LETTER II. To the Chevalier D’Eon.

SIR,

The warm applause you give to the peace of Paris, and the negociators of it, both English and French, did not in the least surprise me. You were well paid for it at the time, and the private advantages derived to you from it did not cease with its ratification. The peace itself was in its own nature so infamous, and so peculiarly felonious to this country, which it robbed of almost all its noble conquests, that no Englishman was judged proper to be sent with the authentic ratification of such a French bargain. It was given to you contre toute regle & contre toute usage, as the Duke de Praslin says in your Memoires; and the Duke of Nivernois observes in a letter to the Duke of Bedford, that it was une galanterie de votre ministere, & une bonte du Roi votre maitre, qui se sert avec plaisir d’un Francois pour cette tournure. Besides, at the very time of the negociation you held the Ambassador’s pen; and altho’ you were never entrusted with the most important secrets between the two courts, you were employed in the revisal of that fatal instrument which tore from our bleeding warriors the fruits of all their victories, the greatest acquisitions your rival nation had ever made. You are allowed to have much chicanery; and the tricking article about the Canada Bills was the effect of your duping the Duke of Bedford, and the good-humoured Mr. Neville. You may therefore with reason speak of the peace of Paris in terms of rapture, as a Frenchman, and as the Duke of Nivernois’s secretary. I will ever mention it with indignation; for I am an Englishman, and have not that load of guilt to expiate to my country, the advising, making, or approving so ruinous a measure. You are, however, Sir, by no means singular in your opinion of the late peace even in this nation. We too have many traitors among us. A set of gentlemen at Westminster gave an entire approbation of the preliminary articles, even with the very extraordinary original clause about the East-India Company among them. Their bankers best know how that approbation was obtained; but their successors, altho’ careless about the national debt, have had the prudence as well as foresight for themselves, to pay off all debts contracted on that account.

You speak with some degree of modesty concerning yourself when you mention the peace of Paris, as if conscious that you had only been employed to toll the bell for the funeral of England’s departed glory and fame. When you mention Count Viry, you are quite lavish in his praises, knowing how much he had been a principal in that accursed treaty. I respect the dead; but only the departed virtuous and good. I distinguish characters, notwithstanding the trite maxim of de mortuis nil nisi bonum. I will never confound a Cato and a Cataline, but will give to each their due. I execrate the memory of Count Viry, as the enemy of my country, as having been a principal in robbing England of the Havannah, Porto Rico, Martinique, Guadelupe, Desiderade, Mariegalante, St. Peter, Miquelon, Goree, Belleisle, St. Lucia, &c. and negociating a treaty which has proved the salvation of France. I believe you have, besides the general cause of the peace, which saved France, two particular reasons for the regard you testify to the memory of Count Viry. The first is the very dexterous management he used to get the claim of a sugar island from France waved, in which you knew she was ready to have acquiesced. The other is, the protest he signed in favour of the House of Savoy, which he procured to be legally attested and given in at the time of the last coronation, in the name of his master, the present King of Sardinia. He too in your time had printed the Genealogie de la Famille Royale d’Angleterre, by which he hoped at a future day that the ridiculous claims of his master’s family, as being, although Papists, immediately descended from Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Charles I. would have prevailed over those of the House of Brunswick, who are descended from Elizabeth, Electress Palatine, one degree more remote from the Crown, as being the daughter of James I. You both expected at least a general confusion speedily among us; but neither you, nor he, born under arbitrary governments, could have any idea of the only lawful right to the crown of these realms, a parliamentary right. The contrary doctrine was in Queen Anne’s time expresly declared to be high treason, by a particular statute, the “Act for the better securing her Majesty’s person and government, and the succession to the crown of England in the protestant line;” That if any person or persons, from and after the 25th day of March 1706, shall maliciously, advisedly and directly, by writing or printing, declare, maintain, or affirm that the Kings or Queens of England, with and by the authority of the parliament of England, are not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the crown of this realm, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, and government thereof, every such person or persons shall be guilty of High Treason, and being thereof convicted and attainted, &c. &c. Count Viri acted by the express orders of his Court, in conjunction with your’s. In the same manner the two Courts acted in concert at the beginning of this century, in the last year of our glorious Deliverer, King William III. Count Maffei, the Ambassador from Savoy, delivered in the first famous protestation, in the name of the Duchess of Savoy, against the Hanover succession, at the time the Duke himself commanded the French army in Italy, with Marshal Catinat and the Prince of Vaudemont under him, and every action of his life was dictated by France. I believe you therefore unusually sincere, when you express, “la plus vive estime & la plus sincere admiration pour feu Monsieur le Comte de Viry, qui par son attachement pour le bien des deux nations belligerantes & graces a son zele infatiguable, eut la gloire d’amener cette paix necessaire aux deux nations a une heureuse conclusion.” What this happy conclusion for England was, we have already seen. From that fatal moment France, like a tall bully, began again to lift the head, and insult all its neighbours.

