Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/206

 would be unable to form a ministry (Sir R. Wilmot to the Duke of Devonshire, 12 Jan. 1742,, iii. 586). Apparently this was also the fear of ‘the boys,’ represented by Lyttelton [see ], Pitt, and the Grenvilles [see ; ], who secretly approached Walpole, offering to make terms with him unknown to the Prince of Wales (, Memoirs, p. 3). Walpole was thus encouraged to resistance, and astonished his friends by his ‘spirit, intrepidity, and cheerfulness’ (Culloden Papers, p. 172). On 21 Jan. 1742 Pulteney moved for referring to a secret committee the papers relating to the war—in effect a vote of want of confidence in the government. Walpole roused his flagging powers. ‘He exceeded himself; he particularly entered into foreign affairs, and convinced even his enemies that he was thoroughly master of them. He actually dissected Mr. Pulteney’ (Sir R. Wilmot to the Duke of Devonshire, 12 Jan. 1742,, iii. 588). He carried the division by three votes. But the opposition had united again, and on 28 Jan. its triumph came. In a division on the Chippenham election government was beaten by one vote. The effect of this defeat was a panic among the place-hunters, and Walpole's own family urged him to resign (, Memoirs, i. 123). On 2 Feb. the opposition members returned for Chippenham were declared by a majority of sixteen to have been duly elected. This result was only achieved by lavish bribery on the part of ‘the patriots,’ the constant declaimers against ministerial corruption. The Westminster and Chippenham election divisions cost the Prince of Wales alone 12,000l., as he himself confessed, ‘in corruption, particularly among the tories’ (, Memoirs, p. 1). On the same day Walpole made up his mind that further resistance was impossible. He had that morning sent notice to the virtual head of the opposition, the Prince of Wales, upon whom he subsequently called, and received from him the strongest assurances that he should not be molested, for the Jacobites were already clamouring for his head. On the other hand, he promised to give a general support to a whig administration. Parliament was adjourned on 3 Feb. The king ‘burst into a flood of tears’ upon his announcing his retirement. On 9 Feb. he was created Earl of Orford, and on the 11th he resigned all his employments, receiving a promise of a pension of 4,000l. a year. ‘The great and undaunted spirit and tranquillity almost more than human’ with which, as a witness tells us, he met his reverses, revived the personal affection so widely felt for him, and his levees were more crowded than at the height of his power.

The king offered the premiership to Pulteney ‘with the condition only that Sir Robert should be screened from all future resentments’ (Life of Dr. Z. Pearce, p. 3). Pulteney refused any further assurance than that he was ‘not a man of blood’ (Life of Bishop Newton, p. 49). On 9 March, when Lord Limerick moved for the appointment of a committee to inquire into Walpole's administration during the preceding twenty years, Pulteney absented himself with an intimation that he was averse from it, and the motion was defeated by two votes. But on 23 March he supported another motion by Lord Limerick, limiting the inquiry to ten years, which was carried by a majority of seven only. A secret committee of twenty-one members was nominated, of whom nineteen were Walpole's political opponents. The first subject of inquiry was into the distribution of the secret-service money. But Scrope [see ], the secretary, and Paxton, the solicitor to the treasury, refused to make answer on the plea that they were accountable only to the king, all the money for secret service being paid by the king's special warrant (P. Yorke to J. Yorke, 17 June 1742, Life of Hardwicke, ii. 10; Parl. Hist. xii. 625, 824). This refusal was justified by a precedent in 1679 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. App. pt. ix.; Lindsay MSS. p. 407). The committee reported their inability to collect evidence on 13 May, Paxton having in the interval been committed to Newgate for his contumacy (15 April). The report was followed on the same day by a bill to indemnify witnesses who would bring evidence of any kind against the Earl of Orford. This was carried on the second reading by only 228 to 216 votes. When the bill reached the lords it was opposed by Lord-chancellor Hardwicke, in a brilliant speech, upon the constitutional ground that ‘a general advertisement for evidence against a person would be a high misdemeanour, and it would be illegal in the crown’ (Parl. Hist. xii. 652 n.) It was accordingly thrown out by the striking majority of fifty-two (25 May). on 13 July Pulteney was created Earl of Bath. On the first occasion of meeting him in the House of Lords, Walpole remarked, ‘My Lord Bath, you and I are now two as insignificant men as any in England,’ in which, says the narrator with truth, ‘he spoke the truth of my Lord Bath, but not of himself’ (, Anecd. p. 43). The distractions of the new ministry further turned the tide in Orford's