PARAGON REVIEW

Issue 5

Charles Hotham: an eighteenth-century life in letters

Charles Hotham was born in 1729, the eldest son of Beaumont Hotham and his wife Frances Thompson. His uncle, Charles, was fifth baronet Hotham of South Dalton in the East Riding. His papers form the most extensive set of personal papers in the Hotham collection in the Brynmor Jones Library. He was diligent and talented at mathematics and was a fastidious account keeper from an early age: the collection contains his carefully managed pocket money account books as a teenager at school. This penchant for tidy book-keeping turned him later in life into a careful administrator of army affairs who kept all his correspondence, diaries and official paperwork.

The collection includes around 3000 letters to him, quite a number of which are printed in AMW Stirling's family history, The Hothams: being the chronicles of the Hothams of Scorborough and South Dalton from their hitherto unpublished family papers (1918). The massive correspondence of Charles Hotham, his friends, patrons and clients, lends an enormous insight into the formal and informal relationships and politics of the eighteenth-century ruling classes. His successful and lengthy military career means also that the letters contain material on English foreign policy in the eighteenth century as it swung constantly between treaty-making and warfare balanced with diplomacy.

The early letters in the collection are largely from his parents andschoolfriends. On 14 October 1738 his father wrote:

Dear Child, I am much pleased with the accounts Lady Gertrude and Mr Fountaine send me of your behaviour. I hope you deserve them, and that you will continue to be studious of gaining their favour.

This was written in the year that Charles's uncle, the fifth baronet, died and Lady Gertrude, his widow, took a great interest in the progress of her young nephew. Her own son succeeded to the baronetcy at the age of only two, making the young Charles Hotham third in line to the title and estates at South Dalton. Charles's mother's letters were less formal, but she reinforced his father's message about paying careful attention to his studies and his important social relationships:

. . . don't forget you have a Mama that loves you . . . Lady Gertrude is so good that she always mentions you in her letters to your Papa . . . I hope I need not put you in mind to be careful not to do anything to forfeit her good opinion of you.

These letters make a fascinating study of the eighteenth-century world of friendship and social advancement; even the intimate letters he receives from school-friends are couched in the language of patronage and social etiquette: 'the confirmation of your affection towards me increases . . . that of mine towards you', wrote his schoolfriend.

On 20 August 1743 his father reminded him not to be troublesome while staying with Lady Albemarle. It was good advice for in September 1746 he got his first commission as ensign in the First Regiment of Footguards and in January 1747 he was ordered abroad as aide de camp of Lord Albemarle during the wars of Austrian succession. The army was a means of advancement: 'If the war holds only the few years you mention, I am persuaded you will have more than a lieutenancy - a colonel's commission!', wrote William Wood, a family friend on 3 March 1747.

After his commission, his father's letters remained paternalistic; they were filled with advice concerning his behaviour, finances, his studies and his progress. His relationships with his younger brothers began to flourish, with John (later bishop of Clogher and 9th Baronet), William (later an admiral of the blue and 11th Baronet and 1st Baron) and Beaumont (later 12th Baronet and 2nd Baron) writing admiringly after his first battle. John wrote on 2 July 1747:

I hear you behaved very bravely and that we took seven hundred prisoners and killed eight thousand men; but we did not lose half so many.

His contacts were increasing in number, his correspondents being almost exclusively male, reflecting the separate spheres of activity of men and women in the eighteenth century. Lady Gertrude Hotham remained the exception to this; she was a patron by virtue of her widowhood and she sent news of friends, family and entertainments. While embarking on his career with the help of his father and aunt, Charles Hotham was dependent on his friends and patrons and having a wide circle of friends and relations was not only pleasant, it was an essential resource.

In 1748 Charles Hotham returned to England and was promoted to the rank of captain. Later in the year he went to Paris with Lord Albermarle, who had been appointed com-mander in chief of the English forces in Flanders. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in October and during the years of peace he commuted between London and Paris.

In 1752 he married Dorothy, daughter of John Hobart, the first earl of Buckinghamshire, and the following year their only child, Henrietta, was born. These were pleasant years for Charles Hotham. His strong ties of friendship continued and he received confessional letters from male friends. On 17 April 1754 John Leland told him of his coffee mornings with a woman whose 'reputation' stemmed from her love of strong madeira and playing cards. By contrast, letters from his brothers indicate that he lived a life of family visits. The letters of John Hotham are filled with gentle banter and a genuine fondness for his elder brother and Dorothy with whom he often stayed. In 1755 he wrote to congratulate them on their new house in Spring Gardens. However, this was to be the last time the family would have together for eight years. In 1755 the tenor of the filial letters changed; in February, Beaumont Hotham wrote 'when a man is so fully employed in the service of his king and country . . . it can't be expected his time should be at his own disposal' and in July, William Hotham warned that 'war is inevitable'.

