There lies before me a copy of The Plymouth and Dock Telegraph, dated Saturday, July 2nd, 1814, much tattered and broken along the creases into which my great-grandmother (the same that left us the Major's Cameo) folded it these many years ago, to be laid away for a memorial.
The advertisements need not detain us long. Two husbands will not be responsible for their wives' debts, and one of them alleges that his lady "has behaved herself improperly during my absence at sea." A solicitor will lend £1000 on good security. A medical man, yielding to the persuasions of numerous friends, will remain another fortnight in the town; and may be consulted as usual at Mr. Kitt's, Grocer, King Street, Dock, every Tuesday and Saturday from ten to six. M. La Barre (whom I guess to have been a Royalist refugee) will reopen instruction for young ladies and gentlemen in the French language on the 12th inst. The tolls and profits of the Saltash and the Ashburton turnpikes will be bidden for by public auction. The schooner Brothers and the fast-sailing cutter Gambier are for sale, together with the model of a frigate, "about six feet two inches long, copper-bottomed, and mounted with thirty-two guns." The Royal Auxiliary Mail will start from Congdon's Commercial Inn every afternoon at a quarter before five, reaching the "Bell and Crown," Holborn, in thirty-six hours: passengers for London have a further choice of the "Devonshire" (running through Bristol) or the "Royal Clarence" (through Salisbury). Two rival light coaches compete for passengers to Portsmouth. The "Self-Defence," Plymouth to Falmouth, four insides, will keep the same time as His Majesty's Mail. The Unitarian Association advertises a meeting at which Dr. Toulmin of Birmingham will preach. The Friends of the Abolition of the Slave Trade print a long manifesto. The Phoenix, Eagle and Atlas Companies invite insurers. Sufferers from various disorders will find relief in Spilsbury's Patent Antiscorbutic, Dr. Bateman's Pectoral, and Wessel's Jesuit's Drops.
Turning to the news columns, we find the whole country aflame with joy at the restoration of Peace. Once again (it is ten years since we last saw him there) the Prince Regent is at Portsmouth, feasting, speech-making, dancing, reviewing the fleet and the troops. With him are the Emperor of Russia; the Emperor's sister, the Duchess of Oldenburg; the King of Prussia; the Royal Dukes of Clarence, York, Cambridge; the Duke of Wellington and Field-Marshal Blucher. We read that on first catching sight of Wellington the Prince Regent "seized his hand and appeared lost in sensibility for the moment." As for Blucher, a party of sailors, defying his escort of dragoons, boarded and "took possession of the quarter-deck, or, in other words, the top of the carriage."
"Some were capsized; but two of them swore to defend the brave, and, as the carriage drew on, to the delight of all the tars commenced reels a la Saunders on the top, all the way to Government House, where the General was received with open hands and hearts, amid a group of as brave warriors as ever graced a festive table or bled in defence of their country's wrongs (sic)."
"Some were capsized; but two of them swore to defend the brave, and, as the carriage drew on, to the delight of all the tars commenced reels a la Saunders on the top, all the way to Government House, where the General was received with open hands and hearts, amid a group of as brave warriors as ever graced a festive table or bled in defence of their country's wrongs (sic)."
At the subsequent Ball:
"The Duke did not dance: and the gallant Blucher was so overcome by the heat of the ballroom as to oblige him to retire for a short time.… The two gallant Generals rode from the Government House in the same carriage; and it was observed that the Emperor of Russia shook hands with the illustrious Wellington every time he was near him."
"The Duke did not dance: and the gallant Blucher was so overcome by the heat of the ballroom as to oblige him to retire for a short time.… The two gallant Generals rode from the Government House in the same carriage; and it was observed that the Emperor of Russia shook hands with the illustrious Wellington every time he was near him."
From Portsmouth next day the Duke posts up to Westminster, to be introduced by the Dukes of Richmond and Beaufort and take his seat in the Lords under his new patents of nobility. Simultaneously in the Commons, Lord Castlereagh moves a Vote of Thanks, which is carried by a unanimous House. For the rest, Parliament is mainly occupied in discussing Lord Cochrane's case and the sorrows of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, especially "the inadequacy of her income to support the ordinary dignities of her rank, and afford her those consolations which the unfortunate state of her domestic feelings require." Mr. Wilberforce delivers a most animated speech against the Slave Trade. It is rumoured that Princess Charlotte of Wales has definitely refused the hand of the Prince of Orange, and that the rejected lover has left London, full of grief, in his carriage-and-four.
In short, our Major has been lost to us for ten full years, and still the world goes on: nay, for the moment it is going on excitedly. The procession with which the officers and artificers of Plymouth Dockyard yesterday celebrated the establishment of Peace alone occupies five columns of the paper.