ONE:Amongst the prose writers of this period a lady stands prominent, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (b. 1690; d. 1762), the daughter of the Duke of Kingston, and mother of Lady Bute, the wife of the Earl of Bute, the celebrated Minister of George III. Lady Mary derives her chief fame from her Letters, which were not published till after her death. They are as remarkable for their wit, brilliancy, and clear, thorough sense, as any of the writings of the age. In these we have a most graphic picture of life in the East, as she had lived some years at Constantinople with her husband. She thence conferred one of the greatest boons on her country, by the introduction of inoculation for the smallpox. Lady Mary translated the "Enchiridion of Epictetus," and wrote many verses, including satirical ones, called "Town Eclogues;" but her fame must always rest upon her clear and sparkling letters. She was celebrated for her wit and beauty, and was a leading figure in the fashionable as well as the literary world. Pope and she were long great friends, but quarrelled irreconcilably.The Duke of Cumberland, being called southward, had got General Hawley appointed to the command of the army sent after the Young Pretender. Wade was become too old and dilatory, but Hawley was much fitter for a hangman than a general. Horace Walpole says he was called "the Lord Chief Justice," because, like Jeffreys, he had a passion for executions; that when the surgeons solicited the body of a deserter, which was dangling before Hawley's windows, for dissection, he would only consent on condition that he had the skeleton to ornament the guard room. Hearing of his approach, Charles drew in his forces from Falkirk under Lord George, left a few hundred men to blockade Stirling, and concentrated his army on the renowned field of Bannockburn. On the 16th of January Charles, expecting Hawley, drew up his forces, but no enemy appeared. The next day, still perceiving no Hawley, he advanced to Pleanmuir, two miles east of Bannockburn, and on the way to Torwood. No enemy yet appearing, the prince determined to advance and find him out. Hawley was so confident of dispersing the Highland rabble at any moment that he chose, that he had neglected every military precaution, had fixed no outposts, and was away at Callander House, at some distance from the field, comfortably taking luncheon with Lady Kilmarnock, whose husband was in the rebel army, and who was exerting all her powers of pleasing to detain the foolish general as long as possible. At length, when the rebels had come up so near that there was only Falkirk Moor between the armies, Hawley, roused by fresh messengers, came galloping up without his hat, and in the utmost confusion. In the middle of this rugged and uneven moor, covered with heath, rose a considerable ridge, and it appeared to be a race between the two enemies which should gain the advantage of the summit. On the one side galloped the English cavalry, on the other sped the Highlanders, straining for this important height; but the fleet-footed Gael won the ground from the English horse, and Hawley's horse halted a little below them. Neither of the armies had any artillery, for the Highlanders had left theirs behind in their rapid advance, and Hawley's had stuck fast in the bog. So far they were equal; but the prince, by taking a side route, had thrown the wind in the teeth of the English, and a storm of rain began with confounding violence to beat in their faces. The English cavalry remained, as it had galloped up, in front, commanded, since the death of Gardiner, by Colonel Ligonier, and the infantry formed, like the Highlanders, in two lines, the right commanded by General Huske, and the left by Hawley. Behind, as a reserve, stood the Glasgow regiment and the Argyll militia. The order being given, the cavalry under Ligonier charged the Macdonalds, who coolly waited till the English horse was within ten yards of them, when they poured such a murderous volley into them as dropped a frightful number from their saddles, and threw the whole line into confusion. The Frasers immediately poured an equally galling cross-fire into the startled line, and the two dragoon regiments which had fled at Coltbridge and Prestonpans waited no longer, but wheeling round, galloped from the field at their best speed. The Macdonalds, seeing the effect of their fire, in spite of Lord George Murray's endeavours to keep them in order, rushed forward, loading their pieces as they ran, and fell upon Hawley's two columns of infantry. Having discharged their pieces, they ran in upon the English with their targets and broadswords. The left soon gave way, and Hawley, who had got involved in the crowd of flying horse, had been swept with them down the hill, and thus had no means of keeping them to their colours. On the right of the royal army, however, the infantry stood firm, and as the Highlanders could not cross the ravine to come to close quarters with sword and target, they inflicted severe slaughter upon them; and Cobham's cavalry rallying, soon came to their aid and protected their flank, and[104] increased the effect on the Highlanders, many of whom began to run, imagining that the day was lost. Charles, from his elevated position observing this extraordinary state of things, advanced at the head of his second line, and checked the advance of the English right, and, after some sharp fighting, compelled them to a retreat. But in this case it was only a retreat, not a flight. These regiments retired, with drums beating and colours flying, in perfect order. A pursuit of cavalry might still have been made, but the retreat of the English was so prompt, that the Highlanders suspected a stratagem; and it was only when their scouts brought them word that they had evacuated Falkirk that they understood their full success (January 18, 1746).
