F: p. 152
A nation’s craven rage; The want of public spirit in England shown during the war of 1745-6 is astonishing. ‘England,’ wrote Henry Fox, ‘is for the first comer . . . Had 5,000 [French troops] landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest of it would not have cost them a battle.’ And other weighty testimonies might be added, in support of Lord Mahon’s view as to the great
probability of the Prince’s success, had he been allowed by his followers to march upon London from Derby.
This apathy and the panic which followed found their natural issue in the sanguinary punishment of the followers of Prince Charles. ‘The city and the generality,’ wrote H. Walpole in August, 1746, ‘are very angry that so many rebels have been pardoned.’ The vindictive cruelty then shown makes, in truth (if we compare the magnitude and duration of the rebellion for which punishment was to be exacted), an unsatisfactory contrast to the leniency of 1660. But History supplies only too numerous proofs that a century’s march in civilisation may be always undone at once by the demons of Panic or of Party in the hour of their respective triumphs.