The History of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Anne

Front matter

THE HISTORY OP GREAT BRITAIN DURING THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. VOL. THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN DURING THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. B1 FREDERICK WILLIAM WYON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY 187G. London : PRINTED EV VIRTUE ANC CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD. Vol. I. From page 44 to 136 the date should be 1702 137 to 240 „ „ 1703 „ 241 to 298 „ „ 1704 299 to 393 „ „ 1705 394 to 479 „ „ 1706 „ 480 to 541 ,, „ 1707 Vol. II. 1 to 9 „ „ 1707 10 to 92 „ „ 1708 93 to 161 „ „ 1709 162 to 264 „ „ 1710 ,, 265 to 348 „ ,, 1711 „ 349 to 427 ,, „ 1712 „ 428 to 476 „ „ 1713 „ 477 to 532 „ „ DURING THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.

Chapter I

Meanwhile the business of the Lower House had proceeded with a tranquillity in striking contrast to the virulent displays of party feeling which had been exhibited by the Lords. The jealous spirit which prompted Somers and Wharton to attack their best friends, the Ministers, was but little shared by their followers in the Commons. Before the end of the year all the more important resolutions about supplies had been passed ; and Godolphin and Marlborough had every reason to be satisfied with the liberality of the House. The sums granted for carrying on the war amounted to nearly six millions sterling. That the Tories, as a body, disapproved of the enormous expenditure upon land forces, there seems good grounds for believing, and in the present House they were at least as numerous as the Whigs ; but they were content to keep their objections to themselves, and voted the public money as cheerfully as their rivals.

The explanation of this supineness may be that the Tories of lower rank were men of less independent ideas than the chiefs of the party. Rochester, Nottingham, Haversham, were free and outspoken in their opposition, without a care as to what were the personal feelings or opinions of the sovereign. Their followers seem to have vol. II. B adopted the personal inclinations of the sovereign, whenever they could be ascertained, as the guide of their political con duct ; and nothing had as yet transpired to breed a doubt as to the sincerity of Anne's periodical recommendations to prosecute the war with vigour. Upon another matter the Commons were eager to please her. It was easy to surmise that an inquiry into the abuses of an establishment of which Prince George was the head, would be distasteful.

The memorial of the merchants met in consequence with but little favour in the Lower House. The witnesses for the petitioners were constantly made to feel that those before whom they were urging their case were less desirous to get at the truth than to ensnare them into contradictions. The inquiry would, in all probability, have been abandoned, had it been safe to adopt this course. But the mismanagement of the Council had excited indignation too deep and universal to be disregarded. A compromise was therefore arrived at by which some degree of justice should be measured out to the petitioners, without offending the Queen. No censure was passed upon the Council ; but an Act was passed to render it in future obligatory upon those who had the direction of the navy to keep forty-three ships of war continually cruising about the coasts of Great Britain.* Much time was spent in endeavouring to adjust certain difficulties of a temporary nature which arose out of the relations of this country with Scotland.

The Union had been welcomed by all classes of the English with a satisfaction in striking contrast to the sullen rage with which the treaty was regarded in that part of her Majesty's dominions which seemed most likely to be the greatest gainer by it. Queensberry had been glad, as soon as he was able to prorogue the Scottish Parliament, to quit a country where he could not show himself without being hooted and pelted, and to hasten up to London. The moment he crossed the border, the manners of the populace towards him underwent an agreeable change. All along the northern road the people turned out to greet the Minister, whose cool intrepidity and address had succeeded, in the face of the most determined spite and fury, in carrying through a measure eminently calculated to promote the welfare and pros- * Parliamentary History ; Burnet ; Boyer ; Lettree Historiques. perity of two nations.

The magistrates were waiting at the gate of every large town to conduct the distinguished guest to his lodgings. A circumstance still more demonstrative of the turn English feeling had taken was the marks of friendliness which persons of all ranks delighted in paying to the numerous Scotchmen who accompanied Queensberry. For the first time since the two kingdoms had been brought under one Crown, the natives of the northern part of the island found that a Scottish face and a Scottish accent could be seen and heard without provoking insult. The Commissioner's entry into London resembled a triumphal procession. The road from Barnet to Highgate was covered by the coaches of the nobility and by gentlemen on horseback. All the Whig peers, all the members of the House of Commons who had voted for the Union, assembled to do honour to the man who had brought the project safely through so many dangers.* Since the Act of ratification passed, Anne had been overwhelmed with addresses from almost every corporation in England, complimenting her in loyal strains upon having performed a work so difficult that it had been the glory of her predecessors merely to attempt it.f It was ordered by proclamation that the 1st of May, the day from which the Union was to commence, should be observed as a day of public thanksgiving, and throughout England the rejoicings were in full accordance with this order.

