general political baseness and subservience to all ministries—and they got it. "The sixteen elective Scotch peers already admit themselves to be a dead court weight, yet the same sixteen are now to be made hereditary, and nine added to their number. These twenty-five, under the influence of corrupt ministers, might find their account in betraying their trust." After declaring that the bill would make the lords masters of the king, and shut up the door of honour to the rest of the nation, Walpole said:" If the pretence for this measure is, that it will tend to secure the freedom | of parliament, I say that there are many other steps more important and less equivocal, such as the discontinuance of bribes and pensions. That this bill will secure the liberty of parliament I totally deny it will secure a great preponderance to the peers; it will form them into a compact impenetrable phalanx, by giving them the power to exclude, in all cases of extinction and creation, all such persons from their body as may be obnoxious to them." Steele also delivered a remarkable speech against the bill, which, indisputably, would have brought more dangers to the constitution than it could have removed from it. Walpole, in the words of Speaker Onslow, "bore down everything before him." The bill was rejected by a majority of 269 against 177.

It was during this session of parliament that the memorable South Sea Company bill received the royal assent. Nine years before the date at which we are arrived, Harley, in the straits and difficulties in which he found himself by the decline of public credit consequent on the sudden dismission of the Whigs, formed a project which was called his master-piece. He found that the floating debt of the nation amounted to about £10,000,000, and to settle a fund for paying the interest of six per cent., he rendered permanent all the duties upon wines, vinegar, tobacco, India goods, wrought silks, whale-fins, and some other commodities; and to allure the creditors with the hopes of inestimable advantages from a monopoly of the trade to the South Sea, he proposed that the proprietors of this funded debt, or those to whom the money was owing by the nation, should form themselves into a company, to be called "The South Sea Company." The project took wonderfully with the holders of the debentures and capitalists, and under the auspices of the ministry, they, were incorporated by act of parliament as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other parts of America." But the Bourbon Philip, who was allowed by the peace of Utrecht to retain Spain and the Indies, was far too jealous to admit the British to a free trade in the South Seas, or to any part of his dominions; and all that the company obtained was the

nationally dishonouring Assiento, or contract, by which they had the privilege of supplying Spanish America with negroes torn from Africa, for thirty years to come, with permission to send one ship annually with a cargo of goods for sale-which privileges had been secured to England at the peace of Utrecht, and were now made over to the new company by the government. But circumstances occurred which prevented the South Sea Company from reaping any advantages even from this foul monopoly in human flesh and this limited adventure in goods. Their first annual ship did not sail till 1717, and the very next year the trade was suppressed in consequence of Byng's operations in the Mediterranean and the open war with Spain, which led to the total suppression of the factories of the company, and the seizure and detention of their servants. We were now, indeed, at peace with Spain, but the commercial jealousies of that country remained unaltered and unalterable; and, unless by way of conquest and permanent occupation, there was scarcely a hope of securing any considerable share of the advantages of a trade in the South Seas and with her colonies; or, rather, there was no hope of being able to make a trade-for, under the miserable system which had been pursued, all commerce had remained stinted, or had died away of an atrophy, the mother country herself deriving the least possible advantages from the rich regions she possessed, and representing to the letter the fable of the dog in the manger. Yet, with these certainties before them, with a blindness even greater than that of the wildest followers of Paterson, British ministers now conceived that the South Sea Company might, by an extending trade, pay off in a trice all the national incumbrances, which, in reality, were only to be cleared off by slow degrees by an inviolable sinking-fund. Sir John Blunt, a leading South Sea director, a financier well read in the school of Law and Paterson, exhibited the many advantages which would result from consolidating all the funds into one; and he persuaded Stanhope, Sunderland, and Aislabie, the chancellor of the exchequer, that his company could do the business of the government and the nation in the surest and best manner. The great object was to get rid of the irredeemable annuities which had been granted in the two last reigns, mostly for terms of ninety-nine years, and which amounted at present to nearly £800,000 a-year; and Blunt and his company undertook to do this, and to liquidate the entire national debt in the course of twenty-six years, provided only that all the different public securities were reduced to one aggregate fund in their hands, that they were vested with certain commercial privileges, and authorized to take in by purchase or subscription

