USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume I > Part 96
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Wilkes' contemporaries, although they differed as to the value of his services, yet concurred in allowing him to have no living superior as a wit. One of them tells us: "He abounded in anecdote; wit was so constantly at his command that wagers have been gained that, from the time he quitted his home till he reached Guildhall, no one would address him who would leave him without a smile or a hearty laugh." He was endowed with a gift which is so un-English that an exact equiva- lent for it does not exist in our language. The French call it esprit, the English representative of which is "chaff"-which is esprit in the rough. J. E. Thorold Rogers says : "Wilkes may have been 'dull in Parliament'; he did bright things there, but he said his brightest among his private friends. His wit was easy and brilliant ; not played off for effect, but often uttered for the conveyance of truth. Like Chesterfield, he uttered more wit than he wrote. It was bold, often impudent, but spontaneous. As for the wit by which he expressed a seeming hatred to the Scots, it was made all the sharper by the rage with which it in- spired Scottish men. He seemed to hate the nation, when he really hated only an individual [Lord Bute] belonging to it, in whom he recognized an enemy to the British country and Constitution." Pages might be filled with the clever sayings attributed to Wilkes ; but many things which were palpable hits and excellent jokes a century and more ago, appear pointless and weak now.
Once Wilkes asked an elector to vote for him. "No," replied the man warmly, "I'd rather vote for the devil !" "Yes," responded Wilkes, "but in this case your friend doesn't stand." At a city banquet Alder-
* WILLIAM WOODFALL (1746-1803) was for many years a Parliamentary reporter, a dramatic critic and a newspaper editor in London.
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man Burnell-who had begun life as a bricklayer-was clumsily attempt- ing to serve a soft pudding with a spoon, whereupon Wilkes called to him to "take a trowel to it !" When the King was about to go to St. Paul's upon a certain occasion to offer public thanksgiving, Wilkes expressed a hope that Lord George Germain (who had fallen into dis- grace on account of blunders committed at the battle of Minden, in 1759, and had been dismissed from the army) would be appointed "to carry the sword" before His Majesty in the procession. Once in the House of Commons Wilkes went up to the Speaker and privately told him that he had a petition to present to the House from a set of the greatest scoundrels and miscreants on earth. When called upon, however, shortly afterwards to present it, he said with the gravest possible face : "Sir, I hold in my hand a petition from a most intelligent, independent and enlightened body of men." In a chop-house a rude-mannered customer annoyed the other customers by impatiently shouting for his steak. On its being finally set before him Wilkes observed : "Usually the bear is brought to the stake, but here the steak is brought to the bear." Lord Eldon, recording that the respectable Company of Mer- chant Tailors had honored him with the freedom of their Company, added : "Their motto is 'Concordia parve res crescunt.' " Wilkes construed these words thus: "Nine tailors make a man !" In his latter years Wilkes became reconciled to George III, and occasionally was found at the Court levees. "How is your old friend, Glynn, Mr. Wilkes?" asked the King on one occasion. "My old friend, your Majesty ?" answered Wilkes. "He is no friend of mine. He was a Wilkesite, which I never was." One day the Prince of Wales (sub- sequently George IV) was entertaining at dinner a number of guests, one of whom was Wilkes. The Prince being then estranged from the King, his father, said bitter things against him. During the dinner Wilkes proposed the King's health. "Why, how long is it since you became so loyal?" asked the Prince. "Ever since I have had the pleasure of knowing your Royal Highness," was the saucy reply.
The following paragraphs are from the pen of Joseph Dennie, who was, for a number of years, editor of The Portfolio (Philadelphia). They were printed in that periodical in August, 1809.
"During the debate in the House of Commons in the year 1770, Burke observed of the famous 45th number of The North Briton, written by the patriot Wilkes, that it was a spiritless though'a virulent performance, a mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once sour and vapid. The expression of this sentiment is perhaps not more happy than the correctness of the criticism. It is amazing that any of Wilkes' writings should ever have been popular, in the best sense of the word. They are certainly, for the most part, tame and inelegant productions. This is the more wonderful when we reflect that Mr. Wilkes was confessedly a man of wit and genius, an elegant classical scholar, and very advantage- ously distinguished for the fluency and felicity of his colloquial powers. In this respect he seems to have had some resemblance to Charles Fox, who certainly could talk well, though, in our opinion, he was never very famous for writing well.
