To watching the doings of Jacobites at home, was to be added the trouble ministers had in watching, through their agents, Jacobites abroad. Our agent, Lord Stair, in Paris, kept the Hon. Charles Cathcart (afterwards eighth Lord) well advised of what was going on, or was to be attempted in London. In July, my Lord states that the Duke of Leeds had left Paris, for Rouen, on his way to England, ‘to put some very wise project of his own contrivance into execution. The Pretender and his court have given in to it, and the party in England are ready to assist him.’ Lord Stair suspected a design upon Sheerness. ‘I thought it better,’ he adds, ‘to let him go than to stop him.’ The writer left the ministers in London to do as they pleased with the duke, after he arrived. The duke escaped, singularly enough. He got drunk in London, was knocked down and run over by a hackney-coach, and he lay ill in bed, instead of going about conspiring for James III.
The police, however, was on the alert, the laws were severe, and ignorant people abounded. One of the acute messengers of the time, Nightingale, heard two women in the street, crying for sale ‘The whole trial, examination, conviction, and sentence of Conscience, who was tried and condemned at Conventicle Hall,’ &c. The messenger charged them with sedition. He carried them before the next justice of the peace, and his worship, finding them guilty, sent them forthwith ‘to be corrected at the next Whipping Post.’ The anti-Jacobite mob delighted in the cruel spectacle which was there offered to them.
They, and Jacobites generally, were still more delighted at reading the following matter-of-fact paragraph in all the papers. ‘On Saturday night’ (the first Saturday in August), ‘between 8 and 9 o’clock, the Earl of Wintoun made his escape out of the Tower.’ Lord Wintoun, who was not such a fool as he was taken for, had sawn the bars of his prison-window, and had oiled the palms of his keeper, and had passed into the street unmolested. He had a servant, Nicholson, in Newgate (taken also at Preston), but as the master had freed himself, the Government kindly liberated the servant, and took their revenge on the warden of the Tower. They accused him of having connived at the escape of both Lords Nithsdale and Wintoun; and they dismissed him from the Tower without allowing him to sell the wardenship, for which he himself had once given a good price.
PATTEN IN ALLENDALE.
In August, London saw the last not only of Wintoun, but also of that worthy parson, Patten. In the above month, he shook hands with his fellows in town, and set off for his old parish in Allendale, Northumberland. His incumbency had been kept open for him by a substitute, who resigned as soon as Patten returned to his old flock. On the Sunday after his arrival, Patten preached to a crowded congregation; ‘being,’ say the London Whig papers, ‘always well respected in his parish.’
The most singular sight of all, in August of this year, was at Hampton Court. While antagonistic mobs kept London in continual perturbation, the heir to the throne and the Princess of Wales dined in public—to which spectacle that public was freely admitted, and in such crowds that the illustrious lady would graciously call upon them so to place themselves that all present might have their fair share of the sight. The affability of the royal pair delighted all the spectators. The papers speak of one citizen of London, hitherto of Jacobite principles, being so deliciously subdued by it to Whig sentiments that, on reaching home, he removed the portraits of the Duke of Ormond and Dr. Sacheverel, from his ‘parlor,’ and showed his contempt for the originals by ‘removing their likenesses to a remote part of his establishment.’
SCENES AT HAMPTON COURT.
The Whig and Tory holiday makers who resorted to Hampton Court must have beheld one of the scenes of the political comedy played by their royal highnesses, while the king was abroad, with considerable astonishment. On one occasion, after the public dinner, a gentleman was as publicly presented. This was Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who kissed hands on having obtained the estates formerly belonging to Mackenzie, as a reward for Simon’s loyalty! There was not so much to surprise in this as in another presentation. Fraser was (for the nonce) a Whig; but the second presentation was that of a Jacobite gentleman who had been recently condemned to death, and was subsequently pardoned. This Jacobite was the famous Farquharson of Invercauld, who had only just been set free from the Marshalsea. Lord Townshend led him by the hand, and presented him to the Prince; the Earl of Bridgewater next took him, and presented him to the Princess. Spectators were lost in astonishment, and could not guess what service Invercauld could have rendered to the ‘Elector of Hanover’ to merit such distinction.
BIGOTS ON BOTH SIDES.
The outspokenness of the Nonjurors at this period grew more audacious than ever. Their enemies threatened to rout ‘the diabolical wretches’ from their chapels, and the Nonjurors replied, in their papers, with a ‘Come, if you dare!’ The latter prayed for ‘the King,’ without naming him. On one Sunday, in the chapel in the Savoy, a Whig, at this part of the service added aloud, ‘George!’ Forthwith, a dozen infuriated Jacks sprung to their feet, exclaimed ‘James!’ and with a cry of ‘We’ll George you!’ flourished their sticks, whereupon a battle-royal ensued, heads were broken, and provocation was given to make many a subsequent Sunday disgracefully distinguished by the bigots on both sides. The temper of the times was fatal to the then noted school at Edmonton, where Mr. Le Hunt received Roman Catholic young gentlemen from all parts of the world. Foreign families were afraid to send their sons. The house, indeed, was never molested; but, ‘for want of encouragement, Mr. Le Hunt was forced to withdraw.’