Chapter XX: Part II

FROM MR. PERCEVAL’S ADMINISTRATION TO ACCEPTANCE OF THE GOVERNOR-GENERALSHIP OF INDIA.

Mr. Perceval, Prime Minister.--Lord Wellesley, Minister of
Foreign Affairs.--King’s health necessitates regency.--The
line taken by Mr. Canning upon it.--Conduct with respect to
Mr. Horner’s Finance Committee.--Absurd resolution of Mr.
Vansittart.--Lord Wellesley quits the Ministry.--Mr. Perceval
is assassinated.--Mr. Canning and Lord Wellesley charged to
form a new Cabinet, and fail.--Further negotiations with Lords
Grey and Grenville fail.--Lord Liverpool becomes head of an
Administration which Mr. Canning declines to join.--Accepts
subsequently embassy to Lisbon, and, in 1816, enters the
Ministry.--Supports coercive and restrictive measures.--Resigns
office at home after the Queen’s trial, and accepts the
Governor-Generalship of India.

I.

A new Administration brought Lord Wellesley to the Foreign Office, and Mr. Perceval to the head of affairs.

In 1810 the state of the King’s health came once more before the public. Parliament met in November; the Sovereign was this time admitted by his courtiers to be unmistakedly insane. A commission had been appointed, but there was no speech with which to address the Houses; no authority to prorogue them. Mr. Perceval moved certain resolutions. These resolutions were important, for they furnished a text for debate, and settled the question so much disputed in 1788-9, deciding (for no one was found to take up the old and unpopular arguments of Mr. Fox) that Parliament had the disposal of the Regency; and that the Heir-apparent, without the sanction of the Legislature, had no more right to it than any other individual. These first resolutions were followed by others, expressive of a determination to confer the powers of the Crown on the Prince of Wales, but not without restrictions. Here arose a new question, and of this question Mr. Canning availed himself. Interest and consistency alike demanded that he should stand fast to the traditions of Mr. Pitt, whose name was still the watchword of a considerable party. But Mr. Pitt had alike contended for the right of Parliament to name the Regent, and for the wisdom of fettering the Regency by limitations. Whereas Mr. Canning, though advocating the powers of Parliament to name the Regent, was not in favour of limiting the Regent’s authority. Through these confronting rocks the wary statesman steered with the skill of a veteran pilot:[116]

“The rights of the two Houses,” said he, “were proclaimed and maintained by Mr. Pitt; that is the point on which his authority is truly valuable. The principles upon which this right was affirmed and exercised are true for all times and all occasions. If they were the principles of the Constitution in 1788, they are equally so in 1811; the lapse of twenty-two years had not impaired, the lapse of centuries could not impair them. But the mode in which the right so asserted should be exercised, the precise provisions to be framed for the temporary substitution of the executive power--these were necessarily then, as they must be now, matters not of eternal and invariable principle, but of prudence and expediency. In regard to these, therefore, the authority of the opinion of any individual, however great and wise and venerable, can be taken only with reference to the circumstances of the time in which he has to act, and are not to be applied without change or modification to other times and circumstances.”[117]

II.

Thus, all that partisanship could demand in favour of an abstract principle, was religiously accorded to the _manes_ of the defunct statesman; and a difference as wide as the living Prince of Wales could desire, established between the theory that no one any longer disputed, and the policy which was the present subject of contention. Here Mr. Canning acted with tact and foresight if he merely acted as a political schemer. The Royal personage on whom power was about to devolve had always expressed the strongest dislike, not to say disgust, at any abridgment of the Regal authority. He was likely to form a new Administration. The Whigs, it is true, were then considered the probable successors to power; but the Whigs would want assistance; and subsequent events showed that a general feeling had begun to prevail in favour of some new combination of men less exclusive than could be found in the ranks of either of the extreme and opposing parties. But it is fair to add that the course which Mr. Canning might have taken for his private interest, he had every motive to take for the public welfare.

