The Real Soul of a Man in her Breast: Popular Opposition and British Nationalism in Memoirs of Female Soldiers, 1740

1750

University of Colorado

Scarlet Bowen

In the Preface to The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, commonly called Mother Ross (740), the anonymous author reports that Christian Davies, a woman who purportedly passed as a male foot soldier and dragoon during the War of the Spanish Succession, died on the 7th of July 739, and was interrd in the burying ground belonging to Chelsea Hospital, with military honours.1 This intriguing narrative treats readers to a plebeian womans humorous, nostalgic chronicle of Britain at war during the victorious years of King William and Queen Anne and provides us with a window into the workings of popular nationalism, just as it reached a zenith in expression at midcentury. In the year the memoir was published, England, despite Walpoles reluctance, had entered the AngloSpanish War (739 48) and the overlapping War of the Austrian Succession (740 48); and court and opposition leaders vied for control of the patriotic, imagined community of the British public. To many, the Georgian courts hesitation to pursue war served simply as another glaring indication of its lack of British pride and its contamination by the eeminizing culture of Europe (particularly France). 2 In this climate of dissatisfaction with the nations elite men, publishers Walker and Montagu turned for
Eighteenth-Century Life Volume 28, Number 3, Fall 2004 The College of William & Mary

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21 patriotic inspiration to a well-known gure from popular balladry: the cross-dressing, plebeian heroine who goes to war. Two ctionalized memoirs of female soldiers Davies Life and Adventures and the anonymous The Female Soldier; or, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (750)3 frame this decade of imperial conict, as Britain fought both Spain and France for control of the West Indies, the East Indies, the European low countries, and parts of North America. Upon their publication, both memoirs became immensely popular, going through several reprints, editions, and a range of abridged forms.4 Examining these narratives amid the contemporary debates about the war with Spain, we can gain insight into the symbolic richness of the gure of the female soldier in rallying both men and womens support for the ensuing war, and sustaining British national pride in the face of the military losses that resulted from the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The narratives of Christian Davies and Hannah Snell uniquely illustrate popular attitudes about the virility of the British nation, the necessity of war to expand colonial holdings and trade, and the myth of liberty for all British subjects. To date, scholars have attributed the cultural resonance of the memoirs to their provocative implications for eighteenth-century gender roles. Julie Wheelwright sees The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies as a celebratory depiction of a woman resistant to her cultures gender norms, whereas Lynn Friedli views the ctional female soldiers such as Hannah Snell as exceptional women who end up reifying traditional gender roles.5 Dianne Dugaw signicantly deepens our understanding of the narratives by situating them within the context from which they derive: the ballad tradition. Dugaw argues that the female warrior is a common trope of popular ballads, and within this tradition, the cross-dressed women are not so much progressive or exceptional depictions as they are realistic portrayals of the less-restrictive gender roles for plebeian women and the ubiquitous presence of laboring women in military camps.6 This essay builds on Dugaws insights about the construction of plebeian womens gendered identities, but argues for a fuller assessment of the middle and upper-class appropriation of such identities during Britains military engagements at midcentury. The printer of The Female Soldier, Robert Walker, issued a cheap text of forty-six pages and, in the same year, an illustrated and longer text of one hundred eighty-seven pages (Dugaw, Introduction, viii). The double texts met the needs of a broad readership: Dugaw notes that these ctional memoirs for a time attracted a wider and

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more sophisticated audience who, although unaccustomed to such heroines, found them appealing as eccentric and curious characters that fed an early modern preoccupation with cross-dressing in general and women soldiers in particular (vi). The lengthy prose adaptations of balladrys female warriors, however, indicate a level of interest that reaches beyond idle curiosity and preoccupations with cross-dressing. As we can surmise by the title pages of the memoirs, the publishers presume that their audiences interest lies as much in the military content of the narratives as in their unusual protagonists. The title page of Davies Life announces that Davies, commonly called Mother Ross . . . in several campaigns under King William and the late Duke of Marlborough in the quality of a foot soldier and dragoon, gave many signal proofs of an unparalleled courage and personal bravery and that her narrative was taken from her own mouth when a pensioner of ChelseaHospital. The Female Soldier is even more specic about Snells service in the army and navy: the title page states that she enlisted in Col. Guises Regiment of Foot, and marched with that regiment to Carlisle, in the time of the rebellion in Scotland and that the memoir is a true account of her enlisting afterwards into Frasers Regiment of the Marines . . . and her being draughted out of that regiment, and sent on board the Swallow Sloop of War, one of Admiral Boscawens squadron, then bound for the East Indies. The specic military content of the narratives compels us to read the memoirs not only for their gender politics, but also for their nationalist implications; indeed, the narratives illustrate the ways that the laboringclass heroine can bolster nationalist appeals to a wider audience men as well as women, and among middling readers who at the time perhaps identied more with a protagonist from below rather than from above. As a gure at once masculine and feminine, heroic and mock-heroic, the plebeian female soldier embodies and refashions notions of Britishness during a period of history when its identity was most in dispute. Historians have long noted that Britains war with Spain in 739 was fought solely for balance of trade rather than for balance of power. 7 British merchants, not satisfied with the limits on trade established in the Treaty of Utrecht, resorted to illegal trading with Spanish colonies in the West Indies and South America. In retaliation, Spanish ships repeatedly accosted British ships, conscated their cargo, and terrorized British seamen. In London, the outraged merchants soon found allies in the Patriot Opposition, who saw in Walpoles reluctance to declare war an opportunity

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to so defame him that he would nally be forced from oce. According to Philip Woodne, the opposition used and fomented a vociferous merchant lobby, part of the increasing independence of City of London politics, and they enjoyed the aid of the numerous tribe of malignant writers in the periodical press and in a busy pamphlet war (88). The blatant commercial impetus for the war challenged traditional heroic and noble arguments for war. The busy pamphlet war reveals discomfort and even distaste for a war based on trading rights, colonial acquisition, and the Asiento, which granted Britain the exclusive right to supply slaves to New Spain. One of Walpoles defenders writes, We city politicians forget that war is quite changd from what it was in the days of our forefathers, when in a hasty expedition and pitchd eld, the matter was decided by courage. But now the art of European war is in a manner reducd to money; that prince who has the longest purse is sure to have the longest sword.8 The writer disdains warfare that is no longer a proving ground for male valor, and pragmatically asserts that England should stay out of a costly war. Similarly, conservative Tories felt ambivalent about such an expensive and protracted conict fought basically on behalf of the Whig-dominated South Sea Company, 9 yet they did not want to miss this opportunity to accuse the court of ineptitude and cowardice. Most Tories came to realize that if they supported the war, they and the opposition Whigs had the potential not only to expand the British Empire (and receive credit for the attempt), but also to disempower Walpole.10 The underlying anxiety over war for commercial gain surfaced for both court and opposition writers as a debate about the nations masculinity, particularly how it was dened and who controlled its denition.11 Opposition writers construed Walpoles peace-keeping eorts as signs of eeminacy; as Kathleen Wilson observes, Aristocratic eeteness was proven, above all, in the inability or disinclination of the court to pursue the national imperial interest.12 Conversely, Walpoles hired writers tried to recast his policy of diplomacy as heroic and accused the opposition writers of interest and Prejudice and unmanly partiality (Address to the Merchants, 3). In response, the opposition developed two strategies for justifying war, strategies which help us to understand the political implications of the female-soldier narratives at midcentury. The rst strategy was to refashion British masculinity and seamlessly unite the oppositions stance with proper manliness. The second strategy took advantage of Tory popu-

