THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY, 1860.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
NIL NISI BONUM 129
INVASION PANICS 135
TO GOLDENHAIR (FROM HORACE). By THOMAS HOOD. 149
FRAMLEY PARSONAGE 150
CHAPTER IV.--_A Matter of Conscience._
„ V.--_Amantium Iræ Amoris Integratio._
„ VI.--_Mr. Harold Smith’s Lecture._
TITHONUS. By ALFRED TENNYSON 175
WILLIAM HOGARTH: PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER.
Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time 177
I.--_Little Boy Hogarth._
UNSPOKEN DIALOGUE. By R. MONCKTON MILNES. (With an Illustration) 194
STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE 198
CHAPTER II.--_Ponds and rock-pools--Our necessary tackle--
Wimbledon Common--Early memories--Gnat larvæ--Entomostraca
and their paradoxes--Races of animals dispensing with the
sterner sex--Insignificance of males--Volvox globator: is
it an animal?--Plants swimming like animals--Animal
retrogressions--The Dytiscus and its larva--The
dragon-fly larva--Molluscs and their eggs--Polypes, and
how to find them--A new polype_, Hydra rubra--
_Nest-building fish--Contempt replaced by reverence_.
CURIOUS, IF TRUE. (Extract from a Letter from Richard Whittingham,
Esq.) 208
LIFE AMONG THE LIGHTHOUSES 220
LOVEL THE WIDOWER 233
CHAPTER II.--_In which Miss Prior is kept at the Door._
(With an Illustration.)
AN ESSAY WITHOUT END 248
LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO.,
65, CORNHILL.
THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY, 1860.
Nil Nisi Bonum.
Almost the last words which Sir Walter spoke to Lockhart, his
biographer, were, “Be a good man, my dear!” and with the last flicker
of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and
passed away blessing them.
Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the Goldsmith and
the Gibbon of our time. Ere a few weeks are over, many a critic’s pen
will be at work, reviewing their lives, and passing judgment on their
works. This is no review, or history, or criticism: only a word in
testimony of respect and regard from a man of letters, who owes to his
own professional labour the honour of becoming acquainted with these
two eminent literary men. One was the first ambassador whom the New
World of Letters sent to the Old. He was born almost with the republic;
the _pater patriæ_ had laid his hand on the child’s head. He bore
Washington’s name: he came amongst us bringing the kindest sympathy,
the most artless, smiling goodwill. His new country (which some people
here might be disposed to regard rather superciliously) could send
us, as he showed in his own person, a gentleman, who, though himself
born in no very high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, witty,
quiet; and, socially, the equal of the most refined Europeans. If
Irving’s welcome in England was a kind one, was it not also gratefully
remembered? If he ate our salt, did he not pay us with a thankful
heart? Who can calculate the amount of friendliness and good feeling
for our country which this writer’s generous and untiring regard for
us disseminated in his own? His books are read by millions[1] of his
countrymen, whom he has taught to love England, and why to love her.
It would have been easy to speak otherwise than he did: to inflame
national rancours, which, at the time when he first became known as a
public writer, war had just renewed: to cry down the old civilization
at the expense of the new: to point out our faults, arrogance,
shortcomings, and give the republic to infer how much she was the
parent state’s superior. There are writers enough in the United
States, honest and otherwise, who preach that kind of doctrine. But the
good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness
in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with
extraordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southey, Byron, a
hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him), he was a
messenger of goodwill and peace between his country and ours. “See,
friends!” he seems to say, “these English are not so wicked, rapacious,
callous, proud, as you have been taught to believe them. I went amongst
them a humble man; won my way by my pen; and, when known, found every
hand held out to me with kindliness and welcome. Scott is a great man,
you acknowledge. Did not Scott’s king of England give a gold medal to
him, and another to me, your countryman, and a stranger?”
Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the history of the
feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his return to his native
country from Europe. He had a national welcome; he stammered in his
speeches, hid himself in confusion, and the people loved him all the
better. He had worthily represented America in Europe. In that young
community a man who brings home with him abundant European testimonials
is still treated with respect (I have found American writers of
wide-world reputation, strangely solicitous about the opinions of quite
obscure British critics, and elated or depressed by their judgments);
and Irving went home medalled by the king, diplomatized by the
university, crowned, and honoured and admired. He had not in any way
intrigued for his honours, he had fairly won them; and, in Irving’s
instance, as in others, the old country was glad and eager to pay them.
In America the love and regard for Irving was a national sentiment.
Party wars are perpetually raging there, and are carried on by the
press with a rancour and fierceness against individuals which exceed
British, almost Irish, virulence. It seemed to me, during a year’s
travel in the country, as if no one ever aimed a blow at Irving. All
men held their hand from that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had
the good fortune to see him at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and
Washington,[2] and remarked how in every place he was honoured and
welcome. Every large city has its “Irving House.” The country takes
pride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate of his own charming
little domain on the beautiful Hudson River was for ever swinging
before visitors who came to him. He shut out no one.[3] I had seen many
pictures of his house, and read descriptions of it, in both of which
it was treated with a not unusual American exaggeration. It was but a
pretty little cabin of a place; the gentleman of the press who took
notes of the place, whilst his kind old host was sleeping, might have
visited the whole house in a couple of minutes.
And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving’s books
were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, when his profits
were known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old bachelor
were notoriously modest and simple? He had loved once in his life. The
lady he loved died; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to
replace her. I can’t say how much the thought of that fidelity has
touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness of his after life add to the
pathos of that untold story? To grieve always was not in his nature;
or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole with
him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and
buries it; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due
time.
Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, because there was
a great number of people to occupy them. He could only afford to keep
one old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once or twice
to run away with that careless old horseman). He could only afford to
give plain sherry to that amiable British paragraph-monger from New
York, who saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless cup, and
fetched the public into his private chamber to look at him. Irving
could only live very modestly, because the wifeless, childless man had
a number of children to whom he was as a father. He had as many as nine
nieces, I am told--I saw two of these ladies at his house--with all of
whom the dear old man had shared the produce of his labour and genius.
“_Be a good man, my dear._” One can’t but think of these last words
of the veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and tested the value
of worldly success, admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not good, and,
of his works, was not his life the best part? In his family, gentle,
generous, good-humoured, affectionate, self-denying: in society, a
delightful example of complete gentlemanhood; quite unspoiled by
prosperity; never obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to the
base and mean, as some public men are forced to be in his and other
countries); eager to acknowledge every contemporary’s merit; always
kind and affable with the young members of his calling; in his
professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and
grateful; one of the most charming masters of our lighter language; the
constant friend to us and our nation; to men of letters doubly dear,
not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar of goodness,
probity, and pure life:--I don’t know what sort of testimonial will
be raised to him in his own country, where generous and enthusiastic
acknowledgment of American merit is never wanting: but Irving was in
our service as well as theirs; and as they have placed a stone at
Greenwich yonder in memory of that gallant young Bellot, who shared
the perils and fate of some of our Arctic seamen, I would like to hear
of some memorial raised by English writers and friends of letters in
affectionate remembrance of the dear and good Washington Irving.
