Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham of their regiments on account of their votes against the excise scheme. A Bill was at this time introduced to prevent any officer above the rank of colonel from being thus deprived, except by a court-martial or an address from one House of Parliament. Considering the great power of the ministry in both Houses, it is not surprising that this measure should have been defeated by large majorities, but it is a very remarkable fact that it should have been extremely unpopular. The manner in which Walpole exercised his power was very scandalous. The desire to restrict the corrupt influence of the Government was very strong, and the excise scheme was generally detested; but so deep and so lively after the lapse of more than seventy years was the hatred of military government which the despotism of Cromwell had planted in the nation that it was sufficient to overpower all other considerations. It was contended that the measure of the Opposition, by relaxing the authority of the civil power over the military system and by aggrandising that of the courts-martial, would increase the independence and the strength of standing armies, and in consequence the dangers of a stratocracy; and it is a curious and wellattested fact that it very seriously impaired the popularity of the party who proposed it.1 The last sign that may be noticed of the unpopularity of a standing army was the extreme reluctance of Parliament to provide barracks adequate for its accommodation. In Ireland, it is true, which was governed like a conquered country, a different policy was pursued, and a large grant for their erection was made as early as William III.,2 while in Scotland they have me disoblige all my old soldiers, you understand nothing of troops. I will order my army as I think fit; for your scoundrels in the House of Commons you may do as you please; you know I never interfere nor pretend to know anything of them, but this province I will keep to myself."' -Lord Hervey's Memoirs, ii. 381, 382. This is not the least of the many unrecognised services of George II. to the country. Lord Hervey's Memoirs, i. 282284. Coxe's Walpole, i. 409. Parl. Hist. ix. 291. William had positively refused to remove Sir G. Rooke from the Admiralty on account of his votes in the House of Commons. Wilson's Life of Defoe, i. 469. 2 Clode. Chesterfield appears to have contemplated a considerable mulplication of barracks. As his biographer somewhat strangely says: 'If his Lordship had returned to Ireland he would have ordered new barracks to be built in those parts of the kingdom which are not amenable to the laws of the country By this provision he wished to make the inhabitants know that there is a God, a king, and a government.'-Maty's Life of Chesterfield, p. 271. 6 chiefly date from the rebellion of 1715, but in England the barrack accommodation till a much later period was miserably insufficient. Even at the time when the army had acquired very considerable dimensions the majority of the troops were still billeted out in publichouses, kept under canvas during the most inclement portions of the year, or stowed away in barns that were purchased for the purpose. Pulteney contended that the very fact that a standing army in quarters is more burdensome than a standing army in barracks is a reason for opposing the erection of the latter, lest the people should grow accustomed to the yoke." The people of this kingdom,' said General Wade in 1740, have been taught to associate the ideas of barracks and slavery, like darkness and the devil.' Blackstone, in 1765, strongly maintained that the soldiers should live intermixed with the people,' and that 'no separate camp, no barracks, no inland fortress, should be allowed." It was about this time, however, that the popular jealousy of the army began first perceptibly to decline. In 1760 Lord Bath published a pamphlet which is in more than one respect very remarkable, but which is especially interesting for the evidence it furnishes of this change. He complained bitterly that the country had become strangely tolerant of a far larger peace establishment than had once been regarded as compatible with the security of the Constitution; that the members of the great families were beginning to enlist in large numbers in the army, not only in time of war, but also as a permanent profession in time of peace; and that the erection of barracks, which twenty years before would have ruined any minister who proposed it, was now accepted without serious protest, or even with popular applause. Still the old feeling of distrust was not wholly 1 Clode's Military Forces, i. 221226. A writer who visited Scotland about 1722, speaking of Berwick-onTweed, says: King George, since his accession to the throne, to ease the inhabitants of this town from quartering of soldiers, hath built a fine barrack here consisting of a square spacious court of freestone. . . . These are the first barracks erected in Great Britain, and it would be a vast ease to the inhabitants in most great towns if they had them every where; but English liberty will never 4 Book i. ch. 13. What I lament is to