Part 7

Immediately after the division, the H[ous]e were much astonished at Mr C[harle]s T[u]rn[e]r’s calling their attention to a most libellous, nefarious, and enormous pamphlet, entitled _Anticipation_, calculated to misrepresent the debates, and vilify the proceedings of P[arliamen]t; observing, that the publication of Honourable Gentlemen’s speeches _before_ they could possibly have been spoken, was infinitely more dangerous to the constitution than mistaking them after they had actually been delivered; as not only the public were thereby much more likely to be deceived, but many country Gentlemen were most illegally hurried up to town before the time, to the great annoyance of themselves and cattle. Besides, what struck at the very heart-strings of debate, many good speeches were marred thereby, and Honourable Gentlemen stopt from repeating their own words, lest they should authenticate the said publication.

For all which reasons, he humbly moved, that the Publisher of a pamphlet, entitled, _Anticipation_, be immediately taken into custody by a Messenger of this House, together with all papers in his shops and warehouses, in order that this House may be enabled to discover the Author or Authors of this very black conspiracy. He moved also, that the several statutes against forgery, coining, and uttering, knowing to be false, forestallers, and regraters, &c. &c. be forthwith all read. And further⸺But, the laughter having now become intense, the remnant of his oratory was cut short by a most clamorous repetition of _Adjourn_, _Adjourn_; so that it was impossible for the Editor to collect the result of this important motion.

And then the House adjourned till the morning, nine of the clock.

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was observed the S[peake]r was remarkable civil to the new Att[o]rn[e]y G[e]n[e]r[a]l, as supposed upon his succeeding to that great object of his wishes, which leaves Sir F[letche]r some chance of a Chief Justiceship and a Peerage.

[2] Exempli gratiâ, for whether it is his Lordship’s Speech, or Lord J. C[a]v[e]nd[i]sh’s, or Sir W. M[e]r[e]dith’s, or Sir G. Y[ou]ng’s, &c. the subject matter and stile, with a few exceptions, is of course much the same.

[3] Here Mr. B[a]mb[e]r G[a]sc[oy]ne headed the dinner troop, which followed him with great precipitation—at the same time departed Sir John Irw[i]n and Mr. S[e]lw[y]n, with his Honour Mr. Br[u]d[e]n[e]ll, of whom great enquiries were made, respecting the present arrangements of the Opera.—Nor were there wanting many cries for the question.

[4] Here Sir GR[E]Y C[OO]P[E]R caught at a pen, and began to take notes.

[5] Probably, from supposing the first origin of their connection to have arisen (at least on the part of Dr. Franklyn) from a philosophical rather than a political curiosity. And certainly, no two projectors in Science were ever more strikingly contrasted: the one, like a modern Prometheus, collecting fire from vapour to inflame the terrestrial mass by its pernicious infusion: the other employing his magic _plates_ to freeze its ardour and quench its malignity.—Happy for this country, if these professors had shifted their pursuits! as the former, could his inclinations have been propitious to the peace of mankind, might then have become a powerfull _Extinguisher_, while the other, however malignant his intentions, must always have been acknowledged an _innocent_ Incendiary.

[6] The Editor was furnished with copies of this speech from the Printers of the respective News Papers, many weeks ago.

[7] Gentlemen were here desired by the Sp[ea]k[e]r to take their seats, and the Serjeant to clear the bar—places! places! was repeated with great vehemence.

[8] As the Noble Lord was almost the only Speaker on the side of Administration, the Editor felt it the duty of impartiality, after giving so many excellent speeches on the opposite side, to collect this with particular accuracy, which he was the better enabled to do, from the deliberate manner of its being delivered, and the respectful attention with which it was received.

[9] Here Lord N[o]rth took up Sir G[re]y C[oo]p[e]r’s notes.

[10] Whilst Mr. St[anle]y was speaking, Mr. B[yn]g was making numerical criticisms on the state of the House, which Mr. R[o]b[i]ns[o]n had done before, with his usual assiduity; and had taken his place at the door accordingly.

[11] N.B. G[enera]l C[onwa]y is Governor of it.—Query, Whether he had not better be there at this dangerous crisis?

