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George Burrington, Sometime Governor of
North Carolina: The "Janus" of Fielding's Champion
by
Frederick G. Ribble
Fielding's journal the Champion, as W. B. Coley has remarked, is "surrounded by doubtful circumstance."[1] Scholarship has been plagued especially by problems of attribution, problems exacerbated by the incomplete state of the Champion file. The contributions of Fielding and his co-editor and successor James Ralph are far from being completely determined, but much of the difficulty lies in the fact that other contributors have remained so elusive.
The Champion was published three times a week from 15 November 1739 to c. 31 March 1743.[2] In June 1741, the leaders and some other material from the issues through 19 June 1740 were reprinted in a collected edition.[3] The "Advertisement" to this edition, by James Ralph, lists four authors as especially worthy of mention:
Since the eighteenth century, the first two sets of signatures have been known to designate the work of Fielding and Ralph. Recently, "Morpheus," the author of "The Trials of the Coxcombs," has been identified as William Robinson of the Inner Temple (born 1711 or 1712). The identity of Janus the Elder, however, has long been buried in obscurity.[4]
Only one letter from Janus the Elder, in fact, occurs in the Champion issues printed in the collected edition, the issues through 19 June 1740. Ralph's mistaken reference to "Letters" is natural, however, considering the importance of this writer to the Champion by June 1741, when the collected edition actually appeared. From 3 June 1740 to 18 February 1741/42, Janus (as he originally called himself) contributed, I shall argue, at least eighteen letters to the journal, including several under his real name. By June 1741, he had begotten a spiritual heir, "Janus the Younger," who himself contributed at least ten shorter pieces, including one in the last extant issue, that of 10 March 1742/43. It is likely, bearing in mind the large gaps in the Champion file, that the total contributed by each writer was substantially greater.[5]
No other contributor to the Champion, perhaps no other Opposition writer, matches Janus in animosity and rancor. He "bites like a viper," as Dr. Johnson said of a contemporary Shakespearean scholar, "and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him."[6]
Within a few weeks of his association with the journal, a piece of his was distinguished, in a full-length reply by the chief ministerial paper, the Daily Gazetteer, for its "Personal Scurrility," "Pique," and "Malice."[7] The real
The Daily Gazetteer was quick to respond, implying that such remarks were, in reality, treasonable: "He therefore that endeavours to render any Part of the General Plan of Power contemptible, endeavours in some degree to render the Whole so, and in fact to dissolve the People from their Obedience." Hinting at sanctions for such "Licentious Abuse of Liberty," such "Insolence" and "Baseness," the anonymous Gazetteer author casts scorn on the fact that the remarks were published pseudonymously and challenges Janus the Elder to reveal his identity.[9]
The proprietors of the Champion made a living abusing Walpole, but they may not have wished to take on the Board of Trade in such a direct way. Michael Harris has pointed out that the partners in the Grub-Street Journal took pains, at least on occasion, "that outside contributors of potentially inflammatory material" secured them by a cash indemnity; probably this policy was followed by other journals as well.[10]
Whether or not under pressure from the proprietors, Janus the Elder secured the partners in his own manner by taking the heat himself. In a letter to the Champion of 5 December 1741, he acknowledges his contribution of 14 November and accepts the Gazetteer's challenge by signing his real name, an action which was extraordinary for an Opposition writer of the period. We learn that he is George Burrington, former governor of North Carolina. He is incensed not so much by the Gazetteer's charges of treason (which he firmly rebuts) as by its insinuations on that "Character of a Gentleman . . . which, I trust, I shall be able always to make good to my dying Day."
These insinuations, however, are just the latest of his persecutions at the hands of the administration. He has been provoked "by a Series of Injuries scarce to be paralleled in the most barbarous Government." Or, as he expresses himself in a later paper, speaking specifically of Horatio Walpole: "I hold myself authoriz'd to say, from his Barbarity in my own Case, that he has been guilty of such Acts of Fraud and Injustice, as are scarce to be parallel'd in the English History."[11]
George Burrington is an important and interesting figure both as a colonial administrator and as a political writer. And his story certainly contains elements of passion, violence, and even barbarity, whatever the merits
Burrington was, in fact, twice governor of North Carolina, first for the Lords Proprietors and later for the Crown. His political prominence has assured him considerable biographical attention.[13] The standard authorities, though, give almost no information about his early life. He is said to have been connected in some way with the family of Gilbert Burrington (fl. 1649-72), of Jewes Hollicomb or Iwes Holycomb, a manor near Crediton, Devon. Speculation about his date of birth is based on one cryptic remark. In a letter of 15 November 1732 to the Duke of Newcastle, Burrington writes: "I have served the crown in every reign since the Abdication of King James" (CR 3:375), stating, in other words, that he had begun his service at some time before the death of William III in March 1702. He could, therefore, not have been born much after 1687; considering his physical vigor in the 1730's, the inference seems clear that he was not born much before 1684.
A search of Devon parochial records yields more definite information. No George Burrington appears in the International Genealogical Index for the county of Devon or in the parish registers of Crediton and its immediate vicinity, during the period in question. The register of Sampford Courtenay,
John Burrington was the son and heir of the patriarch Gilbert Burrington mentioned above, from whom he inherited several estates, including land at Sampford Courtenay. As the head of a wealthy family, John was a man of considerable prominence in this part of Devon; from 1694 to 1698, he served in Parliament for Okehampton.[15] George eventually "disobliged" his father, in a foreshadowing of the many violent quarrels he was to have throughout his life. Nevertheless, his position as the son of a local grandee with influence in London explains much about his subsequent political career.[16]
George Burrington's earliest public service, undertaken when he was well under twenty, was probably in the army. Having been, presumably, promoted through the ranks, he was commissioned captain in the Queen's Regiment of Horse (1st Dragoon Guards) on 20 March 1713/14.[17] His subsequent army career is obscure, but within nine years, in February 1722/23, he was appointed governor of North Carolina for the Lords Proprietors (CR 2:480-81). Price has suggested that both Burrington's army commission and
It is in the detailed records of his governorship for the proprietors that the full piquancy of Burrington's character first emerges. Burrington was inaugurated on 15 January 1723/24. He approached his duties with vigor, especially in his efforts to settle the Lower Cape Fear region, which he was instrumental in turning from a largely inaccessible and unproductive wilderness into an area that was to become, within a few decades, the most fruitful in the colony (DNCB).
