[648] In a letter signed by Orde. [649] _Address to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal_, p. 12. (London, 1800.) [650] O'Leary does not tell this anecdote correctly. It was not of two ladies named Devereux, but of a famous beauty, Miss Ambrose, that Chesterfield made this joke; and it was told, not to George II., but to Lord North. Chesterfield addressed the following impromptu to Miss Ambrose at a viceregal ball:-- 'Pretty Tory, where's the jest Of wearing orange on a breast Which, in whiteness, doth disclose The beauty of the rebel rose?' [651] See _ante_, p. 220. [652] Francis Higgins to Under-Secretary Cooke. (MSS. Dublin Castle.) [653] _Postscript to Miscellaneous Tracts_, 1781. [654] Richard Parker is usually described as a common sailor. A statement from his widow appears in the _Courier_ of July 5, 1797: she claimed Parker's corpse, and, when asked by the admiral for what purpose, she answered, 'To have him interred like a gentleman, as he had been bred.' The request was refused. Parker's corpse remained exposed for years on the island of Sheppey, hung in chains until it dropped to pieces at last. The London _Courier_ of the day insists that he had been for some time a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. CHAPTER XVIII BISHOP HUSSEY The subsequent career of Dr. Hussey--of whom a glimpse is obtained on a previous page--affords features sufficiently curious to claim a fuller view. A second mission of secrecy to Spain proved more successful than his first. In 1786 London swarmed with freed negroes, made wicked by idleness, and four hundred of them, with sixty white women in bad health and worse repute, were shipped by the Government to Sierra Leone to form a colony. Eight years afterwards this settlement was attacked by the French; Spain sided against England; Dr. Hussey again repaired to Madrid, healed the rupture, and Sierra Leone is now a bishopric. For these and other services Hussey enjoyed a pension from Pitt.[655] The 'Wickham Papers'--published in 1870--reveal the successful efforts of Pitt to sap Napoleon's power, by paying Pichegru and other French generals on condition that they would do their best to be beaten in battle. Wickham had been sent on more than one secret mission to the Continent, and acquired a shrewd knowledge of the intrigues of men.[656] He was afterwards appointed Under-Secretary at the Home Office, in which capacity he addressed to Lord Castlereagh at Dublin Castle, many letters in 1798, but hundreds of their allusions as printed have been, hitherto, unintelligible. One, referring to the statement drawn up by Arthur O'Connor and the other State prisoners, says:--