Part 5

This having been the cry of the country gentlemen and landowners for some time, Sir Robert Walpole thought he could not do a more popular thing than to form a scheme by which the land-tax should be reduced to one shilling in the pound, and yet no new tax be substituted in the lieu thereof, no new duty laid on any commodity whatsoever, and the public revenue improved £500,000 per annum, merely by this alteration in the method of management.

The salt-duty, which had been revised the year before, could raise only in three years what one shilling in the pound on land raised in one year; consequently, as that tax was an equivalent only to one-third of a shilling on land, if the remission of that shilling on land was further and annually continued, some other fund must be found to supply the other two-thirds.

This of Excising tobacco and wine was the equivalent projected by Sir Robert Walpole, but this scheme, instead of procuring him the popularity he thought it would, caused more clamour and made him even, whilst the project was only talked of and in embryo, more vilified and abused by the universal outcries of the people, than any one Act of his whole administration.

The art, vigilance, and industry of his enemies had so contrived to represent this scheme to the people, and had so generally in every county and great town throughout all England prejudiced their minds against it; they had shown it in so formidable a shape and painted it in such hideous colours, that everybody talked of the scheme as a general Excise: they believed that food and raiment, and all the necessaries of life, were to be taxed; that armies of Excise officers were to come into any house and at any time they pleased; that our liberties were at an end, trade going to be ruined, Magna Charta overturned, all property destroyed, the Crown made absolute, and Parliaments themselves no longer necessary to be called.

This was the epidemic madness of the nation on this occasion; whilst most of the boroughs in England, and the city of London itself, sent formal instructions by way of memorials to their Representatives, absolutely to oppose all new Excises and all extensions of Excise laws, if proposed in Parliament, though introduced or modelled in any manner whatsoever.

It is easy to imagine that this reception of a scheme by which Sir Robert Walpole proposed to ingratiate himself so much with the people, must give him great disquiet. Some of his friends, whose timidity passed afterwards for judgment, advised him to relinquish it, and said, though it was in itself so beneficial a scheme to the public, yet since the public did not see it in that light, that the best part he could take was to lay it aside.

Sir Robert Walpole thought, since he was so far embarked, that there was no listening to such advice without quitting the King's service, for as it was once known that he designed to execute this scheme, had he given it up, everything that had been said of its tendency, would have been taken for granted; and the same men who had prepossessed the minds of the people, so far as to have these things credited, would very naturally and easily have persuaded them that their rescue from ruin, and the stop that had been put to this impending blow, were entirely owing to their patriotism; that it was the stand they had made had prevented the universal destruction that had been threatened to the liberties and fortunes of the people.

Sir Robert Walpole, therefore (who, if he could have foreseen the difficulties in which this scheme involved him, would certainly never have embarked in it at all), in this disagreeable dilemma chose what he thought the least dangerous path, and resolved, since he had undertaken it, to try to carry it through. His manner of reasoning was, that if he had given way to popular clamour on this occasion, it would be raised, right or wrong, on every future occasion to thwart and check any measure that could be taken by the Government whilst he should have the direction of affairs, and that the consequence of that must be, his resignation of his employment or his dismissal from the King's service....

At the same time, many pamphlets were written and dispersed in the country, setting forth the dangerous consequences of extending the Excise Laws, and increasing the number of Excise-officers; showing the infringement of the one upon liberty, and the influence the other must necessarily give the Crown in elections. And so universally were these terrors scattered through the nation, and so artfully were they instilled into the minds of the people, that this project, which in reality was nothing more than a mutation of two taxes from Customs to Excises, with an addition of only one hundred and twenty-six officers in all England for the collection of it, was so represented to the country, and so understood by the multitude, that there was hardly a town in England, great or small, where nine parts in ten of the inhabitants did not believe that this project was to establish a general Excise, and that everything they ate or wore was to be taxed; that a colony of Excise-officers was to be settled in every village in the Kingdom, and that they were to have a power to enter all houses at all hours;[13] that every place and every person was to be liable to their search, and that such immense sums of monies were to be raised by this project, that the Crown would no longer be under the necessity of calling Parliament for annual grants to support the Government, but be able to provide for itself, for the most part; and whenever it wanted any extraordinary supplies, that the Excise officers, by their power, would be able at any time to choose just such a Parliament as the Crown should nominate and direct.

[12] The attempted repeal of the Test Act.

[13] This feeling found expression in various scurrilous ballads. The following verse may serve as a specimen:

Who would think it a hardship that men so polite Should enter their houses by day or by night, To poke in each hole, and examine their stock, From the cask of right Nantz to their wives' Holland smock? He's as cross as the devil Who censures as evil A visit so courteous, so kind, and so civil; For to sleep in our beds without their _permit_, Were in a free country a thing most unfit.

