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Title: The Endless Adventure, vol 1
Date of first publication: 1930
Author: Frederick Scott Oliver (1866-1934)
Date first posted: February 18 2013
Date last updated: February 18 2013
Faded Page eBook #20130211

This eBook was produced by: David T. Jones, Al Haines, Ronald Tolkien
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




  [Illustration: _King George I_

  _from the engraving by George Vertue 1715
  after a portrait by Sir
  Godfrey Kneller_]




                                _The_

                          ENDLESS ADVENTURE

                                 _by_

                             F. S. OLIVER

                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
                     ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
                                 1930




                              COPYRIGHT

                       PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
                 BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH




                                 _To_
                               MY WIFE




                     CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME

                               BOOK ONE

          AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS


                                                                  PAGE
      I. The general plan                                            3

     II. An outline of Walpole's career                              6

    III. Some reflections on Walpole's career                       13

     IV. On the variety of witnesses                                20

      V. Lord Hervey's evidence                                     24

     VI. How the Art of Politics, like nearly everything else,
         is mixed up with Morals                                    30

    VII. The case of Giovanpagolo of Perugia                        32

   VIII. Some modern dilemmas                                       34

     IX. A digression on several words that most people use
         reluctantly                                                39

      X. On Idols and Ideals                                        44

     XI. Idols and Ideals are not always derived from Morals        47

    XII. How a politician will use Idols and Ideals for helping
         him to gain power and keep it                              48

   XIII. How most of the Idols and Ideals in every age have had
         a previous existence, and what contradictions there are
         among them                                                 50

    XIV. On the rarity of Ideals during the age of Walpole          56

     XV. Concerning the part played by politicians in the
         recent Russian revolution                                  58

    XVI. Lenin as Opposition leader                                 61

   XVII. Lenin as head of Government                                68

  XVIII. How all the benefits of a revolution are likely to
         be lost if the politicians fail to gain the upper hand
         in time                                                    79

    XIX. How little the Art of Politics has changed in two
         thousand years                                             86

     XX. In praise of Politicians                                   90


                               BOOK TWO

            FROM THE FLIGHT OF JAMES II. TO THE ACCESSION
                       OF GEORGE I. (1688-1714)

      I. Of the parts played by Whigs and Tories in the
         'glorious' Revolution (1688-1689)                         115

     II. How the English revolution ruined the European projects
         of Louis XIV. (1689-1709)                                 124

    III. Concerning the remarkable effects of a sermon
         (1709-1710)                                               129

     IV. How the duke of Marlborough was dismissed and disgraced
         (1711)                                                    133

      V. How the Tory government proceeded to negotiate for
         peace with Louis XIV. (1711-1713)                         139

     VI. How the Tory government was weakened by the dissensions
         of Harley and Bolingbroke (1710-1714)                     150

    VII. How, owing to the want of a leader with a clear policy,
         the Tory party failed to take advantage of its
         opportunities either in Opposition or in office
         (1708-1714)                                               158


                              BOOK THREE

                 STANHOPE AND SUNDERLAND (1714-1721)

      I. How George I. left Hanover reluctantly and came to
         England with misgivings (1714)                            167

     II. Concerning the chief ministers in the first
         administration of George I. (1714-1721)                   176

    III. How Bolingbroke fled to France and was attainted
         of treason (1715)                                         182

     IV. How Bolingbroke served the Pretender for nine months
         and was then dismissed (1715-1716)                        193

      V. How the old Tory and Whig parties lost their
         distinguishing marks after the failure of the
         rebellion (1715-1720)                                     202

     VI. How the duke of Orleans became regent of France
         on the death of Louis XIV., and how the policy of
         cardinal Dubois led to a good understanding with
         England (1715-1723)                                       207

    VII. Why the treaty of Utrecht was regarded favourably
         by France, Holland and Britain, but unfavourably
         by Spain and the Emperor                                  211

   VIII. How Alberoni rose to be prime minister of Spain
         and a cardinal, and how his efforts to carry out
         the Queen's policy ended in disaster (1714-1719)          218

     IX. How Alberoni before his fall had brought about the
         intervention of Sweden, and how this also ended in
         disaster (1715-1718)                                      223

      X. Concerning the characters of Alberoni and Dubois          227

     XI. Of the consequences that flowed from the policy
         of Stanhope and Dubois, and of the scant justice
         these statesmen have received from their
         fellow-countrymen                                         233

    XII. How Walpole and Townshend tired of opposition and
         accepted subordinate offices (1717-1720)                  237

   XIII. Concerning the bursting of two bubbles (1720)             240


                              BOOK FOUR

                  TOWNSHEND AND WALPOLE (1721-1727)

      I. How Walpole became chief minister (1721)                  253

     II. Of the composition of Walpole's administration (1721)     255

    III. Of Walpole's aims and methods, and how he dealt with
         his rivals and opponents (1721-1742)                      259

     IV. Concerning the general lines of Walpole's policy; how
         he aimed at fostering national prosperity; of his
         economies; and of the nature of the work he undertook
         and carried through (1721-1742)                           268

      V. How Bolingbroke endeavoured to earn his pardon, and of
         the delays that occurred in granting it (1716-1723)       283

     VI. How, at a meeting with Walpole, Bolingbroke made an
         offer of his services which was rejected (1723)           291

    VII. Concerning the sudden rise of lord Carteret, who
         won a great reputation in diplomacy, was made
         secretary-of-state, and incurred the enmity of
         his colleagues Walpole and Townshend (1721-1723)          301

   VIII. How Carteret, having been tripped up over a treaty
         of marriage, was forced to resign his
         secretaryship-of-state and to accept the viceroyalty
         of Ireland (1723-1724)                                    314

     IX. How Bolingbroke, having failed to recover his peerage
         rights, determined to engage in opposition (1725)         323

      X. Concerning the Pelham connection (1724)                   330

     XI. How at the beginning of Walpole's administration
         the Opposition was composed of three independent
         parties (1721-1725)                                       342

    XII. Concerning the defection of William Pulteney (1725)       347

   XIII. How Bolingbroke, Pulteney and Wyndham endeavoured
         to unite the Opposition; but how, during sixteen
         years, all their efforts to dislodge Walpole were
         unsuccessful (1726-1742)                                  351

    XIV. How Balance of Power is essential to the sovereign
         independence of states, and how the endeavour to
         maintain it has led to endless wars                       364

     XV. How the adjustment of outstanding differences among
         European powers was referred to the congress of Cambrai,
         and how, at the end of five years, no results had been
         achieved (1720-1724)                                      370

    XVI. How disagreement arose between the powers, and how
         the peace of Europe was threatened by the treaties of
         Vienna and Hanover (1725)                                 378

   XVII. How the danger of a general European war was averted,
         and how Bolingbroke again failed in his bid for
         office (1726-1727)                                        386

  XVIII. In what respects the views of Townshend and Walpole
         differed in regard to the treaties of Vienna and Hanover
         (1725-1727)                                               399

    XIX. Of the various stages through which Walpole's ideas
         regarding foreign affairs passed, and how he came to
         add a fourth fold to his original policy (1700-1727)      405

     XX. Of George I.'s character and of the quality of his
         kingship                                                  417




                        LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  GEORGE I. From the engraving by George Vertue, 1715,
  after a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller               _Frontispiece_

                                                                FACING
  HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. From the
  picture by an unknown painter in the National
  Portrait Gallery                                                 130

  JAMES, FIRST EARL STANHOPE. From the picture by an
  unknown painter in the National Portrait Gallery                 178

  CARDINAL DUBOIS. From the engraving by P. Drevet,
  1724, after the portrait by H. Rigaud, 1723                      208

  CHARLES SPENCER, THIRD EARL OF SUNDERLAND. From
  the portrait by an unknown painter, dated 1722. By
  kind permission of the Earl Spencer                              238

  SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. From a mezzotint drawn and
  engraved by G. White, 1715                                       254

  JOHN, LORD CARTERET. From a mezzotint by Peter
  Pelham after a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller                   302

  CHARLES, SECOND VISCOUNT TOWNSHEND. From the
  picture of the School of Sir Godfrey Kneller in the
  National Portrait Gallery                                        382




                               BOOK ONE

          AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS




I.--_The general plan._


This is a book about politics. Its subject is the endless adventure of
governing men. Its object is to show how politicians of various sorts
contrived to carry on governments, and to thwart, discredit and
destroy governments, during the reign of George the First and a
portion of the reign of George the Second.

The full project is to examine the period between 1714 and 1745. The
present volume, however, goes no further than the death of George the
First in 1727. The next volume carries the commentary down to the
death of Queen Caroline in 1737. The third volume ends with the death
of Sir Robert Walpole in 1745, and is mainly concerned with the
decline and fall of his great administration. This final volume is
still some way from completion.

       *       *       *       *       *

This book does not pretend to be a history. History is a much loftier
and more spacious affair. It does not pay overmuch attention to the
idiosyncrasies of the various actors, but aims at showing all the
vital movements of a certain epoch in their true relations to one
another. History aims at reducing many diverse things to unity;
whereas in this book no attempt has been made to do more than follow a
single thread of human activity. I have not concerned myself, except
from necessity, with battles, sieges and campaigns, with social and
industrial progress, or with the evolution of religion, art, science
and literature. My much humbler theme is the skill and blunderings,
the courage and faint-heartedness, the energy and languor, the
failures and successes of a small number of eminent persons who
followed the trade of politics some two hundred years ago. My
endeavour here has been to consider their craftsmanship rather than
their morals, and the effects which their actions produced, not so
much on the felicity of their country as on their own careers.

There is a further reason why this book cannot claim to be a history.
A historian must pick and shovel for himself. It is not enough to use
the results of other men's labours, building entirely with materials
already fashioned. I acknowledge, and without shame, that I have done
no digging. It would have been unnecessary for my purpose, which was
merely to write a commentary on events which history has already
accepted. I have found my materials, not in a quarry, but rather in a
mason's yard, where many stones lay ready cut and trimmed. I have used
no books that are not familiar to every reader who has interested
himself in the first half of the eighteenth century:--Memoirs,
Diaries, Letters, 'Papers,' 'Characters,' many of which are well
edited and indexed; histories, biographies and essays of various
dates; several modern studies by distinguished writers; and of course
the standard works of reference. I do not include in this list the old
Parliamentary Reports; but the fact that these have yielded me little
or nothing is probably due to my own want of perspicacity. The
National Portrait Gallery, on the other hand, has helped me in many
ways. Men who use the brush are often as shrewd observers as those who
use the pen, and it is unwise to disregard their testimony. I
acknowledge with gratitude my indebtedness to several of the old
painters, and also to those writers, both dead and living, from whom
I have received so much help.

       *       *       *       *       *

This book is no more a biography than it is a history. The fact that
Walpole fills the chief place in it is due to the force of
circumstances which made him the central figure in British politics
from 1720 to 1742. In the present commentary he has been considered
mainly, if not exclusively, as a politician, a parliamentarian and a
courtier.

There were many other sides to Walpole's character. In sharp contrast
with the rigid public economist, there was Walpole the free-handed
prodigal, whose generous conceptions always needed more for their
realisation than even his immense private income could supply.[1]
There was Walpole the man of taste, the collector of Old Masters, the
builder of houses, one of which was blamed, even in the eighteenth
century, for its vast dimensions. There was Walpole the
country-gentleman, the practical farmer, the hard-bitten sportsman.
There was Walpole hand-in-glove with 'the monied interest'; in early
days almost as much at home in the City of London as at Westminster; a
speculator, honest by all accounts, but shrewd and fortunate. There
was Walpole the Church-of-England man (but possibly a sceptic), who
kept a private chaplain to preach to him at Houghton; and Walpole the
Philistine, whom superior persons found fault with for his neglect of
letters and his contempt for history. There was Walpole the pattern of
friendship and good fellowship, the jovial host, the Falstaffian
lover. And there was Walpole the patriarch, whose solicitude for his
children, whether lawfully or unlawfully begotten, was equalled by his
resourcefulness in providing for them at the public expense. It is
none of my business to deal with these matters. The task of writing
Walpole's life would be neither a short nor an easy one. His
multifarious activities could not be condensed into a brief survey,
but would require to be set out circumstantially. There would be
something inappropriate and absurd in treating this massive figure
lightly. When at last Walpole's portrait comes to be painted with
truthfulness and sympathy on a large canvas it is hardly possible that
he will seem a greater minister than he does to-day; but the reasons
why so many different kinds of people loved him will be better
understood.




II.--_An outline of Walpole's career._


Walpole's career began when he was twenty-five and ended only with his
life. During these forty-four years of public service he retained the
full use of his faculties, and till within a few months of his defeat,
enjoyed excellent health.

In Walpole's earlier days he was twice driven from office for short
periods; but after he became chief minister in 1721 he had a longer
stretch of time in which to realise his projects than was allowed to
any of his predecessors or successors.[2] A course of such great
length, so normal, and so continuous--in the sense that it was never
diverted by any cataclysm--is a phenomenon of exceptional interest to
the student of politics.

Our first sight of him is towards the end of William the Third's
reign, when he brought himself into Parliament for one of his own
boroughs. We see him at once shouldering his way good-humouredly, with
great assurance and address, into the councils of the Whig party. He
had no natural right of entry there; for he was neither an aristocrat
nor a man of fashion, but only a stout, fresh-coloured, well-to-do
young Norfolk squire whose manners and accent betrayed a lack of
polish.

In the next dozen years things went very well with the Whigs, and
Walpole turned his abilities to such good account that in 1705, two
years after the accession of Queen Anne, he was appointed to a minor
office. It soon became apparent that he had a natural dexterity in
matters of finance and in handling members of Parliament. But though
he rose by rapid promotions to be the manager, if not actually the
leader, of the House of Commons, the noble oligarchy who controlled
the Whig party continued to regard him, not as one of themselves, but
merely as a useful subordinate.

In 1711 the Whigs were driven from office, and for the next three
years were hunted unmercifully by their opponents. Walpole came in for
more than his share of persecution, and this raised him considerably
in the eyes of his own party without causing him any serious
inconvenience. He was now thirty-five years old and in full vigour of
mind and body. His opposition was indefatigable, his partisanship
unfailingly adroit. He burned incense before all the Whig idols and
execrated all their taboos. But outside his own special province of
finance and parliamentary management, he does not seem to have yet
begun thinking for himself. In such matters as foreign policy he was
content to take his opinions ready-made from his leaders and from the
Whig tradition. He did not foresee that the peace of Utrecht, which he
denounced with the utmost vehemence, was essential to the prosperity
of Britain; still less, that it was the foundation on which his own
life's work was to be built. His attacks were all the more effective
as party business, because they were so little hampered either by a
sense of responsibility or by too much knowledge. When, in 1712, Henry
St. John was called to the Upper House as Viscount Bolingbroke,
Walpole was acknowledged to be the most formidable debater left in the
Commons.

In August 1714, soon after George the First's accession, the Tory
administration was dismissed. The general election that followed a few
months later confirmed the King's decision, and for more than two
generations the Whigs held a monopoly of power.

Walpole, now an acknowledged leader of the party, was made Chancellor
of the Exchequer and became once more the manager of the House of
Commons. The new cabinet, however, did not remain united for very
long. The German courtiers, to serve their own ends, engaged busily in
mischief-making, inflaming the King against his son and against
several of his ministers, and one set of ministers against another.
Walpole and his brother-in-law, Lord Townshend, became aware that they
were losing influence. After a short period of dismissals and
restorations, of intrigues and counter-plots, they found themselves in
Opposition. General Stanhope and Lord Sunderland were now the
undisputed heads of government.

Walpole's second period of Opposition, lasted no longer than his
first; but it was very different in character. From 1711 to 1714
Walpole, the pattern of an orthodox official Whig, had attacked the
natural enemy, a Tory administration; but now, from 1717 to 1720, he
was a rebel leader and kept quiscos company.

After the arrival of George the First the numbers of the Whig party
had shown a sudden and miraculous increase. Those Whigs who were
contented, or still hopeful of office, were sufficiently numerous to
keep the government securely in power; while the overspill of hungry,
malcontent Whigs provided the Opposition with more than half its
strength. Walpole, having plenty of his own party ready to follow his
lead, wisely abstained from making alliances with his traditional
foes, the Tories and the Jacobites; nevertheless he welcomed their
assistance, which as a rule was freely given whenever he attacked the
government.

Though Walpole was now a rebel, his position was more assured than it
had been in the earlier period. He spoke with greater authority. His
abilities had developed and he used them with unremitting energy. He
had by this time learned a good deal about foreign affairs and other
high matters, but he did not choose to let his knowledge hamper his
factious activities. His sole concern was to give Stanhope and
Sunderland a fall. He scored one sober and statesmanlike success; but
the government, though forced on that occasion to withdraw its
proposals, did not even totter.

Before three years were over Walpole had grown tired of Opposition. It
did not satisfy his ambition to be the brilliant leader of a hopeless
cause; for his mind was of a positive cast and he longed for the
power that office gives to get things done. In the spring of 1720,
having made terms with his rivals, he and Townshend rejoined the
ministry. The posts allotted to them showed, however, that their
position had been worsened by their rebellion. Stanhope and Sunderland
were still the heads of government and the returned penitents were
definitely subordinate.

Such an unnatural arrangement of personal forces could hardly have
lasted long in any case; but in a few months there came a sudden and
unforeseen explosion which blew it all to bits. The South Sea Bubble
burst. The heads of government were blamed for negligence and several
of their colleagues were found guilty of corruption. Walpole, by
reason of his recent return, escaped all censure. Certain warnings
that he had uttered earlier in the year, before he rejoined the
administration, were remembered in his favour. Moreover, his financial
abilities were generally believed in. There was a popular outcry that
he should be given a free hand to save the country from ruin.
Sunderland was forced to resign, and towards the end of winter
Stanhope died.

In April 1721 Walpole became in fact, though not in name, chief
minister; and for the next one-and-twenty years he governed the United
Kingdom.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the Queen died in December 1737 Walpole was at the summit of his
power. The Queen had always been his staunchest friend. The King, long
since fully convinced of his loyalty, had lately realised, that even
in the high mystery of foreign affairs, the judgement of his minister
was sounder than his own. No colleague ventured to oppose or even to
intrigue against the head of government. Parliament, though the
government majority had been reduced in quality as well as quantity[3]
at the previous election, was more submissive than it had ever been,
while the Opposition was more depressed.

But though Walpole was at the summit of his power in 1737, he had by
that time passed the zenith of his achievement. Since the failure of
his Excise bill in 1733 and his successful ending of the European war
in 1735, he had become even more cautious than of old, and had
adventured nothing either in foreign or domestic affairs.

The course of politics while Walpole's great administration was
crumbling is the subject of a concluding volume not yet finished. The
story of these years shows how blindly and ruthlessly our party system
sometimes works for the accomplishment of its ultimate end. Popular
governments are short-lived plants. The strongest of them soon begins
to discover symptoms of old age. People forget its past services and
become unappreciative of the benefits it continues to confer. They
weary even of its well-doing and turn welcoming faces to a change.

The character of an Opposition has often very little to do with its
success. Walpole's assailants were a leaderless pack, bound together
neither by mutual loyalties nor by a common faith, but only by the
desire of office and by a factitious animosity against their most
conspicuous opponent.

The party system is wasteful; often cruel and unjust; but who shall
impugn its guiding principle, which is, that popular institutions
cannot keep themselves in vigorous health without constant
phlebotomies and transfusions of new blood? It is a hard saying, but a
true one, that gratitude is not a sentiment that a nation can safely
entertain towards its servants. Moral obligations of this sort are a
matter for historians, on whose recommendation posterity will
sometimes discharge them very handsomely to the memories of victims
long since dead.

From the spring of 1738 to the spring of 1745 was the period of
Walpole's decline, defeat and death. The climax of the drama was not
when Walpole reached the summit of his achievement, nor yet a few
years later, at the zenith of his power. It is not till final defeat
begins to cast its shadows that we become fully conscious of his
magnanimity. Fortune turns against him; fortune so long his friend.
Things go from bad to worse; he is racked by physical pain; at every
second step he seems to stumble; and all the while we feel our
admiration growing for qualities in him which were not fully shown in
the days of his prosperity, still less in those earlier times when he
was fighting his way through factiousness to power.

He fell in February 1742. The three remaining years of his life were
not passed in opposition or intrigue, but in a loyal retirement. He
retained considerable influence with the King and with several of his
former colleagues who had accepted office in the new government. Such
power as he still possessed he used always for what he believed to be
the public advantage; never factiously or for purposes of revenge. He
died in March 1745, in his sixty-ninth year, five months before the
Young Pretender set up his standard at Glenfinnan.

Statesmen in whose ambitions a love of approbation rather than of
power plays the chief part may find glory in failure or in martyrdom,
and occupation for their declining years in the composition of
brilliant apologias. But great, this-worldly statesmen have no such
consolations in their retirement. In their case downfall is the
testing time of character. For too many of them it is something worse
than eclipse; they eat their hearts out; their tempers fray; they seem
to forget the high motives that inspired their former service; they
become mischief-makers and avengers of their own supposed wrongs
without regard to patriotism. On the other hand, some of them, and not
a few, surprise us by their greatness of heart, showing themselves in
defeat more self-controlled and kindlier than when the world lay at
their feet. Walpole was one of these; and it is a fact which may be
placed to the credit of the much-abused profession of politics, that
there have been so many who were fit to bear him company.




III.--_Some reflections on Walpole's career._


During Walpole's lifetime the most common charge against him was that
he degraded British politics by an unparalleled corruption, and this
accusation has gone on echoing ever since. How little justice there
was in singling him out for special condemnation has been shown by
several modern writers.[4] Of course it cannot be disputed that he
bought votes in Parliament and at elections; but he bribed no more
lavishly than his immediate predecessors and successors, and much less
lavishly, though much much more shrewdly, than did George the Third
during the first twenty years of his reign.

Walpole's capital offence was a less sordid, but a graver, matter than
the hiring of a few score venal politicians. He must be held in some
degree responsible for a lethargy of the national spirit which, apart
from all moral considerations, had become a serious political danger
by the end of his administration.

When at the accession of George the First, Walpole came into a
foremost position the nation was in a ferment of doubt and
apprehension. Within the space of five and twenty years there had been
a revolution; a change of dynasty; the failure of that dynasty; a
second change--this time to a dynasty which was regarded with
indifference by everyone to whom it was not actually abhorrent. In
addition there had been a prolonged foreign war, possibly the most
glorious in our annals; but all that most people remembered of it was
the load of debt and the exhaustion it had left behind it. Within a
year of the new King's coronation a civil war broke out which
smouldered for six months before it was stifled.

The nation wanted no more revolutions, wars or disturbances of any
kind; no reform of the constitution, or of the law, or of social
conditions. Any change in the dynasty could only be from bad to worse.
The utmost that sanguine people ventured to hope for was a quiet
settling-down under some moderately efficient and not too dishonest
government. Walpole, who saw in this mood a hopeful symptom of
convalescence, made it the prime end of his policy from first to last
to give the nation rest, prosperity and peace.

If there was to be no war, no revolution, no change of kings, no
energetic recasting of national institutions or amelioration of the
hard lot of mankind--if there was to be nothing but an orderly,
humdrum administration, making the best it could of a workaday
world--the most elevated moralist would have found some difficulty in
bringing patriotism, freedom, humanity and other fine sentiments into
the discussion.

At the beginning of Walpole's administration most people were acutely
conscious of the material need; and if, towards the end, the spiritual
need became a matter of some urgency, it would have been almost
miraculous had Walpole, the successful artificer of prosperity, been
conscious of the change. Very fortunately for England, he was that
rare thing, a first-rate statesman with a first-rate business sense.
He would have been a phenomenon of even greater rarity had he
possessed in addition the highest gifts of moral leadership.

Walpole spoke to his fellow-countrymen in the same strain that a frank
and sensible chairman of a great public company uses at a
shareholders' meeting. When he recommended a certain course of action
as being in their true interests he was nearly always right; and when
they would not take his advice they were nearly always wrong. His
public statements shone with common sense. No one could have made them
who had not possessed in a very high degree several of the most
important political virtues, such as courage, self-control and
patience. He seemed to aim always at getting people to behave like
rational human beings, at showing them the folly of running after
will-o'-the-wisps or of flying into a passion. On the other hand, his
words rarely touched their imaginations, still more rarely their
consciences. He had little to say about such themes as patriotism,
prestige or national glory, and was never heard discoursing on the
duty of self-sacrifice or the love of humanity. Walpole had probably a
clearer understanding of Everyman in his Everyday humour than any
statesman who has ever governed England; but he appears to have had
little or no perception of those inward passionate feelings, those
tremendous hidden forces, which the elder Pitt, and the younger, and
Charles James Fox, each in his different way, knew so well how to
evoke and inspire.

Walpole despised the fashionable cant of patriotism, prestige and
glory. Had his life been prolonged for another half-century, he would
have despised just as heartily the cant that people then began to talk
about liberty, equality and fraternity. His own nature was not at all
susceptible to the stimulus of emotion, and he suspected the sincerity
of those who professed to speak under its influence. He worked
ceaselessly for the material prosperity of the nation; but as he
neglected to provide it with any spiritual nourishment, it sank into a
state of fatty degeneration. By 1744, two years after his
administration ended, there was such an accumulated loss of moral
force, of manly independence, of alacrity in national service, that
Britain seemed to lie at the mercy of a foreign invader and a would-be
usurper.[5] If Walpole is to be blamed for his public utterances it
must be for a sin of omission; inasmuch as he allowed the spirit and
conscience of the nation to suffocate in prosperity.

The answer to these criticisms is that Walpole was a practical
politician and not a moralist. His most imperative duty was to
consider the circumstances and the state of mind in which he found his
country when he came into office. Had he begun by talking in a high
strain, it is unlikely that any one would have listened to him. Had he
set up as a reformer of anything, except the details of administration
and the efficiency of his departmental staff, no one would have
thanked him for doing so, and the great majority would have cursed him
for an officious meddler. His government, instead of lasting for over
twenty years, would have fallen within a twelvemonth. And had he gone
hunting glory on the battlefields of Europe he must have neglected
commerce and bled white the already war-wasted resources of his
country. Without his cautious husbandry Britain might easily have sunk
into a second-rate power, and George the Second might have gone back
for good to his Hanoverian Electorate.

The case against Walpole does not, however, rest entirely on his
public utterances. His offence was something more than a sin of
omission when, in his unguarded private talk with friends and
acquaintances, colleagues and opponents, old and young, he affected to
jeer at patriotism as an unprofitable trade, an insincerity, an
illusion. On the most favourable construction this was the
good-humoured, defensive banter of one who hated talking cant or
listening to it, who also hated talking business out of business hours
or with any but the few persons whose official duty it was to discuss
it with him. Unfavourably regarded, however, it was a deliberate
attempt to deter young men of fortune and ability from joining, or if
they had already joined, to detach them from, that section of the
Opposition which styled itself '_the Patriots_' with as little real
justification as Walpole posed as a despiser of patriotism.

A politician, like a clergyman, is wise not to jest too freely about
the mysteries of his vocation. The piety of a ribald priest and the
honesty of a cynic statesman are always suspect, though occasionally
the ribaldry of the one and the cynicism of the other are no more than
thin veneers. The less intelligent of Walpole's followers took his
sayings at their face value. It cannot be denied that he was to some
extent a corrupter of youth. Fortunately, however, there is no defect
in an old leader which so effectually discourages the enlistment of
young men under his banner as an appearance of cynicism. Walpole had
chiefly himself to blame for the fact that in his last great
struggle--when right was clearly on his side--all the young
politicians were ranged against him, except, oddly enough, Henry Fox,
the indubitable cynic.

Walpole's way of talking was largely affectation. Most men preach much
above their own practice; but with him it was the opposite. When he
preached self-interest and scoffed at patriotism, his own career
belied his professions. In the roll of British statesmen whom we
honour few have held higher notions of duty to the state, or have used
a severer self-discipline in its service.

       *       *       *       *       *

A minister whose genius accords with the needs and tendencies of his
time, and who is seen fighting his best, overcoming difficulties and
bringing the cause he believes in to a successful conclusion, is the
most _satisfying_ spectacle which politics displays.

On the other hand, the most _heroic_ spectacle is a man who remains
undaunted when his early prosperous career is suddenly baulked by a
catastrophe. If he would serve his country he must throw aside the
work in which his heart delighted, must himself pull down and ruin his
own projects, in order to cope with an emergency repugnant to his
ambition and unsuited to his genius. His inspiration is solely duty.
He can see the end, though the means to it bewilder him. Lacking a
natural aptitude for his task, he botches and bungles at every stage;
it is sheer force of character that carries him through; and, like the
younger Pitt, he may die without realising that his efforts have not
been spent in vain.

The _saddest_ spectacle of all is a man of sterling character whose
genius is so antipathetic to the particular emergency in which he
finds himself as to stupefy his thoughts and paralyse his actions. He
drifts to disaster, grappling blindfold with forces which are beyond
his comprehension, failing without really fighting. And yet had the
difficulties been of some different order, they might have been much
greater than they were, and he would have surmounted them
victoriously.

For rather more than three years before he fell, Walpole was engaged
in just such a hopeless struggle as the last of these. But if we
regard his career as a whole we are amazed at his good fortune. He had
but little experience of baulked endeavours. Occasionally he was
forced to divert his energies from domestic to foreign affairs, and to
waste valuable time in humouring or overcoming the prejudices of the
court; but for thirty-eight out of his forty-one years of public
service the current on which he steered his course was one that
carried him on the way he wished to go.




IV.--_On the variety of witnesses._


The chief quandary that perplexes the writer of a book like this is
whom to believe, and how far to believe them; and it must always be
the same whenever an attempt is being made to interpret the disputes
and conflicts of mankind. As a student of Lincoln's Inn, about the
date of Queen Victoria's first jubilee, I used too often to neglect
the drudgery of the pupil-room for the livelier entertainment of the
Courts. There was nothing in that rich and varied comedy so diverting
as the witnesses. The great majority of these were mindful of their
oath to this extent--they were resolved to tell 'nothing but the
truth.' Few, however, were willing to tell 'the whole truth.' There
was nearly always something that a passing honest witness was anxious
to keep back. The reservation might be important, or it might only be
some little thing that he considered, perhaps rightly, to be
immaterial to the case and nobody's business but his own. And yet, no
matter how carefully he stood on guard over his secret, he seldom left
the box without blurting it out.--This, though with many gradations,
was the prevailing type of witness.

The transparently frank and open witness was much rarer. As a rule the
jury knew him at once for what he was, and gave him their full
confidence before his evidence-in-chief was ended. Only a blunderer or
a very young counsel would try to discredit him in cross-examination.

Then there was the loquacious egotist, whose testimony was a tissue
not so much of lies as of illusions. When he departed from the truth,
which he did frequently, it was not from a fixed purpose, but merely
for something to say. It was seldom that he benefited his own side or
did anyone except himself much harm.

There was the fly-away witness who darted zigzag like a woodcock;
quick-witted; very voluble about trifles and personalities; never
orderly; often irrelevant, distracting, and self-contradictory; yet
for all that, a giver of useful and, occasionally, of disconcerting
information, but heedlessly, as it seemed, rather than by intention.

There was the cool and sophisticated witness, unwilling to tell a
positive untruth if he could help it; but anxious at the same time to
produce a general impression that was false. His evidence had been
thought out carefully beforehand. He could keep his head and his
temper under cross-examination, and sometimes would rap a hostile
counsel over the knuckles; and he would leave the box with his
character, in a technical sense, unsmirched and his credit unshaken.
But during the pause before the next witness was called, Baron
Huddleston or Mr. Justice Hawkins or Lord Chief Justice Coleridge
would cast an interrogatory glance at the jurymen; and the jurymen,
flattered by this dumb consultation, would reply by glances that
seemed to warn the judge against being taken in by a plausible
impostor.

Then there was the witness of an opposite pattern, whose overmastering
desire was to tell the whole truth without omitting a single
circumstance that had ever come under his observation, or--if the
judge would let him--that he had ever heard tell of. When this morbid
passion for disclosing everything received the slightest check, his
mind, which was none of the most spacious, became immediately
congested; his answers grew more and more confused; he fell into the
rustiest, clumsiest and most obvious traps. It was fine sport for the
groundlings. There was 'laughter in Court' as he floundered out of one
contradiction into another. Occasionally he would burst into tears.
But when he left the box the glances that passed between judge and
jury were not unkindly, and seemed to say: 'A ridiculous fellow! But
we understand what he was trying to tell us and, on the whole, we
believe him.'

Each of these types has its counterpart among the writers of Memoirs,
Reminiscences, Diaries, Letters, 'Papers' and 'Characters.' Most of
the evidence that was given during the first half of the eighteenth
century is of the majority type: that is to say, the writers were
reasonably honest men, who did not wish to tell untruths, though very
few of them had any intention of telling the whole truth. Bolingbroke
is perhaps the least candid and Chesterfield the least reserved.

At the beginning of the second half of the century (which is much
richer in evidence of every kind than the first half) we have an
admirable example of the transparently truthful witness in Lord
Waldegrave, and of the loquacious egotist in Bubb Dodington, whose
incredibility reaches such a pitch, that even his self-damning
admissions are too doubtful evidence to hang him on.[6] Lady Cowper is
a good example of the fly-away witness,[7] and Horace Walpole, son to
Sir Robert, is one of the most glorious that ever put pen to paper.
Lord Hervey is a perfect type of the cool and sophisticated witness.
But there is no exact parallel to the copiously overflowing witness;
for the old Horatio Walpole, brother to Sir Robert, though he had a
passion for periodically emptying his mind of all its contents, was
controlled by his sense of order and a deliberate intention.

Unfortunately for my present purpose, Horace Walpole, who is the most
valuable of all these witnesses, does not begin to testify at first
hand on political affairs until 1741, the year before his father's
fall. From then onwards, till his death in 1797, his _Letters_,
written with great frequency and freedom, throw a vivid light on
public as well as social events; and though this light is often
wayward and malicious, his travesties and exaggerations correct one
another in the long run with a charming frankness.

Horace Walpole's _Reminiscences_ were written near the close of his
long life, and the _Walpoliana_ were collected by a pious hand from
his own notes and from jottings of his table talk. Though references
are made in both these books to events that happened during his
father's administration, the value of this evidence is no higher than
hearsay; nor indeed does it often rise even to this modest level,
being rather the product of Horace Walpole's ingenious fancy than a
serious record of facts. It would be unreasonable and ungrateful to
find fault with one of the greatest and most entertaining gossips that
ever lived because he was not also a rigorous respecter of truth.
Horace Walpole wrote as he talked--to entertain his audience. These
later trifles consist mainly of good stories that he had been telling
all his life, improving them as he went along. It is amusing, however,
to note how many historians and biographers have been taken in by the
glitter of paste. There is hardly one of them whose works are not
decked with sayings and anecdotes culled from the latest, the least
credible, though not the least lively, of Horace Walpole's
writings.[8]




V.--_Lord Hervey's evidence._


A judge would do but little justice if he admitted none but truthful
testimony; for the worst of liars, when he trips, is often the best of
witnesses. The evidence of the cool and sophisticated Lord Hervey is
untruthful, but most important. He often trips, and finally falls
headlong.

The least of Hervey's offences is that he is often careless, and does
not trouble to check his recollections with official records. Even
when he is telling the truth, he nearly always sets it aslant. When
certain names are mentioned the narrative runs crooked. His record of
events, taken as a whole, is substantially true, but his pictures of
the various actors are essentially false. He lies, as many others have
done, from malice; but his is not a playful malice, like Horace
Walpole's--an artistic impulse to make a good story or to turn an
enemy into a figure of fun--a cruel entertainment perhaps, but one
that readers can enjoy without intolerable twinges of conscience.
Hervey's malice always leaves a bad taste in the mouth; there is no
gaiety in it; it is slow, morose and vindictive. A man must be blamed
for lying who puts it to such anti-social uses.

Hervey has a case to prove that simple truth is incapable of
upholding. He seems to hope that the favourable judgement of posterity
may do away the discredit he had earned among his contemporaries. He
would have us believe, not only that he was more intelligent, but also
more disinterested and more honourable than the contemptible throng he
saw around him. But he loses our sympathy from the start through an
inability to restrain himself from bespattering with jets of
detraction people whom he professes to admire, people who had shown
him constant kindness, people to whom we may even believe him to have
been sincerely attached. Nor is he unconscious of what he is doing;
but he would have us understand that he does it in the interests of
truth. He aimed at presenting his characters in the driest possible
light. But the atmosphere is much too dry, and needs some moisture of
human kindness to make it translucent. The final result is not a
vision of superlative clarity, but a displeasing and incredible
distortion.

It does not need much knowledge of the world to realise that the men
and women he describes were merely the usual human crowd that busies
itself on the stage and in the wings of politics and courts; people
who put their own interests before those of their neighbours most days
in the week; whose ambitions are often tawdry; who act meanly and
unscrupulously on many occasions. But we know there was another side
that Hervey does not show us. The players were not as he painted
them--mirthless people without bowels, all bent on self-advancement
and nothing else. They played their game for place, and power, and
pleasure with gusto. With _gusto_!--and this is one of the chief
differences between them and him. It was a society honeycombed, like
our own, with jealousies and rivalries; but for all that, there was a
great deal of friendship, gaiety and honest laughter.

Hervey could not believe in the existence of any world more spacious
than that one in which the narrowness of his own soul had pent him up.
Those whom he might well have envied he merely despised. He looked on
them as his inferiors because of their exuberance, their lack of
logic, the energy and eagerness with which they pursued a large
variety of irreconcilable interests. He could not realise that these
objects of his contempt lived in a wider and a freer world than his
own. He had no sympathy with the lusty vitality of ordinary men. He
scourges their folly and is still more severe upon their morals. But
can we be sure that the morals he charges them with were in fact
theirs? Another view is possible--that without realising what he was
doing, he had taken a tracing of his own heart and made all his
characters in his own image.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hervey had exceptionally favourable opportunities for using his eyes
and ears. As Vice-Chamberlain, he was Walpole's minister in attendance
on the Queen from 1730 until her death at the end of 1737. All this
time he lodged at court, where he led the life of a tame cat. Caroline
delighted in his wit and gossip, and treated him less like a courtier
than a favourite impish son. We have no means of knowing if his
judgement carried weight in council; but he was a faithful
intermediary. Both Walpole and the Queen gave him a large share of
their confidence, which is a testimonial of some value. He was
disliked by the King, whose antipathy he returned most cordially.
Though frail in body and effeminate in manner he was no coward; he
fought his own enemies and Walpole's with speeches, pamphlets and the
sword.

After the Queen's death Hervey's opportunities of knowledge were not
so great and his conduct became equivocal. He at once attached himself
to the King and succeeded in winning a considerable measure of his
confidence. In 1740 he was taken into the cabinet as Lord Privy Seal;
but by that time Walpole's administration was drifting very near the
rocks.

On a casual reading of Hervey's _Memoirs_ we are apt to take the
bitterness of his moralisings for a genuine thing; but his editor has
destroyed this illusion in a supplemental chapter.[9]

When Walpole fell in 1742, Hervey did not choose, like Henry Fox, to
share the fate of his leader, but clung to office so tenaciously that
it needed almost physical force to remove him. The new ministers had
no wish to avail themselves of his services, for they regarded him as
a self-seeking intriguer who would do them mischief with the King.
Hervey's own correspondence[10] proves that their suspicions were
fully justified.

Carteret, who was the chief figure in the new cabinet, behaved with
his usual courtesy and consideration; but he made it clear that the
Lord Privy Seal must resign. Hervey protested: if he was to suffer
such an outrage, at least he might justly claim an office of
equivalent dignity as compensation. Carteret regretted that no such
office was available. Hervey, continuing to protest, slowly abated his
demands, but met with a refusal at every stage. It is his own
description, and not that of an enemy, that shows him cringing,
whining and snarling; trumpeting his supposed great services in the
past; offering to protect the King from the new ministers; scolding
and bullying when his offer was refused; imploring the King to take
pity on him; back-biting the ministers; begging Carteret to enrol him
among his followers; flattering Carteret and vowing fidelity to him,
but at the same time seeking to sow dissension between him and his
colleagues; finally threatening in round terms--'I am not humble
enough neither to think I shall be quite a feather in whatever scale
your lordship chooses to throw me.'

It was all in vain. Even his last piteous supplication that he might
be made a lord of the bedchamber with a pension of two thousand a year
was denied.[11] Weary of his importunities, the King offered him a
pension of three thousand a year for life. This, with an air of
virtue, Hervey refused: unaccompanied by any mark of royal confidence,
'it would hurt his character.' Moreover, money was not his main
object, for he had a rich and generous father. What he could not bear
was to be cut off from those pleasures of the backstairs that he had
enjoyed for so many years. A post at court, however humble, would give
him opportunities with the King and enable him to make his market with
individual ministers who might fear or favour his intrigues.

For once Hervey's sympathies are wholly on the side of his victim.
There is not a touch of mockery or scorn in his self-portraiture. He
mistakes an abject confession for an apologia that must set him
forever beyond reproach. Nowhere in the _Memoirs_ that he wrote with
such cold detachment does he describe so vividly as in these letters
to his father the character of a time-server who has lost his
self-respect.

Many a politician has been a fine jumble of contrasting qualities, and
of such a one it is usual to say that he was 'a strange mixture.' If
Hervey seems stranger to us than any of his contemporaries it is
because he was so little of a 'mixture,' and because so many of the
common elements of humanity were left out of his composition. He saw
nothing by sunlight. His own character was visible to him only as a
shadow reflected darkly in a looking-glass. Lady Mary Montague, a
friendly critic, divided the human race into 'Men, Women and Herveys,'
and her conceit comes nearer the mark than Pope's elaborate ferocity.
The famous character of _Sporus_ reveals more of the poet's mind than
it does of his enemy's. We can see Pope quivering with rage--a painful
and terrible reality; but his execration of Hervey is hardly more
than a magnificently witty abstraction.




VI.--_How the Art of Politics, like nearly everything else, is mixed
up with Morals._


The politician in the practice of his peculiar art must take account
of several outside forces; and among these is morals, which can never
be kept out of any discussion on human affairs.

We are told that there is water in all our food, even in a cracknel
biscuit, and that in most of our food there is more water than
anything else. It is somewhat the same with morals as with water.
Revolts have been frequent against its overweening pretensions to be
consulted on every occasion; but these revolts never seem to be
permanently successful. Two generations ago there was a great struggle
to rid the fine arts of this tyranny, and Ruskin, who maintained that
it was part of the painter's business to inculcate virtue, appeared to
suffer a defeat. The dog with tears in its eyes, mourning its dead
master, was at last hooted and pelted off the course. But one has only
to read a few lines of a modern art criticism to discover that morals,
having been turned out of the door, have crept back again through the
window. And not even natural science is a sanctuary where one is safe
from the intrusion. Astronomy has always been suspected of a
dalliance, and not long ago it was claimed that morals could not be
apprehended in their naked perfection by anyone who was not conversant
with the higher mathematics. Even in a 'thieves' kitchen' there is
probably much talk of morals of some odd kind.

In a thousand ways the art of politics is directly affected by moral
considerations. Nevertheless, politics cannot properly be regarded as
a branch of virtuous conduct; for though the two things are often
intertwined, each has its own separate root and stem. The prime motive
of the politician is not to do good to humanity or even to his own
country, but simply to gain power for himself. Yet he will inevitably
fail if he refuses homage to the moral standards of his particular
age. And moreover--though this is a different matter--the great
majority of politicians are to some extent restrained and impelled by
their own consciences. In taking stock of a politician, however, the
first question is not whether he was a good man who used righteous
means, but whether he was successful in gaining power, in keeping it,
and in governing; whether, in short, he was skilful at his particular
craft or a bungler.

If a politician would keep his followers loyal to him, he must be
careful not to outrage their feelings of right and wrong. His course
of action is therefore determined from the beginning by the morals of
other people. Unless he can persuade his own party that his intentions
are consistent with its standards of public conduct, he may as well go
out of business. For the approval of his adherents is the breath of
his nostrils, the wind in his sails; without it he can do nothing. An
artist, starving in a garret because he has ventured to outrage the
popular taste, may yet paint masterpieces; but political masterpieces
can only be made by a politician working in energetic partnership with
a prevalent opinion.

To gain power, to keep it, and to govern--these are the special
business of a politician, just as it is a working bee's business to
make honeycomb and honey. But we are entitled to ask--how did he gain
power? how did he keep it? what did he do with it when he had it? And
the answers to these questions are always mixed up with morals.

Morals indeed are waiting for us on the very threshold of our inquiry;
for it is not merely the business but the _duty_, of a politician to
govern. The first need of human society is to be governed. If a
politician does actually succeed in governing, he thereby produces
_some_ good, no matter how he governs. His laws may not be founded on
strict justice; but the probability that they will be enforced by his
strong hand is something to be thankful for; an escape, by so much,
from anarchy. If he keeps order of any sort, people are no longer
desperate from uncertainty, but are encouraged to begin thinking of
the future. Peaceful citizens, who desire nothing so much as to get on
with their work, may continue to groan under a load of taxes; but at
least they are protected to some extent against an unofficial horde of
cunning, treacherous and violent oppressors.

On the other hand, if a politician, having gained power, should
neglect to govern, and should dissipate his energies in an endeavour
to do good of other kinds, he will certainly fail both in his
endeavour and in his duty. And of this, history shows many sad
examples.




VII.--_The case of Giovanpagolo of Perugia._


Even at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth
century the voice of conscience and the fear of public disapproval
both acted as restraints upon political ambition. An instance is
given by Machiavelli in his account of Giovanpagolo, who had usurped
the government of Perugia. The character of this man was such that he
might have been believed free from all scruples. He lived in incest
with his sister, and in order to obtain his princedom he had murdered
his nephews and many others of his kindred.

Perugia had the good or ill fortune to excite the greed of Pope Julius
the Second, who determined to seize it by force of arms. Pushing on
impetuously ahead of his troops he entered the hostile city with an
insignificant bodyguard. By this extraordinary act of rashness he
placed himself, and the whole College of Cardinals who accompanied
him, at the mercy of a man whom he had come openly and avowedly to
destroy.

Giovanpagolo had the game in his own hands. He had only to give the
order and the gates of the city would have been closed and the Pope's
bodyguard cut to pieces. He could have filled his treasury with the
ransoms of the cardinals and made an end of Julius the Second. The
Papal army of mercenaries, left without a leader and a paymaster,
would have melted away.

Giovanpagolo was not squeamish, but he baulked at putting down a Pope.
Machiavelli blames him for lack of spirit: he should have been
'splendidly wicked,' and won 'a deathless renown as the first to teach
the prelates how little those who live and reign as they do are to be
esteemed.' By such an action 'he would have shown a greatness far
transcending any infamy or danger that could attach to it.' But
Giovanpagolo thought differently, and meekly suffered himself to be
led into captivity.




VIII.--_Some modern dilemmas._


At the present time there are states in western Europe and in the New
World where no one would think of using assassination or any of the
cruder forms of physical violence for the achievement of his political
ends. But even in countries where these methods are obsolete or in
abeyance, the modern politician is often faced, like Giovanpagolo, by
dilemmas in which his conscience, or his fear of public opinion,
restrains or deflects the natural current of his ambition.

A common example of such a dilemma is when a politician sees an
opportunity for setting the policy and motives of his opponents in an
odious light. He may be well aware that their motives are honest, and
that their policy has been determined under pressure of circumstances,
and solely by a regard for the national interest. On the other hand,
he may see his way to distort their proceedings so as to inflame
popular prejudice against them. He may believe that, riding on a
whirlwind of calumny and misrepresentation, he will succeed in
destroying the government and stepping into its shoes. Is he to seize
this obvious advantage, or is he to let it slip?

As a wary politician he will consider carefully, before coming to a
decision, whether the calumnies and misrepresentations he thinks of
using are likely to recoil upon his own head. If it seems pretty
certain that, with good management on his part, they cannot be refuted
in time to prevent his victory, he will next consider whether
subsequent exposure is likely to make an indelible black mark against
him on the popular memory, or whether, falling on indifferent ears,
it will be soon forgotten or easily explained away. If he should come
to the conclusion that popular disapproval is not a serious danger, he
may then refer the matter to his conscience. His chief object is to
ruin his enemies, whom he knows to be equally desirous of ruining him.
What he proposes to do will undoubtedly hit them very hard;
incidentally, however, it will injure his country. True! But taking a
broad view of the problem, surely the immediate injury to his country
must appear a trivial thing in comparison with the ultimate benefit
which his country will gain by sending the present ministers about
their business and installing himself and his friends in their place?
If his conscience is not appeased by these reflections, he may go a
step farther and consider whether the proposed line of attack is one
that he would condescend to use in his private affairs. Should this
final test prove unfavourable to his project, he may nevertheless
conclude with a sigh, that public and private affairs stand on
different footings. Nor will anyone but a dreamy idealist deny that
this is true, and that it must ever remain true until the government
of mankind is conducted on some other system than any that has yet
been practised.

       *       *       *       *       *

Few men are placed in such fortunate circumstances as to be able to
gain office, or to keep it for any length of time, without misleading
or bamboozling the people. A classic instance of the difficulty of
plain dealing is, that though men can often be induced, when their
faculties are on the alert, to make an admirable resolution, they are
not easily kept at the sticking point. Their decision is rarely fixed
so firmly or so permanently in their minds that when the bills fall
due which by implication they have accepted they will honour them
without protest. It is often harder to induce them to do the things by
which alone their resolution can be carried into effect than it was at
the beginning to lead them to it. This arises not from perfidy, but
from forgetfulness or confusion of mind, or because some new interest
has driven out the old. Sometimes, as with children, their attention
must be occupied with an entertaining toy while the politician
stealthily makes the matter secure; sometimes, like horses, they have
to be blindfolded in order to get them out of a burning stable.

In dealing with foreign nations the politician who wishes to act
uprightly is even harder put to it; for there the difficulty is not
popular ignorance and simplicity, but the expert knowledge of able
officials who, as part of their professional training, have had to
make themselves conversant with the blunders, deceptions and
disappointments of the past, and who are filled with suspicions that
are none the less justified because they happen to be centuries old.

If the conscience of an honest man lays down stern rules, so also does
the art of politics. At a juncture where no accommodation is possible
between the two, the politician may be faced by these
alternatives:--'Shall I break the rules of my art in order to save my
private honour? or shall I break the rules of my conscience in order
to fulfil my public trust?'

       *       *       *       *       *

The British blend of representative with party government leaves a
politician no choice but to use his best endeavours to ruin his
opponents. This is the plain truth; though there are infinite
differences of opinion as to the particular methods he is entitled to
use on any given occasion. Broadly speaking there seem to be no limits
set to attacks upon the _public_ conduct of opponents, except when the
country is in actual danger of invasion, or of civil war, or of some
other stupendous calamity. On the other hand, the rules which profess
to restrain attacks upon their _private_ conduct are of a bewildering
nicety and so ingeniously contrived that practically anything may be
said against an enemy which has a reasonable chance of being believed,
providing only that the proper persons are put forward to say it.

It is uncertain whether, during the past fifty years, there has been a
tightening or a slackening of the rules that are supposed to regulate
attacks on _private_ conduct. Odium has a way of shifting to new
objects, and various blemishes that formerly excited prejudice are now
no longer worth dragging to light in the hope of putting an enemy to
shame. It is for this reason perhaps, rather than from any growth of
chivalry, that the vices of gambling and inebriety excite less
unfavourable comment than they once did, and that we hear less than we
used to do about candidates for Parliament being Roman Catholics, or
Jews, or free-thinkers, or atheists. Yet it is not so many years since
several people were harried much beyond their deserts, because they
had happened to engage in a few indiscreet speculations; since others
were pursued without either justice or mercy, because, long before
they took office, they had made some trivial investments which it was
pretended must afterwards have influenced them corruptly in the
discharge of their ministerial functions; since others again were
ruined because they had been taken in adultery.

When charges are brought against an opponent's private character, the
leaders and the more respectable members of the party that stands to
gain by the scandal are usually found looking the other way or up into
the clouds. And we are sometimes told semi-officially that such men as
these would not stoop to pick up missiles from the gutter. But they
always seem to have friends whose loins are suppler. The party press,
inspired no doubt by a sense of duty, but also by hopes of a wider
circulation, abounds in verbatim reports and illuminating paragraphs.
It fills its columns with the censorious bayings of a class of persons
whom the Americans call 'sin-hounds.' In normal times these
denunciations are bad copy--being directed against a general
depravity; but they acquire the value of large type and prominent
positions when their object is some illustrious scapegoat. The
fastidious politician may with safety leave his erring enemy to the
mercies of a pack that can do its hunting without horn or holloa.

       *       *       *       *       *

The moralist will judge a politician as he judges other men, insisting
that the question of salvation or damnation is determined by a code of
universal laws. The historian, on the other hand, will make many
allowances for those who are engaged in the endless adventure of
governing men. He will not attempt to tabulate a special code
appropriate to this profession; but will content himself, so far as
morals are concerned, with the general statements, that the greatest
virtue a politician can possess is patriotism, and that we must judge
his patriotism, not on scattered episodes, but on the whole tenour of
his career.




IX.--_A digression on several words that most people use reluctantly._


I fancy there are few writers who do not regard the word 'patriot' as
a stumbling-block. It has an unmelodious sound and a form that, if not
exactly pompous, has a kind of buckram stiffness. Moreover, some of
its associations have been blown upon ever since Dr. Johnson defined
it as the last refuge of a scoundrel. It carries with it a suggestion
of unnecessary noise and vaunting, and of defiance hurled broadcast
from a place of safety. Custom has tended to restrict its use to
occasions when a country's competitions or conflicts with other
countries are under discussion; so much so, that the newspapers would
hardly describe a man who devoted his life to reducing infant
mortality as a patriot, which he certainly is, but as a humanitarian,
which is an even uglier word and bears quite as doubtful a reputation.

'Patriotism' and 'patriotic,' on the other hand, are words that no
writer on politics can do without, much as he may sometimes wish that
others could be found which would convey the purity of his idea
without the dross. But there are no others that lie ready to his hand.
'Love of one's own country' is a clumsy phrase, and it lacks a
corresponding adjective. Nor is it adequate; for it does not call up
the idea of an enterprising principle, but of a passive state.

In nations meekness is not a virtue, but a contemptible and very
dangerous vice. There are many occasions when patriotism may without
reproach hold its head high and speak sternly to the outside world.
But patriotism will speak quite as potently, though in different
tones, when it is concerned, as Walpole's was, with the internal
peace, order and prosperity of the country.

Perfect patriotism is very rare, and no one would pretend that Walpole
was immaculate. He avoided, however, the commonest fault of all, which
is to remind other people of their duty while neglecting one's own.
But though he freely gave himself to England, he did not choose, or
did not dare, to call for sacrifices from the English people. Under
his administration national patriotism grew soft and flabby for want
of exercise. We expect more from a leader than that he should merely
_give_: true patriotism, as both the Pitts knew well, will never be
afraid to _ask_.

Patriotism is not a cosmopolitan principle, for it sets the moral and
material good of a particular nation above every other aim. It
practises and calls for self-sacrifice. It offers and demands, when
there is need, an unlimited devotion of effort, property and life. It
regards its own country very much as bees, wasps and ants regard their
respective hives, nests and heaps. In mankind, however, the altruistic
propensity is rare enough to be counted as a virtue; whereas, among
these insects, it is so universal as to exclude the notion of
freewill; and for that reason we call it an instinct, meaning nothing
by the term but that we can find no explanation for its prevalence.

Patriotism puts well-being before wealth, security before both, and
sovereign independence over all. It does not regard national glory
with indifference, or with feelings of shame or disgust, as something
meretricious, but with frank delight, as a possession of great price.
But it places authority and respect in the counsels of the world far
beyond glory. At this point, however, serious controversy begins; a
controversy that runs through the whole history of politics. For while
there are some who hold that the life and sovereign independence of
the nation are the supreme and ultimate considerations, there are
others who maintain, with an austerer piety, that ruin is not too high
a price to pay for saving the national honour.

       *       *       *       *       *

'Patriotism' and 'patriotic' cannot be avoided; for there are no
synonyms, and few circumlocutions that will serve. But most writers
seem to shy at the word 'patriot' except when they wish to pay an
equivocal compliment to people of the brigand type who abound in
Eastern Europe. If a man is rash enough to proclaim himself a patriot
he falls at once under suspicion: it should be enough to say, 'I am an
Englishman.'

And this leads us to another difficulty of nomenclature: he could not
possibly say 'I am a Briton.' The word 'Briton' is intolerable. The
man who can unshamefacedly call himself by such a name will not flinch
at proclaiming himself a patriot. Honest people who, to a fine and
rousing tune, _sing_ of themselves lustily as Britons who 'never will
be slaves,' could hardly _speak_ the words without discomfort, or turn
the verses into prose without a blush. Even the most uncompromising
Scot will resort, as a rule, to subterfuges rather than use this
absurd generic term.

On the other hand, the adjective 'British,' after a long struggle, is
now so well established that in various connections we use it in
preference to any other. For example, we speak naturally of _the
British Army_ and _the British Empire_, and in using this adjective
the intention--of most of us, at any rate--is respectful. We speak no
less naturally of _the British Public_ and _the British Matron_; but
here the adjective has a quizzical flavour. From this difference we
may perhaps conclude that the tradition of the word 'British' is not
yet so permeated with reverence as to make a jocular use of it appear
offensive.[12]

The word 'Britain' we tolerate as a convenient term of denotation; but
it lacks both bouquet and after-taste. One can love or hate England,
but not so easily Britain. It was England and not Britain that the
Germans prayed God to 'strafe.' Let us be candid: neither 'Britain'
nor 'British' has any magic in it. Their thin sound is without power
to touch our imagination through the ear; while their tradition is too
recent to have wound itself round our hearts.

'England' and 'Scotland,' on the other hand, are words of great
beauty, though the first is the more melodious of the two. The
traditions of both are rich and potent; the growths, not of a few
centuries, but of more than a thousand years. They are words that can
stand alone in oratory or writing, and produce their effect without an
attendant clause. Not so, 'Britain.'

Since the time when King James the Sixth incorporated South Britain
with his ancestral dominions, there has been a growing tendency on
both sides of the Border to let the part--the larger part--stand for
the whole, and to speak of 'England' and 'English,' when perhaps it
would be less incorrect, geographically and ethnologically, to say
'Britain' and 'British.' But neither would 'Britain' and 'British' be
altogether correct; for there is another and an equally ancient
Britain in northern France. And, moreover, a great deal of Scotland as
well as England is not truly British, if by this we mean either Celtic
or Pictish. Perfect accuracy is obviously unattainable.

As Britain is a poor word, and as there is no precedent that I know of
for using Scotland to include the whole island, I see no good reason
for fighting against a tendency to which even the greatest Scottish
writers have yielded. Nine times out of ten the words 'England' and
'English' come more gratefully to my tongue than 'Britain' and
'British.' How much the mere beauty of sound is concerned in this
discussion may be seen if we consider what would have happened had the
great Anglo-Saxon revival carried all before it. That movement was in
full swing in the 'seventies of last century, and I can well remember
that people who aimed at speaking more correctly than their neighbours
affected a pronunciation of 'England' and 'English' in which the 'e'
was shortened as in 'egg' and 'Edinburgh.' Had this custom been
generally adopted it must have settled the whole business; for nobody
would wish to dethrone 'Britain' in order to make '_Ěngland_' queen.

It is not so much a matter of a particular affection as of a common
allegiance. If nomenclature were determined by love alone, many who
live north of Tweed and Solway might choose to call themselves by
another name than 'Scots.' To these, a few square miles of soil to
which they are attached by right of birth or kindly nurture--as it may
be, Moidart, or the Isle of Skye, or Jed Forest, with its four
sweet-sounding rivers that come down through the hills--are dearer
than the whole kingdom of Robert the Bruce.

The notion that a subordination, or any abatement of national
pretensions, is implied in the use of 'England' or 'English' to denote
the great incorporating Union and the things appertaining thereto,
must provoke a smile on the face of anyone who knows his
fellow-countrymen on both sides of the Border. There are few Scotsmen,
I imagine, who _love_ the Union--by whatever name they may choose to
call it--so well as they _love_ Scotland; but there are many of us to
whom the word 'England' conveys the idea of that Union, and of the
loyalty that is due to it, as clearly as the word 'Britain,' but with
a richer harmony and a nobler tradition.




X.--_On Idols and Ideals._


The politician has to take account of two other forces besides
Morals--Idols and Ideals.

Ideals, if they survive the high mortality of youth and
adolescence--which few of them do--turn, like tadpoles, into a
different shape as they approach maturity. An ideal, by the time it is
full grown, has become an idol; and in this new form, though it makes
less stir in the world, it often wields tremendous power. If its
constitution be robust it may exact a reverent obedience, not only in
its vigorous manhood, in its common-sense meridian, and in its hale
and hearty old age, but also very often in its dotage, and even in
the mummied state. An idol, before it reaches senility, may have
compelled mankind to worship at its shrine for a thousand years; but
an ideal, even when it appeals to some prevalent and eager longing,
will rarely out-last a single generation.

An ideal very rarely becomes a constructive force until it has grown
into an idol. However lofty or amiable the motives may have been that
gave it birth, its course is usually strewn with misery and wreckage.
In certain ailments it is necessary to inflame the tissues and cause a
suppuration before attempting to heal the sore. An ideal may be
compared to one of these provocative agents; an idol, to the healing
ointment that is afterwards applied.

An ideal is essentially a destructive force, and its constant danger
is that it may injure, or even kill, the patient by destroying too
much. An idol produces the opposite danger by preserving too much.
Stuff that would be better away accumulates, decays and poisons the
system.

At the beginning of its course an ideal is always the assailant of
some existing set of idols, which it aims at pulling down and
replacing with something better. Even ideals that are inspired by the
love of humanity are merciless, and cruelty is one of their commonest
accompaniments. Despite their high professions, they are lacking in
tolerance and charity, and are often tinged with madness--in their
origins, with madness of the study--always, if they have a great
vogue, with madness of the mob. The best ideals are those whose
evolution has produced the largest number of beneficent and lasting
idols.

Idols are rarely harmful until they have reached old age, and even
then they are not actively or enterprisingly harmful. Yet we can never
make quite certain of their impotence; for even when they are so
quiescent as to seem almost lifeless, they have a capacity for
becoming suddenly and violently inflamed by casual friction; as the
bite of some insignificant insect will occasionally flare up into an
erysipelas. An astute politician will never meddle with an idol if he
can help it.

Neither idols nor ideals put much strain upon the reasoning faculties
of their votaries. They both issue simple, categorical mandates that
are accepted without question and without proof.

An ideal is a revelation that men, if they are in a mood of sympathy
or excitement, will accept as being self-evident. Indeed when once it
has taken hold of them, they are puzzled to understand why they had
not already discovered for themselves so manifest a truth. But in
thinking that they apprehend it through their reason or by their own
observation they deceive themselves; for in most cases they are only
under the influence of a revivalist emotion. The method of propagating
an ideal is by rhetoric and declamation, or merely by exclamations
persistently repeated.

The worshippers of an idol, on the other hand, rarely deceive
themselves with the belief that their reason has had anything to do
with their faith. They accept authority frankly and treat tradition
with respect. Their forefathers worshipped the same idol, and
doubtless had taken pains beforehand to ascertain that it was worthy
of belief. Its high-priests are ready at a moment's notice to produce
a thousand instances for proof that, in the past, fidelity to this
particular idol has ensured virtue, happiness and great material
benefits, and that infidelity has always been punished with the most
horrible disasters. Why then should the idolaters submit to a
disturbance of a worship with which they are perfectly content? Why
should they tolerate an attack upon their own tranquility in order to
make sport for contumacious schismatics? The final results of all
these efforts--such is their conclusion--can only be to lead them
back, after much suffering, to the point at which their forefathers
set out.




XI.--_Idols and Ideals are not always derived from Morals._


It would be a mistake to suppose that all ideals and all idols have
their origin in morals. Not infrequently they are derived from some
science or pseudo-science. Economics has produced Laisser-Faire and
Free Trade on the one hand, State Control and Protection on the other.
Marxism, or Bolshevism, founds itself on Sociology. It is to Eugenics
that we owe the slogan of 'a White Australia,' the ritual of Ellis
Island and the doctrine of Ethnological Self-Determination. Some idols
and ideals are simple formulas for securing a great practical benefit
or for exorcising a brooding terror; Peace Pacts, for example, Leagues
of Nations and Universal Military Training spring from a desire for
security and a fear of war. Others again, like Rousseau's dreams of a
State of Nature and of a Social Contract, are little more than the
highly infectious illusions of a poet; our imagination is captivated
by their beauty; we believe in them as we do in Turner's landscapes.
The consummate artist uses morality as one of many tints that he
combines to make his masterpiece.

The greater number, however, both of ideals and of idols have their
origin in morals. A certain class of ideals may be described as morals
in eruption, a certain class of idols as morals in petrifaction.
Morality is soberer than idealism, more self-conscious than idolatry.

Despite the fact that a large number of idols and ideals are not
derived from morals, there is probably no idol and no ideal whose
votaries are not more ready to uphold it on moral grounds than on any
others. The argument from utility plays a subordinate part; it does
not inspire the orator with an equal eloquence, nor does it to the
same extent excite his audience to enthusiasm.




XII.--_How a politician will use Idols and Ideals for helping him to
gain power and keep it._


No politician can hope to prosper unless he has a weather-sense that
warns him in good time what to expect from each of these forces.
Though neither the one nor the other is in any way concerned with the
principles of his art, though both are merely external phenomena that
at one time he will have cause to curse, at another to bless, it is an
important part of his business to keep them under constant
observation. An ideal which appears to be attracting an unusual degree
of popular sympathy, or an idol whose worshippers have taken alarm,
may threaten him with disaster or, on the other hand, they may provide
him with an opportunity for overwhelming his opponents and raising
himself to power on a wave of enthusiasm, prejudice or panic. In much
the same way it was an important part of the business of the master
of one of the old sailing-ships to watch the sky and the sea, and to
use both winds and currents for bringing him safe into harbour, or, if
the elements were wholly adverse, for enabling him at least to escape
shipwreck.

The politician will almost certainly fail who devotes his energies
either to the discovery of ideals or to the installation of idols.
These are matters for prophets in the one case and for high-priests in
the other. But if the politician feels strongly or sees clearly that
professions of devotion to a certain ideal or idol are likely to serve
his purpose, he will not be acting contrary to the principles of his
art in echoing the prophetic phrases or in prostrating himself
devoutly in the temple.

It is, however, a moot question how far it is advantageous for him to
be a true believer. The answer will not be the same in every case.
Broadly speaking, his action is more likely to be effective if he has
an unshaken faith in the idol he is defending than if he is a sceptic.
But it is very dangerous for him to believe whole-heartedly in any
ideal. He may profess as strong a sympathy as he pleases for its
declared objective or ultimate goal; but this is as far as he can
safely go. He is no true politician if he allows his judgement to be
subjugated by the creeds and dogmas of fanatics who, when they gain
power, are ready to assassinate with a puerile and remorseless logic,
first their opponents, and afterwards the ideal itself which they have
undertaken to serve. Moreover, idealism cannot support itself without
enthusiasm, which is a force no less destructive and incalculable than
logic; for, like wine, it puts the judgement in a heat. The politician
who desires to advance his own fortunes through the success of the
cause he has espoused, should keep his head cool.

The brief period of idealistic exhilaration, when old idols are thrown
crashing from their pedestals, is followed surely by a reaction,
during which disappointment works strongly and suspicions are rife.
The early leaders are liable to lose their prestige in a tumult of
reproaches. There is confusion, doubt, discontent, and often the whole
movement lies breathless and exhausted at the mercy of any able and
audacious reactionary. The politician will act wisely if, at the
beginning, he gladly suffers his own importance to be eclipsed by the
brilliancy of ephemeral iconoclasts. For these men soon begin to
blunder, to distrust one another, and to be distrusted by their
followers. When they have fallen into discredit the politician will
find his opportunity in rallying the mutinous and broken ranks, in
reviving their courage with common sense, in staving off defeat, and
possibly in securing and consolidating some considerable portion of
the previous gains.




XIII.--_How most of the Idols and Ideals in every age have had a
previous existence, and what contradictions there are among them._


If we choose instances of idols and ideals at random and
disinterestedly, from a month's reading of the newspapers, it will be
hard to discover any that have not already played a part in human
affairs. Contemporary books, magazines and newspapers teem with
notions that are called new; but few or none of them are more than old
modes revived by ingenious but uncreative speculatists. When by and by
Paris costumiers decide to reintroduce the crinoline it will
assuredly be advertised as the latest novelty, though it has been in
and out of fashion for more centuries than one can count.

When we consider the immense and sudden shrinkage of the world that
speed of travel and communications has brought about, we ought to be
surprised rather by the rarity of new idols and ideals than by their
multitude. During the lifetime of many of us the world has shrivelled
and puckered like a child's balloon slowly deflating, so that now we
find ourselves cheek-by-jowl with peoples and regions that fifty years
ago were regarded as half mythical. And not only do we now see strange
faces at close quarters, but we are beginning to have confidence that
some day we may be able to read the hearts that belong to them. A
change so momentous ought, we feel, to have produced already an
amazing crop of new political notions. And so, we are often assured,
it has done; but is this true?

There is hardly a proverb that has not figured for ages past in every
language; and there is hardly one of them all that is not flatly
contradicted by some other proverb. A casual pairing of modern idols
or ideals produces somewhat the same effect upon the mind as
Pantagruel's famous conversation with Panurge on the subject of
marriage. The student of politics will not make a beginning till he
has realised that in this art there are antinomies everywhere, and
that it is no shame to a politician, or to the man who writes about
him, if the opinions he utters are often in conflict one with another.
The politician or the writer who succeeds in proving his life-long
consistency is less an object of admiration than of derision. We know
that such a one cannot have penetrated beyond the vestibule, and
therefore cannot have arrived at any truth worth telling.

I would not presume to say which of the items in the following list
are false and which are true; or which of them are idols and which
ideals. They will be regarded differently in different countries, and
by different people in the same country. Very often they will be
regarded differently by the same man at different periods of his life.
And not so rarely as one might think, a pair of these opposites may be
believed in quite honestly by the same man at one and the same time.
But although there has been and will doubtless continue to be endless
debate as to the truth of each one of these opinions, and as to
whether it ought to be looked on as an ideal or as an idol, there will
be general agreement among most readers of history that hardly one of
them is altogether new:--

That the goal of political endeavour is a state in which there will be
no rich and no poor:--That the division of mankind into rich and poor
is a divine institution, or a law of nature as inevitable as
gravitation.

