them what name they think fit; it may be said they came hither as humble suppliants, but I know whom the law calls STURDY BEGGARS, -a most unguarded expression! For though the Minister meant it only to denote their fierce and formidable clamours, yet it was ever afterwards flung in his teeth, as though he had wished to insult the poverty of the people and debar their right of petition; and the phrase immediately became the war-whoop of the opponents to the bill.

At two o'clock in the morning, and after thirteen hours' debate, the House divided, and the numbers were found to be, for the measure 266, against it 205;-a victory, indeed, for the Minister, but a large and most alarming increase of the usual minority against him. As Sir Robert went out to his carriage, some of the "sturdy beggars," highly exasperated, seized him by the cloak, and might have done him some injury, had not Mr. Pelham interposed.*1

Two days afterwards, on reporting the resolutions carried in Committee, the debate was resumed with fresh vigour on the part of the Opposition. Sir John Barnard made a most able practical speech; and Pulteney's was distinguished at least by the former quality. "It is well known," said he, "that every one of the public offices have already so many boroughs or corporations which they look on as their properties. There are some boroughs which may be called Treasury boroughs; there are others which may be called Admiralty boroughs; in short, it may be said that nearly all the towns upon the sea-coast are already seized on, and, in a manner, taken prisoners by the officers of the Crown; in most of them they have so great an influence, that none can be chosen members of Parliament but such as they are pleased to recommend. But as the customs are confined

to our sea ports, as they cannot travel far from the coast, therefore this scheme seems to be contrived in order to extend the laws of excise, and thereby to extend the influence of the Crown over all the inland towns and corporations in England. This seems plainly to be the chief design of the scheme now under our consideration, and if it succeeds, which God forbid it should,-I do not know but some of us may live to see some vain over-grown minister of state driving along the streets with six members of Parliament behind his coach!" However, in spite of such judicious predictions, the resolutions were carried by the same majority as before. Several other debates and

An erroneous version of this anecdote in Coxe's Walpole is corrected by himself in his Memoirs of Pelham (vol. i. p. 10); yet several subsequent writers have continued to follow the former.

1

' [Lord Hervey gives an account of this affair, and of Walpole's spirited conduct in encountering the mob. Hervey and Brigadier Churchill, having made their way back, through the insults of the crowd, "returned into the House, told Sir Robert what had passed, and prepared him for what, if he would expose himself, he must expect to meet. They desired him to avoid it as he had done the first night, and go through Lord Halifax's; but he said there was no end of flying from such menaces, and that the meeting dangers of this kind was the only way to put an end to them." Memoirs, chap. ix.]

divisions ensued before the Bill came to a second reading, but the majority in these gradually dwindled from sixty to sixteen.

During this time, also, the popular ferment grew higher and higher.1 Petitions poured in from several large towns. The Common Council of London indited the most violent of all, under the guidance of Alderman Barber, a noted Jacobite, who had been Swift's and Bolingbroke's printer, and was now Lord Mayor. The instructions sent by different places to their representatives to oppose the Bill were collected and published together, so as to stir and diffuse the flame; and the Minister was pelted by innumerable other pamphlets, various in talent, but all equal in virulence. "The public," says a contemporary, "was so heated with papers and pamphlets, that matters rose next to a rebellion."* One or two extracts will show the prevailing spirit:"I remember to have read of some state wherein it was the custom that if any one should propose a new law, he must do it with a rope about his neck, that in case it were judged prejudicial, he might very fairly be hanged up for his pains without further ceremony. I heartily wish that law had been in force amongst us."-"Philip the Second having a mind to settle the inquisition in the seventeen Provinces, as he already had in Spain, gave Cardinal Granvelle orders to establish that bloody tribunal there: and the people making some resistance against it, the Cardinal was guilty of such inhuman oppression, that the people rose as one man under the command of the Prince of Orange and the Counts Egmont and Horn (to whom the Cardinal gave the name of GUEUX, or Sturdy Beggars), and they, with seas of blood, infinite expense, and consummate bravery, drove out their oppressors."‡

The storm thus thickening around the Court, Queen Caroline applied in great anxiety to Lord Scarborough, as to the King's personal friend, for his advice. His answer was, that the Bill must be relinquished. "I will answer for my regiment," he added, "against the Pretender, but not against the opposers of the Excise." Tears came into the Queen's eyes. "Then," said she, "we must drop it !"§2

Sir Robert, on his part, summoned a meeting of his friends in the House of Commons, and requested their opinion. The general sentiment amongst them was still to persevere. It was urged that all

* Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 172.

The Vintner and Tobacconist's Advocate, p. 1.

A Word to the Freeholders and Burgesses of Great Britain, p. 49. On the Belgian confederates nick-named Les Gueux, see De Thou's History, lib. xl. vol. v. p. 216, ed. 1734.

