These hot-headed politicians had already formed their famous ‘October Club.’ They were about a hundred and fifty in number, and for a few months their proceedings made a great noise. The Treasurer found means to deal with them in a more effectual fashion than that in which they had endeavoured to deal with the administration. ‘By silent, quiet steps, in a little time,’ says a writer who watched the process and aided it, ‘he so effectually separated these gentlemen, that in less than six months the name of “October Club” was forgotten in the world.... [Sidenote: De Foe, _Secret History of the White Staff_.] With so much address was this attempt overthrown, that he lost not the men, though he put them by their design.’ Those brief sentences indicate, I think, the fatality of the position in which OXFORD now placed himself. He had ardently desired to gain the control of affairs, at a period of exceptional difficulty. And, at the best, his capacity and energies would have been barely equal to the task in times of exceptional ease. Some of the very qualities, both of mind and heart, which made him beloved by those who lived with him, weakened him as a statesman. He was surrounded by adepts in political intrigue, some of whom combined with an experience not less than his own, far greater powers of mind, an unbending will, and an utter unscrupulousness as to the use of means. He vainly flattered himself that he could beat these men at their own weapons. His temporary success laid a foundation for his eventual ruin. [Sidenote: OXFORD AND THE COURT OF THE STUARTS.] To gain the aid of the Jacobite Tories in Parliament he held out hopes which it was never his intention to realise. He carried on an indirect correspondence with the Stuart Court in a way sufficiently adroit to induce that Court to instruct its adherents to support the negotiations for the Peace with France. He would commit himself to nothing until Peace was made. The conclusion of a Peace was the one measure on which he was firmly bent. He had contended that the true interests of Britain demanded the ending of an exhausting war many years before. And whatever the demerits and shortcomings of the Treaty of Utrecht, it had at least the merit of making the quiet succession of the House of Hanover possible.