You tell Dr. Musgrave, “le public aura lu avidement votre lettre, aura adjute foi a son contenu parceque vous en appellez a mon evidence.” You are mistaken. Your evidence of itself will have little weight with any one, but you may have papers of importance, which the public expected from your own absolute promise. The last page of your tiresome quarto promised a second volume on the first of June 1764, and a third the first of September. You ought to have given them at the stipulated time, and to have made them as valuable as you could from the materials of others, were it only to indemnify us for having waded through the family dullness and impertinence of the letters to your mother, nurse, &c. &c. What did the Scot give you for the suppression? Was it as much as you had for the dedication, in which you tell him that you find “dans les portraits du Duc de Sully & de Milord Bute une ressemblance assez parfaite, de grandes vertus, l’amour de la patrie (Scotland I suppose) de la philosophie; la profondeur d’un politique, l’eloquence d’un homme d’etat, cette activite d’esprit qui donne les succes & les revers, ce coup d’œil qui demele les objets meme au milieu du trouble, qui fait le grand negociateur, &c. &c.” Upon my word you merited the whole sum he gave you, let it have been ever so considerable. But did you believe one single feature of Bute was like Sully? I am satisfied no more than your master the Duke of Nivernois, Ambassador and Academician, one of your quarante immortels, believed that the Kings of England and France were faits pour s’aimer, formed to love each other, although he declared so at St. James’s with the utmost gravity, and afterwards printed it, like a compliment of the French Academy, only in both French and English for the amusement of the two nations. The flattery of the French ambassador and secretary succeeded. The English monarch and his Scottish minister were equally captivated; and the most gallant army in Europe were left to regret that they had not once the honour even of a visit from our sovereign during the whole war, or before they were disbanded. The early and dangerous intrigues, the specious flattery of a home favourite, and an insinuating foreign minister, but above all the holding out in such terms, le charactere distinctif d’une bonne foi non equivoque, at which the King of Prussia has so much laughed, lulled asleep all heroism, suspicion, and even curiosity.

