observance of intricate formalities accompanied by considerable expense. According to Walpole's plan, the tobacco stored in Government warehouses could be exported without any payment at all; and the export trade of the country would be encouraged by liberating it from unnecessary trammels.

24. The Defeat of the Excise Bill. 1733.-To the arguments which Walpole addressed to the intelligence of his hearers, he took care to add others addressed to their pockets. Almost all the members of the House of Commons were country gentlemen, and Walpole, therefore, reminded them that the revenue would be so increased--at the expense of those who had bought smuggled goods-that he would be able to remit the Land Tax. Walpole's proposals were indeed admirable, but Bolingbroke and Pulteney stirred up popular feeling against them by wild misrepresentations. The masses were persuaded to believe that Walpole wanted to subject them to a general excise, to search their houses at any hour without a warrant, and to raise the price of tobacco. All classes joined in the outcry. The very soldiers were no longer to be depended on. At last Walpole resolved to withdraw the Bill. "I will not," he once said in private conversation, "be the minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood.” It was, in short, wise to convert customs into excise, but it was not expedient. In this regard for expediency lay the sum of Walpole's political wisdom, and it was because he possessed it that the House of Hanover and the constitutional system connected with the House of Hanover rooted themselves in England. If, however, Walpole gave way before the nation, he resolved to be master of the Cabinet, and he summarily dismissed some of his principal colleagues who had been intriguing with the Opposition against him.

25. Disruption of the Opposition. 1734 1735.-Bolingbroke had won the trick, but he could not win the game. The Excise Bill was quickly forgotten, and Walpole's great services were again remembered. In 1734, in a new House of Commons, his supporters were nearly as numerous as before. Bolingbroke was never thoroughly trusted by the discontented Whigs, and in 1735 he retired to France, leaving English politics to shape themselves without his help.

26. The Family Compact. 1733.-Walpole's management of foreign affairs was as dexterous as his management of Parliament. He had hitherto not only kept England from embarking in war, but had contributed his aid to the restoration of peace on the

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Continent itself whenever this had been possible. In 1733 a war broke out, usually known as the War of the Polish Succession, but embracing the West of Europe as well. It was noteworthy that in this war France and Spain appeared in close alliance, and that they had signed a secret treaty, known as the Family Compact, which was directed against Austria and England. The two branches of the House of Bourbon were to act together; and the whole basis of Walpole's foreign policy was thus swept away. At the time when the death of Louis XV. was considered probable (see p. 707), it had been natural that the Duke of Orleans should see in an alliance with England a barrier against the claim likely to be put forward to the French throne by Philip V.; but all that was altered now. Not only was the Duke of Orleans dead, but Louis XV. had become a husband and a father, and the question of Philip's claim to the succession was therefore no longer important. France had recovered her military strength, and it was believed at the French court that a close alliance with Spain would enable her to dictate terms to Europe. When peace was signed in 1735 at Vienna, Austria ceded Naples and Sicily-with other smaller possessions in Italy—to Charles, the second surviving son of Philip V., whilst Lorraine was given to Stanislaus Leczinski (the father-in-law of Louis XV.), on the understanding that after his death it was to be merged in France. Walpole, who knew of the existence of the Family Compact soon after its signature, had abstained from joining in the war—perhaps thinking that the allies were too well occupied in Europe to meddle with England.

27. Dissensions in the Royal Family. 1737.-In 1737 Walpole's position was weakened by two untoward events. A quarrel broke out between George II and his eldest son Frederick, Prince of Wales; and the Prince, being turned out of the court, put himself at the head of the Opposition. Not long after this Queen Caroline, Walpole's truest friend, died.

I. The Reign of Common Sense.-Walpole had been hitherto successful because he had governed on principles of common sense. He had kept the peace and had allowed men to grow rich by leaving them to pursue their own callings without interference. Common sense was, indeed, the chief characteristic of the age. Pope, its leading poet, was conspicuous for felicity of expression and for the ease and neatness with which he dealt with topics relating to man in society. High imagination and the pursuit of ideal beauty had no place in his mind. In matters of religion it was much the same. Those who spoke and wrote on them abandoned the search for eternal verities, contenting themselves with asking where the balance of probability lay, or, at the most, what was the view most suitable to the cultivated reason. To speak of anyone's zeal or enthusiasm was regarded as opprobrious. In social life there was a coarseness which was the natural consequence of the temper of the day. Men drank heavily, and talked openly of their vices.

2. Smuggling in the West Indies.-Such a generation turned eagerly to the pursuit of wealth, and chafed at the restrictions which other nations attempted to place on its commerce. It happened that Spain-the weakest of European nations--had the most extended territory open to commercial enterprise. As in the days of Elizabeth (see p. 447), the Spanish Government tried to prevent the English from trading with its American dominions, whilst the Spanish colonists, on the other hand, were anxious to promote a trade by which they were benefited. It was notorious that English merchants did their best to evade the restriction imposed on them

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by the Treaty of Utrecht. The one ship of 600 tons which they were allowed by that treaty to send annually to Panama (see p. 697) sailed into the harbour and discharged her goods. As soon as it

George II. from the portrait by Thomas Hudson in the National Portrait Gallery.

was dark, smaller vessels (which had kept out of sight in the daytime) sailed in and filled it up again, so that the one ship was enabled to put many ship-loads on shore. Besides this, there was an immense amount of smuggling carried on by Englishmen on various parts of the coast of Spanish America. Spanish coastguards, in return, often seized English vessels which they suspected of smuggling, and sometimes brutally ill-treated their crews. The Spaniards also claimed to have the right of searching English vessels even on the high seas. Besides this, they disputed the English assumption of the right to cut log-wood in the bay of Campeachy, and alleged that the new English colony of Georgia, lately founded in North America, encroached on the boundaries of what was then the Spanish territory of Florida.

3. Walpole and Spain.-To Walpole the exceeding energy of the British traders and smugglers was annoying. It was likely to bring on war, and he held war to be the worst of evils. Right or wrong, the smugglers carried on the great movement which has filled the waste places of the world with children of the English race. Walpole entered on negotiations with the Spanish Government, hoping to obtain compensation for wrongs actually inflicted by its agents. Bolingbroke hurried back from France to re-organise the Opposition, at the head of which he now placed the foolish Prince of Wales (see p. 725), who was ready to give his support to any movement against Walpole, simply because Walpole was the favourite minister of his father.

4. William Pitt. 1738.—The so-called patriots of the Opposition and the Tories were now joined by a small group of young men called by Walpole the Boys, who were filled with disgust at the corruption around them, and fancied that all that went wrong was the fault of Walpole, and not the fault of the generation in which he lived. Walpole's scorn of the patriots was unmeasured. "All these men have their price," he once said, pointing to the benches on which they were sitting. He could easily make a patriot, he declared on another occasion, by merely refusing an unreasonable request. It was with half-amused contempt that he regarded the Boys. When they were older, he thought, they would discover the necessity of dealing with the world as it was, not as they thought it ought to be. He had found that men could only be governed by offers of money or of money's worth, and so it would ever be. Some, indeed, of the Boys lived to fulfil Walpole's cynical expectation, but there were amongst them a few, especially William Pitt, who maintained in old age the standard of purity