Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 1 (of 2)

Footnote_445_445

Parliament met November 25, 1779.

Footnote_446_446

On December 1, Lord Shelburne in the Lords, and, on December 6, Lord Ossory in the Commons, moved a vote of censure on the Government for their conduct in Ireland. The Volunteer movement spread rapidly; a French invasion was dreaded; the cry for "free trade" rose higher and higher; a non-importation agreement was entered into; and the relief of Dissenters from the sacramental test was demanded. In consequence of this pressure, Lord North (December 13, 1779) proposed and carried a series of resolutions granting free export trade to Ireland.

Footnote_447_447

"The character of my friend (Mr. Holroyd)," says Gibbon in his autobiography, "had recommended him to a seat in Parliament for Coventry, the command of a regiment of light dragoons, and an Irish peerage." The seat for Coventry was vacant by the death of Walter Waring, M.P.

Footnote_448_448

Towards the end of 1779, and in January, 1780, Yorkshire, Middlesex, Hampshire, and many other counties petitioned the House of Commons to grant no more taxes till the expenses of Government were reduced and sinecure places abolished. The tone of several of these county meetings seemed almost to threaten Civil War. Devonshire is said to have voted a fund for buying arms. The Yorkshire petition was presented by Sir George Saville, February 8, 1780.

Footnote_449_449

In Lord Sheffield's edition of this letter (Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. p. 239), the words are given as "I hear your Sussex protest gathers signatures in the country." The protest was suggested and promoted by Colonel Holroyd.

Footnote_450_450

Brooks's Club, originally in Pall Mall, was moved to 60, St. James's Street, in 1778. Gibbon, proposed by Mr. St. John, was elected in 1777. In Richard Tickell's verses celebrating the Hon. John Townshend's return for Cambridge in 1780, occur the following lines: —

"And, know, I've bought the best champagne from Brookes.From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skillIs hasty credit, and a distant bill;Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade,Exults to trust and blushes to be paid."

Footnote_451_451

On February 11, Burke brought forward his scheme for securing the independence of Parliament, and for Economical Reform, in a speech which Lord North said was "such as no other member could have made." Besides other reductions of expense, he proposed to abolish altogether the Board of Trade, the Civil Branch of the Ordnance, and the third Secretaryship of State. Lord North allowed the Establishment Bill to be brought in, the only member who opposed its introduction being Lord George Gordon. The House of Commons went into Committee on the Bill, March 8, 1780.

Footnote_452_452

On January 16, 1780, Rodney encountered the Spanish Admiral Langara off Cape St. Vincent, won a complete victory, relieved Gibraltar, supplied Minorca, and proceeded to the West Indies. The San Domingo (70 guns) blew up; the flagship Phœnix (80 guns), and three other ships of 70 guns, were taken. The San Julian (70 guns), after her prize crew was put on board, ran ashore. Another ship, after her officers were shifted, was totally wrecked. Four, more or less damaged, escaped into Cadiz.

Footnote_453_453

On March 13, 1780, the Board of Trade was declared to be useless by 207 to 199. Burke alluded to the literary value of the Board, which had its separate professor for every department of literature, and paid a sneering compliment to the "historian's labours, the wise and salutary results of deep, religious researches." As an Academy of Belles Lettres he held the commissioners hallowed; as a Board of Trade he wished them abolished.

Footnote_454_454

In the debate on the Army Estimates and the new Levies (April 5, 1780), Fox commented on the manner in which Colonel Holroyd had raised his Regiment of Horse. It is to Holroyd's reply, and his explanation that the regiment was raised by him for active service, and not as a "fencible corps," that Gibbon refers.

Footnote_455_455

On June 2, 1780, Lord George Gordon presented the petition of the Protestant Association against the relaxation of the Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics. The "No Popery" riots took place on the 6th and 7th, when London was for some hours in the hands of the mob.

Footnote_456_456

On Wednesday night, June 7, the riot was quelled by military force. The Northumberland Militia, which reached London on June 7 by a forced march of twenty-five miles, were led by Colonel Holroyd into the thick of the riot at High Holborn, to prevent the mob advancing westward, and to protect, if possible, Mr. Langdale's distillery. By Thursday morning the tumult was entirely suppressed. "To Colonel Holroyd, since deservedly raised to the British peerage as Lord Sheffield, the Country was eminently indebted for repelling the fury of the Mob at the Bank" (Wraxall's Historical Memoirs, 3rd edit., vol. i. p. 351).

Footnote_457_457

The session ended July 8, 1780.

Footnote_458_458

Lord Mansfield.

Footnote_459_459

Sir Henry Clinton had captured Charleston, May 12, 1780. Early in June, he re-embarked on Admiral Arbuthnot's fleet and returned to New York. Sir Henry was married to Miss Harriett Carter, a first cousin of Colonel Holroyd.

Footnote_460_460

Admiral (cr. 1794 Lord) Graves sailed, June, 1780, with six ships of the line, to reinforce Admiral Arbuthnot at Long Island, and joined him in July. The French fleet under d'Estaing was at the same time strengthened.

Footnote_461_461

Parliament was dissolved September 1, 1780.

Footnote_462_462

The Hon. Wilbraham Tollemache was elected in Gibbon's place for Liskeard.

Footnote_463_463

The newly elected Parliament met October 31, 1780. Gibbon was elected, at a by-election, M.P. for Lymington, June 25, 1781.

