Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

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I can say nothing to your opinion of the young Pretender being
a cheat; nor, as the rebellion is near at end, do I see what
end it would answer to prove him original or spurious.
However, as you seem to dwell upon it, I will mention it again
to my uncle.

I hear that my sister-Countess is projecting her return, being
quite sick of England, where nobody visits her. She says
there is not one woman of sense in England. Her journey,
however, will have turned to account, and, I believe, end in
almost doubling her allowance. Adieu! my dear child; love the
Chutes for me as well as for yourself.

(1164) Lord Marchmont, in his Diary of Feb. 9, says, "My
brother told me, that on the ministry insisting on Mr. Pitt
being secretary at war, and the King having said he should not
be his secretary, Lord Bath had gone to the King and told him,
though he had resolved never to take a place, yet now, finding
his ministers would force a servant on him, rather than he
should be so used, he would undertake to get him his money.
The King said. the ministers had the Parliament; Lord Bath
said, his Majesty had it, and not they: and that hereupon the
King thanked him; and it was expected the ministers would all
be out."-E.

(1165) In 1743, Dr. John Monro was appointed, through the
influence of Sir Robert Walpole, to one of the Radcliffe
travelling fellowships. In 1752, he succeeded his father as
physician to Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals. In 1758, he
published "Remarks on Dr. Battie's Treatise on Madness," in
which he vindicated his father's treatment of that disorder.
He died in 1791.-E.

466 Letter 195
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Feb. 14, 1746.

By the relation I am going to make, you will think that I am
describing Turkish, not English revolutions; and will cast
your eye upwards to see if my letter is not dated from
Constantinople. Indeed, violent as the changes have been,
there has been no bloodshed; no Grand Vizier has had a cravat
made of a bowstring, no Janizaries have taken upon them to
alter the succession, no Grand Signior is deposed--only his
Sublime Highness's dignity has been a little impaired. Oh! I
forgot; I ought not to frighten you; you will interpret all
these fine allusions, and think on the rebellion--pho! we are
such considerable proficients in politics, that we can form
rebellions within rebellions, and turn a government
topsy-turvy at London, while we are engaged in a civil war in
Scotland. In short, I gave you a hint last week of an
insurrection in the closet, and of Lord Bath having prevented
Pitt from being secretary at war. The ministry gave up that
point; but finding that a change had been made in a scheme of
foreign politics, which they had laid before the King, and for
which he had thanked them; and perceiving some symptoms of a
resolution to dismiss them at the end of the session, they
came to a sudden determination not to do Lord Granville's
business by carrying the supplies, and then to be turned out:
so on Monday morning, to the astonishment of every body, the
two secretaries of state threw up the seals; and the next day
Mr. Pelham, with the rest of the Treasury, the Duke of Bedford
with the Admiralty, Lord Gower, privy seal, and Lord
Pembroke,' groom of the stole, gave up too - the Dukes of
Devonshire, Grafton, and Richmond, the Lord Chancellor,
Winnington, paymaster, and almost all the other great officers
and offices, declaring they would do the same. Lord Granville
immediately received both seals, one for himself, and the
other to give to whom he pleased. Lord Bath was named first
commissioner of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer;
Lord Carlisle, privy seal, and Lord Winchilsea reinstated in
the Admiralty. Thus far all went swimmingly; they had only
forgot one little point, which was, to secure a majority in
both Houses: in the Commons they unluckily found that they had
no better man to take the lead than poor Sir John Rushout, for
Sir John Barnard refused to be chancellor of the exchequer; so
did Lord Chief Justice Willes to be lord chancellor; and the
wildness of the scheme soon prevented others, who did not wish
ill to Lord Granville, or well to the Pelhams, from giving in
to it. Hop, the Dutch minister, did not a little increase the
confusion by declaring that he had immediately despatched a
courier to Holland, and did not doubt but the States would
directly send to accept the terms of France.

I should tell you too, that Lord Bath's being of the
enterprise contributed hugely to poison the success of it. In
short, his lordship, whose politics were never characterized
by steadiness, found that he had not courage enough to take
the Treasury. You may guess how ill laid his schemes were,
when be durst not indulge both his ambition and avarice! In
short, on Wednesday morning (pray mind, this was the very
Wednesday after the Monday on which the chance had happened,)
he went to the King, and told him he had tried the House of
Commons, and found it would not do!(1167) Bounce! went all
the project into shivers, like the vessels in Ben Jonson's
Alchymist, when they are on the brink of the philosopher's
stone. The poor King, who, from being fatigued with the Duke
of Newcastle, and sick of Pelham's timidity and compromises,
had given in to this mad hurly-burly of alterations, was
confounded with having floundered to no purpose, and to find
himself more than ever in the power of men he hated, shut
himself up in his closet, and refused to admit any more of the
persons who were pouring in upon him with white sticks, and
golden keys, and commissions, etc. At last he sent for
Winnington, and told him, he was the only honest man about
him, and he should have the honour of a reconciliation, and
sent him to Mr. Pelham to desire they would all return to
their employments.(1168)

