There was grave discontent and suffering in France, and Marshal Saxe, through General Ligonier, made proposals for peace. The news of these overtures gave great delight in England, but the king and Cumberland were bent on continuing the war. Pelham and Chesterfield advocated acceptance of the terms, but Newcastle sided with the king, to gain favour with him. As the terms, however, could not with decency be bluntly rejected, Cumberland solicited and obtained the post of negotiator in the matter for England; but the Ministers, desirous of peace, foreseeing that the wishes or the hasty temper of Cumberland would soon ruin every chance of accomplishing a treaty, the Earl of Sandwich was sent over to act as assistant to the duke; this meant that he was to overrule, if possible, the mischief Cumberland would be sure to make. Sandwich accordingly hastened over to Holland, and had a secret interview with the Marquis de Puisieulx, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and, after much dodging on the part of the marquis, he managed to have the discussion removed from military negotiators to a congress at Aix-la-Chapelle.

The congress had opened at Aix-la-Chapelle early in the spring, but it did not begin its sittings till the 11th of March, 1748, Sandwich being sent thither as our Plenipotentiary. The campaign, however, opened simultaneously, and, could Cumberland and the king have managed it, war would soon have overturned the hopes of peace; but circumstances were too much for them. The Prince of Nassau, ambitious as he was of military renown, failed to bring into the field his Dutch levies; the thirty thousand Prussians, as Pelham had expected, did not appear. The Dutch, so far from furnishing the sums they had engaged for, sent to London to raise the loan of a million sterling; but London itself had ceased to be a money-lending place. The war had drained the resources even of the British capital. To complete the deadlock, Marshal Saxe advanced into the field, and showed to the world that, though Cumberland might beat an army of famine-exhausted Highlanders, he was no match for him. He completely out-generalled him, made false demonstrations against Breda, where the Allied army lay, and then suddenly concentrated his forces before Maestricht, which, it was evident, must soon fall into his hands. Maestricht secured, the highway into Holland was open.

The king and his war cabinet were now compelled to sue to France for the peace which was so freely offered the year before. Newcastle wrote to Sandwich in April, that the impossibility of arresting the progress of the French army, the discordant pretensions of the Allies, and their gross neglect of their engagements, rendered it absolutely necessary to make peace. Sandwich was to communicate this necessity to the Plenipotentiaries of the Allies, and if they declined to assent to it, to sign the preliminaries without them. The Ministers of the Allies still refused to join; it suited them very well to receive vast subsidies to fight their own battles, and yet to leave England to fight them. On the other hand, Count St. Severin, the Plenipotentiary of France, now felt his vantage-ground, and offered far worse terms than before, and, to force their acceptance, threatened that if they were not agreed to without delay, the French would leave the fortifications of Ypres, Namur, and Bergen-op-Zoom, and march directly into Holland. The treaty was signed by England, France, and Holland on the 18th of April. The general conditions were a mutual restoration of conquests. All the nations were placed very much in statu quo, except that Prussia had got Silesia, and Sardinia had lost Placentia and Finale. As for England, she firmly established her maritime supremacy, which from that date has remained unchallenged. The Young Pretender was compelled to leave France, and thenceforward ceased to be of any political importance.

From the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle for several years little of striking interest occurred in the affairs of Britain. The public at first was rejoiced at the return of peace; but the more it looked into the results of so costly a war the more dissatisfied it grew, and the complaints were loud and general that Ministers had sacrificed the honour and interests of the nation. The Opposition, however, was at so low an ebb, that little was heard of the public discontent in Parliament; and Pitt, formerly so vociferous to denounce the war, now as boldly vindicated both it and the peace, and silenced all criticisms by his overmastering eloquence. The Government still went on granting subsidies to the German princes, though the war was at an end.

During the year 1750 the French evinced a hostile disposition. They laid claim to part of Nova Scotia, and refused to surrender the islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent, as they were bound to do by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. They continued to stir up bad feeling towards us both in Spain and Germany. The Empress listened with eagerness to the suggestions of France, and co-operated with that country in endeavouring to influence Spain against us. Fortunately, the good disposition of the Queen of Spain, and the able management of Mr. Keene, our Ambassador, foiled all these efforts, and completed a commercial treaty with that country. This treaty was signed on the 5th of October, 1750, and placed us at once on the same footing in commercial relations with Spain as the most favoured nations. We abandoned the remaining term of the Assiento, and obtained one hundred thousand pounds as compensation for the claims of the South Sea Company. The right of search, however, was passed over in silence, and we continued to cut logwood in Campeachy Bay and to smuggle on the Spanish Main, winked at by the Spanish authorities, but liable to interruption whenever jealousy or ill-will might be in the ascendant. In various directions our commerce flourished at this time, and many injurious restrictions were removed, such as those that hampered the whale fishery of Spitzbergen, the white herring and coast fisheries, the trade to the coast of Guinea, the import of iron from the American plantations and of raw silk from China. Our manufactures also grew apace, in spite of the internal jarrings of the Ministry and the deadness of Parliament.

