(1746.)
[Illustration: Drop-O]n the first day of the year 1746, the parole
given at the Duke of Cumberland’s headquarters, at Carlisle, was
‘London.’ He well knew the joy the metropolis would soon receive. Part
of the general orders then issued was thus expressed: ‘The Rebels that
have or shall be taken, either concealed or attempting their escape, or
in any ways evading the Capitulation, to be immediately put in Irons,
in order to be hanged.’ After publishing this order, the duke, leaving
Hawley to cross the border in pursuit of the young Chevalier, returned
to London. There was great fear of a French invasion; and the duke was
to have the command of a southern army to repel it. The invaders were
expected in Suffolk, and the Jacobites hoped that the expectation would
be realised. They often reported it as an established fact. Fielding’s
Jacobite squire in ‘Tom Jones’ is made to exclaim to the landlord of
the inn at Upton: ‘All’s our own, boy! ten thousand honest Frenchmen
are landed in Suffolk. Old England for ever! Ten thousand French, my
brave lad! I am going to tap away directly!’
[Sidenote: _WAR CRITICISM._]
Carlisle being recaptured, London breathed again, and considered its
past perils and future prospects. The fire-side critics of the war
concluded, as the Earl of Shaftesbury did with his friends in London,
‘that _eminus_, we exceeded the ancients, but _cominus_ we fell below
them; and this was the result of our having, it was said, learnt the
art of war from the Spaniards. We never used bayonets in our service
till after the battle of Steinkirk, in King William’s time. Now the
Highlanders by their way of attacking (new to our troops) make a quick
impression and throw our men into confusion. This I imagine to be the
principal reason of the Highlanders gaining such repeated advantages.’
Walpole wrote from Arlington Street: ‘With many other glories, the
English courage seems gone too.’ Yet the old spirit was not extinct.
When the Ministry tried to prevent Mr. Conway going as aide-de-camp
with the Duke of Cumberland, on the ground of his being in Parliament,
the duke informed the young soldier of the fact. ‘He burst into tears,’
says Walpole, ‘and protested that nothing should hinder his going――and
he is gone.’
[Sidenote: _BREAKING AN OFFICER._]
Without being uneasy at the idea of invasion the Government took
precautions in case of emergency. It was announced that at the firing
of seven guns at the Tower, answered by the same number in St. James’s
Park, soldiers and officers should repair to previously named places
of rendez-vous. No crowds were allowed to assemble. A race between two
pairs of chairmen, carrying their chairs, round the Park, having caused
a large mob to gather within hail of the palace, was stopped in mid
career by a file of musqueteers, who drove competitors and spectators
into the neighbouring streets. When the park was pretty well cleared,
Captain Stradwick was brought out and ‘broke,’ for desertion. Why he
was not shot, as the king said he deserved to be, was owing to some
influence which seemed to be stronger than the king himself. Perhaps,
as a consequence, the common rank and file who had deserted were
allowed their lives, but at dear cost. They got a thousand lashes,
administered half at a time, in Hyde Park; and on the off days the mob
were regaled with the sight of soldiers getting their five hundred
stripes for speaking evil of his Majesty in their drink.
[Sidenote: _REBEL PRISONERS._]
Meanwhile, the river one day suddenly swarmed with galleys, which
picked up numbers of ‘useful fellows to serve the king.’ Even the City
taverns were broken into, and there similar seizure was made, but not
without occasional mortal frays, in which there was much promiscuous
shooting, and a forcible carrying off of other ‘useful fellows,’ who
were hurried on board tenders, and thence sent to sea. There was
hardly time for sympathy. A few women in the streets and by the river
side filled the air with shrieks and clamour, but they were not much
heeded. London became full of expectancy of the renewal of an old and
a rare spectacle. The Carlisle prisoners were on their road to town.
There were nearly four hundred of them, including about threescore
officers. Those who were able to march were tied in couples, and two
dragoons had charge of ten prisoners, one leading them by a rope from
his saddle, the other ‘driving them up.’ The captured officers were
mounted, but their arms and legs were tied. Batches of other captive
men were sent by sea; some seem to have been exceptionally treated.
