XI. CHAP. the cabinet had received no formal answer from Torcy accepting the principle of a renunciation, though the letter of St. John shows that they counted upon it. The dispatch, which, though formally unauthorised by them, afterwards formed a principal article in the impeachments of the ministers, runs: "It is, therefore, the queen's positive command to your grace that you avoid engaging in any siege or hazarding a battle till you have further orders from her majesty. I am, at the same time, directed to let your grace know that the queen would have you disguise the receipt of this order." A postscript adds: "I had almost forgot to tell your grace that communication is given of this order to the court of France, so that if the Mareschal de Villars takes, in any private way, notice of it to you, your grace will answer accordingly". While Oxford might not have shrunk from perfidy towards the allies, his cautious temperament would have forbidden him to countenance the treason of such instructions. St. John, therefore, kept the dispatch a secret from his colleagues and no council was held to consider its terms,' which subsequently became famous in debate and history as "the restraining orders". Though scruples never stood in St. John's way, it is surprising that Ormonde was found ready to act upon his instructions. Eugene's estimate of him, but shortly before, had been that he was "the finest cavalier and most complete gentleman that England bred"." This was the man who accepted, though reluctantly, the infamous rôle of entering into a secret correspondence with the enemy in the field to the detriment of the nation's allies. Ormonde had not the makings of a conspirator. The secret oozed out, and Eugene, to test him, invited him on May 28 to join in an assault upon the French camp. The duke requested a delay, but he felt unable to resist a proposal that his troops should be present with the allies at the siege of Le Quesnoy. He told Eugene, however, that his instructions were not to take the offensive against the French. At the same time he secretly informed Villars that the movements of his troops need cause him no apprehension. A protest was 1 The letter of the same date from St. John to Torcy suggests this (Report of the Committee of Secrecy in Parl. Hist., vii., Append. p. xxvi); and Oxford's answer to the eighth article of his impeachment confirms it, ibid., p. 175. " April 4, 1712, Characters by Prince Eugene, Portland MSS., v., 156. 3 On June 8, N.S., he asked to be recalled "if there be no prospect of action". Dartmouth MSS., iii., 77, Hist. MSS. Comm., 15th Rep., App., pt. i. Ibid., pp. 75, 79. 1712 ORMONDE ABANDONS THE ALLIES. 199 XI. at once addressed by the States-general to Bishop Robinson, CHAP. from whom on June 3 they received the answer: "That considering the conduct of the States towards her majesty, she thought herself disengaged from all alliances and engagements with their high mightinesses". The whigs lost no time in endeavouring to arouse national indignation. Pulteney in the commons and Halifax in the lords on May 28 moved addresses to the queen for the revocation of the instructions. In both houses the ministry won a majority by assurances that in a few days the terms of peace would be laid before parliament. Oxford's emphatic denial that the negotiations were for a separate peace, contributed to the victory of the ministry. On June 6, however, the queen announced to parliament the terms agreed on, her speech making the avowal, "I have not ⚫ taken upon me to determine the interests of our confederates; these must be adjusted in the congress of Utrecht". The commons replied with an address of approval. In the lords a weighty protest was signed by Godolphin, Marlborough, and twenty-two other peers. In the camp of the allies Ormonde announced that, France having agreed to surrender Dunkirk to England, his government had arranged an armistice for two months, to which he invited them to accede. On July 16, N.S., amid the murmurs and hisses of his own soldiers, he evacuated the camp at Cateau-Cambrésis, It was the dissolution of the Grand Alliance. The indignation of the Dutch, both at Ormonde's desertion and at the surrender of Dunkirk, was difficult of restraint. As the duke marched towards Dunkirk, which he was under orders to occupy, the Dutch governors of Bouchain, Tournay, and Douay refused to open their gates. Ghent having an English garrison, he encamped there and a few days afterwards threw a garrison into Bruges, which met no resistance. Dunkirk had been surrendered on July 19 to a force commanded by Major-General Hill. Ormonde received orders to reinforce the Dunkirk garrison, and to maintain himself in possession of Ghent and Bruges. The extraordinary spectacle was now presented of the British general arranging with the enemy for the march of his troops to Dunkirk, and holding two important towns belonging to his nominal allies against their will and consent. It was not long before events XI. CHAP. proved that the dismissal of Marlborough had restored the balance in favour of the French arms. On July 25, Villars surprised a corps of 8,000 men at Denain. The surrender of a succession of fortresses, including Douay, followed, and the campaign which had opened with the expectation of being closed under the walls of Paris, finished ingloriously on October 10 with the loss of Bouchain. St. John, during the session of 1712, enjoyed a scarcely contested supremacy in the house of commons. His conception of the use to be made of it is delineated by De Foe in the Secret History of the White Staff, a pamphlet inspired by Oxford after the queen's death. "They told him (Oxford) that it was time to strike home, as it was called, at the whole party; to make a thorough reformation by displacing every whig or moderate man in the nation," and so forth. In the indulgence of this spirit St. John directed a series of assaults on the opposition. The repeal of the naturalisation act of the last parliament in favour of foreign protestants now passed the