While affairs were in this state, the Prince of Wales died (March 20, 1751). He had been in indifferent health for some time, and had injured his constitution by dissipated habits. He was forty-four years of age, of a weak character, which had led him into excesses, and the consequences of these were made worse by great neglect of his health. The same weakness of character had made him very much the tool of political faction, and placed him in an unnatural opposition to his father. An attempt was made by Lord Egmont to keep together the prince's party. He assembled a meeting of the Opposition at his house on the morning of the prince's death, and hinted at taking the princess and her family under their protection; and he recommended harmony among themselves; but some one said, "Very likely, indeed, that there should be harmony, when the prince could never bring it about;" and so every one hastened away to look after themselves. It was no sooner seen that there was an understanding between the Princess of Wales and the king than numbers of the late prince's friends offered their adhesion to the Pelhams, equally out of dread of the Duke of Cumberland and dislike of the Duke of Bedford, who was opposed to the Pelhams, and, it was feared, likely to support Cumberland, and thus place him at the head of affairs.

The Session of 1753 was distinguished by two remarkable Acts of Parliament. The one was for the naturalisation of the Jews, the other for the prevention of clandestine marriages. The Jew Bill was introduced into the Lords, and passed it with singular ease, scarcely exciting an objection from the whole bench of bishops; Lord Lyttelton declaring that "he who hated another man for not being a Christian was not a Christian himself." But in the Commons it raised a fierce debate. On the 7th of May, on the second reading, it was assailed by loud assertions that to admit the Jews to such privileges was to dishonour the Christian faith; that it would deluge the kingdom with usurers, brokers, and beggars; that the Jews would buy up the advowsons, and thus destroy the Church; that it was flying directly in the face of God and of Prophecy, which had declared the Jews should be scattered over the face of the earth, without any country or fixed abode. Pelham ridiculed the fears about the Church, showing that, by their own rigid tenets, the Jews could neither enter our Church nor marry our women, and could therefore never touch our religion, nor amalgamate with us as a people; that as to civil offices, unless they took the Sacrament, they could not be even excisemen or custom-house officers. The Bill passed by a majority of ninety-five to sixteen; but the storm was only wafted from the Parliament to the public. Out-of-doors the members of Parliament, and especially the bishops, were pursued with the fiercest rancour and insult. Members of the Commons were threatened by their constituents with the loss of their seats for voting in favour of this Bill; and one of them, Mr. Sydenham, of Exeter, defended himself by declaring that he was no Jew, but travelled on the Sabbath like a Christian. The populace pursued the members and the bishops in the streets, crying, "No Jews! No Jews! No wooden shoes!" In short, such was the popular fury, that the Duke of Newcastle was glad to bring in a Bill for the repeal of his Act of Naturalisation on the very first day of the next Session, which passed rapidly through both Houses.

It was high time that some measures were taken for preventing clandestine marriages. Nothing could be so loose as the marriage laws, or so scandalous as the practice regarding marriages at this date. No previous public notice or publication of banns was hitherto required, nor was any license requisite. Any clergyman, though of the most infamous character, could perform the ceremony at any time or place, without consent of parents or guardians. The consequence was, that the strangest and most scandalous unions took place, for which there was no remedy, and the results of which were lives of misery and disgrace. The merest children were inveigled into such connections, and the heirs of noble estates were thus entrapped into the most repulsive alliances, and made the victims of the most rapacious and unprincipled of mankind. The Fleet Prison, where were many ruined parsons—ruined by their crimes and low habits—was a grand mart for such marriages. A fellow of the name of Keith had acquired great pre-eminence in this line. He used to marry, on an average, six thousand couples every year; and on the news of this Bill, which would stop his trade, he vowed vengeance on the bishops, declaring that he would buy a piece of ground and out-bury them all!

The Bill was prepared by the judges, and afterwards remodelled and conducted through the Lords by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. It provided that banns should be published for every marriage in the parish church for three successive Sundays; that no license to waive these banns should be granted to any minor without consent of the parent or guardian; and that special licenses, empowering the marriage to be celebrated at any time or place, should only be granted by the archbishop, and for a heavy sum. The Bill was opposed in the Lords by the Duke of Bedford, and in the Commons by Henry Fox, Mr. Nugent, Mr. Charles Townshend, and others. It was declared to be a scheme for keeping together the wealth of the country in the hands of a few grasping and ambitious families. Townshend denounced it as intended to shut younger sons out of all chance of raising themselves by marriage. Henry Fox had benefited especially by the looseness of the old marriage law, for he had run away with Lady Caroline Lennox, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Richmond. He was especially severe on Lord Hardwicke, accusing him of seeking by the Bill to throw more power into the hands of the Lord Chancellor, and Hardwicke retorted with still greater acrimony. The Bill passed, and there was a strong inclination to extend its operation to Scotland, but the Scottish lawyers and representative peers defeated this attempt.