The papers announced the arrival of ‘six coaches and six,’ filled with
rebel prisoners, under an escort of horse and foot. The London gaols
were emptied of felons, who were transferred to distant prisons, in
order to ‘accommodate’ the captives till they were otherwise disposed
of. But the most important arrival was that of the hero himself. The
Duke of Cumberland, fresh from Carlisle, reached London on a dark
January morning, at seven o’clock. Much was made of his having passed
only ‘one night in bed,’ in that now easy day’s journey. The duke came
with modesty and great becomingness. Shortly after reaching St. James’s
he went straight to the little Chapel Royal. At the subsequent usual
Sunday drawing-room, there was brilliancy with the utmost gaiety,
such as had not been witnessed for many a year. After a few days the
duke returned northward, departing with the same modesty that had
marked his arrival. He left at one in the morning, but even at that
ghostly hour, and in that inclement season, he was done honour to by
a crowd which he could scarcely penetrate, whose torches were flashed
to their brightest, and whose voices were pitched to the loudest, as
their last ‘God speed!’ The temper of London may be seen in one of
Walpole’s letters, in which he alludes to the too great favour which
had been always shown towards Scotland since the last rebellion; and he
expresses a hope that the duke will make an end of it.
[Sidenote: _LONDON MOBS._]
In the meantime, old rancour against the Jacobites was embittered by
the publication of various ‘provocating pamphlets;’ and the month came
to a conclusion with the preachings of the 30th of January, and the
comments made on the sermons next day. Bishop Mawson, of Chichester,
preached before the Lords at St. Peter’s, Westminster; Dr. Rutherford
before the Commons at St. Margaret’s; while a reverend gentleman, who
is variously called ‘Pursack’ and ‘Persover,’ aroused the echoes of
St. Paul’s in the ears of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. Finally, an
anonymous poet swept the lyre in laudation of the duke. How he made the
chords ring may be gathered from a single line:――
Blast, gracious God, th’ assassins’ hell-bred scheme!
The London mob, on the Whig side of politics, cannot be said to have
been more civilised than the same mob of thirty years earlier. One
of its favourite sights was to see Jacobite prisoners brought into
London. The captives were invariably ill-used; but there was a much
more humane feeling manifested for such of them as might end their
career by the axe or the halter. One day in February upwards of forty
officers (including a French colonel of Engineers and four Frenchmen
of lower grade) were brought into London in four waggons and a coach.
The more dignified vehicle carried the French colonel. They were
guarded by a strongly-armed escort. Some were taken to the New Prison
in Southwark, some to Newgate. The French colonel in the coach, and
his four countrymen in a cart, were driven to the Marshalsea. ‘They
were very rudely treated by the populace,’ say the newspapers, ‘who
pelted them with dirt, and showed all other marks of abhorrence of
their black designs.’ Foreigners were just then looked upon with great
suspicion. ◆[Sidenote: _AMBASSADORS’ CHAPELS._]◆ Two servants of the
Portuguese and Sardinian envoys, respectively, having let their tongues
wag too saucily at a tavern, under the shield, as they thought, of
ambassadorial protection, had been seized by the constables and clapped
into irons. The envoys demanded their release; and much correspondence
ensued between the Home Office and the envoys. It was settled that
the legation could not shelter an offender against the law, even
though the offender were a fellow-countryman of the legate. Some
attempt was made to compel the foreign representatives to abstain from
employing Popish priests of English birth in the chapels annexed to the
ambassadors’ private residences. The answer was reasonable enough. As
their Excellencies could bring no foreign priests of the Romish Church
with them, they were obliged to employ English ecclesiastics who were
priests of that Church, in the chapels of the respective embassies.
These were the only ‘mass houses’ to which English Papists, it was
said, could resort, and the Whigs denounced them as the smithies where
red hot conspiracy was beaten into shape between foreign hammers and a
British anvil.
[Sidenote: _THE HAVOC OF WAR._]
London Whig temper was irritated in another direction. There was not
only a reckless assertion of Jacobitism on the part of the prisoners
from the north, but there was abundance of sympathy manifested for
them. Moreover, full permission was given to the practical application
of this sympathy. Jacobite visitors poured into the prisons, and
the captives ate, drank, and were merry with them, regardless of
what the morrow might bring. Many of the prisoners had pockets well
furnished with gold; and where this was wanting it was supplied by
Jacobite outsiders. Scarcely a day passed without waggoners or porters
depositing in the first lodge hampers of the richest wines and of the
finest delicacies. The warders rejoiced, for they took toll of all;
and the prison chaplains had some idea that this good time was the
beginning of the Millennium.
