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1715-1719

SPLIT IN THE WHIG PARTY

709

ters had their own way in most matters, they found it necessary to comply with the king in some things. He had two ruling motives — anxiety to strengthen the electorate of Hanover, and hatred of his own eldest son George, Prince of Wales. In the interests of Hanover he had, in 1715, purchased the secularised bishoprics of Bremen and Verden from Frederick IV., king of Denmark. Though the Whig ministers had consented to the purchase of these territories, some of them-especially Townshend and his brother-in-law Sir Robert Walpole, who was the ablest of the rising Whigs-had said hard things of the grasping Hanoverian favourites and mistresses, upon whom George squandered English gold. In 1716 the Tzar Peter the Great sent troops into Mecklenburg-the first interference of Russia in Western affairs; and George, being anxious to keep the Russians at a distance, complained of Townshend for being unwilling to engage England in driving them out. Then, too, the king, who had quarrelled with the Prince of Wales, believed (probably without foundation) that Townshend had shown some favour to the object of his displeasure, on which he took the Secretaryship from him, sending him to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. In 1717 Charles XII. of Sweden, angry about Bremen and Verden, which he claimed for himself, formed an alliance with Spain-which was once more growing in vigour, under the care of Philip's new Italian minister, Alberoni-and even projected an invasion of Scotland in the interests of the Pretender. The scheme was discovered in England and averted. When Parliament was asked to vote money for a war against Sweden, Walpole spoke but coldly on behalf of the proposal. The king dismissed Townshend, and Walpole resigned. The Whig party being thus split in two, the leaders of the ministry as reconstituted were Sunderland and Stanhope, the latter being the general who had fought in Spain, and who was soon afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Stanhope.

8. The Quadruple Alliance. 1718-1720.—In foreign affairs Sunderland and Stanhope maintained the alliance with France which had been the corner-stone of the policy of their predecessors. In 1717 Alberoni seized Sardinia, which had been given to Austria by the treaty of Utrecht, and sent an army into Sicily to begin the re-conquest of those Italian possessions which Spain had lost by the same treaty. In 1718 was formed a Quadruple Alliance, in which the Emperor joined Great Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic. A Spanish army overran the greater part of Sicily, but the Spanish fleet was destroyed by Admiral Sir George Byng off Cape Passaro. In 1719 Alberoni sent two frigates to land Jacobites in

Scotland. The expedition failed, and France and England forced Philip to dismiss his minister. In 1720 Philip agreed to abandon both Sicily and Sardinia. Sicily was given to Austria, and Sardinia went to the Duke of Savoy, who now bore the title of King of Sardinia, instead of that of King of Sicily; and soon afterwards the King of Spain removed the obstructions which he had hitherto thrown in the way of the execution of the clause in the Treaty of Utrecht by which the landing of goods at Panama from a single English ship had been permitted (see p. 697). After this Europe had peace for twelve years.

9. The Relief of the Dissenters, and the Peerage Bill. 1719.The two sections of the Whigs were opposed to one another, rather upon personal than on political grounds. Walpole was, however, more cautious than Sunderland or Stanhope. Sunderland and Stanhope, in 1719, obtained the repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act and of the Schism Act, which had been the work of the triumphant Tories in the reign of Anne (see p. 699); but when they showed signs of wishing to repeal the Test Act of the reign of Charles II. (see p. 607), thereby not merely offering religious liberty to Dissenters, but also proposing to qualify them for office, Walpole was startled, thinking that the unpopularity of such a measure might prove the ruin of the Whigs. The main subject of quarrel between the rival statesmen was, however, a Peerage Bill which Sunderland and Stanhope laid before Parliament. According to this proposal the king was to be allowed to create only six additional peerages (except in the case of a member of the Royal Family), after which he could only make a new peer upon the extinction of an old peerage. This measure, which passed the House of Lords, was rejected in the Commons, mainly in consequence of Walpole's opposition. It is hardly to be doubted that its framers looked forward to the possible election of a Tory House of Commons, and wished to hinder a Tory minister from making himself master of the House of Lords by creating a large number of peers, as Harley and St. John had done in 1711 (see p. 695). According to them, the House of Lords was to be the bulwark of the Whigs against a Tory House of Commons. It was Walpole's merit that he saw distinctly that this could not be, as the Bill, if it had passed, would have made the House of Lords a narrow oligarchy capable of setting at defiance both the Crown and the House of Commons. It was, moreover, clear to him that the Commons must from henceforth be the chief member of the constitutional organisation. If the Whigs were to win the battle, they must win it by possessing

1.

