The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 37

(381) Joshua, fifth Viscount Allen, of Ireland, born in 1738.-E.

(382) George, second son of the first Earl of Delawarr.-E.

(383) Bishops made during the Duke of Newcastle's administration, and who were therefore supposed likely to be of his opinion. The Duke of Newcastle after being nearly half a century in office, was now in opposition.-C.

(384) John Calcraft, Esq. was deputy commissary-general of musters: he was particularly attached to Mr. Fox; which is, perhaps, one reason why Mr. Walpole, who had now quarrelled with Mr. Fox, speaks so slightingly of Mr. Calcraft.-C.

(385) Robert Clive, who, for his extraordinary services and success in India, was, at the age of thirty-five, created an Irish peer. It was of him that Mr. Pitt said, that he was "a heaven-born general, who without any experience in military affairs, had surpa.s.sed all the officers of his time." The wealth which this great man acc.u.mulated in India was, during his whole subsequent life, a subject of popular jealousy and party attack.-C.

(386) John Walsh, Esq. member for Worcester.-E.

(387) Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George III.; married in January 1764 to the Duke of Brunswick, killed at Jena, in 1806.

Her Royal Highness died in London in 1810.-E.

(388) Mr. Walpole affected indifference to politics, but the tone of his correspondence does not quite justify the expression of laughing at either party; he was warmly interested in the one, and bitterly hostile to the other, and for a considerable period took a deep and active interest in political party.-C.

(389) Thomas Pelham, member for Suss.e.x, afterwards comptroller of the household, and first Earl of Chichester.-E.

(390) The reader will observe, in this description of the Opera, an amusing allusion to public affairs; the last sentence refers, no doubt, to Lord Bute.-C.

(391) Lady Georgina Caroline Lenox, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond. She had been, in 1762, created Baroness Holland in her own right.-C.

(392) Probably the Count de Seleirn, minister from the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa.

(393) Brinsley Lord Newton, afterwards second Earl of Lanesborough, married Lady Jane Rochfort, eldest daughter of the first Earl of Belvidere. In the affair here alluded to Lord Newton exhibited at first an extreme jealousy, and subsequently what was thought an extreme facility in admitting Mr. hamilton's exculpatory a.s.surances.-C.

(394) This is not quite true; but Mr. Hamilton was on very bad terms with the Lord Lieutenant, and certainly did not take that prominent part in the House of Commons of Ireland which his station as chief secretary seemed to require,.-C.

Letter 183 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, Dec. 6, 1763. (page 256)

Dear sir, According to custom I am excessively obliged to you: you are continually giving me proofs of your kindness. I have now three packets to thank you for, full of information, and have only lamented the trouble you have given yourself.

I am glad for the tomb's sake and my own, that Sir Giles Allington's monument is restored. The draught you have sent is very perfect. The account of your ancestor Tuer(395) shall not be forgotten in my next edition. The pedigree of Allington I had from Collins before his death, but I think not as perfect as yours. You have made one little slip in it: my mother was granddaughter, not daughter of Sir John Shorter, and was not heiress, having three brothers, who all died after her, and we only quarter the arms of Shorter, which I fancy occasioned the mistake, by their leaving no children. The verses by Sir Edward Walpole, and the translation by Bland, are published in my description of Houghton.

I am come late from the House of Lords, and am just going to the Opera; so you will excuse me saying more than that I have a print of Archbishop Hutton for you (it @is Dr. Ducarel's), and a little plate of Strawberry; but I do not send them by the post, as it would crease them: if you will tell me how to convey them otherwise, I will. I repeat many thanks to you.

(395) Herbert Tuer, the painter. After the death of Charles 1.

he withdrew into Holland, and it is believed that he died at Utrecht.-E.

Letter 184 To The Earl Of Hertford.

Friday, Dec. 9, 1763. (page 257)

Your brother has sent you such a full account of his transaction with Mr. Grenville(396) that it is not necessary for me to add a syllable, except, what your brother will not have said himself, that he has acted as usual with the strictest honour and firmness, and has turned this negotiation entirely to his own credit. He has learned the ill wishes of his enemies, and what is more, knows who they are: he has laughed at them, and found at last that their malice was much bigger than their power. Mr.

Grenville, as you would wish, has proved how much he disliked the violence of his a.s.sociates, as I trust he will, whenever he has an opportunity, and has at last contented himself with so little or nothing, that I am sure you will feel yourself obliged to him.