Beyond the personal argument of the sick King’s convenience--an argument which should hardly guide the policy or affect the destinies of a mighty kingdom--Mr. Perceval had not, for the restrictions he proposed, one reasonable pretext. It might, indeed, be agreeable to George III., if he recovered from his sad condition, to find things and persons as he had left them; and to recognise that all the functions of Government had been palsied since the suspension of his own power. But if ever the hands of a sovereign required to be strongly armed, it was most assuredly in those times. They were no times of ease or peace in which a civilized people may be said to govern themselves; neither were we merely at war. The war we were waging was of life or death; the enemy with whom we were contending concentrated in his own mind, and wielded with his own hand, all the force of Europe. This was not a moment for enfeebling the Government that had to contend against him. The power given to the King or Regent in our country is not, let it be remembered, an individual and irresponsible power. It is a National power devolving on responsible Ministers, who have to account to the nation for the use they make of it.

“What,” said Mr. Canning (having assumed and asserted the right of the two Houses of Parliament to supply the incapacity of the sovereign)--“what is the nature of the business which through incapacity stands still, and which we are to find the means of carrying on? It is the business of a mighty state. It consists in the exercise o£ functions as large as the mind can conceive--in the regulation and direction of the affairs of a great, a free, and a powerful people: in the care of their internal security and external interests; in the conduct, of foreign negotiations; in the decision of the vital questions of peace and war; and in the administration of the Government throughout all the parts, provinces, and dependencies of an empire extending itself into every quarter of the globe. This is the awful office of a king; the temporary execution of which we are now about to devolve upon the Regent. What is it, considering the irresponsibility of the Sovereign as an essential part of the Constitution,--what is it that affords a security to the people for the faithful exercise of these all-important functions? The responsibility of Ministers. What are the means by which these functions operate? They are those which, according to the inherent imperfection of human nature, have at all times been the only motives to human actions, the only control upon them of certain and permanent operation, viz., the punishment of evil, and the reward of merit. Such, then, being the functions of monarchical government, and such being the means of rendering them efficient to the purposes of good government, are we to be told that in providing for its delegation, while it is not possible to curtail those powers which are in their nature harsh and unpopular, it is necessary to abridge those milder, more amiable and endearing prerogatives which bear an aspect of grace and favour towards the subject?”

III.

There was no answer to Mr. Canning, but a very practical one. Mr. Perceval thought that the King would shortly recover and keep him in office--and that the Regent, if his Royal Highness had but the power, would forthwith turn him out of it. Such an argument might satisfy a more scrupulous minister. In vain, therefore, was it urged, “If the powers of a monarch are not necessary now, they are never necessary. In consulting the possible feelings of the sick King, you are injuring the certain interests of kingly authority.”

The passions or interests of a faction will ever ride high over its principles; and for a second time within half a century the theory of monarchy received the greatest practical insult from a high Tory minister. That the House of Commons thought a new era at hand was seen by its divisions. On the motion of Mr. Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne) against the “Restrictions,” the majority in favour of Government was but 224 to 200.

A variety of circumstances, however, to which allusion will presently be made, prevented the general expectation from being realized. The Government remained, but it was not a Government that seemed likely to be of long duration. On one important question Mr. Canning almost immediately opposed it.

IV.

The report of a committee, distinguished for its ability, had attributed the depreciation in the value of bank-notes to their excessive issue, and recommended a return, within two years, to cash payments. Mr. Canning had belonged to this committee, and had given the subject, however foreign to his customary studies, much attention. The view which he took upon the sixteen resolutions moved by Mr. Horner, May 8, 1811, was, perhaps, the best. To all those resolutions, which went to fix as a principle that a real value in metal should be the proper basis for a currency--a general landmark, by which legislation should, as far as it was practicable, be guided--he assented; that particular resolution, which, under the critical circumstances of the country, went to fetter and prescribe the moment at which this principle should be resumed, he opposed.

Such opposition was unavailing; and History instructs us, by the resolution which Mr. Vansittart then proposed, that no absurdity is so glaring as to shock the eye of prejudiced credulity.

“May 13, 1811.

“Resolution III.--‘_That it is the opinion of this committee_
(a committee of the whole House) _that the promissory notes of
the company_ (the Bank) _have hitherto been, and are at this
time, held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal
coin of the realm, and generally accepted as such._’”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer thus called upon the House of Commons to assert, that the public esteemed, a twenty shilling bank-note as much as twenty shillings; and it had just been necessary to frame a law to prevent persons giving more than £1 and 1 shilling for a guinea, and all the guineas had disappeared from England. It had just been found expedient to raise the value of crown-pieces from 5_s._ to 5_s._ 6_d._ (which was, in fact, to reduce £1 in paper to the value of 18_s._), in order to prevent crown-pieces from disappearing also. Persons were in prison for buying guineas at a premium; whilst pamphlets and papers were universally and daily declaring that the notes of the company were not at that time held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm.

