THE EXCISE SCHEME.
1732–3.
In May, 1732, the King made his second visit to Hanover, and was absent
from England four months. He invested the Queen with full powers of
Queen-Regent as before. George the Second’s visit to Hanover was again
exceedingly unpopular with the nation, but he was determined to go,
and it was useless to thwart him. This, Caroline’s second regency, was
uneventful, though in it she managed to do something to advance the
cause of prison reform. Knowing the injustices and anomalies of the
criminal law, the Queen’s influence was all on the side of mercy. She
showed a particular distaste to signing death warrants in her capacity
as Regent, and whenever she could possibly do so she pardoned the
criminals. For instance, we read: “On Tuesday the report of the four
criminals who received sentence of death at the late Sessions at the
Old Bailey was made to her Majesty in Council by Mr. Sergeant Raby, and
her Majesty was graciously pleased to show mercy and pardon them”. In
the reform of the prison system the Queen took a direct interest. She
was always anxious, when it was in her power, to release prisoners, and
to make penalties easier for debtors and other offenders,[84] and she
was determined that something should be done to remedy the deplorable
condition of the public prisons.[85] She had taken up this question the
year after the King’s accession to the throne, and during her regency
an inquiry was instituted, which laid bare a frightful system of
abuses; gaolers and warders connived at the escape of rich prisoners,
and subjected poor ones, who could not pay their extortionate demands,
to every sort of cruelty, insult and oppression.
The reports of the Select Committees of the House of Commons teem
with such cases. One report stated that “The Committee saw in the
women’s sick ward many miserable objects lying, without beds, on the
floor, perishing with extreme want; and in the men’s sick ward yet
much worse.... On the giving of food to these poor wretches (though
it was done with the utmost caution, they being only allowed at first
the smallest quantities, and that of liquid nourishment) one died; the
vessels of his stomach were so disordered and contracted, for want of
use, that they were totally incapable of performing their office, and
the unhappy creature perished about the time of digestion. Upon his
body a coroner’s inquest sat (a thing which, though required by law
to be always done, hath for many years been scandalously omitted in
this gaol), and the jury found that he died of want. Those who were
not so far gone, on proper nourishment being given them, recovered, so
that not above nine have died since the 25th March last, the day the
Committee first met there, though, before, a day seldom passed without
a death; and upon the advancing of the spring not less than eight or
ten usually died every twenty-four hours.”[86] The prison referred
to was a London prison, but in the provinces matters were no better.
There was, for example, a petition to the House of Commons, 1725, from
insolvent debtors in Liverpool gaol, stating that they were “reduced
to a starving condition, having only straw and water at the courtesy
of the sergeant”.[87] The Queen was horrified and indignant at these
revelations, and she repeatedly urged on Walpole the reformation of
the prison system, and the revision of the criminal code. But Walpole
was averse to any legislation unless it was demanded by political
exigencies, and the utmost the Queen achieved was a more vigorous
inspection of prisons and the punishment of gaolers detected in cruelty.
In September the King returned from Hanover and took over the reins of
government, an easy task, for Walpole and the Queen had managed so well
that this was a period of peace abroad and prosperity at home.
Walpole was now at the zenith of his power; in the country everything
was quiet, in the Cabinet all his colleagues were submissive. He
enjoyed the fullest confidence of the King and Queen, and he had
apparently complete ascendency in both Houses of Parliament. The
Opposition, though able and active, both in Parliament and out of it,
were unable to lessen the Ministerial majority. “What can you have
done, sir, to God Almighty to make him so much your friend?” exclaimed
an old Scottish Secretary of State at this time to Walpole. The Prime
Minister’s ascendency might have continued serenely had he not the
following year (1733) been so unwise as to depart from his policy of
letting sleeping dogs lie. He brought forward his celebrated excise
scheme. To explain it briefly, Walpole proposed to bring the tobacco
and wine duties under the law of excise, and so ease the land tax.
