A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume I Part 11

The charges made against Atterbury had therefore sometimes to rest upon inferences drawn from confessions, or portions of confessions, averred to have dropped or been drawn from men whose lips were now closed by death.

Those who defended Atterbury dwelt strongly on this fact, as was but natural. It is curious to notice how often in the debates of the Lords on the Bill of Pains and Penalties one n.o.ble peer accuses another of secret sympathy with Jacobite schemes. As regards Atterbury, the whole question was whether he was really the person described in the correspondence now as Jones and now as Illington. There might have been no evidence which even a "secret, wise" committee of that day would have cared to accept but for the fact that the bishop's wife had received, or was to have received, from France a present of a dog called Harlequin, and that there was mention in the correspondence about poor Mr. Illington being in grief for the loss of his dog Harlequin. This allusion put the committee of secrecy on the track. The bishop's wife had lately died, and it would seem from the correspondence that Illington's wife had died about the same time. Clearly, if it were once a.s.sumed that Illington and Atterbury were one and the same person, there was ample ground for suspicion, and even for a general belief that the story told {222} was true in the main. The evidence was enough for Parliament at that time, and the Bill pa.s.sed the House of Lords on May 16th by a majority of eighty-three votes to forty-three. Atterbury was deprived of all his offices and dignities, declared to be forever incapable of holding any place or exercising any authority within the King's dominions, and condemned to perpetual banishment. He went to France in the first instance with his daughter and her husband. It so happened that Bolingbroke had just at that time obtained a sort of conditional pardon from the King; obtained it mainly by bribing the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal. The two Jacobites crossed each other on the way, one going into exile, the other returning from it. "I am exchanged," was Atterbury's remark. "The nation," said Pope afterwards, "is afraid of being overrun with genius, and cannot regain one great man but at the expense of another." So far as this history is concerned we part with Atterbury here. He lived abroad until 1731, and after his death his remains were brought back and privately laid in Westminster Abbey.

[Sidenote: 1723--Tom Tempest and Jack Sneaker]

We have directed attention to the freedom and frequency of the accusations of Jacobitism made by one peer against another during the debates on Atterbury's case. The fact is worthy of note, if only to show how uncertain, even still, was the foundation of the throne of Brunswick, and how wide-spread the sympathy with the lost cause was supposed to be.

When Bolingbroke was allowed to return to England, some of Swift's friends instantly fancied that he must have purchased his permission by telling some tale against the dean himself, among others, and long after this time we find Swift defending himself against the rumored accusation of a share in Jacobite conspiracy. The condition of the public mind is well pictured in a description of two imaginary politicians in one of the successors to the _Tatler_. "Tom Tempest" is described as a steady friend to the House of Stuart. He can recount the prodigies that have appeared in the sky, and the calamities that have afflicted the {223} nation every year from the Revolution, and is of opinion that if the exiled family had continued to reign, there would neither have been worms in our ships nor caterpillars in our trees. He firmly believes that King William burned Whitehall that he might steal the furniture, and that Tillotson died an atheist. Of Queen Anne he speaks with more tenderness; owns that she meant well, and can tell by whom she was poisoned. Tom has always some new promise that we shall see in another month the rightful monarch on the throne. "Jack Sneaker," on the other hand, is a devoted adherent to the present establishment. He has known those who saw the bed in which the Pretender was conveyed in a warming-pan. He often rejoices that this nation was not enslaved by the Irish. He believes that King William never lost a battle, and that if he had lived one year longer he would have conquered France. Yet amid all this satisfaction he is hourly disturbed by dread of Popery; wonders that stricter laws are not made against the Papists, and is sometimes afraid that they are busy with French gold among our bishops and judges.

{224}

CHAPTER XIV.

WALPOLE IN POWER AS WELL AS OFFICE.

