208

NAVAL OPERATIONS.-SUBSIDIES.

[1755.

Braddock himself, fighting with desperate courage, was mortally wounded. Half his troops fled in confusion, abandoning their artillery. The other half were killed or wounded; and the terrible Indian scalping-knife left few to tell the tale of this fatal reverse.*

Whilst British and French were fighting in the waste regions of North America, their ships were engaged in the Atlantic. Admiral Boscawen, with eleven ships of the line, had been sent to watch a French expedition that had sailed from Brest. Off Newfoundland the squadrons met in a fog. Captain Howe, having received a signal to engage, took two of the French vessels. The others got into Louisbourg, the fortified harbour of Cape Breton. In the autumn of 1755, sir Edward Hawke, upon a sudden resolve of the government, made some captures of French merchantmen in the Channel. Of the Regency, for the king had gone to Hanover, some were inclined for immediate hostilities, and some for delaying them. The time had passed for any sudden and decisive blow; whilst the ministers were trembling at their own responsibility, afraid to declare war, and not taking sincere and active measures to preserve peace.

After the Session had been terminated in April, 1755, the king, in opposition to a strong parliamentary feeling, had set out for Germany. He had left the Regency to take care of the great national interests of Britain, whilst he looked after the usual means of fencing round his own Hanover by subsidizing auxiliary powers. He was now in dread of Prussia; and to counteract the growing strength of Frederick II., Russia was to receive a subsidy as well as the elector of Hesse, and smaller potentates. "A factory was opened at Herrenhausen, where every prince that could muster and clothe a regiment might traffic with it to advantage."+ With the elector of Hesse, the king, without the approval of his ministers at home, signed a contract for a large annual payment by England, with an additional stipulation for paying levy money for every Hessian soldier. Fox expressed himself in private against all subsidies. Legge, the chancellor of the Exchequer, took a bolder step. The king had sent home the treaty with Hesse. The members of the Council of Regency had signed it, as a matter of course. Legge refused his signature to the Treasury warrants which were to open the public purse. Newcastle was terrified, and applied to Pitt to throw his shield over him, offering him a seat in the Cabinet if he would support the subsidies. Doddington relates what Pitt told him of his interview with the duke. He implored his grace not to complete the ruin which the king had nearly brought upon himself by his journey to Hanover. "A king abroad at this time, without one man about him that has one English sentiment, and to bring home a whole set of subsidies!" The duke hinted that Pitt's support might be rewarded with the seals of Secretary of State. He replied that he did not want the office. The duke's system of carrying on business in the House of Commons would not do. "There must be men of efficiency and authority in the House; a Secretary, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer at least, who should have access to the Crown; habitual, frequent, familiar access, he meant, that they might

The incidents of this little war on the Ohio have been told by Mr. Thackeray, in his "Virginians," with a spirit and fidelity which show how Fiction may borrow interest from History without compromising her truth.

Walpole "Memoirs of George II." vol. ii. p. 35.

1755.]

PARLIAMENT-SINGLE-SPEECH HAMILTON-PITT.

209

tell their own story, to do themselves and their friends justice, and not be the victims of a whisper." Pitt stoutly argued against the system of subsidies. Newcastle talked of the king's honour being engaged to Hesse and to Russia. Let his majesty give, said Pitt, a hundred thousand to one, and a hundred and fifty thousand to the other, out of the fifteen millions he had saved, to be let off these bad bargains.* Fox was more tractable than his rival. He saw promotion at hand, whatever might be his abstract dislike to subsidies, if he would be prudent.

The Parliament met on the 13th of November. The king announced the increase of the naval and land forces, and mentioned the treaties he had concluded with Russia and Hesse. In the Address of each House especial reference was made to Hanover. The Address of the Commons said, "We think ourselves bound in justice and gratitude to assist his majesty against insults and attacks that may be made upon any of his majesty's dominions, though not belonging to the Crown of Great Britain." An amendment to omit such a pledge was moved in the Lords by earl Temple, Pitt's brother-in-law. A similar amendment was proposed in the Commons. These were of course rejected; but they gave occasion to two remarkable orations. William Gerard Hamilton, a young member, made his maiden speech in favour of the original Address-that one harangue, antithetical and familiar, argumentative and declamatory, which handed him down to after times as "Single-speech Hamilton." Pitt made a speech on that famous battle night, of which no fragment remains to us but one which has been preserved by Walpole. The younger Pitt said he would prefer the recovery of a speech of lord Bolingbroke to the restoration of the lost books of Livy or.Tacitus. The contemporary accounts of his father's speeches would almost induce a similar wish, even if the recovery were confined to this effort of the 13th of November. Walpole in a letter of the 15th of November to Conway, after rapturously noticing Hamilton's success, says, "You will ask what could be beyond this? Nothing, but what was beyond what ever was, and that was Pitt. He spoke at past one, for an hour and thirty-five minutes. There was more humour, wit, vivacity, finer language, more boldness, in short more astonishing perfections, than even you, who are used to him, can conceive." In a letter of the following day to Bentley, Walpole gives the fragment which, with similar detached passages of various other speeches, enable us to form some idea of the lustre which a rich imagination gave to Pitt's eloquence. "The most admired passage was a comparison he drew of the two parts of the new administration." By the new administration Walpole means the coalition between Fox and Newcastle. "It is," said Pitt, "as the conflux of the Rhone and the Saone, which I remember to have seen at Lyons; the latter a gentle, feeble, languid stream, languid but not deep; the other a boisterous and overbearing torrent. But they join at last, and long may they continue. united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and happiness of this nation." The next morning Fox received the seals of Secretary of State, as the reward for his support of the ministerial Address. Pitt, on the 20th of November, was dismissed from his office of Paymaster; and Legge and George Grenville were also superseded.

