Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 25)

J. Rowley, The Settlement of the Constitution, book 1, chapter 5.

{914}

"Though the choice was truly free in the hands of parliament, and no pretext of absolute right could be advanced on any side, there was no question that the princess Sophia was the fittest object of the nation's preference. She was indeed very far removed from any hereditary title. Besides the pretended prince of Wales, and his sister, whose legitimacy no one disputed, there stood in her way the duchess of Savoy, daughter of Henrietta duchess of Orleans, and several of the Palatine family. These last had abjured the reformed faith, of which their ancestors had been the strenuous assertors; but it seemed not improbable that some one might return to it. … According to the tenor and intention of the act of settlement, all prior claims of inheritance, save that of the issue of king William and the princess Anne, being set aside and annulled, the princess Sophia became the source of a new royal line. The throne of England and Ireland, by virtue of the paramount will of parliament, stands entailed upon the heirs of her body, being protestants. In them the right is as truly hereditary as it ever was in the Plantagenets or the Tudors. But they derive it not from those ancient families. The blood indeed of Cerdic and of the Conqueror flows in the veins of his present majesty [George IV.]. Our Edwards and Henries illustrate the almost unrivalled splendour and antiquity of the house of Brunswic. But they have transmitted no more right to the allegiance of England than Boniface of Este or Henry the Lion. That rests wholly on the act of settlement, and resolves itself into the sovereignty of the legislature.

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 15 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, book 10 (volume 2).

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702. The rousing of the nation to war with France.

When Louis XIV. procured and accepted for his grandson the bequest of the Spanish crown, throwing over the Partition Treaty, "William had the intolerable chagrin of discovering not only that he had been befooled, but that his English subjects had no sympathy with him or animosity against the royal swindler who had tricked him. 'The blindness of the people here,' he writes sadly to the Pensionary Heinsius, 'is incredible. For though the affair is not public, yet it was no sooner said that the King of Spain's will was in favour of the Duke of Anjou, that it was the general opinion that it was better for England that France should accept the will than fulfil the Treaty of Partition.' … William dreaded the idea of a Bourbon reigning at Madrid, but he saw no very grave objection, as the two treaties showed, to Naples and Sicily passing into French hands. With his English subjects the exact converse was the case. They strongly deprecated the assignment of the Mediterranean possessions of the Spaniard to the Dauphin; but they were undisturbed by the sight of the Duke of Anjou seating himself on the Spanish throne. … But just as, under a discharge from an electric battery, two repugnant chemical compounds will sometimes rush into sudden combination, so at this juncture the King and the nation were instantaneously united by the shock of a gross affront. The hand that liberated the uniting fluid was that of the Christian king. On the 16th of September 1701 James II. breathed his last at St. Germains, and, obedient to one of those impulses, half-chivalrous, half-arrogant, which so often determined his policy, Louis XIV. declared his recognition of the Prince of Wales as de jure King of England. No more timely and effective assistance to the policy of its de facto king could possibly have been rendered. Its effect upon English public opinion was instantaneous; and when William returned from Holland on the 4th of November, he found the country in the temper in which he could most have wished it to be." Dissolving the Parliament in which his plans had long been factiously opposed, he summoned a new one, which met on the last day of the year 1701. "Opposition in Parliament—in the country it was already inaudible—was completely silenced. The two Houses sent up addresses assuring the King of their firm resolve to defend the succession against the pretended Prince of Wales and all other pretenders whatsoever. … Nor did the goodwill of Parliament expend itself in words. The Commons accepted without a word of protest the four treaties constituting the new Grand Alliance. … The votes of supply were passed unanimously." But scarcely had the nation and the King arrived at this agreement with one another than the latter was snatched from his labors. On the 21st of February, 1702, William received an injury, through the stumbling of his horse, which his frail and diseased body could not bear. His death would not have been long delayed in any event, but it was hastened by this accident, and occurred on the 8th of March following. He was succeeded by Anne, the sister of his deceased queen, Mary, and second daughter of the deposed Stuart king, James II.

H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapters 14-15.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 21, chapters 7-10 (volume 5).

See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702. Accession of Queen Anne.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702. Union of rival East India Companies.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702. The War of the Spanish Succession. Failure at Cadiz. The treasure ships in Vigo Bay. Marlborough's first campaigns.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1702; and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1711. The War of the Spanish Succession in America (called "Queen Anne's War").

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

{915}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1714. The Age of Anne in literature.

"That which was once called the Augustan age of English literature was specially marked by the growing development of a distinct literary class. It was a period of transition from the early system of the patronage of authors to the later system of their professional independence. Patronage was being changed into influence. The system of subscription, by which Pope made his fortune, was a kind of joint-stock patronage. The noble did not support the poet, but induced his friends to subscribe. The noble, moreover, made another discovery. He found that he could dispense a cheaper and more effective patronage than of old by patronising at the public expense. During the reign of Queen Anne, the author of a successful poem or an effective pamphlet might look forward to a comfortable place. The author had not to wear the livery, but to become the political follower, of the great man. Gradually a separation took place. The minister found it better to have a regular corps of politicians and scribblers in his pay than occasionally to recruit his ranks by enlisting men of literary taste. And, on the other hand, authors, by slow degrees, struggled into a more independent position as their public increased. In the earlier part of the century, however, we find a class of fairly cultivated people, sufficiently numerous to form a literary audience, and yet not so numerous as to split into entirely distinct fractions. The old religious and political warfare has softened; the statesman loses his place, but not his head; and though there is plenty of bitterness, there is little violence. We have thus a brilliant society of statesmen, authors, clergymen, and lawyers, forming social clubs, meeting at coffee-houses, talking scandal and politics, and intensely interested in the new social phenomena which emerge as the old order decays; more excitable, perhaps, than their fathers, but less desperately in earnest, and waging a constant pamphleteering warfare upon politics, literature, and theology, which is yet consistent with a certain degree of friendly intercourse. The essayist, the critic, and the novelist appear for the first time in their modern shape; and the journalist is slowly gaining some authority as the wielder of a political force. The whole character of contemporary literature, in short, is moulded by the social conditions of the class for which and by which it was written, still more distinctly than by the ideas current in contemporary speculation. … Pope is the typical representative of the poetical spirit of the day. He may or may not be regarded as the intellectual superior of Swift or Addison; and the most widely differing opinions may be formed of the intrinsic merits of his poetry. The mere fact, however, that his poetical dynasty was supreme to the end of the century proved that, in some sense, he is a most characteristic product. Nor is it hard to see the main sources of his power. Pope had at least two great poetical qualities. He was amongst the most keenly sensitive of men, and he had an almost unique felicity of expression, which has enabled him to coin more proverbs than any writer since Shakespeare. Sensitive, it may be said, is a polite word for morbid, and his felicity of phrase was more adapted to coin epigrams than poetry. The controversy is here irrelevant. Pope, whether, as I should say, a true poet, or, as some have said, only the most sparkling of rhymesters, reflects the thoughts of his day with a curious completeness. … There is, however, another wide province of literature in which writers of the eighteenth century did work original in character and of permanent value. If the seventeenth century is the great age of dramatists and theologians, the eighteenth century was the age in which the critic, the essayist, the satirist, the novelist, and the moralist first appeared, or reached the highest mark. Criticism, though still in its infancy, first became an independent art with Addison. Addison and his various colleagues set the first example of that kind of social essay which is still popular. Satire had been practised in the preceding century, and in the hands of Dryden had become a formidable political weapon; but the social satire of which Pope was, and remains, the chief master, began with the century, and may be said to have expired with it, in spite of the efforts of Byron and Gifford. De Foe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett developed the modern novel out of very crude rudiments; and two of the greatest men of the century, Swift and Johnson, may be best described as practical moralists in a vein peculiar to the time. … The English novel, as the word is now understood, begins with De Foe. Though, like all other products of mind or body, it was developed out of previously existing material, and is related to the great family of stories with which men have amused themselves in all ages, it is, perhaps, as nearly an original creation as anything can be. The legends of saints which amused the middle ages, or the chivalrous romances which were popular throughout the seventeenth century, had become too unreal to amuse living human beings. De Foe made the discovery that a history might be equally interesting if the recorded events had never happened."

L. Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, chapter 12, sections 23-56 (volume 2).

