The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries Part 3

"The drunken fellow then entered into conversation with him, stating that he had been paid off from the 'Audacious' at Portsmouth, and had come up to London to spend his money with his messmates; but that yesterday he had discovered that a Jew at Portsmouth had sold him a seal as gold for fifteen s.h.i.+llings, which proved to be copper, and that he was going back to Portsmouth to give the Jew a couple of black eyes for his rascality, and that when he had done that he was to return to his messmates, who had promised to drink success to the expedition at the 'c.o.c.k and Bottle,' St.

Martin's Lane, until he should return.

"The gentleman in the plaid cloak commended him very much for his resolution: for he said, 'that although the journey to and from Portsmouth would cost twice the value of a gold seal, yet that in the end it might be worth a _Jew's eye_.' What he meant I did not comprehend.

"Whenever the coach stopped, the sailor called for more ale, and always threw the remainder which he could not drink into the face of the man who brought it out for him, just as the coach was starting off, and then tossed the pewter pot on the ground for him to pick up. He became more tipsy every stage, and the last from Portsmouth, when he pulled out his money he could find no silver, so he handed down a note, and desired the waiter to change it. The waiter crumpled it up and put it into his pocket, and then returned the sailor the change for a one-pound note: but the gentleman in the plaid had observed that it was a five-pound note which the sailor had given, and insisted upon the waiter producing it, and giving the proper change. The sailor took his money, which the waiter handed to him, begging pardon for the mistake, although he coloured up very much at being detected. 'I really beg your pardon,' said he again, 'it was quite a mistake,' whereupon the sailor threw the pewter pot at the waiter, saying, 'I really beg your pardon too,'--and with such force, that it flattened upon the man's head, who fell senseless on the road. The coachman drove off, and I never heard whether the man was killed or not."

"Liberty" Wilkes was a frequent traveller on this road, as also was Samuel Pepys before him; but as I have a full and particular account of them both later on in these pages, at the "Anchor" at Liphook--a house which they frequently patronized,--we may pa.s.s on to others who were called this way on business or on pleasure bent. And the business of one very notorious character of the seventeenth century was a most serious affair: nothing, in short, less than murder, red-handed, sudden, and terrible.

[Sidenote: _JOHN FELTON_]

John Felton's is one of the most lurid and outstanding figures among the travellers upon the Portsmouth Road. For private and public reasons he conceived he had a right to rid the world of the gay and debonair "Steenie," George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Felton at this time was a man of thirty-two, poor and neglected. He was an officer in the army who had chanced, by his surly nature, to offend his superior, one Sir Henry Hungate, a friend of the Duke's, and who effectually prevented his obtaining a command. Felton retired from the service with the rank of lieutenant, disgusted and vindictive at having juniors promoted over his head. Arrears of pay, amounting, according to his own statement, to 80 were withheld from him, and no amount of entreaty could induce the authorities to make payment. Ideas of revenge took possession of him while in London, staying with his mother in an alley-way off Fleet Street. The famous Remonstrance of the Commons presented to the King convinced Felton that to deprive Buckingham of existence was to serve the best interests of the nation, and to this end he determined to set out for Portsmouth, where the Duke lay, directing the expedition for the relief of La Roch.e.l.le. He first desired the prayers of the clergy and congregation of St. Bride's for himself, as one wretched and disturbed in mind, and, buying a tenpenny knife at a cutler's upon Tower Hill, he set out, Tuesday, August 19, 1628, upon the road, first sewing the sheath of the knife in the lining of his right-hand pocket, so that with his right hand (the other was maimed) he could draw it without trouble. He also transcribed the opinion of a contemporary polemical writer, that "that man is cowardly and base, and deserveth not the name of a gentleman or soldier, who is not willing to sacrifice his life for his G.o.d, his King, and his country," and pinned the paper, together with a statement of his own grievances, upon his hat. He did not arrive at Portsmouth until the next Sat.u.r.day, having ridden upon horseback so far as his slender funds would carry him, and walking the rest of the way.

Buckingham was staying at a Portsmouth inn--the "Spotted Dog," in High Street--long since demolished. Access to him was easy, among the number who waited upon his favours, and so Felton experienced no difficulty in approaching within easy striking distance. The Duke had left his dressing-room to proceed to his carriage on a visit to the King at Porchester, when, in the hall of the inn, Colonel Friar, one of his intimates, whispered a word in his ear. He turned to listen, and was instantly stabbed by Felton, receiving a deep wound in the left breast; the knife sticking in his heart. Exclaiming "Villain!" he plucked it out, staggered backwards, and falling against a table, was caught in the arms of his attendants, dying almost immediately. No one saw the blow struck, and the cry was raised that it was the work of a Frenchman; but Felton, who had coolly walked from the room, returned, and with equal composure declared himself to be the man. Thus died the gay and profligate Buckingham, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Surrounded by his friends, his d.u.c.h.ess in an upper room, he was struck down as surely as though his a.s.sailant had met him solitary and alone.

