The first moment of the new reign had not been propitious to the powerful minister of George I. When he presented himself at the palace, in order to announce to the new monarch the death of the king his father, George II., scarcely awakened from his customary siesta, had brusquely replied to the minister's question, "Whom does your Majesty charge with the communications to the Privy Council?"--"Compton," said the king. In retiring to convey the royal command to his rival, thus designated as his successor, Walpole lost neither his coolness nor his firm resolution to govern his country for the longest possible period. "I am about to fall," he had just said to Sir William Young, "but I advise you not to throw yourself into a violent opposition, for I shall not be slow to rise again." As a matter of fact, Walpole was not to fall. It was only the breath of royal disfavor that was to pass over him. Sir Spencer Compton, soon afterwards Lord Wilmington, an honest and capable man, but of dull wit and without facility of speech, as without ministerial experience, modestly requested Walpole to compose for him the communication with which the king had charged him. Walpole did so. The secret leaked out. At the same time the minister, momentarily superseded, proposed to the queen an increase of revenue for the king and a dowry for herself, which he believed himself sure of having voted by Parliament. Already well-disposed toward Walpole, Caroline knew how to cleverly prove to her husband the danger that he would find, at the commencement of his reign, in losing a powerful and popular minister by throwing him into opposition. Already the courtiers had abandoned Walpole, and crowded around Sir Spencer Compton. {181} At the ceremony of hand-kissing, Lady Walpole "could scarcely force a passage between the disdainful backs and elbows of those who had flattered her the day before," writes her son Horace, in his Souvenirs. When the queen, perceiving her in the last ranks, exclaimed, "Ah! I see a friend down there," the crowd opened right and left. "In coming back," said Lady Walpole, "I might have walked over their heads, if I had desired." During thirteen years more Walpole was to exercise that authority of which he was secretly so jealous. "Sir Robert was moderate in the exercise of power," said Hume; "he was not just in seizing the whole of it." Walpole had already alienated Pulteney and Carteret; he was about to embroil himself with Townshend. The divisions of the Whig party were the work of his jealous contrivings. It had for long been draining its strength; its debility and downfall were one day to follow.