(1733 to 1740.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he feverish imagination of Tories who were
decided Jacobites also, saw impossible reasons for every event. From
the 23rd to the 30th of January, 1733, there raged in the metropolis
what would probably now be called an influenza. The disease was then
known as the ‘London head-ache and fever;’ and it was fatal in very
many cases. Some of the Jacobites at once discovered and proclaimed
the cause and the effect of this visitation, which carried off fifteen
hundred persons in the metropolis. Observe the two dates. ‘On the
23rd of January, 1649, Charles denied the jurisdiction of his Judges,
who, nevertheless, sent him to the block on the 30th.’ The week of
mortal fever and headache was only an instalment of that former week’s
work which ended in the martyrdom of the Chevalier de St. George’s
grandfather! Horace Walpole asserts that George II. always attended
Church on the 30th of January. The king and the whole Court went
thither in mourning. All who had service to perform at Court, put
on sables. The king’s sister, the Queen of Prussia, was a declared
Jacobite, ‘as is more natural,’ says Walpole, ‘for all princes who do
not personally profit by the ruin of the Stuarts.’[2]
[Sidenote: _APPROACHING STORM._]
The royal speech on opening Parliament was of a peaceful character. The
Lords re-echoed it in their address, but in the Commons, both Sir John
Barnard and Shippen moved amendments to the address, from that House.
The speech had recommended an avoidance of all heats and animosities.
The theme of Barnard and Shippen was that the liberties and the
trade of the nation were probably menaced; that a general terror was
spreading of something being about to be introduced, perilous, nay
destructive, to both. Men of all parties being subject to this terror,
‘they cannot,’ said Shippen, ‘be branded with the name of Jacobites
or Republicans, nor can it be said that this opposition is made by
Jacobites or Republicans. No, the whole people of England seem to be
united in this spirit of jealousy and opposition.’ The address, of
course, was carried. But a storm was approaching.
[Sidenote: _WYNDHAM IN PARLIAMENT._]
This year, 1733, was the year of the famous debates on the motions for
a permanent increase of the army, and on the Excise question introduced
by Walpole, who proposed to transfer the duties on wine and tobacco
from the Customs to the Excise. The two propositions set the country in
a flame. The universal cry was that they were two deadly blows at trade
and liberty. The first proposal was carried; Walpole, under pressure
of large minorities against him in the House, and larger adverse
majorities out of it, withdrew the Excise measure. All his opponents
were branded by his partisans as Jacobites and something more. This
gave opportunity to the Jacobites in Parliament, and increased the
vigour of their opposition. It was against the motion for increasing
the number of the Land Forces, that the ‘Patriot’ Sir William Wyndham
spoke with almost fierce sarcasm. ‘As for the Pretender, he did not
believe there was any considerable party for him in this nation.
That pretence had always been a ministerial device made use of only
for accomplishing their own ends; but it was a mere bugbear, a raw
head and bloody bones fit only to frighten children; for he was very
well convinced his Majesty reigned in the hearts and affections of
his people, upon that his Majesty’s security depended; and if it did
not depend on that, the illustrious family now on the throne could
have little security in the present number, or in any number, of the
standing forces.’
A few press prosecutions, a few imprisonments of Jacobite tipplers
who _would_ drink the health of King James in the streets, or call
it out in church services; a weeding-out of disorderly soldiers from
otherwise trustworthy regiments; and a little trouble arising from
pulpit indiscretions, are the only symptoms of yet uncertain times, to
be detected. The ‘Craftsman,’ of August 4th, chronicles the discharge
of ‘several Private Gentlemen out of the Lord Albemarle’s troop of
Life Guards, some as undersized, and others as superannuated, but such
have been allowed fifty guineas each and their college. His Lordship
proposes to give every Private Gentleman in his Troop a new Surtout and
a pair of Buckskin breeches, at his own Expense.’
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL SERMON._]
Later, in the autumn, preachers took for a subject the want of respect
manifested, by the mass of people, for their ‘betters,’ including all
that were in authority. On Saturday, October 13th, the ‘Craftsman’
had this paragraph, showing how the pulpit was lending itself to
politics as well as to morals:――‘Last Sunday a very remarkable sermon
was preached at a _Great Church in the City_, against speaking
evil of dignities, in which the Preacher endeavoured to show the
unparalleled wickedness and Impudence of Tradesmen meddling in
Politicks, and particularly of their riotous Procession to Westminster
to petition against the late Excise scheme (so _evidently calculated
for their good_), which he placed among the number of Deadly Sins,
and recommended Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance, for which the
Audience were so unkind as to laugh at him so much that he shut up his
book before he had done and threatened them with a severe Chastisement.’
