WALPOLE IN POWER AS WELL AS OFFICE.
[Sidenote: 1723--Walpole's Administration]
Walpole was now Prime-minister. The King wished to reward him for his
services by conferring a peerage on him, but this honor Walpole
steadily declined. One of his biographers says that his refusal "at
first appears extraordinary." It ought not to appear extraordinary at
first or at last. Walpole knew that the sceptre of government in
England had passed to the House of Commons. He would have been unwise
and inconsistent indeed if at his time of life he had consented to
renounce the influence and the power which a seat in that House gave
him for the comparative insignificance and obscurity of a seat in the
House of Lords. He accepted a title for his eldest son, who was made
Baron Walpole, but for himself he preferred to keep to the field in
which he had won his name, and where he could make his influence and
power felt all over the land.
We may anticipate the course of events, and say at once that hardly
ever before in the history of English political life, and hardly ever
since Walpole's time, has a minister had so long a run of power. His
long administration, as Mr. Green well says, is almost without a
history. It is almost without a history, that is to say, in the
ordinary sense of the word. For the most part, the steady movement of
England's progress remains, during long years and years, undisturbed by
any event of great dramatic interest at home or abroad. But the period
of Walpole's long and successful administration was none the less a
period of the highest importance in English {225} history. It was a
time of almost uninterrupted national development in the right
direction, and almost unbroken national prosperity. The foreign policy
of Walpole was, on the whole, no less sound and just than his policy at
home. His first ambition was to keep England out of wars with foreign
Powers. Yet his was not the ambition which some later statesmen,
especially, for example, Mr. Bright, have owned--the ambition to keep
England free of any foreign policy whatever. Such an ambition was not
Walpole's, and such an ambition at Walpole's time it would have been
all but impossible to realize. Walpole knew well that there was no way
of keeping England out of foreign wars at that season of political
growth but by securing for her a commanding influence in Continental
affairs. Such influence he set himself to establish, and he succeeded
in establishing it by friendly and satisfactory alliances with France
and other Powers. Turning back for a moment into the political affairs
of a year or two previous, we may remark that one of the consequences
of the Mississippi scheme, and the reign of Mr. Law in France, had been
the recall of Lord Stair from the French Court, to which he was
accredited as English ambassador. Lord Stair quarrelled with Law when
Law was all-powerful; and in order to propitiate the financial
dictator, it was found convenient to recall Stair from Paris. England
had been well served by him as her ambassador at the French Court. We
have already said something of Lord Stair--his ability, courage, and
dexterity, his winning ways, and his fearless spirit. John Dalrymple,
second Earl of Stair, was one of the remarkable men of his time. He
was a scholar and an orator, a soldier and a diplomatist. He had
fought with conspicuous bravery and skill under William the Third and
under Marlborough. He appears to have combined a daring that looked
like recklessness with a cool calculation which made it prudence. On
Marlborough's fall, Lord Stair fell with him. He was deprived of all
his public offices, and was plunged into a condition of {226} something
like poverty. When George the First came to the throne, Stair was
taken into favor again, and as a special tribute to his diplomatic
capacity was sent to represent England at the Court of France. There
he displayed consummate sagacity, foresight, and firmness. He
contrived to make himself acquainted beforehand with everything the
Jacobites were doing. This, as may be seen by Bolingbroke's
complaints, was easy enough at one time; but the adherents of James
Stuart began after a while to learn prudence, and some of their
enterprises were conducted up to a certain point with much craft and
caution. Lord Stair, however, always contrived to get the information
he wanted. Some of the arts by which he accomplished his purposes were
not, perhaps, such as a great diplomatist of our time would have cared
to practise. He bribed with liberal hand; he kept persons of all kinds
in his pay; he bribed French officials, and even French ministers; he
got to know all that was done in the most secret councils of the State.
