By Scriven after Slater, 1813.
From the Collection of A. M. Broadley, Esq.
This month Nelson had made an attempt to cut out the French flotilla at Boulogne by a boat attack, which failed owing to the fact that the French had chained their vessels together, and were able to defend them by a heavy musketry fire from the shore.
Lt.-Col. John de Blaquiere, son of an Emigré, who had been M.P. for several English and Irish constituencies, and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was created a Baronet in 1784, and advanced to the Peerage in 1800.
Brynbella [6] Sep. 1801.
(Franked "de Blaquiere")
... Our Barometer begins rising while I write, and the plantations drink their fill from the Horn of future Plenty. Ploughing and preparing ground for next year's crop will now be all done by Michaelmass, and the dwellers in Mark Lane may pray for their own safety: it will be in more danger than our purses and stomachs. God Almighty will send victuals, and the—— may take care of the Cooks.
I know not how you gather'd from my letter that I believed in Hannah More's change of condition, tho' my neighbours did. Yet never having heard that Dr. Crossman was a married or a single man, and seeing no jokes accompany the intelligence, which came in the regular list of weddings for the week, I own myself stagger'd, and now the Papers are filling with epigrammatic nonsense which will confirm people in their credence, if no contradiction is given.
With regard to our dear charming friend, her tormentors must be private ones. The Public would not suffer their truly deserving favourite to be insulted; and she should run to, not from the Theatre, for protection. I guess not what character it was in which, you say, she will appear no more. Tell me, and tell me what she thinks of the enclosed. Oh! how you and I must for ever hold abhorred of our whole souls, the human creature who can thus delight in torturing a heart like hers! Have I ever seen him, think you? Has he made advances to her, and been refused? Or does he protect a rival Actress rising into fame? Or what inspires such horrible malignity? I pretend not to trace, as Fanny Burney and as Harriet Lee can do, vile passions to their source, but such characters prove the Play of Hatred and feelings of de Montfort not out of nature....
My packet of macaroni came down without the book in it, so I still remain ignorant of all but what you tell me.... Well! I shall read it some time, and will learn (even without its assistance) to give my esteem where confidence would be ill bestowed. I wish all the Lees very well, notwithstanding what has passed in my own mind concerning their conduct towards me. We must take people as they are, and such people are, at any rate, extremely difficult to meet with.
Our little Boy left us yesterday, and for Mr. Davies's credit and his own, left us chearfully. A sweeter temper'd creature lives not, nor one better disposed to smooth down life's asperities before him, either by well applied strength, or by a power happier still, of rolling over them, and suffering little hurt.
Miss Thrale has written to me very civilly from Lowestoffe. We have the whole island between us; for Mr. Piozzi promises me a dip in our Irish Channel next week, and we go on Thursday next to a Bathing Place called Prestatyn, about 14 miles off. Now do not exclaim "What! are you 14 miles from the sea?" because we are scarcely 4 miles; but from any conveniences we are at least fourteen. The invasion seems to keep nobody inland, and by the King's giving up Bath entirely I gather the Ministers no longer feel apprehensions. If French chicanery cannot raise a famine or a sedition among us, and if "even-handed Justice does indeed return the ingredients of that poyson'd chalice to themselves," and set on foot a mutiny among their own soldiers,—peace must follow. I told you it was coming, and plenty too; and what I told you then my heart adheres to still....
Dr. Crossman, to whom the newspapers had married Hannah More, was rector of Blagdon, the parish in which her controversy with Bere, the curate, arose.
Brynbella, Fryday Oct. 9, 1801.
Well! my dear, tardy Friend! your letter is come at last, and a nice letter it is. I have one too this post from Mr. Whalley, so kind! He has had enough to do with his Lady Writers, but he loves both Hannah More and myself, and the least we can do in return is to be merry, love our friends, forgive our enemies, forget offenders and offences, and light up our windows for the Peace. The terms are certainly in no sense disgraceful, and since we have all been saying so repeatedly, "Let us heal our own wounds, limit our own expences, and care no longer for Allies who, 'tis sure, care not for us;" I pronounce our Ministers fully justified to this Country for quitting their post, and leaving every other Country to the fate they would none of them resist. While France, having enlarged her own territory beyond the proudest hope of their own proudest Monarch, has prudently bought us off from fighting Europe's battles, with two eminently rich, useful, and valuable Islands: well knowing that an Englishman will always be quiet while his palate is pleased and his pockets full.
