O.^L.y//ur//,- r HISTOEY OF ENGLAND IN THE XVIII™ CENTUEY VOL. I. LONDON' ! PRINTED BY ePOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STUKET SQUIBB AND PAELIAMENT STREKT A HISTORY OF ENGLAND m THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BY WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY THIRD EDITION, REVISED VOLUME I. LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1883 All rights reserved c jTpTrER MAYER LIBRARY 3A V.I urMVEHsi^n^ OF California SAINTA BARBARA PEEFACE. The history of a nation may be written in so many different ways that it may not be useless, in laying these volumes before the public, to state in a few words the plan which I have adopted, and the chief objects at which I have aimed. I have not attempted to write the history of the period I have chosen year by year, or to give a detailed account of military events or of the minor personal and party incidents which form so large a part of political annals. It has been my object to disengage from the great mass of facts those which relate to the permanent forces of the nation, or which indicate some of the more enduring features of national life. The growth or decline of the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the democracy, of the Church and of Dissent, of the agricultural, the manufacturing, and the commercial interests ; the in- creasing power of Parliament and of the press ; the history of political ideas, of art, of manners, and of belief ; the changes that have taken place in the social and economical condition of the people ; the influences that have modified national character ; the relations of the mother country to its depen- dencies, and the causes that have accelerated or retarded the advancement of the latter, form the main subjects of this book. VI PEEFACE. In order to do justice to them within moderate limits it is necessary to suppress much that has a purely biographical, party, or military interest ; and I have also not hesitated in some cases to depart from the strict order of chronology. The history of an institution or a tendency can only be written by collecting into a single focus facts that are spread over many years, and such matters may be more clearly treated according to the order of subjects than according to the order of time. It will appear evident, I think, from the foregoing sketch, that this book differs widely from the very valuable history of Lord Stanhope, which covers a great part of the same period. Two writers, dealing with the same country and the same time, must necessarily relate many of the same events ; but our plans, our objects, and the classes of facts on which we have especially dwelt, are so very different that our books can hardly, I hope, come into any real competition ; and I should much regret if it were thought that the present work had been written in any spirit of rivalry, or with any wish to depreciate the merits of its predecessor. Lord Stanhope was not able to bring to his task the artistic talent, the power, or the philoso- phical insight of some of his contemporaries ; but no one can have studied with care the period about which he wrote without a feeling of deep respect for the range and accuracy of his research, for the very unusual skill which he displayed in the difficult art of selecting from great multitudes of facts those which are truly characteristic and significant, and, above all, for his transparent honesty of purpose, for the fulness and fair- ness with which he seldom failed to recount the faults of those with whom ho agreed and the merits of those from whom he differed. This last quality is one of the rareet in history, and it is especially admirable in a writer who had himself strong party convictions, who passed much of his life in active politics, PREFACE. vii and who was often called upon to describe contests in which his own ancestors bore a part. To the great courtesy of the authorities of the French Foreign Office I am indebted for copies of some valuable letters relating to the closing days of Queen Anne ; and I must also take this opportunity of acknowledging the un- wearied kindness I have received from Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, during my investigation of those Irish State Papers which he has arranged so admirably and which he knows so well. London : November 1877. CONTENTS OP THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. PAGE Vicissitudes of Whigs and Tories 1 Not true that the parties have exchanged their principles . . . 2 The Eevolution much more due to special than to general causes . 6 Many general influences had long been inimical to Freedom The decline of the yeomen 6 Kestrictions on the political influence of the commercial classes . 7 Subserviency of the Judges 7 Intellectual tendency towards Despotism 8 Growth of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings . . . 8 Summary of the causes of the Revolution ..... 9 Skill with which the Whig leaders availed themselves of their opportunities 12 Part played by general and particular causes in history . . .IB Unpopularity of the Revolutionary Government 16 Strength of the English hatred of foreigners 17 It acted at first in favour of the Eevolution 18 And was strengthened by the Protestant feelings of the country . 19 Dangers to Protestantism in Europe 19 The jealousy of foreigners gradually turns against the Revolution 23 Foreign Folicy The Spanish Succession 24 England desires the acceptance of the will of Charles II. . . 25 Change of feeling produced by the invasion of Flanders , . . 27 Formation and prospects of the Grand Alliance . . . .29 Recognition of the Pretender by Lewis XIV 30 Strong warlike feeling. Dissolution of Parliament and f riumpli of the Whigs 80 Death of William 30 Tory sympathies of Anne 31 New Tory Ministry and Parliament , . . . . .32 X CONTENTS OF PAGE The exigencies of foreign policy draw Godolphin and Marlborough towards the Whigs 34 Partial transformation of the Ministry 34 Blenheim 37 Anger of the clergy against the Queen 37 Great \VTiig majority of 1705 38 Progress of the alienation of the Government from the Tories . 38 Chief events of the Godolphin Ministry .... .39 Government at length completely Whig ..... 42 Alienation of the Queen. The Ministers depend mainly for their power on the continuance of the war . . . . . . 43 Negotiations of 1706 44 And of 1709 46 Marlborough refused the position of Captain-General ... 49 TJie CJiwrch Opposition The Sacheverell case 51 Downfall of the Whigs 59 Coincidence of great ecclesiastical influence in England with great political and intellectual activity 60 Relations of the clergy to the Revolution : the abjuration oath . 62 Exaltation of Charles 1 64 The miracle of the royal touch 67 Strength of the Church in England 74 Its gains and losses by the Reformation 74 Poverty and low social position of the clergy 75 Effect of the Revolution in weakening their power . . . . 79 Growth of the Latitudinarian 2:iarty. Burnet .... 80 Change in the tone of the pulpit ....... 84 The non-juror theology 86 Conflict between the lower clergy and the bishops . . . . 87 Divisions in Convocation 89 Several Church measures carried under Anne . . . - . 90 History of the Occasional Conformity Bill 92 Conduct of the Whig party 94 The Schism Act 95 Political and religious liberty in great danger 96 Review of Foreign Policy Deaths in the French and Austrian royal families Military situation Conferences of Gertruydenberg. Reasons for a peace Inevitable dissolution of the alliance Wisdom of recognising the title of Philip V. Hostility of the new Government to Marlborough Secret negotiations and preliminaries Conference at Utrecht England abandons her allies .... Disasters that follow 97 98 98 99 101 103 105 107 108 111 113 THE FIKST VOLUME. XI PACK Violent proceedings at home 113 Fall of Marlborough 114 His character and career .115 The Peace of Utrecht 122 Abandonment of the Catalans .....,, 125 Reflections on the Peace , . . 126 Strength and neakness of the Govcrnvient Characters of its leaders . . 128 Strength of the Jacobite party throughout the kingdom . . . ISO Attitude of leading politicians towards it 132 The Protestant succession in great danger lot Eefusal of the Pretender to become a Protestant . . . .137 Forms the chief obstacle to his success 138 Advantages of the Whigs 140 The Commercial Treaty 142 Its failure weakens the Ministry 145 General Election. Clerical and Jacobite agitation . . . . 145 Divergence of Oxford and Bolingbroke 148 Attitude of the opposing parties. Intentions of Bolingbroke . . 149 Policy of Swift 157 Dismissal of Oxford 161 Jacobite designs of Bolingbroke. His intended Ministry . . 161 The Queen is seized with a mortal illness 163 Conduct of Shrewsbury, Argyle, and Somerset . . . .164 Shrewsbury made Treasurer 1 65 Preparations to secure the Hanoverian succession .... 165 Queen dies 165 George I. proclaimed 166 Attitude of Parliament and of parties 166 Formation of a Whig Ministry 168 CHAPTER II, honour Analysis of the Whig Party. 1. The AHstocracy Their remarkable liberality in England Their influence in raising public labour to In averting unscrupulous legislation . In making government popular In sustaining patriotic feelings . In bringing young men into politics Other uses of the peerage . Its evils Moderation of the English aristocracy Peerage Bill of Stanhope Great influence of the aristocracy at the time of the Eevolution 170 172 176 178 171) 171t 180 182 184 185 186 sn CONTENTS OF 2. The Commercial Classes FAOB The natural representatives of political progress .... 187 And of religious toleration 187 Immigration of Refugees .188 Its importance in the history of industry 191 Effect on the Whig party 193 Growth of industrial influence and prosperity in England . . 193 Effect of the funding system and of the great mercantile corpora- tions in strengthening the Whigs 198 Political corruption by rich merchants 201 Summary of the political influence of the commercial classes . 201 The Nonconformists Their position at the time of the Revolution . How far the Revolution favoured religious liberty The Toleration Act The Comprehension scheme .... Position of the Quakers Their affirmation allowed instead of oaths Increased facility for levying tithes Jacobitism under Anne very hostile to Dissenters Impeachment of Tory statesmen . ... Growing discontent ...... Bremen and Verden . • . . . Insurrection of 1715 Languor of public opinion. The Septennial Act Decline oftJie 3fonarcMcal Sentiment in England Multiplication of disputed successions throughout Europe Decay of the doctrine of Divine right . . . . . The party interest of the Tories hostile to the reigning King The respect for law opposed to high monarchical views Influences favourable to the royal power were overbalanced . Increased simplicity of the Court Disappearance of the miracle of the royal touch Lingering traces among the Stuarts ...... Growth of party government diminishes monarchical authority Methods by which the Whig party strengthened their power Close alliance with France . Peace of Rastadt Disturbances in Spain Career of Alberoni Failure and dismissal General pacification of Europe strengthened the Government 202 203 203 204 205 206 206 206 208 209 211 212 216 217 218 219 220 220 221 221 221 223 227 228 230 231 233 244 246 Decline of the Ecclesiastical Sjjii-it Growth of Scepticism — its different effects on Churches .... 248 Political results of the Trinitarian controversy and of the writings of Hoadly 249 THE FIEST VOLUME. Xlll Indefinite prorogation of Convocation Banishment of Atterbury Manner in which it was received PAGE 251 252 252 Religious Legislatian of the Whi^s Discussions on the Sacramental Test. Its history and effects Unsuccessful eiForts to repeal it Eepeal of the Schism and Occasional Conformity Acts . Measures in favour of the Irish Presbyterians . Relaxations of the English test Measures in favour of the Quakers Eevival of the Bill for Naturalising foreign Protestants The Jewish»Naturalisation Act Popular disturbances. Eepeal of the Act .... Intolerance not confined to the Anglicans or High Churchmen Eepeal of the law against witchcraft Eectification of the calendar . .... The position of the Catholics unimproved .... Peculiarity of the position of Catholicism in Eiirope And in England New laws against Catholics in England .... Laws against Catholics in the Colonies And against those in Ireland. The Treaty of Limerick The Irish penal code not due to any rebellion Laws depriving the Irish Catholics of all civil life . Laws prohibiting Catholic education Laws affecting property Laws preventing intermarriage of Catholics and Protestants . Laws affecting domestic life ...... Laws affecting religious worship ...... Degree in which the code was enforced .... Its effects Condition of the Catholics in England And in Scotland Measures relating to Unitarians, Arians, and Sceptics Eapid growth of religious indifferentism in England 253 257 258 258 2.59 260 261 262 264 265 266 267 268 268 271 275 276 278 280 283 285 286 289 289 292 296 301 303 310 311 313 CHAPTER IlL Monotony of English party politics. Tories still esteemed Jacobite 316 Policy and partial restoration of Bolingbroke 316 Schism of the Whigs in 17] 7 318 Partial reconciliation in 1720 . 321 The South Sea catastrophe 321 Complete ascendancy of Walpolc ....... 324 Sketch of his life .... 324 xiv CONTENTS OF PAGK Ministry of Waljwle His skill in managing men 328 His care in avoiding violent concussions of opinion . . . 329 His measures to reconcile the country gentry to the dynasty . . 330 His prudent religious policy 331 Instances of his sagacity of judgment . . . . . . 332 His financial skill 334 Great prosperity of the country 335 Proceedings relating to the National Debt. Arguments for National Debts .336 Their dangers 337 Erroneous estimates of the financial capacities of the country . 340 Connection between the Eevolution and the National Debt . . 341 The sinking fund of Walpole 342 His deference to public opinion combined with great absolutism in the Cabinet . • 343 His moderation to opponents has been exaggerated » . . 346 His pacific policy 348 Treaty between Spain and Austria in 1725 349 Siege of Gibraltar 351 Negotiations for peace 351 Peace of Seville and Peace of Vienna 353 War of the Polish Succession 354 Military sentiment of the King and country 356 Menacing progress of France 356 Walpole maintains peace 359 His ascendancy not due to great eloquence. Oratory not supreme in Parliament • 361 Summary of the merits of Walpole . . . . ^ . . 363 His Defects Low political honour 363 Want of decorum 364 Corruption. History of Parliamentary corruption .... 366 Degree in which the guilt of it attaches to Walpole . . . . 369 His influence over young men 370 Eeport of the Committee of Inquiry 371 Effect of the language of Walpole on political morality in England . 373 Elements of Opposition Pulteney 374 Carteret 375 Chesterfield 378 The Boy Patriots 379 The Tories 379 Position of Bolingbroke 380 The Prince of Wales 381 Death of the Queen. Isolation of Walpole .... i***^ THE FIRST VOLUME, sv PAGE Foreign Troiihles Disputes with Spain 383 The Family Compact 384 Jenkins' ears ........... 38'1 Declaration of war. First Expeditions 387 Death of the Emperor. "Weakness of Maria Theresa . . .387 Frederick II 389 The succession of Berg and Juliers 390 Claims to Silesia ........... 391 Invasion of Silesia. Coalition against Maria Theresa . . . 392 Policy of Walpole 393 Subsidy to the Empress. Neutrality of Hanover .... 393 Fall of Walpole 395 Euin of the influence of Pulteney 397 Failure of the impeachment of Walpole . . . . . . 398 His last days 399 The nev7 Ministry 400 Convention of the Austrians with Frederick ..... 401 Austrian victories in Bohemia and Bavaria . . ... 401 Charles VII. crowned EmiDcror 401 Frederick breaks the Convention. Battle of Czaslau . . . 402 Peace of Breslau 402 Expulsion of the French from Bohemia 403 Death of Fleury 403 Eapid changes of fortune in Italy 404 Services of the British fleet ........ 404 The Austrians completely victorious in Germany . . . . 405 The Dutch enter the war. Battle of Dettingen .... 405 Revulsion of feeling in England. Ambitious views of Maria Theresa 406 Exaggerated war measures of England 407 Alleged subordination of English to Hanoverian interests . . 408 Unpopularity of Carteret 411 Death of Lord Wilmington. Ascendancy of the Pelhams . . . 411 Henry Pelham 412 Abortive attempt of the French to invade England . . . . 413 French and Spanish fleet escapes from Toulon in spite of the English 413 Brilliant campaign of the French in Flanders 414 Interrupted by the Austrian invasion of Alsace . . . .414 Frederick renews the war . . . . . . . . . 415 Capture of Prague with its garrison 416 The Emperor reinstated in Munich 416 Frederick driven into Silesia . . . . . . . .417 French capture Friburg 417 Italian campaigns in 1744 417 1745. OtIensive alliance between England, Holland, Austria, and Saxony 418 Death of Charles VII 418 Peace between Austria and Bavaria. The Duke of Lorraine elected Emperor ............ 419 VOL. I. a XVI CONTENTS OF PAGE Victories of the Prussians. Peace of Dresden between Austria and Prussia 419 Insurrection of Genoa. Frencli and Spaniards victorious in Italy 420 French campaign in Flanders. Battle of Fontenoy and its results 420 Tlie Jacobite insurrection of 1745 421 General incapacity of the British commanders . . . . . 423 Successes of the navy 423 Italian campaigns of 1746 424 Victories of the French in Flanders and Holland .... 425 Failure of the attempt of the King to displace Pelham Ee-establishment of the Ministry .... Condition of Europe called urgently for peace . Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle Reduction of the army Foundation of Halifax Financial measures of Pelham ...... Great predominance of the commercial spirit in Parliament Anxiety for Parliamentary reform in the country 426 426 427 428 430 430 431 433 434 Parllamentai-y Corru])tion and Tyranny Simultaneous growth of the power of the Commons and the influ- ence of Government upon its members since the Eevolution . 434 Arbitrary proceedings of the Lower House. The Kentish petitioners 436 The Aylesbury election 437 Parliamentary censorship of the Press 438 Parliamentary privilege 439 Scandalous proceedings in the trials of disputed elections . . 440 Parliamentary reporting forbidden. Its history . . . . 442 Measure against bribery . . . . . . . . .447 Measures diminishing the number of pensioners and placeholders in Parliament ........... 447 Attempts to shorten the duration of Parliament. Effects of the Septennial Act 448 Itcdceming Features of Parliament Character of the English upper classes 451 Constant infusion of young members . . . . . . . 451 The representation of the counties and of the large towns . . 452 Fear of the Pretender 452 Attention paid to popular wishes 453 Comparative simplicity of English politics ^ 453 Low standard of political honour 454 Exclusive employment of Government patronage for political ends 455 Danger of leaving science and literature to the unrestricted operation of the law of supply and demand 456 Methods that have been adopted for encouraging them , . 459 Government patronage of literature under Anne . . . . 461 Effects of the degradation of literature under tlie first Georges . 4G3 THE FIEST VOLUJIE. xvn PAGE Patronage of Queen Caroline 404 Decline of political enthusiasm 46G Attitude of the nation in 1745 . 468 Browne's Estimate 469 Superiority of the English Government to most Continental ones . 471 Confusion of party qualities. Natural history of Whigs and Tories 473 Eeforms in Scotland 476 Lcrfislation about Piihlic Order On gin-drinking. History of Drunkenness Extreme danger of London streets. The Mohocks The inefticiency of the watchmen Street robberies Abolition of the privileges of the Mint Measures for the better lighting of London . Formation of a new police force Frequency of riots Wrecking. Laws to repress it . 476 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 488 The Marriage Act of Lord Rardwicke Clandestine marriages 490 English legislation on marriage 491 Difference between the secular and the theological aspec s of marriage 492 Divorce 493 Growth of the secular view of marriage in English law . . . 497 Success of Lord Hardwicke's Act 498 Decline of the spirit of philanthropy and reform .... 499 Berkeley 499 Oglethorpe 499 Condition of debtors' prisons 500 Foundation of Georgia 503 Neglected condition of the navy and army 504 Atrocious penal system 504 Tlie nation assuming rapidly its modern aspect . . . . 507 Growth of the Modern Military System Improvements in the art of war led to standing armies . . . 509 History of the Mutiny Act 510 Opinion of Blackst one . _ 512 Jealousy of the Army ..,....,., 513 History of barracks .......... 514 CHAPTER IV. JVational Tastes and Manners Growth of newspapers ard magazines 617 Coarseness of manners 619 Gambling . .»..>...... 521 xviu CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PAGR Gardening 523 Architecture 526 Painting 526 Music. Growth of the Opera 531 Career of Handel 532 The Drama. Its immorality 538 Legislation on the subject 542 ' The Beggars' Opera ' . . , 542 Depression of taste . ... 543 The Shakespearean revival 544 Garrick 545 Puritanical opposition to the theatre 548 Amusements with animals 550 Watering-places 554 Else of sea-bathing 555 Character of country life 556 Condition of the poor . . 658 Increase of London .......... 565 Town amusements .......... 568 Fashionable hours . . . . . . . . . , 569 Domestic service 570 Sanitary condition of London 572 Growth of medicine . . . 573 Anatomy 574 Inoculation 575 Conclusion 576 fflSTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. CHAPTER I. The political history of England in the eighteenth century falls naturally into two great divisions. After a brief period of rapid fluctuations, extending over the latter days of William and through the reign of Anne, the balance of parties was deter- mined on the accession of Greorge I. The "VVhigs acquired an ascendancy so complete that their adversaries were scarcely able even to modify the course of legislation, and that ascendancy con- tinued without intermission, and almost without obstruction, for more than forty-five years. But on the accession of George III. the long period of Whig rule terminated. After about ten years of weak governments and party anarchy, Lord North succeeded, in 1770, in forming a Tory ministry of commanding strength. The dominion of the party was, indeed, broken in 1782 for a few months, in consequence of the disasters of the American War ; but on the failure of the Coalition Ministry it was speedily re- established. It became as absolute as the Whig ascendancy had ever been. It lasted, without a break, to the end of the century, and it was only overthrown on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832. There is one theory on the subject of these political vicissi- tudes to which it is necessary briefly to advert, for it has been advocated by an historian of great eminence, has been fre- , VOL. I. B 2 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. i. quently repeated, and lias, in some respects, considerable plausi- bility. It has been alleged that the policy of the two great parties has been not merely modified, but reversed, since the first half of the eighteenth century ; that the Tories of the time of Queen Anne and of the first two Georges were substan- tially the same as the \^'higs of the early years of the present centuiy, and the older Whigs as the modern Tories. The Tories, we are reminded, opposed Marlborough and the French war, as the Whigs of the nineteenth century opposed Wellington and the Peninsular war. The Tories in 1711 overcame the opposition of the House of Lords by the creation of twelve peers, as the Whigs in 1832 overcame the same opposition by the threat of a still larger creation. The Tories advocated, and the Whigs opposed, free trade principles at the Peace of Utrecht. The Tories had at least some Catholic sympathies, while the Whigs were the chief authors of the penal laws against Catholics. The Tories agitated in the early Hanoverian period for short parliaments and for the restriction of the corrupt influence of the Crown. The Whigs carried the Septennial Act, and were the usual opponents of place bills and pension bills. I think, however, that a more careful examination will sufficiently sliow that, in spite of these appearances, the ground for assuming this inversion of principles is very small. The main object of the Whig party in the early part of the eighteenth centmy was to establish in England a system of government in which the will of the people as expressed by parliament should be supreme, and the power of the monarch should be subject to the limitations it imposed. The substitu- tion of a parliamentary title for divine right as the basis of the throne, and the assertion of the right of the nation to depose a dynasty which had transcended the limits of the constitution, were the great principles for which the Whigs were contending. They involved or governed the whole system of Whig policy, and they were assuredly in perfect accordance with its later developments. The Tory party, on the other hand, under Queen Anne was to a great extent, and under George I. was almost ex- clusively, Jacobite. The overwhelming majority of its members held fervently the doctrines of the divine riglit of kings and cz. I. WHIGS AND TORIES. 3 of the sinfulness of all resistance, and they accordingly regarded the power of Parliament as altogether subordinate to that of a legitimate king. The difference of dynasties was thus not merely a question of persons but a question of principles. Each dynasty represented a whole scheme of policy or theory of government, the one being essentially Tory and the other essentially Whig. The maintenance of the Hanoverian dynasty on the throne was, therefore, very naturally the supreme aim of the Whig party. They adopted whatever means they thought conducive to its attainment, and in this simple fact we have the key to what may appear the aberrations of their policy. If we enter more into detail there can be no question that the Tory party of the present century has been essentially the party of the landed gentry and of the Established Church, while it has been a main function of the Vv^higs to watch over the interests of the commercial classes and of the Nonconformists. But these characteristics are just as true of the days of Oxford and Bolingbroke as of those of Eldon and Castlere-agh. The immense majority of the country gentry and clergy in the early years of the eighteenth century were Tories, and the party was called indifferently the ' Chiuch party,' or the ' country party,' while the commercial classes and the Dissenters uni- formly supported the Whigs. The law making the possession of a certain amount of landed property an essential qualifica- tion for all members of Parliament, except a few specified categories, was a Tory law, carried under Queen Anne, in spite of the opposition of the Whigs, and it continued unaltered till 1838, when the land qualification was exchanged for a general property qualification, which in its turn was abolished by the Liberals in 1858. The two ecclesiastical measures which ex- cited most discussion under Anne were the Occasional Con- formity Act, which was intended to break the political power of the Dissenters by increasing the stringency of the Test Act, and the Schism Act, which was intended to prevent them from educating their children in their faith. Both of them were Tory measures ; both of them became law in a period of Tory ascendancy ; both of them were repealed at the triumph of tlie Whigs. A very analogous conflict raged in the present century B 2 4 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. around the Test Act and around the restrictions that excluded the Dissenters from the Universities. Like their predecessors in the eighteenth century, the modern Whigs were the steady advocates of the Dissenters. Like their predecessors in the eighteenth century, the Tories contended vehemently for re- strictions which they believed to be useful to the Church. In no respect were the Tory Governments in the days of Pitt and Castlereagh more remarkably distinguished from their Whig successors than by their extreme jealousy of the Press, their desire to limit its influence, and the severity with which they punished its excesses. But precisely the same contrast between tlie parties existed in the earlier phases of their history. The Whig Government that followed the Eevolution established the liberty of the Press. The first of the series of taxes on know- ledge which the modern Liberals, after a long struggle against Tory opposition, succeeded in abolishing were the stamp upon paper and the duty upon advertisements, which were imposed by the Tory ministry of Anne. The same ministry was promi- nent in the eighteenth century for the frequency and bitterness of its Press prosecutions, while the long Whig ministry of Walpole was in no respect more remarkable than for its uniform tolerance of the most virulent criticism. In the face of these facts it is not, I think, too much to say that the notion of the two parties having exchanged their prin- ciples is altogether fallacious, and the force of the instances that have been alleged will, on examination, be much weak- ened, if not wholly dispelled. The attitude of parties towards European wars is so slightly and remotely connected with their political principles that the fact of a party having opposed a war in one century and supported a war in another can hardly be regarded as a reasonable presumption of apostasy. The free trade policy which the Tories upheld in the reign of Anne has never been distinctively Whig, and in promoting its triumph the party which counts Hume and Tucker among its writers, and Pitt and Huskisson among its statesmen, deserves a credit at least equal to its opponents. The attacks which the Whigs directed in 1713 against the free trade clauses of the Tory commercial treaty with France, were scarcely more vehe- ment than those which Fox and Grey directed on the same rn. I. WHIGS AND TORIES. 5 ground against the commercial treaty negotiated by Pitt in 1786. It is true that the Whigs' in the seventeenth, and in the first half of the eighteenth, century, were more actively anti- Catholic in their policy than the Tories, and that they are responsible for the most atrocious of the penal laws against Catholicism ; but the obvious explanation is to be found in the fact that the Whigs were struggling for a Protestant sue cession, while the legitimate line adhered to Catholicism. Apart from this, the Tories had little or no sympathy with the Catholics. If the Dissenters were more strongly antipapal than the clergy of the Established Chm'ch, the commercial classes were certainly more tolerant than the country gentry. The Tory Grovernment under Anne did nothing for the Catholics ; it even issued a proclamation in 1711 for putting the laws against them into force, and it is a remarkable fact that the only minister in the first quarter of the eighteenth century who showed any real disposition to relieve them of their disabilities was tlie Whig Stanhope. The Bill substituting septennial for triennial parliaments was, it is true, a Whig measure, and it is also true that the Tories in the early Hanoverian period were, in conjunction with a large body of discontented Whigs, energetic parliamentary reformers, advocating triennial or even annual par- liaments, and inveighing bitterly against pensions and places. But in this there is nothing perplexing. The Whigs carried the Septennial Act because they believed that a dissolution immedi- ately after the accession of George I. and the rebellion of 1715 would be of tlie utmost danger to the dynasty which it was their great object to defend. They maintained the Septennial Act mainly because they were in power, and desired, like all adminis- trations, to avoid any unnecessary shock that would endanger their stability. That short parliaments are not naturally Tory, or long parliaments naturally Whig, is abundantly shown by tlie earlier history of the Triennial Bill, which, having been first carried by the revolutionary Long Parliament in 1641, was repealed in the Tory reaction of the Eestoration, and re-enacted in 1694, after a struggle that lasted for several years, during which the Whigs had generally supported and the Tories had usually opposed it. The Whigs, when in office under Walpole, maintained and multiplied places and pensions because they 6 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. r. were at their disposal, and were powerful instruments in main- taining tbeir majority. The Tories acted in the same manner when they reg-ained power under George III. If, at a time when they were in almost hopeless opposition, they took a different course, they were merely adopting the ordinary tactics of an Opposition. The great triumph of Whig principles that was achieved at the Revolution was much less due to any general social, or intellectual development than to the follies of a single sovereign, and the abilities of a small group of statesmen. For a long time, indeed, the tendency of events had been in the opposite direc- tion. In the earlier periods of English history, perhaps the most important element of English liberty lay in the great multitude of independent yeomen or small landed proprietors. In the reign of Henry VI., Fortescue had declared that in no other country in Europe were they so numerous as in England, and he attributed to this fact a very large part of the well- being of the nation.^ For many generations, however, this class had been steadily declining. The relaxation of the feudal system enabled proprietors to alienate their land ; the increase of wealth had tlie inevitable result of accumulating landed properties ; the great extension of the woollen trade, combined with the high rate of agricultural wages under Henry VII., made it the interest of landlords to turn arable land into pas- ture ; the sudden alteration in the value of money resulting from the discoveries of precious metals in America, and the violent changes in the distribution of wealth produced by the confiscation of Church property aggravated the tendency ; and in the latter Tudor reigns there were bitter complaints that the small proprietors were being rapidly absorbed, that tenants were being everywhere turned adrift, and that great tracts which had once been inhabited by a flourishing yeomanry were being converted into sheepwalks. More, Roger Ascham, Harri- son, Latimer, Strafford, and Bacon bear abundant testimony to the magnitude of the evil. A long series of attempts was made to check it by laws placing obstacles in the way of new enclo- sures, prohibiting the pulling down of farm-houses to which 1 Fortescue Be Laudlhns Legiim Anglice, cap. xxix. CH. I. TENDENCIES TOWARDS DESPOTISM. 7 twenty acres of arable land were attached, restraining the num- ber of sheep in a flock, and even regulating the number of acres under tillage ; but this legislation, which had been warmly eulogised, and in part originated, by Bacon, was probably im- perfectly executed and was certainly insufficient to arrest the tendency. The yeomanry formed the chief political counterpoise to the country gentry. In the Civil War they were conspicuous on the side of the Parliament, and even after the Eestoration it was estimated that there were more than 160,000 small landed proprietors in England. Every year, however, their number diminished.' If they continued in the country districts, they sank into peasants, or rose into country gentry, and in the first case they lost all political power, while in the second case they usually passed into the Tory ranks. The towns, and the com- mercial classes who inhabited them, had, no doubt, rapidly increased under the Stuarts, but they had hardly made a corre- sponding advance in political importance. The guilds which gave the commercial classes a large amount of political concen- tration, had disappeared. The modern inventions that have given manufacturing industry an unparalleled extension had not yet arisen, and by a recent and skilful innovation the poli- tical power of the commercial classes had been fatally impaired. Under Charles II. the corporations most hostile to the Crown had been accused of petty irregularities and misdemeanours. Sentences of forfeiture had been pronounced against them ; new charters were granted, framed in such a manner that the mem- bers were necessarily subject to the approval of the Crown, and by this process almost the whole borough representation through- out England had been reduced to a condition of complete sub- serviency. The judicial bench has more than once proved the most formidable bulwark against the encroachments of de- spotism, but in England the judges were removable at plea- sure, and had become the mere creatures of the Crown. In no age, and in no country have State trials been conducted with a more flagrant disregard for justice and for decency, and witli a ' See Eden's Hist, of the W McmoirexdiiMark-ltaldeBcrn-h'l; 70G-707, 772-774. De Flassan's //<'.2. Dalrymple".s .See too Bauke's Hist, of Emjland, MeiiimrK iift,'rrnt JiHftii/i, part i. bk. sviii. 1. V. Burnet's Oic/i Times, i, GtJl-GGl', 2-4 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. and, if compelled to wage war, should do so only on her natural element, the sea.' After the Peace of Eyswick especially, this feeling gathered strength, and it became evident that the Tory pai'ty, which now rose to power, and which undoubtedly repre- sented tlie true national sentiment, was resolved to pursue a steady policy of isolation and of peace. The army, to the bitter indignation of the king, was reduced to 10,000, and afterwards to 7,000 men. The sailors were reduced from 40,000 to 8,000. Even the Dutch guards were summarily dismissed, and these measures were taken at a time when a danger of the greatest magnitude was looming on the horizon. Charles II. of Spain was sinking rapidly to the grave, leaving no child to inherit his vast dominions, and there were three rival claimants for the succession. The nearest in point of birth was the Dauphin, the son of the elder sister of the Spanish king, but his claim was barred by a formal renunciation of all right of succession made by his mother when she married Lewis XIV., and ratified with great solemnity by the oath and the word of honour of her husband when he accepted the treaty of the Pyrenees. Next to the Dauphin came the electoral prince of Bavaria, whose mother was the daughter of the younger sister of the Spanish king, but in this case also an express renunciation barred the title. The third competitor was the Emperor, who could claim only as the son of Charles's aunt, but his claim was barred by no renunciation. The Emperor waived his claim in favour of his second son, the Archduke Charles, but beyond this he would make no concession, though France was prepared to oppose to the last, and England was far from desiring, so great an increase of power to the House of Hapsburg. The electoral prince of Bavaria was still in infancy ; his father was the sovereign of an inconsiderable State, and unable to enforce his claims. The queen mother of Spain, who had warmly favoured this disposition of the crown, died in 1696, and although William would gladly have supported it, neither the Austrians nor the French would acquiesce in the arrangement. ' As Bolingbroke tersely expressed junction be such that nothing- less it, * Our true interests require that than the weiglit of Great Britain can we should take few engagements on prevent the scales of power from the Continent, and never those of being quite overturned.' — Marchnwnt making a land war unless the con- PajnTS, ii. 314. CH. I. THE TREATIES OF PARTITION. 25 The Dauphin resigned his claim in favour of his second son, the Duke of Anjou, but Austria was desperately opposed to his suc- cession, and William considered so great an aggrandisement of the House of Bourbon fatal to the freedom of Europe and to the whole policy of his life. It is not necessary here to relate at length how Lewis and William endeavoured to meet the difficulty by the treaty of par- tition of 1698, providing that on the death of the Spanish king the Milanese should pass to the Archduke Charles, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Tuscan ports, the marquisate of Finale, and tlie province of Gfuipuscoa to the Dauphin, and the remainder ot the Spanish dominions to the electoral prince of Bavaria ; how, on the death of the last-named prince, a second partition treaty was signed in 1700, granting Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and tlie Indies, to the Archduke, increasing the compensation to France by the Duchies of Lorraine and Bar, and transferring the Duke of Lorraine to the Milanese ; how these treaties were made without communication with the sovereio-n and states- men of the Spanish monarchy, which was so unceremoniously disposed of, without the assent of the Emperor, who refused to diminish any of his pretensions, without any real regard for the opinion of English ministers, though an English army would probably be required to enforce their provisions ; how when the project became known in Spain a fierce storm of indignation convulsed the land, and the dying king, who had once favoured the Bavarian succession, was induced, after many vacillations, to endeavour to save his kingdom from dissolution by bequeathing the whole to the Duke of Anjou ; and how upon the death of Charles, in the November of 1700, Lewis tore to shreds the treaty he had signed, and boldly accepted the bequest for his grandson. What we have especially to notice is the attitude of parties in England. The whole Tory party, which was now rising to the ascendant, steadily censured the interference of England in the contest. When the projects of partition were announced they were received with the severest disapprobation, and when the will of Charles was published the Tories strenuously urged that England should acquiesce. ' It grieves me to the soul,' wrote William with extreme bitterness, ' that almost everyone rejoices that France 26 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. has preferred the will to the treaty.' ^ Independently of the gross injustice of measures for dividing by force a great monarchy which had given no provocation to its neighbours, it was contended that the terms of the partition treaty would have given France a most 'dangerous ascendancy, that the possession of Naples and the Tuscan ports would have made her supreme in tl)e INIediterranean, that the possession of Gruipuscoa would have given her the trade of the West Indies and of South America, and have placed Spain at her mercy in time of war, that the acqui- sition of so long a line of valuable seaboard, in addition to wliat she already possessed, would liave imparted an immense impulse to her naval power. The dangers resulting from the will were, it was said, much less. The strong national sentiment of the Spanish people, who have been pre-eminently jealous of foreign interference, might fairly be relied on to counteract the French sympathies of their sovereign ; and Spanish jealousy had been rendered peculiarly sensitive by the participation of Lewis in the partition treaties. Nor was it likely that a prince, placed at a very eai'ly age on a great throne, surrounded by Spanish influences, and courted by every Power in Eiu'ope, would be characterised by an excessive deference to his grandfather. Above all, it was a matter of vital importance to England that she should enjoy a period of repose after her long and exhausting war, and tliat the system of standing armies, of national debts, and of foreign subsidies, should come to an end. These were the views of the Tory party, and there can be little question that tliey would have prevailed, in spite of the opposition of the king, had Lewis, at this critical moment, acted with common prudence and common moderation. There was one point on the Continent, however, which no patriotic Eng- lishman, whether Whig or Tory, could look upon with in- difference. The line of Spanish fortresses which protected tlie Netherlands from the ambition of France was of vital import- ance to the security of Holland, and if Holland passed into French hands it was more than doubtful whether English inde- pendence would long survive. To preserve these fortresses from French aggrandisement had been for generations a main end of English policy ; during the last fifty years torrents of English ' Harclwicke"s iSlato Papers, ii. 39G. CH. I. LEWIS SEIZES THE DUTCH BAERIER. 27 blood had been shed to secure them ; and with this object, "William had agreed with the Elector of Bavaria, who governeel them as the representative of the Spanish king-, that they should be garrisoned in part with Dutch troops. Propositions for the absolute cession of the Spanish Netherlands to the Elector of Bavaria had been made, but for various reasons aban- doned ; but the maintenance of the Dutch garrisons was of extreme importance, and if, as was alleged, the transfer of the Spanish monarchy to the grandson of Lewis XIV. did not mean the subserviency of Spain to French policy, it was on this, beyond all other questions, that the most careful neutrality should have been shown. Lewis, however, was quite determined that these garrisons should cease, and he at the same time saw the possibility of forcing the Dutch to recognise the validity of the will of Charles II. With the assent of the Spanish autho- rities he sent a French army into the Spanish Netherlands, occupied the whole line of Spanish fortresses in the name of his grandson, and in a time of perfect peace detained the Dutch garrison prisoners until Holland had recogTiised the title of the new sovereign to the Spanish throne. It would be difficult to exaggerate either the arrogance or the folly of this act. The Tory party, which in the beginning of 1701 was ascendant in England, was bitterly hostile to William ; the partition treaties excited throughout the country deep and general discontent, and the ardent wish of the English people was to detach their country as far as possil)le from conti- nental complications, and to secure a long and permanent peace on the basis of a frank acceptance of the will of Charles 11. But it was impossible that any English party, however hostile to William, could see with indifference the whole line of Spanish fortresses, including Luxemburg, Mons, Namur, Charleroi, and the seaports of Nieuport and Ostend occupied by the French, the whole English policy of the last war overthrown without a blow, and the transfer of the Spanish monarchy to Philip im- mediately employed in the interests of French ambition. Wlien the Dutch formally applied for the succour which, under such circumstances, England was boxmd by treaty to furnish, both Houses of Parliament declared their determination to fulfil their obligations, and English troops were actually sent to Holland ; 28 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. i. but still several months of anxious negotiation ensued, and on the side of England tliere was a most sincere and earnest desire to avert the war. Party spirit ran furiously at home. The two Houses were engaged in bitter quarrels, and the Tories lost no opportunity of irritating the king. The Commons ordered Portland, Somers, Halifax, and Orford to be impeached ; they censured in the severest terms the treaties of partition, and the Tory ministers compelled William, even after the French aggres- sion on the Dutch, to recognise Philip as king of Spain. The Act of Settlement, which was made necessary by the death of the young Duke of Gloucester, the last surviving child of Anne, secured, indeed, the crown to the Protestant House of Bruns- wick, but surrounded it with limitations extremely offensive to the king. The House of Commons, which was so violently Tory, had been but just elected, and though a warlike spirit was slowly growing in the country, it was not only possible, but easy to have allayed it. Had the French sovereign con- sented to re-establish the Dutch garrisons in some at least of the frontier towns, or had he consented to the transfer of the Spanish Netherlands either to the Emperor or to Holland, the peace of Europe might have been preserved. But he was seized at this moment with what appeared a judicial blindness. He did not desire war, but he imagined that his power would intimidate all opponents. If a war broke out, the great resources of France and Spain would be united. France had secured the alliance of the Dukes of Savoy and of Mantua in Italy, of the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne in Germany, and liad opened what appeared to be promising negotiations with Portugal. The Emperor was embarrassed by troubles pro- duced in Hungary by Rakoczy, the bravest and most popular of Hungarian chiefs, and in Germany itself he liad aroused much jealousy among the princes of the Empire, by creating a new electorate for Hanover, and by raising the electorate of Brandenburg into the kingdom of Prussia. The King of England seemed paralysed by the opposition of his Parliament, while the fortresses that were the key to Holland were in French hands. Under these circumstances, Lewis persuaded himself tliat there was nothing to fear. He released the Dutch troops, indeed, on obtaining a recognition of the title of his grandson, and he CH. I. THE GRAND ALLIANCE. 29 offered to withdraw his troops from the fortresses they had seized as soon as the Spaniards were able fully to garrison them, but he would give no further security to Holland. The light in which he looked upon events was very clearly shown in his speech to the constable of Castile in the beginning of 1701. ' The French and Spanish nations,' he said, ' are so united that they will henceforth be only one .... My grandson, at the head of the Spaniards, will defend the French. I, at the head of the French, will defend the Spaniards.' ^ The Emperor was already in arms. A great change passed over public opinion in England. It was chiefly shown in the House of Lords, but it appeared also, though much less strongly, in the House of Commons, and on the 7th of September, 1701, William concluded the triple alliance of England, Holland, and the Emperor, for the purpose of recovering the Low Countries from the hands of the French, securing them as a barrier to protect the United Provinces from the French, and redressing the balance of power by obtaining for the Emperor the Spanish dominions in Italy. Such was the foundation of that great alliance which for a time brought the French power to the lowest depth. It was strengthened in 1702 by the accession of the new kingdom of Prussia, and afterwards of nearly the whole Empire, and in the following year by the accession of Portugal, and by the change of sides of the Duke of Savoy. Its prospects of success were at first, however, very gloomy. William was now dying. The Tory party, which was bitterly hostile to him and exceedingly reluctant to engage in the war, had a large majority in the Commons. War was not yet declared, and the treaty of alli- ance provided that two months should pass before any active steps of hostility were taken. It was not improbable that before that time the king, who was the soul of the policy of war, would be in his grave, and it was certain that the alliance itself could easily have been broken up by very moderate concessions. The jealousy between England and Holland, the profound dislike of the ruling party in the former to continental wars, the differ- ence of aim between the Emperor, who claimed the whole ' De Flassan, Hist, de la Diplomatxe Franqahc, iv. 203. 30 ENGLAND IN THI-] EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. i. Spanish dominions, and the Dutcli and Eugiisb, who desired only to secure Holland and to restore the balance of power by a partition, threatened to prevent all energetic and united action, and it was more than doubtful whether the Commons would vote adequate subsidies, when Lewis himself, by an act of gra- tuitous folly, changed the wliole aspect of affairs. Only ten days after the triple alliance was signed, James II. died, and Lewis, who had bound himself by the Peace of Eyswick to take no step calculated to disturb William in his possession of the throne of England, resolved, in spite of the earnest en- treaty of liis ministers, to recognise the Pretender as king of England. The effect on the English nation was instantaneous. The storm which had for some months been slowly gathering- burst into a hurricane. The attempt of a French king to pre- scribe to the English people the sovereign whom they should obey touched acutely that sentiment of national jealousy of foreign interference which was then the strongest of English sentiments ; and William, by dissolving parliament while the i^sentment was at its height, overthrew the Tory power and obtained a large majority pledged to the policy of war. William died on the 8th of March, 1702. He did not live to declare the war, but he lived to till his ministry with statesmen who were favourable to it, and to see the new House of Commons carry addresses and vote military supplies which made it inevitable. The sudden fluctuation of the national sentiments in 1701 is very remarka?jle. In that year there had been the most unusual spectacle of two new parliaments violently antagonistic in their policy. The parliament whicli met for the first time in February was vehemently and aggressively Tory. The parliament which met in December contained a large majority of Whigs. The change, however, was in reality more superficial than might appear. The strong national jealousy of foreign rulers, and foreign politics, and foreign interference, which was usually the strength of tlie Tory party, was as vehement as ever, though it had for the moment been enlisted on the side of the Whigs. It was no attachment to the Dutch sovereign, no desire to alter the disposition of power on the Continent in the general interests of Europe that animated the electors, but solely resentment at French interference ; and few CII. I. ACCESSION OF ANNE. 31 Eno-lisli sovereio-ns have ever sunk to tlie tomb less regretted by the mass of the English nation than William III. With such sentiments prevailing in the nation, it is not surprising that the accession of Anne should have been followed by a violent reflux of Tory feeling. The queen herself was intensely Tory in her sympathies, and though intellectually she was below the average of her subjects, she was in many respects well fitted to revive the party. Her character, though some- what peevish and very obstinate, was pure, generous, simple, and affectionate, and she had displayed, under bereavements far more numerous than fall to the share of most, a touching piety that endeared her to her people. Her part in the Revolution had been comparatively small. She was, as she stated in her first speech from the throne, 'entirely English' at heart, and the strongest and deepest passion of her nature was attachment to the English Church. Though promising her protection to the Dissenters, she looked with secret horror on the toleration they enjoyed, and her own severe orthodoxy had been undimmed in the Popish court of her father, and in the latittidinarian atmosphere of the Revolution. Her reverence for ecclesiastical authority was early shown when she rebuked her chaplain at Windsor for administering to her the sacrament before the clergy ; ^ her zeal against the Dissenters, when she compelled her husband, though himself a Lutheran, holding high office under the Crown, to vote for the bill against occasional conformity ; her care for the interests of the Church, when she surrendered to it those firstfruits and tenths which had originally been claimed by the Pope, and had been afterwards appropriated by the Crown ; her generosity, when she devoted 100,000/. out of the first year's income of her civil list, to alleviate the public burdens. In the eyes of the upholders of divine right, she was as near a legitimate sovereign as it was then possible for a Protestant to be, and it was felt that her own sympathies would be entirely with the legitimate cause, but for her stronger affection for the English Church. In this respect she repre- sented with singular fidelity the feelings of her people, and she became the provisional object of much of that peculiar attach- ment which is usually bestowed only on a sovereign whose title • Cuke's Defection, 32 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cm. i. is beyond dispute. It was also a happy circumstance for the glory of her reign, though not for the Tory party, that the wife of the greatest living Englishman exercised at this time an almost absolute empire over the royal mind. A great war was inevitable and imminent, and Marlborough became almost omnipotent in the State. Within a few days of the accession of the sovereign he was nominated Knight of the Garter ; he was made Captain-General of the Forces, and was sent to Holland on a special mission to ratify the new alliance against France, while his wife was entrusted with the management of the privy purse, and made groom of the stole, mistress of the robes, and ranger of Windsor Park. Godolphin, whose son had married the daughter of Marlborough, and who was bound to Marl- borough in the closest friendship, became Lord Treasurer. He had been actively engaged in political life since the first parlia- ment of the Eestoration, and his long career had been on the whole singularly unsullied at a time and under circumstances when political integrity was extremely rare. With the excep- tion of Halifax he was incontestably the foremost financier of his age ; an old, wary, taciturn, plodding, unobtrusive, and moderate man, who, though he had voted in turn for the Ex- clusion Bill and for the regency, had won the confidence both of James and William, and who without any strong convictions, any charm of manners, or any brilliancy or fascination of intel- lect, had more than once stood in the first line of party warfare He was now attached, though without fanaticism, to the Tories ; and his experience, his prudence, his administrative talents, and his respectable and conciliatory character, made him well fitted to preside over the Government. The ministry was rapidly re- organised by the appointment of Tories to most of the leading places. Howe, the bitterest assailant of William, was now called to the Privy Council, and made one of the Paymasters of the Forces. Nottingham, who of all statesmen was most dear to the High Church party, was made one of the Secretaries of State, his colleague being Sir Charles Hedges. Harcourt, the ablest Tory lawyer, and Seymour, the most influential Tory country gentleman in the Lower House, were made respectively Solicitor-General and Comptroller of the Household. Lord Pembroke became Lord President, Lord Bradford, treasurer of CH. I. DISSENSIONS IN THE MINISTRY. 33 the houseliold, and Lord Normanby, wlio was soon after created Duke of Bucking-ham, Privy Seal. Wright continued to be Chan- cellor, and Rochester Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The great Whig names of Somers, Orford, and Halifax were omitted from the Privy Council. Prince Greorge, the husband of the Queen, was gratified by the title of Greneralissimo of the Forces, and he was also very injudiciously made High Admiral, and thus placed at the head of the naval administration. The House of Com- mons, in accordance with the law, was dissolved within six months of the death of the last sovereign, and the constituen- cies, which at the close of the preceding year had sent in a decided Whig majority, now returned a House in which the Q'ories were nearly double the number of the Whigs. The victory of the party was complete, but it was verv transient, and the exigencies of foreign policy again speedily modified the home policy of England. It was a strange for- tune that bequeathed to the Tory party, in the very moment of its triumph, a Whig war, and the great general who rose to power had the strongest personal reasons for promoting it. William, who had been reconciled to him at the close of his reign, had taken him with him on his last journey to Holland, and had given him the chief part in negotiating the triple alliance. Independently, therefore, of all considerations of military ambition, Marlborough was personally committed to the policy of war. Nor, indeed, was it possible to avoid it. The engagements of the allies were too explicit ; the feeling aroused in England by the recognition of the Pretender was too strong ; the dangers arising from the will of Charles II., as disclosed by the proceedings of Lewis in the Netherlands, were too glai'ing for any English party to remain passive. Tlie Tories felt this, and though it was one of the main objects of tlieir policy to withdraw the country from Continental complications, they in general concurred in the declaration of war which was issued on the fourth of May. Dissensions, however, speedily arose. Eochester, who had been rea^arded as the leader of the party, was bitterly disappointed at not obtaining a more influential place than that of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The second son of the great Lord Clarendon, and conse- quently tlie uncle of the Queen, he had long viewed with. VOL. I. D 34 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cir. i. great jealousy the ascendancy the Marlboroughs had obtained over her mind. His Toryism was of a very different complexion from that of Marlborough and Godolphin, and he wished to push the victory of tlie party to its extreme consequences, expelling the few Whigs who remained from the former administration. Nottinglmm, with several other members of the party, dissented for less personal reasons. They had been forced reluctantly into a war which had been prepared by William ; but they desired at least that it should be carried on within the narrowest limits ; that England should, as much as possible, restrict herself to defensive operations and to the Spanish Netherlands, that she should enter into the struggle not as a principal, but as an auxiliary. They objected to every vigorous measure that was taken — to the march of the English troops into Germany, to the encouragement given to the Protestant insurrection of the Cevennes. It was not likely that a Government virtually ruled by a great and ambitious general would yield to such viewe, and Godolpliin and Marlborough, finding their foi-eign policy most cordially supported by the Whigs, began from tins time steadily to gravitate to that party. The defection of Eochester in 1702, and of Notting- ham in 1704 ; the dismissal in the same year of Lord Jersey and Sir Edward Seymour ; the dismissal of the Duke of Buck- ingham from the Privy Seal in 1705, changed the whole spirit of the Government, while the great popularity of the war pro- duced a corresponding change in the spirit of the country. There were many reasons why this war should be regarded in a light wholly different from that of William. From the time when Lewis recognised the Pretender, it became a truly national war, produced by a great outburst of national resentment. The English troops were now commanded by an English general, and by a general of whose transcendent genius his countrymen were soon justly proud. The army, which during the greater part of the last war was still raw and almost undisciplined, had now acquired the qualities of veterans,' and the nation was soon ' « Wliat I remember to have heard 1702 proved true. Tlie French mis- Ihe Duke of Marlborough say l)efore reckoned very much if they made the he went to take on liim tlie command same comparison between tlieir troops of the army in the Low Countries in and those of their enemies., as they CH. I. GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 35 excited by the struggle and intoxicated by tlie cup of militrrry glory. This change in the political character of the ministry at a time when its two principal figures remained the same, is very remarkable. Both Grodolphin and Marlborough, however, were wholly destitute of strong party feelings, and both of them desired a ministry in which each party was represented. The first was naturally a very moderate Tory ; the second held, as far as possible, aloof from party contests. He had acted in turn with each party, and he had several private grounds of sym- pathy with the Whigs. His wife had decided Whig leanings ; his son-in-law, Sunderland, was one of the most violent members of the Whig party ; and when ^Marlborough was made Duke, in 1T02, the Tory majority in the House of Commons had rejected the proposal of the Queen to annex a grant of 5,000l. a year for ever to the title. The strong Tory sympathies of the Queen, and the great outburst of Church enthusiasm that followed her accession had given the administration a more exclusively Tory character than either of its chiefs desired, and they had no sympathy with that large section of their followers who were endeavouring to carry matters to extremities, who desired to expel the Whigs even from the most subordinate offices, and who woiUd gladly have repealed the Toleration Act. The fierce party spirit shown by the Tory party towards the close of the preceding reign had deeply injured its reputation with moderate men, and there were signs that a similar spirit was again animating it. The bill against occasional conformity was supported by all the weight of the Crown ; a manifest cen- sure upon the late king was implied in the resolution compli- menting JNIarlborough on having ' signally retrieved the ancient honour and glory of the English nation ;' the attitude of tlie House of Commons to the House of Lords, in which the Whi2' element preponderated, was extremely offensive ; and it is pro- bable that a most dangerous reaction would have ensued but for the counteracting influence of the war. had made in precedent wars. Those I may say so, by their defeats. Tliey that had been opposed to them in the were grown to be victorious at the last, were raw for the most part peace of Ryswic' — Bolingbroke's when it began, the Britisli jiarticu- Skdck of tltc Hist, of EurojJC, larly, but they were disciplined, if D 2 36 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. During the first two years, however, there was but little to arouse enthusiasm. In July 1701, before England had engaged in the war, Eugene, at the head of an Austrian army, entered Italy by the valley of the Trent, defeated the French at Carpi, on the Adige, and compelled Catinat to retreat beyond the Ogiio, and in the June of the following year the Imperial and Dutch forces succeeded, after a long and bloody siege, in capturing Kaiserswerth on the Ehine. It had been put into the hands of the French by the Elector of Cologne, and, as it exposed both the circle, of Westphalia and the dominions of the States to invasion, it was of great military importance. In September 1702 the still more important fortress of Landau was taken by the Prince of Baden. Marlborough commanded an army of invasion in the Spanish Gruelderland, but he was thwarted and trammelled at every step by his Dutch and Grerman allies; and, though he took the line of fortresses along the Meuse, captured Bonn, and subdued Limburg and the whole bishopric of Liege, he fought no pitched battle, and gained no very bril- liant success. The only regular battle in the Netherlands was at Eckeren, near Antwerp, where a Dutch detachment, com- manded by the Dutch general Obdam, was surprised and defeated by a very superior French force commanded by Boufflers. In Spain, the failure of an English expedition against Cadiz was redeemed by the capture or destruction of a large fleet of Spanish galleons under the escort of some French frigates in the Bay of Vigo ; but in Italy, on the Danube, and on the Rhine, the advantage lay decidedly with the French. Eugene failed in his attempt to take Cremona, though he succeeded in captming Villeroy, the French commander ; he was compelled to raise the siege of JNIantua, and the battle of Luzzara, in wliich he encountered Vendome, was indecisive in its issue. Visconti ■was defeated by Vendome in the battle of San Vittoria, and the defection of the Duke of Savoy from the French was punished by the occupation of a great part of his territory. In Grermany several serious disasters befell the allies. Tlie Prince of Baden was defeated by Villars in the battle of Friedlingen, and the Count de Stirum in the battle of ITochstadt. Ulm was seized by the Elector of Bavaria, who was in alliance with the French. Brisach was captured by the Duke of Burgundy. Tallard, en. I. MILITAEY OPERATIONS 1702—1704. 37 having defeated the Grermans in the battle of Spiibach, re- captured Landau, and Augsburg was taken by the Elector of Bavaria. On both sides the dangers of foreign war were soon complicated by those of rebellion at home, for the atro- cious persecution of the Protestants had roused a fierce storm in the Cevennes, while in Hungary the insurrection, which had been for a short time suppressed, broke out anew. The fortunes of the war were not fully changed till 1704, when Marlborough, in spite of innumerable obstacles from his own allies, marched to the Danube, and having broken the Bavarian lines near Donau- werth, succeeded, in combination witli Eugene, in striking a fatal blow at the power of France. That year was indeed one of the most glorious in the military annals of England. By the great victory of Blenheim, the united forces of the French and Bavarians were hopelessly shattered. The prestige of the French arms received a shock from which it never recovered during the war. The conquests in Germany during the pre- ceding years were all recovered, and the French being driven headlong from Germany, Bavaria was compelled to cede all her strong places to the Emperor, and to withdraw from her alliance with France. Lorraine and Alsace were both seriously menaced by the occupation of Treves, and by the capture of Landau, whilst in another region Eooke planted the British flag on the rock of Gibraltar, from which the most desperate and most persevering efforts have been unable to displace it. It was inevitable that such success should strengthen the party especially associated with the war, and the changed spirit of the Government was shown by its attitude towards the Occasional Conformity Bill. In 1702 the Court had warmly and ostenta- tiously supported it; in 1703 it was coldly neutral. The Tories were divided on the question whether to tack it to a bill of supply in order to overcome the opposition of the Lords, and at the end of 1704 this question gave rise to a great schism in their ranks. The clergy, on the other hand, who had expected the speedy repeal of the Toleration Act, were furious at the change. The cry of ' Church in danger ! ' was raised, and a fierce ecclesiastical agitation began. At Cain- bridge the opponents of the Occasional Conformity Bill were hooted by the students. At Oxford, which had so long prided 38 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. itself on its loyalty, a weather-cock was erected, bearing the Queen's motto semper eadem, with the translation ' worse and worse.' ' The Lower House of Convocation rang with complaints of the conduct of the bishops, wlio usually leaned to counsels of moderation ; of the administration of baptism by Dissenting ministers in private houses ; of the schools and seminaries in which the Dissenters educated their children ; of the hardship of obliging the parochial clergy to administer the Sacrament as a qualification for office to notorious schismatics. The Church was described in many pulpits as on the brink of destruction, and the ministers were accused of treacherously alienating the Queen from its interests. The country, however, was still under the spell of the victories of jNIarlborough. The popularity of the war, the influence of the ministers, who leaned more and more to the Whig side, and the division of the Tories, together produced another great revulsion of power, and at the election of 1705 a large Whig majority was returned to Parliament. The Government was still in a great degree Tory. Harley, one of the most sagacious leaders, and St. John, the most brilliant orator of the party, had been appointed, the first. Secretary of State, and the second, Secretary of War, at the time of the dis- missal of Nottingham. The Whig leaders were still out of office, though several less prominent members of the party were incor- porated in the ministry. Prior to the general election, the Privy Seal had been taken from the Duke of Buckingham, who was conspicuous among the Tories, and given to the Whig Duke of Newcastle, and Walpole obtained a subordinate office in the Admiralty. The election of 1705 naturally aided the trans- formation, and by the JNIarlborough influence the Queen was very reluctantly induced to take a step which gave a decisive ascendancy to the Whig element in the Cabinet. The Tory Chancellor Wright, who had been appointed at the dismissal of Sorners in 1700, was turned out of an office for which he was notoriously unfit, and the place was given to Cowper, one of the most eminent of the Whigs. The Tory party, exasperated with the Queen for yielding to the pressure, brought in a motion wholly repugnant to their ordinary politics, and intended chiefly to be personally offensive to the sovereign, petitioning her to > Oldmixon, p. 380. CH. I. THE REGENCY BILL. 39 invite over the Electress Sophia, the lieir presumptive, to reside in the country. It was, of course, defeated, but it served to shake the sympathies of the Queen, and the Whigs availed themselves skilfully of the occasion to carry a regency bill, still further strengthening that Hanoverian succession for which their rivals had very little real predilection. It provided that, on the death of the reigning sovereign, the government should pass into the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, Lord Treasm-er, Lord President, Lord Privy Seal, Lord High Admiral, and the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, for the time being ; that with them should be joined a list of persons named by the successor to tlie throne, in a sealed paper, of which three copies were to be previously sent to England ; one to be deposited with the Archbishop of Canterbury, another with the Lord Keeper, a third with his own minister residing in England ; and that Parliament was to be immediately convoked and empowered to sit for six months. At the same time, in order if possible to allay the ecclesiastical outcry, resolutions were carried in both Houses affirming that whoever asserted or insinuated that the Church was in danirer was an enemy to the Queen and to the kingdom. The ministry of Godolphin and jNIarlborough lasted till 1710, and it was one of the most glorious in English history. It was rendered illustrious by the great victories of Blenheim, Eamillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet, and Saragossa ; by the ex- pulsion of the French from Flanders and from Grermany ; by the brilliant though somewhat barren achievements of Peter- borough in Spain ; by the capture of Gribraltar by Rooke, and of Minorca by Stanhope ; by the defeat of the combined efforts of the French and Spaniards to retake the former ; by the suc- cessful accomplishment of the union with Scotland ; by the complete failure of the French attempt to invade Scotland in 1708. It was, however, chequered by more than one serious calamity. The allies were expelled from Castille, and defeated in the great battle of Almanza. The sieg-e of Toulon was un- successful ; the English plantations in St. Christopher were ruined ; a considerable part of the British na\-y was destroyed in the great storm of 1703; the great admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel perished ingloriously in a shipwreck off the Seilly Isles 40 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. in 1707. lu Italy and Spain the fortune of arms violently fluc- tuated, and the natural consummation of the war was growing more and more evident. The passionate attachment dis- played by all the Spaniards except the Catalans for the cause of Philip plainly showed how impossible was the scheme of the allies to place, or at least permanently to maintain, an Austrian prince on the Spanish throne. On the other hand, the dismem- berment of the Spanish dominions was already accomplished in Italy, for the French had been driven completely from the territory of Milan, and the Austrians had conquered the whole kingdom of Naples. I^'rance, though making heroic efforts against her enemies, was reduced to the lowest depths of ex- haustion. The distress of many years of desperate warfare, aggravated by the financial incapacity of Chamillart, and still more by the persecution of the Protestants, which had driven a vast part of her capital and commercial energy to other lands, had at length broken that proud spirit which aimed at nothing short of complete ascendancy in Europe. If England desired no other objects than those which were assigned in the treaty of alliance ; if she wished only to secure an adequate barrier for Holland, and * a reasonable satisfaction ' for the Emperor by obtaining for him the Spanish dominions in Italy, there was absolutely no obstacle to the establishment of peace. The Governjnent, however, had gradually undergone a complete change. Unity of action and energy was especially needed for a ministry conducting a great war. Many leading Tories who had been expelled from it were now in opposition, and were suspected of holding communica- tions with those who remained. The Whig party were in the ascendant in the House of Commons after the election of 1705, and in the Cabinet after the appointment of Cowper, and they put a constant pressure upon the Queen and upon the ministr3\ Under these circumstances, the system of a divided Cabinet became completely untenable, though both the Queen and Godolphin clung tenaciously to it, and the remnants of Tory influence were gradually extruded. Sunderland, the son-in-law of Marlborough, and one of the most violent of the Wings, was introduced into the Cabinet as Secretary of State in 1707. In 1708 Harley, who had for some time been acquii-ing the fore- most place in the confidence of the Queen, was driven from CJ£. I. EXPULSION OF TOEIES FEOM THE MINISTEY. 41 office. It was known or suspected that he. was busily in- triguing against his colleagues, and especially against Grodolphin, and he desired to strengthen the Tory and Church element in the ministry. The course of events, however, was evidently running counter to his policy ; and a recent incident had in- volved him in much suspicion and obloquy. A clerk in his office, named Gregg, was foimd to have despatched copies of important state papers to the French. Grregg underwent a searching examination before the Privy Council, and afterwards before a Committee of the House of Lords : pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey, and was sentenced to be hung, but his execu- tion was respited for nearly three months, in hopes of extorting from him a confession implicating Harley. Nothing, however, except great carelessness was proved against the minister, and Gregg before execution solemnly exculpated him from all par- ticipation in the crime. Still the circumstance weakened his position. Marlborough and Godolphin insisted on his dis- missal, and the Queen having refused, they tendered their resignations. The Queen, who is said to have regarded that of Godolphin with great equanimity, though she felt that the re- tirement of Marlborough in the midst of the war would have been a national calamity, procrastinated, and showed much dis- position to enter into a hopeless struggle, but the prudence of Harley averted it. He retired from office, and was accompanied by St. John, the Secretary of War ; by the Attorney-General, Sir Simon Harcourt, who was the most eminent of the Tory lawyers ; and by Sir Thomas Mansell, Comptroller of the House- hold. The position of Attorney-General remained for some time vacant, but the others were filled with Whigs ; and it was at this time that Walpole attained the dignity of Secretary of War. One more step remained to be accomplished. A well- planned Jacobite expedition, intended to raise Scotland, which was then bitterly exasperated by the Union, was despatched from Dunkirk in the Marcli of 1708. 4,000 French troops were on board ; and, as Scotland was at tliis time generally dis- affected, and as it was almost denuded of troops, the hopes of the French ministers were very sanguine. The vigilance of the Government, however, discovered the secret ; and when the expedition was already in sight of Scotland it was attacked by 42 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. u an overwlielming fleet under Byng, put to flighfc, and, with the loss of one ship, driven to France. This expedition aroused a strong- resentment in England, which was very favourable to the Whigs ; and the energy shown by the Government also tended to strengthen its position. Tlie election of 1708 im- mediately followed, and it resulted in another large Whig majorit'y. The party was now too strong, not only for the Queen, but also for Godolphin himself, who desired to temporise, and, at least, to exclude the great Whig leaders from power. In a few months the revolution, which had long been in pro- gress, was completed. On the death of the Prince Consort in the October of this year. Lord Pembroke, who was both President of the Council and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was removed to the vacant place at the head of the Admiralty, and the Queen was compelled to admit Somers into tlie Government as Pre- sident of the Council; to make Wharton Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, where he distinguished himself by his rapacity and his oppression, and soon after on the resignation of Pembroke to place Orford at the head of the Admiralty. The Church party being now wholly in opposition, and the Nonconformists wholly on the Ministerial side, a corresponding change was shown in the spirit of legislation. The Occasional Conformity Act now entirely disappeai'ed. The Scotch Union of 1707, whicli was the most important domestic measure of this period, and which will be more fully considered in another chapter, was carried in a spirit very favourable to the Kirk, and the same spirit was still more strongly shown by a measure carried in 1709 for naturalising all foreign Protestants who settled in England. In the same year the Jacobite cause was seriously injured by an Act extending the English law of treason to Scotland ; but the Government at the same time passed an act of grace granting an indemnity for all past treasons, with certain specified exceptions. Marlborough and Godolphin, who had both corresponded with the Pretender, and who must have seen with some apprehension the advent of the most uncompro- mising Whigs to power, secured themselves, by this measure, against the very possible hostility of their presenit allies. In the meantime the Queen was completely alienated from her ministers. Her ideal was a Government in whicli neither CH. I. THE QUEEN ALIENATED FKOM HER IMINISTERS. 43 "VVhigs nor Tories possessed a complete ascendancy ; but above all things, she dreaded and hated a supremacy of the Whigs. She had the strongest conviction that they were the enemies of her prerogative, and still more the enemies of the Church ; and a long series of particular incidents had contributed to intensify her feelings.^ She remembered with indignation the treatment she had received from \N'illiam in the latter part of his life, and with gratitude the support the Tories had given her in the matter of her settlement. A bill granting her hu-s- band the enormous income of 100,000/. a year in the event of his surviving her, had been introduced by the Tories in 1702, and had been carried in spite of the protests of some con- spicuous Whigs. On the other hand, the Whigs had repeatedly assailed the maladministration of the Prince, and a desire to avert a threatened and most ungenerous attack upon him when he was on his death-bed was the chief motive which at last induced her to admit Somers to the Cabinet.^ All the great AVhig appointments after 1 705 were wrung from her almost by force, and caused her the deepest and most heartfelt anguish. The tie of warm personal friendship which had long bound her to the wife of ^Marlborough was at length cut. The furious, domineering, and insolent temper of the Duchess at last wore out a patience and an affection of no common strength ; and Abigail Hill, who as Mrs. Masham played so great a part during the remainder of the reign, rose rapidly into favour. She was lady of the bedchamber, and was cousin to the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she owed her position at Court ; but her influence over the Queen appears to have been due to her ' See her remarkable letter (Oct. Whigs that the speedy admission ot 24, 1702), in the Account of the dm- tlieir leaders to othce was inevitable. duct of the Duchess of JIarlboroui/h, The disregard shown for the feelings pp. 138-140. This book contains much of the Queen is very striking. Her curious evidence of the sentiments of husband, to whom she was passion- the Queen. ately attached, died on Oct. 28, 1708. - Coxe's Marlborough, ch. Ixxv. On Jan. 28, following, both Houses Purl. Hist. vi. G02-(503, 6r.)-662. presented an address to her, ' that According to the Hamilton papers the she wovild not suffer her just grief so change was accelerated by a discovery far to prevail, but would have such which Wharton had made of some indulgence to the liearty desires of earlier negotiations of Godolphin with her subjects as to entertain thoughts the Pretender. See a note in Burnet, of a second marriage.'— Pa?'/, i/nf. vi. ii.ol6. It is obvious that the balance 777. of power inclined so mucli to the 44 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. t. sweet and compliant temper ; and she soon formed a close alliance with Harley, and aided powerfully in the overthrow of the ministry. As early as 1707 the presence of a new Court influence was felt, and tlie Queen had marked her feelings to her servants by appointing two Higli Church bishops without even announcing her intention to the Cabinet. The effect of these events upon the foreign policy of the Government was very pernicious. The question of the Pro- testant succession, which might have rallied the country around the Whigs, was now in abeyance. The Church party, which in jDcaceful times was naturally by far the strongest in England, was in violent hostility to the Government, and it became more and more evident that in the moment of crisis, the influence of the Queen would be on the same side. Under these circumstances the Whig leaders perceived clearly that their main party interest was to prevent the termination of the war. As long as it continued, Marlborough, who was now com- pletely identified with them, could scarcely fail to be at the head of affairs, and the brilliancy of his victories had given the party a transient and abnormal popularity. In 1706 Lewis, being thoroughly depressed, opened a negotiation with the Dutch, and offered peace to the allies on terms which would have abundantly fulfilled every legitimate end of the war. The battle of Eamillies had utterly ruined the French cause in the Spanish Netherlands, and had been followed by the loss of Louvain, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Men in, and other places. In Spain the victory was for the time no less complete. Philip had been compelled to abandon the siege of Barcelona, and to take refuge in France, and the allies, after a long series of successes, had occupied Madrid, where they proclaimed his rival king. In Italy, however, Philip was still powerful ; his cause had been of late almost uniformly successful, and although, with the victory of Eugene over Marsin before Turin, the tide had begun to turn, yet the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was still in his complete possession. Under these circumstances the French king proposed that Philip should relinquish all claim to the Spanish throne, that he should be compensated out of the Spanish dominions in Italy by a separate kingdom consisting of the Milanese territory, of Naples, and of Sicily, CH. I, PEACE NEGOTIATIONS IN 1706. 45 that the strong places of the Spanish Netherlands should be all ceded as a barrier to Holland, and that important com- mercial privileges should be granted to the maritime powers. Something might, no doubt, be said about the cession of the Milanese, which would endanger the territory of the Duke of Savoy, but this question of detail could easily have been arranged, for Lewis showed himself quite prepared in the sub- sequent negotiations to restrict the kingdom he desired for his grandson to Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, with a small part of Tuscany, to Naples and Sicily, or, if absolutely necessary, to Sicily alone. By the proposition of France the union of the crowns of France and Spain would have been effectually pre- vented. The division of the Spanish dominions would have fully realised the object of the treaties of partition, and the great danger arising to Europe from the Aveakness of Holland would have been as far as possible removed. The Emperor, however, claimed for the Archduke the whole Spanish succession, and this claim, which, if realised, would have created in Europe a supremacy for the House of Austria, hardly less dangerous than that which Lewis desired for France, was so strenuously supported by the Whig ministers of England that they made the cession of all the Spanish dominions to the Austrian Prince an essential preliminary to the peace. No such condition had been laid down by William in the treaty of alliance, but in 1707 Somers induced both Houses of Parliament to carry resolutions to the effect that no peace could be safe or honourable if Spain, the West Indies, or any part of the Spanish monarchy were suffered to remain under the House of Bourbon. ' I am fully of your opinion,' said the Queen, in replying to the address, ' that no peace can be honourable or safe for us or om* allies till the entire monarchy of Spain be restored to the House of Austria.' ' A year later the House of Lords again pledged itself by an address to the same policy. The danger and the impolicy of such pledges were very clearly shown by the event. Had the peace been made in 1706 instead of 1713, more than thirty millions of English money as well as innumerable English lives would have been saved, and there can be little doubt that the party interest of the • Pa7-l. Hid. vi. C09-C10. Sec too Marlborough's Letters in Coxe, cli. 1. 46 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. r. Whig ministers was a main cause of the failure of the negotia- tion. Still more indefensible was their conduct in 1709. The years that had elapsed since the previous negotiation, though very chequered, had, on the whole, been disastrous to France. The allies had, it is true, been compelled to raise the siege of Toulon, and in the beginning of 1708 the French had retaken some of the towns they had lost in Flanders, but the battle of Oudenarde speedily ruined all their hopes in that quarter, and Mons, Nieuport, and Luxembourg were soon the only towns of the Spanish Netherlands which were not in the hands of the allies. The English had taken Port Mahon and Sardinia; the Duke of Savoy had taken Exilles and Fenes- trelles, and a succession of Austrian victories had driven the French out of Lombardy and out of Naples. In Spain, how- ever, a brilliant gleam of success had lit up the fallen fortunes of Lewis. In the great battle of Almanza the allies were utterly defeated by Berwick, and all Spain, except Catalonia, was again under the sceptre of Philip. The position of France itself, however, was most deplorable. Lewis, who in the beginning of the war had given his orders on the banks of the Danube, the Po, and the Tagus, was now reduced to such straits that it was doubtful whether he could long be secure in his capital. To the ruin of the finances, the frightful drain of men, the despondency produced by a long train of crushing calamities in the field, were now added the horrors of famine. A winter of almost unparalleled severity had ruined the olives and a great proportion of the vineyards throughout France ; the corn crops were everywhere deficient, and the people were reduced to the most abject wretchedness. Even in Paris, though every effort was made to produce an artificial plenty at the expense of the provinces, it was noticed that in 1709 the death-rate was nearly double the average, while the decrease in the average of births and marriages amounted to one quarter.^ Under these circumstances Lewis, resolving on peace at any price, submitted to the allies the most humiliating offers ever made by a French king. He consented, after a long ' St. Simon's Mrmmrx. Torcy's of the French distress at this period. ^remmrs. 51. Martin in his Hist, de See too Cooke's JIut. of Fartits, i. France ha^j collected much evidence 573. cii. I. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS IN 1709. 47 and painful struggle, to abandon the whole of the Spanish dominions to the Austrian Prince without any compensation whatever, to yield Strasburg, Brisach, and Luxembourg to the Emperor, to yield ten fortresses as a barrier to the Dutch, includ- ing Lille and Tonrnay, which were justly regarded as essential to the security of France, to yield Exilles and Fenestrelles to the Duke of Savoy, to recognise tlie titles of the Queen of Eng- land, of the King of Prussia, and of the Elector of Hanover, to expel the Pretender from his dominions, to destroy the fortifica- tions and harbour of Dunkirk, and to restore Newfomidland to England. All these concessions, together with considerable commercial advantages to the maritime powers, were offered by France without any compensation whatever except the peace, and tliey were all found to be insufiBcient. By a provision as impolitic as it was barbarous — for it once more kindled the flao-P-inof enthusiasm of the Frencli into a flame — it was insisted, as a preliminary to the peace, that Lewis should join with the allies in expelling, if necessary, by force of arms, his grandson from Spain, that this task must be accomplished within two months, that if it was not accomplished within that time the war should begin anew, but that in the meantime the fortifica- tions of Dunkirk should be demolished, and all the strong places mentioned in the treaty which were still in French hands should be ceded, so that at the expiration of what might be merely a truce of two months, France should be helpless before her enemies.' There are few instances in modern history of a more scan- dalous abuse of the rights of conquest than this transaction. It may be in part explained by the ambition of the Emperor, who desired a complete ascendancy in Europe ; and in part also by the excessive demands and animosity of the Dutch, who remembered the improvoked invasion of their country in 1670, and the almost insane arrogance with which Louvois had tiii-eat- ened their ambassador with the Bastille. The prolongation of the war, however, would have been impossible but for the policy of the Whig ministers, who supported the most extravagant claims of their allies. Marlborough himself went over to the Hague, and ' Torcy's Mevioirs. Coxe's Life of MarlharoiKjli. Burnet's On-n Times, Mai tin, Hid. de France, torn. xiv. 48 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, ch. i. the French endeavoured to bribe him by graduated offers ranging from two to four millions of livres, in case he could obtain for Philip a compensation in Italy, and for France Strasburg and Landau and the integrity of Dunkirk, or at least some part of these boons.' The offer was unavailing; no one of these several advantages was conceded, and Marlborough steadily opposed the peace. His conduct was very naturally ascribed to his interest as a general and a politician in the continuance of the war, but his private correspondence shows the imputation to be unfounded. It appears from his letters to his wife that he, at this time, earnestly desired repose, that he considered the demands of the allies, in more than one respect, excessive, and that the chief blame of the failure rests upon his colleagues. He took, however, about this time, a step which greatly injured him with the country. It was evident that his position was very precarious. The old affection of the Queen for his wife, which had been the firm basis of his power, was gone. The war, which made him necessary, could hardly be greatly protracted. Godolphin, who of all statesmen was most closely allied with him, was evidently declining. The Tories and Jacobites could never forgive the part which Marl- borough had taken in the Kevolution, and since the accession of Anne ; while, on the other hand, he had tried to secure himself from possible ruin by more than one Jacobite intrigue, and his conversion to Whiggism was too recent and too partial to en- able him to win the confidence of the uncompromising Whigs who had now risen to power. It must be added, that he had recently undergone a very serious disappointment. In 1706, when the battle of Ramillies had driven the French out of the Spanish Netherlands, the Emperor, filling up a blank form which had been given him by his brother, conferred upon 3Iarl- borough the governoi'ship of that province. It was a post of much dignity and power, and of very great emolument, and Marlborough earnestly desired to accept it. The Queen at this time cordially approved of the appointment ; the ministers supported it ; and Somers, who was the most important Whig outside the ministry, expressed a strong opinion in its favour. ' See the curious letter of Lewis authorising these offers. — Torcy's Mcjncdrs, CH. I. MARLBOEOUGH'S REQUEST. 49 But in Holland it excited the most violent opposition. The Dutch desired tliat no step should be taken conferring the province definitely upon the Austrian claimant till the question of the barrier had been settled. They hoped that some of the towns would pass vmdsr their undivided dominion, and that the system of government would be such as to give them a com- plete ascendancy in the rest ; and the danger of breaking up the alliance was so great that Marlborough at once gracefully declined the offer. It was renewed by Charles himself in 170S, after the battle of Oudenarde, in terms of the most flattering description, but was again, on public grounds, declined. Under these circumstances, Marlborough considered himself justified, in 1709, in taking the startling step of asking the position of Captain-General for life. It is possible, and by no means im- probable, that his motive was mainly to secure nimself from disgrace, and to disentangle himself from party politics. In his most confidential letters he frequently speaks of his longing for repose, of his weariness of those personal and political in- trigues which had so often paralysed his military enterprise, of his sense of the growing infirmities of age. The position of commander-in-chief for life would at once free him from political apprehensions and embarrassments, and enable liim to restrict himself to that department in which he had no rival. But if, on the other hand, his object was ambition, it is plain that the position to which he aspired would give him a power of the most formidable kind. Cautious, reticent, and, at the same time, in the highest degree sagacious and courageous, he had ever shrunk from identifying himself absolutely with either side, and it had been his aim to hold the balance between parties and dynasties, to dictate conditions, to watch oppor- tunities. A general who was the idol of his troops, who possessed to the highest degree every military acquirement, and who, at the same time, held his command independently of the ministers and even of the Crown, might easily, in a divided nation and in the crisis of a disputed succession, determine the whole course of affairs. Had the request been made soon after the battle of Blenheim, it is not impossible that it might have been conceded, but the time for making it had passed. The Chancellor Cowper, on being apprised of it, coldly answered VOL. I. E 50 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. Ihat it was wholly unprecedented. The Queen, to the great indignation of jNIarlborouoh, absolutely refused it ; when the transaction was divulged, the nation, which had at least learnt from Cromwell a deep and lasting hatred of military despotism, placed upon it the worst construction, and it contributed much to the unpopularity of the Whigs. Besides this cause of division and discontent, some murmurs arose at the reckless prolongation of a war which produced much distress among the poor ; but on the whole they were not very serious, and the approaching downfall of the ministers was mainly due to the alienation of the Queen and to the opposition of the Church. For some time the controversy about the doctrine of non-resistance had been raging with increased intensity, and there were many evident signs that the Church opposition, which had been thrown into the shade by the glories of Blen- heim, was acquiring new strength. A sermon preached by Hoadly against the doctrine of passive obedience, in 1705, was solemnly condemned by the Lower House of Convocation. Blaekhall, one of the bishops appointed by Anne without con- sultation with her ministers, being called upon to preach before the Queen shortly after his consecration, availed himself of the occasion to assert the Tory doctrine of non-resistance in its extreme form ; and the sermon, which was in fact a con- demnation of the Revolution, was published without any sign of royal disapprobation. The Scotch Union was violently de- nounced as introducing Presbyterians into Parliament, recog- nising by a great national act the non-Episcopal Establishment of Scotland, and providing a powerful ally for the enemies of the Church. The Act for naturalising foreign Protestants was even more unpopular. It was certain to swell the ranks of the Nonconformists. It excited all the English animosity against foreigners ; and, soon after it had passed, more than 6,000 Germans, from the Palatinate, came over in a state of extreme destitution at a time when a period of great distress was already taxing to the utmost the benevolence of the rich. Nearly at the same time, too, the Church acquired a considerable acces- sion, not indeed in numbers, but in moral force, by the partial extinction of the non-juror schism. Ken had resigned his pretensions to his bishopric. Lloyd, the deposed bishop of CH. 1. SERMONS OF SACHEVERELL. 51 Norwich, died on January 1, 1709-10, and there remained no other of the prelates who had been deprived by William. One section of the non-jurors, it is true, took measures to per- petuate the division, but Dodwell, Nelson, Brokesby, and some others reverted to the Church.' The language of the clergy became continually more aggressive. The pulpits rang with declamations about the danger of the Church, with invectives against Nonconformists, with covert attacks upon the ministers. The train was fully laid ; the impeachment of Sacheverell produced the explosion that shattered the Whig ministry of Anne. The circumstances of that singular outbreak of Church fanaticism are well known. The hero of the drama was fellow of ]\Iagdalen College and rector of St. Saviour, Southwark ; and, though himself the grandson of a dissenting minister who soon after the Eestoration had suffered an imprisonment of three years for officiating in a conventicle,^ he had been for some time a conspicuous preacher and an occasional writer^ in the High Church ranks. It was alleged by his opponents, and, after the excitement of the contest had passed, it was hardly denied by his friends, that he was an insolent and hot-headed man, without learning, literary ability, or real piety ; distin- guished chiefly by his striking person and good delivery, and by his scurrilous abuse of Dissenters and Whigs. Of the two sermons that came under the consideration of Parliament, the first was preached at the Assizes of Derby, and was published with a dedication to the high sheriff and jury, deploring the dangers that menaced the Church and the betrayal of its ' prin- ciples, interests, and constitution.' The second and more famous one, ' On the perils from false brethren,' was preached on November 5, 1709, in St. Paul's Cathedral, before the Lord ISIayor and aldermen of London, and was dedicated to the former. In this sermon the preacher maintained at great length the doctrine of absolute non-resistance,. inveighed against • ScoJjnthhuTj's Ilist. of the IVbn- produced Beioc's SJio/'test Wai/ n-ith jwvrs and JlUt. of Convocation. the IJisscntcrs, an assize sermon at - Tindal. Oxford, prcaclu'd in ITOi, and two ' lie liad published A Fast-day pamplilets called I'olitical Union, and St'7'nion, preached at Oxford in 1702, The lUgltts of tJic Church of £ni).liO-li2. Ken- of the animosity against the Low CS ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. The policy of the Queen during this outbreak was marked by much cautious skill. However strong may have been her private sympathies, she appears during the trial to have acted in accordance with the wishes of her ministers. The chaplain wlio prayed for Sacheverell in her chapel was dismissed. Chief Justice Holt having died during the trial, Parker, one of the most eloquent managers of the impeachment, was promoted to his place, and a fortnight after the verdict the Queen pro- rogued Parliament with a speech, deploring that some had insinuated that the Church was in dano-er under her adminis- tration, and expressing her wish ' that men would study to be quiet, and to do their own business, rather than busy them- selves in reviving questions and disputes of a very high nature.' She soon, however, perceived that the country was with the Tories, and manifested her own inclination without restraint. Among the minor incidents of the impeachment one of the most remarkable had been the reappearance in public life of the Duke of Shrewsbury. He had been con- spicuous among the great Whig nobles who invited William to England ; but after a brief, troubled, and vacillating career, had abandoned politics, and retired, embittered and disappointed, to Italy. ' I wonder,' he wrote with great bitterness to Somers, in 1700, 'how any man who has bread in England, will be con- cerned in business of State. Had I a son, I would sooner bind him a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a states- man,' After a long period of occultation, however, he again took his place in that assembly of which he had once been the brightest ornament, and when the Sacheverell case arose he gave the weight of a name and influence that were still very great to the Tory side, and was one of those who voted for the acquittal. About a week after the prorogation, the Queen, without even apprising her ministers till the last moment of her intention, dismissed Lord Kent, the Lord Chamberlain, and gave the staff to Shrewsbury. The ministry should, undoubtedly, have resigned, but, partly through the constitutional indecision of G-odolphin, and partly perhaps in order to avoid a dissolution of Parliament Churchmen during tlio Sacheverell the Histories of Burnet, Boyer, Somer- episode. See too Wrij Wilson's JAfe of Defoe,ui.]i.V2'd. 30U. 62 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. i. attained at last a daily circulation of 14,000. The unprece- dented multiplication of political clubs, which forms one of the most remarkable social features of the period, attests no less clearly the almost feverish activity of political life. Never was there a j^eriod less characterised by that intellectual torpor which we are accustomed to associate with ecclesiastical domina- tion, yet in very few periods of English history did the English Church manifest so great a power as in the reign of Anne. Another consideration which adds largely to the impressive- ness of this fact is the nature of the doctrine that was mainly at issue. Whatever may be thought of its truth, the opinion that it is unlawful for subjects to resist their sovereign under any circumstances of tyranny and misgovernment does not appear to be well fitted to excite popular enthusiasm. This, however, was the doctrine which, during the whole of the Sacheverell agitation, was placed in the fore-front of the battle both by the Whigs who assailed and by the Tories who maintained it. It is obvious that in its plain meaning it amounted to a condemna- tion of the Revolution, and it is equally manifest that those who conscientiously held it would eventually gravitate rather to the House of Stuart than to the House of Brunswick. The position of the clergy during the whole of the preceding reign had been a very false one. A small minority had consistently refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign A minority, which was probably still smaller, consis-tently maintained the Whig theory of government. The immense majority, however, held the doctrines of the indefeasible title of hereditary royalty, and of the sinfulness of all resistance to oppression, and they only took the oaths to the Revolutionary Government with much equivocation, and after long and painful misgiving. Much was said about the supposed vacancy of the tlirone by the abdication of James. Much was said about the suspicions attaching to the birth of the Prince of Wales, though in a few years these appear to have gradually disappeared. Burnet in 1689 had written a pastoral letter, in which he spoke of William as having a legitimate title to the throne of James ' in right of conquest over him,' and although the House of Commons, resenting the expression, had ordered tlie letter to be burnt, the theory it advocated was probably CH. • THE DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS. 63 adopted by many.' Among the clergy, however, wlio subscribed the oath of allegiance, the usual refuge lay in the distinction between the king de jure and the king de facto. Sherlock and many other divines, who asserted the doctrine of passive obedience, contended that it should be paid to the king who was actually in power. They were not called upon to defend the Revolution. They were quite ready to admit that it was a crime, and that all concerned in it had endangered their salvation, but, as a matter of fact, William was upon tlie throne, and rebellion being in all cases a sin, they were bountl to obey him. As long, therefore, as they were not expected to pronounce any judgment upon his title, they could* conscien- tiously take the oath of allegiance. They believed it to be a sin to resist the actual sovereign, and they could therefore freely swear to obey him. The statesmen of the Eevolution at first very judiciously met the scruples of the clergy by omitting from the new oath of allegiance the words ' rightful and lawful king,'^ which had formed part of the former oath, but in the last year of William this refuge was cut otf. On tlie death of James, and on tlie recognition of the Pretender by Lewis, the Parliament, aiming expressly at this clerical distinction,^ im- posed upon all ecclesiastical persons, as well as upon all other officials, the oath of abjuration, which required them to assert that the pretended Prince of Wales had no right wliatever to the crown, and to swear allegiance to the existing sovereign as ' rightful ' and ' lawful.' This harsh and impolitic measure was only carried after a violent struggle, and it was very naturally expected that it would produce a great schism in the Church. The new oath involved a distinct judgment on the Revolution, and it is not easy to see how anyone who held the doctrine of the divine right of kings as it was commonly taught in the English Church from the time of the Restoration, could possibly take it."* The ' Sec Somers' Tnict.t, xii. 242. tlic Kini;: to be otlierwiso so tliaii do * Latlilniry's Ilht. of tlt<; Koii- furfo.' — An Acnnint of ilw Grotvih of JHTorx, pp. 52-54. A writer in IC,'.)(] DcLim in Eiighind, p. 10. said with much truth, 'The Shibbo- ^ p.^rnet's Own Times, ii. 2i)7. Icth of the Church now is King ■• lUirnct gives us a summary of William's dc facto title, and no con- the methods that were resorted to. formit J- to homilies and rubricks will 'Though in the oath they declarcil make j-ou owned by the present that tlie pretended Prince of Wales Church if you should acknowledge had not any right wl.atsoever to the 64 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. resources of casuistry, however, have never been a monopoly of the disciples of Loyola ; and State Churches, though they have many merits, are not the schools of heroism. At the time of tlie Eeformation the great body of the English clergy, rather than give up their preferments, oscillated to and fro between Protestantism and Catholicism at the command of successive sovereigns, and their conduct in 1702 was very similar. With scarcely an exception they bowed silently before the law, and consented to take an oath which to every unsophisticated mind was an abnegation of the most cherished article of their teach- ing. At the time when the Act came into force Anne had just mounted the throne, and the hopes which the clergy conceived from her known affection for the Church made them peculiarly anxious to remain attached to the Grovernment. The abjura- tion oath contributed to perpetuate the non-juror schism by repelling those who would otherwise have returned to the Church at the death of James. It lowered the morality of the country by impairing very materially the sanctity of oaths, but it neither paralysed the energies nor changed the teaching of the Tory clergy. At no period since the Eestoration did they preach the doctrine of the divine right of kings and the duty of passive obedience more strenuously than in the reign of Anne, and at very few periods did they exercise a greater influence on the English people. One of the most characteristic features of this teaching was the language that was adopted about Charles I. The memory of that sovereign had long since been transfigured in the Tory legend, and immediately after his execution it became the custom of the Episcopal clergy to draw elaborate parallels between his sufferings and those of Christ. The service in the Prayer-book commemorating the event, by appointing the nar- rative of the sufferings of Christ to be read from the Gospel, suggested the parallel, which was also faintly intimated by crown, yet in a paper (which I saw) that he had by his birth. They also that went about among them, it was supposed that this abjuration would said that rifiht was a term of law only liind during the present state which had only relation to Z("r/«ZW////f.s-, of things, but not in case of another l)ut not to a divine rif/ht or to birth- revolution or contpiest.' Enrnefs rif/hts; so, since that right was con- Uivn. Times, ii. p. 814. See too a demned by law, they by alijuring it curious letter in P.vTom's EciiKiins, did not renounce the dicinc rigid vol. i. part i. pp. 30-31. CH. I. CHARLES I. COMPAEED TO CHRIST. 65 Clarendon, and developed in some of the Royalist poems and sermons with an astonishing audacity.^ Foremost in this branch of literature was a very curious sermon preached before Charles II. at Breda in 1649.^ The preacher declared that ' amongst all the martyrs that followed Christ into heaven bearing his cross never was there any one who expressed so great conformity with our Saviour in his sufferings ' as King Charles. He observed that the parallel was so exact that it extended to tlie minutest particulars, even to the hour of execution, for both sufferers died at three in the afternoon. ' When Christ was apprehended,' he continued, ' he wrought a miraculous cure for an enemy, healing Malchus' ear after it was cut off; so it is well known that God enabled our sovereign to work many wonderful cures even for his enemies. . . . When our Saviour suffered, there were terrible signs and wonders, for there was darkness over all the land ; so during the time of our sovereign's trial there were strange signs seen in the sky in divers places of the kingdom. When our Saviour suffered, the centurion, beholding his passion, was convinced that he was the Son of God, and feared greatly. So one of the centurions who guarded our sovereign . . . was convinced and is to this day stricken with great fear, horror, and astonishment. When they had crucified our Saviour, they parted his garments amongst them, and for his coat (because being without seam it could not easily be divided) they did cast lots ; even so, having crucified our sovereign, they have parted his garments amongst them, his houses and furniture, his parks and revenues, his three kiagdoms, and for Ireland, because it will not be easily gained, they have cast lots who should go thither to conquer it, and, so, take it to themselves ; in ail these things our sovereign was the living- image of our Saviour.' In the reign of Anne language of this kind again became common, and in 1702 a noted clergyman named Binckes, in a sermon before the Lower House of Con- ' See two curious collections called Kings .ire frods once removed. It hence appears Mmumentum lierialc ; or. Select ^''^H^'' ^"' Heaven's cnu trie them by their Epitaphs and Poems on^ Charles I. So that" for Charles the Good to have been tryed (1649), and Vafieinium Votivum, ivith And cast by mortal votes was Deicide. Klerjies on Charles I., Lord Capel, and Lord Villurs (\st year of Charles I.'' s ^ It was reprinted in the defence Martj/rdom). I subjoin one specimen : of the sermon of Dr. Binckes in 1702. VOL. I. F 66 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. vocation, not only intimated that the plague and tlie fire of London were due to the death of Charles, but even proceeded to argue that his execution transcended in enormity the murder of Christ. ' If, with respect to the dignity of the person, to have been born King of the Jews was what ought to have screened our Saviour from violence ; here is also one not only born to a crown but actually possessed of it. He was not only called king by some and at the same time derided by others for being so called, but he was acknowledged by all to be a king. He was not just dressed up for an hour or two in purple robes, and saluted witli a " Hail, King ! " but the usual ornaments of royalty were his customary apparel. . . . Our Saviour declaring that " His kingdom was not of this world " might look like a sort of renunciation of his temporal sovereignty, for the present desiring only to reign in the hearts of men, but here was nothing of this in the case before us. Here was an indisputable, mi- renounced right of sovereignty, both by the laws of Grod and man. . . . Christ was pleased to set himself out of the reach of the usual temptations incident to royal greatness, and chose a condition which in all respects seemed to be the reverse to majesty, as if it had been with design to avoid the snares which accompany it, notwithstanding that he knew himself otherwise sufficiently secure, having neither been conceived in sin, nor in any way subject to the laws of it. Though the prince whom God was pleased to set over us was no way excepted from human frailty, had no other guard against sin when surrounded with tempta- tions, but only a true sense of religion and the usual assistance of God's grace . . . yet his greatest enemies . . . could never charge him with the least degree of vice. . . . When Pihite asked the Jews, "Shall I crucify your king?" tliey thought themselves obliged to express their utmost resentment against anyone that should pretend to be their king in opposition to Ceesar. This they did upon a principle of loyalty, and out of a misguided zeal, and some stories they had got of a design he had to destroy their temple, to set himself up, and pull down the Church ; but in the case before us he against whom our people so clamorously called for justice was one whose greatest crime was his being a king and a friend to the Church.' This sermon was censured by the House of Lords as 'containino- CH. I. CHAELES I. COMPARED TO CHRIST. 67 several expressions which gave just scandal and offence to ail Cliristian people,' ^ but the author was soon after appointed Dean of Lichfield, and was twice elected by the clergy Pro- locutor of Convocation. The publication of Clarendon's history in 1702 and the two following years probably contributed some- thing to the enthusiasm for Charles. A writer during the Sacheverell agitation, speaking of the doctrine of passive obedience, said, ' I may be positive, at Westminster Abbey where I heard one sermon of repentance, faith, and renewing of the Holy Grhost, I heard three of the other, and it is hard to say whether Jesus Christ or King Charles were oftenest men- tioned and magnified.' ^ The University of Oxford caused two similar pictures to be painted, the one representing the death of Christ, and the other the death of Charles. An account of the suflPerings of each was placed below ; and they were hung in corresponding places in the Bodleian library.^ The poet Young, in a dedication to Queen Anne, described her grandsire as standing at the last judgment among 'the spotless saints and laurelled martyrs,' while the Almighty Judge, bending from the throne, examined the scars on the neck of Chai-les, and then looked at his own wounds.^ Another and still more curious feature of the Church en- thusiasm under Queen Anne was the revival of the old belief that the sovereign was endowed with the miraculous power of curing the struma, or scrofulous tumours, by his touch. This singular superstition had existed from a very early time, both in England and in France. The English kings were supposed to have inherited the power from Edward the Confessor ; the French, according to some writers, from St. Lewis, according to others, from Clovis.^ The miracle was performed with every Pari. Hist. vi. 23-24. Burnet's Young harl the grace to suppress this Onn Time, ii. 316. dedication in later editions of the = Bissefs Modern Fanatich (12th poem, ed.), p. 57. ^ Tliere was, however, some con- ^ G. Agar Ellis's Inqvii-ies reapect- troversy on the subject, and a good ing Clarendon (1827), p. 177. cleal of national jealousy was shown. His lifted hands his loftv neck surroimd, Tooker thinks that the gift was To hide the scarlet of a circling wouml. Originally the sole prerogative of the Th' Almighty Judge bends forward from his English kings, that they derived it T^cars to moi-k, and then regards Ms 0^-n. ^^^0™ Lucius, who was com'erled Dtdicalwn to Queen An„e prefixed to ^^fore Clovis, and that tlic French Youn';Vr;V. Ji^ly 15, 1(JS3. vol. i. pp. G5-66. CH. I. LATITUDINARIAN BISHOPS. 85 jMethodist movement, extending gradually through the Esta- blished Church, introduced a more emotional, and at the same time a more dogmatic, type of preaching. The results of these numerous latitudinarian appointments after the Revolution were very remarkable. The bishops as a body soon constituted the most moderate, the most liberal, the most emphatically Protestant portion of the clergy, and they had every disposition to enter into alliance with the Dissenters. Burnet had been the strongest advocate of the Comprehension Bill, and, as he has himself informed us, he had no scruple in communicating with non-episcopal chm'ches in Holland and Greneva. Kidder was suspected of a leaning towards Presby- terianism. Stillingfleet, though in his later life he was much less latitudinarian than his colleagues, had accepted a living in Cam- bridgeshii-e at a time when Episcopacy was proscribed. Patrick had been educated as a Dissenter, had received his first orders from the Presbytery dming the Commonwealth, and had taken a prominent part, in conjunction with Burnet, Tillotson, and Stillingfleet, in the scheme of comprehension. Tillotson him- self was avowedly of the school of Chillingworth, anil if we may believe the assertion of Hickes, he had shown his indifference to forms very practically by allowing communicants to receive the sacrament sitting, if they were foolish enough to object to receivino- it kneelino-. The measm-e which aroused the strongest clerical indignation in the reign of Anne was undoubtedly the impeachment of Sacheverell, but seven out of twelve bishops voted for his condemnation. The measures which excited the warmest clerical enthusiasm were the Occasional Conformity and the Schism Acts, but the majority of the bishops opposed the first Act both in 1703, when it was ardently supported by the Com-t, and in 1704, when the Com-t held aloof from it, and five bishops signed a protest against the second. In the eyes of the majority of the bishops the Chm-ch of England was em- phatically a Protestant Church, and the differences between the Establishment and the chief Nonconformist bodies were on mat- ters of comparatively little moment. They were in this respect of the school of Leighton, and still more clearly of the school of Chillingworth, and there can be no doubt that they carried with them the great body of educated l:J Martin Hist, dc Fmnrc, horonrjh, cli. Ixxxviii. H 2 100 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. walk about that country till doomsday ; that wherever they came the people would submit to Charles out of terror, and as soon as they were gone proclaim Philip V. again out of affection ; that to conquer Spain required a great army, to keep it a P-reater.' ' Tlie fortunes of the war had more than once iluctuated violently, but no success of the allies had abated the hostility of the great body of the Spaniards. When Lewis withdrew his troops from Spain, the cause of Charles was for a brief period completely triumphant ; but when, after the victory of Saragossa, Madrid was for the second time occupied by the allies in September 1710, it was found to be nearly deserted, almost the whole active population having retired with Philip to Valladolid. When it became evident that the conferences at Grertruydenberg would lead to no result, Lewis sent Vendome to command the Spanish forces. Charles was compelled to abandon Madrid for Toledo, where his troops added to their unpopularity by burning the Alcazar. He soon after left his armv and retreated with 2,000 men to Barcelona. Bands of guerillas cut off communications on every side, and it was found almost impossible, in the face of the determined hostility of the population, to obtain either provisions or information. Stanhope, at the head of an English army of between 5,000 and 6,000 men, was surrounded at Brihuega, and after a desperate resistance the whole army was forced to surrender. Staremberg had marched at the head of the Austrian army to his assistance, but the battle of Villaviciosa compelled him to evacuate Aragon, and to retreat with great loss into Catalonia, while at the same time a French corps, commanded by Noailles, descending from Eousillon, invested and captured Gerona, so that, with the excep- tion of the seaboard of Catalonia, the cause of Charles at the close of the year was ruined in Spain. In the meantime the cost of the war to England was rapidly increasing, while her interest in the result had greatly diminished. In 1702, when the war be<''an,its expense for the year was estimated at about 3,700,000^. In 1706, when Lewis offered terms more than fulfilling every legitimate object of the war, it had risen to nearly 5,700,000^ In 1711 it was about 6,850,000?.^ A heavy debt had been ' Bolingbroke's Sketch of the ^ See Ilalph's Use and Abuse of History ofEuroi)e. Parliaments, i., pp. 1G7-1G8. CH. 1. EEASONS FOR PEACE. 101 incurred. Nearly 800 corsairs had sailed, during the war, from Dunkii'k to prey upon English and Dutch commerce,' and the former had been severely crippled by the heavy duties rendered necessary by the increasing expenses. More than 18,000 of the allied troops had been killed or wounded at Malplaquet. England, too, which of all the allied powers had the least direct interest in the war, bore by far the greatest share of the burden. Holland had obtained from England, in 1709, a treaty guaranteeing her, in return for a Dutch guarantee of the Protestant succession, the right of garrisoning a long- line of barrier fortresses, including Nieuport, Furnes, Knocke, Ypres, Menin, Lille, Tournay, Conde, Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Charleroy, Namur, and other strong places, hereafter to be cap- tured from France, while some strong places were to be in- corporated absolutely in her dominions. The war, therefore, offered her advantages of the most vital nature, but she had invariably fallen short of the proportion of soldiers and sailors which at the beginning of the struggle she agreed to contribute ; she refused even to prohibit her subjects from trading with Fi'ance, and, with the exception of a duty of one per cent, for encouraging her own privateers, she had imposed no additional trade duty during the war. The Emperor had acquired immense territories in Italy and Germany, and he was fighting for the claims of an Austrian prince to the Spanish throne; but he, too, as well as the Princes of the Empire, continually fell short of the stipulated quota. The minor powers in the alliance were chiefly subsidised by England, who had at one time no less than 244,000 men in her pay.^ Nor was this all. It was quite evident that the alliance must soon fall to pieces. From the first the mutual jealousies and the conflicting objects of the confederate powers had thrown obstacles in the way of the military operations, which it required ' Martin, Hist, de France, xiv. five-eighths were to be sujipliecT }.)y 572. England and three-eighths by the ■■'At the beginning of the war States. On the extent to which Eng- England had agreed to furnish only land exceeded and the other jjowers 4(),000 men, the Emperor 90,000, and fell short of the stipulated proportion, the States-General no less than see the ReiDreseatation of the House 102,000, of whom 42,000 were to of Commons, Farl. Hid. vi. 10'J5- supply their garrisons, and 00,000 to 1105. act against the enemy. Of the ships 102 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. I. all the genius and all the admirable patience and dexterity of Marlborough and Eugene to surmount. The absurd habit adopted by the Dutch, of sending deputies with their armies to control their generals, had again and again paralysed the allies. jNIarlboroiigh thus lost his most favourable opportunity of crushing Boufflers at Zonhoven in 1702. He was prevented by the same cause from invading PVench Flanders in 1703, and from attacking Villars on the plain of Waterloo in 1705, though he expressed his confident belief that he could have gained a victory even more decisive than Blenheim ; and Dutch jealousy was plausibly said to have been the chief reason why the war was never carried into the Spanish West Indies, where conquests would have been very easy and very lucrative to England. The conduct of the Emperor was no less open to censure. In the l)egiuning of 1707 he had entered into separate and secret negotiations with the French ; had concluded with them, with- out the consent of any of the allies except the Duke of Savoy, a treaty for the neutrality of Italy, and had thus enabled them to send reinforcements from Lombardy to Spain, which prepared tlie way for the great disaster of Almanza. In the course of the same year he insisted, contrary to the wishes of his allies, upon sending a large body of troops to conquer Naples for him- self; and the want of his co-operation led to the calamitous failure of the siege of Toulon. There was hardly an expedi- tion, hardly a negotiation, in which bickerings and divergent counsels did not appear. The Dutch and the English were animated by the bitterest spirit of commercial jealousy ; and vv-hen Charles assumed the imperial crown, the alliance was at once placed in the most imminent danger. Portugal and Savoy formally declared that they would carry on tlie war no longer to unite the crown of Spain with that of Austria ; and there was probably scarcely a statesman out of Germany who considered such a union in itself a good.' ' See, on the reasons for makihg peace, Swift's Conduct of the Allies, Tha Ilhtory of the Lad Four Years of Queen Anne, ascribed to Swift, tlie very forcible Jtijjre.irntation of the House of Commons, drawn up by Sir Thomas Hanmer, Ralph's Use and Abuse of Parliaments, i. lGG-170, Bol- ingbroke's Sketch of the ITistory of Europe. Coxe's Life of Marlhomuf/h, though written from the Whig jioint of view, abundantly illustrates the seltisli conduct of the allies. As early as Nov. 1710, Bolingbroke wrote ti) Drunuiiond, ' Our trade sinks, and several channels of it, for want of the CH. I, REASONS FOR PEACE. 