A.D. 1770.] BECKFORD'S EXTEMPORE SPEECH TO THE KING. was followed to the grave by a procession said to be a quarter of a mile long, and every circumstance was employed to represent the affair as one in which the English were concerned. Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson exerted himself to form an association amongst the traders in opposition to these anti-importers, but he tried in vain. Upon the death of Snider, which took place in February, the compulsory proceedings of the mob paid for by the leaders became more stringent than ever. They insisted that the merchants who had imported goods in their shops and warehouses should be compelled to ship them back to those who had sent them. One merchant, more stubborn than the rest, was immediately waited on by a deputation, headed by an axeman and a carpenter, as if prepared to behead and bury him; and he was told that a thousand men awaited his decision, and they could not be answerable for his safety if he refused to comply. 81 as counsel for the defence; but at length John Adams, a young lawyer, undertook the office, and made the case so plain, that not only captain Preston, but all the soldiers were acquitted, except two, who had fired without orders, and these were convicted only of manslaughter. The five judges concurred so fully in the verdict, that judge Lynde, in their behalf, declared from the bench that he was happy to find the conduct of captain Preston so excellent, and, at the same time, "deeply concerned that the affair turned out so much to the disgrace of every person concerned against him, and so much to the shame of the town in general." The arrival of the news of lord North's repeal of all the duties, except tea, produced little effect on the minds of the people of Boston. They declared that the unconstitutional principle was the real offence, and that it was still retained. The people of New York, however, had long inclined to gentler measures They agreed to import all other articles except tea. Pennsylvania and other colonies followed their example; and they declared that they who wanted tea must smuggle it. The more fiery patriots declared against this great that, during the years 1770 and 1771, the importations were greater than they had ever been. Nevertheless, though the colonies appeared returning to order and obedience, the efforts of the republican party never relaxed, and, especially in Massachusetts, there was a tone of sullen discontent. "Liberty poles" were still erected; exciting harangues were delivered on the anniversary of "the massacre," and the assembly continued to manifest a stubborn resistance to the will of the lieutenant-governor. Under this reign of mob tyranny there was nothing for it but compliance. Yet, amid all this, it was whispered that John Hancock, and others of the very firmest opponents to importation, were secretly importing themselves, or were allowing others to do it in their vessels. The people of New | lukewarmness; but the desire for the English goods was so York, who would willingly have followed a gentler course, and had been sharply upbraided for it, and styled backsliders and no patriots, now retorted on the Bostonians reproaches as vehement, coupled with the name of "pedlars." The animosity against the soldiers at Boston was actively kept up. The sentinel could not stand at his post without insult. Every day menaced a conflict. The fictitious account of an affray betwixt the soldiers and the people of New York was circulated at Boston, in which the soldiers were beaten. This gave immediate impetus to the aggressive temper of the Bostonians. On the 2nd of March, a soldier, insulted by the men at Gray's rope-walk, resented it; they came to blows, and the soldier was overpowered. He fetched up some of his comrades, who, in their turn, beat and chased the rope-makers through the town. The passions of the mob were inflamed, and they began to arm themselves for an attack on the soldiery. In a few days the crowd assembled and assaulted a party of them in Dock square. The officer prudently withdrew them to the barracks. As the evening advanced, the mob increased. They cried, "Turn out, and do for the soldiers!" They attacked and insulted a sentinel at the Custom House. A party of soldiers was sent by Captain Preston to the officers on duty to protect the man. The mob pelted them with pieces of wood, lumps of ice, &c., and denounced them as cowards, red-lobster rascals, bloody-backs, and the like. The soldiers stood to defend the Custom House till they were fiercely attacked, and at length they fired in self-defence, killed three persons, and wounded several others-one mortally. On the 19th of May the parliament was prorogued; but, before the prorogation, alderman Beckford, now again lord mayor, heading the corporation of London, presented a strong petition to the king at St. James's. Wilkes, who was now out of prison, was soon an alderman of the city, and a new impulse was given to the popular tendencies of the metropolitan corporate body. The petition now presented prayed that parliament might be dissolved, and contained a protest against every vote of the commons as invalid since the rejection of Wilkes. It complained also of a secret and malign influence at court. The reply of the king, as prepared by the minister, was one of firmness and displeasure. The commons resented the language of the corporation to the throne, and passed a strong vote of censure on the proceeding. But this only roused the corporation to present a second address and remonstrance on the 23rd of May, when no parlament was sitting to comment on it. In this address they expressed themselves extremely loyal, and regretted that the king should feel displeasure towards them for the discharge of their duty. The king, in his