"Statesman, yet friend of truth; of soul sincere,
In action faithful and in honor clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend."
Epitaphs seem to have been genuine tributes of personal friendship in those days; they had no reference to merit or to truth. One's friend had every virtue because he was one's friend. Secret committees might condemn, Parliament might degrade, juries might convict, impartial history might stigmatize, but one's friend remained one's friend all the same; and if one had the gift of verse, was to be held up to the admiration of time and eternity in a glorifying epitaph. We have fallen on more prosaic days now; the living admirer of a modern Craggs would leave his epitaph unwritten if he could not make facts and feelings fit better in together.
[Sidenote: 1721—Death of Stanhope]
A better and more eminent man than Aislabie or either Craggs lost his life in consequence of the South Sea calamity. No one had accused, or even suspected, Lord Stanhope of any share in the financial swindle. Even the fact that his cousin was one of those accused of guilty complicity with it did not induce any one to believe that the Minister of State had any share in the guilt. Yet Stanhope was one of the first victims of the crisis. The Duke of Wharton, son of the late Minister, had just come of age. He was already renowned as a brilliant, audacious profligate. He was president of the Hell-fire Club; he and some of his comrades were the nightly terror of London streets. Wharton thought fit to make himself the champion of public purity in the debates on the South Sea Company's ruin. He attacked the Ministers fiercely; he attacked Stanhope in especial. Stanhope replied to him with far greater warmth than the weight of any attack from Wharton would seem to have called for. Excited beyond measure, Stanhope burst a blood-vessel in his {199} anger. He was carried home, and he died the next day—February 5, 1721. His life had been pure and noble. He was a sincere lover of his country; a brave and often a successful soldier; a statesman of high purpose if not of the most commanding talents. His career as a soldier was brought to a close when he had to capitulate to that master of war and profligacy, the Duke de Vendôme; an encounter of a different kind with another brilliant profligate robbed him of his life.
The House of Commons promptly passed a series of resolutions declaring "John Aislabie, Esquire, a Member of this House, then Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the Commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury," guilty of "most notorious, dangerous, and infamous corruption," and ordering his expulsion from the House and his committal as a prisoner to the Tower. This resolution was carried without a dissentient word. The House of Commons went on next to consider that part of the report which applied to Lord Sunderland, and a motion was made declaring that "after the proposals of the South Sea Company were accepted by this House, and a bill ordered to be brought in thereupon, and before such bill passed, 50,000 pounds of the capital stock of the South Sea Company was taken in by Robert Knight, late cashier of the said Company, for the use and upon the account of diaries, Earl of Sunderland, a Lord of Parliament and First Commissioner of the Treasury, without any valuable consideration paid, or sufficient security given, for payment for or acceptance of the same."
Sunderland had too many friends, however, and too much influence to be dealt with as if he were Aislabie. A fierce debate sprang up. The evidence against him was not by any means so clear as in the case of Aislabie. There was room for a doubt as to Sunderland's personal knowledge of all that had been done in his name. His influence and power secured him the full benefit of the doubt. The motion implicating him was rejected by a majority of 233 votes against 172, "which, however," {200} says a contemporary account, "occasioned various reasonings and reflections." Charles Stanhope, too, was lucky enough to get off, on a division, by a very narrow majority.
[Sidenote: 1721—An interview with James Stuart]
A letter from an English traveller at Rome to his father, bearing date May 6, 1721, and privately printed this year (1884) for the first time, under the auspices of the Clarendon Society of Edinburgh, gives an interesting account of the reception of the writer, an English Protestant, by James Stuart and his wife. That part of the letter which is of present interest to us tells of the remarks made by James on the subject of the South Sea catastrophe. James spoke of the investigations of the secret committee, from which he had no great hopes; for, he said, the authors of the calamity "would find means to be above the common course of justice." "Some may imagine," continued he, "that these calamities are not displeasing to me, because they may in some measure turn to my advantage. I renounce all such unworthy thoughts. The love of my country is the first principle of my worldly wishes, and my heart bleeds to see so brave and honest a people distressed and misled by a few wicked men, and plunged into miseries almost irretrievable." "Thereupon," says the writer of the letter, "he rose briskly from his chair, and expressed his concern with fire in his eyes."
Exiled sovereigns are in the habit of expressing concern for their country with fire in their eyes; they are also in the habit of regarding their own return to power as the one sole means of relieving the country from its distress. The English gentleman who describes this scene represents himself as not to be outdone in patriotism of his own even by the exiled Prince. "I could not disavow much of what he said; yet I own I was piqued at it, for very often compassionate terms from the mouth of an adverse party are grating. It appeared to me so on this occasion; therefore I replied, 'It's true, sir, that our affairs in England lie at present under many hardships by the South Sea's mismanagement; but it is a constant {201} maxim with us Protestants to undergo a great deal for the security of our religion, which we could not depend upon under a Romish Government.'" This speech, not over-polite, the Prince took in good part, and entered upon an argument so skilfully, "that I am apprehensive I should become half a Jacobite if I should continue following these discourses any longer." "Therefore," says the writer, "I will give you my word I will enter no more upon arguments of this kind with him." The Prince and his visitor were perhaps both playing a part to some extent, and the whole discourse was probably a good deal less theatric in style than the English traveller has reported. But there can be no doubt that the letter fairly illustrates the spirit in which the leading Jacobites watched over the financial troubles in England, and the new hopes with which they were inspired—hopes destined to be translated into new action before very long. Nor can it be denied that the speech of the English visitor correctly represented the feeling which was growing stronger day after day in the minds of prudent people at home in England. The time was coming—had almost come—when a political disturbance or a financial panic in these kingdoms was to be accounted sufficient occasion for a change of Ministers, but not for a revolution.
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