10 o Such was the state of affairs when tlie Tory ministry rose to power. It was evidently in the highest degree their party interest to negotiate a speedy peace. The war was originally a Whig war. It had been mainly supported by the Whig party. The great general who chiefly conducted it had been the pillar of the Whig ministry, and every victory he gained redounded to its credit. The principal allies of England during the struggle had, moreover, shown themselves actively hostile to the Tories. When the change of ministry was contemplated, the Emperor wrote to Anne to dissuade her from the step ; and the Dutch Government directed their envoy to make a formal re- monstrance to the same effect.' Besides this, it was a favourite doctrine of the Tory leaders that the large loans necessitated by the war had given an unnatural importance to the moneyed classes, who were the chief supporters of the Whigs, and who were regarded with extreme jealousy by the country gentry.^ The mixture of party with foreign policy in times when a great national struggle is raging, is perhaps the most serious danger and evil attending parliamentary government ; and it was shown in every part of the reign of Anne. But if the foregoing- arguments are just, it will appear evident that in this case the party interest which led the Tory ministers to desu-e the im- mediate termination of the war was in complete accordance with the most momentous and pressing interests of the nation. It will appear almost equally evident that the essential article of the Peace of Utrecht, which was the recognition by Eng- land of Philip as the sovereign of Spain, was perfectly righteous and politic. The permanent maintenance of Charles on the usual flux, become choked, and will — Bolingbroke's Letters, i. 26-27 in time be lost ; whilst in the mean- See, too, i., pp. 5-i-5o, 191-105, while the commerce of Holland ex- and also his able letter to the tends itself and flourishes to a great Examiner in 1710, which was an- degree. I can see no immediate swered by no less a person than the benefit likely to accrue to this nation Chancellor Cowper. — isomers' Tracts, b>- the war, let it end how and xiii. 71-75. when it will, besides the general ad- ' Coxe's Life of Marlhoroucfh, vantages common to all Europe of Bolingbroke's Letters, i. '.», iii. 70. reducing the French power; whilst ' See Bolingbroke's Letters, ii. it is most apparent that tlie rest of 74, 211. The same idea frequently tlie confederates have in their own occurs in Swift. In liis letter to hands already very great additions Sir W. Windham, Bolingbroke very of power and dominion olitained by frankly admitted tliut the jteace was the war, and particularly the States.' a supreme party intires 104 ENGLAND IN P?HE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. i. Spanish throne was, probably, an impossibility. If it had been effected, so great an accession of power to the Empire would liave been most dangerous to Europe. No other solution than the recognition of Philip was possible without a great prolonga- tion of the war, and the dangers apprehended from that recog- nition might never arise, and could be at least partially averted. Philip might never become the heir to the French throne, and as long as the two kingdoms remained separate, there was no reason to believe that the relationship between their sovereigns would make Spain the vassal of France. The intense national jealousy of the Spanish character was a sufficient safeguard. More than half the wars which desolated Europe had been wars between sovereigns who were nearly related : and if it was true that Lewis exercised a great personal ascendancy over Philip, it was also true that Lewis was now so old a man, and his kingdom so reduced, that another war during his lifetime was almost impossible. If, on the other hand, the death of the infant Dauphin made Philip the heir to the French throne, a real danger would arise ; but serious measures were taken by the Peace of Utrecht to mitigate it. In the first place, Philip made a solemn renunciation of his claims to the succession of France, and that renunciation was confirmed by the Spanish Cortes and registered by the French Parliaments. It was, it is true, only too probable that this renunciation would be disregarded if any great political end was to be attained. The examples of such a course were only too recent and glaring, and in this case an admirable pretext was already furnished. French lawyers had laid down the doctrine that such a renunciation, by the funda- mental laws of France, would be null and invalid ; that the next prince to the throne is necessarily the heir, by the right of birth ; and that no political act of his own, or of the sovereign, could divest him of his title. In the earlier stages of the nego- tiation Torcy had maintained this doctrine in his correspond- ence with St. John, and if it was found convenient it would probably be revived. But even in case Philip became the heir to the French throne, it by no means followed that peace Wfjuld be broken ; for, as a mere matter of policy, it was pro- bable lliat Pliilip would remain faithful to his engagement, and would content himself with one crown. An attempt to CH. I. CONDUCT OF THE MINISTRY. 105 unite the French and Spanish thrones would undoubtedly be met by another European coalition, and the offending sovereign would be weakened, not only by the great reluctance of the Spanish people to become subsidiary to a more powerful nation, but most probably also by the divisions of a disputed succession in France. In the face of these considerations, there was a fair prospect of the maintenance of peace ; and even if events as- sumed their darkest aspect, the English, by the Peace of Utrecht, retained Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and Minorca, which gave them the command of the Mediterranean, while the Spanish posses- sions in Italy and the Netherlands were added to the dominions of the Empire. For these reasons the abandonment by the Tory ministry of the articles before insisted on, requiring Philip to give up the Spanish throne, and Lewis to employ his arms against him, appears perfectly justifiable, nor can we, I think, remembering the fate of the former negotiations, blame English statesmen very severely if, before attempting to negotiate a formal treaty, they entered into some separate explanation with the French. Here, however, the language of eulogy or apology must end, for the tortuous proceedings that terminated in the Peace of Utrecht form, beyond all question, one of the most shameful pages in English history. A desire for peace was hardly a stronger feeling with the ministers than hatred and jealousy of the Dutch, and their first object was to outwit them by separate and clan- destine negotiation ; to obtain for England a mono^^oly of com- mercial privileges, and to obtain them, in a great degree, at the cost of the towns which would otherwise have been ceded for the Dutch barrier. As early as the autumn of 1710 a secret negotiation was carried on with the French, but for some time the agjDCct of the war was not very materially changed. For the first year after the new ministry came to power, Marl- borough was still at the head of the army, though his position was a most painful one. The parliamentary vote of thanks to him was withheld ; his opinion, even on military matters, was ostentatiously disregarded ; his wife — who had, indeed, made herself intolerable to the Queen — was dismissed from her posts. Grodolplnn, who, of all his political friends, was most closely attached to him, was falsely and vindictively accused of having 06 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. »eft no less than 35,000,000^. of public money unaccounted for,^ and in spite of the virgent protest of Marlborough, more than 5,000 men were withdrawn from the army to be employed in an enterprise from which St. John expected the most brilliant results. Tlie Tories had long complained, with some reason, that the Whig Government carried on the war by land rather than by sea, and in the centre of Europe, where England had nothisg to gain, rather than in distant quarters, where her colonial empire might be largely increased. St. John accord- ingly, anticipating one of the gi-eat enterprises of the elder Pitt, sent out ^ an expedition, consisting of twelve ships of war and fifty transports, for the conquest of Canada. The naval part was under the command of Sir Hoveden Walker, and the soldiers were under that of Brigadier Hill, the brother of Mrs. JNIasham. It was, however, feebly conducted, and, having en- countered some storms and losses at sea, it returned without result. It may appear strange that Marlborough should have con tinned in command in spite of so many causes of irritation, but he was implored by his W^hig friends to do so. Besides this, there is some reason to believe that his resolution of cha- racter was not altogether what it had been ; and his conduct in civil affairs never displayed the same decision as his conduct in the field. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he might, by a prompt intervention, supported by a threat of resignation, have retarded, if not prevented, the fall of Grodolphin ; and in the period immediately preceding the Peac6 of Utrecht, he displayed considerable weakness and hesitation. It is curious to observe that, of all public men, he showed the greatest sen- sitiveness to the libels of the press ; and he complained to Ilarley and St. John, in terms of positive anguisli, of the attacks to which he was subject.-"* His frequent negotiations with both Hanoverians and Jacobites rendered his position peculiarly perplexing. His love of money amounted to a disease, and made it difficult for him to sacrifice his official emoluments. ' Walpole very ably refuted tliis to pay his funeral expenses. See a calumny. When Godolphiu died in letter of the Duchess of Marlborough, the following year, his whole personal Coxe's 3farlhorongh, ch. cix. ])roper1y, after his debts were jiaid, - May 1711. is said lu have been scarcely suflicient ' Coxe's Marlbm-ough, ch. c, C7, en. I. PRELIMINARIES OF PEACE, 1711. 107 He had tried without success, at the time when the Whig ministry was falling, to obtain from the Emperor the govern- ment of the Spanish Netherlands, which on two previous occa- sions he had refused.' He had the natural desire of a great general to remain at the head of the army during the war, and of an adroit politician to preserve a position of much power at a time when the question of a disputed succession was im- pending. He was so incomparably the greatest English general that it seemed scarcely possible to displace him, and at one moment there were symptoms of reconciliation between him- self and St. John. In September 1711 he succeeded, by a masterly movement, in breaking through the lines of Villars, and having captured Eouchain, the struggle seemed about to take a more decisive form. Quesnoy and Landrecies were the only strong places of the French barrier that were now interposed between the allies and a rich and open country extending to the very walls of Paris. The Emperor and the Dutch were straining all their powers for a new effort, and there can be little doubt that, under the guidance of Marlborough and Eugene, it would have been successful. The ministers, how- ever, had by this time arrived at such a point in their secret negotiations that they looked forward to an immediate peace, and were anxious, if possible, to paralyse the operations of war. On September 27, 1711, two sets of preliminaries of peace were secretly signed. The first, the most important, and by far the most explicit, concerned England mainly or exclusively, were signed on the part of both England and France, and were kept carefully secret from the allies. By these preliminaries the title of Anne and her successors, as by law established, was recognised ; the cession of Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and Newfoundland, with a reservation of the right of fishing to the French, was granted or confirmed ; the port and fortifications of Dunkirk were to be destroyed at the peace, France receiving an equivalent to be determined in the final treaty ; a treaty of commerce with France was promised ; the lucrative right of supplying the Spanish colonies in America with negroes was transferred from a French company to the English, and some places in America were assigned to the English for the refreshment and sale of the * Coxe's Marlbmvvyh, ch, xcvi. 108 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. i, negroes. The other set of preliminaries, which were communi- cated to the Dutch and were signed only on the part of France, comprised the recognition of the title of the Queen and of the succession established by law, the article relating to Dunkirk and a promise of commercial advantages for England and Hol- land; they made no mention of the special advantages Eng- land secured for herself, but provided that measures should be taken to prevent the union of the crowns of France and Spain ; that barriers, the nature and extent of which were as yet unde- fined, should be formed for- the Dutch and for the Empire ; and, by a separate article, that the places taken from the Duke of Savoy should be restored, and his power in Italy aggrandised. These articles were communicated by the English to the allies, who were summoned to a conference for the neaotiation of a definite peace. The difficulties of the ministers were very great. The Dutch, though they at length consented to join the proposed conference at Utrecht, expressed strong dissatisfaction with the preliminaries of which they had been ajDj^rised. The Emperor was still more emphatic, and he only consented to take part in the proceedings on condition that the preliminaries should be regarded as mere propositions, without any binding force. The Elector of Hanover, whose judgment had natui-ally a special weight with English politicians, was prominent on the same side ; and although the ministers could count on a large majority in the Commons, a majority in the House of Lords, supported by Marlborough himself, voted that no peace could be safe or honourable which left Spain and the Indies to a Bourbon prince. Public opinion received a severe shock when, at the close of the year, the greatest of England's generals was removed ignominiously from the command of the army, and was replaced by the Duke of Ormond, a strong Tory, but a man of no military ability. The confei'ence, however, met at Utrecht at the close of January 1711-12, and early in the next month the French made their propositions for a peace. Lewis olfered to recognise the Queen of England and the succession established by law, but only on the signature of peace; to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk after the peace, on con- dition of receiving a satisfactory equivalent ; to cede to Eng- CH. I. DEMANDS 0-F LEWIS. 109 land St. Christopher, Hudson's Bay, and Newfoundland, re- serving, however, the fort of Placentia and the right of fishing around Newfoundland, and receiving again the whole of Acadia ; and he also undertook to make a treaty of commerce with England, based on the principle of reciprocity. When, however, the question of the Dutch barrier arose, the French proposi- tions showed the enormous change which had passed over the pretensions of Lewis since the conferences of Gertruydeuberg. He now demanded that the sovereignty of the Spanish Nether- lands should be granted to his ally the Elector of Bavaria ; and, although he recognised the right of the Dutch to garri- son the frontier towns, he prescribed limits for their barrier wholly different from those which had been guaranteed by England in the treaty of 1709, and recognised by France in the conferences of 1710. He demanded the surrender of both Lille and Tournay as an equivalent for the destruction of the harboin of Dunkirk. Of the cession of Valenciennes there was no longer any question. He offered, it is true, to cede Furnes, Knocke, Ypres, and Menin, but only in exchange for Aire, St. Yenant, Bethune, and Douay. These demands were made, though not a single success in Flanders had im- proved the position of the French since 1709, while the im- mense concessions the allies were preparing to make in leaving Philip undisturbed on the Spanish throne entitled them to de- mand that in other respects at least the conditions accepted in that year should be rigidly exacted. The arrogance, as it was deemed, of the French King, excited not only indig- nation, but astonishment; but those who blamed it did not know the secret stipulations by which England was now bound to France. They did not know that the English ministers were on f^ir more confidential terms with the enemy than with their allies ; that St. John had informed the French nego- tiator that, though they could not avoid demanding a barrier for the Dutch, they desired it to be neither very extended nor very strong ; that he had specially urged the French to stand firm against Holland, in order to resist any attempt she might make to obtain a share of the advantages conceded to England.^ Under such circumstances, the position of France in the nego- ' Torcy's Memoirs. 110 ENGKiND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. tiations was not thiit of an isolated and defeated Power. She had a weighty ally at the Council-board — an ally all the more valuable because her position was unavowed; because her statesmen had entered upon a course in which failure or even exposure might lead to impeachment. The other French de- mands were in the same key. Lewis consented, indeed, in the name of his grandson, to the abandonment of the Spanish dominions in Italy, wliich were already in the hands of the allies ; but he demanded that the frontiers between France and Germany, between France and the territory of the Duke of Savoy, and between Portugal and Spain, should be re-established as they were before the war. He consented to give guarantees against the possible union of the crowns of France and Spain, and to recognise those titles in Grermany which he had hitherto refused to acknowledge ; but he demanded in retm-n that Philip should retain the thrones of Spain and of the Indies, and that the Electors of Cologne and Bavaria should be fully re-estab- lished in the territory and the position from which they had been driven by the war. It is not smprising that such demands, made after a long succession of crushing defeats, by a power which less than three years before would have gladly purchased peace by a complete abandonment of the cause of Philip, by the cession of all or almost all the strong places on the Dutch frontier, and by the restoration of Strasburg to the Emperor, should have been branded by the House of Lords as scandalous, frivolous, and dishonouring to the Queen and to the allies. The English ministers, however, were not discouraged, and they advanced fearlessly in the path which they had chosen. The course of duty before them at this time was very clear. The terms or propositions of peace should have been fidly, frankly, and unreservedly laid before the plenipotentiaries assembled at Utrecht. As long as no conclusion was arrived at, military operations should have been strenuously pursued, but if after mature deliberation England desired to make peace on terms which were unacceptable to the allies, she had a perfect right to withdraw formally from the alliance. Harley and St. John, liowever, though widely different in most respects, agreed in preferring tortuous to open methods, and they at this time CE. 1. DEFECTION OF THE ENGLISH. 1 1 1 carried on the foreign policy of the Government rather in the manner of conspirators than of statesmen. They plunged deeper and deeper into separate clandestine negotiations, and they allowed these negotiations to interfere fatfilly with military operations. The allied army in Flanders in the spring of 1712 considerably outnumbered that of Villars whicli was opposed to it, and although tlie English contingent was feebly commanded, the presence of Eugene gave great promise of success. The opposing armies were in close proximity, and there was every reason to look forward to brilliant results, when Ormond received peremptory orders from St. John to engage in no siege and to hazard no battle till further instructions, and to keep this order strictly secret from the general with whom lie was co- operating. A postscript was added, in which the seriousness of the matter contrasted strangely with the levity of the form. ' I had almost forgot to tell your Grace that communication is made of this order to the Court of France, so that if the ^Marshal de Villars takes, in any private way, notice of it to you, your Grace will answer accordingly.' ' Twelve days later another letter directed Ormond to take the first step by sending a messenger to Villars,'^ and a secret correspondence was thus opened between the Englisli general and the enemy who was opposed to him in the field. The suspicions of Eugene were at last aroused. He perceived an opportunity of compelling the enemy either to fight a battle at great disadvantage, or else to repass the Somme, and he at once prepared a general attack. The English oeneral was overwhelmed with confusion : he tried by excuses that were palpably futile to evade the request, and he finally begged a postponement. The treachery now could no longer be concealed. Eugene insisted on besieging Quesnoy. Ormond could find no excuse, and yielded. The siege was formally begun wlien Ormond announced to the Austrian com- mander and to the Dutch that England had signed a suspension of arms for two months, and that the British troops and the auxiliaries who were subsidised by Great Britain were about, in the face of the enemy, to retire from the confederate army. These transactions formed afterwards one of tlie most for- midable of the articles of impeachment against Bolingbroke, » Holingbrokc's Letters, ii. 321 (May 10). ' Ibid. p. 3}i. 112 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. i. and they admit of but little palliation. The scene when the suspension of arms was announced to the army was a very memorable one. Tlie Austrian and Dutch generals protested in vain. The subsidised allies loudly declared that they would be no parties to an act of such aggravated treachery. Their pay was considerably in arrear, and with a rare refinement of meanness it was threatened that their arrears would not be paid unless they withdrew, but the threat with the great majority was unavailing. Among the British troops the sentiment was but little different. When the withdrawal was announced at the head of each regiment, a general hiss and murmur ran through the ranks. In order to prevent the spread of disaffection, strict orders were given that there should be no communication be- tween the troops who were to retire and those who were to remain ; but yet, in the words of a contemporary, the British camp resounded ' with curses against the Duke of Ormond as a stupid tool and general of straw. The colonels, captains, and other brave officers were so overwhelmed with vexation that they sat apart in their tents, looking on the ground for very sliame with downcast eyes, and for several days shrank from the sight even of their fellow soldiers. . . . Some left their colours, to serve among the allies, and others afterwards withdrew, and whenever they recollected the Duke of Marlborough and the late glorious times their eyes filled with tears.' ^ At length, on the 12th of July, the British troops, numbering 12,000 men, and accompanied only by four squadrons and one battalion of the Holstein auxiliaries, and by a regiment of dragoons from the contingent of Liege, marched in dejected silence from the con- federate camp. The Dutch governors of Bouchain, Douay, and Tournay refused to open their gates, and the English in reprisal seized upon Ghent and Bruges. One of the terms of the agree- ment with France was that a British garrison should at once occupy Dimkirk ; but the French, alleging that the greater part of the auxiliaries in the pay of England still remained with the confederate army, declared that the treaty was broken, and refused to open the gates, nor was it till after considerable ne- gotiations and urgent appeals that Lewis consented, more as a matter of favour than of riglit, to admit the English into Dunkirk. ' Cunningham. CH. I. DISGEACE OF MARLBOROUGH. 1 1 3 - This defection left a deep stain on the honour of England, and, as might have been expected, it gave a complete turn to the war. Quesnoy, it is true, surrendered on the very day of the retreat of Ormond, and Landrecies was besieged, but the tide of fortune speedily receded. Villars, strengthened by the garrisons of towns wJiich the English armistice relieved, attacked and defeated one section of the weakened army of Eugene at Denain. Douay was invested by the French and compelled to surrender. Quesnoy was retaken, and the campaign closed with the recapture of Bouchain, the last great conquest of Marlborough. Had not the allies in the pay of England for the most part refused to abandon the army of Eugene, it is not improbable that it would have been totally destroyed. Immediately after the battle of Denain the French minister, Torcy, wrote in characteristic terms to St, John to commu- nicate to him the disaster which had befallen the allies of England. 'The King of France,' he said, ' is persuaded that the advantage which his troops have obtained will give the Queen so much the more pleasure, as it may be an aid to over- come the obstinacy of the enemies to peace.' ' Three months later we find Ormond informing Bolingbroke of the intention of the Dutch to attempt the surprise of Nieuport or Furnes. ' If it be thought more for Her Majesty's service to prevent it,' he added, ' I am humbly of opinion some means should be found to give advice of it to Marshal Villars.' ^ While these events were taking place, the Government at home had been pressing on the peace by measures of almost unparalleled violence. Supported by a large majority in the House of Commons, it resolved to silence or crush all opposition. The first and most conspicuous victim was Marlborough. It was alleged, and alleged with truth, *that while commanding in the Netherlands he had during several years received an annual pre- sent of about 6,000L from the contractor who supplied his army with bread, and also that he had appropriated two and a half per cent, of the money which had been voted by Parliament for paying the subsidised troops, and on these grounds he was accused of peculation. The answer, however, in oi'dinary times would have been accepted as conclusive. It was shown that the former sum ' Bolingbroke's Letters, ii. 4-13. ^ Report of the Secret Committee. VOL. I. I 11 J ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ck. i. was a perquisite always granted to tlie commander in the Nether- lands and employed by him for obtaining tliat secret intelli- gence which is absolutely essential to a general, and which was never more complete than under Marlborongli, and that the deduction from the subsidies was expressly authorised by the foreign powers who were subsidised, and by a royal warrant which e-ranted it to tlie commander-in-chief 'for extraordinary contingent expenses." Whatever irregularity there might be in ])roviding by these means a supply of secret-service money, it was of old standing ; there was no reason whatever to believe that the fund was misappropriated, thougli from its very nature it could not be accounted for in detail, and it was proved that the expenditure of secret-service money in the campaigns of Marlborough was considerably smaller than it had been in the incomparably less successful campaigns of William. Prince Eugene afterwards very candidly declared that he had himself given for intelligence three times as much as ^Marlborough was charged with on that head.^ The object of the dominant party, however, was at all costs to discredit Marlborough. He was dismissed from all his employments, pronounced guilty by a party vote •'•f tlie House of Commons, and exposed to a storm of mendacious obloquy. When Eugene came over to England in order to use his influence against the peace in the January of 1711-12, he perceived with no little generous indignation that every effort was made to extol his military talents at the expense of the great English commander. !Marll)orough was assailed as he drove through the streets with cries of ' Stop thief I ' He was grossly insulted in the House of Lords. He was accused of the most atrocious plots against the Queen and against the State. The scurrilous pens of ^Irs. Manley and of a host of other libellers were employed against him. Ballads describing him as the basest of men were sung publicly in the highways. The funds which the Queen had hitherto provided for the construc- tion of Blenheim were stopped, and the tide of calumny and vituperation ran so strongh- that he thought it ad\'isable to abandon the country, and accordingly proceeded in November 1712 almost alone to Flanders, and soon after to Germany. He ' Coxe. June 22. 1711.— J/55. BuMin State - W. Watson to Jas. Davrson, Pajjcr Cifficc. CH I. MILITARY GENIUS OF ilAELBOEOUGH. 11. 5 was received in both countries with a respect and an enthusiasm that contrasted strangely with his treatment at home, and he at the same time invested 50,000^. in Holland, in case the state of home politics should exclude him for ever from his country. English history contains no more striking instance of the sudden revulsion of popular feeling. Beyond comparison the greatest of English generals, Marlborough had raised his country to a height of military glory such as it had never attained since the days of Poitiers and of Agincourt, and his victories appeared all the more dazzling after the ignominious reigns of the two last Stuarts, and after the many failures that chequered the enterprises of William. His military genius, though once bitterly decried by party malignity,' will now be universally acknowledged, and it was sufiBcient to place him among the greatest captains who have ever lived. Hardly any other modem general combined to an equal degree the three great attributes of daring, caution, and sagacity, or conducted military enterprises of equal magnitude and duration without losing a single battle or failing in a single siege. He was one of the very few commanders who appear to have shown equal skill in directing a campaign, in winning a battle, and in improving a victory. It cannot, indeed, be said of him, as it may be said of Frederick the Great, that he was at the head of a small Power, with almost all Em-ope in arms against it, and that nearly every victory he won was snatched from an army enormously outnum- bering his own. At Blenheim and Oudenarde the French exceeded by a few thousands the armies of the allies. At Eamillies the army of Marlborough was slightly superior. At ^lalplaquet the opposing forces were almost equal. Xor did the circumstances of Marlborough admit of a military career of the same brilHancy, variety, and magnitude of enterprise as that of Xapoleon. But both Frederick and Xapoleon experienced crushing disasters, and both of them had some advantages which Marlborouo-h did ' Thus inthe Sigttynj of the faur last as is well knovm, was depreciated :n Tears of Queen Anne, Swift — if he be the same manner in "Whig circles. indeed the author of this work — says : Thus Byron — ' I will say nothin? of his military /^i, vi i j ^^ ^i -^ . , , T , * i.- 1. ii. -x" On. bloody and most bootless Waterloo ! accomplishments, which the opposite -R-hJch proves how fools may have their for. reports of his friends and enemies tnnetoo, among the soldiers have rendered Won half by blunder, half by treachery, problematical' (p. 14). Wellington, The Age of Bronze. I 2 116 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. not possess. Frederick was the absolute ruler of a State which had for many years been governed exclusively on the military principle, in which the first and almost the sole object of the Government had been to train and discipline the largest and most perfect army the nation could support. Napoleon was the absolute rider of the foremost military Power on the Con- tinent at a time when the enthusiasm of a great revolution had given it an unparalleled energy, when the destruction of the old hierarchy of rank and the opening of all posts to talent had brought an extraordinary amount of ability to the forefront, and when the military administrations of surrounding nations were singularly decrepit and corrupt. Marlborough, on the other hand, commanded armies consisting in a great degree of confederates and mercenaries of many different nationalities, and under many different rulers. He was thwarted at every step ])y political obstacles, and by the much graver obstacles arising from divided command and personal or national jealousies ; he contended against the first military nation of the Continent, at a time when its military organisation had attained the liighest perfection, and when a long succession of brilliant wars liad given it a school of oflScers of consummate skill. But great as were his military gifts, they would have been insufficient had they not been allied with other qualities well fitted to win the admiration of men. Adam Smith has said, with scarcely an exaggeration, that 'it is a characteristic almost peculiar to the great Duke of Marlborough, that ten years of such uninterrupted and such splendid successes as scarce any other general could boast of, never betrayed him into a single rash action, scarcely into a single rash word or expres- sion.' ' Nothing in his career is more admirable than the unwearied patience, the inimitable skill, the courtesy, the tact, the self-command with which he employed himself during many years in reconciling the incessant differences, over- coming the incessant opposition, and soothing the incessant jealousies of those with whom he was compelled to co-operate. His private correspondence abundantly shows how gross was the provocation he endured, how keenly he felt it, how nobly he bore it. As a negotiator he ranks with the most skilful ' Maral PMloxo^hy. CH. I. CHARACTER OF MARLBOROUGH. 117 diplomatists of his age, and it was no doubt his great tact in managing men that induced his old rival Bolingbroke, in one of his latest writings, to describe him as not only the greatest general, but also ' the greatest minister our country or any other has produced.' ' Chesterfield, while absm'dly deprecia- ting his intellect, admitted that ' his manner was irresistible,' and he added that, of all men he had ever known, Marlborough ' possessed the graces in the highest degree.' ^ Nor was his character without its softer side. Though he cannot, I think, be acquitted of a desire to prolong war in the interests of his personal or political ambition, it is at least true that no general ever studied more, by admirable discipline and by uniform humanity, to mitigate its horrors. Very few friendships among great political or military leaders have been as constant or as unclouded by any shade of jealousy as the friendship between Marlborough and Godolphin, and between Marlborough and Eugene. His conjugal fidelity, in a time of great laxity and under temptations and provocations of no common order, was beyond reproach. His attachment to the Church of England was at one time the great obstacle to his advancement. It appears never to liave wavered through all the vicissitudes of his life ; and no one who reads his most private letters with candour can fail to perceive that a certain vein of genuine piety ran through his nature, however inconsistent it may ap- pear with some portions of his career. Yet it may be questioned whether, even in the zenith of his fame, he was really popular. He had grave vices, and they were precisely of that kind which is most fatal to public men. His extreme rapacity in acquiring and his extreme avarice in hoarding money contrasted forcibly with the lavish generosity of Ormond, and alone gave weight to the charges of peculation that were brought against him. It is true that this, like all his passions, was under control. Torcy soon found that it was use- less to attempt to bribe him, and he declined, as we have seen, with little hesitation the enormously lucrative post of Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, when he found that the appoint- ment aroused the strong and dangerous hostility of the Dutch. ' Letters an the Study of History. ^ letters to his Son^ Nov. 18, 17i8. 118 ENGL.iND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. i. In these cases his keen and far-seeing judgment perceived clearly his true interest, and he had sufficient resolution to follow it. Yet still, like many men who have risen from great poverty to great wealth, avarice was the passion of his life, and the rapacity both of himself and of his wife was insatiable. Besides immense grants for Blenheim, and marriage portions given by the Queen to their daughters, they at one time received between them an annual income of public money of more than 64,000L' Nor can he be acquitted of very gross and aggravated treachery to those he served. It is, indeed, not easy to form a fair estimate in this respect of the conduct of public men at the period of the Eevolution. Historians rarely make sufficient allowance for the degree in which the judgements and disposi- tions even of the best men are coloured by the moral tone of the age, society, or profession in which they live, or for the tempta- tions of men of great genius and of natural ambition in times when no highly scrupulous man could possibly succeed in public life. Marlborough struggled into greatness from a very humble position, in one of the most profligate periods of English politics, and he lived through a long period when the ultimate succession of the crown was very doubtful. A very large proportion of the leading statesmen during this long season of suspense made such overtures to the deposed dynasty as would at least secure them from absolute ruin in the event of a change ; and their conduct is surely susceptible of much palliation. The apparent interests and the apparent wishes of the nation hung so evenly and oscillated so frequently that strong convictions were rare, and even good men might often be in doubt. But the obligations of Churchill to James were of no common order, and his treachery was of no common dye. He had been raised by the special favour of his sovereign from the position of a page to the peerage, to great wealth, to high command in the army. He had been trusted by him with the most absolute trust. He not only abandoned him in the crisis of his fate, with circum- stances of the most deliberate and aggravated treachery, but also employed his influence over the daughter of his benefactor to induce her to fly from her father, and to array herself with his ' Lord Stanhope's 77?rf<7ryrt/£'«y7- tween Roman Gratitude and British la)>d: l 20. Swift's ' Contrast be- Ingva-titudQ,' in the £xamincr,'No. 16. CH. 1. MARLBOROUGH AND CROMWELL. 1 1 9 enemies. Such conduct, if it had indeed been dictated, as he alleged, solely by a regard for the interests of Protestantism, would have been certainly, in the words of Hume, ' a signal sacrifice to public virtue of every duty in private life ; ' and it * required ever after the most upright, disinterested, and public-spirited behaviour, to render it justifiable.' Hoav little the later career of Marlborough fulfilled this condition is well known. When we find that, having been loaded under the new Government with titles, honours, and wealth, having been placed in the inner council and entrusted with the most important State secrets, he was one of the first Englishmen to enter into negotiations with St. Germain's ; that he purchased his pardon from James by betraying important military secrets to the enemies of his country, and that during a great part of his subsequent career, while holding office under the Govern- ment, he was secretly negotiating with the Pretender, it is difficult not to place the worst construction upon his public life. It is probable, indeed, that his negotiations with the Jaco- bites were never sincere, that he had no real desire for a resto- ration, and that his guiding motive was mvich less ambition than a desire to secure what he possessed ; but these considera- tions only slightly palliate his conduct. At the period of his downfall his later acts of treason were for the most part un- known, but his conduct towards James weighed heavily upon his reputation, and his intercourse with the Pretender, though not proved, was at least suspected by many. Neither Hano- verians nor Jacobites trusted him, neither Whigs nor Tories could regard liim without reserve as their own. And with this feeling of distrust there was mingled a strong element of fear. In the latter years of Queen Anne the shadow of Cromwell fell darkly across the path of Marlborough. To those who prefer the violent methods of a reforming despotism to the slow process of parliamentary amelioration, to those who despise the wisdom of following public opinion and respecting the prejudices and the associations of a nation, there can be no better lesson than is furnished by the history of Cromwell. Of his high and commanding abilities it is not here necessary to speak, nor yet of the traits of magnanimity that may, no doubt, be found in his character. Everything that great 120 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. I. geuius and the most passionate sympathy could do to magnify these has in this century been done, and a long period of unqualified depreciation has been followed by a reaction of extravagant eulogy. But the more the qualities of the man are exalted, the more significant are the lessons of his life. Despising the national sentiment of loyalty, he and his party dethroned and beheaded the King. Despising the ecclesiastical sentiment, they destroyed the Church. Despising the deep reverence for the constitution, they, subverted the Parliament. Despising the oldest and most cherished customs of the people, they sought to mould the whole social life of England in the die of an austere Puritanism. They seemed for a time to have succeeded, but the result soon appeared. Eepublican equality was followed by the period of most obsequious, servile loyalty England has ever known. The age when every amusement was denounced as a crime was followed by the age when all virtue was treated as hypocrisy, and when the sense of shame seemed to have almost vanished from the land. The prostra- tion of the Church was followed, with the full approbation of the bulk of the nation, by the bitter, prolonged persecution of Dissenters. The hated memory of the Commonwealth was for more than a century appealed to by every statesman who desired to prevent reform or discredit liberty, and the name of Cromwell gathered around it an intensity of hatred ap- proached by no other in the history of England. This was the single sentiment common in all its vehemence to the Epis- copalians of England, the Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Catholics of Ireland, and it had more than once considerable political effects. The profound horror of military despotism, which is one of the strongest and most salutary of English sentiments, has been, perhaps, the most valuable legacy of tlie Commonwealth. In Marlborough, for the first time since the Eestoration, men saw a possible Cromwell, and they looked forward with alarm to the death of the Queen as a period pecu- liarly propitious to military usurpation. Bolingbroke never represented more happily the feelings of the people than in the well-known scene at the first representation of the ' Cato ' of Addison. Written by a great Whig writer, the play Avas intended to advocate Whig sentiments; but when the Whig CH. I. VIOLENCE OF THE MINISTRY. 121 audience had made the theatre ring with applause at every speech on the evil of despotism and arbitrary principles, the Tory leader availed himself of the pause between the acts to summon the chief actor, to present him with a purse of money, and to thank him publicly for having defended the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual military dictator. These considerations help to explain the completeness of the downfall of Marlborough. His secretary Cardonnel was at the same time expelled from the House of Commons, on the charge of having received a gratuity from some bread con- tractors ; and Walpole, who was rapidly rising to a foremost place in the Whig ranks, was on a very similar charge not only expelled, but sent to the Tower. The opposition of the Upper House was met by the simultaneous creation of twelve peers — one of them beino- a brother to Mrs. Masham — and the friends of INIarlborough in the Lords were also seriously weakened by the death of Godolphin in September 1712. The language adopted towards the Duteh was that of undisguised and impla- cable hostility. The treaty of 1709, by which England had guaranteed Holland a strong barrier, while Holland guaranteed the Protestant succession in England, and undertook, in time of danger, to support it by arms, was brought before the House of Commons, and severely censm-ed as too favom-able to the Dutch ; and Lord Townshend, who negotiated it, was voted an enemy to his country. Strong resolutions were carried, censming the conduct of Holland, in falling below the stipulated proportion of troops and sailors, and a powerful representa- tion, which was in fact an indictment against the allies, was drawn up. The States issued a memorial in reply, but it was voted by the House of Commons ' a false, scandalous, and malicious libel,' and orders were given that those who had printed and published it in England should be taken into custody. In the same spirit two protests of peers against the proceedings of the ministers were expunged from the records of the House of Lords. Fleetwood, the bishop of St. Asaph, having published some sermons, preached many years before, with a very moderate preface, repudiating the doctrines of passive obedience, deploring the ingratitude shown to William, and complaining that the spiYit of discord had entered into the 122 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. i. councils and impaired the glory of England, this preface, by order of the House of Commons, was burnt by the hangman.' Libels of the most virulent kind, some of them from the pen of Swift, were showered upon the allies and upon the Whigs, while the hand of power was perpetually raised against the writinjifs of the Opposition. Prosecutions of this kind had for some time been very numerous, and the Stamp Act of 1712, imposing a stamp of a halfpenny on every sheet, gave a severe blow to the rising activity of the press. I do not propose to follow in detail the negotiations which terminated in the Peace of Utrecht. Their story has been often told with a fullness that leaves nothing to be desired, and it will be sufficient to relate the general issue. The desertion of England and the disasters of the last campaign had broken the courage of the allies, and, with the exception of the Emperor, all the Powers consented to make separate treaties of peace with France on terms which were, in a very great measure, deter- mined by English influence. On March 31, 1713, these several treaties were signed, and soon after, that between England and Spain. As far as England was concerned, the peace left little to be desired. The possession or restoration of Gibraltar, Minorca, Hudson's Bay, Acadia or Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the French part of St. Christopher, and the immense accession of guilty wealth acquired through the Assiento treaty, by which England obtained the monopoly of the slave-trade to the Spanish colonies, did much to compensate for the great pecuniary sacrifices of the war ; while some slight additional security was given to the nation by the French recognition of the Act of Settlement, by the expulsion of the Pretender from the French dominions, and, above all, by the destruction of the forts and harbour of Dunkirk. The Duke of Savoy obtained the restoration of the territory he had lost in Savoy and in Nice, a slight rectification of his frontier, and also the island of Sicily ; and it was provided that, in the event of the failure of the line of Philip, the Spanish throne should descend to the House of Savoy. The treaty with Portugal was confined to some not very important articles relating to her frontier in America; but Prussia obtained from France for the first time ' It was republished in the tSpeotator, No, 384. til. I. THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 123 the recognition of the royal title of her sovereign, and of his right to the sovereignty of Neuehatel, which, on the death of the Duchess of Nemom-s in 1707, had been recognised by the States of Neuchatel, but violently repudiated by the French King. Prussia at the same time renounced in favour of France all claims to the principality of Orange, receiving Upper Guelderland instead. Holland obtained some advantages, but they were so much less than those which she had claimed, and than those she had been promised, and so insufficient to com- pensate her for the long struggle she had undergone, that she may be justly regarded as one of the chief sufierers by the peace. No new fortresses were incorporated in her territory, but the Spanish Netherlands, as they had been possessed by Charles II., were to be ceded to the House of Austria, the Dutch maintaining the right of garrisoning the strong places so as to form a barrier against France. By this means the Dutch and Austrian power would combine to shelter Holland from French invasion ; but the Dutch occupation of Austrian towns could haixlly fail to produce discord between Austria and the Nether- lands. Holland was compelled to restore Lille, Aire, Bethune, and St. Venant to France ; Quesnoy, which was strategically of great importance, and which had been lost through the treacherous desertion of England, remained in French hands ; Tournay would have almost certainly been surrendered had not St. John feared the indignation of English public opinion ; ^ and although Holland procured a treaty of commerce with France, her statesmen complained bitterly that she was ex- cluded from all share in the Assiento contract, and in the ad- vantages which England obtained by her new stations in the INIediterranean. As the Emperor refused to accede to the Peace of Utrecht, the Spanish Netherlands were placed in Dutch hands till peace was finally concluded, and in this quarter, therefore, the war was at an end. The Spanish dominions in Italy, with the exception of Sicily and of a small portion of the Milanese, which passed to the Duke of Savoy, were ceded to the Emperor, and a military convention, signed just before the Peace of Utrecht, established the neutrality of Italy, while, ' See Bolingbrokc's correspondence on the subject with Torcj-. 124 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cu. i bv another similax convention, guaranteed by both England and France, the Emperor agreed to withdraw his troops from Catalonia and from the Islands of Majorca and Ivica. He still refused to abandon his claims to the whole Spanish dominions, or to treat with Philip ; and the German frontier on the side of France was only determined after another campaign in which Villars captured in a few weeks both Landau and Fribourg. The Emperor then came to terms, and peace was signed, at Eastadt, on March 6 (N.S.), and confirmed by the treaty of Baden, in September, 1714. By this peace France restored to the Empire Brisach, Fribom-g, and Kehl ; engaged to destroy the fortresses she had built since the Peace of Kyswick along the Ehine, and recognised the new electoral dignity in the House of Hanover, while the Emperor, on his side, consented to the re-establishment of the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne in the territory and dignities they had lost by the war. Alsace con- tinued French, and Landau was for a time added to the French dominions. The Emperor refused to include the Spanish King in the treaty, but without any formal peace active hostilities ceased, and though the ambition of the House of Hapsbmg was baffled, it was hoped that the great end of the allies was accomplished by the solemn and reiterated renunciation by Philip of all claim to the French throne. France, which had been reduced to an almost hopeless con- dition, emerged from the struggle much weakened for a time by the exhaustion of the war, but scarcely injm-ed by the peace. With the exception of a very few fortresses, her European terri- torv was intact ; her military prestige was in some degree restored Ijy the victory of Denain and by the last campaign of Villars on the Rhine ; and her ascendancy in Europe, which had proved a som-ce of many dangers, was not permanently impaired. Spain had undergone the dismemberment she so greatly feared ; but the severance of distant, ill-governed, and dis- contented provinces did not seriously diminish her strength. She retained the sovereign of her choice. She preserved the colonial possessions which were the great source of her wealth, and she was in some degree reinvigorated by the infusion of a foreio-n element into her government. Alone among the Spaniards the Catalans had real reason to regret the peace. en. I. DESERTION OF THE CATALANS. 125 ' They had clung to the cause of Charles with a desperate fidelity, and the Peace of Utrecht rang the death-knell of provincial liberties to which they were passionately attached. From the beginning of 1705 they had been the steady and faithful allies of England ; they had again and again done eminent service in her cause ; they had again and again received from her ministers and generals the most solemn assurances that they would never be abandoned. When England first opened a separate negotiation for peace, she might easily have secvired the Catalonian liberties by making their recognition an indis- pensable preliminary of peace ; but, instead of this, the Eng- lish ministers began by recognising the title of Philip, and contented themselves with a simple prayer that a general amnesty might be granted. When the convention was signed for the evacuation of Catalonia by the imperial troops, the question of the provincial liberties was referred to the definite peace, the Queen and the French King promising at that time to interpose their good offices to secure them. The Emperor, who was bound to the Catalans by the strongest ties of grati- tude and honour, could have easily obtained a guarantee of their fueros at the price of an acknowledgment of the title of Philip ; but he was too proud and too selfish for such a sacrifice. The English, it is true, repeatedly m-ged the Spanish King to guarantee these privileges, and their ambassador. Lord Lexing- ton, represented ' that the Queen thought herself obliged, by the strongest ties, those of conscience and honour,' to insist upon this point ; but these were mere representations, supported by no action, and were therefore peremptorily refused. The English peace with Spain contained a clause granting the Cata- lans a general armistice, and also a promise that they should be placed in the same position as the Castilians, which gave them the right of holding employments and carrying on a direct trade with the West Indies, but it made no mention of their provincial privileges. The Peace of Eastadt was equally silent, for the dignity of tlie Emperor would not suffer him to enter into any negotiations with Philip. The unhappy people, abandoned by those whom tliey had so faithfully served, refused to accept the position offered them by treaty, and, much to the indignation of the English Government, they still 126 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. i. continued in arms, struggling with a desperate courage against overwhelming odds. The King of Spain then called upon the Queen, as a guarantee of the treaty of evacuation, ' to order a squadron of her ships to reduce his subjects to their obedience, and thereby complete the tranquillity of Spain and of the Mediterranean commerce.' A fleet was actually despatched, which would probably have been employed against Barcelona, but for an urgent address of the House of Lords,' and the whole moral weight of England was thrown into the scale against the insurgents. The conduct of the French was more decided. Though the French King had engaged himself with the Queen by the treaty of evacuation to use his good offices in the most effectual manner in favour of the Catalan liberties, he now sent an army to hasten the capture of Barcelona. The blockade of that noble city lasted for more than a year. The insurgents hung up over the high altar the Queen's solemn de- claration to protect them. They continued the hopeless struggle till 14,000 bombs had been thrown into the city; till a great part of it had been reduced to ashes ; till seven breaches had been made; till 10,000 of the besieging army had been killed or wounded ; and till famine had been added to the horrors of war. At last, on September 11, 1714, Barcelona was taken by storm. A frightful massacre took place in the streets. Many of the inhabitants were afterwards imprisoned or transported, and the old privileges of Catalonia were finally abolished.- Such was the last scene of this disastrous war, and such were the leading articles of the treaties by which the balance and disposition of power in Europe were for a long period determined. France and Austria, whose competition for tlie dominions of Charles II. was the real cause of the war, would both have been more powerful had they never drawn the sword, but simply accepted the treaty of partition. As far as Eogland was concerned, the peace was less blameable than the means by which it was obtained, and the foreign policy of the Tory party was hardly more deflected by dishonourable motives than ' April 3, 1714. de Be'nrirk, tome ii. Bolingbroke's ' See the Report of the Committee Letters, iii. 365 ; Somers' Trarts, xiii. of Secrecy of the House of Commons 6;}6-638; ^ismondlyHUt.des Fram,(;wis, oa the Peace of Utrecht. Mimvircs xix. 32-10. en. I. POSITION OF PARTIES. 127 that of their adversaries. Those, indeed, who can look iin~ dazzled through the blaze of military glory tliat illuminates the reign of Anne will find very little in English public life during that period deserving of respect. Party motives on both sides were supreme. They led one party to prolong a war, which was once unquestionably righteous, beyond all just and reasonable limits. They led the other party to make a peace which was desirable and almost necessary, in such a manner that it left a deep and lasting stain on the honour of the nation. To those who care to note the landmarks of moral his- tory which occasionally appear amid the vicissitudes of politics, it may not be uninteresting to observe that among the few parts of the Peace of Utrecht which appear to have given un- qualified and unanimous satisfaction at home was the Assiento contract, which made England the great slave-trader of the world. The last prelate who took a leading part in English politics affixed his signature to the treaty. A Te Beum, composed by Handel, was sung in thanksgiving in the churches. Theological passions had been recently more vehemently aroused, and theo- logical controversies had for some years acquired a wider and more absorbing interest in England than in any period since the Commonwealth ; but it does not yet appear to have oc- curred to any class that a national policy which made it its main object to encourage the kidnapping of tens of thousands of negroes, and their consignment to the most miserable slavery, might be at least as inconsistent with the spirit of the Christian religion as either the establishment of Presbyterianisra or the toleration of prelacy in Scotland. While the peace was still in process of negotiation^ the two leaders of the Government were raised to the peerage, but with unequal honours ; and the fact that St. John was only made Viscount Bolingbroke, while Harley became Earl of Oxford, greatly strengthened the jealousy which had arisen between them. The position of the Government, however, on the conclusion of the peace, was very strong, for it was warmly supported by the Queen and by the two most powerful classes in England. The Church was gratified by the measures against the Dissenters. The coimtry gentry had obtained in 1711 a Bill which they believed of the highest value to their interests. In 1703, 128 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. before the ascendancy of the Tories in the ministry had been overthrown, a Bill was carried through the House of Commons, providing tliat no person who did not possess sufficient real estates should be chosen member of that House ; but the measure was thrown out by the Whig majority in the Lords. The Government now, however, succeeded in carrying through both Houses a measure providing that all JMembers of Parlia- ment, except the eldest sons of peers and those who sat for universities or for Scotch constituencies, must possess landed property, the borough members to the extent of ?,00l., the county members to the extent of 600^. a year. In times of peace, when no abnormal agency was disturbing the natural disposition of parties, it was believed that the ascendancy of the Tories must be indisputable ; the desire for peace arising from many causes had for some time been growing in the country, and tliere was a general and well-founded conviction that the war had been needlessly prolonged through party motives ; that no results could be hoped for at all equivalent to the sacri- fices tliat were demanded ; and that the allies had thrown upon England a very unfair and excessive proportion of the burden. Still, when all this was admitted, there was much in the foreign policy of the Grovernment to give a great shock to the national pride. The abrupt termination of the splendid victories of ]Mai-lborough ; the disgrace of the great general who had raised England to a loftier pinnacle than she had occupied in the palmiest days of Elizabeth ; the many shameful, humiliating, and violent incidents which occurred during the negotiations ; the final triumphs of France, due in a great measure to an English defection ; the abandonment of the Catalan insurgents ; the manifest inadequacy of the concessions exacted from France by the treaty, were all keenly felt by those large classes who were not blindly attached to party interests. Besides this, the great question of the succession to the throne began to rise into a greater prominence, and filled the minds of men with anxiety and doubt. The characters of the ministers were not fitted to reassure them. With the exception of Ormond, none of the Tory leaders were personally popular, though a certain transient enthusiasm had for a few weeks centred upon Oxford after the attempt CE. 1. OXFORD AND BOLINGBROKE: 129 upon his life by Guiscard in 1711. The character of Oxford bore in many respects a curious resemblance to that of Grodolphiu. Both of them were slow, cautious, temporising, moderate, and somewhat selfish men ; tedious and inefficient in debate, and entirely without sympathy with the political and religious fanaticisms of their parties. Yet both statesmen passed in the race of ambition several who were far superior to them in intel- lect, and the qualities to which they owed their success were in a great degree the same. A good private character, great patience, courage, and perseverance, much sobriety of judgment and much moderation in victory, characterised both. But here the resemblance ceased. Cock-fighting, racing, and gambling occupied most of the leisure of Godolphin, while the literary tastes of Oxford made him the idol of the great writers of his day, and reacted very favourably on his position in his- tory. He had, indeed, like Addison and Bolingbroke, the vice of hard drinking ; but in other respects his private life was unassailable. His simple manners, his wide culture, his generous but discriminating patronage of literature, his fidelity in friendship, his freedom from all sordid pecuniary views, gained for him, in the circle of those who knew him well, a large measure of respect and even of affection. But in public life his faults were graver than those of Godol- phin, and he was far inferior to him in the solid qualities of statesmanship. Though his business habits and his re- cognised caution and moderation gave him some weight with the mercantile classes, he had no pretension to the consum- mate financial ability of his rival. He had been Speaker diu'iug three parliaments, and his political knowledge was chiefly a knowledge of the forms of the House, and of the disposi- tions of its members. His special skill lay not in the higher walks of administration, but in parliamentary tactics and in pohtical intrigues, and his intrigues seem to have seldom had any object except his own aggrandisement. He had that kind of mind and character that can attach itself firmly to no party or set of principles, and seeks only for compromise and delay. He was insincere, dilatory, mysterious, and irresolute, entirely incapable of giving his full confidence to his colleagues, of taking any prompt decision, or of committing himself without VOL. I. S. 130 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. i. reserve to one line of policy. And these defects he showed at a time when resolution and frankness were supremely necessary. One high political quality, it is true, he possessed perhaps more conspicuously than any of his contemporaries. It is the strength of slow and sluggish temperaments that they can often bear the vicissitudes of fortune with a calm constitutional courage rarely attained by more nervous and highly organised natures, and this attribute Oxford pre-eminently displayed. The keenest observer then living pronounced him to be, of all men he had ever known, the least changed either by adversity or prosperity ; ' and he was in this respect rather remarkably distinguished from his brilliant colleague. The genius and daring of Bolingbroke were, indeed, incontestable, but his defects as a party leader were scarcely less. No statesman was ever truer to the interests of his party, but, by a strange contradiction, no leader was ever less fitted to represent it. His eminently Italian character, delighting in elaborate intrigue, the contrast between his private life and his stoical professions, his notorious indifference to the religious tenets which were the very basis of the politics of his party, shook the confidence of the country gentry and country clergy, who formed the bulk of his followers ; and he exhibited, on some occasions, an astonishing combination of recklessness and in- sincerity. In England the House of Commons was mainly Tory ; but in the House of Lords the balance of power, even after the creation of the twelve peers, hung doubtfully ; and there were several eminent men who had gone cordially with the Tories on the question of the peace, but whose allegiance on other questions was less certain. In Ireland, on the contrary, the peers were entirely subservient to the ministry, while the House of Commons was in violent opposition, and strenuously maintained the principles of the Revolution. Scotland had lost her parliament, but there can be little doubt that her dominant sentiment was Jacobite. In 1711 the Duchess of Gordon openly presented the Faculty of Advocates with a Swift. See the noble lines of Pope on Harley — ' A soul supreme in each hard instance tried, AVjove all pain, all passion, and all pride. The rage of power, the blast, of public l:)roa'h. The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.' CH. I. JACOBITE INTRIGUES. 131 medal representing on one side the Pretender, witli the words ' Cujus est,' and on the other the British Islands, with the motto 'reddite';' and the medal was accepted with thanks by that body. Among the Highlanders and the Episcopalian gentry Jacobitism had always been very powerful, and the Presbyterians of the Lowlands, who might naturally be re- garded as the implacable enemies of a Catholic sovereign, and especially of a sovereign of the House of Stuart, were so bitterly .hostile to the Union that great numbers of them were prepared to subordinate their whole policy to the single end of obtaining its repeal. Their discontent was greatly increased by the toleration accorded to the Episcopalians, and the Jacobites entertained ardent, though, no doubt, exaggerated, expectations, that the Pretender, by promising repeal, could rally all Scotland to his cause.2 The Scotch Jacobite party, however, suffered a very serious loss in 1712 by the death of the Duke of Hamilton, who was killed in a duel with Lord Mohun. In England the probabilities of the next succession were so nearly balanced that there were few leading statesmen who did not more or less enter into Jacobite intrigues, some of them in ' See an engraving of this medal in Boyer's A7me(iolio ed.), p. 611. ' Tliis appears very prominently in the Stuart papers. I may give as a sample a few lines from a verj- able memorial on the state of Jacobitism in the kingdom by Leslie (April, 1711) : ' The affair of Greenshiekls, a minister of the Cliurch of England, wliom the Parliament has latelj^ pro- tected against the Presbyterians of Scotland, has irritated the latter to such a degree that they would concur in whatever might deliver them from the Union with England, which is universally detested in Scotland, where they are persuaded that no- thing can deliver them from it Init the return of their sovereign. . . . There is not a man in Great Britain who is not convinced tliat if the King of England had landed the last time in Scotland lie would have infallibly succeeded.' — Macpherson's Orif/i/utl Pajyers, ii. 211. See, too, the LocJihart Papers. On the other hand, Boyer says that one of the good results of the abortive invasion of Scotland in 1708 was that it 'opened the eyes of the Scotch Presbyterians, most of whom, having been seduced by the Pretender's partisans, had till then appeared obstinately averse to the Union.'— Boyer "s Anne, p. 336, As late as 1717, Lockhart, review- ing the prospects of Jacobitism in Scotland, wrote : ' Though the King (the Pretender) does not want some friends in the western shires, yet tlie gross of the people, both gentry and commons, are either Presbyterians favourably disposed towards the pre- sent government, or pretty indifferent as to all governments whatsoever ; but as the far greatest part of both thet^e have an heartie aversion to the Union, if once they were tliorouglily convinced tliat the King's prosperity would terminate in the dissolution thereof, there is reason to believe a great many of the first -h'ould be converted at least so far as to be neutral, and most of the others de- clare for him.' — Loclihart I'ajycrs, ii. 20. K 'Z 132 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. order to obtain a refuge for themselves in case of a restoration, others in order to obtain the parliamentary support of the Jacobite contingent, and others again through a sincere desire to revert to the old line. In the first category may be placed Marlborough and Grodolphin. In July, 1710, when the Godolphin ministry was on the eve of dissolution, Marlborough was engaged in intimate correspondence with the Pretender, and a letter is preserved written to him by the wife of the Pretender, imploring him in the most urgent terms not to resign his command, but to retain it in the interests of the Stuarts.' As late as 1713, at a time when Marlborough was engaged in the closest correspondence with the Hanoverian party, and when, as there is little reason to doubt, he was sincerely wedded to the Hanoverian cause, a Jacobite agent reports a conversation with him, in which he gave the strongest assurances of his attachment to the cau.se of the Stuarts.' Godolphin was more or less mixed up with Jacobite correspond- ence to the end of his life. The leaders of that party appear to have had some real belief in his sincerity, and he is said after his expulsion from office to have expressed his deep regret that he had not remained in power long enough to bring in the rightful king.' Harley, towards the end of 1710, had sent the Abbe Gaultier, who afterwards took a leading part in the negotiation of the peace, to treat with the Duke of Berwick for the restoration of the Pretender after the death of the Queen, and the Jacobite members were accordingly directed to support his measures,'* but it does not appear that he had any real desire to restore the Stuarts. The hopes of the party for a time ran very high when the Jacobite Duke of Hamilton was appointed ambassador extraordinary to France, but they soon ceased to trust in Harley, and the leaders of the ' Marlborousrh was at this time ' See Carte's memorandum, where also corresponding with the Elector Godolphin is described as the sin- of Hanover. — Macpherson, ii. 157-161, cerest friend the Pretender ever 183, had. — Macpherson 's Original PajJers, * See the very curious letter of ii. 170. Tunstal to Lord Middleton, Oct. 1713. Memoires du Mareohal de Bcr- — Macpherson's Papers, ii. 441-442. 7!,'i(^X', ii. 126-127. A similar direction See, too, the evidence furnished by was given to the Jacobite members the Memoirs oi Torcy of the respectful in Feb. 1712-3. — Macpherson, ii, 382- way in which Marlborough was accua- 383. tomed to speak of the Pretender, CH. I. POLICY OF THE MINISTEKS. 133 Jacobites usually spoke of him with peculiar bitterness. He had in the former reign taken a leading part in framing the Act of Settlement. At the time when the Whig ministry fell, he desired to make a coalition administration, under which Marlborough could still retain his command, and in which he might himself turn the balance of power. When this became impossible, he generally tried to moderate the violence of his colleagues, to support a policy of compromise and expedients, and to keep open for himself more than one path of retreat. ' It is my Lord of Oxford's politics,' said a Jacobite agent in 1712, 'to smoothe and check, and he would not have removed the Duke of Marlborough if it had not been absolutely neces- sary.' ^ As the struggle became more critical he wrapped himself in a veil of impenetrable mystery, avoided as far as possible confidential intercourse either with his colleagues or with Jacobite or Hanoverian agents, procrastinated, kept open communications with the Hanoverians, with the Jacobites, and even with the Whigs ; intimated from time to time his willingness to co-operate with the more moderate Whigs ; tried, to the great indignation of the October Club, to divide the employments between the High and Low Church ; talked obscurely of the necessity of avoiding alike Scylla and Charybdis, and had the air of a man who was still un- certain as to the course he would ultimately pursue.^ Boling- broke, on the other hand, though utterly destitute of the beliefs and enthusiasms of a genuine Jacobite, flung himself, from the end of 1712,^ with decisive impetuosity, into the Jacobite cause, which he now regarded as the only hope for the future of his party. The peace was emphatically a Tory measure, and he had taken, beyond all other statesmen, a leading part in ' Macpherson, ii. 280. In the same month Robethon, the 2 Ibid. ii. 380, 390. In Feb. 1712-3, Hanoverian secretary, wrote: 'My the best judges on both sides seem to Lord*Oxford is devoted irrecoverably have thought him Jacobite. Plunket, to the Pretender and to the King of one of the leading Jacobite agents, France.' — Ibid. p. 472. There axe wrote in this month : ' Jlr. Harley numerous other passages in these manages the Low Church and Han- papers illustrating the fluctuations, never till he can get the peace settled. uncertainties, and intriguesof Oxford. Believes him hearty to the King's See, too, the Loclthart I'ajjcrs, i. 3()5, interest, and has several instances of 482. Mem. de Brririck, ii. 12()-13;!. it, though few of the Jacobites believe ^ MaciAerson, ii. 366-7. Loc/ihart him to be so.' — Macpherson, ii. 388. Paj}C7's, i. 412-413. 134 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. negotiating it, but the Court of Hanover bad protested against it in the strongest terms, and bad tbrown all its influence into tbe scale of tbe Whigs. Besides this a bitter animosity and jealousy had arisen between Bolingbroke and Oxford ; and while tbe more moderate Tories usually supported the latter, the former endeavoured to rally around him the extreme Church party by the stringency of his measures against the Dissenters, and the Jacobites by throwing himself heartily into the cause of the Pretender. In this manner the balance in the last years of Queen Anne hung very doubtfully. The ministry and the Parliament, indeed, openly professed their attachment to the Protestant succession. The Queen, in more than one speech from the throne, declared that it was in no danger. Both Houses of Parliament passed votes to tlie same effect. Both Houses voted large sums for the apprehension of the Pretender in case be landed in Grreat Britain. In both Houses addresses were carried urging bis expulsion from Lorraine, to which he had gone after the peace. But at this very time the leading ministers were deeply implicated in Jacobite plots, and tlie administration of every branch of the service was passing rapidly into Jacobite hands. Ormond, who was a Jacobite, was at the head of the army, and was made Governor of the Cinque Ports, at one of wbicb the new sovereign would probably arrive. The government of Scotland was soon after bestowed on the Jacobite Earl of Mar, while the government of Ireland was in a great degree in the hands of its Jacobite Chancellor, Sir Constantino Phipps. When the army was reduced after the peace, it was noticed that officers of known Whig tendencies were systematically laid aside,' and the most important trusts were given to suspected Jacobites. The same process was gradually extending over the less conspicuous civil posts.^ The sentiments of the Queen herself were undecided or vacillating. Her brother had written to her in 1711 and 17 12,^ but it does not appear that she replied. She was drawn to him by a feeling of natural affection, by a feeling, at least as strong, of jealousy and antipathy towards the Hanoverian dynasty, by a conviction that according to tb» ' Macpherson's Onginal Papers, iormigh, ch. cxi. ii. 412. ^ Macpherson, ii. 223, 295^ 2 Ibid. ii. 439 j Cose's Marl- CH. I. FEELINGS OF THE QUEEN. 135 principles of her Church any departure from the strict order of succession was criminal, and in the last part of her reign by the influence of Lady Masham. On the other hand, she knew that if her brother's title was good, her own was invalid, she looked with dread upon the prospect of a Popish successor, and the Duchess of Somerset, who for a short time rivalled the influence of Lady Masham, was decidedly Hanoverian. The Queen felt at the same time the very natural antipathy of a nervous invalid to a constant discussion of what was to come after her death, and to the constant mention of a successor. In July 1712 she permitted the Duke of Buckingham to sound her on the subject, and he easily gathered that the Catholicism of her brother alone prevented her from favouring his succession."^ She was said to attribute the death of her children to the part she had taken in dethroning her father.^ Her health was rapidly giving way, and the perplexities of her own mind, and the intrigues and dissensions of her ministers probably accelerated her end. The Whig party now strongly urged the necessity of some member of the Electoral family being in England at the time of her death, but the Queen was inflexibly opposed to such a course, and it is probable if he had come over contrary to her wishes it would have produced a revulsion of feeling very unfavourable to* his cause.^ Alarming rumours were spread that the Pretender was about to be invited over, that he was receiving instructions from an Anglican clergyman, that he was about to declare his adherence to the Protestant Church. The Electress Sophia was now very old, and the ' Macpherson, ii. 327-331. See, kingdom in that way the Pretender too, the account of her interviewwith would not have failed to follow him Lockhart, in 1710. — LochTw/rt Papers, immediately, and that he would have i. 315. found here all the disjDositions which '^ Macpherson, ii. 503-504. the spite and rage of an insulted ' Baron von Steinghens, who was Court and party could inspire ; so at this time residing in London as much horror jDeople have of falling Minister of the Elector Palatine, and again under the domination of the who, while a strong Hanoverian, was Whigs, the hatred of whom can be also a warm sjinpathiser with the compared to nothing better than that Government, wrote : 'lean assureyou, of the Catholic Netherlands against in spite of the fine promises of the the Dutch, either for atrocity or for Whigs, that the Parliament would extent; for I am well assured that never have voted one sou for the sub- there are more than thirty Tories for sistence of this prince if he had come one Whig in this kingdom.' — To Hchu- against the will of the Queen, and I lenburg, .Tune 5, 1714 (N.S.) ; Kemble, can tell you still more, that I have State Papers, p. 502. See, too, Mac- learnt from people of the first order pherson, ii. 629. that if the prince had come to this 136 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. Elector, who managed her affairs, refused to make any real sacrifice in the cause, and appeared to be chiefly anxious to extract as much money as possible from the English Ex- chequer. He refused to send over his son. He refused, on the plea of poverty, to furnish the secret-service money which his partisans pronounced to be absolutely indispensable, while at the same time he pertinaciously urged the Government to give a pension to his mother, and to pay the arrears due to his troops, which had remained with the allies before Quesnoy. Oxford favoured the latter claim, and his cousin, the auditor Harley, introduced the sum clandestinely into the estimates; but Bolingbroke, having heard of it, called a meeting of the Cabinet, and at his desire the claim was disallowed. A large proportion of the Tories were Jacobites, only because they in- ferred from the attitude of the Elector that he was completely identified with the WTiigs, and that his accession to the throne would be a signal for the overthrow of the party, but George Lewis made no attempt whatever to calm their fears. ^ He made no overture to the ministry, which commanded a large majority in the House of Commons and in the country, and, since the creation of the twelve peers, a small majority in the House of Lords. He did not trouble himself to learn even the rudiments of the language of the people over whom he was to rule, nor did he show the smallest interest in their Church. His conduct in this respect was contrasted with that of WiUiam, who, some time before he came to the throne, went frequently with his wife to the English Church.^ It is impossible to deny that under these circumstances the Protestant succession was in extreme danger, and there was great fear that the intervention of French troops on the side of the Pretender, and of Dutch troops on the side of the Elector, ' This was strongly urged by some bulk of the nation, and endeavour to of the foreign observers. Thus Stein- abolish these factions.' — Ibid. p. 506. ghens wrote : ' The Hanoverian Tories ^ Swift's Freethoughts on the Pre- are the party which must be looked sent State of Affairs. Macpherson, ii. after, for it is an illusion to believe 467-4G8. See, too, on the great in- that the Whigs alone can bring in difference shown by the Elector to the House of Hanover.' — To Schulen- the throne of England at the very burg, May 12, 1714 (N.S.); Kemble, time when the Queen was dying, a p. 4!t3. Leibnitz wrote : ' They would letter of Schulenburg to Leibnitz, be very wrong at Hanover to attach Correspondam.ee de Leibnitz a/cee themselves only to the Whigs ; they VElectrice Sojjhie, iii. 76. ought to attach themselves to the CE« I. IMPOETANCE OF THE EELiaiOUS QUESTION. 137 might have made England the theatre of a great civil war. The immense majority of the landed gentry and the immense majority of the lower clergy were ardent Tories ; these two formed incomparably the strongest classes in England, and it appeared probable that in this great crisis of the national his- tory, under the influence of counteracting motives, they would remain perfectly passive. They hated the Whigs and Noncon- formists, and they saw in the Hanoverian succession the ruin of their party. Their leanings and their principles were all on the side of the legitimate line. They looked with a strong English aversion to a German Lutheran prince, who could not even speak the language of his subjects. On the other hand, they dreaded receiving a sovereign from France, and, above all, they would never draw the sword for a king of the religion which was most hateful to the English people, and most hostile to the English Church. Had the Pretender consented to change or even to dissemble his creed, everything would, most probably, have been changed, but, with a magnanimity that may be truly called heroic, all through these doubtful and trying years, he steadily resisted the temptation. He was always ready, indeed, to promise a toleration, but he suffered no obscurity to hang upon his own sentiments. ' Plain dealing is best • in all things,' he wrote in May 1711, ' especially in matters of religion ; and as I am resolved never to dissemble in religion, so I shall never tempt others to do it, and as well as I am satisiied of the truth of my own religion, yet I shall never look worse upon any persons because in this they chance to differ with me. . . . But they must not take it ill if I use the same liberty I allow to others, to adhere to the religion which I in my conscience think the best.'^ In September 1713 the same sentiments were strenuously repeated by one of his confidential advisers, in reply to a remonstrance of Lord Mar. It was emphatically stated that there was no chance or possibility of a change of creed, and the Jacobites were ordered not only not to encourage, but steadily to deny, all rumours to an opposite effect. ' If it were to receive a crown,' added the writer, ' tlie King would not do a thing that might reproach either his honour or sincerity. ... If his friends require this condition ' Macpherson's Onginal Papers, ii. 225. 138 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. from him, they do hira no fovour ; for he could compound at that rate with his greatest enemies.'' In March 1714, when the Queen was manifestly dying, and when one more lugent demand was made upon the Pretender by those who had most weight in the government of England, he answered with his own hand : ' I neither want counsel nor advice to remain unalterable in my fixed resolution of never dissembling my religion ; but rather to abandon all than act against my conscience and honour, cost what it will. . . . How could ever my subjects depend upon me or be happy under me if I should make use of such a notorious hypocrisy to get myself amongst them ? . . . My present sincerity, at a time it may cost me so dear, ought to be a sufficient earnest to them of my religious observance of whatever I promise them.' ^ Such an appeal, coming from a Protestant, would have been irresistible, but coming from a Catholic it only increased the uneasiness and distrust. It showed that his devotion to his creed amounted to a passion, and it was the strong conviction of the English people that it is a peculiarity of the Catholic creed that in cases in which its interests are concerned, it can sap, in a thorough devotee, every obligation of secular honour. In a mind thoroughly imbued with the Catholic enthusiasm, at- tachment to the corporate interest of the Church gradually destroys and replaces the sentiment of patriotism. The belief in the power of the Church to absolve from the obligation of an oath annuls the binding force of the most solemn engagements. The Church is looked upon as so emphatically the one centre upon earth of guidance, inspiration, and truth, that duty is at last regarded altogether through its medium ; its interests and its precepts become the supreme measure of right and wrong, and men speedily conclude that no course can possibly be criminal which is conducive to its progress and sanctioned by its head. The language of the Jacobites and Hanoverians on this subject substantially agrees, and their numerous confidential letters enable us to form a very clear notion of the state of feeling prevailing in England. Thus the eminent Nonjuror Leslie wrote, in April 1711, that if James would induce the ' Macpherson's Onginal Pa^iers, pp. 436-437. * Ibid. ii. 525-526. CH. 1. IMPOKTA^CE OF THE EELIGIOUS QUESTION. 139 French sovereign to connive at ' allowing the Protestant domes- tics of the King of England to assemble themselves from time to time at St. Germain's, in order to worship God in the most secret manner that possibly could be, that would do more service [to the Jacobite cause] than 10,000 men. For in Eng- land that would appear as a sort of toleration with regard to his attendants; and being obtained by his Britannic Majesty, every- one would consider it as a mark of his inclination to favour his Protestant subjects, and as a pledge of what they might expect from him when he was restored to his throne. ... If it could be said in England that the King has procured for the Pro- testant servants who attend him the liberty which is here proposed for them, that would be half the way to his restoration. I only repeat here the very words which I have heard from sensible men in London.' ' ' The best part of the gentry and half the nobility,' wrote another Jacobite a year later, ' are re- solved to have the King, and Parliament would do it in a year if it could be believed he had changed liis religion.' ^ ' I am convinced,' wrote the Duke of Buckingham in July 1712, ' that if Harry [the King] would return to the Church of England all would be easy. Nay, from what I know, if he would but barely give hopes he would do so, my brother [Queen Anne] would do all he can to leave him his estate.' ^ ' The country gentlemen,' said an agent of remarkable acuteness, ' are for the Princess Anne and her ministers, and Avill not be for Hanover. . . . The Parliament will declare neither way. Their business will be to secure the Protestant religion and order matters so that it will not be in the King's power ever to hurt it. . . . The country gentlemen will never be reconciled to the Whigs. . . . Most of them are for having the King, but will hazard nothing.''* Another Jacobite writes in April 1713 that if he were the Pope he would oblige James to declare himself a Protestant, as the safest way of securing the crown, and esta- blishing Catholicism, ' and when he completes the work appear with safety in his own shape, and not be beholden to anybody.' ^ Another, writing in August 1713, predicted that the new Parlia- • Macpherson's Original Pajycrs, ii. ' Iljid. p. 329. 216. * Ibid. pp. 3;i2-393, « Ibid. ii. 296. « Ibid. p. 399. 140 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. i. inent would effect the restoration if the Queen lived long enough to let it sit. ' But the terms will be cruel and unfit to be taken ; but if once in possession the power of altering, in time, will of course follow.' ' The language from the Hanoverian side was little different. Thus Robethon, a Secretary of the Embassy at Hanover, wrote in January 1712-13 : 'The Pretender, on the slightest appearance of pretended conversion, might ruin all, the religion, the liberties, the privileges of the nation.' "^ Stanhope, in October 1713, laid his view of the state of affairs before Schiitz, the envoy of the Elector in England. ' He does not think there will be fewer Whigs in the next Parliament than in the last, but he has a very bad opinion of it ; . . . his opinion is that if things continue never so short a time upon the present footing, the Elector will not come to the crown unless he comes with an army. He believes the greatest number of the country gentlemen are rather against us than for us, but to make amends he assures us that the wisest heads and most honest members have our interest at heart.' ^ Marlborough again and again wrote describing the Protestant succession as in imminent danger.* Schiitz wrote to his Court in February 171 3-1 4 : ' The real state of this kingdom is that all honest men, without dis- tinction of party, acknowledge that although of every ten men in the nation, nine should be for us, it is certain that of fifteen Tories there are fourteen who would not oppose the Pretender in case he came with a French army ; but instead of making any resistance to him would be the fijst to receive and acknow- ledge him.' ' In this conflict of parties the Whigs had some powerful advantages. The country districts, where Toryism was most rife, are never prompt in organising or executing a revolution ; while the Whigs, though numerically fewer, were to be found chiefly in the great centres of commercial activity, among the active and intelligent population of the towns. Besides this the Whigs were earnest and united in advocating the Pro- testant succession, while their opponents were for the most part lukewarm, uncertain, or divided. The number of unqualified ' Macpherson, ii. p. 424. * Coxe's Marlborouffh, ch. cxi. ^ IVnd. p. 466. * Macpherson, ii. 556. 3 Ibid. ii. 505-506. CH. I. ADVANTAGES OF THE WHIGS. 141 Jacobites who would place the government of the country with- out conditions in the hands of a Eoman Catholic sovereign was, probably, very small. A large division of the party were only prepared to restore the Stuarts after negotiations that would secure their Church from all possible danger ; and they were conscious that it was not easy to make such terms, that it was extremely doubtful whether they would be observed by a Catholic sovereign, and that the very idea of imposing terms and conditions of obedience was entirely repugnant to their own theory of monarchy. Another section, usually led by Sir Thomas Hanmer, regarded the dangers of a Catholic sovereign as sufficient to outweigh all other considerations, and its mem- bers were in consequence sincerely attached to the Hanoverian succession, and desired only that it should be preceded by such negotiations as would secure their party a reasonable share of power. The opinions of the great mass of the party who were not actively engaged in politics oscillated between these two, and were compounded, in different and fluctuating proportions, of attachment to the legitimate line, hatred of Grermans, ^\^ligs, and Dissenters, dread of French influence, and detesta- tion of Popery. The Whigs, too, had the great advantage of resting upon the distinct letter of the law. However illegiti- mate the Eevolution might have been in its origin, it had been consecrated by a great mass of subsequent legislation, and the succession to the throne had been formally established by law. As long as the Act of Settlement remained, the Jacobite was in the position of a conspirator ; he was compelled to employ one language in public while he employed another in private, and the great moral weight which in England always attaches to the law was against him. On the other hand, the power of a united administration, supported by a majority in the House of Commons, was extremely great. It was more than probable that it could determine the course of affairs immediately after the decease of the Queen, and when either claimant was in power he was sure to command the support of those large classes whose first desire was to strengthen authority and avert civil war. But the Government was far from being powerful or united. The peace, though it had excited some clamours, was not 142 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. sufficient seriously to shake it, but the commercial treaty -with France, which immediately followed it, led to an explosion of party feeling of the most formidable character. It is somewhat humiliating that the measure whicli most seriously injured the Tory ministry of Anne was that which will now be almost universally regarded as their chief glory. The object of Bolingbroke was to establish a large measure of free trade between England and France ; and, had he succeeded, he would have unquestionably added immensely both to the commercial prosperity of England, and to the probabilities of a lasting peace.' The eighth and ninth articles of the Treaty, which formed the great subject of discussion, provided that all subjects of the sovereigns of Great Britain and France, in all places, subject to their power on either side, should enjoy the same commercial privileges in all matters relating to duties, imposi- tions, customs, immunities, and tribunals, as the most favoured foreign nation ; that within two months the English Parliament should pass a law repealing all prohibitions of French goods which had been imposed since 1664, and enacting that no French goods imported into England should pay higher duties than similar goods imported from any other European country ; while, on the other hand, the French repealed all prohibitions of English goods enacted since 1664, and restored the tariff of that year. Some classes of goods, however, it was desired to exempt from these provisions, and commissioners on both sides were appointed to adjust their details. One of the effects of this measure was virtually to abolish the Methuen treaty, which had been contracted with Portugal in 1703. By that treaty it had been provided that England should admit Portuguese wines at a duty one-tliird less than tliat imposed on French wines, and that in consideration of this favour English woollen manufactures should be admitted into Portugal on payment of moderate duties. A charge of bad faith was on this ground raised against the English Govern- ment, but the very words of the Methuen treaty were sufficient to refute it. The right of the English to revise their tariff was • See his own admirably states- (May 31). Boliugbroke's Letters., iv. manlike letters on the subject Ko 137-142, 151-151. iSluevvbbury (May 29), and to Prior CH. I. THE TREATY OF COMMEECE. 143 clearly reserved by the clause which stated that, ' if at any time this deduction or abatement of customs, wliich is to be made as aforesaid, shall in any manner be attempted and prejudiced, it shall be just and lawful for his sacred royal Majesty of Portugal again to prohibit the woollen cloths, and the rest of the British woollen manufactures.' The question was solely one of expedi- ency. The Portuguese announced, as they had a perfect right to do, that when the P'rench wines were placed on a level with their own, they would withdraw the privileges they had given to the English woollen manufactures, and the sole question for an English statesman was whether the advantages given to British trade by the treaty with France were sufficient to compensate for this withdrawal. On this subject there cannot be a shadow of rational doubt. The enormous market which the English woollen manufactures would have received in France immeasur- ably outweighed any advantages England could have received from the Portuguese trade. The manner, however, in which the proposition was received in England is one of the most curious instances on record of the influence of an entirely delusive theory of political economy on general policy. According to the mercantile theory which was then in the ascendant, money alone is wealth, the one end in commerce is to obtain as large a share as possible of the precious metal?, and therefore no com- merce can be advantageous if the value of the imports exceeds that of the exports. In estimating the comparative value of commerce with different nations we have not to consider the magnitude of the transaction — we have simply to ask in what form England receives the price of the articles she exports. If the balance is in money the affair is for her advantage ; if it is in goods the commerce is a positive evil, for it diminishes the amount of the precious metals. In accordance with this theory elaborate statistics were made of every branch of national com- merce, showing which were advantageous and which detri- mental to the nation. In the former category was the trade of Portugal, which the new treaty would probably destroy, for although we brought home wine, oil, and some other things for our own consumption, considerably the greater part of our returns was in silver and gold. The commerce with Spain, with Italy, with Hamburg and other places in Germany, and 144 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. with Holland, was for the same reason advantageous, and con- tinually increased the wealth of the community. The com- merce with France, on the other hand, was a positive evil, for the productions of that country were so useful and so highly valued by Englishmen that England received goods to a greater value than she exported. The difference was, of course, paid in money, and the trade was, in consequence, according to the mercantile theory, a perpetual and a growing evil. It was estimated by leading commercial authorities that, if the pro- visions of the commercial treaty were executed, there would soon be an annual balance against England of more than 1,400,000^., while, at the same time, France, by her greater cheapness of labour, could undersell the English in some of their most successful trades. The treaty left England at perfect liberty to impose whatever duties she pleased on the importa- tion of French goods, provided the same duties were imposed on similar articles imported from other countries, but in spite of this fact it was confidently asserted that French com- petition would ruin the wool trade and the silk trade at home. A wild panic passed through the trading classes, and was vehe- mently fanned by the whole Whig party and by the greatest financial authorities in the country. Godolphin was dead, but Halifax, the founder of the financial system of the Eevolution, was prominent in the Opposition. Walpole, the ablest of the rising financiers, took the same side. Stanhope eulogised the law of Charles' II. absolutely forbidding the importation of French goods into England. The Bank of England and the Turkey Company threw all their weight into the struggle. Three out of the four members of the City of London, as well as the two members for Westminster, voted against the Bill, and many merchants were heard on the same side at the bar of the House. Defoe attempted to stem the tide in a periodical called the ' Mercator,' but the leading merchants set up a rival paper called ' The British Merchant,' which acquired an extraordinary influence. They maintained that the treaty, if carried into effect, would be more ruinous to the British nation than if London were laid in ashes, that from that moment the wealth of England must be steadily drained away into the coffers of France, that England would lose her best markets both at home and abroad. r.n. 1. DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. 145 that rents must inevitably sink, and that the common people must either starve for want of work, be thrown for subsistence on the parish, or seek their bread in foreign lands. Still more alarming was the revolt of a large section of the Tories under the guidance of Sir Thomas Hanmer. The strength of these combined influences was such that at its last stage the Bill was lost in the Commons by 194 to 185.' The effect of this defeat on the stability of the Government was very perceptible. The immediate danger of a catastrophe was, it is true, averted by a vote of confidence expressing a general satisfaction with the peace ; but a ministry which has been once defeated on a capital question rarely recovers its moral force. As Bolingbroke grai3hically expressed it, ' Instead of gathering strength either as a ministry or a party, we grew weaker every day. The peace had been judged with reason to be the only solid foundation whereupon we could create a Tory system ; and yet when it was made we found ourselves at a full stand. Nay, the very work which ought to have been the basis of our strength was in part demolished before our eyes, and we were stoned with the ruins of it.''^ A Bill, which was im- mediately afterwards carried, for raising 500,000L to pay the debts of the Queen, appeared somewhat strange to those who knew the great parsimony of her Court, and somewhat suspi- cious at a time when a general election was impending. The House was prorogued by the Queen with an angry speech in July 1713, and in the following month it was dissolved. It was noticed as a significant fact that in this last Speech from the Throne the customary assurance of the determination of the Queen to maintain the Protestant succession was omitted. The election, however, did not at first sight appear to modify very seriously the condition of parties. Much use was made by the Whigs of the unpopularity of the commercial treaty and of the anti-popery feeling. Whig candidates appeared at tlie hustings wearing pieces of wool in their hats; figures of the Pope, the Pretender, and the devil were bui'nt in numerous places : and a few seats were won ; but when the last Parliament of ^ Pari. ITist. \l 1220-1225. Bur- r<)WOT«-^o,ii. 1G5-170. net's Own Time, ii G22-ii2'.i. Tlie ^ j^y^^^j- to Windham. British Merchunt, Craik's Hist, of VOL. I. L 146 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. :. Queen Anne assembled, it was found to contain a Tory majority not much smaller than its predecessor. The influence of the Government had been exerted to the utmost, and the Church was still unwavering in its allegiance. In the March preceding the dissolution, the period during which Sacheverell had been ex- cluded from the pulpit by the House of Lords expired, and the event was celebrated with great rejoicings in many parts of the kingdom. He preached his first sermon in St. Saviour's from the text, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,' drawing a tacit parallel between his own sufferings and those of Christ ; and he was selected on the following anniversary of the Restoration to preach before the House of Commons, was rewarded for his services to the party by the valuable rectory of St. Andrew's, Holbom, and would have been made a bishop but fjr the refusal of the Queen.' In 1713, also, Atterbury, the ablest of the High Church Jacobites, was raised to the bench. The doctrine of the divine right of kings again assumed an alarming prominence in the pulpit, and there were many signs of the increasing confidence of the Jacobites. The birthday of the Pretender was celebrated in Edinburgh with bonfires and fireworks. In Ireland, the Chancellor, Sir Constantiue Phipps, was strongly suspected of Jacobite sentiments, and he was supported by the House of Lords, in wliich the bishops pre- dominated, and by the Convocation. Men were openly enlisted for the service of the Pretender, and Shrewsbury, who had been sent over as Viceroy, found that the English Grovernment paid much more attention to the recommendations of the Chancellor than to his own. Sir Patrick Lawless, an Irish Roman Catholic, well known to have been the envoy of the Pretender at IMadrid, appeared in London with credentials from King Philip. It was reported that the health of the Stuart prince was con- stantly drunk at meetings and in clubs, and it was certain that Jacobite agents were constantly arriving from France. A metrical edition or adaptation of some of the Psalms, written in the highest strain of Tory loyalty, and entitled 'The Loyal Man's Psalter,' was widely circulated throughout England. ' See Lord Dartmouth's note to who had a great contempt for Sa- rSurnet, ii. 630; Tin'laL Swift is clieverell, to give liim the living, baid to have induced Bolingbroke, Hheiidan's Life of Swift, p. 116. CE. I. JACOBITE xiCTIVITY. 147 Anonymous letters were sent to the mayors and magistrates, during the elections, urging them to promote the interests of the Pretender, and suggesting that such a course would be acceptable to the Queen and to her ministers. A book which had lately appeared, called ' The Hereditary Eight of the Crown of England Asserted,' maintaining the absolute criminality of all departure from the strict order of succession, was distributed gratuitously far and wide; its title-page appeared on Sunday mornings on every prominent door or post to attract the atten- tion of the congregations, and a copy of it is said to have been presented by Nelson, the Nonjuror, to the Queen. Violent remonstrances, however, having been made, the Government ordered a prosecution to be instituted, and a Nonjuror clergy- man, named Bedford, who was found guilty of having brought the manuscript to the printer,^ incurred a severe sentence, part of which was remitted by the Queen. ^ It was evident that the crisis was at hand. The Queen, in the beginning of 1714, had a very dangerous illness, and it was certain that her life could not be greatly prolonged. ' If in this life only they have hope,' said Wharton, with his usual pro- fline wit, pointing in turn to the Queen and to the ministers, ' they are of all men the most wretched.' The reorganisation of the army in the Jacobite interest was rapidly proceeding. Considerable sums had been sent, in 1711, by the Treasurer, to the chiefs of Scotch clans, who were notoriously Jacobite, with commissions empowering them to arm their followers for Her Majesty's service;^ and in January 1713-14 Marlborough wrote to Eobethon : ' The ministers drive on matters so fast in favour of the Pretender that everybody must agree if something farther be not done in the next sessions of Parliament towards securing the succession, it is to be feared it may be irretrievably lost.'"* In February, Gaultier wrote, at the dictation of Oxford, a letter to the Pretender, in emphatic terms, urging him, as the indispensable condition to obtaining the support of the Queen and ultimately the crown, to change, or at least to dissemble, ' Its authorwas a Nonjuror, named L\f-' of Miirlhorntiiili. Harbin. See Lathbury's Ui»t. of ' ^ /.ock/uu-f J'aj'rr.'i, i. p. '.ill. the Nonjurors. < Coxe's 2iIurlboroiijIi, cli. c::i. - Boyer, Tindal, Somerville. Coxe, 1. '-i 148 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. i. his creed ; but the answer was a refusal so clear and so decisive that it completely disconcerted the tactics of the party. Boling- broke said, with perfect truth, to Iberville, the French secretary of legation, that if the Elector of Hanover ever mounted the English throne it would be entirely the fault of the Pretender, who thus refused to accept the one essential condition ; and Iberville himself fully shared the opinion, and predicted that, without conformity to the Church of England, King James would never obtain the sincere support of the Tories.^ Argyle? wiiose enmity to Marlborough had been very useful to the ministry, but who was strongly attached to the Hanoverian suc- cession, was removed from all his places ; and Lord Stair, who was also Hanoverian, was obliged to dispose of his regiment. Oxford, however, hesitated more and more, kept up communi- cations with the Jacobites, but threw obstacles in the path of every decisive measure in their favour, sent his cousin Harley to Hanover to express his sentiments of devotion to the Elector, tended slowly and irresolutely towards the Whigs, and was trusted by neither party but courted by both.^ Bolingbroke now looked upon his colleague with a deadly aversion, and made it a main object of his policy to displace him, and though he may, perhajjs, have had no very settled or irrevocable design of bringing in the Pretender, he felt that he had gone too far for safety, and was anxious at least to reorganise the party on a strong Church basis, so that at the death of the Queen he might be the master of the situation.^ The Parliament met on the 1 6th of February, and it soon appeared that the strength of the Government was much shaken. In the Lords the Whig majority was all but re- ' See the passages from the Paris their little piques and resentments, archives quoted in Lord Stanhope's and cement closely together, they Jlist. of England, i. 55. will be too powerful a body to be 2 See in Macpherson the Stuart ill-treated.' — Bolingbroke's Letters, and Hanoverian Papers for 1714 ; also iv. 499. In his letter to Sir W. the Lochhai't Papers, i. 369-370. Windham, he afterwards said : 'As to ' See a very remarkable passage in wliat might happen afterwards on the one of his letters, A-pxil 13, 1713. death of the Queen, to speak truly, ' The prospect before us is dark and none of us had any settled resolu- melancholy. What will happen no tion.' See also a letter of his to man is able to foretell, but this pro- Lord Marchmont. Marchmont Pa- position iscertain, that if themembers 2)ers, ii, 192. of the Church of England lay aside CK. I. SESSION OF 1714. 149 stored. In the Commons the Tories formed a large majority Ijut theii- discipline was broken, they were divided between tlie Hanoverian Tories and the Jacobites, between the followers of Bolingbroke and the followers of Oxford, and the jealousies, the vacillations, the conflicting counsels of their leaders in a great degree paralysed their strength. The Queen, in her opening speech, spoke severely of the excesses of the press, and of those who had ' arrived to that heig-ht of malice as to insinuate that the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover is in danger under my government ; ' but tliere is little doubt that at this very time her sympathies were with the Pretender. The House of Commons expelled Steele ostensibly for the publication of a pamphlet called ' The Crisis,' really on account of his decided Whig views. The House of Lords retaliated by offering a reward for the discovery of the author of ' The Public Spirit of the Whigs,' an anonymous pamphlet which Swift had written in reply to ' The Crisis,' and which had excited much indigna- tion in the North by its bitter reflections upon tlie Scots. The Whigs in the House of Lords brought forward, with much effect, the case of the Catalans who had been so shamefully abandoned, and also the commercial treaty ; and Wharton, supported by Cowper and Halifax, introduced a scandalous resolution urging the Queen to issue a p>roclamation offering a reward for anyone who should apprehend her brother alive or dead. Nothing was said about this reward being contingent upon acts of hostility against England, and it might liave been claimed by anyone who murdered the Pretender while he was living peacefully in Lorraine. The address was carried without a division, but the better feeling of the House of Lords, after some reflection, revolted against it, and a clause was substi- tuted merely asking the Queen to offer a reward for the appre- hension of the Pretender in case he landed in the kingdom.' The Queen answered that she saw no present necessity for sucli a proclamation. Several other motions for the defence of the Hanoverian succession were carried through Parliament, and were accepted with apparent alacrity by the Grovernment, l)ut Bolingbroke, on at least one occasion, privately assured the « Pari. Hut. vi. 1337-1338. 150 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. i. French envoy that they would make no difference.' Nor did they deceive the people. An uneasy feeling was abroad. Men felt as if on the brink of a great convulsion. The stocks fell, and it was evident that the dread of a Popish sovereign was in the ascendant. Mutinous proceedings were reported among the soldiers at Gibraltar and some other quarters, and Bolingbroke wrote with much alarm about the necessity of changing garri- sons, and about the dangerous spirit of faction which had arisen among the troops.^ The bishops also began to waver in their allegiance to the Government. A motion ' that the Protestant succession was in danger under the present administration,' moved by Wharton, in the House of Lords, was only defeated by a majority of twelve, and it was a very significant fact that the Archbishop of York and the majority of his brethren voted ao-ainst the Government. In the House of Commons a similar motion was defeated by 256 to 208, and was supported by a considerable body of Tories under the leadership of Sir Thomas Hanmer, who was Speaker of the House, and whose elevation to that position Oxford had warmly supported, in the vain hope of in this manner diverting him from opposition.^ In a confi- dential letter to Lord Strafford, dated March 23, Bolingbroke said : ' In both Houses there are the best dispositions I ever saw, but I am sorry to tell you that these dispositions are unim- proved ; the Whigs pursue their plans with good order and in concert. The Tories stand at gaze, expect the Court should reo'ulate their conduct and lead them on, and the Court seems in a lethargy. Nothing, you see, can come of this, but what would be at once the greatest absurdity and the greatest mis- fortune. The minority, and that minority unpopular, easily get the better of the majority who have the Queen and the nation on their side.' "* Oxford still held the position of Prime Minister, and had the foremost place in tlie party and with the Queen, but his brilliant and impetuous colleague was in both quarters rapidly superseding him, and with him the star of Jacobitism rose in the ascendant. The Jacobite appointments were more decided and more numerous, and the Schism Act, which was •Stanhope's Hist, of Engla.nd, i. ^ V>unhm:ys Life of IIanmer,-g.i2^ p. 85. ■• Bolingbroke's Letters, iv. 494. 2 Bolingbroke's Lcttcs, iv. 489 cu. r. DESIGNS OF BOLINGBROKE. lol at this time carried, was believed by the party to have intimi- dated the Dissenters, and at the same time secured anew the full support of the Church. And yet even at this time the policy of Bolingbroke was, probably, less unfaltering than has been supposed. When speaking at a later period of these anxious months, he said : ' Nothing is more certain than this truth, that there was at this time no formed design in the party, whatever views some particular men might have, against his Majesty's succession,' ' and the assertion, if not strictly accurate, appears to me to have at least approximated to the truth. It is certain that though he now led the Jacobite wing, though he continually and unreservedly expressed to Jacobites his sympathy with their cause/ and though his policy manifestly tended towards a Restoration, he was never a genuine Jacobite. He was driven into Jacobitism by the force of the Jacobite contingent in his party, by his antagonism to Oxford, which led him to rely more and more upon that contingent, by the increasing difficulty of receding from engagements into which he had entered in order to obtain parliamentary support, by the necessity he was under as a minister of the Crown of opposing the Whig scheme of bringing over the Electoral Prince contrary to the strongest wishes of the Queen, by the violent opposition of Hanover to the peace, by the close and manifest alliance that had been established between the Hanoverian Coiu-t and the Whig party. In his eyes, however, the restoration of the House of Stuart was not an end but a means. The real aim of his policy was to maintain the ascendancy of that Church or Tory party which, as he truly boasted, represented, under all normal circimi- stances, the overwhelming preponderance of English opinion. To re-establish that ascendancy which had been shaken by the victories of Marlborough was the chief motive of the Peace ot Utrecht ; to secure its continuance was the real end of his ' Letter to Sir W. Windham. Some of them h.ave be n i^rinted in * Loclihart Papers, i. 441,442, 460, the Edinhurgh licriew, vol. Ixii., and 461, 470, 477, 478. The extent of in Bunbury's Life of Hanmer. Lord Bolingbroke's direct negotiations Stanhope has made use of tliem with with the Pretender is cliietiy sliown his usual skill. See too the remark- by the papers from the French ar- able statement of Walpole. Coxes chives in the Mackintosh collection. M'ciljjoli; i. 48. 152 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. i. dynastic intrigues. If lie could have obtained from tlie head of the House of Hanover an assurance that the royal favour, under the new dynasty, would still be bestowed on his party, it is very probable that he would have supported the Act of Settlement. But the Elector was plainly in the hands of the Whigs, and the party interest of the Tory leader attracted him to the Stuarts. At the same time, so far as we can judge his motives, his immediate object seems to have been to place the whole administration of civil and military matters into the hands of men who, while they had a certain leaning towards Jacobitism, were beyond all things Tories, and might be trusted fully to obey a Tory Government. Had this been done, he would have commanded the position, and been able on the death of the Queen to dictate his terms and to decide the suc- cession. That his decision would have been in favour of the Stuarts, his engagements and his present policy made most probable, but it is also probable that to the very close of his ministerial career he had never formed in his own mind an irrevocable decision. The result would probably have depended on the relative strength of the Jacobite and Hanoverian ele- ments in the Toi-y party, on the power of the Opposition, on the policy of the rival candidates ; and a change in the religion of one of them or in the political attitude of the other, might, even at the last moment, have proved decisive. This, as far as I can understand it, is the true key to the policy of Bolingbroke. But his own very natural hesitation in taking a step that might cost him his head, the much greater hesitation of Oxford, and the activity of the Whig Opposition, had hitherto trammelled it. The Peace of Utrecht was carried, and it was a great step towards Tory ascendancy ; but it is remarkable that, although it was supported by the Jacobites, its terms were by no means favourable to their interest. The recognition by France of the Hanoverian succession, and the removal of the Pretender to Lorraine, were not, indeed, matters of much consequence, but the arrangement with Holland was of a very different order of importance. We have seen tliat, by the barrier treaty of 1709, England guaranteed a very extensive barrier, while the States-General guaranteed the Hanoverian succession, and undertook ' to furnish by sea or land the sue- cii. I. THE DUTCH GUARANTEE. 153 Gour and assistance ' necessary to maintain it. This treaty, having been condemned by Parliament, was abrogated, but a new treaty, with the same general objects, was signed in January 1712-13. It was much less favourable than its predecessor to the Dutch, but it still retained the guarantee of the Hanoverian succession, and even made it more precise. England engaged to support Holland, if her barrier was assailed, with a fleet of twenty men-of-war, and an army of 10,000 men. Holland engaged to furnish the same number of vessels and an army of 6,000 men, at the request either of the Queen or of the Protestant heir, to defend the Protestant succession whenever it was in danger. This treaty was negotiated by the Tory Grovernment, and its great value to the House of Hanover was at a later period abundantly shown. No measure was more obnoxious to the Jacobites. They were accustomed to ask with some plausibility whether the supporters of the House of Han- over were in reality the friends of English liberty which they pretended. They were about to place the sceptre of England in the hands of a German prince, who was wholly ignorant of the English constitution, and accustomed to despotic rule in his own country. He already disposed of a Grermau army alto- gether beyond the control of the English Parliament. He would find in England many thousands of refugees driven from a despotic country, who would support his dynasty at any sacri- fice as representing the cause of Protestantism in Europe, but who were likely to care very little for the British constitution ; and if, by exceeding his powers, he arrayed his subjects against him, he could summon over 6,000 Dutch troops to his support. If the German prince hapj^ened to be an able, am- bitious, and arbitrary man, he would thus be farnislied with means of attacking the liberties of England such as Charles I. had never possessed.' On the other hand, as the Jacobite wing rose with Boling- broke to the ascendant, the reorganisation of the army lapidly advanced. At the time when Marlborough was removed from command, a project seems to have been much discussed in political circles of making the Elector of Hanover commander ' See the powerful statement of these dangers in the address issued by the Pretender, Aug. 29. 1714. 154 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUIiY. ClI. I. in Flanders ; ' but such a measure, if it was ever proposed, was speedily put aside, and it was doubtless expected that Ormond would in time make the army what he desired. But Boling- broke had no wish to let the Jacobite movement pass out of his control ; and it is remarkable that, even in the latter days of June 17 14, he wrote to the Lords Justices of Ireland, urging them to search diligently for all persons who were recruiting for the Pretender, and to prosecute them with the full rigour of the law.^ It was difficult for the most sagacious man to predict the issue. Berwick strongly urged upon the Jacobites that they should induce the Queen to take the bold step of inviting the Pretender over during her lifetime, and presenting him to the Parliament as her successor, on the condition that he bound himself to defend the liberties of the Church ; ' and Lord Towns- hend wrote to Hanover that the Whig party entertained strong ' This is stated in a MS. letter from J. Williams to Josh. Dawson, Jan. 8, 1711, in the Irish State Paper Office. Rumours to the same effect seem to have been floating for some time. As early as 1703 this measure was discussed {Corrcsjiondancc de Leibnitz avcc VElci'trice Sophie, iii. 61-70). and on Feb. 14, 1707-8, one of the in- formants of Dawson (who was Secre- tary at Dublin Castle) wrote from London : ' Tliere is a story in town, how true I cannot tell — you shall hear it — that at the Council, wlien Lord Marlborough said he could not serve any longer, several of the lords gaV'C their opinion that if my lord laid down his commission we had none able to command the forces, nor none that had such interest with the allies as his Grace ; on which Lord Wharton said there was one who he thought as able, and every way as well qualified to head the English army, and one who he thought should be better known to the English, and that he was not ashamed to name him, which was the Elector of Hanover. This, they say, made everybody there mute.' — 13. Butler to Josh. Dawson, Irish State Paper Office. In 1707 the Elector actually obtained a command on the Khine, which he resigned in 1710. 2 1 1 enclose a copy of a letter from Captain Piouse, Commander of Her Majesty's ship the " Saphire," wherein your Excellencies will find an account of several men who have been listed in Ireland and carried to France for the service of the Pretender, and that one Fitz-Simonds, a merchant of Dub- lin, is mentioned to be chiefly con- cerned in raising these recruits. I am, therefore, to acquaint your Excel- lencies it is Her Majesty's pleasure that you enquire into the conduct of this merchant, that j'ou use your ut- most diligence to gain a true know- ledge of this fact, and to discover all practices of the like nature, and that by a rigorous prosecution of those who have been already found to be guilty of them your Excellencies should as much as possible deter others from attempting the same.' (June 15, 1714.) On the 26th he again writes, urging the prosecution of Filz- Simonds ' if he appear guilty of con- veying men out of Her Majesty's dominions into the service of the Pretender ; ' and another letter was written on the same subject after the death of the Queen (Aug. 7, 1714). MSS. Irish State Paper Office. Shrews- bury had issued a strong proclamat ion against enlistments for the Pretender (Dublin Gazette, May 28, 1714). ^ Jlcmoires de Bernieh, ii. 129- 130. CH. I. PKOSPECTS OF THE SUCCESSION. 155 fears that some such course might be adopted.^ The Jacobite Lord Hamilton was reported to have said that ' lie who would be first in London after the Queen's death would be crowned. If it is the Pretender he will have the crown, undoubtedly, and if it is the Elector of Hanover, he will have it.' ^ Schiitz wrote in March to the same effect : ' Of ten who are for us, nine will accommodate themselves to the times, and embrace the in- terests of him who will be the first on the spot, and who will undoubtedly have the best game and all the hopes of success, rather than expose themselves by their opposition to a civil war, which appears to them a real and an immediate evil ; whereas they flatter themselves that the government of the Pretender, whom they look upon as a weak prince, will not be such a great evil as civil war.' ^ The Whig leaders were not inactive. While the Government were placing Jacobites in the most important military posts, Stanhope was concerting measures with the French refugee officers, who were naturally violently opposed to the Pretender; Marlborough, who was still on the Continent, was arranging with the Dutch to send over a fleet and an army, and he undertook to employ his in- fluence with the troops who were stationed at Dunkirk, and, if necessary, to invade England at their head. Another measure was taken which threw the Government into great perplexity. The Queen was inflexibly opposed to the residence of any mem- ber of the Hanoverian family in England ; but the Electoral Prince, the son of the Elector, had been made Duke of Cambridge, and as such had a right to sit in the House of Lords. At the urgent request of the Whig leaders, Schiitz, without informing either the Queen or the ministers, applied to the Chancellor Harcourt for a writ enabling the prince to take his seat. The chancellor, who was deeply mixed in Jacobite intrigues, was extremely embarrassed, but it was im- possible to refuse the demand. The Government treated it as a direct insult to the sovereign. The Queen herself was ex- ceedingly incensed. She wrote angry letters of remonstrance to the Electress Sophia, to the Elector, and to the Prince him- self. She forbade Schiitz to appear at her court, and insisted ' Macpherson, ii, 596-597. ' Ibid. ii. 572-573. « Ibid. ii. 557. 