._ To
whom we do acknowledge all Faith and constant Obedience, with all hearty
and humble Affection, beseeching God, by whom Kings and Queens do reign,
to bless the Royal King _George_ with long and happy years to reign over
us.
Given at the Palace of St. _James's_,
the First Day of _August, 1714_.
GOD SAVE THE KING.
[Then follow the signatures of 127 peers and commoners, "Lords and
Gentlemen who signed the Proclamation," including Lords Buckingham,
Shrewsbury, Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Sir Christopher Wren.]
CHARACTER AND PERSON OF GEORGE I. (1660-1727).
A. BY LORD CHESTERFIELD.
+Source.+--Lord Chesterfield (1694-1774), _Characters of Eminent Persons
of His own Time_, 1777. P. 9.
George the First was an honest and dull German gentleman, as unfit as
unwilling to act the part of a King, which is, to shine and oppress.
Lazy and inactive even in his pleasures; which were therefore lowly and
sensual: He was coolly intrepid, and indolently benevolent. He was
diffident of his own parts, which made him speak little in public[1] and
prefer in his social, which were his favourite, hours, the company of
waggs and buffoons.... His views and affections were singly confined to
the narrow compass of his electorate.--England was too big for him.--If
he had nothing great as a King, he had nothing bad as a Man--and if he
does not adorn, at least he will not stain the annals of this country.
In private life, he would have been loved and esteemed as a good
citizen, a good friend, and a good neighbour.--Happy were it for Europe,
happy for the world, if there were not greater Kings in it!
B. BY HORACE WALPOLE.
+Source.+--_Reminiscences_, in _Works of Horace Walpole_, Earl of
Oxford, 1798. Vol. iv., p. 275; _Letter to Sir Horace Mann, Feb. 25,
1782_.
"At ten years old [_i.e._, in 1727] I had set my heart on seeing George
I., and being a favourite child, my mother asked leave for me to be
presented to him; which to the First Minister's wife was granted, and I
was carried by the late Lady Chesterfield to kiss his hand as he went to
supper in the Duchess of Kendal's apartment. This was the night but one
before he left England the last time."
"The person of the King is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but
yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like
his pictures and coins, not tall, of an aspect rather good than august,
with a dark tie wig, a plain coat, waistcoat and breeches of
snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour and a blue
riband over all."
[1] Lord Chesterfield does not mention that George I. spoke no
English.--ED.
PUBLIC FEELING AS TO THE NEW DYNASTY (1714).
A. WHIG.
+Source.+--_Letters of Lady M. W. Montagu._ Vol. 1., p. 86. Bohn's
edition.
_Aug. 9, 1714._
The Archbishop of York has been come to Bishopsthorpe but three days. I
went with my cousin to see the King proclaimed, which was done, the
archbishop walking next the Lord Mayor, all the country gentry
following, with greater crowds of people than I believed to be in York,
vast acclamations, and the appearance of a general satisfaction. The
Pretender afterwards dragged about the streets and burned. Ringing of
bells, bonfires, and illuminations, the mob crying Liberty and Property!
and Long live King George! This morning all the principal men of any
figure took port for London, and we are alarmed with the fear of
attempts from Scotland, though all Protestants here seem unanimous for
the Hanover succession.
B. TORY.
+Source.+--Thomas Hearne [1678-1735], _Reliquiæ Hearnianæ_, 1869. Vol. i.,
pp. 303, 309.
_Aug. 4._--This day, at two o'clock, the said elector of Brunswick (who
is in the fifty-fifth year of his age, being born May 28th, 1660) was
proclaimed in Oxford. The vice-chancellor, and doctors, and masters met
in the convocation house, and from thence went to St. Mary's, to attend
at the solemnity. There was but a small appearance of doctors and
masters that went from the convocation house. I stood in the Bodleian
gallery where I observed them. Dr. Hudson was amongst them, and all the
heads of houses in town. But there were a great many more doctors and
masters at St. Marie's, where a scaffold was erected for them.
_Aug. 5._--The illumination and rejoicing in Oxford was very little last
night. The proclamation was published at Abingdon also yesterday, but
there was little appearance.
A letter having been put into the mayor of Oxford's hands before he
published the proclamation, cautioning him against proclaiming King
George, and advising him to proclaim the pretender by the name of King
James III., the said Mayor, notwithstanding, proclaimed King George, and
yesterday our vice-chancellor, and heads, and proctors, agreed to a
reward of an hundred pounds to be paid to anyone that should discover
the author or authors of the letter; and the order for the same being
printed I have inserted a copy of it here.
"_At a general meeting of the vice-chancellor, heads of houses, and
proctors of the university of Oxford, at the Apodyterium of the
Convocation House, on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 1714._
"Whereas a letter directed to Mr. Mayor of the city of Oxford,
containing treasonable matters, was delivered at his house on Monday
night last, betwixt nine and ten of the clock, by a person in an
open-sleeved gown, and in a cinnamon-coloured coat, as yet unknown:
which letter has been communicated to Mr. Vice-Chancellor by the said
Mayor: if any one will discover the author or authors of the said
letter, or the person who delivered it, so as he or they may be brought
to justice, he shall have a reward of one hundred pounds, to be paid
him forthwith by Mr. Vice-Chancellor.
"BERNARD GARDINER, Vice-Chancellor."
The letter to which the vice-chancellor's programme refers:
OXON, _August 2nd, 1714_.
MR. MAYOR,
If you are so honest a man as to prefer your duty and allegiance to your
lawfull sovereign before the fear of danger, you will not need this
caution, which comes from your friends to warn you, if you should
receive an order to proclaim Hannover, not to comply with it. For the
hand of God is now at work to set things upon a right foot, and in a few
days you will find wonderfull changes, which if you are wise enough to
foresee, you will obtain grace and favour from the hands of his sacred
majestie king James, by proclaiming him voluntarily, which otherwise you
will be forced to do with disgrace. If you have not the courage to do
this, at least for your own safety delay proclaiming Hannover as long as
you can under pretense of sickness or some other reason. For you cannot
do it without certain hazard of your life, be you ever so well guarded.
I, who am but secretary to the rest, having a particular friendship for
you, and an opinion of your honesty and good inclinations to his
majestie's service, have prevailed with them to let me give you this
warning. If you would know who the rest are, our name is
LEGION, _and we are many_.
This note shall be your sufficient warrant in times to come for
proclaiming his majestie King James, and if this does not satisfie you,
upon your first publick notice we will do it in person.
For Mr. Broadwater, mayor of the City of Oxford, these.
_Sept. 25._--On Monday last (Sept. 20th) King George (as he is styled)
with his son (who is in the 31st year of his age, and is called prince
of Wales, he having been so created), entered London, and came to the
palace of St. James's, attended with several thousands. It was observed
that the Duke of Marlborough was more huzza'd, upon this occasion, than
King George, and that the acclamation, _God save the Duke of
Marlborough!_ was more frequently repeated than _God save the king!_ In
the evening the illuminations and bonfires were not many. King George
hath begun to change all the ministers, and to put in the _whiggs_,
every post bringing us news of this alteration, to the grievous
mortification of that party called _tories_. The duke of Marlborough is
made captain general of all the forces in room of the duke of Ormond,
not to mention the other great changes. But the tories must thank
themselves for all this, they having acted whilst in power very
unworthily, and instead of preferring worthy scholars and truly honest
men, they put in the quite contrary, and indeed behaved themselves with
very little courage or integrity. I am sorry to write this; but 'tis too
notorious, and they therefore very deservedly suffer now. They have
acted contrary to their principles, and must therefore expect to smart.
But the whiggs, as they have professed bad principles, so they have
acted accordingly, not in the least receding from what they have laid
down as principles. 'Tis to be hoped the tories may now at last see
their folly, and may resolve to act steadily and uniformly, and to
provide for, and take care of, one another, and with true courage and
resolution endeavour to retrieve credit and reputation by practising
those doctrines which will make for the service of the king, and of the
whole nation, and not suffer those enemies the whiggs utterly to ruin
their country, as they have done almost already.
THE '15.
I.
THE PRETENDER'S DECLARATION (1715).
+Source.+--A. Boyer's _Political State of Great Britain_, 1720. Vol. x.,
pp. 626-630.
_His Majesty's Most Gracious Declaration._
JAMES R.
James VIII. by the Grace of God, of Scotland, England, France and
Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith &c. To all Our Loving Subjects of
What Degree or Quality soever. Greeting. As we are firmly resolved never
to lose any Opportunity of asserting Our undoubted Title to the Imperial
Crown of these Realms, and of endeavouring to get the Possession of that
Right which is devolv'd upon Us by the Laws of God and Man: so we must
in Justice to the Sentiments of our Heart declare, That nothing in the
World can give Us so great satisfaction, as to owe to the Endeavours of
Our Loyal Subjects both our own and their Restoration to that happy
Settlement which can alone deliver this Church and Nation from the
Calamities which they lie at present under, and from those future
Miseries which must be the Consequences of the present usurpation.
During the Life of Our dear Sister, of Glorious Memory, the Happiness
which Our People enjoy'd softened in some Degree the Hardship of our own
Fate; and we must further confess, That when we reflected on the
Goodness of her Nature, and her Inclination to Justice, we could not but
persuade Our Self, that she intended to establish and perpetuate the
Peace which she had given to these Kingdoms by destroying for ever all
Competition to the Succession of the Crown, and by securing to us, at
last, the Enjoyment of the Inheritance out of which We had been so long
kept, which her Conscience must inform her was our Due, and which her
Principles must bend her to desire that We might obtain.
But since the Time that it pleased Almighty God to put a Period to her
Life, and not to suffer Us to throw Our Self, as We then fully purposed
to have done, upon Our People, We have not been able to look upon the
Present Condition of Our Kingdoms, or to consider their Future Prospect,
without all the Horror and Indignation which ought to fill the Breast of
every Scotsman.
We have beheld a Foreign Family, Aliens to our Country, distant in
Blood, and Strangers even to our Language, ascend the Throne.
We have seen the Reins of Government put into the Hands of a Faction,
and that Authority which was design'd for the Protection of All,
exercis'd by a Few of the Worst, to the oppression of the Best and
Greatest number of our Subjects. Our Sister has not been left at Rest in
her Grave; her name has been scurrilously abused, her Glory, as far as
in these People lay, insolently defaced, and her faithful Servants
inhumanely persecuted. A Parliament has been procur'd by the most
Unwarrantable Influences, and by the Grossest Corruptions, to serve the
Vilest Ends, and they who ought to be the Guardians of the Liberties of
the People, are become the Instruments of Tyranny. Whilst the Principal
Powers, engaged in the Late Wars, enjoy the Blessings of Peace, and are
attentive to discharge their Debts, and ease their People, Great
Britain, in the Midst of Peace, feels all the Load of a War. New Debts
are contracted, New Armies are raised at Home, Dutch Forces are brought
into these Kingdoms, and, by taking Possession of the Dutchy of Bremen,
in Violation of the Public Faith, a Door is opened by the Usurper to let
in an Inundation of Foreigners from Abroad and to reduce these Nations
to the State of a Province, to one of the most inconsiderable Provinces
of the Empire.
These are some few of the many real Evils into which these Kingdoms have
been betrayed, under Pretence of being rescued and secured from Dangers
purely imaginary, and these are such Consequences of abandoning the Old
constitution, as we persuade Our Selves very many of those who promoted
the present unjust and illegal Settlement, never intended.
We observe, with the utmost Satisfaction, that the Generality of Our
Subjects are awaken'd with a just Sense of their Danger, and that they
shew themselves disposed to take such Measures as may effectually rescue
them from that Bondage which has, by the Artifice of a few designing
Men, and by the Concurrence of many unhappy Causes, been brought upon
them.
We adore the Wisdom of the Divine Providence, which has opened a Way to
our Restoration, by the Success of those very Measures that were laid to
disappoint us for ever: And we must earnestly conjure all Our Loving
Subjects, not to suffer that Spirit to faint or die away, which has been
so miraculously raised in all Parts of the Kingdom, but to pursue with
all the Vigour and Hopes of Success, which so just and righteous a Cause
ought to inspire, those methods, which The Finger of God seems to point
out to them.
We are come to take Our Part in all the Dangers and Difficulties to
which any of Our Subjects, from the Greatest down to the Meanest, may be
exposed on this important Occasion, to relieve Our Subjects of Scotland
from the Hardships they groan under on account of the late unhappy
Union; and to restore the Kingdom in its ancient, free, and independent
State.
We have before Our Eyes the Example of Our Royal Grandfather, who fell a
Sacrifice to Rebellion, and of Our Royal Uncle, who, by a Train of
Miracles, escaped the Rage of the barbarous and blood-thirsty Rebels,
and lived to exercise his Clemency towards those who had waged war
against his Father and himself; who had driven him to seek Shelter in
Foreign Lands, and who had even set a Price upon his Head. We see the
same Instances of Cruelty renewed against Us, by Men of the same
Principles, without any other Reason than the Consciousness of their own
Guilt, and the implacable Malice of their own Hearts: For in the Account
of such Men, it's a Crime sufficient to be born their King; but God
forbid, that we should tread in those Steps, or that the Cause of a
Lawful Prince, and an Injur'd People, should be carried on like that of
Usurpation and Tyranny, and owe its Support to Assassins. We shall copy
after the Patterns above mentioned, and be ready, with the Former of Our
Royal Ancestors, to seal the Cause of Our Country, if such be the Will
of Heaven, with Our Blood. But we hope for Better Things; we hope, with
the Latter, to see Our just Rights, and those of the Church and People
of Scotland, once more settled in a Free and Independent Scots
Parliament, on their Antient Foundation. To such a Parliament, which we
will immediately call, shall we intirely refer both Our and Their
Interests, being sensible that these Interests, rightly understood, are
always the same. Let the Civil, as well as Religious Rights of all our
Subjects, receive their Confirmation in such a Parliament; let
Consciences truly tender be indulged; let Property of every Kind be
better than ever secured; let an Act of General Grace and Amnesty
extinguish the Fears even of the most Guilty; if possible, let the very
Remembrance of all which have preceded this happy Moment be utterly
blotted out, that Our Subjects may be united to Us, and to Each Other,
on the strictest Bonds of Affection, as well as Interest.
And that nothing may be omitted which is in Our Power to contribute to
this desirable End, we do, by these Presents, absolutely and
effectually, for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, pardon, remit and
discharge all Crimes of High Treason, Misprision of Treason, and all
other Crimes and Offences whatsoever, done or committed against Us or
Our Royal Father of Blessed Memory, by any of Our Subjects of what
Degree or Quality soever, who shall, at or after Our Landing, and before
they engage in any Action against Us, or Our Forces, from that Time, lay
hold on Mercy, and return to that Duty and Allegiance which they owe to
Us, their only rightful and lawful Sovereign.
By the joint Endeavours of Us and Our Parliament, urged by these
Motives, and directed by these Views, we may hope to see the Peace and
flourishing Estate of this Kingdom, in a short Time, restored: and We
shall be equally forward to concert with our Parliament such further
Measures as may be thought necessary for leaving the same to future
Generations.
And We hereby require all Sheriffs of Shires, Stewarts of Stewartries,
or their Deputies, and Magistrates of Burghs, to publish this Our
Declaration immediately after it shall come to their Hands in the Usual
Places and Manner, under the Pain of being proceeded against for Failure
thereof, and forfeiting the Benefit of Our general Pardon.
Given under Our Sign Manual and Privy Signet, at Our Court at
_Commercy_, the 25th Day of Octob. in the 15th Year of Our Reign.
II.
THE PROCLAMATION OF JAMES III. (1715).
+Source.+--Peter Clarke's _Journal_, in _Miscellany of the Scottish
History Society_, 1893. Vol. i., p. 513.
SIR,--On Wednesday the second day of November one thousand seaven
hundred and fifteen, the then high sherriff of Cumberland assembled the
_posse comitatus_ on Penrith Fell, Viscount Loynsdale being there as
commander of the militia of Westmoreland, Cumberland and Northumberland,
who were assembled at the place aforesaid for prevention of rebellion
and riots. The Lord Bishop of Carlisle and his daughter were there. By
the strictest observation the numbers were twenty-five thousand men, but
very few of them had any regular armes. At 11 o'clock in the forenoon of
the same day the high sherriff and the two lords received a true account
that the Earl of Derwentwater, together with his army, were within 6
miles of Penrith. Upon the receipt of this news the said high sherriff
and the said 2 lords, the _posse comitatus_ and the militia fled,
leaving most of their arms vpon the said fell. There is no doubt had the
men stood their ground the said Earl and his men (as it hath since beene
acknowledged by divers of them) wood have retreated. About 3 aclock in
the afternoon on the same day the said Earl, together with his army, in
number about one thousand seaven hundred, entred the said towne of
Penrith, where they proclaimed their king by the name and title of James
the 3d. of England and Ireland, and 8th of Scotland. In this towne they
received what excise was due to the crowne and gave receipts for the
same. A small party were sent to Lowther Hall to search for Lord
Loynsdale, but not finding him there (for he was gone into Yorkshire),
they made bold to take provision for themselves and their horses, such
as the Hall aforded. There were only at that time two old woomen in the
said Hall who received no bodily damage. But provision being scarce in
the said towne, Penrith, they marched betimes next morning for Apleby.
The gentlemen paid their quarters of for what they called for in both
these townes, but the commonality paid little or nothing, neither was
there any person that received any bodily damage in either of the said
townes. If they found any armes they tooke them without paying the
owners for them. Only one man joyned them in their march from Penrith to
Apleby. In this towne they made the same proclamation as they had done
in the former, and received the excise. The weather at this time for
some days before was rainey. They marched out of this towne betimes on
Saturday morning, being the 5th of November, in order for Kendall. In
this day's march none joyned them (excepting one, Mr. Francis
Thornburrow), son of Mr. William Thornburrow of Selfet Hall neare
Kendall. His father sent one of his servant men to wait upon his son
because he was in scarlet cloathes, and stile of Captain Thornburrow.
About 12 aclock of the same day 6 quartermasters came into the towne of
Kendall, and about 2 aclock in the afternoone Brigadeer Mackintoss and
his men came both a horseback, having both plads on their targets
hanging on their backs, either of them a sord by his side, as also
either a gun and a case of pistols. The said Brigadeer looked with a
grim countenance. He and his man lodged at Alderman Lowrys, a private
house in Highgate Street in this towne. About one houre after came in
the horsemen, and the footmen at the latter end. It rained very hard
here this day, and had for several days before, so that the horse and
the footmen did not draw their swords, nor show their collours, neither
did any drums beat. Onely six highlands bagpipes played. They marched to
the cold-stone or the cross, and read the same proclamation twice over
in English without any mixture of Scotish tongue. I had for about one
month lived and was clerke to Mr. Craikenthorp, attorney at Law, and as
a spectator I went to heare the proclamation read, which I believe was
in print, and began after this manner, viz., Whereas George Elector of
Brunswick has usurped and taken upon him the stile of the king of these
realms, etc. Another clause in it I took particular notice of was this,
viz.--Did immediately after his said fathers decease become our only and
lawful leige. At the end of the proclamation they gave a great shout. A
quaker who stood next to me not puting of his hat at the end of the said
ceremony, a highlander thrust a halbert at him, but it fortunately went
between me and him, so that it did neither of us any damage. So they
dispersed.
III.
FAILURE OF THE EXPEDITION EXPLAINED.
(_a_) _Absence of Foreign Aid._
+Source.+--_Letter to Sir William Windham_, Bolingbroke's Works, 1754.
Vol. i, pp. 79, 80.
The true cause of all the misfortunes which happened to the Scotch and
those who took arms in the north of England, lies here: that they rose
without any previous certainty of foreign help, in direct contradiction
to the scheme which their leaders themselves had formed. The excuse
which I have heard made for this, is that the act of parliament for
curbing the highlanders was near to be put in execution: that they would
have been disarmed and entirely disabled from rising at any other time,
if they had not rose at this. You can judge better than I of the
validity of this excuse. It seems to me that by management they might
have gained time, and that even when they had been reduced to the
dilemma supposed, they ought to have got together under pretence of
resisting the infractions of the union without any mention of the
pretender, and have treated with the government on this foot. By these
means they might probably have preserved themselves in a condition of
avowing their design when they should be sure of being backed from
abroad; at the worst they might have declared for the Chevalier when all
other expedients failed them. In a word I take this excuse not to be
very good, and the true reason of this conduct to have been the rashness
of the people, and the inconsistent measures of their head.
(_b_) _The Pretender no Leader of Men._
+Source.+--_A true Account of the Proceedings at Perth, Written by a
Rebel_, 1716, p. 20.
I must not conceal that when we saw the man whom they called our King,
we found ourselves not at all animated by his presence, and if he was
disappointed in us, we were tenfold more so in him. We saw nothing in
him that looked like spirit. He never appeared with cheerfulness and
vigour to animate us. His countenance looked extremely heavy. He cared
not to come abroad among us soldiers, or to see us handle our arms or do
our exercises. Some said, the circumstances he found us in dejected him;
I am sure the figure he made dejected us; and had he sent us but 3.000
men of good hopes, and never himself come among us, we had done other
things than we have now.
(_c_) _The Nation's Dread of Popery._
[Just as in 1745 the Curse of Ernulphus was reprinted in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for September "to shew what is to be expected
from the Pope, if he come to be supreme head of the church in this
nation," so in 1715 the same fears were worked upon in innumerable
pamphlets. The first Article of Impeachment of High Treason against Lord
Derwentwater is the charge of re-establishing popery, and is taken from
_A Faithful Register of the Late Rebellion_, 1718, p. 41; the second
extract is from _A Caveat against the Pretender_, 1725, p. 5.]
(1) ... For many Years past, a most wicked Design and Contrivance has
been formed and carried on, to subvert the ancient and established
Government, and the good Laws of these Kingdoms; to extirpate the true
Protestant Religion therein established, and to destroy its Professors;
and, instead thereof, to introduce and settle Popery and arbitrary
Power; in which unnatural and horrid Conspiracy, great Numbers of
Persons, of different Degrees and Qualities, have concerned themselves,
and acted; and many Protestants, pretending an uncommon Zeal for the
Church of _England_, have join'd themselves with professed Papists,
uniting their Endeavours to accomplish and execute the aforesaid and
traitorous designs.
(2) The Pretender return! What Flames will this kindle? What burning of
Towns, and ransacking of Cities? What Plunder and Rapine? And what
Blindness, Superstition; Ruin of all Religion, and utter Waste of
Conscience, would be the Issue of his Success!...
That this is not mere Declamation, and design'd for Amusement, a little
Inspection into that _Mystery of Iniquity_, we call Popery, wou'd
convince the Reader, even to Amazement: But these Papers must be
confin'd to a narrower compass, and shall only fix upon one single Point
of Popery, that of _Persecution and Cruelty_, so natural, and even
essential to it: I shall make it appear that _Popery_ is a Religion _set
on fire of Hell_, the true Molock and Tophet that devours and consumes
all Protestants thro'out the Earth, that are not by interposing
Providence rescu'd from its Jaws.
THE SEPTENNIAL ACT (1716).
+Source.+--Danby Pickering, _The Statutes at Large_, 1764. Vol. xiii.,
pp. 1713-1717. Cambridge.
_Whereas in and by act of parliament made in the sixth year of the reign
of their late Majesties_ King William _and Queen_ Mary (of ever blessed
_memory) intituled_, An Act for the frequent meeting and calling of
parliaments: IT WAS _among other things enacted, That from henceforth no
parliament whatsoever, that should at any time then after be called,
assembled or held, should have any continuance longer than for three
years only at the farthest, to be accounted from the day on which by the
writ of summons the said parliament should be appointed to meet: whereas
it has been found by experience, that the said clause hath proved very
grievous and burthensome, by occasioning much greater and more continued
expences in order to elections of members to serve in parliament, and
more violent and lasting heat and animosities among the subjects of this
realm, than were ever known before the said clause was enacted; and the
said provision, if it should continue, may probably at this juncture,
when a restless and popish faction are designing and endeavouring to
renew the rebellion within this Kingdom, and an invasion from abroad, be
destructive to the peace and security of the government_: be it enacted
by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent
of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in parliament
assembled, and by the authority of the same, That this present
parliament, and all parliaments that shall at any time hereafter be
called, assembled or held, shall and may respectively have continuance
for seven years, and no longer, to be accounted from the day on which by
the writ of summons this present parliament hath been, or any future
parliament shall be, appointed to meet, unless this present, or any
future parliament hereafter to be summoned shall be sooner dissolved by
his Majesty, his heirs or successors.
DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH FLEET OFF SICILY BY ADMIRAL SIR GEORGE BYNG, JULY
31, 1718.
+Source.+--Byng's original despatch in Oldmixon's _History of England:
George I._, 1735. P. 663.
_August 6_, O.S.--Early in the Morning, on the 30th of _July_, as we
were standing in for _Messina_, we saw two Scouts of the _Spanish_ fleet
in the _Faro_, very near us; and at the same time a _Felucca_ coming off
from the _Calabrian_ shore, assur'd us they saw from the Hills the
_Spanish Fleet_ lying by; upon which the Admiral stood thro' the _Faro_
after the scouts, judging they would lead us to their Fleet, which they
did, for before Noon we had a fair sight of all their Ships.... Their
Fleet consisted of 26 Men of War, great and small, two Fireships, four
Bomb Vessels, seven Galleys, and several Ships with Stores and
Provisions. The Admiral order'd the _Kent_, _Superbe_, _Grafton_ and
_Oxford_, the best Sailors in the Fleet, to make what Sail they could to
come up with the _Spaniards_; and that the Ship that could get nearest
to them should carry the Lights usually worn by the Admiral, that he
might not lose sight of them in the Night, and he made what sail he
could with the rest of the Fleet to keep up with them. It being little
Wind the _Spanish_ Galleys tow'd their heaviest Sailors all Night. The
31st in the Morning, as soon as it was day, they finding us pretty near
up with their Fleet, the Galleys and smaller Ships, with the Fireships,
Bomb-Vessels, and Store-Ships separated from their Admiral and bigger
Ships, and stood in for the Shore. After whom the Admiral sent Captain
_Walton_ in the _Canterbury_, with the _Argyle_ and six Ships more. As
those Ships were coming up with them, one of the _Spaniards_ fir'd a
Broadside at the _Argyle_. The Admiral seeing those Ships engag'd with
the _Spanish_ which were making towards the Shore, sent orders to
Captain _Walton_ to rendezvous after the Action at _Syracuse_.... We
held our Chace after the _Spanish_ Admiral with three of his Rear
Admirals and the biggest Ships, which staid by their _Flags_, till we
came near them. The Captains of the _Kent_, _Superbe_, _Grafton_ and
_Orford_ having Orders to make all the Sail they could to place
themselves by the four Headmost Ships, were the first that came up with
them. The Spaniards began by firing their Stern Chace at them. But they
having Orders not to fire unless the _Spanish_ Ships repeated their
firing, made no return at first, but the _Spaniards_ firing again, the
_Orford_ attack'd the _Santa Rosa_, the _St. Charles_ struck without
much Opposition, and the _Kent_ took Possession of her. The _Grafton_
attack'd the _Prince of Asturias_, formerly call'd the _Cumberland_, in
which was Rear Admiral _Chacon_, but the _Breda_ and _Captain_ coming
up, she left that Ship for them to take, which they soon did, and
stretched ahead after another 60 Gun Ship, which was at her Starboard
Bow while she was engaging the _Prince of Asturias_, and kept firing her
Stern-Chace into the _Grafton_. About One o'clock the _Kent_ and
_Superbe_ engaged the Spanish Admiral, which with two more Ships fir'd
on them, and made a running Fight till about Three, when the _Kent_
bearing down upon her and under her Stern gave her a Broadside, and went
away to Leeward of her; then the _Superbe_ put for it and laid the
_Spanish_ Admiral on Board, falling on her Weather-Quarter, but the
_Spanish_ Admiral shifting her Helm and avoiding her, the _Superbe_
rang'd under her Lee-Quarter, on which she struck to her. At the same
time the _Barfleur_ being within Shot of the said _Spanish_ Admiral, one
of their Rear Admirals, and another 60 Gun Ship, which were to Windward
of the _Barfleur_, bore down and gave her three Broadsides, and then
clapt upon a Wind, standing in for the land; the Admiral in the
_Barfleur_ stood after them till it was almost Night, but it being
little Wind ... he left pursuing them and stood away to the Fleet again,
which he found two Hours after Night. The _Essex_ took the _Juno_, the
_Montague_ and _Rupert_ took the _Volante_; Vice Admiral _Cornwall_
followed the _Grafton_ to support her ... Rear Admiral Delaval with the
_Royal Oak_ chas'd two Ships that went away more Leewardly than the
rest, one of them said to be Rear Admiral Crammock, a Scotch or Irish
_Renegade_, who had serv'd several years in the English Fleet; but we
not having seen them since, know not the Success.[2]
[2] The result of the battle, in which the English had 1,360 guns, the
Spanish 1,310, was that fifteen Spanish ships of war, 744 guns in all,
one fireship, and one store-ship were taken, and two smaller vessels
burnt, and Byng goes on to say that, "as is usual on such Occasions,
their Mortification after their Defeat was equal to their Presumption
before."
THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE (1720).
I.
THE PROPOSALS: THE SECOND SCHEME OF THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY.
+Source.+--_The Schemes of the South Sea Company and the Bank of England
as Propos'd to the Parliament for the Reducing of the National Debts._
London, 1720.
_To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament Assembled._
The Corporation of the Governors and Company of Merchants, Trading to
the South Seas and other Parts of America, and for Encouraging the
Fishery, having on the 27th January last presented their Humble Proposal
to this Honourable House, for Enlarging the Capital Stock of the said
Company, by taking thereinto the several Annuities and Publick Debts
therein Mentioned, on the Terms and Conditions in the said Proposal also
Mentioned, in which Proposal such Advantages were offer'd to the
Publick, as the said Corporation did humbly hope would have been to the
entire Satisfaction of this Honourable House, and most conducive to the
certain Discharging and Paying off the whole Debt of the Nation, and to
which Proposal they humbly crave Leave to refer. But the Governors and
Company of the Bank of England having the same day also delivered a
Proposal to this Honourable House, for enlarging their Capital Stock, by
taking in the same Annuities and Debts on the Terms and Conditions in
their Proposal also mentioned.
This Corporation therefore further, to manifest their Zeal and Earnest
desire to Contribute their utmost to the reducing and paying off the
Publick Debts, crave leave to offer the following Explanations and
Amendments to their said Proposal.
I. As to the sixth Article of their said former Proposal, wherein they
have humbly desir'd to be Allowed for Charges of Management, for their
to be increased Capital, so much as it now costs the Government for the
Charges of Paying, Assigning and Accounting for the said Debts, or such
Proportion thereof, as the Sum which shall be taken in by the Company,
shall bear to the whole of those Debts.
They now offer by way of Explanation of that Article, that the
Allowances therein Mentioned, are not to exceed a Proportion to the
Allowance they now have by Act of Parliament on their present Capital
for that purpose.
II. That whereas, in their seventh Article of their said Proposal it is
Mentioned that the Annuities for the Company's present, and to be
increased Capital, be continued at the Rates therein Mentioned till
Midsummer, 1727. And that from and after that time their then Annuity on
their whole Capital, shall be actually reduced to £4 per Cent. per Ann.
and likewise be from thenceforth redeemable by Parliament.
They do humbly offer that if this Honourable House do think it more for
the Interest of the Publick, that in lieu of the said seventh Article,
all the Sums to be taken into the Company's Capital, in pursuance of
their proposal, shall be redeemable by Parliament, from and after
Midsummer 1724, in Sums not less than £500,000 at a time they do consent
thereto.
III. And whereas by the tenth Article of their said former Proposal,
they offer'd for the Liberty of Increasing their Capital Stock, as is
therein aforesaid; that they would give and pay into his Majesty's
Exchequer, for the Service of the Publick, the sum of £3,500,000.
They now humbly Offer, that over and above the said £3,500,000, They
will farther give and pay into his Majesty's Exchequer, for the use of
the Publick, by four Equal Quarterly Payments on the days Mention'd in
their said former Proposal, £500,000 more certain, and also upon all the
said Annuities for certain Terms of Years which this Company shall take
into their Capital Stock, before the first day of March, 1721, after the
rate of four Year and half purchase, by four Quarterly Payments which if
all the said Annuities be taken into the said Company, will amount to
the Sum of £3,567,503 or thereabouts, to which being added the said
£3,500,000 and the said further Sum of £500,000 will amount in the whole
to the Sum of £7,567,500 or thereabouts.
IV. That whereas in the eleventh Article of their former Proposal, they
did submit that so much as shall arise by the sinking Fund before
Midsummer 1727 may from and after paying Off such Part of the Publick
Debts, as may be Redeemed within that time, and which shall not be taken
into this Company, be applied at the end of every Year towards paying
off, in even One Hundred Thousand Pounds, that part of the Company's
Capital, which carries £5 _per Cent. per Ann._
They do humbly offer in lieu thereof, that if this Honourable House
think fit to make their to be Increased Capital, Redeemable at Midsummer
1724, That the said sinking Fund may till that time be applied half
Yearly, to the paying off that part of the Company's which is to carry
£5 _per Cent. per Ann._
V. As to the twelfth Article of this Company's former Proposal, Relating
to the Circulating of £1,000,000 in Exchequer Bills Gratis, and likewise
pay the Interest for that Million, so as no other Exchequer Bills be
issued than what shall be Circulated by the Credit of the Exchequer,
without the aid of Subscription or Contract.
VI. And Lastly, that this Honourable House may be fully satisfied of the
sincere Intentions of this Company to use their best Endeavours to take
in all the said Annuities for ninety-nine, and ninety-six Years, which
amount to £667,705 8s. 1d. _per Ann._ This Company do further Humbly
offer to give and pay into his Majesty's Exchequer, for the Service of
the Publick, by four Equal Quarterly Payments, one Years Purchase upon
all such of those Annuities as shall happen not to come into the
Company's Capital within the time aforesaid.
And whereas this Company is very Sensible, that the Prosperity of the
Nation doth greatly depend upon the discharging the Publick Debts (a
Motive which Induced them to make the first Propositions of this Publick
and beneficial nature) They do Humbly submit these Explanations and
Amendments to this Honourable House, flattering themselves that
Readiness and Cheerfulness that Ingaged them so much earlier than any
other Society, to endeavour to reduce that great Debt under which this
Nation is Oppressed, will Intitle them to the favour and preference of
this House, since they are willing and do hereby declare they are ready
to undertake this great work upon whatever Terms may be offered by any
other Company.
By Order of the General Court.
JOHN FELLOWS, _Sub-Governour_.
CHARLES JOYE, _Dep. Governour_.
_Feb. 1, 1719_
II.
THE BUBBLE BURST.
+Source.+--_The Case of the Borrowers on the South Sea Loans Stated._
Pp. 1-7. London, 1721.
Since the Parliament has thought it of service to the Publick, that the
_unhappy sufferers by the South Sea_ should have Relief: and are at
present considering how to give it them: I am persuaded, no one will
think it either improper or unreasonable, that the case of the
_Borrowers on the Loans_ (who in my opinion are the _most unhappy_ of
them all) should be truly stated and made publick.
For my part, I will endeavour it, as far as I am able, with Justice to
the Company who are their Creditors, and with no more Compassion to
these unfortunate People, than their Circumstances honestly deserve: And
I have this Satisfaction in what I undertake, that as I believe it is
not the Intent of the Members of either of the Honourable Houses to
administer Relief with Partiality, or to neglect any set of Men who
really want it, should I so far succeed, as to show that _these
Borrowers_ do, I can't but hope that _they_ will be esteemed at least
worthy _their Care_ and _Protection_.
To what purpose these Loans were opened by the _late Directors_, I need
not mention: Every one knows, that without _them_ they could never have
perfected _their Scheme_, as they used to term their _Villainy_. It was
not enough for them to have raised their Stock to such a Price, as to
have been _only_ able to have discharged their Agreement with the
Government; they had larger Views, they were to satisfy their own
Avarice, and could not therefore give too great an imaginary Value to
their Stock. _These Managers_ (unhappily for us) set out with the good
opinion of Mankind: they were esteemed too wise to be deceived
themselves, and too honest to deceive their Friends. Thus qualified for
Mischief, they soon began it: they soon intoxicated the Brains of all
they talked with, gave them wild Notions of the rising Value of their
Stock, and persuaded them at any rate to put themselves in Fortune's
way: Having with great Art and Industry gained a _Credit_ to their
Stock, they immediately upon it took in the first Subscriptions; but
these Subscriptions having drawn a great Quantity of Money into their
hands, they apprehended the rising Spirit of the Stock might soon be
checked for want of Money, and their Project by it injured: For _even
then_ the Species of our Nation was not infinite, it was therefore
necessary to contrive some Means to carry on _quick Circulations_ of it:
and the Means contrived was to issue Money on these Loans. The Success
they had we all remember; the Price increased prodigiously, and, if I am
not mistaken, above £100 _per Cent._ in a Day. And indeed this Success
was very probable: for these Loans served two Ends at once of the
greatest moment to their Schemes: While they furnished the unhappy
Borrowers with Money to purchase Stock with, they gave fresh Credit to
the Stock, and raised the Price: For when the _Directors_, who must be
supposed to know what they were doing, had put so great a confidence in
their Stock, as to lend such Sums upon the Security of _that alone_,
others might with good reason take courage, and trust it too. And their
Cunning upon this occasion was very extraordinary, for they were not
contented with the Credit they gave to their Stock by this Act, which
was a tacit Declaration that they knew it to be intrinsically worth as
much or more than what they ventured to lend on it; but they were
diligent in private Companies to confirm Men in such Opinion of it, by a
constant Ridicule of the Bank for their pitiful and cautious Loan of
£100 _per Cent._ To this Step are greatly owing all our Misfortunes: The
most Prudent now began to blame themselves for the most unjust
Suspicions they had entertain'd of so good a Project. A Man of moderate
Fortune now seem'd poor by the Vast Riches all about him had so suddenly
acquired. All grew impatient and uneasy, who were not in this Stock, the
Managers were idolised, and only they were happy, who had Directors for
their Friends. The Merchant, who thro' a long Diligence and great
Variety of Hazard had gained a small Estate, grew mad to see so many
idle Fellows enrich themselves within a day or two. The honest Country
Gentleman, who by good Management and wise economy had been an Age in
paying off a Mortgage, or saving a few small Portions for his younger
Children, could not bear the big Discourse and Insults of this _New
Race_. Both laid aside their Prudence, and at last became unhappy
Converts to _South Sea_: Both were persuaded now to use their Diligence,
and recover that time their Disbelief had lost them. The one despised
his Trade, and sold his Effects, at any rate, to try his Fortune: The
other mortgaged what he could, or sold it for a _little stock_ or _Third
Subscription_: And now both are undone, both Beggars. I should think
Cases of such Distress as these could not be reflected on without even
Humanity itself becoming painful; and yet, whether it proceeds from such
Cases being frequent and daily seen, or from an Hardness of Heart, which
Providence for a Judgment has suffered to fall on us, I know not; but
such Cases are scarce pitied by us: Every one still pursues his own
Interest, and seems to grudge the Expense even of a few Shillings, to
save thousands from Destruction.
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AS PRIME MINISTER (1721-1741).
I.
+Source.+--John, Baron Hervey (1696-1743), _Memoirs_, 1848. Vol. i., pp.
23-25.
No man ever was blessed with a clearer head, a truer or quicker
judgment, or a deeper insight into mankind; he knew the strength and
weakness of everybody he had to deal with, and how to make his advantage
of both; he had more warmth of affection and friendship for some
particular people than one could have believed it possible for any one
who had been so long raking in the dirt of mankind to be capable of
feeling for so worthless a species of animals. One should naturally have
imagined that the contempt and distrust he must have had for the species
in gross, would have given him at least an indifference and distrust
towards every particular. Whether his negligence of his enemies, and
never stretching his power to gratify his resentment of the sharpest
injury, was policy or constitution, I shall not determine: but I do not
believe anybody who knows these times will deny that no minister ever
was more outraged, or less apparently revengeful. Some of his friends,
who were not unforgiving themselves, nor very apt to see imaginary
faults in him, have condemned this easiness in his temper as a weakness
that has often exposed him to new injuries, and given encouragement to
his adversaries to insult him with impunity. Brigadier Churchill, a
worthy and good-natured, friendly, and honourable man, who had lived Sir
Robert's intimate friend for many years, and through all the different
stages of his power and retirement, prosperity and disgrace, has often
said that Sir Robert Walpole was so little able to resist the show of
repentance in those from whom he had received the worst usage, that a
few tears and promises of amendment have often washed out the stains
even of ingratitude.
In all occurrences, and at all times, and in all difficulties, he was
constantly present and cheerful; he had very little of what is generally
called insinuation, and with which people are apt to be taken for the
present, without being gained; but no man ever knew better among those
he had to deal with who was to be had, on what terms, by what methods,
and how the acquisitions would answer. He was not one of those
projecting systematical great geniuses who are always thinking in
theory, and are above common practice: he had been too long conversant
in business not to know that in the fluctuation of human affairs and
variety of accidents to which the best concerted schemes are liable,
they must often be disappointed who build on the certainty of the most
probable events; and therefore seldom turned his thoughts to the
provisional warding off future evils which might or might not happen; or
the scheming of remote advantages, subject to so many intervening
crosses; but always applied himself to the present occurrence, studying
and generally hitting upon the properest method to improve what was
favourable, and the best expedient to extricate himself out of what was
difficult. There never was any minister to whom access was so easy and
so frequent, nor whose answers were more explicit. He knew how to oblige
when he bestowed, and not to shock when he denied: to govern without
oppression, and conquer without triumph. He pursued his ambition without
curbing his pleasures, and his pleasures without neglecting his
business; he did the latter with ease, and indulged himself in the other
without giving scandal or offence. In private life, and to all who had
any dependence upon him, he was kind and indulgent; he was generous
without ostentation, and an economist without penuriousness; not
insolent in success, nor irresolute in distress; faithful to his
friends, and not inveterate to his foes.
II.
+Source.+--Horace Walpole's _Reminiscences_, _Works_, 1798. Vol. iv.,
p. 271.
It was an instance of Sir Robert's singular good fortune, or evidence of
his talents, that he not only preserved his power under two successive
monarchs, but in spite of the efforts of both their mistresses to remove
him. It was perhaps still more remarkable, and an instance unparalleled,
that Sir Robert governed George the first in Latin, the King not
speaking English, and his minister not German, nor even French. It was
much talked of, that Sir Robert, detecting one of the Hanoverian
ministers in some trick or falsehood before the King's face, had the
firmness to say to the German, "Mentiris, impudentissime!"
WOOD'S HALFPENCE: THE FIRST DRAPIER'S LETTER (1724).
+Source.+--_Works of Jonathan Swift_. Pp. 13 _seqq._ Bohn's edition,
1903.
_To the Tradesmen, Shop-Keepers, Farmers, and Common People in General
of Ireland._
BRETHREN, FRIENDS, COUNTRYMEN AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,
What I intend now to say to you, is, next to your duty to God and the
care of your salvation, of the greatest concern to yourselves, and your
children, your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life
entirely depend upon it. Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you as
men, as Christians, as parents, and as lovers of our country, to read
this paper with the utmost attention, or get it read to you by others;
which that you may do at the less expense, I have ordered the printer to
sell it at the lowest rate.
It is a great fault among you, that when a person writes with no other
intention than to do you good, you will not be at the pains to read his
advice: One copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will be
less than a farthing a-piece. It is your folly that you have no common
or general interest in your view, not even the wisest among you, neither
do you know or enquire, or care who are your friends, or who are your
enemies.
About three years ago a little book[3] was written to advise all people
to wear the manufactures of this our own dear country: It had no other
design, said nothing against the King or Parliament, or any man, yet the
POOR PRINTER was prosecuted two years, with the utmost violence, and
even some WEAVERS themselves, for whose sake it was written, being upon
the JURY, FOUND HIM GUILTY. This would be enough to discourage any man
from endeavouring to do you good, when you will either neglect him or
fly in his face for his pains, and when he must expect only danger to
himself and loss of money, perhaps to his ruin.
However I cannot but warn you once more of the manifest destruction
before your eyes, if you do not behave yourselves as you ought.
I will therefore first tell you the plain story of the fact; and then I
will lay before you how you ought to act in common prudence, and
according to the laws of your country.
The fact is thus: It having been many years since COPPER HALFPENCE OR
FARTHINGS were last coined in this kingdom, they have been for some time
very scarce, and many counterfeits passed about under the name of
_raps_, several applications were made to England, that we might have
liberty to coin new ones, as in former times we did; but they did not
succeed. At last one Mr. Wood, a mean ordinary man, a hardware dealer,
procured a patent under his Majesty's broad seal to coin fourscore and
ten thousand pounds in copper for this kingdom, which patent however did
not oblige any one here to take them, unless they pleased. Now you must
know, that the halfpence and farthings in England pass for very little
more than they are worth. And if you should beat them to pieces, and
sell them to the brazier you would not lose above a penny in a shilling.
But Mr. Wood made his halfpence of such base metal, and so much smaller
than the English ones, that the brazier would not give you above a penny
of good money for a shilling of his; so that this sum of fourscore and
ten thousand pounds in good gold and silver, must be given for trash
that will not be worth above eight or nine thousand pounds real value.
But this is not the worst, for Mr. Wood, when he pleases, may by stealth
send over another and another fourscore and ten thousand pounds, and buy
all our goods for eleven parts in twelve, under the value. For example,
if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five shillings a-piece, which
amounts to three pounds, and receives the payment in Mr. Wood's coin, he
really receives only the value of five shillings.
Perhaps you will wonder how such an ordinary fellow as this Mr. Wood
could have so much interest as to get His Majesty's broad seal for so
great a sum of bad money, to be sent to this poor country, and that all
the nobility and gentry here could not obtain the same favour, and let
us make our own halfpence, as we used to do. Now I will make that matter
very plain. We are at a great distance from the King's court, and have
nobody there to solicit for us, although a great number of lords and
squires, whose estates are here, and are our countrymen, spending all
their lives and fortunes there. But this same Mr. Wood was able to
attend constantly for his own interest; he is an Englishman and had
great friends, and it seems knew very well where to give money, and
those that would speak to others that could speak to the King and could
tell a fair story. And his Majesty, and perhaps the great lord or lords
who advised him, might think it was for our country's good; and so, as
the lawyers express it, "the King was deceived in his grant," which
often happens in all reigns. And I am sure if his Majesty knew that such
a patent, if it should take effect according to the desire of Mr. Wood,
would utterly ruin this kingdom, which hath given such great proof of
its loyalty, he would immediately recall it, and perhaps show his
displeasure to some one or other. But "a word to the wise is enough."
Most of you must have heard, with what anger our honourable House of
Commons received an account of this Wood's patent. There were several
fine speeches made upon it, and plain proof that it was all A WICKED
CHEAT from the bottom to the top, and several smart notes were printed,
which that same Wood had the assurance to answer likewise in print, and
in so confident a way, as if he were a better man than our whole
Parliament put together....
The common weight of this halfpence is between four and five to an
ounce, suppose five, then three shillings and four-pence will weigh a
pound, and consequently twenty shillings will weigh six pound butter
weight. Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pound a
year rent. Therefore when one of these farmers comes with his
half-year's rent, which is one hundred pound, it will be at least six
hundred pound weight, which is three horse load.
If a 'squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes and wine and
spices for himself and family, or perhaps to pass the winter here; he
must bring with him five or six horses loaden with sacks as the farmers
bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our shops, it
must be followed by a car loaden with Mr. Wood's money. And I hope we
shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is worth.
