On the suspension of the South Sea Company, a cry of wrath arose all over the country against the Stanhope cabinet, which had taken the venture under its patronage and entrusted it with such important public duties. It was whispered that some of the ministers had been induced to lend their aid to the scheme by corrupt influences, and that others had made money by using their official information to aid them in speculation. These suspicions were mooted in Parliament, and, when investigated, proved to be not without foundation. When an inquiry was pressed for, Craggs, the Postmaster-General, committed suicide; Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expelled from the House as "guilty of notorious and infamous corruption;" Stanhope, the prime minister, was being attacked in the Lords for the doings of his subordinates, when he fell down dead in an apoplectic fit. His colleague Sunderland resigned his post of First Lord of the Treasury, though he was personally acquitted of all blame in the matter of the South Sea Company.
Walpole and Townshend in office.
Thus the Stanhope-Sunderland cabinet had disappeared, and the other section of the Whigs, headed by Walpole and Townshend, came into office. The former became Chancellor of the Exchequer and took charge of home affairs, while Townshend was entrusted with the foreign relations of the country. Entering into power under pledges to stay the financial crisis and save all that could be rescued from the wreck of the South Sea Company, they executed their task with success. The company was let off the payment of £7,000,000 which it had promised to the state, but deprived of the charge of the National Debt. By confiscating the estates of its fraudulent directors, enough money was obtained to pay all its debtors, and thus the crisis proved less disastrous than had at first been expected.
Supremacy of Walpole.
Sir Robert Walpole was the ruling spirit of the new cabinet; he showed his masterful mind by keeping his brother-in-law Townshend in the second place, and ultimately turned him out of the ministry. "The firm," he said, "must be Walpole and Townshend, not Townshend and Walpole." He soon got the king into complete subjection, for George asked for nothing more than a liberal civil list and frequent opportunities of visiting his beloved Hanover. Nor was he less masterful with the two Houses, where the Tory opposition and the Whigs of the rival faction were equally unable to make any head against him.
Walpole as a statesman.
Walpole was a strange example of the height to which the practical power of dealing with other men may raise one who is neither intellectually nor morally the superior of his fellows. He was a wealthy county gentleman from Norfolk, who had entered parliament early, and had already made himself a place in politics before the death of Queen Anne. The one subject of which he had a competent knowledge was finance; in most of the other spheres of politics he was grossly ignorant, and most of all was he deficient in a grasp of European politics. He did not understand a word of French or any other modern tongue, a fact which is enough by itself to account for his inadequate foreign policy. His morals and his language were alike coarse; he affected a shameless cynicism, which is well reflected in the saying that "every man has his price" which was put into his mouth by his enemies.
Government by corruption.