say that the Stuarts had any adherents. "Lord Granville and his faction," says Horace Walpole, "persist in persuading the King that it is an affair of no consequence; and for the Duke of Newcastle, he is glad when the rebels make any progress, in order to confute Lord Granville's assertions. His Majesty uses his ministers as ill as possible, and discourages every body that would risk their lives and fortunes with him."* Lord Hardwicke, at the request of the cabinet, and in the name of the whole of them, presented a strong remonstrance to his Majesty on his want of confidence in his servants, but it was heard with silence and disgust. Their object now was, by language of kindness, and by measures of conciliation, to rouse some spirit in defence of the present establishment, and to try to impress upon the public mind a sense of the benefits obtained, and the evils avoided, by calling in the family which the nation, in their folly, appeared desirous of seeing ejected. CHAP. CXXXIV. Lord Hard wicke. Parliament met on the 18th of October, when the King King's was persuaded to deliver a well-conceived speech, written by speech, the Chancellor, containing the following stirring appeal : "I have throughout the whole course of my reign made the laws of the land the rule of my government, and the preservation of the constitution in church and state, and the rights of my people, the main end and aim of all my actions: it is, therefore, the more astonishing that any of my Protestant subjects who have known and enjoyed the benefits. resulting from thence, and have heard of the imminent dangers these kingdoms were wonderfully delivered from by the happy Revolution, should, by any arts and management, be deluded into measures that must at once destroy their religion and liberties, introduce Popery and arbitrary power, and subject them to a foreign yoke. I am confident you will act like men who consider that every thing dear and valuable to them is attacked, and I question not, but, by the blessing of God, we shall in a short time see this rebellion end, not only in restoring the tranquillity of my government, but in procuring greater strength to that excellent constitution which it was designed to subvert. The maxims of this * To Sir H. Mann, 20th September, 1745. СНАР. CXXXIV. public mind. constitution shall ever be the rules of my conduct. The interest of me and my people is always the same, and inseparable. In this common interest let us unite, and all those who shall heartily and vigorously exert themselves in this just and national cause, may always depend upon my State of the protection and favour."* His Majesty's gracious speech was generally circulated throughout the nation, while lower, and perhaps more effectual arts were used to rouse the people to the belief that they had an interest in the quarrel. Thus the butchers were specially apostrophised-on the ground that Papists abstain from eating meat in Lent,-and hand-bills were hawked through the streets, representing that the tartaned highlanders not only violated virgins, but ate young children for supper. A little reflection only was wanting to convince all reasoning men that they ought to stand by the present establishment. Setting aside the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right, which had now few adherents in England, there was, unquestionably, a better prospect of constitutional and wise government under the House of Hanover, than under the recalled Stuarts. The two Georges, though not destitute of some respectable qualities, certainly were not very interesting or amiable characters; their utter contempt for literature and the arts placed them disagreeably in contrast with the two Charles's †, and some ground existed for the charge that substantial British interests had been sacrificed to the object of procuring petty additions to the Electorate. But upon the 13 Parl. Hist. 1311. In the Earl of Marchmont's Diary, under date October 7. 1745, it is said that "the Chancellor, starting as from a lethargy, remarked, that he had thought lightly of the highlands, but now saw they made a third of the island in the map." It is very possible that he might have made this geographical observation; but there is no pretence for saying that he had been blind to the danger which now threatened the government. On the contrary, he had long observed and lamented the growing activity of the Jacobites. and the growing indifference of the rest of the nation; and from the landing of Prince Charles was an alarmist as well as Newcastle, of whom the characteristic story was invented, that “for a whole day he shut himself up, considering how he might best make terms with the Pretender." + I have often been at a loss to understand how all the good songs, all the good tunes (with the exception of "the Campbell's are coming"), all the poetry, and all the wit, were on the side of the Jacobites. Is it to be accounted for by the apprehension, that the heads of the House of Brunswick would not endure to have their cause supported by the effusions of genius and taste? CXXXIV. whole, the change of dynasty had answered well. During CHAP. the half century which had elapsed since the expulsion of James II.,—notwithstanding the blind rage of contending factions, there had been, with slight interruptions, profound tranquillity in the country; the nation had made rapid and steady progress in wealth and power, and Britons had enjoyed civil and religious liberty to a degree hitherto unknown in the world. What could be expected from a RESTORATION, pronounced by Mr. Fox to be "the worst of revolutions," and which, in this instance, must have been fatal to our free constitution, from the arbitrary principles on which it was to be defended! The objection was most forcible, that the family claiming the throne were of a different religion from the great majority of the people, and looking to their personal qualities, it could not be overlooked that the old Pretender, calling himself James III., was a narrow-minded bigot, while Prince Charles, notwithstanding his romantic adventures, and the attempts to exalt him into. a hero, being, in reality, a very ill-educated and very silly young man, had