LORD LONDONDERRY'S APPLICATION FOR THE REPRESENTATION The death of Mr. Addison is the occasion of my giving your Lordship this trouble. He was one of the Representatives for Malmesbury, a borough in Buckinghamshire,' entirely under the influence of the Duke of Wharton, who, I hear, is, or will be soon, at Hanover. I know not what interest your Lordship may now have in that young nobleman, therefore won't ask your Lordship to intercede for my brother the Colonel; but I take the liberty to lay before your Lordship of what great service it would be to him to bring him into the House of Commons, (amongst other things it will be a means to secure to him a qualification,) besides, I know my Lord Wharton has a friendship for him, and often promised him this good office; but all is submitted to your Lordship. My father and the Colonel are both in Cornwall, and all your Lordship's family are well; and so wishing your Lordship a safe and quick return, I am, With great respect, your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, LONDONDERRY. P. S. Young Mr. Pitt is not as yet gone abroad, and desires me to make his compliments acceptable to your Lordship. THE EARL OF SUTHERLAND'S APPLICATION TO SUCCEED ADDISON IN THE EXCHEQUER. (WITHOUT ADDreșs, but probaBLY TO THE EARL OF STANHOPE.) MY LORD, June 19th, 1719. I congratulated your Lordship upon the 28th of May, being the auspicious day upon which our Glorious King was born, and at the same time entreated your Lordship's favour to intercede with the King for my having the Teller's place in the Exchequer, vacant by the Lord Torrington's death. I now congratulate your Lordship upon the defeat of the Rebels. Upon the Pretender's birth-day there were no highlanders with the regular troops, but some of mine, and some of the Munros. My folks were upon the right of the regular forces, and behaved themselves as if I had inspired them. My son was at Inverness where he is Sheriff, to keep matters in order there, and to have the troops supplied with necessaries from thence. 'His Lordship's geography is here at fault: Malmesbury has always been in Wiltshire. Considering, my dear Lord, the part I have still acted, and the zeal that such of mine as were there showed, I hope the King will please to bestow upon me the post in the Exchequer now vacant by the decease of Mr. Addison. I knew he was so ill he could not subsist long; but as I wished him to live, and, barring God's pleasure, thought him deserving to live, I could not ask it. I hope there is no engagement, as in the last for my Lord Chancellor's son, which could not be helped. If your Lordship please to exert yourself now for me at this juncture, you cannot do it for one who has suffered or endeavoured to do more for the service, and who must be undone, if nothing be done for him. It is needless to tell you that there is none with greater sincerity, truth, and respect than I, my Lord, Marl. Street, 19 June, 1719. Your Lordship's most faithful and most SUTHERLAND. I am doing what I can to have Mr. Douglas chosen Member of Parliament for Wallingford, knowing him to be at your Lordship's disposal. Your Lordship's lady and children are, I thank God, well. 1 What this post was we have been unable to discover. As his great friend Charles, Earl of Halifax was Auditor of the Receipt of the Exchequer' from 1699 till Sept. 1714, when he resigned in favour of his nephew, Addison is very likely to have obtained some office there. It could hardly be merely the 'Patent fee' which his Lordship so earnestly applies for. 2 George Parker, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield, was admitted, July 4, 1719, under a patent in reversion, dated May 3, 1718. 3 John Earl of Sutherland had the command of a regiment under King William and followed him through all his campaigns in Flanders. He was a Privy-councillor in the reign of Queen Anne and one of the Commissioners for the Union. After the accession of George I., on the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1715, he offered his services to raise the northern clans for Government, raised 300 men, and, joined by other Scottish chiefs, took possession of Inverness, which he successfully defended against Lord Seaforth and the Pretender's party till the Rebellion was quelled. The king gratefully acknowledged his loyalty. In 1715 he was appointed President of the Board of Trade, in 1716 was invested with the order of the Thistle, in Sept. 1747 granted a pension of £1200 per annum, and Jan. 3rd, 1721, was made a Privy-councillor. It does not appear whether he obtained the place he here prays for. Macky calls him a very honest man, a great assertor of the liberties of the people; a great lover of his bottle and his friend; brave in his person, which he has shown in several duels; too familiar for his quality, and often keeps company below it: a fat, fair-complexioned man, forty-five years old." To which Swift adds, A blundering, rattle-pated, drunken sot. 66 ADDISON'S REPORTS OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. TO THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND'S PRIVATE SECRETARY. (Probably either at Dublin or with the Earl at Bath.) SIR, (London,) May 17th, 1715. I have received yours of the 14th instant, and shall be careful to observe the particulars contained in it. My Lord Halifax is very ill of a high fever. He was yesterday almost despaired of, but by the help of blisters he is at present something better. This will put a stop, for some time, to our proceedings in the Treasury. I will take care that