Footnote_464_464

Alexander Wedderburn succeeded Sir W. de Grey (afterwards Lord Walsingham) as Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, with the title of Lord Loughborough (June, 1780).

Footnote_465_465

Admiral Rodney and Charles Fox were elected for Westminster, September 22, 1780, against Lord Lincoln.

Footnote_466_466

Admiral Keppel was returned for Surrey, after being defeated at Windsor by Portlock Powney. George III. canvassed for the latter. "The pony with the powerful rider has carried away the plate" (Warner to G. Selwyn, September, 1780).

Footnote_467_467

Edward James Eliot, eldest son of Mr. Eliot, was elected for St. Germains. He was made a Commissioner of the Treasury in July, 1782.

Footnote_468_468

William Eden, M.P. for Woodstock, was appointed in October, 1780, principal secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland.

Footnote_469_469

Benjamin Langlois, M.P. for St. Germains in the last Parliament, made room for Mr. Dudley Long. He was made keeper of his Majesty's stores, ordnance, and ammunition of war in June, 1778, and was appointed a Commissioner for Trade and Plantations vice Soame Jenyns.

Footnote_470_470

The Gazette for December, 1780, announces that the grant of the dignity of a baron of the kingdom of Ireland was conferred on John Baker Holroyd, Esq. – Baron Sheffield, of Dunamore, in the county of Meath. "I had a long conversation," writes Miss Burney in 1781, "with the new Lord Sheffield. He gave me a long account of his Coventry affairs, and of the commitment of the sheriffs to Newgate. He is a spirited and agreeable man, and, I doubt not, will make himself conspicuous in the right way."

Footnote_471_471

At the general election in September, 1780, Colonel Holroyd's re-election for Coventry was prevented by no return being made. After a hearing before the House, the sheriffs of Coventry were committed to Newgate, and a new election ordered. The poll began towards the end of November, and remained open for thirty days. At the close, though a large majority voted for Colonel Holroyd and Mr. Yeo, Sir Thomas Hallifax and Mr. Thomas Rogers were declared duly elected. The unsuccessful candidates petitioned against the return. The first day on which a committee could be balloted for was June 26, 1781. But on the motion of Lord Beauchamp (January 23) the petition of Lord Sheffield and Mr. Yeo was referred to a committee for February 15. The return was amended by an order of the House, dated February 27, 1781, by substituting for Hallifax and Rogers the names of Colonel Holroyd (who in the interval had been created Lord Sheffield) and Mr. Edward Roe Yeo.

Footnote_472_472

Lord Buckinghamshire was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The reference is to Colonel Holroyd's elevation to the Irish peerage as Lord Sheffield.

Footnote_473_473

The Empress Maria Theresa died November 29, 1780.

Footnote_474_474

The second and third volumes of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon had presented his first volume of the Decline and Fall to the Duke of Gloucester. When the second volume appeared, it was, in like manner, presented to the Duke, who "received the author with much good nature and affability, saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the table, 'Another d – mn'd thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?'" (Best's Personal and Literary Memorials, p. 68). "You will be diverted to hear," writes Walpole to Mason, January 27, 1781, "that Mr. Gibbon has quarrelled with me. He lent me his second volume in the middle of November. I returned it with a most civil panegyric. He came for more incense; I gave it, but alas! with too much sincerity; I added, 'Mr. Gibbon, I am sorry you should have pitched on so disgusting a subject as the Constantinopolitan History. There is so much of the Arians and Eunomians, and semi-Pelagians; and there is such a strange contrast between Roman and Gothic manners, and so little harmony between a Consul Sabinus and a Ricimer, Duke of the Palace, that though you have written the story as well as it could be written, I fear few will have patience to read it.' He coloured: all his round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; he screwed up his button-mouth, and rapping his snuff-box, said, 'It had never been put together before' – so well, he meant to add – but gulped it. He meant so well certainly, for Tillemont, whom he quotes in every page, has done the very thing. I well knew his vanity, even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he had too much sense to avow it so palpably."

Footnote_475_475

"When he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes cruelly mortified by the reflection that the slaves who would not dare to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iii. ch. xxii.). Gibbon quotes the sentiments from the words of Julian himself (Ammianus, xxii. 10).

Footnote_476_476

Probably General Sir Richard Pearson, K.B., who died suddenly at Bath of gout in the stomach, February 13, 1781.

Footnote_477_477

Mrs. Hutcheson, whose maiden name was Lawrence, married as her first husband Colonel Steward. Her second husband, Archibald Hutcheson, M.P. for Hastings, at the time of his death (1740) commended her to the guidance of William Law. She was joined by Miss Hester Gibbon, and the two ladies, in 1743, settled at King's Cliffe, in a house belonging to Law. There Mrs. Hutcheson founded a school for boys. She died at the age of ninety-one, in January, 1781, and, at her own request, was buried at the feet of Mr. Law.

Footnote_478_478

William Hayley (1745-1820) was a voluminous poet. Byron (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers) attacks him with severity —

"Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise,His style in youth or age is still the same,For ever feeble and for ever tame."

In 1780 he had addressed to Gibbon An Essay on History, in Three Epistles. He married, in 1769, Eliza Ball, daughter of the Dean of Chichester. The marriage proved unhappy; but it should be added that Mrs. Hayley adopted her husband's illegitimate son, who, born in 1780, afterwards became the sculptor, and treated him as her own child. In 1789 Hayley was separated from his wife, whose mind had become affected. Hayley was at this time living at Eartham, in Sussex, a property which he had inherited from his father.