Introduction to the Memoirs.

• William Young on his Financial Situation
• Edmund Burke on Penn School
• James Talbot on Revolutionary France

William Young on his Financial Situation: 30 November 1788

[p26–27]  Sir William Young to the Marquis of Buckingham.

Stratton Street, Nov 30^th, 1788.

My dear Lord,

Since my last, all the intelligence to be given consists merely of rumours and of opinions respecting the probable changes in the Administration, on the accession of the Prince to the executive authority. The Prince, it is said, is wonderfully of late attached to Thurlow. His Royal Highness hath not been equally gracious to Mr Pitt; and from the authority of a person who dined with him, I am assured that his melancholy derived from the malady of his father and King, is not that deep and rooted sought for which “no physic of the mind” can be found. Drinking and singing were specifics of the day stated to me.

As to opinions alluded to above, they appear to me, who am not in the secret, mere sermons to Shakespeare’s text of “Harry, thy wish was father to the thought.” If aught is settled, your lordship is undoubtedly apprised of it; if things yet remain for arrangement, your grounds for mere fabrics of speculation must ere this be better laid than mine; and so, in either case, I’d better e’en refrain from the subject, until Thursday begins the course of authentic matter for my letters.

Meanwhile, a word in regard to myself. I write under the great embarrassment of mind, between pressing necessity of not moving from London and a justness of sentiment which would particularly at this moment urge my repairing to you at the Castle. When your kind friendship conferred what, at that moment, was the most essential aid to my family subsistence, your goodness added that I need not visit Ireland oftener than the convenience of my family allowed. Of this goodness I by no means sought to avail myself, and proposed this winter proceeding with my wife and son to the Castle, and returning to accomplish the passing of my “Poor Laws,” in February or march.

The loss of my father hath placed me in a situation wherein, from the magnitude and delicacy of the concern, every hour may afford an important crisis; and in which a simple omission, a momentary absence, may entail consequences irretrievable, in matters wherein the result to me and mine is to be conjoined reputation and affluence, or disgrace and penury. I cannot, under impression of such alternatives, delegate an iota of conduct to a second person. I have laid down a systematic plan of conduct for myself, which in executing I am sure of honour and credit, have a certainty of confidence, and a prospect of considerable wealth. The more I reflect, the more I am confirmed in the propriety of the grounds of procedure which I have adopted, and I feel myself equal to the accomplishment, as far as it depends on steady pursuit of a well-weighed purpose. Obstacles, however, may arise, and difficulties occur, such as I have daily to obviate or to surmount, in shape of impatient creditors, who, if they were not led to a just understanding of circumstances, would not wait two years for a final liquidation of private claims, with an inventory before them in the Commons of property to the amount of £200,000, but would jump forward to their own and my loss. One of the two years I have now securely in hand; the crop of 1789 being shipped from Christmas to March, of all produce all grown, and partly manufactured. If the Government leaves me the year 1790, at the close of it there will not be a private debt, nor an article alienated of security for public claims; and my gain of the income of 1788–9–90 is actually the amount £45,000 clear gain, above the result of immediate sales of the estates, which in ordinary course, or other line than I have chalked out, would be the most direct legal recurrence for general liquidation of first public and then private claims. One year of this gain to my residue I have already secured, the second I have no doubt of, the third I have great hopes of, and at the period thereof, the gross total of the Crown demand, without a deduction or charge per centage, would scarcely necessitate any sale, or but a partial one, should I wish quickly to clear all away.

Having no reserve for you, my best friend, I have, in accounting for my “fixing myself on the watch” in England this winter run into these details; and further (which will explain them fully) enclose a rough copy of my instructions to my attorney’s in St. Vincent’s, which, when read, you will consign to the flames.

