but the Scotch juries, following
the recent example of the Irish, refused to convict. Brewers all over
Scotland entered into a sort of league, by virtue of which they pledged
themselves not to give any securities for the new duty and to cease
brewing if the Government exacted it. Unluckily for Walpole, the
Secretary of State for Scotland, the Duke of Roxburgh, was a great
friend of Carteret's, {250} and had joined with Carteret in endeavoring
to thwart Walpole in all his undertakings. The success of Walpole's
policy in any instance was understood by Carteret and by Roxburgh to
mean Walpole's supremacy over all other ministers. The Duke of
Roxburgh therefore took advantage of the crisis in Scotland to injure
the administration, and especially to injure Walpole. In a subtle and
underhand way he contrived to favor and foment the disturbance. He
took care that the orders of the Government should not be too quickly
carried out, and he gave more than a tacit encouragement to the common
rumor that the King in his heart was hostile to the new tax, that the
tax was wholly an invention of Walpole's, and that resistance to such a
measure would not be unwelcome to the Sovereign, and would lead to the
dismissal of the minister. Walpole was not long in finding out the
treachery of the Duke of Roxburgh. To adopt a homely phrase, he "took
the bull by the horns" at once. Lord Townshend was in Hanover with the
King, and Walpole wrote to Lord Townshend, giving him a full account of
all that was going on in Scotland, and laying the chief blame for the
continuance of the disturbance on the Duke of Roxburgh. "I beg leave
to observe," wrote Walpole, "that the present administration is the
first that was ever yet known to be answerable for the whole
Government, with a Secretary of State for one part of the kingdom who,
they are assured, acts counter to all their measures, or at least whom
they cannot confide in." His remonstrance had to be pressed again and
again upon Townshend before anything was done to satisfy him. Walpole,
however, was a man to press where he thought the occasion demanded it,
and he was successful in the end. The Duke of Roxburgh had to resign,
and Walpole added to his own duties those of the Secretary of State for
Scotland. He appointed, however, as his agent or deputy in the
administration of Scotland, the Earl of Isla, Lord-keeper of the Privy
Seal in that country, and a man on whose allegiance he could enti