"In the hands of John Wilkes and Charles Fox the pen appears to have moved sullenly over the page. But theirs was the voluble tongue to declaim and to delight ! One spoke in the Senate, and men thought Demosthenes was resuscitated from the dead ; another talked with his jovial friends, and it seemed as if they were listening to Aristip- pus, to Alcibiades or to Petronius Arbiter. But when Wilkes and Fox retired to their closets they produced nothing but awkward memorials of their own imbecility."
Of the writings of Wilkes which are in print and accessible, the present writer has consulted the following: (1) "The Correspondence of the late John Wilkes with his Friends, printed from the Original Manuscripts ; in which are introduced Memoirs of his Life." By John
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Almon. Five volumes, London, 1805. (2) "The North Briton, Num- bers 1 to 68. Revised and corrected by the Author, with Explanatory Notes." Two volumes, London, 1769. (3) "Speeches of John Wilkes in the Parliament appointed to meet at Westminster November 29, 1774 ; to its Prorogation, June 6, 1777." Two volumes, London, 1777. (4) "Speeches in the House of Commons by John Wilkes." One vol- ume, London, 1786. (5) "A Letter to George Grenville, occasioned by the publication of the Speech he made February 3, 1769, for ex- pelling Mr. Wilkes." London, 1769. (6) "J. Wilkes, Patriot; an unfinished Autobiography." Two volumes, Harrow, 1888. (7) "A Letter to Samuel Johnson, on 'The False Alarmn' by Johnson." Lon- don, 1770. (8) "Letters from John Wilkes to his Daughter, 1774 to 1796; with a Collection of his Miscellaneous Poems, and prefixed with a Memoir of J. Wilkes." Four volumes, London, 1804.
In addition to Wilkes-Barré the following places and localities in the United States were named for John Wilkes prior to the year 1800 : Wilkes County, in the north-eastern part of Georgia; Wilkes County, in the north-western part of North Carolina ; Wilkesborough, a town- ship in the lastmentioned county ; Wilkesborough, a post-village (the county-seat of Wilkes County) in the abovementioned township.
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CHAPTER X.
THE RIGHT HON. ISAAC BARRE, SOLDIER, ORATOR, STATESMAN, AND AMERICA'S ADVOCATE AND CHAMPION. .
cially good thing for young Americans, to remember the men "It is a good thing for all Americans, and it is an espe- .
who have given their lives in war and peace to the service of their fellow-countrymen ; and to keep in mind the feats of daring and personal prowess done in times past by some of the many
champions of the Nation in the various crises of her history."
land, there have been as many noble blows struck, and as many "In Westminster Hall, and other homes of oratory in Eng-
ica as there have been for the integrity of the British Empire." pregnant words uttered, in behalf of the independence of Amer-
-The Hon. Joseph H. Choate, London, May, 1900.
In an interesting sketch entitled "Col. Isaac Barré," prepared with great care, and read before the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society,* Wilkes-Barré, November 16, 1900, Mr. Sidney Roby Miner states :
"It would probably surprise a stranger to find how little is known here of the men after whom our city was named-especially of Barré. From the fact that the "Encyclo- pædia Brittanica" contains no sketch of him, and scarcely the mention of his name, and the fact that in the few biographical encyclopædias where he is mentioned only the merest out- lines of his career are given, it might be inferred that he was a man of no prominence and little influence. On the contrary, he was, in his day, not only conspicuous and prominent, but a man of influence and power, feared and respected by his opponents for his talents, his oratory, his invective and his courage, and loved by his friends for quali- ties which are not dwelt upon by his biographers, but which may be inferred from his associates and their devotion to him."
When the present writer began, some years ago, to collect facts and incidents for this sketch of Colonel Barré, he was, just as Mr. Miner seems to have been, surprised at the apparent paucity as well as the in- accessibleness of such material. The French have a saying which runs somewhat in this wise: "The world never forgets its rich men. It may forget its great ones-will forget them, indeed, unless they have a drum beaten very loudly before them !" Isaac Barré was neither a rich nor a great man, but for many years he was a conspicuous and notable figure among the decent and honorable men constituting a small section of the large body of office-holders who managed the affairs of Great Britain in the reign of George III. Moreover, during the period referred to he was highly regarded in this country as an ardent advocate and a sincere champion of America's rights. Why, then, has Colonel Barré * See "Proceedings and Collections" of that Society, VI : 113.