Once more the Londoners had an opportunity of witnessing the pageant, now grown familiar, of the sovereign repairing in state to St. Paul's, to return thanks for the signal mercies of Pro vidence. The text from which the Bishop of Oxford preached was the very appropriate one from the Psalms, " Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! " In Scotland, on the other hand, the day from which it was destined that the country should enter on a career of prosperity almost as brilliant as that predicted for it by such seers as Law and Chamberlayne, was, by the care of the clergy, kept as a day of national mourning with the object of pro pitiating an incensed God, who must surely have inflicted the * Boyer. + London Gazette; Lettres Historiques; Boyer. The University of Oxford distinguished itself by its silence on this occasion.

B Union upon the Scottish people as a just punishment for their sins.* The difficulties which now engaged the attention of both Houses, were brought on by the eagerness of sharp traders, not only in England and Scotland, but even upon the Continent, to take advantage of an unguarded point in the treaty of Union. It had been agreed that, until the 1st of May, each kingdom should retain its existing scale of customs ; but that, after that period the English scale should be extended to Scotland. The existing Scottish customs on wine, spirits and other foreign productions were trifling in comparison with the heavy tax demanded in England. An importer, therefore, of commodities, ultimately designed for the English market, if he wished to obtain a cargo at the lighter rates, had but to direct its ship ment to a Scottish instead of to an English port.

The cargo would be landed, after payment of the Scottish customs, might remain in Scotland until the Union, and might then be brought free into England. There was, moreover, another way in which money could be made with little difficulty and no risk what ever. Under certain statutes any person who sent tobacco, pepper, and some other descriptions of colonial produce into Scotland, was allowed a drawback of sixpence in tbe pound upon the duties he had paid when they were landed in England. It was an easy thing for a merchant, who had on hand a stock of such commodities, to pass them into Scotland before the 1st of May, to pocket the drawback, and then to bring them back into England as soon as the Union had commenced. Such being the state of the case, it is not strange that, from the moment the news was received that the Union had passed the Scottish Parliament, the smaller fry of traders should have been everywhere on the alert.

An amount of business quite unprecedented was during three months transacted in the sea ports of Scotland. Ships were arriving every day from France with cargoes of wines and silks ; coffee and spices, luxuries which never could have been intended for the markets of an impoverished people, were set on shore from Holland ; while tobacco, in most unusual quantities, kept the officers of the custom-houses on the border continually employed in refunding * Boyer. the drawback.* At length the more respectable members of the trading community, too honourable to stoop to such sources of profit themselves, yet infuriated at the gains which their less scrupulous brethren were making, petitioned for the inter ference of Parliament on the grounds that, not only did these transactions inflict serious losses upon themselves, but that the public revenue would be materially affected.

The Commons responded by passing resolutions denouncing the practices complained of, and by ordering a bill to be brought in to rectify the evil. The main provision of that bill was that, even after the commencement of the Union, goods passing from Scotland into England should be liable to duty, unless it could be proved that they were in Scotland before the 1st of February, or had been imported into that kingdom after the 1st of May. It is no slight evidence of the superior wisdom of the Peers that this bill, which passed the Lower House, was rejected in the Upper by a great majority. It was pointed out that the remedy was far more mischievous than the evil. To disappoint a few cunning men who hoped to derive profits at the expense of the revenue, would be no doubt an advan tage ; but it would be an advantage dearly purchased by legislation which was in itself an infraction of the treaty, which would necessitate the continuance of the custom-houses on the border, and keep the subjects of the two kingdoms wrangling with each other for some time to come.

But another point speedily arose which, but for the liberal spirit which the Parliament was disposed to apply to all matters in issue with Scotland, might have excited a fearful outcry among a people jealously on the watch for subject of offence. The kingdom of Great Britain was scarcely a month old before a fleet of forty sail came crowding into the Thames from the northern ports. The ships were boarded by the officers of the Custom House. Each skipper was prepared to show that his cargo had been landed in Scotland before the date of the Union, that he had brought it directly from thence ; and so far his right to set the goods on shore without any further payment of duty was clear. But the officers saw that a great portion of the cargoes consisted of articles which, since the * Defoe, History of the Union ; Boyer; Lettres Historiques; Burnet. prohibition of trade with France, were contraband in this country, and conceived it to be their duty to take possession of the ships.

