French sovereign to connive at 'allowing the Protestant domestics of the King of England to assemble themselves from time to time at St. Germain's, in order to worship God in the most secret manner that possibly could be, that would do more service [to the Jacobite cause] than 10,000 men. For in England that would appear as a sort of toleration with regard to his attendants; and being obtained by his Britannic Majesty, everyone would consider it as a mark of his inclination to favour his Protestant subjects, and as a pledge of what they might expect from him when he was restored to his throne. . . . If it could be said in England that the King has procured for the Protestant servants who attend him the liberty which is here proposed for them, that would be half the way to his restoration. I only repeat here the very words which I have heard from sensible men in London." The best part of the gentry and half the nobility,' wrote another Jacobite a year later, ‘are resolved to have the King, and Parliament would do it in a year if it could be believed he had changed his religion.' 'I am convinced,' wrote the Duke of Buckingham in July 1712, that if Harry [the King] would return to the Church of England all would be easy. Nay, from what I know, if he would but barely give hopes he would do so, my brother [Queen Anne] would do all he can to leave him his estate.' The country 93 gentlemen,' said an agent of remarkable acuteness, the Princess Anne and her ministers, and will not be for Hanover.... The Parliament will declare neither way. Their business will be to secure the Protestant religion and order matters so that it will not be in the King's power ever to hurt it. . . . The country gentlemen will never be reconciled to the Whigs. . . . Most of them are for having the King, but will hazard nothing."4 Another Jacobite writes in April 1713 that if he were the Pope he would oblige James to declare himself a Protestant, as the safest way of securing the crown, and establishing Catholicism, and when he completes the work appear with safety in his own shape, and not be beholden to anybody.'5 Another, writing in August 1713, predicted that the new Parlia 216. 6 Macpherson's Original Papers, ii. Ibid. ii. 296. 3 Ibid. ii. 329. Ibid. pp. 392-393. 5 Ibid. p. 399. 6 ment would effect the restoration if the Queen lived long enough to let it sit. But the terms will be cruel and unfit to be taken; but if once in possession the power of altering, in time, will of course follow.' 1 The language from the Hanoverian side was little different. Thus Robethon, a Secretary of the Embassy at Hanover, wrote in January 1712-13: The Pretender, on the slightest appearance of pretended conversion, might ruin all, the religion, the liberties, the privileges of the nation.' 2 Stanhope, in October 1713, laid his view of the state of affairs before Schutz, the envoy of the Elector in England. "He does not think there will be fewer Whigs in the next Parliament than in the last, but he has a very bad opinion of it, . . . his opinion is that if things continue never so short a time upon the present footing, the Elector will not come to the crown unless he comes with an army. He believes the greatest number of the country gentlemen are rather against us than for us, but to make amends he assures us that the wisest heads and most honest members have our interest at heart.'3 Marlborough again and again wrote describing the Protestant succession as in imminent danger. Schutz wrote to his Court in February 1713-14, The real state of this kingdom is that all honest men, without distinction of party, acknowledge that although of every ten men in the nation, nine should be for us, it is certain that of fifteen Tories there are fourteen who would not oppose the Pretender in case he came with a French army; but instead of making any resistance to him would be the first to receive and acknowledge him.'5 In this conflict of parties the Whigs had some powerful advantages. The country districts, where Toryism was most rife, are never prompt in organising or executing a revolution; while the Whigs, though numerically fewer, were to be found chiefly in the great centres of commercial activity, among the active and intelligent population of the towns. Besides this the Whigs were earnest and united in advocating the Protestant succession, while their opponents were for the most part lukewarm, uncertain, or divided, Jacobites who would place the government of the country without conditions in the hands of a Roman Catholic sovereign was, probably, very small. A large division of the party were only prepared to restore the Stuarts after negotiations that would secure their Church from all possible danger; and they were conscious that it was not easy to make such terms, that it was extremely doubtful whether they would be observed by a Catholic sovereign, and that the very idea of imposing terms and conditions of obedience was entirely repugnant to their own theory of monarchy. Another section, usually led by Sir Thomas Hanmer, regarded the dangers of a Catholic sovereign as sufficient to outweigh all other considerations, and its members were in consequence sincerely attached to the Hanoverian succession, and desired only that it should be preceded by such negotiations as would secure their party a reasonable share of power. The opinions of the great mass of the party who were not actively engaged in politics oscillated between these two, and were compounded, in different and fluctuating proportions, of attachment to the legitimate line, hatred of Germans, Whigs, and Dissenters, dread of French influence, and detestation of Popery. The Whigs, too, had the great