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CHARLES PHILIP YORKE

FOURTH EARL OF HARDWICKE

VICE-ADMIRAL R.N.

A MEMOIR



BY HIS DAUGHTER

THE LADY BIDDULPH OF LEDBURY



WITH PORTRAITS



DEDICATED

TO HIS GRANDCHILDREN




PREFACE


It is with great diffidence that I lay this memoir before the public;
it is my first experience in such work, but my reasons for so doing
appear to me unanswerable. It was to my care and judgment that my
father, by his will, committed his letters and journals, and my heart
confirms the judgment of my mind, that his active and interesting life,
so varied in the many different positions he was called upon to fill,
and the considerable part he played in the affairs of his time, deserve
a fuller record than the accounts to be found in biographical works of
reference.

It has been a labour of love to me to supply these omissions in the
following pages, and to present in outline the life of a capable,
energetic Englishman, for whom I can at least claim that he was a loyal
and devoted servant of his Sovereign and his country.

In fulfilling what I hold to be a filial obligation I have made no
attempt to give literary form to a work which, so far as possible, is
based upon my father's own words. Primarily it is addressed to his
grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to whom, I trust, it may serve
as an inspiration; but I have also some hope that a story which touches
the national life at so many points may prove of interest to the
general public. I am greatly indebted to my son, Mr. Adeane, and to my
son-in-law, Mr. Bernard Mallet, for the help and encouragement they
have given me; and I have also to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. W.
B. Boulton in editing and preparing these papers for publication.

ELIZABETH PHILIPPA BIDDULPH.

LEDBURY: January 1910.




CONTENTS


I. THE YORKE FAMILY

II. ALGIERS. 1815-1816

III. THE NORTH AMERICAN STATION. 1817-1822

IV. GREEK PIRACY. 1823-1826

V. A HOLIDAY IN NORTHERN REGIONS. 1828

VI. GREEK INDEPENDENCE. 1829-1831

VII. COURT DUTIES AND POLITICS. 1831-1847

VIII. GENOA. 1849

IX. POLITICS AND LAST YEARS. 1850-1873

INDEX




LIST OF PORTRAITS


CHARLES PHILIP, FOURTH EARL OF HARDWICKE From a painting by E. U. Eddis


THE HONBLE. CHARLES YORKE SOLICITOR-GENERAL From a painting by Allan
Ramsay (?)

SIR JOSEPH SYDNEY YORKE As A MIDSHIPMAN, R.N. From a painting by George
Romney

SIR JOSEPH SYDNEY YORKE As A LIEUTENANT, R.N. from a painting by George
Romney

CHARLES PHILIP, FOURTH EARL OF HARDWICKE From a chalk drawing by E. U.
Eddis

SUSAN, COUNTESS OF HARDWICKE From a chalk drawing by E. U. Eddis




CHARLES PHILIP YORKE

FOURTH EARL OF HARDWICKE




CHAPTER I

THE YORKE FAMILY


The family of Yorke first came into prominence with the great
Chancellor Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwicke. This remarkable man,
who was the son of an attorney at Dover, descended, it is claimed, from
the Yorkes of Hannington in North Wiltshire, a family of some
consequence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was born in that
town in the year 1690, and rose from a comparatively humble station to
the commanding position he held so long in English public life.

My object in this chapter is to recall some of the incidents of his
career and of those of his immediate successors and descendants.

Philip Yorke was called to the bar in 1715, became Solicitor-General
only five years later, and was promoted to be Attorney-General in 1723.
In 1733 he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England, and received
the Great Seal as Lord Chancellor in 1737, and when his life closed his
political career had extended over a period of fifty years.

Lord Campbell, the author of the 'Lives of the Chancellors,' 'that
extraordinary work which was held to have added a new terror to death,
and a fear of which was said to have kept at least one Lord Chancellor
alive,' claimed to lay bare the shortcomings of the subjects of his
memoirs with the same impartiality with which he pointed out their
excellences. He mentions only two failings of Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke: one, that he was fond of acquiring wealth, the other, that
he was of an overweening pride to those whom he considered beneath him.
Neither of these is a very serious charge, and as both are
insufficiently corroborated, one may let them pass. He acquired immense
wealth in the course of his professional career, but in an age of
corruption he was remarked for his integrity, and was never suspected
or accused of prostituting his public position for private ends. In his
capacity of Attorney-General Lord Campbell remarks of him:

'This situation he held above thirteen years, exhibiting a model of
perfection to other law officers of the Crown. He was punctual and
conscientious in the discharge of his public duty, never neglecting it
that he might undertake private causes, although fees were supposed to
be particularly sweet to him.'

But it was as a judge that he won imperishable fame, and one of his
biographers observes: [Footnote: See Dictionary of National Biography.]
'It is hardly too much to say that during his prolonged tenure of the
Great Seal (from 1737 to 1755) he transformed equity from a chaos of
precedents into a scientific system.' Lord Campbell states that 'his
decisions have been, and ever will continue to be, appealed to as
fixing the limits and establishing the principles of that great
juridical system called Equity, which now, not only in this country and
in our colonies, but over the whole extent of the United States of
America, regulates property and personal rights more than ancient
Common Law.'

He had a 'passion to do justice, and displayed the strictest
impartiality; and his chancellorship' is 'looked back upon as the
golden age of equity.' The Chancellor is said to have been one of the
handsomest men of his day, and 'his personal advantages, which included
a musical voice, enhanced the effect of his eloquence, which by its
stately character was peculiarly adapted to the House of Lords.'
[Footnote: Ibid.]

This is not the place for an estimate of Lord Hardwicke's political
career, which extended over the whole period from the reign of Queen
Anne to that of George III, and brought him into intimate association
with all the statesmen of his age. It was more especially as the
supporter of the Pelham interest and the confidant and mentor of the
Duke of Newcastle that he exercised for many years a predominant
influence on the course of national affairs both at home and abroad.
During the absence of George II from the realm in 1740 and subsequently
he was a member, and by no means the least important member, of the
Council of Regency. 'He was,' writes Campbell, 'mainly instrumental in
keeping the reigning dynasty of the Brunswicks on the throne'; he was
the adviser of the measures for suppressing the Jacobite rebellion in
1745, he presided as Lord High Steward with judicial impartiality at
the famous trial of the rebel Lords, and was chiefly responsible for
the means taken in the pacification of Scotland, the most questionable
of which was the suppression of the tartan! Good fortune, as is usually
the case when a man rises to great eminence, played its part in his
career. He had friends who early recognised his ability and gave him
the opportunities of which he was quick to avail himself. He took the
tide at its flood and was led on to fortune; but, as Campbell justly
observes, 'along with that good luck such results required lofty
aspirations, great ability, consummate prudence, rigid self-denial, and
unwearied industry.' His rise in his profession had undoubtedly been
facilitated by his marriage to Margaret Cocks, a favourite niece of
Lord Chancellor Somers, himself one of the greatest of England's
lawyer-statesmen. There is a story that when asked by Lord Somers what
settlement he could make on his wife, he answered proudly, 'Nothing but
the foot of ground I stand on in Westminster Hall.' Never was the
self-confidence of genius more signally justified than in his case. Not
only was his own rise to fame and fortune unprecedently rapid, but he
became the founder of a family many of whose members have since played
a distinguished part in the public and social life of the country. By
Margaret Cocks he had, with two daughters, five sons, the eldest of
whom enhanced the fortunes of the family by his marriage with Jemima,
daughter of the Earl of Breadalbane, heiress of Wrest and the other
possessions of the extinct Dukedom of Kent, and afterwards Marchioness
Grey and Baroness Lucas of Grudwell in her own right. Of his next son
Charles, the second Chancellor, something will presently be said.
Another son, Joseph, was a soldier and diplomatist. He was aide-de-camp
to the Duke of Cumberland at Fontenoy; and afterwards, as Sir Joseph
Yorke, Ambassador at the Hague. He died Lord Dover. A fourth son, John,
married Miss Elizabeth Lygon, of Madresfield. The fifth son, James,
entered the Church, became Bishop of Ely, and was the ancestor of the
Yorkes of Forthampton. I had the luck many years ago to have a talk
with an old verger in Ely Cathedral who remembered Bishop Yorke, and
who told me that he used to draw such congregations by the power of his
oratory and the breadth of his teaching, that when he preached, all the
dissenting chapels in the neighbourhood were closed!

It was in 1770, only six years after Lord Hardwicke's death which
occurred in London on March 6, 1764, that his second son Charles (born
in 1722) was sworn in as Lord Chancellor. His brilliant career ended in
a tragedy which makes it one of the most pathetic in our political
history. Although unlike his father in person he was intellectually his
equal, and might have rivalled his renown had he possessed his firmness
and resolution of character. He was educated at Cambridge, and before
the age of twenty had given evidence of his precocity as the principal
author (after his brother Philip) of the 'Athenian Letters,' a supposed
correspondence between Cleander, an agent of the King of Persia
resident in Athens, and his brother and friends in Persia. Destined to
the law from his childhood, Charles Yorke was called to the bar in
1743, and rapidly advanced in his profession. Entering the House of
Commons as member for Reigate in 1747, he later succeeded his brother
as member for Cambridge, and one of his best speeches in the House was
made in defence of his father against an onslaught by Henry Fox. But in
spite of his brilliant prospects and great reputation he always envied
those who were able to lead a quiet life, and he thus wrote to his
friend Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester:

'I endeavour to convince myself it is dangerous to converse with you,
for you show me so much more happiness in the quiet pursuits of
knowledge and enjoyments of friendship than is to be found in lucre or
ambition, that I go back into the world with regret, where few things
are to be obtained without more agitation both of reason and the
passions, than either moderate parts or a benevolent mind can support.'

Charles Yorke was an intimate friend of Montesquieu, the famous author
of the 'Esprit des Lois' and the most far-seeing of those whose
writings preceded and presaged the French Revolution, who wrote, '_Mes
sentiments pour vous sont gravés dans mon cœur et dans mon esprit d'une
manière à ne s'effacer jamais_.'

On the formation of a government by the Duke of Devonshire in 1756,
Charles Yorke was sworn in, at the early age of thirty-three, as
Solicitor-General, and retained that office through the elder Pitt's
glorious administration. In 1762 he accepted from Lord Bute the
Attorney-Generalship, in which position he had to deal with the
difficult questions of constitutional law raised by the publication of
John Wilkes's _North Briton_. In November of that year, however, he
resigned office in consequence of the strong pressure put upon him by
Pitt, and took leave of the King in tears. Pitt failed in his object of
enlisting Yorke's services on behalf of Wilkes in the coming
parliamentary campaign, and the crisis ended in an estrangement between
the two, which drove Yorke into a loose alliance with the Rockingham
Whigs, a group of statesmen who were determined to free English
politics from the trammels of court influence and the baser traditions
of the party system. When, however, this party came into power in 1765,
Yorke was disappointed of the anticipated offer of the Great Seal, and
only reluctantly accepted the Attorney-Generalship. The ministry fell
in the following year, partly in consequence of Pitt's reappearance in
the House of Commons and his disastrous refusal of Rockingham's
invitation to join his Government, though they were agreed on most of
the important questions of the day, including that of American taxation
and the repeal of the Stamp Act; and Pitt, who then (August 1766)
became Lord Chatham, was commissioned to form a new government in
which, to Yorke's mortification, he offered the Lord Chancellorship to
Camden. Yorke thereupon resigned the Attorney-Generalship, and during
the devious course of the ill-starred combination under Chatham's
nominal leadership--for during the next two years Chatham was
absolutely incapacitated from all attention to business, his policy was
reversed by his colleagues, and America taxed by Charles Townshend--he
maintained an 'attitude of saturnine reserve,' amusing himself with
landscape gardening at his villa at Highgate, doing its honours to
Warburton, Hurd, Garrick and other friends, and corresponding among
others with Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, to whom he had been
introduced by his brother Sir Joseph. Gradually, however, Chatham made
a recovery from the mental disease under which he had been labouring,
and in January 1770 he returned to the political arena with two
vigorous speeches in the House of Lords. His first speech spread
consternation among the members of the Government and the King's party,
led by the Duke of Grafton, who had assumed the duties of Prime
Minister; and one of the first effects of his intervention was the
resignation of Lord Camden, who had adhered to Chatham, and openly
denounced the Duke of Grafton's arbitrary measures. This event placed
the Court party in the utmost difficulty, and no lawyer of sufficient
eminence was available for the post but Charles Yorke, who thus
suddenly found within his reach the high office which had been the
ambition of his life. The crisis was his undoing, and the whole story
is of such interest from a family point of view, that, although it is
well known from the brilliant pages of Sir George Trevelyan's 'Life of
Fox,' I may be excused for telling it again, mainly in the words of two
important memoranda preserved at the British Museum.

One of these was written by Charles Yorke's brother, the second Lord
Hardwicke, and dated nearly a year later, December 30, 1770; the other,
dated October 20, 1772, by his widow Agneta Yorke; and the effect of
them, to my mind, is not only to discredit the widely believed story of
Charles Yorke's suicide, which is not even alluded to, but also to
place his action from a public and political point of view in a more
favourable light than that in which it is sometimes presented.

Both the 'Memorials' to which I have alluded give a most vivid and
painful account of the struggle between ambition and political
consistency which followed upon the offer of the Chancellorship by the
Duke of Grafton to one who was pledged by his previous action to the
Rockingham party. Lord Hardwicke wrote:

'I shall set down on this paper the extraordinary and melancholy
circumstances which attended the offer of the Great Seal to my brother
in January last. On the 12th of that month he received on his return
from Tittenhanger a note from the Duke of Grafton desiring to see him.
He sent it immediately to me and I went to Bloomsbury Square where I
met my brother John and we had a long consultation with Mr. Yorke. He
saw the Duke of Grafton by appointment in the evening and his grace
made him in form and without personal cordiality an offer of the Great
Seal, complaining heavily of Lord Camden's conduct, particularly his
hostile speech in the House of Lords the first day of the Session. My
brother desired a little time to consider of so momentous an affair and
stated to the Duke the difficulties it laid him under, his grace gave
him till Sunday in the forenoon. He, Mr. Y., called on me that morning,
the 14th, and seemed in great perplexity and agitation. I asked him if
he saw his way through the clamorous and difficult points upon which it
would be immediately expected he should give his opinion, viz. the
Middlesex Election, America and the state of Ireland, where the
parliament had just been prorogued on a popular point. He seriously
declared that he did not, and that he might be called upon to advise
measures of a higher and more dangerous nature than he should choose to
be responsible for. He was clearly of opinion that he was not sent for
at the present juncture from predilection, but necessity, and how much
soever the Great Seal had been justly the object of his ambition, he
was now afraid of accepting it.

'Seeing him in so low and fluttered a state of spirits and knowing how
much the times called for a higher, I did not venture to push him on,
and gave in to the idea he himself started, of advising to put the
Great Seal in commission, by which time would be gained. He went from
me to the Duke of Grafton, repeated his declining answer, and proposed
a commission for the present, for which precedents of various times
were not wanting. The Duke of Grafton expressed a more earnest desire
that my brother should accept than he did at the first interview, and
pressed his seeing the King before he took a final resolution. I saw
him again in Montague House garden, on Monday the 15th, and he then
seemed determined to decline, said a particular friend of his in the
law, Mr. W. had rather discouraged him, and that nothing affected him
with concern but the uneasiness which it might give to Mrs. Yorke.

'On Tuesday forenoon the 16th, he called upon me in great agitation and
talked of accepting. He changed his mind again by the evening when he
saw the King at the Queen's Palace, and finally declined. He told me
just after the audience that the King had not pressed him so strongly
as he had expected, that he had not held forth much prospect of
stability in administration, and that he had not talked so well to him
as he did when he accepted the office of Attorney-General in 1765; his
Majesty however ended the conversation very humanely and prettily, that
"after what he had said to excuse himself, it would be cruelty to press
his acceptance." I must here solemnly declare that my brother was all
along in such agitation of mind that he never told me all the
particulars which passed in the different conversations, and many
material things may have been said to him which I am ignorant of. He
left me soon after to call on Mr. Anson and Lord Rockingham,
authorising me to acquaint everybody that he had absolutely declined,
adding discontentedly that "It was the confusion of the times which
occasioned his having taken that resolution." He appeared to me very
much ruffled and disturbed, but I made myself easy on being informed
that he would be quiet next day and take physic. He wanted both that
and bleeding, for his spirits were in a fever.'

Up to this point Mrs. Yorke's account, written apparently to explain
and vindicate her own share in the transaction, tallies with that of
her brother-in-law, except that she states that Lord Hardwicke had been
much more favourable to the idea of Charles Yorke's acceptance than the
above narrative leads one to suppose; according to her the family felt
'it was too great a thing to refuse.' Lord Hardwicke's wife, the
Marchioness Grey, indeed, had called upon Mrs. Yorke to urge it, saying
among other things that 'the great office to which Mr. Yorke was
invited was in the line of his profession, that though it was
intimately connected with state affairs, yet it had not that absolute
and servile dependance on the Court which the other ministerial offices
had; that Mr. Yorke had already seen how vain it was to depend on the
friendship of Lord Rockingham and his party; that the part he had acted
had always been separate and uninfluenced, and therefore she thought he
was quite at liberty to make choice for himself, and by taking the
seals he would perhaps have it in his power to reconcile the different
views of people and form an administration which might be permanent and
lasting; that if he now refused the seals they would probably never be
offered a second time ... and that these were Lord Hardwicke's
sentiments as well as her own.'

Lord Mansfield's advice had been more emphatic still. 'He had no doubt
of the propriety of his accepting the Great Seal, indeed was so
positive that Mr. Yorke told me he would hear no reason against it.'
Mrs. Yorke herself was at first opposed to the idea; but influenced by
such opinions and by her husband's extreme dejection after refusing the
offer, she ended by strongly urging him to accept, and was afterwards
blamed for having encouraged his fatal ambition. Lord Rockingham alone,
who had been greatly dependent upon the advice and assistance of Mr.
Yorke, 'to whom,' as Mrs. Yorke remarks, 'he could apply every moment,'
and 'without whom he would have made no figure at all in his
administration,' put the strongest pressure on him to decline, for
selfish reasons as appears from Mrs. Yorke's story. It was therefore
against the advice of his own family and 'the generality of his
friends,' including Lord Chief Justice Wilmot, that Charles Yorke, in
obedience to his own high sense of political honour, at first refused
the dazzling promotion, and this fact must be recorded to his credit.

The decision, however, brought no peace to his mind, and ambition
immediately began to resume its sway. He passed a restless night, and
said in the morning to his wife 'that he would not think of it, for he
found whenever he was inclined to consent he could get no rest, and
want of rest would kill him.' But after another day, Tuesday, spent in
conference 'I believe with Lords Rockingham and Hardwicke,' he was
persuaded, by what means does not appear, to go again to Court. Lord
Hardwicke, who, as Sir George Trevelyan observes, played a true
brother's part throughout the wretched business, thus continues:

'Instead of taking his physic, he left it on the table after a broken
night's rest, and went to the _levée_, was called into the closet, and
in a manner compelled by the King to accept the Great Seal with
expressions like these: "My sleep has been disturbed by your declining;
do you mean to declare yourself unfit for it?" and still stronger
afterwards, "If you will not comply, it must make an eternal break
betwixt us." At his return from Court about three o'clock, he broke in
unexpectedly on me, who was talking with Lord Rockingham, and gave us
this account.

We were both astounded, to use an obsolete but strong word, at so
sudden an event, and I was particularly shocked at his being so
overborne in a manner I had never heard of, nor could imagine possible
between Prince and subject. I was hurt personally at the figure I had
been making for a day before, telling everybody by his authority that
he was determined to decline, and I was vexed at his taking no notice
of me or the rest of the family when he accepted. All these
considerations working on my mind at this distracting moment induced
me, Lord Rockingham joining in it, to press him to return forthwith to
the King, and entreat his Majesty either to allow him time till next
morning to recollect himself, or to put the Great Seal in commission,
as had been resolved upon. We could not prevail; he said he could not
in honour do it, he had given his word, had been wished joy, &c. Mr.
John Yorke came in during this conversation, and did not take much part
in it, but seemed quite astounded. After a long altercating
conversation, Mr. Yorke, unhappily then Lord Chancellor, departed, and
I went to dinner.

'In the evening, about eight o'clock, he called on me again, and
acquainted me with his having been sworn in at the Queen's house, and
that he had then the Great Seal in the coach. He talked to me of the
title he intended to take, that of Morden, which is part of the Wimple
estate, asked my forgiveness if he had acted improperly. We kissed and
parted friends. A warm word did not escape either of us. When he took
leave he seemed more composed, but unhappy. Had I been quite cool when
he entered my room so abruptly at three o'clock I should have said
little--wished him joy, and reserved expostulation for a calmer moment.'

Mrs. Yorke's account of these 'altercating conversations' between the
brothers, at the second of which, on the evening of the 17th, she was
herself present, is naturally much more highly coloured. Charles Yorke
was evidently terribly discomposed by it, speaking of Lord Hardwicke's
language as 'exceeding all bounds of temper, reason, and even common
civility.' 'I hope,' he said to his wife, 'he will in cooler moments
think better of it, and my brother John also, for if I lose the support
of my family, I shall be undone.'

I need not pursue the subject of this distressing difference between
the brothers, which no doubt assumed an altogether exaggerated
importance in the sensitive and affectionate, but self-centred, mind of
poor Charles Yorke, shaken as he was by the strain and struggle of
these days, but which was probably the immediate cause of his fatal
illness.

'We returned home' (from St. James's Square), writes Mrs. Yorke, 'and
Mr. Woodcock followed in the chariot with the Great Seal. The King had
given it in his closet, and at the same time Mr. Yorke kissed his
Majesty's hand on being made Baron of Morden in the county of
Cambridge. Not once did Mr. Yorke close his eyes, though at my entreaty
he took composing medicines.... Before morning he was determined to
return the Great Seal, for he said if he kept it he could not live. I
know not what I said, for I was terrified almost to death. At six
o'clock I found him so ill that I sent for Dr. Watson, who ought
immediately to have bled him, instead of which he contented himself
with talking to him. He ordered him some medicine and was to see him
again in the evening. In the meantime Mr. Yorke was obliged to rise to
receive the different people who would crowd to him on this occasion,
but before he left me, he assured me that when the Duke of Grafton came
to him at night, he would resign the seals. When his company had left
him, he came up to me, and even then, death was upon his face. He said
he had settled all his affairs, that he should retire absolutely from
business, and would go to Highgate the next day, and that he was
resolved to meddle no more with public affairs. I was myself so ill
with fatigue and anxiety that I was not able to dine with him, but Dr.
Plumptre did; when I went to them after dinner I found Mr. Yorke in a
state of fixed melancholy. He neither spoke to me nor to Dr. Plumptre;
I tried every method to wake and amuse him, but in vain. I could
support it no longer, I fell upon my knees before him and begged of him
not to affect himself so much--that he would resume his fortitude and
trust to his own judgment--in short, I said a great deal which I
remember now no more; my sensations were little short of distraction at
that time. In an hour or two after he grew much worse, and Dr. Watson
coming in persuaded him to go to bed, and giving him a strong opiate,
he fell asleep.

But his rest was no refreshment; about the middle of the night he
awaked in a delirium, when I again sent for Dr. Watson; towards the
morning he was more composed, and at noon got up. In about an hour
after he was up, he was seized with a vomiting of blood. I was not with
him at the instant, but was soon called to him. He was almost
speechless, but on my taking his hand in an agony of silent grief he
looked tenderly on me, and said, "How can I repay your kindness, my
dear love; God will reward you, I cannot; be comforted." These were the
last words I heard him speak, for my nerves were too weak to support
such affliction. I was therefore prevented from being in his room, and
indeed I was incapable of giving him assistance. He lived till the next
day, when at five o'clock in the afternoon, he changed this life for a
better.'

Lord Hardwicke meanwhile had decided to follow the very friendly and
right opinion of Dr. Jeffreys, 'that he would do his best to support
the part which his brother had taken,' and came to town with that
resolution on 'Friday in the forenoon' but he found that Charles Yorke
had been taken very ill that morning.

'When I saw him on the evening of the 19th he was in bed and too much
disordered to be talked with. There was a glimmering of hope on the
20th in the morning, but he died that day about five in the evening.
The patent of peerage had passed all the forms except the Great Seal,
and when my poor brother was asked if the seal should be put to it, he
waived it, and said "he hoped it was no longer in his custody." I can
solemnly declare that except what passed at my house on the Wednesday
forenoon, I had not the least difference with him throughout the whole
transaction, not a sharp or even a warm expression passed, but we
reasoned over the subject like friends and brothers.... In short, the
usage he met with in 1766 when faith was broke with him, had greatly
impaired his judgment, dejected his spirits, and made him act below his
superior knowledge and abilities. He would seldom explain himself, or
let his opinion be known in time to those who were ready to have acted
with him in the utmost confidence. After the menacing language used in
the closet to compel Mr. Yorke's acceptance and the loss which the King
sustained by his death at that critical juncture, the most unprejudiced
and dispassionate were surprised at the little, or rather no notice
which was taken of his family; the not making an offer to complete the
peerage was neither to be palliated nor justified in their opinion. It
was due to the _Manes_ of the departed from every motive of humanity
and decorum. Lord Hillsborough told a friend of mine, indeed, that the
King had soon after his death spoke of him with tears in his eyes and
enquired after the family, but it would surely not have misbecome his
Majesty conscious of the whole of his behaviour to an able, faithful,
and despairing subject, to have expressed that concern in a more
particular manner, and to those who were so deeply affected by the
melancholy event.

'A worthier and better man there never was, no more learned and
accomplished in his own profession, as well as out of it. What he
wanted was the calm, firm judgment of his father, and he had the
misfortune to live in times which required a double portion of it.
Every precaution was taken by me to prepare him for the offer, and to
persuade him to form some previous plan of conduct, but all in vain. He
would never explain himself clearly, and left everything to chance,
till we were all overborne, perplexed and confounded in that fatal
interval which opened and closed the negotiation with my brother. With
him the Somers line of the law seems to be at an end, I mean of that
set in the profession who, mixing principles of liberty with those
proper to monarchy, have conducted and guided that great body of men
ever since the Revolution.'

Fever, complicated by colic and the rupture of a blood-vessel, caused
Charles Yorke's death, the consequence of the extreme nervous tension
which he had undergone, of which his widow has left a most touching and
graphic description. I wish I could have found room for the whole of
her account of those days. The circumstances of his physical
constitution and the mental struggle he had suffered are quite
sufficient to account for his death without the gratuitous assumption
of suicide, which there is nothing in the family papers to support.
There is no doubt that this idea was prevalent at the time, and
allusions to it are to be found in many subsequent accounts, down to
that in Sir George Trevelyan's 'Life of Fox.' Perhaps it is not too
much to hope that this allegation may be at last disposed of in the
light of the papers by his brother and his wife. We have two clear and
positive declarations in these papers: first, that in the beginning of
his illness he declined his physic, and afterwards took an opiate;
second, that there followed the rupture of a blood-vessel. When Lord
Hardwicke saw him for the last time on the 19th he was 'extremely ill';
'there was a glimmering of hope on the 20th in the morning, but he died
that day about five in the evening.'

This is the summary of the evidence, which to my mind is conclusive.
Unless one assumes a conspiracy of silence between Lord Hardwicke and
Mrs. Yorke, I do not see that I can reasonably admit any other
hypothesis. I therefore claim that phrase of his brother's as a
solution of the supposed mystery of Charles Yorke's death.

If hereafter the vague rumours which have so long been current should
be supported by any real evidence, my judgment will be disputed, but I
am glad to have this opportunity of asserting my own firm conviction
that the version of the unhappy affair given in the family papers is
correct, and that Charles Yorke's death was due to natural causes.

Charles Yorke was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of
Williams Freeman, Esq., of Aspeden, Hertfordshire, by whom he had a son
Philip. This son succeeded his uncle as third Earl of Hardwicke, he
inherited the Tittenhanger and other estates (which passed away to his
daughters on his death in 1834) from his mother, and he is still
remembered for his wise and liberal administration as the first
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland after the Union (from 1801 to 1806), the
irritation and unrest caused by which measure he did much to allay.
[Footnote: A recent publication, _The Viceroy's Post Bag_, by Mr.
MacDonagh, gives some curious details of his correspondence from the
Hardwicke Papers at the British Museum.] As a Whig he had always been
in favour of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, and though he agreed to
postpone it on joining Addington's Administration, he adhered to the
cause till its triumph in 1829; and he gave a qualified support to the
Parliamentary Reform Bill in 1831. He was created a Knight of the
Garter in 1803, [Footnote: Lord Hardwicke married in 1782 Elizabeth,
daughter of James, fifth Earl of Balcarres, the sister of Lady Anne
Barnard, the authoress of _Auld Robin Gray_.] and had the misfortune to
lose the only son who survived infancy in a storm at sea off Lübeck in
1808 at the age of twenty-four. The succession to the peerage was thus
opened up to his half-brothers, the sons of Charles Yorke's second
wife, Agneta, daughter of Henry Johnston of Great Berkhampsted: Charles
Philip (1764-1834) who left no heir, and Joseph Sydney (1768-1831),
father of the subject of this memoir. I have already alluded to the
public career of their half-brother, the third Lord Hardwicke; and it
is interesting to see how the tradition of political and public work
was maintained by the two younger brothers, who both, and especially
the younger of the two, added fresh laurels to the distinguished record
held by so many of the descendants of the great Chancellor. The Right
Honourable Charles Yorke represented the county of Cambridge in
Parliament from 1790 to 1810, and joined Addington's Government at the
same time as Lord Hardwicke, first as Secretary at War in 1801, and
then as Secretary of State for the Home Department, till the return to
office of William Pitt (to whom he was politically opposed) in 1804. In
1810 he became first Lord of the Admiralty under Spencer Perceval, with
his younger brother Joseph as one of the Sea Lords, and retained office
till Perceval's assassination broke up the ministry; and when in 1812
Lord Liverpool became Prime Minister he left the Admiralty and never
afterwards returned to office, retiring from public life in 1818. The
splendid breakwater at Plymouth was decided on and commenced while he
was at the Admiralty, and a slab of its marble marks his tomb in
Wimpole Church.

With Joseph Sydney Yorke, afterwards Admiral and a K.C.B., opens a
chapter of family history with which this volume will be mainly
concerned; and the navy rather than the law or politics henceforth
becomes the chief interest of the story in its public aspect. Sir
Joseph, indeed, may be looked upon as a sort of second founder of the
family. Although Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, which the Chancellor
purchased from the Harleys, Earls of Oxford, was for many generations
the principal seat of the family, Sydney Lodge, on Southampton Water,
[Footnote: Attached to Sydney Lodge on the shore of Southampton Water
is a white battery containing guns taken from a French frigate and
bearing an inscription, written by my father, commemorating his last
parting with my grandfather, Sir Joseph. The battery encloses a well,
known as 'Agneta's Well,' which has refreshed many a thirsty fisherman.
The inscription is as follows:--

IN MEMORIAM

THESE GUNS WERE THE FORECASTLE ARMAMENT OF THE DUTCH FRIGATE 'ALLIANCE'

OF 36 GUNS

CAPTURED ON THE COAST OF NORWAY IN 1795

AFTER A CLOSE ACTION WITH H.M.S. 'STAG' OF 32 GUNS

COMMANDED BY CAPTAIN YORKE

OF SYDNEY LODGE

THE FATHER OF THE FOURTH EARL OF HARDWICKE WHO ON THIS SPOT IN 1829

PARTED FROM HIS BELOVED PARENT FOR THE LAST TIME

AND SAILED IN COMMAND OF H.M.S. 'ALLIGATOR'

FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN.

HE PLACES THIS STONE TO HIS FATHER'S MEMORY

September 4th, 1871] the charming house which Sir Joseph built out of
prize-money earned during the French wars, has all the associations of
a home for our branch of the family, and the love of the sea is an
inheritance which we all derive from him. His professional ability is
shown by the position he won in the service. Entering the navy in 1780
when he was fourteen, he had plenty of opportunity of active service in
those stirring times. After serving on board one or two other vessels,
Joseph Yorke joined the _Duke_ commanded by Sir Charles Douglas, whom
he followed to the _Formidable_. That vessel was one of Rodney's fleet
in the West Indies, and the boy fought in her at the famous action of
April 12, 1782 in which that admiral completely defeated the French
under De Grasse. He remained in the _Formidable_ until she paid off in
1783, and spent the years 1784-1789 on the Halifax station. In the
latter year he was promoted Lieutenant in the _Thisbe_ under Captain
Sir Samuel Hood and returned in her to England. Promotion followed
rapidly. Yorke became a Commander in 1790 and Captain in 1793, in which
capacity he served continuously on the home station, taking part in the
blockade of Brest, until the Peace of Amiens.

During this time he had the good fortune to capture several large
privateers from the enemy; he also took the _Espiégle_, a French
corvette, close to Brest harbour and in sight of a very superior French
squadron. In 1794 Captain Yorke was given command of the _Stag_, 32,
and cruised in the Channel later off the coast of Ireland, and later
still, with the North Sea Fleet under Lord Duncan.

'On the 22nd of August 1795, Captain Yorke being in company with a
light squadron under the orders of Captain James Alms, gave chase to
two large ships and a cutter. At 4.15 P.M. the _Stag_ brought the
sternmost ship to close action, which continued with much spirit for
about half an hour, when the enemy struck, and proved to be the
_Alliance_, Batavian frigate of 36 guns and 240 men. Her consorts the
_Argo_ 36, and _Nelly_ cutter, 16, effected their escape after
sustaining a running fight with the other ships of the British
squadron. In this spirited action, the _Stag_ had 4 men slain and 13
wounded, and the enemy between 40 and 50 killed and wounded.'

He was at the Nore during the dangerous mutiny of 1798, and he left
among his papers a very stirring address made to his crew on the day
that the mutineers were hung at the yard-arm. When the war broke out
again in 1803 he was again employed in the Channel, and after
commanding the _Barfleur_ and the _Christian VII_ he was appointed a
junior Sea Lord in May 1810, when his brother was First Lord. In this
year he was knighted when acting as proxy for Lord Hardwicke at his
installation as a Knight of the Garter; on July 31 he was promoted to
the rank of Rear-Admiral; and in the following January, with his flag
in the _Vengeur_, he was sent out with reinforcements for Wellington to
Lisbon. These were landed on March 4, 1811, and on the news being
received, Massena broke up his camp in front of the lines of Torres
Vedras and began his retreat. This was Sir Joseph's last service
afloat. In 1814, while still a member of the Board, he was appointed
First Sea Lord under Lord Melville as First Lord, and held that high
post till 1818, a period of office which covered Lord Exmouth's
expedition against Algiers in 1816. He became Vice-Admiral and Knight
Commander of the Bath on January 2, 1815, when he also received the
freedom of the borough of Plymouth, and he was made a full Admiral on
July 22, 1830. He had been member for Reigate since 1790, with an
interval as member for Sandwich, from 1812 to 1818.

Sir Joseph married in 1798 Elizabeth Weake Rattray and had a family of
four sons and one daughter, afterwards Lady Agneta Bevan. Lady Yorke
died in 1812, and in 1815 he married Urania, Dowager Marchioness of
Clanricarde and daughter of the twelfth Lord Winchester, who survived
him. During his later years he lived mostly at Sydney Lodge, occupied
with family interests, and in the administration of various charities,
naval and other. My grandfather was a fine type of English sailor, very
handsome in his youth, as Romney's portraits show, affectionate and
high-spirited; altogether one of the most attractive figures in our
family history. Some following chapters will show him in his relations
with his son, and mention the peculiar circumstances attending his
accidental death by drowning.




CHAPTER II

ALGIERS. 1815-1816


Charles Philip Yorke was born on April 2, 1799, at Sydney Lodge,
Hamble, and like his father, was destined from the first for a naval
career. He must have been quite a small boy when Sir Joseph presented
him to Lord Nelson, and the family tradition is that the hero accosted
him with a kind smile and said, 'Give me a shake of your daddle, my
boy, for I've only one to shake _you_ with.'

The boy was sent to Harrow, and after a few years at that school was
entered, in his fourteenth year, at the Royal Naval College at
Portsmouth, where he formed a friendship with John Christian Schetky,
then drawing master at the college, and later Marine Painter to Queen
Victoria, and a man of note in his profession. What little is known of
young Yorke's career at Portsmouth points to diligence and capacity,
for he gained the gold medal in his second year after little more than
eighteen months at the college, a distinction which ensured his
immediate entry into the service. On May 15, 1815, he was appointed
midshipman on board the _Prince Regent_, 98 guns, the flagship at
Spithead, and a training which stood him in good stead in after life
was begun under the commander of this vessel, Captain Fowke. A month
later he was transferred to the _Sparrowhawk_, a brig of 18 guns
commanded by Captain Baines, then under sailing orders for the
Mediterranean.

There was no coddling in the navy in those days, and those who survived
its rigorous life were probably the fittest. I have heard my father say
that at this period the middies' soup was served in the tin boxes which
held their cocked hats, and that one of their amusements was provided
by races round the mess table of the weevils knocked out of the biscuit
which was a part of their daily fare. Young Yorke, however, accepted
this life and its hardships with all cheerfulness; and the spirit with
which he entered the service and the interest he took in his profession
from the first are, I think, abundantly clear from a letter he wrote
home to his father on July 15, 1815 from the Mediterranean, off
Celebrina, after he had been a little more than a month at sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

'I am afraid you will be surprised at my not writing to you oftener but
I have had no opportunity of sending letters home, as we have spoken no
ships bound for England. I am happy to say that I am in perfect health
and have been so ever since I left you, and the hot country does not at
all oppress me, or make me uncomfortable, as I expected it would at
first, and I have not had a moment's sickness since I have been out. I
can only say that I am in every way so comfortable on the _Sparrowhawk_
that I have no desire to quit her at all. Perhaps you may think I am
comfortable in her through idleness and not having much duty put upon
me; but I am one of the three Mids in the ship and the duty is heavy,
there being only one Mid in each watch, and he has the duty of Mate of
the watch, there being none; but I like my messmates, and we have a
capital berth. Captain Baines is also a kind friend to me in every way;
whatever may be said of him is nothing to me, his advice and friendship
to me is good and kind; he keeps me in practice with my navigation, for
I work all the observations for the ship and take them also. It is, as
you may perceive by my writing, my wish to remain in her, but to the
will of my Father I submit; and I am also certain that seamanship and
my profession I shall learn by being six months in a brig. When we get
to Genoa I shall see Lord Exmouth, but I will not give your letter
until I hear from you again, but I shall tell him I have written to you
concerning the _Sparrowhawk_, and beg to remain in her till I hear from
you.

'I shall now give you some short description of our voyage. We sailed
from England on the Tuesday after I left you and tided it down channel,
at Yarmouth we went ashore with the Captain and Officers to play
cricket and had an excellent match, _Sparrowhawks_ against Rosarios. In
general we have had calms and fine weather, now and then a few puffs.
Cape St. Vincent was the first land we made, that was on the 9th July,
we anchored off the rock of Gibraltar on the 12th. Captain B. took me
ashore with him to see the place, it is a most extraordinary thing. It
is dreadfully hot, the reflection of the sun being so great; from
thence we sailed the following day and are now off Celebrina in a dead
calm. I think I shall see much of the Mediterranean in this ship, for
she will be always kept cruising and likely to stay out some time.
Yesterday we cleared for action for a large brig that was bearing down
upon us, but to our great disappointment, it proved to be an English
brig from Santa Maria to London with fruit. There is on board the
_Sparrowhawk_ a carpenter by the name of Beach who sailed with you on
the _Stag_, and he wishes to be shifted into a larger ship; if you
could at any time have a thing of that sort in your power, you will be
doing him the greatest kindness. He did not apply to you, because when
he was with you he refused a warrant, not thinking himself fit to hold
that situation. If you could do this, let me know, for I should like to
see him get a larger ship, for he is a most excellent man.

'17th.--Here we are still in the same place off Celebrina detained by
calms and light breezes, just now a breeze has sprung up which is
likely to last. Last night we all went overboard and had a delightful
bath.

'29th.--We have just arrived at Genoa after a tedious and unpleasant
voyage, the last six days squalls and heavy gales of wind and
lightning. Genoa is a most beautiful city, and situated most
delightfully. Last night I was at the Opera, and it is exactly the same
as our own in England, it is much larger and a most magnificent
theatre. The houses are mostly of marble and beautifully ornamented,
they are immensely high but the streets very narrow. There are no ships
here and we sail for Marseilles as soon as we have watered. Pray give
my best love to Lady C. and all hands on board.'

        *       *       *       *       *

It is of interest to note the mention in this letter of Charles Yorke's
first visit to Genoa, and the impression that beautiful city, 'Genova
la superba,' made upon his youthful imagination. As will appear further
on in this memoir, he visited it again some thirty-five years later in
very different circumstances, and that Genoa exists to-day, with much
of its beauty unimpaired, is mainly owing to the part played by Charles
Yorke when, as Lord Hardwicke, he again appeared in a British
man-of-war off that port.

The boy's wish to stay on the _Sparrowhawk_ expressed in this letter to
his father was not fulfilled, for a month after his arrival in the
Mediterranean he was transferred to the _Leviathan_, of 74 guns,
commanded successively by Captains F. W. Burgoyne and Thomas Briggs. In
her he remained a little less than a year, during which he had a
serious attack of scarlet fever followed by rheumatism, which left him
very weak, and raised a question as to whether he should be invalided
home. He was, however, exceedingly popular with his superiors, who were
most kind and attentive to him through his illness, and he was lucky
enough to recover without having to return to England. In August of
1816 he was again transferred, to the _Queen Charlotte_, Captain
Brisbane, a ship of the line of 120 guns, and the flagship of Admiral
Lord Exmouth, commanding in the Mediterranean.

The young midshipman was most fortunate in being stationed under that
command, for it was the one place in the world at that moment where
there was any probability of seeing active service. The supremacy of
the British navy which had been established over the fleets of France
and Spain at Trafalgar, and the recent peace which had followed the
defeat and surrender of Buonaparte, had removed any possibility of
collision with a European State. But, as a matter of fact, the naval
Powers, England in particular, had long been waiting an opportunity to
settle a long-standing account in the Mediterranean with a set of
potentates established on the north coast of Africa, who had for years
availed themselves of the dissensions between the Great Powers to carry
on a system of piracy and rapine of the most insolent and atrocious
character. During the naval wars which had lasted with short intervals
for half a century, the fleets of England, France, Spain, and Holland
had been so much occupied in fighting each other that they had been
unable to bestow much attention on the doings of these petty rulers,
who were known collectively as the Barbary States, individually as the
Deys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. All of these owned nominal
allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey at Constantinople when it suited
them, but in reality claimed and exercised complete independence when
such was convenient to any purpose they had in hand.

For half a century at least, the depredations of these barbarians had
made the Mediterranean a sea of great peril for the merchant vessels of
all nations, and even for the fighting ships of the smaller
Mediterranean powers like Naples and Sardinia, whose weakly manned
vessels were often no match for the galleys and feluccas of the Barbary
corsairs. The ruffianly Deys made little attempt to conceal the
piratical nature of their proceedings, and became a perfect scourge not
only to the mariners of all nations in the Mediterranean, but also to
the unfortunate inhabitants of its shores. They ravaged the islands and
coastline of the mainland wherever there was plunder to be gained or an
unprotected town to be raided, impudently hoisted the flags of one or
other of the great naval powers then at war, and preyed upon the
commerce of the rest, plundered and burned their shipping, and, worst
of all, consigned the crews of the vessels they captured or destroyed
to all the horrors of slavery in a Mohammedan country.

Among these Barbary Powers the Deys of Algiers had long been the most
powerful and the most truculent. During a lull in the fighting between
France and England in the middle years of the eighteenth century,
Admiral Keppel, [Footnote: Admiral Keppel, second son of the second
Earl of Albemarle, created Viscount Keppel for his gallant services;
died unmarried in 1786. He was the eponymous hero of so many public
houses.] then a very youthful-looking captain, had been sent with a
squadron to curb the insolence of the Dey of that period, which he
effected without the firing of a shot. Keppel demanded an interview
with the Dey, and went ashore to the palace without a guard, and stated
his business in very plain terms. The Dey wondered at the presumption
of King George in sending a beardless boy as his ambassador. 'The King
my master,' replied Keppel, with a glance at the Dey's hairy
countenance, 'does not measure wisdom by the length of the beard, or he
would have sent a he-goat to confer with your Highness.' The Dey raged
at this bold repartee, and began to speak of bowstrings and the
ministers of death. 'Kill me, if you will,' replied Keppel, pointing
through the open window to his squadron riding in the roadstead, 'and
there are ships enough to burn your city and provide me with a glorious
funeral pile.' Keppel's firmness had the result of checking the
Algerian piracies for a time, but during the long wars between the
Powers which were shortly resumed, these were overlooked in the press
of matters of more urgency, and it was only with the return of a
permanent and general peace, as already noted, that the Powers had
leisure to turn their attention to a state of things in the
Mediterranean which had long been intolerable.

In view of her established supremacy at sea, England was generally
regarded as the police-constable of Europe in naval affairs, and upon
her fell the chief duty of chastening the Dey of Algiers, though on
this occasion the Dutch Government also lent its assistance. Quite
early in the spring of 1816, Lord Exmouth placed himself in
communication with the Dey, and stated the terms of the British
demands. These were that the Ionian Islands, long a hunting-ground for
the Barbary pirates, should be henceforth treated as British territory;
that the British Government should be accepted as arbitrator between
the Barbary Powers and Naples and Sardinia, who had a long list of
claims and grievances against them; and that the Barbary Powers should
enter into a definite undertaking to abolish all slavery of Christians
within their dominions, and to treat all prisoners of war, of whatever
nation, in accordance with the customs of civilised nations. The Dey
agreed to the first two demands and released the Ionian slaves as
British subjects, but declined all promises as to the abolition of
slavery. Leaving that matter in abeyance, Exmouth sailed on to Tripoli
and Tunis, whose Deys he found more amenable to reason, and who
consented to make declarations in the form demanded by the British
Admiral upon all three points.

