148 THE RETREAT OF THE REBELS RESOLVED UPON. [1745. Lord George Murray has Charles's council of war to advise a retreat. detailed the solid arguments which were opposed to the obstinate rashness of Charles. The prince did not doubt that the justness of his cause would prevail; he had hopes of a defection in the enemy's army; he was bent upon putting all to the risk. It was vain to tell him that, if a misfortune should happen, "it could not be supposed that one man could escape; for the militia, who had not appeared much against us hitherto, would, upon our defeat, possess all the roads, and the enemy's horse would surround us on all hands." * The Highlanders in the streets of Derby were animated to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, breathing nothing but a desire for the combat with the duke of Cumberland. "They were to be seen, during the whole day, in crowds before the shops of the cutlers, quarrelling about who should be the first to sharpen and give a proper edge to their swords."+ In spite of this ardour, the chiefs, one and all, combated the desire of the prince to give battle on the 6th. They knew, says De Johnstone, that, "in case of a defeat in England, no one in our army could by any possibility escape destruction, as the English peasants were hostile to us in the highest degree." They told the prince that there could be no doubt but that they should easily beat the army of the duke of Cumberland, though much superior in point of numbers; but then another battle must be fought on Finchley Common, before they could enter London; and they very quietly asked, if by a miracle they could arrive at the capital, what sort of figure four thousand men would make amidst a population of a million. This was an exaggerated estimate of the London population-a common error of that period. But the argument was equally strong if applied to a population of half-a-million. Before we proceed to describe the retreat, which was the result of these sensible opinions, let us, out of very imperfect materials, endeavour to obtain a glimpse of what the people of London were doing and thinking at this period, when war appeared to be closely approaching their peaceful homes. The chief authority upon which a sober historian rests his belief that, when Charles Edward was known to have reached Derby, the English metropolis presented a frightful scene of terror and want of confidence, is the statement of the Chevalier de Johnstone: "Our arrival at Derby was known at London on the 5th of December; and the following day, called by the English Black Monday, the intelligence was known throughout the whole city, which was filled with terror and consternation." § The 6th of December was a Friday, and not a Monday. With no personal knowledge of the circumstances, De Johnstone goes on to tell us that a run was made upon the Bank; that it only escaped bankruptcy by paying in sixpences, and by sending its own agents to be foremost in the crowd, and to present the notes at one door, and take back the sixpences by another door. There was a Jacobite party in London, with one of the City members, alderman Heathcote, at its head; and a run upon the Bank was one of the means adopted to produce confusion. But the sixpenny story rests upon no other evidence than that of De Johnstone; and no fact is more indisputable than that a very large number of those who are called by Smollett "the trading part of the City, "Jacobite Memoirs," p. 54. De Johnstone, p. 67. § "Memoirs," p. 75. 1745.] PUBLIC FEELING IN LONDON. 149 and those concerned in money-corporations," gave public notice that they would not refuse to receive the notes of the Bank of England, in payment of any sum of money. Smollett indeed says that the moneyed and commercial persons "prognosticated their own ruin in the approaching revolution, and their countenances exhibited the plainest marks of horror and despair." But Smollett, entertaining himself Jacobite partialities, tells us something more: "The militia of London and Middlesex were kept in readiness to march; double watches were posted at the city-gates, and signals of alarm appointed. The volunteers of the City were incorporated into a regiment; the practitioners of the law headed by the judges; the weavers of Spitalfields, and other communities, engaged in associations; and even the managers of the theatres offered to raise a body of their dependents for the service of the government." We do not find these circumstances noticed by the historian who asks, "Had, then, the Highlanders continued to push forward, must not the increasing terror have palsied all power of resistance?"+ The inhabitants of London, according to De Johnstone, fled to the country, with their most precious effects. A Military Costume, temp. George II. (Selected from Hogarth's March to Finchley.) great number certainly left the busy streets, and were crowding up Highgate Hill. But it was to gaze upon the camp at Finchley, in which London artisans were associated with troops of the line, who could inspire courage, if such inspiration were needed, by tales of Dettingen and Fontenoy. A far larger * Maitland. + Lord Mahon, vol. iii. p. 413. "History of London," vol. i. p. 646. "Memoirs," p. 75. 150 PUBLIC FEELING IN LONDON-THE POPULACE. [1745. proportion were laughing at caricatures of the Pretender, the Pope, and the king of France; and at those which, after the unvarying fashion of Englishmen to laugh at themselves, ridiculed Johnnie Cope, and did not spare the duke of Newcastle. They were reading the "Penny Post," with a border of capital letters forming the words, " No Pretender! No Popery! No slavery! No arbitrary power! No wooden shoes!" Hogarth's wonderful print of the "March to Finchley" was not published till 1750; but from this minute embodiment of all the prevailing aspects of the outer life of the London population, we may gather some clearer notion of the realities of 1745, than from the most elaborate description. We may here trace the military costume of the time-the Prussian sugar-loaf cap of the grenadier-the fifer then first naturalized in the British army. We may form some notion of the licence of the soldiery in those days of cheap intoxication. We may follow all the rough diversions and practical jokes of the London populace, who exhibit in their demeanour any feeling but that of terror. We may notice how the great observer of the life around him alluded to-what was perhaps the only real danger in this crisis-the prospect of a French invasion, by which, in conjunction with the Highland insurrection, "the Jacobites were elevated to an insolence of hope which they were at no pains to conceal."+ The French spy, communicating to the eager old Scot the letter which promises a descent from Dunkirk, is one of those Hogarthian groups which we may accept without hesitation as the truth of individuality. Scotsman and Frenchman. (From Hogarth's March to Finchley.) The fashionable world of London was dull at the opening of this winter: "There never was so melancholy a town; no kind of public place but the Wright. "House of Hanover," vol. i. p. 226. + Smollett 1745.] THE COMMERCIAL AND MONEYED CLASSES. 