THE PORTEOUS RIOTS (1736).

+Source.+--_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1736, p. 230.

One Wilson was hang'd at Edinburgh for robbing Collector Stark. He having made an Attempt to break Prison, and his Comrade having actually got off, the Magistrates had the City Guards and the Welsh Fusiliers under Arms during the execution, which was perform'd without Disturbance; but on the Hangman's cutting down the Corpse (the Magistrates being withdrawn) the Boys threw, as usual, some Dust and Stones, which falling among the City Guard, Capt. Porteous fired, and order'd his Men to fire; whereupon above 20 Persons were wounded, 6 or 7 kill'd, one shot thro' the Head at a Window up two Pair of Stairs. The Capt. and several of his Men were after committed to Prison.

[Captain Porteous was thereupon tried and condemned for murder, but he was reprieved, to the fury of the populace. A contemporary account of the sequel is to be found in the same volume of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, p. 549.]

_Tuesday, 7 September._ Betwixt 9 and 10 at Night, a Body of Men enter'd the West Port of _Edinburgh_, seiz'd the Drum, beat to Arms, and calling out, _Here! All those who dare avenge innocent Blood!_ were instantly attended by a numerous Crowd. Then they seized and shut up the City Gates, and posted Guards at each to prevent Surprise by the King's Forces, while another Detachment disarm'd the City Guards, and advanced immediately to the Tolbooth or Prison, where not being able to break the Door with hammers _&c._ they set it on Fire, but at the same Time provided Water to keep the Flame within the Bounds. Before the outer Door was near burnt down several rush'd thro' the Flames and oblig'd the Keeper to open the inner Door and going into Capt. _Porteous'_ Apartment, call'd, _Where is the Villain Porteous?_ who said I'm here, what is it you are to do with me? To which he was answered, We are to carry you to the Place where you shed so much innocent Blood and Hang you. He made some Resistance, but was soon overcome, for while some set the whole Prisoners at Liberty, others caught him by the Legs and dragged him down Stairs, and then led him to the _Grass Market_, where they agreed to Hang him without further Ceremony.... After he had hung till suppos'd to be dead, they nail'd the Rope to the Post, then formally saluting one another, grounded their Arms, and on t'other Rapp of the Drum retir'd out of Town."

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S SPEECH ON THE BILL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CENSORSHIP OF STAGE PLAYS (1737).

+Source.+--_Parliamentary History_, 1812. Vol. x., pp. 327-331, 338, 339.

My Lords; the Bill now before you I apprehend to be of a very extraordinary, a very dangerous nature. It seems designed not only as a restraint on the licentiousness of the stage, but it will prove a most arbitrary restraint on the liberty of the stage; and I fear it looks yet farther. I fear it tends towards a restraint on the liberty of the press, which will be a long stride towards the destruction of liberty itself....

... I am as much for restraining the licentiousness of the stage, and every other sort of licentiousness, as any of your lordships can be; but, my Lords, I am, I shall always be extremely cautious and fearful of making the least incroachment upon liberty; and therefore, when a new law is proposed against licentiousness, I shall always be for considering it deliberately and maturely, before I venture to give my consent to its being passed. This is a sufficient reason for my being against passing this Bill at so unseasonable a time, and in so extraordinary a manner[14]; but I have many reasons against passing the Bill itself, some of which I shall beg leave to explain to your lordships.... By this Bill you prevent a play's being acted, but you do not prevent its being printed; therefore, if a licence should be refused for its being acted, we may depend upon it, the play will be printed. It will be printed and published, my Lords, with the refusal in capital letters on the title page. People are always fond of what is forbidden. _Libri prohibiti_ are in all countries diligently and generally sought after. It will be much easier to procure a refusal, than ever it was to procure a good house, or a good sale; therefore we may expect, that plays will be wrote on purpose to have a refusal; this will certainly procure a good house, or a good sale. Thus will satires be spread and dispersed through the whole nation, and thus every man in the Kingdom may, and probably will, read for sixpence, what a few only could have seen acted, and that not under the expense of half-a-crown. We shall then be told, What! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, which you would not allow to be acted? You have agreed to a law for preventing its being acted, can you refuse your assent to a law forbidding its being printed and published? I should really, my Lords, be glad to hear what excuse, what reason one could give for being against the latter, after having agreed to the former; for, I protest, I cannot suggest to myself the least shadow of an excuse. If we agree to the Bill now before us, we must, perhaps next session, agree to a Bill for preventing any plays being printed without a licence. Then satires will be wrote by way of novels, secret histories, dialogues, or under some such title; and thereupon we shall be told, What! will you allow an infamous libel to be printed and dispersed, only because it does not bear the title of a play?...

