Page images
PDF
EPUB

to have degenerated rapidly-but I shall leave debates to your nephew, now an ear-witness: I could only re-echo newspapers. Is it not another odd coincidence of events, that while the father Laurens is prisoner to Lord Cornwallis as Constable of the Tower, the son Laurens signed the capitulation by which Lord Cornwallis became prisoner?* It is said too, I don't know if truly, that this capitulation and that of Saratoga were signed on the same anniversary. These are certainly the speculations of an idle man, and the more trifling when one considers the moment. But alas! what would my most grave speculations avail? From the hour that fatal egg, the Stamp Act, was laid, I disliked it, and all the vipers hatched from it. I now hear many curse it, who fed the vermin with poisonous weeds. Yet the guilty and the innocent rue it equally hitherto! I would not answer for what is to come! Seven years of miscar

those talents which are said to have been peculiar to his father-warmth of utterance, command of language, strength and closeness of reasoning, and, above all, an energy and irresistible vigour of eloquence."

Mr. Pitt, at the general election in the autumn of 1780, was an unsuccessful candidate for the University of Cambridge; but in the January following he was returned for the borough of Appleby. During the winter of that year he was an habitual frequenter of the club at Goostree's, where the intimacy he had formed at Cambridge and in the gallery of the House of Commons with Mr. Wilberforce ripened into friendship "He was," says the youthful member for Hull, "the wittiest man I ever knew, and, what was quite peculiar to himself, had at all times his wit under entire control. Others appeared struck by the unwonted association of brilliant images; but every possible combination of ideas seemed always present to his mind, and he could at once produce whatever he desired. I was one of those who met to spend an evening in memory of Shakspeare at the Boar's Head, Eastcheap. Many professed wits were present; but Pitt was the most amusing of the party, and the readiest and the most apt in the required allusions. He entered with the same energy into all our different amusements: we played a good deal at Goostree's, and I well remember the intense earnestness which he displayed when joining in those games of chance. He perceived their increasing fascination, and soon after suddenly abandoned them for ever." Life, vol. i. p. 17. Mr. Pitt took his seat in the House of Commons on the 23rd of January, 1781, and made his first speech on the 26th of February, upon the second reading of Mr. Burke's bill for an economical reform in the Civil List establishment. He spoke for the second time on the 31st of May, in reply to Lord North, on the bill for appointing Commis sioners to examine the Public Accounts. "The papers will have informed you," wrote Mr. Wilberforce, on the 9th of June, to a friend," how Mr. William Pitt, second son of the late Lord Chatham, has distinguished himself: he comes out, as bis father did, a ready-made orator, and I doubt not but that I shall one day or other see him the first man in the country. His famous speech, however, delivered the other day, did not convince me, and I stayed in with the old fat fellow [Lord North: by the way, he grows every day fatter; so, where he will end, I know not." Life, vol. i. p. 22.-ED.

*The land-forces became prisoners to America; but the seamen, with the ships and furniture, were assigned to Count de Grasse, as a compliment to and return for the French naval assistance. It was certainly remarkable, that the commissioner appointed by the Americans to settle the terms, and who himself drew up the articles of the capitulation, by which a British army became prisoners to his country, was Colonel Laurens, son of Mr. Laurens, late President of the Congress, who was then a close prisoner in the Tower of London. The Viscount de Noailles was the commissioner appointed on the side of France, to act in conjunction with Colonel Laurens.-ED.

riages may sour the sweetest tempers, and the most sweetened. Oh! where is the Dove with the olive-branch? Long ago I told you that you and I might not live to see an end of the American war. It is very near its end indeed now-its consequences are far from a conclusion. In some respects, they are commencing a new date, which will reach far beyond us. I desire not to pry into that book of futurity. Could I finish my course in peace-but one must take the chequered scenes of life as they come. What signifies whether the elements are serene or turbulent, when a private old man slips away? What has he and the world's concerns to do with one another? He may sigh for his country, and babble about it; but he might as well sit quiet and read or tell old stories; the past is as important to him as the future.

Dec. 3rd.

I had not sealed my letter, as it cannot set out till to-morrow; and since I wrote it I have received yours, of the 20th of November, by your courier.

I congratulate you on the success of your attempts, and admire the heroic refusal of the General.* I shall certainly obey you, and not mention it. Indeed, it would not easily be believed here, where as many pence are irresistible,

Your nephew told me that Mrs. Damer was hasting to Rome. I am glad that, as far as you could in so short a time, you did not find that I had exaggerated; but I know her shyness too well not to be sure that you could not discover a thousandth part of her understanding.

Your Mr. Terney was an ostentatious fool, of whom there is no more to be said. Formerly, when such simpletons did not know what to do with their wealth, they bequeathed it to the Church; and then, perhaps, one got a good picture for an altar, or a painted window.

