1714.]

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Dunkirk, and embark at its head. He urged the elector not to be sparing of his money, and offered him a loan of 20,000l.

Bolingbroke at length triumphed over his rival. The treasurer's staff was taken from Oxford (July 27), and the secretary was regarded as the future prime-minister. After a slight attempt at cajoling the whigs, he was proceeding to the formation of a jacobite cabinet, when the untasted cup of power was suddenly dashed from his lips. The queen grew alarmingly ill on the 29th; and, as a committee of the privy-council was sitting to make arrangements in case of her death, the dukes of Somerset and Argyle suddenly entered the room. Shrewsbury rose and thanked them. They proposed that the queen's physicians should be examined; and, when assured of her danger, they said that the post of treasurer should be filled without delay, and the duke of Shrewsbury be recommended for it to the queen. Bolingbroke and his party were stunned. A deputation waited on the queen, who approved of their choice, and gave the staff to the duke, bidding him to use it for the good of her people*. She soon after fell into a lethargy, and on the morning of the first of August she expired, in the fiftieth year of her age. The elector of Hanover was proclaimed as George I.

With Anne ended the dynasty of the Stuarts. She was a woman of narrow intellect, but of good intentions; a model of conjugal and maternal duty. The title of 'Good Queen Anne,' given to her, proves the public sense of her virtues. She possessed, however, a portion of the obstinacy of her family, and had some of their notions of prerogative. In person the queen was comely, and her voice was so melodious that it acted like a charm on the auditors when she spoke from the throne. All through her reign she was highly and deservedly popular.

* This was the last lord-treasurer; the treasury has been ever since in commission, and the prime minister is usually first lord (commissioner) of the treasury.

During the reigns of William and Anne the constitution, as was to be expected, received many improvements. By the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement the limits of the prerogative were ascertained; the Toleration-act, imperfect as it was, put an end to the persecution of the Non-conformists; the law of treason was improved and made certain; the liberty of the press was completely established. The judges now for the first time became really independent, as they were to retain their places during good behaviour, and be only removeable in case of the commission of some great offence or by an address of both houses of parliament.

It was at this period that a national bank was first established in England, and paper-money, that most valuable aid to commerce, if judiciously managed, was introduced. The system of funding and the consequent formation of a national debt was now first brought into action by the inventive genius of Mr. Montague (lord Halifax) when chancellor of the exchequer. It originated in the issue of exchequer-bills (some for as low a sum as 107. or 5l.) to the amount of 2,700,000l. bearing interest and transferable. The advantage to government of this happy temerity, as it was termed, was speedily discerned, and the practice of mortgaging future revenue, which has since been carried to such an enormous extent, was soon commenced.

To this period may also be referred the permanent establishment of a standing army in England. The efforts of the two last princes of the house of Stuart to obtain this implement of despotism, as they held it to be, had proved abortive; but the two great wars which had succeeded the Revolution, and the close connexion in which England was thereby engaged with the continental powers, had formed the army into a profession, and also made apparent that she must at all times have in readiness for domestic defence or external operation a force more efficient than trained bands, and which in skill and discipline might be on a footing with those of the continental powers. Much

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jealousy was entertained for a long time at this new description of force, and it formed a fruitful subject of declamation for pretended patriots, though the annual mutinybill, on which it depended for its existence, made it be completely under the control of parliament. It has ever since proved the most efficient instrument, not merely in protecting the country from foreign enemies, but in preserving internal tranquillity, and has never been employed in encroachments on the liberty of the subject. It is worthy of remark, that from the very commencement commissions in the British army have been matters of purchase, and that at a very high rate.

The despatches of foreign ambassadors, which furnish so many materials for the history of the houses of Tudor and Stuart, now become comparatively of little importance. Foreign envoys were no longer on the same footing of familiar intercourse with the British sovereigns or their ministers; and as the struggles in parliament henceforth were more for place than for principles, they had less occasion to take any share in the parliamentary contests. They transacted their business with the secretaries of state, and the accounts of events which they used to write to inform their courts of, were now generally to be found in the columns of the newspapers which appeared daily.

It may finally be observed, that this period and the early part of the succeeding one was the golden age of literary men if not of literature in England. Though the sovereigns themselves were indifferent to them, the ministers loved and encouraged literature and science. Thus sir Isaac Newton was master of the mint, and John Locke a commissioner of trade; Matthew Prior an envoy at the court of France, and Joseph Addison, as we shall see, a secretary of state; not to mention Swift and others, who were promoted in their professions. This surely was a more honourable way of rewarding mental attainments than that of granting pensions, which to a delicate mind must always cause a feeling of degradation.

HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.

CHAPTER I.

GEORGE I*.

1714-1727.

New ministry.—Impeachments.-Mar's rebellion.-Septennial bill.-Hanoverian Junto.-Peerage bill.-South-sea scheme.-Death and character of Marlborough.-Atterbury's plot.-Death of the king.

THE measures taken by the friends of the protestant succession had been so prompt and energetic, and the confusion of Bolingbroke and his party so complete, that George I. was proclaimed without a murmur being heard; and he was acknowledged at once by the king of France and the other potentates of Europe. He was in the fiftyfifth year of his age, with the reputation of being a prudent, moderate prince; he had shown valour and skill in war, but he loved peace. He was totally ignorant of the language, constitution, and manners of England †.

On the 18th of September George I. landed at Greenwich. A new ministry, almost totally whig, was formed. The two secretaries were lord Townshend and general Stanhope; Cowper was chancellor, Marlborough commander-in-chief, Wharton privy-seal, Sunderland lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Nottingham president of the council,

* Authorities: Oldmixon, Tindal, &c. Coxe's Lives of the Walpoles, &c. † As the king could not speak English or Walpole French, they used to converse in Latin.

One for the northern, the other for the southern department, as it was termed. This continued to be the number till the reign of George III.