execution of Green should be suspended till her pleasure was known,
but they did grant a week's respite. On April 10 a mob, partly from
the country, gathered in Edinburgh; the Privy Council, between the mob
and the Queen, let matters take their course. On April 11 the mob
raged round the meeting-place of the Privy Council, rooms under the
Parliament House, and chevied the Chancellor into a narrow close,
whence he was hardly rescued. However, learning that Green was to
swing after all, the mob withdrew to Leith sands, where they enjoyed
the execution of an Englishman. The whole affair hastened the Union of
1707, for it was a clear case of Union or war between the two nations.
As for Drummond, many years later, on the occasion of the Porteous
riot, Forbes of Culloden declared in the House of Commons that a few
months after Green was hanged letters came from Captain Drummond, of
the 'Speedy Return,' 'and from the very ship for whose capture the
unfortunate person suffered, informing their friends that they were
all safe.' But the 'Speedy Return' was taken by pirates, two of her
crew say, off Madagascar, and burned. What was the date of the letters
from the 'Speedy Return' to which, long afterwards, Forbes, and he
alone, referred? What was the date of the capture of the 'Speedy
Return,' at Maritan, in Madagascar? Without the dates we are no wiser.
Now comes an incidental and subsidiary mystery. In 1729 was published
_Madagascar, or Robert Drury's Journal during Fifteen Years' Captivity
on that Island, written by Himself, digested into order, and now
published at the Request of his Friends_. Drury says, as we shall see,
that he, a lad of fifteen, was prisoner in Madagascar from _about_
1703 to 1718, and that there he met Captain Drummond, late of the
'Speedy Return.' If so, Green certainly did not kill Captain Drummond.
But Drury's narrative seems to be about as authentic and historical as
the so-called _Souvenirs of Madame de Créquy_. In the edition of
1890[30] of Drury's book, edited by Captain Pasfield Oliver, R.A.,
author of _Madagascar_, the Captain throws a lurid light on Drury and
his volume. Captain Pasfield Oliver first candidly produces what he
thinks the best evidence for the genuineness of Drury's story; namely
a letter of the Rev. Mr. Hirst, on board H.M.S. 'Lenox,' off
Madagascar, 1759. This gentleman praises Drury's book as the best and
most authentic, for Drury says that he was wrecked in the 'Degrave,'
East Indiaman, and his story 'exactly agrees, as far as it goes, with
the journal kept by Mr. John Benbow,' second mate of the 'Degrave.'
That journal of Benbow's was burned, in London, in 1714, but several
of his friends remembered that it tallied with Drury's narrative. But,
as Drury's narrative was certainly 'edited,' probably by Defoe, that
master of fiction may easily have known and used Benbow's journal.
Otherwise, if Benbow's journal contained the same references to
Captain Drummond in Madagascar as Drury gives, then the question is
settled: Drummond died in Madagascar after a stormy existence of some
eleven years on that island. As to Drury, Captain Pasfield Oliver
thinks that his editor, probably Defoe, or an imitator of Defoe,
'faked' the book, partly out of De Flacourt's _Histoire de Madagascar_
(1661), and a French authority adds another old French source,
Dapper's _Description de l'Afrique_. Drury was himself a pirate, his
editor thinks: Defoe picked his brains, or an imitator of Defoe did
so, and Defoe, or whoever was the editor, would know the story that
Drummond really lost the 'Speedy Return' in Madagascar, and could
introduce the Scottish adventurer into Drury's romance.
[Footnote 30: Fisher Unwin.]
We can never be absolutely certain that Captain Drummond lost his
ship, but lived on as a kind of _condottiere_ to a native prince in
Madagascar. Between us and complete satisfactory proof a great gulf
has been made by fire and water, 'foes of old' as the Greek poet
says, which conspired to destroy the journal kept by Haines and the
journal kept by Benbow. The former would have told us what piratical
adventures Captain Green achieved in the 'Worcester;' the latter, if
it spoke of Captain Drummond in Madagascar, would have proved that the
captain and the 'Speedy Return' were not among the 'Worcester's'
victims. If we could be sure that Benbow's journal corroborated
Drury's romance, we could not be sure that the editor of the romance
did not borrow the facts from the journal of Benbow, and we do not
know that this journal made mention of Captain Drummond, for the only
valid testimony as to the captain's appearance in Madagascar is the
affidavit of Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland, at Portsmouth, March
31, 1705, and these mariners may have perjured themselves to save the
lives of English seamen condemned by the Scots.
