1743.

GEORGE AT DETTINGEN.

243

the west, where the sun has sunk over the battlefield, to be the phantom-shapes of the great English kings who led their people and their armies in the wars. Unkingly, indeed unheroic, little of kin with them, they might well have thought that panting George; and yet they might have looked on him with interest as the last of their proud race.

We have been anticipating & little; let us anticipate a little more and say what came of the war, so far as the claims originally made by England, or rather by the Patriots, were concerned. When peace was arranged, nearly ten years after, the asiento was renewed for four years, and not one word was said in the treaty about Spain renouncing the Right of Search. The great clamour of the Patriots had been that Spain must be made to proclaim publicly her renunciation of the Right of Search; and when a treaty of settlement came to be drawn up not a sentence was inserted about the Right of Search, and no English statesman troubled his head about the matter. The words of Burke, taken out of one of his writings from which a quotation has already been made, form the most fitting epitaph on the war as it first broke out-the war of Jenkins's Ear. 'Some years after, it was my fortune,' says Burke, 'to converse with many of the principal actors against that minister (Walpole), and with those who principally excited that clamour. None of themno, not one-did in the least defend the measure or attempt to justify their conduct. They condemned it as freely as they would have done in commenting

upon any proceeding in history in which they were totally unconcerned.' Let it not be forgotten, however, that, while this is a condemnation of the Patriots, it is no less a condemnation of Walpole. The policy which none of them could afterwards defend, which he himself had always condemned and reprobated, he nevertheless undertook to carry out rather than submit to be driven from office. Schiller in one of his dramas mourns over the man who stakes reputation, health, and all upon success -and no success in the end. It was to be thus with Walpole.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

'AND WHEN HE FALLS

WALPOLE Soon found that his enemies were no less bitter against him, no less resolute to harass and worry him, now that he had stooped to be their instrument and to do their work. Every unsuccessful movement in the war was made the occasion of a motion for papers, a motion for an enquiry, vote of want of confidence, or some other direct or indirect attack upon the prime minister. In the House of Lords, Lord Carteret was especially unsparing, and was brilliantly supported by Lord Chesterfield. In the House of Commons Samuel Sandys, a clever and respectable country gentleman from Worcestershire, made himself quite a sort of renown by his motions against Walpole. On Friday, February 13, 1741, a motion was made in each of the Houses of Parliament calling on the King' to remove the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole, Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, First Commissioner for executing the office of Treasurer of the Exchequer, Chancellor and under-Treasurer of the Exchequer, and one of his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, from his Majesty's presence and coun

cils for ever.' In the House of Lords the motion was made by Lord Carteret; in the House of Commons by Mr. Sandys, who was nicknamed 'the motion-maker.' The motion was lost by a large majority in the House of Lords; and in the House of Commons there were only 106 for it, while there were 290 against it. This was a victory; but it did not deceive Walpole. There would soon be a new Parliament, and Walpole knew very well that the country was already growing sick of the unmeaning war, and that he was held responsible alike for the war policy which he had so long opposed and the many little disasters of the war with which he had nothing to do. In Walpole's utter emergency he actually authorised a friend to apply for him to James Stuart at Rome in the hope of inducing James to obtain for him the support of some of the Jacobites at the coming elections. What he could possibly have thought he could promise James in return for the solicited support it is hard, indeed, to imagine; for no one can question the sincerity of Walpole's attachment to the reigning House. Perhaps if James had consented to go into the negotiations Walpole might have made some pledges about the English Catholics. Nothing came of it, however. James did not seem to take to the suggestion, and Walpole was left to do the best he could without any helping hand from Rome. Lord Stanhope thinks it not unlikely that King George was fully aware of this curious attempt to get James Stuart to bring his influence to bear on the side of Walpole.

1741.

THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

247

The elections were fought out with unusual vehemence of partisanship, even for those days, and the air was thick with caricatures of Walpole and lampoons on his policy and his personal character. When the election storm was over, it was found that the ministry had distinctly lost ground. In Scotland and in parts of the West of England the loss was most manifest. Walpole now was as well convinced as any of his enemies could be that the fall was near. He must have felt like some desperate duellist, who, having fought his fiercest and his best, is conscious at last that his strength is gone; that he is growing fainter and fainter from loss of blood; and conscious, too, that his antagonist already perceives this and exults in the knowledge, and is already seeking out with greedy eye for the best place in which to give the final touch of the rapier's point.

The new Parliament met on December 1, 1741, and re-elected Mr. Onslow as Speaker. The Speech from the Throne was almost entirely taken up with somewhat cheerless references to the war with Spain, and the debate on the Address was naturally made the occasion for new attacks on the policy of the Government. Certainly, my Lords,' said Chesterfield, 'it is not to be hoped that we should regain what we have lost but by measures different from those which have reduced us to our present state, and by the assistance of other counsellors than those who have sunk us into the contempt and exposed us to the ravages of every nation throughout the world.' This was the string that had been harped upon in all the