Chapter IV: , VII (14)

ENGLAND: A. D. 1713-1714.
The desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.
The end of the Stuart line and the beginning of the
Hanoverians.

Queen Anne died, after a short illness, on the morning of
August 1, 1714. The Tories, who had just gained control of the
ministry, were wholly unprepared for this emergency. They
assembled in Privy Council, on the 29th of July, when the
probably fatal issue of the Queen's illness became apparent,
and "a strange scene is said to have occurred. Argyle and
Somerset, though they had contributed largely by their
defection to the downfall of the Whig ministry of Godolphin,
were now again in opposition to the Tories, and had recently
been dismissed from their posts. Availing themselves of their
rank of Privy Councillors, they appeared unsummoned in the
council room, pleading the greatness of the emergency.
Shrewsbury, who had probably concocted the scene, rose and
warmly thanked them for their offer of assistance; and these
three men appear to have guided the course of events. …
Shrewsbury, who was already Chamberlain and Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, became Lord Treasurer, and assumed the authority of
Prime Minister. Summons were at once sent to all Privy
Councillors, irrespective of party, to attend; and Somers and
several other of the Whig leaders were speedily at their post.
They had the great advantage of knowing clearly the policy
they should pursue, and their measures were taken with
admirable promptitude and energy. The guards of the Tower were
at once doubled. Four regiments were ordered to march from the
country to London, and all seamen to repair to their vessels.
An embargo was laid on all shipping. The fleet was equipped,
and speedy measures were taken to protect the seaports and to
secure tranquility in Scotland and Ireland. At the same time
despatches were sent to the Netherlands ordering seven of the
ten British battalions to embark without delay; to Lord
Strafford, the ambassador at the Hague, desiring the
States-General to fulfil their guarantee of the Protestant
succession in England; to the Elector, urging him to hasten to
Holland, where, on the death of the Queen, he would be met by
a British squadron, and escorted to his new kingdom." When the
Queen's death occurred, "the new King was at once proclaimed,
and it is a striking proof of the danger of the crisis that
the funds, which had fallen on a false rumour of the Queen's
recovery, rose at once when she died. Atterbury is said to
have urged Bolingbroke to proclaim James III. at Charing
Cross, and to have offered to head the procession in his lawn
sleeves, but the counsel was mere madness, and Bolingbroke saw
clearly that any attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement
would be now worse than useless. … The more violent spirits
among the Jacobites now looked eagerly for a French invasion,
but the calmer members of the party perceived that such an
invasion was impossible. … The Regency Act of 1705 came at
once into operation. The Hanoverian minister produced the
sealed list of the names of those to whom the Elector
entrusted the government before his arrival, and it was found
to consist of eighteen names taken from the leaders of the
Whig party. … Parliament, in accordance with the provisions
of the Bill, was at once summoned, and it was soon evident
that there was nothing to fear. The moment for a restoration
was passed."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 1 (volume 1)._

{919}

"George I., whom circumstances and the Act of Settlement had
thus called to be King of Great Britain and Ireland, had been
a sovereign prince for sixteen years, during which time he had
been Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second who ever
bore that title. By right of his father he was Elector; it was
by right of his mother that he now became ruler of the United
Kingdom. The father was Ernest Augustus, Sovereign Bishop of
Osnaburg, who, by the death of his elder brothers, had become
Duke of Hanover, and then Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg. In
1692 he was raised by the Emperor to the dignity of Elector.
… The mother of George I. was Sophia, usually known as the
Electress Sophia. The title was merely one of honour, and only
meant wife of an Elector. … The Electress Sophia was the
daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of King James I., and
Frederick, the Elector Palatine [whose election to the throne
of Bohemia and subsequent expulsion from that kingdom and from
his Palatine dominions were the first acts in the Thirty
Years' War]. … The new royal house in England is sometimes
called the House of Hanover, sometimes the House of Brunswick.
It will be found that the latter name is more generally used
in histories written during the last century, the former in
books written in the present day. If the names were equally
applicable, the modern use is the more convenient, because
there is another, and in some respects well known, branch of
the House of Brunswick; but no other has a right to the name
of Hanover. It is, however, quite certain that, whatever the
English use may be, Hanover is properly the name of a town and
of a duchy, but that the electorate was Brunswick-Lüneburg.
… The House of Brunswick was of noble origin, tracing itself
back to a certain Guelph d'Este, nicknamed 'the Robust,' son
of an Italian nobleman, who had been seeking his fortunes in
Germany. Guelph married Judith, widow of the English King,
Harold, who fell on the hill of Senlac. … One of Guelph's
descendants, later, married Maud, the daughter of King Henry
II., probably the most powerful king in Europe of his day, at
whose persuasion the Emperor conferred on the Guelphs the
duchy of Brunswick."

