Reign of George III. (Continued.) page 9

But whilst England had been thus preparing for the augmentation of the navy, made necessary not only by the great demand for men-of-war on the coast of America, but by the aspect of France and Spain, notwithstanding the assurances of the royal speech, America had been aiming a blow at the efficiency of that navy, which must for years, if successful, have prostrated our whole maritime forces, and exposed our shores to the easiest invasion. This intended blow was nothing less than the destruction of our great naval dockyards and arsenals, and military storehouses, at Portsmouth and Plymouth. The great agents in this infamous design were Silas Deane and Dr. Franklin. Franklin has been declared innocent of any share in this atrocious plot; but there is, on the contrary, reason to believe that the idea of it originated in his scheming and fertile brain. What else, indeed, mean his expressions in a letter, some months before, to Dr. Priestly: - "England has begun to burn our seaport towns, secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind." It has been urged that no trace was ever found of Franklin's connection with the actual incendiary, and that he was but just arrived in France from America. But these are puerile arguments. Franklin could just as well promote the scheme from America by letter, or by instructions to Deane before leaving.

The idea, indeed, of destroying our dockyards was not new: it had long been entertained by France. So long ago as 1764 lord Rochford, our ambassador at Paris, announced, in a most secret letter to lord Halifax, that he had discovered a correspondence betwixt Choiseul, the French minister, and Grimaldi, the minister of Spain, for burning our dockyards.

Rochford stated that the scheme was conducted by two French engineers, who had been for some time, and were then, in England; that these men had bribed a number of people - some of them English - to assist them in the undertaking; that, betwixt the 1st and the 15th of November, the dockyards and shipping of Portsmouth and Plymouth would certainly be destroyed; that they had invented a peculiar kind of combustible for the purpose, and would avail themselves of the dark nights of that season. Lord Rochford added that he had made himself assured of the fact that Choiseul, the French minister, had informed Grimaldi that all was ready for this diabolical attempt, and that Grimaldi's answer was, " the sooner it was done the better."

This information put the English government into a great consternation; the utmost vigilance was exerted to detect traces of this complot, and to prevent its execution, and the consequence was, that the design was abandoned. Five months later, lord Rochford was able to inform his government that an Englishman, named Milton, was said to have originated the scheme; that he had been secreted for three days in the house of prince Masserano, the Spanish ambassador in London, who had managed to smuggle him over to France, and that Masserano was getting over the other conspirators.

The English government, not, however, being able to discover sufficient evidence to bring the matter thoroughly home to the French and Spanish governments, and anxious to avoid a war, let the affair remain secret. But these letters of lord Rochford have of late years been published by archdeacon Coxe in his " Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain," and Segur has, moreover, given us proofs that Louis XV. of France had always men employed by himself, and corresponding solely with himself, in England, whose business it was to furnish him with all plans necessary for invading the country, and previously destroying its dockyards. At his death these plans, accompanied by a mass of correspondence, were found by his successor, Louis XVI., in long tin cases in his cabinet at Versailles. All of them were destroyed except one, which was preserved, as containing the most complete plan for reducing England. Amongst the most active of these secret agents of Louis XV. was said to be the celebrated chevalier D'Eon, who was some time ambassador here, and for many years resident in this country, and who is supposed to have died here. This so-called chevalier was, in truth, a woman dressing and living as a gentleman, and who was not only doctor of civil law, advocate of the parliament of Paris, censor of belles lettres and history in that capital, but had been secretary of embassy to the due de Nivernois in London, afterwards herself minister-plenipotentiary here, and, still more extraordinary, a captain of dragoons, and aide-de-camp to marshal Broglie, and had routed troops of Prussians at the head of her regiment. This woman, whose real name was Charlotte Genevieve Louise Auguste Timothee D'Eon du Beaumont, was known to maintain a private correspondence with Louis XV., was pensioned by him, sent on embassies to the courts of Russia and Austria, and honoured with the cross of St. Louis. Her sex was discovered in London, and she was compelled to resume female attire; but it would seem that she had a garb of duplicity that never was drawn from her, for she affected a great regard for England to the last, and a preference for living in it.

