reduced to solicit West India governments; and it is mentioned as an exception, that "neither Lords Stan"hope, Argyle, nor Roxburgh, have been in the stocks."* Townshend, I believe, might also be excepted. But the public indignation was pointed chiefly against Sir John Blunt as projector, and against Sunderland and Aislabie as heads of the Treasury; and it was suspected, how truly will afterwards appear, that the King's mistresses and several of his Ministers, both English and German, had received large sums in stock to recommend the project. In short, as England had never yet undergone such great disappointment and confusion, so it never had so loudly called for confiscation and blood.

That there was some knavery to punish, I do not deny, and I shall presently show. It seems to me, however, that the nation had suffered infinitely more by their own self-willed infatuation than by any fraud that was or could be practised upon them. This should not have been forgotten when the day of disappointment came. But when a people is suffering severely, from whatever cause, it always looks round for a victim, and too often strikes the first it finds. It seeks for no proof; it will listen to no defence; it considers an acquittal as only a collusion. Of this fatal tendency our own times may afford a striking instance. Whilst the cholera prevailed at Paris and Madrid, it was seen that the mob, instead of lamenting a natural and unavoidable calamity, were persuaded that the springs had been poisoned, and ran to arms for their revenge.

During this time, express after express was sent to the King at Hanover, announcing the dismal news, and pressing his speedy return. George had intended to make a longer stay in Germany; but seeing the urgency of the case he hastened homewards, attended by Stanhope, and landed at Margate on the 9th of November. It had been hoped that His Majesty's presence would have revived the drooping credit of the South Sea Funds, but it had not that effect; on the contrary, they fell to 135 at the tidings that Parliament was further prorogued for a

*Mr. Drummond to Mr. D. Pulteney, November 24. 1720. (Coxe's Walpole.)

fortnight. That delay was necessary to frame some scheme for meeting the public difficulties, and this task, by universal assent, and even acclamation, was assigned to Walpole. Fortunately for that Minister he had been out of office when the South Sea Act was passed; he had opposed it as he had opposed all the measures, right or wrong, of Stanhope's and Sunderland's government; and its unpopularity, therefore, turned to his reputation with the country. Every eye was directed towards him; every tongue invoked him, as the only man whose financial abilities, and public favour, could avert the country's ruin. Nor did he shrink from this alarming crisis. Had he stood aloof, or joined the opposition, he would probably have had the power to crush the South Sea Directors and their abettors, and especially to wreak his vengeance upon Sunderland; and he is highly extolled by a modern writer for magnanimity in resisting the temptation.* But though Walpole undoubtedly deserves great praise through all his administration for placability and personal forbearance, yet I can scarcely think the present case an instance of it. In this case the line of interest exactly coincided ' with the line of duty. Would not the King have shut out Walpole for ever from his confidence had Walpole headed this attack on his colleagues? Would not a large section, at least, of the Whigs, have adhered to their other chiefs? Was it not his evident policy, instead of hurling down the objects of popular outcry, to befriend them in their inevitable fall, and then quietly to step into their places, with the consent, perhaps even with the thanks, of their personal adherents?

Meanwhile the German Ministers and mistresses, full of fear for themselves, and in utter ignorance of England, were whispering, it is said, the wildest schemes. One spoke of a pretended resignation to the Prince of Wales; another wished to sound the officers of the army, and try to proclaim absolute power; another again advised to apply to the Emperor for troops. But such mad proposals, if, indeed, they were ever seriously made, were coun

* Coxe's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 138. A letter in his second volume (p. 194.) from Pulteney, then a friend of Walpole, confirms the view I have taken.

teracted by the English Ministers, and still more, no doubt, by the King's own good sense and right feeling.

On the 8th of December Parliament met in a mood like the people's, terror-stricken, bewildered, and thirsting for vengeance. In the House of Commons parties were strangely mixed; some men, who had dipped in dishonest practices, hoped by an affected severity to disarm suspicion; others, smarting under their personal losses, were estranged from their political attachments. Whigs and Tories crossed over, while the Jacobites, enjoying and augmenting the general confusion, hoped to turn it in their own behalf. The King's opening speech lamented the unhappy turn of affairs, and urged the seeking a remedy. This passed quietly in the Lords; but when Pulteney moved the Address in the Commons, Shippen proposed an angry amendment, and produced a violent debate. "Miscreants". 66 scum of the people" "ene"mies of their country;" such were the names given to the South Sea Directors. One member complained that the Ministry had put a stop to all the little bubbles, only in order to deepen the water for the great one. Lord Molesworth admitted that the Directors could not be reached by any known laws; "but extraordinary "crimes," he exclaimed, "call for extraordinary reme"dies. The Roman lawgivers had not foreseen the pos"sible existence of a parricide; but as soon as the first "monster appeared, he was sewn in a sack, and cast "headlong into the Tiber; and as I think the contrivers of the South Sea Scheme to be the parricides of "their country, I shall willingly see them undergo the 66 same punishment!" Such was the temper of the times! On this occasion, Walpole spoke with his usual judgment, and with unwonted ascendency. He said that if the city of London were on fire, wise men would be for extinguishing the flames before they inquired after the incendiaries, and that he had already bestowed his thoughts on a proposal to restore Public Credit, which, at a proper season, he would submit to the wisdom of the House. Through his influence, chiefly, the amendment of Shippen was rejected by 261 against 103; but next day on the Report no one ventured to oppose the insertion of words" to punish the authors of our present mis

