(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-B]ut while the great Essayist revelled in this
social and political banter, earnest tragedy was being enacted
elsewhere. On July 8th the death warrant for the execution of two dozen
Jacobites seems to have been stayed at Court before it went on its
dreadful way. There was such effectual discussion upon it, that the
good souls there snatched twenty-two lives from the hangman. ‘All to
be reprieved,’ says Lady Cowper, ‘but Justice Hall and Parson Paul.’
The Duchess of Shrewsbury pleaded hard for the lives of the whole
four-and-twenty; but the hangman got his allotment of one in the dozen.
[Sidenote: _THE REV. MR. PAUL._]
Patten sketches the incidents of the Rev. Mr. Paul’s first appearance
on the scene. It occurred at Lancaster. Forster, the commander, was at
dinner with Patten in the Recorder of Lancaster’s house. ‘He (Paul)
entered the room in a blue coat, with a long wig and a sword, and Mr.
John Cotton of Cambridgeshire with him. They let him (Forster) know who
they were, and in a flourishing way, made a tender of their services
for the cause, which Mr. Forster accepting, they withdrew. Then Mr.
Forster told Mr. Patten, that the taller of the two gentlemen was a
clergyman and was of St. John’s College in Cambridge, and that he
(Paul) had given him a perfect account of General Carpenter’s marches,
and that he was then at Barnard’s Castle, in the bishoprick of Durham,
that his men and horses were soon fatigued, and the like, all which,’
adds the turncoat Patten, ‘was true enough, though their being so
fatigued did not hinder their march after us.’
The Reverend Mr. Paul, undoubtedly, acted both as spy and messenger.
Before the surrender at Preston, Paul rode away, charged, ‘as he then
said,’ to use Patten’s significant words, ‘with letters, to a noble
lord in Staffordshire and some friends in Leicestershire.’ Paul had a
narrow escape on the road, but it did not lead him to ultimate safety.
He met General Wills, at the head of his troops. By the former, he was
stopped and questioned, but the general, not suspecting that Paul was
one of the rebels, ‘he himself also putting on a contrary face,’ Wills
let him go.
[Sidenote: _A CRY FOR LIFE._]
Mr. Paul had no desire to die a martyr for the Jacobite cause. After
his condemnation, he addressed himself to the great object of saving
his life. He wrote to bishops, archbishops, and ministers. To the Lord
Primate he said he had pleaded _guilty_ only on the advice of his
lawyers, as the surest way to obtain mercy. The Government wished him
to make a clean breast of it, and tell all he knew and all he did after
running away from Preston. But, he observed, ‘what confession the
Court would have from me, I can’t tell. I am sure your Grace would not
have me, for the world, speak more than I know.’ He denied having been
guilty of promoting rebellion, after he left the rebels ‘as fast as I
could.’ He prayed earnestly that his life might be spared, and that
if he were not allowed to spend the remainder of it in England, the
Government might be pleased to send him to the Plantations or anywhere
rather than Tyburn! He protested that since he was in Newgate he had
not prayed for the Pretender, by any name or title; and he humbly
desired his Grace would take him from ‘this nasty prison.’
Writing to the Bishop of Salisbury, Paul spoke of his being
unfortunately at Preston among the rebels; but that he left them
‘upon the first opportunity.’ He asserted that ‘Fear more than
Choice’ had taken him there. He had once the honour to be under the
bishop’s patronage. If the prelate would only get his life spared, he
promised that it should be wholly employed in pouring down abundance
of blessings on King George, the Royal Family, the three kingdoms
generally ‘and the Church in particular.’ In despairing terms, Paul
again turned to the archbishop. Life, only life! The truly repentant
rebel asks for no more. ‘I do not question,’ he said, ‘but that your
gracious temper and compassion will move you to assist one that had
once the honour to be instituted into a Living, in your diocese of
Lincoln, by your Grace.’