He used to go about the capital in disguise in order to find out what
people were saying in the wine-shops and coffee-houses. Often, after
he had entertained a brilliant company of guests at a state dinner, he
would make some excuse to his friends for quitting them abruptly; say
that he had received despatches which required his instant attention,
leave the company to be entertained by his wife, withdraw to his study,
there quietly change his clothes, and then wander out on one of his
nightly visitations of taverns and coffee-houses. He paid court to
great ladies, flattered them, allowed them to win money at cards from
him, and even made love to them, for the sake of getting some political
secrets out of them. He had a noble and stately presence, a handsome
face, and charming manners. He is said to have been the most polite
and well-bred man of his time. It is of him the story is told about
the test of good-breeding which the King of France applied and
acknowledged. Louis the Fourteenth had heard it said that Stair was
the best-bred man of his day. The {227} King invited Stair to drive
out with him. As they were about to enter the carriage the King signed
to the English ambassador to go first. Stair bowed and entered the
carriage. "The world is right about Lord Stair," said the King; "I
never before saw a man who would not have troubled me with excuses and
ceremony."
[Sidenote: 1723--Spain]
The French Government naturally feared that the recall of Lord Stair
might be marked by a change in the friendly disposition of England.
This fear became greater on the death of Stanhope. The English
Government, however, took steps to reassure the Regent of France.
Townshend himself wrote at once to Cardinal Dubois, promising to
maintain as before a cordial friendship with the French Government.
Walpole was entirely imbued with the instincts of such a policy. The
chief disturbing influence in Continental politics arose from the
anxiety of Spain to recover Gibraltar and Minorca, and, in fact, to get
back again all that had been taken from her by the Treaty of Utrecht.
The territorial and other arrangements which concluded with the Treaty
of Utrecht made themselves the central point of all the foreign policy
of that time: these States were concerned to maintain the treaty; those
were eager to break through its bonds. It holds in the politics of
that day the place which was held by the Treaty of Vienna at a later
period. There is always much of the hypocritical about the manner in
which treaties of that highly artificial nature are made. No State
really intends to hold by them any longer than she finds that they
serve her own interests. If they are imposed upon a State and are
injurious to her, that State never means to submit to them any longer
than she is actually under compulsion. New means and impulses to break
away from such bonds are given to those inclined that way, in the fact
that the arrangements are usually made without the slightest concern
for the populations of the countries concerned, but only for dynastic
or other political considerations. The pride of the Spanish people was
so much hurt by some of the conditions of the Treaty {228} of Utrecht
that a Spanish sovereign or minister would always be popular who could
point to his people a way to escape from its bonds or to rend them in
pieces. Spain, therefore, was always looking out for new alliances.
She saw at one time a fresh chance for trying her policy, and she held
out every inducement in her power to the Emperor Charles the Sixth and
to Russia to enter into a combination against France and England. The
Emperor was without a son, and, in consequence, had issued his famous
Pragmatic Sanction, providing that his hereditary dominions in Austria,
Hungary, and Bohemia should descend to his daughter Maria Theresa. The
great Powers of Europe had not as yet seen fit to guarantee, or even
recognize, this succession. Spain held out the temptation to the
Emperor of her own guarantee to the Pragmatic Sanction and of several
important concessions in the matter of trade and commerce to Austria,
on consideration that the Emperor should assist Spain to recover her
lost territory. Catherine, the wife of Peter the Great, was now
governing Russia, and was entering into secret negotiations with Spain
and with the Emperor. Townshend and Walpole understood all that was
going on, and succeeded in making a defensive treaty between England,
France, and Prussia. Prussia, to be sure, did not long hold to the
treaty, and her withdrawal gave a new stimulus to the machinations of
the Emperor and of Philip of Spain, and in 1727 Philip actually
ventured to lay siege to Gibraltar. England, France, and Holland,
however, held firmly together; the Russian Empress suddenly died, the
Emperor Charles was not inclined to risk much, and Spain finally had to
come to terms with England and her allies.
[Sidenote: 1721--Anticipations of free-trade]
These troubles might have proved serious but for the determined policy
of Townshend and of Walpole. We have not thought it necessary to weary
our readers with the details of this little running fire of dispute
which was kept up for some years between England and Spain. We saw in
an earlier chapter how the quarrel began, and what {229} the elements
were which fed it and kept it burning. This latter passage is really
only a continuation of the former; both, except for the sake of mere
continuity of historic narrative, might have been told as one story,
and, indeed, would perhaps not have required many sentences for the
telling. Walpole applied himself at home to the work of what has since
been called Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. He was the first great
English finance minister; perhaps we may say he was the first English
minister who ever sincerely regarded the development of national
prosperity, the just and equal distribution of taxation, and the
lightening of the load of financial burdens, as the most important
business of a statesman. The whole political and social conditions of
the country were changing under his wise and beneficent system of
administration. Population was steadily increasing; some of the great
rising towns had doubled their numbers since Walpole's career began.
