Born: Thomas Pennant,
naturalist, miscellaneous writer, 1723, Bowring,
Flintshire.
Died: Father Garasse,
French Jesuit controversialist, 1631, Poitiers; Sir
Harry Vane, English patriot, beheaded, 1662, Tower of
London; Marin Leroi, sieur de Gomberville, author of
Polexandre and other romances, 1674; Dr. Ralph
Bathurst, 1704, Oxford; Claude Fleury, confessor to
Louis XV (ecclesiastical history), 1723; Colin Maclaurin, mathematician, 1746;
General J. B. Kleber,
assassinated, 1800, Cairo; General Louis Dessaix,
killed at Marengo, 1800.
Feast Day: St. Basil
the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea, confessor, 379;
Saints Rufinus and Valerius, martyrs. St. Docmael, or
Toel, confessor, 6th century; St. Nennus, or Nehemias,
abbot, 7th century. St. Psalmodius, hermit, 7th
century; St. Methodius, confessor, Patriarch of
Constantinople, 846.
THE HASTINGS DIAMOND
At a levee held on the 14th of
June, 1786, a very valuable diamond, of unusual size
and brilliancy, was presented to George III,
ostensibly as a gift from the Nizam, or native ruler
of the Deccan. At the period when this magnificent
peace offering was given to the king, the impeachment
of
Warren Hastings was advancing in Parliament; and it
was very generally said, even publicly in the House of
Commons, that this, with several other diamonds, was
the purchase-money of Hastings's acquittal.
Caricatures on the subject appeared in the windows of
the print shops. One represented Hastings wheeling the
king to market in a barrow, and saying, 'What a man
buys he may sell again.' In another, the king was
exhibited in a kneeling posture, with his mouth open,
and Hastings throwing diamonds into it. An Italian
juggler, then in London, pretending to eat
paving-stones, had placarded the walls with bills
describing himself as 'The Great Stone-eater'; the
caricaturists, improving upon the hint, represented
the king in the character of 'The Greatest
Stone-eater'; and the following ballad was sung about
the streets, to the infinite amusement of the
populace.
'A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF
THE WONDERFUL DIAMOND
PRESENTED TO THE KING'S MAJESTY,
BY WARREN HASTINGS, ESQ.,
ON WEDNESDAY, THE 14th OF JUNE, 1786.
I'll sing you a song of a
diamond so fine,
That soon in the crown of our monarch will shine,
Of its size and its value the whole country rings,
By Hastings bestowed on the best of all kings.
Derry down, &c.
From India this jewel was
lately brought o'er,
Though sunk in the sea, it was found on the shore,
And just in the nick to St. James's it got,
Carried in a bag by the great Major Scott.
Derry down, &c.
Lord Sydney stepp'd forth when the tidings were
known,
It's his office to carry such news to the throne,
Though quite out of breath, to the closet he ran,
And stammered with joy, are his tale he began.
Derry down, &c.
Hero's a jewel, my liege,
there's none such in the land,
Major Scott, with three bows put it into my hand;
And he swore, when he gave it, the wise ones were
bit,
For it never was shown to Dundas or to Pitt.
Derry down, &c.
"For Dundas," cried our
sovereign, "unpolished and rough,
Give him a Scotch pebble, it's more than enough;
And jewels to Pitt, Hastings justly refuses,
For he has already more gifts than he uses."
Derry down, &c.
"But run, Jenkyn, run!" adds
the king in delight,
"Bring the queen and the princesses here for a
sight;
They never would pardon the negligence shown,
If we kept from their knowledge so glorious a
stone."
Derry down, &c.
"But guard the door, Jenkyn,
no credit we'll win,
If the prince in a frolic should chance to step in;
The boy to such secrets of state we'll not call,
Let him wait till he gets our crown, income, and
all."
Derry down, &c.
In the princesses run, and
surprised. cry "0 la!
'Tis as big as the egg of a pigeon, papa!"
"And a pigeon of plumage worth plucking is he,"
Replies our good monarch, "who sent it to me."
Derry down, &c.
Madam Schwellenbergh peeped
through the door at a chink,
And tipped on the diamond a sly German wink;
As much as to say, "Can he ever be cruel
To him who has sent us so glorious a jewel?"
Derry down, &c.
Now God save the queen,
while the people I teach
How the king may grow rich while the commons
impeach;
Let nabobs go plunder and rob as they will,
And throw in their diamonds as grist to his mill.
Derry down, &c.