The matter was laid before the Privy Council. The board thought it prudent to resort to a decision of the Parlia ment. Prosecutions were instituted against the owners of the vessels, who were, however, permitted, upon giving security, to land the cargoes. The j udgment of the Commons was a marked indication of their wish to soothe and conciliate the people of the north by a large and liberal construction of the terms of the treaty. It was unanimously agreed to request her Majesty that she would instruct her law officers to desist from al further proceedings in regard to these ships.* Some further legislation was resorted to with the view of rendering the Union more complete. Those two famous Acts, the Act of Security and the Act anent peace and war, in which the hostile feelings of Scotland against England had formerly found vent, it was thought advisable to repeal by an express enactment.

But another subject upon which it was necessary to adjudicate aroused strong passions. A bill was introduced to abolish the Privy Council of Scotland, and to assimilate the powers of justices of the peace in that kingdom to those possessed by English justices. The measure met with opposition in the Lower House, and was encountered with still greater determination when it was sent up to the Lords. The arguments for retaining the Privy Council were indeed not contemptible. While the kingdom was full of disaffection, while the agents of France and of the Pretender were passing busily from one nobleman's house to another's, while tidings might each day be brought of an insurrection of the Cameronians or the Highlanders, it was surely for the public advantage that a commission should always be on the spot, armed with the fullest powers, and upon the fidelity of whose members the Government at home could implicitly depend.

Nor was there the certainty that, if the powers now exercised by the Privy Council were suddenly transferred to justices of the peace, those persons would comprehend them sufficiently to discharge their duties. Nay, it might be found impossible to obtain the requisite number of gentlemen whose fidelity to the existing * Boyer ; Lettres Historiques. Government was beyond suspicion. But strong as were these arguments, they failed to convince the majority of the Peers. The bare mention of the Privy Council of Scotland was suffi cient to excite in most minds an unconquerable desire to abolish its existence. It was impossible to forget that that institution had been, ever since the days of the infamous Cabal, the con venient instrument of tyranny in the hands either of wicked and corrupt ministers or of a cruel sovereign.

It had been constantly instigated to ruin, torture, and murder God's creatures, and had performed its iniquitous tasks with apparent delight. Was it not, therefore, advisable that an institution, whose past history was a reproach to England, and upon whose deeds Scotland could not think without indignation, should be swept away, whatever temporary disadvantage its loss might occasion ? Cowper, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, all spoke on this side, but the bill was carried by a majority of only five votes.* In the opinion of Godolphin, the services of the Council were too valuable to be dispensed with at so critical a time. It is possible, however, that his judgment may have been biassed by reflecting upon the assistance its members might afford to the Government in Parliamentary elections. From the consideration of these weighty affairs it becomes necessary to pass to a consideration of the state of mind of that august lady upon whose prejudices, religious and political, depended in large measure the future of most European com monwealths.

Seldom or never has a sovereign of this country occupied so proud a position in the community of nations as Anne. She was the real chief of the most formidable con federacy that had ever yet been organized against France. The armies of that confederacy were inspirited by almost unvarying success, and were directed by a man who, if not the greatest military genius, was the most reliable commander the world had seen for centuries. There can be little doubt that the war, notwithstanding the inconvenience to trade, the high prices, and heavy taxation which it occasioned, was popular with the great majority of the English people. So great was already the exhaustion and distress of France, that nothing but a steady determination on the part of the English sovereign * Bnyer ; Lettres Historiques. to uphold her existing Ministers, and to bestow the chief share of her favour on that party of the state which was heartily disposed to second the efforts of those Ministers, seemed requisite to insure the speedy and permanent humiliation of a kingdom which had been for more than a hundred years the firebrand of Europe.

There have been female sovereigns under whose vigorous administration nations have risen to the height of military fame. ' But Anne was not a Semiramis nor a Catherine of Russia. She was merely a pious lady, who had far more at heart the welfare of her Church than the glory of her arms. Marlborough had, upon his return home, been disagreeably impressed with the alteration he perceived in the Queen's demeanour towards him. There was no longer room for doubt that the affectionate feelings which Mrs. Morley had enter tained for thirty years towards Mr. and Mrs. Freeman had entirely disappeared, and that a feeling of sullen discontent supplied their place. But there was work to be performed, which, whatever might be its effect to increase Anne's ill-humour, could not be left undone. It was plainly necessary for the contentation of the most powerful party in the Parliament that some substantial marks of favour should be offered to the Whigs.