advantage of resting upon the distinct letter of the law. It was, indeed, not forgotten that the reign of Elizabeth was, perhaps, the most glorious in English history, and that Elizabeth had mounted the throne in defiance of an Act of Parliament, which had pronounced her to be illegitimate; yet still, as long as the Act of Settlement remained, the Jacobite was in the position of a conspirator, he was compelled to employ one language in public while he employed another in private, and the great moral weight which in England always attaches to the law was against him. On the other hand, the power of a united administration, supported by a majority in the House of Commons, was extremely great. It was more than probable that it could determine the course of affairs immediately after the decease of the Queen, and when either claimant was in power he was sure to command the support of those large classes whose first desire. was to strengthen authority and avert civil war. But the Government was far from being powerful or united. The pesor h it had excited some clamours, was not sufficient seriously to shake it, but the commercial treaty with France, which immediately followed it, led to an explosion of party feeling of the most formidable character. It is somewhat humiliating that the measure which most seriously injured the Tory ministry of Anne was that which will now be almost universally regarded as their chief glory. The object of Bolingbroke was to establish a large measure of free trade between England and France; and, had he succeeded, he would have unquestionably added immensely both to the commercial prosperity of England, and to the probabilities of a lasting peace.1 The eighth and ninth articles of the Treaty, which formed the great subject of discussion, provided that all subjects of the sovereigns of Great Britain and France, in all places, subject to their power on either side, should enjoy the same commercial privileges in all matters relating to duties, impositions, customs, immunities, and tribunals, as the most favoured foreign nation; that within two months the English Parliament should pass a law repealing all prohibitions of French goods which had been imposed since 1664, and enacting that no French goods imported into England should pay higher duties than similar goods imported from any other European country; while, on the other hand, the French repealed all prohibitions of English goods enacted since 1664, and restored the tariff of that year. Some classes of goods, however, it was desired to exempt from these provisions, and commissioners on both sides were appointed to adjust their details. One of the effects of this measure was virtually to abolish the Methuen treaty, which had been contracted with Portugal in 1703. By that treaty it had been provided that England should admit Portuguese wines at a duty one-third less than that imposed on French wines, and that in consideration of this favour English woollen manufactures should be admitted into Portugal on payment of moderate duties. A charge of bad faith was on this ground raised against the English Government, but the very words of the Methuen treaty were sufficient to refute it. The right of the English to revise their tariff was Imirably statesman- Bolingbroke's Letters, iv. 137-142, 151-154. clearly reserved by the clause which stated that, if at any time this deduction or abatement of customs, which is to be made as aforesaid, shall in any manner be attempted and prejudiced, it shall be just and lawful for his sacred royal Majesty of Portugal again to prohibit the woollen cloths, and the rest of the British woollen manufactures.' The question was solely one of expediency. The Portuguese announced, as they had a perfect right to do, that when the French wines were placed on a level with their own they would withdraw the privileges they had given to the English woollen manufactures, and the sole question for an English statesman was whether the advantages given to British trade by the treaty with France were sufficient to compensate for this withdrawal. On this subject there cannot be a shadow of rational doubt. The enormous market which the English woollen manufactures would have received in France immeasurably outweighed any advantages England could have received from the Portuguese trade. The manner, however, in which the proposition was received in England is one of the most curious instances on record of the influence of an entirely delusive theory of political economy on general policy. According to the mercantile theory which was then in the ascendant, money alone is wealth, the one end in commerce is to obtain as large a share as possible of the precious metals, and therefore no commerce can be advantageous if the value of the imports exceeds that of the exports. In estimating the comparative value of commerce with different nations we have not to consider the magnitude of the transaction-we have simply to ask in what form England receives the price of the articles she exports. If the balance is in money the affair is for her advantage; if it is in goods the commerce is a positive evil, for it diminishes the amount of the precious metals. In accordance with this theory elaborate statistics were made of every branch of national commerce, showing which were advantageous and which detrimental to the nation. In the former category was the trade of Portugal, which the new treaty would probably destroy, for although we brought home wine, oil, and some other things for our own consumption, considerably the greater part of our returns was in silver and gold. The commerce with Spain, with Italy, with Hamburg and other places |