They say 'Squire Conolly [Speaker of the Irish House of Commons] has
sixteen thousand pounds a year. Now if he sends for his rent to town, as
it is likely he does, he must have two hundred and forty horses to bring
up his half-year's rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for
stowage. But what the bankers will do I cannot tell. For I am assured,
that some great bankers keep by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash
to answer all payments, which sum, in Mr. Wood's money, would require
twelve hundred horses to carry it.
For my own part, I am already resolved what to do; I have a pretty good
shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood's bad
copper. I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers,
and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods, and the little gold and
silver I have, I will keep by me like my heart's blood till better
times, or till I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy as my
father did the brass money, in K. James's time,[4] I who could buy ten
pound of it with a guinea....
When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition, I will tell you
what must be the end: The gentlemen of estates will all turn off their
tenants for want of payment, because as I told you before, the tenants
are obliged by their leases to pay sterling which is lawful current
money of England; then they will turn their own farmers, as too many of
them do already, run all into sheep where they can, keeping only such
other cattle as are necessary, then they will be their own merchants and
send their wool and butter and hides and linen beyond sea for ready
money and wine and spices and silks. They will keep only a few miserable
cottiers. The farmers must rob or beg, or leave their country. The
shopkeepers in this and every other town, must break and starve: for it
is the landed man that maintains the merchant, and shopkeeper, and
handicraftsman.
But when the 'squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good
money he gets from abroad, he will hoard up or send for England, and
keep some poor tailor or weaver and the like in his own house, who will
be glad to get bread at any rate.
I should never have done if I were to tell you all the miseries that we
shall undergo if we be so foolish and wicked as to take this CURSED
COIN. It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale,
and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh
down this whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million of good
money every year clear into their pockets, and that is more than the
English do by all the world besides.
But your great comfort is, that as His Majesty's patent does not oblige
you to take this money, so the laws have not given the crown a power of
forcing the subjects to take what money the King pleases. For then by
the same reason we might be bound to take pebble-stones or cockle-shells
or stamped leather for current coin, if ever we should happen to live
under an ill prince, who might likewise by the same power make a guinea
pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by
which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the
kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather or
what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel or oppressive
in the French government than their common practice of calling in all
their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew
at a much higher value, which however is not the thousandth part so
wicked as this abominable project of Mr. Wood. For the French give their
subjects silver for silver and gold for gold, but this fellow will not
so much as give us good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor
even a twelfth part of their worth.
Having said thus much, I will now go on to tell you the judgments of
some great lawyers in this matter, whom I fee'd on purpose for your
sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure I
went upon good grounds....
I will now, my dear friends, to save you the trouble, set before you in
short, what the law obliges you to do, and what it does not oblige you
to.
First, You are obliged to take all money in payments which is coined by
the King and is of the English standard or weight, provided it be of
gold or silver.
Secondly, You are not obliged to take any money which is not of gold or
silver, no not the halfpence, or farthings of England, or of any other
country, and it is only for convenience, or ease, that you are content
to take them, because the custom of coining silver halfpence and
farthings hath long been left off, I will suppose on account of their
being subject to be lost.
Thirdly, Much less are you obliged to take those vile halfpence of that
same Wood, by which you must lose almost eleven-pence in every shilling.
Therefore my friends, stand to it one and all, refuse this filthy trash.
It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood. His Majesty in his patent
obliges nobody to take these halfpence,[5] our gracious prince hath no
so ill advisers about him; or if he had, yet you see the laws have not
left it in the King's power, to force us to take any coin but what is
lawful, of right standard gold and silver; therefore you have nothing to
fear.
And let me in the next place apply myself particularly to you who are
the poor sort of tradesmen. Perhaps you may think you will not be so
great losers as the rich, if these halfpence should pass, because you
seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls
with nothing but brass, which you likewise find hard to be got. But you
may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you will
be utterly undone; if you carry these halfpence to a shop for tobacco or
brandy, or any other thing you want, the shopkeeper will advance his
goods accordingly, or else he must break, and leave the key under the
door. Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff for twenty
of Mr. Wood's halfpence? No, not under two hundred at least, neither
will I be at the trouble of counting, but weigh them in a lump. I will
tell you one thing further, that if Mr. Wood's project should take, it
will ruin even our beggars; for when I give a beggar an halfpenny, it
will quench his thirst, or go a good way to fill his belly, but the
twelfth part of a halfpenny will do him no more service than if I should
give him three pins out of my sleeve.
In short these halfpence are like "the accursed thing, which," as the
Scripture tells us, "the children of Israel were forbidden to touch":
they will run about like the plague and destroy every one who lays his
hands upon them. I have heard scholars talk of a man who told a king
that he invented a way to torment people by putting them into a bull of
brass with fire under it, but the prince put the projector first into
his own brazen bull to make the experiment;[6] this very much resembles
the project of Mr. Wood, and the like of this may possibly be Mr. Wood's
fate, that the brass he contrived to torment this kingdom with, may
prove his own torment, and his destruction at last.
* * * * *
N.B. The author of this paper is informed by persons who have made it
their business to be exact in their observations on the true value of
these halfpence, that any person may expect to get a quart of twopenny
ale for thirty-six of them.
I desire all persons may keep this paper carefully by them to refresh
their memories when ever they shall have farther notice of Mr. Wood's
halfpence, or any other the like imposture.
[3] Swift's own _Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures_.
[4] The famous "gun-money," coined to meet the exigencies of the Stuart
army in Ireland, a crown piece of which was by a proclamation of William
III. of July 10, 1690, to pass current as a penny.
[5] The words of the patent are "to pass and to be received as current
money, by such as shall or will, voluntarily and wittingly, and not
otherwise, receive the same" (the halfpence and farthings). [T. S.]
[6] Phalaris, the genuineness of whose _Letters_ had occasioned the
famous controversy which brought about Swift's first venture into
literature with the _Battle of the Books_.
CHARACTER OF GEORGE II. (1683-1760).
A. BY LORD HERVEY.
+Source.+--_Memoirs._ Vol. i., pp. 145, 146.
His faults were more the blemishes of a private man than of a King. The
affection and tenderness he invariably showed to a people over whom he
had unbounded rule [in Hanover] forbid our wondering that he used
circumscribed power with moderation [in England]. Often situated in
humiliating circumstances, his resentments seldom operated when the
power of revenge returned. He bore the ascendant of his Ministers, who
seldom were his favourites, with more patience than he suffered any
encroachment on his will from his mistresses. Content to bargain for the
gratification of his two predominant passions, Hanover and money, he was
almost indifferent to the rest of his royal authority, provided exterior
observance was not wanting; for he comforted himself if he did not
perceive the diminution of Majesty, though it was notorious to all the
rest of the world. Yet he was not so totally careless of the affection
and interests of his country as his father had been. George the First
possessed a sounder understanding and a better temper: yet George the
Second gained more by being compared with his eldest son, than he lost
if paralleled with his father.
B. BY HORACE WALPOLE.
+Source.+--_Memoirs of the Reign of George II._ (2nd ed.), 1848. Vol. i.,
pp. 175, 176; vol. iii., pp. 303, 304.
The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to hoard
them better, than any man who ever sat upon a Throne. The insults he
experienced from his own and those obliged servants, never provoked him
enough to make him venture the repose of his people, or his own. If any
object of his hate fell in his way, he did not pique himself upon heroic
forgiveness, but would indulge it at the expense of his integrity,
though not of his safety. He was reckoned strictly honest; but the
burning his father's will must be reckoned an indelible blot upon his
memory; as a much later instance [1749] of his refusing to pardon a
young man who had been condemned at Oxford for a most trifling forgery,
contrary to all example when recommended to mercy by the Judge, merely
because Welles, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him
and assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though in
general his disposition was merciful if the offence was not murder. His
avarice was much less equivocal than his courage; he had distinguished
the latter early [at Oudenarde]; it grew more doubtful afterwards[7]:
the former he distinguished very near as soon, and never deviated from
it. His understanding was not near so deficient, as it was imagined; but
though his character changed extremely in the world, it was without
foundation; for [whether] he deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had
been in the former part of his reign, or so respected as in the latter,
he was consistent in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd.
[7] This is unjust--George II. displayed conspicuous courage at
Dettingen.
THE CONDITION OF THE FLEET PRISON, AS REVEALED BY A PARLIAMENTARY
ENQUIRY (1729).
A. DESCRIPTION OF THE WARDEN, THOMAS BAMBRIDGE.
+Source.+--Horace Walpole: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, 1771.
Vol. iv., p. 71.
I have a sketch in oil that Hogarth gave me, which he intended to
engrave.[8] It was done at the time when the house of commons appointed
a committee to enquire into the cruelties exercised on prisoners in the
Fleet to extort money from them. The scene is the committee; on the
table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half starved,
appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance that adds to
the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very
figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn of Iago in the moment of
detection. Villainy, fear, and conscience are mixed in yellow and livid
on his countenance, his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances
as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his escape; one
hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other
are catching uncertainly at his button-holes.
B. HIS CRUELTY.
+Source.+--_Lieutenant Bird's Letter from the Shades to T----s B-m-dge_,
1729. Pp. 37, 38.
As soon as he had introduced his Marmadons,[9] he began to treat the
Prisoners in a Manner little different from that Dragooning, which, upon
another Account the Protestants some time ago, suffer'd in _France_;
some he clapp'd into Irons, and others he flung into dungeons; so that
it may be said without much Impropriety, that the poor Prisoners
underwent a perfect Persecution from their New Warden. The Effect of
Persecution is always the same, tho' the Pretence may be Religion, or
something else, yet Interest is the true Cause. It soon appear'd that
all this Cruelty of B-mb-ge, was only to make the Prisoners more ready
to comply with his Demands, by striking a previous Terror into their
Minds, and they found out that the only Way to lay that spirit of
Cruelty, which possess'd the New Warden, was to give up to his Avarice
all the Little which was left them, or cou'd be procured from their
Friends to support Life, which every one knows is as much as the
generality of Men in those unfortunate Circumstances can hope or desire
to do, so helpless they are of themselves, and so cold and scanty is the
Charity and Allowance of Friends and Relations; many of those distress'd
People, in order to satisfy his avaricious Demands, and to avoid his
rigorous Treatment, which grew as terrible to them as an Inquisition,
have been obliged to sell their Cloathes off their Backs and give up
every Penny of their little Subsistence, by which Means they have been
ready to perish with cold and hunger, passing many miserable Days
together without eating a Morsel of Victuals.
C. FINDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY.
+Source.+--T. B. Howell: _State Trials_. Vol. xvii., pp. 300-302.
The Committee of enquiry found amongst other things. That the said
Thomas Bambridge ... caused one Jacob Mendez Solas[10] ... to be seized,
fettered, and carried to Corbett's, the spunging-house, and there kept
for upwards of a week, and when brought back into the prison, Bambridge
caused him to be turned into the dungeon, called the Strong Room of the
Master's side.
This place is a vault like those in which the dead are interred, and
wherein the bodies of persons dying in the said prison are usually
deposited, till the coroner's inquest hath passed upon them; it has no
chimney nor fire-place, nor any light but what comes over the door, or
through a hole of about eight inches square. It is neither paved nor
boarded; and the rough bricks appear both on the sides and top, being
neither wainscotted nor plastered: what adds to the dampness and stench
of the place is, its being built over the common sewer.... In this
miserable place the poor wretch was kept by the said Bambridge, manacled
and shackled, for near two months. At length, on receiving five guineas
from Mr. Kemp, a friend of Solas's, Bambridge released the prisoner from
his cruel confinement. But though his chains were taken off, his terror
still remained, and the unhappy man was prevailed upon by that terror,
not only to labour _gratis_, for the said Bambridge, but to swear also
at random all that he hath required of him; and the Committee themselves
saw an instance of the deep impression his sufferings had made upon him;
for on his surmising, from something said, that Bambridge was to return
again, as Warden of the Fleet, he fainted, and the blood started out of
his mouth and nose.
[The sufferings of Captain John Mackpheadnis, who was ruined by being
surety for a man in the South Sea Bubble, are then narrated. He was
forced to pay double fees, his room, which he duly rented and had
himself furnished, was wrecked, and he was forced "to lie in the open
yard called the Bare," where the little hut he built was pulled down,
and he was exposed to the rain all night. Finally Bambridge used actual
torture.]
Next morning the said Bambridge entered the prison with a detachment of
soldiers, and ordered the prisoner to be dragged to the lodge, and
ironed with great irons, on which he desired to know for what cause, and
by what authority he was to be so cruelly used? Bambridge replied, "It
was by his own authority, and damm him he would do it, and have his
life." The prisoner desired that he might be carried before a
magistrate, that he might know his crime before he was punished; but
Bambridge refused, and put irons upon his legs which were too little, so
that in forcing them on, his legs were like to have been broken; and the
torture was impossible to be endured. Upon which the prisoner
complaining of the grievous pain and the straitness of the irons,
Bambridge answered, "That he did it on purpose to torture him;" on which
the prisoner replying "That by the law of England no man ought to be
tortured"; Bambridge declared, "That he would do it first and answer for
it afterwards;" and caused him to be dragged away to the dungeon, where
he lay without a bed, loaded with irons so close-rivetted that they kept
him in continued torture, and mortified his legs. After long
application[11] his irons were changed, and a surgeon directed to dress
his legs, but his lameness is not, nor ever can be cured. He was kept in
this miserable condition for three weeks, by which his sight is greatly
prejudiced, and in danger of being lost.
[8] This picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
[9] Myrmidons--_i.e._, the band of soldiers whom Bambridge had procured
under false pretences.
[10] A Portuguese prisoner for debt.
[11] _I.e._, after he had made many applications.
THE EXCISE BILL (1733).
+Source.+--Hervey's _Memoirs_. Vol. i., pp. 159-163, 175, 176.
But this flame[12] was no sooner extinguished in the nation than another
was kindled, and one that was much more epidemical, and raged with much
greater fury. Faction was never more busy on any occasion; terrors were
never more industriously scattered, and clamour never more universally
raised.
That which gave rise to these commotions was a project of Sir Robert
Walpole's to ease the land-tax of one shilling in the pound, by turning
the duty on tobacco and wine, then payable on importation, into inland
duties; that is, changing the Customs on those two commodities into
Excises; by which scheme, joined to the continuation of the salt-duty,
he proposed to improve the public revenue £500,000 per annum, in order
to supply the abatement of one shilling in the pound on land, which
raises about that sum.
The landed men had long complained that they had ever since the
Revolution borne the heat and burden of the day for the support of the
Revolution Government; and as the great pressure of the last war had
chiefly lain on them (the land having for many years been taxed to four
shillings in the pound), they now began to say, that since the public
tranquility both at home and abroad was firmly and universally
established, if ease was not at this time thought of for them, it was a
declaration from the Government that they were never to expect any; and
that two shillings in the pound on land was the least that they or their
posterity, in the most profound peace and fullest tranquility, were ever
to hope to pay.
This having been the cry of the country gentlemen and landowners for
some time, Sir Robert Walpole thought he could not do a more popular
thing than to form a scheme by which the land-tax should be reduced to
one shilling in the pound, and yet no new tax be substituted in the lieu
thereof, no new duty laid on any commodity whatsoever, and the public
revenue improved £500,000 per annum, merely by this alteration in the
method of management.
The salt-duty, which had been revised the year before, could raise only
in three years what one shilling in the pound on land raised in one
year; consequently, as that tax was an equivalent only to one-third of a
shilling on land, if the remission of that shilling on land was further
and annually continued, some other fund must be found to supply the
other two-thirds.
This of Excising tobacco and wine was the equivalent projected by Sir
Robert Walpole, but this scheme, instead of procuring him the popularity
he thought it would, caused more clamour and made him even, whilst the
project was only talked of and in embryo, more vilified and abused by
the universal outcries of the people, than any one Act of his whole
administration.
The art, vigilance, and industry of his enemies had so contrived to
represent this scheme to the people, and had so generally in every
county and great town throughout all England prejudiced their minds
against it; they had shown it in so formidable a shape and painted it in
such hideous colours, that everybody talked of the scheme as a general
Excise: they believed that food and raiment, and all the necessaries of
life, were to be taxed; that armies of Excise officers were to come into
any house and at any time they pleased; that our liberties were at an
end, trade going to be ruined, Magna Charta overturned, all property
destroyed, the Crown made absolute, and Parliaments themselves no longer
necessary to be called.
This was the epidemic madness of the nation on this occasion; whilst
most of the boroughs in England, and the city of London itself, sent
formal instructions by way of memorials to their Representatives,
absolutely to oppose all new Excises and all extensions of Excise laws,
if proposed in Parliament, though introduced or modelled in any manner
whatsoever.
It is easy to imagine that this reception of a scheme by which Sir
Robert Walpole proposed to ingratiate himself so much with the people,
must give him great disquiet. Some of his friends, whose timidity passed
afterwards for judgment, advised him to relinquish it, and said, though
it was in itself so beneficial a scheme to the public, yet since the
public did not see it in that light, that the best part he could take
was to lay it aside.
Sir Robert Walpole thought, since he was so far embarked, that there was
no listening to such advice without quitting the King's service, for as
it was once known that he designed to execute this scheme, had he given
it up, everything that had been said of its tendency, would have been
taken for granted; and the same men who had prepossessed the minds of
the people, so far as to have these things credited, would very
naturally and easily have persuaded them that their rescue from ruin,
and the stop that had been put to this impending blow, were entirely
owing to their patriotism; that it was the stand they had made had
prevented the universal destruction that had been threatened to the
liberties and fortunes of the people.
Sir Robert Walpole, therefore (who, if he could have foreseen the
difficulties in which this scheme involved him, would certainly never
have embarked in it at all), in this disagreeable dilemma chose what he
thought the least dangerous path, and resolved, since he had undertaken
it, to try to carry it through. His manner of reasoning was, that if he
had given way to popular clamour on this occasion, it would be raised,
right or wrong, on every future occasion to thwart and check any measure
that could be taken by the Government whilst he should have the
direction of affairs, and that the consequence of that must be, his
resignation of his employment or his dismissal from the King's
service....
At the same time, many pamphlets were written and dispersed in the
country, setting forth the dangerous consequences of extending the
Excise Laws, and increasing the number of Excise-officers; showing the
infringement of the one upon liberty, and the influence the other must
necessarily give the Crown in elections. And so universally were these
terrors scattered through the nation, and so artfully were they
instilled into the minds of the people, that this project, which in
reality was nothing more than a mutation of two taxes from Customs to
Excises, with an addition of only one hundred and twenty-six officers in
all England for the collection of it, was so represented to the country,
and so understood by the multitude, that there was hardly a town in
England, great or small, where nine parts in ten of the inhabitants did
not believe that this project was to establish a general Excise, and
that everything they ate or wore was to be taxed; that a colony of
Excise-officers was to be settled in every village in the Kingdom, and
that they were to have a power to enter all houses at all hours;[13]
that every place and every person was to be liable to their search, and
that such immense sums of monies were to be raised by this project, that
the Crown would no longer be under the necessity of calling Parliament
for annual grants to support the Government, but be able to provide for
itself, for the most part; and whenever it wanted any extraordinary
supplies, that the Excise officers, by their power, would be able at any
time to choose just such a Parliament as the Crown should nominate and
direct.
[12] The attempted repeal of the Test Act.
[13] This feeling found expression in various scurrilous ballads. The
following verse may serve as a specimen:
Who would think it a hardship that men so polite
Should enter their houses by day or by night,
To poke in each hole, and examine their stock,
From the cask of right Nantz to their wives' Holland smock?
He's as cross as the devil
Who censures as evil
A visit so courteous, so kind, and so civil;
For to sleep in our beds without their _permit_,
Were in a free country a thing most unfit.
THE PORTEOUS RIOTS (1736).
+Source.+--_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1736, p. 230.
One Wilson was hang'd at Edinburgh for robbing Collector Stark. He
having made an Attempt to break Prison, and his Comrade having actually
got off, the Magistrates had the City Guards and the Welsh Fusiliers
under Arms during the execution, which was perform'd without
Disturbance; but on the Hangman's cutting down the Corpse (the
Magistrates being withdrawn) the Boys threw, as usual, some Dust and
Stones, which falling among the City Guard, Capt. Porteous fired, and
order'd his Men to fire; whereupon above 20 Persons were wounded, 6 or 7
kill'd, one shot thro' the Head at a Window up two Pair of Stairs. The
Capt. and several of his Men were after committed to Prison.
[Captain Porteous was thereupon tried and condemned for murder, but he
was reprieved, to the fury of the populace. A contemporary account of
the sequel is to be found in the same volume of the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, p. 549.]
_Tuesday, 7 September._ Betwixt 9 and 10 at Night, a Body of Men enter'd
the West Port of _Edinburgh_, seiz'd the Drum, beat to Arms, and calling
out, _Here! All those who dare avenge innocent Blood!_ were instantly
attended by a numerous Crowd. Then they seized and shut up the City
Gates, and posted Guards at each to prevent Surprise by the King's
Forces, while another Detachment disarm'd the City Guards, and advanced
immediately to the Tolbooth or Prison, where not being able to break the
Door with hammers _&c._ they set it on Fire, but at the same Time
provided Water to keep the Flame within the Bounds. Before the outer
Door was near burnt down several rush'd thro' the Flames and oblig'd the
Keeper to open the inner Door and going into Capt. _Porteous'_
Apartment, call'd, _Where is the Villain Porteous?_ who said I'm here,
what is it you are to do with me? To which he was answered, We are to
carry you to the Place where you shed so much innocent Blood and Hang
you. He made some Resistance, but was soon overcome, for while some set
the whole Prisoners at Liberty, others caught him by the Legs and
dragged him down Stairs, and then led him to the _Grass Market_, where
they agreed to Hang him without further Ceremony.... After he had hung
till suppos'd to be dead, they nail'd the Rope to the Post, then
formally saluting one another, grounded their Arms, and on t'other Rapp
of the Drum retir'd out of Town."
LORD CHESTERFIELD'S SPEECH ON THE BILL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
CENSORSHIP OF STAGE PLAYS (1737).
+Source.+--_Parliamentary History_, 1812. Vol. x., pp. 327-331, 338, 339.
My Lords; the Bill now before you I apprehend to be of a very
extraordinary, a very dangerous nature. It seems designed not only as a
restraint on the licentiousness of the stage, but it will prove a most
arbitrary restraint on the liberty of the stage; and I fear it looks yet
farther. I fear it tends towards a restraint on the liberty of the
press, which will be a long stride towards the destruction of liberty
itself....
... I am as much for restraining the licentiousness of the stage, and
every other sort of licentiousness, as any of your lordships can be;
but, my Lords, I am, I shall always be extremely cautious and fearful of
making the least incroachment upon liberty; and therefore, when a new
law is proposed against licentiousness, I shall always be for
considering it deliberately and maturely, before I venture to give my
consent to its being passed. This is a sufficient reason for my being
against passing this Bill at so unseasonable a time, and in so
extraordinary a manner[14]; but I have many reasons against passing the
Bill itself, some of which I shall beg leave to explain to your
lordships.... By this Bill you prevent a play's being acted, but you do
not prevent its being printed; therefore, if a licence should be refused
for its being acted, we may depend upon it, the play will be printed. It
will be printed and published, my Lords, with the refusal in capital
letters on the title page. People are always fond of what is forbidden.
_Libri prohibiti_ are in all countries diligently and generally sought
after. It will be much easier to procure a refusal, than ever it was to
procure a good house, or a good sale; therefore we may expect, that
plays will be wrote on purpose to have a refusal; this will certainly
procure a good house, or a good sale. Thus will satires be spread and
dispersed through the whole nation, and thus every man in the Kingdom
may, and probably will, read for sixpence, what a few only could have
seen acted, and that not under the expense of half-a-crown. We shall
then be told, What! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and
dispersed, which you would not allow to be acted? You have agreed to a
law for preventing its being acted, can you refuse your assent to a law
forbidding its being printed and published? I should really, my Lords,
be glad to hear what excuse, what reason one could give for being
against the latter, after having agreed to the former; for, I protest, I
cannot suggest to myself the least shadow of an excuse. If we agree to
the Bill now before us, we must, perhaps next session, agree to a Bill
for preventing any plays being printed without a licence. Then satires
will be wrote by way of novels, secret histories, dialogues, or under
some such title; and thereupon we shall be told, What! will you allow an
infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, only because it does not
bear the title of a play?...
