A History of the Four Georges, Volume I

by Justin McCarthy

[Sidenote: 1714—Formation of King George's Cabinet]

King George did not make the slightest concealment of his intentions with regard to the political complexion of his future government. He did not attempt or pretend to conciliate the Tories, and, on the other hand, he was determined not to be a puppet in the hands of a "Junto" of illustrious Whigs. He therefore formed a cabinet, composed exclusively, or almost exclusively, of pure Whigs; but he composed it of Whigs who at that time were only rising men in the political world. He was going to govern on Whig principles, but he was not going to be himself governed by another "Junto" of senior Whig statesmen, like that which had been so powerful in the reign of William the Third. He acted with that shrewd, hard common-sense which was an attribute of his family, and which often served instead of genius or enlightenment or intelligence, or even experience. A man of infinitely higher capacity than George might have found himself puzzled as to his proper policy under conditions entirely new and unfamiliar; but George acted as if the conditions were familiar to him, and set about governing England as he would have set about managing his household in Hanover; and he somehow hit upon the course which, under all the circumstances, was the best he could have followed. It is not easy to see how he could have acted otherwise with safety to himself. It would have been idle to try to conciliate the Tories. The more active spirits among the Tories were, in point of fact, conspirators on behalf of the Stuart cause. The {92} colorless Tories were not men whose influence or force of character would have been of much use to the king in endeavoring to bring about a reconciliation between the two great parties in the State. The civil war was not over, or nearly over, yet, and there were still to come some moments of crisis, when it seemed doubtful whether, after all, the cause supposed to be fallen might not successfully lift its head again. As the words of Scott's spirited ballad put it, before the Stuart crown was to go down, "there are heads to be broke." For George the First to attempt to form a Coalition Cabinet of Whigs and Tories at such a time would have been about as wild a scheme as for M. Thiers to have formed a Coalition Cabinet of Republicans and of Bonapartists, while Napoleon the Third was yet living at Chiselhurst.

[Sidenote: 1714—The Treaty of Utrecht]

The Tories had been much discredited in the eyes of the country by the Peace of Utrecht. The long War of the Succession had been allowed to end without securing to England and to Europe the one purpose with which it was undertaken by the allies. It was a war to decide whether a French prince, a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth, and whose accession seemed to threaten a future union of Spain with France, should or should not be allowed to ascend the throne of Spain. The end of the war left the French prince on the throne of Spain. Yet even this fact would not in itself have been very distressing or alarming to the English people, however it might have pained others of the allied States. The English people probably would never have drawn a sword against France in this quarrel if it had not been for the rash act of Louis the Fourteenth in recognizing the chevalier, James Stuart, as King of England on the death of his father, James the Second. But England felt bitterly that the Peace of Utrecht left France and Louis not only unpunished, but actually rewarded. All the campaigns, the victories, the sacrifices, the genius of Marlborough, the heroism of his soldiers, had ended in nothing. Peace was secured at any price. It was not that {93} the people of England did not want to have a peace made at the time. On the contrary, most Englishmen were thoroughly tired of the war, and felt but little interest in the main objects for which it had been originally undertaken. Most Englishmen would have agreed to the very terms which were contained in the Treaty, disadvantageous as these conditions were in many points. But they were ashamed of the manner in which the Treaty had been brought about, more than of the Treaty itself. France lost little or nothing by the arrangement; she sacrificed no territory, and was left with practically the same frontier which she had secured for herself twenty years before. Spain had to give up her possessions in Italy and the Low countries. The Dutch got very little to make up to them for their troubles and losses, but they could do nothing for themselves, and the English statesmen were determined not to continue the war. Yet, on the whole, these terms were not altogether unsatisfactory to the people of England. The war was becoming an insufferable burden. The National Debt was swollen to a size which alarmed at that time and almost horrified many persons, and there seemed no chance whatever of the expulsion of Philip, the French prince, from Spain. All these considerations had much influence over the public mind, and possibly would of themselves have entirely borne down the arguments of those who contended that an opportunity was now come to England of bringing France, so long her principal enemy and greatest danger, completely to her feet. Marlborough's victories had, indeed, made it easy to march to Paris, and dictate there such terms of peace as would keep France powerless for generations to come. But the English people were disgusted by the manner in which the Treaty of Utrecht had been brought about. In order to secure that arrangement it was absolutely necessary to destroy the authority of Marlborough, and the Tory statesmen set about this work with the most shameless and undisguised pertinacity. Through the influence {94} of Mrs. Masham, a cousin of the Duchess of Marlborough, introduced by the Duchess herself to the Queen, the Tory statesmen contrived to get the Whig ministry dismissed, and a ministry formed under Harley and Bolingbroke. These statesmen opened secret negotiations with France. They were determined to bring about a peace by any sort of arrangement. They betrayed England's allies by entering into secret negotiations with the enemy, in express violation of the conditions of the alliance; they sacrificed the Catalonian populations of Northern Spain in the most shameless manner. The Catalans had been encouraged to rise against the French prince, and England had promised in return to protect them, and to secure them the restoration of all their ancient liberties. In making the peace the Catalans were wholly forgotten. The best excuse that can be made for the Tory ministers is to suppose that they positively and actually did forget all about the Catalans. Anyhow, the Catalans were left at the mercy of the new King of Spain, and were treated after the severest fashion of the time in dealing with conquered but obstinate rebels.