Another measure in this Session marks an epoch in the history of literature and science in Great Britain. Parliament empowered the Crown to raise money by lottery for the purchase of the fine library, consisting of fifty thousand volumes, and the collection of articles of vertu and antiquity, amounting to sixty-nine thousand three hundred and fifty-two in number, bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane to the nation on the condition that twenty thousand pounds should be paid to his daughters for what had cost himself fifty thousand pounds. The same Bill also empowered Government to purchase of the Duchess of Portland, for ten thousand pounds, the collection of MSS. and books, etc., made by her grandfather, Harley, the Lord Treasurer Oxford, and also for the purchase of Montagu House, which was offered for sale in consequence of the death of the Duke of Montagu without heirs, in which to deposit these valuable collections. The antiquarian and literary collections of Sir Robert Cotton, purchased in the reign of Queen Anne, were also removed to Montagu House; and thus was founded the now magnificent institution, the British Museum. It is remarkable that whilst Horace Walpole, professing himself a patron of letters, has recorded all the gossip of his times, he has not deemed this great literary, scientific, and artistic event worthy of the slightest mention.

The course of business was suddenly interrupted by the unexpected death of Pelham, the Prime Minister, in 1754. Pelham was but sixty years of age, of a florid and apparently healthy appearance, but at once indolent and too fond of the table. He had been compelled to seek sea-bathing at Scarborough, and on the 7th of January wrote to his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, saying that he never was better; but on the 3rd of March he was taken ill, and on the 6th was a corpse. The king was startled at his death, for his moderation and quiet management had long held together very jarring elements in the Ministry. "Now I shall have no more peace!" exclaimed George, on hearing the news of his decease, and he was only too correct in his prognostic. Pelham was a respectable rather than a great minister. His abilities were by no means shining, but experience had made him a good man of business. Waldegrave gave him credit for being "a frugal steward of the public, averse to Continental extravagances and useless subsidies;" and yet never were more of each perpetrated than during his administration. He had the merit, which he had acquired in the school of Walpole, of preferring peace to war; and Horace Walpole admits that "he lived without abusing his power, and died poor."

Newcastle, a man older than his brother Pelham, and of inferior abilities, instead of strengthening himself by the promotion of Pitt and Henry Fox, was only anxious to grasp all the power of the Cabinet, and retain these far abler men as his obedient subordinates. He at once got himself placed at the head of the Treasury, and selected as Chancellor of the Exchequer Henry Legge, a son of the Earl of Dartmouth, a quiet but ordinary man of business, by no means fitted to take the leadership of the House of Commons. The three men calculated for that post were Pitt, Fox, and Murray; but Pitt was still extremely disliked by the king, who did not forget his many years' thunderings against Hanoverian measures, and both George and Newcastle were no little afraid of his towering ambition. Henry Fox was a man of amiable character in private life, but in politics an adventurer.

Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, as we have said, of a decided Jacobite house, was a rising young lawyer, who had won great fame for his speech in a case of appeal before the House of Lords, was now Solicitor-General—accomplished and learned in the law, a man of pleasing person, and a fine orator, bold, persevering in his profession, yet, with all the caution of a Scotsman, plodding his way towards the bench—the real and almost the only object of his ambition. Murray, indeed, let Newcastle know that such was his ambition; and therefore, as Pitt was passed over from the royal dislike and Newcastle's own jealousy, and Murray, too, for this reason, Henry Fox alone was the man for the leadership of the Commons. Newcastle told him that he proposed him for that post; but when they met, Fox soon found that he was expected to play the rôle without the essential power. Fox, of course, demanded to be informed of the disposal of the secret-service money, but Newcastle replied that his brother never disclosed that to any one, nor would he. Fox reminded him that Pelham was at once First Lord of the Treasury and leader of the Commons, and asked how he was to "talk to members when he did not know who was in pay and who was not?" And next he wished to know who was to have the nomination to places? Newcastle replied, Himself. Who was to recommend the proper objects?—Still himself. Who to fill up the ministerial boroughs at the coming elections?—Still Newcastle himself. Fox withdrew in disgust, and Newcastle gave the seals of the Secretaryship to a mere tool—Sir Thomas Robinson, a dull, uncouth man, who had been some years ambassador at Vienna, and had won the favour of the king by his compliance with all his German desires. Robinson, according to Lord Waldegrave, was ignorant even of the language of the House of Commons, and when he attempted to play the orator, threw the members into fits of merriment. Newcastle, says Lord Stanhope, had succeeded in a very difficult attempt—he "had found a Secretary of State with abilities inferior to his own."