[Sidenote: _STORMY DEBATES._]
The fear of the ‘Pretender,’ the recruiting in back parts of London
for ‘foreign service,’ and the relations of England with Continental
powers, kept up a troubled spirit among those who wished to live at
home, at ease. One of the most remarkable debates of the session
occurred in the House of Lords. The king had exercised, and wished to
continue to exercise, a right (such as he supposed himself to possess)
of dismissing officers from the army, without a court martial. The
Duke of Marlborough (Spencer) brought in a Bill to prevent such summary
expulsion, at the king’s pleasure. In the course of the debate the
figure of the Pretender was brought forward. The Duke of Newcastle
warmly supported the king’s ‘prerogative.’ There would be no safety,
he said, unless the king held that right. ‘There is,’ he remarked,
‘at present a Pretender to the Crown of these realms, and we may
conclude that there will always be plots and contrivances in this
kingdom against the person in possession of the throne. While there
is a Pretender, he may have his agents in the army as well as he has
everywhere else.’ Officers (according to the duke) might be led away
from their duty, and he held it to be unjust to the king to deprive
him of the right to dismiss officers suspected of Jacobitism, or known
to be disloyal, on evidence which a court martial might not think
sufficient for cashiering them. The Bill was lost, and to the king was
left the power of doing wrong.
In a portion of the Duke of Newcastle’s speech he asserted that the
right claimed for the king was indispensable, on the ground that not
only were private soldiers being recruited in London for ‘foreign
service,’ but that officers might be tampered with, and that there was
no real security that a general-in-chief might not be seduced into
the enemy’s camp. This spread some alarm. The debates, indeed, were
supposed to be delivered in private, but what was called ‘the impudence
of some fellows’ gave all that was essential to the public. For defence
of the nation, however, every precaution had been taken. Early in
the spring, a fleet of twenty sail of the line was sent to the Downs.
Eight regiments were brought from Ireland to England. It is certain
that these precautions preserved the public tranquility of the kingdom.
◆[Sidenote: _THE YOUNG CHEVALIER._]◆ Young Prince Charles Edward was
serving ‘with particular marks of distinction’ in the army of Don
Carlos; and the boy gave no obscure hints that he would, whenever it
was in his power, favour the pretensions of his family. An exclamation
of Sergeant Cotton, at a review in Hyde Park, that he would shoot the
king; and the fact that the sergeant’s musket was loaded with ball, and
that he had a couple of bullets in his pocket which had no right to
be there, seemed to imply that Cotton was ready to favour the Stuart
family’s pretensions.
The metropolis, moreover, was disturbed this year by the appearance
of strangers in the streets, with more or less of a military
air about many of them. These were, however, for the most part,
Jacobites who were void of offence, and who had hastily come over
from France. The Government there had given them a taste of what it
was to live under such a system in Church and State as the Stuarts
would establish in England, if they could get permanent footing
there. A royal edict was published throughout France, peremptorily
commanding all English, Irish, and Scotch, of the ages between
eighteen and fifty, who were without employment, to enter the
French army, within a fortnight. Disobedience to this edict was to
be punished:――civilians, by condemnation to the galleys;――men who had
formerly served, to be shot as deserters! Those who were not fortunate
enough to get away from such a paternal Government found friends in
the ministers of that George II. whom they still styled ‘Duke of
Brunswick’ and ‘Elector of Hanover.’ Lord Waldegrave, the British
Ambassador in France, sharply censured the edict, remonstrated against
the injustice of treating the persons named in the edict worse than the
natives of any other country, and pointed to the ingratitude of the
French Government for various good service rendered to it by England on
recent occasions. There was not a place in London where men met, but
there Lord Waldegrave’s health was drunk. Whatever the politics of the
drinkers were, all parties were glad to find a cause for drinking which
carried unanimity with it.
[Sidenote: _LORD DUFFUS._]
There was another Jacobite incident of the year, not without interest.
Queen Anne’s old naval captain, the gallant Kenneth, Lord Duffus, when
attainted for his share in the affair of 1715, was in safety in Sweden,
but he gave formal notice of his intention to repair to England and
surrender himself. On his way, the British Minister at Hamburg had him
arrested, and he held Lord Duffus prisoner till after the limited time
had elapsed for the surrender of attainted persons. Lord Duffus was
brought captive to London, was shut up in the Tower, and, destitute
of means, was maintained at the expense of Government. By the Act of
Grace, of 1717, he obtained his liberty, and he subsequently entered
the naval service of Russia. At his death, he left an only son,
Eric Sutherland (whose mother was a Swedish lady) who, in this year,
1734, at the age of twenty-four, claimed the reversal of his father’s
attainder (as Lord Duffus was forcibly prevented from obeying the
statute), and his own right to succeed to the baronial title. The claim
excited much interest while it was being pursued; and there was some
disappointment in Jacobite circles when the Lords came to a decision
that the claimant had no right to the honour, title, and dignity of
Baron Duffus. Eric was, at this time, a loyal officer in the British
army; he died in 1768. He left a son, James, born in 1747, who was
restored to the title, by Act of Parliament, in 1826, when he was in
his eightieth year. He enjoyed it only a few months. His successor,
Benjamin, died in 1875, when the title became extinct.
[Sidenote: _THE CALVES’ HEAD CLUB._]
The 30th of January 1735 was kept in memory by other means than
‘services’ before the Senate, and others in the parish churches. By a
tradition which was founded in a lie, and which rooted itself and grew
in the public mind by additional lying, there was a popular belief that
a Calves’ Head Club, from the time of Cromwell, had a special meeting
and dinner on every anniversary of the death of King Charles, to
dishonour his memory. The calf’s head served at table was in derisive
memory of the decollated head of that sovereign; and the ocean of
liquor drunk was in joyous celebration of those who brought about the
monarch’s death. The story was a pure invention, but the invention led
to a sort of realisation of the story. Here and there, anti-Jacobites
observed the 30th of January as a festival. ◆[Sidenote: _THE CALVES’
HEAD RIOT._]◆ Hearne mentions a dinner given on that day by a number of
young men at All Soul’s College, Oxford. They had ordered a calf’s head
to be served up, but the cook refused to supply it. He unwittingly,
however, gave the guests an opportunity of declaring their approval of
the sentence executed on Charles, by sending them a dish of woodcocks,
and these the audacious Oxford Whigs solemnly decapitated. In the
present year, 1735, occurred the famous Calves’ Head riot at and in
front of a tavern in Suffolk Street. According to the record, some
noblemen and gentlemen had the traditional dinner on the above day,
when they exhibited to the mob, which had assembled in the street, a
calf’s head in a napkin dipped in claret to represent blood, and the
exhibitors, each with a claret-stained napkin――in his hand and a glass
of strong liquor in the other, drank anti-Stuart toasts, and finally
flung the head into a bonfire which they had commanded to be kindled
in front of the house. The Jacobite mob broke into the house and would
have made ‘martyrs’ of the revellers but for the timely arrival of
the guards. Now, with regard to this incident, there are two opposite
and contemporary witnesses, whose testimony nevertheless is not
irreconcilable. The first is ‘a lady of strong political tendencies
and too busy in matters of taste to be ignorant of party movements.’
She is so described by a correspondent of the ‘Times,’ who, under the
signature ‘Antiquus,’ sent to that paper a few years ago the following
copy of a letter, written by the lady, and forming one of a collection
of old letters in the possession of ‘Antiquus, of Lincoln’s Inn’:――
[Sidenote: _THE ‘30TH OF JANUARY.’_]
‘I suppose you have heard of the Suffolk-street Expedition
on the Thirtieth of January, and who the blades were; they
went and bespoke a dinner of calves’ heads at the Golden
Eagle, and afterwards ordered a bonfire at the door,
then came all to the window with handkerchiefs dipt in
blood, and shook them out, and dress’d up a calf’s head
in a nightcap and had it thrown into the bonfire. The mob
gather’d about the door and were exceedingly inraged, so
that they broke ye door open and broke all the windows,
and threw fire into the house. The gentlemen were forc’d
to take sanctuary in the garret, and had not the Guards
been sent for the house would have been pull’d down and the
actors, no doubt, pull’d to pieces.
‘Feb. 5, 1734-5.’
‘The list of the British worthies I formerly sent you an
account of are as follows:――Lord Middlesex, Lord Harcourt,
Lord Boyne, and Lord Middleton――Irish; Lord John Murray,
Sir James Grey, Mr. Smith, Mr. Stroud, and, some say, Mr.
Shirley. Lord A. Hamilton dined with them, but, I am told,
went away before the riot began.
‘Feb. 16, 1734-5.’
