Volume Ii Part 16 (1/2)
The French, who may measure with us in folly, and have exceeded us in ridiculous boasts, have been extravagant in their reception of D'Estaing,[1] who has shown nothing but madness and incapacity. How the northern monarchs, who have at least exhibited talents for war and politics, must despise the last campaign of England and France!
[Footnote 1: The Comte d'Estaing was the Commander-in-chief of the French fleet in the West Indies in the years 1777-80. But, though his force was always superior to ours, he always endeavoured to avoid a battle; and succeeded in that timorous policy except on two occasions, when Lord Howe and afterwards Admiral Byron brought him to action, but only with indecisive results.]
I am once more got abroad, but more pleased to be able to do so, than charmed with anything I have to do. Having outlived the glory and felicity of my country, I carry that reflection with me wherever I go.
Last night, at Strawberry Hill, I took up, to divert my thoughts, a volume of letters to Swift from Bolingbroke, Bathurst, and Gay; and what was there but lamentations on the ruin of England, in that era of its prosperity and peace, from wretches who thought their own want of power a proof that their country was undone! Oh, my father! twenty years of peace, and credit, and happiness, and liberty, were punishments to rascals who weighed everything in the scales of self? It was to the honour of Pope, that, though leagued with such a crew, and though an idolater of their archfiend Bolingbroke and in awe of the malignant Swift, he never gave in to their venomous railings; railings against a man who, in twenty years, never attempted a stretch of power, did nothing but the common business of administration, and by that temperance and steady virtue, and unalterable good-humour and superior wisdom, baffled all the efforts of faction, and annihilated the falsely boasted abilities of Bolingbroke,[1] which now appear as moderate as his character was in every light detestable. But, alas! that retrospect doubled my chagrin instead of diverting it. I soon forgot an impotent cabal of mock-patriots; but the scene they vainly sought to disturb rushed on my mind, and, like Hamlet on the sight of Yorick's skull, I recollected the prosperity of Denmark when my father ruled, and compared it with the present moment! I look about for a Sir Robert Walpole; but where is he to be found?
[Footnote: 1 It is only the excess of party spirit that could lead Walpole to call Bolingbroke's abilities moderate; and he had no attacks on his father to resent, since, though Bolingbroke was in 1724 permitted to return to England, he only received a partial pardon, and was not permitted to take his seat in Parliament. Walpole has more reason to p.r.o.nounce his character detestable; for which opinion he might have quoted Dr. Johnson, who, in reference to an infidel treatise which he bequeathed to Mallet for publication, called him ”a scoundrel and a coward--a scoundrel who spent his life in charging a popgun against Christianity, which he had not the courage to let off, but left it to a hungry Scotchman to pull the trigger after he was dead.”]
This is not a letter, but a codicil to my last. You will soon probably have news enough--yet appearances are not always pregnancies. When there are more follies in a nation than principles and system, they counteract one another, and sometimes, as has just happened in Ireland, are composed _pulveris exigui jactu_. I sum up my wishes in that for peace: but we are not satisfied with persecuting America, though the mischief has recoiled on ourselves; nor France with wounding us, though with little other cause for exultation, and with signal mischief to her own trade, and with heavy loss of seamen; not to mention how her armies are shrunk to raise her marine, a sacrifice she will one day rue, when the _disciplined_ hosts of Goths and Huns begin to cast an eye southward.
But I seem to choose to read futurity, because I am not likely to see it: indeed I am most rational when I say to myself, What is all this to me? My thread is almost spun! almost all my business here is to bear pain with patience, and to be thankful for intervals of ease. Though Emperors and Kings may torment mankind, they will not disturb my bedchamber; and so I bid them and you good-night!
