Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/457

A.D. 1739.] were encouraged, also, by the earnest manner in which Walpole had argued for peace. They now assumed a high tone. They complained of the continuance of the British fleet in the Mediterranean; and La Quadra said that, so long as they remained there, "no grace or facilities were to be expected, for the king his master would not condescend to make any concession with that scourge suspended over him." They demanded the payment of the sixty-eight thousand pounds which they said was due from the South Sea Company, though it had been stipulated in the convention that it should not come into consideration. But they asserted that Mr. Keene had declared that he would see the money paid. Mr. Keene contended that he had said if the money was found to be due from the company, he would undertake that they should pay it, but that it could not be charged to the king.

Here all further progress became impossible. The Spaniards, having reduced their debt to less than one-half the original sum, were fighting stoutly to reduce it to nothing. There appeared no chance but for arms to decide it. Cardinal Fleury, with his usual pacific disposition, made an effort to avert the war by guaranteeing to undertake the payment of the ninety-five thousand pounds by Spain, provided that the English fleet was withdrawn from the Mediterranean. But English spirit, even in Walpole, had now reached its limit of patience. The king and the nation were equally in a mood for war. Walpole, therefore, ceased to listen any longer to the Spanish objections, but took his stand on the true British ground of resistance to the right of search, and on that of an acknowledgment of all British rights and claims in North America. Instead of withdrawing the Mediterranean fleet, he ordered its reinforcement, sent Sir Chalouer Ogle with fresh ships to the West Indies, and Sir John Norris was ordered to put to sea with a third squadron. The above demands being peremptorily made from the court of Madrid, and being rejected, war was proclaimed in Loudon on the 19th of October.

The nation seemed to rejoice to a man almost at this declaration of hostilities. It had been raised to a pitch of intense hatred of the Spaniards by the stories of their atrocities beyond the Atlantic. The merchants were on fire to reap the wealth of those celebrated regions. They saw the ocean scoured by our men-of-war, and the colonies invaded by our armies. It was imagined that the conquest of these envied regions would be an easy enterprise, and that all the mines of Mexico and Peru would be transferred to us. There was a rise of speculative imagination, like that of the commencement of the South Sea bubble. The stocks, which had been low, rose instantly. The bells rang from every steeple in London, and the populace followed hurrahing at the heels of the heralds who proclaimed what to them seemed such glad tidings. The chiefs of the opposition joined in the procession, where appeared even the prince of Wales, who stopped at the Rose Tavern, at Temple Bar, and drank success to the war.

Such are the delusive anticipations with which men hail the greatest curse of the human race, fraught with unimaginable mischiefs to the multitude—deaths, agonies, taxes, and poverty, and, to all but a very few, disappointment and chagrin. Walpole, who had reluctantly resorted to this master evil, as he heard the rejoicings, exclaimed, "They may ring the bells now, but they will soon be wringing their hands!" Had this able but ambitious man had as much sound principle as he had love of power, he would rather have resigned than rush into a war of which he disapproved; and he would have found his best policy in it, for the time would have come when the nation, awaking to its folly, would have honoured his principle as much as his sagacity, and would have recalled him to power to put an end to their difficulties. But he was weak enough to retain office to conduct a war which he condemned, and he reaped the bitter fruits of such culpable policy.

The first symptoms of the consequences which the war was likely to produce were seen in the new hopes which it awoke in the ranks of the Jacobites. There was eager running and riding amongst them to carry the news, and to concert measures for taking advantage of this change of circumstances. Large numbers of them met at Edinburgh, and drew up a bond of association, pledging one another to take arms and venture fife and fortune for the restoration of the Stuart. On the other hand, those nations on which England calculated for aid hung back and remained neutral. The Dutch were bound to furnish certain troops in case of war, and, before the declaration of it, Horace Walpole was dispatched by his brother to demand their production; but they pleaded the menaces of France, which threatened them with invasion by fifty thousand men if they assisted the English, and which held out to them the prospect of their obtaining that trade to the Spanish colonies which England had enjoyed. As for France herself, she assumed an air rather ominous of war than of peace, and thus England was left alone in the contest.

When parliament assembled on the 15th of November, the king informed it that he had called it together earlier than usual on account of the declaration of war; that this he had made in conformity with the wishes of the nation, and therefore he trusted it would be as unanimous in supporting the war as it had been in recommending it; that it was a most just and necessary war, occasioned by the injuries and violence of the Spaniards, and their refusal of all redress. If he was well seconded by parliament, he did not doubt but that we should make Spain repent of the wrong it had done us, and let our enemies see that we were not to be injured or insulted with impunity.

The opposition had flocked back to their seats, for the declaration of war was precisely what they had recommended, and Pulteney dwelt much on that circumstance as justifying their secession. The war, he said, was just as necessary when they seceded as it was now; and, as the minister had at last made up his mind to do what they had contended for, they should support him in prosecuting the war with all vigour. He recommended the conquest of the Spanish West Indian Islands, and that no minister should ever be allowed to give them back again on any pretence whatever. Walpole could not bring himself to give a gracious reply to these observations. He had been forced into a course which his own mind condemned, and he was in no mood to submit to any triumphings of those who had done so much to bring about this result. He observed that, after what