Exmouth then returned to Gibraltar, where his squadron was assembled,
and at once resumed negotiations with the Dey with the intention of
procuring his adhesion to the all-important undertaking to abolish
Christian slavery. The Dey, after many evasions, at length repeated his
refusal on the ground that he was a subject or vassal of the Sultan,
and could not consent to so important a stipulation without his
authority. Exmouth granted a delay of three months accordingly, and
himself lent a frigate, the _Tagus_, to convey the Dey's envoy to
Constantinople.

Meanwhile, however, the Dey committed an unpardonable atrocity. A coral
fishery at Bona worked under the British flag was suddenly and
treacherously destroyed by an attack of the Algerines. The fishermen
engaged at their work were, without warning of any kind, almost
annihilated by artillery fire from the fort and by the musketry of 2000
Algerian infantry, their houses and goods were given over to the
looting of the soldiery, the company's stores and magazines were
rifled, and their boats either seized or sunk. This atrocity, of
course, put an end to all negotiation, and the Admiral, who had sailed
for England, was at once directed by the British Government to complete
the work which he had initiated, and to exact the most ample
satisfaction and security for the future. He was offered any force that
might be necessary, and surprised the naval authorities by his opinion,
which was the result of observation upon the spot, that five
line-of-battle ships, with frigates, bomb vessels and gun brigs, would
be sufficient for a successful attack on the formidable defences of
Algiers. In less than two months Lord Exmouth commissioned, fitted,
manned and trained his fleet, and on August 14, 1816, the expedition,
including his own flagship the _Queen Charlotte_ of 120 guns, the
_Impregnable_ of 98, three vessels of 70 guns, the _Leander_ of 50,
four smaller frigates and several armed vessels of lesser tonnage,
sailed from Gibraltar. One of these, a gunboat, towed by the _Queen
Charlotte_ from that port, was placed under the command of Charles
Yorke, who had just completed his seventeenth year. The English
admiral's force was joined at Gibraltar by a Dutch squadron of five
frigates and a sloop under Admiral Baron von de Capellan.

On the very eve of the sailing of this powerful force, young Yorke
wrote home a letter to his father which shows the spirit of the young
sailor and the enthusiasm which animated the fleet.

        *       *       *       *       *

'MY DEAR FATHER,

'We are hove to for a Packet, and she is coming up fast, so my stave
will be short, with a strong breeze, which is to say I am quite well.
We have a great deal to do, shall be at Gibraltar to-morrow if the wind
holds. We clear for action there, and leave all our chests, bulkheads,
and everything we have except guns, powder, shot, &c. &c. of which we
have not a little.

'I have the honour to command one of H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte's_ boats
on service, and if there is any work, expect to cut no small caper. I
have seen the plan of attack; all our fire is to be on the mole head.
Us, the _Leander_, _Superb_ and _Impregnable_ are to be lashed together
and as near the walls as possible. _Minden_ engages a battery called
the Emperor's Fort, and _Albion_ stands off and on to relieve any
damaged ship. As soon as the Mole is cleared, we are to land; glorious
enterprise for the boats.

'Give my love to dearest Uranie and Lady C. [Footnote:
Dowager-Marchioness of Clanricarde, his stepmother.] &c. &c.

'Your affecte.

'C. YORKE.'

        *       *       *       *       *

The British fleet with its allied Dutch squadron arrived off Algiers on
August 21. Lord Exmouth had sent in advance a corvette with orders to
endeavour to rescue the British Consul, a humane effort which, however,
succeeded only in rescuing that gentleman's wife and child, and
resulted, on the other hand, in the capture of the boat's crew of
eighteen men. The captain of the corvette reported that the Dey refused
altogether to give up that official, or to be responsible for his
safety, and also that there were 40,000 troops in the town, in addition
to the Janissaries who had been summoned from distant garrisons. The
Algerine fleet, he said, consisted of between forty and fifty gun and
mortar vessels, as well as a numerous flotilla of galleys. Works had
been thrown up on the mole which protected the harbour, and the forts
were known to be armed with a numerous artillery and to be of excellent
masonry with walls fourteen to sixteen feet thick. The Dey, thinking
himself fairly secure behind such defences, was prepared with a
determined resistance.

On August 27, Lord Exmouth sent a flag of truce restating his demands
and giving a period of three hours for a reply. Upon the expiration of
that term and on the return of the flag of truce without an answer, he
anchored his flagship just half a cable's length from the mole head at
the entrance of the harbour, so that her starboard broadside flanked
all the batteries from the mole-head to the lighthouse. The mole itself
was covered with troops and spectators, whom Lord Exmouth vainly tried
to disperse before the firing began by waving his hat and shouting from
his own quarter-deck as the flagship came to an anchor at half-past two
in the afternoon.

'As soon as the ship was fairly placed,' writes Lord Exmouth's
biographer, 'the sound of the cheer given by the crew was answered by a
gun from the Eastern Battery; a second and a third opened in quick
succession. One of the shots struck the _Superb_. At the first flash
Lord Exmouth gave the order "Stand by," at the second "Fire." The
report of the third gun was drowned by the thunder of the _Queen
Charlotte's_ broadside.'

Thus opened an engagement which is memorable among the attacks of
fleets upon land fortifications, and which fully justified Lord
Exmouth's opinion that 'nothing can resist a line-of-battle ship's
fire.' The Algerine tactics were to allow the British squadron to come
to an anchor without molestation, and to board the vessels from their
galleys while the British crews were aloft furling sails, for which
purpose they had thirty-seven galleys fully manned waiting inside the
mole. To the surprise of the enemy, however, the British admiral had
given orders for the sails to be clewed from the deck, instead of
sending men aloft for the purpose, and the British ships were thus able
to open fire the moment they came to an anchor. The result of this
smart seamanship was an instant disaster for the Algerines; their
galleys were all sunk before they could make the few strokes of the oar
which would have brought them alongside, and tremendous broadsides of
grapeshot from the _Queen Charlotte_ and the _Leander_ shattered the
entire flotilla, and in a moment covered the surface of the harbour
with the bodies of their crews and with a few survivors attempting to
swim from destruction.

On the molehead the effect of the British fire was terrible; the people
with whom it was crowded were swept away by the fire of the _Queen
Charlotte_, which had ruined the fortifications there before the
engagement became general, and then crumbled and brought down the
Lighthouse Tower and its batteries. The _Leander's_ guns, which
commanded the principal gate of the city opening on the mole, prevented
the escape of any survivors.

The batteries defending the mole were three times cleared by the
British fire, and three times manned again.

'The Dey,' wrote a British officer on the _Leander_, 'was everywhere
offering pecuniary rewards for those who would stand against us; eight
sequins were to be given to every man who would endeavour to extinguish
the fire. At length a horde of Arabs were driven into the batteries
under the direction of the most devoted of the Janissaries and the
gates closed upon them.'

Soon after the battle began, the enemy's flotilla of gunboats advanced,
with a daring which deserved a better fate, to board the _Queen
Charlotte_, and a few guns from the latter vessel sent thirty-three out
of thirty-seven to the bottom. Then followed the destruction of the
Algerine frigates and other shipping in the port, which were set on
fire by bombs and shells and burned together with the storehouses and
the arsenal.

The Algerines, none the less, made a most determined resistance, and
maintained a fire upon the squadron for no less than eleven hours.
Young Charles Yorke was in command of a tender of the flagship which
was moored near to his parent ship, and was consequently in the midst
of the hottest fire, within sixty yards of the mouths of the enemy's
guns, throughout the engagement. Long before that period had elapsed,
however, he found himself running short of ammunition, and taking one
marine in his dinghy, pulled in her to the _Queen Charlotte_, climbed
her side and made his way to the quarter-deck, where, saluting Lord
Exmouth, he said, 'Sir, I am short of ammunition.' 'Well, my lad,'
replied the admiral, 'I cannot help you, but if you choose to go below,
and fetch what you want yourself, you are very welcome.' Charles Yorke,
wishing for nothing better, again saluted and withdrew. He then
descended into the flagship's magazine, and single-handed brought up
1368 lbs. of ammunition, which he lowered over her side to his single
marine in the dinghy, and in her returned to his gunboat to resume his
firing until the close of the action, when, by the aid of a land
breeze, which turned about half-past eleven into a tremendous storm of
thunder and lightning, the fleet was able to draw out from the
batteries. Nothing had been able to resist the concentrated and
well-directed fire, and the sea defences of Algiers, with a great part
of the town itself, had by this time been shattered and reduced to ruin.

This success was only purchased at heavy cost, for the British
casualties, considering the size of the squadron, were enormous, the
_Impregnable_ being the chief sufferer. One hundred and twenty-eight
men were killed and 690 wounded, while the Dutch lost thirteen and
fifty-two respectively. The _Leander_ had every spar injured and her
rigging cut to pieces, and when her cables were at last shot away, was
unable to set a single sail, and so was drifting helplessly ashore,
when a fortunate change of wind allowed her boats to bring her to a
second anchorage. On the flagship the enemy's fire was so hot that Lord
Exmouth himself escaped most narrowly, being slightly wounded in three
places, and the skirts of his coat were shot away by a cannon-ball.

When the morning broke, the admiral found that he had brought the Dey
to reason. Having first beheaded his prime minister, that potentate
released the British Consul and the boat's crew he had detained before
the action, handed over the ransom money he had extorted from captured
subjects of Naples and Sardinia in exchange for their freedom,
amounting to no less than 382,000 dollars, and undertook, 'in the
presence of Almighty God,' to release all Christian slaves in his
dominions, to abandon the enslavement of Christians for the future, and
to treat all prisoners of war with humanity until regularly exchanged,
according to European practice in like cases. About 1200 slaves, the
bulk of them Neapolitans and Sicilians, were embarked on the 31st,
making, with those liberated a few weeks before, more than 3000 persons
whom Lord Exmouth thus had the satisfaction of delivering from slavery.
He sailed away from the city without leaving a single Christian slave,
so far as could be gathered, in either of the Barbary States.

Charles Yorke's conduct at this engagement was fully recognised by
Captain Brisbane, who, when the young midshipman came to leave the
_Queen Charlotte_ a few months later, wrote his certificate in the
following terms:

        *       *       *       *       *

'These are to certify the principal officers and commissioners of His
Majesty's navy that Mr. Charles Philip Yorke served as midshipman on
board H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte_ from the 11th day of July to the 16th
October 1816, during which time he behaved with diligence and sobriety,
and was always obedient to command. His conduct at the battle of
Algiers was active, spirited, and highly meritorious.

'(Signed) JAMES BRISBANE,

'_Captain._'

        *       *       *       *       *

Charles Yorke's share in this action, together with his later services,
is recorded on a tablet, next to a similar one to Lord Exmouth, in the
English chapel at Algiers, by his daughter, the writer of the present
memoir.

It may be added that he always cherished the memory of the
distinguished admiral under whom he served on this occasion, and that
in later years he purchased from Sir William Beechy's studio a portrait
of Lord Exmouth on his quarter-deck at Algiers, in full dress and
orders as the naval fashion then was, which hung on the great staircase
at Wimpole.

Still in his seventeenth year, Charles Yorke had not yet served long
enough for promotion, and was transferred on October 17 of the same
year, 1816, to the _Leander_, commanded by Sir David Milne, who had
been second in command at Algiers, and was then under orders for the
North American station at Halifax, where the _Leander_ shortly sailed.




CHAPTER III

THE NORTH AMERICAN STATION. 1817-1822


A few letters which my father wrote home from the Halifax station,
covering a period of about twelve months from July 1817, I set out here
as giving better than any comment of my own an account of his life and
experiences in Nova Scotia at that time. They present a self-reliant
character, and the young midshipman who was so early recognised by his
superior officers as efficient and capable was found worthy of a small,
but most important, command soon after joining this station. His
father, Sir Joseph Yorke, who lost no opportunity of watching his son's
progress in his profession, was a little nervous at his undertaking a
responsibility of the kind, but how well his superiors' confidence was
justified will be evident from his letters. Young Yorke was full of
pride in his little sloop the _Jane_, and there is no hint in his
letters of the risk and danger of this service. As a fact, she was an
exceedingly difficult craft to handle, and if not unseaworthy, was, to
say the least, an unpleasant vessel in a sea, with decks constantly
awash, and the character she bore in the service appears in her
nickname the _Crazy Jane_. I have often heard my father describe this
as a most arduous and dangerous service, and say that life upon the
_Jane_ was 'like living on a fish's back.' In her he made voyages to
Bermuda from Halifax and back with despatches and ships' mails in very
heavy weather, and I find the following note referring to this service
in my mother's handwriting:

'C. commanded the _Jane_ at the age of nineteen, carrying mails from
Bermuda to Halifax during winter months when ordinary mail was struck
off, during which perilous service he had not a man on board who could
write or take an observation. This _crazy Jane_ was hardly seaworthy,
and he finished her career and nearly his own by running her into
Halifax Harbour in the dark, all hands at the pump.'

His certificate from Sir David Milne contains the following passage:

'Mr. Charles Philip Yorke, Midshipman of H.M.S. _Leander_, commanded
the _Jane_, Sloop, tender to the said ship bearing my flag, from the
23rd of December 1817 to the date hereof, during which time he took her
twice in safety from Halifax to Bermuda, and from Bermuda to Halifax,
and was at sea in her at different other periods, and conducted himself
at all times so as to merit my entire approbation.' Dated 28th December.

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. 'LEANDER,' HALIFAX:

July 10, 1817.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I almost fear my letters have not reached you, for the May packet has
arrived, and no letters. But silence I always take in a favourable
light, so I conclude you are all well and happy; indeed I had a letter
from Lady St. Germans which informed me so.

'I am, thank God, very well and like my station very much; it is really
a very pleasant place, and the inhabitants attentive and hospitable. I
am now very well acquainted all over Halifax thanks to Captain Lumley's
kindness; pray tell him so, for the family he introduced me to is very
pleasant and kind, so that it is a great comfort to go on shore, and to
be able to spend your evenings among friends instead of being obliged
to go to a dirty tavern.

'I have been on several very delightful fishing parties, and have never
returned with less than three or four dozen fine trout. This will make
the English sportsmen stare, but the fishing here is beyond everything
I could have imagined. The shooting has not come in as yet, and does
not until August, and then it will be very fine.

'The way I go fishing is this. I have got an Indian canoe, and I just
jump into it with my gear, paddle on shore, shoulder it, and carry it
to the lakes. I am become quite an Indian in the management of this
canoe, and with the expense of only one ducking. I was upset in the
harbour, but swam on shore and towed the canoe and all with me quite
safe. I can paddle this canoe much faster than any gig in the fleet.

'We are now just on the point of sailing for Shelburne with Ld. and
Lady Dalhousie, and I fancy shall be absent about ten days. The _Jane_
has not yet arrived, so I am still a mid, not a captain, but expect her
hourly. Last Monday we mids of the _Leander_ gave a grand entertainment
to the inhabitants of Halifax and officers of the fleet; a play, ball,
and supper, which went off remarkably well. _The Iron Chest_ was the
play; the _Wags of Windsor_ the farce. I did not perform being steward
of the supper, but merely spoke the prologue. Our stage was very large
and scenery very good, and on the whole, nothing could go off with more
_éclat_ than it did.

'The girls of Halifax are pretty, generally speaking, and certainly
rather ladylike in their manners, but not very accomplished, but there
is one thing very formidable in their structure, which is tremendous
hoofs, so that a kick from one of them would make you keep your bed for
a week. But they certainly are 50 degrees better than the Bermudians,
they are very affable and agreeable, which is the great point to an
indifferent person.

'Now I have tired your patience with lots of nonsense, which in fact is
all the news I have to tell, so you must excuse it. Give my kindest
love to Lady Clanricarde, Urania, and all the boys, not forgetting
little Agneta, who by this time must be grown and improved much.

'I remain, my dear Father,

'Your most affectionate son,

'C. P. YORKE.'

SIR J. S. YORKE,

_Admiralty._

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. 'LEANDER,' HALIFAX HARBOUR:

Aug. 8, 1817.

'MY DEAR FATHER,

'I have received your letter by this packet, and am very sorry to find
you disapprove of my commanding the Admiral's tender, and am also
astonished to find that you can imagine I have so little command of
myself that I cannot keep from what you term "low company." This is a
thing which since I have been at sea I have never kept, and especially
at a time when I had charge of a vessel and the safety of men's lives.
I am happy to say I took care of myself and of the vessel, and pleased
the Admiral as much as I could wish. I have not got the large tender,
as I expected, on account of a prior application having been made,
which I am now glad of, as you disapprove of the sort of thing, and it
certainly will deter me from accepting any offer of the kind made to
me, though at the same time I consider myself perfectly capable in
every sense of the word.

'I am very glad to hear Grantham has so well got over the measles.

'We have had a very pleasant trip along shore to Shelburne, Liverpool
and Mirligash(?), all of which ports you knew well in their former
state. Shelburne now is miserably fallen off, not above 200 inhabitants
in that once populous town, and more than half the houses falling to
the ground, having no owners. I asked the price of a good house and
about 40 acres of land, and they said the most they could ask for it
would be £30, a cheap place to settle, for provisions also are cheaper
than anywhere I have been. Liverpool is a very flourishing little town,
and on the contrary with Shelburne, a rising place with a vast deal of
commerce and trade which keep the place quite alive. At these two
places I had capital fishing both salmon and trout. I caught one day at
Liverpool three very fine salmon and two or three dozen trout. In this
country they take most with the fly, and it does not matter of what
description. I am now become a very expert fly fisherman, make my own
flies, &c. Pray next season send me out a good assortment of fly gear
which is rather difficult to get here and not good.

'I am going to-morrow to Salmon River, a very fine river about seven
miles inland on the Dartmouth side. I was there last week with two of
our officers, and between the three of us we caught eleven dozen salmon
trout. Fine sport, and all with the fly. Do not forget to send me a
flute as soon as possible and some music; let it be new. Give my
kindest love to Lady C., Urania, and all hands. How delightful the
Lodge must look. I suppose the Urania is by this time ready for sea,
and Henry fighting captain. I must say I envy your circle, but Adieu!

'I remain, my dear Father,

'Your most affectionate son,

'C. P. YORKE.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Aug. 14.

'I imagined that the packet was just going to sail, but I am happy to
say I am disappointed because I have a little news to tell you. I am
just returned from a cruise of rather a curious sort. I have been sent
along the coast with a party of armed men to take some smugglers who
ran from the _Leander_. I landed at Chester, and marched and rode just
as I could to Lunenburg, but without success, and then back, and so
about twenty miles to the eastward. It gave me a good opportunity of
seeing the country, and made it very pleasant, from the kindness and
hospitality of the inhabitants. I have no doubt I shall have many of
these trips from being in the admiral's and captain's notice. This
letter I send by Moorsom, whom you may recollect when I was at college.
Now I shall conclude with love and best wishes to all.'

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. 'LEANDER,' HALIFAX: Novr. 12, 1817.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I received both your most kind letters by the _Forth_ and packet,
which as you may suppose, gave me great pleasure and satisfaction. I
return you my most grateful thanks for your great kindness in attending
to my little wishes, and hope the things will arrive quite safe. I have
written as you wished to Lady St. G. and told her all the news I could
think of, which I shall now relate to you.

'We have not been out of harbour since the cruise to the east, so I got
leave of absence and accepted the invitation of Judge Wilkins (Lumley's
friend) to go and spend some time with him at Windsor, a small town
about forty-five miles N.E. of Halifax, where I assure you, I passed my
time very pleasantly in shooting, fishing, &c. In that part of Nova
Scotia the country is beautiful, completely cleared of wood, very well
cultivated, and yields to its owners immense crops of grain. I am now
returned to the ship, and we sail for Bermuda in about a fortnight or
three weeks. This I am rather sorry for, for Halifax is very pleasant
during the winter, and Bermuda always very much otherwise. But Sir
David Milne dreads the cold, so we go.

'I am remarkably well in every point, and find the climate agrees with
me very well indeed. I am glad to hear Urania made her _début_ with so
much _éclat_ in the _beau monde_ at Winchester, pray let me also hear
of her in town. I am glad to hear all the boys are well and getting on
so fast in their respective schools. Agneta [Footnote: Agneta,
afterwards Lady _Agneta Bevan_.] by this time must be a very fine
little girl; does she ever talk of me? I really have no news to tell
you worth mention, but the service is very stale for want of war, every
day the same story. Adieu, my dear Father.

'Your most affectionate son,

'C. P. YORKE.

'Tell my uncle Mr. Yorke I will write to thank him for his present as
soon as I have it in my possession.'

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. SLOOP 'JANE,' BERMUDA:

Jan. 23, 1818.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I sit down to write to you after rather a long silence, but I have
been quite well and by no means ill employed. I did not hear from you
by the last packet, so by your silence I consider all is well and right
in England.

'I have the satisfaction to communicate to you I am honoured by the
command of the _Jane_ Sloop on this station, which command I shall in
all probability keep till my return to England. The young man who
commanded her before and whom I superseded, was obliged to invalid from
her after he brought her from Halifax. She sailed in company with us
and we experienced a heavy gale of wind, and the poor _Jane_ was nearly
lost, but escaped with the loss of her bulwarks. She really is a
beautiful vessel; was a Yankee clipper in the war; 80 tons and 12 men.
I am remarkably happy in her, as you may suppose. I anticipate much
pleasure going up the St. Lawrence in her next summer. I am sure you
will be happy to hear of my good luck, but pray do not have any more
dreads of my inability to command. I positively would not accept it if
I thought myself in the least inadequate to undertake it. I have now
again fitted her at the dockyard at Ireland where I saw much of your
friend Commissioner Lewis, who really is to me a very kind and
affectionate friend; I like him exceedingly.

'The packet is just arrived, and I have received your letter of the
26th ult, and likewise one from Lady St. G. You may believe your letter
gave me sincere gratification to find that I am giving you all
satisfaction; it is the first wish of my heart to be a credit to my
friends and an honour to my country. It is not my wish to be expensive
in the least beyond what it is necessary for a gentleman to be, to pay
my debts, have a good coat on my back, and sufficient in my pocket
never to be made look foolish. Now that I keep house for myself I
shall, I fear, be a little more expensive, for reasons which you must
well know, and the first fit out is the worst and greatest, after that
all is regular, and I am sure you do not wish me to live on His
Majesty's own altogether. Bermuda is a terrible dear place.

'This vessel you may know something of by hearsay, Mr. Brett, the 1st
Lieut. of the _Wye_ had her up the Bay of Fundy.

'You may rely on it I will express your gratitude to Lord Dalhousie for
his attentions to me the very first time I have an opportunity. I need
not express to you how much I regret the loss of your departed friend
Mrs. Rattray, but her great sufferings in this world made it rather a
blessing than otherwise, especially to one I believe to have been so
truly good. Your advice of the prudence of keeping a ship's head off
shore when near the land at night is a point of my profession I have
long seen the absolute necessity of, especially on the coast of Nova
Scotia where the fogs are so intense, and the shore so dangerous. But
if ever there was in my humble opinion a lubberly series of accidents
from the time she got on shore to the time she was on her beam ends
alongside the wharf, it was on board H.M.S. _Faith_. The first thing
she did after getting on shore was to anchor in Halifax harbour with
her B.B. anchor without a buoy on it, slipped her cable and never
buoyed it, took in moorings, unshipped her rudder and let it go to the
bottom; slipped her anchors without a buoy on them, and to cap the
whole, let three of her guns fall overboard in getting them out
alongside the wharf. Sir D. Milne was furious, no wonder. I am sure I
can with pleasure meet you halfway in your wishes to establish a free
intercourse of sentiment between us, for I am perfectly sure, my
dearest Father, I can nowhere find a better friend and adviser.

'I am exceedingly happy to hear so favourable accounts of the
youngsters, and of Lady Clanricarde and her fair daughter.

'Bermuda is a dull place. I am perfectly at my ease and my own master,
and the only things which annoy me are the tremendous gales of wind
which blow here, and which I, of course, feel much in the _Jane._ The
admiral did think of sending me to the West Indies for a cruise, but I
believe that is dropped, as he now and then uses me to sail him about
for his health. I am a very good pilot for Bermuda, what with the
schooner and sloop _Jane_.

'Remember me most kindly to all; I shall answer Lady St. G. immediately.

'Adieu, my dear Father,

'Your affectionate son,

'C. P. YORKE.'

        *       *       *       *       *

'JANE,' HALIFAX: June 16, 1818.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'... I am still in the _Jane,_ and continue in every way to give
satisfaction. I brought her from Bermuda, parted company from the
squadron in a fog, and got in before the admiral; you may suppose I was
not a little pleased with my navigation. I have pretty often the honour
of presiding at my own table, as Sir David often takes trips with me
along shore, on fishing excursions, &c. &c., which makes it exceedingly
pleasant.

'... I have been somewhat uneasy about some drafts upon you--heavier
than usual--and I fear you will be led to think I am getting into an
extravagant turn, but it is not so, I assure you. In this vessel I am
obliged to find everything, and Bermuda charges are so extravagant that
nothing can equal them. At any time you please to call for my bills and
receipts they are at your service, but mark, I have no debts. I never
leave a port that I do not pay every shilling. Pray let me know what
you wish; if Sir D. Milne goes home, shall I return with him or not? I
have not quite a year more to serve; or shall I remain with Ld. --- who
I understand will supersede him?...

'C. P. YORKE'

        *       *       *       *       *

'JANE,' HALIFAX:

Aug. 19, 1818.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'It is with the greatest pleasure I received your most kind and
affectionate letter from St. James's St. I am delighted to see by your
letter you are recovering your spirits and that you have been elected
for Reigate, for I should have been very sorry for both you and my
uncle to give up.

'I am happy to inform you that I am in perfect health and enjoying all
the happiness that that invaluable blessing brings, and all the little
comforts which your bounty affords me, together with the happiness
which the perfect approbation of my superiors and respect of my
inferiors can alone give a man. I feel your great kindness and
generosity more than I can express; by the way you speak on money
matters I hope to God I never may offend you by an absurd extravagance.

'I am excessively delighted with all you say of my kind family,
particularly Lady St. G. who I am truly rejoiced to hear is so much
better. Say everything that is kind from me to her, and my apology for
not writing is that my right hand is very weak, as you may see from my
writing, from an inflammation I have had in it occasioned entirely by a
slight scratch on the knuckle of the fore finger; but it is now quite
well, but still weak.

'You are now enjoying the sweets of Sydney Lodge and its appendages,
the _Urania_ by no means the smallest of the inanimate sort, on board
of which ship I hope your 1st Lieut. that gallant officer Mr. H. Yorke
continues to give perfect satisfaction, and also the mate of the decks,
Mr. E. Y. mid. continues to improve his mind in those studies which a
young gentleman of his abilities should attend to. I am very happy to
hear Urania is grown up so fine a young woman; I most sincerely hope
that all the wishes of her fond and amiable mother may be perfectly
fulfilled. Pray give my love to her, if I may say so much now, if not,
my esteem and regard. Pray give my love to Lady C. and tell her that I
look forward with extreme pleasure to the time when I shall see her and
all the family. Among my remembrances do not forget Nurse Jordan.

'Now I will tell you the little or nothing I have been doing since I
arrived. I sailed on the [ ] of June on a cruise of pleasure having the
honour of the company of Sir D. Milne and Col. Duke. We sailed up the
Muscadobit, or Bank's Inlet, to fish, in which river the pilot ran us
ashore three times; each time obliged to shore up, being left almost
dry at low water, and on one night about eleven, all in bed, down she
came bumpus on her bilge; in consequence of our shores being made of
trees with the bark on, the bark and lashings went together. We
returned to Halifax where I refitted, and have not been out since, but
sail on Monday on a cruise to the eastward in company with _Leander_
and _Dee_, which will be very pleasant, as we touch at every harbour
where there is lots of sport. Oh, I quite forgot to thank my uncle and
yourself for the books that are coming....

'C. P. YORKE.'

        *       *       *       *       *

'JANE,' HALIFAX:

Octr. 19, 1818.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'... We had a very agreeable cruise of six weeks and on my return I am
now fitting for Bermuda, to which place we sail next Sunday in company
with _Leander_ and _Belette_. I have not time to give you an account of
our cruise, so I must defer it to my next; suffice it to say I have
enjoyed most perfect health and my little command now in high order and
beauty....

'C. P. YORKE'

        *       *       *       *       *

My father got his first promotion as acting lieutenant on the
_Grasshopper_ early in 1819 at the age of twenty, and was confirmed in
that rank by commission bearing date of August of the same year. In the
following October he joined the _Phaeton_ frigate, on which vessel he
served during the rest of his service on the North American station
until 1822, when he got a second step.

There is no doubt he learned his profession very thoroughly during
those years in the North Atlantic; he deplores the absence of the
excitement of war in one of his letters, but he had ample opportunity
of graduating in the details of seamanship, which, like other
professions, can be best learned at an early age, and by those whose
hearts are in their work and are diligent in their business. In those
qualities my father was certainly not lacking, though he managed to
procure a share of enjoyment, which is the privilege of youth and high
spirits. There are many anecdotes told of him at this time. On one
occasion he swam across the harbour at Halifax, a feat which, in the
circumstances, I have heard described with great admiration. On
another, a lady giving a ball and wishing to prolong the pleasures of
the evening, consulted Lieutenant Yorke as to the best way. She
suggested putting back the clocks, but he advanced a step or two on
that proposal, and while dancing was going on vigorously, stepped away
and hung all the ladies' cloaks on a large tree not far from the front
door. Imagine the confusion and merriment! I have often heard him tell
the story.

His next appointment, in 1822, was to the command of the brig
_Alacrity_, where I shall be able to follow him in some interesting and
important service on the Mediterranean station.




CHAPTER IV

GREEK PIRACY. 1823-1826


Charles Yorke, having attained the rank of commander in May of 1822,
was in August of the same year appointed to the command of the sloop
_Alacrity_, and in her sailed to the Mediterranean in the autumn,
anchoring at Gibraltar on November 29. He was dispatched to that
station to take up some important duties in the Greek Archipelago,
which arose out of the Greek War of Independence, then in full progress.

Until the year 1821, the Greeks, though often ready to rebel against
the Turkish government at the instigation of the agents of foreign
Powers like Russia or France, had shown little capacity for any really
national movement. But the gradual spread of liberal ideas which
followed the French Revolution; the bravery which distinguished the
resistance of certain sections of the Hellenic peoples, such as the
Suliotes, and Spakiots of Crete; the aspirations of Ali Pacha, who
conceived the idea of severing his connection with the Sultan and
assuming the independent government of Albania; the impunity with which
the Klephts or pirates pursued their calling in the Levant, all
combined to demonstrate the real weakness of the Turkish rule, and at
last brought about a national rising.

This is not the place to enter into any detailed account of the War of
Independence which followed, but its main events must be mentioned in
order to make clear the letters which my father wrote from the scenes
of the disturbance. The insurrection was begun in 1821 by Prince
Alexander Hypsilantes, who crossed the Pruth in March of that year, but
his efforts failed and he fled to Austria three months later; and other
movements in the northern provinces had a similar fate. But the rising
in the Peloponnesus under Germanos, the Archbishop of Patros, was more
successful; his forces drove the Turks before them, and the
independence of the country was proclaimed in January of 1823. The
Greeks, however, displayed little power of combination, and their
partial success was followed by internal dissensions which greatly
weakened their cause. Mavrocordato was elected president, but the
aspirants for honours and leadership were numberless, the various
factions were continually quarrelling with each other, and there was at
length open civil war inspired by Colcotronis.

Meanwhile the aspirations of Greece had excited great sympathy
throughout Europe; a Greek Committee was formed in London; the
Philhellenes became very powerful in most countries on the continent,
as well as in America, and many volunteers, of whom Lord Byron was a
notable example, enlisted in the cause of Greek liberty.

The Greek fleet, led by Miaoulis from 1823 onward, was exceedingly
active; the Greek seamen inspired the Turks with great terror, and did
immense damage to their fleets. The Turks retaliated by taking
vengeance on the unprotected islands of the archipelago, and committed
unspeakable atrocities on the inhabitants of Chios in 1822, and two
years later upon those of Kasos and Psara. In 1824 the Sultan invoked
the aid of Mehemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt, whose stepson, Ibrahim, landed
in the Peloponnesus and with his Arab troops carried all before him,
when the Greeks lost most of what they had acquired. The war, however,
was continued for many years; Lord Cochrane became admiral of the Greek
fleet and Sir Robert Church took command of the land forces. The action
of Navarino, which occurred in 1827 almost by accident, had a great
effect upon the fortunes of the struggle. The fleets of England,
France, and Russia were cruising about the coasts of the Peloponnesus
to prevent the ravages of the Turkish fleet on the islands and
mainland, and selected a winter anchorage at Navarino, where the
Turkish and Egyptian fleets lay. The Turks thinking they were menaced
opened fire upon the combined fleets, and were annihilated in the
engagement which followed. In the following year the Greeks had the aid
of the French, who cleared the Morea of Turkish troops, and by the end
of the year Greece was practically independent. Some anarchy followed
the assassination of the President Capodostrias in 1831, but at length
Otho of Bavaria was crowned king, and in 1832 a convention was signed
by which the protecting Powers of Europe recognised the new kingdom and
assigned its limits; and Greece attained an independence which she has
since maintained.

Among the results of this long period of anarchy and insurrection was
an outbreak of piracy among both Greeks and Turks. Individual
chieftains called their followers together, established their
head-quarters in out-of-the-way creeks, and preyed upon the commerce of
the Levant without any interference from their Government. As in the
case of the Barbary Powers, the depredations of these pirates became at
length so intolerable that the Governments of Europe were obliged to
interfere for the protection of their subjects.

Commander Yorke's part as representing his country in the mission he
undertook, to put down this state of things, appears fully in the
letters written to his father at intervals, which follow, and we there
see the important position he had to fill. He was, as he says, in those
eastern waters in the double capacity of warrior and diplomatist, or in
other words to command a neutral armed vessel, act impartially between
Greek and Turk, and protect trade from the piracies of both nations.
This was no easy task, and it appears that though his sympathies were
with the Greek cause, of the two he preferred the Turk as by far the
best to deal with.

It will be seen that he had to go round visiting the chief islands,
Corfu, Cephalonia and Zante, and ascertain from the governors if they
had any grievances to be remedied. He had no positive orders for his
guidance, but only 'act as you think most fit.' Often he found himself
in difficulties without even an interpreter, and so obliged to make
himself understood, if he could, in French. His short but graphic
description of Lord Byron at Missolonghi and his rencontre with Colonel
Leicester Stanhope will interest many readers.

From a journal kept by Commander Yorke during this service, which he
heads 'A few Miscellaneous Remarks. H.M. Sloop _Alacrity_,' beginning
in 1823, and now with the Hardwicke MSS. at the British Museum, I find
a few facts which supplement those of the letters. He records receiving
much civility from Lord Chatham at Gibraltar, and sailed from that port
on December 2 in company with the _Sybella_ for Malta, a passage which
occupied about fourteen days. After ten days at Malta refitting, he was
ordered to proceed to the Ionian station. He describes with great
admiration the beauty of the scene at sunrise on New Year's Day of 1824
as the _Alacrity_ made the coast of Epirus, the snow-covered mountains
of Albania contrasting with the green and fertile shore of Corfu with
its olive gardens reaching down to the water's edge. At Corfu he dined
with commissioners, generals, and at messes; and records meeting Lord
Byron's 'Maid of Athens,' 'who is now rather _passée_, but certainly
has remains of a fine face and a bad figure; large feet, of course,
that all the Greeks have,' he writes. There are accounts of other
diversions, including a week's shooting with a Mr. P. Steven and the
officers of the 90th Regiment, which he describes as 'a marvellous
slaughter of woodcocks,' after which he sailed to Missolonghi, where he
arrived on January 23. The letters describe his further experiences.

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. 'Alacrity,' Gibraltar:

Nov. 29, 1823.

'My dearest Father,

'I this morning at six o'clock anchored under the cloud-cap't top of
this extraordinary rock, and found that _Alacrity_ had made a better
passage by some hours than either _Ganges_ or _Sybella_ who are all
here. I paid my devoirs to Lord Chatham who asked after you, also your
old Teetotum G--- who I found in the very act of entertaining the
ladies of Gib with breakfast, music and a trip to Algeciras in the
_Tribune's_ boats to spend the day. He seems in great force and sorry
to leave this part of the world, indeed, they say that love has much to
do in the case. I afterwards paid my devoirs to the American Commodore,
Jones, who is here in the _Constitution_, and went over his ship; I
felt proud to see the ship that had captured our frigate--she is
enormous. Her cable and rigging in inches the same as the _Ganges_ by
level measurement, for they have taken the pains to examine, but she is
now in what I should call a state of nature as bad as I could wish to
see a Yankee in, with 450 men on board who look as if they were tired
of their work, and the officers say so.

'I have met a very intelligent man just left Cadiz, and have seen and
conversed with some of the Spanish Constitutionalists. Spain is in a
dreadful state; anarchy, confusion, highway robbery and assassination
daily take place. The game is up, if France has got and will keep
military possession of Cadiz. The French are disgusted with the whole
thing--the country and the people.... Officers and nobles are on the
highway.

'I shall sail for Malta on Monday. I am engaged in taking big guns up.
_Alacrity_ is the most comfortable vessel I have ever been in.

'Adieu. Love to all.

'Your affectionate and dutiful son,

'C. YORKE.

'I sailed without my Government chronometers, they were so bad I would
not take them, but the one C--- has on board is capital and we made the
rock to a mile.'

        *       *       *       *       *

GIBRALTAR:

March 9, 1824.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'It is a long while since I have had an opportunity of putting pen to
paper to address you, not having been in any Christian Port for some
time, nor have I received a single line from any one since I left you.

'I am just arrived at this port having brought Convoy from Malta, and
now I am here I think I had better begin at the other end of my story,
and so come down to the present time, instead of going back; relating
all the little matters just as they are and how H.M. sloop and her crew
have been employ'd since I last address'd you from the same place.

'I sailed from Gibraltar to Malta in company with my friend Capt.
Pechel, and after remaining at that Island for ten days to put a little
to rights I proceeded to the Ionian Islands and there, as I believe I
before told you, to act in the capacity of warrior and diplomatist, or
in other words, as an arm'd neutral vessel between the Turks and
Greeks, to protect our trade from the piracies of both Nations, I
assure you no very easy task, but certainly of the two the Turk is the
best by far to deal with. I visited the Islands of Corfu, Cefalonia and
Zante, inquiring of the Governors and if they had any abuses to be
remedied, and I soon had over ten Petitions from Merchants whose boats
had been plundered and pillaged by both parties.

'Now we are on this station placed in rather awkward circumstances,
having no positive orders how to act in cases of refusal and obstinacy
on the part of these People, but only, _to act as you think most fit_;
how the Government would bear us out in any act of violence such as
taking by force that which they will not give up I know not; even with
justice on your side, I question much whether they would support you.

'I ask'd and consulted Sir T. Maitland on the mode I should adopt, but
he seem'd to advise that where they had captured a vessel, or property,
and refused to give it up on a fair review of the case, to take "vi et
armis" an equivalent or the vessel that committed the act. Thus armed
with his opinion it was not long before an opportunity offered, and
one, take it all in all, which was to me most interesting. A vessel of
the Greek fleet had captured an Ionian vessel coming from Patras to
Zante with a cargo "_as the Petition stated_" worth 400 Dollars, and
having plundered her and ill used the crew, permitted the vessel
herself to depart. This petition is put into my hands by Col. Sir F.
Steven the resident of Zante, for here a Capt. of a man of war is a
species of Penang Lawyer, and whenever a petition comes to any of these
gentlemen they always say "Oh! give it the Capt. of the Brig or
Frigate, &c. he will soon settle it, and do it by _Club Law_." However
away I went to Missolonghi, and anchored off the Town on the 23rd of
Jany. observing ten sail of Turkish men of war to leeward, went on
shore, and with much difficulty we poked our way through the narrow
channels of this extraordinary place, there being a low flat of sand
turning out from the land about seven miles; it seems to be the only
defence the town has. Had an interview with Mavrocordato who received
me of course, with civility, on Divan, supposing that I came to do him
no good, having with me two or three officers and an arm'd boats crew.
When I landed I met with a face that put me in mind of Hyde Park,
Balls, Parties, Almacks, &c. This was no one more or less than Col.
Leicester Stanhope come out with Jeremy Bentham under his arm to give
the Greeks a constitution.

'Powerful in strength must he be who can manage this; long in pocket,
with a head filled up with every talent that man is capable of
possessing and a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, with no more words
than are absolutely necessary to warn people, if they do not do this,
that they will have a chance of being sent to sleep with their Fathers.

'St. James's Street and English notions must be abolish'd, so must all
Romance of Liberty and the children of the antient Greeks struggling to
shake off the yoke of the bloody Turk; Lord Byron knows all this, and
is in fact the only man that has ever come out to them who understands
the people. He was at Missolonghi, living in every way like a great
Chief; and in fact he is so, arm'd to the teeth with 500 Suliotes, the
bravest and best troops the Greeks have, and twenty German Veterans,
besides a certain Count Gamba, a beautiful Albanian Page, an Italian
Chasseur, and an old Scotch butler, making in all about 530 well arm'd
men, besides the Suliotes from all parts of Greece flocking to him
daily, he could if he liked set up a Govt. in Missolonghi, but as he
hates governments, and likes this sort of life where his nod and beck
are a law, he will have nothing to do with their legislation altho'
they come and offer to place him at the head of the Government
victorious. He however has pay'd their fleet for them, who immediately
landed their Admiral and sailed away the Lord knows where. 'The first
interview I had with this Prince Mavrocordato I could do nothing, as I
plainly saw they were detaining me while they made out a case and that
Stanhope's wits were put in requisition. In addition to which I had no
interpreter, and so I was obliged to speak French, the only other
language Mavrocordato understood besides Greek. So I broke up the
interview by saying it was late and that I should wait on him again
to-morrow. This however I did not effect, as it blew a gale on the
following day, but the next I again saw him, and having previously put
a few questions to the purpose on paper I defeated his quibbles, and
made him refund in hard dollars the value of the cargo, threatening
that if he did not I should burn, sink and destroy immediately. I gave
him four hours to consider of it, and stay'd with Ld. Byron until the
time elapsed, much amused by all his sayings and anecdotes, firing
pistols at a mark, eating, &c. &c.

'The time pass'd and the money came; thus ended my diplomatic Mission
at Missolonghi. I have just seen some English papers, they talk of
Missolonghi having sixty pieces of Cannon and a large garrison.

'I can only say from personal knowledge that if it has sixty pieces of
Cannon they are all on the wrong side, or where the Dutchman had his
anchor. The garrison consisted of about 1000 arm'd men 500 of whom were
Lord Byron's Suliotes. The only defence towards the sea is what
bountiful Nature has given it, and a small fort on an island with two
guns, one dismounted, much more like a pig stye than a fort. In short
there seem'd to me to be nothing to prevent the Turkish Admiral from
landing men and destroying every soul in the place, but their style of
warfare is very harmless (except now and then, when they catch some
poor devil alone, then they murder him). The Greeks talked much of a
fine ship, and Ld. Byron recommended Mavrocordato to take boat with him
in the evening and "smoke a cigar against the Turkish fleet" which
however he declined. I was obliged soon to return to Zante for water,
intending to go up to Lepanto and be present at the storming of that
place by the Greeks. Ld. Byron and myself had agreed, he was to lead
the attack and indeed had undertaken the Enterprise entirely, and as he
jocosely observed to me a very fit man he was as he could not run if he
wished, alluding to his club foot; but it was otherwise ordained, for
to my great grief news one evening was suddenly brought me as I was
dining at the Mess of the 90th Regt. of the loss of H.M. sloop
_Columbine_ at Sapienza, my friend Abbot's ship. I lost no time in
being at sea and was with him on Saturday the 31st of Jany. having put
to sea from Zante with a gale from the N.W. and had much ado to keep
clear of the Coast of the Morea. On my arrival in Porto Longue, I found
my friend and his crew all well having only lost two people; the brig's
tops just above water; she was lost by parting her S.B. cable, and had
not room to bring up; she soon bilged on the rocks, and the people had
much ado to save themselves; little or no property was saved, they had
tents on shore and miserable enough, as the rain was almost constant.
The Pasha of Modon é Aron supplied them with provisions and was most
attentive to them. Abbot and myself pay'd our respects to the old boy,
he regaled us with Pipes and Coffee: and acknowledgement was made him
for his attentions to the shipwreck'd crew by a salute of twenty guns
from H.M. sloop, four of my cut glass tumblers as sherbet glasses, and
1 lb. of Mr. Fribourg's and Palets' best snuff. I think you will laugh
at our presents to him, but I assure you it was thought much of, and
highly valued. I think the Turks, tho' they speak seldom, yet when they
do are more profuse in their compliments and fine speeches and
questions than any people I have ever seen.

'I am obliged to close my discourse as I am ordered to take another
convoy, and a ship is this moment weighing for England.

'So with affte. Love to Lady C.: and all haste,

'Believe me most sincerely,

'Your affte. Son,

'C. YORKE.'

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. 'ALACRITY,' MALTA:

May 24, 1824.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I am once more in this part after divers peregrinations and events
which in due time I shall narrate. But first of all I am in despair at
hearing from no single soul in the land of Roast Beef. One solitary
letter from yourself is all I have received since I sailed from
England. You last heard from me from Gibraltar where I was waiting to
take Convoy to Cape St. Vincent having brought four sail to that place.
Made short work of the Cape St. Vincent trip having a gale of wind
through the Gut of Gib. And not able to show a stitch of canvas, so
next day I was able to haul my wind again having made the Cape. The
letter which I hope you received was sent by one of the ships. On my
return to Gib. I again three days afterwards took convoy to Malta where
I did not remain more than six hours being called on to perform a
service of some delicacy; different are the opinions of the way in
which I acquitted myself but I feel conscious of having strictly done
my duty, and if I have done wrong, all that I have to say is that the
laws of nations were not the groundwork or capital of my education, but
it has made me take books up a little in that way. The fact was a
vessel under English colours received on board at Rhodes 250 Algerians
to take passage to their native city (among whom was the brother-in-law
of the Dey) with all their money and effects; on this passage they hear
of the war between their country and our own, the master of the vessel
wishes to bear up for Malta but the Turks will not allow it, and he is
obliged to use the stratagem of cutting his main topmast rigging and so
let the mast go overboard for his excuse. He cannot reach Malta, but he
gets into Messina, the Consul for our Government there was applied to
in this matter by the Sicilian Authorities, & as by the salutary laws
of that country no barbarians can perform quarantine in any of their
ports, it became their desire to get her away. The master of the
_Crown_ refuses to go, stating that his life was in absolute danger
from the people. I arrived in Malta from Gib with Convoy and in six
hours after I sailed for Messina with orders and that caused his
untimely end.