[Sidenote: _PAUL AND PATTEN._]
On Monday, July 9th, the poor man again wrote in a fit of abject terror
to the archbishop: ‘The Dead Warrant is come down for Execution
Friday next.’ Then he, as it were, screamed for mercy. Except, being
at Preston, he was entirely innocent of all ‘ill steps,’ and knew of
no designs against King George, beyond that town. ‘The things that are
laid to my charge, namely, the preaching up rebellion, advising my
parishioners to take up arms, and that I preached several seditious
sermons, all these are false, upon the word of a clergyman, as I have
a certificate to prove, for six years, the time of my being at Orton,
handed by most of the parish.’ He begs that he may be ‘saved from that
ignominious death of the halter;’ and he promises a rich return in
prayers for the benefit of all who had done their best to bring him
‘out of these great troubles.’
Between the day on which the last letter was written and the eve of
the day of execution, no better messenger of joy visited poor Paul
than the reverend rascal Patten. This worthy was sent, apparently, to
‘pump’ him, but he brought no promise of mercy for any communications
Paul might make; and accordingly the doomed man, as he wrote to Lord
Townshend, on that terrible eve, simply called Heaven to witness that,
to quote his own words, ‘I carried no letter off from Preston, though
I told Mr. Patten so, which was only a feint, that I might go off; and
if Mr. Patten will do me justice, he can tell you, my Lord, how uneasy
I was when I discovered my rashness.’ His last words were, ‘I once more
crave your Lordship’s kind assistance to procure me my life.’
[Sidenote: _PAUL, A JACOBITE AGAIN._]
This prayer was not heeded. On the following day, crowds witnessed the
journey of both Paul and Hall to Tyburn. Other crowds were to be seen
outside the newspaper office window at Amen Corner, eagerly reading the
original letters of Paul to the Archbishop and Viscount Townshend, by
whom they had been sent into the city, to gratify public curiosity.
Mr. Paul at Tyburn recovered his spirits, and turned Jacobite, again.
He asked pardon of God for having taken oaths of allegiance to an
usurping power.――‘You see by my habit,’ he said to the crowd, ‘that I
die a son, though a very unworthy one, of the Church of England, but I
would not have you think that I am a member of the schismatical church,
whose bishops set themselves up in opposition to those Orthodox Fathers
who were unlawfully and invalidly deprived by the Prince of Orange. I
declare that I renounce that communion, and that I die a dutiful and
faithful member of the Nonjuring church, which has kept itself free
from rebellion and schism; and I desire the Clergy and all members of
the Revolution church to consider what bottom they stand upon, when
their succession is grounded upon an unlawful and invalid deprivation
of Catholic bishops, the only foundation of which deprivation is a
pretended Act of Parliament. The Revolution instead of keeping out
Popery, has let in Atheism.’ As Justice Hall was standing meekly at
Paul’s side, a cowardly Whig ruffian, in the crowd, flung at the doomed
man a stone which reached its aim. The poor gentleman bowed his head
in acknowledgment of the civility, turned to the hangman, and died
without fuss or protest. The Whig press spared him. They did not attack
him as they did Paul.
In July, the king, longing to revisit Hanover, and satisfied that
his throne was now unassailable, took his departure. A few hours
previously, Lady Cowper saw the sovereign, at a drawing-room, ‘in
mighty good humour.’ She wished him a good journey and a quick return;
and, ‘he looked,’ she says, ‘as if the last part of my Speech was
needless, and that he did not think of it.’
[Sidenote: _THE KING IN FLEET STREET._]
A curious encounter took place in Fleet Street, as George I., in a
semi-state coach, with a kingly escort, was on his way to the Tower,
where he was to take water for the continent. The king was met with a
procession of six coaches coming from Newgate. They contained eleven
prisoners with attendants, the former on their way to Westminster,
to receive formal sentence of death. The royal carriage and one in
which was Mr. Radcliffe, with a fellow prisoner, and a ‘servant of
Newgate,’ were the first to meet. The latter drew on one side; those
which followed did the same. The king looked hard at the Jacobites
and passed on, without remark. When the king had gone by, Charles
Radcliffe, seeing that the carriage in which he was seated was drawn
up in front of a tavern, called for a pint of liquor, and he and his
fellow in misfortune drank to the health of King James. If the ‘servant
of Newgate’ got a good pull at the tankard he said nothing about it at
Westminster to aggravate their position or to make unpleasant his own.
