the King had had wise and upright advisers, should we have ever seen two pensions for life, amounting together to 2,678l., granted to Lady Augusta Murray, lately called Duchess of Sussex? Such advisers would not have failed to perceive, and to point out to their master, the bad impression which such a grant of the public money, at a time like the present, must have upon the minds of his people. Such advisers would have reminded him, that the people could not fail to ask what services this lady (though a virtuous person, and whose case is a very hard one) had performed for them, or for the crown, to merit such an income out of the public purse, at a time when the Captains of the Navy are supplicating for a small addition to their pay. Such advisers would have pressed upon the King, who would, we must believe, have, at once, followed their advice, to abstain from all grants, either direct or indirect, to his own family, while his people were so heavily burdened, and while fresh sacrifices of their comforts, and even necessaries, were annually called for, upon the ground of their being wanted for the defence of the country against a foreign invader.
If the King had had wise and upright advisers, should we ever have seen the newspapers announcing, under the head of “court news,” the movements of Mrs. Jordan and her family, backward and forward, between Bushy Park and St. James’s Palace? If the King had had wise and upright advisers, should we ever have seen publications, like the following, circulated through all the newspapers of the kingdom!
“The Duke of Clarence’s birth-day was celebrated with much splendour in Bushy Park, on Thursday. The grand hall was entirely new fitted up, with bronze pilasters, and various marble imitations; the ceiling very correctly clouded, and the whole illuminated with some brilliant patent lamps, suspended from a beautiful eagle. The dining-room in the right wing was fitted up in a modern style, with new elegant lamps at the different entrances. The pleasure-ground was disposed for the occasion, and the servants had new liveries. In the morning the Dukes of York’s and Kent’s bands arrived in caravans; after dressing themselves and dining, they went into the pleasure-grounds, and played alternately some charming pieces. The Duke of Kent’s played some of the choruses and movements from Haydn’s Oratorio of the CREATION, arranged, by command of his royal highness, for a band of wind instruments. About five o’clock the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of York, Kent, Sussex, and Cambridge, Colonel Paget, &c. arrived from reviewing THE GERMAN LEGION. After they had dressed for dinner, they walked in the pleasure-grounds, accompanied by the Lord Chancellor, Earl and Countess of Athlone and daughter, Lord Leicester, Baron Hotham and Lady. Baron Eden, the Attorney-General, Colonels Paget and M‘Mahon, Sergeant Marshall, and a number of other persons. At seven o’clock the second bell announced the dinner, when THE PRINCE took MRS. JORDAN by the hand, led her into the dining-room, and seated her at the head of the table. The Prince took his seat at her right hand, and the Duke of York at her left; the Duke of Cambridge sat next to the Prince, the Duke of Kent next to the Duke of York, and the Lord Chancellor next to his royal highness. The DUKE OF CLARENCE sat at the foot of the table.
It is hardly necessary to say the table was sumptuously covered with every thing the season could afford. The bands played on the lawn, close to the dining-room window. The populace were permitted to enter the pleasure-grounds to behold the royal banquet, while the presence of Messrs. Townshend, Sayers, and Macmanus, preserved the most correct decorum. The Duke’s NUMEROUS FAMILY were introduced, and admired by the Prince, the Royal Dukes, and the whole company; an infant in arms, with a most beautiful white head of hair, was brought into the dining-room by the nursery-maid. After dinner the Prince gave ‘The Duke of Clarence,’ which was drunk with three times three. The Duke gave the ‘King,’ which was drunk in a similar manner. A discharge of cannon from the lawn followed. ‘The Queen and Princesses.’
—‘The Duke of York and the army.’ His royal highness’s band then struck up his celebrated march.”
This article was contained in the Courier newspaper of the 3rd of August 1806; and, as the people will have observed, many such articles have appeared since, while not one of them has been contradicted. Now, if there was any truth in such statements, would not wise and upright counsellors have advised the King to put a stop to the grounds of such statements? Must not the people, upon reading such accounts, call to mind the King’s Proclamation for the suppression of Vice; and also, as if the laws were insufficient for keeping the common people in order, the erection of self-created societies for the purpose? And, will they not now ask of those pious societies, why, when they were pursuing the poor whores with their day-light lanterns, they never thought of a lantern for Gloucester Place? These godly gentlemen, no small part of whom, by-the-bye, derive their incomes from the public purse, appear to have eyes so constructed as to see vice only when she is accompanied with poverty. They fish with a net that will hold nothing but the small fry.
There is one of Mrs. Jordan’s sons in the navy, and another in the army. The latter has been described to me as a very little boy. A gentleman, who saw him in Spain, described him as not being much bigger than a son of mine who is only about ten years of age. He must, however, be older, and, it is probable, that he is fourteen years of age, or more. But, then, observe, he is a cornet in the tenth regiment of Lt. Dragoons, of which the Prince of Wales is Colonel; that he is even the second cornet upon the list; and that, according to the army-list now before me, he is senior to four other cornets. When in Spain, he was an aid-de-camp, and, a gentleman who frequently had occasion to see the quarters of the dragoons, saw his name upon a door, signifying that the apartment was his, a mark of distinction not used by common subaltern officers. Yet, this person could, by those subalterns, and by the officers in general, be looked upon as no other than the son of Mrs. Jordan; than the son of a play-actress; than the son of a person, whom, but a day or two, perhaps, before their departure from England, several of those officers had seen, in the character of Nell Jobson, pawing Bannister’s dirty face.
Aye, Mr. Yorke, say what you like, these, these are the things that create discontent and disgust; these are the things that gall; these are the things that sting the soul; and sting they will in spite of all that can be said or preached about jacobinical conspiracies. Oh, Sir! We, surely, are not all jacobins; we, surely, are not all conspirators; but, with the exception of those, who participate in corruptions, like those that have come to light, we all feel alike with respect to these things. No, Sir, the “illustrious House of Brunswick” is in no danger from conspiracies amongst the people, or any part of the people. Writers and talkers have no power to hurt any thing established, any thing settled by law, and defended by all the constables and judges and an army to boot, unless that establishment undermine itself. “Philosophy,” Sir Francis Burdett observed, in one of his early speeches, in answer to those who ascribed the fall of the old French government to the writings of an anti-christian philosophical conspiracy; “Philosophy has no such trophies to boast; the trophies are due solely to the corruption and profligacy of those, who have fallen a sacrifice to the vengeance of a people at first discontented, next indignant, next enraged, and at last infuriated, urged on by a mad and indiscriminating spirit of revenge.” From such a catastrophe, Sir, God preserve the Royal Family of England! But, Sir, let no part of that family disregard the feelings of the people. Let them bear in mind the words of Burke: “What a base and foolish thing it is for any consolidated body of authority to say, or to act as if it said: ‘I will put my trust, not in mine own virtue, but in your patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in indolence, in corruption; I will give way to all my perverse and vicious humours; because you cannot punish me without ruining yourselves.’ ” These words, written in letters to be read at half a mile distance, should be seen upon the top of every public edifice. They should be imprinted on the hearts of princes, and of all persons in authority. Yet, in direct contradiction to the wise precept contained in them, we are continually asked, by the venal writers of the day: “how,” if we dislike this or that, of which we complain; “how we should like Buonaparte and his government?” Just as if it were necessary for us to have the one or the other; just as if we had no choice but that between Buonaparte and Mrs. Clarke! Of all the insults, which we have had to bear, this is the greatest. When we complain, that we are not as our forefathers were, these venal wretches do not attempt to deny the fact, but fall to giving us a description of the state of the people in France; and look upon their triumph as being complete, when
