A ruffian greatly could dismay:
‘Man! dar’st thou Caius Marius slay?’
Blasted the coward wretch remains,
And owns the Roman, though in chains.
TREATMENT OF ATTERBURY.
The Jacobite sympathy for Atterbury was, of course, very active. Hawkers boldly sold seditious songs and broadsheets in his favour, despite the magistrates. The prelate himself lay day and night in bed in the Tower, suffering from gout in hands and feet. The Jacobite barrister, Sir Constantine Phipps, moved for his release, and that of Kelly, on bail; but the application was refused. On the following Sunday bills were distributed by active agents through the London churches, asking the prayers of the congregation for a suffering captive in bonds. The only favour granted to Atterbury was that he should have the occasional company of the Rev. M. Hawkins, of the Tower, to whose companionship the bishop preferred that of the gout. When the illustrious prisoner was convalescent, he used to sit at a window of the house in which he was confined, and converse with his friends who assembled below. It was manifest that mischief might come of it, but there was meanness in the method taken to prevent it. The window was nailed up and partly covered with deal boards. The chief warden of the Tower was censured for allowing Atterbury’s servants to speak with those of his son-in-law, Mr. Morrice, without the warden being present. At last, the bishop’s servants were kept as closely confined as their master.
SCENES IN CAMP.
London was busy with the Tower incidents to talk about, and with the martial spectacle in the Park, which people daily witnessed. But all things must have an end; and the camp, which was pitched in May, was broken up towards the end of October. The gayest times were when the king visited it, or reviewed the troops. He was popular there, for the various regiments, foot, horse, and artillery, had, in marching to or from the ground, to pass through the Mall, and the king invariably greeted them from his garden wall. He was so pleased with the City of London artillery, that he ordered 500l. to be paid in to their treasurer. After the reviews held near the camp, the Earl of Cadogan entertained the monarch and a noble company, either in the earl’s tent or at his house in Piccadilly. Each banquet cost the host about 800l. A costly hospitality was maintained by other commanders. The dinners in tent given by Colonel Pitt to the Duke of Wharton and other peers were the subject of admiration. In what sense the Jacobite duke drank the king’s health, may be easily conjectured. A coarser jollity prevailed in the booths set up near the camp, and there, a reckless reveller of the night was, now and then, to be found stark dead on the grass in the morning.
SOLDIERS AND FOOTPADS.
Wine and politics brought several men to grief. Inspired by the first, an Ensign Dolben spoke disrespectfully of the king’s Government, and was cashiered for his recklessness. Some indiscreet wagging of tongues led to Captain Nicholls and Mr. Isaac Hancocke drawing their swords, and the Captain passing his, up to the hilt, through Hancocke’s body. As the dead man lay on the ground, someone remarked, he was worth 300l. a year; and for killing so well-furnished a gentleman, the Captain got off with a slight punishment under a verdict of manslaughter. Other ‘bloody duels’ are recorded, and the pugnacity of the gentlemen took a savage character in some of the rank and file. It was by no means rare to hear of a hackney-coach full of officers returning at night, through Piccadilly to the camp, being attacked, brutally used, and plundered by men in disguise, who were at least suspected of being soldiers. Never were so many footpads northward, in the direction of Harrow and of Hampstead (which latter place yielded victims laden with gold on their road from the ‘tables’ at Belsize), as during the time of the encampment. A Lieutenant, who was entrusted with 10l. subsistence-money, to pay to some men of his (the second) regiment of Guards, hired a hackney-coach, rather early in the morning, put the coachman inside, and took the reins himself. He thought by this means to carry his money safely. The coach, however, was stopped by a single mounted highwayman in Piccadilly, who bade the inside gentleman deliver his money or his life. ‘I am only a poor man,’ said the rascal, ‘but the gentleman on the box has 10l. in his pocket, a gold watch in his fob, and a silver-hilted sword under his coat,’—and the highwayman stripped the young hero of his property, and rode contentedly away, by Hay Hill.