You tell Dr. Musgrave, “le public aura lu avidement votre lettre, aura adjute foi a son contenu parceque vous en appellez a mon evidence.” You are mistaken. Your evidence of itself will have little weight with any one, but you may have papers of importance, which the public expected from your own absolute promise. The last page of your tiresome quarto promised a second volume on the first of June 1764, and a third the first of September. You ought to have given them at the stipulated time, and to have made them as valuable as you could from the materials of others, were it only to indemnify us for having waded through the family dullness and impertinence of the letters to your mother, nurse, &c. &c. What did the Scot give you for the suppression? Was it as much as you had for the dedication, in which you tell him that you find “dans les portraits du Duc de Sully & de Milord Bute une ressemblance assez parfaite, de grandes vertus, l’amour de la patrie (Scotland I suppose) de la philosophie; la profondeur d’un politique, l’eloquence d’un homme d’etat, cette activite d’esprit qui donne les succes & les revers, ce coup d’œil qui demele les objets meme au milieu du trouble, qui fait le grand negociateur, &c. &c.” Upon my word you merited the whole sum he gave you, let it have been ever so considerable. But did you believe one single feature of Bute was like Sully? I am satisfied no more than your master the Duke of Nivernois, Ambassador and Academician, one of your quarante immortels, believed that the Kings of England and France were faits pour s’aimer, formed to love each other, although he declared so at St. James’s with the utmost gravity, and afterwards printed it, like a compliment of the French Academy, only in both French and English for the amusement of the two nations. The flattery of the French ambassador and secretary succeeded. The English monarch and his Scottish minister were equally captivated; and the most gallant army in Europe were left to regret that they had not once the honour even of a visit from our sovereign during the whole war, or before they were disbanded. The early and dangerous intrigues, the specious flattery of a home favourite, and an insinuating foreign minister, but above all the holding out in such terms, le charactere distinctif d’une bonne foi non equivoque, at which the King of Prussia has so much laughed, lulled asleep all heroism, suspicion, and even curiosity.
You are very just, Sir, in the observation, that the public read with great eagerness Dr. Musgrave’s letter. The reason is plain. The fact, that French gold made the last peace, was long ago believed; but the public rejoiced when a man of Dr. Musgrave’s unblemished reputation stated the presumptive evidence in general terms to his countrymen of Devonshire, because then it seemed impossible any longer to stifle the enquiry. You say, “Je vous interpelle donc, M. le Docteur, de declarer au public le nom du temeraire qui s’est servi du mien pour faire ces ouvertures odieuses.” The Doctor does not say that he ever heard the name of the person, who, in your name, applied to Sir George Yonge, Mr. Fitzherbert, and several other members of parliament. He only declares that Sir George Yonge and Mr. Fitzherbert informed him at different times that an overture had been made in the name of the Chevalier d’Eon, importing that he, the Chevalier, was ready to impeach three persons, two of whom are peers and members of the privy council, of selling the peace to the French. Why do you not make your appeal to these two gentlemen? If neither of the placemen should chuse to answer, if they are either fearful or false, if the boards of admiralty and trade have exacted at least a promise of secrecy, I will name a third person to you, a character unexceptionable, of a candour, probity, and honour equal to Dr. Musgrave’s, superior I believe never existed. I mean Thomas Cholmondeley, Esq; the late member for Cheshire, a relation of Lord Chatham. My reason for naming this gentleman you will see in the following passage. “It is true (Pitt) assisted in the first debate upon General Warrants in 1764; but finding that some of the party were in earnest in their designs of going farther, and had prepared a motion against the seizure of papers, which was, in fact, the great grievance; and also finding that the favourite dreaded the minority gaining a victory, lest the party should be afterwards turned against him; and that the favourite had therefore supported the administration with all his might upon this occasion, the great patriot scandalously withdrew from the cause and the party; thereby preventing any point being then gained towards that security of public liberty, which the whole kingdom so ardently wished for and expected. A short time afterwards, when an impeachment of the favourite was privately rumoured among a few only; and it was said, that there was strong evidence ready to be given, particularly with regard to the peace; when a certain baronet, and others, who took some pains in order to come at this evidence, and the conditions upon which it might have been obtained were trifling, not pecuniary (the pardon of the Chevalier D’Eon is here meant) and who thought it necessary that the great Commoner should be consulted upon a subject of such importance, especially too as he was looked upon to be the fittest person to lead, or principally support such a procedure; and when, in consequence of that idea, he was applied to by one of his own friends, and, in some measure, a distant relation, he checked the whole in the bud, by declaring vehemently against it.” An enquiry into the conduct of the late Right Honourable Commoner, page 26, &c. published in 1766. The strange phrase Pitt used was, that he would set his foot on the head of the man who first moved the enquiry, and crush him to atoms. I am very glad to hear that the three brothers are at last united, and that there is now not only a family, but a political union among them. I venture however to prophesy, that two of the three will never promote an enquiry into the transactions of the last peace, or the conduct of the favourite, and I therefore hope all the friends of the public will be on their guard against them both. They cannot safely be trusted with the conduct of this important business. The apostate had in 1764 his peerage and place of Privy Seal in view, for which he then sold his friends and his country. He now looks forwards to a more lucrative office, a larger pension to recruit his shattered finances, and perhaps to a higher title, which he may probably get, if he can keep the favourite’s head on his shoulders. I wish however the triumvirate of brothers success, because I think a triumvirate, which should be only insolent and overbearing, is infinitely to be preferred to a sole minister who is cruel; and delights in blood.
