CHAPTER THE FOURTH. GEORGE THE FIRST.
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T is not without some feeling of humiliation and regret that the historian finds England so badly off for a sovereign as to be obliged to borrow one from abroad, and her throne in the seventeenth century, like her stage of the nineteenth, to be indebted for its support to foreign adaptations. The British Lion must have been a poor cub in those degenerate days, for there does not seem to have been a roar of remonstrance from that indifferent beast when the Elector of Hanover quietly took the crown from the royal bandbox, caused it to be altered to suit a gentleman's instead of a lady's head, and, using the sceptre for a walking stick, coolly stepped into the kingly office.
This somewhat more than middle-aged gentleman was the eldest son of Ernest Augustus, first Elector—and anything but an independent elector—of Brunswick, and of the Princess Sophia, grand-daughter to James the First, through whom he had pretensions to a good title, though, oddly enough, the Stuart family being repudiated, the only legitimate portion of his claim was that which the country refused to recognise. It seemed, however, that England, after its numerous wars of succession, which had formed a long succession of wars, was resolved upon putting up with anything for peace and quietness—a contented disposition of which we have long experienced the blessings, inasmuch as it has given us a family of sovereigns under whose constitutional sway the country has enjoyed an unexampled degree of prosperity and happiness.
George the First was a sober, decent, steady-going person of fifty-four when he arrived to undertake the superintendence of England, by the day, week, month, or year; and, in fact, to do monarch's work in general. He was proclaimed king in London, on the 1st of August, 1714, but was in no particular hurry to enter upon his new dignity, for he only arrived, via Greenwich, on the 18th of September, and his coronation took place on the 20th of October following. He was of course old enough to know pretty well what he was about; and though he had attained that respectable maturity which, among the feathered tribe, is believed to form a protection against capture by chaff, he seems to have acted on the impression that younger birds might certainly be caught by the same unsatisfactory material. His first plan, therefore, upon his arrival, was to go about uttering what he called his "maxim," which he said was "never to abandon his friends, to do justice to all the world, and to fear no man." This egotistical puff for his own qualities may have been politic, but it was by no means dignified, and reminds us more of the old self-laudatory naval song, commencing "We tars have a maxim, d'ye see," than of any language or sentiment becoming to the mouth and mind of a monarch. If the English people had put upon the clap-trap sentiment of the Hanoverian its true interpretation, they would have seen that it pledged him more to his old subjects than engaged him to his new ones; and the result of his reign quite justified the view we are disposed to take of the meaning of his "maxim."
Immediately on the death of Anne, the Privy Council had met and deputed the Earl of Dorset to go over and apprise George of his accession to the Crown, when the earl mixed up the announcement with so many fulsome compliments, that flattery took the name of Dorset butter—a figure that has remained in force from those days to the present.
One of the best, and perhaps the boldest acts of the Council, was the appointment of Mr. Addison—the celebrated contributor to what was termed par excellence the P. P. or popular periodical of the day—to a post in the Government. The late ministry had been ignominiously displaced, and Bolingbroke used to dangle about at the door of the Council-room with a bag of papers in his hand, expecting, or at least hoping to be called in, while menials were instructed to deride, or, as the modern phrase has it, to "chaff" him in the passages. Bolingbroke was mean enough to brook even this for the chance of place; but he would occasionally turn round and shake his fist, including his bag, in a menacing manner at the crew who passed upon him these insults. Occasionally they would slap him on the back, exclaiming, "Well, Bolly, my boy, you are indeed a regular out-and-outer." Nor can it be doubted that, had the air been popular at the period, the Ethiopian melody of "Who's dat knocking at de door?" would have been frequently sung or whistled in the face of Bolingbroke by the scamps in the waiting-room.
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The king had only just arrived, and had merely gone into his bedroom to put on a clean collar—that of the Order of the Garter, if we may hazard a shrewd guess—when a party of Whigs rushed in, and began to ear-whig him with the utmost industry. In fact, the touting that took place for the vacant offices can only be imagined by an individual who has once landed at Boulogne, and found him-self torn to pieces by the hirsute representatives of some fifty hotels, each anxious to accommodate the new arrival. The whole of the Whig party pounced upon George, and thrust their pretensions before him with the perseverance of the class of Frenchmen, commonly called commissioners, to whom we have alluded. As these persons snatch at a traveller's cloak, walking-stick, or carpet-bag, the Whig touters almost snatched at gold sticks, official portfolios, or anything else they could lay their hands upon. "Allow me to take charge of your conscience, sir," roared Lord Cowper; "you'll find it very heavy to carry, sir; pray give it to me, sir; I'll take it down for you, sir;" and thus the Chancellorship was in a measure seized by this determined place-hunter. "You'll lose that privy seal, sir, if you don't take care," bellowed the Earl of Wharton; "you had much better entrust it to me; there are some very bad characters about just now,"—and thus, by a mixture of warning and worry, the privy seal was secured for himself by the rapacious nobleman.