On the other hand, there was much more misery in the loyal than in
the Jacobite army. The Londoners saw nothing for the encouragement of
loyalty in such a sight as the landing at the Tower wharf of some of
the troops that had been with Cope at Preston Pans. ‘The poor men,’
say all the papers, ‘were in a most miserable shocking condition. Some
without arms or legs, others their noses cut off and their eyes put
out; besides being hacked and mauled in many parts of their bodies,
after a most terrible and cruel manner.’ This ‘atrocity’ was forgotten
in the news that roused London in April.
[Sidenote: _FLYING REPORTS._]
The course of war in Scotland, from the beginning of the year to
the 16th of April, was in this wise. On the 17th of January Hawley
was defeated at Falkirk. On the 30th, the Duke of Cumberland arrived
in Edinburgh. March 14th, news came that the Highland army had taken
Fort Augustus and had blown up Fort George. The Ladies Seaforth and
Mackintosh headed two rebel clans on the hills; but their husbands were
with the duke’s army! About the same time old Lord Lovat stimulated the
rebel resistance by proclaiming that it was the intention of the Duke
of Cumberland to transport the Highlanders to America. On April 3rd,
the rebels captured Blair Castle, and on the 16th the duke’s victory at
Culloden proved decisive of the fate of the Stuarts.
Exactly a week after the Duke of Cumberland gained the victory, a
_report_ to that effect reached London, but there was no news from the
duke himself till the 25th. His business-like account of the battle
appeared in the ‘London Gazette’ next day. In the interim the London
Jacobites in their places of resort asserted loudly that the duke was
in full retreat; and it was whispered that if he was _hopelessly_
beaten, the ‘Papists would rise all over the kingdom.’ But _now_ ‘hope’
herself was beaten out of the souls of Papists and Jacobites. The
military in London were in a vein of swaggering delight. They talked
of the young duke’s briefly heroic address to a cavalry regiment on
the point of charging. He patted the nearest man to him on the back,
and cried aloud, ‘One brush, my lads, for the honour of old Cobham!’
◆[Sidenote: _NEWS OF CULLODEN._]◆ Then was curiosity stirred in London
barracks as to which regiments were to get the prize for bravery,
subscribed by the Corporation of London――namely 5,000_l._ The duke so
wisely distributed it as to rebuke nobody. Veterans at Chelsea were
looking at the vacant spaces where they should hang the captured flags,
and were disappointed when they heard at the Horse Guards that the
duke, considering that it was said how little honour was connected
with such trophies, had sent the flags to Edinburgh to be burnt by the
common hangman. The Chelsea veterans, however, envied the capturers
of the (four) flags; for to each man the duke gave sixteen guineas.
Medals and crosses were not yet thought of. His generosity was lauded
as enthusiastically as his valour.
While the Jacobites were overwhelming him with charges of cruelty
and meanness, the friends of ‘the present happy establishment’ were
circulating stories in and about London of his humanity and liberality.
Soldiers of the young Chevalier’s army had wreaked their vengeance upon
Mr. Rose, the minister at Nairn――on himself and his house. He was a
Whig and anti-Romanist, who had favoured the escape of some prisoners
taken by the Jacobite army. The Highlanders burnt his house, and, tying
the minister up, they gave him 500 lashes. The duke, on hearing of this
outrage, fell into uncontrollable fury, and swore he would avenge it.
If there was some savagery at and after Culloden, no wonder! Such, at
least, was the London feeling among the duke’s friends. But the feeling
generally was one of ecstacy at the decisive victory. Lord Bury, who
had arrived on the 25th with the news direct from the duke to the king,
could hardly walk along the then terraced St. James’s Street for the
congratulations of the crowd. Nobody thought such a halcyon messenger
was too highly rewarded with a purse of a thousand guineas, and with
being nominated own aide-de-camp to King George.
[Sidenote: _A POPULAR HOLIDAY._]
That 25th of April was indeed a gala day for the London mob. They had
ample time for breakfast before they gathered at the ‘end of New Bond
Street, in Tyburn Road’ (as Oxford Street was then called), to see
the young footman, Henderson, hanged for the murder of his mistress,
Lady Dalrymple. The culprit did not die ‘game,’ and the brutes were
disappointed, but they found consolation in the fall of a scaffolding
with all its occupants. Then they had time to pour into the Park and
see four or five sergeants shot for trying to desert from King George’s
service to King James’s. Moreover there was a man to be whipt somewhere
in the City, and a pretty group of sight-seers assembled at Charing
Cross in expectation of ‘a fellow in the pillory.’ What with these
delights, and the pursuing Lord Bury with vociferations of sanguinary
congratulation, the day was a thorough popular holiday.
