Part 2

But I here certify to you, on my word of honour, and in the face of the public, that I cannot be of any sort of use to you; that I never entered into any treaty for the sale of my papers, and never either by myself or any agent authorised on my part, offered to make appear, that the peace had been sold to France.

If Lord Halifax, or the Speaker, to whom you say you addressed yourself in order to call upon me as evidence, with respect to the validity of your charge, had caused me to be cited, he might have known by my answers what my thoughts were, that England rather gave money to France than France to England, to conclude the last peace; and that the happiness I had in concurring to the great work of peace has inspired me with sentiments of the justest veneration for the English commissioners who had been employed in it, and with the most lively esteem and sincerest admiration for the late Count de Viry, who in his attachment to the welfare of the two nations then at war, and thanks to his indefatigable zeal! had the glory of bringing that peace to a happy conclusion.

Judge now, Sir, with what solidity you can depend upon me to make your charge clear.

I am too well known in England to have been under any necessity of this reply, if the frankness of your letter had not appeared to me to merit my preventing you from taking any further steps, which could not but turn to your prejudice, in as much as they would be founded solely on false reports of _my_ proceedings.

In order to enable you to be as prudent as patriotic, I sign this letter, and therein give you my address, that for the maintenance of your own veracity you may furnish me with the means of convicting publickly those slanderers who have dared to make use of my name, in a manner still more repugnant to real facts, than the dignity with which I have ever supported my character.

I have the honour of being your most humble servant,

_The Chevalier D’EON._

_In Petty France, Westminster._

_To Charles-Genevieve-Louis-Auguste-Andre-Timothee ~D’Eon de Beaumont~, Chevalier de l’ordre roial & militaire de S. Louis,[1] Ministre Plenipotentiare de France aupres du Roi de la Grande Bretagne, Captaine de Dragons au service de sa Majeste tres Chretienne, Avocat au Parlement de Paris, Censeur roial pour l’Histoire et les Belles Lettres en France, &c._

LETTER I.

SIR,

I have read with particular attention your letter to Dr. Musgrave, and can no longer be in doubt what your business at present is in a country where you are an _outlaw_.