prepared reply, answered that the sentiments he had uttered continued unchanged. To prevent further carnage, a committee of the townsmen waited on the governor and council, and prevailed on them to remove the soldiers from the town to Castle William. At the close of the royal reply, Beckford, contrary to all The successful rioters carried the bodies of the killed in pro- custom, and to the consternation of the courtiers, stepped cession, denounced the soldiers as murderers, and spread the forward, and addressed the king in an extempore speech. most exaggerated accounts of the affray through the news- The king was taken by surprise; and Beckford went on papers, under the name of "the massacre." Captain Preston expressing, on the part of the city, the most profound and his men were arrested and put upon their trials before a loyalty and affection; and adding that, should "any man jury of the irate townsmen. Nobody, for a time, would act | dare to insinuate to the contrary, or attempt to alienate his majesty's affections from them, that man is an enemy to your person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution, as it was established at the glorious revolution." Spain regarding the Falkland Islands, which led to the very verge of war. These islands, situated in the South Atlantic, to the east of the Straits of Magellan, consist of two larger ones, called East and West Falkland, and eighty-eight smaller ones. The Western Falkland is much the largest, being nearly one hundred miles long by fifty wide. The two larger isles are divided by a channel called Falkland Sound. They were probably seen by Magellan, but Davis is deemed the discoverer of them in 1592, and they were further ex The king, who had no written answer to this abnormal address, remained silent, but offered the corporation the usual civility of kissing hands on their retirement. No sooner were they gone, however, than an order was issued through the medium of the lord chamberlain, that lord mayors in future would confine themselves to their written ad-amined by sir Richard Hawkins in 1694. The French paid dresses. The court complained in high language of the loud and insolent tone in which Beckford had pronounced his startling speech, whilst Beckford himself protested to his friend, lord Chatham, who was supposed to have written the first outspoken address, that he had expressed himself with all duty and humility. Chatham warmly applauded Beckford's bold and unusual conduct, and his speech was wonderfully admired in the city. The corporation, offended at the king's language to them, were much inclined to omit the usual compliment of an address on the birth of the princess Elizabeth, which occurred on the 22nd of May; but Chatham strongly urged them to comply, both from loyalty and good policy, with the custom. The presentation of this address, however, was immediately followed by one to Chatham, for his patriotic conduct in parliament, which took place on the 1st of June. This was the last public act of alderman Beckford. The agitation of his feelings at his daring breach of etiquette on the 23rd of May, is said to have hastened the breaking up of his health. On the 15th of June, Calcraft informed Chatham | that he was dangerously ill, and on the 21st he died. Beckford's enormous wealth passed to his son, then a boy, and the god-son of Chatham, who lived to distinguish himself in a very different way to that of his father. He was the builder of the fantastic but princely Fonthill, the decorator of Ramalhao, and the writer of the strange eastern story, "Vathek," and other works; equally noted for his eccentricity and luxury. Alderman Trecothick was appointed to supply Beckford's place during the remainder of the mayoralty-a man of nearly as democratic a character as Beckford himself, and, what was equally significant at this juncture, an American merchant. The corporation ordered the statue of Beckford to be placed in the Guildhall, and his words, addressed to the king on the 23rd of May, to be inscribed on the pedestal, which was done. them a visit in 1710, and called them after their native port, St. Malo, "Isles Maloinnes." In 1764 the French, under Bougainville, made a settlement on them on Falkland Sound; but Spain putting in a claim that these isles were part of her South American territory, Choiseul, the French minister, abandoned the settlement, and the Spaniards changed its name from Port Louis to Port Soledad. The very next year, 1765, commodore Byron was sent to form a settlement on another of the islands, which he named Port Egmont, in honour of lord Egmont, first lord of the admiralty. The islands are cold and miserable, and as we had no Australian settlements at that time for them to serve as a place of resort in distress to our traders returning by the Pacific, they appeared as useless a possession as could possibly be imagined, and were maintained at what appeared a most unprofitable charge. Such were the distant islets to which, in 1769, Spain began to assert her claim, probably to provoke England to a war with the whole house of Bourbon again, which they imagined, from our quarrel with our North American colonies, and the assertions of the opposition regarding the inefficient condition of our navy, that we were not much disposed to enter upon. The governor of Port Soledad sent repeated messages to Captain Hunt, of the Tamar, stationed at Port Egmont, requiring the abandonment of the place. Captain Hunt replied by asserting the right of his Britannic majesty to the islands. When the notices were succeeded by threats, Captain Hunt sailed home to lay the matter before his government. He landed at Portsmouth in June, 1770, and made known the Spanish interference to the cabinet. Meantime, the Spaniards, taking advantage of Hunt's