Cornish Characters and Strange Events

"You know all about the lady, I imagine," said Lord Mohun.

Mountford not understanding the drift of his words said, "I hope that my wife has given you no offence."

"You mistake me," said Lord Mohun; "it is Mrs. Bracegirdle that I mean."

"Mrs. Bracegirdle is no concern of mine," replied Mountford; "but I hope your lordship does not countenance any ill action of Mr. Hill."

The conversation was interrupted by the impatient captain, who suddenly started forward, and exclaiming, "This is no longer the time for such discourses!" struck Mountford with his left hand, and immediately ran him through the body. The wounded man did not fall to the ground at once; he had still, for a moment, sufficient strength left to draw his sword, though not to use it, when, exhausted by the effort, he sank upon the ground.

A cry of murder arose, Hill fled, and the watch came up now from the tavern where they had been questioning the drawer and imbibing. Mountford was carried to his own lodgings, where he died, about one o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, for it was some time after midnight when the affair took place.

"The grand jury of Middlesex," says Macaulay, "consisting of gentlemen of note, found a bill of murder against Hill and Mohun. Hill escaped. Mohun was taken. His mother threw herself at King William's feet, but in vain. 'It was a cruel act,' said the King. 'I shall leave it to the law.'

"The trial came on in the Court of the Lord High Steward, and, as Parliament happened to be sitting, the culprit had the advantage of being judged by the whole body of the peerage. There was then no lawyer in the Upper House. It therefore became necessary, for the first time since Buckhurst had pronounced sentence on Essex and Southampton, that a peer who had never made jurisprudence his special study should preside over that grave tribunal. Caermarthen, who, as Lord President, took precedence of all the nobility, was appointed Lord High Steward. A full report of the proceedings has come down to us. No person, who carefully examines that report, and attends to the opinion unanimously given by the judges in answer to a question which Nottingham drew up, and in which the facts brought out by the evidence are stated with perfect fairness, can doubt that the crime of murder was fully brought home to the prisoner. Such was the opinion of the King, who was present during the trial; and such was the almost unanimous opinion of the public. Had the issue been tried by Holt and twelve plain men at the Old Bailey, there can be no doubt that a verdict of Guilty would have been returned. The Peers, however, by sixty-nine votes to fourteen, acquitted their accused brother. One great nobleman was so brutal and stupid as to say, 'After all, the fellow was but a player; and players are rogues.' All the newspapers, all the coffee-house orators complained that the blood of the poor was shed with impunity by the great. Wits remarked that the only fair thing about the trial was the show of ladies in the galleries. Letters and journals are still extant in which men of all shades of opinion, Whigs, Tories, Non-jurors, condemn the partiality of the tribunal."

On the one hand, the words of the dying man exculpated Mohun from any share in the actual murder; on the other hand, it is clear from the uncontradicted testimony of more than one witness, that he was fully cognizant of Hill's intentions, and that he did not hesitate to encourage him by his presence through the whole affair. According to the Attorney-General, his first question, when he surrendered himself, was, "Has Mr. Hill escaped?" and, upon being answered in the affirmative, he exclaimed, "I am glad of it! I should not care if I were hanged for him," his only regret being that Hill had escaped with very little money about him. He confessed, moreover, to the watch, that he had changed coats with his friend; the object, of course, was to throw out the pursuers as much as possible by this slight disguise.

