A History of the Four Georges, Volume I

by Justin McCarthy

Pulteney's party had in Parliament the frequent, indeed for a time the habitual, assistance of Wyndham and of Shippen. Outside Parliament Bolingbroke intrigued, wrote, and worked with the indomitable energy and restless craving for activity and excitement which, despite all his professions of love for philosophic quiet, had been his life-long characteristic. The Craftsman was stimulated and guided much more directly by his inspiration than even by that of Pulteney. The Craftsman kept showering out articles, letters, verses, epigrams, all intended to damage the ministry, and more especially to destroy the reputation of Walpole. All was fish that came into the Craftsman's net. Every step taken by the Government, no matter what it might be, was made an occasion for ridicule, denunciation, and personal abuse. Not the slightest scruple was shown in the management of the Craftsman. If the policy of the Government seemed to tend towards a Continental war, the Craftsman cried out for peace, and vituperated the minister who dared to think of involving England in the trumpery quarrels of foreign States. Walpole, however, we need hardly say, made it a set purpose of his administration to maintain peace on the Continent; and as soon as the patriots began to find out in each particular instance that his policy was still the same, they turned round and shrieked against the minister whose feebleness and cowardice were laying England at the feet of foreign alliances and Continental {291} despots. Walpole worked in cordial alliance with the French Government, the principal member of which was now Cardinal Fleury. It became the object of the Craftsman to hold Walpole up to contempt and derision, as the dupe of a French cardinal and the sycophant of a French Court. The example of the Craftsman was speedily followed by pamphleteers, caricaturists, satirists, and even ballad-mongers without end. London and the provinces were flooded with such literature. Walpole was described as "Sir Blue String," the blue string being a cheap satirical allusion to the blue ribbon which was supposed to adorn him as Knight of the Garter. He was styled Sir Robert Brass, Sir Robert Lynn, more often simple "Robin" or plain "Bob." He was pictured as a systematic promoter of public corruption, as one who fattened on the taxation wrung from the miserable English taxpayer. His personal character, his domestic life, his household expenses, the habits of his wife, his own social and other enjoyments, were coarsely criticised and lampooned. The Craftsman and its imitators attacked not only Walpole himself, but Walpole's friends. The political satire of that day was as indiscriminate as it was unsparing. It was enough to be a political or even a personal friend of Walpole to become the object of the Craftsman's fierce blows. Pulteney did not even scruple to betray the confidence of private conversation, and to disclose the words which, in some unguarded moments of former friendship, Walpole had spoken of George the Second when George was Prince of Wales.

An excellent opportunity was soon given to Pulteney to make an open and a damaging attack on the ministry. Horace Walpole, British Ambassador to the French Court, had been brought over from Paris to explain and justify his brother's foreign policy. The Government put forward a resolution in the House of Commons on February 7, 1729, for a grant of some two hundred and fifty thousand pounds "for defraying the expense of twelve thousand Hessians taken into his Majesty's pay." Even {292} if the maintenance of this force had been a positive necessity, which it certainly was not, it would, nevertheless, have been a necessity bringing with it disparagement and danger to the Government responsible for it. Pulteney made the most of the opportunity, and in a speech of fine old English flavor denounced the proposal of the ministers. [Sidenote: 1729—Subsidies voted] He asked with indignation whether Englishmen were not brave enough or willing enough to defend their own country without calling in the assistance of foreign mercenaries. It might, he admitted, be some advantage to Hanover that German soldiers should be kept in the pay of England, but he wanted to know what benefit could come to the English people from paying and maintaining such a band. These men were kept, he declared, in the pay of England, not for the service of England, but for the service of Hanover. It need hardly be said that during all the earlier years of the Brunswick accession, a bare allusion to the name of Hanover was enough to stir an angry feeling in the minds of the larger number of the English people. Even the very men who most loyally supported the House of Brunswick winced and writhed under any allusion to the manner in which the interests of England were made subservient to the interests of Hanover. Pulteney therefore took every pains to chafe those sore places with remorseless energy. Sir William Wyndham supported Pulteney, and Sir Robert Walpole himself found it necessary to throw all his influence into the scale on the other side. His arguments were of a kind with which the House of Commons has been familiar during many generations. His main point was, that by maintaining a large body of soldiers, Hessian among the rest, the country had been enabled to avoid war. The Court of Vienna, with the assistance of Spanish subsidies, had been making preparation for war, Walpole contended; and were it not for the maintenance of this otherwise superfluous body of troops, the Emperor of Austria would probably never have accepted the terms of peace. "If you desire peace, {293} prepare for war," may be an excellent maxim, but its value lies a good deal in its practical application. It is a remarkably elastic maxim, and in times nearer to our own than those of Walpole has been made to expand into a justification of the most extravagant and unnecessary military armaments and of schemes of fortification which afterwards were abandoned before they had been half realized. In this instance, however, there was something more to be said against the proposal of the Government. Some of the speakers in the debate pointed out that England in former days, if it engaged in a quarrel with its neighbors, fought the quarrel out with its own strength, and was not in the habit of buying and maintaining the forces of foreign princes to help Englishmen to hold their own. The resolution, of course, was carried. It was even carried by an overwhelming majority: 256 were on the "court side," as it was called, against 91 on the "country side." Fifty thousand pounds was also voted as "one year's subsidy to the King of Sweden," and twenty-five thousand pounds for one year's subsidy to the Duke of Brunswick. In order, however, to appease the consciences of some of those who supported the resolution as well as those who had opposed it, the Government permitted what we should now call a "rider" to be added to the resolution requesting his Majesty that whenever it should be necessary to take any foreign troops into his service, "he will be graciously pleased to use his endeavors that they be clothed with the manufactures of Great Britain." It was supposed to be some solace to the wounded national pride of Englishmen to be assured that if they had to pay foreigners to fight for them, the foreigners should at least not be allowed to come to this country clothed in the manufactures of their own land, but would be compelled to buy their garments over the counter of an English shop.

