1

See Ewart to Grenville, Aug. 4; Grenville to Ewart, Aug. 26; Grenville to Eden, Dec. 16, 20, 1791; Grenville to Keith, March 26; Grenville to Eden, March 27, 1792.

2

Parl. Hist. xxix. 44, 170, 919, 929, 940.

3

Grenville to Gower, Oct. 1791.

4

Marsh's Politics of Great Britain and France, i. 48–50.

1

Grenville to Gower, Nov. 1791; Gower to Grenville, Nov. 18, 1791.

2

Annual Register, 1792, p. 267.

3

Buckingham, Courts and Cabinets of Geo. III., ii. 196.

1

Parl. Hist. xxix. 767.

2

Ibid. 826.

3

Burke's Correspondence, iii. pp. 414, 415.

4

Auckland Correspondence, ii. p. 398,

1

Hirsinger to the French Foreign Minister, Jan. 17, 20, 27, Feb. 3, March 9, 1792 (French Foreign Office).

1

‘Neutralite de fait.’

2

‘Aswez favorable.’

1

The mission of Talleyrand to England has been sometimes narrated with a good deal of inaccuracy, but the whole collection of Talleyrand's own letters to De Lessart describing his proceedings (Jan. 27, 31; Feb. 3, 17, 27; March 2, 1792), as well as De Lessart's letter to Grenville (Jan. 12) introducing him, and his letter to Talleyrand, will be found in one of the supplemental volumes for 1791–1792 in the French Foreign Office, while Lord Grenville gave his own account of the mission to Gower, Feb. 10 and March 9, 1792. Morris was aware of the mission ( Works, ii. p. 166), but he was not accurately informed about its circumstances or about the instructions of Talleyrand. I must take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the officials at the Foreign Office in Paris for the kind assistance they have given me when examining these and other despatches.

2

Gower to Grenville, March 10, 1792.

3

‘Since I wrote to your Excellency on the subject of M. de Talleyrand, I have seen that gentleman twice on business of his mission to this country. The first time he explained to me very much at large the disposition of the French Government and of the nation to enter into the strictest connection with Great Britain, and proposed that this should be done by a treaty of mutual guarantee, or in such other manner as the Government of this country should prefer. Having stated this, he earnestly requested that he might not receive any answer at that time, but that he might see me again for that purpose. I told him that in compliance with his request I would see him again for the purpose he mentioned, though I thought it fair to apprise him that in all probability my answer would be commed to the absolute impossibility of my entering into any kind of discussion or negotiation on points of so delicate a nature with a person having no official authority to treat upon them. When I saw him again I repeated this to him, telling him that it was the only answer I could make … although I had no difficulty in saying to him individually, as I had to every Frenchman with whom I had conversed on the present state of France, that it was very far from being the disposition of the Government to endeavour to foment or prolong the disturbances there with a view to any profit to be derived from thence to this country.’ Grenville to Gower, March 9, 1792. Sybel quotes (Hist. de l' Europe pendant la Revoluation, i. pp. 361–363) some letters of Talleyrand to Narbonne also describing the mission.

1

Grenville to Gower, March 9, 1792.

2

See a report of Nettement, who was in charge of the Legation at the time when the search took place, Jan. 10. Hirsinger to De Lessart, Jan. 13, 1792 (French F.O.)

3

Gower to Grenville, April 11, 1792.

4

Dumont says of him: ‘Durovrai naturalise en Irlande, ayant même une pension du gouvernement Irlandais, devait être considere comme plus attaché au gouvernement de l'Angleterre par un interet permanent qu'dla France par une place passagere.’— Seuvenirs de Mirabeau, ch. xxi.

5

In a complete list of the pensions paid by Ireland which the Irish Parliament ordered to be printed in 1791, I find that Du Roveray had a pension of 300 l. a year which had been granted him in 1785, and was held during pleasure. He appears to have taken a leading part in the negotiations for the establishment of a colony of Genevese refugees in Ireland which were carried on by the Irish Government in 1783. See Plowden's Hist. Review, vol. ii., part 1, p. 24; Irish Communs journals, vol. xxviii., part 2, p. ccxix.

1

The instructions were drawn up on April 19, the day before the French Assembly voted the war.

1

Instructions for M. Chauvelin, Talleyrand and Du Roveray, April 19, 1782. ‘Réflexions pour les négotiations d'Angleterre en cas de guerre, March 30, 1792’ (French Foreign Office).

2

April 28, 1792. Chauvelin had arrived in London the day before.

3

Chauvelin to Lebrun, May 1, 1792.

1

Chauvelin to the French Foreign Minister, May 23, 28; June 5, 18;July 3, 5, 10, 14, 1792.

2

Souoonire de Mirabeau, ch. xxi.

1

Sourenirs de Mirabeau, ch. xxi.

2

Auckland Correspondence, ii.410.

3

Gower to Grenville, April 22, 1792.

1

Gower to Grenville, April 27, June 1, 1792. See the very similar judgment of Morris ( Works, ii. pp. 152, 153).

1

Accounts of these negotiations, differing somewhat in details, will be found in the Malmesbury Correspondence, in the Diaries of the Duke of leeds, edited by Mr. Oscar Browning for the Camden Society, in the Auckland Correspondence, and in the Correspondence of Burke.

2

Auckland Correspondence, ii. 413.

1

Keith to Grenville, July 21, 1792.

2

Eden to Grenville, May 5, 29, June 30,1792.

1

Bertrand de Moleville.

1

Parl. Hist. xxx. 242–245.

2

Auckland pavers, ii. 423.

3

Bourgoing, Hist. Diplomatique de la Revolution, i. deuxieme partie, p. 136.

4

Auokland Correspondence, ii. 149.

1

Parl, Hist. xxx. 247–249.

1

Annual Register, 1792, pp. 283–287.

2

Arneth, Marie Antoinette, Joseph II. and Leopold II. pp. 259, 260.

3

Ibid. pp. 263, 264.

4

Ibid. p. 265.

1

This memoir is given in full in Smyth's Lectures on the French Revolution, ii. 245–259.

1

Gower to Grenville, August 4, 1792.

1

August 9, 1792. Grenville to Gower.

2

Bourgoing, Hist. Diplomatique, i. denxième partie, 136, 137.

1

Arneth, p. 266.

2

Anckland Correspondence, ii. 426.

3

Mémoires tirés des papiers d'un homme d'Etat.

4

Works, ii. 153.

1

Bertrand de Moleville, August 1792.

2

Ibid.

1

Dundas to Gower, August 17, 1792.

2

August 21, 1792.

1

Gower to Grenville, August 23,1792.

1

See Taine, La Rérolution, tome ii. pp. 257–262.

2

Lindsay (Secretary of Legation at Paris) to Grenville, Aug. 27, 1792.

1

See the note of Lebrun, inclosed by Gower to Grenville, Aug. 23, 1792; Marsh's Hist. of Politics, i. 161, 162.

2

This question is very fully argued in Marsh's Hist. of Politics, chap. ix., and in Mr. O. Browning's article on ‘England and France in 1793,’ Fortnightly Review, February 1883.

3

Lindsay to Grenville, August 27, 1792.

1

Morris's Works, ch. ii. p. 196.

2

Gower to Grenville, Aug 3,1792. See too Moore's Journal of a Residence in France from August to December 1792, Aug. 19–21.

3

Lindsay to Grenville, Aug. 27, 1792.

1

On Sept. 11, Eden wrote to Grenville that he had just seen a letter from one of the principal persons in the King of Prussia's suite written just after the surrender of Verdun. It predicted that the allies would be at Paris between the 20th and 25th inst., and that the King would probably return to Potsdam before the end of October.

1

Lindsay to Grenville, Sept. 3, 1792.

2

See Taine, Hist. de la Bévolution, ii. 281–309. See too the admirably full investigation of the subject in Mortimer Ternaux, tome iii. Thiers says the number of the victims was estimated at from 6,000 to 12,000. According to Lamartine the estimates ranged from 2,000 or 3,000 to 10,000.

1

Taine, ii. 283–288.

2

Fox's Correspondence, ii. 368, 369, 371, 374.

3

Lady Minto's Life of Sir G. Elliot, ii. 66, 67.

1

Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, ii. 217.

1

This is the estimate of Sybel; Thiers says 800 or 900.

1

Sybel, ii. 19–22.

1

Sybel, i. 582.

2

Ibid. ii. 23.

3

Lady Minto's Life of Sir G. Elliot, ii. 52.

1

Bourgoing, Hist. Dipl. de la Revolution Franqaise, i. deuxiéme partie, 254, 255.

1

‘Qu'on la respecte et qu'on la ménage.’

1

Chauvelin to the French minister, Aug. 28, 31, Sept. 13, 22, 26, 29, 1792 (French Foreign Office).

2

Talleyrand's return to Paris is generally ascribed to a disagreement with Chauvelin, but in a letter to Chambonas (who was for a short time Foreign Minister after Dumouriez) Chauvelin mentions that Talleyrand himself wished to go to Paris for a fort-night and that his presence there might be useful (Chauvelin to Chambonas, June 22, July 5,1792). On returning to England in disgrace, Talleyrand wrote to Grenville (Sept. 18) stating that though he had no mission of any kind, he would be happy to give any information in his power about the state of France, but there is, I believe, no evidence that Grenville responded to his offer. (See Lord Dalling's Hist. Characters, i. 158–161.) Noel wrote to his Government in October (Oct. 26, F.F.O.), ‘J'apprends que I'Evéque d'Autun a des conférences tres frequentes avec Fox. Les gens quitiennent au gouvernement m'affirment qu'il ne jouit loi d'aucune estimeni d'aucun credit.’ There is a memoir by Talleyrand, dated London, Nov. 25, 1792, in the F.F.O. on the relations of France with other countries. It contends that the only relations France should seek with England are those of industry and commerce. There should be a convention between the two countries for the enfranchisement of their respective colonies. The commercial prejudices of England, Talleyrand says, are no doubt opposed to Free Trade, but the fact of the constant increase of her commerce with America since its enfrachisement ought to be conclusive.

3

Aug. 28, Sept. 6,1792.

1

‘Lord fields, fox, Schéridam, milord Williams Gordon’ ( sie ).

2

All these letters are in the French Foreign Office.

1

Chauvelin to Lebrun, Oct 22, 25, 26, 30, 31, Nov, 14, 21, 1792 (French Foreign Office).

2

Lebrun to Chauvelin, Oct. 30, Nov. 6, 1792 (tbid.)

