History of Friedrich II of Prussia - Frederick the Great
Chapter XII. - Sorrows of His Britannic Majesty.

George II. did not hear of Mollwitz for above a fortnight after it fell out; but he had no need of Mollwitz to kindle his wrath or his activity in that matter. [Mollwitz first heard of in London, April 25th (14th); Subsidy of 300,000 pounds voted same day. London Gazette (April 11th-14th, 1741); Commons Journals, xxiii. 705.] George II. had seen, all along, with natural manifold aversion and indignation, these high attempts of his Nephew. "Who is this new little King, that will not let himself be snubbed, and laughed at, and led by the nose, as his Father did; but seems to be taking a road of his own, and tacitly defying us all? A very high conduct indeed, for a Sovereign of that magnitude. Aspires seemingly to be the leader among German Princes; to reduce Hanover and us,--us, with the gold of England in our breeches-pocket,--to the second place? A reverend old Bishop of Liege, twitched by the rochet, and shaken hither and thither, like a reverend old clothes-screen, till he agree to stand still and conform. And now a Silesia seized upon; a Pragmatic Sanction kicked to the winds: the whole world to be turned topsy- turvy, and Hanover and us, with our breeches-pocket, reduced to--?" The emotions, the prognosticatings, and distracted procedures of his Britannic Majesty, of which we have ourselves seen somewhat, in this fermentation of the elements, are copiously set down for us by the English Dryasdust (mostly in unintelligible form): but, except for sane purposes, one must be careful not to dwell on them, to the sorrow of readers. Seldom was there such a feat of Somnambulism, as that by the English and their King in the next twenty Years. To extract the particle of sanity from it, and see how the poor English did get their own errand done withal, and Jenkins's Ear avenged,--that is the one interesting point; Dryasdust and the Nightmares shall, to all time, be welcome to the others. Here are some Excerpts, a select few; which will perhaps be our readiest expedient. These do, under certain main aspects, shadow forth the intricate posture of King George and his Nation, when Belleisle, as Protagonistes or Chief Bully, stept down into the ring, in that manner; asking, "Is there an Antagonistes, then, or Chief Defender?" I will label them, number them; and, with the minimum of needful commentary, leave them to imaginative readers. No. 1. SNATCH OF PARLIAMENTARY ELOQUENCE BY MR. VINER (19th April, 1741). The fuliginous explosions, more or less volcanic, which went on in Parliament and in English society, against Friedrich's Silesian Enterprise, for long years from this date, are now all dead and avoidable,--though they have left their effects among us to this day. Perhaps readers would like to see the one reasonable word I have fallen in with, of opposite tendency; Mr. Viner's word, at the first starting of that question: plainly sensible word, which, had it been attended to (as it was not), might have saved us so much nonsense, not of idle talk only, but of extremely serious deed which ensued thereupon! "LONDON, 19th APRIL, 1741. This day [Mollwitz not yet known, Camp of Gottin too well known!] King George, in his own high person, comes down to the House of Lords,--which, like the Other House, is sunk painfully in Walpole Controversies, Spanish-War Controversies, of a merely domestic nature;--and informs both Honorable Houses, with extreme caution, naming nobody, That he much wishes they would think of helping him in these alarming circumstances of the Celestial Balance, ready apparently to go heels uppermost. To which the general answer is, 'Yes, surely!'--with a vote of 300,000 pounds for her Hungarian Majesty, a few days hence. From those continents of Parliamentary tufa, now fallen so waste and mournful, here is one little piece which ought to be extricated into daylight:-- "MR. VINER (on his legs): ... 'If I mistake not the true intention of the Address proposed,' in answer to his Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne, 'we are invited to declare that we will oppose the King of Prussia in his attempts upon Silesia: a declaration in which I see not how any man can concur who KNOWS NOT the nature of his Prussian Majesty's Claim, and the Laws of the German Empire [NOR DO I, MR. V.]! It ought therefore, Sir, to have been the first endeavor of those by whom this Address has been so zealously supported, to show that his Prussian Majesty's Claim, so publicly explained [BY KAUZLER LUDWIG, OF HALLE, WHO, IT SEEMS, HAS STAGGERED OR CONVINCED MR. VINER], so firmly urged and so strongly supported, is without foundation and reason, and is only one of those imaginary titles which Ambition may always find to the dominions of another.' (HEAR MR VINER!)" [Tindal, xx. 491, gives the Royal Speech (DATE in a very slobbery condition); see also Coxe, House of Austria, iii. 365. Viner's Fragment of a Speech is in Thackeray, Life of Chatham, i. 87.] ... A most indispensable thing, surely. Which was never done, nor can ever be done; but was assumed as either unnecessary or else done of its own accord, by that Collective Wisdom of England (with a sage George II. at the head of it); who plunged into Dettingen, Fontenoy, Austrian Subsidies, Aix-la-Chapelle, and foundation of the English National Debt, among other strange things, in consequence!-- Upon that of Kanzler Ludwig, and the "so public Explanation" (which we slightly heard of long since), here is another Note,--unless readers prefer to skip it:-- "That the Diplomatic and Political world is universally in travail at this time, no reader need be told; Europe everywhere in dim anxiety, heavy-laden expectation (which to us has fallen so vacant); looking towards inevitable changes and the huge inane. All in travail;--and already uttering printed Manifestoes, Patents, Deductions, and other public travail-SHRIEKS of that kind. Printed; not to speak of the unprinted, of the oral which vanished on the spot; or even of the written which were shot forth by breathless estafettes, and unhappily did not vanish, but lie in archives, still humming upon us, "Won't you read me, then?"--Alas, except on compulsion, No! Life being precious (and time, which is the stuff of life), No!