1720

JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES

711

a majority in the House of Commons, and not by setting up the artificial barrier of a restricted House of Lords. It is unlikely that Sunderland acknowledged the inferiority of his own statesmanship to that of Walpole, but he had felt his power, and in 1720 admitted both him and Townshend to subordinate offices in the government.

10. The South Sea Bubble. 1720. Few things served the Whigs so well as their adoption of a policy of peace, to which their short war with Spain hardly furnished an exception. With the cessation of the risks due to war trade increased rapidly, and with the increase of trade came a violent increase of speculation. Joint-stock companies, which had hitherto been limited to a few

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Group showing costumes and sedan chair, about 1720: from an engraving by Kip.

great undertakings, were formed in large numbers. Some, being managed by men of experience, met with success; whilst others, started by swindlers or by persons ignorant of trade, speedily collapsed, and ruined those who had embarked their capital in them. Amongst these latter the most prominent was the South Sea Company, which had been formed by Harley, in 1711, to carry on such trade with Spanish America as might be rendered possible by the expected treaty with Spain. Trade with the Spanish colonies was allowed by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht to a single English ship in each year, and the Assiento treaty had also granted to the English the right of importing negroes into them (see p. 696). All classes in England were under the delusion that the

wealth of Spanish America was so enormous that this trade would enrich all who took part in it. Consequently the shares of the South Sea Company were eagerly bought. At the same time politicians were growing anxious about the amount of the national debt, and in 1720 a Bill was passed enabling those to whom the nation owed money to take shares in the South Sea Company in the place of their claim upon the nation. Large numbers of all classes accepted this arrangement. Others rushed eagerly to buy shares which were supposed to be of priceless value. Landlords sold their estates, and clergymen and widows brought their savings to invest in the South Sea Company. So great was the demand that in August 1720 shares originally worth 100l. were purchased for 1,000l. The madness of speculation spread rapidly, and new companies were formed every day for objects unlikely to be remunerative. People actually took shares in one company for making salt-water fresh; in another for transmuting quicksilver into a malleable and fine metal; and in another for importing a number of large jackasses from Spain; whilst one impostor asked the public to take shares in an undertaking the nature of which was in due time to be revealed.

II. The Bursting of the Bubble. 1720-1721. Before long people began to find out that they had paid too highly for the objects of their visionary hopes, and the price of shares rapidly fell. Thousands were reduced to beggary, and the ruined dupes cried out for the punishment of those by whom their hopes had been excited. One peer asked that the directors of the company might be sewn up in sacks and thrown into the Thames. The bitterest indignation, however, was directed against the ministers Most of them had speculated in the shares, and some of them had made money by actual swindling. In 1721 Aislabie was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Craggs Secretary of State. Aislabie was sent to the Tower; Craggs died of the small-pox; whilst Craggs' father, the Postmaster-General, took poison. Sunderland was ac quitted of dishonourable conduct, but he had been amongst the speculators, and resigned. Stanhope, who had had nothing to do with the speculation, fell into a fit in answering a false accusation, and died.

12. Walpole called to the Rescue. 1721-1722.-Amidst the general crash Walpole was called upon to restore order. In April 1721 he became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had a financial ability which was rare in those times, and he made an arrangement which at least left something

1721

WALPOLE'S MINISTRY

713

to the shareholders, though it gave them far less than they had ex-
pected. Walpole's accession to office was the beginning of a minis-
terial career which lasted twenty-one years.
Its immediate result

was of the greatest benefit to the Whigs. The seven years to which the Septennial Act had extended the duration of the existing Parliament ended in March 1722. There can hardly be a doubt that if the elections had taken place a year earlier, they would have

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resulted in the overthrow of the Whigs. As it was, the country connected Walpole's name with restored order and financial probity, and a large Whig majority was accordingly returned.

13. Corruption under Walpole.-It was not, however, merely to the national gratitude that Walpole owed his success at the polls. When he opposed the Peerage Bill he taught the Whig aristocracy that it must rely on the House of Commons (see p. 710). Yet it

III.

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