Читать книгу The History of King George the Third - Horace Walpole - Страница 14

Table of Contents

Conquest of Martinico.—War in Portugal.—Lord Tyrawley.—Count la Lippe.—The Cock-Lane Ghost.—Pacific disposition of the new Czar.—His Popular Measures.—Count Schouvalow.—Meditated War with Denmark by the Czar and the King of Prussia.—Insurrections in Ireland, quelled by the Earl of Hertford.—Lord Bute’s Ambition.—The Duke of Newcastle.—His friends.—The Portuguese War, and the War in Germany.—The Duke of Bedford.—Fox’s Observation to Walpole.—Lords Mansfield, Hardwicke, and Lincoln.—Newcastle’s tenacity of Power.—Creation of seven new Peers.—Private negotiation with the Court of Vienna.—The new Peers.—Buckingham House purchased by the Queen.—Seclusion of the King and Queen.—the King’s younger Brothers.

On the 22nd of March arrived news of the conquest of Martinico by General Monckton183 and Admiral Rodney:184 a plan ascribed by the people to Mr. Pitt, though executed under the auspices of the Favourite. In truth, the valour of the nation had taken such a bent, that Lord Bute could not check it: nothing but a peace could chain it up. If the Earl did favour any part of the war, it was that in Portugal. Colonel Burgoyne185 was ordered thither with five thousand foot and six hundred horse; and there was a plan for regimenting twenty-five thousand papists in Ireland for the same service; but the Irish Government did not approve of giving discipline and arms to such dangerous inmates. For General-in-Chief, it was proposed to send to Lisbon the Prince of Bevern. He had been suspected of infidelity by the King of Prussia,186—had been disgraced, and his intellects were not reckoned sound. Lord Tyrawley sent home his aides-de-camp, affecting to wonder that we expected any invasion of Portugal. This was imputed to his disgust at not obtaining the command himself; he who was a brave and old general, and who was perfectly acquainted with the country.187 The Prince of Bevern declined the offer; and Count la Lippe accepted it. He was born in England, had distinguished himself in every hussar-kind of service, and in his dress and manners copied Charles XII. of Sweden, though with more politeness. He found the Portuguese troops in the most deplorable state of cowardice and want of discipline. The English could not, and did not disguise their contempt of them. The Spanish army might have marched to Lisbon, had they met with no obstruction but from the natives. The English troops saved that country; and Count La Lippe, before he left Portugal, formed a regular army there.188

