Europe was now dangerously divided into two alliance systems. Walpole was anxious to seek a negotiated settlement and did so by, in effect, buying Spain off. In 1729 Spain and England signed the Treaty of Seville, which confirmed England’s Asiento rights in return for Anglo-French support for Spanish claims to the Italian duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Tuscany. The treaty, however, was negotiated behind Townshend’s back, the culmination of a long history of personal jealousies between Townshend and Walpole. Townshend’s resignation in May 1730 allowed Walpole to assume control of foreign policy and to return to the imperial alliance. In 1731 he was able to negotiate the second Treaty of Vienna, by which the emperor suspended the Ostend Company and, at last, allowed Spanish troops into the Italian duchies. In return Britain guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction by which Emperor Charles VI’s daughter, Maria Theresa, was to succeed to the Habsburg throne of Austria.
For some years, Walpole was able to keep Britain clear of foreign entanglements which might have exposed his government to the dangers of war. In spite of George II’s willingness to consider a military solution to the problems of the Polish succession in 1733, Walpole opted for a peaceful, diplomatic outcome. To have gone to war in the middle of the Excise Crisis for objectives that were remote from British interests would have been political madness. If Walpole is to be criticized, it is that after the general election of 1734 he began to lose his grip on foreign policy. When the final diplomatic crisis came, Britain had no reliable allies in Europe. It was Anglo-Spanish relations which set the course of events leading to Walpole’s fall. Relations between the two countries unleashed passions and furies which Walpole could no longer contain and which he may not have entirely understood. A new generation had grown up since the ending of the War of the Spanish Succession, one that took for granted Britain’s status as a European power. Many of them were bored with the politics of peace and wished to see some flexing of the national muscle. Spain was to be the object of their antagonism, especially since the Spanish authorities had for many years hindered and obstructed the rights which Britain had won in the Treaty of Utrecht, namely the Asiento and the right to send one ship a year to the trade fairs of the Spanish Main. In the Caribbean, the Spanish coastguard vessels, the guardacostas, customarily seized British ships and cargoes, subjecting British sailors to beatings and imprisonments. A series of bloodthirsty incidents aroused English public opinion to boiling point. The celebrated Captain Jenkins claimed not only to have had his ship captured in 1731 but also to have had his ear cut off. His publicity-seeking sympathy for his much-advertised pickled ear contributed to the outbreak of what has sometimes been termed ‘the War of Jenkins’ Ear’. Negotiations were tried, but failed. In January 1739 Walpole submitted to the House of Commons for ratification the Convention of El Pardo, an Anglo-Spanish attempt to reach a financial settlement of outstanding claims. Against an ugly backcloth of public hostility, Walpole managed to win a majority of only 250–232. The opposition would not have peace, the public was clamouring for war and Walpole’s own colleagues succumbed to the hysteria. Spain withdrew the Asiento, the fleets of the two countries clashed and in October 1739 war was formally declared. ‘It is your war,’ Walpole told Newcastle, ‘and I wish you well of it.’
Walpole was a peace-minister. His political talents had been forged in a very different theatre from that which was now opening. Early victories in the Spanish Main by the fleet commanded by Admiral Vernon did the ministry no good at all because Vernon was an opposition Whig and a consistent critic of the government. Indeed, his victories made him into something of a national hero. Walpole’s stock plummeted further as the War of the Austrian Succession broke out in Europe in October 1740. He was accused of subordinating British interests to those of Hanover when George II, terrified for the safety of his electorate and against the wishes of his ministers, negotiated a convention of neutrality with the French in October 1741. It may have been the Anglo-Spanish conflict which weakened what was left of Walpole’s public standing, but the vexed issue of Hanover also contributed to his discomfiture.
The growing weaknesses of Walpole’s position were registered at the general election of 1741 when his majority was reduced to nineteen. Ironically, it was in Scotland and Cornwall – two of the areas least inclined to register swings in public opinion – that the damage was done. Coincidentally, the consequences of the Porteous Riots and the alienation of the heir to the throne, both traceable back to the year 1737, returned to gloat at Walpole’s political funeral. The opposition moved in for the kill. In December 1741 they seized control of the Chairmanship of the Committee of Privileges and Elections, a vital committee that heard and determined election petitions. The decisions of the committee could make a difference to a government’s majority of at least thirty and possibly more. On a petition from Chippenham, Walpole found himself in a minority of sixteen. With ministerial supporters hanging back and refusing to attend the House, Walpole saw that he could not continue. On 2 February 1742 he tendered his resignation.