[Sidenote: _OBJECTIONABLE TOASTS._]
Unfortunately, the name of the writer of the above letter is not
given. On the other hand, a letter written by one of the guests, a
week earlier than the above, has often been published. Therein, Lord
Middlesex informs Spence, then at Oxford, that he and seven others
met at the Golden Eagle to dine, without any thought as to what the
date of the month was. The eight included men of various political and
religious principles. Lord Middlesex says nothing as to the dishes
served up, but he states that all the guests had drunk hard and some
were very drunk indeed, when, happening to go to the window, they saw a
bonfire in the street, and straightway ordered fresh faggots, by which
they had a bonfire of their own. _Then_, they remembered the day, and
fearful of the consequences of this demonstration, the soberer part of
the guests proposed, from the open windows, loyal toasts to be drunk
by all. To a Jacobite mob this was an aggravation of insult, for to
drink the king, the Protestant succession, and the administration, was
to express affection for what they cordially hated. The mob besieged
the house, and then made an ugly rush to get at the offenders, which,
however, was checked by the arrival of the soldiers. Lord Middlesex
says that the leader of the mob was ‘an Irishman and a priest belonging
to Imberti, the Venetian Envoy.’
In the pulpits of the chapels of some of the foreign ambassadors,――most
Christian, most Catholic, or most Apostolic,――the preachers, naturally
enough, expounded Christianity in a politico-religious point of view.
The Protestant-succession papers speak of them as a daring vanguard
dashing forward to secure improved and fixed positions. Of course, the
preachers, when supporting the Papacy, were advocating the Pretender
by whom, were the Stuarts restored, the Papacy would be supported.
This led to an outburst of anti-papal sermons from half the London
pulpits. Secker, the ex-dissenter, ex-medical student, and now Bishop
of Bristol, was at the head of this body. They preached sermons against
Popery in a long and fiery series, in some cases to the extent of
two or three dozen. Where, on one side doctrines were sincerely held
which made the other side sincerely shudder, as at awful blasphemy,
charity got sadly mauled and knocked about. ◆[Sidenote: _FOSTER, IN
THE OLD JEWRY._]◆ It occurred to James Foster, the celebrated Baptist
who had passed through Arianism and Socinianism, before he became a
Trinitarian, that good citizens of both churches and factions might
be made even better by their understanding the excellence of charity.
His pulpit in the Old Jewry became accordingly a point to which men
of opposite opinions resorted,――just indeed as they did to the Popish
ambassadorial chapel, where they could hear _gratis_ the great tenor
Farinelli sing mellifluously. In reference to Foster, the general
‘Evening Post,’ of March 25th, says that on the previous Sunday
evening, ‘upwards of a hundred Gentlemen’s coaches came to the Rev. Mr.
Foster’s lecture in the Old Jewry. It must give,’ adds the newswriter,
‘a great Satisfaction to that ingenious and polite Preacher, to see
such an Audience at his Lectures, as well as to be a Reputation to
his Hearers, in their discovering a disposition to be pleased with
his useful and instructive Discourses, they turning upon the Truth,
Excellency, and Usefulness of the grand Parts of Moral Science; not
tending to support private or party egotism of Religion, or Rule of
Conduct, but a Conduct founded on the most sacred Rights of Mankind, a
universal Liberty, and a diffusive and extensive Benevolence.’
Another account states that ‘at his chapel there was a confluence
of persons of every rank, station, and quality; wits, freethinkers,
and numbers of the regular clergy who, while they gratified their
curiosity, had their prepossessions shaken and their prejudices
loosened.’
[Sidenote: _THE QUEEN AND THE ARTIST._]
There was one Jacobite who died this year, whose prejudices were never
in the least degree softened, namely, Hearne, the antiquary. Richardson
the painter, when party spirit between Whig and Tory, Hanoverian and
Jacobite raged bitterly, was as severe in a remark to Queen Caroline,
as Hearne was in what he wrote upon her. The queen once visited
Richardson’s studio to view his series of portraits of the kings
of England. Her Majesty pointed to the portrait of a stern-looking
individual between those of Charles I. and II. She very well knew the
likeness was that of a man who had helped to dethrone the Stuarts on
whose throne her husband was seated, and she therefore might have
entertained a certain respect for him; but she asked the artist if
he called that personage a king? ‘No, madam,’ answered the undaunted
Richardson, ‘he is no King, but it is good for Kings to have him among
them as a memento!’
The queen’s favourite painter, Anniconi, was more of a courtier than
blunt Richardson. To that artist who, for a season, drew the ‘Quality’
to Great Marlborough Street, she gave an order to paint a picture,
which was designed as a gift to the young Duke of Cumberland’s tutor,
Mr. Poyntz. It was an allegorical composition, in which the queen
herself was to be seen delivering her royal son to the Goddess of
Wisdom,――who bore the features of Mrs. Poyntz.