As for the other writer, whose departure many friends, some few most
dearly-loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring readers deplore, our
republic has already decreed his statue, and he must have known that he
had earned this posthumous honour. He is not a poet and man of letters
merely, but citizen, statesman, a great British worthy. Almost from the
first moment when he appears, amongst boys, amongst college students,
amongst men, he is marked, and takes rank as a great Englishman. All
sorts of successes are easy to him: as a lad he goes down into the
arena with others, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A
place in the senate is straightway offered to the young man. He takes
his seat there; he speaks, when so minded, without party anger or
intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm
for his cause. Still he is poet and philosopher even more than orator.
That he may have leisure and means to pursue his darling studies, he
absents himself for a while, and accepts a richly-remunerated post
in the East. As learned a man may live in a cottage or a college
common-room; but it always seemed to me that ample means and recognized
rank were Macaulay’s as of right. Years ago there was a wretched outcry
raised because Mr. Macaulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where
he was staying. Immortal gods! Was this man not a fit guest for any
palace in the world? or a fit companion for any man or woman in it? I
daresay, after Austerlitz, the old K. K. court officials and footmen
sneered at Napoleon for dating from Schönbrunn. But that miserable
“Windsor Castle” outcry is an echo out of fast-retreating old-world
remembrances. The place of such a natural chief was amongst the first
of the land; and that country is best, according to our British notion,
at least, where the man of eminence has the best chance of investing
his genius and intellect.
If a company of giants were got together, very likely one or two of
the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable
superiority of the very tallest of the party: and so I have heard some
London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay’s superiority, complain that he
occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue
is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has
the chance to listen? To remember the talk is to wonder: to think not
only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles he had
stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. Almost on the
last day I had the fortune to see him, a conversation happened suddenly
to spring up about senior wranglers, and what they had done in after
life. To the almost terror of the persons present, Macaulay began with
the senior wrangler of 1801–2–3–4, and so on, giving the name of each,
and relating his subsequent career and rise. Every man who has known
him has his story regarding that astonishing memory. It may be he was
not ill-pleased that you should recognize it; but to those prodigious
intellectual feats, which were so easy to him, who would grudge his
tribute of homage? His talk was, in a word, admirable, and we admired
it.
Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord Macaulay, up to
the day when the present lines are written (the 9th of January), the
reader should not deny himself the pleasure of looking especially at
two. It is a good sign of the times when such articles as these (I
mean the articles in _The Times_ and _Saturday Review_) appear in our
public prints about our public men. They educate us, as it were, to
admire rightly. An uninstructed person in a museum or at a concert may
pass by without recognizing a picture or a passage of music, which
the connoisseur by his side may show him is a masterpiece of harmony,
or a wonder of artistic skill. After reading these papers you like
and respect more the person you have admired so much already. And so
with regard to Macaulay’s style there may be faults of course--what
critic can’t point them out? But for the nonce we are not talking about
faults: we want to say _nil nisi bonum_. Well--take at hazard any three
pages of the _Essays_ or _History_;--and, glimmering below the stream
of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two,
three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts, characters,
literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is this epithet
used? Whence is that simile drawn? How does he manage, in two or
three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a landscape? Your
neighbour, who has _his_ reading, and his little stock of literature
stowed away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions, happy
touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of
this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous
toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty books to write a sentence;
he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description.
Many Londoners--not all--have seen the British Museum Library. I speak
_à cœur ouvert_, and pray the kindly reader to bear with me. I have
seen all sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon,--what
not?--and have been struck by none of them so much as by that catholic
dome in Bloomsbury, under which our million volumes are housed. What
peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness for all, what
generous kindness for you and me, are here spread out! It seems to me
one cannot sit down in that place without a heart full of grateful
reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have
thanked heaven for this my English birthright, freely to partake of
these bountiful books, and to speak the truth I find there. Under the
dome which held Macaulay’s brain, and from which his solemn eyes looked
out on the world but a fortnight since, what a vast, brilliant, and
wonderful store of learning was ranged! what strange lore would he not
fetch for you at your bidding! A volume of law, or history, a book of
poetry familiar or forgotten (except by himself who forgot nothing),
a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand. I spoke to him once about
_Clarissa_. “Not read _Clarissa_!” he cried out. “If you have once
thoroughly entered on _Clarissa_, and are infected by it, you can’t
leave it. When I was in India, I passed one hot season at the hills,
and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of government,
and the commander-in chief, and their wives. I had _Clarissa_ with
me: and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a
passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
scoundrelly Lovelace! The governor’s wife seized the book, and the
secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
tears!” He acted the whole scene: he paced up and down the Athenæum
library: I daresay he could have spoken pages of the book--of that
book, and of what countless piles of others!
In this little paper let us keep to the text of _nil nisi bonum_. One
paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says “he had no heart.”
Why, a man’s books may not always speak the truth, but they speak
his mind in spite of himself: and it seems to me this man’s heart is
beating through every page he penned. He is always in a storm of revolt
and indignation against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic
resistance; how he backs and applauds freedom struggling for its own;
how he hates scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful; how he
recognizes genius, though selfish villains possess it! The critic who
says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had none: and two
men more generous, and more loving, and more hating, and more partial,
and more noble, do not live in our history.
The writer who said that Lord Macaulay had no heart could not know him.
Press writers should read a man well, and all over, and again; and
hesitate, at least, before they speak of those αἰδοἴα. Those
who knew Lord Macaulay knew how admirably tender, and generous,[4] and
affectionate he was. It was not his business to bring his family before
the theatre footlights, and call for bouquets from the gallery as he
wept over them.
If any young man of letters reads this little sermon--and to him,
indeed, it is addressed--I would say to him, “Bear Scott’s words in
your mind, and ‘_be good, my dear_.’” Here are two literary men gone
to their account, and, _laus Deo_, as far as we know, it is fair, and
open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or
explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable
&c. Here are two examples of men most differently gifted: each pursuing
his calling; each speaking his truth as God bade him; each honest in
his life; just and irreproachable in his dealings; dear to his friends;
honoured by his country; beloved at his fireside. It has been the
fortunate lot of both to give uncountable happiness and delight to the
world, which thanks them in return with an immense kindliness, respect,
affection. It may not be our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed
with such merit, or rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these
men are rewards paid to _our service_. We may not win the baton or
epaulettes; but God give us strength to guard the honour of the flag!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See his _Life_ in the most remarkable _Dictionary of Authors_,
published lately at Philadelphia, by Mr. Alibone.