The facility which the Favourite found of mastering so great and victorious a kingdom, and of removing the man who had carried the glory of his country so high, was not the only evidence, that however enlightened an age may be, knavery and folly need never despair. The tares they sow will shoot amidst any harvest. Will it be credited that, while the Romish superstition was crumbling away even in Spain and Portugal, a set of enthusiastic rogues dared to exhibit in the very heart of London, a pantomime of imposture, which would hardly have been swallowed in a paltry village of Castile? The methodists had endeavoured to establish in Warwickshire, not only the belief, but the actual existence of ghosts. Being detected, they struck a bold stroke, and attempted to erect their system in the metropolis itself. A methodist family, at first out of revenge, endeavoured to fasten on one Parsons the imputation of having debauched and murdered his wife’s sister. A young girl was reported to be visited by the deceased, whom she called Fanny, and with whom she established a correspondence of question and answer—not by words, but by scratching. A certain number of scratches signified “yes;” another number, “no.” At first this farce, which was acted in Cock-lane, in the city, was confined to the mob of the neighbourhood. As the rumour spread, persons of all ranks thronged to the house. Two methodist clergymen constantly attended the child, who lay in bed in a wretched chamber, with only a dim rushlight at one end. These worthy divines affected to cast an air of most serious import on the whole transaction, and by their interposition prompted Fanny and the girl on any dilemma. A servant wench commented and explained Fanny’s oracle. The father would accept no money from the various visitants, for which he was promised an adequate recompense by the chiefs of the sect. When the story had gained a requisite footing, Fanny had the indiscreet confidence to declare that her body was not in the vault where it had been interred. Samuel Johnson, author of the Dictionary, was in the number of the deluded, and with some others as wise as himself, visited the vault, where, to the disappointment of their credulity, they found the body.189 Had the precaution been taken of conveying it away, the fury of the people might have been actuated to strange lengths; for so much credit had the story gained, that Parsons, the accused, fearing a prosecution, began first. A regular trial190 instantly unravelled the cheat: the girl was detected of performing the scratchings herself, and one of the clergymen proved to be her abettor. Lord Chief Justice Mansfield tried the cause: the divine had the impudence to present a letter to him on the bench from the Archbishop of Canterbury,191 interceding on his behalf, for Secker had a fellow feeling for hypocritical enthusiasm. The Chief Justice put the letter into his pocket unopened, saying it was impossible it could relate to the cause in question. Yet the punishment of these impostors was very moderate: whereas the same judge inflicted most severe penalties on one Anett, who published weekly papers against the book of Genesis. The methodists did not take shame. They turned informers against profaners of the Sabbath, tried to establish great rigour on Good Friday and the fast-days, and to revive the superstition of holidays, when even the late Pope himself, Benedict XIV.,192 had struck several out of the calendar. But the ritual of the Church of Rome was too rich in materials not to be copied by new zealots. They introduced into their service hymns sung in parts by children, as very captivating to the multitude; and the Countess of Huntingdon,193 the patroness of the rising Church, erected a chapel at Bath, and at other places of drinking waters, the sick and diseased being an obvious prey to Reformers. Hogarth exerted his last stroke of genius on the occasion above mentioned: the print he published on the Cock-lane Ghost had a mixture of humorous and sublime satire, that not only surpassed all his other performances, but which would alone immortalize his unequalled talents.

The expectations conceived of the new Czar were now verified. He declared to the Empress Queen, to France, and to Sweden, that he was ready to abandon his conquests for peace, and hoped they were in the same disposition—not at the same price. France, indeed, had many losses to regain, few acquisitions to restore—but her hopes were placed on Spain. Sweden had made no conquests, and must obey the dictates of so powerful a mediator; but the Empress Queen was far from being equally tractable. Peter, however, having sacrificed the first moments to decency, gave the next to the gratification of his will; and without stipulating for his allies, whose politics and procrastination were incompatible with his ardour, he not only made peace with his favourite monarch,194 but promised the same troops, which under the late Czarina had almost crushed him. Nor was this a bare promise, but faithfully executed. Such admiration of a hero was not likely to content itself with merely becoming his ally. Few men idolize heroism but they who feel the passion in their own breasts. Having obliged Sweden to make peace too, the young Czar turned his eye towards military exploits in a new field, and determined to attempt the conquest of the duchy of Sleswick from Denmark. Yet if he was dazzled by the martial talents of the King of Prussia, Peter had a heart susceptible of the most extensive humanity. One of his first acts on his accession was to bestow liberty on the Russian nobility. For the poor he lessened the tax on salt, and for the relief of all, abolished the Inquisition of the State. All the exiles were recalled, or received great mitigation of their punishments. There was one man to whom the Czar, though not so bountiful as he ought to have been, was very kind. This was Count Schouvalow, the favourite and supposed husband of the late Czarina. A man, who in twelve years of absolute power had never made an enemy; and who, had he ambitioned a crown as much as he deserved one, might have reigned. This upright man told the Czar that he had in his possession a very large sum of money, which he believed the Empress, his late mistress, had intended he should take for his own use, but not having been a specific gift, he thought it his duty to surrender it to his Majesty. The Emperor said he was in great want of money, took it, but ordered him to choose two thousand pounds a year in land wherever he pleased. I knew this amiable person afterwards, wandering about Europe,195 possessed of nothing beyond that revenue, and sighing after a country to which it had been imprudent to return.