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lism as a longstanding weapon against Whig supremacy and asserted that Britain must go to war because the people demanded it. Montagu and Walker, the original publishers of the female-soldier narratives, cleverly exploit a gure from popular culture in order to incite wartime fervor. The motif itself of a woman who cross-dresses and enters the military is borrowed from the ballad tradition. Dugaw has examined this archetype in hundreds of ballads and has found that each tells a similar story of a virtuous and rather sentimentally conceived heroine who is a lower-class girl in love with a common [but heroic] soldier or seaman; she cross-dresses and goes in search of her lover, with the story following the pattern of separation, trial, and reunion.13 Christian Davies and Hannah Snell begin their adventures in this traditional manner. Davies rst decides to cross-dress when she discovers that her husband, Richard Welsh, has been the victim of impressment into the army to ght in the Nine Years War. Davies notes that she and her husband are both of a size, so she can don one of his suits in venturing to look for him (27). If Davies seeks her husband out of love and devotion, Snell seeks hers to exact revenge. Her sailor-husband is a perdious Dutchman who lavishes their money on other women. Having plunged his family into insurmountable debt, he abandons a pregnant Snell and joins the crew of a merchant ship. The child dies after seven months, and Snell dons a military disguise to facilitate her search for her husband. Departing from the ballad tradition, however, both heroines experience a zeal for military life that eclipses their initial search for their husbands. After a brief stint as a soldier in the Nine Years War, Davies remains in disguise and works odd jobs until 700. When Davies hears of the ensuing War of the Spanish Succession, she reports, This News of a War awakened my martial Inclination (57) and reenlists. Having recourse to wine and company (65) helps her forget her husband; and when she does nally see him and in the arms of another woman she refuses to be a wife. She tells him, notwithstanding the hardships of military life, she had such a liking to the Service, that [she] was resolved to continue in it, and to that end, would pass as his brother (90). In detaching Davies and Snell from the romantic motivations that drive the ballads and highlighting military signicance of the female-soldier narratives, the biographers create a provocative context in which to comment on masculinity during wartime.

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Female Masculinity and British Nationalism In their early arguments for war, the popular opposition to the Court resorted to a time-honored claim: going to war was Britains manly duty. Admiral Vernons conquest of Porto Bello in November 740, the rst victory of the war, gave the opposition an opportune moment to boast of their military prowess and vitality. In a poem lauding the opposition hero, an anonymous poet contrasts Vernons heroic rescuing of Britain from Spains hostile insult and Barbaric Spoil to the courts base inaction.14 Wilson, who has written a thorough account of the popular reaction to Vernon, notes the use of chivalric romance in portrayals of Vernons victory as well as other imperial endeavors: Despite the persistence of an iconography that symbolized the British imperial presence as the female gure of Britannia, colonial conquest was described and gloried as a manly occupation, the proving-ground for national, as well as individual, potency, strength and eectiveness, and the vehicle of paternalistic largess and duty (55). James Thomson, a loyal Patriot Opposition writer, solidied this image in Britains national mythology in his Rule Britannia, rst printed in his 740 play, Alfred, a Masque: Blest isle! With matchless beauty crowned, / And Manly hearts to guard the fair [italics mine]. / Rule, Britannia, rule the waves, / Britons never will be slaves15 When the memoirists of Davies and Snell surveyed genteel and aristocratic society for exemplary men, however, those who met Admiral Vernons standards were rare. As Wilson aptly states, Vernons exploits in the West Indies had fanned dreams of imperial expansion without being able to fulll them (65). After Vernons victories, the one other major conquest of the war was the capture of Cape Breton, which Britain was forced to give up at the conclusion of the war. The Jacobite invasion of 745, while unsuccessful, still gave occasion to doubt male military might, as English soldiers were reported to ee the rebels without ring a single shot at the Battle of Falkirk. With these moments in recent memory, the author of Snells narrative declares the contemporary moment a dastardly age of the world, when eeminacy and debauchery have taken place of the love of glory, and that noble ardor after war-like exploits (). As foils to these examples of male inecacy, Davies and Snell emerge as provocative models of proper masculinity, celebrated for their uncommon intrepidity, masculine air and behaviour (Davies, 3), and possessing the real soul of a man in her breast (Snell, 7).16

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Feminist scholars have often interpreted these examples according to whether the female soldier reies gender binaries. Lynne Friedli concludes that the high status of qualities associated with a military career gave women who showed them an increased value as honorary men, and served to validate qualities seen as masculine (242). In a brief analysis of Snells memoir, Laura Brown states that Snell is a heroic female alternative to a contemporary male depravity; her exploits evoke both the anti-heroism of the present-day male soldier and a kind of proxy heroism portrayed by the woman warrior (43). In understanding gender solely in binary terms, however, both scholars neglect to address the ways in which eighteenthcentury writers and artists often depict plebeian women as blurring gender roles, exhibiting many traits that a leisure-class audience would attribute to men. As such, the representations of plebeian women oer us a rich historical moment to study what Judith Halberstam provocatively labels female masculinity that is, the construction of a masculinity that is detached from the biological male body allowing us to see how masculine women have played a large part in the construction of modern masculinity.17 Using Halberstams concept of female masculinity, I argue that far from reifying male masculinity or serving simply as a proxy for the heroism of male soldiers, the female heroine possesses her own brand of female masculinity that she uses in order to cajole other male characters in the memoirs into being real men. Both authors imply that plebeian women transgress leisure-class femininity because of the working conditions they grew up in. Admitting that Davies is an exception to the rule of leisure-class femininity, the title page of her narrative imputes her masculine qualities to her experience in the army. Davies amanuensis writes, by her having been long conversant in the camp, she had lost that softness which heightens the Beauty of the Fair, and contracted a masculine Air and Behavior, which however excusable in her, would hardly be so in any other of her Sex (iv). In suggesting that working conditions can inform a persons gender, the author illustrates why plebeian women might blur strict divisions between gender roles. Throughout the memoirs each author emphasizes that before the heroine dons mens clothing and begins to pass as a man, she possesses masculine qualities. Describing her childhood, Davies relates, I had too much Mercury in me, to like a sedentary life [of reading and needle work]; instead, she was never better pleased than when [she] was following the Plough, or had a Rake, Flail, or Pitchfork in [her] hand (2). Davies takes

