Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Volume II Part 12

The tutor, whom he was lucky enough to obtain for his son at this time, was Mr. William Smythe, a gentleman who has since distinguished himself by his cla.s.sical attainments and graceful talent for poetry. Young Sheridan had previously been under the care of Dr. Parr, with whom he resided a considerable time at Hatton; and the friendship of this learned man for the father could not have been more strongly shown than in the disinterestedness with which he devoted himself to the education of the son. The following letter from him to Mr. Sheridan, in the May of this year, proves the kind feeling by which he was actuated towards him:--

"DEAR SIR,

"I hope Tom got home safe, and found you in better spirits. He said something about drawing on your banker; but I do not understand the process, and shall not take any step. You will consult your own convenience about these things; for my connection with you is that of friendship and personal regard. I feel and remember slights from those I respect, but acts of kindness I cannot forget; and, though my life has been pa.s.sed far more in doing than receiving services, yet I know and I value the good dispositions of yourself and a few other friends,--men who are worthy of that name from me.

"If you choose Tom to return, he knows and you know how glad I am always to see him. If not, pray let him do something, and I will tell you what he should do.

"Believe me, dear Sir,

"Yours sincerely,

"S. PARR."

In the spring of this year was established the Society of "The Friends of the People," for the express purpose of obtaining a Parliamentary Reform.

To this a.s.sociation, which, less for its professed object than for the republican tendencies of some of its members, was particularly obnoxious to the loyalists of the day, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, and many others of the leading persons of the Whig party, belonged. Their Address to the People of England, which was put forth in the month of April, contained an able and temperate exposition of the grounds upon which they sought for Reform; and the names of Sheridan, Mackintosh, Whitbread, &c., appear on the list of the Committee by which this paper was drawn up.

It is a proof of the little zeal which Mr. Fox felt at this period on the subject of Reform, that he withheld the sanction of his name from a Society, to which so many of his most intimate political friends belonged. Some notice was, indeed, taken in the House of this symptom of backwardness in the cause; and Sheridan, in replying to the insinuation, said that "they wanted not the signature of his Right Honorable friend to a.s.sure them I of his concurrence. They had his bond in the steadiness of his political principles and the integrity of his heart." Mr. Fox himself, however, gave a more definite explanation of the circ.u.mstance.

"He might be asked," he said, "why his name was not on the list of the Society for Reform? His reason was, that though he saw great and enormous grievances, he did not see the remedy." It is to be doubted, indeed, whether Mr. Fox ever fully admitted the principle upon which the demand for a Reform was founded. When he afterward espoused the question so warmly, it seems to have been merely as one of those weapons caught up in the heat of a warfare, in which Liberty itself appeared to him too imminently endangered to admit of the consideration of any abstract principle, except that summary one of the right of resistance to power abused. From what has been already said, too, of the language held by Sheridan on this subject, it may be concluded that, though far more ready than his friend to inscribe Reform upon the banner of the party, he had even still less made up his mind as to the practicability or expediency of the measure. Looking upon it as a question, the agitation of which was useful to Liberty, and at the same time counting upon the improbability of its objects being ever accomplished, he adopted at once, as we have seen, the most speculative of all the plans that had been proposed, and flattered himself that he thus secured the benefit of the general principle, without risking the inconvenience of any of the practical details.

The following extract of a letter from Sheridan to one of his female correspondents, at this time, will show that he did not quite approve the policy of Mr. Fox in holding aloof from the Reformers:--

"I am down here with Mrs. Canning and her family, while all my friends and party are meeting in town, where I have excused myself, to lay their wise heads together in this crisis. Again I say there is nothing but what is unpleasant before my mind. I wish to occupy and fill my thoughts with public matters, and to do justice to the times, they afford materials enough; but nothing is in prospect to make activity pleasant, or to point one's efforts against one common enemy, making all that engage in the attack cordial, social, and united. On the contrary, every day produces some new schism and absurdity. Windham has signed a nonsensical a.s.sociation with Lord Mulgrave; and when I left town yesterday, I was informed that the _Divan_, as the meeting at Debrett's is called, were furious at an _authentic_ advertis.e.m.e.nt from the Duke of Portland against Charles Fox's speech in the Whig Club, which no one before believed to be genuine, but which they now say Dr. Lawrence brought from Burlington-House. If this is so, depend on it there will be a direct breach in what has been called the Whig Party. Charles Fox must come to the Reformers openly and avowedly; and in a month four-fifths of the Whig Club will do the same."

