USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Popular history of Boston > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18
" Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel."
The king was first attacked by insanity in 1765, when he was twenty-seven years old. It was in the spring-time. As is usual with the first manifestations of disease of this kind, when constitutional, he soon recovered.
In the latter part of the autumn of 1788 the king appeared to be nervous and restless, unsettled in mind and apprehen- sive. He had often been low-spirited in recent years, which had been attributed to the loss of his American colonies. Returning from a long ride one bright October day, he hur- ried by, entered his apartment with an anxious, distressed look upon his face, and, flinging himself into a chair, burst into tears, exclaiming, " I am going to be mad, and I wish to God I might die ! "
The sufferings of the king during the first apprehensive days of his malady were painful to witness, and his conduct was most humiliating for the monarch of a realm whose empire followed the sun. " He awoke," says one of Sheri- dan's correspondents on one occasion, " with all the gestures and ravings of a confirmed maniac, and a new noise in imi- tation of the howling of a dog." He seemed tempted with suicidal thoughts, and required constant watchfulness and restraint. " This morning," says one, " he made an attempt to jump out of the window, and is now very turbulent and incoherent."
The king grew worse during the last days of fall. On the 29th of November he was removed to Kew, where he was to
268
Young Folks' History of Boston.
experience almost unspeakable horrors. Here he grew worse, his disease became settled, and the sad particulars of his conduct during the dreary months of December and January have, perhaps with commendable prudence, been withheld from the public eye.
Distressing indeed must have been the spectacle presented by the English monarch at this period of his incapacity ; how distressing a single anecdote will show. During his convalescence some friends of the royal household were pass- ing through the palace accompanied by an equerry, when they observed a strait-jacket lying in a chair. The equerry averted his look as a mark of respect for the king. The lat- ter, who had joined the company present, observed the movement and said, -
" You need not be afraid to look at it. Perhaps it is the best friend I ever had in my life."
The recovery of the king from his second attack thrilled the nation with joy and awakened a spirit of loyalty from sea to sea. London, on the night following the day on which the king resumed his functions, was a blaze of light from the palaces of the West End to the humblest huts in the suburbs. But the great illumination was a rising splendor, which only had its beginning here ; it flashed like a spontaneous joy over all the cities of the realm. Gala days followed gala days, the nights were festive ; the release of the king from his mental bondage seemed to lighten all hearts. On the 23d of April the royal family went to the old cathedral of St. Paul's in solemn state to return thanks to God. It was an imposing procession. The bells rung out, the boom of the cannon echoed through the mellowing air, and light strains of music rose on every hand. As the king entered the cathedral between the bishops of London and Lincoln, the voices of five thousand children burst forth in grand chorus, " God save the king !"
GEORGE III.
271
The Sad King.
1789.
At the sound of the jubilant strain, the king's emotions overcame him. He covered his face and wept.
" I do now feel that I have been ill," he said to the Bishop of London, as soon as he could restrain his tears.
The joy of the nation was sincere. As delightful to the king must have been the days that followed, when he set forth with the queen and a part of the royal family for a long tour to the west of England. The roads were lined with people and spanned with arches of flowers ; girls crowned with wreaths strewed flowers in the streets of the villages through which he passed ; bells were rung, the bands were out, all was festivity from London to Weymouth. Wide must have been the contrast between this new freedom and good Dr. Willis's strait-jacket.
Weymouth at this time possessed rare charms for the king. Unvexed by ministerial disputes and the cares of state, free from the last shadow of the clouds that had darkened his mind, with a humble heart, feeling that he was after all but a dependent man among weak and dependent men, he joined the peasants in their sports, he caressed their children, he gave pious advice to old women and wholesome counsel to ambitious lads and buxom lassies ; he wandered through the hay-fields with the mowers, and was rocked by the common sailors on the foamy waters of Portland Roads. His inter- course with the peasantry at this period gave him a popu- larity that he never outlived.
