Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, was one of the greatest noblemen of his time by sheer force of his wealth. He had an enormous rent roll, he maintained princely establishments, he spent freely on display, yet he was unable to attach to himself a single friend. “The Duke of Newcastle,” writes one who knew him, “hath spent half a million and made the fortunes of five hundred men, and yet is not allowed to have one real friend.”[55] But the fact that he scattered lavish sums at elections to support the Hanoverian succession, owned a large number of boroughs and had vast patronage, sufficed to give him many apparent friends, from the King downwards. He was a poor speaker, he was weak and mean-spirited, and his ignorance of matters connected with his office was almost incredible. On one occasion the defence of Annapolis was recommended to him. “Ah!” he said after some reflection, “to be sure, Annapolis ought to be defended; of course, Annapolis must be defended. By the by, where is Annapolis?” As we have seen, the King when Prince of Wales had the strongest aversion to him, but now the duke stood high in office. Yet the King does not seem to have loved him. “You see,” he said to one of his friends, “I am compelled to take the Duke of Newcastle to be my minister, though he is not fit to be a chamberlain in the smallest court of Germany.” But, however poor the duke’s capacity might be, he had great wealth and influence, and then, as now, men of his type were foisted on the public service to the detriment of the nation. For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover to the throne, the Government had respite from Jacobite intrigues. The Treaty of Seville (1729) and the second Treaty of Vienna (1731) established friendly relations between the English Government and all the European powers, so that none of them, not even Roman Catholic countries like Spain and Austria, could any longer lend outward support to James. Moreover the Jacobite party lost, almost at the same time, all their greatest men. Lord Mar died at Aix-la-Chapelle. The Duke of Wharton, who, while pretending loyalty to his master, had been negotiating for a return to England, died in Spain in comparative poverty, and so closed his career of splendid infamy. Bishop Atterbury, the ablest of all, had fallen out of favour with James, chiefly because of his wish to bring up the young Prince Charles Edward in the faith of the Church of England. When James saw the folly of alienating him it was too late. Atterbury died a few weeks after he had sent to James a copy of his vindication of the charges brought against him by Lord Inverness, and the Jacobite cause lost its wisest friend.