The views of his adherents were different and their preoccupations more serious. Scarcely had they arrived at Derby, when the chiefs repaired in a body to the prince, representing to him the extreme danger they ran, surrounded as they were by hostile armies, in a hostile or indifferent country, without assistance from the Jacobites, and far distant from the forces which had remained in Scotland under the command of Lord Strathallan. A victory at the gates of London, the only chance of glory and success, would leave them still isolated and exposed to the vengeance and anger of the Elector. The latter had thirty thousand men at his disposal; their army did not number more than five thousand fighting men. All counselled retreat, whilst there was yet time, while the roads were not cut off, and reinforcements awaited them in Scotland.
The prince bore himself violently. "I would rather be twenty feet under the ground than retreat," he exclaimed. He multiplied reasons, arguments, and hopes, both groundless and chimerical; promising a landing of French troops in the county of Kent, expatiating justly on the terror into which their approach had thrown London, where the day of entrance into Derby long bore the name of Black Friday. The Scots remained immovable. Their soldiers were preparing to march into the capital, sharpening their swords or piously prostrating themselves in the churches; but the chiefs were resolved not to run any new risk. On the evening of the 5th of December the prince finally yielded."You desire it," he said to the members of his council; "I consent to the retreat; but henceforth I will consult no one. I am responsible for my actions only to God and to my father. I shall no longer ask nor accept your advice."
In spite of the liberal protestations of Charles Edward, he had sucked in with his milk the maxims and haughtiness of absolute power; but bad fortune had more than once compelled the Stuarts to bend before the firm resolution of their faithful friends. The anger of the soldiers equalled that of the prince. "If we had been beaten, we would not have been more sad," said one of them. The discontent of the troops displayed itself by a new growth of irregularity. A long line of stragglers pillaged the cottages; some set fire to the villages which resisted them. The prince did not exercise any oversight. He no longer looked on himself as chief of the army, and he had abandoned his position in the advance guard. The Duke of Cumberland had raised his camp and was following the retreating army. Already at Clifton Moor, an advance detachment had thought to surprise Lord George Murray's corps. The lieutenant-general was on his guard. In the shade he perceived the dragoons who had descended from horseback, and who were gliding under the shelter of the walls. "Claymore!" cried the Scottish chief, and his soldiers instantly started in pursuit of the enemy, and soon put them to rout. Lord George had lost his cap and fought bareheaded.
The rebel army entered Scotland without another battle. Scarcely had it left Carlisle when the place was invested by the royal troops. The Manchester regiment which occupied it for the young Pretender was forced to capitulate "under the good pleasure of his Majesty." The good pleasure of George II. was to be, for the larger part of the officers, condemnation to death.
The royal authority had been re-established at Edinburgh since the prince had taken the road to England. General Hawley, who occupied it for George II., advanced towards Stirling. Charles Edward had just arrived there. He had blockaded the citadel, but on learning the movement of the English general he immediately marched to meet him. The prince had rallied all his forces; his army amounted to about eight or nine thousand men, a figure nearly equal to that of the royal troops. The English were encamped on the plain of Falkirk. On the 17th of January, 1746, when the rumor spread that the highlanders were approaching, the general was absent, being detained at Cullender House by the hospitality of the Countess of Kilmarnock, whose husband had taken part with the rebel army. The soldiers were preparing their dinner; confusion reigned among all the regiments. Hawley, who had come hatless in hot haste at a hard gallop, immediately hurried his dragoons along with him, ordering the infantry to follow him, so as to cut off the road to the mountaineers. Rain was driving in the face of the soldiers. The highlanders already occupied the acclivity when the royal troops arrived to meet them. Hardly had they formed their lines when the mountaineers dashed on them, having dispersed the cavalry, who suffered the disadvantage of the position. Only three regiments of the right wing stood the impetuous attack of the highlanders. On this juncture the Scotch brigade that Sir John Drummond had brought from France belied the reputation that it had achieved at Fontenoy. According to custom, the mountaineers, certain of victory, no longer thought of anything but plunder, and did not pursue the fugitives.Hawley and his dragoons, drenched almost to the skin by torrents of rain, beaten by a furious wind, ashamed and humiliated, reentered Linlithgow at a gallop, in order to take refuge immediately after in Edinburgh. The fugitive foot-soldiers joined them there, and bore all the rage of their terrible chief. The gibbets that he had prepared for the punishment of the rebels were loaded with his coward soldiers. The Duke of Cumberland alone, who was coming by forced marches to measure himself with the Pretender, put an end to these punishments. On the 30th of January he slept at Holyrood, in the same room and in the same bed that his rival had lately occupied. Yet once more the future of Great Britain seemed destined to be played for on the field of battle between two princely adversaries, both representing the most opposite principles, both young and brave, having at command forces the same to outward view, but in reality very different. To clear-sighted observers, even though prejudiced, Charles Edward's cause was lost.
