"THE PATRIOTS."
[Sidenote: 1728--Pulteney's place in history]
The name and the career of William Pulteney are all but forgotten in
English political life. It is doubtful whether Pulteney's name, if
pronounced in the course of a debate in the House of Commons just now,
would bring with it any manner of idea to the minds of nine-tenths of
the listening members. Yet Pulteney played, all unconsciously, a great
part in the development of the Parliamentary life of this country. So
far as intellectual gifts are concerned, he is not, of course, to be
named in the same breath with a man like Burke, for example; one might
as well think of comparing Offenbach with Mozart or Handel. But the
influence of the career of Pulteney on the English Parliament is
nevertheless more distinctly marked than the influence of the career of
Burke. We are speaking now not of political thought--no man ever made
a greater impression on political thought than Burke has done--but only
of the forms and the development of English Parliamentary systems. For
Pulteney was, beyond all question, the founder of the modern practice
of Parliamentary opposition. Walpole was mainly instrumental in
transferring the seat of political power from the House of Lords to the
House of Commons. Never, since Walpole's time, has the House of Lords
exercised any real influence over the political life of England. This
was not Walpole's doing; it was the doing of time and change, of
altered conditions and new forces. But Walpole saw the coming change,
and bent all the energies of his robust intellect to help and forward
it. Pulteney is in the same sense the author of {285} the modern
principle of Parliamentary opposition; but there is no reason to
believe that Pulteney saw what he was doing as clearly as Walpole did.
Until the beginning of Pulteney's brilliant career, the opposition
between parties had been mainly a competition for the ear and the favor
of the sovereign. Thus Harley strove against Marlborough, and
Bolingbroke against Harley, and the Whigs against Harley and
Bolingbroke. But the course of action taken by Pulteney against
Walpole converted the struggle into one of party against party, inside
and outside of the House of Commons. The object sought was the command
of a majority in the representative assembly. Pulteney showed how this
was to be obtained by the voices of the public out-of-doors as well as
by the votes of the elected representatives in Westminster. Walpole
had made it clear that in the House of Commons the battle was to be
fought; Pulteney showed that in the House of Commons the victory was to
be gained, not by the favor of the sovereign, but by the co-operation
of the people.
We have said in a former chapter that Pulteney's form of procedure,
become now a component part of our whole Parliamentary system, brings
with it some serious disadvantages from which, for the present, it is
not easy, it is not even possible, to see any way of escape. The
principle of government by party will some time or other come to be put
to the challenge in English political life. For the present, however,
we have only to make the best we can of it; and no one in his senses
can doubt that it was an immense advance on the system of back-stairs
influence and bedchamber intrigue, the policy, to use the great Condé's
expression, "of petticoats and alcoves," which prevailed in the days
when Mrs. Masham was competing with Sarah Jennings, and later still,
when Walpole was buying his way back to power through the influence of
the sovereign's wife, in co-operation with the sovereign's paramour.
The student of English history will have to turn with {286} close
attention to the reigns of the First and Second George. In those
reigns the transfer of power to the representative chamber began, and
the modern system of Parliamentary opposition grew into form. The
student will have to remember that the time he is studying was one when
there was no such thing known in England as a public meeting. There
were "demonstrations," as we call them now; there were crowds; there
were processions; there were tumults; there were disturbances, riots,
reading of Riot Acts, dispersion of mobs, charges of cavalry,
_fusillades_ of infantry; but there were no great public meetings
called together for the discussion of momentous political questions.
The rapid growth of the popular newspaper, soon to swell up like the
prophet's gourd, had hardly begun as yet. We cannot call the
_Craftsman_ a newspaper; it was rather a series of pamphlets. It stood
Pulteney instead of the more modern newspaper. He worked on public
opinion with it outside the House of Commons. Inside the House he made
it his business to form a party which should assail the ministry on all
points, lie in wait to find occasion for attacking it, attack it
rightly or wrongly, attack it even at the risk of exposing national
weakness or bringing on national danger, keep attacking it always. In
former days a leader of opposition had often been disdainful of the
opinion of the vulgar herd out-of-doors; Pulteney and his companions
set themselves to appeal especially to the prejudices, passions, and
ignorance of the vulgar herd. They made it their business to create a
public opinion of their own. They dealt in the manufacture of public
opinion. They set up political shops wherein to retail the article
which they had thus manufactured. Pulteney was now in his prime--still
some years inside fifty. He was full of energy and courage, and he
threw his whole soul into his work. Much of what he did was
undoubtedly dictated by his spite against Walpole, but much, too, was
the mere outcome of his ambition, his energy, and the peculiar
character of his intellect. He enjoyed playing a {287} conspicuous
part and he liked attacking somebody. People used to think at one time
that Mr. Disraeli had a profound personal hatred for Sir Robert Peel
when he was flinging off his philippics against that great minister.
