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SUNDERLAND, EARL OF. 



SUNDERLAND, EARL OF. 



and this connection led to his being selected by the Whig section of 

 the ministry to displace Sir Charles Hedges, when, in December 1707, 

 they found themselves' strong enough to force the queen to give them 

 a person of their owu politics as one of the secretaries of state, their 

 opponent Harley still continuing to be the other, which he did how- 

 ever only for a few months. The history of this movement is told at 

 great length by the Duchess of Marlborough, in her ' Account of her 

 Conduct,' p. 172, &c. Its result was to produce a completely Whig 

 government, in which Sunderland retained his office of secretary till 

 June 1710, when his dismissal, without any reason being assigned, was 

 the first intimation of the complete break-up of the ministry, which 

 immediately followed. It is said that Anne, who never liked the 

 notion of taking away a man's income, even when she wished to 

 deprive him of power, offered to compensate Sunderland when thus 

 turned off by a pension of 3000Z. a year, to which he replied, that "he 

 was glad her majesty was satisfied he had done his duty ; but if he 

 could not have the honour to serve his country, he would not plunder 

 it." He remained out of office for the rest of this reign ; but the 

 ability he had shown during the short time be was a member of the 

 government, and the prominent part he continued to take in the 

 debates of the House of Lords, made him be generally regarded as 

 the head of the Whig party, and the man most likely to be placed at 

 the head of affairs when the Hanover family thould come to the 

 throne. When George I. came over, in September 1714, Sunderland 

 was received with distinguished marks of regard by his majesty; such 

 indeed as could not be omitted to one who had always beenlooked upon 

 as the most devoted friend of the Hanoverian succession : but it had 

 already excited some surprise that he had not been nominated one of 

 the lords justices to whom the government was committed on the 

 death of the queen, and it soon appeared that there was another 

 interest more powerful than his at the new court. His rival was Lord 

 Townshend, the friend of Walpole, who had obtained the first place 

 iu the favour of Bothmar, the Hanoverian resident, and who, on iis 

 recommendation, was now appointed secretary of state, while Sunder- 

 land was obliged to put up with the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, which 

 he considered a kind of exclusion and banishment. " Though he did 

 not openly show his disgust," says Coxe, " yet he scarcely took any 

 active part in defending the measures of government. He, who was 

 before accustomed to make a conspicuous figure in every debate, seems 

 to have remained almost uniformly silent ; and from the accession of 

 George I. till the beginning of 1717 his name seldom occurs in the 

 proceedings of the Honse of Lords." It is probable that his relation- 

 ship to the Duke of Marlborough, who was personally disliked by 

 George I., had much to do with his being thus kept in the background. 

 In August 1715, soon after the death of the Marquis of Wharton, he 

 was made lord privy seal ; but this place still gave him little or no 

 share in the direction of affairs, and did not remove his disgust. Nor 

 did he remain inactive. On the contrary, he sought support for him- 

 self, and the means of annoying and weakening his oppouents, from 

 all quarters. He, " increased his party," says Coxe, " with a number 

 of disaffected persons. He particularly gained among the Whigs 

 Carleton, Cadogan, Lechmere, and Hampden ; courted the Tories ; 

 entered into cabals against his colleagues; and was prepared to use 

 all his efforts and employ any opportunities which might offer to 

 prejudice the king against them." His majesty had gone over to 

 Hanover, attended by secretary Stanhope, in July 1716. " One of the 

 principal charges," says Coxe, "which Stanhope had received from 

 his friends in England was to be on his guard against the intrigues of 

 Sunderland, who had, under pretence of ill health, obtained the king's 

 permission to go to Aix-la-Chapelle. Although at the time of his 

 departure he had given the most positive assurances of repentance 

 and concern for his late endeavours to remove his colleagues, and, 

 after the most solemn professions of friendship and union, had con- 

 descended to ask their advice for the regulation of his conduct at 

 Hanover, to which place he intended to apply for leave to proceed, 

 Townshend and Walpole suspected his sincerity : they had experienced 

 his abilities; they knew his ambition; and they dreaded the ascen- 

 dancy which he might obtain, through the channel of the Hanoverians, 

 over the king. But they implicitly trusted in the sagacity and inte- 

 grity of Stanhope, either to prevent his appearance at Hanover, or, if 

 he came, to counteract his views. Stanhope however did not follow 

 their directions ; for when Sunderland demanded access to the king, 

 instead of opposing, he promoted the request with all his influence." 

 This statement is however undoubtedly overcharged. It is certaia 

 that Walpole and Townshend wished Stanhope to place no obstacle 

 in the way of Sunderland's visit to Hanover, however desirous they 

 may have been that his proceedings should be watched whilst there. 

 The result was that Sunderland, who had arrived at Hanover in the 

 latter part of October, soon acquired the complete confidence both of 

 the king and of Stanhope. Lord Townshend, after much complicated 

 manoeuvring and intriguing by the faction in whose hands the king 

 was, and much indecision on the part of his majesty himself, was 

 removed ; Sunderland was in the first instance appointed treasurer of 

 Ireland for life, resigning his office of lord privy seal to the Duke of 

 Kingston; and finally, in April 1717, a complete reconstruction of the 

 ministry was effected by the resignation of Walpole, Devonshire, 

 Pulteney, and others of their friends, and by the appointment of 

 Sunderland and his friend Addison as secretaries of state (the former 



BIOG. D1V. VOL. V. 



also holding for some months'the presidency of the council, which he 

 eventually resigned to the Duke of Kingston), with Stauhope as first 

 lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer an arrangement 

 which about a year after was modified by Stanhope (now a peer) 

 taking the office of tecretary, and Sunderland who had all along 

 been the head of the government, going himself to the treasury, 

 the chancellorship of the exchequer being given to Mr. Aislabie. 