-- "At Reinsberg as elsewhere, at Reinsberg first of all, it had been felt, in October last, that there would be Manifestoes needed; learned Proof, the more irrefragable the better, of our Right to Silesia. It was settled there, Let Ludwig, Kanzler of the University of Halle, do it. [Herr Kanzler Ludwig, monster of Antiquarian, Legal and other Learning there: wealthy, too, and close-fisted; whom we have seen obliged to open his closed fist, and to do building in the Friedrich Strasse, before now; Nussler, his son-in-law, having no money:--as careless readers have perhaps forgotten?] Ludwig set about his new task with a proud joy. Ludwig knows that story, if he know anything. Long years ago he put forth a Chapter upon it; weighty Chapter; in a Book of weight, said Judges;--Book weighing, in pounds avoirdupois and otherwise, none of us now knows what: [Title of this weighty Performance (see Preuss, Thronbesteigung, p. 432) is, or was (size not given), Germania Princeps (Halae, 1702). Preuss says farther, "That Book ii. c. 3 handles the Prussian claims: Jagerndorf being ? 13; Liegnitz, ? 14; Oppeln and Ratibor, ? 16;--and that Ludwig had sent a Copy of this Argument [weighty Performance altogether? Or Book ii. c. 3 of it, which would have had a better chance?] to King Friedrich, on the death of Kaiser Karl VI."]--but, in after years, it used to be said by flatterers of the Kanzler, 'Herr Kanzler, see the effect of Learning. It was you, it was your weighty Book, that caused all this World-tumult, and flung the Nations into one another's hair!' Upon which the old Kanzler would blush: 'You do me too much honor!' "Ludwig, directly on order given, gathered out his documents again, in the King's name this time; and promised something weighty by New-year's day at latest." Doubtless to the joy of Nussler, who has still no regular appointment, though well deserving one. "And sure enough, on January 7th) at Berlin, 'in three languages,' Ludwig's DEDUCTION had come out; an eager Public waiting for it: [Title is, Rechtsgegrundetes Eigenthum (in the Latin copies, Patrimonium, and Propriete fondee en Droit in the French copies) des &c., --that is to say, Legal Right of Propetiy in the Royal-Electoral House of Brandenburg to the Duchies and Principalities of Jagerndorf, Liegnitz, Brieg, Wohlau (Berlin, 7th January, 1741).]--and at Berlin it was generally thought to be conclusive. I have looked into Ludwig's Deduction, stern duty urging, in this instance for one: such portions as I read are nothing like so stupid as was expected; and, in fact, are not to be called stupid at all, but fit for their purpose, and moderately intelligible to those who need them,"--which happily we do not in this place. Judicious Mr. Viner availed nothing against the Proposed Address; any more than he would against the Atlantic Tide, coming in unanimous, under influence of the Moon itself,--as indeed this Address, and the triumphant Subsidy which was voted in the rear of it, may be said to have done. [Coxe, iii. 265.] Subsidy of 300,000 pounds to her Hungarian Majesty; which, with the 200,000 pounds already gone that road, makes a handsome Half-million for the present Year. The first gush of the Britannia Fountain,--which flowed like an Amalthea's Horn for seven years to come; refreshing Austria, and all thirsty Pragmatic Nations, to defend the Keystone of this Universe. Unluckily every guinea of it went, at the same time, to encourage Austria in scorning King Friedrich's offers to it; which perhaps are just offers, thinks Mr. Viner; which once listened to, Pragmatic Sanction would be safe. [Mr. Viner was of Pupham, or Pupholm, in Lincolnshire, for which County he sat then, and for many years before and after,--from about 1713 till 1761, when he died. A solid, instructed man, say his contemporaries. "He was a friend of Bolingbroke's, and had a house near Bolingbroke's Battersea one." He is Great great- grandfather to the present Mr. Viner, and to the Countess de Grey and Ripon; which is an interesting little fact.] This Parliament is strong for Pragmatic Sanction, and has high resentments against Walpole; in both which points the New Parliament, just getting elected, will rival and surpass it,-- especially in the latter point, that of uprooting Walpole, which the Nation is bent on, with a singular fury. Pragmatic Sanction like to be ruined; and Walpole furiously thrown out: what a pair of sorrows for poor George! During his late Caroline's time, all went peaceably, and that of "governing" was a mere pleasure; Walpole and Caroline cunningly doing that for him, and making him believe he was doing it. But now has come the crisis, the collapse; and his poor Majesty left alone to deal with it!-- No. 2. CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORIAN ON THE PHENOMENON OF WALPOLE IN ENGLAND. "For above Ten Years, Walpole himself", says my Constitutional Historian (unpublished), "for almost Twenty Years, Walpole virtually and through others, has what they call 'governed' England; that is to say, has adjusted the conflicting Parliamentary Chaos into counterpoise, by what methods he had; and allowed England, with Walpole atop, to jumble whither it would and could. Of crooked things made straight by Walpole, of heroic performance or intention, legislative or administrative, by Walpole, nobody ever heard; never of the least hand-breadth gained from the Night- realm in England, on Walpole's part: enough if he could manage to keep the Parish Constable walking, and himself float atop. Which task (though intrinsically zero for the Community, but all- important to the Walpole, of Constitutional Countries) is a task almost beyond the faculty of man, if the careless reader knew it! "This task Walpole did,--in a sturdy, deep-bellied, long-headed, John-Bull fashion, not unworthy of recognition. A man of very forcible natural eyesight, strong natural heart,--courage in him to all lengths; a very block of oak, or of oakroot, for natural strength. He was always very quiet with it, too; given to digest his victuals, and be peaceable with everybody. He had one rule, that stood in place of many: To keep out of every business which it was possible for human wisdom to stave aside. 'What good will you get of going into that? Parliamentary criticism, argument and botheration? Leave well alone. And even leave ill alone:--are you the tradesman to tinker leaky vessels in England? You will not want for work. Mind your pudding, and say little!' At home and abroad, that was the safe secret. For, in Foreign Politics, his rule was analogous: 'Mind your own affairs. You are an Island, you can do without Foreign Politics; Peace, keep Peace with everybody: what, in the Devil's name, have you to do with those dog-worryings over Seas? Once more, mind your pudding!' Not so bad a rule; indeed it is the better part of an extremely good one;--and you might reckon it the real rule for a pious Rritannic Island (reverent of God, and contemptuous of the Devil) in times of general Down-break and Spiritual Bankruptcy, when quarrellings of Sovereigns are apt to be mere dog-worryings and Devil's work, not good to interfere in. "In this manner, Walpole, by solid John-Bull faculty (and methods of his own), had balanced the Parliamentary swaggings and clashings, for a great while; and England had jumbled whither it could, always in a stupid, but also in a peaceable way. As to those same 'methods of his own' they were--in fact they were Bribery. Actual purchase of votes by money slipt into the hand. Go straight to the point. 