absence, had, about the time that he arrived in England, dispatched to the Falklands Buccarelli, the governor of Buenos Ayres, with five frigates and one thousand six hundred men. Having entered the port on pretence of wanting water, and finding the Tamar absent, and only two Beckford was soon followed to the grave by the marquis armed sloops there, and a mere handful of soldiers, Bucof Granby and George Grenville, who died in the autumn of carelli landed his force, and, after the firing of a few shots this year. The latter did not live to see the result of that for form's sake, the English surrendered, and were permitted policy of taxation on the Americans which was begun with to depart with all the honours of war. This departure, his stamp act, and, if we are to believe his last speech on that however, was delayed till Spain had time to convey the subject, the pernicious nature of which he was fast gathering news to London in their own way. This was, that the a consciousness of. In the month of March previous to his Spanish court had taken no concern in this little affair, but death, he said, "Nothing could ever induce me to tax that the governor of Buenos Ayres had thought proper to America again but the united consent of king, lords, and insist on the English quitting an island which rightfully commons; and, supported by the united voice of the people belonged to Spain. This was the mode in which prince of England, I will never lend my hand towards forging Masserano, the Spanish ambassador in London, communicated chains for America, lest, in so doing, I should forge them the matter to the English court. In the month of October, for myself." captain Maltby, of the Favourite, sloop of war, arrived During the recess of parliament, a dispute occurred with with the real account of the matter and the little garrison. A D. 1770.] DISPUTE REGARDING THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. The excitement, both at court and in the country, was far beyond the then apparent value of the islands; but there had been an insult to the English flag, and both government and opposition demanded expiation. Lord North displayed a bold and determined tone on the occasion. Orders were sent over to the British ambassador, at Madrid, to demand an instant disavowal of Buccarelli's act, and instant measures were taken for war, in case of refusal. Ships were refitted, their commanders named; stores were put on board, and orders for pressing men, according to the custom of the time, were issued. But in London these preparations met with resistance from the opposition spirit of the corporation. Wilkes and his confederates then declared that press warrants were as gross an invasion of the liberty of the people as general warrants. Alderman Trecothick was not of the opinion of Wilkes, but his term of office just now expired, and Brass Crosby, who became lord mayor, joined the Wilkes party. The corporation, which had generally found Chatham ready to support them in their opposition to the court, now applied to him for his advice. But Chatham, in all cases where the honour of the country was at stake, forgot his opposition, and returned them an answer which startled them. "The city," he said, "respectable as it is, deems of itself as I do not, if they imagine themselves exempt from question." And no sooner did parliament meet, on the 13th of November, than he advised in his speech in the peers, that the refractory aldermen should be called to the bar of the house and reprimanded. That had an instant effect: the corporation submitted, and signed the warrants. The warrants, indeed, would never have been required, but the sailors remembered too well how shamefully they had been cheated of their prize-money at the taking of Havanna. Chatham, at the same time, managed to maintain his popularity in the city, and to strengthen the opposition in matters where the war was not concerned, by recommending sergeant Glynn, Wilkes's friend, to the recordership, instead of Sir James Eyre, who had greatly offended the city by declining to go up with alderman Beckford with the address to the king. Chatham also recommended that the freedom of the city should be given to Dunning, who, when solicitor-general, had defended the right to petition and remonstrate, and through Calcraft, alderman Sawbridge, and sheriff Townshend, he still commanded a paramount influence in the city. In opening parliament, the king made the Falkland Islands the prominent topic of his speech, and called upon parliament for their advice and assistance. The opposition complained of remissness in the ministers in not having prepared ships earlier to avenge the insult. On the 20th of November the duke of Richmond moved for the production of all papers regarding this transaction, and Chatham supported the motion in a vehement speech. The debate became extremely hot, but the motion was rejected, and a similar one in the commons on the same day. So loud were the voices of the opposition on the neglect of the ministry of all the naval and military conditions of offence and defence, of the neglected state of our foreign cutposts, Gibraltar, Minorca, Jamaica, &c., that lord Gower moved that all strangers be removed from the house of lords. 