If poets and players are to be restrained, let them be restrained as
other subjects are, by the known laws of their country; if they offend,
let them be tried, as every Englishman ought to be, by God and their
country. Do not let us subject them to the arbitrary will and pleasure
of any one man. A power lodged in the hands of one single man, to judge
and determine, without any limitation, without any control or appeal, is
a sort of power unknown to our laws, inconsistent with our constitution.
It is a higher, a more absolute power than we trust even to the King
himself; and, therefore, I must think, we ought not to vest any such
power in his Majesty's lord chamberlain....
... The Bill now before us cannot so properly be called a Bill for
restraining licentiousness, as it may be called a Bill for restraining
the liberty of the stage, and for restraining it too in that branch
which in all countries has been the most useful; therefore I must look
upon the Bill as a most dangerous encroachment upon liberty in general.
Nay, farther, my Lords, it is not only an encroachment upon liberty, but
it is likewise an encroachment upon property. Wit, my Lords, is a sort
of property: it is the property of those that have it, and too often the
only property they have to depend on. It is, indeed, but a precarious
dependence. Thank God! we, my Lords, have a dependence of another kind;
we have a much less precarious support, and therefore cannot feel the
inconveniences of the Bill now before us; but it is our duty to
encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property it may be. Those
gentlemen who have any such property, are all, I hope, our friends: do
not let us subject them to any unnecessary and arbitrary restraint. I
must own, I cannot easily agree to the laying of any tax upon wit; but
by this Bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised;[15] for if
this Bill passes, it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a
permit; and the lord chamberlain is to have the honour of being chief
gauger, supervisor, commissioner, judge and jury: but what is still more
hard, though the poor author, the proprietor I should say, cannot
perhaps dine till he has found out and agreed with a purchaser: yet
before he can propose to seek for a purchaser, he must patiently submit
to have his goods rummaged at this new excise-office, where they may be
detained for fourteen days, and even then he may find them returned as
prohibited goods, by which his chief and best market will be for ever
shut against him; and that without any cause, without the least shadow
of reason, either from the laws of his country, or the laws of the
stage....
[14] It had been rushed through the House of Commons at the very end of
the session.
[15] Walpole's Excise Bill had been withdrawn under strong pressure
four years earlier (see p. 22). Hence the cogency of this allusion here.
DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE (1737): HER CHARACTER DESCRIBED BY GEORGE II.
+Source.+--Hervey's _Memoirs_. Vol. ii., pp. 531-533.
During this time [of the Queen's fatal illness in 1737] the King talked
perpetually to Lord Hervey, the physicians and surgeons, and his
children, who were the only people he ever saw out of the Queen's room,
of the Queen's good qualities, his fondness for her, his anxiety for her
welfare, and the irreparable loss her death would be to him; and
repeated every day, and many times in the day, all her merits in every
capacity with regard to him and every other body she had to do with. He
said she was the best wife, the best mother, the best companion, the
best friend, the best woman that ever was born; that she was the wisest,
the most agreeable, and the most useful body, man or woman, that he had
ever been acquainted with; that he firmly believed she never, since he
first knew her, ever thought of anything she was to do or say, but with
the view of doing or saying it in what manner it would be most agreeable
to his pleasure or most serviceable for his interest; that he had never
seen her out of humour in his life; that he had passed more hours with
her than he believed any other two people in the world had ever passed
together, and that he had never been tired in her company one minute;
and that he was sure he could have been happy with no other woman upon
earth for a wife, and that if she had not been his wife, he had rather
have had her for his mistress than any woman he had ever been acquainted
with; that he believed she never had had a thought of people or things
which she had not communicated to him; that she had the best head, the
best heart, and the best temper that God Almighty had ever given to any
human creature, man or woman; and that she had not only softened all his
leisure hours, but been of more use to him as a minister than any other
body had ever been to him or to any other prince; that with a patience
which he knew _he_ was not master of, she had listened to the nonsense
of all the impertinent fools that wanted to talk to him, and had taken
all that trouble off his hands, reporting nothing to him that was
unnecessary or that would have been tedious for him to hear, and never
forgetting anything that was material, useful, or entertaining for him
to know. He said that, joined to all the softness and delicacy of her
own sex, she had all the personal as well as political courage of the
finest and bravest man; that not only he and her family, but the whole
nation, would feel the loss of her if she died, and that, as to all the
_brillant_ and _enjouement_ of the Court, there would be an end of it
when she was gone; and that there would be no bearing a drawing-room
when the only body that ever enlivened it, and one that always enlivened
it, was no longer there. "Poor woman, how she always found something
obliging, agreeable, and pleasing to say to somebody, and always sent
people away from her better satisfied than they came! _Comme elle
soutenoit sa dignité avec grace, avec politesse, avec douceur!_"
THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR (1739).
I.
REAR-ADMIRAL CHARLES STEWART'S LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE HAVANA AND
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.
+Source.+--_English Historical Review._ Vol. iv., pp. 743, 742.
_12 Sept., 1731._
... I have repeated assurances that you allow vessels to be fitted out
of your harbour, particularly one Fandino and others, who have committed
the most cruel piratical outrages on several ships and vessels of the
King my master's subjects, particularly about the 20th April last [N.S.]
sailed out of your harbour in one of those Guarda Costas [Spanish
revenue cutters], and met a ship of this island [Jamaica] bound for
England; and after using the captain in a most barbarous inhuman manner,
taking all his money, cutting off one of his ears, plundering him of
those necessaries which were to carry the ship safe home, without doubt
with the intent that she should perish in her passage; but as she has
providentially got safe home, and likewise several others that have met
with no better usage off the Havana, and the King my master having so
much reason to believe that these repeated insults on his subjects could
never be continued but by the connivance of several Spanish governors in
these parts, is determined for his own honour as well as for the honour
of his Catholic Majesty who he is now in the strictest friendship with,
to endeavour to put a stop to these piratical proceedings.
_12 Oct., 1731._
... It is without doubt irksome to every honest man to hear such
cruelties are committed in these seas; but give me leave to say that you
only hear one side of the question; and I can assure you the sloops that
sail from this island, manned and armed on that illicit trade, has
(_sic_) more than once bragged to me of their having murdered 7 or 8
Spaniards on their own shore.... It is, I think, a little unreasonable
for us to do injuries and not know how to bear them. But villainy is
inherent to this climate, and I should be partial if I was to judge
whether the trading part of the Island [Jamaica] or those we complain of
among the Spaniards are most exquisite in that trade....
I was a little surprised to hear of the usage Captain Jenkins met with
off the Havana, as I know the Governor there has the character of being
an honest good man, and don't find anybody thinks he would connive or
countenance such villainies.
II.
ACCOUNT OF THE EXAMINATION OF JENKINS BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (1738).
+Source.+--Samuel Boyse: _An Historical Review of the Transactions of
Europe_. Vol. i., p. 29. Reading, 1747.
There was amongst the rest, one Instance that made so much Noise at this
time, it cannot well be omitted. One Capt. _Jenkins_, Commander of a
_Scotch_ Vessel, was in his Passage home boarded by a _Guarda Costa_,
the Captain of which was an _Irishman_. The _Spaniards_, after
rummaging, finding their Hopes disappointed, tearing off part of his
ear, and bidding him carry it to the _English King_, and tell him they
would serve him in the same manner if they had him in their Power: This
Villainy was attended with other Circumstances of Cruelty too shocking
to mention. The Captain, on his Return, was examined at the Bar of the
House of Commons; and being ask'd what his Sentiments were, when
threaten'd with Death? nobly reply'd, _That he recommended his Soul to
God, and his Cause to his Country_;--which Words, and the Sight of his
Ear, made a visible Impression on that great Assembly.
THE OPPOSITION SUSPECTS WALPOLE OF DOUBLE-DEALING.
+Source.+--Memorial from the Earl of Stair to Alexander Earl of
Marchmont, December, 1739. Printed in _Papers of the Earls of
Marchmont_, 1831. Vol. ii., pp. 170-172.
I shall take it for granted, that Great Britain has it in her power to
make a prosperous war against Spain, spite of all the opposition that
can possibly be made, even though France should meddle in the quarrel,
by taking the Havannah, which can be done by raising troops in our
colonies of America, headed by a very few regular troops sent from
Britain. I mention the Havannah only, because _cela décide la guerre_.
The Havannah once taken, the body of troops can be employed in several
other expeditions, which may be very useful and very practicable. I say
nothing of the method of raising these troops in America; that is a
consideration of another time and place. I shall only say, that by the
means of our colonies in America Britain should get the better of any
nation in a war in America. By a proper use made of our colonies, I do
not know what we are not able to do in America.
This proposition is demonstrably true; but, I believe, it is no less
true, that Sir Robert has no such intention. The disposition of raising
men in America would appear; but as no such disposition appears, we may
conclude, that Sir Robert's scheme is different. I am afraid, that it is
to make a treaty with Spain by the mediation of France. If that treaty
should be apparently good, Great Britain will find herself in the state
of the horse in Horace's fable:
"Sed postquam victor violens discessit at hoste,
Non equitem dorso, non frenum depulit ore."
This being the case, as I am afraid it is, that we can neither secure
our constitution at home, nor make a prosperous war abroad, whilst Sir
Robert has the sole direction of our affairs, foreign and domestic,
there is a preliminary absolutely necessary to the saving of the nation,
and that is, the removing of Sir Robert. The question is, How can that
be done? I shall freely tell my opinion, with great submission to better
judgments. In the first place, there must be a perfect union amongst the
leaders of the country party; they must make one common cause of
preserving their country, which indeed stands in the utmost danger; all
the operations must be directed by one common council. Though there are
many great and able men on the side of their country, yet in my opinion
the great strength of the party is the people, who are well-disposed to
follow their leaders, to save themselves and their country from
impending slavery. If the leaders will advise the communities to declare
their sentiments on a very few public points, and instruct their
representatives in Parliament accordingly, the strength of the country
party will very soon appear so very great, that it will very soon put
Sir Robert's gang out of countenance, and occasion a great many of them
to think of changing their side. At the same time, it will be impossible
for Sir Robert to continue to deceive his Majesty, by pretending that
either the nation is of his side, or that by means of the Houses of
Parliament, which are with him, he can govern the nation as he pleases.
This method of proceeding appears to me a certain one, which the leaders
of the opposition have entirely in their own power; I can see no
objection to the using of it. Does it hinder anything else? If there is
any good to be done by negociations, or other ways, does it hinder? On
the contrary, must not everybody feel, that the credit of the strength
of the people must be very favourable to negociations in either House of
Parliament?
I need say no more. In my opinion at this critical moment Britain may
not only be saved, but she may come out of this war with safety and
honour, nay, with great glory to her deliverers. But if the opportunity
of this session of Parliament is neglected, to-morrow will be Sir
Robert's and France's, without any possibility of relief.
ADMIRAL VERNON'S VICTORY AT PORTOBELLO (1740).
I. _ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST._
_To the Tune of, "Come and Listen to my Ditty."_
+Source.+--Original broadside of 1740 in the British Museum.
[This ballad, by the Opposition poet and pamphleteer Richard Glover,
implies that Walpole would willingly have let Vernon and his fleet
perish in 1740 as Hosier and his fleet had perished in 1726.]
I.
As, near _Porto-Bello_ lying,
On the Gently swelling Flood,
At Midnight, with Streamers flying,
Our triumphant Navy rode,
There, while _Vernon_ sate all Glorious
From the _Spaniards_ late Defeat,
And his Crew with Shouts victorious
Drank Success to England's Fleet;
II.
On a sudden, shrilly sounding,
Hideous Yells and Shrieks were heard;
Then, each Heart with fear confounding,
A sad Troop of Ghosts appear'd;
All in dreary Hammocks shrouded,
Which for winding Sheets they wore;
And with Looks by Sorrow clouded,
Frowning on that hostile Shore.
III.
On them gleam'd the Moon's wan Lustre,
When the Shade of _Hosier_ brave
His Pale Bands was seen to muster,
Rising from their wat'ry Grave;
O'er the glimmering Wave he hy'd him,
Where the _Burford_[16] rear'd her Sail,
With three thousand Ghosts beside him,
And in Groans did _Vernon_ hail.
IV.
"Heed, oh heed our fatal Story!
"I am _Hosier's_ injur'd Ghost;
"You, who now have purchas'd Glory
"At this Place, where I was lost;
"Tho' in _Porto-Bello's_ ruin
"You now triumph, free from fears,
"When you think on our undoing,
"You will mix your Joy with Tears,
V.
"See these mournful Spectres sweeping,
"Ghastly, o'er this hated wave,
"Whose wan Cheeks are stain'd with _weeping_,
"These were English Captains brave;
"Mark those Numbers pale and horrid,
"Who were once my Sailors bold;
"Lo, each hangs his drooping forehead,
"While his dismal Fate is told.
VI.
"I by twenty Sail attended,
"Did this _Spanish_ Town affright,
"Nothing then its wealth defended,
"But my Orders not to fight;
"Oh that in this rolling Ocean
"I had cast them with disdain,
"And obey'd my heart's warm motion
"To reduce the Pride of _Spain_.
VII.
"For resistance I could fear none.
"But with twenty Ships had done,
"What thou, brave and happy _Vernon_,
"Hast achiev'd with Six alone.
"Then the Bastimentos never
"Had our foul Dishonour seen,
"Nor the Sea the sad Receiver
"Of this gallant train had been.
VIII.
"Thus, like thee, proud _Spain_ dismaying,
"And her Galleons leading home,
"Tho' condemn'd for disobeying,
"I had met a Traytor's Doom:
"To have fall'n, my Country crying
"He has play'd an _English_ part,
"Had been better far than Dying,
"Of a griev'd and broken Heart.
IX.
"Unrepining at thy Glory,
"Thy successful Arms we hail,
"But remember our sad Story
"And let _Hosier's_ wrongs prevail;
"After this proud Foe subduing,
"When your Patriot Friends you see,
"Think of Vengeance for my ruin,
"And for _England_ sham'd in me."
II. _GREAT BRITAIN'S GLORY; OR, THE STAY-AT-HOME FLEET._
A NEW BALLAD.
_Tune of, "Packington's Pound."_
+Source.+--First verse of original broadside in the British Museum.
Come, ye Lovers of Peace, who are said to have sold
Your Votes, that the War of Queen _ANNE_ it might cease;
Come, ye lovers of war, who 'tis certain, of old,
Would have hang'd, if ye could, all the lovers of peace;
Come, you _Whigg_ and you _Tory_,
Attend to my Story,
For you ne'er heard the like, nor your Fathers before ye;
How _Britain_, Great _Britain_! is Queen of the main,
And her Navies in Port are the terror of Spain.
[16] Admiral Vernon's ship.
THE NEW MINISTERS (1742).
I.
+Source.+--Hervey's _Memoirs_. Vol. ii., p. 581.
Their _sanctum sanctorum_ is composed of my Lord Carteret, Lord
Winchilsea his adherent, the Duke of Newcastle and his quibbling friend
my Lord Chancellor [Hardwicke], Mr. Pulteney, and Harry Pelham. Lord
Carteret, Duke of Newcastle, and Mr. Pulteney, while they act seemingly
in concert at this juncture, having distinct views and different
interests of their own to pursue, are all striving to deceive and
overreach one another; and each separately relating to their own private
friends what passes at these conferences conducive to their own points,
the whole of the conference, through different channels, flows into the
world. Lord Carteret, feeling he has the strength of the closet and the
confidence and favour of the King, whilst he is making his court by
foreign politics,[17] hates and detests Mr. Pulteney for all the trouble
he gives him in pursuing his points at home; and knowing that the moment
Mr. Pulteney goes into the House of Lords, he will become an absolute
nullity, he is ready to feed the exorbitant appetite of his demands with
any morsels it craves for at present, provided in return he can gain
that one point of Mr. Pulteney's going into the House of Lords. On the
other hand, Mr. Pulteney, knowing he has at present the House of Commons
in his hands, and seeing too plainly that though he has the power of the
closet, he has none of the favour, and that every point he carries there
is extorted, not granted--carried by force, not by persuasion--hates my
Lord Carteret for engrossing that favour which he proposed at least to
share, if not to engross himself; and whilst he is forcing seven or
eight of his followers into employment, proposes to remain himself in
the House of Commons in order to retain the same power, in order to
force a new batch of his friends, three or four months hence, in the
same manner upon the King, which reduces the struggle between Lord
Carteret and him to this short point, that if Mr. Pulteney goes into the
House of Lords, Lord Carteret dupes him; if he does not, he dupes my
Lord Carteret. The Duke of Newcastle, whose envy is so strong that he is
jealous of everybody, and whose understanding is so weak that nobody is
jealous of him, is reciprocally made use of by these two men to promote
their different ends; and being jealous of Lord Carteret from feeling
his superior interest with the King, and jealous of Mr. Pulteney from
his superior interest to his brother [Mr. Pelham] in the House of
Commons, is like the hungry ass in the fable between the two bundles of
hay, and allured by both without knowing which to go to, tastes neither,
and will starve between them. He wants Mr. Pulteney's power in the House
of Commons to be kept as a check and bridle upon Lord Carteret, who has
outrun him so far in the palace, and yet wants Mr. Pulteney out of the
House of Commons to strengthen his own power there by the proxy medium
of his brother. Thus stands the private contest and seeming union among
these present rulers, or rather combatants for rule.
II.
ON THE MINISTRY OF LORD CARTERET, FEB., 1742.
+Source.+--_Sir Charles Hanbury Williams_, quoted by Horace Walpole to
Sir Horace Mann, Sept. 11, 1742; and also to be found in Williams'
_Collected Poems_.
O my poor country! is this all
You've gain'd by the long-labour'd fall
Of Walpole and his tools?
He was a knave indeed,--what then?
He'd parts,--but this new set of men
A'n't only knaves, but fools.
III.
ON PULTENEY'S ACCEPTANCE OF A PEERAGE, JULY, 1742.
+Source.+--_A Collection of Poems, principally consisting of the most
celebrated pieces of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams_, 1763, p. 36. The
names in the British Museum copy, from which this and the following are
transcribed, are filled in by Horace Walpole, to whom this copy belonged.
I'm not the man you knew before,
For I am P[ultene]y now no more,
My titles hide my name.
(Oh how I blush to own my case!)
My dignity was my disgrace,
And I was rais'd to shame.
[17] _I.e._, by advancing the King's views in favour of Hanover and
encouraging the passion for war which Walpole had so long repressed.
Carteret attended George II. throughout the campaign of 1743, and was
even present--the last prime minister to take part in an action--at the
Battle of Dettingen. He spoke German well, which greatly endeared him to
the King.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR (1741-1748).
+Source.+--Samuel Boyse: _Historical Review of the Transactions
of Europe_, 1739-45, pp. 69-73.
The late Emperor, in order to preserve the Succession of his hereditary
Dominions entire, had obtain'd from the chief Powers in _Europe_, the
_Guarantee_ of the _Pragmatic Sanction_ of which it is therefore
necessary to give the Reader some Account. _Leopold_, his Father,
apprehensive of the Troubles which the Failure of the Male Line in his
Family might excite not only in _Germany_, but in _Europe_, form'd the
Design of settling the Succession in the Female Line, as the only way to
prevent all Disputes, and keep his Dominions entire. He communicated his
Intentions to his Sons _Joseph_ and _Charles_ (who both succeeded him)
by whom this Regulation was approved; and afterwards by his Ministers he
had it ratify'd in the Imperial Dyet. _Joseph_, his Successor, made no
Alteration in it, and died without Male Issue. _Charles_ VI. seven Years
after his Accession, having no Male Heir, and seeing that if the Male
Line should end in him, the right of Succession would remain in his
Nieces, and not his Daughters, in order to secure the Succession to his
own Posterity, by confining the Entail, had a new Instrument drawn up,
which in 1720, after being approved by his Council, was sworn to by all
the Estates of his hereditary Dominions. But foreign Courts, foreseeing
the Difficulties that might attend it, were averse to intermeddle with
it. In 1724 _Great Britain_ and _France_ refused to guarantee it, tho'
then Mediators between the _Emperor_ and _Spain_. This occasion'd the
first Treaty of _Vienna_ in 1725, in which this Prince threw himself
into the Hands of _Spain_, and gave up _Naples_ and _Sicily_ on the sole
Condition of that Crown's guaranteeing the _Pragmatic Sanction_. In 1726
he obtain'd the Guarantee of _Russia_, and some Months after the
Imperial Dyet confirmed it as a Publick irrevocable Law. In 1731, by the
second Treaty of _Vienna_, we consented to give it our Sanction; and in
1732, the King of _Denmark_, and the _States General_ follow'd our
Example. The Elector of _Saxony_ in 1733 acquiesced in it, on account of
the Emperor's contributing to raise him to the Throne of _Poland_, and
by the last Treaty of _Vienna_ in 1738, _France_ also confirm'd it, in
Consideration of the Cession of _Lorrain_. Yet both the Courts of
_Paris_ and _Madrid_, who had obtain'd large Accessions of Territory for
their Guarantees, were the first to violate their Engagements; whereas
_Great Britain_, _Holland_ and _Russia_, who got nothing by theirs,
continued firm to what they had promis'd.
The only Princes who refus'd to acknowledge it at the Emperor's Death,
were the Electors of _Bavaria_, _Cologne_, and _Palatine_. As to the two
first, their Interests were too nearly concern'd not to oppose a measure
that defeated the Claim of their House to so rich and powerful a
Succession: As to the latter, it is not well known what his Motives
were, unless a Disinclination to the _Austrian_ Interests, which he
discover'd all his Life.
The Emperor in 1736, had married the Archduchess _Mary Teresa_, his
eldest Daughter, to the Duke of _Lorrain_, for whom, by the succeeding
Treaty of _Vienna_, he obtain'd the Grand Duchy of _Tuscany_. The
eminent Services his august House had received from this Prince and his
Ancestors, very well entitled him to this illustrious Alliance. Had this
monarch liv'd a little longer, it is thought he would have procured his
Son-in-Law the Dignity of King of the _Romans_, a Step that would, in a
great measure, have prevented the Confusions that follow'd, and which
almost brought his Family to the Brink of Ruin. This fatal Neglect was
owing to the Empress's Youth, and the Hopes conceived she might still
have a Male Heir.
The Emperor was no sooner dead, than pursuant to his will, Mary Teresa,
his eldest Daughter, was declared Queen of _Hungary_ and _Bohemia_, and
peaceably invested in the Sovereignty of all his hereditary Dominions.
This Princess immediately took care to notify her Accession to the
different Courts of _Europe_, by whom she was acknowledged, and
especially by that of _France_, who on this occasion renew'd its
Assurance, in the strongest Terms, of performing its Guarantee of the
_Pragmatic Sanction_. But her Letters of Notification to the Court of
_Munich_ were returned unopen'd, the Elector declaring he could not
acknowledge the Princess's Titles, without Prejudice to his own Claim,
as founded on the Will of _Ferdinand I._, which imported, "That the
eldest Archduchess, Daughter of the said _Ferdinand_, who should be
alive when the said Succession should be _open_, should succeed to the
two Crowns of _Hungary_ and _Bohemia_, in case there be no _Male Heir_
of any of the three Brothers of that Emperor." Now the Male Line of that
House being extinct by the Death of _Charles_ VI., the Elector being
descended from _Anne_, second daughter to _Ferdinand I._ (the eldest
dying issueless) claimed the Succession as now _open_ by the Terms of
the Will. On the other hand, the Court of _Vienna_ maintain'd that the
Succession was not _open_, the last Words of the Will, according to the
original Copy in the _Austrian_ Archives being "in case there shall be
no _lawful Heir_ living of any of the Emperor's three Brothers."
