THE LIFE OF HENRY ST. JOHN, LORD VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE.
LONDON: Printed for T. DAVIES, in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden. 1770.
THE LIFE OF HENRY LORD VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE.
T HERE are some characters that seem formed by nature to take delight in struggling with opposition, and whose most agreeable hours are passed in storms of their own creating. The subject of the present sketch was perhaps of all others the most indefatigable in raising himself enemies, to shew his power in subduing them; and was not less employed in improving his superior talents, than in finding objects on which to exercise their activity. His life was spent in a continued conflict of politics, and, as if that was too short for the combat, he has left his memory as a subject of lasting contention.
It is indeed no easy matter to preserve an acknowledged impartiality, in talking of a man so differently regarded on account of his political, as well as his religious principles. Those whom his politics may please, will be sure to condemn him for his religion; and on the contrary, those most strongly attached to his theological opinions, are the most likely to decry his politics. On whatever side he is regarded, he is sure to have opposers, and this was perhaps what he most desired, having from nature a mind better pleased with the struggle than the victory.
HENRY ST. JOHN, Lord Viscount BOLINGBROKE, was born in the year 1672, at Battersea in Surry, at a seat that had been in the possession of his ancestors for ages before. His family was of the first rank, equally conspicuous for its antiquity, dignity, and large possessions. It is found to trace its original as high as ADAM DE PORT, Baron of Basing in Hampshire, before the conquest; and in a succession of ages to have produced warriors, patriots, and statesmen, some of whom were conspicuous for their loyalty, and others for their defending the rights of the people. His grandfather Sir WALTER ST. JOHN, of Battersea, marrying one of the daughters of lord chief justice ST. JOHN, who as all know was strongly attached to the republican party, HENRY, the subject of the present memoir, was brought up in his family, and consequently imbibed the first principles of his education amongst the dissenters. At that time DANIEL BURGESS, a fanatic of a very peculiar kind, being at once possessed of zeal and humour, and as well known for the archness of his conceits as the furious obstinacy of his principles, was confessor in the presbyterian way to his grandmother, and was appointed to direct our author's first studies. Nothing is so apt to disgust a feeling mind as mistaken zeal; and perhaps the absurdity of the first lectures he received, might have given him that contempt for all religions, which he might have justly conceived against one. Indeed no task can be more mortifying than that he was condemned to undergo:
"I was obliged, says he in one place, while yet a boy, to read over the commentaries of Dr. MANTON, whose pride it was to have made an hundred and nineteen sermons, on the hundred and nineteenth psalm."
Dr. MANTON and his sermons were not likely to prevail much on one, who was, perhaps, the most sharp-sighted in the world at discovering the absurdities of others, however he might have been guilty of establishing many of his own.
But these dreary institutions were of no very long continuance; as soon as it was fit to take him out of the hands of the women, he was sent to Eaton school, and removed thence to Christ-Church college in Oxford. His genius and understanding were seen and admired in both these seminaries, but his love of pleasure had so much the ascendency, that he seemed contented rather with the consciousness of his own great powers, than their exertion. However his friends, and those who knew him most intimately, were thoroughly sensible of the extent of his mind; and when he left the university, he was considered as one who had the fairest opportunity of making a shining figure in active life.
Nature seemed not less kind to him in her external embellishments, than in adorning his mind. With the graces of an handsome person, and a face in which dignity was happily blended with sweetness, he had a manner of address that was very engaging. His vivacity was always awake, his apprehension was quick, his wit refined, and his memory amazing: his subtilty in thinking and reasoning were profound, and all these talents were adorned with an elocution that was irresistible.
To the assemblage of so many gifts from nature, it was expected that art would soon give her finishing hand; and that a youth begun in excellence, would soon arrive at perfection: but such is the perverseness of human nature, that an age which should have been employed in the acquisition of knowledge, was dissipated in pleasure, and instead of aiming to excel in praise-worthy pursuits, BOLINGBROKE seemed more ambitious of being thought the greatest rake about town. This period might have been compared to that of fermentation in liquors, which grow muddy before they brighten; but it must also be confest, that those liquors which never ferment are seldom clear. In this state of disorder he was not without his lucid intervals; and even while he was noted for keeping Miss GUMLEY, the most expensive prostitute in the kingdom, and bearing the greatest quantity of wine without intoxication, he even then despised his paltry ambition.
"The love of study, says he, and desire of knowledge, were what I felt all my life; and though my genius, unlike the daemon of SOCRATES, whispered so softly, that very often I heard him not in the hurry of these passions with which I was transported, yet some calmer hours there were, and in them I hearkened to him."
These secret admonitions were indeed very few, since his excesses are remembered to this very day. I have spoke to an old man, who assured me that he saw him and another of his companions run naked through the Park, in a fit of intoxication; but then it was a time when public decency might be transgressed with less danger than at present.
During this period, as all his attachments were to pleasure, so his studies only seemed to lean that way. His first attempts were in poetry, in which he discovers more wit than taste, more labour than harmony in his versification. We have a copy of his verses prefixed to DRYDEN's Virgil, complimenting the poet, and praising his translation. We have another not so well known, prefixed to a French work, published in Holland, by the Chevalier de ST. HYACINTH, intituled, le Chef de Oeuvre d'un Inconnu. This performance is an humorous piece of criticism upon a miserable old ballad, and BOLINGBROKE's compliment, though written in English, is printed in Greek characters, so that at the first glance it may deceive the eye, and be mistaken for real Greek. There are two or three things more of his composition, which have appeared since his death, but which neither do honour to his parts or memory.
In this mad career of pleasure he continued for some time; but at length in 1700, when he arrived at the twenty-eighth year of his age, he began to take a dislike to his method of living, and to find that sensual pleasure alone was not sufficient to make the happiness of a reasonable creature. He therefore made his first effort to break from his state of infatuation, by marrying the daughter and coheiress of Sir HENRY WINCHESCOMB, a descendant from the famous JACK of NEWBURY, who though but a clothier in the reign of HENRY VIII. was able to entertain the king and all his retinue in the most splendid manner. This lady was possessed of a fortune exceeding forty thousand pounds, and was not deficient in mental accomplishments; but whether he was not yet fully satiated with his former pleasures, or whether her temper was not conformable to his own, it is certain they were far from living happily together. After cohabiting for some time together, they parted by mutual consent, both equally displeased; he complaining of the obstinacy of her temper, she of the shamelessness of his infidelity. A great part of her fortune some time after upon his attainder was given her back, but as her family estates were settled upon him, he enjoyed them after her death, upon the reversal of his attainder.
Having taken a resolution to quit the allurements of pleasure for the stronger attractions of ambition, soon after his marriage he procured a seat in the house of commons, being elected for the borough of Wotton-Basset, in Wiltshire, his father having served several times sor the same place. Besides his natural endowments and his large fortune, he had other very considerable advantages that gave him weight in the senate, and seconded his views of preferment. His grandfather Sir WALTER ST. JOHN was still alive, and that gentleman's interest was so great in his own county of Wilts, that he represented it in two parliaments in a former reign. His father also was then the representative for the same, and the interest of his wife's family in the house was very extensive. Thus BOLINGBROKE took his seat with many accidental helps, but his chief and great resource lay in his own extensive abilities.
At that time the whig and the tory parties were strongly opposed in the house, and pretty nearly balanced. In the latter years of king WILLIAM, the tories, who from every motive were opposed to the court, had been gaining popularity, and now began to make a public stand against their competitors. ROBERT HARLEY, afterwards earl of Oxford, a staunch and confirmed tory, was in the year 1700, chosen speaker of the house of commons, and was continued in the same upon the accession of queen ANNE, the year ensuing. BOLINGBROKE had all along been bred up, as was before observed, among the dissenters, his friends leaned to that persuasion, and all his connexions were in the whig interest. However, either from principle, or from perceiving the tory party to be then gaining ground, while the whigs were declining, he soon changed his connexions, and joined himself to HARLEY, for whom he then had the greatest esteem: nor did he bring him his vote alone, but his opinion; which even before the end of his first session he rendered very considerable, the house perceiving even in so young a speaker the greatest eloquence, united with the profoundest discernment. The year following he was again chosen anew for the same borough, and persevered in his former attachments, by which he gained such an authority and influence in the house, that it was thought proper to reward his merit; and on the 10th of April 1704, he was appointed secretary at war, and of the marines, his friend HARLEY having a little before been made secretary of state.