For the measure itself, of turning out the officers in general who oppose, it has been much pressed, and what is still sillier, openly threatened by one set; but they dare not do it, and having notified it without effect, are ridiculed by the whole town, as well as by the persons threatened, particularly by Lord Albermarle, who has treated their menaces with the utmost contempt and spirit. This mighty storm, like another I shall tell you of, has vented itself on Lord Shelburne and Colonel Barr'e,(397) who were yesterday turned out; the first from aide-de-camp to the King, the latter from adjutant-general and governor of Stirling. Campbell,(398) to Whom it was promised before, has got the last; Ned Harvey,(399) the former. My present expectation is an oration from Barr'e(400 in honour of Mr. Pitt; for those are scenes that make the world so entertaining. After that, I shall demand a satire on Mr. Pitt, from Mr. Wilkes; and I do not believe I shall be balked, for Wilkes has already expressed his resentment on being given up by Pitt, who, says Wilkes, ought to be expelled for an impostor.(401) I do not know whether the Duke of Newcastle does not expect a palinodia from me(402) T'other morning at the Duke's lev'ee he embraced me, and hoped I would come and eat a bit of Suss.e.x mutton With him.

I had such difficulty to avoid laughing in his face that I got from him as fast as I could. Do you think me very likely to forget that I have been laughing at him these twenty years?

Well! but we have had a prodigious riot: are not you impatient to know the particulars? It was so prodigious a tumult, that I verily thought half the administration would have run away to Harrowgate. The north Briton was ordered to be burned by the hangman at Cheapside, on Sat.u.r.day last. The mob rose; the greatest mob, says Mr. Sheriff Blunt, that he has known in forty years. They were armed with that most b.l.o.o.d.y instrument, the mud out of the kennels: they hissed in the most murderous manner: broke Mr. Sheriff Harley's coach-gla.s.s in the most frangent manner; scratched his forehead, so that he is forced to wear a little patch in the most becoming manner; and obliged the hangman to burn the paper with a link, though f.a.gots were prepared to execute it in a more solemn manner. Numbers of gentlemen, from windows and balconies, encouraged the mob, who, in about an hour and a half, were so undutiful to the ministry, as to retire without doing any mischief, or giving Mr. Carteret Webb(403) the opportunity of a single information, except against an ignorant lad, who had been in town but ten days.

This terrible uproar has employed us four days. The sheriffs were called before your House on Monday, and made their narrative. My brother Cholmondeley,(404) in the most pathetic manner, and suitably to the occasion, recommended it to your lordships, to search for precedents of what he believed never happened since the world began. Lord Egmont,(405) who knows of a plot, which he keeps to himself, though It has been carrying on these twenty years, thought more vigorous measures ought to be taken on such a crisis, and moved to summon the mistress of the Union Coffee-house. The Duke of Bedford thought all this but piddling, and at once attacked Lord Mayor, common council, and charter of the city, whom, if he had been supported, I believe he would have ordered to be all burned by the hangman next Sat.u.r.day.

Unfortunately for such national justice, Lord Mansfield, who delights in every opportunity of exposing and mortifying the Duke of Bedford, and Sandwich, interposed for the magistracy of London, and after much squabbling, saved them from immediate execution. The Duke of Grafton, with infinite shrewdness and coolness, drew from the witnesses that the whole mob was of one mind; and the day ended in a vote of general censure on the rioters. This was communicated to us at a conference, and yesterday we acted the same farce; when Rigby trying to revive the imputation on the Lord Mayor, etc. (who, by the by, did sit most tranquilly at Guildhall during the whole tumult) the ministry disavowed and abandoned him to a man, vindicating the magistracy, and plainly discovering their own fear and awe of the city, who feel the insult, and will from hence feel their own strength. In short, to finish this foolish story, I never saw a transaction in which appeared so little parts, abilities, or conduct; nor do I think there can be any thing weaker than the administration except it is the opposition: but an opposition, bedrid and tonguetied, is a most ridiculous body. Mr. Pitt is laid up with the gout; Lord Hardwicke, though much relieved by a quack medicine, is still very ill; and Mr.

Charles Townshend is as silent as my Lord Abercorn(406--that they too should ever be alike!

This is not all our political news; Wilkes is an inexhaustible fund: on Monday was heard, in the common Pleas, his suit against Mr. Wood,(407) when, after a trial of fourteen hours, the jury gave him damages of one thousand pounds; but this was not the heaviest part of the blow. The Solicitor-general(408) tried to prove Wilkes author of the North Briton, and failed in the proof.

You may judge how much this miscarriage adds to the defeat.

Wilkes is not yet out of danger: they think there is still a piece of coat or lining to come Out of the wound. The campaign is over for the present, and the troops going into country quarters. In the mean time, the house of Hamilton has supplied us with new matter of talk. My lord was robbed about three o'clock in the night between Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, of money, bills, watches, and snuff-boxes, to the amount of three thousand pounds. Nothing is yet discovered, but that the guard in the stable yard saw a man in a great coat and white stockings come from thereabouts, at the time I have named. The servants have all been examined over and over to no purpose.

Fielding(409) is all day in the house, and a guard of his at night. The bureau in my lord's dressing-room (the little red room where the pictures are) was forced open. I fear you can guess who was at first suspected.(410)

I have received yours, my dear lord, of Nov. 30th, and am pleased that my Lady Hertford is so well reconciled to her ministry. You forgot to give me an account of her audience, but I have heard of the Queen's good-natured attention to her.

