She had lived to see, among other strange vicissitudes, her former foe, Harley, deprived not only of power, but of liberty; he had been imprisoned two years in the Tower, when his impeachment, and the sudden abandonment of that contested measure, excited public curiosity as to the cause of so unaccountable an affair.
The Duke of Marlborough was present at several of the debates which related to this singular business. He voted with the minority who were opposed to Harley. The Duchess was reported, also, to have been “distracted with disappointment,” when the proceedings against Harley were quashed by some secret influence. Yet, notwithstanding her well-known hostility to Harley, and her equally well-known adherence to Whig principles, there have been distinct statements of her having intrigued with the Jacobite party, at that time justly formidable to the King of England.
Before the acquittal of Lord Oxford took place, report at that time, and tradition has since, alleged, that Mr. Auditor Harley, the unfortunate statesman’s brother, waited privately on the Duchess of Marlborough, and showed her a letter which had been written formerly from the Duke to the Pretender. Mr. Harley, after reading this letter, declared to the Duchess that it should be produced at Lord Oxford’s trial, if that proceeding were not instantly abandoned. The Duchess, it is stated, seized the letter, committed it to the fire, and defied her foe. Mr. Harley then thus addressed her:—“I knew your grace too well to trust you; the letter you have destroyed is only a copy; the original is safe in my possession.”[[262]] This is one anecdote, unsupported by any authority, implicating the Duchess in the charge of a treasonable correspondence. It may be remarked, that the previous vacillating and crooked course which Marlborough had pursued with respect to the exiled family, in the time of William the Third, may have given rise to this imputation.
Another statement, bearing an aspect of greater probability, was communicated by Mr. Serjeant Comyns, afterwards Chief Baron of the Exchequer, to the late respected and gifted Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy. Mr. West transmitted the circumstance to Mr. Gregg, a barrister, from whose handwriting the anecdote was noted down in the Biographia Britannica.
Lord Harley, the eldest son of Lord Oxford, attended by Mr. Serjeant Comyns, waited, it is said, on the Duke of Marlborough, to request his grace’s attendance at the trial of the attainted peer. The Duke, somewhat discomposed, inquired what Lord Oxford wanted of him, and was answered by Mr. Comyns, that it was only to ask his grace a question or two. The Duke became more and more agitated, and walked about the room for a quarter of an hour, evidently much embarrassed; but at length he inquired of Lord Harley on what account his attendance at the trial was required. Lord Harley answered, that it was only for the purpose of certifying his handwriting; and, to the still further questions of the Duke, informed him that Lord Oxford had in his possession all the letters which he had ever received from the Duke since the Revolution. Upon this, Marlborough became extremely perturbed, pacing the room to and fro, and even throwing off his wig in his passion; and to the further interrogatories of Mr. Comyns, as to what answer they should carry back to Lord Oxford, he returned for answer, “Tell his lordship I shall certainly be there.” “This,” adds the retailer of this anecdote, “is the true reason why Lord Oxford was never brought to trial.”[[263]]
This strange story has been refused credit by the able biographer of Marlborough, who has dismissed the imputation with contempt. It appears, indeed, on several accounts, not to be worthy of credit. Harley might have produced such letters long before, if he had it in his power, in order to weaken the party opposed to him, amongst whom the most violent was Lord Sunderland, son-in-law of Marlborough, who was greatly incensed when the trial of Harley was stopped. Yet Sunderland, it afterwards appears, was not devoid of suspicions regarding the Duchess’s fidelity to the ruling powers; or, probably, domestic differences caused him, at a subsequent period, to imbibe, with unfair readiness, prejudices which were diligently inculcated to her disadvantage. There were, also, other public events which aggravated dissensions already begun, and widened differences of opinion, even among the few who could remain dispassionate observers of the greatest of all national infatuations, the South Sea scheme.
The pernicious policy of William the Third, in borrowing money from the public, and paying the interest of those sums by means of certain taxes, has been justly blamed as the origin of much embarrassment and calamity to the country.[[264]] A species of gaming, new to the nation, and arising out of the uncertain state of public credit, became fascinating to the commercial world, and a spirit of adventure pervaded all ranks and conditions of society.
The anxiety of both Houses of Parliament to reduce the national debt fostered a scheme, brought to bear in the eleventh year of Queen Anne’s reign, of forming a fund for paying the interest of the debt, in an annuity of six per cent. All taxes upon wines, sugar, vinegar, tobacco, India silks, and other goods, were appropriated to the aid of this fund, and to the shareholders was granted the monopoly of a trade to the South Sea, or coast of Peru, in Mexico; and proprietors of navy bills and other securities were incorporated into a company which, under the name of the South Sea Company, was soon regarded by the public as a community possessing the most enviable privileges. The first scheme of this notable project was framed by Harley. Sunderland afterwards carried it on, and by this means sought to strengthen his parliamentary interest. A wild spirit of speculation inflamed the minds of innumerable suitors to the ministers, through whose influence shares were alone obtained; and even the prudent and experienced Marlborough was tempted, upon the revival of the scheme in the present reign, to increase the share which he had originally held in the stock.[[265]]
Sir John Blount, a scrivener, who matured, if it could be so called, the South Sea scheme, had formed his plan upon the Mississippi scheme, which in the preceding year had failed in France, and had ruined whole families. Undeterred by this warning, even the wary Duchess of Marlborough sought and obtained from Lord Sunderland subscriptions for herself, and her friends and connexions, as the greatest boon that ministerial power could grant.
But to her sound, shrewd mind the fallacy of all the expectations which a greedy public formed, was very soon apparent. The Duchess was not one of those stars of our later days, before whom an astonished world bends with adoration. Mathematics and logic had never directed her powerful understanding. She was no political economist; her speculations on all such subjects arose out of the great practical lessons which she had witnessed. Her education had been limited. To arithmetic as a science she was a stranger. “Lady Bute,” says the ingenious writer of recently published anecdotes of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, “sat by her (the Duchess) whilst she dined, or watched her in the curious process of casting up her accounts—curious, because her grace, well versed as she was in all matters relating to money, such as getting it, hoarding it, and turning it to the best advantage, knew nothing of common arithmetic. But her sound, clear head could invent an arithmetic of its own. To lookers-on it appeared as if a child had scribbled over the paper, setting down figures here and there at random; and yet every sum came right to a fraction at last, in defiance of Cocker.”[[266]]