215 DEBBIEC (General Hugh). Chief Engineer in Newfoundland. L.S. and Subscribed, to Thomas Thoroton, Esq. 24 pp., folio. St. John's, Newfoundland, 15 August, 1765. £2 12s 60 A very long letter as to surveying the harbour of St. John's and the country round relative to the defences of the Fort. TO MDE. LETITIA BONAPARTE. Acted as legal I. Minister of 216 DECAZES (Elie, Duc de). French Statesman and Judge. adviser and agent of Mde. Mere, mother of Napoleon Police to Louis XVIII. A.L.S. of great length to Letitia Bonaparte, mother of Napoleon I. 54 pp., folio. Paris, 27 August, 1813. With translation. £7 10s Giving a very full and most interesting report of the management of the estates in various countries belonging to Mde. Mere; expressing his devotion to her and to her son the Emperor; referring to the Le Clerc family; making particular mention of the Duchess D'Abrantés (authoress of " Mémoires") and the death of the Duke (Marshal Junot), who had committed suicide; also on many other important matters. (Trans.):-"I hasten to seize the opportunity of placing my homage at the feet of Your Imperial Highness and expressing how grateful and touched I am at the continually renewed tokens of the goodness and interest that you deign to lavish on me. I have also received great favours from the Emperor who deigned to receive me with the most reassuring kindness and who honour's my unfortunate father in law with his protection and support. . "Your Highness's affairs form our most agreeable occupation and I can ever say that it gives me the most pleasure because every day I obtain amelioration and satisfying results. Those of Hanau are almost entirely realised though I hope they may be increased yet and that we shall obtain some profits on the mines and the forests. We are soliciting free entry into France of the produce of the mines, and if we obtain it we shall gain 50,000 francs per annum which will bring the revenue of this dowry to 320 or 330,000 francs. If we sell the whole, we can cancel the partial sales as soon as the Emperor's successes have given the Germans a little more confidence. "I have seen M. Noël the lawyer for the Le Clerc family. Madame Le Clerc gratefully accepts what your Highness wishes to do for her; all difficulties are removed and matters will be arranged as you wish. "I have not finished anything about the pearls, because your Highness did me the honour of writing that you wished them to be new and they were not. Moreover I could not agree about the price. The Duchess of L'Abrantés has been 3 days in Paris; she was said to be exiled 200 leagues away and deprived of her children. I saw her yesterday in the midst of them. It seems, however, that according to the Emperor's intentions the girls will be sent to school and the two boys will be placed at College when old enough. She thought that she was pregnant but hopes now that she is mistaken. The Duke leaves 800,000 francs debts and his house as the whole of his fortune The furniture is very good and plentiful, and it is believed that it will suffice to pay the debts, then the Duchess will have 200 to 300 thousand fres and the pension that the Emperor will give her, which ought to be a third of her dotation, that is 24.000 fres." Etc., etc. 217 DE FOE (Daniel). Author of "Robinson Crusoe," etc. Went to Scotland on a secret mission for the English Government. A lengthy A.L.S. to the Lord Treasurer (Godolphin) referring to Jacobite affairs in Scotland. 24 pp., 4to. Edinburgh, 20th May, 1708. £250 Written by De Foe whilst on his secret mission to Scotland; discussing and reporting at great length on the Jacobite support among the Scotch people, mentioning the attempted invasion from France on behalf of the "Old Pretender "; also on the Union between England and Scotland, and other important matters. Yor. Ldpp. shall allways find me endeavouring to act the honest rather than ye artfull part in my Acets. " But my Lord, when I view more narrowly the past circumstances of the invasion, when I see how much of the present principle has its foundacon in the success, how it was procur'd, how shallow it lyes in the affeccons of the people, how little of ye out-of humour principle is remov'd by it, how blind how prejudic'd and how much averse to English Governmt a large party even of our friends are here I can not but say, the Bank ye french have reed. here is a double deliverance, and it is yet unknown to the greatest part of Brittain what in this success we are delivered from. "I am not treating now my Ld. of ye Jacobite intrest here, for tho' it be in its turn formidable yet it is visible, it is known and is to be provided against by open measures, viz.: forces and ye iron hands of ye law. But my Ld, these poor, honest, but ill natur'd imposed upon people, are to be manag'd another way. They really merit the compassion of ye Governmt, as they are ignorant, abused by others, and led into violent extremes; yet I must acknowledge they merit some concern from ye Governmt: I mean as to keeping them within bounds, and this wth. respect to publick safety. "It is most certain my Ld. that there are a party here, who have allways served themselves of the infirmity of these people, and the Governmt, haveing no Agents among them, have wheedled them into severall excesses, of wch. the tumult at Glasgow was a manifest example. The dilligence of this pty, my Lord is but too successfull and has but too much matter to work upon. "In the affair of ye union they inflam'd them by a great varyety of