It was the opinion of his most faithful adherents, absolutely devoted, as before Derby, to a cause the weakness of which they appreciated, and which they were resolved to defend to the very end. After his victory at Falkirk, the prince wished to again undertake the siege of Stirling Castle, without other counsel than that of a French engineer, M. de Mirabelle, and some subordinates. The chiefs were gloomy; they presented a remonstrance to the prince; desertions were becoming every day more numerous in the face of foes who were each day more threatening. "We are humbly of opinion," said the highland chiefs, "that the only means of snatching the army from an imminent peril is to withdraw to the highlands, and we can easily occupy the winter in getting possession of the northern fortresses.We are thus certain of retaining sufficient men to deter the enemy from following us into the mountains at this season of the year. In the spring a new army of ten thousand men will be ready to accompany your Royal Highness where it may seem good to you." On this occasion again the determined will of the men who had risked everything in his cause overcame the young prince's obstinacy. In his rage he dashed his head against the wall. "Good God! have I lived long enough to see this?" he cried. But the siege of Stirling Castle was abandoned, and the retreat toward the mountains began without any order or method. In his bad humor Charles Edward had neglected to give his orders. The rebels without difficulty invested Inverness, the castle of which yielded at the end of some days. The convoys of arms and supplies coming from France had almost all been intercepted by English cruisers. The coffers of the army needed money; the troops were receiving their pay in flour; dissatisfaction was on the increase; the French and Spanish adventurers were tired of the war; they ran no danger, and they reaped neither glory nor profit. The Duke of Cumberland pursued the retreating army. On the 2nd of February he had entered Stirling; on the 25th he took up quarters at Aberdeen, being himself irritated and gloomy. "All the inhabitants of the country are Jacobites," he wrote; "gentleness would be quite out of place; there would be no end if I should enumerate the villains and the villainies which abound here." The hour of vengeance was approaching, rendered more cruel by the natural harshness of the conqueror, as well as by the passionate obstinacy of those of the rebels who should become his victims.Already the march of the royal army was marked by gibbets. The duke's advance was for a time hindered by the departure of the Dutch troops. Scarcely had Lord John Drummond set foot in Scotland than he had communicated to the troops of the States-General his commission from Louis XV. As prisoners of war who had capitulated at Tournay and at Dendermonde, the Dutch regiments were pledged not to bear arms against France. They had just been replaced by Hessians, when the Duke of Cumberland, crossing the Spey in spite of the highlanders' efforts, advanced as far as Nairn, where he established his camp. About seven leagues separated the two armies; plenty reigned among the English. On the 15th of April, the Duke of Cumberland's birthday, an extraordinary distribution of provisions was made among the troops. When the highlanders were called to arms in the night they had scarcely had a biscuit to appease their hunger. The prince and Lord George Murray had conceived the hope of effecting a surprise. The body of troops was inconsiderable, but the night was dark, the road bad, and the English made drowsy by copious drinking. The mountaineers set out on the march; they were enfeebled, and they advanced slowly. Day was beginning to break when they found themselves in sight of the English camp. Charles Edward was disposed to push forward. "A little light will be advantageous to us in wielding the two-edged sword," said Hepburn; but Lord George, ever prudent, and stationed at the head of the advance guard, had already ordered the retreat. The men, fatigued and discouraged, resumed their position in the plain of Culloden, at the foot of the castle which the prince occupied, and which belonged to the great Judge Duncan Forbes, one of his most decided as well as most intelligent and reasonable adversaries.It was there that the Duke of Cumberland came in his turn to offer battle to the Pretender. The army of the latter was small in number; several clans, disaffected on different points, did not respond to the call. Charles Edward refused to hear the wary counsels which his friends threw away on him, among others the Marquis d'Equilles, who had lately come from France with a letter from King Louis XV., and who pompously assumed the title of ambassador. The die was cast; the two armies drew up for battle in the plain. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning. On the 18th of April, 1746, before close of day, the Jacobite army had ceased to exist.