That all wealth should belong to the state:--That the state is a
muddler that cannot create wealth, and a spendthrift that cannot save
it; so that, if all wealth were taken by the state there would soon be
a universal impoverishment.

That religion is the buckler of the poor:--That religion is one of the
chief weapons of the oppressor.

That minorities must go to the wall:--That only minorities are fit to
rule.

That family life and friendship are the foundations of human
society:--That family life and friendship are odious ties that
prevent a man from realising his highest nature in the service of
humanity.

That vast confederate unions are the surest hope of world-peace and of
a rapid moral and material development:--That there should be as many
free, sovereign and independent nations as there are branches, or even
twigs, of the human race; and that when ethnologists or poets have
discovered a shade of difference between two sections of a nation, it
is contrary to freedom and the principles of self-determination for
the smaller to remain united with the larger.

That law should supersede physical force in international
disputes:--That a law which does not rest on physical force is an
impossibility.

That in wars between nations both are usually in the wrong, though in
popular rebellions right is almost always on the side of the
rebels:--That of all kinds of war civil war is the most detestable and
hardly ever to be justified; but that when two nations go to war it
often happens that both are in the right.

That war is a hideous form of insanity and that preparations for
defence do but increase the danger of an outbreak:--That a nation
which is not at all times ready and willing to fight for its life will
assuredly lose its life and its soul too.

That a democracy is distinguished from an oligarchy or a despotism by
this fact, among others, that it cannot be founded securely except
upon a basis of universal military training; that universal military
training will raise the moral tone and improve the physical condition
of the people; will safeguard the state, not only against foreign
attack, but also against the conspiracies of a would-be tyrant, or of
an anarchic or reactionary minority; and will tend to discourage wars
of vanity and aggression, owing to the concern most men have for their
own skins:--That standing armies and every form of militia are an
abomination; that military training and discipline debauch the morals
and brutalise the character of a nation; are a provocation rather than
a deterrent to potential enemies; are a ready-made weapon in the hands
of conspirators; and, owing to the natural pugnacity and
over-confidence of mankind, are less likely to diminish than to
increase wars of vanity and aggression.

That capital punishment is a crime against human nature:--That
everyone who opposes or obstructs a popular revolution should suffer
the death penalty.

That the intellectual and the benevolent have too little power in
government, the cunning and the greedy too much:--That theorists of
exceptional intelligence, and sentimentalists possessed by a
passionate faith, cause more suffering in the world (when they happen
to engross power) than is caused by able and unscrupulous men seeking
their own interests.

That justice should be tempered with mercy:--That justice tempered
with mercy is inhumanity.

That there is no place for sentiment in government:--That all
government is founded upon sentiment.

That women should take part in business and public affairs on a
perfect equality with men:--That woman's sphere is the home or,
failing that, a nunnery.

That by the Law of Nature all men are born equal:--That by the Law of
Nature men are endowed from their birth with an infinite variety of
faculties that produce, without any aid from human institutions, an
infinite variety of inferiority and superiority; and that, arrange
things how you will, those who are superior will get more of their own
way than those who are inferior.

That by the Law of Nature all men are born free:--That no man was ever
born free, or in any form of human society ever became free at any
period of his life, with the possible exception of Robinson Crusoe on
his desert island until Man Friday's arrival, on which day his freedom
was curtailed.

That no state is securely founded until every adult has a vote for the
choice of his rulers:--That when every adult has a vote there will be
such confusion and inconstancy that a dictatorship will be the only
way of escape from anarchy--a dictatorship of the proletariat, a
dictatorship of virtue and goodwill, or a dictatorship of reaction.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is far from my purpose to discuss the intrinsic worth of these
idols and ideals, or to determine which of them are in fact new-made
and which merely furbished up. The art of politics is not concerned
directly with their truth or falseness, with their novelty or
antiquity, but merely with the prevalence of one or other of them at a
given time. Most books on politics are written to do good: this one
has a much humbler aim--merely to show how certain things happened
during a comparatively short era with which the name of Walpole is
associated. The labour that aims at placing a true moral and
intellectual value upon prevalent idols and ideals is obviously on a
much higher plane than the present endeavour, which only aims at
understanding how politicians have used idols and ideals in order to
gain power, to keep it, and to govern.




XIV.--_On the rarity of Ideals during the age of Walpole._


A remarkable thing about the Walpolean age is that although there were
then many idols there were hardly any ideals. Various ideals dear to
the hearts of Revolutionary Whigs and of High Church Tories had
expired, owing to a lack of vital force; while those that survived
were now middle-aged and had become idols in the course of nature.

In all this period the only man who begot a political ideal of any
importance was Bolingbroke. To-day it looks rather tawdry and
impracticable, but no tawdrier or more impracticable than ideals are
apt to look when they have been out of fashion for a couple of
centuries. Bolingbroke, so long as he lived, was always a politician,
and ideals which owe their paternity to politicians are rarely
disconnected from personal ambition.

Bolingbroke's notion of a _Patriot King_, who should freely choose his
ministers from both parties, and whose ministers should be responsible
to himself alone--not to any chief or cabinet--was designed to
influence opinion in a way that would have led to its author being
called on to take a high place in Government. _The Patriot King_ was a
final but fruitless attempt to win his way back to power through the
favour of the heir-apparent; George the Second having made it quite
clear that his distrust of Bolingbroke was ineradicable.

Bolingbroke's ideal had a strange history. Whether it might have made
a permanent impression upon the waxen resolution of Frederick, Prince
of Wales, we have no means of knowing; but as Frederick died nine
years before his father, this question is not worth considering. The
book was at first circulated privately, which possibly had something
to do with its immediate fame. The most discriminating judges were at
a loss for words that would express their admiration. Lord
Chesterfield confessed that till he read _The Patriot King_ he 'did
not know all the extent and powers of the English language.' But
though the great world rang with applause, it went its usual way,
showing not the slightest disposition to turn aside and follow where
the glittering ideal beckoned.

An exception, however, was the young prince who became heir to the
throne after his father's death in 1751. The future George the Third
had a wholesome suspicion of fine writing; but he liked the ideal
itself very well, when once it had been introduced to his slow but
retentive mind by his tutor, Lord Bute. What could be better or
nobler, or more concordant with the principles of the Glorious
Revolution, than a patriot king, governing without parties through
ministers of his own choosing? The new Prince of Wales, therefore,
accepted the ideal whole-heartedly; set himself, when he became King,
to realise it (Bolingbroke being by that time dead); did in fact
succeed in realising it pretty thoroughly; but being deficient in
sagacity and judgement of men--though not in courage--handled it
without discretion; and as a consequence, lost the American colonies a
generation or two earlier than they would have been lost in any case.
With the American colonies he lost also the dream of being a patriot
king, and sank into a limited monarch, with young Mr. Pitt as the
actual ruler of the nation.




XV.--_Concerning the part played by politicians in the recent Russian
revolution._


My object in this chapter and the two that follow is to show by a
modern instance the extent--the limited but important extent--to which
political craftsmanship is concerned in upheavals of extreme violence.

In the years of preparation for a revolution, and afterwards, so soon
as order of some kind has been restored, politicians are always busy;
nor is it often that the obscurity of either of these periods is dense
enough to resist the search-lights of history. But it is different at
the actual crisis of a revolution; for the current of events is then
such wild and turbid water as to make it impossible either for us, the
observers, or for the swimmers themselves to be certain how many of
their acts are purposeful, how many purely undeliberate. If afterwards
any of them presumes to set forth a collected and consistent story we
are safe in treating it as unworthy of belief. During this period of
confusion the craftsmanship of the politician is out of action; for
things are then directed less by self-conscious human agency than by
blindfold and savage forces.

The remoteness of Russia from our own contentions should in itself be
helpful to a candid investigator, were it not that two serious
disadvantages are produced by this remoteness. The first of these
arises from the fact that Russia has never been incorporated either
spiritually or politically in the European system; and for this reason
it is impossible for us to see things as a Russian sees them. Most of
us apprehend the literature, thought and institutions of Russia dimly,
admiring and hating furiously, but always with a suspicion lurking in
our minds that what we hate may sometimes only be a windmill, and
Dulcinea, whom we adore, only a homely featured wench. The second
disadvantage is that we have to depend on hearsay, and can so little
trust the diatribes, the vindications and, above all, the tourists'
tales that we have listened to in recent years.

The government that existed in Russia up to March 1917 was one whose
circulation had long been clogged; that governed incompetently and
without vigour; that governed irresolutely, giving and taking back
again; that struck out blindly; that fled from shadows; that within a
dozen years had suffered a series of gigantic military disasters in
east and west; that at the end of all let the people of its capital go
with empty bellies, and this through blundering and not from dearth;
that toppled of its own weight, with hardly a push to send it
over--like a statue whose base has crumbled; that when it fell was at
once obliterated.

Anarchy was not slow in entering into its inheritance; and since human
society abhors anarchy as nature abhors a vacuum, the discovery of a
way to order speedily became the chief concern. Liberalism tried its
hand: it failed, as it always has failed in like circumstances.
'White' champions of a restoration also tried and failed. Then order
of a strange and unfamiliar kind began to emerge slowly under the
pressure of other forces, under the guidance of a different sort of
men.

The disturbance that followed the downfall of the Romanov dynasty was
due mainly to a grand attack of new ideals[13] upon the old Russian
system, enfeebled as it then was by a long and desperate war. Theories
that pretend to account for the whole series of events by a paroxysm
of pure savagery, or by the working of some reasonable principle like
greed or revenge, are not now in credit. Savagery, greed and revenge
no doubt played their important parts, as they do in most human
convulsions; but they were merely accompaniments and not the causes of
the revolution.

The new ideals were acclaimed with enthusiasm only by a minority of
the town-dwelling population, the majority of whom were in a maze and
lacked will-power to resist. The peasants, who numbered four-fifths of
the nation, neither acclaimed nor even understood these new ideals.
The excitement that the revolution caused among this hugely
predominant class had not so much to do with ideals of any kind as
with certain material benefits which it accepted with a lively
satisfaction. The peasants were delighted to have their tenancies
turned into freeholds, and the private demesnes of their landlords
divided up among them. Being persuaded by the Bolsheviks that this
desirable reformation would be arrived at more rapidly if their
landlords were out of the way, they proceeded in many cases to butcher
them.

The present enquiry does not seek to determine whether the
revolutionary ideals were morally right, economically sound or
politically possible, but only to discover how politicians used them
to produce a state of frantic hopefulness that so admirably served
their own ambitions.

The politicians concerned in these events were no startling new
variety of their species. The counterparts of some of them are to be
found in France and Italy between 1450 and 1550, of others in the
French revolution. Their prime concern was to gain power, to keep it
and to govern. This is not to deny that they had their intellectual
and sentimental preferences for certain ideals and for certain idols,
or that they were moved--in some cases very strongly--by the same
aspirations that moved the unsophisticated multitude--by ideas of
justice and humanity, by the desire to depress the proud and exalt the
lowly, by thoughts of retribution and private revenge; and also to a
large extent by hopes of material gain. But their main purpose was
ambition, and under this impulse they have acted throughout according
to the rules:--fooling and blindfolding the people; modifying and
reversing their policies in order to retain popularity; quarrelling
among themselves for pre-eminence; getting rid of their rivals without
scruple when opportunity offered; behaving in short as politicians
have always behaved since political society was first instituted. And
as often happens, the prophets and the high-priests, the pure
idealists and the zealous idolaters, have not wholly escaped the
contagion of this example. Many of them, as time went on, have seemed
to temper their enthusiasm or fanaticism with political arts. Those
whose constancy was above proof have been gradually consigned to less
illustrious employments.




XVI.--_Lenin as Opposition leader._[14]


Our view of Lenin is obscured by the mystery of character that has
screened so many personages in history from their familiars as well
as from the world. Very little of our information about him seems to
bear the hall-mark of truth. There are so many contradictory accounts
that all we can do is to choose the likeliest and be certain that our
choice must often be wrong. Apparently his seriousness of purpose
never relaxed, though occasionally it was lit by twinklings of humour.
He was afraid of no man. Nor was he afraid of any deed. But he
disliked the sight of bloodshed; and providing a sufficient number of
inconvenient people were put out of the way, he grudged not to another
the glory of their killing. Without any doubt his bidding was done
obediently, humbly and almost without question by idealists whose
motives were wholly disinterested, by idolaters on the watch for
heresy, by Jews and other persons who were his superiors in intellect,
by ignorant, lawless, passionate men in a high frenzy of excitement,
by life-long revolutionaries like himself, and even by criminals of
all sorts newly released from the prisons of Russia or repatriated
from the capitals of Europe and America. To a student of the art, as
distinguished from the science, of politics, Lenin's mastery of Russia
is the chief riddle, and the intrinsic worth or worthlessness of his
ideals and idols is by comparison a trifling matter.

From the beginning of the century he was a leader of Opposition.
During the whole of this pre-revolution period he was engaged in
creating, inspiring, purging, compacting and organising a party of his
own within the large but discordant agglomeration that aimed at
constitutional change of one kind or another. Being in opposition, not
to a parliamentary cabinet, but to an autocracy, his methods were not
debates and elections but conspiracy and physical force. This choice
was determined for him by circumstances. He opposed violence to
violence, his own plots to those of the secret police. Only physical
force was capable of turning out the existing government. There were
no voters to canvass; nor did the imperial ministers pay any heed to
public opinion unless it assumed the form of terrorism or civil war.
When they were seized by panic, as happened often, they never
hesitated to use extreme measures against the Opposition. Reformers of
the right wing as well as of the left were tricked and trapped by the
police; were exiled, imprisoned or executed. Peaceable crowds were
shot down on suspicion, or merely in order to hold the realm in awe.
Such was the way of politics in Russia. Lenin at this stage was no
innovator; he created no precedent; he used fraud and violence because
no other methods were available. The government had its spies and
decoys; it set snares for its political opponents. Lenin used
counter-spies and counter-plots, and spread his network of secret
societies and propaganda through all the urban communities of western
Russia.

In November 1905, after five years of exile abroad, Lenin returned to
Russia. The war with Japan had produced disasters and humiliation.
Revolution was stirring. In October there had been a general strike,
followed within a few days by an imperial decree that promised
constitutional reform. But as usual the Emperor listened to too many
counsellors and was swayed first by one, then by another. There was
unlooked-for delay, then shufflings and evasion, and discontent came
once more to the boiling-point. The revolutionaries had counted on the
assistance of the army; but the army remained loyal to the Crown. A
widespread rebellion had been planned; but nothing occurred save a
rising at Moscow which was quickly suppressed. During the following
two years there were swayings to and fro; more promises; more delays,
shufflings and evasions. First one Duma and then another, after a vast
deal of fine unpractical talk, passed into dissolution. All this time
it was the aristocrats and the middle class who played before the
Russian people and an admiring world the chief part as would-be
liberators. Reaction soon reappeared, as ruthless and as blundering as
ever. The Liberal noblemen and bourgeoisie were reduced to impotence
and absurdity. The movement, which had received the bouquets and
blessings of enlightened foreigners, ended in a fiasco. In December
1907 Lenin went again into exile.

It now seemed to Lenin and his friends that his prophecies had been
proved true by events. Liberalism was useless as an ally. Compromise
of any kind would only weaken faith and vigour. There could be no hope
of victory until a party had been created which would unanimously
accept and confidently adhere to a policy so simple that it could be
understood by simple people, so indivisible a unit that schism could
discover no joint or crevice to work in.

For ten years longer Lenin laboured in exile. He was poor and could
draw but little from any party fund. He could communicate with his
friends at home only by channels underground, and was obliged to
preach his gospel through other men's mouths. His fellow-exiles, as
well as the revolutionaries in Russia, were at sixes and sevens. There
was a multitude of leaders whose minds were filled with suspicions,
jealousies and cobwebs. There were almost as many policies as there
were leaders.

Lenin, like Cromwell, set to work to make a New Model Army--the
Bolshevik party. The most important consideration was not numbers, but
that it should surpass all other sections in discipline and strength
of purpose.

There was no place for toleration in this Bolshevik party. The breath
of its life was hatred--hatred for the monarchy, the bureaucracy, the
aristocracy; even for democracy, since under that designation came the
middle classes, the traders and men who followed professions. It was
justifiable to deceive any one of these enemies with a pretended
alliance in order to destroy the others; but it would have been
treason to the cause to spare the ally when the rest had perished and
its help was no longer needed. An irrevocable compromise with any of
the existing parties would have reduced the Marxian ideal to an
impotent nullity. Bolshevism could find no sustenance in the pap of
Liberalism.

There was always pressure from the weaker brethren to yield on this
point or on that, in order to gain new adherents or to win sympathy
from the world at large. But of what use were adherents who would not
go to all lengths, and of what practical benefit had the generously
overflowing sympathy of the world at large ever been to Russian
patriots in the past? Nor was there any place in the new party
programme for the high-flown sentiments of humanitarian idealists; for
it was hatred and not love that would bring the revolution to victory.
To listen to these people would destroy the fighting spirit as surely
as to incorporate their vague phrases in the party policy would lead
to endless dispute. But the terrorists were the most mischievous of
all; for they were as devoid of common sense as of fear; their minds
were incapable of grasping a policy; they looked no further than the
ends of their revolvers, and trusted blindly in the efficacy of
sporadic and uncoördinated outrages for bringing about a state of
panic, confusion and anarchy in which the imperial system might
obligingly consent to disappear. The effect of their futile outrages
was to keep the government on the alert, and thereby greatly to
increase the perils of that underground organisation which was
burrowing in every direction under Lenin's dæmonic impulse and
unrelaxing control.

In this part of his career, which was concerned solely with gaining
power, Lenin fooled each of the other parties in turn, disarmed its
hostility, used its foolish enthusiasm to serve his own purposes and
gave in return, when the day of reckoning came, only a dagger in the
back.

Lenin wrote during these twenty years of preparation innumerable
treatises, pamphlets, memoranda, instructions and private letters.
These writings appear to have been directed to two distinct objects:
the first, to explain his plan of campaign to the officers he trusted;
the second, to encourage and exhort his troops.

It is clear that the first came far easier to him than the second. He
had a remarkable talent for strategy and tactics. He was a great
craftsman in revolutionary warfare and preparations for warfare. His
supple mind, intent on victory at whatever cost, followed the changing
circumstances and adapted its plans to meet them. He was indifferent
to the charge of inconsistency, reversals of policy, discarded
principles. In the pre-revolution period his opportunism wore a decent
disguise; but when the battle began he took no trouble to conceal it.
Opportunism and audacity were the secrets of the final success.

His talents as an evangelist are on a lower plane. He took infinite
pains. His labours were unceasing, and they had a certain practical
quality that made them effective for their immediate purpose; but he
lacked the inspiration of a heaven-born missionary. He wrote for the
enlightenment of his fellow-countrymen as an organiser and a
propagandist, not as a seer, a prophet or a philosopher. The
politician who succeeds is never a maker of philosophies, and very
rarely a projector of constitutions and systems of law. His notions
are usually unoriginal, crude, rough-and-ready. He borrows or snatches
from other men anything that seems likely to serve his purpose.

After the fiasco of 1905-1907 it seemed to most people that Lenin's
opportunity would never come again.

But the Liberal-Socialist revolution of March 1917 succeeded, and
Lenin, by the good offices of Germany, returned to Petrograd in April.
He threw himself at once into opposition against the provisional
Government. Though he had a weak adversary, his life was in danger;
for some months he disappeared and lay in hiding; but in the last days
of October he emerged and made a second revolution. He had great good
luck. When the confusion cleared, his enemies were all in flight. From
that day until his death, a little more than six years later, he was
as much the autocrat of Russia as any of its Emperors or Empresses had
ever been.




XVII.--_Lenin as head of Government._


Lenin's leadership of Opposition had been remarkably successful. His
career as head of government was not so fortunate.

He had succeeded in creating a formidable party and in leading it to
victory. He had succeeded in propaganda and conspiracy, and in
dominating by his dialectic skill every conference and every
conversation in which he had ever taken part. He had succeeded in
gaining power, and he succeeded in keeping his power till he died.
That he possessed a great capacity for doing these things is beyond
question. But for the higher departments of government--for government
in so far as it consists in policy, administration and construction--he
showed no capacity whatever. If we are to judge Lenin as we would any
other politician, we should not consider it presumptuous or flippant to
say of him that his failure (which dates from the day when he became
autocrat) was due to his insensitiveness to the workings of human
nature, to the emptiness of more than half his mind, to what in plain
language we call incompetence.

His difficulties were great. It is true that time was against him. The
years between his seizure of power and his first paralytic stroke were
barely four and a half; to his final break-down they were less than
six. The greatest politician that ever lived could not have repaired
the damage that Russian industry had suffered by war and revolution,
still less could he have transformed a capitalist into a communist
system, in so short a space of time. It would be absurd to blame Lenin
for not having done the impossible. It would have been enough had he
made a true beginning, however humble, towards social reconstruction.
But though he issued endless manifestos, exhortations and
instructions, though he made many changes of principle as well as
detail in his plans, the national resources, when he died, were still
wasting unchecked; production and exchange were still in the
stranglehold of hand-to-mouth expedients; the new forces that were to
turn Russia into the land of promise were still chained up. Against
this failure may be set the solitary fact that he bequeathed to his
successors a realm in which government was powerful and civil war had
ceased.

       *       *       *       *       *

After Lenin had gained power his first business was to make himself
secure. No politician has ever yet been able to rule his country, nor
has any country ever yet been able to face the world, upon the
principles of the Sermon on the Mount. Not a great many of the things
that were Caesar's at the beginning of the Christian era have changed
their allegiance in the intervening centuries. Killing is often needed
to put an end to anarchy. Under some conditions and with some races,
killing, even on a great scale, may occasionally be the only way to a
lasting settlement. But the man who uses this desperate method, except
from sheer necessity, is apt to make himself a monster to his
fellow-men and a laughing-stock to the gods.

Caesar Borgia slew his thousands, the Terror its tens of thousands,
Lenin his hundreds of thousands.[15] In each case the motive was the
same--to keep power that had been gained and to gain still more power.
Caesar Borgia failed. The Terror and Lenin succeeded--after a fashion.
It is by no means clear, however, that the achievements of the Russian
Dictator were on a grand enough scale to justify so much destruction
of human life; or that a politician of fertile capacity--a politician
who had been something more than merely a successful director of
conspiracies and massacres--could not have attained security more
surely and at a far lower cost.

No politician of high self-confidence will push restrictions on
freedom further than security requires. Lenin and his terror-stricken
counsellors threw this sagacious maxim to the winds. They imposed
restrictions, and more restrictions, and ever more restrictions. No
one was free to publish his opinions, or to speak in public, or even
to talk with a friend in his own miserable bed-sitting-room.
Everywhere there was censorship and espionage. Freedom was not a
thriving plant under the Imperial dispensation; but under the
Dictatorship it ceased to exist. An ancient regime may continue to
live and function in stuffy chambers; but a new adventure needs fresh
air. By excluding freedom, Lenin stifled or disheartened the very
people whose hopeful initiative should have been his chief support in
building the ideal state.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lenin's gift of leadership is beyond question: men followed him
eagerly to the attack, confident in victory. Yet it seems as if he had
not possessed the complementary gift, so invaluable to a reconstructor
of society--the gift of raising the natural vigour of his followers by
sympathy and encouragement. We saw no evidences during Lenin's reign
of a steady brightening glow of practical endeavour. It was a sombre
period lit by occasional flares. There was enthusiasm of a
kind--parades of the Red army, festivals of remembrance, half-wits
howling in processions, desecration of idols according to plan; but
the general impression left on our minds is, that during those years,
nobody in Russia was doing an honest day's work cheerfully--the thing
of all others most necessary for salvation. The proletarians of the
towns were lazy, incredulous and indifferent; even the half million
Bolshevists hung back; while the peasants, in spite of all Lenin's
intrigues to divide them, were pulling solidly against him all the
time.

       *       *       *       *       *

Revolution succeeds by extremism; but a settlement requires
moderation. To use conciliation before victory has been won is usually
waste of effort; but without it, no victory, except one that aims
solely at extermination, can be made complete. One of the few things
we know for certain about Lenin's career is that his victory was never
made complete. He gained power; he kept power; he governed, in the
sense that he put an end to all resistance; but he failed in drawing
forth any general and effective sympathy for his policy--if policy it
may be called--of reconstruction. His enemies never became his
helpers. His concessions and surrenders sometimes bought off a
dangerous opposition, but as they were never accompanied by any proofs
of kindliness or trust, they made him no friends. There is something
very fertilising about conciliation when it comes from the heart
heartily; but this method seems to have been utterly repugnant to
Lenin's nature.

The most indulgent critic would hardly look on Lenin as a pattern
husband or steward of the estate. When it came to dealing with the
national resources he was all at sea. Factories, warehouses, shops,
banks, mines, railways, the professions of medicine and science--all
those things that a reconstructive statesman would have been most
concerned to preserve and cherish--were allowed forthwith to fall into
decrepitude. And we cannot see that, beyond pouring out manifestos to
say they must arise again and flourish, he attempted anything to stay
the dissolution. He presents the appearance of a witch-doctor
muttering incantations against an earthquake. His troubles and his
failure were due largely to his ignorance of common things and of the
motives that move common men. He had little first-hand knowledge of
the working world, but saw it as a set of symbols. If, while he lived
in London as an exile, he had spent less time in reading books at the
British Museum, and had given a few years to working with all his
might in some industrial undertaking--better still, if he had set
himself up with a coster's barrow and sold fruit and knick-knacks in
the Old Kent Road--he would have been much better fitted to deal with
the problems that confronted him when he became autocrat of All the
Russias. His predecessor, Peter the Great, went a wiser way about his
schooling, in the shipyards of Amsterdam and Deptford.

       *       *       *       *       *

Like many another leader of Opposition, Lenin came to power encumbered
by a programme, the greater part of which conflicted with the facts of
life. Many of the items in it were only lures that he had thrown to
catch the fancy of the multitude; and these, without a pang, he could
explain away, or could find excuses for postponing to a more
propitious season. But there were other items in it that lay very near
his heart. During his exile he had dreamed dreams and seen visions,
and in some of these he still believed, even after he had become head
of government. He would have grudged no sacrifice to make them come
true, except the sacrifice of power. It is a proof of his suppleness
of character that he chose to keep his power, although it cost him the
abandonment of nearly all his projects.

What Lenin did as head of government differed exceedingly from his
former programme; sometimes, and upon most important matters, to the
point of flat contradiction. The fundamental theory of the revolution
had been the total abolition of private property. Yet he did not
shrink from making over all the farm-lands of Russia to be owned by
the peasants; though these farm-lands were the greatest national
asset--far greater than all the other national assets put together. On
the other hand, as the peasants formed four-fifths of the population
it was essential to keep them in good humour. Capitalists had been
rooted out; but he was obliged to tempt new capitalists to come to
his assistance. Trade had been forbidden; but the ban was withdrawn
after a serious mutiny. The cargo that he jettisoned would make a long
list. But while we may possibly admire the resolute way in which he
made concessions, we feel that he never got full value for them. They
did no more than turn danger aside for the moment. They never gained
him either confidence or gratitude. A consummate politician would
surely have driven a more generous bargain and earned a double profit.

The most effective agents in a revolution are seldom of much use to
their leader after the revolution has been achieved. They are
importunate in seeking offices for which they are unfit. They are too
much used to desperate intrigues to make comfortable bedfellows. When
the revolutionary leader has blossomed into an autocrat he must often
wish that he could bring to life again many of those whom he has
killed, and fill their opened graves with many of those who are still
alive.

The chief Bolsheviks showed more energy and were less restrained by
scruples and conventions than the men who served the Emperor or acted
with Kerensky. Their abilities, however, were restricted to a narrow
sphere. Where they most conspicuously failed was in organising
anything that lay beyond the circle of their specialised activities.
Putting aside two or three industrious officials who could write
dispatches, and Trotsky, whose achievements in army organisation are
still a matter of dispute, no one, up to the time of Lenin's death,
had given proofs of administrative, still less of constructive,
capacity. On the other hand, in political intrigue, conspiracy,
espionage and propaganda they had much success. They had made the
revolution, and they exterminated all opposition. They created a
force of secret police that is said to be considerably more numerous
than the British army. They were skilful in spreading false or
distorted news that would serve their own purposes. They could incite
mobs to wholesale massacres of the upper and middle classes. They
sowed discontent, and stirred up strikes and risings in foreign
countries. These no doubt were all very important aids to their
policy. But though they were able to make such a large variety of
mischief, they could not make, or cause to be made, simple necessary
things, like bread, or cloth, or ploughshares; and it was of these
things that Russia, from 1917 onwards, has stood most in need.

Lenin piqued himself on being a constructive statesman. Production and
distribution were the things that Communism had boasted it would do
better than anyone had ever done them in the world before; but these,
of all others, were the things that Lenin and his expert staff of
conspirators and publicity-agents showed themselves least fit to
undertake. Their skill and energy had provided an exceptionally
favourable opportunity for putting their theories into practice; but
they could make nothing of their opportunity when they had it. A
universal confiscation gave them the whole installation of Russian
industry for nothing, so that they had no overhead charges for
interest on capital, or for rent. The burden of taxation was relieved
by the repudiation of the national debt. There were workmen in
abundance, hungry and clamouring for employment. In spite of all these
advantages, production dwindled and distribution became more and more
congested as the months went by.

One reason for this lamentable state of affairs was that so many
managers of industry had been killed, or driven away, or rendered
impotent by being deprived of their authority. Another reason was,
that the revolutionaries who succeeded to their posts were not only
ignorant of business methods, but seemed incapable of applying
themselves in a practical spirit to the solution of an unfamiliar
problem.

When industry was seen to be coming to a standstill, the Bolshevik
leaders sought a remedy in academic surveys, appreciations and
reports; in a multitude of neatly displayed statistics, curves, charts
and diagrams; in a snowstorm of forms and permits that had to be
filled up, signed and countersigned. Every man of strong business
sense knows that these are dangerous aids to efficiency. He realises
that they possess no life-giving properties; that they are useful only
as checks on rash initiative; that even as checks they must be used
with extreme caution; and that to follow them out in practice to their
logical conclusions is usually fatal. For the amateur, on the
contrary, they have a malign fascination. He delights in their clear
and graphic simplifications; he plays with them absorbedly as a child
plays with toys; while bankruptcy approaches with a stealthy tread.

Finding that this remedy made things worse instead of better, that
workmen idled, that machinery fell to pieces and organisations
crumbled, that goods were not delivered, and that cheating was rampant
everywhere, the Bolshevik leaders sought to mend matters by appointing
a horde of officials and inspectors. But as these persons had no
previous experience to guide them, the industries they were supposed
to supervise reaped no benefit from their services. As a rule their
sole recommendation was that they professed to be ardent
revolutionaries. It was politic to provide for them in order to keep
them out of mischief. They were greedy, importunate and in many cases
corrupt. They wanted jobs in which they were not likely to be
overworked. They soon numbered several millions in the public offices
and industries; and it would be hard to say whether their
meddlesomeness or their inertia was the greater evil.

We expect a politician of the first flight to choose assistants who
are fit for their jobs, and whose capacities will supplement his own
deficiencies. Lenin does not seem to have possessed this gift. The
poor quality of the material at his disposal cannot have been the sole
reason for the fiasco of reconstruction. We feel that, from the same
material, a more capable leader could probably have made an adequate
selection. Compared with the average of western Europe, the
administrators whom he appointed and tolerated in the years
immediately following the revolution strike us as having been a puny
breed. Their ignorance was not the chief difficulty; for with industry
and goodwill, time might have mended this fault. But their lack of
natural shrewdness seems to have been incurable, and their ingenious
cunning was no effective substitute. Their characters produced but
little impact on events. The work of reconstruction needed more weight
and force than they possessed to make it prosper; and it needed most
of all a steady sense of direction in those responsible for its
guidance.

       *       *       *       *       *

The constructive work of a politician must be judged by its stability.
So far as we can see, the institutions that Lenin set up usually had a
natural tendency to fall down. There was nearly always something wrong
with their foundations, or their structure, or their balance. A mob
of angry peasants could knock over one of his laborious expedients
with their hay-forks; or a band of lazy town-workmen, leaning up
against it, would bring it flopping to the ground; and not
infrequently it would fall of itself, having no inherent strength or
equilibrium. A reasonable explanation of this defect is, that Lenin's
knowledge of statecraft and economics was drawn exclusively from
books. His only practical experience was in the art of conspiracy. For
gaining power this was enough. For holding power his determination and
ever-wakeful opportunism were enough. But for using his power to
realise either his former ideals or the more recent schemes of
reconstruction that circumstances had forced him to clutch at,
something more was needed; and this something he had not from nature,
and apparently could not acquire.

It may be that in Paradise we shall see our great men stripped, and be
able at a glance to determine the order of their prevalence; but in
_this_ world it is impossible for contemporaries, and hard even for
historians writing many years later, to dispel the glamour of
adventitious circumstances. Lenin was associated with a series of very
startling and unusual events, and for this reason, if for no other, we
cannot measure him faithfully against politicians who worked under
more normal conditions.

We know, however, that those whom Lenin overcame were not antagonists
of heavy calibre. He was never pitted against any politician of
first-class, or even of good second-class, capacity. The ministers of
the old regime, whom the revolution rode rough-shod over, were little
more than the deferential clerks of an irresolute master. For the
Emperor's morbid conscience never ceased reminding him that his duty
as God's vicegerent was to keep all power in his own hands, and to
distrust his servants in proportion as they showed alacrity in
accepting responsible employments. Throughout the whole of his unhappy
reign, ability was suspect and all conspicuous merit was jealously
excluded; even loyalty was slighted, and no man of a frank and
fearless nature could hope for the imperial favour. The residuum of
diffident and hamstrung functionaries was powerless to cope with
serious tumults. They allowed themselves to be supplanted, almost
without a struggle, by Kerensky and his associate dreamers; while
these in turn soon learned that a whirl of eloquent words is no
protection against a resolute butchery. But the triumphant Bolsheviks
were superior in no quality save energy to the functionaries and
dreamers they superseded.

Lenin towered above his fellow-countrymen--functionaries, dreamers and
Bolsheviks alike. His pre-eminence is an interesting phenomenon,
though it is far from proving him a colossus who overtopped the human
species. A geographer, reckoning by square-mileage, may confound
Russia with Brobdingnag; but an ordinary observer, noting the mean
stature of the men who stood, or might have stood, in Lenin's way, is
perhaps more likely to conclude that all his feats, so loudly
advertised, were done in Lilliput.




XVIII.--_How all the benefits of a revolution are likely to be lost if
the politicians fail to gain the upper hand in time._


It is more than six years since Lenin died; but the great Russian
flats are still obscured by a layer of ground-fog. We can see but
little of whatsoever internal struggle may be going on there, and can
hear only a babel of muffled voices and uncertain meanings. It need
not, however, be assumed that Russia is therefore approaching some
fresh calamity. Had her weather been tempestuous we should for certain
have heard loud shoutings and caught occasional clear glimpses through
the rack. It is of course conceivable that some vast convulsive
project is being shaped by supermen in darkness and in silence. But on
the whole it seems more likely that politics in Russia is merely
following the ordinary course of nature; that the politicians--idealism
and idolatry being somewhat out of breath--have taken charge of the
situation; that these politicians are no larger than life-size; and that
their commonplace ambitions, their intense personal rivalries, are
working beneficently, like a yeast or ferment, which in due time will
produce a tolerable vintage.

During the revolutionary period an astute politician will never
attempt to put out the blaze. On the contrary, it may profit him to be
seen busily pitching fuel on the bonfire. His speech and action at
this stage must not be taken as showing his true mind, but only as
flourishes--the more astonishing the better; the more seemingly novel
and unprecedented the better. If he shows sympathy with the prevalent
mood he may gain power; while if he tries to withstand it he will be
swept away. And at the height of a revolution the prevalent mood is to
look upon the past as utterly bad. The very fact that a deed or a
phrase shows disrespect for the past is enough in itself to earn a
favourable acclamation.

Sooner or later this exaltation passes and the prevalent mood
insensibly changes. People discover gradually and without a shock that
they are still living in the world they were born in; they begin by
little and little to resume many of their former habits, to think
their old thoughts, to scoff and gird at innovations, even to complain
because old grievances have been done away that had served so many
previous generations as excuse for grumbling. Novelty is no longer a
recommendation but a reproach. Changes and reforms are more acceptable
if they can be dressed up in a familiar appearance. New institutions
have a better chance of maintaining themselves if they are built
against old ones that have stood four-square for centuries. New ideas
gain admission to the popular mind more easily if they are twisted
artfully into the strands of old traditions; and if a new loyalty or
affection is to capture hearts, it must succeed in personating some
familiar sentiment.

At this stage the politician is obliged to occupy himself with
smoothing away the hard, rough edge of novelty wherever it chafes the
popular skin. At the same time he must save his own face. He will
attempt this by a reverent display of images, by carving revolutionary
maxims on walls and monuments, by hurling at the outside world the
old, braggart defiances that have by this time dwindled to conventions
of low vitality. But it would be quite contrary to his intention were
this show and shouting to lead to any serious disturbances; for the
sole purpose of it all is speciously to advertise his own consistency.

Post-revolutionary politicians are the salvage-men of a revolution.
Unless their commonplace ambitions can find employment, everything is
likely to be lost. And the reason why revolutions that have failed
are so many times more numerous than those that have succeeded is,
that the fanatics and theorists are apt to keep the upper hand until
they have brought everything to ruin by their pedantic obstinacy and
contempt for custom. But when the politicians gain the upper hand in
time, they usually turn their power to good account. Let them not
expect, however, to receive from their fellow-countrymen any loud
demonstrations of gratitude; for their popular reward is never an
ovation, but merely a contented muttering:--'Things after all are not
so bad as they might have been; we are still allowed to go our old
ways; on the whole, perhaps, we are less uncomfortable than we were
before.' This, which is the crowning triumph of a revolution, appears
but a modest conclusion in contrast with the first blare of hopes and
promises. And looking back from no long distance the beneficiaries are
apt to wonder, often unreasonably and forgetfully, if the patches of
fresh masonry which appear so few and so small against the vast
greyness of the ancient fabric are really worth all the suffering and
sacrifices that were required to build them.

Every politician learns before he is out of his nonage that it is
impossible to cut sheer across a nation's history and start afresh
from a clean edge. This would be like ringing a fruit tree and
expecting it to go on bearing a crop. For the history of a nation is
the sap of its life, and death is certain if the flow is stopped.
Destruction in this form has occasionally followed some barbaric
conquest, when flourishing peoples have become as dead wood, rotting
and crumbling into a fine powder of exiles, outlaws and slaves. But no
internal convulsion that I know of has ever carried ruin quite so far.
The fanatics and theorists have always been held back by the
horse-sense of common men before they had ringed the bark the whole
way round. It is the impracticable ideals that perish, and with them,
too often, much of the good that the revolution might have achieved.
But the nation itself survives.

When people are no longer in a fever of excitement, but are settling
down into their old workaday and holiday humours, the busiest,
noisiest crowd of theorists and fanatics is overmatched. For in their
presumptuous self-confidence they have declared war upon too many and
too strong antagonists. They would cut off history and tradition with
a pair of shears; would do away age-old loyalties and affections;
would knock religion on the head; and in their folly would defy even
common custom, which of all adversaries is the burliest wrestler. And
the substitutes they endeavour to set up are known at once for what
they are--for men of straw, for forms without strength and shapes
without life. A brand-new political system with edicts to match it,
and executions on a grand scale to enforce the edicts, and zealous
schoolmasters to mint young minds in some approved button-mould, has
but a poor chance with the forces it has so rashly challenged. For
though we plume ourselves on the freedom of our wills, we are less
ourselves than we are our ancestors. Their blood beats in our
arteries, and our thoughts have to fit themselves as best they can
into brain-cells that are part of our inheritance. This is a mortmain
that no dictatorship can do away. Looking back no further than our
great-great-grandparents, each of us has had thirty progenitors--an
invincible preponderance--whose dead hands in loving-kindness hold us
back from self-destruction.

Consciously or unconsciously every full-grown politician accepts this
law of continuity. If, since Lenin's death, there has been a dearth of
politicians in Russia--if idealists and theorists, with no better
assistants than propagandists and clerks, have had it all their own
way--failure and yet another period of anarchy would seem to be
inevitable. If on the other hand, the politicians have, in recent
years, been busily engaged on salvage work, we may hope for better
things. Sooner or later the clash of their ambitions is likely to
produce a system of settled government suited to the character and
traditions of the Russian people, and capable of satisfying its most
urgent needs. It would be fruitless to speculate as to the precise
form this system will ultimately assume; but it is reasonable to
suppose that it will bear no resemblance to democracy of any kind, and
that it will finally emerge as some more or less normal type of
Asiatic despotism, tempered perhaps by the ancient institution of
village communities. Revolutionary ideals, aged prematurely into
respectable idols, may continue notwithstanding to receive lip-service
and to be treated reverently on ceremonial occasions; there may still
be pilgrimages to Lenin's tomb; but the grades of society (with their
various degrees of authority, consideration and well-being) will be
determined, as of old, by the form of government which is ultimately
adopted. The principle that those who have power will use it to make
life as comfortable as possible for themselves and for the privileged
order--necessarily a small minority--to which they belong, is likely
to hold good in Russia in the future, as it has held good everywhere
in the past.

Sir Charles Dilke, who had probably a truer understanding of foreign
nations than any politician of his time, astonished a friend many
years ago by the remark that no one then alive would live to see a
change in the system of Russian government. The friend objected that a
revolution was surely possible. 'Not only possible, but very
probable,' was the answer. 'There may be more than one revolution in
our time. None of them, however, will change the _system_ of Russian
government, but will only replace one despotism by another.'[16] Has
he been proved wrong by recent events? The present Russian government
rests, like its predecessor, on a vast organisation of spies and
secret police, on a huge army raised by conscription, on a civil
service far more numerous and incompetent, but no less corrupt, than
the bureaucracy that served the Empire. The popular voice counts
certainly for no more, and probably for a good deal less, than it did
before the revolution. If Russians will submit to no form of
government but this, we can hardly blame the politicians who indulge
them in it.

The men who are at present governing Russia will be wanting in
patriotism as well as shrewdness if they hold themselves bound by the
strict canons of the Communist Fathers. No abandonment of principle
they may make can be more flagrant than Lenin's acceptance of private
property in land. A wise politician--situated, as these men are,
precariously, on uncertain and rapidly shifting foundations--must
needs watch the public taste and be prepared to change his slogans,
his clothes and even his title as often as there is anything to be
gained by it. Frieze is not the only wear: a ruler who takes his
business seriously will not shy at a rich uniform or a robe of state
if either of these habits would strike the public eye more favourably
than common attire. If elf-locks are no longer venerated, let him
appear anointed, sleek and crowned. And what a foolish whimsy it would
be to insist on being called Dictator of the Proletariat, or by some
other pompous title, if the simpler one of Czar or Little Father would
please the people better!




XIX.--_How little the Art of Politics has changed in two thousand
years._


It is frequently assumed that since the American War of Independence
the art of politics has undergone a drastic purification, and many
people, on both sides of the Atlantic, have attributed this supposed
amendment, in no small measure, to the influences--direct and
indirect--of the American example. But changes in fashion are very apt
to be mistaken for a change of heart. The conventions that one country
or another may adopt at a given time for restraining the ferocity and
unscrupulousness of political warfare are not to be relied on as
security against a sudden relapse, under strong temptation, into
methods of barbarism, nor as indications that the fundamental objects
and motives of the struggle have become any nobler or more humane than
they used to be. An observer who takes a far-and-wide survey of the
world at the present time may well doubt if this belief in the
essential betterment of public life rests on anything more substantial
than a pious legend.

The scene presented by the Russian revolution and by Lenin's
subsequent dictatorship is in itself enough to prove that betterment
is not world-wide. The jargon of modern idealism fails to persuade us
that the methods used so recently in Russia were any less savage or
less purposeful than those others--the special reproach of the
Renaissance--which we were brought up to look on with so much horror.

The century of Louis the Eleventh, of Commines, of the Borgias, the
Medici, Pope Julius the Second and Machiavelli shows a scene that in
many of its aspects appears extremely different from our own. But the
predominant aim of politicians then, as now, was to rid themselves of
their opponents, to gain power and to keep it. Though our politicians
use less lethal methods, their objects are still the same. Killing was
then one of the recognised ways of getting rid of a dangerous rival,
just as attacks on his public and private honour are to-day. But there
was probably no more malice and hatred among the rivals then than
there is now. Caesar Borgia murdered his treacherous confederates,
just as Giovanpagolo murdered his nephews and kinsmen, just as Lenin
murdered the Imperial Family and the middle-classes, not from hatred
or revenge, but simply because he found them in his way.

Men who are engaged in public life must necessarily aim at reducing
opposition to a minimum, and one of the most obvious means to that end
is by misrepresenting, discrediting or ruining their opponents. It has
been said--no doubt with some exaggeration--that the greatest
politicians have neither morals nor malice in their composition. They
make the most outrageous charges against one another, and they fully
intend that the public shall believe these charges. But as they do not
themselves believe them, they find it very difficult to hate one
another cordially and everlastingly, as high-minded country-gentlemen
so often do who have quarrelled over a boundary fence. The hatreds of
political opponents, like their occasional ebullitions of bonhomie,
are shallow-rooted plants.[17]

There have been many ebbs and flows since the histories we possess
began to be written. As we look back, it is not always the times that
are nearest our own that are likest our own. We have certainly more in
common with the middle of the eighteenth century than we have with the
beginning of the sixteenth; but a much earlier epoch is nearer to us
than either of these. The sayings, and doings, and characters of
Stanhope, Sunderland, Walpole, Bolingbroke, Townshend, Carteret,
Pulteney, Wyndham, George the Second and Queen Caroline are a trifle
old-fashioned and formal, but they are not so different from what we
see around us to-day, or can at least remember, as to cause us much
surprise. On the other hand, the sayings, and doings, and characters
of Pericles, Nicias, Cleon, Alcibiades and Athenagoras the Syracusan
produce in us, by reason of their familiarity, an emotion that is much
more poignant than surprise: as fear comes upon a man, and trembling,
who meets himself face to face in a dream. Those ancient Greeks are
our coevals; they talk, and laugh, and scold as we do; vex themselves
with the same problems; buoy themselves on the same hopes; whereas our
fellow-countrymen--the public characters who lived and flourished
during the first half of the eighteenth century--belong to a
generation that, according to our present notions, is antiquated and
at the same time immature. They talk to us, as ancestors should talk,
in slightly stilted language. It seems as if their minds have not yet
opened fully, as if their political ideas are still in the blade.
What, for example, do those Georgians know about democracy? and what
is there of this subject that Athenagoras, Cleon and Pericles do _not_
know? And when we compare Athens of the fifth century before Christ
with our own times, we cannot discover that politicians have increased
since then in stature; or have changed their methods in anything
essential; or that their characters have grown more virtuous; or that
Democracy has undergone a transformation. In a broad view, the art of
politics seems neither to have gained nor lost in all these years.

It is not one of the objects of this book to make out a list of rules
and exceptions for the guidance of politicians, but only to examine a
few examples of the dilemmas that are apt to confront them. Such a
discussion does not always lead to comforting conclusions. It is
satisfactory to be able to show that if a certain statesman, in
dealing with a certain emergency, had acted with less perfidy or
inhumanity, or had been somewhat honester or more generous, his
adventure would have prospered better than it did. But it is not
equally consoling to find, as we sometimes do, that if, at the
critical moment, he had been more unscrupulous or more violent, or had
merely had the sense to wear a mask of deceit, he might have achieved
some wise and patriotic purpose, instead of ruining himself and
allowing grave injury to befall his country.




XX.--_In praise of Politicians._


This chapter is not concerned with ancient times or foreign nations,
but only with those modern politicians who, since the accession of
James the First, in 1603, have pursued their vocation in the
Parliament of Westminster. Until 1707 these politicians were all
Englishmen. After the Act of Union in that year there was an admixture
of Scots; and in 1800 there was an admixture of Irishmen due to a
similar cause. Although the English have always remained in a great
majority, the mingling of races has no doubt produced a considerable
effect upon the evolution of our political character; but the changes
that from time to time occurred in the dominant purpose have probably
counted for a great deal more.

From the arrival of the Stewarts until the administration of the
younger Pitt in 1784, the dominant purpose was to take power away from
the Crown, and to keep a jealous watch lest the Crown should regain,
by open encroachment or by a side-wind, any part of what it had lost:
in this struggle the aristocracy played the chief part. From the
French Revolution in 1789 to the Reform Acts of 1884 and 1885 the
dominant purpose was to take power away from the aristocracy: in this
struggle the middle-classes played the chief part. Thenceforward the
dominant purpose has been to take power away from the middle-classes;
and in this struggle the trade unions have played the chief part.

It is remarkable with how little violence and friction these great
changes have been brought about; and it is not less remarkable that
throughout this period of more than three centuries our country has,
on the whole, been kept admirably supplied with Parliament men who
were capable of doing the work required of them. The comparatively
smooth current of events, and the ease with which politicians have
adapted themselves to new conditions, may be due to some virtue
inherent in our institutions or in our national genius; or again to
pure chance, or (as many have thought) to the special favour of
Providence. But whatever the cause may be, we cannot look back upon
our history without having it borne in upon us, how often those who
succeeded in gaining power and keeping it were fitted by their
peculiar temperaments and capacities for dealing with the special
needs and conditions of their respective epochs.

Walpole is one of the most conspicuous examples of the man who came at
the right time. And he is interesting for the further reason, that he
is the archetype of the _normal_ politician who forces his way into
the highest positions. His virtues and his defects are alike
characteristic of the craft he followed. He had a strong, clear,
practical judgement. He was valiant and steadfast. His crowning merit
was faithfulness to the King he served and to his country. Neither
fears nor temptations could ever shake his fidelity. At the same time,
it would be senseless to deny that he was a self-seeker, an
opportunist, and a man without any tincture of book-learning or
philosophy. To judge him fairly we must consider his career as a
whole, allowing most weight to what he did during the twenty years of
his administration. There are few English ministers who rank so high,
and none that I would put above him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Politicians are like the pedants in Montaigne's essay: no one has a
good word to say for them. Even ordinary people like ourselves find it
impossible to rid our minds of the delusion that 'in essentials' (as
we would put it) we are better men than these noisy, limelight-loving
busybodies. And as we read our newspapers, we are encouraged in the
comfortable belief, that our own moral and intellectual superiority,
though we wear it modestly, is never for a moment in danger of being
overlooked by Almighty God.

And yet our self-complacency may sometimes receive a shock when we
find ourselves in company with a member of parliament; a still ruder
one if he happens to be a minister or an ex-minister. We treat him
instinctively with a certain deference. In vain do we remind ourselves
that there must certainly be several hundred clever journalists in
England who know much more about public affairs than he does. We may
wish that one of these were present to put him in his place. But when
our wish is granted, the hoped-for result does not always follow. For
the dialectic of the journalist in conversation with a practical
politician is apt to lose much of the confidence and energy of
judgement that we had so much admired in his leading articles.

The notion that politics is all a cheat and that politicians are no
better than welshers has subsisted ever since the beginning. Raleigh's
early malediction is not lacking in vigour:--

    Tell men of high condition
    That manage the Estate,
    Their purpose is ambition,
    Their practice only hate:
    And if they once reply,
    Then give them all the lie.

Raleigh was himself a politician--a politician whose career when he
wrote was ending in calamity.

Nearly two hundred years later Adam Smith wrote less violently, but
even more contemptuously, of 'that insidious and crafty animal,
vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed
by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.' Adam Smith was no
politician, but one of the serenest and most kindly spirits that ever
practised philosophy and took delight in the society of their
fellow-men. Moreover, he enjoyed the confidence of Mr. Pitt and the
friendship of Mr. Burke. It would be hard to find any character in
literature who was more immune from the gnawings of envy and a sense
of personal grievance.

Many of us, carried away at one time and another by hero-worship or
partisanship, have attempted to discriminate between politicians and
statesmen; that is, between the 'insidious and crafty animal' and the
disinterested public servant. But Adam Smith, being an accurate
observer, refused to draw this false distinction. Any representative
list of the most illustrious British statesmen would surely include
the names of Bolingbroke, Walpole, Chatham, William Pitt the younger,
Charles James Fox, Castlereagh, Peel, Disraeli, Gladstone. And the
same names would figure for certain in any representative list of our
most artful and indefatigable politicians. Adam Smith was in error,
not in confounding the one with the other, but only in his too
wholesale condemnation of both. Even the serenest philosopher may be
forgiven an occasional outburst of vivacity.

The stream of detraction which ran through the seventeenth, eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries is not dried up in the twentieth. It is not
only we ordinary people who are given to girding at politicians: our
betters are even more emphatic, and of course give much better reasons
than we can to support their unfavourable opinions. A politician may
disregard the random, incoherent censures of the common herd; but it
is a different matter when high-brows prove their case against him
with a wealth of instances and a withering scorn. According to these
critics he lacks natural intelligence as well as education; he has no
foresight, no constancy of purpose beyond the pursuit of his own
advantage; he is not only ignorant of first principles, but
indifferent to every kind of principle; he picks up the first
expedient his eye lights on, and when it fails him, picks up another a
few days later which is in direct antagonism to the first.

Moralists, idealists and humanitarians are equally severe. They hold
converse with the politician from necessity, but rarely from choice.
Their attitude is one of cold suspicion. They are shocked by his
unveracity, by the deadness of his soul to all the higher emotions.
Obviously he cares for nothing in the world except the grinding of his
own axe. He is never more than a lip-servant of sacred causes, and
then only when they happen to be in fashion.

The antipathy that soldiers, sailors and country-gentlemen show for
the politician is rooted in their conviction that no one who talks so
much, and obviously knows so little, about the conduct of war and the
management of land can possibly understand any department whatsoever
of public affairs.

The great army of company directors and others of a certain age, whom
newspapers describe as 'captains of industry,' condemn him for his
lack of practical ability, initiative, push-and-go; they suspect him
of being a lazy fellow who likes to draw a salary for doing next to
nothing.

Jingos denounce him as a traitor if he is not for ever plucking
foreign nations by the beard. Pacifists, on the other hand, consider
him to be the chief cause of war by reason, sometimes of his timid
opportunism, at others of his truculence; the compromises he agrees to
in order to curry favour with public opinion are fatal to peace; he is
the puppet of military cliques, and shares all the passions and panics
that degrade the mob.

The magnates of the popular press, secure behind their private
telephone entanglements, sneer at his want of courage; and the
man-of-the-world--most ingenuous of dotterels--takes up the same tale
from his club armchair.

What humbug it is, for the most part! And what a welter should we be
in, if the politicians, taking these lectures to heart, were to hand
over the management of public affairs to their critics!

       *       *       *       *       *

It is true that the politician, in his professional character, does
not always, or even very often, conform to the most approved pattern
of private conduct. Instances of this divergence have already been
given, and others will be found in the chapters that follow. He
diverges, however, not because he is a less honest fellow than his
critics, not because he wishes to diverge, but simply because he must.
And in justice to him, and also to ourselves whose servant he is, we
should not lay the whole blame on _his_ shoulders, or on our own
peculiar system of government, but on the unchangeable conditions of
the art of governing men.

The way of a nation at every stage of its existence is determined by a
parallelogram of forces. At the one pair of opposite angles the pull
is between the dread of change and the hope that change will make
things better. At the other pair, the pull is between the rivalries
and ambitions of individual men. In the youngest and simplest type of
state, as in the oldest and most sophisticated, these four opposing
forces are always at work. In some kinds of arbitrary government they
work behind a screen; in our own kind anyone who cares to look may
watch them. In different cases the relative potency of these forces
varies by many degrees, and they ally themselves with other forces
that are occasionally stronger than themselves; but they always keep
their stations at the four angles, pulling with all their might.
Sometimes the struggle is graced by a temperate decency; but more
often it is rough and ruthless. Internal antagonisms are the
heart-beats of a nation's life, and when these antagonisms cease its
history is ended. A nation

    Where none was for a party,
    But all were for the State,

would be no more, upon the most favourable computation, than an
impotent babel of virtuous voices.

The politician is never his own master, as men are who seek their
fortune in private adventures. The most complete victory does not make
him the possessor, but only the custodian, of that strange monster
which he calls his country. His first duty is to keep his charge in
health and, if possible, in good humour. He loves his monster, and
this love, which assumes many odd forms, is what we mean by
patriotism. Of the motives that urge him on, self-interest (in the
pecuniary sense) is usually one of the slightest. He values success
more for its own sake than for any material benefits it may bring him.
Nor is he ever content with a merely casual or blundering success; for
the darling pride of his heart is to win openly by virtue of his
craftsmanship.

The man who makes his career in business is not upon the same footing.
As a rule he prefers to keep his cleverness a secret. And moreover, he
may forgo advantages and behave generously without anyone but himself
being the loser by it. Indeed, a private person who never yielded to
these kindly impulses would be regarded as an unpleasing exception to
the normal order of humanity. But when a politician yields a point of
vantage or gives quarter to his opponents, his generosity is apt to be
largely at some one else's expense. Having once entered politics he
cannot do what he likes even with his own career; for it is dedicated
to his country and to his party. His only safe rule is 'the rigour of
the game.'

It is as much a politician's business as it is a jockey's to keep in
the saddle. He must not baulk at self-flattery when he speaks of his
own achievements, and if he is to get the better of his opponents, he
must paint them blacker than nature made them. He must 'fool most of
the people for some of the time,' not so much in order to bring them
to a wise and honourable decision--this, more often than not, can best
be done truthfully--as to keep them to it when inertia overtakes or
temptations beset them. In dealing with foreign nations not even the
frankest and friendliest foreign minister will throw open all the
cupboard doors; for in every chancery there are skeletons and secrets
whose rash disclosure to the world might work untold mischief.

Without bringing all the Christian virtues into this discussion, it is
enough to say that a positive and strict veracity is impossible for
the politician. For truthfulness even forbids you to allow the person
you are dealing with to deceive himself. Though you have had no hand
in his self-deception you must set him right. You must set him right
if he should incline to think you a better man than you really are, or
to think your opponents worse men than they really are. You must set
your fellow-countrymen right if they under-estimate the sacrifices
that will be required of them in order to carry through some measure,
or fulfil some undertaking, to which they are committed. You must set
a foreign nation right, if it is about to enter into some admirable
international agreement in the hope of benefits greater than it can
ever receive. A positive and strict veracity forbids not only
simulation and dissimulation, calumnies and perversions, but mental
reservations, concealment of influential facts, and exaggeration of
every kind.

It has never yet been decided (for it is impossible to decide) how far
a politician may stretch, and when he may break, the rules of private
morality. A great deal--indeed almost everything--depends on the
circumstances of each particular case and on his own special capacity
for controlling them. If he can, and does, control them, so as to
benefit his country, much will be forgiven him. But as there is no
code to guide him, it follows that he is often tempted to plead
necessity when there is no real necessity; and as he himself is the
only tribunal that can decide the question, he finds himself in the
perilous position of a judge-advocate. Yet it is not the greatest
characters, as a rule, but the little frightened ones, that most
freely help themselves to dispensations.

It is this uncertainty, with its various consequences, that makes
politics the most hazardous of all manly professions. If there is not
another in which a man can hope to do so much good to his
fellow-creatures, neither is there any in which, by a cowardly act or
by a mere loss of nerve, he may do such widespread harm. Nor is there
another in which he may so easily lose his own soul. But danger is the
inseparable companion of honour. The greatest deeds in history were
not done by people who thought of safety first. It is possible to be
too much concerned even with one's own salvation. There will not be
much hope left for humanity when men are no longer willing to risk
their immortal as well as their mortal parts. With all the
temptations, dangers and degradations that beset it, politics is
still, I think, the noblest career that any man can choose.

It is surely a sufficient patent of nobility that the lure of politics
has kept England well supplied for some two hundred years with
politicians whom it was not impossible to honour and obey. The
essential virtues that a politician must possess in order to be worthy
of our honour and obedience are not so very different from those that
an ordinary man must possess in order to make a good husband. They are
not necessarily of a showy or romantic sort. Other considerations are
infinitely more important. A politician will never pass the test whose
intellect and imagination are more than servants to his common sense.
One whose temper is beyond control is not only intolerable, but very
dangerous. Mastery a politician must have; but without goodwill and
human-kindness it is merely a goose-step that will carry him nowhere.

It does not make for good government any more than for domestic
happiness to live in an atmosphere of emotional exaltation. We refuse
our heartiest confidence to a politician who abounds in pathetics, and
heroics, and other high-flown sentiments. Nor do we require that he
should possess the priceless gift of moving the deeps of the human
heart with words that go on echoing through the ages. We judge him by
standards that are not less severe, though they are homelier. If he
has been a good husband of the state, he has the best of all rights to
be called 'noble'.

In this matter, Robert Walpole need give place to no one. He was as
matter-of-fact an Englishman as ever drank October ale; not at all
subject to emotional exaltation; an abhorrer of high-flown sentiments;
and even under the severest pressure that his strong feelings were
capable of exerting, never rising to immortal eloquence. He has left
no reverberating legacy of noble words, but--at least as good a
thing--an example of most faithful husbandry. Nor, I think, is it too
much to say that a large proportion of British politicians, from the
beginning of the eighteenth century to the present day--though most of
them were lighter coins than Walpole--were minted in the same die.

       *       *       *       *       *

It must be placed to the politician's credit that he takes our
contumelious treatment of him in such good part, with so little
whining and loss of temper. He has a good case against us, if he cared
to press it, inasmuch as we insist upon regarding him as part of a
public show got up for our entertainment, and look on--hissing or
applauding--while he is baited in the House of Commons, on the
platform, and in the Press.

This sport has been so long customary that we are callous to its
cruelty. The contemporaries of a politician are apt to value him less
for the useful services he does them than for the skill and sturdiness
of his fighting. He rarely gets a just appraisement until historians
come to deal with him long after he is dead. In order to keep his
popularity he must stand torture as stoically as a Red Indian or a
Chinaman; if he is seen to flinch, it is all up with him. And he has
even worse things to bear than these personal assaults and batteries.
For the average politician, though he thinks a great deal about his
own career, is by nature a constructive animal. He has a
craving--often an insatiable craving--to be making something. No
sooner is he in office than he becomes engrossed in shaping policies,
in legislation, and in administrative acts. It is through this passion
that he is most vulnerable. For it takes a man of singular fortitude
to watch with composure, on his outgoing from office, the foundations
that he has dug with so much pain and labour left to silt up; or worse
still, his all-but-finished building let go to rack and ruin for want
of the little effort, the few slates and timbers, that would have made
it weather-proof and habitable.

Looking back over no long period in our own lives, even we, who are
not politicians, will sometimes regret the melancholy public waste
that has been wrought by the hurrying and scurrying ignorance, or by
the reckless mischief, of incoming ministers. But our feelings cannot
have the same poignancy as those of the master-builder who sees his
work destroyed. No one, who from the wings of the political stage has
closely watched the actors in this tragi-comedy making their hopeful
entrances and gallant exits, can have failed to learn that lovers have
no monopoly of broken hearts.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lamentations are sometimes heard--especially from people of great
possessions--that British politics is now a more mercenary profession
than it used to be. Our present system, where members of Parliament
are paid the modest salary of a not very senior bank-clerk, is
compared unfavourably with the purity of the past when rich men served
for nothing. It is hinted that the sweet taste of four hundred a year
is a lure of Mammon to debauch the virtue of our legislators. But the
evidence in support of this theory is unconvincing. The present system
has been at work for twenty years, and there are no signs of a
spreading corruption.

On the other hand it cannot be denied that a frank venality prevailed
during the greater part of the eighteenth century. Many politicians
and their hangers-on lived very comfortably in those days at the
public charge. Some of them, though not a large number, built up
handsome fortunes. Henry Fox, from being a ruined gambler, became a
millionaire. But during the administration of William Pitt the
younger, this evil was much abated; and by 1832, when the power of the
Puritan middle-classes began to make itself felt, little remained save
some trifling jobbery and a certain amount of nepotism that did nobody
much harm. During the remainder of the nineteenth century there was a
systematic cleansing, a sort of spring-cleaning in which no dark and
dusty corner seemed to escape the watchful eye and ubiquitous besom
of the Radical reformer. The precedent that was made then has been
followed ever since, and its austere restrictions still remain in
force.

In Britain politics is not a road that leads to fortune. There is
hardly a sinecure left to pension off a minister who has earned his
rest. No man of ability, desiring riches, could possibly take his
talents to a worse market. It is true that we are not like the early
Romans and Machiavelli, who thought it dangerous to allow rich
citizens to engage in politics, fearing that they would use their
wealth to deprive the nation of its liberties. We have no objections
to a politician being a man of fortune; but we have an exceedingly
strong prejudice against all whom we suspect of seeking to make their
fortunes directly or indirectly out of politics. Nor does public
opinion think too kindly of those who, having made their way into the
front rank of politics, abandon that career for money-making. For all
our gibes and jeers, we pay the politician an unconscious homage in
assuming that, as a matter of course, he will make a renunciation
which we ourselves would never dream of practising. He must abjure the
pursuit of wealth, and dedicate himself, once and for all, to the
service of his country. If he succeeds, the only reward he will
receive at our hands is honour; and in the more probable event of
failure he must seek consolation in his own heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

We shall do the politician an injustice if we take too seriously the
heroics and pathetics with which he is so apt to decorate and conclude
his speeches. These for the most part are only common form, tags which
everybody uses, because the audience is supposed to relish them. It
would be harsh to judge him a hypocrite on sentiments so undeliberate.
The true temperature of his benevolence cannot be deduced from his
rhetoric, which is for the most part meaningless and empty; but it may
be gauged with some approach to accuracy from his acts, and by noting
the things he does or tries to do, prevents or tries to prevent.

By nature he is probably no poorer and no richer than the rest of us
in kindly warmth and desire to alleviate suffering; but the conditions
of his calling place him at a manifest advantage. For the soil of
politics is peculiarly congenial to the growth and burgeoning of an
understanding sympathy with one's fellow-creatures. By force of
circumstances the politician mixes, fights and fraternises with all
sorts and conditions of men. He cannot listen day after day to his
opponents without shaking off much of his original narrow-mindedness.
On his first arrival at Westminster he may be shocked and astounded to
hear men asseverating doctrines that strike at the very roots of his
philosophy. And he is also taken aback because it is evident that the
House of Commons does not regard such speakers as either lunatics or
criminals. But it is not long before he begins to realise that even
the most outrageous of them are often sincere and sometimes right. If
you would know whether a man is true or false, it is a great help to
be placed where you can watch his eyes and listen to the tones of his
voice. The politician has the good fortune to meet people face to face
whose opinions he abhors, to be buffeted by them, to give as good as
he gets and note how they take it. This method draws a great deal of
the venom out of controversy.

The critics of the politician are less fortunately placed. The
severest of them live too much in worlds of their own; in sympathetic
cliques; among admiring disciples or docile subordinates; out of the
vulgar hurly-burly. They do not encounter humanly in the flesh, but
inhumanly upon paper. From their writing-desks they issue rescripts
and fulminations against unseen antagonists--unseen and therefore
unknown; and we may often doubt if the things and persons they
hate--or think they hate--so furiously have any actual existence.
Their sins of uncharity are perhaps venial, since they are committed
for the most part against phantasms.

If the critics came down into the mellay they might lose some of their
authority, but they would surely gain in sympathy and judgement. It
might be for their souls' good, and also ultimately for the advantage
of the causes they champion so disinterestedly, if they took more part
in the rough-and-tumble. For it is unreasonable to suppose that any
section of these critics--least of all the idealists, the
humanitarians, the pacifists and the magnates of the popular
press--are at all lacking in natural benevolence: it is only that
their humanity has been stunted by being grown in too small
flower-pots. Were they released from their confinement, and planted
out to take their chance in a free soil, from which the sourness is
carried off by natural drainage, their virtues would probably flourish
with as lively a vigour as do those of any politician.

If cynicism means a habitual wariness in accepting new promises and
projects at their face value, or if it means a more than ordinary
quickness in detecting windy nonsense masquerading as philanthropy,
then every hard-bitten politician is certainly a cynic. Or if
cynicism means knowing things for shams and yet doing lip-service to
them, party politics is its great breeding-ground. But surely a man
may be suspicious and sharp-sighted, surely he may also be
conventionally polite to impostures, without deserving to be called a
cynic. The true test of cynicism is whether or not he believes with
his whole heart in something which (to _him_ at any rate) is _not_ a
sham; whether he has fire in his belly and a living faith, or, on the
contrary, has abandoned himself to a sneering lassitude. A man who is
really in earnest about doing anything will find it rather hard to be
a cynic. And if it be one of the conditions of his being allowed to
get on with his work that he should bow in the house of Rimmon, let
him bow by all means. He will be judged rightly, sooner or later, by
the worthiness of his object, by the spirit in which he pursues it,
and by the work he leaves behind him.

Politics unfortunately abounds in shams that must be treated
reverentially by every politician who would succeed. If you are the
sort of man whose stomach revolts against treating shams
reverentially, you will be well advised to stay out of politics
altogether and set up as a prophet: your prophecies may perhaps sow
good seed for some future harvest. But as a politician you would be
impotent. For at any given time the bulk of your fellow-countrymen
believe firmly and devoutly, not only in various things that are
worthy of belief, but also in illusions of one kind or another; and
they will never submit to have their affairs managed for them by
anyone who appears not to share in their credulity. If you insist on
putting out your tongue at idols and ideals that happen to be in
fashion, you will find it hopeless to obtain employment. A wise
politician will never grudge a genuflexion or a rapture if it is
expected of him by the prevalent opinion.

       *       *       *       *       *

For some time past, criticism has beaten unmercifully on politicians.
With a flagrant disregard of justice we are disposed to lay the blame
for all our troubles upon the supposed incompetence of a single
profession. The perturbations set up by the recent war are still
quivering, and the peoples of Europe are occupied mainly and
disproportionately with memories of ruin, misery, blundering and
confusion. And this is as it should be; for the Horrible is a much
less enduring memory with posterity than the Heroic. It is not
unlikely that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren fifty years
hence will be occupied mainly and disproportionately with admiration
for the courage and endurance of their ancestors, with wonder at their
efforts and achievements. Consequently if we would protect those who
come after us against themselves, and save them from sufferings such
as we endured--or even worse--the time to attempt it is now, before
the agony of so many great and gallant nations is forgotten. It is not
our business, but the historian's, to take a truly proportioned view
of good and evil. We are caught up in a wholesome, though painful,
reaction, and we need not fear at present that it will carry us too
far, except at a single point.