1

Noel to Lebrun, Oct. 20, Nov. 22, 24, 1792. Noel's letters appear to have been opened in England. In Jan. 1793, Lord Sheffield wrote to Auckland: ‘Noel, Maret's second, remains here still, or at least was here very lately. He wrote to France the end of November that insurrection would immediately break out in England. On his return from Dumouriez’ army, he found everything much changed. He has written that there is nothing more to be done here; he dreads the suspension of the Habeas Corpus; he had, however, already placed his papers in safety.—Auckland Correspondence, ii. 482.

1

Ibid. ii. 443, 444.

2

See too on this ignorance, Tom-line's Life of Pitt, iii. 450. It is a striking illustration of the extravagant misrepresentations of English policy which have been disseminated and believed on the Continent, that M. de Lamartine has ascribed the feebleness of the campaign of Brunswick, his failure to crush Dumouriez, his retreat before the French and his negotiation for a peace, mainly to the influence of Pitt, who, it appears, knew that the Duke wished his daughter to marry the Prince of Wales, and who, by flattering his hopes, was able to induce him to submit all his military and political proceedings to the direction of the Cabinet in London!— Hist. des Girondins, livre xxxvi. ch. 5.

1

Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, ii. 222–224.

1

Tomline's Life of Pitt, iii. 452.

1

Marsh's History of Politics, i. 203–212. Chauvelin described the festival of the ‘Society of the Revolution of 1688’ (at which he thought it prudent not to be present) as one of the grandest triumphs of liberty ever known in England. The toasts were all for France, the ‘Marseillaise’ was sung, an address to the Convention was voted unanimously, and more than 1,000 persons were unable to get admission into the crowded room. (To Lebrun, Nov. 12, 1792.)

2

Macpherson's Annals of Commeroe, iv. 254.

3

Wilberforce's Life, ii. 1–5, Auckland Correspondence, ii. 469.

1

Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets, ii. 226–228.

1

See Coxe's House of Austria, ii. 695–697. Prussia, as we have seen, afterwards guaranteed the Austrian Netherlands, but neither England nor Holland had done so.

1

Annual. Register, 1792, pp. 352, 353.

1

Gower to Grenville, June 22, 29; Grenville to Gower, June 12,1792.

1

Auckland Correspondence, ii. 464–467.

2

This is mentioned in one of Lord Auckland's letters (Record Office) in the beginning of November.

1

Annual Register, 1792, pp. 352, 353.

2

See the letter of Pitt in Rose's Diaries and Correspondence, i. 114–116, and the letter of Grenville to Auckland (in the Record Office) Nov. 13, 1792.

1

Rose's Diaries, i. 115. This letter is addressed to the Marquis of Stafford. It is curious as showing how little the attendance of all the members of the Cabinet seems to have been considered a matter of course.

2

Grenville to Eden, Nov. 13. See too Grenville to Keith, Nov. 13, 1792.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Nov. 23, 25, 1792.

2

Grenville to Auckland, Nov. 23, 25, 26, 1792.

1

Parl. Hist. xxx. 47; Marsh's Hist. of Politics, i. 194–198.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Nov. 27, 1792.

2

Though in the French service, he was by birth an American, and wrote in English. Auckland to Gren-ville, Dec. 18, 1792.

3

Ibid. Dec. 2, 4, 1792.

4

Mémoures Dumouriez, iii. 380; Morris's Letters; Works, ii 254.

5

Auckland to Grenville, Dec. 4, 1792.

6

Ibid.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Dec. 7, 1792.

2

Ibid. Dec. 5, 7, 1792.

3

Ibid. Dec. 7, 1792. Lord Stormont afterwards quoted in the House of Lords the following passage from this production of Condorcet, which gives an idea of its characte: ‘So long as the earth is stamed by the existence of a king, and by the absurdity of hereditary government, so long as this shameful production of ignorance and folly remains unpro-scribed by the universal consent of mankind, union between free states is their primary want, their dearest interest. George IIL sees, with anxious surprise, that throne totter under him which is founded on sophistry, and which Repubb can truths have sapped to its very foundation,’ Adolphus, v. 238.

1

It appears from subsequent letters that Joubert was De Maulde's secretary.

2

Auckland to Grenville, Dec. 10, 1792.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Dec. 13, 1792.

2

Ibid. Dec. 21, 1792.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Dec, 21, 27,1792.

2

Ibid. Nov. 27, 1792.

3

Ibid. Dec. 4, 1792.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Dec. 21,1792.

1

Grenville to Auckland, Dec, 4, 1792.

2

Marsh's Hist. of Politics, i. 203–212.

3

Ibid. i. 260–262.

1

See a curious minute of an interview between Lord Hawkesbury and a gentleman from Guadaloupe, Dec. 5, 1792 (French Correspondence in the Record Office).

2

Marsh's Hist, of Politics, i. 222–227; Buckingham's Memoris, ii. 230–231.

3

Malmesbury's Diaries and Correspondonce, ii. 473–475.

1

See Fox's Corrospondence, ii. 372.

1

Parl. Hist. xxx. 18, 19, 60, 61.

2

I have already noticed the letters Fox wrote to Barnave and other politicians in France in favour of the King, after the failure of the flight of Varennes. See vol. v.

1

Malmesbury's Diaries, ii. 476.

1

Marsh, ch. xii.; Annual Register, 1792, part 2, pp. 358–360; Bourgoing, Hist. Dipl. i. deuxième partie, pp. 268–272.

1

Sybel, ii. 40–42.

1

Hailes to Grenville, May 22, 30, June 27, July 25, August 8,1792.

1

Eden to Grenville, May 29, 1792.

2

Ibid. June 12, 1792.

1

Eden to Grenville, June 5, 16, July 7, 10, 17, 1792.

2

Ibid. July 14, 1792.

1

Keith to Grenville, May 12, 1792.

2

Ibid May 19, 1792.

3

Ibid. i. 452, 453.

4

Sybel, ii. 143, 144.

5

Ibid. i. 473–477.

1

Eden to Grenville, Nov. 20, 1792.

1

Eden to Grenville, Nov. 23, 1792.

2

Ibid. Nov. 27, 1792.

1

Eden to Grenville, Jan. 1, 1793. Mollendorf crossed the Polish frontier on the 14th. Sybel, ii. 175.

1

Grenville to Eden, Jan. 12, 1793.

1

Eden to Grenville, Jan. 19, 1793.

2

Miles, Authentic Correspondence with Lebrun, p. 84.

3

Chauvelin to Lebrun, Nov. 29, 1792. Chauvelin gives a curious account of how, on entering Grenville's room, he found a small charr apparently intended for him to sit on. ‘J'ai dérangé cette chaise qui m'a paru une petite déchéance intentionnelle, et me suis emparé d'un grand fauteuil. Ce mouvement très marqué a frappé Lord Grenville, qui m'a dit avec embarras: “Vous n'avez pas voulu être plus près du feu. Il fait pourtant grand froid aujourd'hui.”’

1

Marsh's History of the Politics of Great Britain and France, ii. 12, 13.

2

Lebrun to Chauvelin, Nov. 30, 1792 (French Foreign Office).

3

Ibid. Dec. 5, 1792

4

Chauvelin to Lebrun, Nov. 14, 1792.

1

The relations of France with Ireland will be examined in a later chapter. See an unsigned report on Irish affairs, dated Dec. 1, and a letter from Coquebert to Lebrun, Dec. 18, 1792, in the French Foreign Office.

2

On the mission of Maret see the valuable work of Baron Ernouf, Maret, Due de Bassano.

1

The account of this interview as published by the French Government will be found in a collection of State Papers relating to the War against France (London, 1794), i. 220–223, but some important passages, as well as a later note of Maret, are suppressed, and will be found in Baron Ernouf's work, which gives the fullest account of this episode.

1

Ernouf, pp. 98–104.

1

Chauvelin to Lebrun, Dec. 3, 7, 8, 14, 18, 1792.

1

Chauvelin to Lebrun, Dec. 7, 1792. See too Ernouf, Maret, Duc de Bassano, pp. 100, 101. Fox used very similar language in Parliament. See Rose's Diary, i. 144.

2

Auckland to Grenville, Dec. 25, 26, 1792.

1

Sybel, ii. 64.

2

Marsh's Hist. of Politics, i. 340, 341.

3

Ibid. pp. 333–338; Bourgoing deuxième partie, i. 315, 316.

1

Parl. Hist xxx. 250–253.

2

Grenville to Auckland, Dec. 28, 1792.

1

Grenville to Auckland, Dec. 28, 29, 1792. See too the account of this transaction sent by Grenville to the English ambassador at St. Petersburg. Count Woronzow urged as a reason for again making a proposal of concert which had previously been rejected, that the Empress felt that the question was no longer what should be the interior government of France, but whether ‘that Power should be permitted to extend its conquests over all the countries in its neighbourhood, carrying with it principles subversive to all government and established order; that the views of aggrandisement entertained by France were sufficiently manifest from what had happened both in Savoy and in the Netherlands, and that the means which she employed for that purpose were more dangerous to the tranquillity and security of other Powers even than the success of her arms.’ Grenville observed to Whitworth that there was a great distinction between ‘an interference for the purpose of establishing any form of government in France, and a concert between other Governments to provide for their own security at a time when their political interests are endangered both by the intrigues of France in the interior of other countries and her views of conquest and aggrandisement.’ Grenville to Whitworth, Dec 29, 1792.

1

On the terms of this declaration see Marsh, ii. 71.

1

Parl. Hist. xxx. 253–256.

2

Marsh, i. 341–344.

1

See several letters of information inclosed by Anckland to Green-ville, Jan. 1793, also Mémoires de Dumouriez, liv. vii.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Jan. 2,11,1793.

1

Minutes of a conference between Lord Hawkesbury and M. de Curt, Dec, 5, 18. Note of the Marquis de Bouillé, Dec. 30, 1792 (French Correspondence at the Record Office).

1

Parl. Hist. xxx. 256–262. On the 11th Chauvelin announced that the French considered the Treaty of Commerce annulled on account of its infraction by the English.

2

See Marsh's Hist. of Politios, i. 277–285; Sybel, Hist, de l'Europe, ii. 101.

1

Grenville to Auckland, Jan. 13, 1793.

1

Parl. Hist. xxx. 262–266.

1

Sybel, ii. 102, 103. Compare Marsh's Hist. of Polities, i. 353–364.

1

See a letter of Miles, Jan. 18; Marsh, i. 366.

2

It is impossible within my present limits to do justice to this part of the case, but the reader will find many specimens of the language used at this time in the Convention in Marsh, ch. xiv.

3

Moniteur, Jan. 15, 1793.

4

Bourgoing, deuxiéme partie, i. 318, 319.

5

Parl. Hist. xxx. 266–269.

