While handling the finances of the British forces during most of the War of the Spanish Succession, 1702–1713, the Duke of Chandos endured intense scrutiny, much of it hostile. Parliament's inquiry into his accounts as Paymaster of the Forces Abroad (1705–1713) took years to complete, but finally acknowledged, reluctantly, that his books were all in order, even if he had somehow become the richest man in the British Isles in the meantime. Later historians, as well as contemporary publicists, have pilloried Chandos as an archetypical representative of endemic corruption among the ubiquitous “moneyed men” or “proto-capitalists” who would arise in the following decades to undercut the legitimacy of British government, all the while enriching themselves. True, he was also a patron of the arts, known as “The Apollo of the Arts” for financing the composer Georg Handel as well as large numbers of paintings and sculptures that adorned his lavish stately home and estate, Cannons, in London. Did he also help in the creation of the British fiscal-military state in the eighteenth century?

Aaron Graham lays out the reasons he feels this is a plausible hypothesis in two introductory chapters covering the period 1660–1830. For Graham, state-building with the establishment of effective bureaucracies for administration over this (very) long eighteenth century would not have succeeded but for some form of ties within either the Whig or Tory parties that could loosely connect the multiple networks of merchants, politicians, and bureaucrats who financed Britain's overseas wars. Moreover, the Pay Office was the place where all the threads of political decisions, public finance, private credit, and military priorities intersected. Graham then documents Chandos’ ability as a Tory to absorb and then expand the networks his Whig predecessors in the Pay Office had established when they were financing Britain's earlier participation in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Chandos’ predecessor as Paymaster from 1702–1705, Charles Fox, had established strict principles of accounting and oversight, and Fox had built effective networks for supplying necessary funds in a timely fashion to the British forces on the Continent. Partisan politics, however, forced Fox to resign from office as a matter of principle in 1705, to be replaced by the inexperienced but unprincipled moderate Tory, James Brydges (later to become first Duke of Chandos). Graham's remaining chapters use the extensive letter books left by Chandos, now housed in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, to make the case that his “[c]onduct that seemed corrupt was part of a wider effort to reconcile comfortably political, administrative, financial, and military priorities…” (p. 97).

Beyond the presumably self-serving letters written and preserved by Chandos, however, Graham tracks down the records and letters of many of his correspondents, ranging from the ministers above him to the deputy-paymasters in various countries and even to the individual foreign merchants who provided the final links between Army payrolls and actual supplies of victuals, munitions, and materiel at the battle fronts. Graham contrasts Chandos’ correspondence with the forces active in Northern Europe, 1705–1710, from his correspondence with the forces active (or held hostage) in Southern Europe, 1705–1710. The private networks that Chandos could establish in the Netherlands facilitated greatly the financing of Marlborough's brilliant victories, and also kept Chandos free of the scandal that forced Marlborough's recall in 1712. Lacking the same private networks in Southern Europe, however, Chandos’ efforts were less productive there, which may explain in part British setbacks in Spain. Chandos was also forced to change the operation of his networks, both private and political, after the election of 1710, which brought the Tory party headed by Robert Harley into full power. Then, freed of persistent interference from above and backed fully by Harley, Chandos was able to reconstitute the private networks he had begun earlier, but now with much more political authority from above and more intense support from his deputies below. Given the relative strength of his private networks in the Netherlands, however, he was much more effective there than in Portugal.

Graham concludes by arguing that the success and struggles of Chandos as Paymaster-General of the British Forces throughout the War of the Spanish Succession amply demonstrate his thesis that Britain should be seen as “A Partisan-Political State, 1660–1830.” Certainly, he persuades this reviewer that Chandos was a brilliant operator within the Tory party in Parliament who knew how to distribute favors (and funds) rationally so they could be reciprocated eventually by his contacts. That Chandos could prosper personally afterwards when the political regime shifted back to the Whigs also says something, however, about the adaptability of the evolving British political system. The adaptability and accessibility of the British political system persisted afterwards, and continued to reward similar entrepreneurial spirits as well, whatever their partisanship.