ns with Spain
and with the Emperor. Townshend and Walpole understood all that was
going on, and succeeded in making a defensive treaty between England,
France, and Prussia. Prussia, to be sure, did not long hold to the
treaty, and her withdrawal gave a new stimulus to the machinations of
the Emperor and of Philip of Spain, and in 1727 Philip actually
ventured to lay siege to Gibraltar. England, France, and Holland,
however, held firmly together; the Russian Empress suddenly died, the
Emperor Charles was not inclined to risk much, and Spain finally had to
come to terms with England and her allies.

[Sidenote: 1721--Anticipations of free-trade]

These troubles might have proved serious but for the determined policy
of Townshend and of Walpole. We have not thought it necessary to weary
our readers with the details of this little running fire of dispute
which was kept up for some years between England and Spain. We saw in
an earlier chapter how the quarrel began, and what {229} the elements
were which fed it and kept it burning. This latter passage is really
only a continuation of the former; both, except for the sake of mere
continuity of historic narrative, might have been told as one story,
and, indeed, would perhaps not have required many sentences for the
telling. Walpole applied himself at home to the work of what has since
been called Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. He was the first great
English finance minister; perhaps we may say he was the first English
minister who ever sincerely regarded the development of national
prosperity, the just and equal distribution of taxation, and the
lightening of the load of financial burdens, as the most important
business of a statesman. The whole political and social conditions of
the country were changing under his wise and beneficent system of
administration. Population was steadily increasing; some of the great
rising towns had doubled their numbers since Walpole's career began.
Agriculture was better in its systems, and was brightening the face of
the country everywhere; the farmer had almost ceased for the time to
grumble; the laborer was well fed and not too heavily worked. We do
not mean to say that Walpole's administration was the one cause of all
this improvement in town and country, but most assuredly the peace, and
the security of peace, which Walpole's administration conferred was of
direct and material influence in the growing prosperity of the nation.