[Sidenote: 1723--Walpole's Administration]

Walpole was now Prime-minister. The King wished to reward him for his services by conferring a peerage on him, but this honor Walpole steadily declined. One of his biographers says that his refusal "at first appears extraordinary." It ought not to appear extraordinary at first or at last. Walpole knew that the sceptre of government in England had pa.s.sed to the House of Commons. He would have been unwise and inconsistent indeed if at his time of life he had consented to renounce the influence and the power which a seat in that House gave him for the comparative insignificance and obscurity of a seat in the House of Lords. He accepted a t.i.tle for his eldest son, who was made Baron Walpole, but for himself he preferred to keep to the field in which he had won his name, and where he could make his influence and power felt all over the land.

We may antic.i.p.ate the course of events, and say at once that hardly ever before in the history of English political life, and hardly ever since Walpole's time, has a minister had so long a run of power. His long administration, as Mr. Green well says, is almost without a history. It is almost without a history, that is to say, in the ordinary sense of the word. For the most part, the steady movement of England's progress remains, during long years and years, undisturbed by any event of great dramatic interest at home or abroad. But the period of Walpole's long and successful administration was none the less a period of the highest importance in English {225} history. It was a time of almost uninterrupted national development in the right direction, and almost unbroken national prosperity. The foreign policy of Walpole was, on the whole, no less sound and just than his policy at home. His first ambition was to keep England out of wars with foreign Powers. Yet his was not the ambition which some later statesmen, especially, for example, Mr. Bright, have owned--the ambition to keep England free of any foreign policy whatever. Such an ambition was not Walpole's, and such an ambition at Walpole's time it would have been all but impossible to realize. Walpole knew well that there was no way of keeping England out of foreign wars at that season of political growth but by securing for her a commanding influence in Continental affairs. Such influence he set himself to establish, and he succeeded in establishing it by friendly and satisfactory alliances with France and other Powers. Turning back for a moment into the political affairs of a year or two previous, we may remark that one of the consequences of the Mississippi scheme, and the reign of Mr. Law in France, had been the recall of Lord Stair from the French Court, to which he was accredited as English amba.s.sador. Lord Stair quarrelled with Law when Law was all-powerful; and in order to propitiate the financial dictator, it was found convenient to recall Stair from Paris. England had been well served by him as her amba.s.sador at the French Court. We have already said something of Lord Stair--his ability, courage, and dexterity, his winning ways, and his fearless spirit. John Dalrymple, second Earl of Stair, was one of the remarkable men of his time. He was a scholar and an orator, a soldier and a diplomatist. He had fought with conspicuous bravery and skill under William the Third and under Marlborough. He appears to have combined a daring that looked like recklessness with a cool calculation which made it prudence. On Marlborough's fall, Lord Stair fell with him. He was deprived of all his public offices, and was plunged into a condition of {226} something like poverty. When George the First came to the throne, Stair was taken into favor again, and as a special tribute to his diplomatic capacity was sent to represent England at the Court of France. There he displayed consummate sagacity, foresight, and firmness. He contrived to make himself acquainted beforehand with everything the Jacobites were doing. This, as may be seen by Bolingbroke's complaints, was easy enough at one time; but the adherents of James Stuart began after a while to learn prudence, and some of their enterprises were conducted up to a certain point with much craft and caution. Lord Stair, however, always contrived to get the information he wanted. Some of the arts by which he accomplished his purposes were not, perhaps, such as a great diplomatist of our time would have cared to practise. He bribed with liberal hand; he kept persons of all kinds in his pay; he bribed French officials, and even French ministers; he got to know all that was done in the most secret councils of the State.

