Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

BLAIR WORDEN - A BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP

By this means, she concluded, Paoli would immortalize his name.

Hollis, by contrast, had more respect for individuals heading the government (rather than simply laying down the constitution). He also saw the path to glory as arising less from the establishment of a wise constitution at home, than from military prowess and victory abroad. In addition to his praise for Cromwell, Hollis showed remarkable respect for the British royal family of his own day. On 25th October 1760 he recorded in his diary the death of King George II ‘a Prince endowed with many Virtues, under whose reign I have passed the principal part of & flower of my life, in peace & full security & happiness’. 35 The following year on 22nd September he rose at 3am in order to watch the coronation procession. 36 In January 1764 he was planning to commission ‘a small medal of the King’ depicting the King’s head on one side and a crossed sceptre and trident on the other bearing the motto ‘Regit unus Utroque. Between the Scepter & Trident G-III-B-R.’ 37 The motto means ‘rules both as one’ suggesting that the monarch should hold both land and naval forces in their hands. This notion that strong command of military and naval power was crucial for a state is also reflected in Hollis’s interest in the reference to Sorbière’s letter to Corcelles reprinted in Harris’s biography of Cromwell. In the anonymous letter that Hollis sent to William Pitt accompanying a copy of that biography, Hollis noted that he had ‘good hope to see the scheme proposed in that letter take place in essence, without the Quixotism of ambition of it, under the reign of an excellent King, & the Noble administration of Mr. Pitt’. 38 The scheme that Sorbière described is a striking one. Writing in July 1652, he began by praising the English republicans for their bold actions against the United Provinces. He went on to laud their aggressive foreign policy that was designed to pave the way for English domination of the seas and therefore of trade. Following the long extract from the letter, Harris offered explicit praise for such a policy:

35 The Diary of Thomas Hollis , p. 47. 36 The Diary of Thomas Hollis , p. 87. 37 The Diary of Thomas Hollis , p. 180. 38 The Diary of Thomas Hollis , p. 88. A similar comment appeared in the version sent to Harvard.

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