Chap. V. Co THE HAR shambles." What made that shambles? It began in law. Book I, It was a common discourse among the Ministers that "the King cannot have justice. The debate on the Bill of LECTOR OF Indemnity of 1690 may be looked upon as, in some sort, LEIAN MSS. the foreshadowing of a long spell of political conflict, in which Robert HARLEY was to take a conspicuous share. Twenty seven years afterwards the strife of parties was to enter on a new stage. Some of the men who acted as the political Mentors of the new member of 1689-90 were to live long enough to clamour for his execution as a traitor, and, on their failure to produce any adequate proof that he was guilty, were to console themselves by insisting on his exclusion from the Act of Grace' of 1717. Ms. Harl. seqq. 7524, f. 139, HARLEY won his earliest distinctions in political life by assiduous, patient, and even drudging labour on questions of finance. During six years, at least, he worked zealously as one of the 'Commissioners for stating the Public Accounts of the Kingdom.' In parliamentary debates on the public establishments and expenditure he took a considerable share. As a speaker he had no brilliancy. His usual tone and manner, we are told, were somewhat listless and drawling. But occasionally he would speak with a certain pith and incisiveness. Thus, in November, 1692, in a discussion on naval affairs, he said- We have had a glorious Grey's victory at sea. But although we have had the honour, the enemy has had the profit. They take our merchant ships.' Again, in the following year, when supporting the Bill for more frequent Parliaments, he spoke thus:- A standing Parliament can never be a true representative. Men are much altered after they have been here some time. They are no longer the same men that were sent up to us.' Of the truth of that saying, in one of its senses, HARLEY Debates, vol. x, p. 268. BOOK I, LECTOR OF became himself a salient instance. Bred a Whig, and during his early years acting commonly with the Whigs, his party ties were gradually relaxed. By temper and LEIAN MSS. mental constitution he was always inclined to moderate measures. As the party waxed fiercer and fiercer, and as its policy came to be more and more obviously the weapon of its hatreds, HARLEY soon lay open to the reproach of being a trimmer. The growing breach became evident enough in the course of the debates on the treason of Sir HIS SPEECH John FENWICK, in November, 1696. He then argued, with force and earnestness, that atrocity in a crime is no justification or excuse for violence and unscrupulousness in a prosecutor. Some of his applications of that sound doctrine are very questionable. But it is to his honour that he preached moderation with consistency. He did not bend it to the exigencies of the party he was approaching, any more than to those of the party from which he was gradually withdrawing himself. ON THE ATTAINDER OF FENWICK. Meanwhile he had signalised his powers in another way. By long study he had acquired a considerable knowledge of parliamentary law and precedent. He had taken his full share in the work of committees. In February, 1701, he was proposed for the Speakership, in opposition to Sir Thomas LITTLETON. He had a large body of supporters, nor were they found exclusively in the Tory ranks. The King sent for LITTLETON, and told him that he thought it would be for the public service that he should give way to the choice of Mr. HARLEY in his stead. But the election was carried by a majority of only four votes. It is a great encouragement to his party,' wrote TownSHEND to WALPOLE, who was then in the country, and no small mortification to the Whigs.' HARLEY retained the Speaker ship until the third session of the first Parliament of Queen BOOK I. ANNE. Whatever may have been the 'mortification of the Whigs' at his elevation, it is certain that at this time HARLEY laboured zealously for the establishment of the Protestant succession to the throne. In the preparation, facilitating, and passing of that measure he took so influential a part that, afterwards, he was able to say, in the face of his opponents, when they were most numerous and most embittered, 'I had the largest hand in settling the succession of the House of Hanover.' The assertion met with no denial. It is evident, too, that the qualities for which he was already reviled by extreme partisans on both sides were-in their measure-real qualifications, both for the office of Speaker and for the special task of that day. The party leaders who were then most eagerly followed were men bent on crushing their adversaries as well as conquering them. It was inevitable that by such men HARLEY'S moderation towards opponents should be regarded as more cajolery. And of that unhappy quality he was destined, at a later day, to acquire but too much. On the 27th of April, 1704, Mr. Speaker HARLEY WAS sworn of the Privy Council. On the 18th of May he received the seals as one of the Principal Secretaries of State. He had scarcely entered on the duties of his office before he was busied with precautionary measures in Scotland against an anticipated Jacobite insurrection, as well as with a large share of the foreign correspondence. But just at that busy time he found means to begin-though he could not then complete-an act of charity which is memorable both on the recipient's account and on the score of some Chap. V. LEIAN MSS. THE ACT OF 1701. March. THE SECRE TARYSHIP OF Register, Anne, voi. ii, p. 102. well-known political consequences which eventually grew thereout. At the time when HARLEY became a member of the GCDOLPHIN administration Daniel DE FOE lay in Newgate, under a conviction for seditious libel, committed in the publication of his famous tract, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. The new Secretary sent a confidential person to the prison with instructions to visit DE FOE, and to ask him, in the Minister's name, 'What can I do for you?' DE FOE's characteristic reply must be given in his own. words: In return for this kind and generous message I immediately took pen and ink, and writ the story of the blind man in the Gospel, . . . to whom our blessed Lord put the question, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" who-as if he had made it strange that such a question should be asked, or as if he had said, "Lord, dost thou see that I am blind, and yet ask me what thou shalt do for me?"-my answer is plain in my misery, "Lord that I may receive my sight." I needed not to make the application.' DE FOE then adds :-" From this time, as I learned afterwards, this noble person made it his business to have my case represented to Her Majesty, and methods taken for my deliverance.' But the bigots who had caused a malicious prosecution succeeded in delaying the successful issue of the Secretary's efforts during four months. With HARLEY the sufferer had had no previous acquaintance. The one designation under which he ever afterwards spoke of him was my first benefactor.' And the gratitude was lifelong. In part, HARLEY owed his new office to the personal credit which he had won with the Queen during his BOOK I, Chap. V. LECTOR OF THE HAR LEIAN MSS. Marlborough to Harley; 1704. Speakership; and in part, also, to the friendship of MARLBOROUGH. On receiving the news of his appointment the Duke wrote to him, from the Camp :- I am sensible of the advantage I shall reap by it, in having so good a friend near Her Majesty's person to present in the truest light my faithful endeavours for her service.' But their intercourse, 13 June, if it ever attained to true cordiality at all, was cordial for a very short time. Brief confidence was followed by long distrust. HARLEY strove to strengthen himself by the use of channels of Court influence which were utterly inimical to the MARLBOROUGH Connection. His efforts to make himself independent of that connection did not, however, lessen the prodigality of his assurances of friendship and fidelity. His political position thus became that of a man who was exposed to the attacks of many bitter enemies among the statesmen with whom he had begun his career, without being able to rely upon any hearty support from those with whom he now shared the conduct of affairs. He might count, indeed, on assailants from the ranks both of the extreme Whigs and the extreme Tories, whilst from most of his own colleagues of the intermediate party he would have to meet the greater danger of a lukewarm defence. In such a position the attack was not likely to be long waited for. Easiness of nature, and a tendency to alternate fits of close application with fits of indolence, always characterised him. And those qualities had an incidental consequence which opened to his opponents a tempting opportunity. HARLEY was habitually less careful of official papers than it behoved a Secretary of State to be.* Ile was also at all times prone to place a premature and undue confidence in * See the details in Lords' Report on Gregg's case; reprinted in State Trials, vol. xiv, cols. 1378 seqq. |