He used to go about the capital in disguise in order to find out what people were saying in the wine-shops and coffee-houses. Often, after he had entertained a brilliant company of guests at a state dinner, he would make some excuse to his friends for quitting them abruptly; say that he had received despatches which required his instant attention, leave the company to be entertained by his wife, withdraw to his study, there quietly change his clothes, and then wander out on one of his nightly visitations of taverns and coffee-houses. He paid court to great ladies, flattered them, allowed them to win money at cards from him, and even made love to them, for the sake of getting some political secrets out of them. He had a n.o.ble and stately presence, a handsome face, and charming manners. He is said to have been the most polite and well-bred man of his time. It is of him the story is told about the test of good-breeding which the King of France applied and acknowledged. Louis the Fourteenth had heard it said that Stair was the best-bred man of his day. The {227} King invited Stair to drive out with him. As they were about to enter the carriage the King signed to the English amba.s.sador to go first. Stair bowed and entered the carriage. "The world is right about Lord Stair," said the King; "I never before saw a man who would not have troubled me with excuses and ceremony."

[Sidenote: 1723--Spain]

The French Government naturally feared that the recall of Lord Stair might be marked by a change in the friendly disposition of England.

This fear became greater on the death of Stanhope. The English Government, however, took steps to rea.s.sure the Regent of France.

Townshend himself wrote at once to Cardinal Dubois, promising to maintain as before a cordial friendship with the French Government.

Walpole was entirely imbued with the instincts of such a policy. The chief disturbing influence in Continental politics arose from the anxiety of Spain to recover Gibraltar and Minorca, and, in fact, to get back again all that had been taken from her by the Treaty of Utrecht.

The territorial and other arrangements which concluded with the Treaty of Utrecht made themselves the central point of all the foreign policy of that time: these States were concerned to maintain the treaty; those were eager to break through its bonds. It holds in the politics of that day the place which was held by the Treaty of Vienna at a later period. There is always much of the hypocritical about the manner in which treaties of that highly artificial nature are made. No State really intends to hold by them any longer than she finds that they serve her own interests. If they are imposed upon a State and are injurious to her, that State never means to submit to them any longer than she is actually under compulsion. New means and impulses to break away from such bonds are given to those inclined that way, in the fact that the arrangements are usually made without the slightest concern for the populations of the countries concerned, but only for dynastic or other political considerations. The pride of the Spanish people was so much hurt by some of the conditions of the Treaty {228} of Utrecht that a Spanish sovereign or minister would always be popular who could point to his people a way to escape from its bonds or to rend them in pieces. Spain, therefore, was always looking out for new alliances.

She saw at one time a fresh chance for trying her policy, and she held out every inducement in her power to the Emperor Charles the Sixth and to Russia to enter into a combination against France and England. The Emperor was without a son, and, in consequence, had issued his famous Pragmatic Sanction, providing that his hereditary dominions in Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia should descend to his daughter Maria Theresa. The great Powers of Europe had not as yet seen fit to guarantee, or even recognize, this succession. Spain held out the temptation to the Emperor of her own guarantee to the Pragmatic Sanction and of several important concessions in the matter of trade and commerce to Austria, on consideration that the Emperor should a.s.sist Spain to recover her lost territory. Catherine, the wife of Peter the Great, was now governing Russia, and was entering into secret negotiations with Spain and with the Emperor. Townshend and Walpole understood all that was going on, and succeeded in making a defensive treaty between England, France, and Prussia. Prussia, to be sure, did not long hold to the treaty, and her withdrawal gave a new stimulus to the machinations of the Emperor and of Philip of Spain, and in 1727 Philip actually ventured to lay siege to Gibraltar. England, France, and Holland, however, held firmly together; the Russian Empress suddenly died, the Emperor Charles was not inclined to risk much, and Spain finally had to come to terms with England and her allies.

[Sidenote: 1721--Antic.i.p.ations of free-trade]

These troubles might have proved serious but for the determined policy of Townshend and of Walpole. We have not thought it necessary to weary our readers with the details of this little running fire of dispute which was kept up for some years between England and Spain. We saw in an earlier chapter how the quarrel began, and what {229} the elements were which fed it and kept it burning. This latter pa.s.sage is really only a continuation of the former; both, except for the sake of mere continuity of historic narrative, might have been told as one story, and, indeed, would perhaps not have required many sentences for the telling. Walpole applied himself at home to the work of what has since been called Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. He was the first great English finance minister; perhaps we may say he was the first English minister who ever sincerely regarded the development of national prosperity, the just and equal distribution of taxation, and the lightening of the load of financial burdens, as the most important business of a statesman. The whole political and social conditions of the country were changing under his wise and beneficent system of administration. Population was steadily increasing; some of the great rising towns had doubled their numbers since Walpole's career began.