Agriculture was better in its systems, and was brightening the face of
the country everywhere; the farmer had almost ceased for the time to
grumble; the laborer was well fed and not too heavily worked. We do
not mean to say that Walpole's administration was the one cause of all
this improvement in town and country, but most assuredly the peace, and
the security of peace, which Walpole's administration conferred was of
direct and material influence in the growing prosperity of the nation.
His financial systems lightened the burdens of taxation, distributed
the load more equally everywhere, and enabled the State to get the best
revenue possible at the lowest cost and with the least effort. It
might almost be said that Walpole anticipated free-trade. The Royal
speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament, on October 19,
1721, declared it to be "very obvious that nothing would more conduce
to the obtaining so public a good"--the extension of our
commerce--"than to make the exportation of our own manufactures, and
the importation of the commodities used in the manufacturing of them,
as practicable and as easy as may be; by this means the balance {230}
of trade may be preserved in our favor, our navigation increased, and
greater numbers of our poor employed." "I must, therefore," the speech
went on, "recommend it to you, gentlemen of the House of Commons, to
consider how far the duties upon these branches may be taken off and
replaced, without any violation of public faith or laying any new
burden upon my people; and I promise myself that, by a due
consideration of this matter, the produce of those duties, compared
with the infinite advantages that will accrue to the kingdom by their
being taken off, will be found so inconsiderable as to leave little
room for any difficulties or objections." In furtherance of the policy
indicated in these passages of the Royal speech, more than one hundred
articles of British manufacture were allowed to be exported free of
duty, while some forty articles of raw material were allowed to be
imported in the same manner. Walpole was anxious to make a full use of
this system of indirect taxation. He desired to levy and collect taxes
in such a manner as to avoid the losses imposed upon the revenue by
smuggling and by various forms of fraud. His principle was that the
necessaries of life and the raw materials from which our manufactures
were to be made ought to remain, as far as possible, free of taxation.
The whole history of our financial systems since Walpole's time has
been a history of the gradual development of his economic principles.
There has been, of course, reaction now and then, and sometimes the
counsels of statesmen appear for a while to have been under the
absolute domination of the policy which he strove to supplant; but the
reaction has only been for seasons, while the progress of Walpole's
policy has been steady. We have now, in 1884, nearly accomplished the
financial task Walpole would, if he could, have accomplished a century
and a half earlier.
[Sidenote: 1723--Parliamentary corruption]
No one can deny that Walpole was an unscrupulous minister. He would
gladly have carried out the best policy by the best means; but where
this was not practicable or convenient he was perfectly willing to
carry {231} out a noble policy by the vilest methods. He was not
himself avaricious; he was not open to the temptations of money. He
had a fortune large enough for him, and he spent it freely, but he was
willing to bribe and corrupt all those of whom he could make any use.
Under his rule corruption became a settled Parliamentary system. He
had done more than any other man to make the House of Commons the most
powerful factor in the government of England; he had therefore made a
seat in the House of Commons an object of the highest ambition. To sit
in that House made the obscurest country gentleman a power in the
State. Naturally, therefore, a seat in the House of Commons was
struggled for, scrambled for, fought for--obtained at any cost of
money, influence, time, and temper. Naturally, also, a seat thus
obtained was a possession through which recompense of some kind was
expected. Those who buy their seats naturally expect to sell their
votes; at least that was so in the days of Walpole. In times nearer to
our own, England has seen a condition of things in which public opinion
and the development of a sort of national conscience absolutely
prevented members from taking bribes, although it allowed them the most
liberal use of bribery and corruption in the obtaining of their seats.
The member of Parliament who, twenty or thirty years ago, would have
bought his seat by means of the most unblushing and shameless
corruption, would no more have thought of selling his vote to a
minister for a money payment than he would have thought of selling his
wife at Smithfield. But in Walpole's time the man who bought his seat
was ready to sell his vote. Walpole, the minister, was willing to buy
the vote of any man who would sell it. He was lavish in the gift of
lucrative offices, of rich sinecures, of pensions, and even of bribes
in a lump sum, money down. He would bribe a member's wife, if that
were more convenient than openly to bribe the member himself. He had
no particular choice as to whether the bribe should be direct or
indirect, open or secret; he {232} wanted to get the vote, he was
willing to pay the price, and he cared not who knew of the arrangement.