This is Lord Mohun's portrait as drawn by a not unfavourable hand: "Charles, Lord Mohun, is the representative of a very ancient family, but he had the misfortune to come to the title young, while the estate was in decay; his quality introduced him into the best company, but his wants very often led him into bad; so that he became one of the arrantest rakes in town, and, indeed, a scandal to the peerage; was generally a sharer in all riots; and before he was twenty years old was tried twice for murder by the House of Peers. On his being acquitted at the last trial, he expressed his contrition for the scandal he brought upon his degree as peer by his behaviour, in very handsome terms, and promised to behave himself so, for the future, as not to give further scandal; and he has been as good as his word; for now he applies himself in good earnest to the knowledge of the constitution of his country, and to serve it; and having a good deal of fine and good sense, turned this way, makes him very considerable in the House. He is brave in his person, bold in his expressions, and rectifies, as fast as he can, the slips of his youth, by acts of honesty, which he now glories in more than he was formerly extravagant. He was married, when very young, to a niece of my Lord Macclesfield, who, dying without issue, left him a considerable estate,[18 - The earl died on November 5th, 1701.] which he well improves. The Queen continues him colonel of a regiment of foot. He is of middle stature, inclining to fat, not thirty years old."

However much he may have intended to amend, Lord Mohun was again involved in a murder, that of a Mr. Coote, a few years later, in conjunction with the Earl of Warwick; he was, however, pronounced innocent by the unanimous suffrage of the Peers.

After this last affair only was it that he amended his ways, and the author of The History of Queen Anne, March 11th, London, 1713, gives a favourable account of him. "After this last misfortune my Lord Mohun did wonderfully reclaim; and what by his reading, what by his conversation with the ablest statesmen, so well improved his natural parts, that he became a great ornament to the peerage and a strenuous asserter of the cause of Liberty, and the late Revolution: which last, however, could not but raise him many enemies; and is, I doubt, the only reason why his memory is so unfairly, so barbarously treated. 'Tis true, my Lord Mohun, like most men in our cold climate, still lov'd a merry glass of wine with his friends. But in this he was a happy reverse to some men, who owe all their bright parts in the management of affairs to the fumes of Burgundy and Champaign: for he was exemplarily temperate when he had any business of moment to attend. He behaved himself so discretely at the Court of Hanover, whither he accompanyed the late Earl of Macclesfield, whose niece he had married, that he left an excellent character behind him with the most serene Elector, and the Princess Sophia, his mother, two allow'd judges of merit; and when his Highness was to be install'd Knight of the Garter he appointed the Lord Mohun to be his proxy."[19 - History of the Reign of Queen Anne, Vol. XII, pp. 305-6 (1713).]

Party feeling strongly coloured the descriptions given of the character of Lord Mohun. He was a Whig and zealous advocate of the claims of the Elector of Hanover, and was consequently obnoxious to the Tories and Jacobites. In the Examiner he is represented in the worst light; and is even accused of cowardice; but Bishop Burnet was able to say no more of him than this: "I am sorry I cannot say so much good of him as I wish; and I had too much kindness for him, to say any evil unnecessarily."

In 1711 the attention of the legislature was drawn to the subject of duels by Sir Peter King; and after dwelling on the alarming increase of the practice, obtained leave to bring in a Bill for the prevention and punishment of duelling. It was read a first time on May 11th, and was ordered for a second reading in the ensuing week.

About the same time the attention of the Upper House was also drawn to the subject in a painful manner. In a debate in the Lords upon the conduct of the Duke of Ormond in refusing to hazard a general engagement with the enemy, Earl Pawlet remarked that nobody could doubt the courage of the Duke. "He was not like a certain general, who led troops to the slaughter, to cause great numbers of officers to be knocked on the head in a battle, or against stone walls, in order to fill his pockets by disposing of their commissions."

That this was levelled at the Duke of Marlborough no one doubted, but he remained silent, though evidently suffering in mind. Soon after the House broke up, the Earl Pawlet received a visit from Lord Mohun, who told him that the Duke of Marlborough desired some explanation of the words he had used, as certain expressions employed by his lordship were greatly offensive to him. He would accordingly be very glad to meet him, and for that purpose desired him "to take a little air in the country."

Earl Pawlet did not affect to misunderstand the hint, but asked Lord Mohun in plain terms whether he brought a challenge from the Duke. Lord Mohun answered that he considered what he had said needed no elucidation, and that he himself would accompany the Duke of Marlborough as second.