'Give my kindest love to Lady Clanricarde and if she wants Turkey
carpets, shawls, &c. &c. now is the time. Affectionate love to all. I
wish Hy. was with me, I think if he would read as he travelled he would
make good use of his time.

'Your affectionate son,

'C.Y.'

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M.S. 'TRIBUNE,'

In the Channel off Corfu, on the coast of Epirus:

July 16, 1824.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I am here with G--- under sail and about to eat the gouty old
Commodore's dinner, _Alacrity_ in company. We start together for Zante,
Cephalonia, Cerigo, &c. though I leave him to take command in the
Archipelago.

'He is, as you well know, all that a kind and affectionate friend can
be. I wrote you a few days ago a very short letter and one that I know
you will abuse much when you receive it, but I promise a long one when
I am in for the Station and business that will naturally occur
therefrom. I have already one affair in hand with a Greek corvette for
plunder which will be acted on by me in a burning manner, for these
fellows require it.

'All the Algerian business is settled and the Admiral has expressed
himself well pleased with my conduct. Hamilton of the _Cambria_
promised me to see you and acquaint you with all particulars of the
affair.

'Love to all.

'Your affectionate son,

'C. Y.'

        *       *       *       *       *

H.M. SLOOP 'ALACRITY,' SMYRNA:

Sept. 17, 1824.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'I received your kind letter of the 1st of May a few days ago at
Spezzia on the Gulf of Napoli di Romania (Nauplia) by H.M.S. _Martin_
which arrived from Malta. Capt. Eden commands our little squad (for
squadron I will not call it as there are only 46 guns among three of
us) and being my senior officer has of course taken possession of the
Green Bag, & my command in these seas has expired after having held it
nine weeks. 'I believe before I go further it will be wise of me to
explain to you what this "Green Bag," as I call it, is, and when you
hear I rather think you will be a little amused.

'From the present state of Greece and the islands in the Archipelago
some Greek, some Turk, some both, and some neither, much piracy and
murder goes on against all the flags of Europe; and of course we fall
in for our share, and hardly a week passes but some appeal to humanity
or justice is brought to the Senior Officer, or any cruizing ship in
the Archipelago, indeed of late owing to the small force up this
country these papers have so accumulated that a large bag became
necessary to hold them, and when I gave up my command to Eden of the
_Martin_, up the side after me came the "awful Green Bag." The Senior
Officer here is in himself an Admiralty Court for all the Archipelago,
and a most difficult and delicate service it is, for _"truth is never
to be got at"_ and the Ionian who is always the person aggrieved is as
bad as the Greek. I foresee myself getting into a discussion, but I
must say a little of my opinions to you, faulty as they most likely
are, yet such has been the impression made on my mind by what I have
seen and heard; but I shall not break out here as I wish to give you an
outline of what I have been about since I left Malta.

'I had a passage of five weeks to Smyrna touching at Corfu and Milo and
delivering at the former 120,000 Dollars for the Government, found our
friend Guion there as much the ladies man as ever. I gave you a line
from _Tribune_ myself, I parted from her two days afterwards. After
remaining a few days at Smyrna I sailed on a cruizer leaving the _Rose_
there for the protection of the Trade. But before I weigh and make sail
I shall say something of John Turk, who has always stood rather well
with me until you take him into the field, and there he is bloody,
cruel, ferocious and desperate but _not brave_. In the drawing room he
is polish'd, well bred, and from the pomp and magnificence of style in
which he lives he cannot fail at first to impose on the stranger a good
opinion of at least his gentlemanly manners, and courtlike behaviour.
On my arrival at Smyrna I did not fail as soon as I was able to gain an
interview with Hussan Pacha, the Governor. This man gain'd his
Government by some merit of his own; marching thro' Smyrna on his way
to take possession of his Pachalick with his troops, he was called on
by the Authorities and Consuls of foreign powers to exercise his
military authority in restoring order to the town which was at this
time (1821) in a state of anarchy, massacre and cruelty, against the
Greeks; he undertook the task and succeeded in restoring order and
stopping the slaughter in twenty-four hours, after which service, in
consequence of a representation from the Consuls, the Porte confirm'd
him to the Government.

'My party on the visit consisted of Capt. Dundas, Mr. Whitehead (the
Admiral's son who has been with me from Malta) Lt. Trescott and Mr.
Forester Wyson, with the Dragoman; we were received with all due
respect and pomp and after many compliments, pipes, coffee, sherbet,
&c. &c. we took our leave. The conversation that took place is not
worth relating, as it was of that nature which such a visit might be
supposed to produce.

'I afterwards went a round of visits to the Turkish nobles and
principal officers of the Town, Delibash Beys, Beys, Agas, &c. &c.
Smyrna is a large town, and like all other Turkish towns has narrow
streets, low dirty houses, and long Bazaars; the people from their
costume and arms forming the most amusing and picturesque objects of
the whole. Here and there you saw strong symptoms of firing in the
dominions of the Porte, doors full of shot-holes, and now and then a
random ball whizzing over your head. Above the town on an eminence is a
very picturesque old castle built by the Genoese, now in ruins and
nothing more than a very beautiful object, and one of the finest
roadsteads in the Mediterranean. The country at the back of Smyrna is
rich and beautifully wooded.

'I rode out one evening with Capt. Dundas to the Consul's, the roads
infamous and my horse stumbling exceedingly I did not quite enjoy the
beauties of Asia, and the romance of the ride thro' the burying-place
of the Turk, studded with the Turban [Footnote: The Turks at the top of
the tombstone have the turban of their rank] or stone and Cypress, as
much as I ought.

'On the 4th of July, I sailed from Voorla, a watering place on the
south side of the Gulf of Smyrna, for Psara and arrived there on the
5th. The Turks having attacked the place on the 3rd, which they carried
in about twelve hours, excepting a strong work on the west end of the
Island which did not fall till the following day. I thought at first
that this had been a decided and bloody blow struck at the root of the
Greek revolution, but the Turk has gone to sleep since, or nearly. I
have myself little doubt that the French had much to do with the
capture of this island, for I learnt from many that a Frigate had been
at Psara on the 22nd of June, and for four successive days had sounded
round and round the Island and then sailed for Mytilene where the Capt.
Pacha was. Moreover when I was on board the Pacha's ship he show'd me a
Chart or plan of the Island, which the moment I saw it, I exclaimed
"This is done by a Frank," and he said, yes that it had been done for
him. The attack was made on the north side, the only place in this
Island that Turkish troops could land on with safety, and even here the
pass was so narrow up the mountain that only one man could pass at a
time. To shew the difficulty of gaining ground, and how easily this
place might have been defended, one Greek who was near the spot asleep
on hearing a noise jumped up, and with his single arm killed seven
Turks, one after the other as they came up; and then fled.

'As soon as I anchored on the roadstead, I sent to say I wished to pay
my respects to the Captain Pacha, who returned a very civil answer, and
I went _en grande tenue_, to see this mighty conqueror and Royal
Prince. Our interview was truly amusing. I began with saying that
having anchored in the road, and finding his fleet there (which
consisted of one 80 gun ship, seven frigates and about eighty
Corvettes, Brigs and Transports) I had come to pay my respects to him
and to congratulate him on his successes over his enemies; he whimpered
and simpered, like an old woman, thank'd me, but pretended to be
excessively sorry for the loss of life on the part of the Psariotes,
_he_ having taken very good care that not a _man_ on the Island should
have his head left on his shoulders; but the women would not give him a
chance, they did that which would do honor to the Antient Hist: of
Greece! throwing their children from the precipices into the sea, and
then following themselves. The Pacha told me he had not taken a single
woman, and only a few children, that some of the boats pick'd up
floating. We conversed on different topics, but more particularly on
the politics of Turkey and Greece. I ask'd him if he meant to strike
the iron while it was hot, and get on to Hydra, and strike a blow
there, telling him at the same time that I was going to the Naval
Islands on business and should tell all I had seen. He replied, "No, I
love the Hydriotes." The crafty old dog loves them like a cannibal
"well enough to eat them." After having sat above an hour (for I was
determined to see all I could) he was called out by the Admiral who
whispered in his ear; out he went, I was curious, and walked to the
front part of the cabin opening a little of the Door; I saw him on the
deck surrounded with Turkish soldiers who were each producing their
day's work, in the process of extermination. Each head got the
possessor a few Liqueurs. After he came into the cabin again, I tax'd
him with what he had been at. He smiled and ask'd me should I like to
see it. I told him I had read of these things among Eastern nations,
but was not quite sure before that it was true, upon which he not
knowing that I had seen a great deal, ordered the head of a Greek
Priest just taken off, and still reeking with gore, to be brought in to
me, which was accordingly done. After this I took my leave of the Old
Turk, who pressed my hand cordially; I ask'd his permission to go on
shore, but he would not give it, saying that it was a horrid sight and
that most likely I should be shot myself. The Turks here killed about
8000 Greeks and lost themselves by their own account about 3000, but
the fact is they cannot tell, for they never know the number of people
they have on board.

'Ismail Pacha had one of his Captains wounded, and he ask'd me to allow
my surgeon to visit him, which I did. This Ismail Pacha is an Albanian
and served under the old lion Ali for a long while and was by him
raised to a Pachalick which was confirm'd to him by the Porte after the
death of Ali; he commanded the 12,000 men that landed at Psara. Another
desperate act of heroism took place in the strong fort situated on an
eminence at the West End of the Island, it held out till the last and
was not destroy'd until everything was lost. The Turks had made a
forlorn hope to storm it, the Greeks allowed them easy access, then
fired the magazine. Thus perish'd 1000 Greek men, women and children
and 400 Turks. I sailed in the evening after saluting the Pacha with
twenty guns, and saw them fire the Town, the Plunder being finish'd.

'From Psara to Hydra where I had a grievance to try to redress, but
from its being a year old, I had much fear that with my small force I
should not be able to effect that which a larger ship would have
immediately succeeded in, with nothing more than threats. I intended to
try _those_ first and ultimately to do more and take my chance of what
the Govt. might think.

'But the _Martin's_ arrival has taken the "Green Bag" away from me. I
will now relate that on my arrival off Hydra, I found Miaoulis the
Greek Admiral on his way to assist Psara. I hailed his vessel and
invited him on board, he came and I made him acquainted with the
capture and massacre at the place, (since I left Psara I found that
about twenty-five sail of vessels had escaped, with some women and
children). He seem'd much distressed, but said he would push on and see
what was to be done. I afterwards heard that he kept aloof until the
Captain Pacha quitted, he then attack'd the gun boats in which about
2000 [Footnote: The garrison left at Psara] Turks were attempting to
escape and destroyed nearly the whole of them. Now the Island is
desolate and _neutral_ having neither Greek nor Turk on it; but I hear
that the Captain Pacha is going to adopt the miserable and contemptible
policy of destroying its harbour, and then taking no more regard of the
Island. I must say the want of unanimity in the Greek against the
common enemy is here too perceptible. The Hydriotes well knew that
Psara was soon to be attack'd and it was in their power to have saved
it, but its having been in former days a rival island in commerce, and
was now a rival island in achievements in war, they delay'd sending
their ships until it was too late. There were also traitors among their
own people, no doubt of it!

'My business at Hydra was a case of piracy, against a British merchant
of Alexandria, and all the property was stolen and the vessel burnt,
&c. &c. I called off the island and as _they_ wish'd to refer back to
the affair before they would give an answer, I passed on to Napoli di
Romania (Nauplia) where the Greeks have set up an attempt at a
government, for a government I cannot call it that has neither laws or
courts, not even a national assembly is yet instituted; but anarchy
seems to reign among them, and until something like a strict union
among the chiefs of this people takes place I fear their cause is not
likely to be progressive, or their means effective.

'The people who are now at the head of what they style the Provisional
Government of Greece are men who under the Turks were merchants, or
masters of merchant ships. The Chief or Primate of this Government
(Condenotti by name) is an Hydriote (his Brother is now Primate of
Hydra) who during his life has amassed a fortune of Five million of
dollars, having had for twenty-three years the Trade, I may say, of the
whole of the northern part of the Archipelago; himself a ship owner,
having no less than eighteen or twenty fine Brigs and ships from 180 to
300 tons burthen. This man has never given a Para to the cause of his
country; what can you expect with such a beginning? The Govt. have in
their pay about 10,000 men, ragamuffins of all sorts. This is that part
of the population of Greece that our Committee in London send money to.

'Are the Greek Committee such fools as to suppose that they are
honourably dealt with, and that this money is all put to the uses they
would wish to see it put to, or that the money sent from England will
ever do any good to the Greek cause, unless they appoint proper
Commissioners to receive it, and to dole it out, in such a way as to be
of service to those who merit it? Is the Provisional Govt. of Greece
such a Committee? Or are they who have been tricking and trafficking to
make money all their lives fit people to be entrusted with such a
Commission? _There is not one Patriot among them!_ And they are
accountable to no one by law, for there are no laws in the land.

'Money has arrived lately from the Greek Committee and it was put into
the hands of the Provisional Govt. What they have done with the _whole_
of it I do not know; some they have given to Odysseus. When he heard
that money was coming from England to Napoli he left his stronghold in
Parnassus and came down with the small retinue of 300 men to demand of
the Govt. some remuneration for his services, he had expelled the Turks
from Livadia, and he now required that they would pay 5000 men for him.
This Odysseus is the only man whom I should call a Patriot among them.
So different in style is the free Mountain Chief from the Lowland long
enslaved Greek, that you would hardly believe them to belong to the
same nation. Odysseus ever called and thought himself free, and his
family before him never own'd the dominion of the Turk, living in
inaccessible holds no Turkish turbaned head was ever near them. This
man tho' wild and untaught is patriotic, brave, devoid of superstition,
and last and most rare among the Greeks, has an utter contempt for
money. He has talents for war or peace, and the most moderate in his
principles of any of them. If there is a man in Greece who is to be
depended on _he_ is the man. He maintains that one of the greatest
steps towards the well-being of Greece is the putting down the
ascendancy of the Priests, with that you will put down intolerant
avarice and much crime. At first the Govt. would not give much ear to
his demands, but he goes to them in person, stripped of his arms,
telling them he is no longer a soldier, that he would turn barber for
he could shave; he said he would get an honest livelihood as a poor man
but not pilfer &c. _as some of his friends did_ who had neither
patriotism or virtue, and who thought of nothing but aggrandizing and
enriching themselves. Such was his opinion of this Govt., and he
assured me himself that not one of their heads should be on their
shoulders in ten days if they did not distribute this money in such a
way as to ensure something like a successful campaign against the
Turks. They have however given what I suppose they could not keep from
him and what he _had before_; the command in _Livadia_, and pay 5000
men for him.

'I had some very amusing excursions with this Chief and we became great
friends, he is in person one of the handsomest and finest men I ever
saw, and had Maria seen him manage his horse she would never have
forgotten it. I could give very interesting accounts of our picnics and
rides, when his Albanians roasted the sheep whole stuffed with almonds
and raisins, &c. &c. but it will take more time than I can spare, and I
fear by this time you will be nearly tired, but you must bear with me
up to the date I write from before I give up. The other Chiefs of Note,
Mavrocordato and Colcotronis, are men of perfectly different characters
but both by their different means attempting to aggrandize themselves.
The former's weapons are his talents and his tongue, the latter's his
courage and his sword. Colcotronis rebelled and try'd to overthrow the
provisional Government, he blockaded Napoli and was for some weeks
fighting with the Govt. Corps in the Plains of Argos, but Odysseus
appearing on the mountain, neither knowing which side he would take,
they suspended their arms and a reconciliation was brought about. I
think of late there has been a little more apparent conduct in the
Chiefs than before. I see in our papers great puffs about the fighting
in Greece. The warfare, in fact, is desultory and next to ridiculous
excepting in the passes of the Mountains, and when Turkish cavalry are
caught there the Greeks always kill them all. As yet the campaign is
rather against the Greek by the loss of Psara, their chief Naval
Island, which from its situation much annoy'd the Turk.

'But to the Greek Committee! Great as the respect is which I feel for a
set of men who have wished to give assistance to that cause so dear to
every Englishman, yet I regret much the material and money that has
been wasted and frittered away to no purpose. Had the Greek Committee
fully understood the business they were about to take in hand they
would not have sent out the quantities of valuable yet useless stores
which are now I believe in the possession of the people of Missolonghi.
If instead of sending out surveying instruments, sextants, telescopes
and numberless instruments used by our artillery and engineers, they
had caused to be manufactured musquets, yataghans and pistols in the
fashion of the country together with powder and ball, and had taken
care that a proper commission was there ready to receive it and take
care that they were properly distributed, I would have given them some
credit; but as yet I think what they have sent has created bad blood
among the people and rivalry among the Chiefs who should possess the
whole. When Odysseus heard that supplies of stores had arrived from
England at Missolonghi he sent 300 men and a captain to get some, he
demanded a share and it was refused; he then forcibly took away four
field guns and forty barrels of powder on mules and carried them safe
to Parnassus. The man who did this was Mr. Trelawney from whom I had
the circumstance. Of the money the Committee have just sent out, a
little comes back to us, for the Greeks always allege they cannot pay
for the piracies committed on our Flag until the money arrives from
England! This is too great a farce! I have actually been once to Napoli
for money, which has been owing for this year pass'd and which they
never would pay until they were able to pay it in English sovereigns.

'Greece has the name of fighting but with the present sort of warfare
that goes on, unless some interference is made or the one party or the
other gets weary, it may continue without progression towards the grand
end, peace, until doomsday.

'After leaving Napoli I went to Hydra where I had some piratical
business to settle. On pulling into the port in my boat I saw a vessel
there under British colors that informed me they had that morning been
captured by an Hydriote corsair, I desired that she should be instantly
given up to me which they refused doing; I that evening cut her out
with the _Alacrity's_ Boats; I put half my crew and all my marines into
the three boats going myself in my gig, making Trescott in the brig
stand slap into the port with her guns loaded with round shot and
grape. The shores of the harbour (which is not more than two cables
lengthward) lined with about 12,000 men, her guns would have made
dreadful havoc. In three minutes from the time we got on board, the
Greeks had jumped overboard and her cables were cut, and out she came
without the loss of a single man. They have protested against me to the
Govt. at Napoli but _it's all right_, and I did what was perfectly
proper in all points. These rascals must not be allowed to capture
British vessels on any pretence whatever; if they are allowed to do so,
even on pretences of assisting their enemies, no vessel but a man of
war will be able to sail in these seas.

'From Hydra hearing that Samos was about to be attacked by the Turks I
sailed thither, and on the first day of their attack (in which they
were repulsed) I took off 106 women and children with their property,
_being British subjects_, and carried them to Smyrna. From there on my
way to Napoli I fell in with the _Martin_ and returned to Smyrna, where
I found _Euryalus_. He went to sea and has left me Gardo here. Finding
that for a time my sea trips were suspended I set off for Magnesia and
much delighted I have been with my trip, suffice it to say that nothing
can be kinder than the great Turks are to me, and in a few days I
return to Magnesia to hunt with Ali Bey the Governor of that Town. But
I must reserve a description of these trips until another letter, as I
am sure you will be heartily tired by the time you have got through my
_griffonage_.

'I have enjoy'd all this summer most excellent health, and the climate
has completely left off its baneful influence upon me, thank God.

'Tell Lady C. I have collected for her a quantity of antient Greek,
Roman and Egyptian pottery, the greater part of which is most
exceedingly valuable, and some that I dug myself at Samos.

'I have also collected a quantity of very fine Coins (Greek) which _if_
I get a safe conveyance, I shall send Uncle Charles. Tell him so! This
letter I know he will see, so if he will, take it as written as much to
himself as you and indeed all the family, To whom individually &
collectively give my afftn. love.

'Don't show my letters to any but the family Pray!

'You will be amused to hear I wear the Turkish dress on these
excursions.

'Your most afftn. Son

'C. YORKE.

'PS.--Affectionate Love to U. K. and Agneta an affectionate Embrace to
H. Y., E. Y. and G. Y.'

        *       *       *       *       *

ALEXANDRIA:

Dec. 27, 1825.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'Although I cannot write as long a letter as I intended and wish, for
lack of time, yet, as there are several vessels in this harbour on the
point of sailing for England, I must, after so long an interval, put
pen to paper in your behalf.

'By the finish of my last letter to you which I trust was prolix enough
I was at Smyrna, and had informed you of my visiting in this country
its nobles and princes: and I think mentioned something of a visit I
paid to Ali Bey, the Governor of Idun a country to the Nd. of Smyrna,
whose capital is Magnesia, where the residence of the Governor is. I
twice visited this Prince, and, so much was he pleased the first time,
that he invited me to come a second when there was to be a hunt of
birds and beasts. On the 13th of September, Forrester the Surgeon,
Weatley my 2nd Lieutenant, and myself with a young Armenian as an
interpreter and a Janissary for a "Garde du corps," started "au point
du jour" from Smyrna, and arrived in the afternoon at Magnesia, one of
the prettiest Turkish towns I have seen. Our journey slow, over bad
roads, did not afford any circumstances much worth relating. We found
our new acquaintances Turk and Christian, both in their way agreeable;
the Armenian, young, sensible, and an extraordinary linguist, speaking
nine languages though not twenty years of age. The Old Turk, funny, fat
and good-natured. The latter part of our journey lay thro' a pass in
the mountains from the summit of which the Valley of Magnesia suddenly
burst on our view, with the town on the eastern side at the foot of a
perpendicular rocky mountain very like the rock of Gibraltar, but if
anything higher, more craggy, and bold: the valley that lay before us,
bounded on the W. by a ridge of regular round topped hills, and to the
Nd. the eye could not reach the extent of this immense plain, which is
covered with vines, and fig trees, corn, and tobacco, the best in
Natolia. On my arrival, I sent my Janissary from the Kane I put up at
to say I was arrived, when an officer from the Bey came, and marched us
thro' the street till we stopped at one of the best looking houses I
had seen; we were ushered in, and I was then informed we were to live
here and that if I did not like it and was not comfortable that I
should have another. But I soon found out we could not be better off;
the Bey having sent us to the house of the Primate of the Greeks, who
was obliged to receive us whether he liked it or not, it being
sufficient that a Turk orders it. But in truth, I believe the old
Patriarch was very proud of the honor for no hospitality could outdo
his: the fatted calf was killed and we feasted sumptuously. Fingers
were now called into requisition as knives and forks are no part of the
necessaries of these Oriental nations. Such tearing of fowls and
tucking up of sleeves! After dinner the water, and then the Alpha and
Omega of all oriental visitings, mornings, noons, and nights, "Coffee
and Pipes." During the evening some pretty girls, the daughters of the
Old Man, danced before us, those dances which the women of the country
are so famous for: tho' none of the most decent yet very curious, some
young men playing the guitar and singing, for the song always
accompanies the dance. My Janissary was so delighted, that, he swore if
he had only had two glasses of wine he would fire his pistols right and
left. I felt rather satisfied he had not had the wine he spoke of. We
were all fagged enough to find our beds on the floor capital; and the
next day we visited the Bey.

'January 16, 1825.--I am now at sea and had intended this letter from
Alexandria, and, as I said before, it was to be short; but now I shall
send it from Malta, and it is to be long.

'But to resume my story. When we arrived at the palace he was dining in
the Kiosk with some of his friends, and we had to wait a little while
until the repast was ended when we were ushered in. He received us very
haughtily, and in a manner not at all consistent with the kind messages
he had sent us. Pipes and Coffee were served, and the conversation was
rather slack. At his feet sat one of the most extraordinary figures I
ever saw in my life; a countenance more devilish was never given to
Dervish before. After we had been seated some time, this man, who had
never opened his lips but had eyed us with the greatest attention and
ferocity, at length began to mutter, "Kenkalis, Kenkalis, taib ben"
("English, English, I hope you are well"). This was one of those
privileged people which in these countries are called Dervishes, who
are dreaded and respected by the superstitious, and who afford
amusement by their extraordinary antics to others. They have the
_entrée_ of all houses great or small, rich or poor, and are never
refused food or raiment: it being in itself a crime, to insult or
offend all who are in any way extraordinary: the more mad, the more
sacred the person. Madness in Turkey is an excellent trade.

'At length I soon discovered how it was that my new friend the Bey was
thus: his friends (Turks) rose to depart, so did I but he desired me to
sit down again. The moment the Turks had departed he was a new man. I
have never been so pleased with any Turk in my life as with Ali Bey.
His affability and kindness were European, which, when blended with the
handsomest form and face the costume of a Turk and pomp of a prince,
made a most agreeable acquisition to my Eastern acquaintance.

'He now began to make his attendants play all sorts of tricks with the
Dervish to draw him out; who seemed to be a perfect prince in the art
of buffoonery. We were amazingly amused. He now told me he had a grand
_chasse_ in twenty-five days' time, and desired that I would come to
him on that day, bring my gun, and stay with him a week; nothing could
have pleased me more than this offer. And as I lay Gardo in Smyrna,
twenty-five days afterwards I again found myself in Magnesia, housed
with the old Greek Patriarch a second time. He now sent us down to the
village of Graviousken (?) (Infidel Village) where we were well lodged:
his cook and household chief accompanied us, and the following day he
came himself. Our hunt, tho' not much sport to English taste, yet was
most amusing. The magnificence of the horses and riders; their equipage
and management of the animal; riding at speed, as tho' they were on the
point of being dashed to pieces, against a wall or down a precipice, at
once coming to a dead stop. Riding at each other, delivering the
jareed, firing their pistols and wheeling short round in an instant,
and at speed in the opposite direction. We had greyhounds and killed a
few hares. The following days were unfortunately wet; we returned to
Magnesia.

'The first visit I paid the Bey this time, I honored him with my full
dress for reasons very good, he was not quite sure who I was. It was
also necessary that his people should have outward shew, to satisfy
them: this I was nearly paying dear for. There is a horrid custom in
this country, of paying a certain sum to the attendants of these great
people every visit you make. A few piastres had heretofore satisfied,
but on leaving, after this Golden Visit, they seized my interpreter the
moment he took his purse out, tore it away from him took all he had
saying, "they should never see such a man again" and returned him the
empty purse. He fortunately had been prepared for such an attack and
had a proper sum and no more in his purse, but had it not been for this
sagacity, I might have lost all the money I had with me. Our dinner at
Graviousken was capital, he had wine for us; fingers were again in
requisition, and we were obliged to eat of twenty-six dishes, each
brought separately on the table, one after the other, which you had no
sooner begun to think good, than it was immediately snatched away and
disappeared. After having given to my old Greek some presents of silks
for his wife, and caps for his daughters, we returned to Smyrna, where
I found H.M.S. _Cyrene_, Captn. Grace, and soon after arrived Clifford
in the _Euryalus_, who most kindly gave me an opportunity of seeing a
great deal of other countries by an order to visit the coast of Syria,
&c. &c.

'Oct. 24, 1825.--We passed thro' the Straits of Scio, and on the 25th
anchored at Scala Nova. I shall not trouble you with nautical details,
as all my remarks, bearings, soundings, &c., which I have carefully
taken in this voyage I keep in a distinct remark-book. It is a small
town, governed by an Aga, situated on an elevated promontory, with a
small island and fort off the point, bad shelter for a winter
anchorage. Scala Nova had much interest to me, as I was completely able
to appreciate the conduct of the Captain Pacha with regard to his
pitiful attempt on the island of Samos, which is distant about twenty
miles. This Pacha had 100,000 men at Scala Nova, with a sufficient
number of boats and transports to convey them, and about eighty sail of
men of war to protect them. Yet he made the attempt to land 3000 men,
which I myself was a witness, and they nearly all perished by the
musketry of the Greeks. No further attempt was made on the island, the
fleet remains to the Northward of Samos, under sail for fourteen days,
(fine weather) the Greeks thirty-five sail of small vessels and
fireships in the little Bogaz, which separates the island from the
main. At length the fleet sail for Mytilene. The troops at Scala Nova
know not what to think, no provisions, no water, 25,000 die of famine,
the rest in a most pitiable condition, receive orders to return to
their homes, massacre, pillage, and plunder the whole way back.
Nevertheless, the Turks contrived to lose two small frigates by the
fireships of the Greeks. The conduct of the Pacha, and his disgraceful
mode of entering Constantinople with about fifty sail of small Greek
Boats for the occasion, with a Greek hanging at each mast head, you
might have seen from the public prints. My business with the Governor
of Scala Nova being settled (having obliged him to release an Ionian
Vessel one of his cruizers had captured), Ephesus three hours distant
became the next object. Little is now left of this once celebrated
city, and the site of Diana's huge temple I think is not to be found.
One splendid relic still remains. A part of a fluted Corinthian column,
of Parian marble, about 111 feet long, broken; the remainder is gone;
but from the diameter, the block forming that part could not have been
less than fifty feet; a part also of a huge cornice which was
immediately over this column remains, of marble also, weighing about 15
tons. The carved work on the capital and cornice is as fresh as the day
the artist finished it, tho' most likely above 2000 yrs. old. Ephesus
is thought by many to have been latterly destroyed by an earthquake,
and this small relic certainly tends to prove the assertion. On
examining this column carefully, I found that the fluting, about half
way down, was finished and polished, and a part in the rough. The
ancients always finished and polished, after the column was erect.
Certainly, some sudden accident must have occurred to have prevented
the artist from completing so fine a piece of work, and the manner in
which it is broken leads me to suppose an earthquake, without doubt, to
have been the cause of the abrupt departure of the chisel from its
occupation.

'Leaving Scala Nova, we sailed thro' the little Bogaz, by Patmos when
we fell in with some Greek cruizers, on the look out for the Egyptian
fleet under Ibrahim Pacha, whom we found at Bodrum (?) where we next
anchored. Nothing whatever of antient Halicarnassus, or the wonder of
the world, here remains! Not a trace, not a vestige! One tower more
modern, the base of which appears Roman with a Turkish superstructure,
and one block of granite on which is an inscription stating that Caesar
mounted his horse from this stone: I would have carried this relic
away, but Mr. Arbro, Premier Interprète et Lieutenant à son Altesse
Ibrahim Pacha, informed me that he had laid hands on it. Here I no
sooner anchored than a number of Maltese captains of merchant vessels,
in the employ of the Viceroy of Egypt, came on board to beg my
interference with the Pacha as to some grievance they had suffered. I
was quite determined I would have nothing to do with these blackguards
in the Turkish service; but, on going on shore I could not help feeling
immensely enraged at seeing upwards of twenty large Red Ensigns
(English), flying on his fleet of Transports, loaded with Turkish
soldiers going to carry them to the Morea! I presume the British
subject is free to trade as he pleases but, at the same time, that he
must take the consequence of his speculations. Whether this large
national flag was to be displayed at sea, in a rencontre with the Greek
fleet, became a question with me? Whether our ensign was to be borne by
vessels actually engaging Greek ships, was also a question I asked
myself. And the reply instantly was, "_No_, it cannot be neutrality." I
determined to take the ensigns from them which was done, and having cut
the Unions out I gave them back, which I have since been sorry for. In
short, I should have taken all the vessels as they were all sailing
under false papers, or have taken the flags away altogether and have
considered them as they really were, Turkish transports. But I felt it
a very delicate affair as Ibrahim Pacha, when I waited on him,
declared, that I should be the means of his losing his expedition, and
that he trembled for the consequences. He had previously sent his
Secretary on board me, to try and talk me over to give back the flags.
But it would not do, I saw thro' the whole thing. The fact was, these
mercenaries employed in the Egyptian service had refused to proceed any
further, their contract having expired. He having exhausted five months
in reaching Bodrum (?) from Alexandria wished to throw the whole of the
revolt of the Maltese on me, as having taken their colors; they
declaring that they could not go to sea in safety under any other flag.
He wished to be able to use this pretext to his father, the Viceroy.
After about four hours' conversation we parted as we begun, I would not
return the colors. We parted however the following day better friends,
the revolted vessels were moored in a line before the loyal ones so
that those who were willing could not go to sea. He sent for me, and
begged me to speak to the Maltese which I did, and desired them to move
their ships to let the other Transports pass out. What he said to the
Viceroy of Egypt I know not, but be that as it may the old man was very
civil afterwards to me in Egypt. I daresay you will think me a great
fool for having troubled my head in this affair at all; but really,
whether I am right or wrong, I could not bear to see the flag under the
Turk, and the vessels bearing it conveying troops to the conquest of
the Morea. Much as I dislike the Greek character, yet I love the cause.

'I was not sorry to get clear of Ibrahim and his expedition, as I
inevitably saw difficulties would increase and that from the situation
of the British subjects violence might be resorted to by the Turk, and
that my presence only added fuel to the fire. For while I was there the
Maltese grew more and more impudent. However, all since has ended well.
The Maltese have been honorably paid off by the Viceroy of Egypt.

'Passing between Stanco(?) and the main on the 2nd of Novr. we anchored
in the Harbour of Marmorico (?), certainly the finest in the
Mediterranean. Here we remained in consequence of bad weather, but we
managed to wood and water. After leaving this port I visited Rhodes, so
famous an island requires me to give some description. Keeping the Brig
boxing about between the island and the main, I made my visits leaving
her early in the morning, she standing in the evening to pick me up.
The Port here I by no means considered safe for the _Alacrity_. Small
merchant vessels do go into the Port, and often pay for their temerity
by being totally wrecked. Here you see the remains of what the island
was, with some of the Knights, but nothing more ancient except the
remains of a temple to Apollo. The works and fortifications are very
like Malta on a diminished scale, and the great Street of the Knights
with their arms and devices over each door. To see a turban'd head
sticking out of the window is a provoking proof of the triumph of the
Mussulman over these deserted Christian Knights.

'January 28th, 1826.--I am just anchored in the Quarantine Harbour at
Malta; I find the packet for England on the point of sailing so I
cannot finish my letter, but I think it already too long. In my next I
shall take up my proceedings from Rhodes, going into Cyprus,
Scandaroon, Beirut, Tyre, Sidon, St. Jean D'Arc, Deir-il-Kamr in the
Mountains of Lebanon, Lady Hester Stanhope with whom I stayed one week,
Alexandria, Cairo, &c. and back to Malta after a cruize of eight Months.

'I must now finish with a little Turkish politics. The whole
arrangement of the Greek War is put into the hands of the Viceroy of
Egypt. The Captain Pacha does not go afloat this year but is I fancy in
great disgrace. The Constantinople and Egyptian fleets are to be
combined under Ibrahim Pacha, who is now at Marmorico, waiting for
reinforcements to go to the Morea. I fancy the divided Councils of the
Greeks now gives a fine opportunity of success. Colcotronis has
secretly sided with Mehemet Ali, and it is supposed that Albania is
bought with Turkish gold. The Greeks are quite capable of this. The
only way in which the Turk will do anything in the Morea is by
corrupting the Greeks: if it is to be a contest, I prophesy the
Egyptian army _will never return_. The conduct of the French to the
Turks has been most decided. The King of France wrote to the Viceroy of
Egypt, complimenting him on his genius, and wishing him all possible
success. The bearer of this letter was General Boyer who has come out
to discipline the Turkish army, has assumed the Turkish dress, being
installed in his command with the title and allowance of a Bey and a
salary of 10,000 Dollars per annum. He brought out also two most
beautifully manufactured carpets, and 500 stand of arms and
accoutrements complete, as a present from the King to the Viceroy. The
Turks of the country do not know what to make of this gracious like
conduct, but they say he has formed an alliance with France either to
stop, at any time they wish, our overland intercourse with India, or to
strengthen himself so that he may be better able to shake off the
Turkish yoke of Istamboul. His views are certainly most ambitious; but
as yet have not sufficiently developed themselves for anyone, I think,
decidedly to form an opinion.

'Dr. Father, Adieu!'

        *       *       *       *       *

The letter from Vourla which follows is that promised to his father in
the preceding letter from Alexandria, and is strictly of an earlier
date as it takes up the story of his experiences in the later months of
1824. The narrative requires no comment, as it speaks for itself, and
the description of Captain Yorke's visit to Lady Hester Stanhope at
Djoun will be read with interest. He attained the rank of Captain on
June 6, 1825.

        *       *       *       *       *

'... After a tedious passage from Larnica we anchored at Beirut, once
the capital of the Druses but conquered in the time of Daher Prince of
Acre by the Turks. The place is supposed to be the ancient Baal Berith.
Here we stay a week. Beirut is a curious town. The architecture is
substantial, perfectly different from any seen in other parts of Asia
until you arrive in Syria; quite Saracenic, arches in abundance and
curious tesselated pavements of coloured stones. But this is not
Turkish, though now in possession of the Turks, but the architecture of
its former inhabitants remains. I made short excursions into the
country with some English and Armenian missionaries who have resided
some years in the country, but except the beauties of nature little
else remarkable is to be seen. For the best information in a small
compass of this part of Syria Mr. Hope's "Anastasius" will give it. But
within the compass of a letter I cannot enter into very great detail
unless I were to write it on the spot and take more time and pains than
my disposition inclines to. As far as professional remarks go, I have
as much as a boat and lead line and bearings will give.

'Here I was in some distress, for the pilot, a Greek, that I got at
Rhodes declared he knew nothing of the coast, so I discharged him. A
Turk now undertook to pilot us to Seyden, though on our arrival there I
determined to have no more pilots, as they rather confused the
navigation, not being able to give positive information at any time.

'After leaving Beirut we next let go anchor at Saida (Sidon) once so
famed, and now a very tolerable Turkish town. Here no relic of
antiquity is visible except a large block of marble about a mile to
southward of the town with a Greek inscription (which _I_ did not see;
Mandiel gives a sufficient account of it, and my friends who visited it
say it appears to be in precisely the same state that he saw it in)
with some remains of a galley mole, which the Turks in their profound
policy have blocked up so that it is with difficulty that a small boat
can get in. Here my attention was greatly diverted from examining much
of the town and its contents by the circumstance of my dispatching a
civil line "with Captain Y's compts to Lady H. Stanhope" offering my
services in any way to take letters &c. to Malta or elsewhere that I
might be going. Lady Hester for some years has refused to see English
people, therefore I had not a hope that she would give me an interview;
but to my surprise, on the evening of my writing, her Armenian
interpreter came on board with a kind note by which I found that a
horse and escort were at Saida waiting to conduct me when I might
please to Djoun her residence in Libanus, about three hours from Saida.
Accordingly on the following morning, with Luca my Armenian interpreter
whom I have mentioned in company, we started for the residence of her
ladyship. The ride, uninteresting from any circumstance but that of
actually being on Mount Libanus, deserves no remark, sterile, and but
little cultivated in this part. Her residence is on an eminence about
ten miles from the sea which it overlooks; on the other side it does
not look into the bosom of the Valley of Bernica, yet it is high enough
to enjoy the beautiful verdure of the mountain rising on the opposite
side, whose tops are the most lofty of Libanus. The air is pure and the
scenery bold. On a hill about a mile to the southward of her habitation
is a village which flourishes in the sunshine of her favour and
protection. Her house is a neat building, a mixture of Oriental and
English. From the entrance gate a passage (on either side of which is a
guard room and some apartments for soldiers and servants) leads to a
square yard, half way across which is a terrace with three steps, round
which terrace are the different apartments of servants, interpreters,
as also spare rooms for visitors. On the left side of the terrace under
a lattice work of wood woven with rose and jessamine I was ushered, and
shewn into a small apartment furnished in the Eastern style. The
chiboque and coffee were instantly brought me by a French youth in the
costume of a Mameluke, with compliments from my lady begging I would
refresh myself after my fatigue. On my ablutions being finished I was
sent for. Passing through several passages I was shewn into a room
rather dark with a curtain drawn across, which being withdrawn I found
myself in the presence of a Bedouin Arab chief who soon turned out to
be Lady Hester. She expressed great joy at seeing the son of one of the
most honest families in England, so she was pleased to express herself.
She received me as an English lady of fashion would have done. I at
once became delighted with her, with her knowledge, and I must say her
beauty, for she is still one of the finest specimens of a woman I ever
saw. She spoke much of Uncle Charles; her conversation beyond any
person's I ever met; she was in fine spirits. Her dress, which well
became her gigantic person, very rich. I shall pass over our
conversation which was full of liveliness, of marvels and wonders,
manners and customs of the people, plagues, troubles, and famines &c.
&c. I went back to the brig the following day and returned in the
afternoon to Djoun, taking with me Mr. Forrester, my surgeon, who she
requested I would allow to arrange her medicines which were in
confusion and disorder.

'In the evening she sent for me; she smoked the chiboque, her mind was
wrought to a high pitch of enthusiasm, she talked wildly and was much
distressed in mind, in short her intellects were much disordered and it
was very distressing.

'However, she arranged that I should next morning start for
Deir-el-Kamr, the capital of the Druses, with a letter to the Emir
Bashire, the prince of that nation. I perceive that, were I to begin a
description, I should waste much good paper without stating any thing
that is new. The Druses are a most extraordinary people; the Palace of
the Emir superb, the country richly cultivated by the greatest labour
being all in ridges on the sides of the mountains, but I shall refer
you to Mr. Hope's "Anastasius" for a good description and for all that
is supposed, for nothing is known of their religion. The Emir treated
us with much kindness and I stayed two days in his palace where we had
apartments, visited him in the forenoon after which he did not
interfere with our pleasure; excellent living, about fifty dishes
served to about four people for dinner.

'On a visit to the Emir was a son of the Pacha of Damascus, who offered
me to accompany him back to that city where, he said, I should reside
in the palace of his father and see all that was to be seen. Such an
offer almost tempted me to cut the _Alacrity_. I suppose a Christian
hardly ever had such an opportunity which he was obliged to lose. Lady
Hester said it was my djinn or star which got me into such favour. On
the third morning we breakfasted at Deir-el-Kamr, the town about one
mile distant from Petedeen the palace, and returned to Djoun arriving
late that night. She made me several presents, the most valuable of
which I sent home to your charge by _Euryalus_. She has written to me
once since.

'I wrote a letter to Lord Chatham about her as I know her family knew
little or nothing about her; in a manner I found myself called on.

'Much more could I write, but really just now my attention is so much
called off by continual calling from Capt. Hamilton, who sends for me
on every occasion, that this despatch will be curtailed, but I trust
that more particulars will come _viva voce_.

'Tyre was the next place where we anchored; no vessel of war with
English colours had visited this port in the memory of any inhabitant
living at the place, which to be sure is not many; it is little better
than the prophecy states it should be "a rock for fishers to dry their
nets upon." There are here some superb remains of antiquity,
Alexander's isthmus and Solomon's cisterns. Alexander's famous siege of
this place is too well known and it is quite out of my power to say
anything new of it, but his work will remain for ever; the isthmus he
made to connect the island on which Tyre stood with the mainland is
perfect to this day and has no appearance of being a work of art, but
of nature. It is 200 fathoms wide in its narrowest part. The most
ancient relic in the town of Tyre is the east end of a Christian church
which is mentioned by Mandiel; this stands nearly as he left it. Tyre
itself is a wretched place; any little attempt that the people have
lately made to improve themselves has been thwarted by the Pacha of St.
Jean d'Acre, who squeezes them so for money that they never have a para
in their pockets. Filth, misery and starvation are the legacy of a
Tyrian. The country around is rich and superb, its produce might be
enormous, but so it is with all Syria that I have seen.

'Solomon's cisterns, which are situated about three miles from Tyre to
the south east, are of an octagonal form built of gravel and cement
that form a solid stone. The elevation of the largest above the level
is twenty-seven feet on the south side, and eighteen on the north; a
walk round on the top eight feet wide, a step below twenty-one feet
broad, a stream leaves it turning four mills. There are two smaller
ones turning two mills at a small distance to the northward of the
large one. Their original shape appears to have been square, but now
much disfigured. The large one is thirty-three yards deep, the people
believe it has no bottom and that the water is brought there by genii.
Where it comes from no one knows, but it is always full. I think these
cisterns originally supplied Tyre with water; I traced the remains of
an aqueduct from them nearly to the walls but better than half way
across the isthmus, so that I think they are of a later date than the
time of Solomon because the aqueduct could not be built over the
isthmus before the isthmus was made. They are on the whole the most
curious relics of antiquity I have seen, they must at least be 2300
years old and they are in no way injured, but the supply of water is
constant even in the wannest weather. The country for seven miles round
is a perfect level: I think the water must be brought by some
underground drain from the mountains in the distance to the eastward.
The story is that Solomon among the presents made to King Hiram for his
assistance in building the Temple built for him these cisterns, but
they are not mentioned in the Bible, and I think the story improbable
for reasons before mentioned, and that Solomon certainly had not such
good artificers as King Hiram himself.

'By the bye there are considerable remains of the old port, a mote, by
the ruins of which you can easily trace its extent.

'Haipha and St. Jean d'Acre, Mt. Carmel and the river Kishon "that
ancient river" became next the objects of my amusement. I bivouacked
one night on the banks of the river at Mt. Tabor and Carmel in sight.
At this time an alteration in the weather took place, the gales of wind
began to blow here and the coast consequently became exceedingly
dangerous. I thought it prudent to quit it and arrived in Alexandria in
fourteen days after leaving Haifa, having had a contrary gale nearly
the whole time.

'During my stay in Egypt I was four days in Cairo, eight days on the
Nile, two days at Sakkara and one day at Gizeh. Salt lent me his house
and his boat with twenty men, and I saw all that was to be seen.
Mehemet Ali gave me a Turk to attend me and I play the traveller here
for a few days; time for description I have none. You will be sorry I
have hurried over the latter part of this despatch but I assure you it
is unavoidable. The vessel that takes our letters to Malta I expect
will put herself in quarantine every hour.