_E. E. Morris,
The Early Hanoverians,
book 1, chapter 2._

ALSO IN:
_P. M. Thornton,
The Brunswick Accession,
chapters 1-10._

_Sir A. Halliday,
Annals of the House of Hanover,
book 10 (volume 2)._

_J. McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
chapters 1-4._

_W. M. Thackeray,
The Four Georges,
lecture 1._

_A. W. Ward,
The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (English
History Review, volume 1)._

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1701,
THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1714-1721.
First years of George I.
The rise of Walpole to power and the founding of Parliamentary
Government.

"The accession of the house of Hanover in the person of the
great-grandson of James I. was once called by a Whig of this
generation the greatest miracle in our history. It took place
without domestic or foreign disturbance. … Within our own
borders a short lull followed the sharp agitations of the last
six months. The new king appointed an exclusively Whig
Ministry. The office of Lord Treasurer was not revived, and
the title disappears from political history. Lord Townshend
was made principal Secretary of State, and assumed the part of
first Minister. Mr. Walpole [Sir Robert] took the subaltern
office of paymaster of the forces, holding along with it the
paymastership of Chelsea Hospital. Although he had at first no
seat in the inner Council or Cabinet, which seems to have
consisted of eight members, only one of them a commoner, it is
evident that from the outset his influence was hardly second
to that of Townshend himself. In little more than a year
(October 1715) he had made himself so prominent and valuable
in the House of Commons, that the opportunity of a vacancy was
taken to appoint him to be First Commissioner of the Treasury
and Chancellor of the Exchequer. … Besides excluding their
opponents from power, the Whigs instantly took more positive
measures. The new Parliament was strongly Whig. A secret
committee was at once appointed to inquire into the
negotiations for the Peace. Walpole was chairman, took the
lead in its proceedings, and drew the report." On Walpole's
report, the House "directed the impeachment of Oxford,
Bolingbroke, and Ormond for high treason, and other high
crimes and misdemeanours mainly relating to the Peace of
Utrecht. … The proceedings against Oxford and Bolingbroke
are the last instance in our history of a political
impeachment. They are the last ministers who were ever made
personally responsible for giving bad advice and pursuing a
discredited policy, and since then a political mistake has
ceased to be a crime. … The affair came to an abortive end.
… The opening years of the new reign mark one of the least
attractive periods in political history. George I. … cared
very little for his new kingdom, and knew very little about
its people or its institutions. … His expeditions to Hanover
threw the management of all domestic affairs almost without
control into the hands of his English ministers. If the two
first Hanoverian kings had been Englishmen instead of Germans,
if they had been men of talent and ambition, or even men of
strong and commanding will without much talent, Walpole would
never have been able to lay the foundations of government by
the House of Commons and by Cabinet so firmly that even the
obdurate will of George III. was unable to overthrow it

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

Happily for the system now established, circumstances
compelled the first two sovereigns of the Hanoverian line to
strike a bargain with the English Whigs, and it was faithfully
kept until the accession of the third George. The king was to
manage the affairs of Hanover, and the Whigs were to govern
England. It was an excellent bargain for England. Smooth as
this operation may seem in historic description, Walpole found
its early stages rough and thorny." The king was not easily
brought to understand that England would not make war for
Hanoverian objects, nor allow her foreign policy to be shaped
by the ambitions of the Electorate. Differences arose which
drove Townshend from the Cabinet, and divided the Whig party.
Walpole retired from the government with Townshend, and was in
opposition for three years, while Lord Stanhope and the Earl of
Sunderland controlled the administration. The Whig schism came
to an end in 1720, and Townshend and Walpole rejoined the
administration, the latter as Paymaster of the Forces without
a seat in the Cabinet. "His opposition was at an end, but he
took no part in the active work of government. … Before many
months had passed the country was overtaken by the memorable
disasters of the South Sea Bubble.

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

{920}

All eyes were turned to Walpole. Though he had privately
dabbled in South Sea stock on his own account, his public
predictions came back to men's minds; they remembered that he
had been called the best man for figures in the House, and the
disgrace of' his most important colleagues only made his
sagacity the more prominent. … He returned to his old posts,
and once more became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor
of the Exchequer (April 1721), while Townshend was again
Secretary of State. Walpole held his offices practically
without a break for twenty-one years. The younger Pitt had an
almost equal span of unbroken supremacy, but with that
exception there is no parallel to Walpole's long tenure of
power. To estimate aright the vast significance of this
extraordinary stability, we must remember that the country had
just passed through eighty years of revolution. A man of 80 in
1721 could recall the execution of Charles I., the protectorate
of Oliver, the fall of Richard Cromwell, the restoration of
Charles II., the exile of James II., the change of the order
of succession to William of Orange, the reactionary ministry
of Anne, and finally the second change to the House of
Hanover. The interposition, after so long a series of violent
perturbations as this, of twenty years of settled system and
continuous order under one man, makes Walpole's government of
capital and decisive importance in our history, and
constitutes not an artificial division like the reign of a
king, but a true and definite period, with a beginning, an
end, a significance, and a unity of its own."

_J. Morley,
Walpole,
chapters 3-4._

ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,
chapters 9-21 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1715.
The Jacobite rising.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1716.
The Septennial Act.

