Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/475

1742. But the merits of Walpole were concealed from the public view for a good while by the exaggerated representations of his demerits and his crimes by the opposition, and by the accumulated honours and favours amidst which he withdrew from public life. He not only received a patent of nobility, but a pension of four thousand pounds a year; and he obtained at the same time a patent of rank for an illegitimate daughter by a lady whom he had since married. There was a terrible outcry as these facts became known. It was so vehement that Walpole resigned the pension, but only to resume it at a future date, which, two years later, was permitted to him without much notice. He would also have given up, probably on the same understanding, the patent for his daughter; but it had already passed the seals, and could not be recalled.

So passed from a long possession of power a minister who inaugurated a system of corruption, which was not so much abused by himself, as made a ready instrument of immeasurable mischiefs in the hands of his successors, growing still more terrible and oppressive till it reached its acmé in our time, and compelled the necessity of political reform. Had Walpole used the power which he purchased with the country's money more arbitrarily and mischievously, the system must much sooner have come to an end. As it was, the evils which he introduced fell rather on posterity than on his own time.

Before he withdrew, the king, who retained his high opinion of his political wisdom, consulted him on the constitution of the new cabinet. Walpole recommended that the post of first lord of the treasury, including the premiership, should be offered to Pulteney, as the man of the most undoubted talent. If he should refuse it, then that it should be given to lord Wilmington, who, though by no means capable of directing affaire by his own energy, was of a disposition which might allow them to be conducted by the joint counsel of his abler colleagues. The king consented that the premiership should be offered to Pulteney, though he hated the man, but only on this condition, that he pledged himself to resist any prosecution of the ex-minister. Pulteney declined the overture on such a condition, for though he said he had no desire to punish Walpole, he might not be able to defend him from the attacks of his colleagues, for, he observed, "the heads of parties, like those of snakes, are carried on by their tails." The king then sent Newcastle to Pulteney, and it was agreed to allow Wilmington to take the post of first lord of the treasury. Carteret thought that this office was more due to him, but Pulteney declared that if Wilmington were not permitted to take the premiership, he would occupy it himself, and Carteret gave way, accepting the place of secretary of state, with the promise that he should manage in reality the foreign affairs In all these arrangements the king still took the advice of Walpole, and Newcastle was instructed to again endeavour to draw from Pulteney a promise that he would at least keep himself clear of any prosecution of the late minister. Pulteney evaded the question by saying that he was not a bloody or revengeful man; that he had always aimed at the destruction of the power of Walpole, and not of his person, but that he still thought he ought not to escape without some censure, and could not engage himself without his party.

Newcastle, who wanted to retain his place in the new cabinet, was more successful. Pidteney said he had no objection to himself or the lord chancellor, but that many changes must be made in order to satisfy the late opposition, and to give the cabinet a necessary majority. Pulteney then declared that, for himself, he desired a peerage and a place in the cabinet, and thus the new ministry was organised: — Wilmington, first lord of the treasury; Carteret, secretary of state; the marquis of Tweeddale, secretary for Scotland; Sandys, the motion-maker, chancellor of the exchequer; the prince of Wales was to receive the additional fifty thousand pounds a year; and his two friends, lord Baltimore and lord Archibald Hamilton, to have seats at the new board of admiralty.

When these arrangements became known, the tory party became dreadfully exasperated. Had they not fought the battle through all those years side by side with the discontented whigs for the overthrow of Walpole; and now, when these whigs had triumphed through their help, were they to be not so much as mentioned? But not the tories only — there were throngs of whigs who had battled zealously for the same object, and with the same hope of personal benefit, and yet they were passed over, and Pulteney, Carteret, and their immediate coterie had quietly taken care of themselves, and thrown their coadjutors overboard. This result was certain to take place, whatever the arrangements had been. No party could hope to maintain themselves in office with a batch of tories amongst them, who had always been opposed to the Hanoverian succession, and so intimately mixed up with the Jacobites that they could scarcely bo distinguished; and there were too many whigs to be all gratified according to their own ideas of their services and merits. Pitt, Lyttleton, Granville, and that class of ambitious young men whom Walpole had called the "boy-patriots," had from the first opposed all these arrangements, and were vehement in their denunciations of them. They protested that the country was betrayed by a knot of apostates, who, instead of a total change of men and manners, were only fortifying themselves to perpetuate the old state of things.

On the 11th of February, the day of Walpole"s resignation, a great whig dinner was held at the Fountain Tavern, in the Strand, where the disappointed men gave vent to their anger in the most stormy harangues. The new ministers were invited, that they might have their conduct censured as the disappointed thought it deserved. Carteret declined going, but Pulteney, Sandys, and the chancellor of the exchequer attended. There were nearly three hundred men, peers and commoners, present, and the bulk of them smarting with anger and disappointment. Lord Talbot drank to the cleansing of the Augean stable, both of dung and grooms. But the duke of Argyll was the most violent. He had done as much as any one to throw down Walpole, and to have been passed wholly over, as if his services or his rank and influence deserved no notice whatever, was certainly enough to excite his wrath. He seemed converted, indeed, into an actual tory by his mortification, for he protested that no good would be done until tories as well as whigs were included in the ministry. This was probably to excite the hopes of the tories, and bring them