'The direct real method this,' thinks Walpole: 'is there in reality any other?' A terrible question to Constitutional Countries; which, I hear, has never been resolved in the negative, by the modern improvements of science. Changes of form have introduced themselves; the outward process, I hear, is now quite different. According as the fashions and conditions alter,--according as you have a Fourth Estate developed, or a Fourth Estate still in the grub stage and only developing,--much variation of outward process is conceivable. "But Votes, under pain of Death Official, are necessary to your poor Walpole: and votes, I hear, are still bidden for, and bought. You may buy them by money down (which is felony, and theft simple, against the poor Nation); or by preferments and appointments of the unmeritorious man,--which is felony double-distilled (far deadlier, though more refined), and theft most compound; theft, not of the poor Nation's money, but of its soul and body so far, and of ALL its moneys and temporal and spiritual interests whatsoever; theft, you may say, of collops cut from its side, and poison put into its heart, poor Nation! Or again, you may buy, not of the Third Estate in such ways, but of the Fourth, or of the Fourth and Third together, in other still more felonious and deadly, though refined ways. By doing clap-traps, namely; letting off Parliamentary blue-lights, to awaken the Sleeping Swineries, and charm them into diapason for you,--what a music! Or, without clap- trap or previous felony of your own, you may feloniously, in the pinch of things, make truce with the evident Demagogos, and Son of Nox and of Perdition, who has got 'within those walls' of yours, and is grown important to you by the Awakened Swineries, risen into alt, that follow him. Him you may, in your dire hunger of votes, consent to comply with; his Anarchies you will pass for him into 'Laws,' as you are pleased to term them;--instead of pointing to the whipping-post, and to his wicked long ears, which are so fit to be nailed there, and of sternly recommending silence, which were the salutary thing.--Buying may be done in a great variety of ways. The question, How you buy? is not, on the moral side, an important one. Nay, as there is a beauty in going straight to the point, and by that course there is likely to be the minimum of mendacity for you, perhaps the direct money-method is a shade less damnable than any of the others since discovered;--while, in regard to practical damage resulting, it is of childlike harmlessness in comparison! "That was Walpole's method; with this to aid his great natural faculty, long-headed, deep-bellied, suitable to the English Parliament and Nation, he went along with perfect success for ten or twenty years. And it might have been for longer,--had not the English Nation accidentally come to wish, that it should CEASE jumbling NO-whither; and try to jumble SOME-whither, at least for a little while, on important business that had risen for England in a certain quarter. Had it not been for Jenkins's Ear blazing out in the dark English brain, Walpole might have lasted still a long while. But his fate lay there:--the first Business vital to England which might turn up; and this chanced to be the Spanish War. How vital, readers shall see anon. Walpole, knowing well enough in what state his War-apparatus was, and that of all his Apparatuses there was none in a working state, but the Parliamentary one,-- resisted the Spanish War; stood in the door against it, with a rhinoceros determination, nay almost something of a mastiff's; resolute not to admit it, to admit death as soon. Doubtless he had a feeling it would be death, the sagacious man;--and such it is now proving; the Walpole Ministry dying by inches from it; dying hard, but irremediably. "The English Nation was immensely astonished, which Walpole was not, any more than at the other Laws of Nature, to find Walpole's War-apparatus in such a condition. All his Apparatuses, Walpole guesses, are in no better, if it be not the Parliamentary one. The English Nation is immensely astonished, which Walpole again is not, to find that his Parliamentary Apparatus has been kept in gear and smooth-going by the use of OIL: 'Miraculous Scandal of Scandals!' thinks the English Nation. 'Miracle? Law of Nature, you fools!' thinks Walpole. And in fact there is such a storm roaring in England, in those and in the late and the coming months, as threatens to be dangerous to high roofs,--dangerous to Walpole's head at one time. Storm such as had not been witnessed in men's memory; all manner of Counties and Constituencies, with solemn indignation, charging their representatives to search into that miraculous Scandal of Scandals, Law of Nature, or whatever it may be; and abate the same, at their peril. "To the now reader there is something almost pathetic in these solemn indignations, and high resolves to have Purity of Parliament and thorough Administrative Reform, in spite of Nature and the Constitutional Stars;--and nothing I have met with, not even the Prussian Dryasdust, is so unsufferably wearisome, or can pretend to equal in depth of dull inanity, to ingenuous living readers, our poor English Dryasdust's interminable, often-repeated Narratives, volume after volume, of the debatings and colleaguings, the tossings and tumults, fruitless and endless, in Nation and National Palaver, which ensued thereupon. Walpole (in about a year hence), [February 13th (2d), 1742, quitting the House after bad usage there, said he would never enter it again; nor did: February 22d, resigned in favor of Pulteney and Company (Tindal, xx. 530; Thackeray, i. 45).] though he struck to the ground like a rhinoceros, was got rolled out. And a Successor, and series of Successors, in the bright brand-new state, was got rolled in; with immense shouting from mankind:--but up to this date we have no reason to believe that the Laws of Nature were got abrogated on that occasion, or that the constitutional stars have much altered their courses since." That Walpole will probably be lost, goes much home to the Royal bosom, in these troublous Spring months of 1741, as it has done and will do. And here, emerging from the Spanish Main just now, is a second sorrow, which might quite transfix the Royal bosom, and drive Majesty itself to despair; awakening such insoluble questions,--furnishing such proof, that Walpole and a good few other persons (persons, and also things, and ideas and practices, deep-rooted in the Country) stand much in need of being lost, if England is to go a good road! The Spanish War being of moment to us here, we will let our Constitutional Historian explain, in his own dialect, How it was so vital to England; and shall even subjoin what he gives as History of it, such being so admirably succinct, for one quality. No. 3. OF THE SPANISH WAR, OR THE JENKINS'S-EAR QUESTION. "There was real cause for a War with Spain. It is one of the few cases, this, of a war from necessity. Spain, by Decree of the Pope,--some Pope long ago, whose name we will not remember, in solemn Conclave, drawing accurately 'his Meridian Line,' on I know not what Telluric or Uranic principles, no doubt with great accuracy 'between Portugal and Spain,'--was proprietor of all those Seas and Continents. And now England, in the interim, by Decree of the Eternal Destinies, had clearly come to have property there, too; and to be practically much concerned in that theoretic question of the Pope's Meridian. There was no reconciling of theory with fact. 