"This so-called classic age of ours has long ceased to be regarded with that complacency which led the most flourishing part of it to adopt the epithet 'Augustan.' It will scarcely be denied by its greatest admirer, if he be a man of wide reading, that it cannot be ranked with the poorest of the five great ages of literature. Deficient in the highest intellectual beauty, in the qualities which awaken the fullest critical enthusiasm, the eighteenth century will be enjoyed more thoroughly by those who make it their special study than by those who skim the entire surface of literature. It has, although on the grand scale condemned as second-rate, a remarkable fulness and sustained richness which endear it to specialists. If it be compared, for instance, with the real Augustan age in Rome, or with the Spanish period of literary supremacy, it may claim to hold its own against these rivals in spite of their superior rank, because of its more copious interest. If it has neither a Horace nor a Calderon, it has a great extent and variety of writers just below these in merit, and far more numerous than what Rome or Spain can show during those blossoming periods. It is, moreover, fertile at far more points than either of these schools. This sustained and variegated success, at a comparatively low level of effort, strikes one as characteristic of an age more remarkable for persistent vitality than for rapid and brilliant growth. The Elizabethan vivida vis is absent, the Georgian glow has not yet dawned, but there is a suffused prosaic light of intelligence, of cultivated form, over the whole picture, and during the first half of the period, at least, this is bright enough to be very attractive. Perhaps, in closing, the distinguishing mark of eighteenth-century literature may be indicated as its mastery of prose as a vehicle for general thought."

E. Gosse, The Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature (New Princeton Rev., July, 1888, page 21).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1703. The Methuen Treaty with Portugal.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1703; and SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.

{916}

England: A. D. 1703. The Aylesbury election case.

"Ashby, a burgess of Aylesbury, sued the returning officer for maliciously refusing his vote. Three judges of the King's Bench decided, against the opinion of Chief Justice Holt, that the verdict which a jury had given in favor of Ashby must be set aside, as the action was not maintainable. The plaintiff went to the House of Lords upon a writ of error, and there the judgment was reversed by a large majority of Peers. The Lower House maintained that 'the qualification of an elector is not cognizable elsewhere than before the Commons of England'; that Ashby was guilty of a breach of privilege; and that all persons who should in future commence such an action, and all attorneys and counsel conducting the same, are also guilty of a high breach of privilege. The Lords, led by Somers, then came to counter-resolutions. … The prorogation of Parliament put an end to the quarrel in that Session; but in the next it was renewed with increased violence. The judgment against the Returning Officer was followed up by Ashby levying his damages. Other Aylesbury men brought new actions. The Commons imprisoned the Aylesbury electors. The Lords took strong measures that affected, or appeared to affect, the privileges of the Commons. The Queen finally stopped the contest by a prorogation; and the quarrel expired when the Parliament expired under the Triennial Act. Lord Somers 'established the doctrine which has been acted on ever since, that an action lies against a Returning Officer for maliciously refusing the vote of an elector.'"

C. Knight, Popular History of England, volume 5, chapter 17.

ALSO IN: Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors: Somers, chapter. 110 (volume 4).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1704-1707. Marlborough's campaigns in the War of the Spanish Succession. Campaigns in Spain.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704; SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704, to 1707; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705, and 1706-1707.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1707. The Union with Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1707-1708. Hostility to the Union in Scotland. Spread of Jacobitism.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1708-1709. The War of the Spanish Succession: Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709; and SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1709. The Barrier Treaty with Holland.

"The influence of the Whig party in the affairs of government in England, always irksome to the Queen, had now began visibly to decline; and the partiality she was suspected of entertaining for her brother, with her known dislike of the house of Hanover, inspired them with alarm, lest the Tories might seek still further to propitiate her favour, by altering, in his favour, the line of succession, as at present established. They had, accordingly, made it one of the preliminaries of the proposed treaty of peace, that the Protestant succession, in England, should be secured by a general guarantee, and now sought to repair, as far as possible, the failure caused by the unsuccessful termination of the conferences, by entering into a treaty to that effect with the States. The Marquis Townshend, accordingly, repaired for this purpose to the Hague, when the States consented to enter into an engagement to maintain the present succession to the crown, with their whole force, and to make the recognition of that succession, and the expulsion of the Pretender from France, an indispensable preliminary to any peace with that kingdom. In return for this important guarantee, England was to secure to the States a barrier, formed of the towns of Nieuport, Furnes and the fort of Knokke, Menin, Lille, Ryssel, Tournay, Conde, and Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Charleroi, Namur, Lier, Halle, and some forts, besides the citadels of Ghent and Dendermonde. It was afterwards asserted, in excuse for the dereliction from that treaty on the part of England, that Townshend had gone beyond his instructions; but it is quite certain that it was ratified without hesitation by the queen, whatever may have been her secret feelings regarding it."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapter 11 (volume 3 ). ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712. Opposition to the war. Trial of Sacheverell. Fall of the Whigs and Marlborough.

"A 'deluge of blood' such as that of Malplaquet increased the growing weariness of the war, and the rejection of the French offers was unjustly attributed to a desire on the part of Marlborough of lengthening out a contest which brought him profit and power. The expulsion of Harley and St. John [Bolingbroke] from the Ministry had given the Tories leaders of a more vigorous stamp, and St. John brought into play a new engine of political attack whose powers soon made themselves felt. In the Examiner, and in a crowd of pamphlets and periodicals which followed in its train, the humor of Prior, the bitter irony of Swift, and St. John's own brilliant sophistry spent themselves on the abuse of the war and of its general. … A sudden storm of popular passion showed the way in which public opinion responded to these efforts. A High-Church divine, Dr. Sacheverell, maintained the doctrine of non-resistance [the doctrine, that is, of passive obedience and non-resistance to government, implying a condemnation of the Revolution of 1688 and of the Revolution settlement], in a sermon at St. Paul's, with a boldness which deserved prosecution; but in spite of the warning of Marlborough and of Somers the Whig Ministers resolved on his impeachment. His trial in 1710 at once widened into a great party struggle, and the popular enthusiasm in Sacheverell's favor showed the gathering hatred of the Whigs and the war. … A small majority of the peers found him guilty, but the light sentence they inflicted was in effect an acquittal, and bonfires and illuminations over the whole country welcomed it as a Tory triumph. The turn of popular feeling freed Anne at once from the pressure beneath which she had bent; and the skill of Harley, whose cousin, Mrs. Masham, had succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough in the Queen's favor, was employed in bringing about the fall both of Marlborough and the Whig Ministers. … The return of a Tory House of Commons sealed his [Marlborough's] fate. His wife was dismissed from court. A masterly plan for a march into the heart of France in the opening of 1711 was foiled by the withdrawal of a part of his forces, and the negotiations which had for some time been conducted between the French and English Ministers without his knowledge marched rapidly to a close. … At the opening of 1712 the Whig majority of the House of Lords was swamped by the creation of twelve Tory peers. Marlborough was dismissed from his command, charged with peculation, and condemned as guilty by a vote of the House of Commons. He at once withdrew from England, and with his withdrawal all opposition to the peace was at an end."

J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, section 9, chapter 9.

{917}

Added to other reasons for opposition to the war, the death of the Emperor Joseph I., which occurred in April, 1711, had entirely reversed the situation in Europe out of which the war proceeded. The Archduke Charles, whom the allies had been striving to place on the Spanish throne, was now certain to be elected Emperor. He received the imperial crown, in fact, in December, 1711. By this change of fortune, therefore, he became a more objectionable claimant of the Spanish crown than Louis XIV. 's grandson had been.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1711.

Earl Stanhope, History of England, Reign of Anne, chapters 12-15.

