Meanwhile, under Walpole's Order of the Bath, many a throb of pain must have made itself felt. The minister began to find himself harassed by the most formidable opposition that had ever set itself against him. Lord Carteret was out of the way for the moment—and only for the moment; but Pulteney proved a much more pertinacious, ingenious, and dangerous enemy than Carteret had hitherto been. Pulteney was at one time the faithful follower, the enthusiastic admirer, almost the devotee, of Walpole. The one great political defect of Walpole filled him with faults. He could not bear the idea of a divided rule; he would be all or nothing; he would have clerks and servants for his colleagues in office; not real ministers, actual statesmen. He was under the mistaken impression that a man of genius is to be reduced to tame insignificance by merely keeping him out of important office. He had made this mistake with regard to Carteret; he made it now with regard to Pulteney. The consequences were far more serious; for Pulteney was neither so good-humored nor so indolent as Carteret, and he could not be put aside.

Pulteney was a man of singular eloquence, and of eloquence peculiarly adapted to the House of Commons. His style was brilliant, incisive, and penetrating. He could speak on any subject at the spur of the moment. He never delivered a set speech. He was a born parliamentary debater. All his resources seemed to be at instant command, according as he had need of them. His reading was wide, deep, and varied; he was a most accomplished classical scholar, and had a marvellous readiness and aptitude for classical allusion. He was a wit and a humorist; he could brighten the dullest topics and make them sparkle by odd and droll illustrations, as well as by picturesque allusions and eloquent phrases. He {254} could, when the subject called for it, break suddenly into thrilling invective. [Sidenote: 1725—Pulteney] But he had some of the defects of the extemporaneous orator. His eloquence, his wit, his epigrams often carried him away from his better judgment. He frequently committed himself to some opinion which was not really his, and was led far from his proper position in the pursuit of some paradox or by the charm of some fantastic idea. He was a brilliant writer as well as a brilliant speaker. His private character would have little blame if it were not that a fondness for money kept growing with his growing years. "For a good old-gentlemanly vice," says Byron, "I think I must take up with avarice." Pulteney did not even wait to be an old gentleman to take up with "the good old-gentlemanly vice." We have in some measure now to take his talents on trust, as we have those of Carteret. He proved to be little more than the comet of a season; when he had gone, he left no line of light behind him. But it is certain that in the estimation of his contemporaries he was one of the most gifted men of his time; and for a while he was the most popular man in England—the darling and the hero of the multitude. When Walpole was sent to the Tower in the late Queen's reign, Pulteney had spoken up manfully for his friend. When Townshend and Walpole resigned office in 1717, Pulteney went resolutely with them and resigned office also. The time came when Walpole found himself triumphant over all his enemies, and came back not merely to office but likewise to power. Naturally, Pulteney expected that Walpole would invite him to fill some place of importance in the new administration. Walpole did nothing of the kind. He had seen ample evidence of Pulteney's great parliamentary talents in the mean time, and he feared that with Pulteney for an official colleague he could never be a dictator. He was anxious, however, not to offend Pulteney, and he had the curious weakness to imagine that he could conciliate Pulteney by offering him a peerage. Even at that time, when the sceptre of popular power had not yet {255} passed altogether into the hands of the representative chamber, it was absurd to suppose that Pulteney would consent to be withdrawn from the House in which he had made his fame, which was his natural and fitting place, and which already was seen by every man of sense to be the central force of England's political life. Pulteney contemptuously refused the peerage. From that hour his old love for Walpole seems to have turned into hate.

The explosion, however, did not come at once. Pulteney continued to be on seemingly good terms with Walpole, and shortly afterwards the comparatively humble post of Cofferer to the Household was offered to him—some say was asked for by him. It does not seem likely that even then he had any intention of a serious reconciliation with Walpole. Perhaps he accepted this post in the expectation that he would shortly be raised to a much higher position in the State. But Walpole, although willing enough to give him any mark or place of honor on condition that he withdrew to the House of Lords, was afraid to allow him any office of influence while he remained in the Commons. However this may be, Pulteney's ambition was not satisfied, and he very soon broke publicly away from Walpole altogether. When a motion was brought on in April, 1725, for discharging the debts of the Civil List, in reply to a message from the King himself, Pulteney demanded an inquiry into the manner in which the money had been spent, and even made a fierce attack on the whole administration, and accused it of something very like downright corruption. He was dismissed from his office as Cofferer, and, even making allowance for his love of money, the wonder is that he should have held it long enough to be dismissed from it. He then went avowedly over into the ranks of the enemies of Walpole inside and outside the House of Commons.

