THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. CHAPTER I. THE era of the Georges in England may be compared to the era of the Antonines at Rome. It was a period combining happiness and glory, a period of kind rulers and a prosperous people. While improvement was advancing at home with gigantic strides, while great wars were waged abroad, the domestic repose and enjoyment of the nation were scarcely ever for a moment broken through. The current was strong and rapid, but the surface remained smooth and unruffled. Lives were seldom lost, either by popular breaches of the law or by its rigorous execution. The population augmented fast, but wealth augmented faster still: comforts became more largely diffused, and knowledge more generally cultivated. Unlike the era of the Antonines, this prosperity did not depend "on the character of a single man."* Its foundations were laid on ancient and free institutions, which, good from the first, were still gradually improving, and which alone, amongst all others since the origin of civil society, had completely solved the great problem how to combine the greatest security to property with the greatest freedom of action. It is true, however, that this golden period by no means affords us unmixed cause for self-congratulation, and contains no small alloy of human frailties and of human passions. Some of the quiet I have mentioned may be imputed to corruption, as much as some of the troubles to faction. Our pride as legislators may sink when we discover that our constitutional pre-eminence has arisen still more from happy accident than from skilful design. We may likewise blush to think that even those years which, on looking back, are See the remarks of Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. iii. vol. i. p. 127, ed. 1820. B universally admitted as most prosperous, and those actions now considered irreproachable, were not free at the time from most loud and angry complaints. How ungratefully have we murmured against Providence at the very moment when most enjoying its bounty! How much has prosperity been felt, but how little acknowledged! How sure a road to popularity has it always been to tell us, that we are the most wretched and ill-used people upon the face of the earth! To such an extent, in fact, have these outcries proceeded, that a very acute observer has founded a new theory upon them; and, far from viewing them as evidence of suffering, considers them as one of the proofs and tokens of good government.* In attempting to unfold, at least for a small period, this mingled mass of national wisdom and national folly,-of unparalleled prosperity and of stunning complaints,-I venture to promise the reader, on my part, honesty of purpose. I feel that unjustly to lower the fame of a political adversary, or unjustly to raise the fame of an ancestor, to state any fact without sufficient authority, or to draw any character without thorough conviction, implies not merely literary failure, but moral guilt. Of any such unfair intention I hope the reader may acquit me; I am sure I can acquit myself. The published works which I shall quote I need not enumerate. The MSS. which I have consulted are the following:-The Stanhope Papers, at Chevening; the Stuart Papers, which were transmitted to the late king from Rome, and to which I obtained access by the gracious indulgence of his present Majesty; the very important collection of the Earl of Hardwicke, which he has laid open to me in the most liberal and friendly manner; the collections (mostly copies) of Archdeacon Coxe, which were presented by his brother to the British Museum; and the Memoirs of the Master of Sinclair, with notes by Sir Walter Scott, which I owe to the kindness of J. G. Lockhart, Esq. January, 1836. The administration of Marlborough and Godolphin, in the reign of Queen Anne, shines forth with peculiar lustre in our annals. No preceding one, perhaps, had ever comprised so many great men or achieved so many great actions. Besides its two eminent chiefs, it "J'ai toujours trouvé que le meilleur gouvernement est celui contre lequel on crie le plus fort sur les lieux mêmes; et il suffit de citer l'Angleterre et les Etats Unis d'Amérique; car cela prouve que l'on a l'œil sur ceux qui dirigent les affaires, et qu'on peut impunément censurer leurs mesures." (Simond, Voyage d'Italie, tom. ii. p. 286.) A still more celebrated Genevese, M. de Sismondi, makes a similar observation in his recent essay, Sur l'Elément Aristocratique. [Since the date of this Introduction, the publication of "THE STUART PAPERS" has been begun. The first volume has appeared, and contains Bishop Atterbury's corre spondence with the Pretender.] could boast of the mild yet lofty wisdom of Somers, the matured intellect of Halifax, and the rising abilities of Walpole. At another time, also, the most subtle statesman and the most accomplished speaker of their age, Harley and St. John, were numbered in its ranks. It had struck down the overgrown power of France. It had saved Germany, and conquered Flanders. "But at length," says Bishop Fleetwood, with admirable eloquence, "God for our sins permitted the spirit of discord to go forth, and, by troubling sore the camp, the city, and the country (and oh that it had altogether spared the place sacred to his worship!) to spoil for a time this beautiful and pleasing prospect, and give us in it steadI know not what. Our enemies will tell the rest with pleasure." To our enemies, indeed, I would willingly leave the task of recording the disgraceful transactions of that period. Let them relate the bedchamber influence of Mrs. Masham with her sovereign, and the treacherous cabals of Harley against his colleagues; by what unworthy means the great administration of Godolphin was sapped and overthrown; how his successors surrendered the public interests to serve their own; how subserviency to France became our lead 1 [The story of this sentence, quoted from the once famous Preface of Bishop Fleetwood's Sermons, is, in several respects, curious, especially so as illustrative of the politi cal feelings of the times. The book was published early in the year 1712, and the preface was immediately applauded and circulated by the author's Whig friends, while, on the other hand, this sentence, coming after an eulogy upon the administration of Marlborough and Godolphin, drew down the wrath of the court-party in parliament and elsewhere. The preface was dated on the 2d of May, and on the 21st of the same month