156 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. i. on his recall. The Elector, to the rage and disappointment of the Whigs, refused to send over his son. On May 28 the old Electress Sophia died suddenly, her death having, it is said, been hastened by her annoyance at the letters from the Queen ; ^ and the Elector, according to the Act of Settlement, became the immediate heir to the British throne. The Parliament was prorogued on July 9, and it left Eng- land in a condition of the strangest confusion. The Queen was dying, and the fierce conflicts among her servants and in her own mind at once embittered and accelerated her end. A Tory ministry, commanding a large majority in the House of Commons and a majority perhaps still larger in the country, was in power; but both the Government and those whom it represented were distracted by internal dissensions, and were wholly uncertain in the object of their policy. A question, which was one of the most momentous in the history of the nation, was imminent. It was whether the monarchy of Eng- land should rest upon the Tory principle of the divine right of kings, or on the principles established by the Revolution. The answer to this question might determine the fate of par- liamentary institutions in England, and would certainly deter- mine for more than a generation the character of its legislation, the position of its parties, the habitual bias of its Government. Had it been decided simply on this issue, there can be little doubt of the result. All the instincts, all the traditions, all the principles and enthusiasms of the Tory party inclined them to the Stuarts, and, as Bolingbroke truly said, a Whig ascen- dancy in England could in that age only rest upon adventitious and exceptional circumstances. Under all normal conditions, 'the true, real, genuine strength of Britain' lay with the Tories. The persistent Catholicism of the Pretender, how- ever, had connected with this great issue another, on which the popular feeling ran strongly in the opposite direction, and the dread of Popery was the great counterpoise to the love of legitimacy. The Government had naturally an immense power of determining the result, but the fatal division between its chiefs, and the fatal irresolution of the character of Oxford, ' Corrc^poinJanre de Lcihiiltz arec too a letter of Mr. Molyneuxto Marl- VElcctnce iSojj/ne, iii. 481, 4b3. fcjee borough. Coxa's Marlboruugh, cb. cxi. CS. I. SWIFT. 157 had during several critical months all but suspended its action. On May 18, while Parliament was still sitting, Swift wrote a letter to Peterborough which clearly described the situation : * I never led a life so thoroughly uneasy as I do at present. Our situation is so bad that our enemies could not, without abundance of invention and ability, have placed us so ill if we had left it entirely to their management. . . . The Queen is pretty well at present, but the least disorder she has puts us all in alai-m, and when it is over we act as if she were immortal. Neither is it possible to persuade people to make any prepara- tion against the evil day.' ^ The position of Swift at this time is well worthy of atten- tion, for his judgment was that of a man of great shrewdness as well as great genius, and he probably represented the feel- ings of many of the more intelligent members of his party. Though a fierce, unscrupulous, and singularly scurrilous poli- tical writer, he was not, in the general character of his poli- tics, a violent man,^ and the inconsistency of his political life has been very grossly exaggerated. It was almost inevitable that a young man, brought up as Secretary to Sir W. Temple, should enter public life with AYliig prepossessions. It was almost equally inevitable that a High Church divine should, in the party conflicts under Queen Anne, ultimately gravitate to the Tories. Personal ambition, no doubt, as he himself very frankly admitted, contributed to his change, but there was nothing in it of that complete and scandalous apostasy of which he has often been accused. From first to last an esclusive Church feeling was his genuine passion. It appeared fully, though in a very strange form, in the ' Tale of a Tub,' ' Swift's Ciyrrcspondence. Boling- than I have done this great while, I broke's letters show a despondency am sure they would quit my service.' quite as great. Writing to Prior, —Swift's Corri's^iundtmce, i. 40y. July 19, he said: 'These four or five (Ed. 1766.) months last past have afforded such a - His genuine political opinion scene as I hope never again to bo an was expressed by him in one very actor in. All the confusion which happy and characteristic sentence ; could be created by the disunion of ' Whoever has a true value for friends and malice of enemies has Church and State sliould avoid the subsisted at Court and in Parlia- extremes of Whig for the sake of the ment.' — Bolingbroke's Letters, iv. former, and the extremes of Tory on 561-562. Writing to Swift on the ■dccount ot the lixiXer.' — Sentiments of l3th of the same month, he said : ' If a Churoh of Enylund Man. my grooms did not live a happier life 158 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. t. which was published as early as 1704. It appeared still more strongly in his ' Project for the Eeformation of Manners,' in his ' Sentiments of a Church of England Man,' in his ' Argu- ment against abolishing Christianity,' in his ' Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Sacramental Test ; ' all of wliich were published at the time when he was osten- sibly a Whig.^ It appeared not less clearly many years after- wards in his Irish tracts, written at a period when it would have been eminently conducive to the objects he was aim- ing at to have rallied all religions in opposition to the Grovernment. In the latter part of the reign of Anne political parties were grouped, much more than in the previous reign, by ecclesiastical considerations ; and, after the impeachment of Sacheverell, tlie Tory party had become, before all things, the party of the Church. On the other hand, Swift never appears to have wavered in his attachment to tlie Protestant line ; and there is not the smallest evidence that he had at any period of his life the slightest communication with St. Germain's. His position in the party was a very prominent one. He was, with- out exception, the most effective political writer in England at a time when political writing was of transcendant import- ance. His influence contributed very much to that generous and discriminating patronage of literature which was the special glory of the Tory ministry of Anne. To his pen we owe by far the most powerful and most rational defence of the Peace of Utrecht that has ever been composed ; and although, like the other writers of his party, he wrote much in a strain of dis- graceful scurrility against jMarlborough, it is at least very honourable to his memory that he disapproved of, and protested against, the conduct of the ministers in superseding that great general in the midst of the war.^ In the crisis which we are con- sidering, he strongly urged upon them to reconcile themselves with the Elector ; and he came over specially from Ireland in order to compose the differences in the Cabinet. Having failed ' Sec also a curious letter on the great man (i\Tarlborougli) whose de- Occasional Conformity Bill, to Esther fence you undertake, though I do not Johnson, written as early as 1703. think so well of him as you do, yet 1 iSwift's Correspondence, pp. 1-4. have been the cause of preventing '^ Journal to Stella,, Jan.!, 17 11-12. 500 hard things to be said against In one of his letters to Steele, dated him.' — Scott's ed. xvi. p. 69. May 27, 1713, he says: f. has finely said, 'When the oak is felled, the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.' Hence to minds ambitious only of notoriety, careless of the permanent interests of the nation, and destitute of all real feeling of political responsibility, a policy of mere destruction possesses an irresistible attraction. From these extreme evils a country is for the most part saved by entrusting the management of its affairs chiefly to the upper classes of the community. A government of gentle- men may be and often is extremely deficient in intelligence, in energy, in sympathy with the poorer classes. It may be shamefully biassed by class interests, and guilty of great cor- ruption in the disposal of patronage, but the standard of honour common to the class at least secures it from the grosser forms of malversation, and the interests of its members are indissolubly connected with the permanent well-being of the country. Such men may be guilty of much misgovernment, and they will certainly, if uncontrolled by other classes, display much selfishness, but it is scarcely possible that they should be wholly indifferent to the ultimate consequences of their acts, or should divest themselves of all sense of responsibility or public duty. When other things are equal, the class Avhich has most to lose and least to gain by dishonesty will exhibit the highest level of integrity. When other things are equal, the class whose interests are most permanently and seriously bound up with those of the nation is likely to be the most careful guardian of the national welfare. WTien other things are equal, the class which has most leisure and most means of instruction will, as a whole, be the most intelligent. Besides this, the tact, the refinement, the reticence, the conciliatory tone of thought and manner characteristic of gentlemen are all peculiarly valuable in public men, whose chief task is to reconcile conflicting pretensions and to harmonise jarring- interests. Nor is it a matter of slight importance to ths political life of a nation, or to the estimate in which a nation is held by its neighbours, that its government should be in the » Carlyle. VOL. I. N 178 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. n. hands of men on whom no class can look down. Eightly or wrongly, nations are judged mainly by their politicians and by their political acts, and when these have ceased to command respect, the cliaracter of a nation in the world is speedily lowered. To these advantages, arising indirectly from the inter- vention of an hereditary aristocracy in government, others may be added. In the iirst place such an aristocracy exists, and, for good or for ill, attracts to itself among great multitudes of men a warm feeling of reverence and even of affection. It is the part of wise statesmen — and it is one of the cha- racteristics by which such men are distinguished from crude theorists — to avail themselves for the purposes of government of all those strong, enduring, and unreasoning attachments which tradition, associations, or other causes have generated. Such are, the sentiment of loyalty, the respect for religion, the homage paid to rank. These feelings endear government to the people, counteract any feeling of repulsion the sacrifices it exacts might produce, give it that permanence, security, and stability which are essential to the well-being of society. Sometimes, no doubt, the reverential or conservative elements have an excessive force, and form an obstacle to progress ; but that they should exist, and under some form be the basis of the national character, is the essential condition of all per- manent good government. A state of society in which revolu- tion is always imminent is disastrous alike to moral, political, and material interests, and it is much less a reasoning con- viction than unreasoning sentiments of attachment that enable Gfovernments to bear the strain of occasional maladministration, revolutionary panics, and seasons of calamity.' These considerations may be carried a step farther. All civic virtue, all the heroism and self-sacrifice of patriotism spring ultimately from the habit men acquire of regarding their nation as a great organic whole, identifying themselves with its fortunes in the past as in the present, and looking forward anxiously to its future destinies. When the members of any nation have come to regard their country as nothing more than • See on this subject a noble pas- Russell's Esmy on the Enf/luli Con- sage, fuUof profound wisdom, in Lord stitution, pp. 271 -272 (ed. IS66). CH. II. USES OF AX ARISTOCEACY. 179 the plot of ground on which they reside, and their Government as a mere organisation for providing police or contracting treaties ; when they have ceased to entertain any warmer feelings for one another than those which private interest, or personal friend- ship, or a mere general philantliropy, may produce, the moral dissolution of that nation is at hand. Even in the order of material interests the well-being of each generation is in a great degree dependent upon the forbearance, self-sacrifice, and providence of those who have preceded it, and civic virtues can never flourish in a generation which thinks only of itself. ' Those will not look forward to their posterity who never look backwards to their ancestors.' ' To kindle and sustain the vital flame of national sentiment is the chief moral end of national institutions, and while it cannot be denied that it has been attained under the most various forms of government, it is equally certain that an aristocracy which is at once popular and hereditary, which blends and assimilates itself with the general interests of the present, while it perpetuates and honours the memories of the past, is peculiarly fitted to foster it. Another advantage which should not be neglected in a review of the effects of aristocratic institutions is their ten- dency to bring young men into active political life. In politics, as in most other professions, early training is of ex- treme importance, and in a country where government is con- ducted mainly through the instrumentality of Parliament, this training, to be really efficient, must include an early practice of parliamentary duties. A young man of energy and industry, possessing the tact and manners of good society, and endowed with abilities slightly superior to those of the average of men, is likely, if brought into parliamentary and official life between 20 and 30, to acquire a skill in the conduct of public business rarely attained even by men of great genius whose minds and characters have been formed in other spheres, and who have come late into the arena of Parliament. The pre- sence in Parliament of a certain number of young politicians, fiom whom the lower offices of administration may be filled, and wlio may gradually rise to the foremost places, is an essential > Burke. N 2 1 80 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. n. condition of the well-being of constitutional goverunient, and it is one of the conditions which, since the abolition of the nomination boroughs, it has become most difficult to attain. Popular election is in this respect exceedingly worthless. It may be trusted to create, with a rough but substantial justice, a representation of public opinion. It may be trusted, but much less perfectly, to secure some recognition of old services and of matured genius, but an extended constituency has neither the capacity nor the desire to discover undeveloped talent, or to recognise the promise of future excellence. Hardly any other feature of our parliamentary system appears so ominous to a thoughtful observer as the growing exclusion of young men from the House of Commons, and if a certain number are still found within its walls, this is mainly due to that aristocratic sentiment which makes the younger members of noble families the favourite candidates with many constituencies. There are other consequences which it will be sufficient simply to enumerate. The existence of a powerful, indepen- dent, and connected class, carrying with it a dignity, and in many respects an influence, fully equal to that of the ser- vants of the Crown, has more than once proved the most for- midable obstacle to the encroachments of despotism ; while, on the other hand, in democratic times this hierarchy of ranks serves to mitigate the isolation of the throne, and is thus a powerful bulwark to monarchy. A second chamber is so essen- tial to the healthy working of constitutional government that it may almost be pronounced a political necessity ; and in times when the position of that chamber is a secondary one, when its leading functions are merely to delay and to revise, it is no small advantage that it should be composed of men possessing, indeed, great local knowledge and influence, but at the same time independent of local intrigues and jealousies, and of the transient bursts of popular passion. A permanent hereditary chamber has at least a tendency to impart to national policy that character of continuity and stability, and to infuse into its discussions that judicial spirit, which it is most difficult to pre- serve amid the rapid fluctuations and the keen contests of popular government. It may even very materially contribute to make legislation a reflex of the popular will. No matter how per- cii. ir. EVILS OF AN AEISTOCKACY. 181 feet may be the system of election, an elected body can never represent with complete fidelity the political sentiments of the community. In particular constituencies purely local and per- sonal considerations continually falsify the political verdict. In the country at large a general election usually turns on a single great party issue, or on the comparative popularity of rival statesmen, and hardly a year passes in which the politicians in whom, on the whole, the nation has most confidence do not act on some particular question in a manner opposed to the national sentiment. If the question is a subordinate one, this divergence does not make the country desire a change of ministry ; and it is extremely difficult, under the system of party government, to enforce by any less violent means the national will. Under these circumstances a body such as the House of Lords, exempt from the necessity of popular election, representing at the same time most of the forms of public opinion, and exercising in the constitution a kind of revising, judicial, and moderating office, is of great utility ; it is able to arrest or retard a particular course of policy, without pro- ducing a ministerial crisis, and it may thus be said, without a paradox, to contribute to the representative character of the government. Besides this, the peerage enables the country to avail itself of the talents of statesmen of ability and experi- ence, who are physically incapable of enduring the fatigue inseparable from the position of a minister in the Lower House ; it forms a cheap yet highly prized reward for great services to the nation or the Crown ; and it exercises in some respects a con siderable refining influence upon the manners of society by coun- teracting the empire of mere wealth, and sustaining that order of feelings and sentiments which constitutes the conception of a gentleman. Nor should we altogether disregard its minor uses in settling doubtful questions of precedence, and marking out the natural leaders for many movements, which would otherwise be weakened by conflicting claims and by personal jealousies. There are, no doubt, serious drawbacks to these benefits. No human institution is either an unmitigated good or an un- mitigated evil ; and the main task of every statesman and of every sound political thinker is to wei*-h with impartiality the good and evil consequences that arise out of each. Considered 1 82 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. u. abstractedly, every institution is an evil which teaches men to estimate their fellows not according to their moral and intel- lectual worth, but by an unreal and factitious standard. The worship of baubles and phantasms necessarily perverts the moral judgment, nor can anyone who is acquainted with Eng- lish society doubt that in this respect the evil of aristocratic institutions is deeply felt in every grade. Their moral effects are, on the whole, more doubtful than their political effects, and the servile and sycophantic dispositions, the vulgarity of thought and feeling they tend to foster in the community form the most serious counterpoise to their undoubted advan- tages. These evils, however, lie far too deep for mere politi- cal remedies ; and when the worship of rank and the worship of wealth are in competition it may, at least, be said that the existence of the two idols diminishes by dividing the force of each superstition, and that the latter evil is an increas- ing one, while the former is never again likely to be a danger. The injurious effects of aristocratic influence may, however, be abundantly traced in the desire to aggregate the vast pre- ponderance of family property in a single heir, which is often displayed in England to an extent that is an outrage upon morality; in the frequent spectacle of many children — often daughters, who are almost incapable of earning a livelihood — reduced to penury, in order that the eldest son may gratify the family vanity by an adequate display of ostenta- tious luxury ; in the scandalous injustice of the law relating to intestacy. Although it would be an absurd exaggeration to attribute to the existence of an aristocracy the frightful con- trast of extreme opulence and abject misery which is so fre- quent in England, it is undoubtedly true that the excessive inequality of the distribution of wealth, resulting from laws which were originally intended to secure the preponderance of a class, and from manners which were originally the product of those laws, has most seriously aggravated it. The laws have for the most part passed away, but the habits that grew out of them remain, and they operate over a far larger circle than that of the aristocracy. Great as is the use of the peerage in sustaining public spirit in the nation, it is unquestionable that the passion for founding families which it produces dimi- CH. n. ITS HISTORIC TENDENCIES. 183 nishes largely the flow of private munificence to public objects, and its value in promoting laborious habits is in some degree counteracted by its manifest tendency to depress the purely intellectual classes. Kank is much less local in its influence than wealth, and wherever a powerful aristocracy exists, it overshadows intellectual eminence, and becomes its successful rival in most forms of national competition. The political advantages of an hereditary chamber are very great, but the power of unlimited veto resting in such a chamber is a grave anomaly in a free government. Nor is it one of those ano- malies which are merely theoretical. On great questions on which popular passions are violently aroused, the spirit of com- promise and political sagacity so general among the upper classes in England, may usually be counted on to prevent serious collisions ; and the power of creating an unlimited number of peers provides in the last resort an extreme, dangerous, but efficient remedy. There are, however, many questions on which the national judgment is plainly pronounced, but which from their nature do not appeal to any strong passions, and on these the obstructive power of the House of Lords has some- times proved very mischievous. More than one measure of reform has thus been rejected through several successive Parlia- ments, in spite of unbroken and repeated majorities in the Lower House. Looking again at the question from a purely historical standing-point, it is certain that the politicians of the Upper House were deeply tainted with the treachery and duplicity common to most English statesmen between the Restoration and the American Eevolution. Most of the Bills for prevent- ing corrupt influence in the Commons during the administra- tion of Walpole were crushed by the influence of the minister in the House of Lords. The country was long seriously bur- dened, and some of the professions were systematically degTaded, in order to furnish lucrative posts for the younger members of the aristocratic families ; and the representative character of the Lower House was so utterly perverted by the multiplication of nomination boroughs in the hands of the peers that a storm of indignation was at last raised which shook the very pillars of the constitution. Still, even in these respects, the English 184 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. nobility form a marked contrast to those of the Continent. Though rank has in England almost always brought with it a very disproportionate weiglit, although it is undoubtedly true that in the last years of George II. and in the first years of George III. three or four aristocratic families threatened to control the efficient power in the State, yet, on the whole, no other aristocracy has shown itself so free from the spirit of monopoly. In the great Whig period, from the Eevolution till the death of Walpole, there were numerous instances of states- men who were not of noble birth taking a foremost place in English politics. • The names of Somers, Montague, Churchill, Addison, Craggs, and many others will at once occur to the reader, and the most powerful leader of this age was a simple country gentleman, a member of the House of Commons, who was so far from allowing himself to be the puppet of anyone, that one of the chief faults of his administration was his extreme reluctance to part with the smallest share of the influ- ence of the Government. The steady support which the Whio- House of Lords gave to Walpole during every stage of his career is a decisive proof not only of its enlightenment but also of its moderation. Nor is this less true of the opposite party. No Tory minister has had so absolute an authority as William Pitt, and in the period of the darkest and most bigoted Toryism the House of Lords was governed with an almost absolute sway by the knowledge and the ability of Eldon. If the nomination boroughs were perverted, as they undoubtedly were to a very large extent, to the most selfish pm-poses, it is also true that there was sufficient public spirit among their proprietors to induce them to bring into the House of Com- mons a far larger proportion of young men of promise and genius than have ever, under any other system, entered its walls. If the numerous Tory creations of George III. at last altered the spirit of the body, it should at least not be for- gotten that the old tradition never was extinct, that in the ' This has been noticed by Swift, new naen, with few exceptions.' He in a very remarkable paper on the ascribes this chiefly to the defective Decline of the Political Influence of education of the upper classes. Swift the Nobilitj% in the Intollidcneer, was, I believe, wrong-, in imagining No. 9. He declares that 'for above that aristocratic influence had de- sixty years past the chief conduct of clined. ati'airs hath been generally placed in CH. II. THE PEERAGE BILL. 185 great struggle of the Eeform Bill some of the chief aristocratic borough-owners were among the foremost advocates of the people, and that the large majority of the peers of an older creation than George III. were on the same side,' while the most obstinate opponents of progress found their leaders in Eidon and Lyndhurst, who had but lately risen from the ranks. There was, however, one marked exception to the general tenor of aristocratic politics. One attempt was made, which, if it had been successful, would have converted the English nobility into a separate caste. I allude, of course, to the Peerage Bill, which was introduced by the ministry of Sunder- land and Stanhope in 1719, and which was, perhaps, the most dangerous constitutional innovation since the Revolution. It was inspired by the party interest of the Whigs, and it was intended to prevent the son of George I., who was in opposition to his father, from overthrowing, if he came to the throne, the Whig majority in the Upper House by the creation of Tory peers. Had it been carried, it would have made the House of Lords an almost unchangeable body, entirely beyond the control of King or JMinister or Commons. It provided that, with the exception of members of the Eoyal Family, the sovereign should at no time be allowed to add more than six to the number of the English hereditary peers existing when the Bill was passed; though, whenever a peerage became extinct, he might make a creation to replace it ; and also that twenty-five Scotch peers, selected in the first instance by the sovereign and afterwards sitting by hereditary right, should be substituted for the sixteen elective peers. It is obvious that such a measure would have given the peerage all the characteristics of a close corporation, would have prevented that influx into its ranks of legal, political, and commercial talent which now constitutes one of its most distinctive merits, would have in consequence destroyed its value as a reward of genius, and its weight as a representative body, and would have abolished the only means which the constitution provides for overcoming, in extreme cases, the opposition of the Lords. Yet this Bill was introduced oy the party which is the natural guardian of the popular ' Molesworth's Ilist. of England, i. 203. 186 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. element in the constitution, and it had at first considerable prospect of success. The King readily relinquished his pre- rogative of imlimited creation. The indignation excited by the lavish creations of Harley in 1712 was largely made use of. The pen of Addison was enlisted in the cause. The Bill appealed at once to the party spirit of the Whigs, who designed to perpetuate their ascendancy, and to the class feeling of the peers, who desired, by preventing new creations, to increase their consequence ; and it was carried without difficulty through the Lords. Fortunately, however, a great storm of indignation was soon aroused. Steele, whose judgment it is the custom of some; writers invariably to decry, employed all his talent in exposing the dangers of the scheme, and his essays, though they de- stroyed his friendship with Addison, and brought down upon his head the prompt vengeance of the Government,' were of immense service to the real interests of the country. Walpole, who was at this time in opposition, both spoke and wrote against the Bill with consummate power. The jealousy of the country gentry was aroused when they saw the portals of the Upper House about to close for ever against them; and the Bill was lost in the Commons by 269 to 177. This, however, was but a passing aberration ; and it was due much more to party interest than to aristocratic exclusiveness. In general, the services of the peers to the cause of civil and religious liberty, at the time we are considering, were incon- testable, and the advantage of an Upper House in this portion of our history can scarcely be questioned by anyone who re- gards the Eevolution, and the principles it established, as good. Its members formed, perhaps, the most important section of the Whig party, for they were at this time almost at the acme of their influence. The overshadowing majesty of the Church had been broken at the Reformation. The monarchy had been seriously restricted by the Revolution, and the great democratic agencies of modern times were still in their infancy. In ' He had obtained a patent for Steele, ii. 210-216. Few ^\Titers of the theatre of Drury Lane, bxit as the eighteenth century have received soon as he opposed the Government harder measure from modern critics scheme the Lord Chamberlain re- than Steele. I must except, however, voked his licence for acting plays, the essay on his life in Forster's and thus reduced him to complete Jiioyrapldcal Euaijs, ruin. See Montgomery's Life of en. n, THE COMMERCIAL CLASSES. 187 opulence the nobles were altogether unrivalled. The Indian nabobs, whose great fortunes in some degree competed with them, only came into prominence in the reign of George III., and the great commercial fortunes belong chiefly to a still later period. The numerous sinecures at their disposal secured the nobility a preponderance both of wealth and influence ; the tone of manners before the introduction of railways was far more favourable than at present for a display of the pomp and the pretensions of rank ; and the borough system gave the great families a commanding influence in the Lower House. In addition to the aristocracy, the Whigs could usually count upon the warm support of the moneyed classes and of the Dissen- ters, who in this, as in most other periods, were very closely united. The country, it has been justly said, always represents the element of permanence, and the towns the element of progress. In the former the national spirit is usually the most intense, and the force of tradition, prejudice, and association most supreme. New ideas, on the other hand, appear most quickly, and circulate most easily, in the crowded centres of population ; and the habits of industrial speculation, the migratory nature of capital, and the contact with many nations and with many creeds resulting from commercial intercourse, tend to sever, both for good and for ill, the chain of tradition. At the time of the Eeformation the towns were the strongholds of Protestantism, at the time of the Commonwealth they were the strongholds of Puritanism, and in the Hanoverian, as in most subsequent periods, of liberal politics. On religious questions this bias has been especially strong. It is an ingenious, and, I believe, a just remark of Sir \V. Petty that ' trade is most vigorously carried on in every state and government by the heterodox part of the same, and such as profess opinions different from what are publicly established.' ^ The fact may be ascribed partly, as I have said, to the superior accessibility of the town populations to new and innovating ideas, and partly also to persecuting laws which divorced heretics from the soil, and led them to seek forms of industry of which the fruits in seasons of trial can be easily realised and displaced. ' Political Arithmetic, T^. 118, 188 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ck. it. The result has been that religious persecution has usually fallen with a peculiar severity upon commercial interests ; and in the two centuries that followed the Eeformation hardly any otlier single circumstance affected so powerfully the relative indus- trial position of nations as the degrees in which they conceded religious toleration. Among the less noticed consequences of the Eeformation, perhaps the most important was the dispersion of industry produced by the many thousands of skilled artisans who were driven by persecution beyond their national borders, carrying with them trades which had hitherto been strictly or mainly local, and planting them wherever they settled. Nor was this the only result of the migration. Men who are prepared to abandon friends and country rather than forsake a religion which is not that of their nation are usually superior to the average of their fellow-countrymen in intelligence, and are almost always greatly superior to them in strength and nobility of character. Eeligious persecution , by steadily weeding out. such men from a community, slowly but surely degrades the national type, while a policy of toleration which attracts refugees representing the best moral and industrial qualities of other nations is one of the most efficient of all means of expand- ing and improving it. The effect of these influences on the well-being of nations has been very great. The ruin of Spain may be chiefly traced to the expulsion or extirpation of her Moorish, Jewish, and heretical subjects ; and French industry, and still more French character, have never recovered the injury they received from the banishment of the most energetic and enlightened portion of the nation. By the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes, and by the savage persecution which immediately preceded and followed it, France probably lost upwards of a quarter of a million of her most industrious citizens ; ' and, amid the enthu- siastic applause of the Catholic party, a blow was struck at her true interests, of which some of the effects may be perceived even to the present day. Bossuet, Massillon, and Flechier, ' The estimates, as might be ex- collection of estimates from different pccted, vary greatly. Voltaire put writers, in Macpherson's Annals of tJie number as high as 600,000, and Comniej'cc, ii. G16-G20, some writers still higher. See a cu. II, EEFUGEE INDUSTRY. 189 vied with each other in extolling the new Theodosius who had banished heresy from the land. The Chancellor Le Tellier repeated the ecstatic words of Simeon as he affixed the great seal to the Act. The Abbe Tallemaud eulogised it in glowing- terms in the French Academy. Madame de Sevigne wrote that no other king either had done or could do a nobler act. The brush of Le Sueur was employed to illustrate it on the walls of Versailles, and medals were struck, and a bronze statue was erected in front of the Town Hall, to commemorate the triumph of the Church. The results of that triumph may be soon told. Many of the arts and manufactures which had been for generations most distinctively French passed for ever to Holland, to Grermany, or to England. Local liberties in France received their death-blow when those who most strenu- ously supported them were swept out of the country. The destruction of the most solid, the most modest, the most vii'- tuous, the most generally enlightened element in the French nation, prepared the way for the inevitable degradation of ihe national character, and the last serious bulwark was removed that might have broken the force of that torrent of scepticism and vice which, a century later, laid prostrate, in merited ruin, both the altar and the throne.^ Not less conspicuous was the benefit derived by nations which pursued an opposite course. Holland, which had suffered so severely, and in so many ways, from religious intolerance under the Spanish domination, made it a main object of her policy to attract by perfect religious liberty the scattered energies of Europe ; ^ and Prussia owes to the same cause not a little of her moral and industrial greatness. Twenty thousand Frenchmen, attracted to Brandenburg by the liberal encourage- ment of the Elector, at the time of the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes, laid the foundation of the prosperity of Berlin, and ' Mr. Pattison, in his admirable as early as 1G70, sjDecifying among Life of CasauhoH, has made some the .causes of the great commercial striking remarks on the pre-eminence prosperitj' of the Dutch, 'their of the French Protestants in the very toleration of different opinions in moral qualities in which the French matters of religion, by reason of nation as a whole is now most which many industrious peo))]e of deficient. other countries that dissent from the * It is remarkable to find tlie esfablished government of their heading English autliority on trade, Churcli resort to them, with their 190 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. u. of most of the manufectures of Prussia ; ' and the later per- secutions of Salzburg and Bohemia drove many thousands of Southern Germans to her soil. After the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes, it was noticed that in Zell and Hanover French was spoken and written as purely as in Paris, and a refinement hitherto unknown began to distinguish the Northern Courts.2 Even Russia sought to attract French energy for the development of her slumbering powers, and at the instance of the Elector of Brandenburg an imperial ukase was issued, offering liberty, settlement, and employment to the refugees.^ But no country owes more to her toleration than England. For nearly two centuries a steady stream of refugees, repre- senting the best Continental types, poured into her population, blending with English life, transmitting their qualities of mind and character to English descendants, and contributing immensely to the perfection and variety of English industry. Elizabeth, though her religious opinions were very inimical to those of the Continental Protestants, with the instinct of true political genius, invariably encouraged the immigration, and, in spite of more than one remonstrance from the French sovereign, of much liatred of foreigners and Dissenters, of much jealousy of local interests and of rival trades, there was always sufficient good sense among the PJnglish rulers to main- tain the toleration. P'or a short time, indeed, the persecuting and meddling policy of Laud threatened to overthrow it. That mischievous prelate had hardly obtained the See of Canterbury, when he ordered tliat those members of the foreign communities who had been born in England should be compelled to attend the Anglican Church, Avhile the English liturgy was to be translated into Dutch and Walloon in the hope families and estates, and after a few guages— a system only proper for years' cohabitation with them become small, popular States."— Swift's Lx- of the same common interest,.'— Sir amincr, No. 21. See, too, his Scnti- J. Child's lAxcourse of Trade (.5t]i mcnts of a Church of England Man. ed.), p. 4. On the other hand, we tind ' Frederick the Great (JIArwr* ^i! the greatest Tory writer of the next Covtvmcs), (Euvres de Fred., torn. i. generation denouncing ' the false p. 227, gives a long catalogue of the politicks of a set of men who . . . industries planted in Brandenburg by take it into their imagination that the refugees. See, too, Weiss's Iliat. trade can never flourish unless the. des Jf/fitffir.t Franrais. country becomes a common receptacle - Kemble's State Papers, p. 386. for all nations, religions, and Ian- ^ n^i,^ pp_ 3S8-389. CH. II. REFUGEE INDUSTEY. 191 of converting the others.^ The civil war, however, restored the liberty of the refugees, and though they were afterwards exposed to much unpopularity and to serious riots, though, as we have seen, the Bill for the general naturalisation of foreign Protestants was repealed, they continued, far into the eighteenth century, to make England their favourite resort. The extent and importance of the successive immigrations have hardly been appreciated by English historians. Those which were due to religious causes appear to have begun in 1567, when the news of the intended entry of Alva into the Netlier- lauds was known, and when, as the Duchess of Parma wrote to Philip, more than 100,000 persons in a few days abandoned their country. Great numbers of them took refuge in Eng- land, and they were followed, in 1572, by a crowd of French Huguenots, who had escaped from St. Bartholomew ; and in 1585, on the occasion of the sacking of Antwerp, by about a third part of the merchants and workmen of that city. A century later the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes produced a new immigration of French Protestants, variously estimated at from fifty to a hundred thousand. Several thousand Grermans, chiefly from the Palatinate, came over in 1709 ; many others about 1732, after the persecutions in Salzburg; and towards the middle of the century a renewal of persecution in France was followed by a fresh French immigration. In this manner the commercial classes in England were at length thoroughly pervaded by a foreign element. Spitalfields was almost wholly inhabited by French silk manufacturers. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the population of Loudon was probably about 600,000,^ it contained no less than thirty-five French Protestant churches.^ Important refugee settlements were planted at JSTorwich, Canterbury, Sandwich, Yarmouth, Ipswich, Exeter, Bideford, and Barnstaple ; and there is hardly a town in England in which their presence may not be traced. Nor were they confined to England. Great ' See Southordcn Burn's Hist, of Gregor}- King, ten years later, com- Protcstant Itefuijces in England, pp. put ed it at only 530,000. tjee Craiks 15-16. Hist, of Commerce, ii. 115. * Tei\j,m'h\s Political Aritlimetic, ^ Smiles "s Ilwjueiwts in England, published in 1687, estimated the p. 278, population of London at 61)6,000. 182 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. n. numbers went over to Ireland. French Protestant churches were founded in New York and Charlestown about 1724, and Salzburg refugees were very prominent in the colonisation of Georgia. About 1732, a colony of French Protestants settled in Edinburgh, where they introduced the manufacture of cambric. Some were incorporated in the British army, but by far the greater number were employed in manufactures, many of them in forms of industry which had been wholly uukno^vn in England. Cloth makers from Antwerp and Bruges, lace makers from Valenciennes, cambric makers from Cambray, glass makers from Paris, stuff weavers from Meaux, potters from Delft, shipwriglits from Havre and Dieppe, silk manu- facturers from Lyons and Toiu-s, paper manufacturers from Bordeaux and Auvergne, woollen manufactm^ers from Sedan, and tanners from the Touraine, were all plying their industries in England. The manufactures of silk, damask, velvet, cam- bric and baize, of the finer kinds of cloth and paper, of pen- dulum clocks, mathematical instruments, felt hats, toys, crystal and plate glass, all owe their origin in England wholly or chiefly to Protestant refugees, who also laid the foundation of scientific gardening, introduced numerous flowers and vege- tables that had before been unknown, and improved almost every industry that was indigenous to the soil.' It is a significant fact that at the close of the seventeenth century, while the balance of political and military power in Europe was still clearly on the side of Catholicism, the su- premacy of industry was as decidedly on the side of Pro- testantism. It was computed that Great Britain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Hanseatic towns, and the Protestant parts of Germany, possessed between them three- fourths of the commerce of the world ;^ while in France itself, Ijefore the Eevocation of the Edict of Nantes, an extraordinary proportion of the national industry was in the hands of the Huguenots. The immigration of these latter into England had ' The fiillest account of the Smiles's two interesting volumes on refugee settlements and industry The Jlw/uenoU, .and the notices of the is to be found in Southerden Burn's Kefugeu Manufactures, in Maci^lier- very valuable Hist, of the Protest.a)tt son's Annals of Commerce. Kefiiffees in EiKjUind. See, too, Weiss 's " Petty's Political Arithmetic, p, Histuirc (lis iitfuyiis IVanrais, Mr. 118. cii. 11. GROWING PKOSPERITY. 193 the natural effect of strengthening the Whig party both in numbers and in zeal.' The industrial classes, who formed the bulk of the party, were largely increased. The anti-Grallican and anti-Papal enthusiasms were intensified by great personal wrongs. The Dissenting or Low Church interest obtained a great accession of power from the presence of a large body of men educated in non-episcopal churches ; and the great Whig maxim, that a government should accord perfect toleration to all Protestant sects, derived a new strength from the manifest material benefits it produced. The influence of the industrial classes had for a long time been steadily increasing, with tlie accumulation of industrinl wealth. The reigns of the Stuarts, though in their politic;;! aspects they were in many respects chequered or disastrous, formed a period of almost uninterrupted material prosperity, the more striking because it was not due to any of those great mechanical inventions which in the present century have suddenly revolutionised great departments of industry. The progress was strictly normal. It may be ascribed to the recla- mation of waste lands, to the extension and development of the colonies, to the freedom of the country for a long period from any serious land war. It was noticed, as a remark- able sign of the democratic spirit that followed the Common- wealth, that country gentlemen in England had begun to bind their sons as apprentices to merchants,^ and also that about the same time the desire to obtain large portions in marriage led to alliances between the aristocracy and the merchants. Sir W. Temple, writing in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, says : — ' I think I remember within less than fifty years, the first noble families that married into the ' Thus Atterbury very bitterly The next a tradesman meek, and mnch a liar, wrote : ' I scarce ever knew a foreigner —Moral £ssai/s, E3. i. settled in England, whether of Dutch, In a pamphlet published in 1722 German, French, Italian, or Turkish called The Bangei- of the Church and growth, but became a Whig in a Kinose their usurpa- England.' — Somers' Tracts, vol. xiii. tions on a silly world. This they ^ Pari. Hist. viii. 37. QC 20 ENG LAND IN TH-E EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. well knew tbat that imputation was the main obstacle to their political success, but at the same time they regarded the royal power with constant jealousy, and their public language was in glaring opposition to that which had so long been the very shibboleth of their school.^ By a similar inversion, the deep English feeling of respect for law and for all duly constituted authority, was now turned against high monarchical views. English political opinion has usually been pre-eminently distinguished for its moderation, and this characteristic has been very largely due to two great events in English history. Democratic excesses had been com- pletely discredited by the Commonwealth, while the Eevolution had discredited extreme monarchical doctrines, by associating them with Jacobitism, and therefore with conspiracy against the law. The influences that were at work, altering the position of the sovereign, were, it is true, not all in the same direction. The large standing armies that were maintained after the Eevolution, the Riot Act, the increase of patronage resulting from extended establishments and from the National Debt, and lastly the prolongation of the duration of Parliaments, were all favour- able to his power or his influence. Great institutions, however, cannot rest solely upon a material basis, and the causes that were at work lowering the English monarchy were such as no extension of patronage or even of prerogative could compen- sate. Divested of the moral and imaginative associations that encircled the legitimate line, deprived of the religious doctrine on which it had once been based, and alienated from the party who are the natural exponents of monarchical enthusiasm, it sank at once into a lower plane. The King could lay no claim to a Divine right.^ His title was exclusively parliamentary, and there was nothing either in his person or his surroundings to appeal to the popular imagination. A profound revolution, it was noticed, took place in the etiquette of the Court. The pomp ' ' The Tories have been so long; on PaHiex. obliged to talk in the republican " As Bolin^broke said, * A notion style that they seem to have made was entertained by many that the converts of themselves by their worse title a man had, the better hypocrisy, and to have embraced llie kina: he was likely to make.' — Disser- sentiments as well as tlie language tution on Parties, letter vi. of their adversaries.' — Hume's Lasay CH. II. JACOBITE MIRACLES. 221 aad pageantry of royalty, which had long been dear to English- men, and which had reflected, and in some degree sustained, the popular reverence for the King, had almost disappeared.' Greorge I. brought to England the simple habits of a German Court. His wife was a prisoner in Germany. His ftwourites were coarse and avaricious German mistresses. He spoke no English ; he was in his fifty-fifth year, and he had no grace of manner and no love of display. Under these circumstances his Court assumed a particularly simple and unimposing character, which the parsimony and the tastes of his two suc- cessors led them to maintain. With the Divine right, the ascription of a miraculous power naturally passed away. The service for the miracle of the royal touch was, indeed, reprinted in the first Prayer-book of George I.^ ; but the power was never exercised or claimed by the Hanoverian dynasty, and thus one great source of the popular reverence for the monarchy disappeared. For some time, however, we may trace the faint glimmerings of a supernatural aureole in the exiled line. James II., having lost liis crowTi mainly on account of his religion, and having shown in his latter years a deep and touching piety,^ was naturally regarded with great reverence by the more de- voted of his co-religionists, and on his death there were some attempts to invest him with the reputation of a Saint. Worshippers flocked in multitudes to the church where his body was laid, to ask favour by his intercession. A curious letter is still preserved, written by the Bishop of Autun, in the ' A very intelligent traveller who Bedchamber in waiting ; and even described England about 1720, writes : when they washed their hands that ' No prince in the world lives in the lord on the knee held the bason. But state and grandeur- of the King and King George hath entirely altered Queen of England. . . . Yet in my own that method; he dines at St. James's private opinion it savours too much privately, served by his domestics, of superstition, being a respect that and often sups abroad witli his religion allows only to the King of nobility.' — A Journeij thromjli Eng- kings. King George, since his ac- Za«rZ (by Macky), 4th ed. 1724, voL i. cession to the throne, hath entirely pp. 198-199. altered this superstitious way of ''■ Lathbury's Ilist. of Convocation, being served on the knee at table. p. 437. King Charles XL, King James, King ^ The more amiable aspects of the William, and Queen Anne, whenever latter days of James — wiiich Macau- they dined in public, received wine lay has completely slmrred over — are upon the knee from a man of the well giveu by Ranke in his Hist, of first quality, who was Lord of tlie Enghnd (Eng. trans.), v. 274-5. 222 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. n. December of 170], to the widow of James, describing in much detail what the writer believed to have been a miraculous cure, of which he had himself been the object. For more than forty years, he said, he had been afflicted with a tumour beneath the right eye, which, when pressed, emitted matter. In the begin- ning of the preceding April the fluxion ceased, the tumour rapidly grew larger than a nut, and it became so painful that the patient had not a moment of repose. A surgeon lanced it, and from this time the fluxion recommenced with such abundance that it was necessary to dress the sore eight or ten times in the twenty-four hours. The bishop came to Paris and consulted several leading physicians, but they told him that there was no remedy, and that he must bear the inconvenience for the re- mainder of his life. On September 19 and 20, two or three days after the death of James, two nuns, in two different con- vents, independently announced to him their persuasion that the first miracle of the deceased King would be in his favour, and promised to pray God, by the intercession of James, to effect a cure. A few days after, as the bishop was celebrating mass, in the nunnery of Chaillot, for the soul of the King, his tumour ceased to flow, and all traces of the malady disappeared. An- other story was circulated, concerning a young man of Auvergne, who had been afflicted with fits, which were believed to be of a paralytic nature, had lost all use of his limbs, and had tried in vain many remedies, both medical and spiritual. Immediately upon the death of James, a friend, who had a great veneration for that prince, recommended the sufferer to seek help through the intercession of the saintly King. He did so, and vowed, if he recovered, to make a pilgrimage to his tomb. From that day he began to amend. On the ninth day he was completely recovered, and a deposition was drawn up by the priest of his parish, and signed by himself, attesting the miraculous nature of the cure.' Several other cases were narrated of miracles worked by the intercession of the King, and there is not much doubt that if the Stuarts had been restored, and had continued Catholics, he would have been canonised.'^ Occasional rumours ' These documents are preserved ^ See the very curious extracts among the papers of the Cardinal from the Nairne Papers, in Macpher- Gualterio. British Museum. Add. son's Original Papm, i. 59,5-595). MSS. 20311. Bolingbroke noticed in 1717 how CH. 11. FOEMATION OF A MINISTRY. 223 of cures of scrofula, effected by the touch of the Pretender, in Paris or in Eome, were long- circulated in England,' and the old ceremony was revived at Edinburgh in 1745.^ The credit that once attached to it, however, had almost passed, though the superstition long lingered, and is, perhaps, even now hardly extinct in some remote districts. In France, the ceremony was performed as recently as the coronation of Charles X., who touched, on that occasion, 121 sick persons.^ As late as 1838, a minister of the Shetland Isles, where scrofulous diseases are very prevalent, tells us that no cure was there believed to be so efficacious as the royal touch ; and that, as a substitute for the actual living finger of royalty, a few crowns and half-crowns, bearing the effigy of Charles I., were carefully handed down from generation to generation, and employed as a remedy for the evil.* Another very important cause of the decline of the power of royalty was the increased development of party government. The formation of a ministry, or homogeneous body of ruling states- men of the same politics, deliberating in common, and in which each member is responsible to the others, has been justly de- scribed by Lord Macaulay as one of the most momentous and least noticed consequences of the Eevolution. It was essential to the working of parliamentary government, and it was scarcely less important as abridging the influence of the Crown. As long as the ministers were selected by the sovereign from the most opposite parties, as long as each was responsible only for his own department, and was perfectly free to vote, speak, or intrigue against his colleagues, it is obvious that the chief efficient power must have resided with the sovereign. When, James ' passes already for a saint, and (liring an account of some surprid'if/ reports are encoiiraged of miracles Cures of the King's Evil by the tom-Jt, which they suppose to be wrought at lately effected in the neighhourhood of his tomh.'— Letter to Windham. that city (1721). ' Thus the Nonjuror historian - Chambers' Eist. of the RelelUvn Carte relates the case of a young of 11 \b, p. 125. man from Bristol named Christopher ^ Annuadre Historique, 1825, p. 275, Lovel, known to himself, who was '' N'cic Statistical Account of Scot- cured by the Pretender at Paris in land, xv. p. 85. A seventh son was ni& {Carie'sIIiift. of England, \. 2!)!- also believed to have the power of 292). This anecdote is said to have curing scrofula by his touch. See a seriously impaired the success of case in Sinclair's Statistical Ac- Carte's history. See, too, a tract called count of Scotland, xiv. 210. See, too, A Letter from a C'entlenmn in Home Aubrey's Miscellanies, art. ^firanda. 224 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUJKY. cii. ii, however, the conduct of affairs was placed in the hands of a body forming a coherent whole, bound together by principle and by honour, and chosen out of the leaders of the dominant party in Parliament, the chief efficient power naturally passed to this body, and to the party it represented. Although, in the reign of William, the advice of Sunderland and the exigen- cies of public affairs had induced "William to fall back upon government by a single party, yet he never renounced his pre- ference for a mixed ministry, composed of moderate Whigs and moderate Tories ; during almost the whole of his reign he succeeded, in some degree, in attaining it, and he always held in his own hands the cnief direction of foreign affairs. His sue- cesser, in this respect at least, steadily pursued the same end, and the moderate and temporising policy, as well as the love of power, of Godolphin and Harley assisted in perpetuating the old system. The first ministry of Anne, to almost the close of its existence, was a chequered one, and although at last the Whig element became completely predominant, the introduction of the Whig junto was distasteful to Godolphin, and bitterly resented by the Queen. Her letters to Godolphin, when the accession of Sunderland to the ministry had become inevitable, express her sentiments on the subject in the strongest and clearest light. She urged that the appointment would be equivalent to throwing herself entirely into the hands of a party ; that it was the object of her life to retain the faculty of appointing to her service honourable and useful men on either side ; that if she placed the direction of affairs exclusively in the bands either of Whigs or Tories, she woidd be entirely tlieir slave, the quiet of her life would be at an end, and her sovereignty would be no more than a name.' On the over- throw of Godolphin, it v\'as the earnest desire both of Harley and of the Queen that a coalition ministry should be formed, in which, though the Tories predominated, they should not possess a monopoly of power. Overtures were made to Somers and Halifax ; and Cowper was urgently and repeatedly pressed by the Queen to retain the Great Seal.^ The refusal of the Whig leaders made the Government essentially Tory, but, as ' Coxe's Marlbm'ovgh, ch. li., Hi. Lives of the Chancellors (6tli ed.), v. 2 See Onslow's note to Burnet's 274-277. Own Time, ii. 5u3-5ol. Campbell's CH. II. WHIG MINISTEY OF GEORGE I. 225 we have already seen, it was a bitter complaint of the October Club that several of the less prominent Whigs were retained in office, and the habit of balancing between the parties still continued. ' I'll tell you one great state secret,' wrote Swift to Stella, as early as February 1710-11; 'the Queen, sensible how much she was governed by the late ministry, runs a little into t'other extreme, and is jealous in that point, even of those who got her out of the other's hands.' ' Her plan,' said a well-informed writer, ' was not to suffer the Tory interest to grow too strong, but to keep such a number of Whigs still in office as should be a constant check upon her ministers.'^ Harley, who dreaded the extreme Tories, fully shared her view ; he was always open to overtures from the Whigs, and it was this policy which at last produced the ministerial crisis that was cut short by the death of the Queen. With the new reign all was changed. In the first anxious month after the accession of Greorge I., it was doubtful whether he would throw himself entirely into the hands of the Whigs, or whether, by bestowing some offices on the Tories, he would make an effort at once to conciliate his opponents, and to retain in- his own hands a substantial part of the direction of affairs. Every step in his policy, however, showed that he was resolved to adopt the former alternative, and the Tories soon learned to realise the pathetic truth of the words which Boling- broke wrote, on the occasion of his own contemptuous dimissal: ' The grief of my soul is this : I see plainly that the Tory party is gone.' Halifax appears to have urged the appointment of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bromley, and some other Tories, to high office under the Crown ; ^ but Townshend and Cowper, with a zeal that was not purely disinterested, pressed upon the King the impossibility of distributing his favours equally between the ■' Shericlan's Life of Swift, pj). p. 60 (ed. 1798). It appears that 124-125. In a tract called An Enqviry offices, but ai^parently sinecures, were into the Behaviour of the Queen's last offered to and refused by Haumer Ministers, Swift says : ' Bhc had enter- and Bromley. See some interesting tained the notion of forming a mode- letters on this subject in Sir H. Bun- rate or comprehensive scheme, which bury'sZi/b^J7««?;«T,pp..53-.5C, 60-61, she maintained with great firmness, Lord Anglesey, who, though a Tory nor would ever depart from, until had followed Sir Thomas Haumer in about half a year before her death.' opposing the Tory ministry, received - Coxe's Life of Waljwle, vol. i. a i^lace in the Ii-ish treasury, VOL. I. Q 226 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. ii. parties,' and, with the exception of Nottingham, who, during the latter days of Queen Anne, had completely identified him- self with the Whigs, and who was for a short time President of the Council, all Tories were excluded from the management of affairs. It was urged that, in the very critical moment of accession, it was indispensable that the King should be served only by statesmen on whom he could perfectly rely ; that the leaders of the Tory party had in the last reign been deeply im- plicated in Jacobite intrigues ; that it was difficult or impossible to say how far Jacobitism had spread among them ; that a division of offices would be sm-e to create jealousy and dis- loyalty in the weaker party, and to enfeeble, in a period of great danger, the policy of the Grovernment ; that, in the very pro- bable event of the Pretender becoming Protestant, the House of Brunswick could count on no one but the most decided Whigs. On the other hand, it is certain that a very large part of the Stuart sympathies of the Tories was simply due to a fear that the new Grovernment would not recognise the legitimate claims of the party to a fair share of political power, and it is equally certain that the landed gentry and the clergy in England were strongly attached to that party and were bitterly exasperated by its proscription. It was not forgotten that the Act of Settlement, by virtue of which the King sat on the throne, was brought in by a Tory statesman, that the Peace of Utrecht, which was the great measure of the Tory ministry, contained a clause compelling the French sovereign to recognise the Protestant succession, and to expel the Pretender from France, and that one section of the party, under the guidance of Sir Thomas Hanmer, had never wavered in its attachment to the Act of Settlement. On the death of the Queen, they had all, at least passively, accepted the change of dynasty, and there is no reason to question the substantial truth of the assertion of Bolingbroke, that the proscription of the Tories by Greorge I. for the first time made the party entirely Jacobite.^ But, ' Campbell's Chancellors, v. 203. * Letter to Windham. This is It is said that, amon'al^ole,'\\,^\. Q 2 228 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. clearly understood that the downfall of the dynasty meant civil war, revolution, and perhaps national bankruptcy. They also began systematically to build up a vast system of parliamentary influence. The wealth of the great Whig houses, the multitude of small and venal boroughs, the increase of Grovernment patro- nage, and the Septennial Act, which, by prolonging the duration of Parliament, made it more than ever amenable to ministerial influence, enabled them to carry out their policy with a singular completeness. The condition of European politics greatly assisted them. The chief external danger to the dynasty lay in the hostility of France, but this hostility was now for a long period removed. The Eegent from the first had leaned somewhat towards the English alliance, and after the suppression of the rebellion of 1715 he took decided steps in this direction. He had, indeed, the strongest personal interest in doing so. The young prince, who was his ward, and who was the undoubted heir to the throne, was so weak and sickly that his death might at any time be expected. In that case the Crown, according to the provisions of the Peace of Utrecht, devolved upon the Regent, but it was extremely probable that Philip of Spain would claim it, in spite of the act by which he had renounced his title. The succession of the Regent would then be in the utmost danger. It was possible that Philip, inspired by the daring genius of Alberoni, who was now rising rapidly to ascendancy in his coun- cils, would endeavour to unite under one sceptre the dominions both of France and of Spain. In that case a European war was inevitable, but it would be a war in which the whole national sentiment of France would be opposed to the Regent, who was personally unpopular, and who would be an obstacle to the most cherished dream of French ambition. It was possible also, and perhaps more probable, that Philip would endeavour merely to exchange the throne of Spain for that of France. If he abdicated in favour of a prince who was acceptable to the Powers who had been allied in the last war, the great object of the Whig party in the reign of Anne would be realised ; and it was therefore by no means improbable that the allied Powers would favour his attempt. If England could be induced un- equivocally to guarantee the succession of the House of Orleans, CH. 11. THE FEENCH ALLIANCE. 229 if' the Whig Grovernment of George I. would in this respect at least cordially adopt the policy of the Tory ministry which negotiated the Peace of Utrecht, it was clear that the prospects of the Eegent would be immensely improved. On the other hand, the reasons inducing the English Government to seek a French alliance were at least equally strong. France could do more than all other Powers combined to shake the dynasty, and as long as the Jacobite party could look forward to her support, it would never cease to be powerful. Besides this, an Englisii guarantee might so strengthen the House of Orleans as to pre- vent another European war, and avert the danger of the union of the two crowns. Hanoverian politics had also begun to colour all English negotiations, and a great coldness which had sprung up between the Emperor and the Hanoverian Govern- ment, on account of the claims of the latter to Bremen and Verden, helped to incline George towards a French rather than an Austrian alliance. There was also a dangerous question pending between England and France, which it might be pos- sible amicably to arrange. The Peace of Utrecht had stipulated that the harbour of Dunkirk should be destroyed, and the injury that had been done to British commerce by the privateers which issued from that harbour was so great that scarcely any pro- vision in the treaty was equally popular. It had been in a great degree fulfilled, but the French had proceeded to nullify it by constructing a new canal on the same coast at Mardyke. The destruction of this incipient harbour became in consequence one of the strongest desires of the English. These various considerations drew together the Powers which had so long been deadly enemies. The negotiation was chiefly conducted at Hanover by Stanhope on the side of England, and by Dubois on that of France, and it resulted in a treaty which gave an entirely new turn to the foreign jDolicy of England. By this treaty the Regent agreed to break altogether with the Pre- tender, to compel him to reside beyond the Alps, and to destroy the new port at Mardyke, while both Powers confirmed and guaranteed the Peace of Utrecht and particularly the order of the succession to the crowns of England and France which it zstablished. Thus, by a singular vicissitude of politics, it was the Whig party which was now the most anxious to ally itself 230 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cir. ii. with France in the interest of that Protestant succession which Lewis XIV. had so bitterly opposed. The States-General some- what reluctantly acceded to the treaty, which was finally con- cluded in January 1716-17. It would be difficult to overrate the value of this alliance to the new dynasty and to the Whig party. It paralysed the efforts of the Jacobites, and it was especially important as the aspect of Europe was still in many respects disquieting. The Emperor, as we have seen, had prolonged the war unsuccessfully for some months after the Peace of Utrecht, and though hostilities were terminated by the peace which was negotiated at Eastadt, and finally ratified at Baden in September 1714, there were still serious questions to be settled. One of tlie most important re- sults of the war was the transfer of the Spanish Netherlands to the Emperor. It was a measure which William had regarded as of transcendent importance in securing Holland from the aggression of France, and it was accordingly given a prominent place among the objects of the great treaty of alliance of 1701.* It was, however, the determination both of the Dutch and of the English that this cession should be conditional upon the Dutch retaining the right of garrisoning a line of border fortresses in Spanish Flanders, and this privilege was very displeasing to the Emperor. The barrier treaty of 1709 had been negotiated between England and Holland without his assent. The Peace of Utrecht had, indeed, restored to France some towns which the earlier treaty had reserved for the Dutch barrier, but, to the great indignation of the Emperor, it provided that such a bar- rier should be secured. As the war was still going on, France, in accordance with the treaty, surrendered the Spanish Nether- lands provisionally to Holland, to be transferred by her to Austria, as soon as peace should have been restored and the conditions and limits of the barrier arranged. A long, tedious, and irritating negotiation ensued between the Dutch and the Emperor, but it was at last, chiefly through English mediation, concluded in November 1715. The treaty which was then signed, and confirmed by England, gave Holland the exclusive right of garrisoning Namur, Tournay, Menin, Fumes, Warneton, Ypres, and the fort of Knocke. The garrison of Dendermonde was to ' Art. V. CH. II. FOEEIGN DIFFICULTIES. 231 be a joint one. A sum of 500,000 crowns, levied on what were now the Austrian Netherlands, was to be annually paid by the Emperor to the Dutch for the support of the Dutch garrisons in the barrier towns, and several provisions were made regulating the number of the troops to be maintained, the municipal ar- rangements, and the religious liberty to be conceded. To the Emperor, who claimed an absolute right over the whole Spanish dominions, this arrangement was very irksome, and there was a strong ill-feeling between the Austrians and the Dutch, which by no means subsided on the conclusion of the treaty. A divided sovereignty almost necessarily led to constant difficulties. One of the Powers was despotic, the other was rather notoriously minute and punctilious in its exactions. There were violent disputes between the inhabitants of the newly annexed territory and the Dutch on the question of commercial privileges. There were disputes about the frontiers. There were bitter complaints of the subsidy to the Dutch, and it was found necessary for the three Powers to make another convention, which was executed in December 1718, and which in several small details modified the treaty of 1715. Another and a much more serious danger arose from the relations between Austria and Spain. We have seen that when he Emperor at the time of the Peace of Utrecht resolved to continue the war, he determined, if possible, to contract its limits to the Ehine ; and he accordingly concluded with Eng- land and France a treaty of neutrality for Spain, Italy, and the Low Countries, and withdrew the Austrian troops from Catalo- nia and the islands of Majorca and Ivica. The short war that ensued was a war with France, and the Peace of Baden was negotiated between the Emperor and the French King, but no formal peace had ever been established between the Emperor and the King of Spain. The Emperor still refused to recognise the title of Philip to the Spanish throne. Philip still main- tained his claims to the kingdom of Naples, the Milanese, and the Spanish Netherlands, which the Peace of Utrecht had trans- ferred to Austria. War might at any time break out, and the chief pledge of peace lay in the exhaustion of both belligerent parties, in the difficulties in which the Emperor was involved with the Turks, and in the guarantees which England, France, 232 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. n. and Holland had given for the maintenance of the chief arrange- ments of the peace. In May 1716, when the relations between England and France were still uncertain, a defensive alliance had been contracted between England and the Emperor, by which each Power guaranteed the dominions of the other in case of an attack by any Power except the Turks, and, by an additional and secret article subsequently signed, each Power agreed to expel from its territory the rebel subjects of the other. Of the arrange- ments of the Peace of Utrecht, one of the most obnoxious to the Emperor was that which made the Duke of Savoy King of Sicily, with reversion of the kingdom of Spain in the event of a failure of male issue of Philip. The Austrian statesmen maintained that the kingdom of Naples never would be secure so long as Sicily was in the hands of a foreign and perhaps a hostile power ; and they soon engaged in secret negotiations with England and France to induce or compel the Duke of Savoy to exchange Sicily for Sardinia. The project became known, and both the Duke of Savoy and the King of Spain were de- termined to resist it. On the other hand, a strange transfor- mation had passed over the spirit and tendency of the Spanish Government. The first wife of Philip, who was a daughter of the Duke of Savoy, died in February 1714-15, and, a few months after, the King married Elizabeth Farnese, the young Princess of Parma — a bold and aspiring woman, who was bitterly hostile to the Austrian dominion in Italy, and who had some claims to the succession of Parma, Placentia, and Tuscany. The sove- reign of the first two Duchies had no son. The Queen of Spain was his niece, and she claimed the succession as a family in- heritance, but her title was disputed by both the Emperor and the Pope. The Grand Duke of Tuscany had a son, bat this son was without issue, and was separated from his wife, and the suc- cession was claimed by Elizabeth Farnese, by the Emperor, and by the wife of the Elector Palatine. The anxiety of the Spanish Queen to claim this inheritance was greatly intensified by the birth of a son. She soon obtained an absolute dominion over the mind of the King, and her own policy was completely go- verned by an Italian priest, who, probably, only needed some- what more favourable circumstances to have played a part in the world in no degree inferior to that of Kichelieu or Chatham. CE. II. ALBERONI. 233 Cardinal Alberoni is one of the most striking of tlie many- examples of the great value of the Roman Catholic ecclesias- tical organisation in forming a ladder by which men of genius can climb from the lowest positions to great dignity and in- fluence. The son of a very poor and very illiterate gardener at Placentia, he was born in 1664, was taught to read and write by the charity of a parish priest, and having entered the order of the Barnabites and passed through the lowest forms of eccle- siastical drudgery, he was at length, with considerable difficulty, raised to the priesthood, and became in time chaplain to the bishop of his diocese, and canon in its cathedral. By the friend- ship of another bishop he was brought to the Court of the reigning Duke of Parma, where he was introduced in 1702 to the Duke of Vendome, who was then commanding the French army in Italy, and whose warm attachment laid the foundation of his future success. Few men without any ad- vantage either of birth or fortune have ever risen to great poli- tical eminence without drinking deeply of the cup of moral humiliation ; and St. Simon, whose aristocratic leanings made him regard the low-born adventurer with peculiar malevolence, assures us, probably with some truth, that Alberoni first won the favour of Vendome by gross sycophancy and buffoonery. His small round figure, surmounted by a head of wholly dis- proportioned size, gave him at first sight a burlesque appear- ance. His language and habits were very coarse, and he possessed to the highest degree the supple and insinuating man- ners, the astute judgment, the patient, flexible, and intriguing temperament of his country and of his profession. But with these qualities he combined others of a very different order. He was the most skilful, laborious, and devoted of servants. His imagination teemed with grand and daring projects, and in energy of action and genius of organisation very few states- men have equalled him. For a time everything seemed to smile upon him. He was employed by the Duke of Parma in negotiations with the Emperor. He was presented by Vendome to Lewis XIV. He obtained a French pension ; he accompanied Vendome in his brilliant Spanish campaign ; he became the envoy of the Duke of Parma at the Spanish Court, and havino- taken a leading part in negotiating the second marriage of the 23-4 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii King, he acquired a complete ascendancy over the Queen, and directed Spanish policy for some time before he became osten- sibly Prime jVIinister of Spain. His whole soul was filled with a passionate desire to free his native country from Austrian thraldom, to raise Spain from the chronic decrepitude and debility into which she had sunk, and to make her, once more, the Spain of Isabella and of Charles V. The task was a Her- culean one, for the national spirit had been for generations steadily declining. The finances were all but ruined, and corruption, maladministration, and superstition had corroded all the energies of the State. The firm hand of a great states- man was, however, soon felt in every department. Amid a storm of unpopularity, corrupt and ostentatious expenditure was rigidly cut down. The nobles and clergy were compelled to contribute their share to taxation ; the army was completely re- organised ; a new and powerful navy was created. Pampeluna, Barcelona, Cadiz, Ferrol, and several minor strongholds were strengthened. The numerous internal custom-houses, which restricted inland trade, were, with some violence to local cus- toms and to provincial privileges, summarily abolished. The lucrative monopoly of tobacco, which had been alienated from the State, and grossly abused, was resumed. Grreat pains were taken to revive agriculture and extend manufactures ; in spite of the national hostility to heretics, Dutch manufacturers, and even English dyers, were brought over to Spain ; and the im- provement effected was so rapid that Alberoni boasted, with much reason, that five years of peace would be sufficient to raise Spain to an equality with the greatest nations of the earth. At first he was very favourable to the English alliance, and through his influence an advantageous commercial treaty was negotiated between England and Spain in 1715. Soon, however, the two Governments rapidly diverged. The treaty of mutual defence, made between the Emperor and England in 1716, was a great blow to Spanish policy, and the Triple Alliance in the following year was a still greater one. An attempt to expel the Austrians from Italy without the assistance of France, and in the face of the hostility of England, appeared liopeless. Alberoni would have at least postponed the enter- prise, but his hand was forced. He was surrounded with CH. II. THE TURKISH WAR. 235 enemies, and could only maintain his position by constant address and audacity. The Queen, on whom he mainly depended, wished for war. The proceedings of the Emperor about Sicily, and the arrest of the Grand Inquisitor of Spain on his journey through Milan, exasperated the Spanish Court ; and the Turkish war, which had recently broken out, seemed to furnish a favour- able opportunity. In 1715 the Turks, on the most frivolous pretexts, had broken the Peace of Carlowitz, had declared war with the Venetians, had conquered the Morea, and laid siege to Corfu, and, the Emperor having drawn the sword in defence of his ally, the war was now raging in Hungary. The position of Alberoni at this time became a very difficult one. The Pope was summoning all Catholic Powers to the defence of Christen- dom, and threatened severe spiritual penalties against all who attacked the Emperor while engaged in the holy war. Alberoni was himself a priest, and he Avas at the head of a nation which was passionately superstitious, and beyond all others the here- ditary enemy of the Mohammedan. He accordingly professed himself ready to assist in the defence of the Christian interests, made great naval preparations ostensibly for that purpose, and o])tained his cardinal's hat chiefly by a show of zeal in the cause, but at the same time there is little doubt that he was secretly both encouraging and aiding Turkish invasion. His hopes, however, were in a great degree disappointed. Schu- lenburg, one of the ablest of the military adventurers who in the eighteenth century lent their services in succession to many different nations, commanded the Venetians at Corfu, and after a terrible siege, and in spite of prodigies of undisciplined valour,^ the Turks were obliged to abandon their enterprise with the loss of about 17,000 men, of 56 cannon, of all their maga zines and tents. Nearly at the same time, Eugene, at the head of an army far inferior in numbers to that of the enemy, com- pletely routed them in the great battle of Peterwardein, drove them beyond the frontier of Hungary, secured the possession of the Banat, and laid siege to Belgrade. The Austrian forces were, however, for a considerable time arrested, and at the time ' ' II ne manque i\ ces gens-la, que to Leibnitz. Kemble's State Papers, I'ordre et la discipline militairo et ils p. 540. nous battroient tous." — Schulenbm-'r 236 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. wlien the Spaniards began their contest, a considerable propor- tion of them were employed in that quarter. Alberoni at the same time was indefatigable in efforts to raise up allies, or to paralyse the Powers which were hostile to him. He obtained a promise of assistance from the Duke of Savoy by offering him the Milanese instead of Sicily. He intrigued alike with the discontented party in Hungary, in Naples, and in the Cevennes. He met the hostility of the Kegent by reviving the claims of Philip to the eventual succession of the French crown, and sup- porting the party of the Duke of Maine, who was opposed to the Regent and to the English alliance, and who desired to follow the policy of Lewis XIV. He endeavoured to intimidate Eng- land into neutrality by suspending the commercial privileges that had been granted her, and by threatening to support the Jacobite cause with a Spanish army. Another and still more gigantic project, if it was not origi- nated, was at leastwarmly supported by him. The North of Europe had long been convulsed by the contest between Charles XII. of Sweden and Peter the Great, the two most ambitious monarchs of the age. Groertz, the minister of the former — a bold, ad- venturous, and unscrupulous man — now conceived the idea of negotiating a peace and an alliance between these two sovereigns, and of making them the arbiters of the North. In order to make this peace it was necessary for Charles to relinquish to Eussia the Baltic provinces which had so long been in dispute, but he could obtain compensations on the side of Denmark, Norway, and Grermany, and he could gratify his long-continued resentment against the King of Poland and the Elector of Hanover. His animosity against the latter dates from the time when Greorge, without provocation, had joined the confedera- tion against him, and had annexed to his German dominions Bremen and Verden. On other grounds the Czar fully shared his hatred of the English King. George had watched with great and unconcealed jealousy the incursions of the Czar into Ger- many, and his growing power on the Baltic. He had prevented, by the threat of war, a Eussian expedition against Mecklen- burg in 1716, and he had refused to permit a canal, from which the Czar expected great commercial advantages, to pass through a small part of his German dominions. Through combined CH. II. THE NOETHEEN CONFEDERATION. 237 motives of policy and resentment, the Czar lent a willing ear to the project of the Swedish minister, while Charles threw himself into it with characteristic ardom-. His plan was to wrest from Denmark and Hanover the conquests they had made, to ruin the Hanoverian power, to replace Augustus by Stanis- laus on the throne of Poland, to invade England or Scotland in person with a Swedish army transported in Eussian ships, and to change the whole tenour of English policy by a restoration of the Stuarts. It was a scheme well fitted to fascinate that wild imagination, and it was full of danger to England. A very small army of disciplined soldiers would probably have turned the scale against the Government in 1715, and Charles was a great master of the art of war, and he was free from the taint of Catholicism, which in general so fatally weakened the Jacobite cause. The great difficulty lay in the poverty of the two sovereigns ; but Alberoni, whose influence was actively em- ployed in promoting the alliance, strained every nerve to supply the funds. Peter, in a journey to France, tried to induce France to join against England, but the Eegent was steadily loyal to the English alliance, and it is said to have been through his spies that the English ministers were first informed of the plot that was preparing. Letters were intercepted, which dis- closed the design. The Government promptly arrested Gyllen- borg, the Swedish ambassador at St. James's, while, at the instigation of England, the Dutch arrested Goertz, who was in Holland concocting the plans of the future expedition. The Spanish ambassador protested against these proceedings as a violation of the laws of nations, but the letters found in the possession of Gyllenborg furnished such decisive evidence that no other Power joined him. The Czar, who was not implicated in the correspondence, protested his friendship to England. The King of Sweden took refuge in a haughty silence, but retaliated by throwing the English envoy into prison. The disclosure of the plot rendered its execution more difficult, but by no means averted the danger which, partly through the intrigues of Alberoni, hung over the fortunes of England. <» The arrest of the Swedish ambassador took place on January 29, 1716-17. In the following summer a Spanish fleet sailed from Barcelona. Though its destination was uncertain, it was 2-38 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. most generally believed that it was intended to act against the Turks, and all Europe was startled to hear that on August 22 (N.S.) it had swept down upon Sardinia, that a large body of Spanish troops had landed and invested Cagliari, and that they were advancing rapidly in the conquest of the island. After about two months of hard fighting the conquest was achieved, and the Austrian flag had everywhere disappeared. The perplexity of the Great Powers was very serious. Though no peace had been made between the Emperor and the Spanish King, hos- tilities had been dormant, and the act of Alberoni kindled a new war. The Pope strongly denounced the conduct of a statesman who attacked a Christian Power while engaged in wars with Mohammedans. England had guaranteed the Austrian domi- nions in Italy, and, supported by France and Holland, she laboured earnestly to bring about a definite peace between the Empire and Spain. Alberoni consented to negotiate, but at the same time he actively armed. Statesmen who had looked upon the Spanish power as almost effete, saw with bewilderment tlie new forces that seemed to start into life, as beneath the enchanter's wand. A fleet such as Spain had hardly equalled since the destruction of the Armada was equipped. Catalonia had been hitherto bitterly hostile to the Bourbon dynasty, but Alberoni boldly threw himself upon the patriotism and the martial ardour of its people, summoned them around the Spanish flag, and formed six new regiments of the Catalonian mountaineers. Many years later the elder Pitt dealt in a pre- cisely similar way with the Jacobite clans in the Highlands of Scotland, and the success of this measure is justly regarded as one of the great proofs of the high quality of his statesmanship. By a skilful and strictly honest management of the finances, by a rigid economy in all the branches of unnecessary expenditure, it was found possible to make the most formidable preparations without imposing any very serious additional burden upon the people, while at the same time Spanish diplomacy was active and powerful from Stockholm to Constantinople. ♦Hitherto fortune had for the most part favoured Alberoni, but the scale now turned, and a long succession of calamities Ijlasted his prospects. His design was to pass at once from Sardinia into the kingdom of Naples in conjunction with the CH. II. QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE. 239 new sovereign of Sicily ; but, within a few days of the landing cf the Spaniards in Sardinia, Eugene had completely defeated the Turks in a great battle at Belgrade, and the capture of that town enabled the Emperor to secure Naples by a powerful rein- forcement. The defection of the King of Sicily speedily fol- lowed. The whole career of Victor Amadeus had been one of sagacious treachery, and, without decisively abandoning the Spaniards or committing himself to the Austrians, he was now secretly negotiating with the Emperor. Alberoni knew or sus- pected the change, and met it with equal art and with superior energy. He still professed a warm friendship for the Savoy prince. A Spanish fleet of 22 ships of the line with more than 300 transports, and carrying no less than 33,000 men, was now afloat in the Mediterranean ; and, at a time when Victor Amadeus imagined it was about to descend upon Naples, it unexpectedly attacked Sicily, which was left almost undefended, and a Spanish army, under the command of the Marquis of Lede, captured Palermo, and speedily overran almost the whole island. This, however, was the last gleam of success. In July 1718, the very month in which the Spaniards landed in Sicily, the war between the Austrians and the Turks was concluded, chiefly through English mediation, by the Peace of Passarowitz ; the Austrian frontier was extended far into Servia and Wallachia, and the whole Austrian forces were liberated. England had long been negotiating in order to obtain peace in Italy, or, failing in this end, to form an alliance which would overpower the aggressor, and she succeeded in at least attaining the latter end by inducing Austria and France to join her in what, under the expectation of the accession of the Dutch, was called the Quadrujjle Alliance, for the purpose of maintaining the Peace of Utrecht, and guaranteeing the tranquillity of Europe. It was concluded in the beginning of July, but not signed till the beginning of August. By this most important measure, the Emperor at last reluctantly agreed to renounce his pretensions to the kingdom of Spain, and to all other parts of the Spanish dominions recognised as such by the Peace of Utrecht. Tus- cany, Parma, and Placentia were acknowledged to be male fiefs of the Empire, but the Emperor engaged that their sovereignty, on the death of the reigning princes, should pass to Don Carles, 240 ENGLAI^D IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cii. ii the son of the Spanish Queen, and to his successors, subject to the reservation of Leghorn as a free port, and also to the con- dition that the crowns of these Duchies should never pass to the sovereign of Spain. To secure the succession of Don Carlos, Swiss garrisons, paid by the three contracting or mediating Powers, were to be placed in the chief towns. On the other hand, Philip was to be compelled to renounce his pretensions to the Netherlands, to the two Sicilies, and to the Duchy of Milan ; Victor Amadeus was to cede Sicily to the Emperor in exchange for Sardinia, while, as a compensation for the sacrifice thus made, the Emperor acknowledged the succession of the House of Savoy to the Spanish throne, in the event of the failure of the issue of Pliilip. The contracting Powers agreed by separate and secret articles that if in three months the sovereigns of Spain and Sicily did not notify their assent to these conditions, the whole force of the allied potentates was to be employed against them, and that even within this interval they would support the Emperor if any attack was made on his Italian dominions. The very favourable terms which were offered by this alliance to the Spanish Grovernment show how formidable the situation had become. The English Grovernment, at the advice of Stan- hope, even went so far, in their anxiety for peace, as secretly to offer Spain the restoration of Gibraltar. The refusal of these terms was the master error of Alberoni, and the sacrifice of such considerable positive advantages, in pursuit of a policy which could only succeed by a concurrence of many favourable circum- stances, showed more the spirit of a daring gambler than of a great statesman. The blame has been thrown exclusively upon Alberoni, though it is probable that part, at least, should fall on those upon whose favour he depended. At the time when the terms were first offered, the expedition against Sicily was prepared, the Spaniards were sanguine of being able to organise such a fleet as would give them the command of the Mediterranean, and there was some reasonable prospect of re- establishing the Spanish dominion in Italy. The Pope was at this time violently hostile to Spain, and the combination of forces against it secured by the Quadruple Alliance appeared at first sight irresistible, but there were many considerations which served to weaken it. Holland was only desirous of peace, and as long as the war was confined to the Mediterranean it was CH. II. MISFORTUNES OF SPAIN. 241 very improbable that she would take any active part in it. The alliance of France with England against the grandson of Lewis XIV. was utterly opposed to French traditions and to French feeling. The health of the young King was very pre- carious. His death would probably be followed by a disputed succession, and during his lifetime there was a strong party opposed to the Regent. If, as there was some reason to antici- pate, this party triumphed, France would immediately disappear from the alliance, and her weight would pass into the Spanish scale. England had taken the most energetic part in the nego- tiation, and she looked with great jealousy on the formidable navy which had arisen in the Spanish waters ; but in this case also everything depended on the continuance of a tottering- dynasty, and if the great Northern alliance burst upon her, her resources would be abundantly occupied at home. Such were prol)ably the calculations of the Spanish Court, and the successes in Sicily, and the safe arrival of a fleet of galleons bringing a large supply of gold from the colonies, strengthened its determi- nation. The result was the utter ruin of the reviving greatness of Spain. On August 22 the British fleet, commanded by Ad- miral Byng, attacked, and, after a desperate encounter, almost annihilated, the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro, in the neigh- bourhood of Syracuse. The Spaniards complained bitterly that this step had been taken without a declaration of war, when the three months allowed by the Quadruple Alliance had but just begun ; but it was answered with reason that the invasion of Sicily clearly endangered the territorial arrangements that had been made by the allied powers, and that Stanhope had fully warned Alberoni that no such act would be permitted by Eng- land. In the beginning of November, Victor Amadous acceded to the Quadruple Alliance, and all hope of assistance in that quarter was at an end. In December a ball fired from the obscure Norwegian fortress of Frederikshall cut down Charles XII,, in the very flower of his age, when he was just about to organise his expedition against England. No more terrible blow could have fallen on the Spanish statesman. The Government which followed, at once reversed the policy of Charles. Goertz was brought to the scaffold. The Czar made no attempt to execute the project which his rival had begun, and in the following VOL. I. a 24:2 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. ii. year a treaty was made between Hanover and Sweden, by which, in consideration of a money payment, the cession of Bremen and Verden to the former was fully recognised. Nor was this all. Alberoni, with characteristic daring, endea- voured, even after the death of Charles, to strike down the hostile Governments both in France and England. The strong party in France which was opposed to the English alliance had formed the bold design of seizing the person of the Kegent, carrying him prisoner into Spain, and conferring the regency upon Philip, who was content that the power should be actually exercised by the Duke of JMaine. The Duke, or rather the Duchess, was at the head of the conspiracy, which comprised several men of great importance and influence. The most conspicuous were the Cardinal de Polignac, the well-known author of the ' Anti-Lucrece,' who had received a Cardinal's hat through the influence of the Pretender, and had represented France in the conferences of Gertruydenberg and of Utrecht ; the young Duke of Eichelieu, famous alike for his courage and his intrigues, who promised to place Bayonne, where he was garrisoned, in the hands of the Spaniards, and to head a rising in the South ; the Comte de Laval, a man of great energy and influence, who was devotedly attached to the Duchess of Maine ; and the Marquis of Pompadour, who was a passionate wor- shipper of the memory and the policy of the late King. All the more ardent followers of Lewis XIV. had seen with great indignation the accession of France to the Quadruple Alliance negotiated by England against Spain. The complete reversal of French policy was, undoubtedly, distasteful to the whole nation, and the Eegent was personally unpopular, both with the nobles and with the people. His authority was of very doubt- ful legitimacy, for he had completely disregarded the restrictions on the regency imposed by the will of the late King, and had also deprived the Duke of Maine of the position of guardian to the young sovereign, which Lewis had assigned liim. He was accused, though, no doubt, untruly, of having poisoned the late Dauphin, and of meditating the death of the feeble boy who stv'^od between him and the throne ; and, with much more justice, of having in foreign affairs sacrificed to his own per- sonal interest the national and traditional policy of France. The CIT. IT, SPANISH' JACOBITE EXPEDITION. 243 ascendancy of Dubois, and the growing influence of Law, excited many jealousies. Brittany had been brought by fiscal oppres- sion to the verge of revolt, and, if the plot succeeded, there was no doubt that the Parliament of Paris would gladly pronounce the renunciation of Philip to be invalid, and declare him to be the next heir to the French throne. Alberoni threw himself ardently into the conspiracy, and the Spanish ambassador and a Spanish priest named Portocarrero, a relative of the famous cardinal, minister of Chailes II., took a leading part in organ- ising it. It was, however, soon discovered. Intercepted letters revealed its nature and extent. The Duke and Duchess of ]Maine and the other leading conspirators were imprisoned or exiled. A violent rupture had just at this time taken place between the Spanish minister and the French ambassador at I^Iadrid, and the latter had hastily left the capital, and with great difficulty reached the frontier. The Spanish ambassador at Paris was arrested, and papers of the most compromising description having been found in his possession, he was con- ducted speedily under escort to Blois. The revolt in Brittany, wliich suddenly broke out, was extinguished before the Spanish fleet sent to its assistance could be of any avail, and the Eegent and the King of England almost simultaneously declared war against Spain. Tlie Cardinal was equally unfortunate in his measures against England. The death of Charles XII. seemed to have blasted every hope of, at this time, overthrowing the Hano- verian dynasty ; but Alberoni still presented a bold front to his enemies, and his courage only rose the higher as the tempest darkened around his path. Despairing of assistance from the North, he resolved to place himself at the head of English Jacobitism, and to make one more effort to paralyse his most formidable opponent. He invited the Pretender to Madrid. With an energy really wonderful after the events in the jMedi- terranean, he collected a small fleet of men-of-war, with some twenty transports, at Cadiz, embarked about 5,000 men, and despatched them, with arms for 30,000 more, to raise the Jacobites in Scotland. Ormond was to join the expedition, as commander, at Corunna. But French spies discovered rne plan. The P'rench Government sent speedy infrirmation to li '2 244 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. that of England, and the ministers took precautions that showed their sense of the magnitude of the danger. Fearing the inadequacy of their own resources, they invited over Austrian and Dutch troops from the Netherlands for the protection of England. The fleet was hastily equipped, and a reward of 10,000^. was offered for the apprehension of Ormond. But the danger had already passed. A great storm in the Bay of Biscay scattered and ruined the Spanish fleet, and the captains deemed themselves only too happy if they could conduct their dismantled and disabled vessels back to some Spanish port. Two s'iiips, containing 300 Spanish soldiers and a few Scotch nobles, outrode the tempest, and reached Scotland in safety, where they were joined by about 2,000 Highlanders. For a time they evaded pursuit, and even notice, in the mountain fastnesses, but on June 10 they were attacked in the valley of Glenshiel and easily crushed. All hope was now over ; Spain had not an ally in the world ; h.er navy was annihilated ; three of the greatest European Powers were combined against her ; her best army was penned up in Sicily, and she could not enroll more than 15,000 men for her own defence when a French army of 40,000 men, under the command of Berwick, had penetrated into her territory. Ber- wick, by the great victoi-y of Almanza, had formerly contributed largely to place the sceptre in the hand of Philip. He was the illegitimate son of James II., and, therefore, the brother of the prince whom Philip was now endeavouring to place upon the throne of England, and one of his own sons had entered into the Spanish service, and had been rewarded by a Spanish dukedom. He was, however, beyond all things a soldier, and an almost stoical sentiment of military duty subdued every natural affection. He accepted without hesitation the command which had been refused by Villars, invaded Navari'e, subdued the whole province of Gruipuscoa, burnt the arsenal and the ships of war that were building at Passages, and afterwards attacked Catalonia. The arsenal of Santona was destroyed ; an Eng- lish squadron harassed the Spanish coast, and a detach- ment of English soldiers stormed and captured Vigo. The Austrian army drove the now isolated army in Sicily, after a brave, and in one instance successful, resistance, from all its CH. 11. EXILE OF ALBERONI. 245 posts. Nothing remained but submission, and there was one sacrifice which would make it comparatively easy. All classes now turned their resentment against Alberoni. The jealousy of the nobles, the anger of the provinces at his violent reforms and his neglect of provincial privileges, the arrogance whicli power and overstrained nerves had produced, the patriotic in- dignation springing from the disasters he had brought upon Spain, had made him bitterly unpopular, and numerous in- trigues were hastening his inevitable downfall. The influence of the Eegent and of Dubois, the influence of Peterborough, who was then in close communication with the Duke of Parma, the influence of the King's confessor, and the influence of the Queen's nurse, were all made use of, and they soon succeeded. On December 5, 1719, he received an order dismissing him from all his employments, and banishing him from the Spanish soil. Many of the Spanish nobles showed him in this hour of his disgrace a rare consideration, but the King and Queen re- fused even to see him, and a letter which he wrote remained wholly unnoticed. On his way to the frontier he was arrested, and some important papers which he had appropriated were taken back to Madrid. He was conducted through France, and sailed from thence to Italy, exclaiming bitterly against the ingra- titude of the sovereigns he had so long and so faithfully served. He intended to proceed to Eome, but Pope Clement XL, whom he had deeply offended, forbade him to enter it, and for some time he lived in complete concealment. A copy of the Imitation of Thomas a Kempis, which shows by its mar- ginal notes that it was at this time his constant companion, was long preserved in the Ducal Library of Parma. The hos- tility of the Spanish Court pursued him, and there were even some steps taken towards depriving him of his cardinal's hat. On the death, however, of Clement XL he was invited to assist at the conclave, and, after a sliort period of seclusion in a mo- nastery, he was admitted into warm favour by Innocent XIII. On the death of that Pope he received ten votes in the con- clave. He quarrelled with Benedict XIIL, and was obliged during his pontificate to leave Eome, but he returned to high favour under Clement XII. ; was appointed legate at Eavenna, where he distinguished himself by his great works of drainage, 246 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENin CENTURY. CH. n. find also by a furious quarrel with the little State of San Marino, and was afterwards removed to the legation of Bologna. He at last retired from affiiirs, and died in 1752 at the great age of eighty-eight, bequeathing the bulk of his fortune to the founda- tion of a large institution near Placentia for the education of his needy fellow citizens.' So ended a career Avhich was certainly one of the most re- markable of the eighteenth century. Had there been more of moral principle and less of the recklessness of a gambler in the nature of Alberoni, he would have deserved to rank among the greatest of statesmen. He was, however, singularly unfortunate in the latter part of his public life, and his fall was, with good reason, a matter of rejoicing throughout Europe. Perhaps no part of his history is more curiously significant than its close. We can hardly have a more striking illustration of the decline of the theological spirit in Europe than the fact that the Pope was unable to restrain a Christian nation from attacking the Emperor when engaged in the defence of Christendom against the Turks ; that the nation which perpetrated this, which a few generations before would have been deemed the most inexpiable of all crimes, was Spain, imder the guidance of a cardinal of the Church, and that this cardinal lived to be the favourite and the legate of the Pope. With the dismissal of Alberoni the troubles of Europe gra- dually subsided. Philip, after a short negotiation, acceded to the Quadruple Alliance, and Sicily and Sardinia were speedily evacuated. Many difficulties of detail, however, and many hesitations remained, and the negotiations still dragged slowly on for some years. A congress was held at Cambray in 1724, and several new treaties of alliance were made confirmino: or elucidating the Quadruple Alliance. The singular good fortune of the Whig ministry during the struggle I have describea 1 See the Hist, du Cardinal Albe- roni (1719) by J. Kousset ; the notices of Alberoni in the Memuirs of St. Simon and Duclos, and in the Letters of the President de Brasses ; his own apohjgies printed in the Nouvelle UioijrajjliieGenurale (art. ' Alberoni') ; the Stanhope correspondence, in the appendix to the second volume of Lord Stanhope's Historij of Enfjland \ Voltaire's Hist, de Charles AT/., and especially the admirable history of Alberoni in Coxe's Memoirs of the Spanish Kings of the House of Bour- bon, vol. ii. In private life Alberoni seems to have been irreproacbable, and many of the charges St. Simon and others have brought against him have been successfully refuted. .CH. II. PROPOSED CESSION OF GIBRALTAR. 247 is very evident. The Hanoverian policy of the King on the question of Bremen and Verden had exposed England to a danger of the most serious kind ; and, but for the premature death of Charles XII., and the steady, unwavering loyalty of the French Eegent to an alliance which was entirely opposed to the traditions of French policy, it might easily have proved fatal to the dynasty. The general result of the foreign policy of Eng- land was undoubtedly very favourable to the Whig cause. The Whig party completed the work which the Peace of Utrecht had left unfulfilled ; the commanding position which England occu- pied in the course of the struggles that have been related, and the very large amount of success she achieved, added to the reputation of the country ; the pacitication of Europe, and especially the alliance with France, withdrew from the Jacobites all immediate prospect of foreign assistance, and w'ithout such assistance it was not likely that Jacobite insurgents could suc- cessfully encounter disciplined armies. Several clouds, it is true, still hung upon the horizon. In the North the storm of war raged for some time after it was ajDpeased in the South. An alliance had been made between Sweden and England. By the mediation of the latter, Sweden made in turn treaties of peace with Hanover, Prussia, Denmark, and Poland ; but the war with the Czar continued, and the coast, in spite of the presence of a British fleet, was fearfully devastated. Peace was at last made in this quarter at Nystadt in September 1721, on terms extremely favourable to Kussia and extremely disastrous to Sweden. A bitter jealousy had arisen between the Empire and the mari- time Powers on account of the Ostend Company, established by the former, to trade with the East Indies. The question of the cession of Gribraltar to Spain, which had been imprudently raised during the late war, continued in a very unsatisfactory state. The obscure and secret negotiation which had at that time been carried on, partly through the intervention of the French Regent, led, as might have been expected, to grave mis- understanding. The English Government maintained that the offer had been made only in order to avert war with Spain, and that the hostilities which followed annulled it. The Spanisli Government treated the offer as unconditional, and declared that as soon as peace was restored England was bound to cyde 248 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. the fortress. The French Regent, through whose hands some of the negotiations passed, on the whole, supported the Spanish demand. Much negotiation on the subject took place. Propo- sitions were made for an exchange of Gibraltar for Florida, but they found no favour with the Spanish Court. Stanhope, though apparently willing to cede Gribraltar, soon perceived that the English Parliament would never consent, and there was much agitation in the country at the suspicions that such a project had been entertained. But George I., who appears to have been perfectly indifferent to Gibraltar, wrote a letter to the King of Spain in June 1721, which afterwards gave rise to very grave complications. Having spoken of the prospect of a cordial union between the two nations, he added, ' I do no longer balance to assure your Majesty of my readiness to satisfy you with regard to your demand touching the restitution of Gibraltar, pro- mising you to make use of the first favourable opportunity to regulate this article with the assent of my Parliament.' This letter, which was for some years kept secret, was very naturally regarded as a full admission of the claims of the Spanish King, and, as we shall see, it hereafter led to serious dangers.' The temporary abdication of Philip in favour of his son in 1724 gave rise to some new and dangerous complications ; and in the same year Ripperda greatly modified the foreign policy of Spain, and brought matters to the verge of a general war. Still for some years the world enjoyed a real though a precarious peace, and the firm alliance between England and France, which gave security to Western Europe, enabled the Whig party in Eng- land to consolidate its power, and the Hanoverian dynasty to strike its roots somewhat deeper in the English soil. The violent hostility of the Church party to the Government was at the same time slowly subsiding, and the influence of the Church itself was diminished. The persistent Catholicism of the Pretender, the Latitudinarian or Low Church appointments of the Government, and the great increase of religious scepticism modified the state of Church feeling. The causes of the religious ' See on this negotiation Coxe's negatived in the Commons (Jan. 23), Life of WaljJoh; i. 304-309 ; Ralpli's but in March, 1729, when George II. T/ife, Pari. Hist. vol. viii. The guilt done merely in order to form a pre- of Atterbury which was doubted by cedent, as Plunket had no property. some has been fully proved by the See the protests of the Lords, in publicaticn of the Stuart papers. 204 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. Tlicre can be no doubt that the sacramental test, besides its political results, had a very serious influence in lowering the religious sentiment of England. In most great Churches, and especially in Churclies which are established by law, and in which liturgical forms are employed, the language of public worship is of a kind which can at most be appropriate to a very small fraction of those who use it. The customs of society draw witliin the Church men of all grades of piety «nd of faith. The selfish, the frivolous, the sceptical, the worldly, the indifferent, or at least men whose convictions are "l)ut half formed, whose zeal is very languid, and whose religious thoughts are very few, form the bulk of every congregation, and they are taught to employ language expressing the very ecstasy of devotion. The words that pass mechanically from their lips convey in turn the fervour of a martyr, the self-abase- ment or the rapture of a saint, a passionate confidence in the reality of tmseen things, a passionate longing to pass beyond the veil. The effect of this contrast between the habitual lan- guage of devotion and the habitual dispositions of the devotees, between the energy of religious expression and the languor of religious conviction, is in some respects extremely deleterious. The sense of truth is dulled. Men come to regard it as a natural and scarcely censurable thing to attune their language on the highest of all subjects to a key wholly different from their genuine feelings and beliefs, and that which ought to be the truest of human occupations becomes in fact the most unreal and the most conventional. In this manner a moral atmosphere is formed which is pecu- liarly fatal to sincerity and veracity of character, and wliich is in time so widely diffused that those who live in it are hardly conscious of its existence. "But its influence on the religious sentiment would have been much more fatal had there not been an inner circle of devotion, a sanctuary of faith, which is com- paratively intact. The reception of the Sacrament has, fortu- nately, never been, to any great extent, one of the requirements of the social code, and a rite which of all Christian institutions is the most admirable in its touching solemnity, has for the most part been left to sincere and earnest believers. Something of the fervour, something of the deep sincerity of the early CH. II. THE SACRAMENTAL TEST. 255 Christians may even now be seen around the sacred table, and prayers instinct with the deejDest and most solemn emotion may be employed without appearing almost blasphemous by their contrast with the tone and the demeanour of the worshippers. This is not the place to relate how what was originally the simplest and most beautiful of commemorative rites was trans- formed, in the interest of sacerdotal pretensions, into the most grotesque and monstrous of superstitions, or how an institution intended to be the special symbol of Christian unity and affection was dragged into the arena of politics and controversy, was made the badge of parties, the occasion or the pretest of countless judicial murders. It is sufficient here to notice that the chief barrier against religious formalism in England was removed when the most sacred rite of the Christian religion was degraded into 'an office key, the picklock to a place,'' when the libertine, the placehunter, and the worlding were invited to partake in it for purposes wholly unconnected with religion. That this profanation should have been for a long jjeriod ardently defended by the clergy, and especially by that section of them whose principles led them to take the most exalted view of the nature of the Sacrament, is one of the most singular illustrations on record of the extent to which, in eccle- siastical bodies, the corporate interest of the Church may some- times, even with good men, override the interests of religion. One of the most ardent advocates of the test was Swift, and in his ' Journal to Stella ' he has given a vivid sketch of its prac- tical working. 'I was early,' he writes, 'with the Secretary [Bolingbroke], but he was gone to his devotions and to receive the Sacrament. Several rakes did the same. It was not for piety but employment, according to Act of Parliament.'^ It even became the general custom in the Church for the minister, before celebrating the Communion, to desire the legal communi- cants, if there were any, to separate and divide themselves from those who were come there purely for the sake of devotion.^ ' ' Hast thou by statute shoved from its design The Saviour's feast, his own blest bread and wine, And made the symbols of atoning grace An office key, a picklock to a place, That infidels may make their title good By an oath dipped in sacramental blood ?' — Cowper. '^ Journal to Stella. ^ Hist, of Parliament front the 256 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. n. In this respect the history of the sacramental test has a very melancholy interest. Nor is it less remarkable when we con- sider its origin. The Corporation Act, indeed, was directed against Protestant Dissenters, but the Test Act, as is well known, was aimed exclusively against Catholics. It was enacted in 1673, at a time when the dread of Popery had almost reached its height. The King was gravely suspected. The heir to the throne had recently proclaimed himself a Catholic. Tlie Govern- ment had combined with Lewis XIV. in war with Holland, the chief Protestant Power of the Continent. Charles II., by a bold and unconstitutional exercise of authority, had issued a declara- tion of indulgence suspending all penal laws against Noncon- formists and against recusants, and it was clearly understood that the declaration was intended not only to enlarge the sphere of the royal prerogative, but also, and even more signally, to pro- tect the Catholics. This disposition of the sovereign and of the heir to the throne, combined with the aggressive attitude of Catholicism on the Continent, and with several attempts that had been made to tamper with or overawe the constitutional guardians at home, had excited the keenest alarm, and the Test Act was introduced in order to maintain the exclusion of Catho- lics from office by imposing a test which they would never take. That this was the object appears not only from the debate, but also from the very title of the Bill, which was described as ' an Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Kecusants.' The Dissenters who sat in Parliament exhibited on this occasion a rare and magnanimous disinterestedness. It was observed that the Act would operate against them as well as against the Catholics ; but Alderman Love, who was one of their leading representatives, begged the House not to hesitate, through any considerations of this kind, to pass a measure which he believed to be essential to the maintenance of English liberty ; and, trusting that special legislation would speedily relieve them from their disabilities, all the Dissenters in the House of Com- mons voted for the Bill.' The patriotism of the course which they Death of Queen Anne to the Death of and many more, I fear, than the Dis- George II., p. 257. It is not surprising senters. It is become a great scandal ' that the Speaker Onslow should have (Note to Burnet, ii. 364). written : ' The sacramental 1 est is made ' Burnet's Own lime, 1. 317-348. a sad and profane use of by others en. II. THE TEST ACT. 257 pursued was then fully recognised, and some attempts were made at the time to relieve them from a part of the burdens to ^Yhich they were liable, but they were frustrated by the lateness of the session and by certain difficulties which had arisen in the House of Lords. Such were the circumstances under which the Test Act was carried. That such a law, carried in such a manner, should have continued when the Eevolution was firmly established, that it should have survived a period of forty-five years of unbroken Whig- ascendancy, that it should have outlived the elder and have been defended by the younger Pitt, and that it should have been reserved for Lord John Kussell to procure its repeal, is surely one of the most striking instances of national ingratitude in history. William, in whose reign, as Swift bitterly complained, the maxim had come into fashion ' that no man ought to be denied the liberty of serving his country upon account of a different belief in matters of speculative opinion,' had done everything in his power to procure the abolition of the test, but great majorities in Parliament defeated his intention. Stanhope had entertained the same desire, and such a measiu-e actually formed part of a Bill which was carried through its second reading in 1718, but the opposition was so strong that the clauses referring to the Test and Corporation Acts were struck out in Committee ; and the premature death of Stanhope prevented their speedy revival. The Dissenters were now organising rapidly with a view to obtaining relief; and Hoadly, Kennett, and several others of the more liberal Anglicans, seconded them ; but Walpole, though he was personally favourable to the measure, and though the Dissenters had steadily supported him, shrank to the last from provoking a new ebullition of Church fanaticism. They at last lost patience, and had a measure for the repeal brought forward in 1736 ; but Walpole, in a very moderate and conciliatory speech, while expressing mu.ch sympathy for the Dissenters, pronounced the motion ill-timed, and, through the opposition of the Wliig Government, it was thrown out by 251 to 123. The measure was again brought forward in 1739, at a time which seemed peculiarly favom-able, for the Tory party had lately seceded from Parliament, leaving the conduct of affairs wholly in the hands of the Whigs. But the Government was still inflexible, and the VOL. 1. S 258 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. n. measure was defeated in an exclusively Whig House by 188 to 89. It was, probably, about this time that a deputation of Nonconformists, headed by Dr. Chandler, had an interview with Walpole, and remonstrated with him on the course he was pur- suing in spite of his repeated assurances of good-will and his repeated intimations that he would some day assist in procuring the repeal. The minister, as usual, answered the deputation that, whatever were his private inclinations, the time had not arrived. 'You have so often returned this answer,' said Dr. Chandler, ' that I trust you will give me leave to ask when the time will come?' 'If you require a specific answer,' replied Walpole, with a somewhat imprudent candour, ' I will give it you in a word — never.' ^ But although the dread of an ebullition of Chmch feeling like that which destroyed the gTeat ministry of Godolphin induced the Whigs to maintain the Test Act, yet something was done to remove the reproach of intolerance from the English name. The Schism Act, wliicli restricted the educa- tion of the Dissenters, and the Occasional Conformity Act, which was intended to restrict their political power, were both repealed in 1718 ; but, in order to prevent a repetition of the gcandal which had been given by Sir Humphrey Edwin in the reign of William, a clause was at the same time enacted pro- viding that no mayor or bailiff" or other magistrate should attend a meeting-house with the ensigns of office, under pain of being disqualified from holding any public office.^ In the debates on this occasion Hoadly and Kennett were conspicuous in their advocacy of the Dissenters, but the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were both opposed to the repeal of the Acts of Anne. The Government silently favoured the Nonconformist interests Ijy its steady promotion, both in Church and State, of Latitu- dinarians and \\niigs. It secured the Protestant Dissenters in Ireland a Toleration Act considerably more liberal than that of England. It endeavoin-ed, though without success, to free the Irish Dissenters from the Test Act, and it gradually relaxed the administration of the English Act to such a degree that it became almost nugatory. The original Act of Charles II. en- » Coxe's Waljmln, i. 003. See, too, Doddridge's Diary, iii. 3G5-6. * 5 George I. c. 4. en. II. ACTS OF INDEMNITY. 259 joined that every official should receive the Anglican Sacrament within three months after his admission into office, but the time of grace was extended under Greorge I. to six months. Soon after, the policy was adopted of passing annual bills of indemnity in favour of those who had accepted office but had not taken the sacrament within the required time. There is something in this device which is curiously characteristic of the course of English legislation, and especially of the policy of Wal- pole. The broad rule, that no one should hold office under the Crown without taking the Anglican Sacrament within six mouths of his accession, remained. The stigma upon the Dissenters was unremoved. The Indemnity Acts, on tlie face of them, had no reference to conscientious scruples, for they purported only to relieve those who, ' through ignorance of the law, absence, or unavoidable accident,' had omitted to qualify, and it was only by a very liberal interpretation that the relief was extended to those who abstained from conscientious motives. The Acts applied only to those who were actually in office or in corpora- tions, and in elections to corporate offices where previous confor- mity was required it was still open to any individual to object to a Dissenting candidate, and such an objection rendered invalid all votes that were given to him.' A few scrupulous Nonconformists considered it wrong to avail themselves of the permission of the Legislature to break the law, or to be guilty of what Lord North pronounced to be ' a mental fraud ' by sheltering their conscientious scruples under a law which pro- fessed only to give relief to the careless, the ignorant, or the absent. Many instances were cited in which Dissenting can- didates were excluded from coiporations, because previous to the election notice had been given that they had not fulfilled the reqiiirement of the law by receiving the sacrament in an Angli- can Church within the preceding year, and those who obtained office enjoyed only a precarious liberty, depending upon the annual vote of Parliament.^ But when all these qualifications hsve been made, the fact remains that through tlie operation ' See Pari. J/ist. (New Series) of the Test Act is in a collcclion xviii. (i89, 72(). called T/tc Teat Act Ihyorter (;ird. cd. - The fullest information I have 162'J). met with about the practical operation 260 ENCtLAXD in the eighteenth CENTUEY, en. II. of the Indemnity Acts a great number of the Dissenters were admitted to offices and corporations, and were admitted without exciting any ferment in the community. The first Indemnity Act was passed in 1727, and, with a few exceptions, a simihir Act was passed every year till the Test Act was repealed in 1828. Another })ranch of the religious policy of the Whigs was intended to meet the scruples of the Quakers. When the tem- porary Act making their solemn affirmation equivalent, in all civil cases, to an oath, was made perpetual in 1715, an amend- ment was introduced Ly the Lords, and accepted by the Commons, extending the Act to Scotland and, for a limited period, to the colonies.' An opinion, however, soon grew up among the Quakers that to affirm ' in the presence of Almighty Gfod ' was not less sinful than to swear, and a Bill was accord- ingly introduced by the Gfovernment in 1721, providing a new form of affirmation, from which the obnoxious words were omitted.