HIS DEATH.
The once famous and audacious Nonjuror, the friend of Addison when both were young together, lost caste with the Jacobites without gaining the esteem of the Whigs. Mist’s High-Flying ‘Weekly Journal,’ of which Sacheverel was once the Magnus Apollo, recorded his death and burial with no more ceremony than if he had been an ordinary alderman of no particular political colour. Perhaps this great reserve showed that sureties binding Mist to keep the peace were not mere formalities. Not so with Read and his Whig ‘Weekly.’ On Saturday, June 20, Sacheverel received therein this charitable notice: ‘Yesterday night was buried, at St. Andrew’s, Holborn, Dr. Henry Sacheverel, whose virtues are too notorious to be enlarged upon. One of his most conspicuous excellences for many years last past was that he got his living in the high road to—which though through great Mercy he escaped here, yet some people are so very censorious as to judge,—but this we look upon to be barbarous and unchristian, and we say we hope the best, and yet we heartily wish our Hopes were a little better grounded. However, as there is a good old saying, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, i.e. “If you speak of the dead, speak in their praise,” and not being able, upon the strictest enquiry, to find the least commendable circumstance relating to the Deceased, from his cradle to his coffin, we choose rather to be silent than uncivil.’
The doctor seemed to recall his oath of allegiance, when he made a bequest in his will of 500l. to Atterbury. It was an approval, as far as the sum went, of the efforts of the ex-prelate to dethrone George I., and to bring in a Popish sovereign, who was not at all reluctant to promise especial favours to the Church of England! That Atterbury was watching events in London is now known, from his correspondence. In one of his letters from Paris to the Chevalier or ‘King,’ he refers with vexation to the conciliatory course the Government in London was adopting towards the Jacobites: ‘They are beginning,’ he says, ‘with Alderman Barber on this head, and have actually offered him his pardon here for 3,000l., which it shall not be my fault, if he accepts.’ The ex-Jacobite alderman ‘went over,’ in spite of the Jacobite ex-bishop.
The 30th of January sermons (1725) before the Lords, in the Abbey, and the Commons, in St. Margaret’s, had now almost ceased to be political. The former was preached by Waugh, Bishop of Carlisle, from the Book of Chronicles; the latter, by the Rev. Dr. Lupton, from 1 Samuel xii. 25, a text which had been much preached on by expounders on both sides: ‘If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.’
A NEW TOAST.
Against the king in possession, the Jacobites now and then flung pointless darts. Mist’s Journal uttered sarcasms against the Westminster mounted Train Bands, complimenting the most of them for not tumbling out of their saddles. The same semi-rebel paper recorded with satisfaction, as a sign of the Duke of Wharton’s principles, that if the little stranger ‘expected by the Duchess, proved to be a boy, his name should be James; if a girl, Clementina;’ or, in other words, the child was to be called after the King or Queen of England, de jure. Not long after, the bold and roystering London Jacobites were rapturously drinking a health, which was given by one guest in the form of ‘Henry,’ to which another added, ‘Benedict,’ a third named ‘Maria,’ and a fourth raised his glass to ‘Clement.’ In this form, they greeted the birth of the second son of the Chevalier de St. George. Some ventured to (prematurely) speak of him as Duke of York. The Whigs looked upon this birth with more or less indifference; and their papers contain no unseemly jests on the occasion.
BOLINGBROKE.
But the especial attention of Londoners was drawn to more important matters. Whigs and Jacobites looked with equal interest to the attempt made by Bolingbroke’s friends to enable him to succeed to his father’s estates, notwithstanding the Act of Attainder to the contrary. Leave to bring in a Bill, with this object, was asked by Lord Finch, in the Commons, on April 20th, with the sanction of king and Government, whom Bolingbroke had petitioned to that effect. Lord Finch explained that the petitioner had been pardoned by his Majesty, for past treason, but that even a royal pardon could not ride over an Act of Attainder, to the extent asked, without an Act of Parliament. The petitioner had fully acknowledged his former great guilt, and had made promises, on which his Majesty confidently relied, of inviolable fidelity for the future. Walpole gave great significance to the words uttered in support by saying, ‘He has sufficiently atoned for all past offences,’ Then Mr. Methuen, of Corsham, Wilts, sprang to his feet to oppose the motion and denounce the traitor. He did both in the most violent and unmeasured terms. He lost no point that could tell against Bolingbroke, from the earliest moment of his political career,—ever hostile to true English interests,—down to that of the asking leave to absolve the traitor from the too mild penalties with which his treason had been visited. No expiation could atone for his crimes; and no trust could be placed in his promises. BOLINGBROKE’S ADVERSARIES. One after the other, Lord William Paulet, Arthur Onslow, Sir Thomas Pengelly and Gybbon smote Bolingbroke with phrases that bruised his reputation like blows on mail from battle-axes. They were all, however, surpassed in fierceness and argument by Serjeant Miller, who branded Bolingbroke as a traitor to the king, country, and Government; a villain who, if favoured as he now asked to be, would betray again those whom he had betrayed before, if he found advantage in doing so. Serjeant Miller said that he loved the king, country, and ministry more than he loved himself, and that he hated their enemies more than they did. To loosen the restraints on Bolingbroke was only to facilitate his evil action, and so forth; but Jacobite Dr. Freind, who had tasted of the Tower, extolled the royal clemency to Bolingbroke; and the assurance of Walpole that the traitor had rendered services which expiated all by-gone treason, weighed with the House, and the condoning Bill was ultimately passed, by 231 to 113.
IN THE LORDS HOUSE.
Public interest in London was only diverted for a moment from this measure, by the debate in the House of Lords, in May, on another Bill (from the Commons) for disarming the Highlanders in Scotland, which ended in the Bill being carried. Five peers signed a protest against it, partly on the ground that England now enjoyed ‘that invaluable blessing—a perfect calm and tranquility;’ that the Highlanders now manifested no spirit of disorder, and that it became all good patriots ‘to endeavour rather to keep them quiet than to make them so.’ The comment in all the Whig circles of London, as they heard of the protest, was to repeat the names of those who subscribed it,—Wharton, Scarsdale, Lichfield, Gower, and Orrery. Of them, the first was almost openly in the Chevalier’s service, and the other four were thorough Jacobites. But the interest in this Bill was as nothing compared with that renewed by the Bill (sent up by the Commons) which passed the House of Lords on May 24th, 1725, by 75 to 25, for restoring Bolingbroke to his estates. The protest against the Act was signed by the Earls of Coventry and Bristol, Lords Clinton, Onslow, and Lechmere. The articles of the protest are among the most explicit and interesting ever issued from Westminster, and are to this effect:—