Very early on, however, complaints were raised about his unusual conduct. On 18 April 1724, according to an affidavit by one Robert Forster: "deponent being in the room where the Council satt, Governor Burrington called deponent out and asked him to go in and take Coll West by the nose and he would bring him off but deponent told him he would not take a member of the Council by the Nose in Council for the world" (CR 3:122-23).[19] A few weeks later, Burrington became involved in a violent altercation with William Badham, Clerk of the Royal Court, and John Lovick, Secretary to the Council. In an affidavit, Badham deposes that the governor
This threat ends with a reference to the man Burrington regarded as his chief enemy in the colony, Christopher Gale, Chief Justice of North Carolina and a Collector of Customs. Gale seems to have crossed Burrington in a dispute about customs business early in the year (CR 2:561) and had already, if Burrington may be believed, been temporarily run out of town. Sometime after the end of August 1724, he fled to England and in January 1724/25 presented a sworn deposition complaining of Burrington's conduct:
Gale was a man of considerable probity and reputation; abetted by a "letter of complaint" from the majority of the colonial Council, he succeeded in having Burrington removed from office (CR 2:559). On 17 July 1725, Sir Richard Everard was sworn in as Burrington's successor.
Bad blood soon developed between Burrington and Everard. On 15 November 1725, according to a criminal indictment later filed against Burrington: "the sayd George Burrington did openly advisedly and with a malitious & Seditious intent . . . speak . . . these false scandalous opprobious and malitious words that Sr Richard . . . is no more fitt to be Governor . . . than a Hogg in the Woods and that he . . . is a Noodle and an ape."
According to the same indictment, Burrington, on 2 December 1725,
In a separate indictment, Burrington is charged with further enormities on the same night:
Two more indictments were filed against Burrington for various assaults and home invasions committed on 4 January and 4 March 1725/26 (CR 2:649-50 and 651). Burrington was still in North Carolina on 5 April 1726 but had left the colony, apparently, by July 1726 when he failed to appear to answer these and the other two indictments (CR 2:608, 660). His case was continued several more times and process of outlawry begun against him for non-appearance. Eventually, however, on 3 November 1728, the prosecution against Burrington was dropped.[21]
Burrington had many supporters in North Carolina who dismissed the charges against him as "false & malicious Calumnies . . . raised . . . by Persons of the most Vile Characters as well as Desperate fortunes" (CR 2:577). He also had powerful friends in England willing to help him salvage his career. Peter King (Lord Chancellor), Arthur Onslow (Speaker of the House of Commons from 1728), Sir William Yonge, "and many other Persons of Honour and Distinction," recommended him to Walpole who had him introduced to the Duke of Newcastle, the Secretary of State for the Southern Department (Ch 341 [16 Jan. 1741/42] 1/1). In February 1730/31, backed by Walpole and Newcastle, Burrington returned in triumph to North Carolina as the colony's first royal governor.
Newcastle, indeed, had a special interest in Burrington's success. "After six years in office," as James A. Henretta points out, "the southern secretary had finally nominated his first colonial governor." This was Newcastle's greatest victory to date in the control of political patronage in the colony.[22]
Dissatisfaction with Governor Everard had been great, and Burrington was at first welcomed cordially by the Assembly and populace. As we might expect, though, this spirit of cooperation and amity did not last long.
Ill feeling developed quickly between Burrington and Edmund Porter, whom Burrington charged with several irregularities and succeeded in forcing off the Council. In a letter to the Board of Trade, Porter describes one particularly heated confrontation: "the Governor vaunted and sported with my misfortunes . . . and threw a paper which I told him relating to my defence into the fire. . . . the lerned have not described Malice on [sic] the furies halfe so terrible to my apprehension as this Gentleman appeared, th he was at the Same time my Judge!" (letter of 19 Feb. 1731/32; CR 3:326).
Burrington was accused of many further acts of intemperance and brutality, including a physical assault on the Attorney General, John Montgomery,
Numerous appeals for Burrington's removal were submitted to the Board of Trade, and in March 1733 Gabriel Johnston was appointed the next royal governor. Johnston did not reach the colony, however, until late October 1734. When news of his arrival was published in the capital in November, Burrington's administration ended.
Burrington might have resigned his governorship willingly enough; in September 1734, in fact, yielding to the inevitable, he professed himself "very desirous to be rid of my charge" (CR 3:626; cf. 3:625). He reacted with great bitterness, however, to this peremptory dismissal, which, he contended in a petition to the king (April 1736), had been brought about by slanderous accusations from troublemakers in the colonial government, particularly Chief Justice William Smith, Secretary Nathaniel Rice, and Attorney General John Montgomery,
But these men were not content to destroy his political career. Shortly before his successor arrived, Burrington continues,
As was the case after his dismissal as governor for the proprietors, Burrington had his partisans in the colony. The inhabitants of Bertie and Edgecombe precincts, in an address to Gabriel Johnston, present Burrington as a figure of almost mythic fortitude and benevolence:
The most obvious qualities in Burrington's character as revealed in these documents, however differently he may have appeared to friends and enemies, were energy, impulsiveness, and violence. His vigor is apparent not only in his considerable exertions in opening up the back country but also in the care and thoroughness of the reports about population, geography, and commerce which he submitted to the Board of Trade. He states, probably with only a little exaggeration, that at one period he "generally was confined to my pen twenty hours in every day and night" (CR 3:335). The darker side of his nature came out, however, in riots of abusive and brutal behavior, which could not have been entirely a fabrication of his enemies (questionable as the character of some of these enemies may have been). As Saunders writes, "if a tithe of what was sworn to as to his violence, both in speech and action, be true, the wonder is that he got away from the colony alive, and not that a conspiracy was formed to kill him, as he alleged" (CR 2:ix).
By 13 June 1735, Burrington was back in England seeking redress for his numerous grievances, among which was a refusal by the government to pay his salary and official expenses. In his petition to the king cited above, he complains feelingly of his resulting financial hardships:
While presenting his complaints to various authorities, Burrington tried to make himself useful to the Board of Trade as a consultant on North Carolina affairs.[25] In particular, he pushed energetically for a scheme to settle "six thousand Protestant Switz Families" on 3,000,000 acres in a remote region of the colony.[26] His efforts in this and other matters, however, involved him in a violent row with Governor Johnston, who became especially incensed at a memorial of Burrington's criticizing his handling of land patents. In a letter to the Board, though, Johnston consoled himself with the knowledge that Burrington was obviously no respecter of rank or dignity: "as I find that Gentleman has upon another occasion made at least equally free with the Lords of Trade themselves I think I have no occasion to complain" (CR 4:266).
