spirators-two Nonjuring clergymen, two Irish priests, a yo:mg barrister, and two lords-were apprehended. After a delay of three months, the bishop of Rochester was arrested, and after examination before the council, was sent to the Tower. Atterbury's arrest produced the most violent ferment amongst the High-Church party. The episcopal order, it was proclaimed, was outraged. The bishop was prayed for in the London churches. The plot, it was maintained, was a base fiction. The new Parliament met in October; and the king announced the discovery of a dangerous conspiracy, and the arrest of some of the conspirators. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended for a whole year; and the consent of the House of Peers was desired to sanction the detention in the Tower of the bishop of Rochester, lord North and Grey, and the earl of Orrery. On the 1st of March, 1723, a Committee of the Commons made a report of their examinations into the evidence of the conspiracy. Christopher Layer, the barrister, had been previously tried and condemned in the King's Bench. He was the only person who suffered capital punishment. Bills of pains and penalties were passed against the two Irish priests. The bishop of Rochester was also proceeded against by Bill, enacting his punishment and deprivation. This Bill passed the Commons without a division. Atterbury declined making a defence before the Lower House, but he defended himself at the bar of the House of Lords with great ingenuity and eloquence. The Bill was passed by a majority of forty peers; most of the bishops voting against him. The debate was remarkable for the constitutional opposition of lord Cowper, the ex-chancellor, who argued that the possible guilt of the offender did not justify an irregular and arbitrary mode of dealing with his offence. The estate of Atterbury was not forfeited by his attainder. He embarked for France in June, 1723; and died at Paris in 1732.

In 1724, lord Carteret was removed from the office of Secretary of State, and appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. He found the Irish people in a state of frenzy. In 1722, a patent had been granted to William Wood, a proprietor and renter of iron and copper mines in England, to enable him to coin farthings and half-pence for Ireland, to the value of £108,000. Ireland was completely without a currency to conduct the smaller operations of trade, and no one can doubt that in such a case the extortions practised upon the humblest classes must be considerable. Walpole and his subordinates took every reasonable measure of precaution that the coinage should not become an opportunity for fraud or excessive gain. Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, approved the terms of the contract, and it was declared that in weight and fineness of metal the pieces were satisfactory. The difference of exchange between England and Ireland accounted for a slight diminution in weight. The Irish parliament, however, voted an address to the king, that the terms of the patent would occasion a loss to the nation of 150 per cent. A Committee of the English Privy Council went into a searching examination of the whole affair; and fully justified the patentee from any charge of having abused the fair terms of his patent. It was, however, contended that the amount of farthings and half-pence issued should not exceed £40,000 in value; and that this money should not be a legal tender for a larger sum than five

A.D. 1724. OPPOSITION TO THE ALE DUTY IN SCOTLAND. 541

66

pence halfpenny in the payment. The Irish parliament had falsely asserted that the depreciation amounted to 150 per cent. Some letters were published by Swift, under the name of M. B. Drapier, in which it was asserted that the depreciation amounted to 1100 per cent. Stirred up by the mischievous Dean, the whole nation went mad about Wood's halfpence. Carteret offered a reward of £300 for discovering the author of the Drapier's Letters. He prosecuted their printer. The grand jury threw out the bill; and another grand jury made a presentment of all who had attempted or should attempt to pass Wood's halfpence as enemies to his majesty's government, and to the safety, peace, and welfare of all his majesty's subjects of this kingdom." They also said, in words furnished by Swift, "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." It was in vain that the government attempted to stand up against this storm. The patent was withdrawn. Walpole had the rare wisdom of yielding even to popular prejudice, when perseverance was clearly more perilous than concession.

The next year Scotland was also firing up upon a domestic question. The House of Commons, in opposition to the opinion of Walpole, had determined that the Malt Duty, which had been constantly evaded in Scotland, should be merged in a duty of threepence on every barrel of ale. The duty was to come into operation on the 23rd of June. On that day the population of Glasgow attacked and destroyed the house of Daniel Campbell, the member of parliament for Glasgow, who was considered to have supported the government in devising the ale duty. Military force was called in; and the next day, the soldiers being beset by the mob in their guard-house, the people were fired upon, and several were killed and wounded. General Wade then marched into Glasgow with his troops, who had been employed in constructing the military roads of the Highlands, and effectually quelled the riot. At Edinburgh, the brewers refused to brew. This combination soon broke down, however, and, in September, Walpole wrote to lord Townshend, "I think we have once more got Ireland and Scotland quiet, if we take care to keep them so."

