CHAPTER XIX.
Remarkable Detection of a Murder by William Andrew Horne..... Popular Clamor against Lord George Sackville..... His Address to the Public..... He demands a Court- martial..... Substance of the charge against him..... His Defence..... Remarks on it..... Sentence of the Court- martial..... Earl Ferrers apprehended for Murder..... Tried by the House of Peers..... Convicted, and executed at Tyburn..... Assassination of Mr. Matthews, by one Stirn, a Hessian..... New Bridge begun at Blackfriars..... Conflagration in Portsmouth Yard..... Number of Ships taken by the Enemy..... Progress of Monsieur Thurot..... He makes a Descent at Carrickfergus..... Is slain, and his Ships taken..... Exploit of Captain Kennedy..... Remarkable Adventure of five Irish Seamen..... The Ramillies Man of War wrecked upon the Bolthead..... Treaty with the Cherokees..... Hostilities recommenced..... Their Towns destroyed by Colonel Montgomery..... His Expedition to the Middle Settlements..... Pate of the Garrison at Port Loudoun..... The British Interest established on the Ohio..... The French undertake the Siege of Quebec..... Defeat Brigadier Murray, and oblige him to retire into the Town..... Quebec besieged..... The Enemy’s Shipping destroyed..... They abandon the Siege..... General Amherst reduces the French Port at the Isle Royale..... and takes Montreal..... French Ships destroyed in the Bay of Chaleurs..... Total Reduction of Canada..... Demolition of Louisbourg..... Insurrection of the Negroes in Jamaica..... Action at Sea off Hispaniola..... Gallant Behaviour of Captains O’Brien and Taylor in the Leeward Islands..... Transactions in the East Indies..... Achievements in the Bay of Quiberon..... Admiral Rodney destroys some Vessels on the Coast of France..... Preparations for a secret Expedition..... Astronomers sent to the East Indies..... Earthquakes in Syria..... Wise Conduct of the Catholic King..... Affairs of Portugal..... Turkish Ship of the Line carried into Malta..... Patriotic Schemes of the King of Denmark..... Memorial presented by the British Ambassador to the States-General..... State of the Powers at War..... Death of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel..... Offers made by the Neutral Powers of a Place for holding a Congress..... Skirmishes in Westphalia during the Winter..... Exactions by the French in Westphalia..... Skirmish to the Advantage of the Allies at Vacha..... Situation of the French Armies..... Exploit of Colonel Luckner at Butzback..... The French advance to Neustadt..... The Hereditary Prince of Brunswick defeated at Corback..... but retrieves his honour at Exdorf..... Victory obtained by the Allies at Warbourg..... The Hereditary Prince beats up the Quarters of the French at Zeirenberg..... Petty Advantages on both sides..... The Hereditary Prince marches to the Lower Rhine..... Is worsted at Canipen..... and repasses the Rhine..... Attempt of the Enemy against him..... Advantages gained by M. de Stainville..... The Allies and French go into Winter- quarters
DETECTION OF A MURDER.
The successes of the last campaign had flushed the whole nation with the most elevated hope of future conquest, and the government was enabled to take every step which appeared necessary to realize that sanguine expectation; but the war became every day more and more Germanised. Notwithstanding the immense sums that were raised for the expenses of the current year; notwithstanding the great number of land-forces maintained in the service, and the numerous fleets that filled the harbours of Great Britain; we do not find that one fresh effort was made to improve the advantages she had gained upon her own clement, or for pushing the war on national principles: for the reduction of Canada was no more than the consequence of the measures which had been taken in the preceding campaign. But, before we record the progress of the war, it may be necessary to specify some domestic occurrences that for a little while engrossed the public attention. In the month of December, in the preceding year, William Andrew Home, a gentleman of some fortune in Derbyshire, was executed at Nottingham, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, for the murder of an infant born of his own sister, in the year one thousand seven hundred and twenty-four. On the third day after the birth, this brutal ruffian thrust the child into a linen bag, and accompanied by his own brother on horseback, conveyed it to Annesley, in Nottinghamshire, where it was next day found dead under a hay-stack. Though this cruel rustic knew how much he lay at the mercy of his brother, whom he had made privy to this affair, far from endeavouring to engage his secrecy by offices of kindness and marks of affection, he treated him as an alien to his blood; not barely with indifference, but even with the most barbarous rigour. He not only defrauded him of his right, but exacted of him the lowest menial services; beheld him starving in a cottage, while he lived himself in affluence; and refused to relieve with a morsel of charity the children of his own brother begging at his gate. It was the resentment of this pride and barbarity which, in all likelihood, first impelled the other to revenge. He pretended qualms of conscience, and disclosed the transaction of the child to several individuals. As the brother was universally hated for the insolence and brutality of his disposition, information was given against him, and a resolution formed to bring him to condign punishment. Being informed of this design, he tampered with his brother, and desired that he would retract upon the trial the evidence he had given before the justices. Though the brother rejected this scheme of subornation, he offered to withdraw himself from the kingdom, if he might have five pounds to defray the expense of his removal. So sordidly avaricious was the other, that he refused to advance this miserable pittance, though he knew his own life depended upon his compliance. He was accordingly apprehended, tried, and convicted on his brother’s evidence; and then he confessed the particulars of his exposing the infant. He denied, indeed, that he had any thought the child would perish, and declared he intended it as a present to a gentleman at whose gate it was laid; butas he appeared to be a hardened miscreant, devoid of humanity, stained with the complicated crimes of tyranny, fraud, rapine, incest, and murder, very little credit is due to his declaration.