He then took his leave, and Earl Pawlet returned home and confided to his lady that he was going to fight a duel with the Duke of Marlborough. The Countess, greatly alarmed for her lord's safety, gave notice of his intention to the Earl of Dartmouth, who immediately, in the Queen's name, sent for the Duke of Marlborough and commanded him not to stir abroad. He also caused Earl Pawlet's house to be guarded by two sentinels; and having taken these precautions, informed the Queen of the whole affair. Her Majesty sent at once for the Duke, expressed her abhorrence of the custom of duelling, and required his word of honour that he would proceed no further. The Duke pledged his word accordingly, and the affair terminated, much, doubtless, to the disappointment of Lord Mohun, who took a delight in these passages of arms.

We come now to the last duel of Lord Mohun, in which he lost his life and his title expired. The reader will recall the description given of it in Esmond.

The Duke of Hamilton, a shuffling Jacobite, had been in constant correspondence with the Court of S. Germain's, and with the numerous agents of the Pretender kept scattered about in various parts of the Continent and in England. Even before Mrs. Masham and Harley had undermined the Whig ministry, Hamilton had been an acceptable visitor at the Court of S. James's; but since the Tory party had got the upper hand, he had been closeted far more frequently with the Queen than before; and now he was appointed to represent Queen Anne at the French Court. Burnet says: "The Duke of Hamilton being now appointed to go to the Court of France gave melancholy speculation to those who thought him much in the Pretender's interest; he was considered, not only in Scotland, but here in England, as the head of his party." A few days before he left for Versailles, his career was cut short. He had been engaged in some law-suits with Lord Mohun over the succession to the estates of the Earl of Macclesfield, and this, together with political animosity, inflamed both these noblemen with deadly hatred towards each other. Mohun took an occasion that offered of publicly insulting the Duke, in the hope of making him the challenger. His Grace, however, had too much contempt for the known character of the man to enter into an idle dispute with him, especially at a time when he was invested with the sacred character of ambassador. He relied on his own reputation with the world to bear him out in declining to notice such an affront, offered at such a time, and committed, as the Tories asserted, under the influence of drink.

The circumstances of the insult were these. On Thursday, November 13th, a party was assembled at the chambers of Mr. Orlebar, a master in Chancery, when the Duke made some reflections on Mr. Whitworth, father of the Queen's late ambassador to the Czar; whereat Lord Mohun roared out that the Duke had neither truth nor justice in him. "Indeed, he has just as much truth in him as your Grace!" The Duke of Hamilton made no reply; and both parties remained at the table for half an hour after this outbreak; and at parting Hamilton made a low bow to Mohun, who returned the civility, so that none of those there present suspected any consequence from what had passed between the two peers.

But Lord Mohun had determined to fight his private and political adversary, and although he was the offender he next day sent a challenge to the Duke by the hand of a friend, General Maccartney. In the evening of the 14th the Duke, accompanied by Colonel John Hamilton, went to meet General Maccartney at the Rose Tavern, in one room, whilst in the adjoining Lord Mohun awaited Colonel Hamilton. Then and there the time and place of the duel were agreed upon. On Sunday morning, November 15th, at seven o'clock, Lord Mohun with his second, General Maccartney, went in a hackney-coach to the lodge of Hyde Park, where they alighted, and were soon after met by the Duke of Hamilton and his second, Colonel Hamilton. They all jumped over a ditch into a place called the Nursery. It is said that Lord Mohun did not wish that the seconds should bear a part in the engagement, but the Duke insisted, saying that "Mr. Maccartney should have a share in the dance." But the spirit of party so completely seized hold of the subject as to make it difficult to ascertain what were the real facts.