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on numerous activities that even men refused. For example, she boasts of her ability to ride a horse known for his mettle, which men feared to ride, and adds, I mention this, not as worth notice, but only to shew my inclinations, while a girl, were always masculine (5). The memoirists connect these early propensities toward masculine employments and recreation with an inclination toward military life. Once Davies enters the army, she explains her facility for military exercises: Having been accustomed to soldiers, when a girl, and delighted with seeing them exercise, I very soon was perfect, and applauded by my ocers for my dexterity in going through it (29). In the long version of Snells memoir, the writer also notes her early propensity for being a soldier:
Hannah, when she was scarce Ten Years of Age, had the Seeds of Heroinism as it were implanted in her Nature, and she used often to declare to her Companions, that she would be a Soldier if she lived; and as a preceding testimony of the truth, she formed a company of young soldiers among her play-fellows, and of which she was chief commander, at the head of whom she often appeared, and was used to parade the whole city of Worcester. This body of young volunteers were admired all over the town, and they were stiled young amazon Snells company: and this martial spirit grew up with her, until it carried her through the many scenes and vicissitudes she encountered for nigh ve years, as is fully and impartially related in this treatise of her adventures.18

The women continue to be praised for their military skill and to participate in military culture even after their identity as women is known. Davies is discovered to be a woman after the famous victory at Ramillies, where she receives a dangerous head wound. The surgeons conclude she must be a woman when they see her breasts. Davies wishes to remain with the regiment, however, and thus is compelled to re-marry her husband and continue in the capacity of cook and sutler, foraging for food and selling goods to the soldiers. According to Dugaw, eighteenthcentury society readily acknowledged physical toughness of plebeian women, and widely accepted their presence in military contexts.19 Known to be a woman, Davies is never far from military action, continues to defend the camp, spy on the enemy, and consult with ocers about military strategy, often demonstrating courage that is superior to that of her male comrades. When a lieutenants forehead is grazed by a musketball, Davies teases that his fright magnifyd [it] to a cannon ball. . . . he desired I would shew him to a surgeon; but his panick was so great, that I believe

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had he been examind at both ends, he stood more in need to have his breeches shifted than his wound dressed (50). She handles the dangers of war with bravado and nonchalance. While everyone is camped, Davies sees an enemy soldier through the sandbags; she immediately grabs a soldiers gun and shoots the enemy soldier. At the same time, enemy re comes through the sandbags and hits her in the mouth, knocking out one of her teeth. When her husband runs up, thinking shes been shot in the head, she spits both the ball and tooth into her hand and laughs (3). In The Female Soldier, Snell reveals her identity only after they have returned to London and she receives her pay, yet her shipmates still compliment her abilities as a soldier: They all with one Voice sounded forth her Praise, by applauding her Courage as a Soldier, her Dexterity as a Sailor, her humane Deportment and Sincerity as a Friend. . . . They expatiated much upon the Evenness of her Temper, the Regularity of her Conduct, and the many Dangers and Hardships she underwent (39). Whether the plebeian heroines are in or out of disguise, by their example they inspire, cajole, and reprimand men to be better men and better soldiers. In one episode, while Davies is working as a cook, a colonel attempts to sexually assault her. As Davies begins to defend herself with a knife, another gentleman enters just in time to prevent Davies from seriously harming her assailant. Davies rst castigates the colonel for an attempt so unbecoming his character, then rewards him for his reformation. She gives him a present of fowls and pigeons he in return gives her three barrels of strong beer and thereafter treats her respectfully and is very generous (2). In another example, she chastises her commanding ocers for their lack of attentiveness and preparedness in ghting the French. While she is marauding, she discovers the dangerous proximity of the French army and returns to camp to nd the British ocers playing chess: I askd them with some warmth, in a language which only became a Soldier, and a Freedom allowd my Sex, what they meant by having no better Intelligence and idling their Time at Chess, while the French were on the point of cannonading us (40). One of the gentlemen present, Lord Kerr, retorts [she] was a foolish drunken woman, and not worth Notice; To which the Duke [of Argyll] replied, he would as soon take [her] Advice as that of any Brigadier in the Army. This exchange clearly reveals not only that Davies combines attributes of her sex and her experience as a soldier, but also that other male characters recognize her authority and heed

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her advice: the Duke of Argyll subsequently mobilizes his troops to defend against the French. In depicting Snell and Davies as models of proper manliness while they are known to be women, both memoirists pay tribute to a female masculinity that is often integral to the construction of plebeian womens gender identity. Putting on a uniform thus is simply an extension not the creation of the masculinities they exhibit as plebeian women. In their adventures as cross-dressed women, Davies and Snell act as foils to the male soldiers and ocers, who are often depicted as elevating desire over duty. The female soldiers tread a ne line between needing to adapt to this culture in order to preserve their male identities and wanting to modify the unruly behavior of their male counterparts. It is no coincidence, for example, that Snell begins her military career during the Jacobite invasion of 745. While the memoirist says little about this embarrassing moment in British military history, when Charles Edwards invading army proved much more successful than their antagonists ever anticipated, the writer infers that the female soldier easily outperforms the incompetent male ocers. In this, the biographer echoes criticisms of the army found in other well-known satires of the invasion. Snells narrative provides a laboringclass version of a 746 broadside, The Female Volunteer, which depicts Margaret Wongton in full uniform, shaming British soldiers with the lines Well, if tis so, and our men cant stand / Tis time we women take the thing in hand.20 And similar to William Hogarths 750 engraving, The March to Finchley, Snells narrative portrays the ineptitude of British regiments who were supposed to defend the country from the Pretenders invasion. In Hogarths print chaos reigns the soldiers frequent brothels and taverns and show symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases, and some are thieves who trick street merchants out of their wares. In The Female Soldier, Snell is contrasted with a male sergeant who spends more time attempting to seduce a young Scottish woman than defeating the enemy. Snell befriends the woman and informs her of the sergeants wicked intentions. When the sergeant nds out, he falsely reports to the commanding ocer that Snell has been neglecting her duties, and she receives a punishment of ve hundred lashes. Fearing discovery by a new recruit who might reveal her identity, Snell deserts. Through the cross-dressed female soldier the memoirists can balance the need to prove the nations virility yet abate fears about unruly male