[2] At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer,
which Mr. Filmore and General Pierce, the president and president
elect, were also kind enough to attend together. “Two Kings of
Brentford smelling at one rose,” says Irving, looking up with his
good-humoured smile.
[3] Mr. Irving described to me, with that humour and good humour which
he always kept, how, amongst other visitors, a member of the British
press who had carried his distinguished pen to America (where he
employed it in vilifying his own country) came to Sunnyside, introduced
himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in two days
described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner
of dozing afterwards, in a New York paper. On another occasion,
Irving said, laughing: “Two persons came to me, and one held me in
conversation whilst the other miscreant took my portrait!”
[4] Since the above was written, I have been informed that it has been
found, on examining Lord Macaulay’s papers, that he was in the habit of
giving away _more than a fourth part_ of his annual income.
Invasion Panics.
When, about the year 1899, Field-marshal Dowbiggin, full of years and
honours, shall edit, with copious notes, the Private Correspondence
of his kinsman, Queen Victoria’s celebrated War Minister during
England’s bloody struggle with Russia in 1854–5, the grandchildren of
the present generation may probably learn a good deal more respecting
the real causes of the failures and shortcomings of that “horrible and
heartrending” period than we, their grandfathers, are likely to know on
this side our graves.
And when some future Earl of Pembroke shall devote his splendid
leisure, under the cedar groves of Wilton, to preparing for the
information of the twentieth century the memoirs of his great
ancestor, Mr. Secretary Herbert, posterity will then run some chance
of discovering--what is kept a close secret from the public just
now--whether any domestic causes exist to justify the invasion-panic
under which the nation has recently been shivering.
The insular position of England, her lofty cliffs, her stormy seas, her
winter fogs, fortify her with everlasting fortifications, as no other
European power is fortified. She is rich, she is populous, she contains
within herself an abundance of coal, iron, timber, and almost all other
munitions of war; railways intersect and encircle her on all sides; in
patriotism, in loyalty, in manliness, in intelligence, her sons yield
to no other race of men. Blest with all these advantages, she ought,
of all the nations of Europe, to be the last to fear, the readiest to
repel invasion; yet, strange to say, of all the nations of Europe,
England appears to apprehend invasion most!
There must be some good and sufficient reason for this extraordinary
state of things. Many reasons are daily assigned for it, all differing
from each other, all in turn disputed and denied by those who know the
real reason best.
The statesman and the soldier declare that the fault lies with
parliament and the people. They complain that parliament is niggardly
in placing sufficient means at the disposal of the executive, and
that the people are distrustful and over-inquisitive as to their
application; ever too ready to attribute evil motives and incapacity
to those set in authority over them. Parliament and the people, on
the other hand, reply, that ample means are yearly allotted for the
defence of the country, and that more would readily be forthcoming,
had they reason to suppose that what has already been spent, has been
well spent; their Humes and their Brights loudly and harshly denounce
the nepotism, the incapacity, and the greed, which, according to them,
disgrace the governing classes, and waste and weaken the resources of
the land. And so the painful squabble ferments--no probable end to it
being in view. Indeed, the public are permitted to know so little of
the conduct of their most important affairs--silence is so strictly
enjoined to the men at the helm--that the most carefully prepared
indictment against an official delinquent is invariably evaded by the
introduction of some new feature into his case, hitherto unknown to any
but his brother officials, which at once casts upon the assailant the
stigma of having arraigned a public servant on incomplete information,
and puts him out of court.
But if, in this the year of our Lord 1860, we have no means of
discovering why millions of strong, brave, well-armed Englishmen should
be so moved at the prospect of a possible attack from twenty or thirty
thousand French, we have recently been placed in possession of the
means of ascertaining why, some sixty years ago, this powerful nation
was afflicted with a similar fit of timidity.
The first American war had then just ended--not gloriously for the
British arms. Lord Amherst, the commander-in-chief at home, had been
compelled by his age and infirmities to retire from office, having, it
was said, been indulgently permitted by his royal master to retain it
longer than had been good for the credit and discipline of the service.
The Duke of York, an enthusiastic and practical soldier, in the prime
of life, fresh from an active command in Flanders, had succeeded him.
In that day there were few open-mouthed and vulgar demagogues to carp
at the public expenditure and to revile the privileged classes; and the
few that there were had a very bad time of it. Public money was sown
broadcast, both at home and abroad, with a reckless hand; regulars,
militia, yeomanry, and volunteers, fearfully and wonderfully attired,
bristled in thousands wherever a landing was conceived possible; and,
best of all, that noble school of Great British seamen, which had
reared us a Nelson, had reared us many other valiant guardians of our
shores scarcely less worthy than he. But in spite of her Yorks and her
Nelsons, England felt uneasy and unsafe. Confident in her navy, she
had little confidence in her army, which at that time was entirely
and absolutely in the hands and under the management of the court;
parliament and the people being only permitted to pay for it.
Yet the royal commander-in-chief was declared by the general officers
most in favour at court to know his business well, and to be carrying
vigorously into effect the necessary reforms suggested by our American
mishaps; his personal acquaintance with the officers of the army was
said to have enabled him to form his military family of the most
capable men in the service;[5] his exalted position, and his enormous
income, were supposed to place him above the temptation of jobbing:
in short, the Duke of York was universally held up to the nation by
his military friends--and a royal commander-in-chief has many and warm
military friends--as the regenerator of the British army, which just
then happened to be sadly in need of regeneration.
A work has recently been published which tells us very plainly now
many things which it would have been treasonable even to suspect sixty
years ago. It is entitled _The Cornwallis Correspondence_, and contains
the private papers and letters of the first Marquis Cornwallis, one of
the foremost Englishmen of his time. Bred a soldier, he served with
distinction in Germany and in America. He then proceeded to India in
the double capacity of governor-general and commander-in-chief. On
his return from that service he filled for some years the post of
master-general of the Ordnance, refused a seat in the Cabinet, offered
him by Mr. Pitt; and, although again named governor-general of India,
on the breaking out of the Irish rebellion of 1798 was hurried to
Dublin as lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief. He was subsequently
employed to negotiate the peace of Amiens, and, in 1805, died at
Ghazeepore, in India, having been appointed its governor-general for
the third time.
From the correspondence of this distinguished statesman and soldier,
we may now ascertain whether, sixty years ago, the people of England
had or had not good grounds for dreading invasion by the French, and
whether the governing classes or the governed were most in fault on
that occasion for the doubtful condition of their native land.