'Ours indisputably,' said Spain, with loud articulate voice; 'Holiness the Pope made it ours!'--while fact and the English, by Decree of the Eternal Destinies, had been grumbling inarticulately the other way, for almost two hundred years past, and no result had. "In Oliver Cromwell's time, it used to be said, 'With Spain, in Europe, there may be peace or war; but between the Tropics it is always war.' A state of things well recognized by Oliver, and acted on, according to his opportunities. No settlement was had in Oliver's brief time; nor could any be got since, when it was becoming yearly more pressing. Bucaniers, desperate naval gentlemen living on BOUCAN, or hung beef; who are also called Flibustiers (FLIBUTIERS, 'Freebooters,' in French pronunciation, which is since grown strangely into FILIBUSTERS, Fillibustiers, and other mad forms, in the Yankee Newspapers now current): readers have heard of those dumb methods of protest. Dumb and furious; which could bring no settlement; but which did astonish the Pope's Decree, slashing it with cutlasses and sea-cannon, in that manner, and circuitously forwarded a settlement. Settlement was becoming yearly more needful: and, ever since the Treaty of Utrecht especially, there had been an incessant haggle going on, to produce one; without the least effect hitherto. What embassyings, bargainings, bargain- breakings; what galloping of estafettes; acres of diplomatic paper, now fallen to the spiders, who always privately were the real owners! Not in the Treaty of Utrecht, not in the Congresses of Cambray, of Soissons, Convention of Pardo, by Ripperda, Horace Walpole, or the wagging of wigs, could this matter be settled at all. Near two hundred years of chronic misery;--and had there been, under any of those wigs, a Head capable of reading the Heavenly Mandates, with heart capable of following them, the misery might have been briefly ended, by a direct method. With what immense saving in all kinds, compared with the oblique method gone upon! In quantity of bloodshed needed, of money, of idle talk and estafettes, not to speak of higher considerations, the saving had been incalculable. For it was England's one Cause of War during the Century we are now upon; and poor England's course, when at last driven into it, went ambiguously circling round the whole Universe, instead of straight to the mark. Had Oliver Cromwell lived ten years longer;--but Oliver Cromwell did not live; and, instead of Heroic Heads, there came in Constitutional Wigs, which makes a great difference. "The pretensions of Spain to keep Half the World locked up in embargo were entirely chimerical; plainly contradictory to the Laws of Nature; and no amount of Pope's Donation Acts, or Ceremonial in Rota or Propaganda, could redeem them from untenability, in the modern days. To lie like a dog in the manger over South America, and say snarling, 'None of you shall trade here, though I cannot!' --what Pope or body of Popes can sanction such a procedure? Had England had a Head, instead of Wigs, amid its diplomatists, England, as the chief party interested, would have long since intimated gently to such dog in the manger: 'Dog, will you be so obliging as rise! I am grieved to say, we shall have to do unpleasant things otherwise. Dogs have doors for their hutches: but to pretend barring the Tropic of Cancer,--that is too big a door for any dog. Can nobody but you have business here, then, which is not displeasing to the gods? We bid you rise!' And in this mode there is no doubt the dog, bark and bite as he might, would have ended by rising; not only England, but all the Universe being against him. And furthermore, I compute with certainty, the quantity of fighting needed to obtain such result would, by this mode, have been a minimum. The clear right being there, and now also the clear might, why take refuge in diplomatic wiggeries, in Assiento Treaties, and Arrangements which are NOT analogous to the facts; which are but wigged mendacities, therefore; and will but aggravate in quantity and in quality the fighting yet needed? Fighting is but (as has been well said) a battering out of the mendacities, pretences, and imaginary elements: well battered-out, these, like dust and chaff, fly torrent-wise along the winds, and darken all the sky; but these once gone, there remain the facts and their visible relation to one another, and peace is sure. "The Assiento Treaty being fixed upon, the English ought to have kept it. But the English did not, in any measure; nor could pretend to have done. They were entitled to supply Negroes, in such and such number, annually to the Spanish Plantations; and besides this delightful branch of trade, to have the privilege of selling certain quantities of their manufactured articles on those coasts; quantities regulated briefly by this stipulation, That their Assiento Ship was to be of 600 tons burden, so many and no more. The Assiento Ship was duly of 600 tons accordingly, promise kept faithfully to the eye; but the Assiento Ship was attended and escorted by provision-sloops, small craft said to be of the most indispensable nature to it. Which provision-sloops, and indispensable small craft, not only carried merchandise as well, but went and came to Jamaica and back, under various pretexts, with ever new supplies of merchandise; converting the Assiento Ship into a Floating Shop, the Tons burden and Tons sale of which set arithmetic at defiance. This was the fact, perfectly well known in England, veiled over by mere smuggler pretences, and obstinately persisted in, so profitable was it. Perfectly well known in Spain also, and to the Spanish Guarda-Costas and Sea-Captains in those parts; who were naturally kept in a perennial state of rage by it, --and disposed to fly out into flame upon it, when a bad case turned up! Such a case that of Jenkins had seemed to them; and their mode of treating it, by tearing off Mr. Jenkins's Ear, proved to be--bad shall we say, or good?