'I have returned to Malta, refitted, and am again up the Archipelago
with Captain Hamilton who has just joined company. We have been the
last forty-eight hours rather harassingly employed routing out a nest
of pirates which we have done nearly to a man. Our boats have been away
all night and the brig under way. My marines took the men under Lieut.
Weately, and my men took two Greek boats with nine men each on board
one of which was the Captain of the Pirates; the _Fury's_ boats took
the vessels and their prizes, eleven in number. There was no fighting.
Captain Lethaby in the _Vengeance_ and _Alacrity_ brought the Bey of
Rhodes to his senses the other day; the Consul had been insulted, he
would give no satisfaction, so we took the old way and began at him,
when he came to terms. One 18 lb. shot through his palace made him know
that we did not always bark and never bite. _Alacrity_ was near enough
the battery to receive a heavy fire of stones from the Turks which,
with a few muskets discharged at us, was all the return made by the
Turks before the thing was amicably arranged....

'Love to all; I wish Lady Elizabeth Stuart (de Rothesay) would write to
me, I do sincerely love that cousin of mine; Grantham's letter I will
answer next opportunity, I am delighted with it.

'Adieu,

'C. YORKE'

VOURLA, GULPH Of SMYRNA:

June 10, 1825.




CHAPTER V

A HOLIDAY IN NORTHERN REGIONS. 1828


My father appears to have had a long leave between the two commands, in
the _Alacrity_ (1826) and the _Alligator_ (1829), during which commands
he was employed in the Mediterranean, with a roving commission--a free
lance, in short--to put down piracy and watch the War of Independence
between the Greeks and the Turks. He never let the grass grow under his
feet, so off he started with his friend Walrond on a roving tour
through the greater part of Scandinavia, and his journals contain a
daily record, extending over nearly six months. He crossed the
Dovrefeld Range between Norway and Sweden (a journey seldom undertaken
to-day), and in 1828 the lack of travelling facilities was exceptional.

The energy and resource of my father's character and his great powers
of observation appear to great advantage in these journals, and there
are many facts which I shall endeavour to relate as far as possible in
his own graphic words.

He was greatly impressed by the kindness and hospitality he received
from all classes in both countries with the exception of one district
near Gottenborg, where he met with some outrageous conduct on the part
of a postmaster, who either thought he was robbed, or else fully
intended to rob his guest.

He was honoured by interviews with King Charles John IV, better known
as Bernadotte, Napoleon's Field-Marshal and founder of the present
royal dynasty of Sweden, and it is worthy of note that as far back as
1828, Norway was chafing under the Union with Sweden which was brought
about by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 and has so lately been dissolved.

On the 10th of May 1828, Captain Yorke started from the Customs House
Wharf on the Thames, in a small steamer of 300 tons. Steam navigation
being then in its infancy the vessel was of great interest to the
traveller, who notes that she had 'two very fine engines of 40 horse
power!'

The passage to Hamburg took exactly fifty-five hours. It is curious in
the light of eighty years' commercial progress to read that 'The
commerce on the Elbe has no comparison with that of the Thames.' Then
follows a difficulty with the Customs officer, who, unaware of the
habits of British sportsmen, was horrified to find gunpowder among the
captain's baggage, a discovery which necessitated an appeal to the
British Consul and entailed a delay of several days.

Kiel was reached on 14th of May, and after exploring the pretty little
town the two friends took the Caledonian steam packet for Copenhagen.
This little steamer was built as a pleasure boat for James Watt, and
had run nine years making much money for her owner though a very 'bad
boat.'

At Copenhagen Captain Yorke was much impressed by the royal palace of
Frederiksborg, with its chapel where are crowned the Kings of Denmark,
and its pane of glass on which Caroline Matilda [Footnote: Sister of
George III, Queen of Christian VII. She was entrapped into a confession
of criminality to save the life of her supposed lover Struensee, who
was afterwards beheaded. She was condemned to imprisonment for life in
the Castle of Zell, and died there aged twenty-four in 1775.] had
scratched, 'O keep me innocent; make others great.' His professional
interest was kindled by the Trekroner Battery which he visited in a
boat, and of which he noticed both the strong and the weak points. He
failed to get into the dockyard, though here again he was careful to
note the number of ships of the line, frigates, and launches afloat;
but the royal stud of 700 horses and the riding school struck him most.
On the 20th of May our travellers reached Elsinore, and crossing over
in an open boat to the Swedish coast they landed at Helsingborg.

My father was a good sportsman, and fishing was his favourite sport. It
was combined with that love of scenery which was one of his
characteristics, and his first fly was thrown in a beautiful river at
Falkenborg, rented by two Englishmen who paid £300 a year for it. Here
he remarks that the Swedes 'are poor, honest, and exceedingly good
natured.'

'I believe,' he wrote, 'that much of the great civility we received
arose from our travelling as we did, without speaking or understanding
the language, with no servant and no carriage, taking the common
conveyances of the country. Our fare, chiefly fish, black bread, and
brandy. The country round Falkenborg is barren, with cultivated spots
here and there.

'After leaving Falkenborg we experienced a great change in the
character of the people. Kindness and honesty were changed for
ill-looks and petty extortions. On a bridge between Moruss and Asa, the
woman who kept it and our drivers charged a double toll, and drank the
overplus in schnapps before our faces! Our vehicle is changed from four
wheels to two, so we now travel in little wooden gigs and four horses,
forming a pretty cavalcade.

'We arrived at Gottenborg about 1 P.M., dined _table d'hôte_ and left
at four. We passed along the banks of the Wener, a superb river. The
vessels that trade from Gottenborg to the Wener See pass up this river.
To pass the falls a canal is cut through the solid rock, with two
locks. I saw a vessel of 80 tons go through. Considerable saw mills are
erected here, the timber cut up, the lumber is just marked, launched
down and the owners look out for themselves.

'The Wener shows one of the finest works of art perhaps in the world!
To navigate this river at the falls it has been necessary to cut a
canal for one English mile at least through mountains of solid rock,
and has eight locks. The mountains are granite and basalt. There is a
cut through the rock also parallel with the river. This cut is useless,
for there is in it a fall of sixty feet perpendicular, so that what it
was made for it is difficult to conceive.'

Between Trolhätta and Gottenborg our travellers were detained four
hours on the road. The reason for this detention is fully explained in
a letter my father wrote to Sir Joseph Yorke a month or two later, from
which I make the following extract:

'While the servants were shifting our luggage at Gottenborg I went into
the house to get change for a three dollar Banco Note. On receiving the
change I found it was only two Dollar Rix Geld, a depreciated currency,
after which I offered, with a remonstrance, a two dollar 'Banco' note.
The woman took it, and was then possessed of five dollar Banco, for
which I could get no further exchange than the two Rix Geld before
mentioned, neither would she return my money. I took the first
opportunity of snatching it from her, first the two dollar note and
then the three, and pushing the small change lying on the table towards
her, walked out of the house. Having managed to pay the horses we
wished to proceed but the driver refused to go, under the plea that I
had taken three dollars from the woman of the house, and they would not
move till I returned it. Neither threats nor entreaties prevailed, and
we remained about two hours till the Postmaster arrived in person. I
appealed to him, it was useless, and I saw no alternative but to offer
him the three dollars, making him understand as well as I could, that
he being Postmaster was responsible, and that I should acquaint the
authorities at Gottenborg of his conduct in taking from me three
dollars which neither belonged to him nor the woman of the house. He
looked at the note and threw it on the table, then left the inn, and in
a minute returned with a pair of screw irons to which was attached a
chain, himself and another laid hold of me, and attempted to force my
hands into them.

'By this time we had all come out of the house. I struck right and left
and effectually released myself. We were set on by the seven or eight
men standing by, and though successful in repelling their attack,
seeing my servant badly wounded and that iron instruments were
beginning to be used, I thought it better to suffer myself to be
secured, which was done by screwing my hands into the irons and making
me fast by padlocking the chain to a part of the room. In this
situation I remained for about half an hour, the Postmaster preparing
to accompany us, which he did taking me with him in his car as a
prisoner. On a remonstrance from Walrond on the tightness of the screws
from which I suffered dreadfully, he took off the irons before getting
into the car, but he was armed.

'On arriving at Lilla Edet, we were taken before a magistrate, showed
our passports and were dismissed, after refusing to compromise the
affair for five dollars. This is the story and a very strange one it
is. The King has ordered a process to be begun against the men. I can
make no comment upon it. The reason for such treatment it is impossible
to conceive.'

But on arriving at Gottenborg, I find my father called on the Governor,
and found him justly very indignant, and he declared the Postmaster
should go to prison for three years with hard labour, exclaiming at the
same time, '_Nous ne sommes pas des Barbares, monsieur._'

Changing vessels of passage twice, my father arrived at Christiania.

'Xtiania fiord is deep and the town is situated at the head of it. Part
of the passage of the fiord is very narrow among the small islands, and
the water very deep. Though Christiania is but a poor town compared
with other northern towns, yet its environs may boast of more beauty
than perhaps any capital in the universe.'

My father finds the politeness of the inhabitants expensive, and says,
'in walking the streets of northern towns, you can wear out a good hat
in three days.'

In return they received the greatest civility from two
fellow-passengers who took them to call on Count Plater, the
Stadt-Holder or Governor of Xtiania, who was an admiral in their navy
and spoke excellent English; also on Count Rosen.

'Went to see the Storthing in the morning. Strangers were admitted to
the Gallery on requesting a ticket from the Police!'

My father writes:

'The origin of this Constitution, (now such a thorn in the side of the
King,) was in the reign of the Danish Prince Christian, who himself
assembled a body of the people to consult on the affairs of State at
the moment previous to Norway and Sweden falling under the power of
France. The body thus met, constituted themselves into a perpetual
assembly for the government of the country, and by their prudence and
independence, it is now permanently established (1828) and never were a
people more attached to their constitution.' Dining with Count Plater
the Viceroy of Norway, at 3 P.M., he met forty people, all the
Ministers of State and great officers in full dress with their 'orders'
on; also three peasant Labour Candidates in the costume of their
country, being Members of the Storthing. He also met Count Videll, a
'most fascinating person' who, being asked as to the purchase of a
carriage, replied politely, 'I will give you one'; and he sent it,
saying, 'It is nothing, I have plenty.' The valley of the Drammen he
beheld from the mountain of their descent, 'charm and awe' by turns are
the sensations of the travellers, and this led them on to Kongsberg, at
one time famous for its silver mines, but the mines not being worked
and the timber trade also decreasing, the population went with it and
was then only 4000. The travellers went down the only silver mine then
worked, in the dress of a miner, walked through a horizontal gallery a
mile long till they came to the shaft, and descended two storeys but
could not proceed, the fire being just lit below.

'This mine returns about £1250 sterling of silver per ann. Sixty miners
are employed at £14 a year each! Bears, wolves and reindeer abound in
this vicinity. There is plenty of iron, not worked, and gold has also
been found in Kongsberg. From thence to Topam(?) we were surprised to
find ourselves driven up to the door of a gentleman's place, out came
Jack Butler, and the master of the house, pressing us to walk in; after
excuses and proper hesitation we accepted, and found ourselves in a
room with people at supper, ladies pretty ones too, who spoke English!

'The fact is that Topam, of which we had heard so much, is a
gentleman's place; after dinner we were shown to our room (one only was
vacant). Walrond had a bed and I slept in my cloak.'

Next day they engaged a well-organised _chasse_. My father pronounces
Topam (?) the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 'Mr. Benker of
Berlin, their host, purchased it from the King of Sweden for £150,000.
It is the only thing on this scale in Europe.'

The travellers now returned to Christiania, apparently to be received
by the King. They intended dining with their old friend Count Plater,
but the King commanded them to dine with him. After waiting some time
they were ushered in by Baron Lamterberg, the head Chamberlain, and
after a few minutes the King entered--(here follows the interview in
Captain Yorke's own words):

'I apologised for being in plain clothes instead of uniform or court
dress; he replied, "I do not want to see the dress but the man, I am
glad to see you both." He then addressed his conversation in different
topics, viz.: policy of Sweden, change of ministry in England, the
navy, the country, and the mines of Sweden; all of which he enlarged
much on.

'He remarked, speaking of England, "That she must have a strong
government or things would not go right in a turn of affairs which he
seemed to think must soon come. A strong government is absolutely
necessary for England." He asked me if _I_ thought that much order or
signals could be attended to after a naval fight had once begun? I
answered, "I thought it depended much on the weather, and which fleet
had the weather gage. With a strong wind and the weather gage I thought
a well-conducted fleet could keep in good order, as long as spars
stood." We stayed with the King for an hour before dinner which was
served at half-past five, after taking schnapps and anchovies, &c. (at
which preparation the King did not appear, they being served at side
tables). The company, about thirty generals, Colonels and Officers of
State, were scattered about in different rooms; the King suddenly
entered and took his seat; everyone did the same, nothing was said; he
fell to work, a very good dinner. I sat opposite the King who never
spoke, or even changed his countenance, or his knife and fork, which
were of gold, and wiped them himself on bread.

'He ate of many dishes, and drank claret and Seltzer water. The plate
was silver except what he had, the glass plain except his, and the
knives and forks were wiped and given to us again. Dinner over, coffee
was served and he talked to me, hoped to see me at Stockholm, bowed to
the company and retired. The King is a perfect gentleman and man of the
world, elegant in his manners and dress, the most intelligent
countenance, and very upright, and good looking in feature.'

I have before noted that my father had really no evening dress or
uniform and was sorely put to it what to do, when he remembered he had
given his servant Jack Butler an old black coat, so he borrowed it for
the occasion, Butler remarking 'that it looked as good as new, as he
had blacked the seams with ink.' This was told to the Chamberlain, who
repeated it to the King, who went into a paroxysm of laughter.

June 13.--We now come to the parting with Walrond, faithful friend and
companion, and sad was the leave-taking. Both were sorry to part, my
father with a long and dreary journey before him alone in a strange
land. As before, he seems to have been most hospitably treated wherever
he halted. Excellent rooms and good food were provided. Between this
and Brejden (? Trondhjem) he passed by the wooden monument erected to
Sinclair, who was there shot. The Norwegians say that silver bullets
were cast on purpose to kill him. Here also they murdered forty Scots,
prisoners, in cold blood. Between Brejden (?) and Langan Pass, the spot
where the action was fought, 700 Scots fell. The pass is, even with a
good road, very narrow, and the mountain above and below nearly
perpendicular; at the foot runs the Langan, a rapid stream. The
Norwegians held the heights, and with them a handful of men might
defeat the enemy.

In crossing the summit and then the descent of the Dovrefeld Range, he
suffered much fatigue both to the eye and limb, 'for never did my eye
wander over so desolate a waste as the summit of these mountains, the
peaks covered with snow, and spots of deep snow in the valleys.' Not a
vestige of herbage or tree to be seen on the northern summit, nor for
one Swedish mile of the descent; then begins the stunted birch, next
the Scotch fir, and 'towards the end of the day our eyes were cheered
by the sight of pines.'

'The inhabitants of the Post-houses are the cleanest people I have
seen, and one is surprised by meeting clocks, carved, painted and
gilded, and walls covered with inscriptions or rudely painted figures.
All their utensils are well scrubbed, and as white as wood can be made.
They wear plaid and recall in their delivery the people of the Scotch
Highlands.'

Here comes another description of meals, the table at the latter being
covered with 'glass, flowers and sweets,' _Diner à la Russe_, now so
completely our own fashion. 'A general welcome to the board is first
given, and on rising from table we shake hands all round and the words,
"much good may it do you" often accompanies this greeting.' This again
reminds one of the German _gesegnete Mahlzeit_.

Captain Yorke continues his inquiries by visiting the Arsenal at
Trondhjem which he finds in good order with stores and gunpowder in
small quantities. Twenty gunboats are here laid up in houses built for
the purpose, everything connected with them in good repair. They have a
large lug sail with a mast that falls down. How quaint all these
descriptions must appear to sailors of modern times!

'Besides the Arsenal, the King's Regalia was inspected with laudable
curiosity. It distinctly belonged to Norway, but was made at Stockholm
for the coronation of the present King in the old Church. A very
gorgeous affair, the jewels (pearls) no diamonds, and the other stones
in the crown chiefly amethysts. The Bernadotte family, on the whole, is
not popular in Norway. Sport is always mingled with hospitality and
entertainments; a vast quantity of eider duck is everywhere on the
water, and to take a boat and go out on the Fiord with a gun, is one of
the delights of this most delightful tour. It is curious to see the
affection of the old ones for the brood, which they never will forsake
and so fall an easy prey to the fowler.'

Trondhjem was left with much regret. The pictures, the old town with
its hospitality, the fishing for trout and shooting of eider duck with
the gorgeous scenery left an indelible impression, but night beginning
to darken at twelve put the traveller in mind that time was passing
with rapidity and that to effect the journey before him he must depart.

The next point of general interest is a visit to a family of Laplanders
a mile up the mountains. Herick Anderson, the head or chief of his
family, received the whole party, consisting of Captain Yorke, a friend
(Mr. Charter), and their servants, with 'great delight.'

They were milking the deer, so the travellers could not have arrived at
a more fortunate moment. Five hundred of these animals were enclosed in
a circular space with birch trees cut down and made into a temporary
fence, so giving a good opportunity for looking at the animal. It is
about the height of our common fallow deer, but much stronger and
larger in make, large necks and feet, large-boned legs, with immense
antlers covered with flesh and skin, a dark mouse colour, coat thick,
most even and beautiful to look at. The milk is rich beyond any ever
tasted. They dined with the Laps on reindeer soup and bouillie, scalded
milk and cheese--a characteristic meal. The scalded milk was delicious,
but so rich they could hardly eat it.

They also had a fine sight of Lapland deer dogs, and bought one for
10s.; I suppose that quarantine was not invented then!

After a good deal of brandy drinking the travellers departed with some
difficulty, for the Finns got so riotous that it was with force they
got them from the horses' heads, holding on to the bridles to prevent
their departure.

The Diet at Stockholm (November 1828) was opened with great pomp and
ceremony. My father was present and went in the suite of Lord
Bloomfield, our Minister at the Swedish Court. The ceremony began at 10
A.M., the King and Crown Prince going in state to the church where
divine service was performed. From there a procession to the palace.

The nobles, Ministers of State, &c., with bands of music met them, the
King and Crown Prince walking under a canopy with their crowns on their
heads. Then followed Foreign Ministers with their suites, then twelve
men in armour with large helmets (a bodyguard established by Charles
XII), and more burghers, clergy, and peasants; guards on one side,
artillery on the other, and on entering the square of the palace, the
Horse Guards lined the way. The King took his seat on the throne at the
upper end of the Riks Salon, the Crown Prince on his right a little
below him; the Ministers of State at the foot of the throne, behind
officers of the household, below in a semicircle the guards in armour.
At each side on seats the members of the Diet, in a gallery on the left
sat the Queen and Princess Royal with their ladies. In another gallery
opposite the throne sat the Foreign Minister and strangers of
distinction. The King then delivered his speech to the Crown Prince,
who read it, silence being obtained by the chief minister striking his
baton three times on the ground (which reminds one of a beadle in a
Roman Catholic ceremony!).

The marshal of the ceremony also struck his baton three times on the
ground--the signal for the speakers from the Diet to deliver their
respective addresses, after which the whole procession left the Riks
Salon as it came.

'Carl Johan did the King to admiration, though he looked weary and
distressed.

'The Prince was more at his ease, he put one in mind of the pictures we
see of our old Saxon Kings, the crown being made to that shape.'

On November 17 my father received a summons from the King at 7 P.M.,
and was most kindly received.

'He first conversed on Norway, and asked about the new road between
Norway and Sweden. "You, I think, have been in Egypt," said he, "the
Pasha is a most extraordinary man?" I replied, "One of the most
extraordinary men in the world." "Egypt is well governed, is it not?"
"Perhaps so, sire, to answer the Pasha's own ends, but horridly
tyrannised over, and the people dreadfully oppressed." "But they are a
barbarous people, and must be ruled with severity, are they not?"
"True, sire, barbarous, yet his system of Government must militate
against his own wishes; for example, he would fain contend with your
manufactures in the market, yet he will not allow the manufacturer to
work for himself, and do his best to get the best price, but will have
the article made for his own sale, paying only so much a day for his
labour." "Perhaps," said the King, "in Egypt the people are slaves, but
in Europe, Kings are the only slaves. In England and Sweden, your King
and I myself are the only slaves. Eh? is it not so?"

'"If your Majesty will use any other word than slave, I shall be happy
to agree."

'"What word can I use?" he said. "It is true, I am the only slave in
Sweden. Now, Captain Yorke, do you suppose that Egypt could be governed
by a representative government?"

'My answer was immediate, "Impossible, sire."

'"There, Count Welterdick, do you hear that?" Turning to the courtiers
and Lord Bloomfield, he ejaculated with considerable force, "There,
there, you are right, sir--you are right!" During all this conversation
the King seemed considerably excited. The Diet had just met and things
had not gone there so as to please him. After a few more commonplace
observations he said, "Good evening. The Queen wishes to see you below,
go to her, and dine with me before you leave us."'




CHAPTER VI

GREEK INDEPENDENCE. 1829-1831


In letters written from Stockholm to his father and brother in the
autumn of 1828, Captain Yorke expresses very urgently his desire to
find himself again on active service. 'I see the Lord High Admiral is
out,' he wrote to Sir Joseph in September of that year, 'and whoever
comes in, pray try and get me to the Mediterranean if it is possible.'
A month later his brother, the Rev. Henry Yorke, is reminded of the
same wish. 'Since the Russians have blockaded the Dardanelles and old
Melville has again taken up the cudgels, I do not know what to think,
and I anxiously await a line from England. Employment is what I most
wish, and now more than ever, for England will be at war ere long. I
trust in God my friends will stir for me.'

Captain Yorke's anticipation of a war in which England should be
involved was not fulfilled, but the chafing at a life of inaction by
the ardent sailor which appears so clearly in his letters was soon
relieved by his appointment to the command of the brig _Alligator_ in
November or December of 1828.

After some short service in home waters, during which he visited the
Orkneys, Captain Yorke was ordered to take the _Alligator_ to the
Mediterranean station, where it doubtless occurred to the authorities
that the energy and ability he had shown when in command of the
_Alacrity_ in Greek waters a few years earlier would be of service in
the new circumstances which had arisen in that part of the world. The
Greek War of Independence, which was in full progress when Captain
Yorke was engaged in suppressing the piracy of which it was a chief
cause in 1823-26, was now drawing to a close. In 1827 Great Britain,
France, and Russia were all united in securing the independence of the
country, which was recognised by a treaty between the three Powers in
that year, and in January following Count Capo d'Istria was elected
President of the new republic. There remained, however, the difficulty
of extracting the same acknowledgment from the Sultan, and from his
powerful and practically independent vassal, Mehemet Ali Pacha of
Egypt, whose aid he had invoked, and whose son Ibrahim held much of the
revolted country. But in 1828 the Allies at last came to an arrangement
with Mehemet, and by a convention concluded by Sir Edward Codrington,
that potentate agreed to evacuate the Morea and to deliver all
captives. There then remained the difficult work of fixing boundaries,
of taking over such parts of the country as were occupied by the
Turkish and Egyptian forces, and of reconciling the inhabitants of
those portions of the Hellenic territory which had not been allowed by
the Powers to attain their independence to a continuance of the Turkish
rule. Of these the island of Crete with its heroic Spakiotes, who had
never acknowledged the Sultan as their sovereign, was perhaps the most
troublesome and difficult. There remained also the incidental
suppression of the piracy which still continued. This duty, as before,
fell mainly to the share of Captain Yorke in the _Alligator_.

From a journal among the Hardwicke MSS. at the British Museum, I am
able to trace my father in that service from September 1, 1830,
onwards. He was then ordered to visit Volo, Salonica, and the
neighbourhood, 'owing to the reports of piracies lately committed, and
to express all manner of good will to all parties excepting such
pirates, whom I am ordered to destroy should I fall in with them.' On
his arrival at Napoli at the end of August he found the admirals of
France and Russia and the Commissioners for settling the boundaries of
the new republic. 'The work goes slowly on,' he records; 'Russia makes
difficulties and throws obstacles in the way.' He reports that Capo
d'Istria was generally unpopular, an opinion which was confirmed by his
assassination only a year later. He found the islands of the
Archipelago much dissatisfied with the result of their rebellion, many
of them apparently preferring to remain under the Turk; others with a
grievance because they had not been included in the transfer; all of
them intensely jealous of each other. 'The islands are particularly
dissatisfied,' he says. 'Their situation is much changed. Under the
Turk the islander was freer and was rich and had great trade; now,
ruined by the war, he has lost his ships and his commerce.' On
September 3 he sails along the coast of Negropont, about to be
evacuated by the Turks, and hears of piracies committed by them in
leaving that country. 'It is not to be supposed,' he says, 'that these
reckless ruffians would desist from insulting Greek boats and vessels
when they fall in with them.' Going on to Volo, the Aga of that town
assured him that no piracies had taken place recently in the district,
and 'that a small boat might now go in safety to Constantinople,' but
of this the captain evidently had his doubts. On the 6th he fell in
with the _Meteor_, Captain Copeland, and anchored with her near Zituni,
between Negropont and the coast of Thessaly. His impression of this
part of the world is of interest.

'In this part of Thessaly,' he says, 'an English ship had never been
before seen to anchor. I was greeted by the natives. The Greek
population are armed, and the number of Turks in the surrounding
district does not exceed fifteen. Opposite to us is the pass of
Thermopylae, of which pass there is now no remains, the sea having
receded and a considerable plain of alluvial soil now exists where the
Pass must have been. The part of Thessaly opposite the Negropont is the
ancient Myseria and the first scene of the memorable Argonautic
Expedition. Volo was Iolcos, from which Jason embarked his band of
adventurers. Pelion is seen from the gulf.'

While lying near Zituni, Captain Yorke received news of a pirate named
Macri Georgio, who two days before had plundered a schooner, and was
apparently at large in two boats with sixty armed ruffians in the Gulf
of Salonica. He immediately set sail for Cape Palliouri, anchored his
brig by lantern light just round that point on September 11, and at
moonrise led an expedition of five boats with sixty men and three days'
provisions in search of the pirate. There followed many interviews with
the Agas of different districts, who gave him much conflicting evidence
about the doings of Macri Georgio, but with no result, and the
_Alligator_ was finally brought to an anchor at Salonica, where he
prosecuted further inquiries. Salonica, which to-day promises to become
a bone of contention among some of the Powers of Europe, he found 'a
clean town, containing about 70,000 inhabitants. The walls are in the
Turkish style of fortification and without a ditch; the city stands on
an inclined plain gently sloping to the sea, the sea wall is flanked by
two towers at either end. The surrounding country is plain with
mountains rising at the back.' He already noticed a great change in the
attitude of the Turks, owing to the long struggle they had sustained
with the Greeks and with Russia during the late war.

'As it is, the empire is weakened, and the Turks know not what to make
of it. They say the Sultan is a Giaour. The Turks, too, seem to have
lost all their former pride, the lower orders are afraid, and the upper
classes are quite disaffected. The change has been most wonderful, nor
is it quite possible to reconcile to oneself how it has been brought
about. The Koran is no longer the law of the land, and therefore you
can hardly say they are any longer Turks. In Salonica this day, an
independent Greek was seen beating an armed Turk in the streets.'

From Salonica Captain Yorke, hearing of another clue, started in search
of the elusive Macri Georgio, whom he thought he had at last located in
the Peneus. So there is another expedition in the boats with sixty men
and a twelve-miles pull to Platamona. At a village, Karitza, they hear
of an atrocity of the pirates, who had burned a boat and killed all the
crew, leaving one poor fellow only, dead on the beach with his right
arm missing, as witness to the outrage. So the little force bivouacs on
the beach, and at 4.30 next morning chase and fire on some men whom
they see hauling a boat over a sandbank into the river Peneus, with
others retreating into the forest. There followed another chase up the
river with the lighter boats, which after rowing up stream as far as
they would float found only the small boat seen the day before,
abandoned and with no one in sight. In these expeditions the name of
Lieutenant Hart is frequently mentioned by my father. When in later
years Captain Yorke succeeded to the earldom of Hardwicke, he
remembered this gentleman, found him a place as agent of his estates,
and had in him a second right-hand for many years at Wimpole.

On October 30, 1830, Captain Yorke had taken the _Alligator_ to
Karabusa, and as from that point onward his journal is of great
interest, I print it in his own words. It shows, I think, the qualities
of firmness and energy which have appeared so fully in all that he did,
as well as diplomatic talents of a high order in circumstances of some
difficulty. His orders were to take over Karabusa from the insurgents
and hold it pending the settlement. There is a gap in the journal of
some six months at the end of the year 1830, and on the 2nd of June
1831 he records leaving the _Alligator_ for England. In nothing that he
wrote does his love of the sea and of his profession appear so
convincingly as in the touching words in which he records leaving his
crew and his ship. These require no comment, and I set them out as he
left them, together with some reflections on the home voyage which help
to display his character, and some remarks upon the steamer in which he
reached England, which have a peculiar interest in showing the
difficulties of the early days of steam navigation.

'Oct. 13, 1830.--Arrived and moored to the shore at Karabusa (off Cape
Busa in Crete). I am sent here to take possession of the fortress from
the Greeks, and to hold it in the name of the Allies until I am ordered
to surrender it to the Turks. It is an extraordinary rock very high and
difficult of access on the western side. Its face to the sea is
perpendicular. The Venetians fortified this height, and it is a perfect
Gibraltar. A small garrison could defend it as long as the necessaries
of life remained within. The anchorage is bad, the bottom being rocky;
but it is a perfect harbour, being open to view only to the west and
here a breakwater of rock runs across--on this breakwater the _Cambria_
was lost. I communicate on my arrival with Mons. Le Ray of the brig
_Grenadier_ and Captain Maturkin of the brig _Achilles_, my colleagues
for France and Russia.

'Oct. 15.--Arrived at Karabusa and desired to see me three Candiotes
(Spakiote chiefs) professing to be a deputation from the Cretans
requesting to know what we meant to do with Karabusa; speaking of their
forlorn condition, of the Turks being about to break the armistice, and
praying me to give protection to those who wished to fly to Karabusa.
In reply I said that my power was limited, that I had my orders and
they were, to receive the Island of Karabusa from the Greeks, and to
hold it in the name of the Allies until I received orders to surrender
it to the Turks. _Voilà tout!_ After this I said, "I now may speak my
own private opinion and give my advice. That is that Candia belongs _in
toto_ to the Turks, and you had better submit." I used all the
arguments I was master of to induce them so to do, and said that on
their heads would rest the blood that might be spilt by deceiving the
people, and inducing them to resist; that the Pacha of Egypt had made a
proclamation, the most gracious. They said they had never seen it, but
on producing a copy of it we found they were well acquainted therewith.
Sent for the Russian and French captains to give their opinion and
advice, which precisely tallied with mine. Mons. Le Ray was for
requesting the Turk to extend his armistice, which expired to-day and
give more time for the surrender of arms, but I differed with him on
this point, for you "must be cruel to be kind," and in prolonging the
time of their submission you prolong hope, the Greek will after such
time is expired only ask for more.

'Three chiefs Chrisaphopulo and Anagnosti and another whose name I did
not know are the same who made the attempt to retake the island sixteen
days ago.

'They are pirates and were then in Crete and had much to do in Karabusa
formerly; I expect that the proclamation of Mohammed Ali has been
prevented reaching the ears of the Spakiotes by them.

'Oct. 16.--Arrived here a secretary of a Greek chief in Candia and
tried by intrigue to gain what he thought would turn to his advantage,
the opinion of the Russian captain as to our future intentions and
proceedings here: he tried to persuade him to give them some ammunition
&c. &c. He expressed his abhorrence and hatred of the English, saying
that in Candia all said we had sold the island to the Turks and had
undone them. He declared that the Greeks had not yet lost all hope of
gaining Karabusa but when they had they would carry their women and
children to Spakia.

'Yesterday received news from Canea the Egyptians have established a
good police in the town and two councils have been established, one
Greek and the other Turk. Also, a proclamation of Mustapha Pacha, most
affectionate in its language, offering protection to those who
surrendered and denouncing vengeance on those who still held their arms.

'Oct. 20.--During the night a brisk fire of musketry began, about
half-past one; went to quarters, went on shore with marines. At
daylight took seven prisoners of which Chrisaphopulo was one, two of
the others were Candiote captains.

'I consider that as there were about 100 [Footnote: Proved afterwards
to have been 800.] men on the opposite side that it was an excursion
made by them during a dark and tempestuous night to reconnoitre.
Chrisaphopulo came to the house of Apostolides and said I had come with
ten men, on which the said Apostolides sends a corporal to inform the
garrison; after which every stone they saw was a man. Query: if
Chrisaphopulo had said I came with 100 what would he have done?
To-morrow we mean to quarter the prisoners. I think that D'Aubigny has
surrendered Karabusa and not his lieutenants.

'Chrisaphopulo presses me to receive petitions of the inhabitants. He
when alone with me said the Candiotes would fain be in the service of
the English. I think this will follow, that he will offer to give
Karabusa to the English and assist them to defend it if I will protect
their families.

'It is necessary that something should be done for the Greeks at
Karabusa, also, that the President should do something for those Greek
families who are about to leave Greece.

'Oct. 22.--Canaris interfered with the commandant of the garrison in
the affair of Wednesday night. He came out here to-day and I met him,
Captain Maturkin, and M. D'Aubigny. I said I had nothing to do with
this affair, as the Greek flag was flying on the fortress, that what
had passed was purely a Greek affair, but that should they wish me to
assent to the examination of the prisoners I should be most happy.
Canaris wished that I and Maturkin would not remain in the room; we
consequently went away, after expressing a desire to have a report of
the decision, as it must be a matter of great interest to me.

'They were allowed to depart with their arms. From all I have been able
to make out it must have been an attack which was intended but which
failed owing to their not getting over quick enough. They had 150 men
on the other side. These seven got over in a row boat, passed my sentry
on the beach running, a few minutes after the firing began from the
fortress the _Alligator_ was at quarters with her ports lit up, and a
rocket was thrown from the ship. All this showed that there was no hope
of a surprise, the others consequently went back.

'The next morning, thinking that their chiefs were slain or taken, they
upbraided each other, quarrelled and fought; many were killed and
wounded; among the former two captains, one of whom was a man that was
tried at Malta for piracy but escaped. I told those that came over that
if I caught them again here, they would be shot.

'Oct. 27.--Left the ship (on the information that the Pacha was about
to march) in the gig with a great chief, for Kesamos; on my arrival was
received by all the chiefs on the beach, and conducted with my
companion (Simpson) to Castelli (a small fortress about a musket shot
from the sea, the interior of which is a perfect ruin), where I was
ushered into a room up a ladder and followed by the chiefs, and the
armed population of the place, who quietly began plying me with
questions not one of which I understood, until a Greek of Milo appeared
who spoke a little English. Various were the questions asked: "Might
they fire on the Turks"; "could I get for them more time"; "why do the
Turks make war on us"; "might they hoist the English colours?" A great
deal of excitement was visible among this _canaille_ of a population
and I was in considerable apprehension of consequences, particularly as
there were present three or four of the captains whom I had ordered to
be shot if they put foot in Karabusa. At length after much detention,
terms were procured and I was permitted to depart saying that I would
do my possible to stop the march of the Turks for a few days. I left
Castelli as I had entered it under a salute of three guns. In five
hours we reached Gonia, a monastery situated on the coast of the Gulf
of Canea where we were most hospitably entertained, good fare and good
beds; our party was very talkative on Greek affairs. There were among
the party the Spakiote chiefs Vanilikeli and Chrisophopulos.

'The next morning we proceeded, and as it was raining heavily we were
obliged to stop for two hours in a ruined house. Here in a few minutes
little streams became torrents carrying before them trees and lands, in
four hours we reach the Greek lines. The country we passed through was
level and rich in oil and wine; yesterday the country was rugged and
mountainous. When we advanced from the Greek lines across the neutral
ground towards the Turkish lines, considerable anxiety was apparent in
the Turkish advanced post; we were about twenty horsemen, the chiefs
well mounted and armed to the teeth, and took post on a level rising
ground, where we dismounted, and lit our pipes as a preliminary to
conversation. The Turkish vedettes now advanced to about musket shot,
when I mounted my horse and rode over to them, desiring to be taken to
Mustapha Pacha; a young Greek chief named Leuhouthi accompanied me. We
were soon joined by Hafir Aga, a stout good-natured Turk who, after
giving us a good luncheon, accompanied us on our journey to Canea where
in about three hours we arrived sending a courier to the camp. In one
hour more found myself in the tent of Mustapha Pacha, and was addressed
with "_Asseyez-vous je vous prie_" by Osman Bey. After having conversed
on the affairs of Karabusa, at which the Turk complained bitterly of
our policy in keeping his men from landing, I requested him to stay his
march against the Greeks for a few days as my crew at Karabusa was weak
and I feared his first movement would be a signal for a second attack;
but, as I expected a reinforcement of French, he might then march as we
should be efficient for the defence of Karabusa. I saw at once this
would not do and next morning again tried my hook, but the fish would
not bite; when on the point of marching, three Greeks were brought into
the tent with the information that the Greeks had made a display of the
three flags of England, France and Russia.

'I immediately said that the Pacha could not with propriety march
against those flags until I had in person visited the position and had
ascertained how the case stood. The Pacha gave me a horse and throwing
his own cloak over my shoulders (for it rained hard) I started off with
my Greek friend and a few Turkish guards whom I requested might return,
as I wished to go alone, my mission being perfectly pacific. In about
eight hours I reached Cambus (? Kampos), a prodigiously strong position
in the mountains, and on approaching afar off I beheld the three Greek
flags flying on the pinnacle of the highest mountain in sight. The pass
to the position of Cambus is most narrow and difficult, and then at the
summit it is a plateau of fine soil with large trees and gardens. It is
a most beautiful spot and well worth fighting for. I was soon ushered
into an assembly of the chiefs who were Spakiotes, and Mons. Resière
was there also. This Mons. Resière was originally a physician of Canea;
born in Crete and having received a good education and speaking
European languages, he was considered by the President of Greece as a
fit man to govern Crete. He now wishes to keep up the shadow of that
power which he once had, and has established a council, at Milopotamos
in Crete, of which he is president, for the government of the Greeks
and arrangement of the future plans of operation. In quietly conversing
with Resière I found by his own confession that the object was to gain
time, and he beseeched me to use my endeavours for that purpose. To be
sure comments may be made of the conduct of the allies towards the
Candiote Greeks this year, for the sale of property does not expire
until February and the enemy has been permitted to march against the
Greeks; their olives are ripe and they wish time to gather their crop
and reap the advantages of it, for though the Greeks love liberty they
love money better. As matters were I had used my endeavours for that
purpose and without success. I now spoke publicly, and the captains and
troops were assembled in a large room. I desired the flags of the three
nations to be immediately surrendered to me. There was now a long
silence, during which time the captains eyed one another, apparently to
read in the countenance of each what was to be done. At length the
headmost and best speaker (his words coming out like drops of water
from an exhausted supply) "You may send and take away that of your
nation, but the others we will not give up." I replied I had made a
demand and required an answer; after much consideration they gave one
in the negative. I on this made a verbal protest against the colours of
the allies being hoisted in opposition to the Governor and departed. On
my journey over the mountains, it rained hard, and enveloped as I was
in the cloak or mantle of the Pacha, I feared I should be taken for a
Turk and shot at, or that my neck would be broken in the difficult
passes of the mountains; but in this case the excellent animal I rode
served me most faithfully and never made a blunder. Oh Maria [Footnote:
His stepsister.]! and ye lovers of horseflesh, how you would have
praised and petted this animal had you ridden him; pitch dark on my
return, nearly perpendicular flights of stone and not a false step!
Excellent beast, your master the Pacha knows your value. I got back
about 10 P.M. wet through nearly--the Pacha's cloak served me well
though. The tent of Osman Bey received me and we found some excellent
rum to season my sherbet with. The next day about one o'clock we
started on horse-back to attack the strong position of Gambus, two
regiments of regulars, 1000 each, had gone on in the morning. My object
in going with the Turks was a mixed one, curiosity and hope of doing
some good in preventing bloodshed. But there was no need for any
personage of that humane disposition, the Greeks themselves were so
full of humanity that they decamped bag, baggage, and colours a quarter
of an hour before the leading Albanians entered the place of Cambus. I
shall only remark that it stood on the top of a mountain; only to be
reached by the most narrow and difficult passes, and had the Greeks
intended to fight at all, they never could have had a better
opportunity.

'The day after I left Canea in a small boat I had hired to take me to
Karabusa. It was a fine calm morning, but when we had gone about two
miles along shore a very heavy gale came on, our sails were blown away
and with great difficulty we reached Cape Spada, rowing for two hours
within fifty yards of the shore, and could not reach it. We lay in a
level with a rocky headland this night with but little to eat. The next
day we tried to get round Cape Spada but could not; the wind then
shifted to the northward and blew a hard gale. We were now wrecked
among the breakers at the bottom of the bay of Gonia. Thank God I
reached the dry land and was well taken care of at the monastery. There
I found Chrisophopulos and Vanilikeli, who escorted me to Castelli and
from thence to Karabusa.

'December 12.--At Canea. Find the Greeks here well contented with the
Turks. No taxes or impositions get laid on, in fact at present the
Greeks are better off than the Turks. The Spakiotes have not all
submitted. Three Spakiotes taken prisoners with their arms are made
Primates of their respective villages and members of the Council.

'December 13.--Left the ship in the cutter, in company with Signor
Capogropo and Mons. Corporal. Landed at Celivez, a surf on the beach,
all got wet, it was _sauve qui peut_ and we left our cloaks behind us,
which to people on the point of bivouacking for the night was not
really pleasant. But Signor Capogropo, though eighty-two years of age,
seemed to make so light of the matter that it was out of the question
to complain. Here we found horses sent for us to the camp, where I
arrived about ten o'clock having passed through a rich and beautiful
country to the village which, like all in Candia, gives a good idea of
the ravages of civil war. Here I found the Pacha and Osman Bey had
established their head-quarters. I was treated like a Pacha, boys
attended to wait on me with pipes, coffee, a barber, &c. I made my
toilet in the morning attended by seven or eight servants. Nothing can
be better than the manner in which these chiefs are conducting affairs
in this country.

'June 2, 1831.--Left Malta for England, left my ship in Malta harbour
in the hands of new officers. Poor _Alligator_, I did not know I had so
much of the love of ships, no not ships, I knew that, but of men, in
me. I could have kissed every man jack of them to death--and have cried
over every blue jacket on parting, and my dear Mids, they I believed
were surprised; they did not think I cared so much about them till I
took leave of them.

'My loss is great. God's Will be done. God only knows whether I shall
return to my ship again, but I think I have love enough for her to make
it no difficult task on my part.

'Nine o'clock at night, blowing strong from the N.W. course in the
dirtiest steamboat I ever was in, nevertheless she wears a pendant.

'June 23.--Foul wind--cold dark day--making little progress, that is
100 miles a day. What a change in seamen's distances, 100 miles a day,
right in the wind's eye, and call that doing ill. What would Benbow say
if one could tell him that? I will tell you, "You lubberly dog, you
lie."

'Nevertheless I go fast towards home or--God knows what! What part in
the play am I to act, I wish my mind was made up on this cursed Reform
question. It will be carried, but I should like to do what I think
right and honourable towards myself, that is act and vote as I really
think. We must become republican England as well as republican France
(damn France, she is the root of all evil and the branch of no good).
It matters little how; whether by Reform which will produce national
bankruptcy, or by a starving population which will produce rebellion
and civil war. Reform certainly means No taxes and cheap bread. Have
been reading Moore's Byron. Poor Byron, quite what I believe him to be
in many things and more than I believe him to be in others. I saw him
at Missolonghi.

'June 6.--This day six years I was made a Post Captain, had my poor
father lived to-day he would have completed his sixty-third year.
Strong winds and contrary--directly in our teeth. Nevertheless we make
good more than four miles per hour. Yesterday hove to under the lee of
Gibraltar all day. I finished Byron's Memoirs by T. Moore. Many
sentences in his latter letters from Missolonghi which he word for word
said to me when I saw him there. Our passengers are a gentleman in the
government of Corfu and a young officer of the _Britannia_ said to be
dying of a consumption--eats like the devil--very obstinate--will do as
he pleases, seems determined to do what is quite right--send the doctor
to the devil. Learn that a horse power in steaming is 32,000 lbs.

'June 9.--Fell in with the _St. Vincent_ bearing the Flag of E.A. Sir
H. Hotham on his way to relieve Sir P. Malcolm. Received letters from
my uncles, &c. &c. Melancholy enough and politically disagreeable.
Shall rejoin my dear _Alligator_ again. Nothing can be more kind than
the conduct of the Admiralty. Allow ship to come home if I please, &c.
&c.

'Steam boilers leak. Put fires out, lose seven hours--obliged to empty
boilers--the Devil and all! At least the men here are devils
incarnate--two of them entered the boilers and drove rivets with the
thermometer 160 in there.

'Sir H. Hotham wrote me a kind note in answer to my request to allow
Hart to bring the ship home after me.

'June 20.--At sea hove to off the coast of Portugal in the steam
packet. Sailed from Gibraltar (the 2nd time having put back once in
consequence of the coals being bad Welsh). On the 15th called at Cadiz.
On the 16th went on shore, Consul B--y pompous, &c. Daughters, music,
painting, &c. William the Conqueror, &c. &c. Last night the Jew groaned
heavily in his sleep, woke him--he was dreaming of being robbed of his
money.

'June 23.--Put into Vigo Bay for coals and left it in the evening of
the 24th. Beautiful Bay, fresh day; St. John's market a beautiful
sight, if fine women constituted that. The steamboat all day crowded
with strangers. Heard that Don Pedros had left Brazil and been received
in London.

'June 30.--Arrived in sight of Falmouth and anchored in 30 fm. having
burnt the guts and bulwarks to bring her thus far. Went to town the
next day by mail.'