[Sidenote: 1714—Degradation of Marlborough]

In order to make such a peace it was necessary to remove Marlborough. Some accusations were pressed against him to secure his removal. He was charged with having taken perquisites from the contractors who were supplying the army with bread, and with having deducted two and one half per cent. from the pay which England allowed to the foreign troops in her service. Marlborough's defence would not have been considered satisfactory in our day; and indeed it is impossible to think of any such accusation being made, or any such defence being needed, in times like ours. Imagination can hardly conceive the possibility of such charges being seriously made against the Duke of Wellington, for example, or the Duke of Wellington condescending to plead custom and usage in reply to them. But in Marlborough's day things were very different, and Marlborough was able {95} to show that, as regarded some of the accusations, he had only done what was customary among men in his position, and what he had full authority for doing; and, as regarded others, that he had applied the sums he got to the business of the State as secret service money, and had not made any personal profit. He did not, indeed, produce any accounts; but, assuming his defence to be well founded, it is quite possible that the keeping of accounts might have been an undesirable and inconvenient practice. At all events it was certain that Marlborough had not done any worse than other statesmen of the time, in civil as well as in military service, had been in the habit of doing; and considering all the conditions of the period, the defence which he set up ought to have been satisfactory to every one. It probably would have satisfied his enemies but that they were determined to get rid of him. They were, indeed, compelled to get rid of him in order to make their secret treaty with France, and they succeeded. Marlborough was dismissed from all his employments, and went for a time into exile. The English people, therefore, saw that peace had been made by the sacrifice of the greatest English commander who, up to that time, had ever taken the field in their service. The treaty had been obtained by the most shameless intrigues to bring about the downfall of this great soldier. No matter how desirable in itself the peace might be, no matter how reasonable the conditions on which it was based, yet it became a national disgrace when secured by means like these. Nor was this all: the Tory statesmen finding it imperative for their purpose to have a majority in the House of Lords, as well as in the House of Commons, prevailed upon the Queen to stretch her royal prerogative to the extent of making twelve peers. All these new peers were Tories; one of them was Mr. Masham, husband of the woman who had assisted so efficiently in the degradation of the Duke of Marlborough. When they first appeared in the House of Lords, a Whig statesman ironically asked them {96} whether they proposed to vote separately or by their foreman?

[Sidenote: 1714—The new Ministry]

