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LETTER XLVIII.: Correcting Books: Warburton and his Gang: Lord North's Timidity: Powers of Government lost. - David Hume, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan [1756]

Edition used:

Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).

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LETTER XLVIII.

Correcting Books: Warburton and his Gang: Lord North's Timidity: Powers of Government lost.

  • Edinburgh,

25 of June, 1771.

Dear Sir

I have receivd both your favours, for which I am oblig’d to you. I shall be able to send off by the Waggon, in less than a Month, a corrected Copy of my History; and shall write you at the time, that you may send for it, if it be not immediatly sent to you. It gives me a sensible pleasure, that I shall now have an Edition of that work, corrected nearly to my mind1. . I have taken incredible pains on this Edition. It puts me in mind of a saying of Rousseau's, that one half of a man's life is too little to write a Book and the other half to correct it2. . Most of my Corrections fall upon the Style; tho’ there are also several Additions and Amendments in the Subject and in the facts3. .

I have got about a hundred Franks directed to you; and we shall proceed in the manner you desire. I think, however, it will not be amiss to have some of Mr. Fraser's, for large Parcels; and for this purpose you may send him the enclos’d, with twenty Covers, which he will not grudge to frank to you4. . The rest you may get from your Acquaintance5. or mine, Lord Beauchamp6. , Mr. Wedderburn7. , Mr. Pulteney8. , Mr. Adam9. , Mr. Stewart of Buckingham Street10. &c., informing them by a short Note of the reason of your applying to them.

I return you Warburton's Letter11. , which diverted me. He and all his gang, the most scurrillous, arrogant, and impudent Fellows in the world, have been abusing me in their usual Style these twenty Years, and here at last he pretends to speak well of me. It is the only thing from them, that coud ever give me any mortification. We have all heard of the several Schools of Painters and their peculiar manners. It is petulance, and Insolence and abuse, that distinguish the Warburtonian School, even above all other Parsons and Theologians12. . Johnson is abusive in Company, but falls much short of them in his writings13. . I remember Lord Mansfield said to me that Warburton was a very opposite man in company to what he is in his Books; then, replyd I, he must be the most agreeable Companion in Europe, for surely he is the most odious Writer14. .

I wish to tempt you into a Discourse of Politics, because I get Information from you. I own, that I am inclind to have a good Opinion of Lord North, but his Insolence to the House of Bourbon15. , and his Timidity towards the London Mob appear unaccountable. Only consider how many Powers of Government are lost in this short Reign16. . The right of displacing the Judges was given up17. ; General Warrants are lost18. ; the right of Expulsion the same19. ; all the co-ercive Powers of the House of commons abandon’d20. ; all Laws against Libels annihilated21. ; the Authority of Government impair’d by the Impunity granted to the Insolence of Beckford, Crosby, and the common Council22. : the revenue of the civil List diminishd 23. . For Godsake, is there never to be a stop put to this inundation of the Rabble24. ? We shall have fine work next Elections, if the people above and below We shall have fine work next Elections, if the people above and below continue in the same dispositions, the one insolent and the other timid25 . For my part, I can account for Lord North's Conduct only by one supposition. He will not expose himself even in the best cause to the Odium of the populace, because he feels that he has no sure hold of the Cabinet, but depends for all his power on some invisible secret Being, call him Oberon, the fairy or any other, whose Caprices can in a moment throw him off, and leave him no Resources either in popularity or authority26 . In this Light his caution is excusable: He bullies Spain and France27 . and quakes before the Ward of Farringdon without28 ; because, if he shoud be suddenly displaced, he will still retain it in his power to become popular and formidable. But all these Inconveniencies are slight, in comparison of our public Debts, which bring on inevitable Ruin, and with a Certainty which is even beyond geometrical, because it is arithmetical. I hope you have more Sense than to trust a shilling to that egregious bubble29 .

I am Dear Sir Yours sincerely

David Hume.

[1.]Note 1. Strahan had written to Hume on May 25:—’I hope to make a beautiful edition, as we have got an excellent paper for it, much better than is generally used, being bespoke on purpose for the work.’ M. S. R. S. E. Even with this edition Hume was not satisfied. In the last year of his life he writes:—’I am as anxious of correctness as if I were writing to Greeks or French; and besides frequent revisals which I have given my History since the last edition, I shall again run over it very carefully.’ Post, Letter of Nov. 13, 1775.

