Though a few persons had managed to amass large fortunes by selling out in time—Walpole was one of them, selling out at 1,000—thousands of families were reduced to utter beggary, and thousands more within measurable distance of it. A great cry of rage and resentment went up all over the country, and this cry was raised not only against the South Sea directors, but against the Government, the Prince of Wales, and even the King himself. There was a very general feeling that some one ought to be hanged, and public indignation was directed chiefly against the heads of the Treasury, the South Sea directors, and the German Ministers and mistresses, who were suspected of having been bribed with large sums to recommend the project. So threatening was the outlook against them that the Hanoverian following, at least that part of it which the King had left behind in England, were in a great panic, and in their fright gave utterance to the wildest schemes. One suggested to the Prince of Wales the resignation of the Royal Family, and flight to Hanover; another that it would be well to bribe the army, and proclaim an absolute power; and yet another advised the Government to apply to the Emperor for foreign troops. But such mad plans, though proposed, were never seriously considered by the English Ministers, who, at their wits’ end what to do next, sent to the King at Hanover urging his immediate return. George landed at Margate on November 9th, but so far from his presence having any effect on the falling credit of the South Sea funds, they dropped to 135 soon after.
Parliament met on December 8th thirsting for vengeance. It was thought that the South Sea directors could not be reached by any known laws, but “extraordinary crimes,” one member of Parliament declared, “called for extraordinary remedies,” and this was the temper of the House of Commons. A Secret Committee was appointed to inquire into the affairs of the South Sea Company, and while this committee was sitting a violent debate took place in the House of Lords, when the Duke of Wharton, the ex-president of the Hell-Fire Club, vehemently denounced the Ministry, and hinted that Lord Stanhope, the Prime Minister, was the origin of all this trouble, and had fomented the dissension between the King and the Prince of Wales. He drew a parallel between him and Sejanus, who made a division in the Imperial family, and rendered the reign of Tiberius hateful to the Romans. Stanhope rose in a passion of anger to reply, but after he had spoken a little time he became so excited that he fell down in a fit. He was relieved by bleeding, and carried home, but he died the next day. He was the first victim, and the greatest, of the South Sea disclosures.
The Prime Minister was happy, perhaps, in the moment of his death, for when the committee reported, a tale of infamous corruption was disclosed. It was found that no less than £500,000 fictitious South Sea stock had been created, in order that the profits might be used by the directors to facilitate the passing of the Bill through Parliament. The Duchess of Kendal, it was discovered, had received £10,000, Madame Platen another £10,000, and two “nieces,” who were really illegitimate daughters of the King, had also received substantial sums. Against them no steps could be taken. But among the members of the Government who were accused of similar peculations were the younger Craggs, Secretary of State, his father, the Postmaster-General, Charles Stanhope, Aislabie and Sunderland. The very day this report was read to Parliament the younger Craggs died; he was ill with small-pox, but his illness was no doubt aggravated by the anxiety of his mind. A few weeks later his father poisoned himself, unable to face the accusations hurled against him. Charles Stanhope was acquitted by the narrow majority of three. Aislabie was convicted; he was expelled from Parliament, and sent to the Tower, and the greater part of his property forfeited. There were bonfires in the city to celebrate the event. Sunderland was declared to be innocent, but the popular ferment against him was so strong that he was unable to continue at the head of the Treasury, and resigned. Some months later he died so suddenly that poison was rumoured, but the surgeons, after a post-mortem examination, declared that it was heart disease. The South Sea directors were condemned in a body, disabled from ever holding any place in Parliament, and their combined estates, amounting to above £2,000,000, were confiscated for the relief of the South Sea sufferers. They were certainly punished with great severity; some of them at any rate were innocent of the grosser charges brought against them, but public opinion thought that they were treated far too leniently. The “Cannibals of ’Change Alley,” as they were called, were, if we may believe the pamphlets of the day, fit only for the common hangman.
In the Ministry now reconstituted the chief power was placed in the hands of Robert Walpole, who became, and remained for the next twenty years, the first Minister of State. The hour had brought the man. It was felt by everyone, even by his enemies, that there was only one man who could restore the public credit, and he was Walpole. Nevertheless, when he brought forward his scheme, into the details of which it is unnecessary to enter, many were dissatisfied. It was, of course, impossible to satisfy everybody, though Walpole’s scheme was the best that could be devised, and as far as possible did justice to all parties. The proprietors of the irredeemable annuities were especially dissatisfied, and roundly accused Walpole of having made a collusive arrangement with the Bank of England, and concerted his public measures with a view to his personal enrichment. The accusation may have been true, but whether it was so or not, the fact remains that he was the only man who stood between the people and bankruptcy, and carried the nation through this perilous crisis.
