CHAPTER XXXV.

GEORGE II.

A. D. 1727—1760.

UPON the death of George the First, his son, George the Second, came to the crown; a man of inferior abilities to the late king, and strongly biassed with a partiality to his dominions on the continent. The chief person, who engrossed the greatest share of power under him, was Sir Robert Walpole, who had risen from low beginnings, through two successive reigns, into great estimation. He was considered as a martyr to his cause, in the reign of queen Anne: and when the Tory party could no longer oppress him, he still preserved that hatred against them with which he set out. To defend the declining prerogative of the crown, might perhaps have been the first object of his attention; but soon after those very measures by which he pretended to secure it, proved the most effectual means to lessen it. By corrupting the house of commons, he increased their riches and their power; and they were not averse to voting away those millions which he permitted them so liberally to share. As such a tendency in him naturally produced opposition, he was possessed of a most phlegmatic insensibility to reproach, and a calm dispassionate manner of reasoning upon such topics as he desired should be believed. His discourse was fluent, but without dignity; and his manner convincing from its apparent want of art.

The Spaniards were the first nation who shewed the futility of the treaties of the former reign to bind, when any advantage was to be procured by infraction. The people of our West-India islands had long carried on an illicit trade with the subjects of Spain upon the continent, but whenever detected were rigorously punished, and their cargoes confiscated to the crown. In this temerity of adventure on the one hand, and vigilance of pursuit and punishment on the other, it must often have happened that the innocent must suffer with the guilty, and many complaints were made, perhaps founded on justice, that the English merchants were plundered by the Spanish king's vessels upon the southern coasts of America, as if they had beca pirates.

The English ministry, unwilling to credit every report which was inflamed by resentment, or urged by avarice, expected to remedy the evile complained of by their favourite system of treaty, and in the mean time promised the nation redress. At length, however, the complaints became more general, and the merchants remonstrated by petition to the house of commons, who entered into a deliberation on the subject. They examined the evidence of several who had been unjustly seized, and treated with great cruelty. One man, the master of a trading vessel, had been used by the Spaniards in a most shocking manner; he gave in his evidence with great precision, informed the house of the manner they had plundered and stripped him, of their cutting off his ears, and their preparing to put him to death. looked up," cried he, "to my God for pardon, and to my country for revenge."

"I then

These accounts raised a flame among the people, which it was neither the minister's interest, nor perhaps that of the nation to indulge; new negociations were set on foot, and new mediators offered their interposition. A treaty was signed at Vienna, between the emperor, the king of Great-Britain, and the king of Spain, which settled the peace of Europe upon its former footing, and put off the threatened war for a time. By this treaty the king of England conceived hopes that all war would be at an end. Don Carlos, upon the death of the duke of Parma, was, by the assistance of an English fleet, put in peaceable possession of Parma and Placentia, while six thousand Spaniards were quietly admitted, and quartered in the duchy of Tuscany, to secure for him the reversion of the dukedom.

An interval of peace succeeded, in which scarce any thing remarkable happened, and scarce any contest ensued except in the British parliament, where the disputes between the court and the country party were carried on with unceasing animosity.

A. D.

1731.

A society of men in this interested age of seeming benevolence, had united themselves into a company by the name of the Charitable Corporation; and their professed intention was to lend money at legal interest to the poor, upon small pledges, and to persons of higher rank upon proper security. Their capital was at first limited to thirty thousand pounds, but they afterwards increased it to six hundred thousand. This money was supplied by subscription, and the care of conducting

ما

the capital was intrusted in a proper number of directors. This company having continued for more than twenty years, the cashier, George Robinson, member for Marlow, and the warehouse-keeper, John Thompson, disappeared in one day. Five hundred thousand pounds of capital were found to be sunk and embezzled by means which the proprietors could not discover. They therefore, in a petition, represented to the house the manner in which they had been defrauded, and the distress to which many of the petitioners were reduced. A secret committee being appointed to examine into this grievance, a most iniquitous scene of fraud was soon discovered, which had been carried on by Robinson and Thompson, in concert with some of the directors, for embezzling the capital and cheating the proprietors. Many persons of rank and quality were concerned in this infamous conspiracy; and even some of the first characters in the nation did not escape censure. A spirit of avarice and rapacity had infected every rank of life about this time; no less than six members of parliament were expelled for the most sordid acts of knavery. Sir Robert Sutton, Sir Archibald Grant, and George Robinson, for their frauds in the management of the Charitable Corporation scheme; Dennis Bond, and serjeant Burch, for a fraudulent sale of the late unfortunate earl of Derwentwater's large estate; and lastly, John Ward, of Hackney, for forgery. Luxury had given birth to prodigality, and that was the parent of the meaner arts of peculation. It was asserted in the house of lords, at that time, that not one shilling of the forfeited estates was ever applied to the service of the public, but became the reward of fraud and venality.

