CHAPTER XII.

Parliamentary calm-Mr. Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle-Mr. Pitt-Naval successesDefeats by land- Battle of Lauffeld-Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle-Charles Edward sent out of France-Pacification of the Highlands-The peace regarded as a hard necessity for Britain-Measures of the Parliament-Reduction of Interest on the National DebtCombination Laws-Parliamentary Privilege-Reform of the Calendar-Death of Frederick, prince of Wales-Official changes - Act for dissection in cases of murder-Act for preventing Thefts and Robberies, and for regulating Places of Public EntertainmentGin Act-The Jew Bill-The Marriage Act. Note on the Stuart Family.

THE interval between the suppression of the Scottish Rebellion in 1746, and the conclusion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, is perhaps as little interesting in its details as any period of our history. Nor are there many exciting events to give spirit to a narrative of the remaining six years of that Administration which was broken up by the death of Mr. Pelham in 1754. Opinion became torpid, after the excitement of the rebellion had passed away. Jacobitism slunk to its hiding-places. Patriotism looked out for pensions and sinecures. Party-contests had nearly subsided into personal struggles for place and power, which those who are curious as to such mysterious affairs may drowsily meditate upon in the sober narrative of Coxe,* or laugh over in the sarcastic anecdotes of Walpole. During the agony of the rebellion, immediately after the defeat at Falkirk-at a time when it might be supposed that English statesmen would have cast away their petty ambitions-there came what is termed a ministerial crisis. Lord Granville (Carteret), although "Administration of Henry Pelham."

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THE PELHAM ADMINISTRATION.

[1747. out of office, had the confidence of the king; whilst the duke of Newcastle, and his brother, Mr. Pelham, his majesty's chief ministers, were not favourites with him. They resolved to try their strength. They demanded office for Mr. Pitt, rather from their fear of him than from their love. The king refused to give a place to one who had so bitterly thwarted his Hanoverian partialities. The Pelhams and the whole body of their Whig followers resigned. Granville became minister for forty-eight hours; for he could command no parliamentary support. The Pelbams returned triumphantly to power, upon their own terms; giving Pitt an office, but one which would not necessarily bring him into personal intercourse with the king. "Lord Granville left St. James's laughing," says Walpole. After this victory the Pelhams had little to fear even from the dislike or the coldness of their sovereign. The cabinet had little to dread but jealousies and dissensions amongst its members. It continued its temporising course through eight years of a monopoly of the real authority of the state. Opposition was hushed. The great parliamentary orators, Pitt, Fox, Murray, were propitiated into silence by office, and bided. their time for power. The bitter opponents of Walpole and Carteret were no longer "the boys." Pitt professed to have cast away some of the extreme opinions of his nonage. "Never," says a reviewer of the Pelham Administration," was the tempestuous sea of Parliament lulled into a profounder calm."+ This is meant as commendation. Something of the calm was produced by the almost complete absence of publicity from parliamentary proceedings. Cave, the proprietor of The Gentleman's Magazine,' and Astley, the printer of The London Magazine,' were so terrified at the bar of the House of Lords in 1747, where they stood in custody of the Usher of the Black Rod for publishing the proceedings on lord Lovat's trial, that no glimpse of what Lords or Commons were doing met the public eye for several years; and then so briefly and obscurely that Pitt might, for any gratification of general curiosity, have as well harangued upon the sea-shore like his great model. But the parliamentary calm was chiefly produced by influences far more cunningly devised than the despotic privileges which controlled the public Journals. Mr. Pelham and his brother divided the labours of Administration pretty equally. The one quietly conducted parliamentary and treasury business; the other managed the more complex affairs of his private levée. Pelham was a skilful financier in the open management of the public money. Newcastle was the most adroit and experienced trafficker for seats in the House of Commons. He bought boroughs with a profuse employment of his own wealth, that made his family power almost irresistible. He bought members with the secret-service money, exercising a tact that put Walpole's coarser operations to shame. He cajoled; he promised; and, if wheedling and lying were in vain, he freely paid. This was Newcastle's peculiar talent. He hugged the dirty work to his bosom as if it were the great glory of his life. He would share with no man the distinction of bribing for votes. It can scarcely be matter of surprise that under such a system the nation resigned itself to the comatose symptoms which the opiates of the statephysicians were gradually producing. The scheme of corruption which Walpole instituted to keep things quiet, whilst the contests for the restoration of

* "Memoirs of the Reign of George II.," vol. ii. p. 174, 8vo. edit.

"Quarterly Review," vol. 50, p. 90.