FOOTNOTE:
Mr. Forster and Lord Nithsdale would have shared the fate of Derwentwater and Kenmure, but for the fact that they escaped from prison. How the latter got away by the ingenuity and devotion of his wife is a well-known story.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLONIAL EMPIRE OF BRITAIN.
1739-1760.
When the unwilling Walpole was driven into war with Spain in 1739 by the clamours of the nation, he believed that he was about to become responsible for a very dangerous struggle, for he had private knowledge of the existence of the "Family Compact," and knew that France was ready to back up Spain. England, on the other hand, was entirely without allies, having gone to war in defence of her maritime commerce, a subject in which no other power felt any interest. As a matter of fact, however, the war was necessary and wise, for we were bound to come into collision with France and Spain sooner or later on the matter of trade. They could not endure to look upon the rapid expansion of England's commercial and colonial power, which had been increasing at a prodigious rate since the peace of Utrecht. Our merchants were beginning to seize an ever-growing share of the trade of the world, and to oust the French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese from all the more distant markets, especially those of Africa, India, and the remoter East. In India the East India Company was making advances which exasperated its French rivals. In South America the Spaniards felt that their ancient monopoly was gradually slipping from their hands. In North America the prodigious growth in strength and population of our seaboard colonies threatened a speedy end to the French settlement in Canada. Since the acquisition of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland by the treaty of Utrecht, the English dominions seemed to shut out from the sea the vast but sparsely peopled tracts along the St. Lawrence which still belonged to King Lewis. In the West Indies, Jamaica and Barbados were gradually drawing away the wealth of the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Porto Rico, and Hispaniola, the old centres of the sugar and tobacco trade.
Feeble conduct of the war.—Fall of Walpole.
The French and Spaniards, therefore, had good reason to fear and hate England, and if we wished to keep our control of the commerce of the world, we were bound to fight for it. It was a misfortune, however, that we were committed to the struggle while Walpole was still minister. Disliking the war, he would not throw himself heartily into it, grudged spending money, and refused to undertake any serious operations. A few expeditions to Spanish America were all that he sent out. The first under Admiral Vernon, though composed of no more than six ships of war, took Porto Bello, one of the chief harbours of the Spanish Main (1739). But a second and much larger armament under the same leader failed disastrously before Cartagena, partly owing to mismanagement, partly to the marsh fever, which struck down the English in their trenches (1741). Walpole bore the discredit of his sluggish action and his failures; he was bitterly attacked in Parliament by all the Whigs whom he had been excluding from office for the last twenty years, and gradually saw the reins of power slipping from his hands. In time of war all his bribery and jobbing could not avail to save him; his bought majority dwindled away, and early in 1742 he was defeated in the House of Commons, and forced to resign. He retired into private life, and died three years later, making no further show in politics.
The Carteret-Pelham ministry.