The anxiety that had been felt in London before Culloden may be
measured by the wild joy which prevailed when the news of the victory
arrived. Walpole, in Arlington Street, on the evening of the 25th
April, writes: ‘The town is all blazing around me as I write with
fireworks and illuminations. I have some inclination to wrap up half a
dozen sky-rockets to make you drink the duke’s health. Mr. Dodington,
on the first report, came out with a very pretty illumination, so
pretty that I believe he had it by him, ready for any occasion.’
On the same evening the Rev. Mr. Harris wrote from London to the mother
of the future first Earl of Malmesbury, just born: ‘You cannot imagine
the prodigious rejoicings that have been made this evening in every
part of the town; and indeed it is a proper time for people to express
their joy when the enemies of their country are thus cut off.’
[Sidenote: _CARLYLE AND SMOLLETT._]
On that evening Alexander Carlyle was with Smollett in the Golden Ball
coffee-house, Cockspur Street. ‘London,’ he says, ‘was in a perfect
uproar of joy. About nine o’clock I asked Smollett if he was ready to
go, as he lived at May Fair’ (Carlyle was bound for New Bond Street on
a supper engagement). ‘He said he was, and would conduct me. The mob
were so riotous and the squibs so numerous and incessant that we were
glad to go into a narrow entry to put our wigs into our pockets, and
to take our swords from our belts and walk with them in our hands, as
everybody then wore swords; and after cautioning me against speaking a
word lest the mob should discover my country and become insolent, “John
Bull,” says he, “is as haughty and valiant to-night, as he was abject
and cowardly on the Black Wednesday (Friday?) when the Highlanders were
at Derby.” After we got to the head of the Haymarket through incessant
fire, the doctor led me by narrow lanes where we met nobody but a few
boys at a pitiful bonfire, who very civilly asked us for sixpence,
which I gave them. I saw not Smollett again for some time after, when
he showed Smith and me the manuscript of his “Tears of Scotland,” which
was published not long after, and had such a run of approbation.’
[Sidenote: ‘_TEARS OF SCOTLAND._’]
Smollett was one of those Tories who, like many of the Nonjurors, were
not necessarily or consequently Jacobites. They were more willing to
make the best of a foreign king than to risk their liberties under
an incapable bigot like James Stuart, who, save for the accident of
birth, was less of an Englishman and knew less of England (in which,
throughout his life, he had only spent a few months) than either of the
Georges. But Smollett felt keenly the sufferings of his country, and
out of the feeling sprung his verses so full of a tenderly expressed
grief,――‘The Tears of Scotland!’ How that mournful ode was written in
London in this year of mournful memories for the Jacobites, no one can
tell better than Walter Scott. ‘Some gentlemen having met at a tavern,
were amusing themselves before supper with a game of cards, while
Smollett, not choosing to play, sat down to write. One of the company
(Graham of Gartmoor), observing his earnestness and supposing he was
writing verses, asked him if it was not so. He accordingly read them
the first sketch of the “Tears of Scotland,” consisting only of six
stanzas, and on their remarking that the termination of the poem being
too strongly expressed might give offence to persons whose political
opinions were different, he sat down without reply and, with an air of
great indignation, subjoined the concluding stanza:――
[Sidenote: _INDIGNATION VERSES._]
While the warm blood bedews my veins
And unimpair’d remembrance reigns,
Resentment of my country’s fate
Within my filial breast shall beat.
Yes! spite of thine insulting foe,
My sympathising verse shall flow;
Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn
Thy banish’d peace, thy laurels torn!’
The following were the lines which were supposed to be likely to offend
the friends of the hero of Culloden; but the sentiment was shared by
many who were not friends of the Stuart cause:――
Yet, when the rage of battle ceased,
The victor’s rage was not appeased;
The naked and forlorn must feel
Devouring flames and murd’ring steel.
The pious mother, doom’d to death,
Forsaken, wanders o’er the heath, &c., &c.
The picture was somewhat over-drawn, but there were thousands who
believed it to be true to the very letter.
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