CHAPTER V.

Debate in Parliament against the Hanoverian Troops.....
Supplies granted..... Projected Invasion of Great
Britain..... A French Squadron sails up the English
Channel..... The Kingdom is put in a Posture of Defence.....
The Design of the French defeated..... War between France
and England..... Dill against those who should correspond
with the Sons of the Pretender..... Naval Engagement off
Toulon..... Advances towards Peace made by the Emperor.....
Treaty of Franckfort..... Progress of the French King in the
Netherlands..... Prince Charles of Lorraine passes the
Rhine..... The King of Prussia makes an Irruption into
Bohemia..... Campaign in Bavaria and Flanders..... The King
of Naples joins Count Gages in Italy-Battle of Coni.....
Return of Commodore Anson..... Sir John Balchen perishes at
Sea...... Revolution in the British Ministry..... Session of
Parliament..... Death of the Emperor Charles VII......
Accommodation between the Queen of Hungary and the young
Elector of Bavaria..... The King of Prussia gains two
successive Battles at Friedberg and Sohr over the Austrian
and Saxon Forces..... Treaty of Dresden..... The Grand Duke
of Tuscany elected Emperor of Germany..... The Allies are
defeated at Fontenoy..... The King of Sardinia is almost
stripped of his Dominions..... The English Forces take Cape
Breton..... The Importance of this Conquest..... Project of
an Insurrection in Great Britain..... The eldest Son of the
Chevalier de St. George lands in Scotland..... Takes
Possession of Edinburgh..... Defeats Sir John Cope at
Preston-Pans..... Efforts of the Friends of Government in
Scotland..... Precautions taken in England..... The Prince
Pretender reduces Carlisle, and penetrates as far as
Derby..... Consternation of the Londoners..... The Rebels
retreat into Scotland..... They invest the Castle of
Stirling..... The King’s Troops under Hawley are worsted at
Falkirk..... The Duke of Cumberland assumes the Command of
the Forces in Scotland..... The Rebels undertake the Siege
of Fort-William

The discontents of England were artfully inflamed by anti-ministerial writers, who not only exaggerated the burdens of the people, and drew frightful pictures of the distress and misery which, they said, impended over the nation, but also employed the arts of calumny and misrepresentation, to excite a jealousy and national quarrel between the English and Hanoverians. They affirmed that in the last campaign the British general had been neglected and despised; while the councils of foreign officers, greatly inferior to him in capacity, quality, and reputation, had been followed, to the prejudice of the common cause; that the British troops sustained daily insults from their own mercenaries, who were indulged with particular marks of royal favour; that the sovereign himself appeared at Dettingen in a Hanoverian scarf; and that his electoral troops were of very little service in that engagement. Though the most material of these assertions were certainly false, they made a strong impression on the minds of the people, already irritated by the enormous expense of a continental war maintained for the interest of Germany. When the parliament met in the beginning of December, a motion was made in the house of peers by the earl of Sandwich, for an address, beseeching his majesty to discontinue the Hanoverian troops in British pay, in order to remove the popular discontent, and stop the murmurs of the English troops abroad. He was supported by the duke of Bedford, the earl of Chesterfield, and all the leaders in the opposition, who did not fail to enumerate and insist upon all the circumstances we have mentioned. They moreover observed, that better troops might be hired at a smaller expense; that it would be a vain and endless task to exhaust the national treasure in enriching a hungry and barren electorate; that the popular dissatisfaction against these mercenaries was so general, and raised to such violence, as nothing but their dismission could appease; that if such hirelings should be thus continued from year to year, they might at last become a burden entailed upon the nation, and be made subservient, under some ambitious prince, to purposes destructive of British liberty. These were the suggestions of spleen and animosity: for, granting the necessity of a land war, the Hanoverians were the most natural allies and auxiliaries which Great Britain could engage and employ. How insolent soever some few individual generals of that electorate might have been in their private deportment, certain it is their troops behaved with great sobriety, discipline, and decorum; and in the day of battle did their duty with as much courage and alacrity as any body of men ever displayed on the like occasion. The motion was rejected by the majority; but, when the term for keeping them in the British pay was nearly expired, and the estimates for their being continued the ensuing year were laid before the house, the earl of Sandwich renewed his motion. The lord-chancellor, as speaker of the house, interposing, declared that by their rules a question once rejected could not be revived during the same session. A debate ensued, and the second motion was over-ruled. The Hanoverian troops were voted in the house of commons; nevertheless, the same nobleman moved in the tipper house, that the continuing sixteen thousand Hanoverians in British pay was prejudicial to his majesty’s true interest, useless to the common cause, and dangerous to the welfare and tranquillity of the nation. He was seconded by the duke of Marlborough, who had resigned his commission in disgust; and the proposal gave birth to another warm dispute: but victory declared, as usual, for the ministry.

In the house of commons they sustained divers attacks. A motion was made for laying a duty of eight shillings in the pound on all places and pensions. Mr. Grenville moved for an address, to beseech his majesty that he would not engage the British nation any further in the war on the continent, without the concurrence of the states-general on certain stipulated proportions of force and expense, as in the late war. These proposals begat vigorous debates, in which the country party were always foiled by dint of superior number. Such was the credit and influence of the ministry in parliament, that although the national debt was increased by above six millions since the commencement of the war, the commons indulged them with an enormous sum for the expense of the ensuing year. The grants specified in the votes amounted to six millions and a half; to this sum were added three millions and a half paid to the sinking fund in perpetual taxes; so that this year’s expense rose to ten millions. The funds established for the annual charge were the land and malt taxes; one million paid by the East India company for the renewal of their charter, twelve hundred thousand pounds by annuities, one million from the sinking fund, six-and-thirty thousand pounds from the coinage, and six hundred thousand pounds by a lottery—an expedient which for some time had been annually repeated; and which, in a great measure, contributed to debauch the morals of the public, by introducing a spirit of gaming, destructive of all industry and virtue.