The tory party being thus established in power, it may easily be supposed that every method would be used to depress the whig interest, and to prevent it from rising; yet so much justice was done even to merit in an enemy, that the duke of MARLBOROUGH, who might be considered as at the head of the opposite party, was supplied with all the necessaries for carrying on the war in Flanders with vigour; and it is remarkable, that the greatest events of his campaigns, such as the battles of Blenheim and Ramillies, and several glorious attempts made by the duke, to shorten the war by some decisive action, fell out while BOLINGBROKE was secretary at war. In fact, he was a sincere admirer of that great general, and avowed it upon all occasions to the last moment of his life: he knew his faults, he admired his virtues, and had the boast of being instrumental in giving lustre to those triumphs, by which his own power was in a manner overthrown.
As the affairs of the nation were then in as fluctuating a state as at present, HARLEY, after maintaining the lead for above three years, was in his turn obliged to submit to the whigs, who once more became the prevailing party, and he was compelled to resign the seals. The friendship between him and BOLINGBROKE, seems at this time to have been sincere and disinterested; for the latter chose to follow his fortune, and the next day resigned his employments in the administration, following his friend's example, and setting an example at once of integrity and moderation. As an instance of this, when his coadjutors the tories were for carrying a violent measure in the house of commons, in order to bring the princess SOPHIA into England, BOLINGBROKE so artfully opposed it, that it dropt without a debate. For this his moderation was praised, but perhaps at the expence of his sagacity.
For some time the whigs seemed to have gained a complete triumph, and upon the election of a new parliament, in the year 1708, BOLINGBROKE was not returned. The interval which followed of above two years, he employed in the severest study; and this recluse period he ever after used to consider, as the most active and serviceable of his whole life. But his retirement was soon interrupted, by the prevailing of his party once more; for the whig parliament being dissolved in the year 1710, he was again chosen, and HARLEY being made chancellor, and under treasurer of the exchequer, the important post of secretary of state was given to our author, in which he discovered a degree of genius and assiduity, that perhaps have never been known to be united in one person to the same degree.
The English annals scarce produce a more trying juncture, or that required such various abilities to regulate. He was then placed in a sphere, where he was obliged to conduct the machine of state, struggling with a thousand various calamities: a desperate and enraged party, whose characteristic it has ever been to bear none in power but themselves; a war conducted by an able general, his professed opponent, and whose victories only tended to render him every day more formidable; a foreign enemy, possessed of endless resources, and seeming to gather strength from every defeat; an insidious alliance, that wanted only to gain the advantages of victory, without contributing to the expences of the combat; a weak declining mistress, that was led by every report, and seemed ready to listen to whatever was said against him; still more, a gloomy, indolent, and suspicious collegue, that envied his power, and hated him for his abilities: these were a part of the difficulties, that BOLINGBROKE had to struggle with in office, and under which he was to conduct the treaty of the peace of Utrecht, which was considered as one of the most complicated negotiations that history can afford. But nothing seemed too great for his abilities and industry, he set himself to the undertaking with spirit: he began to pave the way to the intended treaty, by making the people discontented at the continuance of the war; for this purpose he employed himself in drawing up accurate computations of the numbers of our own men, and that of foreigners employed in its destructive progress. He even wrote in the Examiners, and other periodical papers of the times, shewing how much of the burden rested upon England, and how little was sustained by those who falsely boasted their alliance. By these means, and after much debate in the house of commons, the queen received a petition from parliament, shewing the hardships the allies had put upon England in carrying on this war, and consequently how necessary it was to apply relief to so ill-judged a connexion. It may be easily supposed that the Dutch, against whom this petition was chiefly levelled, did all that was in their power to oppose it; many of the foreign courts also, with whom we had any transactions, were continually at work to defeat the minister's intentions. Memorial was delivered after memorial; the people of England, the parliament, and all Europe were made acquainted with the injustice and the dangers of such a proceeding: however BOLINGBROKE went on with steadiness and resolution, and although the attacks of his enemies at home might have been deemed sufficient to employ his attention, yet he was obliged at the same time that he furnished materials to the press in London, to furnish instructions to all our ministers and ambassadors abroad, who would do nothing but in pursuance of his directions. As an orator, in the senate he exerted all his eloquence, he stated all the great points that were brought before the house, he answered the objections that were made by the leaders of the opposition; and all this with such success, that even his enemies, while they opposed his power, acknowledged his abilities. Indeed, such were the difficulties he had to encounter, that we find him acknowledging himself some years after, that he never looked back on this great event passed as it was, without a secret emotion of mind, when he compared the vastness of the undertaking, and the importance of the success, with the means employed to bring it about, and with those which were employed to frustrate his intentions.
While he was thus industriously employed, he was not without the rewards that deserved to follow such abilities, joined to so much assiduity. In July 1712, he was created Baron ST. JOHN, of Lidyard Tregoze, in Wiltshire, and Viscount BOLINGBROKE, by the last of which titles he is now generally known, and is likely to be talked of by posterity: he was also the same year appointed lord lieutenant of the county of Essex. By the titles of TREGOZE and BOLINGBROKE, he united the honours of the elder and younger branch of his family; and thus transmitted into one channel, the opposing interests of two races, that had been distinguished one for their loyalty to king CHARLES I. the other for their attachment to the parliament that opposed him. It was afterwards his boast, that he steered clear of the extremes for which his ancestors had been distinguished, having kept the spirit of freedom of the one, and acknowledged the subordination that distinguished the other.
BOLINGBROKE being thus raised very near the summit of power, began to perceive more nearly the defects of him who was placed there. He now began to find that lord OXFORD, whose party he had followed, and whose person he had esteemed, was by no means so able or so industrious as he supposed him to be. He now began from his heart to renounce the friendship which he once had for his coadjutor; he began to imagine him treacherous, mean, indolent, and invidious; he even began to ascribe his own promotion to OXFORD'S hatred, and to suppose that he was sent up to the house of lords, only to render him contemptible. These suspicions were partly true, and partly suggested by BOLINGBROKE's own ambition; being sensible of his own superior importance and capacity, he could not bear to see another take the lead in public affairs, when he knew they owed their chief success to his own management. Whatever might have been his motives, whether of contempt, hatred, or ambition, it is certain an irreconcileable breach began between these two leaders of their party; their mutual hatred was so great, that even their own common interest, the vigour of their negotiations, and the safety of their friends, were entirely sacrificed to it. It was in vain that SWIFT, who was admitted into their counsels, urged the unseasonable impropriety of their disputes; that while they were thus at variance within the walls, the enemy were making irreparable breaches without. BOLINGBROKE's antipathy was so great, that even success would have been hateful to him, if lord OXFORD were to be a partner. He abhorred him to that degree, that he could not bear to be joined with him in any case; and even some time after, when the lives of both were aimed at, he could not think of concerting measures with him for their mutual safety, preferring even death itself to the appearance of a temporary friendship.
Nothing could have been more weak and injudicious, than their mutual animosities at this juncture; and it may be asserted with truth, that men who were unable to suppress or conceal their resentments upon such a trying occasion, were unfit to take the lead in any measures, be their industry or their abilities ever so great. In fact, their dissentions were soon found to involve not only them, but their party in utter ruin; their hopes had for some time been declining, the whigs were daily gaining ground, and the queen's death soon after totally destroyed all their schemes with their power.