You exhibit to us a character most singularly profligate. You alone in this age have had it in your power to be equally false and treacherous to two such great nations as England and France. While you were only secretary to the Duke of Nivernois, you abused the privileges of your character, and engaged in the dirty business of _debauching our manufacturers_. You so entirely forgot the dignity of your rank afterwards, when Minister Plenipotentiary, that you continued the same practice, although it is contrary to the law of nations. You do not even blush to charge this article of expence in the state of your disbursements to the Comte de Guerchy. “Avance aux ouvriers Anglois de la manufacture de toiles peintes, tant hommes que femmes, debauche par le Sieur _L’Escalier_ a Londres et des environs pour les faire passer ailleurs 195l.” Lettres, Memoires, &c. p. 172. The meanness and rascality of such an employment in you and Monsieur _L’Escalier_ can only be equalled by the tameness and ignominy of the administration at that time in suffering _L’Escalier_, a notorious pimp and an _outlaw_ here, to be after this in the public character of _Secretary_ of the Comte de Guerchy. The attestations of _L’Escalier’s outlawry_ were printed here, witnessed by Solomon Schomberg, a Notary Public, and by the Lord Mayor. They were dispersed at the Hague, to serve the purpose of shewing at a certain juncture that England was bullied by France. You afterwards quarrelled with all your best friends, as well as with the ministers of your fortune, and your own Court, which had raised you so rapidly from nothing, from being a writer to the police at Paris on the pension of 600 livres, or 25 guineas a year, to the dignity of Minister Plenipotentiary at the most important Court in Europe. Modern times scarcely produce an instance of political treachery equal to your’s in printing the secrets of the Court by whom you were employed, and the private letters of your benefactor the Duke of Nivernois, of Monsieur Sainte-Foy, Monsieur Moreau, &c. Your particular quarrel with Guerchy had nothing to do with the sentiments of the Duke of Nivernois, of Mess. Sainte-Foy, Moreau, and other gentlemen, on the conduct of the French parliament, the administration of their finances, &c. which were intrusted to you, as their private friend, under the seal of secrecy. You betrayed their confidence without the least provocation on their part, or a pretence of justification of your own conduct from any one circumstance in those letters. After quarrelling with almost all your own countrymen, you published in the same volume a gross abuse of this nation, and called the English a parcel of fools and madmen, at the very time that this country afforded you an honourable protection, and an hospitality you have abused. “Apres deux secousses de tremblement de terre, qui arriverent ici en 1750, _un soldat enthousiaste_ s’avisa d’en predire un troisieme, qui devoit renverser Londres. Il se dit inspire, & d’un ton enthousiaste en fixa le jour, l’heure, & la minute. Londres consterne au souvenir des deux secousses qui s’etoient suivies dans l’intervalle d’un mois, & plus effraie encore a l’approache d’un troisieme & plus terrible tremblement que ce soldat enthousiaste avoit annonce pour le 5 d’Avril, la ville s’est montree susceptible de toutes sortes d’impressions. Plus de 50 mille habitans, sur la foi de cet oracle, avoient ce jour-la pris la fuite: la plupart de ceux que les raisonnemens ou les raillerie de leurs amis avoient retenue, attendoient en tremblant l’instant critique, & n’ont montre de courage qu’apres qu’il a ete passe. Le jour arrive, la prophetie, semblable a la plupart des predictions, ne fut point accomplie; le faux Samuel fut mis un peu tard aux petites maisons & _la tete de ces fiers insulaires si senses & si philosophes ne fut pas a l’epreuve de la prophetie d’un fou_.” P. 14. I believe there is not to be found so gross and silly an abuse of a whole nation for the weakness of a few hysteric women, and superannuated men, nor so false a representation of any fact. Were your other dispatches to your court, Sir, composed of such wretched stuff as this? I hope the _bottle-conjurer_ finds his place in the second part of your _memoires_. That innocent joke of the late Duke of Montague, your countrymen generally talk and write of as a serious proof of the folly and credulity of this nation. The English laughed at your weak attack on them as a nation, and superior to such abuse, desired that you might continue to enjoy the protection of their noble system of laws, and the privileges of their country. They considered their own glory, not the worthlessness of the individual. They would have parted with so insignificant a wretch as you without the least regret; but they would not suffer you to be forced away, nor kidnapped, merely because it would have been an outrage to their laws, and the honour of their nation. They too, as politicians, thought you might be induced to make some discoveries, and were ready to profit by your treason to your own country in the secrets you might reveal for the benefit of their’s, but at the same time they would have abhorred the traitor. When I mention the English nation as anxious for your safety, I mean the body of the people. The administration _at that time_ wished that you might be carried off to France. Mansfield and Norton saw Guerchy often on the occasion, and Sandwich signed more than one warrant to apprehend you. The French ministry, and the people here in power at that time, planned your destruction; but the generosity of two or three individuals saved you, and preserved a viper in the bosom of their country. Now is just the season for such noxious reptiles to come forth. They always meet the approaching storm. Leagued with the enemies of our country, whether French or English, your slender abilities are still employed against a nation you hate, but in your heart honour and revere. After having for some years talked very openly of the wonderful discoveries you could make, and the impeachment you could support, after frequently declaring, that _you had two heads in your pocket_, when a worthy gentleman steps forth and states the charge, you at once recoil, and declare that you do not even believe a word of it, but think that _l’Angleterre a plutot donne de l’argent a la France, que la France de l’or a l’Angleterre pour conclure la derniere paix_. So absurd an idea I shall not undertake to refute, because I believe you are the only man _at large_, who entertains it; but I shall in this first address to you, desire you to state _two_ facts to the public, relative to the subject of your letter to Dr. Musgrave. The _first_ is, What was the negociation relative to the island of _Porto-Rico_? The Duke of Bedford set out for Paris, Sept. 5, 1762. Every thing of importance was soon entirely settled between the two courts. The most material arrangements had been made here in private with Lord Bute before his Grace’s departure. The news of the taking the Havannah was afterwards first received in England, while the Duke was in Paris, on Sept. 29. Now I ask what alteration in the terms of the treaty did such important intelligence produce? What was to be given England, additional to the former stipulations, in consequence of the surrender of the Havannah, when that likewise was to be given up? You are called upon to state that transaction; what you know of the ten days cession of Porto Rico to us by the negociation at Paris, and the subsequent surrender of that island on the receipt of _two_ letters from hence, one of which the Duke of Bedford ought to produce for his justification in _that part_ of the business; the other is too sacred to appear. The _second_ question I shall now ask is, _whether you have not declared that you were offered 7000 louis for your papers?_ Your letter to Dr. Musgrave is extremely evasive on this head. You say, “Je me suis toujours flatte de l’estime & de l’amitie _des Anglois_ avec lesquels j’ai vecu. _Qui d’eux_ dans ces sentimens auroit ose me temoigner assez de mepris pour me faire une pareille proposition?” No, Sir, _no Englishman_ was employed in so dirty a business; but one of your own country was found to make the proposition, to which you objected. You said the sum was too trifling for papers of such importance. My other letters shall give the world more truths; for I will drag you forth to the public view, not merely as a trifling Frenchman, trifling in every thing serious, and serious only in trifles, but as the enemy of England, as a pensioned tool of a wicked ministry, who hope by your means to trifle or perplex an enquiry, which may not stop at your patron, the detested _Thane_, to whom, although a Frenchman, you have sacrificed the great _Sully_ in the most fulsome and lying of all dedications, prefixed to your pirated _Considerations Historiques & Politiques sur les Impos_.

