In 1736 when Eliza's novel first appeared, Walpole's defeated Excise Bill of 1733-4 and his policy of non-interference on the Continent had made him cordially disliked by the people, and by 1741 his unpopular ministry, like Lady Mary Montagu's stairs, was "in a declining way." Sir Robert had never shown himself a friend to letters, and there were not a few writers, among them one so illustrious as Henry Fielding, who were ready to seize upon any pretext for attacking him.[6] There can be no doubt that in the character of the villainous, corrupt, greedy, vain, lascivious, but plausible Ochihatou Mrs. Haywood intended her readers to recognize a semblance of the English minister. "Of all the statesmen who have held high office, it would be impossible to find one who has been more systematically abused and more unjustly treated than Sir Robert Walpole.... He is the 'Father of Parliamentary Corruption,' the 'foe to English liberty,' the 'man who maintained his power by the basest and most venal tactics'.... Whenever his administration is alluded to in Parliament a shudder runs through the House ... at the very thought that one so sordid, so interested, so schemingly selfish, should have attained to the position of Prime Minister, and have commanded a following. If we read the pamphlet literature of the eighteenth century, we see Walpole represented as the meanest and most corrupt of mankind."[7] Lord Chesterfield says of him: "His prevailing weakness was to be thought to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry, of which he had undoubtedly less than any man living; it was his favorite and frequent subject of conversation, which proved, to those who had any penetration, that it was his prevailing weakness, and they applied to it with success."[8] And Lord Hervey reports that the Queen remarked of Walpole's mistress, "dear Molly Skerritt": "She must be a clever gentlewoman to have made him believe she cares for him on any other score [but his money]; and to show you what fools we all are in some point or other, she has certainly told him some fine story or other of her love and her passion, and that poor man--_avec ce gros corps, ces jambes enflées, et ce vilain ventre_--believes her. Ah! what is human nature!"[9] With this sketch of Walpole compare the account of Ochihatou, Prime Minister of Hypotofa. "This great Man was born of a mean Extraction, and so deformed in his own Person, that not even his own Parents cou'd look on him with Satisfaction.... As he was extremely amorous, and had so little in him to inspire the tender Passion, the first Proof he gave of his Art, was to ... cast such a Delusion before the Eyes of all who saw him, that he appeared to them such as he wished to be, a most comely and graceful Man.