Yet, as a patriotic Scot, I have reason for believing in the English
affidavit at Portsmouth. The reason is simple, but sufficient. Captain
Drummond, if attacked by Captain Green, was the man to defeat that
officer, make prize of his ship, and hang at the yardarm the crew
which was so easily mastered by Mr. Roderick Mackenzie and eleven
pretty fellows. Hence I conclude that the 'Worcester' really had been
pirating off the coast of Malabar, but that the ship taken by Captain
Green in these waters was not the 'Speedy Return,' but another,
unknown. If so, there was no great miscarriage of justice, for the
indictment against Captain Green did not accuse him of seizing the
'Speedy Return,' but of piracy, robbery, and murder, though the affair
of the 'Speedy Return' was brought in to give local colour. This fact
and the national excitement in Scotland probably turned the scale with
the jury, who otherwise would have returned a verdict of 'Not Proven.'
That verdict, in fact, would have been fitted to the merits of the
case; but 'there was mair tint at Shirramuir' than when Captain Green
was hanged.[31] That Green was deeply guilty, I have inferred from the
evidence. To Mr. Stephen Ponder I owe corroboration. He cites a
passage from Hamilton's _New Account of the East Indies_ (1727), chap.
25, which is crucial.
[Footnote 31: The trial is in Howell's _State Trials_, vol. xiv. 1812.
Roderick Mackenzie's account of his seizure of the 'Worcester' was
discovered by the late Mr. Hill Burton, in an oak chest in the
Advocates' Library, and is published in his _Scottish Criminal
Trials_, vol. i., 1852.]
'The unfortunate Captain Green, who was afterwards hanged in Scotland,
came on board my ship at sunset, very much overtaken in drink and
several of his men in the like condition (at Calicut, February 1703).
He wanted to sell Hamilton some arms and ammunition, and told me that
they were what was left of a large quantity that he had brought from
England, but had been at Madagascar and had disposed of the rest to
good advantage among the pirates. I told him that in prudence he ought
to keep these as secrets lest he might be brought in trouble about
them. He made but little account of my advice, and so departed. About
ten in the night his chief mate Mr. Mather came on board of my ship
and seemed to be very melancholy.... He burst out in tears and told me
he was afraid that he was undone, that they had acted such things in
their voyage that would certainly bring them to shame and punishment,
if they should come to light; and he was assured that such a company
of drunkards as their crew was composed of could keep no secret. I
told him that I had heard at Coiloan (Quilon) that they had not acted
prudently nor honestly in relation to some Moors' ships they had
visited and plundered _and in sinking a sloop with ten or twelve
Europeans in her_ off Coiloan. Next day I went ashore and met Captain
Green and his supercargo Mr. Callant, who had sailed a voyage from
Surat to Sienly with me. Before dinner-time they were both drunk, and
Callant told me that he did not doubt of making the greatest voyage
that ever was made from England on so small a stock as 500_l._
'In the evening their surgeon accosted me and asked if I wanted a
surgeon. He said he wanted to stay in India, for his life was uneasy
on board of his ship, that though the captain was civil enough, yet
Mr. Mather had treated him with blows for asking a pertinent question
of some wounded men, who were hurt in the engagement with the sloop. I
heard too much to be contented with their conduct, and so I shunned
their conversation for the little time I staid at Calicut.
'Whether Captain Green and Mr. Mathew had justice impartially in their
trial and sentence I know not. I have heard of as great innocents
condemned to death as they were.'
The evidence of Hamilton settles the question of the guilt of Green
and his crew, as regards some unfortunate vessel, or sloop. Had the
'Speedy Return' a sloop with her?
X
_QUEEN OGLETHORPE_
(_In collaboration with_ MISS ALICE SHIELD).
'Her Oglethorpe majesty was kind, acute, resolute, and of good
counsel. She gave the Prince much good advice that he was too weak to
follow, and loved him with a fidelity which he returned with an
ingratitude quite Royal.'
So writes Colonel Henry Esmond, describing that journey of his to
Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine, whence he brought back 'Monsieur Baptiste,'
all to win fair Beatrix Esmond. We know how 'Monsieur Baptiste' stole
his lady-love from the glum Colonel, and ran after the maids, and
drank too much wine, and came to the King's Arms at Kensington the day
after the fair (he was always 'after the fair'), and found Argyll's
regiment in occupation, and heard King George proclaimed.
Where in the world did Thackeray pick up the materials of that
brilliant picture of James VIII., gay, witty, reckless, ready to fling
away three crowns for a fine pair of eyes or a neat pair of ankles?
