Debate in Parliament against the Hanoverian Troops..... Supplies granted..... Projected Invasion of Great Britain..... A French Squadron sails up the English Channel..... The Kingdom is put in a Posture of Defence..... The Design of the French defeated..... War between France and England..... Dill against those who should correspond with the Sons of the Pretender..... Naval Engagement off Toulon..... Advances towards Peace made by the Emperor..... Treaty of Franckfort..... Progress of the French King in the Netherlands..... Prince Charles of Lorraine passes the Rhine..... The King of Prussia makes an Irruption into Bohemia..... Campaign in Bavaria and Flanders..... The King of Naples joins Count Gages in Italy-Battle of Coni..... Return of Commodore Anson..... Sir John Balchen perishes at Sea...... Revolution in the British Ministry..... Session of Parliament..... Death of the Emperor Charles VII...... Accommodation between the Queen of Hungary and the young Elector of Bavaria..... The King of Prussia gains two successive Battles at Friedberg and Sohr over the Austrian and Saxon Forces..... Treaty of Dresden..... The Grand Duke of Tuscany elected Emperor of Germany..... The Allies are defeated at Fontenoy..... The King of Sardinia is almost stripped of his Dominions..... The English Forces take Cape Breton..... The Importance of this Conquest..... Project of an Insurrection in Great Britain..... The eldest Son of the Chevalier de St. George lands in Scotland..... Takes Possession of Edinburgh..... Defeats Sir John Cope at Preston-Pans..... Efforts of the Friends of Government in Scotland..... Precautions taken in England..... The Prince Pretender reduces Carlisle, and penetrates as far as Derby..... Consternation of the Londoners..... The Rebels retreat into Scotland..... They invest the Castle of Stirling..... The King’s Troops under Hawley are worsted at Falkirk..... The Duke of Cumberland assumes the Command of the Forces in Scotland..... The Rebels undertake the Siege of Fort-William
The discontents of England were artfully inflamed by anti-ministerial writers, who not only exaggerated the burdens of the people, and drew frightful pictures of the distress and misery which, they said, impended over the nation, but also employed the arts of calumny and misrepresentation, to excite a jealousy and national quarrel between the English and Hanoverians. They affirmed that in the last campaign the British general had been neglected and despised; while the councils of foreign officers, greatly inferior to him in capacity, quality, and reputation, had been followed, to the prejudice of the common cause; that the British troops sustained daily insults from their own mercenaries, who were indulged with particular marks of royal favour; that the sovereign himself appeared at Dettingen in a Hanoverian scarf; and that his electoral troops were of very little service in that engagement. Though the most material of these assertions were certainly false, they made a strong impression on the minds of the people, already irritated by the enormous expense of a continental war maintained for the interest of Germany. When the parliament met in the beginning of December, a motion was made in the house of peers by the earl of Sandwich, for an address, beseeching his majesty to discontinue the Hanoverian troops in British pay, in order to remove the popular discontent, and stop the murmurs of the English troops abroad. He was supported by the duke of Bedford, the earl of Chesterfield, and all the leaders in the opposition, who did not fail to enumerate and insist upon all the circumstances we have mentioned. They moreover observed, that better troops might be hired at a smaller expense; that it would be a vain and endless task to exhaust the national treasure in enriching a hungry and barren electorate; that the popular dissatisfaction against these mercenaries was so general, and raised to such violence, as nothing but their dismission could appease; that if such hirelings should be thus continued from year to year, they might at last become a burden entailed upon the nation, and be made subservient, under some ambitious prince, to purposes destructive of British liberty. These were the suggestions of spleen and animosity: for, granting the necessity of a land war, the Hanoverians were the most natural allies and auxiliaries which Great Britain could engage and employ. How insolent soever some few individual generals of that electorate might have been in their private deportment, certain it is their troops behaved with great sobriety, discipline, and decorum; and in the day of battle did their duty with as much courage and alacrity as any body of men ever displayed on the like occasion. The motion was rejected by the majority; but, when the term for keeping them in the British pay was nearly expired, and the estimates for their being continued the ensuing year were laid before the house, the earl of Sandwich renewed his motion. The lord-chancellor, as speaker of the house, interposing, declared that by their rules a question once rejected could not be revived during the same session. A debate ensued, and the second motion was over-ruled. The Hanoverian troops were voted in the house of commons; nevertheless, the same nobleman moved in the tipper house, that the continuing sixteen thousand Hanoverians in British pay was prejudicial to his majesty’s true interest, useless to the common cause, and dangerous to the welfare and tranquillity of the nation. He was seconded by the duke of Marlborough, who had resigned his commission in disgust; and the proposal gave birth to another warm dispute: but victory declared, as usual, for the ministry.
