ved, perhaps, that
they had only to get up a good, popular war-cry in England, and that
Walpole would have to go out of office. They told themselves that he
would not make war. On this faith they based their schemes and founded
their hopes. It would have been well for Walpole and for England if
their belief had been justified by events.

The Patriots raised their war-cry. The honor of England had been
insulted. Her claims had been rejected with insolent scorn. Her flag
had been trampled on; her seamen had been imprisoned, mutilated,
tortured; and all this by whom? By whom, indeed, but the old and
implacable enemy of England, the Power which had sent the Armada to
invade England's shores and to set up the Inquisition among the English
people--by Spain, of course, by Spain! In Spanish dungeons brave
Englishmen were wearing out their lives. In mid-ocean English ships
were stopped and searched by arrogant officers of the King of Spain.
Why did Spain venture on such acts? Because, the Patriots cried out,
Spain believed that England's day of strength had gone, and that
England could now be insulted with impunity. What wonder, they asked,
in patriotic passion, if Spain or any other foreign state should
believe such things? Was there not a Minister now at the head of
affairs in England, now grasping all the various powers of the state in
his own hands, who was notoriously willing to put up with any insult,
to subject his country to any degradation, rather than venture on even
a remonstrance that might lead to war? Let the flag of England be torn
down and trailed in the dust--what then? What cared the Minister whose
only fear was, not of dishonor, but of danger.

This was the fiery stuff which the Patriots kept {150} flooding the
country with; which they poured out in speeches and pamphlets, and
pasquinades and lampoons. Some of them probably came in the end to
believe it all themselves. Walpole was assailed every hour--he was
held up to public hatred and scorn as if he had betrayed his country.
Bolingbroke from his exile contributed his share to the literature of
blood, and soon came over from his exile to take a larger share in it.
The _Craftsman_ ran over with furious diatribes against the Minister of
Peace. Caricatures of all kinds represented Walpole abasing himself
before Spain and entering into secret engagements with her, to the
prejudice and detriment of England. Ballads were hawked and sung
through