"tempted to say somewhat likewise in defence of his charac"ter and conduct, particularly as to the aspersion with "which he has been loaded, of advising King Charles the "Second to gain his enemies and neglect his friends. A fatal "advice! which he certainly never gave, though he smarted "under the effects of it, and was sacrificed by his master to "please those who were not afterwards found to be any great "importance to his service..... You may, perhaps, not “have heard, Sir, that what happened to my Lord Clarendon 66 was the first instance in the English story of banishing any "person by an Act of Parliament, wherein a clause was ex66 'pressly inserted to make all correspondence with him "penal, even to death. Permit me to add, that I am the "second instance of a subject so treated, and may, perhaps, "be the last, since even the inflictors of such cruelties seem "now to be aweary and ashamed of them. Having the ho"nour to be like him in my sufferings, I wish I could have “been like him too in my services; but that has not been in "my power. I can, indeed, die in exile, asserting the "Royal cause as he did; but I see not what other way is now "left me of contributing to the support of it!"* Such are almost the last expressions of this most eloquent man; his infirmities were daily growing upon him, and he died a few weeks afterwards, on the 15th of February, 1732, in the 70th year of his age. How grievous is the fate of exiles! How still more grievous the party division which turns their talents against their country!

Even in his shroud Atterbury was not allowed to rest. His body being brought to England to be buried in Westminster Abbey, the government gave orders to seize and search his coffin. There was a great public outcry against the Ministers on this occasion, as though their animosity sought to pursue him beyond the grave; and undoubtedly none but the strongest reasons could excuse it. They had received intelligence of some private papers of the Jacobites to be sent over by what seemed so safe and unsuspected a * Bishop Atterbury to James, November 12. 1731. Appendix.

method of conveyance.* This mystery they determined to unravel; and with the same view was Mr. Morice arrested and examined before the Privy Council.

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

It may be observed, that the Government of George seems always to have possessed great facilities in either openly seizing or privately perusing the Jacobite correspondence. We have already seen how large a web of machinations was laid bare at Atterbury's trial. In 1728, Mr. Lockhart found that some articles of his most private letters to the Pretender were well known at the British Court, where, fortunately for himself, he had a steady friend; and on his expressing his astonishment, he was answered- "What is "proof against the money of Great Britain?"*** The testimony of Lord Chesterfield, as Secretary of State, is still more positive. "The rebels, who have fled to France and "elsewhere, think only of their public acts of rebellion, "believing that the Government is not aware of their secret

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

** Mr. Delafaye, Under Secretary of State, writes to Lord Waldegrave: - "As to your Excellency's getting the scellé put to his effects if your own seal would have done, and that you could by that 66 means have had the fingering of his papers, one would have done him "that favour." (May 11. 1732.) A most delicate sense of honour!

*** Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 400.

"cabals and conspiracies, whereas, on the contrary, it "is fully informed of them. It sees two-thirds of their "letters; they betray one another; and I have often had the แ very same man's letters in my hand at once, some to try to "make his peace at home, and others to the Pretender, to "assure him that it was only a feigned reconciliation that "they might be the better able to serve him...... The spirit "of rebellion seems to be rooted in these people; their faith "is a Punic faith; clemency does not touch them, and the "oaths which they take to Government do not bind them."*

Nothing certainly tended more than these frequent disclosures of letters to cool the ardour of the High Tory gentlemen in England, or, at least, to redouble their caution. They came, at length, to prefer, in nearly all cases, verbal messages to any written communication, and prudently kept themselves in reserve for the landing of a foreign force. Without it, they always told James that they could only ruin themselves without assisting him. It was a frequent saying of Sir Robert Walpole "If you see the Stuarts 66 come again, they will begin by their lowest people; their "chiefs will not appear till the end."**

-

To Madame de Monconseil, August 16. 1750. Works, vol. iii. p. 207, ed. 1779.

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

Orig. in French.

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM the resignation of Lord Townshend the ascendency of Walpole was absolute and uncontrolled, and confirmed by universal peace abroad, by growing prosperity at home. His system of negotiations was completed by the second treaty of Vienna, signed in March, 1731, and stipulating that the Emperor should abolish the Ostend Company, secure the succession of Don Carlos to Parma and Tuscany, and admit the Spanish troops into the Italian fortresses. England, on her part, was to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction, on the understanding that the young heiress should not be given in marriage to a Prince of the House of Bourbon, or of any other so powerful as to endanger the balance of power.* At home, various measures of improvement and reform were introduced about this time. An excellent law was passed, that all proceedings of courts of justice should be in the English instead of the Latin language. "Our prayers," said the Duke of Argyle, "are "in our native tongue, that they may be intelligible; and "why should not the laws wherein our lives and properties 66 are concerned be so for the same reason?"** The charter of the East India Company was renewed on prudent and profitable terms. *** Some infamous malversation was

*

This treaty was greatly promoted by the influence of Prince Eugene. He said to Lord Waldegrave: "Je n'ai jamais eu si peu de plaisir de ma "vie dans les apparences d'une guerre. Il n'y a pas assez de sujet

66 pour faire tuer un poulet!" Lord Waldegrave to Lord Townshend, March 18. 1730. Coxe's House of Austria, vol. iii.

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

*** See Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 326.

detected in the Charitable Corporation, which had been formed for the relief of the industrious poor, by assisting them with small sums of money at legal interest; but which, under this colour, sometimes received ten per cent., and advanced large sums on goods bought on credit by fraudulent speculators. Penalties were now inflicted on the criminals, and Sir Robert Sutton, the late ambassador at Paris, being concerned in these practices, was expelled the House. An inquiry into the Public Prisons of London laid bare a frightful system of abuses; we find the Wardens conniving at the escape of rich prisoners, and subjecting the poor ones who could not pay heavy fines to every kind of insult, oppression, and want. The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons is full of such cases: thus one Captain Mac Pheadris, having refused to pay some exorbitant fees, "had "irons put upon his legs, which were too little, so that, in "putting them on, his legs were like to have been broken..... "He was dragged away to the dungeon, where he lay, with"out a bed, loaded with irons, so close rivetted that they "kept him in continual torture, and mortified his legs." From such usage the prisoner became lame and nearly blind; he had petitioned the judges, who, as we are told, 66 after several meetings and a full hearing," agreed to reprimand the gaoler, but decided, with infinite wisdom, that "it being out of Term, they could not give the prisoner "any relief or satisfaction!"*.... Another report declares that "the Committee saw in the women's sick ward many "miserable objects lying, without beds, on the floor, "perishing with extreme want; and in the men's sick ward "yet much worse. On the giving food to these poor "wretches, (though it was done with the utmost caution, "they being only allowed at first the smallest quantities, and "that of liquid nourishment,) one died; the vessels of his "stomach were so disordered and contracted, for want of "use, that they were totally incapable of performing their "office, and the unhappy creature perished about the time *First Report of the Select Committee, presented February 25. 1729.