[Sidenote: _A READING AT COURT._]
At the council, held by ministers in the evening, it was found that the
king had some cause to dread the perils of his way. ‘At night,’ says
Lady Cowper, ‘Lord Lovat brings a man, called Barnes, to the Council,
who deposed upon oath that two Sulivants, cousins to Sulivant whose
Head is upon Temple Bar, told him that Sulivant’s brother, who is a
Partizan, was to kill the king in a wood between Utrecht and Loo, and
that he was to command a “Party Blue,” which is a cant phrase for fifty
Men.’ ‘The Men were seized,’ says Lady Cowper, and the then Hanoverian
Fraser of Lovat was probably rewarded for his services.
The knowledge of such regicidal designs may have led to a discussion
at Court on the killing of Cæsar, where his slayer, Brutus, found
partisans. One morning, in July 1716, Lady Cowper was reading aloud to
the princess and the ladies, from the works of Madame Deshouillières,
the French ‘tenth muse.’ The reader came upon a passage referring
to Brutus. ‘As much a Whig as I am,’ she says, ‘I cannot come up to
it.’――‘I think Brutus should either have been faithful to Cæsar, or
he should have refused his favours, the baseness of his ingratitude
blackening, in my opinion, all that could be said for his zeal for his
country.’ She evidently had in her mind the people about Court who,
while accepting favour from George, were often serving James. ‘This,’
she says, ‘occasioned a great dispute among us.’
[Sidenote: _SANGUINARY STRUGGLES._]
Turning from Court to Newgate it will be seen that the zeal of some
of the servants of certain of the condemned Jacobite gentlemen sadly
outran their discretion. Mr. Cassidy and a Mr. Carnegie were sentenced
to death. Their valet, Thomas Beau, immediately headed a Jacobite
mob, out of a mere spirit of revenge. After trying their strength in
assaulting Mr. Gosling’s tavern, the Blue Boar’s Head, near Water Lane,
and mercilessly treating the Whig gentlemen there, by whom they were
ultimately repulsed, after much blood was shed on both sides, the Jacks
rushed in a body to that most hateful of all mug-houses, Mr. Read’s, in
Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. Various previous attempts to demolish
this stronghold of thirsty loyalty had been valiantly frustrated, with
much damage to limb, and at serious risk to life. On the last assault,
the ‘Papists and Jacks’ carried their ‘hellish design’ to ultimate but
costly triumph. They smashed the windows, forced an entry into the
lower rooms, and burst open the cellar. They broke up the furniture,
broached the casks, and, filled to the throat with strong liquors,
began to set fire to the premises. The loyal Whig guests discharged
their pieces into the seething crowd. They fought in the passages, and
on the stairs, but they unfortunately lost their standard. The sign of
the house was also triumphantly captured. It was carried at the head of
the besiegers, as they marched away, by Tom Beau. In the _mêlée_ which
occurred at the hottest part of the struggle, many of the rioters were
terribly wounded. One of them, Vaughan, a seditious weaver, to whom
the inside of Bridewell was not unfamiliar, was stretched dead on the
threshold by a shot from the end of the passage of Read’s house. The
Jacks declared that Read was the murderer. The coroner’s jury were as
much divided as the mob and the gentlemen who met at Read’s mug-house,
‘only to drink prosperity to the Church of England, as by law
Establisht.’ Half were for a verdict of wilful murder against Read. The
other half stuck out for justifiable homicide. An adjournment ensued,
to enable each side to sleep, think, and drink over it.
Meanwhile, the husseydom of Fleet Street, a sisterhood rough and
readily named in another way by the papers, sustained the riot in the
Jacobite interest. These nymphs were described quaintly as ‘walking the
streets a nights without impunity by constables.’