In the house of commons they sustained divers attacks. A motion was made for laying a duty of eight shillings in the pound on all places and pensions. Mr. Grenville moved for an address, to beseech his majesty that he would not engage the British nation any further in the war on the continent, without the concurrence of the states-general on certain stipulated proportions of force and expense, as in the late war. These proposals begat vigorous debates, in which the country party were always foiled by dint of superior number. Such was the credit and influence of the ministry in parliament, that although the national debt was increased by above six millions since the commencement of the war, the commons indulged them with an enormous sum for the expense of the ensuing year. The grants specified in the votes amounted to six millions and a half; to this sum were added three millions and a half paid to the sinking fund in perpetual taxes; so that this year’s expense rose to ten millions. The funds established for the annual charge were the land and malt taxes; one million paid by the East India company for the renewal of their charter, twelve hundred thousand pounds by annuities, one million from the sinking fund, six-and-thirty thousand pounds from the coinage, and six hundred thousand pounds by a lottery—an expedient which for some time had been annually repeated; and which, in a great measure, contributed to debauch the morals of the public, by introducing a spirit of gaming, destructive of all industry and virtue.
PROJECTED INVASION OF GREAT BRITAIN.
The dissensions of the British parliament were suddenly suspended by an event that seemed to unite both parties in the prosecution of the same measures. This was the intelligence of an intended invasion. By the parliamentary disputes, the loud clamours, and the general dissatisfaction of the people in Great Britain, the French ministry were persuaded that the nation was ripe for a revolt. This belief was corroborated by the assertions of their emissaries in different parts of Great Britain and Ireland. These were papists and Jacobites of strong prejudices and warm imaginations, who saw things through the medium of passion and party, and spoke rather from extravagant zeal than from sober conviction. They gave the court of Versailles to understand, that if the chevalier de St. George, or his eldest son Charles Edward, should appear at the head of a French army in Great Britain, a revolution would instantly follow in his favour. This intimation was agreeable to cardinal de Tencin, who, since the death of Fleury, had borne a share in the administration of France. He was of a violent enterprising temper. He had been recommended to the purple by the chevalier de St. George, and was seemingly attached to the Stuart family. His ambition was flattered with the prospect of giving a king to Great Britain; of performing such eminent service to his benefactor, and of restoring to the throne of their ancestors a family connected by the ties of blood with all the greatest princes of Europe. The ministry of France foresaw, that even if this aim should miscarry, a descent upon Great Britain would make a considerable diversion from the continent in favour of France, and embroil and embarrass his Britannic majesty, who was the chief support of the house of Austria, and all its allies. Actuated by these motives, he concerted measures with the chevalier de St. George at Rome, who being too much advanced in years to engage personally in such an expedition, agreed to delegate his pretensions and authority to his son Charles, a youth of promising talents, sage, secret, brave, and enterprising, amiable in his person, grave, and even reserved in his deportment. He approved himself in the sequel composed and moderate in success, wonderfully firm in adversity; and though tenderly nursed in all the delights of an effeminate country, and gentle climate, patient almost beyond belief of cold, hunger, and fatigue. Such was the adventurer now destined to fill the hope which the French ministry had conceived, from the projected invasion of Great Britain.
A FRENCH SQUADRON SAILS UP THE ENGLISH CHANNEL.
Count Saxe was appointed by the French king commander of the troops designed for this expedition, which amounted to fifteen thousand men. They began their march to Picardy, and a great number of vessels was assembled for their embarkation at Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne. It was determined that they should be landed in Kent, under convoy of a strong squadron equipped at Brest, and commanded by monsieur de Roquefeuille, an officer of experience and capacity. The chevalier de St. George is said to have required the personal service of the duke of Ormond, who excused himself on account of his advanced age; be that as it will, prince Charles departed from Rome about the end of December, in the disguise of a Spanish courier, attended by one servant only, and furnished with passports by cardinal Aquaviva. He travelled through Tuscany to Genoa, from whence he proceeded to Savona, where he embarked for Antibes, and prosecuting his journey to Paris, was indulged with a private audience of the French king; then he set out incognito for the coast of Picardy. The British ministry being apprized of his arrival in France, at once comprehended the destination of the armaments prepared at Brest and Boulogne. Mr. Thompson, the English resident at Paris, received orders to make a remonstrance to the French ministry, on the violation of those treaties by which the pretender to the crown of Great Britain was excluded from the territories of France. But he was given to understand, that his most christian, majesty would not explain himself on that subject, until the king of England should have given satisfaction on the repeated complaints which had been made to him, touching the infractions of those very treaties which had been so often violated by his orders. In the month of January, M. de Roquefeuille sailed from Brest, directing his course up the English channel, with twenty ships of war. They were immediately discovered by an English cruiser, which ran into Plymouth; and the intelligence was conveyed by land to the board of admiralty. Sir John Norris was forthwith ordered to take the command of the squadron at Spithead, with which he sailed round to the Downs, where he was joined by some ships of the line from Chatham, and then he found himself at the head of a squadron considerably stronger than that of the enemy.