see the sentiments of the nation so amazingly reconciled to the prospect of having a far more numerous body of regular troops kept up after the peace than any true lover of his country in former extinct. The scheme of fortification proposed by the younger Pitt, in 1786, was rejected on the ground that it would render necessary and would provide accommodation for a larger standing army; and in 1792, when a barrack department was instituted for the purpose of erecting barracks throughout the country, a considerable opposition was shown to the scheme. Fox and Grey, as the representatives of the Whigs, vehemently denounced it in the beginning of 1793, maintaining, like Pelham, Pulteney, and Blackstone, that the erection of barracks was menacing and unconstitutional, and that the dangers of a standing army could only be averted if the soldiers were closely mixed with the populace.2 times thought could be allowed without endangering the Constitution. Nay, so unaccountably fond are we become of the military plan, that the erection of barracks, which twenty years ago would have ruined any minister who should have ventured to propose it, may be proposed safely by our own ministers now-a-days, and upon trial be found to be a favourite measure with our patriots and with the public in general. . . . What I lament, as the greatest misfortune that can threaten the public liberty, is to see the eager- 2 Parl. Hist. xxx. 474-496. CHAPTER IV. I SHALL conclude this volume with a brief sketch of the leading intellectual and social changes of the period we have been examining which have not fallen within the scope of the preceding narrative. In the higher forms of intellect if we omit the best works of Pope and Swift, who belong chiefly to the reign of Anne, the reigns of George I. and George II. were, on the whole, not prolific, but the influence of the press was great and growing, though periodical writing was far less brilliant than in the preceding period. Among other writers, Fielding, Lyttleton, and Chesterfield occasionally contributed to it. The 'Craftsman' especially, though now utterly neglected, is said to have once attained a circulation of 10,000, was believed to have eclipsed the Spectator,' and undoubtedly contributed largely to the downfall of Walpole. Though set up by Bolingbroke and Pulteney, it was edited by an obscure and disreputable writer named Amhurst, who devoted nearly twenty years to the service of the faction, but who was utterly neglected by them in the compromise of 1742. He died of a broken heart, and owed his grave to the charity of a bookseller. We have already seen the large sum which Walpole, though in general wholly indifferent to literary merit, bestowed upon the Government press, and its writers were also occasionally rewarded by Government patronage. Thus Trenchard, the author of Cato's Letters,' obtained the post of commissioner of wine-licences' from Walpole; and Concannon, another ministerial writer, was made Attorney-General of Jamaica by Newcastle. In 1724 there were three daily and five weekly papers printed in London, as well as ten which appeared three times a week.' The number steadily increased, and a provincial press gradually 6 1 Andrew's Hist. of British Journalism, i. p. 129. 6 grew up. The first trace of newspapers outside London is in the time of the Commonwealth, when the contending armies carried with them printing presses for the purpose of issuing reports of their proceedings; but the first regular provincial papers appear to have been created in the last decade of the seventeenth century, and by the middle of the eighteenth century almost every important provincial town had its local organ. Political caricatures, which were probably Italian in their origin,' came into fashion in England during the South Sea panic. Caricatures on cards, which were for a time exceedingly popular, were invented by George Townshend, in 1756. As the century advanced the political importance of the press became very apparent. Newspapers,' said a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine' of 1731, are of late so multiplied as to render it impossible, unless a man makes it his business, to consult them all. Upon calculating the number of newspapers it is found that (besides divers written accounts) no less than 200 half-sheets per month are thrown from the press, only in London, and about as many printed elsewhere in the three kingdoms; ... so that they are become the chief channels of amusement and intelligence."3 The people of Great Britain,' said Mr. Danvers in 1738, are governed by a power that never was heard of as a supreme authority in any age or country before. . . . It is the government of the press. The stuff which our weekly newspapers are filled with, is received with greater reverence than Acts of Parliament, and the sentiments of one of these scribblers have more weight with the multitude than the opinion of the best politician in the kingdom.' wrote Dr. Johnson in 1758, plied as the writers of news. was content with one Gazette, but now we have not only in the ... 'No species of literary men,' has lately been so much multiNot many years ago the nation |