NOTES

NOTES

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_The Gentlemen trading to the East-Indies, &c._ The publisher’s advertisement burlesques a practice of the bookseller John Almon (1737-1805), friend and biographer of John Wilkes, and between the years 1761-81 publisher-in-ordinary to the Whig Opposition. Almon had extensive connections in the American colonies and was the compiler of _The Remembrancer_, 1775-84, a valuable collection of materials relating to the Revolution. In his satire on the French ministry, _The Green Box of Monsieur de Sartine_, 1779, Tickell represents a French spy in London reporting ruefully:

News-papers, pamphlets, parliamentary debates, remembrancers, and all the infinite variety of periodical libels, under the conduct of our good friend Mr. Almon, leave but a scanty and beaten field of politics for private discovery (pp. 12-13).

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_Sir Francis Molyneux._ Sir Francis Molyneux (d. 1812), Knt.; succeeded his father as seventh Baronet, 1781.

_the Speaker._ Sir Fletcher Norton (1716-1789), Knt.; M.P. for Guildford; Speaker of the House of Commons, 1770-80; cr. Baron Grantley of Markenfield, 1782.

_the merit of those speeches._ Since the speech from the throne rarely contains more than generalities, Tickell was able to approximate its substance fairly closely. In the debate on the opening day John Wilkes had the temerity to say that there were only two particulars in the King’s speech to which he could assent: “They are, that we are called together in a conjuncture, which demands our most serious attention, and that a restoration of the blessings of peace ought to be our first wish” (_Parliamentary History_, XIX, 1334).

_the new Attorney General._ Alexander Wedderburn (1733-1805), M.P. for Bishop’s Castle; succeeded Edward Thurlow as Attorney-General, June 1778; elevated to the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas as Baron Loughborough of Loughborough, 1780; cr. Earl of Rosslyn, 1801. In the spring of 1778 Sir Fletcher Norton, by a threat of impeachment, had blocked Wedderburn’s intrigue to obtain the Chief Justiceship; see Walpole to Mason, 31 May 1778 (_Letters_, ed. Toynbee, X, 254).

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_Lord Granby._ Charles Manners (1754-1787), second son of the Marquis of Granby famous as a military hero; M.P. for Cambridge University; succeeded his grandfather as fourth Duke of Rutland, 1779.

_Pulteny._ Sir William Pulteney (1684-1764), Earl of Bath; long the leader of the “patriot” opposition during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, but politically ruined by his acceptance, upon Walpole’s fall, of an earldom.

_Cavendish ... Meredith ... Young._ Three supporters of the Whig Opposition: John Cavendish (1732-1796), fourth son of the third Duke of Devonshire, M.P. for York, friend and correspondent of Burke; Sir William Meredith (1725?-1790), third Baronet, M.P. for Liverpool; Sir George Yonge (1731-1812), fifth Baronet, M.P. for Honiton.

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_that inestimable character of our own times._ William Pitt (1708-1778), first Earl of Chatham. The “Great Commoner’s” acceptance of a peerage in 1766 occasioned a storm of popular indignation.

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_Admiral Keppel ... Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser._ Augustus Keppel (1725-1786), second son of the second Earl of Albemarle; M.P. for Windsor; Admiral of the Blue and Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, 1778; cr. Viscount Keppel, 1782. Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-1796), first Baronet; M.P. for Scarborough and a Lord of the Admiralty; Vice-Admiral of the Blue, 1778.

The allusions are to the indecisive action off Ushant between the Channel fleet under Keppel, with Palliser as third in command, and the Brest fleet under D’Orvilliers, 27 July 1778; see Introduction, p. 10. On the third day of the session an altercation broke out in the House of Commons between the two admirals, and a few days later Palliser applied to his colleagues at the Admiralty Board for a court-martial on Keppel. After a protracted trial the court declared Palliser’s charges “malicious and ill-founded.” This verdict so delighted the populace that street riots ensued in which the Admiralty was attacked and Palliser’s house in Pall-Mall was gutted. Palliser was obliged to resign all his public appointments. See Sir G. O. Trevelyan, _George the Third and Charles James Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution_, New York, 1912-14, I, ch. v.

_Philip Stevens, Esq._ Philip Stephens (1723-1809), M.P. for Sandwich and First Secretary to the Admiralty; cr. a baronet, 1795.

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_Mr. George Sutton._ George Manners-Sutton (1751-1804), nephew of the famous Marquis of Granby; M.P. for Newark.

_Mr. Welbore Ellis._ Welbore Ellis (1713-1802), M.P. for Weymouth and Treasurer of the Navy; cr. Baron Mendip of Mendip, 1794; see Introduction, p. 12.