It afterwards appeared clear enough that Mr. Disraeli had no particular
dislike to his opponent, but that he enjoyed attacking an important
statesman. Pulteney, of course, did actually begin his career of
imbittered opposition because of his quarrel with Walpole; but it is
likely enough that even if no quarrel had ever taken place and he never
had been Walpole's friend and colleague, he would sooner or later have
become the foremost gladiator of opposition all the same.
[Sidenote: 1728--Materials of opposition]
The materials of opposition consisted of three political groups of men.
There were the Jacobites, under Shippen; the Tories who no longer
acknowledged themselves Jacobites, and who were led by Sir William
Wyndham; and there were the discontented Whigs whom Pulteney led and
whose discontent he turned to his own uses. It had long been a scheme
of Bolingbroke's--up to this time it should perhaps rather be called a
dream than a scheme--to combine these three groups into one distinct
party, having its bond of union in a common detestation of Walpole.
The dream now seemed likely to become a successful scheme. The
conception of this plan of opposition was unquestionably Bolingbroke's
and not Pulteney's; but it fell to Pulteney's lot to work it out in the
House of Parliament, and he performed his task with consummate ability.
Pulteney was probably the greatest leader of Opposition ever known in
the House of Commons, with the single exception of Mr. Disraeli.
Charles Fox, with all his splendid genius for debate, was not a skilful
or a patient leader of Opposition. Perhaps he was too great of heart
for such a part; certain it is that as a leader of Opposition he made
some fatal mistakes. Pulteney seemed cut out for the part which a
strange combination of chances had allowed him to play. He was not
merely a debater of inexhaustible resource {288} and a master of all
the trick and craft of Parliamentary leadership; but he thoroughly
understood the importance of public support out-of-doors, and the means
of getting at it and retaining it. Pulteney saw that the time had come
when the English people would have their say in every political
question.
[Sidenote: 1728--Sir William Wyndam]
By the combined influence of Pulteney and Bolingbroke there was formed
a party of ultra-Whigs, who somewhat audaciously called themselves "The
Patriots." Perhaps the title was first given to them by Walpole, in
contempt; if so, they accepted and adopted it. Again and again in our
history this phenomenon presents itself. Some men of ability and
unsatisfied ambition belonging to the Liberal party become discontented
with the policy of their leaders. When the first opportunity arises
they make a public declaration against that policy. In the
Conservative ranks there are to be found some other men, also able and
also discontented, to whom the general policy of Opposition seems
unsatisfactory and feeble. Each of these discontented parties fancies
itself to be truly patriotic, public-spirited, and independent. The
two factions at length unite for the common good of the country; they
tell the world that they are patriots, that they are the only patriots,
and the world for a while believes them. This was the condition of
things when Pulteney in Parliament joined with Sir William Wyndham, the
extreme Jacobite, the Wyndham who is mentioned in Pope's poem about his
Twickenham grotto, the Wyndham with whom Bolingbroke corresponded for
many years, and to whom he addressed one of his most important
political manifestoes. Sir William Wyndham belonged to an old
Somersetshire family. He was a staunch Tory. He had powerful
connections; his first wife was a daughter of the haughty Duke of
Somerset. He entered Parliament and made a considerable figure there.
