the friendly policy of Louis XIV towards James, the deposed
Stuart Pretender. England had just made a new, determined, and
arrogant enemy by forcing upon Spain the deep humiliation of
ceding Gibraltar, which had been taken in 1704 by Admiral Rooke
with allied forces. The proudest monarchy in Europe was compelled
to see a spot of its own sacred territory held permanently by a
rival nation. Gibraltar Spain was determined to recover. Its loss
drove her into the arms of the enemies of England and remains to
this day a grievance which on occasion Spanish politicians know
well how to make useful.

Great Britain was now under the direction of a leader whose
policy was peace. A nation is happy when a born statesman with a
truly liberal mind and a genuine love of his country comes to the
front in its affairs. Such a man was Sir Robert Walpole. He was a
Whig squire, a plain country gentleman, with enough of culture to
love good pictures and the ancient classics, but delighting
chiefly in sports and agriculture, hard drinking and politics.
When only twenty-seven he was already a leader among the Whigs;
at thirty-two he was Secretary for War; and before he was forty
he had become Prime Minister, a post which he really created and
was the first Englishman to hold. Friendship with France marked a
new phase of British policy. Walpole's baffled enemies said that
he was bribed by France. His shrewd insight kept France lukewarm
in its support of the Stuart rising in 1715, which he punished
with great severity. But it was as a master of finance that he
was strongest. While continental nations were wasting men and
money Walpole gloried in saving English lives and English gold.
He found new and fruitful modes of taxation, but when urged to
tax the colonies he preferred, as he said, to leave that to a