[2.]Note 2. See post, Letters of Sept. 18, 1771, and Nov. 13, 1775, where Hume repeats this saying.

[3.]Note 3. Hume wrote to Sir Gilbert Elliot on Feb. 21, 1770:—’I am running over again the last edition of my History, in order to correct it still further. I either soften or expunge many villanous, seditious Whig strokes, which had crept into it. I wish that my indignation at the present madness, encouraged by lies, calumnies, imposture, and every infamous act usual among popular leaders, may not throw me into the opposite extreme. I am, however, sensible that the first editions were too full of those foolish English prejudices, which all nations and all ages disavow.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 434. Such a passage as this may be illustrated by the following extract from Mackintosh's brief Character of Hume:—

'some remains perhaps of a love of singularity, some taint of sceptical theory affecting his practical sentiments, much tranquillity of temper and love of order, with the absence of ardent sensibility, contributed to give Mr. Hume a prejudice against most of the predominant prejudices of his age and country; combined with a residence in France they led him to prefer the faultless elegance of our neighbours to the unequal grandeur of English genius, and produced the singular phenomenon of a History of England adverse to our peculiar national feelings, and calculated, not so much to preserve the vigour, as to repress the excesses of that love of liberty which distinguishes the history of England from that of the other nations of Europe.’ Life of Mackintosh, ii. 169.

[4.]Note 4. See ante, p. 188, n. 11. The covers were the pieces of paper in which the proofs were to be inclosed. Each cover would bear Hume's address in Fraser's handwriting, attested by his signature.

[5.]Note 5. Hume in his list of Scotticisms gives ‘Friends and acquaintances’; the English form being ‘Friends and acquaintance.’ Ante, p. 9. Johnson, I think, never uses the plural form acquaintances, though he gives it in his Dictionary. It is used by Bacon in Essay xviii. ed. 1629, i. 100:—’What acquaintances they are to seeke.’ In the same Essay we find ‘those of his acquaintance which are of most worth.’

[6.]Note 6. Viscount Beauchamp was the eldest son of the Earl of Hertford, late Ambassador to France (ante, p. 40, n. 1), and now Lord Chamberlain, Hume, on his going to Paris as Lord Hertford's Secretary in 1763, wrote:—’I find that one view of Lord Hertford in engaging me to go along with him is, that he thinks I may be useful to Lord Beauchamp in his studies.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 161.

[7.]Note 7. Alexander Wedderburne (afterwards Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn), having deserted his party, had been made Solicitor General on Jan. 23 of this year.

[8.]Note 8. Mr. William Pulteney, the second son of Sir James Johnstone, Baronet, was member for Cromartie and Nairn. Parl. Hist. xvi. 451. He had been Secretary of the Poker Club, and so was well known to Hume. Dr. A. Carlyle's Auto. p. 420, and ante, p. 141, n. 4. Horace Walpole, writing on Oct. 29, 1767, of the death of General Pulteney, brother of the famous William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, says:—’General Pulteney is dead, having owned himself worth a million, the fruits of his brother's virtues!’ After mentioning some bequests Walpole continues:—’All the vast rest, except a few very trifling legacies, he leaves to his cousin Mrs. Pulteney, a very worthy woman, who had risked all by marrying one Johnstone, the third son of a poor Scot, but who is an orator at the India House, and likely to make a figure now in what house he pleases.’ Letters, v. 70. Hume, in a letter to Suard dated Brewer Street, March 10, 1769, shows that ‘the poor Scot's third son’ could make a generous use of his wealth. He writes:—’Poor Stuart has lost his cause which he had laboured with such assiduity, such integrity, and such capacity. (See post, p. 239, n. 9.) Never was any sentence more unjust: but the cause had become so complicate, that it had gone beyond the comprehension of almost all our Peers; and it was in the power of Lord Mansfield, who had shown a violent partiality from the beginning, to twist and turn it as he pleased and to command the plurality of votes. If the event was in one respect disastrous and extraordinary for Stuart, it was in another as fortunate and extraordinary. On rising next morning he found on his table a bond of annuity for 400 pounds a year, sent him by a friend, a man of sense, who had no interest in the cause, but who chose this opportunity to express his esteem and affection for Stuart. The person who has done this noble action is Pulteney; you may have seen him at Paris with Stuart; he then bore the name of Johnstone.’ Morrison Autographs, ii. 318.

