1737. Royal Highness well remembers with what reluctance and general dissatisfaction the famous hundred and fifteen thousand pounds were granted to the Crown not long ago; and yet that was a less sum than this would be, supposing the King to live but seven years more, and the public to pay your Royal Highness annually but twenty thousand pounds, the rest of your income being allowed to you out of the King's Civil List.

"If the demand should be greater, the clamour against it will rise in the same proportion; but even the smallest addition to what is already given for the maintenance and support of the honour and dignity of the Royal Family will be grudged by the people, more than a much greater sum for any other use, from the knowledge they have that the Civil List revenues are daily increasing, and that much of what they produce is every year hoarded up, while they groan under the load of so many heavy taxes, which if a war comes upon us, (as there is reason to fear) must be necessarily augmented. Even admitting, that your Royal Highness, by continuing wholly passive, and leaving the Court to manage this affair, may keep your own reputation entirely unblemished, and receive the profit without incurring the resentment, the loss would still very far exceed the gain. You would lose, Sir, an inestimable opportunity of endearing yourself for ever to the nation, by shewing that public spirit which distinguishes you from every Prince in Europe; what can those who truly love you desire more of fortune, than an occasion, which, if

used, as I confidently hope you will use it, must set 1737. you at once at the head of the Opposition, without the least appearance of your conduct being influenced by

any other interest than the interest of the public, and yet leave you free and unengaged in the measures of any of the opposers, further than this single point on which you declare yourself, a point so judiciously chosen that it can be no way offensive to the King your father, being purely an act of generous selfdenial and magnanimity in you.

"Give me leave on this subject to remind your Royal Highness of what you said at Mr. Pope's, where you was heard with such emotions of joy and gratitude by all who were present. You said, you would gladly reduce yourself to live upon no more than three hundred pounds a year, if you could but hope to lessen the National Debt, the state of which you had set forth to us with so much knowledge, and so deep a sense of the mischiefs attending upon it. Will you now, Sir, unsay all this again, and yourself contribute to lay a heavier load on the nation? will you suffer your name to be used by those ministers whose conduct you arraigned, and who will even dare to call themselves your servants, while they are oppressing that people whom you love, and increasing those burthens which you deplore? God forbid this should happen. It never can happen while your Royal Highness preserves that generous spirit which, I trust, will be as lasting as it is necessary to your glory, and to the happiness of the kingdom. For the sake of these, I have often seen you resist both promises and

1737. threats; for the sake of these I shall see you resist yet

more.

"Indeed, I am so sure of your steady perseverance in every great and noble sentiment, that what I now say, is rather to confirm the dictates of your heart, and set before you the advantages of your acting in this business conformably to them, than to dissuade you from a conduct as repugnant to your inclinations as it is to your interests rightly understood. I only wish that your virtues may in this, and other instances, be brought to a public trial, which is all they want to obtain a public recompense in the love and veneration of mankind."

But Lyttelton's influence could not long divert his master from the prosecution of this darling scheme. The project slumbered till the 7th of February, 1737, when the Prince poured into the ears of the terrified Bubb Doddington, his intention of putting it into immediate operation. If the Appendix to that thorough paced courtier's memoirs is to be believed, no importunity was spared by Frederic to shake the allegiance of the future Lord Melcombe to the Government of which he was a member. Bubb, however, resisted the attack. By the 13th or 14th Walpole became apprized of the blow impending over him; and by the 16th it was generally promulgated. The embarrassment of the Minister was excessive: for the matter stood thus:-In George the First's reign the Civil List did not exceed £700,000. a year, and out of this the then Prince of Wales was allowed £100,000.

a year, clear of all deductions.* George the Second 1737. had granted to him by Parliament several funds to compose a Civil List of £800,000. a year, which it was said produced £900,000.; and the Prince's friends maintained, not without show of reason, that the augmentation of income to the Crown was made with a view to provide £100,000. for the Heir. The Protest of several Peers on the debate contains these reasons clearly and forcibly propounded. Prince Frederic's allowance had been augmented from £36,000. to £50,000. which, with the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, amounted to £60,000. It was said on the other hand, that George the Second had a family of younger children to provide for out of the Civil List, which was not the case with George the First.

Walpole's first endeavour was to persuade the King to offer to make the £50,000. a permanent allowance to the Prince, and to settle a jointure on the Princess. He saw that the absence of these provisions, gave great advantage to the opposition. The King reluctantly consented. The Minister's next step was to summon a Cabinet meeting on the 19th, when he informed his colleagues, that the King had empowered him to answer the motion of the Prince's friends in the House of Commons with these proposals. Lord Hardwicke, who had just been made Lord Chancellor,† remonstrated on the impropriety of not previously informing the Prince of his Majesty's intention. The suggestion, in spite of Walpole's dissent, was

* Parl. Hist. ix. 449. Peers' Protest.

+ On the death of Lord Talbot.

80 THE PRINCE DEMANDS AN INCREASED ALLOWANCE.

1737. adopted by the Council. The King was persuaded to send a message, by some of the Cabinet Ministers, to his son. On the 21st, the very day on which Lord Hardwicke was waiting in the ante-chamber at the levée, to receive the Great Seal in due form, Walpole rushed out of the King's chamber, with the draught yet wet, of the message which the Lords Chancellor, President, Steward, and Chamberlain, were to deliver to the Prince; in vain did Lord Hardwicke exclaim, both against such precipitation, and against beginning his Chancellorship with so ungracious an act; all he could obtain was the softening of certain harsh expressions, and the attendance of the whole Cabinet, instead of the four Lords. According to the accounts in Chandler, adopted by Coxe, the Prince received them courteously, uttered dutiful expressions towards his father, but declined to withdraw the motion, saying, "Indeed, my Lords, it is in other hands, I am sorry

for it."

Walpole's distress was not lightened by the ill health of the King, whose death at this period was generally believed to be close at hand.

On the 22nd, Pulteney, in a long historical speech, moved an Address to the King to settle £100,000. on the Prince, and the same jointure on the Princess as had been settled on the Queen when she was Princess of Wales. Walpole made a very dexterous reply, but his majority was only 30 against the motion; the numbers being-Noes, 234, Yeas, 204. Among the speakers for the motion were Pitt and Lyttelton. Sir William Wyndham had promised the Prince the support of his