XVI. 1731. pendents; always distrusting his friends, and CHAP. always ready to betray them, he lived in a continual turmoil of harassing affairs, vexatious opposition, and burning jealousies. In business, Lord Hervey thus contrasts him to Sir Robert Walpole:"We have one minister that does every thing "with the same seeming ease and tranquillity as if "he was doing nothing; we have another that "does nothing in the same hurry and agitation as "if he did every thing!"* Yet in some points Newcastle might bear a more favourable parallel with Walpole. He built no palace at Houghton. He formed no splendid collection of paintings. He won no fortune in the South Sea speculations. In noticing his decease, Lord Chesterfield gives him this high testimony: My old kinsman and contemporary is at last "dead, and, for the first time, quiet. . . . After all "the great offices which he had held for fifty years, he died 300,000l. poorer than he was "when he came into them. A A very unministerial 66 66 proceeding!" + Nor was disinterestedness the only merit of Newcastle. In private life, though a bundle of weaknesses, his character was excellent. He had very great parliamentary interest, both of his own and through his friends; and his brother, Henry Pelham, now Secretary at War, was rising into Lord Hervey to Horace Walpole, Oct. 31. 1735. Coxe's Walpole. + To Colonel Irvine, November 21. 1768. XVI. CHAP. high reputation as a speaker and a statesman. Newcastle himself was useful and ready in debate; always prepared for an answer, and with the same quality which the French have ascribed to his countrymen in battle-he never knew when he was beat! The same confident fluency is displayed in his despatches. But what chiefly maintained him in power was his court-craft, his indefatigable perseverance, his devoting every fa culty of his mind to discover and attach himself to the winning side; and we might admire his skill and success in these respects, had he ever shown the least hesitation in emergencies to renounce or betray his friends. "His name," said Sir Robert Walpole, "is Perfidy." The Opposition at this time was very weak in the House of Commons, and seemed still weaker from the slack attendance of its members. There appeared so little prospect of success that the Tories, losing spirit, could seldom be induced to remain in town, or appear in full force on any question. In fact, even at the present day, it may be observed, that many gentlemen of fortune seem to have two great objects in life-the first, to become Members of Parliament at any cost or exertion; the second, to stay away from the House of Commons as often and as long as possible! In 1730 Newcastle writes, "We look upon the enemy to be quite demolished in the "House of Commons." They were, in truth, * To Lord Harrington, March 16. 1730. › ‹ XVI. 1731. at a low ebb. They could not deny that the Mi- CHAP. nisters had been very successful in their foreign negotiations; and were reduced to argue that this advantage had accrued by chance, or might have been attained a shorter way. According to Pulteney, "It is something like a pilot, who, though "he has a clear, a safe, and a straight passage for going into port, yet takes it in his head to 66 carry the ship a great way about, through sands, "rocks, and shallows, and thereby loses a great many of the seamen, destroys a great deal of the "tackle and rigging, and puts the owners to a "vast expense; however, at last, by chance, he "hits the port, and then triumphs in his good "conduct." According to Wyndham, "We have "been like a man in a room, who wants to get "out, and though the door be open, and a clear 66 way to it, yet he stalks round the room, breaks "his shins over a stool, tumbles over a chair, and "at last, rumbling over every thing in his way, by "chance finds the door and gets out, after abun"dance of needless trouble and danger."* In proportion, however, as the Opposition flagged in argument, they (as usual in such cases) increased in virulence. The Craftsman still continued his weekly attacks with unabated spirit and with growing effect. Other pamphlets also appeared from the same quarter, under the name of Caleb Danvers, and one of these lashed the character of Lord Hervey with such asperity, that Hervey called * Speeches on the Address, January 13. 1732. XVI. CHAP. on Pulteney to declare whether he was the author of the libel. After some altercation, Pulteney re1731. plied, that whether he were or not, he was ready to justify and stand by its truth: a duel ensued, and both combatants were slightly wounded.* Hervey was a young man of considerable wit and ability, but most infirm health, insomuch that he found it necessary to live only on asses' milk and biscuits. Once a week he indulged himself with an apple; emetics he used daily. He attracted ridicule by the contrast between his pompous solemn manner and his puny effeminate appearance; and still more unhappily for himself, he attacked Pope, who, in return, has sent down his name to posterity as a monster of profligacy, and a "mere "white curd of asses' milk! ' Another pamphlet which Pulteney published in the same year, and in which he did not conceal his name, brought down upon him the full tide of ministerial resentment. He had disclosed some former private conversation between him and Walpole, in which Sir Robert had not spared the character of George the Second as Prince of Wales. However blamable this breach of confidence, Walpole ought not to have mixed the King in the quarrel; but he now prevailed upon His Mr. Thomas Pelham to Lord Waldegrave, January 28. 1731. Pulteney suspected Lord Hervey of having written a scurrilous pamphlet against him and Bolingbroke, called Sedition and Defamation displayed. The real author was Sir William Yonge. + See a note to Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 362. XVI. 1731. Majesty to strike Pulteney's name out of the list of CHAP. Privy Councillors, and to order that the several Lords Lieutenant who had granted him commissions of the peace should revoke them.* It should be observed also, that Pulteney's breach of confidence was not without justification. For the libel which he was answering contained a like disclosure of other conversations between him and Walpole; and as the former declares in his preliminary address, "these passages of secret history, however falsely stated and misrepresented, could come "from nobody but yourself." The year 1733 was marked by two great financial measures of Walpole, the first certainly wrong, but carried by large majorities; the latter as certainly just and wise, but repelled by the overpowering force of public indignation. The first was his proposal to take half a million from the Sinking Fund for the service of the current year. The Sinking Fund, established by Stanhope and Walpole himself in 1717, had been kept sacred during the whole reign of George the First. Since 1727, however, various encroachments had been made upon this surplus, and now, in 1733, it received an open attack. It was truly urged by the Opposition, and especially by Sir John Barnard, member for London, a man of the greatest weight on all financial questions, that this precious fund ought never to be applied to any other purpose than that of discharging debts, except in the case of some ex * Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 104. 1733. |