As to the other changes in the Ministry, Sir Dudley Ryder being advanced to the bench, Murray succeeded him as Attorney-General. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke was made an earl; Sir George Lyttelton and George Grenville, friends of Pitt, had places—one as Treasurer of the Navy, the other as cofferer. Pitt himself, who was suffering from his great enemy, the gout, at Bath, was passed over. No sooner did he meet with Fox in the House of Commons, than he said aloud, "Sir Thomas Robinson lead us! Newcastle might as well send his jack-boot to lead us!" No sooner did the unfortunate Sir Thomas open his mouth, than Pitt fell with crushing sarcasm upon him; and Fox completed his confusion by pretending to excuse him on account of his twenty years' absence abroad, and his consequent utter ignorance of all matters before the House. Soon after, Pitt made a most overwhelming speech, on the occasion of a petition against the return of a Government candidate by bribery, and called on Whigs of all sections to come forward and defend the liberties of the country, unless, he said, "you will degenerate into a little assembly, serving no other purpose than to register the arbitrary edicts of one too powerful subject!" This was a blow at Newcastle, which, coming from a colleague in office, made both him and his puppets in the Commons, Legge and Robinson, tremble. Newcastle saw clearly that he must soon dismount Robinson from his dangerous altitude, and give the place to Fox.

The new Parliament reassembled on the 14th of November, and the king in his speech, whilst pretending the differences which had arisen between us, France, and Spain were by no means serious, yet called for enlarged supplies to defend our American territories against the designs of these Powers. In fact, matters were becoming very serious in our American colonies; but the Government withheld the real facts from the knowledge of the public, and it was not till the opening of Parliament, in March, 1755, that they candidly avowed that war was inevitable. The French and English were actually engaged in war both in the East Indies and in America. In the East Indies there was just now an apparent pause in hostilities, through an agreement between the two Companies; but in North America matters daily grew worse. There were, and had been ever since the Peace, violent disputes as to the boundary-lines both of Nova Scotia—or, as the French styled it, Acadia—and between Canada and our colony of New England. The French, becoming more and more daring, commenced the erection of forts in the valley of the Ohio, to connect the settlements on the St. Lawrence with those on the Mississippi. They had already erected one called Duquesne, greatly to the indignation of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Virginia. In Nova Scotia, Major Lawrence, with one thousand men, defeated the French and their Indian allies; but, on the other hand, the French surprised and sacked Block's Town, on the Ohio, belonging to the Virginians, who sent forward Major George Washington to attack Fort Duquesne. Washington, destined to acquire the greatest name in the New World, marched with four hundred men, but was surprised at a place called Great Meadows, and was glad to capitulate on condition of retiring with military honours (1754).

At this crisis, when an able diplomatist at Paris might have avoided a great war, the Earl of Albemarle, who never had been an able or attentive ambassador, but a mere man of pleasure, died; and though George II. was so well aware of the gathering storm that he sent a message to the House of Commons announcing the necessity for increased forces, and, consequently, increased supplies, nothing could induce him to forego his usual summer journey to Hanover. The Commons readily voted a million and a half, but made an energetic protest against the king quitting the country in the circumstances. Besides the state of affairs in France and Spain, those of Ireland were very disturbed. The Duke of Dorset, the Lord-Lieutenant, was recalled, and Lord Harrington sent in his place to endeavour to restore order. Lord Poulett, therefore, moved a resolution against George's journey; but it was overruled, and the infatuated king set out in April, attended by Lord Holderness.

The day before George embarked, Admiral Boscawen set sail, with eleven ships of the line and two regiments of soldiers, to intercept the French fleet, which had sailed from Rochefort and Brest to carry reinforcements to the Canadians. Boscawen was to attack and destroy the French, if possible. Boscawen came up with the French fleet on the banks of Newfoundland, but a thick fog hid them from each other. Captain Howe, afterwards Lord Howe, and Captain Andrews, however, descried and captured two of the French men-of-war, containing eight thousand pounds in money, and many officers and engineers; but the rest of the fleet, under Admiral Bois de la Motte, warned by the firing, got safe into the harbour of Louisburg.

On the arrival of this news the French Court complained bitterly of the violation of the peace, to which the Court of St. James's replied that the French had too prominently set the example, and the ambassadors on both sides were recalled—an equivalent to a declaration of war, though none on either side yet followed. We had soon a severe reverse instead of a victory to record. General Braddock had been despatched against Fort Duquesne, and had reached Great Meadows, the scene of Washington's defeat in the preceding summer. Braddock was a general of the Hawley school—brave enough, but, like him, brutal and careless. His soldiers hated him for his severity. The Indians resented so much the haughtiness with which he treated them, that they had most of them deserted him; and, as was the fatal habit of English commanders then and long afterwards, he had the utmost contempt for what were called "Provincials" (that is, Colonists), supposing that all sense and knowledge existed in England, and that the English, just arrived, knew more about America than natives who had spent their lives in it. He therefore marched on into the woods, utterly despising all warnings against the Indians in alliance with the French. At Great Meadows he found it necessary, from the nature of the woods and the want of roads, to leave behind him all his heavy baggage, and part of his troops to guard it, and he proceeded with only one thousand two hundred men and ten pieces of artillery. On the 9th of July, 1755, having arrived within ten miles of Fort Duqnesne, he still neglected to send out scouts, and thus rashly entering the mouth of a deep woody defile, he found himself assaulted by a murderous fire in front and on both flanks. His enemies were Indians assisted by a few French, who, accustomed to that mode of fighting, aimed from the thickets and behind trees, and picked off his officers, whom they recognised by their dress, without themselves being visible. Without attempting to draw out of the ambush, and advance with proper precautions, Braddock rushed deeper into it, and displayed a desperate but useless courage. Now was the time for his Indians to have encountered his enemies in their own mode of battle, had his pride not driven them away. After having three horses killed under him, in the vain endeavour to come at his foes, he was shot, and his troops retreated in all haste, leaving behind them their artillery and seven hundred of their comrades on the ground. Their retreat was protected by the "provincial" George Washington—whose advice had been unheeded—or the slaughter would have been greater.