CHAPTER VII

COURT DUTIES AND POLITICS. 1831-1847


On the voyage home from the Mediterranean in the steamship _Meteor_,
which is described in the journal I have quoted in the last chapter, my
father received the sad news of the death of Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke,
an event to which he makes no allusion in the journal. Admiral Sir
Henry Hotham, who had just been appointed to the command of the
Mediterranean station, and had sailed in the _St. Vincent_ from
Portsmouth, was the bearer of a last letter written by Sir Joseph to
his son on the 3rd of April 1831. The _St. Vincent_ met the _Meteor_ at
sea, and Sir Henry, in handing the letter to Captain Yorke, had also to
announce Sir Joseph's death, which occurred only two days after he had
finished the letter. This letter was found among my father's papers,
and I set it out at length; it is quite typical of others which display
the affection which existed between father and son, and it shows very
convincingly the success which attended Captain Yorke's career in the
Mediterranean. The circumstances of the accident in which Sir Joseph
lost his life appear, so far as they can be known, in a note to Sir
Joseph's letter written by my brother John, the late Earl of Hardwicke.
[Footnote: He died from influenza, March 1909.] From this it will be
seen that Sir Joseph was returning from a visit to the St. Vincent,
which he had made in order to hand his letter to Sir Henry Hotham, when
he met his death. It appears also from the annotation by my father that
Sir Henry sailed without hearing of the accident, and only learned of
Sir Joseph's death by subsequently reading a notice of it in
Galignani's _Messenger_.

        *       *       *       *       *

14 NEW BURLINGTON STREET, LONDON:

April 2, 1831.

'MY DEAREST CHARLES,

'Your last note to me enclosing your long recital of occurrences in
Candia, addressed to your brother Henry, was duly received about a
month ago, and has made us all equally happy and highly interested in
your fortunate and successful mission. I proceeded to the Admiralty as
you desired, and looked over the whole of the correspondence there, and
I was much struck with the encomiums passed on you by my friend Sir
Philip Malcolm, and of the coincidence, of the Admiralty minute and all
the observations made by that chief, on your conduct. It runs thus,
"acquaint Sir P. M. that their Lordships entirely concur with him in
the opinion he has formed of the conduct of Capt. Yorke during his
service at Karabusa." I see by the _United Service Journal_, that you
sailed for Smyrna on the 8th of January, two days after your letter to
me, and that you were at that port on the 18th, of course this
acknowledgement of your correspondence will go by the Admiralty bag,
but I doubt whether I shall save the packet. It will however be
conveyed by your new Chief, Sir Henry Hotham, who is very desirous to
render you all attention, for in a note I had from him, about a Middy I
asked him to take with him in the _St. Vincent_, he says, "had I been
able I would have fulfilled your wishes with much pleasure in this
instance, as I shall have the pleasure in doing in regard to the
captain of the _Alligator_, and if you have anything to send to him I
will take the charge of it with pleasure." Thus you see, my dear
Charles, that Sir Henry Hotham will be as much interested about you as
any of his predecessors if you desire it, which I am sure you will.

'You may indeed say, or rather exclaim, What changes! The chances now
are that our order in the State (to make use of Lord Grey's words about
his own order), instead of being Lords of the Admiralty will be hewers
of wood and drawers of water, that is, if the Reform Bill passes in its
present shape. For it cannot be denied that it must give a
preponderating bias to that class, namely the £10 householder, which
are by far the most numerous, active, and republican class, who by
living in towns, can be collected for any political purpose at a
moment's notice; who are shopkeepers, citizens, manufacturers,
possessing great intelligence and spirit, and whose business it will be
to have the chief government, and bring down the interests of the
funds. This will, of course, straiten most severely all those who at
present derive any income therefrom, and as the small sums into which
the said funds are divided, are spread over a widely extended
population of humble but respectable persons, it will totally ruin a
great many. However, there seems to be an opinion that the Bill will be
greatly modified. For the sweeping away of sixty boroughs (amongst
which Reigate goes at once) and taking one member from four more, is a
measure of such violent disruption, as to create a resistance that may
be fatal to the public peace of the country. Persons are much excited
all over the land, particularly the class of householders I have
already mentioned.

'With regard to foreign affairs, it appears still problematical whether
France will take part in defending by force of arms revolutionary
movements and doctrines in other countries than her own. You will of
course know pretty readily, how these matters are to go in the Italian
States, or those of the Church.

'With respect to my family in domestic matters, we continue to remain
without change, or much appearance thereof. Your brother Grantham,
however, is rather an exception to this rule, for he has been so very
ill of a rheumatic fever, that a great change has taken place in his
appearance. He is however considered convalescent, but up to yesterday
remained quite helpless. Eliot went yesterday to see him for the first
time, and comes up to-day to dinner from Hampton Court Palace where
Lady Montgomery, as you have heard, has apartments and where your
brother and Emily his spouse have been residing for the last six or
seven weeks. I have been also very much indisposed for the last three
months, but have according to my own practice abstained from medical
advice, and am now fast convalescing. It was a cough and of asthmatic
tendency which bothered me, off and on, for some time, and which I got
at Xmas attending the grand jury at Winchester on the Special
Commission. But my own opinion is rather that at sixty-three age brings
about such changes in one's bodily organs, as renders these attacks
necessary in order to hasten on the great events of life, namely, Old
Age and Death.

'Lord Hardwicke is wonderfully well, your Uncle Charles but so so, Lady
H. and Mrs. Charles Yorke and all their tribe very well. Lady
Clanricarde better than usual, not very strong, Henry fit for a monk in
point of appearance. Eliot, for him very well, Grantham I have
described, and last and least A. Y. [Footnote: Agneta Yorke, his only
daughter, afterwards Lady Agneta Bevan.] who is very well indeed,
except when hot rooms and late hours come on, and then she is but so so.

'We always look out with very serious desire to hear from you, every
post, as you are an interesting object and rather a lion to be looked
at. But I am thankful to know you are well and busy, business generally
makes you well. I am going down for two or three days to Sydney Lodge
on some business--and I shall send this to Sir H. Hotham to take care
of and forward. The whole of us here and elsewhere unite in every good
wish. For myself I can only say that you may rely on my regard and
affection and believe me always dear Charles, your affectionate Father
and sincere friend,

'J. S. YORKE.'

Finished April 3, 1831.

'This was my dear father's last letter. He lost his life on the 5th,
visiting the _St. Vincent_ at Spithead, which ship had Lord Hotham's
flag bound for the Mediterranean. This letter was given to me at sea by
Sir H. Hotham on my way home, having read in _Galignani_ my Father's
death.

'(Signed) H.'

        *       *       *       *       *

The following note by my late brother gives all that is known of the
accident:

        *       *       *       *       *

'I have no record of the accident that caused Sir Joseph Yorke's death,
but I know he was in his small sailing yacht coming over from
Portsmouth with Captain Bradby and Captain Young and one or two men of
the crew, when the boat was struck by a heavy squall in a thunderstorm
somewhere off the Hamble river, and they are all supposed to have been
struck by lightning. Sir Joseph's body was found floating, the boat was
picked up derelict in the West Channel. No one was left to tell the
tale; the tablet in Hamble church, which is the only record I know of
it, merely states he was drowned by the upsetting of a boat. I believe
he had a blue line going down his body, and the fact of his being found
floating gives the impression that he was killed by lightning, as I
suppose all the other occupants shared the same fate.

'HARDWICKE'

SYDNEY LODGE, HAMBLE:

October 14, 1908.

        *       *       *       *       *

I may perhaps add that on the day Sir Joseph Yorke was drowned, Miss
Manningham, the sister of Mrs. Charles Yorke, was at one of the Ancient
Music concerts in the Hanover Square Rooms, and during the performance
fainted and was carried out. On coming to herself and being questioned
as to the cause, she said she had seen before her the dripping form of
a man whose body was covered with a naval cloak, and although she could
not see his face, she knew it to be the body of Sir Joseph Yorke. There
were of course neither telegraph nor daily posts in those days, and the
news of his death only reached the family some two days later, when it
was found that the day and hour corresponded with the vision Miss
Manningham had seen.

From certain remarks in his letters from Sweden it appears that Captain
Yorke had long the intention of entering politics so soon as there was
any interruption of his active service at sea, and shortly after his
arrival in England in 1831, he carried out this intention by offering
himself as candidate for Reigate, for which borough he duly took his
seat. In October of the same year, however, a vacancy occurred in the
representation of Cambridgeshire upon the resignation of one of the
sitting members, Lord F. G. Osborne. Captain Yorke at once decided to
offer himself as the representative of a county with which his family
had been long and closely associated. His opponent was Mr. R. G.
Townley, who was the Ministerial candidate and had the support of Lord
John Russell on his committee and at the hustings.

The politics of those strenuous times of the Reform Bill are well
known, and need no more than a passing reference here. The election
began on October 27, only a little more than a fortnight after the
Ministerial bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. It is
needless to say that Captain Yorke stood in the Tory interest. In his
address and speeches he expressed himself in favour of a moderate
scheme of reform which would abolish such constituencies as were proved
to be saleable and corrupt, and as ready to support a proper extension
of the franchise. But he refused altogether to sacrifice the
agricultural interest to that of the manufacturer, and took his stand
upon the necessity of affording protection to the farmer by the
maintenance of the existing Corn Laws. Lord John Russell declared that
he and his party had no objection to Captain Yorke as a man, but
exhorted his hearers to bear in mind that this was no personal contest,
but one which would decide the question of Reform or no Reform. There
were the usual hearty proceedings which we associate with the elections
of that period at the hustings on Parker's Piece, Cambridge; Captain
Yorke was escorted by a body of freeholders on horseback, and there was
the customary cheerful fighting to celebrate the conclusion of the
poll. This resulted in the captain's defeat.

He was not long excluded from Parliament. Upon the passage of the great
Reform Bill in the following year he was again nominated, and taking
his stand upon his old principles, and declaring himself resolutely
opposed to the poisonous and revolutionary ideas which France was
promulgating in Europe, he was returned by a large majority and took
his seat in the first reformed Parliament, where he represented his
county until called to the House of Lords by the death of his uncle.

Meanwhile, Captain Yorke had been most happily married on October 18,
1833, at Ravensworth Castle, Durham, to the Hon. Susan Liddell,
daughter of the first Lord Ravensworth, and sister to the Countess of
Mulgrave, Viscountess Barrington, Lady Williamson, Mrs. Trotter, and
the Hon. Georgiana Liddell, afterwards Lady Bloomfield.

By the death of the third Earl of Hardwicke on November 18, 1834,
Captain Yorke succeeded to that earldom, to which he had long been
heir-presumptive. As already mentioned, the third earl's elder son,
Viscount Royston, had been lost in a storm in the Baltic in 1808, and
two younger sons had died in infancy. Captain Yorke therefore succeeded
to the estates in Cambridgeshire and to the historic mansion of
Wimpole. These came into the possession of his family by purchase, the
Lord Chancellor having acquired them from Edward Lord Harley,
afterwards Earl of Oxford, for £100,000. I print here a letter
describing Wimpole in 1781, written by the Countess of St. Germans to
her aunt Lady Beauchamp, [Footnote: Wife of Sir William Beauchamp of
Langley Park, Norfolk, sister of Mrs. Charles Yorke.] as illustrating
life at a country house at that period.

        *       *       *       *       *

'MY DEAR AUNT (writes Lady St. Germans from 'Wimple' October 1781), We
came to this place last Monday about half-past three o'clock; just time
enough for dinner and found all the good family in perfect health. Lady
Bell Polwarth is now here, also my brothers. P. Y. had been here
before, Charles came yesterday on purpose to meet Mama, and goes away
again to-morrow. He is not at all the worse for his journey but looks
remarkably well. Here is likewise an unhappy victim of a clergyman on a
visit. His name is Rouse and he is minister of some place near Wrest.
This is the society here at present, and now I shall tell you of our
journey, and how I like the place. Mama had desired my brother Phil as
he passed through Hertford to order four horses to come to Tytten after
six o'clock and four more to be ready at the Inn to change, but knowing
the forgetfulness of the young gentleman, Mama and I were in a peck of
troubles lest he should forget the horses, and then we could not have
gone. However, they did come, and at eleven o'clock after various
directions and orders given we packed off and got to Hertford safely.
Changed horses without alighting and proceeded to Buntingford, where we
changed again. As we passed by Hammells we saw the new Lodges which are
built at the entrance of the Park, and look very pretty; at present
they are only brick, but are to be painted white. When we entered
Cambridgeshire, I confess I was not struck with the beauties of the
country, but thought it very ugly, disagreeable, and uninteresting.
However, when we approached the environs of Wimple, I was in some
measure repaid by the delightful appearance of the Park and country
round it, for the ugliness of that we had passed through. I assure you
I was very much pleased with the beauty of the grounds and the grandeur
of the house itself. Most part of it is furnished in the old style, as
for example, Mama's and my apartment are brown wainscots, and the
bed-curtains and hangings are crimson damask laced with gold most
dreadfully tarnished. The rooms below stairs are excellent, and very
handsomely furnished. Lady Grey, the Marchioness, has just fitted up
some new apartments, that are beautiful, particularly the new
dining-room which is very elegant indeed. Her Ladyship was so kind as
to take us yesterday morning to see the new park building, which is
very pretty. It commands a very fine and extensive prospect and is seen
at a great distance. I have not yet seen the ruined tower which I can
behold from my window. Everything here is quite new to me, as though I
had never seen it before, for you know it is at least seven years ago
since my brother drove us over at full gallop, all the way from
Hammells. The State Bed, which you may remember stood below stairs, is
now moved upwards into one of the new rooms. The paper with which the
walls are covered is common and white to match the bed, and there are
two dressing-rooms belonging to it. In short, I like the place
exceedingly. Lady Grey is very kind to me, and I am much obliged to her
for permitting me to come. One thing here, however, is disagreeable to
me as I have never been used to it, and that is, the sitting so long
after breakfast and dinner. We breakfast at ten o'clock and sit till
twelve. Then if the weather is fine, which it is not to-day, we take a
walk, if not, retire to our own apartments. From half-past two till
four is spent in dressing. From four till past six at dinner. Then
coffee, afterwards working, looking at prints, talking and preaching
till ten. Then I go to bed, and supper is announced. Everybody is in
bed at eleven; before breakfast Mama and I have some little time, as we
get up at eight. I always take a walk in the garden before breakfast.
Before that time everyone but Lady Grey and my Lord go into the
Library, which is a noble apartment.

'My brother has come home delighted with having found in Ireland a hard
name to puzzle everybody to death with. This was the name of a young
lady at Limerick, not more than 6 foot 4 inches without her shoes. What
do you think of Miss Helena Macgillokilycuddy? This name is always in
his mouth, but I believe he has added four syllables to the real word.
As to Charles, he was charmed and captivated with another young lady at
Limerick, a Miss Fitzgerald, whom he danced with and thought the most
amiable of the company. In short, they are much pleased with their
journey, and are ready to break a lance with anyone in favour of the
Irish. I must not forget to tell you that they ran away from Dublin
with two new coats, without ever paying for them. I have no news to
send you.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Lady Grey mentioned in this letter married the second Lord Hardwicke,
who had no son.

There is an interesting allusion to Wimpole and its associations in one
of Lord Melbourne's published letters to Queen Victoria. After giving
Her Majesty some particulars of the place, and mentioning incidentally
that he was 'very partial to Lord Hardwicke,' Lord Melbourne says:

'The cultured but indolent Lord Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, had
married Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, who brought him £500,000, most
of which he dissipated. Their only child Margaret, "the noble, lovely
little Peggy" of Prior, married William Bentinck, second Duke of
Portland. Lady Oxford sold to the nation the Harleian Collection of
Manuscripts, now in the British Museum (to hold which the gallery at
Wimpole was built). There is much history and more poetry connected
with it. Prior mentions it repeatedly, and always calls the first Lady
Harley, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, "Belphebe." If Hardwicke
should have a daughter he should christen her "Belphebe." The Lady
Belphebe Yorke would not sound ill.'

Thus Lord Melbourne to Queen Victoria. I may perhaps add that my father
had three daughters, but it did not occur to him to give either of them
that name. Prior died at Wimpole in 1721, and his portrait was hung in
the library, and on the table are framed the following lines by the
poet:

  'Fame counting thy books, my dear Harley,
    shall tell
  No man had so many who knew them so well.'

At Wimpole accordingly my father, after an active life at sea which had
continued with scarce an interruption for sixteen years, settled to the
quieter life of a country gentleman; he was a good agriculturist,
identifying himself with all the interests of the land, and resolutely
opposing any changes which he considered detrimental to the prosperity
of the country. I should add that he became a successful breeder of
shorthorns, and that he was President of the Royal Agricultural Society
in 1845, when the show was held at Derby.

In 1834 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. Sir Robert
Peel recommended his name to King William, as he explained in a letter
to Lord Hardwicke, as an exception to the rule 'which disinclines the
minister to continue a member of the same family in succession in the
office of Lord-Lieutenant of a county ... a rule by which in ordinary
cases I should wish to abide, but not for the purpose of depriving me
of the real satisfaction of making an exception in the case of the
present vacancy in the county of Cambridgeshire, and naming you to His
Majesty, which I have done this day for the appointment of
Lord-Lieutenant.' Upon the return of Sir Robert Peel to power in 1841,
Lord Hardwicke's great influence and loyal principles were recognised
by his appointment as Lord-in-Waiting to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

It was in that capacity that my father was appointed to attend King
Frederick William IV of Prussia, the elder brother of the Emperor
William I, upon his visit to England in the early months of 1842. An
interesting letter from Mr. John Wilson Croker to my father shows that
Lord Hardwicke took pains to inform himself as to the character and
tastes of his Prussian Majesty before entering upon his period of
waiting. Mr. Croker was staying with Sir Robert Peel, where the
minister was entertaining the Duke of Cambridge:

'I have as I promised you' he writes, 'turned the conversation on the
subject of the K. of Prussia, and as the Duke of Cambridge happens to
be here, we have heard a good deal on the subject of H.M. The sum is
that H.M. is a good and enlightened man, well read in books and well
versed in current literature and affairs; a Christian in heart and
rather fond of theology, so much so, that he has read twice over, they
said, Gladstone's book on the Church.

'I am not surprised at the "twice over," if H.M. really wished to
understand the author. I found that one reading left me as much in the
dark as I was at the first, and I only doubt whether a second perusal
would have made me any wiser.'

As illustrating the King's religious feeling I may mention that among
His Majesty's experiences with Lord Hardwicke was a visit they made
together to Newgate, where they were present in the chapel at a service
Elizabeth Fry was holding for the prisoners. The King knelt and was
deeply affected, and my father always described the scene as 'deeply
touching' and said that he left the prison with an ideal memory of that
great and holy woman.

The King of Prussia became much attached to Lord Hardwicke during this
visit to England, and made him promise a return visit to Prussia. This
took place in June of the same year, when my father went to Berlin and
accompanied the King on a visit he made to the Czar Nicholas at St.
Petersburg. My father wrote a series of letters to my mother while upon
this journey, describing much that he saw and did, and as these give
many interesting particulars of the Czar and his Court, and describe
some of the old towns in North Germany in a way which may tempt many a
wanderer to visit some of them even to-day, I here print some extracts
from them.

The first of these is dated June 20, 1842, from Hamburg, where my
father was detained by a short illness, during which he had the help of
Mr. Schetky, the marine painter to Queen Victoria, whose acquaintance
he had made years before at the Naval College at Portsmouth. It gives
some interesting particulars of the great fire which raged in that city
on May 4, 1842, and two days following, and destroyed 2000
dwelling-houses as well as many churches and public buildings.

        *       *       *       *       *

'I send you some little sketches of parts of the dilapidated town
showing the ruins of the great church of Saint Peter. The history of
the fire is told in a few words; no one knows how it began, the want of
order, power, and a commanding head was the cause of the great
devastation ... the mob said "in a free town we can do what we like."
They pumped spirits from the engines instead of water by mistake, and
thus a scene of devastation and plunder was begun which ceased only
from the exhaustion of the people and a shift of the wind.

'Then came in some troops from Prussia and Denmark, and order was
restored. The number of lives lost is not known, but not above two
hundred it is believed.

'As you well know, Hamburg is a free town and a republic of itself,
governed by the Burgomaster and a senate. It is one of the three
remaining Hanse towns.... The loss suffered here is to be now stated,
it is fairly computed at 12,000,000 pounds sterling; of this 8,000,000
falls on individuals and foreign and British insurance offices;
4,000,000 on the city of Hamburg. The foreign insurance offices have
paid very well; the Hamburg, that is the individual who had such an
office, is ruined and can pay nothing; the city of Hamburg will borrow
4,000,000, and raise the interest by a tax on the houses of the city
throughout. The cause of this is that Hamburg allowed no foreign
insurance to be made for a house, but the whole city is an insurance
office against the destruction of a house by fire. What the house
contains as furniture, &c., the city has nothing to do with. So each
individual will receive for his house destroyed by fire its value from
the city, but he will be taxed to pay the interests of the money. This
may not be quite clear, it requires rather more words to make it so. I
hope to find a letter from you in Berlin.--Yours,

'CHARLES.'

        *       *       *       *       *

The next letter was written from Berlin.

        *       *       *       *       *

'I arrived here this morning at four o'clock from Hamburg to
Boitzenburg, where we slept.

'I went down to the King (at Sans Souci) by railroad; he was at dinner,
I got some brought to me by his old servant. The King soon came out of
his dining-room to me and gave me a most hearty welcome, and took me
into the garden, where all the court ladies and gentlemen were
gathered; presented me to the Queen, both asked after and about you and
were very kind. I can hardly say how much interest I felt in being for
a few moments at Sans Souci again; it is a most beautiful place. It is
wonderful to think of its creation, but there will be speedy decay and
dissolution, if it is not ere long repaired. The Palace is small, and
not worthy the name of a Palace, but beautiful. I am not expected to
remain long I think, from what I gather.

'As I was staring about the town yesterday evening after my return from
Sans Souci, I was tapped on the shoulder and informed that the King
desired that I would come to sup with him at nine, so as it was half
past eight, off I went to dress. By the by I did not tell you that
after our dinner at Sans Souci the whole Court moved up to Berlin by
railroad, thus I was at the Palace at nine. The supper was served at
six small tables, without any covering, the plate and glasses standing
on the mahogany. At one table sat the King and Queen, the Princess of
Prussia and the Duke of Brunswick; the rest of the party and his
household were at the other tables. A seat of honour was kept for me by
the great lady of the Court, but I had already found myself seated by a
maid of honour whose sweet smiles had attracted me and I did not think
it worth while to move. You need not be alarmed, for the stock of
beauty here is small. The King and Queen both crossed to speak with me
before and after supper, and on taking leave for the night the King
kindly shook me by the hand. The King is gone, he visits some of his
provincial towns on his way, and takes no one with him but one
Aide-de-camp and no escort. I go tomorrow in my own carriage, thank
God; a route is given me, a number painted on the carriage, and all
paid, so I go like the devil without anything to pay. I shall be at
Dantzic before the King.

'The road from Hamburg to Berlin lies through a portion of the Danish
territory and the territory of the grand Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin
and the Prussian, the whole way the country is cultivated, the Danish
territory of Holstein is sandy and little done with it. That of M.
Schwerin is of a better quality, though what we should call moderate
soil but very fairly cultivated. I never saw better farming in my life,
or a country more cared for, the crops looked well and not a weed to be
seen, the road-side planted, and every tree that was young staked and
tied, the side of the roads mowed and trimmed, and stone gutter on each
side of a fairly macadamized road. I felt humbled after my boasting
thoughts of England, as this pattern they have no doubt followed, but
the Prince of Mecklenburg Schwerin deserves well of his people for his
superior copy. The people are well clothed, and I have not been asked
for a farthing since I came to this country.

'Then in Prussia on crossing the frontier the authorities were most
civil, cast an eye at the carriage, made a bow, and would not look at
an article; the regulations of Prussia are in all departments most
excellent, and a painstaking discipline exists everywhere, which makes
the position of the traveller quite charming. Here only one side of the
road is macadamized, the other half is the soil, but the road is very
wide, so down hill you take the soil, very safe. All through Prussia,
as far as I have been, the farming is very good, the land very clean,
but the soil very, very poor; it is a great desert in fact, made
habitable by the perseverance and industry of the people; round this
town it is wonderful to see what can be done by the hand of man. This
town stands in a desert of driving sand, but the town has created a
soil round it which is now pushing the desert back every year, and it
is now in the centre of a large circle of fine green fields and corn
lands; of course the produce is not great but the labour is small, and
the improvement progressing. The accommodation is very fair even to an
Englishman. The innkeepers are a very respectable class, and though I
have not seen a bed that is larger than a child's crib without
curtains, yet they are clean, soft, and well made with lots of pillows
for the head.

'Up to this time I have seen nothing but what I may call the outside of
Berlin, my impression is that on the whole it is a very fine city. The
public buildings are numerous. The architecture is fine, with more of
the florid ornament than the style permits; much statuary and grouping
of figures in marble and bronze. Streets wide, buildings low and large;
but more of this bye and bye.

'My friend Schetky has been very useful to me in killing much "ennui"
and comforting me when sick. He is an extraordinary fellow,
sixty-three, with the spirits and fun of a boy, and the appetite of a
horse. He is bent on going to Dantzig, so puts himself into the
mail-post or public conveyance. He thinks he can make a picture
[Footnote: Now at Sydney Lodge.] of the King's embarkation; I hope he
may succeed, for he is a worthy soul.

'I have passed my morning in the museum of statues and pictures. The
museum was founded in 1830 from designs by Schinkel; it is pure Greek
Doric (I don't like it), a double column façade, up a great flight of
steps; before the entrance stands a basin of polished red granite
twenty-two feet in diameter, one block; it was a boulder that lay
thirty miles from Berlin called the Markgrafenstein, it lay at a place
called Fürstenwald.

'The collection of the museum consists of vases and bronzes, sculpture
and pictures. My view was so very cursory, and without a catalogue,
that I must not say much about it. It is very large and the statues are
mostly antique, and I should say fine. The pictures are numerous and
many very fine, but on the whole the collection I should say was not
first rate, indeed if it were it would be the finest in the world from
its number.

'There is a very curious collection of very old church pictures by very
ancient masters of the art, but the Italian school of its best day is,
I think, small, as well as the Dutch. But I must not be supposed to
give judgment on the gallery, I must have a long day at it on my
return, and another some day with you, my love.

'I find that I am not even to pay for a potato on my journey, my beds,
breakfasts, dinners, horses are everywhere ordered. And apartments were
ready for me at Sans Souci, had I arrived sooner, and this morning I
was ordered to the Palace for to-day and to-night, but I begged off,
the Hof-Marshall not thinking my rooms here good enough; surely this is
enough honour. But it is given to the Queen's servant, to an
Englishman, and not to myself, so I do not take it all. I dine with
Westmorland to-day at five.

'Your devoted,

'CHARLES.'

        *       *       *       *       *

KONITZ: June 25, 1842.

'I have arrived at the end of my second day's journey towards Dantzig,
where I meet the King, who went by another road for the purpose of
paying a visit to the frontier town of Posen, where he was to be
entertained by the inhabitants. As I told you, I had a route given me
and thus far am I advanced, post horses standing ready at each station,
the authorities waiting on me and showing me every attention that a
Pacha might require. I must say more could not be done to make all most
agreeable to me, I have come 100 miles in twelve hours on the most
excellent road without a jolt, very good accommodation and eating.'

        *       *       *       *       *

DANTZIG: June 26.

'I am safe and sound at the ancient Port of Dantzig, the corn exporting
place, the terror of English farmers. I found that I was quartered on
arrival at the English Consul's, where I have an excellent apartment
and was most kindly received by him and his family, the lady being a
Prussian, and from what I have seen of her a most excellent and
charming person.

'My journey to-day has been less agreeable than the two previous ones
from heavy rain all day, country passed through of the same general
character, the land improving in quality as we approach Dantzig.
Between Konitz and (?) Pral Rittelm we cross a small stream called the
Pral, full of salmon and fine trout. I thought of my absent fishing
tackle, but it is better I had it not, as I should have got wet to a
certainty, but I mark him for some other day.

'The country is a Catholic country, wooden images of the crucified
Saviour on the road-sides, and the greater part of cottages here built
of timber log, and the people in an inferior condition.

'As soon as I had dined with the Consul I took my way to the shore of
the Vistula. The sight of its banks was to me most interesting, covered
with sheaves of wheat covering acres of ground, while the river is
covered with rafts of timber and large boats built for the voyage down,
but being broken up for fire wood as soon as the cargo of wheat is
landed. Here the grain remains till sold to the merchant, when it is
carried to the granaries in the town, or rather to an island in the
middle of the town called Speicher Insel. On this island there is no
other building but granaries. The corn contained is 500,000 or 600,000
qrs. of wheat. On a fine day on the shore of the river are to be seen
the figures of two hundred men and women, Poles, working the wheat by
turning it over and over with shovels till it is dry, as the voyage
down the river is sometimes five or six weeks, and the corn heats and
grows; thus it requires much turning on its arrival.

'The Poles who come down with it, are the most savage and uncouth
looking people I ever saw, excepting Finns and Esquimaux; indeed, they
are very like them. But their character here is that they are a most
inoffensive race, suffer much fatigue and privation, and gain but
little by their voyage. They are in the hands of Jewish supercargoes,
one of which nation is to be seen in every regiment and in every boat.
These poor people, after the cargo is sold, walk home again 600 or 700
miles. Price of wheat on the shore 55s. per qr. That won't hurt us. The
King is expected tomorrow late in the evening. Good-night.

'Monday night, ten o'clock.--The day is past and I have returned for
the night. The King arrived at six o'clock, I waited on him directly he
was in the room; he had me to dine with him, and seated me next him at
table. The Prince Menschikoff, the head of the Russian Navy, was there;
he has come to take the King to Russia with two steam ships.

'I visited to-day the lions of Dantzig--the Exchange, the Cathedral,
and the Armoury. The Exchange is a most curious building of great
antiquity, and the hall is certainly the most curious and grotesque
room in the world. The walls are covered with large pictures and wooden
statues painted in colour. It is a Gothic edifice built in 1379, and
the roof of the hall is supported by four slender pillars. The most
singular picture on the wall is a representation of the church under
the form of a ship sailing to heaven full of monks, who are throwing
out ropes and hooks to haul on board a few miserable sinners, who but
for this timely assistance would be drowned.

'In front of the building is a fine fountain ornamented with a bronze
figure of Neptune drawn by sea-horses. The whole effect of the hall is
most curious and beautiful. Near this building is the Town Hall, in
which is the room in which the old Senate, now the Corporation, sit.
Its beauty is difficult to describe, the ceiling is richly carved in
wood, in each compartment is a fine and brilliant picture by some old
master.

'The church, of which I send a sketch, is one of the most curious in
Europe; the Lutherans have preserved it exactly as it was; rich to a
degree in painting, sculpture, and brass, though not of the highest
order, yet, to the eye, rich in effect. The two great objects in it are
a picture by Van Eyck, and a crucified Saviour in wood as large as
life. It is called the "Marien Kirche," and was begun in 1343 by the
grand master of the Teutonic Knights. The architect was Ulric Ritter of
Strasburg. The vaulted roof is supported by twenty-six slender brick
pillars, ninety-eight feet from the pavement; around the interior are
fifty chapels, originally founded by the chief citizens for their
families. The great ornament is the picture by John Van Eyck known as
the Dantzig picture. It was painted for the Pope, and while on its way
to Rome was taken by pirates. It was retaken by a Dantzig vessel and
deposited in the cathedral, where it remained till 1807, when the
French took the town and it was carried to Paris. On its return after
the war, the King of Prussia wished to retain it in Berlin, and offered
the town 40,000 dollars as a compensation, but they would not part with
their picture. I think it a wonderful picture, it is as fresh as the
day it was painted, and the colour bestowed on it is amazing; but, like
all this class of pictures, to me it is only wonderful.

'The Crucifix is fine, and the story goes that the artist crucified his
servant that he might make a good article.

'Fahrenheit, who invented the thermometer, was born here. The great
street of the town is the most beautiful I ever saw, the houses with
the gables to the street no two alike, richly ornamented with elaborate
cornices and carving of figures and flowers. Flights of steps from the
door, some projecting more than others into the street, some with stone
rail, some iron, some brass. Most curious, antique, and beautiful. It
is a fine and interesting old town. So much for Dantzig.'

        *       *       *       *       *

At the Entrance of the Gulf of Finland, on board the Emperor of
Russia's Steam Frigate _Bogatir_:

        *       *       *       *       *

June 30, 1842.

'Since I despatched my letter from Dantzig I have made progress thus
far towards my ultimate and extreme point, and to-morrow evening I
expect to be safe under the roof of the Emperor of all the Russias. I
closed my letter to you on the 27th, and I shall resume the thread of
my story from that time. At nine o'clock on the 28th the King reviewed
the Garrison of Dantzig, a small army of about 2000 men, consisting of
two regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and eight guns. I
accompanied him on horseback; the turn-out was very good indeed, the
men small but healthy and active, and moved very well, in all points
extremely well equipped. Afterwards His Majesty drove about the town
and visited everything, not only the public buildings that I have
described to you, but also wherever a bit of old carving, or old
wardrobe, or the façade of a house that was curious was to be found,
there he paid a visit. He gave a great dinner at two o'clock to 100 of
his chief people and officers. During the repast a regiment of infantry
sang national songs in parts most beautifully, the choruses, with 800
or 1000 voices, very fine. We embarked at seven in a small steam boat
which took us down the Vistula and aboard the frigate. Throughout the
day I have been struck with the position of this Monarch and his people.

'No guards, no escorts, not even a guard of honour or police, all
affection and order. He walked about amongst thousands of his people,
like a father among his loving children. He was remarkably well
received everywhere and it made him very happy. He is very familiar
with his officers, and talks to his servants with kindness and good
humour, frequently making them laugh and laughing in return. In short,
I am much struck with the difference of forms in the constitutional and
despotic country, and with the pomp of the former and familiarity and
freedom of the latter. In parting with his officers he pressed many of
them with warmth and affection to his heart.

'The two Russian steam ships that convey us to St. Petersburg are very
fine vessels, the one we are on board of is the smallest of the two,
being about 1000 tons and 200 horse power, the other 1800 tons with 600
horse power. This vessel, the _Bogatir_, is superbly fitted and quite
equal in all points to any I have seen in England.

'July 1 (Friday, 5 P.M.).--I was obliged to leave this scrawl of mine
yesterday, for really what with the engine, the eating and the talking,
I could do little in the way of writing; moreover, I have had no bed,
though a very good cabin, but have slept three nights in my clothes on
the sofa. Well here I am well lodged with a suite of apartments in the
Palace of Peterhoff with the Emperor and the Court. It has been a day
of great interest, and ought to have been one of excitement, but I find
that nothing of this sort excites me; so much the better, I can profit
more, though I do not enjoy so much.

'This morning at four o'clock I was on deck and we passed a division of
the Russian Fleet under sail, one three-decker and eight two-deckers of
80 and 74 guns, four frigates, two corvettes, and three or four brigs;
the line-of-battle ships formed the line of battle on the larboard tack
and bore up with us, but the wind being light they did not keep long in
company. At equal distance were placed, for the purpose of
communication by signal, vessels of war, frigates, and brigs, who gave
the Emperor early information of our approach. Of course we were
everywhere received with a cannonade from every vessel.

'On approaching Cronstadt the Emperor, Empress, and all the Court came
out to meet us in a steam yacht; there was also on board the Prince of
the Netherlands and his Princess. At Cronstadt another division of the
Fleet was at anchor, nine sail of the line and six or seven frigates.
Of the Fleet I shall speak another time.

'After passing the batteries at Cronstadt we anchored, and the Emperor
pushed off in a boat from his yacht and fetched the King, his suite
went on board in another boat. The meeting between the King and the
Imperial family was most affectionate, and after the hurry and
excitement of this event had subsided, I was presented by the King to
the Emperor.

'You cannot conceive anything more frank, noble, open, and kind, than
the bearing of this great man, he put me at once at my ease, and talked
to me both in French and English, on such commonplace matters as best
suited the occasion.

'He then presented me to the Empress, her manner was most kind and
gentle, but her beauty is gone, and she looks very thin. Luncheon was
served on deck, the Imperial family and the King at one table, as they
sat down the Emperor called out "Lord Hardwicke these are my daughters,
they speak English." I of course went off to the two most lovely women,
Olga and Alexandrina, most charming in every way, their beauty is
surpassed by their sweetness of manner and address. An old lady of the
court took me under her protection during luncheon, but I have not yet
found out who she is. After luncheon the yacht which had anchored got
under way and stood over from the roads of Cronstadt to Peterhoff,
accompanied by six sail of small ships. The Emperor came up to me and
pointing to them he said, "These are my boys," explaining that they
were the pupils for the navy under his own eye. They live on board
these six vessels during summer and are always at work. Two little boys
were on deck in uniform, and I said, "And these are yours, are they
not?" The Empress was standing by and the Emperor replied in English,
"Yes, they are our own fabrique, are they not, Madame Nicolas?" placing
his large hand all over her face, she rejoined in Russian, "How you do
talk." This made me laugh, and the Emperor and Empress did so in a
manner that showed the joke was a good one. On landing, I, in company
with the Prussians, paid visits to the hereditary Grand Duke, to the
Prince of Prussia, to the Grand Duke Michael and his Duchess, a most
charming person, and two or three officers of state. I should tell you
that on the reception of the King there is a Guard of Honour before the
Palace of about 200 men, not more on the ground. I was struck with the
manner of the Emperor; he ordered what words of command should be
given, and as they broke into sections to march before the King, the
Emperor placed himself on the left of one of the companies, and
marching with them, saluted the King, and then fell out. The whole
manner of this man is most remarkable, and quite unlike anybody I ever
saw.

'He is one of the finest and best-looking men in the world, and his
bearing corresponds. At four o'clock we went to dine, the Imperial
family dine at the Palace of the Grand Duchess Helena close by, and the
Court dined here in the Palace. I sat between Count Menschikoff, whom I
like very much (he is, as I told you, the head of the Navy) and a
little Court lady from Moscow, who might fascinate easily a heart that
was free. Dinner is over and I sit down to write this to you. As to
myself I am quite well, and shall profit all I can by this trip, but I
shall be heartily tired of it, I assure you; it is no joke. I would not
be tied to one of these Courts for all the world could give, it is such
a continued business of eating and dressing.

'I shall say nothing of Peterhoff or St. Petersburg, which I have not
seen. I see before me in all directions from the windows frames of wood
of enormous dimensions and various shapes for lighting up the gardens
of the Palace on the night of the Fête, although there is no night, so
it must be going through the forms of illumination only. However, we
shall see when it takes place, no doubt it will be most magnificent.

'All about me is most strange, a mixture of East and West, such as can
be nowhere else seen: savage and civilised life is here blended
together, blackies and turbans and laced footmen all wait at table
together.'

        *       *       *       *       *

PETERHOFF: July 2, 1842.

'I find myself most completely provided for here. I have a
sitting-room, bedroom, and servant's room with all comforts....

'I must now give you some description of this place, but shall wait
till to-morrow that I may profit by my ride with the young ladies, who
will show me all the gardens.

'The Palace of Peterhoff with a front to the main building of 510 feet,
is situated on the top of a terrace which runs to a certain distance
along the left or north bank of the mouth of the Neva opposite
Cronstadt. The terrace overlooks the wide expanse of the Neva to
Cronstadt and St. Petersburg and far towards the sea; the distance from
the terrace to the sea is about half a mile. This part is planted with
trees of various kinds, fir, elm, ash, common kinds, and having
attained no great size, about the size of thirty years' growth in a
tolerable soil in England--these are cut into avenues or vistas at
right angles to one another, in which are statues, fountains, and
canals, and this at once gives you the character of the place. I
neither rode nor wrote yesterday evening, but fell asleep till I was
called to dress at half-past eight. By the bye, I have dressed six
times to-day. I must leave my description of Peterhoff to be continued
till another time, as I wish to relate to you what has passed here
since nine o'clock P.M. till this time. Your letter was delivered to me
yesterday evening by one of the Emperor's aide-de-camps in the middle
of a game of romps such as I've not enjoyed since I was a boy. At nine
o'clock I was in the receptions room of the Palace according to orders,
all the Court were assembled, but no strangers; the company might
amount to about sixty, the Emperor, Empress, the three Grand Duchesses,
their daughters, the Czarewitch, the Prince of the Netherlands, and
many others, with the King of Prussia. After some little formality the
doors of a large apartment were thrown open, in which was no furniture
but a few chairs. In the room adjoining was a full band. The Empress
said to me, "You must come with us and not play cards, we are going to
play some innocent games." All formality was now at an end, the
Imperial family joined with the Court and the game began. It was the
game with a rope, which I daresay you have seen. All take hold of it
and one is in the middle, the one in the middle must strike the hand of
anyone holding the rope, who then takes his place in the middle. I
think you must have seen this game, a very innocent one, and makes fun.
After this had gone on for some time, the Emperor takes hold of the
cord, pushed it and the company into a corner of the room, and the game
became more vivacious, and a general romp ensued, some fell, some
rushed into the Emperor's arms, who stood like a colossus at the end of
the room with open arms to receive those who sought shelter there. This
could be seen nowhere else. We then supped at round tables, the ladies
sending for the gentlemen they chose to make the party. After supper
the Imperial family retired. It was a most delightful evening.

'Words cannot convey an idea of the affability and kindness, the
sweetness and amiability of this great family. I shall put by my pen
just now and write the details of the day to-night, if not too sleepy.
But it is not a Sunday passed as it ought to be, though we have been to
church.

'Monday, 10.30 A.M.--I am waiting for a message from the Emperor, who
yesterday told me that I was to go to Cronstadt with him this morning,
and warning me at the same time that he would do all he could to tire
me completely. We yesterday had a very hard day. At eleven o'clock we
went to the Greek chapel in the Palace, the whole Court attending
divine service. Of the ceremonial of the Greek Church I shall only say
that its forms are in appearance more absurd than the Romish. The music
and chanting was most sublime and beautiful, nothing could exceed the
excellence of this performance. The chapel is small but highly
decorated in the interior with paintings of rather a high finish and
gold, in the style of Louis XIV, though the form of the chapel does not
much vary from the same date, yet its proportions do, for it is three
times as lofty as its area is broad, with a domed ceiling. After church
a parade, here the Emperor and the King of Prussia played soldiers for
an hour and a half. Suffice it to say, without relating all the
marching and counter-marching of the troops, that the King of Prussia's
regiment (for he is a colonel in the Russian Army) was drawn up, the
King inspected the men and then put himself on the right of the line,
the Emperor then went up to him and, taking him in his arms, kissed
both his cheeks, then the King marched past the Emperor at the head of
his regiment. The Empress was on the ground.

'Monday.--I dined with the Royal Family, 150 sat down; we did not go to
Cronstadt to-day, I am not sorry, for it rained. The dinner was good
for a Russian and not long. The service on the table all china from
Berlin, given by Frederick the Great to Katharine.

'After dinner to the St. Peterburg Gate, about three miles off, where I
found a horse ready for me to attend a review of the military cadets.
It was a very interesting sight, 3000 boys in heavy marching order with
eight guns, a small body of light horse, and a small body of Circassian
Horse, forming a complete little army. Their marching and evolutions
were most excellent, no troops can move better than these boys. The
Emperor and his staff rode so as to cut the column off three times,
then they passed in review three times before him, and were dismissed.
As soon as they had time to disarm, the youths came rushing out in all
directions. The Emperor dismounted and was at once surrounded by them.
He lifted one, took another in his arms, passed two or three under his
legs, and spoke with frankness and affection to all. The love and
enthusiasm of these children for him is such as is found only in the
breast of youth, but must grow in time; and what a power this one
institution must give him. These boys are all of good family, and go
from this training to the army as officers. After this, at nine, a ball
at the Emperor's cottage.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Lord Hardwicke remained in St. Petersburg for a fortnight, leaving that
city on the 13th of July for Memel, in attendance on the King of
Prussia, who was returning to Berlin by way of Silesia.

As long as he was in Russia at the Court of the Emperor Nicholas, he
experienced (as the foregoing letters show) the most generous, nay
lavish, hospitality. In this connection the following anecdote may be
recorded. An allowance, consisting of one bottle of brandy and one of
champagne, was placed on a tray in his room each morning. He rarely
touched it, but when at the end of his visit the servant in waiting
brought him a bill for the champagne, he sharply turned and said, 'Very
well, I shall show this bill to the Emperor myself,' at which the
servant turned deadly pale and replied, 'I beg you will do no such
thing, or I shall certainly be sent to Siberia!'

        *       *       *       *       *

MEMEL: July 18, 1842.

'This will be a short letter as the time passed since I wrote is small.
We arrived here about noon to-day, having had a good passage and are
all well. You will by this time feel that I am returning, and that my
face is towards home. The King has pressed me to stay and go to the
Rhine with him, but I have decided the point, and have declined his
great kindness, thus I shall keep my word and hope to be at home again,
at the time I stated.

'I believe I told you that the _fête_ passed off well, our promenade
amongst the lamps in the garden was stupid enough. I tried to stir the
Maids of Honour up a little, but it was hard work even to make them
laugh, and the people looked glum, being as it were a sort of
contradiction to the illuminated garden. The last day was a day of
repose. The next day being Saturday, the Imperial Family received us to
take leave, and nothing could be more truly kind and affectionate in
manner than they all were to me. I say to me, for I know not what was
said to others, but I have no doubt they were so to all the Prussians.
The Emperor and Empress both gave me special messages to the Queen. I
then, when the audience was over, drove to visit the Grand Duke Michael
at Orienbaum, about six miles from Peterhoff, an ancient palace, and a
very fine one, I think. The Grand Duchess Helena, his wife, is a most
charming lady and very lovely; she took me all over the house, and
showed me how little by little she was making it comfortable.

'The Grand Duchess Marie did not see me, and I was very sorry for it.
At twelve o'clock the King and Emperor came on board the _Bogatir_ and
we got under way immediately. At about one we passed Cronstadt; at
half-past one we had passed the last ship of the fleet. I was standing
on the paddle-box near the Emperor and King, when on a rocket being
thrown up from the _Bogatir_, all the fleet, mounting 3500 pieces of
cannon, discharged all the guns at once, and the Emperor at the same
moment took the King in his arms and embraced him. This bit of stage
effect took me by surprise and affected me exceedingly; there was
something very imposing and touching in this _coup de théâtre_ and the
King was much affected. After this the boat was manned for the Emperor
to depart, and he stood some time on deck without speaking, the King
and all of us standing near him. I saw he was much moved. At last he
pressed the King in his arms and kissed him; after he embraced the
Prussians. When he came to me, he held out his hand; I gave him mine
and bowed, but he said, "No, no; you must do so," and taking me round
the neck kissed me most affectionately.

