AFTER THE STORM.
[Sidenote: 1721--South Sea victims]
Swift wrote more than one poem on the South Sea mania. That which was
written in 1721, and is called "South Sea," is a wonder of wit and
wisdom. It shows the hollowness of the scheme in some new, odd, and
striking light in every metaphor and every verse. "A guinea," Swift
reminds his readers, "will not pass at market for a farthing more,
shown through a multiplying glass, than what it always did before."
"So cast it in the Southern Seas,
And view it through a jobber's bill,
Put on what spectacles you please,
Your guinea's but a guinea still."
Other poets had not as much prudence and sound sense as Swift. Pope
put some of his money, a good deal of it, into South Sea stock,
contrary to the earnest advice of Atterbury, and lost it. Swift
reflected faithfully the temper of the time in savage verses, which
call out for the punishment by death of the fraudulent directors of the
Company. Antaeus, Swift tells us, was always restored to fresh
strength as often as he touched the earth; Hercules subdued him at last
by holding him up in the air and strangling him there. Suspended a
while in the air, according to the same principle, our directors, he
admonishes the country, will be properly tamed and dealt with. Many
public enemies of the directors gave themselves credit for moderation
and humanity on the ground that they would not have the culprits
tortured to death, but merely executed in the ordinary way.
Walpole set himself first of all to restore public credit. {203} His
object was not so much the punishment of fraudulent directors as the
tranquillizing of the public mind and the subsidence of national panic.
He proposed one measure in the first instance to accomplish this end;
but that not being sufficiently comprehensive, he introduced another
bill, which was finally adopted by both Houses of Parliament. Briefly
described, this scheme so adjusted the financial affairs of the South
Sea Company that five millions of the seven which the directors had
agreed to pay the public were remitted; the encumbrances to the Company
were cleared off to a certain extent by the confiscation of the estates
of the fraudulent directors; the credit of the Company's bonds was
maintained; thirty-three pounds six shillings and eightpence per cent.
were divided among the proprietors, and two millions were reserved
towards the liquidation of the national debt. The Company was
therefore put into a position to carry out its various public
engagements, and the panic was soon over. Many of the proprietors of
the Company complained bitterly of the manner in which they had been
treated by Walpole. The lobbies of the House of Commons and all the
adjacent places were crowded by proprietors of the short annuities and
other redeemable popular deeds; men and women who, as the contemporary
accounts tell us, "in a rude and insolent manner demanded justice of
the members as they went into the House," and put into their hands a
paper with the words written on it, "Pray do justice to the annuitants
who lent their money on Parliamentary security." "The noisy
multitude," we are told, "were particularly rude to Mr. Comptroller,
tearing part of his coat as he passed by." The Speaker of the House
was informed that a crowd of people had got together in a riotous and
tumultuous manner in the lobbies and passages, and he ordered "that the
Justices of the Peace for the City of Westminster do immediately attend
this House and bring the constables with them." While the justices and
the constables were being sent for, Sir John Ward was {204} presenting
to the House a petition from the proprietors of the redeemable funds,
setting forth that they had lent their money to the South Sea Company
on Parliamentary security; that they had been unwarily drawn into
subscribing for the shares in the Company by the artifices of the
directors; and they prayed that they might be heard by themselves or
their counsel against Walpole's measure--the bill "for making several
provisions to restore the public credit, which suffers by the frauds
and mismanagement of the late South Sea directors and others." Walpole
opposed the petition, and said he did not see how the petitioners could
be relieved, seeing that the resolutions, in pursuance of which his
bill was brought in, had been approved by the King and council, and by
a great majority of the House. Walpole, therefore, moved that the
debate be adjourned, in order to get rid of the matter. The motion was
carried by seventy-eight voices against twenty-nine. By this time four
Justices for the City of Westminster had arrived, and were brought to
the bar of the House. The Speaker informed them that there was a great
crowd of riotous people in the lobbies and passages, and that he was
commanded by the House to direct them to go and disperse the crowd, and
take care to prevent similar riots in the future. The four justices,
attended by five or six constables, desired the petitioners to clear
the lobbies, and when they refused to do so, caused a proclamation
against rioters to be twice read, warning them at the same time that if
they remained until the third reading, they would have to incur the
penalties of the Act. What the penalties of the Act were, and what the
four justices and five or six constables could have done with the
petitioners if the petitioners had refused to listen to reason, do not
seem very clear. The petitioners, however, did listen to reason, and
dispersed before the fatal third reading of the proclamation. But they
did not disperse without giving the House of Commons and the justices a
piece of their mind. Many exclaimed that they had come as peaceable
citizens and {205} subjects to represent their grievances, and had not
expected to be used like a mob and scoundrels; and others, as they went
out, shouted to the members of Parliament, "You first pick our pockets,
and then send us to jail for complaining."