The news of Braddock's defeat, reaching London whilst the king was still absent, caused a great panic and want of decision. Sir Edward Hawke had been despatched with a fleet of eighteen sail in July to intercept the return of the French fleet from Canada, but, hampered by contradictory orders, he only took prizes; and now Admiral Byng, in October, was sent out with twenty-six more, but both failed in their object. Our privateer cruisers had done more execution in the West Indies. They had nearly annihilated the trade of the French in those islands, and, according to Smollett, captured, before the end of the year, three hundred French vessels, and brought into the English ports eight thousand French seamen.

As the French now made vigorous preparations for war, George II. began to tremble for Hanover, and put out all his energies to accomplish fresh alliances—of course, at the cost of fresh subsidies to be paid by England. Hesse-Cassel, the Empress of Russia, and even his old enemy, Frederick of Prussia, were applied to, and engaged, by promises of English money, in defence of Hanover. George was especially afraid of Frederick, who was bound by no ties where his interest was at stake, and who, if not retained at a high rate, might fall on Hanover as he had done on Silesia. In gaining Frederick, however, George lost his old ally, Austria, which, forgetting all past obligations, immediately made alliance with France.

When the subsidy to Hesse-Cassel was sent home to receive the signatures of the Cabinet, it was found to amount to an annual payment by England of one hundred and fifty thousand crowns, besides eighty crowns to every horseman, and thirty crowns to every foot soldier, when they were really called out to service. That to Russia was immensely greater; then came in prospective that to Saxony, to Bavaria, etc. These latter States had been fed all through the last few years for doing nothing, and now demanded vastly higher terms. Yet when the Hessian Treaty was laid on the Council table by the compliant Newcastle, Ministers signed it without reading it. Pitt and Fox, however, protested against it; and when the Treasury warrants for carrying the treaty into execution were sent down to Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he refused to sign them.

This was a thunderstroke to Newcastle—Legge, who had been so pliant, thus to rebel. Newcastle, in his consternation, hastened to Pitt, imploring him to use his influence with Legge, and promising him the Seals as Secretary, engaging to remove all prejudice from the king's mind. But not only Pitt, but the public, had been long asking whether, in these critical times, everything was to be sacrificed for the sake of this old grasping jobber at the Treasury? whether Newcastle was to endanger the whole nation by keeping out of office all men of talent? Pitt stood firm: no offers, no temptations, could move him. Newcastle, finding Pitt unmanageable, flew to Fox, who accepted the Seals on condition of having proper powers conceded to him, and agreed to support the treaties, against which he had been equally as violent as Pitt, having just before said to Dodington, "I am surprised you are not against all subsidies." Robinson was consoled with a pension of two thousand pounds a year and the post of Master of the Wardrobe. The king had returned from Hanover, and Fox was not to receive the Seals till two days after the meeting of Parliament, so that he might keep his place and support the Address. By his accession to office he changed the violence of the opposition of the Duke of Bedford, and brought the support of the Russells to the Ministry. This strength, however, did not prevent the certainty of a breakup of the Cabinet. Pitt was now arrayed against his former colleagues.

Whilst things were in this position, Parliament met on the 13th of November. The great question on which the fate of the Ministry depended was that of the subsidies to Hesse and Russia. It was something new to see not merely an ordinary opposition, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Paymaster of the Forces—Legge and Pitt—ranging themselves against the king and their colleagues on this question. In the House of Lords the Address in reply to the royal speech, which implied approbation of these subsidies, was supported by Newcastle, Hardwicke, and the Duke of Bedford, who hitherto, since quitting office, had opposed everything, and was opposed by Lords Temple and Halifax. But the great struggle was in the Commons. The debate began at two in the afternoon, and continued till five the next morning—the longest hitherto recorded, except the one on the Westminster election in 1741. On this occasion William Gerard Hamilton made his first and almost last speech, which acquired him promotion in the Government of Ireland, and the cognomen of "Single-speech Hamilton." Murray spoke splendidly in defence of the subsidies; but Pitt, rising at one o'clock in the morning, after sitting eleven hours in that heated atmosphere, burst out upon the whole system of German subsidies with a tempest of eloquence which held the House in astonished awe. He denounced the whole practice of feeing the little German potentates as monstrous, useless, absurd, and desperate: an eternal drain on England for no single atom of benefit. He compared the union of Newcastle and Fox to the union of the Rhône and Saône—a boisterous and impetuous torrent, with a shallow, languid, and muddy stream. But though Pitt's eloquence dismayed and confounded Ministers, it could not prevent their majority. The Address was carried by three hundred and eleven votes against one hundred and five; and it was now clear that Pitt must quit the Cabinet. In fact, in a very few days, not only he, but Legge and George Grenville, were summarily dismissed, and James Grenville, the other brother, resigned his seat at the Board of Trade.