[9.]Note 9. Robert Adam, Architect to the Board of Works, and Member for Kinross and Clackmannan. Parl. Hist. xvi. 451. The Adelphi in the Strand, which by its affected name commemorates the fact that it was built by brothers, was a vast speculation shared between him and some of his brothers. Hume, writing of the great crash in the commercial world in 1772, says:—’Of all the sufferers I am the most concerned for the Adams. But their undertakings were so vast that nothing could support them. . . . To me the scheme of the Adelphi always appeared so imprudent, that my wonder is how they could have gone on so long.’ Burton's Hume, ii. 460.

[10.]Note 10. Mr. Stewart had been of service to Hume in his search for lodgings for Rousseau. A Concise Account, etc. p. 9. He must have held some post which gave the right to use the official frank. There is mention of a John Stewart, Esq., in the Chatham Corresp. i. 214–5.

[11.]Note 11. ‘Aug. 23, 1773. Dr. Gerard told us that an eminent printer was very intimate with Warburton. JOHNSON. “Why, Sir, he has printed some of his works, and perhaps bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is such as one of the professors here may have with one of the carpenters who is repairing the College.” “But,” said Gerard, “I saw a letter from him to this printer, in which he says that the one half of the clergy of the Church of Scotland are fanatics and the other half infidels.” JOHNSON. “Warburton has accustomed himself to write letters just as he speaks, without thinking any more of what he throws out.” . . . He told me, when we were by ourselves, that he thought it very wrong in the printer to show Warburton's letter, as it was raising a body of enemies against him. He thought it foolish in Warburton to write so to the printer; and added, “Sir, the worst way of being intimate is by scribbling.”’ Boswell's Johnson, v. 92.

[12.]Note 12. Horace Walpole, writing on Jan. 22, 1764, about Churchill's ‘new satire called The Duellist,’ speaks of the ‘charming abuse on that scurrilous mortal, Bishop Warburton.’ Letters, iv. 171. Churchill describes the Bishop as a man,

  • ’Who was so proud that should he meet
  • The twelve Apostles in the street,
  • He’d turn his nose up at them all,
  • And shove his Saviour from the wall;
  • Who was so mean (meanness and pride
  • Still go together side by side)
  • That he would cringe, and creep, be civil,
  • And hold a stirrup for the Devil,
  • If in a journey to his mind,
  • He’d let him mount and ride behind.’

Churchill's Poems, ed. 1766, ii. 79. Johnson, speaking to George III of the controversy between Lowth and Warburton, said:—’Warburton has most general, most scholastic learning; Lowth is the more correct scholar. I do not know which of them calls names best.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 37. On another occasion Johnson said:—’When I read Warburton first, and observed his force, and his contempt of mankind, I thought he had driven the world before him; but I soon found that was not the case; for Warburton by extending his abuse rendered it ineffectual.’ Ib. v. 93. Gibbon wrote of him: ‘The learning and the abilities of the author [of the Divine Legation of Moses] had raised him to a just eminence; but he reigned the dictator and tyrant of the world of literature. The real merit of Warburton was degraded by the pride and presumption with which he pronounced his infallible decrees; in his polemic writings he lashed his antagonists without mercy or moderation, and his servile flatterers (see the base and malignant Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship [by Hurd]) exalting the master critic far above Aristotle and Longinus, assaulted every modest dissenter who refused to consult the oracle and to adore the idol.’ Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 209. See ante, p. 21, n. 1.

[13.]Note 13. This letter was most likely written in Hume's house in James's Court. Two years later on, Johnson, in the same house though not in the same flat, after scoffing at Hume's scepticism, ‘“added something much too rough” both as to his head and heart which,’ continues Boswell, ‘I suppress.’ Boswell's Johnson, v. 30. Johnson in one or two passages falls not far short of the Warburtonian School. Thus, in his attack on Wilkes, he says:—’The character of the man. . . . I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him of whom no man speaks well. It is sufficient that he is expelled the House of Commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition and impiety.’ Works, vi. 156. Of Junius he writes:—“What,” says Pope, “must be the priest where a monkey is the god?” What must be the drudge of a party of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend?’ Ib. p. 206.