Bolingbroke, after hanging about the official passages for a short time longer, now listening at the door, now peeping through the keyhole, and alternately bullied or bantered by his more fortunate rivals as they passed to and fro, resolved on flying to the Continent. Several significant exclamations of "You'd better be off!" "Come, come, this won't do!" and "We can't have a parcel of idle fellows lurking about the Treasury!" convinced him that he had nothing to hope, and everything to fear from the new Parliament. He accordingly took from the corner of his sitting-room an old official wand, and sobbing out, "Farewell, my once cherished stick!" he cut it for ever. The monopoly of all the snug places by the Whigs rendered them extremely overbearing, and as "Britons never, never, never will be slaves" to the same party for any considerable length of time, they became impatient of Whig arrogance, and ready for an alterative in the shape of some regular old Tory tyranny. The king became unpopular, and his birthday passed over without the smallest notice, as if to hint to him that he was not to be borne at all, unless he changed his system.
George, instead of conciliating, attempted to crush the disaffected, and like a bad equestrian mounted on a restive horse, he began pulling at the rein ana tightening the curb, instead of mildly but firmly exclaiming, "Wo, wo, boys! steady, boys; steady!" to his now somewhat frisky people. The Habeas Corpus Act—the great British Free List—was suspended, and the Pretender was used as a pretence to alarm the people, and reconcile them to the most arbitrary measures. The Riot Act was in this year, 1715, read a third time and passed, but it has this peculiarity, which distinguishes it from every other legislative Act, that it requires to be read again on every occasion of its being brought into requisition.
These measures only added fuel to the fire that was now setting the country in a blaze; and even the University of Oxford was threatened with assault by Major-General Pepper, who was the first to make the now venerable joke about mustard, which, with all our courage, we confess we dare not chronicle.*
* The curious reader is referred to "Joe Miller." Perhaps
the edition brought out under the title of "The Family Joe
Miller," is the best for the student's purposes.
In the north, the insurrection took a very bold form, and Mr. Forster, a gentleman of great ability—a barrister, we believe—joined with the Earl of Derwentwater, who was ready with all his retainers, the only kind of retainers, by the way, with which his learned colleague was at all familiar. Being joined by some gentlemen in blue bonnets, who had come from over the border, they proclaimed the Pretender, and would have seized upon Newcastle, with the intention of sparing the coals and sacking only the city; but the gate had been shut, and the whole party was not strong enough to force it open. They retired therefore to Hexham, and a literary gentleman among them bewailed their failure as he sat in the coffee-room of the inn at Hexham, in doleful hexameters. They next retired by way of Lancaster to Preston, whose Pans they hoped would prove preserving pans to themselves; but General Wills being sent to attack them, proved the fact, that where there are the Wills there are always the ways of accomplishing an object.
Mr. Forster, hearing that there was no hope, despatched a trumpeter—a gentlemanly young man, who was quite equal to a solo of the kind—to negociate a treaty. He could get no other answer than an intimation that the rebels might expect to be slaughtered; and, being very much cut up by the news, they wisely resolved to surrender. The noblemen and officers of the party were sent to London, where they were led through the streets bound together and pinioned, which caused one of them to wish that his pinions were those of a bird, so that he might be enabled to fly away from his captivity. Though the Pretender must have known, or might have known, that his pretentions were about as hopeless as they could possibly be, he resolved on landing in Scotland, and he positively arrived with nothing more than a special train of six gentlemen. He came in disguise, and passed through Aberdeen without being known, till he came to Feterosse, where he was met by the Earl of Mar and thirty nobles of the first quality, though all their quality could not of course make up for their lamentable deficiency in quantity. When the Pretender saw his friend's beggarly show of adherents, he addressed Mar with great levity, telling him he had been "a sad Mar to his hopes," and indulged in other poor frivolities. "As I've come, however," he added, "I may as well be proclaimed." And the ceremony was gone through with mock gravity. He next proceeded to Scone, "for," said he, "we must have a coronation, you know." And he behaved altogether in such a manner as to lead us to believe that he relished the ludicrous points of his own very ridiculous position. Having gone so far in the mockery, he crowned the absurdity instead of being crowned himself, by making a speech to his grand council, intimating that he had no arms to fight with, no ammunition to load the arms with if he possessed any, and no money to purchase the ammunition if he felt disposed to try its effects upon his enemies. Under these circumstances, he intimated that his presence among them should be regarded as a flying visit, just to say "How d'ye do?" and "Good-bye"; after which, with the latter salutation on his lips, he popped into a boat, and was "off again" for the Continent.
