defence of his creature the Chancellor; but Lord Granville moved, according to order, to adjourn to debate in the chamber of Parliament, where the Duke of Bedford and many others spoke warmly for their having council; and it was granted. I said their, because the plea would have saved them all, and affected nine rebels who had been hanged that very morning; particularly one Morgan, a poetical lawyer. Lord Balmerino asked for Forester and Wilbraham; the latter a very able lawyer in the House of Commons, who, the Chancellor said privately, he was sure would as soon be hanged as plead such a cause. But he came as council to-day (the third day), when Lord Balmerino gave up his plea as invalid, and submitted, without any speech. The High Steward then made his, very long and very poor, with only one or two good passages; and then pronounced sentence ! Great intercession is made for the two Earls: Duke Hamilton, who has never been at court, designs to kiss the King's hand, and ask Lord Kilmarnock's life. The King is much inclined to some mercy; but the Duke, who has not so much of Cæsar after a victory, as in gaining it, is for the utmost severity. It was lately proposed in the city to present him with the freedom of some company; one of the aldermen said aloud, "Then let it be of the Butchers!" 2 The Scotch and his Royal Highness are not at all guarded in their expressions of each other. When he went to Edinburgh, in his pursuit of the rebels, they would not admit his guards, alleging that it was contrary to their privileges; but they rode in, sword in hand; and the Duke, very justly incensed, refused to see any of the magistrates. He came with the utmost expedition to town, in order for Flanders; but found that the court of Vienna had already sent Prince Charles thither, without the least notification, at which both King and Duke are greatly offended. When the latter 'James, sixth Duke of Hamilton; died in 1758.-D. "The Duke," says Sir Walter Scott, " I was received with all the honours due to conquest; and all the incorporated bodies of the capital, from the guild brethren to the butchers, desired his acceptance of the freedom of their craft, or corporation." Billy the Butcher was one of his by-names.-E. waited on his brother, the Prince carried him into a room that hangs over the wall of St. James's Park, and stood there with his arm about his neck, to charm the gazing mob. Murray, the Pretender's secretary, has made ample confessions: the Earl of Traquair1 and Dr. Barry, a physician, are apprehended, and more warrants are out; so much for rebels! Your friend, Lord Sandwich, is instantly going ambassador to Holland, to pray the Dutch to build more ships. I have received yours of July 19th, but you see have no more room left, only to say, that I conceive a good idea of my eagle, though the seal is a bad one. Adieu ! P.S. I have not room to say anything to the Tesi till next post; but, unless she will sing gratis, would advise her to drop this thought. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, Aug 2, 1746. DEAR GEORGE, You have lost nothing by missing yesterday at the trials, but a little additional contempt for the High Steward; and even that is recoverable, as his long, paltry speech is to be printed; for which, and for thanks for it, Lord Lincoln moved the House of Lords. Somebody said to Sir Charles Windham, "Oh! you don't think Lord Hardwicke's speech good, because you have read Lord Cowper's."-" No," replied he; "but I do think it tolerable, because I heard Serjeant Skinner's." Poor brave old Balmerino retracted his plea, asked pardon, and desired the Lords to intercede for mercy. As he returned to the Tower, he stopped the coach at Charingcross to buy honey-blobs, as the Scotch call gooseberries. He says he is extremely afraid Lord Kilmarnock will not behave well. The Duke said publicly at his levee, that the latter proposed murdering the English prisoners. His Highness was to have given Peggy Banks a ball last night; but 1 Charles Stuart, fifth Earl of Traquair.-D. was persuaded to defer it, as it would have rather looked like an insult on the prisoners, the very day their sentence was passed. George Selwyn says that he had begged Sir William Saunderson to get him the High Steward's wand, after it was broke, as a curiosity; but that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light his fire with: I don't believe my Lady Hardwicke is so high-minded. Your cousin Sandwich' is certainly going on an embassy to Holland. I don't know whether it is to qualify him, by new dignity, for the head of the admiralty, or whether (which is more agreeable to present policy) to satisfy him instead of it. I know when Lord Malton, who was a young earl, asked for the garter, to stop his pretensions, they made him a marquis. When Lord Brooke, who is likely to have ten sons, though he has none yet, asked to have his barony settled on his daughters, they refused him with an earldom; and they professed making Pitt paymaster, in order to silence the avidity of his faction. Dear George, I am afraid I shall not be in your neighbourhood, as I promised myself. Sir Charles Williams has let his house. I wish you would one day whisk over and look at Harley House. The inclosed advertisement makes it sound pretty, though I am afraid too large for me. Do look at it impartially don't be struck at first sight with any brave old windows; but be so good to inquire the rent, and if I can have it for a year, and with any furniture. I have not had time to copy out the verses, but you shall have them soon. Adieu, with my compliments to your sisters. John, the fourth Earl of Sandwich; son of Edward Richard, Viscount Hinchinbrooke. He signed the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. 