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1739.

THE PRINCE'S FIRST VOTE.

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the South Sea Company, it was ingeniously answered on the part of the Government that nothing could be more fitting and proper, seeing that, as English plenipotentiary, he had to act for England with the King of Spain, and as agent for the South Sea Company to deal with the same sovereign in that sovereign's capacity as a great private merchant. Therefore the national claims were made to a certain extent subservient to, or dependent on, the claims of the South Sea Company. Whether we may think the claims of the English merchants and seamen were exaggerated or not, one thing is obvious: they could not possibly be satisfied under such a Convention.

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The debate in the House of Lords was carried on by the Opposition with great spirit and brilliancy. Lord Hervey defended the policy of the Government with dexterity. Possibly he made as much of the case as could be made of it. The motion for the address was carried by 71 votes against 58-a marked increase of strength on the part of the Opposition. It is to be recorded that the Prince of Wales gave first vote in Parliament to support the Opposition. The name of 'His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales' is the first in the division list of the peers who voted against the address and in favour of the policy of war. There was nothing very mutinous in Frederick's action so far as the King was concerned. Very likely Frederick would have given the same vote, no matter what the King's views on the subject. But everyone knew that George was eager for war, that he was fully convinced of his capacity to

win laurels on the battle-field, and that he was longing to wear them. A Bonaparte prince of our own day was described by a French literary man as an unemployed Cæsar. King George believed himself an unemployed Cæsar, and was clamorous for early employment.

CHAPTER XXXII.

WALPOLE YIELDS TO WAR.

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THE nation was plunging, not drifting, into war. Walpole himself, while still striving hard to put off any decisive step, and even yet perhaps hoping against hope that the people would return to their senses and leave the Patriots to themselves, did not venture any longer to meet the demands of the Opposition by bold argument founded on the principles of justice and wisdom. He had sometimes to talk the same tall talk' as that in which the Patriots delighted, and to rave a little about the great deeds that would have to be done if Spain did not listen to reason very soon. But he still pleaded that Spain would listen to reason soon, very soon, and that if war must come sooner or later he preferred to take it later. That, it need hardly be said, was not Walpole's expression-it belongs to a later day--but it represents his mode of argument.

On March 6 the House of Commons met for the purpose of taking the foredoomed Convention into consideration. So intense was the interest taken in the subject, so highly strung was political feeling, that more than four hundred members were in their VOL. II. Q

places at eight o'clock in the morning. Seldom indeed is anxiety expressed in so emphatic and conclusive a form among members of the House of Commons. Readers may remember one day within recent years when a measure of momentous importance was to be introduced into the House of Commons, and when long before eight in the morning every seat in the House was occupied. On this March 6, 1739, the House resolved itself into Committee, and spent the whole day in hearing some of the merchants and other witnesses against the Convention. The whole of the next day (Wednesday) was occupied in the reading of documents bearing on the subject, and it was not until Thursday that the debate began. The debate was more memorable for what followed it than for itself. In itself it was the familiar succession of fierce and unscrupulous attacks on the policy of peace, mixed up with equally fierce but certainly very well-deserved attacks on the character of the Convention. William Pitt wound up his speech by declaring that this Convention, I think from my soul, is nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expedient to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce without a suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first law of nature, self-preservation and selfdefence; a surrender of the rights and the trade of England to the mercy of plenipotentiaries, and in this infinitely highest and sacred point, future security, not only inadequate, but directly repugnant

1739.

HORATIO WALPOLE'S PREDICTION.

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to the resolutions of Parliament and the gracious promise from the Throne. The complaints of your despairing merchants, the voice of England, have condemned it; be the guilt of it upon the head of its adviser! God forbid that this Committee should share the guilt by approving it!'

One point in the debate is worthy of notice. The Address to the King approving of the Convention was moved by Horatio Walpole, the diplomatist, brother of Sir Robert. In the course of his speech Horatio Walpole declared that the outbreak of war between England and any great continental State would be certain to be followed by a new blow struck by the Pretender and his followers. Some of the orators of Opposition spoke with immense scorn of the possibility of a Jacobite movement ever again being heard of in England. The Walpoles both generally understood pretty well what they were talking about. The prediction of Horatio Walpole

came true.

The Address was carried by 260 against 232. The ministerial majority had run down to 28. Next day the battle was renewed. According to parliamentary usage the report of the Address was brought up, and Pulteney seized the opportunity to make another vehement attack on the Convention and the ministers. He accused the prime minister of meanly stooping to the dictates of a haughty, insolent Court, and of bartering away the lives and liberties of Englishmen for a sneaking, temporary, disgraceful expedient.' But the interest of the day was to come.

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