1

Authentic Correspondence, pp. 106–108. This letter is also printed by Marsh, ii, 143–145. On the 7th, Maret had written a long letter to Miles complaining of the hostile attitude and language of the English ministers and especially of the tone of Grenville's despatch of Dec 31. A great part of it is given by Ernouf, pp. 113, 114. I do not quote it, as the arguments are much the same as those used by Lebrun.

1

Grenville to Auckland, Jan. 13, 1793.

2

Auckland to Grenville, Jan. 18. Grenville to Auckland, Jan. 22, 1793.

1

Auckland to Grenville, Jan. 23, 1793.

2

Thus Governor Morris, who observed events in Paris very closely, was convinced in December that it would be impossible for England to avoid war ( Works, ii. 262). He describes how the French politicians ‘affect to wish Britain would declare against them, and actually menace the Government with an appeal to the nation’ (ib. 263), but, he added, ‘in spite of that blustering they will do much to avoid a war with Great Britain if the people will let them. But the truth is that the populace of Paris influence in a great degree the public councils’ (ib. 265). See too a letter of Captain Monro, Jan. 7, 1793. I may mention here that Chauvelin wrote to Lebrun, Jan. 7, that it was reported that Morris was in correspondence with the English minister and informed him of all that passed in Paris. Lebrun answered (Jan. 15) that he was confirmed in his suspicions of the ill-will and perfidy of Morris. ‘II travaille sourdement à nousnuire, et à donner connaissance an Gouvernement anglais de ce qui se passe chez nous.’ I have not found any confirmation of this statement.

1

Maret, in a conversation with Lord Malmesbury in 1797, gave a curious account of the cause of the failure of his mission to England in 1792 and 1793. He said that Mr. Pitt had received him very well, that the failure of the negotiation should be attributed to the then Freneh Government, who were bent on war, and that the greatand decisive cause of the war was, ‘quelques vingtaines d'mdi-vidus marquans et en place, qui avaient joué à la baisse dans les fonds, et là ils avaient porté la nation à nous déclarer la guerre. Ainst,'said he, ‘nous devons tous nos malheurs à un principe d'agiotage.’ Malmesbury Diaries, iii. 502, 503.

2

Ernouf, pp. 116, 117.

3

Compare Dumouriez, Mémoires, iii. 383, 384. Ernouf, pp. 110–113, 121.

4

Mémoires, iii. 281.

1

Mémoiret de Dumouries, iii. 277, 278, 296.

2

Ibid. pp. 339, 340, 361. The reader will observe how perfectly this opinion of the French ministers justified the predictions of Burke.

3

Ib d. pp. 302, 303.

4

Ibid. pp. 285, 294, 295.

1

Mémoires de Dumouriez, iii. 247, 287–292, 338, 380. Dumouriez' strong statement of the hatred with which the inhabitants of the Austrian Netherlands now regarded the French, and of the probability that they would rise against them if a foreign army appeared within their borders, is fully corroborated by Governor Morris, Works, ii. 255, 269, 276.

2

On the enormous preponderance of the French at Jemmapes see the facts collected by Bourgoing, Hsit. Diplomatique de I'Europe pendant la Récolution, 2me partie, tome i. p. 257.

1

Frederick the Great had already shaken this notion, which the French Revolutionists and Napoleon destroyed. A similar change passed over naval warfare in the eighteenth century. Thus Walpole wrote in Jan. 1760: ‘Our army was under arms for fourteen hours on the 23rd, expecting the French, and several of the men were frozen when they should have dismounted. What milksops the Marlboroughs and Turennes, the Blakes and Van Tromps appear now, who whipped into winter quarters and into port the moment their noses looked blue. Sir Cloudesley Shovel said that an admiral would deserve to be broke who kept great ships out after the end of September, and to be shot if after October. There is Hawke in the bay weathering this winter, after conquering in a storm.’—Walpole to Montagu.

2

Mémoires, iii. 364, 379.

3

Ibid. pp. 383–385.

4

Ibid. pp. 385–387.

1

Auckland wrote to Grenville no less than three letters on Jan. 28 (one official and the other two secret and confidential) describing this interview.

2

According to the account given by Dumouriez in his ‘Mémoires, this statement was not true. Lebrun and Garat alone were informed of the intentions of Dumouriez, and the affair was not brought before the Council. Mémoires, iii. 385.

3

Auckland to Grenville, Jan. 29 31, 1793.

1

Mémoires, iii. 394, 395.

2

Works, ii. 276.

1

See Ashton's Old Times, p. 285.

2

Annual Register, 1793, p. 229. On the impression produced in England, see some illustrations collected by Ernouf, p. 119.

1

Part. Hist. xxx. 238, 239, 269.

1

See Ernouf, p. 119.

1

Lebrun to Chauvelin, Jan. 22, 1793 (French Foreign Office).

2

Reinhardt to Lebrun, Jan. 28, 1793.

1

Ernouf, pp. 124–129. Dumouriez erroneously stated in his Mémoires that Maret had not been suffered to go to London, but had been turned back at Dover, and this statement has been often repeated.

1

Grenville to Auckland, Feb. 4, 1793.

1

The partition of Poland and the exchange of the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria.

2

Grenville to Eden, Feb. 5, 1793.

1

See Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 1313, 1314, 1359; Wilberforce's Life, ii. 13; Bussell's Life of Fox, ii. 301–303.

2

I must acknowledge that, many years ago, misled by a most misleading pamphlet of Cobden and by the much higher authority of Buckle, I introduced into my History of Rationalism a sentence (which has been expunged in the later editions) blaming Pitt for the French war. It shows at least that I had no undue bias in favour of the conclusion to which a more careful investigation has led me.

1

See Wilberforce's Life, ii. 92, 391; Moore's Life of Sheridan, ii. 203, 204.

2

Wilberforce's Life, ii. 10, 11, 92, 332.

1

Grey once remonstrated with him on the indiscretion of some of his language in favour of France. Fox answered: ‘The truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than perhaps you and the rest of your friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed. The triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise.’ (Fox's Correspondence, iii. 349.)

2

See e.g. Hazlitt's Life of Napoleon. Byron made no secret of the regret with which he looked on Waterloo. Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War, said of Napoleon, in one place that ‘he was the only support of real freedom in Europe,’ and in another that ‘self had no place in his policy, save as his personal glory was identified with France and her prosperity. Never before did the world see a man soaring so high, and devoid of all seltish ambition.’ (See Bruce's Life of Sir W. Napier, ii. 25.) Horner was no admirer of Napoleon, but he voted against the renewal of the war after the return from Elba. He wrote, at the beginning of the campaign which ended with Waterloo, that he fervently wished ‘for a successful resistance by France to the invasion of the alhes;’ and when Waterloo had been fought, he deplored ‘the degradation of our army in being the main instrument of this warfare against Freedom and Civilisation.’ (See Horner's Life, ii. 258, 274.) Robert Hall said of Waterloo: ‘That battle and its results seemed to me to put back the clock of the world six degrees.’ (Hall's Works, vi. 124.)

1

See Angelo's Reminiscences, i. 55; Wilkes's Correspondence (by Atmon); Boswell's Johnson (Croker's edition), pp. 61, 203, 269; Jesse's Life of Selnyn, i. 354, 355; and several illu-trations collected by Mr Forsyth in his Nocels of the Eighteenth Century, pp. 58, 59.

1

Bland Burges Papers, p. 126.

2

Townsend's History of the House of Commons, ii. 422.

3

Wraxall give the following description of Rigby as he appeared in 1781: ‘As if he had meant to show that he acted independently of ministers, he never sat on the Government side of the House. … When in his place he was invariably habited in a full-dressed suit of clothes, commonly of a purple or dark colour, without lace or embroidery, close buttoned, with his sword thrust through the pocket.’ (Wraxall's Memoirs, i. 539, 540.)

4

Ibid. ii. 167, 168.

5

The Lounger, No. 10 (1785).

1

Hawkings' Life of Johuson, p 288.

2

Many particulars about clerical dress in the eighteenth century will be found in Abbeu and Orerton's English Church in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 469–471.

3

Twiss's Life of Eldon, pp. 339, 340.

1

Fonblanque's Lives of the Lords Strangford, pp. 183, 185.

2

See Greville's Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, i. 77.

3

Jesse, Gecrge III. ii. 279.

1

Walpole to Mann, Nov. 1, 1760; Walpole to Hertford, March 27, 1764. See too Andrews' Eighteenth Century, p. 49.

2

See on this subject, Sir C. Lewis's Administrations of Great Britain, pp. 92, 93.

2

Wilberforce's Life, i. 392.

2

Wraxall, Posthumous Mems. i. 66. Smith the banker, Who was made Lord Carrington, was, Wraxall says, the sole exception. On the old connection between trade and the peerage, see Sir Bernard Burke's Re-miniscences, Ancestral and Historic, pp 82–84, 95, 98, 99. See, however, on the other hand, a curious letter of Lord Aberdeen in the Croker Correspondence. He says: ‘Mr. Pitt has often been reproached for having been too prodigal of peerages, and Lord Carrington's has often been referred to especially, as introducing into the House of Lords a new description of person. I never heard Mr. Pitt speak on this subject himself, but I have heard the late Lord Melville say that Mr. Pitt always defended this creation on principle, and that he maintained the time was come when for the sake of the House of Lords it was desirable that it should not be closed against commercial eminence any more than other well-founded pretensions.’ ( Croker's Correspondence, ii. 302. )

1

‘Thoughts on French Affairs,’ Works, vii. 24.

2

Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 261.

1

This was also a complaint of Hannah More See her Thoughts on the Manners of the Great.

2

Annual Register, 1765, p. 64.

3

‘The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides

  • While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.’ Tatler, No. 238.
  • ‘Good housewives all the winter's rage de-pise
  • Defended by the riding hood's disguise;
  • Or underneath th' umbrella's oily shed
  • Safe through the wet on clinking pattens tread.
  • Let Persian dames th' umbrella's ribs display
  • To guard their beauties from the sunny ray;
  • Or sweating slaves support the shady load
  • When Eastern monarchs show their state abroad;
  • Britanma's winter only knows its aid
  • To guard from chilly showers the walking maid.’
  • Gay's Trivia.
1

Sangster on Umbrellas; Roberts's Social History of the Southern Countiss, p. 560; Southey's Commonplace Book, i. 574; Pugh's Life of Hannay, p. 221; John MacDonald's Life and Travels (1790), pp. 282, 283. Several particulars about the use of umbrellas will be found in the valuable collections relating to public manners made by Francis Place. (British Museum, Add. MSS. 27, 827.)

2

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iv. 81.

1

Wraxall's Memoirs, i. 135.

2

Fairholt's History of Costume, 398; Ashton's Old Times, p. 56. The shape, however, had more than once been worn in much earlier periods. It may be seen, among other pictures, in Rembrandt's Night Watch.