[14.]Note 14. Boswell has thus recorded this anecdote in his Boswelliana, on the authority of ‘Mr. David Hume’:—’Warburton was a prodigious flatterer of Lord Mansfield, and consequently a favourite. David Hume was one day speaking violently against him to his Lordship, who said:—“Upon my word, Mr. Hume, he is quite a different man in conversation from what he is in his books.” “Then, my Lord,” said Hume, “he must be the most agreeable man in the world.” Boswelliana, p. 268. Strahan, replying to Hume on July 23, said:—’What his [Warburton's] reasons may be I know not, but I have heard much of his launching out in your praise for some time past, sometimes indeed in my hearing, and with much more seeming cordiality and heartiness than I ever heard him bestow on any other writer. . . . As a companion he is certainly one of the most tractable men I ever saw. So far from being insolent or overbearing, you can hardly get him to contradict you in anything.’ M. S. R. S. E.

[15.]Note 15. By the Opposition Lord North was charged not with insolence to the House of Bourbon but with timidity towards it. Lord Chatham, writing on Jan. 22, 1771, looks upon the Convention with Spain asthe most abject and dangerous sacrifice of the rights of England that ever was submitted to.’ The following day he writes:—’I still fear that England will prove itself a nation of slaves, in the present consummation of insult and ignominy, heaped upon them by an abandoned and flagitious Court.’ Chatham Corresp. iv. 77, 82. Burke, in the Ann. Reg. for 1771, i. 51, stating the views of the Opposition, says:—’The whole transaction was described as a standing monument of reproach, disgrace, and dishonour, which, after an expense of some millions, settled no contest, asserted no right, exacted no reparation, and afforded no security.’ Junius, in his Letter of Jan. 30, 1771, asks,Where will the humiliation of this country end?’ and goes on to attackthe treachery of the Kingservants, particularly of Lord North.’ JohnsonFalklandIslands is a defence of the Ministry for not havingsnatched with eagerness the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when they were able to obtain by quiet negotiation all the real good that victory could have brought us.’ Works, vi. 200. ‘The honour of the public,’ he adds,is, indeed, of high importance; but we must remember that we have had to transact with a mighty King and a powerful nation, who have unluckily been taught to think that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as ourselves.’ Ib. p. 208.

[16.]Note 16. On April 14, 1775, Dr. Johnson said:—ir, the great misfortune now is that government has too little power. . . . Our several ministries in this reign have outbid each other in concessions to the people. Lord Bute, though a very honourable man,—a man who meant well,—a man who had his blood full of prerogative,—was a theoretical statesman,—a book-minister,—and thought this country could be governed by the influence of the Crown alone, Then, Sir, he gave up a great deal. He advised the King to agree that the Judges should hold their places for life, instead of losing them at the accession of a new King. Lord Bute, I suppose, thought to make the King popular by this concession, but the people never minded it; and it was a most impolitic measure. There is no reason why a Judge should hold his office for life, more than any other person in public trust. A Judge may be partial otherwise than to the Crown; we have seen Judges partial to the populace. A Judge may become corrupt, and yet there may not be legal evidence against him. A Judge may become froward from age. A Judge may grow unfit for his office in many ways. It was desirable that there should be a possibility of being delivered from him by a new King. That is now gone by an Act of Parliament ex gratia of the Crown. Lord Bute advised the King to give up a very large sum of money, for which nobody thanked him. It was of consequence to the King, but nothing to the public among whom it was divided.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 352.