I have that grateful attachment to you, that I should yet scarcely hesitate in hazarding a month’s absence from home, did not I anticipate that your friendship would rather chide than approve the sacrifice. I am ever at your command, being, my dear Lord, in truest affection,

Your devoted and obliged friend, &c.,

W. Young.

Edmund Burke on Penn School: 24 May 1796

[p341-347]

The destitute condition of the French emigrants who sought an asylum in England on the breaking out of the Revolution, and whose numbers were continually increasing, excited universal commiseration. The attention of Govern­ment was earnestly directed to the means of providing for them, and measures were adopted for giving the utmost efficacy to the public sympathy. Amongst the persons who interested themselves actively on their behalf were the Marquis of Buckingham and Mr. Burke. The object to which they mainly addressed their exertions was the education of emigrant children whose fathers had perished in the convulsions of their country, or who were unable to obtain instruction for them. The forlorn situation of these friendless children, in a country with whose language they were unacquainted, had attracted the notice of Mr. Burke, with whom the project originated, and who applied to Government in the first instance for assistance to enable him to carry out his charitable design. The appeal was libe­rally responded to. A house was taken and fitted up for the purpose in Buckinghamshire, at Penn, near Beaconsfield, the residence of Mr. Burke; and, by an order of the Treasury, the Duke of Portland, the Lord Chancellor, the Marquis of Buckingham, Mr. Burke, and others were appointed trustees for the management of the school, which had been established in the first instance by Mr. Burke at his own expense. The following interesting letter from Mr. Burke contains some particulars concerning this institution, which had just been opened. The “clean and not unpleasing” costume spoken of by the writer consisted of a blue uniform which he had assigned to the boys, with a white cockade bearing the inscription of “Vive le Roi.” Those boys who had lost their fathers were distinguished by a bloody label, and the loss of uncles was marked in a similar manner by a black one. At this time Mr. Burke had the sole management of the school, and watched over its progress with unabated solicitude to the end of his life. The Commission nominated by the Government had not, it appears, been communicated to him, and he justly com­plains to his correspondent of the embarrassing position in which the oversight, or neglect, had placed him. The Marquis of Buckingham took a warm interest in the education and welfare of the boys, and, as a means of fostering a martial and loyal spirit amongst them, made them a present of a pair of colours and a brass cannon, which were exhibited with great pride and exultation on all public occasions.

Mr. Burke to the Marquis of Buckingham.

May 24th, 1796.

My Dear Lord,

Having received no answer to my last letter, I persuade myself there was nothing in it to displease you; otherwise your general politeness and your kind partiality to me would have led you to give me such instructions as might prevent me from falling into errors in the delicate business in which, under your countenance and with your approbation, I have engaged myself.

We look forward with a pleasure, mixed with some degree of impatience, to the visit which your Lordship and Lady Buckingham have flattered us with the hope of, though I am afraid the heat of the general election will be over before we can enjoy that satisfaction. I think, however unfortunate I may find myself in all my attempts to please the Bishop of Leon, that your Lordship and Lady Buckingham will feel the same pleasing and affecting interest in what is done here, that all have been touched with who see what is going on. You will be pleased with the celerity, if not with the perfection, of our work. Five-and-forty beds are ready; the rest will be so in a very few days. An old bad stable is converted into an excellent school­room. The chapel is decent, in place and in furniture. The eating-room is reasonably good. Twenty-five boys are received, clad in a cleanly and not unpleasing manner, and they are fed in an orderly way, with a wholesome and abundant diet. The masters are pleased with their pupils; the pupils are pleased with their preceptors; and I am sure I have reason to be pleased with them all. I see them almost every day, and at almost all hours; as well at their play as at their studies and exercise. I have never seen finer boys, or more fit for the plan of education I mean to follow for them, as long as it pleases the Government to continue that charge in my hands. I am responsible, that if they are left to me for six months, a set of finer lads, for their age and standing, will not be seen in Europe.

The only unfortunate part of the business is, that some of them speak not a word of English, and they who are the most forward in it are very imperfect. There is but one of the masters who can be said to know anything of it, and he is far indeed from the ability to teach it. There must be a person who, besides going with them through all their Latin readings and construing them into English, will daily converse with them, and ground them in the principles and the utterance of that tongue which belongs to the nation which alone promises them an asylum upon earth. For many reasons, I should prefer a clergyman of their own persuasion, and of Our country. But though I have always known that their number was small, I did not conceive it to be so inconsiderable as I now find it. But some English subject must be found to be about these boys at all hours. It would be a terrible thing to condemn these poor creatures to an universal exile, and to be perpetual vagrants, without a possibility of being in a state of effectual communication with the natives of any country or incorporating themselves with any people. God forbid that, under the pretext of a benefit, I should be the cause of their utter ruin.

