The king had only just arrived, and had merely gone into his bedroom to put on a clean collar—that of the Order of the Garter, if we may hazard a shrewd guess—when a party of Whigs rushed in, and began to ear-whig him with the utmost industry. In fact, the touting that took place for the vacant offices can only be imagined by an individual who has once landed at Boulogne, and found him-self torn to pieces by the hirsute representatives of some fifty hotels, each anxious to accommodate the new arrival. The whole of the Whig party pounced upon George, and thrust their pretensions before him with the perseverance of the class of Frenchmen, commonly called commissioners, to whom we have alluded. As these persons snatch at a traveller's cloak, walking-stick, or carpet-bag, the Whig touters almost snatched at gold sticks, official portfolios, or anything else they could lay their hands upon. "Allow me to take charge of your conscience, sir," roared Lord Cowper; "you'll find it very heavy to carry, sir; pray give it to me, sir; I'll take it down for you, sir;" and thus the Chancellorship was in a measure seized by this determined place-hunter. "You'll lose that privy seal, sir, if you don't take care," bellowed the Earl of Wharton; "you had much better entrust it to me; there are some very bad characters about just now,"—and thus, by a mixture of warning and worry, the privy seal was secured for himself by the rapacious nobleman.
Bolingbroke, after hanging about the official passages for a short time longer, now listening at the door, now peeping through the keyhole, and alternately bullied or bantered by his more fortunate rivals as they passed to and fro, resolved on flying to the Continent. Several significant exclamations of "You'd better be off!" "Come, come, this won't do!" and "We can't have a parcel of idle fellows lurking about the Treasury!" convinced him that he had nothing to hope, and everything to fear from the new Parliament. He accordingly took from the corner of his sitting-room an old official wand, and sobbing out, "Farewell, my once cherished stick!" he cut it for ever. The monopoly of all the snug places by the Whigs rendered them extremely overbearing, and as "Britons never, never, never will be slaves" to the same party for any considerable length of time, they became impatient of Whig arrogance, and ready for an alterative in the shape of some regular old Tory tyranny. The king became unpopular, and his birthday passed over without the smallest notice, as if to hint to him that he was not to be borne at all, unless he changed his system.
George, instead of conciliating, attempted to crush the disaffected, and like a bad equestrian mounted on a restive horse, he began pulling at the rein ana tightening the curb, instead of mildly but firmly exclaiming, "Wo, wo, boys! steady, boys; steady!" to his now somewhat frisky people. The Habeas Corpus Act—the great British Free List—was suspended, and the Pretender was used as a pretence to alarm the people, and reconcile them to the most arbitrary measures. The Riot Act was in this year, 1715, read a third time and passed, but it has this peculiarity, which distinguishes it from every other legislative Act, that it requires to be read again on every occasion of its being brought into requisition.
These measures only added fuel to the fire that was now setting the country in a blaze; and even the University of Oxford was threatened with assault by Major-General Pepper, who was the first to make the now venerable joke about mustard, which, with all our courage, we confess we dare not chronicle.*
In the north, the insurrection took a very bold form, and Mr. Forster, a gentleman of great ability—a barrister, we believe—joined with the Earl of Derwentwater, who was ready with all his retainers, the only kind of retainers, by the way, with which his learned colleague was at all familiar. Being joined by some gentlemen in blue bonnets, who had come from over the border, they proclaimed the Pretender, and would have seized upon Newcastle, with the intention of sparing the coals and sacking only the city; but the gate had been shut, and the whole party was not strong enough to force it open. They retired therefore to Hexham, and a literary gentleman among them bewailed their failure as he sat in the coffee-room of the inn at Hexham, in doleful hexameters. They next retired by way of Lancaster to Preston, whose Pans they hoped would prove preserving pans to themselves; but General Wills being sent to attack them, proved the fact, that where there are the Wills there are always the ways of accomplishing an object.
Mr. Forster, hearing that there was no hope, despatched a trumpeter—a gentlemanly young man, who was quite equal to a solo of the kind—to negociate a treaty. He could get no other answer than an intimation that the rebels might expect to be slaughtered; and, being very much cut up by the news, they wisely resolved to surrender. The noblemen and officers of the party were sent to London, where they were led through the streets bound together and pinioned, which caused one of them to wish that his pinions were those of a bird, so that he might be enabled to fly away from his captivity. Though the Pretender must have known, or might have known, that his pretentions were about as hopeless as they could possibly be, he resolved on landing in Scotland, and he positively arrived with nothing more than a special train of six gentlemen. He came in disguise, and passed through Aberdeen without being known, till he came to Feterosse, where he was met by the Earl of Mar and thirty nobles of the first quality, though all their quality could not of course make up for their lamentable deficiency in quantity. When the Pretender saw his friend's beggarly show of adherents, he addressed Mar with great levity, telling him he had been "a sad Mar to his hopes," and indulged in other poor frivolities. "As I've come, however," he added, "I may as well be proclaimed." And the ceremony was gone through with mock gravity. He next proceeded to Scone, "for," said he, "we must have a coronation, you know." And he behaved altogether in such a manner as to lead us to believe that he relished the ludicrous points of his own very ridiculous position. Having gone so far in the mockery, he crowned the absurdity instead of being crowned himself, by making a speech to his grand council, intimating that he had no arms to fight with, no ammunition to load the arms with if he possessed any, and no money to purchase the ammunition if he felt disposed to try its effects upon his enemies. Under these circumstances, he intimated that his presence among them should be regarded as a flying visit, just to say "How d'ye do?" and "Good-bye"; after which, with the latter salutation on his lips, he popped into a boat, and was "off again" for the Continent.