Don't trouble yourself about the third set of Galuzzi. They are to be had here now, and those for whom I intended them can buy them. I have not made so much progress as I intended, and have not yet

* General Murray, Governor of Minorca, which was besieged by the Spaniards, was offered a vast bribe by the Duc de Crillon, the Spanish commander, to give up Fort St. Philip, but spurned at the offer, ["The eagerness of Spain to gain possession of this island was," says the Annual Register, "so excessive, that the Court seems to have departed in some degree from that dignity of character which should ever be inseparably united with royalty, by an insidious endeavour, through the medium of an immense bribe, to corrupt the fidelity of the Governor. Nor did the Duc de Crillon seem entirely to pay a proper attention to his own rank and reputation, nor to preserve a due recollection of the honour and distinction entailed upon his family by the peculiar virtue of an illustrious ancestor, when he descended to become the instrument in such a business. General Murray treated the insult with a mixture of that haughty disdain incident to the consciousness of an ancient line and illustrious ancestry, and with the generous indignation and stern resentment of a veteran soldier, who feels himself wounded in the tenderest part, by an insidious attempt upon, and consequently suspicion of, that honour which he had set up as the great object and idol of his life." General the Honourable James Murray was the brother of John, third Duke of Atholl. He represented the county of Perth in five parliaments; and at his death, in 1794, was a Major-General in the army, and Governor of Fort William in Scotland.-ED.]

quite finished the second volume. I detest Cosmo the Great. I am sorry, either that he was so able a man, or so successful a man. When tyrants are great men, they should miscarry; if they are fools, they will miscarry of course. Pray, is there any picture of Camilla Martelli, Cosmo's last wife? I had never heard of her. The dolt, his son, I find, used her ill, and then did the same thing. Our friend, Bianca Capello, it seems, was a worthless creature. I don't expect much entertainment but from the life of Ferdinand the Great. It is. true, I have dipped into the others, particularly into the story of Cosmo the Third's wife, of whom I had read much in French Mémoires, and into that of John Gaston, which was so fresh when I was at Florence; but as the author, in spite of the Great-Duke's injunctions, has tried to palliate some of the worst imputations on Cosmo and his son Ferdinand, so he has been mighty modest about the Caprean amours of John Gaston and his elder brother.* Adieu! I have been writing a volume here myself. Pray, remember to answer me about Camilla Martelli.

P.S. Is there any china left in the Great-Duke's collection, made by Duke Francis the First himself? Perhaps it was lately sold with what was called the refuse of the wardrobe; whence I hear some

* Prince Ferdinand, who died in 1713, in the lifetime of his father, Cosmo the Third. Sir Horace Mann, who personally knew John Gaston the last Grand-Duke of the Medician line, is stated by Sir Nathaniel Wraxall to have related to him at Florence, in the year 1779, the following particulars: "John Gaston was one of the most superior and accomplished men the present century has witnessed, if his immoderate pursuit of pleasure had not enervated his mind and debilitated his frame. He became, long before his death, incapable of continuing his family; but that inability did not occasion its extinction. A sort of fatality seemed to hang over the House of Medicis, and to render ineffectual all the measures adopted for its prolongation. When the fact was ascertained, that John Gaston could not perpetuate his line, the Cardinal Hippolito de Medicis, his uncle, was selected for that purpose;. a dispensation from his ecclesiastical vows being previously obtained from the Papal See. The only and the indispensable object of the marriage being the attainment of heirs male to the Grand Duchy, in order to prevent its seizure by foreign violence, or its incorporation with the Austrian, French, or Spanish monarchies, all Italy was searched in order to find a young and handsome Princess from whom might be ex-. pected a numerous family. A Princess of Mirandola, on whom the selection fell, seemed to unite every requisite qualification. The nuptials were solemnized; and. the bridegroom being of a feeble constitution, as well as advanced in life, it was plainly insinuated to the lady, that, for reasons of state necessity, she must produce an heir. The most amiable youths and pages about the Court were purposely thrown in her way, and every facility was furnished that might conduce to the accomplishment of the object; but so sacredly did she observe her marriage vow, that no seductions could make an impression on her, and she remained without issue. Her husband died, and was followed by John Gaston. France having acquired Lor. raine, and Don Carlos being made sovereign of Naples, Tuscany was delivered over by the great Continental powers as a conquered or forfeited country to Francis, Duke of Lorraine; but, no sooner had these events taken place, than Hippolito's widow, who had surmounted every temptation to inconstancy during his life, gave the reins to her inclinations, and brought into the world two or three children within a few years. It was thus that Florence, the repository of so many invaluable monuments of Greek and Roman sculpture, collected during successive centuries, together with the territories dependent upon it, passed into the Austrian family." Hist. Mem. vol. i. p. 281.-Ed.

charming things were purchased, particularly the Medallion* of the Medici by Benvenuto Cellini. That sale and the History are enough to make the old Electresst shudder in her coffin.