The year 1756 opened with menaces to England of the most serious nature. The imbecility of the Ministry was beginning to tell in the neglect of its colonies and its defences. France threatened to invade us, and a navy of fifty thousand men was suddenly voted, and an army of thirty-four thousand two hundred and sixty-three of native troops; but as these were not ready, it was agreed to bring over eight thousand Hessians and Hanoverians. To pay for all this it was necessary to grant excessive supplies, and lay on new duties and taxes. In presenting the money bills in the month of May, Speaker Onslow could not avoid remarking that there were two circumstances which tended to create alarm—foreign subsidies and foreign troops introduced, and nothing but their confidence in his Majesty could allay their fears, or give them confidence that their burdens would be soon reduced. There was, in fact, no chance for any such reduction, for wars, troubles, and disgraces were gathering around from various quarters. The first reverse came from the Mediterranean.

The French had always beheld with jealousy our possession of the island of Minorca, which had been won by General Stanhope in 1708, and secured to us by the Peace of Utrecht. That England should possess the finest port in the Mediterranean, and that so near their own shores, was a subject of unceasing chagrin. The miserable administration of British affairs, the constant attention to the interests of Hanover instead of our own, now inspired France with the resolve to snatch the prize from us. Great preparations were made for this object, and the report of these as duly conveyed to the English Ministers by the consuls in both Spain and Italy, but in vain. At length the certainty that the French were about to sail for Minorca burst on the miserable Ministers; but it was too late—they had nothing in readiness. The port of Mahon was almost destitute of a garrison; the governor, Lord Tyrawley, was in England; and the deputy-governor, General Blakeney, though brave, as he had shown himself at the siege of Stirling, was old, nearly disabled by his infirmities, and deficient in troops. What was still worse, all the colonels were absent from the regiments stationed there, and other officers also—altogether thirty-five!

The alarmed Ministers now mustered what ships they could, and despatched Admiral Byng with them from Spithead on the 7th of April. The whole of these ships amounted only to ten, in a half rotten condition and badly manned; and they commenced their voyage only three days before the French armament issued from Toulon, the English having to cross the Bay of Biscay, and traverse two hundred leagues of the Mediterranean, whilst the French had only seventy leagues to travel altogether. The French armament consisted of twelve ships of the line, and numerous transports, under Admiral La Galissonière, consisting of sixteen thousand men, under the command of the Duke de Richelieu. General Blakeney received news of the approach of this fleet by means of a fast-sailing sloop, and began in all activity to prepare for his defence. He collected his forces into the castle of St. Philip, commanding the town and harbour of Mahon, calling in five companies from Ciudadela. All his troops, however, amounted only to two thousand eight hundred. He had large quantities of cattle driven into the fort, flour and bakers were got in, the ports blocked up, and he sank a sloop in the channel to obstruct the entrance to the harbour. The French fleet appeared off port Ciudadela on the 18th of April, but Byng did not come in sight till the 19th of May—a month after—and then he came disappointed and dispirited. There was a mutual attempt made by Byng and by Blakeney to effect communication, but it does not appear to have been of a determined character, and it failed. La Galissonière was now bearing down on Byng, and the next day, the 20th of May, the two fleets confronted each other. Byng, about two o'clock, gave the signal to Rear-Admiral West to engage, which West did with such impetuosity, that he drove several of the French ships out of line. But Byng himself did not follow the example of West; he hung back, and thereby prevented West from following up his advantage. It was in vain that Byng's own captain urged him to advance; he pretended that it could not be done without throwing his ships out of regular line; and he kept at such a distance that his vessel, a noble ship carrying ninety guns, never was fairly in action at all, and had not a single man killed or wounded. Thus deserted, West was compelled to fall back; and La Galissonière, who showed no disposition to continue the fight, sailed away. Byng retired to Gibraltar.

At the sight of Byng sailing away, the French fired a feu de joie from all their lines, and Blakeney knew that he was left to his fate. He determined still to defend the place, but Richelieu sent in haste to Toulon for fresh reinforcements. The fort was soon surrounded by twenty thousand men, with eighty-five pieces of artillery. In about a week Richelieu carried one of the breaches by storm, though with great loss, and Blakeney capitulated on condition that the English should march out with all the honours of war, and should be conveyed in the French ships to Gibraltar. Thus was Minorca lost to England through the shameful neglect of a miserably incompetent Ministry and a faint-hearted admiral.