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_David Hartly, Esq._ David Hartley the younger (1732-1813), son of the philosopher; M.P. for Kingston-upon-Hull; published _Letters on the American War_, 1777-79, which critically reviewed the history of British colonial policy; friend and correspondent of Franklin (whose letters he sometimes read in the House of Commons); British plenipotentiary at Paris to negotiate peace with America, 1783. He was the Cassandra of the House and a tireless advocate of peace, but his long-windedness made him disliked. In _The Abbey of Kilkhampton_, 1780, Sir Herbert Croft’s satirical garland of epitaphs, Hartley’s epitaph reads as follows (Part II, p. 124):

Here rests, If we may trust the Silence of his Grave, D.... H....y, Esq. His abilities were the Subject of Admiration, and the public Utility was the generous Object they had in view, But⸺he was _troublesome_.

_Mr. Bamber Gascoyne._ Bamber Gascoyne (1725-1791), M.P. for Truro and a Lord of Trade and Plantations. Of this footnote and the speech by Hartley, _The London Magazine_ observed:

The description of a certain fat member heading the dinner troop and drawing them out of the house, upon a dry, metaphysical, long winded speaker getting up, is truly characteristic; and strangers frequenting the gallery may congratulate themselves on this happy stroke, for it has partly silenced the tedious declaimer, who never considered that if each speaker claimed the same right, to pay no regard to time, a whole session might be passed in adjourned debates from _three_ in the afternoon to _three_ in the morning, day after day (XLVII, 566).

_Sir John Irwin._ Sir John Irwin (1728-1788), K.B.; M.P. for East Grinstead; Major-General and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland; famous for his sartorial elegance and convivial habits.

_Mr. Selwyn._ George Augustus Selwyn (1719-1791), M.P. for Gloucester; the celebrated wit and club-man. Though he sat in Parliament for about thirty years, Selwyn was notoriously apathetic towards politics. But since he returned two members besides himself, and always woke up in time to give his vote for the ministers when a division was called, Selwyn was amply rewarded by successive administrations. He was, wrote Sir George Otto Trevelyan,

at one and the same time surveyor-general of crown lands—which he never surveyed—registrar in chancery at Barbadoes—which he never visited—and surveyor of the meltings and clerk of the irons in the mint—where he showed himself once a week in order to eat a dinner which he ordered, but for which the nation paid (_The Early History of Charles James Fox_, New York, 1881, pp. 94-95).

_his Honour Mr. Brudenell._ James Brudenell (1725-1811), second son of the third Earl of Cardigan; M.P. for Marlborough; cr. Baron Brudenell of Deene, 1780; succeeded his brother as fifth Earl of Cardigan, 1790.

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_Mr. Wilkes._ John Wilkes (1727-1797), M.P. for Middlesex; the radical politician and hero of the London populace. He had a reputation for facetious wit, and he made a practice of sending his speeches in advance to the newspapers. Wilkes was another, like Fox and Burke, who enjoyed Tickell’s anticipation of his speech. Boswell reported Wilkes as saying to Tickell in April 1779: “Much obliged for your speech for me. If you’ll make me another for next session, I’ll be damn’d if I don’t speak it” (_Private Papers of James Boswell_, XIII, 231).

_Here Sir Grey Cooper caught at a pen._ Sir Grey Cooper (1726?-1801), third Baronet; M.P. for Saltash and a Secretary of the Treasury. The allusion is to Lord North’s habit of sleeping through Whig speeches and answering them from the notes of his favorite secretary. The following lines are from _The London Magazine_, XLVIII, 1779, 186:

Whilst B[ur]ke and B[arr]é strain their throats The mild SIR GREY is taking notes; And, wise as owl, is seen _composing_, For the good Premier, who is _dozing_: Whilst to each patriot’s loudest roar N[or]th answers with a well-tim’d _snore_. Till by some shriller trebles vex’d, He discants on the _good Knight’s_ text.

_magic plates._ Hartley had invented an arrangement of thin iron strips to be placed as a lining under floors and above ceilings to prevent fire. An anonymous handbill of four quarto pages, dated July 1776 and called _An Account of Some Experiments Made with the Fire-Plates, Together with a Description of the Manner of Application, and an Estimate of the Expence_, contains newspaper accounts of unsuccessful attempts to burn a house near Reading equipped with Hartley’s plates.