The position taken by Pulteney is chiefly interesting to us now in the fact that it opened a distinctly new chapter in English politics. Pulteney created the part of what has ever since been called the Leader of Opposition. {256} With him begins the time when the real Leader of Opposition must have a place in the House of Commons; with him, too, begins the time when the Opposition has for its recognized duty not merely to watch with jealous care all the acts of the ministers in order to prevent them from doing anything wrong, but also to watch for every opportunity of turning them out of office. With Pulteney and his tactics began the party organization which inside the House of Commons and outside works unceasingly with tongue and pen, with open antagonism and underhand intrigue, with all the various social as well as political influences—the pamphlet, the press, the petticoat, and even the pulpit—to discredit everything done by the men in office, to turn public opinion against them, and if possible to overthrow them. Pulteney and his supporters were now and then somewhat more unscrupulous in their measures than an English Opposition would be in our time, but theirs was unquestionably the policy of all our more modern English parties. From this time forth almost to the close of his active career as a politician Pulteney performed the part of Leader of Opposition in the strictly modern sense. His position in history seems to us to be distinctly marked as that of the first Leader of Opposition; whether history shows reason to thank him for creating such a part is another and a different question.

[Sidenote: 1725—Bolingbroke again]

Pulteney had some powerful allies. The King, as we know, hated his son, the Prince of Wales; the Prince of Wales hated his father. No reconciliation got up between them could be lasting or real. The father and son hardly ever met except on the occasion of some great public ceremonial. The standing quarrel between the Sovereign and his heir had the effect of creating two parties in political life, one of which supported the King and the King's advisers, while the other found its centre in the house of the Heir to the Throne. We shall see this condition of things re-appearing in all the subsequent reigns of the Georges. The ministry and their friends {257} were detested and denounced by those who surrounded the Prince of Wales; the adherents of the Prince of Wales were virtually proscribed by the King. Then, as at a later date in the history of the Georges, those who favored and were favored by the Prince were looking out with anxious hope for the King's death. When "the old King is dead as nail in door," then indeed each leading supporter of the new king believed he could say with Falstaff, "The laws of England are at my commandment; happy are they which have been my friends." Pulteney and his supporters were among the friends and favorites of the Prince of Wales; they constituted the Prince's party. The Prince's party was composed mainly of the men who were Tories but were not Jacobites, and of the Whigs who disliked Walpole or had been overlooked or offended by him, or who in sober honesty were opposed to his policy. In all these, and in a daily growing number of the people out-of-doors, Pulteney had his friends and Walpole his enemies.

