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 the increasing tendency of the stage to profane and political plays. Of these the mischief, indeed, immediately affected Walpole, of all men the most indifferent to attack; but the need of a restraining authority was felt by the opposition, who were already counting upon office, and had been the first to propose legislation upon the subject [see ]. In April 1738 Walpole supported the unanimous resolution of the House of Commons against the publication of its debates, upon the reasonable ground of the gross dishonesty of the reports (Parl. Hist. x. 800–11).

The sessions of 1736 and 1737 had both disclosed the growing weakness of Walpole in parliament. His influence at court had been sensibly lowered by the compromise he proposed to the Prince of Wales (, Memoirs, iii. 91, 181). The king and queen, who vied with each other in a resentment against the prince which Walpole was incapable of sharing, discussed his dismissal (ib. p. 184), affronted by his insistence that the terms offered should be observed (ib. p. 183). Hardwicke, in collusion with Newcastle and Carteret, was urging a reconciliation which it was impossible to undertake, while the prince, on the other hand, credited Walpole with every move made against him. It was a position so impossible to maintain that Walpole seriously entertained thoughts of resignation (ib. p. 185). At this juncture the queen died (20 Nov. 1737). Her transient resentments disappeared at her deathbed. Sending for Walpole, she said: ‘I recommend the king, my children, and the kingdom to your care’ (ib. p. 322). But he foresaw as clearly as the rest of the world (Correspondence of Duchess of Marlborough, iii. 221) the decline of his influence with the king, whose irritable vanity could only be managed by a woman. The dukes of Grafton and Newcastle pressed him to pay court to the Princess Emily. ‘I'll bring Madame Walmoden over,’ he answered; ‘I was for the wife against the mistress, but I will be for the mistress against the daughters.’

Public attention now began to turn to England's relations with Spain. A deputation of merchants petitioned the king in the autumn of 1737, complaining of depredations by Spanish officials upon English traders to the West Indies. In March 1738 the country was ablaze with the story of Jenkins's ear [see ]. Walpole stood almost alone for peace. His own colleagues in the lords passed resolutions (2 May 1738) against the Spanish claim to search vessels for contraband, which he had succeeded in excluding from the resolutions of the House of Commons. During the autumn of 1738 the war fever, stimulated by the opposition, was steadily rising. Walpole, through Sir Benjamin Keene [q. v.], the minister at Madrid, effected a convention with Spain in time for the meeting of parliament, which had been prorogued for this purpose till 1 Feb. 1739. The convention provided for a settlement of disputes within eight months between plenipotentiaries to be appointed. But ‘No search’ was the popular cry, and upon this the convention was silent. Pitt thundered against it as ‘an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable convention.’ Walpole himself spoke ‘in a more masterly, dexterous, and able manner than I ever heard him, to the satisfaction and applause of the whole house, and even of his enemies’ (Trevor MSS. p. 26, Horatio Walpole to R. Trevor, 27 March 1739). Nevertheless the address of approval was only carried by a majority of twenty-eight (8 March 1739). ‘The patriots,’ as the opposition styled themselves, now took the rash resolve to secede from the House of Commons (9 March). Walpole's answer to the declaration of this intention by Sir W. Wyndham was, said Chatham, one of the finest speeches he had ever heard (see Parl. Hist. x. 1323). This decision was highly advantageous to Walpole. He had been seriously ill in the previous September with some form of fever, and had never recovered his strength (Hare MSS. pp. 245, 248). He now enjoyed an interval of three months' freedom from harassing attack (ib.) The opportunity was utilised by him in pushing through bills appealing to commercial interests. He carried his colonial policy a step further by extending to molasses and sugar from the West Indian colonies the principle of free exportation already accorded to rice (12 Geo. II, c. 30). He also gratified the manufacturers of cloth by taking off the duties from wool and woollen yarn imported from Ireland, and preventing their exportation elsewhere than to Great Britain (12 Geo. II, c. 21). This was pursuant to the principle of commercial policy formulated by him in the king's speech of 1721, ‘to make the exportation of our own manufactures and the importation of the commodities used in the manufacturing of them as practicable and as easy as may be.’

In May 1739 the English and Spanish plenipotentiaries met for the ratification of the convention. Walpole had foreseen that the stumbling-block to peace was the Spanish claim of search for contraband. But the king was eager for war. So were Walpole's