The motion for the Abolition of the Slave-trade, brought forward this year by Mr. Wilberforce, (on whose brows it may be said, with much more truth than of the Roman General, "_Annexuit Africa lauros_,") was signalized by one of the most splendid orations that the lofty eloquence of Mr. Pitt ever poured forth. [Footnote: It was at the conclusion of this speech that, in contemplating the period when Africa would, he hoped, partic.i.p.ate in those blessings of civilization and knowledge which were now enjoyed by more fortunate regions, he applied the happy quotation, rendered still more striking, it is said, by the circ.u.mstance of the rising sun just then shining in through the windows of the House:--

"_Nos ... primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis, Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper_."] I mention the Debate, however, for the mere purpose of remarking, as a singularity, that, often as this great question was discussed in Parliament, and ample as was the scope which it afforded for the grander appeals of oratory, Mr. Sheridan was upon no occasion tempted to utter even a syllabic on the subject,-- except once for a few minutes, in the year 1787, upon some point relating to the attendance of a witness. The two or three sentences, however, which he did speak on that occasion were sufficient to prove, (what, as he was not a West-India proprietor, no one can doubt,) that the sentiments entertained by him on this interesting topic were, to the full extent, those which actuated not only his own party, but every real lover of justice and humanity throughout the world. To use a quotation which he himself applied to another branch of the question in 1807:--

"I would not have a slave to till my ground, To fan me when I sleep, and tremble when I wake, for all that human sinews, bought And sold, have ever earn'd."

The National Convention having lately, in the first paroxysm of their republican vanity, conferred the honor of Citizenship upon several distinguished Englishmen, and, among others, upon Mr. Wilberforce and Sir James Mackintosh, it was intended, as appears by the following letter from Mr. Stone, (a gentleman subsequently brought into notice by the trial of his brother for High Treason,) to invest Mr. Fox and Mr.

Sheridan with the same distinction, had not the prudent interference of Mr. Stone saved them from this very questionable honor.

The following is the letter which this gentleman addressed to Sheridan on the occasion.

"_Paris, Nov. 18, Year 1, of the French Republic._

"DEAR SIR,

"I have taken a liberty with your name, of which I ought to give you notice, and offer some apology. The Convention, having lately enlarged their connections in Europe, are ambitious of adding to the number of their friends by bestowing some mark of distinction on those who have stood forth in support of their cause, when its fate hung doubtful. The French conceive that they owe this obligation very eminently to you and Mr. Fox; and, to show their grat.i.tude, the Committee appointed to make the Report has determined to offer to you and Mr. Fox the honor of Citizenship. Had this honor never been conferred before, had it been conferred only on worthy members of society, or were you and Mr. Fox only to be named at this moment, I should not have interfered. But as they have given the t.i.tle to obscure and vulgar men and scoundrels, of which they are now very much ashamed themselves, I have presumed to suppose that you would think yourself much more honored in the breach than the observance, and have therefore caused your nomination to be suspended.