[Sidenote: _CHESTERFIELD’S WIT._]
The year 1736 may be said to have opened merrily, with Chesterfield’s
paper in ‘Fog’s Journal,’ on ‘An Army in Wax Work.’ In the course of
this lively essay, the writer argues that since the English army had
not been of the slightest active use during many years, in time of
war,――a waxen army (to be ordered of Mrs. Salmon, the wax-work woman)
would be cheap and sufficient in time of peace. He then alludes to
the Government cry against all who opposed it. ‘Let nobody put the
“Jacobite” upon me, and say that I am paving the way for the Pretender,
by disbanding the army. That argument is worn threadbare; besides,
let those take the “Jacobite” to themselves who would exchange the
affections of the people for the fallacious security of an unpopular
standing army.’
[Sidenote: _SCENE IN WESTMINSTER HALL._]
While there were, at this time, Nonjurors worthy of the esteem of
honourable men of all parties, there were others who were contemptible
for their spitefulness, and for the silliness with which they displayed
it. Here is an example. Parliament had passed the Gin Act, the Mortmain
Act, the Westminster Bridge Act, the Smugglers’ Act, and the Act for
borrowing 600,000_l._ on the Sinking Fund. A difference of opinion
might exist as to the merits of one or two of these Acts, but there
was no justification for the method taken by one person to show his
hostility. On July 14th, in Westminster Hall, while the Courts were
sitting therein, a bundle, dropped in front of the Court of Chancery,
suddenly exploded, and blew into the air a number of handbills,
which announced that, on this, the last day of term, copies of the
above-named Acts would be publicly burned in the hall during the
afternoon! One of the bills was handed in to the judges in the Court
of King’s Bench, where it was presented as a false and scandalous
libel. Three days later a proclamation was issued for the discovery
of the persons concerned in this outrage, and a reward of 200_l._
offered for the respective arrests of either the author, printer,
or disperser of the handbills. This led to the arrest, trial, and
conviction of the Rev. Mr. Nixon, a brainless Nonjuring clergyman, who
was proved to be the author of the bills, and the blower-up of the
bundle of crackers. On the 7th of December he was condemned to pay 200
marks, to be imprisoned for five years, and to be paraded before the
different Courts, in the Hall, with a parchment round his head――a sort
of foolscap――bearing a summary of his audacious offence. A portion of
this sentence was fulfilled soon after, and, finally, this foolish
Nonjuror was required to find security for his good behaviour during
the remainder of his life.
This daring, yet stupid, act was supposed to be part of an organised
Jacobite plot. In the month of April, when Frederick, Prince of
Wales, was married to the Princess of Saxe-Gotha, Sir Robert Walpole
had information which set him on his guard. After the explosion in
Westminster Hall, he wrote a letter to his brother Horace, in which
the following passage is to be found:――‘Since my coming to town I
have been endeavouring to trace out the authors and managers of that
vile transaction, and there is no reason to doubt that the whole was
projected and executed by a set of low Jacobites, who talked of setting
fire to the gallery built for the marriage of the Princess Royal, by
a preparation which they call _phosphorus_, which takes fire from the
air. Of this I have had an account from the same fellow that brought me
these, and many such sorts of intelligencies.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITES AND GIN-DRINKERS._]
And again, in September, when it was decreed that unlicensed dealing
in gin should cease, riots occurred, and more than mere rioting was
intended, in the metropolis, about Michaelmas. On this occasion Sir
Robert wrote to his brother:――‘I began to receive accounts from all
quarters of the town that the Jacobites were busy and industrious, in
endeavouring to stir up the common people and make an advantage of the
universal clamour that prevailed among the populace at the expiration
of their darling vice.’ The Jacobite idea was, according to the
information received by Walpole, to make the populace drunk _gratis_
by unlimited supplies of gin from the distilleries, and then turning
them loose in London to do such work as such inspiration was likely to
suggest to them; but an efficient display of the constitutional forces
was sufficient to preserve the peace of the metropolis.
[Sidenote: _THE STAGE FETTERED._]
The alleged abuse of the liberty of the press and of that of the stage
was denounced, as all opposition to the Government was, as the work of
Jacobites for the subversion ‘of our present happy establishment.’ The
Government undoubtedly hoped, by suppressing the liberty of satire on
the stage, to be enabled to go a step further, and to crush the liberty
of comment in the press. Sir Robert made his own opportunity to ensure
the success of his preliminary step. Mr. Giffard, of the theatre in
Goodman’s Fields, waited on Sir Robert in 1737 with the MS. of a piece
named ‘The Golden Rump,’ which had been sent to him, for performance,
by the anonymous author. Its spirit was so licentiously manifested
against the Ministry, and was so revolutionary in its speech,
suggestions, and principles, that the prudent manager felt bound to
place it at the discretion of the minister. Sir Robert put it in his
pocket, went down to the House with it, and ultimately succeeded, by
its means, in carrying the Licensing Act, by which the stage has been
ever since fettered. The anonymous piece brought by Giffard was never
acted, never printed, probably never seen by anyone except manager and
minister; and the question remains,――Was it not written to order, to
afford a plausible pretext for protecting the administration from all
its antagonists? Chesterfield, in his speech in the Lords against the
proposed Act, denounced it as a long stride towards the destruction of
liberty itself. He declared that it would be made subservient to the
politics and schemes of the Court only. In the same speech occurred
the famous passage: ‘This Bill, my Lords, 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 who 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.’
