Exultation over the victory at Culloden was still prevailing. In other respects, it may be asserted that apprehensions of domestic disturbances had now pretty well ceased. Walpole felt that if the French attempted an invasion, it would be for themselves, and not for the Chevalier. ‘They need not be at the trouble,’ he wrote in January, ‘of sending us Stuarts; that ingenious House could not have done the work of France more effectually than the Pelhams and the patriots have.’ The London Whigs maintained the memory of the triumph of Cumberland. For years they kept the anniversary of the Jacobite overthrow at Culloden by dining, or drinking, or doing both, together. Here is a sample of what they thought of the triumph, taken from the advertisement columns of ‘The General Advertiser:’—
‘Half-Moon Tavern, Cheapside. Saturday next, the 16th April, being the anniversary of the Glorious Battle of Culloden, the Stars will assemble in the Moon, at six in the evening. Therefore, the choice spirits are desired to make their appearance and fill up the joy.’
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE JACOBITES.
Within a month, however, the Government were referring to the Jacobites, as if the rebellion had not been stamped out at Culloden. The special occasion on which the Jacobites were ill-spoken of in Parliament this year was in the House of Lords. The Peers were discussing the Scottish episcopal question, and the Highland dress. Lord Hardwicke, the Chancellor, with other Lords, denounced the Scottish bishops as Nonjurors, whose congé d’élire, if there was one, came from the Pretender; and whose ‘orders,’ conferred on others, could only be a farce. Jacobitism had by no means lost its vitality. In some cases it had been bribed into a deceitful calm, which might be followed by a storm at any opportunity. Lord Hardwicke thought the condemned Jacobites had been too leniently dealt with, and that they would have had no cause to complain had the most rigorous penalties been exacted. In short, his lordship went far to authorise Lord Campbell’s judgment, that if the Duke of Cumberland was responsible for the way in which he stamped out rebellion in Scotland, Lord Hardwicke, at Westminster, was responsible for the judicial murders committed on rebels. The following is from the speech, which aroused some surprise in the House of Lords:—
ENLARGEMENT OF PRISONERS.
‘Every man who has taken orders from a nonjuring Bishop in England or Scotland must be supposed to be disaffected to our present happy establishment. I think the government ought not to allow them to be preachers in any congregation whatever.’—After allowing that there were honest Nonjurors, who, while preserving their principles, refrained from all hostility towards the Government, the Lord Chancellor said there were others, ‘who, notwithstanding being Jacobites in their hearts, not only take all the oaths we can impose, but worm themselves into places of trust and confidence under the present government, and yet join in, or are ready to join in, any rebellion against it; and with respect to such men I must say that no regulation we can make, no punishment we can inflict, can be called cruel and unjust.’
No doubt one of the Jacobites to whom Lord Hardwicke alluded was the Jacobite Mr. Pitt, Lord of Trade, and the pet M.P. of Jacobite Wareham.
IN THE PARK AND ON THE MALL.
For all this, lenity towards the Jacobite prisoners continued to be practised. The three brothers Kinloch were liberated from close custody. Sir James Kinloch and Mr. Stewart were to be confined to an English provincial town, with liberty of walking to a distance of a couple of miles. The exact conditions were,—‘that they should remain in such places, as his Majesty, his heirs, and successors shall from time to time appoint.’ Then came pardons, a half-dozen at a time, to various of the ‘Manchester officers’ taken at Carlisle, who had been lying under sentence of death since 1746. Among them was Captain Lindsay, who was haltered and in the sledge, with Governor Hamilton and Sir John Wedderburn, when a reprieve arrived for him at the prison-gate. The two younger brothers Kinloch, with Farquharson of Monaltries, were banished, but might go whithersoever they would, except to any part of the British dominions. The most joyous party of Jacobites was that of the Earl of Cromartie (or ‘Mr. Mackenzie,’ as he was called since his attainder) and his family. The eldest son, Lord Macleod, was freely pardoned. The earl was permitted to leave the Tower, but he was bound to reside in the house of a King’s Messenger. Accordingly, the earl, countess, my lord, the younger children, and a servant or two, were to be seen alighting from a hackney-coach at the door of Mr. Lamb’s house in Pall Mall. Their appearance at the windows attracted many a gazer, and when Mr. Lamb permitted them to stroll on the Mall, crowds of sympathisers congratulated them as they passed. Later, the earl had so far an extension of liberty as was to be found in a permission, or order, to reside in some town in the south of England.
It was probably by accident that, on the Pretender’s birthday, June 10th, a special free pardon passed the Great Seal for Mr. John Murray, of Boughton, and Hugh Fraser, gentleman (king’s witnesses against Lord Lovat). Murray obtained a pension of 200l. a year. The pardon cleared them of all treason committed before 1st May, 1748. On Saturday, the 11th, they were both at large, and were to be seen, two pale men, trying to get a complexion in the parks. At the same time small parties of men left London for Scotland, for the purpose of fortifying various points of that kingdom, an invasion of which by the French was vaguely talked of in all taverns and coffee-houses in London. There was certainly an undefined fear from the beginning of the year of something being intended there in the interest of the Pretender.