He was not fighting for his own hand. He was
not a mere partisan. He had enough of the statesman in him to be able
to accept established facts, and not to argue with the inexorable. He
was not a scholar like Carteret, or an orator like Bolingbroke; he was
not an ascetic; but he had stainless political integrity, and was a
true friend to his friends.

[Sidenote: 1740--Walpole's fatal mistake]

Walpole committed the great error of his life when he consented to
accept the war policy which his enemies had proclaimed, and which he
had so long resisted. Even if we consider his conduct not as a
question of principle, but only as one of mere expediency, it must
still be condemned. No statesman is likely to be able to conduct a
great war whose heart is all the time filled only with a longing for
peace. Walpole was perhaps less likely than any other statesman to
make a war minister. He could not throw his heart into the work. He
went to it because he was driven to it. It was simply a choice between
declaring war and resigning office, and he merely preferred to declare
war. This is not the temper, these are not the conditions, for
carrying out a policy of war. But, as a question of principle,
Walpole's conduct admits of no defence. His plain duty was to refuse
to administer a policy of which he did not approve, and to leave the
responsibility of the war to those who did approve of it. It is said
that he tendered his resignation to the King; that the King implored
Walpole to stand by him--not to desert him in that hour of need--and
that Walpole at last consented to remain in office. This may possibly
be true; some such form may have been gone through. But it does not
alter the historical judgment about Walpole's {181} action. Walpole
ought not to have gone through any forms at such a time. He hated the
war policy; he knew that he was not a war minister; he ought to have
refused to administer such a policy, and have stood by his refusal. It
is said that, in his conversation with the King, Walpole pointed out
that to the minister would be attributed every disaster that might
occur during a war, his opposition to which would always be considered
a crime. But would there be anything very unfair or unreasonable in
that? When a statesman who has fought hard against a war policy
suddenly yields to it, and consents to put it into action, would it be
unreasonable, if disaster should occur, that his enemies should say,