25th.—Lord Winchelsea had summoned the Lords to consider an Admiralty Bill, which had passed the Commons without opposition, and which was designed to commute the punishment of transportation into working in the Dockyards. Bills of less invidious appearance had often raised a flame in combustible seasons: this seemed to introduce a kind of galley slavery, yet was really converting a species of disgraceful criminals, who only corrupt our Plantations, into useful members of society. Could the monthly shambles at Tyburn (that scene that shocks humanity, and reproaches our Police!) be exchanged for severe labour in the same way, it would reflect honour on a Legislature, which ought not to wanton in such punishment of its members as death and banishment, but to extract public utility, even from crimes. The Duke of Newcastle, fearing to be attacked himself, and the Chancellor, as apprehensive for his silent son-in-law, Lord Anson, the head of the Admiralty and patron of the Bill, prevailed on Lord Northumberland to rise, commend the Bill, and then move to have it put off for six weeks. The Duke of Bedford called him to order for entering upon the Bill before it was read.
28th.—Lord Tyrawley was sent to Lisbon, to accommodate some differences which had been occasioned by our Captains openly running Portugal pieces, which had used to be brought on board our ships by the decent intervention of the Monks.
The same day was read for the first time a Bill to empower the Government to purchase, at the rate of about an hundred thousand pounds, the estates in Scotland forfeited by the late Rebellion, and which the King was to cede to the public, in order to have colonies settled on them, especially of Foreign Protestants. The necessity of the purchase was pretended to arise from mortgages on them, and which would even consume the property in a few years, and pass them from the King’s hands into those of the mortgagees. Grants of money to Scotland have ever been suspicious: the influence of the Duke of Argyle over the ductility of the Ministry was most notorious; the claims now erected on these forfeitures most incredible; and the establishment of Colonies in parts so barren, so uninviting, of such unpleasant neighbourhood, most improbable and impracticable. One circumstance alone, of public notoriety, staggered all credit in the sum demanded. Lord Lovat, at the bar of the House of Lords, had declared that his was the best estate in Scotland, for there were no debts upon it—it now appeared charged with a mortgage of thirty thousand pounds! Vyner, Northey, Beckford, Sydenham, Fazakerley, Prowse, and the Whig-General Mordaunt, opposed the Bill. The Scotch Lord Advocate, Mr. Pelham, Sir William Yonge, and Oswald, with fine warmth supported it, and it passed that day without a division; and again on the second reading, March 2d, when it was faintly opposed by the same people, and defended by the same, and by the Attorney-General.[213]
March 4th.—The Bill was reported: Vyner observed that no retribution had been made to any parts of England that had suffered by the Rebels, though ten thousand pounds had been given to Glasgow alone, to compensate their damages. Sir John Mordaunt asked with spirit, whether Englishmen would go to these intended settlements for twenty pounds a year, only to have land a fifth cheaper? Whether the English Ministry meant to send 28,000 men only to starve? or whether they would suffer themselves to be sent? He said, the Scotch were so attached to the individual spots of their tribes, that when Glenbucket had wanted to transplant his M’Donalds to the site of the M’Phersons, the colonists had been murdered, their houses burnt, and Glenbucket himself received several wounds. That this scheme would set the whole Highlands in a flame—“when that is done,” said he, “I will congratulate the gentlemen who brought in the Bill—in the mean time, let me tell them, that so impotent or so supine is the Government in that part of the island, that there is now a person, a man of five hundred pounds a year, who forced three or four hundred Drummonds into the Rebellion, and has sons in Lord John Drummond’s regiment in France, who lives tranquilly, securely, on his own estate in Scotland, and triumphs over the well-affected and loyal.”
General Campbell maintained the probability of establishing the Colony in question, and instanced in one at Strontean, where mines are carried on by a company from hence, who are well received there, who have polished the country, and where three to one are well-affected. Legge said, that this system will have more effect than all that had been done about dress and jurisdictions, because those regulations were imposed by force; but this was to be purchased: that the economy of the measure could not be questioned, as, by buying mortgaged estates, you may prevent future Rebellions, and consequently avoid the heavy charges which Rebellion occasions. That the Colony must be sent armed; and that for some time the Army must be used as a succedaneum to this measure, though force produces only artificial loyalty in breasts, that will still be waiting for opportunities of revenge; but that nest-egg of Rebellion must be crushed in time of peace; that if this measure is not adopted, the remaining alternatives were, to acquiesce under incidental Rebellions, or to exterminate the disaffected by fire and sword; that what is loyalty or disloyalty here, is there food or starving. Feed the clans, they will obey; starve them they must rebel: that the means, therefore, of eradicating this spirit in the common people are obvious; polish them, introduce the arts of peace amongst them—the disloyalty of the gentlemen is with more difficulty to be subdued.
Lord Coke spoke with animosity[214] against the measure, as being a Scotch measure; Lord Hilsborough with approbation of it, as resembling what, he said, he had experienced in Ireland, where he had seen mountains of Papists settled at last by Protestants, after two or three colonies had been successively driven off; and he said sensibly, “have we 6000 men who keep all Scotland in order, and will they not be able to protect this little colony?”
Northey objected to the economy of a measure which was pretended [to be] calculated to save the expense of an Army, and yet must be put in execution by an Army! and he stated the collusive manner in which the calculation was drawn up, and observed that the claims erected were 270,000l.; that the estates to be purchased are 16,000l. a year; that it is allowed, that there is personal estate sequestered to the amount of 19,000l.; and yet that that sum was not allotted towards the purchase. The Report was agreed to by 171 to 34. Lord Gower’s sons[215] were in the minority: none of the Duke’s servants were present but Felton Hervey, and he too was against the Bill.
7th.—Prince Edward, the young Prince of Orange, and the Earls of Lincoln, Winchelsea, and Cardigan, were declared Knights of the Garter: the Scotch Earl of Dumfries had the Green Ribband, and Lord Onslow the Red.
Some differences happened upon a ship of ours taking sailors out of an Embden vessel; and a Bill was brought in to prevent insuring Embden ships.