"Round the fall of Marlborough has gathered the interest attaching to the earliest political crisis at all resembling those of quite recent times. It is at this moment that Party Government in the modern sense actually commenced. William the Third with military instinct had always been reluctant to govern by means of a party. Bound as he was, closely, to the Whigs, he employed Tory Ministers. … The new idea of a homogeneous government was working itself into shape under the mild direction of Lord Somers; but the form finally taken under Sir Robert Walpole, which has continued to the present time, was as yet some way off. Marlborough's notions were those of the late King. Both abroad and at home he carried out the policy of William. He refused to rely wholly upon the Whigs, and the extreme Tories were not given employment. The Ministry of Godolphin was a composite administration, containing at one time, in 1705, Tories like Harley and St. John as well as Whigs such as Sunderland and Halifax. … Lord Somers was a type of statesman of a novel order at that time. … In the beginning of the eighteenth century it was rare to find a man attaining the highest political rank who was unconnected by birth or training or marriage with any of the great 'governing families,' as they have been called. Lord Somers was the son of a Worcester attorney. … It was fortunate for England that Lord Somers should have been the foremost man of the Whig party at the time when constitutional government, as we now call it, was in course of construction. By his prudent counsel the Whigs were guided through the difficult years at the end of Queen Anne's reign; and from the ordeal of seeing their rivals in power they certainly managed, as a party, to emerge on the whole with credit. Although he was not nominally their leader, the paramount influence in the Tory party was Bolingbroke's; and that the Tories suffered from the defects of his great qualities, no unprejudiced critic can doubt. Between the two parties, and at the head of the Treasury through the earlier years of the reign, stood Godolphin, without whose masterly knowledge of finance and careful attention to the details of administration Marlborough's policy would have been baffled and his campaigns remained unfought. To Godolphin, more than to any other one man, is due the preponderance of the Treasury control in public affairs. It was his administration, during the absence of Marlborough on the Continent, which created for the office of Lord Treasurer its paramount importance, and paved the way for Sir Robert Walpole's government of England under the title of First Lord of the Treasury. … Marlborough saw and always admitted that his victories were due in large measure to the financial skill of Godolphin. To this statesman's lasting credit it must be remembered that in a venal age, when the standards of public honesty were so different from those which now prevail, Godolphin died a poor man. … Bolingbroke is interesting to us as the most striking figure among the originators of the new parliamentary system. With Marlborough disappeared the type of Tudor statesmen modified by contact with the Stuarts. He was the last of the Imperial Chancellors. Bolingbroke and his successor Walpole were the earlier types of constitutional statesmen among whom Mr. Pitt and, later, Mr. Gladstone stand pre-eminent. … He and his friends, opponents of Marlborough, and contributors to his fall, are interesting to us mainly as furnishing the first examples of 'Her Majesty's Opposition,' as the authors of party government and the prototypes of cabinet ministers of to-day. Their ways of thought, their style of speech and of writing, may be dissimilar to those now in vogue, but they show greater resemblance to those of modern politicians than to those of the Ministers of William or of the Stuarts. Bolingbroke may have appeared a strange product of the eighteenth century to his contemporaries, but he would not have appeared peculiarly misplaced among the colleagues of Lord Randolph Churchill or Mr. Chamberlain."

R. B. Brett, Footprints of Statesmen, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 89-107.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of Walpole, volume 1, chapters 5-6.

G. Saintsbury, Marlborough.

G. W. Cooke, Memoirs of Bolingbroke, volume 1, chapters 6-13.

J. C. Collins, Bolingbroke.

A. Hassall, Life of Bolingbroke, chapter 3.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1711-1714. The Occasional Conformity Bill and the Schism Act.

"The Test Act, making the reception of the Anglican Sacrament a necessary qualification for becoming a member of corporations, and for the enjoyment of most civil offices, was very efficacious in excluding Catholics, but was altogether insufficient to exclude moderate Dissenters. … Such men, while habitually attending their own places of worship, had no scruple about occasionally entering an Anglican church, or receiving the sacrament from an Anglican clergyman. The Independents, it is true, and some of the Baptists, censured this practice, and Defoe wrote vehemently against it, but it was very general, and was supported by a long list of imposing authorities. … In 1702, in 1703, and in 1704, measures for suppressing occasional conformity were carried through the Commons, but on each occasion they were defeated by the Whig preponderance in the Lords." In 1711, the Whigs formed a coalition with one section of the Tories to defeat the negotiations which led to the Peace of Utrecht; but the Tories "made it the condition of alliance that the Occasional Conformity Bill should be accepted by the Whigs. {918} The bargain was made; the Dissenters were abandoned, and, on the motion of Nottingham, a measure was carried providing that all persons in places of profit or trust, and all common councilmen in corporations, who, while holding office, were proved to have attended any Nonconformist place of worship, should forfeit the place, and should continue incapable of public employment till they should depose that for a whole year they had not attended a conventicle. The House of Commons added a fine of £40, which was to be paid to the informer, and with this addition the Bill became a law. Its effects during the few years it continued in force were very inconsiderable, for the great majority of conspicuous Dissenters remained in office, abstaining from public worship in conventicles, but having Dissenting ministers as private chaplains in their houses. … The object of the Occasional Conformity Bill was to exclude the Dissenters from all Government positions of power, dignity or profit. It was followed in 1714 by the Schism Act, which was intended to crush their seminaries and deprive them of the means of educating their children in their faith. … As carried through the House of Commons, it provided that no one, under pain of three months' imprisonment, should keep either a public or a private school, or should even act as tutor or usher, unless he had obtained a licence from the Bishop, had engaged to conform to the Anglican liturgy, and had received the sacrament in some Anglican church within the year. In order to prevent occasional conformity it was further provided that if a teacher so qualified were present at any other form of worship he should at once become liable to three months' imprisonment, and should be incapacitated for the rest of his life from acting as schoolmaster or tutor. … Some important clauses, however, were introduced by the Whig party qualifying its severity. They provided that Dissenters might have school-mistresses to teach their children to read; that the Act should not extend to any person instructing youth in reading, writing, or arithmetic, in any part of mathematics relating to navigation, or in any mechanical art only. … The facility with which this atrocious Act was carried, abundantly shows the danger in which religious liberty was placed in the latter years of the reign of Queen Anne."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 1.

The Schism Act was repealed in 1719, during the administration of Lord Stanhope.

Cobbett's Parliamentary History, volume 7, pages 567-587.

ALSO IN: J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 5, chapters 14-16.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht. Acquisitions from Spain and France.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714; CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713; also, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713; and SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713. Second Barrier Treaty with the Dutch.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1713-1715.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713-1714. The desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1714. The end of the Stuart line and the beginning of the Hanoverians.

Queen Anne died, after a short illness, on the morning of August 1, 1714. The Tories, who had just gained control of the ministry, were wholly unprepared for this emergency. They assembled in Privy Council, on the 29th of July, when the probably fatal issue of the Queen's illness became apparent, and "a strange scene is said to have occurred. Argyle and Somerset, though they had contributed largely by their defection to the downfall of the Whig ministry of Godolphin, were now again in opposition to the Tories, and had recently been dismissed from their posts. Availing themselves of their rank of Privy Councillors, they appeared unsummoned in the council room, pleading the greatness of the emergency. Shrewsbury, who had probably concocted the scene, rose and warmly thanked them for their offer of assistance; and these three men appear to have guided the course of events. … Shrewsbury, who was already Chamberlain and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, became Lord Treasurer, and assumed the authority of Prime Minister. Summons were at once sent to all Privy Councillors, irrespective of party, to attend; and Somers and several other of the Whig leaders were speedily at their post. They had the great advantage of knowing clearly the policy they should pursue, and their measures were taken with admirable promptitude and energy. The guards of the Tower were at once doubled. Four regiments were ordered to march from the country to London, and all seamen to repair to their vessels. An embargo was laid on all shipping. The fleet was equipped, and speedy measures were taken to protect the seaports and to secure tranquility in Scotland and Ireland. At the same time despatches were sent to the Netherlands ordering seven of the ten British battalions to embark without delay; to Lord Strafford, the ambassador at the Hague, desiring the States-General to fulfil their guarantee of the Protestant succession in England; to the Elector, urging him to hasten to Holland, where, on the death of the Queen, he would be met by a British squadron, and escorted to his new kingdom." When the Queen's death occurred, "the new King was at once proclaimed, and it is a striking proof of the danger of the crisis that the funds, which had fallen on a false rumour of the Queen's recovery, rose at once when she died. Atterbury is said to have urged Bolingbroke to proclaim James III. at Charing Cross, and to have offered to head the procession in his lawn sleeves, but the counsel was mere madness, and Bolingbroke saw clearly that any attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement would be now worse than useless. … The more violent spirits among the Jacobites now looked eagerly for a French invasion, but the calmer members of the party perceived that such an invasion was impossible. … The Regency Act of 1705 came at once into operation. The Hanoverian minister produced the sealed list of the names of those to whom the Elector entrusted the government before his arrival, and it was found to consist of eighteen names taken from the leaders of the Whig party. … Parliament, in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, was at once summoned, and it was soon evident that there was nothing to fear. The moment for a restoration was passed."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 1 (volume 1).