Tension between France and England over their respective American colonies had begun in earnest. Undeclared war between them started in 1755. Charles Hotham began active service again, this time as aide-de-camp of Sir John Ligonier. He was quickly promoted to adjutant general with the rank of lieutenant colonel and he went with the expedition to St Malo to join Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. In November his father wrote congratulating him on 'a very desirable station under so true a friend, so great an officer, and so agreeable a man, which I trust in God will turn out to your honour, satisfaction and advantage'.

Charles Hotham remained in Germany until the signing of the Peace of Paris. The collection contains extensive correspondence for the period, especially official correspondence. Charles Hotham also kept a war diary and this is complemented by very full army returns listing recruits, drafts, discharges, numbers of the dead and invalided, details of supplies, hay and horses. There are also details of route marches, standing signals, details of field days, instructions for muster rolls, prisoner returns, forage arrangements, details of parades, manouevres, embarkations, troop movements and quartering and so on. In addition, there are documents relating to matters of discipline including court martials and murder enquiries.

The letters indicate that while eighteenth-century warfare was a matter of 'honour' and advancement, it was also an exercise in logistics; a network of people reported to him so that he could complete returns. A frequent correspondent was Colonel Parker, stationed at the coastal town of Emden where men, horses and supplies from England were disembarked. When the magistrates of the town refused to help in 1759, Colonel Parker reassured him that operations were going ahead regardless. Colonel Wintringham wrote despairingly of hospital board matters. Effective care of the wounded was difficult to achieve and he remarked in a letter dated 7 January 1759:

that the death of each individual hurts me greatly, as it comes attended with a reflection that the best means which might have been used, and to which the suffering patient had a right, have been disregarded and rejected.

While the movement of men, whether healthy, sick or dead, was a challenge, the movement of horses was even more difficult. Robert Bissett had trouble disembarking horses because of the tides and in June 1758 Major General Boscawen informed Charles Hotham that he would have to deploy a detachment of strong horses in a town just to get the dead ones out of the way.

A balance in supplies was as crucial to successful warfare as keeping the supplies coming. If wagons were too heavily loaded with food they sank into the ground and if the wagons did not arrive, the men had to be sent on forages which often left them eating green corn. If the ratio of men to horses was out of kilter it was a catastrophe. On 22 April 1759 Major Stubbs mentioned the difficulties he was having managing with so few horses, yet only a month later he was quipping that if any more men fell sick, the horses would soon exceed them in number.

Also to be found amongst Charles Hotham's military papers are orders which include the order of the day for the Battle of Minden on 1 August 1759. Letters in the collection are enlightening about the scandal which subsequently surrounded this Prussian and English victory. The commander-in-chief, Lord George Sackville, did not advance quickly enough on the orders of Prince Ferdinand and even halted the advance of his second-in-command, Lord Granby. The already tense relationship between Sackville and Prince Ferdinand was exacerbated by this episode and his report only commended the actions of Granby.

What followed was a smear campaign. Robert Napier wrote to Charles Hotham of the propagation of rumours that 'damped the joy I felt at your victory' and his father said 'ballads and abuse of all kinds abound'. Such a situation could not only make or break the reputation of the people concerned, but could also affect the careers of their immediate subordinates. Colonel Parker was quick to inform George Sackville of his own loyalty, but this letter clearly shows that by 10 August Sackville's authority was dead because Parker was obliged to tell him that another officer was refusing to disembark on his orders and was waiting to hear from the Admiralty. Four days later Sackville resigned and was replaced by Granby. A court martial followed. Charles Hotham kept his head down during this scandal. His father wrote on 17 August:

this affair may for a little while disconcert you, yet in the main your prudence will I hope prevent you losing ground.

Once again, his father's paternal concern was expressed in terms of maintaining honour; the scandal had 'converted the noblest opportunity for glory into a share for disgrace'.

