become corrupt himself or had corrupted others; that he had sought no honours, but had refused them, except the ribbon of the order of the garter, which it would have been disrespectful to his majesty to have declined. He defended some promotions to members of his own family, and finally called on all who were desirous to maintain the rights and prerogatives of the crown, and the honourable exercise of a ministerial discretion, to reject the motion before the house.
It was four o'clock in the morning when Walpole concluded his masterly defence, and the motion was instantly rejected by two hundred and ninety votes against one hundred and six. Whilst Sir Robert had been thus fiercely assailed in the commons, the storm was raging against him with equal fury in the lords. Carteret introduced the motion, which was eagerly supported by the dukes of Argyll and Bedford, the earls of Sandwich, Westmoreland, Berkshire, Carlisle, Abingdon, and Halifax, and by lords Haversham and Bathurst. It was singular that whilst Berkshire, Lichfield, and Bathurst were voting against Walpole in the peers, their sons in the commons were voting for him. The dukes of Newcastle and Devonshire, the lord chancellor, Sherlock, bishop of Salisbury, the earl of Isla, brother to Argyll, and lord Hervey, as warmly defended Walpole, and the motion was rejected by one hundred and eight to fifty-nine. The prince of Wales attended the debate, but did not vote, nor did lord Wilmington and other peers holding places under government, whence they obtained the cognomen of "sneakers." A fiery protest, said to have been penned by the indefatigable hater, lord Bolingbroke, was signed by thirty-one peers.
The immediate effect of the attack appeared to be to strengthen the minister, and that considerably; his levee the next morning was more crowded than had ever been known, and he seemed to sway the cabinet with uncontrolled power. But thinking men foretold that the blow would tell in the end, when the momentary enthusiasm was gone off; and Walpole himself seemed to be of the same opinion. The attack, in truth, was but the first outbreak of the storm which, kept up by the implacable spirit of a powerful opposition, was sure to bear him down at last.
Whilst this powerful confederacy was putting forth all its strength to drive from the seat of supremacy the man who had so long guided the fortunes of England, another confederacy was knitting together its selfish members to rend in pieces and share amongst them the empire of the young queen of Austria. On the 8th of April George II. addressed his parliament, telling it that we were bound to stand by this defenceless princess, whose cause was the cause of all Europe. If her territories were seized upon by Prussia, France, and Bavaria, the balance of power would be destroyed, and there would be no prospect but bloody wars or established despotism. He said Maria Theresa had called for the twelve thousand men which were stipulated for by treaty, and that he had called on the king of Denmark and the king of Sweden, as landgrave of Heese Cassel, to furnish their proper quota, six thousand for each, to be ready to march to her assistance. He alluded to measures in concert to support the queen of Hungary, which would render great expenses necessary to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction, and that he looked to his parliament to enable him effectually to discharge his engagements on this head.
In opening the debate on these supplies in the commons, Clutterbuck, one of the lords of the treasury, made a most unhappy slip of the tongue. He declared that we ought to be as anxious to insure the safety of Hanover as we were to insure that of England. The words were instantly seized upon by the opposition, and the idea of Hanover being the chief subject of the king's thoughts, which haunted the public mind, was made damagingly prominent. The unhappy orator had, in fact, laid bare the real anxiety of the king, for, in truth, he was greatly alarmed for the safety of Hanover during these German commotions. Pulteney drew out this anxiety to the utmost, and reminded the house that by the act of settlement it was provided that this country should not be involved in the quarrels of Hanover—a country, he declared, from which we never expected or received any benefit, and for which, therefore, nothing ought either to be suffered or hazarded. Walpole hastened to stop the mischief by dwelling on the fact, that we were not called upon in any way to take thought for Hanover, but to assist, as we were bound to do by solemn treaty, to prevent the dismemberment of the Austrian empire, and to maintain the true succession. Sandys endeavoured to turn back the argument by asserting that we owed allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and not to the elector of Hanover; but, notwithstanding this momentary advantage of the opposition, the address on the king's speech was carried without a division, and this was followed by a motion on the 13th of April, carried also without a division, voting to Maria Theresa a subsidy of three hundred thousand pounds. There was, perhaps, a motive in this unanimous assent, employed again to damage Walpole, for Carteret hastened to assure the Austrian court, that this grant was by no means owing to the good will of the ministry, but to the unanimous feeling of the English parliament and people for the queen of Hungary.
Parliament was prorogued on the 25th of April, and as its term of seven years had nearly expired, it was soon after dissolved, and writs were issued for a new election, returnable on the 26th of June. George was impatient to get away to Hanover, and Walpole as anxious to detain him. He dreaded the endeavours of the opposition during the king's absence; but his entreaties were useless, George, embarked for his beloved electorate on the 7th of May. Great events were already occurring in Germany. Frederick of Prussia encountered the Austrian general, marshal Neuperg, on the 10th of April, betwixt Molwitz and Groniugen. The Hungarian hussars, early in the day, made a vigorous charge on Frederick's left wing, and seized his baggage, and soon after the Austrian heavy cavalry routed his right wing. Frederick, who thought all was lost, galloped off amid his flying horse, never stopping till he reached Oppelm, where he took refuge in a windmill!
This act of cowardice deeply mortified the ambitious Prussian, and the more so, as he found that his father's well-trained infantry had stood their ground, had repulsed the Austrian cavalry, and, under marshal Schwerin, had put the whole of the Austrian army to the route. Nearly five thousand of the Austrians were left dead on the field or