Within the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes from his falling dead and the removal of his body into an adjoining room, the place was deserted. The very horror of the sudden deed left no room for curiosity. The house, awhile before filled with servants and sycophants, was left in silence.

Many were found to admire and extol Felton and his deed. "G.o.d bless thee, little David," said the country folk, crowding to shake his hand as he was conveyed back to London for his trial. "Excellent Felton!" said many decent people in London; and tried to prevent the only possible ending to his career. That end came at Tyburn, where, we are told, "he testified much repentance, and so took his death very stoutly and patiently. He was very long a-dying. His body is gone to Portsmouth, there to be hanged in chains."

VI

[Sidenote: _JOHN WESLEY_]

Among the memorable pa.s.sengers along the Portsmouth Road in other days who have left any record of their journeys is "that strenuous and painful preacher," the Rev. John Wesley, D.D. On the fifth day of October, 1753, he left the "humane, loving people" of Cowes, "and crossed over to Portsmouth." Here he "found another kind of people" from the complaisant inhabitants of the Isle of Wight. They had, unlike the Cowes people, none of the milk of human kindness in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, or if they possessed any, it had all curdled, for they had "disputed themselves out of the power, and well-nigh the form of religion," as Wesley remarks in his "Journals."

So, after the third day among these backsliders and curdled Christians, he shook the dust of Portsmouth (if there was any to shake in October) off his shoes, and departed, riding on horseback to "G.o.dalmin."

We do not meet with him on this road for another eighteen years, when he seems to have found the Portsmouth folk more receptive, for now "the people in general here are more n.o.ble than most in the south of England."

Curiously enough, on another fifth of October (1771), he "set out at two"

from Portsmouth. This was, apparently, two o'clock in the morning, for "about ten, some of our London friends met me at Cobham, with whom I took a walk in the neighbouring gardens"--he refers, doubtless, to the gardens of Pain's Hill, and is speaking of ten o'clock in the morning of the same day; for no one, after a ride of fifty miles, would take walks in gardens at ten o'clock of an October night--"inexpressibly pleasant, through the variety of hills and dales and the admirable contrivance of the whole; and now, after spending all his life in bringing it to perfection, the grey-headed owner advertises it to be sold! Is there anything," he asks, "under the sun that can satisfy a spirit made for G.o.d?" This query is no doubt a very correct and moral one, but it seems somewhat cryptic.

[Sidenote: _JONAS HANWAY_]

Another traveller of a very singular character was Jonas Hanway, who, coming up to town from Portsmouth in 1756, wrote a book purporting to be "A Journal of an Eight Days' Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston-on-Thames." This is a t.i.tle which, on the first blush, rouses interest in the breast of the historian, for such a book must needs (he doubts not) contain much valuable information relating to this road and old-time travelling upon it. Judge then of his surprise and disgust when, upon a perusal of those ineffable pages, the inquirer into old times and other manners than our own discovers that the author of that book has simply enshrined his not particularly luminous remarks upon things in general in two volumes of leaded type, and that in all the weary length of that work, cast in the form of letters addressed to "a Lady," no word appears relating to roads or travel. Vague discourses upon uninteresting abstractions make up the tale of his pages, together with an incredibly stupid "Essay on Tea, considered as pernicious to Health, obstructing Industry, and Impoveris.h.i.+ng the Nation."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JONAS HANWAY.]

The disappointed reader, baulked of his side-lights on manners and customs upon the road, reflects with pardonable satisfaction that this book was the occasion of an attack by Doctor Johnson upon Hanway and his "Essay on Tea." It was not to be supposed that the Doctor, that st.u.r.dy tea-drinker, could silently pa.s.s over such an onslaught upon his favourite beverage.

No; he reviewed the work in the "Literary Magazine," and certainly the author is made to cut a sorry figure. Johnson at the outset let it be understood that one who described tea as "that noxious herb" could expect but little consideration from a "hardened and shameless tea-drinker" like himself, who had "for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IF THE SHADES OF THOSE ANTAGONISTS FOREGATHER."]

No; Hanway was not successful in his crusade against tea. As a merchant whose business had called him from England into Persia and Russia, he had attracted much attention; for in those days Persia was almost an unknown country to Englishmen, and Russia itself unfamiliar. His first printed work--an historical account of British trade in those regions--was therefore the means of gaining him a certain literary success, which attended none of the seventy other works of which he was the author.

