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Home Domestic Politics and the First Two Georges, 1714-1760 The Two Kings; Part 3 |
The Two Kings; Part 3At once there was a cry for vengeance. It was seriously proposed to tie the directors up in sacks and throw them into the Thames. Revelations regarding the bribes to the ministers came out, and the Government was ruined. Of the two leaders, Sunderland resigned, and Stanhope, who was honest, had a fit when an unjust charge of corruption was brought against him, and died. Of the other ministers, one committed suicide, another was sent to the Tower, whilst the smallpox accounted for a third. The way was thus left open for Walpole, who had not been officially connected with the South Sea Company's transactions, though he had made a profit of 1000 per cent by judicious buying and selling of its shares on his own private account.Robert Walpole was a typical product of his time. By birth a Norfolk squire, and educated at Eton, he was a cheerful, good-natured, tolerant person, and a keen sportsman, who, it was said, always opened the letters from his gamekeeper first, however important his other correspondence might be (Parliament owes its Saturday holiday to the fact that Walpole on that day used always to hunt with his beagles at Richmond. Pope, the great friend of Walpole's chief opponents, has borne witness to his social qualities: "Seen him I have; but in his happier hour Of social pleasure ill exchanged for power: Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art and win without a bribe". He was a man of considerable common sense, and a prodigiously hard worker. He never appeared to be in a hurry, and he had the invaluable faculty of forgetting his worries. "I throw off my cares," he said, "when I throw off my clothes." As he said, however, of himself, he was no saint, no reformer, no Spartan. A cynical, coarse person, he lacked all enthusiasms. With him there was no ideal for his country to seek to attain in external affairs, no passion to lessen the sum of human misery at home. Such a statesman may make a nation prosperous, but he can never make a nation great. It was fortunate for Great Britain that, after she had waxed fat under a Walpole, she had a Pitt to inspire her to action. |
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