The anecdotes about Lord Sandwich are numerous; but I do not repeat them to you, because I know nothing how true they are, and because he has, in several instances, been very obliging to me, and I have no reason to abuse him. Lord Hardwicke's illness, I think, is a rupture and consequences.

I hope to hear that your little boy is recovered. Adieu! I have filled my gazette, and exhausted my memory. I am glad such gazettes please you - I can have no other excuse for sending such t.i.ttle-tattle.

(396) This transaction was an endeavour on the part of Mr.

Grenville to obtain from General Conway a declaration that "his disposition was not averse from a general support of the persons and measures of those now employed," and permission " to say so much when he might have occasion to speak to him." This declaration General Conway declined to give, although Mr.

Grenville seemed to ask it only to enable him to save Conway from dismissal on account of his late vote. There is reason to believe that at this conference (at which the Duke of Richmond was present, as Conway's friend) some overtures of a more intimate connexion with the administration were made; but Conway declared his determination to adhere to the politics of his friends, the Dukes of Devonshire and Grafton. "At least," he said, "if he should hereafter happen to differ from them, he should so steer his conduct as not to be, in any way of office or emolument, the better for it."-C.

(397) Isaac Barr'e was a native of Ireland, and born in 1726: he entered the army early in life, and rose, gradually to the rank of colonel. He was in 1763 made adjutant-general and the governor of Stirling Castle, but was turned out on this occasion, and even resigned his half-pay. He continued to make a considerable figure in the House of Commons: in 1782 he became a privy-councillor and treasurer of the navy, which latter office he soon exchanged for paymaster of the forces; but on the change of government he retired on a pension of 3200 pounds, which his political friends had previously secured for him. From this time his sight failed him, and he was quite blind for many years previous to his death, which took place in 1802.-C.

(398) Captain James, afterwards Sir James Campbell, of Ardkingla.s.s: a captain in the army, and member for the county of Stirling.-E.

(399) Major-General Edward Harvey, lieutenant-general in 1772.-E.

(400) Colonel Barr'e, previous to his dismissal, had distinguished himself by an attack on Mr. Pitt, which is not reported in the Parliamentary Debates.-C. [In the Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 171, will be found the following pa.s.sage, in a letter from Mr. Symmers to Sir Andrew Mitch.e.l.l, dated January 29, 1762:--"Would you know a little of the humour of Parliament, and particularly with regard to Mr. Pitt?' I must tell you that Colonel Barr'e, a soldier of fortune, a young man born in Dublin, of a mean condition, his father and mother from France, and established in a little grocer's shop by the patronage of the Bishop of Clogher; a child of whom the mother nursed; this young man (a man of address and parts), found out, pushed, and brought into Parliament by Lord Shelburne, had not sat two days in the House of Commons before he attacked Mr.

Pitt. I shall give you a specimen of his philippics. Talking in the manner of Mr. Pitt's speaking, he said, 'There he would stand, turning up his eyes to heaven, that witnessed his perjuries, and laying his hand in a solemn manner upon the table, that sacrilegious hand, that hand that had been employed in tearing out the bowels of his mother country!' Would you think that Mr. Pitt would bear this and be silent; or would you think that the House would suffer a respectable member to be so treated? Yet so it Was."]

(401) In the House of Commons, a few days before, Mr. Pitt had condemned the whole series of North Britons, and called them illiberal, unmanly, and detestable: "he abhorred," he said, "all national reflections: the King's subjects were one people; whoever divided them was guilty of sedition: his Majesty's complaint was well-founded; it was just; it was necessary: the author did not deserve to be ranked among the human species; he was the blasphemer of his G.o.d and the libeller of the King."-E.

(402) This improbable event a few weeks brought about. We shall see that Mr. Walpole did sing his Palinodia, and went down to Claremont to eat a bit of mutton with the man in the world whom (as all his writings, but especially his lately published Memoires, show) he had most heartily hated and despised.-C.

(403) Philip Carteret Webb, Esq. solicitor to the treasury and member for Haslemere.-E.

(404) George third Earl of Cholmondeley; born in 1703: married Mr. Walpole's only legitimate sister, who died at Aix in 1731; and as all Sir Robert Walpole's sons died without issue, Lord Cholmondeley's family succeeded to Houghton, and the rest of the Walpole property, as heirs-at-law of Sir Robert.-C.

(405) John, second Earl of Egmont, at this time first lord of the admiralty. Lord Egmont had been in the House of Commons what c.o.xe calls "a fluent and plausible debater;" but he had some peculiarities of mind, to which Walpole here and elsewhere alludes.-C.

(406) James, eighth Earl of Abercorn, "a n.o.bleman," says his panegyrist, "whose character was but little known, or rather but little understood; but who possessed singular vigour of mind, integrity of conduct, and patriotic views." Mr. Walpole elsewhere laughs at his lordship's dignified aversion to throwing away his words.-C.

(407) An action brought by Wilkes against Robert Wood, Esq. late under-secretary of State for seizing Wilkes's papers, etc. It was tried before Chief Justice Pratt, and under his direction the jury found for the plaintiff.-C.