66

"fortunes." Three days afterwards it was carried that the Directors should forthwith lay before the House an account of all their proceedings, and a Bill was introduced against "the infamous practice of Stock"Jobbing."

It was amidst this general storm that Walpole, on the 21st of December, brought forward his remedy. He had first desired the House to decide whether or not the public contracts with the South Sea Company should be preserved inviolate. This being carried by a large majority, Walpole then unfolded his scheme; it was in substance to engraft nine millions of Stock into the Bank of England. and the same sum into the East India Company, on certain conditions, leaving twenty millions to the South Sea. This measure, framed with great financial ability, and supported by consummate powers of debate, met with no small opposition, especially from all the three Companies, not one of which would gain by it; and though it passed both Houses, it was never carried into execution, being only permissive, and not found necessary, in consequence, as will be seen hereafter, of another law.

A short Christmas recess had no effect in allaying animosities. Immediately afterwards, a Bill was brought in by Sir Joseph Jekyll, restraining the South Sea Directors from going out of the kingdom, obliging them to deliver upon oath the strict value of their estates, and offering rewards to discoverers or informers against them.† The Directors petitioned to be heard by counsel in their defence, the common right, they said, of British subjects

as if a South Sea man had been still entitled to justice! Their request was rejected, and the Bill was hurried through both Houses. A Secret Committee of Inquiry was next appointed by the Commons, consisting chiefly of the most vehement opponents of the South Sea Scheme,

*Governor Pitt moved that the Directors should attend on "Thursday with their Myrmidons, the secretary, the treasurer, and, it "they pleased, with their great Scanderbeg: who he meant by that "I know not; but the epithet denotes somebody of consideration!" Mr. Brodrick to Lord Midleton, December 10. 1720. Compare with this letter the Parl. Hist. vol. vii. p. 680.

†This last clause is mentioned by Brodrick to Lord Midleton, Jan. 19. 1721.

such as Molesworth, Jekyll, and Brodrick, the latter of whom they selected for their Chairman.

This Committee proceeded to examine Mr. Knight, the cashier of the Company, and the agent of its most secret transactions. But this person, dreading the consequences, soon after his first examination escaped to France, connived at, as was suspected, by some persons in power, and carrying with him the register of the Company. His escape was reported to the House on the 23d of January, when a strange scene of violence ensued. The Commons ordered the doors to be locked, and the keys to be laid on the table. General Ross then stated that the Committee, of which he was a member, had "discovered a train of the deepest villany and fraud that ❝ hell ever contrived to ruin a nation." No proof beyond this vague assertion was required: four of the Directors, members of Parliament, were immediately expelled the House, taken into custody, and their papers seized.*

Meanwhile the Lords had been examining other Directors at their Bar, and on the 24th they also ordered five to be taken into custody. Some of the answers indicated that large sums in South Sea Stock had been given to procure the passing of the Act last year; upon which Lord Stanhope immediately rose, and expressing his indignation at such practices, moved a Resolution, that any transfer of Stock, without a valuable consideration, for the use of any person in the administration, during the pendency of the South Sea Act, was a notorious and dangerous corruption. He was seconded by Lord Townshend, and the Resolution passed unanimously. On the 4th of February, the House, continuing their examinations, had before them Sir John Blunt, who, however, refused to answer, on the ground that he had already given his evidence before the Secret Committee of the Commons. How to proceed in this matter was a serious difficulty; and a debate which arose upon it soon branched into more general topics. A vehement philippic was delivered by the Duke of Wharton, the son of the late Minister, who had recently come of age, and

*"Several of the Directors were so far innocent as to be found "poorer at the breaking up of the scheme than when it began." (Macpherson's Hist. of Commerce, vol. iii. p. 112.)