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desire during war. In eighteenth-century culture soldiers and sailors were depicted as notorious womanizers; Bernard Mandeville in Fable of the Bees (74), for example, writes, You may . . . see them accompanied with three or four lewd women, few of them sober, run roaring through the streets by broad daylight with a ddler before them. 21 Snells biographer raises anxiety about male lustful appetites when Snell is stationed at Fort St. Davids. While she and her fellow sailors are swimming, the men curse and perform many lewd actions and gestures, such as stripping themselves naked, and Snell is, of course, forced to conform to those rude, indiscreet, and unwomanly actions, which she silently disfavoured and contemned (7). The author uses this moment to stress Snells innocence and virtue, which protects her from their rapacious, boundless, and lustful appetites (8). Yet Snell cannot be too virtuous, or she will be accused of being an eeminate man. Her shipmates, for instance, nickname her Molly Gray, and threaten to strip her to reveal that shes either a eunuch or a woman (9). Thus Snell engages in irting in order to make herself a believable heterosexual male. In Portugal, she carries on a romance with a Portuguese woman: she very wisely judged, that by associating herself with them, by shewing a free and cheerful disposition, and by being ready to come into their measures, she should banish from their imaginations the least suspicion of her being a woman, and by that means enjoy a free and uninterrupted passage to her native country, without discovering her sex (20). Same-sex irtations occur frequently in both the ballads and prose narratives of female soldiers. The episodes provide a covert expression of Britains virility, central to the nations status as empire builder. The irtations give the female soldier a seemingly virtuous justication to have a woman in every port yet titillate readers with a prurient same-sex or heterosexual fantasy (Wheelwright, 492). The Life and Adventures of Christian Davies is more explicit about the female soldiers role in modeling courtly romance yet disciplining other mens unruly sexual desires. Davies rst irts with a Burghers daughter in my frolicks, to kill time (37). She uses the courtship to make fun of all the tender nonsense . . . employed in such attacks but then quickly regrets playing with the young womans feelings, for the woman grew really fond of me. When Davies persists, and the woman resists, Davies is impressed with her virtue and becomes smitten: I own this rebu gained my heart,

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and taking her in my arms, I told her, that she had heightened the power of her charms by her virtue . . . indeed, I was now fond of the girl, though mine, you know, could not go beyond a platonick love (38). Having demonstrated proper courtliness, Davies is then contrasted with a man in her regiment who attempts to rape the Burghers daughter. Davies challenges the soldier to a duel and upbraids him for being an embarrassment to the army and British honor: I told him, the action in itself was so base, that it made him unworthy of the Kings cloth (39). In this scene, Davies models a version of masculinity that protects both the honor of the girl, her regiment, and her country. Both female soldiers thus implicitly advance the Oppositions view that the administration was producing eeminate and debauched men satirically depicted in the memoirs as those men who could stand to learn a thing or two about masculinity from the nations stalwart, plebeian women. Populist Support for War Christian Davies and Hannah Snell represent the people at a time when politicians and popular writers alike boasted their ability to act and speak on behalf of the peoples interests (Wilson, Introduction and chap. ). Populist rhetoric had been intensifying in the decades leading up to the 739 war with Spain. Since their proscription from oce, Tories had cultivated the perception that they enjoyed the exclusive loyalty of the British public. If they could no longer be the Courts favored party, they would bask in their claim to being the peoples party.22 The perception may very well have been accurate, as contemporary commentators often repeated the basic conclusion, oered by William Pulteney to George II in 742, that two thirds of the nation were Tories (quoted in Colley, 46). Just six years prior to the war, Tories had triumphantly exploited their alliance with the people of Britain during Walpoles attempt to pass the Excise Tax. After the 733 crisis, The Craftsman portrayed Britannia being rescued by men dressed in plain habits, with the gures of Looms, Ploughshares, and Anchors embossd on their breasts. Nicolas Rogers insightfully interprets this anecdote to mean that Britannia had been nobly defended by the people against power-hungry politicians and their mercenary crew.23 In the pamphlet exchange leading up to the war, Walpoles defenders attempted to turn populist rhetoric to their advantage. They argued

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that peaceful negotiation with Spain was the only way to act responsibly on behalf of the plebeian, artisan, and merchant classes. An Address to the Merchants explains,
The arts of peace, and their improvements in manufacture and inventions of every kind must proceed in equal steps with the success of their arms: The works of our citizens, our plowmen, our gardeners, our woodmen, our shers, our diggers in mines, &c. must be equally advancd with the triumphs of our eets, or else their blood will be shed in vain: they will soon return to the same poverty and want of trade which they strove to avoid. (40)

Yet it was the Tory and Whig Opposition that more persuasively asserted that the people wanted retribution against Spain. After war was declared, Sir William Keith gloated that the vigorous and most just war brought universal satisfaction to the British people, and that it is . . . the hope of every wise and good man in Britain, that we are no longer to be deceived or misled by the weak and empty projects of pacick negociations [sic].24 Embodying populist support for war, both Davies and Snell are members of plebeian families that willingly sprang into military service in order to defend the nation. Davies, born in Dublin in 667, is the daughter of a brewer father and a mother who runs the family farm. Though Irish, Davies rmly establishes herself and her family as Protestant and loyalist. She mentions that her mother wept bitterly at the proclamation of James II as king, and when William arrives in England to usurp the throne Davies father decides to defend James II only because he is the lawful sovereign (4). Snell is similarly from humble and patriotic origins. She was born in Worcester in 723, to a father who was a hosier and dyer (3 4). Her grandfather died valiantly when he served as a captain in the War of the Spanish Succession, and the biographer reports that Snells nine siblings save one daughter, were either soldiers or sailors, or intermarried with them (5). One of the primary ways that The Life and Adventures of Christian Davies incites readers desire for war is through the use of nostalgia for Britains military greatness during the War of the Spanish Succession, creating a fantasy of the benets of war for all ranks of society. As many other scholars have noted, nostalgia was a common rhetorical trope that the opposition used to taint Walpoles twenty-one-year administration. 25 The

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Duke of Argyll, one of the Oppositions most outspoken Whigs, used this tactic in the parliamentary debate on the state of the nation in 740:
I, my Lords, have livd long enough in the world, to be able to compare the once ourishing state of this country, with its present melancholy situation; I have seen, my Lords, a time when Great Britain was glorious, triumphant and terrible abroad, her Government lovd, respected and envied at home; when her Enmity was dreaded, and when her Alliance was courted. 26