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been neglected by the encyclopedists and the biographers? Chiefly, we think, because he left no descendants ; wherefore, after the death of his personal friends and contemporary admirers, there was no one sufficiently interested in the subject of his life to take it up at the proper time and deal with it fully and satisfactorily, or, in other words, beat the bio- graphic drum loudly and opportunely.
On the shore of the Bay of Biscay, on the western coast of France, lies La Rochelle. About the year 1568 it became the headquarters of the Huguenots, and upon the signing by King Henry IV, in April, 1598, of the famous "perpetual and irrevocable" Edict of Nantes- whereby many important civil and religious concessions were granted to the Protestants of France-La Rochelle became a Huguenot strong- hold. In October, 1685, Louis XIV of France, by a proclamation, solemnly revoked and annulled the great and fundamental law enacted by his grandfather Henry at Nantes, and forbade the free exercise of the Protestant religion within the bounds of his dominions. Then began the depopulation of France, although the King pronounced the punish- ment of the galleys against those who sought liberty in flight, and ordered the confiscation of all the lands and houses which were sold by those proprietors who were preparing to quit the kingdom. Vigilant watch was kept at the frontiers, and frigates cruised along all the coasts, while proscription was organized en masse, and all the troopers in the land (who, on account of peace, were unemployed) were placed at the disposal of the Romish priests and bishops, to uphold their missions (known as the draggonades) with the sabre.
Within twenty years following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes France lost between 300,000 and 400,000 of her most active, industrious and enterprising citizens-including artisans and men of science and letters-who emigrated to England, Ireland, Switzerland, Holland and America. But, notwithstanding all the persecutions and emigrations, about two millions of the people in France continued to adhere to the Protestant religion. Meanwhile the episode in the history of French Protestantism known as the War of the Camisards had been begun and terminated, although it was not until 1710 that comparative peace was finally restored. Then, for upwards of ten years, the Protestants of France enjoyed partial repose -- the reign of Louis XIV coming to an end with his death in 1715, and being followed by the regency of the Duke of Orleans until 1723, when Louis XV ascended the throne. In 1724 this fourteen-year-old King issued a severe edict against the Protest- ants, at the instigation of the Jesuits, and again the emigrations from France began.
At that time there dwelt in the district of La Rochelle a well-to-do bourgeois named Barré,* who had two sons-Jean and Pierre. The family were Huguenots, and Pierre, the younger son-then about . twenty-four years of age-anticipating and dreading a renewal of the cruel oppressions under which his parents had suffered in his youthful days and earlier, determined, with a number of his fellow countrymen, to take refuge in Ireland. Settling in Dublin Pierre (or Peter, in English) Barré embarked in business, in a small way, as a grocer. The elder Barré and his son Jean continued to reside in or near La Rochelle, where the former died about 1739 and the latter in 1760.
* For the pronunciation of this surname see pages 523 and 524.
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Contemporary with the Barrés in the district of La Rochelle lived a family named Raboteau. About 1724 a daughter of this family was offered the alternative of marrying a Romanist for whom she did not care, or of lifelong devotion in a nunnery to a religion which she detested. There was only one means of escape, for, as during the former persecu- tions of the French Protestants, heavy penalties were placed upon emi- gration, ships-of-war guarded the coasts, and chains and the galleys were reserved for the fugitive. An uncle of Mademoiselle Raboteau, who had some time before settled in Dublin as a merchant, was in the habit of paying occasional trading visits in his own vessel to La Rochelle. His niece informed him of her unhappy plight, and implored his assist- ance. He consented to aid her, and concealed her in La Rochelle till the time for his sailing drew nigh, when, placing her in an empty cask, he conveyed her on board his ship and sailed for Dublin. There, in 1725, she became the wife of her compatriot émigré, Peter Barré.