“When Galileo,” said Mr. Canning, “first promulgated the doctrine that the earth turned round the sun, and that the sun remained stationary in the centre of the universe, the holy father of the Inquisition took alarm at so daring an innovation, and forthwith declared the first of these propositions to be false and heretical, and the other to be erroneous in point of faith. The holy office pledged itself to believe that the earth was stationary and the sun movable. But this pledge had little effect in changing the natural course of things: the sun and the earth continued, in spite of it, to preserve their accustomed relations to each other, just as the coin and the bank-note will, in spite of the right honourable gentleman’s resolution.”--[Report of Bullion Committee.]

But if the opposition had the best of the debate, the minister triumphed in the division; nevertheless so equivocal a success, whilst lowering the character of Parliament, did not heighten that of the Ministry.

Mr. Perceval, indeed, though possessing the quick, sharp mind of a lawyer, and the small ready talent of a debater, was without any of those superior qualities which enable statesmen to take large views. Great as an advocate, he was small as a statesman. Lord Wellesley at last revolted at his supremacy, and, quitting the government, observed that “he might serve _with_ Mr. Perceval, but could never serve _under_ him again.”

V.

About this time expired the period during which the Regency restrictions had been imposed; and not long after, the Premier (being confirmed in office by new and unsuccessful attempts to remodel the Administration) was assassinated by a madman (11 May, 1812).

The cabinet, which with Mr. Perceval was weak, without Mr. Perceval seemed impossible; and all persons at the moment were favourable to such a fusion of parties as would allow of the formation of a Cabinet, powerful and efficient.

Lord Wellesley, a man who hardly filled the space in these times for which his great abilities qualified him (co-operating with Mr. Canning, who was to be leader in the House of Commons), was selected as the statesman through whom such a Cabinet was to be formed. But Lord Liverpool, from personal reasons, at once declined all propositions from Lord Wellesley. Another negotiation was then opened, the basis proposed for a new ministry being that four persons should be returned to the Cabinet by Lord Wellesley and Mr. Canning; four (of whom Lord Erskine and Lord Moira were two) by the Prince Regent; and five by Lords Grey and Grenville, whilst the principles agreed to by all, were to be the vigorous prosecution of the war, and the immediate conciliation of the Catholics. The vigorous prosecution of the war and the conciliation of the Catholics were assented to; nor was it stated that the other conditions were inadmissible, though it was suggested that there would be a great inconvenience in making the Cabinet Council a debating society, and entering it with hostile and rival parties. Lord Wellesley returned to the Regent for further orders. But his Royal Highness deemed it expedient to consider that Lord Wellesley’s attempt had been a failure, and the task which had been given to him was transferred to Lord Moira. This nobleman, vain, weak, and honest, undertook the commission, and a new treaty was commenced with Lords Grey and Grenville, whose conduct at this time, it must be added, seems at first sight unintelligible; for they were granted every power they could desire in political matters. But there were various personal and private reasons which rendered all arrangements difficult. In the first place, Lord Grey is said to have despised, and never to have trusted the Prince, who, as he believed, was merely playing with the Whig party. In the next, Lord Grenville could not make up his mind to resign the auditorship of the exchequer, a certain salary for life, nor to accept a lower office than that of First Lord of the Treasury, while the union of the two offices, the one being a check upon the other, was too evident a job to escape observation; indeed, Mr. Whitbread had positively said that he could never support such a combination.

Thus, a variety of petty interests made any pretext sufficient to interfere with the completion of a scheme which every one was eager to counsel, no one ready to adopt. The most ungracious pretext, that of dictating the Regent’s household, was chosen for a rupture; but it happened to chime in with the popular cry, which was loud against the influence of Hertford House; as may be seen by the speeches of the day, and particularly by a speech from Lord Donoughmore, in which he talks of the Marchioness of Hertford, to whose veteran seductions the Regent was then supposed to have fallen a victim, as “a matured enchantress” who had by “potent spells” destroyed all previous prepossessions, and taken complete possession of the Royal understanding.

