Part 87

A few years later a gigantic enterprise was undertaken by the South Sea Company, a body of merchants originally organized as a company trading in the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A Scotchman named Law had started a similar project in France, known as the "Mississippi Company," which proposed to pay off the national debt of France from the profits of its commerce with the West Indies and the country bordering on the Mississippi River.

Following his example, the South Sea Company now undertook to pay off the English National Debt (S503), mainly, it is said, from the profits of the slave trade between Africa and Brazil. Sir Robert Walpole (S534) had no faith in the scheme, and attacked it vigorously; but other influential members of the Government gave it their encouragement. The directors came out with prospectuses promising dividends of fifty per cent on all money invested. Everybody rushed to buy stock, and the shares rapidly advaced from 100 pounds to 1000 pounds a share.

Loftie's "History of London"; and see S512.

A speculative craze followed, the like of which has never since been known. Bubble companies sprang into existence with objects almost as absurd as those of the philosophers whom Swift ridiculed in "Gulliver's Travel's," where one man was trying to make gunpowder out of ice, and another to extract sunbeams from cucumbers.

A mere list of these companies would fill several pages. One was to give instruction in astrology, by which every man might be able to foretell his own destiny by examining the stars; a second was to manufacture butter out of beech trees; a third was for a wheel for driving machinery, which once started would go on forever, thereby furnishing a cheap perpetual motion.

A fourth projector, going beyond all the rest in audacity, had the impudence to offer stock for sale in an enterprise "which shall be revealed hereafter." He found the public so gullible and so greedy that he sold 2000 pounds worth of the new stock in the course of a single morning. He then prudently disappeard with the cash, and the unfortunate investors found that where he went with their money was not among the things to "be revealed hereafter."

The narrow passage leading to the London stock exchange was crowded all day long with struggling fortune hunters, both men and women. Suddenly, when the excitement was at its height, the bubble burst, as Law's scheme in France had a little earlier.

Great numbers of people were hopelessly ruined, and the cry for vengeance was as loud as the bids for stock had once been. One prominent government official who had helped to blow the bubble was sent to the Tower. Another committed suicide rather than face a parliamentary committee of investigation, one of whose members had suggested that it would be an excellent plan to sew the South Sea directors up in sacks and throw them into the Thames.

537. How a Terrible Disease was conquered, 1721, 1796.

But among the new things which the people were to try in that century was one which led to most beneficient results. For many generations the great scourge of Europe was the smallpox. Often the disease was as violent as the plague (S474), and carried off nearly as many victims. Medical art, seemed powerless to deal with it, and even in years of ordinary health in England about one person out of ten died of this loathsome pestilence. In the early part of George I's reign, Lady Mary Montagu, then traveling to Turkey, wrote that the Turks were in the habit of inoculating their children for the disease, which rendered it much milder and less fatal, and that she was about to try the experiment on her own son.

Later, Lady Montagu returned to England, and through her influence and example the practice was introduced there, 1721. It was tried first on five criminals in Newgate who had been sentenced to the gallows, but were promised their freedom if they would consent to the operation. As it proved a complete success, the Princess of Wales, with the King's consent, caused it to be tried on her daughter, with equally good results.

The medical profession, however, generally refused to sanction the practice, and the clergy in many cases preached against it as an "invention of Satan, intended to counteract the purposes of an all-wise Providence." But through the perseverance and good sense of Lady Montagu, with a few others, the new practice gradually gained ground. Subsequently Dr. Jenner began to make experiments of a different kind, which led, late in the century (1796-1798), to the discovery of vaccination, by which millions of lives have been saved; this, and the discovery of the use of ether in our own time (S615), may justly be called two of the greatest triumphs of the art of medicine.