both the redeemable and irredeemable debts of the nation, at such rates and prices as should be agreed upon between the company and the respective proprietors. Aislabie, as chancellor of the exchequer, opened this business in the commons in the month of February, and declared that, if the proposal was accepted, the prosperity of the nation would be marvellously increased and all her debts be paid. Secretary Craggs was equally sanguine, and thought that every member of the house must be ready and willing to embrace the proposal which had been explained to them in so clear and intelligible a manner by the chancellor of the exchequer. But when there had been a doubting silence for nearly a quarter of an hour, Mr. Thomas Broderick, member for Stockbridge, ventured co say that he quite agreed with ministers; that until the national debt was discharged, or at least in a fair way of being so, we were not to expect to make the figure we formerly had made that, till this was done, we could not, properly speaking, call ourselves a nation; but that it was to be hoped that, in order to obtain the best bargain for the nation, every other company, or any other society of men, might be at liberty to deliver in their proposals. Ministers who had closed with Blunt and the South Sea Company before bringing the matter under discussion, were disconcerted by this almost inevitable suggestion; and, not knowing what to say, they lost their temper and talked nonsense. The chancellor of the exchequer declared that to admit of a competition would be like setting the nation up to auction; that things of this nature should be carried on with spirit. Here he was interrupted by Jekyll, who observed, "It is this spirit which has undone the nation! Our business is to consider thoroughly, deliberate calmly, and judge of the whole upon reason, not with the spirit alluded to." Walpole strongly recommended an open competition, and the receiving of proposals from other companies or capitalists. After a very passionate debate, the house agreed to receive all proposals that might be offered. As the principle of competition was thus allowed, the Bank of England stepped in with proposals:' as soon as the offers of the bank 1 The chancellor of the exchequer (Aislabie) afterwards said that the bank had before "shown great backwardness in under

were known, the South Sea Company called a meeting, and, at a general court, the directors were instructed to obtain the preference, cost what it would. Upon this the Bank of England raised its offers, and then the South Sea Company raised theirs; and in this manner they went on bidding against each other like two angry clowns at a country sale. When, however, the company had risen to the enormous offer of £7,500,000, which they represented as a gratuity to be paid to the public, the bank stopped its bidding, and the South Sea directors remained in possession of

their rash bargain. It appears that the chancellor of the exchequer thought at one time of sharing the bargain between the bank and the company, and that Sir John Blunt, referring to Solomon's judgment, said, "No, sir, we will never divide the child!" The South Sea bill, however, was still opposed in the commons by Walpole, who apparently foresaw that the extravagant terms of the contract would never be fulfilled; that the project would only extend the pernicious practice of stock-jobbing, by diverting the genius of the nation from trade and industry, and exciting a contempt for slow profits and careful economy. He insisted that, if the proposal of the South Sea Company were accepted, the rise of their stock should be limited; that every care ought to be taken to prevent the artificial rise of the value of the stock by keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising dividends out of funds which would never be adequate to their payment. He endeavoured to introduce a clause taking anything to reduce the public debts, and had treated the scheme with much contempt."-Aislabie's second speech before the House of Lords; Sinclair's History of the Public Revenue