The Bishop of Leon has written me a letter which, in my present state of health (by no means the best), gives me a good deal of uneasiness. Hitherto, I have received the boys without any inquiry, as they were successively sent to me by the worthy prelate; considering them as the objects of his selection amongst the candidates for this situation. To my astonishment, in a letter which I received from him last Saturday he tells me that all the vacancies are filled: but that he has had nothing in the world to do with the matter, and that he is no more than a simple clerk. Your Lordship will see by the letters that I have the honour to enclose for your perusal, that after filling up all the places, the pleasure of rejecting the rest of the candidates is reserved for me. He has contrived matters so, that others have all the grace of obliging, and all the pleasure of being useful; and that all which is harsh and odious is thrown upon me, as a reward for all the trouble and expense I have been at in this business. On this I shall make no further remark.

By the letters, your Lordship will see that the Bishop of Leon tells the applicants, that the selection is to be made by certain Lords Commissioners. I never have been apprised by the Bishop of the existence of any Commission, or of any Commissioners for the purpose of a choice. If such a thing at all exists, I should have flattered myself that I should have been apprised of it; of their rules, of its proceedings, and of the times of its sitting. I believe I am the very first person who, having had the honour of proposing a plan to Government, and being permitted to have the management of it, have been kept wholly out of the secret of the appointment of its objects. The name of every boy sent to me was unknown to me to the moment of his arrival; the names of those who are to come are equally unknown. Not one circumstance relative to any of them is come to my knowledge. The poorest country schoolmaster would have been favoured with some better account of  his pupils.

I must beg leave to remark to your Lordship, that the account given by the Bishop of Leon to the applicants is wholly different from that which he gives to me. In his two last letters to me (one, and the most explicit, of which I received just now) he tells me that the selection and nomination is not in any Commissioners, but solely in your Lordship, and that he is no more than a clerk. If I had not received it from so good an authority, I could hardly have believed that your Lord­ ship, upon a mere abstract of petitions, without further examination, or any consultation, even with the Bishop of Leon, should have decided upon sixty out of perhaps fourscore applications. But, as I am sure you always act with equity and discretion, I am perfectly satisfied in your having assumed this very delicate and critical of all trusts. I only wish that I had been apprised of your Lordship's having taken on you that office, as, though I should not have ventured to recommend a single person, I really think I might, with all humility, have made some useful suggestions, which your desire of all matters being before you, that might guide you to a sure decision, would make you willing to receive, even from a person so very inconsiderable as I am in every point of view.

I am Sure your Lordship wishes that, in the very repre­hensible situation in which I stand, I may be able to give some some [sic] sort of account of my trust; and when I have engaged with Government for the education of sixty boys, I ought to know at whose hands, on what authority, and on whose recommendation I receive them. Certainly they are not re­commended or chosen by me; and when I go to the Treasury, and tell the Minister who issues the money to me (whenever it shall be issued) that I have employed it in the maintenance and the education of those whom I do not myself know, nor can tell in any regular and authorised manner from whom I received them, I should make a very despicable, not to say a criminal figure. I cannot take your Lordship's pleasure from the Bishop of Leon ; though he tells me he is (not your Lordship's friend and adviser) but your clerk, as you have never in­formed me of this his relation to you. I therefore, for my voucher and justification, request that you will be pleased (the Committee and the Bishop absolutely disclaiming all choice) to send me a list of the names, circumstances and description of the boys whom you send to me, or have sent, together with a certificate, that having duly examined into the several claims and pretensions of the candidates, you have found these the best entitled.

When I have received this attestation as my authority and voucher, far from cavilling at either the person naming, or the names, I shall receive them most cheerfully; happy that your Lordship having generously and nobly taken to yourself the election, these objects have obtained security for a powerful protection, to place them, as successively they shall be qua­lified, in some way useful to themselves and to the public. I shall take care that they do no dishonour to your patronage ; at least to the moment in which (having received them from your hands) I deliver them back into the same benevolent and protecting safeguard.