Agriculture was better in its systems, and was brightening the face of the country everywhere; the farmer had almost ceased for the time to grumble; the laborer was well fed and not too heavily worked. We do not mean to say that Walpole's administration was the one cause of all this improvement in town and country, but most a.s.suredly the peace, and the security of peace, which Walpole's administration conferred was of direct and material influence in the growing prosperity of the nation.

His financial systems lightened the burdens of taxation, distributed the load more equally everywhere, and enabled the State to get the best revenue possible at the lowest cost and with the least effort. It might almost be said that Walpole antic.i.p.ated free-trade. The Royal speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament, on October 19, 1721, declared it to be "very obvious that nothing would more conduce to the obtaining so public a good"--the extension of our commerce--"than to make the exportation of our own manufactures, and the importation of the commodities used in the manufacturing of them, as practicable and as easy as may be; by this means the balance {230} of trade may be preserved in our favor, our navigation increased, and greater numbers of our poor employed." "I must, therefore," the speech went on, "recommend it to you, gentlemen of the House of Commons, to consider how far the duties upon these branches may be taken off and replaced, without any violation of public faith or laying any new burden upon my people; and I promise myself that, by a due consideration of this matter, the produce of those duties, compared with the infinite advantages that will accrue to the kingdom by their being taken off, will be found so inconsiderable as to leave little room for any difficulties or objections." In furtherance of the policy indicated in these pa.s.sages of the Royal speech, more than one hundred articles of British manufacture were allowed to be exported free of duty, while some forty articles of raw material were allowed to be imported in the same manner. Walpole was anxious to make a full use of this system of indirect taxation. He desired to levy and collect taxes in such a manner as to avoid the losses imposed upon the revenue by smuggling and by various forms of fraud. His principle was that the necessaries of life and the raw materials from which our manufactures were to be made ought to remain, as far as possible, free of taxation.

The whole history of our financial systems since Walpole's time has been a history of the gradual development of his economic principles.

There has been, of course, reaction now and then, and sometimes the counsels of statesmen appear for a while to have been under the absolute domination of the policy which he strove to supplant; but the reaction has only been for seasons, while the progress of Walpole's policy has been steady. We have now, in 1884, nearly accomplished the financial task Walpole would, if he could, have accomplished a century and a half earlier.

[Sidenote: 1723--Parliamentary corruption]

No one can deny that Walpole was an unscrupulous minister. He would gladly have carried out the best policy by the best means; but where this was not practicable or convenient he was perfectly willing to carry {231} out a n.o.ble policy by the vilest methods. He was not himself avaricious; he was not open to the temptations of money. He had a fortune large enough for him, and he spent it freely, but he was willing to bribe and corrupt all those of whom he could make any use.

Under his rule corruption became a settled Parliamentary system. He had done more than any other man to make the House of Commons the most powerful factor in the government of England; he had therefore made a seat in the House of Commons an object of the highest ambition. To sit in that House made the obscurest country gentleman a power in the State. Naturally, therefore, a seat in the House of Commons was struggled for, scrambled for, fought for--obtained at any cost of money, influence, time, and temper. Naturally, also, a seat thus obtained was a possession through which recompense of some kind was expected. Those who buy their seats naturally expect to sell their votes; at least that was so in the days of Walpole. In times nearer to our own, England has seen a condition of things in which public opinion and the development of a sort of national conscience absolutely prevented members from taking bribes, although it allowed them the most liberal use of bribery and corruption in the obtaining of their seats.