3

Forster's Life of Savage Landon, i. 47, 48.

1

Ann. Reg. 1795, p. 179.

2

See Ashton's Old Times, p 61.

3

Full particulars about the abandonment of hair-powder will be found in Fairholt's History of Costume; Ashton's Old Times; Pictorial History, vii. 760, 761.

4

See the interesting remarks of Mr. Mozeley, Reminiscences of Towns and Villages, i. 414.

5

Thus a pamphleteer in 1798 writes: ‘The whole tribe of staymakers must now be in extreme distress because the female sex have thought proper to throw off their bodice. The silk and stuff weavers must be equally wretched from the universal wear of linen and muslin; the buckle-makers can be little less embarrassed from the general adoption of leather shoe-strings, and the unfortunate corps of hair-dressers are consigned to misery and despair by the new generation of round-heads.’— Essay on the Political Circumstances of Ireland under Lord Camden, pp. 89, 90.

1

Wraxall's Menu. i. 135. Some curious particulars of the way in which the ordinary dresses of fashionable life in one generation were utilised for the theatre in the next will be found in Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs (1790), iv. 86–88. He says: ‘Thirty years ago not a Templar or decent dressed young man but wore a rich gold-laced hat and scarlet waistcoat with a broad gold lace … also laced frocks for morning dress,’ and he mentions that his actors still occasionally wore, ‘for old characters of wealth, a suit of purple cloth with gold vellum holes that I frequently wore when a young man as a fashionable dress.’—Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs, iv. 87, 88.

2

Annual Register, 1773, p. 217.

3

Stephens's Life of Horne Tooke, ii. 488.

1

Jesse's Life of Selwyn, i. 360, 366.

2

She is called so by Walpole. She is said, however, in Edwards's Anecdotes of Painting, p. 69, to have been by birth an Irishwoman.

3

Walpole to Mann, ii. 82–84, 96, 97, 133, 134, 149; Ann. Reg. 1771, pp. 139, 140; see too Miss Burney's Evelina; Ashton's Old Times, pp. 217–224; Angelo's Reminiscences, i, 88–97.

4

Jesse's George III. i. 245. Correspondence of George III. and Lord North, i. 237, 238.

5

For a summary of the many laws against gaming, see Blackstone, book iv. chap. 13, § 8.

6

See a note to Croker's Bosmell p. 501.

7

Letters to Mann ii. 283.

1

See Ashton's Old Times, pp. 166–182.

2

18 George III. c. 22; Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iii. 620; Adolphus, iv, 211–213.

3

Bishop Watson's Anecdotes of his Life, i. 35; Gilbert Wakefield's Life, i. 153.

4

Townsend's Hist, of the House of Commons, ii. 380, 382–389; Correspondence of George III. and Lord North, i. 281.

1

Letter to Mann, iii. 7, 30, 112. See too, on the hours of the eighteenth century; Gomme's Gentleman's Magazine Library, Manners and Customs, pp. 16, 17.

2

Walpole's Last Journals, ii. 12.

3

This was noticed by Burke in one of his conversations with Mrs. Crewe.

4

Some curious particulars about the excessive drinking of the Prince of Wales will be found in the recently published reminiscences of Wraxall.

5

Walker, The Original, p. 41.

1

Many particulars on this subject will be found collected in Mr. Forsyth's admirable little book on The Nocelists of the Eighteenth Century, a book which has helped me much in the present chapter.

2

On the great drunkenness in Scotland during the latter half of the eighteenth century, see Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh.

3

Boswell (Crokers ed.), pp. 282, 578.

4

Shelburne's Life, i. 51.

5

Boswell's Johnson, p. 282.

1

See an interesting sketch of the history of taverns in Hawkins's Life of Joknson, pp. 87, 88.

2

An admirably complete account of these fencing-matches and of all the other matters relating to that art in England will be found in Mr. Egerton Castle's valuable work on Schools and Masters of Fence (1885). Angelo, who was a very graceful horseman, sat as a model for the equestrian statue of William III. in Merrion Square, Dublin. A number of extracts from old newspapers relating to the different kinds of prizefights will be found in the works of Andrews and of Mr. Ashton.

3

Compare Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, pp. 279, 280. Blaine's Encyclopadia of Rural Sports, p. 129.

4

Jesse's Life of Selwyn, ii. 328.

1

Nicholl's Memoirs of Hogarth, p. 368. ‘The following instance,’ writes Blanco White, ‘will show you to what degree the passion for bull fights can grow. A gentleman of my acquaintance had some years ago the misfortune to lose his sight. It might be supposed that a blind man would avoid the scene of his former enjoyment, a scene where everything is addressed to the eye. This gentleman, however, is a constant attendant at the amphitheatre. … Upon the appearance of every bull he greedily listens to the description of the animal and of all that takes place in the fight. His mental conception of the exhibition, aided by the well-known cries of the multitude, is so vivid that when a burst of applause allows his attendant just to hint at the event that drew it from the speetators, the unfortunate man's face gleams with pleasure, and he echoes the last clappings of the circus.’—Doblado's Letters from Spain, pp. 158, 159.

2

See the curious debate on the subject, Parl Hist. xxiv. 1251, 1252

3

See Blaine's Encyclopadia o Rural Sports, pp. 584–586. Lord Wilton's English Sports, in their Relation to English Character, pp. 165–175.

4

Thus Campbell in a book published in 1774 wrote: ‘The fox … is not only pursued by dogs for sport, but destroyed everywhere and by every method that can be devised.’— Political Survey of Great Britain, ii. 208. Arthur Young complains that hares were some imes so numerous as to be very injurious to husbandry in England, otherwise he makes no complaint of excessive game preservation.— Political Arithmetic, p. 205.

1

Ann. Register, 1775, p. 216.

2

See Wraxall's Post. Mems. iii. 49.

3

12 Anne, stat. 2, c. 23.

4

10 Geo. II. c. 28.

1

Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs, i. 210, 221, ii. 227. See too the same writer's Wandering Patentees, or History of the Yorkshire Theatres; Warner's History of Bath, p 364.

2

Jackson's History of the Soottish Stage, p. 25; Wilkinson's Memoirs, ii. 73, 74; Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, pp. 322–324. In 1764 Wilkinson was asked to act at a new theatre which had just been finished at Glasgow, Memoirs, iii. 223.

1

Parl. Hist. xix. 198–205. Another curious discussion on the state of theatres will be found in Parl. Hist, xviii. 632–643.

2

28 Georqe III. c. 30.

3

Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs, ii. 164, iv. 94, 95.

4

A farce, if it possesses true humour, in London will be greatly relished and applauded; in the country, very possibly, the same (even decently acted) will be termed vile. low, vulgar, and indelicate. The Love for Love of Congreve, the Trip to Scarborough, the Way of the World, the Confederacy, and others, are in London attended to as plays of wit and merit (witness their constant repetition), but in the country not permitted, or if permitted to appear, not upon any account fashionable, which is just as bad.’—Wilkinson's Mems. iii. 119.

5

See numerous particulars of the changes in the London theatres in The Mirror, a treatise appended to the fourth volume of Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs.

1

Rimbault's Hist, of the Pianoforte, pp. 133, 139.

2

See vol. i. pp. 526, 527. See too, on the number of good artists who painted sign-boards, Annual Register, 1770, pp. 181–186; Smith's Nollekens and his Times, i. 25–27.

3

Nicholl's Life of Hogarth, pp. 44, 279–281; Pye's Patronage of British Art, 149–151.

1

Pye's Patronage of British Art, p. 140.

2

Ibid. p. 230.

1

Edwards' Anecdotes of British Painting; Taylor and Northcote's Life of Reynolds; Brock-Arnold's Gainsborough; Redgrave's Century of Painters; Pilkington's Dictwnary of Painters. Sir G. Elliot wrote in 1789: ‘Gainsborough's pictures are selling for 200 l. to 500 l. a piece’ ( Life of Sir George Elliot, i. 308). Kneller, who after the death of Lely had a more undivided ascendency than any artist under George III, and who was notorious for his love of money, charged for his portraits fifteen guineas for a head, twenty if with one hand, thirty for a half, and sixty for a whole length ( Annual Register, 1764, p. 53). Some particulars about the prices of pictures under Queen Anne will be found in Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, pp. 279–282.

2

Mr. Ferguson reckons that at least two hundred great ‘manorial mansions’ were erected in England and Scotland during the eighteenth century ( History of Modern Architecture, p. 328). Many particulars relating to them will be found in Dallaway's Progress of the Arts.

3

These beginnings are minutely traced in Sir C. Eastlake's Revival of Gothic Architecture.

4

See Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iv. 183–185.

5

Pye, pp. 42, 43.

1

Walpole's Letters to Mann, ii. 97.

2

Ibid. ii. 235, 273.

3

‘The swarm of young artists who have been students in the Royal Academy, has overstocked the capital and country so much that I am told many of them are at present in the utmost indigence.’—Twining's Country Clergyman in the Eighteenth Century, p. 127.

4

Moritz, a Prussian traveller who visited England in 1782, was much struck with this. See Pinkerton, ii. 518.

1

Walpole to Mann, ii. 96.

2

Walpole to Zouche, Jan. 3, 1761.

3

See an interesting review of this branch of literature in Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, iii. 109–116.

4

Ashton's Queen Anne, p. 294.

5

Edwards' History of Libraries, i. 774. See too a speech of Wilkes on the state of libraries in England, Parl. Hist. xix. 188–192.

1

See Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, iii. 304; Buckle's History of Owilisation, i. 392, 393; Forsyth's Novels of the Eighteenth Century, p. 156; Annual Register, 1761, p. 207.

2

Much information relating to Newberry and his publications has lately been collected by Mr. Charles Welsh in his Bookseller of the Last Century.

1

Annual Register, 1769, p. 142.

2

Andrews' History of British Journalism, i. 274.

1

Annual Register, 1761, pp. 205–208.

1

Grose's Olio, pp. 41–44.

2

Watson's Aneodotes of His Own Life, ii. 253.

1

Arthur Young noticed in 1807 that this was especially the case in Essex. Thirty-six years before he had found it divided into enormous farms, but during the war it became profitable to divide them and sell them in small lots. The fullest account I have seen of the evidence about the yeomen at the end of the eighteenth century is in an article by Mr. John Rae in the Contemporary Review, October 1883. See too the remarks on this subject in that powerful, but one-sided and exaggerated work, Kay's Social Conditions and Education of the People, i. 364–367.