Upon the accession of GEORGE I. to the throne, dangers began to threaten the late ministry on every side; whether they had really intentions of bringing in the Pretender, or whether the whigs made it a pretext for destroying them, is uncertain; but the king very soon began to shew, that they were to expect neither savour nor mercy at his hands. Upon his landing at Greenwich, when the court came to wait upon him, and lord OXFORD among the number, he studiously avoided taking any notice of him, and testified his resentment by the caresses he bestowed upon the members of the opposite faction. A regency had been some time before appointed to govern the kingdom, and ADDISON was made secretary. BOLINGBROKE still maintained his place of state secretary, but subject to the contempt of the great, and the insults of the mean. The first step taken by them to mortify him, was to order all letters and packets directed to the secretary of state, to be sent to Mr. ADDISON; so that BOLINGBROKE was in fact removed from his office, that is, the execution of it, in two days after the queen's death. But this was not the worst, for his mortifications were continually heightened, by the daily humiliation of waiting at the door of the apartment where the regency sat, with a bag in his hand, and being all the time, as it were, on purpose, exposed to the insolence of those who were tempted by their natural malevolence, or who expected to make their court to those in power by abusing him.
Upon this sudden turn of fortune, when the seals were taken from him, he went into the country, and having received a message from court, to be present when the seal was taken from the door of the secretary's office, he excused himself, alledging, that so trifling a ceremony might as well be performed by one of the under secretaries, but at the same time requested the honour of kissing the king's hand, to whom he testified the utmost submission. This request however was rejected with disdain, the king had been taught to regard him as an enemy, and threw himself entirely on the whigs for safety and protection.
The new parliament, mostly composed of whigs, met the 17th of March; and in the king's speech from the throne, many inflaming hints were given, and many methods of violence were chalked out to the two houses.
"The first steps, (says lord BOLINGBROKE, speaking on this occasion) in both were perfectly answerable; and to the shame of the peerage be it spoken, I saw at that time several lords concur, to condemn in one general vote, all that they had approved in a former parliament, by many particular resolutions. Among several bloody resolutions proposed and agitated at this time, the resolution of impeaching me of high treason was taken; and I took that of leaving England, not in a panic terror, improved by the artifices of the duke of MARLBOROUGH, whom I knew even at that time too well to act by his advice or information, in any case, but on such grounds as the proceedings which soon followed sufficiently justified, and such as I have never repented building upon. Those who blamed it in the first heat, were soon after obliged to change their language: For what other resolution could I take? The method of prosecution designed against me, would have put me out of a condition immediately to act for myself, or to serve those who were less exposed than me, but who were however in danger. On the other hand, how few were there on whose assistance I could depend, or to whom I would even in these circumstances be obliged. The ferment in the nation was wrought up to a considerable height; but there was at that time no reason to expect that it could influence the proceedings in parliament, in favour of those who should be accused: left to its own movement, it was much more proper to quicken than slacken the prosecutions; and who was there to guide its motions? The tories, who had been true to one another to the last, were a handful, and no great vigour could be expected from them: the whimsicals, disappointed of the figure which they hoped to make, began indeed to join their old friends. One of the principal among them, namely, the earl of ANGLESEA, was so very good as to confess to me, that if the court had called the servants of the late queen to account, and stopped there, he must have considered himself as a judge, and acted according to his conscience, on what should have appeared to him: but that war had been declared to the whole tory party, and that now the state of things were altered. This discourse needed no commentary, and proved to me, that I had never erred in the judgment I made of this set of men. Could I then resolve to be obliged to them, or to suffer with OXFORD? As much as I still was heated by the disputes, in which I had been all my life engaged against the whigs, I would sooner have chosen to owe my security to their indulgence, than to the assistance of the whimsicals: but I thought banishment, with all her train of evils, preferable to either."
Such was the miserable situation to which he was reduced upon this occasion; of all the number of his former flatterers and dependants, scarce one was found remaining. Every hour brought fresh reports of his alarming situation, and the dangers which threatened him and his party on all sides. PRIOR, who had been employed in negotiating the treaty of Utrecht, was come over to Dover, and had promised to reveal all he knew. The duke of MARLBOROUGH planted his creatures round his lordship, who artfully endeavoured to increase the danger; and an impeachment was actually preparing, in which he was accused of high treason. It argued therefore no great degree of timidity in his lordship, to take the first opportunity to withdraw from danger, and to suffer the first boilings of popular animosity, to quench the flame that had been raised against him: accordingly, having made a gallant shew of despising the machinations against him, having appeared in a very unconcerned manner at the play-house in Drury-Lane, and having bespoke another play for the night ensuing; having subscribed to a new opera that was to be acted some time after, and talked of making an elaborate defence, he went off that same night in disguise to Dover, as a servant to LE VIGNE, a messenger belonging to the French king; and there one WILLIAM MORGAN, who had been a captain in General HILL's regiment of dragoons, hired a vessel, and carried him over to Calais, where the governor attended him in his coach, and carried him to his house with all possible distinction.
The news of lord BOLINGBROKE's flight was soon known over the whole town; and the next day, a letter from him to lord LANSDOWNE, was handed about in print, to the following effect.
MY LORD,
"I LEFT the town so abruptly, that I had no time to take leave of you or any of my friends. You will excuse me, when you know that I had certain and repeated informations, from some who are in the secret of affairs, that a resolution was taken by those who have power to execute it, to pursue me to the scaffold. My blood was to have been the cement of a new alliance, nor could my innocence be any security, after it had once been demanded from abroad, and resolved on at home, that it was necessary to cut me off. Had there been the least reason to hope for a fair and open trial, after having been already prejudged unheard by two houses of parliament, I should not have declined the strictest examination. I challenge the most inveterate of my enemies to produce any one instance of a criminal correspondence, or the least corruption of any part of the administration in which I was concerned. If my zeal for the honour and dignity of my royal mistress, and the true interest of my country, has any where transported me to let slip a warm or unguarded expression, I hope the most favourable interpretation will be put upon it. It is a comfort that will remain with me in all my misfortunes, that I served her majesty faithfully and dutifully, in that especially which she had most at heart, relieving her people from a bloody and expensive war, and that I have also been too much an Englishman, to sacrifice the interest of my country to any foreign ally; and it is for this crime only that I am now driven from thence. You shall hear more at large from me shortly."
Yours, &c.
No sooner was it universally known that he was retired to France, than his flight was construed into a proof of his guilt; and his enemies accordingly set about driving on his impeachment with redoubled alacrity. Mr. afterwards, Sir ROBERT WALPOLE, who had suffered a good deal by his attachment to the whig interest during the former reign, now undertook to bring in and conduct the charge against him in the house of commons. His impeachment consisted of six articles, which WALPOLE read to the house, in substance as follows. First, That whereas the lord BOLINGBROKE had assured the Dutch ministers, that the queen his mistress would make no peace but in concert with them, yet he had sent Mr. PRIOR to France, that same year, with proposals for a treaty of peace with that monarch, without the consent of the allies. Secondly, That he advised and promoted the making a separate treaty or convention with France, which was signed in September. Thirdly, That he disclosed to M. MESNAGER, the French minister at London, this convention, which was the preliminary instructions to her majesty's plenipotentiaries at Utrecht. Fourthly, That her majesty's final instructions to her plenipotentiaries, were disclosed by him to the abbot GUALTIER, who was an emissary of France. Fifthly, That he disclosed to the French the manner how Tournay in Flanders might be gained by them. And lastly, That he advised and promoted the yielding up Spain and the West-Indies to the duke of ANJOU, then an enemy to her majesty. These were urged by WALPOLE with great vehemence, and aggravated with all the eloquence of which he was master. He challenged any person in the house to appear in behalf of the accused, and asserted, that to vindicate, were in a manner to share his guilt. In this universal consternation of the tory party, none was for some time seen to stir; but at length General ROSS, who had received favours from his lordship, boldly stood up, and said he wondered that no man more capable was found to appear in defence of the accused. However, in attempting to proceed, he hesitated so much that he was obliged to sit down, observing, that he would reserve what he had to say to another opportunity. It may easily be supposed, that the whigs found no great difficulty in passing the vote for his impeachment through the house of commons. It was brought into that house on the 10th of June 1715, it was sent up to the house of lords on the 6th of August ensuing, and in consequence of which he was attainted by them of high treason on the 10th of September. Nothing could be more unjust than such a sentence; but justice had been long drowned in the spirit of party.
BOLINGBROKE thus finding all hopes cut off at home, began to think of improving his wretched fortune upon the continent. He had left England with a very small fortune, and his attainder totally cut off all resources for the future. In this depressed situation, he began to listen to some proposals which were made him by the Pretender, who was then residing at Barr, in France, and who was desirous of admitting BOLINGBROKE into his secret councils. A proposal of this nature had been made him shortly after his arrival at Paris, and before his attainder at home; but while he had yet any hopes of succeeding in England, he absolutely refused, and made the best applications his ruined fortune would permit, to prevent the extremity of his prosecution.
He had for some time waited for an opportunity of determining himself, even after he found it vain to think of making his peace at home. He let his Jacobite friends in England know that they had but to command him, and he was ready to venture in their service the little all that remained, as frankly as he had exposed all that was gone. At length, (says he, talking of himself) these commands came, and were executed in the following manner. The person who was sent to me, arrived in the beginning of July 1715, at the place where I had retired to in Dauphine. He spoke in the name of all the friends whose authority could influence me; and he brought me word that Scotland was not only ready to take arms, but under some sort of dissatisfaction to be withheld from beginning: that in England the people were exasperated against the government to such a degree, that far from wanting to be encouraged, they could not be restrained from insulting it on every occasion; that the whole tory party was become avowedly Jacobites; that many officers of the army, and the majority of the soldiers, were well affected to the cause; that the city of London was ready to rise, and that the enterprizes for seizing of several places, were ripe for execution; in a word, that most of the principal tories were in a concert with the duke of ORMOND: for I had pressed particularly to be informed whether his grace acted alone, or if not, who were his council; and that the others were so disposed, that there remained no doubt of their joining, as soon as the first blow should be struck. He added, that my friends were a little surprised, to observe that I lay neuter in such a conjuncture. He represented to me the danger I ran, of being prevented by people of all sides from having the merit of engaging early in this enterprize, and how unaccountable it would be for a man, impeached and attainted under the present government, to take no share in bringing about a revolution so near at hand, and so certain. He intreated that I would defer no longer to join the Chevalier, to advise and assist in carrying on his affairs, and to solicit and negotiate at the court of France, where my friends imagined that I should not fail to meet a favourable reception, and from whence they made no doubt of receiving assistance in a situation of affairs so critical, so unexpected, and so promising. He concluded, by giving me a letter from the Pretender, whom he had seen in his way to me, in which I was pressed to repair without loss of time to Comercy; and this instance was grounded on the message which the bearer of the letter had brought me from England. In the progress of the conversation with the messenger, he related a number of facts, which satisfied me as to the general disposition of the people; but he gave me little satisfaction as to the measures taken to improve this disposition, for driving the business on with vigour, if it tended to a revolution, or for supporting it to advantage if it spun into a war. When I questioned him concerning several persons whose disinclination to the government admitted no doubt, and whose names, quality, and experience were very essential to the success of the undertaking; he owned to me that they kept a great reserve, and did at most but encourage others to act by general and dark expressions. I received this account and this summons ill in my my bed; yet important as the matter was, a few minutes served to determine me. The circumstances wanting to form a reasonable inducement to engage, did not excuse me; but the smart of a bill of attainder tingled in every vein, and I looked on my party to be under oppression, and to call for my assistance. Besides which, I considered first that I should be certainly informed, when I conferred with the Chevalier, of many particulars unknown to this gentleman; for I did not imagine that the English could be so near to take up arms as he represented them to be, on no other foundation than that which he exposed.
In this manner having for some time debated with himself, and taken his resolution, he lost no time in repairing to the Pretender at Comercy, and took the seals of that nominal king, as he had formerly those of his potent mistress. But this was a terrible falling off indeed; and the very first conversation he had with this weak projector, gave him the most unfavourable expectations of future success. He talked to me, (says his lordship) like a man who expected every moment to set out for England or Scotland, but who did not very well know for which; and when he entered into the particulars of his affairs, I found, that concerning the former, he had nothing more circumstantial or positive to go upon, than what I have already related. But the duke of ORMOND had been for some time, I cannot say how long, engaged with the Chevalier: he had taken the direction of this whole affair, as far as it related to England, upon himself, and had received a commission for this purpose, which contained the most ample powers that could be given. But still, however, all was unsettled, undetermined, and ill understood. The duke had asked from France a small body of forces, a sum of money, and a quantity of amunition; but to the first part of the request he received a flat denial, but was made to hope that some arms and some amunition might be given. This was but a very gloomy prospect; yet hope swelled the depressed party so high, that they talked of nothing less than an instant and ready revolution. It was their interest to be secret and industrious; but rendered sanguine by their passions, they made no doubt of subverting a government with which they were angry, and gave as great an alarm, as would have been imprudent at the eve of a general insurrection.
Such was the state of things, when BOLINGBROKE arrived to take up his new office at Comercy; and although he saw the deplorable state of the party with which he was embarked, yet he resolved to give his affairs the best complexion he was able, and set out for Paris, in order to procure from that court the necessary succours for his new master's invasion of England. But his reception and negotiations at Paris, were still more unpromising than those at Comercy, and nothing but absolute infatuation seemed to dictate every measure taken by the party. He there found a multitude of people at work, and every one doing what seemed good in his own eyes; no subordination, no order, no concert. The Jacobites had wrought one another up to look upon the success of the present designs, as infallible: every meeting-house which the populace demolished, as he himself says, every little drunken riot which happened, served to confirm them in these sanguine expectations; and there was hardly one among them who would lose the air of contributing by his intrigues to the restoration, which he took for granted would be brought about in a few weeks. Care and hope, says our author very humorously, sate on every busy Irish face; those who could read and write, had letters to shew, and those who had not arrived to this pitch of erudition, had their secrets to whisper. No sex was excluded from this ministry; FANNY OGLETHORPE kept her corner in it, and OLIVE TRANT, a woman of the same mixed reputation, was the great wheel of this political machine. The ridiculous correspondence was carried on with England by people of like importance, and who were busy in sounding the alarm in the ears of an enemy, whom it was their interest to surprise. By these means, as he himself continues to inform us, the government of England was put on its guard, so that before he came to Paris, what was doing had been discovered. The little armament made at Havre de Grace, which furnished the only means to the Pretender of landing on the coasts of Britain, and which had exhausted the treasury of St. Germains, was talked of publicly. The earl of STAIR, the English minister at that city, very soon discovered its destination, and all the particulars of the intended invasion; the names of the persons from whom supplies came, and who were particularly active in the design, were whispered about at tea-tables and coffee-houses. In short, what by the indiscretion of the projectors, what by the private interests and ambitious views of the French, the most private transactions came to light; and such of the more prudent plotters, who supposed that they had trusted their heads to the keeping of one or two friends, were in reality at the mercy of numbers. Into such company, exclaims our noble writer, was I fallen for my sins. Still, however, he went on, steering in the wide ocean without a compass, till the death of LEWIS XIV. and the arrival of the duke of ORMOND at Paris, rendered all his endeavours abortive: yet notwithstanding these unfavourable circumstances, he still continued to dispatch several messages and directions for England, to which he received very evasive and ambiguous answers. Among the number of these, he drew up a paper at Chaville, in concert with the duke of ORMOND, marshal BERWICK, and DE TORCY, which was sent to England just before the death of the king of France, representing that France could not answer the demands of their memorial, and praying directions what to do. A reply to this came to him through the French secretary of state, wherein they declared themselves unable to say any thing, till they saw what turn affairs would take on the death of the king, which had reached their ears. Upon another occasion, a message coming from Scotland to press the Chevalier to hasten their rising, he dispatched a messenger to London to the earl of MAR, to tell him that the concurrence of England in the insurrection, was ardently wished and expected; but instead of that nobleman's waiting for instructions, he had already gone into the highlands, and had there actually put himself at the head of his clans. After this, in concert with the duke of ORMOND, he dispatched one Mr. HAMILTON, who got all the papers by heart, for fear of a miscarriage, to their friends in England, to inform them, that though the Chevalier was destitute of succour, and all reasonable hopes of it, yet he would land as they pleased in England or Scotland, at a minute's warning; and therefore they might rise immediately after they had sent dispatches to him. To this message Mr. HAMILTON returned very soon, with an answer given by lord LANSDOWNE, in the name of all the persons privy to the secret, that since affairs grew daily worse, and would not mend by delay, the malecontents in England had resolved to declare immediately, and would be ready to join the duke of ORMOND on his landing; adding, that his person would be as safe in England as in Scotland, and that in every other respect it was better he should land in England; that they had used their utmost endeavours, and hoped the western counties would be in a good posture to receive him, and that he should land as near as possible to Plymouth. With these assurances the duke embarked, though he had heard before of the seizure of many of his most zealous adherents, of the dispersion of many more, and the consternation of all; so that upon his arrival at Plymouth, finding nothing in readiness, he returned to Britanny. In these circumstances the Pretender himself sent to have a vessel got ready for him at Dunkirk, in which he went to Scotland, leaving lord BOLINGBROKE all this while at Paris, to try if by any means some assistance might not be procured, without which all hopes of success were at an end. It was during his negotiation upon this miserable proceeding, that he was sent for by Mrs. TRANT, (a woman who had some time before ingratiated herself with the regent of France, by supplying him with mistresses from England) to a little house in the Bois de Boulogne, where she lived with madamoiselle CHAUSSERY, an old superannuated waiting-woman belonging to the regent. By these he was acquainted with the measures they had taken for the service of the duke of ORMOND; although BOLINGBROKE, who was actual secretary to the negotiation, had never been admitted to a confidence in their secrets. He was therefore a little surprised, at finding such mean agents employed without his privity, and very soon found them utterly unequal to the task. He quickly therefore withdrew himself from such wretched auxiliaries, and the regent himself seemed pleased at his defection.