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE JURY._]
At the judicial enquiry, the evidence was against Read, despite his
loyalty. Witnesses swore to the attack, repulse, devastation, robbery
of till and liquor, and also to the fact that Read had deliberately
shot Vaughan as the former stood at his door, and the latter, an
unarmed and innocent victim, as the witnesses with Jacobite bias
described him, was standing doing no harm and thinking no evil, in
front of the attacking force. The coroner’s jury, on reassembling,
proved more Jacobite than ever. They would agree to no other verdict
but that of wilful murder against Read. The coroner refused to receive
this verdict, and while the dispute was pending, private individuals
with Hanoverian sentiments subscribed handsome sums, and awarded
liberal compensation to the owners of mug-houses who had suffered so
much for their integrity and loyalty, and who met only to drink health
to the royal family and ‘good luck to the Church of England by law
establisht.’
[Sidenote: _THE MUG-HOUSES._]
Then arose an individual, the proto-special correspondent. He made a
tour of the mug-houses, chiefly because the Jacobites had accused the
guests of drinking ‘damnation to the Church,’ and similar consummation
to the prelates. This early original correspondent gives testimony to
the contrary. ‘He was struck into an amazement,’ he tells us, ‘at the
piety, charity, courtesy, and good liquor which abounded in all the Mug
houses in London.’ We hear too that some baser sort of Tory would go to
mug-houses to decoy Whig gentlemen by ‘damning and cursing Queen Anne.’
One Adams, a medical student or apprentice, in Lothbury, tried this
game, but he had to ask pardon for it on his knees, and was afterwards
sent to the Compter to digest his humiliation.
At length, the coroner’s jury, again suffering political changes,
declared themselves, seven for wilful murder; five for manslaughter.
The perplexed coroner washed his hands of it, and sent the matter for
decision to the judges at the Old Bailey; when Read narrowly escaped
the gallows; but Beau, and a few others, swung at Tyburn.
[Sidenote: _THE STREET WHIPPING POST._]
To watching the doings of Jacobites at home, was to be added the
trouble ministers had in watching, through their agents, Jacobites
abroad. Our agent, Lord Stair, in Paris, kept the Hon. Charles Cathcart
(afterwards eighth Lord) well advised of what was going on, or was to
be attempted in London. In July, my Lord states that the Duke of Leeds
had left Paris, for Rouen, on his way to England, ‘to put some very
wise project of his own contrivance into execution. The Pretender and
his court have given in to it, and the party in England are ready to
assist him.’ Lord Stair suspected a design upon Sheerness. ‘I thought
it better,’ he adds, ‘to let him go than to stop him.’ The writer left
the ministers in London to do as they pleased with the duke, after he
arrived. The duke escaped, singularly enough. He got drunk in London,
was knocked down and run over by a hackney-coach, and he lay ill in
bed, instead of going about conspiring for James III.
The police, however, was on the alert, the laws were severe, and
ignorant people abounded. One of the acute messengers of the time,
Nightingale, heard two women in the street, crying for sale ‘The whole
trial, examination, conviction, and sentence of Conscience, who was
tried and condemned at Conventicle Hall,’ &c. The messenger charged
them with sedition. He carried them before the next justice of the
peace, and his worship, finding them guilty, sent them forthwith ‘to be
corrected at the next Whipping Post.’ The anti-Jacobite mob delighted
in the cruel spectacle which was there offered to them.
They, and Jacobites generally, were still more delighted at reading
the following matter-of-fact paragraph in all the papers. ‘On Saturday
night’ (the first Saturday in August), ‘between 8 and 9 o’clock, the
Earl of Wintoun made his escape out of the Tower.’ Lord Wintoun, who
was not such a fool as he was taken for, had sawn the bars of his
prison-window, and had oiled the palms of his keeper, and had passed
into the street unmolested. He had a servant, Nicholson, in Newgate
(taken also at Preston), but as the master had freed himself, the
Government kindly liberated the servant, and took their revenge on the
warden of the Tower. They accused him of having connived at the escape
of both Lords Nithsdale and Wintoun; and they dismissed him from the
Tower without allowing him to sell the wardenship, for which he himself
had once given a good price.