It is said on one side that the Duke was from the first very unwilling to fight, and even at the last moment would have consented to a reconciliation. According to the evidence given by Colonel Hamilton at the inquiry on November 25th, early in the morning of the 15th, before he was half dressed, the Duke called at his house and hurried him into his chariot "so soon that he finished the buttoning of his waistcoat there. By the time they had got into Pall Mall the Duke observed that the Colonel had left his sword behind him; whereupon he stopt his chariot and gave the footman a bunch of keys and orders to fetch a mourning sword out of such a closet. At the return of the footman they drove on to Hyde Park, where the coachman stopt, and the Duke ordered him to drive on to Kensington. When they came to the lodge they saw a hackney-coach at a distance, on which his Grace said, 'There was some body he must speak with'; but driving up to it and seeing nobody he asked the coachman, 'Where the gentlemen were whom he had brought?' he answered 'A little before.' The Duke and the Colonel got out in the bottom and walked over the pond's head, where they saw the Lord Mohun and General Maccartney before them. As soon as the Duke came within hearing he said, 'He hop'd he was come time enough,' and Maccartney answered, 'In very good time, my Lord.' After this they all jumped over the ditch into the Nursery, and the Duke turned to Maccartney and told him, 'Sir, you are the cause of this, let the event be what it will.' Maccartney said, 'We'll have our share.' Then the Duke answered, 'There is my friend then, he will take his share in my dance.'"

The Duke is said to have looked about him and remarked to his second, "How grey and cold London looks this morning, and yet the sky is almost cloudless." To which the Colonel replied, "It is through lack of London smoke. London is nothing without its smoke."

The combat then commenced between the principals, and at a little distance from them between the seconds.

The combat between the former was carried on with fury, and the clash of steel called to the spot the keepers of the Park and a few stragglers who were abroad there at this early hour – in all about nine or ten. None of them interfered; they looked on as they might at a cock-fight.

In a short time the Duke was wounded in both legs, and his sword pierced his antagonist through the groin, through the arm, and in sundry other parts of the body. If they had thought little enough before of attending to self-defence, they now seemed to abandon the idea altogether. Each at the same moment made a desperate lunge at the other; and the Duke's weapon passed right through his adversary's body up to the hilt. The latter, according to one account, shortening his sword, plunged it into the upper part of the Duke's left breast, the blade running downwards into his belly. But there is another version of the story.

Meanwhile the seconds had been engaged, and Colonel Hamilton deposed: "Maccartney had made a full pass at him, which he, parrying down with great force, wounded himself in the instep; however, he took that opportunity to close with and disarm Maccartney, which being done, he turn'd his head, and seeing my Lord Mohun fall, and the Duke upon him, he ran to the Duke's assistance; and that he might with the more ease help him, he flung down both swords; and as he was raising my Lord Duke up, he saw Maccartney make a push at his Grace" – this was explained to be over his shoulder – and "he immediately look'd to see if he had wounded him; but seeing no blood, he took up his sword, expecting Maccartney would attack him again; but he walked off. Just as he was gone came up the keepers and others, to the number of nine or ten, among the rest Ferguson, my Lord Duke's steward, who had brought Bassiere's man with him; who opening his Grace's breast, soon discovered a wound on the left side, which came in between the left shoulder and pap, and went slantingly down through the midriff into his belly. This wound is thought impracticable for my Lord Mohun to give him."

Maccartney now took to his heels and fled, and tarried not till he was secure in Holland.

Colonel Hamilton remained on the field, and surrendered himself to arrest.

An attempt was made to remove the Duke to the Cake House, but he expired on the grass. Lord Mohun also died on the spot.

In The Examiner, the Tory mouthpiece, the story is thus given: "The affront was wholly given by Mohun, which the Duke, knowing him to be drunk, did not resent. But the bravo Maccartney, who depended for his support on the Lord Mohun, finding his pupil's reputation very much blasted by those tame submissions, which his Lordship, mistaking his man, had lately paid to Mr. D'Avenant, judg'd there was no way to set him right in the coffee houses and the Kit-Cat but by a new quarrel, and made choice of the Duke, a person of fifty-five, and very much weaken'd by frequent attacks of gout. Maccartney was forc'd to keep up his patron's courage with wine, till within a few hours of their meeting in the field. And the mortal wound which the Duke receiv'd, after his adversary was run thro' the heart, as it is probably conjectured, could not be given by any but Maccartney. At least, nothing can be charged on him which his character is not able to bear. 'Tis known enough, that he made an offer to the late King to murder a certain person who was under his Majesty's displeasure; but that Prince disdain'd the motion, and abhorred the proposer ever after. However it be, the general opinion is that some very black circumstances will appear in this tragedy, if a strict examination be made; neither is it easy to account for three great wounds in the Duke's legs, if he had fair play."