The easy suppression of the Jacobite rebellion was far from
putting an end to the fears of the loyal supporters of the
Hanoverian dynasty. They regarded with especial anxiety the
approaching Parliamentary elections. "As, by the existing
statute of 6 William and Mary [the Triennial Act, of 1694],
Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a
new election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great
probability of a renewal of the contest, or at least of very
serious riots during the election time. With this in view, the
ministers proposed that the existing Parliament should be
continued for a term of seven instead of three years. This,
which was meant for a temporary measure, has never been
repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are
held. It has been often objected to this action of Parliament,
that it was acting arbitrarily in thus increasing its own
duration. 'It was a direct usurpation,' it has been said, 'of
the rights of the people, analogous to the act of the Long
Parliament in declaring itself indestructible.' It has been
regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in
liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the
peculiar conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the
constituencies for the support of the popular liberty. The
return of members in the smaller boroughs was in the hands of
corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the counties, of great
landowners; in the larger towns, of small place-holders under
Government. A general election in fact only gave fresh
occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of
the House of Lords—freedom and independence in the presence
of these two permanent powers could be secured only by the
greater permanence of the third element of the Legislature,
the House of Commons. It was thus that, though no doubt in
some degree a party measure for securing a more lengthened
tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received,
upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation
of the best statesmen of the time."

_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 3, page 938._

ALSO IN:
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
volume 1, chapter 6._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1717-1719.
The Triple Alliance.
The Quadruple Alliance.
War with Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725;
also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1720.
The South Sea Bubble.

See SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1721-1742.
Development of the Cabinet System of ministerial government.

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1725.
The Alliance of Hanover.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1726-1731.
Fresh differences with Spain.
Gibraltar besieged.
The Treaty of Seville.
The Second Treaty of Vienna.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1727.
Accession of King George II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1727-1741.
Walpole's administration under George II.

"The management of public affairs during the six years of
George the First's reign in which Walpole was Prime Minister,
was easy. … His political fortunes seemed to be ruined by
George the First's death [1727]. That King's successor had
ransacked a very copious vocabulary of abuse, in order to
stigmatise the minister and his associates. Rogue and rascal,
scoundrel and fool, were his commonest utterances when Robert
Walpole's name was mentioned. … Walpole bowed meekly to the
coming storm," and an attempt was made to put Sir Spencer
Compton in his place. But Compton himself, as well as the king
and his sagacious queen, soon saw the futility of it, and the
old ministry was retained. "At first, Walpole was associated
with his brother-in-law, Townsend. But they soon disagreed,
and the rupture was total after the death of Walpole's sister,
Townsend's wife. … After Townsend's dismissal, Walpole
reigned alone, if, indeed, he could be said to exercise sole
functions while Newcastle was tied to him. Long before he was
betrayed by this person, of whom he justly said that his name
was perfidy, he knew how dangerous was the association. But
Newcastle was the largest proprietor of rotten boroughs in the
kingdom, and, fool and knave as he was, he had wit enough to
guess at his own importance, and knavery enough to make his
market. Walpole's chief business lay in managing the King, the
Queen, the Church, the House of Commons, and perhaps the
people. I have already said, that before his accession George
hated Walpole. But there are hatreds and hatreds, equal in
fervency while they last, but different in duration. The King
hated Walpole because he had served his father well. But one
George was gone, and another George was in possession. Then
came before the man in possession the clear vision of
Walpole's consummate usefulness. The vision was made clearer
by the sagacious hints of the Queen. It became clear as
noonday when Walpole contrived to add £115,000 to the civil
list. … Besides, Walpole was sincerely determined to support
the Hanoverian succession. He constantly insisted to George
that the final settlement of his House on the throne would be
fought out in England. … Hence he was able to check one of
the King's ruling passions, a longing to engage in war. …
{921}
It is generally understood that Walpole managed the House of
Commons by bribery; that the secret service money was thus
employed: and that this minister was the father of that
corruption which was reported to have disgraced the House
during the first half of the last century. I suspect that
these influences have been exaggerated. It is a stock story
that Walpole said he knew every man's price. It might have
been generally true, but the foundation of this apothegm is,
in all likelihood, a recorded saying of his about certain
members of the opposition. … Walpole has been designated,
and with justice, as emphatically a peace minister. He held
'that the most pernicious circumstances in which this country
can be, are those of war, as we must be great losers while the
war lasts, and cannot be great gainers when it ends.' He kept
George the Second at peace, as well as he could, by insisting
on it that the safety of his dynasty lay in avoiding foreign
embroilments. He strove in vain against the war which broke
out in 1739. … I do not intend to disparage Walpole's
administrative ability when I say that the country prospered
independently of any financial policy which he adopted or
carried out. … Walpole let matters take their course, for he
understood that the highest merit of a minister consists in
his doing no mischief. But Walpole's praise lies in the fact,
that, with this evident growth of material prosperity, he
steadily set his face against gambling with it. He resolved,
as far as lay in his power, to keep the peace of Europe; and
he was seconded in his efforts by Cardinal Fleury. He
contrived to smooth away the difficulties which arose in 1727;
and on January 13, 1730, negotiated the treaty of Seville [see
SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731], the benefits of which lasted through
ten years of peace, and under which he reduced the army to
5,000 men." But the opposition to Walpole's peace policy
became a growing passion, which overcame him in 1741 and
forced him to resign. On his resignation he was raised to the
peerage, with the title of Earl of Orford, and defeated,
though with great difficulty, the determination of his enemies
to impeach him.