151 play-houses, and they look as if the rebels had just driven away the company. Nobody but has some fear for themselves, for their money, or for their friends in the army; This is the serious fear which becomes a grave nation at a dangerous crisis; but it is not the fear of cowardice. To understand why there should have been fear at all, we must bear in mind how imperfect were the means of public information. The numbers of the rebels were generally estimated at fifteen thousand. But the fidelity of the common people to their government, and their aversion to the cause of the Stuarts, are unquestionable. A French ship called the Soleil had been taken, with many Jacobites on board, who were coming to join their Scottish friends. There was among them a member of the unfortunate family of Derwentwater. "The mob," says Walpole, " persuaded of his being the youngest Pretender, could scarcely be persuaded from tearing him to pieces all the way on the road, and at his arrival. He said he had heard of English mobs, but could not conceive they were so dreadful." The populace of London have, happily, long since ceased to be ferocious. In this instance, and in several others, we recognize no generous pity for the unfortunate; but we have, even in this temper, one of the many evidences of the mistake into which some recent writers have fallen-that of speaking "of the march to Derby as an enterprise, which, had it been continued, was extremely likely to overturn the Hanover settlement and restore the Stuarts to the throne." The sensible and unprejudiced historian from whom we quote, truly says, "The country had already pronounced upon the question, in the cold silence with which it received the Highland march." + But there was an influence of public opinion, not only in England but in parts of Scotland, of far more importance than the hostility of the English peasantry, and the rude aversion of a London mob,-an influence that rendered even the temporary success of the Stuart cause almost an impossibility. Mr. Hallam has pointed out that the "augmentation of the democratical influence, using that term as applied to the commercial and industrious classes in contradistinction to the territorial aristocracy, was the slow but certain effect of accumulated wealth and diffused knowledge, acting, however, on the traditional notions of freedom and equality, which had ever prevailed in the English people." + The encouragement which Charles Edward undoubtedly received from some considerable portion of the territorial aristocracy, and on which he too confidently relied, was counteracted by the impassive calmness, or decided resistance, of the commercial and industrious classes. It was not till the too confiding prince had got to Derby, that it was pointed out to him that, "after traversing all the provinces which had the reputation of being most attached to his family, in order to enable them to join him, a single person of distinction had not yet declared himself." § The commercial and industrious classes were fairly represented at Liverpool, where a regiment of foot of seven hundred men was raised, clothed, and paid by public subscription. They were represented at Glasgow, where a body of twelve hundred men were raised, half of whom were sent to the defence of Stirling, and half retained to protect the city. In Bristol, the same spirit * Horace Walpole to Mann, Nov. 29. + Burton. "History of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 481. § De Johnstone, p. 71. 152 SUSPICIONS ATTACHED TO SCOTSMEN IN LONDON. [1745. was displayed. We may therefore receive, with considerable suspicion, the statement of Smollett, that the trading part of the City were overwhelmed with fear and dejection. They were subscribing large sums at the beginning of December, to procure additional warm clothing for the troops engaged in the suppression of the rebellion; and the Quakers even provided woollen under-waistcoats for the troops in the North. London had received its abundant share of that commercial prosperity which, in twenty years, had added a third to the value of the country's exports; and which had enabled the wages of the labourer to command a larger portion of subsistence than at any previous period of our history. The community in general was flourishing and contented; and whilst Smollett, speaking from his own political prejudices, says that many, who had no property to lose, thought no change could be for the worse, we may, on the contrary, believe that the bulk even of the humblest, who lived under equal laws which protected labour as much as capital, really desired no change, even amidst their grumbling against a German king, and their angry recollections of Excise and the Gin Act. In periods of great political excitement, when opposite principles are ripening into active hostility, the prejudices of a people, and the unreasonable suspicions of a government, are almost as destructive of the peace of society as the positive dangers of insurrection and anarchy. There is an instance of the terror produced by apprehensions of popular violence, in the case of the father of Nollekens, the sculptor. The old man, a Roman Catholic native of Antwerp, lived in Dean Street, Soho, at the time of the Rebellion. He was a hoarder of his money; and he became so convinced that, as a foreigner and a papist, his house would be attacked by a mob, and his precious savings carried away, that "he lingered in a state of alarm until his death" in 1747.† The suspicions attached during this crisis to Scotsmen in London are described by Sir Andrew Mitchell, in a letter to Duncan Forbes, of the 23rd of October: "Already every man of our country is looked on as a traitor, as one secretly inclined to the Pretender, and waiting but an opportunity to declare. The guilty and the innocent are confounded together, and the crimes of a few imputed to the whole nation."‡ An example of this undiscriminating suspicion may be found in a curious incident in the life of a very remarkable man, the founder of the great banking-house of Drummond. Andrew Drummond was the brother of sir William Drummond, who became viscount Strathallan in 1711. Strathallan was taken prisoner at Sheriffmuir, in 1715, but was released, and continued to reside in Scotland. Andrew, like many other younger branches of high Scottish families, felt that he must endeavour to secure independence by a mercantile pursuit. He settled in London soon after the Union; uniting the proper business of a banker with that of a goldsmith, according to the fashion of earlier times. His ledger of 1716, in the possession of his successors, shows that he sold and exchanged jewellery, such as diamond ear-rings, buckles, and other personal adornments. In the early years of his banking business he was chiefly entrusted with the management of the pecuniary affairs of the friends of the House of Stuart, particularly of those who were abroad. Without compromising himself, he rendered valuable assistance to many who * Malthus, referred to by Hallam. + Smith. "Nollekens and his Times," vol. i. p. 2. "Culloden Papers," p. 426. |