1757 Earl of Chesterfield's Satirical Petition 67 



to the Imperial Crown of these Realms ; which distinguished proof 

 of his loyalty is, to this hour, unrewarded. 1 



Your Majesty's Petitioner is well aware, that your Civil List 

 must necessarily be in a low and languid state, after the various, 

 frequent, and profuse evacuations which it has of late years under- 

 gone ; but, at the same time, he presumes to hope, that this argu- 

 ment, which seems not to have been made use of against any other 

 person whatsoever, shall not, in this single case, be urged against 

 him ; and the less so, as he has good reasons to believe, that the 

 deficiencies of the Pension-fund are, by no means, the last that will 

 be made good by Parliament. 



Your Petitioner begs leave to observe, That a small pension is 

 disgraceful and opprobrious, as it intimates a shameful necessity 

 on the one part, and a degrading sort of charity on the other ; but 

 that a great one implies dignity and affluence on one side ; on the 

 other, regard and esteem ; which, doubtless, your Majesty must 

 entertain in the highest degree, for those great personages whose 

 respectable names stand upon your Eleemosynary list. Your 

 Petitioner, therefore, humbly persuades himself, upon this principle, 

 that less than three thousand pounds a-year will not be proposed 

 to him ; if made up of gold, the more agreeable ; if for life, the more 

 marketable. 



Your Petitioner persuades himself, that your Majesty will not 

 suspect this his humble application to proceed from any mean, 

 interested motive, of which he has always had the utmost abhorrence. 

 No, Sir, he confesses his own weakness ; Honour alone is his object ; 

 Honour is his passion ; Honour is dearer to him than life. To 

 Honour he has always sacrificed all other considerations ; and upon 

 this general principle, singly, he now solicits that honour, which 

 in the most shining times distinguished the greatest men of Greece, 

 who were fed at the expense of the public. 



Upon this Honour, so sacred to him as a Peer, so tender to him 

 as a man, he most solemnly assures your Majesty, that, in case you 

 shall be pleased to grant him this his humble request, he will grate- 

 fully and honourably support, and promote with zeal and vigour, 

 the worst measure that the worst Minister can ever suggest to 

 your Majesty : but, on the other hand, should he be singled out, 



1 " A satirical allusion to the conduct at that period of the Dukes of 

 Bedford, Bolton and Montagu, Lords Harcourt, Halifax and many other 

 Peers. Horace Walpole gives the following account of it in a note to Sir 

 C. H. Williams's ballad The Heroes ' In the time of the Rebellion these 

 Lords had proposed to raise regiments of their own dependents, and were 

 allowed : had they paid them too, the service had been noble ; being paid 

 by Government obscured a little the merit ; being paid without raising 

 them would deserve too coarse a term. It is certain that not six regiments 

 ever were raised, not four of which were employed.' " Note by Lord 

 Mahon. 