After attending tediously at the Board for several months, Burrington had the mortification to learn that the commissioners had honored instead a proposal for settling the colony put forth by Henry McCulloh, "a little Irish Dealer in Linnens," as Burrington characterizes him in Champion 349 (1/2).[27] His petition to the king for redress of the many indignities done him was curtly rejected, furthermore, in May 1736, as "very irregular," probably because of the ill-considered charge that the assassination attempt had been masterminded from England (CR 4:168-69; 3:x-xi).
Swallowing his other complaints, Burrington applied to Walpole for his back pay and expenses. He was referred to Horatio Walpole "in his Capacity of Viceroy General of the P[lantatio]ns," "who, on my first Approach to his Greatness, treated me with an Insolence beyond Example, in order, I presume, to rid himself of any farther Trouble." Applying once again to Robert Walpole he was "not suffer[ed] . . . to open my Mouth" and contemptuously dismissed.[28]
Burrington was still able to fall back on his army connections. In early 1740, after the outbreak of war with Spain, he offered his services to the expedition forming to attack Cartagena and other Spanish possessions in America. George II, however, left for Hanover without signing his commission, and it was vetoed by the commanders of the expedition, acting, Burrington
Dismissed from his governorship without a hearing, almost murdered (in his opinion), denied his salary and even his out-of-pocket expenses, thwarted in his pet scheme to settle the Swiss Protestants, refused a chance to serve in the American expedition, and withal a man who could accurately describe himself as "Warm . . . by Disposition,"[29] Burrington was ready to wreak himself on the Establishment. By the end of May 1740, little over a week after his commission was doomed by the king's departure for Hanover, he had thrown in his lot with Fielding and Ralph as a contributor to the Champion.
At the point when Burrington joined the Champion, the journal's attack on Walpole was just beginning to become much nastier and more intense. Fielding contributed to this politicization, most notably in his leader of 31 May 1740, with its obscene print of a place-seeker applying himself "to the vilest Part of the vilest Trunk."[30] Essentially, however, his influence worked in the other direction: toward a less partisan, more humanistic paper in the tradition of the Spectator.
In June 1740, Fielding began his career as a barrister. As he prepared to abandon some of his editorial responsibilities to Ralph, he wrote a statement about the direction he felt the paper should take, a statement aimed as much at Ralph as anyone else: "our Readers are to regard [Politicks], as their Physic not their Food; and they may be assured Dr. Lilbourne will dose them as often as it is requisite, it being his Intention sufficiently to work their GUTS" (Ch 91 [12 June] 2/1; with a pun on "Guts," one of the Opposition's nicknames for Walpole).[31]
Satire of Walpole might well be savage but it was not to swamp the literary character of the journal. In the summer of 1740, however, Ralph treated politics more and more as his readers' "Food" and not merely their "Physic." His chief ally in his assault on the Establishment, in working the people's "Guts," was Burrington.
Burrington's first contribution is announced on 31 May 1740 with more than usual fanfare: "In our next will be a Petition from the City of London . . . for which we heartily thank the Author, and do assure him we shall strictly pursue all he requests" (Ch 86 2/1).
This essay, which appeared on 3 June, was unsigned (although it was given the signature "Janus the Elder" when reprinted in the collected edition a year later). It is written in a clipped commercial dialect and is supposed to
With its rather ambitious use of dialect and parody, this essay has a literary quality, a Fieldingesque indirection, absent from many of Burrington's subsequent contributions. There is evidence, in fact, that Fielding admired it. His "Creed of a Hum-clumist," a similar religious litany published a few weeks later in the Champion of 28 June, is quite possibly modeled on Burrington's "Petition." He alludes to the essay explicitly, moreover, in Champion 105 (15 July), where Walpole is described as "the POWER ABOVE" (1/1) whose deeds Janus will disclose to the world, as the Latin epigraph informs us: "----- Tute ipse fatebere, JANE, / Et dices orbi attonito; nil saecula tale / Prima tulere Hominum, nîl majus Postera reddent" ("You will confess, Janus, and speak to an astonished world that the first ages of men have seen no such thing and future ages will see nothing greater").[32]
In his next contribution, published on 26 June 1740 (and thus falling outside the period covered in the collected edition), Burrington undertakes to defend Walpole's skill and "Capacity" (1/3). He argues eloquently that since the minister, as a thorough-going scoundrel, intends the extraordinary mischief he causes, the charges made by malcontents that he is "a Novice, or Blunderer" (1/1) must be baseless. The essay is signed "Janus," the first use of this pseudonym in the Champion.
The two-faced figure of "Janus" (Janus bifrons) has a rich intellectual and iconographic history, being associated with, inter alia, the ideas of prudence, irony, propitious beginnings, guardianship, and proclamations of war and peace. Burrington seems to have drawn on several of these meanings in his use of the pseudonym.
As George Wither explains, in his Collection of Emblemes (1634), the two faces of Janus represent the wise man:
This double-face, that man to signifie,
Who (whatsoere he undertakes to doe)
Lookes, both before him, and behinde him, too.
For, he shall never fruitfully forecast
Affaires to come, who mindes not what is past.[33]
As "Janus," Burrington is a man of prudence, of practical experience, who can speak intelligently about the present and future because of his knowledge
Burrington's pseudonym probably alludes also to the repetitive, "two-faced" irony of his essays. Ralph uses the word "Janus" in the sense of "two-faced" at Champion 59 (29 Mar. 1740) 2/2 ("More Sermons of the Janus-kind, with the Face of Charity in Front, and that of Policy behind") and Champion 75 (6 May 1740) 3/3 ("a Janus- Piece of Politicks"). Since Burrington advocated a vigorous prosecution of the war against Spain, he may intend as well a reference to the Roman ceremony of opening the gates of Janus, the traditional symbol of declaring war (see Ralph's comment at Champion 84 [27 May 1740] 3/2: "Whence we are to conclude, that Janus open'd his Gate, only to shut it again").
Four other "Janus" papers appeared in the summer of 1740: on 3 July, 19 July, 14 August, and 21 August.[35] In them, Burrington turned to a more technical and detailed account of the economic condition of England.