George the Third was verging upon insanity. So detested and despised
was the Prince of Wales, his successor, that those who directed his
Majesty’s councils, as well as the people at large, clung eagerly to
the hopes of the king’s welfare; trusting that the evil days of a
regency might be postponed. And it would seem from the _Cornwallis
Correspondence_, that the English were just in their estimation of
that bad man. H. R. H. having quarrelled shamefully with his parents,
and with Pitt, had thrown himself into the hands of the Opposition,
and appears to have corresponded occasionally with Cornwallis, who
had two votes at his command in the Commons, during that nobleman’s
first Indian administration. In 1790, Lord Cornwallis, writing to his
brother, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, says: “You tell me that
I am accused of being remiss in my correspondence with a certain great
personage. Nothing can be more false, for I have answered every letter
from him by the first ship that sailed from hence after I received it.
The style of them, although personally kind to excess, has not been
very agreeable to me, as they have always pressed upon me some infamous
and unjustifiable job, which I have uniformly been obliged to refuse,
and contained much gross and false abuse of Mr. Pitt, and improper
charges against other and greater personages, about whom, to me at
least, he ought to be silent.”[6]
The intimacy which had existed from boyhood between General Richard
Grenville, military tutor to the Duke of York, and Lord Cornwallis,
and the correspondence which took place between them, to which we have
now access, afford ample means of judging of the real capacity of that
royal soldier, to whose charge the military destinies of England, both
at home and abroad, were intrusted by the king at such a critical
moment.
At seventeen years of age the duke became, _per saltum_, as the
usage is with royal personages, a colonel in the British army. After
attending for two or three years the great Prussian reviews, by way
of studying his profession, he was, on attaining his majority, raised
to the rank of general, and appointed colonel of the Coldstream
Guards. Various notices of H. R. H. are to be found in the numerous
confidential letters which passed about that time between Cornwallis
and Grenville. They were both warmly attached to him; both most anxious
for his own sake, and for that of their profession, that he should turn
out well.
They describe H. R. H. as brave, good-humoured, and weak; utterly
destitute of military talent, incapable of attending to business, much
given to drink, and more to dice, hopelessly insolvent, and steeped in
debauchery and extravagance of all kinds. In 1790, Grenville writes to
Cornwallis in India: “The conduct of a certain great personage, who has
so cruelly disappointed both you and myself, still continues to give me
great uneasiness; more especially as I see no hopes of amendment.” The
duke was at that date twenty-seven years of age.
In 1791, the Duke of York married, and but two years afterwards
Lord Cornwallis, on his return from India, actually found his
friend Grenville’s unpromising pupil in Flanders, at the head of a
considerable English force, acting in conjunction with the Austrians,
Russians, and Dutch, against the French. His utter want of military
talent, his inexperience, his idleness, and his vices had not prevented
his being intrusted by his royal parent with the lives of a large body
of brave men, and with the honour of England. Great difficulties soon
arose in this allied army, its chiefs mutually accusing each other,
possibly not without good reason, of incapacity. At last, a person,
whose name is not even now divulged, but who possessed the entire
confidence of both Pitt and Cornwallis, wrote as follows, from the
British head-quarters at Arnheim, on the 11th Nov. 1794:--
“We are really come to such a critical situation, that unless some
decided, determined, and immediate steps are taken, God knows what may
happen. Despised by our enemies, without discipline, confidence, or
exertion among ourselves, hated and more dreaded than the enemy, even
by the well-disposed inhabitants of the country, every disgrace and
misfortune is to be expected. You must thoroughly feel how painful
it must be to acknowledge this even to your lordship, but no honest
man who has any regard for his country can avoid seeing it. Whatever
measures are adopted at home, either removing us from the continent
or remaining, something must be done to restore discipline, and the
confidence that always attends it. The sortie from Nimeguen, on the
4th, was made entirely by the British, and executed with their usual
spirit; they ran into the French without firing a single shot, and,
consequently, lost very few men,--their loss was when they afterwards
were ordered to retire. Yet from what I have mentioned in the first
part of my letter, I assure you I dread the thought of these troops
being attacked or harassed in retreat.”[7]
Upon the receipt of this grave intelligence, Mr. Pitt at once
communicated to the king the absolute necessity of the duke’s
immediate recall. His Majesty had no choice but to consent, which he
reluctantly did; and H. R. H. returned home, was immediately created a
field-marshal, and placed in command of all the forces of the United
Kingdom!
Lord Cornwallis’s bitter remark upon this astounding appointment
is--“Whether we shall get any good by this, God only knows; but I think
things cannot change for the worse at the Horse Guards. If the French
land, and that they will land I am certain, I should not like to trust
the new field-marshal with the defence of Culford.”[8]
Having thus practically ascertained, at an enormous cost of blood and
treasure, that the best-tempered and bravest general cannot command
with success a British army in the field, if he happens, as was the
case with the Duke of York, to be a weak man of high social position,
destitute of military talent and habits of business, and much addicted
to pleasure, an examination of Lord Cornwallis’s correspondence during
the next few years will show how it fared with the British army when it
was directed by such an officer at home.
In expressing his conviction that the French were determined to invade
us, Lord Cornwallis proved a true prophet. Late in 1796, a fleet,
commanded by Admiral De Galle, sailed from Brest for Ireland, carrying
General Hoche and 15,000 men. Furious December gales dispersed the
French ships,--only a portion of the expedition reached Bantry Bay;
the vessel in which De Galle and Hoche were, was missing. Admiral
Boivet, the second in command, hesitated to disembark the troops
without the orders of his superiors. The United Irishmen, who had
promised instant co-operation, made no sign; the weather rendered
even Bantry Bay insecure; and, finally, such of the ships as escaped
wreck or capture, straggled back to France, where Hoche and De Galle,
after cruising about for many days in fog and storm on the banks of
Newfoundland, had had the good luck to arrive before them. On that
occasion, our natural defences may indeed be said to have stood us in
good stead. But it was not consolatory to those who feared invasion to
reflect that such a large force should have succeeded in reaching our
shores unperceived and unmolested by the British cruisers; and that,
had the weather been tolerable, 15,000 French bayonets would have
landed without opposition on Irish ground.
The next year passed over in constant alarms; our information
respecting the local preparations of the French being unfortunately
very vague. The military defence of England appears to have been at
that time mainly intrusted to Sir David Dundas, an unlucky pedant
of the German school of tactics, of whom the king and court had the
highest opinion, so tightly had he dressed and so accurately had he
drilled the Guards. Lord Cornwallis, writing early in 1798 to the Hon.
