her places. We have purposely omitted to take account of any of
the London communities. The wildest excitement prevailed; and it is
characteristic of the time to note that the national calamity--for it was
no less--aroused fresh hopes in the minds of the Jacobites. Such a
calamity, such a scandal, it was thought, could not but bring shame and
ruin upon the Whig ministers, and through them discredit on the Sovereign
and the Court. It was believed, it was hoped, that Sunderland would be
found to be implicated in the swindle. Why should not such a crisis,
such a humiliation to the Whigs, be the occasion of a new and a more
successful attempt on the part of the Jacobites? The King was again in
Hanover. He was summoned home in hot haste. On December 8, 1720, the
two Houses of Parliament were assembled to hear the reading of the Royal
speech proroguing the session; and in the speech the King was made to
express his concern "for the unhappy turn of affairs which has so much
affected the public credit at home," and to recommend most earnestly to
the House of Commons "that you consider of the most effectual and speedy
methods to restore the national credit, and fix it upon a lasting
foundation." "You will, I doubt not," the speech went on to say, "be
assisted in so commendable and necessary a work by every man that loves
his country." A week or so before the Royal speech was read, on November
30, 1720, Charles Edward, eldest son of James Stuart, was born at Rome.
The undaunted mettle of Atterbury came into fresh and vigorous activity
with the birth of the Stuart heir, and the apparently imminent ruin of
the Whig ministers.

Robert Walpole had been spending some time peacefully at his country
place, Houghton, in Norfolk. Hunting, bull-baiting, and drinking were
the principal amusements with which Walpole entertained his guests there.
Sometimes the guests were persons of royal rank (Walpole once entertained
the Grand Duke of Tuscany); {196} sometimes the throng of his visitors
and his neighbors to the hunting-field could only be compared, says a
letter written at the time, to an army in its march. Walpole never lost
sight, however, of what was going on in the metropolis. He used to send
a trusty Norfolk man as his express-messenger to run all the way on foot
from Houghton to London, and carry letters for him to confidential
friends, and bring him back the answers. When he found how badly things
were going in London on