The courage of Charles Edward and his conduct at the battle of Culloden have often been questioned. Standing motionless on the hill at the head of a squadron of cavalry, he took no part in the action, and when he perceived the disorder of the troops he made no effort to rally them and to die in their midst. He was displeased and gloomy, affected perhaps by the fatalistic superstition that seemed to have impressed several of the clans. The Macdonalds had been placed at the left wing, whereas they had occupied the right at Prestonpans and at Falkirk. This change had seemed to them a bad augury. Lochiel had been severely wounded; two of his followers had carried him bleeding far from the field of battle. The courtiers who surrounded the prince took fright when they saw the fortune of battle declare itself against them, and withdrew, ignoring the fate reserved for them and what intellectual and moral degradation should attach to that man who had started in life by an undertaking so adventurous and brilliant that it had for a time placed him in the estimation of Europe among heroes.The Duke of Cumberland was constantly borne to the front rank. "I have just given the orders of the day, that fugitives will be shot," he had said to his troops at the beginning of the battle. "I tell you this, that those who do not feel their courage very certain, should retire. I prefer to fight with one thousand resolute men behind me than to have ten thousand among whom are cowards." The regiments had responded by the cry of "Flanders! Flanders!" a just and noble souvenir of their attitude at Fontenoy. The battle was finished and the victory complete when the duke wrote to London, "I thank God for having been the instrument of this success, the glory of which belongs solely to the English troops, who have cleansed themselves of the little check at Falkirk without the help of the Hessians. They would have been well able to spare us the trouble, and have not been useless in spite of their inaction."
The highlanders had for the most part fought valiantly; their losses were great, and few of the prisoners were to see their families again. The rigors of triumphant vengeance already were commencing to spend themselves on them. The Duke of Cumberland and General Hawley did not feel the sentiments which had formerly affected Charles Edward after the battle of Prestonpans. The prisoners and the wounded suffered hunger and thirst. A certain number of the fugitives were burned in the cottages where they had concealed themselves. "It is necessary to draw a little of this country's blood," said the Duke of Cumberland. "We weaken this folly, but we do not cure it. Even if we have destroyed them, the soil is so impregnated by this rebellion that it will crop out again." Already the prince's agents were scouring the country seeking fugitives of note, searching houses, and leaving traces of their passage by fire and sword. "I think it will not be long before I lay my hand on old Lovat," wrote the duke. "I have several detachments on the way to search for him, and papers which suffice to convict him of high treason."
It was at the house of Lord Lovat, the most perfidious of all his secret adherents, that Charles Edward had sought refuge after leaving the battle-field of Culloden. The cruel old man, grown hoary in intrigues, had refused to join him personally, whilst sending him his son. He was henceforward determined to sacrifice all his possessions in order to save his life. He coldly received the unfortunate prince, who would not sleep under his roof, and who pursued his way as far as the abandoned castle of Invergary. A fisherman of the neighborhood brought two salmon that he had just caught in the little river. The prince and his companions were worn out with fatigue, discouraged, and convinced with reason that the check was definite and the cause lost. Lord George Murray had rallied twelve hundred men at Ruthven. Prudent in the moment of success, dauntless in the hour of reverse, he advised the prince to maintain the struggle at every risk. "We can hold out in the mountains so long as there is a cow and a measure of meal in Scotland," said he. A message from the prince thanked his faithful adherents for their zeal, asking of them, as a last favor, to think of their personal safety. All were gravely compromised; danger was imminent; they scattered, and the rebellion of 1745-1746 was over.
While the Duke of Cumberland established himself in Fort Augustus, exercising to the full all those cruelties which made him deserve the name of butcher, while the most fortunate of his enemies escaped with great difficulty, Prince Charles Edward, as his grand-uncle, King Charles II., had formerly done after the battle of Worcester, wandered from hiding-place to hiding-place, exhausted, dying of hunger, a hundred times recognized, forced to trust to the poorest people, to the most powerless of his friends, yet everywhere served, assisted, defended, with a devotion which was proof against everything. He had taken refuge in the little archipelago which bears the name of Long Island. The English vessels cruised along the coasts; houses were incessantly searched; peasants were arrested; the danger was increasing every day. A young girl, Miss Flora Macdonald, who was on a visit in the Isle of Wight succeeded in procuring herself a passport for the Isle of Skye. She disguised the prince, and, taking him in her suite as a lady's maid, went for refuge to the house of her cousin, Sir Alexander Macdonald, who had been constantly adverse to Charles Edward's attempt, and had ended by actively opposing it. His wife, Lady Margaret, seconded Flora's efforts. The castle was filled with militia officers, but she succeeded in effecting the prince's escape. Some days later he crossed to the Isle of Rosay, almost at the moment when his deliverer, Flora Macdonald, was arrested and conducted to London, where her detention lasted about a year. Some people found fault with Lady Margaret's conduct, the Princess of Wales being of the number. "In such a case would you not have done as much?" said her husband, turning quickly upon her. "I hope so; I am sure of it." The persevering fidelity of the Jacobites endowed Flora Macdonald. After five months of perils and sufferings courageously endured, the fugitive prince at last set foot in France. He embarked on the 20th of September at Lochmanagh, almost at the same place where he had formerly landed full of the most joyous and brilliant hopes."Nothing troubled him, neither fatigues nor privations," said one of the temporary companions of his flight. "He alone should suffer," he said; but when he thought of all those who were in peril for his sake, his heart was strained and on the verge of losing courage. His name long dwelt in the popular songs of the highlands, which remained persistently faithful to the remembrance of common efforts and dangers.