[17.]Note 17.At the commencement of the reign of George III the independence of the Judges was still further secured. Although the Statute 12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2, s. 3, enacted that their commission should be no longer “Durante bene placito,” but “Quamdiu se bene gesserint,” yet, by a most extraordinary interpretation, it was decided at the accession of Queen Anne that their patents terminated at the demise of the Crown; and the practice had been adopted in the two following reigns. The inconvenience arising from this decision, which necessitated a renewal of the patents of all the judges as the first act of a reign in order to prevent a total failure of justice, had been partially remedied by the statute 6 Anne, c. 7, s. 8, which enacted that all officers, including the Judges, should act upon their former patents for the space of six months after any demise of the Crown, unless sooner removed by the next successor. Now, however, by the express recommendation of George III, full effect was given to the statute of William by an Act of Parliament passed in the first year of his reign, chapter 23, continuing the Judges in their office, notwithstanding the demise of the Crown.’ FossJudges of England, ed. 1864, viii. 198. The Earl of Hardwicke, in his speech on this measure, stated that on the Accession of Anne two Judges were left out; on the Accession of George I, three Judges; and on that of George II, one Judge. Parl. Hist. xv. 1009. Horace Walpole describes the measure asone of Lord Butestrokes of pedantry. The tenure of the Judges had formerly been a popular topic; and had been secured as far as was necessary. He thought this trifling addition would be popular now, when nobody thought or cared about it.’ Memoirs of George III, i. 41.

[18.]Note 18. On April 30, 1763, Wilkes, as author of The North Briton, No. 45, had been arrested on ‘a general warrant directed to four messengers to take up any persons without naming or describing them with any certainty, and to bring them, together with their papers.’ Such a warrant as this Chief Justice Pratt (Lord Camden) declared to beunconstitutional, illegal, and absolutely void.’If it be good,’ he said,a Secretary of State can delegate and depute any one of the messengers, or any one even from the lowest of the people, to take examinations, to commit or release, and, in fine, to do every act which the highest judicial officers the law knows can do or order.’ Ann. Reg. 1763, i. 145.Johnson would not admit the importance of the question concerning the legality of general warrants. “Such a power,” he observed, “must be vested in every government, to answer particular cases of necessity; and there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which those who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of such indifference, a matter about which the people care so very little, that were a man to be sent over Britain to offer them an exemption from it at a halfpenny a piece, very few would purchase it.” This was a specimen of that laxity of talking which I have heard him fairly acknowledge.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 72.

[19.]Note 19. Hume is speaking, no doubt, of expulsion from the House of Commons. Yet Wilkes had been expelled on Feb. 3, 1769 (Parl. Hist. xvi. 545), and on Feb. 17 he had been declared ‘incapable of being elected a member to serve in the present Parliament.’ Ib. p. 577. He was elected four times, once in March 1768 at the General Election; and three times after his expulsion, on Feb. 16, March 16, and April 13, 1769 (AlmonMemoirs of Wilkes, iv. 4); but his seat was given to Colonel Luttrell, who had only received 296 votes against 1143. The power of expulsion therefore did not seem lost, even if the right were. Hume perhaps saw that such a storm had been raised by the Middlesex election, that no Ministry would ever dare to follow the bad precedent that had been set. He may have been struck too by the fact that Lord Chancellor Camden had declared in the House of Lords his belief, thatthe incapacitating vote was a direct attack upon the first principles of the constitution,’ and had gone on to saythat if, in giving his decision as a Judge, he was to pay any regard to that vote, or any other vote of the House of Commons in opposition to the known and established laws of the land, he should look upon himself as a traitor to his trust.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 644. It is true that this speech was followed by his dismissal from office, but he was supported in his statement of the law by the strongly-worded Protest of forty-two dissentient Lords.

The whole aim of Johnson's False Alarm was ‘intended,’ as Boswell says, ‘to justify the conduct of Ministry and their majority in the House of Commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom, that the expulsion of a Member of Parliament was equivalent to exclusion.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 111. Wilkes for the fifth time was returned for Middlesex in the General Election of November 1774, ‘without a shadow of opposition from the Court. . . . The dispute concerning that single seat had produced to them more troubles, vexation, and disgraces, than the contest with the twelve united Colonies of America. It would have been an imprudence of the grossest kind to mix these disputes in the present crisis; and thus after near fourteen years’ struggle it was thought the best way to leave him master of the field.’ Ann. Reg. 1775, i. 39. Some opposition, it seems, had been intended, for Horace Walpole wrote on the day Parliament met—'st. Parliament's day,’ he styles it:—’Mr. Van is to move for the expulsion of Wilkes; which will distress, and may produce an odd scene.’ Letters, vi. 157. On May 3, 1782, on Wilkes's motion all the resolutions of the House respecting the Middlesex election were ordered, by a majority of 115 to 47, ‘to be expunged from the Journals of this House, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom.’ Fox opposed the motion, as he held that ‘it was for the good of the people of England that the House should have a power of expelling any man, whom the representatives of the people of England thought unworthy to sit among them: this was a privilege too valuable to be given up.’ Parl. Hist. xxii. 1407.