1

2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 8. Compare the article on Roads in McCulloch's Account of the British Empire, and Chalmers' Estimate, pp. 30, 31. Chalmers mentions an Act of Edward I. for enlarging the breadth of highways from one market town to another, but it was intended rather to prevent robberies than to facilitate locomotion. Some particular roads were also amended by Acts of Parliament under Henry VIII.

2

See a curious tract called ‘The Grand Concern of England Explained,’ Harleian Miscellany, viii. 561–571.

3

Gentleman's Magazine, 1749, pp. 376, 377.

1

Chalmers' Estimate, p 110.

2

Ibid. p. 128; Gentleman's Magazine, 1749, pp. 218, 219; 1752, pp. 517–520, 552–554.

3

A number of particulars about the rate of travelling at this time will be found in Southey's Common-place Book, iii. 76, 77, 86, 87; Thrupp's History of Coaches, pp. 105, 106; Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, iii. 320; Andrews' Eighteenth Century; Ashton's Social Life under Queen Anne; Roberts' Social History of the Southern Counties. The most extraordinary instance of rapid communication from the north (doubtless on horseback) is said to have been in 1772, when a great bankruptey in Edinburgh was known in London forty-three hours after ( Annual Register, 1772, p. 109).

4

See Evans' Beauties of North Wales, pp. 463–465; Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs, i. 152, 153.

1

Chalmers' Estimate, p. 128.

1

Young's Northern Tour, iv. 423–436. Young's Tour through the south of England and Wales, pp. 88, 318–320. See, also, on the state of the roads, Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs, iii. 142, 143.

2

Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs, iii. 136, 137. See, too, the amusing description of the German traveller Moritz, Pinkerton, ii. 566, 567.

3

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iv. 53, 54; Pictorial History, vii. 668; Annual Register, 1775, p. 191.

1

Bushworth's Historical Collections, ii. 316, 317.

2

Gentleman's Magazine, 1752, pp. 517–520, 552 554.

3

25 George III. c. 57.

4

Ibid. c. 51. 27 George III. c. 26. Sinclair on the Revenue, ii. 383–385.

1

Ashton's Old Times, p. 316.

2

Irish Parliamentary Debates, xiii. 395–397.

3

Chatham Correspondence, iii. 107.

4

See, on the number of British students at Leyden, the Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle.

5

Dugald Stewart's Dissertation, pp. 550, 551.

6

Letters concerning the present State of England, p. 240.

7

Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, ii. 383.

1

Wilberforce's Life, i. 183.

1

See on these collections Shairp's Aspects of Poetry, pp. 203, 206, 207.

2

I owe this remark to one who is not only a great poet, but also a most admirable critic—Alfred Tennyson.

3

In that singularly interesting book—Twining's Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century —there is a criticism of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, written in 1784, which shows clearly that the critical age of Coleridge was drawing near. ‘His poetry,’ writes Twining—‘I mean what he esteems such—is only good sense put in good metre. He sees no promise of Milton's genius in his juvenile poems. He feels no beauties in Mr' Gray's Odes. Did you ever see a more sohoolboyish criticism than his upon Gray? What he says about blank verse I abominate. … In general, I find my palate in matters of poetry continually at variance with Dr. Johnson's. I don't mean this alone as any proof that he is wrong. But the general taste and feelings of the most poetical people, of the best poets, are against him. … He is a man of sense, and has an ear—that is all.’ (P. 120.)

1

Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 316.

2

See Wilberforce's Life, ii. 164.

1

Grose's Olio, pp. 24–29, 73. Boswell's Life of Joknson (Croker's ed.) p. 283. See, too, some curious papers on the changes in the habits of tradesmen, Ann Regis. 1766, pp. 205–207; 1767, p. 168; 1768, pp. 202, 203 Letters on the present State of England (1772), pp. 227, 228. There is a clever and amusing paper on tradesmen's villas, at the time when the fashion had just begun, and when a great simplicity of manners still survived, in the Connoisseur, No. 33 (1754).

1

The majority of clerks, ‘said a writer in 1789,’ have not more than 50 l. to find their board; shopmen 30 l. and their board. Some few may have more, but when you see a servant with his hair elegantly dressed every day, silk or nankeen breeches, dressed, white silk stockings, change of buckles with every fashion, out every evening at playhouses;… when a master sees such an extravagance he can have no difficulty in drawing a just conclusion. ‘Wales’ My Grandfather's Pocket-book from 1701–1796, 171.

2

Shelburne's Life, i. 404.

3

The London Chronicle, June 2–5, Aug. The 2–4, Letters Chronicle, June 1764; Letters on the present State of England, pp. 240, 241; Pike's Hist, of Crime, ii. 397.

1

Craik's History of Commerce, ii. 202.

2

Ibid. ii. 202; iii. 67.

3

Chalmers' Estimate, p. 147;Craik. iii. 83–85.

4

Hume's History, vi. 177.

5

Comparative Burdens of Great Britain and Ireland, p. 23.

1

Northern Tour, iv. 192–202.

2

‘The single circumstance,’ he says, ‘of much of the labour of small farms being servants unmarried, and nine-tenths of that of great ones labourers married, makes a great difference;’ and the large farmers, he adds, almost invariably expend more labour than the small ones, in proportion to their acres. Young's Political Arithmetic, pp. 294, 295.

1

See a striking passage on the difference in Young's Northern Tour, iv. 248. See, too, Kay's Social Condition of the People, i. 360.

1

Arthur Young's Political Arithmetic, pp. 27–34, 193, 276. It is remarkable that in this book, which was published in 1774, Young dwells upon the great probability of American corn being brought over to England at a price with which it would be impossible for the English farmers to compete. See pp. 279–281.

2

Parl. Hist. xvii. 480.

3

On Population, bk. iii. c 10.

4

Craik's Hist. of Commerce, ii. 145–147.

5

See the tables in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, bk. i. ii.; Malthus, bk. iii. c. 10; and also a great many facts on the subject in Young's Political Arithmetic.

6

See Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 147.

1

Wealth of Nations, bk. iv. c. 5.

2

Report of the Committee on Waste Lands in 1795.

3

Considerations for Promoting Agriculture, by R.L.V.N. (Lord Molesworth), p. 19. The fullest account I have seen of the manner in which common fields were managed is in a pamphlet called Suggestions for Rendering the Enclosure of Common Fields a Source of Population and Riches, by Thomas Stone, land surveyor (1787). There is a curious description of the way in which these fields were allotted, in the evidence of Mr. Blamire, in the Report of the Committee on Commons Enclosure in 1844, p. 27.

1

See Sir J. Sinclair's Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Waste Lands in 1795.

2

McCulloch's Account of the British Empire, i. 580.

1

29 George II. c. 36; 31 ibid. c. 41; 13 George III. c. 81.

1

See Bishop Watson's Anecdotes of His Own Life, ii. 60.

2

There are many passages relating to enclosures scattered through Young's Tours, but he has treated the subject most fully and elaborately in his Political Arithmetic. In this treatise he answers at length Price's arguments against enclosures.

1

Bentham's Works, i.342; viii. 449.

2

‘Where then, ah! where, shall poverty reside.

  • To scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
  • If to some common's fenceless limits strayed,
  • He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
  • Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
  • And e'en the bare worn common is denied.’
  • Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
1

Much information on these subjects will be found in the Reports of the Parliamentary Committees in 1795, 1797, 1800, and 1844; in the Debates upon the Commons Act of 1845; in a work called Six Essays on Commons Preservation (1867); and in the recent book of Mr. Cunningham, Politics and Economics, pp. 208–216.

2

Sinclair, Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, 1797.

1

This fact was not unrecognised in the eighteenth century. Eden noticed that in parts of Leicestershire ‘most of the poor have little gardens, in which they chiefly cultivate potatoes. Gardens are found to be great incitements to industry, and accordingly in some parishes the poor have four or five acres each, assigned them for a garden at a very moderate rent. This supplies them with cheese, butter, and milk at an easy rate.’ Eden's History of the Poor, i. 569.

2

A terrible array of facts illustrating this truth will be found in Kay's Social Condition of the People, i. 472–579. See, too, England as It is, by William Johnston, c. xxx. (1851), a book which appears to me to contain a great deal of valuable, though very unpalatable, truth. See, too, an essay on ‘The Domestic Economy of the Labouring Classes,’ in Walker's The Original, pp. 199–218.

1

This was the calculation made by Mr. Finlayson. McCulloch's Account of the British Empire, art. ‘Population.’ The census of 1801 (the first made) reckoned the population of England and Wales at 8,872,980, exclusive of the soldiers and sailors; these amounted to 470,598 for the United Kingdom.

1

Eden's History of the Poor, i. 361. ‘Cottages,’ says Arthur Young, ‘are in general the habitations of labourers, who all swarm with children; many have double, treble, and even quadruple families.’ Northern Tour, iv. 415. On the powerful influence of the poor law in inducing both landlords and farmers to forbid the erection of labourers' cottages, see Young's Political Arithmetic, pp. 93–95.

2

This subject is especially treated in an able pamphlet by the Rev. J. Howlett (1786), who examined in detail the fluctuations of population in many different parishes. There is a curious collection of contemporary pamphlets on enclosures, written from different points of view, in the British Museum, bound up with those of Mr. Howlett; I have derived much assistance from them. Arthur Young considered enclosures one of the best means of promoting population, ‘Provide new employment,’ he said, ‘and new hands will inevitably follow; an Act of Parliament to raise money for the improvement of a million of waste acres would increase population more than twenty score of naturalisation bills.’ Northern Tour, iv. 414.

3

Parl. Hist. xxxii. 237.

4

Thus, in a pamphlet published in 1786 the writer complains that ‘the landowner converts twenty small farms into about four large ones, and at the same time the tenants of those large farms are tied down in their leases not to plough any of the premises so let to farm, by which means [of] several hundred villages that forty years ago contained between 400 and 500 inhabitants, very few will now be found to exceed eighty and some not half that number; nay, some contain only one poor, old, decrepit man or woman hired by the occupiers of the land. … The young and healthy have dispersed themselves; those that could pay their passage, having transported themselves to America.’ Cursory Remarks on Enolosures by a Country Farmer, pp 2–5.

1

See a table of the exports and imports for several years after 1771. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iii. 674–676. See, too, Malthus On Population, c. 10.

2

Several valuable statistics illustrating the relation between wages and the price of food at this time, will be found in Eden's History of the Poor, i. 383–386.

3

Porter's Progress of the nation, p. 452. There is some discrepancy about the accounts of the average. Compare Eden's History of the Poor, app. lxxviii. Broderick's English Land and landlords, app. v. Theobald Rogers's Six Centuries of Wages and Prices. According to Mr. Nicholls, the average price of a quarter of wheat between 1785 and 1794 was about forty-nine shillings and ninepence, and between 1795 and 1801 eighty-seven shillings.