Similarly, the underlying message of the Davies memoir is that through the war, Britain is capable of recapturing her former greatness under Annes reign and the victories of the War of the Spanish Succession. Indeed, other ctionalized autobiographical soldier narratives make this argument explicitly. In The Life and Adventures of Matthew Bishop, of Deddington in Oxfordshire (744), Bishop details his service in that war in the hopes that army recruiters will again consider the old soldier for service.27 He remembers George II, when a young prince, ghting in the battle of Oudenard and persuades readers that there is a duty incumbent upon all his subjects to do the utmost of their ability to serve him [now] (258). By linking the current war with the former, writers deect attention from the unheroic reasons for war to a time when war was fought for the balance of power, aristocratic generals and royalty were noble and provided ample patronage, and plebeian soldiers enjoyed the good ght and, with luck and ingenuity, acquired lucrative goods from the conquest. In keeping with these objectives, Davies describes in detail the victories of the war and conveys pride in Britains performance as well as the nationalist sentiments of the commanding ocers. During a battle at Liege, for example, Davies notes how the English, in particular, distinguished themselves in this assault (62). Davies herself participates in battles led by the revered Duke of Marlborough and Duke of Argyll, aristocratic generals who are portrayed as having only noble reasons for pursuing war. Argyll, who was dismissed from oce in 740 for criticizing Walpole, is treated in Davies memoir as a great hero and inspirational commander. In a speech to Davies regiment Argyll tells the soldiers, you ght for the liberties of all Europe and the glory of your nation (83). Erasing any former controversy over Marlboroughs acquisitiveness, the duke is described as altruistic and surprisingly empathetic: Davies says that he was entirely beloved, not only for his Courage and Conduct, but equally dear to us

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all for his aability and humanity (22). He is so caring of his soldiers that seeing some of our Foot [soldiers] drop, through the Fatigue of the March, he took them into his own coach (7). While the commanding ocers pursue war in order to protect the nations and Europes liberty, Davies and others of her class are portrayed as motivated by the lucrative possibilities of war. Recruiters often coaxed the plebeian classes into enlisting by promising material gain. In the Life and Adventures of Matthew Bishop, Bishop becomes a recruiter for a brief period and recounts his tactics; after buying interested farmers great quantities of beer, he says, leave your plough and come along with me, and plough for riches and honour (26). Bolstering this form of wartime propaganda, after each battle Davies recounts whether her regiment managed to acquire a very considerable Booty (62) and whether she was satised in her share. An organizing plot device of the narrative is Davies increasing skill in obtaining as much plunder as possible. It is not surprising that Davies narrative was formerly attributed to Daniel Defoe, for Davies itemizes in Defoefashion all of her material disappointments and successes. At the battle of Liege, she reports that the English found in the [Fort] thirty Pieces of cannon and beside twenty thousand Florins in Silver and laments receiving only a large silver chalice and some pieces of plate (63). In describing the plundering of Bavaria, she is particularly specic: We spared nothing, killing, burning, or otherwise destroying whatever we could carry o. The Bells of the Churches we broke to pieces, that we might bring them away with us. I lled two bed ticks, after having thrown out the feathers, with bell metal, mens and womens clothes, some velvets, and about a hundred dutch caps, which I had plundered from a shop; she then trades all of this in and buys several pieces of plate, and spoons, mugs, cups (80). Davies memoir is unusual in that it continues to follow her life after her gender is discovered, when she remains with her husbands regiment as a camp follower, cook, and sutler. With this plot device the writer is able to illustrate how the prots of war extend beyond the soldiers to all who serve the army. As a sutler, Davies prefers to march with the Camp-Colour men, who are at a greater risk as they march at a distance ahead of the rest of the army (74). This positioning gives her the advantage of having rst crack at any plunder there is, and she has a chance to set up her tent and cook the provisions so that she can then sell them once the rest of the army catches up. Of course, for the reading public of 702 and in 739, avarice gures just as prominently in the motivations for war as it does for the lower classes,

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but Davies memoir provides them a safe distance from that motivation by depicting it as a plebeian trait. With all of this wonderful bounty generated in 702 by the war, and implying the promise of more bounty in 739, the author is forced to make sense of its termination in the Treaty of Utrecht. Here the text provides a clear bipartisan-opposition interpretation: Davies states, the unanimity of the Allies was the principal cause of a successful war; but now the divisions, which were revived in England between the Whigs and Tories paved the Way to, and at last concluded, a less advantageous peace than might have been expected from such a number of conquests and so many glorious victories (205). The author sends a politically savvy message to the reading public that unity between the two parties (under the rubric of opposing Walpole) is crucial to a successful war with Spain in 740. Two years after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded in 748, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell evidences the Oppositions continued belief in the necessary and most just war fought on behalf of the people, despite the disappointing results of the decade-long imperial conict. After the disintegration of broad-bottom politics, the now primarily Tory Opposition accused the administration of sabotaging war eorts and criticized its failure to achieve British sovereignty at sea, yet they continued to voice populist rhetoric by praising plebeian heroism during the war. According to naval historian H. W. Richmond, during the parliamentary debates on the kings state of the nation speech of 748, members voted not to give thanks for the signal success that had attended his Majestys arms at sea through the course of the war. . . . But the opposition distinguished between those in the lower ranks who had shewn gallantry, to whom praise and thanks were due, and those in high authority who had misdirected the war.28 In Snells memoir, the writer adheres to populist rhetoric by depicting Snell as a deliverer of the British nation, even in the face of terrible naval defeat during the nal siege at Pondicherry, India. Through the descriptions of Snells naval service, the author celebrates plebeian traits such as ingenuity, quick learning, and resourcefulness during exigent circumstances. On board the Swallow, Snell is stationed on the quarterdeck, where she was obliged to keep watch four Hours on and four o, Day and Night, being often obliged to go aloft, and altho unexperienced with these kinds of hardships, soon became expert in the business (). Her bravery and love of England compensates for her status as a