My dear Lord, have the goodness to excuse the length of this letter, on account of the weight of my responsibility and the very difficult situation in which I stand.

Mrs. Burke begs leave to join me in the most truly re­spectful compliments to Lady Buckingham, and if we may be permitted, on very little acquaintance, to Lord and Lady Temple. No persons can more sincerely wish, than we do, all kind of honour and happiness to you and all that belong to you.

I have the honour to be, with the most perfect respect and affection,

My dear Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient and faithful humble servant,

Edm. Burke.  

James Talbot on Revolutionary France: 18 December 1796

[p352-60]

The time had now arrived when the English Cabinet believed that an attempt might be made to negotiate for peace, without compromising its honour. In the preceding March, the ambassador to the Helvetic States had been authorized to inquire of the Government of France, through the medium of their representative, whether they were disposed to entertain such a negotiation. The answer was so unsatisfactory, laying down as a peremptory condition the retention of all those conquests which, during the course of the war, had been annexed to the republic, that nothing more was then done in the matter. The subject was resumed in September, and, the Directory having signified their readiness to grant passports to any persons who should be furnished with full powers and official papers, Lord Malmesbury was appointed as plenipotentiary on the part of His Britannic Majesty to treat for peace with the French Republic. On the 22nd of October his Lordship announced to M. de la Croix, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, his arrival in Paris in that capacity. The negoti­ations occupied nearly two months, and the main point of difficulty turned upon the Netherlands, Lord Malmesbury, who acted strictly on his instructions, making the restoration of the Netherlands a sine quâ non, and M. de la Croix repeatedly stating that this difficulty was one which could not be overcome. The negotiations had arrived at that stage which made this insuperable difficulty perfectly clear and unmistakeable on both sides; when Mr. Talbot, a gentleman connected with Lord Malmesbury’s embassy, addressed the following letter to Lord Buckingham. No allusion will be found in it to the pending negotiations, which were of too delicate and important a nature to be touched upon in a private letter; but it is very curious and interesting, as presenting a picture of the state of France at that period.

Mr. Talbot to the Marquis of Buckingham.

Paris, Dec. 18th, 1796.

My Lord,

Your Lordship, I trust, is aware of my motives for not having written to you since I left England; I shall, there­fore, make no apologies for my neglect; but I must beg leave to assure your Lordship that I am, notwithstanding the urgency of my reasons, so much ashamed of the omission, that I now feel much embarrassed in taking up my pen.

The only letters I have hitherto sent to England have been to Lord Grenville, in answer to those he has done me the honour to write; and to Mr. B. Taylor, his secretary, for some articles which I stood in need of.

Your Lordship has without doubt received much better accounts of the appearance and state of things in this country than it is in my power to communicate; however, I will attempt a description of what has struck me as worthy of notice, and rely upon your kind indulgence for my errors.

Our first entrance into France was certainly not attended with the reception which might have been expected, under the particular circumstances in which we came. It is true a good many people of all sorts were upon the quay at Calais when we arrived, but they showed no signs of joy or any other feeling more than the arrival of an indifferent vessel would have occasioned; and very shortly after we had landed, and gone to the inn, the crowd was dispersed, and everything seemed as silent as if nothing had happened. Indeed, all those we conversed with expressed their happiness at seeing us, and wished success to the negotiation; and all the prin­cipal officers of the Government stationed there waited upon Lord Malmesbury with the utmost civility; but the bulk of the inhabitants—whether they were ignorant of the arrival of an envoy to propose peace, or whether they were afraid to express their satisfaction in any public manner, I cannot say -manifested not the least sign of rejoicing.

Nothing very material occurred between this place and Paris. The aubergistes and post-masters were almost the only persons with whom we had any conversation, and their language uni­formly was that France was most anxiously desirous for the restoration of peace; that their sufferings had been more than they could describe, but that latterly their situation was much mended by the diminution in the price of provisions. But I was not inclined to give much credit to them, imagining that this language was intended to flatter us, and coming from those who had suffered more than any of their descrip­tion in France, from the intercourse between the two countries being stopped. It must, however, be allowed that a general gloom seemed to prevail; and very little of that gaiety for which this nation was formerly remarkable was to be observed. At Amiens, I remember, the people of the inn where we supped entered more fully and with less reserve into the detail of their calamities. There had been a considerable manufacture of woollen cloths in this town, in which at this time no more than two hundred people were employed.

