66 Septennial Act is still law. In 1719 was passed an Act for Strengthening the Protestant Interest, which, by repealing the provisions in the Act of 1711 against occasional conformity," and the Schism Act, redressed the recent grievances of the Dissenters. In the next reign Acts were from time to time passed for indemnifying those who had not duly qualified themselves for the offices they held; and at last it became the practice to pass such Acts every year; so that, though the Test and Corporation Arts were still unrepealed, all offices were practically thrown open to Protestant Dissenters. CHAPTER XL. GEORGE II. George II.; administration of Walpole (1)—war with Spain; Anson's voyage (2) war of the Austrian Succession; battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy (3)—the Young Pretender; battle of Culloden; end of the Stuart line (4)-war with France; shooting of Byng; Pitt's administration; death of Wolfe; acquisition of Canada; battles of Quiberon and Minden (5)—India; Clive; "the Black Hole"; battles of Plassy and Wandewash (6)-death of George (7)-reform of the Kalendar (8)-the Eddystone Lighthouse (9)-rise of Methodism (10)-literature (11). 1. George II., 1727-1760.-George II., like his father the late King, was German by birth, German in feeling and politics, attached to his native dominions, and for their sake ever interfering in Continental affairs. Like his father also, he was at variance with his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, a weak young man who was popular chiefly because the King was unpopular. George II. had however this advantage over his predecessor, that he could speak English fluently. In character he was methodical, parsimonious, stubborn, and passionate, of an intrepid spirit, and fond of war. His private life was not creditable, yet he was, after his fashion, sincerely attached to his clever wife, Caroline of BrandenburgAnspach, who had the art of ruling without seeming to rule. For the first ten years of his reign he was managed by the Queen, and through her by Sir Robert Walpole, whose constant policy was to keep England at peace and himself in power. One of Walpole's financial plans however was very near displacing him. This was a scheme for extending the Excise duties, which were already most unpopular. The Tories and the Opposition Whigs-" Patriots," as the latter called themselves-combining against it, contrived to lash the country into such a fury that it was well-nigh ready to rebel. Walpole therefore, though confident of the advantages of the measure, gave it up, saying that he would never be the minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood. 2. War with Spain.-A similar clamour drove Walpole into a war with Spain in 1739. The public mind was embittered against the Spaniards by the means they took to check contraband trade with their American colonies, and by their alleged cruelties towards English seamen. A merchant captain named Robert Jenkins told at the bar of the House of Commons how the Spaniards had tortured him and torn off his ear; and the tale, true or false, roused the English to fury. When war was declared, the populace of London set the church bells ringing. They may ring the bells now," said Walpole, "before long they will be wringing their hands." Except in the taking of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon with six ships, the war was not very successful. Commodore Anson, who was sent out to harass the coasts of Chili and Peru, then Spanish colonies, made a voyage round the world, in which he suffered terrible hardships, 66 losing numbers of his crews from scurvy, and bringing home only his own ship, the Centurion. This expedition, though not politically profitable, raised the fame of British seamanship. Meanwhile Walpole, whose reluctance to enter upon this war had made him thoroughly unpopular, resigned all his offices in 1742, and thereupon was called to the House of Peers as Earl of Orford. His steady friend Queen Caroline had died in 1737. 3. War of the Austrian Succession.-On the death of the Emperor Charles VI. in 1740, a general war arose about the succession to his hereditary dominions, Great Britain giving aid to his daughter Maria Theresa, while France supported her opponent the Elector of Bavaria. The nation had constantly reason to suspect that the interests of King George's German dominions were preferred to those of Great Britain, and when Hanoverian troops were taken into British pay, the indignation was great. "It is now too apparent," said William Pitt, the boldest speaker among the "Patriots," "that this great, this powerful, this formidable Kingdom is considered only as a province to a despicable Electorate, and that these troops are hired only to drain this unhappy nation of its money." In the summer of 1743 the King joined his army in Germany, and took part in a not very brilliant campaign, the only achievement being a victory over the French at Dettingen, where George fought on foot at the head of his right wing. As yet, England and France, though they sent auxiliaries to opposite sides, were nominally at peace:- "We have the name of war with Spain without the thing," wrote Horace Walpole, son of Sir Robert, "and war with France without the name." War however was formally declared by the French in 1744. The battle of Fontenoy, in Hainault, 1745, in which the allied British, Dutch, and Austrians were beaten by the French under their great general Marshal Saxe, was, as far as the British and Hanoverian forces were concerned, a splendid display of fighting qualities, though not of generalship. The French were strongly posted behind fortified villages and other defences, with only a narrow gap near the hamlet of Fontenoy. Into this opening a column of British and Hanoverian infantry, led by the King's favourite son William, Duke of Cumberland, penetrated under a heavy cannonade from batteries on either side; and though charged again and again by the French cavalry, it broke through the enemy's lines. The day seemed about to be won by sheer valour, when the French guns were brought up so as to fire down the length of the column, and thus forced it to retreat. A general peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in 1748. 4. The Young Pretender.-Early in this war the French government had secretly invited to France Charles Edward Stuart (who was called the Young Pretender and the Young Chevalier, to distinguish him from his father James, the Old Pretender), and had planned an invasion of England in his favour. With this intent, an expedition put to sea in 1744, but it was scattered by a storm. The next year, 1745, Charles, tired of waiting for French help, landed with seven attendants in the Highlands, and there mustered a small force of adherents, which gathered strength as it moved on. The royal general, Sir John Cope, let him descend unopposed upon Edinburgh, where Charles caused his father to be proclaimed as James VIII. of Scotland. At Preston-Pans, between Edinburgh and the sea, he encountered Cope, and by the furious onset of the Highlanders broke and routed the royal army. After receiving some small supplies of money and arms from France, Charles crossed the Border, and, with four or five thousand men, pushed on for London. Giving the slip to an army led by the Duke of Cumberland, he advanced, to the great dismay of the capital, as far as Derby. But here the hearts of the rebel officers failed them; marvellous as their success had been, there was no such rising in their favour as Charles had reckoned upon. Jacobitism existed in England merely as a traditional faith, or as a method of expressing discontent, not as a belief for which men would peril their lives and properties. Manchester, the only town that had shown any enthusiasm for the Chevalier, gave him less than two hundred recruits. Charles, unwillingly yielding to the wishes of his officers, retreated to Scotland, where, having found reinforcements, he laid siege to Stirling Castle, and routed General Hawley in the battle of Falkirk. But after the victory numbers of the Highlanders, according to their wont, went home with their plunder; and Charles, with diminished strength, fell back northwards before the Duke of Cumberland, by whom the Chevalier's disheartened and half-starved forces were overthrown on Culloden Moor, April 16, 1746. The English victory was tarnished by the coldblooded slaughter of wounded men on the battle-field, and by the atrocities afterwards committed in the disaffected country-cruelties which gained for the Duke of Cumberland the nickname of "The Butcher." For their share in this insurrection, known in popular Scottish phrase, from the year in which it took place, as the Forty-five," three Scottish peers, the Earl of Kilmarnock, and Lords Balmerino and Lovat, together with Charles Radcliffe (brother to the late Earl of Derwentwater), and a number of other men, nearly eighty in all, were put to death. An Act of Grace in the next reign restored their forfeited estates to their descendants. As for Charles, he wandered about the Highlands for five months, hunted from place to place by the soldiers, till, after many perils, he escaped in a French vessel. His future life was a sad one. Driven, in accordance with a stipulation of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, from France, he moved about the Continent, forming vain schemes for another invasion, and falling at last into degrading habits of |