"I have had sons; I no longer have any. I have brought them up with difficulty, but I would be willing to bear them all again and to lose them for love of Charles."
Whilst the prince, the object of a devotion so passionately disinterested, was receiving at the court of Louis XV. a welcome as impressive as it was vain, his illustrious partisans thronged the prisons and scaffolds, while their lands were laid waste by the English soldiers. In vain did Duncan Forbes claim the application of laws. "Laws!" replied the conqueror; "I will make laws with a brigade." Colonel Townley and his companions had already endured their horrible sentence at Kennington Common in sight of an eager and terrified crowd. Lord Cromarty, Lord Kilmarnock, and Lord Balmerino were confined in the Tower. When they were brought before the Court of Peers the first two pleaded guilty. Lord Cromarty implored the compassion of his judges for his wife and eight children. Lord Balmerino pleaded not guilty. "I wish to be judged by God and my peers," said he proudly. All three were condemned to the punishment of traitors; Lord Cromarty alone obtained pardon. "I do not consider him worthy of life who is not ready to die," said Lord Balmerino when his sentence was confirmed.As the sheriff pronounced the customary formula, "God save King George," Kilmarnock uttered an "Amen." Balmerino raised his head. "So God save King James," exclaimed he; "if I had a thousand lives I would give them all for this cause." He knelt down on the scaffold. "My God, reward my friends, forgive my enemies, bless King James, and receive my soul," he uttered in a loud voice. The agitated executioner had scarcely strength to cut his head off.
Last of all, Lord Lovat had suffered the punishment merited by his entire life rather than by his part in the Jacobite rebellion. A coward and a suppliant as long as he believed pardon possible, he recovered on the day before his death the theatrical pride of his best days, and even on the scaffold he murmured the line of Horace: "Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori." Legal measures had followed these bloody executions; the highlanders were disarmed; hereditary jurisdictions were abolished; their national costume was forbidden to the mountaineers. Along with the power of the Jacobites the feudal spirit was slowly extinguished in Scotland. Keppoch had sorrowfully said on the battle-field of Culloden, when he saw the Macdonalds quietly retire without fighting, "Have I lived long enough to see myself deserted by the children of my people?" Death had seconded fatigue and private grudges. "It is to the Duke of Cumberland that we owe this peace," was what was written on the monument of Culloden battle-field.
The anger and harshness of the English government in regard to the Jacobites multiplied the checks that the coalition had encountered everywhere on the continent, with the exception of Italy. At the moment when the Duke of Cumberland was defeating Charles Edward at Culloden, Antwerp surrendered to Louis XV. in person. Mons, Namur, and Charleroi were not long in yielding. The victory of Raucoux in 1746, and that of Lawfelt in 1747, had carried the glory of Marshal Saxe to its height. Originally a foreigner like him, like him serving France gloriously, the Count Lowendall hard pressed the Dutch, who were against their inclination engaged in the struggle. He had already taken Ecluse and Sas de Gand; Berg-op-Zoom was besieged. As in 1672, the French invasion had given rise to a political revolution in Holland. The aristocraticbourgeoisie, which had regained power, yielded to the efforts of the popular party, directed by the House of Nassau and sustained by England. "The republic needs a chief to oppose an ambitious and perfidious neighbor who makes game of the faith of treaties," said a deputy of the States-General on the day when the stadtholdership was proclaimed, which was re-established in favor of William IV., grand-nephew of the great William III. and son-in-law of George II. King of England. The young prince immediately took command of the Dutch troops, but a good understanding did not long exist between him and the Duke of Cumberland. "Our two young heroes scarcely understand one another," wrote Mr. Pelham on the 14th of August, 1747. "Ours is open, frank, resolute, and a little hot-headed; the other is presumptuous, pedantic, argumentative, and obstinate; in what a situation do we find ourselves? We must ask God to come to our aid, for we can direct nothing. There is nothing to be done but appease quarrels and obtain time to breathe. Perhaps somebody will recover common sense."
