Note 124 — Part IV. FROM THE BEGINNING OF MR. CANNING’S POPULARITY AS FOREIGN MINISTER TO HIS DEATH.

Lord Townsend being dismissed in 1717 from the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, at the instigation of Lord Sunderland, the whole of Lord Townsend’s party in the Cabinet at that time, including Walpole, resigned. They were attacked in much the same way as the Duke of Wellington was attacked in 1827, and thought it necessary to defend themselves in the same manner, though there is no doubt that they did resign expressly for the purpose of ousting a government which they thought could not go on without them. In the end they succeeded.—See Coxe’s “Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,” page 107.