Note 336 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.

This is well put by Bishop Willis in his speech on the bill against Atterbury. Parl. Hist. viii. 305. In a pamphlet, entitled "English Advice to the Freeholders" (Somers Tracts, xiii. 521), ascribed to Atterbury himself, a most virulent attack is made on the government, merely because what he calls the church party had been thrown out of office. "Among all who call themselves whigs," he says, "and are of any consideration as such, name me the man I cannot prove to be an inveterate enemy to the church of England; and I will be a convert that instant to their cause." It must be owned perhaps that the whig ministry might better have avoided some reflections on the late times in the addresses of both houses; and still more, some not very constitutional recommendations to the electors, in the proclamation calling the new parliament in 1714 Parl. Hist. vi. 44, 50. "Never was prince more universally well received by subjects than his present majesty on his arrival; and never was less done by a prince to create a change in people's affections. But so it is, a very observable change hath happened. Evil infusions were spread on the one hand; and, it may be, there was too great a stoicism or contempt of popularity on the other." "Argument to prove the Affections of the People of England to be the best Security for the Government," p. 11 (1716). This is the pamphlet written to recommend lenity towards the rebels, which Addison has answered in the Freeholder. It is invidious, and perhaps secretly jacobite. Bolingbroke observes, in the letter already quoted, that the Pretender's journey from Bar, in 1714, was a mere farce, no party being ready to receive him; but "the menaces of the whigs, backed by some very rash declarations [those of the king], and little circumstances of humour, which frequently offend more than real injuries, and by the entire change of all persons in employment, blew up the coals."—P. 34. Then, he owns, the tories looked to Bar. "The violence of the whigs forced them into the arms of the Pretender." It is to be remarked on all this, that, by Bolingbroke's own account, the tories, if they had no "formed design" or "settled resolution" that way, were not very determined in their repugnance before the queen's death; and that the chief violence of which they complained was, that George chose to employ his friends rather than his enemies.