Boswell, indeed, goes so far as to say that "he acquired some reputation by travelling abroad, and lost it all by travelling at home;" and Johnson, to whom Hanway addressed an indignant letter, complaining of that unkind review, regarded with contempt one who spoke so ill of the drink upon which he produced so much solid work.

Johnson's defence of tea is vindicated by results; and if the shades of those antagonists foregather somewhere up beyond the clouds, then Ursa Major, over a ghostly dish of his most admired beverage, may point to the astonis.h.i.+ng and lasting vogue of the tea-leaf as the best argument in favour of his preference.

[Sidenote: _CHAMPION OF THE UMBRELLA_]

Hanway was more successful as Champion of the Umbrella. He was, with a singular courage, the first person to carry an umbrella in the streets of London at a time when the unfurling of what is now become an indispensable article of every-day use was regarded as effeminate, and was greeted with ironical cheers or the savage shouts of hackmen, "Frenchman, Frenchman, why don't you take a coach!" Those drivers of public conveyances saw their livelihood slipping away when folk walked about in the rain, sheltered by the immense structure the umbrella was upon its first introduction: a heavy affair of cane ribs and oiled cloth, with a handle like a broomstick. In fact, the ordinary umbrella of that time no more resembled the dainty silk affair of modern use than an omnibus resembles a stage-coach of last century. Hanway defended his use of the umbrella by saying he was in delicate health after his return from Persia. Imagine the parallel case of an invalid carrying a heavy modern carriage umbrella, and then you have some sort of an idea of the tax Hanway's _parapluie_ must have been upon his strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST UMBRELLA.]

[Sidenote: _PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPY_]

For the rest, Jonas Hanway was a philanthropist who did good in the sight of all men, and was rejoiced beyond measure to find his benevolence famous. He was, in short, one of the earliest among professional philanthropists, and to such good works as the founding of the Marine Society, and a share in the establishment of the Foundling Hospital, he added agitations against the custom of giving vails to servants, schemes for the protection of youthful chimney-sweeps, and campaigns against midnight routs and evening a.s.semblies. Carlyle calls him a dull, worthy man; and he seems to have been, more than aught else, a County Councillor of the Puritan variety, sp.a.w.ned out of all due time. He died, in fact, in 1786, rather more than a hundred years before County Councils were established, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was a meddlesome man, without humour, who dealt with a provoking seriousness with trivial things, and was the forerunner and _beau ideal_ of all earnest "Progressives."

The year after Jonas Hanway travelled on this road, noting down an infinite deal of nothing with great unction and a portentous gravity, there went down from London to Portsmouth a melancholy cavalcade, bearing a brave man to a cruel, shameful, and unjust death on the quarter-deck of the man-o'-war "Monarque," in Portsmouth Harbour.

Admiral Byng was sent to Portsmouth to be tried by court-martial; and at every stage of his progress there came and clamoured round his guards noisy crowds of people of every rank, who reviled him for a traitor and a coward, and thirsted for his blood in a practical way that only furious and prejudiced crowds could show. Their feeling was intense, and had been wrought to this pitch by the emissaries of a weak but vindictive Government, which sought to cloak its disastrous parsimony and the ill fortunes of war by erecting Byng into a sort of lightning-conductor which should effectually divert the bolts of a popular storm from incapable ministers. And these efforts of Government were, for a time, completely successful. The nation was brought to believe Byng a poltroon of a particularly despicable kind; and the crowds that a.s.sembled in the streets of the country towns through which the discredited Admiral was led to his fate were with difficulty prevented from antic.i.p.ating the duty of the firing-party that on March 14, 1757, woke the echoes of Gosport and Portsmouth with their murderous volley.

[Sidenote: _ADMIRAL BYNG_]

Admiral Byng was himself the son of an admiral, who was created Viscount Torrington for his distinguished services. Some of the innumerable caricaturists who earned a blackguardly living by attacking a man who had few friends and powerful enemies, fixed upon his honourable birth as an additional means of wounding him; and thus there exists a rare print ent.i.tled "B-ng in Horrors; or T-rr-ngt-n's Ghost," which shows the shade of the father as he

"Darts through the Caverns of the s.h.i.+p Where _Britain's Coward rides_,"

appearing to his son as he lies captive on board the "Monarque," and reproaching him in a set of verses from which the above lines are an elegant extract.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ADMIRAL BYNG.]