P.S.--I have made use of a term in this letter, which I retract, having bestowed a t.i.tle on the captains and subalterns which was due only to the colonel, and not enough for his dignity. Bolingbroke was more than a rascal--he was a villain. Bathurst, I believe, was not a dishonest man, more than he was prejudiced by party against one of the honestest and best of men. Gay was a simple poor soul, intoxicated by the friends.h.i.+p of men of genius, and who thought _they_ must be good who condescended to admire _him_. Swift was a wild beast, who baited and worried all mankind almost, because his intolerable arrogance, vanity, pride, and ambition were disappointed; he abused Lady Suffolk, who tried and wished to raise him, only because she had not power to do so: and one is sure that a man who could deify that silly woman Queen Anne, would have been more profuse of incense to Queen Caroline, who had sense, if the Court he paid to her had been crowned with success. Such were the men who wrote of virtue to one another; and even that mean, exploded miser, Lord Bath, presumed to talk of virtue too!
_POLITICAL EXCITEMENT--LORD G. GORDON--EXTRAORDINARY GAMBLING AFFAIRS IN INDIA._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
STRAWBERRY HILL, _Feb._ 6, 1780.
I write only when I have facts to send. Detached scenes there have been in different provinces: they will be collected soon into a drama in St.
Stephen's Chapel. One or two and twenty counties, and two or three towns, have voted pet.i.tions.[1] But in Northamptons.h.i.+re Lord Spencer was disappointed, and a very moderate pet.i.tion was ordered. The same happened at Carlisle. At first, the Court was struck dumb, but have begun to rally. Counter-protests have been signed in Hertford and Huntingdon s.h.i.+res, in Surrey and Suss.e.x. Last Wednesday a meeting was summoned in Westminster Hall: Charles Fox harangued the people finely and warmly; and not only a pet.i.tion was voted, but he was proposed for candidate for that city at the next general election, and was accepted joyfully. Wilkes was his zealous advocate: how few years since a public breakfast was given at Holland House to support Lord Luttrell against Wilkes! Charles Fox and his brother rode thence at the head of their friends to Brentford. Ovid's ”Metamorphoses” contains not stranger transformations than party can work.
[Footnote 1: These pet.i.tions were chiefly for economical reform, for which Burke was preparing a Bill.]
I must introduce a new actor to you, a Lord George Gordon,--metamorphosed a little, too, for his family were Jacobites and Roman Catholics: he is the Lilburne of the Scottish Presbyterians, and an apostle against the Papists. He dresses, that is, wears long lank hair about his shoulders, like the first Methodists; though I take the modern ones to be no Anti-Catholics. This mad lord, for so all his family have been too, and are, has likewise a.s.sumed the patronage of Ireland. Last Thursday he asked an audience of the King, and, the moment he was admitted into the closet, began reading an Irish pamphlet, and continued for an hour, till it was so dark he could not see; and then left the pamphlet, exacting a promise on royal honour that his Majesty would finish it. Were I on the throne, I would make Dr. Monro a Groom of my Bedchamber: indeed it has been necessary for some time; for, of the King's lords, Lord Bolingbroke is in a mad-house, and Lord Pomfret and my nephew ought to be there. The last, being fond of onions, has lately distributed bushels of that root to his Militia; Mr. Wyndham will not be surprised.
By the tenor of the pet.i.tions you would think we were starving; yet there is a little coin stirring. Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa tree, the difference of which amounted to a hundred and four-score thousand pounds. Mr. O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a young Mr. Harvey of Chigwell, just started from a mids.h.i.+pman[1] into an estate by his elder brother's death. O'Birne said, ”You can never pay me.” ”I can,” said the youth; ”my estate will sell for the debt.” ”No,” said O.; ”I will win ten thousand--you shall throw for the odd ninety.” They did, and Harvey won.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Harvey was afterwards Sir Eliab Harvey, one of Nelson's captains at Trafalgar. But unfortunately he so violently resented the appointment of Lord Cochrane, who was only a post-captain, to carry out the attack on the French fleet in Basque Roads, which he himself, who was an admiral, had also suggested, and used such violent and insubordinate language towards Lord Gambier, the Commander-in-chief (who, though a most incompetent officer, had had nothing to do with the appointment), that it was unavoidable that a court-martial should sentence him to be cas.h.i.+ered. He was, however, restored to his rank shortly afterwards. He was member of Parliament for Ess.e.x for many years, and died in 1830.]