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novice: Though unexperienced in the Use of Arms, except in learning her Exercise, she behaved with an uncommon Bravery, and exerted herself in her Countrys cause (4). On the voyage to East India, the ship encounters a terric storm, and Snell wins the respect of her shipmates by taking her turn at the pump of a sinking vessel, [and] perform[ing] the several oces of a common sailor . . . with such judgment and intrepidity, that . . . she was looked upon by the ships company as a kind of deliverer (3). The memoir continues to shower Snell with encomiums during the nal operation of the war in the East Indies. Glossing over the crass commercialism at stake in the skirmish over who would control trade in the East Indies, the memoir depicts the siege of Pondicherry as Britains straightforward attempt to defend itself from the French. The writer states that Snell joins Admiral Boscawens eet because she was in hopes of acquiring some glory as a soldier, knowing the reason of this eets being tted out was to annoy the enemies of her country (4). Hampered by monsoons and outbreaks of disease, the attack was a disaster, and Admiral Boscawen failed to take Pondicherry away from the French, leaving England with a nal shameful memory of lost conquests and in a weak bargaining position during peace negotiations. Despite Englands terrible losses during this last battle of the war, the narrator of Snells memoir criticizes neither the ocers nor the enlisted sailors. When Admiral Boscawen decides to abandon his attack, he is described as our brave admiral who refuses to risk lives unnecessarily: he was unwilling to lose his ships and men, for whom he had great regard. Similarly, Snell and her eets eorts are lauded for their heroic perseverance:
This attack continued eleven weeks, part of which time they had no bread, most of their food being rice; and the many bombs and shells thrown among them, killed and wounded many of their men. During this space of time, she behaved with the greatest bravery and intrepidity, such as was consistent with the character of an English soldier, and though so deep in water, red 37 rounds of shot, and received a shot in the groin, six shots in one leg, and ve in the other. (5)

The memoirs defense of the English soldier is consistent with Opposition support of maritime engagements in India. Their only wish was that more resources had been directed toward Britains naval development. The Opposition newspaper The Remembrancer printed this bitter pronounce-

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ment on the wars end: We have exhausted ourselves completely, in a cause, that of all the powers in Europe, we were the last, and least concerned in. The balance of power at land was the bubble we fought for; whereas the commerce and navigation of the world, and the sovereignty of the ocean, ought to have been the principal objects of their attention.29 Insolence in Peace is Bravery in War In Samuel Johnsons midcentury essay, On the Bravery of the English Common Soldier, Johnson attributes the peculiar success of English plebeian soldiers during war to their insolence. Despite their having littleto-no discipline, training, or respect for their betters, these very qualities lend themselves to acts of heroism on the battleeld. He quips, they who complain, in peace, of the insolence of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery in war.30 He goes on proudly to link this quality to an essential British character the lack of deference is a particularly English characteristic, because the equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the freedom of our tenures, and the prosperity of our trade, dispose us very little to reverence superiours (549 50). The memoirs of both Snell and Davies advance a similar pride in the raucous, irreverent energy of the plebeian classes during peacetime and create a laboring-class version of British nationalism in which Britannias greatest attributes are her humor, virility, and independent spirit traits celebrated in the plebeian heroine. After her return to England, the author of The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies relays how Davies makes an honest living by entertaining and seeking patronage from the nobility and Queen Annes court. The Duke of Argyll is one of her most generous patrons, inviting her to dinner in his home. The memoir depicts their interaction not as a sti patron /plebeian relationship, but a friendship based on teasing, bawdy humor, and joviality. For example, while Davies entertains the duchess with her life story, the duke discovers them in the duchess bedroom and pretends to be shocked with her Grace receiving in her Bed-Chamber, and conversing with a Dragoon (229). After dinner, the duchess states that she needs to leave Davies and the duke alone together so they can swap war stories: Her Grace judged very right; for on her Retiring, we rippd up old

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stories, and were as merry as so many new paid-o sailors. Their irreverent rapport leads to the dukes active support; he helps her draw up a petition to the queen to recognize her achievements during the War of the Spanish Succession. The petition asserts that Davies for twelve years . . . had served in the Earl of Orkneys regiment as a man; that [she] had received several wounds, and lost two husbands in the service (230). Recognized both as a veteran and a veterans widow, Davies reports that The Queen was graciously pleased to receive me with a smile, and helping me up, said it should be her care to provide for me. . . . My circumstances [were] made very easy by the Queens bounty and the charitable assistance of the nobility and ocers of the army (236).31 The Davies of 740 looks back on these merry and lucrative exchanges with nostalgia: many of my friends going no longer to court, my former subsistence is greatly diminished from what it was (262). The Davies memoir encourages readers during the early years of war with Spain to think fondly of the golden age under Anne and to strive to recreate the fabric of Tory appeal through participating in the current war (Colley, chap. 6). At the conclusion of war in 748, Britain failed to prove its superiority in Europe. Saddled with tremendous debt, and forced to give up its one signicant conquest (Cape Breton), British ministers declared a stalemate and agreed to the mutual restoration of conquests.32 From the 750 memoirs perspective, while the virility of the nations ruling classes was in question, the virility of its common people was not. In the conclusion of Snells memoir, the descriptions of Snell dramatically alter her from a heroic British sailor and soldier during war to the object of prurient jokes and sexual innuendo during peace. If the rst half of the narrative strives to close the gendered distance between Snell and her fellow male sailors and soldiers by illustrating a shared masculinity, the nal pages of the narrative widen that distance by asserting her identity as a woman who nearly escapes or nearly instigates a range of sexual encounters. The British heroines virtue, like Britains, becomes a bawdy joke in a sexually infused farce. Yet the memoir remains playfully ambivalent about whether pretensions to leisure-class female chastity or laboring-class sexuality dene Britains virtue. As the memoir comes to a close, the author returns to dierent incidents during Snells military service and embellishes them with prurient details: I know the reader will be desirous to know how the ball was extracted out of her groin. Often in literary portrayals of men at war, a groin wound can signify not only the soldiers castration, but also the met-

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onymic castration of the military and nation. But depicting the female soldiers groin wound, and her self-ministration of it, turns the incident into a bizarrely autoerotic act:
Now the manner in which she extracted the Ball was full hardy and desperate: She probd the Wound with her Finger till she came where the Ball lay, and then upon feeling it, thrust in both her nger and Thumb, and pulled it out . . . chusing [sic] to have her Flesh tore and mangled than her Sex discovered. (36 37)

