[From Home Office File HO 98/67]

Col M Wilks to Lord Powis 21st Aug 1812

My Lord

When receiving your Lordship's Commands some years ago, on rather a more extended scale, your Lordship would scarcely anticipated an address on Parish Business from the Isle of Man : but without wishing to interfere with a preliminary laugh at Lord Thurlow's joke of "a Storm in a jereboam" - I do most sincerely and anxiously intrust your Lordship's Interposition with the excellent Noble man who directs the Home Department, to shield that Island from a system of Despotism, long never stated, deeply planned, & about to be carried into effect in the comeing month.

Lord Sidmouth was at one time well apprized of the Duke of Atholl's Projects, & (as I am informed) opposed with virtuous Indignation the arrangement for assigning to him a portion of the Public Revenue which Lord Ellenborough openly characterized as a scandalous job : but it may be necessary after some lapse of time to recall the leading facts to his Lordship's recollection for the purpose of making him to understand the sequel.

The Athole family succeded the Earl of Derby in 1735 as Lords of a feudal Sovereignity conferred in former days by the English Crown under the designation of "Kings in Man". The Sovereignity became a nest of Smugglers (Scotch, Irish & native) and the Interests of English Revenue required that it should be revested in the English Crown; which was accordingly effected by Purchase in 1765.

Here, as in other Countries, the germs of national freedom had grown up in the midst of feudal tyranny, and Laws for the internal Government of the Island had been immemorially passed by an insular Legislature of three Estates, composed of the 'House of Keys', a body consisting of twenty four of the principal freeholders, - the Governor, (who is also Chancellor) and Council, and lastly the assent of the feudal Lord.

In the revestment by the Act of 1765, this constitution continued, happily substituting the King for the feudal Lord.

Shortly after the succession to his Title of the present Duke of Atholl he took the opinion of three Gentlemen of Eminence at the English Bar, regarding the means of "getting rid of" certain insular Laws, which after some contest, had settled the nature of landed tenures about the beginning of the last Century. - the object was to invade these tenures : but although the opinions of these Gentlemen were sufficiently discouraging, they do not seem to have removed the erroneous motions which his Grace had formed. - In 1780 a Bill in Parliament was proposed by his Grace, of which it may be sufficient to state that the English Crown Lawyers {Note Report 7 June 1780, signed Al Wedderburn, Jas Wallace} reported it "to contain some Provisions injurous to the Rights of His Majesty, and regulations also which may in their consequences materially affect the Inhabitants of the Isle."

The efforts to carry this & a similar Bill, which continued in that and the succeeding year, were strenuously opposed by a deputation from the House of Keys, and the Bills were thrown out. - In 1783 leave was given to bring in a third Bill to which the same opposition was prepared, and the Bill never appeared.

I pass over other indirect attempts in order to arrive at 1790, when the plan was first devised, of obtaining from the Crown. or from the People of the Island, an addition to the Price fixed by the late Duke of Atholl himself, and deemed by all impartial men to be most liberal for the cession of a Sovereignity which had become a nuisance, and which the Lords of the Treasury had been authorized by law to remove by negotiation at as early a period as the 12th of George the 1st.

{Report 1791} In 1791 Commissioners were sent down by the Secretary of State, the late Lord Melville, then Mr Dundas, to examine the allegations on which were founded the application of his Grace to explain and amend the Act of 1765 : and their Report has furnished me with the leading facts stated in this letter. Little seems to have been done to accomplish the ostensible object of this Commission as explained in its Instructions; or to follow up its most valuable suggestions, with the exceptions of what relates to the Customs, in which his Grace has become interested, by the Act, on which the opinion of Lord Sidmouth is stated to have pretty nearly concurred with that of Lord Ellenborough.

Previously to 1777 a single Governor was deemed sufficient for the duties of an Island too poor to defray the expences of even its Civil Establishment. About that year General Smith the Governor had sufficient Interest to convert the Office into a Sinecure, excepting when he thought proper to pay a short visit of pleasure, procuring the appointment of a Lieut Governor, who exercised all the public functions, and of course corresponded directly with the Secretary of State.

{Note The Salary fixed at the Revestment was £600. - Of this Genl Smith reserved 400 as his sinecure, & the Lieut Govr had but 200, the latter sum has successively been raised to 400 & I believe lately to 500}

It is difficult to conceive the direct purposes for which a duke of the Realm could desire a Salary of £400 a year but a negotiation was arranged in 1792 or 3 by which Genl Smith resigned (on a Pension) and the Duke of Atholl was appointed Governor.

It may scarcely become me to examine in detail, how far it was justifiable or decorious, to delegate the powers of the Crown to a Person whose interests, as developed by his own hand in the Bill of 1780, were pronounced by the Crown Lawyers to be at variance with the Rights of the People: who as Chancellor would have to decide on questions in which his own manorial and impropriate Claims made him a Party, and affecting also the tenures which he had sought to invade. This strange thing however was actually done (it is hoped not irrevocably) and the house of Keys, weary of Contention were, in the simplicity of unsuspecting a Confidence actually persuaded to congratulate themselves on this portentious appointment.

Expences, trifling on an English scale, but important in a Country poor beyond anything that your Lordship can easily conceive, were incurred in resisting the Bills which sought to invade the Insular Rights these expences were in the first instance furnished by Individuals and the House of Keys have incessantly endeavoured to provide a fund by interior assessment for liquidating the debt : Bills for this purpose have passed the two branches of the insular Legislature, but have been prevented from receiving the Royal Assent by an influence which is even superfluous to name.

To stop without open Investigation, the means provides in regular course, by the two Branches of a Legislature, however insignificant, for defraying the expences incurred in asserting their Rights before a British Parliament, and thus to throw despair over any future efforts of a similar nature; would appear to resemble the Prostration of that Legislature & the People it represents, at the feet of an invincible despot.

Fortunately the Lieut Governors since 1793 have not lost sight of the duties which they owed to their Sovereign, and which are in this Case, most especially identified with those of the People committed to their Rule: they have consequently formed a material obstruction to his Grace's Views.

He travelled back to the Records of feudal Thraldom for an example of a Governor appointing a Deputy apparently by his own Authority. The Lieut: Governor (Shaw) was compensated for resigning, by a Pension, (once more alloted from the Public Purse), and his Grace's Brother was named deputy Governor: but His Majesty's Government justly indignant at this violation of the Perogative, extinguished the Attempts by the appointment of the present Lieut: Governor Smelt.

The essence of the same Plans have however but remained in a dormant State and are now revived by a proceeding negotiations for removing this Gentleman to make way for a dependant of the Duke of Atholl, who, may be contented virtually to mean the duty of reporting and receiving his orders direct from the Secretary of State. On the consequences of such an appointment to the Rights & properties of the Inhabitants, after what has been above stated, it were entirely superfluous to enlarge.

The People of the Island (or rather your Lordship's grateful Servants on their behalf) would be sorry to object to the Removal to a better office, of an honorable & independant man, but they most anxiously pray the good Offices of your Lordship. 1st That he may not be suceeded by a person under the nomination or influence of the Duke of Atholl; but by a man perfectly independant of his Grace; and secondly that the decency and propriety of his Grace's own appointment as Governor may become the subject of revision.

I have the honor to remain with unalterable respect & attachment, your Lordship's obliged & faithful servant

M Wilks

Notes

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