_J. E. T. Rogers,
Historical Gleanings,
volume 1, chapter 2._

"It is impossible, I think, to consider his [Walpole's] career
with adequate attention without recognising in him a great
minister, although the merits of his administration were often
rather negative than positive, and although it exhibits few of
those dramatic incidents, and is but little susceptible of
that rhetorical colouring, on which the reputation of
statesmen largely depends. … He was eminently true to the
character of his countrymen. He discerned with a rare sagacity
the lines of policy most suited to their genius and to their
needs, and he had a sufficient ascendancy in English politics
to form its traditions, to give a character and a bias to its
institutions. The Whig party, under his guidance, retained,
though with diminished energy, its old love of civil and of
religious liberty, but it lost its foreign sympathies, its
tendency to extravagance, its military restlessness. The
landed gentry, and in a great degree the Church, were
reconciled to the new dynasty. The dangerous fissures which
divided the English nation were filled up. Parliamentary
government lost its old violence, it entered into a period of
normal and pacific action, and the habits of compromise, of
moderation, and of practical good sense, which are most
essential to its success, were greatly strengthened. These
were the great merits of Walpole. His faults were very
manifest, and are to be attributed in part to his own
character, but in a great degree to the moral atmosphere of
his time. He was an honest man in the sense of desiring
sincerely the welfare of his country and serving his sovereign
with fidelity; but he was intensely wedded to power,
exceedingly unscrupulous about the means of grasping or
retaining it, and entirely destitute of that delicacy of
honour which marks a high-minded man. … His estimate of
political integrity was very similar to his estimate of female
virtue. He governed by means of an assembly which was
saturated with corruption, and he fully acquiesced in its
conditions and resisted every attempt to improve it. … It is
necessary to speak with much caution on this matter,
remembering that no statesman can emancipate himself from the
conditions of his time. … The systematic corruption of
Members of Parliament is said to have begun under Charles II.,
in whose reign it was practised to the largest extent. It was
continued under his successor, and the number of scandals
rather increased than diminished after the Revolution. … And
if corruption did not begin with Walpole, it is equally
certain that it did not end with him. His expenditure of
secret service money, large as it was, never equalled in an
equal space of time the expenditure of Bute. … The real
charge against him is that in a period of profound peace, when
he exercised an almost unexampled ascendancy in politics, and
when public opinion was strongly in favour of the diminution
of corrupt influence in Parliament, he steadily and
successfully resisted every attempt at reform. … It was his
settled policy to maintain his Parliamentary majority, not by
attracting to his ministry great orators, great writers, great
financiers, or great statesmen, … but simply by engrossing
borough influence and extending the patronage of the Crown."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter. 3 (volume 1)._

"But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender
back again. But for his obstinate love of peace, we should
have had wars, which the nation was not strong enough nor
united enough to endure. But for his resolute counsels and
good-humoured resistance, we might have had German despots
attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have had
revolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a
quarter of a century of peace, freedom and material
prosperity, such as the country never enjoyed, until that
corrupter of parliaments, that dissolute tipsy cynic, that
courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen,
patriot and statesman governed it. … In private life the old
pagan revelled in the lowest pleasures: he passed his Sundays
tippling at Richmond; and his holidays bawling after dogs, or
boozing at Houghton with Boors over beef and punch. He cared
for letters no more than his master did: he judged human
nature so meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he
was right, and that men could be corrupted by means so base.
But, with his hireling House of Commons, he defended liberty
for us; with his incredulity he kept Church-craft down. … He
gave Englishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and
ease, and freedom; the Three per Cents. nearly at par; and
wheat at five and six and twenty shillings a quarter."

_W. M. Thackeray,
The Four Georges,
chapter 2._

ALSO IN:
_W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole,
chapters 31-59 (volume 1)._

_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 15-23 (volumes 2-3)._

_Lord Hervey,
Memoirs of the Reign of George II._

{922}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1731-1740.
The question of the Austrian Succession.
Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and 1740.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1732.
The grant of Georgia to General Oglethorpe.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1733.
The first Bourbon Family Compact.
Its hostility to Great Britain.

See FRANCE, A. D. 1733.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1733-1787
The great inventions which built up the
Cotton Manufacture.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.
The War of Jenkins' Ear.