{919}

"George I., whom circumstances and the Act of Settlement had thus called to be King of Great Britain and Ireland, had been a sovereign prince for sixteen years, during which time he had been Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second who ever bore that title. By right of his father he was Elector; it was by right of his mother that he now became ruler of the United Kingdom. The father was Ernest Augustus, Sovereign Bishop of Osnaburg, who, by the death of his elder brothers, had become Duke of Hanover, and then Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. In 1692 he was raised by the Emperor to the dignity of Elector. … The mother of George I. was Sophia, usually known as the Electress Sophia. The title was merely one of honour, and only meant wife of an Elector. … The Electress Sophia was the daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of King James I., and Frederick, the Elector Palatine [whose election to the throne of Bohemia and subsequent expulsion from that kingdom and from his Palatine dominions were the first acts in the Thirty Years' War]. … The new royal house in England is sometimes called the House of Hanover, sometimes the House of Brunswick. It will be found that the latter name is more generally used in histories written during the last century, the former in books written in the present day. If the names were equally applicable, the modern use is the more convenient, because there is another, and in some respects well known, branch of the House of Brunswick; but no other has a right to the name of Hanover. It is, however, quite certain that, whatever the English use may be, Hanover is properly the name of a town and of a duchy, but that the electorate was Brunswick-Lüneburg. … The House of Brunswick was of noble origin, tracing itself back to a certain Guelph d'Este, nicknamed 'the Robust,' son of an Italian nobleman, who had been seeking his fortunes in Germany. Guelph married Judith, widow of the English King, Harold, who fell on the hill of Senlac. … One of Guelph's descendants, later, married Maud, the daughter of King Henry II., probably the most powerful king in Europe of his day, at whose persuasion the Emperor conferred on the Guelphs the duchy of Brunswick."

E. E. Morris, The Early Hanoverians, book 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: P. M. Thornton, The Brunswick Accession, chapters 1-10.

Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, book 10 (volume 2).

J. McCarthy, History of the Four Georges, chapters 1-4.

W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges, lecture 1.

A. W. Ward, The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (English History Review, volume 1).

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1701, THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1714-1721. First years of George I. The rise of Walpole to power and the founding of Parliamentary Government.

"The accession of the house of Hanover in the person of the great-grandson of James I. was once called by a Whig of this generation the greatest miracle in our history. It took place without domestic or foreign disturbance. … Within our own borders a short lull followed the sharp agitations of the last six months. The new king appointed an exclusively Whig Ministry. The office of Lord Treasurer was not revived, and the title disappears from political history. Lord Townshend was made principal Secretary of State, and assumed the part of first Minister. Mr. Walpole [Sir Robert] took the subaltern office of paymaster of the forces, holding along with it the paymastership of Chelsea Hospital. Although he had at first no seat in the inner Council or Cabinet, which seems to have consisted of eight members, only one of them a commoner, it is evident that from the outset his influence was hardly second to that of Townshend himself. In little more than a year (October 1715) he had made himself so prominent and valuable in the House of Commons, that the opportunity of a vacancy was taken to appoint him to be First Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. … Besides excluding their opponents from power, the Whigs instantly took more positive measures. The new Parliament was strongly Whig. A secret committee was at once appointed to inquire into the negotiations for the Peace. Walpole was chairman, took the lead in its proceedings, and drew the report." On Walpole's report, the House "directed the impeachment of Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Ormond for high treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanours mainly relating to the Peace of Utrecht. … The proceedings against Oxford and Bolingbroke are the last instance in our history of a political impeachment. They are the last ministers who were ever made personally responsible for giving bad advice and pursuing a discredited policy, and since then a political mistake has ceased to be a crime. … The affair came to an abortive end. … The opening years of the new reign mark one of the least attractive periods in political history. George I. … cared very little for his new kingdom, and knew very little about its people or its institutions. … His expeditions to Hanover threw the management of all domestic affairs almost without control into the hands of his English ministers. If the two first Hanoverian kings had been Englishmen instead of Germans, if they had been men of talent and ambition, or even men of strong and commanding will without much talent, Walpole would never have been able to lay the foundations of government by the House of Commons and by Cabinet so firmly that even the obdurate will of George III. was unable to overthrow it

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

Happily for the system now established, circumstances compelled the first two sovereigns of the Hanoverian line to strike a bargain with the English Whigs, and it was faithfully kept until the accession of the third George. The king was to manage the affairs of Hanover, and the Whigs were to govern England. It was an excellent bargain for England. Smooth as this operation may seem in historic description, Walpole found its early stages rough and thorny." The king was not easily brought to understand that England would not make war for Hanoverian objects, nor allow her foreign policy to be shaped by the ambitions of the Electorate. Differences arose which drove Townshend from the Cabinet, and divided the Whig party. Walpole retired from the government with Townshend, and was in opposition for three years, while Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Sunderland controlled the administration. The Whig schism came to an end in 1720, and Townshend and Walpole rejoined the administration, the latter as Paymaster of the Forces without a seat in the Cabinet. "His opposition was at an end, but he took no part in the active work of government. … Before many months had passed the country was overtaken by the memorable disasters of the South Sea Bubble.

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

{920}

All eyes were turned to Walpole. Though he had privately dabbled in South Sea stock on his own account, his public predictions came back to men's minds; they remembered that he had been called the best man for figures in the House, and the disgrace of' his most important colleagues only made his sagacity the more prominent. … He returned to his old posts, and once more became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer (April 1721), while Townshend was again Secretary of State. Walpole held his offices practically without a break for twenty-one years. The younger Pitt had an almost equal span of unbroken supremacy, but with that exception there is no parallel to Walpole's long tenure of power. To estimate aright the vast significance of this extraordinary stability, we must remember that the country had just passed through eighty years of revolution. A man of 80 in 1721 could recall the execution of Charles I., the protectorate of Oliver, the fall of Richard Cromwell, the restoration of Charles II., the exile of James II., the change of the order of succession to William of Orange, the reactionary ministry of Anne, and finally the second change to the House of Hanover. The interposition, after so long a series of violent perturbations as this, of twenty years of settled system and continuous order under one man, makes Walpole's government of capital and decisive importance in our history, and constitutes not an artificial division like the reign of a king, but a true and definite period, with a beginning, an end, a significance, and a unity of its own."

J. Morley, Walpole, chapters 3-4.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, chapters 9-21 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1715. The Jacobite rising.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1716. The Septennial Act.

The easy suppression of the Jacobite rebellion was far from putting an end to the fears of the loyal supporters of the Hanoverian dynasty. They regarded with especial anxiety the approaching Parliamentary elections. "As, by the existing statute of 6 William and Mary [the Triennial Act, of 1694], Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a new election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great probability of a renewal of the contest, or at least of very serious riots during the election time. With this in view, the ministers proposed that the existing Parliament should be continued for a term of seven instead of three years. This, which was meant for a temporary measure, has never been repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are held. It has been often objected to this action of Parliament, that it was acting arbitrarily in thus increasing its own duration. 'It was a direct usurpation,' it has been said, 'of the rights of the people, analogous to the act of the Long Parliament in declaring itself indestructible.' It has been regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the peculiar conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the constituencies for the support of the popular liberty. The return of members in the smaller boroughs was in the hands of corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the counties, of great landowners; in the larger towns, of small place-holders under Government. A general election in fact only gave fresh occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of the House of Lords—freedom and independence in the presence of these two permanent powers could be secured only by the greater permanence of the third element of the Legislature, the House of Commons. It was thus that, though no doubt in some degree a party measure for securing a more lengthened tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received, upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation of the best statesmen of the time."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, page 938.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, volume 1, chapter 6.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1717-1719. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance. War with Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1720. The South Sea Bubble.

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1721-1742. Development of the Cabinet System of ministerial government.

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1725. The Alliance of Hanover.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1726-1731. Fresh differences with Spain. Gibraltar besieged. The Treaty of Seville. The Second Treaty of Vienna.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1727. Accession of King George II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1727-1741. Walpole's administration under George II.