--intolerable to England's thick skin; and brought matters to a crisis, in the ways we saw." ... The Jenkins's-Ear Question, which then looked so mad to everybody, how sane has it now grown to my Constitutional Friend! In abstruse ludicrous form there lay immense questions involved in it; which were serious enough, certain enough, though invisible to everybody. Half the World lay hidden in embryo under it. Colonial-Empire, whose is it to be? Shall Half the World be England's, for industrial purposes; which is innocent, laudable, conformable to the Multiplication-table at least, and other plain Laws? Or shall it be Spain's for arrogant-torpid sham-devotional purposes, contradictory to every Law? The incalculable Yankee Nation itself, biggest Phenomenon (once thought beautifulest) of these Ages,--this too, little as careless readers on either side of the sea now know it, lay involved. Shall there be a Yankee Nation, shall there not be; shall the New World be of Spanish type, shall it be of English? Issues which we may call immense. Among the then extant Sons of Adam, where was he who could in the faintest degree surmise what issues lay in the Jenkins's-Ear Question? And it is curious to consider now, with what fierce deep-breathed doggedness the poor English Nation, drawn by their instincts, held fast upon it, and would take no denial, as if THEY had surmised and seen. For the instincts of simple guileless persons (liable to be counted STUPID, by the unwary) are sometimes of prophetic nature, and spring from the deep places of this Universe!--My Constitutional Friend entitles his next Section CARTHAGENA; but might more fitly have headed it (for such in reality it is, Carthagena proving the evanescent point of that sad business), SUCCINCT HISTORY OF THE SPANISH WAR, WHICH BEGAN IN 1739; AND ENDED--WHEN DID IT END? 1. WAR, AND PORTO-BELLO (NOVEMBER, 1739-MARCH, 1740).--"November 4th, 1739, War was at length (after above four months' obscure quasi-declaring of it, in the shape of Orders in Council, Letters of Marque, and so on) got openly declared; 'Heralds at Arms at the usual places' blowing trumpets upon it, and reading the royal Manifesto, date of which is five days earlier, 'Kensington, October 30th (19th).' The principal Events that ensue, arrange themselves under Three Heads, this of Porto-Bello being the FIRST; and (by intense smelting) are datable as follows:--[ Gentleman's Magazine, ix. 551, x. 124, 142, 144, 350; Tindal, xx. 430-433, 442; &c.] "Tuesday Evening, 1st December, 1739, Admiral Vernon, our chosen Anti-Spaniard, finding, a while ago, that he had missed the Azogue Ships on the Coast of Spain, and must try America and the Spanish Main, in that view arrives at Porto-Bello. Next day, December 2d, Vernon attacks Porto-Bello; attacks certain Castles so called, with furious broadsiding, followed by scalading; gets surrender (on the 3d);--seamen have allowance instead of plunder;--blows up what Castles there are; and returns to Port Royal in Jamaica. "Never-imagined joy in England, and fame to Vernon, when the news came: 'Took it with Six Ships,' cry they; 'the scurvy Ministry, who had heard him, in the fire of Parliamentary debate, say Six, would grant him no more: invincible Vernon!' Nay, next Year, I see, 'London was illuminated on the Anniversary of Porto-Bello:'-- day settled in permanence as one of the High-tides of the Calendar, it would appear. And 'Vernon's Birthday' withal--how touching is stupidity when loyal!--was celebrated amazingly in all the chief Towns, like a kind of Christmas, when it came round; Nature having deigned to produce such a man, for a poor Nation in difficulties. Invincible Vernon, it is thought by Gazetteers, 'will look in at Carthagena shortly;' much more important Place, where a certain Governor Don Blas has been insolent withal, and written Vernon letters. "2. PRELIMINARIES TO CARTHAGENA (MARCH-NOVEMBER, 1740).--Monday, 14th March, 1740, Vernon did, accordingly, look in on Carthagena; [ Gentleman's Magazine, x. 350.] cast anchor in the shallow waste of surfs there, that Monday; and tried some bombarding, with bomb-ketches and the like, from Thursday till Saturday following. Vernon hopes he did hit the Jesuits' College, South Bastion, Custom-house and other principal edifices; but found that there was no getting near enough on that seaward side. Found that you must force the Interior Harbor,--a big Inland Gulf or Lake, which gushes in by what they call LITTLE-MOUTH (Boca- Chica), and has its Booms, Castles and Defences, which are numerous and strongish;--and that, for this end, you must have seven or eight thousand Land Forces, as well as an addition of Ships. On Saturday Evening, therefore, Vernon calls in his bomb-ketches; sails past, examining these things; and goes forth on other small adventures. For example,-- "Sunday, 3d April, 1740, 'about 10 at night' opens cannonade on Chagres (place often enough taken, by cutlass and pistol, in the Bucanier times); and, on Tuesday, 5th, gets surrender of Chagres: 'Custom-house crammed with goods, which we set fire to.' On news of which, there is again, in England, joy over the day of small things. The poor English People are set on this business of avenging Jenkins's Ear, and of having the Ocean Highway unbarred; and hope always it can be done by the Walpole Apparatuses, which ought to be in working order, and are not. 'Support this hero, you Walpole and Company, in his Carthagena views: it will be better for you!" "Walpole and Company, aware of that fact, do take some trouble about it; and now, may not we say, PAULLO MAJORA CANAMUS? All through that Summer, 1740,"--while King Friedrich went rushing about, to Strasburg, to Wesel; doing his Herstals and Practicalities, with a light high hand, in almost an entertaining manner; and intent, still more, on his Voltaires and a Life to the Muses,--"there was, in England, serious heavy tumult of activity, secret and public. In the Dockyards, on the Drill-grounds, what a stir: Camp in the Isle of Wight, not to mention Portsmouth and the Sea-Industries; 6,000 Marines are to be embarked, as well as Land Regiments,--can anybody guess whither? America itself is to furnish 'one Regiment, with Scotch Officers to discipline it,' if they can. "Here is real haste and effort; but by no means such speed as could be wished; multiplex confusions and contradictions occurring, as is usual, when your machinery runs foul. Nor are the Gazetteers without their guesses, though they study to be discreet. 