His Majesty's enemies brought against him precisely the opposite kind
of charges. There is a broad-sheet of 1716, _Hue and Cry after the
Pretender_, which is either by Swift or by one of 'the gentlemen
whom,' like Captain Bobadil, he 'had taught to write almost or
altogether as well as himself.' As to gaiety in James, 'you tell him
it is a fine day, and he weeps, and says he was unfortunate from his
mother's womb.' As to ladies, 'a weakness for the sex remarked in many
popular monarchs' (as Atterbury said to Lady Castlewood), our
pamphleteer tells the opposite tale. Two Highland charmers being
introduced 'to comfort him after the comfort of a man,' James
displayed 'an incredible inhumanity to beauty and clean linen,' merely
asking them 'whether they thought the Duke of Argyll would stand
another battle?' It is hard on a man to be stamped by history as
recklessly gay and amorous, also as a perfect Mrs. Gummidge for
tearful sentiment, and culpably indifferent to the smiles of beauty.
James is greatly misunderstood: the romance of his youth--sword and
cloak and disguise, pistol, dagger and poison, prepared for him; story
of true love blighted by a humorous cast of destiny; voyages, perils,
shipwrecks, dances at inns--all is forgotten or is unknown.
Meanwhile, who was her 'Oglethorpean majesty,' and why does the
pamphleteer of 1716 talk of 'James Stuart, _alias_ Oglethorpe'? By a
strange combination of his bad luck, James is called Miss Oglethorpe's
ungrateful lover by Thackeray, and Miss Oglethorpe's brother by the
pamphleteer, and by Whig slander in general. Thackeray, in fact, took
Miss Oglethorpe from the letter which Bolingbroke wrote to Wyndham,
after St. Germains found him out, as St. James's had done, for a
traitor. Bolingbroke merely mentions Fanny Oglethorpe as a busy
intriguer. There is no evidence that she ever was at Bar-le-Duc in her
life, none that she ever was 'Queen Oglethorpe.' We propose to tell,
for the first time, the real story of this lady and her sisters.
The story centres round The Meath Home for Incurables! This excellent
institution occupies Westbrook Place, an old house at Godalming, close
to the railway, which passes so close as to cut off one corner of the
park, and of the malodorous tanyard between the remnant of grounds and
the river Wey that once washed them. On an October day, the Surrey
hills standing round about in shadowy distances, the silence of two
centuries is scarcely broken by the rustle of leaves dropping on their
own deep carpet, and the very spirit of a lost cause dwells here,
slowly dying. The house stands backed by a steep wooded hill, beyond
which corn-fields 'clothe the wold and meet the sky;' the mansion is a
grey, two-storied parallelogram flanked by square towers of only
slighter elevation; their projecting bays surmounted by open-work
cornices of leafy tracery in whiter stone.
The tale used to run (one has heard it vaguely in conversation) that
the old house at Godalming is haunted by the ghost of Prince Charlie,
and one naturally asks, 'What is _he_ doing there?' What he was doing
there will appear later.
In 1688, the year of the _Regifugium_, Westbrook Place was sold to
Theophilus Oglethorpe, who had helped to drive
the Whigs
Frae Bothwell Brigs,
and, later, to rout Monmouth at Sedgemoor. This gentleman married
Eleanor Wall, of an Irish family, a Catholic--'a cunning devil,' says
Swift. The pair had five sons and four daughters, about whom county
histories and dictionaries of biography blunder in a helpless fashion.
We are concerned with Anne Henrietta, born, probably, about 1680-83,
Eleanor (1684), James (June 1, 1688, who died in infancy), and Frances
Charlotte, Bolingbroke's 'Fanny Oglethorpe.' The youngest brother,
James Edward, born 1696, became the famous philanthropist, General
Oglethorpe, governor of Georgia, patron of the Wesleys, and, in
extreme old age, the 'beau' of Hannah More, and the gentleman who
remembered shooting snipe on the site of Conduit Street.