Instead of allowing this miserable rebellion to die a natural death—we cannot say that it ended in smoke, for the rebels had no money to purchase gunpowder—the Government of the day had the rashness to keep the thing alive by prosecuting those who had been concerned in it. Half a dozen nobles were seized and put upon their trial, when the poor creatures whimpering out an acknowledgment of their guilt, were sentenced to death, and two were taken to the scaffold. A third, the Lord Nithesdale, had also been condemned; but his mother having come to see him in prison, they got up between them a dramatic incident, by effecting an exchange of dress; and while the lady remained in gaol like a man, the gentleman walked away in female attire.
The prosecutions were not limited to the chiefs of this rebellious movement—if that can be called a movement which stuck fast in its very first steps—but some of the humblest adherents, or suspected adherents, of the Pretender's cause were included in the proceedings taken by the Government. Several were hanged, and some hundreds experienced what was facetiously termed the "royal mercy," by undergoing transportation for life to North America. This unnecessary and injudicious rigour had the effect of making the Government so unpopular, that, although according to the Triennial Act the Parliament ought to have been dissolved, the ministers were afraid of appealing to the country, and formed the audacious determination to introduce a Septennial Act, which, by the force of perseverance and impudence combined, was positively carried. Though George resided personally in England, his heart had never quitted Hanover, and he was continually keeping his eye upon the aggrandisement of that paltry electorate. For this purpose, he made free use of English money; and having intelligence at all times of the small duchies that the poverty of their owners occasionally threw into the market, he picked up those of Bremen and Verden at a very low figure.
Among the inconveniences occasioned to this country by allowing the sceptre to get into foreign hands, was the involving of England in foreign quarrels about foreign interests. Spain being in an unpleasant predicament, called upon George the First to join a league in her favour, and threatened to repudiate his claims to his dismal little duchies of Bremen and Verden, if he did not take the step that was required of him. As he could not well commit himself thus far, a war was commenced against England, and a Spanish expedition under the Duke of Ormond was fitted out to make a descent upon Scotland. With that happy adroitness in ruling the waves for which Britannia has long been celebrated, she caused them to rise as one billow against the hostile fleet, which was rapidly dispersed by the ocean's uppishness. Though the buoyancy of Britain, assisted by the boisterous energy of the sea, defeated the attempts of foreign powers, the internal condition of the country was far from satisfactory. King George neither comprehended the character nor the language of his new subjects, and a good understanding between the prince and the people was therefore impossible. His majesty spent as much time and as much money as he could upon the Continent, leaving his ministers to propose what measures they pleased, while he transmitted by post his consent to them, without knowing, or caring to inquire their object.
Perhaps, however, the heaviest blow that England's prosperity ever received was the result of one of the most marvellous instances on record of a co-operation between knavery and folly. To add to the extraordinary character of the infatuation we are about to record, the scheme that led to it was not original, and the victims had consequently received a warning by which they failed to profit. A Scotchman of the name of Law had swindled the whole of France by starting a company to pick up fortunes in the Mississippi, which proved one of the most gigantic misses ever known; but as one batch of fools will make many, it was calculated, shrewdly enough, that the Mississippi hoax, instead of putting people on their guard against fraud, would have just the effect of preparing them to be taken in by it.
A scrivener named Blunt—a fellow of uncommon sharpness, whose name is emblematical of a great partiality for cash—suggested a concern called the South Sea Company, which was to purchase all the debts due from the Government to all trading corporations, and thus become the sole creditor of the State. The National Debt was in fact to be bought up, and as there is a pretty clear understanding that the National Debt never will, or never can be paid, the advantages of the project must, upon the slightest reflection, have appeared at best apocryphal. The scrip in this grand concern came out heavy, for the securities were flatter than the public, when a bright idea flashed across the mind of Blunt for raising the wind and puffing up the shares in the South Sea Scheme to the utmost height that could be desired. He spread a report through paid paragraphs in the newspapers, that Gibraltar and Minorca were about to be exchanged for Peru, and the whole world went mad at the peru-sal. The story of this monstrous piece of universal insanity would afford a fine subject for an article from the pen of Dr. Forbes Winslow; * and indeed had he lived in the eighteenth century, the whole population would have been worthy to become the patients of that able and experienced master of the science of mental pathology.
* See the "Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental
Pathology." Edited by Forbes Winslow, M.D.