'I assure you it was a very striking scene and I shall never forget it;
he was no more the Emperor, but a warm-hearted man. He was most
affected at parting with the King, and this had softened him towards
all, and his heart was uppermost. I was glad to see him thus. I did not
think before he was a man of feeling, but he has a warm and
affectionate heart. I shall not easily forget this evening.

'Our voyage was too good a one to produce any anecdote worth relating.
As I passed the bar I remembered that I was indebted to its broken
waves for my present station. The King spoke to me of Royston's death;
he was at Memel when it happened and remembered all the circumstances
of it. He knew Mrs. Potter very well. We start to-morrow on our way to
Silesia, our first day's journey is to Tilsit....

'CHARLES.'

        *       *       *       *       *

ERDSMANSDORFF: July 27.

'I arrived here last night about six o'clock after a prosperous journey
of four days and one night from Königsberg, from which place my last
letter is dated. The Queen is just arrived, the King is expected about
four in the afternoon. From Memel to this place the whole country is
flat and tame. Erdsmansdorff is situated at the foot of a large
mountain that separates Silesia from Bohemia, called Riesengeberg,
which means "Great Mountain"; the chief of the chain is opposite my
windows, the highest in Germany, being 4983 feet above the level of the
sea. The outline of this chain is undulating but not bold. The valley
is lovely, and the King is building a house here; the grounds are
partially laid out, we are living in a building which will form a part
of the offices of the new house. My apartment is on the ground floor,
and the King and Queen are above me. The people are an industrious
race. Here is a colony of Tyrolese the King received and gave lands to;
they were persecuted by the Catholics on the other side of the
mountains, and he said, "Come here, and I will give you rest." So here
they are 300, and have built themselves houses after the fashion of
their country, which has much added to the beauty and picturesqueness
of this land.

'I cannot say how well I am treated everywhere, you cannot conceive the
civility and attention that I have received from all and everyone, poor
and rich, a proof how much the King is loved; for the poor know me as
the King's friend.

'I must now go back a little to Königsberg and say something of the
Palace of that place. It is a most ancient structure of enormous size,
being built round a quadrangle with round towers at the corners. It is
not beautiful, but ancient and large, towers above all other buildings,
and stands on the edge of a hill that overlooks a great part of the
town.

'The town of Königsberg was once the capital of Prussia proper, and a
long time the residence of the electors of Brandenburg. It is the third
city in the Prussian dominions and contains 70,000 inhabitants. It is
not fortified, but is going to be.

'After the battle of Jena, the Royal Family of Prussia took shelter in
this town, the present King being then twelve years old. The Palace is
now chiefly used for provincial offices, and a suite of apartments is
kept furnished for the King. There are some very ancient archives kept
here which must contain a fund of interest; I looked at several letters
from our Sovereigns both of the Plantagenet and Tudor line to the
Teutonic Grand Masters, thanking them for falcons sent from Prussia.

'As I told you, I was to go in search of an elk and kill one if I
could. Accordingly I started at 3 P.M., accompanied by the master of
the forest, to a forest about seven English miles from the town, and
without making the story long, I had the good fortune to see, but not
to kill, six of the enormous animals; only one passed within shot, and
this was a female with her calf. I was desired to fire at the calf, and
I missed. I will not make the excuse that I might for so doing; my only
bag will distract Eliot when he hears it, a fox, on the death of which
all present raised their hats. It made me laugh and think of the old
proverb, "What's one man's meat...." I returned to Königsberg at 9.30
and at 10 started for this place.

'I arrived at Marienberg at nine next morning, and stayed there an hour
to see the Palace, and breakfast. The Palace is the most interesting
building in Prussia, and is very fine of its kind. The King, with his
love of architecture, has restored a great part of it, and will, by
degrees, restore the whole to its original state. This was the seat of
the Knights of the Teutonic order, they, in fact, were the founders of
the Prussian kingdom, after fifty-three years' struggle. The oldest
part of this Castle was built in 1276, the middle Castle in 1309. The
rooms in the interior and the great hall are built in a singular way:
the rooms are square, the hall is in three cubes. The ceiling of each
room, which is arched, is supported by a single slender column of
granite, in the centre hall by three columns in the same way.

'The King and Queen have arrived and dinner is over, they are both very
happy and are gone to drive together quietly, and we shall not see them
again this evening. He has been through part of Poland, where his
reception has been most enthusiastic.'

        *       *       *       *       *

ERDSMANSDORFF: 31st July.

'Here I have abode quietly with the King and Queen since I last wrote
to you, and should have been quite content if I had only your company
in addition, but although all ought to be charming to me, yet the want
of employment or excitement after the first view of environs was over
leads me to wish my stay shortened. I have, however, walked hard though
not far and looked about the country for fear I could not go, as the
dinner-hour at three cuts the day in twain. Life has been quite devoid
of form or uniform for all, even the King has been what is called here
_en bourgeois._ After dinner we usually drive to some hill or dale,
some favourite haunt to take tea, returning late to supper and to bed.
The Queen is a sweet woman, the very best of her sex, most plain,
modest, and unaffected, but doing the Queen perfectly when necessary.
Yesterday we had a full dress day at Fubach, the residence of the
King's uncle, Prince William. His daughter, about to be married to the
Prince Royal of Bavaria, was confirmed in the parish Church. A great
exhibition. The church was crammed and the Princess at the altar
underwent a two hours' catechising and examination, which she bore with
great talent and conduct. To-day she receives the sacrament. She is a
lovely girl of seventeen, and her future husband is the future King of
Bavaria, a roué of 30. He was there, arrived the night before. There
was a great gathering of the Prussian Royal Family, who live in this
valley and neighbourhood....

'11 P.M.--I have just seen the King, and he has allowed me to go
to-morrow morning, and meet him at Sans Souci on Saturday.'

        *       *       *       *       *

BERLIN: 5 August.

'I arrived here yesterday at 6 P.M. by railroad from Dresden, having
quitted that town at 6 A.M.; a very good railroad and well conducted.
On my arrival I was greeted by your letter of the 27th; a very good
cure for blue devils. The news you give me of all things at Wimpole is
very satisfactory. The offices in size and appearance of the east wing
corresponding with the library I was aware of, and I am of opinion that
it will not be noticeable to any degree, and if it is, can be easily
remedied when I build the conservatory. On the subject of chimneys we
shall agree.

'To-morrow I go to Sans Souci, the King arrives for dinner, and
apartments are prepared there for me. Now my object will be to get away
from my kind and excellent friend, for I cannot find another word so
proper, but I must at the same time consult his wishes.

'My journey from Erdsmansdorff to Dresden was very prosperous, though
it rained all day. I found my horses ready and paid to the frontier of
Saxony, and no one would take money from me. I stopped at the residence
of General Bon-Natzmer for breakfast, he lives about sixteen miles from
Erdsmansdorff, a very nice residence with pretty scenery, and his wife
a perfect lady; they gave me an excellent English breakfast. I arrived
in Dresden, having been twenty hours performing the journey.

'I saw all that was worth seeing in Dresden, and well worth the journey
it was, if it had only been to look at the face of the Madonna di San
Sisto, which I think surpasses anything I have seen in nature. It has
left a deep remembrance on my mind, the copy here conveys only an idea
of the original. It lives and breathes, the eyes look as if moving, and
it is perfectly true that I was riveted to the spot with wonder at the
performance of the beyond all famous master. If he had never painted
any picture but this, he must have died the greatest painter that ever
lived. After looking through this fine gallery I again returned to the
Madonna, and feel now that I had not exaggerated to my own mind the
wonder and power of this picture. The face of the child, too, carries
all that the strongest imagination can picture of wisdom and childish
innocence. I grieve to say this _chef d'oeuvre_ is going to ruin. Your
Father's copy is of great value, for it is excellent, nay wonderful,
and will in fifty years be what the great picture now is, for much of
the expression of the countenance is caused by the softness which time
has given to the tone of the picture. The Gallery wants weeding and
repairing, the pictures are going faster than they ought, and the
effect of the Gallery is injured by a quantity of inferior pictures and
copies. It now contains 2000 pictures, if it was reduced to 1500 it
would be more valuable. The museum of History is well worth a visit,
the quantity of beautiful and valuable things here collected are most
interesting, a suit of gold and silver armour by Benvenuto Cellini
would hold a high place in your estimation, a collection of various
costumes within 150 years would amuse you.

'The great fair annually held here in August has just begun. I spent my
two evenings in the booths, very idly, but very much to my amusement. I
dined with our minister, Mr. Forbes and his sisters, Lady Adelaide and
Lady Caroline, two ancient maids, old friends of mine twenty-four years
ago.

'The King and Royal Family are at the fair taking part in the games of
the people, shooting with the cross-bow at the bird on the top of a
pole; large tents are pitched for their reception, and they spend the
evening; the court ladies came the second evening. You would have
enjoyed it much. The Germans are a more rational people in these
matters than we are, the best society enjoy this fair, and sit out
under tents taking their coffee and meals and enjoying the sight with
their families and wives. All the musicians from Bohemia, Tyrol and
various other districts of Germany were here playing on various
instruments and singing the national ballads. Two or three women take
harps like our Welsh harps, with the voices in parts, and sing together
Tyrolese and Bohemian songs. Perfect order, and I did not see one
person drunk. Whatever may be the secret faults of the Germans they are
a decent and orderly people. The weather is very warm, the thermometer
eighty-four in the shade. I dined with Westmorland and drove out with
him in the evening, to-day I go to Sans Souci. I must be two days in
London before I go to Wimpole.

'CHARLES.'

        *       *       *       *       *

SANS SOUCI: 6th August.

'My hope of being with you as soon as the 15th is at an end. It is with
feeling of the greatest sorrow that I feel I am compelled to make a
sacrifice of a few days and arrive later. This evening we all went,
that is the King and Queen, and Prince Charles of Prussia with his
wife, to drink tea in one of the beautiful spots of this most lovely
place. The King called me to his table. When we sat down he said,
"Pray, when do you mean to leave me?" I said, "I intend to do the only
painful thing I have done since I've been in Prussia, and that is to
ask His Majesty's permission to take my leave on Monday." He said, "I
will not ask you to do what is contrary to your duty, but I must beg
you to stay with me a little longer. I must ask you to remain with me
at least till after the 15th." This was said in so kind a manner, with
the Queen looking me full in the face, that I at once said, "So much
honour was done me by the desire expressed that I could not refuse."

'They both at once expressed most unfeigned pleasure, but it is a
sacrifice. I now leave Berlin on the 16th, and shall be in London on
the 21st, please God, without fail. You cannot conceive how
affectionately I am treated by this great family. I never have received
so much real attention from out of my own family in my life. I feel
sure you will approve of what I have done, and think after all this
kindness I was bound to make a sacrifice, if asked. The King said to me
at supper this evening, "I cannot think what became of you one morning
on board the steamer. I went three times to your cabin to look for you,
and could not find you. I asked for you, and no one had seen you; and
then the horrid idea came over me that you had fallen overboard or were
ill." I mention this to show the sort of feeling he must have for me. I
believe I was asleep on the sofa with a table before it, and he did not
see me, being very nearsighted. I am most charmingly lodged here, the
walls of my room are all marqueterie and they have put sofa and bed,
&c., as the Chamberlain told me "like it is done at Windsor."'

It is clear from these letters that Lord Hardwicke's character and
personality were much appreciated both by the King of Prussia and by
the Emperor Nicholas. He was indeed so great a favourite with the
latter that when the Emperor paid a visit to Queen Victoria in 1844 he
was appointed to attend His Majesty, and took command of the _Black
Eagle_ steam yacht which carried the Czar from Woolwich to Rotterdam on
his leaving this country. As a memento of this service and of his
esteem, the Emperor presented Lord Hardwicke with a snuff-box of great
value, bearing his Majesty's miniature mounted in brilliants.

In 1843 Lord Hardwicke had the honour of receiving Queen Victoria and
the Prince Consort at Wimpole, upon the occasion of the Prince's visit
to Cambridge to receive the degree of LL.D., and the following mention
of the event occurs in one of the Queen's letters to the Queen of the
Belgians:

'We returned on Saturday highly interested with our tour, though a
little done up. The Royal party went by road from Paddington to
Cambridge, and stayed at the Lodge at Trinity. On the following day
Prince Albert was made LL.D. The party then went to Wimpole. At the
ball which was given at Wimpole, there was a sofa covered with a piece
of drapery given by Louis XIV. to the poet Prior and by him to Lord
Oxford, the owner of Wimpole before its purchase by Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Lord Hardwicke rode out to meet her Majesty at Royston at the head of a
large cavalcade which included the gentry and yeomanry of the county.
After an inspection of that little town, the party started for Wimpole,
and on arriving at the House in the Fields the Queen's escort of Scots
Greys filed off at Lord Hardwicke's request, their places being taken
by a troop of the Whittlesea Yeomanry Cavalry, the Lord-Lieutenant
roundly declaring that 'the county cavalry was well able to guard her
Majesty so long as she might stay in Cambridgeshire.' On the following
day Lord Hardwicke gave a dinner in honour of her Majesty, followed by
a ball, of which the Queen makes mention in her letter, to which three
hundred guests were invited.

I may perhaps print here another reference by Queen Victoria to my
father. Writing to Lord Melbourne in 1842 her Majesty said:

'Lord Hardwicke the Queen likes very much; he seems so straightforward.
He took the greatest care of the Queen when on board ship. Was not his
father drowned at Spithead or Portsmouth?'

Lord Hardwicke, as commander of the _Black Eagle_ yacht, had taken her
Majesty to Scotland.

He was in waiting during a visit of the King and Queen of the Belgians
to Windsor, and wrote on that occasion to my mother:

'Our Court news is not filled with much interest; to-morrow the King
and Queen of the Belgians go back to their own country, and yesterday
at dinner the Queen of the Belgians told me her father (King Louis
Philippe) was so fond of English cheese that he had sent to her to
procure for him a "Single Gloster," I could not refrain from offering a
Wimpole cheese that she graciously accepted and which I must now beg
you to give.'

I find a reference to this little incident in the Queen's Letters, vol.
ii, p. 28. In a letter to her Majesty during King Louis Philippe's
visit in 1844, the Queen of the Belgians wrote:

'If by chance Lord Hardwicke was in waiting during my father's stay,
you must kindly put my father in mind to thank him for the _famous
cheese_, which arrived safely, and was found very good.'

Queen Victoria's conversation with my father upon this occasion I find
related at length in a copy in my mother's handwriting of a letter he
wrote to Sir Robert Peel. This letter is of so private a character as
to preclude its publication, but I may say that it is clear that the
Queen (though, as Lord Hardwicke says, 'in very good humour; I never
saw her so gracious to all as she was during her stay at Wimpole') was
still quite ready to state in very plain terms her objection to certain
points of the policy of the Tory party, which, as she said, she could
'forgive but not forget.' All this Lord Hardwicke reported at length to
the Prime Minister for his information and instruction.

Several letters from Sir Robert to my father at this period show him
very anxious to learn from Lord Hardwicke the details of the proper
arrangements for receiving the Queen at Drayton Manor. 'I have the
prospect,' he wrote, 'not only of one but two royal visits, for I must
arrange that Queen Adelaide should meet the Queen each with her several
suites. If you have any device for making stone walls elastic,' he adds
humorously, 'pray give it to me. Did Lord H. new furnish the rooms
allotted to H.M.? How many apartments did H.M. require? Did he observe
anything especially agreeable to the Queen's wishes, and did Lord H.
attempt to keep any order among his mounted farmers, and if so how?'

Lord Hardwicke and his brother, Mr. Eliot Yorke, though both pledged to
the maintenance of the Corn Laws, refused to oppose the government of
Sir Robert Peel upon the rumours of the minister's intentions which
became rife in the course of the year 1845, when the Irish Famine
forced the question to the front. By that time the Anti-Corn Law League
had done its work of educating the country, and under its great
leaders, Cobden and Bright, had organised a strenuous campaign
throughout the kingdom, collected large funds, and united the great
body of employers and operatives in favour of Free Trade. There were
counter organisations of farmers' societies, of which those in the
eastern counties were, perhaps, the most active, and at a meeting of
one of these, the Cambridge Agricultural Society, Lord Hardwicke and
Mr. Yorke met with some criticism. A letter from Lord Hardwicke to the
chairman, however, made his position perfectly clear:

'I believe the meeting is intended to follow others that have taken
place in the agricultural districts of England, owing to certain
reports of contemplated changes on the opening of Parliament affecting
agriculture.

'I have endeavoured to learn what these are, and have failed; I have
heard various opinions, but no facts, and I have no knowledge of the
intentions of the Government. I therefore feel, were I to attend your
meeting, that I could give no advice, neither could I combat or support
any plans. I think it best to hear and know what is intended.'

Acting upon this determination, Lord Hardwicke waited for the
announcement of the Government policy. At the opening of the session of
1846 Sir Robert Peel then made it clear, that as Lord John Russell had
been unable to form a ministry, he himself intended to propose the
abandonment of the Corn Laws, and to follow this up by the gradual
removal of protective duties, not only upon agriculture, but also upon
manufactures, and thus to place himself in opposition to the sentiment
and principles of the party of which he was the leader. Lord Hardwicke,
as might have been expected, was among those 'men of metal and large
acred squires,' as Disraeli called them, 'the flower of that great
party which had been so proud to follow one who had been so proud to
lead them, whose loyalty was too severely tried by the conversion of
their chief to the doctrines of Manchester,' and early in February he
wrote to Sir Robert to resign his post as Lord-in-Waiting, on the
ground that as he could not support the measures of the Government and
act up to his own opinion, he thought it not respectful to her Majesty
to oppose her minister and hold an office in her household. Some
correspondence followed, which shows the regret of Sir Robert Peel at
the loss of a friend and colleague, and testifies to the cordial
personal relations between the minister and Lord Hardwicke. Here is one
of the letters, two or three of which were earnest attempts to persuade
Lord Hardwicke to reconsider his decision:

        *       *       *       *       *

'MY DEAR HARDWICKE,

'If anything could tend to diminish the pain with which I contemplate
separation from you in public life, it would be the kind terms with
which you accompany your tender of resignation.

'I should indeed deeply regret it, if the termination of official
relations were to cause any interruption of private friendship and
regard.

'Most faithfully yours,

'My dear Hardwicke,

'ROBERT PEEL.'

        *       *       *       *       *

So ended Lord Hardwicke's political connection with the great minister,
and it is pleasant to me to know that the aspirations of Sir Robert's
letter were fulfilled, and that their personal friendship continued
unbroken until it was brought to a close by the tragic death of the
statesman on Constitution Hill in 1850. At a time when that same great
question of Free Trade or Protection is again dissolving many political
alliances, it is, perhaps, worthy of mention that my father came to
change his view of the policy which had led to his political severance
with Sir Robert Peel. In a speech delivered at a meeting of the Western
Cambridgeshire Agricultural Association in 1858, twelve years after his
resignation, he said:

'The last agricultural meeting I had the pleasure of attending was in
the golden days of protection, when we all thought we could not do
without it. I am happy to find however, now that the legislature has
thought fit to abolish those fiscal duties, that I formed a wrong
opinion on the subject.'

Meanwhile, however, Lord Hardwicke's political severance from his old
leader was complete and final, as appears very fully from letters from
such uncompromising opponents of the minister as Lord George Bentinck,
Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. John Wilson Croker, which I find among his
papers. 'Pray come up and fire a double shotted broadside into these
fellows,' wrote Lord George in 1848, in soliciting Lord Hardwicke's
assistance for Lord Desart in the House of Lords on the debate on the
Copper Duties, who as that ardent spirit complained was 'grossly
insulted by Grey, Clanricarde and Granville.' A few months later,
again, upon his resignation of the leadership of the irreconcilables in
the House of Commons, Lord George wrote: 'I come to you, therefore, as
a private and independent member of the House of Commons, with none but
such as you who admire consistency "so poor to do me reverence."'

All of Mr. Disraeli's letters to my father are written in very cordial
terms, and express much gratitude for the support which was so valuable
at that period of his career. Lord Hardwicke is 'his dear and faithful
friend'; 'I am shaken,' he says in October of 1848, 'to the core, and
can neither offer nor receive consolation. But in coming to you I know
that I come to a roof of sympathy, and to one who at all times and
under all circumstances has extended to me the feelings of regard by
which I have ever been deeply honoured and greatly touched.' Two years
later he wrote: 'I am pained that you should have been so long in
England without my having seen or heard from you, my first, my best,
and most regarded supporter and friend.--DISRAELI.'

I may perhaps look forward a few years in order to quote another letter
of Mr. Disraeli of December 30, 1851, which contains an interesting
reference to Lord Palmerston, who had just been dismissed by Lord John
Russell for having given a semi-official recognition to Louis Napoleon
and the _coup d'état_.

'If he had not committed himself in some degree by approbation of the
"massacre of the boulevards" as it is styled, I hardly think Lord John
would have dared to dismiss him. He said to a person the other day, "I
was not dismissed, I was kicked out."'

Five days later, on January 4, 1852, Mr. Disraeli wrote:

'That my last letter should not mislead you, I just write this to say
that I have authentic information that Palmerston's case is a good one;
that the Government cannot face it; that Johnny has quite blundered the
business, and that P., whatever they may say at Brooks's, is _acharné_.'

Mr. Disraeli was a true prophet. On February 27 following, the Whig
Government fell, mainly owing to Lord Palmerston.




CHAPTER VIII

GENOA. 1849


In spite of the many interests of his position as a great landowner and
the distractions of politics at a time of great political unrest, Lord
Hardwicke had never wavered in his love for his true profession of the
sea. In his own words, 'in piping times of peace he was loth to take
the bread out of his brother officers' mouths after he became a peer,'
by applying for active employment in the navy. He had, nevertheless,
always placed himself at the disposal of the Admiralty, where his wish
to serve his country at sea was well known. To his family he made no
secret of his ambition to resume his career in the service which had
been interrupted by his succession to the peerage. I have often heard
him say that his ideal of a happy death was to be killed by a round
shot on his own quarter-deck.

This longing for active service was, perhaps, a little relieved, but
was scarcely satisfied, by a short voyage he made in 1844 in command of
the _St. Vincent_, line-of-battle ship of 120 guns. That vessel formed
one of a small squadron which included also the _Caledonia_, _Queen_
and _Albion_, and sailed under Admiral Bowles upon an experimental
cruise of six weeks in order to determine the respective merits of
those ships.

It was, perhaps, the menacing aspect of European affairs which followed
the revolutions of 1848 which decided Lord Hardwicke again to seek
active service. He had certainly become restless, and his craving to
resume the profession which lay nearest his heart and once more to
command a battleship was daily growing stronger. Most of his friends
were opposed to that step; he had done so well and showed such aptitude
for politics, had lived so energetic and useful a life in his own
county of Cambridgeshire, that they felt so great a break in that life
as was involved in service abroad was a mistake. Moreover, Lord
Hardwicke had now a family of seven children, the eldest being only
about twelve years of age. Many were the counsels heard by his friends
to dissuade him from the step. His old friend John Wilson Croker was
among those who sought most urgently to persuade him to abandon the
idea, and the esteem and admiration in which he held Lord Hardwicke and
his devotion to Lady Hardwicke and to 'Lady Betty' (who often sat on
his knee) are plain in several letters of advice he wrote at this
juncture. But all was unavailing; Lord Hardwicke applied to the
Admiralty for a ship, and was given command of the _Vengeance_. Mr.
Croker rather unwillingly acquiesced in this course in the following
letter:

        *       *       *       *       *

WEST MOLESEY: 9th Novr. '48.

'MY DEAR CHARLES,

'I cannot say that I like losing you from home at so important a
crisis, and I fear the good ship _Wimpole_ will have cause to regret
the absence of the padrone, and all the world will say that this is
proving the love of the profession with a Vengeance. But seriously,...
if dear Lady Hardwicke not only does not object, but becomes the
accomplice and partner of your exile, no one else has anything to
object, not even political friends, as you can leave a proxy. It may
also be an advantage to all the children, for it will perfect the young
ones and indeed all in the languages, and the two elder young ladies
will have opportunities of seeing what all the world desires to see.
Whatever you do, and wherever you go, you will be followed by the
affectionate solicitude of your old constant and most attached friend,

'J. W. CROKER.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Lord Hardwicke sailed early in 1849 to join the Mediterranean Fleet
under Sir William Parker who was in command at that station. Lady
Hardwicke and her family were installed at Malta, where a hotel in the
Strada Forni was engaged for them.

In order to understand the insurrection at Genoa in April 1849, in the
quelling of which H.M.S. _Vengeance_ and its captain, the Earl of
Hardwicke, took so notable a part, it is necessary to take a short
retrospect of the history of Italy.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars the opinion of Prince Metternich that
Italy is only a geographical expression was true enough. This cynical
minister of the Austrian Empire was the embodiment of the reaction
which set in after the fall of Napoleon.

Europe, worn out by the struggles first of the Revolution and then of
its conquering offspring, had one idea only--the reorganisation of the
different States and the suppression of all revolutionary movements.
The Powers therefore stood aloof from all interference in Italy and
Austria had a free hand.

By the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Savoy, Genoa and Nice were assigned to
Piedmont. This was not popular in Genoa which, hitherto a Republic, was
now handed over to Victor Emmanuel I, a reactionary of the most extreme
type. The old privileges of the Church and nobility were restored to
them. The Jesuits were allowed to overrun the country and were given
the control of education, and in the army all those who had served
under Napoleon were degraded. In fact the _ancien régime_ was restored
with interest to all those who had lost their privileges since 1793.
The hatred of France on the part of the reigning sovereigns of Italy
was a great strength to Austria. It was to the latter country that they
looked for their ideal of government. Such was the position when, in
1821, a rising took place in Piedmont for reform and a constitution,
and for the expulsion of the Austrians. It was not aimed at the King,
on the contrary the insurrectionaries professed the greatest loyalty.
Victor Emmanuel I, though a lover of his people, was not a lover of
their liberties, and the hopes of the Reformers lay in the Prince of
Carignano, a nephew of Victor Emmanuel, who afterwards ascended the
throne as King Charles Albert. This prince, though in sympathy with
reform, refused to go against the wishes of the King, who abdicated,
appointing the Prince of Carignano Regent. The constitution of Spain
was granted 'pending the orders of the new King.' This monarch, Carlo
Felice, Duke of Genoa and brother of Victor Emmanuel I, lost no time in
repudiating the constitution, which was also opposed by the Russian and
Austrian Governments.

Santarossa, who had been appointed Minister of War by the Regent, and
who was at the head of the insurrection, issued a proclamation in which
he expressed the views of the promoters of the movement. 'A Piedmontese
King in the midst of the Austrians, our inevitable enemies, is a King
in prison. Nothing of what he may say can or ought to be accepted as
coming from him. We will prove to him that we are his children.'
Liberty and freedom from Austrian influence was the cry, not disloyalty
to the ruling House of Piedmont. The rising of 1821 was not supported
in Lombardy, and was finally put down by the Austrian power.

Carlo Felice, the new King, suppressed all movement for reform and
maintained all the old prerogatives of class and caste. He, however,
proclaimed the Prince of Carignano his heir and successor, and the
latter succeeded to the throne as Charles Albert in 1831.

In every part of Italy there was revolt against mediæval government and
Austrian supremacy. In Naples after 1815 the Bourbon King had been
restored. Here the same demand for a constitution was put forward as in
Piedmont and accepted insincerely by the King. An Austrian force of
43,000 men soon relieved his conscience of any concession, and the
constitution was withdrawn.

Sicily, which under English influences during the Napoleonic War had
acquired a certain amount of constitutional freedom, was on the
restoration of the Bourbons thrown back, so far as government was
concerned, into the Middle Ages; with the same result as in the other
Kingdoms of Italy, insurrection, finally suppressed by Austrian power.
The same movement occurred in all the different States of Italy and in
all the basis of revolt was the same--a desire for unity, demand for a
constitution, and hatred of the Austrian power made more odious by the
severity of Metternich.

The forces of insurrection were stirred not only by the revolutionary
instigations of Mazzini, but also by the contributions of literary men,
the most notable of whom were Gioberti, Cesare Balbo, and D'Azeglio.
Gioberti aimed at unity, independence and liberty; the first two to be
obtained by a confederation of the various States under the Presidency
of the Pope, the last by internal reforms in each State. The ambitions
of Balbo were for a Kingdom of Italy. A confederation of States was to
him, as to Gioberti, the only practical solution. D'Azeglio, who
preached peaceful methods instead of violence, interviewed the King in
1845, and received the following reply: 'Let these gentlemen know that
they must keep quiet at present, there is nothing to be done, but tell
them that when the time comes, my life, the life of my children, my
army, my treasury, my all, will be spent in the Italian cause.' From
this time the King of Piedmont was regarded as the leader of the
Italian movement.

King Charles Albert, now a convert to liberalism, said: 'I intend to
make a form of government in which my people shall have all the liberty
that is compatible with the preservation of the basis of the Monarchy.'

In 1848, the King's hand was forced by the revolution in Vienna and the
five days' insurrection in Milan to declare war on Austria. At Milan
the liberal committees prohibited the use of tobacco which was a
monopoly of the Austrian Government. This led to a fracas which was the
immediate cause of the insurrection, and the Austrians were driven out
of Milan. Simultaneously with the movement in Lombardy there was a
rising in Venice, the Austrians were driven out and a Republic was
proclaimed. This proclamation was a great mistake, as it created
distrust between Venice and Piedmont. The war with Austria was carried
on with the utmost inefficiency by Charles Albert; he wasted every
opportunity and gave himself up to fasting and prayer, and defeated, he
had to submit to the terms of Radetzky to obtain an armistice which
stipulated for the evacuation of Lombardy, the Duchies and Venetia.

The Piedmontese Constitution was proclaimed March 1848. It established
two Chambers, gave a veto to the King, the prerogative of making peace
or war, and to the Chambers the control of expenditure.

The armistice ended March 12, 1849, and hostilities were renewed, and
the Italians were completely defeated at Novara. Charles Albert, who
had struggled bravely but incompetently, abdicated in favour of his son
Victor Emmanuel II. The new King signed the Treaty of Peace on March
26, 1849.

The war though disastrous was remarkable. For the first time an Italian
army had fought under the Italian flag with the distinct purpose of
establishing Italian unity.

The Venetian Assembly resolved that fusion with Piedmont was desirable.
The Assembly at Milan came to a similar resolution.

Nowhere was the armistice, signed by Victor Emmanuel after the battle
of Novara, more unpopular than at Genoa. A deputation from the city
waited on the King immediately after Novara, urging the continuation of
the war. On March 27 a rumour that the Austrians were in the
neighbourhood and intended to enter the city lit the fires of revolt
which, fanned by the municipality and the clergy, broke out into open
insurrection on the 29th. Arms were distributed and a Committee of
Defence was formed composed of Constantino Rata, David Morchio, and
Avezzana. It was stated that the movement was not republican in its
nature, but sprang from a feeling of indignation with the King for
having concluded what the Genoese thought a disgraceful peace with
Austria.

The foregoing pages dealing with the history of Italy were necessary in
order to show the position of affairs in that country at the time when
the episode took place of which the following is the narrative. Three
of Lord Hardwicke's letters remain giving an account of his action at
Genoa. Simple, straightforward, clear, they give not only an admirable
picture of the events of those exciting days, but also show the
character of the man who, having to act on his own initiative, cast all
feeling of self-interest aside and did what he conceived was his duty,
with, as will be seen, the happiest results to the city of Genoa. This
heroic action--because an act undertaken in a good cause without fear
of consequences and at great personal risk is heroic--gained nothing
for Lord Hardwicke in his profession; indeed it militated against his
promotion in the service to which he was devoted; and though his
application for active service in the Baltic during the Crimean War was
refused on technical grounds, his action at Genoa was sedulously used
by certain parties against him. All the more honour to the man who
could risk so much for a great cause. He saved lives, he preserved from
destruction Genoa with its palaces and treasures, and he did indirectly
help forward the unity of Italy. In these days of quick communication,
independence of action is almost impossible. The nervous man at home
may spoil the bold man at sea; but it was not formerly so, and it has
been by the initiative and on the responsibility of the man on the
spot, that most of the great deeds have been done by our
fellow-countrymen. If Nelson had not had a blind eye at Copenhagen the
history of our country might have been different. If Lord Hardwicke had
been in closer communication with Sir William Parker, Genoa might have
been destroyed.

Lord Hardwicke had no sooner joined his ship in the Mediterranean than
difficulties arose in Italy, and it fell to the duty of the fleet to
protect the interests of Her Majesty's subjects living in the different
ports. In February 1849, owing to the unrest in Tuscany and the Roman
States, he was ordered to proceed in the _Vengeance_ to Leghorn.

The following were his instructions from Admiral Sir William Parker:

        *       *       *       *       *

'The Grand Duke of Tuscany having quitted Sienna for the Port of San
Stefano, and a Provisional Government established itself at Florence,

'The Roman States having also declared themselves a Republic and
apprehensions being likewise entertained that some change of Government
is contemplated in the Kingdom of Sardinia--it is desirable that
British subjects and their property in those quarters should be duly
protected.

'It is therefore my direction that your Lordship proceeds in H.M. ship
_Vengeance_ under your command, to Leghorn where you may expect to find
the _Bellerophon_, and will learn from Captain Baynes the state of
affairs in that vicinity, and the latest intelligence from Genoa.

'If you find that fears are entertained of any disturbance threatening
the safety of the persons or property of Her Majesty's subjects at
Leghorn, you may prolong the stay of the _Vengeance_ there for a few
days, to give them additional confidence and security, unless you have
reason to apprehend that commotions are also expected at Genoa, in
which case, you should lose no time, weather permitting, in repairing
off that Port, where you may place the _Vengeance_ within the Mole
provided you deem her presence necessary for the protection of the
English and that the position is secure for Her Majesty's ship.

'You will apprise his Excellency Mr. Abercromby, H.M. Minister at
Turin, of your arrival off Genoa, and the nature of your orders,
acquainting his Excellency that _it is not desirable you should remain
longer than may be absolutely necessary for affording due protection to
British subjects._ And you will throughout carefully abstain from any
interference with the political affairs of the Kingdom of Sardinia or
any other foreign Power.

'Her Majesty's Consul, Mr. Yeates Brown, will, of course, visit your
Lordship on your arrival.

'If you consider the Mole at Genoa an objectionable position for Her
Majesty's ship you will make the best arrangement in your power for the
safety of the English, and then repair to Leghorn or the port of
Spezzia, as I hope it may be in my power shortly to send a steamer to
Genoa.

'If you find the services of the _Vengeance_ are not required at
Leghorn or Genoa, you are to rejoin my flag at this anchorage, unless
any increase of the smallpox in the _Bellerophon_ should render it
desirable for the latter to proceed to Malta to land the patients, in
which case you will relieve Captain Baynes in the duties at Leghorn and
direct him to join my flag as he passes to the southward.

'Your Lordship is to keep me informed of your proceedings and of the
passing events in your vicinity, by any opportunities that offer during
your absence, sending the state and condition of the _Vengeance_
monthly, and on returning to the south you will supply any of the ships
which may remain at Leghorn with such provisions as you can spare.

'(Signed) W. PARKER.'

NAPLES: 14th Feb. 1849.

        *       *       *       *       *

Later in February the following letter was addressed to Lord Hardwicke
giving him further instructions and remarking on the general unrest in
Tuscany and the Roman States.

        *       *       *       *       *

_Private._

'HIBERNIA,' NAPLES: 28th Feb. 1849.

'MY DEAR LORD HARDWICKE,

'The _Bulldog_ will join you after delivering the provisions which she
takes for the _Bellerophon_, and I hope will find Piedmont in a quieter
state than is rumoured here, and that your fever patients are recovered.

'You are to keep Commander Key if you think the presence of the steamer
necessary, and then send him back to Naples, touching on his route at
Leghorn.

'The Grand Duke of Tuscany has, I fear, made a fatal mistake in
quitting his dominions. He is now quartered in a very indifferent inn
at Mole and rests his hopes on being restored by the combined Catholic
Powers after they shall have reseated the Pope at Rome, but there are
as yet no signs of a military movement.

'The Romans threaten daggers if the Austrians, Neapolitans or Spaniards
enter their States, and if overpowered mean to burn the Quirinal, &c.,
I have not, however, much opinion of their prowess.

'I hope King Ferdinand has at last had the prudence to moderate his
terms of adjustment with the Sicilians, at least so far as to afford a
chance of their acceptance. Admiral Biuder and myself will proceed in 2
or 3 days to convey the ultimatum; I fear they will still be obstinate,
but if it is rejected the armistice will be denounced by the Neapolitan
General, and the Sicilians must trust to their own resources.

The _Prince Regent_ is expected at Mette to get a new Main-Yard. Sir
Charles Napier was at Gibraltar with his squadron on the 8th, and had
been joined by the _Rodney_ and _Vanguard._

'Believe me, dear Lord Hardwicke,

'Very truly yours,

'W. PARKER.'

        *       *       *       *       *

A memorandum of the same date from Sir W. Parker informed Lord
Hardwicke that H.M. steam-sloop _Bulldog_ was to co-operate with his
Lordship in the event of any disturbances in Piedmont.

        *       *       *       *       *

_Memo._

'HIBERNIA' AT NAPLES: 28th Feb. 1849.

'Having ordered Commander Key of H.M. steam-sloop _Bulldog_ to proceed
to Leghorn with a supply of provisions for the _Bellerophon_, he is
directed, after he shall have delivered them, to join your Lordship for
the purpose of rendering any protection or refuge that may be
desirable, to British subjects in the event of disturbances occurring
in Piedmont.

'You will therefore take Commander Key under your orders and employ the
_Bulldog_ accordingly as long as her presence appears necessary,
sending her back to Naples whenever you think her services can be
dispensed with, directing Commander Key to call at Leghorn on his
route, for the purpose of conveying any communications which his
Excellency Sir George Hamilton, H.M. Minister at Florence, or Captain
Baynes, the Senior Naval Officer may have to forward.

'W. PARKER, _Vice-Admiral_.'

        *       *       *       *       *

On March 4, 1849, Sir W. Parker tells Lord Hardwicke to remain at Genoa
or at Spezzia.

        *       *       *       *       *

_Private._

H.M.S. 'HIBERNIA,' NAPLES:

4th March 1849.

'MY DEAR LORD HARDWICKE,

'Accept my thanks for your two acceptable letters of this 24 and 28
ult. I wish I could send you an answer more deserving of them but we
are now getting under weigh for Palermo with the _Queen_, _Powerful_,
and _Terrible_ in C°., carrying the King's ultimatum of the terms of
adjustment with the Neapolitans, on which we have obtained some
favourable and necessary modifications altho' I doubt whether the
Sicilians will accept them. I think however that they ought to do so
and I shall do my best to induce them.

'I think it will be better that you should remain at Genoa or Spezzia
for the present, resorting to either place at your discretion.

'My family left me three days ago by the _Antelope_ for Malta or they
would unite in every kind wish with, my dear Lord Hardwicke,

'Yours very faithfully,

'W. PARKER.'

        *       *       *       *       *

On March 12, 1849, the armistice with Austria ended, and the following
proclamation clearly shows with what eager hope the Genoese welcomed
war.

        *       *       *       *       *

'GENOESE!

'Our brothers, who for seven months, have been groaning under the
Austrians, are waiting for us: Italy for many centuries has been called
the "Servant of the Stranger": banishment to the words! Perhaps the
country will desire great and terrible sacrifices from us; let us
prepare ourselves. Let us assist our brave Army which is about to renew
the wonders of her courage: remember that this is the second trial and
that it ought to be the last. Conquer or die.

'And now, Genoese, my work is finished, I am preparing to depart in a
short time; presenting myself to the King and parliament, I can tell
them with safety without being contradicted: Genoa is tranquil.

'DOMENICO BUFFA,

'Minister of Agriculture, &c. &c., for the City of Genoa.'

GENOA: 14th March 1849.

        *       *       *       *       *

The renewal of hostilities was quickly followed by the crushing defeat
of Piedmont at the battle of Novara. On the abdication of Charles
Albert and the succession of Victor Emmanuel to the throne, the new
King signed the Treaty of Peace on March 26, 1849. The terms of this
treaty were considered disgraceful by the Genoese and were the
immediate cause of the rebellion in that city.

From this point Lord Hardwicke's letters tell the tale.

        *       *       *       *       *

GENOA: April 12, 1849.

'MY BELOVED S.,

'I may quote the old ditty of "Now the rage of battle endeth" and find
time to sit down and collect my thoughts, to write to you my dearest
wife. I shall always consider myself most fortunate in having been the
means of ending this serious conflict, saving from ruin a beautiful
city and its inhabitants from all the calamities of civil war. Whatever
may be said or thought hereafter of this affair I shall invariably feel
that it is _the best act of my life_.

'April 11.--The forces of the King of Sardinia did on Wednesday make a
public entry into the town and presently took possession of it to the
satisfaction of the citizens, who now look (as they feel) that a load
of terror has been taken from them, and that the tyranny that hung over
them is removed. There are, no doubt, some honest and dreamy minds that
feel and imagine that Italy is still to groan under the yoke of the
oppressor, but ere long that dream will dissipate when the true
position of Genoese affairs is known, and that the city was on the
point of being reduced to a heap of ruin because a few blackguards had
deceived the Genoese that they might profit by the confusion and misery
of its inhabitants.

'I have many anecdotes to tell, and you may easily imagine that in such
a state of things, a fierce attack being made on the town by shot,
shell and troops, I passing from side to side, sometimes standing in
batteries under fire and firing, sometimes on horseback to find the
General, landing at night &c., could not do this without some risk.
Moreover the _Vengeance_ being in the Mole was directly between the
batteries engaged, and all the shot passed over or fell round her. Then
shell burst over her and tore up her decks, musketry was at times
bestowed on us sufficiently to make me order the sentries on board and
the officers of the watch under cover; but no one was hurt, and it is
all over, so you will have your fear and your anxiety immediately put
under, by the joy for the safety of all.

'(We never know here when to have letters ready, for conveyances start
out every moment. I find I _can_ send you a line, so I shall, but no,
on second thoughts I believe I'd better wait for the regular packet,
ten to one the person going to Malta will only take the regular
packet.) I believe I'd better write you a little narrative of myself
and the old ship--"Britannia's Pride and France's Terror."

'For some time past (as you will have learnt from my previous
correspondence) matters in the city had been drawing towards that point
on which decisive measures are forced on both parties. What was
believed by some good citizens in Genoa to be _buffonata_, was in
reality working up the public mind to revolutionary feelings against
all law and authority. A national or civic guard existed in the town
under the new Constitution of Sardinia (for they had a constitution and
free institutions) composed of the citizens of all grades and numbering
about 8000 men.

'The municipal council with the Syndic or Mayor at their head, together
with the General of the Civic Guard carried on the Government of the
town, and put themselves at the head of a movement, which had for its
pretence the support of the King in a war against Austria, and a
preparation of the City of Genoa for defence against the common foe.

'After the defeat of the King of Novara by the Austrians and the
conclusion of an armistice, the articles of a Treaty became known which
the Genoese thought disgraceful. There was now the sacred pretence for
keeping up and augmenting a spirit of disaffection towards the
Government, and a demand was made by the municipality on General Asarta
(who commanded for the King here with a garrison of about 5000 men) to
give up the forts and defences of Genoa to the Civic Guard, and serve
out arms to the people; this was said to be for the purpose of
resisting all who joined in the aforesaid Treaty, and to defend the
city against the Austrians. General Asarta appears throughout the whole
of this affair to have conducted himself with great weakness. He gave
up Bigota and Specola, the two most important forts, to the National
Guard and distributed to the people 1400 muskets.

'This was about the state of affairs when I began to interest myself in
the state of Genoa. Seeing the populace in large numbers armed and
giving up their work, the National Guard assuming an air of more
importance, and constant drumming and parading and reviewing going on,
I saw clearly what all this was fast coming to. And on calling on La
Palavacini I seriously spoke of the prospects of Genoa, she laughed and
called it _Buffonata_; but as you will see in the sequel the laugh of
the lady was shortly changed, as were all smiling faces in Genoa.

'On the morning after, I paid a visit to my friend the old Admiral (who
is a Genoese), and on enquiring "What news have you to-day?" he
answered with a gloomy look that it was bad; that the acts of the
General were great faults, and he feared much that having once dealt
with the insurrectionists on terms of equality, they would acquire
confidence, &c. On the following morning the British Consul came on
board to me and begged me in the name of General Asarta and the
Intendente Generale, or Civil Governor of the Dukedom of Genoa, to come
at once to the ducal palace to consult with them on the state of
affairs. (By the bye I have omitted to mention that the day previously
the National Guard had seized the Civil Governor and General Fenetti,
the second in Command, in the streets and cast them into prison, but a
few hours after, released the Civil Governor.)

'I am of opinion that the advice of a foreigner is always offensive
even if asked for, and not likely to be taken; I therefore determined
to give no advice, but to go to them, and state, that I held them
responsible for the security and peace of the town.

'Before, however, going I determined to see the old Admiral (whom I had
a good opinion of, but I found I was in error). I told him what I
thought of advice by a foreigner on such occasions and that my English
ideas were decided in such a case, to defend all the property of the
Crown to the last, and make no further concessions.

'He said, "Go for God's sake." I went and gave no advice, but formally
stated to the King's officer that I held them responsible; they begged
me to put down in writing what I said, which I did.

'That very afternoon General Asarta fled from the ducal palace to the
military arsenal, and withdrew his troops from the outposts and
concentrated his fire in and around the arsenal, leaving his wife and
three daughters in the hands of the Municipality.

'On the following morning I went on shore, and on landing at the
dockyard I met the old Admiral, he was very low in spirits and informed
me that he had information that an attack was intended (immediately) on
the dockyard for the purpose of getting hold of the shot and cannon and
instruments of war. I expressed a hope that he had made all necessary
arrangements for defence of the dockyard, and that he was prepared to
defend it to the last. He answered that he was ready and would do his
duty, he was then dressed _en bourgeois_. After leaving the dockyard I
went to visit General Asarta at the military arsenal. I found him with
2000 men in and about the building, and two howitzers mounted on a
terrace which overlooks the street leading to the dockyard.

