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"avoiding war, by making a safe and honourable peace? .. Suppose that the administration had joined last "Session in the popular outcry for war, and that a vigorous war was actually entered into, can any gentleman say that this would have stopped the mouths of those "who are resolved to find fault at any rate? In such an event, may we not easily imagine to ourselves that we "hear a violent Opposition man declaiming on the bene"fits of peace; telling the world that a trading people 66 ought, by all manner of means, to avoid war; that nothing is so destructive to their interests, and that any peace is preferable, even to a successful war?"*

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When however the articles of the Convention were made known, there arose a general ferment, not only in Parliament, but amongst the people. Loud and fierce was the cry. The Right of Search not renounced! The limits of Georgia not defined! The Spanish Captains in the West Indies, after all their cruelties and depredations, to escape without condign punishment! Our victory, in 1718, to be taxed and paid for at the rate of 60,000l.! Such were the complaints of the public, heightened and inflamed by the Opposition writers; while those of the Minister defended his Convention so unskilfully, that, as a contemporary assures us, the injury which he suffered from the press was even greater when it was employed in vindicating than in impeaching his conduct. According to Horace Walpole the elder, "ambition, avarice, distress, disappointment, and all the complicated vices that tend "to render the minds of men uneasy, are got out of "Pandora's box, and fill all places and all hearts in the "nation."

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In Parliament, the friends of the Minister, though diminished in numbers, were not daunted in spirit. Earl Cholmondeley in the Lords moved an Address, drawn up with great skill and judgment, to thank His Majesty for concluding the Convention; to express reliance that, in the further negotiations, effectual care would be taken for securing the British navigation in the American seas;

*Parl. Hist. vol. x. p. 952.

† Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 387.

To Mr. Trevor, March 16. 1739. Coxe's Life of Horace Lord Walpole.

and to promise that, should His Majesty's just expectations not be answered, the House would support him in vindicating the honour of his Crown and the rights of his people. Notwithstanding the two last clauses, this Address provoked a sharp resistance, and called forth several able speeches, amongst which those of Chesterfield and Carteret were especially admired.* The Duke of Argyle not only forsook the Ministerial ranks, but appeared amongst the Opposition orators; and the Prince of Wales gave his first vote in Parliament in favour of the latter. On a division, 71 of the Peers present voted for and 58 against the Address - a large increase in the usual strength of the minority.

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In the House of Commons the same Address was moved by Horace Walpole, in an elaborate speech of above two hours, beginning at half past eleven in the morning.† His statement, however clear and convincing, was immediately met by a burst of angry eloquence. First, Sir Thomas Saunderson complained that no revenge had been taken on the Spanish Captain who cut off Jenkins's ear. "Even this fellow," said he, "is suffered to live to enjoy the fruits of his rapine, and remain a living testimony of the cowardly tameness and mean submission "of Great Britain!" Lord Gage inveighed against the insufficiency of the payments; Lyttleton against the Right of Search. But by far the ablest speech was that of Pitt, who on this occasion seems first to have acquired the ascendency which he ever afterwards retained in the House of Commons. "Is this," he cried, " any longer a "nation, or what is an English Parliament if, with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe, "with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of "receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, and "dishonourable Convention? Sir, I call it no more than "it has been proved in this debate. It carries fallacy or "downright subjection in almost every line; it has been "laid open or exposed in so many strong and glaring

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* "Lord Chesterfield's speech is prodigiously applauded as very "fine and very artful." Mr. Orlebar to the Rev. H. Etough, March 3. 1739. See also Maty's Life, p. 168.

† Mr. Selwyn to Mr. T. Townshend, March 10. 1739.

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lights, that I cannot pretend to add any thing to the "conviction and indignation it has raised."

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He thus concluded, "I will not attempt to enter into "the detail of a dark, confused, and scarcely intelligible "account. But Spain stipulates to pay to the Crown of England 95,000l. By a preliminary protest of the King of Spain, the South Sea Company is at once to pay 68,000. of it; if they refuse, Spain, I admit, is "still to pay the 95,000l.: but how does it stand then? "The Asiento contract is to be suspended; you are to purchase this sum at the price of an exclusive trade, pursuant to a national treaty, and an immense debt of "God knows how many thousand pounds, due from Spain "to the South Sea Company. Here, Sir, is the submis"sion of Spain by the payment of a stipulated sum; a "tax laid upon subjects of England, under the seve"rest penalties, with the reciprocal accord of an English "Minister, as a preliminary that the Convention may be "signed; a condition imposed by Spain in the most ab"solute, imperious manner, and received by the Ministers "of England in the most tame and abject. Can any "verbal distinctions, any evasions whatever, possibly "explain away this public infamy? To whom would 66 we disguise it? To ourselves and to the nation; I "wish we could hide it from the eyes of every Court in "Europe. They see Spain has talked to you like your master, they see this arbitrary fundamental condition, "and it must stand with distinction, with a pre-eminence "of shame, as a part even of this Convention. This "Convention, Sir, I think from my soul is nothing but a "stipulation for national ignominy; an illusory expe"dient to baffle the resentment of the nation; a truce "without a suspension of hostilities on the part of Spain; "on the part of England a suspension, as to Georgia, of "the first law of nature, self-preservation and self"defence; a surrender of the rights and trade of Eng"land to the mercy of plenipotentiaries; and in this "infinitely highest and sacred point, future security, not "only inadequate, but directly repugnant to the resolu"tions of Parliament and the gracious promise of the "Throne. The complaints of your despairing merchants, "the voice of England has condemned it. Be the