In the mean time the Pretender set sail from Dunkirk for Scotland, and though BOLINGBROKE had all along perceived that his cause was hopeless and his projects ill designed; although he had met with nothing but opposition and disappointment in his service, yet he considered that this of all others was the time he could not be permitted to relax in the cause. He now therefore neglected no means, forgot no argument which his understanding could suggest, in applying to the court of France: but his success was not answerable to his industry. The king of France, not able to furnish the Pretender with money himself, had writ some time before his death to his grandson the king of Spain, and had obtained from him a promise of forty thousand crowns. A small part of this sum had been received by the queen's treasurer at St. Germains, and had been sent to Scotland, or employed to defray the expences which were daily making on the coast: at the same time BOLINGBROKE pressed the Spanish ambassador at Paris, and solicited the minister at the court of Spain. He took care to have a number of officers picked out of the Irish troops which serve in France, gave them their routes, and sent a ship to receive and transport them to Scotland. Still however the money came in so slowly, and in such trifling sums, that it turned to little account; and the officers were on their way to the Pretender. At the same time he formed a design of engaging French privateers in the expedition, that were to have carried whatever should be necessary to send to any part of Britain in their first voyage, and then to cruize under the Pretender's commission. He had actually agreed for some, and had it in his power to have made the same bargain with others: Sweden on one side, and Scotland on the other, could have afforded them retreats; and if the war had been kept up in any part of the mountains, this armament would have been of the utmost advantage. But all his projects and negotiations failed, by the Pretender's precipitate return, who was not above six weeks in his expedition, and flew out of Scotland even before all had been tried in his defence.
The expedition being in this manner totally defeated, BOLINGBROKE now began to think that it was his duty as well as interest, to save the poor remains of the disappointed party. He never had any great opinion of the Pretender's success before he set off; but when this adventurer had taken the last step which it was in his power to make, our secretary then resolved to suffer neither him, nor the Scotch, to be any longer bubbles of their own credulity, and of the scandalous artifices of the French court. In a conversation he had with the marshal DE HUXELLES, he took occasion to declare, that he would not be the instrument of amusing the Scotch; and since he was able to do them no other service, he would at least inform them of what little dependence they might place upon assistance from France. He added, that he would send them vessels, which with those already on the coast of Scotland, might serve to bring off the Pretender, the earl of MAR, and as many others as possible. The marshal approved his resolution, and advised him to execute it as the only thing which was left to do; but in the mean time the Pretender landed at Graveline, and gave orders to stop all vessels bound on his account to Scotland; and BOLINGBROKE saw him the morning after his arrival at St. Germains, and he received him with open arms.
As it was the secretary's business, as soon as BOLINGBROKE heard of his return, he went to acquaint the French court with it, when it was recommended to him to advise the Pretender to proceed to Bar with all possible diligence; and in this measure BOLINGBROKE entirely concurred. But the Pretender himself was in no such haste, he had a mind to stay some time at St. Germains, and in the neighbourhood of Paris, and to have a private meeting with the regent: he accordingly sent BOLINGBROKE to solicit this meeting, who exerted all his influence in the negotiation. He wrote and spoke to the marshal DE HUXELLES, who answered him by word of mouth and by letters, refusing him by both, and assuring him that the regent said the things which were asked were puerilities, and swore he would not see him. The secretary, no ways displeased with his ill success, returned with this answer to his master, who acquiesced in this determination, and declared he would instantly set out for Lorrain, at the same time assuring BOLINGBROKE of his firm reliance on his integrity.
However the Pretender, instead of taking post for Lorrain, as he had promised, went to a little house in the Bois de Boulogne, where his female ministers resided, and there continued for several days, seeing the Spanish and Swedish ministers, and even the regent himself. It might have been in these interviews that he was set against his new secretary, and taught to believe that he had been remiss in his duty, and false to his trust: be this as it will, a few days after, the duke of ORMOND came to see BOLINGBROKE, and having first prepared him for the surprise, put into his hands a note directed to the duke, and a little scrip of paper directed to the secretary; they were both in the Pretender's hand-writing, and dated as if written by him on his way to Lorrain: but in this BOLINGBROKE was not to be deceived, who knew the place of his present residence. In one of these papers the Pretender declared that he had no further occasion for the secretary's service, and the other was an order to him to give up the papers in his office; all which he observes, might have been contained in a letter-case of a moderate size. He gave the duke the seals, and some papers which he could readily come at; but for some others, in which there were several insinuations under the Pretender's own hand, reflecting upon the duke himself, these he took care to convey by a safe hand, since it would have been very improper that the duke should have seen them. As he thus gave up without scruple all the papers which remained in his hands, because he was determined never to make use of them, so he declares he took a secret pride in never asking for those of his own which were in the Pretender's hands; contenting himself with making the duke understand, how little need there was to get rid of a man in this manner, who only wanted an opportunity to get rid of the Pretender and his cause. In fact, if we survey the measures taken on the one side, and the abilities of the man on the other, it will not appear any way wonderful that he should be disgusted with a party, who had neither principle to give a foundation to their hopes, union to advance them, or abilities to put them in motion.
BOLINGBROKE being thus dismissed from the Pretender's service, he supposed that he had got rid of the trouble and the ignominy of so mean an employment at the same time; but he was mistaken: he was no sooner rejected from the office, than articles of impeachment were preferred against him, in the same manner as he had before been impeached in England, though not with such effectual injury to his person and fortune. The articles of his impeachment by the Pretender were branched out into seven heads, in which he was accused of treachery, incapacity, and neglect. The first was, That he was never to be found by those who came to him about business; and if by chance or stratagem they got hold of him, he affected being in an hurry, and by putting them off to another time, still avoided giving them any answer. The second was, That the earl of MAR complained by six different messengers, at different times, before the Chevalier came from Dunkirk, of his being in want of arms and ammunition, and prayed a speedy relief; and though the things demanded were in my lord's power, there was not so much as one pound of powder in any of the ships, which by his lordship's directions parted from France. Thirdly, The Pretender himself, after his arrival, sent general HAMILTON to inform him, that his want of arms and ammunition was such, that he should be obliged to leave Scotland, unless he received speedy relief: yet lord BOLINGBROKE amused Mr. HAMILTON twelve days together, and did not introduce him to any of the French ministers, though he was referred to them for a particular account of affairs; or so much as communicated his letters to the queen, or any body else. Fourthly, The count DE CASTEL BLANCO had for several months at Havre, a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition, and did daily ask his lordship's orders how to dispose of them, but never got any instructions. Fifthly, The Pretender's friends at the French court, had for some time past no very good opinion of his lordship's integrity, and a very bad one of his discretion. Sixthly, At a time when many merchants in France would have carried privately any quantity of arms and ammunition into Scotland, his lordship desired a public order for the embarkation, which being a thing not to be granted, is said to have been done in order to urge a denial. Lastly, The Pretender wrote to his lordship by every occasion after his arrival in Scotland; and though there were many opportunities of writing in return, yet from the time he landed there, to the day he left it, he never received any letter from his lordship. Such were the articles, by a very extraordinary reverse of fortune, preferred against lord BOLINGBROKE, in less than a year after similar articles were drawn up against him by the opposite party at home. It is not easy to find out what he could have done, thus to disoblige all sides; but he had learned by this time, to make out happiness from the consciousness of his own designs, and to consider all the rest of mankind as uniting in a faction to oppress virtue.