Marshal Saxe had said to Louis XV., "Sire, peace is in Mæstricht." The place was invested on the 9th of April, 1748, before the thirty-five thousand Russians promised to England by the Czarina Elizabeth had time to arrive. The Dutch were alarmed, and vigorously insisted on peace. Philip V. was dead. His successor, Ferdinand VI., who was less faithful to the House of Bourbon, made overtures to England. For a long time the prime minister, Henry Pelham, was disposed to peace. His brother, the Duke of Newcastle, opposed it out of servile deference to the king. Lord Chesterfield, lately become a member of the cabinet, and who was intelligent and sagacious in spite of his worldly unconcern, being dissatisfied with the conduct of the court towards him, had just given in his resignation. Notwithstanding her successes, France was, like her adversaries, weary. Marshal Saxe himself made pacific proposals. The preliminaries of the peace were signed on the 30th of April. Austria and Spain were not slow in giving their adhesion to it. On the 18th of October the final treaty was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. After so much blood spilt and treasure squandered, France gained from the war no other advantage than the guarantee of the duchies of Parma and Plaisance to the infant Don Philip, son-in-law of Louis XV. England yielded to France Cape Breton and the colony of Louisburg, the only territory that she had preserved after her numerous expeditions against our colonies, and the immense injury she had done our commerce. This clause excited much ill-feeling among the English people. Hostages had been promised. Prince Charles Edward was in Paris when they arrived. He was seized with an access of patriotic anger. "If ever I remount the throne of my fathers," he exclaimed, "Europe will witness my constant endeavors to oblige France in turn to send hostages to England."
Prince Charles Edward was himself an inconvenient and compromising hostage whom France engaged in expelling from her territory. Vainly, since his return from Scotland, the young Pretender had obstinately sought to rekindle a flame which was forever extinguished. "If I had received only half of the money that your Majesty sent me," he wrote to Louis XV. on the 10th of November, 1746, "I would have fought the Duke of Cumberland with equal numbers, and I would have certainly defeated him, since with four thousand men against twelve thousand I held victory in the balance for a long time. These disasters can yet be repaired if your Majesty is willing to intrust me with a body of from eighteen to twenty thousand men. The number of warlike subjects has never failed me in Scotland. I have needed at once money, provisions, and a handful of regular troops. With one of these three aids alone I would still be to-day master of Scotland, and probably of all England." Louis XV. had remained deaf to this appeal, which no longer found an echo in Spain. The Duke of York, second son of the Chevalier de St. George, had just taken orders. The Court of Rome had forthwith made him a cardinal, to the violent indignation of his brother. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle removed from the unfortunate Stuarts that asylum which France had with so much pomp lately offered them. Charles Edward refused to understand the notice which the ministers of Louis XV. had conveyed to him. "The king is bound to my cause by his honor, which is worth all treaties," said he. In vain had his father counselled him to yield to necessity and not to provoke a monarch who could be useful to him. The prince was determined to remain in France, and at Paris.On the 11th of December, as he arrived at the opera, his carriage was surrounded by police agents. M. de Vaudreuil, major in the guards, presented himself before the prince. "I arrest you in the name of the king, my master," said he. "The manner is a little cavalier," coolly replied the young man. When the major asked for his arms, "Let them take them," said he, freeing himself from the hands of the police officers. They bound his hands with silken cords, the last sign of respect accorded to the heir of a house forever fallen, and he was conducted from stage to stage as far as the frontier. He would never see France again. Twice he reappeared secretly in England: in 1753, on the occasion of a projected surprise on the person of George II., which he himself deemed impossible; and in 1761, amid the festivities at the coronation of George III. Twice the kings of the House of Hanover were not ignorant of the presence of their enemy in the capital; they made no effort to seize him, and wisely allowed him to set out again for an exile, the long weariness of which had mortally affected his mind as well as his heart. Deprived by his faults of the pure joys of family life, he had lowered himself so far as to seek forgetfulness in drunkenness. He was old and almost forgotten when he died at Rome in 1788. Only the inscription on a tomb recalls the name of the last three Stuarts, and it was King George IV. who caused it to be engraved as a souvenir of extinct passions: "To James III., son of James II., King of England; to Charles Edward, and to Henry, Cardinal of York, last scion of the House of Stuart, 1819."
[Image]Arrest Of Charles Edward.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had, with good reason, excited more discontent in France than in England. We alone had gained brilliant victories and made great conquests. We alone preserved no increase of territory. The great Frederick kept Silesia, and the King of Sardinia the domains already ceded by Austria. Humorous lampoons were sung in the streets of Paris, and "Bête comme le paix," was a customary expression.
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that of barrenness; it was not and could not be lasting. England had proved her power on the sea. She had battled against our ruined navy, and against enfeebled Spain. Holland, her ally after having been her rival, could no longer dispute the sovereign empire with her. She became daily more eager for the conquest of the distant colonies that we did not know how to defend. The peace had left in suspense disputed points which would soon serve as a pretext for new aggressions. In proportion as the ancient influence of Richelieu and Louis XIV. on European politics grew weaker, English influence, based on the growing power of a free country and government, was strengthening. Without any other allies than Spain, who was herself shaken in her fidelity, we stood exposed to the enterprises of England, henceforth freed from the phantom of the Stuarts. "The peace concluded between England and France in 1748 was only a truce," said Lord Macaulay; "it was not even a truce on other parts of the globe." It was there that the two nations were about to measure themselves, and that the burden of its government's shortcomings would cause France to lose that empire of the Indies and those Canadian colonies which had been founded and so long sustained by eminent men, one after another, victims to their patriotic devotion which was as hopeless as it was without results.
