[1721-1722 A.D.] John Law in France, which also exploded in that fatal year for projectors; producing there what was equivalent to a national bankruptcy. When the South Sea crash came, there was an alarm for its public consequences. But Walpole, who had again joined the government, though in a subordinate office, applied his great financial abilities to avert the difficulties which this convulsion might occasion to the state; and instead of joining the first cry for vengeance upon the South Sea directors, he calmly said in parliament that if London were on fire wise men would endeavour to extinguish the flames before they sought for the incendiaries. When the king opened the session on the 8th of December, the royal speech recommended measures "to restore the national credit." Walpole was regarded by all parties as the man to effect this.

WALPOLE TO THE RESCUE (1721-1722 A.D.)

To endeavour to equalise, to the most inconsiderable extent, the losses and gains of individuals by the extravagant rise and sudden depression of South Sea stock, would have been a task far beyond the province of any minister of state. The financial abilities of Walpole were necessarily directed to the very difficult labour of disentangling the government from the embarrassments of the South Sea Company. The English ministry had never attempted to sustain the value of the company's shares by arbitrary edicts; or to interfere with their fall by regulations that were based upon other principles than the great natural laws by which the money market, like every other market, must be governed. The French ministry, when the scheme of Law for relieving its exhausted finances by a paper currency, based on the imaginary riches of Louisiana, was in the course of breaking down, gave its orders that individuals should not retain in their possession any sum beyond a small amount of gold and silver, and should be compelled to carry on their transactions in Law's substitute for money. The shares were not to fall according to the rate at which their owners were willing to sell them, but to sink in nominal value, by a monthly reduction, till they had reached half their original price, at which rate they were to be fixed.

All this, of course, was the merest convulsion of despotism. The regent had shifted a large amount of the debts of the state to the deluded people, and no attempt was made to retrieve the national credit. Walpole had to pursue a policy which was the only possible one under a limited monarchy; and which indeed was not beset with the difficulties that the government of the regent would have had to encounter in any struggle to be honest. The French finances were hopelessly embarrassed by a long course of extravagance, before Law thought he could perform the part of the magician in the Arabian story, making a scrap of paper pass as a piece of silver. The English finances were healthy, though the national debt amounted to fifty or sixty millions. The French government adopted the schemes of Law, to furnish the means of new extravagances. The English government went into the scheme of the South Sea Company, with the view of redeeming a portion of the national debt, and thus of lessening the amount of taxation. Voltaire records that he had seen Law come to court with dukes, marshals, and bishops following humbly in his train. The English court was not free from shame in the South Sea project. Half a million of fictitious stock had been created by the directors, previous to the passing of the bill. The duchess of Kendal, as well as other favourites of the king, had large douceurs out of the profits which the directors made by the transfer of these shares; and it is lamentable to add that

[1736 A.D.]

and, when the collector fled, carried off a large sum of money. Wilson and Robertson were apprehended, were tried, and were sentenced to death. Mr. Lyndsay related that Wilson maintained, to the last moment, that he was unjustly condemned. "He admitted," to one of the reverend ministers of Edinburgh, "that he had taken money from a collector of the revenue by violence; that he did it because he knew no other way of coming at it; that the officers of the revenue had by their practice taught him this was lawful, for they had often seized and carried off his goods by violence; and so long as they had goods of greater value in their hands than all the money he took from them, they were still in his debt, and he had done no wrong." There can be no doubt that the mob of Edinburgh, and many above the mob, took the same view of Wilson's offence; and held the same opinion about revenue laws.