'He told me that he had thought it better to concentrate his forces,
and that as the arsenal contained a large quantity of arms, he had made
it his headquarters, that concession had gone to its limit, and that he
was determined if attacked to defend his position, but that he would do
nothing to provoke an attack.

'I, considering the present position of affairs, commended the course
he proposed, more particularly as General La Marmora with 20,000 men
was advancing on the City; and that he with his advanced guard was not
more than twenty-four hours' march from Genoa.

'From this time matters took a more serious and determined course. The
Genoese had by degrees screwed themselves up to do something, but they
did not know what. The mob, now armed, soon began to feel that they
must either work or plunder, and as they had arms in their hands, with
the municipality and the General of the Guards committed to revolt
against the authority of the Crown, they were easily worked on to begin
the affair. Whilst reading the newspapers at the public room, I was
roused from my ease by the _generale_ being beat through the streets. I
took my way to the dockyard, where, on arriving, I found a fieldpiece
brought up against the gate. At this moment the gates were opened and
the mob rushed in, a few muskets were fired, I have since found by
people looking out of the windows, and the pillage of arms and shot
began. I met the Admiral, still out of uniform. I was ashamed to look
at him; I put my hands before my face and passed him without speaking.

'I went on board the ship and from her deck witnessed the attack of the
National Guards and mob on General Asarta's headquarters. Their easy
victory over the Admiral stimulated them to act against the General; a
fire of musketry and cannon was opened from both sides and was
maintained for nearly an hour, when the city party retreated leaving
the guns in the hands of the General and twenty-one men dead--how many
women was never known.

'The General lost two killed and three women. Among the killed was a
colonel of one of his own regiments. The city was now fairly up, the
tocsin was rung, everybody took up arms, barricades were thrown up
everywhere, and troops bivouacked in the streets. Sentinels, both male
and female, stood at the barricades, and priests in their proper
garments shouldered the musket. This evening a barbarous murder of a
Colonel of Carbineers was committed by the armed populace; he after the
attack on the arsenal put on a plain coat, and walked out to see his
wife who was alone at his home in the town. He was recognised by the
people, they led him to a church where twenty-one bodies of the slain
were laid out, they ordered him to count the bodies audibly. He did so.
They then said, "We want twenty-two and you shall be the
twenty-second." With that he was pierced with bayonets and shot at.
From this mode of treatment he was an hour and a half before death
released his sufferings. His wife was hunted from house to house till
she found shelter on board the _Vengeance_.

'There have been, of course, a number of similar and even more
revolting crimes committed, but I shall not speak of this more. General
La Marmora has shot all his men that have taken the lead in plunder or
rapine, and imprisoned the remainder, and I hope and believe that
nothing of this sort now goes on.

'In this state of affairs I next morning went to visit General Asarta,
having previously called at the ducal palace to see his wife and
children. I got access to them, but found her carefully guarded, and,
in fact, a hostage in the hands of the mob for the conduct of her
husband. It was a painful interview, the manner of her guards towards
her was in my presence respectful, but cold and severe; she and her
children have escaped all personal injury but have been plundered of
all they possess.

'I was met at the gate of the arsenal by Captain Cortener, an artillery
man that I knew, in tears; from him I learnt the disgraceful surrender
of the troops, and that the General with 5000 men was to evacuate the
town in 24 hours. I found the General had lost his head, he hardly knew
me, and so I rendered him the last service in Genoa, that of sending a
carriage to take him the first stage to Turin, leaving his wife and
three daughters in the hands of General Avezzana, the head of the
revolt.

'Every preparation was now made by the Municipality and National Guards
for the defence of the place against the King's Forces, approaching
under the command of a young and energetic General. I amused myself
with visiting all their posts, and observed that in the affairs of war,
there were very few among them who knew anything about it.

'Great importance was given to barricades--the word seemed to be
ominous of security--they reconstructed them now, building them of the
fine paving stones of the Place, with sand filled between the stones.
They had embrasures in them in which they mounted one or two heavy
pieces of ordnance; but all this time they were neglecting the forts
and walls of the town--their real defence; and I saw what would happen,
and it did happen, viz. that the town wall was carried easily by
escalade.

'The man now holding the military command was one General Avezzana, a
Piedmontese, of low origin I should think; he was an adventurer, had
been concerned in former revolutionary affairs in Italy, and had about
twenty years ago gone to America, where he married a Miss Plowden, an
Irish emigrant in New York. He seems, between the two avocations of a
military and a commercial life, to have made some money. Last year when
Italy and France began this revolutionary concord, he, loving troubled
waters, came over to Genoa and by some means got the King of Sardinia
to give him the appointment of General of the _Guardia Civica_ of
Genoa, a force of nearly 10,000 men of all arms, having cavalry and
artillery included in the force. This force included the noble, the
shop-keeper, and the small trader, and even people having no stake in
the town beyond the occupation of a lodging. It was under the orders,
constitutionally, of the Crown in the first place, and then of the
Mayor, or Syndic, and his council.

'Genoa now stood alone with its own Government and its own army, at war
with its legitimate Monarch the King of Sardinia. They hoisted the
Sardinian flag nevertheless, but without the Royal Arms in the centre.

'In addition to this force there were in the town persons who had been
by degrees arriving for a long time past, people who form the _Guardia
Mobile_ of Italy, and have gone from town to town exciting discontent,
about 2000 in number of all nations, under officers French and Poles.
In addition, about 30,000 muskets with ammunition in abundance had
fallen into the hands of the Genoese on the taking of the arsenal, so
that women and boys were armed. This was the state of things early on
the morning of the 3rd of April; during the 2nd, a Provisional
Government had been formed for the Duchy of Genoa and the Genoese flag
paraded through the streets. This Government consisted of Albertini, a
scoundrel and a blackguard, Reta, and Avezzana.

'I contemplated the state of things with deep interest. On the
afternoon of the 3rd, as I was walking slowly from post to post towards
the Porta della Lanterna I heard the crack of a musket, followed by
eight or nine in rapid succession; there was great stir in the streets
immediately and the _generale_ was beat, and the tocsin began to sound.
I passed on rapidly towards the Porta della Lanterna from which point
the firing had now become rapid, and meeting a man who had received a
musket ball flesh wound, I asked him the news; he said that La
Marmora's _bersaglieri_ or light troops, had got over the wall.

'I now turned back towards the town and was much questioned at the
first barricade by the people; when I told them that General La Marmora
had got into the suburb, there was a universal flight from the
barricade, which made me laugh exceedingly, and did not give me a very
high opinion of the valour of the Genoese insurrectionary troops, but
it was only the first panic, and they recovered from it.

'At this moment a gun was fired from the head of the old Mole, and as
its direction was towards the _Vengeance_, I went on board.

'Now to give you an idea of the powers I had as a spectator of the
coming conflict, I must tell you that the Mole of Genoa is
semicircular, all the land rises in hills and terraces from the water,
and the ship lay in that part of the semicircle next the Porta della
Lanterna, and not above 300 to 400 yards from the whole field of
battle. You will see what a good view I had of all the affair, and that
all the shot from the opposing batteries passed over, or round the ship.

'On arriving on board, I saw that the light troops of General La
Marmora were carefully and slowly descending from the heights, and
driving in the outposts of the citizens; it was very pretty to see the
way in which these men conducted the proceedings. First of all, they
are very picturesque troops, having on their heads a hat which has a
long flowing feather (which is a gamecock's tail dyed green); figure to
yourself the rifle men in the _Freischutz_, and you have the men before
you. Singly and silently did these men advance, peeping over every
wall, making every bank a cover, and killing or wounding at almost
every shot; while the citizens were crouching in confused groups, and
as a man of the group fell from the unseen shot, the rest ran away,
fired on from ten to twelve points, and thus dispersed. On all this I
looked as upon a map. The consequence of all this was, that in about
three hours 120 light troops, the general, La Marmora in person, which
was all of his army that had arrived, took possession of the suburb of
Genoa up to the first barricade of the town; but behind, and cut off,
was the fortress of the gate, the key of Genoa, which the National
Guards still held.

'About this time as the troops of La Marmora were seen on the heights,
the town battery on the Mole had opened its fire, but no reply could be
made to it; as yet La Marmora had no guns over the wall.

'About 1 o'clock P.M. three cheers and a shot from a gun showed that he
had mounted his first piece of ordnance on the height above the gate.
During the night the fire was kept up between this one gun and the guns
on the town mole head.

'I must now pause to let you know that many refugees were on board, and
as the fight thickened, I had no doubt that the morrow would fill the
ship with folks of all nations and both sexes.

'During the night a portion of La Marmora's advanced guard had arrived,
and a battalion of light troops as well as one of infantry had got over
the wall. He now made his attack on the gate, which was soon taken;
some few escaped to the seaside and hid themselves in the rocks, but
the greater part were killed. He also pressed forward along the road
towards the city's first strong position, but his men got on but
slowly, for the houses and points that afforded cover were well
contested, and he lost many men.

'However, now he had got possession of the batteries of the Lanterna,
mounting 19 guns, 68- and 32-pounders, with which he began to thunder
away about 1 o'clock on the town. Before dark La Marmora had possession
of all between the Lanterna and the Doria Palace, but here his
difficulties increased; the fighting was severe during the whole of
this day, and for the last five hours General La Marmora did not
advance a foot. At about two o'clock in the afternoon General La
Marmora sent an aide-de-camp to me, to beg to see me.

'I was on shore at the time looking at how the rebels got on at their
advanced post, but as soon as I was informed I went to him. He was out
on horseback at his attacking point, so asking for a horse, I mounted
and rode towards his post of attack. I met him returning. We were very
well fired on with round shot on our return, but as he and I rode
together two shots struck on each side of us, which led me to remark to
him that they fired well; he told me that that battery was commanded by
a deserter from their artillery.

'In this ride back with him I got at all his intentions with regard to
the city.

'He told me he had 25,000 men coming up, that there was no mode of
warfare that he would not visit on the city, shot, shell, night attack,
and I added, "What say you to pillage," he replied, "I cannot guarantee
the contrary."

'After dismounting at his headquarters, a room in the gateway, he
begged me to look out for the Sardinian fleet expected, and to deliver
to the Admiral two letters.

'I then, after visiting his batteries, went on board. Whilst standing
in the battery of the Lanterna his men, after begging me to bob under
the parapet and then trying to pull me down, were surprised to hear
that on board ship, bobbing was tabooed to me, and therefore we were
not accustomed to do so, but, as I told them, I had not the least
objection to their doing so. Both sides fired very well and with great
rapidity, and at this time La Marmora had thirty guns and mortars
bearing on the town, to which the town was replying with about forty,
so there was a very respectable cannonade carried on.

'At about 6 P.M. he took the Doria Palace, the fire from his artillery
forcing the city people to leave it. He now established his advanced
posts for the night in the Doria Palace. This day had put more than 120
refugees on board the ship, but she was not so comfortable as we
expected. I was full; and for three nights never pulled off my clothes,
indeed I could not find a square foot to rest on, in either cabin.

'I really, my dear, must leave out all the interesting details of my
arrangements and difficulties with your sex, the state of things such
as this beggars description! I was anxious to give shelter to all, and
in the afternoon, before I saw the General, it began to grow rather
warm in Genoa. I called at the house of my Genoese lady friends, and
such as had not already fled I induced to take shelter on board. At one
lady's house the fair owner was in such a state of indecision I could
bring her to no resolution, as a shell passed or fell near her house
she would wring her hands and cry out, "What shall I do? My beautiful
furniture! My beautiful house!" but she never said one word about her
husband who was in a fort above the town, which fort I knew must soon
be attacked, or her infant child who was with her. At last on my
telling her I must go, as I had much to do, she came and was taken on
board; but I must leave this part of the play to be told _viva voce_.

'At about half-past eight this evening, having served the poor
frightened refugees with the best fare I could give them, finding that
La Marmora's fire was very serious against the city, and that to-morrow
it would be twice as severe, seeing the wretched state of the poor
Genoese women on board, and the more dreadful state in prospect for
them in the town, I took the resolution of, at all hazards to myself
and without consulting anyone, to try and stop this state of things; I
ordered my gig to be manned.

'I must here, my love, break off my narrative till next post; the
steamer will wait no longer and my dispatches must go on board.

'Adieu, my love.

'I am, ever your devoted

'CHARLES.'

        *       *       *       *       *

GENOA: April 20, 1849.

'MY BELOVED S.,

'I have no sooner dispatched my letter to you this afternoon than I
again take up my pen to carry on the narrative of the recent events
here.

'I left off at the point where I determined to interfere and start for
the shore in my boat. It was fortunately a fine night, a few low light
clouds floated in the atmosphere, the roar of artillery, so close that
the ship shook at every discharge, the roaring hiss of the shot, the
beautiful bright fuse of the bomb-shell, as it formed its parabola in
the air, sometimes obscured as it passed through a cloud and again
emerged, gave an active and anxious feeling to my mind. I could not but
feel that I had a great and a good work in hand, I was soon on shore,
the only gate in the city that was guaranteed to be open I pulled for;
it was directly under the fire of the Boys' Home, two round shots
struck the ground as I landed passing close over our heads. Desiring my
coxswain to pull the boat back among the shipping and out of the line
of fire, I walked to the gate and beat against it with the butt end of
my sword; it was opened by one of the few officers of the Civic Guard
who now wore his uniform. Saying a few civil words to him I passed on
up the street to the ducal palace. This city was at this moment worth
contemplating.

'Usually crowded with both sexes in rapid motion and gay laughing
conversation, it now was like the city of the dead, its silence only
disturbed by the explosion of the shells or a wall struck by shot, and
the occasional reports of musketry in quick succession.

'I had to pass three barricades before reaching the Palace, the two
first were deserted, on passing the third a bayonet was presented to my
breast. On looking up I found the other end was in the hands of a
pretty delicate woman. I pushed the weapon aside and giving her a
military salute, passed on. I got easy access to the Municipal Body.

'It is not easy to give in writing a perfect idea of this night's
scenes. You must carry in your head the state of Genoa; the people who
formed the municipality were persons who had only read of war, they had
never seen its terrors before; they were fathers and husbands, men of
property, all within the city walls; they were the heads of the revolts
in the first instance, about soon to become the followers or slaves of
the armed rebel, or die.

'The present state of things favoured my plan. I was received by four
of the good people who sat quietly waiting for others, and about twenty
people, among whom was the Bishop of Genoa, were soon in the room. I
opened my mission to them and drew as strong a picture as I was able,
obliged to speak French, of the position, and then asked them if they
agreed to my view of that part of this case. They concurred in all I
said.

'It was to the effect that the military power was outside and inside.
That the one inside was most to be feared, and that no question existed
at this moment to warrant a resistance which would destroy the city,
give the wives and children to rapine, and their homes to pillage,
without a chance of success on their side.

'I next put before them their duty, which was at once to set a good
example; to rally the respectable people, and people of property in the
town, and separate themselves from foreigners and niggards; next, to
surrender the city to the King's general, and not to sit to see it
destroyed without a struggle to save themselves from ruin and disgrace.
To all this they gave a ready assent; but how to act was the question.

'I said, "If you have confidence in me let us act together," and moving
to the table I took up a pen and began to write on a sheet of paper,
when lo! a visitor made his appearance that aided me much in my
intentions. A shell knocked off the top of the chimney and perforated
the wall, exploding in the chimney of the ante-room to the one we were
in. The effect was great, but I coolly said, "Oh pooh, only a
shell--let us go on," and the fear and excitement which had for a
moment prevailed subsided, my words and manner restoring confidence and
stopping observations. La Marmora's messenger did me good service, for
on finishing my draft of a treaty it was generally approved of; but
they added an additional clause giving an amnesty to all for recent
offences. This clause I objected to, but being in haste to see what
General La Marmora would say to me, I deferred all discussion till my
return.

'I got quickly down to my boat and pulled across the mole to the Porta
della Lanterna, and found no interruption from the sea to the works
above, till I came to the gate; here of course I had to wait till all
the forms were gone through which state of war required. I found the
General had gone to St. Pierre de la Regina, two miles off for the
night; no wonder, for nineteen 68- and 32-pounders were firing from the
lantern battery, and a fire of ten or twelve guns returning the salute
from the town on this point alone.

'Away I trudged, and, after some lost time, found the General in his
bed. He had been up like me three nights, this was my third, and was
ill with fatigue and anxiety. I prefaced all I had to offer by an
apology for putting myself forward in such a case. I made my proposals
for the surrender of the city. He was most frank and manly in his
answer. He said he thought all I said and offered was most fair, and if
I would add a clause for the disarming of the population he would sign.
This was a great step; I saw the man liked me and that I could deal
with him. I saw too that he was a gentleman, a soldier and a humane
man. I now determined in my own mind that the city should surrender,
and I hoped on my own terms. So I went to work with a good will. I was
soon back again with the municipality, and sat in their room till four
in the morning fighting in debate clause by clause of my articles.

'By this time the lawyers had come, Avezzana the general had arrived,
and it was hard work. I got all the clauses passed even to the
disarming of the people, but the great tug was a general amnesty which
they demanded. On this point I was determined.

'Imagine my debating this with the proscribed whose case was life and
banishment, or death!

'First fury and anger and threats were used against me; then
supplication and tears. I was firm. I said I could never ask of any one
that which I myself would not grant; that I thought the city of Genoa
highly criminal; that some punishment must be and ought to be inflicted
on it; but that I would be fair and merciful in what I did, and that I
would find out from the General La Marmora what his most lenient views
were in regard to the leaders of the revolt. At five I was at the
landing place of the Porta della Lanterna, when as soon as I landed,
the Piedmontese sentry fired right at me at about three yards'
distance, and ran as fast as he could, the ball passed quite close to
my right. I came up with him, and took his musket from him, shaking it
I found it had just been discharged. I taxed him with firing at me, he
owned it saying his regiment had arrived in the night and he was just
put on as sentry. He heard he was surrounded with enemies so he fired
at the first man he saw. I frightened him by pretending to drag him
before the General, but laughing let him go. The fact was, as he
stated, he was in a devil of a funk, and so thinking to make short work
did not challenge before firing. I was surprised at finding a sentry on
this spot, he had been put there since I was last there.

'I found La Marmora at the Lanterna; he now drew up a paper in
accordance with mine, giving life and property to all, with a promise
to intercede with the King to-morrow; the punishment of the leaders to
as few as possible; with this I again returned to the ducal palace.

'Before leaving him he proposed to cease his fire on the city till my
return. I told him in reply I did not ask him to do so, however as soon
as I left him his fire ceased. This was most humane on his part, for it
was full an hour and a half before I got the town batteries to cease
their fire. La Marmora, however, began a fierce attack with musketry,
&c., on the advance post of the town.

'This my last visit to the Municipality was the most painful of all,
for I had to sit apart and allow them to fight among themselves. I
stated that what I had laid before them was the ultimatum, that I could
and would ask no more, and that if they did not agree to this I should
take my leave; that the fire would be resumed with increased vigour and
that the destruction of the city and blood of its inhabitants must lie
at their door.

'They then proposed to me, finding I was inexorable, to go in a body to
the General if I would go with them. I consented and took them over in
the barge. On my way I informed them that I would not help them in
their appeal to General La Marmora with regard to entire amnesty, but
that I would join them in gaining time; on which it was agreed to press
for 48 hours of cessation of arms, and that a deputation from the city
might go to the King at Turin.

'On going into the presence of the General I drew aside and sat on a
bed, whilst the deputation urged their claims, and as in Italy
everybody is eager and full of gesticulation, the noise and confusion
was tremendous. I had not seen this for we were treating under fire and
all were silent, those who had the best nerves were the speakers. If
you want to make peace treat under fire; for me it will become a maxim.
However after about two hours' wrangle, the General came up to me and
said, "Are you not 'accord' with me? that you do not speak," so much
had I gained of his mind that he would not act without me. In short I
may now say, the 48 hours were granted. The deputation went to Turin,
they got 48 hours more, and the city was surrendered on my treaty, the
King granting an amnesty to all but twelve persons named, and they had
been allowed to escape.

'During all this time a severe engagement had been carried on at the
advanced posts. The Doria Palace had been taken by the King's troops
the evening before. Batteries had been erected against it by the rebels
and the contest was most fierce, all the morning batteries were firing
on both sides with high guns. An attack by escalade was preparing
against Fort Bogota, a sally had been made from it to destroy La
Marmora's works, more troops were coming up, and occupying ground on
the east side of the town. My business now was to exert myself to make
the fire to cease on all sides.

'My love, I must leave my narrative for another letter, I find it takes
more time even to relate it shortly than I thought. I must write my
despatch to the Admiral and write to you a short note.

'H.

'Excuse faults, I've no time to read it over.'

        *       *       *       *       *

GENOA: April 27, 1849.

'MY DEAREST S.,

'I have so long neglected to pursue the narrative of events at this
place, that I fear you will think I had forgotten both you and it, but
in truth since the troubles have ceased, I have been so well employed
in writing and disciplining this ship, this each day takes me till 1
P.M., that I have not found the days too long. But now I am out of the
port, for I weighed this morning with _Prince Regent_ for a little
exercise, I shall finish this short narrative of past events.

'I think I had acquainted you of the completion of the armistice and
terms, signed by all parties, for surrendering and accepting the
surrender of the town. Having therefore seen the deputation of the town
off for Turin, my next most anxious endeavour was to cause the battle
to cease, which had been carried on at the advanced posts with great
smartness. I therefore once more took to my boat to begin the arduous
duty of separating the combatants. General La Marmora sent
aide-de-camps, but it took time before they could reach all points from
which cannon were firing, not on the town but all the points of attack.
The first stop I put on the firing was by landing on the mole and
taking a 32 lb. gun that was being worked against the Doria Palace. I
landed with my six gigs, and they drove them with their swords from the
gun, which I ordered to be drawn and all the ammunition to be thrown
into the sea. But my coxswain thought the powder too good, and when I
again got into the boat I found it all stowed away in her. Of course a
body of muskets mustered against us to drive us away, in turn, with
fixed bayonets. I walked quietly up to them, and after being informed
how the case stood, with a little grumbling they went quietly away.

'From hence I went to the naval arsenal; here I was warned at the
entrance, by sentry, to take care, for the houses that commanded the
basin and storehouses were full of armed men, placed there in readiness
to attack the arsenal with a view to release the galley slaves. I went
in, however, and saw the Commander of the Bagnio, and looked at the
means of defence that might be offered if attacked; he told me he was
quite deserted, but if matters came to the worst he would make an
attempt to defend the prison. From the Arsenal I went directly to the
headquarters of the rebel General. Here elbowing my way amid a host of
armed brigands and people of the lower and lowest class of Genoese I
found the general, Avezzana, seated at a table in a moderate sized
room. As soon as I was offered a seat at his table, a crowd of armed
folk filled the room and pressed hard upon us. He was haughty and
distant in his manner; I said that I had just seen the deputation off
for Turin and that as an armistice was agreed on for forty-eight hours
I begged he would at once do all in his power to cease the firing on
his side; he was out of humour and said: "When General La Marmora
does!" He then charged me with being a partisan. I said I feared I was,
and belonged to a party in the world that loved order and government.
"Oh ah!" said he, "but you have taken on you and thrown the ammunition
of the people into the sea"--on which there was a shout as he raised
his voice in finishing his sentence. I saw my ground was critical and
that much depended on myself, so I quietly but audibly said, "Yes, I
did so, and shall do the same whenever I find the like; I have not
toiled for two nights and days to save the property of the poor, the
widow from affliction, and the orphan from wretchedness (I might have
said more) and now for the sake of a few cartridges to allow more blood
to be shed, when you have signed a peace." This was a blow he did not
expect, for he had not told the people he had signed, but on the
contrary went out and harangued at the barricades talking stuff about
liberty, death, patriotism and all other fine things. He quietly
listened though, and began to question me as to many things he said I
had done against the people. On this I rose, took up my hat and in a
haughty tone said, "I don't come here to be questioned, but to make
peace, so I wish you good morning."

'There was a murmur, and then a civil speech from those about me to
pray I would be seated, when suddenly the tone of questioning was taken
up by a young man in a blue and red uniform, standing close to the
General in a most intemperate manner. To him I civilly said I would not
be questioned, and rose, took my hat and departed. They made a lane for
me; the young man followed me and grasping my hand said, "I beg your
pardon, I know I was very hot, but I have had two horses killed under
me this morning." I said I thought that ought to make him cool, on
which he laughed and said, "I am not a Genoese, I am a Frenchman." He
then told me he was sent by the Republicans in France to aid the cause
of liberty in Italy.

'I said, "Well, if you wish to see me, come on board to-morrow at 9." I
never saw him again.

'I remained on shore visiting several points where the fire had been
most active, and about 3 P.M. all was silent, the battle was over, and
I came on board to my crowd of women and children. You may suppose I
was well tired. I had not had my clothes off for 3 nights, and only a
plank and an hour or two the nights previous to the last. I, however,
took the head of my table at 6 o'clock; it was a beautiful evening, and
with the Genoese ladies and Captain Tarlton to take care of me I sat
out in the stern gallery till 10 P.M., when Tarlton told me he had a
bed made for me in a spare cabin below. In this I got a good night's
rest in spite of the diabolical witlow; the witlow is so unromantic a
wound that I shall leave it out of the narrative for the future. The
next morning I was with General La Marmora at daylight and from him I
went to the municipality. I found them in a sad plight, full of terror.
The Syndic, or Mayor had been threatened in the night. Albertini, a
leader of the revolt, one of the worst of ruffians I am told, entered
his bedchamber at midnight with money orders and proclamations ready
drawn out, and with a pistol to his head forced him to sign them. I had
a long conversation with them on the state of affairs, I found that the
Red Republicans had shown themselves in reality.

'I advised them to send out confidential emissaries to all the National
Guards of a respectable character that could be found, to come to the
ducal palace; to get the mob on pretences of various kinds out of it,
and at once begin to endeavour to rally the better spirits within the
town. They promised me they would do so. They then showed me an
excellent paper they had drawn up, containing the truth in regard to
the armistice and present position of affairs. They were afraid to
publish it, for Avezzana had told another story. I suggested that such
a paper, published with the signatures of all the European Consuls,
would have an excellent effect. They thought it the best, but again
were afraid of being thought the authors; so I then offered that it
should be mine and I could at once try and get the consuls to sign it.
You can hardly conceive the relief even this small act, and truth
having a chance of being told, seemed to give them. I went straight to
the French Consul and found him at home, showed him the paper which he
seemed to approve, said I might leave it to him and he would summon the
Consuls and do the needful. He did nothing. Leon Le Favre, brother to
Jules Le Favre, editor of the _Nationale_, Red Republican; but more of
him by and bye.

'I now went on board to breakfast, having the day previous had a letter
from Sir William Abercromby, our Minister at Turin, begging me to do
all I could for the King of Sardinia in his distress; and the letter
containing a positive request that I would prevent all the Sardinian
vessels from entering Genoa, as they are bringing more Reds and
Lombards to assist the revolt; and having had one of my cutters fired
on with grape in relieving guard the evening before, I determined to
move the _Vengeance_ into the inner mole, where I could work the ship
effectually, if I chose, to prevent the entrance of anything into the
harbour for disembarkation. While in the act of moving the ship I
received the serious news from the Municipality, that it was the
intention of the Reds, with Albertini and Campanelli at their head, to
at once open the Bagnio and let loose the galley slaves; begging at the
same time that I would take it on myself to prevent this, as it could
only be in contemplation for purposes easily conceived, though dreadful
to contemplate.

'I now placed the ship in a position to command with her guns the
dockyard and houses opposite to it. She had opposed to her a 20-gun
battery in the dock-yard and Bagnio, and a 20-gun battery on the
opposite side to the dockyard, one of 15 guns on the bow, and various
small masked batteries on various heights about the ship; not naming
the great forts on the heights. But be it remembered that these works
were ill-manned, and none provided with trained artillery men. Having
secured the ship and got her ready for action, not loading guns, I
never loaded a gun while at Genoa, I went on shore and found that the
Governor of the prison had received his summons to open the doors, and
had refused. He was glad to see me, we now settled his plan of defence
as far as he was able, and to my astonishment he struck chains off
fifty _forçats_ and put a musket into their hands. He made excellent
arrangements for defence, and assured me he could rely on these men. I
had them drawn up and found they all understood the weapon. I told them
if they behaved well, &c. &c. &c. I now informed him that at the first
report of a musket fired from a point agreed on, I should land with 150
marines, and my gun boats would enter the mole and would sweep with
grape the houses and wharfs, while the ship could do as she pleased. I
am praised in a public letter from Sir William Parker for this, the
only act that was not neutral and that would, had the Reds acted, have
brought the _Vengeance_ into the whole affair. To end the affair at
once these acts of mine stopped the whole thing, and broke up the Red
gang in Genoa.

'It also had another effect; it cleared my ship of every soul. As soon
as we anchored and prepared for battle, every soul fled the ship and
got away through Marmora's army to St. Pierre de la Regina, where they
were quite safe.

'Just after the sun had set this evening and it was growing dark enough
not to know green from blue, a steamer at full speed was seen entering
the port, and to my horror La Marmora's nineteen gun battery at the
lighthouse, while she was passing close under _Vengeance's_ bows,
opened fire upon her, putting two 30 lb. shots through her hull. In an
instant all the batteries opened on him, I thought all my efforts in a
moment destroyed. In a fit I jumped into the first boat, and shoved on
board the Frenchman, sending an officer to La Marmora's batteries to
beg them to leave off firing. To end this story, the officer at La
Marmora's battery had mistaken the French for the Sardinian flag, and
fired on it. The mistake cleared up, to my joy the volcano ceased
vomiting, but here was more fat in the fire. I sat down to my dinner at
six once more in peace and _tête-à-tête_ with Tarlton talking over our
affairs with the gusto given by a superior appetite to a shocking bad
dinner, when in burst the two French captains, one of the _Tonnerre_ a
frigate in the port, and the other the captain of the packet.

'I won't try to paint with my poor pen the scene, but I was highly
amused and in such imperturbable good humour, that even the captain of
the _Tonnerre_, calling me a party man and attacking me as if I had
fired at his nasty flag, did not make me call him what I might with
truth have done, a Red. He would not eat, or drink, or do anything but
fume. At last I coolly said "_Eh bien, Monsieur, c'est votre faute_."
"Why, how, what you mean, Monsieur?" "That you have set the example of
_Tricolor_, and desire all the world to adopt it, and are now angry
because blue and green are so much alike, that after the sun has set
one colour cannot be known from the other"; on which the Captain of the
packet said _Bon!_ and laughed heartily; he was a good little man and
made light of the whole affair. The French have insisted on the extreme
of satisfaction in this case.

'The next morning I was with the municipal body at 5 A.M. I found them
in the lowest possible state of despondency and terror, although there
was a change for the better in the appearance of the National Guard.
They with anxious looks led me to their chair, shut the doors and then
revealed to me in low tones that the state of affairs was worse. Of
this I felt sure that it would either end in a pillage and a massacre,
or cease from that moment.

'They placed before me a letter of Avezzana's addressed to the
municipal body, threatening them with energetic measures if they did
not advance the revolt by more activity. I found he and Albertini had
instituted a tribunal, Albertini as president, with power of life and
death with instant execution. Guillotines were built; these poor devils
were waiting their doom. I sent for him, by a civil message, of course,
I taxed him roundly with his intentions and bad faith. He, cowed,
answered in a subdued tone. In short, the game was up, he that day
tried to put an insult on me through the flag, failed again, got aboard
an American ship and fled that night.

'I can't go on with this story any longer, I have written it to its
positive finish to amuse you, my dearest wife. I have told it very ill,
it may form, when we meet, a subject for an evening's conversation,
when I can fill up gaps, explain incongruities, but not read my own
handwriting.

'If you show it to anyone, take care it is only to a mutual friend or
sister; it is not fit to meet the eye of a critic or indeed of anyone,
but it is a note of the time from which a statement might with some
further details be made.

'I have not said a word of loss of life. The King of Sardinia has about
100 killed, 15 officers and 300 wounded. What the loss on the side of
the revolt is, no one can tell. My surgeons attended the wounded, sent
by me; all the time the hospitals were full, but they said more were
carried home than went there. They must have buried their slain in the
night, for I have seen many women who have never seen their sons or
husbands since the day the firing began.

'The Doria Palace and houses round it show the chief destruction. The
town has suffered little, it did not last long enough to make
impression on stone and marble houses. Five shell fell into the Ducal
Palace, and six into the great hospital, the rest are scattered about,
so that the damage only meets the eye here and there.

'I have a satisfaction in feeling that I shortened the punishment of
the beautiful city.

'Its frescoes and its pictures, given to the bomb and the sack, would
have been forgotten in Europe, and its ancient splendour might only
have been talked of as existing before the bombardment of 1849.

'I say this to you only, and now shall hold my peace for the future.

'Yours ever,

'H.

'PS.--Packet sails at 6; hour 5 P.M. April 30.'

        *       *       *       *       *

These graphic letters, which were never intended to see the light,
clearly show the important part taken by Lord Hardwicke as mediator
between the insurgents and the King's army. They show him cool under
fire and intrepid in action. Humane he certainly was, and it was the
feeling for the city and its inhabitants which prompted him to take
action outside the strict limits of his duty. Nothing succeeds like
success, and all this was accomplished without a gun being loaded on
board the _Vengeance_. If Lord Hardwicke had had to 'sweep with grape
the houses and the wharfs' as he threatened to do, the fat would have
been in the fire and the question of interfering in the affairs of a
foreign nation might have been raised. The knowledge, however, of his
determined character, and that he would not hesitate to shoot should
the necessity arise, was sufficient to deter the rebels from carrying
out their threat to open the prison doors and let loose the convicts on
the town.

A striking proof of the part the _Vengeance_ took in foiling the
schemes of the rebels is afforded in the pages of a little book written
at the time by one who was in sympathy with the Revolution. It is
entitled 'Della Rivoluzione di Genova nell April del 1849. Memorie e
Documenti di un Testimonio Oculare. Italia 1850.' 'The capitulation
which shortly took place,' says the author, 'was his [Lord Hardwicke's]
work (_opera sua_) and that of the English Consul in concert with the
municipality.' He had accomplished a great work to the satisfaction of
all parties with the exception of a few agitators.

The fact that a few days after these events Lord Hardwicke was able to
gather at his board in convivial entertainment not only the Generals
and Staff of Victor Emmanuel's army, but also the Syndic and Municipal
Body of Genoa, is a proof of the complete success of his undertaking.

'I gave a grand dinner to 73 persons, consisting of the English
residents, General de la Marmora and 6 of his generals, all his
colonels of regiments and his staff. The two Admirals, all the Captains
of the Sardinian Navy, the Syndic and Municipal Body of Genoa, 4
Judges, all the following Consuls and some of my officers.

'It was admirably done, an excellent dinner very well served indeed.
The room was decorated with the Queen's arms and naval trophies,
together with two Bands of music. When the Queen's health was drunk at
9 o'clock, the ship was brilliantly illuminated, the yards manned and
she fired a royal salute. The whole gave great satisfaction here, the
heads of the revolt, the Conqueror and Mediator dined together, and La
Marmora gave as his toast, "Success to the City of Genoa."'

So it was a day of shaking hands and conviviality under the shade of
the British flag.

It was not until August 6, 1849, that a treaty of peace between
Piedmont and Austria was finally settled; by its terms the Piedmontese
had to pay a war indemnity of 75,000,000 francs. The National
Parliament, however, hesitated to ratify the treaty, and the King was
obliged to dissolve Parliament and make a personal appeal to the
country. The result was satisfactory and the treaty received the
necessary ratification. Piedmont was not in a condition to renew
hostilities with so powerful a foe as Austria, and for the moment had
to play a waiting game. In the meantime the King, in spite of the
reactionary spirit which was abroad, honourably maintained the
liberties of the country, and in the courageous appeal to his people he
gave a pledge of his intentions.

'The liberties of the country run no risk of being imperilled through
the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies, for they are protected by
the venerated memory of my father, King Charles Albert; they are
entrusted to the honour of the House of Savoy; they are guarded by the
solemnity of my own oath: who would dare to have any fear for them?'

The liberty which was now firmly rooted in Piedmont gave umbrage to the
other states of Italy, especially in Naples, where Ferdinand II
established a tyranny. It was at this time that Mr. Gladstone, after
having visited Naples, published his famous letters to Lord Aberdeen
summing up the position as 'The negation of God created into a system
of government.' Under the influence of Cavour, Piedmont became the
centre of the movement for Italian unity and Garibaldi took for his
watchword, 'Italy and Victor Emmanuel.'

Every endeavour was made by the leaders of the Italian movement to
interest Europe in their cause. Much had been done in this direction at
the Paris Congress of 1856. Piedmont had taken part in the Crimean War
by contributing 15,000 men to the allied army. Napoleon was known to be
sympathetic to the Italian cause, and in 1859, on Austria calling on
Piedmont to disarm, war was declared.

The successes of Magenta and Solferino, as far as Northern Italy was
concerned, gave Lombardy to Piedmont, but left Austria in the
possession of Venice. Napoleon, who was by no means a whole-hearted
supporter of Italian Unity, had designs of his own, and therefore did
not press the campaign to its ultimate conclusion which, as Cavour had
hoped, should have been the total exclusion of Austria from Italian
territory. A great step, however, had been gained, and Victor Emmanuel
showed his accustomed wisdom in accepting the position for what it was
worth and waiting on events. This course was soon to be justified.
Cavour did not live to see the success of his policy. He died in 1861,
five years before the war between Germany and Austria, in which Italy
took a part against her ancient foe, gave the opportunity of freeing
the Peninsula from Austrian rule. On the outbreak of the war attempts
were made through the mediation of Napoleon to sever Italy from her
alliance with Germany, Austria offering to voluntarily cede Venice.
Victor Emmanuel, however, wisely stood firm to his alliance, and the
war ended in the complete discomfiture of Austria, and Sadowa must rank
with Magenta and Solferino as one of the decisive battles in the
Liberation of Italy. By the Peace of Prague Venetia was ceded through
Napoleon to Italy, and on November 7, 1866, Victor Emmanuel made his
entry into the city as King.

Rome was still a difficulty; there the Pope, supported by French
bayonets, held out for his temporal powers against free Italy which
wanted Rome for its capital, and Garibaldi's expedition of 1867 was a
failure. 'In the name of the French Government, we declare that Italy
shall never take possession of Rome,' were the brave words of the
President of the French Ministry on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1870, after his first defeat, Napoleon failed to secure the help of
Italy, and Rome being denuded of foreign troops fell an easy prey to
the army of the King. Thus it was through the agency of Prussia that
Italy secured Liberty. The statecraft of Cavour and the patience and
self-control of Victor Emmanuel gained what the impetuous bravery of
Garibaldi and the revolutionary efforts of Mazzini could never have
realised. Each, however, had done his part. The spirit of a people to
accomplish great things must be aroused to create the energy which the
master-hand must hold in check.

The force must be there, ready to propel the State when times are ripe.
The discontent which showed itself at Genoa after the battle of Novara,
the ideals which animated the thousand who sailed with Garibaldi to
free Sicily, were both of them valuable assets to the nation.

That there were men who for their own ends took advantage of the
situation cannot be doubted, and the revolutionaries in Genoa were of
this kind. The ruin they might have brought on the city of Genoa and
the difficulties they would have put in the way of Victor Emmanuel had
they been successful are easily imagined.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII

In view of the reflections made upon Lord Hardwicke's conduct at Genoa
which I have considered in the preceding chapter, I have thought it
well to print, without further comment, copies of certain documents
which were found among his papers. These, I think, leave no doubt as to
the light in which that conduct appeared to those best able to judge of
it.

A letter from General La Marmora: dated 'La Lanterna,' 9 April, '49.
Three o'clock.

  STATO MAGGIORE,             QUARTIER GENERALE,
     della 6° Divisione,             addi    1849.
              OGGETTO.

'MILORD,

'J'aurai des dépêches très importantes à vous communiquer. Si ce n'est
pas une indiscretion je vous priérai de passer un moment ici d'autant
plus que j'espère le Sindic de la ville voudra y venir aussi ainsi que
je l'ai invité.

'Votre très humble serviteur,

'ALPHONSE LA MARMORA.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Letter from the Syndic of Genoa to Lord Hardwicke.

'MILORD,

'Le Syndic de la Ville de Gênes s'empresse à votre demande de vous
envoyer les copies des projets de capitulation entre les représentants
de la Ville sousdite et le Général La Marmora contr[e]-signées par vous
à l'original, et cela d'une manière toute confidentielle et sans aucun
caractère d'autenticité, le Municipe ne pouvant pas, (dès que tout est
rentré dans l'ordre,) se mêler d'aucune chose qui directement ou
indirectement puisse avoir trait à la politique.

'Agréez, Milord, les sentimens de haute estime et de reconnaissance que
nous et la Ville entière vous devons par la part généreuse que vous
avez pris pour la conciliation de nos différences.

'De V Sè Milord,

'Très-humble et très obéissant serviteur

'le Syndic

'A. ROFUMOTTI.'

GÊNES: 12 Avril, 1849.

A MILORD HARDWICK,

Commandant le Vaisseau

de S. M. Britannique,

_La Vengeance_.

        *       *       *       *       *

Letter from General de Launay, Minister for Foreign Affairs to Victor
Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia, conferring the Cross of the Order of St.
Maurice and St. Lazarus upon Lord Hardwicke.

SECRÉTAIRERIE D'ETAT POUR LES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES.

TURIN: le 22 Avril, 1849.

'MILORD,

'J'ai eu l'honneur de faire connaître au Roi, mon auguste Souverain,
les importans services que vous avez rendus à Son Gouvernement pendant
les graves évènemens qui ont affligé la ville de Gênes et
l'empressement efficace avec lequel vous avez puissamment secondé Mr le
Général de La Marmora pour y ramener l'ordre. Sa Majesté, prenant en
bienveillante considération l'activité que vous avez déployée pour
empêcher toutes nouvelles bandes de factieux de pénétrer dans la place
et de se joindre aux rebelles, ainsi que les mesures promptes et
énergiques que vous avez adoptées pour prévenir la mise en liberté des
forçats, détenus dans le bagne, que les révoltés voulaient armer, a
pris la détermination de vous donner, Milord, un témoignage éclatant de
Sa satisfaction Royale, en vous conférant la croix de Commandeur de Son
Ordre religieux et militaire des Saints Maurice et Lazare.

'Persuadé que vous trouverez, Milord, dans cette marque flatteuse de la
bienveillance du Roi, une preuve du prix que Sa Majesté attache au
service important que, suivant les intentions toujours si amicales de
l'Angleterre, Son ancienne et fidèle alliée, vous avez rendu à Son
Gouvernement dans les circonstances pénibles ou il s'est trouvé, je
m'empresse de vous envoyer ci-joint la décoration qui vous est destinée.

'En me réservant de vous transmettre votre diplôme aussitôt que la
Grande Maîtrise de l'Ordre de St Maurice me l'aura fait parvenir, je
vous prie d'agréer, Milord, les assurances de ma considération très
distinguée.

'G. DE LAUNAY.'

A LORD HARDWICKE,

Commandant le Vaisseau

Anglais '_Vengeance_,' &c. &c.

        *       *       *       *       *

Despatch from Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker, commanding the
Mediterranean Fleet, to Lord Hardwicke.

'CALEDONIA' AT MALTA:

26 April, 1849.

'MY LORD,

'I have this morning received your Lordship's letters Nos. 11 and 12,
of the 18th and 20th insts. detailing your proceedings with reference
to the late events of Genoa, reported in your despatches of the 2nd,
7th and 10th April.

'I am satisfied that your Lordship's energies and personal exertions
have been anxiously exercised for the preservation of order, and the
humane object of preventing destruction, pillage and other atrocities
in the City, and I fully appreciate the advantages which the Community
has derived by their deliverance from a state of anarchy and the
lawless acts of an unprincipled rabble.

'I therefore freely approve the arrangements made by your Lordship at
the request of the Municipality, to protect the town as well as Her
Majesty's subjects from brigandage. And also your commendable
intercession with the Sardinian General on behalf of the individuals
compromised for political acts, trusting that there has not been any
actual infraction of the neutral position of Her Majesty's ship, or
undue interference in the political contention of the opponents.

'I am, My Lord,

'Your very humble servant,

'W. PARKER, _Vice-Admiral_.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Letters from Viscount Palmerston, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the
Lords of the Admiralty, enclosing copy despatch from the Marquis of
Normanby, Her Majesty's Ambassador in Paris.

FOREIGN OFFICE: April 24, 1849.

'SIR,

'I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to transmit to you for the
information of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty a copy of a
despatch from H.M. Ambassador at Paris, stating that the French
Minister for Foreign Affairs has expressed his conviction that during
the late insurrection at Genoa, that City was in a great measure saved
from pillage and destruction by the energetic attitude assumed by
H.M.S. _Vengeance._

'I am, Sir, &c.

'(Signed) H. A. ADDINGTON.'

H. G. WARD, ESQ.

        *       *       *       *       *

FOREIGN OFFICE: April 30, 1849.

'Sir,

'I am directed by Viscount Palmerston to request that you will acquaint
the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that his Lordship has received
from H.M. Minister at Turin, a copy of a despatch addressed by the Earl
of Hardwicke to Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker, dated the 18th inst.,
giving an account of the measures which he took to promote the
surrender of Genoa to the Forces of the King of Sardinia, and I am to
state to you at the same time for the information of their lordships,
that Lord Hardwicke's conduct on this occasion seems to Lord Palmerston
to have been highly praiseworthy, and Lord Palmerston is of opinion
that the Earl of Hardwicke, by his promptitude, energy and decision
saved the City of Genoa from the calamities of further bombardment, and
prevented a great effusion of blood and much destruction of property
and life.

'I am, &c.,

'(Signed) H. A. ADDINGTON.'

H. G. WARD, ESQ.

        *       *       *       *       *

PARIS: April 19, 1849.