The sum of £800 was offered by the Government for the apprehension of Maccartney.

Such would seem to be the facts, but the Colonel's statement, when brought before the Council, was somewhat rambling. In the excitement of the encounter he was not in a condition to judge accurately what took place. Cunningham, a Whig, says that Hamilton, "being challenged to a duel by the Lord Mohun, killed his antagonist; but was himself also killed, as was supposed, by General Maccartney, Mohun's second." Although the large sum mentioned was offered for the apprehension of the General, he was safe in the Low Countries. However, some years later he returned to England and was tried, but the jury gave a verdict of "Manslaughter" against him.

A prodigious ferment was occasioned by the duel, and party recriminations ran high. The stabbing of the Duke to the heart rested mainly on the allegation of Colonel Hamilton, but at the trial he prevaricated, and several persons who had seen the combat at a distance directly contradicted some material points of his testimony.

Swift, in a letter to Mrs. Dingley on the day of the duel, says: "This morning, at eight, my man brought me word that the Duke Hamilton had fought with Lord Mohun and killed him, and was brought home wounded. I immediately sent him to the Duke's house, in S. James's Square; but the porter could hardly answer him for tears, and a great rabble was about the house. In short, they fought at seven this morning. The dog Mohun was killed on the spot; but while the Duke was over him, Mohun, shortening his sword, stabbed him in at the shoulder to the heart. The Duke was helped towards the Cake House by the Ring in Hyde Park (where they fought), and died on the grass, before he could reach the house; and was brought home in his coach by eight, while the poor Duchess was asleep. I am told that a footman of Lord Mohun's stabbed Duke Hamilton; and some say, Maccartney did so too. Mohun gave the affront, and yet sent the challenge. I am infinitely concerned for the poor Duke, who was a frank, honest, good-natured man. I loved him very well; and I think he loved me better… They have removed the poor Duchess to a lodging in the neighbourhood, where I have been with her two hours, and am just come away. I never saw so melancholy a scene, for indeed all reasons of real grief belong to her; nor is it possible for any one to be a greater loser in all regards. She has moved my very soul. The lodging was inconvenient; and they would have removed her to another; but I would not suffer it, because it had no room backwards, and she must have been tortured with the noise of the Grub Street screamers, singing her husband's murder in her ears."

But in his History of the Four Last Years of the Queen, written in 1713, Swift says: "The Duke was preparing for his journey, when he was challenged to a duel by the Lord Mohun, a person of infamous character. He killed his adversary on the spot, though he himself received a wound; and, weakened by the loss of blood, as he was leaning in the arms of his second, was most barbarously stabbed in the breast by Lieutenant-General Maccartney. He died a few minutes after in the field, and the murderer made his escape."

It is accordingly very doubtful whether the coup de grâce was dealt by Lord Mohun or by his second. With Lord Mohun, the barony of Mohun of Okehampton became extinct; but the estate of Gawsworth, in Cheshire, which he had inherited from Lord Macclesfield, was vested by his will in his widow, and eventually passed to her second daughter by her first husband, Anne Griffith, wife of the Right Honourable William Stanhope, from whom it passed to the Earls of Harrington.

Boconnoc and the Devon and Cornish estates were sold in 1717 for £54,000 to Thomas Pitt, commonly called Governor Pitt.