1

§ Maty's Life of Chesterfield, p. 124.

[See Wright's England under the House of Hanover, vol. i. chap. iv., for an account of the caricatures and other demonstrations of the popular feeling on the Excise ques tion.]

2

[As soon as all was over, Mr. Pelham went to the King, and Lord Hervey to the Queen, to acquaint them with what had passed. When Lord Hervey at his first coming into the room, shook his head and told her the numbers, the tears ran down her cheeks, and for some time she could not utter a word; at last she said, 'It is over; we must give way.' Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Reign, &c., chap. ix. See also chap. viii. for a curious account of Lord Stair's interview with the Queen for the purpose of remonstrance against the measure.]

taxes were obnoxious, and that there would be an end of supplies if mobs were to control the legislature in the manner of raising them. Sir Robert, having heard every one first, declared how conscious he felt of having meant well; but that, in the present inflamed temper of the people, the act could not be carried into execution without an armed force; and that he would never be the minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood !*1

The voice of moderation having thus prevailed, when, on the 11th of April, there came on the order of the day for the second reading, Walpole rose, and moved that it should be postponed for two months; and thus the whole measure was dropped. The Opposition were scarcely satisfied with this hard-won victory, and wished to reject the Bill with the brand of their aversion upon it; but the general sense of the House was so evidently against the suggestion, that it was not pressed, nor even openly proposed. Throughout England, however, the news was hailed with unmixed pleasure, and celebrated with national rejoicings. The Monument was illuminated in London; bonfires without number blazed through the country; the Minister was, in many places, burnt in effigy amidst loud acclamations of the mob; any of his friends that came in their way were roughly handled; and cockades were eagerly assumed with the inscription LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO EXCISE! But amidst the general joy their ill-humour against the Minister gradually evaporated, or rather spent itself by its own force; and their loyalty was immediately afterwards confirmed and quickened by the welcome intelligence that the Princess Anne, the King's eldest daughter, was espoused to the young Prince of Orange. Walpole congratulated himself on this new turn given to the public feeling, and determined to run no risk of stirring it once more against him. It was indeed his favourite maxim at all times, as his son assures us, QUIETA NE MOVEAS-a maxim bad under a bad

This meeting is recorded by the respectable authority of Mr. White, M. P. for Retford, a supporter of Sir Robert. (Coxe's Walpole, vol. i. p. 404.)

[Lord Hervey states that after leaving the King and Queen, "he went to supper at Sir Robert Walpole's, who had assembled about a dozen friends, to communicate the resolution taken, of giving up the Bill. After supper, when the servants were gone, Sir Robert opened his intentions with a sort of unpleased smile, and saying, 'This dance it will no farther go, and to morrow I intend to sound a retreat; the turn my friends will take will be to declare they have not altered their opinion of the proposition, but that the clamour and the spirit that has been raised makes it necessary to give way, and that what they now do is not owning what they have done to be wrong, but receding, for prudential reasons, from what they still think as right as ever.' On this text he preached for some time to this select band of his firmest friends, and then sent them to bed, to sleep if they could."-Memoirs, vol. i. ch. ix.

Mr. Croker, in a note to chap. x., remarks, that with regard to the meeting spoken of by Mr. White "Mr. White's memory certainly failed him: there was no meeting about the Excise scheme when it would have been useless, if not mischievous; and there was on this ballot (moved for by the opposition to inquire into frauds in the customs) when it became necessary to rally every individual vote of the party."]

2 ["A miserable match," says Lord Hervey, "both in point of man and fortune, his figure being deformed, and his estate not clear 12,000l. a year." See chaps. xi. and xiii. of the Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second, for curious particulars respecting this match.]

constitution, but surely good under a good one-a maxim to be shunned at Milan, to be followed in London. When, in the next session, Pulteney insinuated that the Excise scheme was to be revived, "As to the wicked scheme," said Walpole, "as the honourable gentleman was pleased to call it, which he would persuade us is not yet laid aside, I for my own part, can assure this House I am not so mad as ever again to engage in anything that looks like an excise, though, in my own private opinion, I still think it was a scheme that would have tended very much to the interests of the nation."* It is very remarkable, however, that after his time, some of the least popular clauses of the Excise scheme were enacted, and that there was no renewal of clamour, because there was a change of title. So little do things weigh with the multitude, and names so much!

The conduct of Walpole in relinquishing, and declaring that he would never renew, his scheme, though it has not escaped censure in present times,† seems, on the contrary, highly deserving of praise. It is true that he might still possess the power to carry the Bill by a small majority. It is true that the Bill would have been beneficial to the people. But to strive for the people's good in the very face of all their wishes and opinions, is a policy doubtful even in despotic governments, but subversive of a free one.-The next step of Walpole, however, is by no means to be approved. It was to seek out, and to punish, the murmurs in his own Cabinet. Surely, having yielded to the repugnance of the nation, Walpole might have forgiven the repugnance of his colleagues. Was it just that vengeance should survive when the scheme itself had fallen; or was it wise to thrust out statesmen into opposition, with the popular words NO EXCISE inscribed upon their banners?

