1717: ARREST OF SHIPPEN. 69 12,000, and offered the alternative of diminishing the expenditure by taking off the allowances to general officers, which formed a large portion of it. Shippen opposed the grant in a speech of great power. He asserted that a standing army in time of peace was an impediment to the free execution of the laws; and that, so far from being necessary to the protection of the country, it was inconsistent with its safety; that his majesty's speech was to be considered as the composition and advice of his ministry; and that the house was at liberty to debate every proposition in it, especially those that seemed rather calculated for the meridian of Germany than of Great Britain; that his majesty was unacquainted with our language and our constitution; and that, as other nations had lost their liberties by the dangerous experiment of maintaining a larger number of forces than was absolutely necessary, we were justified in taking warning by their example. This intrepid resistance to the government was not to be endured. Shippen's words were taken down; and upon the motion of Mr. Lechmere, the utterer of them was committed to the Tower. Freedom of speech was extinguished in the person of honest Shippen.* The secret disaffection of a large section of the people was naturally inflamed by acts of such superfluous violence. The strength of the tories lay chiefly amongst the upper classes and the populations of the *Notwithstanding the committal of Shippen, there were not wanting independent members to oppose the principle of a standing army. Mr. Jefferies observed that, "by keeping up such a number of forces, who may, when they are disposed, controul the power of the civil magistrate, the strength and security of our constitution is at an end, and that we have no other rule of government left than will and pleasure. The notion I have of slavery is, the being subjected to the will of another; and notwithstanding the rod be not always on my back, or the dragoon in my house, yet if it is not in my power to prevent its being so, I am no longer free." Sir Thomas Hanmer said, that "the true and only support of an English prince does and ought to consist in the affections of his people;" "that "whoever advises his majesty to aim at any additional security to himself from a standing army, instead of increasing his strength, does really diminish it, by robbing him of the hearts of his subjects. There are but two ways of governing; the one by force, and the other by the affections of the people governed: it is impossible for any prince to have them both. He must choose which of the two he will stick to, for he can have but one. If he is master of their affections, he stands in no need of force; and if he will make use of force, it is in vain for him to expect their affections" 1718. large towns; that of the whigs amongst the dissenters and the monied interest. The administration depended upon the assistance of the Bank, and the South Sea Company, and other wealthy bodies that were willing to advance loans on government security; and the opposition relied upon the independent and industrial orders, whose interests were directly compromised by arbitrary measures and heavy burthens. These diverging lines led to results that might have been easily foreseen; and while the crown was issuing a proclamation for fixing the current value of gold*, a design was forming to assassinate the king. James Sheppard, a youth under nineteen years of age, the apostle of this treason, was not so much the representative of a conspiracy, for it did not appear that he had any confederates, as of the general discontent. He had early imbibed strict doctrines concerning monarchical rights, was devoted to the cause of the Pretender, and regarded the king as an usurper. Confiding his views to a nonjuring clergyman, he offered to undertake the death of his majesty. The clergyman was alarmed, betrayed him to the magistrates; and Sheppard died on the scaffold, refusing to make any defence or confession, and glorying in his principles and his project, which he declared had occupied his mind for three years. Parliament was prorogued on the 21st of March; the king observing in his speech that he "could not put an end to the session without returning his hearty thanks *This proclamation was adopted in consequence of the great scarcity of silver, occasioned by the exportation of that metal to the East Indies and other parts, and the importation of gold. Sir Isaac Newton, master of the mint, made an elaborate report on the subject to the lords of the treasury, which was submitted to parliament. It was thought that the lowering the value of gold would produce a greater circulation of silver, but during the recess it had the contrary effect: either through the avarice of capitalists, who hoarded up silver, hoping it would rise still higher, or from the fear that gold would be lowered still more; or through the intrigues of the enemies of the government, who succeeded in creating an opposition to the measure amongst the lower orders, on account of the impediments it threw in the way of all kinds of retail business. By this proclamation all persons were prohibited from uttering or receiving guineas at any greater or higher value than one-and-twenty shillings, and all other gold coins in proportion. Guineas were originally coined at the value of twenty shillings each; but they had risen, in consequence of the scarcity of silver, to the current value of one-and-twenty shillings and sixpence. 1718. RUSSIA LEAGUES WITH SWEDEN. 