In the midst of these cabals died the Regent, and Townshend, acting with Walpole, sent over Walpole's brother Horace to watch their interests at Paris. Carteret, on the other hand, ordered Sir Luke Schaub to make every exertion for the grant of the dukedom. On the arrival of Horace Walpole, Bolingbroke, obeying the impulses of the courtier and not of the man, immediately waited on him, and placed all his influence at the French Court at his service; but Walpole, who had an invincible repugnance to Bolingbroke, whilst he availed himself of the advantages offered by Bolingbroke, still kept him at a great and stately distance. Undeterred by this conduct, however, Bolingbroke swallowed his mortification, and continued to keep his eye and his hope on the Walpole Ministry. Unassisted by Bolingbroke, the dukedom could not be obtained; but George reconciled Madame Platen to the match by giving her daughter a portion of ten thousand pounds. Horace Walpole, at the same time, succeeded in getting Schaub recalled, and himself installed in his office of Ambassador at Parisa decided victory over Carteret; indeed, so decided, that Carteret was removed from the Secretaryship to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland.175
ONE:At the point at which our former detail of[316] Indian affairs ceased, Lord Clive had gone to England to recruit his health. He had found us possessing a footing in India, and had left us the masters of a great empire. He had conquered Arcot and other regions of the Carnatic; driven the French from Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and Chinsura; and though we had left titular princes in the Deccan and Bengal, we were, in truth, masters there; for Meer Jaffier, though seated on the throne of Bengal, was our mere instrument.
THREE:Whilst Prince Eugene had been labouring in vain to recall the English Government from its fatal determination to make a disgraceful peace, the Dutch envoy Van Buys had been equally active, and with as little success. The Ministers incited the House of Commons to pass some severe censures on the Dutch. They alleged that the States General had not furnished their stipulated number of troops both for the campaigns in the Netherlands and in Spain; that the queen had paid above three millions of crowns more than her contingent. They attacked the Barrier Treaty, concluded by Lord Townshend with them in 1709, and declared that it contained several Articles destructive to the trade and interests of Great Britain; that Lord Townshend was not authorised to make that treaty; and that both he and all those who advised it were enemies to the queen and kingdom. They addressed a memorial to the queen, averring that England, during the war, had been overcharged nineteen millions sterlingwhich was an awful charge of mismanagement or fraud on the part of the Whig Ministers. They further asserted that the Dutch had made great acquisitions; had extended their trade as well as their dominion, whilst England had only suffered loss. Anne gave her sanction to this address by telling the House that she regarded their address as an additional proof of their affection for her person and their attention to the interests of the nation; and she ordered her ambassador at the Hague, the new Earl of Strafford, to inform the States of these complaints of her Parliament, and to assure them that they must increase their forces in Flanders, or she must decrease hers.Now! remarked the stranger, pulling the dory around without losing his advantage, both turn your backs and clasp your hands behind you!
At the time that Tippoo heard of the death of his father, he was, assisted by the French, eagerly pressing on the most inferior force of Colonel Mackenzie, not very far from Seringapatam. Mackenzie being obliged to retire, was suddenly set upon, before daylight, near Paniany, about thirty-five miles from Calicut, by the whole force; but he repulsed them with great slaughter. Tippoo then fell back and made the best of his way to his capital to secure his throne and the treasures of Hyder Ali. He found himself at the age of thirty master of the throne, of an army of nearly one hundred thousand men, and of immense wealth. With these advantages, and the alliance of the French, Tippoo did not doubt of being able to drive the British out of all the south of India. Yet, with his vast army, accompanied by nine hundred French, two thousand Sepoys, and nearly three hundred Kafirs, Tippoo retreated, or appeared to be retreating, before General Stuart, with a force of only fourteen thousand men, of whom three thousand alone were British. He was, in fact, however, hastening to defend the north-west districts of Mysore from another British force on the coast of Canara. This force was that of Colonel Mackenzie, joined by another from Bombay, under General Matthews, who took the chief command in that quarter.The Jacobites were in ecstasies at this new phase of their old enterprise. By Charles's adhesion, their scheme was stripped of all those prejudices which had insured its ruin with the English. It had no longer the unpopular aspect of a French invasion; it was no longer headed by a Popish but a Protestant leader; it was no longer consigned to an untried or doubtful general, but to one of the most victorious monarchs living, who came as a Protestant to call on a Protestant nation to receive their rightful king. Money was not wanting. Spain remitted to Baron Spaar a million of livres for the expedition, and the Court of the Pretender offered sixty thousand pounds.Whilst these movements had been progressing, very different ones had been in development in the north. The British Government, with the fatality which distinguished nearly all its counsels in this war, had thought proper to take the command of the army destined to operate by way of Canada on the northern colonies, from Sir Guy Carleton, and to confer it on General Burgoyne. The campaign had been plannednot by experienced military men on the spot, capable of estimating the difficulties of the enterprise, but in the Cabinet at home, directed by defective maps, and still more defective information.