He had been Secretary at War and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer
under the Tories; he had clung to Bolingbroke's fortunes at the time of
Bolingbroke's {289} rupture with Harley. He underwent the common fate
of Tory statesmen on the accession of George the First; he was deprived
of office, was accused of taking part in the Jacobite conspiracy, and
was committed to the Tower. There was, however, no evidence against
him, and he resumed his political career. His eloquence is described
by Speaker Onslow as "strong, full, and without affectation, arising
chiefly from his clearness, propriety, and argumentation; in the method
of which last, by a sort of induction almost peculiar to himself, he
had a force beyond any man I ever heard in public debates." Lord
Hervey, who can be trusted not to overdo the praise of any one, says of
Wyndham that "he was very far from having first-rate parts, but by a
gentleman-like general behavior, a constant attendance in the House of
Commons, a close application to the business of it, and frequent
speaking, he had got a sort of Parliamentary routine, and without being
a bright speaker was a popular one, well heard, and useful to his
party." So far as we now can judge, this seems a very correct estimate
of Wyndham's Parliamentary capacity and position. He had a noble
presence, singularly graceful and charming manners, and a high personal
character. A combination between such a man as Pulteney and such a man
as Wyndham could not but be formidable even to the most powerful
minister.
Shippen, the leader of the Jacobites--"honest Shippen," as Pope calls
him--we have often met already. He was a straightforward, unselfish
man, absolutely given up to his principles and his party. He was well
read and had written clever pamphlets and telling satirical verses.
His speeches, or such reports of them as can be got at, are full of
striking passages and impressive phrases; they are speeches which even
now one cannot read without interest. But it would seem that Shippen
often marred the effect of his ideas and his language by a rapid,
careless, and imperfect delivery. He appears to have been one of the
men who wanted nothing but a clear {290} articulation and effective
utterance to be great Parliamentary debaters, and whom that single want
condemned to comparative failure. Those who remember the late Sir
George Cornewall Lewis, or, indeed, those who have heard the best
speeches of Lord Sherbrooke, when he was Mr. Robert Lowe, can probably
form a good idea of what Shippen was as a Parliamentary debater.
Shippen was nothing of a statesman, and his occasional eccentricities
of manner and conduct prevented him from obtaining all the influence
which would otherwise have been fairly due to his talents and his
political and personal integrity.
[Sidenote: 1729--The Hessians]
Pulteney's party had in Parliament the frequent, indeed for a time the
habitual, assistance of Wyndham and of Shippen. Outside Parliament
Bolingbroke intrigued, wrote, and worked with the indomitable energy
and restless craving for activity and excitement which, despite all his
professions of love for philosophic quiet, had been his life-long
characteristic. The _Craftsman_ was stimulated and guided much more
directly by his inspiration than even by that of Pulteney. The
_Craftsman_ kept showering out articles, letters, verses, epigrams, all
intended to damage the ministry, and more especially to destroy the
reputation of Walpole. All was fish that came into the _Craftsman's_
net. Every step taken by the Government, no matter what it might be,
was made an occasion for ridicule, denunciation, and personal abuse.
Not the slightest scruple was shown in the management of the
_Craftsman_. If the policy of the Government seemed to tend towards a
Continental war, the _Craftsman_ cried out for peace, and vituperated
the minister who dared to think of involving England in the trumpery
quarrels of foreign States. Walpole, however, we need hardly say, made
it a set purpose of his administration to maintain peace on the
Continent; and as soon as the patriots began to find out in each
particular instance that his policy was still the same, they turned
round and shrieked against the minister whose feebleness and cowardice
were laying England at the feet of foreign alliances and Continental
{291} despots. Walpole worked in cordial alliance with the French
Government, the principal member of which was now Cardinal Fleury. It
became the object of the _Craftsman_ to hold Walpole up to contempt and
derision, as the dupe of a French cardinal and the sycophant of a
French Court. The example of the _Craftsman_ was speedily followed by
pamphleteers, caricaturists, satirists, and even ballad-mongers without
end. London and the provinces were flooded with such literature.
