[1724 A.D.]

what was perhaps as much to the purpose, by the most unscrupulous assertions.

Throughout the whole of the Drapier Letters, Swift's argument rests upon the most solid basis of political economy; but his premises are utterly false. He knew well what England and Ireland had suffered by the depreciation of the coin. This bold opponent of the government which had delivered his country from despotism, says, "I intend to truck with my neighbours, the butchers and bakers and the rest, goods for goods; and the little gold and silver I have I will keep by me, like my heart's blood, till better times, or

JONATHAN SWIFT

(1667-1745)

until I am just ready to starve; and then I will buy Mr. Wood's money, as my father did the brass money in King James' time, who could buy £10 of it for a guinea." Against such logic as this what could simple truth avail? The Irish went mad about Wood's halfpence.

When Carteret came over, he found the Irish people in a state of frenzy. He tried what are called strong measures. He offered a reward of £300 for discovering the author of the Drapier letters. He prosecuted their printer. The grand jury threw out the bill; and another grand jury made a presentment, setting forth, that "several quantities of base metal coined, commonly called Wood's Halfpence, have been brought into the port of Dublin, and lodged in several houses in this city,

with an intention to make them pass clandestinely"; and that "having entirely his majesty's interest and the welfare of our country, and being thoroughly sensible of the great discouragements which trade hath suffered by the apprehensions of the said coin, whereof we have already felt the dismal effects; and that the currency thereof will inevitably tend to the great diminution of his majesty's revenue, and the ruin of us and our posterity, do present all such persons as have attempted or shall endeavour by fraud or otherwise, to impose the said halfpence upon us, contrary to his majesty's most gracious intention, as enemies to his majesty's government, and to the safety, peace, and welfare of all his majesty's subjects of this kingdom." It was in vian that the government attempted to stand up against this storm. The grand jury said, "we do, with all great gratitude, acknowledge the services of all such patriots as have been eminently zealous for the interest of his majesty and this country, in detecting the fraudulent imposition of the said Wood, and preventing the passing of his base coin." Swift wrote this eulogy upon his own patriotism. He had beaten the government of King George. The patent was withdrawn.

[1725-1727 A.D.]

IMPEACHMENT OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR (1725 A.D.)

In 1725, England presented the miserable spectacle which she had witnessed in the reign of James I-a lord chancellor impeached for malversation in his great office. Thomas Parker was a very different man from Francis Bacon; and the offences of which the earl of Macclesfield was accused were of another character than those which were the ruin of the viscount St Albans. The chancellor of King James was disgraced upon the charge of having received bribes from suitors. The chancellor of King George was impeached, found guilty, excluded forever from office, and fined thirty thousand pounds, upon the charges of selling masterships in the court of chancery, and of conniving at the frauds of the masters in trafficking with the trust-money of the suitors, and the estates of widows and orphans. Lord Campbell, in controverting a disposition in some writers of recent times to consider that Lord Macclesfield was unjustly condemned, holds that "his conviction was lawful and his punishment was mild.'

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The foreign policy of George I, under the able administration of Walpole, had become decidedly pacific. The nation was manifestly prospering under the relief which peace had brought. The fear of the pretender, and of Spanish or Swedish invasions, had passed away. The house of Brunswick, after ten years of struggle, was firmly fixed on its constitutional throne. Yet there were still threatenings of war. The congress of Cambrai, to which the difficulties that had not been finally settled by the peace of 1720 had been referred, had been wearily discussing certain royal claims and disputes - "bailing out water with sieves" for four or five years. The regent Orleans had died during these tedious protocollings, in 1723. Louis XV, declared of age, had taken the government of France into his own hands, with the duke de Bourbon as his minister. The alliance of France with England continued uninterrupted. But the emperor Charles, and the king of Spain, Philip, were coming to a closer understanding about territorial arrangements than England, France, and Russia thought safe.

The Treaty of Hanover bound England, France, and Prussia- the date, September 3rd, 1725 — in an engagement to hold by each other, if either were attacked. The tables were turned since the War of the Succession. The old foes were fast friends, and the old friends bitter foes; and all these changes took place, as in private friendship, for "some trick not worth an egg." War seemed imminent, however pacifically disposed were Fleury and George. When the English parliament met on the 20th of January, 1726, the king announced the conclusion of his defensive treaties with the most Christian king and the king of Prussia, to which several of the powers had been invited to accede.

Warlike movements were very soon organised in England. The czar Peter was dead. The czarina Catherine I had prepared a fleet for co-operation with Austria and Spain. Admiral Wager sailed to the Baltic with an English fleet; and the politics of Russia became more pacific. A squadron under Admiral Hosier blockaded Porto Bello- an unfortunate enterprise, for the brave admiral and a large number of his fleet's crews perished of yellow fever in the Spanish main. If this activity was not war, it was very like war. In the parliament which met in January, 1727, the king announced that he had received information upon which he could wholly depend, that

[1727 A.D.]

one of the secret articles of the Treaty of Vienna was an agreement to place the pretender upon the throne of Britain. The parliament instantly voted a large increase of the army and navy. The emperor was advised by Palm, his minister at London, to disavow such a secret agreement. The indiscreet resident addressed a memorial to the king, a translation of which was printed and published; in which the secret articles were disavowed, and the royal word was spoken of with disrespect. The two houses were indignant at the insolence" of the imperial minister in dispersing his memorial through the kingdom; declaring "their utmost abhorrence of this audacious manner of appealing to the people against his majesty." Palm was commanded immediately to leave England.

