The Merry Past 



generally more remarkable for their concealment of 

 the real feelings of the speaker than anything else. 

 It was not so in the eighteenth century, when not a 

 few spoke their thoughts out with unbridled freedom. 

 Such a one was old Lord Coningsby, a staunch op- 

 ponent of the Pretender. This nobleman had dis- 

 tinguished himself at the Battle of the Boyne, and 

 a handkerchief with which he stanched a wound 

 received there by King William the Third was 

 formerly (and perhaps still is) preserved at Cashiobury 

 Park. In 171 8, having reason to believe that the 

 Jacobites were plotting at Hereford, he addressed the 

 Mayor and Corporation as follows : — 



" Mr. Mayor, your servant — Gentlemen, yours : 

 d — n you all ! I'll have you to know, by G — d, that I 

 am Lord Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of this 

 county, and Lord High Steward of this city (and that 

 for life) ; and, G — d d — n you, I'll do what I please 

 with you and your city. 



" I hear some of you are for that Pretender ; by 

 G — d, a fellow whom his own mother has disowned ; 

 and I am informed that a lady, of the strictest virtue 

 and best reputation, would have deposed before you 

 upon oath, by G — d, that that impudent rascal, that 

 sits there, said that this fellow was the rightful heir to 

 the crown : you refused to take her oath ! by G — d, 

 her deposition ! G — d d — n you, I speak to you, Mr. 

 Mayor — and you, Mr. Taylor, who are a Jacobite, and 

 a fellow without a soul, G — d d — n you. I am also 

 informed that a pack of wretches, one of whom is an 

 exciseman, and another of 'em a fellow who eats the 



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