[Sidenote: _FEAR OF THE PRETENDER._]
In 1738, when the Opposition proposed a reduction of the army, the
Government manifested an almost craven spirit. They believed that if
the number of armed men were diminished, the king would not be secure
from assault in St. James’s, nor the country safe from foreign invasion.
[Sidenote: _WALPOLE, ON JACOBITES._]
In the Commons, Sir Robert Walpole spoke as follows, on the Jacobites,
their views, and their dealings at that period:――‘There is one thing I
am still afraid of, and it is indeed I think the only thing at present
we have to fear. Whether it be proper to mention it on this occasion, I
do not know; I do not know if I ought to mention it in such an Assembly
as this. I am sure there is no necessity for mentioning it, because I
am convinced that every gentleman that hears me is as much afraid of it
as I am. The fear I mean is that of the Pretender. Everyone knows there
is still a Pretender to his Majesty’s crown and dignity. There is still
a person who pretends to be lawful and rightful sovereign of these
kingdoms; and what makes the misfortune much the more considerable,
there is still a great number of persons in these kingdoms so deluded
by his abettors, as to think in the same way. These are the only
persons who can properly be called disaffected, and they are still so
numerous that though this government had not a foreign enemy under the
sun, the danger we are in from the Pretender and the disaffected part
of our own subjects, is a danger which every true Briton ought to fear;
a danger which every man who has a due regard for our present happy
establishment, will certainly endeavour to provide against as much as
he can.
‘I am sorry to see, Sir, that this is a sort of fear which many
amongst us endeavour to turn into ridicule, and for that purpose they
tell us that though there are many of our subjects discontented and
uneasy, there are very few disaffected; but I must beg leave to be
of a different opinion, for I believe that most of the discontents
and uneasinesses that appear among the people proceed originally from
disaffection. No man of common prudence will profess himself openly a
Jacobite. By so doing he not only may injure his private fortune, but
he must render himself less able to do any effectual service to the
cause he has embraced; therefore there are but few such men in the
kingdom. Your right Jacobite, Sir, disguises his true sentiments. He
roars out for Revolution principles. He pretends to be a great friend
of Liberty, and a great adviser of our ancient Constitution; and
under this pretence there are numbers who every day endeavour to sow
discontent among the people, by persuading them that the constitution
is in danger, and that they are unnecessarily loaded with many and
heavy taxes. These men know that discontent and disaffection are, like
wit and madness, separated by thin partitions, and therefore hope that
if they can once render the people thoroughly discontented, it will be
easy for them to render them disaffected. These are the men we have
the most reason to be afraid of. They are, I am afraid, more numerous
than most gentlemen imagine; and I wish I could not say they have
been lately joined, and very much assisted, by some gentlemen who, I
am convinced, have always been, and still are, very sincere and true
friends to our happy establishment.’
[Sidenote: _CURIOUS DISCUSSION._]
Walpole went on to say that he hoped Jacobitism would die out. He was
sure the Jacobites were daily decreasing; but if such a mad step were
taken as that of reducing the army――‘I should expect to hear of the
Pretender’s standards being set up in several parts of the island,
perhaps in every part of the three kingdoms.’
[Sidenote: _SAFETY OF THE ROYAL FAMILY._]
Wyndham ridiculed the idea that the army must not be reduced, because
‘a certain gentleman was afraid of the Pretender.’ Lord Polwarth
(afterwards Earl of Marchment) went further. He could scarcely see the
use of an army at all, and did not believe that there were Jacobites
to be afraid of. ‘I am sure his Majesty, and all the rest of the Royal
Family, might remain in St. James’s Palace, or in any other part of
the kingdom, in the utmost safety, though neither of them had any
such thing as that now called a soldier to attend them. Of this now we
have a glaring proof every day before our eyes. His royal highness the
Prince of Wales has now no guards to attend him. He passes every day to
and fro in the streets of London, and travels everywhere about London
without so much as one soldier to guard him. Nay, he has not so much
as one sentry upon his house in St. James’s Square, and yet his Royal
Highness lives, I believe, in as great security, at his house in St.
