352. A contemporary description of Walpole His private life His parliamentary skill Lord Chesterfield has devoted one of his keen character sketches to Walpole, whom he describes as follows: I much question whether an impartial character of Sir Robert Walpole will or can be transmitted to posterity; for he governed this kingdom so long that the various passions of mankind mingled, and in a manner incorporated themselves, with everything that was said or written concerning him. Never was man more flattered nor more abused; and his long power was probably the chief cause of both. I was much acquainted with him both in his public and his private life. I mean to do impartial justice to his character; and therefore my picture of him will, perhaps, be more like him than it will be like any of the other pictures drawn of him. In private life he was good-natured, cheerful, social; inelegant in his manners, loose in his morals. He had a coarse, strong wit, which he was too free of for a man in his station, as it is always inconsistent with dignity. He was very able as a minister, but without a certain elevation of mind necessary for great good or great mischief. Profuse and appetent, his ambition was subservient to his desire of making a great fortune. He had more of the Mazarin than of the Richelieu. He would do mean things for profit, and never thought of doing great ones for glory. He was both the best parliament-man and the ablest manager of parliament that I believe ever lived. An artful rather than an eloquent speaker, he saw as by intuition the disposition of the House, and pressed or receded accordingly. So clear in stating the most intricate matters, especially in the finances, that, whilst he was speaking, the most ignorant thought that they understood what they really did not. Money, not prerogative, was the chief engine of his administration; and he employed it with a success which in a manner disgraced humanity. He was not, it is true, the inventor of that shameful method of governing, which had been gaining ground insensibly ever since Charles II, but with uncommon skill and unbounded profusion he brought it to that perfection which at this time dishonours and distresses this country, and which (if not checked, and God knows how it can be now checked) must ruin it. Besides this powerful engine of government, he had a most extraordinary talent of persuading and working men up to his purpose. A hearty kind of frankness, which sometimes seemed impudence, made people think that he let them into his secrets, whilst the impoliteness of his manners seemed to attest his sincerity. When he found any body proof against pecuniary temptations, which, alas! was but seldom, he had recourse to a still worse art: for he laughed at and ridiculed all notions of public virtue, and the love of one's country, calling them "the chimerical schoolboy flights of classical learning," declaring himself, at the same time, "no saint, no Spartan, no reformer." He would frequently ask young fellows, at their first appearance in the world, while their honest hearts were yet untainted, "Well, are you to be an old Roman? a patriot? You will soon come off of that, and grow wiser." And thus he was more dangerous to the morals than to the liberties of his country, to which I am persuaded he meant no ill in his heart. . . . The poet Pope draws a more attractive picture of Seen him I have, but in his happier hour 353. A poetic reference to Walpole IV. THE REBELLION OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER AND THE The following passages are extracts from the letters of Horace Walpole, son of Sir Robert Walpole, a famous letter writer, and connected by family with many of the leading statesmen and noblemen of the time, but not himself in office. The letters are addressed to Sir 354. Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann (Lon Horace Mann, ambassador of England in Florence, and are all written from Walpole's house in Arlington Street, London. It can be seen how through the fall and winter of 1745 and 1746 the invasion of Scotland and England by Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, was watched and feared. It would have been inexcusable in me, in our present circumstances, and after all I have promised you, not to have written to you for this last month, if I had been in London; don, Septem- but I have been at Mount Edgecumbe, and so constantly upon ber 6, 1745) the road that I neither received your letters, had time to write, or knew what to write. I came back last night, and found three packets from you, which I have no time to answer and but just time to read. The confusion I have found, and the danger we are in, prevent my talking of anything else. The Young Pretender, at the head of three thousand men, has got a march on General Cope, who is not eighteen hundred strong; and when the last accounts came away, was fifty miles nearer Edinburgh than Cope, and by this time is there. The clans will not rise for the government: the dukes of Argyll and Athol are come post to town, not having been able to raise a man. . . September 13, 1745 The rebellion goes on; but hitherto there is no rising in England, nor landing of troops from abroad; indeed not even of ours or the Dutch. The