In this year, the lord Chancellor, Thomas Parker, earl of Macclesfield, was impeached, found guilty, excluded for ever 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.

In 1725, the duke de Ripperda was sent from Spain upon a secret mission to Vienna, to settle by a direct treaty between the two great rival powers, certain royal claims and disputes which the Congress of Cambrai had been wearily discussing since the peace of 1720. The regent Orleans had died in 1723, when Louis XV., though only fifteen years old, had been declared of age to take the government into his own hands, with the duke de Bourbon as his minister. The youthful king had been betrothed to the Infanta of Spain when Philip acceded to the Quadruple Alliance. Now,

however, it was not thought desirable to complete a marriage with a child of eight years old, and the Infanta was returned to Spain with little ceremony. The court of Madrid was of course in a fever of indignation. All Frenchmen were ordered to leave Spain. The Congress of Cambrai was at an end. The Alliance of the courts of Madrid and Vienna, concluded by the Treaty of Vienna in 1725, was to be one of hostility to the courts of Versailles and St. James's. War seemed imminent, however pacifically disposed were Walpole and Henry, who had succeeded the duke de Bourbon as prime minister of Louis. By the Treaty of Hanover, in September, 1725, England, France, and Prussia were bound to hold by each other, if either were attacked. Some change might have been expected in the policy of Spain by the fall of Ripperda, who, being accused of having exaggerated the desire of Austria for an intimate alliance with Spain, was dismissed from his employments, and took refuge in the house of the English minister. When Ripperda was dragged from Mr. Stanhope's apartments, and sent to prison, the rights of ambassadors were considered to have been violated. The disputes between the two countries were still more embittered by the revelations that Ripperda made to Stanhope of the secret articles of the Treaty of Vienna; of which he declared the chief object was the extirpation of the Protestant religion. In the Parliament which met in January, 1727, the king announced that he had received information that 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. Palm, the emperor's minister at London, addressed a memorial to the king, in which the secret articles were disavowed, and the royal word was spoken of with disrespect. The two houses were indignant, and Palm was commanded immediately to leave England. Admiral Wager had sailed to the Baltic with an English fleet, the Czarina having prepared for co-operation with Austria and Spain. A squadron under Admiral Hosier had 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. On the 11th of February, the siege of Gibraltar was commenced by a Spanish army under the command of the Conde de Las Torres. Lord Portmore hastened from England, in his eightieth year, to defend the fortress of which he was the governor. English men-of-war in the harbour secured a constant supply of provisions for the garrison from the coast of Africa. For four months the Spaniards ineffectually fired upon the rock, and then they raised the siege. In closing the Session of Parliament on the 15th of March, 1727, king George announced that 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 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.

On the 3rd of June, the king set out for Hanover, accompanied by the duchess of Kendal and lord Townshend, and landed on the 7th at Vaert, in Holland. On the 8th of July, he proceeded on his journey,

A.D. 1727-1728.

ACCESSION OF GEORGE II.

543

leaving the duchess of Kendal on the Dutch frontier. In the forenoon of the 10th he was struck by apoplexy, whilst in his coach. He refused to stop, desiring to reach Osnabruck, where his one surviving brother, the prince bishop, had his palace. When the bishop was roused by the gallop of horses in his court-yard at midnight, George was dead. He was buried at Hanover.

CHAPTER XLII.

In spite of the general expectation of a change of administration under the new king, sir Robert Walpole and his party continued in power. Walpole had proposed in Parliament that the entire revenue of the Civil List should be settled on the king, being an increase of about 130,000l.; and that queen Caroline should receive a jointure of 100,000l. Not a voice was raised against the proposal, but that of Shippen. Caroline of Anspach was the firm friend of Walpole. In this shrewd princess George II. had such an adviser and friend as few sovereigns have ever been blessed with. She possessed the rare wisdom of governing her husband without appearing to govern. Queen Caroline and Robert Walpole perfectly understood the system under which the succession of the house of Brunswick became less and less assailable. Expediency was their great principle. The consequence of this policy was that there are fewer stirring events in the first fourteen years of the reign of George II. than in any period of like duration in our history.