Col. Wesley,[9] says:--“We are brought to the state to which I have
long since looked forward, deserted by all our allies, and in daily
expectation of invasion, for which the French are making the most
serious preparations. I have no doubt of the courage and fidelity of
our militia; but the system of David Dundas, and the total want of
light infantry, sit heavy on my mind, and point out the advantages
which the activity of the French will have in a country which is for
the most part enclosed.”
At this juncture, the rebellion of 1798 broke out in Ireland, and at
the urgent request of Ministers, who appear to have considered Lord
Cornwallis the man for every difficulty, his lordship consented to
undertake the joint duties of lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief
in that unhappy country, then as disturbed and disloyal as conflicting
races and religions, and the most savage misgovernment, could make it.
His lordship’s letters to the Duke of Portland and others, from
Dublin, evince far more apprehension at the violence, cruelty, and
insubordination of the army under his command, than at the rebels who
were up in arms against him. His words are:--“The violence of our
friends, and their folly in endeavouring to make this a religious
war, added to the ferocity of our troops, who delight in murder,
most powerfully counteract all plans of conciliation.” Nevertheless
his judgment, firmness, and temper soon prevailed; by midsummer
the insurrection was suppressed with far less bloodshed than was
pleasing to the supporters of the government; and Lord Cornwallis was
endeavouring to concentrate his attention on the reorganization of
the military mob, which then, under the name of soldiers, garrisoned
Ireland against foreign and domestic foes, when the invader actually
arrived.[10]
On the 22nd of August, three frigates under English colours anchored in
Killala Bay, co. Mayo, carrying a force of about 1,100 French troops,
commanded by General Humbert. They were the vanguard of a larger force
under General Hardy, which was to have sailed at the same time, but
which had been detained by unforeseen difficulties at Brest.
There being no sufficient force to oppose them, the French easily
took possession of Killala, and established their head-quarters in
the palace of the bishop, Dr. Stock, who has left a most interesting
journal of what occurred whilst the French occupied the town.
Humbert had brought with him a large supply of arms, ammunition, and
uniforms, to be distributed amongst the United Irishmen, who he had
been led to suppose would instantly rally round his standard. But he
soon discovered that he had been deceived, that he had landed in the
wrong place, and that he had arrived too late. The peasantry of Mayo, a
simple and uncivilized race, ignorant of the use of fire-arms, crowded
round the invaders as long as they had anything to give, and as long as
there was no enemy to fight; but, at the first shot, they invariably
ran away. Besides, the neck of the rebellion had been already
dislocated by the judicious vigour of Cornwallis. Had the landing
been effected earlier, and farther north, the result might have been
different; as it was, the French general found that he had a losing
game to play--and most manfully and creditably did he play it.
Professing to wage no war against the Irish, he assured the bishop that
neither pillage nor violence should be permitted, and that his troops
should only take what was absolutely necessary for their subsistence;
and on these points, the bishop tells us, the Frenchman “religiously
kept his word;” not only controlling his own soldiers, but actually
protecting the bishop and his little Protestant flock from the rapacity
of the Irish rebels who for a time joined the invaders.
The bishop’s account of the French soldiery is notable; they appear to
have been an under-sized and mean-looking set of men, whom Sir David
Dundas would have held in no account on parade; yet they did the work
they had to do, hopeless and fatal as it was, as well as the Duke of
York’s own gigantic regiment of guards could have done it.
“The French,” says the bishop, “are a nation apt enough to consider
themselves as superior to any people in the world; but here, indeed,
it would have been ridiculous not to prefer the Gallic troops in
every respect before their Irish allies. Intelligence, activity,
temperance, patience to a surprising degree, appeared to be combined in
the soldiery that came over with Humbert, together with the exactest
obedience to discipline. Yet, if you except their grenadiers, they had
nothing to catch the eye: their stature for the most part was low,
their complexions pale and sallow, their clothes much the worse for
wear; to a superficial observer they would have appeared incapable of
enduring almost any hardship. These were the men, however, of whom it
was presently observed that they could be well content to live on bread
and potatoes, to drink water, to make the stones of the street their
bed, and to sleep in their clothes, with no covering but the canopy of
heaven. One half of their number had served in Italy under Buonaparte,
the rest were from the army of the Rhine, where they had suffered
distresses that well accounted for thin persons and wan looks.”
Humbert himself, who had accompanied the Bantry Bay expedition in 1796,
had risen from the ranks, and had brought himself into notice by his
brilliant conduct in La Vendée.
The day after landing, the French advanced towards Ballina, leaving
at Killala six officers and two hundred men to guard a quantity of
ammunition which they had no means of carrying with them. The English
garrison of Ballina fled on their approach, and Humbert, stationing
there one hundred more of his men, pushed on to Castlebar, where
General Lake was prepared to meet him. The latter had previously
ascertained, by means of a flag of truce, the exact number of the
French, and had sent a message privily to the bishop, telling him to
be of good cheer, inasmuch as the great superiority of his own numbers
would speedily enable him to give a good account of the invading force.
What did occur when the French and English met is, perhaps, best told
in the words of General Hutchinson, Lake’s second in command during the
affair. Contemporary authorities, however, prove that Hutchinson has
very much understated the numbers of the English force:--
“On Monday morning, 27th August, about an hour before sunrise, a
report was received from the outposts, distant about six miles, that
the enemy was advancing. The troops were immediately assembled, having
the night before received orders to be under arms two hours before
day-break. The troops and cannon were then posted on a position
previously taken, where they remained until seven o’clock. They were
1,600 or 1,700 cavalry and infantry, ten pieces of cannon and a
howitzer. The ground was very strong by nature; the French were about
700, having left 100 at Ballina and 200 at Killala. They did not land
above 1,000 rank and file. They had with them about 500 rebels, a great
proportion of whom fled after the first discharge of cannon. The French
had only two 4-pounders and from thirty to forty mounted men.
“Nothing could exceed the misconduct of the troops, with the exception
of the artillery, which was admirably served, and of Lord Roden’s
Fencibles, who appeared at all times ready to do their duty. There
is too much reason to imagine that two of the regiments had been
previously tampered with; the hope of which disaffection induced
the French to make the attack, which was certainly one of the most
hazardous and desperate ever thought of against a very superior body of
troops, as their retreat both on Killala and Ballina was cut off by Sir
Thomas Chapman and General Taylor.
“When the troops fell into confusion without the possibility of
rallying them, there was scarcely any danger; very few men had at that
time fallen on our part: the French, on the contrary, had suffered
considerably. They lost six officers and from 70 to 80 men, which was
great, considering how short a time the action lasted and the smallness
of their numbers. I am convinced that had our troops continued firm
for ten minutes longer, the affair must have been over to our entire
advantage, but they fired volleys without any orders at a few men
before they were within musket-shot. It was impossible to stop them,
and they abandoned their ground immediately afterwards.”