The danger lies in ignoring the Old Adam that survives in every nation
under the sun; in slurring over the guilt of prophets and pedagogues,
of journalists hunting for sensations, and soldiers whom a
professional fanaticism had driven out of their wits. As a
consequence of this there has been a tendency to heap far more than a
fair share of the discredit for what has lately happened upon
politicians and the methods that their art employed. The injustice is
less worth considering than the injury we are likely to inflict upon
ourselves if we impair or destroy the usefulness of servants whom we
cannot do without. Moreover, we may easily go wrong by treating
long-accepted methods with impatience and contempt. The ambition of
tyrants and imperialists had very little to do with the origins of
most of them. The main purpose for which they were devised was to
prevent a breach of the peace. They encouraged a deliberate procedure
which did not lend itself, as newspaper and platform diplomacy so
often does, to thoughtless provocation. And they conformed to the
sound, but homely, principle that every nation understands its own
affairs a great deal better than it understands those of its
neighbours.

Methods that experience and necessity have evolved by slow degrees are
bound to be complicated and cumbrous; but the patient work of many
centuries is worth weighing carefully against any brand-new system
that has been generated by the heat and pressure of a few years. In a
changing world amendment is always needed; but anything in the nature
of a wholesale substitution would seem to be an act of suicide. The
conventions may often seem absurd; but even these require to be
treated tenderly; for real safeguards sometimes lie concealed within
the most preposterous formulas. At the present time we are too apt to
be impatient with the tardy ways of chanceries, to regard pleas for a
full inquiry as obstruction, and even to set common sense aside, lest
it should chill what seems to be a hopeful fervour. But we may easily
trip in our impetuous pursuit of world-peace and plunge headlong into
the very pit we would avoid. To enter into alliance with revivalist
emotions is the way to perdition. The elaborate courtesies of the old
school are sometimes disingenuous, but they are less dangerous than
the blunt truthfulness of the well-meaning amateur. A strong statement
usually fails of its intended effect when it is couched in strong
language. A bungled dispatch, a brusque phrase, a single rude or
ambiguous word, may easily set two nations aflame. Nor is speed, as a
rule, the chief desideratum: it is better that nations should yawn in
the long intervals of a negotiation than that they should yield to the
impulse of sending one another smart answers by return of post.

For all these reasons it is dangerous to strip the ancient system of
the reverence that is due to it: as yet there is no other that would
not prove a laughing-stock in its place. And though we may abuse
politicians as much as we please in their individual capacities, it is
foolish to dishonour their profession. For politicians are an
essential part of the ancient system. They stand the racket, and are
paid in fame or notoriety. Most of the blows fall on _their_ heads,
and when a sacrifice is required to appease any of the popular deities
it is their privilege to offer up one of their own number.

       *       *       *       *       *

The fact that we are so much bewildered and bedevilled at the present
time, instead of moving us to sympathy for the politician, makes us
all the angrier with him. If we saw our way clearly, we should
probably be less censorious. We resent his being less flurried, less
puzzled, than we are; and we therefore conclude that he must be a
shallow creature, without sense enough to be aware of danger. For many
of us have convinced ourselves that the old world is coming to an end;
and while some appear to think that civilisation will be quenched
utterly in the darkness of barbarism, others are hopeful that, from
the fuliginous bonfire of antique systems, a new and more radiant
order will arise.

These high-wrought fancies leave the average politician untouched. He
would agree that the light is bad; but he cannot understand why this
should set us wondering whether we are watching a sunset or waiting
for the dawn. He sees no mysterious glimmerings in any part of the
horizon. He is a commonplace fellow who goes by his watch, and his
watch tells him it is broad day. The darkness is nothing more than an
overhead autumnal fog, which will clear away when the wind rises. The
obscurity interferes to some extent with his work; but he does not
make it an excuse for idling or despondency. When people talk to him
about an impending doom he is uninterested and incredulous. It is
perhaps one of his defects to place too much confidence in familiar
custom. Left entirely to himself, he has been known to carry on his
business as usual, until the falling skies caught him unawares and
crushed him. He is little troubled with nightmares. His eyes are not
fixed on the millennium nor yet precisely on the end of his own nose,
but somewhere between the two. He deals with things as they occur, and
prides himself on not thinking of them too far ahead. We abuse him: he
expects this, and does not complain. Indeed, like a donkey that is
accustomed to being beaten behind, he might stand stock-still from
sheer astonishment were the abuse suddenly to cease.

If we eventually escape from our present perplexities, it will not be
because theorists have discovered some fine new principle of
salvation; or because newspapers have scolded and pointed angry
fingers at this one or that; or because we, their readers, have become
excited and have demanded that 'something must be done.' It will be
because these decent, hard-working, cheerful, valiant, knock-about
politicians, whose mysterious business it is to manage our affairs by
breaking one anothers' heads, shall have carried on with their work as
if nothing extraordinary was happening--just as Walpole did even in
the worst of times--and shall have 'jumbled something' out of their
contentions that will be of advantage to their country. The notion
that we can save ourselves without their help is an illusion; for
politics is not one of those crafts that can be learned by the light
of nature without an apprenticeship.




                               BOOK TWO

                     FROM THE FLIGHT OF JAMES II.
                    TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I.
                             (1688-1714)




I.--_Of the parts played by Whigs and Tories in the 'glorious'
Revolution_ (1688-1689).


Often at their beginning wars and revolutions seem to purify and exalt
the spirits of those who undertake them; but with the effluxion of
time there is a churning up of so much unwholesome sediment that
public life becomes fouler than it was at first. The earnestness and
fidelity which had inspired so many Royalists as well as Puritans
found no counterparts, but only mockery, among those intriguers who
contended together from the beginning of Charles the Second's reign to
the end of Anne's. Faith no longer sustained them. Their hopes, except
of personal advantage, had faded; while their bewildered followers had
come to doubt if the ideals of the previous generation could have been
anything better than the idols of a fraudulent priesthood. Between
1660 and 1714 a politician who was looking for his way might
occasionally begin by questioning his conscience, but he would
assuredly end by waiting on events.

The rebellion that brought about the deposition of James the Second
was a very different matter from the earlier struggle that had ended
in setting up the Commonwealth. For one thing, the Whigs and Tories of
1688 were not true spiritual descendants of the Puritans and
Royalists, but an illegitimate progeny who were content to bear
new-fangled and opprobrious nicknames in token of their
bastardising.[18] They were not fighting men, but politicians of a
more modern type, whose leaders had learned how to bring on and handle
a popular agitation, and aimed at office as the prize of their
adroitness.

There was also another difference of some importance. The Puritan
revolution had compassed the King's ruin by defeating the Royalist
armies. In England, in 1688, Whigs and Tories never came to blows.
There would have been no sense in fighting one another, seeing that,
at the critical period, they were ranged upon the same side. The
Revolution, in point of fact, was brought about mainly by the Tories,
acting under the astute management and direction of a comparatively
small number of exceedingly clear-headed Whigs. It was the headlong
action and defection of the Tories which lost James the Second his
throne. If they had stood by the King, and if William of Orange had
depended solely upon Whig support, there can be little doubt that his
invasion would have suffered, at the hands of Marlborough, the same
fate that had befallen Monmouth's ill-starred rebellion a few years
earlier.

The two chief pillars of the Tory faith were Monarchy and the Church
of England. Tory theologians had proved to their own satisfaction that
the Anglican establishment was a bulwark, alike against Romish
superstition and the heresies of Calvin. Tory philosophers had shown
no less plausibly that the authority of the crown and the strength of
the state were indissolubly bound up together. They argued that in so
far as Royalty was stripped of its powers the state would be a loser,
for the executive would be enfeebled inevitably and irrecoverably,
and sooner or later, anarchy would claim the misguided nation for its
victim.[19]

What to the theologians and philosophers were principles maintainable
by reason, appeared in a somewhat different light to the simpler minds
of the majority. The feeling of the Tories for Church and King had
little to do with arguments; it was much more the result of instinct
and tradition. They loved, as well they might, the services of their
Church. Their consciences rejected with horror the proposal to
exchange the immemorial institution of episcopacy for a modern
innovation. But if they abhorred Dissent they had an equal aversion
from Rome. And although most of them would probably have repudiated
the doctrine of Divine Right in its crudest form, they were strongly
opposed to any tampering with the legitimate order of succession. Good
had rarely come of such doings in the past. That drastic remedy for
oppression had usually brought misfortunes in its train which were far
worse than the original disease.

For some time, however, before the landing of William of Orange, the
Tory rank and file had been violently moved by anger and fear. One of
their pillars--the Church of England--was clearly in a position of
the gravest peril. They hastened accordingly to its support, without
pausing to consider what might be the final consequences of their
zealous interference. When they had succeeded in securing the safety
of their church, they were dismayed by the discovery that, in doing
so, they had lost their king. They had meant only to insist upon
sureties for his future good conduct; but now he had absconded and a
receiver was administering the estate. They had pressed things too
far. They began to talk about a regency, but it was too late for any
accommodation. The panic of James, the firmness of William, the
sagacity of the Whig leaders, and the not unnatural apprehensiveness
of those Tory magnates who had taken part in the rebellion, were
obstacles that the belated repentance of the bulk of the party was
powerless to remove. Not a few of those priests who, a few months
earlier, had been the special objects of royal persecution, gave up
their livings and appointments sooner than take the oath of allegiance
to their deliverer. It has been no uncommon thing for the rulers of
states to single out for provocation those very orders and classes
which were their natural supporters; but surely there is no more
remarkable instance of this form of perversity in the whole of history
than the action of James the Second in setting the Tory party against
him by his attacks on the Church of England.

The Whigs also had their theologians and philosophers; but the leaders
of this party were neither enthusiasts nor theorists. They were men of
a severely practical turn of mind, whose determination to achieve
certain definite political ends was influenced to a much greater
extent by their reverence for legal forms than by their admiration of
general principles. They realised the dangers of constitution-making,
and how easily the whole foundations of the state might be loosened,
if the work of pulling down and reconstructing were undertaken without
the most careful shoring-up and underpinning. They were concerned to
make a precedent that should bar the door against future revolutions;
not one that restless and factious men could pretend was merely the
first instalment of a reformation.

That they were actuated largely by personal motives does not detract
from the merit of their achievement. They were ambitious, and they
judged wisely of their own capacities. They realised that in settled
conditions they might aspire to the highest positions, but that, in a
period of revolution and counter-revolution, it would be the soldiers
and not the politicians who would play the most important parts. The
result of their efforts was a very remarkable success. For nearly a
century and a half the framework of the constitution remained unshaken
by internal tumults, by foreign wars, and by ferments of opinion that
spared no other nation in Europe.

The Whig leaders were not knights-errant, but politicians; and they
were politicians in an age when the trade of politics was at its
dirtiest. Their morals were no higher, their principles were no
firmer, their practice was no cleaner than those of their Tory rivals
at the courts of the second Charles and the second James. But on the
whole, their abilities were of a heavier calibre; and what mattered
more than all the rest was the fact that as the short and unhappy
reign of James approached its crisis they showed themselves possessed
by a steadfastness of purpose that had been singularly lacking in
their intrigues during the preceding five-and-twenty years. In a
modern view most of them were great rascals. There was never a viler
invention than the fable of the Popish Plot, and hardly ever in
England such a gust of terror-stricken ferocity as that which arose
from the perjuries of Oates and his confederates. Yet this murderous
persecution was set on foot, and was continued for nearly two years,
under the direct patronage and encouragement of the Whigs and the most
eminent of their leaders. Somers himself, who has been depicted as a
paragon of all the public virtues, was not above taking hush-money
from Queen Anne. Others besides Somers had their price. Their fame is
due, not to the integrity of their characters or to the general tenour
of their careers, but to this--that, when their great opportunity
offered, they acted promptly, courageously and with good judgement so
as to bring victory to the cause they favoured. Subsequent
generations, down to the present time, have assumed that the ending of
the Stewart dynasty was the salvation of British freedom, and have not
been grudging of their gratitude to those revolutionary spirits who
played the chief part in securing it.

The Whig leaders aimed at reducing and defining the powers of the
sovereign. They were determined to exclude Roman Catholics in
perpetuity from the throne. Nor were they prepared ever again to trust
a Stewart king, no matter what religion he might profess; for had they
not been fooled already by Charles the Second, whose Protestantism was
merely a pretence? None the less, their course of action was in no
sense directed by religious zeal, which they regarded with contempt
(but also with considerable anxiety) as a kind of fever or distemper
of the mind, capable of working great destruction, if ever it should
break out in epidemic form. Certainly they had no wish to exalt the
Dissenters or to persecute the Papists for conscience' sake; but for
political reasons they must take certain securities from both in order
to safeguard the constitution. On the whole they were not ill-disposed
towards the Church of England, which they assumed, somewhat too
hastily, to have outgrown its liability to attacks of fervour, and
which, under considerate handling, they believed might prove useful by
reason of its conservative tendencies.

The spirit of scepticism had made considerable way among the Whig
leaders. They were not greatly interested in matters of faith, but
only in questions of civil and political liberty. They looked upon
priestly interference in affairs of state as a menace to freedom. The
regimen of Laud and his High Churchmen had been intolerable; but not
more so than the oppressions of Cromwell and his Puritans, or of James
the Second and his Jesuits. At the present juncture danger seemed to
threaten chiefly from the Roman quarter. Recent encroachments had
filled the Whig party with the dread of alien influences and a divided
allegiance. Theocracy was a form of government fit only for savages.
The aim of sound statesmanship was a monarch who would submit to be
guided by an oligarchy drawn from the great families and the great
lawyers of England.

The Whig leaders nevertheless were in a grave quandary. They saw
clearly enough that force was the only remedy against the usurpations
of James the Second; but it was equally clear to them that Whig
Churchmen and Whig Dissenters were not in a mood for hearty
co-operation, still less for risking life and liberty in a military
adventure. Many of the Whig Anglicans showed but a lukewarm devotion
to their Church. The Dissenters were sulky and suspicious;
disappointment and contemptuous usage had curdled their former zeal
into a settled rancour. If the King was engaged in oppressing the
Church of England and in persecuting its bishops, this quarrel was
none of their business. Although they were ready enough to condemn the
King, they had no reason to be friends with the Church of England, and
they disapproved of bishops on principle. Why then should they take
sides with the Anglican against the Romish idolaters? Why should they
incur the penalties of rebellion in a cause that left them cold? It
was barely three years since Kirke had cut to pieces the adherents of
Monmouth at Sedgemoor, and since the horrors of Jeffreys' 'bloody
assize' had showed what came of taking up arms against the King.

For eight-and-twenty long years the Church of England had been engaged
in paying off old scores that dated from the oppressions of Cromwell
and his co-religionists. Since the Restoration (of evil memory!) had
transferred the powers of persecution from Puritans to Episcopalians,
the voice of Dissent had been all for toleration. Now, at last, the
nonconforming sects had received from a popish king an offer of
freedom to worship as they pleased. It is true that the recent
Declarations of Indulgence fell far short of their furthest desires,
for they were still left without power to persecute their
fellow-countrymen of other faiths. It was also a bitter reflection
that Papists were to be sharers in the boon of toleration. On the
other hand, they could derive a sentimental consolation as they
watched the wry faces of the Anglicans whose claws were being pared to
the quick. And if they could not blind themselves to the fact that the
new charter of their religious liberty was a flagrant and arbitrary
violation of the English constitution, that it marked a dangerous
recrudescence of royal tyranny, still why should they, for the sake of
a theoretical grievance, take up arms in order to reject a material
benefit? When tyranny inflicts an injury, the fact that the means
employed have been illegal adds a stinging provocation; but when a
boon is granted, those who enjoy the benefit are very liable to forget
that their relief was wrought by means of an outrage on the
constitution.[20]

In the present emergency it was essential to the Whig leaders that
some considerable body of earnest men should be brought to the
boiling-point and kept there till the crisis was past. If the mass of
the Whig party remained discouragingly cool, could not something be
done with the simple-minded Tories whose experience of oppression had
already raised their indignation to the required temperature? And so
there came about this somewhat paradoxical result, that the 'glorious'
revolution of 1688 was mainly the work of Tory hands and Whig brains.

After the event, however, each party was affected with a kind of
penitence. The Whigs regretted that they had not done the whole thing
themselves and became eager to appropriate the sole credit for the
destruction of tyranny. The Tories, on the other hand, were not long
in coming to regard it as a blot on their escutcheon that they had
been instrumental in the ruin of their anointed king. Popular opinion
has adopted the afterthoughts of the two parties that were concerned
in the constitutional change; and there is a measure of rough and
ready justice in this conclusion; for the complicity of the Tories was
to a large extent blind, involuntary and accidental, while to the Whig
leaders undoubtedly belongs the whole glory of the project and of its
successful carrying out.

After the accession of William and Mary the principles of the more
ambitious Tories were gradually forgotten in the pursuit of office.
The humbler members of the party, however, remained for the most part
under a cloud of self-reproach and perplexity. Their consciences were
uneasy. The memory that they had been fooled was very wounding to
their self-esteem. With the possible exception of Danby, there was not
a single great and steadfast character round whom they could rally. It
was not until the next reign that Bolingbroke appeared upon the scene;
nor, when he came, was he altogether such a leader as the occasion
required.




II.--_How the English revolution ruined the European projects of Louis
XIV._ (1689-1709).


Louis the Fourteenth reigned for seventy-two years and ruled for
fifty-four. He was a boy of six when he succeeded to the throne of
France. He was not yet four-and-twenty when, on the death of Mazarin,
he took the government into his own hands. The epoch of his autocracy
coincides, almost to a twelvemonth, with the period covered by the
reigns of the last four sovereigns of the House of Stewart.[21] The
purpose from which he never swerved until his life was nearly ended,
which even then he never wholly abandoned, was to make himself
suzerain or arbiter of Europe.

From the restoration of the Stewarts to the flight of James the
Second--a span of nearly thirty years--the English court continued to
regard the progress of French ambitions with composure and even with
complacency. Charles the Second's chief concerns were to keep his head
upon his shoulders and his crown upon his head. From the beginning he
was a pensionary king. Although the European policy of Louis was a
menace to British safety, French subsidies were a means of soothing
the discontents of British taxpayers. When, as occasionally happened,
the force of public opinion in England or the pressure of some
powerful clique of politicians proved too strong to be resisted,
ostensible alliances were entered into with the Dutch and an illusion
of war with France was solemnly conjured up. But the intimacy of the
Bourbon and Stewart kings was hardly ruffled by these collusive
actions. The current of reciprocal favours--of money paid and services
received--went on flowing as before between Versailles and London, the
only difference being, that, from time to time, it ran in channels
underground. Charles's subjects might cry out against the
aggrandisement of France, but he himself was quite prepared to take
his wages and look the other way. The game he played was not a great
one, but, when he had time and energy to spare from his diversions,
he played it very cleverly.

Although Charles was frequently the puppet of Louis, he was rarely the
dupe. The 'Merry Monarch' was much too sharp-sighted to be deceived by
the flatteries and sophisms of a polite diplomacy, and even his
unfortunate successor, whose vision of human affairs suffered from
chronic obscurity and occasional eclipse, was at least dimly conscious
of the national dishonour.

The revolution produced a complete change in the relations of France
and Britain. On the accession of William and Mary, Louis espoused the
cause of the exiled king, and England at once threw in her lot with
the Allies. Thenceforward, for more than twenty years, her diplomacy
and, when necessary, her arms were employed in support of Holland, of
Austria, and of those German states which had adhered to the Emperor
in defence of their independence.

So far as England was concerned, this policy sprang neither from
hatred of France nor from any enthusiasm for our allies. It was
dictated solely by considerations of national security. More fortunate
than the Germans, our people had not experienced the barbarities of a
French invasion; while, on the other hand, they might complain, with
some justice, of the laggard co-operation of Austrian generals, and of
the self-seeking and pedantic obstruction of Dutch deputies. But as
Louis had claimed the right to say what king should wear the crown of
Edward the Confessor, there was an obvious danger in allowing him to
become master of Europe. It was believed that, if the resources of the
whole continent were suffered to come under the direction of a single
will, such a disturbance of the balance of power must inevitably
result in the ruin of England.

Nor was this the view of England alone, or of one political party, or
of a single sovereign. After the death of William of Orange it
remained unchallenged during the greater part of the reign of Anne; it
was approved both by Tory and by Whig administrations; and, after the
union of the Scottish with the English parliament, British policy
continued on the same course. If it was not always pursued with the
highest degree of energy and foresight, it is entitled at least to the
credit of consistency, and in the end, under the leadership of
Marlborough, it was crowned with triumphant success.

In the pageantry of kingship, Louis the Fourteenth stands out as the
supreme and unapproachable artist. No other monarch of modern times
has ever possessed the grand manner in such perfection, or known so
well how to gild his egotism with the appearance of magnanimity. But
he was a victor in whom heroism had no part. His strength lay in
persistency of purpose, in disregard for human suffering, and in a
rare gift of selection that enabled him, so long as his faculties
remained unimpaired, to choose men who would serve him with glory in
the field, with energy and with judgement in the cabinet.

For many years his policy carried everything before it. His diplomacy
was vigorous and astute, his arms invincible, and it seemed as if
nothing could avert the final submission of Europe. But with the
revolution in England a change came over the scene, and the vast
project of Louis for the aggrandisement of France was brought
gradually to a pause. Although, upon the whole, the fortunes of war
continued favourable to him for some time longer, his efforts could
make no headway against the iron resolution with which William the
Third endured defeat. In the end they fell in ruins before the
victories of Marlborough.

In statecraft also these two men proved themselves a match for the
French king; and without statecraft of the highest quality, military
success must have remained beyond the reach even of Marlborough's
genius. The final result will appear all the more remarkable when it
is remembered for how long a period the allies were confronted by the
unity of a despotic will. While their adversary was able to direct
every operation of war and policy to a single purpose, they
themselves, from first to last, were hampered by all the evils that
arise from a divided command, from the competition of national
interests, from the mutual distrust of cabinets, from the clash of
personal jealousies, and, in the case of Holland and of Britain, from
the combinations and intrigues that are inseparable from party
government.

For some time before Marlborough ceased to command the allied forces
in Flanders it was clear to Louis that he had lost the game. The
question then became, how he might evade the penalties of failure, how
he might still outwit those enemies on whom he had inflicted
immeasurable injuries and whose hearts were disinclined to mercy. In
negotiation he still enjoyed the advantage that attaches to a single
power when it is pitted against a confederacy of diverse wills. His
treasure was not yet wholly exhausted; his emissaries were active and
ubiquitous; it might be less costly to bribe a favourite than to
surrender a province. But all this would have availed him little, had
there been no reversal of British policy.

Louis was saved by one of those capricious changes to which
representative government is peculiarly subject so soon as the dread
of an immediate danger has passed away. The sobriety of political
partisans is an uneasy virtue that rarely outlasts the crisis of their
country's malady. At the first signs of convalescence they hasten to
absolve themselves from their irksome vows of mutual forbearance. The
old craving for office and revenge, for faction and intrigue, returns
upon them with an irresistible relish whetted by the hunger of an
enforced abstinence.

  [Illustration: _Henry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke_

  _from the picture by an unknown painter in the National Portrait
  Gallery_]




III.--_Concerning the remarkable effects of a Sermon_ (1709-1710).


After the enforced resignations of Harley[22] and Bolingbroke[23]
early in the year 1708, the government of Godolphin[24] became
predominantly Whig. On the whole, throughout a long period of office,
its policy both abroad and at home had been brilliantly successful. As
often happens, daring and sagacity had been attended by a run of luck.
Marlborough was the soul of the administration as well as commander in
the field. If he could have overcome the jealous timidity of the
Dutch, it seems at least possible that, in the autumn of 1708, he
would have led his victorious troops to Paris. But despite their great
achievements, ministers were well aware, by the winter of 1709, that
they were no longer upheld by any fervour of popular sympathy. Their
staunchest supporters were found among the moneyed interest, whose
approval was to be attributed less to its enthusiasm for political
principles than to a severely practical regard for its own prosperity.
At this epoch personal interest was rapidly becoming the touchstone
that every class applied to the political situation. After years of
victory, military glory had lost its early lustre. The original motive
of the war was wellnigh forgotten. On the other hand, the charges of
the war kept mounting up, and the unpleasant consequences of increased
expenditure were present to every mind. The country gentlemen were in
the worst of humours, and complained bitterly of the land tax. The
poor complained no less bitterly of the press-gang; employment was
very hard to obtain; it was ill-paid; and owing to a succession of bad
harvests, wheat was at famine prices. Thousands of unhappy fugitives
from French devastations in the Palatinate, and from the persecution
of their own Catholic rulers, flocked in upon an already overcrowded
labour market, and had to be kept from starvation at the taxpayers'
expense. And what seemed even worse in the eyes of the clergy was the
fact that these miserable refugees recruited the ranks of
nonconformity. With the habitual readiness of a priesthood to
entertain uncharitable suspicions, the High Church party gave out, and
possibly in some instances believed, that this immigration was part of
a dark plot contrived by the Whigs to undermine the Anglican
foundation. Already, in the eyes of many fanatics, this fell work had
made considerable progress owing to the relaxation of the ordinances
against dissenters and to the appointment of Low Church bishops.

While things were in this condition the country was visited by one of
those outbreaks of excitement which, in their brief but impetuous
courses, sweep everything to right and left before them. In its nature
it resembled a sudden hurricane deranging the accustomed order of the
seasons; for it had nothing whatsoever to do with the settled
interests and permanent sentiments of the nation.

An insolent and very vain priest preached an abusive sermon before the
city fathers.[25] His themes were high Tory doctrines, the impiety of
the 'glorious' revolution, and the peculiar wickedness of Her
Majesty's ministers. The sensitiveness of Godolphin indulged the
offender with the glories of a state prosecution and with a most
remunerative martyrdom. Cheering mobs accompanied Sacheverell daily to
his trial, and the Queen herself appeared at Westminster Hall as if to
show him countenance. His sentence was equivalent to an acquittal.
Wherever he travelled--and he was not one who shrank from
publicity--his journey was a triumphal progress.[26] The Queen became
bolder as she perceived the trend of popular opinion. She had no love
for her ministers, and was eager to avail herself of the first
favourable opportunity for being rid of them.

The crash was not long delayed. In the following August the Tory
leaders, with the aid of an aspiring woman of the bedchamber,[27] at
last succeeded in procuring the dismissal of the Whig administration.
Harley became head of the new cabinet, with Bolingbroke as chief
secretary-of-state. In September ministers took advantage of the
continuance of their opponents' unpopularity, appealed to the country
and were secured in power by an overwhelming majority. By the end of
the following January the purge was complete. The duchess of
Marlborough was dismissed from her appointments, and hardly a Whig
remained in office. Some two years later secret and benevolent
negotiations were opened with the Pretender for overturning the Act
of Settlement, and with the French king for a peace in conformity with
his interests.




IV.--_How the duke of Marlborough was dismissed and disgraced_ (1711).


Notwithstanding the overthrow of his friends and the disgrace of his
wife, Marlborough allowed himself to be persuaded by the new
administration to retain his command for yet another year.[28] His
operations during this campaign, though not spectacular, were entirely
successful. He again outmanœuvred the French commander, took Bouchain,
and improved the military position of the allies.

In Holland, on his way to England in the autumn, he learned two things
that can hardly have caused him much surprise:--the first, that the
British government, on its own account and without the consent of its
allies, had opened negotiations for peace with France; the second,
that his enemies at home, having no longer any occasion for his
services, had already made him the object of a political persecution.

Marlborough landed in England in November, and by the last day of the
year his ruin was complete. He was stripped of all his offices and
pursued with charges of peculation, as empty of true substance and as
much tainted with malice as those others upon which, a few months
later, Robert Walpole was sent to the Tower. The mood of a political
party after victory at the polls is rarely edifying; but in the days
when a majority in the House of Commons not only conducted the
prosecution but voted judgement upon the accused, the passions of the
parliamentary mob were apt to plunge them deeper in indecency than any
individual member would have ventured in his private capacity.

Marlborough, moreover, had other enemies besides the noisy partisans
at St. Stephen's. To the new ministers he was an object of terror,
whose utter destruction seemed essential to their own safety. Not many
months before the change of government, he had put forward a strange
and unprecedented request that he might be made captain-general of the
forces for life. Mrs. Masham and her friends being at the Queen's ear
his petition was refused. The Tory leaders affected to believe (and
may be forgiven if they did actually believe) that this appointment
would have been the last step but one to the declaration of a military
protectorate on the Cromwellian pattern.

At that time Marlborough was the most commanding figure in the whole
western world. In an age of great soldiers he towered head and
shoulders above the rest. His predominance was almost as indisputable
in diplomacy as in war. There was hardly a king in Christendom,
whether friend or enemy, who at one time or another had not found
occasion to appeal for his good offices. Those who had stolen his
power away were wise to make quite certain of his ruin; for behind his
modest bearing and gentle urbanity there lay a dæmonic force and the
prestige of unbroken success.

The Queen was also to be counted as an enemy. Since her accession she
had always been in the same hands, and she considered, not without
reason, that they had used her roughly. It is true that, during those
eight years, the administration had completely changed its party
colour. To begin with, it had been of the full Tory complexion; then
it turned into a coalition; finally it became almost pure Whig. But
what had never varied, from first to last, was the predominance of
Marlborough's persuasive and invincible will. In actual fact he had
been the head of government ever since she ascended the throne. The
members of the cabinet--Godolphin and the rest--were his ministers
much more than they were hers; they were the channel through which she
received the instructions of an absentee sovereign, rather than
servants through whom she issued orders to her captain-general. The
whisperers of her private councils did not fail in pointing out that,
in the most favourable view, she was nothing better than a regent, and
in reality little more than a figure-head.

Unfortunately for himself, Marlborough could not be in two places at
once. He was an excellent correspondent; but letters were a poor
substitute in the case of one whose most powerful weapon was the
subtle influence of personal contact. His campaigning kept him in the
Low Countries for the greater part of each year, and he was forced to
leave the management of the political department at home to colleagues
whose timidity too often caused them to take refuge in bluster and
whose dullness of sympathy led them into constant failures in tact. On
the personal side he relied upon his wife, whose force of character
would have fitted her for any enterprise, but whose faults of temper
and judgement were only too apt to throw away every advantage. The
Queen had grievances without end against ministers who had trampled
on her feelings and against a duchess who had held her in an
intolerable bondage.[29] It is probable that she had come to regard
Marlborough with even greater bitterness because he was the husband of
the duchess than because he had been the head and front of the
offending administration.

Anne was a kindly woman, infirm of judgement, still more infirm of
purpose. The fact that she was obstinate put an additional weapon into
the hands of an insinuating favourite. Mrs. Masham could not forgive
her cousin, the duchess of Marlborough, for having introduced her to
royal favour. She had all the vindictiveness, as well as all the
ingenuity, of the handmaid who is heir to her mistress. Her schemes
had prospered and she had at last arrived at power on the ruin of her
patroness. Harley, from his timidity, would rather rid himself of an
enemy by secret ways than openly. He was glad if he could shuffle off
responsibility for all the petty humiliations that were inflicted upon
Marlborough, and which were deliberately calculated to drive him for
ever from the scene, on the plea that they were Her Majesty's personal
instructions. But these instructions were inspired, none the less, by
the assiduous Mrs. Masham, and Mrs. Masham had ever a receptive ear
for the hints of her kinsman Robert Harley.

The spectacle of a great man, be he bad or good, delivered over to be
tormented by a swarm of mean persecutors is always odious. The faults
of Marlborough are on a scale with his greatness; they are as scarlet
and cannot be hid. But throughout the whole of his career (which at
this point, for all practical purposes, came to an end) this at least
is clear--that notwithstanding his faults, notwithstanding all his
schemings and contrivings, he was preserved in some miraculous way--by
the favour of Providence, or by some instinct stronger than his own
forces to control it--from any action that worked injury to his
country. We are more concerned with the things he actually did than
with those others that he did not do but is only charged with having
plotted. From first to last his motives are shrouded in a defensive
haze of insincerity. We can never hope so thoroughly to unravel the
secrets of his impenetrable mind as to warrant us in assuming that
even his greatest actions sprang from disinterested patriotism; but
still less should we be justified in pronouncing a confident judgement
upon the baseness of his unfulfilled intentions.

Be his premeditations what they may have been, the actual achievements
of Marlborough, in a period of uncommon peril, are interwoven like a
thread of gold in the fabric of our history. We cannot cancel the debt
we owe him for our freedom and security, and we claim his glory as
part of our heritage. In Winchester Cathedral, at the feet of the
recumbent effigy of William of Wykeham, is seated a row of tiny
monkish figures that contrast with the calm statue of the sleeper no
less by the vivacity of their gestures than by their Lilliputian
scale. So in the mirror of imagination we seem to see depicted at the
feet of Marlborough a group of fretful pigmies, the great Bolingbroke
himself appearing no larger than a mammet.

Some months after Marlborough was removed from the command of the
allied armies, the duke of Ormonde (with instructions to engage in
nothing but make-believe) was sent out to replace him.[30] The troops
murmured at the change. They were attached to their old leader not
merely because he had led them to victory; his remarkable capacity for
the business side of war had earned him a degree of confidence which
was given to none of his contemporaries; but apart from all this, the
gentler aspect of his strange nature had completely won the hearts of
his soldiers. However it might be in his dealings with others, with
them the sweetness of his temper covered no duplicity. His
consideration for them upon the march, in camp, in hospital or winter
quarters, in sickness and in health, appeared no less wonderful, in
contrast with the practice of those times, than the swiftness of his
movements, the magic of his combinations, or the serenity of his
genius in battle. And when the battle was won, the first thought of
'the old corporal' was for the wounded.

He was very chivalrous to women, very courteous to his enemies, very
merciful to his prisoners. In an age when the most civilised nation
in Europe set a dangerous precedent of cruelty and rapine, he refused
to tolerate outrage, and only under the sternest military necessity
could he ever be brought to consent to the devastation of conquered
territory.

The armies of Oliver Cromwell were volunteers; they boasted, not
without warrant, of a stricter virtue than the average; but, none the
less, it has always been accounted a great glory to their leader that,
even in the bitterness of civil war, their conduct should so rarely
have sullied their professions. The armies of Marlborough were very
different. A minority only were professional soldiers, and these made
no pretensions to a delicate morality. The remainder were recruited by
the press-gang, by hunger, or from prisons. Out of such unpromising
materials it was his business to make an army capable of defeating the
greatest and most self-confident of military powers. That he
succeeded, not only in this, but also in stamping the impress of his
own patience and humanity upon those rough legionaries, must be set to
his credit in the long and dubious account, which, after more than two
centuries of discussion, still awaits the final audit of history.




V.--_How the Tory government proceeded to negotiate for peace with
Louis XIV._ (1711-1713).


Countries that have gone through a long war in partnership rarely come
out of it as warm friends as they were at the beginning. After efforts
of this sort human nature occasionally finds it a good deal easier to
forgive its enemies than to cherish its allies.

There are no two nations in the world which fight, or take decisions,
or talk, or eat, or wash themselves upon precisely the same
principles. Their codes of military honour are different, and each
suspects poltroonery in any deviation from its own accepted pattern.
The Red army, after losing one man in ten, retires, but comes back
next day and retakes the lost position. The Blue army stands fast
until seven men out of every ten are casualties, and knows, that if at
last it be forced to retreat, it can never hope to return. Although
each of these methods of fighting has great victories to its credit,
the Blue army thinks it sheer cowardice to fall back so long as it is
humanly possible to hold on; while the Red army is equally certain
that cowardice consists in abandoning a position for good and all. It
is the same with undertakings and agreements between governments.
Accusations of betrayal are bandied about very freely. Causes of
offence, that in reality arise out of the peculiar working of
political constitutions, are attributed to the bad faith of generals
and statesmen. And the Tower of Babel stands like a block-house in the
pass that leadeth to understanding. Ostensible synonyms have an
awkward trick of concealing vital distinctions. It is by no means so
simple a matter as it seems to translate one language into another;
and, moreover, the interpreter will have left his work but half done
unless at the same time he has succeeded in bringing national
temperaments to some kind of common denominator. And even if all these
high matters be adjusted, we are still in trouble owing to the fact
that there is probably no race of men upon the face of the earth
which, at close quarters, does not regard the personal habits of every
other race as disgusting.

This state of irritation between allies, which usually follows as the
aftermath of a great war, is only a passing mood. It is the business
of a patriotic statesman to foresee and curb its excesses; but the
path of his duty is beset with difficulties, and he may readily lose
his popularity in keeping to it. The opposite course is easy and, to
certain natures, irresistible. The temptation of the opportunist is to
make himself the spokesman of the prevailing discontent and to turn it
to his own account.

It is no reproach to Bolingbroke that he made peace, for peace was a
matter of grave urgency. Nor is it a fair accusation that, owing to
his ulterior objects, the material interests of Britain were lost
sight of in the negotiations. It was not necessary, however, for
Britain to have betrayed her allies in order to obtain peace. A more
advantageous and a speedier settlement would probably have resulted
from a loyal and vigorous prosecution of the campaign. The true charge
against Bolingbroke is that he was altogether indifferent to the
honour of Britain, and that he debauched public opinion for his own
purposes.

The fact that Britain had many grievances against its allies--against
the Germans for repeated failures to fulfil their engagements--against
the selfish and dilatory proceedings of the Dutch--all these were no
vindication of the policy that Bolingbroke succeeded in imposing on
his country. His instinct, however, told him truly that for the time
being the nation was not in the mood for looking a gift-horse in the
mouth. He knew that his fellow-countrymen would submit to walk
blindfold, providing they were led towards peace; for they were
altogether weary of the war, and they were likewise thoroughly out of
temper with their associates. Bolingbroke was an opportunist of
genius, and he earned the reward which that dubious profession
occasionally bestows upon its most brilliant practitioners--a
temporary success and a lasting obloquy.

There is nothing out of the common in the readiness with which the
British people has sometimes allowed itself to be cajoled by
politicians into neglect or evasion of its debts of honour; for the
practice of all other nations is the same. Not one of them has a
better record than our own, while several have an incomparably worse
one. It is remarkable, however, that there should be such a striking
contrast between the sanctity with which individual Englishmen regard
their private obligations and the levity with which the nation they
belong to occasionally treats its public promises. When danger
threatens, promises of mutual help are exchanged, amid popular
acclamation, with foreign governments, rebel provinces, oppressed
religions, friendly tribes, even with sects or sections of our own
nationals. By and by we may come round to the view that peace on
advantageous terms is the greatest of British interests; and we are
apt, thereupon, to conclude that peace at any price must be the true
interest of our allies and helpers. We are now as lavish of good
advice as formerly we were of promises. Let our good friends realise
the overwhelming force of moral fervour which impels the British
people to put an end to the horrors of war; let them look the facts of
life fairly in the face; let them consider things in their true
proportions, and make what terms they can, each with his own peculiar
enemy. But let it be clearly understood that they may still rely
confidently on our friendship. We will put in a good word for them at
the right season, that is, after we have settled our own much more
important business satisfactorily. And as our good word has a way of
not being spoken until we have shaken hands upon our own bargain with
our late antagonists--as it is only a kind of afterthought or pious
hope, uttered rather perfunctorily, while we are gathering up our
papers and fiddling with the keys of our dispatch-boxes--our newly
placated enemies have rarely any reason to reproach us with
importunacy, though it occasionally happens that our former comrades
derive but little benefit from our intercessions.

Bolingbroke was not the first politician--nor the last, by a long
way--to take advantage of this mood of apathy; but the chapter of
betrayals, which is one of the least edifying in our history, contains
no uglier incident than the abandonment of the Catalonians to the
vengeance of Spain. Nor is there any worse blot upon the national
honour than the baseness that Tory ministers were guilty of during the
campaign of 1712. In April the duke of Ormonde was sent out as
captain-general. By Bolingbroke's secret instructions the war was
allowed to languish, and the enemy commanders were privately warned of
intended attacks by our allies. In May, behind the backs of the
allies, a separate truce was arranged with France, and shortly after
midsummer our shamefaced troops withdrew from their positions.

Ormonde was precisely that type of soldier whom politicians, when they
are engaged in a certain kind of dirty work, will always find
convenient for their purposes. He was a man of unblemished character,
but something of a simpleton. His sense of honour was very keen, but
so restricted that it caused him to regard the whole duty of a soldier
as consisting in personal bravery and unquestioning obedience to
orders. He was an incapable commander, and he was also entirely
ignorant of the diplomatic situation.

The British forces had endured the toils and sufferings of war for
many years, and had stronger reasons than any section of their
fellow-countrymen for desiring peace. But with a victorious army
honour is apt to be the prevalent consideration. They learned of their
recall, not as Bolingbroke had anticipated they would, with joy and
acclamations, but sullenly, with curses and groans. They marched past
the silent ranks of their Dutch and German comrades with none of the
elation of conscripts who have earned their release, but rather with
the dejected air of deserters who are being sent to execution. They
mutinied and were only reduced to obedience by the severest measures.
On their way to the port of embarkation they found the gates of all
the Flemish cities shut contemptuously in their faces, save those of
Bruges and Ghent, where there happened to be British garrisons. Even
the bloody field of Malplaquet[31] was forgotten in the present
disgrace, and of the precedent treachery on the part of their own
government they had as yet no more than a suspicion.

In Flanders the allies, left to bear the full brunt, were defeated;
and not a few of those fortresses that had been taken at so great cost
fell into the hands of the French. The war in Spain, pursued without
faith, energy or discretion, had already ended in disaster. It was
under these unfavourable auspices that negotiations for a general
peace dragged out their slow course at Utrecht.

       *       *       *       *       *

Where antagonists are bound by no truce, it is a dangerous plan for
either of them to reduce his efforts in the field while negotiations
are proceeding. If he has the requisite strength it is much wiser to
redouble the vigour of his attack. But there is a certain weak-kneed
kind of bargainer, who is for ever obsessed with the fear of wounding
the feelings of those with whom he is negotiating. He thinks to soften
his opponents' hearts by abstaining from any action--such as winning a
victory or taking a town--which would be hurtful to them and
beneficial to himself. There is also another kind of bargainer who
sacrifices his natural advantages through an inability to conceal his
eagerness. Such a one will put up the price against himself by letting
it be seen how much his heart is set on obtaining his particular
object, and, at the same time, he will depreciate the value of the
currency he proposes to pay in, by showing how lightly he regards
those points which he is prepared to concede.

Bolingbroke's diplomacy suffered from both these faults. He was too
much of an egotist ever to be able to view the situation either
through the eyes of his adversary or through those of his allies.
Although he made great play with the weapons of simulation and
dissimulation, he handled them without mastery, in a rather
theatrical fashion, and his bargaining was spoiled by the ardour of
his fancy. The French, who troubled themselves very little about the
wounded feelings of other people, pushed forward vigorously as the
efforts of the British gradually slackened and ceased; so that, as the
negotiations spread themselves over month after month, Louis the
Fourteenth found his diplomatic position ever more strongly buttressed
by his military advantages.

It was in January 1712 that representatives of the great European
powers met at Utrecht, and in April of the following year, after
fifteen months of haggling and intrigue, the necessary signatures were
attached to a treaty of peace.

The carrying out, if not the conception, of this treaty was the work
of Bolingbroke. He allowed himself no rest. He digged in London and he
delved at Versailles. Execrated from first to last by the Opposition,
often unaided and at times obstructed by his fellow-ministers, he
urged forward and guided the negotiations with the whole force of his
indefatigable spirit. The credit of the achievement was his, whatever
may be thought of the means he employed or of the value that resulted.
So far as Britain and Holland were concerned, the peace of Utrecht put
an end to the European war[32]; but it could not stem the torrent of
Whig denunciation.

Bolingbroke was superior to all his colleagues, at least in one
quality, for as a rule he knew quite clearly what he meant to do. At
this particular juncture he was determined to free the country from
the entanglements of the Austrian and Dutch alliances, and to make
peace. So far the cabinet was with him, and it seems fairly certain
that the country, broadly speaking, was of the same mind. But with
Bolingbroke himself the attainment of these objects was only a means
to a much greater end. He desired, on the Queen's death, to restore
the Stewarts under guarantees (which he never succeeded in obtaining)
for the security of Protestant worship. He was most anxious at this
period to ingratiate himself with the prince whom he hoped to be the
means of placing on the British throne. When the time for action came,
the success of his policy must depend to a large extent upon the
goodwill of Louis the Fourteenth. The Pretender, like his father
before him, was supported by the munificence of the French king.
Bolingbroke therefore saw the surest way to his goal in considering
with tenderness the interests of this foreign benefactor. Taking all
these considerations into account, it is hardly to be wondered at if
his diplomacy proved more formidable to his allies than to the enemy.

The Whig party agreed in condemning the congress of Utrecht, in crying
shame upon the laggard fashion in which the war was suffered to
collapse while negotiations were proceeding, and in loading the
government with reproaches when the terms of the treaty were at last
made known.

The Whigs contended that it was no time to go out seeking peace; that
the proper course was to continue the war with unabated vigour,
leaving it to the French to sue for mercy when at last they had been
beaten to their knees. But the opportunity for a knock-out blow had
passed, and the Whigs knew full well, that though both sides were in
sore straits, the resources of the allies were too far exhausted, and
those of the enemy too well husbanded, for such an attempt to offer
any prospect of success. Nor were they on firmer ground when they
denounced the results of the agreement as ruinous to British
interests; for, so far as the United Kingdom alone was concerned,
peace would have been acceptable upon conditions less favourable than
those that were actually obtained.

The Whigs, however, had ample justification for their attacks, though,
considering their own record in the matter, it required some
effrontery to make them. The treaty was in some ways a shameful
achievement, notwithstanding the benefits it promised, and Bolingbroke
may justly bear the odium of the negotiations that produced it. But
these negotiations ought never to have come within his province. An
odium, almost as great, though of a different character, should rest
upon his Whig predecessors. Had the government of Marlborough and
Godolphin played the part of statesmen, peace would have been secured
upon honourable and triumphant terms before ever the Tories came into
office. In 1708, after the battle of Oudenarde and the submission of
Flanders, and again during the early part of 1710, Louis had been
prepared to accept peace upon conditions very favourable to the
allies. Disasters had accumulated upon him, his power had sunk to its
lowest ebb, and there were no signs of hope in any quarter. Where
struggles have been fierce and prolonged, whether in warfare, party
politics, trade or litigation, there usually comes a time when the
more prosperous party will be wise to settle with his adversaries;
for unsuspected dangers lurk behind the most smiling appearances.
Every epoch in history shows us disasters that have arisen from the
neglect of this maxim, but none is more often overlooked in the
excitement of success.

The peace negotiations at Geertruidenberg (1710) had broken down over
the fatuously brutal demand of the allies that Louis the Fourteenth
should himself, with his own armies, turn his grandson off the throne
of Spain. Poetic justice might have required this humiliation, for, in
procuring the Spanish crown for that grandson, Louis had been guilty
of a gross breach of faith. But high politics and poetic justice are
the rules of two widely different worlds. Short of taking up arms
himself against Philip the Fifth, the French king, at that time, had
been ready to agree to everything that was asked of him. He had been
prepared to acknowledge the Austrian candidate as the rightful
sovereign of Spain, and he had even offered to pay a monthly subsidy
to defray his enemies' costs in making war upon his own flesh and
blood.

The Whigs and the allies--whether from too great greed, or from
personal ambitions, or from mere pedantry and an attachment to
impossible formulas--had missed the tide. They would not settle when
they might, and the tide turned.

Two years later, when the congress of Utrecht assembled, Bolingbroke
found himself in a less favourable position. As time went on his
plight was turned from bad to worse mainly by his own course of
conduct. He was no match for the French king, who profited not only by
the changed conditions, but also, to the full, by those military
advantages that were offered to him so obligingly by the British
government at the expense of its allies. Louis knew, moreover, from
his emissaries that the ministers of Queen Anne regarded an early
peace as essential to their personal safety.




VI.--_How the Tory government was weakened by the dissensions of
Harley and Bolingbroke_ (1710-1714).


The sweeping victory of the Tory party at the general election of 1710
had secured the government against every form of attack in the House
of Commons. By a bold abuse of the royal prerogative new peers were
created in sufficient numbers to discourage the threatened resistance
of the Lords. But the absence of an effective opposition produced its
usual result, and the rivalry of Harley and Bolingbroke soon gave rise
to serious dissensions.

The temperaments of the Lord Treasurer and the Secretary-of-State were
as unlike as fog and flame. Harley was indolent, timid, and an
opportunist--irresolute even in his opportunism. He was a confused
speaker, had no clear views, would make no plans for the future. He
paid his court by turns in Hanover and at St. Germain; but he could
never come to a final decision between the Protestant Succession and
the restoration of the Stewarts.

Except in his opportunism, Bolingbroke contrasted at all points with
his chief. He was bold and impetuous; his tenacity might waver, but
his energy never flagged; and in spite of his addiction to pleasure,
he was capable of long bouts of the most strenuous industry. He was
the greatest orator of his age, but beyond this he exercised the
indefinable quality of personal predominance that is so rarely found
in conjunction with eloquence.

The characters of these two men were in no sense complementary, which
might have made for union; they were utterly opposed. Each was
engrossed by his personal ambition, and each, with good reason,
suspected the other of treachery. The four years of Tory government
were years of bickering.[33] There could be no hope of harmony in a
cabinet that was distracted by the machinations of two such discordant
spirits. Harley was not master in his own house, nor had Bolingbroke a
free hand in the conduct of foreign policy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gradually, as months went by, the Opposition orators who denounced the
treaty of Utrecht were listened to with increasing attention. Their
presentation of the case contained some legendary features and much
exaggeration. The Whigs themselves figured as the true patriots, whose
sole concern had been for the honour and interests of Britain; the
Tories as perfidious monsters who had betrayed every one except the
Queen's enemies. The public conversion might perhaps have proceeded
even more rapidly if the Whigs had trusted to the forces of human
nature, and had been content to place a somewhat lighter strain upon
the credulity of the nation. For their anxiety to whitewash their own
reputations kept suspicion against them alive, and weakened to some
extent the effect of their denunciations.

There was no novelty in the situation itself, while the theme proper
to the occasion is older than party government. Peace has its
disappointments as well as war, so soon as actual results come to be
compared with the promises of politicians. Blessings had not flowed so
quickly, nor in so bountiful a measure, as people had been led to
expect. Many persons who in 1713 had welcomed the treaty with
enthusiasm were ready in 1714 to accept as a true likeness the picture
that the Opposition was busily engaged in painting of its deformities.
It was not long before the most unfavourable presentment passed into
currency. It was picturesque and consistent; unfair, but not
altogether untrue. Submission to a defeated enemy--the abandonment of
the fruits of Marlborough's victories--the treacherous desertion of
allies--the sacrifice of the Catalonian peasantry to the vengeance of
Spain--these were accusations that wounded the pride and lay heavy
upon the conscience of the nation. People were easily persuaded, when
it was too late, that peace had been bought at the price of public
dishonour and private corruption. It was a mortifying thought that
Louis the Fourteenth should have escaped a just retribution; that he
should have regained by a diplomatic success nearly everything that he
had lost through the failure of his arms; to crown all, that his
grandson, despite all the efforts of the allies to get rid of him,
should remain firmly seated on the throne of Spain. The war had been
waged to abate the power of the Bourbons, yet the Bourbons still
reigned over Western Europe from the Straits of Dover to the Straits
of Gibraltar.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Tory party, however, listened with less dismay to this storm
outside than to its own internal rumblings. Private members, for the
most part, were reluctant to engage with either leader. For this
reason the dissensions of Harley and Bolingbroke produced no very
serious cleavage among the rank and file, but served rather to huddle
them together, like sheep, in a union of mistrust. For neither of
these ministers commanded that unreasoning affection and absolute
confidence which are the hall-marks of consummate leadership. People
were inclined to look on both men critically. Some were more perturbed
by the deficiencies of the Lord Treasurer. He was supine, and seemed
to hesitate at a time when every one could see that a storm was
gathering. Others again looked with more suspicion on the
Secretary-of-State. His brilliancy cast doubts upon his judgement. His
rise had been too easy; he was too masterful, too swift for safety.
Already he seemed to alarm some natural instinct that warns mankind
against an unreliable protector. The question, therefore, was not
which of these two rivals deserved to be rewarded with the highest
post, but which of them might be likely to show himself the less
dangerous pilot in a very ticklish bit of navigation. Harley was the
sort of man who would drift past opportunity on the tide; while
Bolingbroke might be apt to run his boat upon the rocks without
waiting for a landing-place. On the whole, however, the general
disposition appeared to be in favour of Bolingbroke, who had this to
recommend him, that he was obviously in a run of luck.

The Tory party was very much in the dark as to matters of high policy,
nor was it by any means unwilling to be left in that condition. Where
knowledge might be dangerous, the ordinary politician had no desire
to be taken fully into confidence. It was no mystery, however, that,
owing to the Queen's ill-health, the question of the succession had
become urgent. Was the Act of Settlement to stand, or were the
Stewarts to be restored?

While most Tories would probably have acknowledged in their hearts a
sentimental preference for James the Third as against the Electress
Sophia of Hanover and her son, the majority were unable to believe
that an attempt to overturn the Protestant Succession would have any
reasonable chance of success. After a revolution that had been
followed by a quarter of a century of foreign wars the country was
longing for peace and quietness. The spirit of conservatism was
everywhere in the ascendant. When the Queen died her place must of
course be filled; but let it be filled by that claimant whose
accession would cause the least disturbance. Most Tories, like most
other people, were inclined to think that there would be an avoidance
of trouble in taking their king from Hanover as the law prescribed.
There had been no opportunity as yet for leading them to think
otherwise. If Bolingbroke had been free to carry on the education of
his party in his own way, it is not improbable that the Tories might,
during the past four years, have been brought round to the view, that
the restoration of the Stewarts would be a less hazardous and
revolutionary proceeding than the introduction of a German prince, who
had not troubled himself to learn a word of the English language, and
who had hitherto appeared to be entirely indifferent to the interests
and sentiments of his future subjects.

By those who looked to politics for their living the question of the
succession was regarded in a somewhat different light. With the
professional politicians of the Tory party the choice of a monarch was
not so much a matter of principle as of personal interest. The supreme
consideration was, that whatever king might sit upon the throne, he
should feel his elevation to be due to themselves, and that he should
requite their services in the customary fashion. The important thing,
therefore, was to discover the likeliest winner, and to take the
necessary steps for securing his victory and his favour. But this was
the cabinet's business. The less underlings and subordinates meddled
in the matter, the safer their necks would be in the event of failure.
The trouble, however, was, that the chief ministers were obviously not
attending to their duties. The leaders were at loggerheads, and the
greater part of their energy was taken up in intriguing one against
the other. A prophetic instinct warned the Tory party of approaching
disaster.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Masham was the pivot of rival intrigues. She was flattered by her
kinsman, but she was bribed by his adversary. In the end she was taken
with the heavier bait.

Some fifteen months after the peace of Utrecht--on the 27th of July
1714--Queen Anne, the sixth and last of the Stewart sovereigns of
England, had the shock of listening to an altercation between her Lord
Treasurer and her Secretary-of-State which lasted until two o'clock on
the following morning. Before the council broke up, Harley had been
dismissed, and Bolingbroke was designated his successor. But within a
few hours the Queen was reported ill, and four days later she died of
an apoplexy.

The difficulties of this surprising situation might well have defeated
a man of cooler judgement and firmer courage than Bolingbroke. Was
there, in fact, any move that could have saved him from check-mate? To
begin with, he was only minister-designate; he had never been formally
confirmed in his new office, an omission that did him some prejudice
before the end. His darling project was to bring in the Pretender on
the demise of the Queen; but the emergency had arisen and nothing was
in readiness. There had been no time as yet to familiarise the
country, or the Tory party, or even his own particular friends with
the not unattractive prospect of escape from the Hanoverian dynasty.
And James Stewart had, so far, refused categorically to change his
religion or even to give any satisfactory guarantees for the security
of the Protestant religion. Harley's disgrace rankled in the bosoms of
his many friends. For the time being, the vigour of the whole party
was reduced below normal, being affected by the recent schism in much
the same way as the human body is affected by a surgical operation. It
was beyond reason to expect that wounded feelings could be healed and
co-operation restored in little more than half a week. And there was
this further difficulty, that measures which appeared to be essential
supposing the Queen's illness were to take a fatal turn, might very
likely bring about the dismissal of the whole cabinet if she
recovered.

The simplest explanation is probably the best, that Bolingbroke had
not a notion what to do; and certainly, having regard to the game he
had been playing, this is hardly to be wondered at. He faltered; made
overtures of a vague sort to the Opposition; asked Walpole and some
others to dinner, but when they arrived had nothing to propose.

The Whig leaders were on the alert; they forced their way into the
Privy Council; the dying Queen was induced to place the Lord
Treasurer's staff in the hands of the duke of Shrewsbury; and so soon
as she had breathed her last, the heralds proclaimed King George the
First in due form.

A few days earlier Bolingbroke had reached the summit of his ambition.
He was now swept from power, before he had had time even to form his
cabinet. "Harley was removed on Tuesday," he wrote to Swift: "the
Queen died on Sunday! What a world is this, and how does fortune
banter us!" The French envoy, by his own account, was assured by
Bolingbroke that six weeks of power would have enabled him to bring
about a second Restoration. We may believe that this boast was made,
and that it was made in good faith; for it is in keeping with
Bolingbroke's habit of rash miscalculation. We cannot believe,
however, in the possibility of its fulfilment. For some time past the
Whigs had been aware of the danger that was threatening the Protestant
Succession. They had watched the cashiering of loyal officers and the
appointment of Jacobites in their place. Their leaders had already
taken various precautions. A formidable organisation had been created
under General Stanhope, who was a soldier as well as a statesman of
first-rate abilities, and supplies of arms were ready for a
counter-stroke.




VII.--_How, owing to the want of a leader with a clear policy, the
Tory party failed to take advantage of its opportunities, either in
Opposition or in office_ (1708-1714).


In judging Bolingbroke and his contemporaries, we have to remember
that they lived in an age of plots and restorations, exiles and
executions. Conspiracies and treacheries are hatched out of one and
the same clutch. None of the prominent public characters, as they
looked forward to a new reign, could ever be quite certain of
retaining their employments, their fortunes, or even their heads. It
is in human nature to consider the future, and while things remain in
so unsettled a condition, statesmen who are not mere visionaries will
find their advantage in policies of insurance and reinsurance.

To Cromwell's legislature, which presented its Humble Petition and
Advice,[34] that covenant doubtless appeared as final and obligatory
(and all attempts to overturn it as traitorous) as did the Act of
Settlement[35] to the parliament of William the Third that placed it
on the statute-book. But the earlier of these two undertakings had
been broken without exciting the abhorrence of mankind; why then
should the later engagement be regarded as possessing a superior
sanctity? When the Restoration ended the Cromwellian tyranny, the
whole nation shouted for joy. Would there be less rejoicing if a
second Restoration were to bar the door against a German usurpation?

The Tories in the reign of Anne were strong in numbers and in the
spirit of discontent. The powerful organisation of the Church of
England was at their command. The sympathies of the Queen herself were
with them. At one time and another the wind of popularity blew
strongly in their favour. But these advantages availed them little,
because they never had any clear idea where they were going to. Having
no leader, their policy upon the main issue--the succession to the
crown--was never settled and declared.

The brilliancy of Bolingbroke's genius could not make up for his
incapacity to see things simply and in their true proportions. He was
wanting also in the qualities of a man of business--in patience,
tenacity and common sense. Nor was he one of those polar characters
who draw mankind to them in the mass. A successful party leader must
be free from doubts and hesitations as to the line he means to follow.
He may not always decide to go the way which his own judgement would
select; but, at least, he must possess the gift of divining the
direction in which his followers will most readily consent to travel.
And, having fixed upon his goal, he must keep moving always towards
it. It was for want of such a leader that the Tories came to ruin.

When a party finds itself in a predicament of this sort, it is easily
persuaded into neglecting the chief business, in order to engage in
little opportunist raids and sallies which, even if successful, can
never lead to any permanent advantage. At the beginning--after the
coronation of William and Mary--it had seemed altogether hopeless to
undo the Revolution by an immediate counter-stroke. The wisdom of this
conclusion cannot be challenged. But at a later date the Tories were
persuaded to acquiesce in more dubious pretexts for inaction and
delay. After all, they argued, was not William the husband of a
Stewart queen? And did not another daughter of James the Second stand
next in order of succession? A not too fastidious loyalty might surely
find excuses for allegiance in the fact that the royal line was still
unbroken. When Anne drew near her end, it would be time enough to
begin thinking seriously of the future; but to meddle prematurely in a
matter of so much delicacy might be construed as an act of disrespect
towards the reigning sovereign.

When Queen Anne died, a Tory government had been in office for four
years, and more than a quarter of a century had passed since William
landed at Torbay; but up to the last moment, no decision had been
taken upon the vital issue, whether or not the Act of Settlement
should be allowed to stand, whether the next king to be crowned at
Westminster should be George the First or James the Third. It seems
not unlikely that the Tories would have had the greater part of the
nation behind them had they declared betimes and boldly against the
pretensions of a German sovereign and in favour of the exiled
Stewarts. But though the Whigs may have been in a minority, they had
leaders who knew their own minds. The Tories, who had no such leaders,
had been wandering round for years in circles of irrelevant effort,
until they had come to be almost as much distrusted at St. Germain as
they were in Hanover.

The activities of the Tory party during the second half of Queen
Anne's reign make a strange record of random endeavour. The historian
looks in vain for any dominant purpose, for any thread of consistency
in their various enterprises. They blew hot and cold, and seemed to
have lost their self-respect in a general bewilderment and crumbling
down of principles.

While they remained in opposition the Tories entered into secret
correspondence with the Queen's enemies, bewailed the successes of her
arms, and did their utmost, by their intrigues and propaganda, to
destroy the national energy and to sow suspicion at court, in
parliament and among the people. They opposed, even at the crisis of
the great war, any form of compulsory service that would have
superseded the odious injustice of the press-gang, and fallen with
something like equality upon the general community. They sought, by
obstructing the Mutiny Bill and by other acts and incitements, to
break down the discipline of the army. During the campaigns of
Marlborough they were never tired of depreciating his military and his
diplomatic capacity, belittling his victories, calumniating his
humanity, aspersing his courage. They gave comfort to a party in
Ireland which aimed at separation.

When at last the Tories came into power, they showed their reverence
for the constitution by swamping the House of Lords with new
creations, in order to overcome its opposition to those negotiations
with France that have been already considered. They professed an
ambiguous approval of the Protestant Succession and at the same time a
dubious attachment to the exiled Stewarts. Under the leadership of
Bolingbroke, a rakish free-thinker, they posed noisily as the
champions of the Church of England, and showed themselves zealous
oppressors of Dissent. They aimed at abolishing the Navigation Acts
and uprooting the Protective system, in order that they might depress
the monied interest that supported the Whigs, and thereby restore the
influence of the country gentlemen whom they regarded as their own
mainstay. When they had brought about Marlborough's downfall, they
heaped insults on him and pursued him with charges of peculation that
were put forward insincerely; for those things which they alleged
against him as corruption were merely the perquisites of his office,
according to the system prevailing at that time. The system itself
they did not proceed to change or abolish, although their victory gave
them power to do so; on the contrary, they maintained it unaltered for
the enrichment of their own adherents. They professed the most
high-flown sentiments, enjoyed the fruits of a flagrant corruption,
and advanced the project of a Stewart restoration by not one single
hair's-breadth. Posterity may be grateful to these busy politicians
for their failure, but it will not withhold its contempt for the
manner in which they threw their game away.

     NOTE.--We may look for agreement between the various sects of
     Christendom almost as soon as for an accepted verdict on the
     career and character of Bolingbroke. In this preliminary
     chapter more has not been attempted than to offer a rough
     sketch of his character as a young man, and of the earlier and
     more famous period of his career. Mr. Whibley's sympathetic
     appreciation (_Political Portraits_, Second Series) may wisely
     be taken as a corrective to the unfavourable view presented
     here. But to the present writer Mr. Whibley's brilliant study
     of a patriot minister seems to fit the character of Bolingbroke
     almost as uneasily as Bolingbroke's description of a 'Patriot
     King' fitted the character of Frederick, Prince of Wales. For a
     condensed statement of the hostile view the reader may consult
     _The Political History of England_ (vol. ix. caps 9 to 12) by
     Mr. I. S. Leadam, who roundly accuses Bolingbroke of numerous
     acts of perfidy to the allies; of provocations and false
     representations intended to force them to denounce the
     alliance; of going behind the backs of his colleagues; of
     imposition on the Queen in the matter of the Spanish treaty; of
     personal corruption in collusion with Lady Masham and his
     friend Moore, an undeniable crook; of vindictiveness to his
     opponents; and of timidity where his own safety was concerned.
     Compare also Lord Stanhope's _History_, vol. i. cap. 1; and the
     appendix to vol. i. I take this opportunity of making a general
     acknowledgement of my debt to Lord Stanhope, whose work, from
     first to last, has helped me more than that of any other
     authority.




                              BOOK THREE

                       STANHOPE AND SUNDERLAND
                             (1714-1721)


I.--_How George I. left Hanover reluctantly and came to England with
misgivings_ (1714).

In 1714, when it came to a decision, George Lewis,[36] Elector of
Hanover, was of two minds about accepting the British crown. It was no
doubt a fine thing to be turned on a sudden into a great sovereign,
the equal in rank, the superior in fortune, of his own Emperor, whose
supercilious and grudging favours had been bought with so much
deference, assiduity and complaisance, with so much hard and sturdy
service, by two generations of the House of Brunswick. But, on the
other hand, like most men who have worked hard to better their
fortunes, George enjoyed with a much keener relish those things which
had been won slowly, by his father's efforts and his own, than the
prospect of a more splendid inheritance that had fallen to him by a
series of accidents.

For more than sixty years the princes of Hanover had been doing very
well for themselves in Germany. Gradually, by virtue of their family
treaties and arrangements, by their contracts of marriage and their
self-denying ordinances of celibacy, the parcelled territories of
their House had been reunited under a single sway. This modest
aggrandisement had all come about during George Lewis's own lifetime.
As heir-apparent, and afterwards as reigning duke, he had watched the
Hanoverian dominions joining themselves together, like lakes and pools
when the floods are out, spreading across the plains which lie between
the rivers Ems and Elbe, encroaching upon the intermediate basin of
the Weser, stretching out to the shores of the North Sea, pressing
against Oldenburg, and threatening before long to overflow the coveted
duchies of Bremen and Werden.

This expansion of territory had been accompanied by a corresponding
increase in the ducal dignity and importance. Ernest Augustus, the
father of George Lewis, was a rough fellow, but one who always knew
very well what he wanted. He did what it behoved him to do in support
of the Empire, and he was ever busy and importunate in claiming his
reward. Hanoverian troops fought for the Habsburg emperor against the
Turks and against Louis the Fourteenth. George Lewis was only fifteen
when he was sent to the wars. His courage was conspicuous, and he soon
proved himself a capable commander. Such services as these deserved a
recompense. Ernest Augustus reached the first object of his ambition
in 1692 when he was nominated by the Emperor to serve for life as an
Elector. He lived for another six years to enjoy his new dignity and
the envy of his rivals.

George Lewis was given electoral rank within a year of his accession.
On the death of his father-in-law in 1705, his military strength was
doubled and his political importance greatly increased by the
inheritance of Zell. In due course his son and heir, George
Augustus,[37] a dapper little gentleman, went forth to fight for the
Emperor, and covered himself with glory at the battle of Oudenarde. In
the same year Hanover was formally raised to the position of a
hereditary electorate. The dish of triumph was pleasantly seasoned
with the angry protests of the Electoral College, whose members were
jealous of any addition to their number, and also with the envious
complainings of those who still sighed in vain for the coveted honour.
Two years later George Lewis was created hereditary Arch-Treasurer of
the Empire. Kingship, the penultimate goal of a German prince's
ambition, was now distant but a single stage.[38] His neighbour of
Brandenburg had shown only a few years earlier (1701) how easily a
powerful Elector might put a crown upon his head, without waiting for
the permission of any one. And who would venture to compare the
strategic, political or economic possibilities of the Prussian waste,
stretching eastward to the swamps and snows of Muscovy, with that of
the fertile rolling country that lay westward between Hanover and the
North Sea, and was opened to the commerce of the world by the
navigable estuaries of three great rivers? Surely the fortunes of the
House of Brunswick were in prosperous case; nor could any man be
certain that at some future election a king of Hanover might not be
chosen to fill the Imperial throne.

Despite his few drops of Stewart blood George Lewis was a German
without alloy. The incense that savoured most sweetly in his nostrils
was the admiration and the envy of his fellow-Germans. To extend the
confines of his state, to gain new subjects, to increase their
prosperity and his own revenues, to become one of the leading princes
of the Empire--these were his dearest ambitions. But he preferred to
move at a sober pace; took a sedate pleasure in climbing the ladder of
greatness step by step; and even if he could have swung himself or
vaulted upwards like an acrobat, he would have scorned a method of
uprising so inconsonant with his notions of regal dignity. He could
not altogether ignore the existence of the world that lay outside the
sacred German circle--a world of novel expedients and mushroom
fortunes--but he looked on it with unfriendly and distrustful eyes.
The outer nations--Turks, French, Dutch, English and the rest--were
only worthy of serious consideration in so far as their enmity might
become a danger or their alliance a support to the Holy Roman Empire.

