Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/397

A.D. 1719.] engaging in a sanguinary conflict, when De Lede received the official intelligence from Spain, and orders to arrange for the evacuation of the island.

This great event put in train, the English admiral sailed to Cagliari, conveying the Savoyard troops thither, and actively exerting himself for the complete surrender of the island to the new king of Sardinia; and he did not quit the port till he had seen the Spanish troops all embarked, and the island put completely into the hands of the authorities of Savoy. Throughout all these transactions, by which the attempts of Alberoni on Sardinia and Sicily were completely defeated, the conduct of admiral Byng had been most meritorious. "This," says the historian of "The Expedition of the British Fleet to Sicily," "ended the war wherein the fleet of Great Britain bore so illustrious a part that the fate of the island was wholly governed by its operations, both competitors agreeing that the one could not have conquered nor the other have been subdued without it. Never was any service conducted in all its parts with greater zeal, activity, and judgment, nor was ever the British flag in so high reputation and respect in those distant parts of Europe."

By the firmness of the allies a peace which continued twelve years was given to Europe, and the storm which Alberoni had so fondly expected out of the north was as completely dissipated. The new queen of Sweden had consented to yield absolutely to George I., as king of Hanover, the disputed possession of Bremen and Verden. Poland was induced to acknowledge Augustus of Saxony as king, and Prussia to be satisfied with the acquisition of Stettin and some other Swedish territory. But the czar and Denmark, seeing Sweden deprived of its military monarch, and exhausted by his wild campaigns, contemplated nothing less than the actual dismemberment of Sweden. The queen of Sweden threw herself for protection on the good offices of the king of England, and both England and France agreed to compel the czar and thz king of Denmark to desist from their attacks on Sweden if they would not listen to friendly mediation. Lord Carteret, a promising young statesman, was sent ambassador to Stockholm, and Sir John Norris, with eleven sail of the line, was ordered to the Baltic. Russia and Denmark, however, continued to disregard the pacific overtures of England, trusting to there being no war with that power. They ravaged the whole coast of Sweden, burning above a thousand villages, and the town of Nyköping, the third place in the kingdom. Seeing this, lord Stanhope, who was still at Hanover with the king, sent orders to admiral Norris to pay no regard to the fact of there being no declaration of war, but to treat the Russian and Danish fleet as Byng had treated the Spanish one. Norris accordingly joined his squadron to the Swedish fleet at Carlscrona, and went in pursuit of the fleet of the czar. Peter, seeing that the English were now in earnest, recalled his fleet with precipitation, and thereby, no doubt, saved it from complete destruction; but he still continued to refuse to make peace, and determined on the first opportunity to have a further slice of Swedish territory. Denmark, which was extremely poor, agreed to accept a sum of money in lieu of Marstrand, which they had seized; and thus all Europe, except the czar, was brought to a condition of peace. England had, in fact, saved Sweden from annihilation, though the motives of her monarch had not been of the most sublime or generous kind. They were Bremen and Verden which had been the influencing motive, and in other particulars the Hanoverian transactions of George were not very creditable. In exchange for the services of Byng in the Mediterranean, according to lord Chesterfield, George had obtained from the emperor the administration of the affairs of the duchy of Mecklenburg. The duke of that state had been suspended by a decree of the Aulic council for tyranny and maladministration; and George, thus invested with the protection, was strongly suspected of an attempt at annexing it permanently to Hanover. The suspended duke declared that Hanover had constantly fomented the quarrels betwixt himself and subjects. In fact, the corruption and rapacity of George's Hanoverian court and ministers were of the most extraordinary kind, and were severely commented on in England. Mr. secretary Craggs, in a letter, draws the most revolting picture of the domineering spirit and selfishnes of George's favourite minister, Bernsdorf, and of all the Germans at the English court. He says the sales of offices were of the most scandalous nature, and threw the utmost discredit on the king's service. Everything was set to sale in church and state, by land and sea; and that, provided a man had money, he might buy anything of the favorites and mistresses, however sacred or important. Lord Chesterfield ironically remarked, according to Horace Walpole, that "if we had a mind effectually to prevent the pretender ever obtaining his crown, we should make him elector of Hanover, for the people of England would never fetch another king thence."

George arrived in England from his German states on the 11th of November of the preceeding year, 1719, and opened parliament on the 23rd. He laid sufficient stress on the success of his government in promoting the evacuation of Sicily and Sardinia by Spain, in protecting Sweden, and laying the foundation of a union amongst the great protestant powers of Europe. He then recurred to the subject of the bill for limiting the peerage, which had been rejected in the previous session. George was animated by the vehement desire to curtail the prerogative of his son, and declared that the bill was necessary to secure that part of the constitution which was most liable to abuse. Lord Cowper declared, on the other hand, that besides the reasons which had induced him to oppose the measure before, another was now added in the earnestness with which it was recommended. But Cowper was not supported with any zeal by the rest of the house, and the bill passed on the 30th of November, and was sent down to the house of commons on the 1st of December. There it was destined to meet with a very different reception. During the recess Walpole had endeavoured to rouse a resistance to it in both houses. He had obtained a meeting of the opposition whigs at Devonshire House, and called upon them to oppose the measure; but he found that some of the whig peers were favourable to it, from the perception that it would increase the importance of their order; others declared that it would be inconsistent in them to oppose a principle which they had so strenuously maintained against a tory ministry — that of discountenancing the sudden creation of peers for party purposes; and others,