The mental aberration of the public proved itself in the most preposterous demand for shares from persons willing to stake not only every penny they had, but many pounds which they had not. The proverb that "one fool makes many," found a parallel in the fact that one knave makes many; for the South Sea schemer called into existence a number of imitators, all anxious to profit by the credulity which he had excited. One adventurer made his fortune one fine morning by issuing a prospectus intimating that he would secure to every one who paid two guineas on the instant, an annuity of £100. The preliminary deposits poured in so plentifully that he obtained two thousand subscribers in a few hours, though the details of the plan were only to be forthcoming at some future day. We regret exceedingly our inability to form an opinion on the merits of this project, for its originator having been called away suddenly on the very night after the first day's subscriptions had been paid in, pursued his way to the Continent by the light of the moon, and has never yet returned. Charity bids us presume that he died in the effort to mature the gigantic idea he had conceived for enriching those who had honoured him with their cash and their confidence. A few little episodes of this description tended to shake the faith of the public in the great parent hoax, and the monster bubble, formed, as it were, by the whole of the South Sea concentrated into one tremendous drop, gave symptoms of dropping to the ground. Those who witnessed the Railway Mania of 1845 can form a conception—though a very inadequate one—of the madness that prevailed in the early part of the eighteenth century, under the cunning influence of Blunt, who, strange to say, was a living illustration of a marvellous misnomer, for this Blunt was the essence of sharpness, at a time when obtuseness was the characteristic of all the rest of the community.
The amiable weakness which, in 1845, induced the whole population to concur in planning railways for every hole and corner of the world, the philanthropy which would have whirled the Cherokees through the air at sixty miles an hour and twenty per cent, profit, or brought Kamschatka, Chelsea, the Catskill Mountains, Knightsbridge, and Niagara, all into a group by the aid of trunk-lines or branches connecting the whole of them together, the mixture of benevolence and self-interest which suggested these noble achievements, cannot bear a comparison with the universality of the movement that the South Sea Bubble called forth. Its bursting, however, nearly swamped the entire nation, for the bubble had been so extensive that scarcely any one escaped its influence, or could keep his head above water, when the awful inundation occurred.
Royalty itself had not been exempt from the prevailing madness, and the Prince of Wales had been appointed Governor of the Welsh Copper Company, which was to have supplied saucepans to the whole civilised world, and kept the pot boiling for the inhabitants of every corner of the globe. The capital proposed to be raised for all the various bubbles in agitation, amounted to £300,000,000, though few of the concerns had even the capital of the soi-disant millionaire in the farce, who having made promises of boundless liberality, and undertaken to make the fortune of the waiting-maid of his inamorata, finished with a tender of a threepenny piece as an earnest of his future bounty.
It would form a curious chapter in this or any other history, to trace the fluctuations in South Sea Stock; but we cannot afford to convert our pages into a share list of the eighteenth century. Upon the first fall in the stock, attempts were made to preserve it from a further decline, first by shutting up the transfer books, and secondly by preposterous promises of impossible dividends. The directors kindly guaranteed fifty per cent, for twelve years, from and after the ensuing Christmas; and it is probable that the old saying, that "Such a thing is coming, and so is Christmas" first arose out of the South Sea Bubble, for the stock fell from eight hundred to one hundred and fifty, between the 26th of August, when the prospect was held out, and the 30th of September, when people had got a shrewd suspicion that it would never be realised.
In proportion to the extreme credulity the nation had shown, was the savage disappointment it now exhibited. The directors of the South Sea Company who had been encouraged in their audacious swindling by the blind rapacity of their dupes—who in their haste to devour everything they could lay hold of, swallowed every knavish story they were told—the directors, who after all had merely speculated on the avarice and stupidity of the rest of the world, were assailed with the utmost vindictiveness. Their conduct was brought before Parliament; some of them were taken into custody, ana all were called upon to explain the grounds on which these calculations of profit were made, though the stockholders were not required to state what reasons they had for believing with their eyes shut, all the evidently fallacious promises that had been held out to them. A confiscation of the property of most of the directors took place, and an inquiry before Parliament proved that several members of the Legislature, and even ministers, had received considerable slices of South Sea Stock for their assistance in promulgating this monster swindle.
