Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
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]
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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