It is easy to see, the Elector's Claim was to no less than the _Whole_
of the late Emperor's succession. The King of _Spain_ also publish'd his
Pretensions to all the late Emperor's Dominions, and made Preparations
for invading _Italy_. In short the new Queen beheld that Storm
gathering, which quickly overspread _Germany_, and which gave her but
too much Occasion for exerting that Magnanimity and Constancy of Mind,
which heighten her eminent Virtues, and have render'd her justly the
Admiration of her Enemies themselves.
To these Claimants, whose Pretensions might have been foreseen, appear'd
a third no way expected, but whose Title seem'd to be as well founded,
as his Power to support it was unquestionable. This was the young King
of _Prussia_, who claim'd the Principality of _Silesia_, as antiently
belonging to the _Brandenburgh_ Family, from whom the House of _Austria_
had gain'd it by unjust means. As this Prince assembled a numerous Army
on the _Emperor's_ Death, every one imagined it was to support the
_Pragmatic Sanction_. But, instead of this, in _November_ he enter'd
_Silesia_, at the head of 30,000 Men, and soon made himself master of
_Breslaw_, the Capital, and the greatest Part of the Country, the
_Austrians_ being in no Condition to oppose him. His Behaviour to the
vanquish'd was so generous, as easily won their Affections; the rather,
as the major Part of that People were of the reform'd Communion, and had
suffer'd on that Account much Persecution from the House of _Austria_;
whereas the Court of _Berlin_ had always declared and often interposed
in their Favour.
As soon as the King of _Prussia_ had struck his Blow, he caused, by his
Ministers, the following verbal Proposals to be laid before the Court of
_Vienna_:
I. _That he would guarantee the Queen's Dominions in_ Germany _with his
whole Force. And for that End_
II. _He would enter into a close Alliance with the Courts of_ Vienna,
Petersburgh, _and the Maritime_ Powers.
III. _That he would use his utmost Endeavours to get the D. of_ Lorrain
_raised to the Imperial Throne_.
IV. _That he would advance the Queen in ready Money two Millions of
Florins._
V. _In Consideration of all which, he only desired the absolute cession
of Silesia._
The Queen's Answer was strong and peremptory: She thank'd the King for
his Offers with regard to the D. of Lorrain; but as the Election, by the
Golden Rule, should be free, she thought raising a War in Germany was no
likely means of contributing to that End. That as to the Offer of two
Millions, the contributions his Army had raised in Silesia amounted to
more: And, as to the cession of that Province, her Majesty being
resolved to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction, could never consent to the
Dismembring any Province belonging to the Succession handed down to her,
without violating her Honour and her Conscience....
THE '45.
I.
LANDING OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER; THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD; SURRENDER
OF EDINBURGH.
+Source.+--Robert Forbes: _The Lyon in Mourning_. Edited by H. Paton for
the Scottish History Society 1895. Vol. xx., pp. 201-210.
_Journal of the Prince's imbarkation and arrival, etc., the greatest
part of which was taken from Duncan Cameron at several different
conversations I had with him._
After the battle of Fontenoy and taking of Tournay, among other
regiments the one commanded by Lord John Drummond was garrisoned in
Tournay, in which corps Duncan Cameron (some time servant to old Lochiel
at Boulogne in France) served. When Duncan was in Tournay he received a
letter from Mr. Æneas MacDonald, banker in Paris, desiring him forthwith
to repair to Amiens, and if possible to post it without sleeping, where
he should receive orders about what he was to do. Accordingly Duncan set
out, and in a very short time posted to Amiens, from whence Æneas, etc.,
had set out, but had left a letter for Duncan, ordering him to follow
them to Nantes, to which place he set out without taking any rest, where
he found the Prince and his small retinue, consisting of seven only,
besides servants.
The seven were the Duke of Athol, Sir Thomas Sheridan, Sir John
Macdonald, Colonel Strickland, Captain O'Sullivan, Mr. George Kelly (a
nonjurant clergyman), and Æneas MacDonald, banker at Paris, brother to
Kinlochmoidart.
As Duncan Cameron had been brought up in the island of Barra, and knew
the coast of the Long Isle well, in some part of which the Prince
intended to land first, so Duncan's business was to descry to them the
Long Isle.
At Nantes the Prince and his few attendants waited about fifteen days
before the _Elizabeth_ ship of war came, which was to be their convoy in
the expedition. To cover the design the better, Sir Thomas Sheridan
passed for the father, and the Prince for the son, for none knew the
Prince to be in company but the seven, some few others, and Mr. Welch
(an Irishman, a very rich merchant in Nantes) who was to command the
frigate of sixteen guns, on board of which the Prince and the few
faithful friends with the servants were to imbark.
After the Prince was on board he dispatched letters to his father, and
the King of France, and the King of Spain, advising them of his design,
and no doubt desiring assistance.
The Prince when in Scotland, used to say that the 10th of June was the
day on which he stole off, and that he did not mind it to be his
father's birth-day till night was far spent. From whence some have
affirmed that to have been the day of the embarkation, and others to
have been the day when he left Paris and began to be incog.
They had not been above five or six days at sea till one evening the
_Lyon_ ship of war appeared, and came pretty near them and then
disappeared. Next morning she came again in view and disappeared. She
continued to do so three or four times, and the last time of her
appearing she came within a mile or so of them: when the captain of the
_Elizabeth_ (a Frenchman) came on board the frigate, and told Mr. Welch
if he would assist him by keeping one side of the _Lyon_ in play at a
distance, he would immediately put all things in order for the attack.
Mr. Welch, well knowing the trust he had on board, answered him civilly,
and told him it was what he could not think of doing, and withal
remarked to him it was his humble opinion that he should not think of
fighting unless he should happen to be attacked, because his business
was to be convoy to the frigate in the voyage. However, he said, as he
pretended not to any command over him, he might do as he thought proper.
The French captain to all this replied, that from the _Lion's_ appearing
and disappearing so often, it seemed as if she were looking out for
another ship to assist her, and if she should happen to be joined by any
other, they no doubt would instantly fall upon the _Elizabeth_ and the
frigate, and devour them both: and therefore he behoved to think it the
wisest course to fight the _Lion_ when single, because the _Elizabeth_
in that case was fit enough for the engagement, and would bid fair
enough to give a good account of the _Lion_. Upon this the French
captain drew his sword, took leave of Mr. Welch and his company, went on
board the _Elizabeth_ with his sword still drawn in his hand, and gave
the necessary orders for the attack.
Immediately the _Elizabeth_ bore down upon the _Lion_ (each of them
consisting of about sixty guns, and therefore equally matched), and
begun the attack with great briskness. The fight continued for five or
six hours, when the _Lion_ was obliged to sheer off like a tub upon the
water.
About the time when the captain came on board the frigate, the Prince
was making ready to go on board the _Elizabeth_ for more air and greater
conveniency every way, the frigate being crowded with the gentlemen, the
servants, and the crew. His friends reckoned it very lucky that he had
not gone on board.
The frigate all the time of the engagement lay at such a small distance,
that (as the Prince observed to several friends in Scotland) the _Lion_
might have sunk her with the greatest ease. But he said it was their
good fortune that the _Lion_ had despised them, and thought not the
frigate worth the while. Besides the _Lion_ found enough of employment
for all her hands in playing her part against the _Elizabeth_.
During the time of the fight the Prince several times observed to Mr.
Welch what a small assistance would serve to give the _Elizabeth_ the
possession of the _Lion_, and importuned him to engage in the quarrel.
But Mr. Welch positively refused, and at last behoved to desire the
Prince not to insist any more, otherwise he would order him down to the
cabin.
After the fight was all over, Mr. Welch sailed round the _Elizabeth_,
and enquired particularly how matters stood with the captain and the
crew. A lieutenant came upon deck from the captain, who was wounded in
his cabin, and told Mr. Welch that between thirty and forty officers and
gentlemen (besides common men) were killed and wounded, and that if Mr.
Welch could supply him with a mainmast and some rigging, he would still
make out the voyage with him.
Mr. Welch replied that he could not furnish him with either mainmast or
rigging, and that although he should have happened to be capable to
serve him in these things, yet he would not have made it his choice to
lose so much time as it would require to put the _Elizabeth_ in some
better order. He desired to tell the captain it was his opinion he
should without loss of time return to France, and that he himself would
do his best to make out the intended voyage. The _Elizabeth_ accordingly
returned to France, and the frigate continued her course to the coast of
Scotland. She had not been long parted from the _Elizabeth_ till the
crew descried two ships of war at some distance, which they could not
have well got off from, but that a mist luckily intervened, and brought
them out of sight.
Two or three hours before landing, an eagle came hovering over the
frigate, and continued so to do until they were all safe on shore.
Before dinner the Duke of Athol had spied the eagle: but (as he told
several friends in Scotland) he did not chuse then to take any notice of
it, lest they should have called it a Highland freit[18] in him. When he
came upon deck after dinner, he saw the eagle still hovering about in
the same manner, and following the frigate in her course, and then he
could not help remarking it to the Prince and his small retinue, which
they looked upon with pleasure. His grace, turning to the prince, said,
"Sir, I hope this is an excellent omen, and promises good things to us.
The King of birds is come to welcome your royal highness upon your
arrival in Scotland."
When they were near the shore of the Long Isle, Duncan Cameron was sent
out in the long boat to fetch them a proper pilot. When he landed he
accidentally met with Barra's piper, who was his old acquaintance, and
brought him on board. The piper piloted them safely into Eriska (about
July 21st), a small island lying between Barra and South Uist. "At this
time," said Duncan Cameron, "there was a _devil of a minister_ that
happened to be in the island of Barra, who did us a' the mischief that
lay in his power. For when he had got any inkling about us, he
dispatched away expresses with information against us. But as the good
luck was, he was not well believed, or else we would have been a' tane
by the neck."
When Duncan spoke these words, "_a devil of a minister_," he bowed low
and said to me, "Sir, I ask you ten thousand pardons for saying so in
your presence. But, good faith, I can assure you, sir (asking your
pardon), he was nothing else but the _devil of a minister_."
When they landed in Eriska, they could not find a grain of meal or one
inch of bread. But they catched some flounders, which they roasted upon
the bare coals in a mean low hut they had gone into near the shore, and
Duncan Cameron stood cook. The Prince sat at the cheek of the little
ingle, upon a fail[19] sunk, and laughed heartily at Duncan's cookery,
for he himself owned he played his part awkwardly enough.
Next day the Prince sent for young Clanranald's uncle (Alexander
MacDonald of Boisdale), who lived in South Uist, and discovered himself
to him. This gentleman spoke in a very discouraging manner to the
Prince, and advised him to return home. To which it is said the Prince
replied, "I am come home, sir, and I will entertain no notion at all of
returning to that place from whence I came; for that I am persuaded my
faithful Highlanders will stand by me." Mr. MacDonald told him he was
afraid he would find the contrary. The Prince condescended upon Sir
Alexander MacDonald and the Laird of MacLeod as persons he might confide
in. Mr. MacDonald begged leave to tell him that he had pitched upon the
wrong persons; for from his own certain knowledge he could assure him
these gentlemen would not adhere in his interest; on the contrary, they
might chance to act an opposite part. And seeing the Prince had been
pleased to mention Sir Alexander MacDonald's name, Boisdale desired he
might run off an express to him, and let his return be the test of what
he had advanced. He added withal, that if Sir Alexander MacDonald and
the Laird of MacLeod declared for him, it was his opinion he might then
land on the continent, for that he doubted not but he would succeed in
the attempt. But if they should happen to refuse their assistance (which
he still insisted would be the case) then their example would prove of
bad consequence, and would tend only to make others backward and to keep
at home. And in that event he still thought it advisable to suggest his
returning back to where he came from.
According to this advice the Prince did send a message to Sir Alexander
MacDonald, intimating his arrival, and demanding assistance. Before the
messenger could return, Æneas MacDonald (anxious to have the honour
of seeing the Prince in the house of his brother, the Laird of
Kinlochmoidart) prevailed upon the Prince to set out for the continent,
and they arrived at Boradale in Moidart, or rather Arisaig, upon July
25th, St. James's day, 1745. When the messenger returned to the Prince
he brought no answer with him, for Sir Alexander refused to give any.
It is worth remarking here that though MacDonald of Boisdale had played
the game of the government by doing all he could to dissuade the Prince
from making the attempt: and after the standard was set up, by keeping
back all Clanranald's men (to the number of four or five hundred good
stout fellows) that lived in South Uist and the other isles, yet his
conduct could not screen him from rough and severe treatment. For after
the battle of Culloden he suffered in his effects as well as others, and
had the misfortune to be made a prisoner and to be carried to London by
sea, in which expedition he had the additional affliction of having his
brother, the Laird of Clanranald, senior (who had never stirred from his
own fireside), and his lady to bear him company, and none of them were
released till the 4th July, 1747. However, to do Boisdale justice, he
was of very great use to the Prince (as Donald MacLeod and Malcolm have
both declared) when wandering up and down through South Uist, Benbicula,
and other parts of the Long Isle, and exerted his utmost power to keep
him out of the hands of his enemies.
After the Prince's arrival upon the continent [mainland] some friends
met to consult what was to be done, and I have heard it affirmed by good
authority the Keppoch honestly and bravely gave it as his opinion that
since the Prince had risqued his person and generously thrown himself
into the hands of his friends, therefore it was their duty to raise
their men instantly merely for the protection of his person, let the
consequence be what it would. Certain it is that if Keppoch, Lochiel,
young Clanranald, etc., had not joined him, he would either have fallen
into the hands of his enemies or been forced immediately to cross the
seas again.
The royal standard was set up at Glenfinnan (August 19th), the property
of Clanranald, at the head of Lochshiel, which marches with Lochiel's
ground, and lies about ten miles west from Fort William. The Prince
had been a full week before this, viz. from Sunday the 11th at
Kinlochmoydart's house, and Lochiel had been raising his men who came up
with them just as the standard was setting up.
The Prince stayed where the standard was set up two days, and I have
heard Major MacDonell frequently say in the Castle of Edinburgh, that,
he had never seen the Prince more cheerful at any time, and in higher
spirits than when he had got together four or five hundred men about the
standard. Major MacDonell presented the Prince with the first good horse
he mounted in Scotland, which the Major had taken from Captain Scott,
son of Scotstarvet.
On Friday, August 23d, the Prince lodged in Fassafern, three miles down
the Loch Eil, and about five miles from Fort William. On sight of a
warship which lay opposite to the garrison, the Prince crossed a hill,
and went to Moy or Moidh, a village on the river Lochy belonging to
Lochiel. There he stayed till Monday, August 26th, waiting intelligence
about General Cope; and that day he crossed the river Lochy, and lodged
in a village called Leterfinla, on the side of Loch Lochy. At 12 o'clock
at night, being very stormy and boisterous, he learned that General Cope
was at Garvaimor, whereupon the men stood to arms all night. But the
General had altered his route, and by forced marches was making the best
of his way to Inverness, which (as was given out) happened by an express
from President Forbes advising the General not to attempt going up the
country to attack the Highlanders at the Pass of Corierag (very strong
ground) where they had posted themselves, but to make all the haste he
could to Inverness, where he might expect the Monroes, etc., to join
him, whereby he would be considerably reinforced.
Upon notice that the General was marching towards Inverness, about six
hundred of the Highlanders urged the being allowed to follow him under
cloud of night and promised to come up with him, and to give a good
account of him and his command. But the Prince would not hear of such an
attempt, and desired them to wait for a more favourable opportunity. It
was with much difficulty that they could be prevailed upon to lay aside
the thoughts of any such enterprise. This I had from the brave Major
MacDonell.
When the Prince was coming down the Highlands to meet General Cope (as
was supposed) he walked sixteen miles in boots, and one of the heels
happening to come off, the Highlanders said they were unco glad to hear
it, for they hoped the want of the heel would make him march at more
leisure. So speedily he marched that he was like to fatigue them all.
_August 27th._ The Prince slept at Glengary's house, and next night lay
at Aberchallader, a village belonging to Glengary.
_August 30th._ The Prince and his army were at Dalnacardoch, a publick
house in Wade's Road, as appears from a letter writ by the Duke of Athol
to a lady desiring her to repair to Blair Castle to put it in some
order, and to do the honours of that house when the Prince should happen
to come there, which he did the day following, August 31st. I saw the
letter and took the date of it.
When the Prince was at Blair he went into the garden, and taking a walk
upon the bowling-green, he said he had never seen a bowling-green
before. Upon which the above lady called for some bowls that he might
see them; but he told her that he had got a present of some bowls sent
him as a curiosity to Rome from England.
_September 2d._ He left Blair and went to the house of Lude, where he
was very cheerful and took his share in several dances, such as minuets,
Highland reels (the first reel the Prince called for was, "This is not
mine ain house," etc.), and a Strathspey minuet.
_September 3d._ He was at Dunkeld, and next day he dined at Nairn House
where some of the Company happening to observe what a thoughtful state
his father would now be in from the consideration of those dangers and
difficulties he had to encounter with, and that upon this account he was
much to be pitied, because his mind behoved to be much upon the
rack--the Prince replied that he did not half so much pity his
father as his brother. "For," said he, "the king has been inured to
disappointments and distresses and has learnt to bear up easily under
the misfortunes of life. But poor Harry! his young and tender years make
him much to be pitied, for few brothers love as we do!"
_September 4th._ In the evening he made his entrance into Perth upon the
horse that Major MacDonell had presented him with.
_September 11th._ Early in the morning he went on foot attended by few
and took a view of the house of Scoon; and leaving Perth that day, he
took a second breakfast at Gask, dined at Tullibardine, and that night
went towards Dumblain and next day to Down.
_September 14th._ In the morning the Prince after refreshing himself and
his army at the Laird of Leckie's house, marched by Stirling Castle and
through St. Ninians. From Stirling Castle a six-pounder was discharged
four times at him, which determined Lord Nairn, who was bringing up the
second division of the army, to go farther up the country in order to be
out of the reach of the canon of the Castle. When the Prince was in St.
Ninians with the first division, Mr. Christie, provost of Stirling, sent
out to them from Stirling a quantity of bread, cheese, and ale in
abundance, an order having come before by little Andrew Symmer desiring
such a refreshment. Colonel Gardiner and his dragoons had galloped off
towards Edinburgh from their camp near Stirling Castle the night before,
or rather the same morning, when it was dark, September 14th, without
beat of drum.
_September 16th._ The Prince and his army were at Gray's Mill upon the
Water of Leith, when he sent a summons to the Provost and Town Council
of Edinburgh to receive him quietly and peacably into the city. Two
several deputations were sent from Edinburgh to the Prince begging a
delay till they should deliberate upon what was fittest to be done.
Meantime eight or nine hundred Highlanders under the command of Keppoch,
young Lochiel, and O'Sullivan, marched in between the Long Dykes without
a hush of noise, under the favour of a dark night, and lurked at the
head of the Canongate about the Nether Bow Port till they should find a
favourable opportunity for their design, which soon happened. The
hackney coach, which brought back the second deputation, entered at the
West Port, and after setting down the deputies at their proper place
upon the street, drove down the street towards the Canongate, and when
the Nether Bow Port was made open to let out the coach, the lurking
Highlanders rushed in (it being then peep of day) and made themselves
masters of the city without any opposition, or the smallest noise.
II.
TREATMENT OF THE VANQUISHED.
1. _After Preston Pans._
+Source.+--_Lockhart Papers._ Quoted in Jesse, _Memoirs of the
Pretenders_, p. 187.
(_a_) After the battle of Preston Pans,--when one of the Prince's
followers congratulated him on the victory which he had obtained, and,
pointing to the field of battle, exclaimed, "Sir, there are your enemies
at your feet!"--Charles is said not only to have refrained from joining
in the exultation of the moment, but to have warmly expressed the
sincerest compassion for those whom he termed "his father's deluded
subjects." Previous to the battle, he had strongly exhorted his
followers to adopt the side of mercy; and when the victory was gained,
his first thoughts were for the unhappy sufferers, and his first hours
employed in providing for the comfort of his wounded adversaries as well
as his friends. His exhortations and example produced the happiest
effects. In the words of one of his gallant followers,--"Not only did I
often hear our common clansmen ask the soldiers if they wanted quarter,
and not only did we, the officers, exert our utmost pains to save those
who were stubborn or who could not make themselves understood, but I saw
some of our private men, after the battle, run to Port Seton for ale and
other liquors to support the wounded. As one proof for all, of my own
particular observation, I saw a Highlander, carefully and with patient
kindness, carry a poor wounded soldier on his back into a house, where
he left him with a sixpence to pay his charges. In all this we followed
not only the dictates of humanity, but also the orders of our Prince,
who acted in everything as the true father of his country."
+Source.+--_The MS. of Lord George Murray, Commander-in-Chief._ Printed
by Bishop Forbes in his _Jacobite Memoirs_, Edinburgh, 1834, p. 29.
(_b_) His Royal Highness caused take the same care of their wounded as
of his own.... In the evening I went with the officer prisoners to a
house in Musselburgh, that was allotted for them. Those who were worst
wounded, were left at Colonel Gardner's house, where surgeons attended
them; the others walked, as I did alongst with them, without a guard,
(as they had given me their parole;) and to some, who were not well able
to walk, I gave my own horses. It was a new finished house that was got
for them, where there was neither table, bed, chair, or chimney grate. I
caused buy some new thrashed straw, and had, by good fortune, as much
cold provisions and liquor of my own, as made a tolerable meal to them
all; and when I was going to retire, they entreated me not to leave
them, for, as they had no guard, they were afraid that some of the
Highlanders who had got liquor, might come in upon them, and insult or
plunder them. I lay on a floor by them all night. Some of them, who were
valetudinary, went to the minister's house, and I sent an officer with
them, and they got beds: this was the quarter designed for myself. Next
morning, after his Royal Highness went for Edinburgh, I carried these
gentlemen to the house of Pinkey, where they were tolerably well
accommodated. After I had returned to the field of battle, and given
directions about the cannon, and seen about the wounded prisoners, to
get all the care possible taken of them, and given other necessary
orders, I returned to Pinkey, where I stayed all night. I got what
provisions could possibly be had to the common men prisoners, who were
that night in the gardens of Pinkey; and the night before, I had got
some of their own biscuit carried from Cokenny to Colonel Gardner's
courts and gardens, for their use.
2. _After Culloden._
+Source.+--Forbes: _Jacobite Memoirs_. Pp. 232, 233, 251, 252, 296-298.
It is a fact undeniable, and known to almost everybody, that upon Friday
the 18th of April, which was the second day after the battle, a party
was regularly detached to put to death all the wounded men that were
found in and about the field of battle. That such men were accordingly
put to death is also undeniable, for it is declared by creditable
people, who were eye-witnesses to that most miserable and bloody scene.
I myself was told by William Ross, who was then grieve[20] to my Lord
President, that twelve wounded men were carried out of his house, and
shot in a hollow, which is within very short distance of the place of
action.... Orders were given, on the Friday, to an officer, Hobbie, or
such a name, that he should go to the field of battle, and cause carry
there all the wounded in the neighbouring houses, at a mile's distance,
some more, some less, and kill them upon the field, which orders were
obeyed accordingly. When these orders were given at the knee, an officer
who was well pleased told it to his comrades; one of them replied,
"D----n him who had taken that order! He could not do an inhuman thing;
though no mercy should be shewn to the rebels."
An officer was heard more than once say, that he saw seventy-two killed,
and, as he termed it, knocked on the head. He was a young captain.... A
little house into which a good many of the wounded had been carried, was
set on fire about their ears, and every soul in it burnt alive, of which
number was Colonel Orelli, a brave old gentleman, who was either in the
French or Spanish service.... The Presbyterian minister at Petty, Mr.