Walpole was described as "Sir Blue String," the blue string being a
cheap satirical allusion to the blue ribbon which was supposed to adorn
him as Knight of the Garter. He was styled Sir Robert Brass, Sir
Robert Lynn, more often simple "Robin" or plain "Bob." He was pictured
as a systematic promoter of public corruption, as one who fattened on
the taxation wrung from the miserable English taxpayer. His personal
character, his domestic life, his household expenses, the habits of his
wife, his own social and other enjoyments, were coarsely criticised and
lampooned. The _Craftsman_ and its imitators attacked not only Walpole
himself, but Walpole's friends. The political satire of that day was
as indiscriminate as it was unsparing. It was enough to be a political
or even a personal friend of Walpole to become the object of the
_Craftsman's_ fierce blows. Pulteney did not even scruple to betray
the confidence of private conversation, and to disclose the words
which, in some unguarded moments of former friendship, Walpole had
spoken of George the Second when George was Prince of Wales.
An excellent opportunity was soon given to Pulteney to make an open and
a damaging attack on the ministry. Horace Walpole, British Ambassador
to the French Court, had been brought over from Paris to explain and
justify his brother's foreign policy. The Government put forward a
resolution in the House of Commons on February 7, 1729, for a grant of
some two hundred and fifty thousand pounds "for defraying the expense
of twelve thousand Hessians taken into his Majesty's pay." Even {292}
if the maintenance of this force had been a positive necessity, which
it certainly was not, it would, nevertheless, have been a necessity
bringing with it disparagement and danger to the Government responsible
for it. Pulteney made the most of the opportunity, and in a speech of
fine old English flavor denounced the proposal of the ministers.
[Sidenote: 1729--Subsidies voted] He asked with indignation whether
Englishmen were not brave enough or willing enough to defend their own
country without calling in the assistance of foreign mercenaries. It
might, he admitted, be some advantage to Hanover that German soldiers
should be kept in the pay of England, but he wanted to know what
benefit could come to the English people from paying and maintaining
such a band. These men were kept, he declared, in the pay of England,
not for the service of England, but for the service of Hanover. It
need hardly be said that during all the earlier years of the Brunswick
accession, a bare allusion to the name of Hanover was enough to stir an
angry feeling in the minds of the larger number of the English people.
Even the very men who most loyally supported the House of Brunswick
winced and writhed under any allusion to the manner in which the
interests of England were made subservient to the interests of Hanover.
Pulteney therefore took every pains to chafe those sore places with
remorseless energy. Sir William Wyndham supported Pulteney, and Sir
Robert Walpole himself found it necessary to throw all his influence
into the scale on the other side. His arguments were of a kind with
which the House of Commons has been familiar during many generations.
His main point was, that by maintaining a large body of soldiers,
Hessian among the rest, the country had been enabled to avoid war. The
Court of Vienna, with the assistance of Spanish subsidies, had been
making preparation for war, Walpole contended; and were it not for the
maintenance of this otherwise superfluous body of troops, the Emperor
of Austria would probably never have accepted the terms of peace. "If
you desire peace, {293} prepare for war," may be an excellent maxim,
but its value lies a good deal in its practical application. It is a
remarkably elastic maxim, and in times nearer to our own than those of
Walpole has been made to expand into a justification of the most
extravagant and unnecessary military armaments and of schemes of
fortification which afterwards were abandoned before they had been half
realized. In this instance, however, there was something more to be
said against the proposal of the Government. Some of the speakers in
the debate pointed out that England in former days, if it engaged in a
quarrel with its neighbors, fought the quarrel out with its own
strength, and was not in the habit of buying and maintaining the forces
of foreign princes to help Englishmen to hold their own. The
resolution, of course, was carried. It was even carried by an
overwhelming majority: 256 were on the "court side," as it was called,
against 91 on the "country side." Fifty thousand pounds was also voted
as "one year's subsidy to the King of Sweden," and twenty-five thousand
pounds for one year's subsidy to the Duke of Brunswick. In order,
however, to appease the consciences of some of those who supported the
resolution as well as those who had opposed it, the Government
permitted what we should now call a "rider" to be added to the
resolution requesting his Majesty that whenever it should be necessary
to take any foreign troops into his service, "he will be graciously
pleased to use his endeavors that they be clothed with the manufactures
of Great Britain." It was supposed to be some solace to the wounded
national pride of Englishmen to be assured that if they had to pay
foreigners to fight for them, the foreigners should at least not be
allowed to come to this country clothed in the manufactures of their
own land, but would be compelled to buy their garments over the counter
of an English shop.