This land tax, ever since the Revolution of 1688, had borne the great
burden of taxation, and during the wars of Marlborough had risen to as
much as four shillings in the pound. In consequence of the peace and
prosperity enjoyed by the nation the last few years it has been reduced
to two shillings in the pound, and Walpole’s proposed changes would
have the effect of further reducing it or abolishing it altogether.
Walpole hoped by this means to conciliate the landowners and country
gentlemen, who considered that they had to bear an unfair share of
the burdens of the State. Customs had always been levied on wine and
tobacco, and the change proposed had regard chiefly to the method of
collection. An active system of smuggling was carried on, and connived
in and winked at by many people, so that the duties on wine and tobacco
fell very far short of the estimates. Under Walpole’s scheme this
system of wholesale smuggling would be to a great extent stopped, and
he estimated that the excise duties would rise by one-sixth, which
would be more than sufficient to meet the deficit caused by easing the
land tax. He had the hearty support of the court, for the King’s Civil
List depended to some extent on the duties on tobacco and wine, and if
they were increased, the royal income would increase also.
Walpole at first was confident that he would be able to carry this
scheme through without much opposition, but as soon as its purport
became known, even before it was introduced into Parliament, it was
evident that the Prime Minister had seriously miscalculated public
opinion. Both in and out of Parliament the opposition to any extension
of the excise was tremendous; the whole nation rose against it. The
people persisted in regarding the proposed extension as the first step
in a scheme of general excise, in which every necessary of life would
be taxed, and the liberties of the subject interfered with by excise
officers coming into private houses whenever they pleased. It was in
vain for Walpole to vow that “no such scheme had ever entered his
head”; it was in vain to reason or expostulate. Popular indignation
burned to a white heat, and there were plenty of able men ready to fan
the flame. The _Craftsman_ declared that the Prime Minister’s scheme
would ruin trade, destroy the liberties of the people, abrogate Magna
Charta, and make the Crown absolute. The Jacobites and the Tories,
though largely drawn from the landed classes who were to be benefited
by this scheme, rejected with contumely the proffered “bribe” as
they called it. Not only every Jacobite and every Tory, but all the
discontented Whigs, all the politicians who had wished for office and
had not obtained it, all the peers and members of Parliament whom
Walpole at different times had insulted and aggrieved, precipitated
themselves on this opportunity of attacking him.
The Prime Minister was also betrayed in the house of his friends;
there were several great peers holding minor offices under the Crown
who were secretly hostile to Walpole, though they had hitherto masked
their animosity. They now seized this opportunity to undermine him.
Among them were the Dukes of Argyll, Montrose, and Bolton, the Earls
of Stair and Marchmont, and Lords Chesterfield and Clinton. These
malcontents held a secret meeting, and determined to send Lord Stair
to the Queen, to set forth to her the unpopularity of the excise
scheme, and the danger which the Crown ran in supporting it. Lord Stair
had fought in Marlborough’s campaign, and for many years had served
his country with great credit as ambassador to France. Walpole had
treated him shabbily in recalling him from Paris when he came into
collision with Law, the financier, and for a long time there had been
a great deal of ill-feeling. When the Duke of Queensberry resigned,
Walpole sought to make amends by giving the ex-ambassador the post of
Vice-Admiral of Scotland; this post Lord Stair still held, but he had
not forgotten his resentment against Walpole.
The Queen gave Lord Stair an audience one evening in her cabinet in
Kensington Palace. He burst forth into violent invective against the
Prime Minister, saying: “But, madam, though your Majesty knows nothing
of this man but what he tells you himself, or what his creatures and
flatterers, prompted by himself, tell you of him, yet give me leave to
assure your Majesty that in no age, in no reign, in no country, was
ever any Minister so universally odious as the man you support.... That
he absolutely governs your Majesty nobody doubts, and very few scruple
to say; they own you have the appearance of power, and say you are
contented with the appearance, whilst all the reality of power is his,
derived from the King, conveyed through you, and vested in him.”