But though it was mortifying to be thus rejected on both sides, yet he was not remiss in vindicating himself from all. Against these articles of impeachment, therefore, he drew up an elaborate answer, in which he vindicates himself with great plausibility. He had long, as he assures, wished to leave the Pretender's service, but was entirely at a loss how to conduct himself in so difficult a resignation; but at length, says he, the Pretender and his council disposed of things better for me than I could have done for myself. I had resolved on his return from Scotland, to follow him till his residence should be fixed somewhere; after which, having served the tories in this, which I looked upon as their last struggle for power, and having continued to act in the Pretender's affairs, till the end of the term for which I embarked with him, I should have esteemed myself to be at liberty, and should, in the civilest manner I was able, have taken my leave of him. Had we parted thus, I should have remained in a very strange situation all the rest of my life; on one side, he would have thought that he had a right on any future occasion to call me out of my retreat, the tories would probably have thought the same thing, my resolution was taken to refuse them both, and I foresaw that both would condemn me: on the other side, the consideration of his having kept measures with me, joined to that of having once openly declared for him, would have created a point of honour by which I should have been tied down, not only from ever engaging against him, but also from making my peace at home. The Pretender cut this Gordian knot asunder at one blow; he broke the links of that chain which former engagements had fastened on me, and gave me a right to esteem myself as free from all obligations of keeping measures with him, as I should have continued if I had never engaged in his interest.
It is not to be supposed that, one so very delicate to preserve his honour, would previously have basely betrayed his employer: a man conscious of acting so infamous a part, would have undertaken no defence, but let the accusations, which could not materially affect him, blow over, and wait for the calm that was to succeed in tranquillity. He appeals to all the ministers with whom he transacted business, for the integrity of his proceedings at that juncture; and had he been really guilty, when he opposed the ministry here after his return, they would not have failed to brand and detect his duplicity. The truth is, that he perhaps was the most disinterested minister at that time in the Pretender's court; as he had spent great sums of his own money in his service, and never would be obliged to him for a farthing, in which case he believes that he was single. His integrity is much less impeachable on this occasion than his ambition; for all the steps he took may be fairly ascribed to his displeasure, at having the duke of ORMOND and the earl of MAR treated more confidentially than himself. It was his aim always to be foremost in every administration, and he could not bear to act as a subaltern, in so paltry a court as that of the Pretender.
At all periods of his exile, he still looked towards home with secret regret; and had taken every opportunity to apply to those in power, either to soften his prosecutions, or lessen the number of his enemies at home. In accepting his office under the Pretender, he made it a condition to be at liberty to quit the post whenever he should think proper; and being now disgracefully dismissed, he turned his mind entirely towards making his peace in England, and employing all the unfortunate experience he had acquired to undeceive his tory friends, and to promote the union and quiet of his native country. It was not a little favourable to his hopes, that about this time, though unknown to him, the earl of STAIR, ambassador to the French court, had received full power to treat with him whilst he was engaged with the Pretender; but yet had never made him any proposals, which might be considered as the grossest outrage. But when the breach with the Pretender was universally known, the earl sent one monsieur SALUDIN, a gentleman of Geneva, to lord BOLINGBROKE, to communicate to him his majesty king GEORGE's favourable disposition to grant him a pardon, and his own earnest desire to serve him as far as he was able. This was an offer by much too advantageours for BOLINGBROKE in his wretched circumstances to refuse; he embraced it, as became him to do, with all possible sense of the king's goodness, and of the ambassador's friendship. They had frequent conferences shortly after upon the subject. The turn which the English ministry gave the matter, was to enter into a treaty to reverse his attainder, and to stipulate the conditions on which this act of grace should be granted him: but this method of negotiation he would by no means submit to; the notion of a treaty shocked him, and he resolved never to be restored, rather than go that way to work. Accordingly he opened himself without any reserve to lord STAIR, and told him, that he looked upon himself obliged in honour and conscience, to undeceive his friends in England, both as to the state of foreign affairs, as to the management of the Jacobite interest abroad, and as to the characters of the persons; in every one of which points he knew them to be most grossly and most dangerously deluded. He observed, that the treatment he had received from the Pretender and his adherents, would justify him to the world in doing this. That if he remained in exile all his life, that he might be assured that he would never have more to do with the Jacobite cause; and that if he were restored, he would give it an effectual blow, in making that apology which the Pretender had put him under a necessity of making. That in doing this, he flattered himself that he should contribute something towards the establishment of the king's government, and to the union of his subjects. He added, that if the court thought him sincere in those professions, a treaty with him was unnecessary; and if they did not believe so, then a treaty would be dangerous to him. The earl of STAIR, who has also confirmed this account of lord BOLINGBROKE's, in a letter to Mr. CRAGGS, readily came into his sentiments on this head, and soon after the king approved it upon their representations: he accordingly received a promise of pardon from GEORGE I. who on the 2d of July 1716, created his father baron of BATTERSEA, in the county of Surry, and Viscount ST. JOHN. This seemed preparatory to his own restoration; and instead of prosecuting any farther ambitious schemes against the government, he rather began to turn his mind to philosophy; and since he could not gratify his ambition to its full extent, he endeavoured to learn the arts of despising it. The variety of distressful events that had hitherto attended all his struggles, at last had thrown him into a state of reflection, and this produced, by way of relief, a consolatio philosophica, which he wrote the same year, under the title of Reflections upon exile. In this piece, in which he professes to imitate the manner of SENECA, he with some wit draws his own picture, and represents himself as suffering persecution, for having served his country with abilities and integrity. A state of exile thus incurred, he very justly shews to be rather honourable than distressful; and indeed, there are few men that will deny, but that the company of strangers to virtue, is better than the company of enemies to it. Besides this philosophical tract, he also wrote this year several letters, in answer to the charge laid upon him by the Pretender and his adherents; and the following year he drew up a vindication of his whole conduct with respect to the tories, in the form of a letter, to Sir WILLIAM WYNDHAM.
Nor was he so entirely devoted to the fatigues of business, but that he gave pleasure a share in his pursuits. He had never much agreed with the lady he first married, and after a short cohabitation, they separated and lived ever after asunder. She therefore remained in England, upon his going into exile, and by proper application to the throne, was allowed a proper maintenance to support her with becoming dignity: however, she did not long survive his first disgrace, and upon his becoming a widower, he began to think of trying his fortune once more, in a state which was at first so unfavourable. For this purpose, he cast his eyes on the widow of the marquis of VILLETTE, and niece to the famous madam MAINTENON; a young lady of great merit and understanding, possessed of a very large fortune, but encumbered with a long and troublesome law-suit. In the company of this very sensible woman, he passed his time in France, sometimes in the country, and sometimes at the capital, till the year 1723, in which, after the breaking up of the parliament, his majesty was pleased to grant him a pardon as to his personal safety, but as yet neither restoring him to his family inheritance, his title, or a seat in parliament.
To obtain this favour, had been the governing principle of his politics for some years before; and upon the first notice of his good fortune, he prepared to return to his native country, where, however, his dearest connexions were either dead, or declared themselves suspicious of his former conduct in support of their party. It is observable, that bishop ATTERBURY, who was banished at this time, for a supposed treasonable correspondence in favour of the tories, was set on shore at Calais, just when lord BOLINGBROKE arrived there on his return to England. So extraordinary a reverse of fortune, could not fail of strongly affecting that good prelate, who observed with some emotion, that he perceived himself to be exchanged: he presently left it to his auditors to imagine, whether his country were the loser or the gainer by such an exchange.