VI.

There was as much bad taste as impolicy in these attacks; and the long-pending struggle terminated at last in favour of Lord Liverpool, who on June 8, 1812, declared himself Prime Minister. Why did Mr. Canning, who was solicited at the close of the session to join Lord Liverpool’s Administration, decline to do so? Not because he was personally hostile to Lord Liverpool: he was warmly attached to that nobleman; not because the Administration was exclusive, and only admitted those who were hostile to the Catholic Question; for he subsequently says (May 18, 1819): “I speak with perfect confidence when I assert that those who gave their support to the present Ministry on its formation, did so on the understanding that every member of it entered into office with the _express stipulation_ that he should maintain his own opinion in Parliament on the Catholic Question.”

Mr. Stapleton says it was because his friends thought that to the Foreign Office, which he was offered, ought to have been added the lead in the House of Commons, which Lord Liverpool would not withdraw from Lord Castlereagh. But Mr. Canning eventually became a member of the Government whose fate he now declined to share, leaving to Lord Castlereagh the lead in the House of Commons. How, then, are we to account for this difference of conduct at two different epochs?

An explanation may thus be found: During the years 1810 and 1811, our continental policy had still remained unfortunate. True it was that, by the unexpected skill and unexampled energy of our new commander, we gained, during 1811, the possession of Portugal, driving from that country a general who had hitherto been equally conspicuous for his talents and his fortune. But the whole of the Spanish frontier, and the greatest part of Spain itself, was held by the French armies; while the victory of Wagram, the revolution in Sweden, the marriage of Napoleon, the birth of the King of Rome, had greatly added to the weight and apparent stability of the French empire.

Our differences with the United States had also continually increased; and in 1812, war, which had long been impending, was declared and justified in an eloquent and able statement by Mr. Madison.

In the meantime Napoleon, surrounded by that luminous mystery which gave a kind of magic to his actions, was marching in all the pomp of anticipated triumph against the remote and solitary state which alone, on the humbled and subjugated continent, had yet the means and the courage to dispute his edicts and defy his power. Up to the 14th of September, when he entered Moscow, his career was more marvellous, his glory more dazzling than ever.

VII.

Such was the state of foreign affairs when Mr. Canning and his friends refused to connect themselves with a feeble and self-mistrusting administration. But the year following things were strangely altered. The retreat from Russia had taken place; the battle of Leipsic had been fought. Russians, Austrians, Saxons, Swedes, Bavarians, Spaniards, Portuguese, the people of those various nations, who had formerly to defend their own territory, were now pouring into France.

The first gleams of victory shone over the gloomy struggle of twenty years. An accident yet unexplained--the burning of a city on the farthest confines of the civilized world--had changed the whole face of European affairs. “The mighty deluge,” to use Mr. Canning’s poetical language, “by which the Continent had been so long overwhelmed, began to subside. The limits of nations were again visible, and the spires and turrets of ancient establishments began to re-appear from beneath the subsiding wave.”[118]

From this moment Mr. Canning began to show confidence in a ministry which he had hitherto more or less despised. The desire of sustaining it in this crisis of the terrible conflict in which we were engaged, had no doubt some influence over his conduct; but I venture to add that there are natures which, without being instigated by low and vulgar motives, have a propensity to harmonize with success. Mr. Canning’s nature was of this description. It loved the light to shine on its glittering surface; and he began to feel a sympathy for the Government, bright with the rays of anticipated fortune, which in darker moments he had shrunk from with antipathy and mistrust.

VIII.

Napoleon fell shortly afterwards, and Mr. Huskisson, the most celebrated of Mr. Canning’s followers, was gazetted as Commissioner of Woods and Forests; Mr. Canning himself (who at the last general election had been honoured by the unsolicited representation of Liverpool) accepting an embassy to Lisbon. His acceptance of this office was one of the actions of his life for which he was most attacked; it was considered a job; for an able minister (Mr. Sydenham), on a moderate salary, was recalled, in order to give the eminent orator, whose support the Government wished to obtain, the appointment of ambassador on a much larger salary: and although, when Mr. Lambton (afterwards Lord Durham) brought forward a motion on the subject, Mr. Canning made a triumphant reply to the specific charges brought against his nomination, and although he was altogether above the accusation of accepting any post for the mere sake of its emoluments, it was nevertheless clear that it was because he was going to Lisbon for the health of his son, and that it was more agreeable to him to go in an official position than as a simple individual, that he had been employed, and his predecessor removed. It is needless to add he would have acted more wisely had he not accepted a post in which little credit was to be gained and much censure was to be risked.

