STATE OF PARTIES.

It may be necessary to remind the reader of the state of parties at this important juncture. The Jacobites had been fed with hopes of seeing the succession altered by the earl of Oxford. These hopes he had conveyed to them in a distant, undeterminate, and mysterious manner, without any other view than that of preventing them from taking violent measures to embarrass his administration. At least, if he actually entertained at one time any other design, he had, long before his disgrace, laid it wholly aside, probably from an apprehension of the danger with which it must have been attended, and seemed bent upon making a merit of his zeal for the house of Hanover; but his conduct was so equivocal and unsteady, that he ruined himself in the opinion of one party without acquiring the confidence of the other. The friends of the pretender derived fresh hopes from the ministry of Bolingbroke. Though he had never explained himself on this subject, he was supposed to favour the heir of blood, and known to be an implacable enemy to the whigs, who were the most zealous advocates for the protestant succession. The Jacobites promised themselves much from his affection, but more from his resentment; and they believed the majority of the tories would join them on the same maxims. All Bolingbroke’s schemes of power were defeated by the promotion of the duke of Shrewsbury to the office of treasurer; and all his hopes blasted by the death of the queen, on whose personal favour he depended. The resolute behaviour of the dukes of Somerset and Argyle, together with the diligence and activity of a council in which the whig interest had gained the ascendancy, completed the confusion of the tories, who found themselves without a head, divided, distracted, and irresolute. Upon recollection, they saw nothing so eligible as silence and submission to those measures which they could not oppose with any prospect of success. They had no other objection to the succession in the house of Hanover but the fear of seeing the whig faction once more predominant; yet they were not without hope that their new sovereign, who was reputed a prince of sagacity and experience, would cultivate and conciliate the affection of the tories, who were the landholders and proprietors of the kingdom, rather than declare himself the head of a faction which leaned for support on those who were enemies to the church and monarchy, on the bank and the monied interest, raised upon usury and maintained by corruption. In a word, the whigs were elated and overbearing; the tories abashed and humble; the Jacobites eager, impatient, and alarmed at a juncture which, with respect to them, was truly critical.