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guilt of it upon the head of the adviser: God forbid "that this Committee should share the guilt by approv "ing it!"*

The debate was closed by a speech from the Minister, with his usual skill, but not with his usual success, for he found his majority dwindled to only 28; the numbers being 260 against 232. This appeared to the Opposition leaders a favourable opportunity to execute a project which they had for some time brooded over, and which was recommended to them by no less an authority than Bolingbroke to withdraw or secede in a body from the House of Commons. By this means they hoped to heighten the national ferment, to represent the cause of corruption as all-powerful, and yet, at the same time, to withhold the Minister, by popular odium, from pursuing his measures in their absence. Accordingly, on the day after the Resolution of Horace Walpole was carried in Committee, and on the Report of it being brought up to the House, Pulteney, who had reserved himself for this occasion, opened another attack on the Convention, in which he was ably followed by Wyndham. A second division. which ensued having only confirmed the last, Wyndham immediately rose, and with much solemnity, speaking both for himself and for his friends, took leave of that House, as he declared, for ever. "In a future Parlia"ment," he said, "he might perhaps still be at liberty to serve his country as before, but now being unable to "discern the least appearance of reason in any one argu"ment offered on the Ministerial side, he must conclude "either that the majority was swayed by other or secret arguments, or that he himself wanted common sense to "comprehend the force of those which he had heard. In "the first case," he continued, "he could not with honour "sit in an Assembly determined by such influences; in "the latter case, he looked upon himself as a very unfit person to act as a senator: and in either case, therefore, "he thought it his duty for the future to retire, and con

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* Parl. Hist. vol. x. p. 1280-83. Mr. Selwyn, a strong Ministerialist, writes the next day to Mr. Townshend." Mr. Pitt spoke very "well, but very abusively." See Coxe's Walpole, vol. iii. p. 519. Mr. Orlebar, another placeman, likewise alludes to some "young "gentlemen, who took great personal liberties." March 10. 1739.

"tent himself with offering up his prayers for the pre

"servation of his country."

So strong and unmeasured were some of the expressions of this speech, that, as the Ministers believed, it was the wish of the speaker to be sent to the Tower, and thus to stir the minds of the people as a martyr in their cause. At the moment Mr. Pelham fell into the snare, and was actually rising to move his commitment, when Walpole with more sagacity prevented him, by rising himself and thanking his opponents, as he said, for throwing off the mask.* We can be on our guard, added he, against open rebels, but not against secret traitors. He reminded Wyndham how twenty-five years before he had been seized by the vigilance of Government, and pardoned by its clemency; he upbraided him for the ill use of that clemency, and only feared that the seceders would not be as good as their word, and would come back. "For I "remember," said he, "that in the case of their favourite "Bishop (of Rochester), who was impeached of High Treason, the same gentleman and his faction made the same resolution. They then went off as traitors as they were, but their retreat had not the detestable effect they expected and wished, and therefore they returned." †

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A Secession is a measure that has been several times attempted in the House of Commons, but always with such signal failure that the experiment will probably never be repeated. An individual may sometimes be justified for withdrawing; a party never. In such cases

the public have uniformly asked whether spleen and disappointment might not have some share in the decisionwhether the country is best served by inactivity and silence - whether, if the Constitution really be in danger from a corrupt majority, there is no surer remedy than to leave that majority unresisted and increased. This it soon appeared was the general and prevailing sentiment. Even at the outset three eminent members of the Opposition, Sir John Barnard, Lord Polwarth, and Mr. Plumer, of Hertfordshire, with a more far-sighted policy than

Mr. Selwyn to T. Townshend, March 10. 1739, and Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 405.

† Parl. Hist. vol. x. p. 1323. I cannot find, however, this secession of 1723 recorded in any of the publications of that time.