But little is known of the early life of the Barres in Dublin. "From the nature of their exile," says Hugh F. Elliot in "Colonel Barré and His Times,"* "it is probable they were poor." It is stated in the "Dictionary of National Biography" that Peter Barré "rose by slow degrees to a position of eminence in Dublin commerce." He was a member of the Dublin Society of Arts and Husbandry from its founda- tion in 1750 ; in 1758 he was an Alderman of the city ; in 1766 he was the owner of a warehouse in Fleet Street and a country-house at Cul- len's Wood. He died about 1775, leaving to his son property in Dublin worth £300 a year. t
ISAAC BARRÉ, who seems to have been the only child of Peter and (Raboteau) Barré, was born at Dublin in 1726. He was entered Kaap Prom' as a "Pensioner" at Trinity College, Dublin, November 19, 1740, being then in the fifteenth year of his life. He became a "Scholar" in Facsimile of signature written in middle-life. 1744, and took his degree in the following year. It being the desire of his parents that he should prepare for the Bar, he began his legal studies as soon as he had been graduated at Trinity. During the brief period that he was engaged in these studies David Garrick, the celebrated English actor, who was then joint-manager with Sheridan of the Dublin Theater, charmed with the displays of Barré's acting in some private theatricals, urged him to go upon the stage-coupling his arguments with the liberal offer of £1,000 a year. But Barré's inclination all along was for a military life, and so in 1746 he gave up the Law, declined Garrick's attractive proposition, and applied for and received a commission as Ensign in the 32d Regiment of Foot, then stationed. in Flanders.
The profession which Barré thus embraced, and of which he was destined to remain for many years an active but undistinguished mem- ber, was, during the middle of the eighteenth century, at its worst period in Great Britain. When Barré entered the army the War of the Austrian Succession was raging on the Continent. It had been carried on for some time with uniform want of success, so far as the British contingent was concerned. Political corruption had sapped every branch and every rank of the British service. Commissions, promo-
* See Littell's Living Age, January 6, 1877.
t See The Gentleman's Magazine (London), August, 1817.
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tions and favors were placed in one great mart and sold to the highest political bidder. The discipline of the army was sacrificed to the dis- cipline of the House of Commons. Dissensions in the camp had already threatened the existence of the army, while divisions in the Cabinet pre- cluded any hope that these dissensions would ever be entirely healed. Moreover, the internal condition of the British army was no better than its administration. To the favored few, indeed, many rewards were offered. There were perquisites, the very names of some of which are now almost forgotten. There was very nearly complete immunity from service for the officers, and many of them spent more time at Ranelagh Gardens on the Thames than they did with their regiments. But to Barré, and men like him, the army presented a very different aspect. They had no society but that of their brother officers ; no reward but in the efficiency of their regiments.
"There was little in the officer of that day to recommend him. He was badly educated and very often profligate. He was the butt of satirists. Sometimes he was a school-boy, who staggered under the weight of his cockade; sometimes a shopman, attempting a military bluster. As for the discipline of the men, nothing could be worse. In the 'March of the Guards to Finchley' Hogarth has presented to us the wildest scene of confusion and licentiousness."
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THE MARCH TO FINCHLEY. A photo-reproduction of an engraving after the original painting by William Hogarth .*
* This picture was painted by William Hogarth (mentioned on pages 531 and 534) at some time be- tween the years 1740 and 1750, and was originally dedicated by him to George II ; but the King indig- nantly and rudely, though naturally enough, rejected this dedication. Thereupon Hogarth maliciously re-dedicated the picture to Frederick II, King of Prussia. It now adorns the walls of the Foundling Hospital, London. The scene depicted in the painting is laid in Tottenham Court Turnpike, with a view of Hampstead and Highgate in the background In the middle-distance is seen a body of soldiers march- ing in tolerable order, accompanied by their baggage-wagon. There is no order or regularity, however, among the soldiers in the foreground, owing, in part, to the narrowness of the passage through the gate, but more to the liberty and license allowed to the sons of Mars on quitting their homes.
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"To a young and aspiring man like Barré the first charms of such a profession must soon have yielded to a bitter sense of mortification. Crushed by the wealth of more fortunate comrades, with neither in- fluence to command favor nor means to purchase it, his future prospects must have appeared most disheartening. It is true that many of the statesmen of that and of a later time-Henry Pelham, Conway, Shel- burne, the great Pitt himself-were, or had been, soldiers; but these men were all favored by political connection, and of political connection Barré was entirely destitute."*
After protracted negotiations the Continental war was ended by the peace concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748, whereby the House of Hanover retained the succession in its German States and in Great Britain. Barré's chance of snatching fame just then from any success- ful military exploit disappeared with the coming of peace; and there- after, for nine years, we lose sight of him. We know that he spent part of that time with his regiment in Scotland and part at Gibraltar (where the "32d" was stationed for four years), but of his manner of life we are quite ignorant. Walpole asserts that he employed the intervals of duty in assiduous study, and Elliot concludes that "it is likely enough that, this was the case, as no man could have acquired such a inastery of speaking, unless he had studied literature carefully and cultivated the art of composition." October 1, 1755, Barré was promoted Lieutenant.
