government gave orders to seize and search his coffin. There was a great public outcry against the Ministers on this occasion, as though their animosity sought to pursue him beyond the grave; and undoubtedly none but the strongest reasons could excuse it. They had received intelligence of some private papers of the Jacobites to be sent over by what seemed so safe and unsuspected a method of conveyance.* This mystery they determined to unravel, and with the same view was Mr. Morice arrested and examined before the Privy Council.

Atterbury's own papers had been disposed of by his own care before his death. The most secret he had destroyed; for the others he had claimed protection as an Englishman from the English ambassador, Lord Waldegrave; that a seal might be placed upon them, and that they might be safely delivered to his executors. Lord Waldegrave declined this delicate commission, alleging that Atterbury was no longer entitled to any rights as a British subject.† The Bishop next applied to the French government, but his death intervening, the papers were sent to the Scots' College at Paris, and the seal of office affixed to them, Mr. Morice obtaining only such as related to family affairs.

It may be observed, that the Government of George seems always to have possessed great facilities in either openly seizing or privately perusing the Jacobite correspondence. We have already seen how large a web of machinations was laid bare at Atterbury's trial. In 1728, Mr. Lockhart found that some articles of his most private letters to the Pretender were well known at the British Court, where, fortunately for himself, he had a steady friend; and on his expressing his astonishment, he was answered-"What is proof against the money of Great Britain?" The testimony of Lord Chesterfield, as Secretary of State, is still more positive. "The rebels, who have fled to France and elsewhere, think only of their public acts of rebellion, believing that the Government is not aware of their secret cabals and conspiracies, whereas, on the contrary, it is fully informed of them. It sees two thirds of their letters; they betray one another; and I have often had the very same man's letters in my hand at once, some to try to make his peace at home, and others to the Pretender, to assure him that it was only a feigned reconciliation that they might be the better able to serve him. The spirit of rebellion seems to be rooted in these people; their faith is a Punic faith; clemency does not touch them, and the oaths which they take to the Government do not bind them."§

Coxe, in his Narrative, speaks of smuggled brocades, not of papers. But the letter from the Under Secretary of State, which he produces as his authority, speaks only of papers, and says nothing of brocades. Mem. of Walpole, vol. i. p. 175, vol. ii. p. 237. Boyer glides over this unpopular transaction (vol. xlii. p. 499).

Mr. Delafaye, Under Secretary of State, writes to Lord Waldegrave:-"As to your Excellency's getting the scellé put to his effects if your own seal would have done, and that you could by that means have had the fingering of his papers, one would have done him that favour." (May 11, 1732.) A most delicate sense of honour! Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 400.

To Madame de

August 16, 1750. Orig. in French. (Works, vol. iii. p. 207.)

Nothing certainly tended more than these frequent disclosures of letters to cool the ardour of the High Tory gentlemen in England, or, at least, to redouble their caution. They came, at length, to prefer, in nearly all cases, verbal messages to any written communication, and prudently kept themselves in reserve for the landing of a foreign force. Without it, they always told James that they could only ruin themselves without assisting him. It was a frequent saying of Sir Robert Walpole-"If you see the Stuarts come again, they will begin by their lowest people; their chiefs will not appear till the end.'

* H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, Sept. 27, 1745.

[Note referred to at p. 354.

As the reign of George the Second occupies a large part of this history, Lord Chesterfield's "Character" of him is here appended to the Chapter, introducing the reign. There is also the "Character" of Queen Caroline, although as a piece of historical portraiture, it has much less merit, and is entitled to less consideration as authority, than that of the King. Some traits of her character Chesterfield was not likely to do justice to.

GEORGE THE SECOND.