On Friday, February 21st, an event which led directly and indirectly to
results of some importance occurred. Three petitions from the
merchants trading in tobacco {294} in London, Bristol, and Liverpool
were presented to the House of Commons. These petitions complained of
great interruptions for several years past of the trade with the
British colonies in America by the Spaniards. The depredations of the
Spanish, it was said, endangered the entire loss of that valuable trade
to England. The Spaniards were accused of having treated such of his
Majesty's subjects as had fallen into their hands in a barbarous and
cruel manner. The petitioners prayed for the consideration of the
House of Commons, and such timely remedy as the House should think fit
to recommend. These petitions only preceded a great many others, all
in substance to the same effect. The Commons entered upon the
consideration of the subject in a Committee of the whole House, heard
several petitioners, and examined many witnesses. An address was
presented to the Crown, asking for copies of all memorials, petitions,
and representations to the late King or the present, in relation to
Spanish captures of British ships. [Sidenote: 1729--The Campeachy
logwood] Copies were also asked for of the reports laid before the King
by the Commissioners of Trade and of Plantations, concerning the
dispute between England and Spain, with regard to the rights of the
subjects of Great Britain to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, on
the western shore of that Yucatan peninsula which juts into the Gulf of
Mexico. English traders had been for a long time in the habit of
cutting logwood along the shores in the Bay of Campeachy, and the
logwood trade had come to be one of the greatest importance to the West
Indies and to England. The Spanish Government claimed the right to put
a stop to this cutting of logwood, and the Spanish Viceroy and Governor
had in some instances declared that they would dislodge the Englishmen
from the settlements which they had established, and even treat them as
pirates if they persisted in their trade. There was, in fact, all the
material growing up for a serious quarrel between England and Spain.
Despite the recent treaties which were supposed to {295} secure the
peace of Europe, the times were very critical. "The British nation,"
says a contemporary writer, "had for many years past been in a state of
uncertainty, scarce knowing friends from foes, or indeed whether we had
either." Each new treaty seemed only to disturb the balance of power,
as it was called, in a new way. The Quadruple Alliance was intended to
rectify the defects of the Treaty of Utrecht; but it gave too much
power to the Emperor, and it increased the bitterness and the
discontent of the King of Spain. The Treaty of Vienna, made between
the Empire and Spain, was justly regarded in England as portending
danger to this country. It was even more dangerous than Englishmen in
general supposed at the time, although Walpole knew its full purport
and menace. The Treaty of Vienna led to the Treaty of Hanover, an
arrangement made in the closing years of George the First's reign
between Great Britain, France, and Prussia, by virtue of which if any
one of the contracting parties were to be attacked, the other two were
pledged to come to the assistance with funds and with arms. All these
arrangements were in the highest degree artificial; some of them might
fairly be described as unnatural. It might be taken for granted that
not one of the States whom they professed to bind to this side or to
that would hold to the engagements one hour longer than would serve her
own interests. No safety was secured by these overlapping treaties; no
one had any faith in them. It was quite true that England did not know
her friends from her enemies about the time at which we have now
arrived.