The member of Parliament who, twenty or thirty years ago, would have bought his seat by means of the most unblushing and shameless corruption, would no more have thought of selling his vote to a minister for a money payment than he would have thought of selling his wife at Smithfield. But in Walpole's time the man who bought his seat was ready to sell his vote. Walpole, the minister, was willing to buy the vote of any man who would sell it. He was lavish in the gift of lucrative offices, of rich sinecures, of pensions, and even of bribes in a lump sum, money down. He would bribe a member's wife, if that were more convenient than openly to bribe the member himself. He had no particular choice as to whether the bribe should be direct or indirect, open or secret; he {232} wanted to get the vote, he was willing to pay the price, and he cared not who knew of the arrangement.

We have already mentioned that the saying ascribed to him about every man having his price was never uttered by him. What he said probably was, that "each of these men," alluding to a certain group or party, had his price. He is reported to have said that he never knew any woman who would not take money, except one n.o.ble lady, whom he named, and she, he said, took diamonds. He acted consistently and was not ashamed. He was incorrupt himself; he was even in that sense incorruptible; but in order to gain his own public purposes, wise and just as they were, he was willing to corrupt a whole House of Commons, and would not have shrunk from corrupting a nation.

[Sidenote: 1723--Lord Carteret]

It ought to be pointed out that the very pacific nature of Walpole's policy and the security and steadiness of his administration made it sometimes all the more necessary for him to have recourse to questionable methods. Great controversies of imperial or national interest--controversies which stir the hearts of men, which appeal to their principles and awaken their pa.s.sions--did not often arise during his long tenure of power. Agitations of this kind, whatever trouble and disturbance they may bring with them, have a purifying effect upon the political atmosphere. Only a very ign.o.ble creature is to be bribed out of his opinions when some interest is at stake, on which his heart, his training, and his a.s.sociations have already taught him to take sides. Walpole kept the nation out of such controversies for the most part, and one result was that small political combinations of various kinds were free to form themselves around him, beneath him, and against him. The House of Commons sometimes threatened to dissolve itself into a number of little separate sections or factions, none of them representing any real principle or having more than a temporary attraction of cohesion. Walpole was again and again placed in the position of having to encounter {233} some little faction of this kind by open exercise of power or by the process of corruption, and he usually found the latter course more convenient and ready. Nor could such a man at any period of English history have remained long without more or less formidable rivals. Walpole himself must have known well enough that the death of men like Sunderland, or the death or any number of men, could not, so long as England was herself, secure him for long an undisturbed political field, with no head raised against him. A country like this is never so barren of political intellect and courage as to admit of a long dictatorship in political life.

Walpole had already one rising rival in the person of Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville. John Carteret was born April 22, 1690, and was only five years old when the death of his father, the first Lord Carteret, made him a member of the House of Lords. He distinguished himself greatly at Oxford, and entered very early into public life. He was from the beginning a favorite of George the First, and by the influence of Stanhope was intrusted with various diplomatic missions of more or less importance. In 1721 he was actually appointed amba.s.sador to the Court of France. The death of Craggs, the Secretary of State, however, made a vacancy in the administration, and the place was at once a.s.signed to Carteret. Carteret was one of those men whose genius we have to believe in rather on the faith of contemporary judgment than by reason of any track of its own it has left behind.

The unanimous opinion of all who knew him, and more especially of those who were commonly brought into contact with him, was that Carteret possessed the rarest combination of statesmanlike and literary gifts.

Probably no English public man ever exhibited in a higher degree the qualities that bring success in politics and the qualities that bring success in literature. It seems strange to have to say this when one remembers a man like Bolingbroke and a man like Burke; but it is certain that neither Bolingbroke nor Burke could {234} boast of such scholarship and accomplishments as those of Carteret. [Sidenote: 1723--Carteret's German] He was a profound cla.s.sical scholar; he was a master of French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Swedish.