Sophia, the Electress-dowager, survived her husband, Ernest Augustus,
for sixteen years. She may well have marvelled at her son's
phlegmatic unconcern about the British succession. He might indeed
have been a changeling, so little did he inherit from her of looks,
tastes or character. In her beauty, her lively and gracious manners,
her keen intelligence, her knowledge of the languages and affairs of
European nations, above all in her love of England and interest in its
customs and traditions, she offered a striking contrast to the heavy
and unattractive person, the unengaging address, the sparse
accomplishments and the apparent indifference of George Lewis to the
glorious destiny that awaited him. The high and ancient lineage of the
Guelphs counted to her for little in comparison with her Stewart
ancestry. After the revolution of 1688 her sympathies were with the
exiled king. After the death of James the Second she corresponded
freely with her young cousin the Pretender, and pity for his
misfortunes kept her for some years a Jacobite. When the Act of
Settlement was under consideration, she is said to have begged King
William to leave her and her family out of the succession. But as she
neared her end, she prayed, with a romantic and pardonable ambition,
that her life might be lengthened, if only for a single day, in order
that she might die Queen of England and be buried at Westminster--'in
my own country.'[39]

Westminster Abbey meant nothing to George Lewis. His own tranquil
little capital--in shape like a large cocked-hat, folded and laid flat
on its side across the river Leine--was more to him than all the
cities of the earth. If he could properly be said to love anything
(not being a man of very ardent emotions) that thing was Hanover with
its surroundings:--the mediæval town of narrow, curving, crowded
streets; the recent and much-admired additions in the French taste;
the fine new palace of Herrenhausen, at a short drive's distance, with
its formal gardens, glades, fountains, statues, vistas, avenues and
parks. Here he reigned and ruled, unaccountable to any parliament,
unlimited by any constitution that he could not change at will; a
grand monarch in miniature, fully appointed. Here he had his Old
Palace where the privy council met, his Colleges of Government, his
Courts of Justice, his Mint, his Royal Library, his Printing House,
Arsenal, military Riding Academy (the finest in all Germany), Parade
Ground, Pump Room, Guildhall, churches of various denominations and a
synagogue for the Jews. And encircling this small city (considerably
less populous than Windsor is to-day) there were walls with cannon
mounted on them; stone-works, earth-works and water-works; bastions,
ramparts and strategic canals; all the paraphernalia of scientific
defence. In these things he took as much delight as Captain Shandy did
in the systems of fortification, hardly less impregnable, which he
constructed on his bowling-green with the assistance of Corporal Trim.

George, however, had an army which, though it was of no great size and
almost as formal as his parterres and flower-beds, was still no
plaything, but staunch and gallant when it came to push of pike or
bayonet. He had also not far short of a million subjects who were
thrifty and, upon the whole, thriving.[40] For, unlike most of those
despotic princelings who flourished during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, he continued to enjoy both show and substance of
royalty without embarrassing his revenues or overtaxing his realm. He
was a model of punctual economy, not only in the ordering of his civil
and military establishments, but also in the regulation of his
personal expenditure. On Saturday evenings he examined and paid his
household bills. His officers of ceremony, of state and of the army,
his courtiers and his dames, his men of learning and his servants,
were content with wages and occasional gifts which would certainly not
be considered adequate by the staff of a small country bank in England
or Scotland at the present day. His mistresses, though numerous, cost
him very little by the year: not more than a hundred or two pounds
apiece, with, of course, their board and lodging, and small Court
appointments for their husbands or brothers. Whatever his faults may
have been, the Elector of Hanover was no oppressor, no spendthrift.
Nor was he in any sense a miser, like his son who came after him. This
at least may be placed to his credit--in that country where he was his
own master and his people's, where he was seen closely and best
understood, he enjoyed a high degree of respect and popularity.
Neither the ignorant and grinning insolence of a London mob nor the
sneers and epigrams of smart society are worth much as evidence
against the character of a foreign prince who is brought into England
as consort or king.

Hanover had found a caste system appropriate to its needs. Everything
there was on a petty scale, but most things worked smoothly. The
internal economy of the electorate was at peace. There were no
powerful nobles or angry factions who led their sovereign a troubled
existence, begging of him and bullying him by turns. The bickering and
jealousy of courtiers produced occasionally some mild disturbance, but
the Elector had only to signify his favour or displeasure and the
contest ended. From this vale of Avalon George Lewis was called away
to rule over the most turbulent and discontented people in civilised
Europe. The little that he had seen of Britain was not encouraging.
What he had heard of it at second-hand was even less so. Its
inhabitants were not orderly and docile, like the Hanoverians, but for
ever chafing and encroaching. There was no end to the wrangling of
political cliques, who would admit no peace-maker--not even the King.
The nobles were rich, rapacious and corrupt; but it was necessary to
buy their support, and a thrifty German was staggered by the price. It
shocked the business sense of George Lewis that persons who aspired to
fill the great offices of state had received no regular education to
fit them for the various employments which they sought. They were not
trained professionals as in Hanover--omniscient, industrious and
obedient--but a predatory caste of partisans, self-interested
adventurers--idle, ignorant and unscrupulous--who scrimmaged for the
King's confidence without the smallest regard for his security or
peace of mind. The spirit which had sent Charles the First to the
scaffold and James the Second into exile was not dead. It had inspired
the eloquence of political writers to formulate a set of doctrines by
no means comforting to kings. When George Lewis accepted the British
crown, he consoled himself with the reflection that he had perhaps
less to fear than another; for, as he remarked grimly, 'the
king-killers are all on my side.'

When a well-to-do middle-aged gentleman learns that he has come into
an inheritance in some foreign land, he will usually experience a glow
of satisfaction. But when he sits down to consider how troublesome the
administration of his new possession is likely to prove; how it will
oblige him to turn out of his comfortable home; nay more, that in
order to establish his title he may find himself involved in
litigation that may bring him to bankruptcy in the end--as he
meditates upon these things in a cool hour, his second thoughts are
apt to be less cheerful than his first. On one point the mind of
George Lewis was firmly made up--come what might, he would not be
dragged into a lawsuit. In other words, he would never go to war to
make good his pretensions to the British crown. He was neither a
William the Conqueror nor a William of Orange. His stolid ambition had
no more affinity with the fierce ardour of the one than it had with
the cold and inflexible policy of the other, whose eyes never lifted
for a moment from the game that was playing on the chess-board of
Europe. Had there been any strong popular demonstration in England
against the Hanoverian succession--had Bolingbroke had longer time, or
better luck, or a stouter heart--the Elector would have remained
quietly in Hanover and left the Whigs and Tories to fight it out among
themselves. In that event it is hardly likely that the British crown
would ever have passed to the Brunswick line.

The movements of George Lewis, on hearing of his cousin's death, were
deliberate. He made no indecent haste. It was more than six weeks
after his accession before he landed in England.

For some years past he had taken reasonable--but no more than
reasonable--precautions to safeguard his interests. He had kept an
agent in London with instructions how to act in certain eventualities.
His relations had been reserved and circumspect, alike with the Tory
government and with the Whig opposition. He had rigorously abstained
from anything which could be construed as interference in British
affairs. His friendliness towards the Whigs, his distrust of the
Tories--supposing him to have entertained such feelings--had been kept
strictly within bounds. He had seemed to seek no confidences and had
shown no favours. The Whigs were far more eager to bring him into
England than he himself was to come there.

But when the King's agent in London made public his instructions, it
was clear that the Tory administration was at an end. Its supporters
in both Houses were quick to change their allegiance. Bolingbroke was
dismissed at the end of August with strong marks of disfavour. Through
the ensuing reign and the next--a period of nearly fifty years--the
Whig families held a monopoly of power.




II.--_Concerning the chief ministers in the first administration of
George I._ (1714-1721).


Although Marlborough, until his death in 1722, had the honour of being
included in every cabinet, his vigour had failed and he was distrusted
by the King. The restoration of his honours was unaccompanied by any
real influence, so that in the new reign he hardly counted for more
than a figure of state.

The ministers who, in fluctuating measure, possessed most power
during the six critical years that followed the accession of George
the First were Viscount Townshend, General Stanhope, Robert Walpole
and the Earl of Sunderland.

According to modern notions the country was in somewhat youthful
hands. The King, when he arrived in England, was still in vigorous
middle-age; Walpole, the youngest of his chief advisers, was only
thirty-eight, and Stanhope, the eldest, no more than forty-one.

The hardest and most urgent business of the new ministers was to make
the throne secure for an alien and unacceptable dynasty. As a means to
this end it was essential to keep the European peace. Changed
conditions had spun the wheel of policy in a half-circle. The rank and
file of the Whig party, who had so recently been encouraged by their
leaders to shout themselves hoarse against the treaty of Utrecht and
the suggestion of a French alliance, were a good deal puzzled to find
themselves now engaged in upholding the one and in running after the
other.

Although there were no prime ministers in those days, there was
usually one member of the cabinet whose will predominated. To begin
with, it was Townshend[41] who exercised the chief influence. His
honesty stood above reproach; but his natural intelligence was not of
a high order, his judgement was bad, and his vision of the European
situation remained always obscure.

The honest gentleman of middling wits who conceives himself to be a
Machiavelli is not an unknown figure in public life. Townshend comes
under this description. He seems never to have had the smallest
suspicion of his own deficiencies; but showed a great contempt for
knaves and adventurers, and was in consequence outwitted by them.
Credulous, hasty and downright, he valued himself nevertheless upon
his subtlety, and sought to contrive the most elaborate combinations
and to travel by the most circuitous paths. Although his energy was
unquestionable, his work was usually in arrears. In spite of
everything, however, his robust faith in himself, the confidence which
his uprightness inspired in others, and his relationship with Walpole,
whose sister he had married, gave him a prominence to which the
mediocrity of his talents would never have entitled him.

[Illustration: _James, First Earl Stanhope_

_from the picture in the National Portrait Gallery_

_Painter unknown_]

Stanhope[42] was neither a good party-leader nor a sagacious
parliamentarian, and he abhorred everything that had to do with the
national accounts. He showed a choleric temper in debate, and
remained, until the last hours of his life, the easy victim of
opponents who sought to ruffle his composure by reflections on his
honour. He was a brave and able soldier with victories to his credit.
He succeeded much better in diplomacy than with the House of
Commons; and the reason of his success is the measure of his contrast
with Townshend. For, unlike his colleague, Stanhope had an intuitive
perception of the workings of other people's minds; he took infinite
pains to make himself master of his subject, and at the council-table
he was usually as patient and courteous as on the floor of the House
of Commons he was the reverse.

There is no special mystery attaching to negotiations between
governments. They proceed upon the same fundamental principles that
affect other business dealings where the object is to reconcile a
conflict of interests. A plain man, of good natural judgement, need
not fear the issue if he will be content to avoid subtlety and to rely
upon his own firmness of purpose against the over-refinements of
knaves, jugglers and technical experts. Such a one was Stanhope. As
secretary-of-state, in charge of foreign affairs, he was happy and
successful; but when promoted to be First Lord of the Treasury and
Chancellor of the Exchequer he had no peace, and begged in the
following year to be restored to his old position.

He was a man of the world, of perfect integrity both in his political
conduct and in all pecuniary concerns. His private life was not
distinguished for its strictness. In his earlier days he had been on
intimate terms with the duke of Orleans and his familiar, the Abbé
Dubois, which, if not a certificate of virtue, had certain advantages
when the time came for negotiating a French alliance. If Stanhope was
no puritan, at least he was a faithful servant of his country.

At the accession of George the First, and for many years after, the
importance of a minister was determined much more by the King's favour
than by the voice of parliament or of the people. Walpole[43] did not
enjoy the confidence of his sovereign from the beginning, but only
conquered it by slow degrees--gaining at first--then losing in a few
months more than he had won in as many years--arriving at his object
in the end upon a wave of singular good luck. For the delay of his
fortunes his own factious and unpatriotic conduct must bear more blame
than the royal prejudice. The trouble with him was that he must always
be first; there was no trusting him in any other capacity. As a
subordinate, or as the colleague of equals, his spirit knew no peace,
nor would it leave in peace those under whom or with whom he served.
He was incomparably the best parliamentarian of his time. He had a
firmer grasp of the principles of national finance than any other
politician. His abilities must have brought strength to any government
had it not been for his character, which made it quite as dangerous to
have him in the cabinet as it was to leave him in opposition.

Sunderland,[44] the unamiable son of an untrustworthy father, was the
second of his name to play an important rôle in public affairs.
Almost the only thing which can heartily be set down to his credit is
that he loved books and collected a wonderful library. He was that not
unfamiliar type of cross-grained aristocrat, who affects republican
fashions and an ostentatious contempt for titles, not because he
believes in the equality of mankind, or because he desires to raise
those of humbler station to his own level, but merely for the reason
that he cannot tolerate the existence of any superiority to himself.
Sunderland's ideal was a Venetian council, the members of which,
though nominally equal, should bow down to his authority. His
abilities, however, though considerable, were quite inadequate to
support such pretensions. He was no dæmonic force, like Walpole, but
only a fruitless intriguer, who upset governments and made a great
deal of mischief in the world, without ever being able to bring much
grist to his own mill. His stratagems were too often successful; yet
his own career was something of a failure, clouded in its later years
with disgrace. When his efforts with the King brought about the
dismissal and resignation of his rivals, the only profit to himself
was the humiliation of people whom he envied. His own achievements are
not numbered among the splendours of British statesmanship. Yet his
self-complacency--if we may use this term of so fretful and
ill-natured a man--was such that, even to the outcast end of his life,
he believed no ministry could be stable which lacked his support. The
greatest danger which arose from his perpetual interferences was due
to the fact that he never lost the King's ear.




III.--_How Bolingbroke fled to France and was attainted of treason_
(1715).


In the month that intervened between the death of Anne and the
dismissal of her ministers, Bolingbroke had enough time for the
destruction or removal of any papers that might compromise his
character in the eyes of the new dynasty. He hastened to swear
allegiance, and seems at the beginning to have entertained a hope that
King George might reinstate him in office. Even after this illusion
was dispelled, he bore himself for some considerable time as one who
regards the future with equanimity. But early in the following
year[45] the papers of two men who had enjoyed his closest confidence
were seized by government. Lord Strafford had been one of the British
representatives at the congress of Utrecht. Matthew Prior had managed
negotiations in Paris, where he remained in charge of British
interests for some months after the Queen's death. When Lord Stair
succeeded him as envoy and took over the archives, there arose a
sudden rumour that Prior had decided to tell all he knew. The story
was false; but various occurrences gave colour to it, and Bolingbroke
appears to have believed that his private confidences with a
subordinate would shortly be at the disposal of his enemies. The
French ambassador in London reported him as being much perturbed, and
as talking rather wildly of prisons and axes.

On the twenty-second of March 1715 Bolingbroke made his last speech in
the House of Lords. It was a bold defence of his foreign policy
against a ministerial resolution that censured it by implication. His
amendment was defeated. The majority of two to one against him
included many peers who had been obsequious supporters of the late
administration in the days of its prosperity, but who were now in a
hurry to ingratiate themselves by a public condemnation of its acts.
While this debate was proceeding, worse things were happening in the
Commons. Amidst fierce expressions of approval, ministers announced
that an enquiry would be held forthwith into the conduct of their
predecessors. Two matters would receive special consideration:--Had
the British captain-general (the duke of Ormonde) received secret
instructions to concert measures with the enemy commander-in-chief
(Marshal Villars) behind the backs of our allies and while war was
still in progress?--On what grounds had the Pretender claimed in a
recently issued manifesto that for some time prior to Queen Anne's
death he had had reason to count upon her goodwill?--A few days later
the whole town became aware that Prior, newly returned from Paris, had
dined with the leading members of government in apparent amity, and
had been afterwards examined by a committee of the Privy Council. On
the twenty-eighth of the same month Bolingbroke crossed the channel,
disguised as courier to the French official messenger.

Harley has not been overpraised because he stayed to face his trial;
but Bolingbroke's danger was much greater than Harley's. He was hated
by the Whigs as no other Tory at that time was hated. Against Harley
the evidence of treason was nil: he had kept his own secrets with
commendable discretion. The nature of his younger colleague was less
guarded. Harley, as the head of government, could be held responsible
for the terms of the Utrecht treaty, and generally for the policy
which led up to it; but it was notorious that, for some time past, the
two ministers had been on bad terms, that Bolingbroke had been pulling
away from his chief and seeking to play an independent part. He had
kept the negotiations in his own hands so far as he was able to do so.
Ormonde's instructions to act treacherously to the allies had been
given to him in secrecy by Bolingbroke, none of whose fellow-ministers
had been taken into confidence. The secretary-of-state had
deliberately kept his colleagues, including Harley, in the dark, and
now they were quick to realise that present advantages could be drawn
from the treatment they had so much resented in the past. If there
should be a series of impeachments it was more than likely that
Bolingbroke might find himself the scapegoat of the Tory party.

Not only Bolingbroke's departure, but the haste and manner of it, did
him much harm which a more considerate course of action would have
avoided. He fled precipitately at an angry growl, on a vague threat,
before he was actually accused of anything. As yet it had not even
been decided to impeach him. The House of Commons committee had hardly
begun its preliminary enquiry; and many weeks had yet to pass before
its report was laid before Parliament; many more weeks before the
charges against him were formulated in a bill of attainder. It is hard
to say for certain whether his blunder was a temporary aberration--a
mere error of judgement--or one of those illuminating disasters which
discover at a flash some fatal, but hitherto unsuspected, weakness in
a man's character. The excuses he offered at the time do not carry
conviction. His statement that the necessity of concerting his defence
with Harley, whom he hated, would have caused him too much disgust,
seems petulant; and although he said truly enough that he would have
no chance of a fair trial before a hostile House of Lords, there was a
higher court to which his appeal would certainly be carried. Public
opinion had little sympathy with his accusers, and would not have
tolerated a judgement of the Peers which was flagrantly unjust.

Had Bolingbroke stayed to face his accusers, it is not beyond belief
that he might have been borne out of danger on a wave of popularity
much less unreasoning than that which, six years earlier, had carried
Sacheverell in triumph. He had the advantage of his enemies at several
points. Sympathy would have been felt for one who was set upon by a
host of enemies. The facts against him which the managers of the
impeachment laid in due course before the House of Lords (and it may
be presumed that they kept nothing back), would have seemed very thin
and unconvincing, not only to the mob, but to most fair-minded men,
had not his flight created a presumption of treason.[46]

Where the evidence against Bolingbroke was strongest, public interest
was weakest. People were sick of hearing about the treaty of Utrecht.
It had become a party cry of tiresome antiquity. For several years
past, judgements of the most violent character had been delivered
against its authors in a legion of Whig pamphlets and speeches. And it
was now solemnly suggested that it would be possible to hold a calm
and judicial enquiry under Whig auspices, and before a tribunal packed
with a Whig majority! The effrontery and disingenuousness of this
suggestion were too obvious to escape derision.

Bolingbroke was better equipped than his prosecutors. His retentive
memory held the whole inner history of the negotiations. No one had
seen the contents of his wallet, or could guess what surprises it
might contain. Moreover, he had many devoted friends among men of
letters, as well as among the younger politicians, who were prepared
to take up his cause with enthusiasm. The most formidable English
writer who ever wielded his pen in political controversy was bound to
him by the closest ties of hero-worship and affection: Swift would
have been the most serviceable of all allies, for he had already
written two famous pamphlets in defence of the treaty, and knew every
twist and turn the arguments of the prosecution were likely to take.

But Bolingbroke's greatest superiority over his accusers and judges
lay in his own powers. He was a consummate debater; the greatest
orator before Chatham; and his written statements possessed for his
contemporaries an unmatched grandeur and persuasiveness. The only
thing that really mattered to him was the verdict of public opinion.
He might safely have brushed details and technicalities aside and
insisted on bringing under survey the whole conception and sweep of
his policy. He had a good case for a popular jury.--From the moment
of his appointment as secretary-of-state the master-motive of his
policy had been peace; and by 1711 peace had become the greatest of
national interests. The country was longing for peace, out of which it
had been cheated by a criminal conspiracy of Whigs, who had continued
to make war, to pour out blood and treasure, with no higher aim than
to keep themselves in office. Britain had been used as a cat's paw for
the selfish and revengeful purposes of her allies, who rarely acted up
to their engagements, and who left her to bear the brunt of the
fighting and the chief burden of expense. The population of Britain
was less than half that of France, and yet, when Marlborough had
beaten the French armies soundly in Flanders, the Emperor was still
whining because, forsooth, after his own incompetence had thrown away
every advantage, we refused to continue in Spain a struggle which he
himself had all but abandoned. Was it a British interest that Spain
should be conquered for the Emperor? If there was danger to the
balance of power in the fact that one prince of the House of Bourbon
sat on the throne of France and another on the throne of Spain, surely
there would have been even greater danger in allowing a sovereign of
the House of Habsburg to add the Spanish crown to the Imperial diadem.

Bolingbroke would have been justified in claiming that, from first to
last, his dominating purpose had been to escape from this ruinous and
humiliating servitude; to break away, before it was too late, from
allies who were rather glad than sorry to see Britain bled white on
their behalf. It had been a matter of extreme urgency to bring to an
end this murdering, expensive and unprofitable war. There had been no
time to boggle over the forms of diplomacy or the nice interpretation
of treaty obligations. The situation of affairs, as they stood at that
critical juncture, must be regarded as a whole, and if, on some rare
occasions, the late administration had been led reluctantly into
paying back the allies in their own coin--into methods that perhaps
were more in accordance with the standards of a German or a Dutchman
than with those of an English gentleman--was it to be wondered at? Was
there indeed any other way of bringing things to an issue? Was it fair
or reasonable to fasten upon minor incidents of this sort and to
ignore the main consideration? What had been the object of all
Bolingbroke's efforts? Peace. And what result had his efforts
produced? Peace. As the minister who had been responsible for foreign
affairs let him be judged on that.

In the eyes of the nation, the Whigs deserved no quarter. They were
the aggressors, the persecutors. Few people would have been either
shocked or sorry to see them well trounced. Prejudice would have
worked against them with the mob, and Bolingbroke's word, that the
motive of the prosecution was malevolence, and that it was tainted
with hypocrisy, would have been believed. For already, within a
twelvemonth, the government had shown that it was fully alive to the
benefits which had been won by the firmness and patience of its
predecessor--peace, commercial privileges of high value, and security
against the ancient menace of Dunkirk, whose fortifications the French
king had undertaken to demolish. The new ministers were eager to
uphold the treaty of Utrecht, but manifestly they were still more
eager to ruin those who had made it.

Despite the strength and plausibility of Bolingbroke's case, it is not
inconceivable that the House of Lords would have brought him in guilty
on every article of the impeachment. What matter if it had? His
condemnation would have been recognised for the work of a partisan
majority composed largely of shameless or shamefaced noblemen,
turncoats who had supported the late government at every stage of its
proceedings. A hostile judgement given by such a tribunal would have
excited more scorn than awe, more laughter than respect. That it would
have dared to pronounce the sentence of death appears altogether
incredible; that it would even have proceeded to such severities as a
long term of imprisonment or deprivation of honours, most unlikely.
Not from magnanimity but from nervousness it would probably have been
content, as in the case of Sacheverell, with some merely formal
censure that would have turned its victim into a hero and a martyr.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bolingbroke reached Paris early in April. Shortly after his arrival he
called on Stair, the British ambassador, to whom he made fervent
protestations of his loyalty to King George. He also wrote to Stanhope
in the same strain. But apparently he felt that it would be wise to
effect a policy of reinsurance; for before the end of the month he had
an interview with the duke of Berwick, to whom he professed his
devoted attachment to the Pretender. By Berwick's account Bolingbroke
had good hopes that the project of his impeachment would be abandoned,
and that he would be suffered to return to England, where he could
serve Jacobite interests better than in exile. He was careful,
however--having a respect for Stair's remarkably efficient system of
espionage--to avoid a meeting with the Pretender himself.

During April and May the opinion gained ground steadily, especially in
Jacobite and Tory circles, that the secret enquiry, like so many other
undertakings of the same sort, would shortly end in smoke. But this
illusion was dispelled on the 9th of June, when Walpole, as chairman
of the committee, presented its report. This was an able and emphatic
document, and at every point the conclusions were hostile to the late
administration. To a cool reader, however, there were various
indications that no substantial evidence of treason had been brought
to light.

Next day Walpole carried a resolution for the impeachment of
Bolingbroke. The decision to proceed in like manner against Harley,
Strafford and Ormonde was not long delayed. This show of sternness was
designed to strike terror into the Tory leaders; for the Government
desired few things more ardently than that they should follow
Bolingbroke's example by fleeing the country. The chief ministers knew
only too well that many links in the chain of evidence were
dangerously weak. They dreaded the possibility of popular excitement,
against which even the most docile parliamentary majority is but a
poor protection. Bolingbroke, by acting as his enemies wished him to
act, had relieved them of a load of anxiety. Harley's obstinacy in
remaining caused them much annoyance at the time, and much
embarrassment and unpopularity before they were done with him. They
would have liked to see a general exodus of their opponents, and
despite much talk of condign punishment, they assuredly would not have
stirred a finger to prevent the escape of any political opponent whom
they could have succeeded in frightening into voluntary exile.

The threatened prosecution of the Tory leaders was thoroughly
unpopular. By a stroke of great good luck the country had secured a
new sovereign without having had recourse to civil war. But though
George the First might figure on the coinage as king by the grace of
God, he wore his crown neither by divine right nor by right of birth.
In the eyes of his people it behoved him, as a newcomer, to take the
earliest opportunity of showing that his throne was the seat of mercy.
Let him begin his reign in a spirit of moderation and oblivion. Let
him call off his excited pack of Whig politicians, who were bent on
serving their party ends by a proscription, and indulging their
private animosities by vindictive persecutions. If, indeed, the Tory
leaders had ever been foolish enough to entertain the idea of a
Stewart restoration, their machinations had come to nothing and their
hopes were now utterly confounded. What patriotic purpose could
possibly be served by a hunt after treason? The demand for an
inquisition proceeded, not from the nation, but from a knot of
office-seekers. Why should the general peace be disturbed by the
action of a small, a greedy and a revengeful minority?

Discontent had been growing steadily in England for six months past,
and in Scotland things were worse rather than better. Except among
Whig politicians the King's accession had stirred no deeper feelings
than the interest which commonly attaches to a novelty. Indifference
soon turned to disfavour as people came to realise how complete a
foreigner he was. The uncomeliness of his German mistresses outraged
the public taste. The meddlesomeness of his German courtiers offended
the governing caste. The greed of courtiers and mistresses alike was a
scandal that could not be hid. The ministry was blamed for things that
it had no power to prevent nor any wish to encourage. The flight of
Bolingbroke had damaged himself and his party without checking in any
degree the descent of the administration into unpopularity. Public
dissatisfaction increased when it was decided to proceed with the
impeachments; for Ormonde was a hero with the mob, and Harley a
veteran whose bearing since he fell had won respect.

Exaggerated reports of the state of feeling in Britain easily
persuaded the exiled Jacobites that the time was now ripe for violent
measures. It was harder to convince the ministers of Louis the
Fourteenth, who had been used for many years to these sudden
frothings-up of optimism; but even they were misled at last by
confirmatory reports from their embassy in London.

Bolingbroke was no shrewder than the rest. With all his knowledge of
his fellow-countrymen he mistook a mere fit of discontent and
ill-humour for a readiness to rise in rebellion. He decided to stake
his career on what was only an illusion. In the middle of July he took
service with the Pretender, was raised to an earldom and created
secretary-of-state. Even his flight had not been so bad a mistake as
his acceptance of these favours.[47]

Bolingbroke's flight and junction with the Pretender removed every
serious obstacle from the path of his enemies, and proved what they
had as yet no evidence to support--his treason. His friends and
admirers were paralysed and stricken dumb. It was idle now to talk of
persecution. The case went against him by his own default. By Tories
as well as Whigs, by fair-minded men as well as by the mob, his secret
departure and subsequent proceedings were taken as proofs, not only of
his guilt, but of his cowardice. The course he followed must, in any
case, have ruined him for many years to come: that it ruined him for
ever was due to the inclement vigilance of Walpole.




IV.--_How Bolingbroke served the Pretender for nine months and was
then dismissed_ (1715-1716).


Hardly had Bolingbroke begun to exercise his ministerial functions
under the Pretender than the Jacobites, both at home and abroad, were
thrown into consternation by the news of Ormonde's flight. The rôle
for which they had cast this debonair little nobleman was that of
vicegerent. He was expected to stay in England, to keep a great state,
to be courted by the nobility and gentry, to be followed by cheering
crowds when he drove abroad, and generally to serve as a rallying
point for all men who were already, or might shortly become,
well-affected to the Stewart cause. So strong was the belief in his
powers of attraction that to many of the faithful it would have
occasioned no surprise if George the First and his adherents,
disheartened by the superior effulgence of a rival court, had taken
ship in a panic and returned to Hanover. In the idle dreams of James
and his courtiers Ormonde figured not merely as a popular hero, but as
a statesman and a soldier of shining capacities. His sudden flight was
wholly inexplicable upon their preconception of his character and
their reading of the situation. It gave a rude shock to their
confidence, and by reason of its reactions on the attitude of the
French government it was also an incalculable disaster to their cause.
But to Bolingbroke this desertion can hardly have come as a surprise.
He at least knew Ormonde for what he really was--an incompetent
soldier without a tincture of statesmanship; a feather-headed
conspirator, as inconsiderate in his eagerness for impracticable
adventures as in his abandonment of them at the slightest
discouragement; pathetically constant, in a dignified, passive kind of
way, to certain principles and personal loyalties; in manners, a great
gentleman; in intentions, honourable; but a man whose mind was thrown
into confusion by every emergency, so that for purposes of leadership
he was as dangerous as one who has lost his sense of direction in a
fog. It is characteristic of his unfitness for responsibility that he
left in a panic, without warning his confederates of his intention and
without giving them any guidance for their own actions or safety.

The stuff of Jacobitism was speedily tested by the rising of 1715 and
proved to be entirely rotten. At first the prospects of this rebellion
seemed not altogether unfavourable. The Scottish Jacobites were in
earnest, and when, in September, the Earl of Mar set up the Stewart
standard, they joined him in numbers that fell little short of the
total force of regulars at that time available for garrisoning the
whole length and breadth of Britain. South of the Tweed, however, the
Tory party was divided into two sections, the respective numbers of
which it is hard to conjecture. One of these sections favoured the
Protestant Succession, and for this reason, though without enthusiasm,
was prepared to endure a foreigner as king. The other section was
professedly for James the Third. But these English Jacobites were by
no means eager to proceed beyond assurances of sympathy given under
the seal of secrecy. They refused absolutely to stir until a French
army should have made good its landing. In this particular, if in
little else, they kept their word. They thought so poorly of their
cause, so meanly of themselves and of their fellow-countrymen, that
the notion of putting a British king upon the British throne by means
of British valour appalled them by its boldness. Possibly they were to
some extent bewitched by the precedent of William's Dutch invasion,
but their chief concerns were their own ease and safety.

Only a few days before Mar raised his standard among the hills of
Aberdeenshire, Louis the Fourteenth ended his long reign. To no one
did the news of his death bring greater relief than to the English
Jacobites; for it destroyed all hopes of military aid from France, and
consequently absolved them from their conditional obligation of
support. There was a rising of Catholics in the northern counties; but
the influential families stood aloof, and the surrender at Preston,
in November, put an end to a feeble and ill-concerted business.

In Scotland there was no lack of numbers, of ardour, or of noble
leaders; but Mar himself was ignorant, dilatory, and an egotist. In
less than three months the enterprise was ruined, not so much by the
efforts of his antagonist as by his own mishandling. It needed only
the gentle despondency of James, who arrived in January and departed a
few weeks later, to quench the last embers of the rebellion.

The cause was not likely to prosper whose most notable leaders
insisted on running away. Ill luck, mismanagement, and miscalculation,
each had its share in the disastrous conclusion. On the death of Louis
the Fourteenth, Jacobitism became merely a pawn in French policy. The
Highland rebellion was but a series of lost opportunities from first
to last. Ormonde's vain sailings backwards and forwards failed utterly
to effect a rising in the west of England. By the end of January 1716,
all was over and James once more an exile in France. He had won
nothing by his venture for the British crown but a reputation for
clemency which is of doubtful advantage to a pretender. His coming had
been belated, his presence an encumbrance, his departure inglorious.
His experiences had taught him no wisdom. On his return to France his
first act was to dismiss the only able man who served him.

Bolingbroke's own pen has described the strange situation in which he
found himself on becoming rebel secretary-of-state.[48] He who had
swayed the councils of a great empire had then to endure, with so much
patience as he might, all the rubs and mortifications of a petty
court, the obstruction of fanatical priests, the insolence of Irish
adventurers, the eternal meddling of female marplots whose political
thinking was as loose as their morals, and--harder than all the
rest--the futilities of a young and unenlightened prince, whose word
was as little to be relied on as his judgement, and whose lack of high
spirits might have disheartened a company of paladins. James was
curtained off from the world of men by his soft, incurious and
unobservant nature that a cloistered education had darkened to high
gravel-blindness. Having come to man's estate he found himself
encircled by courtiers and counsellors whose characters he could not
read. Many of them were knaves, and most of them were nearly as
incapable as himself of telling reality from illusion. He is a figure
of inept and pathetic dignity, too lack-lustre for a leader, too
disinterested for an adventurer. At heart he was less concerned to
recover his ancestral crown than to win back the Three Kingdoms to the
Catholic faith. But alas! the temporal conquest must come first, and
it could only be achieved through the agency of soldiers and
politicians who had little or no sympathy with his spiritual aims.
With such men he must dissimulate; when necessary he must not shrink
from deception. And so it came about that, while he confided in his
priestly advisers and babbled to his mistresses, he concealed his true
intentions from those who could hope to serve him effectively only if
they knew his inmost thoughts. Incontinence may be blamed for his
indiscretion, but it was piety that taught him to be perfidious.

It was no fault of Bolingbroke's that the rebellion of 1715 had been
undertaken; for the decision had been made before he was appointed
minister. Nor was it through his fault that it miscarried; for he
spared no efforts and overcame great difficulties to keep it supplied.
Nevertheless, he was reproached both with the project and its failure.
An accusation of a still graver sort was industriously spread and
generally believed among the Jacobites: his treachery was alleged as
the cause of his dismissal. There was not a shadow of truth in this
injurious rumour, but his graceless master took no steps to contradict
it.

The dismissal was in fact due to various causes, none of which cast
any discredit upon Bolingbroke. He had been a frank counsellor from
the beginning. He had warned the Pretender against the hopelessness of
a Scottish rising, unless it were supported by a serious effort on the
part of the English Tories. He had insisted that there would be no
rebellion in England, unless the clearest assurances were given that
the Protestant establishments in the Three Kingdoms would be upheld.
What more natural than for such a one as James to attribute his own
humiliating failure to the man whose advice he had disliked and
disregarded? Bolingbroke had spoken good sense, and it is therefore
not surprising that he had Ormonde, the priests, the Irish adventurers
and the intriguing women all against him. The close circle of zealots
which surrounded the Pretender was determined that the affairs of one
who aspired to be a Catholic king should not remain any longer in the
hands of a statesman who at heart might be nothing worse than an
infidel, but who openly professed himself a Protestant. The only
character of distinction among the exiles was James's bastard
brother.[49] The duke of Berwick's appeals that the secretary-of-state
should be continued in his employment, that he should be trusted fully,
that he should be given, what had hitherto been withheld--powers
adequate to his position--were ignored. His protests against the folly
of dismissing Bolingbroke, the madness of insulting him, were all in
vain.

Berwick's support at this juncture is a better certificate of
character than a round-robin would have been had it been signed by all
the Jacobites then in France. But though the motives and meannesses of
Bolingbroke's enemies are sufficiently clear, it is impossible to feel
sure that, among the ignorant and unreasoning Jacobites, the same
blind instinct was not at work that had caused the rank and file of
Tory partisans to hang back, even when his fortunes were at their
brightest, and to refuse him full allegiance as their leader.

If Bolingbroke could have disregarded the insult, he might well have
congratulated himself when, after barely nine months of make-believe
administration, a discourteous message put an end to his servitude.
Now, however, he was not merely an exile, but an outcast from among
his fellow exiles. On the other hand, the Pretender and his court were
by this time outcasts from France, and those Jacobites who remained
behind, though numerous, were not of great account. Bolingbroke was
welcomed by French society as an old acquaintance. He had made a
dazzling figure in Paris only a few years earlier, during the
negotiations for peace. If his diplomacy that produced the treaty of
Utrecht had not been an unmixed success, the nation that now offered
him hospitality had gained by his failures. His wit, charm and
gallantry had never been in question. He was still young,
good-looking, full of life. He was equally at his ease with the most
brilliant men of letters and the most exquisite fine ladies. The great
world could hardly be expected to forgo the entertainment of his
company merely because he had been banned by a colony of foreigners
whom nobody cared to know.

Enthusiasm for the Stewart cause had been of brief duration in
Parisian circles, and it was now a very ancient memory. The Jacobites
had long been out of the fashion, and on the death of Louis the
Fourteenth they fell completely out of court favour. For nearly thirty
years their importunacy had been an embarrassment to the government,
even when their plottings were serviceable to its policy. Now that
France and England were drawing together, the plottings had become an
even greater embarrassment than the importunacy.

The great world, which was unaffected by these grave considerations of
state, looked on the exiles in a somewhat different light. It had
never taken much pleasure in their society. A good many of them were
disreputable, apt to get tipsy and given to brawling. Others again
were gloomy and fanatical. In mere decency, such people must be
refused admittance to the gay and brightly-coloured pageant whose
spirit left them untouched, whose elegant and restrained conventions
they were quite incapable of understanding. In short, these Jacobites
were not amusing; their form was bad, and they had the great fault of
being out-at-elbows. What such people thought of Bolingbroke was
therefore a matter of indifference to the great world. Had he come to
Paris as a complete stranger his personal qualities would have served
him as a sufficient passport.

Without chilling his welcome or neglecting his opportunities,
Bolingbroke betook himself--as he told his friends with some
characteristic flourishes--to the study of history and philosophy, and
to the improvement of his mind. He endeavoured, as a wise man should,
to turn his leisure to account, and professed to find greater
happiness in his seclusion than he had ever found in the
rough-and-tumble of politics. By and by he married in second nuptials
a French lady of good family and an ample fortune. Somewhat later he
gained a large sum by speculation. But he was too young to put aside
ambition. Whatever he might write home to his friends, he was not
really happy in France. Despite his popularity in general society, he
was unfavourably regarded by those with whom he was most anxious to
stand well--by the Regent and his chief minister, whose chief concern
was now the maintenance of good relations with King George. Though
Bolingbroke might be apt to lose his head in emergencies of a certain
sort, there was a vigour and dauntlessness in his character which
drove him on to attempt recovery. Within six months of his dismissal
by the Pretender he was again in negotiation with the British
ambassador in Paris. Even at that early date he had determined to
obtain his pardon, to return to his native country, to have the act of
his attainder repealed and to enter once more into the great game of
politics to which his genius called him.




V.--_How the old Tory and Whig parties lost their distinguishing marks
after the failure of the rebellion_ (1715-1720).


The benefits of peace had not done away the odium that the treaty of
Utrecht had fixed upon the Tory leaders. The fiasco of the rebellion
now overwhelmed, not only the Jacobite section, but the whole party,
in an outburst of anger and derision. In the years that followed the
accession of George the First, the old Toryism died of royal disfavour
and popular contempt. The flight of its leaders, the futility of its
intrigues, the insincerity of its professions, covered it with
disgrace. The manner of its ending was unedifying--a medley of
ill-temper and affectation.

The defeated party was foolish enough at first to play into the hands
of the Whigs, who seized eagerly the opportunity that offered itself
of tarring the whole body of their opponents with the Jacobite brush.
The Tories were ready enough to curse the Hanoverian dynasty, for
discredit had put them in a bad humour. They were ready to drink
toasts of every kind, and 'the king over the water' was as good an
excuse for conviviality as any other. And many of them were ready to
welcome in their houses--when it could be done without too much
risk--emissaries who brought the latest gossip from the melancholy
court at St. Germain, who came ingeniously disguised, and departed at
cock-crow in a cloud of mystery. But with all their plottings, bumpers
and imprecations, the Tories could not restore the wasted vigour of
their system. Their activities were mainly make-believe--a childish
game played by tired and angry children.[50]

It is true that in Scotland the case was different. There, until a
whole new generation had grown up and passed away, loyalty to the
Stewart dynasty continued as a living faith. Men made promises which
they kept, and plans which they attempted to carry out. They freely
sacrificed their lives and fortunes, acted with energy, suffered
prolonged hardships and showed a great fortitude in adversity. But the
Scottish Jacobites had hardly more than a nominal connection with the
English Tory party, which distrusted them as allies, deprecating, as
cautious politicians must, an enthusiasm which insisted upon carrying
principles into action.

During the same period, or somewhat later, the old Whig party died of
a surfeit--a surfeit of power, offices, sinecures and the royal
favour. The main strength of the Opposition as well as of the ministry
consisted of Whigs. Whigs provided the government, and Whigs were also
ready to provide any alternative government that might be required.
They engrossed everything; and, as a matter of course, they soon fell
to quarrelling among themselves as bitterly and as factiously as they
had ever quarrelled with their former opponents.

After the failure of the 'Fifteen, Jacobitism ceased to be a vital
factor in English public life. South of the Tweed and the Solway, the
title was assumed voluntarily only by a few fanatics and fantastics,
whose intentions were hardly more serious than those which, in later
times, moved young men to enrol themselves in the White Rose League.
The word Jacobite was employed chiefly as a term of abuse by enemies
of the Tory tradition, in order to create a prejudice among the
vulgar--very much as people of a certain way of thinking continued to
be denounced as Pro-Boers long after the Peace of Vereeniging.

There was an increasing difficulty, as years went by, in recognising
any clear distinction between the principles of a Tory and those of a
Whig. The counter-cries of liberty and authority might be uttered, but
they were uttered without faith or fervour on either side. From time
to time there was a Tory pother against standing armies, or a Whig
pother about abuse of the royal prerogative; but the issue of the
succession being as dead as Queen Anne, there remained no obvious
dividing-line between the old parties. Indeed it seemed as if the
Church itself had entered on a period of toleration or indifference.

It is remarkable that the motive which most often leads to the
formation of parties was then in abeyance--the division between those
who regard change as the sovereign recipe for human ills, and those
others who oppose every change lest the world should become even worse
than it already is. Nobody wanted change of any kind. No section of
politicians was concerned to widen the franchise, to abolish
pocket-boroughs, or to amend the constitution. The reforming spirit
was sound asleep.

Any endeavour to trace the ancestry of our modern parties in the
combats that agitated the parliaments of George the First, would only
be a waste of ingenuity. From a few years after the accession of the
House of Hanover until the eighteenth century was drawing to a close,
the names of Whig and Tory are of little value for discriminating the
currents of political opinion. During the greater part of that period,
the contest was for office, not for doctrines; and even in those few
cases where a principle was involved, the cleavage, as a rule, cut
across the nominal party divisions. It is not easy to discover that,
between 1720 and 1790, any influence or motive, stronger than family
tradition or a supposed personal interest, led people to describe
themselves by the one title rather than by the other. But, as
Bolingbroke has told us, 'the names and, with the names, the animosity
of parties may be kept up when the causes that formed them subsist no
longer.'

       *       *       *       *       *

For the time being the Tories were down and out, and the Whigs might
quarrel among themselves to their heart's content. In the autumn of
1716, while the King was in Hanover with Stanhope in attendance,
Sunderland arrived self-invited upon the scene. Foreign affairs were
then at a critical juncture. The terms of an alliance with France had
been agreed between Stanhope and the French minister, and the King,
with good reason, was desirous that the treaty should be signed
forthwith. But the Dutch, as usual, were procrastinating. In these
circumstances the King and Stanhope were for completing the matter
forthwith as between France and Britain, leaving Holland to come into
the arrangement later.

Townshend was not in principle opposed to this procedure, but various
circumstances--among them his own neglect of correspondence--conspired
to make it appear as if the ministers who remained in England were
raising up obstacles in order to spin out the negotiations.
Consequently a misunderstanding arose that was fomented, not only by
the Hanoverian favourites, but also by Sunderland, whose ambition
might be served by a schism among the Whig leaders.

The trouble was increased by reports from London. There was no reality
behind these rumours, but only malice and mendacity. They were enough,
however, to work upon the jealousy of the King, and Townshend was
dismissed.

A few weeks later the misunderstanding was to some extent cleared up;
but its traces remained, like an erasure in a ledger, disfiguring the
texture of the page. Townshend, as a consolation, received the
viceroyalty of Ireland; but his power as a minister was gone. The firm
now became Stanhope, Sunderland and Walpole.

Such a patched-up arrangement could never hold together. Townshend
nursed his grievance. Walpole, whose sympathies were with his
brother-in-law, grew more and more unsuited to a subordinate position.
In the spring of the following year (1717) these two joined in an
intrigue to overturn the ministry in which they both held office.
Townshend, who appeared to be the prime mover in this conspiracy, was
again dismissed from office. Walpole, who had gained considerably of
late in the King's favour, was entreated to remain. He insisted,
notwithstanding, on resigning, and took with him several of his
friends. The firm's title now became Stanhope and Sunderland, and so
it remained for three years longer.[51]




VI.--_How the duke of Orleans became regent of France on the death of
Louis XIV., and how the policy of cardinal Dubois led to a good
understanding with England_ (1715-1723).


For some considerable time after the accession of George the First,
Europe continued to be disturbed by intrigues and suspicions, by wars
and rumours of wars; but the effects of a struggle that had lasted for
over forty years were exhaustion and a widespread longing for peace.

Within a short space three men, whose restless ambitions made peace
impossible, all passed from the scene which they had so much troubled.
The first of these was Louis the Fourteenth, who survived Queen Anne
by little more than a twelvemonth. The others were Alberoni, prime
minister of Spain, and Charles the Twelfth, king of Sweden.

When Louis died he was in the seventy-eighth year of his age and in
the seventy-third of his reign. He had been autocrat of France for
more than half a century. During that time all the main acts of policy
had been shaped in his brain and executed by the force of his will. If
he had been a benevolent king, whose chief concerns were peace and the
gratitude of prospering millions, fifty years would still seem an
immense period for a mere human being to have supported the strain of
his despotic charge. The marvel appears greater when it is remembered
that the constant preoccupation of Louis was not tranquillity, but
disturbance, adventure and aggrandisement. Moreover, his policy had
the signal misfortune to meet with much success at the beginning,
after which it was brought gradually to a pause and ended in ruin.
Possibly there is less to wonder at in the fact that his realm was
able to endure the sufferings and disappointments of his rule, than
that his own human frame and spirit should have held together into old
age. By a strange coincidence the crown of France now passed, for the
third time in succession, to a child.[52]

The reign of Louis the Fifteenth opened under auspices which, though
depressing, were less overcast by storms than those which had marked
the accession of the great-grandfather to whom he succeeded. The
vicissitudes of the monarchy during the former regency of the
Queen-mother, with Mazarin as her lover and her minister, found no
parallel in the conditions with which the regent duke of Orleans and
the Abbé Dubois were now called upon to deal. The objects of French
policy had not been attained; the fruit of innumerable victories was
merely defeat; the land was stricken with poverty; but the Bourbon
dynasty, and with it, national unity, appeared to be firmly
established.

Nothing--not even the treaty of Utrecht--had been able to buy off the
enmity that Louis the Fourteenth bore to Britain. While he lived, the
Pretender and his courtiers continued to believe that their cause
would be supported, not merely by secret provisions, but by active
intervention. When Louis died, however, it became clear at once to
those few persons of sagacity who shared in the Jacobite councils
that the demise of the French king was the deathblow to their hopes.

[Illustration: _Guillaume Cardinal Dubois, Archevesque_

_Duc de Cambray, Prince du 8.^e Empire, Premier Ministre._

_Ne le 8 Septembre 1656. mort le August 1723_

_From the engraving by P. Drevet, 1724
after the portrait by H. Rigaud, 1723_]

It is true that the Regent[53] was by no means averse from anything
that would embarrass the Hanoverian succession. He would gladly have
seen the British kingdoms distracted by civil war, for he might expect
to draw advantage from such a situation. But though he was well
pleased when Scotland rose in rebellion during the autumn of 1715, he
was firmly determined not to risk the fortunes of France in the
adventure. He would neither countenance the undertaking nor provide it
with the necessary supplies; still less was he prepared to hazard an
expeditionary force, and without this assistance the leaders of the
English Jacobites refused to stir. After the utter failure of the
Stewart rising, he was not slow in recasting his general policy
towards Britain.

The character of the Regent does not rank high in history. It is
impossible, however, to impugn his loyalty to the boy whose fragile
life stood between him and the throne. In his own way, he was faithful
to the realm entrusted to his charge, and showed a shrewd appreciation
of its most urgent needs. But the chief concern of the duke, as a man
of pleasure, was a life of quiet magnificence and assiduous
debauchery. To these ends he devoted the greater part of his time and
of his not inconsiderable talents; while the Abbé Dubois[54]--who in
the course of a few years became in turn Councillor,
Secretary-of-State, Archbishop of Cambrai, Cardinal and Prime
Minister of France--served his patron with an equal alacrity in public
affairs and in his private diversions.

Dubois was the son of a village apothecary. From humble and even
menial employments he had risen by hard stages to be in name the tutor
and in fact the Chiffinch[55] of the future Regent. His book-learning
was not profound; but he could read the minds of his fellow-creatures
as a scholar reads his pages--at a glance. Unscrupulous and shrewd,
with an enviable facility for arriving at his ends in the shortest
possible time and with the least possible friction, he showed an equal
skill and inventiveness in ordering a dinner, in arranging a ballet,
in planning an orgy, and in regulating the household of his royal
pupil. Moreover, his sagacity and address appeared greater rather than
less, when it came to piloting his prince through those shoals of
court intrigue that beset the course of him who stands in close
succession to a throne. Dubois was a wit, and he was also that thing
which royal personages, in common with the rest of the world, usually
love much better than a wit--he was a wag and a jovial companion.
Sixty years of life had in no degree restricted his tolerance, nor had
they quenched either his thirst for pleasure or his capacity for work.

Having proved the qualities of Dubois as a pimp, his master appointed
him to the charge of foreign affairs. The Regent might easily have
made a more reputable and a much worse choice: indeed, for the
interests both of France and of Europe, he could hardly, at that
particular time, have made a better one. For the Abbé showed himself
as dexterous and indefatigable in diplomacy as in his previous
employments, and displayed the same skill as formerly in leading men
and things along the way in which he desired them to travel. He was a
great rascal; but, in his own way, he was also a great artist. And
when artistry and rascality are pitted together in a strong
nature--whether the nature be that of a poet, or a painter, or a
soldier, or a man of science--it is artistry that most often wins.
Though Dubois was by no means averse from accepting presents and
pensions from the British government, his dominant instincts were
those of a patriotic statesman. The fact that his country was
exhausted and stood in need of rest came before every other
consideration. With this end in view he cultivated the friendship of
Britain, the recent enemy, and played a leading part in making various
agreements and alliances that for a considerable period were able to
prevent a renewal of the European conflagration.




VII.--_Why the treaty of Utrecht was regarded favourably by France,
Holland and Britain, but unfavourably by Spain and the Emperor._


France, Holland and Britain were at one in desiring to uphold the
treaty of Utrecht. The aim of Stanhope's policy was to come as
speedily as possible to an understanding with Dubois, and to bring the
slow-moving Dutch into a triple alliance that should secure the
interests of the three countries.

From the point of view of France, the treaty of Utrecht was a far more
favourable arrangement than the calamitous issue of the war could
justify. Louis the Fourteenth had shown even higher qualities of
statecraft in his ending of the struggle than in the conception and
conduct of it; for at least he saved his people from the worst effects
of the terrible reaction that follows inevitably when a nation has
clutched at supreme power and missed its aim.

The Regent, moreover, had a strong personal motive for upholding the
compact. The health of the child-king was precarious, and in the event
of the death of Louis the Fifteenth, not the duke of Orleans, but
Philip of Spain, was heir by strict descent to the throne of France.
It is true that Philip had solemnly renounced his claims; but there
were recent examples of the breach of undertakings no less solemn
under the stress of strong temptation. The kingdom of France was a
greater prize than that of Spain, nor was it beyond possibility that
the union of the two realms under one monarch might appeal to the
popular imagination on both sides of the Pyrenees. The treaty of
Utrecht had confirmed the settlement of the French crown in favour of
the Regent, and the interest of Britain and of Holland in maintaining
the balance of power inclined them to an alliance that would support
his cause.

From the point of view of Britain, the recent treaty had the immense
advantage that it promised peace. On the material side its terms were
favourable to British interests. It would have been as futile as
impolitic to repudiate the agreement in order to wipe out certain
stains that rested on the national honour; for those stains were
indelible, or at any rate they could not be removed by any such
process of erasure.

Like the Regent, British statesmen had a second motive hardly less
urgent than the first. They were not fully satisfied with Louis the
Fourteenth's formal recognition of George the First, but sought to
draw the French government by motives of self-interest to the support
of the Hanoverian dynasty. For many years past France had never ceased
to be the workshop of Jacobite plots, the refuge of rebels, the
dangerously adjacent jumping-off-place of Stewart expeditions. It was
highly desirable that the exiled court of the Pretender should be
deprived of the asylum it had enjoyed in France ever since 1688.

For various reasons the Dutch were also anxious that the peace of
Utrecht should stand. To the minds of these businesslike traders it
seemed clear that although the terms of the treaty fell far below
their hopes, any renewal of hostilities in which they might find
themselves involved would be likely to bring them more evils than even
the completest victory could cure. They were a stubborn, but not a
proud people. In contrast with their French neighbours they seemed
singularly insensitive to the stings of the gadfly, glory. Like
sensible men who have attained a reasonable measure of security, they
thought a great deal about extending their commerce and very little
about improving their strategic position.

On the other hand, two great powers--Austria and Spain--had their own
reasons for wishing ill to the settlement. The Emperor[56] would
gladly have seen it wrecked, if only because it denied his title to
the Spanish throne. Philip the Fifth[57] of Spain was no less anxious
to be rid of it, because, among other injuries and humiliations, it
had robbed him of his patrimony in the Low Countries, and also of
Naples, Milan and Sardinia, in order to enlarge the circle of the
Empire. But since the discontents of these two sovereigns were so
conflicting, the fact that they agreed merely in hating the treaty
seemed unlikely to lead them into alliance.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the accession of George the First, the Emperor was in his thirtieth
year, the King of Spain some two years older. Nature had not endowed
either of these monarchs richly with the qualities of a ruler. Had
they been mere country gentlemen, it is not improbable that their
estates would have been moderately well managed upon old-fashioned
lines. Charles would have inspired the greater awe by reason of his
pompous reserve; Philip the greater affection, from his consideration
for the happiness of his tenantry.

The Emperor had a good digestion, enjoyed excellent health, was
devoted to the chase, bore himself on all occasions with an official
dignity, and showed a remarkable persistency in pursuing his ends by
means which were altogether unfit for securing them. He was dull as
well as obstinate. It was not selfishness so much as mere lack of
intelligence that had turned him into an egotist, as perfect after his
own fashion as Louis the Fourteenth himself. Some impediment of the
mind prevented him from ever understanding that his allies might have
other objects in view besides that of underpinning the shaky successor
of the Caesars. When he was seeking the Spanish throne, British blood,
treasure and military talent had been his main supports; but he made
it a great grievance when the government of Queen Anne refused to
continue the struggle on his behalf, after he himself had all but
deserted it, or to go on with the war in the Peninsula which he had
already lost entirely through his own fault.

At other points his complaints might, at first sight, appear less
absurd. It was not the Spaniards, but the French, whom he regarded
with the fiercest hatred. As a result of the treaty of Utrecht he had
been driven, in the following year, to make peace with France on terms
that bitterly disappointed his hopes. In his view, the fruits of
victory remained with the vanquished. After a war of forty years, in
which the enemies of Austria had been worsted, he was forced
nevertheless to submit to the weakening of his frontiers on the Rhine,
while a German-speaking province was still left in the hands of the
French despoilers. For all this, however, he had to thank himself more
than any other. He might have gathered the fruits of victory four
years earlier when they were ripe. It was his own vindictive obstinacy
that had urged him to wait till they were won back by his rival.

       *       *       *       *       *

In 1700, when Philip the Fifth was called to the throne of Spain, he
was only seventeen. During the fourteen years that followed he had
less experience of good fortune than of bad. He was twice driven out
of his capital. In the end, however, he succeeded in expelling the
allies from the Peninsula. Unfortunately for himself he counted only
as a pawn in the desperate game that engaged his grandfather's
ruthless ambition. In 1710 Louis the Fourteenth offered not only to
abandon his grandson's cause, but to pay a subsidy to the allies in
order that they might wage war against him. What Louis would not do
was to use French troops to deprive that grandson of his kingdom. We
may wonder which was the stranger phenomenon--the point of honour at
which Louis stuck, or the madness of the Emperor and his allies which
led them to refuse so profitable a proposal.

When it came to making peace Philip managed to keep his crown. At the
same time he was forced to part, not only with his territories in
Italy and the Low Countries, which were allotted to the Emperor, but
also with Sicily to Savoy, with Gibraltar and Minorca to Britain.

A prince who is fighting for his succession may possess qualities more
useful than gentleness and piety. During those early years the courage
and constancy of Philip were put to the proof and certainly were not
found wanting; he took the field with his armies, and, even when
things were at their worst and counsellors most despondent, he refused
to give up the struggle. But virtue, not ambition, was the force that
moved him. His courage was of the kind that can endure, but lacks
energy and enterprise. His constancy did not spring from hope or
ardour, but from his sense of duty and honour. He had a horror rather
than a love of power; but he would not abandon a people that had
loyally accepted him as its king, and begged that it might not be left
to the tender mercies of invaders, or to the neglect of an absentee
sovereign. His store of vitality ran too low to carry him through the
troubles in which his lot was cast. Although both his mind and body
were lacking in robustness, he was neither a half-wit nor an invalid
by nature. His real tragedy began after the war was ended. Gradually,
under the oppression of wills much stronger than his own, his
gentleness ceased to make resistance, and thereupon conscience began
to upbraid his weakness. Piety turned to superstition; afterwards to
melancholy and unworthy terrors. In vain did he seek relief in
abdication; for his successor died within the year, and his unwilling
hands were forced once more to grasp the sceptre. To his wearied eyes
kingship was nothing but a grey, angry, unappeasable sea of troubles;
the farther shore, which he prayed that he might reach quickly, was
death. His prayer remained unanswered for more than thirty miserable
years.

It was said of this king that he was made to be governed, and that he
was in fact governed all his life. At first he was governed by his
grandfather; then by the formidable Princesse des Ursins[58]; by his
confessors; by his ministers, Alberoni and Ripperda; but most
absolutely by his second wife, Elisabeth Farnese.[59] This young
woman, whom he married in 1714, was pre-occupied from the first with
schemes for providing kingdoms and principalities for her prospective
progeny. The territories that appeared most suitable for her purpose
were the Italian appanages of Spain that the treaty of Utrecht had
made over to the Emperor. Unfortunately she found in Alberoni a
minister who was prepared to risk everything to achieve her ends.




VIII.--_How Alberoni rose to be prime minister of Spain and a
cardinal, and how his efforts to carry out the Queen's policy ended in
disaster_ (1714-1719).


Alberoni's career bore considerable resemblance to that of his French
antagonist, with this difference, that in addition to his other
disadvantages, he was an alien in the country he governed. His birth
was even humbler than that of Dubois, his father having been a
vine-dresser of Piacenza in the Duchy of Parma, and he himself a
verger before he was admitted to be a priest. To his various early
patrons in Church and State he had commended himself as a
merry-andrew, and by an unfastidious alacrity in dubious employments.
He rose in fact very much as Dubois had risen, and, if Saint-Simon is
to be believed, he won the heart of Vendôme,[60] the French invader of
Italy, by an act in which the grossest buffoonery was mingled with
obsequious adoration.

The patronage of Vendôme was the turn in Alberoni's affairs which led
to fortune. The military genius of the Duke was of that incalculable
sort in which bursts of energy alternate with longer periods of
indolence. His pride, the coarseness of his appetites, the
disgustingness of his person, and his complete indifference to the
good or bad opinion of his fellow-men had raised up a host of enemies
against him. He had few friends, but only parasites who tolerated his
humours for the sake of their wages. Alberoni could have made himself
an able servant to almost any master; to such a one he soon became
indispensable. His pleasantries enlivened the debauch; his humility
shrank from no tribute that was demanded of him; his industry, his
suppleness, his penetration smoothed the face of the roughest affairs.
And above all, no insults, or even injuries, could shake his fidelity,
for his fidelity was bound up with his ambition.

Vendôme took Alberoni with him to France and afterwards to Spain.
After the duke's death in 1712, his astute secretary was not long in
establishing himself at Madrid as the agent of the duke of Parma, in
whose territories he had first seen the light. In February 1714 the
Queen of Spain died. Philip the Fifth could not endure domestic
solitude, and, unlike most of his race, he found no consolation in
mistresses. Alberoni was not the man to neglect so favourable an
opportunity for advancing his own interests and those of his employer,
whose niece, Elisabeth, was accordingly made a bride before the year
was out. Following the instincts of his gentle nature, the King only
too gladly surrendered his judgement to the masterful will of his
consort. The Princesse des Ursins was banished, French influence lost
its hold, and within a few months, Alberoni, through his influence
with the Queen, became in fact the ruler of Spain.

It was an age of adventurers. Alberoni's career, so far, reads like a
fairy tale, and it had not yet reached its zenith. He was a
mountebank priest, a shameless fellow, an eater of toads--what you
like! but he was no impostor, for his talents in the government of men
were nearly equal to his ambition. 'Give me,' he said, 'but four years
of peace, and I will make of Spain the first power in Europe.'

The success of his administration was little short of a miracle. The
national resources, the colonial wealth and the spirit of the Spanish
people were all turned to account. He breathed life and hope into the
decadent monarchy. Corruption and futility in the public service gave
way to honesty and efficiency. Commerce, shipping and agriculture
began to flourish under his encouragement. The arsenals were filled;
all day long hammers clanged in the dockyards; the army and the navy
were disciplined and well provided; and the Spaniards, who had always
carried their heads high even in adversity, recovered confidence in
their destiny. The grandiose schemes of Alberoni touched the popular
imagination, and, for a generation after his fall, he was still spoken
of with honour by the people.

The period that Alberoni predicted for national recovery was all too
short. That he would restore the fortunes of Spain in four years was
probably a boast; that he could do so in little more than half that
time was obviously impossible. And yet the measure allowed him was
under three years. It is just conceivable that a supreme statesman
might have contrived to hold by his time-table, but in the
circumstances he would have found it a singularly difficult task.

For the aim of Alberoni's policy was to confirm his own power, and
this required that he should retain the favour of his royal mistress.
To keep well with the Queen he must drive the Habsburgs out of Italy;
but in order that the Habsburgs should be driven out, it was necessary
to set the treaty of Utrecht at defiance. The chief obstacles in
Alberoni's way were the diplomacy of Stanhope and Dubois, the general
desire for peace, and the disorganisation of the Spanish
administration.

In January 1717 the announcement of the Triple Alliance between
France, Holland and Britain aroused the Queen's resentment. If the
treaty of Utrecht was to be upheld, the Austrian position in Italy
would be maintained, and all Elisabeth's projects for the future
establishment of her infant son and prospective issue must vanish into
thin air.

Elisabeth Farnese was not nicknamed 'the termagant' in irony. She was
not one of those women, like Elizabeth of England or Catherine di
Medici, who have the deadly art to bide their time. It was hard enough
work restraining her impetuosity for a matter of six months: to have
held her for three years might have broken the arms of Hercules.
Moreover, the dull-witted Emperor chose this occasion for offering
various provocations that drove her almost to frenzy. He hated the
Triple Alliance as much as she did, although one of its main objects
was to secure him in possession of his ill-gotten gains. He was not a
very rational monarch, and when he felt a call of nature to relieve
his spleen, cared little in what quarter he gave offence.

Alberoni was the worst sufferer from the agitations of these two
disordered royalties. His hand was forced, and his plans miscarried.

In the following summer[61] he became, in title as well as fact,
chief minister of Spain. At the same time he received a Cardinal's
hat. A few weeks later,[62] without any declaration of war, he struck
suddenly and blindly at Austria, and made an easy, worthless and
unwholesome conquest of Sardinia. There was little gained in prestige;
there were great losses from sickness, and, as the treaty of Utrecht
was threatened by his action, the whole diplomatic influence of the
Triple Alliance was thrown into the scale against him. He was swift to
retaliate by attempting the formation of a Northern League. With this
object he worked hard to reconcile Russia and Sweden, in order to
launch a Jacobite invasion of Britain.

The outraged Emperor proclaimed his wrongs to every capital in Europe.
Was he not engaged in fighting the battle of Christendom against the
Turks when this dastard blow was struck in his back? Pride and
dudgeon, however, still prevented him from adhering to the only
combination that was prepared to render him assistance. It was not
until the middle of the following year[63] that rumours of mighty and
mysterious preparations in Spanish seaports so wrought upon his fears
as to bring him to a reluctant consent. In July, by the accession of
Austria, the Triple Alliance became Quadruple; and none too soon, for
in the same month the fleets of Philip the Fifth conveyed a powerful
army into Sicily.

The luck of Spain has seldom lain in armadas. The island was
conquered, but the great navy was destroyed by Admiral Byng at Cape
Passaro. The seas were closed against the Spaniards by British ships
of war. The Imperialists poured in reinforcements, and, before many
months had passed, the victorious invaders were themselves in turn
besieged.

By the beginning of 1719 the audacious project of a Northern League
was ruined, for Sweden was again at war with Russia. But Alberoni was
apparently undaunted by adversity. The hopeless struggle continued for
nearly a twelvemonth longer. In June he determined to attempt the
invasion of Scotland. He sent forth a second armada, but a Biscayan
tempest shattered it beyond repair. In autumn the Spaniards were
driven out of Sicily. In December the allies offered peace; but they
demanded as one of their conditions that Alberoni should be dismissed.
The lack-lustre King and his distracted consort accepted these
ignominious terms. The Cardinal was suddenly deprived of all his
offices and ordered into exile. Those whom he had served acted
doubtless with prudence in denying to the magician the courtesy of a
farewell interview.




IX.--_How Alberoni before his fall had brought about the intervention
of Sweden, and how this also ended in disaster_ (1715-1718).


Alberoni, like other magicians, had spells that seemed able to quicken
the spirits of the departed. Forgotten champions came forth at his
bidding.

In the last year of the previous century the world had been dazzled by
the military exploits of a boy of eighteen. When events in the Low
Countries were not too exciting, men had found time to marvel and
applaud, as the youthful hero continued, for nine years longer, to
scatter his enemies before him on the shores of the Baltic and in the
plains of Middle Europe. But, about the time when Dr. Sacheverell may
have been beginning to ponder the heads of his famous sermon, there
had come tidings of defeat. The hitherto invincible youth had fled
southwards, had sought sanctuary with the Turks and been received into
captivity. The glory that had flamed so brightly was quenched. It had
been a phenomenon of the same nature as those Northern Streamers,
whose shafts of light traverse the sky, whose charging squadrons glow
first in one quarter of the heavens, then in another, until suddenly,
without warning or apparent cause, the ardour fails, the brightness
fades into an after-glow, into a pallor, which outshines no longer,
nor even veils, the changeless starlight.

The fatal battle of Pultowa had been fought in 1709. In midwinter
1715, at the Siege of Stralsund in Pomerania, the combatants were
startled by an apparition. They had almost forgotten that Charles the
Twelfth of Sweden was still alive.

Charles[64] had succeeded to his throne at the age of fifteen, and his
royal neighbours had been touched by the spectacle of his
inexperienced youth. Within three years of his accession the great
Peter of Russia, Frederick of Denmark, and Augustus, King of Saxony
and Poland, banded themselves together to despoil him of his
inheritance. Charles forestalled their attack. The British navy
covered his crossing. The Danes were beaten to their knees and forced
to sue for peace. Shortly afterwards the Russian army was destroyed,
the victors having odds of six to one against them. Warsaw was
occupied, Saxony invaded, and, before the end of 1704--the year of
Blenheim--Augustus submitted to a humiliating treaty, whereby he
renounced the Russian alliance and the crown of Poland. Three years
later Peter the Great was again defeated and narrowly escaped capture.
And once more Charles struck at the colossus and secured yet another
victory. Then he turned south into the Ukraine and his luck deserted
him. The Cossacks played him false. With half the breadth of Europe
separating him from his kingdom, and half his soldiers dead from cold
and privation, he again ventured to attack the Russian hordes. His
army was annihilated and he threw himself on the mercy of the Turks.

Charles the Twelfth was only twenty-seven at the battle of Pultowa,
and this was his first reverse. But it seemed as if all his resources
of energy and self-confidence had been used up by this single failure.
Whom the gods love they do not afflict with unbroken success in early
years. Until now there had been no occasion for him to learn how
misfortune should be met. His character had been through the furnace,
but not on the forge. When tried by adversity, it was found wanting in
those superlative qualities of head and heart which fortify a man to
play his best in a losing game. His temper became sullen. During the
next six years he lay like one whom an attack of fever has left
prostrate and who will not put out an effort towards recovery. His
position with the Turks was equivocal: sometimes he appeared to be
their prisoner, at others their ally.

Charles returned to Sweden a few months after the death of Louis the
Fourteenth; but thenceforth, for the few remaining years of his life,
the victorious captain was of little more account than an adventurer
whose nerve is shaken and whose luck has turned. His restless
activities that disturbed the peace of Europe were but a desperate and
tragic gamble in which he showed more valour than fortitude, more
craft than judgement, more rage than policy. A man in this state of
mind is apt to become the tool of others whose heads are cooler than
his own. Charles hated George the First, not altogether without
reason; but when, in 1717, he planned an invasion of Scotland and the
restoration of the Stewarts, he was playing not his own game but
Alberoni's. This project was disclosed prematurely and came to
nothing, while the more grandiose scheme for the formation of a
Northern League as a counterpoise to the Triple Alliance met with no
better success.

In the following year Peter the Great drove a shrewder bargain than
the Spanish cardinal had done. The Czar was well content to accept the
cession of Finland as the price of his neutrality, while the ruined
gamester set out to conquer Norway. The bargain turned out even better
for the Russian than he had hoped; for, only a few months later,
Charles fell with a bullet through his heart, leaving behind him a
kingdom in ruins.

Besides Finland, there were other Swedish possessions on the Baltic
that Peter had long coveted. No more favourable opportunity than the
present could have offered itself to his predatory ambitions. The gain
of this northern booty might easily console him for his Turkish
reverses and for the postponement of his southern projects. Now was
the time to launch a fresh attack on Sweden. The leagues and
combinations dear to western statesmen were nothing to him, save as
they might serve or obstruct the growth of his own power. He could
look on unmoved at the embarrassments of Alberoni, who at the death of
Charles the Twelfth was still engaged in a hopeless struggle to
maintain his footing in Sicily.

