The Spanish war, and the war of the Austrian succession, was the origin of the next increase of the national debt. It was alleged that the commerce and the merchants of Great Britain were injured by the Spaniards; that the subjects of England were sent to the Spanish mines; and though one remonstrance followed another to the court of Madrid, promises were more plentiful than performances from the haughty Spaniard. The people were excited to believe that their honor was insulted; a dramatic exhibition was made at the bar of the House of Commons; and this war, partly to please the populace, partly to heal the wounded national pride, and partly to secure British subjects from the right of search in American seas, was openly declared in 1739. The heralds were attended in their progress by the chiefs of the opposition, and the Prince of Wales drank success to England at Temple Bar; but Sir Robert Walpole, as he heard the merry peal from the city steeples, muttered, “They may ring their bells now, they will wring their hands before long.” The misfortunes with which the campaign opened justified the minister’s prophecy, and the war was violently attacked in the House; but the majority of Sir Robert was an irresistible argument, and calamity continued to mark the progress of the British arms. An armament, with 15,000 sailors, and as many soldiers, completely equipped, failed disgracefully before Carthagena. The squadrons of our admirals were dispersed. Fontenoy witnessed a signal defeat, and Tournay was taken. Scotland was entered by a Stuart, under circumstances which promised success. England was threatened with invasion; the vast armies of the English allies, paid by English money, raised by loans through the Stock Exchange, were inactive or defeated; and it was only when a more promising aspect was shed over our efforts, when the assistance of Russia would have assured a supremacy, and British fleets had intercepted the treasures of France and Spain, that the ministry, tired of a war which brought so many reverses, and alarmed at the voice of public opinion, consented to treat for peace. But their treaty was as disgraceful as their war. The principal cause of the latter, the right of search, was not even alluded to; no equivalent was received for forts restored to the enemy; and, for the last time in English history, the nobles of the land were given as pledges for the country’s faith. “The whole treaty,” says one historian, “is a lasting memorial of precipitate counsel and English disgrace.” It is melancholy to add, that this unhappy war added £31,333,689 to the permanent debt, took £15,080,000 in taxes, and, says a pamphleteer of the day, “increased the contemptible crew of ’Change Alley.”