England had ceased to be perplexed with apprehensions of insurrection and invasion for restoring the Stuart family. James Edward's character was such as to alienate his warmest friends. The British and French governments were in entire accord. Spain, although still grumbling about Gibraltar, had consented to a peace. All unsettled questions with the emperor and others were referred to a Congress at Soissons. But after eighteen months of never-ending discussions the ministry of George became tired of a state of things which was neither peace nor war; and they, in conjunction with France and Holland, concluded the Peace of Seville with Spain, leaving the emperor to fight his own battle. Some sixteen months later, by the Treaty of Vienna with Great Britain and Holland, there was obtained a guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, by which the Emperor, who had no sons, had provided that the succession to the hereditary states of Austria should rest in the female line. Spain, shortly after, acceded to the Treaty.

The year 1728 is chiefly noticeable for the arrival in England of Frederick, afterwards created prince of Wales. The young heir to the crown,now about twenty-one years of age,-was in a somewhat unhappy position. He was stinted of pecuniary means by his parsimonious father; was the object of a deep-rooted antipathy on the part of both his parents; and

had been brought up from his childhood to believe that he was to marry Wilhelmina, princess of Prussia, as Frederick, Crown-Prince of Prussia, was to marry the English Princess Royal. This double marriage-project was always liable to wreck upon some political rock-a-head, and in four years Frederick had another wife provided for him, Wilhelmina having, in 1731, been compelled to marry the prince of Baireuth.

In 1730, lord Townshend and sir Robert Walpole quarrelled; and the quarrel ending in Townshend's resignation of office, Walpole became supreme in the administration. In the latter end of the summer, a design was "projected among all the Dissenters of England to petition the Parliament in the next Session for the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts." Walpole could not deny the claims of the Nonconformists; but he knew the storm that would be raised if he gave them encourage ment. He adroitly persuaded the body of London Dissenters to choose a Committee. "As the honest gentlemen who composed that committee were all moneyed men of the city, and scriveners, who were absolutely dependent upon sir Robert, and chosen by his contrivance, they spoke only as he prompted, and acted only as he guided. In this manner this storm that threatened the Administration from the Presbyterian party blew over." In 1727 and 1728 Acts of Indemnity had been passed in favour of those who had not duly qualified for office. In 1729 such an Act was intermitted. In 1730 it was renewed. In 1731 it was again intermitted. During the remainder of Walpole's administration the relief was regularly granted.

The Parliamentary Records of 1729 and 1730 present us with three Reports of the Select Committee of the House of Commons "on the State of the Gaols of this Kingdom." The inquiry was confined to the three London prisons for debtors-the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and the King's Bench. It exposed as horrible a system of oppression, fraud, and cruelty as probably ever existed in any civilised country.

In the Session of Parliament which commenced in January, 1731, a Bill enacting "That all proceedings in Courts of Justice shall be in the English language," was passed in both Houses, after some opposition, especially from the Lords. The judges, speaking through the Lord Chief Justice, were decidedly against any change from the ancient and absurd practice of using a corrupt Latin for written pleadings. The parliamentary debates of 1732 were characterised by the usual vigour of a British House of Commons, at a period of a strong government encountered by a powerful opposition. In this session Pulteney made the most bitter denunciations against Standing Armies, deeming it "impossible that the liberties of the people can be preserved in any country where a numerous standing army is kept up." England has, nevertheless, preserved its liberties with a Standing Army. But England never lost the safeguard of a free expression of public opinion. Vain were the attempts to prevent the publication of proceedings in Parliament,-attempts in which Pulteney himself, with other "patriots," was eager to join.

In 1732 Walpole, whose great object was to propitiate the Country party, revived the Salt-duty, to relieve the proprietors of estates from the necessity of paying a Land-tax of two shillings in the pound instead of