[Sidenote: _PATTEN IN ALLENDALE._]
In August, London saw the last not only of Wintoun, but also of
that worthy parson, Patten. In the above month, he shook hands with
his fellows in town, and set off for his old parish in Allendale,
Northumberland. His incumbency had been kept open for him by a
substitute, who resigned as soon as Patten returned to his old
flock. On the Sunday after his arrival, Patten preached to a crowded
congregation; ‘being,’ say the London Whig papers, ‘always well
respected in his parish.’
The most singular sight of all, in August of this year, was at Hampton
Court. While antagonistic mobs kept London in continual perturbation,
the heir to the throne and the Princess of Wales dined in public――to
which spectacle that public was freely admitted, and in such crowds
that the illustrious lady would graciously call upon them so to place
themselves that all present might have their fair share of the
sight. The affability of the royal pair delighted all the spectators.
The papers speak of one citizen of London, hitherto of Jacobite
principles, being so deliciously subdued by it to Whig sentiments
that, on reaching home, he removed the portraits of the Duke of Ormond
and Dr. Sacheverel, from his ‘parlor,’ and showed his contempt for
the originals by ‘removing their likenesses to a remote part of his
establishment.’
[Sidenote: _SCENES AT HAMPTON COURT._]
The Whig and Tory holiday makers who resorted to Hampton Court must
have beheld one of the scenes of the political comedy played by
their royal highnesses, while the king was abroad, with considerable
astonishment. On one occasion, after the public dinner, a gentleman was
as publicly presented. This was Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who kissed
hands on having obtained the estates formerly belonging to Mackenzie,
as a reward for Simon’s loyalty! There was not so much to surprise in
this as in another presentation. Fraser was (for the nonce) a Whig;
but the second presentation was that of a Jacobite gentleman who had
been recently condemned to death, and was subsequently pardoned. This
Jacobite was the famous Farquharson of Invercauld, who had only just
been set free from the Marshalsea. Lord Townshend led him by the
hand, and presented him to the Prince; the Earl of Bridgewater next
took him, and presented him to the Princess. Spectators were lost in
astonishment, and could not guess what service Invercauld could have
rendered to the ‘Elector of Hanover’ to merit such distinction.
[Sidenote: _BIGOTS ON BOTH SIDES._]
The outspokenness of the Nonjurors at this period grew more audacious
than ever. Their enemies threatened to rout ‘the diabolical wretches’
from their chapels, and the Nonjurors replied, in their papers, with a
‘Come, if you dare!’ The latter prayed for ‘the King,’ without naming
him. On one Sunday, in the chapel in the Savoy, a Whig, at this part
of the service added aloud, ‘_George!_’ Forthwith, a dozen infuriated
Jacks sprung to their feet, exclaimed ‘_James!_’ and with a cry of
‘We’ll George you!’ flourished their sticks, whereupon a battle-royal
ensued, heads were broken, and provocation was given to make many a
subsequent Sunday disgracefully distinguished by the bigots on both
sides. The temper of the times was fatal to the then noted school at
Edmonton, where Mr. Le Hunt received Roman Catholic young gentlemen
from all parts of the world. Foreign families were afraid to send
their sons. The house, indeed, was never molested; but, ‘for want of
encouragement, Mr. Le Hunt was forced to withdraw.’
Later in the autumn, the opening of a Nonjuring chapel in Spital Fields
roused the fury of ‘loyal people.’ The pious and peaceable ‘Weekly
Journal’ hoped that ‘all persons loyally affected to King George will
timely suppress the diabolical society, as they have done the like
seditious assemblies of blind, deluded fools in the Savoy, Scrope’s
Court in Holborn, and in Aldersgate Street;’――where the chapels had
been set on fire, and the congregations beaten and kicked, as they
tried to escape, by the Hanoverian roughs.
[Sidenote: _AT DRURY LANE THEATRE._]
The Jacobites used similar arguments, and found approval for their
application, from grave Tory scholars. A Berkshire vicar, named
Blewberry, preached a sermon in a City church against Queen Anne.
