Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/375

Rh WALPOLK AND T1IE TEl.lIAMS.] ENGLAND 355 Ipole first ue nister. Op tion. istry fenry and by the idea would dawn on the nation that anarchy is as productive of evil as tyranny, and that a Government which omits to regulate or control allows the strong to oppress the weak, and the rich to oppress the poor. Wai pole s administration lasted long enough to give room for some feeble expression of this feeling. When George I. vras succeeded by George II. (1727), Walpole remained in power. His eagerness for the possession of that power which he desired to use for his country s good, together with the incapacity of two kings born and bred in a foreign country to take a leading part in English affairs, com pleted the change which had been effected when William for the first time entrusted the conduct of government to a united Cabinet. There was now for the first time a prime minister in England, a person who was himself a subject imposing harmonious action on the Cabinet. The change was so gradually and silently effected that it is difficult to realize its full importance. So far. indeed, as it only came about through the incapacity of the first two kings of the house of Hanover, it might be obliterated, and was in fact to a great extent obliterated by a more active successor. But so far as it was the result of general tendencies, it could never be obliterated. In the ministries in which Somers and Montagu on the one hand and Harley and St John on the other had taken part, there was no prime minister except so far as one member of the administration dominated over his colleagues by the force of character and intelligence. In the reign of George III. even North and Addiugton were universally acknowledged by that title, though they had little claim to the independence of action of a Walpole or a Pitt. The change was, in fact, one of the most important of those by which the English constitution has been altered from an hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary regulative agency to a parliamentary government with an hereditary regulative agency. In Walpole s time the forms of the constitution had become, in all essential particulars, what they are now. What was wanting was a national force behind them to give them their proper work. The growing opposition which finally drove Walpole from power was not entirely without a nobler element than could be furnished by personal rivalry or ignorant distrust of commercial and financial success. It was well that complaints that a great country ought not to be governed by patronage and bribery should be raised, although, as subsequent experience showed, the causes which rendered corruption inevitable were not to be removed by the expulsion of Walpole from office. But for one error, indeed, it is probable that Walpole s rule would have been further prolonged than it was. In 1739 a popular excite ment arose for a declaration of war against Spain. Walpole believed chat war to be certainly unjust, and likely to be disastrous. He had, however, been so accustomed to give way to popular pressure that he did not perceive the difference between a wise and timely determination to leave a right action undone in the face of insuperable difficulties, and an unwise and cowardly determination to do that which he believed to be wrong and imprudent. If he had now resigned rather than demean himself by acting against his conscience, it is by no means unlikely that he would have been recalled to power before many years were over. As it was, the failures of the war recoiled on his own head, and in 1742 his long ministry came to an end. After a short interval a successor was found in Henry Pelham. All the ordinary arts of corruption which Walpole had practised were continued, and to them were added arts of corruption which Walpole had disdained to practise. He at least understood that there were certain principles in accordance with which he wished to conduct public affairs, and he had driven colleague after colleague out of office rather than allow them to distract his method of government. Pelham and his brother, the cowardly intriguing duke of Newcastle, had no principles of govern ment whatever. They offered place to every man of parliamentary skill or influence. There was no opposition, because the ministers never attempted to do anything which would arouse opposition, and because they were ready to do anything called for by any one who had power enough to make himself dangerous; and in 1743 they embarked on a useless war with France in order to please the king, who saw in every commotion on the Continent some danger to his beloved Hanoverian possessions. At most times in the history of England such a ministry would have been driven from office by the roused outcry of an offended people. In the days of the Pelhams, government was regarded as lying too far outside the all- important private interests of the community to make it worth while to make any effort to rescue it from the degradation into which it had fallen ; yet the Pelhams had not been long in power before this serene belief that the country could get on very well without a government in any real sense of the word was put to the test. In 1745 Charles Edward, the son of the Pretender, landed in TLo Scotland. He was followed by many of the Highland y un g clans, always ready to draw the sword against the con- Preten&amp;lt;1&amp;lt;&amp;gt;r stituted authorities of the Lowlands; and even in the Lowlands, and especially in Edinburgh, he found adherents, who still felt the sting inflicted by the sup pression of the national independence of Scotland. The English army was in as chaotic a condition as its Govern ment, and Charles Edward inflicted a complete defeat on a force which met him at Prestonpans. Before the end of the year the victor, at the head of 5000 men, had advanced to Derby. But he found no support in England, and the mere numbers brought against him compelled him to retreat, to find defeat at Culloden in the following year (174G). The war on the Continent had been waged with indiffsrent success. The victory of Dettingen (1743) and the glorious defeat of Fonteuoy (1745) had achieved no objects worthy of English intervention, and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle put an end in 1748 to hostilities which should never have been commenced. The Government pur sued its inglorious career as long as Henry Pelham lived. He had at least some share in the financial ability of Wal pole, and it was not till he died in 1754 that the real diffi- Death of culties of a system which was based on the avoidance of FelLam. difficulties had fairly to be faced. The change which was needed was not such as was to Mora] be expected from any mere re-adjustment of the political - d Ix li - machine. Those who cared for religion or morality had glons, n , ,. ., J. , mospliere. forgotten that man was an imaginative and emotional being. Defenders of Christianity and of deism alike appealed to the reason alone. Enthusiasm was treated as a folly or a crime, and earnestness of every kind was branded with the name of enthusiasm. The higher order of minds dwelt with preference upon the beneficent wis dom of the Creator. The lower order of minds treated religion as a kind of life-assurance against the inconve nience of eternal death. Upon such a system as this human nature was certain Wesley to revenge itself. The preaching of Wesley and Whitfield ai J appealed direct to the emotions. They preached the old whufi Puritan doctrine of conversion, and called upon each in dividual not to understand, or to admire, or to act, but vividly to realize the love and mercy of God. In all tin s there was nothing new. What was new was that Wesley added an organization, in which each of his followers un folded to one another the secrets of their heart, nnd became accountable to his fellows. Lar^e as the numbers of the