Lord BOLINGBROKE, upon his return to his native country, began to make very vigorous applications for further favours from the crown; his pardon, without the means of support, was but an empty, or perhaps, it might be called a distressful act of kindness, as it brought him back among his former friends, in a state of inferiority his pride could not endure. However, his applications were soon after successful, for in about two years after his return, he obtained an act of parliament to restore him to his family inheritance, which amounted to near three thousand pounds a year. He was also enabled by the same, to possess any purchase he should make of any other estate in the kingdom; and he accordingly pitched upon a seat of lord TANKERVILLE's, at Dawley, near Uxbridge in Middlesex, where he settled with his lady, and laid himself out to enjoy the rural pleasures in perfection, since the more glorious ones of ambition were denied him. With this resolution he began to improve his new purchase in a very peculiar style, giving it all the air of a country farm, and adorning even his hall with all the implements of husbandry. We have a sketch of his way of living in this retreat, in a letter of POPE's to SWIFT, who omits no opportunity of representing his lordship in the most amiable points of view. This letter is dated from Dawley, the country farm above-mentioned, and begins thus.
"I now hold the pen for my lord BOLINGBROKE, who is reading your letter between two hay-cocks; but his attention is somewhat diverted, by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for fear of a shower. He is pleased with your placing him in the triumvirate, between yourself and me; though he says he doubts he shall fare like LEPIDUS, while one of us runs away with all the power, like AUGUSTUS, and another with all the pleasure, like ANTONY. It is upon a foresight of this, that he has fitted up his farm, and you will agree that this scheme of retreat is not founded upon weak appearances. Upon his return from Bath, he finds all peccant humours are purged out of him; and his great temperance and oeconomy are so signal, that the first is fit for my constitution, and the latter would enable you to lay up so much money as to buy a bishopric in England. As to the return of his health and vigour, were you here, you might enquire of his haymakers; but as to his temperance, I can answer that for one whole day, we have had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl. Now his lordship is run after his cart, I have a moment left to myself to tell you, that I overheard him yesterday agree with a painter for two hundred pounds, to paint his countryhall with rakes, spades, prongs, &c. and other ornaments, merely to countenance his calling this place a FARM."
What POPE here says of his engagements with a painter, was shortly after executed; the hall was painted accordingly in black crayons only, so that at first view it brought to mind the figures often seen scratched with charcoal, or the smoak of a candle, upon the kitchen walls of farm-houses. The whole however produced a most striking effect, and over the door at the entrance into it, was this motto: SATIS BEATUS RURIS HONORIBUS. His lordship seemed to be extremely happy in this pursuit of moral tranquillity, and in the exultation of his heart, could not fail of communicating his satisfactions to his friend SWIFT. I am in my own farm, says he, and here I shoot strong and tenacious roots; I have caught hold of the earth, to use a gardener's phrase, and neither my enemies nor my friends will find it an easy matter to transplant me again.
There is not, perhaps, a stronger instance in the world than his lordship, that an ambitious mind can never be fairly subdued, but will still seek for those gratifications which retirement can never supply. All this time he was mistaken in his passion for solitude, and supposed that to be the child of philosophy, which was only the effects of spleen: it was in vain that he attempted to take root in the shade of obscurity, he was originally bred in the glare of public occupation, and he secretly once more wished for transplantation. He was only a titular lord, he had not been thoroughly restored; and, as he was excluded from a seat in the house of peers, he burned with impatience to play a part in that conspicuous theatre. Impelled by this desire, he could no longer be restrained in obscurity, but once more entered into the bustle of public business, and disavowing all obligations to the minister, he embarked in the opposition against him, in which he had several powerful coadjutors: but previously he had taken care to prefer a petition to the house of commons, desiring to be reinstated in his former emoluments and capacities. This petition at first occasioned very warm debates; WALPOLE, who pretended to espouse his cause, alledged that it was very right to admit him to his inheritance; and when lord WILLIAM PAWLETT moved for a clause to disqualify him from sitting in either house, WALPOLE rejected the motion, secretly satisfied with a resolution which had been settled in the cabinet, that he should never more be admitted into any share of power. To this artful method of evading his pretensions, BOLINGBROKE was no stranger; and he was now resolved to shake that power, which thus endeavoured to obstruct the increase of his own: taking therefore his part in the opposition with PULTNEY, while the latter engaged to manage the house of commons, BOLINGBROKE undertook to enlighten the people: accordingly he soon distinguished himself by a multitude of pieces, written during the latter part of GEORGE the first's reign, and likewise the beginning of that which succeeded. These were conceived with great vigour and boldness; and now, once more engaged in the service of his country, though disarmed, gagged, and almost bound, as he declared himself to be, yet he resolved not to abandon his cause, as long as he could depend on the firmness and integrity of those coadjutors, who did not labour under the same disadvantages with himself. His letters in a paper called the Craftsman, were particularly distinguished in this political contest; and though several of the most expert politicians of the times joined in this paper, his essays were peculiarly relished by the public. However, it is the fate of things written to an occasion, seldom to survive that occasion: the Craftsman, though written with great spirit and sharpness, is now almost forgotten, although when it was published as a weekly paper, it sold much more rapidly than even the Spectator. Beside this work, he published several other separate pamphlets, which were afterwards reprinted in the second edition of his works, and which were very popular in their day.
This political warfare continued for ten years, during which time he laboured with great strength and perseverance, and drew up such a system of politics, as some have supposed to be the most complete now existing. But as upon all other occasions, he had the mortification once more to see those friends desert him, upon whose assistance he most firmly relied, and all that web of fine spun speculation actually destroyed at once by the ignorance of some, and the perfidy of others. He then declared that he was perfectly cured of his patriotic phrenzy; he fell out not only with PULTNEY for his selfish views, but with his old friends the tories, for abandoning their cause as desperate, averring, that the faint and unsteady exercise of parts on one side, was a crime but one degree inferior to the iniquitous misapplication of them on the other. But he could not take leave of a controversy in which he had been so many years engaged, without giving a parting blow, in which he seemed to summon up all his vigour at once, and where, as the poet says,
Animam in vulnere posuit.
This inimitable piece is intituled, A Dissertation on Parties, and of all his masterly pieces, it is in general esteemed the best.
Having finished this, which was received with the utmost avidity, he resolved to take leave not only of his enemies and friends, but even of his country; and in this resolution, in the year 1736, he once more retired to France, where he looked back to his native country with a mixture of anger and pity, and upon his former professing friends, with a share of contempt and indignation. I expect little, says he, from the principal actors that tread the stage at present. They are divided not so much as it seemed, and as they would have it believed, about measures. The true division is about their different ends. Whilst the minister was not hard pushed, nor the prospect of succeeding to him near, they appeared to have but one end, the reformation of the government. The destruction of the minister was pursued only as a preliminary, but of essential and indisputable necessity, to that end: but when his destruction seemed to approach, the object of his succession interposed to the sight of many, and the reformation of the government was no longer their point of view. They had divided the skin, at least in their thoughts, before they had taken the beast. The common fear of hastening his downfal for others, made them all faint in the chace. It was this, and this alone, that saved him, and put off his evil day.
Such were his cooler reflections, after he had laid down his political pen, to employ it in a manner that was much more agreeable to his usual professions, and his approaching age. He had long employed the few hours he could spare, on subjects of a more general and important nature to the interests of mankind; but as he was frequently interrupted by the alarms of party, he made no great proficiency in his design. Still, however, he kept it in view, and he makes frequent mention in his letters to SWIFT, of his intentions to give metaphysics a new and useful turn. I know, says he in, one of these, how little regard you pay to writings of this kind; but I imagine, that if you can like any, it must be those that strip metaphysics of all their bombast, keep within the sight of every well constituted eye, and never bewilder themselves, whilst they pretend to guide the reason of others.
