IX. William Beckford (1705-1770)

In Jamaica, once the most prosperous of the West Indian Islands, one of the first and most influential colonists was Colonel Peter Beckford, a soldier, who made much wealth as a planter, and spent it as a local statesman and grandee. By Charles II. he was made President of the Island Council, and under William III. he was Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief. He died, very old and very rich, in 1710. Further wealth was accumulated by his son, also named Peter, who died in 1735. Besides other property, he owned twenty-four large estates, and twelve hundred slaves.

The famous Alderman Beckford of London was one of thirteen children of this second Peter Beckford of Jamaica. He was born in 1708. At the age of twelve or thirteen he was sent to England, and the next few years were spent by him at Westminster School. There he took rank with the cleverest boys, two of his friends and rivals being Lord Mansfield and Lord Kinnoul. Then he settled down as a London merchant, at first finding his chief employment in selling the sugar, rum, and other products of his father's Jamaica estates, and soon extending that business so as to become the most influential West Indian and American merchant of his day.

That was a branch of commerce that had grown mightily since its beginning, in the days of Sir Thomas Smythe. The troubles to which Englishmen—and especially Puritan Englishmen—were subjected under Charles I. had helped it greatly.

"The land is weary of her inhabitants." said the old Puritans, in justification of their retirement from England; "so that man, which is the most precious of all creatures, is here more vile and base than the earth we tread upon; so as children, neighbours, and friends, especially the poor, are accounted the greatest burdens; which, if things were right, would be the highest earthly blessings. Hence it comes to pass that all arts and trades are carried on in that deceitful manner and unrighteous course, as it is almost impossible for a good, upright man to maintain his charge in any of them."

That was the language of the first colonists of New England. Therefore they carried their arts and trades to America; and there, though failing to practise them with entire freedom from the "deceitful manner and unrighteous course" of their opponents in religion and politics, succeeded in establishing a very influential centre of civilisation and commerce. With ample stores of timber, copper, and iron, and with facilities for gathering in great quantities of fish, corn, and wool, they began a profitable trade with the mother-country soon after the restoration of Charles II., and have continued famous traders ever since. In Charles II.'s reign, too, Pennsylvania and New York were founded, mainly by people whose religious grievances led them to follow the example of the Puritans of New England. The Carolinas, and the other members of what are now the United States, were founded afterwards in quick succession; some of them by successors of the Cavaliers, who, having driven the Puritans and Quakers across the Atlantic, were encouraged, by their great success in their new homes, to go and carry on a more friendly rivalry with them in the same neighbourhood.

All these states, however widely they differed from one another in religion, in politics, and in ways of life, vied with one another in commercial activity, and in the prosperity that was easily secured by it. Almost more important at first were the English settlements which grew up during the same period in the West Indian islands,—Barbadoes, the great sugar colony, and Jamaica, the great producer of rum, being the chief of them.

In 1731, just at the time when William Beckford came to London to be schooled as an English merchant and statesman, the American and West Indian colonies were in a state of prosperity which dazzled the eyes of all onlookers, Massachusetts alone dispatched in a single year more than three hundred shiploads of rum, molasses, salt, and fish to Europe. Virginia and Maryland sent home vast quantities of tobacco, grain, skins, and timber. Timber, too, was supplied in countless ships by New England; and grain, with a score of other useful articles, by Pennsylvania and New York. One year's stock of sugar from Barbadoes, amounting to 10,000 tons, gave employment to a thousand English seamen; and besides an equal quantity of sugar, Jamaica furnished large cargoes of rum, logwood, and spices. Both Jamaica and Barbadoes were famous "for having given to many men of low degree exceeding vast fortunes, equal to noblemen, by carrying goods and passengers thither, and bringing thence other commodities, whereby seamen are bred, and custom increased, and commodities vended, and many thousands employed therein."

It was not only seamen and seafarers who profited by this wonderful growth of commerce. The mother-country was enriched quite as much as her children in the colonies by the interchange of new and old commodities. In every branch of English trade employment was found for a great many more labourers of all grades.

