Prince Ferdinand’s campaign was not alike resplendent in action or variety. His army had been reinforced, but was still inferior to the French commanded by Marshal Broglio. A separate corps was under the orders of Count St. Germain, an officer of reputation, but between whom and Broglio an enmity subsisted, which made it thought unadvisable to let them act together. That they should even act in concert was little to be expected—nor did they. Prince Ferdinand reaped security from their dissensions rather than laurels. Their animosities ran so high, that Broglio ordering St. Germain to join his force with the Grand Army, contrary to the compact which the latter had made of commanding a distinct body, St. Germain, who was also an older officer, threw up his commission, and quitted the service of his country.
The Hereditary Prince, ever alert, had attacked a post, been beaten, and been wounded. He soon compensated for that disgrace by surprising another detachment, in which he made the General who commanded it, and 3000 men, prisoners. That success was followed by a more considerable action at Warbourg, in which the French were again worsted by Prince Ferdinand and his heroic nephew: yet so little advantage was reaped by that achievement, that the French soon overran Hesse, seized Göttingen and Munden, and were at the eve of possessing Hanover.
The Hereditary Prince continued his eccentric enterprises with advantage. His ardour was well seconded by the bravery of the English troops: yet those flying rencounters rather kept off than forwarded any decisive blow. Prince Ferdinand made other detachments with like prosperity; and gained at least the glory of diverting Broglio, with very superior force, from accomplishing any point of importance. A more unaccountable expedition, on which Prince Ferdinand suddenly dispatched his nephew, at the head of a considerable force, towards the frontiers of Holland, occasioned much solicitude in England, as the main Army, already unequal to that of France, was thus rendered much weaker. King George felt it with anxiety; and though not productive of the disasters apprehended, it was far, whatever were the object of its destination, from turning to account. Cleves, indeed, fell into our hands, and the siege of Wesel was undertaken; but the French not thinking fit to leave the Hereditary Prince undisturbed in his progress, sent Monsieur de Castries, with a powerful detachment, to interrupt the siege. The Prince, whose characteristic was quickness, did not wait to be compelled to raise the siege. He attempted to surprise the enemy, but was repulsed with loss, and received another wound.
In that action fell Lord Downe,[112] a gallant young man, adorned with every amiable quality. Intrepid, generous, and good-natured, he had abandoned the enjoyment of an ample fortune for the pursuit of arms, to which he had an ungovernable impulse. He had parts to have distinguished him in a safer scene; and a peculiarity of humour that ornamented even his virtues. He received three wounds, and languished some weeks in torment, which he supported with indifference to everything but the impatience of returning to his profession—but his wounds were mortal. The Prince rejoined the Army, which soon after went into winter-quarters.
While the theatre of war was thus open to men so formed to shine on it, another hero, who had been excluded from the scene, was in a melancholy condition. The Duke of Cumberland in the summer had a stroke of palsy. He soon recovered both his speech and limbs; but the grossness of his constitution, and other disorders, made his friends apprehend he would not long survive it. Himself treated it with indifference, and with the same philosophy with which his high spirit had supported misfortunes to him more sensible.
The martial temper of the age called forth a champion of dissimilar complexion. There was in Ireland an Earl of Clanrickard, who, even in this country, where singular characters are not uncommon, had been reckoned more than ordinarily extravagant. The Duke of Bedford had refused to let him raise a regiment. To prove his valour, he challenged the Lord-Lieutenant, who contemning so improper an adversary, the Earl printed in the public papers a letter to the Duke, reproaching him with rejecting the challenge, and reflecting both on his Grace and his secretary, whose bones he threatened to break. Such an insult on the chief governor of a kingdom was atrocious. The Privy Council of England ordered the Attorney-General to commence a prosecution against the Earl. Mr. Rigby, whose spirit was more questionless than the Earl’s, returned a challenge for himself; but the Earl thought it safest to confine his prowess to the master, and forbore coming to England. Three years afterwards, when Rigby went to Ireland to qualify for a place, the Privy Council of that kingdom obliged Lord Clanrickard to give security for his good behaviour; and the matter was compromised.
These were the last events in the long and memorable reign of George the Second—a reign that had produced as great statesmen, orators, and heroes as dignify the annals of whatever country. His thirteen first years were stamped with every blessing of peace, but unanimity—if disagreement is an evil to a free country, to which jealousy is perhaps essential. A Rebellion and two wars called forth all our resources: the disgrace that attended the Councils and prosecution of the first war served but to illustrate the abilities of the nation, which, reviving from its ignominy and calamities, carried the glory of our arms and measures to a height unknown in our story. The Prince himself was neither accessary to the one or the other. His greatest merit was bearing either fortune with calmness. Triumphant as Elizabeth and Anne, he neither presumed on the zeal of his subjects like the first, nor was so like the last as to concur in or behold an ignominious peace, that tarnished such conspicuous victories, and squandered such irrecoverable advantages. Full of years and glory, he died without a pang, and without a reverse. He left his family firmly established on a long-disputed Throne, and was taken away in the moment that approaching extinction of sight and hearing made loss of life the only blessing that remained desirable.
On the 25th of October he rose as usual at six, and drank his chocolate; for all his actions were invariably methodic. A quarter after seven he went into a little closet. His German valet de chambre in waiting, heard a noise, and running in, found the King dead on the floor. In falling, he had cut his face against the corner of a bureau. He was laid on a bed and blooded, but not a drop followed: the ventricle of his heart had burst. Princess Amelie was called, and told the King wanted her. She went immediately, and thought him in a fit. Being deaf herself, she saw nothing in the chamber that indicated his being dead; and putting her face close to his, to hear if he spoke to her, she then first perceived he was lifeless.
The character of this Prince has been so amply displayed in the course of this work, that it were tautology to recapitulate it. His faults were more the blemishes of a private man than of a King. The affection and tenderness he invariably showed to a people over whom he had unbounded rule, forbid our wondering that he used circumscribed power with moderation. Often situated in humiliating circumstances, his resentments seldom operated when the power of revenge returned. He bore the ascendant of his Ministers, who seldom were his favourites, with more patience than he suffered any encroachment on his will from his mistresses. Content to bargain for the gratification of his two predominant passions, Hanover and money, he was almost indifferent to the rest of his royal authority, provided exterior observance was not wanting; for he comforted himself if he did not perceive the diminution of Majesty, though it was notorious to all the rest of the world. Yet he was not so totally careless of the affection and interests of this country as his father had been. George the First possessed a sounder understanding and a better temper: yet George the Second gained more by being compared with his eldest son, than he lost if paralleled with his father. His treatment of his second son, to whose valour he was indebted for the preservation of his Crown, and to the silence and tenderness of whose duty he owed the preservation of his honour, was punished by the ingratitude of the Princess of Wales.