Lord Granville is as jolly as ever; laughs and drinks, and
owns it was mad, and owns he -would do it again to-morrow. It
would not be quite so safe, indeed, to try it soon again, for
the triumphant party are not at all in the humour to be turned
out every time his lordship has drunk a bottle too much; and
that House of Commons that he could not make do for him, would
do to send him to the Tower till he was sober. This was the
very worst period he could have selected, when the fears of
men had made them throw themselves absolutely into all
measures of Government to secure the government itself; and
that temporary strength of Pelham has my Lord Granville
contrived to fix to him: and people will be glad to ascribe to
the Merit and virtue of the ministry, what they would be
ashamed to Own, but was really the effect of their own
apprehensions. It was a good idea Of somebody, when no man
would accept a place under the new system, that Granville and
Bath were met going about the streets, calling odd man! as the
hackney chairman do when they want a partner. This little
faction of Lord Granville goes by the name of the
Grandvillains.

There! who would think that I had written you an entire history
in the compass of three sides of paper?(1169) ***Vertot
would have composed a volume on this event. and entitled it,
the Revolutions of England. You will wonder at not having it
notified to you by Lord Granville himself, as is customary for
new secretaries of state: when they mentioned to him writing
to Italy, he said-"To Italy! no: before the courier can get
thither, I shall be out again." it absolutely makes one
laugh: as serious as the consequences might be, it is
impossible to hate a politician of such jovial good-humour. I
am told that he ordered the packet-boat to be stopped at
Harwich till Saturday, till he should have time to determine
what he would write to Holland. This will make the Dutch
receive the news of the double revolution at the same instant.

Duke and his name are pursuing the scattered rebels into their
very mountains, determined to root out sedition entirely. It
is believed, and we expect to hear, that the young Pretender
is embarked and gone. Wish the Chutes joy of the happy
conclusion of this affair!

Adieu! my dear child! After describing two revolutions, and
announcing the termination of a rebellion, it would be below
the dignity of my letter to talk of any thing of less moment.
Next post I may possibly descend out of my historical buskin,
and converse with you more familiarly--en attendant, gentle
reader, I am, your sincere well-wisher,

Horace Walpole, Historiographer
to the high and mighty Lord John, Earl Granville.

(1166) Henry Herbert, ninth Earl of Pembroke, an intelligent
lover of the arts, and an amateur architect of considerable
merit. Walpole says of him, in his account of Sculptors and
Architects, The soul of Inigo Jones, who had been patronised
by his ancestors, seemed still to hover over its favourite
Wilton, and to have assisted the Muses of Arts in the
education of this noble person. No man had a purer taste in
building than Earl Henry, of which he gave a few specimens:
besides his works at Wilton, the new Lodge in Windsor Park;
the Countess of Suffolk's house, at Marble Hill, Twickenham;
the Water-house, in Lord Orford's park at Houghton, are
incontestable proofs of Lord Pembroke's taste: it was more
than taste; it was passion for the utility and honour of his
country that engaged his lordship to promote and assiduously
overlook the construction of Westminster Bridge by the
ingenious M. Lahelye, a man that deserves more notice than
this slight encomium can bestow." He died in January
1750-1.-E.

(1167) "Feb. 13. Lord Bolingbroke told me, that Bath had
resigned, and all was now over. He approved of what had been
done, though he owned that Walpole'S faction had done what he
had wrote every King must expect who nurses up a faction by
governing by a party; and that it was a most indecent thing,
and must render the King contemptible. Lord Cobham told me,
that the King had yesterday sent Winnington to stop the
resignations; that he had offered Winnington the seat of
exchequer, after Bath had resigned it; but Winnington said it
would not do. At court I met Lord Granville, who is still
secretary, but declared to be ready to resign when the King
pleases." Marchmont Diary.-E.

(1168) In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, of the 18th, Lord
Chesterfield says, " Your victory is complete: for God's sake
pursue it. Good policy still more than resentment, requires
that Granville and Bath should be marked-out,'and all their
people cut off. Every body now sees and knows that you have
the power; let them see and know too, that you will use it. A
general run ought to be made upon Bath by all your followers
and writers."-E.