no letter shall go from thence to Ireland, but through my Lord-Lieutenant's hands, though I remember the clerks used sometimes to play us those tricks in my Lord Wharton's time. I shall give such an answer to Mr. Gore's friends as His Excellency directs. I cannot yet find who called for the Irish pensions; if they did not come in by virtue of a General Order, it was by a Whig motion; it being supposed there is a pension, under another name, for the late Speaker,2 as well as a very remarkable one for the late General, under his own name. Nothing in the House has yet glanced upon this subject; paper which gives offence, and will be canvassed to-morrow, being the List of Pensions granted here to persons in high offices, and to some (as has been hinted in the House) of doubtful principles, since His Majesty's accession to the throne. Tom Onslow moved for a day to consider these pensions, seconded by Mr. Carter, and thirded by Sir Charles Hotham. They propose to themselves, as I am informed, to procure an Address to His Majesty upon this head. I shall write to the Archbishop of Dublin, pursuant to my Lord's instructions. I will speak to my Lord Halifax, as soon as it is practicable, in behalf of Mr. Loggan. His Lordship asked me some time since whether I had received any orders from my Lord-Lieutenant relating to Lord Grantham; so that I suppose nothing is as yet done in that affair; but of this I will inform you by the next post. I keep Mr. Boote's letAddison was at this time M. P. for Malmesbury. 2 Sir Thomas Hanmer. the 1 ter by me, till the affair of Caulfield is despatched, and will then date it accordingly. I have talked with the Bishop of Clogher about Mr. Stone. He tells me that the trustees for the forfeited impropriations are appointed by Act of Parliament, and that the bishops have no other right to vote, and act among them, than by virtue of a compliment which is always paid them by the Trustees. The manager has his constitution from the trustees, so that His Lordship is of opinion this matter cannot any way be redressed till the meeting of Parliament, when a vote may pass, that one who had such a hand in dispersing the libels, is an improper person to be employed in this office. I do not believe, that any letter from the Treasury has been sent into Ireland for making up the difference of English and Irish pay to Churchill, Primrose, Preston, Sabine, and Corbett, because my Lord-Lieutenant's Report was against it, and I fancy they would not pass by His Excellency in transmitting such an order to Ireland. In the affair of Schuldham the same expression was made use of that the Lords Justices had used in their letter to my Lord-Lieutenant; which was likewise the case in the letter for Pitt; and you know this is the general practice; but I think they are better as they are now drawn. I have inquired into M. General Gustavus Hamilton's estate, which is said to be about 2000li per annum. I cannot meet with Mr. St. George, but I hear he sets out for the Bath to morrow. and Lord-Lieutenant, I very much rejoice in the recovery of my J. ADDISON. P. S. Upon the Report about the Civil List there was a debate on the first question, and a division of 137 against 250, or thereabouts. The most material incident in the debate was a discovery Sir W. Wyndham made of a design to reduce the late Queen's expenses to 400,000li per annum; a scheme which, as he told us, he had presented to Her Majesty three days before her death. Mr. Stanhope observed with some warmth, that in this scheme there was reckoned 47,000 per annum for King James's Queen. This, he said, was a greater discovery than they had made in the Secret Committee, and indeed explained some papers which lay before them, in which there were several obscure traces of some articles stipulated with the Court of St. Germain's. Lord Coningsby aggravated this circumstance very much against Sir W. Wyndham, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time this scheme was formed in the Treasury; and concluded that the honourable gentleman must expect to hear more of this another time. Sir W. W. replied that as for any article stipulated on this head he knew nothing of the matter, and was not at all concerned about it; but that the Queen Dowager having demanded this, and threatened to sue for it at law, as having been settled upon her by Act of Parliament, he thought it fit to lay before the Queen all possible expenses that might arise in the Civil List, when he had her orders to lay such a scheme before her. In this part of the debate some little raillery arose upon the Secret Committee and Mr. Stanhope's expression. Upon which Mr. Walpole advised the gentlemen to be merry upon that subject whilst they might; for that he was sure in a little time their mirth would be spoiled. He then told us of a letter he had read that very morning from Mr. Prior to the Treasurer, where, speaking of this very subject, his expression is, If I make such an article, I shall be hanged in England; and if I do not, I had as good be hanged as stay in France. me. I write so much in haste that I wish you may understand Ten o'clock. My Lord Halifax is much worse this evening than he was in the morning. He has been blooded twice this day, and we are in great pain for him.2 WITHOUT ADDRESS, BUT PROBABLY TO THE PRIVATE SIR, (London,) June 2nd, 1715. The Mutiny Bill being sent from the Lords yester day, there arose a debate upon it, whether the amendments This is the Lord Coningsby on whom Pope wrote the following Epitaph: Here lies Lord Coningsby-be civil; |