[20.]Note 20. Burke in the Ann. Reg. for the following year (1772, i. 81) points out the causes by which the House of Commonshad lost much of its influence with the people and of the respect and reverence with which it was usually regarded. . . . Much of this may be attributed to the ill-judged contest with the printers [ante, p. 190, n. 17] and the ridiculous issue of that affair. . . . Many of the Addresses which had been presented to the City Magistrates during their confinement in the Tower were direct libels upon that Assembly, and in other times would have been severely punished as such. . . . The printers, now that the impotency of the House was discovered, laughed at an authority which had been so much dreaded, before it was wantonly brought to a test that exposed its weakness. This discovery being made, the effect naturally followed; and in the succeeding session the votes of the House, a thing before unknown and contrary to its orders, were printed in the public newspapers without notice or inquiry; and thus the point in contest was apparently given up by the House.’

[21.]Note 21. Horace Walpole states that ‘Lord Mansfieldinnovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find the rankest satire libellous.’ Memoirs of George III, iv. 168. Lord Mansfield, in trials for libel, maintainedthat a libel or not a libel was a matter of fact to be decided by the bench, and the question to be left to the jury was only the fact of printing and publishing.’ Adolphus's History of England, i. 441. By FoxLibel Bill, which was carried in 1792, it was declared that it was the function of the jury in cases of libel to be judges of law as well as of fact. Parl. Hist. xxix. 1537. See JuniusLetter to Lord Mansfield of Nov. 14, 1770, in which he says:—’When you invade the province of the jury in matter of libel, you in effect attack the liberty of the press, and with a single stroke wound two of your greatest enemies.’

[22.]Note 22. Strahan, in his next letter, dated July 23, was able to send more comforting news about the citizens. He wrote:—’You see our Lord Mayor, after advertising for a fortnight to invite the whole Livery and all the mob in London to attend him, hath presented another wise and modest Remonstrance. The papers give you a splendid account of the Cavalcade. But whatever they may tell you, I assure you from ocular demonstration, that it made a most pitiful and paltry figure. A number of people were indeed brought into the streets to gaze at him, and the few Aldermen and Common Council-men that accompanied him, but only about a dozen blackguards followed and holloed him, whose feeble applause was much more than overbalanced by the hisses of the honest spectators, who seemed to be inflamed with just indignation at seeing one of the best and most unexceptionable of Princes teased and abused by a little, pitiful, desperate and abandoned Junto, whom as individuals no reputable man would choose to associate with.’ M. S. R. S. E. In Strahanown paper, The London Chronicle, for July 11, 1771, it is stated that the cavalcade was composed of the Lord Mayor, five Aldermen, the two Sheriffs, with upwards of one hundred of the Common Council, in about fifty carriages, and thatit proceeded amidst the greatest acclamations of the people.’

[23.]Note 23. The King in his speech on opening Parliament on Nov. 15, 1763, announced his intention to apply to the public service the money arising from the sale of the prizes vested in the Crown, and of the lands in the islands in the West Indies that were ceded by the Treaty of Paris. Parl. Hist. xv. 1339. The total amount was upwards of £900,000. In addition, he gave up the hereditary revenues of the Crown, and accepted instead the fixed sum of £800,000 a year. According to Blackstone the public was a gainer by £100,000 a year. In the year 1777 £800,000 being found insufficient was increased to £900,000. Boswell's Johnson, ii. 353, n. 4. Burke, however, in his Present Discontents, says that in 1770 the whole revenue of the Crown wascertainly not much short of a million,’ not counting the sums that the King drew from his possessions in Germany. PayneBurke, i. 47. Nevertheless in 1769 application was made to Parliament for the payment of the debts of the Civil List, which amounted to over £500,000. Parl. Hist. xvi. 602. According to Burke, George II, though during the last fourteen years of his reign he had received less each year than his grandson, nevertheless at his death left £170,000 to his successor. PayneBurke, i. 68. With all the extravagance of George III's reign there was little splendour.I believe it will be found,’ said Burke in 1770, ‘that the picture of royal indigence which our Court has presented until this year has been truly humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress but by means which have hazarded the affection of the people, and shaken their confidence in Parliament.’ Ib. p. 47.