Burrington's experience as governor had given him a training in political economy few journalists could match. His careful investigations of the geography, manufactures, and trade of North Carolina had produced a wealth of practical knowledge, and, in his laborious reports to the Board of Trade, he had learned to marshall complex arguments in a coherent form. In his public capacity, these qualities had, indeed, been vitiated by an almost uncontrollable propensity to vitriolic, abusive language, but as a journalist he was able to draw on his talent for vilification to great advantage.
Much of Burrington's discussion in these papers is taken up with detailed suggestions for tariff reform. But he does go beyond this mercantilist emphasis on regulation to a broader program of economic regeneration. At least two of his proposals are decidedly progressive. He supports a national enclosure act, with the explicit proviso, however, that it should be implemented "on such Terms . . . that the Poor, should be Gainers by the Alteration." And he emphasizes especially the importance of water navigation to the economy (a major concern of his while governor of North Carolina), even endorsing conditionally two early canal schemes.[36]
Not surprisingly, Walpole cuts a sorry figure in Burrington's account, as a man perfectly able to see the wholesomeness of these suggestions, but prevented from implementing them by greed, lack of concern for the people, and subservience to foreign states.
Since its inception in mid-November 1739, the Champion had attracted
The writer of this last outburst probably had Janus's paper of 19 July very much in mind. On 29 July, the Gazetteer was to devote an entire leader to this paper, indignantly deploring its "Personal Scurrility" and "Malice" (DG 1594 1/1-3). Such prominent notice was a great distinction for an occasional contributor to the Opposition press. The obvious exasperation of the minister's defenders must have provided a measure of revenge for the indignities Burrington felt had been heaped upon him and which had called forth his pen.
No "Janus" papers were published in the Champion from 23 August through 15 November 1740.[38] After 15 November, the file of the journal becomes very defective; there are only eight issues known to be extant (in whole or in part) at any location between this date and 1 October 1741. One of these issues, however, Champion 232 (7 May 1741), does include a "Janus" letter. Burrington notes, in this essay, that Pliny the Younger raised his own reputation by his just panegyrics on "the heroic and civil Virtues of Trajan." Just so, Janus will tie his reputation to the character he paints of Walpole, of whom he envisages a different "Monument":
By 25 June 1741, when the collected edition of the Champion appeared, Janus had been bumped up a generation and renamed "Janus the Elder." The presumption, then, is that "Janus the Younger" first contributed to the journal under this pseudonym sometime between 7 May and around 20 June. Although Janus the Younger contributed at least one further letter in 1741 (and probably several more), no paper with this pseudonym is extant before 2 March 1741/42. We shall return to this author later in our narrative.
From 1 October 1741 through 31 August 1742, the file of the Champion is about three-fourths complete. The first part of this period, through mid-February, was the most fruitful in Burrington's career as a contributor to the journal. On 24 October 1741, he began his account of the British colonies in North America, an account continued anonymously in the issue of 3 November 1741 and resumed under his own name in January 1741/42.
Burrington's observations are knowledgeable and carefully detailed:
Seen in the light of later events, his comments sometimes have a particular resonance: "the principal Strength of Boston consists in the Numbers, Wealth, Sense, and Bravery of its Inhabitants: Hence it is . . . that their Liberties, of which they are justly tenacious, are secure from the Designs of false Friends, and their Frontier from the Attempts of open Enemies." It is because of their stubborn defense of liberty, he adds, that these "refractory Provinces" of New England, have "so long laboured under the Displeasure of his Honour" and that "so many Acts of P[arliamen]t have been made to the Detriment of their Trade" (Ch 309 [3 Nov. 1741] 1/1).
In the first few months of its existence, the Champion gave very little attention to America, except when reporting Admiral Vernon's military exploits (Speer, p. 48n). Burrington, however, strongly believed in the importance of the colonies. As he points out in an essay appended to Seasonable Considerations: "Our Plantations are alone sufficient to preserve us a rich, happy and flourishing People, if proper Care was taken to make the most of them" (p. 52). His series on America was a valuable contribution to British journalism and was highly esteemed by the Champion's readers.[39]
Burrington's next contribution, after his American papers of 24 October and 3 November, was his fateful letter of 14 November 1741 on Walpole and the Board of Trade, signed "Janus the Elder." This letter, as noted earlier, resulted in a confrontation with the Daily Gazetteer and Burrington's own revelation of his identity, in the Champion of 5 December.
To someone of Burrington's temper the limitations imposed by anonymity or pseudonymity must never have been completely satisfactory. From this time, he could tell his story directly to the public, backing up invective with detailed personal experience. In the Champion of 5 December, he speaks of his "almost twenty Years Attendance on the B[oard] of T[rade]" and of their nearly unbelievable indolence and malfeasance, as revealed most strikingly in their correspondence with him during his governorship of North Carolina. This correspondence, which he threatens soon to deliver to John Huggonson's shop for publication, will thoroughly expose the incompetence of the Board (Ch 323 1/1-2). In fact, these papers seem never to have been published.[40] Burrington's fullest vent was to come in the next two months in the Champion itself.
In January and February 1741/42, Burrington contributed essays on a variety of subjects. There is a biographical paper on Sir Charles Wills (1666-1741), as well as three more installments of the series on the American colonies (issue of 7 January; and issues of 30 January, 4 February, and 11 February). But the most interesting of these essays, the papers in which Burrington proclaimed most exhaustively his grievances against the Establishment, are his open letter to Walpole in Champion 341 (16 January) and his two-part "Charge against his Late Honour" in Champion 354-55 (16 and 18 February).
Burrington's letter of 16 January is the most important single document for his biography and has been drawn on frequently in the present account. His aim is to authenticate the details of the "ill Usage" he has endured so that "those already acquainted with my Story, may no longer deem it incredible." Burrington traces the beginning of his troubles to his quarrel around 1730 with Martin Bladen, Walpole's "Toad Eater in ordinary." As a result of the machinations of Bladen and others, he was laid under a "ministerial Excommunication" which blasted his future political career and lay behind the series of disappointments and grievances described above.[41]
Although Bladen was the occasion, Walpole is the true cause of Burrington's afflictions: "To conclude, Sir, in Defiance of Justice and Goodness, you have oppress'd and ruin'd me, and, exasperated with so many Wrongs, I ever have and ever shall treat both you and your Brother, according to your transcendent Merits. A poor Consolation . . . but at present, the only one in [my] Power" (2/1).
