only, unsupported by any documentary or other evidence and that he should withdraw whilst members were at liberty to heap upon him any accusations that they pleased. The opposition, however, still made a great stand on this point, but its glaring injustice compelled them at last to give way, and it was determined that Sir Robert should hear all the charges to be advanced against him, and then finally to reply.
Then commenced a series of speeches from Pulteney, Pitt, Bootle, Fazakerley, Lyttleton, and others, in which the whole life and policy of Walpole were analysed with all the keenness, completeness, and ability which party feeling and such men furnished for this great occasion. Pulteney went over the ground traversed by Sandys with such striking similarity, though abounding with variations, as gave ground for the opinion that he had had the chief getting up of Sandys' speech. He dwelt particularly on the crime and folly of Walpole cultivating the French alliance at the expense of that of Austria, though it would have been difficult to show wherein Austria had contributed anything to us except expense and bloodshed in defence of its territories and claims. Pitt dwelt more particularly on the increase of the debt and the equal multiplication of taxes during the administration of Walpole. Whilst this was the case at home, abroad, he said, the whole system of Europe was overthrown; that a new and more awful struggle was coming upon the civilised world than it had ever yet known; and that it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the country that a minister who had lost the confidence of all mankind should be removed from his majesty's councils.
But violent and lowering as was the storm which burst now on the head of Walpole, some of the members comparing him to Piers Gaveston and Hugh Le Despenser, and almost every other royal minion that they could call to mind, a light broke in a quarter where no one expected it, and the force of the opposition attack was paralysed, to their own astonishment. Edward Harley, the brother of the late lord Oxford, rose and said, that he had opposed the measures of the administration because he thought them wrong, and he did now avow that he considered the state of the nation was deplorable from misgovernment, but that he was not prepared to lay the whole blame of these measures on one man. The man now under censure was not one who had any claims on his forbearance, but he desired to be guided by facts and evidence, and not by private opinions and feelings. "A noble lord," he said, "to whom I had the honour to be related, has often been mentioned in this debate. He was impeached and imprisoned: by that imprisonment his years were shortened, and the prosecution was carried on by the honourable person who is now the subject of your question, though he knew at that very time that there was no evidence to support it. I am now glad of this opportunity to return good for evil, and do that right honourable gentleman and his family the justice that they denied to mine." With that he left the house, followed by his relative, Robert Harley.
This took the opposition by surprise, but that surprise was greatly heightened when Shippen, "the thorough Shippen," as he was called, also declared that he would not join in the ruin of the assailed minister. He declared that he never followed any dictates of self-interest, and cared little who was in or out, unless he could see a prospect of different measures; but that he regarded this movement only as the attempt to turn out one administration in order to bring another in. He would therefore have no concern in it; and with that he withdrew, followed by thirty-four of his party.
This was a terrible blow to the designs of the opposition, and it has been attempted to account for the conduct of Shippen by this statement—That shortly before this time Walpole had discovered the correspondence of a friend of Shippon's with the pretender, which put his head in danger; that Shippen had waited on Walpole, and solicited his clemency in the matter, which Walpole had readily granted, with the remark—"Mr. Shippen, I cannot hope that you will vote with my administration, for with your principles I have no right to expect it; but I only require, that whenever any question is brought forward in the house affecting me personally, you will recollect the favour I have now granted you." But the conduct of Shippen is sufficiently clear without this explanation. He was an honest and determined tory and Jacobite. Money was the last thing which would influence him. Walpole himself declared that he was almost the only man that he could not purchase. "I will not say," he often observed, "who may be corrupted, but I will say who is incorruptible, and that is Will Shippen." He refused a bribe of one thousand pounds from the prince of Wales. It was a matter, therefore, of the simplest political common sense which guided him and his friends. He was bent on restoring the pretender; but he and his fellow Jacobites knew that this was only an attempt of the discontented whigs to turn out Walpole, and to preserve pretty much the same measures; that led to no result desired by the Jacobites, and therefore they would have no concern in it. Carte, the Jacobite historian, says, in a letter to the pretender, that the motion "was set on foot by the duke of Argyll and the party of the old whigs, without either concerting measures with the tories or consulting them about it, so that when it was moved in the commons, Sir John Hynde Cotton and Sir Watkin Williams were forced to go about the house to solicit their friends to stay the debate, which they were vexed should be brought on without their concurrence; and all they could say could not prevent Will Shippen and twenty-three others of the tories leaving the house in a body. All prince Frederick's servants, and party also, except Lyttleton, Pitt, and Granville, left the house; so that, though there were above five hundred members present, when the question came to be put there were not above four hundred."
Another reason has been assigned for the terrible breakdown of this charge. It is said that Sir Robert had, some time before, addressed a letter to the pretender with the object of softening the asperity of his partisans in England, and that this had so raised the hopes of James, that Walpole was actually intending to come round, that he had ordered his followers to avoid anything which should shake his power. Whatever the causes, the fact was striking; and the opposition having concluded its onslaught upon him, he rose to make his reply. It was an occasion which demanded the utmost exertion of his powers, and he put