—In the course of the same month, part of Westminster was grievously alarmed by a dreadful conflagration, which broke out in the house of a cabinet-maker near Covent-garden, raged with great fury, and reduced near twenty houses to ashes. Many others were damaged, and several persons either burned in their apartments, or buried under the ruins. The bad consequences of this calamity were in a great measure alleviated by the humanity of the public, and the generous compassion of the prince of Wales, who contributed liberally to the relief of the sufferers.
CLAMOUR AGAINST LORD SACKVILLE.
But no subject so much engrossed the conversations and passions of the public as did the case of lord George Sackville, who had by this time resigned his command in Germany, and returned to England, the country which, of all others, it would have been his interest to avoid at this juncture, if he was really conscious of the guilt the imputation of which his character now sustained. With the first tidings of the battle fought at Minden the defamation of this officer arrived. He was accused of having disobeyed orders, and his conduct represented as infamous in every particular. These were the suggestions of a vague report, which no person could trace to its origin; yet this report immediately gave birth to one of the most inflammatory pamphlets that ever was exhibited to the public. The first charge had alarmed the people of England, jealous in honour, sudden and rash in their sentiments, and obstinately adhering to the prejudices they have espoused. The implied accusation in the orders of prince Ferdinand, and the combustible matter superadded by the pamphlet-writer, kindled up such a blaze of indignation in the minds of the people, as admitted of no temperament or control. An abhorrence and detestation of lord George Sackville, as a coward and a traitor, became the universal passion, which acted by contagion, infecting all degrees of people from the cottage to the throne; and no individual, who had the least regard for his own character and quiet, would venture to preach up moderation, or even advise a suspension of belief until more certain information could be received. Fresh fuel was continually thrown in by obscure authors of pamphlets and newspapers, who stigmatized and insulted with such virulent perseverance, that no one would have imagined they were actuated by personal motives, not retained by mercenary booksellers, against that unfortunate nobleman. Not satisfied with inventing circumstances to his dishonour, in his conduct on the last occasion, they pretended to take a retrospective view of his character, and produced a number of anecdotes to his prejudice, which had never before seen the light, and but for this occasion had probably never been known. Not that all the writings which appeared on this subject contained fresh matters of aggravation against lord George Sackville. Some writers, either animated by the hope of advantage, or hired to betray the cause which they undertook to defend, entered the lists as professed champions of the accused, assumed the pen in his behalf, devoid of sense, unfurnished with materials, and produced performances which could not fail to injure his character among all those who believed that he countenanced their endeavours, and supplied them with the facts and arguments of his defence. Such precisely was the state of the dispute when lord George arrived in London. While prince Ferdinand was crowned with laurel; while the king of Great Britain approved his conduct, and, as the most glorious mark of that approbation, invested him with the order of the garter, while his name was celebrated through all England, and extolled, in the warmest expressions of hyperbole, above all the heroes of antiquity; every mouth was opened in execration of the late commander of the British troops in Germany. He was now made acquainted with the particulars of his imputed guilt, which he had before indistinctly learned. He was accused of having disobeyed three successive orders he had received from the general, during the action at Minden, to advance with the cavalry of the right wing, which he commanded, and sustain the infantry that were engaged; and, after the cavalry were put in motion, of having halted them unnecessarily, and marched so slow, that they could not reach the place of action in time to be of any service, by which conduct the opportunity was lost of attacking the enemy when they gave way, and rendering the victory more glorious and decisive. The first step which lord George took towards his own vindication with the public, was in printing a short address, entreating them to suspend their belief with respect to his character, until the charge brought against him should be legally discussed by a court-martial, a trial which he had already solicited, and was in hopes of obtaining.