FN 136 There is, Junius wrote eighty years after the capitulation of Limerick, "a certain family in this country on which nature seems to have entailed a hereditary baseness of disposition. As far as their history has been known, the son has regularly improved upon the vices of the father, and has taken care to transmit them pure and undiminished into the bosom of his successors." Elsewhere he says of the member for Middlesex, "He has degraded even the name of Luttrell." He exclaims, in allusion to the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland and Mrs. Horton who was born a Luttrell: "Let Parliament look to it. A Luttrell shall never succeed to the Crown of England." It is certain that very few Englishmen can have sympathized with Junius's abhorrence of the Luttrells, or can even have understood it. Why then did he use expressions which to the great majority of his readers must have been unintelligible? My answer is that Philip Francis was born, and passed the first ten years of his life, within a walk of Luttrellstown.
FN 137 Story's Continuation; London Gazette, Oct. 22. 1691;D'Usson and Tesse to Lewis, Oct. 4/14., and to Barbesieux, Oct.
7/17.; Light to the Blind.
FN 138 Story's Continuation; London Gazette Jan. 4. 1691/2FN 139 Story's Continuation; Macariae Excidium, and Mr.
O'Callaghan's note; London Gazette, Jan. 4. 1691/2.
FN 140 Some interesting facts relating to Wall, who was minister of Ferdinand the Sixth and Charles the Third, will be found in the letters of Sir Benjamin Keene and Lord Bristol, published in Coxe's Memoirs of Spain.
FN 141 This is Swift's language, language held not once, but repeatedly and at long intervals. In the Letter on the Sacramental Test, written in 1708, he says: "If we (the clergy)were under any real fear of the Papists in this kingdom, it would be hard to think us so stupid as not to be equally apprehensive with others, since we are likely to be the greater and more immediate sufferers; but, on the contrary, we look upon them to be altogether as inconsiderable as the women and children . . . .
The common people without leaders, without discipline, or natural courage, being little better than hewers of wood and drawers of water, are out of all capacity of doing any mischief, if they were ever so well inclined." In the Drapier's Sixth Letter, written in 1724, he says: "As to the people of this kingdom, they consist either of Irish Papists, who are as inconsiderable, in point of power, as the women and children, or of English Protestants." Again, in the Presbyterian's Plea of Merit written in 1731, he says "The estates of Papists are very few, crumbling into small parcels, and daily diminishing; their common people are sunk in poverty, ignorance and cowardice, and of as little consequence as women and children. Their nobility and gentry are at least one half ruined, banished or converted. They all soundly feel the smart of what they suffered in the last Irish war. Some of them are already retired into foreign countries; others, as I am told, intend to follow them; and the rest, I believe to a man, who still possess any lands, are absolutely resolved never to hazard them again for the sake of establishing their superstition."I may observe that, to the best of my belief, Swift never, in any thing that he wrote, used the word Irishman to denote a person of Anglosaxon race born in Ireland. He no more considered himself as an Irishman than an Englishman born at Calcutta considers himself as a Hindoo.
FN 142 In 1749 Lucas was the idol of the democracy of his own caste. It is curious to see what was thought of him by those who were not of his own caste. One of the chief Pariah, Charles O'Connor, wrote thus: "I am by no means interested, nor is any of our unfortunate population, in this affair of Lucas. A true patriot would not have betrayed such malice to such unfortunate slaves as we." He adds, with too much truth, that those boasters the Whigs wished to have liberty all to themselves.
FN 143 On this subject Johnson was the most liberal politician of his time. "The Irish," he said with great warmth, "are in a most unnatural state for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority." I suspect that Alderman Beckford and Alderman Sawbridge would have been far from sympathizing with him. Charles O'Connor, whose unfavourable opinion of the Whig Lucas I have quoted, pays, in the Preface to the Dissertations on Irish History, a high compliment to the liberality of the Tory Johnson.
FN 144 London Gazette, Oct. 22. 1691.
FN 145 Burnet, ii. 78, 79.; Burchett's Memoirs of Transactions at Sea; Journal of the English and Dutch fleet in a Letter from an Officer on board the Lennox, at Torbay, licensed August 21. 1691.
The writer says: "We attribute our health, under God, to the extraordinary care taken in the well ordering of our provisions, both meat and drink."FN 146 Lords' and Commons' Journals, Oct. 22. 1691.
FN 147 This appears from a letter written by Lowther, after he became Lord Lonsdale, to his son. A copy of this letter is among the Mackintosh MSS.
FN 148 See Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1691; and Grey's Debates.
It is to be regretted that the Report of the Commissioners of Accounts has not been preserved. Lowther, in his letter to his son, alludes to the badgering of this day with great bitterness.
"What man," he asks, "that hath bread to eat, can endure, after having served with all the diligence and application mankind is capable of, and after having given satisfaction to the King from whom all officers of State derive their authoritie, after acting rightly by all men, to be hated by men who do it to all people in authoritie?"FN 149 Commons' Journals, Dec. 12. 1691.
FN 150 Commons' Journals, Feb. 15. 1690/1; Baden to the States General, Jan 26/Feb 5FN 151 Stat. 3 W. & M. c. 2., Lords' Journals; Lords' Journals, 16 Nov. 1691; Commons' Journals, Dec. 1. 9. 5.
