Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr Pope | Page 7

the East India Company, and in general the moneyed
interest, had certainly nothing to apprehend like what they feared, or

affected to fear, from the Tories--an entire subversion of their property.
Multitudes of our own party would have been wounded by such a blow.
The intention of those who were the warmest seemed to me to go no
farther than restraining their influence on the Legislature, and on
matters of State; and finding at a proper season means to make them
contribute to the support and ease of a government under which they
enjoyed advantages so much greater than the rest of their
fellow-subjects. The mischievous consequence which had been
foreseen and foretold too, at the establishment of those corporations,
appeared visibly. The country gentlemen were vexed, put to great
expenses and even baffled by them in their elections; and among the
members of every parliament numbers were immediately or indirectly
under their influence. The Bank had been extravagant enough to pull
off the mask; and, when the Queen seemed to intend a change in her
ministry, they had deputed some of their members to represent against
it. But that which touched sensibly even those who were but little
affected by other considerations, was the prodigious inequality between
the condition of the moneyed men and of the rest of the nation. The
proprietor of the land, and the merchant who brought riches home by
the returns of foreign trade, had during two wars borne the whole
immense load of the national expenses; whilst the lender of money,
who added nothing to the common stock, throve by the public calamity,
and contributed not a mite to the public charge.
As to the Allies, I saw no difference of opinion among all those who
came to the head of affairs at this time. Such of the Tories as were in
the system above mentioned, such of them as deserted soon after from
us, and such of the Whigs as had upon this occasion deserted to us,
seemed equally convinced of the unreasonableness, and even of the
impossibility, of continuing the war on the same disproportionate
footing. Their universal sense was, that we had taken, except the part of
the States General, the whole burden of the war upon us, and even a
proportion of this; while the entire advantage was to accrue to others:
that this had appeared very grossly in 1709, and 1710, when
preliminaries were insisted upon, which contained all that the Allies,
giving the greatest loose to their wishes, could desire, and little or
nothing on the behalf of Great Britain: that the war, which had been
begun for the security of the Allies, was continued for their grandeur:

that the ends proposed, when we engaged in it, might have been
answered long before, and therefore that the first favourable occasion
ought to be seized of making peace; which we thought to be the interest
of our country, and which appeared to all mankind, as well as to us, to
be that of our party.
These were in general the views of the Tories: and for the part I acted
in the prosecution of them, as well as of all the measures accessory to
them, I may appeal to mankind. To those who had the opportunity of
looking behind the curtain I may likewise appeal, for the difficulties
which lay in my way, and for the particular discouragements which I
met with. A principal load of parliamentary and foreign affairs in their
ordinary course lay upon me: the whole negotiation of the peace, and of
the troublesome invidious steps preliminary to it, as far as they could
be transacted at home, were thrown upon me. I continued in the House
of Commons during that important session which preceded the peace;
and which, by the spirit shown through the whole course of it, and by
the resolutions taken in it, rendered the conclusion of the treaties
practicable. After this I was dragged into the House of Lords in such a
manner as to make my promotion a punishment, not a reward; and was
there left to defend the treaties almost alone.
It would not have been hard to have forced the Earl of Oxford to use
me better. His good intentions began to be very much doubted of; the
truth is, no opinion of his sincerity had ever taken root in the party, and,
which was worse perhaps for a man in his station, the opinion of his
capacity began to fall apace. He was so hard pushed in the House of
Lords in the beginning of 1712 that he had been forced, in the middle
of the session, to persuade the Queen to make a promotion of twelve
peers at once, which was an unprecedented and invidious measure, to
be excused