"My Lord,
"Your Graces most obedient
"and most humble servant
"Henry Ffielding.
"Ealing. April 14, 1753
"His Grace the
"Duke of Newcastle."
"My Lord Duke,
"I am extremely concerned to see by a Letter which I have just received from Mr Jones by Command of your Grace that the Persons concerned for the Prosecution have not yet attended your Grace with the Affidavits in Canning's Affair. I do assure you upon my Honour that I sent to them the Moment I first received your Grace's Commands and having after three Messages prevailed with them to come to me I desired them to fetch the Affidavits that I might send them to your Grace being not able to wait upon you in Person. This they said they could not do, but would go to Mr Hume Campbell their Council, and prevail with him to attend your Grace with all their Affidavits many of which, I found were sworn after the Day mentioned in the order of Council. I told them I apprehended the latter could not be admitted, but insisted in the strongest terms on their laying the others immediately before your Grace, and they at last promised me they would, nor have I ever seen them since. I have now again ordered my Clerk to go to them to inform them of the last Commands I have received, but as I have no Compulsory Power over them I can not answer for their Behaviour, which indeed I have long disliked, and have therefore long ago declined giving them any Advice, nor would I unless in Obedience to your Grace have anything to say to a set of the most obstinate Fools I ever saw; and who seem to me rather to act from a Spleen against my Lord Mayor, than from any Motive of protecting Innocence, tho' that was certainly their Motive at first. In Truth, if I am not deceived, I Suspect they desire that the Gipsey should be pardoned, and then to convince the World that she was guilty in order to cast the greater Reflection on him who was principally instrumental in obtaining such Pardon. I conclude with assuring your Grace that I have acted in this Affair, as I shall on all Occasions with the most dutiful Regard to your Commands, and that if my Life had been at Stake, as many know, I could have done no more.
"I am, with the highest Respect,
"My Lord Duke
"Y Grace's most obedient,
"and most humble servant,
"Henry Ffielding.
"Ealing
"April 27. 1753.
"His Grace the Duke of Newcastle."
The dates of these letters show Fielding to have been at Ealing in the early spring of this year; and thus afford some confirmation of Lysons' remark in his Environs of London, published forty years later that "Henry Fielding had a country house at Ealing where he resided the year before his [death]." [6] In May a connection with Hammersmith is indicated, in the burial there of his little daughter Louisa. The entry in the Hammersmith Registers is as follows: "May 10th. Louisa, d. of Henry Fielding Esqr."
The nearer Fielding's life draws to its premature close, the greater his physical suffering, so much the more eager seems his desire to leave behind him some practical achievement. We have already seen and wondered at his gigantic scheme for poor-law reform, published in the beginning of this year of fast declining 'health and life.' Six months later came the commission in the execution of which the remains of that health and life were literally sacrificed in the effort to win some provision for his family, in the event of his own death. Early in August the distinguished Court surgeon John Ranby had persuaded him to go immediately to Bath. And he tells us, in that Journal of a Voyage to [Lisbon], [7] from which we have, from his own lips, the details of these last months, "I accordingly writ that very night to Mrs Bowden, who, by the next post, informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month certain." At this moment, when preparing for his journey, and while "almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street robbers," Fielding received what might indeed be called a fatal summons to wait on the Duke of Newcastle, at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to consult on a means for "putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets." This visit cost him a severe cold; but, notwithstanding, he produced, in about four days, a scheme for the destruction of the "then reigning gangs" of robbers and cut-throats, and for the future protection of the public, which was promptly accepted, and the execution of which was confided into Fielding's hands. "I had delayed my Bath-journey for some time," he proceeds, "contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance, and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends, tho' my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath-waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats." After some weeks the requisite funds were placed at Fielding's disposal; and so successful were his methods, that within a few days, the whole gang was dispersed, some in custody, others in flight. His health was by this time "reduced to the last extremity"; but still, he tells us, he continued to act "with the utmost vigour against these villains." And, amid all his 'fatigues and distresses,' the satisfaction he so ardently desired came to him. During the "remaining part of the month of November and in all December," those darkest of months, not only was there no such thing as a murder, but not one street robbery was committed. When we recall the amazing condition of London at this time, when street robberies and murders were of almost daily occurrence, we realise the magnitude of this achievement on the part of a dying man. "Having thus fully accomplished my undertaking," Fielding continues, "I went into the country in a very weak and deplorable condition, with no fewer or less diseases than a jaundice, a dropsy, and an asthma, altogether uniting their forces in the destruction of a body so entirely emaciated, that it had lost all its muscular flesh." It was now too late to apply the Bath treatment; and even had it been desirable it was no longer possible, for the sick man's strength was so reduced that a ride of six miles fatigued him intolerably. The Bath lodgings, which Fielding, surely with his old invincible hopefulness, had hitherto kept were accordingly relinquished; and even his sanguine nature realised the desperate condition of his case. At this point in his narration he breaks off with a characteristically frank disclosure of the chief motive which had inspired him to the heroic exertions of these later months of 1753. At the beginning of the winter his private affairs it seems, "had but a gloomy aspect." The aspect of his own tenure of life we know. And hence to distress of body was added that keenest of all distresses of the mind, the despair of putting his family beyond the reach of necessity. It was gladly therefore that Fielding offered up the 'poor sacrifice' of his shattered health, in the hope of securing a pension for his family, in case his own death were hastened by these last labours for the public.
If sickness was not allowed to hinder Fielding's energies for the benefit of the public, and for the future provision of his family, neither did he permit it to dull the activities of friendship. Early in December, when his illness must have been acute, he wrote the following hitherto unpublished letter to the Lord Chancellor, on behalf of his friend Mr Saunders [Welch]: [8]
"My Lord,
"As I hear that a new Commission of the Peace is soon to pass the Great Seal for Westm'r. give me Leave to recommend the name of Saunders Welch, as well as to the next Commission for Middx. Your Lordship will, I hope, do me the Honour of believing, I should not thus presume, unless I was well satisfied that the Merit of the Man would justifie my Presumption. For this besides a universal Good Character and the many eminent services he hath done the Public, I appeal in particular to Master Lane; and shall only add, as I am positive the Truth is, that his Place can be filled with no other more acceptable to all the Gentlemen in the Commission, and indeed to the Public in general. I am with the highest Duty and Respect,
"My Lord,
"Your Lordship's most obedient
"and most humble servant,
"Henry Ffielding."
"Decr 6. 1753
"To the Lord High Chancellor"