Such a man was Sir Robert Walpole. He was a
Whig squire, a plain country gentleman, with enough of culture to
love good pictures and the ancient classics, but delighting
chiefly in sports and agriculture, hard drinking and politics.
When only twenty-seven he was already a leader among the Whigs;
at thirty-two he was Secretary for War; and before he was forty
he had become Prime Minister, a post which he really created and
was the first Englishman to hold. Friendship with France marked a
new phase of British policy. Walpole's baffled enemies said that
he was bribed by France. His shrewd insight kept France lukewarm
in its support of the Stuart rising in 1715, which he punished
with great severity. But it was as a master of finance that he
was strongest. While continental nations were wasting men and
money Walpole gloried in saving English lives and English gold.
He found new and fruitful modes of taxation, but when urged to
tax the colonies he preferred, as he said, to leave that to a
bolder man. It is a pity that anyone was ever found bold enough
to do it.
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