It was also obvious that while a counsellor like Harley had access to her Majesty, there was little chance of curing her inveteracy against that faction which it was essential to con ciliate. For some time, however, Anne turned a deaf ear to all complaints about Harley, and was utterly impervious to all arguments about the necessity of satisfying the Whigs. Marl borough's threats of resigning at length overcame her obstinacy upon the latter point. She consented that one Whig doctor named Trimnel should be raised to the see of Norwich, and that another named Potter should be made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. She even went so far as to authorise the Dukes of Devonshire and Somerset to inform the Whig leaders privately that, although she could not draw back from her word to the two Tory clergymen to whom she had promised the sees of Exeter and Chester, they should have more reason in future to be satisfied with her appointments.* This assur- * Burnet. ance the Whig leaders considered satisfactory.

Its effect upon their conduct in Parliament was marked and salutary ; but Marlborough and Godolphin felt that there could be no security against her Majesty's relapse into obstinacy, unless Harley were divested of all right of speaking to her as a counsellor. His dismissal from the secretaryship therefore they determined, at all cost to themselves, to extort from the Queen. Whether they . possessed any positive proofs of Harley's treachery it is impossible to state ; but that the evidence, to whatever it may have amounted, was principally furnished by Harley's arch-enemy, the Du°hess, there can be no doubt. As for many years past there had been no servant appointed in the palace except upon her recommendation, the household must have swarmed with her creatures. The music parties which Mrs. Masham gave in her rooms, and which Anne sometimes honoured with her presence, the attendance of the Secretary at those meetings, and the long conversations with which he was on those occasions indulged by her Majesty were all matters faithfully reported to the falling favourite.

Harley, upon his side, seems, with all his cunning, never to have con tracted a suspicion that his actions were observed by unfriendly eyes. He still professed his astonishment at the wickedness of the talebearers who accused him. But it was not his patrons alone who suspected his treachery. There was a common rumour that the Secretary was engaged in a clever intrigue to turn out the Lord Treasurer, and to put a staunch Tory into his office, that the Queen had admitted to St. John her intention of parting with the Lord Treasurer, and had given him liberty to publish the information to whom he would.* There was great excitement, not only in political, but in commercial circles ; for upon the wisdom and probity with which Godolphin managed the finances the fund-holders relied as a necessary part of their security.

The principal Whigs, in great alarm, made haste to convey to Marlborough and the Treasurer the strongest assurances of their support. Just at the end of the year, and while the town was at the height of expectation, a somewhat remark able incident occurred. • Swift to Archbishop King, February 12—23, 1708. He says, " Though his (Harley's) project has miscarried, it is reckoned the greatest piece of court skill that has been acted these many years." Intelligence came from the postmaster at Brussels that, having conceived some suspicions about a packet addressed to the French Minister, Chamillart, but which purported to come from the Secretary's office in England, he had opened it, and found it to contain copies of a number of important State papers. It appeared by a letter, also addressed to the French Minister, that the person who sent these copies was William Gregg.

Gregg, who was an under clerk in Harley's office, was imme diately arrested. Upon examination he admitted that, pressed by poverty and debt, he had endeavoured to raise money by selling information to France ; but he swore positively that he had no participator in his crime. He had taken the oppor tunity, he confessed, of a private letter, which was addressed by the prisoner of war, Marshal Tallard, to Chamillart, and which had been submitted to him for examination before it went abroad, to seal up with it his own inclosures. His evidence afforded a glimpse of the method in which business was trans acted in the Secretary's office. The most entire confidence reigned apparently between the careless chief and the humblest and most necessitous of his clerks. The rough drafts of letters of the highest moment which Godolphin sent to the office to be transcribed for the Queen's signature, would he on the desks open to the inspection of every clerk, messenger, or laundress in the establishment, until somebody had leisure to take the work in hand.

The books in which these letters were afterwards copied were never locked up. They lay in the presses, the keys of the presses remained in the locks, and any person in the office might consult them if he had the curiosity. All the secrets of State, the plans of campaigns, the projected descents upon the enemy's coasts, the negotiations with foreign Powers, the times assigned for the sailing of merchant fleets, the strength of their convoys, were confided to the honour of a set of clerks striving to keep body and soul together upon a not very regularly paid salary of fifty pounds a year. Gregg had not been long in Newgate when two men named Valliere and Barra were also brought in, upon the charge of being spies in the employ of France. Valliere was a French wigmaker ; Barra, a Piedmontese by birth, had been secretary to the Savoyard Embassy ; but both men had been for some time engaged in a much more lucrative occupation than wig making or corresponding.