I profited of the opportunity which t be changing horses afforded me to see the Chateau of Chantilly. I found it totally stripped of its furniture; and every decoration that bore the smallest reference to armorial bearings was defaced; but otherwise the building has not suffered much injury. The statue of the great Condé on the principal staircase remains, but the head is cut off. The barbarians were not content with beheading the statues of men, but they have likewise done so to all the busts of stags placed over the stalls in the stables. The chateau was used as a prison in the time of Robespierre, and almost all the apartments continue still divided into small spaces for that purpose. The gardens are totally destroyed, but the park has met with no injury further than the almost total destruction of the game. There is a keeper appointed by the nation for the protection of the wood. The timber on the opposite side of the river is chiefly cut down, the land having been sold.

The adjacent chateau of the Duc d’ Angouleme, his son, as far as the walls, remains perfect; I had not time to see the inside of it. The care of the chateau has lately been given in charge to one of the former servants of the Prince de Condé.

The roads were in general in excellent condition, and the post-horses tolerably good; but we were in several places kept some time waiting for them. This is not to be wondered at, if we consider how little they have been accustomed to tra­vellers for some years past.

.A great number of the best houses by the roadside and in the towns were shut up, and seemed to be abandoned. Very few of the churches appeared to be open, many of them were pulled down, and none that were not considerably damaged; but the country was throughout in a state of high cultivation, although there was apparently a scarcity of men at work. This is to be accounted for by the encouragement which the late dearness of bread has given to the farmers, who are become, by a variety of circumstances, extremely wealthy. They are one of the very few descriptions of people who have profited by the Revolution. Very many of them.have purchased lands, and this they were enabled to do almost for nothing by the depreciation of assignats, for an enor­mous nominal value of which they sold the produce of their farms; and this paper was received from them for the sum it represented, in payment for the estates of the ci-devant seigneurs and other confiscated property. I am told there have been repeated instances of the basest ingratitude on their part, in denouncing their landlords; and, on the contrary, that many of them have given proofs of the strongest attachment to them.

Provisions are in abundance, and at a very moderate price. Common bread is little more than two sous, and butchers’ meat from five to eight sous the pound.

I have not observed any want of specie in circulation; never yet have I found any difficulty in getting change upon the purchase of any article, nor any such thing as paper money produced in such transactions. The exhausted state and the degree of distress which I could discover in this country, I must confess, fell short of the expectation which the various species of plunder, exaction, and cruelty, which it bas for several years submitted to, had impressed upon my mind.

Between Calais and Paris, scarcely any troops were to be met with.

The scene being so perfectly new to me, and having little or no intercourse with anyone here, except our own society, I was some time in Paris before I could form any opinion of the state of affairs, and the sentiments of the people. The streets seemed crowded, the shops tolerably well supplied, the theatres well attended, some private and a great number of public carriages to be met with; all this brought to my reflec­tion how very difficult a matter it must be to destroy a great country, considering that an the pains which have been taken to ruin this have left so much undone. But the first fortnight we lived in the most populous part of the town, near the Palais Royal, and therefore the last place where distress would be evident.

There are few parts of Paris I have not since been in, and I find in many of them, the outlets particularly, the greatest wretchedness to prevail, and to be very thin of inhabitants. A great part of the Faubourg St. Germain, near the Boulevards, is in a great measure deserted; but this quarter was formerly inhabited principally by the noblesse. There is scarcely a street in Paris where there are not several houses written upon, Propriéte nationalé à vendre, and sometimes in addition, ou à louer; and in many places a great part of the street is in the same manner advertised for sale.

The names of many of the streets are, as your Lordship must know, entirely changed; but where they are not, and began with Saint, that word is invariably defaced, and the remainder of the name is left untouched. But, notwithstand­ing that, most places are commonly called as formerly; and this practice is becoming more general every day.