2 Thomas Watson Wentworth, Earl of Malton, created Marquis of Rockingham, in 1746. [He died in 1782, when his title became extinct.] TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. DEAR GEORGE, Arlington Street, Aug. 5, 1746. THOUGH I can't this week accept your invitation, I can prove to you that I am most desirous of passing my time with you, and therefore en attendant Harley House, if you can find me out any clean, small house in Windsor, ready furnished, that is not absolutely in the middle of the town, but near you, I should be glad to take it for three or four months.1 I have been about Sir Robert Rich's, but they will only sell it. I am as far from guessing why they send Sandwich in embassy, as you are; and, when I recollect of what various materials our late ambassadors have been composed, I can only say, "ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius." Murray has certainly been discovering, and warrants are out; but I don't yet know who are to be their prize. I begin to think that the ministry had really no intelligence till now. I before thought they had, but durst not use it. A-propos to not daring; I went t'other night to look at my poor favourite Chelsea,3 for the little Newcastle is gone to be dipped in the sea. In one of the rooms is a bed for her Duke, and a press-bed for his footman; for he never dares lie alone, and, till he was married, had always a servant to sit up with him. Lady Cromartie presented her petition to the King last Sunday. He was very civil to her, but would not at all give her any hopes. She swooned away as soon as he was gone.* Lord Corn"Mr. Walpole I 1 Gray, in a letter to Wharton of the 15th, says, have seen a good deal, and shall do a great deal more, I suppose; for he is looking for a house somewhere about Windsor during the summer. All is mighty free, and even friendly, more than one could expect." Works, vol. iii. p. 7.-E. 2 John Murray of Broughton, the Pretender's Secretary, who purchased his own safety by betraying his former friends.-E. 3 Where his mother died, and had chiefly resided.-E. 4 66 'Lady Cromartie, who is said to have drawn her husband into these circumstances, was at Leicester House on Wednesday, with four of her children. The Princess saw her, and made no other answer than by bringing in her own children and placing them by her; which, if true, is one of the prettiest things I ever heard." Gray to Wharton, Works, vol. iii. p. 4.-E. wallis told me that her lord weeps every time any thing of his fate is mentioned to him. Old Balmerino keeps up his spirits to the same pitch of gaiety. In the cell at Westminster he showed Lord Kilmarnock how he must lay his head; bid him not wince, lest the stroke should cut his skull or his shoulders, and advised him to bite his lips. As they were to return, he begged they might have another bottle together, as they should never meet any more till and then pointed to his neck. At getting into the coach, he said to the gaoler, "Take care, or you will break my shins with this damned axe." I must tell you a bon-mot of George Selwyn's at the trial. He saw Bethel's sharp visage looking wistfully at the rebel lords; he said, "What a shame it is to turn her face to the prisoners till they are condemned." If you have a mind for a true foreign idea, one of the foreign ministers said at the trial to another, "Vraiment cela est auguste." "Oui," replied the other, "cela est vrai, mais cela n'est pas royale." I am assured that the old Countess of Errol made her son Lord Kilmarnock 3 go into the rebellion on pain of disinheriting him. I don't know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court protests that he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's Gate; "and," says he, "he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner." He was certainly so poor, that in one of his wife's intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued their steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings. Can any one help pitying such distress? I am vastly "The first day, while the Peers were adjourned to consider of his plea, Balmerino diverted himself with the axe that stood by him, played with its tassels, and tried the edge with his finger." Gray, vol. iii. p. 5.—E. 2 Anne, daughter of Samuel, first Lord Sandys, and wife of Christopher Bethell, Esq.-E. The Earl of Kilmarnock was not the son of the Countess of Errol. His wife, the Lady Anne Livingstone, daughter of the Earl of Linlithgow, was her niece, and, eventually, her heiress.-E. "The Duke of Argyle, telling him how sorry he was to see him engaged in such a cause, My Lord,' says he, 'for the two Kings and their rights, I cared not a farthing which prevailed; but I was starving, and by God, if Mahomet had set up his standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck close to the party, for I must eat.'" Gray, vol. iii. p. 5.-E. |