"As the trading, middling sort of people in England are rich," said Daniel Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe." in 1728, "so the labouring, manufacturing people under them are infinitely richer than the same class of people in any other nation in the world. As they are richer, so they live better, fare better, wear better, and spend more money than they do in any other countries. They eat well, and they drink well. For their eating of flesh meat, 'tis a fault even to profusion; as to their drink, *tis generally stout, strong beer; not to take notice of the quantity, which is sometimes a little too much. For the rest, we see their houses and lodgings tolerably furnished; at least, stuffed well with useful and necessary household goods. Even those we call poor people, journeymen, working and painstaking people, do this: they lie warm, live in plenty, work hard, and know no want. 'Tis by these, that the wheels of trade are set on foot. 'Tis by the largeness of their gettings hat they are supported. Are we a rich, a populous, a powerful nation, and in some respects the greatest in all those particulars in the world, and do we not boast of being so? 'Tis evident it was all derived from trade. Our merchants are princes, greater and richer and more powerful than some sovereign princes; and, in a word, as is said of Tyre, we have 'made the kings of the earth rich with our merchandise;' that is, with our trade."

"If usefulness gives an addition to the character, either of men or of things, as without doubt it does, trading men will have the preference in almost all the disputes you can bring. There is not a nation in the known world but have tasted the benefit, and owe their prosperity to the useful improvement, of commerce. Even the self-vain gentry, that would decry trade as a universal mechanism, are they not everywhere depending upon it for their most necessary supplies. If they do not all sell, they are all forced to buy, and so are a kind of traders themselves; at least they recognise the usefulness of commerce, as what they are not able to live comfortably without Trade encourages manufacture, prompts invention, employs people, increases labour, and pays wages. As the people are employed they are paid, and by that pay are fed, clothed, kept in heart, and kept together. As the consumption of provisions increase, more lands are cultivated. waste grounds are enclosed, woods are grubbed, forests and common lands are tilled and improved. By this, more farmers are brought together, more farm-houses and cottages are built, and more trades are called upon to supply the necessary demands of husbandry. In a word, as land is employed, the people increase of course, and thus trade sets all the wheels of improvement in motion; for, from the original of business to this day, it appears that the prosperity of a nation rises and falls just as trade is supported or decayed."

That panegyric of trade, spoken a hundred and forty years ago, is no less true of the commerce of the present; and now, as then, a famous part of the benefits of English commerce must be traced to the wise colonisation of America and the West Indies, and the increased employments that it made necessary. The earlier Beckfords did much to help it on as far as Jamaica was concerned; and William Beckford came to London in time to enjoy some of its first fruits.

He was enabled to do this most successfully through the death of his elder brother Peter in 1737, whereby the great wealth accumulated by his father and grandfather, amounting to £10,000 a year, passed into his hands. Till he was about forty, he seems to have applied himself closely to business. Then, having made sure his standing in the world of commerce, he followed the example of Sir John Barnard and other London worthies, in accepting civic honours, and entering upon a Parliamentary career. In 1747 he was elected Member of Parliament for both London and Petersfield. He chose to sit for the metropolis; but, in recognition of the honour shown to him by Petersfield, he gave £400 towards re-paving its streets.

He sat for London during three and twenty years, and throughout that time he was a zealous champion of free-trade, as far as free-trade was then understood, and of commercial interests. That was especially the case with the first speech delivered by him in the House of Commons, in February 1748, on the occasion of a scheme for raising money to pay the expenses of the European war in which England was then engaged, by levying fresh txes upon imported goods. Beckford ably exposed the mischievous effect of the scheme in crippling trade and, consequently, the comfort of the people at home; and in yet more seriously injuring the American and West Indian colonies; and with characteristic impetuosity proposed that the funds should be raised by forcing all the officers and pensioners of the Crown, including judges and clergymen, to give up half of all their stipends.

Another memorable speech of his was in 1751, in opposition to the standing army which was at that time being formed in England, to replace the old plan of military service, which our modern militia and volunteer corps are partly reviving. With like boldness, and, in spite of occasional extravagance, with much sound sense, Beckford spoke in other years on all sorts of subjects connected with trade and the welfare of the nation. Sympathising with the most advanced Whigs of his time, he was a staunch friend and adviser of the elder William Pitt before he became a Tory, and the private friendship lasted after the change of politics. This epigram, circulated during the election time of 1761, illustrates the estimation in which he was held by most of his contemporaries.

"Augusta, see I Behold Pitt*s generous friend. Whom all the patriot virtues recommend; Hear every tongue proclaim him good and great. Rendering the hero and the man complete."

