Where will this end, my Lord? Is not her Majesty in danger by such a method? Is not the monarchy in danger? Is not the nation's peace and tranquillity in danger? Will a change of parties make the nation more happy? No, my Lord.

Whig, in Scotland, is a true blue Presbyterian, | that man put in, and then they will make her the who, without considering time or power, will most glorious queen in Europe. venture his all for the Kirk, but something less for the State. The greatest difficulty is how to describe a Scots Tory. Of old, when I knew them first, Tory was an honest-hearted, comradish fellow, who, provided he was maintained and protected in his benefices, titles, and dignities by the State, was the less anxious who had the government of the Church. But now, what he is since jure divino came in fashion, and that Christianity, and by consequence salvation, comes to depend upon episcopal ordination, I profess I know not what to make of him; only this I must say for him, that he endeavors to do by opposition that which his brother in England endeavors by a more prudent and less scrupulous method."

Now, my Lord, from these divisions there has got up a kind of aristocracy, something like the famous triumvirate at Rome. They are a kind of undertakers and pragmatic statesmen, who, finding their power and strength great, and answerable to their designs, will make bargains with our gracious sovereign; they will serve her faithfully, but upon their own terms; they must have their own instruments, their own measures. This man must be turned out, and

"

6 A few words of explanation will make this description clearer. The English Whigs effected the Revolution of 1688 by combining various interests against James II., and in favor of King William. Hence the party was composed of discordant materials; and Belhaven therefore describes it as a mixed drugget of different threads," although, as a Scotch Presbyterian, he would naturally consider it as adapted to make "a comely appearance and an agreeable suit," from its Low-Church character, and its support of the Protestant succession. The English Tories were "the true staple of the nation," being chiefly the old and wealthy families of the Establishment, holding to High-Church principles and the divine right of kings. They gained the ascendency on the accession of Queen Anne to the throne, and were thus "like the moon in its full." They showed their sense of this ascendency, and their determination to maintain it, by the Bill of Occasional Conformity, which excluded from office all persons who had attended a dissenting place of worship. Afterward they changed their policy, and sought favor with the Hanover family, by a proposal for "calling over the Princess Sophia," who was the next successor to the crown. This gave great of fense to Queen Anne, so that now they were under a cloud, and as it were eclipsed. This courting of the Hanover family (which had hitherto been supported by the Whigs alone) showed the English Tory to be "a statesman," or statemonger, bent on having power from supporting the state. A Scotch Tory, on the contrary, was a Jacobite, an "anticourtier and anti-statesman," opposed to the very existence of the new government; while a Scotch Whig was a truo blue Presbyterian, resolving his entire politics into the advancement of his Kirk and his country. The object of this satire on parties was to create a national spirit among the Scotch, which should put an end to their factions, and unite them all in maintaining their country's independ

ence.

The seed is sown that is like to afford us a perpetual increase. It is not an annual herb, it takes deep root; it seeds and breeds; and if not timely prevented by her Majesty's royal endeavors, will split the whole island in two.

We

III. My Lord, I think, considering our present circumstances at this time, the Almighty God has reserved this great work for us. may bruise this hydra of division, and crush this cockatrice's egg. Our neighbors in England are not yet fitted for any such thing; they are not under the afflicting hand of Providence, as we are. Their circumstances are great and glorious; their treaties are prudently managed, both at home and abroad; their generals brave and valorous, their armies successful and victorious; their trophies and laurels memorable and surprising; their enemies subdued and routed, their strongholds besieged and taken. Sieges relieved, marshals killed and taken prisoners, provinces and kingdoms are the results of their victories. Their royal navy is the terror of Europe; their trade and commerce extended through the universe, encircling the whole habitable world, and rendering their own capital city the emporium for the whole inhabitants of the earth. And which is yet more than all these things, the subjects freely bestowing their treasure upon their sovereign; and above all, these vast riches, the sinews of war, and without which all the glorious success had proved abortive, these treasures are managed with such faithfulness and nicety, that they answer seasonably all their demands, though at never so great how hard and difficult a thing will it prove to a distance. Upon these considerations, my Lord, persuade our neighbors to a self-denying bill.

