no means inclined to grant any moderate terms, aspiring either to keep Bavaria, or extort the abdication of the Imperial Crown.* Moreover the Ministers in England, much incensed at Carteret's neglect, and want of consultation with them, resolutely declined to sanction or adopt the preliminaries agreed to between the King and the Emperor, more especially as these provided for a subsidy of 300,000 crowns to the latter. All the petty German objects of the day, as Chesterfield observes on another occasion, were to be paid in a few ducats, and a great many guineas! † Under such obstacles, the negotiation with Prince William was reluctantly abandoned by King George and Lord Carteret.

On the retreat of the French, the King's quarters at Hanau had become the scene, not merely of this negotiation, but of several Councils of War which Prince Charles and Count Khevenhüller left the Austrian army to attend. An immediate invasion of France was planned and announced, and the public expectations, already excited by the victory of Dettingen, were wound up to the highest pitch. King George accordingly marched across the Rhine at the bridge of Mayence, and fixed his station at Worms, while Prince Charles, from Alt Breisach, seized a post on the left bank of the river. But these were almost their only achievements; each considering the season too far advanced, or the French too strong, for further operations. Moreover the King's camp was distracted with jarring counsels and rival pretensions: Lord Stair, above all, complained with bitterness that his advice had been slighted; and he delivered to His Majesty an angry memorial, reflecting on past transactions, hinting at Hanoverian partialities, and asking permission to retire, as he expressed it, to his plough. His resignation was immediately accepted, not without some marks of the Royal

...

"The Queen of Hungary has proposed in form that she should "keep Bavaria and the Upper Palatinate, and that the Elector of "Bavaria should in exchange have the kingdom of Naples. "Lord Carteret treats it as impracticable, and has sent strong orders upon it to Sir Thomas Robinson." Mr. Stone to the Earl of Harrington, July 31. 1743.

† To Mr. Dayrolles, September 15. 1752. Chesterfield's Works.

1743.

AFFAIRS OF ITALY,

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displeasure at the language in which it was tendered.* Many other English officers, including the Duke of Marlborough, the second in command, immediately threw up their commissions in disgust, and with loud complaints of their Hanoverian rivals. Amidst such dissensions, at the close of the campaign the King returned to England, and his troops to their former station in Flanders.

In Italy, as on the Rhine, the result of this campaign was far from fulfilling the expectations raised at its commencement. Montemar having been recalled on account of his former failure, the Queen of Spain had appointed as his successor Count de Gages, an officer of English extraction and long service. While stationed at Bologna in the winter, he received peremptory orders from his imperious mistress to give battle to the Austrians within three days, or else resign his command to another officer. Accordingly, marching forward, he engaged Count Traun on the 3d of February, at Campo Santo, and claimed a victory with the capture of some standards and artillery. Nevertheless he was soon afterwards compelled to fall back upon Rimini, and in the autumn towards the frontier of Naples, with an army reduced to 12,000 men. Tuscany, though subject to the Queen of Hungary's husband, remained unmolested under a treaty of neutrality which he had concluded. Savoy and the coast of Nice were exposed to several inroads and attacks from the Infant Don Philip, and some troops assembled in Dauphiny; but he was more than once repulsed, and found himself unable to force a passage. †

But before the close of the campaign, either in Germany or Italy, a treaty affecting both those countries was signed by King George at Worms, on the 13th of September. The contracting parties were England, Austria, and Sar

* Mr. Stone to Lord Harrington, September 11. 1743. (Coxe's Pelham.) There was circulated among the officers at this time, a French dialogue on the battle of Dettingen, written perhaps by Stair himself, and certainly much in his style. Pierrot asks Harlequin, "Que donne-t-on aux Genéraux qui ne se sont pas trouvés à la bataille?" "Harl. " On leur donne le cordon rouge." Pierr. "Et que donne-t-on au Général en chef qui a gagné la victoire?" Harl. "Son congé." "Pierr. "Qui a soin des blessés ?" Harl. "L'ennemi.”

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† Muratori, Annal. d'Ital. vol. xii. p. 295–302.

dinia. By this alliance the King of Sardinia undertook to assist the common cause with an army of 45,000 men, and to renounce the pretensions which he had advanced to the Milanese; in return he was to be gratified with the supreme command of the Allied forces in Italy, whenever present in person, -with the cession of the Vigevenasco and other districts from Austria- and with a yearly subsidy of 200,000l. from England. Maria Theresa likewise consented to transfer to him her claim to the town and Marquisate of Finale, which had been mortgaged to the Genoese; and George the Second, besides his subsidy, stipulated to maintain a strong fleet in the Mediterranean. This treaty of Worms had been negotiated by Lord Carteret in submission to the Electoral wishes of the King, and with scarce any reference to the other Ministers in England; nevertheless, it being already concluded, they gave it a sullen acquiescence. But they absolutely refused to admit a separate and secret Convention agreed to at the same time and place, but not yet signed, and stipulating that Great Britain should pay the Queen of Hungary a subsidy of 300,000l. every year, not merely during the war, but so long as the necessity "of her affairs shall require;" and this Convention, accordingly, was never ratified nor publicly avowed.*