"The management of public affairs during the six years of George the First's reign in which Walpole was Prime Minister, was easy. … His political fortunes seemed to be ruined by George the First's death [1727]. That King's successor had ransacked a very copious vocabulary of abuse, in order to stigmatise the minister and his associates. Rogue and rascal, scoundrel and fool, were his commonest utterances when Robert Walpole's name was mentioned. … Walpole bowed meekly to the coming storm," and an attempt was made to put Sir Spencer Compton in his place. But Compton himself, as well as the king and his sagacious queen, soon saw the futility of it, and the old ministry was retained. "At first, Walpole was associated with his brother-in-law, Townsend. But they soon disagreed, and the rupture was total after the death of Walpole's sister, Townsend's wife. … After Townsend's dismissal, Walpole reigned alone, if, indeed, he could be said to exercise sole functions while Newcastle was tied to him. Long before he was betrayed by this person, of whom he justly said that his name was perfidy, he knew how dangerous was the association. But Newcastle was the largest proprietor of rotten boroughs in the kingdom, and, fool and knave as he was, he had wit enough to guess at his own importance, and knavery enough to make his market. Walpole's chief business lay in managing the King, the Queen, the Church, the House of Commons, and perhaps the people. I have already said, that before his accession George hated Walpole. But there are hatreds and hatreds, equal in fervency while they last, but different in duration. The King hated Walpole because he had served his father well. But one George was gone, and another George was in possession. Then came before the man in possession the clear vision of Walpole's consummate usefulness. The vision was made clearer by the sagacious hints of the Queen. It became clear as noonday when Walpole contrived to add £115,000 to the civil list. … Besides, Walpole was sincerely determined to support the Hanoverian succession. He constantly insisted to George that the final settlement of his House on the throne would be fought out in England. … Hence he was able to check one of the King's ruling passions, a longing to engage in war. … {921} It is generally understood that Walpole managed the House of Commons by bribery; that the secret service money was thus employed: and that this minister was the father of that corruption which was reported to have disgraced the House during the first half of the last century. I suspect that these influences have been exaggerated. It is a stock story that Walpole said he knew every man's price. It might have been generally true, but the foundation of this apothegm is, in all likelihood, a recorded saying of his about certain members of the opposition. … Walpole has been designated, and with justice, as emphatically a peace minister. He held 'that the most pernicious circumstances in which this country can be, are those of war, as we must be great losers while the war lasts, and cannot be great gainers when it ends.' He kept George the Second at peace, as well as he could, by insisting on it that the safety of his dynasty lay in avoiding foreign embroilments. He strove in vain against the war which broke out in 1739. … I do not intend to disparage Walpole's administrative ability when I say that the country prospered independently of any financial policy which he adopted or carried out. … Walpole let matters take their course, for he understood that the highest merit of a minister consists in his doing no mischief. But Walpole's praise lies in the fact, that, with this evident growth of material prosperity, he steadily set his face against gambling with it. He resolved, as far as lay in his power, to keep the peace of Europe; and he was seconded in his efforts by Cardinal Fleury. He contrived to smooth away the difficulties which arose in 1727; and on January 13, 1730, negotiated the treaty of Seville [see SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731], the benefits of which lasted through ten years of peace, and under which he reduced the army to 5,000 men." But the opposition to Walpole's peace policy became a growing passion, which overcame him in 1741 and forced him to resign. On his resignation he was raised to the peerage, with the title of Earl of Orford, and defeated, though with great difficulty, the determination of his enemies to impeach him.

J. E. T. Rogers, Historical Gleanings, volume 1, chapter 2.

"It is impossible, I think, to consider his [Walpole's] career with adequate attention without recognising in him a great minister, although the merits of his administration were often rather negative than positive, and although it exhibits few of those dramatic incidents, and is but little susceptible of that rhetorical colouring, on which the reputation of statesmen largely depends. … He was eminently true to the character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their needs, and he had a sufficient ascendancy in English politics to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained, though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which divided the English nation were filled up. Parliamentary government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of normal and pacific action, and the habits of compromise, of moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most essential to its success, were greatly strengthened. These were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power, exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or retaining it, and entirely destitute of that delicacy of honour which marks a high-minded man. … His estimate of political integrity was very similar to his estimate of female virtue. He governed by means of an assembly which was saturated with corruption, and he fully acquiesced in its conditions and resisted every attempt to improve it. … It is necessary to speak with much caution on this matter, remembering that no statesman can emancipate himself from the conditions of his time. … The systematic corruption of Members of Parliament is said to have begun under Charles II., in whose reign it was practised to the largest extent. It was continued under his successor, and the number of scandals rather increased than diminished after the Revolution. … And if corruption did not begin with Walpole, it is equally certain that it did not end with him. His expenditure of secret service money, large as it was, never equalled in an equal space of time the expenditure of Bute. … The real charge against him is that in a period of profound peace, when he exercised an almost unexampled ascendancy in politics, and when public opinion was strongly in favour of the diminution of corrupt influence in Parliament, he steadily and successfully resisted every attempt at reform. … It was his settled policy to maintain his Parliamentary majority, not by attracting to his ministry great orators, great writers, great financiers, or great statesmen, … but simply by engrossing borough influence and extending the patronage of the Crown."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter. 3 (volume 1).

"But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we should have had wars, which the nation was not strong enough nor united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels and good-humoured resistance, we might have had German despots attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have had revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a quarter of a century of peace, freedom and material prosperity, such as the country never enjoyed, until that corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute tipsy cynic, that courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen, patriot and statesman governed it. … In private life the old pagan revelled in the lowest pleasures: he passed his Sundays tippling at Richmond; and his holidays bawling after dogs, or boozing at Houghton with Boors over beef and punch. He cared for letters no more than his master did: he judged human nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he was right, and that men could be corrupted by means so base. But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty for us; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. … He gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and ease, and freedom; the Three per Cents. nearly at par; and wheat at five and six and twenty shillings a quarter."

W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, chapters 31-59 (volume 1).

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 15-23 (volumes 2-3).

Lord Hervey, Memoirs of the Reign of George II.

{922}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1731-1740. The question of the Austrian Succession. Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1732. The grant of Georgia to General Oglethorpe.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1733. The first Bourbon Family Compact. Its hostility to Great Britain.

See FRANCE, A. D. 1733.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1733-1787 The great inventions which built up the Cotton Manufacture.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741. The War of Jenkins' Ear.

"In spite of Walpole's love of peace, and determined efforts to preserve it, in the year 1739 a war broke out with Spain, which is an illustration of the saying that the occasion of a war may be trifling, though its real cause be very serious. The war is often called the War of Jenkins' Ear. The story ran that eight years before (1731) a certain Captain Jenkins, skipper of the ship 'Rebecca,' of London, had been maltreated by the Spaniards. His ship was sailing from Jamaica, and hanging about the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, when it was boarded by the Spanish coast guard. The Spaniards could find no proof that Jenkins was smuggling, though they searched narrowly, and being angry at their ill-success they hanged him to the yardarm, lowering him just in time to save his life. At length they pulled off his ear and told him to take it to his king. … Seven years later Captain Jenkins was examined by the House of Commons, on which occasion some member asked him how he felt when being maltreated, and Jenkins answered, 'I recommended my soul to God and my cause to my country.' The answer, whether made at the time or prepared for use in the House of Commons, touched a chord of sympathy, and soon was circulated through the country. 'No need of allies now,' said one politician; 'the story of Jenkins will raise us volunteers.' The truth of the matter is that this story from its somewhat ridiculous aspect has remained in the minds of men, but that it is only a specimen of many stories then afloat, all pointing to insolence of Spaniards in insisting upon what was after all strictly within their rights. But the legal treaty rights of Spain were growing intolerable to Englishmen, though not necessarily to the English Government; and traders and sailors were breaking the international laws which practically stopped the expansion of England in the New World. The war arose out of a question of trade, in this as in so many other cases the English being prepared to fight in order to force an entrance for their trade, which the Spaniards wished to shut out from Spanish America. This question found a place amongst the other matters arranged by the treaty of Utrecht, when the English obtained almost as their sole return for their victories what was known as the Assiento. This is a Spanish word meaning contract, but its use had been for some time confined to the disgraceful privilege of providing Spanish America with negroes kidnapped from their homes in Africa. The Flemings, the Genoese, the Portuguese, and the French Guinea Company received in turn from Spanish kings the monopoly in this shameful traffic, which at the treaty of Utrecht was passed on for a period of thirty years to England, now becoming mistress of the seas, and with her numerous merchant ships better able than others to carry on the business. The English Government committed the contract to the South Sea Company, and the number of negroes to be supplied annually was no less than 4,800 'sound, healthy, merchantable negroes, two-thirds to be male, none under ten or over forty years old.' In the Assiento Treaty there was also a provision for the trading of one English ship each year with Spanish America; but in order to prevent too great advantage therefrom it was carefully stipulated that the ship should not exceed 600 tons burden. There is no doubt that this stipulation was regularly violated by the English sending a ship of the required number of tons, but with it numerous tenders and smaller craft. Moreover smuggling, being very profitable, became common; it was of this smuggling that Captain Jenkins was accused. … Walpole, always anxious for peace, by argument, by negotiation, by delays, resisted the growing desire for war; at length he could resist no longer. For the sake of his reputation he should have resigned office, but he had enjoyed power too long to be ready to yield it, and most unwisely he allowed himself to be forced into a declaration of war October 19, 1739. The news was received throughout England with a perfect frenzy of delight. … A year and a day after this declaration of war an event occurred—the death of the Emperor—which helped to swell the volume of this war until it was merged into the European war, called the War of the Austrian Succession, which includes within itself the First and Second Silesian Wars, between Austria and Frederick the Great of Prussia. The European war went on until the general pacification in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. Within another ten years war broke out again on somewhat similar grounds, but on a much wider scale and with the combatants differently arranged, under the title 'Seven Years' War.' The events of this year, whilst the war was only between Spain and England, were the attacks on Spanish settlements in America, the capture of Porto Bello, and the failure before Cartagena, which led to Anson's famous voyage."

