_Craftsman_. If the policy of the Government seemed to tend towards a
Continental war, the _Craftsman_ cried out for peace, and vituperated
the minister who dared to think of involving England in the trumpery
quarrels of foreign States. Walpole, however, we need hardly say, made
it a set purpose of his administration to maintain peace on the
Continent; and as soon as the patriots began to find out in each
particular instance that his policy was still the same, they turned
round and shrieked against the minister whose feebleness and cowardice
were laying England at the feet of foreign alliances and Continental
{291} despots. Walpole worked in cordial alliance with the French
Government, the principal member of which was now Cardinal Fleury. It
became the object of the _Craftsman_ to hold Walpole up to contempt and
derision, as the dupe of a French cardinal and the sycophant of a
French Court. The example of the _Craftsman_ was speedily followed by
pamphleteers, caricaturists, satirists, and even ballad-mongers without
end. London and the provinces were flooded with such literature.
Walpole was described as "Sir Blue String," the blue string being a
cheap satirical allusion to the blue ribbon which was supposed to adorn
him as Knight of the Garter. He was styled Sir Robert Brass, Sir
Robert Lynn, more often simple "Robin" or plain "Bob." He was pictured
as a systematic promoter of public corruption, as one who fattened on
the taxation wrung from the miserable English taxpayer. His personal
character, his domestic life, his household expenses, the habits of his
wife, his own social and other enjoyments, were coarsely criticised and
lampooned. The _Craftsman_ and its imitators attacked not only Walpole
himself, but Walpole's friends. The political satire of that day was
as indiscriminate as it was unsparing. It was enough to be a political
or even a personal friend of Walpole to become the object of the
_Craftsman's_ fierce blows. Pulteney did not even scruple to betray
the confidence of private conversation, and to disclose the words
which, in some unguarded moments of former friendship, Walpole had
spoken of George the Second when George was Prince of Wales.

An excellent opportunity was soon given to Pulteney to make an open and
a damaging attack on the ministry. Horace Walpole, British Ambassador
to the French Court, had been brought over from Paris to explain and
justify his brother's foreign policy. The