"He had not better parts than his father, but much stronger animal spirits, which made him produce and communicate himself more. Everything in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind, without any of the virtues, or even the vices of a great one. He loved to act the King, but mistook the part; and the Royal dignity shrunk into the Electoral pride. He was educated upon that scale, and never enlarged its dimensions with his dominions. As Elector of Hanover he thought himself great; as King of Great Britain only rich. Avarice, the meanest of all passions, was his ruling one; and I never knew him deviate into any generous action. "His first natural movements were always on the side of justice and truth; but they were often warped by ministerial influence, or the secret twitches of avarice. He was generally reckoned ill-natured, which indeed he was not. He had rather an unfeeling than a bad heart; but I never observed any settled malevolence in him, though his sudden passions, which were frequent, made him say things which, in cooler moments, he would not have executed. His heart always seemed to me to be in a state of perfect neutrality between hardness and tenderness. In Council he was excessively timorous, and thought by many to be so in person; but of this I can say nothing on my own knowledge. In his dress and in his conversation he affected the hero so much, that from thence only many called his courage in question; though, by the way, that is no certain rule to judge by, since the bravest men, with weak understandings, constantly fall into that error.

"Little things, as he has often told me himself, affected him more than great ones; and this was so true, that I have often seen him put so much out of humour at his pri vate levée, by a mistake or blunder of a valet de chambre, that the gaping crowd admitted to his public levée have, from his looks and silence, concluded that he had just received some dreadful news. Tacitus would always have been deceived by him.

"Within certain bounds, but they were indeed narrow ones, his understanding was clear, and his conception quick; and I have generally observed, that he pronounced sensibly and justly upon single propositions; but to analyse, separate, combine, and reduce to a point, complicated ones, was above his faculties.

"He was thought to have a great opinion of his own abilities; but, on the contrary, I am very sure that he had a great distrust of them in matters of state. He well knew that he was governed by the Queen, while she lived; and that she was governed by Sir Robert Walpole: but he kept that secret inviolably, and flattered himself that nobody had discovered it. After their deaths, he was governed successively by different ministers, according as they could engage for a sufficient strength in the House of Commons; for, as avarice was his ruling passion, he feared, hated, and courted, that money-giving part of the legislature.

"He was by no means formed for the pleasures of private and social life, though sometimes he tried to supple himself to them; but he did it so ungraciously that both he and

the company were mutual restraints upon each other, and consequently soon grew weary of one another. A King must be as great in mind as in rank, who can let himself down with ease to the social level, and no lower.

He had no favourites, and indeed no friends, having none of that expansion of heart, none of those amiable connecting talents, which are necessary for both. This, together with the sterility of his conversation, made him prefer the company of women, with whom he rather sauntered away than enjoyed his leisure hours. He was addicted to women, but chiefly to such as required little attention and less pay. He never had but two avowed mistresses of rank, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth. The former, though he passed half his time with her, had no degree of influence, and but a small one of profit, the latter, being taken after the death of the Queen, had more of both, but no extravagant share of either.

"He was very well bred; but it was in a stiff and formal manner, and produced in others that restraint which they saw he was under himself. He bestowed his favours so coldly and ungraciously, that they excited no warm returns in those who received them. They knew that they owed them to the ministerial arrangements for the time being, and not to his voluntary choice. He was extremely regular and methodical in his hours, in his papers, and above all in his private accounts; and would be very peevish if any accident, or negligence in his Ministers, broke in upon that regular allotment of his time. "He had a very small degree of acquired knowledge; he sometimes read history, and, as he had a very good memory, was exceedingly correct in facts and dates. He spoke French and Italian well, and English very properly, but with something of a foreign accent. He had a contempt for the Belles Lettres, which he called trifling. He troubled himself little about religion, but jogged on quietly in that in which he had been bred, without scruples, doubts, zeal, or inquiry. He was extremely sober and temperate, which, together with constant gentle exercise, prolonged his life beyond what his natu ral constitution, which was but a weak one, seemed to promise. He died of an apoplexy, after a reign of three and thirty years. He died unlamented, though not unpraised be cause he was dead.