The familiarity of notable monarchs with their poorer and meaner subjects has ever been an engaging theme with the historian and the poet. Thus we have the child-charming stories of Henry VIII. and the miller of Dee ; of King John and the abbot ; of Edward IV. and the tanner ; of Philip of Burgundy and the tinker, which, with some shifting of scenes, is told in the Induction to Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. About few monarchs have so many pleasing anec-
272
Young Folks' History of Boston.
botes of this kind been related as about George III. This humility was a result of his great afflictions, and a most fortu- nate one for his popularity, since in the eyes of the people his charity covered a multitude of political errors.
After the first beating of the storm of affliction upon his own head, he had a sensitiveness that would never allow him to witness a scene of suffering without emotion, however humble might be the condition of the sufferer. A volume of anecdotes might be collected to illustrate this gentleness of character when want or woe was presented directly before him. He was walking one day, during the hard winter of 1785, unbending his mind from the cares of state, when he chanced to meet two little boys, who, not knowing whom they were addressing, fell upon their knees in the snow, and, wringing their hands, said, -
" Help us ! We are hungry ; we have nothing to eat."
Their pinched faces were wet with tears.
"Get up," said the king. "Where do you live ?"
" Our mother is dead, and our father lies sick, and we have no money, food, or fire."
" Go home," said the king, " and I will follow you."
They at last reached a wretched hovel, where the king found the mother dead, having perished for the want of the necessities of life, and the wretched father ready to perish, but still encircling with his bony arm the deceased partner of his woes. The king's eye moistened, and he hurried back to the Queen's Lodge and related to the queen what he had seen. He not only immediately relieved the present neces- sities of the family, but gave orders that the boys should be supported and educated from the royal bounty.
George III. was fond of children. All crazy people are, in their better moods. Walking one day near Windsor, he met a stable-boy, and asked, -
" Well, boy, what do you do, and what do they pay you ?"
A PLAN of
THE TOWN OF BOSTON with the INTRENCHIMENTS &C. OF ILS MAJESTYS FORCES in1775 frons the Observations of
LIEUT PAGE
of His MAJESTY'S Corps of Engineers: and from the Plans of other GENTLEMEN:
Bartou's Point
Grees Slun Fant
Battery
Street
Thấymons Shap Yard
Faxorth Banery
Migrrough's Wharf
Street Grant's & Greenwoods
mme
Chảy kes Ship Tand
MMILL. POND
.Frin Tinsons Whare'
peer
Clarkes or Handocks Wharf
ne's Shop Land
U
FISU hintipps Wharf
St
livs Ship Yard
0
Street
Sudinus
Luke's Whar
Wentworths
Valley
Woudmans Whart"
topations
Street
Thart
Parouut
De hool
Street
Acte
Hudson's Point-
Isateurs Ship Eurd.
Sup Fand
Ruch's Wharf," Jerins Wharf Greenough's Stop Yard
Lynn
street
Hints Wharf
13.
-Forth Fast Faer Will
Engraved & Printed for WH FADEN. Charing-Crofs; as the Act directs t," Detofstar.
Les Map Tard
STREET
SHIP
Strce
R.
sar
HIN DLE STREET
STRIE allatsey.i Wharf. Heywood's Whart
reet
ARB
Kurva Map Im Z
Freemans
all this Part is dry at Low Water
13. Since the evacuation ut' Boston, a Battery has been erceted on Fort hillof Jure LAPounders, Tings Gun's &. Carriages, poisavd towards the Harbour, Inei3 Inches Mortar thrown over the Wharf by the Kings Troops, isnow placed on the South Battery .
Gib boni Ship Yard
References to the Lunes &c
a liedoubt
I Blockhouse for Common
" Sie 24 Poundenr Li o Boyal
a. Four g Powuler's
+ Six 24 Pounders
f Left Bastion
-
.
