Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/416

 of the l Review ' upon his leanings towards the policy of the whigs ; and he secured Swift to write the 'Examiner,' and to fight the battles of the ministry. While he attempted to satisfy the tories, he endeavoured to conciliate the whigs, and, though he declared his resolution of carrying on the war, he did everything that he could to obtain a peace. This dubious policy of Harley's soon disgusted the high tories, who, elated with their success at the general election, were anxious for a more pronounced line of action, and at the October Club the tory Earl of Rochester became the favourite toast. An incident, however, which shortly afterwards happened, more than restored Harley's waning popularity. A French refugee, at one time Abbé de la Bourlie, but then known as the Marquis de Guiscard, who was living in London and had made frequent proposals to Marlborough and Godolphin for descents upon the coasts of France, becoming dissatisfied with his pay and fearing the conclusion of a peace between England and his native country, turned traitor and offered his services to the French court. His letters being intercepted he was himself arrested, and on 8 March 1711 was examined before a committee of the privy council at the Cockpit. While undergoing his examination, Guiscard, failing to get near enough to St. John, who had signed the warrant for his arrest, suddenly stabbed Harley in the breast with a penknife. Guiscard was secured after a prolonged scuffle, and died some few days afterwards in Newgate of the wounds which he had received. Harley appears to have shown great self-possession, for St. John records that 'the suddenness of the blow, the sharpness of the wound, the confusion Avhich followed, could neither change his countenance nor alter his voice ' (, Letters and Correspondence, i. 63). Though Harley's wound was a slight one, it brought on an attack of fever which necessitated his confinement to his room for some weeks.

On the 13th an address from both houses was presented to the queen expressing a belief that Harley's fidelity and zeal had 'drawn upon him the hatred of all the abettors of popery and faction,' and begging her to give directions' for causing papists to be removed from the cities of London and Westminster' (Parl. Hist. vi. 1007-8); and a bill was also rapidly passed making an attempt on the life of a privy councillor when acting in the execution of his office to be felony without benefit of the clergy (9 Anne, c. 16). On his reappearance in the House of Commons on 26 April, Harley received the congratulations of the speaker upon his 'escape and recovery from the barbarous and villainous attempt made upon him by theSieur de Guiscard' (ib. vi. 1020-1). On 2 May he brought forward his financial scheme, which consisted in funding the national debt, then amounting to nearly nine and a half millions, allowing the proprietors a yearly interest of six per cent., and incorporating them to carry on the trade in the South Seas under the name of the South Sea Company. The scheme was received with much favour, and an act was passed embodying these proposals, which were afterwards adopted and extended by Sunderland, and were destined to have disastrous results in the immediate future. On 23 May 1711 Harley was created a peer of Great Britain by the titles of Baron Harley of Wigmore, Herefordshire, Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer, with remainder in default of male issue to the heirs male of his grandfather, Sir Robert Harley, K.B. (Pat. Soil, 10 Anne, pt i. No. 24). The preamble to the patent, recounting Harley's services in very glowing terms, is said to have been written in Latin by Freind, and to have been translated into English by Swift (Harl. Miscellany, 1808, i. 1-2). Aubrey de Vere, twentieth earl of Oxford, with whose family the Harleys had been connected by marriage, had died as recently as March 1702, and the fear lest any remote descendant of the De Veres should be able to establish his right to that earldom appears to be the explanation of the grant of the additional earldom of Mortimer to Harley. The new peer took his seat in the House of Lords on 25 May (Journals of the House of Lords, xix. 309). On the 29th of the same month he was constituted lord high treasurer of England, and, having resigned the post of chancellor of the exchequer, was succeeded in that office by Robert Benson, afterwards Lord Bingley. On 1 June Harley took the oaths as lord high treasurer in the court of exchequer, and was addressed by Harcourt in a fulsome speech, in which the lord keeper declared that 'the only difficulty which even you, my lord, may find insuperable, is how to deserve better of the crown and kingdom after this advancement than you did before it' (, Peerage, iv. 78). On 15 Aug. he was chosen governor of the South Sea Company, a post from which he retired in January 1714. Meanwhile the secret negotiations of peace had been proceeding, and on 27 Sept. 1711 Mesnager signed the preliminary articles on the part of France. When this became known the whigs were furious, and on 7 Dec. aided by Nottingham, Marlborough, and Somerset, defeated the government in the House of Lords by carrying a clause to the