On his return from Portugal he entered the Cabinet at the head of the Board of Control.

During his absence many events had occurred to characterize the Administration he joined. Peace finally established on the prostrate armies of France, which at Waterloo had made their last struggle, left the war which we had pursued with so lavish an expenditure, and so desperate a determination, to be estimated by its results. Whatever the necessity of this war at its commencement, the cause under which it had been continued for the last fourteen years was sacred.

A military chief at the head of a valorous soldiery, had during this time trampled on the rights and feelings of almost every people in Europe. The long-established barriers of independent states had been shifted or pulled down like hurdles, to make them fit the increasing or diminishing drove of cattle which it suited the caprices of the French ruler that they should contain. The inhabitants of such states, treated little better than mere cattle, had been seized, sold, bartered, given away. It was no marvel, then, that the conquerors became in the end the conquered; for the struggle was one which commenced by all the kings marching against one people, and concluded by every people marching against one warrior. They invoked--these new assailants--what is best in philosophy, morality, policy; they conquered, and what did philosophy, morality, policy gain? Were rights and natural sympathies respected? Were old landmarks restored?

The peace alluded to was said to be a peace founded on justice, and justice never deserts the weak; yet Genoa was gone; Venice was no more; Poland remained partitioned; Saxony had been plundered by Prussia with as unsparing a hand as that by which she herself had been despoiled during the conquests of France. Norway, by a treaty, which Mr. Canning had said, in 1813, when still unshackled by office, “filled him with shame, regret, and indignation,” was become the unwilling recompense to Sweden for the loss of a province of which a mightier power had taken possession. A struggle of the fiercest nature had been steadily maintained merely for the sake of restoring things to their old condition; and no nation not pre-eminent in power got back its own, except Spain, which recovered the Inquisition.[119] Even Holland was not re-invested with her ancient liberties, her old noble republican name. Stripped of her glorious history, and weakened by the addition of four millions of discontented subjects, the statesmen of the day fancied her more august and more secure. The errors committed at this time were those of a system; for there were two courses to pursue in the re-settlement of Europe. Had it appeared that, after a conflict of nearly thirty years, during which violence had held unlimited sway, everything which was dear to the people it concerned, and which still stood forth vivid in history, was endowed with a new reality; that at the overthrow of wrongful power, the right of the meanest was everywhere weighed, and the right of the weakest everywhere established: had it appeared that the mightiest captain of modern times had only been vanquished by a principle--which, if the general interest could predominate, would regulate the destinies of the world--then indeed a lesson, of which it is impossible to calculate the effects, would have been given to all future ambitious disturbers of mankind: while the lovers of peace and virtue in every portion of the globe, even in France, would have seen something holy in the triumph which had been gained, and gathered round the cause of the allies. But if this was one policy, there was also another, and that other was adopted.

IX.

As Bonaparte had cut up and parcelled out nations for the purpose of enlarging the boundaries and strengthening the dominions of France, so the conquerors of Bonaparte spoiled and partitioned with equal zeal, in order to control the boundaries and restrain the dominion of the warlike people they had defeated. The limits imposed by right, justice, antiquity, custom, were all disregarded, and an attempt, by preference, made to throw up against all future schemes of conquest the patchwork barrier of ill-united and discordant populations.

Such had been the termination of affairs in Europe; but our contest with America was also over. We had made a treaty with that Power--a treaty so contrived that it did not settle a single one of those questions for which we had engaged in war. Nor were the circumstances under which this singular arrangement was completed such as compelled us to accede to it. The whole force of the British empire was disengaged; we could no longer say that our fleets were not invincible in one quarter of the world because their strength was exerted in another; whilst, if we meant to keep the dominion of the seas--more important to us than the whole of that continent we had been subsidizing and contending upon--there was every peril to apprehend from leaving unchecked the spirit of a rising rival, who had lately fought and frequently vanquished us on our own element, and who during a long peace would have the opportunity to mature that strength of which she was already conscious and proud. In short, the peace of Europe affected our character for morality, that of America weakened the belief in our power.