But I was influenced in this also by other considerations, of which one was, that, though the Committee would be more careful in their selection than the last had been, yet it was probable you would not like to share the honors with such as would be chosen. But another more important one that weighed with me was, that this new character would not be a small embarra.s.sment in the route which you have to take the next Session of Parliament, when the affairs of France must necessarily be often the subject of discussion. No one will suspect Mr. Wilberforce of being seduced, and no one has thought that he did any thing to render him liable to seduction; as his superst.i.tion and devotedness to Mr. Pitt have kept him perfectly _a l'abri_ from all temptations to err on the side of liberty, civil or religious. But to you and Mr. Fox the reproach will constantly be made, and the blockheads and knaves in the House will always have the means of influencing the opinions of those without, by opposing with success your English character to your French one; and that which is only a mark of grat.i.tude for past services will be construed by malignity into a bribe of some sort for services yet to be rendered. You may be certain that, in offering the reasons for my conduct, I blush that I think it necessary to stoop to such prejudices. Of this, however, you will be the best judge, and I should esteem it a favor if you would inform me whether I have done right, or whether I shall suffer your names to stand as they did before my interference. There will be sufficient time for me to receive your answer, as I have prevailed on the Reporter, M. Brissot, to delay a few days. I have given him my reasons for wishing the suspension, to which he has a.s.sented. Mr. O'Brien also prompted me to this deed, and, if I have done wrong, he must take half the punishment.

My address is "Rose, Huissier," under cover of the President of the National Convention.

"I have the honor to be

"Your most obedient

"And most humble servant,

"J.H. STONE."

It was in the month of October of this year that the romantic adventure of Madame de Genlis, (in the contrivance of which the practical humor of Sheridan may, I think, be detected,) occurred on the road between London and Dartford. This distinguished lady had, at the dose of the year 1791, with a view of escaping the turbulent scenes then pa.s.sing in France, come over with her ill.u.s.trious pupil, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, and her adopted daughter, Pamela, [Footnote: Married at Tournay in the month of December, 1792, to Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Lord Edward was the only one, among the numerous suitors of Mrs. Sheridan, to whom she is supposed to have listened with any thing like a return of feeling; and that there should be mutual admiration between two such n.o.ble specimens of human nature, it is easy, without injury to either of them, to believe.

Some months before her death, when Sheridan had been describing to her and Lord Edward a beautiful French girl whom he had lately seen, and added that she put him strongly in mind of what his own wife had been in the first bloom of her youth and beauty, Mrs. Sheridan turned to Lord Edward, and said with a melancholy smile, "I should like you, when I am dead, to marry that girl." This was Pamela, whom Sheridan had just seen during his visit of a few hours to Madame de Genlis, at Bury, in Suffolk, and Whom Lord Edward married in about a year after.] to England, where she received both from Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan, all that attention to which her high character for talent, as well as the embarra.s.sing nature of her situation at that moment, claimed for her.

The following letter from her to Mr. Fox I find inclosed in one from the latter to Mr. Sheridan:--

"SIR,

"You have, by your infinite kindness, given me the right to show you the utmost confidence. The situation I am in makes me desire to have with me, during two days, a person perfectly well instructed in the Laws, and very sure and honest. I desire such a person that I could offer to him all the money he would have for this trouble. But there is not a moment to be lost on the occasion. If you could send me directly this person, you would render me the most important service. To calm the most cruel agitation of a sensible and grateful soul shall be your reward.--Oh could I see you but a minute!--I am uneasy, sick, unhappy; surrounded by the most dreadful snares of the fraud and wickedness; I am intrusted with the most interesting and sacred charge!--All these are my claims to hope your advices, protection and a.s.sistance. My friends are absent in that moment; there is only two names in which I could place my confidence and my hopes, Pardon this bad language. As Hypolite I may say,

"'Songez que je vous parle une langue etrangere,'

but the feelings it expresses cannot be strangers to your heart.

"Sans avoir l'avantage d'etre connue de Monsieur Fox, je prens la liberte de le supplier de comuniquer cette lettre a Mr. Sheridan, et si ce dernier n'est pas a Londres, j'ose esperer de Monsieur Fox la meme bonte que j'attendois de Mr. Sheridan dans l'embarras ou je me trouve. Je m'adresse aux deux personnes de l'Angleterre que j'admire le plus, et je serois doublement heureuse d'etre tiree de cette perplexite et de leur en avoir l'obligation. Je serai peut etre a Londres incessament. Je desirerois vivement les y trouver; mais en attendant je souhaite avec ardeur avoir ici le plus promptement possible l'homme de loi, ou seulement en etat de donner de bons conseils que je demande. Je renouvelle toutes mes excuses de tant d'importunites."