Walpole found that a knot of powerful peers, holding offices under the Crown, had, some whispered, others openly avowed, their dislike to the Excise Bill. At their head was Chesterfield, who had greatly risen in public favour, from the skill and the success of his Dutch negotiations. "I shall come over," he writes from the Hague, "well prepared to suffer with patience, for I am now in the school of patience, here; and I find treating with about two hundred sovereigns of different tempers and professions, is as laborious as treating with one fine woman, who is at least of two hundred minds in one day!"‡ On his return, Chesterfield became Lord Steward of the Household, and in Parliament, a frequent and admired speaker; but did not display all the patience he had promised, when he found the whole power of the state monopolised by Walpole. The excise scheme appeared a favourable opportunity for Chesterfield to claim a share. His three brothers in the House of Commons voted against the Bill,

* Parl. Hist. vol. ix. p. 254. An attempt was made that year to celebrate the anniversary of the 11th of April, with fresh bonfires and rejoicings, but it seems to have only succeeded in London. See Boyer's Polit. State, vol. xlvii. p. 437.

† Edinburgh Review, No. cxvii. p. 245. [Macaulay's Essays; Article on Horace Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann.]

Lord Chesterfield to Dr. Arbuthnot, April 20, 1731 from Dr. Hunter's MS. collec

and some sarcasms upon it were ascribed to himself. Yet it was generally thought by the public that the Minister would scarcely choose to dismiss abruptly a man of so much ability and influence; and it was even doubted, whether the King's confidence in Walpole still stood unimpaired. The public was soon undeceived. The Bill had been dropped on the 11th of April; on the 13th, as Chesterfield was going up the great staircase of St. James's Palace, he was stopped by an attendant, and summoned home to surrender the White Staff.* At the same time were dismissed, as being leagued with him, Lord Clinton, a Lord of the Bedchamber, the Earl of Burlington, Captain of the Band of Pensioners, and three northern peers, who enjoyed lucrative sinecures in Scotland, the Duke of Montrose and the Earls of Marchmont and Stair. Nay, more; the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham, holding not offices in the Court, but commissions in the army, were deprived of their regiments on no other ground, and by an unjustifiable stretch of the prerogative. Thus was the King's unabated regard for his minister declared; but thus also was the Opposition most strongly reinforced, and a new and real grievance afforded for their declamations.

2

To stem in some degree the formidable attacks that might now be expected in the Upper House, Walpole determined to send there two of his most eminent commoners, the Attorney and the Solicitor General. The former became Lord Chief Justice, with the title of Hardwicke, the latter, Lord Chancellor, with the title of Talbot. Of Lord Hardwicke I shall have often to speak hereafter. Lord Talbot is less conspicuous in history, only because he was more brief

Maty's Life, p. 125.

1 [Finding himself in opposition, Chesterfield, writing to the Countess of Suffolk, August, 1733, says: ..... "The grave people are mostly malignants, or, in ministerial language, notorious Jacobites, such as Lord Stair, Marchmont, Anglesea, and myself, not to mention many of the House of Commons, of equal disaffection. Moreover, Pulteney, and Lord Carteret are expected here soon; so that, if the ministry do not make a plot of this meeting, it is plain they do not want one for this year.

"The people of this town (Scarborough) are at present in great consternation upon a report they have heard from London, which, if true, they think will ruin them. I confess I do not believe it; not but that there is something probable enough in it. They are informed that, considering the vast consumption of these waters, there is a design laid of excising them next session; and, moreover, that as bathing in the sea is become the general practice of both sexes, and as the kings of England have always been allowed to be masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be guaged, and pay so much per foot square as their cubical bulk amounts to. I own there are many objections to this scheme, which, no doubt, occur to you; but, to be sure, too, there is one less than to the last; for this tax being singly upon water, it is evident it would be an ease to the landed interest, which it is as plain the other would not have been."-Letters, Collective edit., vol. iii. p. 88.]

2 [See Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Reign-chaps. ix., x., and xi., on the subject of these dismissals of the "deserters," as he styles them. It would appear that only those of Lord Chesterfield and Lord Clinton were immediately consequent on the failure of the Excise scheme. The others, though influenced by the same cause, took place somewhat later, and on a different point, as Mr. Croker has noted. In the interview with Lord Hervey at the time of the abandonment of the project, the queen is reported as saying, "that discipline was as necessary in an administration as an army; that mutiny must no more go unpunished in this one than the other, and that refusing to march or deserting ought to be looked upon in the same light."-Chap. ix.]