"In spite of Walpole's love of peace, and determined efforts
to preserve it, in the year 1739 a war broke out with Spain,
which is an illustration of the saying that the occasion of a
war may be trifling, though its real cause be very serious.
The war is often called the War of Jenkins' Ear. The story ran
that eight years before (1731) a certain Captain Jenkins,
skipper of the ship 'Rebecca,' of London, had been maltreated
by the Spaniards. His ship was sailing from Jamaica, and
hanging about the entrance of the Gulf of Florida, when it was
boarded by the Spanish coast guard. The Spaniards could find
no proof that Jenkins was smuggling, though they searched
narrowly, and being angry at their ill-success they hanged him
to the yardarm, lowering him just in time to save his life. At
length they pulled off his ear and told him to take it to his
king. … Seven years later Captain Jenkins was examined by
the House of Commons, on which occasion some member asked him
how he felt when being maltreated, and Jenkins answered, 'I
recommended my soul to God and my cause to my country.' The
answer, whether made at the time or prepared for use in the
House of Commons, touched a chord of sympathy, and soon was
circulated through the country. 'No need of allies now,' said
one politician; 'the story of Jenkins will raise us
volunteers.' The truth of the matter is that this story from
its somewhat ridiculous aspect has remained in the minds of
men, but that it is only a specimen of many stories then
afloat, all pointing to insolence of Spaniards in insisting
upon what was after all strictly within their rights. But the
legal treaty rights of Spain were growing intolerable to
Englishmen, though not necessarily to the English Government;
and traders and sailors were breaking the international laws
which practically stopped the expansion of England in the New
World. The war arose out of a question of trade, in this as in
so many other cases the English being prepared to fight in
order to force an entrance for their trade, which the
Spaniards wished to shut out from Spanish America. This
question found a place amongst the other matters arranged by
the treaty of Utrecht, when the English obtained almost as
their sole return for their victories what was known as the
Assiento. This is a Spanish word meaning contract, but its use
had been for some time confined to the disgraceful privilege
of providing Spanish America with negroes kidnapped from their
homes in Africa. The Flemings, the Genoese, the Portuguese,
and the French Guinea Company received in turn from Spanish
kings the monopoly in this shameful traffic, which at the
treaty of Utrecht was passed on for a period of thirty years
to England, now becoming mistress of the seas, and with her
numerous merchant ships better able than others to carry on
the business. The English Government committed the contract to
the South Sea Company, and the number of negroes to be
supplied annually was no less than 4,800 'sound, healthy,
merchantable negroes, two-thirds to be male, none under ten or
over forty years old.' In the Assiento Treaty there was also a
provision for the trading of one English ship each year with
Spanish America; but in order to prevent too great advantage
therefrom it was carefully stipulated that the ship should not
exceed 600 tons burden. There is no doubt that this
stipulation was regularly violated by the English sending a
ship of the required number of tons, but with it numerous
tenders and smaller craft. Moreover smuggling, being very
profitable, became common; it was of this smuggling that
Captain Jenkins was accused. … Walpole, always anxious for
peace, by argument, by negotiation, by delays, resisted the
growing desire for war; at length he could resist no longer.
For the sake of his reputation he should have resigned office,
but he had enjoyed power too long to be ready to yield it, and
most unwisely he allowed himself to be forced into a
declaration of war October 19, 1739. The news was received
throughout England with a perfect frenzy of delight. … A
year and a day after this declaration of war an event
occurred—the death of the Emperor—which helped to swell the
volume of this war until it was merged into the European war,
called the War of the Austrian Succession, which includes
within itself the First and Second Silesian Wars, between
Austria and Frederick the Great of Prussia. The European war
went on until the general pacification in the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. Within another ten years war broke out
again on somewhat similar grounds, but on a much wider scale
and with the combatants differently arranged, under the title
'Seven Years' War.' The events of this year, whilst the war
was only between Spain and England, were the attacks on
Spanish settlements in America, the capture of Porto Bello,
and the failure before Cartagena, which led to Anson's famous
voyage."

_E. E. Morris,
The Early Hanoverians,
book 2, chapter 3._

"Admiral Vernon, setting sail with the English fleet from
Jamaica, captured Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Darien,
December 1st—an exploit for which he received the thanks of
both Houses of Parliament. His attempt on Carthagena, in the
spring of 1741, proved, however, a complete failure through
his dissensions, it is said, with General Wentworth, the
commander of the land forces. A squadron, under Commodore
Anson, despatched to the South Sea for the purpose of annoying
the Spanish colonies of Peru and Chili, destroyed the Peruvian
town of Paita, and made several prizes; the most important of
which was one of the great Spanish galleons trading between
Acapulco and Manilla, having a large treasure on board. It was
on this occasion that Anson circumnavigated the globe, having
sailed from England in 1740 and returned to Spithead in 1744."

_T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 3._

{923}

ALSO IN:
_R. Walter,
Voyage around the World of George Anson._

_Sir J. Barrow,
Life of Lord George Anson,
chapter 1-2._

_W. Coxe,
Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain,
chapter 43 (volume 3)._

See, also,
FRANCE, A. D. 1733,
and GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1740-1741.
Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1742.
Naval operations in the Mediterranean.

See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1742-1745.
Ministries of Carteret and the Pelhams,
Pitt's admission to the Cabinet.