The fall of Walpole was only partly the consequence of that weakening in his parliamentary position which may be traced back to 1734. None of this can be laid at the king’s door. He supported Walpole to the end. Nor is there any truth in the old idea that Walpole’s position with the king weakened after the death of Queen Caroline in 1737. By then George II did not need his wife to remind him of the importance of Walpole to the dynasty. The need thereafter for Walpole to address the king directly may even have strengthened his position in the closet. Although the attacks of the opposition in Parliament, together with its success in keeping public opinion in a state of continuing excitement, were important explanations for the fall of Walpole, it is doubtful if they alone could have brought him down. Down to the general election of 1741, Walpole was rarely in serious trouble in Parliament. In February 1741, indeed, he defeated an opposition motion for his dismissal by no fewer than 184 votes. Even after the general election he had a tenuous, but possibly workable, majority. What hastened the fall of Walpole was the accumulating deterioration in his health and the mounting fragility of his will for political survival. In the years since the Excise Crisis, younger politicians had been drifting into the opposition rather than identifying their future careers with Walpole’s waning powers. The events of 1741–2 accelerated these processes. By now, Walpole’s foreign policy could be said to have failed in perhaps the most important theatre: Europe. He had left Britain weaker in Germany because he had been unable to strengthen Austria against Prussia, France and Spain. He was a victim of the Balance of Power. His weakened administration and his own declining powers demoralized some of the ministry’s own supporters and persuaded them to withdraw their support in those vital weeks early in 1742. Because of their defection, the longest-lived administration in British history came to an end.
Any politician who retains power for over twenty years must possess certain qualities in abundance: enormous self-belief, exceptional ability and political good fortune. Of the first two, there can be no doubt. Walpole’s belief in his own indispensability was matched by remorseless industry and disciplined persistence in the pursuit of his goals. His acute political sensibilities enabled him to balance rival groupings and interests within the vast empire of Whiggism, while his meticulous skill at personal relationships soothed the feelings of the unsuccessful and the neglected. At the same time, there can be no doubt that Walpole was the beneficiary of a number of fortunate developments that helped to stabilize his administration: the passing of the Septennial Act, the self-destruction of the Tory Party, the failure of the Jacobites and the gradual weakening of the power of religious and dynastic issues to unsettle politics. Certain favourable diplomatic factors, not least the cooperation of France, were by no means initiated by Walpole but they unquestionably promoted the objectives that he was pursuing. It is conceivable that other Whig politicians could have profited from these advantages; whether they would have capitalized upon them to the extent that Walpole did
may well be doubted.
Nevertheless, Walpole’s achievements were considerable. He consolidated the Protestant succession. He maintained the peace and stability of the country for over two decades after over forty years of revolution, war and political upheaval. He steered the country away from religious persecution and sectarian animosities. Personally indifferent to religious pieties, Walpole enabled the Protestant Dissenting churches to practise their religion with little let or hindrance, to establish their own schools and, in many towns, to participate in local government. If the long-term effects of his ministry on the political structures of the country were not entirely wholesome, they were far from being wholly negative. His constant presence in the House of Commons, his excellence as a speaker and debater and his willingness to explain his policies to backbenchers did much to promote the importance of the lower house at the expense of the upper house, where his position was, by comparison, much more secure. His achievement in managing the public finances, in furthering prosperity by promoting trade, industry and agriculture, is no less remarkable; it did much to secure the adhesion of the middling orders to the dynasty and to the regime.
The catalogue of Walpole’s deficiencies, on the other hand, was frequently spelled out by his opponents and has often influenced the historical record. These may be distilled into two major charges. The first concerns his deployment of ‘corruption’ to achieve his political objectives. This has been the subject of grotesque distortion, sometimes amounting to the charge that he raised ‘corruption’ into a system of government. But Walpole could not have survived as long he did through the use of ‘corruption’. It took political and personal qualities of the highest order to dominate Parliament and politics as he did. Inevitably, his central position in the web of patronage cannot be discounted. He deployed not only Treasury patronage but also the patronage of other departments in the interests of his administration. Perhaps understandably in a period of potential rebellion, he saw the creation of stable government almost as an end in itself. It is possible that he employed political loyalty to excess in determining the suitability of individuals for appointment to office, but in doing so he was pursuing party, dynastic and national, not personal, objectives. It has never been convincingly demonstrated that the British political nation became more corrupt under Walpole than it had been earlier. Most of the methods he employed were to be found in earlier periods. The second charge concerns his institutional legacy to his country, and this is more damaging to Walpole’s reputation. It may be said of Walpole that he used the institutions of his day without taking positive steps to strengthen them. For example, his preference for an inner cabinet or conciliabulum of trusted friends over the full cabinet cannot be said to have strengthened the constitutional structures of the country. Significantly, it may be conceded that he could not bear the presence of highly talented men around him. He much preferred Newcastle to Carteret, Pulteney and Townshend. Furthermore, his ruthless manipulation of the powers and patronage of the Scottish government was not accompanied by any real consideration for the affairs of the northern kingdom, as the events of 1744–5 were to remind the nation. Similarly, it is doubtful if the Church of England emerged from the years of Walpole stronger than it entered them. Indeed, while retaining the Test and Corporation Act, Walpole passed the first of the Indemnity Acts in 1727. The minister, of course, used the privileged position of the Church of England as the first line of defence for his own ministry, but he took little interest in the schemes of administrative reform which Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, was planning. Inevitably, they came to nothing.
