THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER TO MR. PITT.

HONOURED SIR,

Prior Park, September 4, 1763.

THE duty I owe myself, as well as the very great obligations I owe to you, make me presume on the liberty of giving you this trouble; for I cannot but think myself involved in the displeasure which the Bath address has occasioned. Not on account of that address, because I am sure you take Mr. Allen's word, that no one had a hand in drawing it up, or dictating the sentiments, but himself; yet, on account of the address from the clergy of Gloucester, which, I confess, I drew up, promoted, and advised.

As you, Sir, have the best right in the world to demand my motives for any of my public actions, though your politeness, and perhaps tenderness for me, keep you from asking, it is but a small part of the duty and honour I have for you, to acquaint you with them unasked.

I saw with indignation the King personally insulted, in the most audacious manner, in a paper called the North Briton. I saw, with great concern, the common people of Gloucestershire inflamed, by an equitable tax (') (though ill-contrived and worse

(1) The additional tax on cider, which had been passed in April, created such dissatisfaction, that many of the applegrowers threatened to demolish their orchards. "There has been tough doings in parliament," writes Walpole, on the 6th of April, "about the tax on cider; and in the western counties the discontent is so great, that if Mr. Wilkes will turn patriothero, or patriot-incendiary, and put himself at their head, he may obtain a rope of martyrdom before the summer is over."

digested), into tumults and riots. In this state of things, I held it to be my first duty, to show some regard to my royal master. For, when I mentioned him as such, in that just character, which I did myself the honour to draw of you, Sir, as the deliverer of your country, they no more were words of course, than when I presumed to speak of you, as of my patron and my friend. These were my motives for addressing; and the terms in which the address was conceived will, I am sure, need no apology to you. We did not venture, as it was a matter foreign to our profession, even to hint our sentiments on the political question of an adequate or inadequate peace. We confined our thanks to his Majesty for procuring us peace, as the greatest blessing, in the estimation of ministers of the Gospel; war and bloodshed being the opprobrium of Christianity. In all this, Mr. Allen had as little to do, as I had with his affairs at Bath. But this, Sir, you will do us the justice to believe, that your interest was never forgotten by either of us; and in the conduct of this matter, we thought we were rendering you as acceptable service, as when we seconded your moderation, in softening the address of the corporation to your self, on your retiring from public business. And we were the more persuaded of this, from what we had heard of the same temper in your sentiments, delivered in parliament, on the preliminaries. Further than this, we had no way of judging; for we had not the honour to know more of your sentiments than the rest of the world besides.

In what followed, I dare say the concern and indignation were reciprocally equal. I mean, for the abuses thrown out against us all, by the miserable scribblers on both sides. They would not take Mr. Allen's word, but reviled me in the foulest language, as instigating Mr. Allen to this offensive measure. Nay, in picture likewise (in the contrivance of which, one Collibee, a member of the corporation, a Jacobite, and, on that account, an old inveterate, and declared enemy of Mr. Allen, is supposed to have a hand), where the addressers of Bath are libelled in the vilest manner, your humble servant is brought in, in his episcopal habit, prompted by the Devil, to whisper in Mr. Allen's ear the word adequate. Murderers and traitors, by the forms of our law, are said to be instigated by the Devil; but this seems to be the first time that an address of loyalty to the throne was ever charged with that instigation.

I, for my part, am callous to these things; and amidst a long course of infinite abuse, for wellintended services in my profession, (in which not one injurious fact ever laid to my charge was true, nor one bad argument ever imputed to me was proved,) I thank God and my innocence, I never once lost a night's rest. But I suspect it is not altogether so well with good Mr. Allen; and in this thing only I am his superior. Yet, I believe, that which most concerned him was his ignorance, when he used the word adequate, that you, Sir, in a public assembly,

had employed the word inadequate, to characterise the peace. You will, Sir, with your usual goodness, pardon the length of this letter; and with your usual justice, allow me the honour to subscribe myself, honoured Sir,

Your most obliged

and ever faithful servant,

W. GLOUCEster.

MR. PITT TO THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER.

[From an imperfect draught in Mr. Pitt's handwriting.]

MY LORD,

September 10, 1763.

In addition to many former marks of your Lordship's goodness to me, I am honoured with a fresh and very unmerited instance of your regard, in the favour of a letter of the 4th, from Prior Park. Your Lordship's condescension on so delicate a subject is indeed much too great, in taking the trouble to mention to me the motives which determined you to advise and draw up the address from the cathedral of Gloucester.

The high station, and still higher consideration, which your Lordship so deservedly holds in the world, together with the peculiar delicacy of the subject, must draw on me the charge of temerity, if I presumed to exercise my own judgment on the propriety of this step. I will only venture to

observe, my Lord, that it is singular, insomuch, that the cathedral of Gloucester, which certainly does not stand alone in true duty and wise zeal towards his Majesty, has however the fate not to be imitated by any other episcopal see in the kingdom, in this unaccustomed effusion of fervent gratulations on

the peace.

Your Lordship will please to observe, that the doubt I venture to suggest, in point of propriety, turns, not on the merits of the peace, concerning which no one is more able than your Lordship to judge, but rests singly on a general notion, which I imbibed early, and which reflection and experience have strengthened into a fixed opinion in my mind; and it is this, my Lord, that the purposes of the state will be as well served, and that Christianity, of which your Lordship justly observes war to be the opprobrium, will surely be served much better, when the clergy do not

·(1)

THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER TO MR. PITT.

HONOURED SIR,

Prior Park, September 14, 1763.

IF the best thanks were equal in value to the best services, they would not be a sufficient return for the condescending marks of your goodness and regard for me, in your kind favour of the 10th.

(1) The remainder of this letter has, unfortunately, not been preserved.