^ A portion of the London clergy petitioned against the Bill, and the two Archbishops opposed it, but it was carried by a large majority. Another measure was less successful. The Acts providing a cheap method of levying tithes were not com- pulsory, and it was still in the power of the clergy to carry their tithe cases before the Exchequer or Ecclesiastical Courts, and thus to inflict on the Quakers heavy costs and imprisonment. That this course was actually adopted to a very considerable extent appears from the petitions of the Quakers, who stated that not less than 1,180 of their number had, since the passing of the Eelief Acts, been prosecuted for tithes in tlie Exchequer, Ecclesiastical, or other Courts in England and Wales ; that 302 of them had been committed to prison, and that nine had died prisoners. They added that ' these prosecutions, though fre quently commenced for trivial sums, from 4s. to 5s., and the greater part of them for sums not exceeding 40s., have been attended with such heavy costs and rigorous exactions that above 800/. have been taken from ten persons when the original demands upon all of them collectively did not amount to 15/.'^ Walpole, who, in his elections, had been brought in much con- ' I Georofe I. ii. 0. Cough's Hist. ' Boarue and Bennett's JTist. of of the Qt!(ilicrs,\Y. 1(51. iJi.tseufcr/t, ii. 128. Gougli's Hist, of 2 8 George I. c. 0. Quakers, iv. 27a-3C'2. CH. 11. ACTS OF NATUEALISATIOX. 2fil tact with Quakers, warmly supported their demand that the simplest method of levying- tithes should be the only method, and a Bill embodying this principle passed easily tlu-ough the House of Commons. A great agitation, however, then arose among the clergy. They contended that the security of tithes would be diminished, and that it was necessary to deter those who refused to pay them, by the infliction of heavy fines, and it was suggested with whimsical ingenuity that there might be persons who, believing tithes to be of divine origin, would think it wrong to enforce their claims before any but an Ecclesiastical Court, and would in consequence be persecuted if they were obliged to resort to the magistrates.^ The Bishop of London led the opposition ; fourteen other bishops voted against the Bill, and the Chancellor having taken the same side, the measure, to the great indignation of Walpole, was rejected in the Lords. The next class of questions bearing in some degree upon religious liberty were those relating to the naturalisation of foreign Protestants and of Jews. The proposal to naturalise foreign Protestants v;pon their taking tlie oaths and receiving the Sacrament in any Protestant church, which had been car- ried in 1709 and repealed in 1712, was brought forward by Mr. Nugent in 1745, and again in 1751. An alarm which had at this time been spread about an alleged decrease of popu- lation through excessive drinking greatly favoured it,^ and on the latter occasion it was warmly supported by Pelham, who was then at the head of the Government, and it was carried suc- cessfully through its earlier stages. It soon, however, appeared that a powerful combination of influences was opposed to it. The City of London, fearing a dangerous rivalry in trade, led the opposition, and although petitions from Liverpool and Bristol, and from some London merchants, were presented in its favour, the balance of mercantile opinion seems to have been against it. Tlie Church dreaded an accession to the forces of Dissent, and the strong popular antipathy to foreigners was speedily aroused. The death of the Prince of Wales led to a slight postponement of the Bill, and the petitions against it were so » Pari. Ilht. ix. 1165-1219. « See Walpole's Gcor/je II. i. 11-15. 262 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. ii. numerous and so urgent that the minister thought it advisable silently to drop it. A more remarkable history is the attempt of the Pelhams in 1753 to legalise the naturalisation of Jews. The Jews, as is well known, had been completely banished from England by a Statute of Edward I., and they did not attempt to return till the Commonwealth, and were not formally authorised to establish themselves in England till after the Eestoration.' The first synagogue in London was erected in 1662. It is pos- sible that occasional physicians or merchants may have secretly come over before,^ but they must have been very few, and it is more than probable that Shakespeare, when he drew his immortal picture of Shylock, had himself never seen a Jew. The hatred, indeed, of that unhappy race in England was peculiarly tenacious and intense. The old calumny that the Jews were accustomed on Grood Friday to crucify a Christian boy, which was sedulously circulated on the Continent, and which even now forms the subject of one of the great frescoes around tlie Cathedral of Toledo, was firmly believed, and the legend of the crucifixion of young Hew of Lincoln sank deeply into the popular imagination. The story was told by Matthew Paris ; it was embodied in an early ballad ; it was revived, many years after the expulsion of the Jews, by Chaucer, who made the Jewish murder of a Christian child the subject of one of his most graphic tales f and in the same spirit Marlowe, towards the close of the sixteenth century, painted his ' Jew of Malta ' in the darkest colours. There does not appear, however, to have been any legal obstacle to the sovereign and Parliament naturalising a Jew till a law, enacted under James I., and directed against the Catholics, made the sacramental test an essential preli- minary to naturalisation. Two subsequent enactments exempted from this necessity all foreigners who were engaged in the hemp and flax manufacture, and all Jews and Protestant foreigners who had lived for seven continuous years in the American plan- • Blunt's Hist, of tlie Jeirs in and was executed for an atterapt Ewjlaiid, p. 72. to poison her. See Hume's Hist, of - Tlie Jews were specially famous Englund, cb.xliii. 8ee, too, Picciotto's for their knowledge of medicine, and Anyln-Jemsh Hist. p. 24. a Jewish doctor named Lopez, was one ^ The Priui-tss's Tale. of the physicians of Queen Elizabeth, CH. II. THE JEW BILL. 2G3 tations.* In the reign of James II. the Jews were relieved from the payment of the alien duty, but it is a significant fact that it was reimposed after the Eevolution at the petition of the London merchants.'^ In the reign of Anne some of them are said to have privately negotiated with Godolphin for permis- sion to purchase the town of Brentford, and to settle there with full privileges of trade ; but the minister, fearing to arouse the spirit of religious intolerance and of commercial jealousy, refused the application.^ The great development of industrial enterprise which followed the long and prosperous administration of Wal- pole naturally attracted Jews, who were then as now pre-eminent in commercial matters, and many of them appear at this time to have settled in England ; among others a young Venetian Jew, whose son obtained an honourable place in English litera- ture, and whose grandson has been twice Prime Minister of England. The object of the Pelhams was not to naturalise all resident Jews, but simply to enable Parliament to pass special Bills to naturalise those who applied to it, although they had not lived in the colonies or been engaged in the hemp or Has manufacture. As the principle of naturalisation had been fully conceded by these two Acts, which had been passed without any difficulty, and had continued in operation without exciting any murmur, as the Bill could only apply to a few rich men who were pre- pared to undertake the expensive process of a parliamentary application, as Jews might be naturalised in any other country in Europe except Spain and Portugal,'* and as they were among the most harmless, industrious, and useful members of the com- munity, it might have been imagined that a Bill of this nature could scarcely offend the most sensitive ecclesiastical conscience. When it was brought forward, however, a general election was not far distant, the opponents of the ministry raised the cry that the Bill was an unchristian one, and England was thrown ' Pari. Hist. xiv. 1373-1374. the Republic of Genoa, and a score 2 Blunt 's Hist, of the Jews in of the German States also refused to Eii(jUind,\i. 1'2. receive Jews. An An-m-cr to a Pam- ' Spence's Anecdotes. jildrt entitled ' Considerations for * This at least was stated in the I'ernnHin;/ Persons Pro/es.sini/ tlie debate. I'arl. Jlist. xiv. 1400. One Jewish Meligion to he Naturalised,' of the pamphleteers a<,'ainst the p. 40. measure stated that Sweden, llussia, 26-4 ENGL.1ND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. into pavossyms of excitement scarcely less intense than those which followed the impeachment of Sacheverell. There is no page in the history of the eighteenth century that shows more decisively how low was the intellectual and political condition of English public opinion. According to its opponents, the Jewish Naturalisation Bill sold the birthright of Englishmen for nothing : it was a distinct abandonment of Christianity, it would draw down upon England all the curses which Providence had attached to the Jews. The commercial classes complained that it would fill England with usurers. The landed classes feared that ultimately the greater part of the land of England would pass into the hands of the Jews, who would avail them- selves of their power to destroy the Church. One member of Parliament urged that to give the Jews a resting-place in Eng- land would invalidate prophecy and destroy one of the principal reasons for believing in the Christian religion. Another reminded the ministers that after 430 years the Jews in Egypt had mus- tered 600,000 armed men, and that, according to the 'Book of Esther,' they had once, when they got the upper hand in the land where they were living, ' put to death in two days 76,000 of those whom they were pleased to call their enemies, without either judge or jury.' The time might come, it was suggested, when, through another Esther, they might govern the destinies of England, or when they might even take their seats as Members of Parliament. It was stated that when Cromwell first extended his protection to the race some Asiatic Jews iraagined him to be the promised Messiah, and even sent over deputies to make private inquiries in Huntingdonshire, in order, if possible, to establish his Jewish extraction, and it was argued that through a similar persuasion the Jews would probably support anotlier Cromwell in his attacks upon the Constitution. The Mayor and Corporation of London petitioned against the Bill. The clergy all over England denounced it. The old story of the crucifixion of Christian children by Jews was revived, and Ihe bishops who had voted for the Bill were libelled, and insulted in the streets. Tlie measure had first been introduced into the House of Lords, and was carried through without diffi- culty, and with the acquiescence of most of the bishops. It passed, after a fierce opposition, through the Commons, and CH. Ti. OTHER SIGNS OF INTOLERANCE. 265 received the royal assent; but as the tide of popular indignation rose higher and higher, the ministers in the next year brought forward and carried its repeal. Had they not done so, it is probable that the election, which was then imminent, would have proved disastrous to their power, and they argued plau- sibly, and perhaps justly, that in the excited state of popular feeling the Jews could not, if the Act continued in force, live safely in England. An attempt was made by the Church party to carry their victory further and repeal the Act which natural- ised Dissenters from the Anglican creed who had resided for seven years in the Phmtations, in so far as it related to the Jews, but the Grovernment resisted, and succeeded in defeating the attempt.^ The agitation which was excited by this very moderate measure of the Pelham Ministry goes far to justify the Whig party for not having done more in the cause of religious liberty during the long period of their ascendancy. The feelings of the country would not allow it, and in spite of the incontestable decline of the theological spirit, there was still no other question on which public opinion was so sensitive. Nor was this intole- rance confined to England, or to the Church of England, or to the High Church section of the clergy. In Scotland the hatred of religious liberty ran still higher. The Scotcli preachers denounced it with untiring vehemence, and the General Assem- bly, in 1702, presented a solemn address to the Lord High Com- missioner urging that no motion 'of any legal toleration of those of the prelatical principle might be entertained by the Parlia- ment,' and declaring that such a toleration would be 'to establish iniquity by law.'^ In 1697 a deputation of English Dissenting ministers waited upon the King to m-ge him to interdict the printing of any work advocating Socinian opinions.^^ In 1702 a Dissenter named Emlyn, being accused by some Irish Non- conformists, but with the encouragement of the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, was sentenced to pay a fine of l,000t. and to He in gaol till it was paid, because he had wiitten against the ' See the very cm-ious discussions ^ Lathhury's Sist. ofthcNonjurors^, on this Bill, Pari. Hist. x\\\ Vii'A^- pp. 44U451. 1430; XV. 92-163; Coxa's Life of ^ Skeat's Hist, of Free Churches, Fdhaniy ii. 245-253, 290-298. p. 184. 266 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. Trinity.' Among- the clergy of the Church of England one of the most active in fanning the absurd agitation on the Jewish question was Eomaine, who was one of the earliest and most prominent leaders of the Evangelical party.^ One very important step, however, was taken without pro- voking any agitation or opposition. The belief in witchcraft, which has furnished one of the most singular and tragical pages in the history of superstition, had almost disappeared in Eng- land among the educated classes at the time of the Eevolution, though it was still active in Scotland and the colonies. The law, however, condemning witches to death still remained on the Statute Book, and it was not altogether a dead letter. Three witches had been hung at Exeter in 1682,^ and even after the Eevolution there had been occasional trials. Addison- — whose judgment was afterwards echoed by Blackstone — speaks on the subject with a curious hesitation. ' I believe in general,' he says, ' that there is and lias been such a thing as witchcraft, but at the same time can give no credit to any particular in- stance of it.' ■* The great clerical agitation which followed the Sacheverell impeachment is said to have produced a temporary recrudescence of the superstition,* and it was observed about this time that there was scarcely a village in England which did not contain a reputed witch.^ At the same time those who were in authority steadily discoiu-aged the superstition. A woman named Jane Wenham having been found guilty of the offence in 1712 received a free pardon at the instance of the judge, in spite of the urgent protest of some of the clergy of the county," ' As Hoadly very sarcastically at the same place in 1722. — Parr's said, 'The Nonconformists accused TrwA'S, iv. 182 (1828). liim, the Conformists condemned him, ■• Spectator, No. 117. See, too, the the secular power was called in, and remarks of Blackstone. — Comment- the cause ended in an imprisonment arics, book iv. c. 4. and a very great fine, two methods of ^ 'Since the reign of Dr.Sacheverell, conviction about which the Gospel is when the clamours against freethink- silent.' — tieellnnt's h'elir/iutis Tkour/fit ing began to be loudest, the devil in England, ii. p. 32G. lias again resumed his empire and ^ Kyle's Christiuit. Leaders of the appears in the shape of cats, and Last Century. Cadogan's Life of enters into confederacy with old Itomaine. women ; and several have been ^ Hutchinson's Histoi-ical Essay on tryed, and many are accused through Witchcraft, p. 68. Hutchinson says all parts of the kingdom for being that these were the last judicially witches.' — Collins' Discourse on Eree- executed in England, but Dr. Parr thinking, p. ;^0. speaks of two having sufEered at " Spectator, No. 117. Northampton in 170.3, and live others ' Hutchinson, 163-171. CH. II THE CHANGE OF STYLE. 267 and in the same year the death of a suspected witch who had been thrown into the water in order to ascertain whether she would sink or swim, and who had perished during the trial, was pro- nounced by Chief Justice Parker to be murder.' It is one of the great glories of the early Hanoverian period that it witnessed the abrogation of the sanguinary enactment by which so many innocent victims had perished. Chief Justice Holt did good service to humanity in exposing the imposture which lay at the root of some cases he was obliged to try,^ and in 1736 the law making witchcraft punishable by death was repealed. Tlie superstition long smouldered among the poorer classes ; there were several instances of the murder of suspected witches ; and Methodism did something to strengthen the belief, but as it had no longer the sanction of the law, and as diseased imagina- tions were no longer excited by the executions, it sank speedily into insignificance. It is a curious fact that the Irish law against witchcraft, though long wholly obsolete, remained on the Statute Book till 1821. Another measure of a very different kind, but also in some degree dependent upon the theological temperature, belonging to the period I am considering, was the reform of the calendar. ■The New Style, as is well known, had been first brought into use by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582, and had gradually been adopted by all the Continental nations, except Kussia and Sweden, but England, partly from natural conservatism, and partly from antipathy to the Pope, still resisted, and had at last got eleven days wrong. The change was carried on the motion of Lord Chesterfield, and with the assistance of the eminent mathematicians. Lord Macclesfield and Mr. Bradley, under the Pelham Ministry in 1751. The year was henceforth to begin on January 1 instead of on March 25 ; and in order to rectify the errors of the old calendar it was ordered that tlie day following September 2, 1752, should be denominated the 14th. The old Duke of Newcastle, whose timid and time-serving nature dreaded beyond all things an explosion of popular feeling, entreated Chesterfield not to ' stir matters ' Hutchinson, ITS-ITG. Hutchinson, bear or a bull.' who wrote in 1718, says : 'Ourcountry - Cainpbell's Chief Justices — Life people arc still as fond of this custom of Holt, of swimming as they are of baiting a 268 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. that had long- been quiet,' or to meddle with ' new-fanoled things,' and although the reform was ultimately carried with- out difficulty, these apprehensions were not wholly ground- less. A widespread irritation was for a time aroused. Much was said about the profanity of altering saint-days and im- movable feasts. At the next election one of the most popular cries against Lord Macclesfield's son was, ' Give us back our eleven days ! ' When, many years later, Mr. Bradley died of a lingering disease, his sufferings were supposed by the populace to be a judgment due to the part he had taken in the transac- tion ; and the feelings of many were probably expressed in a saying tliat was quoted during the debate on the naturalisation of the Jews, ' It is no wonder he should be for naturalising the devil who was one of those that banished old Christmas.' ^ Tliere were, however, still two classes of laws upon the Statute Book which were grossly persecuting, and which, during the early Hanoverian period, were entirely unmitigated. I mean, of course, those against the Catholics and the disbelievers in the Trinity. The measures against the former class may no doubt derive a very considerable palliation from the atrocious persecu- tions of which Catholicism had been guilty in ahnost every country in which she triumphed, from the incessant plots against the life and power of Elizabeth, and from the intimate con- nection, both before and after the Revolution, between the Catholicism of the Stuarts and their political conduct and pro- spects. Catholicism, indeed, never can be looked upon merely as a religion. It is a great and highly organised kingdom, recognising no geographical frontiers, governed by a foreign sovereign, pervading temporal politics with its manifold in- fluence, and attracting to itself much of the enthusiasm which would otherwise flow in national channels. The intimate corre- spondence between its priests in many lands, the disciplined unity of their political action, the almost absolute authority they exercise over large classes, and their usually almost com- plete detachment from purely national and patriotic interests, ' Pari. ITiftt. xv. 130. So, too, a Soe, on tliis subject, Lord Stanhope's ballad against the Jew Bill begins — JTiat. of England, iii. SiO ; Maty's In seventonn hun,1ref1 and fiftv-three ^^'f'' '^f Chcan-fidd, pji. :-520-32a ; The style it was dianyed to Popery. Coxe S Pelham, ii. 178-179; and - PuUUcal Ballads, ii. 311, Hogarth's picture of an Election. CH. II. CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. 2G9 have often in critical times proved a most serious political danger, and tbey have sometimes pursued a temporal policy eminently aggressive, sanguinary, unscrupulous, and ambitious. Nor should it he forgotten that, in the closing years of the seventeenth and in the first half of the eighteenth century, the spirit of Romish persecution, though gradually subsiding, was still fi.ir from extinct. Thus we find Stanhope writing from Majorca in 1691 : 'Tuesday last there were burnt here twenty- seven Jews and heretics, and to-morrow I shall see executed above twenty more, and Tuesday next, if I stay here so long, is to be another fiesta, for so they entitle a day dedicated to so execrable an act.'^ In 1706 Wilcox, who was afterwards Bishop of Rochester, but who was at this time minister of the English factory at Lisbon, wrote a letter to Burnet describing an auto- da-fe in that city, in which four persons were burnt in the presence of the King, and of these one woman remained alive for half an hour, and one man for more than an hour, in the flames, vainly imploring their executioners to heap fresh fagots on the fire in order to terminate their agony.^ Every considerable town in England, Holland, and Protestant Germany, contained a colony of Frenchmen, who, after the Revocation of the Edict of jSTantes, had been driven from their homes by a persecution of extreme ferocity ; a long coarse of the most atrocious cruelties had kindled the flame of rebellion in the Cevennes, and at the time of the Peace of Utrecht 188 French Protestants were released by English intercession from the galleys.^ In 1717, an assembly of seventy-four Protestants being surprised at An-dure, the men were sent to the galleys and the women to prison.^ In 1724, in the corrupt and generally sceptical period of the Regency, a new law was made against the Protestants of France which aggravated even the atrocious enactments of Lewis XIV. By one clause all who assembled for the exercise of the Protestant worship, even in their own homes, became liable to lifelong servitude in the galleys, and to the confiscation of all their goods. Another condemned to death any Protestant ^'LoidiSiaaho^e's Hist, of England, lars on persecutions in Portugal in i. 107. Geddes' tracts, i. S85-443. - See this letter in full in Chand- ^ Bolingbroke's Letters, iv. 121. ler's Ili^. of Persecution. (178(5), p. See, too, Burnet's Own Time, ii. 484. 287. Hec, too, some curious particu- •' Taine's Ancicn Iti'gimc, \y. 80. 270 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. minister exercising any religious function whatever, and to the g-alleys any witness wlio failed to denounce him. A third en- joined all physicians to inform the priest of the condition of every dying patient, in order that, whether he desired it or not, a Catholic priest should be present at his deathbed. A fourth, with a rare refinement of ingenious malice, rendered any Pro- testant who, by his religious exhortations, strengthened a dying relative in his faith, liable to the galleys and to the confiscation of his goods. ^ A Protestant pastor was hung at Montpellier in 1728 ; another would have suffered the same fate in 1732 had he not succeeded in escaping from his prison ;^ and 277 Pro- testants in Dauphiny were condemned to the galleys in 1745 and 1746.^ As late as the Peace of Paris, a Protestant minister at Nismes wrote to the Duke of Bedford imploring the interces- sion of the English Government in favour of thirty-three men, who were in the galleys of Toulon, and of sixteen women, who were imprisoned in Languedoc, for no other offence than that of having attended Protestant assemblies. Many of them, he added, had remained in captivity for more than thirty years.^ Similar complaints came from Hungary, where the inter- ference of the Emperor with the religious liberty of the Pro- testants contributed largely to the insurrection of Rakoczy ; from Silesia, where the same interference prepared the wav for the ultimate severance of the province from the Austrian rule ; from Poland, where the persecution fomented in 1724 by the Jesuits at Thorn aroused the indio-nation of all Protestant Europe, and where the complete exclusion of religious dissi- dents from political power in 1733 was sowing dissensions that were the sure precursors of the approaching ruin. In the course of 1732 and the two following years about 17,000 German Pro- testants were compelled by the persecution of the Arclibishop of Salzburg to abandon their homes, and to seek a refuge in Prussia or in Georgia. Ten persons were burnt for their religious opinions in Spain between 1746 and 1759. Two persons were executed, and many others condemned to less severe penalties, by the Inquisition in Portugal in 1756.^ ' Sismondi's IRnt. des Fraiiqah, s Xaine's Ancien Bvgime, p. SO. xis, 241-244. ^ Bedford Correspoii deuce, iii. 155. == Ibid. p. 302. 5 See Buckle's Ilistvrij, ii. 109, CH. 11. REASONS FOR TOLERANCE. 271 These tbings will not be forgotten by a candid jmlge in estimating the policy of the English Government towards Catholics. On the other hand, he will remember that the English Catholics were so few and so inconsiderable that it was absurd to regard them as a serious danger to the State ; that they had in general shown themselves under the most trying circumstances eminently moderate and loyal, and that although the Catholic priests, whenever they were in the ascendant, were then, as ever, a persecuting body, Catholicism, as a whole, had ceased, since the Peace of Westphalia, to divide the interests of Europe. In Switzerland, it is true, a war that was essentially religious broke out between the Protestant and Catholic cantons as late as 1712, but in general theology had very little in- fluence upon the politics of Christendom. They turned mainly on the rivalry between the Catholic Emperor and the Catholic King of France. The Popes, who, as spiritual heads of Christen- dom, had employed all their temporal and spiritual weapons against Elizabeth, had never acted in this manner against her successors. During the struggle of the Kevolution a great part of Catholic Europe was on the side of William, and, as we have seen, the Pope himself was in his favour. It may be added, too, that the persecution of religious opinion and the suppression of any form of religious worship must always appear peculiarly culpable in Protestants, whose whole theory of religion is based upon the assertion of the right of private judgment, and also that religious liberty, though still rare and struggling in Europe, was by no means unknown. In France, it is true, it had been de- stroyed by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but in Germany it existed to a considerable extent since the Peace of Westphalia, which placed the Catholic and Protestant States in a position of perfect equality, terminated the long contest for the possession of the ecclesiastical benefices, and in many cases restrained, though it by no means generally annulled, the power of the sovereign to coerce his dissident subjects.' In Prussia, which Carlyle's Fredorich the Great, bk. article in the treaty of Hanover be- jx. ch. 3, and the curious collection twcen En;j:land and Prussia in 172."). of lists of Portuguese autos-da-fe in ' The rai her complicated provisions tlie eighteenth century, in the British of the treaty on this suliject are ex- Museum. The disturbances at Tiiorn plained at length by Coxa's Ifousc of were made the subject of a special Austria, i. \)oo-\)57. 272 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY, en. n. was rapidly becoming the most important Protestant Power of Germany, the Elector, Frederick William, who died in 1688, even contributed money for the building of Catholic churches, and under his successor the Catholics had almost every privilege they could have possessed under a ruler of their own creed.' In Holland a system of absolute religious freedom was established, and its complete success was generally recognised. So perfectly were the different religions in that country blended into a com- mon nationality that there were said to have been no less than 4,000 Catholics in the army with which William came over to defend the Protestantism of England.^ Even in Ireland, though the Catholic majority were subject to gross oppression as a con- quered race, they were in practice allowed during the latter Stuart reigns full liberty of worship, and no religious disqualifi- cation excluded them from the municipalities, from the elective franchise, from the magistracy, or from the Parliament. In England public opinion made such a policy impossible. The laws of Elizabeth against the Catholics remained, though they were but partially enforced, and these laws, among many other provisions, compelled every Catholic to attend the Anglican service, suppressed absolutely, and under crushing penalties, the celebration of the mass, proscribed the whole Catholic priesthood, and made it higli treason for any English priest from beyond the sea to come to England, for any Catholic graduate to refuse for the third time the oath of supremacy, for any Protestant to become a Catholic, or for any Catholic to con- vert a Protestant. Had such laws been rigorously enforced they must have led to a general Catholic emigration or have dyed every scaffold with Popish blood ; and, as it was, many Catholics perished in England, to whom it is the merest sophistiy to deny the title of martyrs for their faith. The conspiracy of Guy Faux to blow up the Parliament, the fable of the Popish plot which led to the effusion of torrents of innocent blood, and, perhaps, still more, the baseless calumny which attributed the Fire of London to the Papists, sustained the anti-Catholic fanaticism. This last calamity had, in the words of Clarendon, > Ranke's Hist, of Prvma (Eng. p. 437. See, too, Burnet's Hid. of trans.), li. 57. his On-n Time, i. 801. Huyi;ens' * lieresby's Memoirs (ed. 1875), Journal (in Dutcli), i. 53, en. II. THE FIEE OF LONDON. 273 ' kindled another fire in the breasts of men almost as dangerous as that within their houses.' Panic-stricken by the rapid pro- gress of the flames, half-maddened by terror and by despair, tlie people at once attributed it to deliberate incendiarism. The Dutch and French were the first objects of their suspicion, but soon after, the Papists were included, and were dragged in mul- titudes to prison. A Portuguese who, according to the custom of his country, picked up a piece of bread that was lying on the ground, and laid it on the ledge projecting from the nearest house, was seized on the charge of throwing in fire-balls. Among the crowd of terrified prisoners was a poor Frenchman, whose brain appears to have been turned by the terror and excitement of the scene, and who confessed himself the author of the fire. He appears to have been simply a monomaniac, and the judges openly declared their utter disbelief in his dis- jointed and unsupported story ; but in the temper in which men then were he was condemned, and the King did not dare to arrest his execution. Nor was the panic suffered to pass away. Although a Parliamentary committee, after the strictest enqiiiry, could find nothing whatever implicating the Catholics (who, indeed, could have gained nothing by the crime), it was deter- mined, in the most solemn and authoritative manner, to brand them as its perpetrators. The Monument, erected in memorial of the catastrophe in one of the most crowded thoroughfares of London, bore two Latin inscriptions, commemorating the rebuild- ing of the city, and the mayors by whose care the Monument was erected. The third inscription was in English, that all might read it, and it was to the effect that ' This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of the most dreadful burning of this ancient city, begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord 1666, in order to the carrying on their horrid plot for extirpating the Protestant religion and old English liberty, and introducing Popery and slavery.' In the reign of James II. this scandalous inscription was taken away, Init it was restored at the Eevolution, and it was not finally removed till 183L Another and very similar inscription was placed in Pudding Lane, on the spot where the fire began, and remained TOL. I. T 274 ENGLAND IN THE EIGUTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. there till the middle of the last century, "when it was removed on account of the crowds who gathered to read it.' It would be difficult to conceive a more effectual device for arousing the passions of the people. In the struggle of the Revolution a direct question between Protestantism and Catho- licism was at issue, and it is not surprising that considerable attention should have been paid to the legislation on the subject. During the whole period of the Stuarts the sovereigns had been favom-able, and the Parliaments bitterly hostile, to the Catholics. The former were actuated partly by the belief that while Puri- tanism is naturally hostile to the royal prerogative, Catholicism is naturally congenial to it, and partly also by religious sympathy, liy Catholic relationships, and by Continental alliances. James I. for a time suspended the laws against recusants, and opened negotiations with the Pope ; and, but for the violent spirit then dominating in the Vatican, and the very natural indignation aroused by the Gunpowder Plot, his reign would probably have witnessed considerable mitigations of the penal code. Charles I., when Prince of Wales, had made a secret engagement with France, on the occasion of his French marriage, to obtain toleration for the Catholics, and the non-enforcement of the laws against them was almost the first question that brought him into collision with his Parliament. The attempt of Charles II. to exercise a dispensing power in fovour of the Catholics, for the first time aroused tlie Parliament of the Restoration into opposition ; while the ill-timed, ill-directed, and exag- gerated efforts of James to remove the disabilities of his co- religionists were the main cause of his downfall. From William, also the Catholics had something to hope. He came to England, it is true, as the special representative of Protestantism, but he came from a country where religious liberty was established, and he was himself entirely free from the stain of intolerance. In the negotiations that preceded his expedition he had given the Emperor a distinct assurance that he would do his utmost to procure for the English Catholics a repeal of the penal Jesne's London, ii. 227, 311. Clarendon. Pope's couplet on the SejTnour's Surrey of London, bk. ii. Monument is well known : ch. 10. Continuation of ihc Life of where London's column, pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts its head, and lies. CH, II. LAWS AGAINST PAPISTS. 275 laws ; ^ and the declaration which he issued upon his arrival in 'England promised freedom of conscience to all who would live peaceably. There can be no doubt that these sentiments expressed his real desire, and friend and foe have admitted that in the early part of his reign his influence was employed to prevent the enforcement of persecuting laws against Catholics.^ It was, however, probably not in his power to induce the Parliament to repeal the penal laws, or to prevent it from passing new- laws, and he at least never chose to risk the unpopularity of refusing ]iis assent to the persecuting laws which were enacted during his reio'n. These laws were maintained and were extended during the first two reigns of the Hanoverian period, and they form, perhaps, the darkest blot upon the history of the Eevolu- tion. Thus, to omit minor details, an Act was passed in 1699, by which any Catholic priest convicted of celebrating mass, or discharging any sacerdotal function, in England (except in the house of an ambassador) was made liable to perpetual imprison- ment ; and, in order that this law might not become a dead letter, a reward of lOOl. was offered for conviction. Perpetual imprisonment was likewise the punishment to which any Papist became liable who was found guilty of keeping a school, or otherwise undertaking the education of the young. No parent might send a child abroad to be educated in the Catholic faith, under penalty of a fine of lOOL, which was bestowed upon the informer. All persons who did not, within six months of attaining the age of eighteen, take the Oath, not only of Alle- giance, but also of Supremacy, and subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation, became incapable of either inheriting or purchasing land, and the property they would otherwise have inherited passed to the next Protestant heir. By a law which was enacted in the first year of Greorge I. all persons in any civil or military office, all members of colleges, teachers, preachers, and lawyers of every grade were compelled to take the Oath of Supremac}^, which was distinctly anti-Catholic, as well as the Oath of Allegiance and the declaration against the ' Hee^Sinke'slJist. of Enffland,iv. remarkahlo note of Lord Darfmoulli, 437. ii. '2-J'J. Butler's Ilishirical Mciiidi/'n Seethe remarks of Burnet in lii.s of the English Catholics, ii. i)p. 52-D;>. Ilist. of his 0>vn Time, ii. 12, and tl.e T 2 276 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. ii. Stuarts. By the same law any two justices of the peace might at any time tender to any Catholic the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy if they regarded him as disaffected. They might do this without any previous complaint or any evidence of his disaffection, and if he refused to take them he was liable to all the penalties of recusancy, which reduced him to a con- dition of absolute servitude. A Popish recusant was debarred from appearing at court, or even coming within ten miles of London, from holding any oflBce or employment, from keeping arms in his house, from travelling more than five miles from home, imless by license, under pain of forfeiting all his goods, and from bringing any action at law, or suit in equity. A married woman recusant forfeited two-thirds of her jointure or dower, was disabled from being executrix or administratrix to her husband, or obtaining any part of his goods, and was liable to imprisonment unless her husband redeemed her by a ruinous fine. All Popish recusants, within three months of conviction, might be called upon by four justices of the peace to renounce their errors or to abandon the kingdom ; and if they did not depart, or if they returned without the King's license, they were liable to the penalty of death. By this Act the position of the Catholics became one of perpetual insecurity. It fur- nished a ready handje to private malevolence, and often re- strained the Catholics from exercising even their legal rights. Catholics who succeeded in keeping their land were compelled to register their estates, and all future conveyances and wills relating to them. They were subjected by an annual law to a double land- tax, and in 1722 a special tax was levied upon their property.^ A legislation animated by the same spirit extended to other portions of the empire. In the English colonies in North America there existed, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, an amount of religious liberty considerably greater than had yet been established in Europe. The Virginian Epis- copalians, it is true, proscribed the Puritans and Catholics, and the New England Puritans proscribed and persecuted the Epis- copalians and the Quakers ; but the constitutions of the Quaker » Blackstone, bk. iv. ch. 4. Butler's and 12 Wm. III. c. 4 ; 1 Geo. I. Stat. Hist. Memoirs of the, Emjlish Catltolics, 2. c. 13; 1 Geo. I. Stat. 2. c. 55 ; 3 ch. xxxiv. The chief laws were, 11 Geo. I. c. 18. CK. II. MARYLAND. 277 States, and the constitution of Ehode Island, which was founded by Eoger Williams in 1626, laid down, in the most emphatic and unqualified terms, the doctrine of complete religious liberty. It is, however, a remarkable fact that Maryland, which was founded by the Catholic Lord Baltimore, as early as 1632, and which contained a large proportion of Catholics among its earliest colonists, preceded them in this path. It accorded perfect freedom to all Protestant sects, welcomed alike the persecuted Puritans of Virginia and the persecuted Episcopalians of Massachusetts, granted them every privilege which was possessed by the Catholics, and exhibited, for the first time since the Reformation, tlie spectacle of a Govern- ment acting with perfect toleration and a steady and unflinch- ing impartiality towards all sects of Trinitarian Christians. Something, no doubt, has been said with truth to qualify its merit. The measure was a defensive one. The toleration was only extended to the believers in the Trinity. The terms of the charter would have made the suppression of the Anglican worsliip illegal ; but still the fact remains, that, so far as Trini- tarian Christians were concerned, the legislators of Maryland, who were in a great measure Catholic, undertook to try the experiment, not only of complete religious toleration, but also of complete religious equality ; and that, at a time and in a country where they were almost entirely uncontrolled, they ful- filled their promise with perfect fidelity. In 1649, when the Legislature contained both Protestants and Catholics, a law was made, solemnly enacting that ' no person within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any way troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof ; ' and by the Catholics, at least, the promise of this law was never broken. The shameful sequel is soon told. The Protestants speedily multiplied in the pro- vince. They outnumbered the Catholics, and they enslaved them. The aristocratic constitution of the State, which pro- duced a strong democratic opposition to Lord Baltimore, assisted them, and the Eevolution in England gave the signal for the complete destruction of religious liberty in Maryland. The Catholics were excluded from all prominent offices in tlie State which a Catholic had founded. Anglicanism was made 278 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii an Established Church, and in 1704 the mass was forbidden, the priesthood were proscribed, and no Catholic was any longer permitted to educate the young. Laws of a very similar character were enacted in New York, and in other American States; and even Rhode Island, which had been still more tolerant than Maryland — for it extended its protection to disbe- lievers in the Trinity — appears to have followed the example.^ In Ireland also the Revolution was speedily followed by the penal code. The Catholic population had naturally remained faithful to their sovereign, whose too zealous Catholicism was in the eyes of the English his greatest fault ; and the triumph of William, which brought many benefits to England, consigned Ireland to the most hopeless and the most degrading servitude. For the third time an immense proportion of the soil was torn from its native owners, and bestowed upon foreigners and enemies, and nearly all the talent, the energy, the ambition of the nation was driven to the Continent. One hope, however, remained. At a time when the war was going decidedly against the Catholics, but was still by no means terminated, when Limerick was still for from captured, when the approach of winter, the prospect of pestilence arising from the heavy floods, the news of succours on the way from France, and the dangers of another insurrection at home made the situation of the besiegers very grave, the Irish generals agreed to surrender the city, and thus terminate the war, if by doing so they could secure for their people religious liberty. The consideration they offered was a very valuable one, for the prolongation of the war till another spring would have been full of danger to the unsettled government of William, and tlie stipulations of the Irisli in favour of religious liberty were given the very first place in the treaty that was signed. The period since the Reforma- tion in which the Irish Catholics were most unmolested in their worship was the reign of Charles II. ; and the first article of the Treaty of Limerick stipulated that ' the Roman Catholics of ' Bancroft's Hist, of the United which passed the Toleration Act was States, ch. vii., xix. Eccent inves- Protestant. A law securing perfect- ligations show that the original liljerty of conscience was passed in tolerance of Maryland was less ex- lihode Island in 1647. Sec Arnold's clusively the work of Catholics than Hist, of Mhude Island (3rd ed.), i. has been asserted, and that the p. 210. majority in the Legislature of 1649 CH. II. THE TREATY OF LIMERICK. 279 this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II. ; and their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Koman Catholics such furtlier security as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion.' The ninth article determined that ' the oath to be administered to such Eoman Catholics as submit to their Majesties' government shall be the oath of allegiance, and no other.' These articles were signed by the Lords Justices of Ireland, and ratified by their Majesties under the Great Seal of England. Such a treaty was very reasonably regarded as a solemn charter guaranteeing the Irish Catholics against any further penalties or molestation on account of tlieir religion. It is true that the laws of Elizabeth against Catholicism remained un- repealed, but they had become almost wholly obsolete, and as they were not enforced during the reign of Charles II., it was assumed that they could not be enforced after the Treaty of Limerick. It is true also that tlie sanction of Parliament was required for some parts of tlie treaty, but that sanction could not, without a grave breach of faith, be withheld from engagements so solemnly entered into by the Grovernment, at a time when Parliament was not sitting, and in order to obtain a great mili- tary advantage. The imposition upon the Irish Catholics, with- out any fresh provocation, of a mass of new and penal legislation intended to restrict or extinguish their worship, to banish their prelates, and to afflict them with every kind of disqualification, disability, and deprivation on account of their religion, was a direct violation of the plain meaning of the treaty. Those who signed it undertook that the Catholics should not be in a worse position, in respect to the exercise of their religion, than they had been in during the leign of Charles II., and they also under- took that the influence of the Grovernment should be promptly exerted to obtain such an amelioration of their condition as would secure them from the possibility of disturbance. Construed in its plain and natural sense, interpreted as every treaty should be by men of honour, the Treaty of Limerick amounted to no 280 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. less than this.' The public faith was pledged to its observance, and the well-known sentiments of William appeared an additional guarantee. William was, indeed, a cold and somewhat selfish man, and the admirable courage and tenacity which he invariably dis- played when his own designs and ambition were in question were seldom or never manifested in any disinterested cause, but he was at least eminently tolerant and enlightened, and he had actually before the battle of Aglirim offered the Irish Catholics the free exercise of their religion, half the churches in the kingdom, and the moiety of their ancient possessions.^ Such an offer is alone suflBcient to stamp him as a great statesman, and should have saved his memory from many eulogies which are in truth the worst of calumnies. It must be observed, how- ever, that William, who repeatedly refused his assent to English Acts which he regarded as inimical to his authority, never offered any serious or determined opposition to the anti-Catholic laws which began in his reign. It must be observed also that the penal code, which began under William, which assumed its worst features under Anne, and which was largely extended under Greorge I. and Geoi-ge II., was entirely unprovoked by any active disloyalty on the part of the Catholics. To describe the Irish Catholics as having manifested an incurably rebellious and un- grateful disposition because, in the contest of the Revolution, they took the part of the legitimate and hereditary sovereign, to whom all classes had sworn allegiance, and whose title when they took lip arms had not been disputed by any act of the Irish Parliament, is a calumny so grotesque and so transparent that it could only have been resorted to by those advocates of persecu- tion who would stoop to any quibble in their cause.^ And, at • I may here quote the opinion of any disturbance on account of their ISurke. Having quoted the first and religion," or rather whether on that ninth articles, which I have noticed account there is a single right of above, he proceeds : Compare this nature or benefit of society which has latter article with the penal laws as not been either totally taken away or they are stated in the second chapter, considerably impaired.' — Tractsoiithe and judge whether they seem to be Pojjenj Laws. the public acts of the same powers, '^ iSee a letter of Sir Charles and observe whether other oaths are Wogan (nephew of Tyrconnel, to tendered to them, and under what whom the projDOsition was made) to penalties. Compare the former with Swift. Swift's Works (Scott's ed.), the same laws from the beginning to xviii., p. 13. the end, and judge whether the lloman ^ 'The peculiar situation of that Catholics have been preserved agree- country ' [Ireland], says Macj^herson, ably to the sense of the article " from ' seems to have been overlooked in the CH. II. TRANQUILLITY OF IRELAND. 281 all events, after the Treaty of Limerick bad been signed, during tbe long- agony of the penal laws, no rebellion took place. About 14,000 Irish soldiers had at once passed into the French service, and a steady stream of emigration soon carried off all the Catholic energy from the country. Deprived of their natural leaders, sunk for tlie most part in the most brutal ignorance and in the most abject poverty, the Irish Catholics at home remained perfectly passive, while both England and Scotland were convulsed by Jacobitism. It is a memorable fact that the ferocious law of 1703, which first reduced the Irish Catholics to a condition of hopeless servitude, does not allege as the reason for its provisions any political crime. It was called ' An Act to prevent the further growth of Popery.' It was justified in its preamble on the ground that the Papists still continued in their gross and dangerous errors, that some Protestants had been per- verted to Popery, and that some Papists had refused to make provision for their Protestant children. A considerable military force was, indeed, kept in Ireland, but this was chiefly because the ministers desired to keep under arms a more numerous standing army than Parliament would tolerate in England, and also to throw upon the Irish revenue a great part of the burden ; and whenever serious danger arose, a large proportion was at once withdrawal. The evidence we possess on this subject is curiously complete. In the great rebellion of 1715 not a single overt act of treason was proved against the Catholics in Ireland, and at a time when civil war was raging both in England and Scotland, the country remained so profoundly tranquil that the Government sent over several regiments to Scotland to subdue the Jacobites.^ In 1719, when the alarm of an invasion of England was very great, the Duke of Bolton, who was then Lord Lieutenant, wrote to the Grovernment that if they did not fear a foreign invasion of Ireland they might safely withdraw the greater part of the army for other services ; and he only urged that the nation, on account of its extreme poverty, might be contest. The desertion upon which theservantsof the Crown had derived the deprivation of James had been their commissions. James himself founded in England had not existed had for more than seventeen months in Ireland. The Lord-Lieutenancy had exercised the royal function in Ireland, retained its allegiance. The Govern- He was certainly de facto, if not de nient was uniformly continued under jure, king.' - llxxt. of Great JiHtain. the name of the I'rince from whom ' Jlcuioircs da JJvncick, ii. 159. 282 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUSY. ch. ii. relieved from the necessity of paying the troops during their absence. A few weeks Liter a leading official, writing from Dublin Castle, states that seven Irish regiments were at this time out of the kingdom, that they were still paid from the Irish revenue, and that four more were about to embark.^ The next great Jacobite alarm was in 1722, and in the very begin- ning of the danger six regiments were sent from Ireland to England. 2 The Lord Lieutenant vainly asked that they might be paid, while in England, from the English revenue, and his request being refused he begged that they might return as soon as possible, not on account of any danger in Ireland, but because it was ' reasonable that the advantages of entertaining those regiments should accrue to that kingdom from which they re- ceived their pay.' ^ In 1725, Swift, who had no sympathy with the Catholics, declared that in Ireland the Pretender's party was at an end, and that ' the Papists in general, of any substance or estates, and their priests almost universally, are what we call Whigs in tlie sense which by that word is generally under- stood.'* In the great rebellion of 1745, when Scotland was for a time chiefly in the hands of the Pretender, when the High- land army had marched into the heart of England, and when the Protestant succession was very seriously endangered, there was not a ripple of agitation in Ireland ; and soon after the struggle was over. Archbishop Stone, the Protestant Primate, delivered in the House of Lords the most emphatic testimony to the loyalty of the Catholics. He declared ' that in the year 1747, after that rebellion was entirely suppressed, happening to be in England, he had an opportunity of perusing all the papers of the rebels and their correspondents, which were seized in the custody of Murray, the Pretender's secretary, and that after ' See the letters of the Di;ke of we have done so since his Majesty's Bolton of July 8 and July 25, and accession to the throne, and withal that of Mr. Webster, of August 6, 1719, preserved the kingdom from any MSS. English Record-office. insurrection or rebellion, which is * ' We are sending off six regi- more than can be said for England ments to assist you. One would think, or Scotland.' — Ai-chbishop King to considering the number of ]\i])ists we the Archbishop of Canterbury (May, have here, that our gentry are for the 1722), British Museum MSS. add. most part in England, and all our 6117. money goes there, that we should ^ The Duke of Grafton to the rather expect help from you in any Lords Justices, November 24, 1722. distress, than send you forces to [n-o- MS. Irish State Paper Office, tect you. Yet this is the third time * Seventh Urtqner'n J.Mor. cii. II. CIVIL DISABILITIES OF IKISH CATHOLICS. 283 having spent much time and taken great pains in examining them (not without some share of the then common suspicion that there might be some private imder standing and intercourse between them and the Irish Catholics), he could not discover the least trace, hint, or intimation of such intercourse or correspon- dence in them, or of any of the latter's favouring or abetting, or having been so much as made acquainted with, the designs or proceedings of these rebels.' ' Everything, indeed, connected with this history, corroborates the assertion of Burke, that 'all the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people whom the victors delighted to trample upon and were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect of their fears, but of their security. . . . Whilst that temper prevailed, and it pre- vailed in all its force to a time witliin our memory, every measure was pleasing and popular just in proportion as it tended to harass and ruin a set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God and man, and, indeed, as a race of savages who were a dis- grace to human nature itself.' - Almost all the great persecutions of history, those of the early Christians, of Catholics and Protestants on the Continent, and, after the Eevolution, of Catholics in England, were directed against small minorities. It was the distinguishing characteristic of the Irish penal code that its victims constituted at least three-fourths of the nation, and that it was deliberately intended to demoralise as well as degrade. Its enactments may be divided into different groups. One group was intended to deprive the Catholics of all civil life. By an Act of the Eng- lish Parliament they were forbi^lden to sit in that of Ireland.^ They were afterwards deprived of the elective suffrage, ex- cluded from the corporations, from the magistracy, from the bar, from the bench, from the grand juries, and from the vestries. They could not be sheriffs or solicitors, or even gamekeepers or constables. They were forbidden to possess any arms ; and any two justices, or mayor, or sheriff, might at any time ^ Curry's State of the T7-ishCaf7tolh's, ^ 3 'Williain and Mary, ch. 2. ii. p. 2()1. See also, on the profound English. The other measures of the tranquillity of Ireland, Horace Wal- code were enacted by tie Irish Par- pole, Memoirs of Gcmie III. p. 278. liament and will be found iu the Irish - Burke's Letter to Sir Hercules Statutes. Langrishe. 28-i ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. issue a searcli warrant to break into their houses and ransack them for arms, and if a fowling-piece or a flask of powder was discovered they were liable either to fine or imprisonment or to whipping and the pillory. They were, of course, excluded on the same grounds from the army and navy. They could not even possess a horse of the value of more than oL, and any Protestant on tendering that sum could appropriate the hunter or the carriage horse of his Catholic neighbour.' In his own country the Catholic was only recognised by the law, ' for repres- sion and punishment.' The Lord Chancellor Bowes and the Chief Justice Kobinson both distinctly laid down from the bench ' that the law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Eoman Catholic' ^ The effect of these measures was to offer the strongest in- ducements to all men of ability and enterprise to conform out- wardly to the dominant creed. If they did not, every path of ambition and almost all means of livelihood were closed to them, and they were at the same time exposed to the most constant, galling, and humiliating tyranny. The events of the Revolution had divided the people into opposing sections bitterly hostile to each other. The most numerous section had no rights, while the whole tendency of the law was to produce in the dominant minority, already flushed with the pride of conquest and with recent confiscations, all the vices of the most insolent aristocracy. Religious animosity, private quarrels, simple rapacity, or that mere love of the tyrannical exercise of despotic power which is so active a principle in human affairs, continually led to acts of the most odious oppression which it was dangerous to resent and impossible to resist. The law gave the Protestant the power of inflicting on the Catholic intolerable annoyance. To avoid it, he readily submitted to illegal tyranny, and even imder the most extreme wrong it was hopeless for him to look for legal redress. All the influence of property and office was against him, and every tribunal to which he could appeal was occupied by his enemies. The Parliament and the Government, the cor- poration which disposed of his city property, the vestry which ' 7 William III. c. .5 ; 10 William II. c. 9 ; 9 George II. c. 3 ; 15 and III. c. 8 and 13; 2 Anne, c. « ; 6 10 George III. c. 21. Anne, c. 6 ; 8 Anne, c. 3 ; 2 George ^ tScullj' On the Penal Laws, p. I. c. 10; 6 George 1. c. 10; 1 George 314. CK. II. EDUCATIO^'AL DISABILITIES. 285 taxed him, tlie magistrate before whom he carried his complaint, the solicitor who drew up his case, the barrister who pleaded it, the judge who tried it, the jury who decided it, were all Pro- testants. Of all tyrannies, a class tyranny has been justly described as the most intolerable, for it is ubiquitous in its operation, and weighs, perhaps, most heavily on those whose obscurity or distance would withdraw them from the notice of a single despot ; and of all class tyrannies, perhaps the most odious is that which rests upon religious distinctions and is en- venomed by religious animosities.' To create such a tyranny in Ireland was the first object of the penal laws, and the effect upon the Catholics was what might have been expected. Great numbers, by dishonest and hypocritical compliances, endeavoured to free themselves from a position that was intolerable. The mass of the people gradually ac(;[uired the vices of slaves. They were educated through long generations of oppression into an inveterate hostility to the law, and were taught to look for re- dress in illegal violence or secret combinations. A second object of the penal laws was to reduce the Catho- lics to a condition of the most extreme and brutal ignorance. As Burke has justly said : ' To render men patient under such a deprivation of all the rights of human nature, everything which would give them a knowledge or feeling of those rights was rationally forbidden.' ^ The legislation on the subject of ' We have a curious illustration there have been thousands in Ireland of the operation of the religious who have never conversed with a distinctions in the humblest spheres, Roman Catholic in their whole lives, in the following not ice in the Commons unless they happened to talk to their Journals. ' A petition of one Edward gardeners' workmen, or to ask their Spragg and others in behalf of them- way when they had lost it in their selves and other Protestant porters sports ; or, at best, who had known in and about the city of Dublin, them only as footmen or other domes- complaining that one Darby llyan, a tics of the second and tjiird order ; and captain imder the late King James, so averse were they some time ago to and a Papist, buys up whole cargoes of have them near their persons, that coals and employs porters of his own they would not emjaloy even those persuasion to carrj' the same to cus- who could never find their way tomers, by which the petitioners are beyond the stable. I well remember hindered from their small trade and a great, and in many respects a good gains.' The petition was referred to man, who advertised for a blacksmith, the Committee of Grievances to report but at the same time added, "he upon it to the House. — Commons must be a Protestant."' — Letter to Sir Journals, v. 2, p. 69'.). II. Lanijrishe. Of the effect of the laws on the ^ Letter to a Peer of Ireland on higher classes we may judge from the the Penal Laws. testimony of Burke. ' Sure I am that 286 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CE. II. Catholic education may be briefly described, for it amounted simply to universal, unqualiiied, and unlimited proscription. The Catholic was excluded from the university. He was not permitted to be the guardian of a child. It was made penal for him to keep a school, to act as usher or private tutor, or to send his children to be educated abroad; and a reward of lOl. was offered for the discovery of a Popish schoolmaster.^ In 1733, it is true, charter schools were established by Primate Boulter, for the benefit of the Catholics ; but these schools which were supported by public funds — were avowedly in- tended, by bringing up the young as Protestants, to extirpate the religion of their parents. The alternative offered by law to the Catholics was that of absolute and compulsory ignorance or of an education directly subversive of their faith. The operation of these laws alone might have been safely trusted to reduce the Catholic population to complete degrada- tion ; but there were many other provisions, intended to check any rising spirit of enterprise that might appear among them, and to prevent any ray of hope from animating their lot. In the acquisition of personal property, it is true, there is but little in the way of restriction to be added. By the laws I have described, the immense majority of the Irish people were ex- cluded, in their own country, from almost every profession, and from every Government office, from the highest to the lowest, and they were placed under conditions that made the growth of industrial virtues and the formation of an enterprising and aspiring character wholly impossible. They were excluded from a great part of the benefit of the taxes they paid. They were at the same time compelled to pay double to the militia, and in case of war with a Catholic power, to reimburse the damage done by the enemies' privateers. They could not obtain the freedom of any town corporate, and were only suffered to carry on their trades in their native cities, on condition of paying special and vexatious impositions known by the name of quar- terage. They were forbidden, after a certain date, to take up their abodes in the important cities of Limerick and Galway, or to pureliase property within their walls ; and their progress in many industrial careers was effectually trammelled by the ' 7 William III. c. 4 ; 2 Aune, c. 6 ; 8 Anne, c. 3. CH. II. LAWS RELATING TO LAND. 28; law already referred to, preventing them from possessing any borse of the value of more than 5L' The chief branches of Irish commerce and industry had, as we shall see, been delibe- rately crushed by law in the interest of English manufacturers ; but the Catholics were not specially disabled from participating in them, and the legislator contented himself with assigning strict limits to- their success by providing that, except in the linen trade, no Catholic could have more than two apprentices.- In the case of landed property, however, the laws were more severe, for it was the third great object of the penal code to dissociate the Catholics as much as possible from the soil. Of this policy it may be truly said, that unless it was inspired by unmixed malevolence, and intended to make the nation per- manently incapable of self-government, it was one of the most infatuated that could be conceived. Land being an irremove- able property, subject to Government control, has always proved the best pledge of the loyalty of its possessor, and its acquisi- tion never fails to diffuse through a disaffected class conserva- tive and orderly habits. One of the first objects of every wise legislator, and, indeed, of every good man, should be to soften the division of classes ; and no social condition can be more clearly dangerous or diseased tlian that in which these divisions coincide with, and are intensified by, diffei-ences of creed. To make the landlord class almost exclusively Protestant, while the tenant class were almost exclusively Catholic, was to plant in Ireland the seeds of the most permanent and menacing divi- sions. On the other hand, a class of Catholic landlords con- nected with one portion of the people by property and with another portion by religion could not fail to soften at once the animosities of class and of creed. They would have become the natural political leaders of their co-religionists, and it is to the ' 7 William III. c. 5 ; 2 Anne, c. 6 ; 2 George I. c. i> ; S) George II. c. 6. See too Burke's Tracts on the Poperij Zfurs. The law about horses wa.s found so detrimental to 1 he breed that it was afterwards enacted in Ire- land (8 Anne, c. 3) tliat Papists might possess ' stud mares and stallions, and the breed or produce thereof under the ape of five years' of a greater value than 51. A law similar to the Iri.sh one was enacted against the English Catholics. It is frequently alluded to in tlie correspondence of Pope. See, too, the Prologue to Drydeu's Don Sehasthin: Horses by Pajjists are not to be ritlden, But sure the muse's liorse w.as neer forbidden, For in no rate book it was ever found Tliat Pegasus was valued at five pound. " 8 Anne, c. 3. 288 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. absence of such a class that both the revolutionary and sacer- dotal extravagances of Irish Catholic politics are mainly to be attributed. Tlie great confiscations under James I., Cromwell, and William had done much to make the proprietary of Ireland exclusively Protestants. The penal laws continued the work. No Catholic was suffered to buy land, or inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or to hold life annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease on such terms that the profits of the lands exceeded one-third of the rent. If a Catholic leaseholder, by his skill or industry, so increased his profits that they exceeded this proportion, and did not immedi- ately make a corresponding increase in his rent, his farm passed to the first Protestant who made the discovery. If a Catholic secretly purchased either his own forfeited estate, or any other land in the possession of a Protestant, the first Protestant who informed against him became the proprietor. The whole country was soon filled with spies, endeavouring to appropriate the property of Catholics ; and Popish discoveries became a main business of the law courts. The few Catholic landlords who remained after the confiscations, were deprived of the liberty of testament, which was possessed by all other subjects of the Crown. Their estates, upon their death, were divided equally among their sons, unless the eldest became a Protestant : in which case the whole was settled upon him.' In this manner Catholic landlords were gradually but surely impoverished. Their land passed almost universally into the hands of Protes- tants, and the few who succeeded in retaining large estates did so only by compliances which destroyed the wliolesome moral infiuence that would naturally have attached to their position. Tlie penal code, as it was actually carried out, was inspired much less by fanaticism than by rapacity, and was directed less against the Catholic religion than against the property and industry of its professors. It was intended to make them poor and to keep them poor, to crush in them every germ of enter- prise, to degrade them into a servile caste who could never hope to rise to the level of their oppressors. The division of classes was made as deep as possible, and every precaution was ' 2 Anre, c. 6 ; 8 Anne, c. 3. CH. II. LAWS INTERFERING WITH DOMESTIC LIFE. 289 taken to perpetuate and to embitter it. Any Protestant Avho 'married a Catholic, or who suffered his children to be educated as Catholics, was exposed to all the disabilities of the code. Any Protestant woman who was a landowner, if she married a Catholic, was at once deprived of her inheritance, which passed to the nearest Protestant heir. A later law provided that every marriage celebrated by a Catholic priest between a Catholic and a Protestant should be null, and that the priest who officiated should be hung.' The creation by law of a gigantic system of bribery in- tended to induce the Catholics to abandon or disguise their creed, and of an army of spies and informers intended to prey upon their property, had naturally a profoundly demoralising influence, but hardly so much so as tlie enactments which were designed to sow discord and insubordination in their homes. These measures, which may be looked upon as the fourth brancli of the penal code, appear to have rankled more than any others in the minds of the Catholics, and they produced the bitterest and most pathetic complaints. The law I have cited, by which the eldest son of a Catholic, upon apostatising, became the heir- at-law to the whole estate of his father, reduced his father to the position of a mere life tenant, and prevented him from selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of it, is a typical measure of this class. In like manner a wife who apostatised was immediately freed from her husband's control, and the Chancellor was empowered to assign to her a certain proportion of her husband's property. If any child, however young, pro- fessed to be a Protestant, it was at once taken from its father's care. The Chancellor, or the child itself, if an adult, might compel the father to produce the title-deeds of his estate, and declare on oath the value of his property ; and such a propor- tion as the Chancellor determined was given to the child. - Children were thus set against their parents, and wives against their husbands, and jealousies, suspicions, and heart-burnings were introduced into the Catholic home. The undutiful wife, the rebellious and unnatural son, had only to add to their other > 9 William III. c. 3 ; 7 George 19 George IL c. 13 ; 23 George IL c. 10. II. c. 5 and G; 13 George IL c. 6 ; "2 Aiinc, c.C ; 8 Aune, c. 3. VOL. I. U 290 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ir. crimes the guilt of a feigned conversion, in order to secure both impunity and reward, and to deprive those whom they had injured of the management and disjDOsal of their property. Tlie influence of the code appeared, indeed, omnipresent. It blasted the prospects of the Catholic in all the struggles of active life. It cast its shadow over the inmost recesses of his home. It darkened the very last hour of his existence. Xo Catholic, as I have said, could be guardian to a child ; so the dying parent knew that his children must pass under the tutelage of Protestants. This last provision, indeed, from its influence on property and especially on domestic happiness, was of pre-eminent importance. A Catholic landlord who in those evil days clung to his religion Vt'as probably actuated by a deep and fervent conviction. But if he happened to be seized with a mortal illness while his children were minors, he had the inexpressible misery of know- insf that he could not leave them to the care of his wife, or of any Catholic friend, but that the Chancellor was bound to pro- vide them with a Protestant guardian, whose first duty was to bring them up in the Protestant creed.' It would be difficult to conceive an enactment calculated to inflict a keener pang, and it is not surprising that great efforts were made to evade it. It sometimes hajapened that a Protestant friend of the dying man consented to accept the legal obligation of guardian on the secret understanding that he would leave the actual education of the children in the hands of any Catholic the family might select. The family would then petition that this Protestant ' This provisinn seems so atro- children, lieing a Protestant, and ciousl}" cruel that it may be well to conformin'^: himself to tlie Cliurch of give the exact words of the law. Ireland as by law established, to ' That care may be taken for tljc whom the estate cannot descend, in education of children in the com- case there shall be any such Protestant munion of the Church of Ireland as relation fit to have the education of by law established ; be it enacted liy such child ; otherwise to some other the authority aloresaid, that no per- Protestant conforming himself as son of the Popish religion shall or aforesaid, who is hereby required to may be guardian unto, or have the use his utmost care to educate and tuition or custody of any orphan, bring up such child or minor in the child, or children, under the age of Protestant religion until the age of twenty-one years ; but that the same, twenty-one years.'- — 2 Anne, c. 6, see. where the person having or entitled 4. Any Papist who took ujion himself to the guardianship of such orphan, tlie guardianship of a cliild was by child, or children, is or shall be a the same Act made liable to a fine of Papist, shall be disposed of Ijy tlie .'JOO/., to be given to the Bluecoat High Court of Chancery to some near Hospital in Dublin, relation of such orphan, child, or c:i. II. LAWS EELATIXG TO WOESIIIP. 291 might be appointed guardian, and it vras probable that their request would be acceded to. A case of this kind came under the cognisance of the Irish House of Commons in 1707. A Catholic gentleman, named Sir John Cotter, died, leaving an estate, in the county of Cork, and three minor children, the eldest being about fifteen years old. The very day of his funeral the eldest son was sent privately to London, with a Catholic gentleman named Galway, to be educated in his own faith. The Protestants at once called the attention of the Chancellor to the evasion, and he appointed a certain Alderman Cbartres guardian to the minors, and compelled Galway to surrender the infant. Great efforts were then made to change the guardian, and at last a petition, alleging, it is said, falsely, that the minors were destitute of a guardian, and begging that a Protestant gentleman named JVetterville might be ap- pointed, was successful. Netterville became guardian, and he left the actual care of the children in the hands of Galway. The House, however, determined to prevent, if possible, the re- petition of such an evasion. It resolved ' that any Protestant guardian that permits a Papi&t to educate or dispose of his ward does thereby betray the trust reposed in him, evade the law, and propagate Popery ; ' 'that any Papist who shall take upon him to manage and dispose of the substance and person of any infant committed to a Protestant guardian is guilty of a notorious breach of the law ; ' and ' that it is the indispensable duty of Protestant guardians to take the persons of their Avards out of the custody of their Papist relations.' Xetterville was summoned before the House, censured, and bound over to edu- cate the minors as Protestants, and Galway was ordered into custody.^ It is probable that no small amount of property passed in this manner into Protestant hands.^ As regards the celebration of the Catholic worship the laws, ' Iris1> Comvions Journals, iii. -141- minor of a Roman Catholic, left so by 447, 454-455. tlie death of his father, is accounted - We have an example of this the heir of the Crown, and tlie Lord in tlie old family of Cavanas'h of Chancellor for tlie time being is ap- Borris on tlie Barrow. The Catholic pointed liis guardian, in order to bring owner of the property died when his liimup as a Protestant ; and this young son was a minor, and two English gentleman is now in Westminster tourists, who visited that part of the school for that pm-pose.' — A Tour country in the middle of the eighteenth through, Tn-ldiid hij Two Unf/lish century, describe the result. ' The Gentlemen (1748), p. 225. 292 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. if equally prohibitory, were at least less severely enforced. A law of Elizabeth, prohibiting the Catholic worship, and another law compelling all persons to attend the Anglican service, were unrepealed, and as a matter of fact the Catholic chapels in Ireland were closed during the Scotch rebellion of 1715. In general, however, the hopeless task of preventing some three- fourths of the nation from celebrating the rites which they be- lieved essential to their eternal salvation was not attempted. The conditions of the Catholic worship were determined by the law of 1703, which compelled every Catholic priest, under the penalties of imprisonment and banishment, and of death if he returned, to register his name and parish, and other particu- lars essential to his identification,^ and these registered priests mijxht celebrate mass without molestation. 1,080 availed them- selves of the privilege. It need hardly be said that they derived from the Grovernment no pay, no favour of any descrip- tion, except the barest toleration, but yet the Government undertook to regulate in the severest manner the conditions of their ministry. The parish priest alone could celebrate mass, and that only in his own parish. He was not permitted to keep a curate. No chapel might have bells or steeple, and no cross might be publicly erected. Pilgrimages to the holy wells were forbidden, and it is a characteristic trait that the penalty in default of the payment of a fine was the degrading one of whip- ping. If any Catholic induced a Protestant to join his faith, he was liable to the penalties of prcvmunire. If any priest became a Protestant, he became entitled to an annuity, which was at first 20l. but was afterwards raised to. 30^., to be levied on the district where he resided.^ But soon another and a far more serious measure was taken. In the reign of Anne large classes both in England and in Ireland who were perfectly innocent of any treasonable de- signs against the Government, and perfectly prepared to take the oath of allegiance which bound them to obey the existing ruler, and to abstain from all conspiracies against him, consi- dered it distinctly sinful to take the oath of abjuration, which asserted that the son of James II. had ' no right or title what- soever' to the crown, and pledged the swearer to perpetual ' 2 Anne, c. 7 ; 4 Anne, c. 2. ^2 Anne, c. 6 and 7 ; 8 Anne, c. 3. CH. II. IMPOSITION OF THE ABJURATION OATH. 293 loyalty to the Protestant line. The distinction between the King -de jure and the King de facto was here of vital importance. It was scarcely conceivable that any sincere and zealous Catholic could look upon the Eevolution as a rigliteous movement, or could believe that James had justly forfeited his crown. The doctrine of passive obedience was not, it is true, taught in tlie Catholic Church, except among the Grallican divines, as emphati- cally as among Anglicans, but the belief in a Divine hereditary right of kings was universal, and no Catholic could seriously suppose that, as a matter of right, James had forfeited his authority. The Catholics well knew that he had lost his crown mainly on account of his Catholicism, that the last great imcon- stitutional act with which he was reproached was an attempt to suspend the penal laws against themselves, that the object of the Act of Settlement was to secure that no Catholic should again sit upon the throne. At the same time they were perfectly ready to recognise the result of the war, to take the oatli of allegiance to the existing Government, and to abstain from any conspiracy against it. When the priests registered themselves in 1704, no oath was required except the oath of allegiance ; and it may be added, — though, indeed, after the recent legislation this consideration could have but little weight, — that it was expressly stipulated in the Treaty of Limerick that the oath of allegiance and 'no other' should be imposed upon the Irish Catholics. Yet in the face of these circum- stances, and at a time when not a single act of treason or tur- bulence was proved against the Catholic priests, the Irish Parliament enacted in 1709 that by the March of the following year all the registered priests must take the oath of abjuratimi, under the penalty of banishment for life, and, if they returned, of death. ^ At the same time any two magistrates were autho- rised to summon before them any Irish layman, to tender to him the same oath and to imprison him if he refused to take it. If the oath was tendered three times and he still refused to take it, he was guilty of prcemunire and liable to perpetual im- prisonment and the confiscation of all his property.^ The clergy of the Church of England, as we have seen, accepted this oath ; but, at the same time, it is not easy to see how any ' 8 Anne, c. 3. 2 Ibid. 294 ENGLA^'D IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. en. n. man could honestly take it who believed that doctrine of Divine hereditary right which was equally taught by the Church of Rome and by the Church of England. The Episcopalians in Scotland resolutely refused it, and from the very first the Roman Catholic authorities declared it to be sinful, and imposed penances on those who yielded. A veiy powerful memorial on the subject, drawn up in 1724 by Dr. Xar}^, who was probably the ablest Catholic priest then living in Ireland, clearly states their reasons.^ The writer declai-es his full approval of the oath of allegiance. That oath binds all who take it to have no hand in any plot or con- spiracy against the existing Goverument, and to do all in tlieir power to suppress sedition, and every Catholic may with a perfect good conscience unreservedly take it. The oath of abjuration, on the contrary, contains three clauses which, in the opinion of the writer, must necessarily offend a Catholic conscience. It asserts that the late Prince of Wales, who was now the Pretender, had no right or title whatever to the Crown of England, and thus passes a judgment on the Revolution which cannot be accepted by auj^one who believes in the Divine right of here- ditary monarchy, and who denies that the measures of James in favour of Catholicism invalidated his title to the throne. It restricts the allegiance of the swearer to the Protestant line, and therefore implies that if the existing sovereign were con- verted to Catholicism, the Catholic, on that ground alone, would be bound to withdraw his allegiance from him. It contains the assertion that the oath was taken *• heartily, freely, and wil- lingly,' which in the case of a sincere Eoman Catholic would certainly be untrue. It is said that not more than thirty-three of the registered priests actually took this oath,^ and its chief result was that the whole system of registration fell rapidly into disuse. ' This very able pajier, called ' The ones excludod ' (Jan. 20, 17.53). Jfls- Case of the Catholics of Ii-eland,' is ccUaneovs WorJig, iv. 2.5B. Archbishoji printed in Hugh Reilly's Gemdnc Synge stated in 1722 that a large pro- Hist. of Ireland. In one of Chester- portion of the Catholics were quite field's letters to the Bishop of Water- willing to take the oath if only the ford, he says : ' I would only require clause relating to the Divine riglit of the priests to take the oatli of alle- the Pretender were omitted. See his giance simply, and not the subsequent Jxtters to Archhishoj) Wake, British oatlis, which in my ojrlnion no real Museum Add. MSS., C117, pp. 147_ PajnKt can talie ; the consequence L53. of which would be that the least - Nary. According to another ac- c nscienlious )>riests would be regis- count, thirty-seven. O'Conor's HUt. tercd, and the most conscientious "f the Triislt Catholics, -p. l'i\). C]i. :i. POPISH DIGNITARIES AND FRIARS. 295 Such was the legislation in the case of registered priests who were supposed to enjoy the benefit of toleration. It is, however, obviously absurd to speak of the Catholic religion as tolerated in a country where its bishops were proscribed. In Ireland, all Catholic archbishops, bishops, deans, and vicars-general were ordered by a certain day to leave the country. If after that date they were found in it, they were to be first imprisoned and then banished, and if they returned they were pronounced guilty of hio-h treason and were liable to be hung, disembowelled, and quartered. Nor were these idle words. The law of 1709 offered a reward of 50^. to anyone who secured the conviction of any Catholic archbishop, bishop, dean, or vicar-general. In their own dioceses, in the midst of a purely Catholic country, in the per- formance of religious duties which were absolutely essential to the maintenance of their religion, the Catholic bishops were compelled to live in obscure hovels and under feigned names, moving continually from place to place, meeting their flocksunder the shadow of the night, not unfrequently taking refuge from their pursuers in caverns or among the mountains. The position of all friars and unregistered priests was very similar. It was evident that if any strong religious feeling was to be maintained there must be many of them in Ireland. A Government which avowedly made the repression of the Catholic religion one of its main ends would never authorise a sufQcient number of priests to maintain any high standard of devotion. The priests were looked upon as necessary evils, to be reduced to the lowest pos- sible number. It was not certain that when the existing gene- ration of registered priests died out the Government would suffer them to be replaced, and no licenses were to be granted to tliose who refused the abjuration oath which the Catholic Chiu'ch pronounced to be unlawful. Very naturally, therefore, numerous unregistered priests and friars laboured among the people. Like the bishops they were liable to banishment if they were discovered, and to death if tliey returned. It was idle for the prisoner to allege that no political action of any kind was proved against him, that he was employed solely in carrying spiritual consolations to a population who were reduced to a condition of the extremest spiritual as well as temporal destitu- tion. Strenuous measures were taken to enforce the law. It was enacted that every mayor or justice of the peace who 296 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. u. neglected to execute its provisions should be liable to a fine of 100^., half of which was to g-o to the informer, and should also on conviction be disabled from serving as justice of the peace during the remainder of his life. A reward of 20/., offered for the detection of each friar or unregistered priest, called a regular race of priest-hunters into existence. To facilitate their task the law enabled any two justices of the peace at any time to compel any Catholic of eighteen or up- wards to declare when and where he last heard mass, who officiated, and who was present, and if he refused to give evidence he might be imprisoned for twelve months, or until he paid a fine of 20/.. Anyone who harboured ecclesiastics from beyond the sea was liable to fines which amounted, for the third offence, to the confiscation of all his goods.' The Irish House of Commons m-ged the magistrates on to greater activity iu enforcing the law, and it resolved ' that the saying or hearing of mass by persons who had not taken the oath of abjuration tended to advance the interests of the Pretender,' and again, ' that the prosecuting and informing against Papists was an honourable service to the Government.' ^ But perhaps the most curious illustration of the ferocious spirit of the time was furnished by the Irish Privy Council in 1719. In that year an elaborate Bill against Papists was carried, apparently without opposition, through the Irish House of Commons, and among its clauses was one sentencing all unregistered priests who were found in Ireland to be branded with a red-hot iron upon the cheek. The Irish Privy Council, however, actually changed the penalty of branding into that of castration,^ and ' 9 William III. c. 1 ; 2 Anne, c. ^ Parnell On the Penal La7vs, p. 60. 3 ; 4 Anne, c. 2 ; 8 Anne, c. 3. For See, too, Commons' Journal, iv. 25. the whole subject of the penal laws, I ' Thej^ write : ' The common Irish would refer to the most admirable will never become Protestants or well ' Introduction historique ' to the work affected to the Crown while they are of Gustave de Beaumont, L'lrlande sujoplied with priests, friars, &c., who jpvlitxque, sociale et reliyieuae. Very are the fomenters of all rebellions and few writers have ever studied Irish disturbances here. So that some more history so accurately or so minutely effectual remedy to prevent jiriests as M. de Beaumont, and he V^rouirht and friars coming into this kingdom to it the impartiality of a foreigner, is perfectly necessar3^ The Commons and the political insight and skill proposed the marking of every person which might be expected from the who should be convicted of being an intimate friend and the faithful unregistered priest, friar. iJcc, and of disciple of Tocqueville. remaining in this kingdom after May CH. II. THE CASTEATIOX CLAUSE. 297 sent the Bill with this atrocious recommendation to England for ratification. The English ministers unanimously restored the penalty of branding. By the constitution of Ireland a Bill which had been returned from England might be finally re- jected but could not be amended by the Irish Parliament ; and the Irish House of Lords, objecting to a retrospective clause which invalidated certain leases which Papists had been suffered to make, threw out the Bill.^ It is, however, a memorable fact in the moral history of Europe that as late as 1719 this penalty was seriously proposed by the responsible Government of Ireland. It may be added that a law imposing it upon Jesuits was actu- ally in force in Sweden in the beginning of the century, and that a paper was circulated in 1700 advocating the adojDtion of a similar atrocity in England.^ One more illustration may be given of the ferocity of the persecuting spirit which at this time prevailed in Ireland, both in the native Legislature and in the English Government. In 1723, when the alarm caused by Atterbury's plot was at its height, the Irish House of Commons, at the express invitation of the Lord Lieutenant, proceeded to pass a new Bill against 1, 1720, with a large P to be made on an anonymous Essai sur VHidoire with a red-hot iron on his cheek. de I'lrlande (see O'Conor's Hist, of The Council g-enerally disliked that the Irish Catholics, p. 190), published punishment, and have altered it to about the middle of the last century, that of castration, which they are has been repeated by Cun-y, Plowden, persuaded will be the most effectual and other writers. Mr. Froude method that can be found out, to clear {English in Ireland, i. pp. 546-557) tliis nation of those disturbers of the has correctly stated the facts, and has peace and quiet of the kingdom, and devoted some characteristic pages to would have been very well pleased to their apology. I have examined the have found out any other punishment original letters on tlie subject in tlie wlrichmight in their opinion have re- Record Ofhce. One of these, written medied the evil. If your Excellencies by Webster (a leading Government shall not be of the same sentiments, clerk) from Dublin Castle, is dated they submit to your consideration August 26, 1719. The reply by Craggs whether the punishment of castration is dated September 22, 1719. may not be altered to that proposed - Uarlcian Miscella/>i/,iv. il5-i23. by the Commons, or to some other The writer says :' Since the same was effectual one whicii may occur to enacted into a law and jiractised your Lordships. Signed — Bolton, uiion a few of them, that kingdom Middleton, Jo. Meath, John Clog- [Sweden] hath never been infested her, bantry, St. George Newton, with Popish clergy or i:)lots.' In a Oliver St. George, E. Webster, R. ' Collection of Irish Speeches, Trials, Tighe. Lo7'ds- Lieutenant and Lords- &c., from 1711 to 1733,' in the British Justices'' Letters, Dublin State Paper Museum, there is an anonymous Office (Aug. 17, 1719). paper, printed at Dulilin in 1725, ' A very erroneous and exaggerated recummeuding the castration of version of this story, based, I believe, ordinary criminals. 2S3 EXGL^iKD IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. it. unregistered priests. It was entitled ' A Bill for explaining- and amending the Acts to prevent the Grrowth of Popery and for strengthening the Protestant Interest in Ireland ; ' and the lieads of the Bill, after passing through both Houses, were sent over to Enaiand with the warm recommendation of the Irish Privy Council. The hill as it issued from the Commons is still preserved, and it is no exaggeration to say that it deserves to rank with the most infamous edicts in the whole liistory of persecution. One of its clauses provided that all unregistered priests should depart out of Ireland before March 25, 1724, and that all fonnd after that date should be deemed guilty of high treason, except they have in the meantime taken the oath of abjm-ation. In this manner it was proposed to make the whole priesthood in a j^urely Catholic country liable to the most hor- rible form of death known to British law, unless they took an oath which their Church authoritatively pronovmced to be sin- ful. By another clause it was provided that all bishops, deans, monks, and vicars-o-eneral found in the countrv after the same date should be liable to the same horrible fate, and in their cases the abjuration oath was not admitted as an alternative. By a third clause it was ordered that any person who was found guilty of affording shelter or protection to a Popish dignitary should suffer death as a felon without benefit of clergy. By a fourth clause a similar penalty was decreed against any Popish school- master or Popish tutor in a private house, and, in order that the law should be fully enforced, large rewards were promised to dis- coverers of priests, bishops, or harbourers who gave evidence leading to conviction, and these rewards were doubled if they themselves prosecuted the offender to conviction. Happily, this atrocious measure never came- into effect. The alarm produced in England by the designs of the Pretender passed away. The excitement caused by Wood's halfpence was at its height, and it is probable that the humane feelings of Walpole were revolted by a law tlmt was worthy of Alva or Torquemada. The Bill was not returned from England, and it was never revived.' ' ' Heads of a Bill for explaining heads — among others, one for making and amending the Acts to prevent the marriages between Catholics and Growth of Popery,' &c. There are Protestants celebrated by priests several other provisions in these invalid. The heads of the Bill are in CH. II. GENERAL KESULT3 OF THE PENAL LAWS. 299 A modern historian, who has displayed rare literary skill in defending many forms of oppression and of cruelty, has lately made the penal code familiar to the public. His great objection to this legislation is that it was not strenuously enforced, and with the exception of the law offering the estate of the Catholic to his eldest son, in the event of his apostasy, he has apparently discovered but little in its provisions repugnant to his sentiments either of justice or of humanity. As regards the system of direct religious repression, it is true that it became, as we shall hereafter see, gradually inoperative. It was impossible, without producing a state of chronic civil war, to enforce such enactments in the midst of a large Catholic population. Eewards were offered for the apprehension of priests, but it needed no small courage to face the hatred of the people. Savage mobs were ever ready to mark out the known priest-hunter, and unjust laws were met by illegal violence. Under the long discipline of the penal laws, the Irish Catholics learnt the lesson which, beyond all others, rulers should dread to teacli. They became consummate adepts in the arts of conspiracy and of disguise. Secrets known to the Irish Eecord Office at Dublin. horror of this bill. ' If,' he savs, They have, as far as I know, never ' any Papist or Poijish priest will not been printed, though they well solemnly upon oath renounce the deserve to be. In the Irish State Pretender and also the Pope's power Paper Office at the Castle {Lords- of deposing princes and absolving- Lieutenant and Council's Letters, subjects from their allegiance, Jpt. vol. xvi.), there is a letter strongly him leave the kingdom or be deEl*- recommending the measure to the with as a traitor. Uut if such a man English authorities (Dec. 172:-5), and is ready to do all this, and farther in Coxe'sZ?/i3 «/' II V/./y^y/c', ii. 3o8,there to give security to the Government is a letter from the Duke of Grafton for his good and loyal behaviour, I recommending it. Mr. Froude warmly must own that I cann t come into a supports tliis attempted legislation, law to put him to death, under the but he has suppressed all mention of name indeed of higli treason, yet in the penalties contained in the bill, reality only for aiiiiering to an and even uses language which would erroneous religion and wcrsliipping convey to any ordinary reader the God according to it.' Archbisli-p impression that no specific penalties Synge's Letters, V>T\t\A-i. Museum Add. were determined. His assertion that MSS., 6117, p. 1G9. Mr. Froude the bill after passing the Commons strongly (though I hoj^e inaccurately) was unaltered by the Council is er- denies that the failure of the bill was roneous. The Duke of Grafton writes: due to the greater tolerance of tiie 'The House of Commons have much English Government. Hh says: 'The at heart this bill. It has been mended Wood hurricane was at this moment since it came from them, as commonly unfortunately at its height, and ab- their bills want to be' (Coxe's Wal- sorbcd by its violence any other j)ole, ii. 3.58). Archbishop Synge, who consideration.' — Enrjligh in Ireland was a very strong Protestant, but also i. 559-501. a very humane man, speaks with much 300 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ii. hundreds were preserved inviolable from authority. False in- telligence baffled and distracted the pursuer, and the dread of some fierce nocturnal vengeance was often sufficient to quell the cupidity of the prosecutor. Bishops came to Ireland in spite of the atrocious penalties to which they were subject, and ordained new priests. What was to be done with them? The savage sentence of the law, if duly executed, might have produced a conflagration in Ireland that would have endangered every Protestant life, and the scandal would have rung through Europe. The ambassadors of Catholic Powers in alliance with England continually remonstrated against the severity of Eng- lish anti-Catholic legislation, and on the other hand the English ministers felt that the execution of priests in Ireland would indefinitely weaken their power of mitigating by their influence the persecution of Protestants on the Continent. The adminis- tration of the law was feeble in all its departments, and it was naturally peculiarly so when it was in opposition to the strongest feelings of the great majority of the people. It was difficult to obtain evidence or even juries.* It was soon found too that the higher Catholic clergy, if left in peace, were able and willin,Q: to render inestimable services to the Govern- ment in suppressing sedition and crime, and as it was quite evident that the bulk of the Irish Catholics would not become Protestants, they could not, in the mere interests of order, be left wholly without religious ministration. Besides, there was in reality not much religious fanaticism. Statesmen of the- stamp of Walpole and Carteret were quite free from such a motive, and were certainly not disposed to push matters to extremities. The spirit of the eighteenth century was eminently adverse to dogma. The sentiment of nationality, and especially the deep resentment produced by the English restrictions on trade, gradually drew different classes of Irishmen together. The multitude of lukewarm Catholics who abandoned their creed through purely interested motives lowered the religious tempera- ture among the Protestants, while, by removing some of the indifferent, it increased it among the Catholics, and the former ' Catliolics were not excluded 6) in all cases relating to the Anti- from petty juries in ordinary cases, Catholic laws. but they were excluded (6 Anne, c. CH. II. GENERAL EESULTS OF THE PENAL LAWS. SOI grew in time very careless about tlieological doctrines. The system of registration broke down through the imposition of the abjuration oath, and through the extreme practical difiSculty of enforcing the penalties. The policy of extinguishing Catholi- cism by suppressing its services and banishing its bishops was silently abandoned ; before the middle of the eighteenth century the laws against Catholic worship were virtually obsolete,' and before the close of the eighteenth century the Parliament which in the beginning of the century had been one of the most intole- rant had become one of the most tolerant in Europe. In this respect the penal code was a failure. In others it was more successful. It was intended to degrade and to impove- rish, to destroy in its victims the spring and buoyancy of enterprise, to dig a deep chasm between Catholics and Pro- testants. These ends it fully attained.^ It formed the social condition, it regulated the disposition of property, it exercised a most enduring and pernicious influence upon the character of the people, and some of the worst features of the latter may be distinctly traced to its influence. It may be possible to find in the statute-books both of Protestant and Catholic countries laws corresponding to most parts of the Irish penal code, and in some respects surpassing its most atrocious provisions, but it is not the less true that that code, taken as a whole, has a charac- ter entirely distinctive. It was directed not against the few, but against the many. It was not the persecution of a sect, but the - As early as 1715 Archbishop B'St. of the Church of Ireland, ii. King wrote to Sunderland : ' By law 212. See, too, a very interesting re- they [the Roman Catholics] are portof the House of Lords in 1731, ap- allowed a priest in every parish, which pointed to consider the state of Popery are registered in pursuance of an Act in this kingdom. O'Conor's Hist, of of Parliament made about ten yeai's the Irish Catholics, Append, p. xxiii. ago. All bishops, regulars, &:c., and * Arthur Young, who was in a.!l other priests then not registered, Ireland between 1776 and 1778, says : are banished, and none allowed to 'I have conversed on the subject with come into the kingdom under severe some of the most distinguished cha- jjenalties. The design was that there racters in the kingdom, and I cannot shiiuld he no succession, and many of after all but declare that the scope, those then registered are since dead; purport, and aim of the laws of dis- yetfor want of a due execution of the covery as executed, are not against laws many are come in from foreign the Catholic religion, which increases parts, and there are in the country under them, but against the industry Popish bishops concealed, that ordain and property of whoever professes many. Little inquiry of late has been that religion.' — Arthur Young's Tour made into these matters.' — Mant's in IreUind, ii. lil. 302 ENGLAND IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cu. n. degradation of a nation. It was the instrument employed by a conquering race, supported by a neighbouring Power, to crush to the dust the people among whom they were planted. And, indeed, when we remember that tlie greater part of it was in force for nearly a century, that the victims of its cruelties formed at least three-fourths of the nation, that its deo-radinof and dividing influence extended to every field of social, political, professional, intellectual, and even domestic life, and that it was enacted without the provocation of any rebellion, in defiance of a treaty which distinctly guaranteed the Irish Catholics from any further oppression on account of their religion, it may be justly regarded as one of the blackest pages in the history of persecution. In the words of Burke, ' It was a complete system, full of coherence and consistency, well digested and well com- posed in all its parts. It v»'as a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverish- ment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.' The judgment formed of it by one of the noblest representatives of English Toryism was very similar. ' The Irish,' said Dr. Johnson, ' are in a most unnatural state, for we there see the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the Ten Persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics.' ^ The penal laws against the Eoman Catholics, both in Eng- land and Ireland, were the immediate consequence of the Revo- lution, and were mainly the work of the Whig party. In Ireland some of them were carried under William, but by far the greater number of the disabilities were comprised in what Burke has truly described as ' the ferocious Acts of Anne.' Tliese laws were carried in 1703-4 and in 1709, and the last of them was brought forward by the Government of Wharton, one of the most con- spicuous members of the party. It is somewliat remarkable, ' Burke's letter to Sir H. Langrislie. to justice dnd humanity, but incom- Bosweirs IJfe of Johnson, c. xxix. parably more politic' — JTht. of Enq- The judsrment of Hallam is but little land, lii. p. 401. Mr. Gladstone d'e- less emphatic. ' To liave exterminated scribes tlie code as ' that system of tlie Catholics by the sword or exijelled penal laws a,L;ainst Roman Catliolics them like tlie .Moriscoes of Spain at once pettifogging, base, and cruel.' wouldhavebeenlittlemore repugnant — The Vatican Decrees,^. 24. en. II. ENGLISH CATHOLICS. 30 o however, that the Catholics were not at this time directly de- prived of the elective franchise, except so far as the imposition of the oath of abjuration operated as a disqualification. Their extreme poverty, the laws relating- to landed property, and their exclusion from the corporations, no doubt reduced the number of Catholic voters to infinitesimal proportions, but the absolute and formal abolition of the class did not take place till 1727, and appears to have been due to the influence of Primate Boulter, who was also the author of severe laws against nominal convert::^. In England, as in Ireland, William would gladly have given toleration to the Catholics,' but he was not prepared to risk any serious unpopularity for their sake. The English Act of 1699 is said to have been brought forward by opponents of the Government in order to embarrass him, but it was accepted by a ministry of which Somers was the leading member, and, in spite of the promises which William, before tlie Eevolution, had made to the Emperor, Bishop Burnet assures us that ' the Court promoted the Bill.' ^ The extent and complication of the Irish penal code, and the great importance of its political consequences, have made it necessary for me to dwell upon it at considerable length, but it will appear evident from the foregoing review that, severe as were the Irish laws, they were exceeded in stringency by those which were imposed upon the English Catholics. In the latter case, however, an evasion was much easier, nor could the Catholics, except under very abnormal circumstances, become a danger to England. In numbers they were probably less than one in fifty of the population.^ Among the freeholders, accord- ing to a computation made under William, they were not quite one in 186,'' and the part of the population which was most Pro- testant was precisely that which was most active, enterprising, ' 'That he [William] favoured note says: 'He [r)urnet] does the the Roman Catholics as far as he Jacobites a great deal of wrong ; for could, and that he was frequently it was the Whigs gave out that the called upon by the Emperor to do so, King was turned Jacobite.' At all is most certain.' — Lord Dartmouth's events it seems clear that the Bill note to Burnci. ii. 228, 229. originated with the Opposition and - Burnet's Oivn Time-, ii. 228, 229. was adopted hy tlie Government. Burnet (who supported this Bill) ^ iMucaulay's Hist, of Umjltuid, c. appears to think it originated witli vi. the Jacobites, who wished to set * Dalrymple's Memoirg, vol. ii. pt. ■\Villiam in opposition to tlie national 2, appen. to c. i. p. 40. sentiment. Lord Dartmouth in his 304 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. n. and influential. The Catholics abounded chiefly in Lancashire, Staffordshire, and Sussex ; but, except in London, they were very rare in the trading towns.^ Their actual condition under the laws I have described is a question of some difficulty and perplexity. Judging by the mere letter of the law we should imagine that their worship was absolutely suppressed, that tlieir children were deprived of all ecclesiastical education, and that their estates must have speedily passed into other hands. Nor is it easy to understand how laws so recent and so explicit could be evaded. Their history, however, is somewhat like that of the anti-Christian laws in the Eomau Empire. It is certain that during long periods of time the early Christians professed, taught, and propagated their religion without either conceal- ment or molestation, though by the letter of existing laws they were subject to the most atrocious penalties. It is equally certain that during the greater part of the reigns of Anne, George I., and George IL, the Catholic worship in private houses and chapels was undistm-bed, that the estates of Catholics were regularly transmitted from father to son, and that they had no serious difficulty in educating their children. The Government refused to put the laws against the priests into execution, and legal evasions were employed and connived at. Most of the more active spiiits of English Catholicism took refuge on the Continent, and in the beginning of the eighteenth century British or Irish seminaries, colleges, or monasteries were thickly scattered through Spain, Portugal, Flanders, France, and Italy.'^ Of the condition of those at home but few notices remain. In 1700 two letters, written to a member of Parliament, v>?ere published, complaining bitterly of their activity.^ It was stated that there were then three Popish bishops exercising their functions in England — Bishop Leyhorn in London and ' Chamborlaj-ne's Present State of numerous, so the laws and constitu- Great Britain (1710), p. 162. In tion are upon their side.' — iSomers' an able pamphlet called BAtaiii's Tracts, x. 458. Just Complaint of Iter Late Measure, ''■ 8ee a list of these establisliments ascribed to Sir J. Montgomery, it is vixTlw Present Banger of Popery{Yli)'6), said : ' The Catholics of Britain are pp. 4-6. not one of a hundred; they have ^ Ibid. See also another anonymous neither heads, hearts, nor hands tract, called Considerations of the enoutjh to force a national conversion. Present State of Popery in Bnyland As tlie Protestants are the most (1723). en. II. THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS. 3()5 the surrounding counties, Bishop Gifford in Wales and the western counties, and Bishop Smith in the north ; that nearly every Popish lord or gentleman of substance had a priest domesticated in his family ; that there were but few parishes in London in which the mass was not celebrated ; that Petre, the brother of the well-known councillor of James, and the head of the English Jesuits, was still living under the name of Spencer in Marylebone ; ^ and that many converts to Popery were made. One conversion — that of the daughter of liord Baltimore — appears to have attracted some attention. In 1706 a remark- able petition was presented to Parliament from the gentry and clergy of South Lancashire, containing very similar complaints. The petitioners dilated especially upon the number and mis- sionary activity of the Lancashire priests, upon the open manner in which Catholics thronged to mass, and upon the erection of a building which was believed to be an endowed Popish seminary. The House of Lords considered these statements worthy of serious attention, and presented an address to the Queen, com- plaining of the growing insolence of the Catholics, and request- ing that the Protestant clergy in each diocese and parish should be enjoined to prepare returns stating their number, quality, estates, and places of abode.^ How far these measures proved efficacious it is difficult to say, but in 1711 we find the Lower House of Convocation complaining that tlie Papists ' have swarmed in our streets of late years, and have been very busy in making converts,' and attributing to the mode in which they conducted their controversy a considerable part of the prevailing iniidelity.3 The reign of Anne is the period in which the most ' Oliver, in his Collections illus- register of their estates, it appeared trating the Biography of the iScoteh, that the yearly value of the estates of English, and Irish Jesuits, states that Lancashire recusants was 1I>,15SZ. — a Spencer was the name taken by very large sum when we consider the Edward Petre himself (the Privy rude state of agriculture and the un- Oouncillor), in the earlier part of his developed condition of the country. mission in England. The chapters in Picton"s Memorials of Liverpool, pt. i. Butler's Historical Memoirs of the p. KJo. English Catholics devoted to this ^ Lathbury"s Hist, nf Convocation, period are unfortunately extremely p. 416. In August 1708, Nicholson, meagre. the bishop of Carlisle, writes to the - Furl. Hist. vi. 516-.'317. After Primate: 'Popery has advanced by the rebellion of 1715, when an Act very long strides of late years in this wr>s carried obliging all Catholics and country, and too many of our magis- Nt njurors to transmit to Commis- trates love to have it so. At the very sioners appointed for the purpose a time that the Ercuch were upon our VOL. I X 506 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. II. ferocious of the penal laws in Ireland were enacted, but in England the Catholics were not violently persecuted. The Government was interceding with the Emperor in favour of his persecuted Protestant subjects, and naturally shrank from mea- sures that would impair its influence. The existence of a powerful party attached to the Popish Pretender, the semi- Catholic doctrines of some of the Nonjurors, the formal nego- tiation opened by Archbishop Wake with a view to a union of the Anglican and Galilean Churches, the dispositions of the Queen, which were not violently anti-Catholic, and perhaps also the fact that a Catholic poet was at the head of English litera- ture, had all tended to improve the position of the sect. The law which determined that any Catholic over eighteen who did not take the oath of supremacy, or make a declaration of Pro- testantism, should be incapable of inheriting land, and that the estate he would otherwise have inherited should pass to the next Protestant heir, was evaded and made almost nugatory. It was intended to compel all Catholic landlords to sell their pro- perty, but it was determined that the burden of proof rested with the Protestant claimant, and that it was for him to prove that the Catholic had not made this declaration ; and a Bill which was introduced in 1706 to remedy this defect by making it necessary for the Catholic not only to make the declaration, but also to prove that he had done so, was rejected chiefly on the ground that it would injure the negotiations of England in favour of the persecuted subjects of the Emperor.^ The reward of lOOL offered for the conviction of a Catholic priest might be expected to produce numerous informers; but the judges were very severe in the evidence they required, and it was decided that those who prosecuted in order to obtain the reward must coasts and our people daily expected the news of their being landed, the wealthier of our Pajiists instead of beini? seized were crin<^ed to with all possilile tenders oi' honcnir and respect , and those very gentlemen who were entrusted with the taking of them into custody seemed rather inclined to list themselves in their service.' British Museum Add. MSS. 611*3. Shortly after this time consideral>le scandal was caused by the publicauon of a clever but very scurrilous poem against Protestantism, called Eucj- land'n jRefdrmation from the Time of Ifucry YIII. to the end of Oates's /^/r;/, by Thomas Ward. It was written in Hu(lil)r;istic verse, and professed to be j)ublished at Hamlmrg in 1710. ' Purl. Hist. vi.5li-51o. Burnet's On-n 7'ime, ii. 229, 440. A few Eng lish cases relating to property whicli fell under the code and were tried under Anne and her two successors o /■> *• CH. II. THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS. 30 do SO at their own expense.^ In the Hanoverian period, as well as in the reign of Anne, the Catholics enjoyed a considerable, though precarious, toleration. An acute observer, whose tour through England and Wales was published in 1722, tells us that ' to the north of Winchester there was a very large monas- tery, a handsome part of which still remained, called Hide House, inhabited by Eoman Catholics, where they have a private chapel for the service of the gentlemen of that religion there- abouts, of which there are several of note, and who live very quietly and friendly with their neighbours ; they have also a private seminary for their children, three miles off, where they prepare them for the colleges abroad.'- The same traveller visited the holy well of St. Winifred in Wales, and found the Catholic pilgrimages to it undiminished. The Catholic church at the well had, it is true, been converted into a Protestant school, but ' to supply the loss of this chapel the Eoman Catholics have chapels erected almost in every inn for the devotion of the pilgrims that flock hither from all the Popish parts of England.'^ Three years later Defoe's well-known ' Tour through Great Britain ' appeared. He mentions without com- ment ' Popish chapels ' among the religious edifices existing in London,'* and, having visited Durham, he writes of it : ' The town is well built but old, full of Roman Catholics, who live peaceably and disturb nobody and nobody them, for we, being- there on a holiday, saw them going as publicly to mass as the Dissenters did on other days to their meeting-houses.' ^ The Earl of Derwentwater, who was executed for his complicity in the rebellion of 1715, was a Catholic, and it was a popular tradition that his body, on its journey from London to its luuial-place in Scotland, was moved only by night, and rested every day in a place dedicated to the Catholic worship.*^ will be fmind in Bacon's Ahridgment ^ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 134. See too, on of ihe Law (7 ed.), vi. 12.5-i:>2. See the pilgrimage.s to tliis well, IJush's too Howard's Pojicry Cases, pp. 301- ITxlcrnia Curiosa (1769), p. 4. St. 324. Winifred was the first stage from ' A legal opinion to this effect Chester to Holyhead, was given July 22, 1714. Domestic ■* Defoe's Tour thrmt/jh Gvtat Tapers, Kecord Otfice. Britain, ii. 1.56. 2 A Jonriicy throxigh Enghnul : * Ibid. iii. 180. Familiar Letters from a Ociitleiiiaii "Scott's Tales of a Grandfatlwr, ^lere to his Friend abroad [by c. Ixxi. Macky], vol. ii. p. 26. X 2 3U8 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cii. ii. As the century advanced, the complaints of the growth of Popery became very numerous. The law of England still laid down that ' when a person is reconciled to the See of Kome, or procures others to be reconciled, the offence amounts to high treason,'^ and the sentence of perpetual imprisonment still hung over every Catholic priest ; but yet it appears evident that Catholicism in certain classes was extending. It was asserted in 1735 that there was 'scarcely a petty coffee-house in London where there is not a Popish lecture read on Sunday evenings.'^ Reports, which appear to have been entirely calumnious, were spread that Bishop Butler had died a Catholic.^ ' The growth of Popery,' wrote Doddridge, in 1735, 'seems to give a general and just alarm. A priest from a neighbouring gentleman's family makes frequent visits hither, and many of the Church people seem Popishly inclined.'^ Seeker complained, in 1738, that ' the emissaries of the Eomish Church . . . have begun to reap great harvests in the field.' ^ Sherlock, in the letter which he issued on the occasion of the earthquake of 1750, mentions the ' great increase of Popery ' among the crying evils of the time.*' Browne, in his ' Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Time,' which appeared a few years later, echoes the same complaint-. ' The priests,' he writes, ' are assiduous in making proselytes, and in urging their party to make them. There is at present a gentleman in the West of England who openly gives 51. to every person who becomes a proselyte to the Eoman Church ; and the additional bribe of a Sunday dinner for every such person that attends mass. Allurements of the same kind are known to prevail in most parts of the kingdom, and among those of the highest rank, though not so openly declared.'^ A fashion which had arisen among ladies of wearing Capuchin cloaks was somewhat absurdly reprehended, on the ground that it was teaching men - to view the cowl not only with patience but complacency.'* The leaders of the Dissenters were so sensible of the danger from the activity of the priests that they • Blackstone. ^ V,sirUcti's Life of Butler,]!. 16i. 2 This was stated in the Free * Doddridge's D-iari/, iii. p. 182. i?ni<7?J, of January 1735. See a very * Seeker's ^/^ar^e,?, Charge i. 1738. interesting collection of passages on ^ Gentleman/s BFaijazine, 1750. this subject, chiefly from old news- ' Browne's Estimate, ii. p. 140- papers, in Jliss VVedgwood's John 141. \Vesleij,i)]i. 281-283. * See Wedgwood's Wesley, p. 283. THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS. 309 establislied in 1734 and 1735 a course of anti-Popery lectures, in Salters' Hall ; and the laws against priests were so entirely in abeyance that two of these had a formal controversy with two Protestant divines.^ In 1738 Bishop Gibson, with a view of checking the Eomish projoagandism, collected and republished, under the title of ' A Preservation against Popery,' tlie anti- Papal tracts which had appeared in England between the Restoration and the Revolution. At the time of the rebellion of 1745, it is true, the laws were more severely enforced. A proclamation was issvied, banishing all Catholics from London, and forbidding them to go more tlian five milesfrom their homes; and another proclamation offered a reward for the capture of priests and Jesuits, some of whom were actually apprehended. A mass-house was about this time destroyed by the populace, at Stokesley, in Yorkshire, and another burnt by the sailors at Sunderland.^ Resident Catholic ambassadors com- plained of the severities of the Government against their co- religionists ; but these severities do not appear to have been very serious, and they were purely exceptional events produced by the existence of a great jDublic danger, and by the notorious sympathy of the Catholics with the invaders. In general the chief effects of the legislation against the Catholic worship appear to have been that it was carried on unostentatiously in private houses, that proselytism was difficult and somewhat dangerous, and that any Catholic who was suspected of disaffection was absolutely at the mercy of the Government. The unequal and oppressive taxation, however, and the innumerable disqualifications, bring- ing with them a great social stigma, still continued, and the la-ws against the priesthood offered such inducements to informers tliat their position was one of continual danger. As we shall hereafter see, they were occasionally prosecuted at a much later period than that with which we are at present concerned ; and in 1729 — in the reign of George II. and under the ministry of Townshend and \Vali)ole — a Franciscan friar, named Atkinson, died in Hurst Castle, in the seventy-fourth year of his life and • Wilson's Uist. of Disgcnting able evidence of the activity of llie Churcheg, ii. 368. The debate was Popish controversy among tlio Dis- published by both sides, and was senters. therefore, I suppose, at least partially - British CJironuIofjid, Dec. 1713, public. Tliisbookfui-nishes consider- Jan. 1746. 310 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. he thirtieth of his imprisonment, having been incarcerated in 1700 for performing- the functions of a Catholic priest.* The only minister who appears to have had any real wish to relieve the Catholics was Stanhope, who had contemplated some miti- gations of the penal code. In 1719 negotiations took place between his ministry and some leading Catholics, through the intervention of Strickland, the Bishop of Namiu- ; but difficulties raised on the Catholic side, for a time impeded them, and the disasters of the South Sea Company brought the design to a termination.^ As far as the condition of Catholics was improved under Greorge II., it was only by a milder adminis' tration of existing laws, and by the more tolerant maxims which prevailed among the higher clergy. Iq the days of Cromwell and Milton it had been argued that Catholicism was idolatry, and that it ought therefore to be suppressed, by virtue of the Old Testament decree against that sin. In the teaching of the Latitudinarian divines, and of the classes who adopted the principles of Locke, this doctrine had disappeared, and the measures against Catholicism were defended solely on the ground of the hostility of that religion to the civil govern- ment. In Scotland the Kirk ministers watched it with a fiercer animosity than the English clergy ; but even in Scotland it was not extinguished. It found a powerful protector in the ducal family of Gordon. In 1G99 the Duke of Gordon had been arrested for holding Popish meetings in his lodging at Edinburgh, but he was liberated after a fortnight's imprison- ment. In 1722 a meeting of fifty Catholics was surprised in the house of the Dowager Duchess of Gordon, and the priest for a time imprisoned. He was soon, however, bailed, and, not appearing to stand his trial, was outlawed. The Gordon family abandoned Catholicism on the death of the second Duke, in 1728, and from that time we very rarely find traces of Catholicism in the Lowlands. In the Highlands it had still its devoted adhe- rents. A small cottage, called Scalan, at Glenlivat, one of the wildest and most untrodden spots among the mountains of Aberdeenshire, continued during most of the eighteenth century ' JEx^orlmlUeijuterfoT 1729 (Oct.l.>). Bnilei's Ilistoneal Mnnoirs, ii. 63. 2 Ibid. ii. 59. en. II. DISBELIEVERS IN THE TRINITY. 311 to be a seminary, where eight or ten youths were usually educating for the priesthood. Many of the old superstitions lingered side by side with the new faith, and an occasional priest, or monk, or even Jesuit, celebrated in private houses the worship of his forefathers. In the western islands, in several of the mountain valleys of Moray, and especially on the property of the Dukes of Grordon, the Catholics continued numerous, and they appear to have been but little molested. As late as 1773, when Dr. Johnson visited the Hebrides, there were two small islands, named Egg and Canna, which were still altogether inhabited by Catholics.' The other class excluded from the benefits of the Toleration Act, and existing only in violation of the law, consisted of all those who impugned either the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, or the supernatural character of Christianity, or the divine authority of Scripture.. All such persons, by a law of William, were disabled, upon the first conviction, from holding any ecclesiastical, civil, or military ofiice, and were deprived, upon the second conviction, of the power of suing or prose- cuting in any law court, of being guardian or executor, and of receiving any legacy or deed of gift. They were also made liable to imprisonment for three years ; but in case they renounced their error publicly, within four months of the first conviction, they were discharged from their disabi- lities.^ Avowed Unitarianism has never been, and is never likely to be, a very important or very aggressive sect,, for the great majority of those who hold its fundamental tenet are but little disposed to attach themselves to any definite religious body, or to take any great interest in sectarian strife. The small school which followed Socinus had at first but few dis- ciples in England, and exercised no appreciable influence in the conflict of parties. Under Edward VI., Joan Bocher and a Dutchman named Van Parris had been burnt for their heresies ' See Laclilan Shaw's J/i^^.r^/^/orrty Statistical Aoconnt of Scotland, xiii. (177.")), p. 380 ; Chambers' Domestic .'