(1169) The projectors of this ,attempt to remove the ministers
were overwhelmed with ridicule. Among other jeux d'esprit,
was "A History of the Long Administration," bound up like the
works printed for children, and sold for a penny; and of which
one would suspect Walpole to be the author. It concluded as
follows: "And thus endeth the second and last part of this
astonishing administration, which lasted forty-eight hours,
three quarters, seven minutes, and eleven seconds; which may
be truly called the most wise and most Honest of all
administrations, the minister having, to the astonishment of
all wise men, never transacted one rash thing, and, what is
more marvellous, left as much money in the treasury as he
found in it. This worthy history I have faithfully recorded
in this mighty volume, that it may be read with the valuable
works of our immortal countryman, Thomas Thumb, by our
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, to the end
of the world:'-E.

469 Letter 196
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 6, 1746.

I know I have missed two or three posts, but you have lost
nothing: you perhaps expected that our mighty commotions did
not subside at once, and that you should still hear of
struggles and more shocks; but it all ended at once; with only
some removals and promotions which you saw in the Gazette. I
should have written, however, but I have been hurried with my
sister'S(1170) wedding; but all the ceremony of that too is
over now, and the dinners and the visits.

The rebellion has fetched breath; the dispersed clans have
reunited and marched to Inverness, from whence Lord Loudon was
forced to retreat, leaving a garrison in the castle, which has
since yielded without firing a gun. Their numbers are now
reckoned at seven thousand: old Lord lovat(1171) has carried
them a thousand Frasers. The French continually drop them a
ship or two: we took two, with the Duke of Berwick's brother
on board: it seems evident that they design to keep up our
disturbances as long as possible, to prevent our sending any
troops to Flanders. Upon the prospect of the rebellion being
at an end, the Hessians were ordered back, but luckily were
not gone; and now are quartered to prevent the rebels slipping
the Duke, (who is marching to them,) and returning into
England. This counter-order was given in the morning, and in
the evening came out the Gazette, and said the Hessians are to
go away. This doubling style in the ministry is grown so
characteristic, that the French are actually playing a farce,
in which harlequin enters, as an English courier, with two
bundles of despatches fastened to his belly and his back: they
ask him what the one is? "Eh! Ces sont mes ordres." and what
the other? "Mais elles sont mes contre-ordres."

We have been a little disturbed in some other of our politics,
by the news of the King of Sardinia having made his peace: I
think it comes out now that he absolutely had concluded one
with France, but that the haughty court of Spain rejected it:
what the Austrian pride had driven him to, the Spanish pride
drove him from. You will allow that our affairs are
critically bad, when all our hopes centre in that honest
monarch, the King of Prussia-but so it is: and I own I see
nothing that can restore us to being a great nation but his
interposition. Many schemes are framed, of making him
Stadtholder of Holland, or Duke of Burgundy in Flanders, in
lieu of the Silesias, or altogether, and that I think would
follow-but I don't know how far any of these have been carried
into propositions.

I see by your letters that our fomentations of the Corsican
rebellion have had no better success than the French tampering
in ours-for ours, I don't expect it will be quite at an end,
till it is made one of the conditions of peace, that they
shall give it no assistance.

The smallpox has been making great havoc in London; the new
Lord Rockingham,(1172) whom I believe you knew when only
Thomas Watson, is dead of it, and the title extinct. My Lady
Conway(1173) has had it, but escaped.

My brother is on the point of finishing all his affairs with
his countess; she is to have fifteen hundred per year; and her
mother gives her two thousand pounds. I suppose this will
send her back to you, added to her disappointments in
politics, in which it appears she has been tampering. Don't
you remember a very foolish knight, one Sir Bourchier
Wrey?(1174) Well, you do: the day Lord Bath was in the
Treasury, that one day! she wrote to Sir Bourchier at Exeter,
to tell him that now their friends were coming into power, and
it was a brave opportunity for him to Come Up and make his own
terms. He came, and is lodged in her house, and sends about
cards to invite people to come and see him at the Countess of
Orford's. There is a little fracas I hear in their domestic;
the Abb`e-Secretary has got one of the maids with child. I
have seen the dame herself but once these two months, when she
came into the Opera at the end of the first act, fierce as an
incensed turkey-cock, you know her look, and towing after her
Sir Francis Dashwood's new Wife,(1175) a poor forlorn
Presbyterian prude, whom he obliges to consort with her.

Adieu! for I think I have now told you all I know. I am very
sorry that you are so near losing the good Chutes, but I
cannot help having an eye to myself in their coming to
England.