[Sidenote: 1721--Relief measures]
The Bill went up to the House of Lords on Monday, August 7th, and the
Lords agreed to it without an amendment. On Thursday, August 10th,
Parliament was prorogued. The Lord Chancellor read the King's speech.
"The common calamity," said his Majesty, "occasioned by the wicked
execution of the South Sea scheme, was become so very great before your
meeting that the providing proper remedies for it was very difficult.
But it is a great comfort to me to observe that public credit now
begins to recover, which gives me the greatest hopes that it will be
entirely restored when all the provisions you have made for that end
shall be duly put in execution." The speech went on to tell of his
Majesty's "great compassion for the sufferings of the innocent, and a
just indignation against the guilty;" and added that the King had
readily given his assent "to such bills as you have presented to me for
punishing the authors of our late misfortunes, and for obtaining the
restitution and satisfaction due to those who have been injured by them
in such manner as you judged proper." Certainly there was no lack of
severity in the punishment inflicted on the fraudulent directors.
Their estates were confiscated with such rigor that some of them were
reduced to miserable poverty. They were disqualified from ever holding
any public place or office whatever, and from ever having a seat in
Parliament. Yet, severely as they were punished, the outcry of the
public at the time was that they had been let off far too easily.
Walpole was denounced because he did not carry their punishment much
farther. There was even a ridiculous report spread abroad that he had
defended Sunderland and screened the directors from the most ignoble
and sordid motives, and that he had been handsomely paid for his
compromise with crime. {206} Nothing would have satisfied some of the
sufferers by the South Sea scheme short of the execution of its
principal directors. Even the scaffold, however, could hardly have
dealt more stern and summary justice on the criminals--as some of them
undoubtedly were--than did the actual course of events. When the storm
cleared away, Aislabie was ruined; Craggs, the Postmaster-general, was
dead; Craggs, the Secretary of State, was dead; Lord Stanhope, who was
really innocent--was really unsuspected of any share in the crimes of
the fraudulent directors--was dead also; Sunderland was no longer a
Minister of State, and the shadow of death was already on him. It was
not merely the bursting of a bubble, it was the bursting of a shell--it
mutilated or killed those who stood around and near.
[Sidenote: 1722--Sunderland's antipathy to Walpole]
By the time of the new elections--for Parliament had now nearly run its
course--public tranquillity was entirely restored. Parliament was
dissolved in March, 1722, and the new elections left Walpole and his
friends in power, with an immense majority at their back. Long before
the new Parliament had time to assemble, Lord Sunderland suddenly died
of heart disease. On April 19, 1722, his death took place, and it was
so unexpected that a wild outcry was raised by some of his friends, who
insisted that his enemies had poisoned him. The medical examination
proved, however, that Sunderland's disease was one which might at any
moment of excitement have brought on his death. Nearly all the leading
public men who, innocent or guilty, had been mixed up with the evil
schemes of the South Sea Company were now in the grave.
The field seemed now clear and open to Walpole. The death of
Sunderland, following so soon on that of Stanhope, had left him
apparently without a rival. Sunderland had been to the last a
political, and even a personal, enemy of Walpole. Although Walpole had
gone so far to protect Sunderland against the House of Commons and
against public opinion, with regard to his share in {207} the South Sea
Company's transactions, Sunderland could not forgive Walpole because
Walpole was rising higher in the State--because he was, in fact, the
greater man. Though Sunderland was compelled by public opinion to
resign office, he had contrived, up to the hour of his death, to
maintain his influence over the mind of King George. Fortunately for
George, the King had too much clear, robust good-sense not to recognize
the priceless worth of Walpole's advice and Walpole's services.
Sunderland tried one ingenious artifice to get rid of Walpole. He
suggested to George that Walpole's merits required some special and
permanent recognition, and he recommended that the King should create
Walpole Postmaster-general for life. Such an office, indeed, would
have brought Walpole an ample revenue, supposing he stood in need of
money, which he did not, but it would have disqualified him forever for
a seat in Parliament. Perhaps no better illustration of Sunderland's
narrow intellect and utter lack of judgment could be found than the
supposition that this shallow trick could succeed, and that the
greatest administrator of his time could be thus quietly withdrawn from
Parliamentary life and from the higher work of the State, and shelved
in perpetuity as a Postmaster-general. King George was not to be taken
in after this fashion. He asked Sunderland whether Walpole wished for
such an office, or was acquainted with Sunderland's intention to make
the suggestion. Sunderland had to answer both questions in the
negative. "Then," said the King, "pray do not make him any such offer,
or say anything about it to him. I had to part with him once, much
against my will, and so long as he is willing to serve me I will never
part with him again." This incident shows that, if Sunderland had
lived, he would have plotted against Walpole to the end, and would have
stood in Walpole's way to the best of his power, and with all the
unforgiving hostility of the narrow-minded and selfish man who has had
services rendered him for which he ought to feel grateful but cannot.
{208}
[Sidenote: 1721-1722--Marlborough's closing days]
A far greater man than Sunderland was soon to pass away.