[24.]Note 24. Johnson had said this same spring in his FalklandIslands:—’To fancy that our Government can be subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowings of its kennels.’ Johnson's Works, vi. 213.

[25]It was the people above who were timid, and the people below who were insolent.

[26]Note 26. Hume is hinting at the Earl of Bute, or the Dowager Princess of Wales, or both. Strahan replied to him on July 23:—’It hath been long said, you know, that somebody behind the curtain has been a constant check upon the ostensible Ministers during this reign.’ M. S. R. S. E. On March 2, 1770, Lord Chatham in the House of Lords attacked ‘the secret influence of an invisible power;’ that ‘something behind the throne greater than the King himself;’ that ‘favourite, who had betrayed every man who had taken a responsible office. There was no safety, no security against his power and malignity. He himself had been duped when he least suspected treachery, at a time when the prospect was fair, and when the appearances of confidence were strong.’ Parl. Hist. xvi. 842–3. On March 25, 1771, Alderman Townsend in the House of Commons said that many who supported the Ministers were ‘only solicitous to gratify the ambitious views of one aspiring woman, who, to the dishonour of the British name, is well known to direct the operations of our despicable Ministers. Does any gentleman wish to know to what woman I allude; if he does, I will tell him; it is to the Princess Dowager of Wales.’ Ib. xvii. 135. Colonel Barre wrote the next day to Lord Chatham:—’It is very extraordinary that this language had no more apparent effect either on the House or the Ministry, than if it had been held concerning the mal-administration of the Duke of Saxe Gotha, or any even pettier Prince of the House of Saxony.’ Chatham Corres. iv. 134.

[27]Note 27. See ante, pp. 161, 173.

[28]Note 28. Wilkes was elected Alderman of the Ward of Farringdon Without on Jan. 27, 1769, while he was still in prison. On his release he was sworn in, on April 24,1770. Almon's Memoirs of Wilkes, iv. 1, 15. Horace Walpole wrote on May 6:—’I don’t know whether Wilkes is subdued by his imprisonment, or waits for the rising of Parliament, to take the field; or whether his dignity of Alderman has dulled him into prudence, and the love of feasting; but hitherto he has done nothing but go to City-banquets and sermons, and sit at Guildhall as a sober magistrate.’ Letters, v. 235. On June 24, 1771, he was elected Sheriff. ‘Being suspected of partiality to the French, he ordered that no French wine should be given at his entertainments.’ Almon's Wilkes, iv. 172, and Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 149. Dr. Johnson lived in Wilkes's Ward, but not being a Freeman of the City he had no vote. Horace Walpole wrote on July 6, a few days after Wilkes's election as Sheriff:—’Does there not seem to be a fatality attending the Court whenever they meddle with that man? Does not he always rise higher for their attempting to overwhelm him? What instance is there of such a demagogue, subsisting and maintaining a war against a King, Ministers, Courts of Law, a whole Legislature, and all Scotland, for nine years together? Massaniello did not, I think, last five days. Wilkes, in prison, is chosen Member of Parliament, and then Alderman of London. His colleagues betray him, desert him, expose him, and he becomes Sheriff of London. I believe, if he were to be hanged, he would be made King of England—I don’t think King of Great Britain (the Scots hate him too much).’ Letters, v. 313. Strahan's letter to Hume of July 23 is in the beginning so curiously like Walpole's, that it can scarcely be doubted that both men are repeating words they have heard. He says:— ‘With regard to Wilkes, there seems to be a Fatality attending the Ministry whenever they meddle with him. In the late election for Sheriffs they should have taken no part at all. . . . Monday and Tuesday the election was plainly going against Wilkes, and he would most certainly have lost it. But the miscarriage and consequent publication of Mr. R.'s1. letter had precisely the effect I apprehended, and set the London mob in a flame.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Sir John Pringle, writing to Hume on Feb. 25, 1776, tells an amusing story of the election for Chamberlain of the City, for which Wilkes was the unsuccessful candidate. He says:—’One of Hopkins's party upbraided Mr. Wilkes by telling him, that he had made his friends upon polling go home, and after changing their coats return to the Hall, and vote a second time. “quot;My friends do so!” replies Wilkes; “Impossible! My friends have only one coat to their back.”’ M. S. R. S. E.