By exploiting the sexual disguise of the female soldier, and using such erotically charged words as probd and thrust, the author thus recasts British losses not as a moment of impotence, but as a semipornographic one that redeems and perhaps incites Britains sexual potency. An anonymous print published in 746 after the Jacobites defeat of the Hanoverian forces at Falkirk shames the loyalist army for its lack of manliness in erotic terms. In The Female Volunteer: Or, an Attempt to make our Men Stand the actress Peg Wongton, cross-dressed in uniform as a patriotic volunteer, recites an Epilogue that fully develops the bawdy of the prints title. The title itself explicitly explains just what an erotic female soldier might do to make a male soldier more masculine. Not only that, but the enemy would not dare attack an army of female soldiers: Had we an Army of such valorous Wenches, / What Man, dye think, would dare attack our Trenches? (reproduced in Dugaw, Warrior, 53). In describing Snells return to London, the author similarly depicts her as an object of sexual interest, but the memoir goes further than the print in characterizing the plebeian world in general as a locus of barely-contained sexuality. First the author creates sexual tension by having Snell be the bedfellow of two dierent brother marines (27) who do not know she is a woman: It is here worthy of observation, that this woman should lay three nights with two dierent men, one of whom had been her companion and fellowadventurer, during the space of fteen months and more; and never, during that space of time, discover the least hint of her being of the female kind (29). The author compliments Snell on her ability to protect her virtue during her military service, all the while titillating readers with the threat of sexual danger if she had been discovered: For can it be imagined, that in the midst of so many dangers, where there was no back-door to creep out at, if her sex had been discovered, but she must have fallen victim to the loose, disorderly, and vitious appetites of many on board (3). In London,

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Snell returns home to her sisters house, where her male disguise serves to create a scandal when she greets her brother-in-law in bed and later a female lodger who refuses to allow Snell to share her bed until Snell provides ocular demonstration that shes a woman (32). The author concludes all these racy encounters with a mock-pronouncement of Snells unsurpassed British virtue: This the reader may plainly perceive throughout the whole narration; and I am convinced, that no age or country, ever produced a more distinguished instance of virtue, conduct and resolution, than is to be met with in this our heroines adventures. Despite the authors periodic homage to the countrys sexual virtue, the bedroom farces betray the authors greater investment and even pride in a plebeian sexuality that no age or country ever produced (34). In popular nationalist literature, in the face of European defeat, it is the plebeian classes who powerfully sustain and inspire the nations virility. In both versions of her memoir, the narrator emphasizes that Hannah Snell will continue to dress as a man and that she has moreover decided never to marry: the long version declares, she is resolutely bent to be lord and master of herself, and never more to entertain the least thoughts of having a husband to rule and govern her, and make her truckle to his wayward humours (79). The independent, antiauthoritarian plebeian heroine emerges here as a potent emblem of British liberty. Conveniently erasing some of the primary reasons for Britains war with Spain primarily colonial acquisition and the extension of the Asiento agreement the rhetoric of war opposed British liberty to foreign enslavement and fostered the notion that Spanish colonists and indigenous peoples would be happier under the rule of the more freedom-loving British.33 Performed at the inception of the war, Edward Phillips play Britons, Strike Home: or, the Sailors Rehearsal. A Farce dramatizes this logic by creating an allegorical romance in which American colonies are represented by a lady who prefers the liberties of England to the tyranny of Spain. Kitty Clive played Donna Americana, a Lady whom Kings and whole Nations sigh after.34 Donna Americana becomes a spouse contracted by our Church to the Spanish Nation; but during the course of the play she rebels, stating, Then this claim of Marriage is the reason, Don, that you use me here as you use your Wives in Europe, with much Jealousy, and much Tyranny; but as Im grown acquainted with the customs and freedom of the English, tis their own fault, if they dont partake of my favours, for if our sex has a mind to grant a favour, hinder us if you can, signior (8). As Phillips farce implies

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that the colonies are more attracted to England because of its greater freedoms, so the memoir of Hannah Snell proudly depicts its British heroines desire to remain lord and master of herself after the Treaty of Aix-laChapelle. Davies was able to sustain herself through the patronage of Annes court and the nobility, but Snells hopes of Hanoverian preferment are tenuous. Instead, she seeks the publics support as a performer on stage. The author urges the reading audience to attend Snells performances: The publick we hope will encourage her, if she should have a benet play performd on her own account, as an encouragement for the many singular adventures, and signal deliverances from the many perils and dangers that environed her, and all in the behalf of her country (40). The long version of the memoir elaborates on the performances, in which she dresses in uniform, performs military exercises, and sings patriotic songs. One of the songs, which concludes the memoir, has purportedly been made popular by a group of anti-Gallicans, and is titled, Britannias Gold Mine; or, the Herring Fishery for Ever. The lyrics specically refer to a post-war Britain: the people now are groaning / Beneath a heavy debt [from the war] / And must be soon a bankrupt, / Unless we cast the Net (83). The refrain, a Fishing we must go, argues that the British should turn to domestic markets, taking advantage of the shing industry and forsaking imperialist ventures:35 The ocean round our islands, / If we this trade pursue, / Will yield us wealth surpassing, / The treasures of Peru (84). A turn to domestic markets, furthermore, will provide employment and riches to everyone: Then ye, who want employment, / Whose pittance is but small; / Come list beneath our standard, / Well cut out work for all. In the face of unrequited imperial desires the biographer denes nationalism closer to home, through pride in a British industry and pride in Britains industrious people, who by Hannah Snells example learn never to murmur or repine at our hard lot and to stay manfully chearful (86). Gerald Newman posits that the mid-eighteenth century witnessed a dramatic increase in nationalist sentiments that began specically as antiFrench and antiaristocratic. Native writers resented the elites preference for French culture and art, which had feminized and debauched the men of Britains ruling class; and graphic artists depicted Britannia as an innocent and virtuous lady, in danger of being seduced, dominated, and even dismembered by the French and Britains upper-class Francophiles (Newman, chaps. 4 5). The midcentury wars escalated peoples anxiety about

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the nations leadership and the creation of a strong British identity. In the midst of this cultural protest, the female-soldier memoirs expressed cultural armation. If the nations elite men have become too feminized to defend Britannia and expand her colonial holdings, Britannia will have to embrace the female masculinity of the nations plebeian women and defend herself. According to their memoirists, Christian Davies and Hannah Snell embody the peoples strength, virility, and independence they are much like the upstart, bossy Pamela, but a Pamela who refuses to be assimilated into bourgeois culture or to marry up. Snells biographer owns, this is a real Pamella [sic]; the other a counterfeit; this Pamella is real esh and blood, the other is no more than a shadow: therefore let this our heroine, who is the subject of this history, be both admired and encouraged (4). Though Snell and Davies lost the contest of longevity as emblems of the British nation, their memoirs provide rare insight into the momentary but salient role of the plebeian heroine in popular cultures nationalist mythmaking. Notes
I would like to thank Emma Prez, Anna Brickhouse, Arnab Chakladar, Valerie Forman, William West, and the anonymous readers at Eighteenth-Century Life for their helpful comments on this essay. I am also grateful to the University of Texas at El Paso, Oce of Research and Sponsored Projects, for research support to complete this project. . (London: C. Welch, 740), iv. Because of its availability on microlm, all citations are to this edn. The title page states that the narrative was taken from her own mouth when a pensioner of Chelsea-Hospital; thus the author acts as Davies amanuensis in a rst-person narration. Throughout the essay, I attribute the quotations to Davies herself to clarify the use of rst-person; however, in other parts of the argument, I stress the role of the amanuensis or biographer in shaping the narrative. 2. In The Rise of English Nationalism: A Cultural History, 1740 1830 (New York: St. Martins, 997), Gerald Newman documents how British artists and intellectuals of the midcentury, most notably Hogarth, grew increasingly disaected with the ruling class, viewing them as slaves to French and foreign fashions and unable to muster pride in homegrown art and culture. 3. (London: R. Walker, 750), rep. with intro. by Dianne Dugaw (Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Soc., 989).