83 The Chatham hotly opposed this: the utmost noise and confusion ensued, amid which the motion was carried. The same day a similar motion was made in the commons, to clear it of peers and all, but was negatived, as was a motion by Dunning to search the journals of the lords, to see what was done on the days that they rate with closed doors. people were excessively indignant at the attempt to deprive them of the publication of the debates in parliament, and Chatham and the opposition fomented this feeling as much as possible. On the 15th of December lord George Sackville, now lord George Germaine, moved for a conference with the lords on this head, but without effect, though supported by Dunning, Burke, Barré, lord George Cavendish, &c. He then moved that all sons of peers, king's sergeants, masters in chancery, &c., who were members, should be summoned to attend their places every day at two o'clock, to assist in carrying bills to the lords. Lord George declared that this was for the honour of the nation, whereupon governor Johnstone said, he wondered why lord George should trouble himself so much about the honour of the nation, when he had been so remarkably negligent of his own-alluding to lord George's dismissal from the army, for his conduct at the battle of Minden. This led to a duel, in which nobody was hurt. At this very time, lord George, as well as Wedderburn and others of the opposition, were in treaty with lord North to go over to him. On the 19th lord Sandwich came into the ministry in place of lord Weymouth, who resigned the seals of secretary of state. Lord North, in issuing his budget, announced that we should require nine thousand additional seamen; three millions of money if we remained at peace, and nine millions if we went to war, so that the land-tax must still remain at two shillings in the pound. Things, however, seemed tending strongly towards war. Our chargé d'affaires at Madrid, in absence of the ambassador, was Mr. Harris, the son of the author of "Hermes." He was but a youth of four-and-twenty, but already displayed much of the talent which raised him to the title of Malmesbury. He wrote home that the king of Spain and some of his ministers were averse to the idea of war, and unprepared for it; but that others were influenced by Choiseul, the French premier, and demanded a vigorous attack on England. Under the circumstances Harris was recalled. But the king of France did not partake the feeling of Choiseul. He wrote to the king of Spain about this time, My minister wishes for war, but I do not!" In fact, changes had taken place in the court of France which were about to precipitate Choiseul from his long-enjoyed favour. Madame de Pompadour was dead, and the king had become deeply enamoured of madame du Barry, now called, from her extreme beauty, madame L'Ange, but who, in her old age, so miserably perished on the scaffold, in the Place de la Concorde. Choiseul was impolitic enough to despise her influence, and treated her with undisguised hauteur. He soon felt the consequence in an order from the king to resign his office and retire to his estate at Chanteloupe, in Touraine. The shock to the insolent minister, who had so long ruled absolutely in the French court, was the more unlooked for, because he thought himself now all the more safe from having secured the marriage of the king's heir, his eldest grandson, with the Austrian archduchess, Marie Antoinette, now in the blaze of beauty, but also doomed to fall by the guillotine. Choise was succeeded by the triumvirate d'Aiguillon, as foreign minister; Terray, as minister of finance; and Maupeou, as minister of jurisprudence; but all subject to the supreme influence of madame du Barry. Louis XV. thenceforth became a cipher. The spirit of Choiseul having departed from the French administration, and the king having so unequivocally expressed his intention not to go to war, the Spanish court hastened to lower its tone and offer conciliatory terms. In December they had proposed, through prince de Masserano, to disavow the expedition of Buccarelli, if the English court would disown the menaces of captain Hunt. This was promptly refused, and orders were sent to Mr. Harris to quit the capital of Spain. He set out in January, 1771, but was speedily recalled; the expedition of Buccarelli was lisavowed; the settlement of Port Egmont was conceded, whilst the main question as to the right of either party to the Falklands at large was left to future discussion. So little value, however, did this country attach to the Falkland Isles, that it abandoned them voluntarily two years afterwards. For many years they were forsaken by both nations; but in 1826 the republic of Buenos Ayres adopted them as a penal colony, and in 1833 the English finally took possession of them. Whilst these events had been progressing, the ministry had entered into a combat with the great unknown political essayist, Junius. Junius had advanced from sir William Draper to the duke of Grafton, and from the duke of Grafton to the king in his sweeping philippics. In his letter of April 3rd, 1770, though addressed ostensibly to the printer of the "Public Advertiser," he directly apostrophised the king, and in that letter, and the following, of May 28th, he was extremely severe on the conduct of the king in sanctioning the prosecution of Wilkes-for sacrificing the affections of his people merely to surround himself with such creatures as "North, Barrington, Weymouth, Gower, Ellis, Onslow, Rigby, Jerry Dyson, and Sandwich," whose names he declared to be a satire upon all government. In the letter of May 28th he drew the following daring portrait of the king and a picture of the unconstitutional use made of such a character by the ministry :-" A faultless, insipid equality in his character, is neither capable of virtue nor vice in the extreme; but it secures his submission to those persons whom he has been accustomed to respect, and makes him a dangerous instrument of their ambition. Secluded from the world, attached from his infancy to one set of persons and one set of ideas, he can neither open his heart to new connections nor his mind to better information. A character of this sort is the fittest soil to produce that obstinate bigotry in politics and religion which begins with meritorious sacrifice of understanding, and finally