'Here is something considerable in the wind; a grand idea, for certain;'-- and to men of discernment it points surely towards Carthagena and heroic Vernon out yonder? Government is dumb altogether; and lays occasional embargo; trying hard (without success), in the delays that occurred, to keep it secret from Don Blas and others. The outcome of all which was, "3. CARTHAGENA ITSELF (NOVEMBER, 1740--APRIL, 1741).--On November 6th,--by no means 'July 3d,' as your first fond program bore; which delay was itself likely to be fatal, unless the Almanac, and course of the Tropical Seasons would delay along with you!--we say, On Sunday, 6th November, 1740 [Kaiser Karl's Funeral just over, and great thoughts going on at Reinsberg], Rear-Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle,--so many weeks and months after the set time,--does sail from St. Helen's (guessed, for Carthagena); all people sending blessings with him. Twenty-five big Ships of the Line, with three Half- Regiments on board; fireships, bomb-ketches, in abundance; and eighty Transports, with 6,000 drilled Marines: a Sea-and-Land Force fit to strengthen Hero Vernon with a witness, and realize his Carthagena views. A very great day at Portsmouth and St. Helen's for these Sunday folk. [Tindal, xx. 463 (LISTS, &c. there; date wrong, "31st October," instead of 26th (o.s.),--many things wrong, and all things left loose and flabby, and not right! As is poor Tindal's way).] "Most obscure among the other items in that Armada of Sir Chaloner's, just taking leave of England; most obscure of the items then, but now most noticeable, or almost alone noticeable, is a young Surgeon's-Mate,--one Tobias Smollett; looking over the waters there and the fading coasts, not without thoughts. A proud, soft- hearted, though somewhat stern-visaged, caustic and indignant young gentleman. Apt to be caustic in speech, having sorrows of his own under lock and key, on this and subsequent occasions. Excellent Tobias; he has, little as he hopes it, something considerable by way of mission in this Expedition, and in this Universe generally. Mission to take Portraiture of English Seamanhood, with the due grimness, due fidelity; and convey the same to remote generations, before it vanish. Courage, my brave young Tobias; through endless sorrows, contradictions, toils and confusions, you will do your errand in some measure; and that will be something!-- "Five weeks before (29th September, 1740, which was also several months beyond time set), there had sailed, strictly hidden by embargoes which were little effectual, another Expedition, all Naval; intended to be subsidiary to this one: Commodore Anson's, of three inconsiderable Ships; who is to go round Cape Horn, if he can; to bombard Spanish America from the other side; and stretch out a hand to Vernon in his grand Carthagena or ulterior views. Together they may do some execution, if we judge by the old Bucanier and Queen-Elizabeth experiences? Anson's Expedition has become famous in the world, though Vernon got no good of it." Well! Here truly was a business; not so ill-contrived. Somebody of head must have been at the centre of this: and it might, in result, have astonished the Spaniard, and tumbled him much topsy-turvy in those latitudes,--had the machinery for executing it been well in gear. Under Friedrich Wilhelm's captaincy and management, every person, every item, correct to its time, to its place, to its function, what a thing! But with mere Walpole Machinery: alas, it was far too wide a Plan for Machinery of that kind, habitually out of order, and only used to be as correct as--as it could. Those DELAYS themselves, first to Anson, then to Ogle, since the Tropical Almanac would not delay along with them, had thrown both Enterprises into weather such as all but meant impossibility in those latitudes! This was irremediable;--had not been remediable, by efforts and pushings here and there. The best of management, as under Anson, could not get the better of this; worst of management, as in the other case, was likely to make a fine thing of it! Let us hasten on:-- "January 20th, 1741, We arrive, through much rough weather and other confused hardships, at Port Royal in Jamaica; find Vernon waiting on the slip; the American Regiment, tolerably drilled by the Scotch Lieutenants, in full readiness and equipment; a body of Negroes superadded, by way of pioneer laborers fit for those hot climates. One sad loss there had been on the voyage hither: Land forces had lost their Commander, and did not find another. General Cathcart had died of sickness on the voyage; a Charles Lord Cathcart, who was understood to possess some knowledge of his business; and his Successor, one Wentworth, did not happen to have any. Which was reckoned unlucky, by the more observant. Vernon, though in haste for Carthagena, is in some anxiety about a powerful French Fleet which has been manoeuvring in those waters for some time; intent on no good that Vernon can imagine. The first thing now is, See into that French Fleet. French Fleet, on our going to look in the proper Island, is found to be all off for home; men 'mostly starved or otherwise dead,' we hear; so that now, after this last short delay,--To Carthagena with all sail. "Wednesday Evening, 15th March, 1741, We anchor in the Playa Grande, the waste surfy Shallow which washes Carthagena seaward: 124 sail of us, big and little. We find Don Blas in a very prepared posture. Don Blas has been doing his best, this twelvemonth past; plugging up that Boca-Chica (LITTLE MOUTH) Ingate, with batteries, booms, great ships; and has castles not a few thereabouts and in the Interior Lake or Harbor; all which he has put in tolerable defence, so far as can be judged: not an inactive, if an insolent Don. We spend the next five days in considering and surveying these Performances of his: What is to be done with them; how, in the first place, we may force Boca-Chica; and get in upon his Interior Castles and him. After consideration, and plan fixed: "Monday, 20th March, Sir Chaloner, with broadsides, sweeps away some small defences which lie to left of Boca-Chica [to our LEFT, to Boca-Chica's RIGHT, if anybody cares to be particular]. Whereupon the Troops land, some of them that same evening; and, within the next two days, are all ashore, implements, Negroes and the rest; building batteries, felling wood; intent to capture Boca-Chica Castle, and demolish the War-Ships, Booms, and fry of Fascine and other Batteries; and thereby to get in upon Don Blas, and have a stroke at his Interior Castles and Carthagena itself. Till April 5th, here are sixteen days of furious intricate work; not ill done:--the physical labor itself, the building of batteries, with Boca-Chica firing on you over the woods, is scarcely do-able by Europeans in that season; and the Negroes who are able for it, 'fling down their burdens, and scamper, whenever a gun goes off.' Furious fighting, too, there was, by seamen and landsmen; not ill done, considering circumstances. "On the sixteenth day, April 5th [King Friedrich hurrying from the Mountains that same day, towards Steinau, which took fire with him at night], Boca-Chica Castle and the intricate War-Ships, Booms, and Castles thereabouts (Don Blas running off when the push became intense), are at last got. So that now, through Boca-Chica, we enter the Interior Harbor or Harbors. 