Instead of allowing this miserable rebellion to die a natural death—we cannot say that it ended in smoke, for the rebels had no money to purchase gunpowder—the Government of the day had the rashness to keep the thing alive by prosecuting those who had been concerned in it. Half a dozen nobles were seized and put upon their trial, when the poor creatures whimpering out an acknowledgment of their guilt, were sentenced to death, and two were taken to the scaffold. A third, the Lord Nithesdale, had also been condemned; but his mother having come to see him in prison, they got up between them a dramatic incident, by effecting an exchange of dress; and while the lady remained in gaol like a man, the gentleman walked away in female attire.
The prosecutions were not limited to the chiefs of this rebellious movement—if that can be called a movement which stuck fast in its very first steps—but some of the humblest adherents, or suspected adherents, of the Pretender's cause were included in the proceedings taken by the Government. Several were hanged, and some hundreds experienced what was facetiously termed the "royal mercy," by undergoing transportation for life to North America. This unnecessary and injudicious rigour had the effect of making the Government so unpopular, that, although according to the Triennial Act the Parliament ought to have been dissolved, the ministers were afraid of appealing to the country, and formed the audacious determination to introduce a Septennial Act, which, by the force of perseverance and impudence combined, was positively carried. Though George resided personally in England, his heart had never quitted Hanover, and he was continually keeping his eye upon the aggrandisement of that paltry electorate. For this purpose, he made free use of English money; and having intelligence at all times of the small duchies that the poverty of their owners occasionally threw into the market, he picked up those of Bremen and Verden at a very low figure.
Among the inconveniences occasioned to this country by allowing the sceptre to get into foreign hands, was the involving of England in foreign quarrels about foreign interests. Spain being in an unpleasant predicament, called upon George the First to join a league in her favour, and threatened to repudiate his claims to his dismal little duchies of Bremen and Verden, if he did not take the step that was required of him. As he could not well commit himself thus far, a war was commenced against England, and a Spanish expedition under the Duke of Ormond was fitted out to make a descent upon Scotland. With that happy adroitness in ruling the waves for which Britannia has long been celebrated, she caused them to rise as one billow against the hostile fleet, which was rapidly dispersed by the ocean's uppishness. Though the buoyancy of Britain, assisted by the boisterous energy of the sea, defeated the attempts of foreign powers, the internal condition of the country was far from satisfactory. King George neither comprehended the character nor the language of his new subjects, and a good understanding between the prince and the people was therefore impossible. His majesty spent as much time and as much money as he could upon the Continent, leaving his ministers to propose what measures they pleased, while he transmitted by post his consent to them, without knowing, or caring to inquire their object.
Perhaps, however, the heaviest blow that England's prosperity ever received was the result of one of the most marvellous instances on record of a co-operation between knavery and folly. To add to the extraordinary character of the infatuation we are about to record, the scheme that led to it was not original, and the victims had consequently received a warning by which they failed to profit. A Scotchman of the name of Law had swindled the whole of France by starting a company to pick up fortunes in the Mississippi, which proved one of the most gigantic misses ever known; but as one batch of fools will make many, it was calculated, shrewdly enough, that the Mississippi hoax, instead of putting people on their guard against fraud, would have just the effect of preparing them to be taken in by it.
A scrivener named Blunt—a fellow of uncommon sharpness, whose name is emblematical of a great partiality for cash—suggested a concern called the South Sea Company, which was to purchase all the debts due from the Government to all trading corporations, and thus become the sole creditor of the State. The National Debt was in fact to be bought up, and as there is a pretty clear understanding that the National Debt never will, or never can be paid, the advantages of the project must, upon the slightest reflection, have appeared at best apocryphal. The scrip in this grand concern came out heavy, for the securities were flatter than the public, when a bright idea flashed across the mind of Blunt for raising the wind and puffing up the shares in the South Sea Scheme to the utmost height that could be desired. He spread a report through paid paragraphs in the newspapers, that Gibraltar and Minorca were about to be exchanged for Peru, and the whole world went mad at the peru-sal. The story of this monstrous piece of universal insanity would afford a fine subject for an article from the pen of Dr. Forbes Winslow; * and indeed had he lived in the eighteenth century, the whole population would have been worthy to become the patients of that able and experienced master of the science of mental pathology.