On Friday, February 21st, an event which led directly and indirectly to results of some importance occurred. Three petitions from the merchants trading in tobacco {294} in London, Bristol, and Liverpool were presented to the House of Commons. These petitions complained of great interruptions for several years past of the trade with the British colonies in America by the Spaniards. The depredations of the Spanish, it was said, endangered the entire loss of that valuable trade to England. The Spaniards were accused of having treated such of his Majesty's subjects as had fallen into their hands in a barbarous and cruel manner. The petitioners prayed for the consideration of the House of Commons, and such timely remedy as the House should think fit to recommend. These petitions only preceded a great many others, all in substance to the same effect. The Commons entered upon the consideration of the subject in a Committee of the whole House, heard several petitioners, and examined many witnesses. An address was presented to the Crown, asking for copies of all memorials, petitions, and representations to the late King or the present, in relation to Spanish captures of British ships. [Sidenote: 1729—The Campeachy logwood] Copies were also asked for of the reports laid before the King by the Commissioners of Trade and of Plantations, concerning the dispute between England and Spain, with regard to the rights of the subjects of Great Britain to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, on the western shore of that Yucatan peninsula which juts into the Gulf of Mexico. English traders had been for a long time in the habit of cutting logwood along the shores in the Bay of Campeachy, and the logwood trade had come to be one of the greatest importance to the West Indies and to England. The Spanish Government claimed the right to put a stop to this cutting of logwood, and the Spanish Viceroy and Governor had in some instances declared that they would dislodge the Englishmen from the settlements which they had established, and even treat them as pirates if they persisted in their trade. There was, in fact, all the material growing up for a serious quarrel between England and Spain.

Despite the recent treaties which were supposed to {295} secure the peace of Europe, the times were very critical. "The British nation," says a contemporary writer, "had for many years past been in a state of uncertainty, scarce knowing friends from foes, or indeed whether we had either." Each new treaty seemed only to disturb the balance of power, as it was called, in a new way. The Quadruple Alliance was intended to rectify the defects of the Treaty of Utrecht; but it gave too much power to the Emperor, and it increased the bitterness and the discontent of the King of Spain. The Treaty of Vienna, made between the Empire and Spain, was justly regarded in England as portending danger to this country. It was even more dangerous than Englishmen in general supposed at the time, although Walpole knew its full purport and menace. The Treaty of Vienna led to the Treaty of Hanover, an arrangement made in the closing years of George the First's reign between Great Britain, France, and Prussia, by virtue of which if any one of the contracting parties were to be attacked, the other two were pledged to come to the assistance with funds and with arms. All these arrangements were in the highest degree artificial; some of them might fairly be described as unnatural. It might be taken for granted that not one of the States whom they professed to bind to this side or to that would hold to the engagements one hour longer than would serve her own interests. No safety was secured by these overlapping treaties; no one had any faith in them. It was quite true that England did not know her friends from her enemies about the time at which we have now arrived.