It was on her departure for France in the present year that the celebrated adventure to which I have alluded, occurred; and as it is not often that the post boys between London and Dartford are promoted into agents of mystery or romance, I shall give the entire narrative of the event in the lady's own words,--premising, (what Mr. Sheridan, no doubt discovered,) that her imagination had been for some time on the watch for such incidents, as she mentions, in another place, her terrors at the idea of "crossing the desert plains of Newmarket without an escort."

"We left London," says Madame de Genlis, "on our return to France the 20th of October, 1792, and a circ.u.mstance occurred to us so extraordinary, that I ought not, I feel, to pa.s.s it over in silence. I shall merely, however, relate the fact, without any attempt to explain it, or without adding to my recital any of those reflections which the impartial reader will easily supply. We set out at ten o'clock in the morning in two carriages, one with six horses, and the other, in which were our maids, with four. I had, two months before, sent off four of my servants to Paris, so that we had with us only one French servant, and a footman, whom we had hired to attend us as far as Dover. When we were about a quarter of a league from London, the French servant, who had never made the journey from Dover to London but once before, thought he perceived that we were not in the right road, and on his making the remark to me, I perceived it also. The postillions, on being questioned, said that they had only wished to avoid a small hill, and that they would soon return into the high road again. After an interval of three quarters of an hour, seeing that we still continued our way through a country that was entirely new to me, I again interrogated both the footman and the postillions, and they repeated their a.s.surance that we should soon regain the usual road.

"Notwithstanding this, however, we still pursued our course with extreme rapidity, in the same unknown route; and as I had remarked that the post-boys and footman always answered me in a strange sort of laconic manner, and appeared as if they were afraid to stop, my companions and I began to look at each other with a mixture of surprise and uneasiness. We renewed our inquiries, and at last they answered that it was indeed true they had lost their way, but that they had wished to conceal it from us till they had found the cross-road to Dartford (our first stage,) and that now, having been for an hour and a half in that road, we had but two miles to go before we should reach Dartford. It appeared to us very strange that people should lose their way between London and Dover, but the a.s.surance that we were only half a league from Dartford dispelled the sort of vague fear that had for a moment agitated us. At last, after nearly an hour had elapsed, seeing that we still were not arrived at the end of the stage, our uneasiness increased to a degree which amounted even to terror. It was with much difficulty that I made the post-boys stop opposite a small village which lay to our left; in spite of my shouts they still went on, till at last the French servant, (for the other did not interfere,) compelled them to stop. I then sent to the village to ask how far we were from Dartford, and my surprise may be guessed when I received for answer that we were now 22 miles, (more than seven leagues,) distant from that place. Concealing my suspicions, I took a guide in the village, and declared that it was my wish to return to London, as I found I was now at a less distance from that city than from Dartford. The post-boys made much resistance to my desire, and even behaved with an extreme degree of insolence, but our French servant, backed by the guide, compelled them to obey.

"As we returned at a very slow pace, owing to the sulkiness of the postboys and the fatigue of the horses, we did not reach London before nightfall, when I immediately drove to Mr. Sheridan's house. He was extremely surprised to see me returned, and on my relating to him our adventure, agreed with us that it could not have been the result of mere chance. He then sent for a Justice of the Peace to examine the post-boys, who were detained till his arrival under the pretence of calculating their account; but in the meantime, the hired footman disappeared and never returned. The post-boys being examined by the Justice according to the legal form, and in the presence of witnesses, gave their answers in a very confused way, but confessed that an unknown gentleman had come in the morning to their masters, and carrying them from thence to a public-house, had, by giving them something to drink, persuaded them to take the road by which we had gone. The examination was continued for a long time, but no further confession could be drawn from them. Mr.