Although the French did not attempt to pursue, the defeated army of
Lake never halted till they reached Tuam, nearly forty English miles
from the field of battle. On the evening of the same day they renewed
their flight, and retired still farther towards Athlone, where an
officer of Carabineers, with sixty of his men, arrived at one o’clock
on Tuesday, the 29th August, having achieved a retreat of above seventy
English miles in twenty-seven hours! All Lake’s artillery fell into the
hands of the French. As soon as Lord Cornwallis heard of the invasion,
conscious of the uncertain temper of the troops upon whom he had to
rely, he determined to march in person to the west, collecting, as he
came, such a force as must at once overwhelm the enemy.
Meantime the victorious French were met on the 5th of September at
Colooney by Colonel Vereker, of the Limerick Regiment, an energetic
officer, who had hastened from Sligo to attack them with 200 infantry,
30 dragoons, and two guns. After a gallant struggle he was compelled
to retire with the loss of his guns, and the French advanced into
Leitrim, hoping to find elsewhere stouter and more helpful allies than
they had hitherto found amongst the half-starved cottiers of Mayo.
Crawford, afterwards the celebrated leader of the light division in
Spain, rashly attacked them on the 7th of September with an inferior
force near Ballynamore, and was very roughly handled by them; but
on the 8th, Humbert, closely followed by Lake and Crawford, found
himself confronted at Ballynamuck by Cornwallis and the main army.
In this desperate situation, surrounded by upwards of 25,000 men,
Humbert coolly drew up his little force, with no other object, it
must be presumed, than to maintain the honour of the French flag. His
rearguard, again attacked by Crawford, surrendered, but the remainder
of the French continued to defend themselves for about half-an-hour
longer, and contrived to take prisoner Lord Roden and some of his
dragoons. They then, on the appearance of the main body of General
Lake’s army, laid down their arms--746 privates and 96 officers; having
lost about 200 men since their landing at Killala, on the 22nd of
August.
The loss of the British at the battle of Ballynamuck was officially
stated at three killed, and thirteen wounded. Their losses at Castlebar
and elsewhere were never communicated to the public.
Plowden, who gives a detailed account of Humbert’s invasion in his
_Historical Review of the State of Ireland_, published but five
years after the event, observes:--“It must ever remain a humiliating
reflection upon the power and lustre of the British arms that so
pitiful a detachment as that of 1,100 French infantry should, in a
kingdom in which there was an armed force of above 150,000 men, have
not only put to rout a select army of 6,000 men prepared to receive the
invaders, but also provided themselves with ordnance and ammunition
from our stores, taken several of our towns, marched 122 Irish (above
150 English) miles through the country, and kept arms in their
victorious hands for seventeen days in the heart of an armed kingdom.
But it was this English army which the gallant and uncompromising
Abercromby had, on the 26th of the preceding February, found ‘in such a
state of licentiousness as must render it formidable to every one but
the enemy.’”
Although the private letters of Lord Cornwallis, General Lake and
Captain Herbert Taylor, which are now submitted to us, breathe nothing
but indignation and disgust at the misconduct, insubordination, and
cruelty of their panic-stricken troops, the public despatches, as the
custom is, contain unalloyed praise.
A lengthy despatch penned by General Lake, on the evening of the
surrender of Humbert’s little band, is worded almost as emphatically
as Wellington’s despatch after Waterloo; about thirty officers are
especially mentioned in it by name, and the conduct of the cavalry is
sub-sarcastically described as having been “highly conspicuous.” Lord
Cornwallis’s general order, too, dated on the following day, declares
“that he cannot too much applaud the zeal and spirit which has been
manifested by the army from the commencement of the operations against
the invading enemy until the surrender of the French forces.” Such is
too often the real value of official praise.
Notwithstanding this public testimony to the worth of the large army
which surrounded and captured the handful of French invaders of 1798,
the information which we now glean from _The Cornwallis Correspondence_
serves but little to establish the Duke of York’s character as a
successful military administrator, if a commander-in-chief is to be
judged of by the effective state of the officers and troops under his
direction.
Tired of the parade-ground and the desk, or, possibly, feeling that
he did not shine at them, H. R. H. again tried his hand at active
campaigning in 1799, and again failed. On the 9th of September of that
year he once more sailed for Holland, and was actually permitted to
assume the direction of the most considerable expedition that ever left
the British shores. In conjunction with Russia, its object was to expel
the French from Holland. After several bloody battles, fought with
doubtful success, the duke found himself, in less than five weeks, so
situated as to render it advisable for him to treat with the enemy. He
proposed that the French should allow the allied army under his command
to re-embark, threatening to destroy the dykes and ruin the surrounding
country if his proposal was not entertained. After some discussion
the French agreed to the re-embarkation of the allies, provided they
departed before the 1st of November, left behind them all the artillery
they had taken, and restored 8,000 French and Batavian prisoners who
had been captured on former occasions. On these terms “a British king’s
son, commanding 41,000 men, capitulated to a French general who had
only 30,000,”[11] and the duke, fortunately for England, sheathed his
sword, to draw it no more on the field of battle.
Lord Cornwallis writes on the 24th October: “By private letters which
I have seen from Holland, our troops in general seem to have been
in the greatest confusion, and on many occasions to have behaved
exceedingly ill. There may be some exception in the corps belonging
to Abercromby’s division. Considering the hasty manner in which they
were thrown together, and the officers by whom they were commanded, I
am not surprised at this. Would to God they were all on board! I dread
the retreat and embarkation. David Dundas will never be like Cæsar,
the favourite of fortune; hitherto, at least, that fickle goddess has
set her face very steadily against him.” “I see no prospect of any
essential improvement in our military system, for I am afraid that a
buttoned coat, a heavy hat and feather, and a cursed sash tied round
our waist will not lead the way to victory.”
The abortive expeditions against Ostend and Ferrol, which had
terminated in the capture and disgrace of the troops employed in them,
appear to have induced Lord Cornwallis to draw up a memorandum on the
subject, and to submit it to the duke. The following is an extract from
it:--
“I admit that while we are at war, and have the means of acting, we
should not remain entirely on the defensive, but at the same time I
would not go lightly in quest of adventures, with regiments raised
with extreme difficulty, without means of recruiting, and commanded
principally by officers without experience or knowledge of their
profession. The expense, likewise, of expeditions is enormous, and the
disgrace attending upon ill success is not likely to promote that most
desirable object--a good peace.”
After the re-embarkation of the Ferrol expedition, he writes: “The
prospect of public affairs is most gloomy. What a disgraceful and what
an expensive campaign have we made! Twenty-two thousand men, a large
proportion not soldiers, floating round the greater part of Europe the
scorn and laughing-stock of friends and foes.”