!I3 ; and a few notices of Jesuits in Amiah of Scotland, iii. 201-205, 46(), ScotL-ind, in Oliver's Collections illas- 554 ; Martin's Itcscription of the tratinfj the Biogi-aphi/ of Scotch, Western Islands ; Johnson's Tour in English, and Irish Members of the the Hchrides, pp. 1()2, 11)6 ; Burton's Society of Jesvs. Hist, of Scotland, ii. 35'J-3G1 ; Sinclair's ^ y & iq William III. c. 32. 312 EXGKIND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. concerning the Trinity ; and two other heretics were burnt, on a similar charge, under James I. The term Unitarian, how- ever, appears to have been first adopted by John Biddle, a teacher of some learning and of great zeal and piety, who, during the stormy days of the Commonwealth, defended the doctrines of Socinus with unwearied energy, both in the pulpit and with his pen. A law had recently been passed, making it a capital offence to impugn the received doctrine of the Trinity, and this law would probably have been applied to Biddle, had not the influence of Cromwell and the support of some powerful friends been employed to screen him. As it was, his life was a continual martyrdom. His works were burnt by the hangman, he was banished for a time to the Scilly Islands, fined, and repeatedly imprisoned, and he at last died in prison in 1662.' He left a small sect behind him, its most remarkable members being Emlyn, to whose long imprisonment I have already referred, and Firmin, a London merchant, of considerable wealth and influence, who was one of the foremost supporters of every leading work of charity in his time, and who was intimately acquainted with Tillotson and several other leading Anglican divines.^ At his expense several anonymous tracts in defence of Socinian views were published. Less advanced heresies about the Trinity are said to have been widely diffused in the seventeenth century. Arianism may be detected in the ' Paradise Lost.' It tinged the theology of Newton, and it spread gradually through several dissenting sects. Early in the eighteenth century it rose into great prominence. Whiston, who was one of the most learned theologians of his time, and the professor of mathematics at Cambridge, openly maintained it. Lardner, who occupies so conspicuous a place among the apologists for Christianity, was at one time an Arian, though his opinion seems to have ultimately inclined to Socinianism.^ Views which were at least semi-Arian appeared timidly in the writings of Clarke ; and the long Trinitarian controversy, in which Sherlock, Jane, South, Wallis, Burnet, Tillotson, and many ' See Wallace's Anti-Tnnitariaii prefixed to Lardner's Works, p. xxxii. Biograjjhi/. His ultimate view is said to have '^ Life of Mr. Thomas Fi?'mi», been tiiiat 'Jesus was a man ajipointed, Citizen of London. By J. Cornisli. exalted, loved, and honoured by God 1780. beyond all other beings.' ' See Kixjpis's Life of Lardner CH. 11. SCEPTICAL WORKS. 313 others took part, familiarised the whole nation with the difficul- ties of the question. It was, however, among the Presbyterians that the defections from orthodoxy were most numerous and most grave. In 1719 two Presbyterian ministers were deprived of their pastoral charge on account of their Unitarian opinions, but soon either Arianism or Socinianism became the current sentiments of the Presbyterian seminaries, and by the middle of tlie eighteenth century most of the principal Presbyterian ministers and congregations had silently discarded the old doc- trine of the Trinity.' When the intention of Whiston and Clarke to stir this question was first known, Grodolphin, who was then in power, remonstrated with them, saying to the latter that ' the affairs of the public were with difficulty then kept in the hands of those that were at all for liberty ; that it was therefore an unseason- able time for the publication of a book that would make a great noise and disturbance, and that therefore the ministers desired him to forbear till a surer opportunity should offer itself.'^ The storm of indignation that arose in Convocation upon the appear- ance of the work of Whiston in some degree justified the judg- ment, but, on the whole, few things are more remarkable in the eighteenth century than the ease and impunity with which anti-Trinitarian views were propagated. The prosecution of Emlyn called forth an emphatic and noble protest from Hoadly, and though Whiston was deprived of his professorship, and cen- sm'ed by Convocation, he was not otherwise molested. Noisier controversies drew away most of the popular fanaticism, and the suppression of Convocation was eminently favourable to re- ligious liberty. A Bill which was brought forward in 1721, supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and by some other prelates, to increase the stringency of the legislation against anti-Trinitarian writings, was rejected,^ and the laws against anti-Trinitarians were silently disused. Works, however, which were directed against the Christian religion were still liable to prosecution, though the measures taken against them were not usually very severe. ' The Fable of the Bees ' of INIandeville, the ' Christianity not Mysterious ' of Toland, the ' Eiglits of the ' Bogue and Bennett's Ilht. of * Winston's Memoirs of Clarke, DiifM'iitcrs, ii. 300-808. See, too, p. 25. Liudricy's Historical View ^ Pari. Hist. vii. 89S-bD5. 314 ENGL.iND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ii. Christian Church ' l)y Tiudal, and the ' Posthumous Works ' of Bolingbroke, were all presented by the Grand Jury of Middle- sex. When Collins, in 1713, published his 'Discourse on Free thinking-,' the outcry was so violent that the author thought it prudent to take refuge for a time in Holland. Woolston — whose mind seems to have been positively disordered — having published, in 1727 and the two following years, some violent discourses impugning the Miracles of Christ, was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and to a fine of 1,000^. — a sentence against which the apologist Lardner very nobly protested, and which Clarke endeavoured to mitigate. When Toland visited Ireland his book was burnt by order of the Irish Parliament, and he only escaped arrest by a precipitate flight.^ Towards the middle of the century, however, interest in these subjects had almost ceased. The ' Treatise on Human Nature,' by Hume, which appeared in 1739, though one of the greatest master- pieces of sceptical genius, fell still-born from the press, and the posthumous works of Bolingbroke, in spite of the noisy reputa- tion of their author, produced only the most transient ripple of emotion.^ A letter written by Montesquieu to Warburton was quoted with much applause, in which that great French thinker somewhat cynically argued that, however false might be the established religion in England, no good man should attack it, as it injured no one, was divested of its worst prejudices, and was the source of many practical advantages.^ An acute ob- server on tlie side of orthodoxy noticed that there was at this time little sceptical speculation in England, because there was but little interest in any theological question;"* and a great ' South wrote with great delight : I am sensible that in Spain or 'Your Parliament presently sent him Portugal a man who is going to be packing, and without the help of a burnt . . . hath very good reason to faggot soon made the kingdom too hot attack it. . . . But the case is very for him.' See Disraeli's Calamit'les dilferent in England, where a man of Authors, ii. 13:}. that attacks revealed religion does it ^'B.vime's Autobiography. 'Qxovine's without the least personal motive, Estimate, i. 56. and where this champion if he should ^ Referring to Bolingbroke'sphilo- succeed — nay, should he be in the sophy, he wrote : ' What motive can right too — would only deprive his there be for attacking revealed country of numberless real benefits religion in England ? In that country for the sake of establishing a merely it is so purged of all destructive speculative truth.' — Annual lli/gister^ prejudices that it can do no harm, 1760, y>. 181). but on the contrary is capable of ■• Browne's iS,'rtw^;'<", i. 52-58. producing numberless good eflccts. CH. II. EELiaiOUS INDIFFERENCE. 315 sceptic described the nation as ' settled into the most cool in- difference with regard to religious matters that is to be found in any nation of tlie world.' ^ Latitudinarianism had spread widely, but almost silently, tlirough all religious bodies, and dogmatic teaching was almost excluded from the pulpit. In spite of occasional outbursts of popular fanaticism, a religious languor fell over England, as it had fallen over the Continent ; and if it produced much neglect of duty among clergymen, and much laxity of morals among laymen, it at least in some degree assuaged the bitterness of sectarian animosity and pre- pared the way for the future triumph of religious liberty. ' Hume's Essaij on Xational Clun'ucters. 316 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. hi. CHAPTER III. While the changes described in the last chapter were taking place, the history of parties in England continued to present a singular monotony. The stigma of Jacobitism still rested on the Tories, though Bolingbroke did everything in his power to efface it. This great Tory statesman had soon discovered that the confi- dence of the Pretender was never given to any but the most bigoted Catholics, and that his narrow and superstitious mind was wholly unsuited for the delicate task of reconciling the poli- tical principles of the Tory party with their religious interests and sympathies. Slighted and neglected by the master for whom he had sacrificed so much, finding his political judgment habi- tually treated as of less value than that of ignorant and inexpe- rienced fanatics, he soon openly quarrelled witli the Pretender, received his dismissal in 1716, and with a heart burning with resentment abjured all further connection with Jacobitism. The importance of such a secession from the Jacobite ranks was self- evident. Bolingbroke was the greatest orator and the most brilliant party leader of his time. He had been, and in spite of recent errors he would probably, if restored to English j)oliti- cal life, again be the leader of the Church and of the country party, and he could do more than any other living man to reconcile the Tory party to the new dynasty. His first object was to be restored to his country, fortune, and titles ; he offered his services unreservedly to the Government, and his violent quarrel with the Jacobites was a pledge of his sincerity. The Whig ministry were, however, in general far from desiring to accept the offer. On public grounds they probably doubted the sincerity, or at least the permanence, of his conver- sion. ' Parties,' as Pulteney once said, ' like snakes, are moved by their tails.' It was certain that the Tory party in 1716 was CH. in. POSITION OF BOLINGBEOKE. 317 almost wholly Jacobite. Tliere was nothing- in the principle? or antecedents of Bolingbroke to make it improbable that if it again suited his interests he would place himself in sympathy with his followers, and it wos evident that his presence would give them an importance they would not otherwise possess. Besides this, it was the obvious party interest of the Whigs to exclude from the arena the most formidable of all their oppo- nents, and there was no other statesman whom they regarded with such animosity. Much as they desired the maintenance of the dynasty, they had little desire to see the Tory party recon- ciled to it. They well knew that their monopoly of place and power depended upon the success with which they represented their opponents, both to the King and to the country, as neces- sarily Jacobite. As Bolingbroke himself very happily said, in the disposition of parties in Eugland, ' the accidental passions ' of the people were on oue side, 'their settled habits of thinking' on the other. The natural preponderance of classes and senti- ment was with the Tories, but the temporary association of Toryism with Popery and with rebellion had thrown all power into the hands of the Whigs. A Tory party thoroughly recon- ciled to the djnasty, and guided by a statesman of great genius and experience, would probably in no long time become the ruler of the State. Such were probably the motives of the Whig leaders in rejecting the overtures of Bolingbroke. Walpole, who, no doubt, clearly saw in him the most dangerous of competitors, was especially vehement and especially resolute in maintaining his ostracism, and it was not until 1723 that Bolingbroke obtained, by the influence of the King's mistress, a pardon which enabled him to return to England. With the assent of Sir William Windham, Lord Bathurst, and Lord Gower, three of the most considerable men in the Tory party, he in that year made a formal offer of co-operation to Walpole, but that offer was absolutely declined.^ The Act of Attainder, which was still in force, and which could only be annulled by Parliament, deprived him of his estates and of his seat in the House of Lords, and although he succeeded in 1725 in regaining the former by Act ' Walpole to Townshend, August 3, 1723. Coxes Walpole, 'ii. 263-264. 318 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTQEY. ch. m. of Parliament, he was still steadily excluded from the latter. Tlie adroitness and splendid eloquence with which in his last speech in the House of Lords he had met the ministerial charges against the Peace of Utrecht were not soon forgotten, and the Whig leaders and the Whig Parliaments were fully resolved to paralyse so formidable an adversary. The career of Bolingbroke is in some respects one of the most unfor- tunate in English history. Gifted, by the confession of all wdio knew him, with abilities of the very highest order, some fatal obstacle seemed always in his path. The inveterate "lilatoriness of Oxford, the death of the Queen in the most critical moment of his life, the incapacity and incurable bigotry of the Pretender, frustrated all his efforts, and he found him- self in the very zenith of his transcendent powers condemned to political impotence. The first of living orators, he was shut out for ever from Parliament, wliicli, at a time when public meetings were imknown, was the only theatre for poli- tical eloquence. A devoted Tory, and at the same time a bitter enemy to the Pretender, he found his party, which was naturally the strongest in England, reduced to insignificance through the imputation of Jacobitism. His political writings continued for many years to agitate the country, and he was indefatigable in his efforts to unite the scattered fragments of opposition into a new party, taking for its principle the suppres- sion of corruption in Parliament ; but his efforts met with little success, and a politician excluded from the Legislature could never take a foremost place in English politics. Once, indeed, after many years of weary waiting, the favour of the Prince of Wales seemed likely to break the spell of misfortune, but the sudden death of his patron again clouded his prospects and drove him in despair from public life. The Whig party, under these circumstances, was almost uncontrolled, and its strength was not seriously impaired by the great schism which broke out in 1717, when Lord Townshend was dismissed from office, when Walpole, with several less noted Wliigs, resigned, and went into violent opposition, and when the chief power passed into the hands of Sunderland and Stanhope. It is the plan of tliis book to avoid as much as possible dis- cussing the personalities of history, except so far as they illustrate the political character and tendencies of the time, and I shall cii. in. WHIG SCHISM OF 1-17. 319 therefore content myself with the most cursory reference to this schism. It was almost inevitable that divisions should have taken place. The party was in an overwhelming majority. Its leaders were very much upon a level ; for Walpole, thougli far abler than his colleagues, was somewhat inferior to several of them in the weight of his political connections, and he had not yet attained the Parliamentary ascendancy he afterwards en- joyed. The Hanoverian ministers, and a crowd of rapacious Hano- verian favourites of the King, were perpetually endeavouring to make English politics subservient to Hanoverian interests, and to obtain places, pensions, or titles for themselves ; and another serious element of complication and intrigue was introduced by the strong dislike subsisting between the King and the Prince of Wales, and the extreme jealousy which the former entertained of all statesmen who were supposed to have confidential intercourse with the latter or with his partisans. The bitter hatred, both per- sonal and political, that subsisted between the first three Hano- verian sovereigns and their eldest sons, though it threw great scandal and discredit on the royal family and added largely to the diflSculties of parliamentary government, was probably on the whole rather beneficial to the dynasty than otherwise, as it led the most prominent opponents of the existing Grovernments to place their chief hopes in the heir-apparent to the Crown. The Hano-r verian tendencies of the sovereign were, however, an unmixed source of weakness. The whole Whig party, though they had gra- tified the King by supporting the acquisition of Bremen and Ver- den, offended him by refusing to follow the advice of his favourite Hanoverian minister, Bernsdorf, to commence immediate hostili- ties against the Czar when he invaded the Grand Duchy of ■Meck- lenburg in 1716. Walpole and Townshend soon became peculiarly distasteful to the Grerman party around the King, and they were accustomed to express, in no measured terms, their indignation at the venality and the intrigues of the Hanoverian favourites. On the other hand, Sunderland was intriguing eagerly against his colleagues. The son of the able and corrupt statesman who played so gi-eat a part iu the reigns of James II. and of William, and the son-in-law of Marlborough, he had for some time shared the suspicion with which his father-in-law was re- garded by Greorge I. Though his introduction into the Cabinet during the last reign had been looked upon as one of the mo:-t 320 ENQLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTPI CENTURY. CH. m. important and most decisive victories of the Whig party, and though he had long been one of the most conspicuous debaters in the House of liords, he found himself excluded, together with Marlborough, from the list of Lords Justices to whom the go- vernment of the country was in part entrusted on the death of the Queen. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which re- moved him from active political life ; and although he afterwards succeeded Wharton as Privy Seal, he still found tlie influence and favour of Lord To^vnshend greatly superior to his own, and he showed his discontent by very rarely taking any part in the defence of the Government. At last, however, he succeeded, in the summer of 1716, during a brief residence in Hanover, in obtaining the complete favour and confidence of the King. Stanhope, who was Secretary of State, and who had been appointed to that office by Townshend, threw himself into the measures of Sunderland. Some alleged delays of Townshend in negotiating the treaty with France, some alleged relations between him and the party of the Prince of Wales, furnished pretexts, and, after passing through more than one phase which it is not here neces- sary to chronicle, the disagreement deepened into an open breach. In the new Government Sunderland and Addison were joint Secre- taries of State, while Stanhope was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The conduct of Stanhope in this transaction is extremely questionable, but he appears to have been in general a high-minded as well as" brave and liberal man, well skilled in military matters and in foreign policy, and of that frank and straightforward character which often succeeds better in public life, and especially in English public life, than the most re- fined cunning,^ but without much administrative or parliamentary ' Lady W. Montague writes: 'Earl Stanhope used to say that during his ministry he always im- posed on the foreign ministers by telling them the naked truth, which as they thought it impossible to come from the mouth of a statesman, they never failed to write information to their respective Courts directly con- trary to the assurances he gave them.' Letters (Lord Wharnclitfc's ed.), iii. 54. Compare the following account of Lord I'almerston. ' I have heard him [Lord Palmerston] say that he occasionally found that they [foreign ministers] had been deceived by the open manner in which he told them the truth. When he had laid before them the exact state of the case, and announced his own intentions, thej'' went away convinced that so skilful and experienced a diplomatist could not possibly be so frank as he apix-ared, and, imagining some deep design in his words, acted on their own idea of what he really meant, and so misled their own selves.' — Ashley's Life of Pahiierdon, ii. 301. CH. m. THE SOUTH SEA PEOJECT. 321 ability, and wholly unfit to manage the finances of the country. In the following year, as foreign affairs became more entangled, the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer was given to Aislabie. Sunderland became First Lord of the Treasury, and Stanhope, together with an earldom, assumed the office of Secretary of State, which gave him the direction of foreign policy. In home policy the ministry was chiefly distinguished by the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, by the unsuccessful attempt to carry the mischievous Peerage Bill, which I have already described, and by the privileges granted to the South Sea Company, which speedily led to the most terrible disasters. Its foreign policy was more brilliant, for it was during its term of office, and in a great degree in consequence of its measures, that the ambitious projects of Alberoni were defeated. In 1720 the schism was partly healed by the return of Walpole and Townshend to office, though not to a position in the Government at all equivalent to that of which they had been deprived. Townshend became President of the Council, and Walpole Pay- master of the Forces ; and about the same time, and chiefly through the influence of "Walpole, there was an outward recon- ciliation between the King and the Prince of Wales. The divergence of feelings and interests between the two sections of the Cabinet was, however, by no means at an end when the disasters following the South Sea Bubble gave a com- plete ascendancy to the party of Walpole. The South Sea Company had, as we have seen, been established by Harley, in 1711, for the purpose of restoring the national credit, which had been shaken by the downfall of the Whigs ; and although its trade in the Spanish waters was greatly limited by the pro- visions of the Peace of Utrecht, and greatly interrupted by the subsequent hostilities with Spain, the company possessed such important commercial privileges that it continued to be one of the most considerable and esteemed mercantile corporations in the country. The policy of gradually paying off tlie debt by incorporating it with the stock of flourishing companies was in high favour, and in 1717 an Act was passed permitting the proprietors of certain short annuities amounting to about 135,000^., which had still twenty-three years to run, to sub- scribe the residue of the term into South Sea stock, at the rate VOL. I. T 322 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. hi. of eleven and a half years' purchase, receiving five per cent, on the principal. By this transaction, and by an additional advance of about 54.4,0001., the capital of the company was increased to li,746,S44L In 1719, however, the project was conceived of enormously enlarging its scope. The National Debt consisted parti}' of redeemable funds, which might be paid off whenever money could be found for that purpose, and partly of irredeem- able ones, usually for about ninety-nine years, which could not be paid without the consent of the proprietors. The directors of the company proposed, by purchase or subscription, to absorb both kinds of debt, and they anticipated that the advantages they could offer were such that they could make arrangements with the proprietors of the irredeemable annuities for the con- version of these latter into redeemable funds, that thev could consolidate the different funds into a single stock, that at the end of seven years they coidd reduce the interest on the national debt from five to four -pev cent., and that by the profits of a company so greatly enlarged and so closely connected with the Government they could establish a large sinking fund for paying off the national debt. The prospect in the outset rested upon very erroneous notions of the value of the South Sea trade ; but the competition between the company and the Bank, which looked upon the scheme with great jealousy, soon made it wholly chimerical. The South Sea directors resolved, at all costs, to obtain their ends, and they accordingly offered no less than 7,567,000^., if all the debts were subscribed, and a propor- tionate sum for any part of them ; and they also proposed to pay, for the use of the public, one year's purchase of such of the long irredeemable annuities as should not be brought into their capital. These terms were accepted by the Government, and the Bill was passed in April 1720. It was wholly impos- sible that it should have issued in anything but disaster ; but all the devices of the Stock Exchange were employed artificially to raise the price of stock. For several years — and, indeed, ever since the Revolution — a spirit of reckless speculation had been spreading through England. Stock-jobbing had become a favourite profession. Lottery after lottery had been launched with success, and projects hardly less insane than those of the South Sea year found numerous supporters. The scheme of CH. III. THE SOUTH SEA PROJECT. 323 Law had produced a wild enthusiasm of speculation in France, and the contagion was felt in England. The South Sea project was too complicated to be generally understood. There was no efficient organ of financial criticism. The Gfovernment warmly supported the scheme. The large sum offered by the company, which made success impossible, stimulated the imaginations of the people, who fancied that a privilege so dearly purchased must be of inestimable value, and the com- plication of credulity and dishonesty, of ignorance and avarice, threw England into what it is scarcely an exaggeration to term a positive frenzy. The mischief affected all classes. Landlords sold their ancestral estates ; clergymen, philosophers, professors, dissenting ministers, men of fashion, poor widows, as well as the usual speculators on 'Change, flung all their possessions into the new stock. Many foreigners followed the example, and the Canton of Berne, in its corporate capacity, is said to have speculated largely in it. Among those to whom large amounts of stock had been improperly assigned were the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Platen the two mistresses of the King, Sunderland the Prime Minister, Aislabie the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Stanhope the Secretary to the Treasury, and the two Craggs. Among the great crowd of honest speculators were Pope and Walpole and Gay, Bingham, the learned his- torian of Christian antiquities. Chandler, one of the most con- spicuous of the Dissenters. Eumours of intended cessions of gold mines of Peru, in exchange for Gibraltar and Port Mahon, were industriously circulated and readily believed. Dividends were officially promised, which could never be paid. The stock rose to 1,000. Then came the inevitable reaction. The bubble burst. Bankers and goldsmiths who had lent money on it were everywhere failing. The stock fell faster than it had risen, and in a few weeks the Eldorado dreams were dispelled, and disaster and ruin were carried through all classes of the nation.^ It is a striking instance of the good fortune which at this time attended the Whig party, that the schism of 1717 had withdrawn a certain proportion of its leaders from the Govern- ment, and consequently from all responsiljility for the disaster. ' Sinclair's Hist, of the Revemw, i. 488. Tindal. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. Y 2 324 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. Had it been otherwise, the whole party might have fallen beneath the outburst of popular indignation, and a party which was now purely Jacobite might have been summoned to the helm. Walpole, however, who since his resignation had sys- tematically opposed every measure of the ministry, had both in Parliament and by his pen severely criticised the South Sea scheme, and although he had been partially reconciled to the Grovernment and had accepted office about three months before the final crash, public opinion very justly held him wholly inno- cent of the disaster, while his well-known financial ability made men turn to him in the hour of distress, as of all statesmen the most fitted to palliate it. Lord Stanhope, who, whatever his errors may have been, showed at least a perfect integrity during these transactions, died in the February of 1720-21, and was repJaced as Secretary of State by Lord Townshend. Aislabie was driven ignominiously from his position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sunderland, the Prime Minister, though ac- quitted on the charge of corruption, was obliged, by the stress of public feeling, to resign his office. Walpole became both First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the death of Sunderland, in April 1722, which closed the schism of the Whig party, removed the last serious obstacle from his path. In his career, more than in that of any other statesman, the character of Whig policy during the eighteenth century was reflected ; and his influence, in a very great degree, determined the tone and character of parliamentary govern- ment in England. Born in 1676, of a Norfolk family of great antiquity, mo- derate wealth, and considerable political influence, Eobert Walpole was at first, as a second son, intended for the Church, was educated with this object at Eton, where he was the con- temporary and rival of St. John, and had already begun, with some distinction, his career at Cambridge when the death of his elder brother induced his fatlier to withdraw him from the University, and soon after plunged him into politics. His family possessed the control of no less than three seats, and he entered Parliament for one of them upon the death of his father, in 1700, and at once attached himself to the Whigs. He appeared from ths beginning a shrewd, cautious, laborious, CHo m. ROBERT WALPOLE. 325 and ambitious man, of indomitable courage and unflagging- spirits, surpassed by many in the grace and dignity of eloquence, but by no one in readiness of reply, fertility of resource, and aptitude for business. He became a member of the Council of Admiralty in 1705, Secretary of War in 1708, Treasurer of the Navy in 1709. In 1710 he was one of the managers of the Sacheverell impeachment, a measure of which he privately dis- ajDproved. On the downfall of the ministry, he took a con- spicuous and brilliant part in defending the financial policy of G-odolphin, who had been accused by the Tory House of Com- mons of gross extravagance and corruption, and he from this period obtained the reputation of ' the best master of figures of any man of his time.' In 1712, the Tories, being in power, marked their animosity against him by expelling him from Parliament, on the charge of corruption, and consigning him for a few months to the Tower ; but the condemnation, which was a mere party vote, left no stigma on his name, while the species of political martyrdom he underwent only served to enhance his reputation. He soon returned to Parliament, was recog- nised as the most powerful supporter of the Protestant succes- sion, rose again to office upon the accession of George I., was Chairman of the Secret Committee for investigating the circum- stances of the Peace of Utrecht, became Paymaster of the Forces in 1714 and First Lord of the Treasury, and at the same time Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1715. We have just seen how the division of the party in 1717 for a time interrupted his career ; how, by a singular good fortune, he was in opposition when the South Sea scheme was devised ; and how the ruin of his most formidable competitors and his own financial talents brought him to the foremost place. In the midst of the panic, and ex- asperation both of Parliament and of the nation, he acted with great coolness, coiu'age, and good sense. He moderated the pro- ceedings that were taken against the guilty directors, and he gradually restored public credit by measures which met with some opposition at the time, and which, many years after, became the objects of virulent attacks,' but which liad undoubtedly the effect of calming public opinion, and greatly mitigating tlie ' See the details of these measures The attacks nyion Waljiolc's honesty in Coxe, Hinclair, and I\Iacphersoa. in tliis matter do not appear to have 326 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. ni. inevitable siifFering. His first sclieme — which was originally suggested by Jacombe, the Under-Secretary of War — was a division of the stock between the South Sea Company, the Bank, and the East India Company; but another plan was afterwards devised. It is not necessary to enter at length into its somewhat complicated details. It is sufficient to say that the whole sum of rather more than 7,000,000L, which the com- pany had engaged to pay the public, was ultimately remitted, that tlie confiscated estates of the directors were employed in the partial discharge of the incumbrances of the society, and that a division of stock being made among all the proprietors, it produced a dividend of 33^. 6s. Sd. per cent. From this time, for more than twenty years, the ascendancy of Walpole was complete. Carteret, who made some slight efforts to rally the party, which had been left leaderless by the deaths of Stanhope and Sunderland, or at least to maintain some real authority in tlie ministry, succumbed in the beginning of 1724, and went into a kind of honourable exile as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The death of the King had long been looked upon as the event which must necessarily terminate the administration of his favourite minister, for the enmity between Greorge I. and his eldest son had never in reality ceased, and the quarrel between them broke out with renewed violence on the occa- sion of the birth of the Prince's second son, in 1721. The Prince desired the Duke of York to be godfather to the child. The King insisted on giving that post to the Duke of New- castle. A strange, undignified, but most characteristic scene ensued. On the occasion of the christening, in the Princess's bedroom, and in presence of the King, the Prince, trembling with passion, strode up to the Duke of Newcastle, shaking his hand at him in menace, and shouting, in his broken English, ' You are a rascal ; but I shall find you ! ' The King ordered his son to be put under arrest, and that niglit he and his wife were driven from the palace. From this time there was open and complete hostility, not only between the King and the Prince of Wales, but also between their adherents. No communication been made till fourteen years later, great length in Ralph's Critical Hist. and were probably quite iinfounded. of the Administration tf Walpole. Ihej will be found drawn out at CH. HI. GEISTEEAL CHAEACTEEISTICS. 327 ■was suffered to pass between them, and Walpole especially was made the subject of violent abuse by the heir to the throne. But the expectations of his enemies were soon disappointed. For a few days, indeed, Walpole was out of office, the King having placed the management of affairs in the hands of Sir Spencer Compton, who had been his treasurer, and who was at this time Speaker of the House of Commons, and also Paymaster of the Forces. Sir Spencer, however, was entirely incapable of occu- pying a foremost place. He foimd himself unable even to draw up a King's Speech, and in his difficulty he resorted to Walpole himself. The influence of Cardinal Fleury, who urged the danger to the French alliance of a change of Grovernment, and the warm support of Queen Caroline, brought Walpole back to office, where he became more absolute than before. Sir Spencer Compton readily acquiesced in his own deposition, was created Earl of Wilmington in 1728, and two years later became Privy Seal, and then President of the Council in the ministry of his former rival. Townshend, who alone could in any degree maintain a balance of power, was compelled to resign in 1730, and the ascendancy of Walpole continued unbroken till 1742. It is the fault of many historians and the misfortune of many statesmen that the latter are often judged almost exclusively by the measures they have passed, and not at all by the evils they have averted. In the case of Walpole this mode of judgment is peculiarly misleading, and it is remarkable that great practical politicians have usually estimated him far more highly than men of letters.' The long period of his rule was signalised by very few measures of brilliancy or enduring value. His faults both as a man and a statesman were glaring and repulsive, and he never exercised either the intellectual fascination that belongs to a great orator, or the moral fascination that belongs to a great ' In the present generation Walpole of Fredcricl; the Great. It is curiously has been made the subjectof elaborate instructive to compare theirestimates pictures by three very eminentwriters, of him with that of llurke in his who differ as widely as possible in Appeal from the Nen- to the Old Wkujs, their political views, and in the cha- and that of Sir Robert Peel in a re- racter of their minds— by Macaulay vi\i\v'kaXAeTpajpQvu\t\\e Stanhope Miscel- in his Essay on Horace Walpole's lanies (lirst series). Lord J. Kussell Letters ; Lord Stanhope in his Hist, of has always est imated A\'alpole at least L'nfflarul ; and Mr. Carlyle in his Life as highly as Sir 11. I'eel. o 28 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. in. character. He was not a reformer, or a successful war minister, or a profound and original thinker, or even a tactician of great enterprise, and yet he possessed qualities which have justly placed him in the foremost rank of politicians. Finding Eng- land with a disputed succession and an unpopular sovereign, with a corrupt and factious Parliament, and an intolerant, ignorant, and warlike people, he succeeded in giving it twenty years of unbroken peace and uniform prosperity, in establishing on an impregnable basis a dynasty which seemed tottering to its fall, in rendering, chiefly by the force of his personal ascendancy, the House of Commons the most powerful body in the State, in moderating permanently the ferocity of political factions and the intolerance of ecclesiastical legislation. A simple country squire, with neither large fortune nor great connections, he won the highest post in politics from rivals of brilliant talent, and he maintained himself in it for a longer period than any of his predecessors. No English minister had a sounder judgment ir emergencies or a greater skill in reading and in managing men He obtained a complete ascendancy over Greorge I., although the King speaking no English, and his minister no French or German, their only communications were in bad Latin, and although the favourite mistress of the King was his enemy. On the death of George I., when the other leading politicians turned at once to Mrs. Howard, the mistress of the new sovereign, as the future source of political power, Walpole at once recognised the ability and unobtrusive influence of the Queen, and by her friendship he was soon absolute at Court. Though George II. came to tlie throne with an intense prepossession against him, and though the King was as fond of war as his minister of peace, he soon acquired the same influence over the new sovereign as be had exercised over his father. His chancellor. Lord Maccles- field, excited a storm of indignation, and at last an impeach- ment, by corruptly selling masterships of Chancery ; but Walpole, without unfairly abandoning his colleague, met the charges against him with such consummate tact and such judicious candour that the affair rather strengthened than weakened his administration. He managed the House of Commons with an admirable mixture of shrewdness and frankness, and his facility of access, his unfailing good humour, tlie ease with which he CH. III. CONCILIATORY POLICY OF WALPOLE. 329 threw aside the cares of office, his loud, ringing laugh, and the keen zest with whicli he rode to the hounds, contributed perhaps as much as his higher qualities to win the affections of the country squires, who were still so powerful in politics. Parlia- mentary government, under his auspices, acquired a definite form and a regular action, and he was a great Parliamentary leader at the time when the art of Parliamentary leadership was alto- gether new. As a statesman the chief object of his policy was to avoid all violent concussions of opinion. He belonged to that class of legislators who recognise fully that government is an organic thing, that all transitions to be safe should be the gradual pro- duct of public opinion, that the great end of statesmanship is to secure the nation's practical well-being, and allow its social and industrial forces to develope unimpeded, and that a wise minister will carefully avoid exciting violent passions, provoking reactions, offending large classes, and generating enduring dis- contents. In many periods the policy of evading or postponing dangerous questions has proved revolutionary, or has, at least, increased the elements of agitation. In the time of Walpole, and in the degree in which he practised it, it was eminently wise. England was at this time menaced by one of the greatest calamities that can befall a nation — the evil of a disputed suc- cession. Large classes were alienated from the Grovernment. Strong religious and political passions had been aroused against it, and there were evident signs in many quarters of a disposi- tion to subordinate national to dynastic considerations. In an earlier period of English history causes of this nature had deluged England with blood for more than sixty years. Since the time of Walpole very similar influences have corroded the patriotism and divided the energies of the leading nation on the Continent, and have led to the most crushing catastrophe in its history. To the systematic moderation of Walpole it is in a gTeat degree due that tlie revolutionary spirit took no root in England, that the many elements of disaffection gradually sub- sided, and that the landed gentry were firmly attached to the new dynasty. To conciliate this class was a main branch of his policy, and if this course was dictated by his own party interests, it is equally true that it was eminently in accordance with the 330 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. in. interests of the country. The Eevolution was in a great measure a movement of the town populations in opposition to the country gentry, and had it not been for the mediatorial influence of the aristocracy, who were connected politically with the first, and socially with the second, it might have led to a most dangerous antagonism of classes. It is, however, a remarkable fact that in the very first year of the Eevolution, the Legislature, while gratifying the whole people by abolishing the unpopular hearth tax, conferred a special favour upon the landlords by a law granting bounties for the export of corn when the home price had sunk to a certain level. ^ That this measure was economi- cally erroneous will now hardly be disputed, but it probably had a real political value, and its enactment immediately after the great Whig triumph is a striking illustration of the con- ciliatory spirit that has usually presided over English legisla- tion. Still the country gentry were, on the whole, hostile to the change, and the chief burden of the additional taxation was thrown uj^on them. The land tax of four shillings in the pound, which was carried in 1692, was extremely unequal in its opera- tion, for it was based on a valuation furnished chiefly by the landlords themselves, but in principle the equity of the tax was generally acknowledged. By no other form of taxation could a sufficient sum be raised to meet the expenses of the war. For many generations extraordinary emergencies had been met by temporary taxes upon land. The prevailing economical notion that of all forms of industry agriculture alone is really produc- tive helped to justify the tax, and it also contributed to redress a serious injustice which had been done to other classes under Charles II. In that reign, as is well known, the feudal obliga- tions which still rested upon land were abolished, and, as a com- pensation, excise duties were imposed on beer, ale, and other liquors, and on licenses, and were assigned in perpetuity to the Crown ; and thus the burden which had from time immemorial been attached to one particular species of property was shifted to the whole community.^ Under these circumstances the land tax required no justifi- cation, and at first met with no serious opposition. It is not sur- > 1 William and :\Iary, c. 12. * isee McCulloch On Taxation, p. 58. Sinclair On the liei-enue, i. 300. CH. HI. CONCILIATORY POLICY OF WALPOLE. 331 prising, however, that its unprecedented magnitude, and also the necessity of continuing it in tinie of peace, should haA'e aggravated the irritation with which, on other grounds, the country gentry regarded the Eevolution. Their political aliena- tion was, perhaps, the most serious danger of the new Govern- ment. It was entirely impossible that the reigning family should be firmly established, and that constitutional Parliamentary go- vernment should continue if the landed gentry were estranged from the existing order of things ; and their natural sympathies ■were strongly Tory, while Grovernment, in the first two Hano- verian reigns, was exclusively Whig. The hatred the ordinary country gentlemen felt towards foreigners, towards traders, and towards Dissenters was hardly less strong than that dread of Popery which had induced them reluctantly to acquiesce in the Eevohition. It was impossible, however, that they should long look upon Walpole as an enemy to their order or their interests. By birth and position he belonged to their class. He was so imbued with their tastes that, as Lord Hardwicke assures us, he always opened the letters of his gamekeeper before any others, even before the letters from the King.' The Saturday holiday of Parliament still remains as a memorial of his country habits, for, as the Speaker Onslow informs lis, it was originally insti- t-uted in order that Walpole might once a week gratify his passion for hunting. In the contest upon the Peerage Bill, which beyond most questions touched the interests of the country gen- try, Walpole was their special champion. He carefully humom-ed their prejudices, and he steadily laboured, sometimes by means that were censurable or unpopular, to reduce the land tax, which was their greatest burden. In 1731 and 1732 it sank for the first time since the Revolution to one shilling in the pound. To abolish it was the main object of his excise scheme. To keep it down he reimposed, in 1732, the salt tax, which had been abolished two years before, and in the following year with- drew 500,000?. from the Sinking Fund, which had been pro- vided for the payment of the National Debt. I have already shown how a similar spirit of caution and conciliation pervaded his religious policy, how he abstained from adopting any course which could arouse the dormant into- ' WaljioUana. 332 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. hi. lerance of the people, and contented himself by a mild adminis- tration of existing- laws, by Latitudinarian Church appointments, and, by passing Acts of indemnity, with securing a large amount of practical liberty. He did nothing to relieve the Catholics at home, but his Protestantism, like all his other sentiments, was devoid of fanaticism, and it did not prevent him from coope- rating cordially with Cardinal Fleury, who directed aflfairs in France, from holding frequent unofficial communications with Rome, and from acting with his usual good-nature towards in- dividuals of the creed. The kind alacrity with which he assisted the promotion of an English Catholic priest at Avignon, who was recommended to him by Pope, is said to have given rise to those beautiful lines in which the great Catholic poet has traced his portrait.^ A policy such as I have described is not much fitted to strike the imagination, but it was well suited to a period of disputed succession, and to the genius of a nation which has usually preferred cautious to brilliant statesmen, and which owes to this preference no small part of its political well-being. It may be added that there have been very few ministers wliose more important judgments have been so uniformly ratified by pos- terity. The highest English interest of his time was probably the maintenance of the Hanoverian dynasty, and of the con- stitutional maxims of government it represented ; and to Wal- pole more than to any other single man that maintenance was due. The greatest party blunder made during his time was un- questionably the impeachment of Sacheverell, and the most dan- gerous constitutional innovation was the Peerage Bill of Stan- hope ; but Walpole endeavoured privately to prevent the first, and was the chief cause of the rejection of the second. One of the happiest instances of the policy of the elder Pitt was the * ' Seen him I have ; but in his happier hour Of social pleasure ill exchanged for power ; Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a l^ribe. Would he oblige me ? Let me only find He does not think me what he thinks mankind.' Epilog acs to the iSatires The character will appear very favour- Literary Anecdotes of the Eigliteentfi able wlien we remember that Pope Centuri/, v. p. C50. Chestertield's was the most intimate friend of Wal- Miscellaneous Woi'ks, appendix, p. 41, pole's bitterest enemies. See Nichols's CH. m. SOUNDNESS OF JUDGMENT. 333 manner in which he allayed the disloyalty of the Scotch, by appealinf^ to their national and military pride, and forming out of their clans national regiments ; but a precisely similar policy had been proposed by Duncan Forbes, in 1738, and warmly supported by Walpole, though the opposition of his colleagues, and the outcry that was raised about standing armies, prevented its realisation.^ The calamities of the next period of English history were mainly due to the disastrous attempt to raise a revenue by the taxation of America ; but this plan had, in 1739, been suggested to Walpole, who emphatically rejected it, adding, with admirable wisdom, that it had always been the object of his administration to encourage to the highest j)oint the com- mercial prosperity of the colonies, that the more that prosperity was augmented, the greater would be the demand for English products, and that it was in this manner that the colonies should be a source of wealth to the mother country.^ The first slight relaxation of the commercial restraints which excluded the colonies from intercourse with all foreign countries was due to Walpole, who carried, in 1730, an Act enabling Carolina and Georgia to send their rice direct in British vessels, manned by British sailors, to any part of Europe south of Cape Finisterre ; and this measure, restricted as it was, had the effect of greatly developing the colonial plantations, and making their produce a successful rival to Egyptian rice, in the chief markets of Em-ope.^ On three occasions Walpole may be said to have been con- demned by the almost unanimous voice of the people. He had warned Parliament of some at least of the dangers of the South Sea scheme. His warning was disregarded. The whole nation rushed with a frantic excitement into speculation, and, in the fearful calamities that ensued, Walpole was called in as the one man who could in some degree remedy the evil. His scheme of excise was made the object of absurd and factious misrepresentation. The name of excise was still associated in the popular mind with the hated memory of the Long Parlia- ment, which had borrowed the impost from the Dutch, and had first introduced it into England. The increase in the number ' Cullodcn Papers, p. xxxi. - A)inual Hcrjistcr, 1765, p. 25. * Coxe's ^Valpolc, i. 32G-3i!7. 334: ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. in. of revenue ofificers that would be required — which was shown to be utterly insignificant — was represented as likely to give the Crown an overwhelming influence at elections. The scheme, which was limited to two or three articles in which gross frauds in the revenue had been detected, was described as a precursor to a general system of excise — a system, it was added, which could only be maintained by the employment of innumerable spies, who would penetrate into every household, and disturb the peace of every family. Walpole yielded to the clamour, but Pitt, who was one of the bitterest and one of the most honest of his opponents, long afterwards confessed his belief that the scheme was an eminently wise one,^ and there is now scarcely an historian who does not share the opinion. The chief proximate cause of the downfall of Walpole was his re- luctance to enter into that war with Spain which was advocated by all the leaders of the Opposition, and which at last became necessary, from the popular clamour they aroused. Burke, in one of his latest works, took the occasion of expressing his deep sense both of the injustice and the impolicy of this war, and he added that it had been his lot some years after to converse with many of the principal politicians who had raised the clamour that produced it, and that tnone of them, no not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to justify their con- duct, which they as freely condemned as they would have done in commenting upon any proceeding in history in which they were wholly unconcerned.' ^ The special field in which the ability of Walpole was most fitted to shine, was undoubtedly finance, and there was probably no exaggeration in the eulogy of a very able contemporary writer,^ who pronounced him to be ' the best commercial minister this country ever produced.' I have already adverted to the singularly enlightened views he had expressed about the colonial trade, to the prescience witli which he warned his countrymen of the calamities that would ensue from the South Sea scheme, and to the almost unanimous verdict of posterity in favour of his excise scheme. I may add that he succeeded in a singularly short time, and at the expense of comparatively slight loss to ' See Coxe"s Walj^ole, i. 718. - Letter on a Itegioide Peace. 3 Tucker. CU. Ill* FINANCIAL POLICY. 336 the country, in restoring public credit after the collapse of the South Sea Company; that he was one of the first English statesmen who took efficient measures for the reduction of the National Debt; that he laid the foundation of the free-trade polic/ of the present century, by abolishing in a single year the duties on 106 articles of export, and on 38 articles of import ; that the system of warehousing, or admitting as a temporary deposit, foreign goods, free of duty, to await exportation, which had been largely practised by the Dutch in the beginning of th-e seventeenth century, and which was one of the happiest mea- sures of Huskisson in tlie nineteenth century, had been part of the excise scheme of Walpole ; that by an alteration in the manner of borrowing by means of Exchequer Bills he saved the country the payment of a large amount of annual interest, and that no single feature of his speeches appeared to his contem- poraries so admirable as the unfailing lucidity with which he treated the most intricate questions of finance. In all matters that were not connected with the maintenance of his Parlia- mentary position he was conspicuously parsimonious of public money, and his fertility of financial resource extorted from George I. the emphatic declaration that ' Walpole could make gold from nothing,' that ' he never had his equal in business.' The establishments were kept low. Credit was fully restored, and under the influence of a sound and pacific polic}-, and in the absence of meddling commercial laws, the wealth of the country rapidly increased. The abundance of money was so great that even the three-per-cents, were in 1737 at a premium. The average price of land rose in a few years from 20 or 21 to 25, 26, or even 27 years' purchase. The tonnage of British shipping was augmented in the six years that preceded 1729 by no less than 238,000 tons. Particular taxes were appropriated to the payment of the interest of the debt, and it was provided that when they were more than sufficient for the purpose, the surplus was to be paid into a sinking fund for the liquidation of the principal. Partly by the increase of the produce of these taxes, and partly by reductions of the interest of the debt, the sum annually paid into this sinking fund for some years rapidly in- creased. In 1717 it amounted to 323,427/., in 1724 to 053,000/., in 1738 to 1,231,127/. The value of the imports 336 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. hi. rose between 1708 and 1730 from 4,698,663L to 7,780,019?., that of tlie exports from 6,969,089/. to 11,974,135^ A corre- sponding progress was shown in the growth of the manufacturing towns, in the extension of almost every prominent form of in- dustry, in the improved condition of the poorer classes of the com- munity. The price of wheat in the first half of the eighteenth century steadily fell. During the fifty years that, preceded 1700 the average price per quarter was 3/. 1 Is. During the forty years that preceded 1750 it had sunk to 1/. 16s., but at the same time the price of labour underwent no corresponding diminution, and during the latter part of that time it had considerably risen. ^ The merits of Walpole in this respect were very great, for in the eyes of most impartial observers there was much in the financial condition of the country since the Eevolution that was extremely serious. The expenses of the administration had increased, and the National Debt, which at the time of the Eevolution was only 648,000L, amounted on the death of William to more than sixteen millions, and on the accession of George I. to more than fifty-four millions. Accustomed as we are to the far more gigantic burden of our present debt, it is perhaps difficult for us to estimate the consternation with which this phenomenon was regarded, and the National Debt is his- torically so closely connected with the Revolution that Whig historians have shown a strong tendency to depreciate its im- portance. They have urged with truth that the existence of some debt was inevitable, that Italy, Holland, France, and Spain had already taken considerable steps in the same direction, that the increased perfection of military organisation, by adding largely to the cost of war, had made it eminently advisable to spread the expense of a great struggle over several years of peace, that in 1692, when the funded system began, it would have been impossible to raise the war taxes within the year without seriously crippling industry and shaking the Govern- ment, and that, on the other hand, the abundance of money seeking investment made a loan peculiarly advisable. They • Macpherson's Annals of Com- HaWara's Const. Hut.\\\.Y>-o02. Coxe's merce,\\i.\)-p. 147,148. Malthiis, Cm Walpole, c. xlvii. Mill's Rist. of Pojmlation, book iii. c. x. Chalmers' Biitish India, bk. iv. c. i. Sinclair's Kftiniute (ed. 171)4), pp. 107, 108. Hist, of t'he Ilevemie. Craik's Hid. of Commerce, ii. 201-203, en. Tii. THE NATIONAL DEBT. 337 liave added, too, that the evils of a national debt have been g'reatly exaggerated, and that its advantages are by no means incon- siderable. It is certain, notwithstanding the prognostications of innumerable economists, that the material prosperity of England has steadily advanced in spite of its debt. It is certain that althouo-h a debt which a nation owes to itself is economicallv an evil, it is" an evil of a very different magnitude from a debt owed to a foreign nation. There is also a real and a considerable advantage in the possession of a secure and easy mode of investing money accessible to all classes, universally known, and furnishing the utmost facilities for transfer. Nor should it be forgotten that a financial system wliich gives a large proportion of the people a direct pecuniary interest in the stability of the Government is a great pledge of order and a firm bond of national cohesion. But, admitting these arguments, the evils of national debts, both moral and economical, are very serious. Economically they almost invariably imply an enormous waste of cajjital witb a proportionate injury to the working classes. The principal of the debt is usually spent unproductively by the Government as revenue, and it is dra\vn in a large part from capital whicli would have been otherwise productively employed and which forms part of the wage fund of the nation. It is a transparent though common fallacy to suppose that it reproduces itself in interest. A moment's reflection is sufficient to show that, except in the rare cases in which the borrowed money is employed in some reproductive work, no such interest accrues, and that the annual sum which the Government engages to pay to its credi- tors is derived from other sources, from a general taxation levied on funds part of which, at least, would otherwise have been pro- ductively employed. And the economical evil of this dissipa- tion of capital is greatly aggravated by moral causes. jMany forms of lavish unproductive expenditure, and especially the splendours and the excitements of war, are naturally so popular that any minister or sovereign whose position is insecure or whose character is ambitious is almost irresistibly tempted to resort to them if there is no strong counteracting influence. The natural restraint upon these extravagances is the necessity of raising by taxation the whole sum that is required. Tlie sacrifice and dis- turbance caused by such an increase of taxation arouse a feeling VOL. I. Z 338 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. in. which at once checks tlie progress of the evil. But by the funding- system this invaluable restraint is ahnost wholly removed. The money that is required is borrowed. The increase of taxation that is necessary to pay the mere interest appears trifling and almost imperceptible. The process, which should be resorted to only in extreme emergencies of the State, is found so easy and popular that it is constantly repeated. The nation, losing all habit of financial sacrifice, borrows in every moment of difficulty, contents itself in time of prosperity with simply paying the interest of the debt, and makes no serious effort to reduce the principal. Thus by stealthy and insidious steps the evil creeps on till the national Ijrosperity and industry are heavily mortgaged, and the conse- quences of the crimes and blunders of one generation are entailed upon the remotest posterity. In ancient times, the traces of the most horrible war were soon effaced. In a few years the misery and desolation that followed it were for- gotten. The waste of national wealth which might appear a more permanent calamity was so immediately and acutely felt that it at once produced an increase of energy and self-sacrifice to replace it, and thus the effects of political errors usually disap- peared almost with those who perpetrated them. In modern times the chief expenditure of a war is raised by a loan, which is often drawn from the capital that would otherwise have given employment to the poor, which rarely or never produces in the community any considerable increase of economy, and whicli always perpetuates the calamity of war by throwing its accumulated burdens upon a distant posterity. Every English household is now suffering from the American policy of North and the French j^olicy of Pitt, and the political errors of the Second Empire will be felt by Frenchmen as a present evil long after the children and grandchildren of those who perpetrated them are in tlieir graves. Nor is it true that the sinister predictions of such econo- mists as Hume and Adam Smith, though they have been falsified by the result, rested upon any fundamental error of principle. If the National Debt before the American War did not arrest, though it undoubtedly retarded, the material progress of England, tills was merely because the resources of the country were so large CH. Ill, THE NATIONAL DEBT. 339 and its circumstances and situation so favourable that the normal increase of wealth was considerably greater than the increase of the burden. If the debts that were contracted during the great American and French wars did not ruin the couutr}', it was owing to a series of events which no human sagacity could have predicted. The great mechanical inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Watt, and Stephenson, followed by a peace of almost unexampled duration, and by a policy of free trade, have produced an increase of wealth that is wholly unparalleled in the history of mankind ; while Cali- fornian and Australian gold, by depreciating the value of money, has considerably lightened the burden of the debt, at the cost of great loss and injury to the fundholder. It remains, however, as true as ever that Eiuopean nations have never in time of peace paid off their debts with a rapidity at all corresponding to that with which they accumulated them in time of war ; that the increased taxation necessitated by national debts has led, and may easily lead, to national bankruptcy ; and that long before it reaches this point, it produces distress, difficulty, and privation, and seriously endangers the security of the State. It is one of the worst features of national debts that they deprive nations of the pnwer of regulating their expenditure by their resources. A permanent taxation, which may be easily borne in time of great commercial prosperity, may become crushing if the course of commerce takes another channel, and if the income of the nation is proportionately reduced. History shows how easily this may happen. A war, a new invention, the exhaustion of some essential element of national industry, the progress of a rival, or a change in the value or conditions of labour, may speedily turn the stream of wealth, while the burden of debt remains. And, indeed, this burden itself is one of the most likely causes of such a change. When other things are equal, tlie least indebted nation will always have the advantage in industrial competition ; for the heavy taxation necessitated by debts at once raises prices and reduces profits, and thus causes the emigration both of capital and labour. These considerations may serve in some degree to justify the great dread with which the National Debt was regarded liy the wisest political observers in the eighteenth century. Their 340 ENGL,iND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. in. judgmeuts were not formed merely by theory. France actually proclaimed herself bankrupt in 1715 and 1769. Holland had already entered into a period of commercial decadence, which was largely due to the emigration of capital resulting from the excessive taxation rendered necessary by her debt. The whole sum raised by taxation in England at the time of the Revolution but slightly exceeded two millions, and it was raised with diffi- culty, and in the hard years that followed that event the produce of the taxes considerably diminished.^ It is not surprising, therefore, that the growth of the debt should have appeared bewildering in its rapidity, and that very erroneous estimates should have been formed of the capabilities of the nation. Thus Davenant, the chief commercial writer under William and Anne, predicted in 1699 that England could never flourish in trade and manufactures till the greater part of the National Debt was liquidated, and the annual taxation of the country reduced to about 2,300,000^. ' Unless this can be compassed,' he added, ' we shall languish and decay every year. Our gold and silver will be carried off by degrees ; rents will fall, the purchase of land will decrease ; wool will sink in its price ; our stock of shipping will be diminished ; farmhouses will go to ruin ; industry will decay, and we shall have upon us all the visible marks of a declining people.'^ These figures, however, were speedily passed. Carteret complained bitterly in 1738 that the estimates had now risen to no less than six millions.-* Smollett considered the sum of ten millions which was raised in 174 3 ' enormous.'^ Bolingbroke noted that the Parliamentary aids from the year 1740 exclusively, to the year 1748 inclusively, amounted to about 55^ millions, ' a sum,' he added, ' that will ap- pear incredible to future generations.' ■' The most acute observers imagined that the nation had now all but touched the extreme limits of her resources. As early as 1735 Lord Hervey wrote : * I do not see how it would be possible on any exigence, or for the support of the most necessary war, for England to raise above one million a year more than it now raises.'^ The ' Craftsman,' » See Sindair's IJitft. of the * ITtKt. of England, in. \2Q. Bevemie, i. 406-407. * licji actions on the Present State ^ Davenant's Woi'ks {ll'\), ii. 28.3. of the Xat'um. ^ fcfmollett's Hist, of EwjImuiI, iii. " Hervey's Memoirs, i. 487. 11. cii. TIT. THE NATION.-VL DEBT. 341 the great organ of Bolingbroke and Pulteney, describing the condition of the conntrv in 1736, savs : ' The vast load of debt under which the nation still groans is the true source of all these calamities and gloomy prospects of which we have so mucli reason to complain. To this has been owing that multiplicity of burthensome taxes which have more than doubled the price of the common necessaries of life within a few years past, and thereby distressed the poor labourer and manufacturer, disabled the farmer to pay his rent, and put even gentlemen of plentiful estates under the greatest difficulties to make a tolerable pro- vision for their families.' ' Walpole himself declared that the country could not stand under a debt exceeding a hundred millions.^ Hume maintained that the ruinous effect of the debt already threatened the very existence of the nation,^ and Chesterfield, only a few months before the great ministry of Pitt, predicted that in the next year the army must be unpaid or reduced, as it would be impossible for the country a second time to raise twelve millions.'' By for the larger part of the existing National Debt was created by Tory Governments, and in pursuance of a Tory policy. In the time of Walpole, however, the debt was looked upon as distinctively Whig, the special creation of the Revolu- tion. And this view, though not rigidly accurate, contained a very large measure of truth. The events of the Revolution drew England into a series of great land wars upon the Con- tinent, which made an luiprecedented military expenditure inevitable, while the position of the new Government was so insecure that it did not venture largely to increase taxation. The land tax, which was by fer the most important addition made to the revenue under William III., was in a great degree merely a compensation for the abolition of the hearth tax. Besides this, the insecurity of the new estal)lishment raised enormously the rate of interest on Government loans.'^ It rendered neces- sary a considerable standing army in time of peace, and it was a ' No. 502. *Junel7oG. Miscellaneous Woi-ls, - Horace Walpole's Memoirs of iv. 185. Geon/e HI., vo\.i. p. 103. * For the extravagant terms on ' Hist, of England, c. xxi. See, wliich loans were raised und^r too, his essay on Public Credit, and William, see Sinclair's Hist, of the the curious note appended to il. Jievenuc, i. 117 421. 3-42 ENGLAND IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch hi. temptation to Whig Grovernments to strengthen tbeir position ])y multiplying a class of persons who were bound to the new d}Tiasty by pecuniary ties. In the reigns of William and of Anne, money was chiefly raised by anticipating the produce of certain taxes for a limited number of years, by anniuties granted on very extravagant conditions for a term of years or for lives, and also from the great mercantile corporations in return for commercial privileges. After the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty most loans took the form of perpetual annuities. The attempts which were made to diminish the burden of the debt consisted chiefly in the reduction of its interest. This policy appears to have been first pursued in Holland. The Dutch debt bore interest of five per cent., and when in 1 655 it was found possible for the State to obtain money at four per cent, the creditors were offered the alternative of the reduction of the interest or the payment of the principal. The former was readily accepted. An annual saving of 1,400,000 guilders was thus made, and it was applied to the gradual payment of the principal of the debt.' In 1685 Pope Innocent XI., in a similar manner, reduced the interest on the Eoman debt from four to three per cent.^ I have already noticed the arrangement which Grodolphin made with the East India Company in 1708 for the reduction of the interest upon a large sum which the Government had borrowed from that company ; but no general scheme for the reduction of the in- terest of the debt was devised before that which was originated by "NValpole in 1716, and carried out by Stanhope in the following year. For some time the increase of prosperity had greatly lowered the normal rate of interest. Under William the Government, had borrowed money at seven and eight per cent. Under Anne it usually borrowed at five or six, and in 1714 the legal rate of interest was reduced to five per cent., though the Government funds still paid a much higher rate. Under these circumstances it was found practicable to reduce the interest of the debt to five per cent., the Bank and the South Sea Company, which v/ere the chief creditors, not only consenting to the reduction, but also lending money to pay off the creditors who refused to ac(|uiesce. Particular taxes had been appropriated for the payment of the interest, and as they now yielded more tlmn was sufficient, the ' Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, ii, 4G3. * Ibid. p. 622. CH. ni. RESPECT OF WALPOLE EOR PUBLIC OPINION. 343 surplus was formed into a sinking fund accuraulating for the payment of the principal of the debt.' In this manner a very considerable saving was made, and a step taken which was more than once repeated. The payment of the debt, however, was not pursued with any energy by Walpole. A second reduction of interest took place in 1727, and it greatly increased the sinking fund ; but that sinking fund was at the dis- posal of the Grovernment, and the temptation of drawing from it in every season of emergency was irresistible. It is not necessary to attribute any very high motives to Walpole in this matter, but he would probably have maintained that in the condition in which England then was, it was more important to make the people contented, and to reconcile the country gentry to the new dynasty, than to pay off the debt. Certain it is that he made the reduction of the land tax rather than the payment of the debt the end of his policy. For a few years the sinking fund was applied to the purpose for which it was intended, but in 1733 500,000L were taken from it for the services of the year; in 1734 1,200,000/. were taken for sinailar purposes, and in 1735 it was all anticipated. But though no great credit can in this respect be given to Walpole, his Government was at least an economical one, and the care with which he husbanded the resources of the country, and the skill with which he developed its commerce, broke the chain of associations which connected the Whig party with a policy of debt and of extravagance. Still more remarkable, when we consider the period in which he lived, was his deference to public ojjinion. Parliament was at this time no faithful representative of the public feeling, and in Parliament he was supreme. But no Court favour, no confidence in an obsequious majority, ever induced him, except in a single case to which I shall hereafter advert, to fall into that neglect of unrepresented public opinion which has been the fatal error of so many politicians and the parent of so many revolutions. In few periods of English history have libels against the G-overnment been more virulent or more able ; but, from policy or temperament, or both, Walpole treated them, for the most part, with perfect indifference. ' No Government,' he boasted in one of his speeches, ' ever punished so few libels, and ' See Macpherson, Chalmers, and Sinclair. 344 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. m. no Grovernment ever had provocation to punish so many.' In the hist reio-n Parliament and the tribunals had vied with each other in tlieir persecution of the press. Defoe, Steele, Drake, Binckes, Tutchin, Sacheverell, Asgill, and a crowd of obscme printers liad been fined, imprisoned, pilloried, censured, or expelled from Parliament. But under Walpole tlie system of repression almost ceased, and if the extreme violence and scurrility of the stage, and the success with which Gray and Fielding employed it against his administration, induced him, in 1737, to carry a law providing that no play could be publicly acted without the license of the Chamberlain, this measure can hardly be regarded as one of excessive severity, as it remains in force to the present day. As a minister, Walpole combined an extreme and exaggerated severity of party discipline Avithin Parliament, with the utmost deference for the public opinion beyond its walls. In his party he aspired to and attained the position of sole minister. He gradually displaced every man of eminence and character who could become his rival, avoided as much as possible calling cabinet councils, lest they should furnish the elements of an opposition, and usually matured his measures around a dinner-table, with two or three col- leagues, who were specially conversant with the matter in ques- tion; sometimes, when the project was one of law reform, with lawyers of the Opposition.^ Important despatches were received and answered witliout being communicated to his col- leagues, and if they ventured to resist his decisions he treated them with the utmost despotism. ' Sir Eobert,' said the old Duchess of ]Marlborough, with her usual shrewdness, ' never likes any but fools and such as have lost all credit.' Lord Hardwicke and Mr. Pel ham were constantly employed in com- posing the quarrels which arose from the slights he continually inflicted on the Duke of Newcastle ; and the strength of the Opposition that overwhelmed him was mainly due to the number of men of talent whom he had discarded. "When the excise scheme was abandoned he peremptorily dismissed Lord Chester- field, the Duke of jNIontrose, Lord Marchmont, and Lord Clinton, who had revolted against his standard, and, by an extreme and unjustifiable stretch of authority, even deprived the ' See Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vi. p. 110. en. III. EESPECT OF WALPOLE FOE PUBLIC OPINION, 345 Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham of their military rank. But the minister who was so imperious in his dealings with his col leagues or subordinates rarely failed to mark and obey the first indication of a public opinion that was hostile to his projects. His withdrawal of Wood's halfpence, when they had excited the opposition of the Irish people, the uniform moderation of his religious policy, his abandonment of his project of excise, are all examples of his constant respect for the wishes of the people. Few ministers have had greater facilities for carrying out a favourite line of policy in defiance of their wishes. ISo minister more steadily resisted the temptation. Ilis conduct on the excise question, as it is related by an old Member of Parliament who enjoyed his intimate friendship, is typical of his whole career. He possessed in a full degree the pride and parental affection of a statesman for the great measure of his creation, and he was keenly sensible of the humiliation of abandoning it at the dictation of an Opposition. No one knew better how irrational was tlie popular clamour, or how factious were the motives of those who instigated it. The Bill passed by large majorities through its earlier stages, but the minister saw that the country was deeply moved ; and the evening before the final stage was reached he summoned his adherents, who had so far borne him in triumph, and he consulted with them on the course he should pursue. Without a single dissentient voice those who were present urged him to persevere, and pledged themselves to carry the Bill. Walpole remained silent till they had all spoken, when he rose, and having stated how conscious he was of having meant well, he proceeded to say that ' in the present inflamed temper of the people the Act could not be carried into execution without an armed force ; that there would be an end to the liberty of England if supplies were to be raised by the sword. If, tlierefore, the resolution was to go on with the Bill, he would immediately wait upon the King, and desire his Majesty's permission to resign his office, for he would not be the minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood.' ' ' Almon's Anecdotes of Chatham, wliat we know of the character of ii. 106. Coxe's Waljwle, i. 403-404. Walpole, and Archdeacon Coxe fully The authority for this anecdote is Mr. admits it. At the same time it must White, tlie Jlcraber for Pietford, who be acknowledged lliat it is not easy was an intimate friend of Walpole; to find a place for tlie transaction in it is itself quite in harmony with the history of tlie Excise Bill as nar- 346 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iir. English political history contains many more dazzling episodes than this. It contains very few which a constitutional statesman will regard as more worthy of his admiration. A kindred spirit of moderation, in the later years of his life, marked his dealings with his opponents, though in this respect his merits have, I think, been much exaggerated. Among the benefits achieved by the Eevolution, one of the greatest was that reform of the law of treason which placed tlie political opponents of the Grovernment under efficient legal guarantees, put an end to the intolerable scandal of the Stuart State trials, and introduced a new spirit of clemency and amenity into English politics. The change was, however, only very gi'adu- ally effected. The Treason Act of 1696 did not extend to the case of those who were impeached by the House of Commons, and the unliappy noblemen who suffered for the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 were compelled to defend their lives almost without legal assistance. The counsel assigned to them were not allowed to cross-examine any witness, to give the prisoner any assistance, public or private, while matter of fact only was in question, or to hold any communication with him ; though if a disputed question of law arose in the course of the trial, they miglit speak to it. A miserable scene took place, after the former rebellion, at the trial of Lord Wintoun. He is said to have been, at best, a man of very weak intellect, and he was evidently utterly bewildered by the scene and situation in which he found himself, and utterly incapable of conducting his defence. Again and again he implored the Lord High Steward to allow counsel to examine the witnesses, and to speak in his behalf. He professed himself, with truth, entirely incapable of conducting a cross-examination, or of presenting his defence ; but he was again and again told that the law refused him the legal assistance he so imperatively required.' Hardly less scandalous was the scene exhibited thirty years later, when Lord Lovat, an old man of eighty, almost ignorant of the A-ery rudiments of the law, and with the grotesque manners of a half-savage Highlan- der, was compelled, without assistance, to defend his life against rated in Lord Hervey's Memoirs. It private, to relinquish the bill on appears also from Lord Hervey account of its unpopularity, (i. ir,2) that some of Walpole's ' Townsend's HiKt. of the House of friends had early advised him, in Commons, ii. 2SG-L"JL5. CH. in. POLITICAL PKOSECUTIONS. 347 an array of the most skilful lawyers in England. The injustice was so glaring that it at last shocked the public conscience, and a measure was moved and carried, without opposition, in 1747, for allowing the same privileges of counsel to pri- soners in cases of impeachment as in cases of indictment.' For many years after the Eevolution, parliamentary impeachment was looked upon as an ordinary weapon of political warfare, and the Whig party, though far less guilty than their opponents, are responsible for a few scandalous instances of tyi\annical severity. The execution of Sir John Fenwick, by a Bill of Attainder, at a time when there was no sufficient legal evidence to procure his condemnation, has left a deep stain upon the government of William. The imprisonment without trial of Bernardi and four other conspirators, who were concerned in the plot against the life of William in 1696, was continued by special Acts of Parliament to the end of the reign of William and through the whole of the reign of Anne. In the first year of George I. a petition for their release was presented to the House of Lords ; but the Whig Government persuaded the House to refuse even to take it into consideration. It was rejected without a division, Lord Townsheud expressing his astonishment that any member of that august assembly should speak in favour of such execrable wretches ;^ and Bernardi at last died, in 1736, at the age of eighty, having been impri- soned, without condemnation, for no less than forty years, by the Acts of six successive Parliaments.^ Walpole himself was a leading agent in the impeachment of the Tory ministers of Anne for the negotiation of a peace which had received the assent of two Parliaments ; and Oxford remained for two years in the Tower before his trial and acquittal. The severities of the Government against the prisoners who were implicated in the rebellion of 1715 are susceptible of more defence, but it is at least certain that the ministers by no means erred on the side of clemency ; and it is worthy of notice that Walpole on this occasion uniformly advocated severity, and even induced Par- liament to adjourn between the condemnation and execution > 20 George II c. 30. Horace end's ITist. of the House of Commonst, Walpole to Mason, May 1747. ii. 20r)-20(;. Johnson has made a - Pari. TTist.\'\\. f>\~i\2. tonchinjr allusion 1o this case in his s Bernardi's AutvbwgrujjJnj. Towns- Life of Fojjv. 348 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. iii. of the rebel lords, in order to render useless petitions for their reprieve.^ But "whatever may have been his conduct at this time, in the later part of his career he displayed a uniform generosity to opponents, even when he knew them to be im- plicated in Jacobite conspiracies, and when they were therefore in a great degree in his power. He made it a great aim to banish violence from English politics, and an illustrious modern critic, who was far from favourable to him, has said that ' he was the minister who gave to our government the character of lenity whicli it has generally preserved.' ^ To these merits we must add his ardent love of peace, and the skill with which, during many years and under circum- stances of great difficulty, he succeeded in preserving it. He served two sovereigns, the first of whom cared nothing, and the second very little, for any ])ut Continental politics ; and George II. was passionately warlike, and anxious beyond all things to distinguish himself in the field. He was at the head of a party which by tradition and principle was extremely war- like, which originally represented the reaction against the arrogant ambition of Lewis XIV. and the abject servility of Charles II., and which under "William and Anne had aspired to make England the arbiter of Europe. He was embarrassed also during a great part of his career by an Opposition which never scrupled for party purposes to aggravate the difficul- ties of foreign policy ; and the whole Continent was troubled by the restless plotting of ambitious and perfectly unscru- pulous rulers. In the last years of George I., Europe was again on the verge of a general conflagration. When peace had been established between France and Spain in 1720, the Infanta, who was then only four years old, was betrothed to Lewis XV., and she was brought to France to be educated as a French- woman. By tlius postponing for many years the marriage of the young king, the Kegent greatly strengthened the pro- bability of his own succession to the throne ; but on the death of the Regent in December 1723, the Duke of Bourbon, who succeeded to power, determined to hasten the royal marriage. He accordingly broke off the Spanish alliance, sent the Infanta back to Spain, and negotiated an almost immediate marriage be- ' Coxe's Waliwle, i. 72-73. - Macaulay. en. m. FOEEIGN TROUBLES. 349 tween the French king and the daughter of Stanislaus, the deposed Kino- of Poland. The affront thus offered to the Spanish court, together with tlie influence of Ripperda, the Dutch adventurer, who now directed Spanish policy, produced, or at least accele- rated, a great change in the aspect of European politics. The Emperor and the King of Spain, whose rivalry had so long dis- tracted Europe, now gravitated to one another, and a close alliance was concluded between them in April 1725.^ The Spanish Government agreed to recognise the Pragmatic Sanc- tion, which provided that the Austrian succession should descend to the daughter of Charles VI., and it ceded almost every point that was at issue between the Courts. Each Power agreed to recognise the right of succession of the other, and to defend tlie other in case of attack ; and Spain gratified the maritime am- bition which was one of the strongest passions of the Emperor, by recognising the Ostend Company, by placing Austrian sailors in her seaports on the footing of the most favoured nation, and by promising them special protection in all her dominions. Of all mercantile bodies the Ostend Company was the most offensive to England and Holland. Founded soon after the cession of the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, it was intended among other objects to establish a trade by the subjects of the Emperor with India, and thus to break down the monopoly which the India companies of England and Holland had esta- blished.- Two ships had sailed from Ostend, in 1717, under the passports of the Emperor, and several others soon followed their example. The Dutch seized some of the Ostend ships as vio- lating their monopoly. The Emperor retaliated by gi'anting commissions of reprisal. Laws were passed in England in 1721 and 1723 strengthening the English monopoly, and authorising the English to fine any foreigners who were found infringing it, triple the sum that was embarked ; but the Emperor, in 1723, gave a regular charter to the Ostend Company, and in defiance of the Dutch and English Grovernments it rose rapidly into prominence. Its recognition by Spain was therefore a mat- ter of very considerable political moment. It soon, however, became known among statesmen that other objects were de- ' See, on this treaty, Eankc's ff-ifit. of Prussia, i. 190-192. 2 Mill's Hist, of India, bk. iv. c. 1. 3.50 ENGLAXD IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. iii. signed — that Austria engaged to assist Spain in wresting Gibraltar andlNIinorca from England ; that there was a project, by a marriage between Maria Theresa and Don Carlos, the eldest son of Philip's second wife, of placing the Imperial sceptre in the hands of a Spanish prince, and making Austria supreme in Italy by joining Parma, Piacenza, and Tuscany, which were assured to Don Carlos, to Naples and Sicily, which already belonged to Austria ; that Charles VI., partly from religious fanaticism, and partly from personal resentment, was boasting of his intention to drive the Protestant line from the English throne. Russia, after the death of Peter, was governed by Catherine, who, being still irritated with England on account of the policy of Hanover, and especially anxious to obtain Sleswig for her son-in-law, the Duke of Holstein, favoured, and soon joined, the new alliance. The King and Townshend, contrary to the first wishes of Walpole, concluded a rival confederation of England, France, and Prussia,^ at Hanover, in September 1725; but in the following year Prussia, which had acceded to the alliance only on the condition of England recognising her claims to Juliers and Berg, changed sides. Holltind, Sweden, and Denmark were afterwards ranged with England, and as the probabilities of war became more imminent, an army of about 44,000 Swedes, Danes, and Hessians was subsidised. England and France both contributed to the expense, but 12,000 Hessians were taken into the exclusive pay of England. Nearly all Europe was preparing for war. George L, as Elector of Hanover, in- creased his troops from 16,000 to 22,000 men, and as King of England from 18,000 to 26,000. The Spaniards, relying on the conditional promise which George I. had vainly made as an inducement to Spain to abstain from hostilities in 1715, and on the letter which he had written to the King of Spain in 1721, expressing his willingness to restore Gibraltar with the consent of Parliament, demanded the restitution of that fortress. Lord Townshend valued it little more than Stanhope ^ liad done, but public opinion in England would make any attempt ' See,ouWalpole'sstrongobjection Townshend, and the first occasion on to the Treat}' of Hanover, Lord Her- which the former meddled very ac- vey's McmvivK, i. 110-111. This is lively with foreign affairs. said to liave been the beginning of -In a letter to Stephen Poyntz (June the difference between Walpole "'and 3, 1728) he said : ' What you propose in xm. ui. THE TEEATY OF HANOVER. 3")! at concession wholly impossible, and in February 172(5-27 the Spaniards began hostilities by besieging Gibraltar. The Emperor prepared to invade Holland. The Kussian forces, by sea and land, were rapidly organised. France massed her troops on the frontiers of Gfermany. An English squadron had already sailed to the Baltic. Another threatened the Spanish coast, while a third prevented the departure of the Spanish galleons from the Indies. The Treaty of Hanover was for more than a generation bitterly assailed in England. Its justification rests upon the reality of the secret articles of the Treaty of Vienna, and although the evidence in the possession of tlie Government appears to have been very sufficient,' it was not of a kind that could be publicly produced. The existence of these articles was announced in the King's speech in January 1726-27,^ but it was officially, and in very angry terms, denied by the Austrian minister. In England the Treaty of Hanover was denounced as intended only Lo protect the German dominions of the King, as strengthening, by our alliance, the Power on the Continent we had most reason to fear, as placing us unnecessarily in hostility to the Emperor, who was the main obstacle to French ambition. It was, however, a defensive measure elicited by a grave danger, and it was inevitable that a war with the Emperor should centre chiefly in Germany. Walpole dis- approved of some of its provisions, and especially of the extrava- gance of the subsidy to Sweden, and he made it a main object of his policy to moderate the demands of his colleagues and of the King, and to delay, restrict, and if possible avert, the war. His conduct, however, during the tangled events that followed was not, I think, marked by much sagacity, and in his dealings with Spain, at least, he showed a want of resolution that verged relation to Gibraltar is certainly very of laying England under any obliga- reasonahle, and is exactly conl'ormal)le tion of ever parting with that place to the opinion which you know I have would be sufficient to put the whole always entertained concerning tliat nation in a tlame.' — Coxe's Walj/olc, place. But you cannot but be sensible ii. ('.31 . of the violent and almost superstitious ' ISoe the intercepted letters given zeal which has of late prevailed in Coxe's lla^jOoZt', ii. pp. 4^18-515, and among all parties in this kingdom the full account of the secret articles against any scheme for the restitution afterwards given by Kipperda him- of Gibraltar u])on any conditions self. Benjamin Keene to tlie Duke whatsoever. And lam afraid tliat tlie of Newcastle. Cuxcs ircfT/vofc/ ii. bare mention of a projDosal which GOG-OO?. carried the most distant appearance '' I'url. J. id. viii. 524. 352 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. iii. upon pusillanimity. He refused with much wisdom to listen to a plan of Townshend for tlie conquest and partition of the Austrian Netherlands, or to allow himself to be hurried into hostilities by the very arrogant terms of a memorial in which the Austrian ambassador contradicted the assertions of the King's speech relating to the secret articles of the treaty of 1725. He sent Admiral Hosier to the West Indies to blockade the Spanish galleons in Porto Bello, though peace was still sub- sisting between the two countries, but he bound him by strict instructions not to attack the Spaniards unless they came out. The history of this expedition was a very tragic one. A prize of inestimable value lay within the grasp of the English sailors, who were forbidden to seize it, while the deadly fever of the country swept them away by hundreds. The fleet rotted in inaction, and the admiral is said to have died of a broken heart. His fate, commemorated in a noble ballad by Glover, afterwards moved the English people to the highest point of pity and indignation, and the subsequent conduct of Wal^jole in refrain- ing from declaring war against the Spaniards when they attacked Gibraltar was very reasonably censured. His object was to prevent, if possible, a European war, and that object was ac- complished. Eipperda, who had contributed so largely to the complication, had been disgraced as early as May 1726. A month later the Duke of Bourbon was replaced by Cardinal Fleury, and that eminently wise, virtuous, and pacific minister, during many years, co-operated cordially with the peace policy of Walpole. In the ]\Iay of the following year the death of the Czarina withdrew Eussia from the hostile league. The Emperor, finding perplexities and difficulties multiplying about him, receded from his engagements, left the Spanish forces to waste away in a hopeless enterprise against Gibraltar, and' on the last day of May 1727 he signed the preliminaries of a peace with England, France, and Holland. An armistice was con- cluded, and the Ostend Company suspended for seven years, with the secret understanding that it was not to be revived ; the chief questions at issue were referred to a future congress, and a war which threatened to be general shrank into the smallest dimensions. The Spanish position seemed hopeless, and the Spanish ambassador at Vienna accepted the preliminaries of peace, and engaged that the siege of Gibraltar should at once CH. III. TREATY OF SEVILLE. ."53 be raised, and that a ship belonging to the South Sea Company which the Spaniards had captured should be restored. Philip, however, for a time, refused to ratify these prelimi- naries. George I. died suddenly in Germany on June 11, 1727, and some expectations appear to have been entertained at the Spanish Court of a Jacobite restoration, of a period of disturb ance and impotence, or at least of a great change in English policy, arising from the violent hostility of the new King to the ministers of his father. But these expectations were dis- appointed. After a few days of suspense, Walpole was fully confirmed in his previous power, and the substitution of a king who at least knew the language of his country, for one who never ceased to be a complete foreigner, somewhat strengthened the new establishment without perceptibly altering its policy. The refusal of Philip, however, to ratify the preliminaries threatened a renewal of danger ; the Emperor showed some signs of fresh activity, and, as a measure of precaution, a new German treaty was made in November, securing the assistance of the Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, in the event of an attack upon Hanover. At last, in March 1728, the long negotiation was brought a stage further by the signature of a convention at the Pardo ; a congress was held at Soissons, which led to no defi- nite results ; but, by the combined influence of Fleury and Wal- pole, a treaty was concluded at Seville, in March 1729, by which the Spanish Queen succeeded in avenging herself for the deser- tion of the Emperor and taking a new step towards the attain- ment of one of the favourite objects of her life. To secure the succession of her son in Tuscany and Parma, it was agreed that those provinces should be at once garrisoned, not, as the Qua- druple Alliance had promised, by neutral troops, but by 6,000 Spanish soldiers. Gibraltar was not mentioned in the treaty, and this silence was regarded as a renunciation of the claims of Spain. The commercial privileges conceded to the Emperor by the Treaty of A^'ienna, which had been so obnoxious to Eng- land, were revoked. The commerce of the English and French with the Spanish dominions was re-established on the same foot- ing as before 1726, injuries done to English ships or interest.s were to be compensated, and a close defensive alliance was established between France, Spain, and England. VOL. I. A A 354 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iir. The Treaty of Seville has been justly regarded as one of the great triumphs of French diplomacy. It closed the breach Avhich had long divided the courts of France and of Spain, and at the same time it detached both England and Spain from the Emperor, and left him isolated in Europe. He resented it bitterly, protested against the introduction of Spanish troops into Italy as a violation of the Quadruple Alliance, threat- ened to resist it T)y force, and delayed the execution of this part of the treaty during the whole of 1730. In the meantime the condition of Europe had become \evy dangerouS. Spain was much exasperated at the delay, and there was much danger that England would find herself forced, in conjunction with France and Spain, into a war which would most probably ultimately extend to the Austrian Netherlands, and might result in acquisi- tions by France very dangerous to England. The resignation of Townshend had by this time made Walpole more prominent in foreign affairs, and he opened a secret negotiation with the Emperor in order to avert war. England undertook to guaran- tee the Pragmatic Sanction, by which the Emperor was endea- vouring to secure for his daughter the inheritance of his heredi- tary dominions, and on this condition he consented to the admission of the Spanish troops. The new Treaty of Vienna was signed without the participation or assent of France, in March 1731 ; the danger of a European war was again for a time averted, and on October 17 a fleet of sixteen British men- of-war escorted the Sjjanish troops to Italy. The policy of England during all these tortuous negotia- tions was not always wise, consistent, or even strictly honourable, but its first object was the maintenance of European peace, and it shows how widely the Whig party under Walpole had in this respect departed from the traditions of William III. and of Godolphin. In the next war liis firm will alone prevented Eng- land from being involved. In February 1732-33 Augustus II., King of Poland, died, and the succession was at once contested between Stanislaus and Augustus, the Elector of Saxony. TJie first, who had previously been placed on the Polish throne by Charles XII., but dethroned by the Eussians, was now elected by the Poles ; and, as he was the father of the young Queen of France, Fleury was compelled very reluctantly, by the military party CH. ni. WAR OF THE POLISH SUCCESSION. 355 at Court, to support bis claims by tlie sword. His competitor, wbo was tbe son of tbe former king, was supported by Eussia, wbich regarded Stanislaus as a natural enemy, and he succeeded in inducing the Emperor Charles VI. to enter very gratuitously into the conflict, partly through a desire to prevent what was supposed to be an extension of French influence, and partly because Augustus offered to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction. The war lasted till 1735,' but it speedily changed its character and its objects. The Polish episode sank into comparative insigni- ficance, and the French carried their arms with brilliant success into Grermany and into the Austrian territories of Italy. Spain and Sardinia joined against the Emperor. The 6,000 Spanish soldiers whom England had so recently escorted into Italy, marched, in conjunction with Sardinian troops and with a body of French auxiliaries, upon the Milanese, and the result of the war was a very considerable modification of the balance of power. With the exception of the Duchies of Parma and Placentia, which were now ceded, and of a portion of the Milanese, which was restored to Austria, the Emperor lost all territory in Italy. Naples and Sicily passed to Don Carlos, and the greater part of the Milanese to the King of Sardinia. The Poles, finding themselves almost deserted by France and incapable of resisting Eussia, elected Augustus, while Stanislaus was com- pensated in a way which greatly surprised Europe, and had a very important influence upon future policy. For several generations one of the gieat ends of French ambition had been the acquisition of Lorraine, which commanded one of the chief roads from Germany to France. Twice already — in the Thirty Years' War and in the War of the League of Augsburg — it had passed under French dominion, but in each case France had been compelled to restore it at the peace, though she retained a moral control over its Duke which almost amounted to sovereignty. In Italy the last of the Medici was now hastening to the tomb, and Fleury proposed that the Duke of Lorraine, who was aflBanced to Maria Theresa, and thus closely connected with the Austrian interest, should succeed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany ; that Stanislaus, retaining the title of king, should ' The preliminaries of peace were signed in 1733, but the definitive peace in 1733. A A 2 356 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ai. in. obtain possession of tlie Duchies of Lorraine and Bar ; and that on his death those Duchies should be for ever united to France. In consideration of this arrangement, France agreed to restore her conquests in Germany, and to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanc- tion. The terms were accepted, and thus France, under the guidance of one of the most pacific of her ministers, obtained a more real and considerable accession of power than any which had been gained by the ambition of Lewis XIV. It was only with extreme difficulty that Walpole could induce England to remain passive during the struggle. The King was vehemently hostile to the French. As a German prince and a member of the Empire, he saw with the utmost in- dignation the diminution of the Imperial power, and he was full of a boyish eagerness to distinguish himself in the field. It was no slight trial for the Power which was indisputably the mistress of the sea to see a French fleet sailing unmolested to the Baltic to support the cause of Stanislaus in the north, and a Spanish fleet in the following year transporting 20,000 men to Italy to add Sicily and Spain to the dominions of the House of Bour- bon. The Cabinet was divided in opinion. Statesmen had learnt that the advocacy of war was the easiest way to the royal favour, and the Opposition Members were busy inflaming the pas&ions of the people. In spite of the French alliance, Avhich had been begun by Dubois and continued by Fleury, the senti- ment of England was strongly anti-Gallican, and there were plausible arguments for intervention. The greatest danger to England lay in the power of France, and that power for several generations had been rapidly increasing. The sagacious admini- stration of Eichelieu and Mazarin, the decadence of Spain, the policy of Cromwell, who supported the growing power of France against the declining power of Spain, and the subservience of Charles II. and his successor to Lewis XIV., had together pro- duced a French ascendancy which seemed likely to overshadow all the liberties of Europe. The Eevolution had done much to restore the balance of power, but still French influence in many quarters continued steadily to advance, though two great wars had been undertaken for the purpose of abridging it. France liad obtained Alsace by the Peace of Westphalia, with the excep- tion of ten Imperial towns, the liberty of which was solemnly or. III. GROWTH OF FEENCH POWER. 357 guaranteed, but she soon began to treat those toAvns exactly like the rest of the province. Strasburg, which was by far the most important of them, she had surprised and seized in 1681, by an act of high-handed violence in a time of perfect peace, and without a shadow of justification or excuse. The Emperor, embarrassed by a Turkish war and by Hungarian insurrec- tion, was unabJe to resent the aggression, and tlie Peace of Eyswick, which terminated the great war of the Revolution, confirmed and sanctioned it. The wars of Marlborough for a time brought France apparently to the lowest depths of exhaus- tion, but the Peace of Utrecht restored to her much of what she had lost. A French prince remained upon the Spanish throne, and her military power was still so formidable that as soon as the peace had dissolved the coalition against her, she com- pletely routed the forces of the Empire, though Eugene was at their head. On sea, it is true, she never recovered the ascen- dancy she lost at La Hogue, but on land no one Power could compete with her. She had brought the art of war to such perfection that in the course of a single reign no less than five generals — Conde, Turenne, Luxemburg, Vendome, and Villars — of brilliant and extraordinary ability, appeared in her armies ; and it is remarkable that Marlborough, who alone eclipsed them, had passed through the same school. He had served as a young man under Turenne, and he ascribed to tlie lessons he then learnt, much cf his later success.^ The alienation between France and Spain which followed the death of Lewis XFV. had for a time interrupted the course of French ambition, but it had been appeased by the conciliatory policy of Fleury, and the firstfruits of the reconciliation had been the decline of Austrian influence in Italy, the elevation of a Bourbon prince to the Neapolitan throne, and the consolidation oi the French territory by the reversion of Lorraine. It is not surprising that tins increase of French power should have excited deep alarm. In tlie interval between the first decadence of Spain and the rise of Prussia and Russia, Austria was the only serious competitor of France upon the Continent, and Austria was certainly inferior in strength to her old rival, and, except on the side of Turkey, she seemed steadily • MemoiJes dc Torcy, ii. 8'J. 358 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. in. declining. The House of Austria, which had once, in the per- son of Charles V., almost given law to Europe, and had led a Fi-ench king captive to INIadrid, was now so weakened that it was defeated in almost every war, and nearly every generation seemed to mark a stage in its decline. France had succeeded in her old object of dissevering from the Empire the vast domi- nions of Spain. She had pushed her frontiers into Germany. She had acquired such an ascendancy over some of the Electors of the Empire that it was even likely that the House of Austria would soon be dejmved of the Imperial crown. She had shaken and almost destroyed that Austrian supremacy in Italy which the Peace of Utrecht and the Quadruple Alliance liad esta- blished. In modern times her power in Europe has been to a great degree paralysed by the intensity of her internal divisions, while her progress in more distant quarters has been restricted by an incurable incapacity for successful colonisation, due prin- cipally to the French passion for centralisation and over-admini- stration. But these sources of weakness were as yet unperceived. No nation in its dealings wdth surrounding countries exhibited a greater unity or concentration of resources, and there appeared as yet no clear reason why, in the race of colonial enterprise, she should not become the successful rival of England. On the other hand, France already exhibited to the highest perfec- tion that rare capacity of assimilating to lierself the provinces she annexed, which has been one of the chief sources of her greatness, one of the most remarkable proofs of the high quali- ties of her national character. No modern nation which has annexed so much has been so little distracted by the struggles of suppressed nationalities, or has succeeded so perfectly in times of danger, difficulty, and disaster in commanding the enthu- siastic devotion of the most distant and the most recently acquired of her provinces. Her military system has, no doubt, done much to give a unity of sympathy and enthusiasm to the nation. Paris, owing to causes some of which have been very mis- chievous, early exercised a fascination over the imaginations of great masses of men such as no other modern capital has possessed, but all this woidd have been insufficient had there not been an unrivalled power of attraction, sympathy, and assimilation in the French character, a power in which Englishmen are signally cii. III. PACIFIC POLICY OF WALPOLE. 359 deficient, and which has made French ambition peculiarly formidable. On such grounds as these the Opposition were never tired of urging that France was rapidly advancing towards universal empire, and that unless she were speedily checked, the liberties of England must ultimately succumb. On sea England was, they admitted, still supreme, but of all forms of power this, they said, was the most precarious. An accident, a blunder, an unfavourable wind, might expose her coast to invasion, even in the zenith of her maritime greatness. The naval supremacy of Carthagfe had not saved her from destruction when Eome became dominant in the neighbouring continent. The naval supre- macy of Spain had been irretrievably ruined by the failure of a single expedition, and the destruction of the Armada was much more due to the fury of the elements than to the fleet that was opposed to it. The naval supremacy of England had trembled very doubtfully in the balance after the battle of Beachy Head ; and the battle of La Hogue, which re-established it, might have had a different issue had not the French Admiral been unex- pectedly confronted with the fleet of Holland as well as the fleet of England. Besides this, it was added, if France could once place herself beyond rivalry on the Continent, she might diminish her armies and devote the main energies of the State to securing the empire of the sea. Fears of this kind have in many periods haunted speculative politicians, who have usually not fully realised the magnitude of the difficulties which any attempt to obtain universal empire must encounter, the extreme complexity of the forces on whicli in modern society political power depends, and also the very narrow limits within which all sound political prediction is confined. Walpole, however, was steadily in favour of peace. He felt all the antipathy of a great practical statesman to a policy which would expose the country to the imminent dangers, to the inevi- table exhaustion of an European war, in order to avert dangers that were far distant, uncertain, and perliaps visionary. He main- tained that a war for the succession of Poland was one in which England had no reasonable concern ; that if she engaged in it the Ijurden could not fail to produce the most dangerous discontent among the English people ; that the diminution of the Imperial 360 I3GLAXD r^ THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. m. ii.L^-Lj. i:. Italy in no d^ree affected English inter^ts, espe- cially as France obtained no territory in that country : that the system, which was : r ~ ine chronic, of inTolving England in every Continental, and es' in every German, complication was fatal to her security l: .; with her true interests. The Fr-: .ed the greatest ' its to El_ : .. 1 i ri the Continent where i rench ambition was mo-" _ rox;s v^ : " Dutch barrier, but Fleury Lad very j: ' ^.y a:.-sLained :: :_ .'-":' 'ties against the Austrian Xetnr^ii.^-, though they vs.ic ir:: ' -t unde- ffc'nded. and Holland was quite resolved to persist in :. .i i- , ^trality. Unirr the intiuence of a l':"-7 r""- ■^^:? c'lmtry was steadily advancing in rirciTteritv a: .1 the elements of real power. .^ : ;w dvnasty and t :._:_ .taiy systenj were be_ . j to ta '- A :_:. wax would at once arrest the progress, and ^^ iicted^ — ^and the event fully justified his prescienir — that it would inevitably lead to a ne^ Jacobite rebellin. Besides this, as" . etestat: : war was one of his most hen " haracterisiics. ' It requires no great art,' h-r n :e said, * :: i^inister to pursue such measures as might make war ineviiaLic. I have live i ' :r r -n ?■ rh in the world to see how destructive the effects even ■.■: a su^:'--^snil war have been, and shall I, who see this, when I am admitte^i + • ne honour to bear a star- in H:; Majesty's councils, advise j enter into a war wl - t be had ? Xo, I am r j own it, I always have : . . I always shall be, tl r of peace.' The statesman who was continually accused by his contemporaries of sacrificing all EngHsh interests to the German policy of the Court, and who is now often desc : of risking for :. : :.ent his position in the interests of iiis country, was for a considerable time engaged in saving England from a Gem : . opposition to the strongest wish -"■ "he King -c^x .-, — --; i^er- self an advc-cate of war, .. i? sth. . that the disc . _ . her office with ^ , -elity and force tbnt the ar_ „ -_. transmitted actually convinced thr Ktn. . ^ ' Hervey's Jifeuwirs, L 375. CH. in. PACIFIC POLICY OF WALPOLE. 361 her own judgment remained unchanged.^ It is true, indeed, that in the latter part of his career Walpole was driven into war with Spain ; but not until public excitement, aggravated by an unscrupulous Opposition, had risen to such a frenzy that no Government could resist it, not until the convention he had neo'otiated between England and Spain had been generally scouted. For many years, however, he succeeded, in spite of constant opposition, in keeping the country in undisturbed peace, and by doing so he conferred both upon his nation and upon his party an inestimable benefit. To the long peace of Walpole was mainly due the immense material development which contributed so largely to the success of later wars, and also most probably the firm establishment of parliamentary government and of the Hanoverian dynasty. The greatest dan- ger to the Whig party, and the greatest danger to the country from its supremacy, lay in the traditions of its foreign policy, and those traditions Walpole resolutely cut. He has been much blamed for having taken no steps during his long ministry to break the power of the Highland chiefs, by whom the rebellion of 1745 was mainly effected. In a country where the clan feel- ing was still extremely strong, such steps would, it appears to me, have been the most natural means of producing an imme- diate revolt, and thus stirring up all the elements of discontent that were smouldering tliroughout the nation. On the other hand, it is scarcely doubtful that if the pacific policy which "NValpole desired, had continued, the rebellion would never have broken out ; and it was the direct result of the conciliatory measm-es of his administration that when it did break out it found no sympathy in England, and was in consequence easily suppressed. It is worthy of notice that the long ascendancy of Walpole was in no degree owing to any extraordinary brilliancy of elo- quence. He was a clear and forcible reasoner, ready in reply, and peculiarly successful in financial exposition, but he liad little or nothing of the temperament or the talent of an orator. It is the custom of some writers to decry parliamentary insti- tutions as being simply government by talking, and to assert that when they exist mere rhetorical skill will always be more valued than judgment, knowledge, or character. The enormous * vcy"s Memoirs, i. 3117. 362 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cii. in exaggeration of such charges may be easily established. It is, no doubt, inevitable that where business is transacted chiefly by debate, the talent of a debater should be highly prized ; but it is perfectly untrue that British legislatures have shown less skill than ordinary sovereigns in distinguishing solid talent from mere showy accomplishments, or that parliamentary weight has in England been usually proportioned to oratorical power. St. John was a far greater orator than Harley ; Pulteney was probably a greater orator than Walpole ; Stanley in mere rheto- rical skill was undoubtedly the superior of Peel. Godolphin, Pelham, Castlereagh, Liverpool, Melbourne, Althnrp, Welling- ton, Lord J. Eussell, and Lord Palmerston are all examples of men who, either as statesmen or as successful leaders of the House of Commons, have taken a foremost place in English politics without any oratorical brilliancy. Sheridan, Plunket, and Brougham, tliough orators of almost the highest class, left no deep impression on English public life ; the ascendancy of Grrey and Canning was very transient, and no Opposition since the early Hanoverian period sank so low as that which was guided by Fox. The two Pitts and Mr. Gladstone are the three examples of speakers of transcendent power exercising for a considerable time a commanding influence over English politics. The younger Pitt is, I believe, a real instance of a man whose solid ability bore no kind of proportion to his oratorical skill, and who, by an almost preternatural dexterity in debate, accom- panied by great decision of character, and assisted by the favour of the King, by the magic of an illustrious name, and by a great national panic, maintained an authority immensely greater than his deserts. But in this respect he stands alone. The pinnacle of glory to which the elder Pitt raised his country is a sufficient proof of the almost unequalled administrative genius which he displayed in the conduct of a war ; and in the sphere of domestic policy it may be questioned whether any other English minister since the accession of the House of Brunswick has carried so many measures of magnitude and difiiculty, or exhibited so perfect a mastery over the financial system of the country, as the great living statesman. The qualities of Walpole were very diff"erent, but it is im- possible, I think, to consider his career with adequate attention CH. III. VICES OF WALPOLE. 363 without recognising in him a great minister, although the merits of his administration were often rather neuative than positive, and although it exhibits few of those dramatic inci- dents, and is but little susceptible of that rhetorical colouring, on which the reputation of statesmen largely depends. With- out any remarkable originality of thought or creative genius, he possessed in a high degree one quality of a great statesman — the power of judging new and startling events in the moments of excitement or of panic as they would be judged by ordinary men when the excitement, the novelty, and the panic had passed He was eminently true to the character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their needs, and he had a sufficient ascendancy in English politics to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained, though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The landed gentry, and in a great degree the Chm-ch, were reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which divided the English nation were filled up. Par- liamentary government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of normal and pacific action, and the habits of compro- mise, of moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most essential to its success, were greatly strengthened. These were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power, exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or retaining it, and entirely desti- tute of that delicacy of honour which marks a high-minded man. In the opinion of most of his contemporaries, Townshend and Walpole had good reason to complain of the intrigues by which Sunderland and Stanhope obtained the supreme power in 1717; but this does not justify the factious manner in which Walpole opposed every measure the new ministry brought for- ward — even the Mutiny Act, which was plainly necessary to 364 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. keep the army in discipline ; even the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts, though he had himself denounced those Acts as more like laws of Julian the Apostate than of a Christian Legislature. He was sincerely tolerant in his disposi- tion, and probably did as much for the benefit of the Dissenters as could have been done without producing a violent and dan- gerous reaction of opinion ; but he took no measure to lighten the burden of the Irish penal code, and he had no scruple in availing himself of the strong feeling against the English Catholics and Non-jurors to raise 100,000^ by a special tax upon their estates, or in promising the Dissenters that he would obtain the repeal of the Test Act, when he had no serious intention of doing so. He warned the country faithfully against the South Sea scheme, but when his warning was disregarded, he proceeded to speculate skilfully and successfully in it himself. He laboured long and earnestly to prevent the Spanish war, which he knew to be eminently impolitic; but when the clamours of his opponents had made it inevitable, he determined that he would still remain at the helm, and he accordingly declared it himself. He governed the country mildly and wisely, but he was resolved at all hazards to secure for himself a complete monopoly of power; he steadily opposed the reconciliation of the Tories with the Hanoverian dynasty,' lest it should impair his ascendancy, surrounded himself with colleagues whose facul- ties rarely rose above the tamest mediocrity, drove from power every man of real talent who might possibly become his rival, and especially repelled young men of promise, character, and ambition, whom a provident statesman, desirous of perpetuating his policy beyond his lifetime, would especially seek to attract. The scandal and also the evil effects of his political vices were greatly increased by that total want of decorum which Burke has justly noted as the weakest point of his character. In this respect his public and private life resembled one another. That he lived for many years in open adultery, and indulged to excess in the pleasures oi the table, were facts which in the early part of the eighteenth century were in themselves not likely to excite much ' See the striking remarks of deemed a Jacobite who was not a Speaker Onslow on Walpolc's settled jjrol'esscd and known Whig.' — Coxe's 'plan of having everybody to be W'aljjolc, ii. 554-557. CH. HI. WAST OF DECORUM. 365 attention ; but his boisterous revelries at Houghton exceeded even the ordinary license of the country squires of his time, and the gross sensuality of his conversation was conspicuous in one of the coarsest periods of English history. When he did not talk of business, it was said, he talked of women ; politics and obscenity were his tastes. There seldom was a Court less addicted to prudery than that of Greorge II., but even its tolerance was somewhat strained by a minister who jested with the Queen upon the infidelity of her husband ; who advised her on one occasion to bring to Court a beautiful but silly woman as a ' safe fool ' for the King to fall in love with ; who, on the death of the Queen, urged her daughters to summon without delay the two mistresses of the King in order to distract the mind of their father ; who at the same time avowed, with a brutal frankness, as the scheme of his futin-e policy, that though he had been for the wife against the mistress, he would be henceforth for the mistress against the daughters.^ In society he had the weak- ness of wishing to be thought a man of gallantry and fashion, and his awkward addresses, rendered the more ludicrous by a singularly corpulent and ungraceful person, as well as the ex- treme coarseness into which he usually glided when speaking to and of women, drew down upon him much ridicule and some contempt. His estimate of political integrity was very similar to his estimate of female virtue. He governed by means of an assembly which was saturated with corruption, and he fully acquiesced in its conditions and resisted every attempt to im- prove it. He appears to have cordially accepted the maxim that government must be carried on by corruption or by force, and he deliberately made the former the basis of his rule. He bribed Greorge II. by obtaining for him a civil list exceeding by more than 100,000L a year that of his father. He bribed the Queen by securing for her a jointure of 1 00,000^. a year, when his rival, Sir Spencer Compton, could only venture to promise 60,000?. He bribed the Dissenting ministers to silence by the Eegium Donum for the benefit of their widows. He employed the vast patronage of the Crown uniformly and steadily with the single view of sustaining his political position, and there can be no doubt that a large proportion of the immense expenditure of ' Memoirs of Lord Ilcrvey SG6 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, cu. m. v'^ecret service money during' his administration was devoted to the direct purchase of Members of Parliament. It is necessary to speak with much caution on this matter, remembering- that no statesman can emancipate himself from the conditions of his time, and that a great injustice is done when the politician of one age is measured by the standard of another. Bribery, whether at elections or in Parliament, was no new thing. The systematic corruption of Members of Par- liament is said to have begun under Charles II., in whose reign it was practised to the largest extent. It was continued under his successor, and the number of scandals rather increased than diminished after the Eevolution. Sir J. Trevor — a Speaker of the House of Commons — had been voted guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour for receiving a bribe of 1,000 guineas from the City of London. A Secretary of the Treasury — Mr. Guy — had been sent to the Tower for taking a bribe to induce him to pay the arrears due to a regiment. Lord Eanelagh, a Pay- master of the Forces, had been expelled for defalcations in his office. In order to facilitate the passing of the South Sea Bill, it was proved that large amounts of fictitious stock had been created, distributed among, and accepted by, ministers of the Crown. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expelled, sent to the Tower, and fined. The younger Craggs, who was Secretary of State, probably only escaped by a timely death. His father, the Postmaster-General, avoided inquiry by suicide, and grave suspicion rested upon Charles Stanhope, the Secretary of the Treasury, and upon Sunderland, the Prime Minister. When such instances could be cited from among the leaders of politics, it is not sm-prising that among the undistinguished Members corruption was notorious. In 1698, a system of fraudulent endorsement of Exchequer bills with a view to defraud the revenue was discovered, and two Members of Parliament were sent to the Tower and expelled for being guilty of it. The expulsion of Hungerford for receiving a small sum for expedit- ing a private Bill through Parliament, of the two Shepherds for bribery at elections, of Sir R. Sutton for having through carelessness become director of a swindling company, of Ridge for the non-observance of a contract, of Colonel Cardonell for accepting an illegal though customary gratuity, of AValpole CH. ui. PARLIAMENT AEY CORRUPTION. 367 himself for alleged dishonesty about a contract, were probably inspired chiefly or solely by factious motives,' but there can at least be no reasonable doubt that parliamentary corruption does not date from the ministry of Walpole. Nor was he the first to practise largely corruption at elections. Burnet assures us that at the elections of 1701, when William was still on the throne, ' a most scandalous practice was brought in of buying votes with so little decency that the electors engaged themselves by sub- scription to choose a blank person before they were trusted with the name of their candidate.'^ I have cited in the last chapte-r the explicit testimony of Davenant to the magnitude of the evil in his day, and the writings of Defoe contain ample proof of its inveteracy and of its progress. In a pamphlet published in 1701, he tells us that there was a regular set of stock-jobbers in the City who made it their business to buy and sell seats in Parliament, that the market price was 1 ,000 guineas, and that Parliament was thus in a fair way of coming under the manage- ment of a few individuals.^ In 1705, after adverting to some Acts which had been passed against bribery, he adds emphati- cally : ' Never was treating, bribery, buying of voices, freedoms and freeholds, and all the corrupt practices in the world, so open and barefaced as since these severe laws were enacted.' ■* In 1 708 he declared that, having been present at many elections, he had arrived at the conclusion that ' it is not an impossible thing to debauch this nation into a choice of thieves, knaves, devils, any- thing, comparatively speaking, by the power of various intoxi- cations.'^ The evil showed no sign of diminution. In 1716 we find bitter complaints in Parliament itself of the rapidly increasing expense of elections,^ nnd the Earl of Dorset spoke of it as a notorious fact ' that a great number of persons have no other livelihood than by being employed in bribing corporations.' ' And if corruption did not begin with Walpole, it is equally ' Townsend"s Hist, of the House I have cited in the last chapter, when of Commons, ch. iv., v. he speaks of the purchase of seats of 2 Burnet's Orvii Time, ii. 258-259. Parliament as first observed in the 3 From 'The Freeholder's Plea elections of 1747 and 17 5i.— Const. against Stock-jobbing Elections of Hist. iii. 302. Parliament.'— Wilson's Life of Befoe, * 'Review.' See Wilson, ii. 362. :, 310-341. Mr. Hallam must have ^ pjic^ Wilson, iii. 23-24. somewhat strangely overlooked this ^ Farl. Hist. vii. 335. passage, as well as some others which ' Ibid. 207. 368 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch hi. certain that it did not end with him. His expenditui'e of secret service money, large as it was, never equalled in an equal space of time the expenditure of Bute ; and it is to Bute, and not to Walpole, that we owe the most gigantic and most waste- ful of all the forms of bribery, the custom of issuing loans on terms extravagantly advantageous to the lender, and distri- buting the shares among the supporters of the administration. The downfall of Walpole can scarcely be said to have produced even a temporary cessation of corruption. In 1754, Sir J. Barnard, witli a view to the approaching elections, actually moved the repeal of the oath against bribery, in the interest of public morals, on the ground that it was merely the occasion of general perjury.^ In the same year Fox declined to accept from Newcastle the lead of the House of Commons, unless he received information about the disposition of the secret service money, because, as he said, ' if he was kept in ignorance of that, he should not know how to talk to Members of Parliament, when some might have received gratifications, others not.'^ Very few statesmen of the eighteenth century had less natural tendency to corruption than George Grenville. His private character was unimpeachable. His alteration of the mode of trying contested elections was a great step towards the purifica- tion of Parliament, and the expenditure of secret service money during his administration was unusually low ; ^ yet such was the condition of the Legislature by which he governed, that he appears to have found it necessary to offer direct money bribes even to Members of the House of Lords.'* If Walpole ' "Walpole 's Mcnwir of George II. lucrative advantage I then received, i. 369. To show the sincerity of my words 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 382. (pardon, Sir, the perhaps over-niceness * Grenville Correspondence, iii. p. of my disposition), I retiu-n enclosed 14.3, the bill for .300/. you favoured me *• The following very curious note with, as good manners would not from Lord Saye and Sele to Grenville ]>ermit my refusal of it when tendered has been preserved. The lone of the by you. Your most obliged and most writer makes it almost certain that olDedieut servant, Saye & Selb. the transaction referred to was not 'P.S. As a free horse needs no reearded as either unusual or insult- spur, so I stand in need of no induce- jqX. ; ment or douceur to lend my small ' London, Nov. 26, 1763. assistance to the King and his friends 'Honoured Sir, — I am very much in the present administration.' — obliged to you for that freedom of Grenville Correspondence, iii. 145- Gonverse you this morning indulged 146. me in, wliich I prize more than the CH. m. CORRUPTION OF WALPOLE. 3G0 was guilty of corruption, it may be fairly urged that it was scarcely possible to manage Parliament without it, and also that skilful writers, under the guidance of Bolingbroke, were studi- ously aggravating his faults. He was, no doubt, often mis- represented. His saying of a group of INIembers, ' All these men have their price,' was turned into a general assertion that *all men have. their price;' and there was probably some truth in another saying ascribed to him, — ' that he was obliged to bribe Members not to vote against, but for their conscience.' Although in the case of a minister who had very few scruples, and who disposed, absolutely for many years, of immense sums of secret service money, it is impossible to speak with confi- dence, we may at least afiBrm that there is no real evidence that Walpole dishonestly appropriated public money to his own purposes, and he retired from office deeply in debt. The real charge against him is that in a period of profound peace, when he exercised an almost unexampled ascendancy in politics, and when public opinion was strongly in favour of the diminution of corrupt influence in Parliament, he steadily and successfully resisted every attempt at reform. Other ministers may have bribed on a larger scale to gain some special object, or in moments of transition, crisis, or difficultv. It was left to Walpole to organise corruption as a system, and to make it the normal process of Parliamentary government. It was his settled policy to maintain his Parliamentary majority, not by attracting to his ministry great orators, great writers, great financiers, or great statesmen, not by effecting any com- bination or coalition of parties, by identifying himself with any great object of popular desire, or by winning to his side young- men in whose character and ability he could trace the promise of future eminence, but simply by engrossing borough influence and extending the patronage of the Crown. Material motives were the only ones he recognised. During several successive Parliaments the majority of the counties were usually in oppo- sition.^ It was by the purchase of a multitude of small and perfectly venal boroughs, especially in Cornwall and Scotland, that the Government majority was maintained. Whenever ' See a remarkable statement of Horaw Walpole. Memoirs of George II. i. 406. VOL. r. B B 370 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. jii. there was a choice between a mau of ability and a man possess- ing large borough influence, the latter was invariably preferred. Thus it was that in 1724 Carteret was displaced from the Secretaryship of War, and the claims of Pulteney were neglected in order that Walpole might attach to his fortunes the Duke of Newcastle, who was the greatest borough-owner in the kingdom, but whose weak and timid character he was the first to ridicule. Thus it was that he met and defeated every effort to reduce the pension lists, and to enquire into the corruption of Parlia- ment. He made it, said one who knew him well, a main object at all times, and on all occasions, to prevent Parlia- mentary enquiries.^ Pension Bill after Pension Bill was brought in with the strong support of public opinion. Some- times he openly opposed them. JNIore frequently he suffered them to pass the Commons, and employed his influence to stifle them in the Lords. Always he made it his object to dis- courage and defeat them. He constructed a system under which a despotic sovereign or minister might make a Parlia- mentary majority one of the most subservient and efficient in- struments for destroying the liberties of England ; and although he himself used it with signal moderation, he bequeathed it intact to his successors, and it became, under George III., the great instrument of misgovernment. His influence upon young men appears to have been pecu- liarly pernicious. If we may believe Chesterfield, he was accustomed to ask them in a tone of irony upon their entrance into Parliament vhether they too were going to be saints or Eomans, and he employed all the weight of his position to make them regard purity and patriotism as ridiculous or un- manly.'^ Of the next generation of statesmen. Fox, tlie first Lord Holland, was the only man of remarkable ability who can be said to have been his disciple, and he was, perhaps, the most corrupt and unscrupulous of the statesmen of his age. Specific instances of Parliamentary corruption are a class of facts little likely to pass into the domain of history. Tlie secret nature of the act, the interests both of the giver and the recipient, and the general tone and feelings of the politicians of ' Lord Hervey's Mrmm)-K, i. 22t. « Cl.estcrfielci"s Muccllaneous Works (ed. 1779^, iv. append, p. 3G, CH. III. CORRUPTION OF WALPOLE, 37 1 the time, conspire to conceal them, and although public opinion forced on an enquiry into the acts of Walpole, and although the great majority of the commissioners were his personal enemies, no considerable results were arrived at. Nor was this surprising. The whole influence of the Crown and of the House of Lords was exerted to shield the fallen minister, and there was on the part of most leading politicians, and, indeed, of most Members of Parliament, a marked indisposition to enquire too curiously into such matters. Edgecumbe, who chiefly managed the Cornish boroughs, was made a peer expressly for the purpose of preventing the Committee from requiring his evidence.' The officials who distributed the secret service money positively refused to give any evidence as to the manner of its distribu- tion, on the ground that they might otherwise criminate them- selves. The Secretary of the Treasury, who could probably have thrown most light upon the subject, as the whole secret service money passed through his hands, declined to take the oath of discovery, and informed the Committee ' that he had laid his case before the King, and was authorised to say that the disposal of money issued for secret service, by the nature of it, requires the utmost secrecy, and is accountable to his Majesty alone ; and therefore his JNIajesty could not permit him to dis- close anything on the subject.' ^ The Committee were completely baffled. Those who distributed the secret service money refused to give any evidence, and it was hardly to be expected that those who received it would criminate themselves by confession. A Bill was brought forward to indemnify the recipients of bribes if they gave evidence against Walpole, but though it passed the Commons, it was rejected by the Lords. Under these cir- cumstances we can hardly lay much stress upon the fact that the discoveries of the Committee were chiefly of the most trivial description. The bestowal of places on tlie Mayor of Weymouth and on his brother-in-law, in order to secure the nomination of a favourable returning officer at an election, the removal of a few revenue officers who failed to vote for a ministerial candidate, the distribution of some small sums for borouo-li prosecutions and suits, the somewhat suspiciously liberal terms 1 Walpole's Letters, i. p. 175. ^ Coxc's Waljwle, i. p. 712. u B 2 372 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. iti. of a contract for the payment of British troops at Jamaica, were all matters which appeared of little moment when they were regarded as the result of a solemn enquiry into ministerial proceedings for ten years. Much more important was the dis- covery that in this space of time no less than 1,453,400Z. had been expended in secret service money, and that of that sum above 50,0001. had been paid to writers in defence of the ministry. It has been shown, indeed, by the apologists for Walpole that the secret service money included the whole pension list, as well as the large sums necessarily expended in obtaining informa- tion at foreign Courts, and also that the comparisons insti- tuted between the expenditure of secret service money in the last ten years of Walpole, and that in an equal portion of the reign of Anne, were in several respects fallacious;' but there cannot, I think, be much reasonable doubt, though the Com- mittee were unable to obtain evidence on the subject, that much of it was expended in Parliamentary corruption. It is said that supporters of the Government frequently received at the close of the session from 500^. to 1,000^. for their services;^ that Walpole himself boasted that one important division re- jecting the demand of the Prince of Wales for an increased allowance cost the Government only 900?.,^ that more than half the Members of Parliament were in the receipt of public money in the form of pensions or Government offices.'* It is certain that the consentient opinion of contemporaries accused ' See the elaborate chapter in Memo'irs (1815), ii. 498, 500. Coxo, on the report of tjie Committee. ^ 'Sir R. Walix)le and the Queen 2 Almon's Anecdotes of Chatham, both told me sejDarately that it [the vol. i. p. 1.37. 'This was written of ministerial triumph] cost the Kins^ the Pelham ministry, but that ministry but 900?. — 500?. to one man and 400?. only continued in a somewhat more to another ; and that even these two moderate form the system of Walpole. sMxas were only adraneed to two wen Wraxall positively asserts that tvlio were to hare received them at the Roberts, who was Secretary of the end of the session had this question Treasury under Pelham, assured a never been moved, and who only took friend, from whom Wraxall received this opportunity to solicit prompt the story, that he, Roberts, while he payment.' — Lord Hervey's Ilemoirs, remained at the Treasury regularly ii. 280. paid secret stijiends varyinf^ from ^ Some interesting facts on the 500?. to 800?. to a number of Members fluctuations of the number of place- at the end of each session. Their men in Parliament will be found names were entered in a book which in Brougham's great speech on the was kept in the deepest secrecy and increasing influence of the Crown, which on the death of Pelham was June 24, 1822. burnt by the King.' — See Wraxall's CH. III. LOW MORAL TONE. 373 th« ministers of gross and wholesale corruption, and that they uniformly opposed every enquiry that could vindicate their honour, and every Bill that could tend to purify the Parlia- ment. The complaints of the Opposition were met by Walpole in a strain of coarse and cynical banter. Patriots, saints, Spartans, and boys were the terms he continually employed. Something, no doubt, was due to the strong hatred of cant which was a prominent feature of his character, and which sometimes led him, like his great contemporary Swift, into the opposite extreme of cynicism. He knew that he was speaking the secret sentiments of the great majority of his hearers, that among the declaimers against corruption were some of the most treacherous and unprincipled politicians of the time, and that personal disappointment and baffled ambition had their full share in swelling the ranks of his opponents ; but ^vhen every allowance is made for this, his language must appear grossly culpable. He profoundly lowered the moral tone of public \^f(^. and thus, as an acute observer has said, ' while he seemed to strengthen the superstructure, he weakened the foundations of our constitution.' ' Nor is it true tliat the politicians of the time were universally corrupt. Grodolphin and Bolingbroke had both retired from their ministerial, careers poor men. Oxford was in this respect beyond all reproach. Neither Pul- teney, nor Windham, nor Onslow, nor Carteret, nor Shippen, nor Barnard, nor Pitt, whatever their other faiilts, could be suspected of personal corruption. Above all, there was the public opinion of England which was deeply scandalised by the extent to which parliamentary corruption had arisen, and by the cynicism with which it was avowed, and on tliis point, though on this alone, Walpole never respected it. Like many men of low morals and of coarse and prosaic natures, he was altogether incapable of appreciating as an element of political calculation the force which moral sentiments exercise upon mankind, and this incapacity was one of the great causes of his fall. His own son has made the memorable admission that Walpole ' never was thought honest till he was out of power.' ^ ' Browne's Estimate, i. p. 115. * VValpole's Menwirs of George II. i. 236. 374 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. iii. Throug-h these fuults, as well as through tlie discontent which always follows the great prolongation of a single admi- nistration, a powerful though heterogeneous Opposition was gradually formed, and the small hand of Tories were reinforced by a considerable section of discontented Whigs, who seceded under the guidance of Pulteney, Carteret, and Chesteriield, and by several young men of promise or genius. Pulteney, who usually led the phalanx, had been for many years the friend and colleague of Walpole. He had co-operated with him during the depression of the party under Queen Anne, defended him when he was expelled from the House in 1712, assumed the office of Secretary of "War in the Whig ministry of 1714, taken the same side with Walpole in the Whig scliism of 1717, and he appeared at one time likely to rise at least as high in the State. He was a country gentleman of good character, old family, and large property, a scholar, a writer, and a wit, and probably the most graceful and brilliant speaker in the House of Commons in the interval between the withdrawal of St. John and the appearance of Pitt. His separation from Walpole appears to have been wholly due to personal motives. Possess- ing abilities and parliamentary standing which entitled him, in his own opinion and in the opinion of many others, to rank as the equal of Walpole, he found that Walpole allowed his col- leagues little more influence than if they were his clerks, and was always seeking, by direct or indirect means, to displace them when they became prominent. He is said to have been bitterly offended when, Carteret having in 1724 resigned the position of Secretary of State, the claims of Newcastle were preferred to his own, and the offer of a peerage, which was intended only to remove him from the centre of power, and afterwards of a very unimportant place, completed his aliena- tion. He went into violent opposition, rejected scornfully the overtures of the minister, who when too late perceived his error, dedicated all his powers to the subversion of the admi- nistration, and became the most skilful exponent of the popular feeling about the corruption of Parliament, the subservience of Walpole to France and to Spain, and the dangers of a standing army in time of peace. He was bitterly opposed to the Gral- lican sympathies of Walpole, and especially to tlie Treaty of CH. III. PULTENEY AND CAETEHET. 375 Hanover, and was for some time in very close and confidential communication with the ministers of the Emperor.^ Of all the opponents of Walpole he was probably the most formidable, for he seems to have been at least his equal as a debater; his great social talents made him popular among politicians, and he at the same time exercised a powerful influence beyond the walls of Parliament. The ' Craftsman,' which for many years con- tained the bitterest and ablest attacks on Walpole, was founded, inspired, and perhaps in part written^ by Pulteney in conjunc- tion with Bolingbroke. He was also the author of two or three pamphlets of more than ordinary merit, of several happy witti- cisms which are still remembered, and of a political song which was once among the most popular in the language.^ When accused of being actuated in his opposition by sordid motives, he incautiously pledged himself never again to accept office, and in the hour of his triumph he remembered his pledge ; but he cannot be acquitted of having shaped his career through a feeling of personal rancour, he never exhibited eitlier the business talents or the tact and prescience of statesmanship so con- spicuous in his rival, and he probably contributed more than any other single man to plunge the country into the Spanish war. A more remarkable man, but a less formidable politician, was Carteret, afterwards Lord Granville, who at the time of the downfall of Walpole led the Whig Opposition in the House of Lords. He had entered the Upper House in 1711, had joined the Sunderland section of the Whigs in 1717, had been appointed ambassador to Sweden in the following year, and had afterwards accepted several brief diplomatic missions in Ger- manv and France. On the death of Sunderland he made some unsuccessful efforts to perpetuate the division of the party, but his opposition to Walpole was at first rather latent than avowed. He became Secretary of State in 1721, but, disagreeing with ' See the intercepted letters of founded upon them. As Pulteney was Count Palm printed in Coxe's Life of confessedly a skilful writer and pam- Waljiole. plileteer, this story seems very im- ^ Horace Walpole (to H. Mann, probable. April 27, 1753) asserts that the printer ^'The Honest Jury; or, Caleb of the 'Craftsman' assured him Pul- Triumphant,' written on the occasion teney 'never wrote a "Craftsman" of the acquittal of the ' Craftsman 'on himself, only gave hints for them,' a charge of libel. — V/Wkins' Ci ilk- ctiv a though much of his reputation was of Pulitical Ballddn, ii. 2'i2-2'^(}. 37 G ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. his colleague Lord Townshend, he was compelled to relinquish the post in 1724, when he became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. After several differences with the ministry in England he re- signed this appointment in 1730, and from that time became a leader of Opposition and a close ally of Pulteney. Of all the leading English statesmen of the eighteenth century he is, perhaps, the one of whose real merits it is most difficult to speak with confidence. Like Charles Townshend in the next generation, he was a man who had the very highest reputation for ability among his contemporaries, but whose ability we are obliged to take altogether upon trust, for, except some unpub- lished despatches, often full of fire and force, and a few detached sayings, he has left no monument behind him. His career was, on the whole, unsuccessful. His speeches have perished. His policy has come down to us chiefly through the representations of his opponents, and he himself appears to have taken no part in political literature. Yet Horace Walpole and Chesterfield, who disliked liim, have both spoken of him as the ablest man of his time.' Swift and Smollett have expressed warm admira- tion for his genius, and Chatham, who was at one time his bitter opponent, has left on record his opinion that in the upper departments of government he had no equal. ^ In the range and variety of his knowledge he was unrivalled among the poli- ticians of his time, and the singular versatility of his intellect made him almost equally consjaicuous as an orator, a linguist, a statesman, a scholar, and a wit. Having travelled much in Germany, lie was intimately acquainted with its laws, manners, and internal politics ; and his thorough knowledge of the lan- guage, then a very rare accomplishment in England, gave hira a special influence with the Hanoverian kings. In Parliament he was placed, by the confession of all parties, in the foremost rank of debaters, but good judges complained that his eloquence was somewhat turgid and declamatory in its style, that he was ' ' Lord Granville, they say, is liim to be a greater genius than Sir dying. When he dies the ablest E. Walpole, Mansfield, or Chatham, head in England dies too, take him — Memmrs of George II. iii. 85. for all in all.'— Chesterfield to his ^ Prtr^. /ksi*. xvi. 1097. He added : son, Dec. 13, 1762. See, too, his 'I feel a pride in declaring that to admirable portrait of Granville in his patronage, to liis friendship and Lis ' Characters.' Walpole pronounced instruction, I owe whatever I am.' cii. III. CARTEEET. 377 more to be dreaded as an opponent than to be desired as a col- league, and that he was almost equally unfitted, by his defects and by his merits, for the position of a parliamentary leader. He was of a careless, sanguine, impulsive, and desultory nature, easily and extravagantly elated and never depressed, delighting in intrigue and in strokes of sudden and brilliant daring, but apt to treat politics as a game, and almost wholly destitute of settled principles, fixity of purpose, and earnestness of cha- racter. His mind teemed with large schemes, and he could carry them out with courage and with skill, but he was not equally expert in dealing with details, and he looked with a contempt wliich had at least an affinity to virtue upon the arts of management, conciliation, and corruption, by which Walpole and Pelham secured their Parliamentary influence. ' What is it to me,' he once said, ' who is a judge or who a bishop ? It is my -business to make kings and emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.' His temper was naturally imperious. He was entirely indifferent to money. He drank hard. He over- flowed with riotous animal spirits, scotfed and ranted at his colleagues, or treated them with the most supercilious con- tempt ; and though he could be at times the most generous and engaging of men, though no other statesman bore defeat with such unforced good humour, or showed himself so free from rancour against his opponents, he was not popular in the Cabinet and not trusted in Parliament. To the King, on the other hand, he was eminently acceptable. He succeeded in very skilfully flattering and almost winning the Queen at the very time w]}en he was a leading counsellor in the rival party of her son. He had a strong natural leaning, intensified by education, to high monarchical views. He would gladly have based his power altogether on royal favour ; he delighted in framing his measures with the King alone, and was the only English statesman who fully shared and perhaps fully under- stood the King's Gferman policy. It was natural that his rare knowledge of Continental affairs sliould have invested them in his eyes with an interest and an attraction they did not possess in the eyes of ordinary politicians, and that he should have found in them a field peculiarly congenial to his daring and adventurous nature. ' I want to instil a nobler amljition into 378 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. en. ni. you,' he said to Fox in later years, 'to make you knock the heads of the kings of Europe together, and jumble something out of it which may be of service to this country. As minister of a despotic sovereign he might have risen to great eminence, but he was not suited for the conditions of Parliamentary go- vernment, and he usually inclined towards unpopular opinions. Thus he was one of the most powerful opponents of the Militia Bill at a time when the creation of a great militia had almost become a national craze. He was accustomed to assert strongly ihe dignity of the House of Lords in opposition to the House of Commons. He ruined his political prospects by his bold advocacy of Hanoverian measures. The last public words he is recorded to have uttered were a stern rebuke to Pitt for havino- spoken of himself rather as the minister of the people than of the Crown, and for having thus introduced the language of the House of Commons into the discussions of the Cabinet ; and his last recorded political judgment was an approbation of the un- popular Peace of Paris. His ambition, like his other qualities, was very spasmodic. He could cast aside its prizes with a frank and laughing carelessness that few could rival, but when heated with the contest he was accused of being equally capable of a policy of the most reckless daring and of the most paltry intrigue. Queen Caroline, reviewing the leaders of the Opposi- tion, said that Bolingbroke would tell great lies, Chesterlield small ones, Carteret both kirxls.^ Of Chesterfield it is not necessary to say much, for his part in the overthrow of Walpole was much less prominent. He was naturally most fitted to shine in a drawing-room, and though a graceful and accomplished, if somewhat laboured, speaker, his political talents, like those of Sir W. Temple in tho preceding generation, were more adapted for diplomacy than for parliamentary life. He was twice ambassador to Holland and discharged his duties with great ability and success. During his short viceroyalty in Ireland he showed very remarkable ad- ^ The principal materials for de- Wography of Shelhirne. Many vo- scribing Carteret are to be found in lumes of papers belonging to liim are Horace Walpole's Letters and ///.s-- in the Britisli Museum. It appears torics. Lord Hervej-'s ^IcnunrK, Ches- from Lord Hervey's Memoirs that tertield's Characters, Lady Hervey's Carteret was at one time occupied Z^?'fr?-,'«,iSir Hanbury Williams' ,Sr»////,'(, with a history of his own time, but and the recently published Auto- it has unfortunately never appeared. CH. m, 'EOY PATRIOTS' AND TORIES. 379 ministrative talents, and his letters to his illegitimate son, which vrere published contrary to his desire, furnish ample evidence of his delicate but fastidious taste, of his low moral principle, and of his hard, keen, and worldly wisdom. His life was dark- ened by much private sorrow, which he bore with great courage ; and his political prospects were blasted by the hostility of the Queen, who never forgave him for having made his court to the mistress of her husband. Lord Hervey, comparing him to Carteret, says that Carteret had the better public and Court understanding, Chesterfield the better private and social one. His hostility to Walpole dates from his dismissal from office after the Excise scheme. On the fall of that minister he pressed on the measures against him much more violently than either Pulteney or Carteret. In addition to these older politicians, the ranks of the opponents of Walpole contained a small group of young men who did not altogether coalesce with either party, and who were much ridiculed under the name of Boy Patriots, but who reckoned in their number several men of credit and ability, and one man of the most splendid and majestic genius. The principal members of this party were Lord Cobham, Lyttelton, Greorge Grrenville, and, above all, William Pitt. This last politician had entered Parliament for Old Sarum in 1735. He was still a very young and very poor man, holding the post of cornet in a regiment of dragoons, entirely destitute of the in- fluence which springs from rank, experience, or Parliamentary connection, but already distinguished for the lofty purity of his character and for an eloquence which, in its full maturity, has, probably, never been equalled in England and never been sur- passed among mankind. The Tory wing of the Opposition appears to have l)een numerically about equal to the Whig one. It consisted of about 110 members, but it was far from unanimous. One sec- tion was distinctly Jacobite, and it was the policy of Govern- ment to attribute Jacobitism to the whole ; but with many, Toryism was, probably, mainly a matter of family tradition, and consisted chiefly of attachment to the Established Church, and dislike to Hanoverian politics, to the moneyed interests, and to septennial parliaments. The party had for many years a skilful 380 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. iir. and eloquent leader in Sir W. Windham — the son-in-law of the Duke of Somerset — who had been Chancellor jf the Exchequer under Queen Anne, and who in that capacity had brought for- ward and carried tlie Schism Act. His death in 1740 was a great blow to the Opposition, and his successor, Lord Grower, afterwards abandoned the party. Among the Members who usually acted with the Tories was Sir John Barnard, a retired merchant, wlio had acquired great influence in the House as the only man capable of coping with Walpole on questions of finance, and the party included Shippen, the able and honest leader of the Jacobites. It consisted, for the most part, of country squires of little education and strong prejudices, but in general superior to their allies in rectitude of purpose and sincerity of conviction. In addition to the parliamentary combatants there is another influence to be mentioned. Bolingbroke, though excluded from the parliamentary arena, had, as I have said, devoted his great experience and his brilliant pen to the service of the Opposition, and in one respect at least his policy was now the exact opposite to that which he had pursued under Anne. He had then, in opposition to Oxford, endeavoured to make the lines of party division as clear and strong as possible, to put an end to the system of divided administrations, and to expel all Whigs from the Government. Now, however, when his party was apparently hopelessly shattered, he employed all his talents in the task of effecting a union between the Tories and a large section of the Whigs. In his ' Dissertation on Parties ' and in his private letters, he maintained strongly that the old demar- cation of parties had lost all meaning ; that the question of djTiasty was virtually settled ; that the Whig enthusiasm for the House of Hanover was chiefly a party pretext for monopo- lising all the offices of the State and excluding the Tories as enemies to the establishment ; and that this monopoly and this exclusion had necessarily led to an aggrandisement of corrupt influence on the side of those in power, which was fatal to the purity and might easily prove incompatible with the existence of the constitution.' Corruption, he was accustomed to main- ' See amon.cr other letters a very remarkable one to Lord Polwarth, Marchniont Pajcrs, ii. 177-rJl. CH. ni. THE PRINCE OF WALES. 381 tain, is ranch more dangerous to English liberty than preroga- tive, because it is slow and insensible in its operation, because it arouses no feeling of opposition in the country like that which follows an unconstitutional act, and because its influence is especially felt in the very House which is the appointed guardian of the interests of the people. A warm and affec- tionate friendship with Windham gave Bolingbroke for a con- siderable time an ascendancy over those Tories who. had aban- doned Jacobitism, while his position as coeditor with Pulteney of the ' Craftsman,' and his confidential relations with many of the discontented Whigs, gave him influence with the other section of the Opposition. Bolingbroke, however, was unpopular in the country ; he was wearied of the secondary place he was com- pelled to occupy in party warfare, and owing to this and perhaps to other causes which we are not able to unravel, he retired to France in 1735, and did not again visit England till after the downfall of Walpole. Before his departure, however, he had ob- tained a great ascendancy over the mind of Frederick, Prince of Wales, who soon became the leading opponent of the Government. It is natural in a government like that of England, that a party in opposition should turn their hopes to the successor of the throne, and it is equally natural that an ambitious Prince should lean towards a course of policy which alone during his father's lifetime enables him to take an independent and a foremost place. Many private causes conspired to inflame the jealousy. The Prince desired to marry a Prussian Princess, and the King refused his request. After the marriage of the Prince with the Princess of Saxe-Gotha, the King only granted him an allowance of 50,000La year, though the King himself when Prince of Wales had received an allowance of 1 00,000/. Besides this, the Prince's affable manners rendered him more popular in the country than the King, and his tastes inclined him to the brilliant literary and social circle which was in opposition to tlie ministry. From 1734 there was an open breach, and in 1737 the Prince took the extraordinary step of inducing the Opposition to bring forward a motion in Parliament urging the King to allow his son out of the Civil List 100,OOOL a year. The Court was naturally furious, and Walpole succeeded with some diflBculty in defeating the motion. Lord Hervey has left us a curious picture of the feelings 382 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. ni. of the royal family at this time — the Queen a hundred times a day saying she wished her son woidd fall dead with apoplexy, cursing the hour of his birth, and describing him as ' a nauseous beast,' ' the greatest liar that ever spoke,' while his sister declared that she grudged him every hour he continued to breathe, and the King regarded him with a steady though somewhat calmer hatred. The Prince, on the other hand, seems to have lost no opportunity of irritating his father and his mother ; and when his wife was in labour he hurried her, in the midst of her pains and at the imminent danger of her life, from Hampton Court to St. James's, for the sole purpose of insulting the King, who had given orders that the lying-in should take place at the former palace. With the same motive he made his Court the special centre of opposition to the Government, and he exerted all his influence for the ruin of Walpole.' While all these elements of strength were combining against the minister, the death of the Queen ^ deprived him of his firmest friend. She died solemnly commending her husband to his care, and her loss was never replaced. He now stood alone, confront- ing all the ablest debaters in Parliament, whom his jealousy had driven into opposition, while intrigues and dissensions were undermining his position at the Court and in the Cabinet, and while a fierce storm of popular indignation was raging without. He had somewhat ostentatiously displayed his contempt for literature, and most of the ablest' political writers were arrayed against him. He had ridiculed the cry of parliamentary purity and the aspirations of young politicians, and all the hope and promise of England was with his opponents. He had laboured through good report and through evil report to maintain the peace of Europe, and the Opposition leaders succeeded in arous- ing in the country a martial frenzy which it was impossible to resist. The pretext was the severities of the Spaniards to English sailors. Spain, in attempting to monopolise the commerce of the most important part of the New World, and in forbidding all other European countries from holding intercourse with it, had advanced a claim which sooner or later must inevitably have ' Hcrvey's Memoirs. Walpole's Rendniiicences. ^ Nov. 20, 1737. en. ni. DISPUTES WITH SPAIN. 383 led to war. Her riglit, however, to regulate the traffic with her trans-Atlantic dominions had been fully recognised by England : the principle of trade monopoly was strenuously maintained by England in her own dominions, and by an article in the Treaty of Utrecht, in addition to the trade in negroes, English commerce with Spanish America had been expressly restricted to a single ship of the burden of 600 tons. Tliis treaty was soon systematically violated. An immense illicit trade sprang np, which was for a time unmolested, but was afterwards met by a rigid exercise of the right of search on the high seas, and by the constant seizure of English ships, and it was accompanied on both sides by many acts of violence, insolence, and barbarity. A dispute had at the same time arisen between the two nations about the right of the English traders to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, and to gather salt on the Island of Tortuga, and there were chronic difficulties about the frontiers of Georgia and Carolina on the one side, and of Florida on the other. For many years the ill-feeling smouldered on, and it gradually assumed very formidable proportions. The maintenance of the balance of power had been the chief cause of the wars of the century, and it was observed with truth that there was a balance by sea as well as by land. The growing preponderance of the English navy and of English commerce had long been seen with a jealous eye both in Spain and in France, and strong mutual interests drew the two countries together. The recovery of Gibraltar had since the Peace of Utrecht been a great object of Spanish policy, and Spain had lost, with her dominions in the Netlierlands, her chief reason for desiring an English alliance and her chief cause of quarrel with France. In the counsels of the latter country a strong military party bad appeared who protested against the pacific policy of Fleury, who maintained that French continental interests had been unduly sacrificed to England, and who desired to revive, in part at least, the policy of Lewis XIV. and to seek new combinations of power. This party was strengthened by the English treaty with the Emperor in 1731, which was regarded with some reason as the abandon- ment of a French for an Austrian alliance, and also by the great danger of an English declaration of war during the struggle of 1733. At the close of that year a secret treaty, called the 38-i ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. Family Compact, was signed by the Kings of France and Spain, with the object of guarding against the naval supremacy of England. By this treaty the French agreed, if necessary, to assist Spain in her eJSforts to extirpate the abuses which crept into her trade with England, and also to endeavour to procure for Spain the cession of Gibraltar ; while Spain agreed, on a fitting occasion, to revoke the trade privileges of England and to admit France to a large share of her trans- Atlantic com- merce. This treaty was a profound secret, and was unknown both to AValpole and the Opposition, but there were several signs of a growing coldness between England and France. Chauvelin, who was Secretary of State for foreign affairs from 1727 to 1737, gradually acquired almost a complete empire over the mind of Fleury, and his influence was usually very hostile to the English alliance. In 1735 the English minister carried on a very secret negotiation with him, and endeavoured by the offer of a large bribe to win him to his interest ; but the attempt does not appear to have been successful, and the disgrace and exile of Chauvelin, in the beginning of 1737, was regarded as a great triumph of English policy.' On sea France displayed a new activity, while Spain, secure in her secret alliance, grew more severe in enforcing the right of search against British sailors. The latter, who despised and hated the Spaniards as foreigners, as Papi -ts, and as ancient enemies, appear to have continually acted witli great insolence. The Spaniards in their turn retaliated by many acts of violence, which were studiously col- lected, aggravated, and circulated in England. One story especially produced a deep impression. An English captain named Jenkins was brought before Parliament and alleged that when sailing for Jamaica, so far back as 1731, he had been seized by Spanish sailors, tortured and deprived of his ears ; and when he was asked what he thought when he found himself in the hands of such barbarians, he answered, in words which had doubtless been suggested to him and which were soon repeated through the length and breadth of England, that 'he had recommended his soul to God and his cause to his country.' ' See the secret correspondence WaJ'polc, iii. 308-309, 31G, 317, 451- of the English Government, in Coxe's 457. cs. m, DISPUTES WITH SPAIN. 385 The truth of the story is extremely doubtful, but the end that was aimed at was attained.' The indignation of the people, fanned as it was by the press and by the untiring efforts of all sections of the Opposition, became uncontrollable. Every device was employed to sustain it. English sailors returned from cap- tivity in Spain were planted at the Exchange, exhibiting to the crowds who passed by, specimens of the loathsome food they were obliged to eat in the dungeons of Spain. Literature caught up the excitement, and it was reflected in the poetry of Pope, of Glover, and of Johnson. Walpole tried bravely and ably to moderate it, but his conduct was branded as the grossest pusil- lanimity. The King fully shared tlie popular sentiment. Peti- tions poured into Parliament from every part of the kingdom demanding redress ; while Spain, relying on the letter of the treaty and on the support of France, met every overture with suspicion or arrogance. Strong resolutions were carried through both the Commons and Lords. Letters of marque and re- prisal were offered to the merchants. Admiral Haddock was despatched with a fleet of ten ships to the Mediterranean, and troops were sent to the infant colony of Greorgia to protect it from an apprehended invasion. These events took place in 1738. It is a remarkable proof of the tact and influence of Walpole that, notwithstanding the fierce and warlike spirit in the country, in the Parliament and in the palace, notwithstanding the fact that in his own Cabinet both Newcastle and Hardwicke were advocates of war, the cata- strophe did not take place till the jSTovember of the following year. It is clear that in the essential points of difference England was in the wrong. A plain treaty had been grossly and continually violated by English sailors. The right of search by which Spain attempted to enforce it, though often harshly and improperly exercised, was perfectly legal, and before the war was ended some of the noisiest of those who now denounced it were compelled to acknowledge the fact. Walpole himself had no doubt on the ' According to Horace Walpole, cut off by a guarda cost a.' See, for when Jenkins died it was found that other details on this matter, Coxe's his ear had never been cut olf at ;ill. Walpole, i. 579-580. Burke called it According tq Tindal, ' Jenkins lost bis ' the fable of Jenkins' ears.' — Letters ear or part of his ear on another on a Regicide Peace. occasion, and pretended it had been VOL. I. C C 386 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. tit. subject, but he tried in vain to convince the country. The House of Lords passed a resolution strongly condemning the right of search, and the people, prompted by the leaders of the Opposition and now fully excited, insisted upon its unqualified relinquishment. All that could be done was to negotiate about the many instances of gross and unwarrantable violence of which Spanish captains had been guilty. The country was full of accounts of English sailors who had been seized by the Spaniards, jjlundered of all they possessed, laden with chains in a tropical climate, imprisoned for long periods in unhealthy dungeons, tortured or consigned to the tender mercies of the Inquisition. In these accounts there was much exaggeration and not a little deliberate falsehood, but there was also a real basis of fact. After great difficulties, and by a combination of intimidation and address, Spain was induced to sign a convention regulating the outstanding accounts between the two nations and awarding to England as compensation a balance which was ultimately settled at 95,000L No mention was made in this convention of the right of search, or of the punishment of the offending captains, and Spain was only induced to sign it, by England consenting to acknowledge a doubtful claim of compensation for Spanish ships that had been captured by Byng in 1718. It was soon, however, plain that this convention could not finally settle the differences between the two countries. Walpole succeeded, though with great difficulty, in carrying it through both Houses, and the Opposition, exasperated by his success, for a time seceded. In the country, however, the outcry was fierce and loud, and the Prince of Wales put himself at the head of the malcontents. The divisions of the Cabinet became more and more serious. The attitude of France towards England grew steadily hostile, and the language of Spain proportionately haughty. She threatened immediate reprisals upon the South Sea Company on account of an old debt which was alleged to be unpaid. She remonstrated, with an arrogance an English minister could hardly brook, against the presence of a British fleet in the Medi- terranean. She reasserted in the strongest language that right of search which the English nation was resolved at all hazards to resist. The Opposition had now succeeded in their design. War CH. Til. INCEEASING DIFFICULTIES. 387 had become inevitable ; and Walpole, instead of retiring, as he should have done, declared it himself. ' They are ringuig their bells now,' he exclaimed, as tlie joy bells pealed at the an- nouncement, ' they will be wringing their hands soon.' It was in vain, however, that he had yielded to the clamour, for tlie long agony of his ministry had already begun. Supporter after supporter dropped away. Tlie Duke of Argyle, the most powerful and eloquent of the Scottish chiefs, had gone into open opposition;' and his influence, combined with the irrita- tion due to the repressive measures that followed the Porteous riots, produced at the next election, for the first time, a Scotch majority hostile to the minister. The Duke of Newcastle was moody, discontented, and uncertain. The authority of the minister in his Cabinet, and his majority in Parliament, steadily declined. The military organisation having fallen into decay during the long peace, the war was feebly and unsuccessfully conducted, and the commanders by land and sea were jealous and disunited. Anson plundered and burnt Paita, and cap- tured a few Spanish prizes. Admiral Vernon took Porto Bello, but the capture was speedily relinquished ; and, Vernon being a personal enemy of \N'alpole, his triumph rather weakened than strengthened the Government. With these exceptions, the first period of the war presented little more than a monotony of disaster. The repulse of an expedition against Cartha- gena, the abandonment of an expedition against Cuba, the destruction of many thousands of English soldiers and sailors by tropical fever, the inactivity of the British fleet in the JMediterranean, the rapid decline of British commerce, ac- companied by severe distress at home — all contributed to the discontent. In the midst of these calamities, a new series of events began, which soon plunged the greater part of Europe into war. In October 1740 the Emperor Charles VI. died, after a very short illness, at the early age of fifty-five, leaving no son. For many years the great objects of his policy had been to bequeath his whole Austrian dominions to his daughter Maria Theresa, and to obtain for her husband, the Duke of ' In a letter to Swift, 17I-U-5, how formidable a body they were in Pultency had noticed the steadiness the House of Lords. — Swift's Corrc- wilh which the bishops and Scotch spondcncc, iii. 120. peers auj;)ported tl;e ministry, ana c c 2 388 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ra. in. Tuscany, and former ruler of Lorraine, the Imperial crown. The latter object could, of course, only be attained when the vacancy occurred, and by the ordinary process of election ; but in order to secure the former, Charles VI. had promulgated the law called the Pragmatic Sanction, regulating the succession, and had obtained a solemn assent to that law from the Germanic body, and from the great hereditary States of Europe. With so distinct and so recent a recognition of her title by all the great Powers of Europe, the young Archduchess, it was hoped, would have no difficulty in assuming the throne as Queen of Hungary and of the other hereditary dominions of her father, and she did so with the warm assent of her subjects. She was, however, a young and inexperienced woman, wholly unversed in public business, and at this time far advanced in pregnancy. Her dominions were threatened by the Turks from without, and corroded by serious dissensions within. Her army, exclusive of the troops in Italy and the Netherlands, amounted to only 30,000 men, and her whole treasure consisted of 100,000 florins, which were claimed by the Empress Dowager.^ All these cir- cumstances might have moved generous natures in her favour, but they served only to stimulate the rapacity of her neigh- bours. The Elector of Bavaria had never signed the Pragmatic Sanction, and he laid claim to the Austrian throne on grounds which were demonstrably worthless. France had not only as- sented to, but even guaranteed, the Pragmatic Sanction ; and Cardinal Fleury, who was at the head of affairs, would probably have kept his faith, but he was now a very old and vacillating man, and his hand was forced by Marshal Belleisle, who, at the head of a powerful body of French nobles, saw in the weakness of the young queen an opportunity of aggrandising France, and dismembering an ancient rival. Prussia also was a party to the Pragmatic Sanction ; but Frederick II., who had just ascended the throne, was bui'dened with no scruples ; he found himself at the head of an admirable army of 76,000 men, and was impatient to employ it in the plunder of his enfeebled neighbour. The Elector of Bavaria refused to acknowledge the title of the Empress, but the first blow was struck by Frederick. That ' See Coxe's House of Austria. cii. in. FEEDERICK II. 3S9 he was moved to this course simply by the consciousness of his own great military strength, and of the weakness and disorga- nisation of the Empire ; that he sought his own aggrandise- ment with circumstances of peculiar treachery, and with a clear knowledge that he was about to apply the spark to a powder magazine, and to involve the greater part of Europe in the horrors of war, are facts which remain intact after all the elaborate apologies that have been written in his favour. He was a man of singularly clear, vivid, and rapid judgment, ad- mirably courageous in seizing perilous opportunities, and in encountering adversity ; admirably energetic and indefatigable in raising to the highest point of efficiency all the details both of civil and military administration. Perfectly free from every tinge of religious bigotry, he was one of the most tolerant rulers of his age, and he was one of the first who, by abolishing torture in his dominions, introduced the principles of Eeccaria into practical legislation. Though intensely avaricious of real power, and disposed to exercise a petty, meddling, and spiteful despotism in the smallest spheres,' he had nothing of the royal love for the pomp and trappings of majesty, nothing of the blind reverence for old forms and for old traditions, nothing of the childish cowardice which so often makes those who are born to the purple unable to hear unwelcome truths or to face un- welcome facts. Like Richelieu, the element of weakness in his character took the form of literary vanity, and of a feeble vein of literary sentimentality, but it never affected his active career. Unlike Napoleon, to whom in many respects he bore a striking- resemblance, his faculties ^^ere always completely under his control ; he was never intoxicated, either by the magnitude of his schemes or by the violence of his passions, and his shrewd, calculating intellect remained unclouded through all the vicissi- tudes of fortune. He was at the same time hard and selfish to the core, and, in his political dealings at least, he was without a spark of generosity or of honour. His one object was the aggrandisement of the territory over which he ruled. Of patriot- ism, in the higher and more disinterested sense of the word, he had little or nothing. All his natural leanings of mind and dis ' See some very curious illustra- Walpole"s Mcmdrs of George II. i. tions of tliis in the letters of Sir pp. 452-iGl. Ilaiilmry Williams from IJcrlin. 390 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. hi. position were French, and few men appear to have had less ap- preciation of the nobler aspects of the German character, or of the dawning splendour of the German intellect. His own words, describing the motives of his first war, have been often cited : ' Ambition, interest, the desire of making men talk about me, carried the dav, and I decided for war.' It was not difficult, in the confused and intricate field of German politics, to find pretexts for aggression, and Prussia had one real reason to complain of the conduct of the Empire. One of her most ardent desires was to obtain for herself the suc- cession to the little Duchies of Juliers and Berg. They had passed in 1675 under the sceptre of the Neuberg branch of the Palatine Electoral family, but the reigning Elector Palatine was the last sovereign of that branch, and the succession was claimed by the Prussian sovereigns, and also by the Sulzbach branch of the Palatine family. After much secret negotiation, a compromise was arrived at. Frederick William, who was then King of Prussia, restricted his demand to the possession of Berg; and he made it a condition of the recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction that the Emperor should assist him in obtaining the succession. The treaty was made, but it was speedily broken. The Elector Palatine ardently desired the succession for the Sulzbach branch of his family ; and all Catholic Germany looked upon Diisseldorf as an essential frontier fortress against Pro- testant aggression. It was probable that the Prussian claims could only be enforced by arms, and that France would resent any considerable aggrandisement of Prussia on the Ehine. These and other considerations of German politics threw the Emperor Charles VI. decidedly on the side of the Palatine succession, and in conjunction with the other great European Powers, he even urged that the Duchy should be provisionally garrisoned by troops belonging to the Sulzbach branch until a European arbitration liad decided the disputed succession. Whatever might be the rights of the question of succession, Frederick William considered with reason that the Emperor had broken faith with him, and he speedily opened secret negotiations with France. . French statesmen seldom lost an opportunity of obtaining an ally or an influence in Germany, and a secret alli- ance was ultimately concluded by which they undertook to sup- CH. Til. POLICY OF FKEDEEICK. 391 port the claims of Prussia to a portion of the Duchy, excluding, however, Diisseldorf, the capital.' This was a real ground of difference. The claims of Prussia to the greater part of the Austrian province of Silesia were of a much more flimsy description. The Duchy of Jagerndorf had once been in the possession of a collateral branch of the House of Brandenburg, which had been deprived of it, it was alleged unjustly, in 1623, and Frederick claimed the territory as lineal descendant, though it had remained undisturbed in Austrian hands for more than a century. It is plain that by the applica- tion of such a principle the security of Europe might be at any moment destroyed, for there is no State which has not at some distant period gained or lost territory by acts of at least disputable justice. The Duchies of Liegnitz, Brieg, and Wohlau were claimed on somewhat more complicated grounds. About 1635, a family compact had been made between Frederick, who then governed them as Duke, and the Elector Joachim IL, Duke of Brandenburg, providing that in the event of tlie failure of the male issue of either sovereign, his territory was to pass to the descendants of the other. Ferdinand I., King of Bohemia, who was the feudal lord, refused to recognise this compact, and its validity was in consequence very doubtful ; and when in 1675 the ducal house of Liegnitz became extinct, Austria took possession of the territory, and the Elector of Brandenburg was soon after induced to renounce for himself and his descendants all claim to its possession. Frederick maintained this renunciation to be invalid, and he claimed by virtue of the original compact.^ These, however, were mere pretexts, and the secret corre- spondence of Frederick abundantly shows how little influence they had on his decision. With consummate address, and with consummate baseness, he lulled the suspicions of the young Queen to rest by professions of the warmest friendship till his armv was on the eve of marchinff. He made no alliance, but just before starting for the war he said significantly to the French ambassador, ' I am going, I believe, to play your game, * See the details of this negotia- and Austrian side are given at length tion in Ranke's Hittt. of Prussia. in the Histoire de la Derni'vre 2 The original statements of the Guerre de Bohemc, par D. M. V. L. N. causes of the war both on the Prussian (Amsterdam, 175G). 392 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURr. ch. hi. and if I should throw doublets, we will share the stake.' ' Without making any demands, or stating any conditions, without any pre- vious notice, or any declaration of war, he suddenly poured 30,000 soldiers into Silesia, which was plunged in the security of pro- found peace, and left almost wholly destitute of troops. Then, and not till then, he apprized Maria Theresa of his designs, and offered, if she would cede to him the whole Lower Duchy which he had invaded, to defend her title to the Austrian throne.^ The offer was rejected as an insult, and the whole province was over- run by Prussian soldiers. Ereslau and several minor towns were captured, and an army which marched from Moravia, under ]\Iarshal Neipperg, to the rescue of Silesia was defeated at the great battle of Molwitz. The signal was given, and from every side the wolves rushed upon their prey. France had at first duped the Queen of Hungary by false and treacherous assur- ances, but she soon flung off the mask. The Kings of Spain and of Sardinia and the Elector of Saxony laid claims to por- tions of the Austrian dominions, and prepared openly or secretly to dismember them. In June 17-il a treaty, after a prolonged negotiation, was signed between France and Prussia ; in August a French army crossed the Ehine, and by the end of October the fortunes of Austria appeared desperate. Silesia was irrecoverably gone. Moravia was invaded by the Prussians. Bohemia was overrun by a united army of French and Bavarians; Vienna was seriously menaced; Linz and Passau were taken ; the capture of Prague followed in November, and, before the close of the year, the Elector of Bavaria was crowned King of Bohemia. The Queen of Hungary, however, presented an inflexible front to her enemies. Driven from Vienna, she threw herself on the loyalty of her Hungarian subjects, who received her with an enthusiasm that dispelled every hesitation from her mind, and she urgently called on those Powers which had accepted the Pragmatic Sanction, guaranteeing her succession to the whole Austrian dominions, to assist her in her struggle. Of these Powers, France, Prussia, Spain, and Poland, whose sovereign was the Elector of Saxony, had combined to plunder her. Eussia, ' Voltaire, Siicle de Louis XV. after the Prussians had entered cli. G. Silesia. — Fredericli, aVviii. de Man ' Gotter, who was sent on this Tcnqjs. message, arrived at Vienna two days CH. III. ENGLAND DRAWN INTO THE WAK. 393 chiefly by French intrigues, was embroiled in war with Sweden. The Dutch desired above all things to avoid the conflict. In England the feeling of the King, of the people, and of New- castle and Hardwicke, was in favour of war; but Walpole strained every nerve to maintain peace. In addition to his constitutional and very honourable hatred of war, he had many special reasons. He clearly foresaw from the first, what Maria Theresa refused till the last moment to believe, that the French were secretly meditating the dismemberment of Austria, and he was therefore anxious at all costs to put an end to the war between Austria and Prussia. Besides this, England was al- ready at war with Spain, and a French war would probably lead to a Jacobite insurrection. Walpole urgently, but vainly, laboured to induce the Queen of Hungary to propitiate Fre- derick by the cession of the whole or part of Silesia, to induce Frederick, through fear of the ascendancy of France, to secede from the confederation, and, having failed in both objects, he was dragged reluctantly into the war. In April 1741 the King's speech called upon Parliament to aid him in maintaining the Pragmatic Sanction, and a subsidy of 300,000^. to the Queen of Hungary was voted. In the following month the King, in spite of the remonstrances of Walpole, went over to Hanover to organise a mixed army of English and German troops, but a French army passed the Meuse, and marched rapidly upon Hanover, and the King, scared by the threatened invasion of his Principality, concluded, in his capacity of Elector, without consulting or even informing his English ministers, a treaty pledging Hanover to neutrality for a year. Ever since the accession of the House of Brunswick, Hanover had been a per- petual source of embarrassment and danger to England, but a German war was one of the very few contingencies in which its alliance was of some real value. The indignation excited in England by the treaty of neutrality was in consequence very violent, and nearly at the same time the news arrived that 15,000 Spanish troops, under the protection of a French squadron, had sailed from Barcelona, in spite of the neigh- bourhood of a British fleet, to attack the Austrian dominions in Italy. Many of these faults and misfortunes can in no degree be 394 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iit. ascribed to Walpole. Many of them were, indeed, the direct consequence of the abandonment of his policy ; but in the mood in which the nation then was, they all contributed to his un- popularity. He was, in fact, emphatically a peace minister, and even had it been otherwise, no minister can command the re- quisite national enthusiasm if he is conducting a war of which he notoriously disapproves. There are few pictures more painful or humiliating than are presented by the last few months of his power. He had lived so long in office, and he had so few other tastes, that he clung to it with a desperate tenacity. His private fortune was disordered. He knew that his fall would be followed by an impeachment, and he had none of the magnanimity of virtue that has supported some statesmen under the ingratitude of nations, and has enabled them to look forward with confidence to the verdict of posterity. Once, it is true, he placed his resig- nation in the hands of the King, who desired him to continue in office, and he consented too readily for his fame. He en- countered the opposition within Parliament, and the obloquy without, with a courage that never flinched, but he felt that the end was drawing near, and his old buoyancy of spirits was gone. ' He who in former years,' wrote his son, ' was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow . . . now never sleeps above an hour without waking ; and he who at dinner always forgot he was minister, and was more gay and thoughtless than all his company, now sits without speaking, and with his eyes fixed, for an hour together.' ^ He met a motion for his removal, which was brought forward by Sandys, with a speech of consummate power, and the secession of Shippen and his followers gave him on this occasion the victory. He tried in vain to detach the Prince of Wales from the Opposition by inducing the King to offer him the increase of his allowance which he had long desired. He tried to crush Pitt by depriving him of his commission in the army. He even tried at one time to win a few Jacobite votes by an in- sincere and futile overture to the Pretender.^ The great frost at the close of 1739 added seriously to his difficulties by the distress and the discontent it produced. The harvest that followed was. ' To Sir H. Mann. Oct. 19, 1741. IT.'^O through the medium of Carte, the * See tho account of this very historian) in Lord Stanhope's ///st (j/^ cuvious overture (which was made in England, iii. p^o. 23-24. CH. HI, FALL OF WALPOLE. 395 miserably bad. Bread rose almost to famine price. Bakers' shops were broken open, and fierce riots took place in many parts of England. The people were angry, sullen, and wretched, and quite disposed to make the minister responsible for their sufferings. At tlie moment when his unpopularity was at its height, the period for a dissolution of Parliament arrived. The feelings of the people could not be doubtetl, but party connec- tions, borough influence, and a lavish expenditure of secret- service money might still protract his rule, and all three were strained to the uttermost. An unforeseen circumstance appears to have turned the scale. An injudicious and hasty interference of some soldiers in a riot that took place at the Westminster election, though Walpole was certainly wholly unconcerned in it, was made the basis of an absurd and malignant report that the ministers were attempting to coerce the voters by military force, and the indignation thus aroused affected several elections. When Parliament met, in the beginning of December 1741, Walpole had only a bare majority, and after eight weeks of fierce and factious wrangling, being defeated on January 28 on a question relating to an election petition, he resigned.' He had already provided, with his usual caution, for his fall. In the course of his ministry he had bestowed upon his sons permanent offices, chiefly sinecures, amounting in all to about 15,000^. a year,^ and had obtained the title of Baron for his eldest son, and the Orders of the Bath and of the Garter for himself. He now procured for himself the title of Earl of Orford, and a pension of 4,000//. a year, and for his illegitimate daughter the rank and precedence of an Earl's daughter. He is said, many years before, to have disarmed the animosity of Shippen by saving from punishment a Jacobite friend of that statesman ; and he endeavoured in vain to avert an impeach- ment by inducing the King to offer Pulteney the chief place in the Grovernment on the condition that he would save his pre- decessor from prosecution. The King, though he had always ' Sec the graphic account of this * Sec the list in Coxe's Waljjole, last struggle in H. Walpole's letters i. 730-731, and Horace Walpole's to Sir H. Mann. Glover asserts in Memoir of his own income in his Memoirs that the Prince of Wales Waljjole's Life and Litters (ed. assurofl liim that the last votes against Cunningham), vol. i. Walpole cost the Ox^position 12,000^. 396 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iii. disliked the peace policy of his minister, acted towards him with a fidelity that has not been sufficiently appreciated ; strained all his influence for his protection, and even burst into tears when parting with him. To the mass of the nation, how- ever, the fall of Walpole was the signal of the wildest rejoicing. It was believed that the reign of corruption had at last ended ; that triennial parliaments w"ould be restored ; that standing armies would be abolished in time of peace ; that a new energy would be infused into the conduct of the war; that all pen- sioners would be excluded from Parliament ; that the number of placemen would be strictly limited. Statesmen observed with concern the great force which the democratic element in the country had almost silently acquired during the long and pacific ministry of Walpole. The increasing numbers and wealth of the trading classes, the growtli of the great towns, the steady progress of the press, and the discredit which cor- ruption had brought upon the Parliament, had all contributed to produce a spirit beyond the walls of the Legislature such as had never before been shown, except when ecclesiastical interests were concerned. Political agitation assumed new dimensions, and doctrines about the duty of representatives subordinating their judgments to those of their electors, which had scarcely been heard in England since the Commonwealth, were freely expressed. A very able political writer, who had been an ardent opponent of Walpole, but who was much terrified at the aspect the country had assumed upon his fall, has left us a livel}' picture of what he termed ' the republican spirit that had so strangely arisen.' He notices as a new and curious fact the 'instructions' drawn up by some of the electors of London, of Westminster, and several other cities to their representatives, prescribing the measures that were required, and asserting or implying 'that it was the duty of every Member of Parliament to vote in every instance as his constituents should direct him in the House of Commons,' contrary to ' the constant and al- lowed principle of our Constitution that no man, after he is chosen, is to consider himself as a member for any particular place, but as a representative for the whole nation.' He com- plains that ' the views of the popular interest, inflamed, dis- tracted, and misguided as it has been of late, are such as they CH. III. DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE NATION. 397 were never imagined to liave been ; ' that ' a party of malcon- tents, assuming to themselves, though very falsely, the title of the People, claim with it a pretension which no people could have a right to claim, of creating themselves into a new order in the State, affecting a superiority to the whole Legislature, insolently taking upon them to dictate to all the three estates, in which the absolute power of the Government, by all the laws of this country, has indisputably resided ever since it was a Government, and endeavouring in effect to animate the people to resume into their own hands that vague and loose authority which exists (unless in theory) in the people of no country upon earth, and the inconvenience of which is so obvious that it is the first step of mankind, when formed into society, to divest themselves of it, and to delegate it for ever from themselves.' ' In these movements of public opinion we may clearly trace the conditions that rendered possible the career of Pitt. On the present occasion, however, they were doomed to a speedy disappointment. Petitions poured into Westminster, and for a time Pulteney was the object of a popularity such as few English politicians have ever enjoyed. But in a few days the pro- spect was overclouded. Statesmen of the most opposite parties had concurred for the purpose of hurling Walpole from power ; but when they succeeded, their disunion was at once appa,rent, and the hollowness of their pretensions to purity was exposed. Pulteney fulfilled his rash pledge of not taking office, but, by a fatal error of judgment, he accepted the earldom of Bath, as well as a seat in the Cabinet, and his influence was irrevocably destroyed. 2 He lost all credit with the nation for disinterested- ness. He was removed from the House of Commons, which he might have led, and his attempts to exercise a controlling direc- tion over affairs without accepting the responsibility of office utterly failed. The King, it is said, indignant at his conduct, at first shrank from giving him the peerage which in the course of his career he had already three times refused, but the old ' Faction, detected hy the Eindence pole. Sir R. Wilmot, in a letter of Facts. This very remarkable pam- to the Duke of Devonshire, Jan. 12, phlet (which went through many 1741-2, said : 'Pulteney's terms seem editions) has been ascribed to Lord to be a jjeerage, and a place in tlie Eymont. Cabinet Council, if he can get it.' — "^ His intentions appear to have Coxe"s Wal^wlc, iii. 587. been known before the fall of Wal- 398 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. minister, perceiving clearly the error of his rival, persuaded his master to yield. ' I have turned the key of the Cabinet on him,' he exclaimed, with a significant gesture, and he soon after- wards greeted him with mock gravity in the House of Lords, ' Here we are, my Lord, the two most insignificant men in the kingdom.' Pulteney, indeed, was utterly overwhelmed by the reproaches of the Tories, by the poignant satires of Sir Hanbury Williams, and by the execration of the people. For years he had discharged the easy task of criticising abuses which he was not called upon to remedy. He had made himself the great ad- versary of all corrupt influence, the idol of all who aspired to reform, but no sooner had the hour for action arrived than he shrank ignobly from the helm. Henceforth his political life was a wretched tissue of disappointed hopes. He tried in vain to grasp the reins of power on the death of Lord Wilmington. He tried to assist Carteret in forming an administration in 1746. He declared himself in the next reign a supporter of the Tory Bute, but he never again enjoyed either popular or royal favour. In a few years he was powerless and almost for- gotten. He had always loved money too much, and under the influence of age and disappointment this failing is said to have deepened into an avarice not less sordid than that which had clouded the noble faculties of Marlborough. Walpole also, or, to give him his new title, Orford, soon dis- appeared from the scene, but his influence endured to the last. For a time his life seemed in imminent danger. The cry of the people for his blood was fierce and general, and politicians of most parties had pledged themselves to impeach him. It soon, however, appeared that, with the excejotion of Pitt, Chester- field, and the Duke of Argyle, no man of importance was anxious to push matters to extremity, while many and various influences favoured him. Those wlio had come in immediate contact with him could hardly be wholly insensible to his many great qualities and to the eminent services he had rendered to the country and the dynasty. The King and House of Lords were warmly in his favour. The Prince of Wales was recon- ciled to him. Newcastle, though he had often quarrelled with him, was anxious for many reasons to shield him, and negotiated with great tact to prevent the complete triumph of his ene- cu. m. LAST DAYS OF WALPOLE. 399 mies.' Pulteney was alarmed at the sudden impulse given to the Jacobite party, and at the loud cry for the suppression of the standing army, which might, if it succeeded, be fatal to the dynasty, and it was impossible to form an administration with- out including a considerable section of the former Government. Besides this, corrupt influence had pervaded all parties. No party sincerely wished to change the system, and therefore all parties shrank from exposing it. Walpole was compelled, indeed, to relinquish his pension, which two years after he resumed, and Pulteney was reluctantly obliged to urge on his impeach- ment, but, as might have been expected, it was without result. Carteret himself took a leading part in the House of Lords in opposing the Bill granting indemnity to those who gave evi- dence against Walpole, and the blunders of the new ministers, if they did not restore the popularity of the fallen statesman, at least speedily diverted into new channels the indignation of the people. He retained his influence with the King to the last, and he used it successfully to divide his adversaries, to perpetuate the exclusion of the Tory party, and to bring the Pelhams into the forefront. He died in 1745, after great suffering, which he bore with great courage. ' A few days before he died,' writes his biographer, ' the Duke of Cumberland, who had ineffectually remonstrated with the King against a marriage with the Princess of Denmark, who was deformed, sent his governor, ]Mr. Poyntz, to consult the Earl of Orford on the best methods which he could adopt to avoid the match. After a moment's reflection, Orford (who was well aware of the penurious character of the King) advised him to give his consent to the marriage on con- dition of receiving an ample and immediate establishment, " and believe me," he added, " when I say the match will be no longer pressed." The Duke followed the advice, and the event happened as the dying statesman had foretold.' ^ The political changes which immediately followed the retire- ment of Walpole may be speedily dismissed. For several years they consisted chiefly of the antagonism of Carteret and Pul- ' Coxe's Pelham, Introd. sec. 3. '^ Coxe's Walpole, i, 713. Sec, too, Iloracc Walpole's Memoirs of Gecrga II. vol. i. p. 105. 400 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. ni. teney with the Pelhams. Pulteney, as I have said, though accepting a seat in the Cabinet, at first declined office, but at his desire the Earl of Wilmington, the old colleague of Walpole and a man of the most moderate intelligence, became the nominal head of the Government. He had broken away from Walpole on tlie question of the Spanish war, but was otherwise thoroughly identified with the former Government. Carteret obtained the Secretaryship of State for the Northern Depart- ment, whicli involved the direction of foreign affiiirs. New- castle occupied the corresponding post in home affairs; Ins brother, Henry Pelham, was Paymaster of the Forces, and Lord Hardwicke continued to be Chancellor. With two or three exceptions the Tories were still excluded from office, as were also Chesterfield and Pitt, who were personally displeasing to the King, and the offices of the Government were divided in tolerably fair proportions between the followers of the great Whig leaders and the personal adherents of the Prince of Wales. In spite of all the clamour that had been raised about the abuses under Walpole, the system of home government continued essentially the same. The Septennial Act was maintained against every attack ; and if there was a little more decorum in the government, there was probably quite as much corruption. The foreign policy of the Government, however, gained considerably in energy, and the change was but one of many circumstances that favoured Maria Theresa. We have already seen that by October 1741 her fortunes had sunk to the lowest ebb, but a great revulsion speedily set in. The martial enthu- siasm of tlie Hungarians, the subsidy from England, and the brilliant military talents of General Khevenhiiller, restored her armies. Vienna was put in a state of defence, and at the same time jealousies and suspicion made their way among the con- federates. The Electors of Bavaria and Saxony were already in some degree divided ; and the Germans, and especially Frederick, were alarmed by the growing ascendancy of the French. In the moment of her extreme depression, the Queen consented to a concession which England had vainly urged upon her before, and which laid the foundation of her future success. In October 1 741 she concluded a secret convention with Frederick, by which that astute sovereign agreed to desert his allies, and CH. III. SECESSION OF FKEDERICK, 401 desist from hostilities, on condition of ultimately obtaining- Lower Silesia, with Breslau and Neisse. It was arranged that Frederick should continue to besiege Neisse, that the town siiould ultimately be surrendered to him, that his troops should then retire into winter quarters, and take no further part in the war, that the truce should be kept a profound secret, and that no formal peace should for the present be signed. As the sacrifice of a few more lives was perfectly indifferent to the contracting parties, and in order that no one should suspect the treachery that was contemplated, Neisse, after the arrangement had been made for its surrender, was subjected for four days and four nights to the horrors of bombardment. Frederick at the same time talked, with his usual cynical frankness, to the English ambassador about the best way of attacking his allies tbe French ; and observed, that if the Queen of Hungary prospered he would perhaps support her, if not — everyone must look for himself.' He only assented verbally to this convention, and manifestly hesitated which Power it was his interest finally to betray ; but the Austrians obtained a respite, which enabled them to withdraw their army from Silesia, and after a short interval to throw their whole forces upon their other enemies. Two brilliant campaigns followed. The greater part of Bohemia was recovered by an army under the Duke of Lorraine, and the French were hemmed in near Prague ; while another army, under General Khevenhiiller, invaded U}7j3er Austria, drove 10,000 French soldiers within the walls of Linz, blockaded them, defeated a body of Bohemians who were sent to the rescue, compelled the whole French army to surrender, and then, crossing the frontier, poured in a resistless torrent over Bavaria. The fairest plains of that beautiful land were desolated by hosts of irregular troops from Hungary, Croatia, and the Tyrol; and on the 12th of February the Austrians marched in triumph into Munich. On that very day the Elector of Bavaria was crowned Emperor of Germany, at Frankfort, under the title of Charles VIL, and tlie imperial crown was thus, for the first time, for many generations, separated from the House of Austria. Though the existence of the secret convention was made sufficiently manifest by its effects, Frederick formally and upon ' See Carlyle's FrcderLcli, book xiii. cb. 5. D 1) 402 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. biri honour denied it, and with a rare refinement of treachery, only two days after he had obtained Neisse by his agreement with Alaria Theresa, he signed a treaty for the partition of her dominions, which gave him Glatz and some additional territory.* Which of the two engagements he would observe depended upon events, and he ultimately decided to break the convention. The Austrians, he said, had not kept it secret, and it was there- fore no longer binding, and he soon captured Glatz and Olrautz. He now held almost all he was likely to obtain ; he had little to hope and much to fear from a continuance of the war. He dreaded almost equally an Austrian triumph and a French ascendancy in Germany, and he was extremely anxious again to betray his allies and secretly to negotiate a separate peace. His efforts, however, proved vain, until on the 17th of May he defeated the Austrians under Prince Charles of Lorraine in a great battle at Czaslau, or Chotusitz, in Bohemia. The Prussians suffered very severely, but the Austrians were driven back, with the loss of 18 cannon and about 7,000 men. The Queen of Hungai-y at last yielded to the urgent repre- sentations of England. She saw that the intervention or non- intervention of Prussia decided the fortunes of tlie war. She feared that the French, unless speedily checked, would regain their ascendancy in Bohemia, and she at last very reluctantly consented to the Peace of Breslau, by which Austria ceded to Prussia all Lower and the greater part of Upper Silesia as well as the country about Glatz, while Frederick on his part ceased from all hostility, and completely abandoned the Etnperor and the French. The preliminaries of this peace was signed on June 11. and the definite peace was accepted on July 28, 1742, The Elector of Saxony also acceded to it, and availed himself of the opportunity of withdrawing from the war. Tlie conditions of the contest were tlms profoundly altered. The first consequence was the almost complete expulsion of the French from Bohemia. Suddenly deserted by their allies, out- numbered by their enemies, and wasted by sickness and by famine, they were driven from place to place, and the whole army was at last blockaded in Prague. An army sent to its relief, under the command of Maillebois, was repulsed and com- • See the admirable account of Tlicrvse d'aprcs dcs docvments those transactions in the Due de voiireaiix, torn. ii. pp. 107, 111-1 1;3, BroRlie's Frcdino II. ct Marie- lli)-122. en. III. DISASTERS OF THE FEENCH, 403 pelled to fall back on Bavaria, and the surrender of the French appeared inevitable. This fate was averted by the masterly strategy of Belleisle, who succeeded, in the midst of a dark December night, in evading the Austrians, and who con- ducted the bulk of his army unbroken for a twelve days' march over a waste of ice and snow and through the midst of a hostile country. They had no covering by night and no subsistence except frozen bread, and they were harassed at every step by the enemy. Hundreds died through cold and hardship. The roads were strewn with human bodies stiffening in the frost, but every cannon and banner was brought in safety to Eger, a frontier town of Bohemia, which was still in the hands of the French. Prague held out a little longer, but it soon succumbed. The French commander declared that unless he obtained honourable terms he would burn the city, and in order to save the capital of Bohemia, the French garrison of 6,000 men were suffered to march out with the honours of war, and to join their comrades at Eger. On Jan. 2, Belleisle began his homeward march, and the campaign had been so deadly that of 40,000 men who had invaded Germany only 8,000 recrossed the Ehine. Fleury, who had been dragged into a war which he had never desired, and which he was unfit to conduct, had already vainly sued for peace. His overtures were spurned ; and the Austrian Government, in order to sow dissension among its enemies, published the letter he had written. His long life had been for the most part upright, honourable, and useful ; and if he assented in his last years to acts which were grossly criminal, history will readily forgive faults which were due to the weakness of extreme old acre. He died in January in his ninetieth year. In May 1743, Maria Theresa was crowned in Prague. The effects of the change of government in England were felt in almost every quarter. Carteret at once sent Maria Theresa the assurance of his full support, and a new energy was infused into the war. The struggle between England and Spain bad altogether merged in the great European war, and the chief efforts of the Spaniards were directed against the Austrian dominions in Italy. The kingdom of Naples, which had passed under Austrian rule during the war of the Succession, had, as we have seen, been restored to the Spanish line in the war D D 2 40-i ENGLAND IN TEE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. in. ■which ended in 1740, and Don Carlos, who ruled it, was alto- gether subservient to Spanish policy. The Duke of Lorraine, the husband of jNIaria Theresa, was sovereign of Tuscany ; and the Austrian possessions consisted of the Duchy of Milan and the provinces of Mantua and Placentia. They were garrisoned at the opening of the war by only 1 5,000 men, and their most dangerous enemy was the King of Sardinia, who had gradually extended his dominions into Lombardy, and whose army was, probably, the largest and most efficient in Italy. ' The Milanese,' his father is reported to have said, ' is like an artichoke, to be eaten leaf by leaf,' and the skill and perseverance with which for many generations the House of Savoy pursued that policy, have in our own day had their reward. Spanish troops had landed at Naples as early as November 1741. The King of Sardinia, the Prince of Modena, and the Eepublic of Genoa were on the same side. Venice was completely neutral, Tuscany was compelled to declare herself so, and a French army was soon to cross the Alps. The King of Sardinia, however, at this critical moment, was alarmed by the ambitious projects openly avowed by the Spaniards, and he was induced by English influence to change sides. He obtained the promise of certain territorial concessions from Austria, and of an annual subsidy of 200,000^. from Eng- land; and on these conditions he sviddenly marched with an army of 30,C00 men to the support of the Austrians. All the plans of the confederates were disconcerted by this defection. The Spaniards went into winter quarters near Bologna in October, fought an unsuccessful battle at Campo Santo in the follow- ing February, and then retired to Eimini, leaving Lombardy in complete tranquillity. The British fleet in the Mediter- ranean had been largely strengthened by Carteret, and it did good service to the cause. It burnt a Spanish squadron in the French port of St. Tropez, compelled the King of Naples, by the threat of bombardment, to withdraw his troops from the Spanish army, and sign an engagement of neutrality, destroyed large provisions of corn collected by the Genoese for the Spanish army, and cut off that army from all communications by sea. The same good fortune attended the Austrians in every field. In the north, Kussia was completely victorious over the Swedes, and the war was terminated by the Peace of Abo in August 1 743. cu. III. EiaTJSH ARMY IN FLANDERS. 405 A defensive alliance, concluded between Elizabeth of Kussia and George II. of England, materially diminished the influence of France in the north of Europe, and a considerable sum was sent from Kussia to the Queen of Hungary, as a pledge of lier active support. In May 1743 Bavaria, which had been reoccupied by its sovereign the Emperor in the October of the preceding year, was again invaded, and it was soon completely subjugated. Six thousand Bavarians, with their baggage, standards, and cannons, were captured at Erlbach. A French army under Broglie was driven beyond the Ehine. Another French army was expelled from the Upper Palati- nate. Eger, the last Bohemian post occupied by the French, was blockaded, and in September it fell. The unhappy Emperor fled hastily from Munich, and being defeated on all sides, and having no hope of assistance, he signed a treaty of neutrality by which he renounced all pretensions to the Austrian succession, and yielded his hereditary dominions to the Queen of Hungary, till the conclusion of a general peace. His army was withdrawn to Franconia, and he himself retired to Frank- fort. The Peace of Breslau had been chiefly the work of Carteret,' and he displayed equal zeal in urging the Dutch into the.war. This object was at last so far accomplished that they very reluctantly consented to send a contingent to a great confederate army which was being formed in Flanders, under the direction of England and the command of the Earl of Stair, for the purpose of acting against the French, and, if possible, of invading France. It ultimately consisted of some 44,000 men, and was composed of about an equal number of British and Hanoverian soldiers, of 6,000 Hessians, in Eng- lish pay, and of a contingent of Austrians and of Dutch. It started from Flanders in February 1 742 43, marched slowly through the bishopric of Liege, where it was joined by the Austrians, under the Duke of Ahremberg, and by 1 6,000 Hano- verians in British pay, crossed the Ehine on May 14, and en- camped on the 23rd in the neighbourhood of Frankfort. It was, however, soon after hemmed in by a superior French force under Noailles. The deliles above Aschafienburg and the posts * Frederick, Iftst.de moii Tcmjjs, ch. vii. 406 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. m. of the Upper Maine were occupied by the French. The allies were out-manceiivred and cut off from succours, and their diffi- culty in obtaining provisions was so great that a capitulation seemed not improbable. Under these disastrous circumstances, George II., accompanied by the Duke of Cumberland and Car- teret, joined the army. A great battle was fought at Dettingen, on June 27, and the bravery of the allied forces and the rash- ness of the Duke of Grammont, which disconcerted the plans of Xoailles, gave the victory to the confederates, extricated the army from its embarrassments, and compelled the French to recross the Maine. No other important consequences followed. Innumerable divisions paralysed the army. The King of Prussia showed hostile intentions. The other German princes were divided in their views. The Dutch discouraged all pro- secution of the war, and the allied forces, after successively occupying Hanau, Worms, and Spire, at last retired to winter quarters in Flanders, A deadly hostility had sprung up between the British and the Hanoverian troops, and public opinion at home was now violently opposed to Carteret and to the war. This great revulsion of feeling is to be ascribed to many causes. The war I am describing was one of the most tangled and complicated upon record, but amidst all its confused episodes and various objects, one great change was apparent. It had been a war for the maintenance of the Pragmatic Sanction and of the integrity of Austria. It had become a war for the con- quest and dismemberment of France. Few sovereigns have been more deeply injured than Maria Theresa, and her haughty, ambi- tious, and somewhat vindictive nature, now flushed with a succes- sion of conquests, was burning to retaliate upon her enemies. She desired to deprive the Emperor of the imperial crown, and to place it on the head of her husband, to annex Bavaria per- manently to the Austrian dominions, to wrest Alsace and Lor- raine from France, and Naples from the Spanish line; and if it was in her power she would undoubtedly have attempted to recover Silesia. Her impracticable temper and her ambitious views had become the chief obstacle to the pacification of Europe. She had scornfully rejected the overtures of Fleury for peace. She refused, in spite of the remonstrances of England, to grant CH. III. GROWING UNPOPULARITY OF THE WAR. 407 the Emperor a definite peace, although he asked only the recog- nition of his perfectly legal title as Emperor of Germany, and the security of his old hereditary dominions. She long refused to grant the King of Sardinia the concessions that had been promised, and it was not until a whole summer had been wasted, and until the King had threatened to go over to her enemies, that she consented, in September 1743, to sign the Treaty of Worms. By this treaty she at last relinquished in his favour her pretensions to the Marquisate of Finale, which was then in the possession of the Grenoese, ceded Placentia and some small districts in Austrian Italy, and made an offensive alli- ance with the King for the jDrosecution of the war. Her pre- sent object was the invasion of France by two great armies, that of Prince Charles, which was massed upon the frontiers ot Alsace, and that of the confederates, who had taken up their quarters at Hanau and Worms. England had gone far in supporting her in this policy, but it was open to the very gravest objections. It was one thing to fulfil the obligations of a distinct treaty and to prevent the dismemberment of an Empire, which was essential to the balance of power. It was quite another thing to support Austria in projects of aggrandisement which alarmed all the conservative instincts of Europe, and could only be realised by a long, bloody, and expensive war. England had entered into the struggle as a mere auxiliary and for a definite purpose, and her mission might reasonably be looked upon as fulfilled. Silesia had, it is true, been ceded to Prussia, but both the Emperor and France would have been perfectly wil- ling to accept a peace leaving the Queen of Hungary in undis- turbed possession of all the remainder of the Austrian dominions. It was maintained, and surely with reason, that England should have insisted on the acceptance of such a peace, and that if she could not induce Maria Theresa to acquiesce, she should at least herself have withdrawn from the war.' She had not done so. She had, on the contrary, plunged more and more deeply into Continental affairs. By the Treaty of Worms she bound herself to continue the subsidy of the King of Sardinia. She was still paying Austrian troops, and a secret convention bind- ' See these aroumcnts powerfully stated in a speech by Pitt, Dec. 1, 174.3 (^Anecdotes of Cliatham, vol. i.). 408 ENGLAND IN THE EIGnTEENTII CENTURY. ch. hi. ing her to continue the sul)sidy to the Queen of Hungary, ' as long as the war should continue, or the necessity of her affairs should require,' as well as a project for bestowing a subsidy on the Emperor, on condition of his joining the Austrians against his allies the French, had both been recently proposed by Carteret and the King, and had only been defeated by the Pelham influ- ence at home. The array of Flanders was an English creation, and most of its soldiers were either English or in English pay. ]?y forming it, England had completely abandoned the wise policy of confining herself as much as possible to maritime war- fare, and she had also, in direct opposition to the wishes of the Dutch, added very seriously to the dangers of the war by gratui- tously attracting it towards the Dutch barrier. But that which made the war most unpopular was the alleged subordination of English to Hanoverian interests. On no other subject was English public opinion so sensitive, and the orators of the Opposition exerted all their powers to inflame the feeling. The invective of Pitt, who declared that ' it was now too apparent that this great, this powerful, this formidable kingdom is considered only as a province to a despicable Elec- torate;' the sarcasm of Chesterfield, who suggested that the one effectual method of destroying Jacobitism would be to bestow Hanover on the Pretender, as the English people would never again tolerate a ruler trom tnat country ; the bitter witticism of a popular pamphleteer,^ who, alluding to the white horse in the arms of Hanover, selected for his motto the text in the Revelation, ' I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed,' only repre- sented in an emphatic form the common sentiment both of the army and of the people. The English and Hanoverians who fought side by side at Dettingen, probably hated each other more intensely than they hated the Frf^ch, and the alleged partiality of the King to the Hanoverians even led to the angry resignation of Lord Stair. It is impossible to doubt that amid much misrepresentation and exaggeration there was some real ground of complaint, and that England, as was said, was too often ' steered by a Hanoverian rudder.' As the sovereign of a small Continental state con- ' Dr. Shebbear. en. HI. THE IIANOVEPJAX TROOPS. 409 stantly exposed to French ambition, as a German prince keenly interested in Gferman politics, and especially anxious to have no superior in Germany except the Emperor, George II. had a far stronger interest in desiring, at one time the invasion and dis- memberment of P>ance, and at another the repression of the growing power of Prussia, than lie could have had as a mere sovereign of England. The Electorate lay nearest his heart. Hanoverian interests undoubtedly coloured his foreign policy, and he had a strong disposition to employ the resources of his king- dom in the interests of his Electorate. The manner in which in the former reign England had been embroiled with botli Sweden and Eussia on accoimt of Bremen and Verden, the Treaty of Hanover, the exaggerated German suljsidies which had followed it, and the undoubted fact that many of those subsidies were rendered necessary only by the position of Hanover, had already produced a jealousy which the events of the new war greatly increased. The treaty of neutrality was regarded as a disgraceful abandonment, and the pro- longation of the war, the attempted multiplication of German subsidies, and the too frequent custom of taking impor- tant resolutions, affecting England, on the Continent with little or no consultation with the English ministers, were all cited as examples of the partiality of the King. The most flagrant case, however, was his determination to throw the chief expense of the Hanoverian army, in time of war, upon England. After the Treaty of Breslau he declared his intention of reducing the Hanoverian army to its peace footing, as his German dominions were then unmolested, and the expense was too great for their resources, and his ministers in England then proceeded to prevent this measure by taking 1 6,000 Hanoverian troops into British pay. No measure of the time excited such violent hostility, and the intervention of Lord Orford was required to carry it. Pitt openly declared that the interest of England imperatively required complete separation from Hanover. In the House of Lords twenty-four peers signed a protest against it, in language so bitterly offensive to the sovereign that it almost savoured of revolution. They stated that some of the Hanoverian troops had refused to form the first line at Dettingen, that others dis- obeyed the English general after the battle, that the greater 410 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. iii. number, ' not contented to avoid being- of any use either in front or in the rear, determined to be of use nowhere, and halted as soon as they came within sight and reach of the battle, though pressed by the British oiBcers, and invited by the British soldiers, to share the glory, and complete, as they might have done, the victory of the day.' They contended that ' the future co-operation of our national troops with these mercenaries has been rendered impracticable, and even their meeting- dangerous; ' they complained of ' the many instances of partiality by which the Hanoverians were unhappily distinguished, and our brave fellow subjects, the British forces, undeservedly discouraged ' ; of ' the constant preference ' given to the former ' in quarters, forage, &c.' ; of the fact tliat ' the Hanoverian Guards had for some days done duty upon his Majesty at Aschaffenburg,' which, they added, ' we look upon as the highest dishonour to his Majesty and this nation'; of 'the abject flattery and criminal misrepresentation which this partiality, blameless in itself, has unhappily given occasion to, and by which in its turn it has been fomented ' ; of the many instances ' wherein the blood and treasure of this nation have been lavishly employed when no British interest, and, as we conceive, some foreign interest alone, was concerned.' That ' the interests of one country are carried on in subordination to those of another, constitutes,' they said, ' the true and mortifying definition of a province,' and they insinuated, in no obscure terms, that England was actually in this position, that ' an inferior German principality was really, and Great Britain only nominally, the director ' of the policy of the empire.' Pamphlets, the most remarkable of which were ascribed to ' Rogers' Protect of the Lords, ii. made by Act of Parliament incapable 37-42. Speaker Onslow relates the of inheriting and enjoying the crown following remarkable dialogue with and possessing theElect oral dominions Walpole on the subject. 'A little while at the same time ? " My answer was: before Sir R. Walpole's fall, and as "Sir, it will be as a message from a popular act to sa -e himself (for he Heaven." He replied, " It will be went very unwillingly out of his done," but it was not done, and I ofRces and power), he took me one have good reason to believe it would day aside and said : " What will you have been opposed and rejected at sa}', Speaker, if this hand of mine this time, because it came from him, shall bring a message from the King and by the means of those who had 10 the House of Commons declaring always been most clamorous for it.' — his consent to having any of his Speaker Onslow's remarks, in Coxe's family after his own death to be Waljwlc, vol. ii. pp. 571-572. CK. nT. DEATH OF LORD WILMINGTON. 41 1 the pen of Chesterfield, containing similar accusations in even stronger language, were widely circulated,^ and no agitation was necessary to strengthen the indignation at the Grerman policy of the Court. Of that policy Carteret was the special representative. He was usually abroad with the King. He based his power chiefly on his influence upon the King's mind, he cordially threw himself into the King's views about the German war, and he aimed at a German coalition, for the purpose of wresting Alsace and Lorraine from France, and thus com- pensating Maria Theresa for the loss of Silesia. His arro- gance or recklessness offended all with whom he came in contact. Newcastle, especially, he treated with habitual inso- lence, and he contemptuously neglected that traffic in places which was then so essential to political power. He speedily became the most unpopular man in the country, and his un- popularity was not atoned for by any very splendid success. There was undoubtedly abundance of vigour, and considerable ability displayed in the measures I have enumerated ; but Carteret did not, like Pitt, possess the art of inspiring the nation or the army with a high military enthusiasm, of select- ing the ablest men for the most important commands, or of directing his blows against the most vulnerable points of the enemy. The formation of the army of Flanders was probably a mistake. The issue of the campaign was miserably abortive, and there can be but little doubt that Newcastle judged wisely in refusing to associate England with a project for the invasion and the dismemberment of France. Under these circumstances a conflict between the two sec- tions of the Government was inevitable. Lord Wilmington died in July 1743, having held the chief power for little more than sixteen months. Lord Bath, who clearly perceived the mistake he had made in declining office, now eagerly aspired to the vacant place, and he was warmly supported by Carteret, who designed to retain for himself the direction of tlie war, and to strengthen his position by bringing into office a considerable number of Tories. Bath was personally almost equally ob- ' See Tke Case of the Hanover passages from the principal pamphlets Troops, the Interest of Hanover, tlie against these trodps will be found in Vindication of the Case of the Han- Faction Defeated hij the Evidence of over Troops. A curious collection of Facts, pp. 124-12.3 (7tli ed.). 412 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. ch. tii. noxious to the King and to the people, but the influence of Carteret over the royal mind was so great that he would probably have gained his point had not the popular clamour been supported by the still powerful voice of Orford, who repre- sented to the King the danger of admitting Tories to office, and the extreme and growing unpopularity of his Government. By the influence of the old statesman, the Pelham interest be- came supreme, Henry Pelham obtaining the position of Prime Minister. Being the younger brother of the Duke of Newcastle, he was supported by a vast amount of family and borough influence, and without any great or shining talents he succeeded in playing a very considerable part in English history. He had been first brought into office chiefly by the recommendation of Walpole, had supported his patron faithfully in the contest about the excise, and in the disastrous struggle of 1740 and 1741, and was looked upon as the natural heir of his policy. Like Walpole, he had none of the talents that are necessary for the successful conduct of war, and was, perhaps for that very reason, warmly in favour of peace. Like Walpole, too, he was thoroughly conversant with questions of finance, and almost uniformly successful in dealing with them. A timid, desponding, and somewhat fretful man, with little energy either of character or intellect, he possessed at least, to a high degree, good sense, industry, knowledge of business, and parliamentary experience : his manners were conciliatory and decorous, and he was con- tent to hold the reins of power very loosely, freely admitting competitors to office, and allowing much divergence of opinion. Lord Hardwicke, the greatest lawyer of his day, and one of the greatest who ever took part in English politics, was his warm friend, and he attached to his cause both Chesterfield and Pitt. After a protracted struggle in the Cabinet, Carteret, who, by the death of his mother, had become Lord Granville, was compelled to yield, and resigned office in November 1744. The ascendancy of the Pelhams in England, however, was far from leading to peace. On the contrary, in no other stage of the war did the martial energies of Europe blaze so fiercely or extend so widely as in 1744 or 1745. The death of Fleury removed the chief pacific influence from the councils of France ; and Cardinal Tencin, who succeeded him, and who is said to en. HI. ESCAPE OF THE FRENCH FLEETS. 4 1 3 have obtained bis bat by tbe friendsbip of the Pretender, re- solved to signalise bis government by the invasion of England. 15,000 men, under tbe command of Marshal Saxe, were assembled for that purpose at Dunkirk. A powerful fleet sailed from Brest and Eocbefort for their protection, and the young Pretender arrived from Eome to accompany the expedition. In England every preparation was made for a deadly struggle. Tbe forts on the Thames and Medway were strengthened. Several regiments were marched to the southern coast ; tbe Kentish Militia were put under arms ; troops were recalled from the Netherlands, and application was made to tbe States- General for tbe 6,000 men which in case of invasion Holland was bound by treaty to furnish. For a few weeks party warfare almost ceased, but in order to guard against every attempt at rebellion, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and a pro- clamation issued for enforcing the laws against Papists and Nonjurors. Towards the end of February, the French fleet appeared in the Channel ; and, perceiving no enemy, tbe com- mander sent off a rapid message to Dunkirk, to hasten the embarkation, and soon after anchored off Dungeness Point. At this critical moment the English fleet, which was greatly superior in numbers, doubled the South Foreland. An action seemed imminent, but wind and tide were both imfavourable, and Sir John Norris, who commanded the English, resolved to postpone it till tbe morrow. That night a great tempest arose, before which the French fleet fled in safety, but which scattered far and wide the transports, and put an end for tbe present to all projects of invasion. It is a somewhat curious coincidence, that, almost at the same time when a French fleet escaped from tbe English in tbe Channel, another fleet bad a similar fortune in the Mediter- ranean. The combined fleet of the French and Spaniards was blockaded in Toulon by tbe British, under Admiral Matthews. On the 9th of February it sailed from the harbour, and a general engagement ensued. Tbe battle on tbe part of tbe English officers appears to have been grossly mismanaged ; and tbe mismanagement was in a great degree due to a deadly feud, which prevented all cordial co-operation between the com- mander and the Vice-Admiral Lestock. Night closed on the 414 ENGLATS'D IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cii. iii. action without any decisive result, but next morning the fleet of the enemy was in flight. A pursuit was ordered, and the Vice-Admiral had gained considerably upon the fugitives, when the English ships were somewhat unaccountably ordered to return, and the enemy made their way in safety to Carthagena and Alicante. The escape of these two fleets threw much dis- credit upon the naval enterprise of England, and the Admiral and Vice-Admiral of the Mediterranean fleet mutually accused each other. There appear to have been grave faults on both sides ; but the decision of the court martial was given against Admiral Matthews, who was removed from the service, and . several commanders of ships were cashiered. England and France, though taking a leading part in the war, had hitherto been engaged only as auxiliaries, and, though they had met in so many fields, they were still nominally at peace. This unnatural state of things now terminated. In March France declared war against England, and in April against Austria, and she at the same time prepared to throw her full energies upon the Austrian Netherlands. A French army of about 80,000 men, under the able leadership of ^Marshal Saxe, animated by the presence of Lewis XV., and accompanied by a train of artillery that was said to have been superior to any hitherto known, poured over the frontier, and was everywhere victorious. It is a curious fact, that among its officers, one of the most conspicuous and successful was by pro- fession a Churchman. The Prince of Clermont, the great- grandson of the illustrious Conde, was the Abbe of St. Germain des Pres, but the Pope, Clement XII., gave him a dispensation to take part in the war, and he directed the principal attacks upon the fortress of Ypres. The allies were weak, divided, and incapable. In two months Ypres, Courtrai, Menin, and Furnes were taken, and the whole of the Low Countries would pro- bably have been conquered, had not the invaders been arrested by sinister news from Alsace. That province had been left under the protection of Marshal Coigny, and of the Bavarian General Seckendorf, whose com- l)ined armies were believed to be sufficient to guard the passes of the Rhine. General Khevenhiiller had died in the previous winter; but Prince Charles of Lorraine, who commanded the CH. 111. FEEDERICK RENEWS HOSTILITIES. 415 Austrians, and who was accompanied by Marshal Traim, one of the ablest soldiers in the Austrian service, succeeded in de- ceiving his enemies, and his army in three bodies crossed the Khine. The war raged fiercely around Spire, Weissenburg, and Saverne, in that unhappy country which has been fated in so many contests to be the battlefield of Europe. The Austrians, with an army of 60,000 men, effected a secure lodgment in Alsace, and advanced to the frontiers of Lorraine ; and the French King, leaving INIarshal Saxe with 30,000 men, to main- tain his conquests in the Netherlands, hastened with the remainder of the army to its relief. The King fell ill at Metz, and appeared for a time at the point of deatli, but after a some- what dangerous delay, his troops arrived by forced marches in Alsace, which seemed destined to be the scene of the decisive struggle of the year, when a new enemy suddenly appeared in tlie field, and again diverted the course of the war. This enemy was Frederick of Prussia. No prince of his time perceived his interests more clearly, or acted on them with such combined secrecy, energy, and skill ; and as he was at the head of one of the best armies in Europe, and as it cost him nothing to break a treaty or to abandon an ally, he succeeded in a very great degree in making himself the arbiter of the war. By the Peace of Breslau he had once already suddenly changed its fortunes, and brought about the almost complete destruction of one of the armies of the ally whom he had deserted, and he had hitherto resisted all overtures to break the peace. He calculated, as he himself informs us, that 'the lonerer the war should continue the more would the resources of the House of Austria be exhausted, while the longer Prussia remained at peace the more strength she would acquire.' But, on the other hand, it was one of his maxims that 'it is a capital error in politics to trust a reconciled enemy ; ' and there was much in the present aspect of affairs to excite both his cupidity and his fears. He was alarmed by the ascendancy the Austrians had obtained in Alsace, and by the prospect of the annexation of Lorraine ; by the growing ambition of tlie Queen of Hungary, which made it peculiarly unlikely that she would permanently acquiesce in the alienation of Silesia, and by intelligence that Saxony had agreed to join in the league 416 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. m. iii. against France. It was a suspicious circumstance that the Treaty ot Worms, while enumerating and guaranteeing many other treaties, had made no mention of the Peace of Breslau, by which he held Silesia ; and Greorge II. was reported to have used some langviage implying that he, at least, would not be reluctant to see that province restored. Even before the close of 1743 Frederick had been in secret negotiation with France, and the events in Alsace strengthened his determination. Maria Theresa had not committed the smallest act since the peace of Breslau that could be construed into hostility to Prussia, but Frederick concluded, with reason, that she had never forgiven his past treachery, and he feared that if she became too strong, she would endeavour to drive him from Silesia. This might be the result if she were victorious in Alsace. It might be equally the result if France, alarmed at her progress, made peace, and retired from the war. On the other hand, the wars of Alsace, tbe Netherlands, and Italy had left the Austrian provinces almost undefended, and the King saw the possibility of effecting a new spoliation by annexing a portion of Bohemia to his domi- nions. After some unsuccessful negotiation with Eussia, be signed secret conventions with the Emperor, France, the Elector Palatine, and the Landgrave of Hesse ; and engaged to invade Bohemia, stipulating that a considerable portion of that country w^hich adjoined Silesia should be annexed to his dominions. In August 1744 he issued a manifesto, declaring that he had taken arms to support the riglits of the Emperor, to defend the liberty and restore the peace of the Germanic empire. He marched through Saxony, in defiance of the wishes of the Elector, invaded Bohemia, captm-ed Prague, with its entire garrison, on September 16, and speedily reduced all Bohemia to the east of the Moldau. At the same time a united army of Bavarians and Hessians expelled the Austrians from the greater part of Bavaria, and on October 22 reinstated the Emperor in Munich. At this point, however, his usual good fortune abandoned Frederick. Maria Theresa again fled to Hungary, and was again received with an enthusiasm that com- pletely disconcerted her enemies. An army of 44,000 men was speedily equipped in Hungary, while on the other side Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Traun hastened to cu. III. WAR IN BOHEMIA AND ITALY. 417 abandon Alsace, effected, with scarcely any loss, a masterly retreat over the Ehine, in the presence of the united French army, and marched rapidly upon Bohemia. The irregular troops, which played so prominent a part in Austrian warfare, assisted as they were by the good wishes of the whole popula- tion, and by the nature of the country, soon reduced the Prussians to extreme distress. The villages were deserted. No peasant came to the camp to sell provisions. The defiles of the mountains that surround Bohemia swarmed with hussars and Croats, who intercepted convoys and cut off intelligence ; and their success was so great that on one occasion the King and army remained for four weeks absolutely without news. To add to their disasters, 20,000 Saxon troops marched to the assistance of Prince Charles, while a severe winter greatly ag- gravated the sufferings of the invaders. A rapid retreat be- came necessary, and the Prussians were compelled to abandon all their conquests, and to retire broken, baffled, and dispirited into Silesia. The French and the Emperor were the only gainers. jNIarshal Saxe maintained his position in the Nether- lands. Alsace was freed from its invaders, and the French, crossing the Ehine, laid siege to the important town of Friburg The Austrian General Damnitz defended it for thirty-five days, till it was little more than a mass of ruins, and till half the garrison and 1 5,000 of the besiegers had been killed ; and its capture concluded the campaign. While these events were happening in Germany, Italy also was the theatre of a bloody, desolating, but utterly indecisive war. Maria Theresa and the King of Sardinia were now pvo- fessedly united, but they insisted on pursuing separate ends. The interests of the King were in the north, and his immediate object was the conquest of Finale. The Austrians, on the other liand, drove tlie Spaniards southwards from near Eimini to the Neapolitan frontier, when the King of Naples, breaking the neutrality he had signed, marched to the war with an army of 15,000 men. The Austrians, outnumbered and baffled, made one daring effort to retrieve their fortunes, and succeeded, in the night of August 10, in surprising the head-quarters of the King of Naples at Velletri. The King and the Duke of Modena were all but killed, and a long and most bloody fight VOL. I. E E 418 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cu. iii. ensued. At last the Austrians, who had been disorganised by the opportunities of plunder, gave way, and the victory remained with the allies. The malaria arising: from the Pon- tine marshes soon did its work among the German soldiers, and in November the army retired, in a greatly reduced condition, to the neighbourhood of Eimini, while their enemies were quartered between Viterbo and Civita Vecchia. The King of Sardinia, in the meantime, was engaged in a desperate contest with an invading army of French and Spaniards, which forced its way through Nice, fighting almost at every step, invested Coni, and defeated a large force that was sent to its relief. Genoa would have assisted the invaders, but was intimidated by the Eng-lish fleet ; and, in spite of many successes, the French were unable to take Coni, and on the approach of winter they recrossed the Alps, having lost, it is said, not less than 10,000 men in the campaign. So ended the year 1744, dm-ing which a fearful sum of human misery had been inflicted on the world. Bohemia, Bavaria, the Austrian Netherlands and Italy had been desolated by hostile forces. Tens of thousands of lives had been sacrificed, millions of pounds had been uselessly squandered, all the in- terests of civilisation and industry had been injured or neglected, but it can scarcely be said that a single important result had been achieved. The relative forces of the belligerents at the end of the year were almost the same as they had been at the be- ginning, and there was as yet no sign of the approach of peace. In 1 7'45, however, the clouds began in some degree to break. On January 8, an offensive alliance was concluded between England, Holland, Austria, and Saxony, by which the King of Poland agreed, as Elector of Saxony, to furnish 30,000 troops for the defence of Bohemia on condition of receiving a subsidy of 100,000?. from England, and of 50,000?. from Holland. On January 20 the Emperor Charles VII. died, broken alike by sorrow and by sickness ; and the young Elector, refusing to become a candidate for the Imperial dignity, made earnest overtures for peace. The Duke of Lorraine, the liusband of Maria Theresa, was candidate for the Empire, and the Elector agreed to support him, to withdraw his troops from the war, and to recognise the Prag- matic Sanction, provided his Bavarian dominions were secured, and the validity of his father's election was recognised. On III. EVENTS OF 1745. 419 April 22 a peace between Austria and Bavaria \\-as signed on these conditions at Fiissen, and in September, to the great dis- appointment of French politicians, the Imperial dignity reverted to the House of Austria by the almost unanimous election of the Duke of Lorraine as Emperor of Grermany. Still more impor- tant was the peace between Austria and Prussia, which was negotiated at the end of the year. As may very easily be understood, Maria Theresa felt towards Frederick more bitterly than towards any other enemy. The recovery of Silesia was the object now nearest her heart. Upon the failure of Frederick's last campaign the war had been carried into that province, and, as all the forces that had been employed in Alsace were directed to its conquest, success appeared very probable. The reputation of Frederick was lowered by defeat. The French wer« concen- trating all their efforts upon the Netherlands. Bavaria had seceded from the war, and the King of Poland, having at last extorted from Maria Theresa the promise of some territorial cessions in Silesia in the event of success, now threw himself heartily into the struggle. The extraordinary military abilities of the Prussian King, and the strenuous exertions of the Pelham ministry in favour of peace, overcame this combination. After several inconsiderable skirmishes, Frederick, on June 3, defeated the Austrians under Prince Charles in the great battle of Hohen- friedberg, and soon after followed them in their retreat into Bohemia. England then urgently interposed in favour of peace. Her ambassador urged that the Austrian Netherlands would in- evitably succumb before the French if the German war continued, and he represented how impossible it was for England to con- tinue the payment of subsidies to the allies, which in this year amounted to not less than 1,178,753?. The Queen refusing to yield, England for her own part signed on August 26 a prelimi- nary convention with Prussia for the purpose of re-establishing peace, by which she guaranteed to Prussia the possession of Silesia according to the Treaty of Breslau, and promised to use every effort to obtain for it a general guarantee by all the Powers of Europe. The Queen of Hungary was indignant but still unsliaken, and she resolved to continue the war. On September 30, however, the Austrians were again completely defeated at Sohr. On December 15 the Saxons were routed at £ K 2 4'20 ENGLAND IX THE EIGHTEENTE CENTURY. cii. iii. Kesseldorf, and the Prussians soon after marched in triumph into Dresden. Maria Theresa at last yielded, and on December 25 she signed the Peace of Dresden, guaranteeing Frederick the possession of Silesia and Glatz, while Frederick for his part evacuated Saxony, recognised the validity of the Imperial elec- tion, and acknowledged the disputed suffrage of Bohemia. But before this peace was signed events had occurred very disastrous to the interests both of Austria and of England. In Italy Genoa now openly declared herself on the side of the French, and the accession of 10,000 Genoese soldiers, com- l)ined with the great military talents of General Gages, who commanded the Spaniards, determined for the present the for- tunes of the war. The French, Spaniards, and Neapolitans were everywhere triumphant. Tortona, Placentia, Parma, Pavia, Cazale, and Asti were taken, Don Philip entered Milan in triumph and blockaded the citadel, and the King of Sardinia was driven to take refuge under the walls of his capital. In Flanders Marshal Saxe, at the head of an army of 80,000 men, was equally successful. The Austrians, in their zeal for the conquest of Silesia, spared little more than 8,000 men for the defence of this province, and the task of opposing the French rested chiefly upon the English and the Dutch. In April Marshal Saxe invested Tournay, and on May 1 1 'he fought a great battle with the allies at Fontenoy. The Dutch gave way at an early period of the struggle, but the English and Hanoverians remained firm, and, gradually forming into a solid column of about 1 6,000 men, they advanced, through a narrow passage that was left be- tween the fortified village of Fontenoy and the neighbouring woods, fidl against the centre of the French. Regiment after regi- ment assailed them in vain. Their sustained and deadly fire, their steady intrepidity and the massive power of their charge carried all before it, and the day was almost lost to the French, when JNTtu- shal Saxe resolved to make one last and almost despairing effort. Four cannon were brought to play upon the English, and at the same time the order to advance was given to the house- hold troops of the French King, who had hitherto been kept in reserve, and to the Irish brigade, consisting of several regiments of Irish Catholics who had been driven from their country by the events of the Revolution and by the Penal Code, and who CH. III. JACOBITE KEBELLION OF 1745. 