E. E. Morris, The Early Hanoverians, book 2, chapter 3.

"Admiral Vernon, setting sail with the English fleet from Jamaica, captured Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Darien, December 1st—an exploit for which he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. His attempt on Carthagena, in the spring of 1741, proved, however, a complete failure through his dissensions, it is said, with General Wentworth, the commander of the land forces. A squadron, under Commodore Anson, despatched to the South Sea for the purpose of annoying the Spanish colonies of Peru and Chili, destroyed the Peruvian town of Paita, and made several prizes; the most important of which was one of the great Spanish galleons trading between Acapulco and Manilla, having a large treasure on board. It was on this occasion that Anson circumnavigated the globe, having sailed from England in 1740 and returned to Spithead in 1744."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 3.

{923}

ALSO IN: R. Walter, Voyage around the World of George Anson.

Sir J. Barrow, Life of Lord George Anson, chapter 1-2.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain, chapter 43 (volume 3).

See, also, FRANCE, A. D. 1733, and GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1740-1741. Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1742. Naval operations in the Mediterranean.

See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1742-1745. Ministries of Carteret and the Pelhams, Pitt's admission to the Cabinet.

"Walpole resigned in the beginning of February, 1742; but his retirement did not bring Pitt into office. The King had conceived a violent prejudice against him, not only on account of the prominent and effective part he had taken in the general assault upon the late administration, but more especially in consequence of the strong opinions he had expressed on the subject of Hanover, and respecting the public mischiefs arising from George the Second's partiality to the interests of the Electorate. Lord Wilmington was the nominal head of the new administration, which was looked on as little more than a weak continuation of Walpole's. The same character was generally given to Pelham's ministry, (Pelham succeeded Wilmington as Premier, on the death of the latter in 1743,) and Pitt soon appeared in renewed opposition to the Court. It was about this time that he received a creditable and convenient addition to his private fortune, which also attested his celebrity. In 1744, the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough died, leaving him a legacy' of 10,000 l. on account of his merit in the noble defence he has made of the laws of England, to prevent the ruin of his country.' Pitt was now at the head of a small but determined band of Opposition statesmen, with whom he was also connected by intermarriages between members of their respective families and his own. These were Lord Cobham, the Grenvilles, and his schoolfellow Lord Lyttelton. The genius of Pitt had made the opposition of this party so embarrassing to the minister, that Mr. Pelham, the leader of the House of Commons, and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, found it necessary to get rid of Lord Carteret, who was personally most obnoxious to the attacks of Pitt, on account of his supposed zeal in favour of the King's Hanoverian policy. Pitt's friends, Lyttelton and Grenville, were taken into the ministry [called the Broad-bottomed Administration], and the undoubted wish of the Pelhams was to enlist Pitt also among their colleagues. But 'The great Mr. Pitt,' says old Horace Walpole—using in derision an epithet soon confirmed by the serious voice of the country—'the great Mr. Pitt insisted on being Secretary at War';—but it was found that the King's aversion to him was insurmountable; and after much reluctance and difficulty, his friends were persuaded to accept office without him, under an assurance from the Duke of Newcastle that 'he should at no distant day be able to remove this prejudice from his Majesty's mind.' Pitt concurred in the new arrangement, and promised to give his support to the remodelled administration. … On the breaking out of the rebellion of 1745, Pitt energetically supported the ministry in their measures to protect the established government. George the Second's prejudices against him, were, however, as strong as ever. At last a sort of compromise was effected. Pitt waived for a time his demand of the War Secretaryship, and on the 22nd of February, 1746, he was appointed one of the joint Vice-treasurers for Ireland; and on the 6th of May following he was promoted to the more lucrative office of Paymaster-General of the Forces. … In his office of Paymaster of the Forces Pitt set an example then rare among statesmen, of personal disinterestedness. He held what had hitherto been an exceedingly lucrative situation: for the Paymaster seldom had less than 100,000 l. in his hands, and was allowed to appropriate the interest of what funds he held to his own use. In addition to this it had been customary for foreign princes in the pay of England to allow the Paymaster of the Forces a per-centage on their subsidies. Pitt nobly declined to avail himself of these advantages, and would accept of nothing beyond his legal salary."

Sir E. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians, chapter 4.

"From Walpole's death in 1745, when the star of the Stuarts set for ever among the clouds of Culloden, to 1754, when Henry Pelham followed his old chief, public life in England was singularly calm and languid. The temperate and peaceful disposition of the Minister seemed to pervade Parliament. At his death the King exclaimed: 'Now I shall have no more peace'; and the words proved to be prophetic. Both in Parliament and in the country, as well as beyond its shores, the elements of discord were swiftly at war. Out of conflicting ambitions and widely divergent interests a new type of statesman, very different from Walpole, or from Bolingbroke, or from Pelham, or from the 'hubble-bubble Newcastle,' was destined to arise. And along with the new statesman a new force, of which he was in part the representative, in part the creator, was to be introduced into political life. This new force was the unrepresented voice of the people. The new statesman was an ex-cornet of horse, William Pitt, better known as Lord Chatham. The characteristics of William Pitt which mainly influenced his career were his ambition and his ill-health. Power, and that conspicuous form of egotism called personal glory, were the objects of his life. He pursued them with all the ardour of a strong-willed purpose; but the flesh was in his case painfully weak. Gout had declared itself his foe while he was still an Eton boy. His failures, and prolonged withdrawal at intervals from public affairs, were due to the inroads of this fatal enemy, from whom he was destined to receive his death-blow. Walpole had not been slow to recognise the quality of this 'terrible cornet of horse,' as he called him."

R. B. Brett, Footprints of Statesmen, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 24-28 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743. The British Pragmatic Army. Battle of Dettingen.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER). The second Bourbon Family Compact.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743-1752. Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India. The founding of British empire by Clive.

See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1744-1745. War of the Austrian Succession: Hostilities in America.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744: and 1745.

{924}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745 (MAY). War of the Austrian Succession in the Netherlands. Fontenoy.

See NETHERLANDS (THE AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1746. The Young Pretender's invasion. Last rising of the Jacobites.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745-1746.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1747. War of the Austrian Succession British incapacity. Final successes at Sea.

"The extraordinary incapacity of English commanders, both by land and sea, is one of the most striking facts in the war we are considering. … Mismanagement and languor were general. The battle of Dettingen was truly described as a happy escape rather than a great victory; the army in Flanders can hardly be said to have exhibited any military quality except courage, and the British navy, though it gained some successes, added little to its reputation. The one brilliant exception was the expedition of Anson round Cape Horn, for the purpose of plundering the Spanish merchandise and settlements in the Pacific. It lasted for nearly four years. … The overwhelming superiority of England upon the sea began, however, gradually to influence the war. The island of Cape Breton, which commanded the mouth of Gulf St. Lawrence, and protected the Newfoundland fisheries, was captured in the June of 1745. In 1747 a French squadron was destroyed by a very superior English fleet off Cape Finisterre. Another was defeated near Belleisle, and in the same year as many as 644 prizes were taken. The war on the part of the English, however, was most efficiently conducted by means of subsidies, which were enormously multiplied."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1746-1747. War of the Austrian Succession in Italy. Siege of Genoa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1748 (OCTOBER). End and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748; and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1748-1754. First movements to dispute possession of the Ohio Valley with the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1749-1755. Unsettled boundary disputes with France in America. Preludes of the final contest.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753; and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1751. Reformation of the Calendar.

See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1753. The Jewish Naturalization Bill.

See JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1754. Collision with the French in the Ohio Valley.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755. The Seven Years War. Its causes and provocations.

"The seven years that succeeded the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle are described by Voltaire as among the happiest that Europe ever enjoyed. Commerce revived, the fine arts flourished, and the European nations resembled, it is said, one large family that had been reunited after its dissensions. Unfortunately, however, the peace had not exterminated all the elements of discord. Scarcely had Europe begun to breathe again when new disputes arose, and the seven years of peace and prosperity were succeeded by another seven of misery and war. The ancient rivalry between France and England, which had formerly vented itself in continental struggles, had, by the progress of maritime discovery and colonisation, been extended to all the quarters of the globe. The interests of the two nations came into collision in India, Africa and America, and a dispute about boundaries in this last quarter again plunged them into a war. By the 9th article of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, France and England were mutually to restore their conquests in such state as they were before the war. This clause became a copious source of quarrel. The principal dispute regarded the limits of Acadia, or Nova Scotia, which province had, by the 12th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, been ceded to England 'conformably to its ancient boundaries'; but what these were had never been accurately determined, and each Power fixed them according to its convenience. Thus, while the French pretended that Nova Scotia embraced only the peninsula extending from Cape St. Mary to Cape Canseau, the English further included in it that part of the American continent which extends to Pentagoet on the west, and to the river St. Lawrence on the north, comprising all the province of New Brunswick. Another dispute regarded the western limits of the British North American settlements. The English claimed the banks of the Ohio as belonging to Virginia, the French as forming part of Louisiana; and they attempted to confine the British colonies by a chain of forts stretching from Louisiana to Canada. Commissaries were appointed to settle these questions, who held their conferences at Paris between the years 1750 and 1755. Disputes also arose respecting the occupation by the French of the islands of St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, which had been declared neutral by former treaties. Before the Commissaries could terminate their labours, mutual aggressions had rendered a war inevitable. As is usual in such cases, it is difficult to say who was the first aggressor. Each nation laid the blame on the other. Some French writers assert that the English resorted to hostilities out of jealousy at the increase of the French navy. According to the plans of Rouillé, the French Minister of Marine, 111 ships of the line, 54 frigates, and smaller vessels in proportion, were to be built in the course of ten years. The question of boundaries was, however, undoubtedly the occasion, if not also the true cause, of the war. A series of desultory conflicts had taken place along the Ohio, and on the frontiers of Nova Scotia, in 1754, without being avowed by the mother countries. A French writer, who flourished about this time, the Abbé Raynal, ascribes "this clandestine warfare to the policy of the Court of Versailles, which was seeking gradually to recover what it had lost by treaties. Orders were now issued to the English fleet to attack French vessels wherever found. … It being known that a considerable French fleet was preparing to sail from Brest and Rochefort for America, Admiral Boscawen was despatched thither, and captured two French men-of-war off Cape Race in Newfoundland, June 1755. Hostilities were also transferred to the shores of Europe. … A naval war between England and France was now unavoidable; but, as in the case of the Austrian Succession, this was also to be mixed up with a European war. {925} The complicated relations of the European system again caused these two wars to run into one, though their origin had nothing in common. France and England, whose quarrel lay in the New World, appeared as the leading Powers in a European contest in which they had only a secondary interest, and decided the fate of Canada on the plains of Germany. The war in Europe, commonly called the Seven Years' War, was chiefly caused by the pride of one Empress [Maria Theresa], the vanity of another [Elizabeth of Russia], and the subserviency of a royal courtezan [Madame Pompadour], who became the tool of these passions."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 5 (volume 3).

"The Seven Years' War was in its origin not an European war at all; it was a war between England and France on Colonial questions with which the rest of Europe had nothing to do; but the alliances and enmities of England and France in Europe, joined with the fact that the King of England was also Elector of Hanover, made it almost certain that a war between England and France must spread to the Continent. I am far from charging on the English Government of the time—for it was they, and not the French, who forced on the war—as Macaulay might do, the blood of the Austrians who perished at Leuthen, of the Russians sabred at Zorndorf, and the Prussians mown down at Kunersdorf. The States of the Continent had many old enmities not either appeased or fought out to a result; and these would probably have given rise to a war some day, even if no black men, to adapt Macaulay again, had been previously fighting on the coast of Coromandel, nor red men scalping each other by the great lakes of North America. Still, it is to be remembered that it was the work of England that the war took place then and on those lines; and in view of the enormous suffering and slaughter of that war, and of the violent and arbitrary proceedings by which it was forced on, we may well question whether English writers have any right to reprobate Frederick's seizure of Silesia as something specially immoral in itself and disastrous to the world. If the Prussians were highway robbers, the English were pirates. … The origin of the war between England and France, if a struggle which had hardly been interrupted since the nominal peace could be said to have an origin, was the struggle for America."

A. R. Ropes, The Causes of the Seven Years' War (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series, volume 4).

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 31-32 (volume 4).

F. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, chapters 1-7.

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756; CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753; and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (APRIL). Demand of the royal governors in America for taxation of the colonies by act of Parliament.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1755.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JUNE). Boscawen's naval victory over the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JULY). Braddock's defeat in America.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER). Victory at Lake George.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1756. Loss of Minorca and reverses in America.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756; and CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1759. Campaigns on the Continent. Defence of Hanover.

See GERMANY: A D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER), to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1760. The great administration of the elder Pitt.

"In 1754 Henry Pelham died. The important consequence of his death was the fact that it gave Pitt at last an opportunity of coming to the front. The Duke of Newcastle, Henry Pelham's brother, became leader of the administration, with Henry Fox for Secretary at War, Pitt for Paymaster-general of the Forces, and Murray, afterwards to be famous as Lord Mansfield, for Attorney-general. There was some difficulty about the leadership of the House of Commons. Pitt was still too much disliked by the King, to be available for the position. Fox for a while refused to accept it, and Murray was unwilling to do anything which might be likely to withdraw him from the professional path along which he was to move to such distinction. An attempt was made to get on with a Sir Thomas Robinson, a man of no capacity for such a position, and the attempt was soon an evident failure. Then Fox consented to take the position on Newcastle's own terms, which were those of absolute submission to the dictates of Newcastle. Later still he was content to descend to a subordinate office which did not even give him a place in the Cabinet. Fox never recovered the damage which his reputation and his influence suffered by this amazing act. … The Duke of Newcastle's Ministry soon fell. Newcastle was not a man who had the slightest capacity for controlling or directing a policy of war; and the great struggle known as the Seven Years' War had now broken out. One lamentable event in the war has to be recorded, although it was but of minor importance. This was the capture of Minorca by the French under the romantic, gallant, and profligate Duc de Richelieu. The event is memorable chiefly, or only, because it was followed by the trial and execution [March 14, 1757] of the unfortunate Admiral Byng.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.

The Duke of Newcastle resigned office, and for a short time the Duke of Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry which included Pitt. The King, however, did not stand this long, and one day suddenly turned them all out of office. Then a coalition of another kind was formed, which included Newcastle and Pitt, with Henry Fox in the subordinate position of paymaster. Pitt now for the first time had it all his own way. He ruled everything in the House of Commons. He flung himself with passionate and patriotic energy into the alliance with that great Frederick whose genius and daring were like his own."

Justin McCarthy, History of the Four Georges, volume 2, chapter 41.

"Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much annoyance to the new Government, was silenced with the office of Paymaster, which, during the continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place in the whole Government. He was poor, and the situation was tempting. … The first acts of the new administration were characterized rather by vigour than by judgment. Expeditions were sent against different parts of the French coast with little success. … But soon conquests of a very different kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as it was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted. {926} In July, 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was reduced. The fleet to which the Court of Versailles had confided the defence of French America was destroyed. The captured standards were borne in triumph from Kensington Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church, amidst the roar of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance. The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe; then Ticonderoga; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe when another great event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky: the night was black: the wind was furious: the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was disposed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest danger. 'You have done your duty in remonstrating,' answered Hawke; 'I will answer for everything. I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral.' Two French ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid themselves in the rivers of Brittany. The year 1760 came; and still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was taken; the whole Province of Canada was subjugated; the French fleets underwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America. In the meantime conquests equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the East. In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French had been defeated in every part of India. Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa and the Carnatic, the authority of the East India Company was more absolute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been. On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had but one important ally, the King of Prussia; and he was attacked, not only by France, but also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the Continent, the energy of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had condemned the practice of subsidising foreign princes, he now carried that practice farther than Carteret himself would have ventured to do. The active and able Sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary assistance as enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal terms against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence and ardour as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian connection. He now declared, not without much show of reason, that it would be unworthy of the English people to suffer their King to be deprived of his electoral dominions in an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they should be no losers, and that he would conquer America for them in Germany. By taking this line he conciliated the King, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. In Parliament, such was the ascendeney which his eloquence, his success, his high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he took liberties with the House of which there had been no example, and which have never since been imitated. … The face of affairs was speedily changed. The invaders [of Hanover] were driven out. … In the meantime, the nation exhibited all the signs of wealth and prosperity. … The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his [Pitt's] dispositions than to the national resources and the national spirit. But that the national spirit rose to the emergency, that the national resources were contributed with unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his soul had set the whole kingdom on fire. … The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English history. He had conciliated the King; he domineered over the House of Commons; he was adored by the people; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first Englishman of his time; and he had made England the first country in the world. The Great Commoner, the name by which he was often designated, might look down with scorn on coronets and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride."