We have already mentioned that the saying ascribed to him about every
man having his price was never uttered by him. What he said probably
was, that "each of these men," alluding to a certain group or party,
had his price. He is reported to have said that he never knew any
woman who would not take money, except one noble lady, whom he named,
and she, he said, took diamonds. He acted consistently and was not
ashamed. He was incorrupt himself; he was even in that sense
incorruptible; but in order to gain his own public purposes, wise and
just as they were, he was willing to corrupt a whole House of Commons,
and would not have shrunk from corrupting a nation.
[Sidenote: 1723--Lord Carteret]
It ought to be pointed out that the very pacific nature of Walpole's
policy and the security and steadiness of his administration made it
sometimes all the more necessary for him to have recourse to
questionable methods. Great controversies of imperial or national
interest--controversies which stir the hearts of men, which appeal to
their principles and awaken their passions--did not often arise during
his long tenure of power. Agitations of this kind, whatever trouble
and disturbance they may bring with them, have a purifying effect upon
the political atmosphere. Only a very ignoble creature is to be bribed
out of his opinions when some interest is at stake, on which his heart,
his training, and his associations have already taught him to take
sides. Walpole kept the nation out of such controversies for the most
part, and one result was that small political combinations of various
kinds were free to form themselves around him, beneath him, and against
him. The House of Commons sometimes threatened to dissolve itself into
a number of little separate sections or factions, none of them
representing any real principle or having more than a temporary
attraction of cohesion. Walpole was again and again placed in the
position of having to encounter {233} some little faction of this kind
by open exercise of power or by the process of corruption, and he
usually found the latter course more convenient and ready. Nor could
such a man at any period of English history have remained long without
more or less formidable rivals. Walpole himself must have known well
enough that the death of men like Sunderland, or the death or any
number of men, could not, so long as England was herself, secure him
for long an undisturbed political field, with no head raised against
him. A country like this is never so barren of political intellect and
courage as to admit of a long dictatorship in political life.
Walpole had already one rising rival in the person of Lord Carteret,
afterwards Earl of Granville. John Carteret was born April 22, 1690,
and was only five years old when the death of his father, the first
Lord Carteret, made him a member of the House of Lords. He
distinguished himself greatly at Oxford, and entered very early into
public life. He was from the beginning a favorite of George the First,
and by the influence of Stanhope was intrusted with various diplomatic
missions of more or less importance. In 1721 he was actually appointed
ambassador to the Court of France. The death of Craggs, the Secretary
of State, however, made a vacancy in the administration, and the place
was at once assigned to Carteret. Carteret was one of those men whose
genius we have to believe in rather on the faith of contemporary
judgment than by reason of any track of its own it has left behind.
The unanimous opinion of all who knew him, and more especially of those
who were commonly brought into contact with him, was that Carteret
possessed the rarest combination of statesmanlike and literary gifts.
Probably no English public man ever exhibited in a higher degree the
qualities that bring success in politics and the qualities that bring
success in literature. It seems strange to have to say this when one
remembers a man like Bolingbroke and a man like Burke; but it is
certain that neither Bolingbroke nor Burke could {234} boast of such
scholarship and accomplishments as those of Carteret. [Sidenote:
1723--Carteret's German] He was a profound classical scholar; he was a
master of French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Swedish.
His scientific knowledge was extraordinary for that time; he was a
close student of the history of past and passing time; he was deeply
interested in constitutional law, and had a passion for Church history.
He was a great parliamentary debater--some say he was even a great
orator. He was prompt and bold in his decisions; he was not afraid of
any enterprise; he was not depressed or abashed by failure; he could
take fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks. Large brains and
small affections are, according to Mr. Disraeli, the essential
qualities for success in public life. Carteret had large brains and
small affections; he had no friendships and no enmities. Like Fox, he
was a bad hater, but, unlike Fox, he had not a heart to love. He was
fond of books and of wine and of women; he was a great drinker of wine,
even for those days of deep drink. Beneath all the apparent energy and
daring of his character there lay a voluptuous love of ease and
languor. He was not a lazy man, but his inclination was always to be
an indolent man. He leaped up to sudden political action when the call
came, like Sardanapalus leaping up to the inevitable fight; but, like
Sardanapalus, he would have been always glad to lie down again and loll
in ease the moment the necessity for action had passed away. No doubt
his daily allowance of Burgundy--a very liberal and generous
allowance--had a good deal to do with his tendency to indolence.