1

Broderick, p. 218. Nicholls's History of the Poor Law, i. 406.

2

Dr. Price even maintained that ‘it is the superior price of flesh that hurts the poor, as it forces them to consume bread only, consequently they could live better when wheat was high than they can now while it is comparatively low.’ Young dissents from this opinion; but he says, ‘In France, where bread, I apprehend, forms nineteen parts in twenty of the food of the people, corn, and especially wheat, is the only great object of cultivation, vines answering to our barley. In England, on the contrary, the quantity of meat, butter, and cheese consumed by all ranks of the people is immense—to a much greater value, I should suppose, than that of wheat, hence cattle to our farmers is an object as important as corn.’ Young's Political Arithmetic, pp. 133, 158. See, too, the emphatic testimony of Sir J. Stewart, Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy (1767), bk. i. c. 18, to the extent to which the English people lived on pork, beef, and mutton; the remarks of Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. i. c. 8; the review of the condition of the working classes in a pamphlet by the Rev. J. Howlett, called Enclosures a Cause of Improved Agriculture (1787), p. 98; the detailed comparison in Arthur Young's Tour in France between the conditions of the English and French labourers; and the conclusion arrived at by a recent Parliamentary inquiry, quoted by Mr. Broderick, English Land and English Landlords, p. 215. See, too, the evidence I have myself collected, vol. i. 558–564.

1

This was the opinion of the commissioner who reported on the employment of women and children in 1868 (first report). See, too, Kebbel, The Agricultural Labourer, pp. 40,41. Eden's History of the Poor, i. 383–385.

2

Eden's History of the Poor, i. 604. See also, on the great difficulty of ascertaining wages, p. 385.

3

See the details of his scheme, which was proposed by a Mr. Acland. Eden, i. 373, 374.

1

See Pitt's remarkable speech in 1796. Parl. Hist. xxxii. 705–712.

2

Wade's History of the Niddle and Working Classes, p. 99.

3

11 & 12 William III. c. 10. 7 George I. c. 7.

1

Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 166,167. McCulloch's Account of British Empire, i. 673.

2

Ibid. p. 112. In 1882 the total export of woollen and worsted manufacture was 22,167,279 l. ; that of cotton, 75,796,205 l. See Martin's Statesman's Year Book.

1

Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 155–159.

2

The claims of Wyatt will be found stated at length in Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, and those of Paul in French's Life and Times of Crompton. Guest, in his history of the cotton trade, has mentioned the claims of Highs.

3

14 George III. c. 72.

1

Baines, p. 202.

1

Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, pp. 117, 151, 159, 160.

2

Ibid. pp. 218, 219, 360.

3

Ibid. p. 216.

4

Ibid. p. 360.

1

Macpherson iii. 380–383. Meteyard's Life of Wedgwood.

1

Chamberlayne's Present State of Great Britain, 1710, p. 19.

2

M'Culloch's Account of the British Empire, i. 606, 607. Fair-bairn's Iron Manufacture.

1

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iv. 203, 257, 282, 283, 300. Philips's History of Inland Navigation. Smiles' Lives of the Engineers: Life of Brindley. There is a good chapter in Philips on the history of Continental canals, and I have also derived some information on this subject from Andreossy, Hist. du Canal du Midi. (an. viii.)

1

Annual Register, 1761, p. 73.

2

Ibid. 1763, p. 66. See, too, the description of another great steam-engine, ibid. 1768, p. 62.

1

See Lardner on the Steam-Engine. The Lives of Watt by Muirhead and by Smiles. Beckmann's History of Inventions. Eneyolopadia Britt. art. ‘Steam-Engines.’

1

Porter's Progress of the Nation, pp. 480, 482.

2

Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture. p. 504.

3

See England as It is, by William Johnston, c. xii.

1

See Howell's Conflicts of Capital and Labour, pp. 84–88.

1

Kay's Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes, p. 44. Wade's History of the Middle and Working Classes, p. 571. Ure's Philosophy of Manufacture, pp. 334–336.

2

See a powerful statement of the effects of Irish emigration on the English working classes in Kay's Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes (1832).

1

Place On the Improvement of the Working People. There is an abstract of his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, in Porter's Progress of the Nation, pp. 683–685. See, too, the curious collection of documents relating to the history of manners, made by Place, and now in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 27, 825.

2

This statement is made by Michelet, La Femme, and repeated by Jules Simon, L'Ouvriere. See the very emphatic contradiction of it in Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt, iv. 405, 406.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxii. 710.

1

The facts relating to the factory system will be found in the reports of several parhamentary committees on the subject, and in the debates on the different factory laws. See too Alfred's History of the Factory Movement; the correspondence between Senior and Horner ‘on the Factory Act’ (1837); the published speeches of Lord Ashley; Kay's Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes; Bulwer's England and the English, book ii. ch. v.; and the skilful analysis of the evidence taken before the Factory Commissioners, drawn up in the interests of the manufacturers in 1834. On the foreign factories see a report of Ch. Dupin on the labour of children, laid before the French House of Peers in 1840 and 1841, and Gillet, Sur l'Emploi des Enfants (1840).

1

See a very remarkable enumeration of these measures in Buckle's Hist, of Civilisation, i. 350–353.

1

Cunningham's Conditions of Social Well-being (1878).

1

Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap ii.

1

Burke's Thoughts on Scarcity.

2

Republic, vi. c. 13.

1

Blackstone, bk. iv. ch. xiii.

1

Blackstone, bk. iv. ch. iv.

2

5 Eliz. c. 4.

3

1 James L. c. 6.

4

Wealth of Nations, bk. i. ch. x. part 2. Blackstone, bk. i. ch. xiv.

1

29 George II. c. 33.

2

13 George III. c. 68; 32 George III. c. 44; 51 George III. c. 7.

3

See a full enumeration of these Acts in 5 George IV. c. 95, the law that repealed them.

1

The details of this struggle will be found in Brentano On Guilds, and in Howell's Conflicts of Labour and Capital, pp. 81–110. See too some excellent remarks of Mr. Cunningham, Politics and Economics.

2

Ann Register, 1769, p. 86.

3

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iii. 118, iv. 373.

4

Annual Register, 1766, p. 53.

5

See on this curious case the Bedford Correspondence, iii. 339. Walpole's George III. i. 383, 384. Breaknock was afterwards hanged in Ireland as an accessory to the murder for which fighting Fitzgerald was condemned.

1

Blackstone, book iv. ch. xii. In the Annual Register for 1772, p. 116, there is a case of a usurer punished for exacting only 10 p.c. A man in Surrey was fined 1,500l. for lending to two young ladies at 20 p.c, Gentleman's Magazine, 1773, p. 194.

2

Hawkins's Life of Johnson, pp. 508–511.

1

See Wealth of Nations, book i. ch. x. Wade's Hist of the Working and Middle Classes, p. 101.

2

12 Geo. III. c. 71. Blackstone, book iv. ch. xii. Blackstone says, however, that some of these Acts were still offences by common law. According to Sir J. Stephen, forestalling and regrating were still punishable under laws older than Ed. VI. which were only repealed in 1844. Hist. of the Criminal Law, iii. 201.

3

Parl. Hist. xxvi. 1169.

4

Macpherson, iii. 607, 608.

5

See Cunningham's Politics and Economics, pp 80, 81.

1

Livre iii.

2

Price On Civil Liberty, p. 72.

3

Political Justice, ii. 190.

4

Political Arithmetic, p. 95.

1

Thoughts on Scarcity.

1

Cavendish Delates, ii. 12.

1

I have taken these illustrations chiefly from a valuable tract of Romilly, called Observations on, a late publication entitled ‘Thoughts on Exeoutive Justice’ (London, 1786). The work commented on was by Madan, a well-known leader in the Evange-lical movement. See, too. a speech of Mackintosh, Parl. Debates, New Series, i. 232. Lord Russell On the Constitution, ch. xxiv. A Treatise on the Police, by a Magistrate for the Counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Essen (Colquhoun), pp. 284–286. Disparities of punishment almost equally great may be found in cases which were not capital. Thus (to give but a single example) two persons were whipped round Covent Garden in 1772, pursuant of sentence, the one for stealing a bunch of radishes, the other for debauching and pollu-ting his own niece. ( Annual Registes, 1772, p. 116.)

1

See some curious cases of this kind cited in Romilly's Observations on the Criminal Law of England (1810), pp. 65–67; Grose's Olio, pp. 259, 261; and Lord Russell On the Constitution.

2

Colquhoun on the Police of the Metropolis (3rd ed.), pp. 90, 91. See, too, the proportion of discharges to offenders, pp. 225–231. This writer, who was an active London magistrate, states that, owing to the conscientious scruples of multitudes, to prosecute delinquents for inconsiderable thefts which were liable to capital punishment, ‘it is believed that not one depredation in a hundred of those actually committed, comes to the knowledge of magistrates’ (p. 260).

3

Ibid. pp. 292–294.

1

Howard on Prisons, pp. 479–485.

2

Annual Register, 1785, p. 247.

3

Howard, p. 485.

4

Howard, pp. 45, 56.

5

See Parl. Hist, xxviii. 146.

1

Lord Russell On the Constitution, ch, xxiv. Romilly's Obserations on a late Publication entitled ‘Thoughts on, Executive Justice,’ p. 45.

2

Thoughts on Executive Justice (Madan), pp. 98–101. Colquhoun, in 1785, said: ‘According to the present system, out of about 100 who are upon an average every year doomed to suffer the punishment of death, four-fifths or more are generally pardoned, either on condition of being transported, or of going into his Majesty's service, and not seldom without any condition at all’ ( Police of the Metropolis, p. 294). From August 1792 to June 1794,1,002 pardons, absolute or conditional, were granted (p. 296).

1

Johnson expressed his great indignation at this change, declaring that the age ‘was running mad after innovation,’ and that even Tyburn was not safe from it See Boswell's Johnson (Croker's ed.), p. 720.

1

See an interesting letter on the history of the drop in the Croker Correspondence, iii. 15, 16. Annual Register, 1760, p. 45.

2

See the whole of the curious passage, book iv. ch. xxvii.

3

Ibid. Compare Sir J. Stephen's History of the Criminal Law, i. 424.

1

Thoughts on Exeoutive Justice, pp. 144, 145. The reader will remembet Pope's line, ‘And wretches hang that urymen may dine.’ See, too. Sir J. Stephen's History of Criminal Law, i. 422.

1

Walpole's Last Journals, ii. 38. Adolphus, iv. 231. The Police of the Metropolis, pp. 299–309.

2

Howard On Prisons, p. 465.

3

Many partioulars about the early convict life in Australia will be found in the singularly interesting little book of Mr. Bonwick, First Twenty Years of Australia.