His scientific knowledge was extraordinary for that time; he was a close student of the history of past and pa.s.sing time; he was deeply interested in const.i.tutional law, and had a pa.s.sion for Church history.

He was a great parliamentary debater--some say he was even a great orator. He was prompt and bold in his decisions; he was not afraid of any enterprise; he was not depressed or abashed by failure; he could take fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks. Large brains and small affections are, according to Mr. Disraeli, the essential qualities for success in public life. Carteret had large brains and small affections; he had no friendships and no enmities. Like Fox, he was a bad hater, but, unlike Fox, he had not a heart to love. He was fond of books and of wine and of women; he was a great drinker of wine, even for those days of deep drink. Beneath all the apparent energy and daring of his character there lay a voluptuous love of ease and languor. He was not a lazy man, but his inclination was always to be an indolent man. He leaped up to sudden political action when the call came, like Sardanapalus leaping up to the inevitable fight; but, like Sardanapalus, he would have been always glad to lie down again and loll in ease the moment the necessity for action had pa.s.sed away. No doubt his daily allowance of Burgundy--a very liberal and generous allowance--had a good deal to do with his tendency to indolence.

Whatever the reason, it is certain that, with all his magnificent gifts and his splendid chances, he did nothing great, and has left no abiding mark in history. Every one who came near him seems to have regarded his as a master-spirit. Chesterfield said of him, "When he dies, the ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all." Horace Walpole declares him to be superior in one set of qualities to his father. Sir Robert Walpole, {235} and in others to the great Lord Chatham. "Why did they send you here?" Swift said to Carteret, with rough good-humor, when Carteret came over to Dublin to be Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. "You are not fit for this place; let them send us back our b.o.o.bies." Carteret's fame has always seemed to us like the fame of Sheridan's Begum speech. Such poor records as we have of that speech seem hardly to hint at any extraordinary eloquence; yet the absolutely unanimous opinion of all that heard it--of all the orators and statesmen and critics of the time--was that so great a speech had never before been spoken in Parliament. Those men can hardly have been all wrong, one would think; and yet, on the other hand, it is not easy to believe that those who made such record of the speech as we have can have purposely left out all the eloquence, the wit, and the argument. In like manner, readers of this day may perplex themselves about the fame of Carteret. All the men who knew him can hardly have been mistaken when they concurred in giving him credit for surpa.s.sing genius; and yet we find no evidence of that genius either in the literature or the political history of England.

Carteret had one great advantage over Walpole and over all his contemporaries in political life--he was able to speak German fluently; he was able to talk for hours with the King in the King's own guttural tongue. The King clung to Carteret's companionship because of his German. While Walpole was trying to instil his policy and counsels into George's mind through the non-conducting medium of very bad Latin, while other ministers were endeavoring to approach the Royal intelligence by means of French, which they spoke badly and he understood imperfectly, Carteret could rattle away in idiomatic German, and could amuse the Royal humor even with voluble German slang.

Carteret had come into public life under the influence of Lord Sunderland and Lord Stanhope, and he regarded himself as the successor to their policy. He never considered himself as quite in {236} understanding and harmony with Townshend and Walpole. His princ.i.p.al idea was that the time had pa.s.sed when it was proper or expedient to exclude the Tories or the High-churchmen from the political service of the Crown. He desired to enlarge the basis of administration by admitting some of the more plastic and progressive of the Tories to a share in it. There was, however, something more than a conflict of political views between Carteret and Walpole. Walpole's ambition was to be the const.i.tution dictator of England. We do not say that this was a mere personal ambition; on the contrary, we believe Walpole acted on the honest conviction that he knew better than any other man how England ought to be governed. He was sure, and reasonably sure, that no other statesman could play the game so well; he therefore claimed the right to play it. Carteret, on the other hand, was far too strong a man to be quietly pushed into the background. He was determined that if he remained in the service of the State he would be a statesman, and not a clerk.

