20

OF THE

LIFE AND ADMINISTRATION

OF

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE,

EARL OF ORFORD.

BY

WILLIAM COXE, M. A. F. R.S. F. A. S.

ARCHDEACON OF WILTS.

A NEW EDITION:

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,

PATERNOSTER Row.

1816.

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

OF

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.

PERIOD THE FIFTH:

From the Resignation of Lord TOWNSHEND to the Dissolution of the Parliament.

1730-1734.

CHAPTER 38.

1780-1731.

Walpole conducts the foreign Transactions-Inclines to a Reconciliation with the Emperor-Negotiations which preceded and terminated in the Treaty of Vienna-Treaty of Seville carried into Execution→→→ Transactions in Parliament-General Satisfaction-Character of Earl Waldegrave, the new Embassador at Paris.

THE resignation of Townshend placed Wal

pole in a new point of view. Hitherto he had scarcely taken any public part in foreign affairs, and only indirectly influenced the current negotiations, either through the private interposition of the queen, or the medium of his brother, affecting to leave the sole direction of those

But the re

matters to the secretary of state. moval of Townshend instantly changed his situation. The duke of Newcastle for some time continued to act the same subordinate part as before; and the new secretary, lord Harrington, received his impulse from the minister of finance, or from his brother Horace. Walpole, therefore, now took a more open and decided part in the regulation of foreign transactions; and his opinion seems to have principally contributed to the renewal of the ancient connection with the house of Austria, with whom England had been long in a state of open defiance.

He had sagaciously appreciated the advantages which resulted to England from the alliance with France, which had effectually injured the cause of the Pretender, and counteracted the schemes of the Jacobites. He was aware that France, during the minority of Louis the Fifteenth, or under the government of a prime minister, like Cardinal Fleury, of a pacific and timid disposition, was a very proper ally in a defensive treaty, to check and prevent the designs of the Emperor, who had formed schemes and alliances detrimental to the security and commerce of England. He well knew that ministers of a free nation must sometimes be obliged to contract new engagements, in opposition to those powers with whom they would have been willing to live in the strictest friendship, upon just and honourable terms."

He had therefore concurred with Townshend, The Interest of Great Britain steadily pursued, p. 26.