Sheridan told me, that there was sufficient proof on which to ground an action against these men, but that it would be a tedious process, and cost a great deal of money. The post-boys were therefore dismissed, and we did not pursue the inquiry any further. As Mr. Sheridan saw the terror I was in at the very idea of again venturing on the road to Dover, he promised to accompany us thither himself, but added that, having some indispensable business on his hands, he could not go for some days. He took us then to Isleworth, a country-house which he had near Richmond, on the banks of the Thames, and as he was not able to dispatch his business so quickly as he expected, we remained for a month in that hospitable retreat, which both grat.i.tude and friendship rendered so agreeable to us."

It is impossible to read this narrative, with the recollection, at the same time, in our minds of the boyish propensity of Sheridan to what are called practical jokes, without strongly suspecting that he was himself the contriver of the whole adventure. The ready attendance of the Justice,--the "unknown gentleman" deposed to by the post-boys,--the disappearance of the laquais, and the advice given by Sheridan that the affair should be pursued no further,--all strongly savor of dramatic contrivance, and must have afforded a scene not a little trying to the gravity of him who took the trouble of getting it up. With respect to his motive, the agreeable month at his country-house sufficiently explains it; nor could his conscience have felt much scruples about an imposture, which, so far from being attended with any disagreeable consequences, furnished the lady with an incident of romance, of which she was but too happy to avail herself, and procured for him the presence of such a distinguished party, to grace and enliven the festivities of Isleworth.

[Footnote: In the Memoirs of Madame Genlis, lately published, she supplies a still more interesting key to his motives for such a contrivance. It appears, from the new recollections of this lady, that "he was pa.s.sionately in love with Pamela," and that, before her departure from England, the following scene took place--"Two days before we set out, Mr. Sheridan made, in my presence, his dedication of love to Pamela, who was affected by his agreeable manner and high character, and accepted the offer of his hand with pleasure. In consequence of this, it was settled that he was to marry her on our return from France, which was expected to take place in a fortnight." I suspect this to be but a continuation of the Romance of Dartford.]

At the end of the month, (adds Madame de Genlis,)

"Mr. Sheridan having finished his business, we set off together for Dover, himself, his son, and an English friend of his, Mr. Reid, with whom I was but a few days acquainted. It was now near the end of the month of November, 1792. The wind being adverse, detained us for five days at Dover, during all which time Mr. Sheridan remained with us. At last the wind grew less unfavorable, but still blew so violently that n.o.body would advise me to embark. I resolved, however, to venture, and Mr. Sheridan attended us into the very packet-boat, where I received his farewell with a feeling of sadness which I cannot express. He would have crossed with us, but that some indispensable duty, at that moment, required his presence in England. He, however, left us Mr. Reid, who had the goodness to accompany us to Paris."

In 1793 war was declared between England and France. Though hostilities might, for a short time longer, have been avoided, by a more accommodating readiness in listening to the overtures of France, and a less stately tone on the part of the English negotiator, there could hardly have existed in dispa.s.sionate minds any hope of averting the war entirely, or even of postponing it for any considerable period. Indeed, however rational at first might have been the expectation, that France, if left to pa.s.s through the ferment of her own Revolution, would have either settled at last into a less dangerous form of power, or exhausted herself into a state of harmlessness during the process, this hope had been for some time frustrated by the crusade proclaimed against her liberties by the confederated Princes of Europe. The conference at Pilnitz and the Manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick had taught the French people what they were to expect, if conquered, and had given to that inundation of energy, under which the Republic herself was sinking, a vent and direction outwards that transferred all the ruin to her enemies.

In the wild career of aggression and lawlessness, of conquest without, and anarchy within, which naturally followed such an outbreak of a whole maddened people, it would have been difficult for England, by any management whatever, to keep herself uninvolved in the general combustion,--even had her own population been much less heartily disposed than they were then, and ever have been, to strike in with the great discords of the world.