The mental aberration of the public proved itself in the most preposterous demand for shares from persons willing to stake not only every penny they had, but many pounds which they had not. The proverb that "one fool makes many," found a parallel in the fact that one knave makes many; for the South Sea schemer called into existence a number of imitators, all anxious to profit by the credulity which he had excited. One adventurer made his fortune one fine morning by issuing a prospectus intimating that he would secure to every one who paid two guineas on the instant, an annuity of £100. The preliminary deposits poured in so plentifully that he obtained two thousand subscribers in a few hours, though the details of the plan were only to be forthcoming at some future day. We regret exceedingly our inability to form an opinion on the merits of this project, for its originator having been called away suddenly on the very night after the first day's subscriptions had been paid in, pursued his way to the Continent by the light of the moon, and has never yet returned. Charity bids us presume that he died in the effort to mature the gigantic idea he had conceived for enriching those who had honoured him with their cash and their confidence. A few little episodes of this description tended to shake the faith of the public in the great parent hoax, and the monster bubble, formed, as it were, by the whole of the South Sea concentrated into one tremendous drop, gave symptoms of dropping to the ground. Those who witnessed the Railway Mania of 1845 can form a conception—though a very inadequate one—of the madness that prevailed in the early part of the eighteenth century, under the cunning influence of Blunt, who, strange to say, was a living illustration of a marvellous misnomer, for this Blunt was the essence of sharpness, at a time when obtuseness was the characteristic of all the rest of the community.
The amiable weakness which, in 1845, induced the whole population to concur in planning railways for every hole and corner of the world, the philanthropy which would have whirled the Cherokees through the air at sixty miles an hour and twenty per cent, profit, or brought Kamschatka, Chelsea, the Catskill Mountains, Knightsbridge, and Niagara, all into a group by the aid of trunk-lines or branches connecting the whole of them together, the mixture of benevolence and self-interest which suggested these noble achievements, cannot bear a comparison with the universality of the movement that the South Sea Bubble called forth. Its bursting, however, nearly swamped the entire nation, for the bubble had been so extensive that scarcely any one escaped its influence, or could keep his head above water, when the awful inundation occurred.
Royalty itself had not been exempt from the prevailing madness, and the Prince of Wales had been appointed Governor of the Welsh Copper Company, which was to have supplied saucepans to the whole civilised world, and kept the pot boiling for the inhabitants of every corner of the globe. The capital proposed to be raised for all the various bubbles in agitation, amounted to £300,000,000, though few of the concerns had even the capital of the soi-disant millionaire in the farce, who having made promises of boundless liberality, and undertaken to make the fortune of the waiting-maid of his inamorata, finished with a tender of a threepenny piece as an earnest of his future bounty.
It would form a curious chapter in this or any other history, to trace the fluctuations in South Sea Stock; but we cannot afford to convert our pages into a share list of the eighteenth century. Upon the first fall in the stock, attempts were made to preserve it from a further decline, first by shutting up the transfer books, and secondly by preposterous promises of impossible dividends. The directors kindly guaranteed fifty per cent, for twelve years, from and after the ensuing Christmas; and it is probable that the old saying, that "Such a thing is coming, and so is Christmas" first arose out of the South Sea Bubble, for the stock fell from eight hundred to one hundred and fifty, between the 26th of August, when the prospect was held out, and the 30th of September, when people had got a shrewd suspicion that it would never be realised.
In proportion to the extreme credulity the nation had shown, was the savage disappointment it now exhibited. The directors of the South Sea Company who had been encouraged in their audacious swindling by the blind rapacity of their dupes—who in their haste to devour everything they could lay hold of, swallowed every knavish story they were told—the directors, who after all had merely speculated on the avarice and stupidity of the rest of the world, were assailed with the utmost vindictiveness. Their conduct was brought before Parliament; some of them were taken into custody, ana all were called upon to explain the grounds on which these calculations of profit were made, though the stockholders were not required to state what reasons they had for believing with their eyes shut, all the evidently fallacious promises that had been held out to them. A confiscation of the property of most of the directors took place, and an inquiry before Parliament proved that several members of the Legislature, and even ministers, had received considerable slices of South Sea Stock for their assistance in promulgating this monster swindle.