If poets and players are to be restrained, let them be restrained as other subjects are, by the known laws of their country; if they offend, let them be tried, as every Englishman ought to be, by God and their country. Do not let us subject them to the arbitrary will and pleasure of any one man. A power lodged in the hands of one single man, to judge and determine, without any limitation, without any control or appeal, is a sort of power unknown to our laws, inconsistent with our constitution. It is a higher, a more absolute power than we trust even to the King himself; and, therefore, I must think, we ought not to vest any such power in his Majesty's lord chamberlain....

... The Bill now before us cannot so properly be called a Bill for restraining licentiousness, as it may be called a Bill for restraining the liberty of the stage, and for restraining it too in that branch which in all countries has been the most useful; therefore I must look upon the Bill as a most dangerous encroachment upon liberty in general. Nay, farther, my Lords, it is not only an encroachment upon liberty, but it is likewise an encroachment upon property. Wit, my Lords, is a sort of property: it is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on. It is, indeed, but a precarious dependence. Thank God! we, my Lords, have a dependence of another kind; we have a much less precarious support, and therefore cannot feel the inconveniences of the Bill now before us; but it is our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property it may be. Those gentlemen who have any such property, are all, I hope, our friends: do not let us subject them to any unnecessary and arbitrary restraint. I must own, I cannot easily agree to the laying of any tax upon wit; but by this Bill it is to be heavily taxed, it is to be excised;[15] for if this Bill passes, it cannot be retailed in a proper way without a permit; and the lord chamberlain is to have the honour of being chief gauger, supervisor, commissioner, judge and jury: but what is still more hard, though the poor author, the proprietor I should say, cannot perhaps dine till he has found out and agreed with a purchaser: yet before he can propose to seek for a purchaser, he must patiently submit to have his goods rummaged at this new excise-office, where they may be detained for fourteen days, and even then he may find them returned as prohibited goods, by which his chief and best market will be for ever shut against him; and that without any cause, without the least shadow of reason, either from the laws of his country, or the laws of the stage....

[14] It had been rushed through the House of Commons at the very end of the session.

[15] Walpole's Excise Bill had been withdrawn under strong pressure four years earlier (see p. 22). Hence the cogency of this allusion here.

DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE (1737): HER CHARACTER DESCRIBED BY GEORGE II.

+Source.+--Hervey's _Memoirs_. Vol. ii., pp. 531-533.

During this time [of the Queen's fatal illness in 1737] the King talked perpetually to Lord Hervey, the physicians and surgeons, and his children, who were the only people he ever saw out of the Queen's room, of the Queen's good qualities, his fondness for her, his anxiety for her welfare, and the irreparable loss her death would be to him; and repeated every day, and many times in the day, all her merits in every capacity with regard to him and every other body she had to do with. He said she was the best wife, the best mother, the best companion, the best friend, the best woman that ever was born; that she was the wisest, the most agreeable, and the most useful body, man or woman, that he had ever been acquainted with; that he firmly believed she never, since he first knew her, ever thought of anything she was to do or say, but with the view of doing or saying it in what manner it would be most agreeable to his pleasure or most serviceable for his interest; that he had never seen her out of humour in his life; that he had passed more hours with her than he believed any other two people in the world had ever passed together, and that he had never been tired in her company one minute; and that he was sure he could have been happy with no other woman upon earth for a wife, and that if she had not been his wife, he had rather have had her for his mistress than any woman he had ever been acquainted with; that he believed she never had had a thought of people or things which she had not communicated to him; that she had the best head, the best heart, and the best temper that God Almighty had ever given to any human creature, man or woman; and that she had not only softened all his leisure hours, but been of more use to him as a minister than any other body had ever been to him or to any other prince; that with a patience which he knew _he_ was not master of, she had listened to the nonsense of all the impertinent fools that wanted to talk to him, and had taken all that trouble off his hands, reporting nothing to him that was unnecessary or that would have been tedious for him to hear, and never forgetting anything that was material, useful, or entertaining for him to know. He said that, joined to all the softness and delicacy of her own sex, she had all the personal as well as political courage of the finest and bravest man; that not only he and her family, but the whole nation, would feel the loss of her if she died, and that, as to all the _brillant_ and _enjouement_ of the Court, there would be an end of it when she was gone; and that there would be no bearing a drawing-room when the only body that ever enlivened it, and one that always enlivened it, was no longer there. "Poor woman, how she always found something obliging, agreeable, and pleasing to say to somebody, and always sent people away from her better satisfied than they came! _Comme elle soutenoit sa dignité avec grace, avec politesse, avec douceur!_"

THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR (1739).