But a more formidable rival than even Pulteney was now again to the front and active in hostility to Walpole. This was the man whom the official records of the time described as "the late Viscount Bolingbroke." The late Viscount Bolingbroke, it need hardly be said, means that Henry St. John whose title of viscount had been forfeited when he fled to France and joined the Pretender. Bolingbroke had lately received the pardon of King George. He had secured the pardon chiefly by means of an influence then familiar and recognized in politics—that of one of the King's mistresses. Bolingbroke had got money with his second wife, and through her he conveyed to the Duchess of Kendal a large sum—about ten thousand pounds—with the intimation that more would be forthcoming from the same place, if necessary, to obtain his object. The Duchess of Kendal was easily prevailed upon, under these circumstances, to recognize the justice of Bolingbroke's claim and the sincerity of his repentance. Moreover, there was about the same time that {258} political intrigue, or rather rivalry of intrigues, going on between Walpole and Carteret, between England and France, in which it was thought the influence of Bolingbroke might be used with advantage—as it was, in fact, used—to Walpole's ends. [Sidenote: 1725—The Bolingbroke Petition] For all these reasons the pardon was obtained, and Bolingbroke was allowed to return to England. Nor was he long put off with a mere forgiveness which kept from him his forfeited estates and his right to the family inheritance. "Here I am," he wrote to Swift soon after, "two-thirds restored, my person safe (unless I meet hereafter with harder treatment than even that of Sir Walter Raleigh), and my estate, with all the other property I have acquired or may acquire, secured to me. But the attainder is kept prudently in force, lest so corrupt a member should come again into the House of Lords, and his bad leaven should sour that sweet, untainted mass." Walpole was quite willing that the forfeiture of Lord Bolingbroke's estates and the interruption of the inheritance should be recalled. It was necessary for this purpose to pass an Act of Parliament. On April 20, 1725, Lord Finch presented to the House of Lords the petition "of Henry St. John, late Viscount Bolingbroke." The petition set forth that the petitioner was "truly concerned for his offence in not having surrendered himself, pursuant to the directions of an act of the first year of his Majesty's reign;" that he had lately, "in most humble and dutiful manner," made his submission to the King, and given his Majesty "the strongest assurances of his inviolable fidelity, and of his zeal for his Majesty's service and for the support of the present happy establishment, which his Majesty hath been most graciously pleased to accept." The petition then prayed that leave might be given to bring in a bill to enable the petitioner and his heirs male to take and enjoy in person the estates of which he was then or afterwards should be possessed. Walpole, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, informed the House that he had received his Majesty's command to say that George was satisfied with Bolingbroke's {259} penitence, was convinced that Lord Bolingbroke was a proper object of mercy, and consented that the petition should be presented to the House.

Lord Finch then moved that a bill be brought in to carry out the prayer of the petition. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seconded and strongly advocated the motion. It was opposed with great vigor by Mr. Methuen, the Controller of the Household, and formerly British Minister in Portugal. Methuen denounced Bolingbroke's "scandalous and villainous conduct" during his administration of affairs in Queen Anne's reign; his clandestine negotiation for peace; his insolent behavior towards the allies of England; his sacrificing the interests of the whole Confederacy and the honor of his country—more especially in the abandonment of the Catalans; "and, to sum up all his crimes in one, his traitorous designs of defeating the Protestant succession, and of advancing a Popish pretender to the throne." This speech, we read, "made a great impression on the Assembly," and several distinguished members, Arthur Onslow among the rest, spoke strongly on the same side. The motion, however, was carried by 231 votes against 113. The Bill was prepared, and went up to the House of Lords on May 5th, was carried there by a large majority, was sent back to the House of Commons with some slight amendments, was accepted there, and received the Royal assent. Some of the peers put on record a strong and earnest protest against the passing of such a measure. The protest recited all the charges against Bolingbroke; declared that those who signed it knew of no particular public services which Bolingbroke had lately rendered, and which would entitle him to a generous treatment; and further added that "no assurances which this person hath given" could be a sufficient security against his future insincerity, "he having already so often violated the most solemn assurances and obligations, and in defiance of them having openly attempted the dethroning his Majesty and the destruction of the liberties of his country."

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Bolingbroke, however, wanted something more than restoration to his title and to his forfeited right of inheritance. His active and untamed spirit was eager for political strife again, and his heart burned with a longing to take his old place in the debates of the House of Lords. Against this Walpole had made a firm resolve; on this point he would not yield. He would not allow his eloquent and daring rival to have a voice in Parliament any more. In this, as it seems to us, Walpole acted neither wisely nor magnanimously. Bolingbroke's safest place, so far as the interests of the public, and even the political interests of his rivals, were concerned, would have been in the House of Lords. He would have delivered brilliant speeches there, and would have worked off his energies in that harmless fashion. In Walpole's time, however, the idea had not yet arisen that an enemy to the settled order of things is least dangerous where he is most free to speak. Bolingbroke, who had always hated Walpole, even lately when he was professing regard and gratitude, hated him now more than ever, and set to work by all the means in his power to injure Walpole in the estimation of the country, and, if possible, to undermine his whole political position.