Part 29

M. F. Feuillet de Conches, in his recently published correspondence of Louis XVI., Marie-Antoinette and the Princess Elizabeth,—a very interesting work—gives a curious letter on the subject of Keppel’s engagement from the pen of the Princess Elizabeth, who was Louis XVI.’s sister, and the admirable lady whose martyrdom was decidedly the foulest act among the foul acts of the Reign of Terror. The princess is writing in or near August, 1778, to her devoted friend Madame de Bombelles, and the letter is as follows:—“Je n’ai que le temps, mon ange, de vous dire qu’il y a eu une affaire entre les deux flottes; que le premier choc a été très-vif, qu’ensuite elles se sont séparées, et que la nôtre s’est avancée pour un second, mais que les Anglais se sont retirés. On dit que l’on a remarqué que le vaisseau de l’Amiral Keppel se battait fort bien, mais que tout d’un coup il y a eu une grande évolution, qu’il a cessé de se défendre et s’est retiré. Huit ou dix bâtiments l’ont accompagné, ce qui fait croire que l’amiral est ou très-blessé ou tué. Il y a dix vaisseaux fort endommagés, et nous, nous n’en avons que deux qui seront en état de repartir dans huit jours. Le Duc de Chartres revient passer deux à trois jours ici. M. Du Chaffault est très-dangereusement blessé. Je m’affermis encore plus dans ce que je vous ai dit la dernière fois. J’attends votre réponse avec impatience pour me décider sur ce que je dois faire. Ne dites point la nouvelle de l’Amiral Keppel, parce qu’elle n’est pas sûre. Je vous embrasse de tout mon cœur.

ELIZABETH MARIE.”

Footnote 17:

Byron, with wonderful poetic accuracy, recounts the actual mutiny:—

“Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate! Awake! awake!—alas! it is too late! Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear, Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast;

· · · · ·

Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade, Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid; The levell’d muskets circle round thy breast, In hands as steel’d to do the deadly rest. Thou dar’st them to their worst, exclaiming—‘Fire!’ But they who pitied not could yet admire, Some lurking remnant of their former awe Restrained them longer than their broken law; They would not dip their souls at once in blood, But left thee to the mercies of the flood. ‘Hoist out the boat!’ was now the leader’s cry; And who dare answer ‘No!’ to mutiny, In the first dawning of the drunken hour, The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power? The boat is lower’d with all the haste of hate, With its slight plank between thee and thy fate; Her only cargo such a scant supply As promises the death their hands deny; And just enough of water and of bread, To keep, some days, the dying from the dead: Some cordage, canvas, sails, and lines, and twine, But treasures all to hermits of the brine, Were added after, to the earnest prayer Of those who saw no hope save sea and air; And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole— The feeling compass—Navigation’s soul.”

Footnote 18:

The ordinary pound then, as now, consisted of sixteen ounces, but a sailor’s pound was fixed at fourteen.

Footnote 19:

A melancholy circumstance occurred with regard to one witness coming to speak to Wall’s character—Major Winter, R.A. The major, who arrived for the purpose from Woolwich, on getting out of the stage coach, dropped down and instantly expired.

Footnote 20:

Mr. Timbs, F.S.A., in his interesting work, “A Century of Anecdote” thus refers to Colonel Despard:—“This gallant but unfortunate officer appears to have fallen into a sea of troubles through his devoted loyalty. In the course of his service he was the companion and friend of Lord Nelson, during his co-operation with whom, at the Siege of Honduras in his zeal for the public cause, he advanced large sums of money from his own resources, for the promotion of the operation of the war. For this, as well as for his gallantry and ability, he was thanked by Parliament, but _not repaid_. On his arrival in England, he pressed his claims for repayment upon the Ministry; and irritated by the delays and difficulties thrown in his way by officials, he became enraged beyond control. He appealed to the House of Commons, but in vain. He then fell into pecuniary difficulties, grew excited to desperation, wrote violent letters to ministers, and having joined the London Corresponding Society, was taken up under the Act for suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus, and confined to Coldbath Fields Prison. There the eminent Lord Cloncurry (then the Hon. Valentine Browne Lawless, who himself was imprisoned in a similar way on suspicion in the Tower in 1798) found Despard, who had served many years in tropical climates, imprisoned in a stone cell, six feet by eight feet furnished with a truckle-bed and a small table; there was no chair, fire-place, or window, light being only admitted through a barred but unglazed aperture over the door opening into a paved yard, at the time covered with snow. Despard was confined, we believe, in the winter of 1797, and during his incarceration he had grown worn and wan, and of unsound mind. In talking over the condition of Ireland with Mr. Lawless, the colonel said, ‘he had not seen his country for thirty years, he had never ceased thinking of it and of its misfortunes, and the main object of his seeing Mr. Lawless was to disclose his discovery of an infallible remedy for the latter—viz., a voluntary separation of the sexes, so as to leave no future generation obnoxious to oppression.’ This plan of cure would, he said, defy the machination of the enemies of Ireland to interrupt its complete success.

“In a few years after this conversation, this poor madman, at the Oakley Arms public-house, in Lambeth, was apprehended.”

In the “Life and Times of Lord Cloncurry,” by Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick, I find the following additional particulars:—“Some months after the Hon. Valentine Lawless’s visit to Despard, during the debates in the House of Commons on the propriety of continuing the suspension of Habeas Corpus, Mr. Courtney read a letter aloud from Mrs. Catherine Despard.

“‘I think it necessary to state,’ she writes, ‘that he was confined near seven months in a dark cell without fire or candle, chair, table, knife, fork, a glazed window, or even a book. I made several applications in person to Mr. Wickham, and by letter to the Duke of Portland, all to no purpose. The 20th of last month he was removed into a room with a fire, but not until his feet were ulcerated by the frost. For the truth of this statement I appeal to the Hon. Mr. Lawless and John Reeves, Esq., who visited him in prison, and at whose intercession he was removed. The jailor will bear witness that he never made any complaint of his treatment, however severe.’

“The sympathies of Valentine Lawless were, as usual, awakened. He expressed the greatest commiseration for Despard’s sufferings, and resolved to provide for his wife and family at Lyons (his family seat, in the County of Kildare), whenever circumstances suggested the propriety of doing so, and certain other circumstances permitted it. We trust it is not unpardonably anticipating to observe that Lawless (who had succeeded as second Lord Cloncurry in 1799) did afford the widowed Mrs. Despard a comfortable asylum within the bosom of his own family at Lyons.

Footnote 21:

The French and Spanish fleet (commanded by Villeneuve and Gravina) consisted of one of 90 guns, two of 84, four of 80, eleven of 74, and two of 64. The English, of three of 98 guns, two of 84, eight of 74, and two of 64.

Footnote 22:

This was Mr. Gaselee, an eminent advocate and lawyer, who became eventually Sir Stephen Gaselee, and a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was father of the present Serjeant Gaselee, M.P. for Portsmouth. Mr. Gaselee was virtually counsel for Sir Robert Calder, but no counsel to speak for the accused are openly allowed at a court martial.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=. ● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like 1^{st}).