The attempt of Wilson and Robertson to escape from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, when Wilson, a bulky man, stuck fast in the iron bars of his cell, is as well known as any of the adventures of Jack Sheppard. His generous effort to save his comrade after the condemned sermon in the Tolbooth church, has redeemed his memory from the ignominy of the common malefactor. Surrounded by four keepers, Wilson held two with his hands and a third with his teeth, whilst Robertson knocked down the fourth and escaped. This heroism made Wilson's own fate certain. He was executed on the 14th of April; whilst the populace looked on with stern compassion. No attempt at rescue was made, for the place of execution was not only surrounded by the city guard, but by a detachment of the Welsh fusiliers. After the body was taken down, a rush was made to seize it from the hangman. The populace then attacked the city guard, who were under the command of John Porteous, their captain. Porteous was a man of strong passions, very often brought into conflict with the blackguards of the city, and now in peculiarly ill temper from his dignity being interfered with by the unusual presence of a military force, called to assist in keeping the peace. He is said to have fired himself; he certainly ordered his gendarmerie to fire upon the people. Several persons were killed or wounded. The fusiliers also fired; but in firing above the heads of the mob, they hit several who were lookers-on from the adjacent windows. Porteous was brought to trial in July, before the high court of justiciary, on a charge of murder, for having caused the death of citizens without authority from the civil magistrate. He was convicted, and sentenced to capital punishment; but his conduct being considered by the council of regency in London as an act of self defence, he was reprieved by the English secretary of state. His execution had been fixed by the authorities of Edinburgh for the 8th of September. The news of the reprieve produced a sensation that foreboded mischief.

The 8th of September fell on a Wednesday. A report had gone forth that some tumult would take place on that day, when the populace, being disappointed of a legal sacrifice to their revenge, would attempt some daring act against Porteous. This was deemed a foolish story; but the lord provost of Edinburgh took some precautions to resist any outrage on that Wednesday. Porteous himself had no fears. A Scottish clergyman, Mr. Yates, had preached in the Tolbooth church, Porteous being present, on Sunday the 5th; and he afterwards saw Porteous, and told him of the report, and advised him to be cautious about admitting persons to his room. Porteous slighted his information; and said, were he once at liberty, he was so little apprehensive of the people that he would not fear to walk at the Cross of Edinburgh with only his cane in his hand as usual. The Tolbooth of the Scottish capital,

[1719 A.D.]

flatter him with the hopes of better success." King Philip submitted to this dictation.

In December, 1719, Alberoni, by a royal decree, was dismissed from all his employments, and was commanded to leave the Spanish territory within twenty-one days. Incapable grandees rejoiced that the son of an Italian gardener no longer ruffled their solemn pride; some loftier spirits testified their respect to fallen greatness. The cardinal went back to Italy, a poor man. After vain attempts to resist or evade the demands of the allies that Spain should accede to the Quadruple Alliance, that accession was proclaimed in January, 1720; Philip declaring that he gave peace to Europe at the sacrifice of his rights. He renewed his renunciation of the French crown. Europe was again at peace. Even the czar of Muscovy had been warned by the presence of an English fleet in the Baltic, that he would not be permitted utterly to destroy Sweden. By England's protection of the female successor of Charles XII, the elector of Hanover secured Bremen and Verden. The policy of foreign affairs did not exclusively contemplate the safety of King George's island subjects, but there was no advocacy of merely German policy of which the nation had a right to complain. The reputation of Great Britain was not damaged by the mode in which the war had been carried on. Her naval strength had been successfully exerted. A peace of twelve years, with a very trivial interruption, was the result of the Quadruple Alliance.

THE PEERAGE BILL (1719 A.D.)

The two parliamentary sessions of 1719 were remarkable for ministerial attempts to carry a measure which would have produced a vital change in the composition of the house of lords. It was proposed to limit the royal power of creating peers; and the king was persuaded to send a message to the lords, that his majesty has so much at heart the settling the peerage of the whole kingdom upon such a foundation as may secure the freedom and constitution of parliament in all future ages, that he is willing his prerogative stand not in the way of so great and necessary a work.