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It cannot fail to be perceived in all these negotiations that Carteret made every sacrifice of British interests, and of his own popularity, in order to secure the personal favour of the King. He was sanguine of prevailing in the struggle between the rival parties in the Cabinet, which impended from the declining health of Lord Wilmington, and which came to an issue from the death of that statesman on the second of July. The two candidates for his succession were Pulteney and Pelham: the former supported by Carteret, the latter by the secret but still powerful influence of Walpole.†

* Duke of Newcastle to Mr. Stone, October 14. 1743. (Coxe's Pelham.) He adds, "It is a most strange, unfair, unpardonable "proceeding in Lord Carteret; but what we must always expect "from him."

†The channel of communication between Lord Orford and the Court, was the house of Mr. Fowle, a Commissioner of Excise, in Golden Square. Late in the evenings Walpole used to meet there in

1743.

DEATH OF LORD WILMINGTON.

155

The fallen Minister, judging of events with his usual sagacity and foresight, and looking round among the members of his former party, saw none but Henry Pelham qualified to undertake the direction of the Treasury, and the management of the House of Commons. Pelham himself, with characteristic timidity, shrunk from the dangerous pre-eminence, but was urged forward by the exhortations of Lord Orford, of his brother Newcastle, and of the Chancellor Hardwicke. At length, he had been prevailed upon to solicit the reversion of Wilmington's office, before the King went abroad: his application was secret; and the answer, by Orford's influence and advice, was a positive promise from His Majesty.

On the other hand the friends of Lord Bath perceived the fatal error he had committed, in not taking the Treasury on Walpole's resignation, and warned him not to be the bubble of his own reputation for consistency. Pulteney admitted the truth of their representations; he felt that it was a chimerical hope to direct public measures without holding any public appointment, and that declarations against office thrown out in the heat of debate, or in the bitterness of party struggles, might, to promote his principles, be infringed without blame. Still however he wavered, and would make no application previous to Lord Wilmington's demise. But on that event he was persuaded to write a letter to Lord Carteret, to be laid before the King, stating the unanimous wishes of the Board of Treasury in his favour expressing his own acquiescence and soliciting the place. This letter he sent express to the Continent by a confidential servant of Sir John Rushout, his warm friend and one of the new Lords of the Treasury.

This letter, and a renewed application from Mr. Pelham, reached His Majesty while he still remained at Hanau. For five weeks no decision was taken upon either. The formal answer to Pelham-that the King would make known his pleasure through Lord Carteret was far from affording him an omen of success.

Al

secret the King's confidential page; the door being always opened and shut by Mr. Fowle himself; but his daughters sometimes peeped from the top of the stairs. See Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 733.

ready did the faint resolution of Pelham begin to sink, and was only sustained by friendly exhortations from Houghton. "If," added Lord Orford, " you had taken "the advice of a fool, (meaning himself,) and been made "Chancellor of the Exchequer, under Lord Wilmington, "the whole had dropped into your mouth. Lost oppor"tunities are not easily retrieved."* It may, therefore, be supposed with how much surprise and delight the Pelhams hailed a letter from Lord Carteret, dated the 16th of August, Old Style, in which by His Majesty's command he announced a decision in their favour. The tone of Carteret in this communication was manly and straightforward, yet not hostile; he avowed to Pelham that he had striven to the utmost against him, but added, "what could anybody in my circumstances do other"wise? If I had not stood by Lord Bath who could 66 ever value my friendship, and would not you have de66 spised me? However, as the affair is now decided in your favour by His Majesty, I wish you joy of it, and "I will endeavour to support you as much as I can." t

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Henry Pelham, when he became First Lord of the Treasury, was forty-seven years of age, and had been twenty-four in Parliament. His character was Walpole's in miniature. He had formed himself upon Sir Robert's model as nearly as his far inferior talents would allow, while his care and caution had restrained him from Walpole's more open defects. He differed, however, from his model in natural temper: far from the joyous good humour and buoyant courage of Walpole, Pelham was peevish and irritable; qualities which would have made him very unpopular amongst his party, had they not been usually kept down by an inborn timidity and dread of giving offence. From this difference of temper between

* To Mr. Pelham, July 13. 1743. (Coxe's Pelham.)

See this letter in Coxe's Pelham, vol. i. p. 85. In his Memoirs of Walpole, Mr. Coxe says, “it is more than probable that before the "return of Rushout's messenger, the King had consulted the Earl of "Orford." (p. 735.) This, however, appears to be disproved by Orford's confidential letters, as published in Coxe's subsequent work. Nor would it be easy to explain why the King should think it desirable to consult Lord Orford again, having before he left England received his opinion and advice on the very point at issue.