Charles Hotham spent the rest of the Seven Years War free from the danger created by political scandal and was promoted from lieutenant colonel (since 1758) to full colonel in 1762. After the signing of the Peace of Paris in 1763 he was able to return home. He was rewarded for his service by being made Groom of the Bedchamber of George III and when at home, he paid court to George III while continuing to be involved in military affairs. He had been elected to parliament in his absence and represented St Ives from 1761 to 1768. He began writing his autobiography in 1765, not finishing it until 1788, and this survives amongst the papers in the Brynmor Jones Library.

In 1767 his elderly father succeeded to the Hotham title and suggested that Charles spend part of his year in South Dalton, in preparation perhaps for his own succession to the estates. In 1771 both his parents died and he remarked of his father in his autobiography that 'he most eminently fulfilled his duty to his family [and] was, I believe, one of the most honourable gentlemen in the world'. To compensate for the loss, Charles Hotham's life was filled with good fortune: he received the Order of the Bath and inherited his maternal uncle's Humbleton estate, changing his name temporarily to Charles Hotham Thompson, but reverting to Charles Hotham in 1787. He began re-building the house at South Dalton and in 1775 he retired, having reached the rank of major general.

However, Charles Hotham did not simply retire to the country; instead he used his spare time to extend his social life to include theatre personalities. He socialised and corresponded with Sarah and William Siddons, Eliza Farren and the actor/manager John Kemble. Theatre was becoming fashionable and Charles's interest can be viewed as a form of patronage; he had successfully moved up the ladder from client to patron during his lifetime. There was an upsurge of interest in the production of private performances and those held at Richmond House are mentioned in letters sent from Anne Damer.

Charles Hotham spent much of his time from 1775 enjoying his well earned retirement and his letters reflect this. However, he continued to receive letters from old friends and military contacts with the result that there is much research material for any study of the American War of Independence, affairs in Ireland, national politics and the French Revolution. His brother-in-law, the Earl of Buckinghamshire became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1776 and his letters are crucial to any study of the management of Ireland. His friends, Robert Roberts and Robert Knox were on active service in Canada and America. In June 1775 the former told him that at Boston the remaining inhabitants during the blockade 'are under necessity of submitting to live upon the salt provisions of the King's stores and the small supply of fresh fish caught in the harbour'; an unwelcome reminder of the shortages of war.

If what was happening in Ireland and the American colonies was an extension of events earlier in the century, the outbreak of the French Revolution was not and it clearly came as a shock. On the 23 October 1789 the Duke of Dorset wrote 'London swarms with French' in response to the arrival on English soil of the French emigres; 'you have by this time I suppose recovered [from] your surprise at the arrival of the Duc d'Orleans in the country!' Charles Hotham did not die until 1794 so he lived just long enough to witness the total breakdown of the French ancien regime.

Charles Hotham's papers are a fascinating resource for researchers of eighteenth-century British history. Here is truly to be found an eighteenth-century life in letters. His correspondence tells us much about the Georgian court and central politics as well as the Seven Years War. Ironically, by the end of his life much of what he had cherished and fought for was disappearing. In 1778 he had sadly noted in a letter 'we are probably to lose the empire of America' and in 1783 colonies gained at the Peace of Paris were lost again at the end of the American War of Independence. In 1788 his beloved king only just survived another Regency crisis and it was clear that George III's health was very precarious. And parliamentary politics, apart from being besieged by the demands of political radicalism (which the French Revolution threw into very sharp relief), was changing beyond his comprehension. In his auto-biographical notes he recorded: 'When I first knew the House of Commons, it was a noble school for young men. I wish it were still, and that it may become so again'.

Charles Hotham spent his life doing his duty to king and country and fighting battles for British honour which increasingly became linked to imperial expansion. Thus, when it was clear that America was lost, men of Charles Hotham's generation turned their gaze on Ireland. In 1778 the Duke of Buckinghamshire remarked:

. . . if we open our eyes to the benefits which may be derived from Ireland, if the same fostering care is extended to this country as has enabled our ungrateful and perfidious colonies to spurn that hand which cherished their existence . . . we may flatter ourselves that we may yet live to see the clouds disperse, and our children may rejoice in the replenished honour of their country.

The optimism and honourable intent expressed here helps us to look forward and explain the colonial policies of the nineteenth century. Charles Hotham's letters provide fascinating insights into the way Englishmen, instructed as schoolboys in codes of 'honour', believed that foreign policy was about honourable conduct and bestowing glory on the nation through territorial warfare and colonial possession.

AmandaCapern and Ruth Pyle