71 to so good a parliament, for the despatch which had been given to the public business." The flattery was gross, because the parliament had transacted very little business; and because the despatch which was so agreeable to his majesty was not a display of zeal in the public service, but of servility to the administration. It was the conspicuous merit of that session to despatch its business by majorities that prevented discussion, with the incidental help of the speaker's warrant to punish any inconvenient boldness of speech. The real motives for the increase of the naval force were gradually developed in the recess, and the shrewd conjecture of Walpole proved to be too well founded. The Swedish plot, it is true, was at an end. Görtz had been silently released, and Gyllenburg sent home by an exchange. These ministers were no sooner at liberty than they resumed their project, and brought it even nearer to its consummation that it had been before. The czar, disappointed in the long-cherished design of forming a settlement in Germany, as a prince of the empire which was equally resisted by the courts of Copenhagen and Berlin - withdrew himself from his alliance with Denmark and Austria, and, to the astonishment of Europe, acceded to the preliminaries of a convention with his ancient enemy, the king of Sweden, whose throne he had shaken to its foundations, with whom he had been waging a sanguinary war for a period of twenty years, and whom he had driven out of his own dominions at the point of the sword. The dexterous Görtz was the artful instrument of this coalition, which, commencing in a vague profession of mutual defence, terminated in a definite pledge to elevate the Pretender to the throne of England. How this dangerous league might have resulted in its effects upon England, or upon the more extensive interests of Germany, it is difficult to imagine; but the usual good luck of George I. preserved him from the peril which thus threatened him. While the plan was approaching the moment of execution, the heroic, reckless, and unfor tunate Charles was killed in the trenches before Frederickshall in Norway; and by this accidental, or, as some persons have asserted, preconcerted shot, the invasion of England was averted-Russia was cast upon other devices-Sweden was thrown into convulsionsand Görtz, the prime agent of the intrigue, was consigned to the block.* Görtz had no sooner vanished from the scene than a still more formidable agitator appeared in Spain in the person of the wily and ambitious cardinal Alberoni, the prime minister of Philip V. Alberoni has been justly described as a man of lofty and aspiring genius, delighting in rash projects, crafty in intrigue, comprehensive in design, and possessed of indefatigable energy. The object to which he now directed his attention was the re-annexation to the Spanish monarchy of those kingdoms and provinces of which she had been divested by the treaty of Utrecht. In order to render clear the motives and the policy of the cardinal, a brief statement of the relative circumstances of the principal powers involved in his proceedings is indispensable. The emperor of Germany had not yet invested the king of England with the possession of Bremen and Verdun, which was necessary to confer a valid title upon the purchase; and, although his majesty had now held these places for several years, he still continued in vain to apply to the emperor for his sanction. The reluc tance of the court of Vienna to assent to that distribution of territory arose from an anxiety to recover Sicily, which the emperor desired to add to his other Italian dominions. By the treaty of Utrecht, Naples and Sar * "Never was man," says Voltaire, "at the same time so supple and so audacious; so full of resources in disgrace; so vast in his designs; so active in his measures. Affrighted at no end, hesitating at no means, he was prodigal of gifts and promises, of oaths, of truth, and of falsehood. He was a man capable of overturning the political system of Europe, and he had conceived the idea of effecting it. That monarch who, at the age of twenty, had issued his commands to count Piper, now submitted to receive lessons from baron Görtz." He did more: he placed himself entirely at his disposal, literally delegating to him, in a special commission, full powers to treat and conclude all matters in his name, pledging himself with his royal word to ratify all his acts. 1718. COMPLAINTS OF SPAIN. 73 dinia were ceded to Austria, together with Milan and the Low Countries; and the rich island of Sicily wan conferred on the duke of Savoy, with the title of king. The emperor delayed the recognition of the purchase of Bremen and Verdun, in the hope of making terms for the acquisition of Sicily; and, on the other hand, Spain, equally dissatisfied with the arrangements of the treaty, resolved to obtain restitution from the emperor by force. The case was thus stated by the marquis of Grimaldi in a circular letter to the ambassadors of the various foreign courts. "Greatness of soul," he observed, "made his majesty bear the dismemberment of his dominions, which the plenipotentiaries would sacrifice to the tranquillity of Europe. After which he persuaded himself that these stipulated sacrifices would at least have secured him the rest of this nation, as glorious as afflicted, But no sooner had he complied with the surrender of Sicily in favour of the repose of Spain, upon the condition of the evacuation of Catalonia and the island of Majorca, than he found that the orders received for that purpose were concealed; and when at last it came to the knowlege of his allies, it was pretended that the treaty should be executed, by virtue whereof his majesty demanded the evacuation of the places. Nothing was more easy for that purpose than for the garrisons of the archduke to have surrendered to the king's troops the gates of the places they possessed, in the same manner as was reciprocally practised among the potentates of Europe. But, quite on the contrary, the generals of the archduke, violating the public faith of treaties, and the reciprocal engagements, abandoned the places to the Catalans, making them at the same time believe that they would soon return, and thereby fomented their disquiet and rebellious spirit so far as to induce them to think of a furious and obstinate resistance." The moment chosen by cardinal Alberoni to attempt the recovery of these * No treaty had been exchanged between Spain and the emperor subsequently to the war of the succession, and neither potentate acknowledged the title of his rival. Thus the emperor was contemptuously designated by the imperious Spaniard as the archduke. |