“So much for war and war’s alarms; as to our civil occurences, they have been so boisterously carried I need not change the tone of my narrative; the Judges, the Lord Keeper, the Chief Justice, and the late Lord Chancellor gave their opinions against the Habeas Corpus bill.[184] Lord Temple, much in wrath, insulted the Judges in some of his questions; Lord Lyttelton warmly and sharply reproved him upon which words rose high, the House of Lords interfered. The last day of this bill, Lord Mansfield and Lord Hardwicke[185] spoke so full to the matter, even Tory Lords, and these most violent in their wishes for it, declared they were convinced the new bill was dangerous to liberty in many respects, in many absurd; so that had there been a division there would not have been four votes for it, but Mr. Pitt’s Party discreetly avoided a division. This affair has not set the legislative wisdom of the House of Commons in a very high light, but the great Mr. Beckford,[186] whom no argument can convince, no defeat make ashamed, nor mistake make diffident, did on the motion for a vote of credit stand up in the House of Commons and say he would not oppose that measure, as he had an opinion of the two Commoners in the administration, but in the Peers that composed it, he had no confidence, and ran in foul abuse of them and then ended with a severe censure of the House of Lords in general. Lord Royston[187] answered him that this was unparliamentary where personal, and indecent in regard to the House of Peers in general, to which Mr. Pitt answered with great heat that he was sorry to hear such language from a gentleman who was to be a Peer; he set forth the great importance and dignity of Mr. Beckford personally, and above all the dignity and importance of an alderman, concluding it was a title he should be more proud of than that of a Peer. This speech has enraged the Lords, offended the Commons, and the City ungratefully say was too gross. Those who wish well to this country, and consequently to a union of parties at this juncture, are sorry for these heats; it is well if they do not unsolder the Union.... I began Islington Waters to-day.... You make a false judgment of your own letters. I will allow you to say it gives you some trouble to write them, but pray do not assert that I have not great pleasure in reading them; it becomes not a descendant of the great Bishop Stillingfleet[188] to tell a fib.”
[184] This was occasioned by a gentleman having been impressed for service in the Navy and illegally detained prisoner. The motion was to administer the Act more decisively.
[185] Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, born 1690, died 1764.
[186] Alderman Beckford, a remarkable city man and father of the great millionaire and author.
[187] Son of the Earl of Hardwicke, eventually 2nd Earl.
[188] Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, author of “Eirenicon,” born 1635, died 1699.
BENJAMIN STILLINGFLEET.
JOHN ROGERS — ROGERS’ WILL
Mention has been made of Mr. John Rogers, first cousin on his mother’s side to Mr. Montagu, also of Mr. Montagu becoming his trustee in 1746, when he was pronounced a lunatic. At first it seems that he suffered from epileptic fits, which increased to lunacy, but of a mild order. On June 23 Mr. Edward Steuart wrote to say Mr. Rogers was seriously ill, and his death expected hourly; he was being attended by Dr. Askew, then a famous north-country doctor, and several surgeons, for a mortification in his leg.[189] On the 24th he expired, in his seventy-fourth year, at his house in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Mr. Montagu was his principal heir. Mrs. Montagu, in a letter respecting the estate of East Denton, etc., wrote in later days, “Mr. M. has half the estate by descent, a share by testamentary disposition, and a part by purchase.” Mr. Rogers’ lunacy seems to have been made worse by the death of his wife, Anne Delaval, daughter of Sir John Delaval, whom he married in 1713, and who died in 1722–23. His will was made in 1711, and a codicil added 1715, in which he left his property, after the death of his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Rogers, to his wife, and failing issue by her, to the Montagus and Creaghs, all first cousins. Mary Creagh had married Dominick Archdeacon, and her sister Margaret, Anthony Isaacson; Mr. Montagu’s two brothers, Crewe and John, being dead, the only other heir was Jemima, Mrs. Medows, afterwards Lady Medows. The estates were very large; besides Denton, with its coal-mines, houses in Newcastle, and in Bramston, Lamesley, Harburn, Parkhead, and Jarrow, in the county of Durham; lands at Hindley, Sugley, Throckley, Newbiggin, Scotswood, etc., etc.; collieries and saltpans in Cullercoats, Monkseaton, Whitley, and Hartley, etc., etc. Mrs. Montagu was at Ealing with the Bothams when the express came. She writes to her husband, “It gives me pleasure to think I shall see you with unblemished integrity and unsoiled with unjust gain, enjoying that affluence many purchase with the loss of honesty and honour.”