Laughlan Shaw, being a cousin of this Kinrara's,[21] had obtained leave
of the Duke of Cumberland to carry off his friend, in return for the
good services the said Mr. Laughlan had done the government; for he had
been very active in dissuading his parishioners and clan from joining
the Prince, and had likewise, as I am told, sent the Duke very pointed
intelligence of all the Prince's motions. In consequence of this, on the
Saturday after the battle, he went to the place where his friend was,
designing to carry him to his own house. But as he came near, he saw an
officer's Command, with the officer at their head, fire a platoon at
fourteen of the wounded Highlanders, whom they had taken all out of that
house, and bring them all down at once; and when he came up, he found
his cousin and his servant were two of that unfortunate number. I
questioned Mr. Shaw himself about this story, who plainly acknowledged
the fact, and was indeed the person who informed me of the precise
number; and when I asked him if he knew of any more that were murdered
in that manner on the same day, he told me that he believed there were
in all two-and-twenty.
* * * * *
[The next extract is one of the less sickening accounts of the treatment
of the prisoners whose lives were spared:]
+Source.+--A paper read by Mr. James Bradshaw, and delivered by him to
the Sheriff of Surrey, just before his execution on Friday, November 28,
1746. Quoted by Jesse, _Memoirs of the Pretenders_. Pp. 270, 274, 275.
Bohn's edition.
I was put into one of the Scotch kirks, together with a great number of
wounded prisoners, who were stripped naked, and then left to die of
their wounds without the least assistance; and though we had a surgeon
of our own, a prisoner in the same place, yet he was not permitted to
dress their wounds, but his instruments were taken from him on purpose
to prevent it, and in consequence of this many expired in the utmost
agonies. Several of the wounded were put on board the "Jean" of Leith,
and there died in lingering tortures. Our general allowance, while we
were prisoners there, was half a pound of meal a-day, which was
sometimes increased to a pound, but never exceeded it; and I myself was
an eyewitness, that great numbers were starved to death. Their barbarity
extended so far as not to suffer the men who were put on board the
"Jean" to lie down even on planks, but they were obliged to sit on large
stones, by which means their legs swelled as big almost as their bodies.
These are some few of the cruelties exercised, which being almost
incredible in a Christian country, I am obliged to add an asseveration
to the truth of them; and I do assure you, upon the word of a dying man,
as I hope for mercy at the day of judgment, I assert nothing but what I
know to be true.
III.
_ODE WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746._
+Source.+--_The Poetical Works of William Collins; with the Commentary
of Langhorne._ London. Printed by Charles Whittingham for John Sharpe,
1804.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!
IV.
AN ADVENTURE OF CHARLES EDWARD.
+Source.+--_The Young Chevalier; or a General Narrative of all that
befel that Unfortunate Adventurer, from his Fatal Defeat to His final
Escape._ By a gentleman (1746). Pp. 75-78.
Here it was [upon the coast of Glenelg] that the _Chevalier_ went
through one of the oddest Adventures, that perhaps ever happened to any
Man; for at this place a Company of Militia (the _Monroe's_, if I
mistake not) were waiting, in hopes the unhappy Fugitive might fall into
their Hands: To make the more sure of their Prize, they had with them a
Blood-hound, to trace him out. The Dog was within a Stone's throw of
them, and the Man not much farther off, when _McKinnon_ observed them,
and particularly suspected the Animal. Whereupon he advised his
Passenger instantly to pull off all his Cloaths, and enter the Water up
to the Neck: "For," said he, "if you go in with your Cloaths on, you may
catch your Death. In the mean time I will divert the smell of the Dog,
with these Fishes," he having some on a string in his hand. The
affrighted _Chevalier_ instantly did as he was directed, and _McKinnon_
having hid the _Chevalier's_ Cloaths in a Clift of a Rock, began to
amuse the Dog with his Fish. The Artifice succeeded so well, as
effectually to secure the _Chevalier_; but the Animal would not quit the
Fisherman till he was secured by the Militia-Men, who kept him all
Night, and Part of the next Day. They examined him, but to no Purpose;
and upon his telling his true Name, _viz._ McLeod, they became
indifferent about him; and he representing that his Family was starving,
having nothing to subsist on but the Product of his Industry as a
Fisherman, they dismissed him. When he left them, he set out, as if he
intended a very different Course to that he really intended, and
afterwards struck into; for when he judged himself out of their Reach,
he turned into the Road leading to the Place where he supposed the
_Chevalier_ yet was. He found him there indeed, and employ'd in such a
Manner, as could not but strike even the rough Heart of the hardy
Fisherman, innur'd to all the Extremities of Wind and Weather, Hunger
and Cold. He found him seeking out Muscles and other small Shell-Fish,
upon the Craigs, and breaking them between two Stones, eating the Fish
as he opened them, to satisfy the Cravings of an Appetite, never in all
Probability so Keen before. He told _McKinnon_ "that he had continued in
the Water for several Hours, after he left him; but at last ventured
out, and put on his Cloaths; but durst not offer to remove from that
desert spot, judging it too hazardous to go up into the Country, to
which he was an utter Stranger."... As soon as he set Eyes on
_M'Kinnon_, he fell down on his Knees, and with up-lifted Hands, thank'd
Heaven for returning him his Friend; which he did in these Words, as
near as could possibly be remember'd by the Fisherman, who heard him,
and who repeated them to the Person from whom I had my Information. "O
God," said he, "I thank thee that I have not fallen into the Hands of my
Enemies; and _surely thou hast still something for me to do_, since in
this strange Place thou hast sent me back my Guide."
[18] Superstition.
[19] A turf seat.
[20] Bailiff.
[21] A wounded Jacobite whose servant had refused to abandon him, and
had therefore been taken prisoner along with his master.
TRIAL OF THE REBEL LORDS, 1746.
+Source.+--Walpole's _Letters_. Vol. i., p. 133. Bohn's edition.
_Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, Aug. 1, 1746._
ARLINGTON STREET,
_Aug. 1, 1746_.
I am this moment come from the conclusion of the greatest and most
melancholy scene I ever yet saw. You will easily guess it was the trials
of the rebel Lords. As it was the most interesting sight, it was the
most solemn and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and all the
splendour of it idle; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes, and
engaged all one's passions. It began last Monday; three-quarters of
Westminster Hall were enclosed with galleries, and hung with scarlet;
and the whole ceremony was concluded with the most awful solemnity and
decency, except in the one point of leaving the prisoners at the bar,
amidst the idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the witnesses who
had sworn against them, while the Lords adjourned to their own House to
consult. No part of the royal family was there, which was a proper
regard to the unhappy men, who were become their victims. One hundred
and thirty-nine Lords were present, and made a noble sight on their
benches _frequent and full_! The Chancellor [Hardwicke] was Lord High
Steward; but though a most comely personage, with a fine voice, his
behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the
Minister that is no peer [Pelham], and consequently applying to the
other Ministers, in a manner, for their orders; and not even ready at
the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping
up the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character is to point
out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any
offer they made towards defence. I had armed myself with all the
resolution I could, with the thought of their crimes and of the danger
past, and was assisted by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian, in
weepers for his son, who fell at Culloden; but the first appearance of
the prisoners shocked me!--their behaviour melted me! Lord Kilmarnock
and Lord Cromartie are both past forty, but look younger. Lord
Kilmarnock is tall and slender, with an extreme fine person: his
behaviour a most just mixture between dispute and submission; if in
anything to be reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly
dressed for a man in his situation; but when I say this, it is not to
find fault with him, but to show how little fault there was to be found.
Lord Cromartie is an indifferent figure, appeared much dejected and
rather sullen: he dropped a few tears the first day, and swooned as soon
as he got back to his cell.
For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old fellow I ever saw;
the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. At the bar he behaved
like a soldier and a man; in the intervals of form, with carelessness
and humour. He pressed extremely to have his wife--his pretty
Peggy--with him in the Tower. Lady Cromartie only sees her husband
through the grate, not choosing to be shut up with him, as she thinks
she can serve him better by her intercession without; she is big with
child, and very handsome; so are her daughters. When they were to be
brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in
which the axe must go. Old Balmerino cried, "Come, come, put it with
me." At the bar, he plays with his fingers upon the axe, while he talks
to the gentleman-gaoler; and one day, somebody coming up to listen, he
took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces. During the
trial a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see; he made
room for the child, and placed him near himself. When the trial begun,
the two Earls pleaded guilty; Balmerino not guilty, saying he would
prove his not being at the taking of the castle of Carlisle, as laid in
the indictment. Then the King's counsel opened, and Sergeant Skinner
pronounced the most absurd speech imaginable; and mentioned the Duke of
Perth, _who_, said he, _I see by the papers is dead_. Then some
witnesses were examined, whom afterwards the old hero shook cordially by
the hand. The Lords withdrew to their House, and returning, demanded of
the Judges, whether, one point not being proved, though all the rest
were, the indictment was false? to which they unanimously answered in
the negative. Then the Lord High Steward asked the Peers severally,
whether Lord Balmerino was guilty! All said, _Guilty upon honour_, and
then adjourned, the prisoner having begged pardon for giving them so
much trouble. While the Lords were withdrawn, the Solicitor-General
Murray [afterwards Lord Mansfield] (brother of the Pretender's minister)
officiously and insolently went up to Lord Balmerino, and asked him, how
he could give the Lords so much trouble, when his Solicitor had informed
him, that his plea could be of no use to him? Balmerino asked the
bystanders, who this person was? and being told, he said, "Oh, Mr.
Murray! I am extremely glad to see you; I have been with several of your
relations; the good lady, your mother, was of great use to us at Perth."
Are you not charmed with this speech? how just it was! As he went away,
he said, "They call me Jacobite; I am no more a Jacobite than any that
tried me; but if the Great Mogul had set up his standard, I should have
followed it, for I could not starve."
[Gray, in a letter to Wharton, gives the last sentence as follows: "My
Lord (says he) for the two Kings and their Rights I cared not a Farthing
which prevailed; but I was starving; and by God if Mahomet had set up
his Standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Musselman for Bread,
and stuck close to the Party, for I must eat."]
TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (1748).
I.
LORD BOLINGBROKE ON THE PRELIMINARIES.
+Source.+--_The Marchmont Papers_, 1831. Vol. ii., pp. 314-319.
Our true interests require, that we should take few engagements on the
Continent, and never those of making a land war, unless the conjuncture
be such, that nothing less than the weight of Britain can prevent the
scales of power from being quite overturned. This was the case surely,
when we arrived in the Netherlands (1743) and when we marched into
Germany. The first did some good, and as it was managed, some hurt. It
divided the attention of France, and became a reason the more for
recalling the army of Maillebois. But the fierce memorials, with which
it was accompanied, and which breathed an immediate and direct war
against France, frightened those, whom our arriving should have
encouraged, and gave much advantage to the French in the Seven
Provinces. The last, I mean our march to the Mayn [where the English
encamped in May, 1744] and vast diversion we made by it, has had a full
effect. The Bavarians are reduced to a neutrality, and the French, who
threatened Vienna, to the defence of their own provinces. The defensive
war the Queen of Hungary made on that side, is therefore at an end,
strictly speaking; and your Lordship may think perhaps, that, this being
so the case, wherein alone Great Britain ought to make war on the
Continent, exists, no longer. It is, I own, very provoking to see, that
the French are able at any time to invade their neighbours, to give law
if they succeed, and not to receive it if they fail, but to retire
behind their barrier, and defy from thence the just resentment of the
enemies they have made; and yet we ought to consider very coolly, how
far we suffer this provocation to have any share in determining our
conduct in the present circumstances. I have seen the time, when the
French would have given up the very barrier, that secures them now. We
would not take it then. Can we force it now? I said once, that Bouchain
had cost our nation above six millions; and they who were angry at the
assertion [the Whigs] could not contradict it, since Bouchain was the
sole conquest of 1711, and since the expence of that year's war amounted
to little less. Are we able to purchase at such a rate? or do we hope to
purchase at a cheaper, when my Lord Marlborough and Prince Eugene are no
more?... We shall have a very nice game to play, for if our friends, the
Austrians, would take advantage of too much facility to continue the
war, our enemies, the Spaniards and the French, would certainly take
advantage of too much haste to conclude it. This reflection becomes the
more important, because the war we have with Spain, seems more likely to
be determined in Italy than in America; and somewhere or other it must
be determined to our advantage.... In all events, my dear Lord, and
whatever peace we make, it will become an indispensable point of policy
to be on our guard, after what has happened, against the joint ambition
of the two branches of Bourbon, whom no acquisitions can satisfy, nor
any treaties bind, and who have begun to act in late instances, as the
two branches of Austria did in the last century. The treaty of quadruple
alliance, and a long course of timid unmeaning negociations, unmeaning
relatively to the interest of Great Britain, have encouraged this
spirit. A contrary conduct must check it; and I will venture to say,
that, the peace once made on terms less exorbitant, than some sanguine
persons would expect, this may be done; and that vigor sufficient for
this purpose will be found on the whole less expensive, with prudent
management abroad, and honest economy at home, than the pusillanimity of
that administration, which has made us despised by some of our
neighbours, and distrusted by others, till France had a fair chance for
giving the law to all Europe. But it is more than time that I should put
an end to this political ramble. I mean it for you alone, and I am used
to your indulgence. It is hardly possible, that you should write in
answer to this letter, that is to come to me in France. It seemed to me,
by the little conversation I had with some of your ministers when I was
at London, that their way of thinking was not very distant from mine,
about foreign affairs at least. Great Britain must have a peace, my
Lord. Her ability to carry on this war, as little as it is, is greater,
in my opinion, than that of France. But there are other invincible
reasons against it. I repeat, therefore, we must have a peace as soon as
possible. To have a good one, vigor in your measures, and moderation in
your views, are, I suppose, equally necessary.
II.
THE ARTICLES OF PEACE.
+Source.+--Coxe's _Pelham Administration_. Vol. ii., p. 41, 42. The
Treaty is to be found at length in Tindal's Continuation of Rapin's
_History of England_. Vol. xxi., pp. 357-366.
The following is an abstract of the articles of the definitive treaty,
in which the reader will recognize a general conformity with the
preliminaries.
ARTICLE I. Renewal of peace between all the contracting powers.
ART. II. Restitution of all conquests, and the _status quo ante bellum_,
with the exceptions herein mentioned.
ART. III. Renewal of the treaties of Westphalia, 1648; of Madrid,
between England and Spain, 1667, 1678 and 1679; of Ryswick, 1697; of
Utrecht, 1713; of Baden, 1714; of the triple alliance, 1717; of the
quadruple alliance, 1718; and of the treaty of Vienna, 1738.
ART. IV. Mutual restoration of prisoners, six weeks after the
ratification.
ART. V. Mutual restitution of conquests, and specification of the
cessions assigned by Austria, to Don Philip, according to the
preliminaries.
ART. VI. All the restitutions in Europe, specified in this treaty, to be
made within the term of six weeks after the ratifications, and in
particular all the Low Countries to be restored to the Empress Queen,
and likewise those Barrier Towns, the sovereignty of which belonged to
the House of Austria, to be evacuated, for the admission of the troops
of the States-General.
ART. VII. Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, to be delivered to Don
Philip, at the time that Nice and Savoy are restored to the King of
Sardinia.
ART. VIII. Measures to be adopted for insuring the restitutions, within
the period appointed.
ART. IX. The King of England engages to send two hostages of rank to
Paris, until Cape Breton, and all his conquests in the West and East
Indies, shall be restored.
ART. X. The revenues and taxes of the conquered countries, to belong to
the powers in possession, until the day of the ratification.
ART. XI. All archives to be restored within two months, or as soon
afterwards as possible.
ART. XII. The king of Sardinia to retain possession of all the
territories, conceded to him by the treaty of Worms, excepting Finalé
and Placentia; namely, the Vigevenasco, part of the Pavesaeno, and the
county of Anghiera.
ART. XIII. The Duke of Modena to be restored to all his dominions.
ART. XIV. Genoa to be reinstated in all her possessions and rights, and
her subjects in the enjoyment of all the funds belonging to them, in the
Austrian and Sardinian banks.
ART. XV. All things in Italy to remain as before the war, with the
exceptions contained in the preceding articles.
ART. XVI. The Assiento Treaty, and the privilege of sending the annual
ship to the Spanish colonies, confirmed for four years, according to the
right possessed before the war.
ART. XVII. Dunkirk to remain fortified on the side of the land, in its
existing condition; and, on that of the sea, to be left on the footing
of antient treaties.
ART. XVIII. Certain claims of money, by the King of England, as elector
of Hanover, on the crown of Spain; the differences concerning the abbey
of St. Hubert, and the boundaries of Hainault; and the courts of justice
recently established in the Low Countries, as also the pretensions of
the elector-palatine, to be amicably adjusted by commissaries.
ART. XIX. Confirmation of the guaranty of the Protestant Succession of
the House of Brunswick, in all its descendants, as fully stipulated in
the fifth article of the quadruple alliance.
ART. XX. All the German territories of the King of England, as elector
of Brunswick-Lunenberg guarantied.
ART. XXI. All the contracting powers, who guarantied the Pragmatic
Sanction of the 19th of April, 1713, now guaranty the entire inheritance
of Charles the Sixth, in favour of his daughter, Maria Theresa, and her
descendants, excepting those cessions previously made by Charles the
Sixth or by Maria Theresa herself, and those included in the present
treaty.
ART. XXII. Silesia and Glataz guarantied to the King of Prussia.
ART. XXIII. All the powers interested in this treaty jointly guaranty
its execution.
ART. XXIV. Exchange of the ratifications to be made at Aix la Chapelle,
by all the contracting powers within a month after the signatures.
III.
A CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF THE PEACE.
+Source.+--_Letters of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey_, 1821, p. 126.
_May 31st, 1748._
... I am as glad of the peace, sir, as you can be, for without it we
were certainly undone; for which reason I am, I confess, astonished that
the French, who had the whole in their hands, should give it us. There
are four people who have certainly had a narrow escape by it; for one
campaign more, and the Duke of Cumberland, with his little army, would
have been cut to pieces; the Prince of Orange would have been deposed,
and the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Sandwich would, or should have been
called to an account, which I fancy they could not have made up and
balanced to their advantage.
LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ACT FOR THE REFORM OF THE CALENDAR (1751).
I.
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE BILL.
+Source.+--Anderson's _Origin of Commerce_, 1751. Vol. ii., pp. 283,
284-286.
On Wednesday the twenty-second of May 1751, the ever-famous Act of the
British legislature, of the twenty-fourth year of King George the
Second, received the royal assent, For regulating the Commencement of
the Year, and for correcting the Calendar now in Use,--_i.e._ For
abolishing the old stile, and establishing the new stile, already in use
in most parts of Christendom.
Its preamble sets forth, "That the legal supputation of the year in
England, which begins on the twenty-fifth of March, hath been attended
with divers inconveniences," (strange that this was not rectified long
ago!) "as it differs from other nations, and the legal method of
computation in Scotland, and the common usage throughout the whole
kingdom; and that thereby frequent mistakes in the dates of deeds and
other writings are occasioned, and disputes arise therefrom and that the
Julian Calendar, now in use throughout the British dominions, hath been
discovered to be erroneous, by means whereof, the vernal equinox, which
at the time of the Council of Nice, in the year 325, happened on or
about the twenty-first of March, now happens on the ninth or tenth of
the same month: and the error still increasing, and, if not remedied,
would, in time, occasion the several equinoxes and solstices to fall at
very different times in the civil year from what they formerly did,
which might tend to mislead persons ignorant of such alteration. And as
a method of correcting the calendar, so as that the equinoxes and
solstices may for the future fall on the same nominal days on which they
happened at the time of the said General Council, hath been established,
and is now generally practised by almost all other nations of Europe:
and, as it will be of general convenience to merchants, and other
persons corresponding with other nations and countries and will tend to
prevent mistakes and disputes concerning the dates of letters and
accounts, if the like correction be received and established in his
Majesty's dominions."
"That, throughout all his Majesty's dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa
and America, the said old supputation shall not be used after the last
day of December 1751, and that the first of January following shall be
accounted the first day of the year 1752, and so on, in every year
after: and after the said first of January 1752, the days of the month
shall go on and be reckoned in the same order, and the feast of Easter,
and other moveable feasts depending thereon, shall be ascertained
according to the same method they now are, until the second of September
in 1752, inclusive, and the next day shall be accounted the fourteenth
of September, omitting, for that time only, the eleven intermediate
nominal days: and the following days shall be numbered forward in
numerical order from the said fourteenth of September, as now used in
the present calendar: and all acts and writings which shall be made or
executed upon or after the said first of January 1752, shall bear date
according to the new method of supputation; and the two fixed terms of
St. Hilary and St. Michael in England, and the courts of the great
sessions in the counties palatine and in Wales, and the courts of
general quarter sessions, and general sessions of the peace, and all
other courts and meetings and assemblies of any bodies politic or
corporate, for the election of officers or members, or for officers
entering upon the execution of their respective offices, or for any
other purpose, which by law or usage, &c., are to be held on any fixed
day of any month, or on any day depending on the beginning, or any
certain day of any month, (excepting courts usually holden with fairs or
marts) shall, after the said second of September, be held on the same
nominal days and times whereon they are now to be holden, but computed
according to the new method of numbering, that is, eleven days sooner
than the respective days whereon the same are now kept.
"The years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300, or any other hundredth year,
except every fourth hundredth, whereof the year 2000 shall be the first,
shall be deemed common years, consisting of three hundred and sixty-five
days; and the years 2000, 2400, 2800 and every other fourth hundredth
years from the year 2000, inclusive, and all other years which by the
present supputation are esteemed to be Bissextile, or leap-years, shall
for the future be esteemed to be Bissextile, or leap-years, consisting
of three hundred and sixty-six days, as is now used with respect to
every fourth year.
"The feast of Easter, and the moveable feasts thereon depending, shall
be no longer observed according to the method of supputation now used,
or the table prefixed to the book of Common Prayer: and the said table,
and also the column of golden numbers, as they are now prefixed to the
respective days of the month in the calendar, shall be left out in all
future editions of the said book: and the new calendar, tables, and
rules, annexed to the act, are to be prefixed in the stead thereof: and,
from and after the said second of September, the fixed feasts,
holy-days, and fasts, of the church of England, and also the several
solemn days of thanksgiving and of fasting and humiliation, enjoined to
be observed by Parliament, shall be observed on the respective nominal
days marked for the celebration of the same in the new calendar; that is
to say, on the respective nominal days, and the feast of Easter, and
other moveable feasts thereon depending, shall be celebrated according
to the said annexed calendar; and the two moveable terms of Easter and
Trinity, and all courts, meetings and assemblies, of any bodies, politic
or corporate, and all markets, fairs, and marts, and courts thereunto
belonging, which, by any law, statute, charter or usage, are to be held
and kept at any moveable time depending upon Easter, or other moveable
feast, shall, after the said second of September, be held and kept on
the same days and times whereon the same shall happen, according to the
falling of Easter by the new calendar.
"The meetings of the Court of Sessions, and terms fixed for the Court of
Exchequer in Scotland; the April meeting of the conservators of the
great Level of the Fens, and the holding and keeping of markets, fairs,
and marts, for the sale of goods or cattle, or for hiring of servants,
or for other purposes, which are fixed to certain nominal days of the
month, or depending on the beginning, or any certain day of any month,
and all courts kept with such fairs or marts; shall, after the said
second of September, be kept upon the same natural days upon which the
same would have been held if this act had not been made; i.e. eleven
days later than the same would happen according to the nominal days of
the new supputation of time, by which the commencement of each month,
and the nominal days thereof, are brought forward eleven days.
"But this act shall not accelerate or anticipate the days for the
opening, inclosing or shutting up of grounds, common or pasture, or the
days and times on which a temporary and distinct property and right in
any such lands or grounds is to commence: but they shall be respectively
opened, and inclosed, or shut up, and shall commence on the same natural
days and times, after the said second of September, as before the making
of this Act: that is, eleven days later than the same would happen
according to the new supputation of time.