"The different characters he affected to possess, to reconcile with each other, and sometimes to blend in one motley mass," it was said by a less hearty admirer of Beckford, "would furnish a most curious subject for the biographer. He was an eminent West India planter and merchant, a member of Parliament, a militia officer, a provincial magistrate, an alderman of London, a man of taste and dissipation. Mr Beckford wanted the external graces of manners and expression; adorned with these accomplishments, he would have made a first-rate figure. He possessed a sound understanding, and very extensive knowledge of British politics, especially that important part of it which relates to trade and commerce; nor did he ever disgrace himself by a variableness or inconsistency of conduct. His manners were not pleasant; but this circumstance did not arise so much from a crabbed disposition, as from an ardent, impetuous turn of mind, whose favour he always indulged. This impetuous animation, accompanied with an inharmonious voice and vehemence of action, prevented his public speaking, as well as his private conversation, from receiving that attention and affording that pleasure which, from his knowledge and abilities, they might be supposed to have deserved and produced. In the House of Commons he oftentimes called forth the laughter, and frequently promoted the languor, of his audience, from no other cause than the neglect of digesting and arranging the matter he delivered."

Beckford was more popular in the City of London than in Westminster. His unpruned eloquence was more to the taste of the mercantile classes, which, whether high or low, were then rough alike, than to the House of Commons or the gentle-folk of the West End. His genuine honesty and stout love of English liberty, too, were of a sort to be better liked by citizens than by courtiers under the House of Hanover. They chose him for their representative, without coercion, and because of his honesty.

"It has been told me," he said at one of his election speeches, "that I have given offence to many of you, by not canvassing for your votes. I am sorry for it, because I respect you too much, and love the constitution of my country too well, to infringe on the freedom of election, of which, in these corrupt times, this city still continues to give a most glorious example. If you recollect, gentlemen, I did not canvass you at the last general election. I have not canvassed you for the approaching one, and I tell you honestly I never will canvass you. You shall elect me without a canvass, or not at all."

And on those honourable terms he was elected four times running.

He was made Alderman of Billingsgate ward in 1752. In 1758 he was Sheriff of London, and in 1762 Lord Mayor. His civic functions were well performed, and he is famous for the especial splendour with which he performed one important part of them. As Sheriff, he gave four great banquets, surpassed in richness only by those which he gave when he was Mayor. Though very simple in his tastes and habits, he seems to have considered sumptuous public entertainments to be matters of vital importance. On the occasion of George III's coronation, after taking part in the show, he went, with the other city magnates, to dine at Westminster Hall, and great was his indignation at the sorry fare provided for them. "We have invited the King," he exclaimed, "to a banquet which will cost us £10,000, and yet, when we come to Court, we are given nothing to eat."

The banquet to which Beckford referred, in the sumptuous preparation of which he seems to have taken a leading part, was on the occasion of the young King's going into the city to see the Lord Mayor's Show. He watched it from the house of David Barclay the Quaker, founder of Barclay's Bank and Barclay's Brewery, and Beckford's chief rival in the successful carrying on of the American trade. It had long been the practice for each new sovereign to witness the Lord Mayor's Show that first occurred after his accession, before going to dine at the Guildhall; and it was the custom for this to be done at a fine old house in Cheapside, opposite to Bow Church, and almost the fittest in the city. We have a curious account of this episode in a letter written by John Freame, Barclay's brother-in-law and partner. He says that:

"In the first place, brother Barclay spared no cost in repairing and decorating his house. When that was perfected, Lord Bruce came several times to give directions about the apartments and furniture, (which was very grand,) and also in what manner the family were to receive their royal guests. But previous to this, brother Barclay insisted that all his children that came there should be dressed like plain Friends. This injunction was an exercising time indeed to several of them. The sons were dressed in plain cloth, the daughters in plain silks, with dressed black hoods, and, my sister says, on the whole, made a genteel appearance, and acted their part in the masquerade very well. So that (as to the outward) the testimony of the Apology appeared to be maintained. And now, all things being in order, brother and sister Barclay, with David and Jack, were appointed to receive the royal family below stairs, and to wait on them to the apartment prepared for them above. Soon after which, the King asked for Mr Barclay and his family, who were introduced to him by the lords-in-waiting, and kindly received; and brother, with all his sons, permitted to have the honour to kiss his hand without kneeling, an instance of such condescension as never was known before. The King after this saluted my sister and the girls, and the same favour was conferred on them by the Queen and others of the royal family. The Queen, with others of the family, and several of the nobility, refreshed themselves with the repast provided for them in the back parlour and kitchen, which was elegantly set off for the occasion, and it being, I suppose, a great novelty to them, were highly delighted with the entertainment. On the King's going away, he thanked brother Barclay for his entertainment, and politely excused, as he was pleased to say, the trouble they had given. This great condescension, I am told, so affected the old gentleman, that he not only made a suitable return to the compliment, but, like the good patriarchs of old, prayed that God would please to bless him and all his family, which was received by him with great goodness."