After the Revolution Sir Theophilus was engaged with Sir John Fenwick,
was with him when he cocked his beaver in the face of the Princess of
Orange, had to fly to France, after the failure at La Hogue, and in
1693 was allowed to settle peacefully at Westbrook Place. Anne and
Eleanor were left in France, where they were brought up as Catholics
at St. Germains, and befriended by the exiled James and Mary of
Modena. Now in 1699 Theophilus, one of the Oglethorpe boys, was sent
out to his father's old friend Mr. Pitt, Governor of Fort St. George
in India, the man of the Pitt Diamond. His outfit had to be prepared
in a hurry, and a young gentlewoman, Frances Shaftoe, was engaged to
help with the sewing of his several dozens of linen shirts, 'the
flourishing of neckcloths and drawing of cotton stripes;' as young
gentlewomen of limited means were used to do before they discovered
hospitals and journalism. This girl, who developed a political romance
of her own, was of good Northumberland family, related to Sir John
Fenwick and the Delavals. Her father, a merchant in Newcastle, had
educated her 'in a civil and virtuous manner,' and she had lived there
about eighteen years, behaving herself discreetly, modestly, and
honestly, as nine Northumbrian justices of the peace were ready to
testify under their hand. The strange story she later told of her
experiences at Westbrook and afterwards cannot, therefore, be wholly
dismissed as a tale trumped up for political purposes, though its most
thrilling incident is so foolish a lie as to discredit the whole.
On the Saturday before Christmas 1699 (so ran her later
'revelations,'[32] made in 1707) she took the coach from Godalming,
obedient to instructions by letter from Sir Theophilus. A little way
down the Strand he joined her in the coach, accompanied by two young
ladies--friends, she was told, of Lady Oglethorpe; and for some time
she knew no more of who they were and whence they came. They were very
secret, appeared in no company, but made themselves useful in the
pleasant, homely ways of English country life of that time: helped
with the sewing, made their own bed, swept their chamber, dressed the
two little girls, Mary and Fanny, and waited on each other. Presently
it turned out that they were Anne and Eleanor Oglethorpe, who had been
eleven years in France, at the Court of James II., where they were
known as Anne and Eleanor Barkly. They had taken advantage of the
peace to come secretly 'over a long sea,' and had waited at the house
of their mother's brother-in-law, Mr. Cray the City wine-merchant,
until Parliament was up and their father could take them home for
Christmas. A member of Parliament must not be compromised by the
presence of Catholic daughters from St. Germains, whom it was treason
even to harbour.
[Footnote 32: _Narrative of Frances Shaftoe._ Printed 1707.]
Fanny Shaftoe was admitted into the family, she says, on quite
familiar terms, but 'always behaved very meek and humble, ready to
help any of the servants to make beds or to take care of the little
boy' (the General) 'when his nurse was busy helping in the garden.'
Anne and Eleanor were merry, friendly girls, and chatted only too
freely with Fanny Shaftoe over the sewing. She certainly heard a great
deal of 'treason' talked. She heard how Sir Theophilus and his wife
went back and forward, disguised, between England and St. Germains;
how Lady Oglethorpe had taken charge of the Queen's diamonds when she
fled from Whitehall and safely returned them three years later,
travelling as an old doctor-woman in a riding-hood, selling powders
and plasters in a little basket. There was unseemly jubilation over
the death of Queen Anne's son, the little Duke of Gloucester, in July
1700--though Fanny admits they were sorry at first--and somewhat
partisan comparisons were drawn between him, 'a poor, soft child who
had no wit' (he was really a very promising, spirited boy), and the
little Prince of Wales, 'who was very witty.'
To this careless chatter Fanny Shaftoe added exaggerations and
backstairs gossip, and an astounding statement which lived as the
feeblest lie _can_ live. Anne Oglethorpe, she said, informed her that
the real Prince of Wales (born June 10, 1688) had died at Windsor of
convulsions when five or six weeks old; that Lady Oglethorpe hurried
up to town with her little son James, born a few days before the
Prince, and that the Oglethorpe baby died, or _was lost on the road_.
The truth was a secret between her mother and the Queen! All they knew
was that their little brother never turned up again. Anne added,
confusing the story by too much detail, as all accounts of the royal
fraud are confused, that the children had been sick together; that the
Prince had then died, and her brother had been substituted for him.
In November 1700 Frances Shaftoe (according to her later revelations)
left Westbrook: her mother had written from Newcastle to say her
sister was dying. Anne and Eleanor were very sympathetic--they were
really nice girls. Lady Oglethorpe was very kind, and gave her four
guineas for her eleven months' services; and she seems to have been
satisfied with it as handsome remuneration. She asserts,
inconsistently, that she had much ado to get away; but she never went
to Newcastle. Three months later, being still in London, she was sent
for to a house in the Strand, where she met Anne Oglethorpe. Anne gave
her a letter from her mother, which had been kept back because Anne
had expected to come up sooner to town, otherwise she would have sent
it. Anne had a cold and a swelled face. She and Eleanor were going to
France, and she persuaded Fanny to go with them. To make a long tale
short, they shut her up in a convent lest she should blab the great
secret, 'James Stuart is really James Oglethorpe!'
