1727.]

DEATH OF THE KING.

371

but his men perished with disease, his ships were destroyed by the worms, and Hosier himself died of chagrin or malady.

In 1727 George I. left England as usual for Hanover, whither he was in the habit of repairing every year. On the road between Delden and Osnabrück, he was seized with paralysis, and he died before he reached the latter place (June 11), in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

372

CHAPTER II.

GEORGE II.*

1727-1760.

Character of the king.—Ministry and parliament.—Walpole's Excise-scheme. -Murder of Porteous.-Death and character of the queen.-Anson's voyage. -Overthrow of Walpole ;-his character.-The Silesian war.-Scottish rebellion.-Battle of Culloden.—Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.-Contest in America. Seven Years' War.-Admiral Byng.-Changes of ministry.-Victories of Boscawen and Hawke.—Taking of Quebec.-Death of George II.—State of the nation.

GEORGE II. was in the forty-fifth year of his age when he ascended the throne; his character was therefore generally known and appreciated. In person he was small, but wellproportioned; he possessed a large portion of natural courage, was regular and methodical in his habits, and capable of great application to business; his temper was irascible and obstinate; his manner reserved and cold; his love of money strong. Like his father, his predilections were German, and he viewed the interests of his kingdoms as subordinate to those of his electorate. To his queen, Caroline of Anspach, a woman of very superior mind, he was devotedly attached, and deferred implicitly to her judgement; yet he was faithless to her, and the court of England continued to exhibit the spectacle of a royal mistress in the persons of Mrs. Howard created countess of Suffolk, and of lady Yarmouth+; but the king allowed them no influence whatever in affairs of state.

The accession it was calculated would be followed by a change of administration; even Bolingbroke was not with

* Authorities: Smollet, Coxe's Lives, &c.

+ This was a German lady whose name was Walmoden.

1727.]

STATE OF PARTIES.

373

out hopes of attaining to power. The king when prince had taken offence at some expressions used by Walpole and had declared that he would never employ him, and that minister now regarded his dismissal as certain. George had actually fixed on sir Spencer Compton for his prime minister, and his obstinacy was well known; yet after all Walpole retained his post and held it for many years. For this he was indebted to the queen, who knew his abilities; she recollected that the late king had said to her that Walpole could "convert stones into gold"; Walpole also engaged to obtain from the commons an augmentation of 130,000l. to the civil list, and a jointure of 100,000l. a year for the queen; and as Compton candidly avowed his own incompetence for the situation, he king gave up his The ministry therefore remained unchanged, and Walpole, when the new parliament met, performed his engagements to the king and queen.

purpose.

Walpole continued to be the moving power of government for a space of nearly fifteen years, during which period England enjoyed tranquillity. Cardinal Fleury, who governed France, was a decided lover of peace and steadily attached to the English alliance; so that though Hanover was the means of engaging England in the mazes of German politics, there was no war till toward the close of Walpole's administration, when hostilities broke out with Spain. We will therefore avert our view from foreign affairs, and confine ourselves to the leading domestic events during the first two periods of his ministry, namely, from the king's accession to the resignation of lord Townshend (1730), and thence to the death of the queen (1737).

The ministerial majority in the house of commons was considerable; but there was a strong opposition composed of three sections. These were the discontented whigs headed by William Pulteney, a man of high character and great abilities*; the tories, about one hundred and ten in

* Pulteney was of an ancient family in Leicestershire. Onslow describes

number, chiefly country gentlemen, led by sir William Wyndham; and the jacobites, who counted fifty, under the consistent and honest Shippen*. The principal supporters of the minister were his brother Horace Walpole, lord Hervey, Henry Pelham (brother to the duke of Newcastle), sir William Yonge, and Mr. Winnington. In the Craftsman, a periodical conducted by Bolingbroke, aided by Pulteney, the opposition had a powerful organ of offence.

Various attacks were made on the ministry on the subjects of the standing army (the great bugbear of the age) and the subsidies paid to some of the petty sovereigns of Germany; but they were always repelled by numbers if not by arguments. On the subject of pensions the minister felt his position less tenable, and he found it necessary to vary his tactics.

Those who expect to find a popular assembly like our house of commons inaccessible to corruption, may, with equal hopes of success, go in quest of the philosopher's stone, the elixir vitæ, or any other of the wonders by which from time to time the credulity of mankind has been abused. Human nature is ever similar to itself, and the noble-minded, the disinterested, and the honourable are always a small minority among mankind. From the Restoration, when it first became permanent, the house of commons has always contained a large portion of venality within its walls, though the phases have been different. Direct bribes in hard cash were the first and simplest course, and this continued long to prevail; pensions, which are of a similar nature, gradually came into operation; the last phase is places for self or family and friends, the newest form of which is that of the present day-the appointment of needless commissions with large salaries to commissioners.

him as a very powerful speaker, and says that he hurt Walpole more than any one who opposed him. He was very rich, and shamefully avaricious. *These numbers are given by Coxe.

1730.]

POLICY OF WALPOLE.

375

It was against the system of pensions that the opposition now directed its efforts. There were already acts incapacitating the holders of them from sitting in the house of commons; but they had proved useless, as government would not tell who had pensions, and the amount of secretservice money was considerable. Mr. Sandys therefore brought in a bill (1730), by which every member was to swear that he did not hold a pension, and that in case of his accepting one he would make it known to the house within fourteen days. This the king called a villanous bill;' but Walpole would not incur the odium of opposing it, and it passed the commons by a majority of ten. But, as he expected, it was thrown out in the lords, and its fate was similar whenever it was brought in again.

Shortly after the rejection of the pension-bill a partial change took place in the ministry. Lord Townshend and Walpole, though brothers-in-law, had been for some time at variance on questions of foreign and domestic policy; their tempers were opposite; the former being frank, haughty, and impetuous; the latter, cool, calm, and pliant. They have, not unaptly, been compared to Mark Antony and Augustus, lady Townshend being their Octavia. But she was now dead*; and Townshend, finding his influence. inferior to that of Walpole, gave in his resignation. He retired to his paternal seat of Rainham in Norfolk, where he devoted himself to agriculture †, and abandoned politics so completely that he never even revisited the capital. The two secretaries now were the duke of Newcastle, and Stanhope, lately created earl of Harrington.

Sir Robert Walpole far outwent his contemporaries in the knowledge of the true principles of finance and trade; and having had ample information of the ruinous extent to which the practice of smuggling had been carried in con

*She died in March 1726.

† He was the great agent in introducing the culture of turnips, which now form the basis of the Norfolk husbandry, and are said with marl to have "made the county."