'Harbors' which are of wide extent, and deep enough: being in fact a Lake, or rather Pair of Lakes, with Castles (CASTILLO GRANDE, 'Castle Grand,' the chief of them), with War-Ships sunk or afloat, and miscellaneous obstructions: beyond all which, at the farther shore, some five miles off, Carthagena itself does at last lie potentially accessible; and we hope to get in upon Don Blas and it. There ensue five days of intricate sea-work; not much of broadsiding, mainly tugging out of sunk War-Ships, and the like, to get alongside of Castle Grand, which is the chief obstruction. "April 10, Castle Grand itself is got; nobody found in it when we storm. Don Blas and the Spaniards seem much in terror; burning any Ships they still have, near Carthagena; as if there were no chance now left." This is the very day of Mollwitz Battle; near about the hour when Schwerin broke into field-music, and advanced with thunderous glitter against the evening sun! "Carthagena Expedition is, at length, fairly in contact with its Problem,--the question rising, 'Do you understand it, then?' "Up to this point, mistakes of management had been made good by obstinate energy of execution; clear victory had gone on so far, the Capture of Carthagena now seemingly at hand. One thing was unfortunate: 'the able Mr. Moor [meritorious Captain of Foot, who, by accident, had spent some study on his business], the one real Engineer we had,' got killed in that Boca-Chica struggle: an end to poor Moor! So that the Siege of Carthagena will have to go on WITHOUT Engineer science henceforth. May be important, that,--who knows? Another thing was still more palpably important: Sea-General Vernon had an undisguised contempt for Land-General Wentworth. 'A mere blockhead, whose Brother has a Borough,' thinks Vernon (himself an Opposition Member, of high-sniffing, angry, not too magnanimous turn);--and withdraws now to his Ships; intimating: 'Do your Problem, then; I have set you down beside it, which was my part of the affair!'--Let us give the attack of Fort Lazar, and end this sad business. "Sunday, 16th April, Wentworth, once master of the Uppermost Lake or Harbor (what the Natives call the SURGIDERO, or Anchorage Proper), had disembarked, high up to the right, a good way south of Carthagena; meaning to attack there-from a certain Fort Lazar, which stands on a Hill between Carthagena and him: this Hill and Fort once his, he has Carthagena under his cannon; Carthagena in his pocket, as it were. 'Fort not to be had without batteries,' thinks Wentworth; though the sickly rainy season has set in. 'Batteries? Scaling-ladders, you mean!' answers Vernon, with undisguised contempt. For the two are, by this time, almost in open quarrel. Wentworth starts building batteries, in spite of the rain- deluges; then stops building;--decides to do it by scalade, after all. And, at two in the morning of this Sunday, April 16th, sets forth, in certain columns,--by roads ill-known, with arrangements that do NOT fit like clock-work,--to storm said Hill and Fort. The English are an obstinate people; and strenuous execution will sometimes amend defects of plan,--sometimes not. "The obstinate English, nothing in them but sullen fire of valor, which has to burn UNluminous, did, after mistake on mistake, climb the rocks or heights of Lazar Hill, in spite of the world and Don Blas's cannonading; but found, when atop, That Fort Lazar, raining cannon-shot, was still divided from them by chasms; that the scaling-ladders had not come (never did come, owing to indiscipline somewhere),--and that, without wings as of eagles, they could not reach Fort Lazar at all! For about four hours, they struggled with a desperate doggedness, to overcome the chasms, to wrench aside the Laws of Nature, and do something useful for themselves; patiently, though sulkily; regardless of the storm of shot which killed 600 of them, the while. At length, finding the Laws of Nature too strong for them, they descended gloomily: 'in gloomy silence' marched home to their tents again,--in a humor too deep for words. "Yes; and we find they fell sick in multitudes, that night; and, 'in two days more, were reduced from 6,645 to 3,200 effective;' Vernon, from the sea, looking disdainfully on:--and it became evident that the big Project had gone to water; and that nothing would remain but to return straightway to Jamaica, in bankrupt condition. Which accordingly was set about. And ten days hence (April 26th')"> the final party of them did get on board,-- punctual to take 'three tents,' their last rag of Siege-furniture, along with them; 'lest Don Blas have trophies,' thinks poor Wentworth. And sailed away, with their sad Siege finished in such fashion. Strenuous Siege; which, had the War-Sciences been foolishness, and the Laws of Nature and the rigors of Arithmetic and Geometry been stretchable entities, might have succeeded better!" [Smollett's Account, Miscellaneous Works (Edinburgh, 1806), iv. 445-469, is that of a highly intelligent Eye-witness, credible and intelligible in every particular.] "Evening of April 26th:"--I perceive it was in the very hours while Belleisle arrived in Friedrich's Camp at Mollwitz; eve of that Siege of Brieg, which we saw performing itself with punctual regard to said Laws and rigors, and issuing in so different a manner! Nothing that my Constitutional Historian has said equals in pungent enormity the matter-of-fact Picture, left by Tobias Smollett, of the sick and wounded, in the interim which follow&d that attempt on Fort Lazar and the Laws of Nature:-- "As for the sick and wounded", says Tobias, "they were, next day, sent on board of the transports and vessels called hospital-ships; where they languished in want of every necessary comfort and accommodation. They were destitute of surgeons, nurses, cooks and proper provision; they were pent up between decks in small vessels, where they had not room to sit upright; they wallowed in filth; myriads of maggots were hatched in the putrefaction of their sores, which had no other dressing than that of being washed by themselves with their own allowance of brandy; and nothing was heard but groans, lamentations and the language of despair, invoking death to deliver them from their miseries. What served to encourage this despondence, was the prospect of those poor wretches who had strength and opportunity to look around them; for there