it was printed at length in the Spectator, No. 384, being one of Steele's contributions, by which means above four thousand additional copies of it were circulated. It is stated that on that day the hour of publishing the Spectator was postponed till twelve o'clock; the reason being, that it was always presented with Queen Anne's breakfast, and Steele was determined to leave no time for examining its particular contents upon that occasion. (See Note in Scott's Swift's Works, vol. iv. p. 291.) On the 10th of June complaint being made to the House of Commons against the Preface to the Bishop of St. Asaph's Four Sermons, the book was brought up and the preface read. After an animated debate the Commons, by a vote of 119 to 53, passed resolutions condemning the preface as "malicious and factious, highly reflecting upon the present administration of public affairs under her majesty, and tending to create discord and sedition among her subjects;" and ordering it to be burned by the hands of the common hangman in Palace Yard, Westminster. The preface was also assailed by Swift in "a pretended Letter of Thanks from Lord Wharton to the Lord Bishop of St. Asaph in the name of the Kit-Cat Club:" and again in a paper in the Examiner, entitled, "Remarks on Bishop Fleetwood's Preface." (See Scott's Swift's Works, vol. iv.) This curious piece of literary history seems to be completed, when we now find this sentence, once the theme of vehement party agitation, calmly adopted here as an introductory sentence by the historian-himself one of England's statesmen in a succeeding century. An inaccurate date, connected with this subject, appears to have obtained currency, for I have noted it in several places-in biographical notices of Bishop Fleetwood, in the notes of Scott's edition of Swift's Works, and in the notes in the Parliamentary His tory. The execution of the order of the House of Commons for burning the preface is dated on the 12th of May instead of June. The preface was published in the Spectator on the 19th of May, which, from the false date, would erroneously appear to have been only a few days after the execution of the order by the Commons, and thus in bold contempt of it. The resolutions of the House were on the 10th of June, ordering the burning of the preface "upon Thursday next," which day was June the 12th. It is worth while to state the detection of this error of date, in order to guard against false inferences which otherwise might be drawn as to the conduct of the press in those times.] ing principle of policy; how the Dutch were forsaken and the Catalans betrayed; until at length this career of wickedness and weakness received its consummation in the shameful peace of Utrecht. It used to be observed, several centuries ago, that as the English always had the better of the French in battles, so the French always had the better of the English in treaties.* But here it was a sin against light; not the ignorance which is deluded, but the falsehood which deludes. We may, perhaps, admit that it might be expedient to depart from the strict letter of the Grand Alliance, to consent to some slight dismemberment of the Spanish monarchy, to purchase the resignation of Philip, or allow an equivalent for the Elector of Bavaria by the cession of Sicily and Sardinia, or, perhaps, of Naples. So many hands had grasped at the royal mantle of Spain, that it could scarcely be otherwise than rent in the struggle. But how can the friends of Bolingbroke and Oxford possibly explain or excuse that they should offer far better terms at Utrecht in 1712, than the French had been willing to accept at Gertruydenberg in 1709? Or if the dismissal of the Duke of Marlborough had so far raised the spirits of our enemies and impaired the chances of the war, how is that dismissal itself to be defended ?1 It is at the conclusion of this unworthy treaty in March 1713, "Jamais ne se mena traité entre les François et Anglois que le sens des François et leur habileté ne se monstrat pardessus celle des Anglois, et ont lesdits Anglois un mot commun qu'autrefois m'ont dit traitant avec eux; c'est qu'aux batailles qu'ils ont eues avec les François toujours, ou le plus souvent, ils ont eu le gain; mais en tous traitez qu'ils ont eu à conduire avec eux, ils y ont eu perte et dommage." (Mém. de Comines, liv. iii. ch. viii.) 1 We may, [See Lord Mahon's "History of the War of the Succession in Spain," (chap. ix.,) for a circumstantial account of the Treaty of Utrecht, closing with this comment: "Such is the substance of the celebrated Peace of Utrecht, which has always been considered a blot on the bright annals of England, and which one of her greatest statesmen, Lord Chatham, has pronounced the indelible reproach of the last generation.' however, be allowed to think, that whilst the glory of the war belongs to the whole people,-whilst Blenheim and Ramillies were prepared by British treasure, and won by British skill and British bravery, the disgrace of the peace, that low and unworthy result of such great achievements, should rest on only a small knot of factious partisans. Let it rest, above all, on Lord Bolingbroke, whose genius, splendid as it was, seldom worked but for evil, either in philosophy or politics." See also Mr. Hallam's "Constitutional History of England," vol. iii. p. 294, ch. 16, where he gives his reasons for an opinion that "it is impossible to justify the course of that negotiation which ended in the Peace of Utrecht." On the other hand, the reader will find a defence of the treaty in the Edinburgh Review for 1833, in an article on Lord Mahon's History of the War of the Succession, written by Mr. Macaulay, and republished in his Essays. While admitting that the means by which peace was brought about were unscrupulous and dishonest, that the abandonment of the Catalans was inconsistent with humanity and national honour, and that the motives of the statesmen who concluded the peace may have been selfish and malevolent, he argues that the dangers of the peace were inconsiderable, and outweighed by the evils of war and the risk of failure, and therefore defends the treaty as beneficial to the state. See also Mr. Alison's Life of the Duke of Marlborough for a chapter (viii.) devoted to an elaborate discussion of the Peace of Utrecht, and its remote as well as immediate consequences the author's conclusion being that the ministry who negotiated it "have obtained their just punishment by acquiring the merited condemnation of succeeding times."] |