THE LAST LORD CAMELFORD

Thomas Pitt was the son of a tradesman at Brentford, and he went to push his fortunes in India as a merchant adventurer. There he obtained a diamond, thought to be the finest known, and with it returned to England, where he offered it for sale to Queen Anne, and ultimately sold it to the Regent Duke of Orleans, for the French nation, for £135,000.

The Regent and his two successors in the government of France set this diamond as an ornament in their hats on occasions of state. It was stolen during the disturbances of the Revolution, but was recovered, and Napoleon had it placed between the teeth of a crocodile, forming the handle of his sword.

With about half the large sum obtained by the sale of the gem, Pitt purchased the property of the last Lord Mohun in Cornwall, and settled at Boconnoc. He also bought burgess tenures, giving the right of franchise at Old Sarum, and represented that place in Parliament. He had two sons, Robert and Thomas, and Robert succeeded his father at Boconnoc. He married Harriet Villiers, third sister of John, Earl Grandison, and died in May, 1727, leaving two sons, Thomas Pitt, and William, who was afterwards created Earl of Chatham. Thomas Pitt, his brother, was created Earl of Londonderry, in consequence of his marrying the heiress of Ridgeway, in which family was the earldom.

Thomas Pitt, the eldest son of Robert, engaged in political intrigue, and supported the party of Frederick, Prince of Wales. He married Christiana, sister of George, first Lord Lyttleton, by whom he had one son, Thomas, who was created Baron Camelford in 1784, when his first cousin William Pitt rose to be Prime Minister. Thomas Pitt was aged twenty-five when he became Baron Camelford, and he died in January, 1793, leaving a son, Thomas Pitt, the second and last Lord Camelford, and a daughter, married to William Wyndham, Lord Grenville. Thomas Pitt, son of the first baron, became an object of attention in Cornwall almost from his birth.

On the event of his christening, in 1775, Boconnoc was thrown open to the public, with general feasting and revelries and wrestling. A silver bowl worth fifteen guineas was the prize of the best wrestler, and about fifty pounds were distributed among the disappointed and defeated competitors.

The education of Thomas Pitt was conducted at Boconnoc under a private tutor, but having paid a visit to Plymouth at a time when naval preparations were in full activity, he acquired a desire to go to sea. However, he was sent to Berne to learn French and German, and then to the Charter House. As he still manifested a strong desire for the sea, he was admitted to the Royal Navy as a midshipman, at the age of fourteen; and he sailed in the Guardian frigate, commanded by Captain Riou, laden with stores for the colony of convicts at Botany Bay. The vessel became a wreck, and the commander gave permission to such of the crew as chose to avail themselves of it to take to the boats and leave her. But Lord Camelford, together with about ninety, resolved on abiding with the vessel, with the captain, patching her up and navigating her.

After a perilous passage in the vessel to the Cape of Good Hope, Lord Camelford, in September, 1790, arrived at Harwich in the Prince of Orange packet.

Undaunted by the privations and hardships he had undergone, he solicited an appointment on the voyage of discovery conducted by Captain Vancouver. He accompanied that officer, in the ship Discovery, during part of his circumnavigation, but proved so troublesome, headstrong, and disobedient to orders as to put Captain Vancouver under the necessity of placing him under arrest.

He accordingly quitted the Discovery in the Indian Seas, and entered on board the Resistance, commanded by Sir Edward Pakenham, by whom he was appointed lieutenant.

During his absence at sea his father had died, and when he returned to England it was to succeed to the title and family estates. In October, 1796, he sent a challenge to Captain Vancouver, who replied with dignity that he had acted according to his duty, to check insubordination and to preserve discipline. He was, however, perfectly willing to submit his conduct to the judgment of any flag officer in His Majesty's Navy, and if the latter considered that he had overstepped the bounds of what was right, then he would be prepared to give Lord Camelford the satisfaction he desired. But this proposal did not at all meet Lord Camelford's views, and he wrote threatening the captain with personal chastisement. Shortly after, encountering him in Bond Street, he would have struck him had not his brother interfered.