& Right Bostimm hh. Grund Houses ii Traverves
Ik Magazines
11 Abbatis
mmm. Trous deLoups n Blockhouse for Musquetry u Floating Battery 2 Guns PP Fleches ISub' und 20 Men MB. The fortified Fronton the Neck Was wear forshea
References to the ToWIL
A Ih ist Church B Old North Meeting
C Anabaptists Meeting
D Faneuil Hall
E Town Hall
E Old Meeting
G Prison & Court House
H. Mays Chapel
I Warle House
K. Granary Pulilis
L Province Rouse I General Guye / 1. Gª Clinton, Hanoveles
M. Old South Meeting ( the Biling House)
2 GJ Burgoyne, Boudvin's
3 Adam! Graves
N Tivaty Church
O New South Meeting
4.G. Howe
P Byles's Meeting Q West.Meeting
Scale of Yards
= 8du or Half a Mile
THE
Burving tiround
eet
Huthbard's Wharf WIwelwright's Wharf
UV
Selcher
Whitehorn's Wharf
Fruttin's Mart
Street
Alilesions Wharf
Byls Whart
Darby
Ma Kết Hhart"
WahnersWharf.
n shaws Rhumt'
full house's
Hatchs Wharf
It's1
-. & Battery
SworysMart
Birte's Wharf'
Dry at Low Water except in the Mid - Channel
South Baurry
d Arosta.
Pusturan
Howes Whare
........
e Yard
Ihadwrighte
Fu
Field
URINGE STREET
arbuthmots
siin.s Whart
A. Sin house
& Stillhouse
Bills Wharf
& Still house.
Windmill Pour
F
Common JE. ... .............
LR
MIALL
Dyke thro'
220
STREET
273
1
The Sad King.
1800.
"I help in the stable, sir ; but they only give me my victuals and clothes."
" Be content," said the king, in a philosophical mood : " I can have nothing more."
He was accustomed to refer to " the loss of my American colonies " with sadness, but we do not know that he ever condemned the policy of his advisers, Lord Bute, Grenville, and Lord North.
The king surpassed all other monarchs in the whimsical play of " good Haroun Alraschid." He loved nothing bet- ter than to meet his poorer and meaner subjects incognito, and learn their good opinion of him. He once played the part of Saxon Alfred as well as that of the Persian caliph, and turned a piece of meat in a cottage. When the old woman returned, what was her delight at finding a royal note, with an inclosure. It ran, " Five guineas to buy a jack."
Among the statesmen of his reign favorable to the Ameri- can cause were Fox, Pitt, and Burke. The Earl of Chatham was a friend to America until France espoused the cause of the colonies. He fell dead while speaking on the American question.
Age as well as trouble at last battered the strong form of the king, and his life became more Lear-like as the twilight shadows began to fall. His sympathies seemed to take a wider range, and his charity to gather new sweetness, as the evening of age came on. In 1786 a poor insane woman, named Margaret Nicholson, attempted to assassinate him as he was in the act of stepping from his carriage. The king, on finding that she was insane, remembered his own frailty, spoke of her with great pity, and tried to disarm the popular prejudice against her. In 1790 John Frith, an insane man, attempted the king's life, and another lunatic shot at him in 1800, for each of whom the king was moved to extreme pity when he understood the nature of their malady.
1
274
Young Folks' History of Boston.
George III. had fifteen children. His favorite was the Princess Amelia. In her early days she was a gay, light- hearted girl ; but as she grew older she became affectionate and reflective, yielding to the deeper sentiments of her emo- tional nature, and making herself the companion of the king in his decline. She once told her experience in life in two fair stanzas, that have been preserved : -
"Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laughed and danced and talked and sung, And, proud of health, of freedom vain, Dreamed not of sorrow, care, or pain, Concluding, in those hours of glee, That all the world was made for me.
" But when the hour of trial came, When sickness shook this trembling frame, When folly's gay pursuits were o'er, And I could sing and dance no more, It then occurred how sad 't would be Were this world only made for me."
