Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had
seen to Mr. Boyd, Lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to
Lord Errol's house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not
unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the
compliment was paid.
[305] 'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not
fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.' _Ante_, April 28, 1783.
Smollett (_History of England_, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the
conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest
Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was
concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it
was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was
also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first
that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the
Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there
was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was
warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van
in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous.
Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 185) says:--'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns
(sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a
sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on
his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of
the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into
the slow fever of which he died.
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