There was a desire to bring the matter to a conclusion as cheaply as possible. The ‘Craftsman’ recommended that the Pretender should be ‘cut off,’ if that end could be compassed. A hope was expressed that the nation would not be taxed for encountering a ‘ragged, hungry rabble of Yahoos of Scotch Highlanders,’ with the cost of an expedition against an Alexander. There would be no use, it was said, in constructing an apparatus fit for hunting a lion,—for the catching of a rat. The rats were, nevertheless, troublesome, if not formidable. The London Jacobites were ostentatiously ecstatic when news reached town of the defeat of Cope. King George’s proclamation had ordered an observation of silence on public affairs. When the removal of notorious Papists from the city had been contemplated, ‘What will you get,’ loudly asked the Jacobites of the Romish Church, ‘by driving us ten miles out of town? We shall then form a camp, and you will find us a much more formidable body than we now appear to be while dispersed among you.’ Remove the Papists! why, the Duke of Newcastle had shown so little disposition that way, that his French cook still ruled supreme in the kitchen of his mansion in Lincoln’s Inn Fields! There were others like the duke; and, what trust could be placed in a militia formed out of servants of noblemen whose lackeys went to mass in the private chapels of the Ambassadors? Yet, something must be done. It was in vain that proclamations, signed ‘James III.’ and ‘Charles Edward,’ were burnt at the Royal Exchange, by the common hangman, in presence of the sheriffs. New documents were circulated as widely as ever. If they were not cried in the street, there were other ways of bringing them before the public. In the dusk of the evening, a baker would rest with his basket, or a street porter with his burthen, against a wall. Inside the basket, as inside the porter’s burthen, there was a little boy who had all the necessary contrivances to enable him to paste a Jacobite paper on the wall. In the morning, London was found to be covered with treasonable documents, and for some time, magistrates were driven almost mad in trying to account for the appearance of papers which seemed to have got on the walls by inexplicable and undiscoverable means.
THE VENETIAN AMBASSADOR.
On Sunday, October 6th, half of riotous London followed the Foot Guards to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and applauded them as they entered the old abandoned play-house, which was converted by them into a barrack. A couple of days later all uproarious London was on the river, or in the streets, to witness the grand entry of the Venetian Ambassador. His Excellency and suite came in state barges from Greenwich to the Tower, and he passed in greater state still of coach and cavalry, from the Tower to his noble residence in Thrift Street, Soho, as Frith Street was once called. The greetings which welcomed him on the part of those who hailed in his person an ally of King George, were as nothing compared with the unceasing thunder of hurrah-ing which saluted him as he rode, next day, in greatest state of all, to have audience of the sovereign. When his wife, as soon as she was installed in her house, in Soho, gave a masquerade which made everybody forget the perils of the time, there may have been people who distrusted her Popish principles, but no one doubted her taste, or objected to her politics.
MONARCH AND MINISTERS.
Yet was there every now and then a cry of alarm. Messengers had seized a waggon load of cutlasses, and they were slow to believe that the weapons were not ordered by Pope and Pretender for the slaughter of Church-and-King men. They proved to have come to London in due course of trade. Persons who believed, nevertheless, in the existence of a conspiracy were gratified by the seizure of some Irish priests who indulged in the utterance of seditious words in public places. Zealots, of Jacobite proclivities, even had the assurance to contradict loyal preachers in their own pulpits, but afterwards found themselves in durance for their boldness. One day, Sir Robert Ladbroke astounded the Duke of Newcastle by rushing in to his office and announcing that he had had anonymous warning to leave his house, as Jacobite insurgents meant on a certain night to set fire to the city. Everywhere guards were doubled, and there was much fear. The king showed none. He stood for a couple of hours on the terrace at St. James’s, overlooking the park, to witness the manœuvres and the ‘march past’ of six regiments of trained bands, and he had an air as if he and danger were strangers. Moreover the Londoners were in a fever of delight with the other king,—the king of the city. On Lord Mayor’s day, Sir Richard Hoare was resolved that if he was to be the last Protestant Lord Mayor of London, people should remember him. On October 29th (old Lord Mayor’s day), he went from Guildhall to the Court of Exchequer, in the grandest coach ever seen, and he was accompanied by ‘a large body of associated gentlemen out of Fleet Street, completely clothed,’ as one, indeed, might expect they would be!
NEWS IN PRIVATE LETTERS.
From the ‘Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, his Family and Friends,’ it is to be gathered that the Londoners were kept in ignorance of Sir John Cope’s defeat, till private letters arrived by which the whole disgrace was revealed. Lord Shaftesbury writes that Pitt’s respectful motion to advise the king to recall the troops (chiefly cavalry) from Flanders, and use them in suppressing the rebellion, was lost, or ‘eluded,’ by putting the previous question—ayes 136, noes 148; in which division young Horace Walpole was in the minority, and old Horace Walpole on the other side; ‘not a Tory on either side speaking. I leave you to reflect on this proceeding, though I think a very little reflection will suffice.’ People who had letters from the north ran with them from house to house, some, even, to St. James’s, to impart their contents, and small regard was had to any of the newspapers. But individuals could be as untrustworthy as the papers. Old Lord Aylesbury was conspicuous as a ‘terror-raiser.’ He says ‘the Papists poisoned his grandfather, and made a fool of his father, and that he believed all the Jacobites would turn to Popery very easily, if it was to prevail.’ The old lord was to be seen daily going to Court, ‘to show his public attachment to the Revolution of 1688.’
THE LONDON TRAINBANDS.
With respect to the king reviewing the Trainbands from the garden wall of St. James’s, recorded in a preceding page, Lord Shaftesbury writes, Oct. 26th, 1745: ‘This morning the Trainbands were reviewed by his Majesty. By what I saw of them myself, I can venture to affirm that, notwithstanding their deficiency in smartness, from want of an uniform, which may possibly expose them to the ridicule of some of our very fine gentlemen, they would make an honourable and effective stand, if needful, for their religion and liberties. They are really, upon the whole, good troops.’ The Rev. William Harris gives a fuller account of the same incident to his brother: ‘I was to-day accidentally in St. James’s Park, when the City Militia were reviewed by the King, who stood on the terrace in his own garden, attended by the Duke, Lord Stair, Dukes of Dorset, Newcastle, Bolton, and several others of the nobility. It was a most tedious affair, I make no doubt, to his Majesty; for the London men made but a shabby appearance, and there could be no great entertainment in seeing them. Their officers were well enough, and to these, as they made their salute, passing by under the terrace, his Majesty returned everyone the compliment by pulling off his hat. There were no less than six regiments, and I suppose it might be near two hours before they all had gone in review before his Majesty.’
SCENES AT COURT.