You are very just, Sir, in the observation, that the public read with great eagerness Dr. Musgrave’s letter. The reason is plain. The fact, that French gold made the last peace, was long ago believed; but the public rejoiced when a man of Dr. Musgrave’s unblemished reputation stated the presumptive evidence in general terms to his countrymen of Devonshire, because then it seemed impossible any longer to stifle the enquiry. You say, “Je vous interpelle donc, M. le Docteur, de declarer au public le nom du temeraire qui s’est servi du mien pour faire ces ouvertures odieuses.” The Doctor does not say that he ever heard the name of the person, who, in your name, applied to Sir George Yonge, Mr. Fitzherbert, and several other members of parliament. He only declares that Sir George Yonge and Mr. Fitzherbert informed him at different times that an overture had been made in the name of the Chevalier d’Eon, importing that he, the Chevalier, was ready to impeach three persons, two of whom are peers and members of the privy council, of selling the peace to the French. Why do you not make your appeal to these two gentlemen? If neither of the placemen should chuse to answer, if they are either fearful or false, if the boards of admiralty and trade have exacted at least a promise of secrecy, I will name a third person to you, a character unexceptionable, of a candour, probity, and honour equal to Dr. Musgrave’s, superior I believe never existed. I mean Thomas Cholmondeley, Esq; the late member for Cheshire, a relation of Lord Chatham. My reason for naming this gentleman you will see in the following passage. “It is true (Pitt) assisted in the first debate upon General Warrants in 1764; but finding that some of the party were in earnest in their designs of going farther, and had prepared a motion against the seizure of papers, which was, in fact, the great grievance; and also finding that the favourite dreaded the minority gaining a victory, lest the party should be afterwards turned against him; and that the favourite had therefore supported the administration with all his might upon this occasion, the great patriot scandalously withdrew from the cause and the party; thereby preventing any point being then gained towards that security of public liberty, which the whole kingdom so ardently wished for and expected. A short time afterwards, when an impeachment of the favourite was privately rumoured among a few only; and it was said, that there was strong evidence ready to be given, particularly with regard to the peace; when a certain baronet, and others, who took some pains in order to come at this evidence, and the conditions upon which it might have been obtained were trifling, not pecuniary (the pardon of the Chevalier D’Eon is here meant) and who thought it necessary that the great Commoner should be consulted upon a subject of such importance, especially too as he was looked upon to be the fittest person to lead, or principally support such a procedure; and when, in consequence of that idea, he was applied to by one of his own friends, and, in some measure, a distant relation, he checked the whole in the bud, by declaring vehemently against it.” An enquiry into the conduct of the late Right Honourable Commoner, page 26, &c. published in 1766. The strange phrase Pitt used was, that he would set his foot on the head of the man who first moved the enquiry, and crush him to atoms. I am very glad to hear that the three brothers are at last united, and that there is now not only a family, but a political union among them. I venture however to prophesy, that two of the three will never promote an enquiry into the transactions of the last peace, or the conduct of the favourite, and I therefore hope all the friends of the public will be on their guard against them both. They cannot safely be trusted with the conduct of this important business. The apostate had in 1764 his peerage and place of Privy Seal in view, for which he then sold his friends and his country. He now looks forwards to a more lucrative office, a larger pension to recruit his shattered finances, and perhaps to a higher title, which he may probably get, if he can keep the favourite’s head on his shoulders. I wish however the triumvirate of brothers success, because I think a triumvirate, which should be only insolent and overbearing, is infinitely to be preferred to a sole minister who is cruel; and delights in blood.

I should before this, Monsieur le Chevalier, have apologized to you for the frankness of my proceeding with respect to you, and the plain language of my heart, but really my nature is open and undisguised. I detest flattery and foolish compliments. I call things generally by their names, j’appelle un chat un chat, et rolet un fripon. Besides your example ought to weigh in an address to you. The embassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of your court, a Cordon Bleu, who represented the person of the Most Christian King, you repeatedly in the grossest manner call ane extraordinaire, and you add, la truye n’ennoblit pas le cochon. Monsieur Bussy, the late French minister here, is with you a bourreau. Your language even to your own mother is particularly rude. You advise a tender affectionate parent, in tears for the misconduct of a son she loved, to wipe her eyes, plant her cabbages, weed her garden, eat her greens, and drink the milk of her cows and the wine of her vineyard, without giving herself any trouble about you. The letter to your nurse, Madame Benoit a Tonnerre, is rather more obliging. You talk of all her soins et peines passees, and then very elegantly add, that you are well at present, but should be better if you could see her soon. To her you act the signor magnifico; you actually send her one hundred livres, or near four pounds and eight shillings sterling. How interesting is all this to the public? how glorious to you? But to return to your poor mother, whom I heartily pity. You tell her in return for her concern, that you have read toutes les lettres lamentables et pitoyables que vous avez pris la peine de m’ecrire: pourquoi pleurez vous, femme de peu de foi? You make use here, Sir, of our Blessed Saviour’s words in a very strange and indecent manner. You speak of him in your last publication, in a most daring and really impudent stile. In the Pieces Authentiques, page 13, your words are, on n’accusa point Jesus Christ au Banc d’Herode d’avoir debite des libelles; cependant ce que notre seigneur a avance n’a jamais ete si bien prouve que ce que le Chevalier D’Eon a demontre par ses Lettres et Memoires. Jesus Christ was not accused at Herod’s Bench of having published libels; although what our Saviour advanced was never so well proved as what the Chevalier D’Eon has demonstrated in his Letters and Memoirs. After all these instances I shall conclude without the least compliment to you, with only saying, that

I am, Sir,

An ENGLISHMAN.