Lord Macaulay, First Essay on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (Essays, volume 3).

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapters 33-36 (volume 4).

Sir E. Creasy, Memoirs of Eminent Etonians, chapter 4.

England: A. D. 1758 (JUNE-AUGUST). The Seven Years War. Abortive expeditions against the coast of France.

Early in 1758 there was sent out "one of those joint military and naval expeditions which Pitt seems at first to have thought the proper means by which England should assist in a continental war. Like all such isolated expeditions, it was of little value. St. Malo, against which it was directed, was found too strong to be taken, but a large quantity of shipping and naval stores was destroyed. The fleet also approached Cherbourg, but although the troops were actually in their boats ready to land, they were ordered to re-embark, and the fleet came home. Another somewhat similar expedition was sent out later in the year. In July General Bligh and Commodore Howe took and destroyed Cherbourg, but on attempting a similar assault on St. Malo they found it too strong for them. The army had been landed in the Bay of St. Cast, and, while engaged in re-embarkation, it was attacked by some French troops which had been hastily collected, and severely handled."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, page 1027.

{927}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1758 (JULY-NOVEMBER). The Seven Years War in America: Final capture of Louisbourg and recovery of Fort Duquesne. Bloody defeat at Ticonderoga.

See CANADA: A. D. 1758; and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1758-1761. Breaking of French power in India.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1759. Great victories in America. Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1759.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1759 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER). British naval supremacy established. Victories off Lagos and in Quiberon Bay.

"Early in the year [1759] the French had begun to make preparations for an invasion of the British Isles on a large scale. Flat-bottomed boats were built at Havre and other places along the coasts of Normandy and Brittany, and large fleets were collected at Brest and Toulon, besides a small squadron at Dunkirk. A considerable force was assembled at Vannes in the south of Brittany, under the command of the Duc d'Aiguillon, which was to be convoyed to the Irish coasts by the combined fleets of Brest and Toulon, while the flat-bottomed boats transported a second army across the channel under cover of a dark night. The Dunkirk squadron, under Admiral Thurot, a celebrated privateer, was to create a diversion by attacking some part of the Scotch coast. The design was bold and well contrived, and would not improbably have succeeded three or even two years before, but the opportunity was gone. England was no longer in 'that enervate state in which 20,000 men from France could shake her.' Had a landing been effected, the regular troops in the country, with the support of the newly created militia, would probably have been equal to the emergency; but a more effectual bulwark was found in the fleet, which watched the whole French coast, ready to engage the enemy as soon as he ventured out of his ports. The first attempt to break through the cordon was made by M. de la Clue from Toulon. The English Mediterranean fleet, under Admiral Boscawen, cruising before that port, was compelled early in July to retire to Gibraltar to take in water and provisions and to refit some of' the ships. Hereupon M. de la Clue put to sea, and hugging the African coast, passed the straits without molestation. Boscawen, however, though his ships were not yet refitted, at once gave chase, and came up with the enemy off [Lagos, on] the coast of Portugal, where an engagement took place [August 18], in which three French ships were taken and two driven on shore and burnt. The remainder took refuge in Cadiz, where they were blockaded till the winter, when, the English fleet being driven off the coast by a storm, they managed to get back to Toulon. The discomfiture of the Brest fleet, under M. de Conflans, was even more complete. On November 9 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, who had blockaded Brest all the summer and autumn, was driven from his post by a violent gale, and on the 14th, Conflans put to sea with 21 sail of the line and 4 frigates. On the same day, Hawke, with 22 sail of the line, stood out from Torbay, where he had taken shelter, and made sail for Quiberon Bay, judging that Conflans would steer thither to liberate a fleet of transports which were blocked up in the river Morbihan, by a small squadron of frigates under Commodore Duff. On the morning of the 20th, he sighted the French fleet chasing Duff in Quiberon Bay. Conflans, when he discerned the English, recalled his chasing ships and prepared for action; but on their nearer approach changed his mind, and ran for shelter among the shoals and rocks of the coast. The sea was running mountains high and the coast was very dangerous and little known to the English, who had no pilots; but Hawke, whom no peril could daunt, never hesitated a moment, but crowded all sail after them. Without regard to lines of battle, every ship was directed to make the best of her way towards the enemy, the admiral telling his officers he was for the old way of fighting, to make downright work with them. In consequence many of the English ships never got into action at all; but the short winter day was wearing away, and all haste was needed if the enemy were not to escape. … As long as daylight lasted the battle raged with great fury, so near the coast that '10,000 persons on the shore were the sad spectators of the white flag's disgrace.' … By nightfall two French ships, the Thésée 74, and Superb 70, were sunk, and two, the Formidable 80, and the Héros 74, had struck. The Soleil Royal afterwards went aground, but her crew escaped, as did that of the Héros, whose captain dishonourably ran her ashore in the night. Of the remainder, seven ships of the line and four frigates threw their guns overboard, and escaped up the river Vilaine, where most of them bumped their bottoms out in the shallow water; the rest got away and took shelter in the Charente, all but one, which was wrecked, but very few ever got out again. With two hours more of daylight Hawke thought he could have taken or destroyed all, as he was almost up with the French van when night overtook him. Two English ships, the Essex 64, and the Resolution 74, went ashore in the night and could not be got off, but the crews were saved, and the victory was won with the loss of 40 killed and 200 wounded. The great invasion scheme was completely wrecked. Thurot had succeeded in getting out from Dunkirk, and for some months was a terror to the northern coast-towns, but early in the following year an end was put to his career. For the rest of the war the French never ventured to meet the English in battle on the high seas, and could only look on helplessly while their colonies and commerce fell into the hands of their rivals. From the day of the fight in Quiberon Bay, the naval and commercial supremacy of England was assured."

F. W. Longman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years War, chapter 12, section 3.

ALSO IN: C. D. Yonge, History of the British Navy, volume 1, chapter 12.

J. Entick, History of the late War, volume 4, pages 241-290.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760. Completed conquest of Canada. Successes of the Prussians and their allies.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760; and GERMANY: A. D. 1760.

{928}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763. Accession of George III. His ignorance and his despotic notions of kingship. Retirement of the elder Pitt. Rise and fall of Bute. The Grenville Ministry.

"When George III. came to the throne, in 1760, England had been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig families which had been brought into the foreground by the revolution of 1688. … Under Walpole's wise and powerful sway, the first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than the shadow of sovereignty. It was the third George's ambition to become a real king, like the king of France or the king of Spain. From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been impressing upon him the precept, 'George be king!' and this simple lesson had constituted pretty much the whole of his education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant king that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as general culture is concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly correct. … Nevertheless … George III. was not destitute of a certain kind of ability, which often gets highly rated in this not too clear-sighted world. He could see an immediate end very distinctly, and acquired considerable power from the dogged industry with which he pursued it. In an age where some of the noblest English statesmen drank their gallon of strong wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in personal habits and pure in domestic relations, and no banker's clerk in London applied himself to the details of business more industriously than he. He had a genuine talent for administration, and he devoted this talent most assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human sympathy, and almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied manner, he could be smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an adept in gaining men's confidence by a show of interest, and securing their aid by dint of fair promises; and when he found them of no further use, he could turn them adrift with wanton insult. Anyone who dared to disagree with him upon even the slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred. As a natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and short-sighted advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad views and independent character he nursed the bitterest rancour. … Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in 1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to break down the growing system of cabinet government in England."