conducts the monarch and the martyr to the block. At any other period, I doubt not, the scandalous disorders which have been introduced into the government of all the dependencies of the empire would have roused the attention of the public. The odious abuse and prostitution of the prerogative at home; the unconstitutional employment of the military; the arbitrary fines and commitments of the house of lords and court of King's Bench; the mercy of a chaste and pious prince extended cheerfully to a willing murderer, because that murderer is the brother of a common prostitute" (Miss Kennedy), "would, I think, at any other time have excited universal indignation. But the daring attack upon the constitution, in the case of the Middlesex election, makes us callous and indifferent to inferior grievances." For these daring censures, Woodfall, the printer of the "Public Advertiser," was tried, and also Almon, the publisher of the "London Museum," a monthly periodical, for repriuting the libel there. Almon was convicted of publishing, and sentenced to pay a fine of ten marks, and give security for his good behaviour for two years, himself in four hundred pounds, and two sureties in two hundred pounds each. He moved in vain for a new trial. Woodfall was convicted of "printing and publishing only;" but he obtained an order for a new trial, on the ground of the phrase "only" being ambiguous. But the circumstance which excited the attention and turned the resentment of both liberal statesmen and the people was, that lord Mansfield on these trials had instructed the juries to confine themselves to the facts alone, and to leave the question of legality to the judges. This was properly declared a dangerous infringment of the rights of juries, and calculated to make their verdicts merely the servile echoes of the dicta of the judges. Lord Chatham, on the 28th of November, denounced in the peers this dictation of the judge to the juries. Serjeant Glynn, at the same time, moved in the commons for an inquiry into the administration of justice in Westminster Hall, where such unconstitutional instructions could be given. This occasioned a warm debate, in which Burke, Dunning, and others, ably defended the public rights. The motion was negatived. The power of the attorneygeneral to file ex-officio information in cases like that of Almon was strongly called in question by Burke, who, in the course of a very eloquent speech, drew the following striking character of Junius:-"The myrmidons of the court," he said, "have long been pursuing this Junius in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or upon you, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broke through all their toils, is before them. But what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one, than he strikes down another dead at his feet. For my own part, when I saw his attack upon the king, I own my blood ran cold; I thought he had ventured too far, and that there was an end of his triumphs. Not that he had not asserted many bold truths. Yes, sir, there are in that composition many bold truths by which a wise prince might profit. It was the rancour and venom with which I was struck. But while I expected, from this daring flight, his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both houses of parliament. Not content with carrying away our eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate, and king, lords, and commons thus become but the sport of his fury." Junius, in his murderous concealment, was never destined to be hunted out by all the incensed orders of the state. The year closed by various changes in the ministry Wedderburn abandoned the opposition, and became solicitor A.D. 1771.] ARRESTS FOR REPORTING DEBATES. general; the swearing and blaspheming Thurlow was made attorney-general in the place of Mr. De Grey, who was made chief-justice of common pleas. The great seal was taken from the temporary grasp of Mansfield, and given to the honourable Henry Bathurst, who was created baron Aspley. Lord Sandwich was placed at the head of the board of admiralty, sir Edward Hawke resigning; lord Halifax succeeded Sandwich as secretary of state, and the earl of Suffolk succeeded Halifax as privy seal. Some of 85 consequently the stimulus of both fame and real usefulness was at an end. Chatham says, in a letter:-"The house being kept clear of hearers, we are reduced to a snug party of unhearing and unfeeling lords, and the tapestry hung up." In the commons, the desire of the ministry to reduce that popular arena to the same condition of insignificance produced a contest with the city as foolish and mischievous in its degree as the contests then going on with Wilkes and America. George Onslow, nephew of the late speaker, and these changes gave great disgust, but no astonishment to the opposition, who were but too well accustomed to the ambition of lawyers, and their consequent easy abandonment of friends and principles, in the act of climbing. The year 1771 opened under circumstances which greatly diminished the interest in parliamentary proceedings. As all reporting was excluded from the house of lords, the chief speakers there felt that they were no longer addressing the nation, but merely a little knot of persons in a corner, and VOL. V.-No. 216: member for Guildford, moved that several printers, who had dared to report the debates of the house of commons, should be summoned to the bar to answer for their conduct. Accordingly, these mediums of communication betwixt the people and their representatives were summoned and reprimanded on their knees. One of their number, named Miller, however, declared that he was a liveryman of London, and that any attempt to arrest him would be a breach of the privileges of the city. The sergeant-at-arms dispatched a |