disgrace and degradation, after a profuse and useless waste of
blood and treasure. Nor must his sentiments upon the Slave Trade
be forgotten-sentiments which he held, too, in an age when, far
different from the present one, the Assiento Treaty, and other
horrors of the same kind, were deemed, not only justifiable, but
praiseworthy. "We have been sitting," he writes, on the 25th of
February 1750, "this fortnight on the African Company. We, the
British Senate, that temple of Liberty, and bulwark of Protestant
Christianity, have, this fortnight, been considering methods to
make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes. It
has appeared to us, that six-and-forty thousand of these wretches
are sold every year to our plantations alone! It chills one's
blood-I would not have to say I voted for it, for the continent
of America! The destruction of the miserable inhabitants by the
Spaniards was but a momentary misfortune that flowed from the
discovery of the New World, compared to this lasting havoc which
it brought upon Africa. We reproach Spain, and yet do not even
pretend the nonsense of butchering the poor creatures for the
good of their souls." (31)

One of the most favourite pursuits of Walpole was the building
and decoration of his Gothic villa of Strawberry Hill. It is
situated at the end of the village of Twickenham, towards
Teddington, on a slope, which gives it a fine view of the reach
of the Thames and the opposite wooded hill of Richmond Park. He
bought it in 1747, of Mrs. Chenevix, the proprietress of a
celebrated toy-shop. He thus describes it in a letter of that
year to Mr. Conway. "You perceive by my date that I am got into
a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a little
plaything-house that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is