The general election of the following year, 1722, gave the Government an overwhelming majority, and made Walpole master of the situation, with almost unlimited power.
A great man, as great as or greater than Walpole, died at this time—John, Duke of Marlborough. His career lies outside the scope of this book, it belongs to an earlier period, but this at least may be said: whatever his faults, his name will always remain as that of one of the greatest of Englishmen. He had had a paralytic stroke in 1716, so that he had retired from active politics for some time, and his death made no difference to the state of affairs. He left an enormous fortune to his widow, Duchess Sarah, who survived him more than twenty years. So great was her wealth that she was able in some degree to control the public loans, and affect the rate of interest. She was a proud, imperious, bitter woman, but devoted to her lord, and though she had many offers of marriage, especially from the Duke of Somerset and Lord Coningsby, she declared that she would not permit the “Emperor of the World” to succeed to the place in her heart, which was ever devoted to the memory of John Churchill. Marlborough was buried with great magnificence at Westminster Abbey, but none of the Royal Family attended the funeral, though the Prince and Princess of Wales and the little princesses viewed the procession from a window along the line of route. The King did not even show this mark of respect to the dead hero, who, at one time, had he been so minded, could have effectually prevented the Elector of Hanover from occupying the throne of England.
The confusion and discontent which followed the South Sea crash were favourable to the Jacobites, and the unpopularity of the King was increased by the recent revelations of the rapacity of his mistresses. “We are being ruined by trulls, and what is more vexatious, by old, ugly trulls, such as could not find entertainment in the hospitable hundreds of old Drury,”[112] wrote a scribbler, who for this effusion was sentenced to fine and imprisonment by the House of Commons. Moreover, at this time the Jacobites were further elated by the news that James’s Consort had given birth to a son and heir at Rome in 1722, who was baptised with the names of Charles Edward Lewis Casimir, and became in after years the hero of the rising in 1745. A second son, Henry Benedict, Duke of York, and afterwards cardinal, was born in 1725. James’s little court seemed to be living in a fool’s paradise, for this year (1722) James issued an extraordinary manifesto in which he gravely proposed that George should restore to him the crown of England, and he in return would make him King of Hanover, and give him a safe escort back to his German dominions.
A new plot was set afoot by the Jacobites for the landing of five thousand foreign troops under Ormonde, and to this end they opened negotiations with nearly every court in Europe. The Regent of France revealed this to the English ambassador.
Walpole, being now in the fulness of his power, determined to make the plot a pretext for striking at his old foe Atterbury, who was by far the ablest and most powerful of the Jacobites left in England. Atterbury was seated in his dressing-gown in the Deanery of Westminster one morning when an Under-Secretary of State suddenly entered and arrested him for high treason. His papers were seized, and the aged prelate was hurried before the Privy Council, who proceeded to examine him. He, however, would say nothing, answering a question put to him in the words of the Saviour: “If I tell you, ye will not believe, and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go”.[113] At the conclusion of the investigation he was committed to the Tower, a measure which excited the strongest commiseration; his age, his talents, his long service in the Church, and his blameless life, all being remembered in his favour. On the ground of ill-health, and he was really very ill at the time, he was publicly prayed for by most of the clergy in the churches of London and Westminster. His usage while in the Tower was disgraceful to the Minister who prompted it.
Atterbury himself said, when summoned many months later before the House of Lords to stand his trial: “I have been under a very long and close confinement, and have been treated with such severity, and so great indignity, as I believe no prisoner in the Tower, of my age and function and rank, ever was; by which means, what strength and use of my limbs which I had when I was first committed in August last, is now so far declined, that I am very unfit to make my defence against a Bill of such an extraordinary nature. The great weakness of body and mind under which I labour; such usage, such hardships, such insults as I have undergone might have broken a more resolute spirit, and much stronger constitution than falls to my share.” Notwithstanding his bodily infirmities, Atterbury made a most able and eloquent defence, which lasted more than two hours, in which he referred to his well-known contempt of ambition or money, and his dislike of the Roman Catholic religion. Atterbury was found guilty of high treason, deprived of all his benefices, and sentenced to be exiled for life. The aged bishop was taken back to the Tower, where he bade farewell to his friends, including Pope, whom he presented with his Bible. The poet was a Roman Catholic, but he kept it as a cherished treasure until the last day of his life. Two weeks later Atterbury was taken under guard to Dover, and sent across the Channel. A great crowd of sympathisers attended his embarkation, and a vast number of boats followed him to the ship’s side. The first news which greeted the venerable exile at Calais was that Bolingbroke had received the King’s pardon, and had just arrived at Calais on his return to England. “Then I am exchanged,” exclaimed Atterbury, with a smile. “Surely,” wrote Pope of this irony of events, “this nation is afraid of being overrun with too much politeness, and cannot regain one great genius but at the expense of another.”[114]