Burrington's phrase "at present" was more menacing than might at first appear. In mid- January 1741/42, when this letter was published, Walpole was desperately clinging to a slim majority in the House of Commons. It became increasingly obvious that he could no longer manage the House, and in
In his "Charge against his Late Honour, in Behalf of the People," published on 16 and 18 February, after Walpole's fall, Burrington becomes the (self-)appointed champion of the people, clothed with their authority and true majesty.[42] The villainies and incompetencies of Walpole are fully canvassed, not least of which is his dependence on the diplomatic skills of his brother Horatio:
The burden of the "Charge," or rather the verdict of the people through their representative Burrington, is that Walpole's actions "ought to be understood and represented as High-Treason against [the Constitution]: High-Treason not only imagin'd, but proved by many Overt-Acts, in the Face of the whole Nation; therefore justly liable to the Censures, I might say, to the Vengeance of the Legislature" (Ch 354 [16 Feb.] 1/3).[43]
Since his first contribution to the Champion in June 1740, Burrington had sought to articulate his outrage at the wrongs Walpole had done him, working through irony, bold-faced invective, and tendentious analyses of the state of the nation. Now in this final revenge or revenge-fantasy, his voice, having become that of the people, decrees and certifies that "Vengeance" proper for such "inveterate Malice" (as he characterizes it in Ch 341 1/3). The "Charge" is the climax of Burrington's campaign against Walpole and his "Drudges, Tools, and Slaves" (Ch 354 1/2), and it is fitting that it is his last known contribution to the journal.
By an odd coincidence, the first extant Janus the Younger letter, in the
Janus the Younger is a man of well-developed literary and cultural sensibilities, a man of a very different temper from Burrington. Although he sometimes writes on politics, his letters to the Champion cover a much broader range of subjects, from the description of a comet to a celebration of the delights of Handel's music.
The connection this writer is claiming with Janus (or Janus the Elder) is almost certainly not biological but spiritual.[45] Considering the facetious way contributors to the Champion adapted other writers' personae, however, such a kinship need not have run very deep. Lacking the first essay under this pseudonym, we can only speculate about what this connection is, but we may find a clue in Burrington's letter to the Champion of 7 May 1741, quite probably the last Janus essay before Janus the Younger's first contribution. In this letter, it will be remembered, Burrington/Janus associates himself closely with Pliny the Younger. It is possible that Janus the Younger's name is a humorous adaptation of Pliny's.
Janus the Younger seems not to have published any separate works under this pseudonym,[46] but a few clues to his identity can be found in the Champion itself. He is a minor poet and an essayist of some ability. He contributes an "Ode on the Death of Robert [Eighth] Lord Petre," a man whom he calls his friend and who was presumably also his patron; in fact, he seems familiar with the Petre family and mentions particularly Petre's wife and infant son, "little more than half a Year old" (Ch 413 [8 July 1742]). Twice he contributes short lyrics on Vauxhall Gardens (Ch of c. 30 July 1741 and Ch 422 [31 July 1742]). He was a good friend of Jonathan Tyers, the "Master" of Vauxhall Gardens, and defends him heatedly, in this last Champion, against some unspecified slander.
A very good case can be made, I believe, for Thomas "Hesiod" Cooke (1703-56) as the writer of the Janus the Younger papers. Cooke, a close friend
Unfortunately, Janus the Younger's extant verse contributions to the Champion would have had little further chance of being acknowledged as Cooke's. The last collected edition of his poetry was published in April 1742, several months before either of these occasional poems appeared in the journal, several months, in fact, before Petre's death, on 2 July 1742.[50] Cooke could not, then, have included an elegy on Petre in this edition, but he did commemorate the latest important event in the Petre family in an "Ode. . . . To the Honourable Master Robert Petre a Day Old," that infant whose age Janus the Younger mentioned with some precision when introducing his ode.[51]
We may conclude, then, that the identification of Janus the Younger with Cooke is very probable, although not definitely established.
The accompanying table will serve to draw together our discussion of
[Description: Table comparing contributions of Janus/Barrington
and Janus the Younger to the
Champion.
]
Few details are known about Burrington's life in the years after his retirement from the Champion. He did publish two political tracts in this period, both under his own name: Seasonable Considerations on the Expediency of a War with France (April 1743) and An Answer to Dr. William Brakenridge's Letter concerning the Number of Inhabitants, within the London Bills of Mortality (April 1757).[52] The first of these works, a plea for the use of naval power against French trade and overseas possessions, has been called "perhaps the most interesting example" of the new agitation in the contemporary press for a more assertive commercial policy toward France (Robert Harris, Patriot Press, 145). The same expansive, patriotic attitude to England's power and prestige lies behind the rather dry debate about population figures in An Answer. Brakenridge's argument that London, in his words, "is past its Heighth, and is rather upon the Decline" is patently false, Burrington contends, but even were it true it would be a shameful confession of the "consumptive" state of the nation, lessening it in "the Opinion of our Neighbours" (Answer, 17, 2).
Considering the violence of Burrington's character, his death has a certain tragic propriety. In February 1759, while walking in St. James's Park, he was robbed and murdered. The Public Advertiser for 23 February 1759 prints the following news item: "Yesterday was taken out of the Canal in St. James's Park, the Body of an elderly Man well dressed. His Pockets were turn'd inside out, and his Stick in his Hand, which was clinched and bruised." This man is soon identified as Burrington (London Evening- Post, 24/27 February). He must have seemed a grim and formidable presence as he was taken out of the canal, his bruised hand, even in death, still clinched around his cane. Probably the old man had put up a much fiercer struggle than his attacker had expected.[53]
Burrington was buried at St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, on 24 February. He appears in the Burial Fee Book as the "Hon: George Burrington" and his funeral was an expensive one, with fees for minister, sexton, pall, parson, and knell (among other items).[54] This was a funeral which fully preserved that "Character of a Gentleman" which Burrington had assured the world he would "make good to my dying Day."[55]
After Fielding and Ralph, Burrington was the most important contributor to the Champion, yet his connection with the paper has been virtually unknown to modern scholarship. By a fortunate accident (fortunate for our purposes), Burrington was not only a journalist but also a prominent political figure. There is, therefore, a rich account, preserved in state papers and court records, of his actions and character for certain important periods of his life. Burrington's remarkable paranoia and quickness of temper, revealed most characteristically in riot and criminal assault, make this account all the richer and more highly flavored.
