ster hardly less than he had
hated his father. But hate Walpole as he might, the new king was
absolutely guided by the adroitness of his wife, Caroline of Anspach;
and Caroline had resolved that there should be no change in the
Ministry. After a few days of withdrawal therefore Walpole again
returned to office; and the years which followed were those in which his
power reached its height. He gained as great an influence over George
the Second as he had gained over his father: and in spite of the steady
increase of his opponents in the House of Commons, his hold over it
remained unshaken. The country was tranquil and prosperous. The
prejudices of the landed gentry were met by a steady effort to reduce
the land-tax, whose pressure was half the secret of their hostility to
the Revolution that produced it. The Church was quiet. The Jacobites
were too hopeless to stir. A few trade measures and social reforms crept
quietly through the Houses. An inquiry into the state of the gaols
showed that social thought was not utterly dead. A bill of great value
enacted that all proceedings in courts of justice should henceforth be
in the English tongue.

[Sidenote: Excise Bill.]

Only once did Walpole break this tranquillity by an attempt at a great
measure of statesmanship; and the result of his attempt proved how wise
was the inactivity of his general policy. No tax had from the first
moment of its introduction been more unpopular than the Excise. Its
origin was due to Pym and the Long Parliament, who imposed duties on
beer, cyder, and perry, which at the Restoration produced an annual
income of more than six hundred thousand pounds. The war with France at
the Revolution brought with it the imposition of a malt-tax and
additional duties on spirits, wine, tobacco, and other articles. So
great had been the increase in the public wealth that the return from
the Excise amounted at the death of George the First to nearly two
millions and a half a year. But its unpopularity remained unabated, and
even philosophers like Locke contended that the whole public revenue
should be drawn from direct taxes upon the land. Walpole, on the other
hand, saw in the growth of indirect taxation a means of winning over the
country gentry to the new dynasty of the Revolution by freeing the land
from all burdens whatever. He saw too a means of diminishing the loss
suffered by the revenue from the Customs through smuggling and fraud.
These losses were immense