The dispute between England and Spain concerning the question of the Campeachy logwood was to involve a controversy as to the interpretation of certain passages in the Treaty of Utrecht. It was distinctly a matter for calm consideration, for compromise, and for an amicable settlement. But each of the two parties mainly concerned showed its desire to push its own claim to an extreme. English traders have never been particularly {296} moderate or considerate in pressing their supposed rights to trade with foreign countries. In this instance they were strongly backed up, encouraged, and stimulated by the band of Englishmen who chose to call themselves "The Patriots." Few of the "Patriots," we venture to think, cared a rush about the question of the Campeachy logwood, or were very deeply grieved because Spain bore herself in a high-handed fashion towards certain English merchants and ship-owners. But the opportunity seemed to the "Patriots" admirably adapted for worrying and harassing, not the Spaniards, but the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. They used the opportunity to the very full. [Sidenote: 1729—Gibraltar] The debates on the conduct of Spain brought out in the House of Lords the acknowledgment of the fact that King George I. had at one time actually written to the Government of Spain, distinctly undertaking to bring about the restitution of Gibraltar. A copy of the letter in French, with a translation, was laid before the House. It seemed that on June 1, 1721, George, the late King, wrote to the King of Spain, "Sir, my brother," a letter concerning the treaties then in the course of being re-established between England and Spain. In that letter occurred these words: "I do no longer balance to assure your Majesty of my readiness to satisfy you with regard to your demand touching the restitution of Gibraltar; promising you to make use of the first favorable opportunity to regulate this article with the consent of my Parliament." The House of Lords had a long and warm debate on this subject. A resolution was proposed, declaring that "for the honor of his Majesty, and the preservation and security of the trade and commerce of this kingdom," care should be taken "that the King of Spain do renounce all claim and pretension to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca, in plain and strong terms." This resolution, however, was thought in the end to be rather too strong, and it was modified into a declaration that the Lords "do entirely rely upon his Majesty, that he will, for the maintaining the honor and securing the {297} trade of this kingdom, take effectual care in the present treaty to preserve his undoubted right to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca." This resolution was communicated to the House of Commons, and the Lords asked for a conference with that House in the Painted Chamber. The Commons had a long debate on the subject. The Opposition strongly denounced the ministers who had advised the late King to write such a letter, and declared that it implied a positive promise to surrender Gibraltar to Spain. The courtiers, as the supporters of the Ministry were then called, to distinguish them from the country party—that is to say, the Opposition—endeavored to qualify and make light of the expressions used in the late King's letter, to show that they were merely hypothetical and conditional, and insisted that effectual care had since been taken in every way to maintain the right of England to Gibraltar. The country party moved that words be added to the Lords' resolution requiring "that all pretensions on the part of the Crown of Spain to the said places be specifically given up." Two hundred and sixty-seven votes against one hundred and eleven refused the addition of these words as unnecessary, and too much in the nature of a challenge and defiance to Spain. But the motion that "this House does agree with the Lords in the said resolution" was carried without a division, the Court party not venturing to offer any objection to it. The King received the address of both Houses on Tuesday, March 25th, and returned an answer thanking them for the confidence reposed in him, and assuring them that "I will take effectual care, as I have hitherto done, to secure my undoubted right to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca."

The difficulty was over for the present. The Government contrived to arrange a new treaty with Spain, the Treaty of Seville, in which France also was included. This treaty settled for the time the disputes about English trade with the New World, and the claims of Spain for a restoration of Gibraltar were, indirectly at least, {298} given up. Perhaps the whole story is chiefly interesting now as affording an illustration of the manner in which the Patriots turned everything to account for their one great purpose of harassing the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. All the patriotic effusiveness about the undoubted right of England to Gibraltar was merely well-painted passion. Such sentiment as exists in the English mind with regard to the possession of "the Rock" now, did not exist, had not had time to come into existence, then. Gibraltar was taken in 1704; its possession was confirmed to England by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Since that time English Ministers had again and again been considering the expediency of restoring Gibraltar to the Spaniards. Stanhope had been in favor of the restoration; Townshend and Carteret had been in favor of it. Some of the Patriots themselves, before they came to be dubbed Patriots, had been in favor of it. Only the unreasonable and insolent behavior of Spain herself stood at one time in the way of the restitution. Gibraltar was one capture, like many others; captured territory changed and changed hands with each new arrangement in those days. Minorca, which was included with Gibraltar in the resolution of the two Houses of Parliament and the consequent promise of the King, was taken by the English forces shortly after the capture of Gibraltar, and was settled upon England by the same Treaty of Utrecht. Yet, as we all know, it was given up by England at the peace of Amiens, and no tears of grief were shed by any English eyes. But the discovery that the late King had at one time been willing to restore Gibraltar to Spain for a consideration came in most opportunely for the Patriots. To most of them it was, of course, no discovery at all. They had always known of the intention, and some of them had approved of it. None the less shrill were their cries of surprise; none the less vociferous their shouts of patriotic anger.

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CHAPTER XX.

A VICTORY FOR THE PATRIOTS.

[Sidenote: 1729—Death of Congreve]