Having now arrived at the sixtieth year of his age, and being blessed with a very competent share of fortune, he retired into France, far from the noise and hurry of party; for his seat at Dawley was too near, to devote the rest of his life to retirement and study. Upon his going to that country, as it was generally known that disdain, vexation, and disappointment had driven him there, many of his friends, as well as his enemies supposed, that he was once again gone over to the Pretender. Among the number who entertained this suspicion, was SWIFT, whom POPE, in one of his letters, very roundly chides for harbouring such an unjust opinion.
"You should be cautious, says he, of censuring any motion or action of lord BOLINGBROKE, because you hear it only from shallow, envious, and malicious reporters. What you writ to me about him, I find, to my great scandal, repeated in one of yours to another. Whatever you might hint to me, was this for the profane? The thing, if true, should be concealed; but it is, I assure you, absolutely untrue in every circumstance. He has fixed in a very agreeable retirement, near Fontainbleau, and makes it his whole business VACARE LITTERIS."
This reproof from POPE was not more friendly than it was true; lord BOLINGBROKE was too well acquainted with the forelorn state of that party, and the folly of its conductors, once more to embark in their desperate concerns. He now saw, that he had gone as far towards reinstating himself in the full possession of his former honours, as the mere dint of parts and application could go, and was at length experimentally convinced, that the decree was absolutely irreversible, and the door of the house of lords finally shut against him. He therefore, at POPE's suggestion, retired merely to be at leisure from the broils of opposition, for the calmer pleasures of philosophy. Thus the decline of his life, though less brilliant, became more amiable; and even his happiness was improved by age, which had rendered his passions more moderate, and his wishes more attainable.
But he was far from suffering, even in solitude, his hours to glide away in torpid inactivity. That active restless disposition, still continued to actuate his pursuits; and having lost the season for gaining power over his cotemporaries, he was now resolved upon acquiring fame from posterity. He had not been long in his retreat near Fontainbleau, when he began a course of letters on the study and use of history, for the use of a young nobleman. In these he does not follow the methods of St. REAL, and others who have treated on this subject, who make history the great fountain of all knowledge; he very wisely confines its benefits, and supposes them to consist in deducing general maxims from particular facts, than in illustrating maxims by the application of historical passages. In mentioning ecclesiastical history, he gives his opinion very freely, upon the subject of the divine original of the sacred books, which he supposes to have no such foundation. This new system of thinking, which he had always propagated in conversation, and which he now began to adopt in his more laboured compositions, seemed no way supported either by his acuteness or his learning. He began to reflect seriously on these subjects too late in life, and to suppose those objections very new and unanswerable, which had been already confuted by thousands.
"Lord BOLINGBROKE, says POPE, in one of his letters, is above trifling; when he writes of any thing in this world, he is more than mortal. If ever he trifles, it must be when he turns divine."
In the mean time, as it was evident, that a man of his active ambition, in chusing retirement when no longer able to lead in public, must be liable to ridicule in resuming a resigned philosophical air: in order to obviate the censure, he addressed a letter to lord BATHURST, upon the true use of retirement and study; in which he shows himself still able and willing to undertake the cause of his country, whenever its distresses should require his exertion. I have, says he, renounced neither my country, nor my friends; and by friends I mean all those, and those alone, who are such to their country. In their prosperity, they shall never hear of me; in their distress, always. In that retreat wherein the remainder of my days shall be spent, I may be of some use to them, since even from thence I may advise, exhort, and warn them. Bent upon this pursuit only, and having now exchanged the gay statesman for the grave philosopher, he shone forth with distinguished lustre. His conversation took a different turn from what had been usual with him; and, as we are assured by lord ORRERY, who knew him, it united the wisdom of SOCRATES, the dignity and ease of PLINY, and the wit of HORACE.
Yet still amidst his resolutions to turn himself from politics, and to give himself up entirely to the calls of philosophy, he could not resist embarking once more in the debates of his country; and coming back from France, settled at Battersea, an old seat which was his father's, and had been long in the possession of the family. He supposed he saw an impending calamity, and though it was not in his power to remove, he thought it his duty to retard its fall. To redeem or save the nation from perdition, he thought impossible, since national corruptions were to be purged by national calamities; but he was resolved to lend his feeble assistance, to stem the torrent that was pouring in. With this spirit he wrote that excellent piece, which is intituled, The Idea of a Patriot King; in which he describes a monarch uninfluenced by party, leaning to the suggestions neither of whigs nor tories, but equally the friend and the father of all. Some time after, in the year 1749, after the conclusion of the peace, two years before the measures taken by the administration, seemed not to have been repugnant to his notions of political prudence for that juncture; in that year he wrote his last production, containing reflections on the then state of the nation, principally with regard to her taxes and debts, and on the causes and consequences of them. This undertaking was left unfinished, for death snatched the pen from the hand of the writer.
Having passed the latter part of his life in dignity and splendor, his rational faculties improved by reflection, and his ambition kept under by disappointment, his whole aim seemed to have been to leave the stage of life, on which he had acted such various parts, with applause. He had long wished to fetch his last breath at Battersea, the place where he was born; and fortune, that had through life seemed to traverse all his aims, at last indulged him in this. He had long been troubled with a cancer in his cheek, by which excruciating disease, he died on the verge of fourscore years of age. He was consonant with himself to the last, and those principles which he had all along avowed, he confirmed with his dying breath, having given orders that none of the clergy should be permitted to trouble him in his latest moments.
His body was interred in Battersea church, with those of his ancestors; and a marble monument erected to his memory, with the following excellent inscription.
Here lies HENRY ST. JOHN, In the Reign of Queen Anne Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and Viscount Bolingbroke. In the Days of King George I. and King George II. Something more and better. His Attachment to Queen Anne Exposed him to a long and severe Persecution; He bore it with Firmness of Mind. He passed the latter Part of his Time at home, The Enemy of no national Party; The Friend of no Faction. Distinguished under the Cloud of Proscription, Which had not been entirely taken off, By Zeal to maintain the Liberty, And to restore the ancient Prosperity of Great-Britain. He died the 12th of December 1751, Aged 79.
In this manner lived and died lord BOLINGBROKE; ever active, never depressed, ever pursuing fortune, and as constantly disappointed by her. In whatever light we view his character, we shall find him an object rather properer for our wonder, than our imitation; more to be feared than esteemed, and gaining our admiration without our love. His ambition ever aimed at the summit of power, and nothing seemed capable of satisfying his immoderate desires, but the liberty of governing all things without a rival. With as much ambition, as great abilities, and more acquired knowledge than CAESAR, he wanted only his courage to be as successful; but the schemes his head dictated, his heart often refused to execute; and he lost the ability to perform, just when the great occasion called for all his efforts to engage.
The same ambition that prompted him to be a politician, actuated him as a philosopher. His aims were equally great and extensive in both capacities: unwilling to submit to any power in the one, or any authority in the other, he entered the fields of science, with a thorough contempt of all that had been established before him, and seemed willing to think every thing wrong, that he might shew his faculty in the reformation. It might have been better for his quiet, as a man, if he had been content to act a subordinate character in the state; and it had certainly been better for his memory as a writer, if he had aimed at doing less than he attempted. Wisdom, in morals, like every other art or science, is an accumulation that numbers have contributed to increase; and it is not for one single man to pretend, that he can add more to the heap, than the thousands that have gone before him. Such innovators more frequently retard, than promote knowledge; their maxims are more agreeable to the reader, by having the gloss of novelty to recommend them, than those which are trite, only because they are true. Such men are therefore followed at first with avidity, nor is it till some time that their disciples begin to find their error. They often, though too late, perceive, that they have been following a speculative enquiry, while they have been leaving a practical good; and while they have been practising the arts of doubting, they have been losing all firmness of principle, which might tend to establish the rectitude of their private conduct. As a moralist, therefore, lord BOLINGBROKE, by having endeavoured at too much, seems to have done nothing: but as a political writer, few can equal, and none can exceed him. As he was a practical politician, his writings are less filled with those speculative illusions, which are the result of solitude and seclusion. He wrote them with a certainty of their being opposed, sifted, examined, and reviled; he therefore took care to build them up of such materials, as could not be easily overthrown: they prevailed at the times in which they were written, they still continue to the admiration of the present age, and will probably last for ever.
FINIS.
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