       *       *       *       *       *

By the deaths of Louis the Fourteenth and Charles the Twelfth, and by
the ruin of Alberoni, the prospects of peace in Western Europe were
much improved. War between Russia and Sweden contained certain
possibilities of danger, but the hopes of extinguishing this struggle
by diplomatic pressure were not ill-founded. It is unlikely, however,
that the gravest perils now remaining were clearly foreseen at this
time by any statesman. The ambitions of the Spanish Queen and of the
Habsburg Emperor still survived. The mind of each was possessed by a
fixed idea, and these ideas were irreconcilable. It was not long
before the furious resolution of the Termagant and the undiscerning
obstinacy of Charles the Sixth produced a new and surprising crop of
troubles for their unfortunate neighbours.




X.--_Concerning the characters of Alberoni and Dubois._


Even in the disastrous ending of his political career, Alberoni does
not produce the impression of a man stricken with despair or harassed
by anxiety, but rather of one who took an artistic delight in the
activity of his own spirit. After all, even if he failed utterly,
might he not find consolation in the thought that the vine-dresser's
son of Piacenza was leading Europe such a dance? He had something of
the Roman genius for doing things thoroughly, and many of the gifts,
as well as vices, of the Renaissance Italians. His agents were
ubiquitous. His finger was in every pie. His audacity would have
thrown the thunderbolts back at Olympus. He disregarded the
injunctions of the Pope, and yet the Spanish people stood by him. He
plotted with the duke and duchess of Maine against the Regent Orleans,
and stirred up the French Protestants against their government. He
plotted with the Pretender and the British Opposition, and stirred up
the English Catholics against King George. But he could not succeed,
for the time allowed him was too short, and the odds against him were
too heavy. Ill-fortune, however, was not the sole cause of his
failure.

It was at the beginning of his military adventures that the defects of
Alberoni's character first became glaring. We have a feeling, not so
much that he miscalculated, as that at times he did not calculate at
all; that he shut his eyes and trusted in luck to bring him through
the approaching collision without a broken neck. Not that he was found
wanting in energy after the collision occurred. No one could have
sprung more quickly to his feet. He was bold and crafty; but, though
his courage held, his judgement failed him. He made far too much
flourish with his weapons. He was a consummate actor; but he grew to
be so fond of acting that he would occasionally play a part with
admirable verve, although he had nothing to gain by it. Sometimes he
would astonish an ambassador by playing several different parts during
a single interview. He was a brilliant intriguer; but he might have
had better success had he been content to intrigue only when there
was a purpose to be served. At the crisis of his fate he found himself
entangled quite as much in difficulties of his own invention as in
those which his enemies had contrived. It seemed as if he often
practised deception and concealment merely for the fun of the thing.
It is not surprising, therefore, that his worst failures were in
negotiation; for he overlooked the advantage of so keeping his account
with the world that he had a reasonable balance of its confidence
standing at all times to his credit.

At the end of 1719, when Alberoni fell, Dubois, although considerably
the older of the two, had not yet reached the very summit of his
career[65]; but, sure-footed as a mule, he was picking his upward way
safely over the stony places, with the burden of state upon his back.
Ever since the death of Louis the Fourteenth, he had been steadily
tightening his control of French policy. He already possessed greater
power than any of his rivals; but it was not until 1720 that the
Regent, to the scandal of the priesthood, appointed him Archbishop of
Cambrai, and it was not until 1721 that he was made a cardinal. In the
following year he received at length the title of prime minister. He
was then, however, almost at the end of his tether. For some years his
health had been failing. He died twelve months later at the age of
sixty-seven.

Alberoni was only fifty-five when he went into banishment. His
foresight had already provided the means of making exile endurable. He
settled himself in Italy, and lived there in affluence and good health
until he was nearly ninety. At times he enjoyed high favour at the
Vatican. In 1724 he received ten votes at the election of a pope.

Were the grave gods in a facetious mood when they gave charge of two
great nations, during the same short spell of years, to two such
characters as Alberoni and Dubois? Or was it some prank of Mercury's
while the others slept? For even had the interests of France and Spain
been identical--which they were not--or capable of being brought into
harmony--which perhaps they were--the countries must surely have
drifted into antagonism under leaders who, though they may only have
affected to despise one another, hated one another certainly without
any affectation. These ministers were indeed too much alike to do
otherwise than hate. Both were of mean extraction, graspers and
hoarders of money, loose-livers, scoffers at religion, priests who
brought discredit upon the priestly calling. A duke may tolerate the
illustrious rivalry of a duke more easily than a rogue who has
succeeded will tolerate another rogue's success. Each of these
cardinals regarded the other as a charlatan, clothed by the caprice of
royal favouritism in a casual, unapprenticed, upstart authority. To
Alberoni it seemed shameful that the destinies of France should be
entrusted to the Regent's pimp; while Dubois was scandalised that
Spain, as he falsely pretended, was governed by the Queen's Italian
lover.

There was no physical resemblance between the two men, except that
both were short of stature. Dubois was as lean as the proverbial
rake. He wore a large fair wig over his washed-out face. He was meagre
and mean-looking; had a long sharp nose and an air of deceit. 'As
false as a young fox,' said the old duchess of Orleans, who detested
him. The duke of Saint-Simon, who detested him still more, said that
he had the look of a polecat. The image that contemporary accounts
call up is that of some small, questing, curious beast, whose restless
eyes overlooked no vice or foible of human nature that might
conceivably be turned, at some future day, to useful account. In an
honester age Dubois' perspicacity might have served him less
profitably; for it was of the kind that blinks in the daylight, though
it sees steadily in the mirk. He was by no means lacking in
attractiveness of manner. Even his contemners are forced to concede
the charm of his vivacity. His talk was brilliant and amusing, though
it lacked dignity and tended to buffoonery. He was witty, well
informed and mightily intelligent. Saint-Simon admits that his company
would have been delightful if only he had not distilled a vapour of
perfidy through every pore. Persons like the Regent, whose nostrils
were less sensitive to the aromas of human corruption, undoubtedly
found pleasure in his society and wisdom in his counsels.

Alberoni, though a little man, was monstrous. He had an enormous head,
a vast swarthy face, tightly drawn lips, a flattened nose with a
bulbous end to it. His shape was spherical. His appearance and rolling
gait suggested an overladen bum-boat when there is a swell in the
roadstead. He belonged to the gargoyle family; but he might also have
claimed kinship with the Titans. For when he spoke earnestly, out of
the fire and fullness of his heart, to command, to overcome, to
persuade, encourage or stir men to endeavour, no one in the company
remembered how clumsy he was, how ill-favoured and grotesque. There
was inspiration in his eyes, authority in his tone and bearing, magic
in the melody and compass of his voice. He had come to be chief
minister, dispenser of penalties and favours; but his power over men,
the awe in which he was held, owed less to the fact of his success
than to some quality in himself which defies analysis. He dominated as
he had risen, not so much by reason of what he had done or could do,
but simply by reason of what he was.

Dubois, on the other hand, never fell a prey to any emotion that had
the power to transfigure him. He remained always the same--the
questing polecat, the false young fox. People became uncomfortable
when he looked at them innocently and began to stammer; for every one
knew that he had his stammer under perfect control. His wit could
wound; nor was the substance of his conversation always pleasant to
his hearers. For he could put his enemies in the Bastille and turn the
keys on them. He could deprive them of their dignities, strip them of
their livings, or reduce their promising careers of ambition to a heap
of cinders. None the less, the feeling that Dubois inspired was not
awe, but only fear--fear unmixed with any particle of admiration or
respect. He could not quell by a glance or prevail by his tones. He
was not formidable in himself; naked he was nothing; he must have his
weapons by him--his net and trident--before any one would stand down
to make way for him. Even at the height of his authority he never
altogether ceased to be a butt; and when great noblemen and dames
were pleased to make a mock of him, courtiers would smile, though they
might turn away to hide their smiles.

Such a one as this could not fire men with noble ambition, or send
them forth to undertake great deeds. He possessed no gift of
leadership. He was not a captain, but a pilot, who was reluctantly
permitted to come aboard in order that he might perform certain
functions that the occasion required. The weather was dirty, the
channel was full of dangers, and Dubois was certainly a very skilful
steersman, who knew all the currents and could thread his way among
the reefs and shoals. But the crew did not regard him as one of
themselves. No one sought his friendship in the spirit of
friendliness. He had no honour among the ship's company. Nevertheless
Dubois was a pilot who took his vessel safely into port; while
Alberoni was a sea-going captain, an audacious navigator, who ran his
galleon on the rocks.




XI.--_Of the consequences that flowed from the policy of Stanhope and
Dubois, and of the scant justice these statesmen have received from
their fellow-countrymen._


Although Louis the Fourteenth upon his death-bed kept repeating that
the treaty of Utrecht was a priceless advantage to France which must
be safe-guarded at all costs, it may be doubted if he clearly foresaw
the means necessary to this end--still more if he could ever have
brought himself to adopt them. His people were in much the same
predicament. The sympathies of French society were bound fast in the
old traditions. Among statesmen, churchmen, soldiers and nobility the
more numerous opinion would undoubtedly have approved a cordial
agreement with Spain, whose king was a Catholic and a Bourbon, as much
as it disliked an alliance with Britain, the recent and victorious
enemy. It was said at Versailles that the French and English peoples
desired to remain enemies, but were frustrated by their rulers who had
determined to become friends; that the French and Spanish peoples, on
the other hand, would readily have made friends, if only they could
have done away the opposition between the aims of the Regent and the
Termagant, and the personal dislike that existed between the two
cardinals. The unpopularity of Dubois with his fellow-countrymen was
not due solely to his vices, but quite as much to the trend of his
policy.

The close understanding with Britain that Dubois succeeded in
establishing was continued by Walpole and Fleury. On the whole, the
two countries remained on fairly good terms for nearly a generation.
But previously, for an even longer period, they had been at war, and
the bitterness of this memory was not easily forgotten. There were
people on both sides of the Channel who regarded friendly co-operation
between these two neighbours as a defiance of the laws of nature. Whom
the gods had sundered let no man impiously seek to join together. The
principle of self-preservation was held to imply that the first duty
of each nation was to prevent the other from regaining its strength.

In 1715, at the death of Louis the Fourteenth, Britain was sorely in
need of rest; but France had almost reached the point of exhaustion.
By a miracle of statesmanship the two rivals were prevented from
flying at one another's throats for a period of five-and-twenty years.
During this period the economic strength of both reached a higher
point than ever before.

After 1740, however, for nearly three-quarters of a century, the
relations of France and Britain were never free from jealousy, and
only during rare and short intervals were the two countries ever
actually at peace. Not infrequently they were locked in a
death-grapple. As a consequence, French historians who wrote during
this later epoch have perhaps done less than justice to the services
of Dubois. They were indignant that his policy should have allowed the
hated rival to gain so much strength, ignoring the fact that on no
other terms could France have recovered from the wastage of a forty
years' war.

       *       *       *       *       *

The case of Stanhope is somewhat different. In an age when few
politicians were either honest or patriotic, he stood beyond reproach.
Although he had a wide and brilliant range of accomplishments, his
views with regard to the special needs of his time were simple and for
the most part sound. He never failed for want of energy and
perseverance, and he succeeded at last in realising all the main
objects of his continental policy. It is right that he should be
judged upon his conduct of foreign affairs, for it was the department
that engrossed his attention. His period of achievement was short. The
Triple Alliance was negotiated during the autumn of 1716 and was
signed in the following January. The Quadruple Alliance, which crowned
his efforts with success, came into existence in August 1718. By the
end of 1719 the war that had threatened to involve the whole of
Europe was brought to an end. The treaty of Utrecht remained in force.
The Pretender was obliged to withdraw his court to Rome. The
Hanoverian dynasty had gained greatly in security and was now
acknowledged by all the great powers. Good relations were established
with France upon the accord of the rulers of these two countries, and
upon the understanding that subsisted between their respective
ministers. These were useful works, and they laid the foundations upon
which the long administration of Walpole was about to build up the
national prosperity.

But just as Dubois has received less than his due from French
historians, so British historians, though for entirely different
reasons, have hardly rated Stanhope so high as he deserves. His
reputation has been clouded by his association with Sunderland, who
was one of the most unpopular characters of his time. But it is
exceedingly doubtful if Stanhope should be held in any degree
blameworthy for the Whig schism of which Sunderland and the German
Bothmer were the prime contrivers. Stanhope's responsibility for the
South Sea Bubble did not go beyond the fact that he was a member of
the government which, without evil intentions, but with inexcusable
folly, entered into relations with a fraudulent company. The matter
did not come within the scope of his department; he took no bribes or
favours; nor did he even speculate in the stocks as Walpole did. But
Stanhope was undoubtedly responsible, more than any other man, for one
conspicuous blunder. He must bear the chief blame for the introduction
of the Peerage Bill, as Walpole undoubtedly deserves the chief praise
for its defeat. Stanhope's aim, however, was entirely honourable. He
desired to guard against a repetition of the felon blow the Tories had
struck against the constitution in 1714. There was some reason to fear
that, in the event of the King's death, the Prince of Wales, who
professed a violent disapproval of all his father's acts, might secure
a subservient House of Commons, and proceed to destroy the works of
his predecessor, unless there should be an independent House of Lords
to resist him. Stanhope's object was to prevent the House of Lords
from being again swamped by new creations, and the means he proposed
was to fix for ever the numbers of that assembly. Had this measure
passed, the country might possibly have been secured against a form of
danger that has never in fact occurred; but the character of the
British constitution would have been changed.




XII.--_How Walpole and Townshend tired of opposition and accepted
subordinate offices_ (1717-1720).


Walpole had no share in the achievements of Stanhope and Dubois. He
certainly did not foresee how important a bearing they were to have
upon his own future. Until considerably later, he took but little
interest in foreign affairs, except when they offered him an
opportunity for embarrassing the government. It was not until his own
administration had been in existence for more than four years that he
began seriously to concern himself with this department, and it was
not until nearly half his course was run that he took the control of
it into his own hands. While Stanhope and Sunderland remained in
power, Walpole's activities were concentrated mainly upon domestic
matters. His reputation rested upon the excellence of his business
judgement. He knew more about the management of land than most country
gentlemen, and more about trade and money than most of the City
magnates. From the spring of 1717 to the spring of 1720, he was the
leader of a heterogeneous opposition in which there was but one point
of general agreement--the need for pulling down the government. He was
the most powerful and the most merciless critic whom his former
colleagues had to face.

[Illustration: _Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland_

_from the portrait by an unknown painter dated 1722_

_belonging to the Earl Spencer_]

The conduct of Walpole during this period is one of the chief blots on
his fame. He cannot be excused on the ground of youth, for he was more
than forty; nor on the ground of inexperience, for he had known the
responsibilities of office for nearly ten years past. When the Tories
under Bolingbroke and Harley were fighting for power they had not
shown less concern than he now did for the national interest. If
Walpole's eloquence was less moving than that of Bolingbroke, his
shrewdness and his great fund of practical knowledge made him an
equally formidable opponent. His practice for those three years was
pure faction. He cared nothing about the dangers he might bring upon
the new dynasty to which he professed allegiance. He took part with
the Jacobites, the Tories and the Adullamite Whigs in opposition to
every government measure whether it were bad or good. He fought
against the repeal of the Schism Act that inflicted great hardships on
Dissenters, as strenuously as he had denounced this odious measure a
few years earlier when it was passed by the Tories. He was zealous
for reducing the small standing army at a time when, as no one knew
better than he did, the peace of Europe and the safety of Britain
depended upon military strength as a backing to diplomacy. He became a
demagogue, and endeavoured to prevent the annual renewal of the Mutiny
Act, although he had himself been secretary-at-war and was well aware
that the discipline of the troops depended upon the re-enactment of
that measure. He acted as one bent solely on mischief and utterly
regardless of the consequences.

As a matter of fact he was solely bent, not on mischief, but on
obtaining supreme power, and, like others before his time and since,
he cared little how he might arrive at it. Like others also, who have
believed in their own superlative capacity for government, he may have
soothed his conscience with the sophistry that all the evils he
wrought during the contest would vanish when the affairs of the nation
should come under his management. Many of those evils did in fact
vanish, but the precedent, which was perhaps the greatest evil of them
all, remained. Walpole's action during this period is the classic
instance how deeply a statesman may plunge, with his eyes wide open,
into dishonest opposition. He had already given proofs both of his
patriotism and his judgement; but when rivals were in power, jealousy
became the master passion of his mind. Among politicians his case is
not an uncommon one. The abuse and misrepresentation which he flung
about so freely in his fortieth year were repaid to him with compound
interest in his sixtieth.

But in spite of all Walpole's attacks, the government stood firm. The
greatest parliamentarian of the day was discredited by his own
reckless inconsistency, and by the character of the incongruous
rabble that accepted his leadership. Exclusion from power had no
charms for him. In the spring of 1720, after a particularly vigorous
attack upon ministers for their support of the South Sea Company--now
in the heyday of its fortunes--he and Townshend acknowledged their
defeat and sued for office.

The brothers-in-law returned neither as victors dictating their own
terms, nor as prodigals whose repentance was beyond suspicion. They
were not fully reinstated because they were not fully trusted. It
seemed possible, however, that, having paid the penalties of
rebellion, they might now be in a mood to render useful services. In
any case their mere silence would be worth the price of two offices of
secondary importance; for their opposition, though unsuccessful, had
been irksome. Townshend received the Lord Presidency, Walpole the
Paymastership of the Forces. But they rejoined the business only as
junior partners, and the name of the firm continued to be 'Stanhope
and Sunderland' as before.




XIII.--_Concerning the bursting of two bubbles_ (1720).


For some time before Walpole rejoined the government in the spring of
1720 both France and England had been the victims of enchantment. In
Paris, during the preceding January, stock of the Mississippi company
had been dealt in freely at thirty-six times its nominal value. In
London, during the following August, the hundred pound shares of the
South Sea Company found ready buyers at a thousand. Within the orbits
of these two financial influences hardly any one stood out of the
gamble who had money to invest or property he could sell or pawn.

The magician who had bedevilled France with a gleaming illusion was
John Law of Lauriston, a Scots adventurer of genius. A fop, a
spendthrift, a serious economist and a professional gambler, he had
exercised his talents with varying degrees of success in most of the
capital cities of Europe. Occasionally, when his play was too
fortunate, he had been asked by the municipal authorities to withdraw
himself beyond their frontiers. He was reputed, notwithstanding, to
have done exceedingly well for himself. In Paris his sanguine address
secured the ear of the Regent.

Law commenced operations as a banker in 1716. Gradually, as his
schemes prospered, they expanded, till two years later he offered to
take over the greater portion of the enormous public debt. All he
asked for in return were a few financial privileges and trading
concessions, together with authority to make certain much-needed
reforms in the levy and collection of taxes. He predicted confidently
that, if these conditions were granted (and the grant could surely
injure no man) his famous System would not only earn fabulous
dividends for the shareholders, but would revive the gasping
prosperity of the land. He was no mere quack. Many of his ideas were
sound, and competent critics have maintained that, upon the whole,
France gained a good deal more than she lost by his activities.

The Gallic temperament excels in quickness of fancy and clearness of
logic, but is too apt to overlook the need for accurate and patient
observation at the outset. When French enterprises end in
disappointment it is rarely due to poverty of imagination, to error
in the argument, or to any lack of energy in the carrying of them out.
The common cause of failure is that too little care has been taken
beforehand in arriving at a true knowledge of the facts.

For a considerable period, Law and his stocks soared ever higher and
higher. Under his directions great improvements were made in the
national finances and in the whole system of taxation. The general
recovery which he had promised began to show itself. Royal personages
and ministers of state, marshals and prelates, men and women of every
rank and vocation paid court to the son of the Edinburgh goldsmith,
imploring his good offices to procure for them allotments of the new
issues that followed one another in a swift succession. In his
prosperity Law comported himself less like an earthly king than like
one of the immortal gods. Serenity dwelt upon his brow. He was
ruthless, but rarely insolent. The British representative, Lord
Stair--a fellow-Scot--had the misfortune to offend him, whereupon the
secretary-of-state, scenting the possibility of danger to the
alliance, at once recalled the ambassador.

In February 1720 something untoward happened. The System no longer
continued to circle in calm dignity upon an upward flight. The
pilot--it might be only for the moment--seemed to have lost control.
By and by there was a downward movement, the reason for which was not
at first clearly understood by the spectators. Before long, however,
it became known that this unsteadiness was due to the prudence of
certain gamblers who desired to convert their paper profits into more
solid possessions. High-handed measures were taken at once to curb the
evil; but to no purpose. The machine began to descend with horrifying
swiftness. In May (about the time when Walpole joined the British
ministry) there was a panic in Paris. After a succession of desperate
plunges during the months that followed, the great System crashed. In
December John Law of Lauriston was once again compelled, as in his
earlier days, to betake himself across the frontier. His whole fortune
was invested in France, which is evidence that the magician had come
to believe in his own witchcraft. But neither his faith nor his losses
could extenuate his crime in the eyes of thousands of ruined
speculators. His life was safer in Brussels than in Paris. His estates
were confiscated and his glory passed.

       *       *       *       *       *

The South Sea act came into force early in April, a few weeks before
Law encountered his first serious difficulties. In England the mania
continued to increase in violence all through the summer, despite the
ominous course that events were taking in France. It was not until the
beginning of September that the reaction set in. By the end of that
month people who had given a thousand pounds for their shares in July
and August found it none too easy to sell them for three hundred. By
the beginning of December, when Parliament met, the stock stood at
little over par.

In comparison with the glittering project of Law, our own South Sea
Bubble appears a dull and sordid affair. The knaves and numskulls,
whom history has held responsible for it, might almost be acquitted on
the ground that they had so little notion of what they were after.
They were without vision, and moved about like figures in a fog,
encouraging one another with cheerful catchwords and dropping bribes
into every outstretched hand. They had taken even less care about
their foundations than the French had shown in the Mississippi matter.
As for imagination, as for logic, they had neither of these. To shout
upon a rising market was as far as their energy and confidence could
carry them. When trouble began, they had no idea how to meet it. They
showed no resourcefulness, no courage. Some hid themselves abroad,
others were dumbfounded, and the rest quavered.

There are many episodes in the history of the great city of London
which redound to its credit both in good and in evil fortune; but this
assuredly was not one of them. Vanished were the shrewdness and pluck
that have ever been the boasts of that proud society. Had not its
members been cozened in the mass by 'flat-catchers' and their own
greed? It is possible that in Lombard Street the smart of humiliation
was even harder to bear than the actual loss. For there, at any rate,
every one knew that the South Sea directors had incurred odium, as
they had enjoyed popularity, by a mere accident; that the honour of
the whole moneyed interest was involved; that the Bank of England
itself had coveted the concessions and would willingly, a few months
earlier, have stood in the shoes of its aspiring rival; that it had
lost the bargain only because it put in a somewhat lower bid, and that
its present safety was due, not to sagacity, but to a fortunate lack
of spirit.

The true inner history of these occurrences has never been laid bare.
The technical complexity of the subject is baffling to the enquirer.
Many of the most important records were contained in books of account,
and upon occasions such as this, books of account are apt to
disappear. There is a further difficulty arising from the nature of
transactions which were conducted to a large extent at interviews
between public servants, who knew very little about the novel art of
company-promoting, and private adventurers, whose thoughts were
occupied, not so much with the actual substance of their bargain, as
with the possibility of tricking it out to catch the favouring eye of
the public. The purport of conversations of this kind may easily be
misunderstood or misrepresented, forgotten or denied. It would
therefore be rash to pronounce a confident opinion upon the iniquity
or innocence of the various statesmen who were involved.

Whatever may have been the case with individual ministers, both the
French and English governments seem to have acted from the beginning
with honest intentions. Their chief concern was to reduce those
enormous debts that years of war had piled upon the shoulders of the
taxpayers. They were in a mood to welcome the overtures of ingenious
projectors, who offered to show them a royal road out of their
difficulties by taking over the national liabilities in return for
certain exclusive privileges that neither country seemed likely to
lose much by granting.

At the present day the simplest investor or the most junior Treasury
clerk would be suspicious of such over-generous promises; but in 1720
even less was known than is known now of the mysterious laws that
control the currents of a nation's prosperity. Our own generation, as
it glances backward and downward into the eighteenth century, can of
course discern without difficulty the points at which an earlier race
of statesmen blundered off the highway and fell among brakes and
briars and morasses. Viewed from our present altitude, the road of
safety shows so white and unmistakable in the foothills below us that
we find it hard to understand how men of intelligence and probity
could possibly have allowed their steps to stray. The most facile
explanation is corruption, or else a shameful ignorance.

Our amazement, however, will be lessened, our censure may be tempered,
if we pause to consider a nearer past, or if we turn our gaze forward
and upward, where the as-yet-unbeaten track of the twentieth century
winds out of sight among mists and mountain peaks. What lies
immediately behind us is only a trifle less obscure than what rises up
in front. We are not yet come high enough to survey the last fifteen
years in a flat projection. We have travelled, as it were, by a forest
path very baffling to an ordinary man's sense of direction; by a steep
ascent, at times darker than twilight, with many a corkscrew turn and
hairpin bend. We can recall in a confused and broken memory that we
have come through a period of miscalculations without number and that,
time and again, the predictions of the wisest statesmen and economists
have been proved false by events that followed shortly after. Our
guides misled us, though they were for the most part honest men who
knew by rote the maxims of their financial craft as it was practised
by the civilised world at the beginning of the year 1914. But new and
undreamed-of conditions produced a universal derangement. Discredit
fell upon the most approved principles, and so many strange heresies
appeared to thrive, that mankind, panting for a new heaven and a new
earth, was not unwilling to listen seriously to new guides, who
vaunted the efficacy of specifics hardly less fantastic than the
Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea Bubble. These new guides were
possibly as honest as the old ones, but it was certainly no less
dangerous to follow where they beckoned. In doing so how often have we
lost our way and been obliged painfully to retrace our steps! And yet
it is not unlikely that, a hundred years hence, every political
writer, every man of business, every intelligent undergraduate will be
able to discern clearly the causes of our recent and present troubles.
The road to safety may then appear to them so obvious, that our own
failure to find and follow it will excite not only their amazement but
their suspicions. They may find it as hard to believe that our faults
were nothing worse than the innocent blindness of inexperience, as we
do to believe that the French and English nations in the year 1720
were not criminal lunatics, or as we do to acquit the statesmen of
those two countries of complicity in a series of gigantic frauds.

There is little, on the other hand, that will strike a modern reader
as surprising in the conduct of the projectors. Then, as now, their
main concern was to choose the most seductive lures to tempt the
rising fish, and it was a season when the gaudiest flies proved the
best killers. Then, as now, the too ardent fishermen were often struck
by the hooks they cast for others, and becoming converts to an
inexplicable faith in their own frauds, suffered in the end the same
fate as their dupes. Two centuries have produced but little change in
the nature of the fraudulent company-promoter. It is true that, in the
reign of George the First, these gentry practised corruption upon a
lavish scale among public servants, court favourites and other
influential persons, in order to procure official countenance for
their expanding projects. It is no less true that methods of this sort
would be impossible here, in Britain, at the present time. The
difference, however, is not in the moral standards of the projectors,
but in those of a particular society. In countries, and they are many,
where bribes are still received gratefully, the financial bandit
remains as free-handed as he was at the beginning.

Without any doubt, there were swindlers both in France and England at
the time of the South Sea Bubble; but the causes of calamity lay less
with them than in a prevalent distemper that afflicted the human
judgement in much the same way as a plague afflicts the organs of the
human body. Ever since the Restoration there had been fits of gambling
on the Stock Exchange, and these attacks had seemed to grow more
frequent and more violent after the Revolution.

We have become familiar with the course of a pestilence. Its approach
is heralded by vague rumours and by news of local outbreaks. Then with
sudden violence, in the full vigour of the virus, it sweeps across
whole countries and continents. It dies down as suddenly as it arose;
and although it may recur at frequent intervals, the appropriate
treatment is better understood, while the disease itself assumes a
milder form as the ravages of the microbe are checked by some
mysterious anti-toxin of its own creation. For a similar devastation
we have to await the coming of a new bacillus.

In later outbreaks of the speculative mania the ruined gamblers have
usually retained enough sense to curse their own greed and folly; but
after the bursting of the Mississippi Scheme and the South Sea
Bubble, the ravings of their disordered minds could find no other
objects than the knavery of projectors and the supposed connivance of
the two governments that had shown them countenance. In England, even
an extreme prostration failed to restore the national sanity; indeed,
for a considerable time after the disaster, delirium seemed rather to
grow more violent than to die down. But the later frenzy was haunted
by a different order of hallucinations; credulous hopes gave place to
no less credulous suspicions, and the greedy pursuit of gain was
abandoned for a savage hunt after victims. Parliament sank below the
level of Lombard Street, and those orators who called most fiercely
for blood received the loudest applause.

Much suffering to innocent persons is the inevitable consequence of
any violent disturbance of the financial ant-heap; for the misery
caused by events of this sort is not confined to the participants. If
a merchant or a manufacturer speculates with his firm's capital and
loses, the people whom he employs are deprived of their means of
livelihood, and the houses he deals with are apt to be involved in his
ruin. In this sense the South Sea Bubble was a national calamity; but
its importance in economic history has been exaggerated, owing partly
to its novelty, partly to the fact that it claimed so many illustrious
victims, and affected classes whose unaccustomed lamentations startled
the world to attention. The real damage in a national sense was
incomparably less than would have been caused by a single campaign, or
by the failure of a harvest. Very little capital was actually
destroyed, although, without a doubt, the creation of new capital was
retarded by the decline of confidence and credit. The transaction was
in the nature of a gamble. The money of one man passed into the
pockets of another. A number of noble lords and fine ladies, of
clergymen and members of Parliament, together with a host of less
distinguished persons, lost everything they possessed. But Robert
Walpole, by buying early and selling at the top of the market, made
enough profit to encourage him to rebuild Houghton and begin his fine
collection of pictures. Nor was his case at all an uncommon one.




                              BOOK FOUR

                        TOWNSHEND AND WALPOLE
                             (1721-1727)




I.--_How Walpole became chief minister_ (1721).


For Walpole the South Sea Bubble was as fortunate an event in a
political as in a pecuniary sense. It ruined his rivals and their
power passed into his hands. The cabinet could not stand against the
storm. Stanhope was one of the few men of property who had refused to
touch the accursed thing; but he was the chief figure in the
government that had struck the fatal bargain. He died in the following
February, at the early age of forty-seven, from excitement caused by
repelling a particularly gross aspersion on his honour. Sunderland
being deeply implicated was forced to resign. Unlike several of his
colleagues he appears to have been less guilty than indiscreet; but
public opinion was in no mood to discriminate nicely. He was saved
from worse evils than loss of office only through Walpole's
determination to prevent further scandal.

The administration lay in ruins. The dynasty itself was in danger
owing to the known participation of the German mistresses and
favourites in the recent orgy of corruption. The general excitement,
by exaggerating the extent of the injury, was in a fair way to realise
its own forebodings. In these circumstances every one turned to
Walpole, who enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for financial
judgement and for common sense. The appearance and manner of the man
gave confidence. It was remembered how vigorously he had opposed the
South Sea bill in the House of Commons, and how he had written an able
pamphlet to denounce it. People did not stop to consider that, as he
had joined the government a few weeks later, he could hardly have
believed in the early fulfilment of his prophecies. They did not take
account of the fact that, while in opposition, his hostility had been
no index of his true opinions, and that he had opposed with equal
vigour and passion almost every measure introduced by ministers
whether he approved of it or not.[66] Nor was it realised that he had
made a fortune in South Sea stock by speculating for the rise. To an
impartial mind this evidence of shrewdness might perhaps have
recommended him as a suitable person for the present emergency; but,
if it had been generally known, it might not have created an equally
favourable impression upon the indignant multitude. Still, from any
point of view, Walpole's hands were clean. If his conduct had fallen
short of the highest standards of delicacy, he certainly had taken no
bribes, had received no gifts of shares to buy off his attacks, or to
purchase his support or connivance. It is true that he continued
silent all through the summer, while the stocks of which he was so
large a holder went soaring upwards; but it would be unfair to assume
that he was therefore muzzled by self-interest. The South Sea bill was
now an act, and nothing could do away its evil consequences. Moreover
he himself was now a minister, and mere decency would have held him
back from open opposition to an enterprise that enjoyed the patronage
of his own government.

[Illustration: _The R^t. Hon^{ble}. Robert Walpole_

_first Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer
and one of his Majesty's most Hon^{ble} Privy Council_

_G. White fec. 1715_

_From a mezzotint drawn and engraved by G. White 1715_]

Although the main reason why people called out for Walpole was their
belief in his financial ability, what must be most admired in the
early days of his administration was not the ingenuity of an expert
but the temper of a leader. His measures, from the accountant's
standpoint, do not seem to have possessed any very remarkable virtue
or originality. His first proposals had to be withdrawn as
inadequate, and those which he produced at a later date made their
appearance after the storm had abated. The storm, in fact, was not one
which could be dealt with simply as a financial problem; for the evil
had gone far beyond the control of the Treasury. The greatest
technical skill could not give back his money to Mr. A. without taking
it out of Mr. B.'s pocket, and any attempt of this sort would only
have bred a worse confusion. Walpole made no violent speeches, no
high-flown promises. He refused to join in the hunt after vengeance,
and discouraged persecution, even of his old enemies, by all the means
at his disposal. He won; and he won, not so much on his head for
figures as on his four-square strength of character, his moderation,
his imperturbability, his solid, good-tempered confidence in himself.

And so by March 1721, in the forty-sixth year of his age, Walpole
became master of the situation. The old firm of 'Stanhope and
Sunderland' had gone into liquidation, and Walpole was thoroughly
determined that the name of the new firm should not remain 'Townshend
and Walpole' longer than he could help. In fact, though not in name,
it was 'Walpole and Townshend' from the beginning.




II.--_Of the composition of Walpole's administration_ (1721).


The Walpole administration is the longest in British history. It held
together for one-and-twenty years. Its members, with but few
exceptions, were Whig noblemen of no historical importance. They were
chosen upon the usual principle; that is to say, because they
happened to control a certain number of votes in the House of Commons,
and not for any capacity they possessed for the conduct of public
affairs. A few names, however, are still remembered. The
secretaries-of-state were lords Townshend and Carteret. The dukes of
Argyll and Newcastle held court appointments. The exclusion of William
Pulteney excited not a little surprise; for he had already won a high
position among parliamentary orators, and what is more, he had stood
firmly by Walpole from the beginning, both in times of Tory
persecution and of Whig disfavour.

Until much later days the two secretaries-of-state took their orders,
not from the chief minister, but from the King. According to
constitutional practice they were independent officers, and though in
a sense subordinate to the First Lord of the Treasury, such power as
he might have over them was through influence and not by authority.
They were independent also of one another. They reported directly to
the King and followed his instructions. Their power was limited to
suggestion. It was a most inconvenient arrangement in reality as well
as in theory; for when both secretaries-of-state happened to be able
and masterful men, a succession of miracles would have been necessary
to keep them from quarrelling. But more often than not, one of these
secretaries established a predominance, whereupon the other, though in
name his equal, became in fact his clerk. When the predominant
secretary was a stronger man than the chief minister, the nominal head
of government was apt to sink into insignificance. The
secretaries-of-state had nothing to do with finance; but between them
they were responsible for everything else. Foreign affairs were
apportioned on the system that one dealt with the northern countries
of Europe and the other with the southern. The southern secretary also
looked after the colonies, the northern after Scotland, and both had a
right of interference in Ireland. They shared the duties of the Home
department, and each might issue orders to the Admiralty and the War
Office. If the northern secretary were engaged in shaping an alliance
with the Emperor, his southern colleague might upset the whole
negotiation by intrigues at Paris. In short, the functions of these
two ministers overlapped at so many points that it was almost
impossible to secure unity of purpose and concentration of national
effort unless one of them became a cipher. Like many other English
institutions, however, this strange arrangement worked a good deal
less badly in practice than any political philosopher would have
thought possible. But it occasionally produced a serious crisis, and
one of these was now not far distant.

Townshend, secretary-of-state for the northern department, was not
only Walpole's political ally, but his brother-in-law and closest
friend. There was this difficulty, however, in their relations, that
'Walpole could not tolerate an equal nor Townshend a superior.' The
chief minister was determined that the firm should be 'Walpole and
Townshend.' So long as George the First lived, however, Walpole was
unable to assert his superiority as a matter of right, and was obliged
to rely wholly upon his own greater powers of mind and character.
Apart from constitutional doctrines about the independence of the
secretaries-of-state--doctrines that Walpole took little heed of in
the heyday of his power--he dared not risk a quarrel with Townshend
by interference in his department. For it was through Townshend's
influence with the King, and still more perhaps through his influence
with the principal mistress, that the administration retained the
royal favour, without which it could not have carried on for a day.

The extent of Walpole's power varied greatly during his term of
office, and it varied with the different degrees of royal support
which he received at different times. When it was certain that he had
his sovereign behind him, the opposition might rage as it liked, but
he was sure of a House of Commons majority. . . . For the first six
years he was what he had determined to be--the predominant partner. He
was powerful, but not all-powerful. He stood well with the King, whose
personal regard for Townshend was invaluable, so long as the
brothers-in-law continued to make common cause. . . . From the
accession of George the Second to the death of Queen Caroline, ten
years later, Walpole had no rival in the royal confidence. For that
space of time he was in fact what his enemies alleged him to be--sole
minister, with authority that might not unfairly be described as
autocratic. . . . During the five years that followed, Walpole's power
was gradually undermined, and was at last destroyed, not so much by
the clamours of the opposition or by the revolt of his colleagues, as
by the defection of the King.[67] The clamours might possibly have
been defied and the revolt would probably never have gathered to a
head, had the King remained staunchly in agreement with his chief
minister.




III.--_Of Walpole's aims and methods, and how he dealt with his rivals
and opponents_ (1721-1742).


It has always been the exception when a chief minister at his first
coming into office has had a clear conception of the policy he
intended to pursue. The majority have merely been prepared to
undertake the King's government. For the rest of it, they have been
content to wait on fortune and to solve, as best they could, such
problems as might come their way. There are only a small number whose
ministerial courses could have been safely predicted from their
previous utterances or from the known bias of their minds. Of these
only the rarest exceptions have succeeded in following the true bent
of their genius. For surprising accidents and sudden changes are the
rule of politics. It is not often that the circumstances of the world
will let a statesman have his head. The situation into which he comes
so confident of victory may be transformed in a single revolution of
the globe. Thereupon all the schemes that he has framed so carefully
for the service of his country will vanish hurriedly like ghosts at
cock-crow. He will be forced at once to devise a new plan fit for the
occasion, and he will be lucky if he produces one that does not
involve a sacrifice of his consistency.

Happily for his own fame Walpole falls into the rarest of these
categories. His nature being what it was, his intentions were
preordained. During the greater part of his career the conditions were
favourable. He was fortunate enough as well as skilful enough to avoid
every obstacle that might have tripped him in his path.

His main public purpose was to make the Hanoverian dynasty secure. It
was as yet but seven years old, and had done nothing to win the
affection, or even the respect, of the British people. It was
tolerated, not accepted. Its precarious tenure was supported by no
traditions, by no graces, by no shining virtues. Its chief source of
strength was the uninviting alternative presented by its Stewart
rival. The British people coldly agreed that George the First and his
posterity should reign over them, only because there seemed to be no
other means of avoiding something worse.

Like most great men of action, Walpole had a simple as well as a very
practical mind. His manner of overcoming difficulties often suggests
the way of Columbus with the egg. Had he been given to phrase-making,
like one who followed him at no great distance, he might have said to
the King--'Sir, I can make your throne secure, and no one else can.'
And he judged the security of the dynasty to be bound up with his own.

In his fierce determination to remain in power he resembles nearly
every statesman who has served his country with distinction. Where he
differs from most others is in his constant vigilance and in the
thoroughness of his methods for maintaining his position. Sympathy and
imagination were not large ingredients in his composition;
impulsiveness was altogether left out. He was not one of those leaders
who work upon and through the emotions either of the masses or of
individual men. His character was in many ways singularly well fitted
to his particular task. The emotional appeal, so necessary for
bringing a nation through the sharp crisis of a war, would have been
an unsuitable and most dangerous instrument of government during
twenty humdrum years of peace. Nor was it a period in which there was
much need for heroic assertion of principles. Walpole had more faith
in administration than in measures. He would rather temper oppression
by a lax enforcement of the law, than stir up some Sacheverell
hornet's nest in attempting to remove a grievance from the statute
book. In his view the time was never ripe for a reform that might
excite any strong section of popular opinion against it. If a storm of
unexpected violence broke upon some government proposal, the cause of
offence would be withdrawn by its author as quietly as possible.

It has been made a reproach to Walpole by people who lived in calmer
times that his treatment, both of opponents and of colleagues, was
often harsh and overbearing; within the law, but unjust. He was
probably as good-natured a minister as ever sat at the head of a
cabinet council; but he held very firmly and consistently that there
was no place for chivalry in politics. Spite, cruelty, vindictiveness
had no part in his character; to people of slight importance he showed
a contemptuous forbearance; but on the faintest suspicion of rivalry
his great jealousy of power made him implacable to his foes and
distrustful of his friends. If one of his enemies fell into a ditch,
Walpole would lay a beam on his shoulders to prevent his uprising.
Hard-worked though he was, he would delegate nothing which, being
handsomely achieved, might cause the fame of some colleague to glow
too brightly. He would allow no man the chance of growing into a
rival, and he had a prescience of such possibilities so acute as to be
almost morbid. His harshness occasionally caused scandal or excited
sympathy for his victims, which in the end did more mischief to his
government than those injuries had done which he aimed at punishing.
The weapon of generosity, which some men have used with success for
turning enemies into friends, was one that Walpole handled without
confidence or mastery. Since he aimed at making himself safe against
rivalry, what sense would there have been, from his point of view, in
conciliating and bringing forward men of character and ambition, when
he could get the work of government well enough done by persons whose
mediocre abilities or damaged reputations excluded every risk of
competition?

Walpole used bribery, as a matter of course, to keep his followers to
their allegiance; but he was neither the first to use it for this
purpose nor the last. Among the succession of corrupting ministers who
flourished during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he was not
the most profuse, but he was incomparably the shrewdest. He probably
bought as much support for a hundred pounds as George the Third, in
later days, succeeded in buying for a thousand. And although Walpole
paid his retainers well, so long as they gave steady service, he was
careful never to put a premium upon opposition by buying off his
enemies.

As a big diamond cuts to waste more than a little one, so the
character of a great statesman is usually flawed with misdeeds,
meannesses, and oppressions that even the most honourable record of
public services cannot keep altogether out of sight. Walpole's
ministry would have been impossible had he not kept his supporters at
heel, and his heel on the necks of his opponents. His ways were rough
and ready; but it is unlikely that he looked back upon them in his old
age with the least compunction. He judged his own acts in the spirit
of Falstaff, calmly and indulgently: 'let them say 'tis grossly done;
so it be fairly done, no matter.'

       *       *       *       *       *

On coming into office Walpole had his hands full of work. The
financial panic showed few signs of abatement, and the interests of
the public revenue, as well as those of the monied class, required
that confidence should be restored as speedily as possible.

The minister was still engaged in soothing the nerves of angry
speculators and in oiling the bearings of his new-made government,
when his attention was engaged by a Jacobite plot, as impracticable as
most others of its kind, but somewhat more audacious. The central
figure in this conspiracy was Francis Atterbury,[68] Bishop of
Rochester, a man of amiable character and warm affections, an eloquent
and accomplished preacher, an able, turbulent and untrustworthy
priest. His offence was aggravated by the facts that he had assisted
at the King's coronation and had sworn the oath of allegiance. While
he lay for many months in the Tower awaiting trial his treatment was
harsh to the point of brutality. His prosecution, according to modern
notions, appears grossly unfair, though it was in accordance with the
practice of those times. His guilt, however, was beyond all reasonable
doubt, and the sentence of exile, though in certain of its provisions
there was a tincture of cruelty, cannot be deemed too severe.
Walpole's wisdom may be questioned in allowing pity and a suggestion
of martyrdom to attach themselves to the fate of a rebel, but not in
making the case of a conspicuous offender an example to discourage
treason. The plot was broken up, and it was the last of any serious
importance which disturbed his term of office.

Thenceforth Walpole's way of fighting Jacobitism avoided notoriety so
far as possible. He made no attempt at conciliation; but prosecutions
were rare and punishments were never savage. He was content to know
what was happening in the councils of the Pretender, and his knowledge
of the futilities, the jealousies, the intrigues and the
cross-purposes of his enemies was his chief assurance. Sometimes his
agents would play off one conspirator against another; or would allow
the victims to become aware that their secrets had been discovered. By
these means Walpole fostered their mutual distrust and kept the peace,
without needing to do more than rattle, once in a while, the bunch of
prison keys that hung at his belt. He was a master of the game of
spies and counter-spies. He bribed the right people. He tracked the
Stewart emissaries, opened and occasionally answered their letters,
interpreted their ingenuous ciphers, unravelled their foolish plots.
It was not merely that his intelligence department was immeasurably
superior, in everything save numbers, to that of the Jacobites, but
his shrewdness drew the right conclusions from the information that
reached him, whereas the luckless James almost invariably did the
reverse. Gradually, as years went on, his attitude became more and
more passive; but his system of espionage was never relaxed. If a
serious emergency should arise he knew exactly where to strike, whom
to lock up. It was said that, among the loudest and least able of his
persecutors towards the end of his career, there were not a few
against whom at any moment he could have secured convictions of
treason.

Yet, in spite of his contempt for Jacobitism, Walpole never succeeded
in stamping it out. To the end of his days he continued to warn men
against it as a danger that was still smouldering, and would assuredly
burst into flame if ever Britain should be at war with France. He
judged wisely that neither severities nor direct conciliation would
get rid of the evil; for to the kind of enthusiasts with whom he was
dealing, severities would have supplied the tonic of persecution,
while conciliation would have been mistaken for timidity. But in
another aspect the persistence of Jacobitism was due to his own course
of conduct, and his course of conduct was deliberate. His personal
interests as a politician prevailed over his obvious duty as a
statesman.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Walpole came into power the Tories, though they were not a
majority of the Opposition in the House of Commons, formed the most
influential part of it. In Sir William Wyndham[69] they had a leader
of character and conspicuous abilities, who, after the rebellion of
1715, had definitely renounced his earlier Jacobite attachments. The
Tories were not divided from the Whigs by any essential principles,
but only by a difference in cockades. They scorned to change their
party name, which had come to most of them by inheritance. But by far
the larger number desired an open and thorough reconciliation with the
new dynasty. The remainder, who were mainly persons of an older
generation, might have been deterred by pride from showing themselves
at court; but even these had no longings for a Stewart restoration.
Both sections were heartily sick of the Old Pretender, and Charles
Edward was still a child in petticoats.[70] When they were pestered by
legitimist emissaries about their duty to the exiled House, their
feelings were very much the same as those of an unwary gentleman, who,
at one time or another, has professed a general approval of
temperance, when he finds the enjoyment of his glass of port disturbed
by some officious fellow plucking his sleeve and enquiring how he can
reconcile the indulgence with his conscience. The Tories had become
respectable, and asked to be allowed to take part in public life like
any other kind of men. They desired to be accepted and treated as
loyal, which in fact they were just as much as the Whigs; for even the
Whigs could not pretend to regard either George the First or George
the Second with any emotional fervour. Their so-called loyalty was no
more than a reasoned conviction that the interests of the nation were
safer in the hands of the Hanoverians than they would be in any
others. The Tories had now come round to the same belief, only they
had travelled to it rather more slowly. Could there be any doubt that
a reconciliation between the King and this still powerful political
party was a matter of the highest importance? Supposing the Tories to
have been reluctant, true statesmanship would surely have waived
punctilio and set about building a golden bridge. In fact, the Tories
were anything but reluctant. There was therefore no need for finesse
or persuasion. It would have been enough to raise the toll-bar of
exclusion, studded with royal frowns and ministerial insolences, and
to let them come in of their own accord.

A reconciliation of the Tory party with the dynasty was not only
desirable for its own sake, but also because it must have proved fatal
to Jacobitism. Had the Tories been assured that they were to have fair
play, and that the scales of the King's favour were not to be weighted
against them, they would soon have become as contented as any other
constitutional opposition that is engaged in a struggle for power.
Being contented, they would gradually have absorbed, long before the
end of Walpole's administration, nearly every Jacobite outside the
Highlands. But by reason of their ill-treatment a morbid condition was
produced which might have been very favourable to the ravages of the
Jacobite bacillus. The chief and most reasonable hope--which in the
minds of James and his advisers became an unreasonable and extravagant
hope--of fresh recruits, and of a passive if not an active assistance
from the Tories in the event of a rebellion, was based almost entirely
upon the sense of grievance and injustice which was known to rankle in
that party.

A minister whose main concern was patriotism would have found little
difficulty in knitting the Tories to the throne. Walpole did precisely
the reverse. He did not fear the public danger of Jacobitism nearly so
much as he feared lest the Opposition might turn him out of office. As
a practical politician, his first object was to depress and keep it
weak. He was not the man to shrink from casting odium on his
opponents. In a parliamentary sense the continuance of Jacobitism was
actually an advantage to him. He was never tired of descanting upon
its iniquities and upon the perils with which it threatened the
country. It was useful as a bogey to frighten the King, Lords,
Commons and People of England. But it had no terrors for Walpole
himself so long as he could stay in power, keep friends with France
and direct the activities of his ever-vigilant intelligence
department. It was for purely party reasons that he insisted from
first to last on treating the Tories as suspected traitors, as
Jacobites in disguise. For the time being they were in the ditch, and
he was prepared to use every means which would prevent them from
scrambling out. His accusations were untrue, but there was no means of
disproving them. By dint of constant repetition they kept prejudice
and distrust alive. It was a course of action by no means uncommon in
political strife. We may not think that it was worthy of so great a
man; but he pursued it with a purpose, and he achieved his purpose: he
remained in power for more than twenty years.




IV.--_Concerning the general lines of Walpole's policy; how he aimed
at fostering national prosperity; of his economies; and of the nature
of the work he undertook and carried through_ (1721-1742).


The purpose of Walpole's domestic policy was to enforce the laws, to
safeguard property, to lighten taxation and to allow the industrial
classes a free course for their vigour. His methods were broad-minded
and evenhanded. If he could not afford to give his opponents fair play
in the political field, he would at least show them that their
material interests were as tenderly considered as those of any other
section of the community. He was not any more anxious to create
confidence and contentment among men of business and the great nobles,
whose sympathies for the most part were with the Whigs, than among the
smaller landed gentry who formed the backbone of the Tory party. He
would convince all owners of property that the security of their
possessions and their hopes of fruitful enterprise were bound up with
the Hanoverian dynasty and with his own administration.

Walpole was all for appeasement except where it might endanger his
power, and in great measure his efforts were successful. It might have
been supposed from the clamours in parliament and from the vehemence
of pamphleteers, that the Tory squires were smarting under a sense of
their wrongs and becoming day by day more ripe for desperate
adventures; but in point of fact they grew more and more complacent as
years went by, for they saw that the values of land were rising, that
their rent-rolls were steadily increasing, and they realised that they
were enjoying a fair share of the marvellous national prosperity. They
might swear over their cups, in their jolly English fashion, that the
country was going utterly to the dogs; but they ate well, slept well,
and kept in good spirits notwithstanding.

In the year 1720 industrial affairs were not in a satisfactory
condition, apart altogether from the accidental disturbance that had
been caused by the South Sea Bubble. Restrictions were too many, too
onerous, and often quite contrary to reason. There was no lack of
hope, of daring or of vigour in the trading class; but scope was so
much narrowed that these admirable business qualities were in some
danger of degenerating into contumacious discontent. The landowners
and farmers also considered themselves ill-used, and their hearty
co-operation was no less important in a national sense than that of
the bankers, merchants and manufacturers. Under the leadership of
quacks or partisans the interests of town and country might easily
have appeared to clash; but, if only the facts could be rightly
understood and handled, the prosperity of the one class might be made
a buttress to the prosperity of the other. What the occasion needed
was a man of first-hand knowledge and first-rate brains--one whose
experience was wide enough and whose will was strong enough for
dealing with the economic situation as a whole. Such men are among the
very rarest products of politics, and it is for want of them that
under all forms of government the towns have been so often set against
the country-side and the country-side against the towns. It was a
remarkable stroke of good fortune that the emergency discovered in
Walpole a statesman more fitted than any other, then or since, to deal
with this double problem.

       *       *       *       *       *

The burden of taxation was too heavy for safety. A land tax of four
shillings in the pound was a more persuasive agent for the Pretender
than the whole tally of his emissaries who came over loaded with
mischief. Commerce was galled by imposts that hindered prosperity by
preventing expansion. In recent times taxes had been levied on no
clear principle, but merely for the sake of revenue, and with little
regard for the effect they might produce on trade. Duties upon the
import of raw materials and upon the export of manufactured goods
discouraged enterprise; nor had they any plausible excuse on grounds
of policy. Walpole was courageous enough to face a present shrinking
of revenue, having full confidence that the Exchequer would shortly
benefit, far beyond its immediate loss, from the increase of
profit-bearing trade which must follow greater freedom. The North
American Settlements were rapidly becoming one of the most important
markets for British goods; but their development was hampered by
short-sighted embargoes upon the export to foreign countries of rice
and other produce of their soil. Walpole relaxed this ancient system,
while retaining the restriction that colonial produce must be carried
in British bottoms. The colonists were overjoyed and the home country
shared the benefit; for America immediately increased its purchases of
manufactured goods. Some years later[71] Walpole would have extended
his administrative reforms by a readjustment of the duties of customs
and excise. He was defeated by one of those outbreaks of popular
unreason, of which he had already seen two examples in the Sacheverell
agitation and the South Sea Bubble. This failure was the only serious
check he met with during the first nineteen years of his
administration.

As time went on, the opposition raged more and more furiously; but
they did not succeed in making any breach in his financial and
commercial policy, save in the solitary instance of the Excise bill.
They would have persuaded the nation that his method of dealing with
the South Sea Bubble was proof of his personal dishonesty; that a
great part of the revenue was devoured by his corrupt and rapacious
adherents; finally, that he was ruining the country. The accusation
of dishonesty was merely the baseless invention of malice; the public
revenue was administered by him with a more admirable economy than had
been shown by any of his predecessors; the country was not ruined, for
each succeeding year showed a new record of prosperity. The condition
of the mass of the people was more satisfactory than it had ever been
before. But boons of this character come so gradually that
contemporaries are apt to receive them as a matter of course and
without enthusiasm. Walpole had not been long dead, however, before
the greatest of his opponents reversed the solitary adverse verdict by
admitting the soundness of the Excise bill. But Walpole was
unfortunate in his fuglemen, and it was not until nearly a century of
somewhat scanty appreciation had passed away that his conduct of the
Treasury began to receive its due acknowledgement.[72] His opponents,
on the other hand have fared according to their deserts. Within a few
weeks of their triumph the memory of their ingenuity, their wit and
their invective was blown away like dust off a crystal.

It will be generally admitted that in principle freedom of trade is
sound policy, up to the farthest limits of national safety.
Differences of opinion, however, are apt to arise, so soon as the
nature of national safety comes to be examined in its military, its
economic, and its political aspects. As to the requirements of
military safety, there is a certainty of disagreement in times of
peace, and a likelihood of disagreement even in times of war.
Differences grow wider when the question becomes one of economic
safety, of the security and development of industry, of equal justice
for every branch of trade and agriculture. But the most acute
controversies of all arise with regard to political safety. For the
nation may be suddenly seized by a mood of unreason, as in the case of
Walpole's Excise bill. Or it may be held fast by some ancient
tradition which, notwithstanding that changed conditions have made it
obsolete, has come to be accepted blindly as an article of faith, as
an idol propitious to partisans who find their interest in fighting
reason with prejudice. Or else--which is the commonest case of
all--the sufferings of large classes of the population may be
attributed, with good cause or none, to the absence of restrictions
upon the enterprise of others.

Walpole was for freeing trade by little and little. He threw down no
challenge to accepted principles, uttered no threats against vested
interests. The greater freedom he gave to trade, the still greater
freedom he tried vainly to persuade his fellow-countrymen to accept,
were of a kind that could not injure the national safety, but must
necessarily give it support. His own notions of the extent to which
freedom was desirable seldom outran the ideas of his time. He appears
to have had no misgivings about the protectionist system he inherited
and maintained; nor as to the soundness of the Navigation Acts that
secured to Britain the monopoly of sea-borne trade to her colonies and
made her, save by her own acts of grace, the sole market for the sale
of their produce and for the purchase of their supplies. But with all
his care and foresight, with all his anxiety to conciliate popular
sentiment, there was one point at which Walpole found it impossible
to escape collision with public opinion. As his administration
advanced in years discontent was very artfully fomented, grew by
degrees more and more formidable, and in the end proved fatal to his
power. Then, as now, the most frequent causes of quarrel between
nations were jealousies and apprehensions with regard to their
commercial interests. These Walpole endeavoured to allay as best he
could. For opening new markets and for keeping old ones he placed his
faith in diplomacy, and shrank from having recourse to arms, even when
he was confronted with a breach or an evasion of treaty engagements on
the part of foreign governments. His failure to produce any
substantial redress was a constant theme of criticism for opposition
orators and pamphleteers. It may be doubted if he himself ever
reckoned upon winning at this game of passing papers to and fro
between the chanceries of Europe; but where the stakes were nothing
higher than privileges of trade with foreign countries and their
colonial possessions, he preferred, perhaps unwisely, a failure in
diplomacy to the hazards of war, or even to the costs of victory.

No finance minister has ever been more deaf than Walpole to the
invocations of theorists. The national exchequer was his daily
business, which he managed in very much the same way as if he had been
a well-to-do farmer, shopkeeper, manufacturer, or merchant engaged on
his own affairs. He was active, bold and shrewd; at work early and
late; admirable in foresight, but never forgetting the supreme
importance of time; very shy of long views, for his system, like that
of a thriving tradesman, was based on quick returns. If the obscurity
of the far future was impenetrable to his own eyes, was it likely to
be transparent and intelligible to those officious persons of no
practical experience who occasionally plagued him with their advice?
His lot was cast in days when the mass of Englishmen still believed in
the Navigation Acts, and it is clear that Walpole shared their belief.
From pedantry, however, he was entirely free, and he did not regard
the principle of these laws as possessing such sanctity that it might
not be violated in special cases when the general interest of Britain
and her colonies demanded an exception. 'Take care of the home market
and the foreign markets will take care of themselves,' was still an
adage that won respect. A statesman who had proceeded upon any other
assumption would have been considered crazy. A free-trader in the
modern sense Walpole certainly was not; though, what he might have
been had he lived in more recent times--in 1847, in 1903, or now--no
wise man will pretend to say. From what is known of the general bent
of his mind and policy different people will draw very different
conclusions. His early experiences of the force of popular unreason
inclined him to let sleeping dogs lie. He had a horror of convulsions
and crusades. He would never disturb accepted principles, but would
get round obstacles of this sort as best he could by prudent
concessions to meet particular needs or by cautiously relaxing the
enforcement of statutes. His distrust of people who would have taught
him out of history books how to govern England, of philosophers and
speculatists who would have led the country by ingenious short-cuts
into prosperity, amounted almost to fanaticism. The only advice he
sought willingly and listened to with patience was that of men who
had prospered in their own private undertakings; and he listened to
them only for so long as they were content to talk to him of such
matters as had fallen within their personal experiences. It was his
own business as chief minister to reconcile the various interests of
townsmen and countrymen, and to see that the whole body of national
industry moved forward together upon a straight front.

       *       *       *       *       *

Walpole was not one of those mean and dispiriting economisers who
imagine that a great business can be made prosperous by cheese-paring;
by under-staffing and by under-paying the staff; by paper savings that
destroy efficiency and cut off the sap of life at the roots. The most
important of all economies was to get the work of the nation well
done. He was a master who kept the goodwill of his subordinates and
drew the best out of them that they could give.

Government contracts had always been a fruitful field for public
pillage. It had been customary to state requirements at an exorbitant
figure. Contractors had been grossly overpaid, on the understanding
that they would share their illicit gains with departmental
underlings, or sometimes, as in the case of Bolingbroke, with members
of the cabinet and their friends. To check these inveterate evils
Walpole introduced new methods. When orders were found to be beyond
reason they were cut down; prices were determined by market rates; due
performance by the contractors was rigorously enforced; bribery, if
not completely extirpated, was greatly reduced. His fundamental maxim
was that the country must receive value for its money.

The carrying out of this policy is one of Walpole's chief titles to
fame. In the main he was successful, but, being made of human clay,
not wholly successful. Hostile criticism has fastened upon two
instances where his economies were pressed too far, and upon another
where they did not go nearly far enough.--He gave little or no
assistance to men-of-letters.--He reduced the fighting services beyond
the margin of safety, and what was worse, he neglected their
condition.--On the other hand, he made no effort to do away the
scandal of rich sinecures.

Literature has rarely been a generous nurse to her most illustrious
children. In the eighteenth century it was perhaps even harder than it
is to-day for the best of them to keep from starving. Unless they
would abandon their vocation, help of some kind was necessary for
their subsistence. In most cases it is more consistent with a writer's
self-respect to receive some modest endowment from the State than to
attach himself to even the most considerate of private patrons. It was
not a matter that would have involved great expenditure. Had the
income of the sinecures which Walpole bestowed upon his own sons and
relatives been divided up and applied to the encouragement of
meritorious authors, it would probably have done all that was
necessary. Small pensions, or employments not incompatible with the
pursuit of letters, were the means that Walpole's predecessors, but
especially the Tories, had used to foster literature. Their action was
not wholly disinterested, for they attached importance to the goodwill
of the literary profession. Not only Bolingbroke and Harley, but also
Sunderland and Stanhope, had bookish sympathies, whereas Walpole took
no interest whatsoever in such pursuits. All his reading was in state
papers, departmental reports and political pamphlets. But it is less
remarkable that he should have had no liking for literature, than that
he should have shown no discrimination between good writing and bad.
For his own speeches and memoranda show that he was master of an
admirable style, clear and forcible, rich in illustration and irony,
and by no means lacking in a simple straightforward kind of eloquence.
But when it became a question of employing others to write for him,
his own excellences provided him with no standard. He seemed to
overlook the fact that if his scribes would hit the mark of popular
understanding, the arrows of their argument must be feathered straight
and trimly. Any wretched scribbler fetched from a tavern was good
enough to serve him as a pamphleteer. Such men served him badly,
brought discredit on his policy and were despised by their more
reputable brethren. In the final struggle the opposition had the
sympathy of nearly every man-of-letters in Britain and the active
assistance of many. And when the struggle was over and Walpole lay in
his grave at Houghton, his fame was neglected for nearly a century by
those whom his careless contempt had taught to regard him as the enemy
of their craft.

From the national point of view, however, Walpole's ill-treatment of
the fighting services is a much graver charge against him. When he
declared war on Spain in 1739 fatal delays occurred in finding ships
and men fit for service, notwithstanding that the outbreak of
hostilities had been heralded by nearly two years of steadily
increasing friction. To repair its neglect and want of foresight the
government had recourse to a variety of inequitable expedients, to
cruelties and breaches of faith that it is impossible to excuse.[73]
The case for Walpole is that his policy was peace, and that
peace--though in this the argument is clearly wrong--did not depend
upon the efficiency of the Navy and the Army. It is incontestable that
he had kept the peace almost unbroken for nineteen years, and would
have kept it longer had he not been forced by his fellow-countrymen
into a war that his own better judgement condemned. And certainly he
did no worse than Bolingbroke had done after the treaty of Utrecht;
nay, not near so badly, for Bolingbroke, in addition to general
reductions upon a drastic scale, had cashiered a large number of true
and capable officers in order that he might fill their places with
Jacobites ripe for a restoration. But none of these answers has any
real weight. Walpole was steward of the estate, and in this instance
he was a bad steward.

Although he was a stern economiser, his economies stopped short at the
scandalous practice of granting pensions on the Irish Establishment,
and when sinecures fell vacant it never entered his mind to suppress
their costly absurdity. Pensions and sinecures alike were useful to
him as rewards to be dangled before his aristocratic supporters and
led-captains, and in a small way, as a means of providing for his own
family at the public charge. Walpole overspent his large income and
died in debt, but provision for his children was not one of the causes
of his embarrassment. From a tender age his sons were entrusted to the
benevolence of the State, and such formal functions as attached to
their ridiculous offices were performed by obscure clerks at a few
hundreds a year, while the principals drew as many thousands for doing
nothing. Among Walpole's contemporaries his action and inaction in
these matters provoked no sincere condemnation, but only occasional
outbursts of envy. The system he followed had been established from
the beginning of parliamentary government; it had grown more extensive
in each succeeding reign; and until several generations after his
death it was never seriously challenged.

       *       *       *       *       *

Walpole's aims never changed from first to last, nor did his constancy
in pursuing them relax. He never wavered in his determination to
remain chief minister, to grasp all the power he could and to keep it
firmly in his own hands. If he could succeed in his determination to
govern the country well and thriftily, prosperity and contentment
would follow; the Protestant Succession, the Hanoverian dynasty, and
all the other fruits of the Revolution would be secured. During these
twenty years Walpole's methods of conserving his own power and the
national safety never varied to any appreciable degree. His
ever-watchful agents continued to keep the Jacobites under
observation. Regardless of truth, he continued to denounce the Tories
as potential rebels, as Jacobites in disguise. His faithful followers
in the Lords and Commons continued to receive what were politely known
as 'gratifications.' The voters who returned members to Parliament,
and the men who influenced those voters, continued to receive bribes.
His adversaries continued to experience the utmost rigour of the game.
Members of his own party, whose characters and ability might have
fitted them to become his rivals, continued to break away, or to be
broken, before they had reached the point of becoming dangerous.
There was much in Walpole's methods which modern opinion does not
admire, but which it has forgiven or forgotten in a general approval
of his aims, and out of respect for the courage and sagacity which
enabled him to achieve them.

His life's work was even and of a piece; his aims were the warp and
his methods the weft; it was not a showy cloth, but a web of stout
homespun. The most exciting incidents of his career had often little
or nothing to do with the substance of the stuff which came almost
unnoticed from his loom. We see Walpole as a man keeping his machinery
going with the right hand, and buffeting off his would-be interrupters
with the left. Had they given him peace he might have shown a larger
and a better output. In this he differs from many of the greatest
parliamentary figures, the main work of whose lives has consisted not
in beneficent achievements, but in oratory, in personal combats and in
party manœuvring.

A career like Walpole's lacks brilliancy to the beholders. Its glory
does not appear in the chronicles of the time, but only after the
course is run, unexpectedly, like a royal sunset at the close of a
grey day. A great deal of his work can only have been appreciated at
its proper worth by those public servants who were concerned in
carrying it out. Much of it was uncontentious and uncontested. The
marvel is that a politician, whose power depended to a large extent
upon the veering interest of a popular assembly, should have spent so
much of his time and energy on labours that brought him so little
advertisement. The innumerable details of administration--dull,
trivial, and sometimes sordid--by which he built up and confirmed his
policy would make a very wearisome narrative, supposing any one were
found industrious enough to undertake it. The panegyric upon this, the
most glorious and enduring side of Walpole's achievements, does not
need many words.--For twenty years, without slackening energy, without
sinking of heart, and, for the most part, without loss of temper, he
kept resolutely at the task which he had set himself, and neither the
troubled state of Europe nor the attacks of an eloquent and factious
opposition could force him to lay it down.

       *       *       *       *       *

The drama of Walpole's administration is a different matter. Like most
dramas it has more to do with his adventures than with his work. It
shows a very powerful and practical mind dominated by its own clear
conception of the national interest. It shows a character, much beyond
the ordinary stature of mankind, engaged in the endless adventure of
governing men. The action of this drama is concerned with the efforts
of his enemies to thwart him, to pull him down, to take his place. The
same theme has been the ever-recurring motive of the political epic
from the earliest records of society, from the states of ancient
Greece to the soviets of modern Russia, and, as with the fairy-tales
of childhood, age and familiarity have never loosened its hold on
human interest.




V.--_How Bolingbroke endeavoured to earn his pardon, and of the delays
that occurred in granting it_ (1716-1723).


Within six months of his dismissal by the Pretender Bolingbroke began
to seek forgiveness from King George. His overtures through the
British ambassador in Paris met with a favourable reception. The
memory of the recent rebellion was still fresh, and Jacobitism bulked
more formidably at that time among the apprehensions of ministers than
it did some years later. Townshend, Stanhope and Walpole agreed that
negotiations should continue, and Stair was instructed accordingly.
That sagacious diplomatist heartily approved of the decision, for he
saw clearly that the cause of James could receive no deadlier blow
than the desertion of Bolingbroke and his open reconciliation with the
Hanoverian dynasty. Through Bolingbroke's great influence with Wyndham
and other Tory leaders, that numerous though distracted party might be
brought to a final breach with the Stewarts and might be led gradually
to transfer its allegiance to their successors. Stair appears to have
mooted the idea of a treaty; but there was shrewdness as well as pride
in Bolingbroke's firm refusal. If ministers believed his word such an
arrangement was needless; if they doubted, what security would it give
them? A written promise of restoration might have been something to
Bolingbroke's advantage; but the consideration for which it had been
given must also have been stated. A formal document that recorded a
bargain of this sort would have been a dangerous weapon to put into
the hands of his enemies. When a man is changing his allegiance from
honest motives, he will be ashamed to stipulate for a reward.
Townshend, Stanhope, Walpole and Stair all knew what Bolingbroke
wanted. Surely, he argued, their own interest must lie in granting it;
for he could do much less as an exile in bringing about the conversion
of the Tory party than if he were restored to his position as one of
its leaders.

Leaving the question of recompense to the future generosity of the
government, Bolingbroke, with characteristic energy, at once proceeded
to implement his promise. He acted impetuously according to his
nature; but in truth he had no alternative. In a few months he had
given nearly all he had to give, without receiving anything in return.
His conduct, however, was not wholly quixotic. Apart from his
confidence that a full pardon would ultimately be the reward of his
services, he was still hot with anger against the Jacobites who had
ill-used him, and was eager to inflict on them such injury as he
could, without betrayal of their secrets. But it is fair to assume
that love of England and loyalty to the Tory party were motives that
strongly influenced his course of action. The knowledge he had gained
recently at close quarters had convinced him that the restoration of
James was almost beyond the bounds of possibility, and further, that
if such a thing ever did occur, the result would be a national
disaster. It was therefore the interest as well as the duty of a
patriotic Opposition in present circumstances to rally round the
throne.