The dispute between England and Spain concerning the question of the
Campeachy logwood was to involve a controversy as to the interpretation
of certain passages in the Treaty of Utrecht. It was distinctly a
matter for calm consideration, for compromise, and for an amicable
settlement. But each of the two parties mainly concerned showed its
desire to push its own claim to an extreme. English traders have never
been particularly {296} moderate or considerate in pressing their
supposed rights to trade with foreign countries. In this instance they
were strongly backed up, encouraged, and stimulated by the band of
Englishmen who chose to call themselves "The Patriots." Few of the
"Patriots," we venture to think, cared a rush about the question of the
Campeachy logwood, or were very deeply grieved because Spain bore
herself in a high-handed fashion towards certain English merchants and
ship-owners. But the opportunity seemed to the "Patriots" admirably
adapted for worrying and harassing, not the Spaniards, but the
administration of Sir Robert Walpole. They used the opportunity to the
very full. [Sidenote: 1729--Gibraltar] The debates on the conduct of
Spain brought out in the House of Lords the acknowledgment of the fact
that King George I. had at one time actually written to the Government
of Spain, distinctly undertaking to bring about the restitution of
Gibraltar. A copy of the letter in French, with a translation, was
laid before the House. It seemed that on June 1, 1721, George, the
late King, wrote to the King of Spain, "Sir, my brother," a letter
concerning the treaties then in the course of being re-established
between England and Spain. In that letter occurred these words: "I do
no longer balance to assure your Majesty of my readiness to satisfy you
with regard to your demand touching the restitution of Gibraltar;
promising you to make use of the first favorable opportunity to
regulate this article with the consent of my Parliament." The House of
Lords had a long and warm debate on this subject. A resolution was
proposed, declaring that "for the honor of his Majesty, and the
preservation and security of the trade and commerce of this kingdom,"
care should be taken "that the King of Spain do renounce all claim and
pretension to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca, in plain and strong
terms." This resolution, however, was thought in the end to be rather
too strong, and it was modified into a declaration that the Lords "do
entirely rely upon his Majesty, that he will, for the maintaining the
honor and securing the {297} trade of this kingdom, take effectual care
in the present treaty to preserve his undoubted right to Gibraltar and
the island of Minorca." This resolution was communicated to the House
of Commons, and the Lords asked for a conference with that House in the
Painted Chamber. The Commons had a long debate on the subject. The
Opposition strongly denounced the ministers who had advised the late
King to write such a letter, and declared that it implied a positive
promise to surrender Gibraltar to Spain. The courtiers, as the
supporters of the Ministry were then called, to distinguish them from
the country party--that is to say, the Opposition--endeavored to
qualify and make light of the expressions used in the late King's
letter, to show that they were merely hypothetical and conditional, and
insisted that effectual care had since been taken in every way to
maintain the right of England to Gibraltar. The country party moved
that words be added to the Lords' resolution requiring "that all
pretensions on the part of the Crown of Spain to the said places be
specifically given up." Two hundred and sixty-seven votes against one
hundred and eleven refused the addition of these words as unnecessary,
and too much in the nature of a challenge and defiance to Spain. But
the motion that "this House does agree with the Lords in the said
resolution" was carried without a division, the Court party not
venturing to offer any objection to it. The King received the address
of both Houses on Tuesday, March 25th, and returned an answer thanking
them for the confidence reposed in him, and assuring them that "I will
take effectual care, as I have hitherto done, to secure my undoubted
right to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca."
The difficulty was over for the present. The Government contrived to
arrange a new treaty with Spain, the Treaty of Seville, in which France
also was included. This treaty settled for the time the disputes about
English trade with the New World, and the claims of Spain for a
restoration of Gibraltar were, indirectly at least, {298} given up.
Perhaps the whole story is chiefly interesting now as affording an
illustration of the manner in which the Patriots turned everything to
account for their one great purpose of harassing the administration of
Sir Robert Walpole. All the patriotic effusiveness about the undoubted
right of England to Gibraltar was merely well-painted passion. Such
sentiment as exists in the English mind with regard to the possession
of "the Rock" now, did not exist, had not had time to come into
existence, then. Gibraltar was taken in 1704; its possession was
confirmed to England by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Since that time
English Ministers had again and again been considering the expediency
of restoring Gibraltar to the Spaniards. Stanhope had been in favor of
the restoration; Townshend and Carteret had been in favor of it. Some
of the Patriots themselves, before they came to be dubbed Patriots, had
been in favor of it. Only the unreasonable and insolent behavior of
Spain herself stood at one time in the way of the restitution.
Gibraltar was one capture, like many others; captured territory changed
and changed hands with each new arrangement in those days. Minorca,
which was included with Gibraltar in the resolution of the two Houses
of Parliament and the consequent promise of the King, was taken by the
English forces shortly after the capture of Gibraltar, and was settled
upon England by the same Treaty of Utrecht. Yet, as we all know, it
was given up by England at the peace of Amiens, and no tears of grief
were shed by any English eyes. But the discovery that the late King
had at one time been willing to restore Gibraltar to Spain for a
consideration came in most opportunely for the Patriots. To most of
them it was, of course, no discovery at all. They had always known of
the intention, and some of them had approved of it. None the less
shrill were their cries of surprise; none the less vociferous their
shouts of patriotic anger.
{299}