y, when the
famine had but just subsided, a Government commission ordered that all
loads of grain brought from Ireland into the West of Scotland should be
staved and sunk.

The empire over which King George came to rule was as yet in a growing,
almost a fluid condition. In North America, England had, by one form
of settlement or another, New York, but lately captured; New Jersey,
the New England States, such as they then were, Virginia--an old
possession--Maryland, South Carolina, Pennsylvania--settled {90} by
William Penn, whose death was now very near.

Louisiana had just been taken possession of by the French. The city of
New Orleans was not yet built. The French held the greater part of
what was then known of Canada; Jamaica, Barbadoes, and other West
Indian islands were in England's ownership. The great East Indian
Empire was only in its very earliest germ; its full development was not
yet foreseen by statesman, thinker, or dreamer. The English flag had
only begun to float from the Rock of Gibraltar.

{91}

CHAPTER VI.

OXFORD'S FALL; BOLINGBROKE'S FLIGHT.

[Sidenote: 1714--Formation of King George's Cabinet]

King George did not make the slightest concealment of his intentions
with regard to the political complexion of his future government. He
did not attempt or pretend to conciliate the Tories, and, on the other
hand, he was determined not to be a puppet in the hands of a "Junto" of
illustrious Whigs. He therefore formed a cabinet, composed
exclusively, or almost exclusively, of pure Whigs; but he composed it
of Whigs who at that time were only rising men in the political world.
He was going to govern on Whig principles, but he was not going to be
himself governed by another "Junto" of senior Whig statesmen, like that
which had been so powerful in the reign of William the Third. He acted
with that shrewd, hard common-sense which was an attribute of his
family, and which often served instead of genius or enlightenment or
intelligence, or even experience. A man of infinitely higher capacity
than George might have found himself puzzled as to his proper policy
under conditions entirely new and unfamiliar; but George acted as if
the conditions were familiar to him, and set about governing England as
he would have set about managing his household in Hanover; and he
somehow hit upon the course which, under all the circumstances, was the
best he could have followed. It is not easy to see how he