The ruin that had been brought upon all classes of society, was aggravated by a necessity for further taxation to carry on the increased expense of Home Government, and of the costly foreign relations which the country had entered into. It has unfortunately happened that the foreign relations of England have been generally very poor relations, and they have consequently taken a great deal out of her pockets by their necessities, while they have added little to her respectability by their position and character. Like poor relations in general, they were a dreadful drag, and it was necessary to contribute to their support by putting fresh burdens on the British people. Among these was a tax on malt, which, being extended to Scotland, caused a general fermentation; for the Scotch were always remarkable for their love of whisky, which they easily promoted into a love of liberty, when it suited at once their pocket and their purpose to assume the attitude of patriots. The tax—not the whisky—was, however, crammed down their throats in spite of the cry they had succeeded in getting up for untaxed toddy, which they, of course, pronounced to be the safeguard of their constitution, as everything else becomes in its turn when it seems to be placed in jeopardy. The rioters, however, could get no persons of rank or influence to join in the great whisky movement, which the masses had taken into their heads, and order was restored after a few lives had been sacrificed.
On the 2nd of November, 1726, Sophia Dorothea, nominally, but never practically, Queen of England, died in the prison at Hanover, to which her husband had committed her. This lady had formed an attachment for a Count Koningsmark, whom the king, her husband, then Elector of Hanover, unceremoniously butchered in an anteroom. As the historians who have preceded us call his majesty a strong-minded man, we presume that there is something intellectually vigorous in the commission of a murder, though we confess we are at a loss to discover the extraordinary fact which other writers appear to have recognised. Not very long after the death of his wife George repaired—or rather, he went very much out of repair, for his health was greatly damaged—to Hanover. He was taken very ill on the road, and was seized with apoplexy to the unhappy perplexity of his attendants, whom he nevertheless desired to "push along and keep moving." They accordingly did so, and the royal carriage was hastened, but his majesty was only being driven to extremities, for on the 11th of June, 1727, he expired at Osnaburgh, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.
The particulars of his death have been very circumstantially given, and as they are rather characteristic of George the First, we will give them with our accustomed brevity. He had been in perfect health on the previous evening, and ate a hearty supper of sheep's hearts, including a tremendous melon, to which the melancholy result has been attributed. Resuming his journey towards Hanover at 3 a.m. he was seized with griping pains, but believing that one mischief would correct another, he fancied the supper that had disagreed with him would be counteracted in its consequences by a dinner, which he began lustily calling for. When it was placed before him he could eat nothing—an incapacity so unusual with George, or as some called him, Gorge the First, that his attendants were seized with alarm and astonishment. Having again entered his carriage, he exclaimed in quaint French, "C'est fait de moi" which we need scarcely intimate means either "I'm done for," or "It's all up with me." In the course of the same night his existence coming to an end proved the too fatal accuracy of his own conclusion.
George the First had nothing in his character to justify us in keeping George the Second waiting to be shown up to the throne, where in the ensuing chapter we shall have the pleasure of seeing him. The first George was a person of somewhat feeble intellects, exceedingly shy in public, but he could "come out" at a private tea-party at home very effectively. His tastes were none of the most refined, and he voted all letters exceedingly dry but O.D.V.—such was the wretched pun the king made on eau de vie—which he was very partial to. It might be regarded as a redeeming point in the character of his majesty that he was very fond of Punch, which he regularly "took in," but this feather in his cap must be plucked out, for we find the Punch he patronised was the liquor, and not the periodical. Avarice was another of the most prominent features of his character, and he actually risked the throne itself on several occasions, because he would not spare a few pounds for the purchase of that floating loyalty that, in consequence of the venality and poverty of the ancient aristocracy, was always to be had at a certain price in the market. He had also the shabby trick of never carrying any money in his own pocket, so that he was always obliged to dip into the pockets of his companions to pay the expenses incurred, either at home or abroad, and many of his Court used to get as far away as possible from the side of the king when there was anything to pay, for he was sure to ask them for a loan on such occasions.
It seems from pretty good authority that he fancied himself to be an usurper; but he flattered himself a great deal too much in believing that the English nation would have quietly allowed an act of usurpation from so unimportant a personage as he would have been, but for the position into which he was called by the voice of the people. He preferred Hanover to England; "but," says Smith, "there is no accounting for tastes," and we will therefore make no effort to unravel the mystery of this absurd preference.
The Court of George the First was remarkable for its laxity, though there was more external propriety than used to prevail in the days of Charles the Second. The latter monarch openly offended against the rules of decency; but George the First was just as bad in a quiet way, and imported into the aristocracy of England two or three vulgar, low-born, German, female favourites, whose successors now boast of their illustrious ancestors.
It is a somewhat interesting fact that charity schools were first established in the year 1698, when the predecessor of George the First was on the throne; and the antiquarian will perhaps tell us whether the muffin-cap is of greater antiquity than the muffin. We believe such to be the case, for the muffin is of comparatively modern date, and is the contemporary of its rival or companion, the crumpet. How the muffin-cap came to put the muffin into anybody's head is a question too difficult for any but the archaeologist.