I.

REAR-ADMIRAL CHARLES STEWART'S LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE HAVANA AND THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

+Source.+--_English Historical Review._ Vol. iv., pp. 743, 742.

_12 Sept., 1731._

... I have repeated assurances that you allow vessels to be fitted out of your harbour, particularly one Fandino and others, who have committed the most cruel piratical outrages on several ships and vessels of the King my master's subjects, particularly about the 20th April last [N.S.] sailed out of your harbour in one of those Guarda Costas [Spanish revenue cutters], and met a ship of this island [Jamaica] bound for England; and after using the captain in a most barbarous inhuman manner, taking all his money, cutting off one of his ears, plundering him of those necessaries which were to carry the ship safe home, without doubt with the intent that she should perish in her passage; but as she has providentially got safe home, and likewise several others that have met with no better usage off the Havana, and the King my master having so much reason to believe that these repeated insults on his subjects could never be continued but by the connivance of several Spanish governors in these parts, is determined for his own honour as well as for the honour of his Catholic Majesty who he is now in the strictest friendship with, to endeavour to put a stop to these piratical proceedings.

_12 Oct., 1731._

... It is without doubt irksome to every honest man to hear such cruelties are committed in these seas; but give me leave to say that you only hear one side of the question; and I can assure you the sloops that sail from this island, manned and armed on that illicit trade, has (_sic_) more than once bragged to me of their having murdered 7 or 8 Spaniards on their own shore.... It is, I think, a little unreasonable for us to do injuries and not know how to bear them. But villainy is inherent to this climate, and I should be partial if I was to judge whether the trading part of the Island [Jamaica] or those we complain of among the Spaniards are most exquisite in that trade....

I was a little surprised to hear of the usage Captain Jenkins met with off the Havana, as I know the Governor there has the character of being an honest good man, and don't find anybody thinks he would connive or countenance such villainies.

II.

ACCOUNT OF THE EXAMINATION OF JENKINS BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (1738).

+Source.+--Samuel Boyse: _An Historical Review of the Transactions of Europe_. Vol. i., p. 29. Reading, 1747.

There was amongst the rest, one Instance that made so much Noise at this time, it cannot well be omitted. One Capt. _Jenkins_, Commander of a _Scotch_ Vessel, was in his Passage home boarded by a _Guarda Costa_, the Captain of which was an _Irishman_. The _Spaniards_, after rummaging, finding their Hopes disappointed, tearing off part of his ear, and bidding him carry it to the _English King_, and tell him they would serve him in the same manner if they had him in their Power: This Villainy was attended with other Circumstances of Cruelty too shocking to mention. The Captain, on his Return, was examined at the Bar of the House of Commons; and being ask'd what his Sentiments were, when threaten'd with Death? nobly reply'd, _That he recommended his Soul to God, and his Cause to his Country_;--which Words, and the Sight of his Ear, made a visible Impression on that great Assembly.

THE OPPOSITION SUSPECTS WALPOLE OF DOUBLE-DEALING.

+Source.+--Memorial from the Earl of Stair to Alexander Earl of Marchmont, December, 1739. Printed in _Papers of the Earls of Marchmont_, 1831. Vol. ii., pp. 170-172.

I shall take it for granted, that Great Britain has it in her power to make a prosperous war against Spain, spite of all the opposition that can possibly be made, even though France should meddle in the quarrel, by taking the Havannah, which can be done by raising troops in our colonies of America, headed by a very few regular troops sent from Britain. I mention the Havannah only, because _cela décide la guerre_. The Havannah once taken, the body of troops can be employed in several other expeditions, which may be very useful and very practicable. I say nothing of the method of raising these troops in America; that is a consideration of another time and place. I shall only say, that by the means of our colonies in America Britain should get the better of any nation in a war in America. By a proper use made of our colonies, I do not know what we are not able to do in America.

This proposition is demonstrably true; but, I believe, it is no less true, that Sir Robert has no such intention. The disposition of raising men in America would appear; but as no such disposition appears, we may conclude, that Sir Robert's scheme is different. I am afraid, that it is to make a treaty with Spain by the mediation of France. If that treaty should be apparently good, Great Britain will find herself in the state of the horse in Horace's fable:

"Sed postquam victor violens discessit at hoste, Non equitem dorso, non frenum depulit ore."