Frederick, Prince of Wales, died on the 20th of March, 1751. Having caught a slight cold, without being alarmed at his illness, he soon felt seriously affected. "I feel death," he had said. The dispute which reigned in the royal family did not cease at the grave; the project of the Regency law had occasioned some bitter passages between the dowager princess, mother of the new Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cumberland. The prince was not popular. "I do not know why," said King George II. "This nation is capricious. The Scotch and the Jacobites think ill of him; and the English do not like discipline." On the 6th of March, 1754, Henry Pelham unexpectedly died. His administration had been just and intelligent, without vigor, but without disturbance. "I shall have no more peace," exclaimed the old king when he learned of his minister's death. As clever in court finesse as he was incapable of directing with grandeur general policy, the Duke of Newcastle knew how to seize the high rank that escaped the dying hands of his brother. William Pitt bided his time.
It was in the midst of this administrative weakness and intellectual stagnation that a religious movement had begun, and was spreading, which was destined to reanimate moral life in England, to purify manners, and to give it strength to resist the fatal impulse of the French Revolution. Under the influence of examples which originated in the court of Charles II., and which since then had been fostered by numerous scandals, English society was gradually corrupted in high places, and the contagion of moral evil was beginning to make itself felt even in the most remote provinces. Religious faith, enfeebled by the indifference of the clergy as well as by the theories of philosophers, was struggling faintly against the depravity of manners. The Anglican Church had fallen into a respectable languor; the old dissenting sects, having escaped from the tight bonds of persecution, had lost their ancient fervor.
[Image]William Pitt—Lord Chatham.
The religious sentiment yet existed in a latent condition among the lower and middle classes. Here it was that it awakened with an unexpected ardor at the eloquent voice of John Wesley and George Whitefield. Both students of Oxford, both destined to embrace the holy ministry, both consecrated in the Anglican Church, they undertook with enthusiasm a sacred crusade for the salvation of souls and the destruction of moral evil. Whitefield, who was more ardently eloquent, less contained, and of a less tolerant spirit than Wesley, now travelled over the country, preaching to the miners, who came out of their gloomy retreats in thousands in order to hear his fervent exhortations, and now assembled at the house of the Countess of Huntington theéliteof the worldly society of London. Strong workingmen sobbed and groaned under his pathetic appeals; peasants fell to the earth as though stricken with inward convulsions; philosophers tranquilly admired an eloquence of which they recognized the power as well as the sincerity. "All appeared moved to some extent," said Whitefield in writing of a piously worldly assembly. "Lord Chesterfield thanked me, saying, 'Sir, I will not say to you, what I say of you to others, how much I commend you.' Lord Bolingbroke assisted at the meeting. He was seated like an archbishop, and did me the honor to say that in my discourse I had done justice to the divine attributes." Some years later the eloquence of Whitefield was to draw from the economical hands of Franklin the whole contents of his purse. But already the ardor of his zeal had closed to him the pulpits of the Anglican Church. He had sought sympathy for his cause even in America.On his return to England some difference of opinion had separated him from Wesley. Henceforth each worked for his reward in the vast field of unbelief, indifference, and moral corruption. Both, however, pursued the same work, following the bent of natural disposition, which was more ardent and dissenting with Whitefield and the Methodist sects born under his inspiration, more moderate and conservative with Wesley as with the innumerable adherents who yet do themselves the honor of bearing his name.
Never was the author of a great and lasting popular movement further removed than Wesley from all revolutionary tendency. The spirit of government and organization, attachment to ancient and venerated forms, a lofty and calm judgment united to an ascetic nature, a slight leaning towards mysticism—such were the characteristic and necessary traits of a reformer and religious founder in the eighteenth century. Wesley was tenderly attached to the Anglican Church; he only separated himself from it with regret, constrained by the ecclesiastical dislike which closed the pulpits to him, and compelled, little by little, and against his inclination, to accept the vault of heaven for his temple, and the laity for his fellow laborers, as Whitefield had done since the beginning. During his long apostolate, which lasted from 1729 to 1791, from the prayer-meetings in his room at Oxford to the complete and strong organization of the sect he had founded, Wesley exercised an absolute authority over his numerous subjects. "If you mean by an arbitrary power, a power which I alone exercise," he said, with a tranquil simplicity, "it is certainly true; but I see no harm in it." However, in courageously accomplishing his work, Wesley did more than he intended; he had founded a religious society; he had not had the intention of founding a sect.A minister of the Anglican Church, and a witness of its shortcomings, he had felt that in order to awaken the parish clergy it was necessary to create a kind of regular clergy; that in order to announce the Gospel to those who did not go to church, or who only heard these cold exhortations, it was necessary to organize an army of ardent missionaries; that in order to touch the heart of the masses it was necessary to seek them in the fields, the markets, and the byways, and to address them in their own common language. Wesley was forced to separate himself from the Anglican Church, but his disciples have constantly remained respectful to her, and as an intermediate body between her and dissenters, they have, from without, rendered her most important services. Wesley and Whitefield have reawakened religious life in England, and no religious society has profited by it so much as the Anglican Church herself. Movements of various kinds, all serious and sincere, have manifested themselves in her wide bosom. She has sufficed to foster much warmth, to satisfy minds and hearts widely dissimilar, but all beset by veritable religious needs; she has united herself to the most noble attempts of modern philanthropy, the worthy fruits of awakened and revived Christian faith. It is to the great religious movement created in the eighteenth century by Wesley and Whitefield that England has owed the glorious efforts of Clarkson and Wilberforce for the emancipation of slaves, and the prison reform of John Howard.