Your connections, Sir, are at length discovered, and the plan of your operations, so secretly concerted by Bute’s three deputies, Jenkinson, Dyson, and _Target_ Martin, at a house in Pall Mall, which governs this kingdom, shall be given to the public. You will experience, that although English generosity makes us always ready to give refuge and protection to a distressed foreigner, even from the country of our inveterate enemies, we will not suffer among us a French traitor and a spy, in the pay of an administration odious to this whole nation. I shall only at present add, that one of your friends will soon prove to you that your own poet _Corneille_ says very truly,

_Et meme avec justice on peut trahir un traitre._

I am, Sir,

An ENGLISHMAN.

_Sept. 11, 1769._

[1] The Chevalier D’Eon began in this manner the affidavit he made Dec. 28, 1764, although his public character had been superseded by the French King, and declared at an end by the King of England, above a year before.

LETTER II.

_To the Chevalier ~D’Eon~._

SIR,

The warm applause you give to the peace of Paris, and the negociators of it, both English and French, did not in the least surprise me. You were well paid for it at the time, and the private advantages derived to you from it did not cease with its _ratification_. The peace itself was in its own nature so infamous, and so peculiarly _felonious_ to this country, which it robbed of almost all its noble conquests, that no Englishman was judged proper to be sent with the authentic ratification of such a French bargain. It was given to you _contre toute regle & contre toute usage_, as the Duke de Praslin says in your _Memoires_; and the Duke of Nivernois observes in a letter to the Duke of Bedford, that it was _une galanterie de votre ministere, & une bonte du Roi votre maitre, qui se sert avec plaisir D’UN FRANCOIS pour cette tournure_. Besides, at the very time of the negociation you held the Ambassador’s pen; and altho’ you were never entrusted with the most important secrets between the two courts, you were employed in the revisal of that fatal instrument which tore from our bleeding warriors the fruits of all their victories, the greatest acquisitions your rival nation had ever made. You are allowed to have much chicanery; and the tricking article about the Canada Bills was the effect of your duping the Duke of Bedford, and the good-humoured Mr. Neville. You may therefore with reason speak of the peace of Paris in terms of rapture, as a Frenchman, and as the Duke of Nivernois’s secretary. I will ever mention it with indignation; for I am an Englishman, and have not that load of guilt to expiate to my country, the advising, making, or _approving_ so ruinous a measure. You are, however, Sir, by no means singular in your opinion of the late _peace_ even in this nation. We too have many traitors among us. A set of gentlemen at Westminster gave an _entire approbation_ of the _preliminary articles_, even with the very extraordinary original clause about the East-India Company among them. Their bankers best know how that _approbation_ was obtained; but their successors, altho’ careless about the national debt, have had the prudence as well as foresight for themselves, to pay off all debts contracted on that account.