James’s Square, without one sentry to guard him, as his Majesty can be
supposed to do in St. James’s Palace with all the guards about him.’
The debate in the Lords was of much the same quality as that in the
Commons. Farewell to liberty if there be a standing army. On the other
side:――Freedom will perish if the king cannot back his will by force of
bayonets. The Government, of course, succeeded.
[Sidenote: ‘_AGAMEMNON._’]
The debates encouraged the Jacobites to hope. They were evidently
feared, and opportunity might yet serve them. The wise men at
Westminster had declared it. Meanwhile, the stage recommended them to
consider the difficulties of Government, and to make the best of the
one under which they lived. Thomson put his tragedy ‘Agamemnon’ under
the protection of the Princess of Wales, trusting she would ‘condescend
to accept of it.’ In the tragedy itself, in which there is much blank
verse that is only honest prose in that aspiring form, there are
few political allusions; but the following passage was undoubtedly
meant as incense for Cæsar, and instruction for his people――Whigs and
Jacobites.
_Agamemnon_ ... ――Know, Ægisthus,
That ruling a free people well in peace,
Without or yielding, or usurping, power;――
Maintaining firm the honour of the laws,
Yet sometimes soft’ning their too rigid doom,
As mercy may require, steering the state
Thro’ factious storms, or the more dangerous calms
Of Peace, by long continuance grown corrupt;
Besides the fair career which Fortune opens
To the mild glories of protected arts,
To bounty, to beneficence, to deeds
That give the Gods themselves their brightest beams;――
Yes, know that these are, in true glory, equal
If not superior to deluding conquest;
Nor less demand they conduct, courage, care,
And persevering toil.
_Ægisthus_ answered with a slight rebuke to the Jacobites who denounced
the merits of all government that had not their James III. at its
head:――
Say, thankless toil,
Harsh and unpleasing, that, instead of praise
And due reward, meets oft’ner scorn, reproach,
Fierce opposition to the clearest measures,
Injustice, banishment, or death itself,
Such is the nature of malignant man.
[Sidenote: _THE KING, IN PUBLIC._]
Quin, as Agamemnon, rolled his measured lines out with double emphasis,
his anti-Stuart feelings adding to the force. The ‘fierce oppositions’
of Ægisthus were not to be found in factious shape, at least, in the
next session of Parliament. The debates at the opening of the session
had but the slightest touch of Jacobitism in them; and that was in a
speech by Lord Gower,――whom Horace Walpole classed with the Prince
of Wales himself as a thorough Jacobite! Lord Gower spoke ill of the
‘so-called’ King’s Speech as being no royal speech at all, but one
which conveyed the dictates of the Ministry to the country. ‘The King,’
said Lord Gower, ‘has no more share in the councils of the country than
I have.’ A faint allusion in the Commons to his Majesty and family
being less popularly esteemed than formerly, Mr. Lyttelton remarked:
‘I’ve repeatedly seen proofs to the contrary. In the streets of London
I’ve seen the people clinging to the wheels of his coach, so as almost
to impede it;’――and the inference was that they would not have so
affectionately clung to the chariot-wheels of the Pretender. Other
proofs, during the session, were adduced of the satisfactory condition
of things. Recruiting for his Majesty’s army was successfully going on
in Scotland, and the last cargo of old firelocks, resulting from the
disarming of the Highlanders, was just then being landed at the Tower.
Nevertheless, there were Jacobites who were hoping for the best, and
keeping their powder dry.
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL DRAMA._]
Thomson made another effort in the year 1739 to introduce politics on
the stage. His ‘Edward and Eleanora’ (after being publicly rehearsed)
was advertised for representation, on March 29th, at Covent Garden;
but, before the doors were open, the licenser withdrew his permission,
and prohibited the performance absolutely. Thomson’s almost servile
worship of the reigning family was manifested in the dedication of the
tragedy to his patroness, the Princess of Wales. ‘In the character of
Eleanora,’ he says, ‘I have endeavoured to represent, however faintly,
a princess distinguished for all the virtues that render greatness
amiable. I have aimed particularly to do justice to her inviolable
affection and generous tenderness for a prince who was the darling of
a great and free people.’ As Eleanora loved Edward, so, it was hinted,
did Augusta love Frederick!