England had need of all her forces, ancient and new, moral, religious, and patriotic, for she was approaching an era of blended glory and danger, agitated and tempestuous even in victory. The war with France, long sustained on distant seas without preliminary declaration, and with enormous detriment to French commerce, which was everywhere interrupted and ruined, became at last patent and officially inevitable. In the Indies as well as in Canada, it had not ceased for a single day. In the month of March, 1755, the ministers asked Parliament for an increase of forces for the defence of the American possessions threatened by the French. The governor of Canada, the Marquis Duquesne, had erected a series of forts in the valley of the Ohio. M. de Contrecœur, who commanded in that region, learned that a body of English troops was marching upon him under the orders of young Colonel Washington. He immediately detailed M. de Jumonville along with thirty men, to call upon the English to retire and evacuate the French territory. At break of day on the 18th of May, 1754, Washington's corps surprised De Jumonville's little encampment. The attack was unforeseen; the French envoy was killed along with nine of his troop. The irritation caused by this event precipitated the commencement of hostilities. A band of Canadians, reinforced by some savages, marched against Washington, who had intrenched himself in the plain. It was necessary to attack him with cannon shot. In spite of his bravery, the future conqueror of American independence was forced to capitulate. The colonies were keenly excited; they formed a sort of confederation against the French power in America. They especially raised militia. In January, 1755, General Braddock was already in Virginia with regular troops. In the early part of May, Admiral Boscawen, after a desperate combat, captured several vessels which had been separated by bad weather from the squadron of Admiral Dubois de la Motte. Three hundred merchant vessels fell into the hands of the English navy.War was finally declared, to the secret uneasiness of the two governments as well as of the two nations. "What is the use of having plenty of troops and money," wrote the lawyer Barbier, "if we only wage war with the English by sea? They will one after another take all our vessels, get hold of all our American settlements, and manage all the commerce. Some division in the English nation itself must be hoped for, because the king personally does not desire war."
King George II. was uneasy on account of Hanover—a point of attack naturally pointed out to the armies of King Louis XV. The English nation dreaded the landing so often and so vainly announced. "What I wish," exclaimed Pitt, "is to snatch this country from a state of enervation which makes it tremble before twenty thousand Frenchmen." Being a member of the administration, as well as paymaster-general of the forces, he violently attacked the treaties of subsidies and alliance, which the king had just concluded with Prussia and Hesse. For the first time, his eloquence swayed the House. "He has surpassed himself," wrote Horace Walpole. "Do I need to tell you that he has surpassed Demosthenes and Cicero? What figure would their solemn, elaborate, studied harangues have cut beside this manly vivacity and this impetuous eloquence which, all at once, at one o'clock in the morning, after eleven hours' session, pierced the stifling atmosphere." Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had, like Pitt, refused his assent to the treaties. Both were replaced, and Pitt was thrown into the opposition, which rallied round the princess dowager and the young Prince of Wales. "This day will, I hope, give the key-note to my life," he had rightly said in his great speech.