1

Death of Queen, Anne to the Death of George II. , p. 257. It is not surorising that the Speaker Onslow should have written, ‘The sacramental test is made a sad and profane use of by others and many more, I fear, than the Dissenters. It is become a great scandal’ (Note to Burnet, ii. 364).

1

Burnet's Own Times, i. 347–348.

1

23 Charles II. c. 20.

2

24 Geo. II. c. 40. 32 Geo. II. c. 28.

3

Geo. III. c. 58.

4

14 Geo. III. c. 20, 59.

1

Colquhoun, Police of the Metroplis, pp. 390–393.

1

19 Geo. III. c. 74

2

Part. Hist. xxviii. 1224.

1

Porter's Progress of the Nation, pp. 645, 653.

2

Vol. iii. pp. 131–138. See, too, Parl. Hist. xvi. 929–942.

3

See much evidence of this in Phillimore, Hist. of Geo. III. pp. 410, 411.

4

See an instance of this at Reading, Gent.'s Magazine, 1773, p. 98.

1

The Police of the Metropolis, pp. 88, 353.

2

Ibid. pp. 23, 24, 91, 92, 293.

3

Ibid. pp. 11, 12.

4

Ibid. pp. 34, 35.

1

13 Geo. III. c. 31.

2

Greville's Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Victoria, ii. 215.

1

For many particulars about the highwaymen of the eighteenth century, see Andrews' Eighteenth Century, pp. 228–246. Walker's The Original, pp. 40, 41. Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 641. See, too, the numerous cases referred to in the index of the Annual Register, under the head ‘Robbery.’

1

See an interesting chapter on this subject in L'Angleterre au Commencement du XIXe siécle, par le Duc de Levis, ch. iii.

2

Croker's Boswell, pp. 239, 240, 254, 728.

3

Traité de Législation, ii. 342–351.

4

Wilberforce's Life, i. 356, ii. 93.

1

Wilberforce's Life, i. 280–284.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxv. 227.

1

Parl. Hist. xxxiii. 1307.

2

Ibid. xxxv. 244.

1

The laws relating to the poor have been collected in two volumes by Cunningham Glen. On the parish apprentices, see especially 18 George III. c. 47, 20 George III. c. 36, 32 George III. c. 57.

2

7 George III. c. 39. Pugh's Life of Hanway, p. 190.

1

Parl Hist. xv. 1283–1291. Walpole's George III. i. 244. 14 George III. c. 49. 26 George III. c. 91. Gentleman's Magazine, 1772, pp 195, 196, 340, 341, 589, 590; 1773, p. 99.

2

28 George III. c. 48.

3

De Levis, L'Angleterre au Commencement du dix-neuvième sièole, ch. viii.

4

See Seymour's Survey of London, and a full catalogue of the London charitable institutions with the dates of their foundation in Colquhoun's Police of the Metropolis, pp. 374–380. Colquhoun, in 1795, estimates the poor rates for the metropolis (including an adjoining district of Middle sex and Surrey) at 245,000 l. a year. In addition to this, he estimates the annual expense of

  • 1. Supporting charity schools for educating the poor at. …. £10,000
  • 2. Asylums for the relief of objects of charity and humanity, supported by annual contributions, at 25,000
  • 3. Asylums, hospitals, and dispensaries, for the sick, lame, diseased, and afflicted, at. …. 50,000
  • 4. Institutions for benevolent, charitable, and humane purposes, 704 societies, at. … 120,000
  • 5. Private charities at. 150,000
  • 6 . Endowed establishments at. …. … 150,000
  • Total estimate per annum, 750,000 l.
1

Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth' Century, ii. 689–706.

2

See a speech of Fox, Parl. Hist. xxv. 171.

3

Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 215. See, too, a remarkable essay ‘On Novel Reading,’ by Vicesimus Knox, Essays, i. No. xiv.

1

Thus Hannah More says that the age in which she wrote was preeminently ‘the age of benevolence.’ ‘Liberality flows with a full tide through a thousand channels. There is scarcely a newspaper but records some meeting of men of fortune for the most salutary purposes. The noble and numberless structures for the relief of distress which are the ornament and glory of our metropolis, proclaim a species of munificence unknown to former ages. Subscriptions, not only to hospitals, but to various other valuable institutions, are obtained almost as soon as solicited.’ But she at the same time asks ‘whether it be not the fashion rather to consider benevolence as a substitute for Christianity, than as an evidence of it?’ And she adds, ‘It seems to be one of the reigning errors among the better sort to reduce all religion into benevolence, and all benevolence into almsgiving.’ On the Religion of the Fashionable World, Works, xi. 87–91. She has, also, some good remarks upon the way in which the restriction of ‘That broad shade of protection, patronage, and maintenance, which the wide-spread bounty of their forefathers stretched out over whole villages,’ and the ‘general alteration of habits and manners,’ had recently increased the necessities for charity.

1

Wilberforce's Life, i. 238.

1

See vol. ii. p. 604.

2

Hodgson's Life of Porteus, pp. 18, 19.

1

Tyerman's Life of Wesley, iii. 500.

2

Sidney's life of Rowland Hill, ch. xx.

3

On Population, book iv. ch. viii.

4

Walpole's Last Journals, i. 176–183.

1

Vol. ii. pp. 11–17.

2

Walpole's George III. i. 227, 228.

1

23 George II. c. 31.

2

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iii. 484.

1

His brother, Charles Wesley, had during this journey formed a very strong opinion of the extreme babarities inflicted on slaves in the Carolinas. See a striking passage from his journal in Grahame's History of the United States, iii. 422.

2

Grahame's History of the United States, iii. 404. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, i. 112–116, 132–180. Kalm's Travels in North America, Pinkerton, xvii. 501.

3

See Clarkson, i. 143–145.

1

Clarkson, i. pp. 185–192.

2

An excellent summary of the laws on slavery in the different colonies will be found in Mr. H. C. Lodge's Short History of the English Colonies in America (1882).

3

Many instances of the atrocious barbarities practised on slaves in the American colonies and in the English West India Islands, will be found in Benezet's Historical Account of Guinea and of the Slave Trade. Grahame's History of the United States, iii. 422, 423. ‘The negroes in our colonies,’ said Burke, ‘endure a slavery more complete, and attended with far worse circumstances, than what any people in their condition suffer in any other part of the world, or have suffered in any other period of time. Proofs of this are not wanting.’ An Account of the European Settlements in America, ii. 124. See, too, the whole chapter. Paley says, ‘From all that can be learned by the accounts of the people upon the spot, the inordinate authority which the plantation laws confer upon the slaveholder is exercised by the English slaveholder exercised by the English slaveholder especially, with rigour and brutality.’ Moral Philosophy, book iii. ch. iii.

1

Tucker's Reflections on the present Matters in dispute betveen Great Britain and Ireland, pp 10–12. At the end of the sixteenth century, Bodin had noticed the good treatment of slaves by the Spaniards, La Republique, liv. i. ch. v.

2

See Hildreth's History of the United States, iii. 509–520, iv. 174, 175.

1

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iv. 17–20. 23 George III. c. 39.

1

Bryan Edwards, History of the West Indies, book vi. ch. iv.

2

Baines' History of Liverpool, p. 719.

3

Stuart's Memoir of Granville Sharp, pp. 29–31. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, i. 95–97.

1

See Macpherson, iv. 150.

2

Clarkson, ii. 52.

1

Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iv. 141, 154. Clarkson, i. 491, 496. May's Const. Hist. i. 447, 448.

1

Wilberforce's Life, i. 152, 153.

2

Part Hist, xxvii. 495–506.

1

See Clarkson, ii. 110–112.

1

Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, ii. 163.

2

Ibid. ii. 148.

3

See an interesting letter of Bomilly on this division, Life of Romilly i. 425, 426. Clarkson, ii. 212–3

1

Clarkson, ii. 352–355.

2

Wilberforce's Life, i. 341–344.

1

‘Nos … primus equis Oriens affavit anhelis, Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.’ See Stanhope's Life of Pitt, ii. 145, 146.

1

Vol. v. pp. 65–68.

1

Some decisive evidence of this has lately been published by Mr. Maxwell Lyte in his report on the MSS. of the Marquis of Abergavenny.

1

See vol. iv. p. 540.

2

May 3, 1782. Shelburne to Portland. Portland to Shelburne.

3

June 8, 1782.

1

August 9, 1782. Portland to Townsend.

1

Parl. Hist. xxiii. 30, 31. See, too, Lord Beauchamp's Letter to the 1st Belfast Company of Volunteers. Flood's Life, pp. 165–167. Townsend to Temple, Oct. 26, Nov. 4, 1782.

2

Parl. Hist. xxiii. 147–152.

3

Ibid. 335, 336.

1

Parl. Hist. xxiii. 323.

1

Parl, Hist. xxv. 966. This statement was made in 1785.

2

See vol. iv. pp. 550–553.

3

May 25, 1782. Grattan's Life, ii. 289.

4

May 6, 1782. Portland to Shelburne. (Printed in Grattan's Life, ii. 286–288.)

1

See his letter to Grattan, Grattan's Life, ii. 297.

2

Portland to Shelburne, June 6, 1782. Grattan's Life, ii. 291, 292. This correspondence was first disclosed by Pitt, in the Union Debate in 1799. Portland expressed his firm persuasion that Grattan would support the Bill, but he had evidently no communication with Grattan on the subject.

3

Shelburne to Portland, June 9, 1782.

1

Temple to Shelburne, Sept. 30, Oct. 9, 28, Dec. 2, 6, 1782. These letters are not in the regular Government correspondence in the Record Office. I know them through the abstracts in the Lansdowne Papers. British Museum, Add. MSS. 24, 131.

1

Temple to Shelburne, Oct. 28, Dec. 2 and 6, 1782.

2

(Most secret and contidential) Temple to Townshend, Nov. 30, 1782.

1

(Most secret) Temple to Townshend, Dec. 12, 14, 1782.

1

23 George III. c. 28.

2

Temple to Townshend, Feb. 12, 1783.

1

Several examples of this kind, taken from the books of the Privy Council, will be found in a valuable article in the Edinburgh Review, April 1886, pp. 579, 580. The mistakes appear to have principally occurred in regulating the commercial intercourse, on the basis of reciprocity. The duties or bounties were sometimes incorrectly calculated.

1

See vol. iv. pp. 548, 549.

2

Rutland to Sydney (confidential), Feb. 27, 1784.

1

See on this subject a forcible statement in Grattan's Speeches, i. 244, 245.

1

Irish Parliamentary, Debates, ii, 75.