The Czar and the King of Prussia wished to engage us in the war with Denmark; but though the Council was divided on the measure, Denmark was too intimately connected with us, and as a maritime power, was too near a neighbour to Scotland. In this exigence the King of Denmark marched with a considerable force to Hamburgh, and obliged that opulent city to furnish him with a million of rix-dollars.

In Ireland seemed approaching a scene of a new kind. The jealousy of commerce had ever swayed England to keep that kingdom in a state of humiliation and restraint; consequently of poverty. The lowest class of people in no country less enjoyed the sweets of being; and in no country sought less to emerge from their state of barbarism. Proud and slothful, they created a kind of dignity to themselves from inactivity. To labour no more than noblemen, was a sort of nobility; and ignorance of a happier fate was happiness. They preserved their ancient poetry and traditional genealogies; hated the English settled amongst them as invaders, and necessarily were bigoted to their old superstitions in opposition to the religion of their masters. In short, they wanted but luxury, to have all the passions and prejudices of great lords. A considerable part of the island was plunged in this dismal darkness and misery. As a spirit of opposition and independence had spread amongst the Protestant inhabitants, a spirit of improvement had gone forth too. Manufactures were established, roads and bridges made, and rivers rendered navigable. Inclosures for cultivation of lands had followed. Occupation of commons seemed usurpation to a race of lazy savages; and the first murmurs were carefully blown up to rage by their priests. A massacre had been the last instance in which the Catholics of Ireland had had any superiority; and Popish priests are historians enough to be ignorant of no such era. It was the cause of property to throw down inclosures; of heaven, to cut the throats of inclosers—and of France and Spain, to promote the good work. The tumults, however, began upon the single foot of their grievances. Great insurrections appeared in Waterford, the chief improvements having been made upon the Burlington estate. The rabble soon distinguished itself by the name of White Boys; and their instructors, to veil one nonsense under a greater, taught them to give out that they were subject to the Queen of the Fairies, whom they called Sieve Oltugh, in whose name their manifestoes were signed. It appeared afterwards on the trials of some of their chiefs, that this fairy sovereign resided at Versailles. French officers were discovered among them; and during the Duke of Bedford’s regency, a rising had actually been made in the same quarter just as Thurot landed. After many outrages, they proceeded to cruelty, and buried three persons up to their chins, who had declared they knew the ringleaders. As their numbers and impunity increased, so did their insolence. They obliged the town of Lismore to hang out lights, and forced a justice of peace to fix up a proclamation by which they regulated the price of provisions, and forbad any cheese to be made till after Lent, that the poor might have the milk—a proof that the devotees of the Queen of the Fairies, and of the Virgin Mary, were equally attached to the observation of the Fast.

For six weeks this insurrection was neglected; and two regiments of dragoons, that were sent against them, proved unequal to the work. At last the House of Commons took up the affair, and foot being ordered out against the seditious, the matter was quashed, though not entirely suppressed, till the Earl of Hertford196 was Lord Lieutenant, who refusing to pardon some of the chiefs, notwithstanding very considerable intercession, an end was put to the affair—but unless that country is more civilized and reclaimed from barbarism, or better guarded before another war breaks out, it will probably be selected by France and Spain for the first scene of their operations. At the time of which I have been speaking, France was more earnest to make a general peace, than to incense us by opening a war within our very gates,197 and which might have made it dangerous for the Favourite to second their views.

He was hotly pushing his schemes to projection; and resolved not only to make the peace, but to be indisputably first minister when it should be made. Mr. Pitt was removed, who could have obstructed the first object; but while the Duke of Newcastle held the Treasury, there was a division of power, which all the lustre of favour could not entirely surmount. They who looked forward, bowed to the idol; but they who held by gratifications to the Treasury, could not but kiss the hand that dealt the bribe. At first it was designed by disgusts to drive the Duke to resign. Elliot and Oswald198 were instructed to treat him rudely at his own board: but an old minister or an old mistress endure many shocks before they can be shaken off:199 nor could all his own treacheries persuade the Duke of Newcastle that Lord Bute could so soon forget how instrumental his Grace had been in undermining Mr. Pitt. He still had a mind to be of the plot, though himself was become the object of it.

