The corruption in political life, begun under the Restoration and increased during the Revolution, was amplified and reduced to a system under Walpole until government seemed to be based on bribery. Ridiculing public spirit and disinterested motives in others, he bribed George the Second with the promise of a large civil list, bribed Queen Caroline with a large allowance, bribed members of Parliament with sinecures, pensions, or with direct payment of money, and paid himself with wealth and a peerage. Corruption was so firmly rooted as an engine of power, that no serious discredit attached to it. So low had fallen the standard of political honor, so widespread had become the spirit of self-seeking and corruption among the ministers and in Parliament, that "Love of our country," wrote Browne, "is no longer felt; and except in a few minds of uncommon greatness, the principle of public spirit exists not."[97] The dominating idea of political life was well put in the words of the Marquis of Halifax: "Parties in a state, generally, like freebooters, hang out false colors; the pretence is public good, the real business is to catch prizes." Lord Hervey divided the Whig party in 1727 into "Patriots and Courtiers, which was in plain English, 'Whigs in place,' and 'Whigs out of place.'"[98] The assertion of disinterestedness met only with ridicule. In an interview with Queen Caroline, "when Lord Stair talked of his conscience with great solemnity, the queen (the whole conversation being in French) cried out: Ah, my Lord, ne me parlez point de conscience, vous me faites evanouir."[99] As personal advancement, and not the public service, was the ruling aim of statesmen, it is not surprising that for this advancement no means were regarded as too low. The king's mistresses were the object of ceaseless attentions from aspirants for office, and sometimes were the recipients of their bribes. Treachery was the order of the day. Bolingbroke said to Sir Robert Walpole, "that the very air he breathed was the gift of his bounty," and then left Sir Robert to tell the king that Walpole "was the weakest minister any prince ever employed abroad, and the wickedest that ever had the direction of affairs at home."[100] The Duke of Newcastle, that "living, moving, talking caricature," stands out an exaggerated type of the common statesmen of the time; "hereditary possessors of ennobled folly,"[101] maintained in offices which they had no capacity to fill by corruption, the abuse of patronage, and the control of rotten boroughs. Speaking of the Dukes of Devonshire, Grafton, and Newcastle, Lord Hervey says[102]: "The two first were mutes, and the last often wished so by those he spoke for, and always by those he spoke to." George the Second appreciated the character and objects of his advisers. He had, also, a frank and pointed way of describing them. In his opinion Sir Robert Walpole was "a great rogue"; Mr. Horace Walpole, ambassador to France,