XI. 1721. CHAP. made the House of Commons more chary than had been usual with them in voting the Supplies. When a King's message was sent down asking for a subsidy of 72,000l. to Sweden, it was warmly opposed by many members, especially Lord Molesworth, who went into the whole state of Northern politics. He said that obtaining naval stores was the main advantage we reaped from our trade in the Baltic; that he owned hemp was a very necessary commodity, especially at this juncture (a remark which produced a general laugh), but that in his opinion we might be supplied more cheaply from our plantations in America. Nevertheless the subsidy was carried. The great object of Walpole was now the restoration of Public Credit. In addition to the measure formerly mentioned, and in fact as superseding it, he now proposed a fresh Bill, which met with the concurrence of both Houses. Of the seven millions and a half, which the South Sea Directors had agreed to pay the public, he remitted more than five, and on their incessant complaints the other two also were afterwards yielded. The forfeited estates served partly to clear their encumbrances; the credit of their bonds was maintained; and 33 per cent. of the capital was paid to the proprietors; and thus as far as possible was justice done to all parties, and the ill effects of the late calamity retrieved. Many proprietors, however, of the redeemable annuities were highly dissatisfied; on one occasion they thronged into the lobby, XI. 1721. tumultuously calling on each member as he passed, CHAP. and holding out a paper with the words" Pray "do justice to the Annuitants who lent their money on Parliamentary security!" It was found necessary to read the Riot Act, and difficult to disperse the crowd, many of them exclaiming as they went, "You first pick our pockets, and then "send us to gaol for complaining!" Nor did the motives and conduct of Walpole escape censure; he was long afterwards accused in the Craftsman of having made a collusive bargain with the Bank, and concerted his public measures with a view to his personal enrichment. Coxe frankly owns that he will not attempt to justify Sir Robert in every particular of these transactions*; but as to the main facts his defence seems quite satisfactory, and the Minister quite innocent; nor should it ever be forgotten, to the honour of Walpole, that he stepped forward at a most perilous and perplexing crisis, and that it was he who stood between the people and bankruptcy, between the King and sedition. Throughout all these transactions there is nothing more remarkable than the national despondency and common forebodings of disasters for the future. For forty years after the accession of the House of Hanover our liberties were constantly pronounced on the very brink of extinction. After the South Sea year the country no less resounded * Memoirs, vol. i. p. 158. XI. 1721. CHAP. with prophecies of "a sinking state" and "irre"trievable ruin." Yet how little in either case has the event tallied with the expectation! If our Constitution has changed, it has certainly not been from any diminution of popular control. If our Commerce has changed, it has only been by swelling to a size and extent such as our forefathers, in their wildest speculations, never dreamed. Were it not beneath the dignity of History, I might indulge a conjecture, what would have been the feelings of Walpole or of Stanhope, had he some morning, at breakfast perhaps — been thus addressed by a projector or a prophet : "With that vapour which you see rising from the "tea-urn will I do the work of hundreds of "thousands of men.-I will ride without horses.“I will sail against wind and tide.—I will carry "heavier burthens than the camel, and yet my speed "shall be swifter than the bird's! With another "such vapour will I fill vast globes, which you "shall see arise from the earth, and bear men up "into the bosom of the clouds! With these and "other such discoveries, shall you attain a new "era of wealth, prosperity, and knowledge. Culti"vation shall spread beyond the fruitful valleys, up into the chalk or clay, and drive sterility to "the very summits of the bleakest fells! The single "towns of Liverpool and Manchester shall engross "more trade and business than now the whole of England. You shall have a hundred millions of "Indians for your subjects. Your yearly revenue 66 66 XI. 1721. "shall be greater than the whole principal of your CHAP. present, which you call enormous and intolerable "debt." Had any seer thus spoken, would the Minister have withheld his indignation from the audacious impostor, or would not Bedlam have received the poor deluded wretch? deluded wretch? Yet have all these things been fulfilled to the letter, and the widest prospect of national wealth, which the South Sea Directors ever held out in the very hey-day of their hopes, has been far― very far— outstripped by the reality! But should these mighty changes afford us unmixed exultation? Have not the tares grown up thickly with the corn? The frightful abuses of the Factory System-perhaps also the necessary evils of that system under any regulation, have raised up gaunt poverty side by side with overgrown wealth-a race of men bound to their superiors by no other tie than wages and hirewith no mutual and hereditary feelings of kindness - too rarely either provident in prosperity or patient in distress. Instead of the Instead of the healthy and invigorating pursuits of agriculture, their unwholesome labours often tend only to dwarf the body and depress the mind. Behold in the pale and blear-eyed mechanic, in the feverish and stunted factory child, the descendants of the hardy and joyous English yeomen! No longer dwelling on the free hillside, but cooped up in noisome dens and wrapt in the smoke of a thousand manufactories, the sun and air that come to all, come XI. 1721. CHAP. not to them. Ready to sell their skill to the highest bidder, they are transferred without care and reflection from master to master, and from mill to mill. To their ever-growing numbers the religious provision of the Church has proved utterly inadequate, and in some cases their want of spiritual food has been supplied by the rankest poison. Through the kind exertions of agitators they have sometimes been made to read just enough to see objections against all religion and all government, and not enough to see those objections triumphantly refuted. God forbid that this description should apply to all! But does it not apply to more than a few? And is such a state of things free from grievous misery? Is it free from appalling danger? The South Sea Scheme, and the consequent exasperation throughout the country, seemed to render a Dissolution of Parliament a most perilous venture, and yet its septennial period was near at hand. Hence was suggested a remedy far worse than the danger-an idea of obtaining another special prolongation of the term; and it is said that of the King's chief advisers, this idea was opposed by Sunderland, but advised by Walpole. This is reported by Mr. St. John Brodrick*, nephew to Lord Midleton, who had just, as he tells us, carried his election at Beralston through Walpole's in *To Lord Midleton, June 10. 1721. Lord Orrery repeats a report to just the contrary effect, Oct. 28. 1721. See Appendix. |