Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/173

 parliament. A consistent whig, and a member of the Hanover Club, he remained a member of the House of Commons for fifty-four years. On 24 July 1702 he was returned for Castle Rising, and he was re-elected by that constituency in May 1705, May 1708, December 1710, and April and September 1713. On 2 Feb. 1714–15 he was returned for Beeralston, Devonshire, and on 2 Dec. 1718 for East Looe, Cornwall. In the spring of 1722 he was returned for both East Looe and for Great Yarmouth, and chose to sit for the latter constituency. He was again elected for Great Yarmouth on 22 Aug. 1727 and 14 May 1730. Subsequently, from 15 May 1734 till his summons to the upper house in June 1756, he sat for Norwich.

While still a young member of the House of Commons, Walpole took office in the diplomatic service. In 1706 he was appointed secretary under General James Stanhope (afterwards first Earl Stanhope) [q. v.], envoy and minister-plenipotentiary to the titular king Charles III of Spain, and accompanied his chief to Spain in the expedition which relieved Barcelona (May). From 1707 to 1709 he acted as chief secretary to Henry Boyle, lord Carleton [q. v.], who during part of this time was secretary of state. In 1709 he was attached to The Hague embassy, and in the following year accompanied the ambassador, Lord Townshend, as secretary to the abortive peace conferences at Gertruydenberg. He seems already at this time to have gained Townshend's full confidence (see Townshend's letters in Manuscripts of the Marquess Townshend, Hist. MSS. Comm.; cf. Horatio Walpole's letters to his brother in Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, vol. i. App.). When on the advent of the whigs to power, at the accession of George I, Townshend became one of the principal secretaries of state, he appointed Walpole under-secretary. In 1715 he was made secretary of the treasury on his brother's becoming first lord and chancellor of the exchequer. In the same year he was sent to The Hague in order to support Lord Cadogan [see, first ] in his application for armed help against the expected invasion of the Pretender, and in 1716 he was associated with the same military diplomatist as joint plenipotentiary for obtaining from the States-General a fleet intended, under the pretext of protecting the Baltic trade, to further the Hanoverian designs on the Bremen and Verden territories. Furthermore, the Dutch government was to be induced to enter into a defensive alliance with Great Britain and France (afterwards known as the triple alliance). Walpole strongly objected to the pressure exercised by the Hanoverian interest, then much alarmed by the recent entry of Russian troops into Mecklenburg, and as a matter of good faith he warmly deprecated asking the Dutch to assent to a separate treaty, which, contrary to assurances previously given by him, had been concluded by Great Britain and France. In the end he obtained permission to quit The Hague, leaving the signing of the alliance treaty to his colleague (Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, i. 180). Hardly had he arrived in England, when he was sent to George II, then at the Göhrde (November), as the bearer of a despatch to Stanhope, which proved the beginning of Townshend's downfall [see, second ]. Intent upon diverting from the secretary of state to himself the blame for the delay about the French treaty, Horace remained ignorant and unobservant of the king's suspicion of cabals with the Prince of Wales on the part of Townshend and Robert Walpole (, i. 241 seq.). When, however, the former was finally dismissed, and the latter resigned (April 1717), Horace Walpole likewise went out of office. Shortly before this he had secured for life the appointment of surveyor and auditor general of the plantation (American) revenues of the crown (Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1717–19, ccxiii. 8 et al.) On the return of his brother and Townshend to power in 1720, he was named secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and in 1721 was reappointed secretary to the treasury, on his brother once more becoming first lord. About 1720 Lady Cowper describes Horace's lodgings as a useful place for the settlement of confidential court business (Diary, p. 144).

In 1722 (May–June) he negotiated at The Hague the grant of an auxiliary force, at the highly critical time of the discovery of ‘Atterbury's plot,’ and in October 1723 he proceeded to Paris on what proved the most important diplomatic employment of his career. The nominal purpose of his mission was to arrange for the accession of Portugal to the quadruple alliance; but he was really sent to uproot Sir Luke Schaub [q. v.], who was in Carteret's interest, and who had gained much influence during the ascendency of Dubois. Walpole, without succeeding better than Schaub in forwarding King George's wishes in the intrigue concerning the La Vrillière dukedom [see ], contrived to supplant Schaub, and was appointed envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary in his place (March 1724). He had shown considerable judg-