ENGLAND. 229 



earl of Mar, and other chiefs, were driven into rebellion in 1715, which 

 was happily suppressed the beginning of the next year. 



In 17 IS, a war commenced with Spain on account of the quadruple 

 alliance that had been formed between Great Britain, France, Ger- 

 many, and the States-General ; and sir George Byng destroyed the 

 Spanish fleet at Syracuse. But this war was soon ended by the 

 Spaniards delivering up Sardinia and Sicily, the former to the duke of 

 Savoy, and the latter to the emperor. 



So fluctuating was the state of Europe at this time, that, in Septem- 

 ber 1725, a new treaty was concluded at Hanover, between the kings 

 of Great Britain, France, and Prussia, to counterbalance an alliance 

 that had been formed between the courts of Vienna and Madrid. A 

 squadron was sent to the Baltic, to prevent the Russians from attack- 

 ing Sweden, another to the Mediterranean, and a third, under admiral 

 Hosier, to the West Indies, to watch the Spanish plate fleets. This 

 last was a fatal as well as an inglorious expedition. The admiral and 

 most of his men perished by epidemical diseases, and the hulks of 

 his ships rotted so as to render them unfit for service. The manage- 

 ment of the Spaniards was little better. They lost nearly 10,000 men 

 in the siege of Gibraltar, which they were obliged to raise. 



A quarrel with the emperor was the most dangerous to Hanpver 

 of any that could happen ; and though an opposition in the house of 

 commons was formed by sir William Wyndham and Mr. Pulteney, 

 the parliament continued to be more and more lavish in granting 

 money and subsidies for the protection of Hanover, to the kings of 

 Denmark and Sweden, and the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. Such 

 was the state of affairs in Europe, when George I suddenly died on 

 the 11th of June, 1727, at Osnaburg, in the sixty-eighth year of his 

 age, and the thirteenth of his reign. 



Sir Robert Walpole was considered as first minister of England 

 when George I died ; and some differences having happened between 

 him and the prince of Wales, it was generally thought, upon the 

 accession of the latter to the crown, that sir Robert would be dis- 

 placed. That might have been the case, could another person have 

 been found equally capable to manage the house of commons, and 

 to gratify that predilection for Hanover which George II inherited 

 from his father. No minister ever understood better the temper of 

 the people of England, and none, perhaps, ever tried it more. He 

 filled all places of power, trust, and profit, and almost the house of 

 commons itself, with his own creatures ; but peace was his darling 

 object, because he thought that war must be fatal to his power. 

 During his long administration he never lost a question that he was 

 in earnest to carry. The excise scheme was the first measure that 

 gave a shock to his power : and even that he could have carried, had 

 he not been afraid of the spirit of the people without doors, which 

 might have either produced an insurrection, or endangered his interest 

 in the next general election. 



Queen Caroline, consort to George II, had been always a firm 

 friend to the minister: but she died November 20th, 1737, when a 

 variance subsisted between the king and his son, the prince of Wales. 

 The latter complained, that through Walpole's influence he was 

 deprived not only of the power but the provision to which his birth 

 entitled him ; and he put himself at the head of the opposition with 

 so much firmness, that it was generally foreseen Walpole's power 

 was drawing to a crisis. Admiral Vernon, who hated the minister^ 