[Sidenote: 1723--A match making intrigue]

Therefore, while Carteret and Walpole were colleagues there was always a struggle going on between them, and, like all the political struggles of the time, it had a great deal of underhand influence, and the worst kind of petticoat influence, engaged in it. One of the King's mistresses--the most influential of them--gave all her support to Walpole; another Royal paramour lent her aid to Carteret's side.

Carteret played into the King's hands as regarded the Hanoverian policy, and was for taking strong measures against Russia. Townshend and Walpole would hear of no schemes which threatened to entangle England in war for the sake of Hanoverian interests. George liked Carteret, and was captivated by his policy as well as by his personal qualities, but he could not help seeing that Townshend's advice was the sounder, and that no man could manage the finances like Walpole.

George went to Hanover in the summer of 1723, and both the Secretaries of State went with him. This was {237} something unusual, and even unprecedented; but the King would not do without the companionship of Carteret, and knew that he could not do without the advice of Townshend. So both Townshend and Carteret went with his Majesty to Herrenhausen, and Walpole had the whole business of administration in his own hands at home.

A very paltry and pitiful intrigue at length settled the question between Townshend and Carteret. A marriage had been arranged between a niece, or so-called niece, of one of George's mistresses and the son of La Vrilliere, the French Secretary of State. Madame La Vrilliere insisted, as a condition of the marriage, that her husband should be made a duke, and it was a.s.sumed that this could be brought about by the influence of the English Government. King George was anxious that the marriage should take place, and Carteret, of course, was willing to a.s.sist him. The English amba.s.sador at the Court of France was a man named Sir Luke Schaub, by birth a Swiss, who had been Stanhope's secretary, and by Stanhope's influence was pushed up in the diplomatic service. Sir Luke Schaub was in close understanding with Carteret, and was strongly hostile to Townshend and Walpole. Of this fact Townshend was well aware, and he took care that Schaub should be closely watched in Paris. Schaub was instructed by Carteret to do all he could in order to obtain the dukedom for Madame La Vrilliere's husband.

Cardinal Dubois died, and his place in the councils of the Duke of Orleans was taken by Count Noce, who was believed to be hostile to England. This fact gave Townshend an excuse for suggesting to the King that some one should be sent to Paris to watch over the action of the French Government and the conduct of the English amba.s.sador, "in such a manner," so Townshend wrote from Hanover to Walpole, "as may neither hurt Sir Luke Schaub's credit with the Duke of Orleans, nor create a jealousy in Sir Luke of the King's intending to withdraw his confidence from him." This was, of course, exactly what Townshend wanted to do--to {238} induce the King to withdraw his confidence from poor Sir Luke. The King agreed that it was necessary some one "in whose fidelity and dexterity he can depend" should set out from England to Hanover, "and take Paris on his way hither, under pretence of a curiosity to see that place, and without owning to any one living the business he is employed in." The person selected for this somewhat delicate mission was Horace Walpole, Robert Walpole's only surviving brother.

[Sidenote: 1724--Carteret goes to Ireland]

Horace Walpole acquitted himself very cleverly of the task a.s.signed to him. He was a man of uncouth manners, but of some shrewd ability and of varied experience. He had been a soldier with Stanhope before acting as Under-Secretary of State to Townshend; he had managed to distinguish himself in Parliament and in diplomacy. He soon contrived to obtain the ear of the Duke of Orleans, and he found that Sir Luke Schaub had been deceiving himself and his sovereign about the prospect of La Vrilliere's dukedom. Philip of Orleans told Horace Walpole frankly that there never was the slightest idea of giving such a dukedom, and added that the dignity of France would be compromised if such a concession were made in order to enable the King of England "to marry his b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter"--so the Duke put it--into the French _n.o.blesse_. Sir Luke Schaub's haste and indiscreet zeal had, in fact, brought his sovereign into discredit, and even compromised the good understanding between England and France.