"Neither shall this act accelerate or anticipate the times of payment of
rents, annuities, or other monies, which shall become payable in
consequence of any custom, usage, lease, deed, writing, or other
contract or agreement, now subsisting, or which shall be entered into
before the said fourteenth of September, or which shall become payable
by virtue of any act of Parliament. Not to accelerate the payment, or
increase the interest of any money which shall become payable as
aforesaid, or at the time of the delivery of any goods or other things
whatsoever, or the commencement, or determination of any leases or
demises of lands, &c., or other contracts or agreements, annuity, or
rent, or of any grant for a term of years, &c., or the time of attaining
the age of twenty-one years, or any other age requisite by law, usage,
or writing, for the doing any act, or for any other purpose, by any
persons now born, or who shall be born before the said fourteenth of
September; or the time of the determination of any apprenticeship or
other service by indenture, or by articles under seal, or by reason of
any simple contract or hiring; but all these shall commence, cease, and
determine, at and upon the said natural days and times on which they
would have happened if this act had not been made."
II.
LORD CHESTERFIELD'S OWN ACCOUNT.
+Source.+--_Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield._ Edited by Lord Mahon,
1845-53. Vol. ii., pp. 115, 116.
LONDON,
_March 18_, O.S. 1751.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I acquainted you in a former letter that I had brought in a bill into
the House of Lords, for correcting and reforming our present calendar,
which is the Julian, and for adopting the Gregorian. I will now give you
a more particular account of that affair, from which reflections will
naturally occur to you that I hope may be useful, and which I fear you
have not made. It was notorious, that the Julian calendar was erroneous,
and had overcharged the solar year with eleven days. Pope Gregory XIII.
corrected this error [in 1582]; his reformed calendar was immediately
received by all the Catholic Powers of Europe, and afterwards adopted by
all the Protestant ones, except Russia [which still (1912) adheres to
the old style.--ED.], Sweden and England. It was not, in my opinion,
very honourable for England to remain in a gross and avowed error,
especially in such company; the inconvenience of it was likewise felt by
all those who had foreign correspondences whether political or
mercantile. I determined, therefore, to attempt the reformation; I
consulted the best lawyers, and the most skilful astronomers, and we
cooked up a bill for that purpose. But then my difficulty began; I was
to bring in this bill, which was necessarily composed of law jargon and
astronomical calculations, to both of which I am an utter stranger.
However, it was absolutely necessary to make the House of Lords think
that I knew something of the matter, and also to make them believe that
they knew something of it themselves, which they do not. For my own
part, I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them as
astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well; so I resolved
to do better than speak to the purpose, and to please instead of
informing them. I gave them, therefore, only an historical account of
calendars, from the Egyptian down to the Gregorian, amusing them now and
then with little episodes; but I was particularly attentive to the
choice of my words, to the harmony and roundness of my periods, to my
eloquence, to my action. This succeeded, and ever will succeed; they
thought I informed, because I pleased them; and many of them said, that
I had made the whole very clear to them, when, God knows, I had not even
attempted it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the greatest share in forming
the bill and who is one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers
in Europe, spoke afterwards with infinite knowledge, and all the
clearness that so intricate a matter would admit of; but as his words,
his periods and his utterance were not near so good as mine, the
preference was most unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me....
SMOLLETT'S CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.[22]
+Source.+--T. Smollett: _Humphrey Clinker_, 1831. Pp. 110, 124, 126.
His eulogium was interrupted by the arrival of the old duke of N----,
who, squeezing into the circle, with a busy face of importance, thrust
his head into every countenance, as if he had been in search of
somebody, to whom he wanted to impart something of great consequence. My
uncle, who had been formerly known to him, bowed as he passed: and the
duke, seeing himself saluted so respectfully by a well-dressed person,
was not slow in returning the courtesy. He even came up, and, taking him
cordially by the hand,--"My dear friend, Mr. A----," said he, "I am
rejoiced to see you. How long have you come from abroad? How did you
leave our good friends the Dutch? The king of Prussia don't think of
another war, ah? He's a great king, a great conqueror--a very great
conqueror! Your Alexanders and Hannibals were nothing at all to him,
Sir! corporals, drummers! dross! mere trash--damn'd trash, heh?" His
grace, being by this time out of breath, my uncle took the opportunity
to tell him he had not been out of England, that his name was Bramble,
and that he had the honour to sit in the last parliament but one of the
late king, as representative for the borough of Dymkymraig. "Odso!"
cried the duke, "I remember you perfectly well, my dear Mr. Bramble. You
was always a good and loyal subject--a staunch friend to administration.
I made your brother an Irish bishop." "Pardon me, my lord," said the
squire, "I once had a brother, but he was a captain in the army."--"Ha!"
said his grace, "he was so--he was indeed! But who was the bishop then?
Bishop Blackberry--sure it was bishop Blackberry. Perhaps some relation
of yours?"--"Very likely, my lord!" replied my uncle; "the blackberry is
the fruit of the bramble: but I believe the bishop is not a berry of our
bush."--"No more he is, no more he is, ha, ha, ha!" exclaimed the duke;
"there you give me a scratch, good Mr. Bramble, ha, ha, ha! Well, I
shall be glad to see you at Lincoln's Inn Fields. You know the way;
times are altered. Though I have lost the power, I retain the
inclination; your very humble servant, good Mr. Blackberry." So saying,
he shoved to another corner of the room. "What a fine old gentleman!"
cried Mr. Barton, "what spirits! what a memory! he never forgets an old
friend."--"He does me too much honour to rank me among the number.
Whilst I sat in parliament I never voted with the ministry but three
times, when my conscience told me they were in the right: however, if he
still keeps levee, I will carry my nephew thither, that he may see, and
learn to avoid the scene; for I think an English gentleman never appears
to such disadvantage as at the levee of a minister. Of his grace I shall
say nothing at present, but that for thirty years he was the constant
and common butt of ridicule and execration. He was generally laughed at
as an ape in politics, whose office and influence served only to render
his folly the more notorious; and the opposition cursed him as the
indefatigable drudge of a first mover, who was justly styled and
stigmatized as the father of corruption: but this ridiculous ape, this
venal drudge, no sooner lost the places he was so ill qualified to fill,
and unfurled the banners of faction, than he was metamorphosed into a
pattern of public virtue; the very people, who reviled him before, now
extolled him to the skies, as a wise experienced statesman, chief pillar
of the protestant succession, and corner-stone of English liberty...."
[Another day] Captain C---- entered into conversation with us in the
most familiar manner, and treated the duke's character without any
ceremony. "This wiseacre," said he, "is still a-bed; and, I think, the
best thing he can do is to sleep on till Christmas; for when he gets up,
he does nothing but expose his own folly. Since Grenville was turned
out, there has been no minister in this nation worth the meal that
whitened his periwig. They are so ignorant they scarce know a crab from
a cauliflower; and then they are such dunces, that there's no making
them comprehend the plainest proposition. In the beginning of the war,
this poor half-witted creature told me, in a great fright, that thirty
thousand French had marched from Acadia to Cape Breton. "Where did they
find transports?" said I. "Transports!" cried he, "I tell you they
marched by land."--"By land, to the island of Cape Breton?"--"What! is
Cape Breton an island?"--"Certainly."--"Hah! are you sure of that?" When
I pointed it out on the map, he examined it earnestly with his
spectacles; then taking me in his arms, "My dear C----," cried he, "you
always bring us good news. Egad, I'll go directly, and tell the king
that Cape Breton is an island."
[22] This scene is, of course, fiction, but it was published only three
years after Newcastle's death, and that it is absolutely true to life
every student of the period admits.
THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF ADMIRAL BYNG.
I.
HORACE WALPOLE TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET,
_January 30, 1757_.
... All England is again occupied with Admiral Byng; he and his friends
were quite persuaded of his acquittal. The court-martial, after the
trial was finished, kept the whole world in suspense for a week; after
great debates and divisions amongst themselves, and despatching
messengers hither to consult lawyers whether they could not mitigate the
article of war, to which a negative was returned, they pronounced this
extraordinary sentence on Thursday: they condemn him to death for
_negligence_, but acquit him of _disaffection_ and _cowardice_ (the
other heads of the article) specifying the testimony of Lord Robert
Bertie in his favour, and unanimously recommending him to mercy; and
accompanying their sentence with a most earnest letter to the Lords of
the Admiralty to intercede for his pardon, saying, that finding
themselves tied up from moderating the article of war, and not being
able in conscience to pronounce that he had done all he could, they had
been forced to bring him in guilty, but beg he may be spared. The
discussions, and difference of opinions on this sentence is incredible.
The Cabinet Council, I believe, will be to determine whether the King
shall pardon him or not: some who wish to make him the scapegoat for
their own neglects, I fear, will try to complete his fate, but I should
think the new Administration will not be biassed to blood by such
interested attempts. He bore well his unexpected sentence, as he has all
the outrageous indignities and cruelties heaped upon him. Last week
happened an odd event, I can scarce say in his favour, as the World
seems to think it the effect of the arts of some of his friends:
Voltaire sent him from Switzerland an accidental letter of the Duc de
Richelieu, bearing witness to the Admiral's good behaviour in the
engagement.
STRAWBERRY HILL,
_February 13, 1757_.
... After a fortnight of the greatest variety of opinions, Byng's fate
is still in suspense. The court and the late ministry have been most
bitter against him; the new Admiralty most good-natured; the King would
not pardon him. They would not execute the sentence, as many lawyers are
clear that it is not a legal one. At last the council has referred it to
the twelve judges to give their opinion: if not a favourable one, he
dies! He has had many fortunate chances; had the late Admiralty
continued, one knows how little any would have availed him. Their
bitterness will always be recorded against themselves: it will be
difficult to persuade posterity that all the same of last summer was the
fault of Byng! Exact evidence of whose fault it was I believe posterity
will never have: the long-expected inquiries are begun, that is, some
papers have been moved for, but so coldly that it is plain George
Townshend and the Tories are unwilling to push researches that must
necessarily re-unite Newcastle and Fox.
ARLINGTON STREET,
_March 3, 1757_.
I have deferred writing to you, till I could tell you something certain
of the fate of Admiral Byng: no history was ever so extraordinary, or
produced such variety of surprising turns. In my last I told you that
his sentence was referred to the twelve judges. They have made law of
that, of which no one else would make sense. The Admiralty immediately
signed the warrant for his execution on the last of February--that is,
three signed: Admiral Forbes positively refused, and would have resigned
sooner. The Speaker would have had Byng expelled the House, but his
tigers were pitiful. Sir Francis Dashwood tried to call for the
Court-martial's letter; but the tigers were not so tender as that came
to. Some of the Court-martial grew to feel, as the execution advanced:
the City grew impatient for it. Mr. Fox tried to represent the new
ministry as compassionate, and has damaged their popularity. Three of
the Court-martial applied on Wednesday last to Lord Temple to renew
their solicitation for mercy. Sir Francis Dashwood moved a repeal of the
bloody twelfth article [of Byng's indictment:] the House was savage
enough; yet Mr. Doddington softened them, and not one man spoke directly
against mercy. They had nothing to fear: the man who, of all defects,
hates cowardice and avarice most and who has some little objection to a
mob in St. James's-street, has magnanimously forgot all the services of
the great Lord Torrington [the victor of Cape Passano, 1718]. On
Thursday seven of the Court-martial applied for mercy: they were
rejected. On Friday a most strange event happened. I was told at the
House that Captain Keppel and Admiral Norris desired a bill to absolve
them from their Oath of Secrecy, [as members of the Court-martial on
Byng] that they might unfold something very material towards the saving
the prisoner's life. I was out of Parliament myself during my
re-election, but I ran to Keppel; he said he had never spoken in public,
and could not, but would give authority to anybody else. The Speaker was
putting the question for the orders of the day, after which no motion
could be made; it was Friday. The House would not sit on Saturday, the
execution was fixed for Monday. I felt all this in an instant, dragged
Mr. Keppel to Sir Francis Dashwood, and he on the floor before he had
taken his place, called out to the Speaker, and though the orders were
passed, Sir Francis was suffered to speak. The House was wondrously
softened: pains were taken to prove to Mr. Keppel that he might speak,
notwithstanding his oath; but he adhering to it, he had time given him
till next morning to consider and consult some of his brethren who had
commissioned him to desire the bill. The next day the King sent a
message to our House, that he had respited Mr. Byng for a fortnight,
till the bill could be passed, and he should know whether the Admiral
was unjustly condemned. The bill was read twice in our House that day,
and went through the Committee; Mr. Keppel affirming that he had
something, in his opinion, of weight to tell, and which it was material
his Majesty should know, and naming four of his associates, who desired
to be empowered to speak. On Sunday all was confusion again, on news
that the four disclaimed what Mr. Keppel had said for them. On Monday,
he told the House that in one he had been mistaken; that another did not
declare off, but wished all were to be compelled to speak; and from the
two others he produced a letter upholding him in what he had said. The
bill passed by 153 to 23. On Tuesday it was treated very differently by
the Lords. The new Chief Justice [Mansfield] and the late Chancellor
[Hardwicke] pleaded against Byng like little attorneys, and did all they
could to stifle truth. That all was a good deal. They prevailed to have
the whole Court-martial at their bar. Lord Hardwicke urged for the
intervention of a day, on the pretence of a trifling cause of an Irish
bankruptcy then depending before the Lords, though Lord Temple showed
them that some of the Captains and Admirals were under sailing orders
for America. But Lord Hardwicke and Lord Anson were expeditious enough
to do what they wanted in one night's time; and for the next day,
yesterday, every one of the Court-martial defended their sentence, and
even the three conscientious said not one syllable of their desire of
the bill, which was accordingly unanimously rejected, and with great
marks of contempt for the House of Commons.
This is as brief and as clear an abstract as I can give you of a most
complicated affair, in which I have been a most unfortunate actor,
having to my infinite grief, which I shall feel till the man is at
peace, been instrumental in protracting his misery a fortnight, by what
I meant as the kindest thing I could do. I never knew poor Byng
enough to bow to--but the great doubtfulness of his crime, and the
extraordinariness of his sentence, the persecution of his enemies, who
sacrifice him for their own guilt, and the rage of a blinded nation,
have called forth all my pity for him. His enemies triumph, but who can
envy the triumph of murder?
II.
THOMAS POTTER TO MR. GRENVILLE, SEPTEMBER 11, 1756.
+Source.+--_Grenville Papers_, 1852. Vol. i., p. 173.
This morning I heard the whole city of Westminster disturbed by the song
of a hundred ballad-singers, the burthen of which was, "To the block
with Newcastle, and the yard arm with Byng."
[This ballad is to be found as a single sheet broadside in the British
Museum in a volume lettered _Ballads and Broadsides_; the first verse is
as follows:--]
_THE BLOCK AND YARD ARM_
A NEW BALLAD ON THE LOSS OF "MINORCA," AND THE DANGER OF OUR "AMERICAN"
RIGHTS AND POSSESSIONS.
_To Tune of the "Whose e'er been at Baldock," &c._
Draw nigh my good Folks whilst to you I Sing
Great Blak'ney[23] betray'd by N[ewcastle] and B[yng],
Before such a Story ne'er has been told
We're bought all, my Friends, by shining _French_ gold.
_Chorus._ To the Block with N[ewcastle] and Yard Arm with B[yng].
_Terra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ring._
[23] The Governor of Minorca, then eighty-five, "that gallant old man,"
as Lady Hervey (_Letters_, p. 219) justly calls him, "who had behaved
like a hero of antiquity," had held out in Fort St. Philip for five
weeks after Byng's retreat.
THE COALITION GOVERNMENT OF 1757.
+Source.+--Baron FitzMaurice's _Life of William Earl of Shelburne_,
1875-76. Vol. i., pp. 85-87.
[By the new Coalition] there was produced a strong Council and a strong
Government. The Cabinet Council was composed of the Duke of Newcastle,
Mr. Pitt, Secretary of State, Lord Keeper Henley, Lord Hardwicke, Lord
Mansfield, Lord Granville, Lord Holdernesse, Lord Anson, and Lord
Ligonier. There were no party politics, and consequently no difference
of opinion. I have heard Lord Chatham say they were the most agreeable
conversations he ever experienced. The Duke of Newcastle, a very
good-humoured man, was abundantly content with the whole patronage being
left to him.... Lord Hardwicke ... was kept in order by Lord Granville's
wit, who took advantage of the meeting of the balance of all parties to
pay off old scores, and to return all he owed to the Pelhams and the
Yorkes. He had a rooted aversion to Lord Hardwicke and to all his
family. I don't know precisely for what reason, but he got the secret of
cowing Lord Hardwicke, whose pretensions to classical learning gave Lord
Granville, who really was a very fine classical scholar, a great
opportunity. To this was added his knowledge of civil law,[24] in which
Lord Hardwicke was deficient, and above all, his wit; but whatever way
he got the key, he used it on all occasions unmercifully. In one of the
short-lived administrations at the commencement of the war, Lord
Granville, who had generally dined, turned round to say, "I am thinking
that all over Europe they are waiting our determination and canvassing
our characters. The Duke of Newcastle, they'll say, is a man of great
fortune, who has spent a great deal of it in support of the present
family."[25] "Fox, they'll say, is an impudent fellow who has fought his
war through the House of Commons; as for me, they know me throughout
Europe, they know my talents and my character; but I am thinking they
will all be asking, _Qui est ce diable de Chancelier?_ How came he here?"
[24] In illustration of this, and as a great statesman's verdict on a
great period, it seems not inappropriate to quote here the famous story
of Carteret's death, as told by Robert Wood in his _Essay on the
Original Genius of Homer_, 1776, pp. v.-vi.: "Being directed to call
upon his Lordship, a few days before he died, with the preliminary
articles of the Treaty of Paris, I found him so languid that I proposed
postponing my business for another time; but he insisted that I should
stay, saying it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty; and,
repeating the following passage out of Sarpedon's speech, dwelled with
particular emphasis on the third line, which recalled the distinguishing
part he had taken in public affairs--=Ô pepon=, etc. His Lordship
repeated the last word [=iomen=] several times with a calm and
determined resignation; and, after a serious pause of some minutes, he
desired to hear the Treaty read, to which he listened with great
attention, and recovered spirits enough to declare the approbation of a
dying statesman (I use his own words) on the most glorious War, and most
honourable Peace, this nation ever saw."
[25] This was so true that Newcastle, after a public life of five and
forty years, died £300,000 the poorer for it.--ED.
THE ENGLISH IN INDIA (1757-1759).
I.
THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA DESCRIBED BY A SURVIVOR.
+Source.+--_A Complete History of the War in India, from the Year 1749
to the Taking of Pondicherry in 1761._ Pp. 18-21.
[The nabob of Bengal marched on Calcutta, which was abandoned by the
commanding officer and the principal inhabitants.] Mr. Holwell, with a
few gallant friends, and the remains of a feeble garrison, bravely
defended the fort to the last extremity; but it was insufficient to
protect an untenable place, or to affect an ungenerous enemy. The fort
was taken on the twentieth day of June, 1756, and the whole garrison,
consisting of 146 persons, being made prisoners, were thrust into a
dungeon, called the Black-hole, from whence Mr. Holwell, with twenty-one
others, came out alive, to paint a scene of the most cruel distress,
which perhaps human nature ever suffered or survived.
When he came to England, in the year 1757, he published, in a letter, an
account of this shocking barbarity, in terms so pathetic and moving as
cannot fail drawing pity from the most obdurate and savage breast.
"Figure to yourself, says he, if possible, the situation of one hundred
and forty-six wretches, exhausted by continual fatigue and action, thus
crammed together, in a cube of eighteen feet, in a close sultry night in
Bengal; shut up to the eastward and southward, the only quarters from
whence air could come to us, by dead walls, and a door open only to the
westward by two windows strongly barred within; from whence we could
receive scarce any the least circulation of fresh air.
"Such was the residence of those unhappy victims for the space of twelve
hours. When they had been in but a little while, a profuse sweat broke
out on every individual; and this was attended with an insatiable
thirst, which became the more intolerable as the body was drained of its
moisture. In vain these miserable objects stripped themselves of their
cloaths, squatted down on their hams, and fanned the air with their
hats, to produce a refreshing undulation. Many were unable to rise again
from this posture, but falling down, were trod to death or suffocated.
The dreadful symptom of thirst was now accompanied with a difficulty of
respiration, and every individual gasped for breath. Their despair
became outrageous. The cry of _water! water!_ issued from every mouth;
even the jemmadar [the serjeant of the Indian guard] was moved to
compassion, at their distress. He ordered his soldiers to bring some
skins of water, which served only to enrage their appetite and increase
the general agitation. There was no other way of conveying it through
the windows but by hats, and this was rendered ineffectual by the
eagerness and transports of the wretched prisoners; who, at sight of it,
struggled and raved even into fits of delirium. In consequence of these
contests, very little reached those that stood nearest the windows;
while the rest, at the farther end of the prison, were totally excluded
from all relief, and continued calling on their friends for assistance,
and conjuring them by all the tender ties of pity and affection. To
those who were indulged it proved pernicious; for, instead of allaying
their thirst, it enraged their impatience for more. The confusion became
general and horrid, all was clamour and contest; those who were at a
distance endeavoured to force their passage to the windows, and the weak
were pressed down to the ground, never to rise again. The inhuman
ruffians without derived entertainment, from their misery; they supplied
the prisoners with more water, and held up lights to the bars, that they
might enjoy the inhuman pleasure of seeing them fight for the baneful
indulgence. The miserable prisoners perceiving that water rather
aggravated than relieved their distress, grew clamorous for air; they
insulted the guard, in order to provoke them to fire upon them; and
loaded the _Suba_ [the nabob of Bengal] with the most virulent reproach;
from railing they had recourse to prayers, beseeching Heaven to put an
end to their misery.
"They now began to drop on all hands, but a steam arose from the living
and the dead as pungent and volatile as spirit of hartshorn; so that all
who could not approach the window were suffocated. Mr. Holwell, being
weary of life, retired, as he had done once before, from the window, and
went and stretched himself by the reverend Mr. Jervas Bellamy, who,
together with his son, a lieutenant, lay dead in each other's embrace.
In this situation he was soon deprived of sense, and lay, to all
appearance, dead, till day broke, when his body was discovered and
removed by his surviving friends to one of the windows, where the fresh
air revived him, and he was restored to his sight and senses."
II.
CLIVE TO PITT ON ENGLAND'S OPPORTUNITY.
+Source.+--_Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham._ Edition of
1838-1840. Vol. i., pp. 387-392.
CALCUTTA,
_January 7, 1759_.
SIR,
Suffer an admirer of yours at this distance to congratulate himself on
the glory and advantage which are likely to accrue to the nation by your
being at its head, and at the same time to return his most grateful
thanks for the distinguished manner you have been pleased to speak of
his successes in these parts, far indeed beyond his deservings.[26]
The close attention you bestow on the affairs of the British nation in
general has induced me to trouble you with a few particulars relative to
India, and to lay before you an exact account of the revenues of this
country; the genuineness whereof you may depend upon, as it has been
faithfully copied from the minister's books.
The great revolution that has been effected here by the success of the
English arms, and the vast advantages gained to the Company by a treaty
concluded in consequence thereof, have, I observe, in some measure
engaged the public attention; but much more may yet in time be done, if
the Company will exert themselves in the manner the importance of their
present possessions and future prospects deserves. I have represented to
them in the strongest terms the expediency of sending out and keeping up
constantly such a force as will enable them to embrace the first
opportunity of further aggrandizing themselves; and I dare pronounce,
from a thorough knowledge of this country government and of the genius
of the people, acquired by two years' application and experience, that
such an opportunity will soon offer. The reigning Subah, whom the
victory at Plassey invested with the sovereignty of these provinces,
still, it is true, retains his attachment to us, and probably, while he
has no other support, will continue to do so; but Mussulmans are so
little influenced by gratitude, that should he ever think it his
interest to break with us, the obligations he owes us would prove no
restraint: and this is very evident from his having very lately removed
his prime minister, and cut off two or three of his principal officers,
all attached to our interest, and who had a share in his elevation.