suggestions, needless to repeat to yor. Ldpp. the radicated aversion to episcopacy, and to ye English were the Toppicks then, the like aversions to the union are the foundacon now, and I am sorry to say My Lord this aversion to ye union had politickly enough been improv'd by that party till it had wrought the poor people up to a kind of neutrallity a thing as fatall in itself as a direct opposicon and it began to be ye generall answer in ye case of ye invasion, that it was the effect of the Union, that it lay between the English and the French and let them fight it out. There was nothing for the honest people as they called themselves to do in it. "While they were encreasing in this temple of neutrallity, and phaps. were come to a greater hight in it than yor. Ldpp. would imagine possible the French appear'd. What temper then began to shew itself there was so little time between the appearing of ye French and Sr. Geo. Bing, being but one after noon, that little judgement can be made and yet here are honest people to be found who spak of it with concern enough. It is remarkable what diligence they used to awaken ye abused people going from house to house engageing them under their hands, and opening their eyes to ye delusions they had been under, till in some parishes where before they were ready to stone their Ministers for provcing for the Queen they became ye most forward against ye enemy. And yet my Lord these are of ye men who will refuse the Abjuracon and tho firm in her Majties intrests yet can not get over their scruples on that account from whence and my obversacon of the Jacobites complyeing wth. ye Abjuracon I humbly offer yor. Ldpp. this Northern parador, that her Maitie is in danger from those that take ye Abjuracon, and safe in those that refuse it." Etc., etc. "courage and slusngth but was follows the Lord whos gosth beford, and ya: all hair then what ster skattwrth, that sod many всё لله considerable what OLIVER CROMWELL. vs. A.L S. announcing the taking of Kilkenny. (Facsimile gives lower half of letter only). See Item No. 199 to deal with them, and us. I have committed my Daughtre, the word my Loun here, that out of that theasurer He I have lately had from him, hand ber peanuts lounge Brochen Veromwell enty en affection I moved on that second head blook at the Cabinet behind me. When I turned again Sherlock Holmes was standing rose 6-my feet smiling at me across my study table. I dared at him some secondo in utter amazement and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in a pey my life. Certainly it cleared I found my collar cudo undone, and the Lingling. mist sohee swirled before my eyes, and when after-taste of brandy upon my lips. Itolonco was my chair, his pack in his hand. bending My dear Watson" said the well-remembered I owe you a would be 20 over thons and apologico. I had no idea that affected" I gripped him by the arm. "Holmes "I ored "Is it really you! Cari'ct indeed are alive! Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss!" SIR A. CONAN DOYLE. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT, The Return of Sherlock Holmes." (Facsimile gives one page only). See Item No. 243. 218 DE QUINCEY (Thomas). Author of "Confessions of an English Opium Eater." N.Y. A.L.S." T. De Q." to S. S. Smith, Esq. 3 pp., 12mo. Feb. 19. £2 10s The Insurance Company are trifling with us. That is clear. To have invited us to resume the transaction was in effect (according to all equity, all common sense, and all law whether English or Scottish) was, I repeat, in effect and meaning to renounce their former scruples. "The Company (it now appears) want time to consider their answer to us. Answer! What answer? Answer to what? Did we put any question? If so, when and where? Human patience can bear no more." Etc. HIS LAST DYING DECLARATION. 219 DERWENTWATER (Charles Radcliffe of Radclyffe," Earl of). Famous Jacobite. Brother of the third Earl who was executed in connection with the 1715 Rebellion; arrested in connection with the same rebellion but made his escape from Newgate. Captured in November 1745, and executed on Tower Hill in December 1746. Autograph MS. Signed, being his last dying declaration made immediately before his execution. I page, folio. Signed "Derwentwater. In the Tower ye 8 December 1746." £18 In this his "last dying declaration" written by him on the morning of his execution, he professes his faith in the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, and declares his allegiance to his best and most injured King; also his affection towards Louis XV, to whom he commends his family. *** Charles Radcliffe, who after the death of his brother the 3rd Earl of Derwentwater had assumed the attainted title, was one of the most romantic personages of the 1715 and 1745 Rebellions. Of all the victims of these rebellions his execution most affected the Pretender, James Edward, who had kwown him at Rome for many years and regarded him as the most zealous and loyal of his adherents. 220 DEVONSHIRE (Georgina Cavendish, Duchess of). “I am very anrious to see your Ladyship before I go to the sea; to bring you the £100 and express my thanks & also to consult you about our poor friend.” Etc. 221 DEVONSHIRE (William Cavendish, 1st Earl of). Courtier of James I. D.S."W. Devonshire." I page, 4to (vellum). N.D. Circa 1620. Also signed by He: Wilughby; John Manners; John Curzon; Fra: Coke; and some eight others. 15s Certifying that certain paupers named on a list were freed and discharged from a loan to the King. 66 |