In February, resolutions were proposed in the upper house that the English peers should not be increased beyond six of their present number; with the exception of princes of the blood; and that instead of there being sixteen elective peers for Scotland, the king should name twenty-five as hereditary peers. In the house of lords, the resolutions were carried by a large majority. The proposition produced an excessive ferment. The whig members and the whig writers took different sides. Addison supported the bill; Steele opposed it. The measure was abandoned on account of the strong feeling which it produced on its first introduction; but it was again brought forward in the session which commenced on the 23rd of November. It passed the lords, with very slight opposition. In the commons the bill was rejected by a very large majority, 269 to 167. On this occasion Walpole, generally the plainest and most business-like of speakers, opposed the bill with a rhetorical force which, according to the testimony of Speaker Onslow, "bore down everything before him." The exordium of his speech is remarkable: "Among the Romans, the wisest people upon earth, the Temple of Fame was placed behind the Temple of Virtue, to denote that there was no coming to the Temple of Fame, but through that of Virtue. But if this bill is passed into a law, one of the most powerful incentives to virtue would be taken away, since there would be no arriving at honour but through the winding-sheet of an old

[1737 A.D.]

state of enmity," were expressions which showed the danger to which this affair was tending.

Walpole hinted that when the bill was committed he should not object to amendments founded on reason and equity. When it finally went to the lords, it merely disqualified the lord provost from holding office, and imposed a fine upon the city of Edinburgh of £2,000, for the benefit of the widow of Porteous. Burton has remarked that "no one can read these debates without seeing reasons why the conduct of Scotland was so different from that of England in the insurrection which broke out eight years afterwards." Although the modified statute upon the Porteous riot could scarcely be a reasonable cause for national irritation, a supplementary measure produced a violent opposition from the Presbyterian clergy. It was enacted that they should read from their pulpits, once a month, a proclamation for discovering the murderers of Captain Porteous. This was held to be an Erastian measure, interfering with the spiritual authority of the kirk. That proclamation also contained the offensive words, "the lords spiritual in parliament assembled." This was held to be a recognition of that church government which Scotland had rejected. At this period there was a schism amongst the Scottish clergy, and this measure had not a healing tendency. Some read the proclamation; some refused to do so. Compliance with the order of the government was held to be faithlessness to the church.k

DISSENSIONS IN THE ROYAL FAMILY

The principal hopes of the opposition in 1737 rested on Frederick, Prince of Wales, whose secret encouragement had now ripened into open support. His disagreements with his father were by no means of recent date. Even whilst he remained at Hanover, and whilst his father, as prince of Wales, had gone to England, they were near enough to bicker. His own wishes were strongly fixed on an alliance with the princess royal of Prussia, the same who afterwards became Margravine of Bareith, and who, in her memoirs, has left us a strange and probably exaggerated portrait of all her own relations. The marriage was earnestly desired by the queen of Prussia, and, indeed, by the chief members of both families; but the brutal temper of the king, who used to beat his daughter, and who wished to behead his son, and the personal antipathy between him and his cousin George II, finally broke off the negotiations. Prince Frederick, in as much despair as a lover can be who has never seen his mistress, sent from Hanover one La Motte as his agent, to assure the queen of Prussia that he was determined, in spite of his father, still to conclude the marriage, and that he would set off in disguise for Berlin to execute his purpose. But the queen, in an overflowing transport of delight, could not refrain from imparting the good news to the English envoy at her court. He, as was his duty, gave timely notice to his own; the rash project was prevented; and the headstrong prince was summoned to England, where he arrived, to the great joy of the nation, in 1728.

For some years after his arrival, the prince remained tranquil; but, as he became familiar with the English language and customs, and conscious of his own importance, he entered more and more into cabals against his parents. His character was weak, yet stubborn; with generous impulses, and not without accomplishments; but vain, fond of flattery, and easily led by flatterers. Even after his marriage, and whilst devoted to his wife, he thought it incum[The terrible Frederick William, satirically styled George II, My brother the comedian."― AUBRAY."]