The zeal of Mrs. Crewe to propitiate the cause of the Emigrant French Clergy, mentioned in the letter of Mr. Burke, induced her now to enlist as a principal aid-de-camp to her scheme, Dr. Burney; who, having never acquired that power of negation, which the world at large seems so generally to possess, of shirking all personal applications that lead to no avenue, whether straight or oblique, of personal advantage, immediately listened to her call; and thus mentions the subject in a letter to Bookham.

“Mrs. Crewe, having seen at East Bourne a great number of venerable and amiable French Clergy, suffering all the evils of banishment and beggary with silent resignation, has, for some time, had in meditation a plan for procuring an addition to the small allowance that the Committee at the Freemason’s Hall is able to spare from the residue of the subscriptions and briefs in their favour.”

Dr. Burney lost not a moment in assisting this liberal design; in which he had the happiness of engaging the powerful energies of Mr. Windham. And, soon afterwards, growing warmer in the business, from seeing more of the pious sufferers, he consented to becoming honorary secretary himself to the private society of the ladies who were at the head of this charitable exertion; of which the Marchioness of Buckingham[33] was nominated chief, at the desire of Mrs. Crewe.

The world is so full of claims, and of claimants for whatever has money for its object, that the benign purpose of these ladies was soon offensively thwarted from misapprehension, envy, or ill-will, that sought to excite in its disfavour the prejudices ever ready, of John Bull against foreigners, till his justice is enlightened by an appeal to his generosity. Mrs. Crewe wrote warm lamentations on the subject to Dr. Burney, eagerly pressing him to engage his daughter in its cause.

“I never,” said the Doctor, in discussing this project, “receive a letter from Mrs. Crewe, in which she does not express her wishes that you would subscribe with your pen. ‘People in common,’ she truly says, ‘see the coarse, vulgar side of this business; and some good female writer would do well to put out some short essay, to throw a good colouring on such a subject; and bring precedents, if possible, out of the age of chivalry. Now Miss Burney never shone more than when she made her Cecilia burst from the shackles of common forms at Vauxhall, to save the life of Harrel. O! I wish Madame d’Arblay would let us all thank her again for such true pictures of taste and perfection in the moral world! The refinements of courts have been great; but they have seldom reached the heart; and I think genuine elegance was much oftener to be found amongst our ancestors; who, though, perhaps, too strict concerning the female sex, seem, by their writings, hardly ever to have let refinements interfere with the operations of reason and common sense.’”

This quotation was followed by earnestly encouraging exhortations from the Doctor, to charge the new recluse to make some effort in favour of this pious emigrant clergy; and as the request had the full concurrence of M. d’Arblay, to whose every feeling the plan was touchingly interesting, her compliance, though fearful, could not be reluctant.

This was the origin and cause of The Address to the Ladies of Great Britain, in favour of the Emigrant French Priests, that was written for those venerable sufferers, as a pen-offering subscription from this Memorialist.

And the partial view that was taken of it by her fellow recluse; and the warm approvance accorded to it by Mrs. Crewe’s new private secretary, made the writer esteem it the most fortunate effusion of that pen.

Mrs. Doctor Burney was amongst the most active workers for these pious self-sacrificed exiles: as well as for whatever had charity for its object.