I am this moment come from the conclusion of the greatest and most melancholy scene I ever yet saw. You will easily guess it was the trials of the rebel Lords. As it was the most interesting sight, it was the most solemn and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and all the splendour of it idle; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes, and engaged all one's passions. It began last Monday; three-quarters of Westminster Hall were enclosed with galleries, and hung with scarlet; and the whole ceremony was concluded with the most awful solemnity and decency, except in the one point of leaving the prisoners at the bar, amidst the idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the witnesses who had sworn against them, while the Lords adjourned to their own House to consult. No part of the royal family was there, which was a proper regard to the unhappy men, who were become their victims. One hundred and thirty-nine Lords were present, and made a noble sight on their benches frequent and full! The Chancellor [Hardwicke] was Lord High Steward; but though a most comely personage, with a fine voice, his behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the Minister that is no peer [Pelham], and consequently applying to the other Ministers, in a manner, for their orders; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping up the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character is to point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer they made towards defence. I had armed myself with all the resolution I could, with the thought of their crimes and of the danger past, and was assisted by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian, in weepers for his son, who fell at Culloden; but the first appearance of the prisoners shocked me!—their behaviour melted me! Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Cromartie are both past forty, but look younger. Lord Kilmarnock is tall and slender, with an extreme fine person: his behaviour a most just mixture between dispute and submission; if in anything to be reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly dressed for a man in his situation; but when I say this, it is not to find fault with him, but to show how little fault there was to be found. Lord Cromartie is an indifferent figure, appeared much dejected and rather sullen: he dropped a few tears the first day, and swooned as soon as he got back to his cell.
For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old fellow I ever saw; the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. At the bar he behaved like a soldier and a man; in the intervals of form, with carelessness and humour. He pressed extremely to have his wife—his pretty Peggy—with him in the Tower. Lady Cromartie only sees her husband through the grate, not choosing to be shut up with him, as she thinks she can serve him better by her intercession without; she is big with child, and very handsome; so are her daughters. When they were to be brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in which the axe must go. Old Balmerino cried, "Come, come, put it with me." At the bar, he plays with his fingers upon the axe, while he talks to the gentleman-gaoler; and one day, somebody coming up to listen, he took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces. During the trial a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see; he made room for the child, and placed him near himself. When the trial begun, the two Earls pleaded guilty; Balmerino not guilty, saying he would prove his not being at the taking of the castle of Carlisle, as laid in the indictment. Then the King's counsel opened, and Sergeant Skinner pronounced the most absurd speech imaginable; and mentioned the Duke of Perth, who, said he, I see by the papers is dead. Then some witnesses were examined, whom afterwards the old hero shook cordially by the hand. The Lords withdrew to their House, and returning, demanded of the Judges, whether, one point not being proved, though all the rest were, the indictment was false? to which they unanimously answered in the negative. Then the Lord High Steward asked the Peers severally, whether Lord Balmerino was guilty! All said, Guilty upon honour, and then adjourned, the prisoner having begged pardon for giving them so much trouble. While the Lords were withdrawn, the Solicitor-General Murray [afterwards Lord Mansfield] (brother of the Pretender's minister) officiously and insolently went up to Lord Balmerino, and asked him, how he could give the Lords so much trouble, when his Solicitor had informed him, that his plea could be of no use to him? Balmerino asked the bystanders, who this person was? and being told, he said, "Oh, Mr. Murray! I am extremely glad to see you; I have been with several of your relations; the good lady, your mother, was of great use to us at Perth." Are you not charmed with this speech? how just it was! As he went away, he said, "They call me Jacobite; I am no more a Jacobite than any that tried me; but if the Great Mogul had set up his standard, I should have followed it, for I could not starve."
[Gray, in a letter to Wharton, gives the last sentence as follows: "My Lord (says he) for the two Kings and their Rights I cared not a Farthing wch prevailed; but I was starving; and by God if Mahomet had set up his Standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Musselman for Bread, and stuck close to the Party, for I must eat.">[
TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (1748).