You speak with some degree of modesty concerning yourself when you mention the peace of Paris, as if conscious that you had only been employed to toll the bell for the funeral of England’s departed glory and fame. When you mention Count _Viry_, you are quite lavish in his praises, knowing how much he had been a principal in that accursed treaty. I respect the dead; but only the departed virtuous and good. I distinguish characters, notwithstanding the trite maxim of _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_. I will never confound a Cato and a Cataline, but will give to each their due. I execrate the memory of Count Viry, as the enemy of my country, as having been a principal in robbing England of the _Havannah_, PORTO RICO, _Martinique_, _Guadelupe_, _Desiderade_, _Mariegalante_, _St. Peter_, _Miquelon_, _Goree_, _Belleisle_, _St. Lucia_, _&c._ and negociating a treaty which has proved the salvation of France. I believe you have, besides the general cause of the peace, which saved France, two particular reasons for the regard you testify to the memory of Count Viry. The first is the very dexterous management he used to get the claim of a sugar island from France waved, in which you knew she was ready to have acquiesced. The other is, the protest he signed in favour of the House of Savoy, which he procured to be legally attested and given in at the time of the last coronation, in the name of his master, the present King of Sardinia. He too in your time had printed the _Genealogie de la Famille Royale d’Angleterre_, by which he hoped at a future day that the ridiculous claims of his master’s family, as being, although Papists, immediately descended from Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Charles I. would have prevailed over those of the House of Brunswick, who are descended from Elizabeth, Electress Palatine, one degree more remote from the Crown, as being the daughter of James I. You both expected at least a general confusion speedily among us; but neither you, nor he, born under arbitrary governments, could have any idea of the only lawful right to the crown of these realms, a parliamentary right. The contrary doctrine was in Queen Anne’s time expresly declared to be _high treason_, by a particular statute, the “Act for the better securing her Majesty’s person and government, and the succession to the crown of England in the protestant line;” _That if any person or persons, from and after the 25th day of March 1706, shall maliciously, advisedly and directly, by writing or printing, declare, maintain, or affirm that the Kings or Queens of England, with and by the authority of the parliament of England, are not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the crown of this realm, and the DESCENT, LIMITATION, INHERITANCE, and government thereof, every such person or persons shall be guilty of High Treason, and being thereof convicted and attainted, &c. &c._ Count Viri acted by the express orders of his Court, in conjunction with your’s. In the same manner the two Courts acted in concert at the beginning of this century, in the last year of our glorious Deliverer, King William III. Count Maffei, the Ambassador from Savoy, delivered in the first famous protestation, in the name of the Duchess of Savoy, against the Hanover succession, at the time the Duke himself commanded the French army in Italy, with Marshal Catinat and the Prince of Vaudemont under him, and every action of his life was dictated by France. I believe you therefore _unusually_ sincere, when you express, “la plus vive estime & la plus sincere admiration pour feu Monsieur le Comte de Viry, qui par son attachement pour le bien des deux nations belligerantes & graces a son zele infatiguable, eut la gloire d’amener cette paix necessaire aux deux nations a une heureuse conclusion.” What this _happy conclusion_ for England was, we have already seen. From that fatal moment France, like a tall bully, began again to lift the head, and insult all its neighbours.

You tell Dr. Musgrave, “le public aura lu avidement votre lettre, aura adjute foi a son contenu parceque vous en appellez a mon evidence.” You are mistaken. Your evidence of itself will have little weight with any one, but you may have papers of importance, which the public expected from _your own absolute promise_. The last page of your tiresome quarto promised a second volume on the first of June 1764, and a third the first of September. You ought to have given them at the stipulated time, and to have made them as valuable as you could from the materials of others, were it only to indemnify us for having waded through the family dullness and impertinence of the letters to your mother, nurse, &c. &c. What did the Scot give you for the suppression? Was it as much as you had for the dedication, in which you tell him that you find “dans les portraits du Duc de Sully & de Milord Bute une ressemblance assez parfaite, de grandes vertus, l’amour de la patrie (_Scotland I suppose_) de la philosophie; la profondeur d’un politique, l’eloquence d’un homme d’etat, cette activite d’esprit qui donne les succes & les revers, ce coup d’œil qui demele les objets meme au milieu du trouble, qui fait le grand negociateur, &c. &c.” Upon my word you merited the whole sum he gave you, let it have been ever so considerable. But did you believe one single feature of _Bute_ was like _Sully_? I am satisfied no more than your master the Duke of Nivernois, Ambassador and Academician, one of your _quarante immortels_, believed that the Kings of England and France were _faits pour s’aimer, formed to love each other_, although he declared so at St. James’s with the utmost gravity, and afterwards printed it, like a compliment of the French Academy, only in both French and English for the amusement of the two nations. The flattery of the French ambassador and secretary succeeded. The English monarch and his Scottish minister were equally captivated; and the most gallant army in Europe were left to regret that they had not once the honour even of a visit from our sovereign during the whole war, or before they were disbanded. The early and dangerous intrigues, the specious flattery of a home favourite, and an insinuating foreign minister, but above all the holding out in such terms, _le charactere distinctif d’une bonne foi non equivoque_, at which the King of Prussia has so much laughed, lulled asleep all heroism, suspicion, and even curiosity.