30

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CTIAP.

xxv.

1700 .

ingenious Tory thought of a device by which it might bepossible to strike the enemy without wounding friends.The grants of Charles and James had been made in timeof peace; and William’s grant to Somers had been madein time of war. Malice eagerly caught at this childishdistinction. It was moved that any minister who hadbeen concerned in passing a grant for his own benefitwhile the nation was under the heavy taxes of the latewar had violated his trust; as if the expenditure which isnecessary to secure to the country a good administrationof justice ought to be suspended by war; or as if it werenot criminal in a government to squander the resourcesof the state in time of peace. The motion was made byJames Brydges, eldest son of the Lord Chandos, theJames Brydges who afterwards became Duke of Chandos,who raised a gigantic fortune out of war taxes, to squanderit in comfortless and tasteless ostentation, and who isstill remembered as the Timon of Pope’s keen and brilliantsatire. It was remarked as extraordinary that Brydgesbrought forward and defended his motion merely as theassertion of an abstract truth, and avoided all mention ofthe Chancellor. It seemed still more extraordinary thatHowe, whose whole eloquence consisted in cutting per-sonalities, named nobody on this occasion, and contentedhimself with declaiming in general terms against corrup-tion and profusion. It was plain that the enemies ofSomers were at once urged forward by hatred and keptback by fear. They knew that they could not carry a