I.
Lord Bolingbroke on the Preliminaries.
Source.—The Marchmont Papers, 1831. Vol. ii., pp. 314-319.
Our true interests require, that we should take few engagements on the Continent, and never those of making a land war, unless the conjuncture be such, that nothing less than the weight of Britain can prevent the scales of power from being quite overturned. This was the case surely, when we arrived in the Netherlands (1743) and when we marched into Germany. The first did some good, and as it was managed, some hurt. It divided the attention of France, and became a reason the more for recalling the army of Maillebois. But the fierce memorials, with which it was accompanied, and which breathed an immediate and direct war against France, frightened those, whom our arriving should have encouraged, and gave much advantage to the French in the Seven Provinces. The last, I mean our march to the Mayn [where the English encamped in May, 1744] and vast diversion we made by it, has had a full effect. The Bavarians are reduced to a neutrality, and the French, who threatened Vienna, to the defence of their own provinces. The defensive war the Queen of Hungary made on that side, is therefore at an end, strictly speaking; and your Lordship may think perhaps, that, this being so the case, wherein alone Great Britain ought to make war on the Continent, exists, no longer. It is, I own, very provoking to see, that the French are able at any time to invade their neighbours, to give law if they succeed, and not to receive it if they fail, but to retire behind their barrier, and defy from thence the just resentment of the enemies they have made; and yet we ought to consider very coolly, how far we suffer this provocation to have any share in determining our conduct in the present circumstances. I have seen the time, when the French would have given up the very barrier, that secures them now. We would not take it then. Can we force it now? I said once, that Bouchain had cost our nation above six millions; and they who were angry at the assertion [the Whigs] could not contradict it, since Bouchain was the sole conquest of 1711, and since the expence of that year's war amounted to little less. Are we able to purchase at such a rate? or do we hope to purchase at a cheaper, when my Lord Marlborough and Prince Eugene are no more?... We shall have a very nice game to play, for if our friends, the Austrians, would take advantage of too much facility to continue the war, our enemies, the Spaniards and the French, would certainly take advantage of too much haste to conclude it. This reflection becomes the more important, because the war we have with Spain, seems more likely to be determined in Italy than in America; and somewhere or other it must be determined to our advantage.... In all events, my dear Lord, and whatever peace we make, it will become an indispensable point of policy to be on our guard, after what has happened, against the joint ambition of the two branches of Bourbon, whom no acquisitions can satisfy, nor any treaties bind, and who have begun to act in late instances, as the two branches of Austria did in the last century. The treaty of quadruple alliance, and a long course of timid unmeaning negociations, unmeaning relatively to the interest of Great Britain, have encouraged this spirit. A contrary conduct must check it; and I will venture to say, that, the peace once made on terms less exorbitant, than some sanguine persons would expect, this may be done; and that vigor sufficient for this purpose will be found on the whole less expensive, with prudent management abroad, and honest economy at home, than the pusillanimity of that administration, which has made us despised by some of our neighbours, and distrusted by others, till France had a fair chance for giving the law to all Europe. But it is more than time that I should put an end to this political ramble. I mean it for you alone, and I am used to your indulgence. It is hardly possible, that you should write in answer to this letter, that is to come to me in France. It seemed to me, by the little conversation I had with some of your ministers when I was at London, that their way of thinking was not very distant from mine, about foreign affairs at least. Great Britain must have a peace, my Lord. Her ability to carry on this war, as little as it is, is greater, in my opinion, than that of France. But there are other invincible reasons against it. I repeat, therefore, we must have a peace as soon as possible. To have a good one, vigor in your measures, and moderation in your views, are, I suppose, equally necessary.
II.
The Articles of Peace.
Source.—Coxe's Pelham Administration. Vol. ii., p. 41, 42. The Treaty is to be found at length in Tindal's Continuation of Rapin's History of England. Vol. xxi., pp. 357-366.