‘The auditors,’ says Tory Hearne, ‘pulled him out of the pulpit.’
Blewberry printed his sermon. ‘’Tis wretched stuff,’ says Hearne, ‘in
commendation of usurpers, for which he deserved to be mobbed as he was.’
In October, Whigs heard with some surprise that Lords Carnwath, Nairn,
and Widdrington were, as the papers put it, ‘allowed the liberty of the
Tower to walk in.’ The public was, subsequently, more concerned with
an incident which took place at the theatre. On the 6th of December,
the Prince of Wales was in his box, at Drury Lane, heeding, as well as
he could, the utterances of Wilks, Booth, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield,
when an excited gentleman, named Freeman, endeavoured to pass into
the house. The Grenadiers crossed their bayonets and prevented his
ingress. That Freeman was a mischievous Tory seemed clear enough to
the Guards, when he drew a pistol from his pocket and fired it point
blank into the body of one of the Grenadiers. The shot was heard within
the house, where no one was unmoved but the Prince. Of the ladies,
all who did not indulge in shrieking, went off silently swooning into
gentlemen’s arms. Of the gentlemen, all who were not thus pleasantly
employed, put their hands to their swords. Some drew their weapons and
held them aloft. Others rushed sword in hand into the lobbies, and drew
up there ready for the onslaught of any number of Jacobites. While
this hubbub prevailed, the officer on duty reported the exact state of
things to the Prince. Freeman was a lunatic, the Jacobites were not
rising, and the Prince, in token of his complete satisfaction, sent
out five guineas to the Grenadiers; and the man who was shot into did
not find himself sufficiently hurt to prevent his getting drunk with
his fellows. The _beaux_ who had held the fainting ladies, rather than
draw swords for the Prince, called the next day to make enquiries,
and were to be seen combing their periwigs as they tripped up the
door-steps. ◆[Sidenote: _AFTERNOON CALLS._]◆ The belles received them,
with a laugh on their lips, and the fashionable _guittara_ in their
hands. Highly-spiced compliments passed in the afternoon as the orange
brandy, aniseed, citron and cinnamon waters were handed round with the
tea. The stouter champions took the sack and toast presented to them
on a salver, or were divided between hock with a dash of palm in it, a
glass of noble canary with a squeeze of Seville orange, or a tankard
of cyder, sweetened with a little old mead, and a hard toast. It was
a perspiring time for Running Footmen, who beat the post in carrying
the news of ‘Freeman’s shot’ into the country. The runners are well
described in a comedy of the period, in the query of a gentleman who
encounters one of them, ‘How now, Pumps, Dimity, and Sixty miles a day!
Whose Greyhound are you?’
[Sidenote: _ESCAPE OF CHARLES RADCLIFFE._]
The year ended with a great surprise. Mr. Charles Radcliffe literally
walked out of Newgate without molestation! Wardens and turnkeys saw
a strange gentleman, in a mourning suit and a brown tye-wig, pass
them, and did not question him! This suit and wig were called his
‘disguise;’ but it was no better than a theatrical disguise, which
deceives nobody, not even those who seem to be deceived. Mr. Radcliffe
passed as easily to France as if no one was interested in stopping him.
His old ‘chum’ in the room which they occupied together ‘in the Press
Yard, overlooking the garden of the College of Physicians,’――Basil
Hamilton――did not more easily pass into freedom, under the Act of
Grace, than Charles Radcliffe did under his so-called disguise, and
his resolution not to owe his freedom to the ‘Elector of Hanover.’
The chief wardens lost their places, which they had bought at 200_l._
a-piece, and which they were not allowed to sell; but they probably had
already had their places’ worth from Radcliffe’s friends.