of the case, and held numerous conferences with the Bank of England and the East India Company, whom he brought into a plan for engrafting a certain portion of the South Sea stock upon their stocks. In the House of Commons, however, all the good which Walpole devised ran a risk of being frustrated by the vehement passions of those men who were more anxious for revenge, and for the downfall of Sunderland and Stanhope, than for the recovery of their country. It was long since so gigantic a mischief had been presented to the oratory of opposition; and the Whigs that were out of place, and the Tories and Jacobites that could hardly hope to get into place except by a revolution,' joined in one thick and noisy phalanx. On the 12th of December, or four days after the opening of parliament, it was moved that the South Sea directors should forthwith be called upon to lay before the house a full account of their proceedings. The motion was hotly seconded. Sir Richard Steele declared that this nation, which two years before had possessed more weight and greater credit than any other in Europe, was reduced to its present distress by a few ciphering cits, a species of men of qual capacity, in all respects (that of cheating a deluded people only excepted), with those animals who saved the capitol. Walpole again urged that they ought first to consider his remedial plan-that any delay would be dangerous; and the motion was reduced to a vote, declaring "that Lothing can tend more to the establishment of public credit than preventing the infamous practice of stock-jobbing." And on the 21st Walpole brought forward his remedy, which was in substance to ingraft £9,000,000 of the South Sea Rock into the Bank of England, and the same sum into the East India Company, on certain conditions, leaving a remainder of £20,000,000 to the South Sea Company.

A.D. 1721.

After a long opposition, and several alterations, this project was adopted by both Houses of Parliament, and a bill embodying it received the royal assent; but from various circumstances it never came into operation. The cry for vengeance continued; and after the Christmas recess a bill was brought in by Jekyll, for restraining the South Sea directors from leaving the kingdom, and obliging them to deliver in upon oath the strict value of their estates. The directors petitioned to be heard by counsel in their defence, as the common right of Eritish subjects; but their prayer was rejected, and Jekyll's bill was carried. A committee of

Some of the determined Jacobites flattered themselves that the Sith Sea calamities would bring on or greatly favour a lation. Bishop Atterbury was of opinion that if the Duke of Ormond could only make a move, and land with a small army from Spain, the disorder of our finances would do wonders for the pretender.-Stuart Papers.

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secrecy, consisting chiefly of members that were most violent, was appointed to examine the company's accounts and other papers. Knight, the cashier of the company, and the man that knew most of its secret transactions, took the alarm, or was induced by the fears of others, to whom he had been an agent, to flee out of England, and to take with him the register called the Green Book. When his escape was reported to the house the excitement was as great as it could have been at the arrival of the pretender in the city of London: the doors were ordered to be locked and the keys to be laid upon the table; and General Ross, a member of the committee of secrecy, declared that they had discovered “ train of the deepest villainy and fraud that hell ever contrived to ruin a nation." Without waiting for any proof, four of the South Sea directors, who were members of parliament, were expelled the house, taken into custody, and had their papers seized. The other directors were seized with their papers shortly after. Nor was there less heat in the House of Lords than in the House of Commons. Their lordships had brought five of the directors before them, and had made them either confess or admit by implication that South Sea paper had been liberally distributed to procure the passing of the act which had enabled them to do such fatal mischief. Upon this Lord Stanhope expressed great indignation, and moved a resolution that the transfer of stock for the use of any person in the administration was a dangerous corruption. On the 4th of February Sir John Blunt refused to answer their lordships, upon the ground that he had already given his evidence before the commons' secret committee. A vehement debate ensued, in the course of which the Duke of Wharton, who had just come of age, and who to splendid abilities united the wildest profligacy, fell with fury upon Stanhope, whom he compared to Sejanus, that evil and too powerful minister who had sown division in the imperial family, and rendered the reign of Tiberius hateful to the Romans. Stanhope replied, and reminded the young libertine of the example of Brutus, who, to assert the liberty of Rome, had sacrificed his own degenerate and worthless son: but in his transport of rage the blood rushed to his head; he was led out of the house, and on the next day the brave and accomplished Earl of Stanhope was a corpse. The youthful president of the "Hell-fire Club," having killed the minister, hardly ever spoke again in the house, but gave himself up to debaucheries which disgraced and shortened his own life, and involved him in difficulties which led him to treason and attainder.

Lord Townshend became secretary of state in the room of Stanhope; and as Aislabie was 233-4