Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/242

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tns.v. MA*. 9, 1912.

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Georf/e the Third and Charles Fox : the Concluding Part of the American Revolution. By Sir George Otto Trevelyan. Vol. I. (Longmans & Co.)

PAINFUL indeed is the period of our history covered in this volume. What might have happened, one asks, if it had not been for the obstinacy of George III. and the knaves and fools by whom he was surrounded ? Although he had renounced all hope of subduing the Americans by campaigns and battled, he determined never to acknowledge their independence, and to punish their con- tumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be endless. Though in punishing the Americans " he brought upon himself and on his subjects calamities and dis- tresses almost as bad as the plagues of Egypt, still his heart was hardened against America, and he would not let the people go." Sir George quotes with approval Lecky, who, writing with unwonted passion, pronounces the King's course of action during the later period of the American War as criminal as any of the unconstitutional acts which helped to lead Charles I. to the scaffold.

It is pleasant to turn from this to the eloquent references made to Chatham, for whom the author has all his uncle's admiration who, by his methods, " repaired defeat and organized victory, while his power of speech was among the wonders of the world." He was, " as became a great Englishman, a maritime strategist of the highest order," and " he never forgot that the progress of a fleet is regulated by the pace of the lag ship." Beautiful is the glimpse given to us of his domestic life :

" Nowhere might be found a more united family, or a more peaceful home. Lady Chatham, a true helpmate in joy or sorrow, was one with her husband in affection, in opinion, and in her views of duty. They had around them their three sons, whom they were launching into life, which in the case of Chatham meant that he was giving them to his country."

The eldest son, as soon as the French war became imminent, returned to the military pro- fession. The third son became " the young tar who," Chatham said, " may, by the favour of heaven, live to do some good." The second son, William, became his father's secretary : " My dear secretary," he would call him, and would say, with a humorous side glance at the King and his Secretaries of State, " I wish Somebody had as good and as honest an one."

The new year of 1778 found Chatham fairly well, and exempt from pain and discomfort. " Perhaps [so he told his physician! I may last as long as ' Great Britain." Within three months, on the 7th of April, occurred the fatal seizure in the House of Lords, and on the llth of May he breathed his last. " The citizen? of London, in Common Council assembled," expressed an earnest desire that their favourite statesman should be buried " in their Cathedral Church of St. Paul." The King tolfl

the Lord Chamberlain " that they might do what they pleased with the corpse, but he would not let his Guards march in procession into the City." However, as we all know, the Commons voted a public funeral and a monument in Westminster Abbey, and ample, though not excessive pro- vision was made for the bei'eaved family.

The second chapter deals with Fox and the French war. Fox, at the age of nineteen, was elected for Mid hurst. In the course of two sessions he spoke every day but one, " and was sorry he had not spoken on that day likewise ; and strange to say the rest of the House was sorry also," for ' when he rose to his feet he never failed to command universal and willing attention by his impressive vehemence, his persuasive logic, and his unerring tact." Sir George, in reference to Fox's popu- larity with women, says that " he stood high in the good graces of the best among them, for reasons very honourable to himself and his ad- mirers. He was no lady-killer, and only too little of a fop." The days were past when he " talked about travelling from Paris to Lyons in order to select patterns for his fancy waist- coats." Now he was plainly and carelessly dressed, and possessed in a remarkable degree " the power of being himself in every company." The women were no fair-weather friends, for in the very darkest period of his fortunes " they re- mained loyal to him and to the principles which he had taught them." At this period the Duchess of Devonshire " expressed herself with a noble frankness to no less formidable a correspondent than Philip Francis," who had referred to the regard felt by the Duchess for Charles Fox as follows : " The generous passions [so he told her] are always eloquent, especially on a favourite subject. You love him with all his faults, because they are /iis. I wish I was one of them. I should keep good company, and share in your regard." Evidentlv Sir George, like his uncle, is among the Franciscans, for in reference to this he says that the " sentences, if style is any guide, most assuredly come from the pen of Junius." We should have thought that the fact that \Yoodfall himself affirmed that " Francis did not write the letters," and also the researches made by Fraser Ttae at the British Museum, the results of which appeared in The AthencKiim, would have been sufficient to convince almost every one that Francis was not Junius.

Fraser Rae's researches go to prove most con- clusively that whoever was Junius, it was not Francis. We advise Franciscans to refer to The Athenceum of June 28th and August 9th, IS' in. In the latter will be found a quotation from ' The Annual Biography and Obituary,' published by Longmans, in which the writer states that he " was honoured with a last visit from Sir Philip Francis, on the 23rd of December, 1817," when he ridiculed the idea of his being Junius : "He had already written on that subject till he was tired, would write no more letters, answer no more questions relative to it. ' If mankind are so obstinate as not to believe what I have- already said, I am not fool enough to humble myself any more with denials, I have done.' " This memoir, Fraser Rae remarks, " seems to have been overlooked by most of the Franciscans."

Very vivid is the account of the trial of.

and the rejoicings which followed his acquittal