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_the Noble Lord, who presided in the American department._ George Sackville Germain (1716-1785), called Lord George Germain, third son of the first Duke of Dorset; M.P. for East Grinstead and Secretary of State for Colonies; cr. Viscount Sackville, 1782. As minister in charge of military operations in America, Germain bore the brunt of frequent and savage onslaughts by Opposition. His famous Kentish holiday, which delayed dispatches to Sir William Howe in New York, was long supposed to have caused Burgoyne’s defeat at Saratoga; Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, _Life of William, Earl of Shelburne_, 1875-76, I, 358-359; but cf. Troyer Steele Anderson, _The Command of the Howe Brothers during the American Revolution_, New York, 1936, ch. xiv. Germain’s resignation was forced in January 1782, two months before North’s government fell.

_the Earl of Bute._ John Stuart (1713-1792), third Earl of Bute; favorite of George III in the early years of the reign; First Lord of the Treasury, 1762-63, but forced to resign on account of his unpopularity, to which the anti-Scots propaganda of Wilkes largely contributed. Lord North was popularly regarded as the political heir of Lord Bute.

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_one North Briton._ George Johnstone; see last note on this page.

_Mr. Laurens._ Henry Laurens (1724-1792), of South Carolina; President of Congress, 1777-78. The quoted phrases that follow are from Johnstone’s letter to Laurens, 10 June 1778, soliciting a private interview. This letter, with Laurens’ answer, was promptly made public by Congress.

_Ethan Allen._ Ethan Allen (1738-1789), famous for his partisan exploits as leader of the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont; surprised and took Fort Ticonderoga, May 1775; a captive in England, Canada, and New York, September 1775-May 1778; author of a deistic treatise, _Reason the Only Oracle of Man_, Bennington, Vermont, 1784.

_Dr. Adam Ferguson._ Adam Ferguson (1723-1816), LL.D.; Professor of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh; secretary to the British commissioners to treat with America, 1778.

_Sir John Dalrymple._ Sir John Dalrymple (1726-1810), fourth Baronet; author of the Tory _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_. _From the Dissolution of the Last Parliament of Charles II until the Sea-Battle off La Hogue_, 1771, the design of which (according to Horace Walpole) was “to degrade & blacken the brightest names in English Story, & more particularly the Protomartyrs of the Revolution, Lord Russel & Algernon Sydney” (_Satirical Poems Published Anonymously by William Mason with Notes by Horace Walpole_, ed. Paget Toynbee, Oxford, 1926, p. 115).

_the great Sidney._ Algernon Sidney (1622-1683), son of the second Earl of Leicester; tried before Jeffreys and executed, December 1683, for complicity in the Rye House Plot to murder Charles II and the Duke of York.

_Governor Johnson._ George Johnstone (1730-1787), M.P. for Appleby; formerly Governor of West Florida; one of North’s commissioners to treat with America; see Introduction, p. 9. His conduct as commissioner was quarrelsome, clumsy, and ineffectual; Carl Van Doren, _Secret History of the American Revolution_, New York, 1941, pp. 96-104. Of his speech on the opening day of the session Walpole reported:

Governor Johnston made a strange, unintelligible speech (it was impossible for him to make a clear one without condemning himself); he endeavoured to wipe off some of his attempt to bribe some of the Congress, yet owned at much as he denied, condemned and approved the march to Philadelphia, and rather insinuated blame on Keppel than on anybody else. He was soon after called upon in several newspapers to say, whether he did not still retain his pay of Commissioner, though he had so long quitted the office. He made no answer—consequently was by that sinecure retained by the Court (_Last Journals_, II, 209).

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_Mons. D’Estaign._ Jean-Baptiste-Charles-Henri-Hector, Comte d’Estaing (1729-1794), French admiral in command in American waters, 1778-80.

_a noble Lord opposite to me._ Richard, Lord Howe; see below, note to p. 34.

_D’Estaign’s fleet ought to have been attacked._ In August Howe pursued D’Estaing to Newport, but a storm prevented an engagement.

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_Byron’s squadron._ John Byron (1723-1786), Vice-Admiral; sailed from Plymouth with a squadron in pursuit of D’Estaing, June 1778; his ships joined Howe’s fleet piecemeal during the summer.

_Lord Howe._ Richard Howe (1726-1799), fourth Viscount Howe in the peerage of Ireland; M.P. for Dartmouth; Vice-Admiral; Commander-in-Chief on the North American station, 1776-78; resigned his command because of discontent with the ministry, September 1778; cr. an English peer, 1782, and Earl Howe, 1788.