shown a mixture of rashness and obstinacy which, combined with his hereditary notions of prerogative, rendered him wholly unfit to rule over a free people. the Rebels. The King himself became apprehensive, when news ar- Success of rived of the Rebels having crossed the border having captured Carlisle having been kindly welcomed at Manchester - and having advanced to Derby, within little more than 100 miles of the capital. Lord Hardwicke and the Duke of Newcastle were for the time in favour with him, and he heartily co-operated with them in marching the Guards to Finchley*, and taking the most vigorous measures for the public safety. But when the danger seemed to have passed away by Prince Charles' retreat †, his disaster at Clifton, and * See Hogarth. †The most recent and the most able historian of those times, says, that "had Q. what Charles marched onwards from Derby, he would have gained the British throne" would have (3 Lord Mahon, 415.); but without a rising in his favour in England, his little happened army must have been extinguished at Finchley; the English Jacobites, who had if the rebels been lavish of promises, faltered when it came to the push; and, after all, their had numbers were not sufficient to have effected any thing without the general assistance of the squires and the clergy, who again began to have the same fear for marched on from Derby to London? CXXXIV. crisis. CHAP. the recapture of Carlisle, by the Duke of Cumberland, his Majesty's dislike of the Duke of Newcastle again broke out Feb. 1746. in the saying, that it was hard he should have for his minister Ministerial a man hardly fit to be a Chamberlain in a petty German court, and he formed a new ministry under Lord Granville, which lasted exactly forty-eight hours. It was said when the crisis was over, that Lord Hardwicke was ready to have resigned with his colleagues; but he warily abstained from doing so, recollecting that it is easy for a minister to go out, and often very difficult to get back again. April 29. Victory of Trial of the rebel Lords. A.D. 1746. A little temporary dismay, with mutual recriminations, arose from the news of the fight at Falkirk, but exultation and complacency were diffused by the victory of Culloden. Now Lord Hardwicke had the satisfaction of reading an address of congratulation unanimously voted by the Lords, in which he had dexterously introduced the following sentence, most soothing to the royal ear: -"It is with the greatest pleasure and admiration we behold in how eminent a manner this signal victory has been owing to the valour and conduct of his Royal Highness the Duke; if any thing could add to our joy on such an event it is to see a prince of your Majesty's blood, formed by your example, and imitating your virtues, the glorious instrument of it; and happy should we be in any opportunity of testifying the high sense we have of such illustrious merit."* Next followed the painful but necessary task of trying the rebel Lords. The victory of Culloden was followed by wanton severities on the vulgar, which justly gave its hero an appellation immortalised by Byron; but for the good order of society, the leaders of an attempt to subvert an established government must make it at the peril of their own lives, and they are bound to consider not only the justice of their cause, but the probabilities of success or failure. Against the Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromarty, and Lord Balmerino, bills of the Protestant religion, by which they were actuated in 1688. The general apathy arose a good deal from too great a contempt of the danger. If Charles had advanced to take London, his attempt would have more resembled Louis Bonapartes's attack on Boulogne than Napoleon's triumphal entrance into Paris from Elba, *13 Parl. Hist. 1405. CXXXIV. indictment were found by a grand jury for the part they had CHAP. taken in the siege of Carlisle; and these being removed by certiorari before the House of Lords, the trials were ordered Jan. 28. to take place in Westminster Hall. Lord Hardwicke was 1744. appointed Lord High Steward. On this occasion he is bitterly censured by Horace Walpole, who says, "though a most comely personage with a fine voice, his behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the prime minister, that is no peer; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping up to the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character it is to point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer they made towards defence." * "He lost the character for humanity he had before tried to establish, when he sat as Lord High Steward at the trials of the Scotch Lords, the meanness of his birth breaking out in insolent acrimony."† This censure is greatly over charged, but I cannot defend the propriety and good taste of all his Grace's observations to the noble prisoners, and he forgot that although their attempt not having prospered, it was called treason, and the law required that they should be sentenced to death; they were not guilty of any moral offence, and that if they had succeeded in placing Charles Edward on the throne of his grandfather, they would have been celebrated for their loyalty in all future ages. Hard wicke's ad When they had been marched to the bar, the gentleman Lord gaoler standing by their side, holding the axe the edge still turned from them, he addressed a preliminary speech to dress to them, which thus began:-" William, Earl of Kilmarnock, * Letter to Sir H. Mann. He afterwards goes on to tell the following amusing anecdote of Lord Mansfield, which is a gross misrepresentation, as Mr. Solicitor's conduct to all the prisoners during the trial was most courteous. "While the Lords were withdrawn, the Solicitor General Murray (brother of the Pretender's minister), officiously and insolently went up to Lord Balmerino, and asked him how he could give the Lords so much trouble. Balmerino asked the bystanders who this person was? and being told, he said, “Oh, Mr. Murray, I am extremely glad to see you; I have been with several of your relations; the good lady, your mother, was of great use to us at Perth." † Memoirs of ten last years of George II. them. |