lords-a sop to the High Church party and a blow to the whigs who had promoted it. In the queen's speech at the beginning of the session (January 17) war was proclaimed against the opposition press. The future of the tory party was to be secured by strengthening its possession of power with the repressive weapons of the law. Opposition was to be treated like dissent; to be frowned down, even proscribed. In pursuance of this policy, a bill aiming at the impoverishment and humiliation of the great whig families was introduced into the house of commons. While the revolution had advanced and enriched some of the leading whig peers, the largest grants of William III. had fallen to Dutch favourites, of whom the Earl of Portland had been the most conspicuous. By this bill commissioners were to be nominated to report to parliament upon these grants. On the third reading the whig opposition was reinforced by Nottingham and his friends. Argyll and Wharton suggested that the inquiries of the commissioners should be carried back to the grants of James II. and Charles II. The ministerialists were too wise to accept an amendment which would have jeopardised so many interests as would have secured the rejection of the bill. Nevertheless the proposal for the spoliation 1712 THE TORY MINISTRY AND SCOTLAND. 201 XI. of their whig opponents was only defeated by the rule of the CHAP. house that on an equal division the negative carries it, the votes being seventy-eight on each side. While this assault upon the whig grandees thus miscarried, measures were being devised for muzzling their pamphleteers. A stamp tax of a penny a sheet was imposed upon newspapers and of two shillings a sheet on pamphlets of more than half a sheet. The tory Swift exulted at the prospect of the check in store for his rivals, but lived to admit that the measure failed of its effect owing to the liberality with which the whigs subsidised their party organs. Nor was the repression of the English whigs a sufficient task for the tory majority in the commons. A group of Scottish difficulties had been gradually ripening and were dealt with in the same overbearing spirit. In the spring of 1711 riots and bloodshed had taken place in the north and south-west of Scotland. The occasion was a judgment of the house of lords in favour of an episcopal clergyman, named Greenshields, who had been inhibited by the presbytery of Edinburgh from substituting the English for the Scottish episcopal liturgy. "The gentlemen," the mob cried, "are about to restore the liturgy by force." The Jacobite Lockhart seized the opportunity to carry through the house of commons a bill abolishing the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts of Scotland over dissenting congregations. He followed up this blow with another which was galling to presbyterianism-the restoration of patronage in the Church of Scotland,2 As if these aggressions upon religious rights were not enough, the ministry attacked Scottish commercial interests. In the session of 1711 a bill was passed imposing a duty upon exports of linen cloth, Scotland's staple trade. In the session of 1713 another irritating bill was brought in. The fourteenth article of the Act of Union ran: "Scotland shall not be charged with any imposition on malt during this present war". In the face of this, the ministry proposed to extend the malt duty to Scotland. Peace was, no doubt, in sight, but peace had not been proclaimed. Even if it had been, the Scots justly argued that as the produce of the tax was to be appro 1 De Foe to Harley March 2, 1711, Portland MSS., iv., 664. CHAP. priated to the expenses of the war, the intention of the treaty XI. would be defeated. Neither justice nor argument availed. When the malt bill was on its way to the house of lords the moment seemed ripe for a dissolution of the union. At a meeting of the Scots members, convened by Lockhart, the tories heartily, the whigs with reluctance, approved dissolution as the only expedient for rescuing their country from servitude and impoverishment. Oxford warned Lockhart against persistence in his movement, and a deputation of Scots peers and commoners received a rebuke from the queen. Undeterred by the frown of authority, the Earl of Findlater, who, as Earl of Seafield, had been lord chancellor of Scotland, moved for leave to bring in a bill for repeal. The debate which ensued proved that feeling had broken loose from party principles. Among the English whigs, Sunderland, Townshend, and Halifax declared for the repeal of a measure they had been forward to promote, but expressed apprehensions lest, since it was so ardently favoured by the Jacobites, it would prove disastrous to the protestant succession. The court only succeeded in defeating the motion by a majority of four votes. On the announcement in the queen's speech of the preliminaries of peace on June 6, 1712, St. John considered the moment opportune to claim a reward of his services. His eye was doubtless on the treasurer's staff, and precedent made for the appointment of the treasurer from the peerage. He applied, therefore, to Oxford for the revival of the earldom of Bolingbroke, recently in the elder branch of his family. As the anticipation of a harvest which might not be reaped, the request was premature and the queen refused it. Promotion might come with a peace, for the present he might have a viscounty. In profound chagrin he wrote again, begging to be allowed to remain in the house of commons.2 It was too late. On July 7 he was created Baron St. John and Viscount Bullingbrook 3 (sic). It is said that his face showed his indignation as he kissed the queen's hand. As a means of allaying his discontent, Oxford fell in with a proposal he had made some months before, and dispatched him on an extraordinary mission to the French court. His business was to come to an agreement as 2 July 3, ibid., p. 198. 1 June 28 (?), Portland MSS., v., 194. 3 He signed "Bolingbroke "; see facsimiles in Coxe's Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, vol. ii. |