MUTINIES OF 1797
Following hard upon the quasi
national insolvency of February 1797�the natural
consequence of an unsuccessful war�came a series of
seamen's mutinies which threatened to paralyse the
best arm remaining to England, and lay her open to the
invasion of her enemies.
For some years the seamen of
the navy had complained of their treatment, and, as
was afterwards generally acknowledged, with just
cause. Their pay, and their prospective pensions from
Greenwich Hospital, had received no augmentation since
the time of Charles II; prize money went almost wholly
to the officers; and the captains and lieutenants
often displayed much cruelty towards the men. In the
month of March, petitions from four ships of war were
sent to Lord Howe, who commanded the Channel fleet, intreating his lordship, as
'The Seaman's Friend,' to
intercede with the Admiralty for the sailors, as a
means of obtaining better treatment for them. The
petitions were deemed rather mutinous in tone, but no
special notice was taken of them. In April the
Government were startled to hear that a mutiny had
been planned at Spithead; the fleet was ordered
hastily out to sea, as the most prudent course; but
the seamen took matters at once into their own hands.
The officers were deposed and
guarded; delegates from all the ships in the Channel
fleet met in the state cabin of the Queen Charlotte;
and these delegates drew up an oath of fidelity, which
all the men accepted. The proceeding was of course
unlawful; but their wrongs were grievous, and their
general conduct in other ways was admirable. A
humiliating correspondence was opened by the
Admiralty; offers, in a petty, narrow spirit were
made; and these offers were accepted by the mutineers
on the 23rd, although not without some distrust.
Mutiny broke out again on the 7th of May, because the
men found that the royal pardon was not accompanied by
an effectual redress of grievances. Again the
mutineers displayed surprising dignity and
forbearance, deposing their officers, it is true, but
maintaining admirable discipline on board the several
ships.
The Government, now thoroughly
alarmed, hastily obtained an act of parliament for
increased pay and food, prize-money and pension, to
the seamen of the Royal Navy.
Mr. Pitt displayed
extreme mortification when asking the House of Commons
to vote �460,000 for this purpose, and urged the
members to pass the bill with as few comments as
possible. Lord Howe, the best man who could have been
selected for the duty, went down to Portsmouth with
the act of parliament and the royal pardon in his
pocket. On the 15th of May he had the pleasure of
seeing the mutineers' return to their duty. All was
not over, however.
The Nore fleet mutinied on the
20th, and called themselves a 'floating republic,'
under the presidency of Richard Parker, a sailor of
some education and much ambition. This was a mutiny
that obtained very little of the public sympathy; it
was not a demand for redress of real grievances, so
much as an attempt to republicanize the fleet. The
seamen at the Nore shared all the advantages of the
new arrangements, and could only make new demands
which the Government was quite justified in resisting.
King, government, parliament, and people were against
these mutineers at the Nore.
Batteries, served with
red-hot shot, were planted along the Kent and Essex
shores to shoot them; and the seamen at Spithead made
it known that they had no sympathy with Parker's
proceedings. Dissensions then broke out in the several
ships of the rebel fleet; many of the seamen hoisted
the national flag in honour of the king's birthday on
the 4th of June, against the wish of Richard Parker;
and this audacious man felt his power gradually
slipping through his hands. The ships left the rebel
fleet one by one, according as their crews felt the
consciousness of being in the wrong. At length, on the
14th, the crisis arrived. Parker exercised his
presidency on board the Sandwich, 90 guns, from which
he had expelled Vice-Admiral Buckner.
The crew of that ship, in
spite of his remonstrances, carried it under the guns
at Sheerness, and delivered him up to a guard of
soldiers. All the ships returned to their duty; very
few of the men were punished; and soon afterwards a
royal pardon was issued. Some of the more active
leaders, however, were tried and executed. Parker's
trial, on board the Neptune, lasted three days; he was
cool and collected, and acknowledged the justice of
the fatal sentence passed on him. His wife, a woman
far superior to the general class of sailors' wives,
made a strenuous effort to gain admission to Queen
Charlotte, to beg her husband's life, offering a large
reward to some of the attendants at the palace if they
would further her views. All failed, and Parker was
executed.
Circumstances which transpired
during the trial brought to light the fact that many
men had entered the navy whose antecedents were
inconsistent with a sailor's life. Disqualified
attorneys, cashiered excisemen, and dismissed clerks,
wanting the means of daily support, were enticed by
high bounty into the service; while two or three
delegates or agitators from political societies,
influenced by the excitement of the times, became
seamen as a means of revolutionizing or
republicanizing the royal fleets. Richard Parker in
all probability belonged to one of these two classes,
perhaps to both.