the bursting of the South Sea bubble, he hastened
up to town. His presence was sadly needed there. It is not without
interest to think of James Stuart in Rome, and Walpole in Houghton, both
keeping their eyes fixed on the gradual exposure of the South Sea
swindle, and both alike hoping to find their account in the national
calamity. All the advantage was with the statesman and not with the
Prince. The English people of all opinions and creeds were tolerably
well assured that if any one could help them out of the difficulty
Walpole could; and it required the faith of the most devoted Jacobite to
make any man of business believe that the return of the exiled Stuarts
could do much to keep off national bankruptcy. Walpole had waited long.
His time was now come at last.

[Sidenote: 1720--The Craggses]

Walpole had kept his head cool during the days when the Company was
soaring to the skies; he kept his head equally cool when it came down
with a crash. "He had never," he said in the House of Commons, "approved
of the South Sea scheme, and was sensible it had done a great deal of
mischief; but, since it could not be undone, he thought it the duty of
all good men to give their helping hand towards retrieving it; and with
this view he had already bestowed some thoughts on a proposal to restore
public credit, which at the proper time he would submit to the wisdom of
the House." Walpole had made money by the South Sea scheme. The sound
knowledge of the principles of finance, which enabled him to see that the
enterprise thus conducted could not pay, in the end {197} enabled him
also to see that it could pay up to a certain point; and when that point
had been reached he quietly sold out and saved his gains. The King's
mistresses and their relatives also made good profit out of the
transactions. The Prince of Wales was a gainer by some of the season's
speculations. But when the crash came, the ruin was wide-spread; it
amounted to the proportions of a national calamity. The ruling classes
raged and stormed against the vile conspirators who had disappointed them
in their expectations of coining money out of cobwebs. The Lords and
Commons held inquiries, passed resolutions, demanded impeachments. It
was soon made manifest beyond all doubt that members of the Government
had been scandalously implicated in the worst parts of the fraudulent
speculations. Mr. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was only
too clearly s