to the newly appointed aide-de-camp: "When, my dear Lord, your very gallant behaviour at Kloster Kampen is more known, every one will think you have well merited the honour you have received. I speak of you, my dear Lord, from the information of those who were eyewitnesses of your behaviour on that day, and no one does my friend Fitzmaurice more justice than the Hereditary Prince, who desired I would make his compliments to you."[1]
In his new situation at Court Lord Fitzmaurice was at once brought into communication with Bute. The moment was a turning-point in English history. A new King was on the throne, in every respect the opposite of his predecessor, while the rival King over the water was daily sinking lower and lower in the estimation of even his most devoted followers. The Jacobites, who ever since the Revolution had either lived in retirement in the country or plotting against the established order of things in London, recognized the moment to have at length arrived for resuming their old position and returning to Court, where they were received with tokens of favour and welcome not unnaturally exhibited by a King who saw an important body of his subjects men likely to be as useful to government as they had been dangerous in opposition—all at once determined to yield an allegiance no longer nominal but real. The Whigs, who during the same period had with a single brief interval divided place and power amongst themselves, saw the danger which threatened them, but did not understand the true methods of combating it. Nor was this strange, for partly from the force of circumstances, partly under the influence of success, they had forgotten their own liberal creed and
- ↑ Lord Granby to Lord Fitzmaurice, December 1761. For an account of the battle of Kloster Kampen and Lord George Lennox's gallant conduct, see the appendix to Lord Melcombe's Diary, page 502, also a letter of the Duke of Richmond of May 23rd, 1782, to Lord Shelburne when Prime Minister asking for the post of Governor of Portsmouth for his brother. "I will say that no man has better pretensions as an officer, and I think too he has some claims on your Lordship as it was your being made a Colonel over his head after the Battle of Kampen with Lord Down, that was the first cause of his being left so behind in his profession." Lord Shelburne was appointed Major-General, March 26th, 1765; Lieutenant-General, May 26th, 1772; and General on February 19th, 1783.