WHILE George the First was alive, he and the Prince of Wales were always having high words in low Dutch to the discredit of themselves and the disgust of the bewildered courtiers. To such a pitch had the animosity between father and son been carried, that young Master George, the heir apparent to the throne, had been forbidden the palace, and he had frequently held long conversations through the fan-light with the hall porter, who could only show his face above the door-way, and exclaim, "Very sorry, your royal highness, but it's the governor's orders, and I can't let you in." Which of these two unnatural relatives may have been most to blame we are not in a condition to determine, but the father who shuts his doors against a son, and drives him from home, is, prime facie, a brute, and George the First's conduct to his wife affords collateral evidence of his being devoid of feeling towards those who were nearly allied to him. It may be generally taken for granted that sons are only indifferent towards parents who are bad, and if young George failed in respect or affection towards old George, it was because old George had done nothing to inspire in young George the sentiments which should have been entertained by a son for his father.
Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, had endeavoured to bring the precious couple together on friendly terms, but they would often quarrel in his presence, and appeal to Sir Robert, until the frequency with which they invoked the support of their referee, by loud exclamations of "So help me Bob!" turned the phrase into a proverb, which is to this day prevalent among the lower and more energetio classes of the community. When George the Second came to the throne, he expressed his desire to "keep on" Sir Robert Walpole as minister, if the situation continued to suit that individual, whose acknowledgment that he was "very comfortable." concluded the arrangement for the continuance of the existing Government.
Walpole was one of the most dishonest ministers that ever lived, and it was his policy to resort to corruption of the grossest kind to ensure success; "for," as he would sometimes say, "the manure must not be spared, if you wish for an abundant harvest." He accordingly laid it on so extravagantly thick, that the expenses of the cultivation of his political connections was prodigious, and the national resources were frequently dipped into, for the purpose of serving the personal objects of the minister. The sinking fund had a tremendous hole made in it, where—to steal a figure from the plumber's art—a waste-pipe was inserted, and laid on to the pocket of the premier, who, collecting the floating capital into a private reservoir of his own, turned it on among his creatures with great prodigality. To meet the drain that was going on, new taxes were imposed, or in other words, the people were treated as if they had been an Artesian well, and were bored to the most frightful extent for the sort of currency by which a liquidation of the liabilities of the State was to be effected.
The nation, recognising a swindling spirit in its rulers, gave symptoms of the imitative mania which invariably causes the vices of the great to be copied by the little. Speculations of the wildest and most dishonest nature were set on foot among every class, from the highest to the lowest, and there is no question that the Rogue's March would have been the most appropriate National Anthem for the period. From quiet fraud, the country soon fell into downright robbery, and the people got into the habit of plundering each other in the thoroughfares, without going through the formality—common in our own days of issuing a prospectus, and advertising a project. The first advertisement generally came upon the victim in the shape of a blow upon the head in the public streets; the preliminary deposit was extorted from him in the shape of the first article of value that could be easily snatched away, and the calls were exacted in rapid succession by a demand upon every one of his pockets. There was no hope of protection from the police, for the members of the force were too busy in robbing on their own account to bother themselves about the robberies that were being committed by others. It was, in fact, a case of Every Man his Own Pickpocket; and protection, being everybody's business, was soon considered nobody's business, until the whole kingdom was exposed to a sort of daily scramble, in the course of which Shakespeare's description of Iago's purse, "'Twas mine, 'tis his," was every hour realised. Things were, of course, in a most unsettled state, for nobody thought of settling anything—not even a washing bill—during the existence of the universal plunder system, and a riot every other day was the ordinary average of popular turbulence. Even the Scotch grew warm, and becoming conscientiously opposed to the legal infliction of death, they attended the execution of a smuggler to make a great moral demonstration against capital punishment. In the excess of their philanthropic sympathy with the convict, they began pelting the authorities, who were on the point of being murdered, when John Porteus, the captain of the guard, interfered to save the lives of his comrades. Some time afterwards, the philanthropists, to prove their consistent abhorrence of the punishment of death, seized upon Porteus, who had officiated in keeping the peace at the execution, and hanged him at the Salt Market.
In the year 1737 the queen died, and the king sent up a piteous howl, though he had ill-used her majesty on many occasions; but it was well remarked by a philosopher of the period, that by the sincerity with which George the Second wept her dead, he almost teaches us to forget the severity with which he wapt her living.
The year 1740 was rendered remarkable by a severe frost, which confined Father Thames to his bed with a dreadful cold, until the 17th of February, from the 26th of December previous. A fair was held on the ice, but amid these rejoicings the watermen were dissatisfied at being deprived of their ordinary fare, and the fishermen complained that they had been able to net nothing during the frost's continuance.
