FOOTNOTES:
[81] A lawyer, it seems, would establish prescription even against conscience!
[82] I say, power: Lord Hardwicke and Lord Anson were out of place—but were they out of power? Without hinting how soon they remounted to formal power, let it be remembered that at that moment, they commanded the House of Lords, and had a vast majority in the House of Commons.
[83] As some of them said in plain terms that they were satisfied with the sentence, in how many contradictions were they involved! By the very wording of the sentence, which expressed dissatisfaction; by the letter that accompanied it; by Admiral Smith’s letter to Sir R. Lyttelton, which said that they were all willing to appear before the Privy Council or the Parliament to explain their reasons!
[84] [The following extract from our Author’s Private Correspondence in MS. corroborates the account given in the text, and as it contains some further particulars, may be acceptable to the reader.—E.]
“March 17, 1757.—Admiral Byng’s tragedy was completed on Monday—a perfect tragedy—for there were variety of incidents, villainy, murder, and a hero. His sufferings, persecutions, aspersions, disturbances, nay, the revolutions of his fate, had not in the least unhinged his mind; his whole behaviour was natural and firm. A few days before, one of his friends standing by him, said, ‘Which of us is tallest?’ He replied, ‘Why this ceremony? I know what it means; let the man come and measure me for my coffin.’ He said, that being acquitted of cowardice, and being persuaded, on the coolest reflection, that he had acted for the best, and should act so again, he was not unwilling to suffer. He desired to be shot on the quarter-deck, not where common malefactors are:—came out at twelve—sat down in a chair, for he would not kneel, and refused to have his face covered, that his countenance might show whether he feared death; but being told that it might frighten his executioners, he submitted; gave the signal at once; received one shot through the head, another through the heart, and fell.”
[85] Many years after that tragedy was acted, I received a most authentic and shocking confirmation of the justice of my suspicions. October 21, 1783, being with her Royal Highness Princess Amelia at her villa at Gunnersbury, among many interesting anecdotes which I have set down in another place, she told me, that while Admiral Byng’s affair was depending, the Duchess of Newcastle sent Lady Sophia Egerton to her the Princess, to beg her to be for the execution of Admiral Byng. “They thought,” added the Princess, “that unless he was put to death, Lord Anson could not be at the head of the Admiralty. Indeed,” continued the Princess, “I was already for it; the officers would never have fought, if he had not been executed.” I replied, that I thought his death most unjust, and the sentence a most absurd contradiction.
Lady Sophia Egerton was wife of a clergyman, afterwards Bishop of Durham. What a complication of horrors! women employed on a job for blood!
[As the author calls this accidental conversation at Gunnersbury, “a most authentic confirmation of his suspicions,” the Editor was not at liberty to omit any part of the story; though the reader will probably think with him, that more importance is ascribed to mere gossip than it deserves.—E.]
[86] [The Duke of Cumberland.—E.]
[87] Indeed there was so little intended by the inquiries, that Legge himself, one of the new tribunes of the people, said, “Both sides will be trying which shall fling most dust in the eyes of the nation.”
[88] Townshend had been author of the first political caricatura card, with portraits of Newcastle and Fox.
[APPENDIX.]
APPENDIX.