"Walpole resigned in the beginning of February, 1742; but his
retirement did not bring Pitt into office. The King had
conceived a violent prejudice against him, not only on account
of the prominent and effective part he had taken in the
general assault upon the late administration, but more
especially in consequence of the strong opinions he had
expressed on the subject of Hanover, and respecting the public
mischiefs arising from George the Second's partiality to the
interests of the Electorate. Lord Wilmington was the nominal
head of the new administration, which was looked on as little
more than a weak continuation of Walpole's. The same character
was generally given to Pelham's ministry, (Pelham succeeded
Wilmington as Premier, on the death of the latter in 1743,)
and Pitt soon appeared in renewed opposition to the Court. It
was about this time that he received a creditable and
convenient addition to his private fortune, which also
attested his celebrity. In 1744, the celebrated Duchess of
Marlborough died, leaving him a legacy' of 10,000 l. on
account of his merit in the noble defence he has made of the
laws of England, to prevent the ruin of his country.' Pitt was
now at the head of a small but determined band of Opposition
statesmen, with whom he was also connected by intermarriages
between members of their respective families and his own.
These were Lord Cobham, the Grenvilles, and his schoolfellow
Lord Lyttelton. The genius of Pitt had made the opposition of
this party so embarrassing to the minister, that Mr. Pelham,
the leader of the House of Commons, and his brother, the Duke
of Newcastle, found it necessary to get rid of Lord Carteret,
who was personally most obnoxious to the attacks of Pitt, on
account of his supposed zeal in favour of the King's
Hanoverian policy. Pitt's friends, Lyttelton and Grenville,
were taken into the ministry [called the Broad-bottomed
Administration], and the undoubted wish of the Pelhams was to
enlist Pitt also among their colleagues. But 'The great Mr.
Pitt,' says old Horace Walpole—using in derision an epithet
soon confirmed by the serious voice of the country—'the great
Mr. Pitt insisted on being Secretary at War';—but it was
found that the King's aversion to him was insurmountable; and
after much reluctance and difficulty, his friends were
persuaded to accept office without him, under an assurance
from the Duke of Newcastle that 'he should at no distant day
be able to remove this prejudice from his Majesty's mind.'
Pitt concurred in the new arrangement, and promised to give
his support to the remodelled administration. … On the
breaking out of the rebellion of 1745, Pitt energetically
supported the ministry in their measures to protect the
established government. George the Second's prejudices
against him, were, however, as strong as ever. At last a sort
of compromise was effected. Pitt waived for a time his demand
of the War Secretaryship, and on the 22nd of February, 1746,
he was appointed one of the joint Vice-treasurers for Ireland;
and on the 6th of May following he was promoted to the more
lucrative office of Paymaster-General of the Forces. … In
his office of Paymaster of the Forces Pitt set an example then
rare among statesmen, of personal disinterestedness. He held
what had hitherto been an exceedingly lucrative situation: for
the Paymaster seldom had less than 100,000 l. in his hands,
and was allowed to appropriate the interest of what funds he
held to his own use. In addition to this it had been customary
for foreign princes in the pay of England to allow the
Paymaster of the Forces a per-centage on their subsidies. Pitt
nobly declined to avail himself of these advantages, and would
accept of nothing beyond his legal salary."

_Sir E. Creasy,
Memoirs of Eminent Etonians,
chapter 4._

"From Walpole's death in 1745, when the star of the Stuarts
set for ever among the clouds of Culloden, to 1754, when Henry
Pelham followed his old chief, public life in England was
singularly calm and languid. The temperate and peaceful
disposition of the Minister seemed to pervade Parliament. At
his death the King exclaimed: 'Now I shall have no more
peace'; and the words proved to be prophetic. Both in
Parliament and in the country, as well as beyond its shores,
the elements of discord were swiftly at war. Out of
conflicting ambitions and widely divergent interests a new
type of statesman, very different from Walpole, or from
Bolingbroke, or from Pelham, or from the 'hubble-bubble
Newcastle,' was destined to arise. And along with the new
statesman a new force, of which he was in part the
representative, in part the creator, was to be introduced into
political life. This new force was the unrepresented voice of
the people. The new statesman was an ex-cornet of horse,
William Pitt, better known as Lord Chatham. The
characteristics of William Pitt which mainly influenced his
career were his ambition and his ill-health. Power, and that
conspicuous form of egotism called personal glory, were the
objects of his life. He pursued them with all the ardour of a
strong-willed purpose; but the flesh was in his case painfully
weak. Gout had declared itself his foe while he was still an
Eton boy. His failures, and prolonged withdrawal at intervals
from public affairs, were due to the inroads of this fatal
enemy, from whom he was destined to receive his death-blow.
Walpole had not been slow to recognise the quality of this
'terrible cornet of horse,' as he called him."

_R. B. Brett,
Footprints of Statesmen,
chapter 7._

ALSO IN:
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 24-28 (volume 3)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743.
The British Pragmatic Army.
Battle of Dettingen.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).
The second Bourbon Family Compact.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1743-1752.
Struggle of French and English for supremacy in India.
The founding of British empire by Clive.

