Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/439

A.D. 1735.] and of resentment against those who have disappointed them in their views, or may not, perhaps, have complied with all their desires. But now, sir, let me, too, suppose—and the house being cleared, I am sure that no one that hears me can come within the description of the person I am to suppose—in this, or in some other unfortunate country, an anti-minister who thinks himself a person of so great and extensive parts, and of so many eminent qualifications, that he looks upon himself as the only person in the kingdom capable of conducting the public affairs of the nation, and therefore christening every other gentleman who has the honour to be employed in the administration by the name of blunderer. Suppose this fine gentleman lucky enough to have gained over to his party some persons really of fine parts, of ancient families, and of great fortunes, and others of desperate views, arising from disappointment and malicious hearts; all these gentlemen, with respect to their political behaviour, moved by him, and him solely; all they say, either in private or public, being only a repetition of the words he has put into their mouths, and a spitting out of that venom which he has infused into them: and yet we may suppose this leader not really liked by any even of those who so blindly follow him, and hated by all the rest of mankind. We will suppose this anti-minister to be in a country where he really ought not to be, and where he could not have been but by an effect of too much goodness and mercy, and yet endeavouring, with aU his might and with all his art, to destroy the fountain from whence that mercy flowed. In that country suppose him continually contracting friendships and familiarities with the ambassadors of those princes who at the time happen to be most at enmity with his own; and if at any time it should so happen to be for the interest of any of those foreign ministers to have a secret divulged to them, which might be highly prejudicial to his native country, as well as to all 'ts friends; suppose this foreign minister applying to him, and he answering, 'I will get it for you; tell me what you want, and I will endeavour to procure it for you.' Upon this he puts a speech or two in the mouths of some of his creatures or some of his new converts; what he wants is moved for in parliament; and when so reasonable a request as this is refused, suppose him and his creatures and tools, by his advice, spreading the alarm over the whole nation, and crying out, 'Gentlemen, our country is at present involved in many dangerous difficulties, all which we would have extricated you from, but a wicked minister and a corrupt majority refused us the proper materials; and upon this scandalous victory this minister became so insolent as to plume himself in defiances. Let us further suppose this anti-minister to have travelled, and at every court where he was, thinking himself the greatest minister, and making it his trade to betray the secrets of every court where he had before been; void of all faith or honour, and betraying every master he ever served. I could carry my suppositions a great deal farther, and I may say I mean no person now in being; but if we can suppose such a one, can there be a greater disgrace to human nature than such as this?"

If Bolingbroke had really supplied Wyndham with his charge of suppositions, the rebound must have made him wish that he had lain still. The reply of Walpole was terrible because it was true, and held up the traitor diplomatist in the colours which, black as they were, all the world acknowledged to be correct. In the remainder of Walpole's speech, he used all the stock arguments in advocacy of septennial in preference to triennial parliaments, which, stripped of their sophistry, amounted merely to this fact, that in that parliament the people had too much power, and ministers too little over the members of parliament, the very reasons which are the unanswerable ones for that term of parliament. The opposition replied that under the septennial act, which was itself a violation of the rights of the people, the riot act had been introduced, by which any ignorant justice of peace could, by simply reading a proclamation, then order any number of honest and innocent people to be shot; that under it the notorious South Sea Act had been passed, and the excise law nearly so. But this time Sir Robert's majority stood by him, and the continuance of the Septennial Act was determined by two hundred and forty-seven votes to one hundred and eighty-four.

On the 16th of April parliament was dissolved, and the elections were conducted with immense party heat. Each side did all in its power, by fair means and foul, to increase its adherents. Sir Robert used the persuasives for which he became so famous, that he boasted every man had his own price; and if we are to believe the journals of the day, the opposition were not at all behind him, as far as their ability went. They made ample use, too, of the Septennial Act, the Riot Act, the excise scheme, and the unrecompensed commercial claims on Spain. They declared the neutrality preserved under such circumstances disgraceful to the country, though they would have been the first to have denounced ministers had they gone to war. They gained several seats, but when the parliament met in January, it was soon discovered that though less, the majority was as steady as ever, and the opposition having tried their strength against it for a few times, became greatly depressed for a time. Bolingbroke, who till now had still cherished a hope of getting once more into the house of peers again, lost all hope. The speech of Walpole had sunk deep into his soul; it had damaged him essentially all over the country, and other circumstances completed his despair. He saw no prospect of shaking the power of Walpole, and lady Suffolk having retired into private life, cut off his last expectations of any favour at court.

There were not wanting symptoms that the withering philippic of Walpole had injured him with his own coadjutors. Still more damaging was the publication at this time of some of his correspondence with the secretary of the pretender, after his abrupt dismissal from James's service. These were calculated to make his further stay in England not only unpleasant, but dangerous. Pulteney advised him to withdraw for the good of his party, and Bolingbroke himself, in a letter a few years later, confessed that there were some in opposition who thought his name, and much more his presence in England, did them mischief. He therefore quitted the country, and settled himself at Chanteloup, in Lorraine. There were, moreover, symptoms of a disposition on the part of Pulteney to become reconciled to the Walpoles. Unusual civilities passed in the house betwixt Sir Robert and him.