A sense of the bitter wrongs, real and imaginary, done him by the Walpoles and the Board of Trade festered in Burrington's mind and forced him to seek a vent in the Champion. In many ways, Burrington helped transform the journal from a literary, humanistic paper to one of a soberer, more narrowly political cast. Still, his contributions are often knowledgeable and astute, especially his papers on British manufacturing and commerce and his series on America. Most importantly for the proprietors, he provided vigorous and unflinching leadership in the campaign against Walpole. By temperament and by training in the frontier politics of North Carolina, Burrington was superbly qualified to mete out that rough justice which, according to the Champion and its partisans, the Prime Minister, that "Grand Criminal," so richly deserved.
"The 'Remarkable Queries' in the Champion," Philological Quarterly 41 (1962): 426-436, p. 426 cited.
According to documents filed in a Chancery suit, the journal was discontinued on 31 March 1743 (Martin C. with Ruthe R. Battestin, Henry Fielding: A Life [London: Routledge, 1989], 653 n. 5; citing Public Record Office: C.11.2155/7). It is not clear whether or not an issue was actually published on 31 March; the last extant issue, at the Bodleian, is for 10 March 1742/43. Around 2 April 1743, appeared the first issue of a sequel: The British Champion; or, The Impartial Advertiser. See J. B. Shipley, "On the Date of the 'Champion,'" Notes and Queries 198 (1953): 441; and Michael Harris, "Literature and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century London: The Making of The Champion," Prose Studies 16 (1993): 94-115, pp. 108-109 cited.
Unless otherwise noted, quotations in this article are from the original issues. The file of extant original issues can be summarized as follows (omitting a few stray issues if found in longer runs elsewhere): 29 Dec. 1739-15 Nov. 1740 (virtually complete run at Bodleian), 18 Nov. 1740-29 Sep. 1741 (eight issues, two of which lack second leaf; scattered at various locations), 1 Oct. 1741-31 Aug. 1742 (good run, about three-fourths complete, at British Library), 2 Sep. 1742-31 Mar. 1743 (two issues, for 11 Nov. 1742 and 10 Mar. 1742/43, at New York Public Library and Bodleian, respectively). Some material from issues no longer extant was reprinted in the collected edition mentioned below and in other newspapers, notably the York Courant; and some material was excerpted in the History of Our Own Times, the Gentleman's Magazine, and the Scots Magazine. The British Library run from 1 Oct. 1741-31 Aug. 1742 is included in Early English Newspapers (New Haven, Conn.: Research Publications, 1978-), microfilm, reel 780.
The Champion (London: J. Huggonson, 1741), 2 vols. Published 25 June 1741 (Daily Gazetteer; cited Battestins, Henry Fielding, 691). The similarity of dates makes it easy to forget that this reprint was published about a year after the latest original issue included.
From as early as December 1739, Fielding was known to be the chief writer of the Champion (i.e., the "C" and "L" of the "Advertisement"); see the Daily Gazetteer of 22 December 1739 (and cf. issues for 24 and 30 July 1740). Ralph clearly reveals himself to be "Lilbourne" in a letter published in Champion 131 (13 Sep. 1740). These identifications, however, seem not to have entered the broader critical discussion of the Champion until Nathan Drake's use of them in his Essays, Biographical, Critical, and Historical, Illustrative of the Rambler, [etc.] (London, 1809-10), 1:85, 90-91.
For the identification of "Morpheus," see Frederick G. Ribble, "William Robinson, Contributor to Fielding's Champion," Studies in Bibliography 43 (1990): 182-89.
Of the extant contributions by Janus/Janus the Elder, seven occur before June 1741, the last date known for Fielding's active participation in the Champion, whether as writer or shareholder. All eighteen fall before 1 March 1741/42, when, in what G. M. Godden calls Fielding's "final severance" from the journal, his proprietary shares were transferred to Ralph. See Henry Fielding: A Memoir (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1910), 115-16 and 138- 39.
All of Janus the Younger's extant contributions occur after 1 March 1741/42, although there is evidence he contributed at least two essays before this date.
Said of Benjamin Heath. "Preface" to Shakespeare; The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson, vol. 7, Johnson on Shakespeare, ed. Arthur Sherbo (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1968), 100.
Daily Gazetteer 1594 (29 July 1740), p. 1, col. 1; hereafter abbreviated as DG, with page and column given in form 1/1.
Champion 314, p. 1, col. 3. Hereafter abbreviated in references as Ch, with page and column given in form 1/3.
London Newspapers in the Age of Walpole (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1987), 79; see also "Literature and Commerce," 107, where, quoting from a document in the Chancery suit mentioned above, Harris notes that in September 1742 some of the partners "were obliged to call on Ralph 'to complain of a Letter which they apprehended might be of bad Consequences.'"
As far as I know, Burrington's authorship of the Janus/Janus the Elder papers in the Champion has not been noted in any published source since 1741. The case for identifying Burrington with Janus the Elder is made briefly, as I discovered during the latter part of my research for this article, in an unpublished 1951 dissertation by John Forbes Speer: "A Critical Study of the Champion" (Univ. of Chicago); see 42n, 49, 224. Speer argues, though, at 42n (a note which seems initially to be making the opposite point), that Janus is probably a different writer.
In 1741-42, Burrington contributed five papers on America to the Champion, the first two anonymously and the last three under his own name. Robert Harris refers to this series in passing but is unaware of Burrington's connection with Janus/Janus the Elder (A Patriot Press: National Politics and the London Press in the 1740's [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993], 145 and n).
The best biography of Burrington is still the short monograph by Marshall DeLancey Haywood, Governor George Burrington (Raleigh, N.C., 1896); Haywood also contributed the article on Burrington in the Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-36). See also Blackwell P. Robinson, The Five Royal Governors of North Carolina, 1729- 1775 (Raleigh: Carolina Charter Tercentenary Commission, 1963), 1-11; William S. Price, Jr., "A Strange Incident in George Burrington's Royal Governorship," North Carolina Historical Review 51 (1974): 149-58; and Price in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. William S. Powell (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1979-) (hereafter abbreviated as DNCB).
By far the richest source for Burrington's political career is The Colonial Records of North Carolina [First Series], collected and ed. William L. Saunders, especially vols. 2-4 and 6 (Raleigh, 1886-88) (hereafter abbreviated as CR). Further source material may be found in Colonial Records of North Carolina, Second Series, vols. 6-8, ed. Robert J. Cain (Raleigh: North Carolina State Division of Archives and History, 1981-88); [Great Britain. Public Record Office], Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, vols. 41-43 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1953-63); and [Great Britain. Board of Trade], Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, vols. 5-7 (for 1723- 41) (London: HMSO, 1928-30).
