At this period prince Eugene arrived in England with a letter to the queen from the emperor, and instructions to propose a new scheme for prosecuting the war. His errand was far from being agreeable to the ministry; and they suspected that his real aim was to manage intrigues among the discontented party who opposed the peace. Nevertheless, he was treated with that respect which was due to his quality and eminent talents. The ministers, the nobility, and officers of distinction, visited him at his arrival. He was admitted to an audience of the queen, who received him with great complacency. Having perused the letter which he delivered, she expressed her concern that her health did not permit her to speak with his highness as often as she could wish; but that she had ordered the treasurer and secretary St. John to receive his proposals, and confer with him as frequently as he should think proper. He expressed extraordinary respect for the duke of Marlborough, notwithstanding his disgrace. The lord-treasurer, while he entertained him at dinner, declared that he looked upon that day as the happiest in the whole course of his life, since he had the honour to see in his house the greatest captain of the age. The prince is said to have replied, “If I am, it is owing to your lordship.” Alluding to the disgrace of Marlborough, whom the earl’s intrigues had deprived of all military command. When bishop Burnet conversed with him about the scandalous libels that were every day published against the duke, and in particular mentioned one paragraph, in which the author allowed he had been once fortunate, the prince observed, it was the greatest commendation that could be bestowed upon him, as it implied that all his other successes were owing to his courage and conduct. While the nobility of both parties vied with each other in demonstrations of respect for this noble stranger; while he was adored by the whigs, and admired by the people, who gazed at him in crowds when he appeared in public; even in the midst of all these caresses, party riots were excited to insult his person, and some scandalous reflections upon his mother were inserted in one of the public papers. The queen treated him with distinguished marks of regard; and, on her birth-day, presented him with a sword worth five thousand pounds. Nevertheless, she looked upon him as a patron and friend of that turbulent faction to which she owed so much disquiet. She knew he had been pressed to come over by the whig noblemen, who hoped his presence would inflame the people to some desperate attempt upon the new ministry; she was not ignorant that he held private conferences with the duke of Marlborough, the earl of Sunderland, the lord Somers, Halifax, and all the chiefs of that party; and that he entered into a close connexion with the baron de Bothmar, the Hanoverian envoy, who had been very active in fomenting the disturbances of the people.
WALPOLE EXPELLED.
Her majesty, who had been for some time afflicted with the gout, sent a message to both houses on the seventeenth day of January, signifying that the plenipotentiaries were arrived at Utrecht; and that she was employed in making preparations for an early campaign; she hoped, therefore, that the commons would proceed in giving the necessary despatch to the supplies. The lord-treasurer, in order to demonstrate his attachment to the protestant succession, brought in a bill which had been proposed by the duke of Devonshire, giving precedence to the whole electoral family, as children and nephews of the crown; and, when it was passed into an act, he sent it over to Hanover by Mr. Thomas Harley. The sixteen peers for Scotland were prevailed upon, by promise of satisfaction, to resume their seats in the upper house, from which they had absented themselves since the decision against the patent of the duke of Hamilton; but whatever pecuniary recompence they might have obtained from the court, on which they were meanly dependent, they received no satisfaction from the parliament. The commons, finding Mr. Walpole very troublesome in their house, by his talents, activity, and zealous attachment to the whig interest, found means to discover some clandestine practices in which he was concerned as secretary at war, with regard to the forage-contract in Scotland. The contractors, rather than admit into their partnership a person whom he had recommended for that purpose, chose to present his friend with five hundred pounds. Their bill was addressed to Mr. Walpole, who endorsed it, and his friend touched the money. [174] [See note 2 G, at the end of this Vol.] This transaction was interpreted into a bribe. Mr. Walpole was voted guilty of corruption, imprisoned in the Tower, and expelled the house. Being afterwards re-chosen by the same borough of Lynn-Begis, which he had before represented, a petition was lodged against him, and the commons voted him incapable of being elected a member to serve in the present parliament.
Their next attack was upon the duke of Marlborough, who was found to have received a yearly sum from sir Solomon Medina, a Jew, concerned in the contract for furnishing the army with bread; to have been gratified by the queen with ten thousand pounds a-year to defray the expenses of intelligence; and to have pocketed a deduction of two and a half per cent, from the pay of the foreign troops maintained by England. It was alleged, in his justification, that the present from the Jew was a customary perquisite, which had always been enjoyed by the general of the Dutch army; that the deduction of two and a half per cent, was granted to him by an express warrant from her majesty; that all the articles of the charge joined together did not exceed thirty thousand pounds, a sum much inferior to that which had been allowed to king William for contingencies; that the money was expended in procuring intelligence, which was so exact that the duke was never surprised; that none of his parties were ever intercepted or cut off; and all the designs were by these means so well concerted, that he never once miscarried. Notwithstanding these representations, the majority voted that his practices had been unwarrantable and illegal; and that the deduction was to be accounted for as public money. These resolutions were communicated to the queen, who ordered the attorney-general to prosecute the duke for the money he had deducted by virtue of her own warrant. Such practices were certainly mean and mercenary, and greatly tarnished the glory which the duke had acquired by his military talents, and other shining qualities.
RESOLUTIONS AGAINST THE BARRIER-TREATY AND THE DUTCH.
The commons now directed the stream of their resentment against the Dutch, who had certainly exerted all their endeavours to overwhelm the new ministry, and retard the negotiations for peace. They maintained an intimate correspondence with the whigs of England. They diffused the most invidious reports against Oxford and secretary St. John. Buys, their envoy at London, acted the part of an incendiary, in suggesting violent measures to the malcontents, and caballing against the government. The ministers, by way of reprisal, influenced the house of commons to pass some acrimonious resolutions against the states-general. They alleged that the states had been deficient in their proportion of troops, both in Spain and in the Netherlands, during the whole course of the war; and that the queen had paid above three millions of crowns in subsidies, above what she was obliged to advance by her engagements. They attacked the barrier-treaty, which had been concluded with the states by lord Townshend after the conferences at Gertruydenburgh. By this agreement, England guaranteed a barrier in the Netherlands to the Dutch; and the states bound themselves to maintain, with their whole force, the queen’s title and the protestant succession. The tories affirmed that England was disgraced by engaging any other state to defend a succession which the nation might see cause to alter; that, by this treaty, the states were authorized to interpose in British councils; that, being possessed of all those strong towns, they might exclude the English from trading to them, and interfere with the manufactures of Great Britain. The house of commons voted, that in the barrier-treaty there were several articles destructive to the trade and interest of Great Britain, and therefore highly dishonourable to her majesty; that the lord viscount Townshend was not authorized to conclude several articles in that treaty; that he and all those who had advised its being ratified were enemies to the queen and kingdom. All their votes were digested into a long representation presented to the queen, in which they averred that England, during the war, had been overcharged nineteen millions; a circumstance that implied mismanagement or fraud in the old ministry. The states, alarmed at these resolutions, wrote a respectful letter to the queen, representing the necessity of a barrier for the mutual security of England and the United Provinces. They afterwards drew up a large memorial in vindication of their proceedings during the war; and it was published in one of the English papers. The commons immediately voted it a false, scandalous, and malicious libel, reflecting upon the resolutions of the house; and the printer and publisher were taken into custody, as guilty of a breach of privilege.