The tidings of this disaster roused the people of England to a pitch of desperation. The Ministers were condemned for their gross neglect and imbecile procrastination, and Byng was execrated as a coward and a traitor. Meanwhile, the most culpable man of all, Newcastle, was trembling with terror, and endeavouring to find a scapegoat somewhere. Fox was equally trembling, lest Newcastle should make that scapegoat of him. He declared to Dodington that he had urged Newcastle to send succour to Minorca as early as Christmas, and that Cumberland had joined him in urging this, to no purpose. He asserted that Newcastle ought to answer for it. "Yes," replied Dodington, "unless he can find some one to make a scapegoat of." This was the very fear that was haunting Fox, and he hastened, in October, to the king, and resigned the seals. This was a severe blow to Newcastle, and he immediately thought of Murray to succeed him; but, unfortunately, Sir Dudley Ryder, the Lord Chief Justice, just then having died, Murray had fixed his ambition on occupying his seat on the bench. They were obliged to give it to him, with the title of Mansfield, or make a mortal enemy of him. Newcastle then thought of conciliating Pitt. Pitt refused to belong to any Ministry at all in which Newcastle remained. Newcastle, in his perplexity, next tried Lord Egmont, and even old Granville, but both declined the honour; and not a man being to be found who would serve under him, he was compelled most reluctantly to resign. He had certainly presided over the destinies of the nation far too long.

The king now thought of placing Fox at the head of a new administration; but when Fox asked Pitt to join, he refused, and the king was obliged to send for Pitt, much as he hated him. Pitt replied that he was laid up with the gout—a complaint which troubled him, but which he frequently found it convenient to assume. George then prevailed upon the Duke of Devonshire, a man of no commanding ability, and averse from office, but of the highest integrity of character, to accept the post of First Lord of the Treasury, and to form a Cabinet. Though the friend of Fox, he felt that statesman to be too unpopular for a colleague, and offered Pitt the seals of Secretary of State, which he accepted; Legge was re-appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; Pitt's brother-in-law, Lord Temple, First Lord of the Admiralty; Temple's brother, George Grenville, Treasurer of the Navy; another brother, James Grenville, again was seated at the Treasury Board; Lord Holderness was the second Secretary of State, to oblige the king; Willes, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; the Duke of Bedford was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, it was said by Fox's suggestion, as a thorn in the flesh to Pitt, and, as Horace Walpole sarcastically remarked, Pitt had not Grenville cousins enough to fill the whole Administration; Charles Townshend was made Treasurer of the Chamber, though his talents and eloquence, in which he excited Pitt's jealousy, deserved a much higher office.

The Ministry being complete, Parliament met on the 2nd of December. It was found that the new Administration had not that influence in the boroughs that Newcastle, who had cultivated it, had; and several members of the Cabinet, Pitt amongst them, had difficulty in getting returned, as was the case with Charles Townshend. In the king's speech, his Majesty was made to speak of the militia, which he was known by everybody to hold in sovereign contempt, as the best and most constitutional means of national defence. He announced also that he had ordered the return of the Hanoverian troops to their own country; and the Duke of Devonshire inserted in the Address from the Lords an expression of thanks for having brought these troops over. Pitt had declared that he would quit the Cabinet if such a vote was passed, and Temple came hurrying down to the House—Pitt being absent from the Commons with the gout—and declared that he had quitted a sick bed to protest against it. This was an unlucky beginning. It was clear that there was want of unity in the Cabinet at its very birth, and out-of-doors the people were loudly complaining of the scarcity of food, and bread riots were frequent. The king himself could not help ridiculing the speech his new Ministers had composed for him; and a poor printer being arrested for putting another speech into his mouth, George said he hoped the man might receive very lenient punishment, for, as far as he could understand either of the speeches, he thought the printer's the best. To abate the ferment out-of-doors, the Commons passed two Bills: one prohibiting the export of grain, flour, or biscuit; the other prohibiting, for several months, distillation from wheat or barley.

But though Pitt protested against thanking the king for bringing over Hanoverian troops, he found it necessary to support the king's German treaties and alliances, which were avowedly for the defence of Hanover. Fox reminded him of his favourite phrase, that Hanover was a millstone round the neck of England; but it was not the first time that Pitt had had to stand the taunt of eating his own words, and he braved it out, especially voting two hundred thousand pounds to Frederick of Prussia. A wonderful revolution in Continental politics had now converted this long-hostile nephew of George II. into an ally, if not a friend.