Since the Americans had arrived at the court of France, these atrocious designs had been renewed, and on the 7th of December of the present year the rope-house of the royal dockyard at Portsmouth was found to be on fire. By active exertions it was got under, after it had destroyed that building, and was imagined to be an accident. But, on the 15th of January, 1777, one of the officers of the dockyard found a machine and combustibles concealed in the hemp in the hemp-house of the same dockyard. It was now clear that the previous fire had been the work of an incendiary, and that, notwithstanding the vast quantity of hemp in the house, this second attempt had failed. Suspicion now fell on a moody, silent artisan, who, on the day of the fire, had been looking about the dockyard, and who, by some chance, had got locked up in the rope-house the night before. His name was not known, but the fact only that he was a painter, and had been called John the Painter. Government immediately offered a reward of fifty pounds for his apprehension the same sum, with a strange simplicity, being offered to him if he would surrender himself for examination. Nothing, however, could be learned of him in Portsmouth or the country round; but fresh fires were now breaking out at Plymouth dockyard and on the quays of Bristol. At Plymouth, the fire was instantly checked, and the perpetrator was nearly seized. At Bristol the fire was laid near a narrow, deep creek, crowded with shipping, and which was nearly dry at low water, so that it was impossible to get the shipping out. Six or seven warehouses were destroyed, but the shipping escaped. In another house at Bristol combustibles were discovered, and the alarm became general that the American incendiaries, having failed to burn New York, were come hither to burn our dockyards and maritime houses.

Fortunately, in the beginning of February, a man was apprehended for the perpetration of a burglary at Odiham, in Hampshire; and, by the activity of Sir John Fielding, the London magistrate, he was identified as John the Painter. When brought before Sir John and other magistrates in town, the man conducted himself with great tact and cool address. Though closely examined and cross- questioned by some of the members of the privy council, by lords of the admiralty, and other officers of the board, he maintained the scrutiny without betraying any embarrassment, or letting anything escape him that could in any degree criminate him. One thing, however, did appear - that he had passed some time in America, and in Virginia and New England, the very hotbeds of the rancour against England.

This furnished a clue to further developments. Lord Temple knew another painter of the name of Baldwin, who also had passed some time in America, and he suggested that Baldwin should be employed to worm the secret from the prisoner. The policy was much fitter for the meridian of Spain or Italy than of England; but at that time, and under the seriousness of the circumstances, was not likely to be rejected. Baldwin was called into the magistrates' room, and asked, in the presence of the culprit, whether he had ever seen him. Baldwin replied that he had not, on which John the Painter made him a bow in acknowledgment of his useful negative evidence. Baldwin was allowed to have some conversation with John the Painter in the next room, when they talked of their travels, and, on the strength of this, Baldwin visited him in prison, pretended to sympathise with him, won his confidence through the freemasonry of their trade and common wanderings, and finally drew the whole of his secret from him.

The statement which Baldwin made on oath was this: That the prisoner confessed that his name was James Aitkin; that he was a native of Edinburgh, but had travelled in various countries, and enlisted into and deserted from various English regiments for the sake of the bounty; that sometimes he worked as a painter, but more frequently subsisted by thieving; that in America he conceived the design of assisting the Americans by burning our dockyards and shipping, and our principal cities and trading towns; that for this purpose he had gone to France to Silas Deane, who was well known to be on a tour in Europe for the purpose of engaging the continental monarchs to declare against England. "Don't you know Silas Deane?" he asked Baldwin. " What, no! not Silas Deane? He is a fine, clever fellow, and I believe Benjamin Franklin is employed on the same errand."

Silas Deane, John the Painter declared, according to Baldwin's evidence, had encouraged him to set lire to the dockyards of Plymouth and Portsmouth, Woolwich and Chatham, as the most effectual means of disabling Great Britain; that he gave him bills to the amount of three hundred pounds on a merchant in London, and promised to reward him according to the amount of service he should do to the American cause; that he procured a French passport, landed at Dover, and proceeded to Canterbury, where he contrived the machine which had been found in the hemp- house at Portsmouth; that he had been obliged to burn the bills, for fear of discovery; that he got into a quarrel with a dragoon at Canterbury on politics; at Portsmouth his landlady had turned him out of his lodgings for the trouble he gave her in compounding his combustibles; that he easily got into the dockyard, and also managed to be locked up one night in the hemp-house. There his matches had proved bad, but he succeeded better at the rope-house, and leaving Portsmouth in a countrywoman's cart, he had the satisfaction of seeing the dockyard in flames as he looked back - " the very elements seeming to be in a blaze!"