He then referred to a personal grievance he had against Walpole, in
that Lord Isla, brother of the Duke of Argyll, had been preferred
before him, and given important appointments which he (Lord Stair)
ought to have filled. He quoted this as a proof of Walpole’s power
over the Queen, and said: “For what cannot that man persuade you to,
who can make _you_, madam, love a Campbell? The only two men in this
country who ever vainly hoped or dared to attempt to set a mistress’s”
(Mrs. Howard’s) “power up in opposition to yours were Lord Isla and his
brother, the Duke of Argyll; yet one of the men who strove to dislodge
you by this method from the King’s bosom is the man your favourite has
thought fit to place the nearest to his.” This, however, was a little
too much for the Queen, who was extremely sensitive of any mention
of the peculiar relations which existed between Mrs. Howard and the
King. She sharply rebuked Lord Stair, and desired him to remember that
“he was speaking of the King’s servant, and to the King’s wife”. Lord
Stair therefore said no more on that point, but proceeded forthwith to
the excise scheme, declaring that it would be impossible to force the
measure through the Lords, though corruption might carry it through the
Commons. He added that even if it were possible to carry it into law,
“yet, madam, I think it so wicked, so dishonest, so slavish a scheme,
that my conscience would no more permit me to vote for it than his”
(Walpole’s) “ought to have permitted him to project it”. The Queen
again interrupted him by crying out: “Oh, my lord, don’t talk to me of
your conscience; you make me faint!” This so nettled Lord Stair that he
spoke plainer than ever.
When he had quite talked himself out, it was the Queen’s turn to let
Lord Stair know _her_ mind, which she did with a vigour and directness
that left nothing to be desired.
“You have made so very free with me personally in this conference, my
lord,” she said, “that I hope you will think I am entitled to speak
my mind with very little reserve to you; and believe me, my lord, I
am no more to be imposed upon by your professions than I am to be
terrified by your threats.” She then reminded Lord Stair of the part
he had played in supporting the Peerage Bill in the last reign, which,
she held, was against the interests of the Prince of Wales and the
liberties of the people, and went on to say: “To talk therefore in the
patriot strain you have done to me on this occasion can move me, my
lord, to nothing but laughter. Where you get your lesson I do not want
to know. Your system of politics you collect from the _Craftsman_, your
sentiments, or rather your professions, from my Lord Bolingbroke and my
Lord Carteret--whom you may tell, if you think fit, _that I have long
known them to be two as worthless men of parts as any in this country,
and whom I have not only been often told are two of the greatest liars
and knaves in any country, but whom my own observation and experience
have found so_.”[88]
All this the Queen said, and much more to the same effect, which
convinced Lord Stair that she would do nothing against Walpole, so
he took his leave saying: “Madam, you are deceived, and the King is
betrayed”. He went back to the malcontent peers to tell them of the
interview, from which he was fain to confess he had no results to show;
but he boasted that he had at least told the Queen some home truths
which she would not be likely to forget.
Finding that Walpole was determined, despite remonstrance, to
introduce his excise scheme, and was supported by the King and Queen,
the Opposition organised a popular agitation against it. The whole
country was flooded with pamphlets, and meetings were everywhere
held. Disaffection to the Government ran like wildfire throughout the
land, and from all parts of the kingdom the cry was: “No slavery, no
excise, no wooden shoes”--this last was aimed at the German tendencies
of the court. Public agitation rose to a greater height than it had
done since the Jacobite rising of 1715. The city of London and nearly
every borough in England held meetings to protest against the scheme,
and passed resolutions commanding their representatives to oppose any
extension of the excise in any form whatever. The agitation went on for
months, increasing in volume and in violence, though the scheme was
yet in embryo, and the measure had not been laid before Parliament.
The more timid among Walpole’s supporters took alarm and urged him to
abandon the contemplated measure. But the Prime Minister, who during
these years of almost absolute power had become a dictator, refused to
listen. He paid little heed to the press, and declared that the whole
agitation was a got-up job. If he yielded to clamour in this matter he
would have to do so in others and would be left, he said, with only the
shadow of power.