Junius, in his letter of April 3, 1770, mocks at ‘the blustering promises of Lord North,’ and tells how he had taken fright at the very moment when Welbore Ellis, set on by him, was going to move to prosecute the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs. ‘All their magnanimous threats ended in a ridiculous vote of censure, and a still more ridiculous address to the King. This shameful desertion so afflicted the generous mind of George the Third, that he was obliged to live upon potatoes for three weeks, to keep off a malignant fever. Poor man! quis talia fando temperet a lacrymis!’

[29]Note 29. The three per cents. Consols, on the day on which Hume wrote, were at 81 7/8. Gent. Mag. 1771, p. 288.

[28]Note 28. Wilkes was elected Alderman of the Ward of Farringdon Without on Jan. 27, 1769, while he was still in prison. On his release he was sworn in, on April 24,1770. Almon's Memoirs of Wilkes, iv. 1, 15. Horace Walpole wrote on May 6:—’I don’t know whether Wilkes is subdued by his imprisonment, or waits for the rising of Parliament, to take the field; or whether his dignity of Alderman has dulled him into prudence, and the love of feasting; but hitherto he has done nothing but go to City-banquets and sermons, and sit at Guildhall as a sober magistrate.’ Letters, v. 235. On June 24, 1771, he was elected Sheriff. ‘Being suspected of partiality to the French, he ordered that no French wine should be given at his entertainments.’ Almon's Wilkes, iv. 172, and Ann. Reg. 1771, i. 149. Dr. Johnson lived in Wilkes's Ward, but not being a Freeman of the City he had no vote. Horace Walpole wrote on July 6, a few days after Wilkes's election as Sheriff:—’Does there not seem to be a fatality attending the Court whenever they meddle with that man? Does not he always rise higher for their attempting to overwhelm him? What instance is there of such a demagogue, subsisting and maintaining a war against a King, Ministers, Courts of Law, a whole Legislature, and all Scotland, for nine years together? Massaniello did not, I think, last five days. Wilkes, in prison, is chosen Member of Parliament, and then Alderman of London. His colleagues betray him, desert him, expose him, and he becomes Sheriff of London. I believe, if he were to be hanged, he would be made King of England—I don’t think King of Great Britain (the Scots hate him too much).’ Letters, v. 313. Strahan's letter to Hume of July 23 is in the beginning so curiously like Walpole's, that it can scarcely be doubted that both men are repeating words they have heard. He says:— ‘With regard to Wilkes, there seems to be a Fatality attending the Ministry whenever they meddle with him. In the late election for Sheriffs they should have taken no part at all. . . . Monday and Tuesday the election was plainly going against Wilkes, and he would most certainly have lost it. But the miscarriage and consequent publication of Mr. R.'s1. letter had precisely the effect I apprehended, and set the London mob in a flame.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Sir John Pringle, writing to Hume on Feb. 25, 1776, tells an amusing story of the election for Chamberlain of the City, for which Wilkes was the unsuccessful candidate. He says:—’One of Hopkins's party upbraided Mr. Wilkes by telling him, that he had made his friends upon polling go home, and after changing their coats return to the Hall, and vote a second time. “quot;My friends do so!” replies Wilkes; “Impossible! My friends have only one coat to their back.”’ M. S. R. S. E.

Junius, in his letter of April 3, 1770, mocks at ‘the blustering promises of Lord North,’ and tells how he had taken fright at the very moment when Welbore Ellis, set on by him, was going to move to prosecute the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs. ‘All their magnanimous threats ended in a ridiculous vote of censure, and a still more ridiculous address to the King. This shameful desertion so afflicted the generous mind of George the Third, that he was obliged to live upon potatoes for three weeks, to keep off a malignant fever. Poor man! quis talia fando temperet a lacrymis!’

[1.]Mr. R. was Mr. Robinson, ‘the Secretary of a Public Office.’ A letter in which he canvassed for Aldermen Plumbe and Kirkman was delivered by mistake to the wrong person. ‘Its publication won a great many votes for Aldermen Wilkes and Bull.’ London Chronicle, June 29, 1771.