The truth of Baldwin's statement was confirmed by the dragoon with whom he had quarrelled at Canterbury; the woman at whose house he had lodged at Portsmouth; a boy, who had made a canister for part of his machinery found in the hemp-house, and who swore to it; by the man who let him out of the rope-house; the woman in whose cart he had ridden; by a woman who had sold him matches at the time; by various persons who had seen him about the yard; and by his bundle, which he had told Baldwin that he had left at Portsmouth, containing his passport and other articles, all which were found.

On such a striking amount of circumstantial evidence there could be no hesitation in condemning him. He attempted to deny nothing, assuming that nothing was proved against him. When asked if he would call any witnesses in his favour, he replied, " To what end? Till something is proved against me, I have nothing to defend. I am ready to live and die according to law." But he did not fail to remark on the manner in which he had been entrapped by Baldwin. " Whether," he said, " it be a false accusation, or a betraying of trust through the treachery of the man's heart, I should like that your lordship would take it into your consideration whether such a person has a right, in the sight of God, and according to the laws of this kingdom, to give evidence against me, or, if he has, whether such evidence ought to be regarded?" When the judge, in passing sentence, gave him no hope of mercy, he replied, " I do not look for any, my lord;" and when he added, " I have now only to pronounce the painful sentence," he remarked, "joyful!"

Before his execution he freely confessed the truth of the charges against him, only denying the burning Deane's bills for three hundred pounds. That which he did burn, he said, was his indenture, to prevent the discovery of his real name. He confessed to having twice attempted to fire the dockyard at Plymouth, and to burning the warehouses at Bristol, having in vain endeavoured to deposit his combustibles on board the ships. He, moreover, stated that he had a recommendation from Silas Deane to Dr. Bancroft, in London, to whom he had declared that he would do all the harm he could to this kingdom; that the doctor did not approve of his conduct, but had, at his request, promised not to betray him

John the Painter was hanged at the dock-gate at Portsmouth, on a gallows sixty feet high, and, according to the spirit of the times, was suspended in chains near the spot. His immediate instigator, Silas Deane, now one of the ambassadors of America at Paris, continued his campaign against England by a tour amongst the crowned heads with the animus of an assassin rather than the honourable zeal of a patriot.

The first parliamentary business of 1777 was, immediately after the Christmas recess, to bring in a bill to empower the admiralty to grant letters of marque and reprisal against the privateers which, under American colours, were swarming amongst our West Indian Islands, and also in the narrow seas nearer home. Many of these privateers were Americans, but more were French, who had taken out papers and commissions from the American revolutionary government, and so played a double game. When they encountered merchantmen, they hoisted American colours, and plundered in the name of congress; but, if they met English men-of- war, they hoisted French colours, and no war being proclaimed between England and France, thus sheltered themselves. The ports of the West Indian Islands, that we had been weak enough to return to France at the end of the war, afforded them every opportunity of carrying on their base trade, by which they were making large fortunes; and so little did France and Spain regard the conditions of the peace, that they allowed them to sell their prizes in their ports. This bill was passed, and immediately followed by another, to enable the king to deal with such persons as should be charged with the crime of piracy or high treason, committed on the high seas or in America. This bill went, in fact, to set aside the habeas corpus act, and enable the king to detain any persons taken in the American war, or on the sea, or even in England, on such charges, in what place, and for what term be pleased, without trial. In its original shape, it was a most objectionable and despotic bill, which would have placed not merely pirates and rebels, but any person whatever, at home as well as out of the kingdom, at the mercy of the crown and the ministers. Charles Fox very justly said, " Ministers may take it into their heads, in the fulness of their malice, that I have served on Long Island under general Washington. What would it avail me, in such an event, to plead an alibi - to assure my old friends that I was, during the whole of the campaign, in England - that I never was in America, or on any other sea than that betwixt Calais and Dover? - that all my acts of piracy were committed on the mute creation? All this may be very true, says a minister, or a minister's understrapper, but you are, for the present, suspected, and that is sufficient. I know you are fond of Scotland. This is not the time for proofs. You may be, and very probably are, innocent. I will send you, under the sign manual, to study the Erse language in the Isle of Bute; and, as soon as the operation of the bill is over, you will be at liberty to return, or go whither you please." The bill was finally restrained in its operation to acts and persons beyond the bounds of the kingdom, and so passed.