ONE:The people might have dragged on a considerable time still in their misery; but the Government was in its death-throes for want of revenue, and Louis XVI., who ascended the throne in 1774, had but little political sagacity. The administration groaned beneath a mountain of debts; the mass of the people were exhausted in their resources; trade was ruined by these causes; and the nobility and clergy clung convulsively to their prescriptive exemptions from taxation. Long before the American war the State was in reality bankrupt. The Prime Minister of Louis XVI., the Count de Maurepas, was never of a genius to extricate the nation from such enormous difficulties; but now he was upwards of eighty years[357] of age; and, besides that, steeped in aristocratic prejudices. Still, he had the sense to catch at the wise propositions of Turgot, who was made Comptroller-General, and had he been permitted to have his way, might have effected much. Turgot insisted that there must be a rigid and inflexible economy introduced into all departments of the State, in order gradually to discharge the debts. The excellent Malesherbes being also appointed Minister of Justice, these two able and good men recommended a series of reforms which must have struck the old and incorrigible courtiers and nobility with consternation. They prevailed in having the Parliament restored, and they recommended that the king should himself initiate the business of reform, thus preventing it from falling into less scrupulous hands, and so attaching the body of the people to him by the most encouraging expectations. Turgot presented his calculations and his enlightened economic plans, and Malesherbes drew up his two memoirs "On the Calamities of France, and the Means of Repairing them;" but they had not a monarch with the mind and the nerve to carry out the only reforms which could save the monarchy. Turgot, who was of the modern school of philosophy himself, and well knew the heads of the school, recommended that they should be employed by Government. Had this been done, the voices that were raised so fatally against the king and Crown might have been raised for them, and the grand catastrophe averted. But Louis could not be brought to listen to any measures so politic; indeed, he was listening, instead, to the cries of fierce indignation which the privileged classes were raising against all reform. Turgot succeeded in abolishing the corves, the interior custom-houses between one province and another, and some other abuses, but there the great plan was stopped. Both Louis and his Minister, Maurepas, shrank from the wrath of the noblesse and the clergy, and desisted from all further reform.Amongst the most distinguished of this series of architects is James Gibbs, who, after studying in Italy, returned to England in time to secure the erection of some of the fifty churches ordered to be built in the metropolis and its vicinity in the tenth year of Queen Anne. The first which he built is his finestSt. Martin's, at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square.[160] Besides St. Martin's, Gibbs was the architect of St. Mary's, in the Strand; of Marylebone Chapel; of the body of All Saints', Derbyan incongruous addition to a fine old Gothic tower; of the Radcliffe Library, at Oxford; of the west side of the quadrangle of King's College, and of the Senate House, Cambridge, left incomplete. In these latter works Sir James Burrows, the designer of the beautiful chapel of Clare Hall, in the same university, was also concerned. Gibbs was, moreover, the architect of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
ONE:Whilst these proceedings were in agitation, the Tory and Jacobite party, which had at the king's accession appeared stunned, now recovering spirit, began to foment discontent and sedition in the public mind. They got the pulpits to work, and the High Church clergy lent themselves heartily to it. The mobs were soon set to pull down the meeting-houses of the Dissenters. Many buildings were destroyed, and many Dissenters insulted. They did not pause there, but they blackened the character of the king, and denied his right to the Crown, whilst the most fascinating pictures were drawn of the youth, and grace, and graciousness of the rightful English prince, who was wandering in exile to make way for the usurper. To such a length did matters go, that the Riot Act, which had been passed in the reign of Mary, and limited to her own reign, which was again revived by Elizabeth, and had never since been called into action, was now made perpetual, and armed with increased power. It provided that if twelve persons should unlawfully assemble to disturb the peace, and any one Justice should think proper to command them by proclamation to disperse, and should they, in contempt of his orders, continue together for one hour, their assembling should be felony without benefit of clergy. A subsequent clause was added, by which pulling down chapels or houses, even before proclamation, was made subject to the same penalties. Such is the Act in force at this day.
ONE:No sooner was the sentence passed than his judges were seized with a vehement desire to procure a pardon for the admiral. They made the most urgent entreaties to the Admiralty for that purpose, and Captain Augustus Keppel authorised Horace Walpole to say that he and four others of the members of the Council had something of importance to communicate, and desired to be relieved from their oath of secresy. The House of Commons was quite ready to pass a Bill for the purpose, and the king respited the admiral till all such inquiries had been made. But when the Bill had been passed by one hundred and fifty-three to twenty-three, it turned out that these five officers had nothing of consequence to disclose. Still Lord Temple, who was at the head of the Admiralty, was greatly averse from the carrying out of the sentence, which, in fact, was much disproportioned to the crime. Pitt also interceded with the king, and renewed applications were made to the Admiralty; but, on the other hand, the people were smarting under the loss of Minorca, and demanded the execution of the sentence. Hand-bills were posted up, "Hang Byng, or take care of the King." The House of Lords, when the Commons' Bill was carried up to them, however, settled the matter. Murray and Lord Hardwicke demanded of every member of the court-martial at the bar of the House whether they knew of any matter which showed their sentence to be unjust, or to have been influenced by any undue motive; and as all declared they did not, the Lords dismissed the Bill. The[126] sentence was therefore fixed for execution on the 14th of March. Byng, both during the trial, and now when brought on board the Monarch in Portsmouth Harbour to be shot, showed no symptoms of fear. When one of his friends, to prevent a man from coming in to measure Byng for his coffin, said, standing up by him, "Which of us is the taller?" Byng immediately replied, "Why this ceremony? I know what it means; let the man measure me for a coffin." On the deck he wished to have his eyes left unbound; but when told it might frighten the soldiers and distract their aim, he said, "Let it be done, then; if it would not frighten them, they would not frighten me." He fell dead at the discharge (March 14, 1757).