Whatever the reason, it is certain that, with all his magnificent gifts
and his splendid chances, he did nothing great, and has left no abiding
mark in history. Every one who came near him seems to have regarded
his as a master-spirit. Chesterfield said of him, "When he dies, the
ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all." Horace
Walpole declares him to be superior in one set of qualities to his
father. Sir Robert Walpole, {235} and in others to the great Lord
Chatham. "Why did they send you here?" Swift said to Carteret, with
rough good-humor, when Carteret came over to Dublin to be
Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. "You are not fit for this place; let them
send us back our boobies." Carteret's fame has always seemed to us
like the fame of Sheridan's Begum speech. Such poor records as we have
of that speech seem hardly to hint at any extraordinary eloquence; yet
the absolutely unanimous opinion of all that heard it--of all the
orators and statesmen and critics of the time--was that so great a
speech had never before been spoken in Parliament. Those men can
hardly have been all wrong, one would think; and yet, on the other
hand, it is not easy to believe that those who made such record of the
speech as we have can have purposely left out all the eloquence, the
wit, and the argument. In like manner, readers of this day may perplex
themselves about the fame of Carteret. All the men who knew him can
hardly have been mistaken when they concurred in giving him credit for
surpassing genius; and yet we find no evidence of that genius either in
the literature or the political history of England.
Carteret had one great advantage over Walpole and over all his
contemporaries in political life--he was able to speak German fluently;
he was able to talk for hours with the King in the King's own guttural
tongue. The King clung to Carteret's companionship because of his
German. While Walpole was trying to instil his policy and counsels
into George's mind through the non-conducting medium of very bad Latin,
while other ministers were endeavoring to approach the Royal
intelligence by means of French, which they spoke badly and he
understood imperfectly, Carteret could rattle away in idiomatic German,
and could amuse the Royal humor even with voluble German slang.
Carteret had come into public life under the influence of Lord
Sunderland and Lord Stanhope, and he regarded himself as the successor
to their policy. He never considered himself as quite in {236}
understanding and harmony with Townshend and Walpole. His principal
idea was that the time had passed when it was proper or expedient to
exclude the Tories or the High-churchmen from the political service of
the Crown. He desired to enlarge the basis of administration by
admitting some of the more plastic and progressive of the Tories to a
share in it. There was, however, something more than a conflict of
political views between Carteret and Walpole. Walpole's ambition was
to be the constitution dictator of England. We do not say that this
was a mere personal ambition; on the contrary, we believe Walpole acted
on the honest conviction that he knew better than any other man how
England ought to be governed. He was sure, and reasonably sure, that
no other statesman could play the game so well; he therefore claimed
the right to play it. Carteret, on the other hand, was far too strong
a man to be quietly pushed into the background. He was determined that
if he remained in the service of the State he would be a statesman, and
not a clerk.
[Sidenote: 1723--A match making intrigue]
Therefore, while Carteret and Walpole were colleagues there was always
a struggle going on between them, and, like all the political struggles
of the time, it had a great deal of underhand influence, and the worst
kind of petticoat influence, engaged in it. One of the King's
mistresses--the most influential of them--gave all her support to
Walpole; another Royal paramour lent her aid to Carteret's side.
Carteret played into the King's hands as regarded the Hanoverian
policy, and was for taking strong measures against Russia. Townshend
and Walpole would hear of no schemes which threatened to entangle
England in war for the sake of Hanoverian interests. George liked
Carteret, and was captivated by his policy as well as by his personal
qualities, but he could not help seeing that Townshend's advice was the
sounder, and that no man could manage the finances like Walpole.
George went to Hanover in the summer of 1723, and both the Secretaries
of State went with him. This was {237} something unusual, and even
unprecedented; but the King would not do without the companionship of
Carteret, and knew that he could not do without the advice of
Townshend. So both Townshend and Carteret went with his Majesty to
Herrenhausen, and Walpole had the whole business of administration in
his own hands at home.