"From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow."
These are the famous words in which Johnson depicts the miserable decay
of a great spirit, and points anew the melancholy moral of the vanity
of human wishes. Hardly a line in the poetry of our language is better
known or more often quoted. Where did Johnson get the idea that
Marlborough had sunk into dotage before his death? There is not the
slightest foundation for such a belief. All that we know of
Marlborough's closing days tells us the contrary. Nothing in
Marlborough's life, not even his serene disregard of dangers and
difficulties, not even his victories, became him like to the leaving of
it. No great man ever sank more gracefully, more gently, with a calmer
spirit, down to his rest. We get some charming pictures of
Marlborough's closing days. Death had given him warning by repeated
paralytic strokes. On November 27, 1721, he was seen for the last time
in the House of Lords. He was not, however, quite near his death even
then. He used to spend his time at Blenheim, or at his lodge in
Windsor. To the last he was fond of riding and driving and the fresh
country air. In-doors he loved to be surrounded by his granddaughters
and their young friends, and to join in games of cards and other
amusements with them. They used to get up private theatricals to
gratify the gentle old warrior. We hear of a version of Dryden's "All
for Love" being thus performed. The Duchess of Marlborough had cut out
of the play its unseemly passages, and even its too amorous
expressions--the reader will probably think there was not much left of
the piece when this work of purification had been accomplished--and she
would not allow any embracing to be performed. The gentleman who
played Mark Antony wore a sword which had been presented to Marlborough
by the Emperor. The part of the high-priest was played by a pretty
girl, a friend of Marlborough's granddaughters, and she wore as {209}
high-priest's robe what seems to have been a lady's night-dress,
gorgeously embroidered with special devices for the occasion. A
prologue, written by Dr. Hoadly, was read, in which the glories of the
great Duke's career were glowingly recounted. Some painter, it seems
to us, might make a pretty picture of this: the great hall in Blenheim
turned into a theatre, the handsome young men and pretty girls enacting
their chastened parts, the fading old hero looking at the scene with
pleased and kindly eyes, and the imperious, loving old Duchess turning
her devoted gaze on him.
So fades, so languishes, grows dim, and dies the conqueror of Blenheim,
the greatest soldier England ever had since the days when kings ceased
to be as a matter of right her chiefs in command. In the early days of
June, 1722, Marlborough was stricken by another paralytic seizure, and
this was his last. He was in full possession of his senses to the end,
perfectly conscious and calm. He knew that he was dying; he had
prayers read to him; he conveyed in many tender ways his feelings of
affection for his wife, and of hope for his own future. At four in the
morning of June 16th his life ebbed quietly away. He was in his
seventy-second year when he died. None of the great deeds of his life
belong to this history; none of that life's worst offences have much to
do with it. Marlborough's career seems to us absolutely faultless in
two of its aspects; as a commander and as a husband we can only give
him praise. He was probably a greater commander than even the Duke of
Wellington. If he never had to encounter a Napoleon, he had to meet
and triumph over difficulties which never came in Wellington's way. It
was not Wellington's fate to have to strive against political treachery
of the basest kind on the part of English Ministers of State.
Wellington's enemies were all in the field arrayed against him;
Marlborough had to fight the foreign enemy on the battle-field, and to
struggle meanwhile against the persistent treachery of the still more
formidable enemy {210} at home in the council-chamber of his own
sovereign. Perhaps, indeed, Wellington's nature would not have
permitted him to succeed under such difficulties. Wellington could
hardly have met craft with craft, and, it must be added, falsehood with
falsehood, as Marlborough did. We have said in this book already that
even for that age of double-dealing Marlborough was a surprising
double-dealer, and there were many passages in his career which are
evidences of an astounding capacity for deceit. "He was a great man,"
said his enemy, Lord Peterborough, "and I have forgotten his faults."
Historians would gladly do the same if they could; would surely dwell
with much more delight on the virtues and the greatness than on the
defects. The English people were generous to Marlborough, and in the
way which, it has to be confessed, was most welcome to him. But if a
very treasure-house of gold could not have satisfied his love of money,
let it be added that the national treasure-house itself, were it poured
out at his feet, could not have overpaid the services which he had
rendered to his country.
Marlborough left no son to inherit his honors and his fortune. His
titles and estates descended to his eldest daughter, the Countess of
Godolphin. She died without leaving a son, and the titles and estates
passed over to the Earl of Sunderland, the son and heir of
Marlborough's second daughter, at that time long dead. From the day
when the victor of Blenheim died, there has been no Duke of Marlborough
distinguished in anything but the name. Not one of the world's great
soldiers, it would seem, was destined to have a great soldier for a
son. From great statesman fathers sometimes spring great statesman
sons; but Alexander, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Charles the Twelfth,
Alexander Farnese, Clive, Marlborough, Frederick, Napoleon, Wellington,
Washington, left to the world no heir of their greatness.
{211}