that the supplies altogether amounted to upwards of four millions. During these discussions, news came on the 13th of March, that admiral Vernon had taken Porto Bello from the Spaniards. This was good news for the opposition, for Vernon was one of their party, and a personal enemy of Walpole. There were great rejoicings, and bonfires made in the streets, and the lords sent down an address of congratulation to the king, for the concurrence of the commons. Yet in this they could not avoid making a party matter of it, the address stating that this glorious action had been performed with only six ships, and thus to mark the contrast with the doings of admiral Hosier in those seas, and so to blacken his memory. The address was carried in a thin house, but only by thirty-six against thirty-one, so that along with the news went the comment to Vernon, that the ministry begrudged him his glory.
Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of April, and the king set off on his summer visit to Hanover. Active measures were meanwhile continued to send powerful fleets against the Spanish possessions. Sir John Norris, having on board the duke of Cumberland as a volunteer, was ordered to Ferrol, to waylay the Spanish fleet about to sail to the West Indies; but he was attacked by very stormy weather, and continued tossed about near the English coast, and, after having two of his vessels greatly damaged, had the mortification to find that the enemy's fleet had escaped him, and was on its way across the Atlantic. The duchess of Marlborough, who, though no longer capable of exerting any power, continued to exert her tongue and epistolary pen with, as much causticity as ever, remarked that Sir John lingered near the coast, and that perhaps it was contrived purposely to allow the Spaniards to escape. In the autumn commodore Anson was sent to co-operate with Vernon. He was to proceed to the Pacific, and commit depredations there, and communicate with Vernon across the Isthmus of Darien. Still greater preparations were made for attacking, and, it was confidently hoped, conquering the Spanish colonies of North America. A fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line was assembled in the Isle of Wight, under the command of Sir Chaloner Ogle. It was extremely well equipped, and attended by a multitude of frigates, fire-ships, bombs, ketches, tenders, hospital-ships, and store-ships, and carried over an armament, consisting of marines and detachments from old regiments under the command of lord Cathcart. These were to be joined at Jamaica by four battalions raised in the British colonies of North America, and great hopes were excited of the services they were to perform.
Still greater forces would have been sent into this quarter could the duke of Newcastle have ruled. Newcastle, who had for a long time appeared easy and unambitious, now began to aspire to equal if not superior power with Walpole. He assumed to have a leading voice in the direction of the war, as he had been one of its foremost promoters. He would have sent every ship we had to the West Indies and North and South America, but Walpole knew too well that there would be urgent need for a strong force in the home seas. He knew that the pretender was on the watch to seize all opportunities of advantage, and there were symptoms of fresh combinations of the continental powers, which boded much trouble. So far from finding support in his views in the cabinet, he was now compelled to contend with Newcastle and other members on almost every measure brought forward. These things showed too plainly that his ascendancy was on the decline, and he evinced his mortification by giving way to bursts of passion, and lost the buoyancy and cheerfulness of his temper.
The turn of affairs on the continent justified his most serious apprehensions. France was soon discovered to have made a compact with Spain, and once having taken this step, she displayed her usual activity in every court of Europe, to induce England's allies to break with her, and to prevent her making new leagues. Walpole did his best to counteract these French influences. He managed to secure the Russian court, before in connection with France, and subsidised Sweden, Denmark, Hesse-Cassel, and some other of the German states. But at this crisis died the savage old Frederick William of Prussia; and his son Frederick now commenced that extraordinary military career which obtained him the name of Frederick the Great. England was of course anxious to secure the alliance of this young and enterprising monarch; and as the same animosity which had raged betwixt George of Hanover and the father was not necessarily continued betwixt him and the son, every exertion was made to obtain his friendship. The French, on the other hand, used equal assiduity to obtain his alliance; but Frederick, who had plans of his own, waited coolly, without encouraging the one or the other. It was not long before it was seen in what direction he would turn his ambition, and that his designs must necessarily sever him from England, and lead him into co-operation with France.
Although the late king of Prussia had made no great military campaigns, he had been proud of an army, and had left seventy-six thousand well-disciplined soldiers, and a million and a half sterling in his coffers. Temptingly adjoining his own territory, Frederick, the young king, beheld those of an equally young female sovereign, Maria Theresa of Austria, and he determined to extend his kingdom at her expense.
The emperor, Charles VI., died on the 20th of October of this year, leaving his daughter, Maria Theresa, sole possessor of his dominions. All the powers of Europe were bound, by their consent to the Pragmatic Sanction, to support her claims; but it required a very few mouths to show how little oaths and treaties bind monarchs. The year had not elapsed before the king of Prussia was in arms to wrest from her as much of her territory as possible, and numbers of the other powers were in equal haste to join him, and come in for a share of the plunder. The elector of Bavaria put in direct claims as a male heir to a great part of the Austrian dominions, and he declared that the female line could not succeed. He refused to recognise the accession of Maria Theresa; the rest of the powers of Europe did recognise it, but only to break with and help to make war on her. Of all these not one, besides England, stood by her. England, for her own sake, endeavoured to secure the interest of Prussia against France; and Horace Walpole drew up a plan of a grand confederacy against the house of Bourbon, in which Frederick was complimented by being placed at the head. But Frederick, though he did not yet throw off the mask, was planning a very different state of
