I come now, Sir, to make a few remarks on the Chevalier D’Eon’s answer, which I shall do with the same impartiality I have considered the address, and leave the public to draw the line between the honest sincerity of the Englishman, and the evasive finesse of the Frenchman.
Monsieur le Chevalier, notwithstanding his long residence in England, and the esteem and friendship he is favoured with from some of the inhabitants (the reason of which he knows best) still preserves his native insincerity and politeness. His letter to Dr. Musgrave is as foreign to the purpose of an answer to the address, as the conduct of our present ministry in suffering his master, the Grand Monarque, to conquer Corsica, was foreign to the faith of treaty, and repugnant to the interest of this kingdom—than which no two positions can be more opposite.
The Chevalier has very politely passed some French compliments on the doctor’s oratory and patriotism—has talked a good deal of his own integrity and zeal for truth—blames him for naming a person of his vast consequence in so public a manner, and manfully denies every circumstance he is publicly known to have been concerned in at the time mentioned in the address. But what does all this amount to with respect to Mr. Musgrave’s allegations? He, indeed, very justly says, that the evidence of the Chevalier would have been decisive at the time he urged Lord Halifax to send for him to examine him, and to peruse his papers which he then had in his possession; but in his address to the freeholders of Devon, he neither desires nor expects any proofs from him now, because he either knows, or shrewdly suspects, that no written evidence is now to be found in his custody.
The Chevalier desires to know the person or persons in this country, who would have presumed to make an overture to him for the sale of his papers—I wish to God I could tell him!—or rather that I could tell the public—for the Chevalier himself, I dare say, wants no information in that affair. It is much to be wished, however, that Lord Halifax or the Speaker had examined the Chevalier, and that it might at least have been known what sum was paid by England, and for what consideration it was given to France, at the conclusion of the last ever memorable and glorious peace.
TULLIUS.
LETTER I.
To Dr. MUSGRAVE, of Plymouth.
SIR,
The meritorious and intrepid manner in which you have stepped forth, and called the public attention to the negociation of the last infamous peace, deserves the thanks and applause of your country. As an individual of this country, not wholly unacquainted with some parts of that negociation, you have my poor thanks: but thanks alone are not sufficient in such a cause; I should hold myself the basest of Englishmen, if I did not contribute my mite towards accomplishing a full and impartial enquiry into the manner in which that important work was conducted. Such parts of the negociation as have accidentally come to my knowledge, I shall freely relate. If my account is true, as I have great reason to believe it is in general, I hope it will warm some virtuous man to stand up in his place, and call for the papers relating to that negociation. In a pamphlet, intituled, The present State of the Nation, &c. p. 24, 8vo. edit. published last winter, there is this extraordinary passage, evidently alluding to these papers, which I have often wondered was not taken notice of; “Whether by the treaty Great Britain obtained all that she might have obtained, is a question to which those only who were acquainted with the secrets of the French and Spanish cabinets can give an answer. The correspondence relative to that negociation has not been laid before the public; for the last parliament approved of the peace as it was, without thinking it necessary to enquire whether better terms might not have been had.”
The secret of the negociation, or ultimatum, on the part of England, was neither in the D. of B. the B. A. at Paris; nor in the late Earl of Egremont, the official minister at home, who was Secretary of State for the Southern department; but between Lord Bute and the Sardinian Minister in London, and the Duc de Choiseul and the Sardinian Minister at Paris.
The fact, of thus committing the management of the most important affairs of Great Britain to the Ministers of a foreign power, is extraordinary and alarming, and ought to be considered as highly criminal; especially when we recollect, that the Sardinian Minister in London, at the time of his present Majesty’s coronation, signed a protest in favour of the House of Savoy, which he procured to be legally attested and given in, in the name of the King his master. He printed, or caused to be printed, ‘the Genealogie de la Famille Royale d’Angleterre, by which he hoped, at a future day, that the ridiculous claims of his master’s family, as being, although Papists, immediately descended from Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Charles I. would have prevailed over those of the House of Brunswick, who are descended from Elizabeth, Electress Palatine, one degree more remote from the crown, as being the daughter of James I. He might hope for a general confusion among us; but being born under arbitrary government, he could not have the least idea of the only lawful right to the crown of these realms, a parliamentary right. The contrary doctrine was in Queen Anne’s time expressly declared to be high treason by a particular statute, the “Act for the better securing her Majesty’s person and government, and of the succession to the crown of England in the Protestant line;” ‘That if any person or persons, from and after the 25th day of March, 1706, shall maliciously, advisedly and directly, by writing or printing, declare, maintain, or affirm that the Kings or Queens of England, with and by the authority of the parliament of England, are not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the crown of this realm, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, and government thereof, every such person or persons shall be guilty of High Treason, and being thereof convicted and attainted, &c. &c. Count Viri acted by the express orders of his Court, in conjunction with the Court of France. In the same manner the two Courts acted in concert at the beginning of this century, in the last year of our glorious Deliverer, King William III. Count Maffei, the Ambassador from Savoy, delivered in the first famous protestation, in the name of the Duchess of Savoy, against the Hanover succession, at the time the Duke himself commanded the French army in Italy, with Marshal Catinat and the Prince of Vaudemont under him, and every action of his life was dictated by France.’