The Empress Maria Theresa, never reconciling herself to the seizure of Silesia by Frederick, and not finding England disposed to renew a war for the object of recovering it, applied to her old enemy, France. It required some ability to accomplish this object of detaching France from its ancient policy of hostility to Austria, pursued ever since the days of Henry IV., and in severing the alliance with Prussia; but her Minister, Kaunitz, who had been her ambassador in Paris, contrived to effect it. The temptation was thrown out of the surrender of Belgic provinces to augment France, in return for assistance in recovering German possessions from Prussia. To add fresh stimulus to this change, the vengeance of offended woman was brought into play. Madame Pompadour, Louis XV.'s all-powerful mistress, had sent flattering compliments to Frederick by Voltaire; but the Prussian king only repaid them with sneers. On the other hand, the virtuous Maria Theresa did not blush to write, with her own hand, the most flattering epistles to the Pompadour. By these means, the thirst of revenge raised in the heart of the French mistress worked successfully the breach with Prussia and the alliance with Austria. The same stimulus was tried, and with equal effect, on the Czarina Elizabeth, on whose amorous licence the cynical Prussian monarch had been equally jocose. Kaunitz knew how to make the sting of these ungallant sallies felt at both Paris and St. Petersburg, and the winter of 1755-6 saw the Russian alliance with Prussia and England renounced, the English subsidy, with far more than German probity, renounced too, and Russia pledged to support Austria and France. The Elector of Saxony, Augustus, King of Poland, who amused himself with low pot-house companions and tame bears, and left his affairs to his minister, Count Brühl, was also induced, by the promise of Prussian territory, to join the league; and even Sweden, whose queen, Ulrica, was sister to Frederick, was drawn over to take side against him, in the hope of recovering its ancient province of Pomerania. This confederation of ninety millions of people, leagued against five millions, was pronounced by Pitt "one of the most powerful and malignant ones that ever yet threatened the independence of mankind."

The confederates endeavoured to keep their plans profoundly secret till they were ready to burst at once on the devoted King of Prussia; but Frederick was the last man alive to be taken by surprise. The secret was soon betrayed to him, and, at once waiving his dislike of the King of England, he concluded a convention with him in January, 1756, and bound himself, during the disturbances in America, not to allow any foreign troops to pass through any part of Germany to those colonies, where he could prevent it. Having his treasury well supplied, he put his army in order, and in August of that year sent a peremptory demand to Vienna as to the designs of Austria, stating, at the same time, that he would not accept any evasive reply; but the reply being evasive, he at once rushed into Saxony at the head of sixty thousand men, blockaded the King of Saxony in Pirna, and secured the queen in Dresden. By this decisive action Frederick commenced what the Germans style "The Seven Years' War." In the palace of Dresden Frederick made himself master of the secret correspondence and treaties with France, Russia, and Austria, detailing all their designs, which he immediately published, and thus fully justified his proceedings to the world.

The Austrians advanced under Marshal Braun, an officer of English extraction, against Frederick, but after a hard-fought battle at Lowositz, on the 1st of October, Frederick beat them, and soon after compelled the Saxon army, seventeen thousand strong, to surrender at Pirna. The King of Saxony, who had taken refuge in the lofty rock fortress of Königstein, surrendered too, on condition of being allowed to retire to Warsaw, and Frederick established his headquarters for the winter at Dresden, levying heavy contributions throughout Saxony.

During this year little was done in America. General Bradstreet defeated a body of the enemy on the River Onondaga, and, on the other hand, the French took the two small forts of Ontario and Oswego.

The year 1757 opened amid very gloomy auspices. War, of a wide and formidable character, was commencing in Europe, and the House of Commons was called on to vote no less than eight million three hundred thousand pounds for the supplies of the year, and to order fifty-five thousand men for the sea service, and forty-five thousand for the land. The National Debt had now reached seventy-two million pounds, and was destined to a heavy and rapid increase. Pitt commenced the admirable plan recommended years before by Duncan Forbes, of raising Highland regiments from the lately disaffected clans. The militia was remodelled, it was increased to thirty-four thousand, and it was proposed to exercise the men on Sunday afternoons, to facilitate their progress in discipline; but an outcry from the Dissenters put a stop to this. Serious riots, moreover, were the consequences of forcing such a number of men from their homes and occupations in the militia ranks; and the public discontent was raised to a crisis by the voting of two hundred thousand pounds, avowedly for the protection of Hanover. A measure which the nation beheld with astonishment Pitt himself introduced, notwithstanding his many thunderings against the Hanover millstone.

Amid these angry feelings Admiral Byng was brought to trial. The court-martial was held at Plymouth. It commenced in December, 1756, and lasted the greater part of the month of January of the following year. After a long and patient examination, the Court came to the decision that Byng had not done his utmost to defeat the French fleet or relieve the castle of St. Philip. The Court, however, sent to the Admiralty in London to know whether they were at liberty to mitigate the twelfth Article of War, which had been established by an Act of Parliament of the twenty-second year of the present reign, making neglect of duty as much deserving death as treason or cowardice. They were answered in the negative, and therefore they passed sentence on Byng to be shot on board such of his Majesty's ships of war and at such time as the Lords of the Admiralty should decide.