A very paltry and pitiful intrigue at length settled the question
between Townshend and Carteret. A marriage had been arranged between a
niece, or so-called niece, of one of George's mistresses and the son of
La Vrillière, the French Secretary of State. Madame La Vrillière
insisted, as a condition of the marriage, that her husband should be
made a duke, and it was assumed that this could be brought about by the
influence of the English Government. King George was anxious that the
marriage should take place, and Carteret, of course, was willing to
assist him. The English ambassador at the Court of France was a man
named Sir Luke Schaub, by birth a Swiss, who had been Stanhope's
secretary, and by Stanhope's influence was pushed up in the diplomatic
service. Sir Luke Schaub was in close understanding with Carteret, and
was strongly hostile to Townshend and Walpole. Of this fact Townshend
was well aware, and he took care that Schaub should be closely watched
in Paris. Schaub was instructed by Carteret to do all he could in
order to obtain the dukedom for Madame La Vrillière's husband.
Cardinal Dubois died, and his place in the councils of the Duke of
Orleans was taken by Count Nocé, who was believed to be hostile to
England. This fact gave Townshend an excuse for suggesting to the King
that some one should be sent to Paris to watch over the action of the
French Government and the conduct of the English ambassador, "in such a
manner," so Townshend wrote from Hanover to Walpole, "as may neither
hurt Sir Luke Schaub's credit with the Duke of Orleans, nor create a
jealousy in Sir Luke of the King's intending to withdraw his confidence
from him." This was, of course, exactly what Townshend wanted to
do--to {238} induce the King to withdraw his confidence from poor Sir
Luke. The King agreed that it was necessary some one "in whose
fidelity and dexterity he can depend" should set out from England to
Hanover, "and take Paris on his way hither, under pretence of a
curiosity to see that place, and without owning to any one living the
business he is employed in." The person selected for this somewhat
delicate mission was Horace Walpole, Robert Walpole's only surviving
brother.
[Sidenote: 1724--Carteret goes to Ireland]
Horace Walpole acquitted himself very cleverly of the task assigned to
him. He was a man of uncouth manners, but of some shrewd ability and
of varied experience. He had been a soldier with Stanhope before
acting as Under-Secretary of State to Townshend; he had managed to
distinguish himself in Parliament and in diplomacy. He soon contrived
to obtain the ear of the Duke of Orleans, and he found that Sir Luke
Schaub had been deceiving himself and his sovereign about the prospect
of La Vrillière's dukedom. Philip of Orleans told Horace Walpole
frankly that there never was the slightest idea of giving such a
dukedom, and added that the dignity of France would be compromised if
such a concession were made in order to enable the King of England "to
marry his bastard daughter"--so the Duke put it--into the French
_noblesse_. Sir Luke Schaub's haste and indiscreet zeal had, in fact,
brought his sovereign into discredit, and even compromised the good
understanding between England and France.
Philip of Orleans died almost immediately. His death was sudden, but
he had long run a course which set all laws of health at defiance. He
stuck to his pleasures to the very last--died, one might say, in
harness. His successor in the administration of France, under the
young King Louis the Fifteenth, who had just been declared of age, was
the Duke de Bourbon, Philip's equal, perhaps, in profligacy, but not by
any means his equal in capacity. Horace Walpole won over the new
administrator. The Duke de Bourbon told him that Sir Luke Schaub was
{239} obnoxious to every one in the French Court, and that he was not
fit, by birth, breeding, or capacity, to represent England there.
We need not follow the intrigue through all its turns and twists.
Walpole and Townshend succeeded. Schaub was recalled; Horace Walpole
was appointed ambassador in his place. The recall of Schaub involved
the fall of Carteret. Carteret, however, was not a man to be rudely
thrust out of office, and a soft fall was therefore prepared for him;
he was made Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He knew that he was defeated.
Then, as at a later day and at an earlier, the Viceroyalty of Ireland
was the gilding which enabled a man to gulp down the bitter pill of
political failure. When Lord John Russell obtained the dismissal of
Lord Palmerston from his cabinet in 1851, he endeavored, somewhat
awkwardly, to soften the blow by offering to his dispossessed rival the
position of Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Palmerston understood the
meaning of the offer, and treated it--as was but natural--with open
contempt. Carteret acted otherwise. Probably he felt within himself
that he was not destined to a great political career. In any case, he
accepted the offer with perfect good-humor, declaring that, on the
whole, he thought he should be much more pleasantly situated as a
dictator in Dublin than as the servant of a dictator in London.
{240}