1742.

HANOVERIANS IN BRITISH PAY.

137

tributed any thing to the support of the common cause. It was also not left unnoticed that, on this occasion, Hanover had made a far more profitable bargain for herself than in 1702, when Marlborough had negotiated for the hire of 10,000 men from Luneburg, there being in that contract no stipulation either for levy or recruit money, whereas, in this present case, these amounted to 160,000%.* It was said, that a force to the same amount might be safely spared to go abroad, from the 23,000 soldiers whom we idly maintained at home. It was contended likewise, that if we must have mercenaries we ought to have taken any rather than from Hanover, because we might have engaged the Prince whose troops we hired, to join us in espousing the cause of the Queen of Hungary, and because, if the Hanoverians were once taken, our future administrations would always be ready to gratify the King, by finding pretexts for retaining them. Nay, the more eager partisans carried their exaggeration so far as to declare that the Act of Settlement, providing that Great Britain should never engage in war on account of Hanover, had been violated, and they did not even shrink from the inference to which that declaration seemed to lead.

The ambiguity of the King's Speech as to the pay of the Hanoverians, restrained discussion upon them, until that pay was actually moved for in the House of Commons. All doubts, however, were speedily dispelled. On the 10th of December, Sir William Yonge, as Secretary at War, proposed a grant of 657,000l. for defraying the cost

* Compare the Commons' Journals, November 19. 1704, and December 3. 1742. The additional items in the latter are as follows:

These charges are inaccurately stated in Tindal.—There is also a

provision for an excessive number of staff officers.

of these troops, from August 1742 till December 1743. He defended the proposal with his usual volubility, and was supported (with signal courage, considering former professions,) by the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. But several eloquent voices were raised against them. "As the King," said Sir John St. Aubyn, "has every "other virtue, so he has, undoubtedly, a most passionate "love for his native country; a passion the more easily "to be flattered, because it arises from virtue. I wish "that those who have the honour to be of his councils "would imitate his Royal example, and show a passion "for their native country too!"* The invective of Pitt was as bitter, and more direct. "It is now too apparent "that this great, this powerful, this formidable kingdom is "considered only as a province to a despicable electorate, "and that, in consequence of a scheme formed long ago "and invariably pursued, these troops are hired only to "drain this unhappy nation of its money." Yet, on a division, the Ministers could muster 260 votes against 193 a clear sign how many of the patriots had combined with Walpole's friends, and how weak, even against the most unpopular proposals, was the new Opposition.

It was on another such debate, relative to the British troops lying unemployed in Flanders, that Murray the new Solicitor General made his first speech in Parliament: it was received with high applause, and was answered by Pitt; and observers could foresee, even from this first trial, that the two statesmen would henceforth be great rivals.t

As, however, the principal members of the Cabinet and leaders of the Opposition were now in the House of Peers, it was there that the main debate on the Hanoverian troops ensued. The question was brought forward by Lord Stanhope, son and successor of the late Prime Minister. Philip, second Earl Stanhope, was born in 1714, and therefore only seven years old at his father's decease. He had great talents, but fitter for speculation than for practical objects of action. He made himself one of the best-Lalande used to say the best mathematicians

*Parl. Hist. vol. xii. p. 952.

† Ibid. p. 1035. H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, December 9. 1742.

1743.

PHILIP, SECOND EARL STANHOPE.

139

in England of his day, and was likewise deeply skilled in other branches of science and philosophy. The Greek language was as familiar to him as the English; he was said to know every line of Homer by heart. In public life, on the contrary, he was shy, ungainly, and embarrassed. So plain was he in his dress and deportment, that, on going down to the House of Lords to take his seat, after a long absence on the Continent, the doorkeeper could not believe he was a Peer, and pushed him aside, saying “Honest man, you have no business in this place."—"I am sorry, indeed,” replied the Earl, “ if "honest men have no business here!" From his first outset in Parliament he took part with vehemence against the administration of Walpole. He had been educated chiefly at Utrecht and Geneva, and the principles he had there formed or imbibed leaned far more to the democratical than to the kingly or aristocratical branches of the constitution; they are even termed "republican" by Horace Walpole †, but unjustly, for, like his father, he was a most zealous assertor of the Hanover succession.