In 1810 she was attacked with a lingering and fatal illness. Her sufferings at times were heart-rending to witness, but her sublime confidence in God kept her mind serene, and brought the sweetest anticipations of another and a better world.
The old king lingered by her bedside, her affectionate watcher and nurse. They talked together daily of Christ, of redemption, and of the joys of heaven. "The only hope of the sinner is in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Do you feel this hope, my daughter? Does it sustain you ? "
" Nothing," says an English clergyman who witnessed these interviews, " can be more striking than the sight of the king, aged and nearly blind, bending over the couch on
275
The Sad King.
18II.
which the princess lies, and speaking to her of salvation through Christ as a matter far more interesting than the most magnificent pomps of royalty."
As she grew weaker, he caused the physicians to make a statement of her condition every hour. When he found her sinking, the old dejection and gloom began to overcast his mind again. He felt, like Lear, that he had one true heart to love him for himself alone. This love was more precious to him than crowns and thrones. The world offered nothing to him so sweet as her affection. She was his Cordelia. One gloomy day a messenger came to the king's room to announce that Amelia had breathed her last. It was too much for the king : reason began to waver and soon took its flight. "This was caused by poor Amelia," he was heard saying, as the shadows deepened and the dreary winter of age came stealing on.
" Thou 'lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never !"
This was in 1810. The remaining ten years of his life were passed, with the exception of few brief intervals, in the long night of mindlessness, and the last eight years were still more deeply shadowed by the loss of sight. In May, 18II, he appeared once outside of the castle of Windsor, and henceforth the people saw him no more. Thackeray repre- sents him as withdrawn from all eyes but those that watched his necessities, in silence and in darkness, crownless, throne- less, sceptreless ; there was for him neither sun, moon, nor stars, empire, wife, nor child. The seasons came and went, - the springtime lighted up the hills and autumn withered the leaves, the summer sunshine dreamed in the flowers and the snows of winter fell; battles were fought; Waterloo changed the front of the political world ; Napoleon fell ; the nation was filled with festive rejoicings over the battles of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, and Toulouse, but he was oblivious
276
Young Folks' History of Boston.
of all. His sister died, his beloved queen died, his son, the Duke of Kent, died, - but he knew it not. He was often confined in a padded room ; his beard grew long ; he seemed like a full personification of the character of Lear. Once he was heard repeating to himself the sad lines of Samson Agonistes, -
" Oh, dark, dark, dark ! Amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark ! Total eclipse, Without all hope of day !"
Some incidents of this period are very touching. One day, while his attendants were leading him along one of the pas- sages of the castle, he heard some one draw quickly aside. " Who is there?" asked the king.
He was answered in a well-known voice.
" I am now blind," said the king.
" I am very sorry, please your Majesty."
" But," continued the king, "I am quite resigned ; for what have we to do in this world but to suffer as well as to perform the will of the Almighty ?"
Music seemed to collect his thoughts and soothe his feel- ings, and the piano and harpsichord were his favorite instru- ments. In 1811 he, for the last time, made the selection of pieces for a grand sacred concert. It comprised Handel's famous passages descriptive of madness and blindness, the lamentation of Jephthah on the loss of his daughter, and the list ended with " God save the King." The performance of the last moistened all eyes, after what had gone before.
Thus passed the last ten years of the monarch's life, in a gradual decline, amid an obscurity lighted by occasional gleams of reason and always full of the keenest pathos ; until, in 1820, the great bell of St. Paul's announced his final release.
The popularity of George III. in England was largely due
Mystic
CHELSEA
ing
azın
Pow
azOnt Lt
BOSTON With its Environs) 1775 & 1776 -
American
Cep
doubt
Winnisimet .
Test Hill
Scale of Miles
Freut Work
*~ I.
Cal.ble
Hent quarters
Mcriens Pl.
1
Routing O
Battery
Willis
tchmire's
Redoubt
TOWN
" REFERENTES.