The above dramatic incident was thus simply set down, with additions,
in the newspapers. ‘Charles Radcliffe, Esq., brother to the late Earl
of Derwentwater, made his escape out of Newgate on Thursday last,
December 13, as did a few days before, Mr. James Swinburne out of the
hands of persons who had him in cure for lunacy.’ Gibson of Stonycroft,
Northumberland, less lucky, died of broken heart, in the prison which
he could not ‘break,’ and from which he could not pass on plea of
being mad. Radcliffe, like Wintoun, had all along refused every offer
of royal pardon, a proud, honest, but in Radcliffe’s case, a fatal
refusal. Had he been content to wait in bonds a little longer, he
would have been in the Act of Grace whether he liked it or not. Thirty
years later he pleaded, in vain, the pardon he had scornfully refused,
and the Act, from the application of which he had withdrawn himself.
[Sidenote: _THE STAGE AND PLAYGOERS._]
Considering the critical condition of the country, in 1715 and 1716,
the drama was remarkably backward in outspokenness to support the new
order of things, as well as in suggestiveness through plays or portions
of their dialogue to allude, with friendly intention, to the Jacobite
side. Royal commands were so frequent that actors may have recognized
patrons in the king and his family, and have honoured them accordingly.
As in Charles I.’s time, they were independent as individuals, taking
sides in agreement with their opinions. One poor, obscure player, named
Carnaby, was arrested on a charge of seditious action for the benefit
of the ‘Pretender.’ We lose sight of him under the parting kick of the
Whig papers, that he was a wretch of an actor who unluckily died in
Newgate before he could be taken to Tyburn! On the other hand, when the
prospects of the kingdom were at least gloomily uncertain, there was
a class of individuals who lost no opportunity of being gay. Twice,
within three weeks, the performances at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, were
‘by desire of several Ladies of Quality.’ On one occasion, the ladies
ordered the highly spiced ‘Recruiting Officer;’ on the second occasion,
that comedy of still higher gusto, ‘The Old Bachelor.’ When most men
were, or should have been, bracing themselves to share in, or to meet,
the serious issues that as yet were hidden from them, we find among
the entertainments at Mrs. Thurmond’s benefit――‘A Scaramouch dance by a
Gentleman, for his diversion.’
[Sidenote: _LOYAL PLAYERS._]
It was when the struggle was over that the Stage began to ridicule the
losing side, and Mrs. Oldfield, at Drury Lane, on her benefit night,
spoke a new epilogue to the ‘Man of Mode’ in which the cause of liberty
was recommended to the beauties of Great Britain. It was not till
August, 1716, that in honour of the accession of the House of Hanover,
Doggett, the Drury Lane comedian, gave ‘an Orange-coloured Livery with
a Badge representing Liberty, to be rowed for by Six Watermen that are
out of their time within the year past――they are to row from London
Bridge to Chelsea――it will be continued annually on the same day for
ever.’ This incident gave rise to the still popular operetta of ‘The
Waterman;’ and, with some modifications, the match is still rowed on
the annual first of August.
Christmas cheer gave many Jacobites a courage to which they would
not have given expression at another time, considering how death,
fines, transportation, imprisonment or whipping had been inflicted
on outspoken and more active Jacobites during the year. One John
Humphreys, a lawyer’s clerk, displayed no ordinary audacity in Mr.
Read’s Mug-house, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, by proposing the
health of James III. For such a Christmas toast, however, he was
carried before a magistrate, who sent him to Newgate, to answer for his
boldness――the last Jacobite victim of the year.
[Sidenote: _AN ANTI-JACOBITE PAMPHLET._]
But this was of small account compared with a much more exasperating
incident. Baker, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster Row, issued many
aggravating pamphlets against the adherents of the king over the water,
but never one which provoked them to such fury as the following:――‘A
true account of the proceedings at Perth; the debates in the Secret
Councils there, and the reasons and causes of the sudden finishing
and breaking-up of the Rebellion. Written by a Rebel. London: printed
by J. Baker, at the Black Boy in Paternoster Row, 1716. 12mo.’ This
‘true account,’ like the Master of Sinclair’s, exposed the conceit,
incapacity and folly of the Jacobite leaders, and left its readers with
a much lower opinion of the cause generally than they had previously
entertained.
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