NEW JACOBITE DOCUMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11856, 7 January 1902, Page 6

NEW JACOBITE DOCUMENTS.

i The Due de la Tremoille, the representative^!? l ] of one of the oldest and most illustrious"houses of France, is also of the line of the | Walshes, an Irish family of Kilkenny. One | of these Walshes, Anthony' (born at » St. ' ' ' Malo in 1703, died at San Domingo, 1763),,, \; ; is well known -as the financier of Prince Charles' expedition in 1745. He was tho owner of the armed sloop Doutelle, or Dti Tillet, in which the Prince sailed. In the "fifties" of the eighteenth century Pickle the Spy reported - Walsh to the ' English Go- v/V" vernment as still the financial support of the cause. It was, therefore, natural that the"' , Due de la Tremoille should find at Serrant, the seat of the ennobled -Walshes, some y \ Jacobite documents, especially letters written, under false names, by the Prince during his, long incognito (1750-66) to his ad- V herent. These letters, with.other Jacobite' s&f| documents from the same archives, the Due- . de la Tremoille has now published in quarto with a photogravure of the family portrait i'% ; ;of, Walsh and the Prince, ,un tres petifc * Walsh, et un tres grand Prince. The docu- <*5 , ments are rather curious than historically, '-fif, ' important. It seems clear that very early in 1745 preparations for v. landing "in this country were being made on a considerable scale by .Walsh, Haggarty, • Sheridan, and ; Butler, an equerry of Louis XV. The adventure" was rather "an Irish than a Scottish • - idea. By April 12. 1745, the Prince was in correspondence with Walsh. The journal of Durbe, captain of the Prince's vessel, gives dates for all the events of his voyage, and an account of the sea-fight between his convoying vessel, the , Elizabeth, and the British man-of-war, the Lion. The Du Til- * C let, with the Prince on board, was too light- ... / ly armed to share in the fray, but was to aid the Elizabeth if she boarded the Lion, aa • •" i was intended (July 21). But the crew of the Frenchman could not board ; both of the fighting vessels were much battered, and the ■ ' Elizabeth had to put into port. The Prince, however, insisted on pressing forward, says Durbe, in face of the silly tattle about his cowardice. Durbe says that his , first landing was in Uist, and that Charles was drenched by the rain. But Eriskay is '* ' undoubtedly the real place where Charles - first rested on British ground, and we know ' < that the night was very wet (August 3).. It was Walsh who, on November 16, 1745, \ : 'J was . charged by Louis • XV. with ■' the 1 or- ' ; ganisation of the invading force, which had not sailed by tho date of Culloden. ,If it had landed Charles would not have turned back from Derby nor would " Gorge"- (as ; the Prince spells it) have stayed in London. - As late as March 27, 1746, a letter indicates that the expedition was still intended to set forth. . ' • After Charles' expulsion, from France (1749), where he nevertheless resided in the 1 , convent of Madame do Vasse i and Made-, moiselle Ferfand, there is a break in the series of papers. By 1751 begin the hopeless scrawls of the fugitive, skulking Prince. In. 1754, *in spring, he quarrelled with the |J Earl Marischal, dismissed Harry Goring, broke with his English supporters, and' knew not where to turn. ' On June 16, 1754, : ' - lie suggests trying Spain. Tho letters show •' ■ i Charles declining the French proposals, and - firm in that eternal "system of which he, v'« t often speaks.: The system was— or nothing! He would go with no force that did > not aim at London— long before he refused to cede Ireland or Scottish isles (?) to . France. " The property is indivisible, and all the parts belonging to Sanfourd" ('/; Scotland). Thus he writes on September--16, 1758. Early in 1766 the Prince became 1 "the King,": by his s father's 'death. His letters from Rome, quite correctly spelt now, are clearly written by his secretary, Andrew Lumisden. The later letters are •* -J. from Cardinal York ("Henry R., Cardinal"), amiable, but unimportant. There ..