The disputes of the Continent furnished occupation, as usual, for English troops and English money, nor was it long before a difference between the Elector of Bavaria and Maria Theresa caused the Earl of Stair to be sent to keep his eyes open, with sixteen thousand men, in the lady's interest. Stair, after staring at sixty thousand Frenchmen face to face for some time, began to think he had a very poor look out, though joined by the king himself, and his son, the Duke of Cumberland. The whole three of them got beaten like so many old sacks by Marshal Saxe at the battle of Fontenoy. Cumberland, who had put his best leg forward, got it badly wounded. George rode along the lines—at the back, we believe—urging on the soldiers to fight for their king, while Stair seems to have been lost sight of, or perhaps to have run away, though we must admit that this flight of Stairs must be considered apocryphal.
While these disasters were going on abroad, a correspondence was being kept up between the Pretender, James Stuart, and his British friends, who promised that if he or his son Charles Edward would effect a landing in Scotland, there should be a good supply of horses and carriages; but one would imagine his friends were a parcel of jobmasters, by the quality of the aid they tendered, and indeed a job was their object, for all but the most unprincipled of the party were for abandoning the hopeless project.
Though James himself was a bird far too venerable to be attracted by Caledonian chaff, his son was sanguine enough to hope that by coming over to be met by a few glass coaches and hackney chariots, his cause would be aided. He wrote to say when he might be expected, and without waiting for an answer, he put to sea in a small frigate. He was joined by the Elizabeth, a sixty-gun ship, when an English liner, called the Lion, appeared on the foaming main, and an engagement commenced, which rendered it necessary for the Elizabeth to go into Brest harbour for refuge. At the end of eighteen days he reached the Hebrides, but the prospect was so wretched that the few adherents who met him recommended him very strongly to be off again as speedily as possible. Charles Edward was, however, obstinate, and on the 11th of August, 1745, he took out of his portmanteau and unfurled the banner of the Stuarts in the pass of Glenfinnan. Attempts were made to obtain recruits, but they poured, or rather dribbled in so slowly, that the whole insurrection might have been broken up had it been nipped in the bud; but while Sir John Cope, the commander of the king's forces, was capering about the hills, and dragging his army of flats across the mountains, the young Charles Edward gained time enough to add to the strength of his company. Cope not coming up to cope with the rebels, they pushed on to Perth and Stirling, but they soon made an acquisition of still more sterling value, by taking possession of Edinburgh. Here the young prince, who had landed only with seven adherents, found himself at the head of four thousand men, most of whom had neither arms nor discipline, but brimming over with the froth of enthusiasm, they presented to their chief a refreshing aspect.
Sir John Cope, having fumbled his way out of the hills, had got to Preston among the pans, where he was seized with a panic, and being set upon by the Scotch, was utterly routed. Returning to Edinburgh after his success Prince Charles Edward had King James proclaimed in the usual form; and the King of France, who had stood aloof while the result was doubtful, sent over a small parcel of arms and a few packets of powder, by way of encouragement. He promised also that a French army should soon follow the arms, for Charles Edward had no soldiers to match the matchless matchlocks that had arrived from the French sovereign. Trusting to the word of his Gallic majesty, the young Pretender ventured to cross the border in a blue bonnet, attended by a large body of adherents in the same interesting coiffure, and on the 29th of November, 1745, he fixed his headquarters at Manchester.
The alarm excited in London was something utterly indescribable. People who lived in the town rushed into the country to be out of the way, and the inhabitants of the provinces poured into the metropolis as the best place for avoiding danger. The householders took up arms, and formed themselves into squares, crescents, lanes, streets, alleys, or anything. Some bolted their doors, others bolted themselves, and all gave unspeakable symptoms of terror and confusion. A camp was ordered to be formed in the suburbs, and after getting a large force together it was at first resolved to turn 'em out at Turaham Green, but Finchley was at length decided upon as the place of rendezvous.
George, who had been summoned from Germany, came blustering over to England, and began immediately to boast, in bad grammar and wretched pronunciation, that he would "vite vor his Binglish bossessions," and would "meet the Bretender how or where he bleased." His personal valour was not put to the test, for Charles Edward, who had expected instalments of friends to continue meeting him at every large town, had the mortification to find that the more he kept looking for them the more they kept on not coming; and eventually, by the unanimous voice of his officers, he was compelled to retreat. When he first heard their decision, he observed that the messenger must be joking, and his features wore a faint smile, but when the porter who brought the intelligence shook his head, as much as to say, "It's no joke, your honour," the features of the young Pretender fell, and those who watched him narrowly for the rest of his life, declare that he was never afterwards seen to smile again.
It is impossible to recite the misfortunes of Charles Edward without a feeling of grave sympathy at the failure of the many noble qualities with which he was endowed. In April, 1746, he advanced to Culloden, intending to astonish the English, but he and his followers, like the individual named in the song who had resolved to "astonish the Browns," finished by astonishing no one but themselves.