The seven years that succeeded the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle are described by Voltaire as among the happiest that Europe ever enjoyed. Commerce revived and the fine arts flourished, but, unfortunately, not all the elements of discord had yet been exterminated from Europe, and, in consequence, early in 1756 the Seven Years' War broke out. It was waged against Frederick the Great of Prussia by an alliance whose chief members were Austria, France and Russia. Frederick had the assist- ance of British subsidies and of some minor German States. France and England appeared as the leading Powers in this war, in which, how- ever, they had only a secondary interest, for their quarrel really lay in the New World. The ancient rivalry between these two nations had, by colonization, been extended to various quarters of the world, and their interests once more came into collision in America, resulting in a formal declaration of war against France by England in May, 1756. As we have previously shown (on pages 261 and 297) a series of desultory conflicts, between the English on the one side and the French and their allies on the other, had been going on in America for two years prior to this declaration of war without being avowed by the mother countries. This struggle in America-known in our history as the French and Indian War-was closely connected and identified with the Seven Years' War.
When these wars broke out the Duke of Newcastle was the British Premier, William Pitt (subsequently Earl of Chatham) was Paymaster General of the Forces, and William Murray (afterwards to be famous as Lord Mansfield); was Attorney General. Pitt soon attacked the Government, and was deprived of office. The people trusted Pitt as much as they distrusted Newcastle, and they determined to support the former. The hope, the force and the enterprise of the nation looked to Pitt, and to Pitt only, as the man who could save the country front what
* From Elliot's "Colonel Barré and His Times."
t See pages 537 and 540.
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-to a people conscious of its own strength and its own resources-inust have seemed a living death. But Pitt was still too much disliked by the King (George II) to be available for the position of leader in the House of Commons ; and so the Duke of Newcastle's Ministry soon fell. Then, for a short time, the Duke of Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry which included Pitt ; but the old King did not stand this long (only from November, 1756, till May, 1757), and one day suddenly turned all the Ministers out of office. Finally, June 29, 1757, a coalition of another kind was formed, which included Newcastle and Pitt. The former took charge of the Treasury Department and was Premier. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons and with the supreme direction of all war and foreign affairs. He now, for the first time, had matters all his own way and became, to all intents and purposes, Prime Minister.
The accession to power of this coalition Ministry gave to the war with France, in particular, a new aspect. England was now, under the lead of the high-spirited and ambitious Pitt, about to enter upon the greatest career of conquest in her history. However, says Lord Macaulay, "the first acts of the new Administration were characterized rather by vigor than by judgment." Pitt at once proceeded to take energetic measures against France, and first of all he organized an ex- pedition against Rochefort, an important French seaport and naval station, distant some eighteen miles from La Rochelle, previously mentioned.
Lieutenant Barré, longing for active duty in his profession, applied for permission to accompany this expedition in the capacity of a volun- teer. His request was granted, and he was attached to the 20th Regi- ment of Foot, whose Lieutenant Colonel was James Wolfe,* and another of whose officers was Lord Fitzmaurice, a native of Dublin, like Barré, and then only twenty years of age. Wolfe acted as Quartermaster Gen- eral of the Rochefort expedition, the troops of which were commanded by Sir John Mordaunt, Wolfe's friend ; Admiral Sir Edward Hawke being in command of the convoying fleet. The combined forces arrived off the French coast September 20th, and remained there ten days, effecting nothing. In fact, the expedition terminated most ingloriously, and brought disgrace to nearly all concerned. Wolfe came home very indignant. He wrote : "We return to England with reproach and dis- honor ! We blundered most egregiously on all sides-sea and land. * No zeal, no ardor, no care and concern for the good and honor of the country." His own zeal and ardor, however, had been marked, and Admiral Hawke gave the King a good opinion of him. It soon be-
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