After that friendly interview with David Barclay, which added much to the good merchant's influence and prosperity, by bringing him into immediate connection with the highest persons in the realm, the King and Queen went to partake of the great feast which cost £10,000.

Next year William Beckford was made Lord Mayor, and famous opportunity was afforded for showing his love of splendid entertainments Besides the ordinary feasts, he entertained, at his own expense, the members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, at a dinner which cost another sum of £10,000. Six dukes, two marquises, twenty-three earls, four viscounts, and fourteen barons, then joined with a host of commoners in partaking of six hundred costly dishes.

That love of display was part of Beckford's character, but only its weaker part, and perhaps it was only indulged in by him as a means of gaining influence with the merchants, statesmen, and courtiers of his day. And that influence he put to good use. He was the direct successor of another great and good, perhaps a better, man, Sir John Barnard.

Barnard was born in 1685, three and twenty years before Beckford. A Quaker by birth, though he afterwards became a member of the Church of England, he exhibited a Quaker's simplicity of manners, and a Quaker's honest perseverance in money-making, to the end of his long life. In his youth, says the friend who wrote his biography:

"He sought out companions amongst men distinguished by their knowledge, learning, and religion," of whom there were not too many in the dissolute age of Georgian rule. Men who did not care to imitate him, however, respected his worth and wisdom. In 1721 he was sent to Parliament as member for the City of London, and he was re-elected to the post six times in succession.

"From his first taking his seat in the House of Commons," says his friend, "he entered with acumen into the merits of each point under debate, defended with intrepidity our constitutional rights, withstood every attempt to burden his country with needless subsidies, argued with remarkable strength and perspicuity, and crowned all with close attention to the business of Parliament, never being absent by choice, from the time the members met till they were adjourned. It is hard to say whether out of the House he was more popular, or within it more respectable, during the space of nearly forty years."

Barnard took a more or less prominent part in nearly every measure of importance that was brought before Parliament during the long reign of George II. He sided always with the advocates of peace and retrenchment, showing himself a zealous reformer on all matters affecting the national honour and the development of trade, but being somewhat a Conservative whenever the welfare of the country did not seem to him to call for a change. But in all commercial matters he held very advanced views. At a time when merchants and politicians believed that private and public interests would be best served by all sorts of restrictions upon the importation of foreign goods, and arbitrary schemes for forcing English wares at high prices upon foreigners, he appeared as the champion of free-trade.

"We ought never," he said, "to make laws for encouraging or enabling our subjects to sell the produce or manufacture of their country at a high price, but we ought to contrive all ways and means for enabling them to sell cheaply. It is certain that at all foreign markets those who sell cheapest will carry off the sale, and turn all others out of trade."

Sir John Barnard, however, did not approve of all trades. In 1734 he introduced a bill increasing the tax upon tea, then something of a novelty in England. "I wish the duty were higher than it is," he oddly said, "because I look upon it as an article of luxury."

In 1747, a statue of Sir John Barnard was set up in the Royal Exchange, there to mark him as Gresham's great successor in benefaction to the city. He was henceforth known as "The Father of the City." But at that time, or soon after, he went to end his days quietly at his house in Clapham. There, we are told, he spent an hour each day in prayer and study of the Scriptures, and every Sunday he went twice to church, "where he behaved with exemplary seriousness through every part of divine service, hearing the preacher, though his inferior in knowledge of divinity, no less than in strength of intellect, with evident signatures of meekness in his aspect."

"All his long train of honours," it is added, "seemed as much unknown to himself as if they had never thrown their lustre round his name. No mention was heard from his own mouth of the transactions in which he bore a principal part and acquired great glory. If questions regarding them were asked for information's sake, his answers were always brief, and the subject never by himself pursued."

He died in 1764, in the eightieth year of his age.

William Beckford was then at the height of his renown, praised by friends, abused by enemies, and made a trade of by many who cared only to advance their own selfish interests.

"I was astonished," said an old writer, in 1769, of a person of this sort, "at the effrontery as well as impudence with which he dared to avow a want of all principle and honour. He showed me two contrasted characters of Alderman Beckford, the idol of the mob, which he was to insert in antagonist newspapers: one a panegyric and the other a libel, for each of which he expected to receive the reward of a guinea."