66

The speech of Stanhope on this occasion was pre-composed and full of strong arguments, but delivered, as we are told, “with great tremblings and agitations." He said, "the country these troops come from makes it pro"bable they will frequently be taken, and affairs abroad "embroiled for the sake of lending them. What would "Poland think of taking Saxons into pay? Why should not some regard be had to the opinion of the people, "who will always judge right of the end though not of "the means, as well as to the inclinations of rulers who "may aim wrong in both?" and he concluded with a motion for an Address to the King, that he would be graciously pleased to exonerate his people of those Mercenaries, who were taken into pay last year, without consent

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"We are to have Lord Rockingham and Lord Stanhope (who "are just come of age) in the House of Lords; the first of whom I "hear will be with us, the latter against us. All the Stanhopes and "Spencers are taught to look on a Walpole as one they are to hate by inheritance." Lord Hervey to Horace Walpole the elder, December 23. 1735. Coxe's Walpole.

66

H. Walpole's Memoirs, vol. i. 100.

February 1. 1743.

66

of Parliament. He was ably seconded by Lord Sandwich, and still more ably answered by Lord Carteret. Hervey spoke with much eloquence against, and Bathurst for the Hanoverians; a strange transposition of parts, and surely not unconnected with the loss of office in one case, with the acquisition of it in the other! Lord Bath, rising for the first time in that House, declared, in nearly the same terms as Walpole had so often urged against himself, that he "considered it an act of cowardice and meanness to fall passively down the stream of popularity, "and to suffer reason and integrity to be overborne by "the noise of vulgar clamours, which have been raised "by the low arts of exaggeration, fallacious reasonings, "and partial representations." He added that the term of" Mercenaries," in Stanhope's motion, seemed designed rather to stir the passions than to influence the judgment. "This was not," said he, "the rash measure of any single man, but the united opinion of all the administration "that were present" (for Lords Gower and Cobham it appears had stayed away): "it was not only acquiesced in, but approved on a solemn deliberation. We have 66 now an Address to dismiss FLAGRANTE BELLO, troops, "which the other House have given money to pay. "What a difficulty would this put the King under! It "would be a greater blow to the Queen of Hungary than losing ten battles." - A brilliant oration from Chesterfield, and an able argument from Hardwicke, concluded the debate. On the division the Ministers had 90, the Opposition only 35 votes; but among the latter, to their high honour, were two members of the Cabinet, Cobham and Gower. Their consequent dismissal was expected by the public *, but did not ensue.

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66

Although these divisions in both Houses were decisive of the subject, so far as the Government was concerned, it was too powerful a weapon for the Opposition to relinquish; and the public mind continued to be stirred by pamphlets, among which, the "Case of the Hanover Forces," written by Lord Chesterfield, in conjunction

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*H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, February 2. 1743. He speaks only of Gower, but we may conclude that the same expectation existed with respect to Cobham.

1743.

REPEAL OF THE GIN ACT.

141

with Mr. Waller, excited the most attention, and received the highest applause. I need scarcely add how eagerly the Jacobites forwarded and swelled a cry so favourable to their hopes and designs. Yet while I condemn the measure on principle, I must acknowledge that in its effects it produced a great collateral advantage; since, it was the taking of these troops by the Government, and their confirmation by the House of Commons, that appear to have mainly determined the wavering temper of the Dutch, and brought them, at this very period, to a cooperation and concert of measures with the King. Nor should it be forgotten, that His Majesty in some measure softened the objections to the grant of British money, by reinforcing, of his own accord, the 16,000 Hanoverians with a body of 6000 more, paid from his Electoral re

venues.

Another remarkable proceeding of this Session was the repeal of the Gin Act, passed in 1731.* It was found, as Walpole had foretold, that the duties imposed by that Act, and amounting nearly to a prohibition, had only afforded encouragement and opportunity to fraud. Informers were terrified by the threats of the people; justices were either unable or unwilling to enforce the law; and it was proved that the consumption of gin, instead of diminishing, had considerably augmented since the heavy duties were imposed. Though no license was obtained, and no duty paid, the liquor continued to be sold at all corners of the streets; nay, we are even assured that the retailers of it used to set up painted boards, inviting people to be drunk at the small expense of one penny, assuring them they might be dead drunk for two-pence, and have straw for nothing! They accordingly provided cellars or garrets strewed with straw, to which they conveyed those poor wretches who were overpowered with intoxication, and who lay there until they recovered some use of their understanding; whilst the other dens for drinking were hideous receptacles of the most filthy vice, resounding with continual riot, oaths, and blasphemy t. To check these frightful disorders, and at the

*See vol. ii. p. 187.

† See Smollett's History, book ii. ch. 7. sect. 36.