"Upon the whole, he was rather a weak than a bad man or King. His government was mild as to prerogative, but burdensome as to taxes, which he raised when and to what degree he pleased, by corrupting the honesty, and not by invading the privileges of Parliament. I have dwelt the longer upon this character, because I was so long and so well acquainted with it; for above thirty years I was always near his person, and had constant opportunities of observing him, both in his regal robes and in his undress. I have accompanied him in his pleasures, and been employed in his business. I have, by turns, been as well and as ill with him as any man in England. Impartial and unprejudiced, I have drawn this character from the life, and after a forty years' sitting."

QUEEN CAROLINE.

"Queen Caroline had lively, pretty parts, a quick conception, and some degree of female knowledge; and would have been an agreeable woman in social, if she had not aimed at being a great one in public life. She had the graces that adorn the former, but neither the strength of parts nor the judgment necessary for the latter. She professed art, instead of concealing it, and valued herself upon her skill in simulation and dissimu lation, by which she made herself many enemies, and not one friend, even among the women the nearest to her person.

"She loved money, but could occasionally part with it, especially to men of learning, whose patronage she affected. She often conversed with them, and bewildered herself in their metaphysical disputes which neither she nor they themselves understood. Cun. ning and perfidy were the means she made use of in business, as all women do, for want of better. She showed her art most in her management of the King, whom she governed absolutely by a seeming complaisance and obedience to all his humours; she even favoured and promoted his gallantries. She had a dangerous ambition, for it was attended with courage, and if she had lived much longer, might have proved fatal, either to herself or the constitution.

"After puzzling herself in all the whimsies and fantastical speculations of different sects, she fixed herself ultimately in Deism, believing a future state. She died with great resolution and intrepidity, of a very painful distemper, and under some cruel operations. "Upon the whole, the agreeable woman was liked by most people; but the Queen was neither esteemed, beloved, nor trusted by anybody but the King." Lord Chesterfield's Letters (Mahon's Edition), vol. ii. pp. 434-8.]

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM the resignation of Lord Townshend the ascendency of Walpole was absolute and uncontrolled, and confirmed by universal peace abroad, by growing prosperity at home. His system of negotiations was completed by the second treaty of Vienna, signed in March, 1731, and stipulating that the Emperor should abolish the Ostend Company, secure the succession of Don Carlos to Parma and Tuscany, and admit the Spanish troops into the Italian fortresses. England, on her part, was to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction, on the understanding that the young heiress should not be given in marriage to a Prince of the House of Bourbon, or of any other so powerful as to endanger the balance of power. At home, various measures of improvement and reform were introduced about this time. An excellent law was passed, that all proceedings of courts of justice should be in the English instead of the Latin language. Our prayers," said the Duke of Argyle, "are in our

*

This treaty was greatly promoted by the influence of Prince Eugene. He said to Lord Waldegrave:-"Je n'ai jamais eu si peu de plaisir de ma vie dans les apparences d'une guerre. Il n'y a pas assez de sujet pour faire tuer un poulet!" Lord Waldegrave to Lord Townshend, March 18, 1730. Coxe's House of Austria, vol. iii.

1

[The bill was introduced into the House of Commons by the direction of Lord Chancellor King. "There was," writes Lord Campbell," one great improvement in law proceedings, which, while he held the Great Seal, he at last accomplished. From very ancient times the written pleadings, both in criminal and civil suits, were, or rather professed to be, in the Latin tongue; and while the jargon employed would have been very perplexing to a Roman of the Augustan age, it was wholly unintelligible to the persons whose life, property, and fame were at stake. This absurdity had been corrected in the time of the Commonwealth, but, along with many others so corrected, had been re-introduced at the Restoration, and had prevailed during five succeeding reigns." Lord Campbell, in a note, in which, after noticing the statute of George II., c. 14, by which technical phrases such as nisi prius, quare impedit, &c., were allowed, adds:"Blackstone laments the loss of the old law Latin (Com. vol. iii. 322); and I have heard the late Lord Ellenborough, from the bench, regret the change, on the ground that it has had the tendency to make attorneys illiterate. Sergeant Heywood, the vindicator of Fox, seriously acted upon Lord Raymond's jest. As I have been told by the counsel who were present whilst he was sitting as Chief Justice of the Caermarthen Circuit, on a trial for murder, it appeared that neither the prisoner nor the jury understood a word of English, and it was proposed that the evidence and the charge should be translated into Welsh; but his Lordship said, that 'this would be repealing the act of Parliament, which requires that all proceedings in courts of justice shall be in the English tongue, and that the case of a trial in Wales, the prisoner and the jury not understanding English, was a case not provided for, although it had been pointed out by that great judge, Lord Raymond.' The jury very properly brought in a verdict of not guilty-the evidence, to those who understood it, being decisive to prove that the prisoner had murdered his wife."-Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. pp. 641-2, chap. cxxvi.]