I am grateful to Mrs. M. M. Rowe, County Archivist, Devon, for checking the International Genealogical Index on my behalf; for the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the coverage of the Devon section of the Index is about 60%. I have also benefited from the professional services of the Genealogist, Devon Record Office; and of Mr. Ken Smallbone, of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents.
Will of Gilbert Burrington, dated 10 March 1671 (i.e., 1671/72), preserved at Devon Record Office, but without probate act; [Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons], Members of Parliament (1878-91; reprint, Munich: Kraus Reprint, 1980), pt. 1, vol. 1, pp. 565, 573.
In his will dated 20 June 1717 and proved 27 June 1718, John Burrington states that "all my children have disobliged me." Although he provides for payment of debts incurred "jointly with my son George," he gives his property to his nephew Thomas Burrington (will no longer extant; abstract by Sir Oswyn Murray in Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter, O.M. Coll 8/36).
Modern historians sometimes give the name of George's father as Gilbert (see Haywood, Governor George Burrington, p. 6; followed by Price, DNCB). This statement, based ultimately on information provided by a Burrington family member around 1895, almost certainly involves a confusion between the patriarchal grandfather Gilbert and the father John.
James Ralph seems to have believed that Charles Burrington, one of John's younger brothers, was George's father. Charles was a cornet who joined the Prince of Orange's army soon after its landing. In his History of England, Ralph exaggerates Charles's role in the Revolution and assimilates his description of Charles (whom he knows simply as "Major Burrington") to Burrington's description of his father in Ch 341 (16 Jan. 1741/42). Charles, however, died a bachelor (letters of administration, PRO, Prerogative Court of Canterbury [Oct. 1702]). See Ralph, History (London, 1744-46) 1:1038; Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs (1857; reprint, Hampshire, England: Gregg International Publishers, 1969), 1:477; T. W. Windeatt, "The Prince of Orange in Exeter, 1688," Transactions of the Devonshire Association 13 (1881): 173-185, p. 182 cited; and Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661- 1714 (1892-1904; reprint, London: Francis Edwards, 1960), 2:191.
Burrington's regiment and date of commission are listed in Charles Dalton, George the First's Army, 1714- 1727 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1910-12), 1:103. For the commission itself, see PRO, State Papers 44/173, pp. 392-393. Price is erroneous in stating that Burrington's commission was granted in 1715 ("A Strange Incident," 150; DNCB).
Although by 1717 George's relations with his father were strained (see note 16 above), he still benefited from his father's political connections.
Surety for George's commission, in the amount of £1,000, was given by Nicolas Vincent, of Truro, Cornwall, and by Denis Bond (1676-1747), later notorious for his fraudulent purchase of the Derwentwater estates and for looting the Charitable Corporation (CR 2:480-81). It is not clear, however, whether these men were Burrington's patrons or merely acting as financial brokers. In the late 1720's, he was supported in his bid for the royal governorship by Peter King, Arthur Onslow, and Sir William Yonge, among others (see text below).
This affidavit and the following one by William Badham, along with several others, were sent to the Board of Trade with a petition for Burrington's removal, probably in the latter part of 1724.
In this and the following indictments, the legal phrase "on or about," used in dating to minimize the possibility of a reversible error, has been interpreted as meaning "on."
CR 2:655, 660, 661 (process of outlawry begun), 662, 670-671, 701-702, 705, 713-714, 819, 821-822, and 831.
"Salutary Neglect": Colonial Administration under the Duke of Newcastle (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1972), 118. For Burrington's commission, dated 15 January 1729/30, over a year before his arrival in North Carolina, see CR 3:66-73.
For this alleged attempt on Burrington's life, see also the detailed account in Colonial Records, Second Series, 7:310-21; and Champion 341. Burrington's belief that Bladen was the true architect may be inferred from this latter source.
See also Burrington's letter to Newcastle of 1 June 1734: "[receiving no money from the government, I] was constrained to sell not only my household goods, but even linnen, plate and Books, and mortgage my Lands, and stocks" (CR 3:625).
According to Burrington's petition, the government owed him over £3200 in back pay alone; he seems to have received only £200 of this amount. See Jack P. Greene, The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689-1776 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1963), 142; and [Great Britain. Public Record Office], Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers (1735-1738), prepared by William A. Shaw (1900; reprint, Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1974), 349, 392. Burrington's association with North Carolina, however, was hardly a financial disaster. In February 1737/38, around three years after his return to England, his country "Seat" in North Carolina is advertised as comprising 29,225 acres of "fine, convenient Land" (sale notice in the Virginia Gazette of 3/10 February).
Before he left for England, Burrington had written Newcastle that "the affairs of this Province will prove difficult to the Lords of Trade without my assistance" (letter of 17 Sep. 1734; CR 3:626). He attended meetings at the Board at least from 13 June 1735 to 26 October 1736 (Journal of the Commissioners, 7 [for 1735-41]: 25, 31-32, 67, 69, 88, 97, and 136).
This Henry McCulloh, the land speculator, is not to be confused with Henry McCulloch, secretary of North Carolina in 1754-55. See John Cannon's note in William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 15 (1958): 71-73.
Ch 341 (16 Jan. 1741/42) 1/3. In his reference to H. Walpole as "Viceroy General" of the Plantations, Burrington is alluding to Horatio's sinecure as Surveyor and Auditor General of the Revenue in America.
Ch 86 (31 May 1740) 2/1; Complete Works of Henry Fielding, ed. W. E. Henley (London: William Heinemann, 1903), 15:325.
Although Ralph, in his editing of the collected edition of the Champion, generally emphasizes the journal's political content, he bowdlerized this passage by omitting the reference to "Guts," ending the sentence with "as it is requisite" (2:331-332). Henley derives his text from the collected edition and therefore also omits the "Guts" reference (15:338).
Matthew Prior's Carmen Seculare in the Latin translation by Thomas Dibben (lines 19, 21-22), in Prior, Poems on Several Occasions (London, 1718), p. 156.
Burrington's description of his procedure in Seasonable Considerations (London, 1743); quotation from page 2.