Moreover, he is advanced in years; and his son is so cruel and worthless
a young fellow, and so apparently an enemy to the English, that it will
be almost useless trusting him with the succession. So small a body as
two thousand Europeans will secure us against any apprehensions from
either the one or the other, and in case of their daring to be
troublesome, enable the company to take the sovereignty upon themselves.
There will be the less difficulty in bringing about such an event, as
the natives themselves have no attachment whatever to particular
princes; and as, under the present government, they have no security for
their lives or properties, they would rejoice in so happy an exchange as
that of a mild for a despotic government; and there is little room to
doubt our easily obtaining the mogul's sannud (or grant) in confirmation
thereof, provided we agree to pay him the stipulated allotment out of
the revenues. That this would be agreeable to him can hardly be
questioned, as it would be so much to his interest to have these
countries under the dominion of a nation famed for their good faith,
rather than in the hands of people who, a long experience has convinced
him, never will pay him his proportion of the revenues, unless awed into
it by the fear of the imperial army marching to force them thereto.
But so large a sovereignty may possibly be an object too extensive for a
mercantile company; and it is to be feared they are not of themselves
able, without the nation's assistance, to maintain so wide a dominion. I
have, therefore, presumed, Sir, to represent this matter to you, and
submit it to your consideration, whether the execution of a design, that
may hereafter be still carried to greater lengths, be worthy of the
government's taking it in hand.
I flatter myself I have made it pretty clear to you, that there will be
little or no difficulty in obtaining the absolute possession of these
rich kingdoms; and that with the mogul's own consent, on condition of
paying him less than a fifth of the revenues thereof. Now I leave you to
judge whether an income yearly of upwards of two millions sterling, with
the possession of three provinces abounding in the most valuable
productions of nature and art, be an object deserving the public
attention; and whether it be worth the nation's while to take the proper
measures to secure such an acquisition,--an acquisition which, under the
management of so able and disinterested a minister, would prove a source
of immense wealth to the kingdom, and might in time be appropriated in
part as a fund towards diminishing the heavy load of debt under which we
at present labour.
Add to these advantages the influence we shall thereby acquire over the
several European nations engaged in the commerce here, which these could
no longer carry on but through our indulgence, and under such
limitations as we should think fit to prescribe. It is well worthy
consideration, that this project may be brought about without draining
the mother country, as has been too much the case with our possessions
in America. A small force from home will be sufficient, as we always
make sure of any number we please of black troops, who being much better
paid and treated by us than by the country powers, will very readily
enter into our service.
Mr. Walsh, who will have the honour of delivering you this, having been
my secretary during the late fortunate expedition, is a thorough master
of the subject, and will be able to explain to you the whole design, and
the facility with which it may be executed, much more to your
satisfaction, and with greater perspicuity, than can possibly be done in
a letter. I shall therefore only further remark, that I have
communicated it to no other person but yourself; nor should I have
troubled you, Sir, but from a conviction that you will give a favourable
reception to any proposal intended for the public good.
The greatest part of the troops belonging to this establishment are now
employed in an expedition against the French in the Deccan: and, by the
accounts lately received from thence, I have great hopes we shall
succeed in extirpating them from the province of Golconda, where they
have reigned lords paramount so long, and from whence they have drawn
their principal resources during the troubles upon the coast.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary efforts made by the French for sending
out M. Lally with a considerable force the last year, I am confident,
before the end of this, they will be near their last gasp in the
Carnatic, unless some very unforeseen event interpose in their favour.
The superiority of our squadron, and the plenty of money and supplies of
all kinds which our friends on the coast will be furnished with from
this province, while the enemy are in total want of everything, without
any visible means of redress, are such advantages as, if properly
attended to, cannot fail of wholly effecting their ruin in that as well
as in every part of India.
May your zeal, and the vigorous measures projected for the service of
the nation, which have so eminently distinguished your ministry, be
crowned with all the success they deserve, is the most fervent wish of
him, who is with the greatest respect, Sir,
Your most devoted humble servant,
ROB. CLIVE.
[26] Mr. Pitt, in his speech on the Mutiny Bill, in December, 1757,
after adverting to the recent disgraces which had attended the British
arms, said, "We have lost our glory, honour, and reputation everywhere
but in India: there the country had a heaven-born general, who had never
learned the art of war, nor was his name enrolled among the great
officers who had for many years received their country's pay; yet was he
not afraid to attack a numerous army with a handful of men."
THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.
_September 13, 1759._
I.
THE NIGHT ATTACK.
+Source.+--The following passages rest on the same authority, that of
Professor Robison, who, as a youth, served as midshipman in the same
boat with Wolfe--or, according to another account, commanded the boat
next to his--on the eventful night. The first quotation is taken from W.
W. Currie's _Life of James Currie_, 1831, vol. ii., p. 248; the second
from Dr. James Graham's _History of North America_, 1836, vol. iv., p.
51.
(_a_) "General Wolfe kept his intention of attacking Quebec a most
profound secret, not even disclosing it to the Second in Command, and
the night before the attack nothing was known. The boats were ordered to
drop down the St. Lawrence." (_b_) "Silence was commanded under pain of
death, which was indeed doubly menaced: and a death-like stillness
was observed in every boat, except the one which conveyed the
commander-in-chief, where, in accents barely audible to the profound
attention of his listening officers, Wolfe repeated that noble effusion
of solemn thought and poetic genius, Gray's _Elegy in a Country
Churchyard_, which had been recently published in London, and of which a
copy had been brought to him, by the last packet from England. When he
had finished his recitation, he added in a tone still guardedly low, but
earnest and emphatic,--'Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of
that poem than take Quebec.'"
II.
THE BATTLE.
+Source.+--_An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America_, by
Captain John Knox, 1769. Vol. ii., pp. 66-71, 77-79.
Before day-break this morning we made a descent upon the north shore [of
the St. Lawrence], about half a quarter of a mile to the eastward of
Sillez; and the light troops were fortunately, by the rapidity of the
current, carried lower down, between us and Cape Diamond; we had in this
debarkation, thirty flat-bottomed boats, containing about sixteen
hundred men. This was a great surprise on the enemy, who, from the
natural strength of the place, did not suspect, and consequently were
not prepared against, so bold an attempt. The chain of sentries, which
they had posted along the summit of the heights, galled us a little, and
picked off several men, and some Officers, before our light infantry got
up to dislodge them. This grand enterprise was conducted and executed
with great good order and discretion; as fast as we landed, the boats
put off for reinforcements, and the troops formed with much regularity:
the General, with Brigadiers Monckton and Murray, were a-shore with the
first division. We lost nothing here, but clambered up one of the
steepest precipices that can be conceived, being almost a perpendicular,
and of an incredible height. As soon as we gained the summit, all was
quiet, and not a shot was heard, owing to the excellent conduct of the
light infantry under Colonel Howe; it was by this time clear daylight.
Here we formed again, the river and the south country in our rear, our
right extending to the town, and our left to Sillez, and halted a few
minutes. The general then detached the light troops to our left to route
the enemy from their battery, and to disable their guns, except they
could be rendered serviceable to the party who were to remain there: and
this service was soon performed. We then faced to the right, and marched
towards the town by files, till we came to the plains of Abraham, which
Mr. Wolfe had made choice of, while we stood forming upon the hill.
Weather showery; about six o'clock the enemy first made their appearance
upon the heights, between us and the town; whereupon we halted, and
wheeled to the right, thereby forming the line of battle.... General
Wolfe, Brigadiers Monckton and Murray, to our front line; and the second
was composed of the fifteenth, and two battalions of the sixtieth
regiment, under Colonel Burton, drawn up in four grand divisions, with
large intervals. The enemy had now likewise formed the line of battle,
and got some cannon to play on us, with round and canister shot: but
what galled us most was a body of Indians and other marksmen they had
concealed in the corn opposite to the front of our right wing, and a
coppice that stood opposite to our center, inclining towards our left:
but the Colonel Hale, by Brigadier Monckton's orders, advanced some
platoons, alternately, from the forty-seventh regiment, which, after a
few rounds, obliged these sculkers to retire.... About ten o'clock the
enemy began to advance briskly in three columns, with loud shouts and
recovered arms, two of them inclining to the left of our army, and the
third towards our right, firing obliquely at the two extremities of our
line, from the distance of one hundred and thirty--until they came
within forty yards; which our troops withstood with the greatest
intrepidity and firmness, still reserving their fire, and paying the
strictest obedience to their officers: this uncommon steadiness,
together with the havoc which the grape-shot from our field-pieces made
among them, threw them into some disorder, and was most critically
maintained by a well-timed, regular, and heavy discharge of our small
arms, such as they could no longer oppose; hereupon they gave way, and
fled with precipitation, so that, by the time the cloud of smoke was
vanished, our men were again loaded, and, profiting by the advantage we
had over them, pursued them almost to the gates of the town, and the
bridge over the little river, redoubling our fire with great eagerness,
making many Officers and men prisoners. The weather cleared up, with a
comfortably warm sunshine: the Highlanders chased them vigorously
towards Charles's river, and the fifty-eighth to the suburb close to
John's gate, until they were checked by the cannon from the two hulks;
at the same time a gun, which the town had brought to bear upon us with
grape-shot, galled the progress of the regiments to the right, who were
likewise pursuing with equal ardour, while Colonel Hunt Walsh, by a very
judicious movement, wheeled the battalions of Bragg and Kennedy to the
left, and flanked the coppice where a body of the enemy made a stand, as
if willing to renew the action; but a few platoons from these corps
completed our victory. Our joy at this success is irrepressibly damped
by the loss we sustained of one of the greatest heroes which this or any
other age can boast of,--GENERAL JAMES WOLFE, who received his mortal
wound, as he was exerting himself at the head of the grenadiers of
Louisbourg.... After our late worthy General, of renowned memory, was
carried off wounded, to the rear of the front line, he desired those who
were about him to lay him down; being asked if he would have a surgeon?
he replied, "it is needless; it is all over with me." One of them then
cried out, "they run, see how they run." "Who runs!" demanded our hero,
with great earnestness, like a person roused from sleep. The Officer
answered, "The enemy, Sir; Egad, they give way every-where." Thereupon
the General rejoined, "_Go one of you, my lads, to Colonel Burton;--tell
him to march Webb's regiment with all speed down to Charles's river, to
cut off the retreat of the fugitives from the bridge_." Then, turning on
his side, he added, "_Now, God be praised, I will die in peace_": and
thus expired....
The Sieur de Montcalm died late last night when his wound was dressed,
and he settled in bed, the Surgeons who attended him were desired to
acquaint him ingenuously with their sentiments of him, and, being
answered that his wound was mortal, he calmly replied, "he was glad of
it"; his Excellency then demanded,--"whether he could survive it long,
and how long?" He was told, "about a dozen hours, perhaps more,
peradventure less." "So much the better," rejoined this eminent warrior;
"I am happy I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec."... Some
time before this great man departed, we are assured he paid us this
compliment,--"Since it was my misfortune to be discomfited, and mortally
wounded, it is a great consolation to me to be vanquished by so brave
and generous an enemy: If I could survive this wound, I would engage to
beat three times the number of such forces as I commanded this morning
with a third of their number of British troops."
"THE HEAVEN-BORN MINISTER": HORACE WALPOLE'S HOMAGE TO PITT.
I.
IN THE GREAT YEAR.
+Source.+--_Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford_, 1798. Vol. ii.,
P. 375.
_To the Rt. Hon. William Pitt._
_November 19, 1759._
SIR,
On my coming to the town I did myself the honour of waiting on you and
lady Hesther Pitt, and though I think myself extremely distinguished by
your obliging note, I should be sorry for having given you the trouble
of writing it, if it did not lend me a very pardonable opportunity of
saying what I much wished to express, but thought myself too private a
person, and of too little consequence to take the liberty to say. In
short, sir, I was eager to congratulate you on the lustre you have
thrown on this country; I wished to thank you for the security you have
fixed to me of enjoying the happiness I do enjoy. You have placed
England in a situation in which it never saw itself--a task the more
difficult, as you had not to improve, but recover. In a trifling book
written two or three years ago, I said (speaking of the name in the
world the most venerable to me), "Sixteen unfortunate and inglorious
years since his removal have already written his eulogium" [in the
account of Sir Robert Walpole in the _Catalogue of Royal and Noble
Authors_]. It is but justice to you, sir, to add that that period ended
when your administration began.
II.
CHARACTER OF WILLIAM PITT, DESCRIBED BY WALPOLE IN THE LIGHT OF
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
+Source.+--_Memoirs of the Reign of George II._, 1847. Vol. iii.,
pp. 84, 85, 86, 176.
Pitt was now arrived at undisturbed possession of that influence in
affairs at which his ambition had aimed, and which his presumption had
made him flatter himself he could exert like those men of superior
genius, whose talents have been called forth by some crisis to retrieve
a sinking nation. He had said the last year to the Duke of Devonshire.
"My Lord, I am sure I can save this country, and no one else can." It
were ingratitude to him to say that he did not give such a reverberation
to our stagnating Councils, as exceedingly altered the appearance of our
fortune. He warded off the evil hour that seemed approaching; he infused
vigour into our arms; he taught the nation to speak again as England
used to speak to Foreign Powers; and so far from dreading invasions from
France, he affected to turn us into invaders. Indeed, these efforts were
so puny, so ill-concerted, so ineffectual to any essential purpose, that
France looked down with scorn on such boyish flippancies, which Pitt
deemed heroic, which Europe thought ridiculous, and which humanity saw
were only wasteful of lives, and precedents of a more barbarous warfare
than France had hitherto been authorized to carry on. In fact, Pitt had
neither all the talents he supposed in himself, nor which he seemed to
possess from the vacancy of great men around him....
Pitt's was an unfinished greatness: considering how much of it depended
on his words, one may almost call his an artificial greatness; but his
passion for fame and the grandeur of his ideas compensated for his
defects. He aspired to redeem the honour of his country, and to place it
in a point of giving law to nations. His ambition was to be the most
illustrious man of the first country in Europe; and he thought that the
eminence of glory could not be sullied by the steps to it being passed
irregularly. He wished to aggrandize Britain in general, but thought not
of obliging or benefiting individuals....
Posterity, this is an impartial picture. I am neither dazzled by the
blaze of the times in which I have lived, nor, if there are spots in the
sun, do I deny that I see them. It is a man I am describing, and one
whose greatness will bear to have his blemishes fairly delivered to
you--not from a love of censure in me, but of truth; and because it is
history I am writing, not romance.
DEATH OF GEORGE II. (1760).
_Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann._
ARLINGTON ST.,
_October 28, 1760_.
... This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect
health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called
for and drank his chocolate. At seven, for everything with him was exact
and periodic, he went into the closet.... Coming from thence, his _valet
de chambre_ heard a noise; waited a moment, and heard something like a
groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bedchamber
he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of his face
against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp expired. Lady
Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but they only told
the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She had been confined
some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, and saw her father
extended on the bed. She is very purblind and more than a little deaf.
They had not closed his eyes; she bent down close to his face, and
concluded he spoke to her, though she could not hear him--guess what a
shock when she found the truth. She wrote to the Prince of Wales, but so
had one of the _valets de chambre_ first. He came to town, and saw the
Duke [of Cumberland] and the Privy Council. He was extremely kind at the
first--and in general has behaved with the greatest propriety, dignity,
and decency. He read his speech to the Council with much grace, and
dismissed the guards on himself to wait on his grandfather's body. It is
intimated that he means to employ the same ministers, but with reserve
to himself of more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke
of York and Lord Bute are named of the cabinet council. The late King's
will is not yet opened. To-day everybody kissed hands at Leicester
House, and this week, I believe, the King will go to St. James's. The
body has been _opened_; the great ventricle of the heart had burst. What
an enviable death! In the greatest period of the glory of this country,
and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven,
growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of
fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship-load of
bad news: could he have chosen such another moment?
APPENDIX
LONDON IN 1725-1736.
DEFOE'S DESCRIPTION OF LONDON IN 1725.
+Source.+--_A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain_, 1724-7.
Vol. ii., pp. 94-97.
_London_, as a City only, and as its Walls and Liberties live it out,
might, indeed, be viewed in a small Compass; but, when I speak of
_London_, now in the Modern Acceptation, you expect I shall take in all
that vast Mass of Buildings, reaching from _Black Wall_ in the _East_ to
_Tothill Fields_ in the _West_; and extended in an unequal Breadth, from
the Bridge, or River, on the _South_, to _Islington North_; and from
_Peterburgh House_ on the Bank Side in _Westminster_, to _Cavendish
Square_, and all the new Buildings by, and beyond _Hanover Square_, by
which the City of _London_, for so it is still to be called, is extended
to _Hyde Park Corner_ in the _Brentford Road_, and almost to _Maribone_
in the _Acton Road_, and how much farther may it spread, who knows? New
Squares, and new Streets rising up every Day to such a Prodigy of
Buildings, that nothing in the world does, or ever did, equal it, except
old _Rome_ in _Trajan's_ time, when the walls were Fifty Miles in
Compass, and the Number of Inhabitants Six Millions Eight Hundred
Thousand Souls.
It is the Disaster of _London_, as to the Beauty of its Figure, that it
is thus stretched out in Buildings, just at the pleasure of every
Builder, or Undertaker of Buildings, and as the Convenience of the
People directs, whether for Trade, or otherwise; and this has spread the
Face of it in a most straggling, confus'd Manner, out of all Shape,
uncompact, and unequal; neither long nor broad, round or square; whereas
the City of _Rome_, though a monster for its Greatness, yet was, in a
manner, round, with very few Irregularities in its Shape.
At _London_, including the Buildings on both Sides the Water, one sees
it, in some Places, Three Miles broad, as from St. _George's_ in
_Southwark_, to _Shoreditch_ in _Middlesex_; or Two Miles, as from
_Peterburgh House_ to _Montague House_; and in some Places, not half a
Mile, as in _Wapping_; and much less, as in _Redriff_ [Rotherhithe].
We see several Villages, formerly standing, as it were, in the County
and at a great Distance, now joyn'd to the Streets by continued
Buildings, and more making haste to meet in the like Manner; for
Example, 1. _Deptford_, This Town was formerly reckoned at least Two
Miles off from _Redriff_, and that over the Marshes too, a Place
unlikely ever to be inhabited; and yet now, by the Encrease of Buildings
in that Town itself, and by the Docks and Buildings-Yard on the River
Side, which stand between both the Town of _Deptford_, and the Streets
of _Redriff_ (or Rotherhith as they write it) are effectually joyn'd,
and the Buildings daily increasing; so that _Deptford_ is now more a
separated Town, but is become a Part of the great Mass, and infinitely
full of People also; Here they have, within the last Two or Three Years,
built a fine new Church, and were the Town of Deptford now separated,
and rated by itself. I believe it contains more People, and stands upon
more Ground, than the City of _Wells_.
The Town of _Islington_ on the _North_ side of the City, is in like
Manner joyn'd to the Streets of _London_, excepting one small Field, and
which is in itself so small, that there is no Doubt, but in a very few
years, they will be intirely joyn'd, and the same may be said of
_Mile-End_, on the _East_ End of the Town.
_Newington_, called _Newington Butts_, in _Surrey_, reaches out her Hand
_North_, and is so near joining to _Southwark_, that it cannot now be
properly called a Town by itself, but a Suburb to the Burrough, and if,
_as they now tell us is undertaken_, St. _George's Fields_ should be
built with Squares and Streets, a very little Time will shew us
_Newington_, _Lambeth_, and the _Burrough_, all making but one
_Southwark_.
The Westminster is in a fair Way to shake Hands with Chelsea, as St.
_Gyles's_ is with _Marybone_; and Great _Russel Street_ by _Montague
House_, with _Tottenham Court_: all this is very evident, and yet all
these put together are still to be called _London_: Whither will this
monstrous City then extend? and where must a Circumvallation or
Communication Line of it be placed?
THE PRESENTMENT OF THE MIDDLESEX GRAND JURY, JANUARY SESSION
(1735-1736).
+Source.+--_Distilled Spirituous Liquors the Bane of the Nation_, 1736.
We the Grand Jury for the County of _Middlesex_ taking notice of the
vast number of _Brandy_ and _Geneva-Shops_, _Sheds_, and _Cellars_, of
late set up and opened, for the retailing of _Gin_ and other _Spirituous
Liquors_, which being sold at a very low Rate, the Meaner, though
Useful, Part of the Nation, as Day-Labourers, Men and Women Servants,
and common Soldiers, nay even Children, are enticed and seduced to
taste, like, and approve of those pernicious _Liquors_ sold for such
small Sums of Money, whereby they are daily intoxicated and get drunk,
and are frequently seen in our streets in a Condition abhorrent to
reasonable Creatures.
It is visible, that by this destructive Practice, the strength and
Constitution of Numbers is greatly weakened and destroyed, and many are
thereby rendered useless to themselves as well as to the Community, many
die suddenly by drinking it to Excess, and infinite Numbers lay the
Foundation of Distempers which shorten their Lives, or make them
miserable, weak, feeble, unable and unwilling to Work, a Scandal and
Burthen to their Country.
But it does not stop here; the unhappy Influence reaches to the
Posterity of those poor unhappy Wretches, to the Children yet unborn,
who come half burnt and shrivelled into the World, who as soon as born,
suck in this deadly spirituous Poison with their Nurse's Milk; the
barbarous Mothers also often giving the detestable spirits to poor
Infants in their Arms; so that, if the Infection spreads, as it lately
has done, it must needs make a general Havock, especially among the
laborious Part of Mankind, who are seen manifestly to degenerate from
the more manly and robust Constitutions of preceding Generations.
The natural Consequences of which will be, that his Majesty will lose
Numbers of his Subjects, the Publick the Labour and Industry of her
People, the Soldiery will be greatly weakened and enfeebled, and Masters
will every Day have greater Reason to complain of bad and dishonest
Servants, especially whilst that scandalous Custom prevails amongst
Chandlers and other lower Trades, of giving Drams, making them uncapable
of doing their Business, saucy to their Superiors, and in the End tempts
them to cheat and rob their Masters, to supply themselves with large
quantities of this destructive Liquor.
We therefore the Grand Jury aforesaid, do present all such _Brandy_ and
_Geneva-Shops_, _Sheds_ and _Cellars_, where _Gin_ and other _Spirituous
Liquors_ are sold and vended by Retail, as publick Nuisances, which
harbour, entertain and shelter the indolent, dissolute, and incorrigibly
Wicked, that they are a high Grievance, and of the greatest ill
Consequence to all our Fellow Subjects, as most plainly appear by the
daily Meetings and Associations of Numbers of loose and disorderly
Persons of both Sexes in these Places, where after they have drank of
this most pernicious Liquor, they are ready for, and actually do spirit
up each other to perpetrate and execute the most bold, daring, and
mischievous Enterprizes, and shaking off all Fear and Sham, become
audaciously impudent in all manner of Vice, Lewdness, Immorality, and
Profaneness, in Defiance of all Laws, Human and Divine.
We therefore earnestly hope, that the Magistrates will unanimously and
vigorously put the Laws already made, and which have any relation to the
rooting out this pernicious Custom, in full Execution: That they will
punish severely all Transgressors of them, and use their utmost
Endeavours to put some stop to the bold Encroachments of this terrible
Destroyer of our Fellow-Creatures, which we apprehend will greatly
conduce to the Honour and Glory of God, to the Safety, Happiness,
Welfare, and Benefit of the Nation in general, and of every Family in
particular, and will be a Means to secure the Health and Strength of our
Posterity.
If the Laws already made should not be found sufficient to put a stop to
a Custom so universal, and yet plainly, so destructive; As it is now
become a National Concern, and the ill Consequences arising therefrom
universally felt and confessed, we do not doubt but it will be thought
worthy the most serious Consideration of the Legislature, and of his
most gracious Majesty, the most tender Father of his People.
[Here follow the signatures of the Grand Jury.]
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
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Transcriber's note:
Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
Two occurrences of unpaired doublel quotation marks were left unchanged.
Notices of other books in the series have been moved to the end of the
text.
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