Note 392 — A TRUE ACCOUNT OF MR. JOHN DANIEL’S PROGRESS WITH PRINCE CHARLES

David Morgan was a Welshman from Monmouthshire, a barrister-at-law. He joined the Prince at Preston on 27th November, along with William Vaughan and Francis Towneley, all being from Wales. When at Derby it was determined to return to Scotland Morgan refused to go, saying, ‘it were better to be hanged in England than starved in Scotland’ (Tales of a Grandfather). He left the army at Ashbourne, on 6th December, to go to London to procure intelligence, with the knowledge and consent of the Prince and of Sheridan (Murray’s Memorials, 434). At his trial he pled that he had escaped as soon as it was in his power, but this plea was repelled. He was executed at Kennington Common on 30th July, along with Towneley, and seven other English officers. Morgan is thus described in the Compleat History of the Trials of the Rebels (p. 170): ‘David Morgan was about 51 Years of Age, born in Wales, and bred to the Law, and had frequently (as a Barrister) attended the Courts at Westminster-Hall, and elsewhere. He was a Person of a very mean Look, and seldom kept Company with any Gentlemen of his Neighbourhood; and if it had not been for his Estate, he might have starv’d, for he was so very lofty, and of so bad a Temper, that no body but such as were beholden to him cared to employ him. This Morgan was possessed of a very good Estate in St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, but he let it all run to Ruin, because he would not pay the Ground-Rent. The Rebels call’d Morgan the Pretender’s Counsellor, and his Advice was consulted on every Occasion. Even after he was condemn’d, he was haughty and insolent beyond expression; and the very Afternoon before his Execution, he grumbled to pay the Cook who dress’d his Dinner, and said she was very extravagant in her Demands. The Morning (about Six o’Clock) before he went to Execution, he order’d Coffee to be made, and bid them take Care to make it very good and strong, for he had never drank any since he had been in that Prison fit to come near a Gentleman; and because it was ready before he was unlock’d, he seem’d angry, and in a great Passion.’

Morgan was the author of a rather dull satirical political poem of 630 verses, entitled The Country Bard or the Modern Courtiers, inscribed to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, a quarto originally printed in 1741, and republished in 1746 after his execution. It is prefaced by a dedicatory letter to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, the Welsh Jacobite baronet. In his dying declaration, handed to the sheriff on the scaffold, Morgan writes that he is a member of the Church of England, and that he has fully set forth his faith in a poem of two books entitled The Christian Test or the Coalition of Faith and Reason, the first of which he had already published, and the latter he bequeathed to his daughter to be published by her. Morgan seems to have had a certain notoriety as member of a Jacobite club at Westminster, judging by a very coarse jeu d’esprit bearing the title A Faithful Narrative of the wonderful and surprising Appearance of Counsellor Morgan’s ghost at the meeting ... giving a full and true Account of the Behaviour of the Club on that occasion.... This folio, for it has that dignity, is followed by another entitled An Appeal from the late David Morgan, Esq., Barrister-at-Law ... against a late Scurrilous Paper.... My copy of the second pamphlet bears the note in contemporary handwriting ‘By one Fielding a concealer of the Law,’ and it is possible it may be by Henry Fielding, who at this time gave himself to ironical writing of this kind in the True Patriot and the Jacobite’s Journal. Both pamphlets are full of topical allusions and scarcely concealed names. Morgan was also the subject of a brutally coarse print entitled ‘An Exact Description of the Solemn Procession of Councellor Morgan’s ghost to the Rump of the Westminster Independents.’