LORD,

'Monsieur Drouyn De Lhuys has more than once expressed to me his
conviction that during the late troubles at Genoa that City was in
great part saved from pillage and destruction by the energetic attitude
assumed by the British Naval Force in that port. The Minister read to
me extracts both from Monsieur Bois le Conte and from Monsieur Léon
Favre the French Consul at Genoa, stating that there were moments when
the lives and properties of the peaceable inhabitants would have been
in great danger but for the dread inspired by the position taken up by
H.M.S. _Vengeance_ and the efficient support given by Lord Hardwicke to
the Consular Authorities. Monsieur Drouyn De Lhuys said there had been
no distinction whatever between the two Commanders of the two nations
except inasmuch as the British Naval Force at that time in the Port of
Genoa was of so much more commanding a character.

'I am, &c.,

'(Signed) NORMANBY.'

        *       *       *       *       *

Extracts from 'An Episode of Italian Unification' by General Alfonso la
Marmora.

'Lord Hardwicke conducted himself to me like the honourable man that he
is, expert in dealing with men and circumstances. He did not propose
unacceptable conditions to me; indeed, he charged himself with the task
of persuading the Municipality to submit to the conditions which I
might impose, for the welfare of Genoa itself, and the permanent
re-establishment of order.

'On the 9th another complication developed. I have said that the
English Captain placed his ship opposite the docks to prevent the
liberation of the convicts. Avezzana allowed two days to pass without
protesting against this menace: then he addressed to the aforesaid
commander a letter of truly radical insolence, ordering him to vacate
the harbour before 6 P.M. and declaring that _if by that hour he were
not gone he should be sunk by the batteries of the people, and so teach
the Queen of Great Britain that it did not suffice to entrust her
men-of-war to men of high lineage unless they were also men of
judgment._

'Lord Hardwicke, like a man of sense and good feeling, contented
himself with acknowledging the receipt of the insulting letter, being
determined not to stir a finger to leave his drawn position.

'He submitted copies of the correspondence to me and to all the
representatives of the friendly powers.'




CHAPTER IX

POLITICS AND LAST YEARS. 1850-1873


Having resumed the profession to which he had always been devoted, it
was the ambition of Lord Hardwicke's life to continue his naval career,
and to complete a period of active service afloat which would have
entitled him to promotion to flag rank. He was encouraged in this
desire by all his friends, even by those who, like John Wilson Croker,
had opposed his return to active service. In a letter written by that
gentleman to Lady Hardwicke in 1849, he said: 'I never was very
favourable to his going to sea, but I am now decidedly against his not
going through with it, and I cannot but believe that his services are
appreciated, if not at their full value at least with respect, on the
part of the Whigs. But however that may be, and however glad I shall be
to see you all again at Wimpole, I earnestly advise him to play his
hand out.'

Unhappily, Lord Hardwicke was prevented from carrying out his intention
by the very serious illness of Lady Hardwicke, which caused him the
gravest anxiety, shortly after the termination of his arduous
responsibilities at Genoa. Lady Hardwicke was brought to death's door
by an attack of fever at Naples, and he immediately resigned his
command of the _Vengeance_, and hurried to her bedside. She happily
recovered, and after her convalescence the whole family returned to
England.

Apart, however, from this urgent private trouble, it is doubtful
whether Lord Hardwicke would have continued his service in the
Mediterranean. He felt, indeed, that the approval of his conduct at
Genoa by the Whig Government was less hearty than Mr. Croker believed
was the case, confined as it was to the barest official acknowledgment
of services which to everyone else appeared not only creditable to Lord
Hardwicke as a captain of a British ship of war, but of the highest
value to Italy, to the cause of good order, and, by the havoc and
bloodshed his tact and firmness had certainly prevented, to humanity
itself. As the documents set out in the appendix to the last chapter
fully show, all this was highly appreciated abroad. King Victor
hastened to confer on Lord Hardwicke the order of St. Maurice and St.
Lazarus for what were described by General de Launay, his foreign
secretary, as 'les importans services que vous avez rendus à Son
Gouvernement pendant les graves évènemens qui ont affligé la ville de
Gênes et l'empressement efficace avec lequel vous avez puissamment
secondé M. le Général de La Marmora pour y ramener l'ordre'; Lord
Normanby, the British Ambassador at Paris, reported to his government
that the French Minister at Turin had more than once expressed his
conviction 'that during the late troubles at Genoa that city was in
great part saved from pillage and destruction by the energetic attitude
assumed by the British naval force in that port, and that the French
consuls had stated to him that there were moments when the lives and
properties of the peaceable inhabitants would have been in great
danger, but for the dread inspired by the position taken up by H.M.S.
_Vengeance_, and the effective support given by Lord Hardwicke to the
consular authorities.' There was less value perhaps in the thanks given
by 'the Count and Colonel, Director of the Bagni Maritim,' whose
gratitude was mingled with a sense of favours to come, in the possible
exertion of Lord Hardwicke's good offices with King Victor Emmanuel for
clemency for the convicts under the Count's charge, whose conduct had
added so much to the dangers of the situation. But of the foreign
testimony to Lord Hardwicke's service at Genoa perhaps the most
eloquent was that of Mazzini, who admitted to Lord Malmesbury that his
career in Italy had been spoiled 'by one English sailor at Genoa called
Hardvick.'

This universal approbation of the part played by Lord Hardwicke was of
course perfectly well known to the Government; it was also more or less
known to the public from the letters written by the _Times_
correspondent at Genoa. 'But for the decision and judgment Lord
Hardwicke manifested,' he wrote, 'Genoa would, in all probability, have
been at this moment a ruined and pillaged city. The very worst
vagabonds were hired to mount guard and man the walls, since the
National Guards had retired for the most part to their own dwellings.
It was indeed a reign of terror, and it was most fortunate for Genoa
that the _Vengeance_ was in the port to prevent its being a reign of
blood.'

Under these circumstances Lord John Russell's government could scarcely
withhold official recognition of Lord Hardwicke's success in having
virtually saved a great and historic city from destruction. His
conduct, moreover, was such as would certainly appeal to Lord
Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, who took the occasion to inform the
Admiralty 'that Lord Hardwicke's conduct seemed to him highly
praiseworthy, and that he was of opinion that the Earl of Hardwicke by
his promptitude, energy and decision saved the city of Genoa from the
calamities of further bombardment, and prevented a great effusion of
blood and much destruction of property and life.'

This official approval, as we have seen, was conveyed to Lord Hardwicke
by his admiral, Sir William Parker, who had already indicated his own
rather tepid approval accompanied, however, by the hope that there had
been 'no actual infraction of the neutral position of Her Majesty's
ship, or undue interference in the political contention of the
opponents.'

But it seems clear that both political and professional influences were
already at work against Lord Hardwicke. On the happy conclusion of the
trouble at Genoa by what he truly described in a letter to Lady
Hardwicke as 'the only English interference that has been successful in
Europe since the affair began,' he had already detected a certain
faintness in the praise he received from Admiral Parker: 'The good
admiral gives me negative praise,' he writes, 'but I leave it all to
him to judge my acts. I have no fear of results; I have a good reason
for all I did.' But from a memorandum written by Lady Hardwicke after
his death, it appears that he felt very acutely the grudging spirit in
which his services had been received by a section, at least, of the
Cabinet. Upon reporting himself at the Admiralty on his arrival in
London he was greeted by Sir Francis Baring, the First Lord, with these
words: 'Well, Lord Hardwicke, you certainly did do well at Genoa, and
it was lucky that you succeeded, for if you had failed you certainly
would have been broke.' He made no complaint, however, but returned to
Wimpole, resumed his life of a country gentleman, and renewed all his
interest in the affairs of his estate and his county.

He was called at length from this retirement by the return of his own
party to power. In March of 1851 Lord John Russell had announced the
resignation of the Government owing to their defeat on the franchise
question; Lord Stanley was sent for by Queen Victoria, but found
himself unable to form a ministry, and upon the advice of the Duke of
Wellington the Queen had requested her ministers to resume office. But
this arrangement lasted less than a year. On the 27th of February
following Lord Stanley, by that time Earl of Derby, became prime
minister in the new Government with Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Spencer Walpole,
Lord Malmesbury and Sir John Packington, among his colleagues, and in
this cabinet Lord Hardwicke sat as Postmaster-General. It was a short
term of office, which lasted less than a year, during which time,
however, Lord Hardwicke's energy and powers of organisation were much
appreciated in his department, where he came to be known as 'Lord
Hardwork'; but his official life came to an end with that of the
Government upon the return to power, in December 1852, of the Aberdeen
administration, which included Lord John Russell as Foreign Secretary
and Sir James Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty.

A characteristic souvenir of the immortal Duke of Wellington occurs to
me in connection with this first administration of Lord Derby, well
known as the 'Derby D'Israeli Ministry,' which may find a place here. A
great many new men necessarily composed it, and when they were all
mustered before being 'sworn in' the Duke began chaffing them 'as
somewhat _raw recruits_,' and then taking his stick he put them into
line and said, 'You will require a little drilling' and he flourished
his stick about, imitating a sergeant, and amused them all very much.
Such was the great man's way of putting a _home truth_.

The fall of Lord Derby's government was the occasion for a letter to my
father from Mr. Croker, in which that gentleman appears to admiration
in the characteristic role of candid friend. I print this, not only as
a typical effort of that critical spirit, but because it contains a
very just appreciation of my mother's great qualities, to which her
husband and her children owe so much.

        *       *       *       *       *

Dec. 31, 1852.

'... As for the party, I cannot but feel with you, that a party without
a spokesman in the House of Commons is as nothing, but with such a
spokesman as Disraeli, it is worse than nothing. In Opposition, his
talents of debate would be most valuable, if there was any security for
his principles or his judgment. I have no faith in either.

'But after all, nobody is so much to blame as Derby; why did he not
take higher and surer ground. Why are you all turned out on--neither
you nor anyone else can say what? You had not even hoisted a flag to
rally round. You have been like some poor people I have read of in the
late storm, buried under the ruins of your own edifice, but whether you
were stifled or crushed, killed by a rafter or a brick, nobody can
tell. You have died a death so ignoble that it has no name, and the
Coroner's verdict is "Found Dead."

'Why did you not die in the Protestant cause; on something that some
party could take an interest in? Why did you spare Cardinal Wiseman?
Why butter Louis Buonaparte thicker than his own French cooks? Why did
you lay the ground of the confiscation of landed property by a
differential income tax and by hinting at taxing property by
inheritance? "You have left undone the things you ought to have done,
and you have done those things which you ought not to have done, and
there is no help for you."

'My own grief is this, that Disraeli's vanity, or as he would say, his
character, was committed by his electioneering speeches and addresses,
and that you all, half generosity and half prudence, resolved to stand
by him rather than break up the Government, which his resignation would
have done. That's my solution of the greatest political riddle I ever
encountered.

'I know not what to say about your going to sea, I fear observations on
your resigning the ship abroad and taking one at home for the mere
purpose of making up a little time. Pray think well of it. I daresay
you would receive a civil answer, perhaps get a ship, but _cui bono_.
What is your flag to you? [Footnote: He was promoted to the rank of
Vice-Admiral in November 1858.] I wish you were on the Admiral's list
for the sake of the country if we are to have a war, but I see no
advantage in it if there is no prospect of distinguished service.

'Give my best love to all the dear people round you and, above all, to
the dearest of all, whose solid good sense and natural sagacity, quite
equal to her more charming qualities, will be your best guide in the
topic last treated. Indeed, if I knew her opinion on any of those
topics, it would have a prime chance of becoming my own.

'Ever most affectionately hers and yours,

'J. W. CROKER'

        *       *       *       *       *

The Aberdeen Government will always be remembered as that of the period
of the Crimean War, and it was in connection with that great struggle
and his wish to serve his country afloat that Lord Hardwicke found just
reason to complain of more than the mere belittling of his services at
Genoa which had been his sole reward upon his return to England in 1849.

Lord Hardwicke's desire to obtain active employment at sea so soon as
hostilities with Russia appeared probable was well known at the
Admiralty, but political rancour as well as professional jealousy were
both employed in a secret but active agitation to prevent his obtaining
that employment. The entirely honourable distinction he had received
from the King of Sardinia by the bestowal of the order of St. Maurice
and St. Lazarus was made the opportunity of a series of slanderous
suggestions which caused him the greatest pain. It was perfectly well
known that a regulation in force at the English Court forbade the
acceptance of foreign distinctions of that kind without the express
permission of the Crown. Yet it was stated that 'The English Government
had desired that the order should be returned on the ground that Lord
Hardwicke had acted at Genoa without orders.' Further than this, as
Lady Hardwicke records, 'Much jealousy was created by his successful
diplomacy at Genoa, and his enemies disseminated a report that he had
disobeyed Admiral Sir William Parker's orders, and "made the
Mediterranean sea too hot to hold him."'

These injurious statements, however, did not reach Lord Hardwicke's
ears until some time after they were first made--'he was of course
ignorant of what was going on to defame his professional character and
stop his career in a service to which he was devoted and in which he
had spent the best years of his life.' They at length, however, came to
his notice under more responsible authority than that of mere rumour at
service clubs, and at a moment when their acceptance by a member of the
Government was allowed to stand in the way of Lord Hardwicke's
selection for an important command.

By a recent regulation of the Admiralty, Lord Hardwicke with many other
senior captains who had failed by a short period to complete the active
service afloat necessary to entitle them to the rank of rear-admiral,
was placed upon the retired list. In his case, the regulation took
effect upon January 28, 1854. Meanwhile, however, the probability in
1853 of a declaration of war between this country and Russia had led to
great naval activity, and Lord Hardwicke had applied for active
employment. 'Sir Charles Napier,' writes Lady Hardwicke, 'who fully
appreciated his courage and ability, applied for him as his
flag-captain.' His offer, however, as well as Admiral Napier's wish for
his assistance, were both disregarded by the Admiralty, and his
appointment as flag-captain refused.

There was, perhaps, no legitimate grievance in this refusal, but at
this moment information reached Lord Hardwicke through Lord Clarendon,
that the refusal had been accompanied by a revival at the Admiralty of
the injurious suggestions, already mentioned, of his having exceeded
his instructions from Sir William Parker at Genoa.

'I believe it to have been at this juncture,' writes Lady Hardwicke,
'that his friend Lord Clarendon, feeling acutely his position, informed
him of the slanders which had been spread abroad. ... This statement
was made use of by Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty and
successor to Sir F. Baring, and carried by him to the ears of his best
friends, the Queen and the Prince Consort.'

It will be readily understood that the adoption of these injurious
reports by a cabinet minister, and their repetition by him in his
official capacity to the Queen and Prince Albert, placed the whole
matter upon a different footing. Queen Victoria, almost from the
beginning of her reign, had honoured my father with her regard and
confidence, and so recently as his return from Genoa he had received a
letter which shows very plainly the terms upon which he stood with his
Sovereign.

        *       *       *       *       *

BUCKINGHAM PALACE: March 4, 1850.

'MY DEAR LORD HARDWICKE,

'The Prince is anxious that you should resume your seat at the Council
of the Duchy of Lancaster which you resigned when you went abroad. I
hope that you will be willing to do so as it is important for the
Queen's interest that the persons upon that Council should be well
acquainted with the peculiar details of the Duchy business, as well as
generally accustomed to the management of property, and it would be a
considerable time before any person could acquire the knowledge of the
subject which you have gained. The change in the Chancellor of the
Duchy will not, I hope, make the working of the Council less easy.

'Sincerely yours,

'C. B. PHIPPS'

        *       *       *       *       *

In such circumstances, and apart altogether from any question of the
refusal of employment by the Admiralty, it is obvious that the matter
could not be allowed to rest where it was, and a letter received by
Lord Hardwicke in September 1853 from Lord Clarendon makes it clear
that he lost no time in seeking an explanation from Sir James Graham.

        *       *       *       *       *

September 30, 1853.

'MY DEAR HARDWICKE,

'I hope you will excuse me for not having answered your letter by
return of post as I ought to have done, but I assure you that the last
two days, I have been unable to do anything but fight against an
extraordinary pressure of public work. My firm belief is that the
_personal errors_ into which Graham had fallen are now quite removed.
"Hardwicke is a good sailor, and an officer of real ability and
merit"--is an extract from a letter of Graham's in answer to mine about
you; but I see that the bar to your being employed, is your own
position in the Service and your having one year and eleven months to
serve afloat before you can render yourself eligible for the Flag.
There are only three captains above you and if when your turn arrived
you were in command of a ship, and your full period of requisite
service was not accomplished, I suppose that a question, which has not
yet arisen, would then arise, respecting your right to promotion to the
Active Flag. This I take to be the real difficulty, and your
professional knowledge will enable you to judge of its value. I sent a
copy of your note to Graham, and as far as I am concerned I hope you
will now take any course you may think most expedient, only bearing in
mind that Graham has no unfriendly feeling towards you. I have said to
you upon that point, nothing more than what he told me, but I should be
sorry that he thought I had said less. I fear that all endeavours to
keep the peace are exhausted or nearly so, and I don't anticipate much
active hostility at this time of year, if hostilities we are to have.
The Emperor of Russia is quite without excuse, he persists in asking
what the Turks cannot concede, and he wants a power in Turkey which
would be useless to him, except for overturning the Ottoman Empire, the
independence of which he declares must be maintained.

'Ever yours truly,

'CLARENDON.'

        *       *       *       *       *

From this letter it is clear that Lord Clarendon as a friend of both
parties did all he could to explain the conduct of Sir James, but his
mention of 'personal errors' into which the First Lord had fallen seems
an ample confirmation of that gentleman's indiscretion in giving an
official countenance to the rumours of which Lord Hardwicke complained.
In any case, Lord Clarendon's letter was obviously an explanation
thoroughly unsatisfactory to Lord Hardwicke, who, as Lady Hardwicke
writes, 'immediately wrote to Sir William Parker and obtained from him
the following memorable credential.'

        *       *       *       *       *

SHENSTONE LODGE, LICHFIELD: 14 Nov., 1853.

'My DEAR LORD HARDWICKE,

'I fully enter into your feeling of mortification and disappointment in
not obtaining professional appointment in the present threatening
aspect of affairs; I am much grieved that a fallacious impression
should for a moment have obtained that the slightest approach to a
misunderstanding between your Lordship and myself had ever occurred. I
am indeed at a loss to conceive on what pretence such an idle and
mischievous rumour could have originated. Sir Francis Baring intimated
to me the astonishment and annoyance you had expressed to him at such a
fabrication; I assure you my reply quite corresponded with your
sentiments. I can truly say that the _Vengeance_ was very
satisfactorily conducted under your command, while attached to my flag,
and all your proceedings manifested genuine zeal for the Service. I
cannot forget with what anxiety your Lordship withdrew your application
to be relieved in the command of that ship, when on the Squadron being
ordered to the vicinity of the Dardanelles, there appeared a temporary
prospect of more active service. I truly regret it that on our
departure from the East you again felt yourself compelled to resign
your ship, in consequence of the illness of Lady Hardwicke at a time
when I believe you were within a short period of completing the
requisite servitude for your active Flag.

'I remain faithfully and cordially yours,

'W. PARKER, _Admiral_.'

        *       *       *       *       *

'Armed with this letter,' continues Lady Hardwicke, 'he sought an
audience of the Prince Consort, and stated his case, placing the
refutation of these calumnies in the Prince's hands. Upon reading this
generous and truthful statement, Prince Albert expressed his
satisfaction at having seen it, and his astonishment at the falsehoods
that had been circulated, and requested Lord Hardwicke that he might
place it in the hands of the Queen, which he accordingly did and
returned to express Her Majesty's gratification on its perusal.'

All this took place at the end of 1853: meanwhile Sir Charles Napier
was unwearying in his applications to the Admiralty to obtain Lord
Hardwicke's assistance in the expedition which was shortly to sail for
the Baltic. In January Lord Hardwicke was placed upon the retired list,
but Sir Charles was still anxious to secure him as one of his admirals,
as is very clear from a memorandum of a conversation by Lord Hardwicke
which he left among his papers.

        *       *       *       *       *

March 6, 1854.

'I met Sir Charles Napier in the United Service Club. He took me aside
and told me that Sir James Graham had consulted him as to whom he would
select as 3rd Divisional Admiral for the Baltic Fleet. He answered Sir
James Graham by saying that he would have asked for Lord Hardwicke as
Captain of the Fleet as he preferred him, but he thought he would have
no chance of having him. But now he was again to select an Admiral, he
should ask for Lord Hardwicke as he should prefer him to anyone. Sir
James Graham said, "Very well, I will appoint him, but in this peculiar
case, I must apply to the Cabinet." The result was the refusal of the
Cabinet to appoint me, in consequence of their fearing to excite
emotion in the officers of the Active List; but that although at the
beginning there was this ground of refusal, yet by and by it might be
done. Sir Charles Napier added, "I shall want one more Admiral and I
shall again apply for you."

'H.'

        *       *       *       *       *

The controversy with Sir James Graham perhaps affords a sufficient
explanation of the failure of Sir Charles's repeated efforts in behalf
of Lord Hardwicke, though there is no doubt the Government had an
answer in the Admiralty regulation which had placed him upon the
retired list.

'Lord Hardwicke's application for employment was brought before the
Cabinet,' writes Lady Hardwicke, 'but the Admiralty declaring that an
order in Council to make this exception would bring the whole retired
list upon their shoulders, his request was politely declined, with the
feeling that the late enactment had fallen cruelly upon his
professional career.'

'Few but myself,' concludes Lady Hardwicke, 'who have seen the anguish
of disappointment caused by such a termination of the cherished
ambition of a whole life, can at all appreciate the severity of this
blow. This statement of facts engraven on the tablet of my heart I have
drawn up with a view of placing in the hands of my dear children the
means of vindicating their beloved father's memory in case upon any
future occasion they should be called upon to do so. Let them remember
that "the Lord nourisheth with discipline" and accept the trials and
disappointments of life with the same spirit of resignation which their
beloved father always exhibited, to my great and endless consolation.'

To me, his daughter, it has seemed that the occasion of which my mother
speaks, for the vindication of my father's memory, has arrived with the
publication of this memoir of his life, and I have therefore set out
the facts as she wrote them down.

The long period of Whig rule, which had lasted with the single break of
a few months in 1852 since the year 1846, was at length terminated by
the return of Lord Derby's second administration to power in 1858, and
Lord Hardwicke took office as Lord Privy Seal with a seat in the
Cabinet. His energy and professional zeal, however, had been fully
employed since 1856 as the Chairman of a Royal Commission which had
been appointed to inquire into the question of the manning of the Navy.
The negative results of the expedition to the Baltic during the late
war with Russia had brought the question into public notice, and the
great changes which were taking place in the design and construction of
ships of war by the invention of the screw propeller and the evolution
of the ironclad battleship had given a more than ordinary urgency to
the question of national defence.

Lord Hardwicke entered upon his duties with the greatest energy. One of
the instructions to the Commission was to 'determine in case of need
the means necessary to man at short notice thirty or forty sail of the
line.' In a speech at Cambridge in 1858 he pointed out some facts
regarding the Navy of which the public were quite ignorant, and which
pointed to a serious decrease in the naval power of the country which
caused much uneasiness. Lord Hardwicke reminded his hearers that though
during the period of the American, Revolutionary, and Napoleonic wars
we had maintained an establishment of from 105,000 to 140,000 seamen
and marines, and had experienced little difficulty in manning a fleet
of ships of the line which averaged 120 sail, yet during the recent war
with Russia the Admiralty had with difficulty found crews for the
thirty-three vessels which took part in the operations in the Baltic.
'These ships,' he said, 'went to sea in such a condition as to inflict
a positive injustice on the brave officers in command of them, and if
it had not been for the efficiency of the latter and the way their
crews were disciplined, they might as well have stopped at home.'

Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort both took great interest in this
important question, and the Prince in the following letter showed his
practical knowledge of the subject by urging the importance of the
training-ship as a source of an efficient personnel for the Navy.

        *       *       *       *       *

'My DEAR LORD HARDWICKE,

'In your position as chairman of the Manning Committee I wish to draw
your attention to a point, which I consider of the utmost importance.

'We have two brigs, the _Rollo_ and the _Nautilus_, at Portsmouth and
Plymouth for apprenticing boys for the Navy. You are perfectly
acquainted with their excellent system, and the fact that, after having
completed their time of instruction, these boys form the best sailors
in the Queen's service, having acquired a taste for the Man-of-War
service early in life, and are free from any connection with the
Merchandise. But these two ships give the Navy only about 200 seamen a
year. What are 200 annually to a fleet of 50,000? Why should not each
of the Coast Guard Ships have a brig attached to them on their
respective stations for receiving boys? The brigs are worth nothing to
the service, and I am told that the applications for the entry of boys
is always far beyond the present means of receiving, whilst men are
frequently not to be had. If 2000 boys so trained were added every year
to the Navy for ten years' service, it would be none too many. It would
only give us 20,000 men at the end of ten years; but these would be
permanently added to the stock of seamen of the country, which I am
sorry to say appears to be gradually falling below our wants.

'Ever,

'Yours Truly,

'ALBERT.'

OSBORNE: July 24, 1856

        *       *       *       *       *

The labours of Lord Hardwicke and his colleagues were received with
general approbation on all sides, although his own declared opinion of
the advisability of reviving the Press-gang in certain circumstances
was not generally accepted.

I must here mention that although Lord Hardwicke was debarred by the
regulation in force from accepting the decoration from King Victor
Emmanuel of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, his Majesty was still
determined to mark his sense of my father's services to Italy at Genoa.
Six years after the revolution of Genoa he caused a medal to be struck
bearing the national arms and inscribed with the words:

'Al Valore Militare. Lord Conte di Hardwicke, commandante il vascello
_Vengeance_. Distinti servizii pel Ristabilmento del Ordine. Genova,
1849.'

Queen Victoria's permission to wear this medal was accorded to Lord
Hardwicke by the following letter from Lord Clarendon.

        *       *       *       *       *

GROSVENOR CRESCENT: July 24, 1855.

'MY DEAR HARDWICKE,

'The Queen's permission has been duly received for you to wear the
medal conferred upon you by the King of Sardinia and I have
communicated the same officially to the Admiralty.

'Very truly yours,

'CLARENDON.'

        *       *       *       *       *

The end of every life is the hardest to describe. The time of rest must
come, and with it retirement from public work. The parent begins life
again in his children, and in making place for them in the world. We
have followed the career of an active and energetic man, who thoroughly
lived his life, and enjoyed it. We have seen his first great
disappointment in the profession that he loved, when an opportunity
offered itself for service under Sir Charles Napier in the Baltic Fleet
during the Crimean War. To die in action, fighting for England, was his
ambition, and the failure of an opportunity for its fulfilment brought
with it much depression.

Meanwhile, however, he lost no time in vain regrets, or ceased from
active and useful work on his estate and in his county. We have read a
letter describing old 'Wimple' in 1781; I shall now try to carry on the
description in few words from 1855. It was a beloved home; we 'were
seven,' and in the adjoining rectory lived my uncle the Hon. and Rev.
Archdeacon Yorke, Canon of Ely, with six cousins, a merry party in
holiday time. The house was big and the furniture, books and pictures
fine, but my father's life would have satisfied the severest of
socialist critics by its simplicity. Our own dress was scrupulously
simple. Our boots I well remember, they were all made by a little
hump-back cobbler who lived at New Wimpole, and used to come by the
avenue to the 'Big House,' as it was always called, to measure us.
These substantial thick boots and leather gaiters from the village
shop, with short linsey skirts, formed our walking attire. And in the
Christmas holiday we all tore about the muddy fields in 'paper-chases.'

Later on I remember writing a paper for my friends on how to dress on
eighty pounds a year, which was my allowance at eighteen.

The cottages were beautifully clean and the furniture solid, all the
men wore smock-frocks and very thick boots with large nails that lasted
a year: no such thing as a blue suit and yellow boots would have been
tolerated then. The best dressed wife wore a red cloak and neat black
bonnet. The family Bible was found in every cottage, and my uncle gave
two cottage Bible-readings every week of his life. There was no attempt
at Cathedral services in country churches. The Communion service was
reverently given once a month, and on the great feast-days my uncle
preached in a black gown. And such a fuss was made when the black
waistcoat now commonly worn by the clergy was introduced: it was called
the _M. B. Waistcoat_ (mark of the beast).

My uncle ultimately adopted it, when promoted to a canonry at Ely. What
changes since those days, what luxury has crept in everywhere, and how
often one sighs over the simplicity of the past, which certainly
produced a stronger, if not a better race.

My father was very courteous, especially to ladies, cheery, full of
life and spirits; liberal in heart though a strong Conservative in
politics. If anything pleasant or amusing was on hand, such as a dance
or our 'private theatricals,' he would wave his hands and say, 'Clear
the decks! Clear the decks!' We often used to 'clear the decks' for
games of _Post_ and Magical Music!... Evenings at Wimpole were never
dull. We attempted to keep up old traditions, and intellect and
vitality were not wanting. There was always a sprinkling of rising men
in all the practical departments of life among the guests at Wimpole,
statesmen, agriculturists, shipbuilders and owners, besides intimates
and relations; dear old 'Schetky' with his guitar among the most
popular, and the delight of the children after dinner when he would
sing his favourite ballad 'When on his Baccy Box he viewed.' Amateur
music was greatly encouraged, not that it came up to the requisitions
of the present day, but it was very pleasant. My mother's ballad
singing was exceptional, and without accompaniment very interesting.

'Annie Laurie' and all Lady John Scott's ballads, besides 'Caller
Herrin''--the Scotch cry for fresh herring--were her favourites and
brought tears to one's eyes. Nothing was spared where education was
concerned, and music and languages were among the great advantages
afforded to myself and my sisters. To the latter I attribute one of the
greatest enjoyments of my life, especially when in later years I often
lived in Paris. Histrionic art also was cultivated in the holidays
under the able management of uncle Eliot Yorke, M.P. The 'Wimpole
Theatre' opened in 1796 with 'The Secret,' with Lady Anne, Lady
Catherine and Lady Elizabeth Yorke and Viscount Royston as the caste.
It was reopened in 1851 with the 'Court of Oberon: or The Three
Wishes,' by the Dowager Countess of Hardwicke, with Viscount Royston,
the Hon. Eliot Yorke, Mr. Sydney Yorke, Lady Elizabeth Yorke, the Hon.
John Manners Yorke, Lady Agneta Yorke, the Hon. Victor Yorke, and the
Hon. Alexander Yorke in the caste, and the Hon. Eliot Yorke, M.P., as
stage manager. This company in 1853 repeated the 'Court of Oberon' with
'The Day after the Wedding.' In 1854 'The Day after the Wedding' was
again given with a comic interlude 'Personation' by Charles Kemble and
a popular farce 'Turning the Tables.'

In 1855 'Personation' and 'Popping the Question' were given before
their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Mary. A
very smart party was invited to meet their Royal Highnesses, and a
great deal of merriment was our reward.

The excellent training of 'Uncle Eliot' during the dull winter evenings
made the winter holidays a real joy; we rehearsed and acted in the
Gallery, originally built to hold the Harleian Manuscripts, and divided
by columns into three parts, making an admirable theatre and a handsome
proscenium. On one great occasion we had Frank Matthews as prompter,
and we none of us forget seeing him initiate Lady Agneta in the art of
making a stage kiss. Oh! how we laughed. He cried so much during the
performance that he prompted badly; but perhaps the dear man was
touched by the family talent! A letter from Tom Taylor recommending
plays suitable for our company will be read with interest.

        *       *       *       *       *

'There is a play called "Hearts are Trumps" which I think would suit
your friends, from what you tell me of their troupe and requirements.
We played a piece at Canterbury called "Palace and Prison" adapted by
Simpson from "La Main gauche et la main droite" which, as far as I
remember, is unobjectionable. I think Palgrave Simpson had it printed,
though I do not think it has been acted in London. My little comedietta
"Nine Points of the Law" is free from all critical situations and
language, but perhaps Mr. Sterling's part may be too old for your
_jeune premier_.

'There is a piece called the "Secret Agent" well suited to drawing-room
theatricals; you might look at it. "You can't marry your Grandmother"
is a good one-act piece, free from objectionable situation and
dialogue. See also "Time tries all," "A Match in the Dark," and "Kill
or Cure."

'Ever yours truly,

'TOM TAYLOR.'

        *       *       *       *       *

In 1857 the Wimpole Theatre reopened with the same company and gave
'Sunshine through the Clouds' and 'Only a Halfpenny'; and in 1860 for
the last time with 'The Jacobite' by Planche; a scene from 'King John';
and 'Helping Hands' by Tom Taylor. The last was a beautiful play, but
too refined for the ordinary theatre, and consequently did not have the
run it deserved.

All these performances were strictly confined to the family, including
the painting of the scenery and the composition of Prologues,
Epilogues, &c. As we said in one of those compositions, 'We are no
London stars; we're all of Yorke.'

While we were play-acting, my father would continue persistently the
work of his estate and county. It was his habit to hire his own
labourers for the estate and home farm, and these, well and carefully
chosen, were secure in their posts from year to year, and loved him. He
also made a rule every Saturday of passing elaborate accounts at the
estate office with his steward. He dined at Cambridge once a year with
all his tenants; never was a landlord more beloved. The old-fashioned
harvest home was celebrated in the spacious coachhouse cleared for the
occasion; my mother and 'all of us' went down to welcome the labourers
and hear my father address them. He settled things in his own way,
sometimes differing considerably from ordinary routine, but he was
scrupulously just, liberal and kind, with a most attractive sense of
humour.

My father had seen and felt acutely the harm raw spirits had done in
the Navy. This made him very careful when at Wimpole. According to old
custom, beer was brewed twice a year, and he kept the key of the cellar
and punctually opened it every morning before breakfast to give out the
'measure' for daily consumption. I remember so well a new butler
arriving with a pompous manner and _very red nose_. Shortly after
arrival he was taken ill and retired to his bed for several days, the
family doctor from Royston attending him. On his recovery, going into
luncheon with us all, my father with his usual courtesy said, 'I hope
you are better.' Answer: 'Oh yes, thank you, my Lord, it was only _the
Change of Beer!'_

I remember the average doctor's bill for domestic servants at Wimpole
was £100 a year. May I be allowed for once to speak of self? Mine, with
a more or less teetotal home, comes on an average to £1; I give extra
wages and no strong drink, and this system works admirably, except for
the _poor Doctors_, whom I fear sometimes find their incomes sadly
diminished by the Temperance movement!

My father made great additions and improvements at Wimpole House. He
found it needing repair, and after releading the extensive roof, he
built offices on the left side, and later restored the large
conservatory on the right, besides entirely rebuilding the stables, and
placing the handsome iron gates at the Arrington entrance. A group of
sculpture by Foley in the pediment of the stone porch over the front
door greatly improved the centre of the house, which was very flat. In
round numbers he spent £100,000 in these improvements. There were
twelve reception rooms _en suite_, including the beautiful chapel
painted by Sir James Thornhill, and no sooner had No. 12 been done up
than No. 1 began to call out! It was always beginning, never ending.

In 1867 came the first home bereavement, the first heart-breaking loss,
from which my father never recovered; he kept to his daily work, but
gaiety forsook him, and the trouble no doubt told upon his
constitution, which was threatened with a serious form of rheumatic
gout, and with gradual heart failure. His beloved third son, Victor
Alexander, Queen Victoria's godson, died suddenly whilst assisting at a
penny reading at Aston Clinton, the residence of Sir Anthony and Lady
de Rothschild, to whom he was devoted. Victor was a lad of great
promise; he was in the Horse Artillery, and a bad accident in Canada is
supposed to have left some injury to the back of the head and spine. He
had been suffering from pains in the head, but was in the highest of
spirits the day before he died. An accomplished fellow, fond of music
and poetry, he was reading 'The Grandmother' by Tennyson, and at verse
three--

  Willy my beauty, my eldest born, the flower of the flock,
  Never a man could fling him, for Willy stood like a rock'--

he fell forward on his face and never spoke again.

The tenderness and sympathy shown by Sir Anthony and Lady de Rothschild
on this occasion made a deep impression on our bereaved hearts. It was
quite beyond words, and from it sprang that happy marriage between my
brother Eliot Yorke, Equerry to H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, and Annie
de Rothschild, their daughter. It was founded on the truest love, and
admiration of great qualities which have stood the test of many years.
The marriage took place in Wimpole Church in February 1873.

It was about June in the same year that my father left Wimpole for the
last time in an invalid carriage. The fatigue of the journey brought on
a severe attack of heart failure, and as he reached his house in
Portman Square, we feared it was his last. But not so. A few weeks
later he reached his beloved Sydney Lodge, where his room was arranged
on the ground floor and a young doctor always in attendance. His
patience and fortitude were heroic. Unable to lie down, he sat for
weeks in an armchair, supported at night by his two attendants. Nothing
could be more sad than to witness his lingering end. Sometimes he
rallied sufficiently to be wheeled into the drawing-room and be
refreshed by our singing hymns to him in parts. He was a firm believer
in Christ, and constantly asked for St. Paul's Epistles to be read to
him: 'Read me my St. Paul,' he would say. The conclusions of the great
Apostle to the Gentiles as to the divinity of Christ supported him
through all his troubles.

His last letter, dated September 7, 1873, was written to his friend Tom
Cocks.

        *       *       *       *       *

'I send my Banker's Book and beg you will return it made up with a
balance. I am a dying man, and shall be glad when it pleases God to
call me home.

'Yours truly, my dear Cocks,

'HARDWICKE.'

        *       *       *       *       *

On September 17 he expired at Sydney Lodge, Hamble, conscious to the
last, and was laid to rest in the family vault at Wimpole. These lines,
'to his beloved memory,' were written by his widow and engraved on a
stone cross erected in the grounds of Sydney Lodge overlooking the
Southampton Water:

  'To thee, the fondly loved one I deplore,
  I dedicate this spot for evermore.
  Here, 'neath the shade of spreading beech, we sought
  Some brief distraction to overburdened thought,
  Some balm for pain, immunity from care,
  To lift thy soul and for its flight prepare.
  Here forest glade and wat'ry flood combine,
  To stamp on nature the impress divine;
  The sluggish murmur of retiring tide
  Whispers "Much longer thou can'st not abide";
  The trembling light of sun's retreating ray
  Suggests th' effulgence of more perfect day,
  And soothing warblers of the feathered tribe
  Hymning their orisons at eventide,
  Point to the "Sun of righteousness which springs,"
  Saviour of souls, "with healing in its wings."
  Hallowed by sacred musings be this ground
  Where last we sat, and consolation found.
  Brief be the space which binds me here below,
  Thy spirit fled, all life has lost its glow.'




INDEX


  Abercromby, Sir W.
  Addington, Rt. Hon. Henry
  Algiers, Dey of; expedition against;
    Bombardment of; slaves released
  Anaguasti
  Ancestry
  Anson, Mr.
  Asarta, General
  Avezzana

  Barbary pirates
  Baring, Sir Francis
  Berlin
  Bermuda
  Bernadotte
  Bevan, Lady Agneta
  Brisbane, Captain
  Bute, Lord
  Byron, Lord; 'Maid of Athens'

  Cambridge, Duchess of, and
    Princess Mary
  Camden, Lord
  Campbell, Lord
  Canea
  Capellan, Admiral von der
  Capo d'lstria
  Carlo Felice
  Cavour
  Charles Albert
  Chrisaphopulo
  Clanricarde, Marchioness of
  Clarendon, Earl of
  Cochrane, Lord
  Cocks, Margaret (Lady Hardwicke)
  Coleotronis
  Corfu
  Corn Laws, repeal of
  Croker, J. W.

  Dantzig
  D'Azeglio
  De Launay, General
  Derby, Earl of
  Devonshire, Duke of
  Disraeli, Mr.
  Dover, Lord
  Druses, the
  Dundas, Capt.

  Exmouth, Admiral Viscount

  Fox, Henry

  Garibaldi
  Garrick
  Genoa
  George III
  Gladstone, Mr.
  Grafton, Duke of
  Graham, Sir James
  Greek Committee, the
  Grey, Marchioness

  Hamburg
  Hardwicke, first Earl of
    Lord Chancellor
    character as a judge
    political influence
    marriage and children
  ------second Earl of
  ------third Earl of
    Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland
  ------Charles Philip, fourth
  Earl of,
    birth, education, enters navy
    first ships
    letters from Mediterranean
    visits Genoa
    joins _Queen Charlotte_, Lord Exmouth's flagship
    letter
    commands gunboat at bombardment of Algiers
    sails for Halifax
    _Crazy Jane_ sloop
    letters from Halifax
    lieutenant
    commander
    anecdotes of
    commands _Alacrity_ in Mediterranean,
    mission to suppress Greek piracy
    at Malta
    Corfu
    Gibraltar
    visits Lord Byron
    the 'Green Bag,'
    at Smyrna
    massacre at Psara
    visit to Pasha
    opinion of the Greek Committee
    Odysseus
    visit to Ali Bey at Magnesia
    Ephesus
    Malta again
    Beirut
    Sidon
    visits Lady Hester Stanhope
    account of Tyre
    goes to Alexandria and Cairo
    holiday in Sweden and Norway: Kiel
    Copenhagen
    Gottenborg, incident at
    Christiania
    the Storthing
    dinner with Bernadotte
    the Doverfeld
    Trondhjem
    Diet at Stockholm
    conversation with Bernadotte
    desire for active service
    returns to Mediterranean in _Alligator_
    diplomatic duties in connection with Greek settlement
    chases pirate Macri Georgio
    proceeds to Crete
    grief at leaving _Alligator_
    voyage home; Reform question
    Sir Joseph Yorke's death
    his last letter
    elected M.P. for Reigate
    for Cambridgeshire
    marriage
    succeeds to Earldom
    country gentleman
    President of the Agricultural Society
    Lord-Lieutenant
    Lord-in-Waiting
    attends on King of Prussia
    visit to
    fire at Hamburg
    Berlin and Sans Souci
    goes with King to Court of St. Petersburg, Dantzig
    Cronstadt
    impressions of Emperor of Russia
    and Russian Royal Family
    Peterhof and Court life at St. Petersburg
    review of military cadets
    takes leave of Emperor
    at Erdmansdorf with King of Prussia
    and Konigsberg
    Marienberg
    Dresden pictures
    Dresden fair
    Sans Souci
    attends Emperor of Russia in England
    the Queen and Prince Consort visit Wimpole
    Her Majesty's opinion of him
    Wimpole cheese for King Louis Philippe
    correspondence with Sir R. Peel
    attitude on repeal of Corn Laws
    resigns Court appointment
    relations with Mr. Disraeli
    wish for naval employment
    Mr. Croker's opinion
    appointed to command the _Vengeance_ under Sir W. Parker;
      ordered to Leghorn
    his instructions
    at Genoa
    letters to Lady Hardwicke describing his action during the
      Genoese crisis
    letters commending his conduct in having saved Genoa from
      pillage and ruin from La Marmora, Syndic of Genoa, Sir
      W. Parker, Lord Palmerston, &c.
    but official approval somewhat grudging
    joins Lord Derby's Cabinet as Postmaster-General
    applies for command in the Baltic under Sir C. Napier
    refusal
    controversy with Sir James Graham
    Lord Privy Seal in Lord Derby's second Cabinet
    Chairman of Royal Commission on manning of the Navy
    King of Italy's medal
    life at Wimpole
    evening amusements and society
    music and theatricals
    estate work
    improvements at Wimpole
    death of Hon. Victor Yorke
    marriage of Hon. Eliot Yorke
    his own illness and death at Sydney Lodge
  Hardwicke, seventh Earl of
  ------Countess of, Margaret. See Cocks.
  ------Countess of, Susan. See Liddell.
  Hotham, Sir H.
  Hurd
  Hydra
  Hypsilantes, Prince Alexander

  Independence, War of
  Ismail Pacha
  Italian unity, movement for

  Karabusa in Crete
  Keppel, Admiral
  Königsberg

  La Marmora, General

  Liddell, Hon. Susan (Countess of Hardwicke)
  Liverpool, Earl of

  Magnesia
  Maitland, Sir T.
  Mansfield, Lord
  Marienberg
  Masséna
  Matthews
  Mavrocordato
  Mazzini
  Mecklenburg Schwerin, Duke of
  Mehemet Ali
  Melbourne, Viscount
  Miaoulis, Admiral
  Milne, Sir D.
  Missolonghi
  Montesquieu
  Morden, Barony

  Napier, Sir C.
  Nauplia
  Navarino
  Nelson, Lord
  Newcastle, Duke of
  Nore, mutiny at the
  Normanby, Marquis of
  Novara, battle of

  Odysseus, the Chief
  Otho, King
  Oxford, Harley, Earls of

  Palmerston, Viscount
  Parker, Sir W.
  Peel, Sir R.
  Perceval, Rt. Hon. Spencer
  Pitt, William (Lord Chatham)
  Pitt, William
  Plumptre
  Prince Consort
  Prior
  Prussia, King of
  Psara

  Rattray, Elizabeth Weake (Lady Yorke)
  Reform Bill
  Rockingham, Lord
  Rodney, Lord
  Rothschild, Sir A. and Lady de
  Royston, Lord
  Russell, Lord John
  Russia, Emperor of (Nicholas I)

  Sadowa, battle of
  St. Germans, Countess of
  Schetky, John Christian
  Smyrna
  Somers, Lord Chancellor
  Stanhope, Lady Hester
  Stanhope, Col. Leicester
  Stanislas, King of Poland
  Stanley, Lord. See Earl of Derby
  Sydney Lodge

  Taylor, Tom
  Trevelyan, Sir George's 'Life of Fox'
  Tyre

  Victor, Emmanuel I
  Victor, Emmanuel II
  Victoria, Queen

  Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester
  Watson, Dr.
  Wellington, Duke of
  Wilkes, John
  Wilmot, Lord Justice
  Wimpole

  Yorke, Lady Agneta
  ------Agneta (Hon. Mrs. Charles)
  ------Hon. Alexander G.
  ------Archdeacon
  ------Hon. Charles (second Chancellor)
  ------Rt. Hon. Charles Philip, M.P.
  ------Hon. Eliot
  ------Lady Elizabeth
  ------Hon. Grantham (Dean of Worcester)
  ------James, Bishop of Ely
  ------Hon. John
  ------Hon. Sir Joseph (Lord Dover)
  ------Admiral Sir Joseph Sydney, K.C.B.
  ------Hon. Victor A.
  Yorkes of Forthampton
  ------of Hannington