ABSTRACT
‘Loyal Correspondent’ suits John Hiley Addington, a man of party, who contributed this jaunty piece of jingoism. Hiley’s abiding loyalty, however, was to his brother and benefactor Henry who was a childhood friend and colleague of Pitt. Henry became speaker of the House, and eventually a feeble Prime Minister; in 1801 he was the King’s only alternative when Pitt refused to stand. 1 Whatever his shortcomings in office, Henry had a gift for nepotism, shoring himself up with relatives and supporters. Hiley made a useful henchman, involving himself not only in The Anti-Jacobin, but also in two government-supporting newspapers, The Sun and The True Briton. His reward in Henry’s ministry was a post as Joint Secretary to the Treasury. Later Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, he died in 1818. Hiley’s ‘British War Song’, a chins-up, arm-swinging iambic route-march scornful of ‘the bloody Revolution’, suits English stoicism. It is unsurprising to find it reprinted in Armagh in 1848, in The Standard Orange Song Book; A Collection of Loyal and Constitutional Songs. Hiley based his ‘Song’ on a similarly stirring one by Miles Peter Andrews. 2