* Doddington's "Diary," Sept. 3.

VOL. VI.

210

EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON.

[1755.

From the agitations of party,-from the impending calamities of war,the minds of men were suddenly turned to a convulsion of nature, upon which all the civilized world looked with dread and wonder. The earthquake at Lisbon was announced to Parliament by a royal message on the 28th of November, desiring the concurrence of the Houses in sending "such speedy and effectual relief as may be suitable to so afflicting and pressing an exigency." The Commons immediately voted a grant of a hundred thousand pounds. It was indeed an event to make men pause in their ordinary career of thoughtless indulgence or selfish ambition. Every church of Lisbon was crowded with worshippers on All Saints Day; and almost every church was shaken to its foundations, and thousands perished in the ruins. One fourth of all the houses in Lisbon fell. The pier of the Tagus was overthrown, with hundreds who had fled to the banks of the river to avoid the falling houses. Fires broke out all over the devoted town. The great granaries were. consumed, and the people were without bread. Robbers came forth from their dens, and murdered those who clung to their moveable property. The English people met this terrible infliction with the generous relief and sympathy that they have always extended to the sorrows of other nations. They bethought themselves, for a while, of their own sins, which might draw down the vengeance of Heaven. The fashionable world took the necessity of repentance into its earnest consideration, and resolved-to abolish Masquerades.

Dread of invasion-Defence of the country by foreign troops-French fleet at Minorca-Admiral Byng-Surrender of St. Philip, in Minorca-Popular rage against Byng-Commencement of the Seven Years' War-Successes of Frederick of Prussia-Household of George, prince of Wales-Changes of Ministry-Newcastle retires-Administration of the duke of Devonshire and Mr. Pitt-Altered tone of the king's speech-Militia Bill-Foreign troops sent home-Subsidy to the king of Prussia-Trial of Byng-His execution-Pitt and Legge dismissed from their employments-National feeling-Coalition of Newcastle and PittAffairs of India-Black Hole at Calcutta-Surajah Dowlah occupies Calcutta-It is retaken by Clive and Watson-The battle of Plassey-Surajah Dowlah deposed and killedMeer Jaffier Subahdar of Bengal-Establishment of the British ascendancy in India.

IN a fortnight after his dismissal from office, Pitt, from his place in parliament, sent forth a voice whose echoes would be heard throughout the land. The nation was dreading a French invasion-sullenly trembling at the possible consequences of an assault upon the capital, and without confidence in the government to which the public defence was entrusted. Pitt seconded the motion of the Secretary of War, for an army of thirty-four thous and men being an increase of fifteen thousand. He had wanted even a larger increase in the previous year. The king's speech of the preceding Session had lulled the nation into a fallacious dream of repose. "He wanted to call this country out of that enervate state, that twenty thousand men from France could shake it. The maxims of our government were degenerated, not our natives."

212

DEFENCE OF THE COUNTRY BY FOREIGN TROOPS.

[1756.

An opinion had gone forth, which in 1757 was embodied in a book of extraordinary popularity, alluded to by Cowper :

"The inestimable Estimate of Brown

Rose like a paper-kite, and charm'd the town." *

The nation was told, "We are rolling to the brink of a precipice that must destroy us." Effeminacy, Vanity, Luxury, Rapacity, universally prevailed. Religion was despised. The principle of honour was lost or totally corrupted. The national capacity was lowered. The national spirit of defence was impaired. There were no better fighting men upon earth than the common people of England; but in the better sort there was "such a general defect in the spirit of defence as would alarm any people who were not lost to all sense of danger." The danger was from an outward enemy. "The French, in land armies, are far our superiors. They are making large and dreadful strides towards us in naval power. . . . . . Should the French possess themselves of North America, what eye can be so weak as not to see the consequence? Must not a naval power come down upon us, equal, if not superior, to our own?" § A diminished population had accompanied increasing commerce. Excess of trade and overflow of wealth had impaired our bodily strength. It is easy to detect the fallacies of this course of reasoning; but

there can be little doubt that the nation required to be roused from its lethargy. Happily there was a man capable of rousing it. Pitt, in his speech of the 5th of December, had expressed his earnest wish to "see that breed restored, which under our old principles had carried our glory so high." The king, on the 23rd of March, announced the probability of an invasion, and informed the Houses that he had made a requisition for a body of Hessian troops, in pursuance of the treaty recently concluded. Both Houses acknowledged with gratitude his majesty's care for the national defence. On the 29th of March, Mr. Fox moved, "that an humble Address be presented to his majesty, that, for the more effectual defence of this island, and for the better security of the religion and liberties of his subjects, against the threatened attacks by a foreign enemy, he would be graciously pleased to order twelve battalions of his electoral troops, together with the usual detachment of artillery, to be forthwith brought into this kingdom." The Address was voted by the large ministerial majority; but not without strong dissatisfaction. That State alone, exclaimed Pitt, is a sovereign State, "quis suis stat viribus, non alieno pendet arbitrio "— which stands by its own strength, not by the help of another country.

(Hogarth.)

+ "Table Talk."

+"Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times," ed. 1758, p. 15.
+ Ibid., p. 89.

§ Ibid., p. 144.

Ibid, p. 189.