Dr. Johnson could not see why this play was ‘obstructed.’ Genest could
no more see the reason than Dr. Johnson. Yet, the licenser may be
easily justified in withdrawing a license which should never have been
granted. The play touched nearly on the dissensions between George
II. and his son Frederick, who were then living in open hostility.
Such passages as the following would certainly have been hailed with
hilarious sarcasm by the Jacobites, who dwelt with satisfaction on the
unseemly antagonisms in the royal family:――
Has not the royal heir a juster claim
To share the Father’s inmost heart and Counsels,
Than aliens to his interest, those who make
A property, a market, of his honour?
The prince is urged to save the king from his ministers; England is
represented as in peril from without as well as from within. Frederick,
under the name of Edward, is described as one who ‘loves the people he
must one day rule,’――Whigs and Jacobites equally, for:――
Yet bears his bosom no remaining grudge
Of those distracted times.
[Sidenote: _HENRY PELHAM AND THE JACOBITES._]
When Henry III. is declared to be dead, his son thus speaks of him in
terms applicable, by the poet’s intention, to George II.:――
The gentlest of mankind, the most abus’d!
Of gracious nature, a fit soil for virtues,
Till there his creatures sow’d their flatt’ring lies,
And made him――No! not all their cursed arts
Could ever make him insolent or cruel.
O my deluded father! Little joy
Had’st thou in life;――led from thy real good,
And genuine glory, from thy people’s love,――
That noblest aim of Kings,――by smiling traitors!
These domestic and political allusions pervade the play. Its production
would probably have led to riot, and the Lord Chamberlain, or his
deputy, did well in prohibiting the play and thus keeping the peace.
In January, 1740, Mr. Sandys moved for leave to bring in a Bill for
the better securing the freedom of Parliament, by limiting the number
of Government officers to sit in the House of Commons. Among the
opponents was Mr. Henry Pelham, who was convinced that the Bill would
help the Jacobites to carry out their designs. ‘We know,’ he said,
‘how numerous the disaffected still are in this kingdom; and they, we
may suppose, are not insensible to the prejudice that has been done to
their faction, by the places and offices which are at the disposal of
the crown. These places and offices are of great use to the crown and,
I think, to the nation, in preventing gentlemen from joining with a
faction, or winning them away from it; and the Jacobites are sensible
they have lost many by this means, some, perhaps, after they had got a
seat in this House.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE PROSPECTS._]
Mr. Pulteney, alluding to the assertion that if most placemen were
excluded from the House, there would soon be a majority of Jacobites
in it, said this was supposing that there was a majority of Jacobites
among the people, a supposition which he denied, and which he
stigmatised as very uncomplimentary to the king and his family. ‘But,’
he added, ‘if there should once come to be a majority of placemen and
officers in this House, that majority would soon create a majority
of Jacobites in the nation.’ The consequences, he was sure, would be
an insurrection, the army joining with the insurgents. This motion,
in the debate on which the Jacobites figured as both a dangerous and
a mercenary people, was lost by 222 to 206. Sixteen placemen saved
Sir Robert, who had spoken with much plausibility and cunning against
the leave asked for. The Bishop of Salisbury in the House of Lords,
in the discussion in March on the Pension Bill, could only express
a _hope_ that faction would not foster insurrection. The opposition
papers maintained that no such thing as faction existed, and that
Jacobitism was a name now utterly unknown to the mass of the people.
The opposition to Sir Robert was increasing in strength, and this was
taken to be a proof that the Jacobites were increasing in number; but
everything was done to sustain the minister. ‘’Tis observable,’ says
the ‘Craftsman,’ ‘that St. Stephen’s Chapel was never attended with
more devotion than at present, the very lame and the blind hardly
being excused; and both Parties seeming to indicate by their conduct
that nobody knows what a day or an hour may bring forth.’
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF WYNDHAM._]
The opposition, rather than the Jacobite party, experienced an
immense loss this year, by the death of Sir William Wyndham. This
able man ceased to be a Jacobite after he gave in his allegiance to
the accomplished fact of the established supremacy of the House of
Hanover. Wyndham became simply a ‘patriot,’ never ceasing his fierce,
but polished, hostility to Walpole, yet lending himself to no measure
likely to disturb the ‘happy establishment.’ Two years before his death
he took for second wife the widowed Marchioness of Blandford, whose
relatives opposed a match with an ex-Jacobite. ‘She has done quite
right,’ said the old Dowager Duchess of Marlborough. ‘I’d have had him
myself, if he’d only asked me sometime ago!’
The camp pitched at Hounslow this year reminded quidnuncs of the one
formed by James II., to overawe London. Londoners themselves expressed
a hope that the army would sweep ‘the infamous road’ of its mounted
highwaymen and its brutal footpads. But by the presence of soldiers
there was only an addition to the number of robbers and of victims.
[2] ‘Last Journals of Horace Walpole,’ vol. i. p. 41.
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