ABSTRACT
Walpole and Joseph Herne argued that war must be avoided as it would lead to increased taxation and contracting new debts. They suggest that the ministry try and pay off the national debt first, and that Parliament should examine treaties concluded with Charles VI to ascertain whether support for Austria was in the national interest. This was a measure designed to criticize the ministry for backing Hanoverian goals, in effect bribing Charles with help in Italy. Walpole and Tory Archibald Hutcheson maintained that the lists of half-pay officers included many who had no right to be on them, and thus that the ministry was failing to act as a guardian of both national finances and military strength. On 22 January 1718, Walpole and Hutcheson were supported by John Smith and by Sir William Wyndham in Jacobite plotting. They succeeded in having officers from the thirteen regiments which had been reduced in Ireland struck off the half-pay lists.
