round the house, and became even more numerous and more agitated. Walpole, irritated by the persuasion that these throngs were collected by the arts of the opposition, threw out a remark which he afterwards deeply repented. He said gentlemen might call themselves what they liked, but he knew whom the law called Sturdy Beggars. This phrase, carried out of doors, highly incensed the crowd, who considered that it was meant to cast contempt on the people at large. At two o'clock in the morning, and after thirteen hours' debate, on division there appeared two hundred and sixty-six for the measure, and two hundred and five against. The great increase of the minority struck Walpole with surprise and alarm; and the treatment which he received from the throng at the door was equally menacing. As he endeavoured to reach his carriage, the exasperated people seized him by the cloak, and he would probably have paid dear for his phrase of the "sturdy beggars," had he not been rescued by Pelham and some other friends. The words, however, were not forgotten, but long afterwards were flung in his teeth.
When the resolutions of the committee were reported two days afterwards, the debate was renewed with all its vehemence, and Pulteney unveiled another view of the case, which had much real truth and warning in it. "It is well known," he said, "that every one of the public officers have already so many boroughs or corporations which they look on as their properties. There are some boroughs which are called treasury boroughs; there are others which may be called admiralty boroughs; in short, it may be said that nearly all the towns upon the sea-coast are already seized upon, and in a manner taken prisoners by the officers of the crown. In most of them they have so great an influence that none can be chosen members of parliament but such as they are pleased to recommend. But, as the customs are confined to our sea-ports, as they cannot travel far from the coast, therefore this scheme seems to be contrived in order to extend the laws of excise, and thereby to extend the influence of the crown over all the inland towns and corporations of England."
Spite of these representations, however, the resolutions were confirmed by the same majority as before. Other debates succeeded on the second reading of the bill, but the majority on these gradually sank from sixty to sixteen. During all this time petitions continued to pour in from towns all over the country, and one from the common council of London, prepared by alderman Barber, a violent Jacobite, who had been Swift and Bolingbroke's printer, and was now lord mayor. Pamphlets issued rapidly from the press, and one of them made allusion to a parallel case with Walpole's "sturdy beggars," namely, that cardinal Granvelle, endeavouring to establish this inquisition in the Netherlands, gave the name of Gueux, or Sturdy Beggars, to his opponents, the prince of Orange and counts Egmont and Horn, who, however, drove out the cardinal and the oppressive government altogether.
As the storm grew instead of abated, the queen demanded of lord Scarborough what he thought of it, and he replied, "The bill must be relinquished. I will answer for my regiment against the pretender, but not against the opposers of the excise." "Then," said the queen, "we must drop it." Sir Robert summoned his majority, and requested their opinion, and they proposed to go on, observing that all taxes were obnoxious, and that it would not do to be daunted by a mob. But Walpole felt that he must yield. He declared that he was not disposed to enforce it at the point of the bayonet, and on the 11th of April, on the order of the day for the second reading, he moved that the measure should be postponed for two months. Thus the whole affair dropped. The usually triumphant minister found himself defeated by popular opinion. The opposition were hardly satisfied to allow this obnoxious bill thus to slip quietly away; but out of doors there was rejoicing enough to satisfy them. The towns throughout the kingdom celebrated the public triumph by illuminations, bonfires, and general rejoicings. In London the Monument was illuminated, the effigies of Walpole were burnt in many places, and amid all sorts of insults; and cockades were mounted, with the words "Liberty, Property and no Excise!" As the popular effervescence subsided, the current of public feeling was turned into a new channel by the announcement that the princess royal, Anne, was espoused to the young prince of Orange. Before the next session arrived, the excitement seemed so wholly forgotten, that there were rumours of a renewal of the attempt. But Walpole observed that he was not so mad as ever again to meddle with anything that looked like an excise, though he still thought it would have benefited the nation.
The depth of Walpole's mortification, however, was shown by the vengeance he took on those who had opposed him. This fell with peculiar weight on lord Chesterfield. Chesterfield had acquired a great reputation by his able management of affairs at the Hague. Since his return he had become lord steward of the household, and a frequent and much admired debatist in the house. But Chesterfield was too ambitious himself to stoop patiently to the domineering temper of Walpole. He was said to have thrown out some keen sarcasms at Walpole's excise bill, and his three brothers in the commons voted against it. Only two days after the abandonment of the bill, as Chesterfield was ascending the staircase at St. James's, he was stopped by an attendant, and summoned home to surrender the white staff. The same punishment was dealt out to a number of noblemen who acted in concert with him. Lord Clinton, a lord of the bedchamber, the earl of Burlington, captain of the band of pensioners, were dismissed, as well as the duke of Montrose, and the earls of Marchmont and Stair from offices held in Scotland. The duke of Bolton and lord Cobham were, by a most unjustifiable stretch of authority, deprived of their regiments. On the other hand, Sir Philip Yorke, the attorney-general, and Charles Talbot, solicitor-general, were raised to the peerage by the titles of baron Hardwicke and baron Talbot. Hardwicke was promoted to the dignity of lord chief justice, and Talbot to that of lord chancellor. These measures, however, perhaps more embittered and strengthened the opposition than they benefited the minister.
The commons voted eighty thousand pounds as a marriage portion to the princess royal, and the nuptials were celebrated in the French chapel at St. James's on the 14th of February of the following year.
England this year was the witness of war raging in different parts of Europe without having any concern in it—