In the spring of 1801, Lord Cornwallis, replaced in Ireland by Lord
Hardwicke and Sir W. Medows, assumed the command of the eastern
district in England--invasion appearing imminent. His letters to his
friend Ross at this period are most desponding. Our best troops were
abroad upon expeditions. One barren success in Egypt, with which
ministers attempted to gild half-a-dozen failures, had cost us the
gallant Abercromby. The defence of the country was intrusted to the
militia. The Duke of York had actually proposed to introduce a Russian
force to coerce and civilize Ireland, and would have done so had not
the better sense and feeling of Cornwallis prevailed. “My disgrace
must be certain,” writes he to Ross, “should the enemy land. What
could I hope, with eight weak regiments of militia, making about 2,800
firelocks, and two regiments of dragoons?”... “In our wooden walls
alone must we place our trust; we should make a sad business of it on
shore.”... “If it is really intended that ---- should defend Kent and
Sussex, it is of very little consequence what army you place under
his command.”... “God send that we may have no occasion to decide
the matter on shore, where I have too much reason to apprehend that
the contest must terminate in the disgrace of the general and the
destruction of the country.”... “I confess that I see no prospect of
peace, or of anything good. We shall prepare for the land defence of
England by much wild and capricious expenditure of money, and if the
enemy should ever elude the vigilance of our wooden walls, we shall
after all make a bad figure.”[12]
Bad as matters had been at the time of Humbert’s invasion, it is clear
that Lord Cornwallis believed our military affairs to be in a much
worse condition in 1801.
In Ireland, in 1798, he had under him a few officers on whom he could
depend, and although his army, thanks to Lord Amherst and the Duke of
York, was in a deplorable state of discipline, he, a good and practised
general, was at its head, to make the best of it.
The Duke of Wellington has since taught us, on more than one occasion,
that there are some extraordinary workmen who can do good work with
any tools, and who can even make their own tools as they require
them.--But in England, in 1801, the military workmen in court employ
were all so execrably bad, that it mattered little what was the quality
of the tools supplied to them. The Duke of York, David Dundas, and
Lord Chatham had everything their own way: the most important posts,
the most costly expeditions, were intrusted, not to the officers most
formidable to the enemy, but to the friends and _protégés_ of the
military courtiers who stood best at Windsor and St. James’s. It is no
small proof of Cornwallis’s tact in judging of men, that whilst we find
him deprecating the employment in independent commands of such generals
as the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland, Dundas, Burrard (of Cintra),
Coote (of Ostend), Pulteney (of Ferrol), Whitelock (of Buenos Ayres),
and Lord Chatham (of Walcheren), he had always a word of approval for
Lake and Abercromby, and in an introductory letter to Sir John Shore,
speaks of the lieutenant-colonel of his own regiment, the Hon. Arthur
Wesley, as a “sensible man and a good officer.”
Throughout the whole of _The Cornwallis Correspondence_, there is no
single hint of stinted means for the defence of the country, there is
no single doubt cast upon the personal bravery of our officers and our
men; but there are many out-spoken complaints of utter incompetence and
reckless extravagance on the part of those who had the chief conduct
of our military affairs. From 1795 to 1805--that time of fear--we have
now incontrovertible testimony that both England and Ireland were in
an indefensible condition, had an invader landed with a very moderate
body of such soldiers as Humbert led; and that that condition was owing
in no degree to any want of manliness or liberality on the part of the
British nation, but solely and entirely to the want of capacity of
the men whom it pleased the court, in spite of repeated disgrace and
defeat, perversely to maintain in the management and command of the
army.[13]
Mr. Pitt survived Lord Cornwallis but a few months, dying early in
1806, and Lord Grenville, when invited by George III. to succeed
him, positively declined to do so, unless the army was placed under
ministerial control. To this innovation the poor crazy king demurred.
It had been an amusement and an occupation to him in his lucid
intervals, “to transact military business with Frederick,” with what
deplorable results to the resources and credit of the nation we now
know.[14] His Majesty objected, that ever since the time of the first
Duke of Cumberland, the army had been considered as under the exclusive
control of the sovereign, without any right of interference on the
part of his ministers, save in matters relating to levying, clothing,
feeding, and paying it; and he expressed a strong disinclination to
make any concession which should fetter himself, and the Duke of York,
in doing as they pleased with their own.
Lord Grenville, however, remained firm; for, in the opinion of himself
and his friends, the safety of the kingdom required that he should be
so, and, ultimately, the king gave way, on condition that no changes
should be carried into effect at the Horse Guards without his knowledge
and approval.
But other and more complaisant advisers soon replaced Lord Grenville,
and circumstances, entirely corroborative of the estimate which
Grenville and Cornwallis had formed of his character, rendered it
advisable that the Duke of York should retire from public life.[15] Sir
David Dundas, notoriously one of the most incapable and unfit general
officers in the service, was selected by the court as H. R. H.’s
successor; and, about two years afterwards, George III. finally
disappeared from the scene, and the Regency commenced.[16] Then the
duke, in spite of all that had transpired, was instantly recalled by
his royal brother to Whitehall, where he remained until his death.
The Regent was not the man to waive one iota of what he held to be
his prerogative. During his reign, the right of the Crown to the
irresponsible direction of the British army was fully asserted; and, in
spite of five years of almost unvaried success in the Peninsula, and of
the crowning glory of Waterloo, a fantastically dressed, luxurious, and
unpopular body it became under the royal auspices. To the present day,
regimental officers, fond of their glass, bless his Majesty for what
is called “the Prince Regent’s allowance,” a boon which daily ensures
to them a cheap after-dinner bottle of wine, at a cost to their more
abstemious brother officers, and to taxpayers in general, of 27,000_l._
a year.
Happily for the present generation, matters have changed since those
corrupt times, in many--many respects for the better. The British army
is no longer looked upon by the people as a costly and not very useful
toy, chiefly maintained for the diversion of royalty; we now recognize
and respect in it an important national engine, for the proper
condition and conduct of which--as for that of the navy--a Secretary
of State is directly responsible to Parliament. But a change of such
magnitude has not been carried out without much peevish remonstrance
and factious opposition on the part of the many whose patronage it has
diminished, and whose power it has curtailed; and there are still not a
few who offer what opposition they dare to its harmonious consummation.