Newcastle’s friends were quicker sighted; and foreseeing that they must again range under Mr. Pitt, if cast off by the Court, they began to have doubts and difficulties—and did but hasten their fall, by daring to resume a right of opinion. The expense of the Portuguese war administered their first pretence of complaint, and the protection given to the King of Prussia by the Czar, changed the posture of his affairs so advantageously, that it had no gross appearance, when the Dukes of Cumberland, Newcastle, Devonshire, and their faction grew earnest for the continuance of the war in Germany. The Duke of Bedford, who was more than half-gained to the Court, but who always added some contradiction of his own, was averse to both wars, Portuguese and German; and Fox, who was willing to preserve an interest in the Duke of Cumberland, had a difficult part to act. He said to me, “The Duke of Devonshire says it is a Tory measure to abandon the Continent; for my part I do not know who are Whigs; they bore the partiality of the Pelhams200 to the Tories, and Mr. Pitt’s declaration in their favour, who had complained that they enjoyed none of the favours of Government.” Lord Mansfield would have preserved Newcastle to the Court, but Lord Hardwicke pulled the other way. Lord Lincoln201 was devoted to Pitt, and wished to unite him and his uncle Newcastle. The Duke of Devonshire advised the latter to resign; but so great was his inclination to keep even the dregs of power with the dregs of life, and so great his fear of being called to account for the waste of money on the German war, that though the King, as a fresh affront, declared seven new peers, without acquainting him, he not only overlooked it, but begged his cousin, Mr. Pelham,202 might be added to the number, and got the barony of Pelham bestowed on himself, with reversion to that relation.

I am forced to detail these intrigues, because the moment was critical, and because it gave birth to a new party, and to many subsequent events. The Court was the more stiff, because they had conveyed a message through Count Virri,203 the Sardinian minister in England, to the Bailli de Solar,204 the Sardinian minister at Paris, desiring to renew the negotiation where it had been broken off. Lord Bute had gone farther: he had ordered Sir Joseph Yorke to treat privately with the Court of Vienna, without the knowledge of the King of Prussia. For some time the Court of Vienna did not vouchsafe an answer. To the confusion of the Favourite, the first news he had of any answer to come, was from the Baron de Knyphausen, the King of Prussia’s minister here.205

April 28th, the new peers kissed hands. Lord206 Wentworth and Sir William Courtenay,207 Tories, were made Viscounts. Lord Egmont,208 Lord Milton,209 Lord Brudenel, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Edward Hussy Montagu,210 Mr. Vernon,211 of Sudbury, and Mr. Lane,212 the two latter Tories, were made Barons, and Lady Caroline Fox, a Baroness. Lord Ligonier’s Irish peerage was entailed on his nephew. Mr. Vernon,213 clerk of the Council, and Mr. Olmius,214 were created Irish Barons. The Prince of Mecklenburg,215 brother of the Queen, was made a Major-General. Lord Bute had often waved her request. She was advised to apply to the Princess, and the favour was immediately granted. Soon after, Buckingham House216 was purchased and bestowed on her Majesty, St. James’s not seeming a prison strait enough. There the King and Queen lived in the strictest privacy, attended absolutely by none but menial servants; and never came to the palace but for the hours of levies and drawing-rooms. The King’s younger brothers were kept, till they came of age, in as rigid durance. Prince Henry, the third, a very lively lad, being asked if he had been confined with the epidemic cold, replied, “Confined! that I am, without any cold;” and soon after, when the Garter was bestowed on Prince William and Lord Bute, Prince Henry said, “I suppose Mr. Mackenzie217 and I shall have the green ribands.”