The rebels advanced in two columns; but the soldiers fell asleep, and we are not surprised at the fact, for any newspaper reader will admit that in the very idea of two columns there is something soporific in the extreme. The exhausted troops fell from fatigue; others lost their way; and the second column found it impossible to keep up with the first. This threw a damp upon the energies of even consternation on the boldest; and with a mental ejaculation of "Oh! it's no use," the very best of Charles Edward's adherents retired. Notwithstanding the valour of a corps consisting of picked men, there arose among them a feeling of dissatisfaction at standing unsupported, to be picked out by the artillery of the enemy; and though one gallant body withdrew, playing on their pipes, the pipes were very soon put out by a smart shower of bullets. Such was the upshot of one of the most spirited enterprises that ever was undertaken; and its chief, the unfortunate Charles Edward, became a pauper fugitive, with scarcely clothes to cover him, and there was quite as much necessity as nationality in the bareness of his legs, during the period of his wanderings.
One of these fogs which are so accommodating in romance, but very rarely present themselves opportunely in history, was obliging enough to make its appearance for that night only on an evening of September, 1746, and by its kind assistance in doing the heavy business on that occasion, Charles Edward was enabled to pass unobserved through an English squadron, and cross in a vessel to Morlaix in Brittany. The unfortunate Pretender seems to have taken his discomfiture so seriously to heart, that from a fine spirited young fellow, he lapsed into all sorts of excess, and having taken to drinking, he fell into a constant reel, which formed the sole remaining vestige of his once enthusiastic nationality. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, walking about Florence in the year 1799, tumbled over an intoxicated individual, and raising him from the ground, had no sooner carried him towards a light, than he recognised the features of the young Pretender.
Matters might possibly have gone on very peaceably with England, for there was nothing to fight about at home, but a dispute arose with the French about the respective influence of the two nations in some of their distant colonies. A contest for the Nabobship between some of the native tribes in the Carnatic, became the subject of a desperate quarrel between the two great European powers; one of whom supported the claims of Anwar ad Dien, the other promoting the pretensions of Chunda Sahib, and both caring, in fact, not a button about either. A war was, nevertheless, entered upon with intense vehemence, and was carried on for some time, with alternating success; but, not having the bulletins of the day at hand, and the despatches being equally out of the way, we are unable to give the particulars of the various contests. The quarrelling, though at a great distance, made at the time sufficient noise to be disagreeably audible at home, and preparations were made in the two mother countries to send out large forces to thrash the children on both sided out of their turbulence.
Though all this bickering had been going on for some time in the colonies, war had not been formally declared; but whenever an English or a French vessel had a chance of worrying the other, each made the most of the opportunity. On one occasion, two French sail of the line got treated very unceremoniously, and eventually captured; when the Government of Paris began expressing a great deal of surprise and indignation, and professing utter ignorance of the fact that the two powers were quarrelling. It is absurd to suppose that France was sincere in this declaration, for it could not have been understood to be "only in fun," that the French and English were knocking each other about most unmercifully and energetically in America. The circumstance of the capture to which we have referred, caused an immediate understanding that both parties were henceforth in earnest; and there was a mutual calling-in of their outstanding ambassadors.
George, however, instead of thinking about the colonies, became solicitous only about his "little place" at Hanover, and while he neglected therefore the American war, which became a series of mishaps, he threw his whole strength into the defence of the wretched spot, that would not have been "had at a gift" even by the ambitious enemy.
Higher game was, in fact, in view; and the possession of the rock of Gibraltar and the island of Minorca by the English having long been envied, the French made up their minds to have a dish at one of them. Gibraltar was speedily pronounced impracticable, but Minorca seemed to be in a state of helplessness that tempted a resolute foe, and Fort St. Philip was suddenly invested. No preparations having been made for defence, the authorities ran about asking each other anxiously what was to be done, for most of the officers of the garrison were absent on leave; and General Blakeney, who was on the spot, though a very gallant fellow, was old and shaky. His spirit was consequently more effective as a fine piece of acting than for the purposes of actual war; and though the old fellow, tottering about in his dressing-gown and slippers, might have exclaimed "Aye, aye—let 'em come; I'm ready for them," and have relapsed with affecting feebleness into the sufferings of a gouty twinge, the spectacle, which might have been beautiful on the boards of a theatre, was, in the midst of a town threatened with a siege, most painfully ridiculous.
Relief was ordered from Gibraltar; but the governor, who was either very stupid or did not like the job, pretended to, or really did misunderstand the purport of the instructions sent out to him. At home, the same want of energy prevailed, for the acting representative of the Government picked out a few ill-manned vessels, which he dignified with the name of a squadron; and calling to him an admiral, since notorious but then unknown, observed to him, "Here, Byng; you had better take this force, and go and see what they want at Fort St. Philip." Admiral Byng did not at all like the job, and began to hesitate about undertaking it; but being told to call at Gibraltar for fresh troops, he plucked up sufficient pluck for the enterprise.
