There is little need, in a sketch of this kind, to tell, at length, the story of an impeachment which was stretched over two years, and had no result save that of breaking down, by two years of imprisonment, the health of the defeated statesman. Few and brief words on that head will suffice.
His Impeachment. 1715–1717.
Out of twenty-two articles of impeachment, fourteen accuse the Earl of Oxford of betrayal of duty, either in the conduct of the negotiations for Peace, or in instructions given for handling the British Army—pending those negotiations—in such a way as to injure the common cause of the Allies, by promoting the conclusion of a treaty ‘on terms fatal to the interests of the Kingdom.’ |1715. June 24.| The fifteenth article charges him with inserting false statements in the Queen’s Speeches and Messages to Parliament; the sixteenth with improperly advising the Queen to make a creation of Peers. |State Trials, vol. xv, Coll. 1052, seqq.| Other articles allege misconduct in the management of an expedition to Canada; the appropriation of sums of ‘Secret Service Money’ to corrupt purposes; and treasonable intercourse with ‘Irish Papists.’
Whilst these charges were still in preparation the Venetian Resident in London wrote a despatch to his Senate in which we have an interesting glimpse, behind the curtain, at the process:—‘The Whigs,’ he says, ‘seek to annihilate the Tories utterly, and to place them under the yoke. They want to impeach even the Duke of Shrewsbury.’... After enlarging on nascent dissensions amongst the Whigs themselves, as to the lengths to which they might safely carry their party resentments, he proceeds to assert that the more cautious men among them ‘have now, when it is well nigh too late, become aware that the Tory party, recently dominant, was a mixed party. |Correspondence of Joseph Querini; from extracts by T. D. Hardy, in Report on Archives of Venice, pp. 98, 99.| Some were in favour of the Pretender; some for the House of Hanover. Had His Majesty made this distinction on his accession to the Crown he would have excluded the former, but not the latter. By favouring the Whigs alone, he lost all the others at once.’ In brief, George the First had made himself exactly what Oxford had warned him against becoming, the ‘King of a party.’
When the Earl at length appeared before his peers to answer to his impeachment, he began by denying ‘that at any time or place in the course of those negotiations,’ now incriminated, ‘he conferred unlawfully or without due authority with any emissaries of France.’ He affirmed that he neither promoted nor advised any private, separate, or unjustifiable negotiation, and that he himself had no knowledge ‘that any negotiation relating to Peace was carried on without communication to the Allies.’
On the specific charge that he had traitorously given up Tournay to France, his defence is twofold:—‘I used my best offices,’ he asserts, ‘to preserve that town and fortress to the States General. I believe that at this time they are continued to the States General as part of their barrier.’ And then he adds:—‘But I deny that for a Privy Councillor and Minister of State to advise the yielding of any town, fort, or territory, upon the conclusion of a Peace, is, or can be, High Treason by any law of this realm.’
On the whole matter of the Peace, he asserts that ‘its terms and preliminaries were communicated to Parliament. They were agreed on with the concurrence of Parliament. The Definitive Treaty was afterwards approved of by both Houses. Solemn thanks were rendered to God for it in all our churches and also in the churches of the United Provinces. Her Majesty received upon its conclusion the hearty and unfeigned thanks of her people from all parts of her dominions.’
State Trials, vol. xv, c. 1137 seqq.
Commons’ Journals, 9 June, 1715.
It might well have been thought that even in those evil days it would be difficult to induce a Committee of partisans to report to the House of Commons that ‘large sums issued for the service of the war were received by the Earl of Oxford, and applied to his Lordship’s private use,’ without the possession of some plausible show of proof. There was not so much as a decent presumption, or colourable inference, to back the assertion. When the matter came to be probed, it appeared that a royal gift of £13,000 had been received by the Earl in what were known as ‘tin tallies,’ and that the sum had been a charge upon the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall.