cility could project, and nothing but rashness could support, But though the enemy was no more, the fury of the victors did not seem in the least to abate with success. The law was now put in force with all its terrors; and the prisons of London were crowded with those deluded wretches, whom the ministry seemed resolved not to pardon.

The commons, in their address to the crown, declared they would prosecute, in the most rigorous manner, the authors of the late rebellion. In consequence of which, the earls of Derwentwater, Nithisdale, Carnwath, and Wintown, the lords Widdrington, Kenmuir, and Nairne, were impeached, and, upon pleading guilty, all but lord Wintown received sentence of death. No entreaties could soften the ministry to spare these unhappy men.

Orders were dispatched for executing the lords Derwentwater, Nithisdale, and Kenmuir, immediately; the rest were respited to a farther time. Nithisdale, however, had the good fortune to escape in woman's clothes, which were brought him. by his mother the night before he was to have been executed. Derwentwater and Kenmuir were brought to the scaffold on Tower-hill at the time appointed. Both underwent their sentence with calm intrepidity, pitied by all, and seemingly less moved themselves than those who beheld them.

In the beginning of April, commissioners for trying the rebels met in the court of common pleas, when bills were found against Mr. Forster, Mr. Mackintosh, and twenty of their confederates.

Forster escaped from Newgate, and reached the Continent in safety; the rest pleaded not guilty. Pitts, the keeper of Newgate, being suspected of having connived at Forster's escape, was tried for his life, but acquitted. Yet, notwithstanding this, Mackintosh and several other prisoners broke from Newgate, after having mastered the keeper and turnkey, and disarmed the centinel. The court proceeded to the trial of those that remained; four or five were hanged, drawn, and quartered, at Tyburn; two-and-twenty were executed at Preston and Manchester; and about a thousand prisoners experienced the king's mercy, if such it might be called, to be transported to North America.

A rupture with Spain, which ensued some time after, served once more to raise the declining expectations of the pretender and his adherents. It was hoped that, by the assistance of cardinal Alberoni, the Spanish minister, a new insurrection might be excited in England. The duke of Ormond was the

person fixed upon to conduct this expedition; and he obtained from the Spanish court a fleet of ten ships of war and transports, having on board six thousand regular troops, with arms for twelve thousand more. But fortune was still as unfavourable

as ever. Having set sail, and proceeded as far as Cape Finisterre, he was encountered by violent storm, which disabled his fleet, and frustrated the expedition. This misfortune, together with the bad success of the Spanish arms in Sicily, and other parts of Europe, induced Philip to wish for peace; and he at last consented to sign the quadruple alliance. This was at that time thought an immense acquisition; but England, though she procured the ratification, had no share in the advantage of the treaty.

A. D.

It was about this time that one John Law, a Scots1721. man, had cheated France by erecting a company under the name of the Mississippi, which promised that deluded people great wealth, but which ended in involving the French nation in great distress. It was now that the people of England were deceived by a project entirely similar, which is remembered by the name of the South-sea scheme, and which was felt long after by thousands. To explain this as concisely as possible, it is to be observed, that ever since the revolution under king William, the government not having had sufficient supplies granted by parliament, or what was granted requiring time to be collected, they were obliged to borrow money from several different companies of merchants, and, among the rest, from that company which traded to the South-sea. The Southsea company having made up their debt to the government ten millions, instead of six hundred thousand pounds, which they usually received as interest, were satisfied with five hundred thousand.

It was in this situation of things that one Blount, who had been bred a scrivener, and was possessed of all the cunning and plausibility requisite for such an undertaking, proposed to the ministry, in the name of the South-sea company, to buy up all the debts of the different companies of merchants, and thus to become the sole creditor of the state. The terms he offered to government were extremely advantageous. The South-sea company was to redeem the debts of the nation out of the hands of the private proprietors, who were creditors to the government, upon whatever terms they could agree on; and for the interest of this money, which they had thus redeemed and taken into their own hands, they would be contented to be allowed, by government, for six years, five per cent., then the interest should

*

be reduced to four per cent., and should at any time be redeemable by parliament. But now came the part of the scheme big with fraud and ruin. As the directors of the South-sea company could not of themselves be supposed to possess money sufficient to buy up the debts of the nation, they were empowered to raise it by opening a subscription to a scheme for trading in the South-seas, from which commerce immense ideal advantages were promised by the cunning directors, and still greater expected by the rapacious credulity of the people All persons, therefore, who were creditors to government, were invited to come in, and exchange, their stocks for that of the South-sea company.