OFort 1702
I State ( formerly king Street.
Barton's Hoy
North
2 Faneuil Hall & Dock Square
ako
NAHANT BAY
3 Old South Meeting House Beacon Hill 5 Fort Hill.
3 kur Battery
Little Cove
2. Fort on Kodilles T. arded after Boston was evacuated.
3 Gun Battery
Powde
Pro Scuin Battery
Bird Island
Amer
Brooklo Fort River
Wart
Feder 4 Gun Battery
Govern
Swamp
Redoubt 3
Dorchester
Floating
Block
Flats
River
Battery
Batt
Castle L
Brookline
Orchester
NECK
Nicks Math
.doub
Dorchester
ward
Gallops
Spectacle
Gen
DORACHESTER
NANTASKET ROAD
Ramsford or Hospital I.
Thompsons
Western Channet
Shirley Te. yes PullingI't,
Pathna Point Gut
G Cepps Hill.
Cambridge or
PFOTEN !!
battery
CCentr
hồng Wart
Apple
Charles
Muddy
+ 3 CunBattery' Redoubt
Stony Brook
Gforge BOSTON
NECK
Tavern
Dorchester Hightros
DORCHES
American
X Roxtary Fort Right wing
Road to Mallen
Salem && MarUlchead
Freigh
Lexiny
Cangidseliner
Reserve
CHARLES
Ferry to Wus Enisimet
den's Pr.
Hancock's Wart
.
-
1820.
The Sad King. 279
to his humble piety, and to his familiarity with his poorer and meaner subjects. Each of these characteristics was the result, in a measure, of his mental misfortunes. It was be- cause the king never dared to forget that he was a man, that the people always loved to remember that he was a king.
" THE torch of freedom God has lit Burns upward for the Infinite, And through all hindrances it will And must and shall burn upward still ; And all whose hands would hold the torch Inverted, must to ashes scorch ; And they who stay its heavenward aim Shall shrivel, like the fly, in flame ! "
GERALD MASSEY.
..
.
CHAPTER XV.
THE STORY OF HOLLIS STREET MEETING-HOUSE AND) CURIOUS OLD MATHER BYLES, THE ROYALIST.
THE OLD HOLLIS STREET CHURCH.
You may see .the tall spire of the new Hollis Street Church from al- most any point of the city. The Stars and Stripes used to wave from it in the days of the war.
This church is as a monument to several men in Bos- ton's history. Here
John Pierpont fought his grand battle for temperance against the wealthy members of his society who stored their wine- casks even in the church's cellar. Here Starr King poured forth his fiery eloquence, - a man who had the heart of hearts, and whom Whittier in his sonnet to him well says was beloved as few men ever were, and for whom Mt. Starr King is an eternal memorial.
Most people are familiar with one or more of Pierpont's poems, and have seen them, if nowhere else, in that wonder- ful patron of poetic fame,- the reading-book. We seldom see Hollis Street Church spire without recalling a poem of
284
Young Folks' History of Boston.
this writer, which seems to have come to him like an inspira- tion. He became pastor of the church in 1819. Our own country was just entering upon an era of peace and prosper- ity, and all eyes were turned to the political events of Europe, where the throne of Napoleon had lately fallen. The mili- tary pageant of France was being withdrawn from the eyes of the world, and the nations were fast undoing all Napoleon had done. The Emperor himself died, and was buried at St. Helena amid the solitudes of the sea, where he had passed his last unquiet years.
Pierpont's heart was in human progress, and the fall of Napoleon seemed to him an impressive commentary on the instability of military glory. Many poets were inspired to take a text from Napoleon's fall, but Pierpont caught the true spirit of the event, as Byron did of Waterloo, and there is hardly anything in the language more fine than his lines en- titled -
NAPOLEON AT REST.
His falchion flashed along the Nile ; His hosts he led through Alpine snows ; O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while, His eagle flag unrolled, - and froze.