538. How Sir Robert Walpole governed.

We have seen that Sir Robert Walpole (S534) became the first Prime Minister in 1721, and that he continued in office as head of the Cabinet, or Government, until near the middle of the next reign. He was an able financier, and succeeded in reducing the National Debt (S503). He believed in keeping the country out of war, and also, as we have seen, out of "bubble speculation" (S536). Finally, he was determined at all cost to maintain the Whig party in power, and the Protestant Hanoverian sovereigns on the throne (SS515, 532).

In order to accomplish these objects, he openly bribed members of Parliament to support his party; he bought votes and carried elections by gifts of titles, honors, and bank notes. He thus proved to his own satisfaction the truth of his theory that most men "have their price," and that an appeal to the pocketbook is both quicker and surer than an appeal to the principle. But before the end of his ministry he had to confess that he had found in the House of Commons a "boy patriot," as he sneeringly called him, named William Pitt (afterward Earl of Chatham), whom neither his money could buy nor his ridicule move (SS549, 550).

Bad as Walpole's policy was in its corrupting influence on the nation, it as an admission that the time had come when the King could no longer venture to rule by force, as in hte days of the Stuarts. It meant that the Crown no longer possessed the arbitrary power it once wielded. Walpole was a fox, not a lion; and "foxes," as Emerson tells us, "are so cunning because they are not strong."

539. Summary.

Though George I did little for England except keep the "Pretender" (S535) from the throne by occupying it himself, yet that was no small advantage, since it gave the country peace. The establishment of Cabinet Government under Sir Robert Walpole as the first Prime Minister, the suppression of the Jacobite insurrection, the disastrous collapse of the South Sea Bubble, and the introduction of vaccination are the principle events.

George II--1727-1760

540. Accession and Character.

The second King George, who was also of German birth, was much like his father, though he had the advantage of being able to speak English readily, but with a strong German accent. His tastes were far from being refined and he bluntly declared, "I don't like Boetry, and I don't like Bainting." His wife, Queen Caroline, was an able woman. She possessed the happy art of ruling her husband without his suspecting it, while she, on the other hand, was ruled by Sir Robert Walpole, whom the King hated, but whom he had to keep as Prime Minister (SS534, 538). George II was a good soldier, and decidedly preferred war to peace; but Walpole saw clearly that the peace policy was best for the nation, and he and the Queen managed to persuaded the King not to draw the sword.

541. The War of Jenkins's Ear (1739).

At the end of twelve years, however, trouble arose with Spain. According to the London newspapers of that day, a certain Captain Jenkins, while cruising, or, more probably, smuggling, in the West Indies, had been seized by the Spaniards and barbarously maltreated. They, if we accept his tory, accused him of attempting to land English goods contrary to law, and searched his ship. Finding nothing against him, they vented their rage and disappointment by hanging him to the yardarm of his vessel until he was nearly dead.

They then tore off one of his ears, and bade him take it to the King of England with their compliments. Jenkins, it is said, carefully wrapped up his ear and put it in his pocket. When he reached England, he went straight to the House of Commons, drew out the mutilated ear, showed it to the House, and demanded justice.

The Spanish restrictions on English trade with the Indies and South America had long been a source of ill feeling. The sight of Jenkins's ear brought matters to a climax; even Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, could not resist the clamor for vengeance, and contrary to his own judgment he had to vote for war (S538).

By the Treaty of Utrecht one English ship was allowed to carry slaves once a year to the colonies of Spanish America (S512, note 1).

Though Jenkins was the occasion, the real object of the war was to compel Spain to permit the English to get a larger share in the lucrative commerce, especially the slave trade, with the New World. It was another proof that America was now rapidly becoming an important factor in he politics of Great Britain (SS421, 422).

The announcement of hostilities with Spain was received in London with delight, and bells pealed from every steeple. "Yes," said Walpole," they may ring the bells now, but before long they will be wringing their hands." This prediction was verified by the heavy losses the English suffered in an expedition against the Spanish settlement of Carthagena, South America. But later the British commander, Commodore Anson, inflicted great damage on the Spanish colonies, and returned to England with vessels laden with large amounts of captured silver.