ary Wortley Montagu as "one who seems to have
forgotten every part of his past life, and to be of no party." He was
a weak man, with only a very faint outline of a character; but he was
more honorable and consistent than was common with the men of his time.
When he had once taken up a cause or a principle he held to it. {112}
He was the very opposite to Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke was genius and
force without principle. Ormond had principle without genius or force.

[Sidenote: 1715--Oxford committed to the Tower]

Two, then, of the great accused peers were beyond the reach of the
House of Lords. Oxford alone remained. On July 9, 1715, articles of
impeachment were brought up against him. The impeachment does not seem
to have been very substantial in its character. The great majority of
its articles referred to the conduct of Oxford with regard to the
Treaty of Utrecht. One article accused him of having abused his
influence over her Majesty by prevailing upon her to exercise "in the
most unprecedented and dangerous manner" her prerogative by the
creation of twelve Peers in December, 1711. A motion that Oxford be
committed to the Tower was made, and on this motion he spoke a few
words which were at once ingenious and dignified. He asserted his
innocence of any treasonable practice or thought, and declared that
what he had done was done in obedience to the positive orders of the
Queen. He asked the House what might not happen if Ministers of State,
acting on the immediate commands of their sovereign, were afterwards to
be made accountable for their proceedings. Then in a few words he
commended his cause to the justice of his brother peers, and took leave
of the House of Lords, as he put it, "perhaps forever." Such an
impeachment would have been impossible in more recent days. If Oxford
had been accused of treasonable dealings with the Stuarts, and if
evidence could have been brought home to him, there indeed might have
been a reasonable ground for impeachment. But there was no sufficient
evidence for any such purpose, and to impeach a statesman simply
because he had taken a political course which was afterwards
disapproved by the nation, and which was discredited by results, was
simply to say that any failure in the policy of a Minister of the Crown
might make him liable to impeachment when his enemies came into power.
The Peace of Utrecht, bad as it was, had been condoned, or rather {113}
approved of, by two