native tongue, that they may be intelligible; and why should not the laws wherein our lives and properties are concerned be so, for the same reason?"* The charter of the East India Company was renewed on prudent and profitable terms.† Some infamous malversation was detected in the Charitable Corporation, which had been formed for the relief of the industrious poor, by assisting them with small sums of money at legal interest; but which, under this colour, sometimes received ten per cent., and advanced large sums on goods, bought on credit by fraudulent speculators. Penalties were now inflicted on the criminals, and Sir Robert Sutton, the late ambassador at Paris, being concerned in these practices, was expelled the House. An inquiry into the Public Prisons of London laid bare a frightful system of abuses; we find the Wardens conniving at the escape of rich prisoners, and subjecting the poor ones who could not pay heavy fines, to every kind of insult, oppression, and want. The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons is full of such cases :2-thus one Captain Mac Pheadris, having refused to pay some exorbitant fees, had irons put upon his legs, which were too little, so that, in putting them on, his legs were like to have been broken. . . He was dragged away to the dungeon, where he lay, without a bed, loaded with irons, so close rivetted that they kept him in continual torture, and mortified his legs." From such usage the prisoner became lame and nearly blind; he had petitioned the Judges, who, as we are told, "after several meetings and a full hearing," agreed to reprimand the gaoler, but decided, with infinite wisdom, that "it being out of Term, they could not give the prisoner any relief or satisfaction!". . . . Another Report declares that

* Most of the lawyers were greatly opposed to the change. Lord Raymond, in order to throw difficulties in the way of it, said, that if the Bill passed the law must likewise be translated into Welsh, since many in Wales understood no English. (Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 861.) The great Yorkshire petition on this subject complained that "the number of attorneys is excessive." (Ib. p. 844.)

1

† See Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 326.

First Report of the Select Committee, presented February 25, 1729.

[This occasion drew forth a pamphlet from that veteran pamphleteer, before referred to, John Asgill. It has the title of "An Essay upon Charity, occasioned by the Calumnies raised against the Charitable Corporation, &c. &c. written by Mr. Asgill,-without hire, desire, fee or reward. London, 1731." This was probably one of his latest efforts, for he died in 1738, at a very advanced age; having lived, it is said, to be near a hundred years old, retaining also uncommon vigour, as if he had gained a power of vitality from his Argument against the necessity of dying.

Not long before, in 1729, Asgill had put forth a pamphlet on the subject of imprisoned insolvent debtors. Near thirty years of his own life, during the latter part of it, had been spent in confinement for debt within one or other of the London prisons. In his pamphlet he disclaims all expectation of benefit to himself, that he "may the better inlist as a volunteer for some brethren in tribulation."]

[Of this Committee, General James Oglethorpe was the chairman. The appointment of the Committee was made February the 25th, and the first Report presented March the 20th. See Parliamentary History, vol. viii. pp. 706-7-8. This subject has a connection with British colonization in America, for Oglethorpe's Parliamentary efforts to meliorate the state of imprisoned debtors led on to his plan for the settlement of Georgia, as a place of asylum for the unfortunate. See appended to the chapter note on Oglethorpe and on the Georgia colony.]