_Mr. Rigby._ Richard Rigby (1722-1788), M.P. for Tavistock and Paymaster of the Forces. Reputed to have derived immense profits from his office during the American war, Rigby served as the model for Disraeli’s corrupt politician of the same name in _Coningsby_, 1844.

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_Mr. T. Townsend._ Thomas Townshend (1733-1800), nephew of the third Viscount Townshend; M.P. for Whitchurch, 1754-83; cr. Baron Sydney of Chislehurst, 1783, and Viscount Sydney, 1789, the city in Australia being named for him. He was one of the most voluble and pertinacious speakers in debates. His contemptuous reference in the House of Commons to Johnson’s pension earned Townshend a passing glance in Goldsmith’s _Retaliation_, where Burke is said to be,

Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.

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_the blunders of Administration, with respect to Falkland’s Islands, &c._ Townshend views with alarm an assortment of the events, momentous and trivial, that had agitated the public mind in the preceding decade.

As to _Falkland’s Islands_, west of the southern tip of South America, a dispute over their possession nearly brought on war between Great Britain and Spain in 1770-71. After a display of force by Spain and a demand for restitution by the British government, diplomatic exchanges resulted in a conciliation that was unpopular in England (_The Annual Register_ for 1771, “History of Europe,” chs. i-v). At the request of the ministers, Dr. Johnson wrote a spirited defence of their conduct, _Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting Falkland’s Islands_, 1771.

The _Middlesex Election_ was a remarkable exploit in the career of John Wilkes, who in 1768 returned from France still an outlaw for his offence in _North Briton_ No. 45, and was elected to Parliament for the county of Middlesex. Expelled before he could take his seat, he was thrice re-elected and as many times expelled. After his fourth victory at the polls Parliament declared his opponent, the ministerial candidate, duly elected. This breach of electoral rights led to street-rioting, protracted debates in and out of Parliament, and, eventually, the formation of a Radical party. See Horace Bleackley, _Life of John Wilkes_, 1917, chs. xii-xiii.

The revolt of _Corsica_ under Pasquale Paoli against the French, who had purchased the island from Genoa in 1768, won wide public sympathy in England. The leading advocate of British intervention in favor of the Corsicans was James Boswell. See Chauncey Brewster Tinker, _Nature’s Simple Plan_, Princeton, 1922, ch. ii.

The _massacre in St. George’s Fields_, 10 May 1768, occurred when a crowd of London citizens waiting for Wilkes to attend the opening of Parliament taunted a detachment of foot-guards into firing on them. Several persons were killed and about a dozen wounded. This “massacre” was the forerunner and partly the inspiration of that in King Street, Boston, two years later.

_Mr. Horne’s imprisonment_ resulted from the zeal of that radical parson in the cause of America. The Rev. John Horne (1736-1812), afterwards Horne Tooke, wrote and circulated an advertisement for the Constitutional Society, June 1775, stating that 100_l._ was to be raised for “the relief of the widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved American fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the character of Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, were, for that reason only, inhumanly murdered by the king’s troops” at Lexington and Concord on the 19th of April. In July 1777 Horne was brought to trial before Lord Mansfield, found guilty, and in November sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and a fine of 200_l._ (_The Annual Register_ for 1777, “Appendix to the Chronicle,” pp. 234-245).

The _fatal example of the Justitia_ is an allusion to the _Justitia_ hulk, a convict-ship stationed at Woolwich by an act of 1776 for the purpose of dredging the Thames.

The _frequent exhibition of the Beggar’s Opera_ evidently alludes to remarks by Townshend that had excited mirth in a debate on a bill for licensing a play-house in Birmingham, 29 April 1777. Townshend opposed the bill because, he said,

He had heard from good authority that the theatre licensed at Manchester, in consequence of a similar application, had done a great deal of mischief already: nor could it be wondered at, if we consider what pieces are sometimes represented, which, not being new, are not subject to the controul of the Lord Chamberlain: the Beggar’s Opera, for instance, which had brought more unhappy people to the gallows, than any one thing he could name. As to the country gentlemen, surely this was not such an age of domestic retirement, but what they might find sufficient amusement in visiting their neighbours in the summer, without wanting to frequent a theatre.... Considering, then, the circumstances of Birmingham as a great manufacturing and trading town, depending on the industry and frugality of the poorer class of people, he was of opinion it would be highly improper to license any theatre there (_Parliamentary History_, XIX, 202).