 [STANHOPE, JAMES, EABL.] About the same time the opportunity 

 was taken of substituting Craggs for Addison as the other secretary. 



On the 5th of March, 1719, the famous bill for limiting the number 

 of peerages was first brought into the House of Lords. " This bill," 

 says Coxe, " was projected by Sunderland : his views were to restrain 

 the power of the Prince of Wales when he came to the throne, whom 

 he had offended beyond all hopes of forgiveness, and to extend and 

 perpetuate his own influence by the creation [of course the reverend 

 historian must mean before the measure should pas-s] of many new 

 peers." The bill was abandoned that session; but it was brought 

 forward again in the next, the first of a new parliament, when it was 

 passed by the Lords, 30th November, 1719, apparently without a 

 division, and was only defeated iu the Commons, after it had been 

 read a second time, on the motion for its committal, principally by the 

 strenuous exertions of Walpole. Coxe asserts that before the new 

 parliament met no means had been left unemployed by Sunderland to 

 secure the success of this measure; "bribes were profusely lavished; 

 promises and threats were alternately employed, in every shape which 

 his sanguine and overbearing temper could suggest." Now that he 

 found himself signally beaten however for Walpole's eloquence and 

 influence had procured the triumphant majority of 269 to 177 against 

 the ministerial project he deemed it his best policy to enter into an 

 alliance with the patent commoner ; and accordingly, in the beginning 

 of June 1720, Walpole and his friend Townshend were both reinstated 

 in the government, the former being appointed paymaster of the 

 forces, the latter president of the council. This proved a fortunate 

 arrangement for Sunderland : in the beginning of the following year 

 came the investigation by the House of Commons into the trans- 

 actions connected with the South Sea scheme, in which Sunderland, 

 with others of the ministers, had been deeply involved ; the secret 

 committee had reported that of the fictitious stock distributed by the 

 directors of the company, with the object of influencing or bribing the 

 government and the legislature, 50,OOOZ. had been given to Sunder- 

 land : Lord Stanhope and Secretary Craggs, who were also implicated, 

 had only escaped prosecution by having both suddenly died in the 

 midst of the investigation, nor did even his death save the estate of 

 the latter : Aislabie, the chancellor of the exchequer, had already been 

 expelled and committed to the Tower; when, on the 8th of March, 

 Walpole's earnest entreaties with difficulty prevailed upon the House 

 to adjourn the consideration of the part of the committee's report 

 relating to Lord Sunderland till the 15th. In the interval Walpole 

 exerted himself privately to gain votes for an acquittal by representing 

 to his Whig friends in strong colours the disgrace and possible ruin 

 that would be brought upon their party by the conviction of the 

 prime minister. "His personal weight," to adopt the language of 

 Coxe, " his authoritative and persuasive eloquence, were effectually 

 employed on this occasion, and aided by the influence of government, 

 -met with success. The minister was acquitted by a majorityof 61 votes, 

 233 against 172." It is right to state however that the evidence in sup- 

 port of the charge was far from being perfectly satisfactory, coming as it 

 did principally from one of the directors, himself convicted of gross 

 fraud. " Although the public voice," Coxe adds in a note, " notwith- 

 standing his acquittal by so large a majority, criminated Sunderland, 

 yet several extenuations may be urged in his favour. For it appears 

 from private documents which have casually fallen under my in- 

 spection, that so early as July he had refused to recommend to the 

 directors any more lists for subscriptions : that he did not at least 

 enrich himself or his friends ; that he expressed great satisfaction that 

 neither himself nor his friends had sold out any South Sea Stock, as he 

 would not have profited of the public calamity." It is said that if he 

 had sold out the stock he held at one time, he might have realised by 

 it not less than 300,0002. 



Notwithstanding his acquittal, it was found impossible to retain 

 him in office; he was very reluctant to go out, and the king was 

 equally averse to parting with him : in particular, it is said, he 

 desired to be allowed to retain the disposal of the secret seryice 

 money ; but he was at last forced to give tip everything, and on the 

 3rd of April Walpole was appointed both to his place of first lord of 

 the treasury, and to that of chancellor of the exchequer, of which 

 Aislabie had been deprived. Sunderland however still retained the 

 most unbounded influence over the king; he even regulated the 

 appointments to the highest offices in the government, carrying his 

 nominations in several instances against the united efforts of Towns- 

 hend and Walpole. Coxe asserts, on the evidence of private papers, 

 that he not only set himself industriously to undermine the cabinet, 

 but even intrigued with the Tories, and made overtures to Bishop 

 Atterbury, the agent of the Pretender. He proposed to the king, 

 according to Coxe, when the ferment of public indignation occasioned 

 by the explosion of the South Sea scheme was at its height, to 

 dissolve the parliament, with the view of bringing in a Tory majority, 

 who under his conduct would quash all inquiry on the- subject : the 



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