The weakness of the English government became more apparent every day. "I say it with regret on account of my friend Fox," wrote Horace Walpole, "but the year 1756 was, perhaps, that of the worst government I have ever seen in England: the incapacity of Newcastle had fair play." In spite of their inadequate resources the Canadians defended themselves heroically and not unsuccessfully against the efforts of the American colonies backed by the mother-country. Acadia, a strip of neutral country between the English and French territories, the inhabitants of which had constantly refused to take the oath of allegiance to England, was invaded by the American troops, the population swept off, and the houses pillaged. General Braddock encountered more resistance in the valley of the Ohio. He proposed to surprise Fort Duquesne, and forced the march of his little corps. "I never saw a finer sight than that of the English troops on the 9th of July, 1755," wrote Colonel Washington, who was commanding under the orders of Braddock. But soon the English advance-guard was stopped by a heavy discharge of artillery; the enemy did not appear; the foremost ranks were disordered and recoiled on the body of the army. The confusion became extreme; the regular troops, little used to this sort of fighting, refused to rally round the general, who would have wished them to manœuvre as on the plains of Flanders. The Virginia militia alone, being scattered in the woods, answered the fire of the French or Indian sharpshooters without showing themselves. General Braddock soon received a mortal wound; Colonel Washington, reserved by God for other destinies, sought in vain to rally the soldiers."I have been protected by the all-powerful intervention of Providence," he wrote to his brother after the action; "I received four bullets in my coat, and I have had two horses killed under me; however, I have got out of it safe and sound, while death swept off all our comrades around me. We have been beaten, shamefully beaten, by a handful of Frenchmen, who only anticipated hindering our march. A few moments before action we believed our forces almost equal to all those of Canada, and now, contrary to all probability, we have been completely defeated, and have lost everything." The little French corps, sent out from Fort Duquesne under the command of M. de Beaujeu, numbered but two hundred Canadians and six hundred Indians. It was only three years later, when Canada, exhausted and dying, succumbed beneath the burden of a war which it had sustained almost without aid, that Fort Duquesne, destroyed by its defenders themselves, fell into the hands of the English. They gave it the name of Pittsburg, in honor of the great minister who was in power—a name which a prosperous city bears even to-day.
While the Marquis de Montcalm was successfully sustaining the war against the English in America, Marshal Richelieu, a clever, prodigal, and corrupt courtier, had the good luck to achieve the only happy stroke of the Seven Years' War, the remembrance of which should remain firm in the mind of posterity. On the 17th of April, 1756; a French squadron under the command of M. de la Galissonière attacked the Island of Minorca, an important military point in the Mediterranean to which the English attached a high Value. Chased from Ciudadela and Port Mahon, the garrisons had taken refuge in Fort St. Philip. They relied on the help of the English fleet. The Admiral who commanded it attacked M. de la Galissonière on the 10th of May.The English were repulsed and could not effect a landing. The ships had suffered a good deal, and the English forces were inferior to those of France. Byng feared defeat; he consulted his council of war and fell back on Gibraltar. General Blakeney, shut up in the fortress, sick, and without hope of aid, defended himself weakly against the impetuous assault of the French. Fort St. Philip was taken, and the Duke de Fronsac, eldest son of the Duke de Richelieu, hastened to Paris to convey the news to King Louis XV.
The rage and humiliation, like the joy and pride of France, exceeded the extent and importance of the success. Admiral Byng, peremptorily recalled, was with great difficulty brought safe and sound to London, so strong was the anger of the mob. The government made no effort to protect him. On the first representations being made to him against the admiral, who was honest and brave, but a blind slave of rule and badly provided alike with ships and sailors, the Duke of Newcastle hastily replied, "Oh! certainly, certainly; he will be judged immediately; he will be hanged immediately." In spite of the efforts made in his favor in the Houses, as well as by Marshal Richelieu and Voltaire, Byng expiated with his life the check he had sustained and the wounded pride of his country. The Duke of Newcastle was at last overcome by his notorious incapacity. William Pitt seized the reins of power for a short time, of which the aversion of the king was not long in depriving him. The great orator had refused to come to an understanding with Mr. Fox, who bitterly reproached him with afterwards sustaining the treaties of subsidies and alliances which he had lately attacked so passionately.France had just entered into an alliance with Maria Theresa; the houses of Bourbon and Austria were making common cause; all the available forces of England were engaged in the struggle, and Pitt did not hesitate to recruit in the highlands. "Men are never wanting to a good cause," he said afterwards. "I have lately employed the very rebels in the service and defence of the country. Being thus brought back to us, they have fought for us, and have gladly shed their blood to protect those liberties which in the past they wished to destroy."
It was in vain that George II. still strove against the minister, who imposed the national will on him as the favor of heaven. In vain, making use of the royal prerogative against him, did he force him to yield up the seals of office from the beginning of April, and involve in his disgrace Lord Temple, his brother-in-law. In vain did he seek to form a new cabinet, with the insatiable thirst of the Duke of Newcastle for the nominal side of power, and the desire which Fox felt to actually govern. Parliament as well as the people demanded the powerful hand which could guide them through the bursting storm. On the 29th of June, 1757, Pitt was named secretary of state, and rallied around him some illustrious names, but he was the sole efficient master of the government, and was resolved to bear alone the whole burden of it. The most sagacious observers interchanged gloomy forebodings. "England has no longer any course but to cut her cables and set sail towards an unknown ocean," wrote Horace Walpole. "It matters little who may be in power," said Lord Chesterfield; "we are lost at home and abroad—at home by our debts and our growing expenses; abroad by our incapacity and bad luck. … We are no longer even a nation."