'Tis quite otherwise with us, my Lord, as we are an obscure poor people, though formerly of better account, removed to a distant corner of the world, without name, and without alliances; our posts mean and precarious; so that I profess I don't think any one post in the kingdom worth the briguing [seeking] after, save that of being commissioner to a long session of a factious Scots Parliament, with an antedated commission, and that yet renders the rest of the ministers more miserable. What hinders us then,

7 The battle of Blenheim and other victories of Marlborough had recently taken place, and had raised England to the height of her military renown, while her naval superiority had been recently established by equally decisive victories at sea.

8 By an act passed near the close of King William's reign, the duration of the existing Scottish Parliament was to be prolonged for the period of six months after his death. But it did not actually meet, on the accession of Queen Anne, until the end

my Lord, to lay aside our divisions, to unite cor- | design; and I am content to beg the favor upon dially and heartily together in our present cir- my bended knees.10 cumstances, when our all is at stake. Hannibal, my Lord, is at our gates-Hannibal is come within our gates-Hannibal is come the length of this table-he is at the foot of the throne. He will demolish the throne, if we take not notice. He will seize upon these regalia. He will take them as our spolia opima, and whip us out of this house, never to return again.

took place in behalf of the Stuart family, one in 1715, and the other in 1745. It became at length apparent that the worst evils of Scotland arose from her system of clanship; which divid

The fate of Belhaven was a melancholy one. He submitted quietly to what he considered the ruin and dishonor of his country. Two years after, a French fleet, with the Pretender on board, appeared off the coast of Scotland, anded most of the country, especially the Highlands, menaced an invasion of the country. The government was thrown into the utmost disorder; and though the fleet withdrew without venturing on the proposed descent, numerous arrests were made of suspected persons. Among these were Belhaven and others who had opposed the Union. Without a particle of proof against him, he was dragged to London. At the end of some weeks, however, he was released; but expired almost immediately after, of grief and indignation at this unworthy treatment."1

The evils anticipated by Lord Belhaven, and depicted in such glowing colors, never actually occurred. Nor were the benefits of the Union so immediate or great as were anticipated by its friends. The nation remained for a long time in an angry and mutinous state. Two rebellions Laing, iv., 375.

into numerous small sovereignties, with the right of "pit and gallows," or imprisonment and death, under the name of "heritable jurisdictions." The course of justice was thus effectually impeded; and a large part of Scotland was kept in a state of perpetual disorder by the jealousies and contentions of rival clans. Immediately after the rebellion of 1745, the right of "heritable jurisdiction" was abolished by an act of Parliament, and the whole kingdom brought under the control of the same courts. "From the time that this act came into full operation," says Lord Campbell, "and not from the Union, commences the prosperity of Scotland; which having been the idlest, poorest, and most turbulent country in Europe, has become one of the most industrious, the most improving, and most orderly."

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.

THE administration of Walpole was the longest which has occurred since the days of Queen Elizabeth. He was probably the most dexterous party leader which England ever had; "equally skilled to win popular favor, to govern the House of Commons, and to influence and be influenced by public opinion."

Descended from an ancient and respectable family, he was born at Houghton, in Norfolkshire, on the 26th day of August, 1676. Part of his boyhood was spent at Eton, and he was for two years a member of the University of Cambridge; but in neither of these places did he give any indications of superior talents. In early life he was remarkable for nothing but his high spirits and dislike of study. The only benefit he seems to have obtained from his early education, was a facility which he acquired at Eton of conversing in Latin. This became to him afterward an important instrument of power. George I. could speak no English, and Walpole no German: so they compromised the matter when he was made Prime Minister; and all the communications between him and his master, involving the highest interests of the kingdom, were carried on in "very bad Latin."