Spain was assembling an army for the siege of Gibraltar, under the command of the count de las Torres; who boasted that in six weeks he would drive the heretics into the sea. On the 11th of February the siege was commenced. English men-of-war in the harbour secured a constant supply of provisions for the garrison from the coast of Africa. Lord Portmore-one of the men whose energy age appears unable to cripple hastened from England, in his eightieth year, to defend the fortress of which he was governor. For four months the Spaniards ineffectually fired upon the rock, and then they raised the siege.

THE DEATH OF GEORGE I (1727 A.D.)

On the 15th of May, 1727, King George closed the session of parliament preparatory to his departure for Hanover. He adverted to the attack upon Gibraltar. He had suspended, he said, his resentments under such provocation; and instead of having immediate recourse to arms, and demanding that assistance of his allies which they had engaged, and were ready, to give, he had concurred with France and the states general in making overtures of accommodation. Sweden had acceded to the Treaty of Hanover; and a convention had been signed by Denmark. The overtures of accommodation, thus mentioned, had been successful. The Austrian ambassador signed, on the 31st of May, preliminaries of peace with England, France, and Holland. Spain remained alone; neither prepared for war, nor acceding to the conditions of peace.

-

At this juncture the power of Walpole seemed to be somewhat endangered. Bolingbroke-who had been allowed by the intervention of Walpole to return to England; who was about to embark at Calais at the close of his exile, when Atterbury landed there a banished man; who had been restored to his estates by act of parliament in 1725 — was intriguing to reach once more the possession of power under George which he had obtained under Anne. He had secured, by bribes and protestations, the favour of the duchess of Kendal, the mistress, or according to some, the left-handed wife of the Hanoverian king. The duchess presented to her royal admirer a memorial from Bolingbroke, in which he denounced Walpole as the author of every public evil. The king put this paper into the hands of Walpole, with his usual straightforward mode of action. The ambitious statesman therein requested an interview with his sovereign. George was indisposed to grant this meeting. Walpole earnestly pressed it, with his never-failing sagacity; for, as he himself said, "if this was not done, the clamour would be, that I kept his majesty to myself, and would allow none to come near him to tell the truth." George told his minister that Bolingbroke's complaints and representations were "bagatelles."

The king set out for Hanover on the 3rd of June, accompanied by the duchess of Kendal and Lord Townshend. The unhappy wife of George had

[1727 A.D.]

died on the 13th of November, 1726, after many schemes of escape. The king landed on the 7th at Vaert, in Holland. On the 8th he proceeded on his journey, leaving the duchess of Kendal on the Dutch frontier. On the 9th, he slept at Delden; and was again in his coach at four o'clock in the morning of the 10th, accompanied by two official persons of the court of Hanover. In the forenoon of that day he was struck by apoplexy. He refused to stop at Ippenburen, as his attendants wished. His hands fell; his eyes were heavy; but his will was strong. "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" he exclaimed. His one surviving brother, the prince bishop, had his palace at Osnabruck. The king's voice grew fainter. He murmured in his death-sleep, "C'est fait de mo" (All is over with me). All was over. When the bishop was roused by the gallop of horses in his court-yard at midnight, George, king of Great Britain, and elector of Hanover, was dead. He was buried at Hanover. /

CHAPTER XIV

[1727-1760 A.D.]

George II was the last foreigner by birth who has held the English throne; he was a monarch almost as foreign in his tastes and interests as in his nativity. Yet there was an openness and honesty about his personal dealings which gained his subjects' respect. He was blind to the charms of what, in his German accent, he called bainting and boetry, but he was unambitious; he remained true to the principles under which he succeeded to the crown; he did not trick nor quibble; and was more useful and infinitely more safe, in those days of loose political morality and unprincipled selfishness, than if he had had greater abilities with more unscrupulous desires. - WHITE.'

GEORGE II was born in 1683, and had married in 1705 Princess Caroline of Anspach, by whom he had four daughters and two sons; Frederick, Prince of Wales, born in 1707, and William, duke of Cumberland, in 1721. His parts were not so good as his father's, but, on the other hand, he had much less reserve and shyness, and he possessed another inestimable advantage over him he could speak English fluently, though not without a foreign accent. His diminutive person, pinched features, and frequent starts of passion, were not favourable to the royal dignity, and his mind still less. He had scarcely one kingly quality, except personal courage and justice. The former he had highly signalised at the battle of Oudenarde as a volunteer, and was destined to display again as sovereign at Dettingen; and even in peace he was so fond of the army, and of military details, that his nickname among the jacobites was the Captain. A love of justice was apparent in all the natural movements of his mind. But avarice, that most unprincely of all passions, sat enshrined in the inmost recesses of his bosom. Its twitches were shown on all occasions. His purse was often in his hands, not to give from it, but to feel, and count over. Soon after his first arrival in England," Walpolec tells us, "Mrs. one of the bedchamber women, with whom he was in love, seeing him count his money over very often, said to him, 'Sir, I can bear it no longer; if you count your money once more I will leave the room."" An extreme minuteness and precision in keeping his private accounts saved him a little money, and lost him a great deal of time. "He has often told me himself," says Lord Chester