See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1744-1745.
War of the Austrian Succession:
Hostilities in America.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744: and 1745.

{924}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745 (MAY).
War of the Austrian Succession in the Netherlands.
Fontenoy.

See NETHERLANDS (THE AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1746.
The Young Pretender's invasion.
Last rising of the Jacobites.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745-1746.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1747.
War of the Austrian Succession
British incapacity.
Final successes at Sea.

"The extraordinary incapacity of English commanders, both by
land and sea, is one of the most striking facts in the war we
are considering. … Mismanagement and languor were general.
The battle of Dettingen was truly described as a happy escape
rather than a great victory; the army in Flanders can hardly
be said to have exhibited any military quality except courage,
and the British navy, though it gained some successes, added
little to its reputation. The one brilliant exception was the
expedition of Anson round Cape Horn, for the purpose of
plundering the Spanish merchandise and settlements in the
Pacific. It lasted for nearly four years. … The overwhelming
superiority of England upon the sea began, however, gradually
to influence the war. The island of Cape Breton, which
commanded the mouth of Gulf St. Lawrence, and protected the
Newfoundland fisheries, was captured in the June of 1745. In
1747 a French squadron was destroyed by a very superior
English fleet off Cape Finisterre. Another was defeated near
Belleisle, and in the same year as many as 644 prizes were
taken. The war on the part of the English, however, was most
efficiently conducted by means of subsidies, which were
enormously multiplied."

_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1746-1747.
War of the Austrian Succession in Italy.
Siege of Genoa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1748 (OCTOBER).
End and results of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: A. D. 1748;
and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1748-1754.
First movements to dispute possession of the Ohio Valley with
the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1749-1755.
Unsettled boundary disputes with France in America.
Preludes of the final contest.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753;
and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1751.
Reformation of the Calendar.

See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1753.
The Jewish Naturalization Bill.

See JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1754.
Collision with the French in the Ohio Valley.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755.
The Seven Years War.
Its causes and provocations.

"The seven years that succeeded the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
are described by Voltaire as among the happiest that Europe
ever enjoyed. Commerce revived, the fine arts flourished, and
the European nations resembled, it is said, one large family
that had been reunited after its dissensions. Unfortunately,
however, the peace had not exterminated all the elements of
discord. Scarcely had Europe begun to breathe again when new
disputes arose, and the seven years of peace and prosperity
were succeeded by another seven of misery and war. The ancient
rivalry between France and England, which had formerly vented
itself in continental struggles, had, by the progress of
maritime discovery and colonisation, been extended to all the
quarters of the globe. The interests of the two nations came
into collision in India, Africa and America, and a dispute
about boundaries in this last quarter again plunged them into
a war. By the 9th article of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
France and England were mutually to restore their conquests in
such state as they were before the war. This clause became a
copious source of quarrel. The principal dispute regarded the
limits of Acadia, or Nova Scotia, which province had, by the
12th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, been ceded to England
'conformably to its ancient boundaries'; but what these were
had never been accurately determined, and each Power fixed
them according to its convenience. Thus, while the French
pretended that Nova Scotia embraced only the peninsula
extending from Cape St. Mary to Cape Canseau, the English
further included in it that part of the American continent
which extends to Pentagoet on the west, and to the river St.
Lawrence on the north, comprising all the province of New
Brunswick. Another dispute regarded the western limits of the
British North American settlements. The English claimed the
banks of the Ohio as belonging to Virginia, the French as
forming part of Louisiana; and they attempted to confine the
British colonies by a chain of forts stretching from Louisiana
to Canada. Commissaries were appointed to settle these
questions, who held their conferences at Paris between the
years 1750 and 1755. Disputes also arose respecting the
occupation by the French of the islands of St. Lucia,
Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, which had been declared
neutral by former treaties. Before the Commissaries could
terminate their labours, mutual aggressions had rendered a war
inevitable. As is usual in such cases, it is difficult to say
who was the first aggressor. Each nation laid the blame on the
other. Some French writers assert that the English resorted to
hostilities out of jealousy at the increase of the French
navy. According to the plans of Rouillé, the French Minister
of Marine, 111 ships of the line, 54 frigates, and smaller
vessels in proportion, were to be built in the course of ten
years. The question of boundaries was, however, undoubtedly
the occasion, if not also the true cause, of the war. A series
of desultory conflicts had taken place along the Ohio, and on
the frontiers of Nova Scotia, in 1754, without being avowed by
the mother countries. A French writer, who flourished about
this time, the Abbé Raynal, ascribes "this clandestine warfare
to the policy of the Court of Versailles, which was seeking
gradually to recover what it had lost by treaties. Orders were
now issued to the English fleet to attack French vessels
wherever found. … It being known that a considerable French
fleet was preparing to sail from Brest and Rochefort for
America, Admiral Boscawen was despatched thither, and captured
two French men-of-war off Cape Race in Newfoundland, June 1755.
Hostilities were also transferred to the shores of Europe. …
A naval war between England and France was now unavoidable;
but, as in the case of the Austrian Succession, this was also
to be mixed up with a European war.
{925}
The complicated relations of the European system again caused
these two wars to run into one, though their origin had
nothing in common. France and England, whose quarrel lay in
the New World, appeared as the leading Powers in a European
contest in which they had only a secondary interest, and
decided the fate of Canada on the plains of Germany. The war
in Europe, commonly called the Seven Years' War, was chiefly
caused by the pride of one Empress [Maria Theresa], the vanity
of another [Elizabeth of Russia], and the subserviency of a
royal courtezan [Madame Pompadour], who became the tool of
these passions."