The directors' books were no sooner opened for the first subscription, but crowds came to make the exchange of their other stock for South-sea stock. The delusion was artfully continued and spread. Subscriptions in a very few days sold for double the price they had been bought at. The scheme succeeded even beyond the projector's hopes, and the whole nation was infected with a spirit of avaricious enterprise. The infatuation prevailed; the stock increased to a surprising degree, and to near ten times the value of what it was first subscribed for.

After a few months, however, the people awaked from their dream of riches, and found that all the advantages they expected were merely imaginary, while thousands of families were involved in one common ruin.

The principal delinquents were punished by parliament with a forfeiture of all such possessions and estates as they had acquired during the continuance of this popular frenzy; and some care also was taken to redress the sufferers.

The discontents occasioned by these public calamities once more gave the disaffected party hopes of succeeding. But in all their counsels they were weak, divided, and wavering.

The first person who was seized upon suspicion was Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, a prelate long obuoxious to the present government, and possessed of abilities to render him formidable to any ministry he opposed. His papers were seized, and he himself confined to the Tower. Soon after the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Orrery, the lords North and Grey, and some others of inferior rank, were arrested and imprisoned. Of all these, however, only the bishop, who was banished, and one Mr. Layer, who was hanged at Tyburn, felt the severity of government, the proofs against the rest amounting to no convictive evidence.

The commons about this time finding many abuses had crept into the court of chancery, which either impeded justice, or rendered it venal, they resolved to impeach the chancellor, Thomas earl of Macclesfield, at the bar of the house of lords, for high crimes and misdemeanors. This was one of the most laborious and best contested trials in the annals of England. The trial lasted twenty days. The earl proved, that the sums he had received for the sale of places in chancery, had been usually received by former lord chancellors, and reason told that such receipts were contrary to strict justice. Equity, therefore, prevailed above precedent; the earl was convicted of fraudulent practices, and condemned to a fine of thirty thousand pounds, with imprisonment until the sum should be paid, which was accordingly discharged in about six weeks after.

In this manner, the corruption, venality, and avarice of the times had increased with the riches and luxury of the nation. Commerce introduced fraud, and wealth introduced prodigality.

It must be owned, that the parliament made some new efforts to check the progress of vice and immorality, which now began to be diffused through every rank of life. But they were supported neither by the co-operation of the ministry, nor the voice of the people.

It was now two years since the king had visited his electoral dominions of Hanover. He therefore, soon after the breaking A. D. 1 up of the parliament, prepared for a journey thither. 1727. Having appointed a regency in his absence, he embarked for Holland, and lay, upon his landing, at a little town called Voet. Next day he proceeded on his journey, and in two days more, between ten and eleven at night, arrived at Delden, to all appearance in perfect health. He supped there very heartily, and continued his progress early the next morning, but between eight and nine ordered his coach to stop. It being perceived that one of his hands lay motionless, Monsieur Fabrice, who had formerly been servant to the king of Sweden, and who now attended king George, attempted to quicken the circulation, by chafing it between his hands. As this had no effect, the surgeon, who followed on horseback, was called, and he also rubbed it with spirits. Soon after the king's tongue began to swell, and he had just strength to bid them hasten to Osnaburgh. Then falling insensibly into Fabrice's arms, he never recovered, but expired about eleven o'clock the next morning, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign.

UPO

GEORGE II.

PON the death of George the First, his son, George the Second, came to the crown; a man of inferior abilities to the late king, and strongly biassed with a partiality to his dominions on the Continent. The chief person, and he who shortly after engrossed the greatest share of power under him, was Sir Robert Walpole, who had risen from low beginnings, through two successive reigns, into great estimation. He was considered as a martyr to his cause, in the reign of queen Anne; and when the tory party could no longer oppress him, he still preserved that hatred against them with which he set out. To defend the declining prerogative of the crown, might perhaps have been the first object of his attention; but soon after those very measures, by which he pretended to secure it, proved the most effectual means to lessen it. By corrupting the house of commons, he increased their riches, and their power; and they were not averse to voting away those millions which he permitted them so liberally to share. As such a tendency in him naturally produced opposition, he was possessed of a most phlegmatic insensibility to reproach, and a calm dispassionate manner of reasoning upon such topics as he desired should be believed. His discourse was fluent, but without dignity; and his manner convincing, from its apparent want of art.

The Spaniards were the first nation who shewed the futility of the treaties of the former reign to bind, when any advantage