“Let all who view th’ instructive scene,
And patronize the plan,
Give thanks to Gloucester’s honest Dean,
For, Tucker, thou’rt the man.”[465]
In a better spirit, and with affecting earnestness, John Cartwright, once of the Royal Navy, and known as Major from his rank in the Nottinghamshire Militia, followed the Dean, in 1774, with a series of letters collected in a pamphlet entitled “American Independence the Interest and Glory of Great Britain,” where he insists upon separation, and thenceforward a friendly league, “that the true and lasting welfare of both countries can be promoted.”[466] In enforcing his conclusion the author says: “When we talk of asserting our sovereignty over the Americans, do we foresee to what fatal lengths it will carry us? Are not those nations increasing with astonishing rapidity? Must they not, in the nature of things, cover in a few ages that immense continent like a swarm of bees?”[467] Then again: “We may, indeed, by means of fleets and armies, maintain a precarious tyranny over the Americans for a while; but the most shallow politicians must foresee what this would end in.”[468] Then, in reply to the Dean: “’Tis a pity so able a writer had not discovered that the Americans have a right to choose their own governors, and thence enforced the necessity of his proposed separation as a religious duty, no less than a measure of national policy.”[469] Cartwright continued at home the conflicts of principle involved in our War of Independence, and became an English Reformer. Honor to his name!
DAVID HARTLEY, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1785.
Another English friend was David Hartley. He was constant and even pertinacious on our side, although less prophetic than Pownall, with whom he coöperated in purpose and activity. His father was Hartley the metaphysician, and author of the ingenious theory of sensation, who predicted the fate of existing governments and hierarchies in two simple sentences: “It is probable that all the present Civil Governments will be overturned”; “It is probable that the present forms of Church Government will be dissolved.”[470] Many were alarmed. Lady Charlotte Wentworth asked the prophet when these terrible things would happen. The answer was: “I am an old man, and shall not live to see them; but you are a young woman, and probably will see them.”[471]
The son was born in 1729, and died at Bath in 1813. During our Revolution he sat in Parliament for Kingston-upon-Hull. He was also the British plenipotentiary in negotiating the Definitive Treaty of Peace with the United States. He has dropped out of sight. The biographical dictionaries afford him a few lines only. But he deserves a considerable place in the history of our Independence.
John Adams was often austere, and sometimes cynical, in his judgments. Evidently he did not like Hartley. In one place he speaks of him as “a person of consummate vanity”;[472] then, as “talkative and disputatious, and not always intelligible”;[473] and in still another place remarks, “Mr. Hartley was as copious as usual;”[474] and when appointed to sign the Definitive Treaty, “It would have been more agreeable to have finished with Mr. Oswald.”[475] And yet, when writing most elaborately to the Comte de Vergennes on the state of affairs previous to the final campaign, he introduces opinions of Hartley at length, saying that he was “more for peace than any man in the kingdom.”[476] Such testimony may well outweigh the other expressions, especially as nothing of the kind appears in the correspondence of Franklin, with whom Hartley was much more intimate.
The “Parliamentary History” is a sufficient monument for Hartley. He was a frequent speaker, and never missed an opportunity of pleading our cause. Although without the immortal eloquence of Burke, he was always clear and full. Many of his speeches seem written out by himself. He was not a tardy convert, but began as “a new member” by supporting an amendment favorable to the Colonies, 5th December, 1774. Then, in March, 1775, he brought forward “Propositions for Conciliation with America,” which he sustained in an elaborate speech, where he avowed that the American question had occupied him for some time:—