That Mr. Pitt himself was slow and reluctant to yield to the necessity of hostile measures against France, appears from the whole course of his financial policy, down to the very close of the session of 1792. The confidence, indeed, with which he looked forward to a long continuance of peace, in the midst of events, that were audibly the first mutterings of the earthquake, seemed but little indicative of that philosophic sagacity, which enables a statesman to see the rudiments of the Future in the Present. [Footnote: From the following words in his Speech on the communication from France in 1800, he appears, himself, to have been aware of his want of foresight at the commencement of the war:--

"Besides this, the reduction of our Peace Establishment in the year 1791, and continued to the subsequent year, is a fact, from which the inference is indisputable; a fact, which, I am afraid, shows not only that we were not waiting for the occasion of war, but that, in our partiality for a pacific system, we had indulged ourselves in a fond and credulous security, which wisdom and discretion would not have dictated."] "It is not unreasonable," said he on the 21st of February, 1792, "to expect that the peace which we now enjoy should continue at least fifteen years, since at no period of the British history, whether we consider the internal situation of this kingdom or its relation to foreign powers, has the prospect of war been farther removed than at present."

In pursuance of this feeling of security, he, in the course of the session of 1791-2, repealed taxes to the amount of 200,000_l_. a year, made considerable reductions in the naval and military establishments, and allowed the Hessian Subsidy to expire, without any movement towards its renewal. He likewise showed his perfect confidence in the tranquillity of the country, by breaking off a negotiation into which he had entered with the holders of the four per cents, for the reduction of their stock to three per cent.--saying, in answer to their demand of a larger bonus than he thought proper to give, "Then we will put off the reduction of this stock till next year." The truth is, Mr.

Pitt was proud of his financial system;--the abolition of taxes and the Reduction of the National Debt were the two great results to which he looked as a proof of its perfection; and while a war, he knew, would produce the very reverse of the one, it would leave little more than the name and semblance of the other.

The alarm for the safety of their establishments, which at this time pervaded the great ma.s.s of the people of England, earned the proof of its own needlessness in the wide extent to which it spread, and the very small minority that was thereby left to be the object of apprehension.

That in this minority, (which was, with few exceptions, confined to the lower cla.s.ses,) the elements of sedition and insurrection were actively at work, cannot be denied. There was not a corner of Europe where the same ingredients were not brought into ferment; for the French Revolution had not only the violence, but the pervading influence of the Simoom, and while it destroyed where it immediately pa.s.sed, made itself felt every where. But, surrounded and watched as were the few disaffected in England, by all the rank, property and power of the country,--animated at that moment by a more than usual portion of loyalty,--the dangers from sedition, as yet, were by no means either so deep or extensive, as that a strict and vigilant exercise of the laws already in being, would not have been abundantly adequate to all the purposes of their suppression.

The admiration, indeed, with which the first dawn of the Revolution was hailed had considerably abated. The excesses into which the new Republic broke loose had alienated the worship of most of its higher cla.s.s of votaries, and in some, as in Mr. Windham, had converted enthusiastic admiration into horror;--so that, though a strong sympathy with the general cause of the Revolution was still felt among the few Whigs that remained, the profession of its wild, republican theories was chiefly confined to two cla.s.ses of persons, who coincide more frequently than they themselves imagine,--the speculative and the ignorant.

The Minister, however, gave way to a panic which, there is every reason to believe, he did not himself partic.i.p.ate, and in going out of the precincts of the Const.i.tution for new and arbitrary powers, established a series of fatal precedents, of which alarmed Authority will be always but too ready to avail itself. By these stretches of power he produced--what was far more dangerous than all the ravings of club politicians--that vehement reaction of feeling on the part of Mr. Fox and his followers, which increased with the increasing rigor of the government, and sometimes led them to the brink of such modes and principles of opposition, as aggressions, so wanton, upon liberty alone could have either provoked or justified.