[Illustration: PHILIP STANHOPE, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.
_From the Painting in the National Portrait Gallery._]
Walpole introduced his Excise Bill into Parliament on March 14th,
1733, in a speech conspicuous for its moderation. He stoutly denied
the report that he intended to propose a general excise. He sketched
the details of his measure as one which affected solely the duties
on tobacco and wine and sought to put down smuggling. “And this,” he
wound up, “is the scheme which has been represented in so dreadful
and terrible a light--this the monster which was to devour the people
and commit such ravages over the whole nation.” The Prime Minister’s
eloquence was of no avail; his denials were not believed, his
moderation was regarded as a sign of weakness. The Opposition rose
in their wrath and denounced the measure root and branch. Pulteney
mocked, Barnard thundered, Wyndham stigmatised excises of every kind as
“badges of slavery”. And the cheers which greeted these denunciations
within the House were caught up by the multitude outside. The doors of
Westminster were besieged by frenzied crowds hostile to the excise
who cheered every member of Parliament opposed to the Bill, and hooted
and yelled at every one who favoured it. To these Walpole incautiously
alluded in his reply, “Gentlemen may give them what name they think
fit; it may be said they come hither as humble supplicants, but I know
whom the law calls sturdy beggars”. The Opposition seized on this
unlucky phrase as showing the arrogant Minister’s indifference to the
poverty of the people, and his desire to deny their right of petition.
Through the rest of his political career Walpole never heard the last
of the “sturdy beggars”. The expression so exasperated the mob that the
same night, when, after thirteen hours’ debate, Walpole was leaving the
House, some of the “sturdy beggars” made a rush at him and would have
torn him to pieces had not his friends interposed and carried him off
in safety.
The King and Queen were intensely interested in the progress of the
measure. Indeed it was said that if their being sent back to Hanover
had depended on the fate of this Bill they could not have been more
excited. Walpole’s friends fell off one by one, and new enemies
declared themselves every day. Yet still the King and Queen stood by
their favourite Minister undismayed. Violent personal attacks were made
upon Walpole during the debate, to which the Prime Minister vigorously
retorted. The King delighted to hear of these retorts, and would rap
out vehement oaths and cry with flushed cheeks and tears in his eyes:
“He is a brave fellow; he has more spirit than any man I ever knew”.
The Queen would join in these acclamations.
Thus matters went on for nearly a month, things going from bad to
worse, majorities in Parliament getting smaller and smaller, supporters
falling off one by one, and the popular ferment growing higher and
higher. Petitions against the Bill poured in from all the large
towns, that of the Common Council of London being the most violent of
all. And the paper war raged unceasingly. “The public,” says Tindal,
“was so heated with papers and pamphlets that matters rose next to a
rebellion.”[89] But despite dwindling majorities and popular clamour,
Walpole remained stubborn. At last, when the storm was at its worst,
it was the Queen who saw the hopelessness of contending against it.
In despair she asked Lord Scarborough, who had always been a personal
friend of the King and herself, and who now threatened to resign his
office, what was to be done. He replied: “The Bill must be dropped, or
there will be mutiny in the army. I will answer for my regiment,” he
added, “against the Pretender, but not against the excise.” Tears came
into the Queen’s eyes. “Then,” said she, “we must drop it.”[90]
The resolution was arrived at none too soon. On April 9th, after a
furious debate in the House, Walpole went to St. James’s and had a
conference with the King and Queen. It was then agreed to drop the
Bill, though it was resolved not to make the intention known for a day
or two longer. Walpole then had a private interview with the Queen, and
offered to resign. It was necessary, he said, that some one should be
sacrificed to appease the fury of the populace, and it was better that
he should be the one. The Queen knew well what he meant, for she had so
identified herself with Walpole’s policy that half the attacks of the
Opposition on the Prime Minister were really veiled attacks upon her.
