passed last session, he certainly did not expect to have the company of certain gentlemen quite so soon again; that, however much they might have contributed to the declaration of war, their absence had undoubtedly facilitated the passing of various useful measures at the close of the last session, and, for his part, he should not be sorry to see them taking their departure again. He thought, however, that they had found no cause to congratulate themselves on their proceeding, for their constituents could not imagine that they had been promoting their interests by abandoning them.
The original address passed the commons without any division; but in the lords the peers' address, which was opposed most vehemently by Chesterfield, Carteret, and others, was only carried by sixty-eight votes against forty-eight. The duke of Argyll was amongst the most steady and determined of the opposition now, and Walpole was censured for having left him so long in possession of all his great posts, notwithstanding his obvious desertion of the ministerial party. It was asserted that he dared not turn him out; but this was soon proved to be no truer than many other of the opposition's assertions. Argyll was dismissed from everything at once. The great Scottish duke vowed revenge, and the year 1740 opened with a threatening aspect for the minister.
The opposition, being the real parents of the war, claimed a right to conduct it according to their own notions. They brought in a bill to encourage the seamen by conferring on them all the prize-money acquired. This had been brought in in the former session, and had been thrown out; but now Walpole found himself compelled to concede it. Then Sir William Wyndham professed to believe that Walpole was not in earnest in the war, after all, and that he would seize the first opportunity to put an end to it. On the 21st of February he moved a most violent address to his majesty, praying him never to make peace with Spain until the right of search and our right to navigate the American seas without being subject to it were utterly given up. He expected that Walpole would oppose it, but, on the contrary, he supported it, and it was carried unanimously. The place and pension bill was again introduced, but it was once more rejected by two hundred and twenty-two votes against two hundred and six.
The war was scarcely begun when it was discovered that, according to an ancient and almost invariable practice, we had proclaimed hostilities much before we were prepared to carry them out. Our ships were badly manned, and therefore slow to put to sea, and the more alert Spaniards were busy picking up our merchant vessels. Nor they only—the French, Dutch, and other nations hoisted Spanish colours, and were making wide devastation amongst our trading vessels. The government was to blame for this in one respect. They adhered to the old and impolitic practice of paying seamen on board men-of-war less than merchantmen paid them. The consequence was, that though Jack expressed himself anxious to have a brush with the Spaniards, his patriotism did not rise high enough to do it at a considerable discount in his wages. The merchants petitioned parliament for fleets and convoys to protect their trade, and yet, at the same time, there was a loud outcry against the barbarity of pressing men. A committee of the house of commons, to which the matter was referred, proposed to surmount the difficulty by establishing a register of all able-bodied seamen and watermen, and to make periodical drafts from them as men were needed; this only raised the outcry higher. It was represented as a system of pure despotism, by which husbands and fathers of families would be dragged away at the will of the government, and leave all dependent upon them to poverty. Walpole contended that it was the only efficient mode of manning our navy; that the system of impressment provoked as much ill-will, without furnishing anything like the numbers required; that whilst we were issuing proclamations and press warrants, and gleaning up our men one by one, the enemy was become aware of all our projects and in readiness to defeat them. Admiral Sir Charles Wager introduced a bill upon this principle, but Pulteney asked for the delay of a few days, so as to have the bill printed; and this being assented to, the measure, as Pulteney meant, was defeated, for there was such an outcry raised against the scheme, as based on French principles and French despotism, that the bill was presently abandoned. The house of commons, as well as the ministry, seemed at its wits' end. Men must be had, and yet every means of obtaining them was opposed. All seemed impressed with the necessity of a register, but none dared support it. At length it was proposed that there should be a voluntary register, as if such a thing could be more than a name. Walpole was compelled to issue letters of marque and licenses to whole swarms of privateers, who issued forth to make reprisals. The lords of the admiralty, on the 1st of February, had ordered an embargo on all shipping except coasters, so as at once to keep them out of reach of the enemy, and to induce active seamen to enter the navy; but on the 28th of March a petition from merchants and owners of shipping was presented, complaining of the hardships and the destruction of trade by it. The lords of the admiralty contended that such had been the complaints of injuries done at sea to our traders, that they had been compelled to impose the embargo in the absence of sufficient hands for men-of-war. They now took the embargo off foreign ships, and gave notice to English owners that they would take it off altogether, on condition that the owners and masters of vessels would enter into an engagement to furnish a certain number of men to the navy in proportion to the number of hands in each trader. This also was denounced as a most oppressive measure, and the opposition represented it as intended to make the mercantile community sick of the war. Driven, however, to extremities, ministers would not listen to these arguments; a motion was made and carried, sanctioning this plan, and then the merchants came into it. It was agreed that the merchants should introduce landsmen to the amount of one-third into their service, and should furnish one man in four to the king's ships. This being settled, on the 14th of April the embargo was removed from all merchant vessels of Great Britain and Ireland outward bound.
Such were the difficulties which ministers had to contend with for commencing the war at sea. In one particular, however, there was more liberality; money was freely voted; the land-tax was raised from two to four shillings in the pound, and the sinking fund was so freely resorted to.
