Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/451

1738 perhaps more lamented by Walpole than by her own husband, for Walpole well knew how much her strong sense and superior feeling had tended to keep the king right, which he could not hope for when she was gone. The king appeared to lament her loss considerably for a time, that is, till consoled by his mistress, the countess of Walmoden, whom he had kept for a long time at Hanover, and now soon brought over to England. He sent for her picture when she was dead, shut himself up with it some hours, and declared, on reappearing, that he never knew the woman worthy to buckle her shoe. Yet what are we to think of the real affection of this man, who, knowing for years that she had suffered from a rupture, nevertheless demanded her company in his walks; and never, so far as we know, took any pains to conquer her false delicacy, and induce her to have the necessary help in such a complaint.

Not long after the queen's death he brought over the countess of Walmoden, and in March, 1740, he created her baroness and countess of Yarmouth. Fortunately, like the countess of Suffolk, her predecessor, she did not interfere in politics, but was eager, like all the German mistresses, to scrape together money for her family and connections. There was, however, another lady, Anne, the princess royal, married to the prince of Orange, who would have played a different rule had she been permitted. Soon after the death of the queen she came over, evidently intending to assume the influence which her mother had exerted in the government. But the king treated her with almost as little ceremony as he did his son. He sent her immediately to Bath, and soon after, with as much peremptory abruptness, back to Holland.

A striking example was given, at the opening of the year 1738, of the manner in which party considerations blind men to the most unjust and unnatural principles. At a masquerade, Madame Hoppe, the wife of the Dutch ambassador, accosted the prince of Wales, asking him if he were afraid to talk to a lady, and introduced to him his father's mistress, Madame Walmoden. After some conversation, Madame Walmoden recommended the prince to be reconciled to his father, and the prince assenting, they proposed to meet at another masquerade better disguised. But they had been observed, and the opposition immediately took alarm. The earl of Marchmont hastened to represent to the prince the mischief that must follow from a reconciliation, or even the rumour of a reconciliation. He assured him that the quarrel was one of the strongest securities for the house of Hanover, as those dissatisfied with the government, instead of going over to the pretender, formed a hope of a remedy of their grievances much nearer home, that is, in the successor to the crown; that since the quarrel had become public, he had won greatly on public opinion, and that now he was surrounded and supported by the ablest and best men in the state — meaning Pulteney, Wyndham, Carteret, Chesterfield, Pitt, &c.

Such were the reasons assigned for inducing the prince to keep open one of the most foul and odious domestic feuds imaginable. The prince replied that he would never make dishonourable terms — as if anything could be so dishonourable as the position in which he and his father stood towards each other!

This alarm was succeeded by another, namely, that Pulteney and Carteret had formed a scheme to get the prince into their hands, and thus make a property of him. Lords Cobham and Chesterfield went and prevented this. The opposition was thus agitated by fears of one another, and no party was secure of the prince, or could rely wholly on his word. All sections of the opposition, however, exerted themselves to keep up his hatred to Walpole. They carried everything possible to him to incense him against him. He was told that when the deputation was formed to congratulate him from the house of commons on the birth of his child, Walpole called across the house to one of these named to go up with the address, "Take a bank bill of twenty thousand pounds with you; he needs it. He will touch!" He was said, also, to call the prince of Wales one of the pretenders to the crown, saying that there were two of them — one at Rome, the other at Norfolk House. If Walpole really indulged himself in such sallies, it must have been under the conviction that he had sinned too deeply against the prince ever to be pardoned; and the prince was heard to say that, whatever else he might do, he would never speak to Walpole.

On the opening of parliament in January, there was a desperate effort made by the opposition at once to reduce the army and to kindle a war with Spain. Walpole proposed to place the army on a footing of seventeen thousand men. The "patriots," as they were called, voted to reduce the number to twelve thousand. Walpole, exasperated at their factious conduct, launched an indignant sarcasm at them, which produced so much effect that they did not venture to divide on the motion. "No man of common sense," said Walpole, "will now profess himself openly a Jacobite; by so doing, he not only may injure his private fortune, but must render himself less able to do any effectual service to the cause he has embraced; therefore there are but few such men in the kingdom. Your right Jacobite, sir, disguises his true sentiments. He roars out for revolutionary principles; he pretends to be a great friend to liberty, and a great admirer of our ancient constitution; and under this pretence there are numbers who every day endeavour to sow discontent among the people. These men know that discontent and disaffection, like wit and madness, are separated by thin partitions, and therefore they hope that if they can once render the people thoroughly discontented, it will be easy for them to render them disaffected. By the accession of these new allies, as I may justly call them, the real but concealed Jacobites have succeeded even beyond their own expectation."

During the debate, colonel Mordaunt was imprudent enough to remark that "a standing army was absolutely necessary to support the whig interest against the tory." This was immediately seized on by the opposition, and lord Polwarth, in a strain of patriotic virtue, declared that no interest or party ought to be tolerated which required a standing army for its support. The motion of the opposition was lost by one hundred and sixty-four votes against two hundred and forty-nine ministerial ones.

Defeated in this object, the patriots united all their force to embroil us with Spain. There were many causes in our commercial relations with Spain which led to violent