66 Presidentship of the Earl of Macclesfield 17 '57 



The Treasurer's appeal did not succeed in procuring the 

 document for his records, and the five pages which he kept 

 for it have remained blank ever since. But the Petition 

 has not been left unpublished. It was authentically given 

 to the world in 1845 by Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope) in 

 the fourth volume of his edition of the Chesterfield Letters, 

 whence it was copied by Admiral Smyth in his " Sketch 

 of the Rise and Progress of the Royal Society Club." x As 

 it made such a sensation in the Club, and as this narrative 

 would be incomplete without it, the text is here given. 



To THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 



The humble Petition of Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, Knight of the 



Most Noble Order of the Garter, 

 Sheweth 



That your Petitioner, being rendered, by deafness, as useless and 

 insignificant, as most of his equals and contemporaries are by nature, 

 hopes, in common with them, to share your Majesty's Royal favour 

 and bounty ; whereby he may be enabled either to save or spend, 

 as he shall think proper, more than he can do at present. 



That your Petitioner, having had the honour of serving your 

 Majesty in several very lucrative employments, seems thereby en- 

 titled to a lucrative retreat from business, and to enjoy otium cum 

 dignitate ; that is, leisure and a large pension. 



Your Petitioner humbly presumes, that he has, at least, a common 

 claim to such a pension ; he has a vote in the most august assembly 

 in the world ; he has an estate that puts him above wanting it ; 

 but he has, at the same time (though he says it), an elevation of 

 sentiment, that makes him not only desire, but (pardon, dread Sir, 

 an expression you are used to) insist upon it. 



That your Petitioner is little apt, and always unwilling, to speak 

 advantageously of himself, but as, after all, some justice is due 

 to one's self, as well as to others, he begs leave to represent : That 

 his loyalty to your Majesty has always been unshaken, even in the 

 worst of times ; That, particularly, in the late unnatural rebellion, 

 when the Pretender advanced as far as Derby, at the head of, at 

 least, three thousand undisciplined men, the flower of the Scottish 

 nobility and gentry, your Petitioner did not join him, as, unquestion- 

 ably, he might have done, had he been so inclined ; but on the 

 contrary, raised sixteen companies of one hundred men each at 

 the public expense, in support of your Majesty's undoubted right 



1 But an abbreviated form of it had appeared in the Annual Register 

 for 1774, p. 215. 