It is to be feared that a slight leaven of the same spirit which, sixty
years ago, wasted the resources and paralyzed the energies of this
powerful nation, may, perchance, still linger around the precincts of
Whitehall and St. James’s,--and it is not impossible that when the
SMITH AND ELDER of the twentieth century present to the public their
first editions of the _Panmure Papers_ and the _Herbert Memoirs_,
facts, bearing on the disasters of the Crimean war, and on the invasion
panic of 1859–60, may for the first time be made known--not entirely
different from those with which we have recently become acquainted
through _The Cornwallis Correspondence_.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] “The duke has very unwisely taken over three or four boys of the
Guards as his aides-de-camp: which will be of great disservice to him,
and can be of no use to them.”--_Lord Cornwallis to Lt.-Col. Ross,
1784._
[6] Three or four of the Prince of Wales’s letters are given at length.
They all prove “the first gentleman and scholar of his day” to have
been a very illiterate and unscrupulous jobber. In one of them he
proposed to the Governor-General to displace “a black, named Alii
Cann,” who was chief criminal judge of Benares, in order that a youth,
named Pellegrine Treves, the son of a notorious London money-lender,
might be appointed to that office.
Lord Cornwallis replied, that Ali Ibrahim Khan, though a native, was
one of the most able and respected public servants in India, and
that it would be a most difficult and unpopular step to remove him;
and that even if his post were vacant, the youth and inexperience of
the money-lender’s son rendered him utterly ineligible for such an
important trust. One of the causes of complaint which H. R. H. urged
against his royal parent was, that he, also, was not intrusted with
high military command.
[7] The sufferings of the British soldiers in Holland, in 1794–5,
from the incompetence and negligence of their superior officers, and
the waste of public money from the same causes, have scarcely been
exceeded during the Crimean war. In Lord Malmesbury’s Diary we find the
following entry on the 7th Dec. 1793: “Lord Herbert came to see me.
Complained much of the insubordination of the army; that it was greater
than could be believed, and that the Guards were so beyond measure.
Condemned the conduct of Gage, who had resigned on being refused leave
of absence.” On the 16th of Feb. 1794, the Duke of Portland writes to
Lord Malmesbury: “The Duke of York will return to the army the latter
end of next week. But I cannot help saying that unless the licentious,
not to say mutinous, spirit which prevails among our troops, and which
originated in, I am sorry to say, and is cultivated by the Guards, is
not subdued and extinguished, there is an end of the army.”
[8] His lordship’s country seat.
[9] The Duke.
[10] The following letter, addressed by a subaltern to his commanding
officer, is given by the editor of the _Cornwallis Papers_, as a
specimen of the habits, education and discipline of the British army
about the year 1800:--
“_To Lieut.-Col. ----, -- Foot._
“SIR,--I _believe_ (I am a member of the ---- mess), if so, I
will take the liberty to submit the following argument, viz.,
every gentleman under the immediate propensity of liquor has
different propensities; to prove which, I have only to mention
the present instance with respect to myself and Lieut. ----. _My_
propensity is noise and riot--_his_ sleep.
“I ever conceived that in a public mess-room, three things were
certain: first, that it was open to every officer who chose to
pay the subscription; second, that he might indulge himself with
liquor as much as he pleased; and third, that if a gentleman and
a member of the mess chose to get intoxicated in the mess-room,
that no other officer (however high his rank in the regiment)
had a right, or dare order to restrain (not being president) his
_momentary propensity_ in the mess-room.
“As such, and this being the case, I must inform you that you
have acted in a most unprecedented and unknown (not to say
ungentlemanlike) way, in presuming to enter the mess-room as a
commanding officer, and to bring a sentry at your back (which you
asserted you had) to turn out the amusement (a hand organ) of
the company (a stranger being present), and thereby prevent the
harmony which it is supposed ought to exist in a mess-room.
“I appeal to you as a gentleman, and if you will answer this
letter _as such_, you at all times know how to direct to
“---- ----,
“_Lieut. ----, -- Foot_.”
[11] Mr. Tierney’s speech in the House of Commons.
[12] Lieut.-Col. Gordon (Sir Willoughby), Military Secretary to the
Duke of York, speaks of Lord Cornwallis as “an officer whose estimation
in the army could not be exceeded.”--_Lieut.-Col. Gordon to Sir A.
Wellesley, 1807._
[13] “The staff in Kent seems to be calculated solely for the purpose
of placing the defence of the country in the hands of Sir D. Dundas.
However he may succeed with other people, I think he cannot persuade
Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville that he is a clever fellow; and surely they
must have too much sense to believe that it is possible that a man
without talents, and who can neither write nor talk intelligibly, can
be a good general.”--_Lord C. to Lt.-Gen. Ross._
[14] “April 12, 1800. The king much improved. Saw the Duke of York for
two hours yesterday, on military matters.
“April 13. The king not so well. Over-excited himself
yesterday.”--_Diary of the Right Hon. Sir George Rose._
[15] “The Duke of York is certainly in a bad way. All that we can do
will be to acquit him of corruption; and indeed I doubt whether we
shall be able to carry him so far as to acquit him of suspecting Mrs.
Clarke’s practices and allowing them to go on. If we should succeed in
both these objects, the question will then turn upon the point whether
it is proper that a prince of the blood, who has manifested so much
weakness as he has, and has led such a life (for that is material in
these days), is a proper person to be intrusted with the duties of a
responsible office.
“We shall be beat upon this question, I think. If we should carry it
by a small majority, the duke will equally be obliged to resign his
office, and most probably the consequence of such a victory must be
that the government will be broken up.”--_Sir A. Wellesley to the Duke
of Richmond, 1809._
[16] “General Dundas is, I understand, appointed commander-in-chief, _I
should imagine much against the inclination of the king’s ministers_;
but I understand that it is expected that the Duke of York will be able
to resume his situation by the time Sir David is quite superannuated,
and it might not be so easy to get a younger or a better man out of
office at so early a period.”--_Sir A. W. to the Duke of R., 1809._
To Goldenhair.
(FROM HORACE.)
Ah, Pyrrha--tell me, whose the happy lot
To woo thee on a couch of lavish roses--
Who, bathed in odorous dews, in his fond arms encloses
Thee, in some happy grot?
For whom those nets of golden-gloried hair
Dost thou entwine in cunning carelessnesses?
Alas, poor boy! Who thee, in fond belief, caresses
Deeming thee wholly fair!
How oft shall he thy fickleness bemoan,
When fair to foul shall change--and he, unskilful
In pilotage, beholds--with tempests wildly wilful--
The happy calm o’erthrown!
He, who now hopes that thou wilt ever prove
All void of care, and full of fond endearing,
Knows not that varies more, than Zephyrs ever-veering,
The fickle breath of Love.
Ah, hapless he, to whom, like seas untried,
Thou seemest fair! That _my_ sea-going’s ended
My votive tablet proves, to those dark Gods suspended,
Who o’er the waves preside.
THOMAS HOOD.
Framley Parsonage.