However, as it is a little necessary to cast about for resources, it is just got abroad, that about a year ago we took possession of a trifling district in India called the Province of Oude,[1] which contains four millions of inhabitants, produces between three and four millions of revenue, and has an army of 30,000 men: it was scarce thought of consequence enough to deserve an article in the newspapers. If you are so _old-style_ as to ask how we came to take possession, I answer, by the new law of nations; by the law by which Poland was divided. You will find it in the future editions of Grotius, t.i.t. ”Si une terre est a la bienseance d'un grand Prince.” Oude appertained by that very law to the late Sujah Dowla. His successors were weak men, which _in India_ is incapacity. Their Majesties the East India Company, whom G.o.d long preserve, have _succeeded_.
[Footnote 1: Warren Hastings claimed large arrears of tribute from Asaph ul Dowlah, the Nabob of Oude; but Walpole was misinformed when he understood that he had in consequence annexed the province--a measure which was never adopted till the spring of 1857, when its annexation by Lord Dalhousie was among the causes that led to the outbreak of the mutiny.]
This petty event has ascertained the existence of a certain being, who, till now, has not been much more than a matter of faith--the Grand Lama.
There are some affairs of trade between the sovereigns of Oude and his Holiness the Lama. Do not imagine the East India Company have leisure to trouble their heads about religion. Their commanding officer corresponded with the Tartar Pope, who, it seems, is a very sensible man. The Attorney-General asked this officer, who is come over, how the Lama wrote. ”Oh,” said he, ”like any person.”--”Could I see his letters?” said Mr. Wedderburne.--”Upon my word,” said the officer, ”when the business was settled, I threw them into the fire.” However, I hear that somebody, not quite so mercantile, has published one of the Lama's letters in the ”Philosophical Transactions.” Well! when we break in Europe, we may pack up and remove to India, and be emperors again!
Do you believe me, my good Sir, when I tell you all these strange tales?
Do you think me distracted, or that your country is so? Does not this letter seem an olio composed of ingredients picked out of the history of Charles I., of Clodius and Sesostris, and the ”Arabian Nights”? Yet I could have coloured it higher without trespa.s.sing on truth; but when I, inured to the climate of my own country, can scarcely believe what I hear and see, how should you, who converse only with the ordinary race of men and women, give credit to what I have ventured to relate, merely because in forty years I have constantly endeavoured to tell you nothing but truth? Moreover, I commonly reserve pa.s.sages that are not of public notoriety, not having the smallest inclination to put the credulity of foreign post-offices to the test. I would have them think that we are only mad with valour, and that Lord Chatham's cloak has been divided into shreds no bigger than a silver penny amongst our soldiers and sailors. Adieu!
_RODNEY'S VICTORY--WALPOLE INCLINES TO WITHDRAW FROM AMUs.e.m.e.nTS._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
BERKELEY SQUARE, _March_ 3, 1780.
As my last letter probably alarmed you, I write again to tell you that nothing decisive has happened. The troops of the Palace even rallied a little yesterday on Mr. Burke's Bill of Reformation, or Reduction, yet with evident symptoms of _caution_; for Lord North, who wished to defer the second reading, ventured to put it only to next Wednesday, instead of to-day; and would have carried a longer adjournment with still greater difficulty, for his majority was but of 35, and the minority remained 195, a very formidable number. The a.s.sociations in the counties increase, though not rapidly: yet it will be difficult for the Court to stem such a torrent; and, I imagine, full as difficult for any man of temper to direct them wholesomely. Ireland is still more impetuous.