Philip of Orleans died almost immediately. His death was sudden, but he had long run a course which set all laws of health at defiance. He stuck to his pleasures to the very last--died, one might say, in harness. His successor in the administration of France, under the young King Louis the Fifteenth, who had just been declared of age, was the Duke de Bourbon, Philip's equal, perhaps, in profligacy, but not by any means his equal in capacity. Horace Walpole won over the new administrator. The Duke de Bourbon told him that Sir Luke Schaub was {239} obnoxious to every one in the French Court, and that he was not fit, by birth, breeding, or capacity, to represent England there.

We need not follow the intrigue through all its turns and twists.

Walpole and Townshend succeeded. Schaub was recalled; Horace Walpole was appointed amba.s.sador in his place. The recall of Schaub involved the fall of Carteret. Carteret, however, was not a man to be rudely thrust out of office, and a soft fall was therefore prepared for him; he was made Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He knew that he was defeated.

Then, as at a later day and at an earlier, the Viceroyalty of Ireland was the gilding which enabled a man to gulp down the bitter pill of political failure. When Lord John Russell obtained the dismissal of Lord Palmerston from his cabinet in 1851, he endeavored, somewhat awkwardly, to soften the blow by offering to his dispossessed rival the position of Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Palmerston understood the meaning of the offer, and treated it--as was but natural--with open contempt. Carteret acted otherwise. Probably he felt within himself that he was not destined to a great political career. In any case, he accepted the offer with perfect good-humor, declaring that, on the whole, he thought he should be much more pleasantly situated as a dictator in Dublin than as the servant of a dictator in London.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS.

[Sidenote: 1724--Wood's coinage]

Lord Carteret arrived at the seat of his Viceroyalty in the midst of a political storm which threatened at one time to blow down a good many shaky inst.i.tutions. He found the whole country, and especially the capital, convulsed by an agitation the like of which was not seen again until the days of Grattan and the Volunteers. The hero of the agitation was Swift; the spell-words which gave it life and direction were found in "The Drapier's Letters."

The copper coinage of Ireland had been for a long time deficient.

Employers of labor had in many cases been obliged to pay their workmen in tokens; sometimes even with pieces of card, stamped and signed, and representing each a small amount. During Sunderland's time of power, the Government set themselves to work to supply the lack of copper, and invited tenders from the owners of mines for the supply. A Mr. William Wood, a man who owned iron and copper mines, and iron and copper works, sent in a tender which was accepted. A patent was given to Wood permitting him to coin halfpence and farthings to the value of one hundred and eight thousand pounds. Walpole had not approved of the scheme himself, but for various reasons he did not venture to upset it.

He had the patent prepared, and consulted Sir Isaac Newton, then Master of the Mint, with regard to the objects which the Government had in view, and the weight and fineness of the coin which Wood was to supply.

The halfpence and farthings were to be a little less in weight than the coin of the same kind {241} current in England. Walpole considered this necessary because of the difference in exchange between the two countries. Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that the Irish coin exceeded the English in fineness of metal. As to the King's prerogative for granting such patents, Walpole himself explained in a letter to Lord Townshend, then in Hanover with the King, that it was one never disputed and often exercised. The granting of this patent, and the mode of supplying the deficiency in copper coin, might seem little open to objection; but the Irish Privy Council at once declared against the whole transaction. Both Houses of the Irish Parliament pa.s.sed addresses to the King, declaring that the introduction of Wood's coinage would be injurious to the revenue and positively destructive of trade. The Irish Lord Chancellor set himself sternly against the patent in private, and urged all his friends, comrades, and dependents, to act publicly against it. The addresses from the two Houses of Parliament were sent to Walpole, who transmitted them to Lord Townshend. Walpole accompanied the addresses with an explanation in which he vindicated the policy represented by the granting of the patent, and insisted that no harm whatever could be done to the trade or revenue of Ireland by the introduction of the new copper coinage.

Walpole advised that the King should return a soothing and a conciliatory reply to the addresses, and the King acted accordingly.