(1170) Lady Maria Walpole, married to Charles Churchill, Esq.

(1171) Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, a man of parts, but of
infamous character. He had the folly, at the age of eighty,
to enter into the rebellion, upon a promise from the
Pretender, that he would make him Duke of Fraser. He was
taken, tried, and beheaded.-D.

)1172) Thomas Watson, third Earl of Rockingham, succeeded his
elder brother Lewis in the family honours in 1745, and died
himself in 1746. The earldom extinguished upon his death';
but the Barony of Rockingham devolved upon his kinsman, Thomas
Watson Wentworth, Earl of Malton, who was soon afterwards
created Marquis of Rockingham. ant`e, p. 458, letter 191.

(1173) Lady Isabella Fitzroy, daughter of Charles, Duke of
Grafton, and wife of Francis, Lord Conway, afterwards Earl of
Hertford.

(1174) Sir Bourchier Wrey of Tavistock, in Devonshire, the
fifth baronet of the family. He was member of parliament for
Barnstaple, and died in 1784.-D.

(1175) Widow of Sir Richard Ellis.

470 Letter 197
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 21, 1746.

I have no new triumphs of the Duke to send you: he has been
detained a great while at Aberdeen by the snows. The rebels
have gathered numbers again, and have taken Fort Augustus, and
are marching to Fort William. The Duke complains extremely of
the loyal Scotch: says he can get no intelligence, and reckons
himself more in an enemy's country, than when he was warring
with the French in Flanders. They profess the big professions
wherever he comes, but, before he is out of sight of any town,
beat up for volunteers for rebels. We see no prospect of his
return, for he must stay in Scotland while the rebellion
lasts; and the existence of that seems too intimately
connected with the being of Scotland, to expect it should soon
be annihilated.

We rejoice at the victories of the King of Sardinia, whom we
thought lost to our cause. To-day we are to vote subsidies to
the Electors of Cologne and Mentz. I don't know whether they
will be opposed by the Electoral Prince;(1176) but he has
lately erected a new opposition, by the councils of Lord Bath,
who has got him from Lord Granville: the latter and his
faction act with the court.

I have told you to the utmost extent of my political
knowledge; of private history there is nothing new. Don't
think, my dear child, that I hurry over my letters, or neglect
writing to you; I assure you I never do, when I have the least
grain to lap up in a letter: but consider how many chapters of
correspondence are extinct: Pope and poetry are dead!
Patriotism has kissed hands on accepting a place: the Ladies
O. and T.' have exhausted scandal both in their persons and
conversations: divinity and controversy are grown good
Christians, say their prayers and spare their neighbours; and
I think even self-murder is out of fashion. Now judge whether
a correspondent can furnish matter for the common intercourse
of the post.

Pray what luxurious debauch has Mr. Chute been guilty of, that
he is laid up with the gout? I mean, that he was, for I hope
his fit has not lasted till now. If you are ever so angry, I
must say, I flatter myself I shall see him before my eagle,
which I beg may repose itself still at Leghorn, for the French
privateers have taken such numbers of our merchantmen, that I
cannot think of suffering it to come that way. If you should
meet with a good opportunity of a man-of-war, let it come-or I
will postpone my impatience. Adieu!

P. S. I had sealed my letter, but break it open, to tell you
that an account is just arrived of two of our privateers
having met eight-and- twenty transports going with supplies to
the Brest fleet, and sunk ten, taken four, and driven the rest
on shore.

)1176) The prince of Wales.

471 Letter 198
To sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 28, 1746.

I don't at all recollect what was in those two letters of
mine, which I find you have lost: for your sake, as you must
be impatient for English news, I am sorry you grow subject to
these miscarriages but in general, I believe there is little
of consequence in my correspondence.

The Duke has not yet left Aberdeen, for want of his supplies;
but by a party which he sent out, and in which Mr. Conway was,
the rebels do not seem to have recovered their spirits, though
they have recruited their numbers; for eight hundred of them
fled on the first appearance of our detachment, and quitted an
advantageous post. As much as you know, and as much as you
have lately heard of Scotch finesse, you will yet be startled
at the refinements that nation have made upon their own
policy. Lord Fortrose,(1177) whose father was in the last
rebellion, and who has himself been restored to his fortune,
is in Parliament and in the army: he is with the Duke-his wife
and his clan with the rebels. The head of the mackintosh's is
acting just the same part. The clan of the Grants, always
esteemed the most Whig friendly tribe, have literally in all
the forms signed a neutrality with the rebels. The most
honest instance I have heard, is in the town of Forfar, there
they have chosen their magistrates; but at the same time
entered a memorandum in their town-book, that they shall not
execute their office "till it is decided which King is to
reign."