Other caricatures of the period more justly include ministers in their satire. One is reproduced here, chiefly with the object of showing the pleasing roadside humour of hanging criminals in chains. By this ill.u.s.tration the native ferocity of the eighteenth-century caricaturists is glaringly exemplified. The figure marked _A_ is intended for Admiral Lord Anson, _B_ is meant for Byng, and _C_ represents the Duke of Newcastle, the Prime Minister of the Administration that detached an insufficient force for service in the Mediterranean. The fox who looks up with satisfaction at the dangling bodies is of course intended for Charles James Fox, whose resignation produced the fall of the ministry. The other figures explain themselves by the aid of the labels issuing from their mouths.

And what was Byng's crime, that his countrymen should have hated him with this ferocious ardour? The worst that can be said of him is that he probably felt disgusted with a Government which sent him on an important mission with an utterly inadequate force. His previous career had not been without distinction, and that he was an incapable commander had never before been hinted. He doubtless on this occasion felt aggrieved at the inadequacy of a squadron of ten s.h.i.+ps, poorly manned, and altogether ill-found, which he was given to oppose the formidable French armament then fitting at Toulon for the reduction of Minorca, and possibly for a descent upon our own coasts in the event of its first object being attained.

When Byng reached Gibraltar with his wallowing s.h.i.+ps and wretched crews, he received intelligence of the French having already landed on the island, and laying siege to Port St. Philip. His duty was to set sail and oppose the enemy's fleet, and thus, if possible, cut off the retreat of their forces already engaged on the island. He had been promised a force from the garrison of Gibraltar, but upon his asking for the men the Governor refused to obey his instructions, alleging that the position of affairs would not allow of his sparing a single man from the Rock. So Byng sailed without his expected reinforcement, and arrived off Minorca too late for any communication to be made with the English Governor, who was still holding the enemy at bay. For as he came in sight of land the French squadron appeared, and the battle that became imminent was fought on the following day.

Byng attacked the enemy's s.h.i.+ps vigorously: the French remained upon the defensive, and the superior weight of their guns told so heavily against the English s.h.i.+ps that they were thrown into confusion, and several narrowly escaped capture. The Admiral sheered off and held a council of war, whose deliberations resulted four days later in a retreat to Gibraltar, leaving Minorca to its fate. Deprived of outside aid the English garrison capitulated, and Byng's errand had thus failed. He was sent home under arrest, and confined in a room of Greenwich Hospital until the court-martial that was now demanded could be formed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STRANGE SIGHT SOME TIME HENCE.]

The action at sea had taken place on May 20, 1756, but the court-martial only a.s.sembled at Portsmouth on December 28, and it took a whole month's constant attendance to hear the matter out. The court found Byng guilty of negligence in not having done his utmost in the endeavour to relieve Minorca. It expressly acquitted him of cowardice and disaffection, but condemned him to death under the provisions of the Articles of War, at the same time recommending him to mercy.

[Sidenote: _BYNG'S DEATH_]

But no mercy was to be expected of King, Government, or country, inflamed with rage at a French success, and all efforts, whether at Court or in Parliament, were fruitless. The execution was fixed for March 14, and Byng's demeanour thenceforward was equally unaffected and undaunted. He met his death with a calmness of demeanour and a fort.i.tude of spirit that proved him to be no coward of that ign.o.ble type which fears pain or dissolution as the greatest and most awful of evils. His personal friends were solicitous to avoid anything that might give him unnecessary pain, and one of them, a few days before the end, inventing a pitiful ruse, said to him, "Which of us is tallest?" "Why this ceremony?" asked the Admiral.

"I know well what it means; let the man come and measure me for my coffin."

At the appointed hour of noon he walked forth of his cabin with a firm step, and gazed calmly upon the waters of Portsmouth Harbour, alive with boats full of people who had come to see a fellow-creature die. He refused at first to allow his face to be covered, lest he might be suspected of fear, but upon some officers around him representing that his looks might confuse the soldiers of the firing-party and distract their aim, he agreed to be blindfolded; and thus, kneeling upon the deck, and holding a handkerchief in his hand, he awaited the final disposition of the firing-party that was to send him out of the world by the aid of powder and ball, discharged at the range of half-a-dozen paces. At the pre-arranged signal of his dropping the handkerchief, the soldiers fired, and the scapegoat fell dead, his breast riddled with a dozen bullets.

The execution of Byng was (to adopt Fouche's comment upon the murder of the Duc d'Enghien) worse than a crime; it was a blunder. The ministry fell, and the populace, who had before his death regarded Byng with a consuming hatred, now looked upon him as a martyr. The cynical Voltaire, who had unavailingly exerted himself to save the condemned man (and had thereby demonstrated that your cynic is at most but superficially currish), resumed his cynicism in that mordant pa.s.sage of "Candide" which will never die so long as the history of the British Fleet is read: "_Dans ce pays-ci_," he wrote, "_il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un Amiral pour encourager les autres!_"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SHOOTING OF ADMIRAL BYNG.]