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 was inclined to side with the dissentients (, ii. 295). The situation was further complicated by the attitude of the tories, who secretly encouraged the disaffection in Scotland and opposed any bill whatever. In these difficult circumstances Walpole had no choice but to accept the principle of the bills of penalties and to mitigate these as far as possible (10 Geo. II, cc. 34, 35). The opposition, however, took care to identify his name with these measures, which seriously impaired his former popularity in Scotland. The position of Walpole was made the more difficult by the attitude of the Prince of Wales, whose house had for some time past been the rendezvous of the young whigs of the opposition, ‘the boys,’ as Walpole nicknamed them. The prince had long been dissatisfied with his allowance of 50,000l. a year. In 1737 he originated a proposal that it should be increased by an additional 50,000l. from the civil list. The suggestion was warmly embraced by the whole opposition (, Diary, p. 395;, Memoirs, iii. 418), who foresaw that it would irrevocably alienate the prince from the minister, since it was certain to be opposed by the king. On 22 Feb. 1737 a motion to this effect was made by Pulteney and seconded by Sir John Barnard [q. v.], the two most formidable members of the whig opposition in the House of Commons. Walpole first made secret overtures to the prince to persuade him to desist (ib. iii. 48). He next adroitly offered as a compromise a settlement of the allowance of 50,000l. and a jointure on the princess in addition. The prince rejected the proposal, as Walpole had indeed foreseen. ‘He had proposed,’ he told the king, ‘to bring the House of Commons to reason with it, not the prince’ (ib. iii. 60). He carried the house by a majority of thirty. ‘If ever any man in any cause,’ he said to Lord Hervey, ‘fought dagger out of sheath, I did so in the House of Commons the day his royal highness's affair was debated there’ (ib. p. 92). After his fall two members of this majority were found to have been bribed by him in two sums of 500l. and 400l. apiece—the only instance of parliamentary corruption ever proved against him. His own mention of the fact on two separate occasions to Lord Hervey and the queen (ib. iii. 80, 93) is some indication that this expedient for securing a majority was exceptional. The majority was really assured by the abstention of forty-five tories of Jacobite sympathies. From this time the Prince of Wales openly enrolled himself in the opposition to Walpole. Whereas Walpole's policy had always been, as Onslow says, one ‘of having everybody to be deemed a Jacobite who was not a professed whig’ (Onslow MSS. p. 465), the prince now courted the adhesion of the Hanoverian tories, led by Sir W. Wyndham. He thereby became the mainspring of an opposition which divisions had hitherto rendered ineffective.

The next move of the opposition again came from the whigs. On 24 March 1737 Barnard moved a resolution for redeeming the 24,000,000l. of the South Sea annuities at four per cent., and converting them into annuities at three per cent. Considered as a piece of parliamentary tactics, this was a dexterous move. It rallied in its support the country gentlemen, the conciliation of whom was the foundation of Walpole's financial policy; while it was opposed to the interest of the capitalists, upon whom Walpole's power really rested. On principle he could not venture to oppose it. His own brother Horatio, the Pelhams, and others of his most confidential friends were favourable to it. He apparently contented himself with the dilatory plea that the time was unsuitable. But while the bill was being prepared in conformity with the resolution, he found time ‘to go about, to talk to people, to solicit, to intimidate, to argue, to persuade, and perhaps to bribe’ (, Memoirs, iii. 130) against the proposal. When the bill came on he put up his friend Winnington [see ], a lord of the treasury, to extend the proposal to all the redeemable debts, i.e. from 24,000,000l. to 44,000,000l. This change not only increased the general hostility to the bill, but made it impracticable. Walpole then voted with the minority against the proposal, thereby re-establishing his credit with the city (30 March). When the new bill was introduced (22 April) he opposed it with a number of plausible financial arguments, and the bill was rejected by 249 to 134 votes. His conduct is ascribed by his friend Lord Hervey to jealousy of Barnard and the fear of alienating the moneyed men (Memoirs, iii. 126). It is possible, however, that the danger of war with Spain, and the prospective necessity of raising a loan on that account, coupled with the fact that the bill would have locked up the greatest part of the sinking fund for several years and compelled him to levy fresh taxes, were additional and justifiable grounds for his opposition. At the close of the session of 1737 Walpole introduced with general approval ‘the playhouse bill,’ conferring on the lord chamberlain a statutory power of licensing plays (10 Geo. II, c. 28). The occasion was