XXIV. CHAP. " was become absolutely necessary, as the only "means to carry on the public business." * In 1742. truth, it does not appear that any one person of weight gave him the slightest encouragement to continue at the helm, unless it were the King, reluctant to lose a faithful and experienced servant, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who went to see him at this period, and said as he took his leave, "Sir, I have been lately reading Thuanus: "he mentions a minister who, having long been persecuted by his enemies, at length vanquished "them. The reason he gives, QUIA SE NON DE"SERUIT."+ Moved, though with extreme reluctance, by the all but unanimous opinion of his friends, and yielding to mutiny and panic in his own camp rather than to the force of the hostile phalanx, Sir Robert, on the night of Sunday the 31st of January, formed the final resolution to resign. When next morning at a private audience he stated the necessity of the case to the King, he must have been gratified and yet moved at His Majesty's regret. As he knelt to kiss hands, the King fell on his neck, wept, and kissed him, and requested to see him frequently. On the following day, when the final decision on the Chippenham election was impending, Walpole thought it his duty to send a private intimation to the Prince of Wales of his intended retirement. Letter, February 2. 1742. Coxe's Walpole. As the XXIV. The circulation and effect of such a rumour wéré CHAP. very perceptible in the division that evening; the majority against the Minister being swelled from 1742. one to sixteen. Expecting this event, Walpole bore it with fortitude and cheerfulness. Tellers began their office, he beckoned to Mr. Baynton Rolt, the member whose return was questioned by a Ministerial petition, to sit near him, and entered freely into conversation, animadverting on the ingratitude of several persons whom he had greatly obliged, and who were now voting against him, and declaring that he should never sit again in that House. Next morning, the 3d of February, the Lord Chancellor conveyed the King's desire that the Houses should adjourn for a fortnight. Some days later, Sir Robert Walpole resigned all his places, and was created Earl of Orford. Thus, then, ended Sir Robert Walpole's long and renowned administration. Having traced it from its commencement to its close, I have already, as occasion offered, pointed out what seemed to me its merits, or what I thought its errors; and I need not here enter into a full recapitulation of either. If we compare him to his next successors, their unsteadiness and perplexity, the want of principle in some, and the inferiority of talent in others, will be found to throw by contrast a reflected light on his twenty years of government. If we draw a parallel between him and the preceding Prime Minister, Lord Stanhope, we shall probably pronounce 1742. CHAP. Walpole the superior in knowledge of finance, in XXIV. oratorical abilities, in management of the House of Commons. On the other hand, it may be thought that Stanhope's was the higher skill in all foreign affairs. Another marked distinction between them appears in the readiness of Stanhope to introduce measures, as he thought, of practical improvement; while Walpole, on the contrary, strove to leave, as nearly as possible, all things as he found them. When Stanhope died, at the age of only forty-seven, he had in preparation five great measures. The first, for the relief of the Roman Catholics, the details of which are not precisely recorded, but extending, as I think it reasonable to conjecture, even to their admission into parliament. The second, for the relief of the Protestant Dissenters by the abrogation of the Test Act. The third, for the security of officers in the army, and the lessening of their dependence on the Government, by taking from the Crown the power of dismissal, except under the sentence of a Court Martial.* The fourth, for the limitation of the prerogative in the future creations of Peers. The fifth, not legislative, but administrative, for extending the popularity of the reigning family, widening the basis of the Government, and gradually gaining over the party in Opposition by employing several of its more moderate members. Every one of these measures was dropped by Wal * See on this subject in the Parliamentary History the speeches of Pulteney, February 13. 1734, and of Lord Chesterfield the same day in the other House. XXIV. 1742. pole on succeeding to power. It may be maintained CHAP. in his justification, that all these measures were mischievous; one of them, at least, the Peerage bill, undoubtedly was so. But it will be found, that the same indifference or aversion of Walpole to any change, extended even to cases where the change was certainly and clearly beneficial. Thus, for example, in December 1718, Stanhope had moved for and appointed a Lords' Committee on the state of the public records; and its report, made after some months' inquiry, details the want of arrangement, classification, nay, even of proper house-room for the various national documents, and recommends that some of them, at least, may be digested into order-that such of the loose papers as appear to be of value, may be bound up for their better preservation-that catalogues and indexes of them may be prepared without delaythat better apartments may be provided for their custody. Here, then, what defence can be framed for Walpole in discarding these recommendations? Was not the evil real and undoubted, the remedy plain and easy, and have we not even in the present times seen reason for lamenting its neglect? And are we not justified in saying, from this and other such examples, that Walpole's dislike to innovation prevailed, even where the innovation was most evidently an improvement? The character of Walpole might also, as I con This Report is printed in the Lords' Journals, April 16, 1719. XXIV. CHA P. ceive, be unfavourably contrasted with Stanhope's,. in point of disinterestedness and political purity. I .1742. am very far-this must have been perceived in many former passages-from adopting the party suspicions and rancorous charges of corruption to which in his life-time Sir Robert stood exposed. I believe, on the contrary, that of such charges great part was falsehood, great part exaggeration. But still, looking only to proved and certain facts, and to the statements of his own partisans and panegyrists, we shall even on such testimony find cause to think that Walpole sometimes swerved from the straight path, and altogether lowered the tone of public morals. Thus, for instance, both he and Stanhope were in office together when the South Sea speculations reached their height. Stanhope thought it his duty to refrain altogether from any such source of profit. Walpole, on the contrary, plunged eagerly into the whirl, turned his own sagacity to good account, sold his shares of 100%. for 1000l., allowed his wife to gamble for herself, and gained a considerable fortune. The same absence-I do not mean of integrity, but of any nice scruples, prevailed, I fear, during his subsequent administration. If it be needful any further to exemplify my assertion, I will take the very words of his own affectionate and admiring son. In a letter, several years afterwards, Horace Walpole is inveighing against Keene, Bishop of Chester: "My "father," he adds, "gave him a living of 700l. a "year to marry one of his natural daughters; hẹ |