A sort of compact appears to have existed between them and Harley, under which they were bound to furnish such information as they could collect about French affairs, while the English Government, on its side, was to shut its eyes to a little smuggling they designed to carry on. Thus protected, Valliere and Barra drove a splendid trade between Dover and Calais, by going over with wool and returning with brandy. The news they supplied in exchange for their valuable concession amounted to very little ; and Harley, it seems, was too mucb absorbed in other business to pay much attention to what they did bring. To secure their trade on the opposite coast, they had, of course, entered into the same relations with the French as with the English Government ; and there are grounds for believing that the French Ministers, less preoccupied than Harley about their private concerns, held the scoundrels more strictly to their bargain.

The suspicion was rife throughout our south-eastern coast that the singularly accurate information which the French Government unquestionably possessed touching the times for sailing of our merchant fleets was principally derived from Valliere and Barra. So vehement did the outcry at length become that the Mayor of Dover took upon himself to arrest aud send these men up to London. They were examined by the Privy Council, but would confess nothing. Clear evidence against them it was impossible to obtain ; and the Government, therefore, perhaps not altogether desirous of publishing transactions in which it could scarcely hope to figure at advantage, discharged them with a caution as to their behaviour in future. Meanwhile Gregg had pleaded guilty to his indictment at the Old Bailey, and had been sentenced to death.

The Whig leaders, eager to obtain matter against Harley, were in great hopes that the unfortunate man would say something to fix his chief with complicity in his crime. The House of Lords, in which their influence was supreme, was easily induced to enter upon a searching investigation of the affair. A committee was appointed, and consisted of seven of the principal Whigs. The committee went to Newgate for the purpose of examining the prisoner, whose execution was respited. Gregg was plainly told that if he would make a full confession, he might hope for the intercession of the House. It was impossible for the poor fellow to mistake the drift of his examiners ; but in spite of the temptation held out to him, he adhered manfully and honourably to the truth of his first statement that no one had been privy to his crime, and that his only inducement in com mitting it had been his pecuniary necessities.

The com mittee had the cruelty to keep the culprit hovering between life and death for nearly three months. At length, in bitter disappointment at making no other discovery than that the business of the Secretary's office was conducted with considerable laxity, they sent up to the Queen a recommendation that the execution should take place. Gregg was accordingly hanged at Tyburn on the 28th of April. Before he was turned off he de livered a paper to the sheriff, in which he solemnly exculpated Harley from all participation in the offence for which he suffered.* The cruelty of the Whigs in keeping Gregg suspended over the grave for more than three months, was the more flagrant from the circumstance that long before his execution, Anne had been awakened to the impossibility of retaining Harley in her service without throwing her affairs into utter confusion.

It had become necessary that this matter should be brought to a speedy conclusion, inasmuch as the time Marlborough could remain in England was drawing to a close, and Godolphin might well despair of effecting anything in his absence. Harley clung desperately to his post. He waited on Marlborough, and implored to be informed in what particular he had offended. He wrote to Godolphin, and protested that he had never harboured a thought prejudicial to his interest. The Treasurer's reply was brief and mournful, and seemingly imports that evidence of an unquestionable character as to Harley's schemes had reached him : "lam sorry to have lost the good opinion I once had of you ; but I must believe my own senses. I am very far from having deserved this of you. May God forgive you for it ! " The two friends, shortly after the date of this letter, repaired to Anne, and made a joint request that the * Three pamphlets concerning Gregg are among the Somers tracts.

Howell's State Trials ; Burnet ; Boyer ; Lettres Historiques. Oldmixon's History. Secretary should be dismissed. A scene of strange interest ensued, and was prolonged for more than a week. The poor conscience-stricken lady clung with the same tenacity to the sanctimonious Minister, as a Roman Catholic penitent clings to the saving merits of his saint. In Harley, there can be no reasonable doubt, she had, during the two past years, reposed all her hopes of deliverance from the meshes of sin in which the ambition of the Whigs and the treachery of her former friends had involved her. She had therefore made up her mind not to part with so precious a servant. Unfortu nately, however, for her, the more she evinced her partiality for the Secretary, the more necessary did it appear to Marl borough and Godolphin that the Secretary should be debarred from access to her.

Her Majesty's intellect, it seemed, was impervious to mere argument and persuasion. Recourse, therefore, must be had to an expedient by which powerful Ministers have more than once obtained their own way in the face of the likings and dislikings of feeble sovereigns. Each of the friends wrote separately to the Queen, and tendered his resignation. The letter of Marlborough was super vised and corrected by Godolphin. The united acquirements of the two were indeed insufficient to render the composition grammatical ; but it was to be perused by no hypercritical reader, and was at least forcible and to the point. The writer deplored that his endeavours to convince her Majesty of the false and treacherous proceedings of Mr. Secretary Harley should have been so fruitless. He was very sure that her per sistence in countenancing him would be regarded with sorrow and amazement throughout Europe.