But she refused to listen to such a suggestion and upbraided Walpole
for having thought her “so mean, so cowardly, so ungrateful,” as to
accept of such an offer, and she assured him that as long as she lived
she would not abandon him. Walpole then made a similar proposition to
the King, but George the Second replied in much the same words as the
Queen had done. Both the King and Queen were greatly distressed at the
turn events had taken. The Queen wept bitterly, but put a bright face
on the matter in public, and held her evening drawing-room as usual.
She was, however, so anxious, that she was forced to pretend a headache
and the vapours, and break up the circle earlier than usual.
The next day, April 10th, was the crucial day. The City of London,
headed by the Lord Mayor in full state, petitioned Parliament against
the Bill, and the citizens attended in such numbers that the string
of coaches ran from Westminster all the way to Temple Bar. When the
division was taken that night, it was found that the Government
had a majority of only sixteen votes, which was a virtual defeat.
The Opposition were wildly excited over their victory, which they
confidently hoped would involve Walpole’s fall and disgrace. Lord
Hervey, who had been sent down to the House to report progress,
hastened back to the King and Queen to tell them the bad news. The
tears ran down the Queen’s cheeks, and for some time she could not
speak. The King cross-questioned Hervey as to who were the members
who had seceded from the Government ranks and helped to swell the
Opposition figures, and as he heard the names, he commented on them
one by one in expressions such as: “A fool!” “An Irish blockhead!” “A
booby!” “A whimsical fellow!” and so forth. But though the King might
swear and the Queen might weep, it was clear that the game was up, and
the sooner they acted upon their intention of abandoning the Bill the
better.
Walpole, too, fully realised this at last, and the howls of public
execration that pursued him might well have daunted even his stout
heart. If there is any truth in Frederick the Great’s story, it was
on this eventful night that Walpole escaped from the infuriated crowd
around Westminster disguised under an old red cloak, and shouting
“Liberty, liberty; no excise!” and made his way to St. James’s to
acquaint the King and Queen of the result of the division. He found the
King armed at all points; he had donned the hat he wore at Malplaquet
and was trying the temper of the sword he had fought with at Oudenarde.
He was ready to put himself at the head of his guards and march out
upon his rebellious and mutinous subjects. But Walpole besought him
to be calm and vowed it was a “choice between abandoning the Excise
Bill or losing the crown”. But this story is probably apocryphal.
What is certain is that Walpole, the evening of the division, had a
small gathering of his staunchest supporters at his house in Arlington
Street. After supper he got up and said: “Gentlemen, this dance it will
no further go”; and announced his intention of sounding a retreat on
the morrow, no doubt to their relief.
On the morrow, April 11th, the House of Commons was crowded from end to
end, and the people thronged not only the approaches to Westminster,
but forced their way into the lobby. Walpole got up in the House and
announced his intention of postponing the measure for two months.
This, though a virtual confession of defeat, was not enough for the
Opposition, who made a great uproar, and the chamber resounded with
hissings, howlings and shouts, which were taken up by the mob outside,
and the threatening murmurs of the multitude could be distinctly heard
within the House itself, rising and falling like the surge of the sea.
So violent and threatening was the mob that at the close of the debate
it was suggested to Walpole that he should make good his escape from
the House by the back way. But the Prime Minister said he would not
shrink from danger, and, surrounded by a body of chosen supporters,
he made his way through a lane of constables. In the lobby there was
great jostling and hustling, and many blows were struck. Several of
Walpole’s supporters were struck and wounded, but the Minister himself
managed to get through unhurt, found his coach and got safely home.