Burrington may also be responsible for the footnotes printed in Champion 103 (10 July 1740); these footnotes rebut in detail an attack, made in the leader itself by an outside correspondent, on the Janus paper of 3 July.
For both proposals, see Ch 118 (14 Aug. 1740) 1/3. Speer (p. 47) also notes that Janus was ahead of his time in his support of canal building, although he does not identify Janus with Burrington.
The only significant attack on the Champion published in the Gazetteer before 17 June 1740 occurs in DG 1406 (22 Dec. 1739). Information about period before 20 May from Battestins, Henry Fielding, 262-263, 655 n. 42.
Ch 155 (8 Nov. 1740), contains a short, mock-learned letter signed "Janus Rutgusius" (2/1). This pseudonym, which does not appear elsewhere in the extant issues of the Champion, alludes to the Dutch scholar Johan Rutgers or Janus Rutgersius (1589-1625). There seems to be no connection between its use here and the Janus/Burrington or Janus the Younger contributions.
See the praise of these articles by outside correspondents in Ch 314 (14 Nov. 1741) 1/1 and Ch 359 (27 Feb. 1741/42) 1/1-2.
The Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue lists no edition of these papers published under Burrington's name or published in the 1740's under a Huggonson imprint (searched online, 7/94, 9/94).
Some informal "Excommunication" against Burrington may have been in force by the mid-1730's, but he is surely wrong when he states that it was imposed before he took up his royal governorship in 1731. His relations with the higher levels of the administration seem cordial enough until soured by his altercations in North Carolina and the tone of some of his dispatches.
Burrington's "Charge" naturally calls to mind the notorious "Remarkable Queries" (first published in Ch 141 for 7 Oct. 1740), in which the political struggle with Walpole is rendered as a "Tryal between the whole Nation Plaintiff, and one single Man Defendant." Burrington is certainly a leading candidate for the authorship of this unusually forthright, hard-hitting attack. Neither the "Queries," however, nor the tract Plain Truth (London, 1741), which advertises itself as "by the Author of the Remarkable Queries" (title page), yields any personal details helpful for an attribution to Burrington or, indeed, to anyone else.
Burrington is speaking specifically of the Excise Bill (1733) and the Bill for Registering Seamen (1740) as Walpole's most atrocious attempts on the Constitution, but he seems to broaden his attack further in the course of this passage.
For the inference that "Janus the Younger" contributed to the Champion under this pseudonym between 7 May and c. 20 June 1741, see text above. In a letter printed in Ch 422 (31 July 1742), Janus the Younger states that "about this Time last Year I sent you some few Verses upon the Motto on Vauxhall Ticket" (2/1). It is clear, from the context, that these verses were actually published, presumably under the same pseudonym.
In his will, Burrington mentions only one child, possibly adopted, born about 1738; see note 55 below. Burrington's only other known reference to a wife or child occurs in a letter of 26 February 1730/31, written a few days after his second voyage from England, in which he requests a chaise to carry his wife, described only as "big belled" (i.e., big-bellied), from Virginia to North Carolina (CR 3:509).
A search of the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (online, 11/94) by personal name, title word, and notes (general word) reveals only one entry of possible interest: Janus, Junior, Miscellaneous Essays in Verse (London, 1766). There is nothing in this volume, however, which would connect its author with the contributor to the Champion.
See Thomas Lockwood, "Fielding's Champion in the Planning Stage," Philological Quarterly 59 (1980): 238-41; and Ch 383 (29 Apr. 1742) 1/2-3, which prints twenty lines from "An Essay on Nobility," in Mr. Cooke's Original Poems (London, 1742), 3-4.
These verses were by John Tempest, S.J., who died in 1737 and therefore could not himself be the contributor to the Champion.
Mr. Cooke's . . . Plautus (London, 1746), 1 (no more published): viii. Mawbey, Gentleman's Magazine 62 (1792): 27.
For Cooke's correspondence with Collinson, see Sir George Clutton, "The Death and Fame of Robert James, 8th Lord Petre," Essex Journal 5 (1970): 57-61, esp. pp. 59-60, citing the Collinson Commonplace Books at the Linnean Society. Clutton treats the ode and accompanying letter in isolation without considering other Janus the Younger contributions to the Champion. He notes that Cooke told Collinson about the Virgil dedication and his intended compliments in the forthcoming Plautus edition but concludes, fallaciously I believe, that Cooke may be rejected as the author of the ode "since otherwise he must surely have mentioned it along with his other two tributes" (61 n. 16).
Clutton suggests the ode may have been written by Collinson or by Philip or Edward Southcote. These men were all close friends of Petre's, but there is no further evidence that might connect them with Janus the Younger. Georgina Dawson's assertion that Philip Southcote was "poetically inclined" ("The Jacobite Southcotes of Witham," Essex Review 63 [1954]: 143-165, quotation from p. 162) is based on a misreading of John Morris, ed., The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers, First Series (London, 1872), 367.
Mr. Cooke's Original Poems (see note 47 above); first pulished c. 8 April 1742 (advertisement in Champion of that date).
Original Poems, 283-84. This poem, appearing in a separate section at the end and headed "To be added to the Odes," was obviously inserted just as the work was going to the press.
First published 2 April 1743 and 21 April 1757, respectively. See London Evening-Post (29/31 Mar., 2/5 Apr. 1743; where Burrington's first name is given incorrectly as "John") and Public Advertiser (21 Apr. 1757).
For additional references to the murder, see Whitehall Evening-Post (22/24 and 24/27 Feb. 1759); and Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser (23 and 27 Feb. 1759). The newspaper references here and in the text, except that to the Gazetteer of 27 February, were first noted by Haywood (Governor George Burrington, 31). Nothing further seems to have been discovered about the person(s) responsible for the attack.
St. John the Evangelist, Burial Fee Book (vol. 51) and Churchwardens' Accounts (E143C); Westminster City Archives, Victoria Library. Any memorial inscription Burrington may have had would have been destroyed by enemy action in World War II.
Ch 323 (5 Dec. 1741) 1/1, quoted above.
Administration of Burrington's estate was granted on 23 March 1759. See administration with will, PRO, Prerogative Court of Canterbury; printed in CR 6:18-20. In his will, signed 8 December 1750, Burrington names as his heir a "George Burrington (who now lives with me and is of the Age of about twelve Years)." As Mrs. Lilian Gibbens, of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents, has suggested to me, the language of the will may indicate that this child was adopted.
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