On his arrival at Gibraltar, the governor pretended not to know what Byng had come about; and when asked for troops, merely exclaimed, "Nonsense, nonsense; there's some mistake. I can't part with my troops, for I'm as nervous as an old aspen myself, with the very little protection that is left to me." Byng became more disheartened than ever by the refusal of the expected aid, and went grumbling away, muttering, "Well! they'll see; I know how it will end;" and giving vent to other ejaculations of a similarly un-seaman like character. He wrote to the Lords of the Admiralty, announcing the certainty of his making a mess of it; and in speaking of the refusal of troops at Gibraltar, he in vulgar but forcible language "gave it the governor." Having made up his mind to a failure, it was not very difficult to accomplish the object, and having gone to look at Fort St. Philip, he merely played, as it were, a game at stare-cap with the sentinel on the look-out, but did not perform a single operation with a view to its protection. In due course the French fleet hove in sight, and it was expected that a brilliant action would have taken place, for both squadrons immediately began manoeuvring most beautifully until each had got into the line of battle. A little harmless cannonading had commenced by way of overture to the anticipated work, when the French slowly retired, and the English slowly following, they disappeared together in the most harmless and indeed almost friendly manner, to the astonishment of poor old Blakeney, who watched them as long as the strength of his glasses would allow of his doing so. Nothing could have been more orderly than the retreat on both sides; and indeed it has been suggested by an old offender, who very naturally refuses to give his name—"That if the affair we have described deserves to be called a battle at all, the Battle of Co-runner"—mark the deceptive spelling in the last syllable—"would be a good name for it."
The rage of the English, whose boast it had been to rule the waves, and never, never, never to be slaves, may be conceived at the arrival of the intelligence of Byng's bungle. The Government was the first object of the popular fury; but the ministers were adroit enough to turn the indignation of the people against the unfortunate admiral. Byng was, no doubt, bad enough, though he was not the only guilty party; but his fellow-culprits, taking a lesson from the pickpockets, who were the first to raise after their accomplice the cry of "Stop thief!" began to denounce the nautical delinquent with excessive vehemence. They recalled him from his command, ordered him to Greenwich, and instead of allowing him to partake in the amusements of the place, they imprisoned him with the intimation that "None but the brave deserved the fair." The next step was to bring him before a court-martial on a charge of cowardice ana disobedience to orders, when, being found guilty, he was condemned to be shot, and underwent at Portsmouth, on the 14th of March, 1757, this rather redundant punishment. We are anxious to do what we can in the way of sympathy for poor Byng, particularly after the little we find that can be of any use to him in the pages of preceding historians. They seem disposed to join in the cruel shout of "Sarve him right!" which a vulgar and unthinking posterity has raised to hoot the memory of this unfortunate officer. We are induced to look at him as a gentleman who merely was unfit for the profession he had chosen, and as his was not an uncommon case, we think it hard to look upon it with uncommon severity. It is perhaps an odd coincidence, that an officer more eager for the fray than Byng had urged the latter to enter into the action with the French, when the dry observation "I'll be shot if I do," was the only reply of the admiral. It cannot fail to strike the philosophic observer at this distance of time, that Byng, when saying "I'll be shot if I do"—that is, if he ever said as much—might have been profitably given to understand that he would be shot if he didn't. It has been put forth as a consolatory reflection that the naval service in general profited by this melancholy execution of poor Byng; but though as a general rule, what is desirable for the goose is equally advantageous to the gander, we cannot in this instance agree that what was good for the men was at the same time good for the admiral.
The treatment of poor Byng presents a very humiliating picture of the want of firmness shown by the court-martial that tried, the ministers that abandoned, and the king that would not pardon him. Everybody affected a strong desire to see him saved, but nobody had the resolution to take the responsibility of saving him. His sometimes merciless majesty, the mob, formed in reality the executioners of poor Byng, for the authorities were all afraid of risking their popularity by being instrumental to his pardon. The members of the court-martial, by their verdict, expressly implored the Lords of the Admiralty to recommend him to the mercy of the crown, but there was a general feeling of "It's no business of mine," and to this heartless apathy poor Byng was eventually sacrificed. Never was there a better illustration of the hare with many friends, though not even a hair-breadth escape was permitted to the unfortunate admiral. Never was a gentleman killed under such an accumulation of kindness as Byng, and indeed he was, figuratively speaking, bowed out of existence with so many complimentary and sympathetic expressions, that but for the stubborn reality of the leaden bullets he might have fancied that the guns discharged at him were intended rather in the nature of a salute than as a capital punishment.