-.vr. is an appendix of family papers. ' A much more important set of documents is that collected in Louis XV. et les Jaco- - bites, by the Capitaine Colin, from .the ar- . ' chives of the French 1 Ministry of Marine, the War . Office, and the Foreign Office. They concern the attempted French invasion ■ of England in the spring of 1744. Princa Charles was waiting, incognito, on the ' coast. Now even in Scotland at the time - ■, the expedition was regarded as a mere feint,, ' or as a business too perplexed to be understood. : In fact, as Captain Colin proves by,the manuscripts, it had since the end of , - 1743 been the purpose of France lto invade England without a declaration of war. The Jacobite agents,- Sempil, ; Butler,'-"and. ; Balhaldie (a Macgrcgor), had induced the : French Government to accept their own madly, optimistic ' belief rin " the ; numbers, power, and. readiness of . the English Jaco- , bites. : Sempil sent in a- memoir showing'' how the invasion was to .be managed, and -giving a long list of English Jacobite "peers, not one of whom ever set foot in stirrup or ' . laid hand to sword-hilt for the cause. Ar- ' " rangements 'for; internal risings were also suggested, and a curious account of the . , economical and political state of the country was given. All this was moonshine. Never . ■ was an attempt so futile. The Earl Maris- . chal was to head an invasion of' Scotland, but the Scottish Jacobii.cs, and some of the French commanders, 7 knew' nothing about , the matter. Prince Charles was summoned from Rome in January," 1744, which, of course, put the English Ministers on : their : .' $$ guard. The idea of the French 'was to sail up the Thames, and land a force near Blackwall. But to do this they needed pilots, 0 : whom the English Jacobites were to supply. ;, They, imbecile as ever, sent no pilots. , A mysterious being styled " Red," who was to>> | bring the pilots over, did land in France, but fled home again with no business done. ' 'Without pilots the French cruised vaguely in the Channel, while all England rushed together to resist the attack. Many ships " were hastily manned under Norns ; ' the . French found that they had been gulled by Sempil, and that Norris'could blow them out of the water. A storm shattered or _ scattered their fleet, and sunk their trail- . sports. 111-found in all necessaries, puzzled, -. \ - baffled, and glad to be quit of a hopeless affair, they abandoned the ill-considered - 'Vileproject, to the bitter disappointment of' Prince Charles. "I know that the clans< . would rally to me, if I came among . ihein p: alone and unaided ; were it not better for ' .'V.v me to die, if I must, at tlTe head of these brave men, then to languish all my life in exile and dependenceV" (March 15. 1744). " Better, indeed, had it been if a bullet had - found his heart at Glcdsmuir,' : or Falkirk, or Culloden. Men would' remember, only the gallant lad, and the light that lingers above a.soldier's grave. But it was his horse, the gift of Dunbar of Thunderton, not himself, that the bullet struck "on dark Drummossie's Day," and the vest is an overtrue tale. Captain Colin has done his work very well, and made a useful contribution to history. .. .... It is proposed to construct v. suitable swimming bath at the Wanganui Boys' High Schbol, the necessary funds to : be raised by a fancy fair. Rongotea is supposed to be a temperance township, and the residents stoutly oppose ; a licensed house, yet I am creditably in- . -f'- 5 ; 1 formed (says the Manawatu Times correspondent) that the liquor brought into the township on one day alone for Christmas week will.amount to 2' tons. >• At Albury, Timaru, the -wet weather still reigns supreme, soaking the, HV ground to • excess, and seriously affecting young turnip crops, and delaying: shearing : operations. The latter have now been at a standstill for several weeks, and the prospects of an early resumption -are but VV dismal. " Messrs. Macmillan have nearly reacty- a biography, in two volumes, of James Kus- ■ sell Lowell, written by Mr. H. E. Scudder, who has had the counsel of Mr. Norton, editor of the "Letters of James Russell Lowell," and, moreover, access to other un- ' published material. The book will be illustrated 'with several • portraits and pictures of Elmwood and other houses ; and will con- "'-f. taina full survey of Lowell's many-sided ■. career as poet and prose writer, journalist ; and ambassador, orator and conversationalist. • .-t .- A rather amusing incident occurred to a friend of mine some weeks ago. He was walking down Pall Mall one evening when ■!> suddenly a private i brougham stopped immediately in .front of him, and a rather .. * stout gentleman alighted hurriedly, but unfortunately in so doing trod heavily on . "» ;tho tenderly-cherished com ,of my poor friend. An interjection quite equal to the occasion, though far more forcible than strictly polite, escaped the sufferer. Judge, therefore, his' horror on looking up into the face of His Majesty the King, who said, however, in his usual cordial manner,, : t " Pardon me, the fault was entirely mine." • > . —Free Lane?, J' t"*' l * ;.> *