Where does the balance lie between these contrasting judgements on the career of Walpole? Coming to power in 1721, Walpole’s first concerns were to settle the country by destroying elements of resistance to Whig rule and thereafter to defend and maintain the legacy of the Glorious Revolution and the Hanoverian Succession. Walpole was neither a heroic nor an inspirational figure. He was, as he claimed, ‘no Saint, no Spartan, no Reformer’. Perhaps he needs to be judged by other criteria. Walpole was a man of practical concerns who entertained, perhaps, a limited view of the possibilities of political action. He created little that was new, but he used to resounding effect the materials that he found at his disposal. He was no ideologue and no demagogue. He was the consummate Whig politician and the indispensable bureaucrat. He was the master of Parliament, the statesman of peace and, if only for two decades, the architect of stability.
THE PELHAMS AND PATRIOTISM, 1742–1757
The period following the fall of Walpole is complex and, on the political front, confusing. It is, nevertheless, a period with distinct characteristics. It witnessed the ultimate defeat of challenges to the Whig ascendancy. It was marked by a consolidation of its power and an accompanying general reluctance to seek changes in its political and social structures. The old party distinctions between Whig and Tory continued to exist, but they lacked their earlier clarity and agency and were beginning to weaken. The continuing search for ministerial stability was accompanied by a more conciliatory attitude towards opposition groups than Walpole had normally displayed and a greater tendency towards incorporation and conciliation. It was, however, hampered by a noticeable inconstancy in political relationships, which lends an unpredictable, sometimes kaleidoscopic, aspect to politics in these years. Most of all, it was a time of warfare, a period in which issues of diplomatic and foreign concern resumed the prominence that they had enjoyed thirty years earlier. Furthermore, as was already becoming apparent in the 1730s, colonial issues were inflaming public opinion and, on occasions, even driving politicians towards war and conquest.
In 1742 Walpole’s administration was to be strengthened by reinforcement from its erstwhile opponents. To see how this happened, it is necessary to grasp the structure of political groupings in 1742. Walpole’s long ministry had been supported not so much by a Whig party as by a coalition of different – sometimes very different – Whig groups. The ministry had been supported by the ‘old corps’ Whigs. The ‘old corps’ included some members of the great Whig aristocracy, such as the Pelhams themselves, the permanent placemen (or Court and Treasury party), and a number of independent Country gentlemen who were inclined to support the court and the government of the day. In 1742 the opposition was divided fairly equally between Tories and Country Whigs. The Tories, about 140 of them, divided between crypto-Jacobites and reluctant Hanoverians, were not considered, and did not consider themselves, likely recruits for office. About 80 of the 130 opposition Whigs were independent Country gentlemen who had no ambition for place. But the remaining fifty, divided between the Prince of Wales’s faction and the followers of Carteret and Pulteney, certainly did and they – the ‘new Whigs’ as they came to be known – were now taken into the ministry.
The political changes which occurred in 1742 were remarkably limited. Walpole himself was anxious that the unity of the Whig Party in general, and of the ‘old corps’, in particular, should be maintained. He advised against sweeping changes. Indeed, only one Tory received a cabinet post. In addition, Lord Gower, Lord Privy Seal, formerly a Tory but now a follower of the Duke of Bedford, entered the cabinet. On the other hand, several powerful members of Walpole’s administration continued in office. They included the Duke of Newcastle and his brother, Henry Pelham,19 together with their close colleagues, the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hardwicke. Individuals changed, but the nature of the political regime was scarcely altered. The ‘patriots’ in opposition to Walpole, notably Pulteney, had for years led the public to expect that the defeat of Walpole would be a prelude to an era of reform and virtue. This was to remain nothing more than a mirage. In the end, the strength of Pulteney’s reform credentials was found to be seriously deficient. He accepted a peerage as Lord Bath, retreated to the Lords and did nothing to bring the fallen minister to justice. It was enough that Walpole had been humbled. Pulteney had no intention of rocking the Hanoverian boat which he had for many years denounced but on which he now sough
t to clamber.
The new ministry was dominated by Carteret. He would stand or fall by his competence in foreign and colonial affairs, which had destroyed Walpole and which were to dominate the political scene for the rest of the reign of George II. Carteret sought to inject greater vigour into British diplomacy during the early years of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–8), but his flurry of activity, brilliant and bewildering though it may have been, was devoid of positive result. In 1743 George II personally led the English and Hanoverian infantry to victory against the French at the Battle of Dettingen on the River Main. Carteret’s failure to capitalize on this remarkable military success was to have damaging consequences. Public opinion, vigorously represented in indignant and intensive press coverage, was hostile at his concern for the electorate of Hanover and for the employment (at British expense) of 16,000 Hanoverian troops. Still worse, Carteret’s diplomacy did not prevent the final breakdown of relations between England and France. In 1744 the French declared war.
The Long Eighteenth Century Page 18