The Gold, and Silver, and Rubies, and Rice from Ceylon, sweeten'd by Sugar from Trinidad, will keep Great Britain in perfect good humour, and the Commercial Treaty will keep her employ'd; and in the meantime Alexander and Buonaparte mean to divide the Globe. Such is apparently their project for 1801; how and by what means God Almighty will render it abortive remains to be seen. The internal politics of our United Kingdoms here at home offer a fair shew certainly, for if people are not pleas'd with seeing their ports fill'd with foreign corn, and their stack-yards groaning under the weight of our own harvests, what will please them? Not the price of Mutton in the markets I trow; for between the inclosing commons, and improving the breed of sheep in Counties where such large animals cannot find pasture, with many other reasons, their flesh will sell for 6d. an ounce next year, and we shall have more mouths to feed after the War is over, unless the mortality at Liverpool goes on. Ah! dear Friend! I told you how it would be, and true did I tell you, but no matter,
For other thoughts mild Heav'n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, tho' wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day;
And when God sends a chearful hour, refrains.
Let us light up our windows and be merry....
Little did I dream seven years ago of seeing peace proclaimed between Great Britain and the Consular State of France. Little could I ever have dreamed that I should see Venice annihilated, Genoa forgotten, Piedmont's Alpine barrier insufficient to keep out invasion, even in the depth of winter; and old Rome, divided against herself, dropping into her enemy's mouth almost without invitation. The world, as it appears, consenting to all this, and even happy to think things have gone no worse. We shall see more yet, but shall not see all. All! no, nor half....
I wrote Harriet Lee word how much her tale impress'd me. 'Tis a characteristic of this age, I think, to shew what forcible impression may be made by setting only our mean passions to work, avarice, fraud, and fear; instead of generosity, love, and valour. What she has done, however, is very striking; and every one I lend the book to is amazed to find Conrade the murderer of Stralenheim....
The long-expected Peace, which gave us Trinidad and Ceylon, was not finally arranged till March, but preliminaries were signed October 1.
Brynbella, 30 Nov. 1801.
No, thank you, my dear anxious Friend; we are pretty well, and pretty happy, as health and happiness in this world go. I have had more than my share of both, blessed be God. My master has an addition to his torments, St. Anthony's fire, in and out, but much less afflicting than troublesome. It keeps him from going to neighbours' houses, and without that, there is no hope of Autumnal society at Brynbella: it will keep him from going to yours, and then he must learn to swear of dear Mr. Pennington. Lord de Blaquiere, who used to free my covers, is gone to London, and my prudence (for the first time in my life) overbalanced my tenderness, and so I made you uneasy: and so I'm glad you were uneasy, and there's an end.
We have written about the house to Mrs. Garrart and to Harriet Lee both. They say my Lord Kenmare is in now, and will be out on the 12th Jan. That time will do nicely, and the poor folks round here are glad he does not quit sooner, tho' Mr. Piozzi has given a dozen of them good warm winter jackets, and a petticoat each to the wife: and barley, which last year was at 32s., they may have now at 18s., and good wheat at a guinea. So I shall leave them with less regret this year than last for all those reasons; and we employ a vast many hands in planting....
Something is the matter at Belvidere House, I do think. Harriet says she has the Black Dog upon her back, and writes as if wishing to be courted out of the secret. Instead of doing which, I wrote her a rhodomontading letter, all mirth and no matter[21] (as Beatrice says) to turn the course of her ideas: for I wish not confidence where real kindness has ceased to reside: and if these novel-writing Ladies fancy that they, and they alone, can read the human mind,—'tis a mistake. Your imagination is bound by the Juggler who rattles and talks while he ties a knot in your pocket-handkerchief, as surely as by the sly Thief that steals it, only the intention is more honorable....
Oh do tell the Doctor that Lord Kirkwall did not marry Miss Ormsby, and that everybody says it was because he felt that he liked Miss Blaquiere better; certain it is the first match went off; and if this second does not come on, I shall wonder.
You were always more sanguine about the benefits of peace than I was, but tranquillity is the best consequence it can have; let's not therefore disturb that by putting monopoly in people's heads, or in their mouths. Such talk leads to nothing but riot. If there is no scarcity there will be no monopoly: the people can monopolise nothing that is not already scarce. A peace which leaves unresisted France mistress of more territory than was ever hoped for by her proudest Monarch in his proudest day; which annihilates before her grasp principalities and powers, and leaves her tributary Republics secur'd to her services by the cheap garrison, Opinion, cannot be viewed without horror by the mere writer of Retrospection. Tho' such were the miseries of war, and such the acquisitions by treaty to Great Britain, that peace has a right, not only to please, but to console, and even delight a true English subject....
[21] Much Ado, II. i. 344.