Here sleeps he now, alone ! Not one Of all the kings whose crowns he gave Bends o'er his dust ; - nor wife nor son Has ever seen or sought his grave.
Behind this sea-girt rock, the star That led him on from crown to crown
Has sunk ; and nations from afar Gazed as it faded and went down.
High is his couch ; the ocean flood, Far, far below, by storms is curled ; As round him heaved, while high he stood, A stormy and unstable world.
Tannen
toopen
ools Whar:
. .
Greenleafs ya
3 Rope Walks
AG
. .
Long Ware H
Wing's ShYd
Um! ! !!
WEB
A
L
Fort Hill
FH
Belchers
1. one
S Battery.
FROM BONNER'S MAP, 1722.
Marshalls W Long Wharfe
Olivers Dock
crapo
Parmers .Wy
0722
Battery Marin
Gates Sh Ya
Olivers Wharfe.
-
Old Wharfe .
287
Mather Byles.
1777.
Alone he sleeps ! The mountain cloud, That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.
Pause here ! The far-off world, at last, Breathes free ; the hand that shook its thrones,
And to the earth its mitres cast, Lies powerless now beneath these stones.
Hark ! comes there, from the pyramids, And from Siberian wastes of snow, And Europe's hills; a voice that bids The world he awed to mourn him ? - No:
The only, the perpetual dirge That 's heard there is the sea-birds' cry,
The mournful murmur of the surge, The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh. .
The first pastor of Hollis Street Church was a poet, curious old Mather Byles, who assumed his clerical duties in 1733. He was a very popular minister before the Revolution, and he had an English as well as European reputation as a poet, and numbered among his correspondents Lansdown, Dr. Watts, and Pope, the latter of whom sent him one of the first copies of his translation of the Odyssey.
Byles declared himself a Tory at the beginning of the Rev- olution, and his reputation immediately vanished. In 1777 he was denounced in Boston town-meeting, and was ordered to be confined in his own house, which stood at the corner of Nassau and Tremont Streets, and a guard was stationed over his door. The guard was accustomed to pace backward and forward in a pompous way, as though performing a duty of very great responsibility.
One day Byles came to the door and asked him to go on an errand for him.
288
Young Folks' History of Boston.
" I will stand guard while you are gone," said he, taking the sentinel's gun, and pacing back and forth in front of his
own house in the same important way the guard had done. The senti- nel did the errand, and in the meantime Byles excited the laughter of every one on the street by the way in which he stood guard over himself and his house.
Another guard was appointed who could not be persuaded to change places with the man he was guard- Masher Byles ing, and at last, the thing becoming quite ridiculous, the guard was removed entirely. When Byles saw this he said, -
" I have been guarded, reguarded, and now I am disre- garded," and disregarded he lived to the end of his life.
Old-time Boston was full of anecdotes of this witty parson, and an early Boston poet has left the following photograph of him in two rather acrimonious stanzas : -
" Here's punning Byles provokes our smiles, A man of stately parts, He visits folks to crack his jokes, Which never mend their hearts.
" With strutting gait and wig so great He walks along the streets, And throws out wit, or what's like it, To every one he meets."
289
Mather Byles.
1777.
In 1780 the famous Dark Day occurred, and a frightened lady sent her son to Parson Byles to inquire the cause of the appalling obscurity.
" I don't know," said Byles, whose habit of joking was too chronic to be set aside even at the prospect of the near ap- proach of the judgment day. " Go home and tell your mother I am just as much in the dark as she is."
When the great religious awakening in England, under the preaching of the Wesleys and Whitefield, began to excite the attention of the colonies, the Methodists were known in this country as " New Lights," and Methodist revivals were called the New Light stir. One day a ship arrived in Boston har- bor with three hundred street-lamps, and on the same day a gossiping lady called on Dr. Byles, whose visit he wished to cut short by some startling intelligence.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.