enemies, the emperor and the King of Spain, caused Great Britain and France to unite in concluding the defensive treaty of Hanover. The war which followed was as brief and event

less as any in our history.

A notable domestic event of the later years of George the First was the trial of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield for corruption and extortion in the discharge of his high office. Impeached at the bar of the Lords, and declared guilty, he was fined £30,000, and was sent to the Tower till the fine was paid.

It was the fortune, or the misfortune, of Robert Walpole to estrange from his government and party many of the ablest men of the day. In fact, his ambition could not tolerate anything approaching to equality of power on the part of a colleague. William Pulteney, doubly armed with great riches and great rhetorical power, followed his star consistently and long. But when he found that his devotion was rewarded on Walpole's accession to power merely with the second-rate post of cofferer to the household, he grew cool towards the premier, and in 1725 he flung himself into the ranks of the opposition, where he became the head of the party known as the Patriots, and formed of those Whigs who disliked the policy of Walpole. The death of George the First, who was seized with apoplexy while travelling in his coach to Osnabrück, in Hanover, caused a seeming hitch in the stability of the Walpole administration. In fact, the premiership was offered to and declined by Sir Spencer Compton. But Walpole found in the new queen, Caroline of Anspach—a witty, accomplished, and handsome woman—a friend and supporter who remained true to him till her death. By her influence over her husband she succeeded in retaining for the country the services of the man who knew the temper of the nation better than any of his contemporaries.

June 11,

1727

George the Second was forty-five years of age at the date of his accession, and had at least one advantage over his father,

as a king of England, that he could speak the English tongue. With that father he had been nearly always on bad terms, for he sided with his mother, Sophia of Zell, who, for an alleged intrigue, had been shut up for thirty-two years in the castle of Ahlden on the Aller, in Hanover.

The treaty of Seville, concluded on the 29th of November 1729 between Spain on the one hand and Great Britain and France on the other, left Walpole unhampered by a foreign war. A breach between Walpole and Townshend split the cabinet in 1730. Many little disagreements, edged with jealousy on the part of Townshend, gradually swelled into an estrangement. The favour of the queen, the peerage granted in 1724 to his son, the splendour of his establishment at Houghton, and his own remarkable force of character and knowledge of human-kind, gave Walpole decided advantages over his dictatorial and less agreeable brother-in-law. Lady Townshend

kept the peace for a while between her husband and 1730 her brother; but after her death they actually on one occasion, in a friend's house, griped each other by the throat, and a duel would have followed, but for the interference of the company. After this collision Townshend found it necessary to resign his office, and went to spend the quiet evening of his days at Rainham.

CHAPTER VI.

WALPOLE'S DECLINE AND FALL.

The Excise Bill-The Porteous Mob-A quarrel and a death-The Spanish War-Methodism-Sandys' motion-Fall of Walpole-His death.

THE

March 14,

1733

HE chief battle of Walpole's administration was for his pet scheme of excise-namely, the substitution for the import duty of a tax on the manufactured article. The notion of excise had been, from its earliest mention in the reign of Charles the First, repugnant to the feelings of the people. Loud and fierce, then, was the cry when Sir Robert, undaunted by what he considered mere noise, disclosed his intentions to the House of Commons on the 14th of March 1733. Confining himself to a single commodity, that he might feel the pulse of the nation, he proposed that the duty on tobacco should be reduced from something over sixpence to fourpence three-farthings, and that this sum should not be levied until the tobacco was sold for home consumption. A merchant storing tobacco for exportation would thus have been able to reload his ship without any payment of duty. The grand result of the measure, according to its author, would have been to make London a free port and the market of the world. The debate lasted till two in the morning, and so great was the excitement that even then a furious mob assailed the doors of the House of Commons.

to his coach, rude hands were laid have been hurt, but for his friends.

While Walpole was going on his cloak, and he might

Upon the first reading of

the bill (April 4th) the minister had a majority, but the majority grew less after several divisions on different points. The Common Council of London and the corporations of Nottingham and Coventry petitioned against the bill. Walpole, detecting danger in the political horizon, moved that the second reading be postponed to the 12th of June. When the 12th of June came, the House, not yet ready for vacation, skipped a day, and so there was an end of the Excise Bill. All over the country bonfires and cockades testified the feeling of the people at the defeat of the excise scheme. Walpole did not lightly pass over those traitors in his camp who had opposed his favourite project. Several pens were driven into the ranks of opposition, whither Carteret had already carried his knowledge of many tongues. From the Earl of Chesterfield the white staff of the High Stewardship was taken. By an arbitrary stretch of prerogative, the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham were deprived of their commissions in the army. One by one the ablest men of the day were breaking with the sturdy Lord of Houghton, leaving him to fight almost alone.

The choking of the Excise Bill encouraged the opposition next year to attempt the repeal of the Septennial Act; but in this they failed. The dissolution of the Parliament following immediately, the country was plunged into the turmoil of a general election, which is said to have cost Sir Robert £60,000. Yet the muster of his supporters was considerably weaker than in the former House.

The notorious Porteous riots occurred in Edinburgh during the autumn of 1736. Enraged at the execution of a smuggler named Wilson, who had given his accomplice Robertson an extraordinary chance of escape, the mob in the Grassmarket began to pelt the soldiers. Captain Porteous rashly ordered his men to fire, and some of the crowd of onlookers were killed. For this he was tried and condemned, on which the queen sent down a respite for six weeks that the matter might be more

fully investigated. But the lower classes of Edinburgh resolved to make a terrible example of the man. Mustering therefore with drum-beat at ten on the night of the 7th of September, they barricaded the ports, disarmed the city guard, and, having forced the keeper of the Tolbooth to give up his keys by heaping fire against the oaken door, dragged the unhappy captain from his hiding-place in the chimney of his cell. Having hauled him to the Grassmarket, they purchased a rope and hanged him from a dyer's pole. Islay, noted in the beer question, was sent down to Scotland to bring the ringleaders to justice, but he entirely failed.

There was much talk of this affair in Parliament during the next session (1737). A bill was brought in to punish Edinburgh by removing the Lord Provost, Alexander Wilson, from the magistracy of Great Britain, by abolishing the town guard, and by taking away the gates of the Nether Bow. Met by the keenest opposition from the Scottish members, among whom Duncan Forbes the Lord Advocate was prominent, Walpole with his usual prudence agreed to file the sharp points off the bill before it passed. The clause against Wilson remained intact, but a fine of £2,000 for the widow of Porteous was substituted for the other obnoxious parts of the measure.

A quarrel and a death made the year 1737 memorable in the history of Sir Robert Walpole. Frederic, Prince of Wales, who had in the previous year married Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, split with his father on the subject of an increased allowance. His cause was warmly espoused by the opposition. Pulteney in the Commons and Carteret in the Lords made motions to the effect that £100,000 a year should be settled on the prince. Both motions were negatived; but the prince joined the opposition, and henceforth fought bitterly against Walpole. This would have mattered less had Queen Caroline lived, but death removed that amiable and clever woman on the 20th of November, to the intense grief of the king and the great loss