Though it was desirable that the weaning of the Tories should proceed
forthwith, it would have outraged the public sense of decency if one
who had been the chief minister of a formidable rebellion were to be
forgiven out of hand. Bolingbroke's pardon must therefore wait on
times and seasons. So the matter dragged on, at first from month to
month, and afterwards from year to year.

It was in September 1716--little more than six months after the
failure of the 'Fifteen--that Bolingbroke wrote his first letter to
Wyndham urging the Tories to abandon Jacobitism. But before the end of
that year the Whig schism had begun, and by the following April
Townshend and Walpole were in opposition. Stanhope and Sunderland, who
now became the heads of government, were in a position to realise how
far Bolingbroke's efforts for the conversion of the Tory party were
bearing fruit; nor were they unmindful of the hopes which, before the
schism, the cabinet had encouraged him to entertain. They could not,
however, disregard the use that faction, armed with a confidential
knowledge of their intentions, might make of a proposal to reinstate
the most notorious rebel. Townshend indeed might decline to fight with
weapons of this sort, but it was prudent to assume that Walpole would
seize anything that came to his hand.

The ambassador in Paris, as well as the chief ministers in London,
accepted in full confidence Bolingbroke's assurance that he had done
forever with Jacobitism and would henceforth use his best endeavours
to bring the Tories into the same mind. Even Stair, who knew
everything and who can hardly have forgotten what happened in April
1715,[74] appears to have kept his countenance, when Bolingbroke, with
admirable effrontery, held himself out as the kind of man who 'never
did anything by halves.' The chief security for his fidelity was his
own interest; he had much to hope for from the British government,
nothing from the Pretender. His condition, that his relations with his
former master were to remain a sealed book, and that he would tell
nothing of the Jacobites which had come to his knowledge during, or
through, his connection with their cause, was taken as a matter of
course. No special credit is due to him for putting this proviso in
the forefront, for a betrayal would have stamped him with infamy. Nor
can his reticence at this point have been a matter of much concern to
the government; for most of James's futile projects had been blown
sky-high in the general explosion, and it seems improbable that many
facts of importance remained still unknown to the Foreign Office. What
ministers wanted from Bolingbroke was not secret intelligence, for
with that they were already excellently served, but that he should
openly give up the Pretender and cause the Tory party to do the same.
Not being endowed with Walpole's abnormal prescience of rivalry, they
were apparently not unwilling to grant Bolingbroke's petition; but
they were moved solely by public considerations and not at all by pity
for his misfortunes. They would have been inclined to pardon him in
order to cure a certain mischief, had they been able to do so without
setting up a worse mischief than the one they sought to cure. Among
public considerations the safety of their own administration naturally
came first.

For three years[75] the administration of Stanhope and Sunderland was
the object of violent assaults. The Whigs in opposition were led by
Walpole, and when he hunted ministers--whatever might be his
pretext--the Tories and the Jacobites listened eagerly for his holloa;
for he had much greater skill than their own leaders in showing them
the kind of sport they loved. He was in the heyday of his vigour; in
excellent spirits; indifferent what company he kept; unscrupulous,
self-confident, good-tempered, dauntless, persistent and most
disconcertingly able; bent on destroying the government and avenging
his defeat; reckless of consequences if only he might achieve that
end. The dubious doctrine that the chief duty of an opposition is to
oppose may find support in his example. He hunted ministers in much
the same spirit as he hunted foxes; patriotism had as little to do
with the one pursuit as with the other. His attacks failed, and the
chief benefit to himself for all this expenditure of energy was the
constant exercise of his faculties.

Occasionally of course Walpole hit on some measure which deserved
defeat. The Peerage Bill[76] was destroyed mainly through his
admirable handling of the situation. And while that matter was
occupying his attention, he bethought himself of the secret
negotiations with Bolingbroke, which had been creeping along, ever
since he left the government, at the pace of a tortoise. Prejudice
might help his case, and faction knows no rules. He sounded a loud
alarum, leaving it to be inferred that the government was holding
parleys with an approved traitor, the very crime for which Bolingbroke
himself had been attainted. It was a clever stroke, for at that time
there was no more unpopular name in England. Almost the only people
who believed in Bolingbroke were the Tory leaders. The country squires
were still inclined to regard him as a brilliant will-o'-the-wisp who
had led their party to ruin. The Whigs hated him with a peculiar
fervour for the wrongs he had done them during the last reign. The
Jacobites shunned him on the false accusation that he had betrayed his
master. Puritans were scandalised by exaggerated stories of his
profligacy; while since his fall, his old friends the clergy had begun
to entertain suspicions of his orthodoxy. The mass of quiet-going
citizens remembered that he had been secretary-of-state to the
Pretender at the time of the late rebellion, and judged him guilty of
the crime of civil war with all its accompaniments of increased
taxation, disturbance of trade and bloodshed. Even the mob that had
shouted for Sacheverell and afterwards for Ormonde was more inclined
to despise the man who had run away from danger than to make a hero of
him. Ministers were wise enough to see that they could do nothing
against Walpole's handling of such a case, and that there would
certainly be another schism of the Whig party if a pardon were
proposed. They were not bound in honour to take any further steps in
the teeth of violent opposition.

When Walpole and Townshend rejoined the government in the spring of
1720 the matter was still in abeyance. Bolingbroke bore himself
meanwhile with honour and dignity. At every point he had acted up to
the spirit of his professions to Stair; he had betrayed none of the
Pretender's secrets, but he had done his best, and with conspicuous
success, to win over the Tory party to King George.

The change of ministers in March 1721 was not propitious to
Bolingbroke's hopes. The popular mood was also unfavourable; for
people had no sooner begun to recover from their fury against the
South Sea directors than they were stirred to anger by Bishop
Atterbury and his fellow-conspirators. Truly England was full enough
of rogues and traitors already without fetching back from exile
another bird of the same feather. So two years more passed by during
which Bolingbroke had sufficient self-control to possess his soul in
patience.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bolingbroke craved two boons--as a rebel, the King's pardon; as an
attainted peer, the repeal of the statute that excluded him from
Parliament and debarred him from his inheritance. The first boon lay
within the competence of the King and Privy Council; but there was no
way to the second save by passing a bill through both Houses. It is
uncertain at what stage of the proceedings Walpole came into them. The
question of pardon was less a matter for him than for Townshend, whose
position as secretary-of-state made him the natural channel for
correspondence with Bolingbroke.

Townshend was not over-communicative, was extremely jealous of all
encroachments on his special sphere, and clung tenaciously to his idea
that the name of the firm was still 'Townshend and Walpole.' The whole
administration hung on his influence with the King, and this influence
he could not hope to preserve should he lose favour with the chief
mistress.

The duchess of Kendal cannot be called a clever woman, but she
understood to a sixpence the market value of her position. She was
fond of flattery, still more susceptible to bribes, and Bolingbroke
used both ways to engage her interest in his behalf. Every one who
wished to stand well with the King was obliged to offer her the same
tribute. Bolingbroke paid her out of his own pocket, whereas Townshend
and Walpole being in office drew upon the public purse. There was no
other difference than this between the methods employed by the 'outs'
and the 'ins' to conciliate this pious and importunate lady; but as
she by no means underrated the resources of the British exchequer, her
tariff for keeping ministers in power was much higher than for
bringing a supplicant to the steps of the throne.

It is improbable that Townshend was really averse from granting the
duchess's request, so far as it had reference to Bolingbroke's pardon;
for Townshend was a very ordinary type of English gentleman, irascible
but placable, and he did not take at all kindly to the role of holding
a man down when he was beaten. Nor was his duller imagination haunted
by those forebodings of future rivalry which occupied so much of his
brother-in-law's attention.

On the other hand, the bent of Walpole's character makes it unlikely
that he would have been favourable to any remission had there been a
way of avoiding it without giving umbrage to Townshend and the
duchess. The pardon, indeed, was not such a great matter provided that
the act of attainder remained on the statute book. If Walpole were
pressed later on for a repeal, he would be well within his rights in
objecting; for the onus and the odium of carrying such a bill through
the House of Commons would rest on his shoulders. And why indeed
should the new leaders undertake the irksome task of legislation, or
risk the smallest fraction of their popularity, in order to serve a
former enemy, who, when himself in power, had never shown them a shred
of mercy?

For the time being, therefore, Bolingbroke had to content himself with
the pardon. He was now free to return to England, and he returned at
once.




VI.--_How at a meeting with Walpole Bolingbroke made an offer of his
services which was rejected_ (1723).


In June 1723, when Bishop Atterbury was set ashore at Calais from the
man-of-war that carried him into exile, he learned that another exile
lay in the same town waiting for the English packet. It was eight
years since Bolingbroke had fled to France and become a rebel. Having
received the King's pardon, he was now on his way to London, with the
intention of throwing himself at his sovereign's feet, and of
testifying his gratitude to the chief mistress for her gracious
intercession. He purposed also to offer his thanks and services to
Townshend, secretary-of-state, to whose unprompted magnanimity, and
that of Walpole, he deemed it politic to impute the ending of his
banishment.

Bolingbroke understood perfectly well what manner of man he had to
deal with in Townshend, what manner of woman in the duchess of Kendal.
He knew that his own quick intelligence, tact and readiness of speech
gave him an advantage over both; for in Townshend there was a certain
credulousness and in the duchess a gross vanity. He might hope for
much and need fear nothing at a meeting with either of them. The
repentance and forgiveness of the rebel were suitable themes for
sentiment and eloquence of the heart. He had good reasons for hoping
that by a show of frankness with the one and by flattery of the other
he might prepare the way for his next advance.

As ill-luck would have it, when Bolingbroke arrived in London the King
had just left for Hanover with Townshend and the duchess in
attendance. Walpole, however, was still in town, and courtesy required
that the returned exile should seek an interview. His expectations can
hardly have been rose-coloured, since no one knew better than he did
what manner of man Walpole was. With the other two Bolingbroke's much
swifter perceptions would have given him the weather-gauge; but over
the First Lord of the Treasury he had no such superiority. As one in
high authority dealing with a penitent and supplicant, Walpole held
the advantage of position and was not likely to lose it for want of
wits or from easy good-nature. Though he might appear as uncouth and
clumsy as the sea-lion in Regent's Park, his movements were not less
swift and unerring than those of that engaging animal. He was not one
who could be coaxed with thanks, or compliments, or high-flown
phrases. In business he had no sentiment, vanity or credulousness.
When he chose that the air of a conference should remain chilly, he
was not to be turned from his purpose even through his sense of
humour. If a petitioner had neither secured his favour beforehand nor
anything to offer when he came, he would go empty away. Bolingbroke
enjoyed no benefit of goodwill, and unfortunately the most important
service which it lay within his power to render had already been
performed. But in weaning the Tories from Jacobitism and in attempting
to reconcile them to King George he had served Stanhope and
Sunderland. It was no part of Walpole's policy to promote a hearty
reconciliation between the Crown and the Tories; and he might argue,
with some plausibility, that the new government had already behaved
very handsomely in granting the pardon, as payment of a debt due, not
by itself, but by its predecessor. He realised--no man more
clearly--that Bolingbroke had gone too far to turn back, and that he
could not now undo his work even if he were dissatisfied with the
reward.

It was therefore clear that Bolingbroke could have nothing to
threaten: had he anything to offer? Only a rather vague proposal that
he would break up the opposition by drawing the Tories gradually away
from the irreconcilable Jacobites and the factious Whigs, who were
their present companions, and by bringing them over to support a
national government under the leadership of Walpole and Townshend. He
also uttered a warning that young Lord Carteret, secretary-of-state
for the Southern department, had already been angling on his own
account for the support of Wyndham and the other Tory leaders. Walpole
brushed both the proposal and the warning aside. If the cabinet were
known or suspected to have made any compact with Bolingbroke, they
would be ruined by the defection of the whole Whig party. The literal
accuracy of this somewhat brutal statement may be doubted, but
Walpole's decision was unalterable.

In addition to this ostensible reason for his refusal Walpole had
another, and perhaps a stronger one, which did not figure in the
discussion. Bolingbroke's offer covered a springe, and Walpole was too
old and too wary a bird to walk into it. If the Tories came in to
support the government, their leaders must be taken into confidence
and possibly, before long, into office. In common decency the ban of
Bolingbroke's attainder must then be removed and his name restored to
the roll of peers. To let Bolingbroke come again into the House of
Lords would be like bringing the wooden horse into Troy. Then indeed
he would be formidable, for he could choose his own pretext for
defection, his own moment for attack. There was no one in the upper
chamber who stood on the same level with him as a parliamentary
fighter. He would make himself allies among the Whig malcontents, and
might draw off young noblemen of culture and ability--like Carteret
and Chesterfield--who were beginning to chafe under Walpole's
middle-class domination. There was also an obvious danger in the fact
that Bolingbroke was by nature a courtier. He had already won over the
chief mistress. If he were admitted to office, or even to the position
of an independent ally, he would very soon gain the King's ear and
begin intriguing to make himself chief minister. There could never be
a true union of hearts or even of interests between two such ambitious
men as Bolingbroke and Walpole. There was no more real magnanimity in
the courtly phrases of the one than in the rough speech of the other.
Each of these politicians was playing his own game, and the minister
would have blundered badly had he fallen in with his rival's proposal.
For the sake of some temporary support, of which he stood in no need,
he would have incurred the certain danger of a challenge to his power
before many months had passed away. Nor in the public interest was he
wrong to reject the offer, for the continuance of a strong and united
administration was a more important object than the temporary
conciliation of his most distinguished adversary.

At that remarkable meeting Bolingbroke did not gain a single inch. We
may wish that some gossip, lurking behind the curtain and looking
through a rent in it, had afterwards set down faithfully in his
memoirs what he saw and heard. On one side of the table sat the very
pattern of an aristocrat, on the other a shrewd, unpolished, country
gentleman. Bolingbroke was a figure of great but somewhat studied
dignity--tall, dark, lean, aquiline and highly-strung. Walpole offered
a complete contrast in his bulky and florid personage, in his smile of
imperturbable self-satisfaction, in his eyes which stood out from his
broad, good-humoured countenance like those of a frog. These two men,
still in the vigorous meridian of life, who understood the workings of
each others' minds so well, had been schoolfellows at Eton not so many
years before. Bolingbroke, with his handsome face and grand manner,
his easy scholarship--which eclipsed the competition of more assiduous
students by its spontaneous brilliancy--was the schoolboy hero. Who so
precocious as he in opinion, in knowledge and love of books, in the
wisdoms of those alluring worlds of fashion, wit and pleasure which
were fabled to exist some twenty miles further down the sacred valley
of the Thames? Walpole, the elder by two years, was in all things
different--a stout fellow, considerable, not easily to be put down or
ruffled, indifferent to learning, uninterested in books and not
over-industrious in study or form. His prospects were not brilliant,
for he was only the third son of a well-to-do Norfolk squire. When his
schooldays ended, he proceeded on his sober path to Cambridge, there
to fit himself (if such a thing might be humanly possible) for
admission to the Church and a family living. Bolingbroke, more envied
and admired, flashed at once on London like an unhallowed meteor. But
fortunately for Walpole, for his country, and possibly also for the
Church of England, there shortly came a change of destiny. By the
deaths of his elder brothers and his father he succeeded to the
estates of Houghton, and in 1701, at the age of twenty-five, brought
himself into Parliament for one of his own boroughs. In the same year,
and as a supporter of the same government, Bolingbroke took his seat
in the House of Commons.

Walpole followed the family tradition in ranging himself among the
orthodox Whigs who supported the coalition ministry of Marlborough,
Godolphin and Harley. Bolingbroke, on the other hand, though he
likewise was a Whig by descent, and had received his early education
at a dissenters' school, attached himself to the Tory wing of the
alliance. For the next thirteen years[77] the two men were opposed,
first as rivals for promotion, then as political antagonists, and
finally as deadly enemies. The tracks of their careers crossed and
recrossed. Each in turn outstripped the other and was overtaken. Each
in turn was victorious and vanquished, oppressor and oppressed. Both
rose at remarkably early ages to positions of authority. Within three
years[78] of his coming into Parliament Walpole was highly thought of
among the Whigs, while Bolingbroke became almost equally prominent
among the Tories. Then Bolingbroke shot ahead. He was only twenty-six
when, in 1704--the year of Blenheim--he was appointed upon the
recommendation of Marlborough to the important office of
secretary-at-war. In 1705, at the age of twenty-nine, Walpole became a
member of the Admiralty council. Three years later[79]--when the
Harley-Masham intrigue failed and the Tory ministers were
dismissed--he was promoted to the post which his rival had vacated.
Two years more passed by,[80] the Whigs were turned out of office and
Bolingbroke became at once secretary-of-state and the most brilliant
figure in the ministry. Under his eager direction Walpole was
condemned by a partisan majority in the Commons on a charge of
corruption, as false as it was trumpery, and imprisoned in the Tower
for the remainder of the session. Another four years, and George the
First sat upon the throne[81]; the tables were turned; Walpole as
spokesman of the Whig Parliament sought to fix the charge of high
treason upon his enemy, and Bolingbroke fled.

When they first came into the world of politics, Bolingbroke was
already a distinguished figure in London society. He was a scholar and
a wit, a man of fashion and of pleasure. Walpole in his own way was a
man of pleasure too, but his appetites were for substantial fare. He
was never the voluptuary of shadows. It is not recorded of him, as of
his rival, that he polished couplets to the charms of his various
mistresses or crippled himself with disbursements on their behalf. In
early days Bolingbroke kept Miss Gumley, the most expensive lady of
her profession in London. Walpole's most famous mistress was Miss
Skerrit, who is said to have possessed an independent fortune of
thirty thousand pounds, and whom he married immediately after the
death of his first wife. Walpole was neither a scholar nor a wit; but
he had already a wide knowledge of men and things and a perfect aplomb
in all companies. As he ate his beef and drank his beer after a day
with the hounds, he would scoff at men of fashion and men-of-letters
as coxcombs who differed only in the cut of their coats. His speech
never lost its tang of the Norfolk accent. He had what Chesterfield
described as the tastes of a bumpkin; for he loved husbandry and
stock, the pursuit of the fox and the slaughter of partridges. But he
also loved pictures after a fashion, and the building of great houses.
In almost every avocation except fox-hunting--possibly even in
that--Bolingbroke offered a complete contrast. When his fancy turned
in later days to agriculture he engaged a painter to decorate the
panels of his hall with bouquets of hay-rakes and pitchforks. In their
private circumstances there were certain odd similarities.
Bolingbroke, like Walpole, was married twice, and each of his wives
brought him a fortune. Both men made large sums by gambling on the
stock exchange--Bolingbroke in the Mississippi System and Walpole in
the South Sea Bubble.

The antagonism of Walpole and Bolingbroke gradually took on the colour
of an exclusive enmity, which so firmly engaged the attention of
spectators that the prowess of other distinguished politicians
appeared irrelevant, and the energetic scufflings of the ruck of
office-seekers passed unheeded. By nature both men were warm and
exuberant, appreciative of the personal qualities of enemies as well
as friends, capable of kindly intercourse even with those who attacked
them fiercely in the battle of politics. But almost from the first
they seem to have regarded one another with a peculiar distrust. They
used different ways of fighting, and each feared, though he affected
to despise, the weapons of his adversary. In their various encounters
each was on his guard, not only against his foe, but against his own
feelings, lest, in some imprudent sally of anger or good fellowship,
he might give the other an advantage. Even their hatred was cold and
grudging; not wayward passion or raging fury, but concentrated
bitterness; as if it would have been doing such an enemy too much
honour to hate him heartily.

By 1714 the early winner had lost the race. Was the contest to be
renewed in 1723? There should be no more racing if Walpole could help
it; but he was unable altogether to control events. What he could do
he did. When Bolingbroke came up to the scratch he found himself
loaded with a killing handicap. We may lament, with our feet on the
fender, the loss of what might have been one of the most stirring
chapters in our parliamentary history; we may also sympathise with
Bolingbroke's ill-luck and disappointment; but we need not therefore
blame Walpole. For him the only questions were--had he anything to
gain in public estimation by a magnanimous gesture? anything to lose
by denial of his rival's petition? The answers were emphatically in
the negative; for the country as a whole regarded Bolingbroke with
distrust. After all, statecraft is not a sport, but an undertaking on
which the gravest issues depend, and no man who takes this business
seriously, no man who is really worthy of the national confidence,
will ever give his enemy a fair field, if he has the power to sow it
with pitfalls.

Before their interview ended, Bolingbroke was forced to acknowledge
that Walpole must necessarily be a better judge of the political
situation in England than one who had lived in exile for eight years.
Circumstances, however, might change, and his own services might have
some share in changing them. He professed a gratitude he did not feel.
He would regard himself henceforth as bound to the interests of the
brothers-in-law. Whether they should ultimately choose to acknowledge
him or not was their own affair. He would shortly return to Paris,
where his many connections and his intimate knowledge of the political
currents would give him greater opportunities for serving his
benefactors, than in England where he was by this time a comparative
stranger.

Though Walpole remained cold and incredulous, Bolingbroke was
perfectly sincere, not indeed in his professions of attachment, but in
his undertaking to work for his new friends. He could see that they
held the keys of power, and that there was no way to the recovery of
his lost position save through their favour. He was anxious to follow
the court to Hanover, in order that he might express his gratitude in
the highest quarters. Townshend, however, refused to send him the
necessary permission, and there was no alternative but to return to
Paris and look for some way of proving his value. Fortune now seemed
to turn in Bolingbroke's favour; for he had to wait no longer than a
few weeks for the opportunity he desired.




VII.--_Concerning the sudden rise of Lord Carteret, who won a great
reputation in diplomacy, was made secretary-of-state, and incurred the
enmity of his colleagues, Walpole and Townshend_ (1721-1723).


Carteret came of a Cavalier stock distinguished for its loyalty. The
influences of his origin may have coloured to some extent his views
upon the relations of the sovereign with parliament and the people;
but at least there was no tincture of Jacobitism in his composition.
Amid the Tory intrigues that flourished during the later years of
Queen Anne, he showed himself always a staunch supporter of the
Protestant Succession; from first to last he held firmly to Whig
principles, and his fidelity to the house of Hanover was as
unquestionable as the fidelity of his ancestors had been to the house
of Stewart.

Carteret succeeded as a child to his father's barony, and took his
seat in the House of Lords in 1711, so soon as he came of age. Even
before the accession of George the First he had been recognised as a
young nobleman of brilliant promise. It was desirable without delay to
attach such men to the King's interest, and Carteret accordingly
received a court appointment and other marks of royal favour. At the
Whig schism of 1717 he did not choose to follow the fortunes of
Townshend and Walpole, but continued to hold office under their
successors. Two years later--being still under thirty years of age--he
was entrusted with a mission of exceptional difficulty and importance.

After the death of Charles the Twelfth, the enfeebled and distracted
condition of Sweden had stirred the cupidity of its neighbours. Peter
the Great was pushing his advantage by force of arms, while neither
Denmark nor Prussia was willing to forgo its claim to a share in the
spoil of the ruined kingdom. The business of Carteret as British
plenipotentiary was to extinguish the hostilities and the hostile
intentions that still smouldered on the shores of the Baltic, delaying
and endangering the general pacification of Europe.

Carteret soon showed himself the possessor of a most remarkable
combination of qualities. He began his mission auspiciously by winning
the confidence of the Swedes. He checked the Russian advance by a
movement of the British fleet. He forced the hand of the king of
Prussia, and finally overcame the reluctance of the king of Denmark,
largely by the charm and frankness of his manners. He never ceased to
regard the situation as a whole. He refused to be discouraged by
disappointments which proceeded first from one quarter and then from
another, and threatened time and again to bring down the whole fabric
that his previous efforts had built up. Firmness and sympathy were his
chief weapons. He judged soundly, and what he uttered was so clear and
forcible that his meaning could admit of no misunderstanding. As he
never attempted cleverness or cunning, no man feared to do business
with him. Like the best of the noble army of diplomatists throughout
the ages, he sowed trust and not distrust. Responsibility had no
terrors for him: on more than one occasion he risked his career by
going beyond his instructions. His good sense, good humour, good
manners and good faith were largely responsible for the fortunate
result. He approached his task with the buoyant confidence of youth;
but he pursued it, through all its various twists and turnings, with a
patience and serenity that would have done credit to Marlborough
himself.

[Illustration: _G. Kneller Bar^t pinx._ _P. Pelham fuit._

  _His Excellency John L^d. Carteret,
  Baron of Hawnes, L^d Lieutenant & Gov^r
  Gen.^l of y^e Kingdom of Ireland, &c._

  _London, Sold by J. Bowles in Mercers Hall Cheapside_

  _From a mezzotint by Peter Pelham
  after a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller_

After an absence of eighteen months he achieved his purpose and
returned to England with a European reputation. The political
fortune-tellers of the day only required to be assured of his industry
and ambition in order to place him first among the rising generation
of statesmen. So long as Carteret engaged in the political contest he
was never found lacking either in industry or ambition; and yet the
prophets were at fault. They counted on the development of his powers,
and never thought, at so early a stage, of allowing for their decline.
It is noteworthy that in this, his first employment, his conduct was
marked by three virtues that posterity dissociates from his name:
never again in the whole course of his career did Carteret pursue his
objects upon the same thoroughness of plan, with the same high
seriousness, or with the same constancy of purpose.

When he arrived in London shortly before Christmas 1720, he found the
nation clamouring for Walpole's return to power and for vengeance
against the South Sea directors. In the following March he was made
secretary-of-state for the Southern department. For this promotion his
thanks were due neither to Walpole nor to Townshend, but to
Sunderland, who, though the force of public opinion had driven him
from office, still enjoyed the confidence of the King.

The circumstances of Carteret's appointment were enough in themselves
to arouse the suspicions and hostility of the chief minister. But
beyond this the personal qualities of the new secretary-of-state, his
masterful character, his recent success and present popularity, marked
him down for destruction. Upon this point Townshend was wholly at one
with his brother-in-law, the First Lord of the Treasury. They resented
any intrusion upon the confidential privacy of their family party.
Their ideal colleague was one who would sit contentedly in an
ante-chamber and write his dispatches from instructions that were
handed out to him through a half-opened door. Townshend was not only
whole-hearted in his determination to get rid of Carteret, he was
clumsily and indecently zealous. At this time he had no forebodings of
his own fate.

It seems a strange thing that although the Act of Settlement was
passed in 1701, when George Lewis of Hanover was still under forty
years of age, he should never have troubled himself to learn the
language of his future subjects. And it seems equally strange that an
ambitious politician like Walpole should never have troubled himself
to learn either French or German. Walpole's omission is the more
remarkable, because a knowledge of French was then the prevailing
fashion among Englishmen of rank and education, especially when they
intended to follow a public career. Ignorance of the language of
diplomacy would necessarily be an irksome handicap to any one whose
functions were likely to concern him with foreign affairs. George, as
indeed nearly every monarch and statesman of Europe, spoke French
fluently, and he seems to have assumed--perhaps not unnaturally--that
his English ministers would possess the same rudimentary
accomplishment. The fact that schoolboy Latin was the only means of
communication between the King and his greatest minister was not only
a hindrance to business, but a perpetual source of irritation and
distrust. For the First Lord of the Treasury was cut off from easy
intercourse with his sovereign, while his colleagues and his rivals
laboured under no such disadvantage. Even Townshend became to some
extent suspect because he could talk French. Bolingbroke was still
more suspect because he could talk much better French. But the
accomplished Carteret was an object of the darkest suspicion, not only
to Walpole but to everybody else, because he could converse fluently
with the King in German.

Carteret's intellectual attainments were much above those of his
colleagues. He had been born a linguist and a scholar: It was his
delight to improve his gifts. He had an easy mastery of the chief
languages, ancient and modern. Almost every subject attracted his
eager interest--poetry and romance, history and philosophy, the
principles of the civil law and the genealogy of kings. He was an
enjoying reader, and his memory was as remarkable as his scholarship
and his understanding. No man was ever less of a pedant, less checked
in his high flow of spirits, less encumbered in action or speech by
reason of the vast extent of his knowledge. He was one of the gayest,
frankest and most likeable of men; a much more agreeable counsellor
and companion to king or commoner than his colleague the
secretary-of-state for the Northern department.

He won the sovereign's favour partly by his personal charm; partly, no
doubt, because he was willing to humour, up to a point and on minor
issues, the royal predilection for Hanover (though in this matter the
courtier-like complacency of his rivals was quite equal to his own);
partly because none of his colleagues could talk German; but chiefly
because the King considered that he alone among ministers had been
properly educated for his profession. George himself had been severely
schooled from his earliest youth in the intricacies of European
policy, and he considered a thorough knowledge of this department to
be the very elements of statesmanship. He thought as an Elector of the
Holy Roman Empire, as a continental, to whom the insular indifference
of the British cabinet was incomprehensible, except as the result of a
neglected upbringing. Neither Townshend nor Walpole had more than an
inkling of these esoteric concerns. Carteret alone understood them
thoroughly. He alone could talk of foreign affairs without showing a
lamentable ignorance of the dynastic jealousies and cupidities that
were working in the various courts and chanceries of Europe. But with
all his splendid endowments, Carteret lacked the most important gift
of all. He could make himself liked, admired and, upon occasions,
feared; but he never succeeded in making himself indispensable. He had
none of Walpole's genius for digging himself in.

It took three years, however, to get rid of him; for although he was
an unwary tactician, he was a sturdy fighter, and he had the King's
friendship to support him. His friends alleged that he fell a victim
to the intrigues of Walpole and Townshend. The defenders of Walpole
and Townshend maintained that Carteret provoked his own dismissal by
his intrigues against the chief minister and the other
secretary-of-state. And there is certainly a measure of truth in both
these statements.

That form of human activity which is known as intrigue appears to be
a phenomenon inseparable from the adventure of governing men. The love
of power exercises a much more disturbing influence upon great
characters than the love of gold. There have been only a few statesmen
in the first rank whose records are entirely clear of meannesses and
disloyalties that persons of a similar standing in the business world
would shrink from with disgust. The phases of intrigue have varied
with the conditions of each period and with the forms of constitution
prevailing in different states; but the nature of the importunate
instinct that moves men to disregard the ordinary code of honour in
order that they may rule over their fellow-men has remained the same
from the beginning. Intrigue centres round the dispenser of power,
whoever he may be, and turns him into an object of adulation, of
complaisance, of propitiatory offerings. King Log has rarely been
heard complaining that his courtiers were too fulsome; nor has Demos
Stork showed himself any less greedy of praise. If the Monarch has
been too apt to rate the wisdom and worth of ministers by their
alacrity in doing him personal services and by their generosity in the
matter of his civil list, the People has always looked favourably upon
those who were prodigal of doles and donatives, and alert in
transferring the burden of taxation from the many to the few.

If the chief end of political reform were to do away insincerity and
bad faith in public life, there would be no eagerness to exchange a
monarchy, where flatterers are only a scandalous handful, for
democracy, where they are a multitude. And if economy in
administration were the chief end of government, there can be little
doubt that the single potentate would occasionally prove a cheaper
institution than the many-headed one. For in each case it is
necessary to reckon with the jackals, whose appetite is as keen as the
lion's. When it happens that the fate of cabinets is in the hands of a
prince, his mistresses and favourites will receive the bribes and
flattery of aspiring statesmen. When ministers are made and unmade by
popular acclamation, newspaper proprietors, demagogues, mountebanks
and wire-pullers of every sort and description will be wooed with no
less assiduity. Whosoever is supposed to have the ear of the sovereign
will discover before long that his good word possesses a value in meal
or malt, in titles or vails.

In this matter it makes no difference whether the dispenser of power
is our sovereign lord the King or the sovereign People. In the
eighteenth century, when a minister wished to trip up one of his
colleagues, a very usual method of procedure was to undermine his
rival's credit with the monarch through some court lady, whose vanity
was touched by the asking of her aid, whose malice saw the chance of
paying off some private scores, whose self-interest was tempted with
the prospect of a pension on the Irish Establishment. In the twentieth
century an equally common way is by coming to an understanding with
some newsmonger in a big way of business, who will thereupon devote
the columns of his various journals to ruining the rival's reputation
in the eyes of the public. When intrigue is so common an incident in
the game, there is not much sense in whining, or in harbouring
resentment when one is injured by it. In all ages politicians have
reproached their opponents with being intriguers; but the practice is
one from which the most virtuous of them has rarely shrunk when the
patriotic duty of self-advancement has called for the sacrifice of
his nicety.

       *       *       *       *       *

The views which the two secretaries-of-state took of their positions
and functions were identical: Townshend as well as Carteret aimed at
supremacy in the conduct of foreign affairs, and neither would submit
to be subordinate to the other. By the constitution they were equals,
and, moreover, they were not Walpole's ministers but the King's, to
whom they were directly and separately responsible. In the matter of
backing, Townshend had greatly the advantage, for he and Walpole were
as yet working together in perfect harmony, and he could therefore
count upon the support of the more numerous and influential section of
the cabinet. Carteret had none of the instincts of a good party
manager. From first to last he was a poor compacter of parliamentary
cliques and alliances. He had favourers in the ministry; but they were
comparatively few and of inferior weight; a body of weak-kneed
adherents who deserted him at the pinch. His friends among the court
people were only a second choice. The semi-official appropriation of
the King's affections was at this time divided--though unequally, as
their titles imply--between the duchess of Kendal and the countess of
Darlington. The dullness and greed of these two ladies stood on a par;
but the duchess had the inestimable advantage of a superior bulk.
Walpole with his accustomed shrewdness had secured through Townshend
the goodwill of the fatter favourite, and Carteret had to make the
best he could of her less ample, though younger, rival.

Carteret was by nature precipitate, grandiose and overbearing; but
neither malice nor vanity can be numbered among his faults. He was
generous in his judgements of other men; but assuredly it needed not
the promptings of envy to show him his superiority to Townshend in
knowledge of foreign affairs and in quick intelligence. Nor need he be
accused of arrogance if he regarded himself as no less capable than
Walpole of directing the whole policy of government. Walpole might be
a great financier, a most capable administrator in the home
department; but his acquaintance with the European situation was even
scantier than Townshend's. To Carteret the management of the British
parliament and people always seemed to be a municipal matter,
subordinate to the nobler occupation of 'knocking the heads of the
kings of Europe together, and jumbling something out of it that might
be of service to his country.'[82] At the very worst his presumption
was no more than the pardonable over-confidence of youth. It led him,
however, to set too great a value on his own brilliant qualities and
on his recent achievements in high diplomacy.

Carteret was not only young, but ardent and impetuous, which blinded
him to the much weightier ballast of Walpole's character; his strength
of will and judgement; his constancy of purpose; his unremitting
vigilance; his understanding of the passions of common men; and all
those other unpretentious qualities that lie, so to speak, under the
water-line and out of sight. Carteret was a much less experienced
politician than the First Lord of the Treasury; but he was better born
and also better educated in all such matters as can be learned from
books and travel. Having the equipment of an expert in foreign
affairs, he counted too confidently on Walpole's handicap of
ignorance, and allowed too little for the illuminative virtue of his
rival's common sense.

Yet it was no unworthy ambition which urged Carteret to strive for
predominance in the partnership of government; nor did it imply any
disloyalty. For he owed nothing to Walpole; he was not Walpole's man;
and Walpole was not prime minister, for no such office then existed.
Townshend himself would not admit that the First Lord of the Treasury
was the chief or even the most important member of the cabinet.
According to the constitution, the King himself was head of the
administration. He was under no obligation to delegate his supreme
functions to any of his ministers, and, in fact, he had not done so.
He was free from time to time to give the greatest share of his
confidence to whomsoever he pleased, and he was also free to diminish
that share or to increase it as he pleased. He was committed
irrevocably to no one. The loyalty of his ministers was due to himself
and not to one of their own number.

From the historian's point of view Walpole's indisputable claim to the
highest position rests on the fact that he alone was strong enough to
take and hold it. He was immeasurably Carteret's superior as party
manager, as head of government, as leader of men. For all ordinary
purposes his sense of reality was far more alert. He knew that, for
the time being, he could humour and manage Townshend; but he could
never hope to make Carteret content in playing second fiddle. The acts
of government would lack unity of purpose and control so long as that
young nobleman continued to hold one of the chief positions. Walpole's
first interest as a practical politician and as an ambitious
statesman--nay, his first duty as a patriotic minister--was to secure
the smooth working of his administration. Carteret, unfortunately for
himself, was an obstacle, and he must therefore be got rid of by any
means that offered itself.

It is seldom very difficult for a watchful adversary to trip a man who
walks head-in-air. Carteret was by nature unwary, which is only
another way of saying that politics was not his true vocation.
Moreover in comparison with his rivals he was young and inexperienced.
When he became secretary-of-state in 1721 he had never previously held
cabinet office. He was not much over thirty. Walpole was fourteen
years his senior; Townshend, sixteen. These men belonged to an older
generation and knew all the moves of the game. The methods which the
brothers-in-law used to get rid of their youthful rival were not those
which one gentleman would use against another in a matter of private
business. We cannot regard them without a certain measure of disgust,
and we must lament the catastrophe which overtook so fine a spirit as
Carteret at the outset of his career; but that Walpole was justified
in his determination to be master in his own house, and that he would
have been guilty of inexcusable folly had he consented to tolerate a
divided control and the continuing danger of rivalry, are things
beyond the region of reasonable doubt.

Since Carteret had to be got rid of, it was necessary to find some
plausible pretext. This was not an easy matter; for there were no
important differences of opinion between his colleagues and himself,
either as to the general system of government or with regard to the
particular conduct of his own department. It is true that he had
inherited the liberal ideas of Stanhope and Sunderland as to the
desirability of attaching the Tory party to the throne, and also that
he was prepared to contemplate the admission of its leaders to office
at no distant date. Those communications with Wyndham and others which
Bolingbroke, at his interview with Walpole, had chosen to represent as
a disloyal intrigue, may be accounted for more charitably by
Carteret's belief in the wisdom of conciliation.[83] The divergence of
views on this matter, however, had not as yet reached the
controversial stage. As regards foreign affairs all three ministers
were agreed that Stanhope's policy of European peace, based on an
alliance with France and on a good understanding with the regent
Orleans and cardinal Dubois, was the dominating interest of Britain.
From time to time, owing to Carteret's imaginative and impulsive
disposition, there were differences over minor matters; but as the
King, in the end, nearly always favoured the more cautious proposals
of Townshend and Walpole, and as Carteret invariably accepted the
royal decisions with a good grace, no opportunity for opening a breach
could be discovered in this direction.

Owing to the regrouping of the great powers after the treaty of
Utrecht, Paris, which fell within Carteret's department, had once more
become the most important diplomatic centre in Europe. The
brothers-in-law were jealous that so high a responsibility should be
entrusted to their rival. They were shrewd enough, however, to realise
that, if the influence of the Southern secretary-of-state with the
French government could be undermined, his downfall must inevitably
follow. It might be hard to discredit Carteret at the court of
Versailles without jeopardy to British interests; but this was a
consideration that weighed lightly in the scale against the personal
ambitions of his rivals. They accordingly engaged, with great
forethought and energy, on the work of pulling him down, and in this
undertaking they were favoured by the habitual carelessness of their
adversary as well as by a freakish run of luck.




VIII.--_How Carteret, having been tripped up over a treaty of
marriage, was forced to resign his secretaryship-of-state and to
accept the viceroyalty of Ireland_ (1723-1724).


Shortly after taking office, Carteret, with the King's approval, had
appointed Sir Luke Schaub to the embassy at Paris. It was not a very
wise nomination. Sir Luke was by birth a Swiss. His skill as a
linguist had led to his employment by the Foreign Office. He had been
private secretary to Stanhope, and had served him as a confidential
go-between with Dubois, by whom he came to be very favourably
regarded. He was diligent, supple and obliging. His private character
does not seem to have been universally respected, but at least there
was no question of his fidelity. In accordance with tradition, the
ambassador to France should have been some Englishman of distinction,
rather than a foreigner who, from obscure beginnings, had risen no
higher than to the mediocrity of a useful henchman. This sudden
promotion could only be defended on the grounds that, after Stanhope's
death, Schaub possessed a more intimate knowledge than any other man
of the relations with the French minister, and as a demonstration to
the Regent that it was Carteret's intention to maintain the
continuity of his predecessor's friendly policy. But it is not
surprising that many persons more disinterested than Townshend and
Walpole should have agreed with them in regarding these justifications
as inadequate, and the appointment as one that was injurious to the
national dignity.

While Carteret was occupied in knocking the heads of kings and
emperors together, his career was suddenly cut short by a ridiculous
misadventure. The trouble arose out of a treaty for the marriage of
lady Darlington's niece to the son of a French politician. In order
that the bridegroom should become worthy of so honourable an alliance,
lady Darlington considered it essential that the marquis, his father,
should be raised to a dukedom. King George displayed so much eagerness
in supporting the petition of his favourite countess and of her
sister, Madame de Platen, that Carteret, much to his annoyance, was
obliged to divert his attention from the congress of Cambrai, in order
to smooth the course for a pair of obscure lovers. Ambassador Schaub
was confident that his influence with Dubois would soon procure the
coveted title. Dubois spoke fair words and reported the matter to the
Regent. The Regent, like Charles the Second, was ready to make anybody
happy, but especially such persons as were in a position to make his
own life uncomfortable should they take offence. King George, if he
were thwarted, might raise difficulties about the alliance. On the
other hand, if the French aristocracy took umbrage, the Regent's lot
might become unbearable. The nobility were agreed in regarding the
proposal to turn the marquis into a duke as an affront to their order;
but Dubois held out hopes to Schaub that in time these prejudices
would be overcome. The letters of the ambassador translated these
hopes into certainties. Carteret, who always stood by his
subordinates, was for trusting implicitly to Schaub. Townshend and
Walpole cared nothing about the dukedom, but they were determined that
their opponent should not increase his credit by obtaining it. Their
insinuations to the King, that the British representative in Paris
possessed neither the weight nor the dexterity required for a
negotiation of so much delicacy and importance, were echoed by the
duchess of Kendal, whose only concern was to mortify lady Darlington
and to punish those persons who had shown themselves over-zealous in
her behalf.

While the issue still hung in the balance Dubois died, and there was
an end of the chief reason for keeping Schaub at Paris. A good pretext
for bringing him away was shortly found in the dislike with which he
was regarded by the counsellor who now had greatest influence with the
Regent. But Schaub wrote to London more hopefully than ever, and
boasted that his power was increased by the reshuffling of places. He
must indeed have had a thick skin and a dull eye if he was really
unconscious that the days of his importance were over. Townshend, who,
with Carteret, had accompanied the court to Hanover, persuaded the
King that it would be advantageous to send Horatio Walpole,[84] a
younger brother of the First Lord of the Treasury, on a confidential
mission to Paris. Ostensibly he was to find out how Schaub stood with
the French court and to assist him in obtaining the dukedom; but the
real object of his going was to procure sufficient evidence of the
ambassador's unfitness to justify his recall. Carteret's behaviour on
this occasion was amazingly weak. He made no attempt to parry the
thrust at his own heart. His conduct is hardly to be explained except
by his fatal habit of regarding everything with which he did not wish
to be bothered as a trifle. If he was unable openly to oppose the
demand for an enquiry into the question of Schaub's fitness, he might
surely have insisted, seeing that France belonged to his department,
on choosing one of his own friends for investigator. Stanhope, in like
circumstances, would undoubtedly have gone to Paris himself.

Horatio Walpole arrived in Paris about the middle of October. His
capacity as a diplomatist was already established. He was a loud,
hearty fellow, with a broad Norfolk accent; not over careful in the
matter of personal cleanliness; offensive at times to the nostrils, as
well as to the ears and eyes, of fastidious persons; but he was a man
of strong horse-sense, a faithful public servant, and in force of
character far more than a match for the unfortunate ambassador to
whose aid he had been dispatched. Schaub's position speedily became
impossible. French society smiled maliciously. It was diverting to
have two British ambassadors in Paris scandalously at loggerheads.
Horatio Walpole's reports upon his adversary's want of credit, tact
and capacity were clear and vigorous; and they were probably pretty
near the truth. Schaub, moreover, had the misfortune by one of his
many blunders to place King George in an awkward position. But the
worse things went with the poor man, the more he bluffed, and Carteret
was foolish enough to believe his hopeful dispatches. Even the
Regent's death, which occurred in December, was unable to shake this
confidence. The dukedom was ultimately refused; and Horatio Walpole,
by the hints he dropped to the French government that the matter was
not regarded too seriously by the English court, had something to do
with bringing things to a head. Lady Darlington, the marquis and the
young couple were to some extent consoled by a marriage settlement of
ten thousand pounds which the King provided out of his privy purse.
Schaub was recalled; Horatio Walpole was appointed in his place, and
in April 1724 Carteret resigned his secretaryship-of-state.

There had been a good deal of underground work on both sides, mining
and counter-mining, and the Walpoles had proved themselves to be much
the abler engineers. In spite of its triviality, the episode is
interesting, not only because it led to the fall of Carteret, but from
the part played in it by Bolingbroke. Horatio Walpole despised and
detested him, but was shrewd enough to dissimulate; for Bolingbroke's
knowledge of the political currents in the French court and his
intimacy with several of the leading statesmen were too valuable to be
dispensed with. The important matter was to make use of his assistance
without giving or promising anything in return; above all, without
allowing him to step an inch beyond the functions of a mere
intelligence agent and go-between. Bolingbroke showed himself zealous
in the service of Townshend and Walpole; but he was ever on the watch
to draw the negotiations into his own hands. He was in fact much too
eager, much too officious, and thereby threw away, as his custom was,
some of his best cards. His play was every whit as bad as Carteret's,
but undoubtedly he had a much harder game. Horatio Walpole, though a
coarse-grained fellow, came off the winner, and as he reported
triumphantly to Townshend, he got everything Bolingbroke had to give
at the price of a few courtesies.

Bolingbroke understood, clearly enough, the game the three
brothers-in-law were playing with Carteret, but he did not discover
until too late the game they were playing with himself. He was not
guilty of any disloyalty in lending his assistance to the pulling down
of Carteret, for he owed no obligations to that minister; but there is
something ignominious in the spectacle of one who had filled so great
a part in public affairs eagerly overreaching himself in order to do
the dirty work[85] of men who disliked and distrusted him, and whose
settled antagonism no services could mitigate.

When Carteret was forced to resign his secretaryship-of-state he
continued in office, at the urgent request of the King, as
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. At this time George the First had a warmer
attachment to him than to any of his other ministers. As for Walpole,
if he must needs retain his dangerous rival in the government, it was
desirable to find him a post that was empty of power and that would
withdraw him as far as possible from the royal presence. The Irish
viceroyalty fulfilled these conditions. The King consoled himself with
the reflection that he would still be in touch with his favourite
minister for six months in the year, while Walpole could take comfort
in the thought that, for the other six, his victim would be safely
immured in Dublin.

It is somewhat less easy to understand the motives that induced
Carteret to accept this position of empty dignity. For in politics it
is usually wiser to go out than go down; better to break defiantly
than meekly to accept a diminution. In these bloodless contests
rebellion pays much better as a rule than surrender, and in case of
failure the consequences of the one are no worse than those of the
other. But the entreaties of kings are hard to refuse, especially when
they spring, as in this case, from sheer goodwill. It is also likely
that Carteret, who was never a very accurate calculator, counted upon
the vicissitudes of politics turning before long to his advantage. If
his enemies fell into disfavour, what more likely than that he would
be called back to high office? And in order to keep open this road of
return it was essential that he should not forfeit the royal
partiality by going into opposition against the King's government.

The main reason, however, for Carteret's acceptance of the viceroyalty
may be found in the peculiarities of a temperament which, though it
brought much happiness to its possessor, was undoubtedly a hindrance
to his ambition. The common rule that anger is the chief distraction
of judgement, did not apply in his case; his inability to harbour
resentment amounted to weakness and deprived his character of a
necessary stiffening. His good-humour was inexhaustible. He swore he
had been very scurvily treated; the Walpoles had won the rubber; still
it was all in the rules of the game; he laughed and bore no malice.
His craving for glory could never teach him to be shrewd, or
circumspect, or vigilant, or persevering. There were no limits to his
ambition, but it was of the kind that will only soar and despises to
climb. He disregarded too contemptuously all the serviceable
under-structures and scaffoldings of politics. He would occasionally
condescend to an intrigue when it promised to be exciting; but the
ever-watchful drudgery of party management revolted his fastidious
stomach. And further, his ambition was of so exclusive a character as
to prevent the attainment of its own objects. For in reality he was
not at all desirous of governing the Three Kingdoms, except as a means
to directing the affairs of Europe. If only he had been allowed to
make the foreign policy, it would have mattered little to him what
underling prime minister was entrusted with the general
administration. His aspirations were utterly impracticable in normal
times. Some prodigious international crisis would have been needed to
give him the position he aimed at. In the Irish backwater he possibly
was happier than he would have been in higher employment. He was one
of those whose time never hangs heavy on their hands. The work of his
office was light, but he was too eager a scholar to be idle, too much
a lover of his fellow-creatures to become a solitary brooding upon
disappointment.

But however successfully Carteret might discharge his duties as
Lord-Lieutenant, he could hardly hope to earn much credit thereby. For
in those, as in later days, the chief concern of Englishmen and
Scotsmen with regard to Ireland was that they might hear as little of
it as possible. In Dublin a reputation might easily be lost, but could
never be improved. A viceroy who failed to keep the country quiet was
damned outright; while one who succeeded in the task reaped his reward
in being forgotten.

Carteret was one of the latter sort. When he landed in Dublin he found
his old friend Swift busily engaged in lashing the Irish nation to
fury over their grievances, real and imaginary, in the matter of
'Wood's Halfpence.' After the British government had sufficiently
protested that it would never yield an inch to clamour, the trouble
was at last compounded in the usual way--by conceding the full demands
of an irrational and fantastic agitation.[86]

Ireland was a strange place of exile for one whose main concern had
hitherto been the intrigues and ambitions of European princes.
Nothing, however, could quench the eternal freshness of Carteret's
interest: if he were cut off from the greater object, he would always
turn eagerly to the less. His natural industry impelled him to work at
anything he undertook. The great qualities that marked his Swedish
negotiation had not altogether deserted him. He never sought to give
offence, but never shrank from a personal encounter, even with the
formidable dean of St. Patrick's. His wit and humour were of that
sympathetic kind that wins, not only the immediate contest, but the
hearts of opponents. His administration was an unusual experience for
Ireland, but the result was an undoubted success. 'What the vengeance
brought _you_ among us?' wrote the ironic but friendly Swift. 'Get
you back! Get you back! Pray God send us our boobies again!'




IX.--_How Bolingbroke, having failed to recover his peerage rights,
determined to engage in opposition_ (1725).


Bolingbroke left no time for the memory of his services to fade. His
wife had occasion to visit London shortly after Carteret's resignation
on a matter of private business. A portion of her fortune had been
entrusted some years earlier to an English banker, who now refused to
give it up, on the ground that she was the wife of an attainted
person. But another and a more important object of lady Bolingbroke's
journey was to procure the reversal of her husband's attainder as a
reward for his recent exertions.

The envoy performed her task with tact and energy. The good offices of
the duchess of Kendal were secured, as before, by flattery and a
bribe, which amounted on this occasion to ten thousand guineas.
Townshend, like an honest gentleman, made short work of the banker's
quibbles, nor did the objections to granting the latter part of the
petition seem at first to strike him as insurmountable. The King,
whose early impressions of lady Bolingbroke were favourable, spoke
graciously. The royal words were loose and vague, but something not
unlike a promise was given--something that a less sanguine man than
Bolingbroke might easily have taken to be one--that in the next
session of parliament a bill would be brought in to repeal the act of
attainder.

So soon as Walpole learned of these proceedings, he was up in arms.
Malice had little part in his composition, but he was a realist in
the art of politics. He would never consent to unbind a man who might
use his freedom in becoming a rival. Walpole was a shrewd judge of
character, and he knew Bolingbroke for his most dangerous enemy. Never
should that enemy be allowed to clamber into safety out of those rough
waters where he was struggling for his political life; rather, were it
possible, the swimmer should be held under the current till he
drowned. This unalterable resolution sprang, not from vindictiveness,
but from a lively instinct of self-preservation.

The result was a crisis that looked at one time as if it might break
the government. Walpole refused to pilot a repealing bill through the
House of Commons. Nay, he would oppose any such measure with all his
power. On the other hand, the King considered that his own honour was
engaged. The duchess, who was by no means unwilling that Walpole
should realise her power, stood firmly to her undertaking. Townshend,
being uncommitted, sided with his brother-in-law as a matter of
policy, though he was unable to see that the world would necessarily
come to an end were Bolingbroke reinstated in his full rights,
dignities and possessions. Clemency had been the usual way of dealing
with penitent and pardoned rebels ever since the days of the Tudors.
But Walpole persisted in his refusal. The duchess openly threatened
him with 'dismission' and the King seemed to hint at it.

The First Lord of the Treasury, however, was more than a match for
them all. He had no idea either of giving way or of being got out of
the way. He appeared to come into a more tractable mood. He professed
that his duty would certainly lead him to obey the King's wishes, if
by doing so he saw any prospect of winning over a majority of the
House of Commons. But he had not the faintest hope that the Whig party
could ever be brought to grant a full restitution. If such a proposal
were laid before parliament the King's government would be
overwhelmed. It would be the height of folly to endanger the dynasty,
after the fashion of James the Second, by stirring up anger and
discontent among its only warm supporters. Surely a compromise was
possible. Under skilful management the Whig majority might be brought
to agree that Bolingbroke's property should be restored, that he
should inherit his patrimony and acquire land in England like any
other citizen; but they would insist that a subject who had broken his
oath of allegiance should not be readmitted to the House of Lords.
Townshend welcomed this solution of the difficulty, and gradually the
King allowed himself to be convinced. The duchess was displeased; but
she no doubt judged the matter by her own standards, and concluded
that Bolingbroke, like a sensible man, would attach less importance to
the shadow of political power than to the substance of his landed
estate. A bill on these lines was accordingly brought in by the
government in the following year.[87] In spite of a few acrimonious
expressions it was carried without any difficulty. There is no reason
to suppose that a complete repeal of the act of attainder would have
provoked the opposition that Walpole affected to dread; for it is
rarely possible to stir Englishmen to fury against a proposal to
commute a political sentence. In this matter it was not the opinion of
parliament, but the firmness of the minister, that prevailed.

Even after this failure Bolingbroke had no thought of giving up the
struggle, but he abandoned all hope of succeeding by direct petition.
He was in his forty-eighth year, a vigorous, a disappointed, but not a
broken man. He might possibly win by force what he had been unable to
reach by peaceful persuasion and offers of alliance. But his position
was one of peculiar difficulty. He had really no weapon but his wits.
Parliament and the Court were the only spheres in which, at that time,
direct political pressure could be exerted: he was entirely excluded
from the first, and also, for all practical purposes, from the second.
The power of the press was almost negligible, and pamphlets, though
these afforded considerable diversion to the educated classes, were
not comparable in influence to our modern newspapers. A politician who
engaged in agitation and spoke of his wrongs to public meetings would
have been damned by general consent as a demagogue.

A further obstacle lay in the fact that the harshness with which
Bolingbroke had been treated provoked no outcry in any quarter. None
of the parliamentarians could expect any personal or party advantage
in denouncing his martyrdom. He was detested by the Whigs, because he
had joined the Pretender, and by the Jacobites, because he had been
cast off from his service. He was suspect even among the Tories, for
they were inclined to impute to his errors of judgement the chief
blame for their discredit under the new dynasty. He played a lone
hand; his grievance was his own affair; he had the sympathy of a few
intimate friends; but the country and the general mass of politicians
were indifferent to his fate. It was clear that he had lost all his
former prestige and popularity, and Walpole judged wisely that his
enemy could never hope to regain either, so long as he was condemned
to a private station.

Bolingbroke was well aware of the difficulties of his situation, but
he determined none the less to attempt the overthrow of Walpole's
government. His project was to combine the Tories and discontented
Whigs into a solid and harmonious opposition, the strings of which he
would pull from outside the walls of parliament. But unfortunately for
him, the success of this plan depended less on fertility in phrases
and ideas, than on that personal leadership which his attainder
prevented him from undertaking. In political warfare we are still in
the days of the paladins. From the earliest beginnings of our
parliamentary system no man has ever yet succeeded in compacting a
great party who was not himself one of the stoutest fighters in the
battle. The presence and prowess of the captain must be visible, day
in, day out, to all his followers. One who chooses to remain in an
unseen position behind the fighting line, or who, like Bolingbroke, is
kept out of it by the machinations of his enemies, will never succeed.
The pulling of wires, the manipulation of the press, the writing of
pamphlets, the exercise of private persuasion are all of them means,
more or less essential, to the making of a party; but they will not
suffice unless there is something visible to make it round--something
in the nature of a hero, who forces public attention to follow his
actions, whose bearing touches the imagination, whose sayings are
heard and for a time remembered.

Had Bolingbroke recovered his political privileges, and had he been
restored to his place in the House of Lords, it does not seem
improbable that his industry and the excellence of his fighting would
gradually have done away the cloud of distrust that had risen from the
memory of his futile plottings, and from the circumstances of his
fall, flight and rebellion. And the effect of this upon British
politics might well have been something more important and permanent
than his own rehabilitation. The struggle between him and Walpole
would have made the central spectacle of parliament, and out of this
antagonism there might possibly have grown two clearly defined and
firmly compacted parties.

The most usual origin of parties is some vehement difference in
practical aims. Champions thereupon stand forth on either side, and,
before long, the orators and philosophers announce their discovery of
underlying principles. It is true that during Walpole's
administration, and for long after it was ended, no such vehement
difference existed. Disagreements about foreign and domestic policy
were sharp enough at times, but they were shams. For although the
opposition leaders talked in vague and violent words, they aimed at
office for the sake of office, not in order that they might reverse a
policy or work a revolution. Even the immemorial dispute between those
who hoped to make things better by change, and those others who
believed that any change would only make things worse, had become a
languid debate. For in that epoch no one really wanted change of any
sort, except a few Tories who would have liked, for party reasons, to
get rid of the Septennial Act, and some half-hearted Jacobites who
were favourable in theory to a Stewart restoration. Nevertheless, even
in times of comparative indifference, there is always the chance, or
the danger, that parties will arise from no substantial cause, but
merely out of the clash of human temperaments. If there are leaders to
encourage this conflict, men of opposing habits of thought will attach
themselves to the one or to the other, like crystals round a filament.
The opposition between Walpole and Bolingbroke was due to something
more potent than rivalry and private animosity. They viewed the wide
plain of public affairs from summits far apart; the lights and shadows
fell differently across their two prospects; they could never have
agreed as to the true proportions of any event; and the opposition of
their vigorous minds corresponded with a permanent division in human
nature. Walpole wanted to get on quietly with his work; Bolingbroke,
to cut a great figure in the world. The country's prosperity was
Walpole's constant aim; while for Bolingbroke, who found his chief
delight in the drama of politics, grandeur was the prime
consideration.

During the struggle that ensued and continued for ten years,
Bolingbroke was freely charged with many misdeeds; among them with
ingratitude and treachery to Walpole. There is no substance in this
accusation. It was not to Walpole that Bolingbroke owed his pardon.
His proposals for an alliance had been rejected. His services,
nevertheless, had been used in Paris, but without any intention of
paying for them. The partial repeal of his attainder--a meagre
reward--had been opposed by Walpole so long as he dared. On the whole,
Walpole had acted wisely, but with extreme harshness. He was the sole
obstacle to Bolingbroke's return to public life. Considerations of
gratitude and fidelity could not arise in such a case.

Had Bolingbroke succeeded in his attempt to re-enter parliament the
course of British history would probably have been changed, not merely
by the division of politicians into two parties, but also by a breach
of continuity in Walpole's administration. One of the greatest
benefits the country derived from his long tenure of power came from
the mere length of it. As years passed, people came to regard his
government as a permanent institution. Feeling secure, they engaged in
enterprises that needed time to bring them to fruition. The benefit of
long governments, even when they are much less competent than
Walpole's was, is often overlooked. It has been in such periods, and
not in a succession of quick changes and dramatic achievements, that
national prosperity has made the greatest strides. Had Bolingbroke
been allowed to come again into public life, it seems likely that his
gifts of leadership, his eloquence, his skill in court intrigue must
have caused an interruption. His rival administration might not have
lasted many months, but it would have unsettled people's minds; and
the fear of it must have deflected Walpole's policy of peaceful
development, owing to the need of answering the taunts, and boasts,
and promises of his opponents.




X.--_Concerning the Pelham connection_ (1724).


Carteret was succeeded as secretary-of-state by the duke of Newcastle,
whose brother, Henry Pelham, obtained in the same year[88] the
appointment of secretary-at-war. Pelham was a new recruit, but
Newcastle had held office ever since the Whig schism. Also in the
same year Philip Yorke (afterwards earl of Hardwicke) was promoted to
be attorney-general. His rise had been very rapid. He had entered
parliament in 1719 for one of Newcastle's pocket-boroughs. A
twelvemonth later he became solicitor-general. He remained a staunch
adherent of the Pelhams from first to last, enjoyed the confidence of
both brothers, acted as their counsellor-in-chief, and composed the
frequent differences that arose between them. At this date Yorke was
only thirty-four, Newcastle thirty-one and Pelham twenty-nine.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the eyes of Walpole and Townshend, Newcastle was well fitted to
hold the second secretaryship-of-state by reason of his subservience,
the unimportance of his mind, and an extensive parliamentary interest,
which was due partly to the use he made of his vast wealth, partly to
other causes. After the Whig schism, when he deserted Walpole and
Townshend, Sunderland made him Lord Chamberlain; but three years
later, his old friends being once more in office, he rallied to their
side and was allowed to retain his post. They judged him with
sufficient accuracy to be a man who could be trusted to do his best
for the winning side.

Nature had made Newcastle for a butt. He was always in a hurry and a
flurry, talked an incredible deal of nonsense, and seemed ignorant of
the very alphabet of statesmanship. Self-importance was the propensity
which drew him into politics; but he started with a heavy handicap,
for he feared responsibility and shrank from taking decisions. The
most preposterous rumour or the emptiest threat would throw him into a
panic. He was startled by a sudden noise and terrified if he caught
cold in his head. Although upon occasions he could sway the House of
Lords to his opinion, he was one of the most incoherent speakers in
that assembly. People with sharp tongues, like young Horace Walpole,
were never tired of turning him into ridicule. Chesterfield says
cautiously that Newcastle's abilities were above the popular estimate
of them. This is not extravagant praise, and what follows is a more
damning indictment in a couple of pages than all the gibes that are
contained in Horace Walpole's memoirs and correspondence. But though
the Duke might be a laughing-stock for the wits and for some of his
own colleagues, his political importance was greater, and remained
greater for a longer period, than that of any other man who served
under Sir Robert Walpole. Many years later, when Newcastle was the
most abused and unpopular character in England, when he was driven
from office and deprived for the time being of his great weapon of
patronage, he still contrived notwithstanding to keep the allegiance
of his followers. At the end of six months he pulled the government
down and reentered public life on his own modest terms:--he was to be
nominal head of the administration and to distribute all the
patronage, but not to interfere in policy. A career of this sort may
lack dignity and greatness, but a completely satisfying explanation of
it is not to be found in the mere fuss and profusion of a vain,
ignorant and timid fool.

The common cry against Newcastle's incapacity for the higher
departments of statecraft ignores the fact that he was remarkably well
informed. Among the qualifications most important in a foreign
minister is a gift for collecting together a vast variety of
intelligence--personal and political, trifling and grave--with regard
to the courts and chanceries of Europe. Newcastle could hardly have
been set on a pursuit more congenial to his disposition. From the
first he engaged in it with infinite gusto; and by degrees--being
marvellously industrious and insatiably inquisitive--he stored his
memory with a strange jumble of valuables, oddities and trumpery, in
somewhat the same way as a magpie carries off to its nest glittering
trinkets, beads, scissors and broken glass. For with Newcastle, as
with the magpie, ownership was an end in itself. He enjoyed and was
content with the feeling that he possessed more information than any
one else; but being almost incapable of action and decision in great
affairs, he rarely turned his knowledge to account. Moreover, he
guarded his store so jealously that it was difficult for even the most
masterful colleague to enter and ransack it.

Newcastle's surest title to fame is his proficiency in an art that
statesmen of the old school, like Chesterfield, still affected to
regard with suspicion and contempt. For Newcastle was the forerunner
of the modern political 'boss.' He was a great primitive,
unapproachable, in the simplicity and directness of his works, by the
sophisticated smoothness of later academicians. Like most innovators
on the grand scale he was free from self-consciousness. He never
dreamed that he was one of the first masters of an art which before
long would be universally accepted as a condition of representative
government. He merely knew what he wanted; and he invented and
perfected the means by which he might obtain it. His peculiar province
was the management of elections and the subsequent management of
those who had been elected. Ideas were nothing to him; policy very
little; efficiency of administration never engaged his ambition. His
simple aim was to get as many men as possible returned to parliament
who would vote according to his directions. He owned many
pocket-boroughs, and by blandishment and a free-handed expenditure he
gradually acquired a wide influence in other constituencies. When his
nominees were brought into parliament he made it his constant business
to keep them firmly attached to their patron. They thronged his
levees. For men of all degrees and on every business he had the same
effusive professions; the same confidential pressures of the hand; the
same negligences and affronts; the same sops and compliments,
scoldings and reproaches; the same smiles, bows, hugs, kisses and
tears. His manners bore the hall-mark of indignity. He took a childish
delight in being asked for favours, and had an amiable passion for
making his petitioners happy. He gave offices of profit freely enough
when he had any to give; and when his stock of preferments ran short
he gave promises instead; and this also pleased people, at any rate at
the beginning. He took endless trouble in such matters, and cared not
what trouble he caused to others. Unlike any ordinary man he was
delighted to go a-begging for his clients to the First Lord of the
Treasury or to other colleagues who had offices and honours in their
gift. When his importunity failed, as it often did, he would sometimes
dip into his own purse rather than his hangers-on should go empty
away.[89] He would serve any one who had gained his goodwill, and the
way to his goodwill was to become an adherent of the Pelham
connection. He rejoiced in being toadied and in being thanked. What he
coveted was not the power to govern, but the power to confer favours.
But he gained power by conferring favours, and he used his power to
confer more favours, and the more favours he conferred the more power
he got. It was an ever-widening circle of modest ambition. All he
really aimed at for himself was to be regarded as a personage of the
highest consequence, one who must be consulted and humoured upon all
occasions; but, as he had no clear views on policy and no courage in
great affairs, he was always under the influence of some abler and
bolder spirit than his own.

He was not a man of quick intelligence or sympathy. With the best
intentions in the world he was always offending people. When this
occurred he hastened to smear their wounds with the balm of
fulsomeness; and fulsomeness from a duke is a sovereign remedy for
many of the minor disappointments of life. Even people who inclined to
regard him as a buffoon were unable to forget his rank, his riches,
the benefices in his gift, the boroughs he carried in his pocket, the
posts his influence might procure. So he went blundering on his way,
treading on the toes of others and bruising his own shins. But he
always went the same way, and at the end of each year he could
congratulate himself that he had won over considerably more people
than he had offended.

There is no mystery about Newcastle's character. He belongs to a type
by no means uncommon in municipal affairs--valueless in counsel, but
busy, good-humoured, insensible to rebuffs, impossible to put down
for longer than an afternoon. And like his humbler prototypes who,
after spending half their lives in being laughed at and humiliated,
reach at last the summit of their ambitions in becoming mayors and
provosts, so Newcastle in the end had his reward in being the nominal
head of the most glorious administration in British history.

His behaviour appeared so absurd, his ambition so trifling and so
guileless--his interferences in the higher departments of politics
were so infrequent in early days, and so inconsequent--he was so
easily cowed and brought to heel by a peremptory word of command--that
Walpole seems to have regarded him, almost to the end, in the light of
a well-trained spaniel who might always be trusted to bring in the
game and lay it at his master's feet. It is a remarkable illustration
of the vanity of human precautions that the chief minister, ever
watchful to prevent the rising up of rivals, should have seen with
complacency the growth of Newcastle's power. Walpole seems to have
regarded it as a process which must always turn to his own advantage
and which could never be used to do him hurt. But none of those men,
whom he was so well satisfied to be rid of during his twenty-two years
of office, had it in them to do him the same fatal injury that was
wrought by this apparently scattered-brained nobleman. At the eleventh
hour Walpole discovered to his chagrin that Newcastle had grown too
powerful to be suppressed, and that the fate of the administration lay
in his trembling hands. It is difficult to say at what particular time
the Duke became master of the situation; but it was somewhere between
the general elections of 1734 and 1741. Not being a self-conscious
man, he was probably slow to recognise the extent of his own power;
and being a timid man, he shrank from putting it forth until he could
rely upon a backing from the highest quarters.

To anticipate: Newcastle's reign began in 1743, shortly after
Walpole's ended, and it lasted for a similar period--twenty years. But
the kinds of power which these two men wielded are incomparable.
Walpole was a great minister-of-state, and he used his faculties in
governing the country. Newcastle was only a great wire-puller, who
could keep an administration on its legs, or upset it, at his
pleasure; a sedulous collector of information which he was unable to
turn to any useful account. He was not unlike a king who has raised
and equipped a large army, but who is himself entirely lacking in
military skill. Newcastle could do nothing with his formidable
connection unless he could find some person qualified to command it.
For eleven years[90] the administration jogged along without serious
misadventure under his brother, who was sound, but lacking in genius.
After Henry Pelham's death the duke determined to be his own
generalissimo. In a few months his incompetence overwhelmed him in
disasters. He then called Henry Fox to his aid; but before long this
mercenary leader threw up his command. In a lucky hour Pitt forced
himself into the vacancy, with results that carried Newcastle beyond
his wildest hopes.

In 1724, when Newcastle first became secretary-of-state, his character
was not fully developed. He passed with the world at large for a
well-meaning man of excessive affability; and he had also earned a
considerable reputation for industry, because he was observed to be
always in a bustle. When he broke his promises, it was not usual, at
this period of his career, to charge him with perfidy, but rather to
seek excuses for him in the superabundance of his careless
good-nature.

