The zeal of Mrs. Crewe to propitiate the cause of the Emigrant French
Clergy, mentioned in the letter of Mr. Burke, induced her now to enlist
as a principal aid-de-camp to her scheme, Dr. Burney; who, having
never acquired that power of negation, which the world at large seems
so generally to possess, of shirking all personal applications that
lead to no avenue, whether straight or oblique, of personal advantage,
immediately listened to her call; and thus mentions the subject in a
letter to Bookham.
“Mrs. Crewe, having seen at East Bourne a great number of venerable
and amiable French Clergy, suffering all the evils of banishment and
beggary with silent resignation, has, for some time, had in meditation
a plan for procuring an addition to the small allowance that the
Committee at the Freemason’s Hall is able to spare from the residue of
the subscriptions and briefs in their favour.”
Dr. Burney lost not a moment in assisting this liberal design; in which
he had the happiness of engaging the powerful energies of Mr. Windham.
And, soon afterwards, growing warmer in the business, from seeing more
of the pious sufferers, he consented to becoming honorary secretary
himself to the private society of the ladies who were at the head of
this charitable exertion; of which the Marchioness of Buckingham[33]
was nominated chief, at the desire of Mrs. Crewe.
The world is so full of claims, and of claimants for whatever has
money for its object, that the benign purpose of these ladies was soon
offensively thwarted from misapprehension, envy, or ill-will, that
sought to excite in its disfavour the prejudices ever ready, of John
Bull against foreigners, till his justice is enlightened by an appeal
to his generosity. Mrs. Crewe wrote warm lamentations on the subject to
Dr. Burney, eagerly pressing him to engage his daughter in its cause.
“I never,” said the Doctor, in discussing this project, “receive a
letter from Mrs. Crewe, in which she does not express her wishes that
_you_ would subscribe with your _pen_. ‘People in common,’ she truly
says, ‘see the coarse, vulgar side of this business; and some good
female writer would do well to put out some short essay, to throw a
good colouring on such a subject; and bring precedents, if possible,
out of the age of chivalry. Now Miss Burney never shone more than
when she made her Cecilia burst from the shackles of common forms
at Vauxhall, to save the life of Harrel. O! I wish Madame d’Arblay
would let us all thank her again for such true pictures of taste and
perfection in the moral world! The refinements of courts have been
great; but they have seldom reached the heart; and I think genuine
elegance was much oftener to be found amongst our ancestors; who,
though, perhaps, too strict concerning the female sex, seem, by their
writings, hardly ever to have let refinements interfere with the
operations of reason and common sense.’”
This quotation was followed by earnestly encouraging exhortations from
the Doctor, to charge the new recluse to make some effort in favour of
this pious emigrant clergy; and as the request had the full concurrence
of M. d’Arblay, to whose every feeling the plan was touchingly
interesting, her compliance, though fearful, could not be reluctant.
This was the origin and cause of The Address to the Ladies of Great
Britain, in favour of the Emigrant French Priests, that was written for
those venerable sufferers, as a pen-offering subscription from this
Memorialist.
And the partial view that was taken of it by her fellow recluse;
and the warm approvance accorded to it by Mrs. Crewe’s new private
secretary, made the writer esteem it the most fortunate effusion of
that pen.
Mrs. Doctor Burney was amongst the most active workers for these pious
self-sacrificed exiles: as well as for whatever had charity for its
object.