they beheld the naked bodies of their fellow-soldiers and comrades floating up and down the harbor, affording prey to the carrion-crows and sharks, which tore them in pieces without interruption, and contributing by their stench to the mortality that prevailed. "This picture cannot fail to be shocking to the humane reader, especially when he is informed, that while those miserable objects cried in vain for assistance, and actually perished for want of proper attendance, every ship of war in the fleet could have spared a couple of surgeons for their relief; and many young gentlemen of that profession solicited their captains in pain for leave to go and administer help to the sick and wounded. The necessities of the poor people were well known; the remedy was easy and apparent; but the discord between the chiefs was inflamed to such a degree of diabolical rancor, that the one chose rather to see his men perish than ask help of the other, who disdained to offer his assistance unasked, though it might have saved the lives of his fellow- subjects." [Smollett, IBID. (Anderson's Edition), iv. 466.] In such an amazing condition is the English Fighting Apparatus under Walpole, being important for England's self only; while the Talking Apparatus, important for Walpole, is in such excellent gearing, so well kept in repair and oil! By Wentworth's blame, who had no knowledge of war; by Vernon's, who sat famous on the Opposition side, yet wanted loyalty of mind; by one's blame and another's, WHOSE it is idle arguing, here is how your Fighting Apparatus performs in the hour when needed. Unfortunate General, or General's Cocked-Hat (a brave heart too, they say, though of brain too vacant, too opaque); unfortunate Admiral (much blown away by vanity, in-nature and Parliamentary wind);--doubly unfortunate Nation, that employs such to lead its armaments! How the English Nation took it? The English Nation has had much of this kind to take, first and last; and apparently will yet have. "Gloomy silence," like that of the poor men going home to their tents, is our only dialect towards it. This is a dreadful business, this of the wrecked Carthagena Expedition; such a force of war-munitions in every kind,-- including the rare kind, human Courage and force of heart, only not human Captaincy, the rarest kind,--as could have swallowed South America at discretion, had there been Captains over it. Has gone blundering down into Orcus and the shark's belly, in that unutterable manner. Might have been didactic to Eugland, more than it was; England's skin being very thick against lessons of that nature. Might have broken the heart of a little Sovereign Gentleman Curator of England, had he gone hypochondriacally into it; which he was far from doing, brisk little Gentleman; looking out else- whither, with those eyes A FLEUR DE TETE, and nothing of insoluble admitted into the brain that dwelt inside. What became subsequently of the Spanish War, we in vain inquire of History-Books. The War did not die for many years to come, but neither did it publicly live; it disappears at this point: a River Niger, seen once flowing broad enough; but issuing--Does it issue nowhere, then? Where does it issue? Except for my Constitutional Historian, still unpublished, I should never have known where.-- By the time these disastrous Carthagena tidings reached England, his Britannic Majesty was in Hanover; involved, he, and all his State doctors, English and Hanoverian, in awful contemplation on Pragmatic Sanction, Kaiserwahl, Celestial Balance, and the saving of Nature's Keystone, should this still prove possible to human effort and contrivance. In which Imminency of Doomsday itself, the small English-Spanish matter, which the Official people, and his Majesty as much as any, had bitterly disliked, was quite let go, and dropped out of view. Forgotten by Official people; left to the dumb English Nation, whose concern it was, to administer as IT could. Anson--with his three ships gone to two, gone ultimately to one--is henceforth what Spanish War there officially is. Anson could not meet those Vernon-Wentworth gentlemen "from the other side of the Isthmus of Darien," the gentlemen, with their Enterprise, being already bankrupt and away. Anson, with three inconsiderable ships, which rotted gradually into one, could not himself settle the Spanish War: but he did, on his own score, a series of things, ending in beautiful finis of the Acapulco Ship, which were of considerable detriment, and of highly considerable disgrace, to Spain;--and were, and are long likely to be, memorable among the Sea-heroisms of the world. Giving proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still born in England; and Sea-kings, equal to any that were. Luckily, too, he had some chaplain or ship's-surgeon on board, who saw good to write account of that memorable VOYAGE of his; and did it, in brief, perspicuous terms, wise and credible: a real Poem in its kind, or Romance all Fact; one of the pleasantest little Books in the World's Library at this date. Anson sheds some tincture of heroic beauty over that otherwise altogether hideous puddle of mismanagement, platitude, disaster; and vindicates, in a pathetically potential way, the honor of his poor Nation a little. Apart from Official Anson, the Spanish War fell mainly, we may say, into the hands of--of Mr. Jenkins himself, and such Friends of his, at Wapping, Bristol and the Seaports, as might be disposed to go privateering. In which course, after some crosses at first, and great complaints of losses to Spanish Privateers, Wapping and Bristol did at length eminently get the upper hand; and thus carried on this Spanish War (or Spanish-French, Spain and France having got into one boat), for long years coming; in an entirely inarticulate, but by no means quite ineffectual manner,--indeed, to the ultimate clearance of the Seas from both French and Spaniard, within the next twenty years. Readers shall take this little Excerpt, dated Three Years hence, and set it twinkling in the night of their imaginations:-- BRISTOL, MONDAY, 21st (10th) SEPTEMBER, 1744. ... "Nothing is to be seen here but rejoicings for the number of French prizes brought into this port. Our Sailors are in high spirits, and full of money; and while on shore, spend their whole time in carousing, visiting their mistresses, going to plays, serenading, &c., dressed out with laced hats, tossels (SIC), swords with sword-knots, and every other way of spending their money." [Extract of a Letter from Bristol, in Gentleman's Magazine, xiv. 504.] Carthagena, Walpole, Viners: here are Sorrows for a Britannic Majesty;--and these are nothing like all. But poor readers should have some respite; brief breathing-time, were it only to use their pocket-handkerchiefs, and summon new courage!