Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/360

Rh 336 Sea scheme, the public voice insisted that he should assume a more prominent place in public life. At this crisis in England s fortunes Stanhope and Craggs were seized by death, Aislabie, the chancellor of the exchequer, was committed to the Tower, and Sunderland, though acquitted of corruption, was compelled to resign the lead. Walpole, as first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer (April 1721), became with Townshend responsible for the country s government (though for some years they had to contend with the influence of Carteret), and during the rest of the reign of George I. they remained at the head of the ministry. The hopes of the Jacobites, which revived with these financial troubles, soon drooped in dis appointment. Atterbury, their boldest leader, was exiled ; Bolingbroke, in dismay at their feebleness, sued for pardon, and was permitted to return to his own country. The troubles which broke out in Ireland over Wood s patent for a copper coinage were allayed through the tact of Carteret ; who had been banished as its lord lieutenant by his triumphant rivals. The Continent was still troubled with wars and rumours of wars, but a treaty between England, Prussia, and France was successfully effected at Hanover in 1725. England was kept free from warfare, and in the general prosperity which ensued Walpole basked in the royal favour. His eldest son was raised to the peerage as Baron Walpole (10th June 1723), and he himself became a knight of the Bath in 1725, and was rewarded with the Garter in 1726. Next year the first King George died, and Walpole s enemies fondly believed that he would be driven from office, but their expectations were doomed to disappointment. The confidence which the old king had reposed in him was renewed by his successor, and in the person of Queen Caroline, the discreet ruler of her royal spouse, the second George, the Whig minister found a faithful and life-long friend. For three years he shared power with Townshend, but the jealous Walpole brooked no rival near the throne, and his brother-in-law withdrew from official life to the groves of Norfolk in May 1730. Before and after that event the administration was based on two principles, sound finance at home and freedom from the intrigues and wars which raged abroad. On the Continent congresses and treaties were matters of annual arrangement, and if the work of the plenipotentiaries soon faded it was through their labours that England enjoyed many years of peace. Walpole s influence received a serious blow in 1733. The enormous frauds on the excise duties forced themselves on his attention, and he proposed some arrangements by which the income resulting to the national exchequer from the duties on wine and tobacco might be largely increased. His opponents fastened on these proposals with irresistible force, and so serious an agitation stirred the country that the ministerial measure was dropped amid general rejoicing. Several of his most active antagonists were dismissed from office or deprived of their regiments, but their spirit remained unquenched, and when Walpole met a new House of Commons in 1734 his supporters were far less numerous. The Gin Act of 1736, by which the tax on that drink was raised to an excessive amount, led to disorders in the suburbs of London ; and the imprisonment of two notorious smugglers in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh resulted in those Porteous riots which have been rendered famous in the Heart of Midlothian. These events weakened his influence with large classes in England and Scotland, but his parliamentary supremacy remained unimpaired, and was illustrated in 1737 by his defeat of Sir John Barnard s plan for the reduction of the interest on the national debt, and by his passing of the Playhouse Act, under which the London theatres are still regulated. That year, however, heralded his fall from power. His constant friend Queen Caroline died, and the prince of Wales, long discontented with his parents and their minister, flung himself into active opposition. Many of the boroughs within the limits of the duchy of Cornwall were obedient to the prince s will, and he quickly attracted to his cause a considerable number of adherents, of whom Pitt and the Grenvilles were the most influential. The leading orators of England thundered against Walpole in the senate, and the press resounded with the taunts of the poet and pamphleteer, illustrious and obscure, who found abundant food for their invectives in the troubles with Spain over its exclusive pretensions to the continent of America and its claim to the right of searching English vessels. The minister long resisted the pressure of the opposition for war, but at the close of 1739 he abandoned his efforts to stem the current, and with a divided cabinet was forced, as the king would not allow him to resign, into hostility with Spain. The Tory minority had seceded from parliament, but at the commencement of the session, in November 1739, they returned to their places with redoubled energies. The campaign was prosecuted with vigour, but the successes of the troops brought little strength to Walpole s declining popularity, and when parliament was dissolved in April 1741 his influence with his fellow-countrymen had faded away. His enemies were active in opposition, while some of his colleagues were lukewarm in support. In the new House of Commons political parties were almost evenly balanced. Their strength was tried immediately on the opening of parliament. The Bossiney election went against him by six votes; a member of the opposition was elected as chairman of committees by a majority of four; and the ministry was twice defeated over the Westminster election. The voting on the return for Chippenham was accepted as a decisive test of parties, and, as Walpole was beaten on a preliminary point in connexion with the return, he resolved upon resigning his places. On the 9th of February 1742 he was created earl of Orford, and two days later he ceased to be prime minister. A committee of inquiry into the conduct of his ministry for the previous ten years was ultimately granted, but its deliberations ended in nought, and Walpole was allowed to spend the rest of his days in retirement at Houghton. There he died 18th March 1745, and in its parish church he was buried on March 25. With the permanent places, valued at 15,000 per annum, which he had secured for his family, and with his accumulations in office, he had rebuilt the mansion at great expense, and formed a gallery of pictures within its walls at a cost of 40,000, but the collection was sold by his grandson for a much larger sum in 1779 to the empress of Russia, and the estate and house of Houghton, a vast and gloomy edifice described in the Art Journal for March 1887, passed to Lord Cholmondeley, the third earl having married the premier s younger daughter. Walpole was twice married, in 1700 to Catherine, eldest daughter of John Shorter, who died in 1737, having had issue three sons and two daughters, and in 1738 to Maria, daughter of Thomas Skerret, a lady often mentioned in the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Civil wars at home and the protracted struggle with France on the Continent had produced in Englishmen an intense desire for peace, and, in their remembrance of the constant disputes under the previous two sovereigns over the succession to the throne, the great majority of them cheerfully consented to the rule of the electors of Hanover. Walpole knew the disposition of his country men, and he gratified their tastes by consistently acting both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs on the principle quieta non movere. He had profited by the lesson of the ill-fated prosecution of Sacheverell, and while he was prime minister the Church of England slept in peace without fear of danger from her enemies. The followers of dissent ranged themselves behind his banner, but they were fed by promises rather than by actual concessions, and the wisest among them were contented with permission to worship un-