CHAPTER XXII.

THE FALL OF WALPOLE.

XXII.

EUROPE, which had enjoyed a brief period of tranquillity since CHAP. the signature of the second treaty of Vienna of March 16, 1731, heard with alarm the news of the death of Augustus II. of Poland on February 1, 1733, N.S. The father of the Queen of France, Stanislaus, had formerly been driven from his Polish kingdom by the Austrian nominee. The king, cried the French war party, was now bound in honour to restore him. France declared war upon the emperor in October, and on November 7 a defensive alliance with Spain was concluded in profound secrecy. This was "the Family Compact" or secret treaty of the Escorial. The Family Compact of 1733 may be claimed as justifying the whig contention in the war of the Spanish succession, that the possession of the crown of Spain by a member of the house of Bourbon would prove a standing menace to Great Britain. It was plain that the maritime powers were the arbiters of the situation, and to them both France and the emperor addressed themselves. There was truth in the sarcasm of the opposition that the multiplicity of our engagements was such that to fulfil them troops should be dispatched to the support of both combatants, and they prudently abstained from committing themselves to any line of policy.1 During the spring a Spanish army swept through South Italy, meeting with but small opposition, and on May 15, 1734, Don Carlos, having taken possession of Naples, announced the cession to himself by Philip V. of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. On March 13, the diet of Regensburg, despite the protests of the Electors of Bavaria, Cologne, and the Palatinate, declared 1 Pulteney to Lord Grange, December 17, 1733, Mar and Kellie MSS.,

P. 531.

EUROPE, which had eyed the signature of the da heard with alarm fe Poland on February 1 of France, Stanish kingdom by the Au war party, was declared war ef 7 a defensive all secrecy. This the Escorial Th justifying the vi cession, that ther of the Great Bobin arbiters off emperoral

of the ap such the supper #la

Carlisle, plailisCarlisle,oleil1&C

XXII.

CHAP. war against France. now bound to act, and dispatched to the imperial army under Prince Eugene his agreed quota of 6,000 troops.

As Elector of Hanover George II. was

It became evident to the emperor that Walpole was the obstacle to the participation of England. A secret agent, an English Roman catholic named Strickland, Bishop of Namur, was accredited at the close of 1734 under the name of Mosley to England. He was civilly received by the king and queen, but Walpole insisted on his dismissal. The emperor had no resource left but to accept offers of mediation made by the maritime powers in the previous June, and then indignantly rejected by him. A settlement was negotiated by the French minister, Cardinal Fleury, with the emperor on the basis of their proposals, though with notable additions. Stanislaus was to have Lorraine for life; and the Duke of Lorraine, who was betrothed to the eldest archduchess Maria Theresa, was to be indemnified with the reversion of Tuscany. Stanislaus, Lorraine was to pass to France. were signed at Vienna on October 3, 1735. nation Walpole was entitled to the credit of the boast with which in 1734 he had parried the queen's instances in favour of intervention: "Madam, there are fifty thousand men slain this year in Europe and not one Englishman". The king was persuaded, as usual, that the success of the ministerial policy, which he had strenuously opposed, was in some way due to himself. Walpole had now risen to the height of his power.

On the death of The preliminaries In the eyes of the

The restoration of peace on the continent gave leisure to parliament to recur to measures of social reform. Before the revolution of 1689 the habit of spirit-drinking had been chiefly confined to those classes which could afford the expensive brandies of France, English distilleries being few and insignificant. But the rupture with France which followed that event caused a prohibition to be laid upon French trade and a concurrent encouragement given to English distilling. Gradually a craving for spirits spread like a pestilence throughout the country, and the demand for cheapness was met by the invention of what De Foe describes as the "new-fashioned compound waters called Geneva". Already in 1720 scenes such as Hogarth, five and twenty years later, engraved in "Gin-Lane," were familiar to the streets of London. In 1729 parliament resolved to inter

1729-43 PARLIAMENT AND THE LIQUOR TRADE. 351

XXII.

fere. An act was passed imposing a duty of 5s. per gallon upon CHAP. “compound waters," and of £20 for a retail licence to sell gin or compounded spirits, and forbidding the sale of brandy or other spirits about the streets. The act succeeded in diminishing the sale of gin as such, but led to the invention of a form of cheap spirit called "parliament brandy" which, as not being

compounded" within the meaning of the act, escaped the duties. A repealing act in 1733, while continuing the prohibition of the hawking of spirits in the streets, attempted to put down dram-shops by forbidding the sale elsewhere than in "the dwelling-house of the persons so selling the same". The effect was to transform dwelling-houses into dram-shops. A carnival of drunkenness ensued. Sir Joseph Jekyll, master of the rolls, an independent whig, carried with general concurrence 1 a measure reviving and extending the system of the act of 1729. By the statute 9 George II., c. 23, a duty of 20s. a gallon was imposed on spirits and £50 was to be paid for a licence to sell them. The act, currently known as "the Gin Act," was to take effect from Michaelmas day, 1736.

1

The approach of Michaelmas day, on which the gin act was to come into operation, was anticipated with anxiety. Troops patrolled the streets of London and Westminster for some days before and after Michaelmas, and Jekyll's house was protected by a guard of soldiers. Unfortunately the act was defeated by its own severity. Informers and blackmailers multiplied, and the mob ducked and otherwise maltreated them. "There never was certainly," writes the Political State for September, 1737, "an Act executed with such difficulty as this against gin." The system of a heavy licence duty having failed, Carteret's ministry proposed in 1743 to lower the retail licence duty from £50 to 20s., by which they anticipated that the revenue would be benefited, not by the increased consumption of gin, but by a diminution of the temptation to evade the purchase of a licence. On the other hand, they proceeded to encourage the consumption by lowering the excise from 20s. to a maximum of 6d. and a minimum of 1d. a gallon according to the materials used. Great opposition was offered in both houses. The bishops, to their credit, combated it with vigour,

1 Colonel the Hon. Charles Howard to Lord Carlisle, March 9, 1736, Carlisle MSS., p. 162.