The first impulse given to the mind of Walpole arose from his being elected a member of Parliament at the age of twenty-four. A vein was now struck which laid open the master principle of his character. It was a spirit of intense ambition. From this moment he laid aside all his sluggishness and love of ease; he threw himself at once into the arena of political strife; and the whole cast of his mind and feelings, as well as the character of the times, went to secure his early ascendency. He had naturally great force and penetration of intellect; a clear judgment; a dauntless spirit; a thorough knowledge of human nature, especially on its weak side; infinite dexterity in carrying on or counteracting political intrigues; a self-possession which never forsook him in the most trying circumstances; and a perfectly unscrupulous freedom in the adoption of every means that seemed necessary to the accomplishment of his designs. The only acquired knowledge which he brought with him into public life, was a thorough acquaintance with finance. It was precisely the knowledge that was needed at that juncture; and it laid the foundation, at no distant period, of the long and almost despotic sway which he exercised over English affairs. On taking his seat in Parliament, in 1710, he joined himself to the Whig party, and was almost immediately brought into office as Secretary at War. Thrown out soon after by a change of ministry, which arose from the silly prosecution of Sacheverell, he was restored to office in 1714, when the Whigs came into power under George I. From this time, for nearly thirty years, he was an active member of the government, during twenty of which he was Prime Minister. To this office he was called, by general consent, in 1721, on the explosion of the South Sea project, which filled the whole island with consternation and ruin. He had opposed the scheme and predicted its failure from the outset, though he had the sagacity to profit largely by speculating in the stock; and now that his predictions were fulfilled, every eye was turned to Walpole, as the only one fitted, by his financial skill, to repair the shattered credit of the country. He was made First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the second of April, 1721.

Walpole had now reached the summit of his ambition; and if he had only been

just and liberal to his political associates, he might, pernaps, even in that faithless and intriguing age, have gone on to enjoy an undisputed supremacy. But his ambition was domineering and exclusive. He was jealous of every man in his own party, whose growing influence or force of character seemed likely to raise him above the station of a humble dependant. In about two years he quarreled with Carteret, one of the most gifted men of the age, who came in with him as Secretary of State, simply because he would allow of no colleague, but was resolved to rule at the council board as sole master. Within two years more, he endeavored to put Pulteney out of the way by a specious offer of the peerage; and thus made the most eloquent speaker in the House, before the time of Chatham, his enemy for life. Chesterfield was turned out from his station as Lord Steward of the Household, with circumstances of personal insult, because he voted against the Excise Bill, which Walpole himself soon after abandoned. Others of the nobility, with a number of military officers, among whom was Lord Chatham, were treated with the same indignity. Thus he alienated from him, by degrees, nearly all the talent of the Whig party.

The Opposition which he had to encounter was, therefore, composed of singularly discordant materials. To his natural opponents, the Jacobites and Tories, was added a large body of disaffected Whigs, who took the name of "Patriots." Bolingbroke, after the pardon of his treasons by George I., and his return to England in 1724, though not restored to his seat in the House of Lords, and therefore unable to share in public debate, was the acknowledged leader of the Tories and Jacobites; and, by a coalition which he soon after made with Pulteney, became for nearly ten years the real head of the Opposition. He was qualified for this station by extraordinary abilities and matured experience. He was a veteran in the arts of popular delusion. Such was the ascendency of his genius over the strongest minds, that he could unite Wyndham and Pulteney in the same measures; and from his station behind the scenes, could move the machinery of Opposition with the greater coolness because he had no share in public measures. Men were thus brought into one body, under the strictest party discipline, who could never have acted together for a moment on any other subject. They comprised a large part of the talent of the kingdom; and were engaged for years in the struggle to put Walpole down, animated, in most instances, not only by an intense desire for office, but by personal resentment and a spirit of revenge.

It was certainly a proof of consummate ability in Walpole, that he was able to stand for a single year against such an Opposition. That he sustained himself, to a considerable extent, by the systematic bribery of the leading members of Parliament, there can be no doubt. Nor is he to be tried by the standard of the present day on that subject. Charles II. commeneed the system; it was continued under his successor; and when William III. was placed on the throne by the Revolution of 1688, he found it impossible to carry on the government without resorting to the same means. "It was not, therefore," as remarked by Cooke in his History of Party, "the minister who corrupted the age; his crime was that he pandered to the prevailing depravity." But bribery alone could never have given Walpole so complete an ascendency. A ministerial majority, even when part of its members are bribed, demand of their leader at least plausible reasons for the vote they give. Against such an Opposition as he had to encounter, nothing but extraordinary talents, and a thorough knowledge of affairs, could have maintained him for a single month at the head of the government. And it is a remarkable fact, as to the leading measures for which he was so vehemently assailed, his Excise Bill, Wood's Patent, a Standing Army, Septennial Parliaments, the Hanover Treaty, and the Spanish Convention, that the verdict of posterity has been decidedly in his favor. Even