A scheme set on foot by Sir Robert Walpole soon A. D. after engrossed the attention of the public, which was to fix a general excise.

1732.

The minister intro

duced it into the house, by going into a detail of the frauds practised by the factors in London, who were employed by the American planters in selling their tobacco. To prevent these frauds he proposed, that instead of having the customs levied in the usual manner upon tobacco, all hereafter to be imported should be lodged in warehouses appointed for that purpose by the officers of the crown, and should from thence be sold, upon paying the duty of four pence a pound, when the proprietor found a purchaser. This proposal raised a violent ferment, not less within doors than without. It was asserted that it would expose the

factors to such hardships that they would not be able to continue their trade, and that such a scheme would not even prevent the frauds complained of. It was added, that a number of additional excisemen and warehouse-keepers would thus be employed, which would at once render the ministry formidable, and the people dependent. Such were the arguments made use of to stir up the citizens to oppose this law; arguments rather specious than solid, since, with all its disadvantages, the tax upon tobacco would thus be more safely and expeditiously collected, and the avenues to numberless frauds would be shut up. The people, however, were raised into such a ferment, that the parliament-house was surrounded with multitudes, who intimidated the ministry, and compelled them to drop the design. The miscarriage of the bill was celebrated with public rejoicings in London and Westminster, and the minister was burned in effigy by the populace of London.

Ever since the treaty of Utrecht, the Spaniards in America had insulted and distressed the commerce of Great-Britain, and the British merchants had attempted to carry on an illicit trade into their dominions. A right which the English merchants claimed by treaty, of cutting log-wood in the bay of Campeachy, gave them frequent opportunities of pushing in contraband commodities upon the continent; so that to suppress the evil, the Spaniards were resolved to annihilate the claim. This liberty of cutting log-wood had often been acknowledged, but never clearly ascertained; in all former treaties, it was considered as an object of too little importance to make a separate article in any negociation. The Spanish vessels appointed for protecting the coast continued their severities upon the English; many of the subjects of Britain were sent to dig in the mines of Potosi, and deprived of all means of conveying their complaints to those who might send them redress. One remonstrance followed another to the court of Madrid of this violation of treaty; but the only answer given were promises of enquiry, which produced no reformation. Our merchants complained loudly of those outrages; but the ministers vainly expected from negociations that redress, which was only to be obtained by arms.

The fears discovered by the court of Great-Britain only served to increase the insolence of the enemy; and their guard-ships continued to seize not only all the guilty, but the innocent, whom they found sailing along the Spanish

main. At last, however, the complaints of the English merchants were loud enough to interest the house of com mons; their letters and memorials were produced, and their grievances enforced by counsel at the bar of the house. It was soon found that the money which Spain had agreed to pay the court of Great Britain was withheld, and no reason assigned for the delay. The minister, therefore, to gratify the general ardour, and to atone for his former deficiencies, assured the house that he would put the nation in a condition for war. Soon after letters of reprisals were granted against the Spaniards, and this being on both sides considered as an actual commencement of hostilities, both diligently set forward their armaments by sea and land. In this threatening situation the French minister at the Hague declared that his master was obliged by treaty to assist the king of Spain; so that the alliances, which but twenty years before had taken place, were now quite reversed. At that time France and England were combined against Spain; at present, France and Spain were united against England; such little hopes can statesmen place upon the firmest treaties, where there is no superior power to compel the observance.

A rupture between England and Spain being now be come unavoidable, the people, who had long clamoured for war, began to feel uncommon alacrity at its approach; and the ministry, finding it inevitable, began to be as earnest

in preparation. Orders were issued for augmentA. D. ing the land forces, and raising a body of marines. 1739. War was declared with proper solemnity, and soon after two rich Spanish prizes were taken in the Medi'terranean. Admiral Vernon, a man of more courage than experience, of more confidence than skill, was sent commander of a fleet into the West-Indies, to distress the enemy in that part of the globe. He had asserted in the house of commons that Porto Bello, a fort and harbour in South America, could be easily destroyed, and that he himself would undertake to reduce it, with six ships only. A project which appeared so wild and impossible, was ridiculed by the ministry; but as he still persisted in the proposal, they complied with his request, hoping that his want of success might repress the confidence of his party. In this, however, they were disappointed; for with six ships only, he attacked and demolished all the fortifications of the place, and came av ay victorious, with scarcely the loss of a