The prevalence of contradictory and unprincipled writing of that sort makes it very difficult to understand the real character of Beckford. Sometimes he is painted as an ideal patriot; sometimes as a vulgar democrat. That he was, however, "the idol of the mob," liking their idolatry, and doing something to deserve it, is clear. He was the friend of Wilkes and the most extreme Radicals of his day, and the Tory inclinations of George III. and his favourite ministers were denounced by him, in no measured terms, in the House of Commons and in the city.

His denunciations were loudest, and passed far beyond the limits of courtly decency, in the spring of 1770. On two occasions, as Lord Mayor for the year, he took the lead in preparing angry petitions from the citizens of London, complaining of the King's conduct and of its support by Parliament. On the 23d of May, attended by the Common Council and a crowd of followers, he went to St James's Palace to offer a third and still bolder remonstrance to George III. After listening to it, the King answered that the conduct of the citizens was displeasing to him, that he had their best interests at heart, and that he expected them to rely upon his honesty and his reverence for the English constitution. Thereupon, says the historian,

"To the dismay of the courtiers, and contrary to all precedent and etiquette. Beckford had not only the bad taste to endeavour to draw his sovereign into a personal controversy, but had also the impudence to address to him the language of reproof." The harangue which he is reported to have uttered on the occasion was certainly very bold and threatening.

"Permit me, sire, to observe," he said, in concluding it, "that whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavour, by false insinuations and suggestions, to alienate your Majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the City of London in particular, and to withdraw your confidence in regard for your people, is an enemy to your Majesty's person and family, a violator of the public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution, as it was established at the glorious and necessary Revolution."

That violent behaviour added much to Beckford's popularity with the extreme members of his party, but gave great and not unreasonable offence to George III. When, on the 30th of May, he applied for another audience of the King, he was refused admittance.

Beckford was now sixty-two years old, and the political turmoil in which he was engaged proved too much for him. Early in June, being ill, he went down to the splendid seat which he had bought for himself at Fonthill, in Hampshire. Thence, after a week or two, being suddenly required in London for some new political action, he travelled up to London, a coach ride of a hundred miles, in one day. A violent attack of rheumatic fever was the result, causing his death at his town house in Soho Square, on the 21st of June 1770.

The conflicting opinions held about him in life continued after his death. By many he was described as a man altogether vile and vulgar. Others could not find words, in prose or verse, strong enough for his praises. One vigorous but fulsome elegy, from which the following verses are extracted, was penned by the unfortunate poet, Thomas Chatterton:—

"Weep on, ye Britons, give your general tear! But hence ye venal—hence each titled slave! An honest pang should wait on Beckford's bier, And patriot anguish mark the patriot's grave. "Thou breathing sculpture, celebrate his fame And give his laurel everlasting bloom; Record his worth while gratitude has name. And teach succeeding ages from his tomb! "The sword of justice cautiously he sway*d; His hand for ever held the balance right; Each venial fault with pity he surve/d; But murder found no mercy in his sight "He knew, when flatterers besiege a throne, Truth seldom reaches to a monarch's ear; Knew if, oppressM, a loyal people groan, 'Tis not the courtiers' interest he should hear, "Hence, honest to his prince, his manly tongue The public wrong and loyalty convey'd, While titled tremblers, every nerve unstrung, Look'd all around, confounded and dismay'd,* "Looked all around, astonish'd to behold (Train'd up to flattery from their early youth) An artless, fearless citizen unfold To royal ears a mortifying truth. "Titles to him no pleasure could impart, No bribes his rigid virtue could control; The star could never gain upon his heart. Nor turn the tide of honour in his soul. "He, as a planet, with unceasing ray. Is seen in one unvaried course to move. Through life pursued but one illustrious way. And all his orbit was his country's love. "But he is gone I and now, alas I no more His generous hand neglected worth redeems; No more around his mansion shall the poor Bask in his warm, his charitable beams. "No more his grateful countrymen shall hear His manly voice in martyr'd freedom's cause; No more the courtly sycophant shall fear His poignant lash for violated laws. "Yet say, stem virtue, who \'d not wish to die, Thus greatly struggling, a whole land to save? Who would not wish, with ardour wish, to lie With Beckford's honour in a Beckford's grave!"

Though not quite a hero of the most heroic sort, William Beckford was a man for the City of London to be proud of. His statue, with his famous speech to George III. written under it, was put up in the Guildhall, and by most of his fellow-citizens he was honoured as a great and worthy patriot.

He was certainly a shrewd and prosperous merchant. His estate at Fonthill, and other property, yielding £110,000 a year, besides £1,000,000 in ready money, descended to his only son, the Earl of Chatham's godchild, William Beckford, who is chiefly famous as the author of "Vathek."