1734.

THE SEPTENNIAL ACT.

13

lived to have a long career of honour and to win a secure place in English history. Lord Talbot became at once a commanding influence in the House of Lords. Our new Lord Chancellor,' the Earl of Strafford, England's nominal and ornamental representative in the negociation for the peace of Utrecht, writes to Swift, at present has a great party in the House.' But the new Lord Chancellor did not live long enough for his fame. He was destined to die within a few short years, and to leave the woolsack open for Lord Hardwicke.

The House of Commons has hardly ever been thrilled to interest and roused to passion by a more heated, envenomed, and, in the rhetorical sense, brilliant debate than that which took place on March 13, 1734. The subject of the debate was the motion of a country gentleman, Mr. William Bromley, member for Warwick, that leave be given to bring in a Bill for repealing the Septennial Act, and for the more frequent meeting and calling of Parliaments.' The circumstances under which this motion was brought forward gave it a peculiar importance as a party movement. Before the debate began it was agreed, upon a formal motion to that effect, 'that the Sergeantat-arms attending the House should go with the mace into Westminster Hall, and into the Court of Requests, and places adjacent, and summon the members there to attend the service of the House.'

The general elections were approaching; the Parliament then sitting had nearly run its course. The Patriots had been making every possible preparation

for a decisive struggle against Walpole. They had been using every weapon which partisan hatred and political craft could supply or suggest. The fury roused up by the Excise Bill had not yet wholly subsided. Public opinion still throbbed and heaved like a sea the morning after a storm. The Patriots had been exerting their best efforts to make the country dissatisfied with Walpole's foreign policy. The changes were incessantly rung upon the alleged depredations which the Spaniards were committing on our mercantile marine. Long before the time for the general elections had come, the Patriot candidates were stumping the country. Their progress through each county was marked by the wildest riots. The riots sometimes called for the sternest military repression. On the other hand, the Patriots themselves were denounced and discredited by all the penmen, pamphleteers, and orators who supported the Government on their own account, or were hired by Walpole and Walpole's friends to support it. So effective were some of these attacks, so damaging was the incessant imputation that in the mouths of the Patriots patriotism meant nothing but a desire for place and pay, that Pulteney and his comrades found it advisable to try to shake off the name which had been put on them, and which they had at one time willingly adopted. They began to call themselves 'the representatives of the country interest.'

The final struggle of the session was to take place on the motion for the repeal of the Septennial Act. We have already given an account of the passing of

1734.

SHORT PARLIAMENTS.

15

that Act in 1716, and of the reasons which in our opinion justified its passing. It cannot be questioned that there is much to be said in favour of the principle of short Parliaments, but in Walpole's time the one great object of true statesmanship was to strengthen the power of the House of Commons; to enable it to stand up against the Crown and the House of Lords. It would be all but impossible for the House of Commons to maintain this position if it were doomed to frequent and inevitable dissolutions. Frequent dissolution of Parliament means frequently recurring cost, struggle, anxiety, wear and tear, to the members; and, of course, it meant all this in much higher measure during the reign of George the Second than it could mean in the reign of Victoria. Walpole had devoted himself to the task of strengthening the representative assembly, and he was, therefore, well justified in resisting the motion which Mr. Bromley had brought forward for the repeal of the Septennial Act. Our interest now, however, is not so much with the political aspect of the debate as with its personal character. One illustration of the corruption which existed at the time may be mentioned in passing. It was used as an argument against long Parliaments, but assuredly at that day it might have been told of short Parliaments as well. Mr. Watkin Williams Wynn mentioned the fact that a former member of the House of Commons, afterwards one of the judges of the Common Pleas, a gentleman who is now dead, and therefore I may name him,' declared that he had never been in the borough he repre

any

sented in Parliament, nor had ever seen or spoke with of his electors.' Of course this worthy person, 'afterwards one of the judges of the Common Pleas,' had simply sent down his agent and bought the place. I believe,' added Mr. Wynn, 'I could without much difficulty name some who are now in the same situation.' No doubt he could.

Sir William Wyndham came on to speak. Wyndham was now, of course, the close ally of Bolingbroke. He hated Walpole. He made his whole speech one long denunciation of bribery and corruption, and gave it to be understood that in his firm conviction Walpole only wanted a long Parliament because it gave him better opportunities to bribe and to corrupt. He went on to draw a picture of what might come to pass under an unscrupulous minister, sustained by a corrupted septennial Parliament. 'Let us suppose,' he said, 'a gentleman at the head of the Administration whose only safety depends upon his corrupting the members of this House.' Of course Sir William went on to declare that he only put this as a supposition, but it was certainly a thing which might come to pass, and was within the limits of possibility. If it did come to pass, could not such a minister promise himself more success in a septennial than he could in a triennial Parliament ? 'It is an old maxim,' Wyndham said, 'that every man has his price.' This allusion to the old maxim is worthy of notice in a debate on the conduct and character of Walpole. Evidently Wyndham did not fall into the mistake which posterity appears to have made, and attribute

1734.

'EVERY MAN HAS HIS PRICE.'

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to Walpole himself the famous words about man and his price. Suppose a case 'which, though it has not yet happened, may possibly happen. Let us then suppose a man abandoned to all notions of virtue and honour, of no great family, and of but a mean fortune, raised to be chief Minister of State by the concurrence of many whimsical events; afraid or unwilling to trust to any but creatures of his own making, and most of these equally abandoned to all notions of virtue or honour; ignorant of the true interest of his country, and consulting nothing but that of enriching and aggrandising himself and his favourites.' Sir William pictured this supposititious personage as employing in foreign affairs none but men whose education made it impossible for them to have such qualifications as could be of any service to their country or give any credit to their negotiations. Under the rule of this minister the orator described 'the true interest of the nation neglected or misunderstood, her honour and credit lost, her trade insulted, her merchants plundered, and her sailors murdered, and all these things overlooked for fear only his administration should be endangered. Suppose this man possessed of great wealth, the plunder of the nation, with a Parliament of his own choosing, most of their seats purchased, and their votes bought at the expense of the public treasure. In such a Parliament let us suppose attempts made to inquire into his conduct or to relieve the nation from the distress he has brought upon it.' Would it not be easy to suppose all such attempts discom

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