       *       *       *       *       *

If Newcastle was looked on as something of a zany, Henry Pelham did
not seem at all likely to set the Thames on fire. They were in all
respects as unlike a pair of brothers as ever owned the same
parentage. The duke had one of those handsome, sheep-like countenances
that appear so frequently in eighteenth-century portraits, and may
possibly have inspired the ornamentation of the mantelpieces that the
Adam family set up in the houses of the nobility. Pelham on the other
hand was square-faced and dark. His portrait discovers a shadowy
resemblance to Walpole; the unconscious effort, as it might be, of a
solemn and admiring pupil to model himself upon a master with whom he
had hardly a quality in common. It is Walpole with nothing of his
sanguine temperament, self-confidence and laughter. Pelham was solid,
stolid and courteous, by no means wanting in self-control, nor
altogether without a quiet sense of humour under his grave and formal
bearing.[91] He was a capable administrator, who understood his duties
and performed them punctually and, upon the whole, honourably. There
was indeed one quality which the brothers shared--timidity; but even
here we find a contrast; for the timidity of Pelham sprang from
over-caution, while that of Newcastle was the effect of panic.

It was to be expected that two such opposite characters, even had they
not been galled by the fraternal tie, must sometimes get to
loggerheads. On these occasions, when the Pelhams were not on speaking
terms, the channel of their intercommunications and the composer of
their disagreements was Philip Yorke, who in 1737 became Lord
Chancellor Hardwicke.

       *       *       *       *       *

As a judge, and as a reformer of the means to justice, there is no
greater name than Hardwicke's in the noble history of English
jurisprudence; but in the department of politics he was more of a
henchman than a statesman.[92] In point of courage he stood little, if
anything, above his patrons; but in force of reasoning, and in his
surpassing gift of orderly and lucid statement, no contemporary could
match him. He spoke, not in the high dramatic fashion, not with
vehement gestures and in tones of thunder, but simply and without
exaggeration. He did not love the brawling side of politics; indeed he
shrank from it too anxiously ever to have won a foremost place among
parliamentary leaders. He was a man of peace and persuasiveness. There
was one provocation, however, which had power to transfigure him into
a fighter. If the traditions of English justice were threatened with
pollution, if impious hands were laid upon his Ark of the Covenant
that held the laws of England, he went forth to battle, even as
Gideon.[93]

Up to 1724 Yorke's career had been a miracle of speed and smoothness.
He was one of those who seem never to jolt upon the roughnesses of the
way. His prosperity knew no check from the date of his call to the Bar
until he became Lord Chancellor at the early age of forty-seven. He
belongs to a notable though uncommon type of English lawyer; for he
owed the swiftness of his rising almost as much to the blandness of
his manners as to his abilities and application. He was the polite and
industrious apprentice of the allegory in whom the promises of the
moralist were fulfilled. With empty pockets and no influence behind
him, he found the world none the less--even at his first entry into
it--well aired for his reception, and ready to bid him welcome. The
judges were propitiated by his good looks, his modest bearing, his
habitual respect and his perspicuous exposition. As he rose, he showed
a very laudable consideration for his inferiors, and in particular for
solicitors. He would have kept friends with all mankind had it been
possible. When he gave offence, it was occasionally due to the
infinite pains he took to avoid it. To some of those hard-bitten old
practitioners whom he encountered in the courts, his suavity was
intolerable--an aggravation of his offence of too early and too easy
success. They grew as weary of listening to the compliments that
flowed upon him from the Bench as were the ancients of being reminded
of the justice of Aristides. But young Mr. Yorke was not a penny the
worse when they flung down their papers in dudgeon and flounced out of
court.

For all his excellences, Philip Yorke was not the man for leading a
forlorn hope at the bar or in the field of politics. He had always too
much regard for the odds. There was no element of the adventurer or
the Quixote in his composition. He was a good friend, but kept even
his friendship within bounds; and his behaviour at the impeachment of
his earliest patron, Lord Macclesfield, earns our respect more for its
correctitude than for its chivalry. The reproach against him of
avarice appears ill-founded. Noble-men of his own day, who had
inherited great fortunes, were apt to fling about this charge as
freely as they flung about their cash. They found, or professed to
find, a difference--invisible to ourselves--between that quality in
their own ancestors, which they revered as prudence, and the good
husbandry of their contemporary, which they sneered at as parsimony. A
professional man, who starts from nothing and is afterwards saddled
with a family and an earldom, must needs be of a saving disposition if
he would have his grandeur safely buttressed. But Yorke was no
sleepless hoarder like Pulteney, nor ever misused his position to
increase his fortune. In an age when corruption was the commonest
accusation against public men, he escaped all suspicion. In a
dissolute age, his private character passed without blame. Bolingbroke
and Stanhope were professed rakes; Chesterfield, a gallant upon set
principles; Walpole, a loose-liver; Pulteney and Hervey, incurable
philanderers; Henry Pelham, a gambler; Newcastle, a toper. Among
people of his own time Hardwicke is remarkable for his temperance in
all things, and also because, like the elder Pitt, he possessed the
fireside affections, and found his chief happiness in the bosom of his
own family.




XI.--_How at the beginning of Walpole's administration the Opposition
was composed of three independent parties_ (1721-1725).


The official opposition by which Walpole was confronted at the
outset[94] consisted of a small and undistinguished band of Jacobites
under the leadership of his old ally Shippen, and of the Tories, who
were shepherded by Wyndham.

Shippen was a sincere and unappeasable adherent of the Stewarts.
Though his abilities were considerable, his consistency and his
unswerving devotion to a cause that had an even lower vitality in
Parliament than in the country prevented him from ever becoming a
formidable opponent. Moreover he did not mean business. He knew that
the triumph of Jacobitism could never be brought about by
constitutional means; and he had no intention of using any others. His
sincerity consisted in flaunting a cockade which he knew to be
unpopular. There is a kind of man who finds a lifelong satisfaction in
shocking public opinion by professing on all occasions some impossible
loyalty. Such a one was Shippen, and he was able to indulge his whim
without the smallest risk to his neck, because no one in authority
ever thought of taking his bravado seriously. His tirades, indeed,
were exceedingly useful to Walpole, who treated him as kings in days
of old used their jesters, teasing him and petting him by turns. Again
and again Walpole would point the same moral: 'There is no vice in
honest Shippen; but hear what he says! If the Tory party which sits
silent would speak its true mind, it would utter the same words. There
is little danger in the frank and courageous foe; but beware of those
men who profess loyalty to King George, while treachery lurks in their
hearts.' 'Honest' Shippen was not altogether deaf to Walpole's
insidious compliments, and the two were in complete agreement that the
Tory party should be flouted and abused at every opportunity.

Wyndham was a man of first-rate parliamentary ability.[95] Like
Bolingbroke, his constant friend, counsellor and correspondent, he had
ceased to hanker after a restoration and was genuinely anxious for a
reconciliation with the Hanoverian dynasty. He fought, however, under
two grave disadvantages.

The first of these was his admiration for Bolingbroke, which led him
to regard himself as only a vicegerent. No parliamentary leader has
much chance of success who is for ever considering the opinion of an
absentee. We cannot doubt that Bolingbroke, had he been in the House
of Commons, or even in the Lords, would have made a mightier leader of
Opposition than Wyndham; but we may feel an equal certainty that
Wyndham would have played a bolder and prompter game than he did if he
had been free to follow his own bent and had not been overshadowed by
a more powerful character. For in politics, as in other walks of life,
no two men will ever see their opportunities in precisely the same
light. If the man who actually leads regards himself as bound to
defer at every turn to the supposed opinion of an outside counsellor,
the conduct of affairs must often be mishandled. And even if the
actual leader be the less able man of the two, he will do better by
playing his own game than he can ever hope to do by endeavouring to
play the game of the other. For what the greater character might have
ventured upon with success may be wholly unsuited to the temperament
of the lesser; and, moreover, the ideas of the absentee can never be
so thoroughly explained beforehand to the deputy that he will be
certain of finding himself fully prepared for every emergency. In
nearly every respect such a relation between two persons will prove
hampering, and the more loyal the vicegerent the heavier will be his
handicap.

Wyndham's second disadvantage was the ignorance and the inveterate
prejudices of the bulk of the party that called him its leader. On
these defects Walpole played with consummate skill; for he understood
far better than any of his contemporaries the nature and point of view
of the country gentlemen. The squires of those days, though in many
cases of ancient descent, were no part of the aristocracy. They were
solid, well-to-do, middle-class people who derived their incomes from
agricultural land. Very few of them were in a big way of business, and
they recognised no more identity of interest with the great landowning
noblemen than is felt by small shopkeepers in our own day with regard
to the large department stores. They were separated by a wide gulf of
jealousy, fashion and education from those overweening rivals. As
great a distance divided them, on the one hand, from the enterprising
traders and merchants who congregated in the towns, and on the other
from the numerous class of clever adventurers who looked to make a
living out of politics. These three orders of men--noblemen,
industrialists and adventurers--were highly obnoxious to the
unlettered country gentlemen of homelier breeding and less nimble
wits. The tradesmen they affected to despise; they distrusted the
politicians; and they hated the 'lords' with a most cordial
detestation. Like Squire Western, they were ill-disposed to the
Hanoverians very largely because the crown was believed to be in
league with the nobles. The Tories were not received at court. The
smart people were nearly all of them Whigs. The House of Lords had
become a Whig preserve, where a Tory speech caused nearly as much
scandal as the report of a poacher's gun. The Tories were the
uneducated, the slow-witted, the inarticulate, the unfashionable
party. They had, notwithstanding, a very shrewd notion of their own
class interests, and they had also a vague, but by no means unsound,
sense of the national advantage. But they had no spokesman. Wyndham,
the fine gentleman, the aristocrat, the man of culture, was not really
one of themselves. Bolingbroke was a dark enigma, almost as much an
object of suspicion as the Whigs. By an odd stroke of irony the only
man who thoroughly understood them, and who could state their point of
view in their own plain language, was the head of the government they
abhorred. And Walpole made the most of his advantage. He would soothe
them with a few quiet words, just when their own leaders most desired
to keep them at the boiling-point; or he would goad them into a
mad-bull fit of blind rage, just when it was most needful that they
should comport themselves like reasonable human beings. But the
deadliest of all his devices was to fill the official Opposition of
Jacobites and Tories with suspicions against the unofficial and
fluctuating Opposition of discontented Whigs.

Lord Waldegrave, who was an onlooker, has described the Whig party,
after the accession of the house of Hanover, as an alliance of
different clans, fighting in the same cause, professing the same
principles, but influenced and guided by their different
chieftains.[96] At this period, however, they had no cause, for they
had won it; their principles, finding no serious challenger, were in
abeyance; and though they followed the same pursuit (being all intent
on office), it was one that served rather to divide than to unite
them. For as no administration was sufficiently capacious to provide
for every chieftain an office that would satisfy his self-importance,
and for all his henchmen posts that would enable them to live in
comfort at the public charge, it followed that the benches opposite to
ministers were never likely to lack Whig occupants. From the
beginning, the majority of the Opposition consisted of Whigs. What
these Adullamites required was leadership, and this they never
obtained; for although Walpole supplied them with several
orators--outcasts from his own government--the malcontents failed in
finding any character who wholly gained their confidence, or who
deserved to gain it.




XII.--_Concerning the defection of William Pulteney_ (1725).


The same year in which Bolingbroke's relief bill passed through
parliament William Pulteney, who held office as
Cofferer-of-the-Household, mutinied, spoke against government and was
dismissed. His grievance was the promotion of Newcastle, instead of
himself, to be secretary-of-state after Carteret's resignation.

It has been said of Pulteney that, although he was a perspicuous
speaker upon the most complicated affairs, his parts were rather above
business, and that he was wholly incapable of conducting it for long
together with prudence and steadiness.[97] This is perhaps only
another way of saying that he was one of those men, by no means
uncommon in the history of representative assemblies, who speak very
much above their abilities.

The institution of popular government seems to be ever haunted by the
superstition that a master of the arts of oratory will also prove wise
in counsel and vigorous in action. The contrary is nearer the truth.
The highest qualities of eloquence and of statesmanship are rarely
united in the same character. The strength of Walpole's speaking did
not lie in its being either an appeal to the emotions of his audience
or an expression of his own. Its force was the persuasiveness of
common sense in the mouth of a supremely courageous man. With Pulteney
it was entirely different. Friends and enemies were agreed that he
could fiddle harmonics on all the strings of the human heart. He was
'eloquent, entertaining, persuasive, strong and pathetic as the
occasion required.' He was essentially an artist. And, like other
artists, the orator is subject to the excitement and vagaries of his
own temperament. In certain aspects, indeed, oratory is the most
hazardous of all artistic employments. For, of necessity, the orator
must often speak without forethought, and unlike the man of letters,
he is unable to profit by his afterthoughts. Insensibly the anxiety of
an eloquent speaker that his hearers should admire his speech will
tend to master his first intention, that they should follow his
opinion. Half unconsciously he will adapt or whittle away his opinion
in order to win their applause; and he will often choose opinions that
suit his style of rhetoric, as a woman chooses clothes becoming to her
shape or complexion. He is peculiarly liable to take infection from
the mood of his audience, and to become the proselyte of those he
would convert. The actor is not immune from a similar infection, and
will upon occasions rant for the gallery or mince to pleasure the
stalls; but he has this advantage over the orator, that he speaks by
the book, and is delivered, not of his own conceptions, but of those
of the play-wright. The matter of the drama is none of his business,
but only the manner of its rendering. The orator, on the other hand,
is responsible for everything--for the matter as well as for the
manner, and also (although this he is sometimes eager enough to
shuffle out of) for the consequences. By the very nature of his trade
he is forced to work through the medium of passion and prejudice. Even
truth itself, as he states it, becomes untrue; for he must ever be
distorting its features and disguising its proportions. Firm
resolution, sound judgement, and those other qualities on which
statesmanship depends, are merely so many impediments to his
artistry. Not even the greatest character can wholly escape this
corrosive influence acting over a long period; and the character of
Pulteney was none of the greatest. Many years later, at the supreme
crisis of his career, he was stricken with doubt, hesitation and
infirmity of purpose. Insincerity had eaten out the core of his being,
leaving nothing but a rind which could properly be called Pulteney.

As a young man, he had been a Whig of the most orthodox pattern. He
had followed the fortunes of Walpole at a time when they were none too
bright, and had stood faithfully by his leader in 1711 when the Tories
brought about his disgrace and sent him to the Tower. At the accession
of George the First, Pulteney, being then in his thirty-first year,
was rewarded with an appointment of minor importance in the
administration of Townshend, Stanhope and Walpole.[98] When his
leaders quarrelled he refused to remain in office under Stanhope and
Sunderland. But, on the triumphant recall of Walpole to power,
Pulteney received no office--only the offer of a peerage, which he
declined with no concealment of his disgust. It is not clear why he
was passed over in this way, any more than it is clear why, two years
later, he accepted an insignificant court appointment.[99]

The rupture in 1725 was of his own contriving; but certainly he cannot
be blamed for refusing to forgive the appointment of Newcastle to the
vacant secretaryship-of-state. Newcastle, however, had two advantages
over Pulteney in Walpole's eyes--he commanded a very large
parliamentary interest, and he had never shown any independence of
character. These may have been sufficient reasons for passing over a
man of ability, who was also a faithful supporter of many years'
standing; but there is little room for doubt that Pulteney was treated
harshly, with ingratitude and also most unwisely. Before many months
Walpole had reason to regret his decision; but when at last he sought
to make amends, it was too late; for by that time his injured follower
had become irreconcilable.

Dismissal from office was a turning-point in Pulteney's career.
Thenceforward it was war to the knife between him and the chief
minister. On the spur of resentment he changed his habits and his
whole way of life. Hitherto he had been something of a saunterer, and
was freely accused of laziness. But now he threw himself heart and
soul into the business of opposition. His journalism was as persistent
and nearly as brilliant as his oratory; his fertility in pamphlets was
conspicuous in an age which delighted in that form of literature. The
success of his attacks may be inferred from the fact that, some years
later, by way of punishment, his name was struck off the roll of privy
councillors.

Not only Pulteney's political conduct, but his character as well,
appears to have been affected by his rupture with Walpole. He is
described as having been, in his early days, of an easy and sociable
disposition. His temper was always hot and quick; but he had wit,
gaiety and physical courage. His company was greatly sought after. But
the accounts of him in later life are less pleasing, and, in the
portrait of him by Reynolds,[100] his eyes have that look of cold
suspicion, which might be expected in one who had given himself over
to avarice and a settled animosity. In the day of his triumph, when
the two chief purposes of his life--a vast fortune and the ruin of his
enemy--were fully achieved, he seems to have had no friends and to
have been a friend to no one.[101]




XIII.--_How Bolingbroke, Pulteney and Wyndham endeavoured to unite the
Opposition; but how, during sixteen years, all their efforts to
dislodge Walpole were unsuccessful_ (1726-1742).


There was a coming together of the discontented Whigs immediately
after Pulteney's dismissal. He lost no time in attacking the
government. He spoke often and he spoke very well; in mere oratory he
surpassed every one. And to begin with, he spoke always as a Whig, as
one who lamented the falling away of ministers from the principles of
the 'glorious' revolution.

Hitherto the Whig malcontents had only grumbled fortuitously, assuming
to speak in the character of candid friends. Nor had they ever acted
in concert, but as independent bands that went against the government
or with it, or stood aloof, obeying the momentary whims and humours of
their various chieftains.[102] But, beyond this, they were in fact
afraid of the Treasury Bench, having no one among them with sufficient
talents, experience of affairs and self-confidence to venture on a
contest, without the certainty of being turned into a laughing-stock
for his pains. In order that the dissentient Whigs might be powerful
in proportion to their numbers they required a leader; but a mere
voice was enough to bring them together. And now they had got
Pulteney, who spoke with an authority second only to that of the chief
minister and in tones of superiority to all the rest.

Bolingbroke, who was burning to avenge his wrongs and to return to
political life, soon became alive to the advantages that might be
gained by a combination between Pulteney's Whigs and Wyndham's Tories.
The fact that Pulteney was prevented by his character and Wyndham by
his circumstances from ever becoming a formidable leader may have
seemed to smooth the path for Bolingbroke's ambition. It is not
impossible that if he had been a member of either House his plan might
have succeeded to the full extent of his hopes. For the old line of
division had faded out of sight. The Tories no longer hankered after
changing the dynasty, and the much-talked-of principles of the
'glorious' revolution were either dead letters or had become the
accepted commonplaces of both parties. The main obstacle to
co-operation lay not in the facts so much as in opinion--in suspicions
and hostile attitudes of mind. Under a leader of brilliant ability
and sympathetic insight this fog of mutual distrust might have blown
away. For the only difficulty of real substance was how to reconcile
the class interests and prejudices of the Tory country gentlemen with
those of the Whig noblemen on the one hand, and of the trading
community, which consisted mainly of Whigs, on the other. Surely a
problem of this sort was not beyond the arts of a consummate
politician.

As on former occasions, Bolingbroke underrated the task which lay
before him. Although he seems to have had little difficulty in
bringing over Pulteney, Wyndham and a certain number of their more
prominent supporters to his views, the sentiments of the rank and file
continued to counterwork his schemes from first to last. The
difference between Whigs and Tories was to a large extent a social
cleavage, and chasms of this sort are very hard to bridge. The
aristocratic section of the Whigs (in whom lay the chief power) looked
down upon the squires as people of no fashion, lacking both wit and
polish; while the mercantile section, which in recent years had grown
very bold and venturesome, regarded the mass of small landowners as
boobies, who knew nothing of the world that lay outside their own
hedge-rows, and who gave themselves intolerable airs of superiority
towards men of keener intelligence and better standing with their
bankers. There was a still more formidable difficulty in the fact
that, although Pulteney's Whigs had a grievance against Walpole and
some of his associates, their personal relations with the Whigs who
continued to support the government were still close and friendly. A
coalition ministry of Whigs and Tories was not an idea that appealed
to the malcontents. Their real but unavowed aim was to detach a
sufficient number of those clans whose support kept Walpole in office
to enable a purely Whig administration to be formed without him.

The Whigs and Tories of the Opposition were never welded together,
but, at the best, were only soldered. It is true that their mutual
hostility became less noticeable as one session succeeded another and
as Walpole's increasing power drew on him, more and more, the envy and
hatred of his adversaries. Indeed, in the last stage of the
struggle,[103] co-operation seemed to be working without a hitch. But
it only needed the dissolvent of victory to dissipate this illusion in
a few days. When Walpole was at last overthrown and a new
administration came into existence, the hopes of the Whigs and the
suspicions of the Tories were fully realised; for the new
administration was nearly as Whiggish as the old one had been.

At the end of 1726, however, the outward semblance of an alliance had
been produced. Pulteney and Wyndham spoke and acted together in the
House of Commons and endeavoured, with some appearance of success, to
assuage the mutual antipathies of their respective followers. Shippen
and his Jacobites continued to assert a complete and ostentatious
independence, and no serious effort was made to bring them into the
combination. Had they come in, they would have brought but little
advantage to the alliance either in numbers or ability. The greatest
service they could have rendered would have been to hold their
tongues; but from persons, like 'honest' Shippen, whose vanity
delighted in causing scandal, silence was the last sacrifice that
could be looked for. His indiscretions continued as before to bring a
certain amount of grist to the government mill.

       *       *       *       *       *

The historical sequence has already been broken, in order to give a
general forecast of the whole course of Walpole's administration from
1721 to 1742.[104] It may be convenient at this stage to attempt
something of the same kind with regard to the activities of the famous
Opposition, by which he was confronted and harassed during the last
sixteen of those years. It may be said generally, that the managers of
this Opposition let slip very few opportunities for attack; that they
showed great energy; that they encouraged every popular delusion and
caprice that might serve their purpose of throwing odium on the
government; that they made no grievous mistakes in policy.
Nevertheless, they won but little respect, and their belated triumph
was only a bubble. Their failure was due mainly to the fundamental
insincerity of their coalition; to a want of concord and, still more,
to a want of character, among their leaders.

In December 1726 it was decided to start a newspaper in the interests
of the Opposition. In ability _The Craftsman_ was far superior to any
of its contemporaries. So much might have been expected, seeing that
Bolingbroke and Pulteney, two of the most brilliant writers in
England, were its constant contributors and inspirers. But, like most
journals that deal mainly in abuse, _The Craftsman_ had more success
in annoying than in persuading. It was able to make the government
wince, but it failed in the much more important matter of fostering a
loving confidence between Pulteney's Whigs and Wyndham's Tories.

The leaders of Opposition never tired of accusing ministers of a
servile compliance with the Hanoverian predilections of the first two
Georges. Occasionally there was some reason for their charges, but
more often the grounds were only specious. Occasionally, upon matters
of the highest importance, their accusations were entirely contrary to
the facts and to common sense. But an Opposition that sought as its
chief object the downfall of the government acted shrewdly in harping
on this string; for the nation was always ready to listen to the tune.
The English people had not yet acquired, what afterwards became one of
its most admirable characteristics: generosity was not then the
quality that marked its dealings with other races that owned the same
king. To an ordinary Englishman the Irish, the Scots and, somewhat
later, the Americans were objects of constant jealousy and occasional
detestation; but, from the coronation of George the First to the
accession of George the Third, Hanover and the Hanoverians held the
first place among popular antipathies. The prejudice of the masses
destroyed their sense of proportion. In their ignorance of European
affairs they were ready at once to conclude that any policy that had
the appearance of conferring a benefit on Hanover must necessarily
result in a sacrifice of British interests. This was very rarely the
case. What the people never realised was that every minister who held
office from 1714 to 1760 stood constantly on his guard against German
encroachments and entanglements. It happened occasionally, however,
that small favours to Hanover, and sops to satisfy the greed of
Hanoverian hangers-on, were well worth granting for the sake of
keeping the King in good humour and the administration working
smoothly. It was more often from wisdom than from weakness that
ministers gave a sprat to catch a mackerel.

Another topic that soon engaged the attention of the Opposition was
the alleged betrayal of Austria for the sake of a friendly
understanding with France. The Habsburgs, it was said, were Britain's
old and faithful allies, the Bourbons her natural enemies. But taking
a cool view of the facts, neither the French King nor the Austrian
Emperor was a proper object for chivalrous consideration. The
experience of half a century had shown that neither government could
be depended on when to keep faith might conflict with dynastic
ambitions and caprices. The only safe rule for a British
administration was the strict observance of its own undertakings, and
when there was a question of entering into fresh engagements the right
touchstone was the national advantage. The greatest of British
interests at that time was European peace. The Tories, who had taken
great credit to themselves for making the treaty of Utrecht, and who
had brought dishonour on the English name by acts of treachery to the
Emperor while he was still our ally, were now quite as vociferous as
Pulteney's Whigs in denouncing Walpole's desertion of Austria and in
pointing out the danger to the balance of power which must arise from
the aggrandisement of the Bourbons. On this subject the King was not
entirely out of sympathy with the Opposition, but the country refused
to take much interest in the discussion. It was not in one of its
panic moods, and appeals to sentimentality left it cold. The
characters of Charles the Sixth and Louis the Fifteenth were equally
unfit for exciting popular enthusiasm in a foreign nation.

During the next reign denunciations of Walpole as sole and despotic
minister held the chief place in the attack. The great increase of his
authority under George the Second and Queen Caroline was a fact beyond
dispute; but the inference the Opposition would have had the nation
draw from it was somewhat less easy to establish. For the steady
growth of order, confidence and prosperity was hard to reconcile with
the theory that the country was suffering from a gross abuse of power.
People, who were willing enough to agree that the predominance of one
too powerful minister was a danger in itself and also dangerous as a
precedent, hesitated none the less to jeopardise their present comfort
and security for the sake of an abstract principle. Could they be
certain of increasing their earnings or of enjoying a happier lot if
Walpole were forced to make way for Pulteney and Wyndham? If not, why
should they waste time and temper in order to overturn an arrangement
that on the whole was working very well? It might be true that Walpole
played the tyrant, but where were there to be found any evidences of
his oppression?

In 1733, however, the Opposition succeeded at last in stirring up a
violent tempest of indignation against the government. Neither
Sacheverell's trial nor the South Sea Bubble had caused an angrier
outburst of fury and unreason than the agitation that was then
directed against Walpole's Excise scheme. But the whole profit the
Opposition drew from this promising situation was in forcing the
abandonment of the bill. The public was instantly appeased by the
withdrawal of the obnoxious measure. The minister's complaisance
discredited the charge of oppression. Walpole, whose life had so
recently been threatened by the London mob, and whose popularity had
seemed to be utterly destroyed, regained in a few months a firm hold
upon the national confidence. Though his opponents had fought and won
a sensational victory on behalf of the people, they earned no reward.
So soon as the danger had passed away, their services were forgotten;
and in the general election that followed shortly afterwards the
government majority was still sufficient.

The Opposition leaders were not more successful in making capital out
of the quarrel[105] between George the Second and his eldest son. They
failed, partly because both they and their followers were of two minds
when it came to the pinch--the Tories, at a critical moment, refusing
to co-operate with their Whig allies in supporting the pretensions of
the Prince of Wales. The nation contemptuously refused to take sides
with father or son. It was ashamed and disgusted that the squabbles of
the royal family should be shown to the world, and advertised
deliberately through British ambassadors to every court in Europe.

Quarrels between fathers and sons were a hereditary failing of the
Hanoverian dynasty. A few years earlier there had been a public
scandal when George the First got to loggerheads with the
heir-apparent; and now that same heir-apparent, having succeeded to
the throne, was engaged in making a worse scandal than ever with the
new Prince of Wales. There was a ludicrous element in those two
episodes which alone must have deprived them of serious political
effect. Both quarrels were concerned with babies: the first[106] had
reference to a christening, the second[107] to a lying-in, though, in
the latter case, money was also mixed up in the dispute. The cry the
Opposition took up was the parsimony and parental tyranny of the King.
A want of filial duty was the extenuation put forward by the
government. But public opinion was not moved by either plea. It seemed
intolerable that royal personages should show themselves so lacking in
dignity and good breeding as to trumpet their grievances against one
another through speeches in parliament and in dispatches signed by the
secretaries-of-state.

Corruption was a cry that carried the Opposition a good deal further
than all its pother about a despotic minister. The charge of bribery
is a topic of eternal interest. There are no rogues left, for all
become puritans, when a suspicion gets abroad that public plunder is
being divided up in secret. Every man who has had no share in it is
stirred to righteous indignation. Evidence is not required; indeed
demands for proof are regarded impatiently as deliberate impediments
to the course of natural justice. Even when in fact there has been no
bribery, it is not difficult as a rule to bring people into a mood of
suspicion. But this was not Walpole's case; for although the charge
was general and rather vague, it was notorious that many members of
parliament were paid directly or indirectly to give their votes to
government. Two things, however, were overlooked by the simple
populace. In the first place corruption of the most bare-faced
character had existed for many generations before Walpole came into
power. He continued the evil, but was no innovator. In the second
place the Opposition leaders, if they could have succeeded in ousting
Walpole, had not the slightest intention of abolishing the vicious
system. They were, for the most part, wholly unconcerned about purity.
They felt very strongly, however, that patronage should be in the
right hands, and that 'gratifications' should be dispensed by
themselves instead of by their enemy. In plain words they were
hypocrites, who regarded hypocrisy very much as politicians have
always inclined to regard it, even in the purest ages; that is to say,
as a method of attack no more outside the rules of the game than any
of those deceptions that are practised in the art of war.

Despite its inherent weaknesses the Opposition held together after a
fashion for sixteen years. It survived the retirement of Bolingbroke
in 1735, the discontinuance of _The Craftsman_ in 1736, the death of
Wyndham in 1740. But although, towards the end, it seemed to be more
firmly united than ever before, it was, during the greater part of its
existence, just such an Opposition as an astute prime minister must
always love. For when the Whig section pressed forward most eagerly,
the Tories were apt to hang back; and when the Tory section was all
for war to the knife, the Whigs would usually discover reasons for not
pushing things to extremes.

In politics sixteen years is a long hunt. The Opposition was an eager
pack, containing several famous hounds; but it lacked a master.
Bolingbroke was nowhere to be seen. His far-off holloa came faintly
across the valley. Once only--in the eighth year--did they come close
up with their stag; and then he got safe away while they checked at a
fault. In the fourteenth year they made quite certain of pulling him
down; yet for three sessions longer he stood at bay. For though the
followers of Pulteney and Wyndham were able to destroy the Excise
Bill[108] and to force the government into war with Spain,[109] they
were foiled in their main object. Walpole still sat on the treasury
bench, broken in health, it is true, and heavy at heart, but smiling
the same old smile of triumph--to outward appearance as good-humoured,
as contemptuous, as imperturbable as ever.

Making every allowance for Walpole's consummate gifts as a
parliamentary tactician, these successive failures of the Opposition
to draw any permanent advantage from its various undertakings are
evidence enough that it must have been in a poor way for leadership.
During the long chase it had had its full share of those opportunities
which irresponsible invective can always turn to account against
ministers who are obliged to weigh their words. The wisest government
must make mistakes; nay, sometimes when it has acted with most wisdom
it affords the easiest target for plausible misconstruction. Moreover,
the nature of popular favour is to be inconstant, to love change for
its own sake, and to underrate the virtues of an administration which
goes about its business quietly. Men will ever attend more readily to
a vivacious onslaught than to a sober defence. The Opposition failed,
not because it was too scrupulous, not because the occasions of attack
were ill-chosen, but from want of management, of mutual confidence
and of popular respect.

Until the very end it never succeeded--and then only for a few
days--in producing a leader whom the country was eager to follow. The
great force that carried it at last to victory--or perhaps, to speak
more accurately, which overwhelmed Walpole in defeat--was a violent
outburst of war-fever, jingoism, or imperialism. When we come to it
will be the time to consider which of these designations is the most
correct. But the Opposition leaders were less the creators of this
popular sentiment than merely its mouthpieces. They were borne along
like sticks and straws in the first wave of the flood when a stream
overflows its banks. For the reason that they were in front, and for
that reason alone, they appeared to be leaders, and may even have
imagined themselves to be so. But they led nobody, and they led
nowhere. They were merely units in an excited crowd. Having no
definite aims, they were incapable of forming any policy or of making
any plans. Having but a meagre stock of executive ability, and being
at sixes and sevens among themselves, they were equally incapable of
acting with energy along the old lines. Pitt was the solitary
exception, and his flashes of insight were rare and intermittent. Nor
was he at that time one of the acknowledged leaders, but only a young
adventurer whose ignorance was almost equal to his ardour.

Popular excitement in 1739 was exacerbated by an outbreak of
anti-Catholic prejudice. Its chief cause, however, was an overweening
confidence that had been produced by a long course of mercantile
expansion and by prosperous adventures oversea. London and the other
great seaports had the country behind them when they protested against
the exclusion of their trade from the vast and profitable area of
South America. They considered it intolerable that the Spanish king
should claim to monopolise what his subjects showed so little skill
and enterprise in developing. It was clearly the intention of
Providence that the British should be permitted to go freely into any
region whose inhabitants craved the blessing of their commerce. But
our fellow-countrymen made a double mistake in taking it for granted
in the case of Spain that military weakness might be presumed from
commercial inefficiency; in their own case, that superiority in arms
might be safely inferred from their success in trade. And indeed they
made a third mistake that of itself must have proved fatal; for at
that time none of the leaders of either political party was capable of
carrying on war.




XIV.--_How Balance of Power is essential to the sovereign independence
of states, and how the endeavour to maintain it has led to endless
wars._


_Balance of Power_ has been a current formula for something like three
centuries; but the problem it professes to solve is of much greater
antiquity. Ever since the nations of western Europe first came into
existence, they have been haunted by the fear that one of their
number--becoming too powerful, and making itself still stronger by
alliances--might proceed to deprive the others of their sovereign
independence. The Reformation extended the area of anxiety eastwards,
by loosening the cohesion of the Holy Roman Empire; and at a later
date the weight of Russia was thrown into the scale. The idea of
overlordship having been intolerable to most of the nations in nearly
every epoch, their determination to prevent it has produced an amazing
variety of groupings, combinations and treaties; and these in turn
have led to endless wars. In order to secure themselves against
danger, the nations have aimed at an equilibrium; but owing to the
fluctuations of their prosperity, the flows and ebbs of their
ambition, the ups and downs of their military puissance, it has ever
been an impossible endeavour to stabilise the equilibrium of Europe
for all time.

Balance of power has served politicians for a war-cry; poets and
philanthropists have derided it as a scarecrow. Party leaders and
their followers have often misconceived its nature, have worshipped it
as a totem, or have cited it to justify their own practices; while
good but not very wise men have execrated it as the monstrous
offspring of hypocrisy and inhumanity. They might as well have
execrated the east wind. The balance of power is not the true culprit.
It is not an end in itself, but only the means to an end. It is less a
political dogma than merely a condition of things essential to a
certain aim. And the aim is one that from the beginning of time has
ranked among the noblest of national aspirations. For sovereign
independence is not to be enjoyed except in a balance of power; nor is
the balance of power to be maintained without war, any more than the
palm is to be won without the dust. Therefore if anything is deserving
of execration, if anything ought to be abandoned and abjured, it is
the idol or ideal of sovereign independence.

There is no warrant for regarding the balance of power as an illusion
peculiar to dynasts. There is no other matter on which autocrats have
more often been in agreement with their subjects. Constitutional
states like the United Kingdom, republics like Holland and Venice,
have been as much concerned in upholding it as any king or emperor in
Christendom. And if Europe for the past three hundred years had
consisted entirely of free commonwealths or of oligarchies of the
proletariat, it is tolerably certain that the same object would have
been pursued with the same zeal, and that the same consequences would
have followed.

Peace is undoubtedly one of the benefits that may be hoped for during
a period of equilibrium; and as peace is a simpler conception than
sovereign independence it makes a stronger appeal in normal times to
the popular imagination. It is for this reason that when kings and
statesmen have been engaged in bracing their subjects or
fellow-countrymen to resist some threatened disturbance of the balance
of power, peace has been apt to figure in the discussion, not as what
it really is--an ultimate and contingent boon, a kind of by-product
which may be looked for in the event of success--but as what it is
not--the immediate and primary object. To this extent the
humanitarian critics are justified when they cry out against the
hypocrisy of rulers and pour derision upon the incredible folly of the
nations. But the charge does not come to very much after all. In
moments of excitement men are apt, without dishonest intentions, to
give wrong reasons for the courses which they advocate. If the courses
are right, errors in the argument may be forgiven.

The primary and immediate aim in upholding the balance of power has
rarely been peace, but something entirely different. Balance of power
is one of the essential conditions of sovereign independence, and it
is undoubtedly the case that endless wars have been fought in order to
preserve it. We have been assured that if we cease to concern
ourselves with the balance of power there will be no more wars. That
may or may not be true; but it is quite irrelevant. If we give up the
balance of power there will certainly be no more sovereign
independence. Possibly the time has come to make this sacrifice. But
are the nations of Europe prepared to make it? Have the humanitarians
themselves ever yet been bold enough to recommend it?

It is true, however--and here the critics are on firmer ground--that
there have been times when the love of independence, which is a noble
quality, has degenerated into an ignoble and morbid solicitude.

Walpole's way of considering the balance of power was probably not far
different from Queen Elizabeth's, from William the Third's, from
Marlborough's, or even from Bolingbroke's. Nor was it different in
essentials from the views of those who came after him--the elder and
the younger Pitt, Charles James Fox, Castlereagh, Palmerston,
Disraeli, and the various foreign secretaries who served under
Gladstone. The idea was certainly not regarded as obsolete either by
Salisbury or by Joseph Chamberlain. It informed the policy of Sir
Edward Grey and was acted upon consciously or unconsciously by the
British nation in August 1914.

But although this old idea has persisted down to the present moment,
one of the conditions of Europe has undergone a very remarkable
change since Walpole was chief minister and Townshend
secretary-of-state. Those were freer and less crowded days than these
we live in. There is now hardly a nation in Europe, except perhaps the
Russian, which can yawn or stretch itself without incommoding and
jostling its neighbours. This state of things is not due merely to
increase of population, but also to those developments in transport,
in communications, in the production and exchange of commodities, and
in the operations of finance, which began to make themselves felt
within half a century of Walpole's death, and which, during the past
fifty years, have proceeded at a break-neck speed. But none other of
the conditions save this alone seems to have changed to any
appreciable extent. The tempers of men are the same. The nations are
as jealous as ever of their sovereign independence, as determined as
ever to preserve it.

Can any one foresee a time when Europe will cease to be concerned with
the balance of power? The formula may drop out of use; but so long as
the nations shall continue to attach supreme importance to their
sovereign independence, the same means to safety will be sought in the
future as in the past, though possibly under another name. Alliances
and wars will be made with the same objects as formerly, until such
time as the nations shall have come to value some other possession at
a higher rate than their own separate political existences; or,
looking at the matter in another aspect, until some new and greater
fear shall have eclipsed the old one.

If Europe would escape from the bondage of Moloch, there seems to be
only one way; her states must be robbed of their sovereign
independence, or, of their own free-will, they must give it up. The
force of circumstances may some day bring them face to face with these
alternatives. They may be driven by suffering, exhaustion and defeat
to surrender to a conqueror that which they have clung to so
passionately and for so many centuries of resolute endeavour; and they
may find peace and security at last in some imperial system, vaster
and infinitely more complex than the empire of the Antonines. Or, on
the other hand, their imagination working on their memories may show
them a prospect of evils, in comparison with which even the loss of
their sovereign independence will appear tolerable--a vision of modern
warfare, glamourless, impersonal, mechanical, ubiquitous; a dismal
twilight reddened by bursts of flame; vapour settling like a pall on
doomed cities; inventions, and yet more inventions, threatening a
universal destruction. This vision may be truly prophetic, or it may
only be a mirage that the heats of fancy have conjured up; a gigantic
spectre or shape of terror projected against the horizon clouds that
cover the future. In matters of this kind it is not accuracy of
forecast, but intensity of belief, that has most influence on events.
If such a vision ever came to be believed in firmly, it might lead in
time to a covenanted union of the states of Europe.

As the organisation of society has grown more and more complex, the
freedom of individual men has been curtailed by little and little.
This process has been so gradual that people sometimes fail to see how
far it has already carried them. For a like reason, as the interests
of states become still more inextricably interwoven, the sanctity of
sovereign independence may need to be reconsidered in a new light. It
is a wholesome instinct of mankind which seeks to preserve the sharp
outlines and picturesque contrasts of national character. For these,
the surest of all pickles is a continuous warlike rivalry. But what if
the pickle should prove itself too strong an acid--a preservative no
longer, but a dissolvent? It may be judged better in that case to take
the risk of blurring the beloved outlines and contrasts by political
co-operation, than to face the greater risk of having them blotted out
entirely by a desolation. It is not the business of this book to
determine, or even to discuss, these issues. It may not be
inappropriate, however, to point out, that the recent war--like those
of Walpole, his predecessors and his successors--was fought to
maintain the balance of power; and also that, like all former wars, it
has failed to produce an equilibrium which can be regarded either as
permanent or as naturally stable. Had the Germans won, we might
already be some way along the road to the imperial solution. Before
the League of Nations can with confidence approach its more important
objects we may have to travel some considerable distance towards a
covenanted union.




XV.--_How the adjustment of outstanding differences among European
powers was referred to the congress of Cambrai, and how at the end of
five years no results had been achieved_[110] (1720-1724).


It has already been told how, early in 1720, within three months of
Alberoni's disgrace, Spain came to terms with the Quadruple Alliance.
The settlement, however, was rather in the nature of a general
understanding than of a definite agreement. It was devised in haste,
with the object of bringing hostilities to an end, and as usually
happens in such cases a number of very troublesome differences were
left over for future adjustment. It was most vague precisely where the
danger of leaving anything in doubt was greatest; for the chief cause
of anxiety lay in the clash of interests between the Austrian and
Spanish courts.

Not until a whole year had been spent in diplomatic correspondence,
was it decided that a congress of the powers should complete the
business of pacification by interpreting the original intention in
language free from ambiguity, and by providing means for carrying that
intention into effect.

Another year went by, and it was only at the beginning of 1722 that
plenipotentiaries began arriving at Cambrai in a leisurely and stately
fashion.

Affairs of this sort--the aftermath of war--rarely proceed hot-foot;
and at this particular juncture the pace was a good deal slower than
usual, owing mainly to the fact that Europe did not then contain a
single minister of state or ruler who was capable of imposing order
upon the chaos of international jealousies. George the First, the
regent Orleans and their respective governments were genuinely anxious
to act as peacemakers and had already achieved a part of their
purpose. But the general condition of Europe was such that it might
well have baffled a diplomacy of greater force and genius. It was an
epoch remarkable no less for the ineptitude of statesmen, than for the
confusion of mind, the petty objectives and the fickleness of
sovereigns. There was obstinacy, and to spare, but nowhere a strong
will. The lidless eyes of suspicion were ever on the alert, but no
vision was mirrored in them. The flow of polite circumlocution,
copious almost beyond precedent, deceived only a few and persuaded
none. Sundry large windmills--as it might be--were turning busily and
made a brave show; but, as they were geared to nothing, they drew no
buckets and they ground no corn.

For two years after the plenipotentiaries met at Cambrai, their only
occupations were hospitality and courtesies; for the courts which had
accredited them were still wrangling about the terms of reference and
other preliminary matters. It was not until the beginning of 1724 that
the congress settled down to business and addressed itself seriously
to the problems that had brought it into existence.

In the meantime Charles the Sixth had involved himself in a serious
dispute with Britain and Holland. Soon after the treaties of 1713 and
1714 had put him in possession of the Spanish Netherlands, he had
begun to concern himself with the development of his new estate. So
early as 1719 a project for founding at Ostend a company to trade into
the East Indies had drawn strong protests from his former allies, who
previously had shared this rich market between them. But the Emperor
had paid no heed to their representations, and at the end of 1722 he
carried his scheme into execution without reckoning what it might cost
him in loss of friends. The immediate consequence was an outburst of
indignation among the Dutch and English traders, who regarded his
proceedings as an infringement of their lawful monopoly and as a
violation of treaties that still remained in force.

So soon as the operations of the Ostend Company began to affect its
rivals adversely, friction rapidly increased, and produced a crop of
British legislation that aimed at crippling the Emperor's adventure.
Charles the Sixth was never a man who considered the advantage of
settling with one adversary before he provoked another. By the end of
1724 he was on such bad terms with Britain and Holland that he could
no longer count with certainty upon their good offices at the congress
of Cambrai. Meanwhile troubles of a different sort were drawing to a
head.

       *       *       *       *       *

The fall of Alberoni and the ending of war between Spain and the
Quadruple Alliance had produced an important effect upon the policy of
the regent Orleans and Dubois. They had forthwith set themselves
busily to remove all causes of quarrel between the courts of
Versailles and Madrid, and had aimed at drawing together the two
reigning branches of the house of Bourbon by ties of marriage. In
March 1721, Louis the Fifteenth, then in his twelfth year, was
betrothed to the Infanta, a child of four, who, in accordance with
custom, was shortly afterwards sent to Paris to be educated in the
French fashion. A marriage was arranged at the same time, and took
place in the following year, between the heir to the Spanish throne
and a daughter of the duke of Orleans. This growth of friendly
relations, as it seemed to provide additional security for the
maintenance of European peace, had been regarded without alarm by the
British government. The attitude of Stanhope had been benevolent from
the first. When he died early in 1721, when Sunderland resigned, and
when a new administration was formed under Walpole, Townshend and
Carteret, the old policy of friendship with France had been accepted
as a valuable legacy by these successors.

Two years later, in 1723, the direction of French affairs was
disturbed by the deaths of Dubois in August and of Orleans in
December. The alliance with Britain was maintained, and indeed to
outward appearance was drawn even closer by the new Regent, the duke
of Bourbon, whose relations with the British government and with its
ambassador in Paris were altogether satisfactory. But Bourbon looked
askance at the Spanish policy of his predecessor, and was opposed to
the project of marrying Louis to the Infanta. He had public as well as
private reasons for his opinion. As the Princess was then a child of
five, it must be something over twelve years before there could be a
direct heir to the crown of France. This delay would cause the usual
crop of evils that spring up when there is uncertainty as to the
succession. As Louis was only in his fourteenth year it would in any
case be necessary to wait for some time, but his marriage ought not to
be postponed to a later date than was absolutely necessary. But
Bourbon looked at the matter also from his own personal point of view.
If the King should die without an heir--and his health was still very
frail--the crown would pass to the new duke of Orleans, whom the prime
minister regarded with a peculiar detestation. Public policy might
have been the chief motive of the late Regent for betrothing Louis to
a child; but it was not unnatural for an enemy to imagine that the
ambition of the Orleans family had had something to do with this
decision.

       *       *       *       *       *

In January 1724 an event occurred which afforded a topic of
conversation to those routs and receptions whereat the unwearied and
unworried diplomatists of Cambrai beguiled their abundant leisure. But
the proceedings of the congress itself were hardly ruffled, its
trivial though pompous industry suffered no check, when it became
known that Philip the Fifth, in a fit of misery beyond endurance, had
abdicated and retired into a monastery.

But the cloister was not his destiny; nor peace. In August the reign
of his successor was ended by death. The Termagant, who fretted in
retirement, insisted that her husband should resume the crown. Nor
would honour have allowed him any other choice.

To the Queen the loss of her stepson was a grief that contained
substantial consolations; for there was now but one life between her
own children and the succession. The ambassadors at Cambrai shrugged
their shoulders. The return of the Termagant was likely enough to
prove an impediment to diplomacy; but being well paid they were
contented with their employment, and in the prospect of its indefinite
continuance there was nothing to disturb their serenity. This
comfortable forecast was soon disproved.

In the following autumn the Termagant's small stock of patience gave
out. She had lately fallen under the influence of a new favourite,
Ripperda, a Dutch adventurer of vast presumption but of no genius; a
promiser of anything and everything; a great boaster; a prolific but
incredible liar. Ripperda represented in a glowing light the
advantages that might accrue from sending him on a secret mission to
negotiate directly with the Emperor.

The time was better chosen than the emissary, for no sovereign in
Europe was more tired than Charles the Sixth of waiting upon the
deliberations of the congress. Though the antagonism between the
Emperor and the Termagant was irreconcilable, the mutual grievances of
these two monarchs had been assuaged for the time being by the action
of counter-irritants. Years of delay had turned the current of their
displeasure against the other states of Europe, who were now blamed,
somewhat unreasonably, for having failed to find any formula of
accommodation between their censurers. In addition the Termagant was
incensed against Britain because an ill-timed request for the
restitution of Gibraltar had been refused. The Emperor, on the other
hand, was equally annoyed by the action of the Dutch and British
governments in the matter of his Ostend Company. He could no longer
doubt that they were determined to use every means at their disposal
to bring it to ruin. Moreover, the fact that Townshend, who was an
ambitious but not a very deft negotiator, had already been casting
about for allies who would help him to keep the imperial ambitions in
check, may not have been quite so complete a secret at Vienna as he
himself believed it to be. In spite, however, of these helpful
distractions Ripperda, after several months of sanguine effort, had no
more to show for his labours at Vienna than had the congress that was
sitting at Cambrai. The differences between the sovereigns of Spain
and Austria were in fact fundamental and no solution was possible
unless one or other would give way.

Ripperda's presence in Vienna remained a secret much longer than might
have been expected; but in the end, of course, it was discovered, and
his business there was correctly surmised. It was clear to Townshend
that the Emperor and the Termagant were engaged in an illicit attempt
to settle their own differences behind the backs of the Great Powers
and without the assistance of the congress at Cambrai. If they
succeeded in doing so France and Britain would become laughing-stocks;
they would have no say in the settlement; and it might reasonably be
anticipated that their interests would be neglected and sacrificed.
Townshend, already distrustful of the Emperor, was now confirmed in
all his suspicions.

Such was the situation of affairs at the end of 1724. It contained a
grave danger; for, as the nations of Europe had now recovered to some
extent from their exhaustion, the moment seemed opportune and the
conditions favourable for putting an end to peace if any serious
disagreement should arise between the powers.




XVI.--_How disagreement arose between the powers, and how the peace of
Europe was threatened by the treaties of Vienna and Hanover_ (1725).


The grouping of European states at the beginning of 1725 was as
follows:--On the one side the relations of Britain with France were
close and cordial; Holland was prepared in most matters to act with
them; Denmark and Portugal were friendly; Prussia and Sweden on the
whole inclined to the same connection, but, for different reasons,
neither could be counted on in an emergency. Spain had been formally
bound to Britain and France, ever since Midsummer 1721, in a secret
treaty of mutual defence.--On the other side was the Emperor, autocrat
of Austria, Hungary and the greater part of Italy. He could rely on
most of the kings and princes of the Holy Roman Empire to support his
policy. Russia was disposed to make common cause with him, chiefly
with a view to keeping the Turks in check, but partly also because the
Empress Catharine had her personal reasons for disliking the western
powers.--Neither of these two groups cherished aggressive intentions
or had any desire for war. But before the spring was far advanced,
and while the interest of English politicians was engaged by
Pulteney's revolt and Bolingbroke's relief bill, the balance of power
and the peace of Europe were suddenly threatened by a surprising
combination.

In March 1725, while Ripperda, in a great flurry of self-importance,
was busy at Vienna, the duke of Bourbon carried his point. Louis, now
in his sixteenth year, was betrothed to a princess of
one-and-twenty--Marie, daughter of the dethroned King of Poland--and
the Infanta was returned to Spain. It would have been difficult to
soften such an insult with fine words, and nothing of the sort was
attempted. The fury of the Termagant was no fiercer than that of her
husband and the Spanish people. Philip at once recalled his
plenipotentiaries from Cambrai, and Ripperda received instructions to
concede anything the Emperor might ask as the price of his alliance.
At the same time the British government was urged to break with
France, and the rejection of this demand added another grievance to
the refusal of Gibraltar.

Within six weeks of the affront--on the last day of April 1725--a
treaty between Spain and the Emperor was signed at Vienna. The terms
of this agreement set all Europe wondering what might lie behind it;
for even the blindness of anger seemed inadequate to explain the
Spanish concessions. The sudden reconciliation of two courts, whose
bitter antagonism had kept Europe on tenterhooks for so many years,
their undertaking of mutual support by land and sea, the air of
defiance with which the new allies seemed to challenge the whole
continent, were unintelligible to diplomatists who viewed the
situation coolly. For why should Spain--even in a fit of temper--have
given so much and taken so little, unless she had received from
Austria secret assurances that brought the bargain to something like
an equality? The claim on which the Termagant had hitherto been so
resolute--to have the fortresses of Tuscany garrisoned by Spanish
troops, as a security for the ultimate succession of her son--was
abandoned. The right of the house of Habsburg to the Netherlands, and
also to Naples, Sicily and Sardinia was plainly confirmed. The
Pragmatic Sanction, whereby Charles the Sixth, having no sons, sought
to override the Salic law and to secure the succession to his
dominions in the female line, was accepted and guaranteed. By this
concession the reversionary interests of the Spanish monarchy in the
Low Countries and in the Italian fiefs of the Empire were put beyond
the reach of the Termagant's maternal aspirations. The surrender
seemed too complete to be accepted at its face value. The
astonishment, curiosity and misgivings that affected every chancery in
Europe were as prevalent in Spain as elsewhere.

And yet there was not a great deal behind. The surmise that there must
be some undisclosed understanding was perfectly correct; but this
understanding went no way towards redressing the inequality of the
bargain, for the advantages of the private arrangement were more on
the side of Austria than of Spain. Two secret treaties had been signed
at the beginning of May. By the first of these the Emperor undertook
to use his friendly representations with Britain in order to procure
the restitution of Gibraltar; and this harmless expression of goodwill
was really all that Ripperda took in return for the Spanish
concessions. The second treaty was concerned with commerce, and was
designed to add to the revenues of the Emperor through the enrichment
of the Netherlands. Philip acknowledged the legality of the Ostend
Company, and allowed it the same privileges of trade throughout his
dominions as were enjoyed by the 'most favoured' nations. In certain
respects indeed the merchants of the two allied countries were placed
in a better position than those of the 'most favoured' nations; but
the advantage of these arrangements went almost entirely to the
Netherlands, which alone could boast an important sea-borne trade.

The withdrawal of the Spanish plenipotentiaries from Cambrai and the
publication of the treaty of Vienna left the congress with nothing to
do. It had taken two years of industrious diplomacy to bring the
delegates together; two years more to settle the scope of their
employment; and the sum and substance of their achievements had been
but fifteen months of fruitless talking. They now dispersed in as
stately a fashion and as courteously as they had assembled, as they
had awaited their warrant, and as they had conducted their proceedings
from first to last.

News of the Vienna treaty reached George the First in Hanover.
Townshend, who accompanied him there, had for some time past been
watching the proceedings of the Emperor with suspicion. His
unfavourable surmises now found full confirmation in a confidential
report which professed to discover the secret provisions. The
information came from a trustworthy source through the Hanoverian
intelligence department, and it was put into the King's hands by his
electoral ministers, who were by no means unfriendly towards Austria.
Evidence to the same effect came quickly from other quarters. The
original Hanoverian account was corroborated in the years that
followed by several striking testimonies. It was never disproven, was
never even cast into doubt with the world at large, until all the
persons who had been concerned in those transactions were dead.

The substance of the supposed agreement was as follows:--the Austrian
heiress, Maria Theresa--at that time a girl of eight--was to be
betrothed to Don Carlos, eldest child of the Termagant. What mattered
such paltry concerns as the northern duchies, if her son, through a
brilliant marriage might expect the Imperial Crown, the kingdoms of
Naples and Sicily, and the overlordship of most of Italy? It was
further provided that the allies were jointly to demand from Britain
the surrender of Gibraltar and Minorca, and, in case they met with a
refusal, were to proceed by force of arms. They pledged themselves to
attempt the restoration of the Pretender; and, as an extension of this
ambitious programme, they agreed to undertake a religious war in
Germany--and elsewhere, if opportunity offered--for the depression of
Protestantism and for the spread of the Roman Catholic faith.

Though none of these particulars was true, they were not mere
inventions; for they accurately described the policy of Ripperda--if
such a term as policy can be fitly applied to the projects of a
mountebank. The confidential report contained nothing that had not
actually fallen from his lips. But his words were only boastful
indiscretions, or an attempt to force the Emperor's hand. As yet there
was no secret treaty or engagement such as Ripperda had published to
his friends. It was not long, however, before the accuracy of the
Hanoverian intelligence seemed to find confirmation in a formal demand
by Spain for the restitution of Gibraltar.

[Illustration: _Charles Second Viscount Townshend from the picture of
the school of Sir Godfrey Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery_]

The position of George the First was not an easy one. Although at this
time he was much incensed for private reasons against the Emperor, he
shrank nevertheless, as a prince of the Empire, from being engaged in
war against his titular sovereign. He was even more concerned to avoid
any step that might place Hanover at the mercy of the Imperial troops.
But he could not doubt the evidence that had been laid before him, and
for the sake of British interests he overcame his own feelings,
disregarded the advice of his electoral ministers, and gave Townshend
a free hand.

With his accustomed energy the secretary-of-state at once set himself
to make a counter-combination. This was a form of activity in which he
delighted, believing his genius in such matters to be beyond rivalry.

Early in September a treaty was signed at Hanover between Britain,
France and Prussia. The actual terms were innocent enough, since they
provided merely that mutual assistance should be given in case of
attack. The purport of the published treaty of Vienna had been much
the same. The danger to peace lay not in the substance of these two
undertakings, but in the formal advertisement that there were now two
groups of powers in Europe, each of which believed the intentions of
the other to be hostile.

Townshend, the dæmonic director of foreign affairs, reckoned that
several of the other European states would shortly come into the
alliance: Holland out of consideration for her trade; the Protestant
Princes of the Empire from their fear of Roman Catholic
encroachments; the Baltic kingdoms--Sweden and Denmark--out of regard
for the Russian menace. But the fruition of these hopes was tardy and
incomplete.

The signatories of the treaty of Vienna, on the other hand, counted on
the adherence of Catharine of Russia, who had recently succeeded to
the throne on the death of her husband, Peter the Great. Motives of
general policy, as well as certain family grievances against the
Elector of Hanover and the King of Denmark, inclined her to listen
sympathetically to the persuasions of the Emperor and to the promises
of a subsidy from the Termagant.

If George the First erred in giving Townshend his support, the
interests of Hanover were not what biassed his judgement. It is so
common an incident in politics for men of character and ability to
make statements that are not merely contrary to truth, but on the very
face of them absurd, that we need hardly wonder to find Chesterfield
saying at the time and Pitt repeating with conviction some years later
that Townshend's course of action proceeded from his subservience to
the King's German sympathies. 'Thus Hanover rode triumphant on the
'shoulders of England,' wrote Chesterfield. 'It was a treaty the
tendency of which is discovered in the name,' was the taunt of
Pitt.[111] Even on the assumption that the secret information had
contained no grains of truth, these vigorous censures were merely
nonsense. Hanover gained nothing by the treaty to which it gave its
name; and it stood to lose much in the event of war. The dangers with
which the treaty of Vienna threatened the Electorate were trifling,
conjectural and very remote; whereas those contained in the treaty of
Hanover were grave and present. For that country lay open to invasion
and unless Prussia stood firmly by her engagements, which could not be
counted on, Hanover must certainly be overwhelmed by superior forces
so soon as war broke out. Prussia had been bought with a promise of
two duchies which her King coveted. A more attractive offer from the
other side would as readily detach her. For these excellent reasons
the Hanoverian ministers were utterly opposed to Townshend's policy;
while they were inclined to the Emperor because he had had the good
sense to secure their goodwill. They worked accordingly in his
interests and against Britain from first to last. The pride of George
was no doubt galled by the threat of a Stewart restoration; but his
chief motive for signing a treaty that he regarded with so much
dislike and apprehension was his sense of duty to the country that had
given him his crown.

On September 5th--two days after the treaty of Hanover was signed--the
marriage of Louis the Fifteenth to Marie Lesczynski took place.

Although the treaty of Vienna was the original cause of all the
trouble, Spain and Austria agreed in denouncing the treaty of Hanover
as a provocation. By another secret agreement, signed in November,
they sought to draw their own alliance tighter; and in doing so they
went a considerable way towards that policy which the Hanoverian
intelligence department had already imputed to them. There was a vague
understanding with regard to the Austro-Spanish marriage. In the event
of war, the Emperor undertook to assist the Spaniards to recover
Gibraltar and Minorca. King Philip confirmed his promise with regard
to the Ostend Company by a formal guarantee. A plan was agreed on for
the dismemberment of France in case of victory. There was a general
clause in which the two allies promised one another effective help in
all possible contingencies; and this was understood to have special
reference to the project of a Stewart restoration. But if such a
scheme was indeed contemplated, as the correspondence of the Pretender
seems to indicate, the allies must have been moved thereto by their
desire to injure Britain and uphold the Church of Rome, rather than by
any love for 'James the Third.' For at this critical juncture that
ever-blundering prince had chosen to quarrel publicly with his wife,
which not only caused much scandal and disaffection among the British
Jacobites, but was resented by the Emperor owing to his kinship with
the lady, and by the Termagant, who looked on it as an affront to her
sex.

Before Christmas Ripperda returned to Spain in a triumphal progress.
At each new resting-place he grew more garrulous and more boastful.
Every item in the secret intelligence that had reached King George
during the summer received confirmation from the lips of the Spanish
emissary before he arrived in Madrid.




XVII.--_How the danger of a general European war was averted, and how
Bolingbroke again failed in his bid for office_ (1726-1727).


When Townshend returned from Hanover in December 1725 the cabinet
discussions entered a new phase. So long as European affairs remained
in the region of diplomacy the secretary-of-state might claim to be
the predominant partner; but when it became necessary to prepare for
war Walpole, whose business it was to find supplies, could justly
insist on taking the upper hand.

The King's speech at the opening of parliament in January 1726 was
neither provocative nor conciliatory. It made no reference to the
reports of the intelligence department with regard to the secret
treaties. It gave the country, however, clearly to understand that the
possibility of war must be considered seriously. It justified the
alliance with France and Prussia by pointing to that earlier
combination--the alliance of Vienna--which seemed to threaten the
peace of Europe. The treaty of Hanover had been made in order to
maintain the balance of power, and to safeguard the commercial
interests of Britain, which were endangered by the agreement between
Austria and Spain. The government had hopes that Holland would soon
enter into alliance. War, if it came, would offer the Pretender a
favourable opportunity for attempting his restoration. Therefore no
time should be lost in putting the nation in a posture of defence.

The House of Commons at once responded to this appeal and voted the
supplies which the government asked for. Public opinion was much
perturbed; the money market reflected and magnified the general
depression; the condition of trade grew worse from day to day.

In April 1726 three British fleets went forth. The first sailed into
the Baltic; the second cruised off the coast of Spain; while the third
made the West Indies, and merely by showing itself discouraged the
Spanish treasure ships from venturing out of Porto Bello.

The general effect of these dispositions was successful. The Empress
of Russia had lately been talking in the heroic strain, and had
ordered her unwilling ministers, on pain of her highest displeasure,
to make ready for war against the King of Denmark and the Elector of
Hanover. But on the appearance of Admiral Wager the Russian fleet put
back to harbour, and the immediate danger passed away.

The arrival of Admiral Jennings in southern waters provoked a violent
outburst among the hotheads at the Spanish court; but to the more
sober section it served as a useful reminder that the capture of
Gibraltar must remain an impracticable adventure so long as Britain
held command of the sea.

The blockade of the Spanish treasure ships was an admirable stroke of
policy, since both Austria and Russia looked to have the larger part
of their expenses paid by King Philip. As the annual remittances of
bullion were now cut off for more than two years, the expected
subsidies were never received, with the result that the military
projects of the Emperor Charles and the Empress Catharine came to a
standstill for want of funds. A series of defeats would in some ways
have been less demoralising to the enemy than Admiral Hosier's patient
vigil.

Walpole was reproached at the time--but with much greater violence
twelve years later--because he did not order Hosier to attack. A
pestilence settled on the fleet and carried off in a few months four
thousand men and officers. The admiral himself was one of the victims.
But had a military expedition been fitted out and a landing effected,
the losses would certainly have mounted into far higher figures. Nor
would anything have been gained by such an enterprise that was not
gained by the blockade. Porto Bello, even had it surrendered, would
have been a worthless possession. All the gold and silver had already
been sent back across the isthmus into safety. The true military
purpose was neither the capture of the town nor the possession of
treasure, but merely to prevent the Spanish ships from bringing home
bullion that would have replenished the empty coffers of Russia and
Austria. And this object was achieved.

In May (1726) Ripperda was at last recognised by his employers for an
impostor: the Emperor denounced him and the Termagant gave him up. His
choice of sanctuary was a strange one, for he fled to the British
Embassy seeking protection.[112] He paid for his brief lodging by
writing out and signing a full confession of the secret designs that
Spain and Austria had formed against the peace of Europe. This
statement was valueless as evidence, being prompted solely by his
hopes and fears. Nor did it amount to much more than a repetition of
the boasts he had already spoken openly. It confirmed, however, the
original Hanoverian reports in every detail.

In the following month[113] the duke of Bourbon also fell from power.
The treaty of Hanover had never been popular in France. A strong
coalition in that country, partly because it looked with friendlier
eyes on Spain than on Britain, partly because it hated Bourbon, was
anxious to bring about his downfall and to break away from the
alliance. The prime minister fell before this attack. He was an
incompetent, governed in everything by his mistress, and no one
regretted him, save a few who looked to make their fortunes out of his
complaisance. The appointment of cardinal Fleury to succeed him was
welcomed with enthusiasm, not only by the personal enemies of his
predecessor, but by the friends of Spain, and, most of all, by the
Jacobites, who believed him to be friendly to their cause, and knew
him for a pattern of the devout Roman Catholic. But Fleury was not one
of those who allow either their personal sympathies or their religion
to upset the balance of their statesmanship. He had already formed a
very favourable opinion of both the Walpoles, and since _their_ policy
as well as _his_ was peace he now gave them his confidence as fully as
his nature allowed him to give it to any man. He shared their dread of
a European conflagration. So long as they remained masters of the
situation and could hold Townshend in check, the understanding with
Britain should be firmly maintained.

Fleury was a churchman of a very different pattern from Dubois and
Alberoni. He had held no previous employment of state when at a bound
he became prime minister of France. He had been the young King's
preceptor and afterwards his paternal friend. He deserved affection
and respect, for his whole course had been virtuous and upright; he
had never played the part of a pander. He was ambitious, but delays
and disappointments had neither disturbed his equanimity nor led him
into precipitate actions. He had avoided quarrels and intrigues during
the difficult period of the regency, and had so borne himself as to
make no enemies and to arouse but few jealousies. He had a pleasant
wit and a serene philosophy. He was a man of superlative patience who
played his game for power coolly and with great judgement. He was not
bold, ardent or imaginative; but he seems to have counted confidently
that his sound constitution and temperate habits would ward off death
and decay, and bring him sooner or later to the highest post by
survivorship and the effluxion of time. He was in his seventy-fourth
year when he became prime minister of France; an age which most men do
not live to see, and of those who do, the greater part have retired
from active life before they reach it. His administration lasted for
sixteen years--till he was close on ninety.

Had France at this epoch been fertile in men of genius, it is unlikely
that Fleury would have arrived at power and quite certain that he
could not have held it. But rivalry was almost non-existent at the
beginning, nor afterwards was it ever sufficiently formidable to bring
about his downfall, though it occasionally succeeded in diverting his
policy. He cannot be classed among statesmen of the first force. He
lacked courage and age had not lessened this infirmity. As a
consequence, though his first intentions were usually honourable, his
word was not trusted by foreign powers. From the British standpoint
his dealings were often shifty and sometimes treacherous. But he was a
loyal servant of France. If his admirable economy degenerated at times
into a dangerous parsimony, his whole policy nevertheless--until, like
Walpole, he was forced to abandon it under the pressure of royal
prejudice and public sentiment--was informed by a quiet wisdom, a love
of peace, and a determination to repair the exhaustion of his
country. In the last matter his success was incontestable. Though he
might pinch and pare beyond safety in the public services, he took
nothing for himself. His savings in national expenditure went to
relieve the burdens of the peasants and of industry, in roads and
other works of public utility; so that foreign observers, revisiting
France towards the end of his administration, took notice of an
amazing transformation from privation to prosperity, from misery to
content, both in the country-side and in the towns. No two cardinals
were ever more unlike in their private lives than were the ribald
Dubois and the saintly Fleury; but their policies had many points of
resemblance and their public acts were directed to the same end.

In August 1726 Russia adhered in due form to the treaty of Vienna, and
Holland came into the treaty of Hanover. In October, Frederick William
of Prussia withdrew from his alliance with France and Britain and took
part with the Emperor. He had been bribed by Charles the Sixth with a
shadowy promise that he should have his heart's desire--the reversion
of the duchies of Berg and Julich--and this he regarded as better
value than the guarantee to the same effect which he had already
received from the other side. But it was hardly worth while to change
over. The first undertakers, it is true, were not in a position to
deliver the goods, but the second undertaker had no intention whatever
of fulfilling his bargain.

At the end of 1726 there was still no actual war, and the Spanish
treasure fleet still lay at anchor in Porto Bello.

When the Houses met in January 1727 the King's speech was more
minatory in tone than it had been twelve months earlier. Ministers may
have felt themselves on surer ground since Ripperda's confession had
been pigeon-holed at the Foreign Office. Parliament was informed in
plain words that one of the secret articles of the treaty of Vienna
provided for an attempt to restore the Pretender; that the Spanish
demand for the restitution of Gibraltar was to be supported by force
of arms; that the treaty rights of Britain had been infringed to the
detriment of her trade.

After communicating with his Court, Palm, the Austrian ambassador in
London, presented an angry and insolent memorandum which was signed by
the Emperor himself. This disclaimer gave a flat denial to the first
two charges; but it was true only in a technical sense. Neither of
these objects had, in fact, been specified in the secret articles of
the original treaty; but both had subsequently become a part of the
friendly understanding between Vienna and Madrid. Palm was not
satisfied with notifying his contradiction through the usual official
channels, but must needs issue a public announcement that was
construed quite accurately as an appeal from the King to the people of
Great Britain. The fact that this statement was couched in offensive
language was merely an aggravation and not the gravamen of his
offence.

