A few press prosecutions, a few imprisonments of Jacobite tipplers who would drink the health of King James in the streets, or call it out in church services; a weeding-out of disorderly soldiers from otherwise trustworthy regiments; and a little trouble arising from pulpit indiscretions, are the only symptoms of yet uncertain times, to be detected. The ‘Craftsman,’ of August 4th, chronicles the discharge of ‘several Private Gentlemen out of the Lord Albemarle’s troop of Life Guards, some as undersized, and others as superannuated, but such have been allowed fifty guineas each and their college. His Lordship proposes to give every Private Gentleman in his Troop a new Surtout and a pair of Buckskin breeches, at his own Expense.’
POLITICAL SERMON.
Later, in the autumn, preachers took for a subject the want of respect manifested, by the mass of people, for their ‘betters,’ including all that were in authority. On Saturday, October 13th, the ‘Craftsman’ had this paragraph, showing how the pulpit was lending itself to politics as well as to morals:—‘Last Sunday a very remarkable sermon was preached at a Great Church in the City, against speaking evil of dignities, in which the Preacher endeavoured to show the unparalleled wickedness and Impudence of Tradesmen meddling in Politicks, and particularly of their riotous Procession to Westminster to petition against the late Excise scheme (so evidently calculated for their good), which he placed among the number of Deadly Sins, and recommended Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance, for which the Audience were so unkind as to laugh at him so much that he shut up his book before he had done and threatened them with a severe Chastisement.’
STORMY DEBATES.
The fear of the ‘Pretender,’ the recruiting in back parts of London for ‘foreign service,’ and the relations of England with Continental powers, kept up a troubled spirit among those who wished to live at home, at ease. One of the most remarkable debates of the session occurred in the House of Lords. The king had exercised, and wished to continue to exercise, a right (such as he supposed himself to possess) of dismissing officers from the army, without a court martial. The Duke of Marlborough (Spencer) brought in a Bill to prevent such summary expulsion, at the king’s pleasure. In the course of the debate the figure of the Pretender was brought forward. The Duke of Newcastle warmly supported the king’s ‘prerogative.’ There would be no safety, he said, unless the king held that right. ‘There is,’ he remarked, ‘at present a Pretender to the Crown of these realms, and we may conclude that there will always be plots and contrivances in this kingdom against the person in possession of the throne. While there is a Pretender, he may have his agents in the army as well as he has everywhere else.’ Officers (according to the duke) might be led away from their duty, and he held it to be unjust to the king to deprive him of the right to dismiss officers suspected of Jacobitism, or known to be disloyal, on evidence which a court martial might not think sufficient for cashiering them. The Bill was lost, and to the king was left the power of doing wrong.
In a portion of the Duke of Newcastle’s speech he asserted that the right claimed for the king was indispensable, on the ground that not only were private soldiers being recruited in London for ‘foreign service,’ but that officers might be tampered with, and that there was no real security that a general-in-chief might not be seduced into the enemy’s camp. This spread some alarm. The debates, indeed, were supposed to be delivered in private, but what was called ‘the impudence of some fellows’ gave all that was essential to the public. For defence of the nation, however, every precaution had been taken. Early in the spring, a fleet of twenty sail of the line was sent to the Downs. Eight regiments were brought from Ireland to England. It is certain that these precautions preserved the public tranquility of the kingdom. THE YOUNG CHEVALIER. Young Prince Charles Edward was serving ‘with particular marks of distinction’ in the army of Don Carlos; and the boy gave no obscure hints that he would, whenever it was in his power, favour the pretensions of his family. An exclamation of Sergeant Cotton, at a review in Hyde Park, that he would shoot the king; and the fact that the sergeant’s musket was loaded with ball, and that he had a couple of bullets in his pocket which had no right to be there, seemed to imply that Cotton was ready to favour the Stuart family’s pretensions.
The metropolis, moreover, was disturbed this year by the appearance of strangers in the streets, with more or less of a military air about many of them. These were, however, for the most part, Jacobites who were void of offence, and who had hastily come over from France. The Government there had given them a taste of what it was to live under such a system in Church and State as the Stuarts would establish in England, if they could get permanent footing there. A royal edict was published throughout France, peremptorily commanding all English, Irish, and Scotch, of the ages between eighteen and fifty, who were without employment, to enter the French army, within a fortnight. Disobedience to this edict was to be [punished]:—civilians, by condemnation to the galleys;—men who had formerly served, to be shot as deserters! Those who were not fortunate enough to get away from such a paternal Government found friends in the ministers of that George II. whom they still styled ‘Duke of Brunswick’ and ‘Elector of Hanover.’ Lord Waldegrave, the British Ambassador in France, sharply censured the edict, remonstrated against the injustice of treating the persons named in the edict worse than the natives of any other country, and pointed to the ingratitude of the French Government for various good service rendered to it by England on recent occasions. There was not a place in London where men met, but there Lord Waldegrave’s health was drunk. Whatever the politics of the drinkers were, all parties were glad to find a cause for drinking which carried unanimity with it.
LORD DUFFUS.
There was another Jacobite incident of the year, not without interest. Queen Anne’s old naval captain, the gallant Kenneth, Lord Duffus, when attainted for his share in the affair of 1715, was in safety in Sweden, but he gave formal notice of his intention to repair to England and surrender himself. On his way, the British Minister at Hamburg had him arrested, and he held Lord Duffus prisoner till after the limited time had elapsed for the surrender of attainted persons. Lord Duffus was brought captive to London, was shut up in the Tower, and, destitute of means, was maintained at the expense of Government. By the Act of Grace, of 1717, he obtained his liberty, and he subsequently entered the naval service of Russia. At his death, he left an only son, Eric Sutherland (whose mother was a Swedish lady) who, in this year, 1734, at the age of twenty-four, claimed the reversal of his father’s attainder (as Lord Duffus was forcibly prevented from obeying the statute), and his own right to succeed to the baronial title. The claim excited much interest while it was being pursued; and there was some disappointment in Jacobite circles when the Lords came to a decision that the claimant had no right to the honour, title, and dignity of Baron Duffus. Eric was, at this time, a loyal officer in the British army; he died in 1768. He left a son, James, born in 1747, who was restored to the title, by Act of Parliament, in 1826, when he was in his eightieth year. He enjoyed it only a few months. His successor, Benjamin, died in 1875, when the title became extinct.
THE CALVES’ HEAD CLUB.