Never, perhaps, has a mean and treacherous policy like that which brought about the Treaty of Utrecht had so splendid a literary defence set up for it. Swift, with the guidance of Bolingbroke, and put up, indeed, to the work by Bolingbroke, devoted the best of his powers to defame Marlborough, and to justify the conduct of the Tory ministry. No matter how clear one's own opinions on the question may be, it is impossible, even at this distance of time, to study the writings of Swift on this subject without finding our convictions sometimes shaken. The biting satire, which seems only like cool common-sense and justice taking their keenest tone; the masterly array, or perhaps we should rather say disarray, of facts, dates, and arguments; the bold assumptions which, by their very case and confidence, bear down the reader's knowledge and judgment; the clear, unadorned style, made for convincing and conquering—all these qualities, and others too, unite with almost matchless force to make the worse seem the better cause. It is true that the mind of the reader is never impressed by Swift's vindication of the Tories, as it is always impressed by Burke's denunciation of the French Revolution. Swift does not make one see, as Burke does, that the whole soul and conscience of the author are in his work. Swift is evidently the advocate retained to conduct the case; Burke is the man of impassioned conviction, speaking out because he cannot keep silent. Still, we have all of us been sometimes made to question our own judgment, and almost to repudiate our own previously formed impressions as to facts, by the skill of some great advocate in a court of law; and it is skill of this kind, and of the very highest order, that we have to recognize in Swift's efforts to justify the policy of the Treaty of Utrecht. To make out any case it was necessary to endeavor to lower Marlborough in the estimation of the English people, just as it was necessary to destroy his power in order to get the ground open for the {97} arrangement of the treaty. Swift set himself to this task with a malignity equal to his genius. Arbuthnot, hardly inferior as a satirist to Swift, wrote a "History of John Bull," to hold up Marlborough and Marlborough's wife to ridicule and to hatred. He depicted the great soldier as a low and roguish attorney, who was deluding his clients into the carrying on of a long and costly lawsuit for the mere sake of putting money into his own pocket. He lampooned England's allies as well as England's great general; he described the Dutch, whom the Tory ministers had shamefully betrayed, as self-seeking and perfidious traitors, for whose protection we were sacrificing all, until we found out that they were secretly juggling with our enemies for our destruction. No stronger argument could be found to condemn the conduct of the Tory ministers than the mere fact that Swift and Arbuthnot failed to secure their acquittal at the bar of public opinion. All the attacks on Marlborough were inspired by Bolingbroke, and it has only to be added that Marlborough had been Bolingbroke's first and best benefactor.

The King appointed Lord Townshend his Secretary of State. The office was then regarded as that of First Lord of the Treasury is now; it carried with it the authority of Prime-minister. James Stanhope was Second Secretary. Walpole was at first put in the subordinate office of Paymaster-general, without a seat in the Cabinet; a place in Administration which at a later period was assigned to no less a man than Edmund Burke. Walpole's political capacity soon, however, made it evident that he was fitted for higher office, and we shall find that he does not remain long at the post of Paymaster-general. The Duke of Shrewsbury had resigned both his offices: that of Lord Treasurer, and that of Viceroy of Ireland. Lord Sunderland accepted the Irish Viceroyalty, and the Lord Treasurership was put into commission, and from that time was heard of no more. Next to Walpole himself, the most notable man in the administration—the man, that is to say, who became best known to the world afterwards—was {98} Pulteney, now Walpole's devoted friend, before long to be his bitter and unrelenting enemy. Pulteney, just now, is still a very young man, only in his thirty-third year; but he is the hereditary representative of good Whig principles, and has already distinguished himself in the House of Commons as a skilful and fearless advocate of his political faith; he is a keen and clever pamphleteer; in later days, if he had lived then, he would doubtless have been a writer of leading articles in newspapers. His style is polished and penetrating, like that of an epigrammatist. He has travelled much for that time, and is what was then called an elegant scholar. The eloquent and silver-tongued Lord Cowper was restored to the office of Lord Chancellor, which he had already held under Queen Anne, and by virtue of which he had presided at the impeachment of Sacheverell. When Cowper was made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal by Anne in 1705, he was in the forty-first year of his age, but looked very much younger. He wore his own hair at that time, an unusual thing in Anne's days, and this added to his juvenile appearance. The Queen insisted that he must have his hair cut off and must wear a heavy wig; otherwise, she said, the world would think she had given the seals to a boy. Cowper was a prudent, cautious, clever man, whose abilities made a considerable impression upon his own time, but have carried his memory only in a faint and feeble way on to ours. He was a fine speaker, so far as style and manner went, and he had a charming voice. Chesterfield said of him that the ears and the eyes gave him up the hearts and understandings of the audience. The Duke of Argyll became Commander-in-chief for Scotland. In Ireland, Sir Constantine Phipps was removed from the office of Chancellor, on the ground of his Jacobite opinions; and it is a curious fact, worth noting as a sign of the times, that the University of Oxford unanimously agreed to confer on him an honorary degree almost immediately after—on the day, in fact, of the King's coronation.

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