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4. Richard Montagu published the rst edn. of Davies Life in 740 and a 2nd edn. in 74. In 740 another, possibly pirated, edn. claimed to be printed for C. Welch (Davies rst enlists as Christopher Welch). T. Cooper, who appears to have published many Opposition texts, issued abridged versions in 742 and 744. Likewise, The Female Soldier was made available through several publications. Besides Walkers 46- and 87-page edns., shorter versions of her tale were published in 750 in two middle-brow periodicals, the Gentlemans Magazine and the Scots Magazine. 5. Amazons and Military Maids: An Examination of Female Military Heroines in British Literature and the Changing Construction of Gender, Womens Studies International Forum 0.5 (987): 489 502, and Passing Women: A Study of Gender Boundaries in the Eighteenth Century, in Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, ed. G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina, 988), 243. 6. Balladrys Female Warriors: Women, Warfare, and Disguise in the Eighteenth Century, Eighteenth-Century Life 9.2 (985): 20. 7. Harold Temperly, qtd. in Philip Woodne, The Anglo-Spanish War of 739, in The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jeremy Black (Edinburgh: John Donald, 987), 86. 8. Anon., An Address to the Merchants of Great Britain, by a Merchant retird (London: J. Roberts, 738), 8. 9. Linda Colley, In Deance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party 1714 60 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 982), 224. 0. Cristine Gerrard notes, Even Pope turned from a peace poet [in which he lauded Annes Treaty of Utrecht] into a war poet (The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth, 1725 1742 [Oxford: Clarendon, 994], 9). . Gerald Newman notes that the attacks on the masculinity of Britains ruling elite escalated over the next decade, reaching its peak during the Seven Years War (80 84). I maintain that there is enough evidence from 740 to 750 to illustrate earlier concerns about the nations masculine military virtue. 2. Empire of Virtue: The Imperial Project and Hanoverian Culture c. 720 785, in An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 1815, ed. Lawrence Stone (London: Routledge, 994), 55. Also see Wilsons immensely useful book, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715 1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 998), 37 205. 3. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650 1850 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 989), 80. 4. Anon., A Poem on the Glorious Atchievements [sic] of Admiral Vernon in the Spanish West Indies (London: T. Cooper, 740), 6, 8. 5. James Thomson: Poetical Works, ed. J. Logie Robertson (London: Oxford Univ., 908), 422. 6. In addition to representations of plebeian women modeling or embodying masculinity, genteel women were used symbolically and literally to rouse mens martial valor (Kathleen Wilson, The Island Race: Englishness, Empire and Gender in the Eighteenth Century [London: Routledge, 2003], chap. 3).

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7. Female Masculinity (Durham: Duke Univ., 998), 46. Although the focus of Halberstams work is on late-9th- and 20th-c. examples of female masculinity, she also argues for the relevance of studying female masculinity in earlier historical periods. 8. The Female Soldier; Or, The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (London: R. Walker, 750), 7. This is the 87 pp. version. 9. Balladrys, 3. For an overview of womens roles in the military during the 8th c., see Barton C. Hacker, Women and Military Institutions in Early Modern Europe: A Reconnaissance, Journal of Women in Culture and Society 6.4 (98): 643 7. 20. Reproduced in Dugaws Warrior, 53. 2. Ed. Phillip Harth (London: Penguin, 970), 207. 22. See Colleys explanation of the fabric of the Tory appeal to the plebeian classes, chap. 6. Colley cautions us, however, not to take expressions of Tory solidarity with the laboring classes too literally and provides several examples of Tory leaders directly contradicting their protectionist rhetoric toward the laboring classes (47 5). In eect, she argues that being the peoples party was a convenient ction: dissident politicians needed, or believed they needed, reinforcement from outside Parliament (52). 23. Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt (Oxford: Clarendon, 989), 54 55. 24. Some Useful Observations on the Consequences of the Present War with Spain (London: J. Mechell, 739), , 8. 25. See, e.g., Isaac Kramnicks Bolingbroke and his Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of Walpole (Cambridge: Harvard Univ., 968). 26. Anon., The Conduct of His Grace The D ke of Ar le for the Four Last Years Reviewd together with His Graces Speech April 15th, 1740 upon the State of the Nation (London: Mr. Webb, 740), 34. 27. (London: J. Brindley et al., 744), 207. 28. Qtd. in H. W. Richmond, The Navy in the War of 1739 48, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 920), 3:25. 29. Qtd. in Jeremy Black, Britain as a Military Power, 1688 1815 (London: Univ. College London, 998), 03 04. 30. Samuel Johnson, On the Bravery of the English Common Soldier, in Samuel Johnson, ed. Donald Greene (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 984), 550. 3. The memoir also implies that the nobility in opposition to the current Walpole regime were better patrons to Davies in 74 than were the more commercially minded Whigs and Tories of that era. E.g., Queen Anne tells the earl of Oxford to give Davies an extra 50; yet Oxford, one of the founders of the South Sea Company, never carries the order through. Davies has to petition the queen again, who then tells Sir William Wyndham to provide Davies with the money. He does so expediently (232). Wyndham, respected leader of the Tory party during Walpoles reign, had just died in 740, the year Davies memoir was published.

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32. Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727 1783 (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 989), 29. 33. For an excellent discussion of the myth that the British nation was fundamentally opposed to slavery, see Nicholas Hudson, Britons Never Will be Slaves: National Myth, Conservativism, and the Beginnings of British Antislavery, Eighteenth-Century Studies 34.4 (200): 559 76. 34. (London: J. Watts, 739), 4. 35. According to Bob Harris, after the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle several Tory and Opposition Whig politicians proposed the development of Britains shing industry to help ght unemployment and poverty amongst the demobilized troops and to bolster the domestic economy. Although the song implies that the shing industry will supercede the need for colonial acquisition, these schemes also provided a way to keep the British navy staed and in training for future conicts at sea, particularly with France (Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century [Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2002], 253 66).