I should before this, Monsieur le Chevalier, have apologized to you for the frankness of my proceeding with respect to you, and the plain language of my heart, but really my nature is open and undisguised. I detest flattery and foolish compliments. I call things generally by their names, j’appelle un chat un chat, et rolet un fripon. Besides your example ought to weigh in an address to you. The embassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of your court, a Cordon Bleu, who represented the person of the Most Christian King, you repeatedly in the grossest manner call ane extraordinaire, and you add, la truye n’ennoblit pas le cochon. Monsieur Bussy, the late French minister here, is with you a bourreau. Your language even to your own mother is particularly rude. You advise a tender affectionate parent, in tears for the misconduct of a son she loved, to wipe her eyes, plant her cabbages, weed her garden, eat her greens, and drink the milk of her cows and the wine of her vineyard, without giving herself any trouble about you. The letter to your nurse, Madame Benoit a Tonnerre, is rather more obliging. You talk of all her soins et peines passees, and then very elegantly add, that you are well at present, but should be better if you could see her soon. To her you act the signor magnifico; you actually send her one hundred livres, or near four pounds and eight shillings sterling. How interesting is all this to the public? how glorious to you? But to return to your poor mother, whom I heartily pity. You tell her in return for her concern, that you have read toutes les lettres lamentables et pitoyables que vous avez pris la peine de m’ecrire: pourquoi pleurez vous, femme de peu de foi? You make use here, Sir, of our Blessed Saviour’s words in a very strange and indecent manner. You speak of him in your last publication, in a most daring and really impudent stile. In the Pieces Authentiques, page 13, your words are, on n’accusa point Jesus Christ au Banc d’Herode d’avoir debite des libelles; cependant ce que notre seigneur a avance n’a jamais ete si bien prouve que ce que le Chevalier D’Eon a demontre par ses Lettres et Memoires. Jesus Christ was not accused at Herod’s Bench of having published libels; although what our Saviour advanced was never so well proved as what the Chevalier D’Eon has demonstrated in his Letters and Memoirs. After all these instances I shall conclude without the least compliment to you, with only saying, that
I am, Sir,
An ENGLISHMAN.
To the PRINTER.
Lord B. and his toad eater the D. of G. both knew the contents of Dr. Musgrave’s letter many weeks before it made its appearance. They had concerted many schemes to suppress its publication; but all these schemes, however artfully managed, proved abortive. Lord B. who came fresh from the school of politics at Rome, embraced still the same propensity for absolute monarchy as he did before he departed from England. He is grown, indeed, more cautious, more masked, but not a jot less enterprising. Foiled in his well-concealed attempts to prevent the publication of Dr. Musgrave’s letter, his next attempt was to render the publication of it inoperative and ineffectual. The difficulty lay in compassing this desirable end. He knew very well that one ******** had married a cast-off, who formerly held no mean rank in his toad eater’s seraglio: this same ********, his Lordship knew had been confidently intrusted at different times, with the most important secrets of Mr. Wilkes, the Chevalier D’Eon, and Lord Temple, and therefore the only fit person to be confidentially entrusted, as far as his Lordship might deem necessary, with the opening a negociation for a treaty of union between the Earls of B—e, T——e, E———t, C———m, Lord H———d, and the petulant Duke of B———. Such a coalition, with his toad eater at the head, he rightly conceived, would be able to stem any torrent of opposition, were it to roll mountains high. But his Lordship, it will be seen, counted without his host. His first intention was to dispatch ******** to Stow. This measure could not be carried into execution but by another mode of application. ******** had already forfeited Lord T——e’s confidence, but he did not care to acquaint either G. or B. with this secret, which could not but be fatal to his own views; he therefore artfully declined going to Stow himself, adding, that the embassy would have greater weight, and probably better success, was the D. of G. to wait in person on Lord T———. ******** pretended to know the very bait that would tempt his Lordship; it was nothing less than a Dukedom, and if he ********, was to make the offer, Lord T———e, he said, might doubt the performance. By this device and advice of ********, B. and his toad eater were easily betrayed into a fond belief of gaining over Lord T. to their faction. Accordingly, the D. of G. was posted down to Stow, and this truly courtly visit was immediately announced in every news-paper throughout the kingdom. The success of this visit is no longer a mystery. The wild, incoherent, crude plan of operations, were conveyed, without loss of time, to Fonthill, and from Fonthill it soon arrived at Plymouth. Dr. Musgrave finding this once formidable and blood-thirsty faction tottering, and failing of support from Lord T. thought it a glorious opportunity to crush the whole junto, by hanging them out to public view and public odium. With this view, and to do justice to a brave, but greatly injured people, the Doctor, with a courage not to be daunted, published that well-timed letter, which has already unfilm’d the eyes of every subject in the kingdom, and which, in a few days, will receive a further elucidation from
The BRITISH SPY.
To the PRINTER.
In my former letter I furnished your readers with an anecdote relative to Mr. ********. This man, who is connected with his Grace the D. of G. by the apron-string tenure; the present modish, and by much the strongest of all holds, has been constantly and most secretly employed for these last six weeks, as a go-between to the D. of G. and the Soi-disant l’Homme de Charactere, M. D’Eon.