1

I have already abundantly illustrated this fact; but the following passage, from a speech of Burke in 1785, may not be without interest to the reader. ‘He was sorry to say that she [Ireland] at present, in time of profound peace, was running in debt, her expenses greatly exceeding her income; but he remembered that in 1753 she had been able to pay off a considerable debt, and had besides a surplus of 260,000l. in her treasury, But what was truly astonishing, and he had been a witness of it himself, so soon after as 1761 she was enabled by her prudent system of economy to keep an army of 24,000 in pay, of which 8,000 were sent by her to fight the battles of Great Britain abroad, whilst 16,000 remained in the kingdom for home defence. She also sent 33,000 recruits, her own natives at her own expense, to fill up regiments in the British service, and spent above 600,000l. in Germany for the support of the war. This was an effort from which England had reaped the greatest advantage.’ Parl. Hist. xxv. 651.

1

January 23, 1799.

2

Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland, ii. 17.

1

Portland to Shelburne, June 25, 1782.

2

Gordon's Hist. of Ireland, ii. 286. Letter to Henry Flood on the Represntation of Ireland (Belfast, 1783). See, too, a full report, by the committee by the delegates at Lisburne to collect evidence about parliamentary reform. Proceedings relating to the Ulster Assembly of Volunteer Delegates (Belfast 1783); and also the detailed analysis of the Irish representation in Grattan's Life. iii. 472–487.

1

Seward's Rights of the People Asserted (Dublin, 1783), p. 34.

1

Plowden, ii. 23–27.

1

Temple to Townshend, March 12. Temple to North, May 9, 1783.

2

(Secret and confidential) July 4, 1783, Northington to North.

3

Temple to North, May 23, 30 Proclamation, June 9. Northington to North, June 10, 26, 1783. Irish Parl. Debates, ii. 346, 347.

1

Oct. 14, 1783, Northington to North. Irish Parl. Debates, ii. 9.

2

Northington to North, Sept. 23, Oct. 18. North to Northington, Oct. 7, 1783.

1

Irish Parl. Deb. ii. 277–289.

2

Ibid. ii: 34, 79, 81, 103. Grattan estimated the increase of the revenue during the last two years at 100,000l. per year (p.103).

1

Irish Parl. Deb. 84, 103, 104.

1

Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 94–98.

1

It has also been ascribed to Lord Townshend and to Lady Mary Montague.

2

See Burdy's Life of Skelton (Skelton's Works, i. xcvii)

3

Many particulars relating to the Ulster life of the Bishop will be found in an interesting sketch of his history by the Rev. Classon Porter, a gentleman who has contributed much that is valuable to the local history of Ulster. It is reprinted from the Northern Whig.

1

Parl. Hist. xx. 1164.

2

Charlemont's MS. Autobiography; Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 103.

3

Wesley's Journal, June 1, 6, 1775.

1

Bentham's Works, x. 93, 94, 101.

2

See the curious letter of the Bishop offering assistance for the purchase of camp equipage. Grattan's Life, ii. 262, 263.

1

Mant's Church History of Ireland, ii 692–694.

2

Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 100.

3

See an example of this in the Freeman's Journal, Nov. 20–22, 1783, which Lord Northington sent to England.

4

Fox to Northington, Nov. 1, 1783. Fox to Burgoyne, Nov. 7, 1783. Grattan's Life, iii. 106–116.

1

Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 106.

2

Ibid. ii. 106,

3

Life of the Countess of Hunting-don, ii. 191, 195.

1

See the memorial of Charles Lionel Fitzgerald to the Earl of Carhsle (Sept. 24, 1781), and the letter of G R. Fitzgerald to the same, Jan 26,1781, Irish State Paper Office. Two of Fitzgerald's letters from prison are preserved in the mlscellancous correspondence, Irish State Paper Office; and his very curious memorial to the Government in 1783, and the opinion of the Attorney-General upon it, will be found in the Irish Record Office, Entries of Civil Petitions. See also The Case of G. R. Fitzgerald, impartrally consudered, with Anecdotes of his Life (1786); A Letter to the Right Hon W Eden, by a Member of the Roektield Legion commanded by G. R. Fitzgerald; and a curious life of Fitzgerald published in 1786.

2

Mant's History of the Irish Church, ii 693.

3

Hardy's Life of Charlemont. Barrington's Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, ccvii. xix. Fitzgibbon, many years later, in reviewing this period of Irish history, while speaking of the extreme danger to Government of such a military Convention as that of 1783, made the following remarkable admission: ‘In that Convention I will venture to say there was not a single rebel; there was not a member of it who would not willingly have shed his blood in the defence of his Sovereign and of the Constitution ‘—Speech of Earl of Clare, February 19,1798 (Dublin, 1798), p. 80 I believe this was certainly not true of the Bishop of Derry.

1

‘The next step was to try by means of our friends in this assembly [the Convention] to perplex its proceedings and to create confusion in their deliberations, in order to bring their meeting into contempt and to create a necessity of its dissolving itself. This method had considerable effect. They are strongly embarrassed by a multiplicity of plans, and are much alarmed by the Roman Catholics claiming a right to vote.’—Northington to Fox, Nov. 17, 1783; Grattan's Life, iii. 130, 131. In the beginning of 1784 Northington recommended very strongly Ogle, the member for Wexford, for the place of regl strar of deeds. He says, ‘His private character and public conduct command universal esteem. He has given the most decided and cordial support upon all occasions to my administration. … His zeal like-wise induced him to attend the Convention, of which he was chosen a member, where he exerted his efforts constantly to check and control the mischievous tendency of measures proposed there, and to support what might be the wishes of the Government.’—Northington to Sydney, Jan. 25, 1784.

1

‘The Bishop again renewed the Catholic question, in which he was warmly supported by many of the Connaught and by some of the Munster delegates, while even a few of the Northern dissenters, by their speeches and acquiescence, appeared already to indicate the approach of that strange madness by which they were, not long after, actuated.’—Charlemont's MS. Autobiography.

1

Irish Parl. Debates, ii. 225–264. The numbers in the first division are given erroneously in the Debates as 158 to 49. The Commons' Journals, however, and also a letter of Lord Northington (Nov. 30, 1783), give them as in the text.

1

See Grattan's Life, iii. 159–162; Hardy's Life of Charlemont, ii. 138–142; Charlemont Papers. There is a full report of the proceedings of the Convention in a pamphlet, called Proceedings of the Volunteer Delegates of Ireland (1784), and also in the Hiberman Journal for 1783. Barrington ( Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, c. xix.) has grossly misrepresented the closing scenes of the Convention, accusing Charlemont of having come to the Hall before the usual hour on Monday, the 1st, with his own friends, and adjourned the Convention sine die before the arrival of the opposite party. As a matter of fact the debate extended over two days, and Flood, the Bishop of Derry, and all the other more conspicuous members of the Convention were present

1

Irish Parl. Deb. iii. 13–23, 43–85

1

Bentham, Radicalism not dan-gerous, part iv.; Collected Works, iii. 613–620.

2

‘If property and fortune are the criteria of consequence, the members of the Convention were of equal importance, and possessed an equal interest in the public welfare as the members of the House of Commons. … There cannot be a more irrefragable argument in favour of a reform of Parliament than, originating with the people, that it should be embraced by almost every man of rank and fortune in the kingdom, except the individuals whose respective interests and usurpation were supposed to be affected by a more equal representation’ ‘The Volunteer Reform Bill,’ says the same writer, ‘was neither fraught with speculative principles nor new-fangled doctrines; it dealt neither in experiment nor mnovation, and though possibly not the best that human wisdom could devise, yet at least it must have had some excellencies to recommend it, from the almost unanimous applause that awaited it in every quarter of the kingdom.’— History of the last Session of Parliament, by a member of the sub-committee of the Convention (Dubhn, 1784), pp 9, 10.

1

See vol. iv. pp. 471, 472.

2

MS. Autobiography.

1

Sam. Maxwell to Charlemont, Jan. 3, 1784. Charlemont Papers.

2

See his remarkable letters, Bar-rington, Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, c. xx.

3

March 20, 1784 (most secret and confidential), Rutland to Sydney. See, too, Grattan's Life, iii. 137, 138.

4

Rutland to Sydney, Feb. 26, 27, 1784. Irish Parl. Deb. ii. 374.

1

See in the privately printed Rutland correspondence letters of Pitt to Rutland, Feb. 1, and of Buckingham to Pitt, Jan. 23, 1785. Buckingham says of Gardiner: ‘I certainly held myself authorised to hold it [a peerage] out to him in case of his support, which he promised, stating, however, that he had pledged himself to move that question [protecting duties] after the recess, but that he would take the first moment to quit it, and to return to that system from which he had been driven by Lord Northington.’

1

Irish Parl. Deb. iv. 129.

1

Irish Parl. Deb. iii. 135–138.

2

Ibid. iii. 223.

1

Newenham's View of the Natural, Political, and Commercial Cireumstances of Ireland (1809). This valuable book contains the fullest account I know, of the corn legislation in Ireland.

2

23 & 24 Geo. III. c. 19. This is a very long and complicated Act. The reader my find a tolerable abstract of its provisions in Newenham, pp. 213, 214.

3

P. 143.

1

See the very elaborate exammation of the subject in Newenham's View of the Circumstances of Ireland, and in the same writer's work on The Population of Ireland, pp. 44–50. See, too, Crumpe's Essay on the Employment of the People (1793), pp. 260–272; Mullala's View of Irish Affairs since the Revolution, ii. 128–131. Both Newenham and Crumpe argue elaborately agamst the views of Adam Smith on the subject. One of the very few instances of a contemporary unfavourable view of the corn bounties in Ireland, will be found in a memorial of Rich. Burke to Dundas. Burke's Correspondence, iv. 46–57. The writer, however, admits that the corn trade created by the bounties, was at first very lucrative.

2

Newenham's Cireumstances of Ireland, pp. 215, 216.

3

Ibid. pp. 230, 231.

1

See the powerful statement of the case against corn bounties in M'Culloch's Account of the British Empire, i. 438, 439, 531, 532.

1

23 & 24 Geo. III. c 56

2

Feb 26, April 12, 1784, Rutland to Sydney (secret and confidential). Next day Orde wrote, ‘We are really in a very disagreeable situation in respect to internal disorder. Those accursed manufacturers, pent up in a vile suburb of the city, are brooding mischief upon the instigation, no doubt, of more considerable persons among the weavers Their machinations are the more alarming, because there is no doubt of their design to commit private assassination. Every discovery we make tends to confirm it, and the glorious idea is kept alive by the encouragements of the newspapers and the pulpits. … It is a damnable scene, and I most cordially detest it.’ Orde to Nepean, April 13, 1784. There are several other letters on the subject, written in the spring and summer of 1784. See, too, Irish Parl. Deb. ii. 419–421, iii. 147–158.