The ruin that had been brought upon all classes of society, was aggravated by a necessity for further taxation to carry on the increased expense of Home Government, and of the costly foreign relations which the country had entered into. It has unfortunately happened that the foreign relations of England have been generally very poor relations, and they have consequently taken a great deal out of her pockets by their necessities, while they have added little to her respectability by their position and character. Like poor relations in general, they were a dreadful drag, and it was necessary to contribute to their support by putting fresh burdens on the British people. Among these was a tax on malt, which, being extended to Scotland, caused a general fermentation; for the Scotch were always remarkable for their love of whisky, which they easily promoted into a love of liberty, when it suited at once their pocket and their purpose to assume the attitude of patriots. The tax—not the whisky—was, however, crammed down their throats in spite of the cry they had succeeded in getting up for untaxed toddy, which they, of course, pronounced to be the safeguard of their constitution, as everything else becomes in its turn when it seems to be placed in jeopardy. The rioters, however, could get no persons of rank or influence to join in the great whisky movement, which the masses had taken into their heads, and order was restored after a few lives had been sacrificed.
On the 2nd of November, 1726, Sophia Dorothea, nominally, but never practically, Queen of England, died in the prison at Hanover, to which her husband had committed her. This lady had formed an attachment for a Count Koningsmark, whom the king, her husband, then Elector of Hanover, unceremoniously butchered in an anteroom. As the historians who have preceded us call his majesty a strong-minded man, we presume that there is something intellectually vigorous in the commission of a murder, though we confess we are at a loss to discover the extraordinary fact which other writers appear to have recognised. Not very long after the death of his wife George repaired—or rather, he went very much out of repair, for his health was greatly damaged—to Hanover. He was taken very ill on the road, and was seized with apoplexy to the unhappy perplexity of his attendants, whom he nevertheless desired to "push along and keep moving." They accordingly did so, and the royal carriage was hastened, but his majesty was only being driven to extremities, for on the 11th of June, 1727, he expired at Osnaburgh, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.
The particulars of his death have been very circumstantially given, and as they are rather characteristic of George the First, we will give them with our accustomed brevity. He had been in perfect health on the previous evening, and ate a hearty supper of sheep's hearts, including a tremendous melon, to which the melancholy result has been attributed. Resuming his journey towards Hanover at 3 a.m. he was seized with griping pains, but believing that one mischief would correct another, he fancied the supper that had disagreed with him would be counteracted in its consequences by a dinner, which he began lustily calling for. When it was placed before him he could eat nothing—an incapacity so unusual with George, or as some called him, Gorge the First, that his attendants were seized with alarm and astonishment. Having again entered his carriage, he exclaimed in quaint French, "C'est fait de moi" which we need scarcely intimate means either "I'm done for," or "It's all up with me." In the course of the same night his existence coming to an end proved the too fatal accuracy of his own conclusion.
George the First had nothing in his character to justify us in keeping George the Second waiting to be shown up to the throne, where in the ensuing chapter we shall have the pleasure of seeing him. The first George was a person of somewhat feeble intellects, exceedingly shy in public, but he could "come out" at a private tea-party at home very effectively. His tastes were none of the most refined, and he voted all letters exceedingly dry but O.D.V.—such was the wretched pun the king made on eau de vie—which he was very partial to. It might be regarded as a redeeming point in the character of his majesty that he was very fond of Punch, which he regularly "took in," but this feather in his cap must be plucked out, for we find the Punch he patronised was the liquor, and not the periodical. Avarice was another of the most prominent features of his character, and he actually risked the throne itself on several occasions, because he would not spare a few pounds for the purchase of that floating loyalty that, in consequence of the venality and poverty of the ancient aristocracy, was always to be had at a certain price in the market. He had also the shabby trick of never carrying any money in his own pocket, so that he was always obliged to dip into the pockets of his companions to pay the expenses incurred, either at home or abroad, and many of his Court used to get as far away as possible from the side of the king when there was anything to pay, for he was sure to ask them for a loan on such occasions.
It seems from pretty good authority that he fancied himself to be an usurper; but he flattered himself a great deal too much in believing that the English nation would have quietly allowed an act of usurpation from so unimportant a personage as he would have been, but for the position into which he was called by the voice of the people. He preferred Hanover to England; "but," says Smith, "there is no accounting for tastes," and we will therefore make no effort to unravel the mystery of this absurd preference.
The Court of George the First was remarkable for its laxity, though there was more external propriety than used to prevail in the days of Charles the Second. The latter monarch openly offended against the rules of decency; but George the First was just as bad in a quiet way, and imported into the aristocracy of England two or three vulgar, low-born, German, female favourites, whose successors now boast of their illustrious ancestors.
It is a somewhat interesting fact that charity schools were first established in the year 1698, when the predecessor of George the First was on the throne; and the antiquarian will perhaps tell us whether the muffin-cap is of greater antiquity than the muffin. We believe such to be the case, for the muffin is of comparatively modern date, and is the contemporary of its rival or companion, the crumpet. How the muffin-cap came to put the muffin into anybody's head is a question too difficult for any but the archaeologist.
