In such trifles were the great lessons taught by Marlborough forgotten. The great Duke's mantle had descended on one man, but even if he had been suffered to wear it, the Secretary-at-War would not have heeded him the more. Until 1742 he remained obscure, and meanwhile the better known officers died fast. Cadogan, the Duke's successor, died in 1726, and was laid with his great chief in Henry the Seventh's chapel, not with military pomp, but, by his own express desire, with all possible privacy. It should seem that he shrank above all things from even the semblance of a share in his master's glory. Of the veterans who outlived him, Lord Orkney and the Duke of Argyll were made field-marshals in 1736, while Wade, the kindly administrator of the Highlands, and Lord Stair took their part, as shall be seen, in the next war. Beyond them no one knew whither to look for an English general. Some perhaps counted on little Prince William who, dressed as a corporal, was often to be seen drilling a miniature company of the Coldstream Guards,[126] not yet dreaming that he would one day be called the butcher of Culloden. None thought of looking into a little house at Westerham, in Kent, where Colonel Edward Wolfe, a veteran of Flanders, was educating his little son James, a remarkably ugly boy with a shock of red hair and a turned-up nose, who had been born to him in 1727. None guessed again that a natural genius for war lay in another boy two years older than Wolfe, who was the scourge of every orchard, the terror of every tradesman, and the ringleader of all mischief in and about Market Drayton, and who bore the name of Robert Clive. Yet these two, the one frail and delicate, the other an incorrigible scapegrace, were the instruments appointed to carry on the work begun by Cromwell and by Marlborough. Marvellous to relate there were still alive in 1731 two old men, the one a Royalist officer aged one hundred and eighteen, the other a Puritan soldier aged one hundred and eleven, who had fought at the battle of Edgehill and yet shared some few years of the world with Wolfe and Clive. They had seen Oliver Cromwell as a simple captain, and they lived to see William Pitt gazetted a cornet of horse.[127]
[CHAPTER III]
1738.
The long reign of Walpole and of peace had endured for full seventeen years. Session after session, through difficulty after difficulty, the minister had handled his charge with consummate dexterity, as a horse-breaker handles an unbroken colt; lunging or riding the nation round and round sometimes in a larger, sometimes in a smaller circle, but except in a circle never permitting it to move at all. It was a change, and doubtless a wholesome change, from the erratic course which England had pursued for the past century, but after a time it became wearisome. Conscious of health, vigour, and strength, the nation began to pant for a wider field and for a rider that would guide it on some more adventurous career. But though there was abundance of aspirants to the saddle it was no easy matter for them to unseat Walpole; their only chance was to rouse the dumb creature, which he had so cleverly mastered, to throw him. The terrors of a standing Army, notwithstanding persistent brandishing of the old flag and howling of the old cries, had ceased to terrify, and it was necessary to discover some excitement of a more formidable kind.
The first signs of coming trouble were seen in Parliament in the spring of 1738, when there was a great debate, culminating in an address of both Houses, respecting Spanish depredations in the South American seas. The newspapers thereupon did their utmost to make matters worse by furious attacks upon Spain. Into the merits of the question it is unnecessary to enter here. The grievances of the English against the Spaniards in respect of restrictions on trade and of the right of search, and of Spaniards against English for evasion of those restrictions, were at least half a century old; and it is sufficiently evident that both sides alike had good ground of complaint. The English, in fact, chafed less against the restrictions themselves than against the arbitrary and capricious fashion in which they were enforced, owing to the dishonesty and corruption of the Spanish authorities. It was a complaint, as early as in the reign of Charles the Second, that Spanish governors would encourage British vessels to violate the regulations for a time in order to make a sudden swoop on them for their own profit, when they had been enticed in sufficient numbers to make a remunerative prize. Altogether, it is only surprising that it should have needed fifty years, an unscrupulous Opposition, and a fable of Jenkins's ear to set the two nations fighting over the question of American trade.
1739.
Oct. 19 30 .
Walpole, for his part, strove his hardest to avert war, and even came to a convention with Spain as to the damages which she should pay for injuries inflicted on British ships; but this was not what the nation desired. The convention was furiously denounced in both Houses as a half-hearted measure, and by no man more vehemently than by William Pitt. The animosity against Spain was inflamed to the highest pitch; but amid all the clamour for war the Opposition did not fail to produce and to support the annual motion for the reduction of the Army.[128] The estimates provided only for a small increase of the garrisons in the West Indies, Minorca, and Gibraltar; yet this most obvious of precautions in the prospect of a rupture with Spain was opposed by the very men who were shrieking loudest for war. Walpole's unfailing dexterity, however, carried him triumphantly through the session; and though half a million was voted for the augmentation of the forces, he still hoped to prolong the years of peace, and with them of his own tenure of office. But meanwhile the proud spirit of Spain had taken offence at the invectives and insults of the self-styled patriots in the English Parliament; and when the plenipotentiaries met in pursuance of the convention to adjust the regulation of commerce between the two nations, the Spaniards refused to proceed with the business unless the right of search, the very point which had been denied in Parliament, were first admitted. Walpole had now to choose between resignation and war, and to his shame he chose war. The open declaration of hostilities was proclaimed in London on the 19th of October, amid the pealing of joy-bells from every steeple in the city. "They may ring their bells now," muttered Walpole, doubtless with memories of the War Office in Marlborough's day strong upon him, "they will be wringing their hands before long."
Nov. 15 26 .