The Parliament is adjourned for the Easter holidays. Princess
Caroline is going to the Bath for a rheumatism. The countess,
whose return you seem so much to dread, has entertained the
town with an excellent vulgarism. She happened One night at
the Opera to sit by Peggy Banks,(1178) a celebrated beauty,
and asked her several questions about the singers and dancers,
which the other naturally answered, as one woman of fashion
answers another. The next morning Sir Bourchier Wrey sent
Miss Banks an opera-ticket, and my lady sent her a card, to
thank her for her civilities to her the night before, and that
she intended to wait on her very soon. Do but think of Sir B.
Wrey's paying a woman of fashion for being civil to my Lady
O.! Sure no apothecary's wife in a market-town could know less
of the world than these two people! The operas flourish more
than in any latter years; the composer is Gluck, a German: he
is to have a benefit, at which he is to play on a set of
drinking-glasses, which he modulates with water--I think I
have heard you speak of having seen some such thing.

You will see in the papers long accounts of a most shocking
murder, that has been committed by a lad(1179) on his
mistress, who was found dead in her bedchamber, with an
hundred wounds; her brains beaten out, stabbed, her face,
back, and breasts slashed in twenty places- one hears of
nothing else wherever one goes. But adieu! it is time to
finish a letter, when one is reduced for news to the
casualties of the week.

(1177) William Mackenzie, fifth Earl of Seaforth, the father
of Kenneth Lord Fortrose, had been engaged in the rebellion of
1715, and was attainted. He died in 1740. In consequence of
his attainder, his son never assumed the title of Seaforth,
but continued to be called Lord Fortrose, the second title of
the family. He was member of parliament in 1741 for the burghs
of Fortrose, etc., and in 1747 and 1754, for the county of
Ross, He died in 1762. His only son, Kenneth, was created
Viscount Fortrose, and Earl of Seaforth in Ireland.-D.

(1178_ Margaret, sister of John Hodgkinson Bank,.;, Esq.;
married, in 1757, to the Hon. Henry Grenville, fifth son of
the Countess Temple, who was appointed governor of Barbadoes
in 1746, and ambassador to the Ottoman Porte in 1761.-D.

(1179) One Henderson, hanged for murdering Mrs. Dalrymple.

473 Letter 199
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 15, 1746.

Your triumphs in Italy are in high fashion: till very lately,
Italy was scarce ever mentioned as part of the scene of war.
The apprehensions of your great King making his peace began to
alarm us and when we just believed it finished, we have
received nothing but torrents of good news. The King of
Sardinia(1180) has not only carried his own character and
success to the highest pitch, but seems to have given a turn
to the general face of the war, which has a much more
favourable aspect than was to be expected three months ago,
has made himself as considerable in the scale as the Prussian,
but with real valour, and as great abilities, and without the
infamy, of the other's politics.

The rebellion seems once more at its last gasp; the Duke is
marched, and the rebels fly before him, in the utmost want of
money. The famous Hazard sloop is taken, with two hundred men
and officers, and about eight thousand pounds in money, from
France. In the midst of such good news from thence, Mr.
Conway has got a regiment, for which, I am sure, you will take
part in my joy. In Flanders we propose to make another great
effort, with an army of above ninety thousand men; that is,
forty Dutch, above thirty Austrians, eighteen Hanoverians, the
Hessians, who are to return; and we propose twelve thousand
Saxons, but no English; though, if the rebellion is at all
suppressed in any time, I imagine some of our troops will go,
and the Duke command the whole: in the mean time, the army
will be under Prince Waldeck and Bathiani. You will wonder at
my running so glibly over eighteen thousand Hanoverians,
especially as they are all to be in our pay, but the nation's
digestion has been much facilitated by the pill given to Pitt,
of vice-treasurer of Ireland.(1181) Last Friday was the
debate on this subject, when we carried these troops by 255
against 122: Pitt, Lyttelton, three Grenvilles, and Lord
BarringTton, all voting roundly for them, though the eldest
Grenville, two years ago, had declared in the House, that he
would seal it with his blood that he never would give his vote
for a Hanoverian. Don't you shudder at such perjury? and this
in a republic, and where there is no religion that dispenses
with oaths! Pitt was the only one of this ominous band that
opened his - mouth,(1182) and it was to add impudence to
profligacy; but no criminal at the Place de Greve was ever so
racked as he was by Dr. Lee, a friend of Lord Granville, who
gave him the question both ordinary and extraordinary.