Justice & Law Quote by Robert Walpole

Walpole is doing what master operators do when the room turns hostile: he narrates blame as a political technology, not a moral verdict. The sentence is built like a legal brief, but it’s really a complaint about how power edits reality. “Many words are not wanting” is an elegant dodge and a flex at once: there’s ample evidence, plenty of speeches, stacks of argument showing that “each court” helped create the “dangers” that shook public peace. Everyone touched the match. Yet “the whole is charged to my account” compresses a messy, factional crisis into one convenient villain.

That compression is the subtext. Walpole helped invent the modern office of prime minister in practice, which meant he also helped invent the modern scapegoat: the singular executive who can be credited for stability and condemned for unrest. His phrasing makes “public tranquillity” sound like a fragile asset managed by institutions, but judged by crowds. The passive voice (“is charged”) matters: blame arrives like an administrative action, as if issued by a clerk, not a mob. It’s an indictment of a system that wants accountability without admitting complicity.

“Nor is this sufficient” lands as both bitterness and warning. It implies that punishment isn’t proportionate to causation; opponents don’t want explanation, they want liquidation. In the Britain of court intrigue, party consolidation, and a rising print public eager for villains, Walpole is pointing to a durable pattern: when governance becomes complex, outrage demands a single name to simplify it.