There are few things that a nation so surely and so hotly resents, as
when some foreigner ventures to suggest that its government is not
authorised to speak on its behalf. For this is always taken to be a
slur on the institutions of the country. Any previous unpopularity of
king or minister is at once forgotten. Notwithstanding that an
administration may have been fiercely assailed by a large section of
public opinion and reproached pretty generally with its unfriendly
attitude towards some other power, that other power will act most
unwisely in taking official notice of these domestic disagreements.
For the immediate effect of doing so is nearly always to produce a
swift and violent revulsion. If a foreigner wants to make his profit
out of a family quarrel, he should keep very quiet about it, and allow
it to rage and spread itself in its own way. If he goes to work
noisily, on the assumption that the nation is divided against itself,
he will probably wake up next morning to discover that in twenty-four
hours it has become firmly united against himself. Considering how
notorious are the examples of this tendency, it is strange that the
blunder should have been so often repeated. The National Convention of
France made the same mistake in 1793, when it appealed to the British
people against its prime minister, and to the citizens of the United
States against their president. As fast as the mails could carry these
incitements, the one nation rallied to Pitt and the other to
Washington, although, up to that moment, the policies of these leaders
had been angrily denounced by large numbers of their fellow-countrymen,
and had been regarded with silent misgivings by a great many others.
More ancient as well as more modern instances will occur to every mind.

Ambassador Palm was a dull-witted fellow, the counterpart of his
master. He was also very ignorant of British affairs and very
credulous when disaffected politicians paid him court. He had been led
to believe that through his own efforts and the Emperor's personal
intervention Walpole and Townshend might be driven from power. The
Hanoverian favourites and the parliamentary opposition wished for
nothing better; they encouraged Palm's delusion; possibly their
invention had produced it; certainly they shared it. Many of King
George's German courtiers had received 'gratifications' from the
Emperor. Ever since the treaty of Hanover Bolingbroke and Pulteney had
been in close and frequent communication with the Austrian ambassador,
whose ill-advised appeal to the British people may well have been
inspired by these counsellors. For Bolingbroke, in particular, loved
dramatic flourishes, and was rarely right in his forecasts of their
effect on public opinion.

At the beginning of 1727 the opposition leaders, the Hanoverian
favourites and the Emperor himself were all very hopeful that the
British government might be overthrown by playing on the King's
anxiety for Hanover--greater than ever, now that Frederick William had
gone over to the enemy--and also upon his feudal duty to the Emperor.
But the effect of Palm's manifesto was precisely the contrary of what
they had expected. The King naturally resented being told that the
information was false which he had given to his people, and for the
accuracy of which he was responsible in more than the official sense.
The people, though it had no affection for the King, at once took to
itself the insult that had been offered to him. Even Shippen and his
Jacobites supported the protest of parliament, and expressed approval
when Palm received his passports and was sent about his business.

Bolingbroke, however, would not allow himself to be discouraged by
this incident. A few weeks later he made a new bid for power. The
duchess of Kendal, acting on his behalf, put into the King's hands a
memorandum asking for an interview, at which he undertook to show how
far Walpole had gone towards ruining the country and how certain it
was that he would succeed unless speedily removed from office. The
duchess feared to offend the ministers who supplied her with an ample
income; but her jealousy of their influence with King George overcame
her timidity so far as to induce her to act as the go-between in this
confidential attack. King George showed the document to Walpole, who
begged his master to grant Bolingbroke's request. What happened at the
conference that followed is unknown to us. When Walpole sought for
information the King was not in a communicative mood. He summarised
the conversation in one word--'bagatelles!' We do know, however, that
Bolingbroke drew, or professed to draw, a favourable augury. We also
know that Walpole was annoyed, if not discouraged, by what had taken
place, for he talked angrily to his friends of resignation. Although
the duchess of Kendal was a stupid woman, her influence could not be
despised. She kept a constant guard over the King, and it was not
impossible that in the end her favoured candidate might find himself
in office. Might it not be Walpole's wisest policy to forestall
dismissal? What he said to his friends on this occasion may have been
merely petulance; but he was not a man much given to such outbursts.

Walpole knew very well that Bolingbroke had things to say which the
King would listen to attentively. Indeed the chief minister himself
had misgivings about the course of foreign policy, and on certain
points was more in agreement with Bolingbroke than he was with the
secretary-of-state. It was obvious that Hanover stood in considerable
danger; that it was a very violent proceeding for an Elector to go to
war with his Emperor; that there were few real causes of difference
between Britain and Austria. On the other hand, it was unlikely that
the conflict of ambitions between Britain and France would be stayed
for longer than a few years. And when Britain had estranged all her
natural allies for the sake of French friendship, she might discover
too late that the old enmity still survived and that she had been
lured into isolation by a show of amity that was only feigning.

A leader of Opposition will always say, and will often believe, that
his rival's triumph must be the country's ruin. There is nothing to
wonder at, nor much to blame, if Bolingbroke poured the same story
into the King's ears that his followers were telling in parliament and
to the country. In those days the conversion of the country was not
the shortest road to power; parliament as yet took its cue from the
King; so that royal favour was the first essential. Is it more
improbable that Walpole was seriously perturbed lest Bolingbroke might
succeed in seizing this key, or that Bolingbroke was merely boasting
when he led his followers to expect a speedy change of fortune?

Shortly before this interview took place there was an overt act of
war. The Termagant, whose fate it was to be continually misled by
braggarts, had found a foolish general who disbelieved in sea-power
and who gave his word that in six weeks he would take Gibraltar by
storm. The most distinguished soldier in Spain had already resigned
his great position rather than throw away lives against a manifest
impossibility. The siege began on the 11th of February 1727, and
continued fruitlessly for four months. The Spanish troops lost heavily
in their attacks and from disease. The only hope of success lay in
driving off the British fleet that secured the garrison's supplies.
Without the co-operation of the Austrian navy no such attempt was
possible. The Emperor was not inclined to risk his ships in an
adventure that seemed to him impracticable. His refusal to do so threw
the Termagant into a fury, and Walpole's foresight was justified; for
the unnatural alliance of Vienna passed forthwith into the first stage
of dissolution. The Emperor had deserted his ally in her hour of need;
he had been guilty of perfidy; and she at once restored him to his
former position of enemy-in-chief.

Nor was the balance of European power inclining in favour of the
Austro-Spanish combination. In March, Sweden had adhered to the treaty
of Hanover, her patriots having been by that date sufficiently bribed.
In May the Empress Catharine died and Russia was no longer a menace.
By this time the Emperor was thoroughly out of conceit with a war in
which he had done nothing and received nothing. He could see no
alternative to peace, and thanks to the moderating influence of
Walpole and Fleury peace was not hard to get. The wounds that needed
healing had not cut very deep. As yet France and Britain had not acted
against the Emperor except by making a treaty for their own defence.
Nor had France done anything whatever against Spain. Even Britain had
attempted no open violence, but had merely made a series of naval
demonstrations. It was not the fault of King George's government that
the Termagant had chosen to break her teeth against the Rock.

The pacific Fleury seized his opportunity, and at the end of May the
Austrian ambassador at Paris signed the preliminaries, agreeing to
'suspend' the Ostend Company for a period of seven years, which was
tantamount to abandoning it altogether. Shortly afterwards the Spanish
ambassador at Vienna followed suit. The Termagant, having lost all
hope of the Austrian marriage for her son, had no wish to continue the
war. Her mind was now wholly occupied with thoughts of revenge against
the ally who had duped and deserted her.




XVIII.--_In what respects the views of Townshend and Walpole differed
in regard to the treaties of Vienna and Hanover_ (1725-1727).


Walpole had accepted the treaty of Hanover as a disagreeable
necessity. Since British interests were threatened by a hostile
coalition, measures must certainly be taken to protect them. But what
measures?

Townshend was bent on providing safeguards in his own way. He was a
man of precipitate judgement; but, as the very existence of the
government depended on his influence with the King, it was out of the
question for Walpole to quarrel with him.

A general European war might be in fact inevitable, or it might be
brought about only by Townshend's blundering. In either case Walpole's
policy would be in danger. The chief minister was nettled and
disgusted because matters of the first importance had been concluded
behind his back and over his head. These resentments put an edge on
his criticisms, but they somewhat blunted his judgement. It is
impossible to give a clear and consistent account of Walpole's
motives, for the reason that at the beginning of this crisis his
motives were neither clear nor consistent. He had not as yet taken his
bearings in foreign policy. Although he saw some of the dangers that
arose from the Austro-Spanish agreement, his mind was by no means free
from doubt as to the wisdom of forcing on a rupture with the Emperor.
He shared a widely spread misgiving that the effect of Townshend's
diplomacy might be to cut Britain off from Austria, her natural ally,
and reduce her to dependence on France, whose present friendship,
though a good thing in itself, could only be regarded as a brief
interlude in the rivalry of ages.

The objections that Walpole pressed, however, were of a practical
sort, and did not challenge the general principle of the Hanover
treaty. If war with Spain was imminent, Portugal ought certainly to
have been brought into the alliance. The large sums demanded for the
purpose of opening the eyes of the Swedish notables to the cupidity of
Russia, and of bribing them into patriotism, were altogether beyond
reason.

On the other hand, Walpole held even more strongly than Townshend that
it was essential to suppress the Ostend Company and to preserve 'most
favoured nation' treatment for British trade both in the Austrian
Netherlands and throughout the Spanish Dominions. For these ends he
was prepared to go to war if no peaceful solution could be found. And
even if he was not seriously perturbed by the threat of a Jacobite
invasion, he dared not make light of this cause of alarm lest he
should throw away one of his most useful parliamentary weapons. As to
the supposed conspiracy against the Protestant religion, it is
difficult to believe that he took it seriously; or that he felt any
real concern for the safety of Gibraltar. There appears, however, to
be no room for doubt that, in common with the rest of the cabinet, he
took for true the alarmist reports that had been circulated by the
Hanoverian intelligence department.[114] But although Walpole must be
taken to have approved the course of action that he subsequently
defended so vigorously in parliament, it would be unfair to assume
that he therefore shared the ideas that were simmering in Townshend's
brain, or that he looked favourably upon the bias that his
brother-in-law was endeavouring to give to British policy.

We must allow something for the fact that Walpole was now for the
first time giving his attention to a department of affairs in which up
to the present he had not meddled. He seems to have taken the view, so
common among colleagues, that the right thing was being done in a
wrong way. To a man of his temperament grandiosity and vagueness of
conception were repugnant; impetuosity in action hardly less so. He
saw no advantage in a bold initiative. Precautionary measures and a
patient obstructiveness were in his opinion the means best suited for
dealing with the two hostile powers. His inclination was not to bring
controversy with the Emperor to a head, but to allow time for the
inflammatory particles to disperse. Gradually, but by no means
rapidly, his doubts resolved themselves, and his negative criticisms
gave place to a positive policy.

Walpole's own methods were never hard and fast, but plastic and
accommodating. He had a genius for turning the foibles of his
adversaries to the profit of his own negotiation. He knew Charles the
Sixth for a heavy-handed blunderer, and judged accordingly, that if
his obstinacy were not awakened or his self-importance ruffled, he
might be relied on never to make good either his threats or his
promises. He knew the Termagant, on the other hand, for the creature
of sudden and violent impulses; unreasonable, exacting and inconstant:
whom she embraced with effusiveness to-day, as likely as not she would
be railing at to-morrow. He reckoned that two such characters were
bound to come to loggerheads sooner or later, unless they were kept
united by the misdirected activities of a common enemy. Those causes
of quarrel one with the other, which they had succeeded for the time
being in forgetting, had more substance in them, and were in their
nature much more permanent, than any grievance that either Austria or
Spain had against the members of the Franco-British alliance. Why not
leave it to time to discover the cracks? Walpole agreed that the
country should arm and prepare; but he was not long in making up his
mind that the government should wait and see. When war actually came
about he refused to engage in a vigorous offensive. So far as the
immediate trouble was concerned, his wisdom seemed to be fully
justified by the event. His dilatory and half-hearted methods would
have served him ill against enemies like Louis the Fourteenth,
Frederick the Great, Napoleon or Prince Bismarck; but they were
admirably chosen for dealing with the Emperor and the Queen of Spain.

Townshend, having no gift of fine discrimination, allowed but little
for the varieties of human character. He went to work upon the
assumption that mankind was uniform in texture. His diplomacy drew but
little advantage from the inconstancies, vagaries and absurdities of
his opponents, or from their mutual jealousies and perfidies. He would
have dealt with the Emperor and the Queen of Spain as if they had been
a pair of cool and resolute sovereigns, whose policy was clearly cut
and whose alliance nothing but defeat could shatter. In his eyes the
Emperor was the real head of the hostile combination, and the
Termagant to some extent his tool. Charles appeared to Townshend to be
the more dangerous, because of his reticence and feigning. He must be
forced to unmask and to come out into the open. After that he must
make an abject submission or else fight to a finish.

In Walpole's view this spirited policy of Townshend's, his
determination to smash the hostile league, would have supplied the
pressure which alone was capable of keeping it together. Townshend was
a self-willed man; but Walpole had a happy knack of talking him round.
At the beginning there was no opportunity for conference, for the one
was in Hanover and the other in London; but so soon as they came
together again Walpole began to regain his ascendancy, and the war
that followed was conducted in accordance with the views of the chief
minister rather than with those of the secretary-of-state.

On the whole, it seems fortunate that things fell out as they
did--that Townshend went his own way at the beginning and that, as the
crisis developed, Walpole gradually gained the upper hand. For
although there can be no question as to the superiority of Walpole's
natural judgement, he was not yet qualified, when the treaty of Vienna
was signed, to take control of foreign policy. He was not yet master
of the facts; his view of the European situation was not yet
clarified; his mind was not made up, and, as he still doubted, his
temperament might easily have led him into a policy of drift. Under
his sole guidance even the commercial interests of Britain might have
been compromised and in the end sacrificed; while the friendship of
France might have been lost, without any countervailing advantage. The
Emperor's goodwill and respect were never to be won by yielding to his
pretensions. Alarm was the only motive that could hold him to his
word.

If, on the other hand, Townshend had remained for long in chief
command it is likely that he would have done much mischief; but the
fact that at first he strode forward with unhesitating steps was a
good thing and not a bad. For his general direction was right,
provided that he did not press too far. It was greatly for the benefit
of the country, as also of Walpole's own career, that the friendly
relations of France and Britain were tightened into an alliance; for
their concert had a much stronger vitality and better expectations of
a long and useful life than the politicians in either country seemed
willing or able to believe.

Ever since the treaty of Utrecht the Emperor had been sulky, querulous
and unfriendly to Britain. He had been engaged in constant intrigues
against his former ally, while preaching on all occasions the sanctity
of their ancient comradeship. For ten years past his egotism had been
too tenderly considered by British governments. Their long-suffering
had encouraged him to believe they were afraid. This delusion might be
dispelled if he were openly thwarted. A draught of wholesome vexation
might put his system into better trim for digesting a reasonable but
unpleasant accommodation. But since a reasonable accommodation was the
prime object, it was important to watch for the first signs of his
weakening, and to take advantage of it, without pushing the quarrel to
extremes; above all, without starting a great European war, in which
the interests of a horde of allies on both sides would complicate and
delay the making of peace.




XIX.--_Of the various stages through which Walpole's ideas regarding
foreign affairs passed, and how he came to add a fourth fold to his
original policy_ (1700-1727).


From his first coming into parliament in the reign of William and Mary
until the accession of George the First, Walpole's views on foreign
policy had seemed in no way different from those of any ordinary
warlike Whig.[115] For twelve years or more he had supported his
leaders without protest or apparent misgivings, when they spun out the
war with France for their own selfish ends and to the injury of the
nation. He was one of the loudest critics of the negotiations at
Utrecht, of the peace with France, and of the subsequent efforts to
put British relations with that country on a friendly footing. During
that period he was not one of the acknowledged chieftains of the Whig
party, but only a young and ambitious politician who spoke admirably
upon almost every subject and who readily adopted his leaders'
opinions upon all matters of foreign policy. It was mainly in the
departments of trade and finance, taxation and supplies that his
advice was welcomed; and also in the management of the House of
Commons. He did not seek to obtrude, or even to formulate, any views
of his own upon the European situation; but was content to follow the
lines of Whig tradition which still guided the counsels of his party.
If he often spoke as a Jingo, denouncing the Bourbons and other Whig
taboos with vigour and gusto, he only did so because such was the
fashion prevalent at that time among his political associates.

During the first six years of George the First,[116] there is nothing
to show that Walpole had become converted to a policy of peace, unless
his efforts to defeat a Mutiny bill when the country was in danger may
be taken as evidence of a change of heart. On the contrary, whenever
he happened to be out of office, his speeches were directed as
frequently against Stanhope's friendly dealings with France as against
any of the other acts of government. But nothing he either said or did
during that period can be assumed to represent his true opinions. He
was in opposition and he must oppose. On most occasions his guide was
factiousness. Though he spoke on foreign affairs with great fluency
and vehemence, it seems certain that he had not yet given this subject
his serious attention. He had become a leader; but he was still in the
irresponsible stage when a score in debate or an advantage in some
parliamentary manœuvre outweighed all other considerations.

For the first four years of his own administration[117] Walpole left
Townshend a free hand in foreign affairs. Townshend's extreme jealousy
of interference and his favour at court would have made it difficult
to do otherwise. Moreover, during this period Walpole was fully
occupied with the management of the House of Commons and with his own
administrative work.

The making of treaties and other diplomatic activities which took
place in 1725 produced, however, an important change in Walpole's
attitude. For the next five years[118]--two of which fell in the reign
of George the First and three in that of George the Second--he was
engaged in a struggle with Townshend for supremacy in foreign affairs.
The contest at first was not unfriendly, and the parties to it would
probably have denied that there were any serious differences between
them. The secretary-of-state stood upon his right of exclusive
control; but at the same time he was willing to consider any practical
suggestions which the First Lord of the Treasury might have to offer.
Walpole went to work without any appearance of deliberate aggression,
without any acknowledgement of his ultimate aim. Townshend's
suspicions must not be aroused, his hot temper must not be fanned into
flame, or the government would fall in pieces. Walpole showed the
utmost consideration for the feelings of his brother-in-law; played
the friendly counsellor; and made the most of his own difficulties as
leader of the House of Commons in order to excuse his claim to be
consulted beforehand on all matters that might possibly raise
opposition in parliament.

Immediately after the accession of George the Second the situation
changed, and the struggle for supremacy that had hitherto been so
carefully veiled passed into another phase. Townshend was out of
favour with the new sovereign, and Walpole speedily became
all-powerful at court. The most important reason, therefore, for
keeping Townshend in good humour had ceased to exist, and the chief
minister soon showed plainly that he was no longer willing to meet
such heavy drafts upon his patience as prudence had forced him to
honour in the past. The death of Lady Townshend in 1726 had removed a
peace-maker. The brothers-in-law grew more and more estranged, and
their differences culminated at last in the scandal of an assault.
Townshend thereupon resigned and Walpole became in fact, though not in
name, his own foreign minister.

       *       *       *       *       *

It has already been explained that Walpole's policy at the beginning
of his administration was of a three-fold character. He aimed at
keeping himself in power, at keeping the Hanoverian dynasty on the
throne, and at fostering the national prosperity.

Before the disturbances arising out of the treaty of Vienna were at an
end, his policy had become four-fold. He saw clearly that the whole
fabric of his purpose would be in jeopardy, unless he could prevent
his country from becoming entangled in one of those universal wars
that in the past had been measured, not by years, but by decades.

The conflict with Louis the Fourteenth, which was raging when Walpole
first entered political life, had lasted with no considerable
intermission for four-and-twenty years--from the accession of William
and Mary almost to the death of Anne. Walpole's youthful efforts had
helped to protract that struggle; but he had since learned wisdom.
Such another era of destruction would be fatal to his maturer
ambition. Henceforth he was the fireman of Europe, and his endeavour
to quench the flames of war, wherever they broke out, knew no
exception. Gradually his resolute adherence to peace became the chief
bone of contention between the Opposition and himself, the true
dividing-line between parties, the cause at last of his losing the
King's favour, of his waning popularity and of his colleagues'
desertion.

Walpole entered on the conflict with Spain and Austria disliking it by
intuition rather than from reason. He was wrong in underrating the
value of the French alliance, and he was also wrong in his reluctance
to take a bold line against the Emperor. But he was right in his
subsequent determination that the Emperor should not be humiliated
beyond the strict needs of the case, or driven into permanent
hostility by an oppressive peace. Experience soon taught him, however,
that although he had sneered at Stanhope for his subservience to the
Bourbons, although he had doubted Townshend's wisdom in strengthening
the understanding between France and Britain, the greatest security
for the peace of Europe, and consequently for his own policy, lay in
cultivating a firm friendship with the traditional enemy.

The success of Walpole's administration was largely due to the
conclusions at which he then arrived. The bent of his nature would
perhaps have made it difficult for him to arrive at any others, even
had the circumstances of the time required a different procedure. By
great good luck, however, his cast of mind was admirably adapted to
the particular epoch in which he found himself. For twelve years to
come no way could have been better than his for dealing with the needs
and temper of his fellow-countrymen, the characters of contemporary
rulers and the peculiar conditions of Europe. Since his rules of
conduct proved successful, it matters little that they were not rules
of universal application.

       *       *       *       *       *

The three aims that Walpole set before him at the outset of his
administration--(1) the maintenance of his own power, (2) the security
of the dynasty and (3) national prosperity--are not aims that have
been equally dependent at all times and in all circumstances upon the
preservation of peace.

History shows us many examples of wars that have been undertaken with
the deliberate intention of strengthening the position of a minister,
or of giving security to a new or an unpopular sovereign. And
occasionally victorious campaigns have attained one or other of these
two objects. In the wars of the National Convention, of the Directory,
of the two Napoleons, of Prince Bismarck and of a host of others,
ancient and modern, we can trace a motive common to them all, of
confirming the authority of a king, or of a ruling clique, or of a
minister of state.

War, however, is a very chancy undertaking. Some wars have succeeded
which on all principles of sound business ought to have failed; some
have failed when seemingly every precaution had been taken to ensure
their success. In truth human forethought is rarely adequate to such
stupendous computations; for, as one of the most prosperous of
political adventurers has confessed, 'it is impossible to see the
cards which the Almighty holds in His hand.'

The reactions of public opinion are even more incalculable than the
issues of war; and they are apt to produce out of victory, as out of
defeat, the most surprising and unexpected ferments among the people.
Though the war be won, the King may totter on his throne, or the
minister may be disgraced. Reflective historians would attribute such
paradoxes of fortune to blind chance, or else to the counter-workings
of some hidden law of nature; but, among the great actors themselves,
how many are there who have believed, in all sincerity, with Bismarck
and Philippe de Commines, that Providence, of set but inscrutable
purpose, will at one time throw barriers across the open road, at
another will remove mountains from the way? This at least is
certain--that failure in such adventures has been a far commoner
result than success.

To a man of Walpole's temperament disaster would always have seemed
the likeliest issue, if the dregs of the popular cauldron were stirred
up by some great convulsion. Had he been assured of conquest he would
still have shrunk from the disturbances it might shortly produce in
civil affairs.

The third article of Walpole's policy--the increase of national
prosperity--stands on a different footing. Here his view is in
agreement with the almost universal opinion of responsible statesmen.
Victory in a great war--one in which the conquering nation has been
obliged to put forth its full strength--has never led, so far as I
can discover, to an immediate growth of national prosperity, but, in
nearly every case, to the reverse. The greater the war that has been
won the longer has been the painful process of recovery. And yet
though this is clear enough to a king or statesman of even moderate
capacity--to all men indeed who have any knowledge of history--the
contrary view, fanatically held in other quarters, has been one of the
most frequent producers of wars. Popular opinion has at all times been
peculiarly subject to this delusion. Commercial and financial
interests have frequently been misled by it. It has been the favourite
bait, thrown out to catch the vulgar, by military cliques and by
groups of factious politicians. But the aftermath of a great and
victorious war has almost always had more in common with bankruptcy
than with prosperity.

This is not to say that a victory, which throws open new fields of
enterprise and fills the people with self-confidence, may not
ultimately lead to a vast growth of industry and riches. But it will
be necessary to wait until a decade or a generation has passed away;
and Walpole was one who looked for quick returns. This is not to be
imputed to him as a fault. Every statesman fit to be trusted with the
reins of government will take the same view. It is only the commercial
visionary--the most reckless of all calculators, the most fallacious
of all guides--who will sneer at him. A wise minister may go to war,
willingly or unwillingly, for a large variety of sound reasons, but
never in order to give a fillip to trade.

The victories of Louis the Fourteenth brought no prosperity to France,
but only misery. When the campaigns of Frederick the Great came to an
end, Prussia was burned out, like one who has come through a long and
high fever. It is true that after the wars of the elder Pitt it was
not long before British trade began to reap a great benefit; but Pitt
himself was then no longer in power. After the wars of his son[119]
recovery was very slow; there was much suffering and dangerous
discontent before commercial expansion came in a full tide. Between
1864 and 1871 Bismarck waged a series of wars with unbroken success.
He claimed with truth that the actual military costs of these various
undertakings were more than covered by enemy payments of cash and
cessions of territory. But for all that, the plight of German industry
gave cause for grave anxiety during a period the years of which
numbered many more than the months that had been spent in fighting.

In none of these cases was immediate material prosperity the aim of
kings or statesmen. The motives that led them into war were mixed and
of a great variety. All these rulers were concerned with the
intangible rather than with the material interests of their respective
states--with considerations of glory, honour, safety, freedom or
aggrandisement. It is likely that they found consolation for the
immediate injury to trade and credit which they foresaw, in the hope
that, at some future date--possibly after they themselves had passed
from the scene--a prosperity that sprang from their victories would
outstrip all previous records. But so remote and so uncertain a
prospect is not what agitators and mobs have in mind when they clamour
for war in order that commerce may thrive.

There is a sense, however, in which every statesman, when he is
confronted with the issue of war or peace, is justified in considering
the interests of trade. He is not to be blamed for taking account of
the evil effect that may be produced on national prosperity by leaving
things at a stalemate, by submitting to encroachments and exclusions,
by refusing to recognise that a nation at certain stages in its growth
must have scope for expansion--as a tree must have head-room, if it is
not to die, or to become stunted and deformed. But a war to prevent
industrial ruin or paralysis is an altogether different matter from
one which is undertaken in the vain hope of an immediate profit.

If a country will not stand up for its rights it must certainly lose
them. The spirit of giving in is the most fatal disease to which
nations are subject, and it is apt to attack them, like cancer, when
they have arrived at the meridian. Jingoism itself is less fatal than
the appeal on all occasions to material scales, in order to decide
whether the injury that threatens the country is likely to be less or
greater than the sacrifices that may be needed to prevent it.
Concessions to unjust or impudent demands have a formidable knack of
breeding. The nation that submits from laziness or fear, or because it
is too short-sighted to detect the specious fallacies of arithmetic,
will certainly lose its own confidence and the respect of its
neighbours; and these two things are the very foundations of national
prosperity.

Being neither an imaginative nor an emotional man, Walpole was
unlikely to be tempted by commercial benefits which he could not
foresee, and which, on the most sanguine calculations, could hardly be
expected to fructify during the lifetime of his own administration.
Moreover he was a distruster of leaps and bounds, a believer in a
steady, rather than in a rapid, growth of prosperity. It was his
admirable ambition to keep the whole body of rural and urban industry
marching forward together upon a straight, unbroken front. War, even
if it should prove successful, must throw this movement into disorder.
No accretions of wealth arising out of a lop-sided development could
ever compensate for the evils of a violent dislocation. An essential
element in national prosperity, as Walpole conceived it, was an equal
distribution of well-being between town and country, between all
classes of industry and ranks of society. A greater sum of wealth
which did not diffuse itself throughout the community, but which
lodged in certain sections of it--as in some unhealthy bodies all the
fat lies round the belly--might not be prosperity at all, but, in a
national sense, impoverishment.

During Walpole's administration the annual increment of riches was
probably more evenly apportioned than at any other period in British
history. A rank growth of fortunes, side by side with unrelieved or
increasing penury, was not one of the curses of his age. No class was
then gaining conspicuously at the expense of any other. Rents and
values were rising; but the profits of farmers and traders were rising
still more rapidly; while higher wages and fuller employment more than
counterbalanced any increase there might be in the costs of living. As
a result there was not only less privation than there had been in
earlier times, but there was also less discontent and envy.

The whole credit for this state of things cannot be placed to
Walpole's account, for the circumstances of the time were very
favourable to his policy. But it was given to him to understand those
circumstances. It was in his brain that the policy was conceived, and
by his resolute will that it was carried out. Had there been no
Walpole the opportunity might easily have been missed. That one so fit
for the particular occasion should have succeeded in making his way to
the head of affairs appears in the light of a most fortunate miracle.

The alternative to Walpole would have been some Whig aristocrat,
possibly an able man, but one who would have walked in the strait path
of his party traditions, and who would have looked upon domestic
affairs as subordinate to the nobler pursuit of knocking the heads of
kings and emperors together. Such a one, understanding little or
nothing about the conditions of trade or the management of land, would
almost certainly have sought scope for his ambition in weaving
entangling alliances, and in seeking prestige by constant intervention
in continental concerns. Had the energies of government been
misdirected into such a channel, it would have needed another miracle
to avert a series of ruinous and purposeless wars.

Walpole had accepted battle without hesitation, though very
reluctantly, sooner than submit to those encroachments on British
trade which Austria had contrived and which Spain had assented to. But
the events of 1725 and 1726 produced a momentous effect upon his
career. They forced him to clear his mind upon subjects that hitherto
he had somewhat neglected, with the result that he arrived at a
decision which he never afterwards changed. He gradually came round to
the view that the greatest of British interests was peace; and that
the way to it might easily be closed by a network of alliances, by
violent pronouncements, immoderate aims and a determination to deal
out poetic justice. Since Townshend entertained different notions, it
was necessary to contrive that henceforth the chief minister should
have something more than an equal voice with the secretary-of-state in
the management of foreign affairs.




XX.--_Of George I.'s character and of the quality of his kingship._


In the first days of June 1727--shortly after his interview with
Bolingbroke[120]--George the First set out for Hanover; but he fell by
the wayside. Not far from Osnabrück he was seized with an apoplexy of
which he died in a few hours. Thus for a second time was Bolingbroke's
ambition shipwrecked on a royal demise.[121]

They buried George Lewis where he would have wished to lie--in Hanover
city, with his forefathers. It was more fitting that he should be laid
to rest among his own people, who loved him--not certainly as a hero,
but as kings are loved when they have shown themselves just, and
brave, and homely--than in England, where his light went out like a
blown candle, and where the mourning for him was a frigid
make-believe. Among his British subjects the King's death caused no
deeper emotion than surprise at its suddenness. They were insensible
of any loss, callous, on the whole perhaps more glad than sorry, when
the crown changed heads. How could they pretend to love a sovereign
who never dissembled his preference for the country of his birth? And
bearing no affection to George the First they overlooked the not
inconsiderable debt of gratitude they owed him.

The duchess of Kendal, well laden with spoil, retired to her villa at
Chiswick where one day a raven flew in at the window. Concluding that
the spirit of the departed king had returned to earth in this solemn
guise, she received the bird with reverence and cherished it.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the reign of George the First the commonest and most vehement
complaints against him were that he subordinated the interests of the
United Kingdom to those of his Hanoverian Electorate; that he misused
the strength and prestige of Britain to aggrandise his position as a
German prince; that he squandered British money on his foreign
favourites.

The last of these charges is of the same sort as those which have been
levelled against every prince and some princesses who have come as
strangers to be crowned at Westminster. It was made with justice
against George the First and his Germans, but on even better grounds
against William the Third and his Dutchmen, against James the First
and his Scots. Daughters of France and Spain who became queens of
England have frequently had to bear the same reproaches.

The complaint against George the First was inspired to a large extent
by personal considerations. From envy, disappointment or malice people
were apt to exaggerate both the amount of his largess and the evils it
inflicted on the nation. It was not in reality a matter of the first
importance. The King had not been slow to understand that in
comparison with Hanover Britain was a very corrupt as well as a very
rich country. The main object of those native-born courtiers and
politicians whom he found awaiting him in London seemed to be the
obtaining of sinecures and posts of profit for themselves and their
families. Why should his faithful and frugal Germans have no share in
the pickings? To say that the resources of the United Kingdom were
dried up or that the exchequer was to any serious degree embarrassed
by these trumpery depredations was manifestly absurd. In principle, of
course, there was a grievance, but in practice there was none, for it
had long been the custom to distribute a substantial portion of the
national revenue among people who gave little or nothing in return. So
far as the country was concerned, it could not matter a great deal
whether this dole was paid exclusively to British parliamentarians and
peers, or whether they were obliged to share it with the Hanoverian
favourites. But the invasion of a monopoly, however scandalous, will
usually produce an unreasoning storm of indignation among a large
number of people who have no interest in the transaction. It was easy
in this case to raise a clamour, for the King was unpopular, while his
German followers, from first to last, were objects of mockery and
abuse.

George the First was shocked not only by the insubordination of
British statesmen and by their want of political education, but also
by the vast sums that were paid to them as salaries and perquisites.
In Hanover, thoroughly trained ministers could be engaged for
one-tenth of the price. These German counsellors were not by nature
incorruptible; but while engaged in treading out the sparse Hanover
corn they were tightly muzzled. Being set free on their arrival in
England, they created much scandal by the grossness of their appetites
and the crudity of their methods. But they were undoubtedly stuffed
fuller of knowledge than their English equivalents, much
harder-working and by no means lacking in penetration, especially with
regard to the designs of foreign powers. They were professionals who
had graduated in statecraft, as one takes a degree in law or medicine.
They had served a hard practical apprenticeship, and had risen to
importance solely on the Elector's appreciation of their services. By
contrast the British seemed to him adventurers and caballers, who
forced themselves upon their sovereign, not by their merits, but by
their influence with parliament. In political science they were
amateurs, and, seeing that they dealt largely in oratory, mountebanks.
On the other hand he came gradually to understand that they had
qualities the others lacked. They were less encumbered with learning
and precepts than the Germans and, as a consequence of this, they were
usually capable of taking a simpler and truer view of the general
situation when, being in office, it was their interest to use their
faculties for the public advantage. They were less afraid of
responsibility than Bothmer, Bernstorff and the rest; in action much
readier, though undoubtedly more rash.

The second charge--that George the First misused the resources of
Britain to strengthen his position as a German prince--rests upon a
somewhat slight foundation. None of his political acts was of a
heinous character. He had long hankered after the duchies of Bremen
and Werden, in order that he might round off his Hanoverian dominions.
In the second year of his reign he obtained possession of these
territories, thanks to British assistance. Denmark, the occupying
power, gave them up in return for a subsidy from the British
exchequer. Sweden, which held the legal title, was intimidated by the
British fleet. But the annexation of the duchies to Hanover was no
injury to Britain, but a benefit, inasmuch as it opened the rivers
Elbe and Weser to her commerce. The Swedish king was an enemy, and the
coalition with Denmark to keep him in check had the hearty approval of
a cabinet that included Townshend, Walpole and Stanhope. The
subsequent wrangle between George and the Emperor over the fees of
investiture produced much ill-feeling, but it cannot be said truly
that Britain, which at that time had grievances of its own against
Charles the Sixth, was in any way a sufferer thereby.

The general charge that George the First subordinated the interests of
the United Kingdom to those of his Electorate contains just as little
substance. It is true that in every emergency his first thoughts were
for Hanover; but his second thoughts almost invariably conformed to
the views of his English ministers. On no occasion of real importance
did he act contrary to their counsels, and certainly at one critical
juncture, solely out of regard for the duty he owed to Britain, he
deliberately followed a course of policy which threatened serious
dangers to his German dominions.[122] The true charge against him
touches, not his loyalty to the United Kingdom, but his intelligence.
He could not always see for himself where his duty lay. He needed to
have explained to him at tedious length things which an
Englishman-born would have understood at the first glance. The sole
difficulty was to make him understand; for when that was
accomplished, no cajolery was needed to bring him into the line that
British interests required him to take.

The chief cause of the King's unpopularity among his British subjects,
the real grievance of the parliamentary Opposition that attacked him
for his German proclivities, was much more a matter of sentiment than
of substance. When a foreign prince accepts the British crown he finds
himself in a position of considerable difficulty. It is expected of
him that he will show on all occasions a grateful and radiant
countenance. When a stern sense of duty calls on him to revisit from
time to time his native land, he must appear to grudge every day of
absence from the generous people who have chosen him to rule over
them. Had George been able to simulate a love for Englishmen and
Englishwomen, for English institutions, customs and pastimes, or had
he even been able to dissemble his clear preference for all things
German, he might have done far more for Hanover at the expense of
Britain than he ever dreamed of doing, and no one would have murmured
save a few embittered Jacobites. But our first Hanoverian king was no
play-actor. He could neither simulate nor dissimulate. The best he
could do was to hold his tongue, and his silence was taken as a proof
of his ingratitude, of his boorish upbringing, of his aversion.

In his personal appearance, as in his appetites, George the First was
gross--a heavy, fleshy man, somewhat under the middling height, much
addicted to eating, drinking and women. Nor did he show himself dainty
in any of these matters. He took pleasure in late suppers and punch,
in jokes and buffoons, and in mistresses whose ample figures appeared
to compensate him for their want of vivacity and intelligence. But
though he freely indulged his tastes, they never gained the mastery.
He was neither a glutton nor a drunkard. Rarely, if ever, did he allow
his gallantries to encroach on his hours of business or to influence
his policy.

He hated parade and ceremonial, comported himself stiffly and without
a smile on all public occasions, which is not the royal road to
popularity. He was taciturn by nature, and his want of English
increased this natural defect. He was not unsociable, however, in a
narrow circle, talking German by preference if his company understood
that tongue, French if they did not, or turning his pleasantries into
dog-Latin for the benefit of Walpole. He had a certain grim sense of
humour; also at times an unexpected delicacy of consideration for the
feelings of others. Wanting imagination, he was indifferent to danger;
but beyond this, he was valorous by nature and had more political
courage than is possessed by most sovereigns.

The men to whose advice he listened did not belong to the worthless
class that is known in history as royal favourites. He had no fancy
for surrounding himself with insinuating flatterers. He chose his
counsellors not for their servility, but because he thought well,
rightly or wrongly, of their abilities. Even his Germans were persons
of great industry and considerable attainments. On the whole he was no
bad judge of men, though we are occasionally puzzled by the order of
his preferences. He thought very highly of Stanhope and Walpole, but
still more highly of Townshend, and he was apt to give much greater
weight to Sunderland's opinions than they deserved. The English
statesman in whose society he took most pleasure was Carteret, and it
is to his credit that he did not hesitate to follow the counsels of
Carteret's opponents, when he became convinced, as he soon did, that
they were sounder advisers in national affairs. Whatever the faults of
these English ministers may have been, not one of them was a
sycophant; in force of character and ability they were the very pick
of the Whig party.

A great king is a very rare phenomenon; but a good king--a
hard-working man who follows what he believes to be wise counsels, who
has a fairly clear conception of what the national policy ought to be,
who holds to it as consistently as circumstances will let him, who
puts the honour and interest of the realm before his own ease, and
who, upon the whole, succeeds in his modest endeavour to leave his
country somewhat better than he found it--such kings have been a good
deal commoner than our history books would lead us to suppose.

Thoroughly bad kings are only a degree less rare than great kings; and
if they appear to be more numerous it is because political writers are
apt to look on mere failure as a proof of crime. Many of those
monarchs against whom fortune has run in an irresistible tide-race are
set down as bad. It is the same with most of those who, though honest
of purpose, have blundered, who have aimed at things, not wicked, but
impossible in the age they lived in, or who have chosen the wrong
instruments for carrying out a policy that in itself was sound and
patriotic. When a reign has ended disastrously for a king or for his
subjects the king must bear the brunt.

Since the fall of Constantinople, nearly five centuries ago, the great
kings in Europe may be numbered on one's fingers. During that period
we have had in England only one sovereign indubitably
great--Elizabeth--and only one indubitably bad--Richard the
Third.[123] We have had several misguided, incompetent and unhappy
monarchs, such as Charles the First, James the Second and (during a
part of his reign at least) George the Third; but fortunately we have
not lacked good and serviceable kings, and among these George the
First may certainly be placed.

The virtues which furnish out a _great_ king are not by any means the
same as those which go to make a good man. Some of them indeed--such
as courage, justice and a few others--are common to both characters;
but, even so, the order of their importance varies in the two cases.
Nor, upon a close inspection, do the virtues themselves appear quite
identical, except in name. The ideal of kingly courage, for example,
differs widely from the pattern of Bayard. The sense of justice that
would adorn a private person is tempered to a far greater degree with
forgiveness of injuries than would befit one whose duty it is to
consider the safety of his people. Some of those qualities that are
counted to a good man as shining virtues--such as warm-hearted
friendship--would be matters of indifference, or even of
embarrassment, in the case of a sovereign. And again, some of the
qualities that have contributed most powerfully to make kings _great_
are inconsistent with our notions of a gentleman, of a loyal master,
or of a Christian.

There is something of chance in the reputations that are earned by
public characters. A king may be neither great nor good, and yet if he
happens to fit the needs of his time he may gain considerable
popularity in his own day; and this not infrequently will crystallise
into a favourable verdict from history. On the other hand he may
possess sterling qualities and serve a very useful purpose, and yet
receive nothing but abuse while he lives and little but contempt from
posterity. The latter has been the fate of George the First, although
the opportuneness of his reign and its substantial success have never
been matters of serious dispute.

George the First possessed certain noble qualities, some of them by no
means common. He was honourably distinguished by his truthfulness, by
his sobriety of judgement, by his fidelity to his word, by his loyalty
to his ministers. His course of action in public affairs was deflected
only to a trifling extent by his prejudices; in the main it was
determined by his sense of duty. But he had no pretensions to
greatness, for this reason, if for no other, that he lacked the
supreme and rarest quality of all. Unlike Elizabeth he was incapable
of regarding his kingship as a drama and himself as the principal
actor in it. His inferiority to her in political capacity is not the
whole measure of the difference between them. Never on a single
occasion was he uplifted and his strength increased an hundredfold by
the enthusiasm of his people. His kingship was a thoroughly
matter-of-fact affair. He jogged along in a humdrum fashion, doing his
best at the head of a very troublesome business. It was a creditable
performance and deserved more gratitude than it earned.

But Elizabeth was something quite different. She was the spirit of
England incarnate. Her own deepest and strongest feelings were also
the deepest and strongest feelings of a vast majority of Englishmen,
gentle and simple alike. In her great moments she brought the whole
country to her side with a gesture or a phrase. The manifestations of
her prodigious influence are clear enough, but the veritable sources
of it are not so easy to discover. Her faults, at this distance of
time, appear as glaring as her virtues. She was vain, mean,
ungrateful, revengeful and perfidious. Many were her hesitations and
delays; they brought her realm into grave dangers; but she had the
gift to keep her own counsel so closely that even her vacillations
produced on the minds of most men the impression that she was playing
a deep and patient game. Her policy was sometimes timid; but she
herself had the art always to appear bold. In all personal encounters
she was fearless: more than fearless--overawing. She ruled England as
an autocrat, but without an army. She kept her place in Europe with no
more powerful weapon than a fleet that her avarice starved and stinted
of the most necessary supplies. Her parliaments were sometimes
mutinous and spoke of grievances real and imaginary. When she dared
order them about their business, she did so; and they went away
silenced. When she did not dare--owing to some force of public opinion
too strong to be withstood--she would give way with a frankness and
apparent bonhomie that delighted the populace, though it filled the
minds of the ringleaders with vague forebodings of a future
retribution. When she yielded most reluctantly she was still the
autocrat, and contrived to make even her concessions wear the
appearance of commands. What virtue in her produced this great
authority? It was not simply her sense of the dramatic, her courage,
shrewd judgement, the prestige of success, or mere good luck.
'Personal magnetism' is only a coverlet phrase and not an explanation
of the mystery. Whatever her secret may have been, her successor
George the First had no inkling of it.




                              FOOTNOTES:


[1] His income was considered immense in those days. Cf. Lord Morley's
_Walpole_, pp. 133-138.

[2] Only the younger Pitt was chief minister for an equal number of
years; but with him, before mid-career, there was a cataclysm that
forced him to abandon the policy on which he had set his heart; and
afterwards a break of three years in the continuity of his
administration.

[3] Walpole had been beaten in the large constituencies, but had
contrived, with Newcastle's assistance, to hold enough of the small,
corrupt and 'pocket' boroughs to give him a comfortable working
majority.

[4] One of the first to set Walpole's conduct in a true light was Sir
Robert Peel (_Lord Stanhope's Miscellanies_ (First Series), pp.
66-80). The matter is also dealt with in Lord Morley's _Walpole_ and
in the Right Hon. J. M. Robertson's _Bolingbroke and Walpole_. The
judgement of these three writers is of special value for the reason
that practical politics filled a large part of the lives of each of
them.

[5] Horatio Walpole to Mr. Trevor, March 3, 1744 (Coxe's _Memoirs of
Lord Walpole_, ii. 70-71). Henry Fox to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams,
Sept. 5, 1745, "England, Wade says, (and I believe), is for the first
comer; and if you can tell whether the 6,000 Dutch, and the ten
battalions of English, or 5,000 French or Spaniards, will be here
first, you know our fate." (_ibid._ ii. 113).

[6] Lord Waldegrave's _Memoirs_ cover only four years, 1752 to 1756,
and Bubb Dodington's eleven, 1749 to 1761.

[7] Lady Cowper kept a _Diary_ from 1714 to her death in 1724; but
only two years (October 1714 to October 1716), and two months (April
and May 1720) were ever published. She is believed to have destroyed
the remainder when her husband, towards the close of his life, fell
under suspicion of having been mixed up in a Jacobite intrigue.

[8] Horace Walpole's famous _Memoirs_ of the reigns of George II. and
George III. (1751 to 1771) are of an altogether different character;
but they do not touch the period with which this book is concerned.
The _Memoirs_ are much less spontaneous than the _Letters_, having
been several times rewritten and heavily revised. They were not
published until many years after his death.

[9] Hervey tells the whole story with great naïveté in his letters to
his father, Lord Bristol (July 1742). (_Memoirs_, edited by the Right
Hon. J. W. Croker, vol. iii. pp. 378-397.)

[10] 'One point the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Pelham and Mr. Pulteney
certainly agree in is to get me from the King's ear, and not to suffer
the traversing power to all their schemes, which they have felt in so
many instances I have there,' etc. etc. (_Memoirs_, vol. iii. p. 388).

[11] 'If your Majesty, to prove I am not banished your presence and
councils, will make me a lord of your bedchamber; and to show you do
not mean to limit me in my circumstances, will add a pension of £2000
per annum for thirty years on Ireland--though by this I shall fall so
much in rank, and lessen my present income six or seven hundred pounds
a year, yet as I desire nothing but a creditable and plausible
pretence to support your Majesty's measures with the same steadiness I
have hitherto done, so I think I can justify the acceptance of this
small compensation for the hardship the whole world allows has been
inflicted on me' (_Memoirs_, vol. iii. p. 389). There is nothing
unusual in the pattern of this letter, which is probably as familiar
to a modern Prime Minister as it was to George the Second.

[12] In North Britain we have our own difficulties. 'Scotland' is a
noble word; but we can never agree among ourselves what is the
appropriate adjective; and none is entirely satisfactory. 'Scotch',
though it has Sir Walter's great authority behind it, is repellent to
most ears; 'Scots' is correct but archaic, suitable in certain
connections (_Scots Guards_), but not for general use; 'Scottish' is
also suitable in certain connections (_The Scottish Historical
Society_), but much too genteel for common conversation. Then again a
man does not willingly, I think, describe himself as a 'Scotchman'; or
(unless he is taking a very serious view of himself) as a 'Scotsman';
and when he calls himself a 'Scot' there will be something of a
twinkle in his eye. My own preference is for the last of the three.

[13] 'New' that is, in Russian experience; not necessarily 'new' in
history.

[14] Lenin, 1870-1924. Exile in Siberia, 1897-1900. Exile abroad,
1900-1905. Back in Russia, Nov. 1905-Dec. 1907. Abroad again,
1907-1917. The First Revolution, March 1917. Return to Russia, April
1917. Opposes Socialist-Liberal government and goes into hiding,
Aug.-Oct. 1917. The Second Revolution, Nov. 1917. Thenceforward Lenin
is at the head of affairs. _First_ stroke of paralysis, spring 1922.
Recovery, autumn 1922. _Second_ stroke, autumn 1923. Died Jan. 1924.
Reckoning the period of his Siberian exile, he spent nineteen years of
his life out of Russia. He had six years of supreme power. He died
when he was fifty-four.

[15] Strictly speaking the statement should be 'millions' instead of
'hundreds of thousands.' The following passage from Professor
Sarolea's _Impressions of Soviet Russia_ (pp. 81-82) is probably
familiar to many readers: 'A Russian statistical investigation
estimates that the Dictator killed 28 bishops, 1219 priests, 6000
professors and teachers, 9000 doctors, 54,000 officers, 260,000
soldiers, 70,000 policemen, 12,950 landowners, 355,250 intellectuals
and professional men, 193,290 workers, 815,000 peasants.' That is,
about 1,750,000 were executed or massacred. In addition, the same
writer seems to be of the opinion that some 18,000,000 died of
famine--a famine that Lenin had it in his power greatly to mitigate,
if not altogether to prevent, but which he deliberately allowed to
rage. The diminution of the Russian population during the period of
his dictatorship would therefore appear to have been about 12½ per
cent.

[16] I cannot give my authority for this conversation: I had it
originally by hearsay, and think that afterwards I read it in some
book. It has been in my mind for something like thirty years.

[17] I can think of only two pre-eminent politicians in my own
lifetime who really did hate one another 'cordially and
everlastingly'; and as to one of the pair I have my doubts: he may not
have hated, but only have enjoyed being hated.

[18] The names Whig and Tory came into vogue about 1680. 'These
foolish terms of reproach,' Hume calls them. 'We have played the Fool
with throwing Whig and Tory at one another, as Boys do
Snowballs.'--Halifax, _Character of a Trimmer_.

[19] The great prosperity of the British Empire and the United States
for more than two centuries after 1688 has been generally accepted by
British and American writers as a sufficient refutation of this
doctrine. But outside these two states the refutation has never been
universally admitted. The vicissitudes and failures of democracy,
after 1848, both in Europe and South America--the apparent success of
Bismarck's policy of personal kingship in developing the national
resources and in bringing about union and security--the almost
insuperable difficulties under the democratic system of carrying great
administrative reforms unemasculated, and of providing for the defence
and government of a country without waste and corruption--these and
other considerations gradually revived the credit of the older
theories among continental thinkers, even among those who had
originally belonged to what used to be called the 'liberal' school.

[20] Halifax's _Letter to a Dissenter_ is a confession how much need
there was for jogging the Puritan memory.

[21] Louis XIV. (1638-1715) was eight years younger than his first
cousin, Charles II. He succeeded to the throne in 1643 and assumed the
royal power in 1661. The reigns of Charles II., James II., William and
Mary, and Anne extended from 1660 to 1714.

[22] Robert Harley (1661-1724) entered parliament shortly after the
flight of James II. He was a moderate Tory, but succeeded, during the
greater part of his career, in keeping on terms with the Whigs. He
became Speaker of the House of Commons in 1701, and secretary-of-state
in 1704. With the assistance of a woman of the bedchamber to whom he
was related (Abigail Hill, afterwards Mrs. Masham), he sought to
influence the Queen against his colleagues. This led to his dismissal
in 1708. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer and head of the
government in 1710. In 1711 he was appointed Lord Treasurer and
created earl of Oxford. As he is better known in history by his
original name than by his peerage title, he is referred to in these
pages always as 'Harley.'

[23] Henry St. John (1678-1751) entered parliament in 1701, supported
Harley and the Tory party, and owed his appointment as
Secretary-at-War to the favourable notice of Marlborough. He was
dismissed, along with Harley and for the same cause, in 1708,
returning to office with his chief as secretary-of-state in 1710. He
was created Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712, and as it is by this name
that he is best known in history, he is thus referred to in these
pages.

[24] Sidney Godolphin (1645-1712) was page-of-honour to Charles II.,
and, having made himself useful through his business and financial
abilities, rose to be secretary-of-state and was created a peer in
1684. He was one of the Tories who stood by James II. to the last. He
held high office under William and Mary, which did not however prevent
him from engaging in treasonable correspondence with the exiled court
at St. Germain. Under Anne he was nominal head of the government from
1702 to 1710; but he was by nature a subordinate character, took his
orders in the main from Marlborough, and came to rely more and more on
the support of the Whigs.

[25] 5th November 1709.

[26] An admirer presented him to a comfortable living, and,
immediately on the expiry of his sentence--three years' suspension
from preaching--the Queen appointed him to one of the richest of the
London benefices.

[27] Abigail Hill (16??-1734), being left penniless on her father's
bankruptcy, was befriended by her cousin, the duchess of Marlborough,
who, somewhere about 1704, procured for her the appointment of
bedchamber woman to Queen Anne. Abigail Hill lost no time in seeking
to supplant her patroness in the Queen's favour. In 1707 she married
Samuel Masham, groom of the bedchamber to the Prince Consort. She was
the chief channel for her kinsman Harley's intrigues against
Marlborough and Godolphin. Her husband was created Lord Masham in
1711.

[28] 1711. Harley seems to have been anxious to retain him,
Bolingbroke to provoke him to resignation.

[29] Sarah Jennings (1660-1744) was one of the numerous children of a
Hertfordshire squire, Richard Jennings of Sandridge, near St. Albans.
She and her sister Frances (first married to Count Hamilton and
afterwards to the duke of Tyrconnel) went to the court of Charles II.
as maids-of-honour. In 1676 she became attached to the service of the
Princess Anne, second daughter of the duke of York, afterwards James
II. In 1678 she married Colonel John Churchill, who was then in his
twenty-ninth year. She soon gained complete control over the weak mind
of her mistress, whom she continued to rule--at first by affection,
but more and more, as time went on, by tears and violence--for upwards
of thirty years. The likenesses in the National Portrait Gallery show
the duchess as a fair, slight, determined-looking little lady with a
tip-tilted nose; the duke as a high-coloured and somewhat fleshy
gentleman, without a trace of subtlety in his strong good-humoured
countenance. Despite the violence of her temper and her implacable
disposition, Duchess Sarah appears to have preserved great powers of
attraction up to the end of her long life.

[30] Ormonde arrived in Flanders in April 1712.

[31] The 'very murdering' battle of Malplaquet, as Marlborough called
it, was fought on the 11th of September 1709. It was the last, and
also the least complete, of his great victories. The numbers engaged
were about 90,000 on each side. The losses of the allies were much
greater than those of their defeated enemies. The French estimates put
these numbers as 30,000 against 6000, while our own estimates put them
at 20,000 against 16,000. Marshal Villars retreated in good order, and
it was impossible to follow in pursuit.

[32] The war, as between Austria and France, did not end until nearly
a year later (peace of Rastadt, March 1714).

[33] August 1710-August 1714.

[34] 1657.

[35] 1701.

[36] George Lewis of Brunswick, who became Elector of Hanover in 1698
and King of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1714, was a
great-grandson of James the First. His grandmother, Elisabeth Stewart,
wife of the Prince Palatine, was sister to Charles the First. His
mother, the princess Sophia, was first cousin to Charles the Second
and James the Second. He himself was second cousin to the queens Mary
and Anne.

The princess Sophia was the youngest of a large family, but, unlike
her brothers and sisters, she remained a member of the Reformed
religion, and was married in 1658 to Ernest Augustus, a Protestant
prince of the House of Brunswick, who shortly afterwards became bishop
of Osnabrück, and in 1679 succeeded to the principality of Hanover.

Queen Mary, wife of William the Third, having died childless in 1694,
and the last of the princess Anne's children in 1700, the succession
to the British crown was settled in the following year by act of
parliament upon Sophia and her descendants. When Queen Anne died there
were more than fifty persons then living who, by descent, had a better
title than the Brunswick line to the sovereignty of the United
Kingdom, but as Roman Catholics their claims were statute-barred.

George Lewis was born in March 1660, a few weeks before the
restoration of Charles the Second. Shortly after attaining his
majority he secured his ultimate succession to the Brunswick duchy of
Zell by marrying his cousin Sophia Dorothea, only child of the
reigning duke. By her George Lewis had a son, George Augustus
(afterwards George the Second), and a daughter, Sophia Dorothea, who
married Frederick William of Prussia and became the mother of
Frederick the Great.

After twelve years of married life, George Lewis repudiated his
consort on account of her alleged, but unproven, misconduct with Count
von Königsmarck, a Swedish adventurer. This scandal came to a head
while the prince was absent from Hanover; but his father, Ernest
Augustus, vindicated the family honour by having von Königsmarck
strangled forthwith. The body was buried secretly under the floor of
an apartment in the palace of Herrenhausen. The unfortunate lady
remained a prisoner for the rest of her life, which ended only a few
months before that of her husband.

[37] Afterwards George II.

[38] Hanover was not in fact raised into a kingdom until 1814, a
century later.

[39] The Electress-dowager died 8th June 1714--only eight weeks before
Queen Anne.

[40] The population of Hanover in 1714 was well under 1,000,000, while
that of the United Kingdom was somewhat under 8,500,000. Scotland, the
least populous of the Three Kingdoms, was a little over 1,000,000.

[41] Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend (1674-1738), was employed on
various diplomatic missions by the Godolphin administration. His most
important negotiation was not carried through with conspicuous
success. He shared the misfortunes of the Whigs after the change of
government in 1710, married Walpole's sister in 1713, and at the
accession of George I. in 1714 became secretary-of-state for the
Northern department.

[42] James, 1st Earl Stanhope (1673-1721), was a grandson of the 1st
Earl of Chesterfield. To begin with, his energies were mainly occupied
in the Spanish Wars, where he won high distinction. In 1710, however,
he was defeated and taken prisoner by Vendôme. Although a soldier by
profession he had a seat in Parliament, and for the last four years of
Queen Anne's reign he was recognised as one of the Whig leaders. At
the accession of George I. he became secretary-of-state for the
Southern department, which post he held until his death, except for an
interval in 1717 when he was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor
of the Exchequer. He was raised to the peerage in 1717.

[43] Robert Walpole, afterwards K.C.B., K.G., and 1st Earl of Orford
(1676-1745), was the third son of a Norfolk squire, Robert Walpole of
Houghton. He was intended for the Church, but, in 1698, on becoming
heir to the estate--to which he succeeded two years later--he
determined on a political career. By 1703 he was one of the leading
members of the Whig party. After the formation of the
Harley-Bolingbroke administration he was pursued with special rancour,
and in 1712 was expelled from the House of Commons and imprisoned on a
trumped-up charge. On the accession of George I. he became Paymaster
of the Forces and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[44] Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland (1674-1722), married
Marlborough's younger daughter. After a diplomatic mission to Vienna
in 1705 he became secretary-of-state in Godolphin's administration. He
was the first of the Whig ministers to be dismissed by Queen Anne in
1710. At the accession of George I. he was disappointed at receiving
only the minor office of Lord Privy Seal.

[45] January 1715.

[46] Although Bolingbroke had certainly been engaged in treasonable
correspondence with the Jacobites, his enemies were unable to find any
direct proofs of it. The _Stuart Papers_ were not disclosed until long
after Bolingbroke was dead and buried. From his letter--_Of the State
of Parties at the Accession of King George the First_--which was
written towards the end of his life, we may conclude that he had then
no expectation of any further evidence against him ever appearing.

[47] In a letter written to Wyndham some years afterwards he
represents himself as having been goaded into inconsiderate action by
the sting of his attainder. But he was not then attainted. It is
useful to keep certain dates in mind: The appointment of a Secret
Committee of Enquiry by the Commons--March 22; Bolingbroke's
flight--March 28; interviews with Stair and Berwick--April; report of
the Secret Committee presented and impeachment ordered--June 9; became
secretary-of-state to the Pretender--mid-July; exhibition of articles
of impeachment in bill of attainder--August 8; bill passed and became
an Act--August 18. The Act of Attainder contained a provision that it
should not become operative till the 18th September, in order that
Bolingbroke might have the opportunity of surrendering within that
period to stand his trial. The provision was of course meaningless,
because Bolingbroke had convicted himself of treason when he took
service under the Pretender.

[48] Letter to Sir W. Wyndham.

[49] The duke of Berwick (1670-1734) was the son of James II. and
Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough. He had a
brilliant career in the French army and was at this time a Maréchal de
France.

[50] 'Thus,' says Bolingbroke, 'they continue steady to engagements
which most of them wish in their hearts they had never taken; and
suffer for principles, in support of which not one of them would
venture further than talking the treason that claret inspires'
(_Patriot King_).

[51] The 'Whig Schism' dealt with more fully in Vol. II.

[52] Louis XIII. succeeded when he was nine, Louis XIV. and Louis XV.
when they were only five years of age.

[53] Philippe, Duc d'Orleans (1674-1723), was a nephew of Louis XIV.
He held the regency from 1715 until his death in 1723.

[54] Guillaume Dubois (1656-1723).

[55] William Chiffinch (1602-1688), page of the bedchamber and keeper
of the closet to Charles II.

[56] Charles VI. (1685-1740) was the second son of the Emperor Leopold
I. On the death of his elder brother, Joseph I., in 1711 he succeeded
to the Austrian and Hungarian inheritances and was elected emperor.

[57] Philip V. (1683-1746) was the grandson of Louis XIV. He became
King of Spain under the will of Charles II. of Spain in 1700. He
abdicated in favour of his son in 1724, but on his son's death seven
months later he resumed the crown. For many years before his death he
was a victim of melancholia.

[58] Anne Marie, Princesse des Ursins (1645-1722), was chosen by Louis
XIV. to sustain French interests at the Spanish court after the
accession and first marriage of Philip V. Her power over the first
Queen was very great, but was not always used in accordance with the
views of Louis.

[59] Elisabeth Farnese (1692-1766) was the niece of the Grand Duke of
Parma.

[60] The Duc de Vendôme (1654-1712) was a great-grandson of Henry of
Navarre by Gabrielle d'Estrées. One of the greatest soldiers of his
age, he was defeated by Marlborough at Oudenarde (1708), but
victorious over the allies in Spain (1710-1712). He died of a
prodigious surfeit.

[61] July 1717.

[62] August 1717.

[63] 1718.

[64] Charles XII. (1682-1718) succeeded to the throne of Sweden on his
father's death in 1697.

[65] Alberoni (1664-1752) and Dubois (1656-1723).--Alberoni began to
have political power immediately after the second marriage of Philip
V., which occurred in September 1714. He was then in his fifty-first
year. He fell in December 1719, so that he had a course of five years
and three months. Dubois began to have political power immediately
after the death of Louis XIV., which occurred in September 1715. He
was then in his sixtieth year. He died in August 1723, so that he had
a course of eight years.

[66] _E.g._ the repeal of the Schism Act (1719).

[67] First period--1721 to 1727; second period--1727 to 1737; third
period--1737 to 1742.

[68] Francis Atterbury, 1662-1732.

[69] Sir William Wyndham, 1687-1740.

[70] James II. died in 1701. His son, the Old Pretender, was born in
1688 and died in 1766. Charles Edward was born in 1720 and died in
1788.

[71] 1733.

[72] _Cf._ Sir Robert Peel's correspondence with Stanhope (Lord Mahon)
December 1833, where Peel's favourable view of Walpole obviously comes
as a surprise to the historian (_Stanhope Miscellanies_, pp. 66-80).

[73] _E.g._ conscription of the Chelsea Pensioners.

[74] See _ante_, p. 189.

[75] From the spring of 1717 to the spring of 1720.

[76] _Ante_, p. 236.

[77] 1701-1714.

[78] 1703.

[79] 1708.

[80] 1710.

[81] 1714.

[82] Carteret to Henry Fox.

[83] _Ante_, p. 293.

[84] I use the baptismal name throughout in order to distinguish him
from his nephew, Horace Walpole, man-of-fashion and man-of-letters.

[85] 'Dirty work' will hardly appear too strong an expression to any
one who has read Archdeacon Coxe's panegyrical biographies of the two
Walpoles: viz. _Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford_ (cap.
24), and _Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole_ (caps. 3 and 4). The
chapters referred to are inaccurate in various particulars; but
presumably the Archdeacon has made the best case he could for
Carteret's rivals.

[86] The Irish had genuine cause for complaint in the matter of
'Wood's Halfpence'; but this has sometimes been forgotten owing to the
nonsensical arguments and delirious exaggeration of the _Drapier's
Letters_. Swift's genius has embalmed so much absurdity in his
advocacy that the court of public opinion hardly thinks it necessary
to call on the opposing counsel to reply. Swift wrote as a
demagogue--at first in a spirit of pure mischief, with his tongue in
his cheek; afterwards more seriously and credulously, as he gradually
worked himself, as well as his readers, into a passion. A short and
clear account of the facts of the case will be found in the _Oxford
Political History_, vol. ix. p. 313 (I. S. Leadam).

[87] 1725.

[88] 1724.

[89] Chesterfield estimates that Newcastle left politics £400,000
poorer than he was when he started on his career.

[90] 1743-1754.

[91] Bubb Dodington's accounts of his various begging expeditions to
Pelham are unconscious testimonies. (_The Diary of the late George
Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe Regis._)

[92] 'Lord Hardwicke was, perhaps, the greatest magistrate that this
country ever held' . . . but he 'valued himself more upon being a
great Minister of State, which he certainly was not, than upon being a
great magistrate, which he certainly was.' Chesterfield's _Character
of Hardwicke_.

This was written after Hardwicke's death.

[93] It was Hardwicke who played the leading part in defeating the
Bill for subornation of false witness against Walpole. He was not
equally considerate of the traditions of Scots justice, as was shown
by the part he took in the Porteous debates.

[94] 1721.

[95] William Wyndham (1687-1740). He was nine years junior to
Bolingbroke.

[96] _Memoirs_, by James, second Earl Waldegrave, K.G., from 1754 to
1758, p. 20.

[97] Chesterfield's _Character of Pulteney_.

[98] Secretary-at-War, 1715-1717.

[99] Cofferer, 1723-1725.

[100] National Portrait Gallery.

[101] There is a remarkable similarity between the expressions of
Hervey and Chesterfield with regard to Pulteney's motives.
'Resentment,' says Hervey, 'and eagerness to annoy first taught him
application; application gave him knowledge, but knowledge did not
give him judgment, nor experience prudence.' 'Resentment,' says
Chesterfield, 'made him engage in business. He had thought himself
slighted by Sir Robert Walpole, to whom he publicly vowed, not only
revenge, but utter destruction.' There are other striking points of
resemblance between Chesterfield's _Character_ and Hervey's _Memoirs_
(vol. i. pp. 8-12). Chesterfield's _Character_ was written twenty
years after Hervey's death, and Hervey's _Memoirs_ were not published
until three-quarters of a century after Chesterfield was in his grave.
As the two men were on bad terms it is improbable that Chesterfield
was ever shown Hervey's manuscript either by the author or his family.

[102] _Ante_, p. 346.

[103] 1738-1742.

[104] Pp. 259-282.

[105] 1737.

[106] 1717.

[107] 1737.

[108] 1733.

[109] 1739.

[110] The following meagre narrative of a very complicated series of
events may be made more intelligible by reference to certain dates,
viz.:

1720. (February) War with Spain ended; outstanding difficulties to be
referred to an international congress. 1721. (March) Franco-Spanish
royal betrothals; (April) ministry of Walpole and Townshend with
Carteret as southern secretary-of-state; (June) secret alliance
between France, Spain and Britain for mutual defence; agreed to hold a
congress at Cambrai.

1722. (Early) Plenipotentiaries began arriving at Cambrai; Charles VI.
founded the Ostend Company; (June) Infanta sent to Paris to be
educated; Don Luis married to daughter of the regent Orleans;
(December) formal incorporation of Ostend Company.

1723. (August) Death of cardinal Dubois; (December) death of the
regent Orleans; the duke of Bourbon became prime minister.

1724. (January) Abdication of Philip V.; congress of Cambrai formally
opened; (April-May) Schaub replaced by Horatio Walpole as ambassador
at Paris; Carteret replaced by Newcastle as secretary-of-state;
(August) death of Don Luis; Philip V. resumed his crown; (Autumn)
Ripperda sent on a secret mission to Vienna.

1725. (Early) Townshend, confirmed in his suspicions of the Emperor's
designs, looked round for allies; (March) Louis XV. betrothed to
daughter of ex-king of Poland; the Infanta returned to Spain; the
Spanish plenipotentiaries withdrew from congress of Cambrai; (April)
treaties of Vienna; (May) congress of Cambrai broke up; (September)
treaty of Hanover; marriage of Louis XV.; (November) secret treaty of
Spain with the Emperor; (December) Ripperda returned in triumph to
Madrid.

1726. (March-April) British fleets demonstrated in the Baltic, off the
coast of Spain, and off Panama; (May) fall of Ripperda; (June)
cardinal Fleury succeeded duke of Bourbon as prime minister.

1727. (January) George I.'s speech to parliament disclosing designs of
the Emperor and Spain; (February) Spain besieged Gibraltar; (May)
death of Catharine of Russia; Emperor having refused to help Spain in
the siege of Gibraltar agreed to preliminaries of peace; Spain
informally did likewise; (June) death of George I.

[111] Quoted in Coxe's _Life of Walpole_, cap. 28.

[112] Despite the protests of the British ambassador, Ripperda was
shortly afterwards seized and thrown into prison.

[113] June 1726.

[114] Walpole's statement to parliament nine years later (quoted by
Stanhope, cap. xiii.) is explicit upon this point. Hervey's
conclusion, after discussion of the whole matter (_Memoirs_, caps.
iii. and iv.), that Walpole 'always disapproved of the treaty of
Hanover,' seems to be misleading. It is quite true, however, that he
always _disliked_ the treaty of Hanover.

[115] 1701-1714.

[116] 1714-1720.

[117] 1721-1725.

[118] 1725-1730.

[119] 1793-1815. The younger Pitt died in 1806.

[120] _Ante_, p. 396.

[121] _Ante_, p. 157.

[122] _Ante_, p. 384.

[123] If indeed we may accept the traditional estimate of him which
has been called in question by Horace Walpole and other judicious
writers.


                       END OF THE FIRST VOLUME


  _Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.



[The end of _The Endless Adventure, vol 1_ by Frederick Scott Oliver]