The hôtels of many of the ci-devant noblesse are inhabited by the Ministers and other members of the Government. Many of them are converted into public offices and others of them into hôtels garnis, &c.; besides, a prodigious number of them remain unoccupied, and offered for sale by the nation.

The Luxembourg is divided into five separate habitations for the Directory, besides the apartments that are used for their sittings, audiences, and other public business.

The Council of Ancients hold their sittings in the Palace of the Tuileries, and the Council of Five Hundred meet in what was formerly the riding-house of the King; but this is con­sidered as merely a temporary chamber for this last body, until the Palais Bourbon, which is now undergoing great alterations and additions, is ready for their reception. This building is in the Faubourg St. Germain, in front of the new bridge called Pont de la Revolution. I shall take an opportunity hereafter of giving your Lordship a description of the interior of these several places.

The scene of any great revolutionary event continues still decorated with the national flag and other emblems of their glorious Revolution, accompanied with an inscription; that where the Bastille stood is, 14 Juillet 1789, la Bastille detruite, et elle ne se relevera jamais; and that in the Place du Carrousel, opposite the Tuileries, is, 10 Août 1792, La Royauté fran­çaise est abolie, et elle ne se relevera jamais. There are several marks of cannon-balls, but they have made but little impression on this front of the Tuileries; and under each of them is written, 10 Août 1792.

The garden of the Tuileries is, I am told, kept as well as ever it was; some of the largest trees in it, however, have been cut down since our arrival, but they were chiefly decayed. Of the Bastille nothing remains, except a very small part of the foundations; and near it is a newly-erected powder maga­zine, and much of the remainder of the space is a depôt for firewood.

The churches are many of them open, and have Divine service performed in them without restraint; but a great many more of them are shut, and some used as casernes, storehouses, &c.; but they have all been stripped of every internal decora­tion, and nothing suffered to remain but the bare walls. Some­times, indeed-and it appears to be by an oversight-a piece of painting, or perhaps a little image, may have escaped injury; but such a thing is a curiosity, and to be found in a situation not readily to be observed, or difficult to be reached. The favourite mode of mutilating a statue seems to have been to break off the head. In the church of St. Sulpice there is a tolerably good statue of a Virgin and Child remaining, but of this the Child’s head is taken off, and that of the Virgin seems to have met with the same fate, but to have been restored.

It is wonderful the industry that has been used in the destruc­tion of everything in the way of inscription, of sculpture, or coats of arms, which could possibly remind the people of the ancien regime; and I cannot help being much surprised that all this was done with so much care as to remove merely these particular objects of their enmity, without in the least damaging the adjacent parts. In defacing armorial bearings and things of this sort, the reformers have been at the trouble of cutting them away, so as to leave the shield quite plain, although they were carved in stone. I should have supposed that mischief done in the moment of frenzy would not have been so metho­dical.

Upon all the public buildings, the public offices, and many others, is written in large characters—Unité indivisibilité de la république, liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort; but in general the last word is rubbed out. The nation took it into their heads not to like death upon the downfall of Robespierre, Upon many of the churches is this inscription—Le peuple français reconnait l’être suprême et l’immortalité de l’âme. This was a decree of the Convention for the people at large, and your Lordship will allow that this must have a ridiculous effect upon the walls of a church entirely in ruins, as is often the case. Another modern inscription is—Citoyens, respectez le bien d’ autrui, c’est le fruit de son travail et de son industrie; and perhaps close by it you may read propriété nationale à vendre, in direct violation of the other, offering to sell property of which some unfortunate person has been robbed by the very preachers of this doctrine.

I am obliged to break off suddenly, for reasons which will be very soon known to your Lordship.

I have the honour to be your Lordship’s most obedient, faithful, humble servant,

James Talbot.

The last line of this letter is written in an agitated hand, which the circumstance that compelled Mr. Talbot to break off so abruptly sufficiently accounts for. At that moment a note had arrived at the embassy from M. de la Croix, giving Lord Malmesbury notice to depart from Paris in eight-and-forty hours, adding that if the British Cabinet were desirous of peace, the Executive Directory were ready to carry on the negotiations, on the basis they had already laid down, by the reciprocal channel of couriers.