421 were burning' to avenge themselves on tlieir oppressors. Their fiery charge was successful. The British column was arrested, shattered, and dissolved, and a great P'rench victory was the result. In a few days Toiu'nay surrendered, and its fall was fol- lowed by that of Grbent, Bruges, Oudenarde, Dendermonde, Ostend, Meuport, and Ath. An immediate consequence of the defeat of Fontenoy was the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. On July 25, the young Pretender landed, without the support or knowledge of the French, relying only on the popularity of his manners and of his name, and on the assistance of a few Highland chiefs, to recover the throne of his ancestors. A wilder or more hopeless enterprise never convulsed a great empire. The Highlands, where alone he could count upon warm support, contained at this time about one-twelfth of the population of Scotland.' Even there many powerful chiefs were bound to the reigning dynasty by the strongest ties of interest. The clans, though they were ever ready to take up arms, and would follow their chiefs in any cause, were utterly destitute of the discipline and subordination of a regular army. Their great object was plunder, and after their first victory more than half the army disbanded to secure the spoil. In the Lowlands the balance of opinion was probably hostile to Jacobitism. The Episcopalians, it is true, were generally disaffected, the Union had left much discontent behind it, and the Scotch origin of the Stuarts was not forgotten, but on the other hand tlie Highlanders were detested as a race of marauders, the commercial and industrial classes dreaded change, and the great city of Glasgow was decidedly Hanoverian. In England, as the event showed, not a single real step had been taken to prepare an insurrection. The King was in Hanover when the movement began, and the greater part of the English army was endeavouring to protect the Netherlands, yet nothing but the grossest incapacity on the part of the military authorities at home, and an extraordinary want of public spirit in the nation, could have enabled the rebellion, unaided as it was from abroad, to acquire the dimen sions which it did. On August 19 the standard of the Stuarts was raised, and before the end of September Prince Charles ' See Chambers' Hist, of the Ilehellwn. 422 ENGLAND IN THE EiaHTEENTII CENTURY. ch hi. ■was installed in Holyrood Palace, the army of Sir John Cope was completely defeated in the battle of Preston Pans, and almost the whole of Scotland acknowledged the Pretender. At the end of October he prepared, at the head of an army of less than 6,000 men, to invade England. He crossed the frontier on November 8, took Carlisle, after a short resistance, on the 15th, marched withont opposition through most of the great towns of Lancashire, penetrated as far as Derby, and had produced in London a disgraceful panic and a violent run upon the Bank of England,' when the chiefs insisted, in defiance of his wishes, in commencing a retreat. Three considerable armies were formed to oppose him. One of these, commanded by Marshal Wade, was assembled in Yorkshire, and might easily, with common skill, have cut off his retreat. Another, under the Duke of Cumberland, was prepared to intercept him if he marched upon Wales, while a third was assembled on Finchley Common for the protection of London. Dutch soldiers were brought over to support the Government.^ There was no prospect of serious assistance from France, and in England, if the Pretender met with little active opposition among the people, he met with still less support. In Preston, where the Catholics were very numerous, tliere was some cheering. In Manchester several of the clergy and a great part of the populace received him with enthusiasm, and a regiment of about 500 men was enlisted for his service, the first person enrolled being Captain James Dawson, whose mournfid fate has been celebrated in the most touching ballad of Sh ens tone. But the recruits were scarcely equal to half the number of tlie Highlanders who had deserted in the march from Edinburgh to Carlisle. Liverpool was strongly Hanoverian, and its citizens subscribed 6,000/. for equipping a regiment in the service of the Government. In general, however, the prevailing disposition of the people was fear or sullen apathy, and few were disposed to risk anything on either side. The retreat began on December 6. It was skil- fully conducted, and in several skirmishes the Scotch were victorious, but their cause was manifestly lost. They regained * See the isrraphic description of ^ They were afterwards replaced hy this panic in Fielding's True Patriot. Hessians. See Stanhope's Hist, tf It was reported that the Bank saved Uiigland, iii. 299. itself by paying in sixpences. CH. nr. ENGLISH SUCCESSES. 423 their country, were joined by a few French and a few Irish in the French service, and succeeded on January 17 in defeating a con siderable body of English at Falkirk. This was their last gleam of success. Divisions and desertion speedily thinned their ranks. Enemies overwhelming from their numbers and their discipline were pressing upon them, and on April 16, 1746, the battle of Culloden for ever crushed the prospects of the Stuarts. The Hanoverian army, and the Duke of Cumberland who com- manded it, displayed in their triumph a barbarity which i-ecalled the memory of Sedgemoor and of the Bloody Assize, while the courage, the loyalty, and the touching fidelity of the Highlanders to their fallen chief cast a halo of romantic inte- rest around his cause. The extraordinary incapacity of English commanders, both by land and sea, is one of the most striking facts in the war we are considering. Frederick in Prussia, Prince Charles of Lor- raine, General Khevenhiiller, and Marshal Traun in Austria, General Gages in the service of Spain, and Marshal Saxe in the service of France, had all exhibited conspicuous talent, and both Noailles and Belleisle, though inferior generals, associated their names with brilliant military episodes ; but in the English service mismanagement and languor were general. The battle of Dettingen was truly described as a happy escape rather than a great victory ; the army in Flanders can hardly be said to have exhibited any military quality except courage, and the British navy, though it gained some successes, added little to its reputation. The one brilliant exception was the expedition of Anson round Cape Horn, for the purpose of plundering the Spanish merchandise and settlements in the Pacific. It lasted for nearly four years, and though it had little effect except that of inflicting a great amount of private misery, it was conducted with a skill and a courage equal to the most splendid achieve- ments of Hawkins or of Blake. The overwhelming superiority of England upon the sea began, however, gradually to influence the war. The island of Cape Breton, which commanded the mouth of Gulf St. Lawrence, and protected the Newfoundland fisheries, was captured in the June of 1745. In 1747 a French squadron was destroyed by a very superior English fleet off Cape Finisterre. Another was defeated near Belleisle, and in the same 424 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. in. year as many as 644 prizes were taken.' The war on the part of the English, however, was most efficiently conducted by means of subsidies, which were enormously multiplied. The direct pay- ment of the Hanoverian troops, against which so fierce a clamour had been raised, was, indeed, for a time suspended, but the Queen of Hungary was induced to take those troops into her pay. In order that she should do so lier subsidy was increased, and next year the Government, without producing any considerable dis- turbance, reverted quietly to the former policy. The war, however, was now evidently drawing to a close, and the treaties of 1745 had greatly restricted its theatre. Austria, freed from apprehension on the side of Prussia and Bavaria, was enabled in 1746 to send 30,000 additional soldiers into Italy, where she speedily recovered almost ever_ything she had lost in the pre- ceding year, and defeated the united French and Spaniards in the battle of Placentia. The deatli of Philip V., which took place in July, made the Spaniards desirous of peace. The command of their army was taken from General Gages, and their troops were soon after ordered to evacuate Italy. Finale was occupied by the Sardinians. Genoa itself was captured by the Austrians, but rescued by a sudden insurrection of the populace. The project of the invasion of Naples was abandoned, in consequence of the opposition of the King of Sardinia, who had grown jealous of Austria, and feared to see her omnipotent in Italy. Provence, however, was invaded and devastated in the November of 1746, and Antibes besieged ; but soon after the revolt of Genoa the Austrians were recalled. A second siege of Genoa was raised by a French army, under Belleisle, which burst through Nice, took town after town in that province, and compelled the Austrians and Sardinians to retire. An attempt was then made to capture Turin by a French corps, commanded by the brother of Belleisle, wliich endeavoured to force its way through tlie valley of Susa, but it was defeated with great loss at an entrenchment called the Assietta, the commander was killed, and Marshal Belleisle, who had counselled the expedition, and who intended to co-operate with it, fell back upon Nice. While the fortune of the war was thus rapidly fluctuating in Italy, in the Netherlands it was uniformly in favour of the French. ' Smollett, Hist, of England, cli. ix. ca. ni. DISASTERS AND REVOLUTION IN HOLLAND. 425 Tli€ Scotch rebellion, which compelled England for a time to withdraw her troops, confirmed the military ascendancy which Marshal Saxe had already acquired. In 1746 Brussels with its whole garrison was captured, and soon after Mechlin, Louvain, Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi, and Namur succumbed. This last town, on whose fortifications the rival genius of Cohorn and Vauban had been in turn employed, now yielded after a siege of six days. The superiority of the French in numbers and especially in artillery, the genius of Marshal Saxe, and the paralysing effect of a great domestic sorrow upon Prince Charles of Lorraine, who commanded the Austrians-, made the campaign an uninterrupted triumph for the French, who, soon after the arrival of a British force, defeated the allies in the battle of Koucoux, and became masters of all the Austrian Netherlands, except Limburg and Luxemburg. Next year they invaded the Dutch Republic. Zealand was over- run by troops, 5,000 prisoners were taken in less than a month, and several towns and fortresses were occupied. The Dutch, who found their republican institutions much more adapted for securing their liberty in time of peace than for giving energy and concentration to their forces in time of war, adopted a policy which they had before pursued. During their long con- flicts with the Spaniards they had confided the executive power to the House of Orange, but soon after the Peace of Westphalia had given Holland a recognised place among European States, the hereditary Stadtholdership was abolished and purely repub- lican institutions were created. When the country, in 1672, was reduced to the verge of ruin by the invasion of Lewis XIV., it reverted to the former system and retained it for thirty years. It now again recurred to it, and a popular insurrection made the House of Orange hereditary rulers. The war, however, con- tinued to be disastrous. The allies, mider the Duke of Cumberland and the Prince of Orange, were defeated in a great, battle at Lauffeld, near Maestricht, on July 2 ; Sir John Ligo- nier, who commanded the English cavalry, and who displayed extraordinary courage in the struggle, was taken prisoner, and the campaign ended with the surprise and capture of the almost impregnable fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom, by Count Lowendahl. It is a curious feature of this campaign that Ligonier, who dis- 426 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. tit. tinguished himself most highly in the English ranks, was a French refugee, while of the French commanders Marshal Saxe was by birth a Grerman, and Lowendahl a Dane. In the meantime the Pelham Government, though unsuc- cessful abroad, had acquired a complete ascendancy at home. The martial enthusiasm of the country had gone down, and public opinion being gratified by the successive deposition of "SValpole and of Carteret, and being no longer stimulated by a powerful Opposition, acquiesced languidly in the course of events. The King for a time chafed bitterly against the yoke. He had been thwarted in his favourite German policy, deprived of the minister who was beyond comparison the most pleasing to him, and compelled to accept others in whom he had no confidence. He despised and disliked Newcastle. He hated Chesterfield, whom he was compelled to admit to ofiice, and he was especially indignant with Pitt, who had described Hanover as ' a beggarly Electorate ' and accused its soldiers of cowardice, and whose claims to office Pelham was continually urging. At length, in February 1745-46, while the rebellion was still raging, the perplexed monarch tried to extricate himself from his embarrassments by holding private communications with Bath and Granville. The ministers were apprised of it and at once resigned. The impotence of their rivals was speedily shown, and in forty-eight hours they were obliged to acknowledge themselves incapable of forming a Government. The Pelhams returned to power, but their position was immeasurably strengthened. The few remain- ing adherents of Batli were driven from office. The King acknowledged with great irritation that it was impossible for him to resist. He refused, indeed, to make Pitt Secretary of "War, but sanctioned his appointment to the lucrative office of Joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and soon after to the still more important position of Paymaster of the Forces. The great work of the Government was the pacification of Europe by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Another campaign had actually begun when the preliminaries were sigiied. Russia had at last been brought into the war, and 30,000 Russian soldiers subsidised by the maritime Powers were on the march to rescue the Netherlands. It was not impossible that this powerful reinforcement might have given a new course to the en. III. PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 427 war. In Italy the balance of success was on the whole in favour of the Austrians. The commerce of France had been almost annihilated by the English ; her resources were nearly exhausted by the extraordinary exertions she had made, and the returning- prosperity produced by the long pacific government of Fleury had been completely overcast. On the other hand, Nice and Savoy were still occupied by the French and Spaniards. The French were almost absolute masters of the Austrian Netherlands ; the capture of Bergen-op-Zoom and the sub- sequent investment of Maestricht had rendered the con- dition of the Dutch republic nearly desperate, and it would probably have been crushed before any succour could arrive. Maria Theresa, it is true, ardently desired the continuance of the war, hoping to obtain in Italy some compensation for the loss of Silesia, and the Duke of Newcastle was inclined, in opposition to his brother, to support her ; but she waged war chiefly by the assistance of the subsidies of England, and her ambition was clearly contrary to the general interests of Europe. Like many absolute sovereigns she appears to have been completely indif- ferent to the misery and desolation she caused, provided only she could leave her empire as extended as she had received it. She was resolved also to throw the defence of the Austrian Netherlands almost exclusively on the maritime Powers, employ- ing the subsidies, which she received on the express condition of keeping a large army in those provinces, mainly in a war of aggression in Italy; and she was bitterly aggrieved because the English, under these circumstances, diminished her remittances. With the exception of the King of Sardinia, however, who saw prospects of pushing his fortunes in Italy, and who was deter- mined, if possible, to avoid restoring the Duchy of Finale, she found little support in her hostility to peace. Spain was now governed by a perfectly imambitious sovereign, who wished for nothing but repose. Holland was reduced to such a condition that peace was her first necessity. England was ruled by an eminently pacific minister ; and there was hardly any opposition to impede his policy. The enormous subsidies which England had been for years scattering through Europe were rapidly adding to her debt and impairing her prosperity, and it was not clear what object she had to gain. The quarter in which the French arms 428 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. were most successful was precisely that most dangerous to Eng- land ; and except the capture of Cape Breton, and of a number of prizes, she had obtained little or nothing as a compensation for her sacrifices. Even in India, where the small settlements of France appeared almost at the mercy of England, she had encountered reverses. Two Frenchmen of great abilities and enterprise, but separated from each other by a bitter jealousy, then presided over French interests in India. Dupleix, after a brilliant industrial career upon the Ganges, had been made Governor of the French settlement of Pondicherry, while La Bourdonnais, one of the bravest and most skilful seamen France has ever produced, directed affairs in the islands of Bourbon and Mauritius. La Bourdonnais succeeded, in the course of 1746, in repelling an English squadron under Admiral Barnet, and in be- sieging and taking Madras. As express orders from the ministry at home prohibited him from occupying permanently any con- quests that might be made in India, a capitulation was signed by which the town was to be restored on the payment of a specified ransom. It passed, however, under the dominion of Dupleix, who shamefully broke the capitulation and subjected the English to scandalous outrages, while La Bourdonnais returned to France and was soon after, on false charges, flung into the Bastille, where he remained for nearly three years. In 1748 the English made a formidable attempt to retaliate upon the French, and a large force of English and Sepoy troops, under the command of Admiral Boscawen and of Major Lawrence, besieged Pondicherry. It was defended, however, by Dupleix with great energy and genius. The rainy season came on, sickness decimated the besiegers, and the enterprise was at last abandoned. It was plain that the time for peace had arrived. France had already made overtures, and she showed much moderation, and at this period much disinterestedness in her demands, and the influence of England and Holland at length forced the peace upon Austria and Sardinia, though both were bitterly aggrieved by its conditions. France agreed to restore every conquest she had made during the war, to aliandon the cause of the Stuarts, and expel the Pretender from her soil, to demolish, in accordance with earlier treaties, the fortifications of Dunkirk on the side of the sea, while retaining those on tlie side of the land, and to retire from the contest without acquiring any fresh terri- en. in. PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 429 tory or any pecuniary compensation. England in like manner ]-estored the few conquests she had made, and submitted to the i-omewhat humiliating condition of sending hostages to Paris as a security for the restoration of Cape Breton. The right of search, in opposition to which she had originally drawn the sword against Spain, and the debt of 95,000L which the Convention of 1739 acknowledged to be owing to her by Spain, were not even mentioned in the peace. The disputed boundary between Canada and Nova Scotia, which had been a source of constant difficulty with France, was left altogether undefined. The Assiento treaty for trade witli tlie Spanish colonies was confirmed for the four years it had still to ran, but no real compensation was obtained for a war expendi- ture which is said to have exceeded sixty-four millions, ^ and which had raised the funded and unfunded debt to more than seventy-eight millions.^ Of the other Powers, Holland, Genoa, and the little State of Modena retained their territory as before the war, and Genoa remained mistress of the Duchy of Finale, which had been ceded to the King of Sardinia by the Treaty of Worms, and which it had been a main object of his later policy to secure. Austria obtained a recognition of the election of the Emperor, a general guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, and the restoration of everything she had lost in the Netherlands, but she gained no additional territory. She was compelled to confirm the cession of Silesia and Glatz to Prussia, to abandon her Italian conquests, and even to cede a consider- able part of her former Italian dominions. To the bitter indig- nation of Maria Theresa, the Duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla passed to Don Philip of Spain, to revert, however, to their former possessors if Don Philip mounted the Spanish throne, or died without male issue. The King of Sardinia also obtained from Austria the territorial cessions enumerated in the Treaty of Worms, with the important exceptions of Placentia, which passed to Don Philip, and of Finale, which remained with the Genoese. For the loss of these he obtained no com- pensation. Frederick obtained a general guarantee for the possession of his newly-acquired territory, and several old treaties were formally confirmed.^ ' Chalmers' Entimate, p. 105. ' See on this war Frederick, Mr- ^ Cuxc's I'ulluim, ii. 77. moires de mo/i lenijJS, vLe Jlc/noires 430 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, CII. HI. Thus small were the changes effected in Europe by so much bloodshed and treachery, by nearly nine years of wasteful and desolating war. The design of the dismemberment of Austria had failed, but no vexed question had been set at rest. Inter- national antipathies and jealousies had been immeasurably in- creased, and the fearful sufferings and injuries that had been inflicted on the most civilised nations had not even purchased the blessing of an assured peace. Of all the ambitious projects that had been conceived during the war, that of Frederick alone was substantially realised, and France, while endeavourino- to weaken one rival, had contributed largely to lay the founda- tion of the greatness of another. The definitive peace between England and Holland, and France was signed on October 18, 1748, and the other Powers acceded to it before the close of tlie year. From this time till the death of Pelham in March 1754, political rivalry in Eng- land almost ceased. The Tories were gratified by a few places, and almost every politician of talent and influence was con- nected with the Grovernment. The Prince of Wales, who kept up some faint semblance of opposition, died in March 1750. Even Lord Granville, sated with ambition and broken by ex- cessive drinking, joined the ministry in 1751, accepting the dignified but uuinfluential post of President of the Council. During this period the leading ideas of the policy of Walpole were steadily pursued. Europe being at peace, and the dynasty firmly established by the suppression of the rebellion, the army and navy were both rigorously reduced ; 20,000 soldiers and 34,000 sailors and marines were discharged, and some serious distress having in consequence arisen, it was met by the bold and novel expedient of a system of emigration, organised and directed by the Government. As early as 1735 Captain Coram, in a memorial to the Privy Council, had called attention to the deserted and unprotected state of Nova Scotia, to the ease with which the French carried their encroachments into that pro- vince, and to the insufficiency of the small British garrison which was collected at Annapolis for its protection. Nova Scotia was justly regarded as the key to North America, equally important in time of war for attacking Canada and rf^ Fafon, Voltaire, TAiuia XV., and ilie Eauke, Martin, aud Lord iStanliope. histories of timoUett, Coxc, Carlyle, CH, III. FOUNDATION OF HALIFAX. 431 for defeuding New England. The adjacent sea teemed vvitli fish, and its magnificent forests supplied admirable timber for the royal navy. It was accordingly determined to strengthen the colony by encouraging the officers and men lately dismissed from the land and sea service, to settle there with or without their families. To every private was offered a free passage, a free maintenance for twelve months, the fee simple of fifty acres of land, an additional grant of ten acres for every member of his family, and an immunity from taxation for ten years. The officers received still larger grants, varying according to their rank. The scheme was eminently successful. About 4,000 men, many of them with their families, embraced the Grovernment offers. The expedition sailed in May under the command of Colonel Cornwallis, and with the protection of two regiments. It was joined on its arrival by an additional force, which had lately been withdrawn from Cape Breton, and soon after the new colonists founded the important town of Halifax, which derived its name from Lord Halifax, who, as President of the Board of Trade, was a principal person in organising the expe- dition, and which soon became the capital of a flom'ishing colony.^ Not less successful was the financial policy of Pelham. The measures which were carried in 1717 and 1727 for re- ducing the interest of the debt have been already recounted, and another eftort in the same direction had been made by Sir John Barnard in 1737. He had proposed to reduce gra- dually that portion of the debt which bore four per cent, interest to three per cent., enabling the Government to borrow money at the lower rate in order to pay off those creditors who refused to accept the reduction. As the three per cents, were at this time at a premium, and as it was part of the scheme of Sir John Barnard that the contributors to the new loan should be guaranteed from payment of any part of the principal for four- teen years, there is not much doubt that the plan in its essential features could have been carried out, nor yet that it would have been very beneficial to the nation. It was, however, ex- ceedingly unpopular. The great companies who contributed so powerfully to support the ministry of Walpole were opposed to it. A deep impression was made throughout the country by a ' Smollett's Ilid. of England, Coxe's Life of Pelham. 432 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. m. statement that a very large porportion of the 4 per cent, fundd were in the possession of widows and orphans and trustees, who would suffer greatly by the reduction. The growing complica- tions with Spain made it probable that the Grovernment would soon be compelled to have recourse to new loans, and especially important that it should take no step that could alienate the moneyed classes, or injure, however unjustly, the credit of the country. Besides this, the Government was now too weak to' bear the strain of additional unpopularity, and Sir John Bar- nard, who originated the measure, was a prominent member of the Opposition. Under these circumstances "Walpole, after some hesitation, placed himself in opposition to the Bill. He showed even more than his usual financial knowledge in pointing out the weak points in its details, and he succeeded without diffi- culty in defeating it.' The question of how far he was justified in this course by the special political circumstances of the time is one which can hardly be answered without a more minute knowledge of the dispositions of Members of Parliament and of the currents of feeling in the country than it is now possible to attain. The strong ministry of the Pelhams, however, was able to carry out a somewhat similar measure, in spite of the strenuous opposition both of the Bank and of the East India Company, in 1749. By far the larger part of the national debt was at 4 per cent., a part was at 3^ per cent., and another part at 3 per cent. As the 3 per cents, were selling at par, and the 3-1 per cents, above par,^ the time had evidently come when a reduction was feasible. Availing himself largely of the assistance, without absolutely adopting the plan, of Sir J. Barnard, Pelham intro- duced and carried a scheme by which such holders of 4 per cent, stock as consented by February 28, 1749-50, to accept the arrangement were to receive 3| per cent, interest from Decem- ber 1750 to December 1757, with a security that no part of their stock should be redeemed before the latter date except what ' Compare Coxe's IJfe of Walpole, was said at this time to have pur- ch. xlvii. ; Sinclair's JIM. of the chased 3 per cents. at 109^. This, how- Berenve, i. 500-502 ; and Lord Her- ever, must have been quite an isolated vey's Memoirs, ii. 32.5-332. It is transaction, and the ordinary price remarkable that this was almost the appears to have been fromijar to 101. onlyquestionon which Henry Pelham Coxe's Pelham, Vi. 77-85. iSinclair's ever voted against Walpole. Hist, of the Revenue, i. 501-507. * Coxe states that an individual CH. III. FINANCIAL LEGISLATION. 433 was due to the East India Company. After December 1757 the interest was to sink to 3 per cent, till reduced by the Govern- ment, while those who refused the arrangement were to be paid oflf by a loan raised at 3 per cent. The ofifer does not appear very tempting, but the normal rate of interest was then so low, commercial investments were so few, and the attraction of the Government security was so great, that the majority of holders accepted it, and when February arrived only eighteen or nineteen millions had not been brought under the arrangement. The success, of course, increased its popularity, and Pelham accordingly renewed the offer, though on less favourable conditions, for in the case of these second subscribers the 3i per cent, interest was to be exchanged for 3 per cent, interest in December 1755. The result of this prolongation was, that not much more than three millions remained excluded, and the holders of this stock were paid off in 1751. For seven years after 1750 an annual saving was thus made of 288,517^, and after 1757 it amounted in the whole to 577,034^., which was to be applied to the reduction of the national debt. The success of this measure reflected great credit on the Govern- ment, and it furnished an extremely remarkable proof of how prosperous and wealthy the country remained at the close of a long and exhausting war. In 1752 Pelham completed his finan- cial reforms by a measure simplifying and consolidating the dif- ferent branches of the National Debt, and thus removing a cause of much perplexity and some expense both to the public and to individuals.' It was in this department of legislation that the Govern- ments of the Walpole and Pelham period were most successful. In very few periods in English political history was the com- mercial element more conspicuous in administration. The pre- vailing spirit of the debates was of a kind we should rather have expected in a middle-class Parliament than in a Parliament consisting in a very large measure of the nominees of great families. A competition of economy reigned in all parties. The questions which excited most interest were chiefly financial and commercial ones. The increase of the National Debt, the ^ Coxe's PdliMvi. Sinclair's Hist, of tlic I2evenne. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce. VOL. I. F F 434 EXGLAN'D IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. possibility and propriety of reducing its interest, the advantages of a sinking fund, the policy of encouraging trade by bounties and protective duties, the evils of excise, the reduction of the land-tax, the burden of Continental subsidies, were among the topics which produced the most vehement and the most powerful debates. Burke, in a letter which he w^rote in 1752 describing the House of Commons during the Pelham administration, summed up the requirements of a ^Member of Parliament in one pregnant sentence, which would hardly have been true of the nest generation : ' A man, after all, would do more by figures of arith- metic than by figures of rhetoric.'^ Even the religious questions which produced most excitement throughout the country, the naturalisation of Jews and the naturalisation of foreign Pro- testants, -were argued chiefly in Parliament upon commercial grounds. The question in home poHtics, however, which excited most interest in the nation was of a different kind, and it was one which, for very obvious reasons, Parliament desired as much as possible to avoid. It was the extreme corruption of Parliament itself, its subserviency to the influence of the Executive, and the danger of its becoming in time rather the oppressor than the representative of the people. This danger had been steadily growing since the Eevo- lution, and it had reached such a point that there wa^re many who imagined that the country had gained little by ex- changing an arbitrary King for a corrupt and often a tyrannical Parliament. The extraordinary inequalities of the constituen- cies had long attracted attention. Cromwell had for a time remedied the evil by a bold measure, sweeping away the rotten boroughs, granting members to the greatest unrepresented towns, strengthening the county representation, and at the same time summoning Irish and Scotch Members to the Par- liament in London ; but although Clarendon described this as ' a warrantable alteration, and fit to be made in better times,' the old state of things returned with the Eestoration. The Eevolution had been mainly a conflict between the Crown and the Parliament, and its effect had been greatly to increase the authority of the latter ; but, with the exception of the Trien- nial Bill, nothing of much real value bad been done to make it ' Prior's Life of Burke, i. 33. CH. HI. TARLIAMENTARY CORRUniON. 435 a more faithful representation of the people. Locke, in a memorable passage, complained that ' the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a sheepcot or more inhabitants than a shep- herd is to be found, sends as many representatives to the grand Assembly of lawmakers, as a whole county, numerous in people and powerful in riches ' ; but he could discover no safe remedy for the evil.^ Defoe ^ and the Speaker Onslow ^ both desired an excision of the rotten boroughs, but there was no general movement in this direction, and the party which was naturally most inclined to change shrank from a reform wliich might have been fatal to the Grovernment of the Kevolution. The Scotch union aggravated the evil by increasing the number of sham boroughs and of subservient Members. If the anomalies were not quite so great as they became after the sudden growth of the manufacturing towns in the closing years of the eighteenth century, and in the early years of the nineteenth century, the Parliament was at least much more arbitrary and corrupt. Only a fraction of its members were elected by considerable and independent constituencies. The enormous expense of the county elections, where the poll might be kept open for forty days, kept these seats almost exclusively in the hands of a few families, while many small boroughs were in the possession of rich noblemen, or were notoriously offered for sale. The Govern- ment, by tlie proprietary rights of the Crown over the Cornisii boroughs, by the votes of its numerous excise or revenue officers, by direct purchase, or by bestowing places or peerages on the proprietors, exercised an absolute authority over many seats,'* and its means of influencing the assembled Parliament were so great that it is difficult to understand how, in the corrupt moral at- mosphere that was prevalent, it was possible to resist it. The ' OnCivilGoi.ernmottfhk.u cli.xiii. have always the nomination of their ^ Tour ill England. re[)resentatives, and make such an 'Note to YixxTnaVs Own Time, ii. arbitrary use of it tliat they oft en order •458. them to choose rivileges, than I would tryt/O govern tlie soldiery hy setting a general over them who was always haranguing against the inconveniences of a stand- ing army, or make a man Chancellor who was constantly complaining of the grievances of the Bar and threatening to rectify the abuses of Westminster Hall.' — Lord Hervey's Memoirs, i. pp. 453-454, CH. III. DECLINE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT. 467 have all the common property of kindling in large bodies of men an heroic self-sacrifice, of teaching them to subordinate material to moral ends, and of thus raising the tone of political life. All these enthusiasms had now gradually subsided, while the philanthropic and reforming spirit, which in the nineteenth century has in a great degree taken their place, was almost absolutely unfelt. With a Church teaching a cold and colour- less morality, and habitually discouraging every exhibition of zeal, with a dynasty accepted as necessary to the country, but essentially foreign in its origin, its character, and its sympathies, with a Government mild and tolerant, indeed, but selfish, corrupt, and hostile to reform, the nation gradually sank into a condition of selfish apathy. In very few periods was there so little religious zeal, or active loyalty, or public spirit. A kindred tone pervaded the higher branches of in- tellect. The philosophy of Locke, deriving our ideas mainly if not exclusively from external sources, was supreme among the stronger minds. In literature, in art, in speculation, the imagination was repressed ; strong passions, elevated motives, and sublime aspirations were replaced by critical accuracy of thought and observation, by a measured and fastidious beauty of form, by clearness, symmetry, sobriety, and good sense We find this alike in the prose of Addison, in the poetry of Pope, and in the philosophy of Hume. The greatest wit and the most original genius of the age was also the most intensely and the most coarsely realistic. The greatest English painter of the time devoted himself mainly to caricature. The archi- tects could see nothing but barbarous deformity in the Grothie cathedral, and their own works had touched the very nadir of taste. The long war of the Austrian Succession failed signally to arouse the energies of the nation. It involved no great principle that could touch the deeper chords of national feeling. It was carried on chiefly by means of subsidies. It was out of the most ill directed, ill executed, and unsuccessful that England had ever waged, and the people, who saw Hanoverian influence in every campaign, looked with an ominous supine- ness upon its vicissitudes. Good judges spoke with great despondency of the decline of public spirit as if the energy of the people had been fatally impaired. Their attitude during u u 2 468 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. in. the rebellion of 1745 was justly regarded as extremely alarm- ing. It appeared as if all interest in those great questions which had convulsed England in the time of the Common- wealth and of the Eevolution, had died away — as if even the old courage of the nation was extinct. Nothing can be more significant than the language of contemporary statesmen on the subject. 'I apprehend,' wrote old Horace Walpole when the news of the arrival of the Pretender was issued, ' that tlie people may perhaps look on and cry " Fight dog ! fight bear ! " if they do no worse.' • ' England,' wrote Henry Fox, ' Wade says, and I believe, is for the first comer, and if you can tell whetlier the 6,000 Dutch and ten battalions of Eng- lish, or 5,000 French and Spaniards will be here first, you know our fate.' ' The French are not come — God be thanked ! But liad 5,000 landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest of it would not have cost tliem a battle.' Alderman Heathcote, writing to the Earl of March- mont in September 1745, and describing the condition of the country, no doubt indicated very truly the causes of the decline. ' Your Lordship will do me the justice,' he writes, ' to believe that it is with the utmost concern I have observed a remarkable change in the dispositions of the people within these two years ; for numbers of them, who, during the apprehensions of the last invasion, appeared most zealous for the Government, are now grown absolutely cold and indifferent, so that except in the per- sons in the pay of the Government and a few Dissenters, there is not the least appearance of apprehension or concern to be met with. As an evidence of this truth, your Lordship may observe the little influence an actual insurrection has had on the public funds ; and unless some speedy stop be put to this universal coldness by satisfying the demands of the nation and suppress- ing by proper laws that parliamentary prostitution which has destroyed our armies, our fleets, and our constitution, I greatly fear the event.' ^ The Government looked upon the attitude of the people simply as furnishing an argument for increasing the standing army, but tlie fact itself they admitted as freely as their opponents. ' When the late rebellion broke out,' says Lord Hardwicke in 1749, 'I believe most men were convinced that if ' Campbcirs IJ)-fx of the Chan- ii. fi5 (note). Cf ?&;•«, vi. 23G-238. Walpole 's Zert'^ra, ■' March mont Pry;/T.9, ii. 342-343. cu. in. DECLINE OF PUBLIC SPIRIT. 469 the rebels had succeeded, Popery as well as slavery would have been the certain consequence, and yet what a faint resistance did the people make in any part of the kingdom ! — so faint that had we not been so lucky as to procure a number of regular troops from abroad time enough to oppose their approach, they might have got possession of our capital without any opposition except from the few soldiers we had in London.' • These statements are very remarkable, and they are especi- ally so because the apathy that was shown was not due to any sympathy with the Pretender. The disgraceful terror which seized London when the news of the Jacobite march upon Derby arrived was a sufficient evidence of the fact. ' In every place we passed through,' wrote the Jacobite historian of the rebellion, ' we found the English very ill-disposed towards us, except at Manchester. . . . The English peasants were hostile towards us in the highest degree.' ^ When a prisoner who was for a time be- lieved to be tlie Young Pretender was brought to London, it was with the utmost difficulty that his escort could conduct him to the Tower through a savage mob, who desired to tear him limb from limb.^ Even in Manchester, the day of thanksgiving for the suppression of the rebellion was celebrated by tlie populace, who insulted the nearest relatives of those who had perished on the gallows, and compelled them to subscribe to the illuminations. In Liverpool a Roman Catholic chapel was burnt, and all who were supposed to be guilty of Jacobite tendencies were in serious danger.* Nor did the executions which followed the suppression of the movement excite any general compassion. 'Popularity,' wrote Horace Walpole at this time, ' has changed sides since the year '15, for now the city and the generality are very angry that so many rebels have been pardoned.'^ The impression which this indifference to public interests produced in the minds of many observers was well expressed in a work which appeared in 1757 and 1758. Browne's 'Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times ' is now hardly remembered except by brief and disparaging notices in one of ' Campbell's Liccs of the Clmn- 9, 174.5. celhu'X, vi. 2.56-2.57. * Ficton's Memorials of rAi'ejyool, i. - Johnstone's Memoirs of the Re- * Walpole's Letters to Mann, hellim, pp. 70, 81. August 12, 1746. * Walpole's Letters to Mann, Dec. 470 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. cii. iii. the later writings of Burke and in one of the ' Essays ' of Macaulay ; but it had once a wide popularity and a consider- able influence on public opinion. Its author was a clergyman well kno^vn in the history of ethics by his answer to Shaftesbury, which contains one of the ablest defences in English literature of the utilitarian theory of morals. His object was to warn the country of the utter ruin that must ensue from a decadence of the national spirit, which he maintained was only too mani- fest, and which he attributed mainly to an excessive develop- ment of the commercial spirit. He fully admits that constitu- tional liberty had been consideraljly enlarged, that a spirit of growing humanity was exhibited both in manners and in laws ; that the administration of jiistice was generally pure, and that the age was not characterised by gross or profligate vice. Its leading quality was ' a vain, luxurious, and selfish effeminacy,' which was rapidly corroding all the elements of the national strength. ' Love of our country,' he complained, ' is no longer felt, and except in a few minds of uncommon greatness, the principle of public spirit exists not.' He appealed to the disuse of manly occupations among the higher classes, to their general indifference to religious doctrines and neglect of re- ligious practices, to the ever-widening circle of corruption which had now passed from the Parliament to the constituen- cies, and tainted all the approaches of public life ; to the pre- vailing system of filling the most important offices in the most critical times by family interest, and without any regard to merit or to knowledge. The extent of this evil, he maintained, was but too plainly shown in the contrast between the splendid victories of Marlborough and the almost uniform failure of the British arms in the late war, in the want of fire, energy, and heroism manifested in all public affairs, and, above all, in the conduct of the nation during the rebellion, ' when those of every rank above a constable, instead of arming themselves and encouraging the people, generally fled before the rebels ; while a mob of ragged Highlanders marched unmolested to the heart of a populous kingdom.' He argued with much acuteness that the essential qualities of national greatness are moral, and that no increase of material resources could compensate for the deterio- ration which had in this respect passed over the English people. CH. III. CO]\IPAIlISON BETWEEN ENGLAND AND CONTINENT. 471 It is, perhaps, difficult for us, who judge these predictions in the light which is fiu-nished by the Methodist revival, and by the splendours of the administration of Chatham, to do fall justice to their author. He appears to have been constitution- ally a very desponding man, and he ended his life by suicide. The shadows of his picture are undoubtedly overcharged, and the marked revival of public spirit in the succeeding reign, when commerce was far more extended than under George II., proves conclusively that he had formed a very erroneous esti- mate of the influence of the commercial spirit. Yet it is cer- tain that the disease, though it might still be arrested, was a real one, and its causes, as we have seen, are not difficult to trace. There was, undoubtedly, less of gross and open profli- gacy than in the evil days of the Kestoration, and less of de- liberate and organised treachery among statesmen than in the years that immediately followed the Revolution. The fault of the time was not so much the amount of vice as the defect of virtue, the general depression of motives, the unusual absence of imselfish and disinterested action. At the same time, though there had been a certain suspension of the moral infl.uences that had formerly acted upon English society, the conditions of that society were at bottom sound, and contrasted in most respects favourably with those of the greatest nations on the Continent. In the middle of the eighteenth century the peasants of Ger- many were uniformly serfs, and the peasantry of France, though freed from the most oppressive, were still subject to some of the most irritating of feudal burdens, while in both countries political liberty was unknown, and in France, at least, religious and intellectual freedom were perpetually violated. In France, too, that fatal division of classes which has been the parent of most subsequent disasters, was already accomplished. The selfish infatuation of the Court which desired to attract to itself all that was splendid in the community, the growing centralisa- tion of government, the want in the upper classes of all taste for country sports and duties, and the increasing attraction of town life, had led the richer classes almost invariably to abandon their estates for the pleasures of the capital, where, in the absence of healthy political life, they lost all sympathy with their fellow-countrymen, and speedily degenerated into hypo- 472 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. m. crites or profligates. Their tenants, on the other hand, de- prived of the softening influence of contact with their superiors, reduced to penury by grinding and unequal taxation, and finding in the village priest their only type of civilisation, sank into that precise condition which transforms some men into the most implacable revolutionists, and others into the most super- stitious of bigots. But in England nothing of this kind took place. The mixture of classes, on which English liberty and the perfection of the English type so largely depends, still con- tinued. The country gentlemen were actively employed upon their estates, administering a rude justice, coming into constant and intimate connection with their tenants, and acquiring in the duties, associations, and even sports of a country life, elements of a practical politicaS knowledge more valuable than any that can be acquired in books. Habits of hard and honest industry, a respect for domestic life, unflinching personal courage, were still general through the middle classes and among the poor, and if the last was suspected during the rebellion, it was at least abundantly displayed by the British infantry at Dettingen and Fontenoy. While all these subsisted, there remained ele- ments of greatness which might easily, under favourable cir- cumstances, be fanned into a flame. It must be added, too, that the qualities most needed for the success of constitutional government, are not the highest, but what may be called the middle virtues of character and intellect. Heroic self-sacrifice, brilliant genius, a lofty level of generosity, intelligence, or morality, a clear perception of the connection and logical tendency of principles, have all, no doubt, their places under this as under other forms of government ; but it is upon the wide diffusion of quite a different category of qualities or attainments that the permanence of constitutional government mainly depends. Patience, moderation, persevering energy, the spirit of compromise, a tolerance of dilference of opinions, a general interest in public affairs, sound sense, love of order, a disposition to judge measures by actual working and not by any ideal theory, a love of practical improvement, and a great dis- trust of speculative politics, a dislike to change as change, com- bined with a readiness to recognise necessities wlit-n they arise, are the qualities which must be generally diffused through a en. in. CONFUSION OF PAETY PEINCIFLES. 473 community before free institutions can take firm root among them. Judged by these tests the period we are considering exhibited, no doubt, in several respects a great decadence and deficiency, but not so great as if we measured it by a more ideal standard, and it may be safely asserted that in no other great nation were these qualities at this time so commonly exhibited. A very similar judgment may be passed upon the system of government It was corrupt, inefficient, and unheroic, but it was free from the gross vices of Continental administrations ; it was moderate, tolerant, and economical ; it was, with all its faults, a free government, and it contained in itself the elements of reformation. I have examined in a former chapter the theory according to which the rival English parties have exchanged their prin- ciples since the early years of the eighteenth century, and I liave endeavoured to show that it is substantially erroneous, that the historic identity of each party may be clearly esta biished, whether we consider the classes of interests it repre- sented, or the leading principles of its policy. We are now, however, in a position to see more clearly the facts which have given that theory its plausibility. The ministries of Walpole and Pelham represented especially the commercial classes and the Dissenters, aimed beyond all things at the maintenance of the type of monarchy established by the Revolution, and leaned almost uniformly towards those principles of religious liberty which the Tory party detested ; but undisputed power had made them corrupt, selfish, and apathetic, and they sought, both in their own interest and in that of the d\-nasty, to check every reform that could either abridge their power or arouse strong passions in the nation. They also made it a great end of their policy to humour and conciliate to the utmost the country gentry, who were the natural opponents of their party. Though not Tory, they were in the true sense of the word Conservative, Governments ; that is to say. Governments of whicli the su- preme object and preoccupation was not the realisation of any unattained political ideal, or the redressing of any political grievances, but merely the maintenance of existing institutions against all assailants. The lines of party division were blurred and confused, and while only those who called themselves Whigs 474 ENGLAND IN TUE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. ni. were in general admitted to power, many were ranked in tliaf category who, in a time of keener party struggles, would have been enrolled among the Tories. The characteristics of the two great parties have varied much with different circumstances. The idiosyncrasies of leaders whose attachment to their re- spective parties was often in the first instance due to the mere accident of birth or of position, the calm or louring aspect of foreign affairs, the dominant passion of the nation, tlie question whether a party is in office or in opposition, whether if in power its position is precarious or secure, and if in opposition it is likely soon to incur the responsibilities of office, have all their great influence on party politics. Still there is a real natural history of parties, and the division corresponds roughly to certain broad distinctions of mind and character that never can be effaced. The distinctions between content and hope, between caution and confidence, between the imagination that throws a halo of reverent association around the past and that which opens out brilliant vistas of improvement in the future, between the mind that perceives most clearly the advantages of existing institutions and the possible dangers of change and that which sees most keenly the defects of existing institutions and the vast additions that may be made to human well-being, form in all large classes of men opposite biases which find their expression in party divisions. The one side rests chiefly on the great truth that one of the first conditions of good government is essential stability, and on the extreme danger of a nation cutting itself off from the traditions of its past, denuding its government of all moral support, and perpetually tampering with the main pillars of the State. The other side rests chiefly upon the no less certain truths that government is an organic thing, that it must be capable of growing, expanding, and adapting itself to new conditions of thought or of society ; that it is subject to grave diseases, which can only be arrested by a constant vigilance, and that its attributes and functions are susceptible of almost infinite variety and extension with the new and various developments of national life. The one side represents the statical, the other the dynamical element in politics. Each can claim for itself a natural affinity to some of the highest qualities of mind and character, and each, perhaps, CH. III. WHIG AND TORY. 475 owes quite as much of its strength to mental and moral disease. Stupidity is naturally Tory. The large classes who are blindly wedded to routine, and are simply incapable of understanding or appreciating new ideas, or the exigencies of changed circum- stances, or the conditions of a reformed society, find their natural place in the Tory ranks. Folly, on the other hand, is naturally Liberal. To this side belongs the cast of mind which, having no sense of the infinite complexity and interdependence of political problems, of the part which habit, association, and tradition play in every healthy political organism, and of the multifarious remote and indirect consequences of every insti- tution, is prepared with a light heart and a reckless hand to re- cast the whole framework of the constitution in the interest of speculation or experiment. The colossal weight of national selfishness gravitates naturally to Toryism. That party rallies round its banner the great multitude who, having made their position, desire merely to keep things as they are, who are pre- pared to subordinate their whole policy to the maintenance of class privileges, who look with cold hearts and apathetic minds on the vast mass of remediable misery and injustice around them, who have never made a serious, effort, or perhaps con- ceived a serious desire, to leave the . world in any respect a better place than they found it. Even in the case of reforms which have no natm-al connection with party politics, and which, by diverting attention from other changes, would be eminently beneficial to the Tories, that party is usually less efficient than its rival, because its leaders are paralysed by the atmosphere of selfishness pervading their ranks, and because most of the reforming and energetic intellects are ranged among their opponents. On the other hand, the acrid humours and more turbulent passions of society flow strongly in the Liberal direction. Envy, which hates every privilege or dignity it does not share, is intensely democratic, and disordered ambitions and dishonest adventurers find their natural place in the party of progress and of change. The Whig Grovernments, from the accession of George I. to the death of Henry Pelham, only exhibited in a very subdued and diluted form both the virtues and the vices of liberalism ; and though this period is very important in the history of 476 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. m. English politics, its importance lies much more in the silent and almost insensible growth of Parliamentary government than in distinct remedial measures. The measures of reform that were actually passed were usually such as were almost impera- tively demanded by critical circumstances, or by the growth of some gi-eat evil in the nation. Some of them were of great importance. The rebellion of 1745 made it absolutely necessary to put an end to the anarchy of the Highlands, and to the almost complete independence which enabled the Highland chief to defy the law, and to rally around him in a few days, and in any cause, a considerable body of armed men. The Acts for the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions, for disarming the Highlanders, and for depriving them of their national dress, were carried with tliis object, and the first, which made the English law supreme throughout the island, has, as we shall see in another chapter, proved one of the most imjoortant measures in Scotch history, tlie chief cause of the rapid progress of Scotland in wealth and civilisation. Another measure of the Pelham ministry was intended to check a still graver evil than Highland anarchy. The habit of gin-drinking — the master curse of English life, to which most of the crime and an immense proportion of the misery of the nation may be ascribed — if it did not absolutely originate, at least became for the first time a national vice, in the early Hanoverian period. Drunkenness, it is true, had long been com- mon, though Camden maintained tliat in his day it was still a recent vice, that there had been a time when the English were ' of all the Northern nations the most commended for their sobriety,' and that ' they first learnt in their wars in the Netherlands to drown themselves with immoderate drinking.' ^ The Dutch and German origin of many drinking terms lends some colour to this assertion, and it is corroborated by other evidence. ' Superfluity of drink,' wrote Tom Nash in the reign of Elizabeth, ' is a sin that ever since we have mixed ourselves with the Low Countries is counted honourable ; but, before we knew their lingering wars, was held in the highest degree of hatred that might be.' ' As the English,' said Chamberlayne, ' returning from the wars in the Holy Land brought home the foul disease of leprosy ... so in our fathers' days the English ' Camden's Ilht. of Elizahvth, a.d. 1581. C3. ni. HISTORY OF DRUNKENNESS. 477 returning from the service in the Netherlands brought with them the foul vice of drunkenness.' But the evil, if it was not indigenous in England,' at least spread very rapidly and very widely. ' In England,' said lago, ' they are most potent in potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your English.' ^ ' We seem,' wrote a somewhat rhetorical writer in 1657, ' to be steeped in liquors, or to be the dizzy island. We drink as if we were nothing but sponges ... or had tunnels in our mouths. . . . We are the grape-suckers of the earth.' ^ The dissipated habits of the Restoration, and especially the growing custom of drinking toasts, greatly increased the evil, but it was noticed that the introduction of coffee, which spread widely through England in the last years of the seventeenth century, had a perceptible in- fluence in diminishing it,'* and among the upper classes drunken- ness was, perhaps, never quite so general as between the time of Elizabeth and the Eevolution. French wines were the favourite drink, but the war of the Eevolution for a time almost excluded them, and the Methuen Treaty of 1703, which admitted the svines of Portugal at a duty of one-third less than those of France, gradually produced a complete change in the national taste. This change was, however, not fully accomplished for nearly a century, and it was remarked that in the reign of Anne the desire to obtain French wines at a reasonable rate greatly strengthened the opposition to Marlborough and the war.°* The amount of hard drinking among the upper classes was still very great, and it is remarkable how many of the most con- spicuous characters were addicted to it. Addison, the foremost moralist of his time, was not free from it.^ Oxford, whose private character was in most respects singularly high, is said to have come, not imfrequently, drunk into the very presence of the Queen.^ Bolingbroke, when in office, sat up whole nights ' See the early history of English ' Cunningham's Hist.., ii. pp. 200- drinking, in Disraeli's Curiosities of 201. Dr. Radcliffe is said to have Literature ; JJHnMng Custmns in ascribed much of the sickness of the Eugland ; and Malcolm's 3Ianners time to the want of B^rench wines. and Customs of Zo7idon, i. pp. 285-289. See, too, on the history of French * Othello, act ii. scene 3. wines, Craik's Hist, of Contmerce, ii. 'Reeve's 'Plea for Nineveh,' 165, 166, 180, 181. Davenanfs //^yw?-!^ quoted in RIalcolm's Manners and to the Commissioners for Stating the Customs of London, i. p. 286. Public Accounts. ■• Chamherlayne. See, too, a curious " Spence. iiwiU's Coj-)-esj)ondence. testimony on this suV)ject quoted in ' E. Lewis to Swift. Jesse's London, iii. 250. 478 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. en. tii. drinking, and in the morning, having bound a wet napkin round his forehead and his eyes, to drive away the effects of his intemperance, he hastened, without sleep, to his official busi- ness.* Wlien Walpole was a young man liis father was accus- tomed to pour into his glass a double portion of wine, saying, * Come, Robert, you sliall drink twice while I drink once ; for I will not permit the son in his sober senses to be witness of the intoxication of his father.' This education produced its natural fruits, and the entertainments of the minister at Houghton were the scandal of his county, and often drove Lord Townsheud from his neighbouring seat of Eainham.^ The brilliant intellect of Carteret was clouded by drink,^ and even Pulteney, who appears in his later years to have had stronger religious convictions than any other politician of his time, is said to have shortened his life by the same means.^ Among the poor, however, in the beginning of the eigh- teenth century, the popular beverage was still beer or ale, the use of which — -especially before the art of noxious adulteration, was brought to its present perfection — has always been more common than the abuse. The consumption appears to have been ainazing. It was computed in 1688 that no less than 12,400,000 barrels were brewed in England in a single year, though the entire population probably little exceeded 5,000,000. In 1695, with a somewhat heavier excise, it sank to 11,350,000 l)arrels, but even then almost a third part of the arable land of the kingdom was devoted to barley.'^ Under Charles I. a com- pany was formed with the sole right of making spirits and vinegar in the cities of London and Westminster and within twenty-one miles of the same, but this measure had little fruit ; the British distilleries up to tlie time of the Revolution were quite inconsideral)ie, and the brandies which were imported in large quantities from France were much too expensive to become ' Mrs. Delauy's Corresjfondence, London was in ashes after the fire, vi. 168. and many of the inhabitants were 2 Coxe's TFffi/wZc;, i. 5, 758, 759. forced to retire to the country, no less * Chesterfield's Charactern. than 1,522,781 barrels of beer and ale * Speaker Onslow's Remarks were brewed in the city, each of (Coxe's Walj>nle, vol. ii. p. 559). them containing from 32 to 36 gallons, ^ Gregory Kin^^a State of A'/igliind, that the amount brewed annually in jjp. 55-56. In an edition of Chamber- London liad since risen to near two layne's Mcupia; Jiritanniw Kutitia, millionsof barre]s,and that the excise publislied in 1710, it is stated that for London was farmed out for in 1G67, when the greater ^art of 120,000^. a year (p. 219). en. ni. INCREASE OF DRUNKENNE.SS. 479 popular. Partly, however, through hostility to France, and partly in order to encourage the home distilleries, the Grovern- ment of the Revolution, in 1689, absolutely prohibited the im- portation of spirits from all foreign countries,' and threw open the trade of distillery, on the payment of certain duties, to all its subjects.- These measures laid the foundation of the great extension of the English manufacture of spirits, but it was not till about 1724 that the passion for gin-drinking appears to have infected the masses of the population, and it spread "with the rapidity and the violence of an epidemic. Small as is the place which this fact occupies in English his- tory, it was probably, if we consider all the consequences that have flowed from it, the most momentous in that of the eighteenth century — incomparably more so than any event in the purely political or military annals of the country. The fatal passion for drink was at once, and irrevocably, planted in the nation. The average of British spirits distilled, which is said to have been only 527,000 gallons in 1684, and 2,000,000 in 1714, had risen in 1727 to 3,601,000, and in 1735 to 5,394,000 gallons. Physicians declared that in excessive gin- drinking a new and terrible source of mortality had been opened for the poor. The grand jury of INIiddlesex, in a povx^er- ful presentment, declared that much the greater part of the poverty, the murders, the robberies of London, might be traced to this single cause. Eetailers of gin were accustomed to hang- out painted boards announcing that their customers could be made drunk for a penny, and dead drunk for twopence, and should have straw for nothing; and cellars strewn with straw were accordingly provided, into which those who had become insensible were dragged, and where they remained till they had sufficiently recovered to renew their orgies. The evil acquired such frightful dimensions that even the unreforming Parliament of Walpole perceived the necessity of taking strong- measures to arrest it, and in 1736 Sir J. Jekyll brought in and carried a measure, to which Walpole reluctantly assented, imposing a duty of 20s. a gallon on all spirituous liquors, and prohibiting any person from selling them in less quantities than ' Pari. Hist., xii. 1212. plierson's Annals of Commerce, ii. 2 Ibid., xii. 1211-1214. Mac- G3'J. 480 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en in. two gallons without paying a tax of 50^. a year.* Such a scale, if it could have been maintained, would have almost amounted to prohibition, but the passion for these liquors was now too widely spread to be arrested by law. Violent riots ensued. In 1737, it is true, the consumption sank to about 3,600,000 gallons, but, as Walpole had predicted, a clandestine retail trade soon sprang up, which being at once very lucrative and very popular, increased to such an extent that it was found impossible to restrain it. In 17-i2 more than 7,000,000 gallons were distilled, and the consumption was steadily aug- menting. The measure of 1736 being plainly inoperative, an attempt was made in 1743 to suppress the clandestine trade, and at the same time to increase the public revenue, by a Bill lowering the duty on most kinds of spirits to Id. in the gallon, levied at the still-head, and at the same time reducing the price of retail licenses from 50^. to 20s.^ The Bill was carried in spite of the strenuous opposition of Chesterfield, Lord Hervey, and the whole bench of Bishops, and, while it did nothing to discourage drunkenness, it appears to have had little or no effect upon smuggling. In 1749 more than 4,000 persons were convicted of selling spirituous liquors without a license, and the number of the private gin-shops within the Bills of Mortality was estimated at more than 1 7,000. At the same time crime and immorality of every description were rapidly increasing. The City of London urgently petitioned for new measures of restric- tion. The London physicians stated in 1750 that there were, in or about the metropolis, no less than 14,000 cases of illness, most of them beyond the reach of medicine, directly attributable to gin. Fielding, in his well-known pamphlet ' On the late Increase of Robbers,' which was published in 1751, ascribed that evil, in a great degree, ' to a new kind of drunkenness, unknown to our ancestors ; ' he declared that gin was ' the principal suste- nance (if it may so be called) of more than 100,000 people in the metropolis,' and he predicted that, ' should the drinking of this poison be continued at its present height during the next twenty years, there will, by that time, be very few of the common people left to drink it.' It was computed that, in 1750 and 1751, more than 11 millions of gallons of spirits were ' 3 Geo. n. c. 23. * 16 Geo, 11. c. 8. CH. III. LICENSING ACTS. 4Si annually consumed, and the increase of population, especially in London, appears to have been perceptibly checked. Bishop Benson, in a letter written from London a little later, said ' there is not only no safety of living in this town, but scarcely any in the country now, robbery and murther are grown so fre- quent. Our people are now become what they never before were, cruel and inhuman. Those accursed spirituous liquors, which, to the shame of our Grovernment, are so easily to be had, and in such quantities drunk, have changed the very nature of our people ; and they will, if continued to be drunk, destroy the very race of people themselves.' ^ In 1751, however, some new and stringent measures were carried under the Pelham ministry, which had a real and very considerable effect. Distillers were prohibited under a penalty of 10/. from either retailing spirituous liquors themselves, or selling them to unlicensed retailers. Debts contracted for liquors not amounting to twenty shillings at a time were made irrecover- able by law. Eetail licenses were conceded only to \0l. house- holders within the Bills of Mortality, and to traders who were subject to certain parochial rates without them, and the penal- ties for unlicensed retailing were greatly increased. For the second offence, the clandestine dealer was liable to three months' imprisonment and to whipping ; for the third offence he incurred the penalty of transportation.^ Two years later another useful law was carried restricting the liberty of magistrates in issuing licenses, and subjecting public-houses to severe regulations.' Thougfh much less ambitious than the Act of 1736 these measures were far more efficacious, and they form a striking instance of the manner in which legislation, if not over-strained or ill-timed, can improve the morals of a people. Among other consequences of the Acts it may be observed that dropsy, which had risen in London to a wholly unprecedented point between 1718 and 1751, immediately diminished, and the diminution was ascribed by physicians to the marked decrease of drunkenness in the community.'* Still these measures formed a palliation and not a cure, and from the early years of the eighteenth century gin- ' Fraser"s Life of Berlteley, pp. ■• Heberden, Observations on tJif 332-333. Inerease and Decrease of Different - 24 Geo. 11. c. 40. Diseases (1801), p. 45. » 26 Geo. II. c. 13. VOL. I. II 482 EXGLAKD IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. en. iii. drinking has never ceased to be the main counteracting influ- ence to the moral, intellectual, and physical benefits that might be expected from increased commercial prosperity. Of all the pictures of Hogarth none are more impressive than those in which he represents the different conditions of a people whose national beverage is beer and of a people who are addicted to gin, and the contrast exhibits in its most unfavourable aspect the difference between the Hanoverian period and that which preceded it.' Something also was done to secure the maintenance of order, but there was still very much to be desired. The impunity with which outragfes were committed in the ill-lit and ill- guarded streets of London during the first half of the eighteenth century can now hardly be realised. In 1712 a club of young men of the higher classes, who assumed the name of Mohocks, were accustomed nightly to sally out drunk into the streets to hunt the passers-by and to subject them in mere wantonness to the most atrocious outrages. ' One of their favourite amuse- ments, called ' tipping; the lion,' was to squeeze the nose of their victim flat upon his face and to bore out his eyes with their fingers. Among them were the 'sweaters,' who formed a circle round their prisoner and pricked him with their swords till he sank exhausted to the ground, the ' dancing masters,' so called from their skill in making men caper by thrusting swords into their legs, the ' tumblers,' whose favourite amusement was to set women on their heads and commit various indecencies and barbarities on the limbs that were exposed. JNIaid servants as they opened their masters' doors were waylaid, beaten, and their faces cut. Matrons inclosed in barrels were rolled down the steep and stony incline of Snow Hill. Watchmen were unmerci fully beaten and their noses slit. Country gentlemen went to the theatre as if in time of war, accompanied by their armed retainers. A bishop's son was said to be one of the gang, and a baronet was among those who were arrested.^ This atrocious » See on this subject the Gentle- George II. i. G6-67. Smollett's Ilht. man's 3Iagacine, 175], pp. 1.^6, 282- 'FielA'mi^'s Increase of liohhern. Man- 283, .321, .322; 1760, jjp. 18-22. Short '.s deviWc'^i Fable of the Bees, llemark G. J fid. of the Increase and Decrease of Pari. Dehates. Mankind in England, p. 21. Coxe's '^ Swift's Journal to Stella. Gay's Life of PelhaTJi, n. 182. Maty's Zi/» Trivia. The Sjjcctator, d2i,d5oy dil. of Chesterfield, p. 209. Walpoles CH. iTi. INSECURITY OF THE STREETS. 483 fashion passed away, but other, though comparatively harmless, rioters were long accustomed to beat the watch, to break the citizens' windows, and to insult the passers-by, while robberies multiplied to a fearful extent. Long after the Eevolution, the policy of the Grovernment was to rely mainly upon informers for the repression of crime, but the large rewards that were offered were in a great degree neutralised by the popular feel- ing against the class. The watchmen or constables were as a rule utterly inefficient, were to be found much more frequently in beer-shops tlian in the streets, and were often themselves a serious danger to the community. Fielding, who knew them well, has left a graphic description of one class. ' They were chosen out of those poor decrepit people who are, from their want of bodily strength, rendered incapable of getting a liveli- hood by work. These men, armed only with a pole, Avhich some of them are scarcely able to lift, are to secure the persons and houses of his Majesty's subjects from the attacks of gangs of young, bold, desperate, and well-armed villains. If the poor old fellows should run away, no one, I think, can wonder, unless it be that they were able to make their escape.' ' Of others an opinion may be formed from an incident related by Horace Walpole in 1742. 'A parcel of drunken constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution against disorderly persons, and so took up every woman they met, till they had collected five or six and twenty, all of whom they thrust into St. Martin's roundhouse, where they kept them all night, with doors and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe, screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for water . . . but in vain. ... In the morning four were found stifled to death, two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. . . . Several of them were beggars, who from having no lodging were necessarily found in the street, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a poor washerwoman, big with child, who was retiring home late from washing. One of the constables is taken, and others absconded ; but I question if any of them will suffer death, though the greatest criminals in this town are the officers of justice ; there is no tyranny they do not exercise, no villany of ' A nulla, bk. i. ch. 2, 1 I 2 4S4 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. oi. iii. which they do not partake.' ^ The magistrates were in many cases not only notoriously ignorant and inefficient, but also what was termed ' trading justices,' men of whom Fielding said that ' they were never indifferent in a cause but when they could get nothing on either side.' ^ The daring and the number of robbers increased till London hardly resembled a civilised town. 'Thieves and robbers,' said Smollett, speaking of 1730, 'were now become more desperate and savage than they had ever appeared since mankind were civilised.' ^ The Mayor and Alder- men of London in 1744 drew up an address to the King, in w]}ich they stated that ' divers confederacies of great numbers of evil-disposed persons, armed with bludgeons, pistols, cutlasses, and other dangerous weapons, infest not only the private lanes and passages, but likewise the public streets and places of usual concourse, and commit most daring outrages upon the persons of your Majesty's good subjects whose affairs oblige them to pass through the streets, by robbing and wounding them, and these acts are frequently perpetrated at such times as were heretofore deemed hours of security.' * The same complaints were echoed in the same year in the ' Proposals of the Justices of the Peace for Suppressing Street Robberies,' and the magistrates who drew them up specially noticed, and ascribed to the use of spirituous liquors, 'the cruelties which are now exercised on the persons robbed, which before the excessive use of these liquors were un- known in this nation.' ^ They recommended an extension of the system of rewards, the suppression or restriction of gaming- houses, public gardens, fairs, and gin-shops, and also measures for systematically drafting into the army and navy suspected and dangerous persons against whom no positive crime could be proved. The evil, however, appears to have continued. ' One is forced to travel,' wrote Horace Walpole in 1751, 'even at noon as if one were going to battle.'^ The punishments were atrocious and atrociously executed, but they fell chiefly on the more ' To Sir H. Mann, July, 1742. 301. '^ See his picture of Justice ^ ITi?.f. of England. Thrasher, in Amelia, and his sketch * Andrews' Eightcvntli Century, p. of Justice Squeezum, in The Coffee- 230. hoxi&e Poliiician. See, too, Lawrence's ' Harris's Life of HardwicJie, ii. Life of Ficldinfi, pp. 23(!-2:U>, and 07-09. L^ arris's Life of Ilardmche, i. 3'JO- "' To Sir H.Mann. March 2.3, 1752. CH. III. INSECUEITY OF THE STREETS. 485 insignificant and inexperienced offenders. On a single morn- ing no less than seventeen persons were executed in London.' One gang of robbers in 1753 kept the \Yhole city in alarm from the number and skill of their robberies and the savage wounds they inflicted on their victims. A recompense of 100?. was offered for the apprehension of each of them, but its chief effect was to encourage men who deliberately decoyed poor and unwary wretches into robbery in order that by informing against them they might obtain the reward.^ The more experienced robbers for a time completely overawed the authorities. ' Officers of justice,' wrote Fielding, ' have owned to me that they ha^■e passed by such, with warrants in their pockets against them, without daring to apprehend them ; and, indeed, they could not be blamed for not exposing themselves to sure destruction ; for it is a melancholy truth that at this very day a rogue no sooner gives the alarm within certain purlieus than twenty or thirty armed villains are found ready to come to his assistance.' ^ When the eighteenth century had far advanced, robbers for whose apprehension large rewards were offered, have been known to ride publicly and unmolested, before dusk, in the streets of London, surrounded by their armed adherents, through the midst of a half-terrified, half-curious crowd.* This state of tilings was very alarming, and the evil was apparently growing, though some real measures had been taken to improve the security of London. One very important step in this direction was accomplished under Greorge I. The districts of Whitefriars and the Savoy had for centuries the privilege of sheltering debtors against their creditors, and they had become the citadels of the worst characters in the com- munity, who defied the officers of justice and were a perpetual danger to the surrounding districts. In 1697 a law had been passed annulling their franchises ; but similar privileges, though not legally recognised, were claimed for the Mint in Southwark, and for many years were successfully maintained. Multitude.^ of debtors, and with them great numbers of more serious crimi- » To Sir H. Mann, . March 23, ' Causes of the Incrcuse of Jiohlwrs. 1752. ■• See an extraordinary instance of 2 Sir John Fielding's Account of this in Andrews' EvjlitceutU Century, the Origin, and Effects of a Police u-t on p. 235. foot in 1753. 48 G ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. m. in. nals, fled to this quarter. The attempts of the officers to arrest them were resisted by open violence. Every kind of crime was concocted with impunity, and every conspirator knew wliere to look for daring and perfectly imsci-upulous agents. It was not uutil 1723 that the Grovernment ventured to grapple firmly with this great evil. An Act making it felony to obstruct the execution of a writ, and enabling the Sheriff of Surrey to raise a 2^osse comitatus for taking by force debtors from the Mint, finally removed this plague-spot from the metropolis, and put an end for ever in England to that right of sanctuary whicn had for many generations been one of the most serious obstruc- tions to the empire of the law.' Another and still more important step was the measure which was carried in 1736 for the proper lighting of the streets. Up to this date London was probably in this respect behind every other great city in Europe. The lighting was done by contract, and the contractors, by a singular arrangement, agreed to pay the City 600L a year for their monopoly. In return for this they were empowered to levy a rate of 6s. a year from all housekeepers who jDaid poor rate, and from all who had houses of over lOl. per annum, unless they hung out a lantern or candle before their doors, in which case they were exempt from paying for the public lamps. The contractors were bound to place a light before every tenth house, but only from Michael- mas to Lady Day, and then only until midnight, and only on what were termed 'dark nights.' The ' light nights' were ten every month from the sixth after the new moon till the third after the full moon. The system was introduced at the end of the reign of Charles II., and was then a great improvement, but it left the streets of London absolutely unlighted for far more than half the hours of darkness. Under such conditions the suppression of crime was impossible, and few measures enacted during the eighteenth century contributed more to the safety of the metropolis than that which was passed in 1736 enabling the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to erect glass lamps in sufficient numbers throughout London, to keep them lighted from the setting to the rising of the sun, and to levy a con- siderable and general rate for their maintenance. More than ' Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, iii. 127-128. CH. ni. POLICE MEASURES. 487 15,000 lamps are said in a few years to have been erected, and it was calculated that, while under the old system London was only lit by public lamps for about 750 hours in the year, under the new system it was lighted for about 5,000.' Yet, in spite of this great change, street robberies continued for some years to increase, and the inefficiency of the watchmen, and the great multiplication of the criminal classes under the influence of gin, were constant subjects of complaint. The great novelist Fielding, when driven by narrowed circumstances to accept the office of Bow Street magistrate, did much both to call attention to and to remedy the evil. Under the direction of the Duke of Newcastle, he and his brother, who succeeded him in his post, instituted a new police, consisting of picked men who had been constables, and who were placed under the direct control of the Bow Street magistrates. A very remarkable success rewarded their labours. The gang which had so long terrified London was broken up ; nearly all its members were executed, and the change effected was so great that Browne, writing in 1757, was able to say that ' the reigning evil of street robberies has been almost wholly suppressed.' - At the same time a serious attempt was made, at once to remove the seeds and sources of crime, and to provide a large reserve for the navy, by collecting many hundreds of the destitute boys who swarmed in the streets, clothing them by public subscription, and drafting them into ships of war, where they were educated as sailors.^ The j^olice- force soon became again very inefficient, but the condition of London does not appear to have been at any subsequent period quite as bad as in the first half of the eighteenth century, though the country highways were still infested with robbers. The early Hanoverian period has, indeed, probably contributed as much as any other portion of English history to the romance of crime. The famous burglar, John Sheppard, after two marvellous escapes from Newgate, which made him the idol of the populace, was at last hung in 1724. The famous thief-taker, Jonathan Wild, after a long career of crime, being at last convicted of returning stolen goods to the rightful owner without prosecuting the ' Maitland's Hist, of London, i. ' Sir John Fielding On the Police 5G.5-.5G7. 0/1753. - Browne's Estimate, i. p. 219. 4S8 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cir. m. thieves, which had lately been made a capital offence,' was ex- ecuted in the following year, and was soon after made the sub- ject of a romance by Fielding-. The famous highwayman, Dick Turpin, was executed in 1739. Another well-known highway- man named M'Lean is said to have been the son of an Irish Dean and a brother of a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the Hague. He had a lodging in St. James's Street ; his man- ners were those of a polished gentleman, and the interest he excited was so great that the day before his execution in 1750 no less than 3,000 persons visited his cell.^ The weakness of the law was also shown in the great number of serious riots which took place in every part of the kingdom. The Porteous riots and the riots against tlie malt-tax in Scotland, the Spital- iields riots directed against Irish weavers, and the numerous riots occasioned by the Gin Act, and at a later period by the system of turnpikes and by the preaching of the Methodists, were the most remarkable, while the characteristic English hatred of foreigners was shown by a furious disturbance in 1738 because French actors were employed at the Haymarket, and some years afterwards by the sacking of Drury Lane theatre because Gar- rick had employed in a spectacle some French dancers. Out- rages connected with smuggling were in many parts of the kingdom singularly daring and ferocious, and they were often countenanced by a large amount of popular sympathy.^ In Hampshire a gang of deer-stealers, known as the ^yaltham Blacks, were in the reign of George I. so numerous and so audacious, that a special and most sanguinary law, known as the ' Black Act,' was found necessary for their suppression.* Another crime, strikingly indicative of the imperfect civili- sation of the country, was the plunder of shipwrecked sailors, who were often lured by false signals upon the rocks. In some of the northern countries of Europe, till a comparatively recent period, the law expressly permitted the inhabitants to seize, as a prize, any property that was wrecked upon their coast.^ In ' The goods were stolen, and as will be found in Harris's Life of soon as a reward was offered restored JIardwichc. by a confederate. ^ See Pike's Hist, of Crime, ii. 309. ^ Horace Walpole to Mann. Aug, 652. 1750. Walpole had himself been * 9 George I. c. 22. See Whites robbed by M'Lean. Some curious Sellm-ne, pp. 29, 30. particulars of the crime of this period ^ Llackstone, bk. i. ch. viii. § 2. cii. III. PLUNDER OF WRECKS. 489 England, without any snch permission, it became a prevalent custom. At the close of the seventeenth century Defoe men- tions that many Englishmen had been sacrificed abroad in re- sentment for these barbarities, and he tells us how, when a ship of which he was himself a shareholder was sinking on the coast of Biscay, a Spanish ship refused to give any assistance, the captain declaring, ' that, having been shipwrecked some- where on the coast of England, the people, instead of saving him and his sliip, came otF and robbed him, tore the ship al- most to pieces, and left him and his men to swim ashore for their lives while they plundered the cargo ; upon which he and liis whole crew had sworn never to help an Englishman in what- ever distress he should find them, whether at sea or on shore.' ' About the middle of the eighteenth century the crime increased to an enormous degree on many parts of the British coast.^ In order to check it a law had been passed in the reign of Anne and made perpetual under Greorge I., making it felony, without the benefit of clergy, to do any act by which a ship was destroyed, fining anyone who secreted shipwrecked goods treble their value, and enabling the authorities in every seaport town to take special measures for the relief of ships in distress, and in case of success to exact a certain sum from the owners as salvage.^ It was ordered that this act should be read four times yearly in all the parish churches and chapels of all sea- port towns in the kingdom.^ It proved, however, utterly insuffi- cient, and in the administration of Pelham the plunder of a ship- wrecked or distressed vessel was made a capital offence.^ Not- withstanding this enactment, however, the crime was by no means suppressed. It was the especial scandal of Cornwall. In visiting that county in 1776, Wesley learnt that it was still as common there as ever ; he severely censured the connivance or indifference of the gentry, who might have totally suppressed it,*"' and he also found the custom very general on the western coast of Ireland." ' Wilson's Life of Drfoe, i. 209. ' ' A Swedish ship being leaky 2 Coxe's Life (f Pdluim, ii. 212. put into one of our harbours. The ' 12 Anne II. c. 18 ; 4 Oeortre I. c. Irish, according to custom, ran to 12. plunder her. A neighbouring gentle- * Macphcrson's Annals of Cum- man hindered them; and for so doing merce, iii. pp. 39-41. demanded a fourth part of the cargo. * 26 George II. c. 19. And this, they said, the law allows.' " Wesley's Journal, Aug. 177G. Wesley's Juurnal, June 17(J0. 490 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cit. m The long- list of social reforms passed under the Pelham ministry may be fitly closed by the Marriage Act of Lord Hard- wicke, which put a stop to tliose Fleet marriages which had become one of the strangest scandals of English life. Before this Act, the canon law was in force in England, and according to its provisions the mere consent of the parties, followed by cohabitation, constituted, for many purposes, a valid marriage : and a marriage valid for all purposes could be celebrated by a priest in orders at any time or place, without registration and without the consent of parents or guardians. Stamped licenses were indeed reqvured by law, but not for the validity of the con- tract, and their omission was only punished as a fraud upon the revenue. In such a state of the law atrocious abuses had grown up. A multitude of clergymen, usually prisoners for debt and almost always men of notoriously infamous lives, made it their business to celebrate clandestine marriages in or near the Fleet. They performed the ceremony without license or ques- tion, sometimes without even knowing the names of the persons they united, in public-houses, brothels, or garrets. They ac- knowledged no ecclesiastical superior. Almost every tavern or brandy shop in the neighbourhood had a Fleet parson in its pay. Notices were placed in the windows, and agents went out in every direction to solicit the passers-by. A more pretentious, and perhaps more popular establishment was the Chapel in Curzon-street, where the Kev. Alexander Keith officiated. He was said to have made a ' very bishopric of revenue ' by clan- destine marriages, and the expression can hardly be exag- gerated if it be true, as was asserted in Parliament, that he had married on an average 6,000 couples every year. He himself stated that he had married many thousands, the great majority of whom had not known each other more than a week, and many only a day or half a day. Young and inexperienced lieirs fresh from college, or even from school, were thus continually entrapped. A passing frolic, the excitement of drink, an almost momentary passion, the deception or intimidation of a few unprincipled confederates, were often sufficient to drive or inveigle them into sudden marriages, which blasted all the prospects of their lives. In some cases, when men slept off a drunken fit, they heard to their astonishment that, during its CH. lit. FLEET :\LiEEIAGES. 491 continuance, they had gone through the ceremony. When a fleet came in and the sailors flocked on shore to spend their pay in drink and among prostitutes, they were speedily beleaguered, and 200 or 300 marriages constantly took place within a week. Among the more noted instances of clandestine marriages Ave find that ol" the Duke of Hamilton with Miss Gunning, that of the Duke of Kingston with Miss Chudleigh, that of Henry Fox with the daughter of the Duke of Eichmond, that of the poet Churchill, who at the age of seventeen entered into a marriage which contributed largely to the unhappiness of his life. The state of the law seemed, indeed, ingeniously calculated to promote both the misery and the immorality of the people, for while there was every facility for contracting the most incon- siderate marriages, divorce, except by a special Act of Parlia- ment, was absolutely unattainable. It is not surprising that con- tracts so lightly entered into should have been as lightly violated. Desertion, conjugal infidelity, bigamy, fictitious marriages, cele- brated by sham priests, were the natural and frequent con- sequences of the system. In many cases in the Fleet registers names were suppressed or falsified, and marriages fraudulently antedated, and many households, after years of peace, were convulsed by some alleged pre-contract or clandestine tie. It was proved before Parliament that on one occasion there had been 2,954 Fleet marriages in four months, and it appeared from the memorandum-books of Fleet parsons that one of them made bll. in marriage fees in a single month, that another had married 173 couples in a single day. The evil was of considerable standing, and some attempts had been made to remedy it. By a law of William III. any clergyman celebrating a marriage without license was subject to a fine of 100/.,' but this penalty was not renewed at each violation of the Act, and the offender was able by a writ of error to obtain a delay of about a year and a half, during which time he carried on his profession without molestation, made at least 400/. or 500/., and then frequently absconded. No penalty whatever attached to the public-house keeper, who hired the clergyman, and in whose house the ceremony was performed. Another Act, passed in 1712, after reciting the loss the revenue ' 6 & 7 William III. c. G ; 7 & 8 "William III. c. xxxv. 492 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. hi. experienced from these practices, raised the penalty incurred by the priest to imprisonment, but this also it was fouud possible to evade. To meet the evil it was necessary to remodel the whole marriage law. The first step in this direction was taken by Lord Bath, who, when attending a Scotch trial, was struck by the hardship of a case in which a man, after a marriage of thirty years, was claimed by another woman on the ground of a pre-contract ; but the preparation of a mea- sure on the subject soon passed into the hands of the Chan- cellor, Lord Hardwicke, who succeeded, in 1753, in carrying- it successfully through Parliament. His Act provided that, with the exception of Jewish and Quaker marriages, no marriage should be valid in England which was not cele- brated by a priest in orders, and according to the Anglican liturgy, that the ceremony could not be performed unless the banns had been published for three successive Sundays in the parish church, or unless a license had been procured, and that these licenses in the cases of minors should be conditional upon the consent of the parents or guardians. The special license by which alone the marriage could be celebrated in any other place than the parish church, could only be issued by the Archbishop, and cost a considerable sum. All marriages which did not con- form to these provisions were null, and all who celebrated them were liable to transportation.' This measure is extremely important, as introducing into English legislation a principle which has even now by no means attained its full recognition, but which is evidently destined to become one day supreme. According to the theological theory which was adopted by the law of England, and was long ab- solute in Christendom, the Church alone has a right to deter- mine what constitutes the validity of a marriage, and when that marriage is once consummated it is absolutely indissoluble, and possesses a mystical sanctity altogether irrespective of its in- fluence upon society. In opposition to this view there has grown up in the last century a conviction that it is not the busi- ness of the State to enforce morals, and especially any particular theological conceptions of duty, that its sole en-i shovdd be to increase the temporal happiness of the people, and that the re- • 26 George II. c. 33. c:i. HI. THE MARRIAGE ACT. 403 strictions it imposes on individual liberty can only be justified, and should be strictly limited, by this end. According to this view the ecclesiastical and the legal conceptions of marriage are entirely distinct. Marriage should be regarded by the legislator merely as a civil contract of extreme importance to the maintenance of the young, the disposition of property, and the stability of society ; and it is the right and the duty of the State, with a sole view to the interests of society, to determine on what conditions it may be celebrated, annulled, or repeated. In some respects these two views coincide, while in others they conflict. Every statesman will admit that the purity and stability of the marriage state are social ends of great import- ance, and that a religious sanction contributes to secure them. At the same time the legislator will, in some respects, be more severe, and in others more indulgent, than the divine. Con- sidering marriage as a contract involving momentous civil con- sequences, he may insist that it should be entered into publicly, formally, and deliberately, may lay down in the interests of society certain restrictive conditions, and may absolutely refuse, when those conditions are not complied with, to recognise its existence, or to punish those who violate or repeat it. On the other hand, in all questions relating to marriages of consan- guinity or to divorce, State interference with the liberty of individuals can only be justified on utilitarian grounds. If, for example, the question be that of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, a legislator imbued with this spirit will consider it wholly irrelevant to discuss whether such marriages were or were not forbidden in the Levitical code, whether the Levitical code is binding upon a Christian, whether ecclesiastical tradi- tion favours or condemns them. The sole question for him to decide is whether they produce such a clear preponderance of social evils as would justify him in restricting in this respect the natural liberty of the subject. If they do not, they should be permitted, and those who regard them as theologically wrong should refrain from contracting them. A similar prin- ciple applies to the difficult question of divorce. At first sight nothing can appear more monstrous than that when two per- sons have voluntarily entered into a contract with the single purpose of promoting their mutual happiness, when they find 494 ENGLAND IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CU. Ill bv experience that the effect of tliat contract is not happiness but misery, and when they are both of them anxious to dissolve it, the law— whose sole legitimate object is the happiness of the people — should interpose to prevent it. The presumption against such an interference with individual liberty must always be very weighty, and there are many considerations which tend to strengthen it. Of all forms of wretchedness, that resulting from an unhappy marriage is perhaps the most diffi- cult to anticipate, for it may result from a turn of disposition or an infirmity of temper which is only revealed by the most intimate knowledge. In all ages and countries a vast propor- tion of these life-long contracts have either been negotiated by tlie relations of the contracting parties, with only their nominal consent, or have been entered into at an age when there can be little knowledge of life or character, when the judgment is still unformed, or under the influence of a passion which is pro- verbially fitted to distort it. It is also a well-recognised fact that, as Swift says, tlie art of ' making nets " is very different from the art of 'making cages,' that many of the qualities peculiarly fitted to attract men into marriage are also peculiarlv unfitted to secure the happiness of a home. It may be added that while the chances of unhappiness in this contract are so many, that unhappiness may easily rise to an amount of moral misery no other condition can produce, for it extends to and embitters the minutest details of daily life, pervades every sphere, and depresses every aim. In many cases marriage in- volves to the weaker party a tyranny so brutal, galling, inces- sant, and at the same time absolutely hopeless, that it forms the nearest earthly type of eternal damnation. In such cases it would be much more reasonable to speak of the sacrament of divorce than of the sacrament of marriage, and it were hard to say what benefit issues from the contract, unless it be that of relieving death of half its terror by depriving life of all its charm. Thousands of couples who, if freed from the effects of one great mistake, possess all the elements of usefulness and enjoyment, are thus condemned by law to the total sacrifice of the happiness of their lives. Nor are the moral effects less disastrous. No condition can be more fitted to break down and degrade the moral character than that I have described. No CH. III. DIVOECE. 495 condition can present stronger temptations. A moralist may very reasonably doubt whether even open profligacy is more debasino- than a legitimate union, in which hatred has taken the place of love, and the unspoken day-dream of each partner is to witness the burial of the other. It is added that even if the law imposed no restrictions on divorce, perpetual monogamous attachments would always be the most common, for the simple reason that they are those which are most conducive to the happiness of men. They have in their support one of the strongest of all human sentiments — the cohesion of custom. In no other case is this cohesion so powerful, for in no other is the relation so close or so constant. Putting aside the idle cant of satirical writers, every candid observer will admit that the death of a husband or a wife is usually, without exception, the greatest calamity that can befall the survivor. With such a voluntary cohesion severance would be very rare unless there were some strong reason to overcome it, and when so strong a reason exists it would pro- bably be advisable. The birth of children, which makes the stability of the family peculiarly necessary, contributes in itself to secure it, for every child joins its parents by a new bond. Nature has abundantly provided for the stability of the marriage state when it promotes happiness. Why should the law prevent its dissolution when it produces pain ? The answer is that these arguments underrate the violence of a passion which is, perhaps, the most dangerous and unruly in human nature, and at the same time neglect to make suffi- cient allowance for the inequality of the sexes. In the marriage contract the woman is the weaker ; she is usually the poorer ; her happiness is far more absolutely bound up with her domestic life than the happiness of a man. Her vigour passes before that of her husband. If cast out at a mature age from the domestic circle, her whole life is broken, and the very probability of such a fate is sufficient to embitter it. If divorce could always be effected without delay, difficulty, expense, or blame ; if the law provided no protection for the weaker partner against those violent passions which may be conceived by one sex in mature age, and which are rarely inspired by the other except in youth, it is easy to predict what would be the result. The 496 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. at. m. tie of custom would in innumerable cases be snapped by the impulse of passion. Very many would never pass that painful novitiate, when tastes and habits have not yet assimilated, which is now so often the preface to many years of uninterrupted hap- piness. In many cases the mere decline of physical charms would lead to a severance of the bond. The appetite for change would grow with the means of gratifying it, and thus affections would be weakened, habits would be unsettled, and insecurity and misery would be widely spread. Nor would the evil stop liere. The stability of domestic life is of vital importance to tlie position, the education, and the moral culture of the young, and to the maintenance among all classes of those steady and settled habits that are most valuable to the community. It is not necessary in this place to pursue this subject into detail, or to discuss the exact amount of restriction which in these cases can be judiciously imposed. It is plain that the marriage tie is not one of those which the legislator can deal with on the principle of unlimited freedom of contract. It is also, I think, plain that the complete ascendancy in law of the secular view of marriage must sooner or later lead to a greater extension of the liberty of divorce than in England, at least, is admitted. The condemnation of either partner for any of the graver or more degrading forms of criminal offence, and even habits of inveterate and systematic drunkenness, might very reasonably be made legal causes. The question whether the desire of the two contracting parties, who have discovered that the contract into which they had entered is prejudicial to their happiness, should be regarded as a sufficient ground, is a much more difficult one. It is clear, however, that a legislator who accorded such latitude would be perfectly justified in imposing upon both parties such a period of probation or delay as would meet the cases of fickle- ness or sudden passion, and on the stronger party such special burdens as would to some extent equalise the balance of interest. But his judgment on this matter should be formed solely by an estimate of consequences. He must strike the balance between opposing evils, and his point of view is thus wholly different from that of the theologian who starts with the belief that divorce is in itself necessarily sacrilegious. This is a matter for the conscience and judgment of individuals, but not for the cog- CH. III. THE JMAERIAGE ACT. 497 nisance of law. In the Marriage Act of Lord Hardwicke the question of divorce was not directly raised, but the modern legal doctrine of marriage was fully established by the clause which treated matrimonial contracts as absolute nullities, thovigh they were celebrated with a regular religious ceremony, if certain legal requirements were wanting. The dissolution of religious marriages for temporal reasons was, indeed, not altogether new in British law. In the Eegency Bill, which was passed on the death of the Prince of Wales in 1751, there was a clause annul- ling any marriage contracted by the young heir to tlie tlirone before the expiration of bis minority without the consent of the Eegent, or of the major part of the Council ; and a similar prin- ciple was involved in the Irish law annulling marriages between Protestants and Catholics, celebrated by priests or degraded clergymen. The Marriage Act of 1753, however, gave this principle a much greater extension. It was justly noticed as a striking illustration of the decline of dogmatic theology in England that a bill, involving so important a principle, should have passed without serious difficulty througli tlie House of Lords, and should have been assented to by the whole bench of bishops.^ In the House of Commons, however, the Marriage Bill was fiercely assailed. Henry Fox, who had himself a very natural predilection for the old system, though a member of the Go- vernment, met it with the most determined and acrimonious opposition, and he found a considerable body of supporters. Their arguments will now appear to most men very incon- clusive. Much was said on such topics as the natural right of all men to be married as they pleased, the immorality that would ensue from any measure which rendered marriages difficult, the tendency of the new Bill to increase the despotic power of parents, and the advantages of the old system in assisting younger sons in marrying heiresses, and thus dispersing for- tunes which under the law of primogeniture had been undulv accumulated.^ Such arguments could have no real weight in the ' Walpole's Memoirs of George II. it 'seemed to annex as sacred privi- i. pp. 146, 31:2. lepes to birth as couid he devised in - It is curious to observe what the proudest, poorest little Italian nonsense Horace Walpole talked principality,' that, it was ' the bane about this Bill, not in a party speech, of society, the golden grate that sepa- but in a grave history. He says that rates the nobility from the plebeians,' VOL. I. K Iv 493 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. in. face of the glaring and scandalous evils of Fleet marriages, and the law as remodelled by Lord Hardwicke continued in force imtil the present century. It is evident, however, that the monopoly which the Anglican clergy possessed of celebrating legal marriages could not be accepted by other sects as a final settlement of the question, and as the principle of religious equality became more fully recognised in English politics, a serious and at last successful agitation arose against the Act There were also some legal flaws in it, which somewhat quali- fied the admiration with which it was regarded by lawyers.' Such as it was, however, it was effectual in suppressing a great scandal and a great evil which had taken deep root in the liabits of the nation. With large classes of the community the easy process of Fleet marriages was very popular. On the day before the new law came into force no less than 300 were cele- lirated, and a bold attempt was made by a clergyman named Wilkinson to perpetuate the system at the Savoy. He claimed, by.^'4rtue of some old privileges attaching to that quarter, to be extra-parochial, and to have tlie right of issuing licenses himself, and he is said to have actually celebrated as many as 1,400 clandestine marriages after the Marriage Act had passed. By the instrumentality of Garrick, one of whose company had been married in this manner in 1756, a Savoy license passed into the hands of the Government, and the trial and transportation of Wilkinson and his curate put an end to clandestine marriages in England. Those who desired them, however, found a refuge in Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Guernsey; and in 1760 there were always vessels ready at Southampton to carry fugitive lovers to the latter island.^ The measures I have enumerated, tliougli very important, were for the most part remedies applied to some great and crying evils which had at last become intolerable to tlie community. Of the active reforming and philanthropic spirit which became so con- that * f rom beginninG: to end of the ^ ggg j Southerden Burns' very Bill one only view had predominated, curious Hist, of Meet Mari-iages ; the that of pride and of aristocracy.' — copious extracts from the Fleet Memoii-s of George II. i. 33G-318, registers in Knight "s //i.?^. o/Zow^fow : 358. Pennant's London ; Smollett's H\d. ; ' See Lord Campbell's severe Pari. Higt. ; and Walpole's Memoirs judgment of it. Lives of the Chan- of George II. cellars, vi. 2(J2. en. in. BERKELEY AND OGLETHORPE. 499 sdicuous in the reign of George III. we find scarcely any traces. Sonoiething of this spirit may be detected in the creation of the great religious societies, and in part of the legislation of William. Something of it appeared, though in a more exclusively eccle- siastical form, during the clerical reaction under Anne, but during the ascendancy of Walpole and the Pelhams it almost wholly died away. The jNIethodist movement was as yet in its purely religious stage ; the Court and Government initiated nothing, and the number of private reformers was very small. The scheme of Berkeley for founding a Cliristian university in Ber- muda for the civilisation and conversion of America was one of the few examples. This most extraordinary man, who united the rarest and most various intellectual gifts with a grace and purity of character, and an enthusiasm of benevolence, that fascinated all about bim, succeeded for a time in communi- cating something of his own spirit to some of the most selfish of politicians. The story is well known how his irresistible eloquence turned the ridicule of the Scriblerus Club into a brief but genuine outburst of enthusiasm ; bow he raised by subscription a considerable sum for carrying out his scheme, Walpole himself contributing 200^. ; how his success in can- vassing tlie JMembers of Parliament was so great that the Bill for endowing the university passed in 1726 with only two dis- sentient voices. Walpole was astonished at the success, having, as he said, ' taken it for granted the very preamble of the Bill would have secured its rejection,' but although he promised 20,000/. he never paid it, and in 1731 Berkeley, receiving a private intimation that it was hopeless expecting it, was obliged to abandon the enterprise, and returned from Ehode Island to Ireland. A more successful reformer was James Oglethorpe, a verv remarkable man, whose long life of 96 years was crowded with picturesque incidents and with the most various and active benevolence. Having served as a young man under Prince Eugene, he entered Parliament in 1722, and sat there for thirty-three years. Though a man of indomitable energy, and of some practical and organising talent, he had no forensic ability, and he was both too hot-tempered, too impulsive, and too mag- nanimous to take a high rank among the adroit and intriguing K X 2 500 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. in. politicians of his time. He would probably have remained an undistinguished Member of Parliament if it had not happened tliat among his acquaintances was a gentleman named Castell, who, having fallen from a considerable position into hopeless debt, had been imprisoned in the Fleet, and being unable to pay the accustomed fees to the warder, had been confined in a house where the small-pox was raging, and had perished by the disease. This incident directed the attention of Ogletliorpe to the ma- nagement of the prisons. For many years it had been known that debtors in England were subject to frightful privations, and a book had been published as early as 1691 enumerating their wrongs,^ but no steps had been taken to redress them. Oglethorpe, however, succeeded in 1729 in obtaining a Parlia- mentary inquiry into the condition of the Fleet and the JNIar- shalsea, which was afterwards extended to that of the other jails, and the results were so horrible that they produced a universal cry of indignation. It appeared that the wardenship of the Fleet was regularly put up for sale, that it had been bought from the great Lord Clarendon by John Huggins for 5,000^., that it had been sold by Huggins to Bambridge for the same sum in 1728, and that these men were accustomed, in addition to the large regular emoluments of the office, to exact lieavy fees from the prisoners, and to avenge themselves upon tliose who were unable or unwilling to pay them, by the ut- most excesses of brutality. In the Fleet, when Bambridge was governor, such prisoners were continually left manacled for long periods in a dungeon, almost unendurable from its stench and its want of ventilation, situated above a common sewer, and in which the bodies of tliose who died in the prison were deposited to await the coroner's inquest. One brave soldier had been falsely accused of theft, acquitted by the jury, and then seized and imprisoned as a debtor by the jailer on account of the jail-fees that were incurred during his detention. Cases were proved, of debtors who, being unable to pay their fees, were locked up, like Castell, with prisoners suffering from small-pox, and thus rapidly destroyed ; of others who were reduced almost to skeletons by ' See en this subject Muralfs prayer ' for imprisoned debtors ' to be Letter's on the Englisli (Eng. trans. inserted in the Irish Prayer-book. 172tj), p. 69. In 1711 the Irish Con- Mant's Hid. of the Irish Church, ii. vocation ordered a special form of p. 2'6?>. en. iiT. STATE OF THE PRISONS. oOl insufficient food ; of sick women who were left without beds, without attendance, and without proper nourishment, till they died of neglect ; of men who were tortured by the thumbscrew, or who lingered in slow agony under irons of intolerable weight. One poor Portuguese had been left for two months in this con- dition. Another prisoner had lost all memory and all use of his limbs from the sufferings he underwent. Great numbers perished through want of the most ordinary care. It appears, indeed, to have been the deliberate intention of the governor to put an end to some of his prisoners, either because they were unable to pay fees, or because they had for some reason incurred his resent- ment, or in order that he might obtain the small remnants of their property. In Newgate, and in some of the jarovincial prisons in England, almost equal atrocities were discovered. In Dublin — where inquiries were instituted with commendable promptitude by the Irish Parliament — it was found that a tax was sysitematically laid upon each prisoner to provide strong- drink for the jail, that the worst criminals were mingled with the debtors, and that a tyranny not less brutal than that of the Fleet was exercised by the jailer. One wretched man, crippled by a broken leg, was left for two months in a bed to which the water frequently rose, and which rotted away beneath him.^ In most large prisons the jail fever, produced by squalor, overcrowding, bad drainage, insufficient nourishment, and in- sufficient exercise, made fearful ravages, and sometimes, by a righteous retribution, it spread from these centres through the rest of the community. This evil was already noticed in the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries. The 'Black Assize ' at Oxford, in 1577, was long remembered, when the Chief Baron, the Sheriff, and about 300 men died within forty hours. Bacon described the jail fever as ' the most pernicious infection next to the plague, . . . whereof we have had in our time experience twice or thrice, when both the judges that sat upon the jail, and numbers of those who attended the business, or were present, sickened and ' Howell's State Trials, svii. enumerated many of tlie atrocities Pai'l. Hint. viii. 708-753. Nichols' in the Dublin prison. He has not J.ife of JIogaHh, p. 1'.). Historical mentioned that the inquiry wliich Hnyistcr, 172'.). Wright's Memoirs revealed them was a consequence of of Oglethorpe. Andrews' Eighteenth the discovery of similar atrocities in Centiirij, pp. 294-298. Mr. Fnjude the ijrincipal prisons of England. (^Unjlish ill Ireland, i. 591-592) has 502 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. in. died.' In 1730 Chief Baron Peng-elly, Serjeant Shippeu, and many others, were Icilled by jail fever when attending the Dorset- shire Assizes, and the High Sheriff of Somersetshire perished through the same cause. In the Scotch rebellion no less than 200 men in a single regiment were infected by some deserters. The army and navy, indeed, through the operation of the press- gang, wliich seized numbers just released from prison, was peculiarly exposed to the contagion, and it was said by a good judge, that the mortality produced by the jail fever was greater than that produced by all other causes combined. In 1750 the disease raged to such an extent in Newgate that at the Old Bailey Assizes two judges, the Lord Mayor, an alderman, and many of inferior rank were its victims. From that time sweet- smelling herbs were always placed in the prisoners' dock to counteract the contagion.' Something was done by new prison regulations, and by the removal and prosecution of some of the worst offenders, to remedy the evil; but still the condition of the prisons continued till a much later period a disgrace to English civilisation. The miseries of the imprisoned debtor were commemorated in the poetry of Thomson, and by the pencil of Hogarth, and they furnished the subject of some of the most pathetic pages of Fielding and Smollett. As late as 1741 it was announced that two prisoners had died of extreme want in ihe Marshalsea in Dublin, and that several others were reduced to the verge of starvation.^ In 1759 Dr. Johnson computed the number of imprisoned debtors at not less than 20,000,^ and asserted that one of four died every year from the treatment they underwent. The exposure of the abuses in the English prisons by no means exhausted the philanthropic energies of Oglethorpe. Like Berkeley, his imagination was directed towards the West, and he conceived the idea of founding a colony in which poor debtors on attaining their freedom might find a refuge. A charter was obtained in 1732. Private subscriptions flowed largely in, and with the consent of Berkeley the proceeds of the sale of ' Howard On, P7-is(ms, Introdue- ^ Idler, No. 38. Johnson after- tion. Lawrence's JAfe of Fielding, wards, in reprinting the Idler, ad- pp. 206-297. mitted that he had found reasons to 2 Dublin Gazette, March 17-21, question the accuracy of this calcu- 1740-iI. latiuu. CH. III. LATER CAREER OF OGLETHORPE. 503 some lands, which Parliament had voted for the Bermuda scheme, were appropriated to the new enterprise. Early in 1733 the colony of Georgia was founded, and Oglethorpe for many years was its governor. Besides giving a refuge to needy classes from England, the colony was intended to exercise a civilising and missionary influence upon the surrounding Indians ; and in its charter Oglethorpe inserted a most memorable clause, absolutely prohibiting the introduction of slaves. Georgia became a centre of the Moravian sect, the scene of the early labours of the Wesleys, and afterwards of Whitefield, and the asylum of many of the poor Protestants who had been driven, on account of their religion, from the bishopric of Salzburg. The administration of Oglethorpe was marred by some faults of temper and of tact, but it was on the whole able, ener- getic, and fortunate. When hostilities broke out with Spain he conducted the war with brilliant courage and success, and he succeeded in materially diminishing the atrocities which had hitherto accompanied Indian warfare. He became a general and served in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, but was repulsed with some loss at the village of Clifton ; and though acquitted by a court of inquiry, his conduct during this campaign threw a certain shadow over his military reputation. He succeeded, in 1749, in carrying through Parliament a Bill exempting the Moravians in England from the necessity of violating their religious sentiments by taking oaths or bearing arms. He was one of the first men who recognised the rising genius of Johnson ; and in his old age he was the intimate friend of Johnson, Gold- smith, and Burke. His singularly varied and useful life termi- nated in 1785.^ With these exceptions, probably the only considerable trace of warm and disinterested philanthropy in the sphere of politics during the period I am describing was the vote of 100,000/. in 1755 for the relief of the distressed Portuguese, after the great earthquake at Lisbon. In no respect does the legislation of this period present a more striking contrast to that of the • Wriffht's Life of Oqhrthorpe. See, One driven by stron.? benevolence of soul . , ^ 11- i I • • Shall flv like Of.'letliorpe from pole to pole. too, the many allusions to him in - jnUaUun of Horace, Ep. U. Boswell's Johiinon. H. Walpole always depreciates Oj^lethorpe. Pope has See, too, "Wesley's Journal and Tver- devoted a well-known couplet to him. man's Life of Wcdcy. 504 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTE CENTURY. cii. iii. nineteenth century than in tae almost complete absence of jittempts to alleviate the social condition of the poorer classes, or to soften the more repulsive features of English life. The public press had not yet undertaken that minute and searching investigation into abuses, which is the most useful of all its functions ; and the general level of humanity in the community was little, if at all, higher than in the preceding generation. The graphic and terrible picture which is given in ' Eoderick Eandom ' of the hardships endured by the common sailors on board a man-of-war, was derived from the actual experience of the author, when serving in 1741 as surgeon's mate in the ex- pedition against Carthagena ; ' and those who read it will hardly wonder that it was found impossible in time of war to man the loyal navy without having constant recourse to the press-gang.^ The condition of the army was little better. It appeal's from a memorial drawn up in 1707 that the garrison of Portsmouth was reduced by death or desertion to half its former number in less than a year and a half, through sickness, want of firing, and bad barracks, and the few new barracks tliat were erected were built with the most scandalous parsimony, and crowded to the most frightful excess.^ The African slave-trade was still an important branch of British enterprise. A few isolated voices, as we shall hereafter see, had been raised against it, but they had as yet made no sensible impression on the public mind, and no less a statesman than the elder Pitt made its development a main object of his policy. The penal code was not only atrociously sanguinary and continually aggravated by the addi- tion of new offences ; it was also executed in a manner pecu- liarly fitted to brutalise the people. In some respects, it is ' That it is not exagfrerated is a reserve of 3,000 seamen, who were abundantly shown by Lind's Ktsaij on to receive a pension in time of peace, the Health of Sea me II, which was tirst and to be called into active service published in 1757. This author says in time of war ; but the Bill was (ch. i.): 'I have known 1,000 men violently opposed and eventually confined together in a guardship, dropped (Coxe's Life of Pelham, ii. some hundi'eds of whom had neitlier 6(5-70). A somewhat similar measure, a bed nor so much as a change of but on a larger scale, had actually linen. I have seen many of them passed under William, but it was brought into hospital in the same repealed in the ninth j'ear of Anne clothes and shirts they had on when (Macpherson's Amials of Commerce, pressed several montlis l)efore. ii. ()8:5). '■' Pelham, in 1749, endeavoured to * Clode's Militarxj Forces of the abolish impressment by maintaining Crown, i. 222. cii. m. PUBLIC EXECUTIONS. 