ABSTRACT
The Henry Pelham's controlled the Lords, Commons and administration, thereby marginalising any prospect of successful opposition. Newcastle and Cumberland's policy eventually won over the Cabinet, and the last year of the war, 1747-8, was preoccupied with finding a conquest that could be traded for Madras, seized by the French in 1746, without giving up the captured fortress-base of Louisburg in North America, which was treasured by public opinion at home. Moribund, leaderless and spent by the mid-1750s, only the Tory party's distinct social and cultural milieu kept it going at all. The Old Corps also had a corporate sense of purpose centred on three principles: moderate Whiggism, service to the crown and personal loyalty to the acknowledged leaders of the Whig party. In an exceedingly popular move, the Land Tax was reduced to three shillings in the pound in 1749 and to two shillings in 1752, though not without compensating increases in indirect taxation.
