FORE:Another measure in this Session marks an epoch in the history of literature and science in Great Britain. Parliament empowered the Crown to raise money by lottery for the purchase of the fine library, consisting of fifty thousand volumes, and the collection of articles of vertu and antiquity, amounting to sixty-nine thousand three hundred and fifty-two in number, bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane to the nation on the condition that twenty thousand pounds should be paid to his daughters for what had cost himself fifty thousand pounds. The same Bill also empowered Government to purchase of the Duchess of Portland, for ten thousand pounds, the collection of MSS. and books, etc., made by her grandfather, Harley, the Lord Treasurer Oxford, and also for the purchase of Montagu House, which was offered for sale in consequence of the death of the Duke of Montagu without heirs, in which to deposit these valuable collections. The antiquarian and literary collections of Sir Robert Cotton, purchased in the reign of Queen Anne, were also removed to Montagu House; and thus was founded the now magnificent institution, the British Museum. It is remarkable that whilst Horace Walpole, professing himself a patron of letters, has recorded all the gossip of his times, he has not deemed this great literary, scientific, and artistic event worthy of the slightest mention.The great difficulties of the Government at this time were the settlement of the questions with Spain of the right to cut logwood in the bay of Campeachy, and the retention of Gibraltar. The Spaniards had frequently resisted the cutting of logwood in the Bay of Campeachy by the English; and in 1717 the Marquis of Monteleone had presented a memorial against it; but the Board of Trade contended that the practice was of old standing, and amounted to a right. This representation was now laid before the House of Commons, and was backed by many petitions from the merchants of London and other places, complaining of the interruptions to their trade to the South American and West Indian colonies, which had been carried on by connivance rather than by actual permission of Spain. There was a great fermentation in the public mind on these subjects, and the Minister was accused of tamely submitting to national injuries. The nation seemed ready to rush into a war with Spain, and perhaps all the more so that the king, in his opening speech, had observed that "an actual war was preferable to such a doubtful peace, but that the exchange was very easy to be made at any time."
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