505 true, it may be compared favourably with the criminal pro- cedures of the Continent. English law knew nothing of torture or of arbitrary imprisonment, or of the barbarous punishment of the wheel, and no English executions were quite so horrible as those which took place in the Cevennes in the early years of the eighteenth century, or as the prolonged and hideous agonies which Damiens endured for several hours, in 1757. But this is about all that can be said. Executions in England till very lately have been a favourite public spectacle — it may almost be said a public amusement — and in the last century every- thing seemed done to make the people familiar with their most frightful aspects. A ghastly row of heads of the rebels of 1745 mouldered along the top of Temple Bar. Gallows were erected in every important quarter of the city, and on many of them corpses were left rotting in chains. ^Yhen Black- stone wrote, there were no less than 160 offences in England punishable with death, and it was a very ordinary occurrence for ten or twelve culprits to be hung on a single occasion, for forty or fifty to be condemned at a single assize. In 1732 no less than seventy persons received sentence of death at the Old Bailey,^ and in the same year we find no less than eighteen persons hung in one day in the not very considerable town of Cork.^ Often the criminals staggered intoxicated to the gal- lows, and some of the most noted were exhibited for money by the turnkeys before their execution. No less than 200^. are said to have been made in this manner in a few days when Sheppard was prisoner in Newgate.^ Dr. Dodd, the unhappy clergyman who was executed for forgery, was exhibited for two hours in the press-room at a shilling a head before he was led to the gallows.'* ' The executions of criminals,' wrote a Swiss traveller in the beginning of the eighteenth century, ' return every six weeks regularly with the sessions. The criminals pass through ' Andrews' Eighteenth Ccntunj, p. Roberts' Social Hist, of the Southe7-n 271. Counties, p. 152. - Dublin Weekly Journal, April ^ Harris's Life of Hardmieke, i. 22, 1732. See, too, Madden's Hist, of p. 158. PeHodical lAterature in Ireland, i. ■* J'uhlio Ledger, quoted by An- 258; and for an almost equally drews, p. 281, strikinginstanceinlTSTatWorcester, 50G ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iir. the streets in carts, dressed in their best clothes, with white gloves and noseg-ays, if it be the season. Those that die merrily or that don't at least show any great fear of death, are said to die like gentlemen ; and to merit this encomium most of them die like beasts, without any concern, or like fools, having no other view than to divert the crowd. . . . Though there is some- thing very melancholy in this, yet a man cannot well forbear laughing to see these rogues set themselves off as heroe^ by an affectation of despising death. . . . The frequent executions, the great numbers that suffer together, and the applauses of the crowd, may contribute something to it, and the brandy which they swallow before their setting out helps to stun them.'' Women who were found guilty of murdering their husbands, or of the other offences comprised under the terms high or petit treason, were publicly burnt, by a law which was not abolished till 1790.^ A stake ten or eleven feet high was planted in the ground. An iron ring was fastened near the top, and from it the culprit was hung while the faggots were kindled under her feet. The law enjoined that she should be burnt alive, but in practice the sentence was usually miti- gated, and she was strangled before the fire touched her body. A horrible case, however, occurred in 1726 at the exe- cution of a murderess named Katherine Hayes. The fire scorching the hands of the executioner, he slackened the rope before he strangled her, and though fresh faggots were hastily piled up, a considerable time elapsed before her agonies were terminated.^ The law which condemned a man guilty of high treason to be cut down when lialf hung, to be disembowelled, and to have his bowels burnt before his face, was still executed in ghastly detail.'* • The law wliich condemned a prisoner who refused to plead on a capital charge to be laid naked on his ' Muralt's Letters on the Eiujllxh to the gallows and there to be burnt Nation (English trans. 172G), pp. 42- alive.' ~ niarlmtone, iv. ch. 6. 4t. 3 Andrews, p. 279. See, too, her '^ 'In treasons of every kind the \iic, in The Liro» of Eminent Cnmiuals punishment of women is the same, executed betn-een 1720 aful 1735. and different from that of men. For * See Andrews' Eighteenth Cen- as the natural mode.sty of the sex tuv}/, p. 281. Eight persons guilty of forbids tlie exposing and jiublicly holding commissions in the army of mangling their bodies, their sentence the Pretender, were executed in 174fi (which is to the full as terrible to on Kennington Common. The State the sense as the other) is, to be drawn Tnals (xviii. 351) give the following cu. ra. BEUTAL PUNISHMENTS. 507 back in a dark room, while weights of stone or iron were placed on his breast till he was slowly pressed to death, was enforced in England in 17'21 and in 1735, and in Ireland as late as 1 740. A criminal was sentenced in England to the same fate in 1741, but he at last consented to plead; and the law was not repealed till 1771.' The punishment of the pillory, which was very common, seemed specially adapted to encourage the brutality of the populace, and there are several instances of culprits who perished from the usage they underwent. INIen, and even women, were still whipped publicly at the tail of a cart through the streets, and the flogging of women in England was only abolished in 1820.^ On tlie whole, however, the institations and manners of the country were steadily assuming their modern aspect. From the ministry of Walpole the House of Commons had become indisputably the most powerful body in the State. Then it was that the post of First Lord of the Treasury came to be univer- sally recognised as the head of the Grovernment. Then it was that the forms of parliamentary procedure were in many respects definitely fixed. In 1730 the absurd practice of drawing up the written pleadings in the law courts in Latin was abolished, description of the execution of Mr. at Kingston, in Surrey, about sixteen Townley, who was one of them. years ago.' The Irish case was at ' After he had hung six minutes, he Kilkenny. Madden, Periodical Lite- was cut down, and, having life in him rature, i. p. 274. See, too, the Annual as he lay upon the block to be quar- Eegiatcr, 1770, pp. 103-105. tered, the executioner gave him - See the very large collection of several blows on his breast, which passages from old newspapers and not having the effect required, he magazines, illustrating the penal sys- immediately cut his throat; after tem in England, in Andrews' Ei Clode. * Pari. Hist. xxx. 474-496. c«. IV. MULTIPLICATION OF NEWSPAPEES, 51 7 CHAPTER IV. I SHALL conclude this volume with a brief sketch of the leadinj? intellectual and social changes of the period we have been ex- amining which have not fallen within the scope of the preceding- narrative. In the higher forms of intellect, if we omit the best works of Pope and Swift, who belong chiefly to the reign of Anne, the reigns of George I. and Greorge II. were, on the whole, not prolific, but the influence of the press was great and growing, though periodical writing was far less brilliant than in the preceding period. Among other writers, Fielding, Lyt- telton, and Chesterfield occasionally contributed to it. The ' Craftsman ' especially, though now utterly neglected, is said to have once attained a circulation of 10,000, was believed to have eclipsed the ' Spectator,' and undoubtedly contributed largely to the downfall of Walpole. Though set up by Boling- broke and Pulteney, it was edited by an obscure and disrepu- table writer named Amhurst, who devoted nearly twenty years to the service of the faction, but who was utterly neglected by them in the compromise of 1742. He died of a broken heart, and owed his grave to the charity of a bookseller. We have already seen the large sum which Walpole, though in general wholly indifferent to literary merit, bestowed upon the Grovern- ment press, and its writers were also occasionally rewarded by Government patronage. Thus Trenchard, the author of ' Cato's Letters,' obtained the post of ' commissioner of wine-licenses from Walpole; and Concannon, another ministerial writer, was made Attorney-General of Jamaica by Newcastle. In 1724 there were three daily and five weekly papers printed in Lon- don, as well as ten which appeared three times a week.' The number steadily increased, and a provincial press gradually • Andrews'' Hist, of British Journalum, i. p. 129, 518 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. TV. g-rew up. The first trace of newspapers outside London is in the time of the Commonwealth, when the contending armies carried with them printing presses for the purpose of issuing reports of their proceedings ; but the first regular provincial papers appear to have been created in the last decade of the seventeenth century, and by the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury almost every important provincial town had its local organ. Political caricatures, which were probably Italian in their ori- gin,^ came into fashion in England during the South Sea panic. Caricatures on cards, which were for a time exceedingly popular, were invented by Greorge Townshend, in 1756.^ As the century advanced the political importance of the press became very apparent. 'Newspapers,' said a writer in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' of 1731, 'are of late so multiplied as to render it impossible, unless a man makes it his business, to consult them all. . . . Upon calculating the number of newspapers it is found that (besides divers written accounts) no less than 200 half- sheets per month are thrown from the press, only in London, and about as many printed elsewhere in the three kingdoms ; . . . so that they are become the chief channels of amusement and intelligence.'^ ' The people of Great Britain,' said Mr. Dan vers in 1738, ' are governed by a power that never was heard of as a supreme authority in any age or country before. ... It is the government of the press. The stuff which our weekly news- papers are filled with is received with greater reverence than Acts of Parliament, and the sentiments of one of these scribblers have more weight with the multitude than the opinion of the best politician in the kingdom.'" ' No species of literary men,' wrote Dr. Johnson in 1758, 'has lately been so much multi- plied as the writers of news. Not many years ago the nation was content with one Gazette, but now we have not only in the ' In the recently published auto- biography of Lord Shclburne there is a curious anecdote on the subject of caricatures. ' He [Lord Melcombe] told me that coming home through Brussels, he was presented to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, after her disgrace. She said to him, "Young man, you come from Italy ; they tell me of a new invention there called caricature drawing. Can you find me somebody that will make me a cari- cature of Lady Masham, describing her covered with running sores and ulcers, that I may send it to the Qaeen to give her a right idea of her new favom-ite 1 " ' (p. 1 22). - Walpole's Memoirs of George II. ii. 228. ' Advertisement to the first num- ber of the Gentlemaii's Magazine. * Pari. Hist. x. 448. CH. IV. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. 519 metropolis, papers of every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian.'' One of the consequences of the complete subjection of literary men to the booksellers was the creation of magazines, which afforded a more certain and rapid remuneration than books, and gave many writers a scanty and precarious subsistence. The ' Gentle- man's Magazine' appeared in 1731. It was speedily followed by its rival, the * London Magazine;' and in 1750 there were eight periodicals of this kind. In the middle of the eigliteenth century also, literary reviews began in England. In 1752 there were three — the ' Literary,' the ' Critical,' and the ' Monthly.' Under Greorge II. an additional tax of ^d. had been imposed on newspapers, and an additional duty of a shilling on advertise- ments ; but the demand for this form of literature was so great that these impositions do not appear to have seriously checked it.^ The essay writers had made it their great object as much as possible to popularise and diffuse knowledge, and to bring down every question to a level with the capacities of the idlest reader; and without any great change in education, any dis- play of extraordinary genius, or any real enthusiasm for know- ledge, the circle of intelligence was slowly enlarged. The progress was probably even greater among women than among men. Swift, in one of his latest letters, noticed the great im- provement which had taken place during his lifetime in the education and in the writing of ladies ; ^ and it is to this period that some of the best female correspondence in our literature belongs. The prevailing coarseness, however, of fashionable life and sentiment was but little mitigated. The writings of Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Coventry, and Smollett are sufficient to illus- trate the great difference which in this respect separated the first half of the eighteenth century from our own day, and un- like Anne, the first two Hanoverian sovereigns did nothing to improve the prevailing tone. Each king lived publicly with ' The Idler, No. 30. BHtish Journalism. Madden's Hist. * See, on the History of News- of Irinh Periodical Literature. papers, Chalmers' Life of Ruddiman. Wrip^ht's England under tJw House Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the of Hanm'^er. Mgliteenth Century, vol. iv. Hunt's ' Mrs. Delany's Co-ri'espondence, i. Fourth Estate. Andrews' Hist, of 55L 520 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. IV. mistresses, and the immorality of their Courts was accompa- nied by nothing of that refinement or grace which has often cast a softening veil over much deeper and more general cor- ruption. On this subject the vivid and undoubtedly authentic picture of the Court of George II. which is furnished by Lord Hervey enables us to speak with much confidence. Few figures in the history of the time are more worthy of study than that shrewd and coarse-minded Queen, who by such infinite adroitness, and by such amazing condescensions, succeeded in obtaining insensibly a complete command over the mind of her husband, and a powerful influence over the politics of Eng- land. Living herself a life of unsullied virtue, discharging under circumstances of peculiar difficulty the duties of a wife with the most exemplary patience and diligence, exercising her great influence in Church and State with singular wisdom, patriotism, and benevolence, she passed through life jesting on the vices of her husband and of his ministers with the coarseness of a trooper, receiving from her husband the earliest and fullest accounts of every new love affair in which he was engaged, and prepared to welcome each new mistress, pro- vided only she could herself keep the first place in his judgment and in his confidence. The character of their relation re- mained unbroken to the end. No stranger death scene was ever painted than that of Caroline,' nor can we easily find a more striking illustration of the inconsistencies of human na- ture than that a woman so coarse and cynical in her judgments of others should have herself died a victim of an excessive and misplaced delicacy.^ The works of Eichai'dson, which appeared 1 The Queen had always wished n'emptche pas." I knew this episode the King to marry again. ' She had will hardly be credited, but it is often said so when he was present literally true.' — Lord Hervey's and when he was not present, and Memoirg, ii. 513-514. when she was in health, and gave it ^ yj^g jj^^j fgp fourteen years suf- now, as her advice to him when she fered from a rupture which she could was dying ; upon which his sobs not bring herself to reveal except to began to rise, and his tears to fall her husband. When on her death-bed, with double vehemence. Whilst in and suli'ering extreme agony, she still the midst of this passion, wiping his concealed it from her doctors, and it eyes and sobbing between every word, was contrary to her ardent wish that with much ado he got out this the King, too late to save her, told answer :"Non,j'auraidesmaitresses." them of her complaint. Lord Hervey, To which the Queen made no other ii. 505-506. replj than : " Ah, mon Dieu ! cela CH. IV. COAESENESS — GAMBLINQ. 521 between 1740 and 1753, and which at once attained an extra- ordinary popularity, probably contributed something to refine the tone of society, but the improvement was not very percep- tible till the reign of George III. Sir Walter Scott, in a well- known anecdote, has illustrated very happily the change that had taken place. He tells us that a grand-aunt of his own assured him that the novels of Aphra Behn were as current upon the toilet table in her youth as the novels of Miss Edge- worth in her old age, and he has described very vividly the astonishment of his old relative when, curiosity leading her, after a long interval of years, to turn over the forgotten pages she had delighted in when young, she found that, sitting alone at the age of eighty, she was unable to read without shame a book, which sixty years before she had heard read out for amusement in large circles consisting of the best society in London.^ In one respect during the first half of the eighteenth cen- tury there was a marked deterioration. The passion for gam- bling, which had been very prevalent since the Restoration, appears to have attained its climax under the first two Gfeorges. It had been very considerably stimulated by the madness of speculation which infected all classes during the South Sea mania. That desire to make rapid fortunes, that contempt for the slow and steady gains of industry, which has in our own day so often produced the wildest combinations of recklessness and credulity, was never more apparent. Scheme after scheme of the most fantastic description rose, and glittered, and burst. Companies for ' Fishing up Wrecks on the Irish Coast,' for ' Insurance against Losses by Servants,' for ' Making Salt Water Fresh,' for ' Extracting Silver from Lead,' for ' Transmuting Quicksilver into Malleable and Fine Metal,' for ' Importing Jack- asses from Spain,' for ' Trading in Human Hair,' for ' A Wheel for Perpetual Motion,' as well as many others, attracted crowds of eager subscribers. One projector announced a Company ' for an undertaking which shall in due time be revealed,' each sub- scriber to pay at once two guineas, and afterwards to receive a share of a hundred, with a disclosure of the object. In a Lockhart's Life of Scott, v. 136-137. 522 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. iv. single morning he received 2,000 guineas, with which he im- mediately decamped.^ It was natural that this passion for speculation should have stimulated the taste for gambling in private life. It bad long been inveterate among the upper classes, and it soon rose to an unprecedented height. The chief, or at least the most pro- minent, centre was White's chocolate-honse. Swift tells us that Lord Oxford never passed it without bestowing on it a curse as ' the bane of the English nobility ; ' and it continued during the greater part of the century to be the scene of the wildest and most extravagant gambling. It was, however, only the most prominent among many similar establishments which sprang up around Charing Cross, Leicester Fields, and Golden Square. The Duke of Devonshire lost an estate at a game of basset. The fine intellect of Chesterfield was thoroughly en- slaved by the vice. At Bath, wliich was then the centre of English fashion, it reigned supreme ; and the physicians even recommended it to their patients as a form of distraction. In the green-rooms of the theatres, as IMrs. Bellamy assures us, thousands were often lost and won in a single night. Among fashionable ladies the passion was quite as strong as among men, and the professor of whist and quadrille became a regular- at- tendant at their levees. Miss Pelham, the daughter of the prime minister, was one of the most notorious gamblers of her time, and Lady Cowper speaks in her ' Diai-y ' of sittings at Court at wliich the lowest stake was 200 guineas. The public lotteries contributed very powerfully to diffuse the taste for gambling among all classes. Tliey had begun in England in the seventeentli century ; and thovigh more than once forbidden, they enabled the Government to raise money with so little un- popularity that they were again resorted to. ' I cannot for- bear telling you,' wrote Addison to an Irish friend in 1711, 'that last week I drew a prize of 1,000Z. in the lottery.' ^ Fielding wrote a satire on the passion for lotteries prevalent in his tim-e. The discovery of some gross frauds in their manage- ment contributed to throw them into discredit, and Pelham is ' Macpherson's Annals of Cum- 18, 1711) Departmental Correspon- merce, vol. iii. dence. Irish Ktate Paper Office. '■^ Addison to Jos. Dawson. (Dec. ClI. IV. INFLUENCE OF THE EEVOLUTION ON TASTE. 523 said to Lave expressed some disapproval of them, but they were not finally suppressed in England till 1823. Westminster Bridge, which was begun in 1736, was built chiefly from the produce of lotteries. Another instance of their employment is desei'ving of special remembrance, for it is connected with the origin of one of the most valuable of London institutions. In 1753 lotteries were established to purchase the Sloane collec- tion and the Harleian manuscripts, which were combined with the Cottonian collection, and deposited in Montague House under the name of the British Museum.^ Concerning the amusements and social life of the upper classes I shall content myself with making a few somewhat mis- cellaneous observations. The subject is a very large one, and it would require volumes to exhaust it ; but it is, I think, pos- sible to select from the mass of details a few facts which are not without a real historic importance, as indicating the ten- dencies of taste, and thus throwing some light on the moral history of the nation. It was said that the Eevolution brought four tastes into England, two of which were chiefly due to jMary, and two to her husband. To Mary was due a passion for coloured East Indian calicoes, which speedily spread through all classes of the community, and also a passion for rare and eccentric por- celain, which continued for some generations to be a favovuite topic with the satirists. William, oij his side, set the fashion of picture-collecting, and gave a great impulse to gardening.^ This latter taste, which forms one of the healthiest elements in English country life, attained its height in the first half of the eighteenth century, and it took a form which was entirely new. In the reigTi of Charles II. the parks of Greenwich and St. James had been laid out by the great French gardener Le Notre, and the taste which he made general in Europe reigned in its most exaggerated form in England. It appeared to be a main ob- ject to compel nature to recede as far as possible, to repress every irregularity, to make the human hand apparent in every shrub, and to convert gardening into an anomalous form of sculpture. The trees were habitually carved into cones, or pyra- ' Macpherson,iii.300. Beckmann's other light literature of the time. JJiHt. of Inventiom, ii. pp. 423-420. ^ Defoe's Tour thrvuijh Great The passion for gambling in England Britain, i. 121-124. appears in all the correspondence and 524 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. iv. mids, or globes, into smooth, even walls, or into fantastic groups of men and animals. The flower-beds were laid out symme- trically in architectural figures. Long, straight, and formal alleys, a perfect uniformity of design, and a constant recur- rence of similar forms, were essential to a well-arranged gar- den. The passion for gardening, however, at this time took some root in England, and the writings of Evelyn did much to extend it. William introduced the fashion of masses of clipped yews forming the avenue or shading the approaches of the house, and of imposing iron gates. Sir William Temple, in his essay ' On the Garden of Epicurus,' accui'ately reflected the prevailing taste. But early in tlie eigliteenth century two great gardeners — Bridgeman, who died in 1737, and Kent, who died in 1748 — originated a new form of landscape-gardening, which speedily acquired an almost universal popularity. They utterly discarded all vegetable sculpture and all s}'mmetry of design, gave free scope to the wild, luxuriant, and irregular beauties of nature, and made it their aim to reproduce, as far as possible, in a small compass its variety and its freedom. The essay in which Bacon had ui'ged that one part of a garden should be made an imitation of unrestricted nature, the de- scription of Paradise in Milton, and the description of the gar- den of Arraida in Tasso, were cited as foresliadowing the change, and at a later period the poetry of Thomson undoubtedly con- tributed to sustain it. Addison and Pope laid out their gar- dens on the new plan, and defended it with their pens,^ and the latter is said to have greatly assisted Kent by his advice. Spence and Horace Walpole were enthusiastic disciples.^ Tlie new sys- tem was made the subject of a graceful poem by Mason, and of an ingenious essay by Shenstone, and in 1770 appeared Whately's ' Observations on Modern Gardening,' which was the first considerable standard work in England upon the subject. The gardens of the Prince of Wales at Carlton House were imi- tated from that of Pope at Twickenham.^ Kensington Gardens were laid out by Kent on the new plan, as well as the gardens of ' See Addison's papers in ("Y^iJc'tefoT-, pole on Modern Gardens. See, too, Nos. 414, 477, and Pope's very curious his Life of Kent. See also, on the paper in Gvardian, No. 173. See, spread of the taste, Angeloni's Z^^-ttc^-s too, Pope's Moral Ussays, Ep. 4. on the Eni/Ush Katioii, ii. 2(;6-274. Spence's Anecdotes, xxxi. Wal- * Walpole on Modern Gardening. CH. rv. GARDENING. 525 Claremont and Esher, those of Lord Burlington at Chiswick, and those of Lord Cobham at Stowe. The example was speedily followed, and often exaggerated,' in every part of England, and the revolution of taste was accompanied by a great increase in the love of gardening. In the beginning of the century there were probably not more than 1,000 species of exotics in England, but before its close more than 5,000 new kinds were introduced. When Miller published the first edition of his ' Dictionary of Gardening ' in 1724, only twelve species of evergreens were gi'own in the island, and the number of the plants cultivated in England is said to have more than doubled between 1731 and 1768.^ Very many were introduced from Madeira, and the West Indies, which had been explored by Sir Hans Sloane, and from the American colonies, which had been explored by several independent investigators ; and the taste for botany was still more diffused by the long controversies that followed the publication in 1735 of the great discovery of Linnceus about the sexual nature of plants.^ Landscape-gardening is said to have been introduced into Ireland by Dr. Delany, the friend of Swift, and into Scotland by Lord Kames,^ but both countries remained in this respect far behind England. At Edinburgh a botanical garden appears to have existed as early as 1680.^ In Ireland a florists' club was established by some Huguenot refugees in the reign of George L, but it met with no encourage- ment and speedily expired.^ An Englishman named Threlkeld, who was settled in Dublin, published in 1727 'A Synopsis of Irish Plants ; ' and another work entitled ' Botanologia Univer- salis Hibernica, or a general Irish Hei-bal,' was published in 1735 by a writer named Keogh.^ In England the love for gardens and for botany continually extended, and it forms one of the most remarkable features in the history of national tastes dm-ing the first half of the eighteenth century. ' See, on these exaggerations, The teenth Ccntwry, i. pp. 163-188. World, Nos. 6, 15. The taste was * Loudon's i7«(?ycZ(|/;a'(;?ia., pp. 261), carried so far that dead trees were 273. sometimes planted, and every straight * Pulteney's Progress of Botany in walk condemned. England, ii. 4. * Loudon's Encyclopedia of Gar- ^ liOi'.don's Encyclopaedia, p. 282. {)). historical painter, came to England * 'No painter, however excellent, in 17211, and tried for a time to main- can succeed among the English, that tain a position by his own form of is not engaged in painting portraits. art, ' but,' saj's Horace Walpole, 'as Canaletti, whose works they admired portraiture is the one thing necessary whilst he resided at Venice, at his to a painter in this country, he was coming to London had not in a whole obliged to betake himself to that year the employment of tliree months. employment much against his iu- "Watteau, whose pictures are soki at clination.' — Anecdotes of Painting. such great prices at present, painted See, too. Dallaway's Progress of the never a picture but two whicli he Arts in England, pp. ^^ii-^^\.. VOL. I. M M 530 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. it. living and they make me live.' Hogarth described portrait- painting as ' the only flourishing branch of the high tree of British art.' Barry complained that ' the difficulty of subsisting by any other species of art . . . and the love of ease and affluence had so operated upon our youth that the country had been filled with this species of artist.' The Dutch portrait- painter Vanloo, who came to London in 1737, was so popular that, as a nearly contemporary writer tells us, 'for several weeks after his arrival, the train of carriages at his door was like that at the door of a theatre. He had some hundreds of portraits begun, and was obliged to give as many as five sittings in a day. Large bribes were given by many to the man who kept the register of his engagements, in order to accelerate their sittings, and when that was not done, it was often necessary to wait six weeks.' Vanloo remained in England only four years, but is said to have accumulated in that time considerable wealth.^ On the other hand, it is very remarkable that, in the next generation, Wilson, the first great English landscape-painter, and Barry, the first historical painter of real talent, were both of them unable to earn even a small competence, and both of them died in extreme poverty. Vertue, who died in 1756, carried the art of engraving to considerable perfection, and was followed by Strange, Boydell, and a few other native engravers. Kneller, and afterwards Thornhill, made some attempts in the first quarter of the century to maintain a private academy in England for artistic instruction, but they appear to have met with little encouragement, and the reign of George L is on the whole one of the darkest periods in the history •of English art. Early in the next reign, however, a painter of great and original genius emerged from obscurity, who, in a low form of art, attained a high, and almost a supreme, perfection. William Hogarth was born in London, of obscure parents, in 1698. His early years were chiefly passed in engraving arms, shop bills, and plates for books. He then painted portraits, some of them of singular beauty, and occasionally fmnished designs for tapestry. In 1730 he secretly married the daughter of Sir James Thornhill, the fashionable artist of the day, and in 1731 he completed his ' Eouquet, L'Etat des Arts en Anglctcrre, pp. 59-CO. en. IV. MUSIC, 531 .* Harlot's Progress,' which proved to all good judges that, for the first time, a really great native painter had arisen in England. Had his genius been of a higher order, he woidd probably have been less successful. He had little charm of colouring or sense of beauty, and no power of idealising nature ; but the intense realism, the admirable homeliness and truth of his pictures of English life, and the excellent morals they invariably conveyed, appealed to all classes, while their deep and various meaning, and the sombre imagination he sometimes threw over his con- ceptions,' raised them far above the level of the mere grotesque. The popularity of his designs was such that they were immensely imitated, and it was found necessary to pass an Act of Parlia- ment, in 1735, vesting an exclusive riglit in designers and e-ugravers, and restraining the multiplying of copies of works without the consent of the artist.^ In the same reign sculpture in England was largely pursued by Kysbrack, a native of Ant- werp, and by Roubiliac, a native of Lyons. The taste for music was more widely diffused than that for painting ; but although it made rapid progress in the first half of the eighteenth century, this was in no degree due to native talent. A distinguished French critic ^ has noticed, as one of the most striking of the many differences between the two great branches of the Teutonic race, that, among all modern civilised nations, the Grermans are probably the most eminent, and the English the most deficient, in musical talent. Up to the close of the seventeenth century, however, this distinction did not exist, and England might fairly claim a very respect- able rank among musical nations. No feature in the poetry of Sliakespeare or Milton is more remarkable than the exquisite and delicate appreciation of music they continually evince, and the musical dramas known under the name of masques, whicli were so popular from the time of Ben Jonson to the time of the Rebellion, kept up a general taste for the art. Henry Lawes, who composed the music for ' Comus,' as well as edited the poem, and to whom Milton has paid a beautiful compliment,'' ' &ce e.{j. that noble sketch— the - 8 Geo. II. c. 13. l^lcho\s\^fe7>loirs last he ever drew — called ' Finis.' of IIogaHh,iy. '^il. ^ Kenan. * ' Rut tirst I must put ofiE These my sky-robes, sinni out of Iris' woof. And take the weeds and likeness of a swain M M 2 532 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii tv. was conspicuous as a composer. Blow, in the last years of the ^seventeenth century, contributed much to church music ; but the really great name in English music was Henry Purcell, who was born in 1658, and died in 1697, and who, in the opinion of many competent judges, deserves to rank among the very greatest composers who had up to that date arisen in Europe. In the early years of the eighteenth century, however, music was purely an exotic. The capital fact of this period was the introduction and great popularity of the Italian opera. Operas on the Italian model first appeared in England in 1705. Tliey were at first sung in English, and by English performers ; but soon after, some Italian castrati having come over, the principal characters in the dialogue sang in Italian, while the subordinate charac- ters answered in English. After two or three years, this ab- surdity passed away, and the operas became wholly Italian, In 1710 the illustrious Handel first came to England, and 'Rinaldo,' his earliest opera, appeared in 1711. Bononcini, wlio at one time rivalled his popularity as a composer, fol- lowed a few years later. An Academy for Music was founded in 1720, and several Italian singers of the highest merit were brought over, at salaries which were then unparalleled in Europe. The two great female singers, Cuzzoni and La Faus- tina, obtained each 2,000 guineas a year, Farinelli 1,500 guineas and a benefit, Senesino 1,400 guineas. The rivalry between Cuzzoni and La Faustina, and the rivalry between Handel and Bononcini, divided society into factions almost like those of the Byzantine empire ; and the conflicting claims of the two composers were celebrated in a well-known epigram, winch has been commonly attributed to Swift, but which was in reality written by Byrom.' The author little imagined that one of the composers, whom he treated with such con- That to the service of this house belongs, WT'io with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar, And hush the waving woods.* Comiis. Lawes taught music in the house of Lord Bridgewatcr, where Conms v/as first represented. ' ' Some say that Signor Bononcini Compared to Handel is a ninny ; Others aver that to him Handel Is scarcely fit to liold a candle. Strange that such difference sliould be ■T\vi.\t tweedledum and twecdledee.' ClI. IV. HANDEL. 533 tempt, was, in his own, and that no ignoble, sphere, among the master intellects of mankind.^ The difficulties against wliich the new entertainment had to struggle were very great. Addison opposed it bitterly in the ' Spectator.' The partisans of the regular drama denounced it as an absmxl and mischievous novelty. It had to encounter the strong popular prejudice against foreigners and Papists. It was weakened by perpetual quarrels of composers and singers, and it was supported chiefly by the small and capricious circle of fashionable society. In 1717 the Italian theatre was closed for want of support, but it revived in 1720 under the auspices of Handel. The extraordinary success of the ' Beggars' Opera,' which appeared in 1728, for a time threw it completely in the shade. The music of Handel was deserted, and the Italian theatre again closed. It reopened in the following year under the joint direction of Handel and of Heidegger, a Swiss, famous for his ugliness, his impudence, and his skill in organising public amusements ; and it continued to flourish until a quarrel broke out between Handel and the singer Senesino. The great nobles, who were the chief supporters of the opera, took the side of the singer, set up, in 1733, a rival theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, attracted to it Heidegger and most of the best singers, made it their special object to ruin Handel, and suc- ceeded in so governing the course of fashion that his theatre was almost deserted. The King, it is true, steadily supported him, and Queen Caroline, with the tact she usually showed in discovering the highest talent in the country, threw her whole enthusiasm into his cause ; but the Prince of Wales, who was in violent opposition to his father, took the opposite side, and the Court could not save the great musician from ruin. ' Tlie King and Queen,' says Lord Hervc}^, ' sat freezing constantly at his empty Haymarket opera, whilst the Prince, with the chief of the nobility, went as constantly to that of Lincoln's Inn Fields.'^ Handel struggled for some time vainly ngainst the ' Burney's IRst. of Musie. Schol- of a faction of fiddlers a very honour- cher's Life of Handel. Byrom's ableemployment for peojjle of quality, llcmains, vol. i. pt. i. p. L50. or the ruin of one poor fellow [Han- - Lord Ilervcy's Meiiwirs, i. i?14. del] so generous or so good-natured The Princess Royal was equally a scheme as to do much honour to enthusiastic. The King said, with the undertakers, whether they sue- oocd-nature and good sense, ' lie did ceeded or not.' not think setting oneself at the head 534 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. it. stream; all the savings he had amassed were lost, and his career was for a time ended by bankruptcy in 1737. The effect, however, was only to make him turn more exclu- sively to that nobler and loftier form of music in which he had no rival. Like the great blind poet of Puritanism, whom in more than one respect he resembled, he was indeed one of those whose lips the Seraphim had touched and purified with the hallowed fire from the altar ; and it was only when interpreting the highest religious emotions that his transcendent genius was fully felt. If it be true that music is in modern art what painting was in the Eenaissance and what sculpture was in antiquity, the name of Handel can be placed little below those of Kaphael and of Phidias, and it is to his sacred music that his pre-eminence is mainly due. To recall sacred music from the neglect into which it had fallen in England had long been his desire. In 1713 he liad composed a grand ' Te Deum ' an^ ' Jubilate ' in celebration of the Peace of Utrecht. From 1718 to 1721 he had been organist to the chapel of the Duke of Chandos. He introduced for the first time organ concerts into England ; and, in addition to many beautiful anthems, he composed his oratorio of ' Esther ' for the Duke of Chandos's chapel. Oratorios had been invented in the middle of the sixteenth century by St. Philip Neri in order to counteract the attractions of the theatre, but they had hitherto been absolutely unknown in England. ' Esther ' was brought upon the public stage for the first time in 1732. It was fol- lowed in 1733 by ' Deborah ' and by ' Athalie,' in 1738 by ' Israel in Egypt,' in 1740 by 'Saul.' The earliest of these great com- positions were received with considerable applause, but the last two were almost utterly neglected. The musical education of the public was not sufficient to appreciate them ; the leaders of fashion who professed to regulate taste in matters of art steadily and vindictively derided them ; and the King and Queen incurred no small ridicule for their persistent admiration of Handel. A story is told of Chesterfield leaving the empty theatre in which an oratorio was being sung before tlie King, and giving as his reason that he did not desire to intrude on the privacy of his sovereign. Horace Walpole, who assumed the language of a great critic in matters of art, but whose cold heart and feebly fastidious taste were usually incapable of appre- CH. IV. HANDEL. 53.5 'ciating any high form of excellence, sneered at Handel, as he afterwards sneered at Grarrick ; and it came to be looked upon in fashionable circles as one of the signs of good taste to ridicule his music' Some ladies of position actually engaged a famous mimic and comic singer to set up a puppet-show in the hope of drawing away the people from Handel,^ and with the same view they specially selected the days on which an oratorio was per- formed, for their card parties or concerts.^ There was, of course, a certain party in his favour. Arbutb- not, who was himself an excellent musician, steadily supported him. Pope, though perfectly insensible to the charm of music, resting on the opinion of Arbuthnot, took the same side. A statue of Handel by Roubiliac was erected in Vauxhall in 1738, but of the general depreciation and condemnation of his music there can be no doubt. The death of Queen Caroline, in 1737, deprived him of his warmest patron, and he composed an anthem for her funeral, which Dr. Burney regarded as the most perfect of all his works. After the bankruptcy of his theatre, and the almost total failure of his last two oratorios, he felt it necessary to bend before the storm, and he resolved for a time to fly where his works ' would be out of the reach of enmity and prejudice.' He had already composed the music for the greatest of all his works, but he would not risk its production in London, and he adopted the resolution of bringing it out for the first time in Dublin.'' The visit of Handel to Ireland in the December of 1741 has ' Fielding has noticed this in a ' Advice,' and the accompanying note. characteristic passage. * It was Mr. Again shall Han lel raise his laurelled brow, Western's custom every afternoon, as Again shall haimony with rapture glow ! , J 1 4. I „_ 1,;^ The spells dissolve, the combination breaks, soon as he was drunk, to Hear ms And Punch, no longer Frasi's rival, squeaks. daughter play on the harpsichord ; lo, liussel falls a sacrifice to wliim, for "he was a great lover of music, And starts amazed in Newgate from his dream. and, perhaps, had he lived in town, ^^'"'^ '*^- might liave passed as a connoisseur, Russel was a famous mimic and singer for he always excepted against the set iip by certain ladies of quality to finest compositions of Mr. Handel ; he oppose Handel. When the current of never relished any music but what fashion clianged he sank into debt, was light and airy; and, indeed, his and was confined in Newgate, where most favourite tunes were '* Old Sir he- lost his reason. A small subscrip- 8imon, the King," "St. George he t ion was with difficulty raised among was for England," " Bobbing Joan," his patronesses to procure his admis- and some others.' — Tom Junes. sion into Bedlam. * See Smollett's poem called ^ Schcilcher. ' But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence If music meanly borrow aid from sense ; 536 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. en. iv. lately been investigated in all its details,^ and it forms a pleas- ing episode in the Irish Mstory of the eighteenth century. It appears that music had for some time been passionately culti- vated in the Irish capital, that a flourishing society had been formed for practising it, and that the music of Handel was already in great favour. It was customary to give frequent con- certs for the benefit of Dublin charities, and one of these chari- ties was at this time attracting great attention. The revelation o,f the frightful abuses in the debtors' prisons in Ireland had made a deep impression, and a society was formed for ameliorat- ing the condition of the inmates, compounding with their credi- tors and releasing as many as possible from prison. In the year 1739 no less than 188 had been freed from a condition of ex- treme misery, and the charity still continued. It was for the benefit of this and of two older charities ^ that the ' Messiah ' of Handel was first produced, in Dublin, in April, 1742. In the interval that had elapsed since his arrival in Ireland its composer had abundant evidence that the animosity which had pursued him so bitterly in England had not crossed the Channel. In a remarkable letter dated December 29, written to his friend Qiarles Jennens,^ who had selected the passages of Scripture for the ' Messiah,' Handel describes the success of a series of concerts which he had begun : ' The nobility did me the honour to make amongst themselves a subscription for six nights, which did fill a room of 600 persons, so that I needed not sell one single ticket at the door ; and, without vanity, the performance was received with a general approbation. ... I cannot sufficiently express Strons: in new arms, lo ! giant Handel stands Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands ; To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul, he comes ; And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums. Arrest him. Empress, or you sleep no more. She heard, and drove him to the Hibernian shore.' ' Dunciad, bk. iv. "> ' Sec a very curious and interest- Dublin, and who was a friend and ing little hooi:, called A7i Acenunt of ardent admirer of Handel. See, too, tfie Visit of Handel to Dublin., by Burney's Hist, of 3hmc, iv. 661-662. Horatio Townsend (Dublin, 1852). ^ Mercer's Hospital and the Since this book was published, a little Charitable Infirmary, additional light has been thrown on ^ jjewas a Leicestershire country the stay of Handel in Ireland, by gentleman— a Nonjuror. Townsend, the publication of the letters of Mrs. p. 81. Delany, who was then living near cii. rv. HANDEL. 537 the kind treatment I receive here, but the politeness of this generous nation cannot be unknown to you, so I let you judge of the satisfaction I enjoy, passing my time with honour, profit, and pleasure.' A new series of concerts was performed with equal success, and on April 8, 1742, the 'Messiah' was rehearsed, and on the 13th it was for the first time publicly performed. The choirs of St. Patrick's Cathedral and of Christ's Church were enlisted for the occasion. Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Avolio sans: the chief parts. The Viceroy, the Archbishop of Dublin, the leading Fellows of Trinity College, and most of the other dignitaries in Church and State, were present, and the success was over- whelming and immediate. The crowds who thronged the Music Hall were so great that an advertisement was issued begging the ladies for the occasion to discard their hoops, and no discordant voice appears to have broken the unanimity of applause. Handel, whose sensitive nature had been embittered by long neglect and hostility, has recorded in touching terms the completeness of his triumph. He remained in Ireland till the following August, a welcome guest in every circle ; and he is said to have expressed his surprise and admiration at the beauty of those national melodies which were then unknown out of Ireland, but which the poetry of Moore has, in our own century, carried over the world. On his return to London, however, he found the hostility against him but little diminished. The ' Messiah,' when first produced in London.^ if it did not absolutely fail, was but coldly received, and it is shameful and melancholy to relate that in 1745 Handel was for a second time reduced to bankruptcy. The first really unequivocal success he obtained in England for manv years was his ' Judas Maccabeus,' which was composed in 1746, and brought out in the following year. It was dedicated to the Duke of Cumberland, and was intended to commemorate his victory at Culloden, and this fact, as well as the enthusiastic support of the London Jews, who welcomed it as a glorifica- tion of a great Jewish hero, contributed largely to its success. From this time the current of fashion suddenly changed. When the 'Messiah' was again produced at Covent Garden in 1750 it was received with general enthusiasm, and the ' Te Deum ' on the occasion of the victory of Dettingen, and the long series of 538 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iv, oratorios which Handel brought out in the closing years of his life, were scarcely less successful. In 1751 he became completely blind, but he still continued to compose music and to play publicly upon the organ. Among other pieces he performed his own ' Samson,' and while the choir sang to the pathetic strains of Handel those noble lines in which Milton represented the Jewish hero lamenting the darkness that encompassed him, a thrill of sympathetic emotion passed through the crowded audience as they looked upon the old blind musician, who sat before them at the organ.' The popularity of his later days restored his fortunes, and he acquired considerable wealth.^ He died on Good Friday in 1759, after a residence in England of forty-nine years, and he obtained the well-won honour of a tomb in Westminster Abbey.^ The great impulse given by Handel to sacred music, and the naturalisation of the opera in England, are the two capital events in English musical history during the first half of the eighteenth century. Apart from these musical performances the love for dramatic entertainments appears to have greatly increased, though the theatre never altogether recovered the blow it had received during the Puritan ascendancy. So much has been said of the necessary effect of theatrical amusements in demoralising nations that it is worthy of special notice that there were ten or eleven theatres open in London in the reign of Elizabeth, and a still greater number in the reign of her successor,* whereas in the incomparably more profligate reign of Charles II. there were only two. Even these proved too many, and in spite of the attraction of actresses, who were then for the first time per- mitted upon the stage, and of the great histrionic powers of Hart and of Betterton, it was found necessary to unite the companies in 1684.'^ The profligacy of the theatre during the generation that followed the Restoration can hardly be exag- gerated, and it continued with little abatement during two reigns. The character of the plays was such that few ladies of ' Mrs. Delany's Cm'regpondcncc, Music. iii. 177. * Compare Collier's Annals of the « Ibid. iii. 549-550. He left Staf/r, i. 34.3. Chalmers' Account of 20,n00(!. the Earhj English Stage. ' 8ch()lcher's Life of Handel. » Gibber's Apology, ch. iv. Burney"3 and Hawkins' Histories of CH. IT. IMMORALITY OF THE STAGE. 539 ..respectability and position ventured to appear at the first repre- sentation of a new comedy, and those whose curiosity triumphed over their delicacy usually came masked — a custom which at tliis time became very common, and which naturally led to grave abuses.' By the time of the Revolution, however, the move- ment of dissipation had somewhat spent its force, and the appearance in 1698 of Collier's well-known ' Short View of the Stage,' had a sensible and an immediate effect. Though the author was a vehement Xonjuror, William expressed warm approbation of his work, and a Royal order was issued to restrain the abuses of the stage. The Master of the Revels, who then licensed plays, began to exercise his function with some severity, and a favourable change passed over public opinion. In the reign of Anne the reformation was much aided by the prohibi- tion of masks in the theatre."'^ But although a certain improve- ment was effected, much still remained to be done. Great scandal was caused by a prologue, written by Grarth, and spoken at the opening of the Haymarket theatre in 1705, which con- gratulated the world that the stage was beginning to take the place of the Church.^ The two Houses of Convocation, in a representation to the Queen in 1711, dwelt strongly on the immorality of the drama.^ Swift placed its degraded condition among the foremost causes of the corruption of the age,^ and it > ' While our authors took these and rarely came upon the first days extraordinary liberties with their of acting but in masl^s (then dai"]y wit, I remember the ladies were then worn, and admitted in tlie pit, side observed to be decently afraid of boxes, and gallery).'— Gibber's Aj?o- venturing barefaced to anew comedy hffi/, ch. viii. So Pope :— till they had been assured they might The fair sat panting at a com-tier's play, do it without the risque of insult to And not a mask went unimproTPii away. their modesty ; or if their curiosity ^•''"''-V on Criiicism, pt. ii. weretoostrongfortheir patience, tiiey * See Davies' Zife of Garnck, took care at least to save appearances, ii. 355 (ed. 1780). * ' In the good days of ghostly ignorance, How did cathedrals rise and zeal advance ! The merry monks said orisons at ease. Large were their meals, and light their penances. Pardons for sins were purchased with estates, And none but rogues in rags died reprobates. But now that pious pageantry's no more. And stages thrive as churches did before.' See the Harlcian Miscclhtny, ii. 21. * JTarleian Miscellany, ii. 2L 1709. He says : 'It is worth observing * See some admirable remarks on the distrib-aiive justice of the authors, l.he subject in his Project for the which is constantly applied to the Advancement of Religion, written in punishment of virtue and the reward 540 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. ch. iv. is remarkable that although English play-writers borrowed very largely from the French, the English stage was far inferior to that of France in decorum, modesty, and morality. In this respect at least there was no disposition to imitate French manners, and we may, indeed, trace among English writers no small jealousy of the dramatic supremacy of France. Dry den continually expressed it, and Shad well displayed it in a strain of grotesque insolence. Among his plays was one called ' The Miser,' based upon one of the most perfect of the matchless comedies of INIoliere. Not content with degrading this noble play by the addition of coarse, obscene, and insipid jests which French taste would never have tolerated, Shadwell prefixed to it a preface in which he gives us with amusing candom- his own estimate of the comparative merits of Moliere and of him- self. ' Tlie foundation of this play,' he said, ' I took from one of Moliere's, called " L'Avare," but having too few persons and too little action for an English theatre, I added to both so much that I may call more than half this play my own ; and I think I may say without vanity that Moliere's part of it has not suffered in ray hands ; nor did I ever know a French comedy made use of by the worst of our poets that was not bettered by them. 'Tis not barrenness of wit or invention that makes us borrow from the French, but laziness, and this was the occasion of my making use of " L'Avare." ' ^ Shadwell was a poor poet, but he was for a long time a popular dramatist, and he was sufficiently conspicuous to be appointed poet laureate by William in the place of Dryden. The preface I have cited, coming from such a pen, throws a curious light upon the national taste. Addison and Steele, wlio contributed in so many ways to turn the stream of fashion in the direction of morality, did something at least, to in- of vice ; directly opposite to the rules to be committed behind the scenes as of their best criticks, as well as to part of the action.' the practice of dramatick poets in all ' So, too, in the Prologue of the other ages and countries. ... I do play — not remember that our English poets ever suffered a criminal amour to French plays in which tniew-ifs as rarely found J ix, „(„„^ ,-,v, + ;i +ii£» As mines of silver are in English ground, succeed upon the stage until the ^ ^ » » » reigTi of Charles II. Ever since that ,■ .i T,i^^™„„ i-c. wiQ^o o r.nr>Vnlf1 For Our pood-natured nation thinks it fit time the alderman is made a cuckold, ^„ ^^^,„^^ ^^^^^j^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^_ tlie deluded virgin is debauched, and sense wit. adultery and fornication are supposed CH. IV. IMMOEALITY OF THE STAGE. 541 troduce French decorum into the English drama. Both of them wrote plays, which, though of no great merit, had their hour of noisy popularity, and were at least scrupulously moral. ' I never heard of any plays,' said Parson Adams, in one of the novels of Fielding, ' fit for a Christian to read but " Cato " and the " Conscious Lovers," and I must own in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.' ' The example, however, was not very generally followed, and some of the comedies of Fielding in point of coarseness are little if at all superior to those of Wycherley. Dr. Herring, who was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, when Court Chaplain and preacher at Lincoln's Inn, de- nounced the ' Beggars' Opera ' of Gay with great asperity from the pulpit;^ and Sir John Barnard, in 1735, brought the condition of the theatre before the House of Commons, com- plaining bitterly that there were now six theatres in London, and that they were sources of great corruption. In the course of the debate one of his chief supporters observed ' that it was no less surprising than shameful to see so great a change for the worse in the temper and inclinations of the British nation, who were now so extravagantly addicted to lewd and idle diversions that the number of playhouses in London was double that of Paris . . . that it was astonishing to all Europe that Italian eunuchs and sign eras should have set salaries equal to those of the Lords of the Treasury and Judges of England."^ On this occasion nothing effectual was done, but soon after the theatre took a new form which was well calculated to alarm politicians. Fielding, following an example which had been set by Gay, made it the vehicle of political satire, and in his ' Pasquin ' and his ' Historical Eegister ' he ridiculed Walpole and the corruption at elections. Another play, called ' The Golden Kump,' submitted to the director of Lincoln's Inn Theatre and handed over by him to the minister, was said to ' Josejjh Andren-s, book iii. ch. the first that were written expressly 11. Hallam says :' Steele's ftlixy' he avcv sa,w ; ihc 'Laming of th^ 544 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTn CENTUEY. ch. iv. nessed probably reflected very fairly the sentiments of the average playgoer. Many of the greatest plays were soon com- pletely banished from the stage, and the few which retained any popularity were re-written, printed under other names, or at least largely altered, reduced to a French standard of cor- rectness, or enlivened with music and dancing. Thus ' Romeo and Juliet ' was superseded by the ' Caius Marius ' of Otway, ' Measure for Measure ' by the ' Law against Lovers ' of Davenant, the ' Merry Wives of Windsor ' by Dennis's ' Comical Grallant,' ' Richard IL' by Tate's ' Sicilian Usurper,' ' Cymbeline ' by Durfey's 'Injured Princess,' 'The Merchant of Venice' by Lord Lansdowne's ' Jew of Venice.' ' Macbeth ' was re-cast by Davenant, 'Richard IIL' by Gibber, ' The Tempest' by both Davenant and Shadwell, ' Coriolanus ' by Dennis, and ' King Lear'by Tate.i The revolution of taste which gradually reinstated in his ascendancy the greatest writer of England, and perhaps of the world, and made his ideas and language familiar to the upper and middle classes of the nation, is certainly not less worthy of commemoration than any of the military or political incidents of the time. Its effect in educating the English mind can hardly be overrated, and its moral influence was very great. It was partly literary and partly dramatic. The first critical edition of Shakespeare was that of Rowe, which was published in 1709 ; and, before half the century had passed, it was followed by those of Pope, Theobald, Sir Thomas Hanmer, and War- burton. Dr. Johnson has noticed as a proof of the paucity of readers in the seventeenth century ' that the nation had been satisfied from 1623 to 1664, that is, forty-one years, with only two editions of Shakespeare, which probably did not together make 1,000 copies.'^ By the middle of the eighteenth century, liowever, there had been thirteen editions, and of these, nine had appeared within the last forty years.' It is obvious from this fact that the interest in Shakespeare was steadily increas- ing, and that the critical study of his plays was becoming e sure, in that scene, as j^ou called supreme among actors as Shakespeare it, between him and his mother, when among poets. A few other particulars j^ou told me he acted so fine, why, relating to him will be found in Lord help me ! any man— that is, any Gait's Lives of the Players. Pope good man — that has such a mother thought Betterton the greatest actor, would have done exactly the same. Init said that some old people spoke I know you are only joking with me, of Hart as his superior. Betterton but indeed, Madam, though I was died in 1710. Spence's Anecdotes. never at a play in London, yet I have - Bavies' Life of GarricJ;, i. 111. seen acting before in the country; * See the preliminary dissertation and, the King for my money! he toFoote's ]Fw7iS, i.pp. lii.,liil. Mack- speaks all his words distinctly, half lin, who had quarrelled witli Garrick as loud again as the other. Anybody and who cordially detested hizn, de- may see he is an actor.' — Tom Joiics scribed his acting as 'all bustle.' See, too, T/t6' Wurld,^o. Q, Macklin'd Memoirs, i. 218. Fielding's CH. IV. GARRICK. 547 both in gardening and in acting took place in France a gene- ration later, and was in a great degree due to the love of nature and the revolt against conventional forms, resulting from the writings of Rousseau. Grarrick, like all innovators, had to encounter at lirst much opposition. Pope and Fielding- were warmly in his favour, but the poet Gray declared himself ' stiff in opposition.' Horace Walpole professed himself unable to see the merit of the new performer. Gibber, who had been brought up in the school of Betterton, was equally con- temptuous, and the leading actors took the same side. jNIacklin always spoke of him with the greatest bitterness. Quin, who had for some time held the foremost rank in tragedy, and whose ready wit made him a specially formidable opponent, said, ' If the young fellow is right, I and the rest of the players have been all wrong ; ' and he added, ' Grarrick is a new religion — Whitefield was followed for a time — but they will all come to church again.' Grarrick answered in a happy epigram to the effect ' that it was not heresy but reformation.' In two or three characters Quin is said to have equalled him. The Othello of Grarrick was a comparative failure, which was attri- buted to the dark colouring that concealed the wonderful play of his features,^ and Barry, owing to his rare personal advan- tages, was, in the opinion of many, superior as Eomeo,^ but on the whole the supremacy of Garrick was in a few months indis- putable, and it continued unshaken during his whole career. At the same time his excellent character, his brilliant qualities, both as a writer and a talker, and the very considerable fortune that he speedily amassed, gave him a social position which had, pro- bably, been attained by no previous actor. The calling of an actor had been degraded by ecclesiastical tradition, as well as by the gross immorality of the theatre of tlie Restoration. For some time, however, it had been steadily rising,^ and Garrick, while elevating incalculably the standard of theatrical taste, contri- buted also not a little to free his profession from the discredit under which it laboured. From the time of his first appearance upon the stage till the close or" the careers of Kemble, of the elder ' Nichols' Jjlfe of Hogarth, pp. of actors' salaries will Lo found in 191, 192. Kirlio. 17), 1758. irons are felt more acutely by the • tjee especially his poem on field bone or tendon, and whether the more sports, lasting agonies are produced by poison ^ ^T^enca's Anecdotes, Supplement. ^ ' Experienced men inured to city ways, Need not the calendar to count their days. When through the town, with slow and solemn air, Led by the nostril, walks the muzzled bear, Behind him moves, majestically dull, The pride of Hockley Hole, the surly bull. Learn hence the periods of the week to name : Monday and Thui-sday are the days of game.' Gay's Trivia. * Tatlcr, No. 134. Guardian, No. Mm-ality (1st ed.), p. 7. Hogarth 61. 'The bear-garden,' says Lord introduced into his picture of a cock- Kames, ' which is one of the chief fight, a Frenchman turning away entertainments of the English, is with an expression of unqualified held in abhorrence by the French, disgust, and other polite nations.' — Esmijs on cii. IV. amuse:ments with animals. 553 up with fireworks over him, a bear to be let loose at the same time, and a cat to be tied to the bull's tail, a mad bull dressed up with fireworks to be baited.' ^ Such amusements were min- gled with prize-fighting-, boxing matches between women, or combats with quarter-Stan's or broadswords. Ducking ponds, in which ducks were hunted by dogs, were favourite popular resorts around London, especially those in St. George's Fields, the present site of Bethlehem Hospital. Sometimes the amuse- ment was varied, and an owl was tied to the back of the duck, which dived in terror till one or both birds were killed. The very barbarous amusement of cock-throwing, which was at least as old as Chaucer, and in which Sir T. More when a young man had been especially expert, is said to have been peculiarly English. ^ It consisted of tying a cock to a stake as a mark for sticks, which were thrown at it from a distance till it was killed ; and it was ascribed to the English antipathy to the French, who were symbolised by that bird.^ The old Greek game of cock-fighting was also extremely popular in England. It was a favourite game of schoolboys, who, from the time of Henry II. till the latter part of the eighteenth cen- tury, were accustomed almost universally to practise it on Shrove Tuesday ; and in many schools in Scotland tlie runaway cocks were claimed by the masters as their perquisites. A curious account is preserved of the parish of Applecross in Ross-shire, written about 1790, in which among the different sources of the schoolmaster's income we find ' cock-fight dues, which are equal to one quarter's payment for each scholar.' "* Henry VIII. built a cock-pit at Whitehall ; and James I. was accustomed to divert himself with cock-fighting twice a week. In the eigh- teenth centiuy it appears to have rather increased than diminished, and being the occasion of great gambling it retained its place among very fasliionable amusements ; nor ' Andrews' EifjMeentli Century, p. People. Collier's Hist, of the Drama. 60. Strutt's S2)07'ts and Pastimes, p. Andrews' Eifjldeenth. Century. Cham- 259. bers' Book of Bays, Hone's Every- There is, however, a picture day Book. Milson's Travels in, Eng- representinf? a Dutch fair, in the land. Muralt's Letters on Enyland. gallery at the Hague, where a goose One famous bear, called Sacherson, is is represented undergoing a similar immortalised by Shakespeare, Merry fate. Wives of Windsor, act i. scene 1. ^ See, on these sports, Strutt's * Chambers' Bomestic Annals of Sjjoiis and Pastimes of the English Scotland, iii. 2C9. 554 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENXn CENTUEY. ch. iv. does it appear to have been generally regarded as more inhuman than hunting, coursing, or shooting. It was introduced into Scotland at the close of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century by a fencing master named Machrie, who seems to have been looked upon as a benefactor to Scotland for having started a new, cheap, and innocent amusement. He wrote, in 1705, 'An Essay on the Innocent and Eoyal Eecreation and Art of Cocking,' in which he expressed his hope that ' in cock- war village may be engaged against village, city against city, kingdom against kingdom, nay, the father against the son, until all the wars of Europe, wherein so much innocent Christian blood is spilt, be turned into the innocent pastime of cocking.' ' The fiercest and most powerful cocks were frequently brought over from Germany ; and the Welsh main, which was the most sanguinary form of the amusement, appears to have been exclusively English, and of modern origin. In this game as many as sixteen cocks were sometimes matched against each other at each side, and they fought till all on one side were killed. The victors Avere then divided and fought, and the process was repeated till but a single cock remained. County engaged county in cocking matches, and the church bells are said to have been sometimes rung in honour of the victor in the Welsh main.^ The passion for inland watering-places was at its height. Bath, under the long rule of Beau Nash, fully maintained its old ascendancy, and is said to have been annually visited by more than 8,000 families. Anstey, in one of the most bril- liant satirical poems of the eighteenth century, painted, with inimitable skill, its follies and its tastes ; and the arbitrary but not unskilful sway and self-important manners, of its great master of the ceremonies, were widely celebrated in verse and prose. Among the commands which he issued there is one which is well worthy of a passing notice. Between 1720 and ' Chambers' Domestic Annals of Tour tho\mi/h U/ir/land, vol. i. p. 137; Scotland, 267-8. Heath"s account of the Scilly Islands, - Roberts' Social Hist, of the Piiihn-ton's Voi/af/rs, ii. 750. Wesley Southern Counties, p. i21. The history tells a story of a gentleman whom he of cock-fighting and cock-throwing reproved for swearing, and who was has been fully examined in a dis- at last so mollified that he said ' lie sertation by Pegge, in the Arehav- would come to hear him, only he was loffia, vol. iii. ; in Beckmann's Jli.^if. afraidheshouldsaysomethingagainst of Inventions, vol. ii. ; and in Strut t's lighting of cocks.' — Wesley's Journal Sjw/isandl'astunes. fcJee, too, Macky's March, 1743. en. IV. WATERING-PLACES— SEA-BATHING. 555 1730 it was observed that young men of fashion in London had begun in their morning walks to lay aside their swords, whicL were hitherto looked upon as the indispensable signs of a gentleman, and to carry walking-sticks instead. Beau Nash made a great step in the same direction by absolutely pro- hibiting swords within his dominions, and this was, perhaps, the beginning of a change of fashion which appears to have been general about 1780, and which has a real historical importance as reflecting and sustaining the pacific habits that were growing in society.' In addition to Bath, Tunbridge Wells, Epsom, Buxton, and the more modest Islington retained their popu- larity, and a new rival was rising into note. The mineral springs of Cheltenham were discovered about 1730, and in 1738 a regular Spa was built. Sea-bathing in the first half of the eighteenth century is very rarely noticed. Chesterfield, indeed, having; visited Scarborough in 1733, observed that it was there commonly practised by both sexes,^ but its general popularity dates only from the appearance of the treatise by Dr. Eichard Eussell ' On glandular consumption, and the use of sea-water in diseases of the glands,' which was published in Latin in 1750, and translated in 1753. The new remedy acquired an extra- ordinary favour, and it produced a great, permanent, and on the whole very beneficial change in the national tastes. In a few years obscure fishing-villages along the coast began to assume the dimensions of stately watering-places, and before the century had closed Cowper described, in indignant lines, the common enthusiasm with which all ages and classes rushed for health or pleasure to the sea.^ > See a curious passage from ' The prevailing fashion of wearing swords, Universal Spectator,' of 1730, quoted had been noticed in the beginning of in the Pictorial Ili.sf. of England, iv. the century in a treatise on the sub- 805. Biau JVanh'f! Life, by Doran. ject by a writer named Povey. Doran's article on Beau Nash, in the - Suffolk Corrcipondcncc, ii. fil. Gentleman's Magazine. Townsend's See, too, a passage from ' The Uni- Jlist. of the House of Commons, ii. pp, versal Spectator,' for 1732, quoted in 412-41G, The evils resulting from the Stone's Chronicles of Fashion, ii. 274. ^ * Your prudent grandmammas, ye modern belles. Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge Wells, When health required it, would consent to roam, Else more attached to pleasures found at home ; But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife, Ingenious to diversify dull life. In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys, Fly to tlie coast for daily, nightly joj-s, And all, impatient of dry land, agree With one consent to rush into the sea.' Betircmcnt. 556 EXGLAIs^D IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CH. IV. There was not, I tliink, any other chang-e in the history of manners during the first sixty years of the eighteenth century, so considerable as to call for extended notice in a work like the present. The refinements of civilisation advanced by slow and almost insensible degrees into country life as the improvements of roads increased the facilities of locomotion, and as the growth of provincial towns and of a provincial press multiplied the centres of intellectual and political activity. In these respects, however, the latter half of the century was a far more memor- able period than the former half; and the history of roads, which I have not yet noticed, will be more conveniently considered in a future chapter. The manners and tastes of the country gentry were often to the last degree coarse and illiterate, but the large amount of public business that in England has always been thrown upon the class, maintained among them no con- temptible level of practical intelligence ; and some circulation of intellectual life was secured by the cathedral towns, the inland watering-places, and the periodical migrations of the richer members to London or Bath. The yeomanry class, also, as long as they existed in considerable numbers, maintained a spirit of independence in country life which extended even to the meanest ploughman, and had some influence both in stimu- lating the faculties, and restraining the despotism of the country magistrates.' Whatever may have been the defects of the English country gentry, agriculture under their direction had certainly attained a much higher perfection than in France,^ and though narrow-minded and intensely prejudiced, they formed an upright, energetic, and patriotic element in English public life. The well-known pictures of Sir Eoger de Coverley and of Squire Western exhibit in strong lights their merits and their faults, and the contrast between rural and metropolitan manners was long one of the favourite subjects of the essayists. That contrast, however, was rapidly diminishing. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the habit of making annual visits to London or to a watering-place very greatly increased, and it ' Defoe has noticed this indcpen- Will boklly tell tliem what they onght to do, dence in lines more remarkable for ■^'■'^ sometimes punish their omissions too. their meaning than for their form. True-bum Englishman. The meanest EnRlish plowman studies law, ^ ^ ^f e the comparison in Arthur AuJ keeps thereby the magistrates in awe ; Young's Tuiw ill Franoe. cH. IT. THE COUNTRY GENTKY. 5j7 contributed at once to soften the manners of the richer and to accelerate the disappearance of the poorer members of the class. A scale and rivalry of luxury passed into country life which made the position of the small landlord com- pletely untenable. At the beginning of the century there still existed in England numerous landowners with estates of 2001. or SOOl. a year. The descendants in many cases of the ancient yeomen, they ranked socially with the gentry. They possessed to the full extent the pride and prejudices, and discharged very efficiently many of the duties of the class ; but they lived ex- clusively in the country, their whole lives were occupied with country business or country sports, their travels rarely or never extended beyond the nearest county town, and in tastes, in knowledge, and in language they scarcely differed from the tenant-farmer. From the early years of the eighteenth century this class began rapidly to diminish, and before the close of the century it was almost extinct.' Though still vehement Tories, full of zeal for the Church and of hatred of Dissenters and foreigners, the Jacobitism of the country gentry had subsided during the reign of George II., and they gave the Pretender no assistance in 1745. Their chief vice was hard-drinking.^ Their favourite occupations were field sports. These amusements, though they somewhat changed their character, do not appear to have at all diminished during the first half of the eighteenth century, and it was in this period that Gay, and especially Somer- ' This change is well noticed in letters from Yorkshire to a friend a very able book pi\blished in 1772. in London, writes: 'We have not The author says : 'An income of 200^. been troubled with any visitors or 300Z. a year in the last age was since Mr. Montagu went away ; and reckoned a decent hereditary patri- could you see how awkward, how ab- mony, or a good establishment for surd, how xmcouth are the generality life; but now . . all country gentlemen of people in this country, j-ou would give in to so many local expenses, and look ujDon this as no small piece of reckon themselves so much on a par, good fortune. For the most part that a small estate is but another they are dnmken and vicious, and word for starving ; of course, few are worse than hyjjocrites — i^rotiigates. I to be found, but they are bought up am very happj' that drinking is not by greater neighbours or become mere within our walls. We have not had farmers.' — Letters on England, p. 221). one person disordered with liquor In Grose's Olio, published in 1792, since we came down, though most of there is a very graphic description of the jwor ladies in the neighbourhood the mode of living of ' the little in- have had more hogs in their drawing- dependent country gentleman of 300?. room than ever they had in tlieir hog per annum,' 'a character,' the author sty.' — Dorau's Life of Mrs. Monta^/u, says, 'now worn out and gone.' p. 36. 2 Mrs. Montagu, in one of her 558 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. IT. \dlle, published the most considerable sporting- poems in the languag-e. Hawking, which had been extremely popular in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and which was a favourite sport of Charles II., almost disappeared in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Stag-hunting declined witli the spread of agricultvu-e, but hare-hunting held its ground, and fox-hunt- ing greatly increased. Cricket, which would occupy a distin- guished place in any modern picture of English manners, had apparently but just arisen. The earliest notice of it, discovered by an antiquary who has devoted much research to the history of amusements, is in one of D'Urfey's songs, written in the be- ginning of the century.^ It was mentioned as one of the amuse- ments of Londoners by Strype in his edition of Stow's 'Survey' published in 1720, and towards the close of the century it greatly increased. There had been loud complaints ever since the Eevolution, both in the country and in the towns, of the rapid rise of the poor-rates, but it seems to have been due, much less to any growth of real poverty than to improvident administration and to the dissipated habits that were generated by the poor-laws. Although the controversy on the subject of these laws did not come to a climax till long after the period we are now consider- ing, the great moral and economical evils resulting from them were clearly seen by the most acute thinkers. Among others, Locke, in a report which he drew up in 1697, anticipating some- thing of the later reasoning of Malthus, pointed out forcibly the danger to the country from the great increase of able-bodied pauperism, and attributed it mainly, if not exclusively, to 'the relaxation of discipline and the corruption of manners.' The annual rates in the last thii'ty years of the seventeenth century- were variously estimated at from 600,000^ to 840,000^. They rose before the end of the reign of Anne to at least a million. They again sank for a time after an Act, which was carried in 1723, for founding workhouses and imposing a more severe discipline on paupers, but they soon regained their ascending movement and continued steadily to increase during the remainder of the cen- tury. Popidar education and the rapid growth of manufactur- ing wages had not yet produced that high type of capacity and ' Strutt's S]}ortt<. and Pastimes, p. lOG. CH. IV. CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 559 ^knowledge which is now found among the skilled artisans of the great towns, but the broad lines of the English industrial cha- racter were clearly discernible. Probably no workman in Europe could equal the Englishman in physical strength, in sustained power and energy of work, and few, if any, could surpass him in thoroughness and fidelity in the performance of his task and in general rectitude and honesty of character. On the other hand, he was far inferior to most Continental workmen in those branches of labour which depended on taste and on delicacy of touch, and most industries of this kind passed into the hands of refugees. His requirements were much greater than those of the Continental workman. In habits of providence and of economy he ranked extremely low in the industrial scale ; his relaxations usually took the form of drunkenness or brutal sports, and he was rather peculiarly addicted to riot and violence. An attempt to estimate with any precision the position of the different classes engaged in agricidture or manufacturing in- dustry is very difficidt, not only on account of the paucity of evidence we possess, but also on account of the many different and fluctuating elements that have to be considered. The pro- sperity of a class is a relative term, and we must judge it not only by comparing the condition of the same class in different countries and in different times, but also by comparing it with that of the other sections of society. The value of money has greatly changed,^ but the change has not been uniform ; it has been counteracted by other influences ; it applies much' more to some articles of consumption than to others, and therefore affects very unequally the different classes in the community. Thus the price of wheat in the seventy years that followed the Revolution was not very materially different from what it now is, and during the first half of the eighteenth century it, on the ' It is worthy of notice that the and Queen Anne had biit 700,000/. complaints of the increasing price of jjcr annum, but neither had any living in the first half of the eigli- family to provide for, and both lived tecnth century, were, among the in times when that income would upper classes, little less loud tlian have supported a greater expense those we hoar in the present day. than a million would do now; for Thus the author of Faction Detected tlie truth of which I appeal to the hif the Evidence of Facts, which was experience of every private family, j)ublished in 174:?, speaking of the and to tlie known advance of price royal income at different periods of in all commodities and articles of English history, says: ' King William expense whatsoever ' (p. 137). 560 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. iv. whole, slightly declined. At the time of the Eevolution it was a little under 41s. a quartei*. During- the ten years ending in 1705 it was about 43s., in the ten ending in 1715 it was about 44s.; in the twenty ending in 1735 about 35s.; in the ten ending in 1745 about 32s.; and in the ten ending in 1755 about 33s. The price of meat, on the other hand, was far less than at present. The average price of mutton throughout Eng- land from 1706 to 1730 is stated to have been 2^d, a pound. From 1730 to 1760 it had risen to Sd. a pound. The price of beef, from 1740 to 1760, is said to have been 2^d. a pound. Pork, veal, and lamb, as well as beer, were proportionately cheap.^ We must remember, too, in estimating the condition of British labourers, that besides their wages they had the ad- vantage of an immense extent of common land. Nearly every village had still around it a large space of unenclosed ground on which the cows, sheep, and geese of the poor found an ample pasture. The different parts of England differed widely in prosperity, the counties surrounding London, and generally the southern half of the island, being by far the most flourishing, while the northern parts, and especially the counties bordering on Scot- land, were the most poor. There can be no doubt that in the former, at least, the condition of the English labourer was much more prosperous than that which was general in the same class on the Continent. Gregory King, in his very valuable estimate of 'the state and condition of England ' in 1696, has calculated that, out of a population of about 5,500,000, about 2,700,000 ate meat daily, and that, of the remaining 2,800,000, 1,540,000 ate meat at least twice a week, while 240,000 were either sick persons or infants under thirteen months old. There remained 1,020,000 persons 'who receive alms, and consequently eat not flesh above once a week.' It would appear from this estimate that the whole population ate meat at least once a week, and all healthy adults, who were not paupers, more than once ; - while the ' These and many other statistics * The immense proportion the on the subject, are collected in paupers bore to the rest of the popu- Knight's Pictwial Hist, of England, lation will strike the reader, but iv. p. 700. 'Eden's Hist, of the Work- Macaulay, in his famous third chapter, ing Classes, ui.ii.pTpeu(\.i. Thornton's greatly exaggerated its significance Ovor-Fojjulation, p. 202. as indicating the amount of real cH. IT king's estimate. 561 gigantic consumption of beer, to which I have already referred, makes it almost certain that this was the common beverage of all classes. The same writer makes a curious attempt to esti- mate the average incomes of families in the different classes of society in 1688. That of the temporal lords he places at 2,800L ; that of baronets, at 880^ ; that of esquires and of other gentlemen respectively at 450^. and 280^. ; that of shop- keepers and tradesmen at 451. ; that of artisans and handicrafts at 40^ ; that of labouring people and out-servants at 15^. ; that of common soldiers at 14^. ; that of cottagers and paupers at 6^. 10s. The average annual incomes of all classes he reckoned at 32L a family, or 71. 18s. a head. In France he calculated that the average annual income was 61. a head, and in Holland 81. Is. 4cL From a careful comparison of the food of the different nations he calculated that the English annually spent on food, on an average, 3^, 1 6s. 5d. a head ; the French, 21. 16s. 2d.; the Dutch, 21. 16s. 5d.^ Such estimates can, of course, only be accepted with mucli reservation ; but they are the judgments of a very acute con- temporary observer, and they are, no doubt, sufBcieutly accurate misery in the community. The relief houses in 1723 was of some advantage, was out-door relief ; there appears to but the diet of their inmates was have been no general feeling of shame most imprudently and indeed ab- about accepting it, and it was dis- surdly liberal. See Tliornton's Onr- tributed with a most mischievous PojniJatio/i, pp. 205-207. Knight's Pic- profusion. Richard Dunning, in a torial Hi.'itorij, iv. p. 844. Macaulay's tract published in 1698, asserts that picture of the condition of the jsoor the parish pay was in fact three times should be compared with the admir- as much as a common labourer, having able chapter on the same subject in to maintain a wife and three children, Mr. Thornton's Ove7--Poj>iiI/ifion. See, can aiford to expend upon himself, too, his Za^OT/r, pp. 11-12. The annual and that 'persons once receiving expenditm-e in poor rates is said to parish pay presently become idle, have trebled between the close of alleging that the parish is bound to the reign of Anne and the year 1750 maintain them, and that in case they (Macpherson, Jlist. of Commerce, iii. should work, it would only favour a p. 5G0) ; yet nearly all the evidence parishfrom whom, they say, they sliall we possess seems to show that tlie have no thanks.' He assures us that prosjierity of the country had during ' such as arc maintained by the parish that jDcriod been steadily increasing. pay, seldom drink any other than the ' This curious work is printed in strongest ale-house beer, which, at full at the end of the later editions the rate they buy it, costs 50.S. or 3 Z. a of Chalmers' Edimate. Macaulay, hogshead; that they seldom eat any as will be seen, has much overcharged bread save what is mad(! of the finest his picture of tlie wretcliednessof the wheat flour.' At this time there is poor when he states, on tlH> authority reason to believe that wheat bread of King, that ' hundreds of thousands was almost unused among the labour- of families scarcely know the taste of ing poor. The formation of work- meat.' VOL. I. 662 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ck. tv. to enable us to form a fair general conception of the relative proportions. In 1704 an abortive attemj)t which was made to extend the system of poor-law relief produced the ' Giving Alms no Charity,' one of the most admirable of the many excellent tracts of Defoe. No man then living was a shrewder or more practical observer, and he has collected many facts which throw a vivid light on the condition of the labouring poor. He states that although in Yorkshire, and generally in the bishopric of Durham, a labourer's weekly wages might be only 4s., yet in Kent and in several of the southern and western counties agricultural weekly wages were 7s., 9s., and even 10s. He mentions the case of a tilemaker, to whom he had for several years paid from 16s. to 20s. a week, and states that journeymen weavers could earn from 15s. to 20s. a week. The pauperism of the country he ascribes not to any want of employment, but almost wholly to habits of vagrancy, drunken- ness, and extravagance. ' I affirm,' he says, ' of my own know- ledge, that when I wanted a man for labouring work, and offered 9s. per week to strolling fellows at my door, they have freqiiently told me to my face that they could get more a-begging.' ' Good husbandry,' he adds, ' is no English virtue ... it neither loves, nor is beloved by, an Englishman. The English get estates and the Dutch save them ; and this observa- tion I have made between foreigners and Englishmen — that where an Englishman earns his 20s. a week, and but just lives, as we call it, a Dutchman grows rich, and leaves his children in very good condition. Where an English labouring man, with his 9s. a week, lives wretchedly and poor, a Dutchman, with that wages, will live toleralJy well, . . . We are the most lazy, diligent nation in the world. There is nothing more frequent than for an Englishman to work till he has got his pockets full of money, and then go and be idle, or perhaps drunk, till it is all gone, and perhaps himself in debt ; and ask him, in his cups, what he intends, he'll tell you honestly he will drink as long as it lasts, and then go to work for more. I make no difficulty to promise, on a short summons, to produce above a thousand families in England, within my particular knowledge, who go in rags, and their children wanting bread, whose fathers can earn their 15s. to 25s. a week, but will not work. . . . The CE. IV. AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 5G3 reason why so many pretend to want work is that, as they can live so well on the pretence of wanting- work, they would be mad to have it and work in earnest.' He maintains that wages in England were higher than in any other country in Europe, that liands and not employment were wanting-, and that the con- dition of the labour market was clearly shown by the impossi- bility of obtaining- a sufficient number of recruits for the army, without resorting to the press-gang. When, a few years later, the commercial treaty between France and England was dis- cussed, one of the strongest arguments of its opponents was the danger of French competition, on account of the much greater cheapness of French labour. ' The French,' said one of the writers in the ' British Merchant,' ' did always outdo us in the price of labour ; their common people live upon roots, cabbage, and other herbage ; four of their large provinces subsist entirely upon chestnuts, and the best of them eat bread made of barley, millet, Turkey and black corn . . . they generally drink nothing but water, and at best a sort of liquor they call beuverage (which is water passed through the husks of grapes after the wine is drawn off) ; they save a great deal upon that account, for it is well known that our people spend half of their money in drink.' ' As far as we are able to judge from the few scattered facts that are preserved, the position of the poor seems on the whole to have steadily improved in the long pacific period during the reigns of George I. and George II. It was at this time that wheat bread began to supersede, among the labouring classes, bread made of rye, barley, or oats, and the rate of wages slightly advanced without any corresponding, or at least equivalent, rise in the price of the articles of first necessity. When Arthur Young investigated the agricultiu-al condition of the soutliern counties in 1768, he found that the average weekly rate of agricultural wages for tlie whole year round, was 10s. 9cZ. within 20 miles of London; 7s. 8d. at a distance of from ' British Mcrcl/avt, i. 6, 7. '1 Wien the post -horses are changed, the think nothing so terrihle,' wrote whole town comes out to beg, with Lady M. Monlagii, when travelling such miserable starved faces and through France in 1718, 'as objects thin tattered clothes, they need no of misery, except one had the God- other eloquence to persuade one of like attribute of being capable to tlie wretcluulness of their condition.' redress them; and all the country — Lady M. W. Montagu's Works villages of France show nothing else. (Tiord Wharncliffe's edit ion), ii. p. S'X o o 2 564 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. en. iv. 20 to 60 miles from London; 6s. 4t?. at from 60 to 110 miles from London; 6s. Sd. at from 110 to 170 miles. The highest wages were in the eastern counties, the lowest in the western counties, and especially in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. In some parts of these he found that the agricultural wages were not higher than 4s. 6d. in winter and 6s. in summer. In the north of England, wliich he described in 1770, he found that agricultural wages, for the whole year, ranged from 4s. lid. to 9s. dd., the average being 7s. Id. Within 300 miles to the north of London, the average rate in different districts varied only from 6s. dd. to 7s. 2d. ; but beyond that distance it fell to 5s. Sd. Twenty years later, the same admirable observer, after a detailed examination of the comparative condition of the labouring classes in England and France, pronounced agricul- tural wages in the latter country to be 76 per cent, lower than in England, and he has left a most emphatic testimony to the enormous superiority in well-being of the English labourer.* One change, however, was taking place which was, on the whole, to his disadvantage. It was inevitable that with the progress of agriculture the vast tracts of common land scattered over England should be reclaimed and enclosed, and it was almost equally inevitable that the permanent advantage derived from them should be reaped by the surrounding landlords. Clauses were, it is true, inserted in most Enclosure Bills pro- viding compensation for those who had common rights ; and the mere increase of the net produce of the soil had some effect in raising the price of labour ; but the main and enduring benefits of the enclosures necessarily remained with those in whose properties the common land was incorporated, and by whose capital it was fructified. After a few generations the right of free pasture, which the English peasant had formerly enjoyed, had passed away, while the compensation he had re- ceived was long since dissipated. The great movement for enclosing common land belongs chiefly to the reign of George III., but it had begun on a large scale under his predecessor. Only two Enclosure Acts had been passed under Anne, and only ' Arthur Young's Scmtlie7'n Tom; Ot'e7'-PojmIafio?i and. Zabovr,Knight's pp. 321-324. Northeryi Tour, iv. pp. Pictorial Hist, of Unylaad, vuL iv., 2'.K^-297. To^ir in France. See, too, Taine's Ancien Regime. Eden's Hist, of the Poor, Thornton's CH. IV. LONDON. 565 sixteen under Greorge I. Under Greorge II. there were no less than 226, and more than 318,000 acres were enclosed.^ Though the population of London was only about a sixth part of what it now is, the magnitude of the city relatively to the other towns of the kingdom was not less than at pre- sent. Under the Tudors and the Stuarts many attempts had been made to check its growth by proclamations forbidding the erection of new houses, or the entertaining of additional in- mates, and peremptorily enjoining the country gentry to return to their homes in order ' to perform the duties of their several charo-es ... to be a comfort unto their neighbours ... to renew and revive hospitality in their respective counties.' Many proclamations of this kind had been issued during the first half of the seventeenth century, but the last occasion on which the royal prerogative was exercised to prevent the extension of London beyond its ancient limits appears to have been in 1674.^ From that time its progress was unimpeded, and Davenant in 1685 combated the prevalent notion that it was an evil.^ The cities of London and Westminster, which had originally been far apart, were fully joined in the early years of the seventeenth century, partly, it is said, through the great number of Scotch who came to London on the accession of James I., and settled chiefly along the Strand.* The quarter now occupied by St. James's Square, Pall Mall, St. James's Street, and Arlington Street, was pasture land till about 1680. Evelyn, writing in 1684, stated that London had nearly doubled in his own recol- lection ; ^ but in the beginning of the eighteenth century Hackney, Newington, Marylebone, Islington, Chelsea, and Ken- sington were still rural villages, far removed from the metro- polis. Marylebone, which was probably the nearest, was sepa- rated from it by a full mile of fields. The growth of London in the first half of the eighteenth centiu^y appears to have been chiefly in the direction of Deptford, Hackney, and Blooms- bury. It spread also on the southern bank of the Thames > McCulloch's Statistical Accotmt 6G0, 67G, 079, 742, 743. oftJie British Emxnre, i. 550. ^ Essay upon. Ways and ^Tcans. 2 Edoti's ITist. of the Poor, i. 13(5- '' HowuU's Loiulimpolis (1(557), p. 137. Craik's Hist, of Commerce, ii. 340. 1 14. See, too, on Uie alarm f(!lt at * Evelyn's Diary, June 12, 1684, the increase of London, Pari. Hist. iv. 566 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. cii. tv. after the building of Westminster Bridge in 1736, and espe- cially in the quarter of the rich, which was extending stendily towards the west. Horace Walpole mentions that when, in the reign of Charles 11. , Lord Burlington Luilt his great house in Piccadilly, he was asked why he placed it so far out of town, and he answered, because he was determined to have no build- ing beyond him. In little more than half a centm-y Burling- ton House was so enclosed with new streets that it was in the heart of the west end of London.' In the reign of Queen Anne, the most fashionable quarters were Bloomsbury Square, Lin- coln's Inn Fields, Soho Square, and Queen's Square, West- minster. In the reign of George II. they included Leicester Fields, Golden Square, and Charing Cross. Pall Mall, till the middle of the century, was a fashionable promenade. Among other amusements, smock-racing by women was kept up there till 1733.2 The great nobles whose houses once fringed the Strand gene- rally moved westward. Cavendish, Hanover, and Grosvenor Squares, as well as New Bond Street, the ui^per part of Pic- cadilly, the greater part of Oxford Street, and many contiguous streets were built in the first half of the eighteenth century ; but Portman Square was not erected till about 1764. On the pre- sent site of Curzon Street and of the adjoining streets. May fair, witli one short interruption, was annually celebrated till 1756. It lasted for six weeks, and did much to demoralise the neigh- bourhood, which was also greatly injured by the crowds of ruf- fians who passed through that quarter to witness the frequent executions at Tyburn. In 1748 we find Chesterfield, whose house stood near the border of May fair, complaining bitterly that the neiglibouring district was full of thieves and mur- derers.' It appears from a map of London, published in 1733,'* that there were no houses to the north of Oxford Street, except file new quarter of Cavendish Square which formed a small pro- montory bounded by Marylebone Street on the north and by Oxford Street on the south, and extending from Vere Street on the west to near the site which is now occupied by Portland ' Anecdotes of Painting. ' Doran's IJfe and Letters of Mrs. 2 Andrews' Eirjhtccnik Century, Muntaijiu pp. 274-275. p (32. * iiv\uiou.i's iSitrvti/ of London CH. IV. LONDON. 567 Koad. Mo vino: on eastward the northern frontier line of Lon- don touched Montague House, now the British Museum. It then gTadually ascended, passed a few lanes to the north of Clerkenwell Grreen, and iinally reached Hoxton, which was con- nected by some scattered houses with the metropolis. To the east, London stretched far into Whitechapel Street, Eatcliflfe Highway, and Wapping, which, however, were divided from one another by large open spaces. To the west the new quarter of Grrosvenor Square extended close to Hyde Park, and there were also a few houses clustered about Hyde Park Corner, but most of the space between Grrosvenor Square and what is now called Piccadilly ' was open ground. Along the Westminster bank of the river the town reached as far as the Horseferry opposite Lambeth. London Bridge was still the only bridge across the Thames, and the only considerable quarter on the southern side of the river was in its neighbourhood. Except a few scattered villages, open fields extended over all the ground which is now occupied by the crowded thoroughfares of Bel- gravia, Chelsea, and Kensington, and by the many square miles of houses which stretch along the north of London from St. John's Wood to Hackney. No less than eight parishes were added between the Revo- lution and the death of Greorge 11.,^ and many signs indicate the rapid extension of the town. The number of liackney coaches authorised in London, which was only 200 in 1652, was 800 in 1715,^ and the number of sedan chairs was raised from 200 in 1694 to 400 in 1726." A traveller noticed, about 1724, that while in Paris, Brussels, Eome, and Vienna, coaches could only be hired by the day, or at least by the hour, in London they stood at the corner of every street.^ The old water-supply being found inadequate for the wants of the new western quarter, a company was founded in 1722, and a reservoir formed in Hyde Park.^ Above all, in 1711 a most important step was taken in the interests of civilisation by the full organisation of a London ' The street was then only called ^ Macpherson, ii. 410 ; iii. H. Piccadilly to Devonshire House. The * Ibid. ii. (I.^.") ; iii. ]:?!. continuation was called I'ort-uq-al ^ Macky's Jovrncii thrmirjh Eng- Street, ami near Hyde Park, ihe lant1,\. IViS. Muralt's Liuirsmiihe Exeter Koad. U'li/Ush, -p. 84. . '^ QrMk'^ Hitit. of Commerce,i\.2\r->. " Macuhcrson iii. 121, CH. IV. 568 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. penny post.^ Great progress was made, as we have already seen, in tlie first half of the eighteenth century in lighting the streets and protecting the passengers, but very little was done to em- hellish the city. The pavement was scandalously inferior to that of the great towns of the Continent, while the projecting gutters from the roofs of the houses made the streets almost impassable in the rain, and it was not until the first years of George III. that these evils were remedied by law.^ Architectm-al taste during the ascendancy of Vanbrugh was extremely low, and it is worthy of note that the badness of the bricks employed in building, which has been represented as a peculiar characteristic of the workmanship of the present generation, was already a matter of frequent complaint.^ The London season extended from October to May, leaving four months during which the theatres were closed and all forms of dissipation suspended."* In the middle of the eighteenth century London was still unable to boast of any public gallery of ancient pictures or of any exhibition of the works of modern artists. The British Museum was not yet formed. Zoological Gardens were still unknown, and there was nothing of that variety of collections which is so conspicuous a feature of the present century. At the Tower, it is true, there had for cen- turies been a collection of \vild animals, which many gene- rations of country visitors regarded as so pre-eminent among the sights of London that it has even left its trace upon the language. The lions of the Tower ai-e the origin of that ap- ^ _ > Compare Macpherson, ii, 608; don hoiises seldom last more than iii. 13. The penny post was first forty or fifty years, and sometimes instituted in 1682 as a private enter- drop before the end of tiiat term, prisebyan uphoLst erer named JIurray, The author of the LcUers concermng who assigned it to one Dockwra, and Ue Pn-xent State of England (1772), Government ultimately adopted it. says : ' The material of all common Its first mention in the Statute Book ediiices, viz. bricks, are most insulfer- is in 1711. ably bad, to a degree that destroys 2 Pugh's Life of Hann-ay, pp. 127- the beauty of half the buildintrs about 139. See, too, the description of the town, making them seem of dirt and state of the streets in Gay's Trivia. mud ratlier than brick. ... A law Macplierson's JJi.'it. of Commerce, iii. might surely be enacted against 360, 477. using or making such detestable 3 Macaulay has noticed (c. iii.), materials, by having all bricks un- on the authority of Duke Cosmo, the dergo a survey or examination be- "badnoss of the bricks of the city whicli fore sale, that are made in London ' was destroj-ed by the fire. Muralt, in (p. 241). the very beginning of the eighteenth ■• Eamhler, No. 124. century (p, 76), declares that Lon- CH. IV. COFFEE-HOUSES— FASHIONABLE HOURS. 569 plication of the term ' lion ' to any conspicuous spectacle or personage, wliicli has long since become universal. A much larger proportion of amusements than at present were carried on in the open air. Besides the popular gatherings of May fair, Bartholomew fair, and Southwark fair, there were the public gardens of Vauxhall and of Eanelagh, which occupy so promi- nent a place in the pictures of fashionable life by Fielding, Wal- pole, Groldsmith, Lady W. Montagu, and Miss Burney, and also the less famous entertainments of Marylebone Gardens, and of Cuper's Gardens on the Lambeth side of the Thames. Vauxhall dated from the middle of the seventeenth century, but Eanelagh Gardens, which occupied part of the present site of the gai'dens of Chelsea Hospital, were only opened in 1742. Coffee-houses, though apparently less conspicuous centres of news, politics, and fashion than they had been under Anne, were still very numerous. At the present day every traveller is struck with the almost complete absence in London of this element of Continental life, but in the early years of the eighteenth cen- tury coffee-houses were probably more prominent in London than in any other city in Eiurope. A writer who described the metro- polis in 1708, not much more than fifty years after the first coffee-house had been established in England, estimated the number of these institutions at nearly 3,000.^ The fashionable hours were becoming steadily later. Colley Cibber, in describing the popularity of Kjmaston, a favourite actor of female parts under Charles II., mentions that ladies of quality were accustomed to take him with them in their coaclies to Hyde Park in his theatrical habit after the play, which they could then do, as the play began at four o'clock.^ ' The land- marks of our fathers,' wrote Steele in 1710, 'are removed, and planted further up in the day ... in my own memory the dinner hour has crept by degrees from twelve o'clock to three. Where it will fix nobody knows.' ^ In the reign of George 11. the most fashionable dinner hour appears to have been four. The habits of all classes were becoming less simple. Defoe ' Hatton's New View of London., i. - Gibber's Ajmlo/jy, ch. 5. p. 30. Many particulars relating to ^ I'a/fc?-, No. ifili. In the country these coffee-houses will be found in the old hours seem to have gone on. Timbs' Club Life in London. Pope, in his E^nstlc to Mrs. Blount, on 670 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. cu. iv. noticed that within the memory of men still living the ap- prentices of shopkeepers and warehousemen habitually served the families of their masters at table, and discharged other menial functions which in the reign of George I. they would have indignantly spurned.^ The merchants who had hitherto lived in the city near their counting-houses, began, early in the eigliteenth century, to migrate to other quarters, though they at first seldom went further than Hatton Grarden.^ Domestic service was extremely disorganised. Almost all the complaints on this subject, which in our own day we hear upon every side and which are often cited as conclusive proofs of the degene- racy of the English people, were quite as loud and as emphatic a hundred and fifty years ago as at present. It was said that while no servants in Europe were so highly paid or so well fed as the English, none were so insolent, exacting, or no- madic, that the tie of affection between master and servant was completely broken, that on the smallest provocation or at the hope of the smallest increase of wages, or still more of vales, the servant threw up his place, and that no other single cause contrilnited so largely to the discomfort of families. Servants had their clubs, and their societies for maintaining each other when out of place, and they copied only too faithfully the follies and the vices of their masters. There were bitter complaints of how they wore their masters' clothes and assumed tlieir masters' names, how there were in liveries ' beaux, fops, and coxcombs, in as high perfection as among people that kept equipages,' how near the entrance of the law-courts and the Parliament a host of servants kept up ' such riotous clamour and licentious confusion ' that ' one would think there were no such thing as rule or distinction among us.'^ In the theatres especially they were a constant source of disturbance. It was her leaving town for the country, See Lawrence^s Life of Meldinff, says — p. G6. She went to plain work and to purling brooks, ^ Sj>ectator, No. 88. World, No. 157. Ol(i-f.isiiioncd halls, dull aunts, and creaking Angeloni's Letters on the English, ii. rooks. ^ ^^ 38-42. Defoe's Jiehariour ' of the To pass*hor tim'e twixt*reading and bohea, ff "'*''!^ "-^ ^"flji}»f" Fielding's OU To muse, and spill her solitary tea, Jfien laught \\%sdoin. Gentleman's Or o'er cold coitee trifle with the spoon , Magazine, 1731, pp. 249-250. Gon- Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon. ^^j^g^ ^ Portuguese traveller who ' nchamoiir of the Servants of visited England in 1730, writes : England, p. 12. ' As to the common and menial ser- CH. IV. DOiMESTIC SERVICE. 571 the custom of the upper classes to send their footmen before them to keep their places during the first acts of the play, and they afterwards usually retired to the upper gallery, to which they claimed the right of free admission. Their constant dis- order led to their expulsion from Drury Lane theatre in 1737, which tliey resented by a furious riot. The presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales was unable to allay the storm, and order was not restored till twenty-five or twenty-six per- sons had been seriously injured.^ This state of things was the natural consequence of luxurious and ostentatious habits, acting upon a national character by no means peculiarly adapted to domestic service. There were, however, also several special causes at work, which made the condition of domestic service a great national evil. The most conspicuous were the custom of placing servants on board wages, which was very prevalent in the beginning of tlie century, and which encouraged them to frequent clubs and taverns ; the constant attendance of servants upon their mistresses in the great scenes of fashionable dissipation ; the law which commu- nicated to the servants of peers and Members of Parliament the immunity from arrest for debt enjoyed by their masters ; and, above all, the system of vales, which made servants in a great degree independent of their masters. This system had been carried in England to an extent unparalleled in Europe ; and the great prominence given to it in the literature of the early half of the eighteenth century shows how widespread and demoralising it had become. When dining with his nearest relation a gentleman was expected to pay the servants who at- tended him, and no one of small fortune could accept many invitations from a great nobleman, on account of the large sums which had to be distributed among the numerous domestics. vants [of London] they have great be gone. There is no speaking to wages, are well kejjt and clothed, them ; they are above correct ion. . . . but are notwithstanding the plague It is become a common saying, " 11 of almost every house in town. They my servant ben't a thief, if lie be but form themselves into societies, or honest, I can bear with other things," rather confederacies, contributing and, indeed, it is very rare to meet to the maintenance of each other in London with an honest servant.' — when out of place, and if any of them I'inkerton's Trarcla, ii. O.o. cannot manage the family where they ' Lawrence's jyi/e of Fielding, ])[>. are- entertained as they please, im- 6.3-61. Mrs. Delany's JAfe and Col'' mediately I hoy give notice they will res^Mmdcncc, i. 3i)8-3*J9. 572 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iv. No feature of English life seemed more revolting or astonishing to foreigners than an English entertainment where the guests, often under the eyes of the host, passed from the drawing-room through a double row of footmen, each one of them expect- ing and receiving his fee. It was said that a foreign minister, dining on a great occasion with a nobleman of the highest rank, usually expended in this way as much as ten guineas, that a sum of two or three guineas was a common expenditure in great houses, and that a poor clergyman, invited to dine with his bishop, not unfrequently spent in vales to the servants, at a single dinner, more than would have fed his family for a week. Dr. King tells a story of a poor nobleman who in Queen Anne s time was an intimate friend of the Duke of Ormond, and who regularly received a guinea with every invitation, for distribu- tion among the servants of his host. The effect of this system in weakening the authority of masters, and in demoralising ser- vants, was universally recognised, and soon after the middle ot the century a great movement arose to abolish it, the servants being compensated by a higher rate of wages. The move- ment began among the gentry of Scotland. The grand jury of Northumberland and the grand jury of Wiltshire followed the examj^le, pledging themselves to discourage the system of vales, but many years still elapsed before it was finally eradicated.^ Of the sanitary condition of the city it is extremely difficult to speak with confidence. There is reason to believe that cleanli- ness and good ventilation had greatly increased,^ and in at least one respect a marked improvement of the national health had recently taken place. The plague of London was not a single ' Eiglit Letters to Ms Grace ilie of fresh water to keep them clean and Dnlie of 0)1 the Custom of Vails- sweet; many late stately edifices, large giving in England [by Hanway, the clean courts, lofty rooms, large sash- Persian traveller] (London, ITfiO). lights, &c., and many excellent con- King's Anecdotes of his Own Time, pp. veniences both by land and water, for 51-52. Eeresby's Memoirs, p. 377. supplying the city with fresh pro- Angeloni's Letters on the English, ii. visions at moderate prices . . . must pp. 38-42. World, No. 60. Connoisseur, contribute not a little to make the No. 70. Roberts' Social Hist, of the city more healthy.'— Short's Comj)a- Southern Counties, pp. 32-34. raiire Hist, of the Increase and De- ''■ ' Many of its streets have been crease of Mankind in England and widened, made straight, raised, paved Abroad (1767), p. 20. See, too, Mac- with easy descents to carry otf the pherson's Annals of Commerce iii. water ; besides wells in most public 321 yards, and pipes for conveying plenty CH. IV. DISEASE. 573 or isolated outburst. It had been chronic in London during the whole of the seventeenth century, and though greatly dimi- nished had not been extirpated by the fire. By the beginning of the eighteenth century it completely disappeared, and it was noticed that from this time the deaths from colic and dysen- tery decreased with an extraordinary rapidity. In each succes- sive decennial period in the first half of the eighteenth century the annual average of deaths from this source was much less than in the preceding one, and the average in the last decennial period is said to have been little more than a tenth of what it had been in the first one.' The statistics, however, both of disease and of population, were so fluctuating and so uncertain that it is rash to base much upon them. It appears, however, evident that the mortality of the towns as compared with the country, and the mortality of infants as compared with adults, were considerably greater than at present,^ and also that the population of London in the second quarter of the century, if it did not, as was often said, absolutely decrease, at least advanced much less rapidly than in the first quarter. The great spread of gin-drinking was followed both by a serious diminution in the number of births, and by a great increase in the number of deaths, and was, no doubt, regarded, with justice, as the chiet enemy of the public health.^ Medical science had been some- ' Heberden's Ohservations on the ^ Dr. Short saj-s the passion foi Increase and Decrease of Different spirituous liquors 'began to diffuse Diseases (1801). TLiis eminent its pernicious effects in 1721, at the authority, having given many statis- very time wlien tlie city began to be tics on the subject, concludes : ' The more fruitful and healthy than it had cause of so great an alteration in the been since the Restoration. How health of the people of England (for powerfully this poison wrought let it is not confined to the metropolis) us now see. From 1701 to 1724 were I have no hesitation in attributing to born 33G, 514, buried 474,125. Let us the improvements which have gradu- allow fourteen years for this dire ally taken place, not only in London bane to spread, operate, and become but in all the great towns, and in the epidemic; then from 1738 tol758 were manner of living throughout the born 296,831, buried 486,171. Here kingdom ; particularly in respect to we have two shocking efi'ecfs of this cleanliness and ventilation ' (p. 35). bewitching liquor. First, here is a 2 See the article on Vital Statistics greater barrenness, a decrease or want in McCuUoch's Statistical Account of of 40,000 of ordinary births which the BHtish Empire, and Short's Com- the last vicennarj' produced, instead parative History. According to Short, of an increase, as we had in other ' the cities and great towns in the vicennaries. Secondly, an increase kinsj-dom may be deemed as so many of 12,000 buryings, though tliere was slaughterhouses of the peoi^lc of the so great a defect of biitlis.' — Short's nation ' (p. 22). Comparative llistori/, p. 21. 574 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. en. iv. what improved, but the practice of lowering tlie constitution by excessive bleedings was so general that it may be questioned whether on the whole it did not kill more than it cured. The great progress of botany had, as was natural, some effect upon it. A garden of medical plants was created at Chelsea by the Company of Apothecaries as early as 1673, and it was greatly improved in the early years of the eighteenth century, chiefly by the instrumentality of Sir Hans Sloane. This very remarkable man was almost equally distinguished as a physician and as a botanist, and among other services to medicine he greatly ex- tended the use of Peruvian bark.' A still more important fact in the history of English medicine was the increased study of anatomy. The popular prejudice against dissection which had for centuries paralysed and almost prevented this study still ran so high in England that in spite of the number of capital punishments, it was only with great difficulty the civil power could accommodate surgeons with proper subjects, and all pub- licity was studiously avoided. No English artist, unless he desired to hold up to abhorrence the persons whose portraits he drew, would have painted such a subject as the famous study of anatomy by Eembrandt. With such a state of feeling it is not surprising that the English medical school, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, should have been far inferior to that which gathered round the chair of Boerhaave at Leyden. In the reign of Queen Anne, however, a French refugee surgeon, named Bussiere, began for the first time to give public lectures on ana- tomy in England, and the example was speedily followed by two anatomists of great ability.'^ Cheselden commenced, in 1711, a series of lectures on anatomy, which continued for twenty years. The first Monro opened a similar course at Edinburgh in 1719, and a school of medicine arose in that city which in the latter part of the century had no superior in Europe. The passion for anatomy was shown in the illegal efforts made to obtain bodies for dissection ; and Shenstone, in one of bis Pultenej-, Progress of Botany in Century, ii. 10. Charles JI. had Enyla-nd, ii. 85, !)9-103. given the Eoyal Society tlie jorivilege ■■= Nicli 'Is' Jitrrary Anecdotes of of taking bodies of malefactors for the Eigh'eenili Century, iv. (ilS. anatomical purposes. Hatton's New Miller's Futrospeet of the Eiyhteenth View of London, ii. CG5. en. TV. INOCULATION. 575 elegies, complains bitterly of tlie frequent violation of the tomb.' In the first half of the eighteenth century also the first serious attempt was made to restrain the small-pox, which had long been one of the greatest scourges of Europe. Inoculation, as is well known, was introduced into England from Turkey by Lady Mary Montagu, and by Dr. Maitland, the physician of the Embassy, and the son of the former, afterwards the famous traveller, was the first English subject who was inoculated. On her return to England in 1722, Lady Mary Montagu laboured earnestly to jiropagate the system, and the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, whose mind was always open to new ideas and who exhibited no small courage in carrying them out, at once perceived the importance of the discovery. She obtained permission to have the experiment tried on five criminals who had been condemned to death, and who were pardoned on the condition of undergoing it. In four cases it was perfectly suc- cessful, and the remaining criminal confessed that she had had the disease when a child. The physicians, however, at first generally discouraged tlie practice. Popular feeling was vehemently roused against it, and some theologians denounced it as tempting Providence by artificially superinducing disease, endeavoiuing to counteract a Divine visitation, and imitating the action of tlie devil, who caused boils to break out upon the body of Job. Sir Hans Sloane, however, fully recognised the value of inoculation, and the Princess of Wales had two of her children inoculated in the very beginning of the movement. This act exposed her to no little obloquy, but it had some effect in encouraging the prac- tice, and the adhesion of Madox, the Bishop of Worcester, was useful in counteracting the theological prejudice it had aroused. Still for some years it advanced very slowly. Only 845 persons were inoculated in England in the eight years that followed its introduction, and it seemed likely altogether to die out when news arrived that some of the planters in the West Indies had made use of it fi)r their slaves with complete success. From this time the tide turned. In 1746 a small-pox hospital was founded in London for the purpose of inoculation, and in 1754 ' Elegy xxii. 576 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, ch. iv. the College of Physicians pronounced in its favour. It had, however, long to struggle against violent prejudice. As late as 1765 only 6,000 persons had been inoculated in Scotland. In 1768 a hospital for inoculation at Peterborough was burnt by the mob, and in the following year the practice was forbidden by law in the colony of Virginia. This prejudice was less unreasonable than has been sup- posed. Thougli some patients died from inoculation, its efficacy in securing those who underwent the operation from one of the most deadly of diseases was unquestionable. It was, however, only very partially practised, and as its object was to produce in the patient the disease in a mitigated form, it had the effect of greatly multiplying centres of infection, and thus propaga- ting the very evil it was intended to arrest. To those who were wise enough to avail themselves of it, it was a great blessing ; but to the poor and the ignorant, who repudiated it, it was a scourge, and for some years after it was widely introduced, the deaths from small-pox were found rapidly to increase. If inocu- lation can be regarded as a national benefit, it was chiefly because it led the way to the great discovery of Jenner.^ It was in this respect somewhat characteristic of the period in which it arose. One of the most remarkable features of the first sixty years of the eighteenth century is the great number of new powers or influences that were then called into action of which the full significance was only perceived long afterwards. It was in this period that Kussia began to intervene actively in Western politics, and Prussia to emerge from the crowd of obscure Grerman States into a position of commanding emi- nence. It was in this period that the first stej)s were taken in many works which were destined in succeeding generations to exercise the widest and most abiding influence on human affairs. It was then that the English Deists promulgated doctrines which led the way to the great movement of European scepticism, that ' Lacly M. W. I\IontaQ:u's Wor7/s Literary Jlhistrations, i. 277-280. (Lord Wharnclitt'e's ed.), i. pp. xxii. Voltaire's Lettres'snr Ics Anglois, let. .^;j-60, 391-3y3. Baron's L'tfe of xi. Hebcrdon"s Oh.wrrations on the Jtnni'/r, vol. i. 230-233. Gentleman's Increase and Decrease of Disease, ji.^Q. 3far/azine, xxvii. 409. Haygarth on "W'alpole's Memoirs of Georeje J II. iii. Casual 8mall-pox (1793), vol. i. p. 31. p. 198. Stanhope's Hist, of England Kicliols' Literary Anecdotes of the v. p. 8. Liyhteenth Ccntuni, iv. G25 Nichols' CH. IV. DECLINE OF RELIGIOUS FANATICISM. 577 Diderot founded the French Encyclopgedia, that Voltaire began his crusade against the dominant religion of Christendom ; that a few obscure Quakers began the long struggle for the abolition of slavery ; that Wesley sowed the first seeds of religious revival in England. Without any great or salient revolutions the aspect of Europe was slowly changing, and before the middle of the century had arrived both the balance of power and the lines of division and antagonism were profoundly modified. Industrial interests and the commercial spirit had acquired a new prepon- derance in politics, and theological influence had at least pro- portionately declined. The fear of Mohammedan aggression, which was one great source of theological passions in Christen- dom, had now passed away. The power of the Turks was broken by the war which ended in the Peace of Carlowitz, and eighteen years later by the victories of Eugene, and although they waged a successful war with Austria in 1739, their triumph was much more due to the disorganisation of their opponents than to their own strength. Among Christian sects the frontier lines were now clearly traced. In Germany, as we have seen, the political position of Protestantism at the time of the Eevo- lution appeared very precarious, and a new danger arose when the Sovereign of Saxony bartered his faith for the crown of Poland. But this danger had wholly passed. The elevation of Hanover into an Electorate and of Prussia into a kingdom, the additional strength acquired by Hanover through its connection with England, and the rapid development of the greatness of Prussia, would have secured Grerman Protestantism from danger even if the zeal of the Catholic States had not greatly abated. The only religious war of the period broke out in Switzerland in 1712, and it ended in the complete triumph of the Protes- tant cantons, and the spirit of fanaticism and of persecution had everywhere declined. Two Protestant States, however, which had played a great and noble part in the history of tlie seventeenth century, had sunk gradually into comparative insig- nificance. Sweden never recovered the effects of its disastrous war with Russia. Holland, through causes that were partly political and partly economical, had ceased to exercise any great influence beyond its borders. France exhibited some decline of energy and ambition, and a marked decline of administrative and mili- VOL. I. P P 578 ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ch. iv. tary ability ; and some of the elements of decomposition might be already detected which led to the convulsions of the Revo- lution. In England the Protestant succession and Parliamen- tary institutions were firmly established, and the position of the country in Europe was on the whole sustained. END OF i'HE FIRST VOLUME. PRINTED BY srOTTlSWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON STANDARD HISTOEICAL WOEKS. MACAULAY'S (Lord) HISTORY of ENGLAND, from the ACCESSION of JAMES the SECOND. Cabinet Edition, 8 vols, post 8vo. 48s. Library Edition, 5 vols. 8vo. £4. Cabinet Edition, 4 vols. 8vo. 24s. Library Edition, 3 vols. Svo. 36s. Student's Edition, 2 vols, crown Svo. 12s. People's Edition, 4 vols, crown Svo. 16s. MACAULAY'S (Lord) ESSAYS Student's Edition, 1 vol. crown Svo. 6s. People's Edition, 2 vols, crown Svo. 8s. 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