ONE:The unnatural state of things induced by the war had now brought about a great change in our currency. As we could manage to get in our goods to the Continent by one opening or another, but could not get the produce of the Continent in return, it would have appeared that we must be paid in cash, and that the balance of specie must be in our favour; but this was not the case. By our enormous payments to our troops in Spain, Portugal, and Sicily, as well as in the East and West Indies, and by our heavy subsidies, gold had flowed out of the country so steadily that there appeared very little left in it, and bank paper had taken its place. On the Continent, impoverished as they were, the people tenaciously clung to their gold, and Buonaparte alone could draw it from them in taxes. He always took a heavy military chest with him on his expeditions, and his officers also carried the money necessary for themselves in their belts, or otherwise about their immediate persons. The gold being enormously diminished in quantity in England, was carefully hoarded on all hands, thus again increasing the scarcity, and raising the value of it. The price of bullion had risen from twenty to thirty per cent., and here was a further strong temptation to hoard or send guineas to the melting-pot. This state of things led a certain class of political economists to call for a repeal of the Act for suspension of cash payments, and Francis Horner obtained a committee of inquiry into the causes of the decrease of gold and the increase of paper: and this committee came to the conclusion that the true cause of the evil lay in the excess of paper, and that the way to restrain it would be to allow the demand for gold at the Bank. But the truth was that the cause of the evil was not the excess of paper, but the enormous diminution of gold; and to have opened a legal demand for gold which could not be had would only have produced a panic, and a complete and horrible assassination of all credit and all business. But there were clearer-sighted men in Parliament, who declared that, though bullion had risen in price, bank-notes would still procure twenty shillings' worth of goods in the market, and that they were not, therefore, really depreciated in value. That was true, but guineas had, notwithstanding, risen to a value of five- or six-and-twenty shillings, and might be sold for that. Gold had risen, but paper had not fallen; and gold could not take the place of paper, because it did not, to any great extent, exist in the country; if it had, paper must have fallen ruinously. Mr. Vansittart and his party, therefore, moved resolutions that the resumption of cash payments being already provided for six months after the conclusion of peace, was an arrangement which answered all purposes, and ought not to be disturbed; that this would keep all real excess of paper in check, and leave gold to resume its circulation when, by the natural influence of peace, it flowed again into the country. These were, accordingly, carried.Such was the peace abroad and the prosperity of the country at this time, that there occur few events worthy of record. Of those which took place in 1731, the most remarkable was an Act abolishing the use of Latin in all proceedings of the Courts of Justice, and the next the renewal of the charter of the East India Company. If the country was peaceful and prosperous, however, it was neither free from corruption nor from the need of extensive reform. The very system of Walpole which produced such a show of prosperity that an old Scottish Secretary of State asked the Minister what he had done to make the Almighty so much his friend, was built on the most wholesale bribery and corruption. It was, in fact, a purchased domestic peace. In social life the example of the Government produced the like dishonesty. There was a fearful revelation of the proceedings of a charitable corporation for lending small sums of money to the industrious poor at legal interest; and Sir Robert Sutton, the late Ambassador at Paris, was found so deeply implicated in the frauds and extortions practised on those they were employed to benefit, that he was expelled from the House. There was also an inquiry into the state of the public prisons of London, which opened up a most amazing scene of horrors. It was found to be a common practice of the warders to connive at the escape of rich prisoners for a sufficient bribe, and to inflict the most oppressive cruelties on those who were too poor to pay heavy fees.
ONE:On the 13th of May came down a message, announcing the approaching marriage of the Duke of Kent with the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Victoria Maria Louisa, sister of Prince Leopold, and widow of Emich Charles, the Prince of Leiningen. The princess was already the mother of a son and daughter. The nation was extremely favourable to this match. The Duke of Kent was popular, and the more so that he had always been treated with unnatural harshness by his father. He had been put under the care of an old martinet general in Hanover, who had received a large annual allowance with him, and kept him so sparely that the poor youth ran away. He had been then sent to Gibraltar, where the severe discipline which he had been taught to consider necessary in the army brought him into disgrace with the garrison. But towards the public at large his conduct had been marked by much liberality of principle.Grenville, being on the look-out for new taxes, had paid particular attention to the rapid growth of the American colonies, and was inspired with the design of drawing a revenue from them. The scheme had been suggested to Sir Robert Walpole, when his Excise Bill failed, by Sir William Keith, who had been governor of Pennsylvania; but Sir Robert had a far deeper insight into human nature than the shallow and obstinate Grenville. He replied, "I have already Old England set against me, and do you think I will have New England set against me too?"
