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In 1696 the association formed for the protection of
King William from assassination was largely joined by the Kentish
gentry.16
Daniel Defoe has written the history of the petition signed at
Maidstone, 29 April 1701, at the quarter sessions for Kent, and
presented to Parliament
9 May 1701.17 It voiced the sentiments of the nation, then, as so often
in the eighteenth century, in opposition to the House of Commons. By the
treachery of Sir Thomas Hales, one of the members for the county, it was
circulated in the House before it was presented by Mr. Meredith, the
other representative. The Tory majority voted it ‘scandalous,
insolent and seditious,’ and ordered the imprisonment of William
Culpeper of Hollingbourne, Thomas Culpeper, Justinian Champnev, David
Poihill, and William Hamilton, who presented it. With what resentment
this sentence was regarded was testified by the honours bestowed on
these gentlemen, at their release, by the citizens of London, the chief
of whom gave them a public dinner at the Mercers’ Hall. Their fellow
Kentishmen presented a Legion memorial, said to be the work of Defoe, on
their behalf, to the House of Commons on 14 May.
In 1706 the union with Scotland was the subject of a Kentish address,18
and in 1710 19 another Whig address was presented from the county
to the queen.
Proposals and discussions as to the best method of securing and
safeguarding the Whig interest in Kent during this century contain
testimony as to the strong influence exercised by the ministerial party
in the elections through the Admiralty connection with the county.20
In 1797 the mutiny of the Nore broke out at Sheerness on 17 May and was
not quelled till 13 June. The official records of the grievances of
sailors and landsmen in Admiralty employ in Kent for the last hundred
years show that there was only too much excuse for it, but strong
measures were called for by the adoption of such a method to obtain
redress, especially at this juncture, and the ringleaders were hanged.
In the following year, when the alarm and excitement thus caused had
hardly died down, public feeling was again strongly roused by the trial
of the Irish rebel, Arthur O’Connor. A plan for a general insurrection
in Ireland, to be supported by French troops, had been disclosed to the
Government. O’Connor was arrested at Margate and brought to trial on a
charge of high treason at Maidstone in May. Many notable leaders of the
English opposition, including Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, Moira, and the
Duke of Norfolk, appeared as witnesses in his favour, and he was
acquitted. He was, however, at once re-arrested and tried on a fresh
charge, when it was established that he had negotiated with Hoche on the
French frontier. Feeling ran high, and the
16 Ibid. v, App. p.
568.
17 B.M. Pamphlets, 1416, k. 18; 816, m. 3 (137). It was a perfectly
temperate petition, deprecating ‘a Misunderstanding among Ourselves or
the Least Distrust of His Majesty,’ and humbly imploring that ‘Your
Loyal Addresses may be turned into Bills of Supply, and that His most
sacred Majesty (whose propitious and Unblemish’d Reign over us we pray
God long to continue) may be enabled powerfully to assist his Allies
before it be too late.’ It was unanimously signed by the grand jury,
21 in number, the chairman, 23 justices, and as many freeholders as
could crowd in to set down their names while the petition was in court.
18 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. ii, 194.
19 Annals of Queen Anne, ix, 177—9. Said to have been the work
of the Duke of Dorset, Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden, who
had much influence in Kent. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xi, App. iv, 551.
(Harley Papers, vol. ii.)
20 Cf. ibid. xi, App. v, 332; ibid. xv, App. vi, 22; Oldfield, Representative
History of Great Britain, iv,
64, 72, 77; v, 388, etc. Oldfleld, however, comments on the independent
position enjoyed by Canterbury. Ibid. iv, 63. |