best account I can give you is, that if the boy has apparently no enemies in Scotland, at least he has openly very few friends. Nobody of note has joined him, but a brother of the duke of Athol (the marquis of Tullibardine), and another of Lord Dunmore. For cannon they have nothing but one-pounders: their greatest resource is money; they have force Louis-d'ors. The last accounts left them at Perth, making shoes and stockings. It is certain that a serjeant of Cope's, with twelve men, put to flight two hundred, on killing only six or seven. Two hundred of the Monroe clan have joined our forces. Spirit seems to rise in London, though not in the proportion it ought; and then the person most concerned (the king) does everything to check its progress; when the ministers propose anything with regard to the rebellion, he cries, "Pho! don't talk to me of that stuff." Lord Granville has persuaded him that it is of no consequence. . The deputy governor of Edinburgh Castle has threatened the magistrates to beat their town about their ears, if they admit the rebels. Perth is twenty-four miles from Edinburgh, so we must soon know whether they will go thither or leave it and come into England. We have great hopes that the Highlanders will not follow him so far. Very few of them could be persuaded the last time to go to Preston; and several refused to attend King Charles II when he marched to Worcester. The Caledonian Mercury never calls them "the rebels," but "the Highlanders." 1745 One really does n't know what to write to you: the accounts September 20, from Scotland vary perpetually, and at best are never very certain. I was just going to tell you that the rebels are in England; but my uncle (old Horace) is this moment come in, and says that an express came last night with an account of their being in Edinburgh to the number of five thousand. This sounds great, to have walked through a kingdom and taken possession of the capital! But this capital is an open town, and the castle impregnable and in our possession. There never was so extraordinary a rebellion! One can't tell what assurances of support they may have from the Jacobites in England, or from the French; but nothing of either sort has yet appeared and if there does not, never was so desperate an enterprise. . . . Cope lay in face of the rebels all Friday; he scarce two September 27, thousand strong, they vastly superior, though we don't know 1745 their numbers. The military people say that he should have attacked them. However, we are sadly convinced that they are not such raw ragamuffins as they were represented. The rotation that has been established in that country, to give all Jacobite the Highlanders the benefit of serving in the independent victory at companies, has trained and disciplined them. MacDonald (I (September suppose he from Naples), who is reckoned a very experienced, 21) able officer, is said to have commanded them and to be dangerously wounded. One does not hear the boy's personal valour Prestonpans The rebels land cried up; by which I conclude he was not in the action. Our dragoons most shamefully fled without striking a blow, and are with Cope, who escaped in a boat to Berwick. . . . We have lost all our artillery, five hundred men taken, and holding Scot three killed, and several officers, as you will see in the papers. This defeat has frightened everybody but those it rejoices and those it should frighten most; but my lord Granville still buoys up the king's spirits, and persuades him it is nothing. He uses his ministers as ill as possible, and discourages everybody that would risk their lives and fortunes with him. Marshall Wade is marching against the rebels, but the king will not let him take above eight thousand men; so that if they come into England, another battle, with no advantage on our side, may determine our fate. Indeed, they don't seem so unwise as to risk their cause upon so precarious an event; but rather to design to establish themselves in Scotland, till they can be supported from France, and be set up with taking Edinburgh Castle, where there is to the value of a million, and which they would make a stronghold. It is scarcely victualled for a month, and must surely fall into their hands. Our coasts are greatly guarded, and London kept in awe by the arrival of the guards. I don't believe what I have been told this morning, that more troops are sent for from Flanders, and aid asked of Denmark. . . . October 21, 1745 I have so trained myself to expect this ruin, that I see it approach without any emotion. I shall suffer with fools, without having any malice to our enemies, who act sensibly from principle and from interest. Ruling parties seldom have caution or common sense. I don't doubt but Whigs and Protestants will be alert enough in trying to recover what they lose so supinely. . . . The parliament met on Thursday. I don't think, considering the crisis, that the House was very full. Indeed, many of the Scotch members cannot come if they would. The Young Pretender had published a declaration, threatening to confiscate the estates of the Scotch that should come to parliament, and making it treason for the English. The only points that have been before the House, the address and suspension of |