_T. H. Dyer,
History of Modern Europe,
book 6, chapter 5 (volume 3)._

"The Seven Years' War was in its origin not an European war at
all; it was a war between England and France on Colonial
questions with which the rest of Europe had nothing to do; but
the alliances and enmities of England and France in Europe,
joined with the fact that the King of England was also Elector
of Hanover, made it almost certain that a war between England
and France must spread to the Continent. I am far from
charging on the English Government of the time—for it was
they, and not the French, who forced on the war—as Macaulay
might do, the blood of the Austrians who perished at Leuthen,
of the Russians sabred at Zorndorf, and the Prussians mown
down at Kunersdorf. The States of the Continent had many old
enmities not either appeased or fought out to a result; and
these would probably have given rise to a war some day, even
if no black men, to adapt Macaulay again, had been previously
fighting on the coast of Coromandel, nor red men scalping each
other by the great lakes of North America. Still, it is to be
remembered that it was the work of England that the war took
place then and on those lines; and in view of the enormous
suffering and slaughter of that war, and of the violent and
arbitrary proceedings by which it was forced on, we may well
question whether English writers have any right to reprobate
Frederick's seizure of Silesia as something specially immoral
in itself and disastrous to the world. If the Prussians were
highway robbers, the English were pirates. … The origin of
the war between England and France, if a struggle which had
hardly been interrupted since the nominal peace could be said
to have an origin, was the struggle for America."

_A. R. Ropes,
The Causes of the Seven Years' War
(Royal Historical Society, Transactions,
new series, volume 4)._

ALSO IN:
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 31-32 (volume 4)._

_F. Parkman,
Montcalm and Wolfe,
chapters 1-7._

See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756;
CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753;
and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (APRIL).
Demand of the royal governors in America for taxation of the
colonies by act of Parliament.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1755.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).
Boscawen's naval victory over the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (JUNE).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (JULY).
Braddock's defeat in America.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).
Victory at Lake George.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1756.
Loss of Minorca and reverses in America.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756;
and CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1759.
Campaigns on the Continent.
Defence of Hanover.

See GERMANY: A D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER),
to 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1760.
The great administration of the elder Pitt.

"In 1754 Henry Pelham died. The important consequence of his
death was the fact that it gave Pitt at last an opportunity of
coming to the front. The Duke of Newcastle, Henry Pelham's
brother, became leader of the administration, with Henry Fox
for Secretary at War, Pitt for Paymaster-general of the
Forces, and Murray, afterwards to be famous as Lord Mansfield,
for Attorney-general. There was some difficulty about the
leadership of the House of Commons. Pitt was still too much
disliked by the King, to be available for the position. Fox
for a while refused to accept it, and Murray was unwilling to
do anything which might be likely to withdraw him from the
professional path along which he was to move to such
distinction. An attempt was made to get on with a Sir Thomas
Robinson, a man of no capacity for such a position, and the
attempt was soon an evident failure. Then Fox consented to
take the position on Newcastle's own terms, which were those
of absolute submission to the dictates of Newcastle. Later
still he was content to descend to a subordinate office which
did not even give him a place in the Cabinet. Fox never
recovered the damage which his reputation and his influence
suffered by this amazing act. … The Duke of Newcastle's
Ministry soon fell. Newcastle was not a man who had the
slightest capacity for controlling or directing a policy of
war; and the great struggle known as the Seven Years' War had
now broken out. One lamentable event in the war has to be
recorded, although it was but of minor importance. This was
the capture of Minorca by the French under the romantic,
gallant, and profligate Duc de Richelieu. The event is
memorable chiefly, or only, because it was followed by the
trial and execution [March 14, 1757] of the unfortunate
Admiral Byng.

See MINORCA: A. D. 1756.

The Duke of Newcastle resigned office, and for a short time
the Duke of Devonshire was at the head of a coalition Ministry
which included Pitt. The King, however, did not stand this
long, and one day suddenly turned them all out of office. Then
a coalition of another kind was formed, which included
Newcastle and Pitt, with Henry Fox in the subordinate position
of paymaster. Pitt now for the first time had it all his own
way. He ruled everything in the House of Commons. He flung
himself with passionate and patriotic energy into the alliance
with that great Frederick whose genius and daring were like
his own."

_Justin McCarthy,
History of the Four Georges,
volume 2, chapter 41._