The scenes in the streets of London that night were unparalleled; the
whole city seemed to be on foot; the guards were called out and put
under arms; magistrates were ready to read the Riot Act; and bodies
of constables were drafted in all directions. Had the Bill not been
dropped it is certain that a fearful riot would have broken out, and
London might have presented scenes almost parallel to those witnessed
in Paris nearly a century later. But since the excise was abandoned
the excitement of the populace found vent in jubilations. The Monument
was illuminated, bonfires were lighted in the streets (and within a
day or two, as the news travelled, in every town in England), nearly
all the houses were lighted up, and at Charing Cross Walpole and a fat
woman, representing the Queen, were burnt in effigy, amid the howls and
shrieks of the multitude.
Walpole was not a man to do things by halves, and having found that
public opinion was dead against him on the excise, he determined
to drop the scheme altogether. When, in the next session, Pulteney
endeavoured to fan the flame of opposition by insinuating that it
would be revived, in some form, Walpole out-manœuvred him by frankly
confessing his failure. “As to the wicked scheme,” he said, “as the
honourable gentleman was pleased to call it, which he would persuade
us is not yet laid aside, I for my own part can assure this House I
am not so mad as ever again to engage in anything that looks like an
excise, though in my own private opinion I still think it was a scheme
that would have tended very much to the interests of the nation.”[91]
This frank confession of defeat prevented the Opposition from harping
any longer on the iniquity of the excise. But it reasonably gave them
hope that a Minister who, by his own confession, had brought forward
a scheme which had been rejected with contumely by the nation should
constitutionally be compelled to resign. Popular execration had been
directed not only against the scheme but against its author, and it was
a Pyrrhic victory indeed which routed the host but left the commander
in possession of the field. But Queen Caroline was as good as her word;
she determined never to part with Walpole as long as she lived, and
the King echoed her sentiments. In vain did the Opposition invoke the
sacred ark of the Constitution; they only broke themselves against the
rock of the Queen’s influence.
The group of peers who held office under the Crown and yet had arrayed
themselves against Walpole, in the confident hope that he would be
forced to resign, now found themselves in a peculiarly difficult
position. The King and Queen were indignant with them, nor did
Walpole treat them with magnanimity. He forgave the repugnance of
the nation to his scheme; he could not forgive the repugnance of his
colleagues. Always domineering and impatient of opposition, he now gave
his vengeance full swing. Lord Chesterfield, who held the office of
Lord Steward of the Household, was the first to feel his resentment.
Chesterfield was going up the great staircase of St. James’s Palace two
days after the Excise Bill was dropped, when an attendant stopped him
from entering the presence chamber, and handed him a summons requesting
him to surrender his white staff. In this might be seen also the hand
of the Queen. The same day Lord Clinton, lord of the bedchamber,
Lord Burlington, who held another office, the Duke of Montrose and
Lord Marchmont, who held sinecures in Scotland, and Lord Stair were
dismissed. Other peers were also deprived of their commissions,
including the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham. Thus did Walpole triumph
over his enemies.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER VIII:
[84] Last Friday her Majesty was most graciously pleased to extend her
mercy to William Bales, under order for transportation for fourteen
years, who sometime since was condemned on the Black Act.--_Daily
Gazetteer_, 26th July, 1736.
Her Majesty has been pleased to pardon the three following condemned
to transportation for fourteen years--_viz._, Thomas Ricketts, for
stealing a silver hilted sword, and Thomas Morris and John Pritchard,
for housebreaking.--_Daily Gazetteer_, 7th August, 1736.
The day before the Court removed from Windsor to Richmond her
Majesty gave £80 for discharging poor debtors confined in the town
jail.--_Daily Post_, 19th October, 1730.
[85] Petitions have lately been presented to her Majesty from insolvent
debtors confined in the prisons of this city, the numbers of whom are
so great that several have died lately of the prison distemper, and
others through want.--_Craftsman_, 18th May, 1728.
[86] Second Report of the Select Committee, presented 14th May 1729.
[87] _Commons’ Journals_, vol. xx.
[88] Hervey’s _Memoirs_.
[89] _Tindal’s History._
[90] Maby’s _Life of Chesterfield_.
[91] _Parliamentary History_, vol. ix., p. 254.