In September 1701 James II. died, and Lady Oglethorpe carried to the
Princess Anne the affecting letter of farewell he wrote to her,
commending his family to her care. Anne and Eleanor went to England in
November 1702, and from that date until Easter 1706 Fanny Shaftoe says
she heard no more about them. In April 1702 Sir Theophilus died, and
was buried in St. James's, Piccadilly, where the memorial erected by
his widow may be seen.
Theophilus, the heir, probably remained a while in the far East with
Pitt; but there were Oglethorpes nearer home to dabble in the Scots
plot of that year (1704). In June several Scottish officers--Sir
George Maxwell, Captain Livingstone, and others, amounting to fifteen
or sixteen, with three ladies, one of whom was Anne Oglethorpe,
embarked at the Hague for Scotland. Sir George had tried in vain to
procure a passport from Queen Anne's envoy, so, though it was in
war-time, they sailed without one. Harley informed by Captain Lacan,
late of Galway's Foot in Piedmont, told Lord Treasurer Godolphin, who
had the party arrested on landing. The Queen, who plotted as much as
anybody on behalf of her brother, was indulgent to fellow-conspirators,
and, though it was proved their purpose had been 'to raise commotions
in Scotland,' they were soon set at liberty, and the informer sent
back to Holland with empty pockets.[33]
[Footnote 33: Boyer, _Reign of Queen Anne_.]
Anne Oglethorpe, nevertheless, having crossed without a pass, lay at
the mercy of the Government, but, as with Joseph in Egypt, her
misfortune turned into her great opportunity. The late Mr. H. Manners,
in an article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_,[34] supposes
she had been King James's mistress before she left St. Germains. Now,
see how Thackeray has misled historians! _He_ makes _Fanny_
Oglethorpe, James's mistress, 'Queen Oglethorpe,' at Bar-le-Duc in
1714. And, resting on this evidence, Mr. Manners represents _Anne_
Oglethorpe as James's mistress at St. Germains in 1704! Anne left St.
Germains before James was sixteen, and her character is blasted by the
easy plan of mistaking her for her younger sister, who was no more
Queen Oglethorpe than _she_ was.
[Footnote 34: Article, 'Oglethorpe (Sir Theophilus).']
Poor Anne did not 'scape calumny, perhaps deserved it. Boyer says that
Godolphin and Harley quarrelled for her smiles, which beamed on Harley
(Lord Oxford, Swift's 'Dragon'), and 'an irreconcilable enmity' arose.
In 1713 Schutz describes Anne Oglethorpe as Oxford's mistress, but she
had troubles of her own before that date. She arrived in England, a
Jacobite conspirator, in 1704. Her wit and beauty endeared her to
Harley, and she probably had a foot in both camps, Queen Anne's and
King James's.
But in 1706 strange rumours came from the North. Mrs. Shaftoe had,
after five years' silence, received letters from her daughter Fanny,
the sempstress, by a secret hand, and was filling Newcastle with
lamentations over trepanning, imprisonment, and compulsory conversion,
with the object of making Fanny a nun. A young English priest, agent
for supplying the Catholic squires of Northumberland with chaplains,
was sent to France by her Catholic cousin, Mrs. Delaval, to find out
the truth. The consequence of his inquiries was that Anne Oglethorpe
was arrested in England, and charged before the Queen and Council with
trepanning and trying to force Fanny Shaftoe to become a nun. Anne
flung herself at the Queen's feet and implored mercy. She escaped
being sent to Newgate, but was imprisoned in a Messenger's house to
await further proceedings, and ordered to produce Fanny Shaftoe as a
witness.
Eleanor Oglethorpe was in France, and rushed to the convent where
Fanny Shaftoe was held captive, told her how Anne was in prison on her
account, and entreated her to sign a statement that she had come to
France and become a Catholic of her own free will. But Fanny refused.
Her long detailed story was printed and published for the prosecution
in 1707, at the moment when the Chevalier's chances in Scotland were
most promising. Had he landed only with his valet, says Ker of
Kersland, Scotland would have been his. Cameronians and Cavaliers
alike would have risen. But the French Admiral would not put him on
shore. As for Anne she was discharged, having great allies; but Fanny
Shaftoe's story did its work. James Stuart, for Whig purposes, was
'James Oglethorpe,' Anne's brother. Fanny's narrative was republished
in 1745, to injure Prince Charlie.