LETTER CCCLXV.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 21, 1781.

THERE have been no events, except Parliamentary debates, since my last, till last Monday; when news came of Sir Eyre Coote's having defeated Hyder Ally in India, and when we were flattered with promising hopes of Admiral Kempenfelt's demolishing and disappointing the French expedition from Brest to the West Indies. Our Admiral had fallen into the thick of their transports, of which nineteen had struck. Commodore Elliot was engaged with the French Admiral, and had dismasted him; and, when the express came away, Kempenfelt was bearing down with the wind to attack the squadron, which he had been told did not out-number his own fourteen. You may judge how our hopes and impatience rose and increased. I waited till four the next day, when being to dine and pass the evening with Princess Amelia, which I knew would prevent my writing, though post-night, I sent to beg your nephew, if any good news should come, to write to you incontinently. He was not come to town, but was expected every minute. Alas! before I left the Princess, we heard that a second express was just arrived, that our Admiral, besides the fourteen hostile ships, had discovered five more, each mounting 110 or 112 guns; and that, not thinking it prudent to encounter so superior a force, he had retreated, and brought away but fourteen transports, containing about nine hundred men. Neither all of them, nor he himself, are yet arrived, and the expedition has probably continued its course, and there is new danger to our West India islands.

Perhaps we have not received a worse blow than this disappointment. If Lord Sandwich can weather it, he will be skilful or fortunate indeed! In one word, what can be said either for his having no intelligence of five ships of such magnitude, or for despatching Kempenfelt with only fourteen, when Rodney was not sailed, and when we have several more ships lying in port at Portsmouth? Most mouths are opened against him, not only in Opposition and in town, but at Court. Lord Rockingham did commence the attack the very next day in the Lords,§ though

*They were only small models in wax, and were purchased by Sir William Hamilton.

The Electress Palatine Dowager, sister of John Gaston the last Great-Duke of the House of Medici, whom she survived, returned to Florence on her husband's death, and died there.

On the 1st of July, Sir Eyre Coote gained a signal victory over Hyder Ally at Porto Novo; his own forces consisting of only ten thousand men, while those of Hyder amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand.-ED.

The Marquis of Rockingham complained in the House of Lords, on the 19th,

not in form; and one piece of luck has already happened to the Great Delinquent, that the Parliament adjourns to-day for the holidays, and will give him a temporary reprieve for manœuvres and defence, if new calamities do not inflame exasperation.

The king of France is said to have sent for Cardinal de Bernis to be Prime Minister again; but that you must know better than I. I am interrupted, and must finish.

LETTER CCCLXVI.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 28, 1781.

I HAVE gone regularly through three volumes of the House of Medici, and dipped into a good deal of the fourth. It is rather not well written than ill written; the style is more languid than faulty, and thence neither interests nor disgusts. What pleases me most is, that, besides the two first Great-Dukes being great men, Cosmo the Second and Ferdinand the Second were very good princes; and though John Gaston was very vicious, he was not a bad prince: a much larger proportion of good and great, out of seven, than happens to most Sovereign families; perhaps to most elevated families. Francis the First seems to have had no virtues; Cosmo the Third would, some few centuries ago, have passed for the best of all; because a proud silly bigot, who impoverished his subjects to enrich the clergy. In short, I like the author's general impartiality; and though he sometimes spares his Florentine masters, he has no criminal favour for the rest of the Kings of Europe. I wish the line of Popes were extinct, like the Medici, that the world might have a chance of seeing their true history too. Indeed, Galuzzi gives it roundly, when it comes his way; so much, that I imagine that to have been the chief motive to the publication, and to have originated with Cæsar himself,* who may perhaps have an eye to some imperial fiefs usurped by the Popes. The author's severity on such a succession of rascals makes one trust him when he speaks well of any of them. How shameless do others of them appear, when one finds them extending their impudent encroachments, after so large a part of Europe had opened its eyes! On the other hand, how must we English smile at their opposite folly,

of the want of exertion on the part of the Admiralty, and reminded their Lordships of the declaration of Lord Sandwich a session or two ago, that a First Lord of the Admiralty deserved to lose his head, if he did not at all times take care to have a navy fit to face that of the House of Bourbon. The recent affair of Admiral Kempenfelt was, he said, but one addition to the many proofs of our inferiority. In the House of Commons, Admiral Keppel also complained, that the Admiralty had not given Admiral Kempenfelt, though a favourite, a sufficient force. He added, that upon the expedition from Brest to the West Indies depended the safety of our is lands; and that, if a proper use had been made of our force, the Count de Rochambeau would never have been able to land in America, and consequently the surren. der of Lord Cornwallis would not have taken place.—ED.

The Emperor Joseph II.

« PreviousContinue »