Mr. Canning would hardly have joined an Administration which had so mismanaged our foreign affairs, if the glory of our arms had not gilded in some degree the faults of our diplomacy. But the part which that diplomacy had played on the Continent was not without its effect upon things at home. We had become each year more and more alienated from our military allies, who having triumphed by the enthusiasm of their people, seemed disposed to govern by the bayonets of their troops. The Holy Alliance--that singular compact, invented partly by the superstition, partly by the policy of the Emperor Alexander--an alliance by which three sovereigns, at the head of conquering armies, swore in very mystical language to govern according to the doctrines of Christian charity, swearing also (which was more important) to lend each other assistance on all occasions, and in all places--this alliance, which no one could clearly understand, and which our Government refused to join, excited all the suspicion and all the apprehension which mystery never fails to produce, and made Englishmen, while they were rejoicing at having subdued an overgrown and despotic tyranny in one quarter of the world, doubt whether they might not have created as dangerous a one in another.

X.

Nor was this all. They who begin to be dissatisfied with the fruits of victory, soon grow more and more dissatisfied with what victory has cost. Moreover, this period, from a variety of circumstances, some of them inseparable from the sudden transition from active war to profound peace, was one of great uncertainty and distress; whilst the public mind, no longer excited by military conflict, was the more disposed to political agitation. A demand for diminished imposts, and a demand for political reform, are always to be expected at such moments. Our form of government led more naturally to these demands, for the theory of the constitution was at variance with its practice; the one saying that Englishmen should be taxed by their representatives, the other proving that they were in many instances taxed by persons who represented a powerful patron or a petty constituency, and not the people of England. The evils complained of were exaggerated; there were exaggerations also as to the remedies for which the most violent of the clamorous called. But the thoughts of the nation were directed to economy as a relief from taxation, and to parliamentary reform as a means of economy. Public meetings in favour of parliamentary reform were held; resolutions in favour of parliamentary reform were passed; petitions praying for it were presented; the energies of a free people, who thought themselves wronged, were aroused: great excitement prevailed.

XI.

The vessel of the state in these sudden squalls requires that those at the helm should govern it with a calm heart and a steady hand. Anger and fear are equally to be avoided, for they lead equally to violent measures, and the excitement of one party only feeds the excitement of the other.

Lord Castlereagh, the leading spirit at this time in the Cabinet, vapid and incorrect as an orator, inefficient as an administrator, was still, as I have elsewhere said, not without qualities as a statesman--for he was cool and he was courageous; and, therefore, if we now see him acting as if under the influence of the most slavish apprehension, we must look for some reasonable motive for his appearing to entertain fears which he could not have really felt.

Now, the fact is, that he had but two things to do--to satisfy the discontented as aggrieved, or to rally the majority of the country against them as disaffected. The first policy would not keep his party in power; the second, therefore, was the one he preferred. The terrors of the timid were to be awakened; the passions of the haughty were to be aroused; the designs of the malcontents were to be darkened--their strength increased--in short, to save the Ministry, it was essential that the State should be declared in danger. This is an old course; it has been tried often: it was tried now.

Thus Government opened the Session of 1817 with a “green bag.” This bag, a true Pandora’s box, contained threats of every mischief--assassination, incendiarism, insurrection, in their most formidable and infuriated shapes. One conspiracy, indeed, was a model that deserves to be set apart for the use of future conspirators or--statesmen. It comprehended the storming of the Bank and the Tower, the firing the different barracks, the overthrow of everybody and everything, even the great and massive bridges which cross the Thames, and which were to be blown up as a matter of course; but the traitors were pious and brave men, relying almost wholly on Providence and their courage, so that only two hundred and fifty pikes and some powder in an old stocking had been provided to secure the success of their undertaking.

XII.

Many schemes equally plausible were attributed to, and perhaps entertained by, a few unhappy men in the manufacturing districts; while the well-known doctrines of an enthusiast named Spence[120]--doctrines which inculcate the necessity of property being held in common, and which under different names have been continually put forward at every period of the world--found amongst the poor and starving, as they will ever find in times of distress and difficulty, a ready reception. “These doctrines,” said Lord Castlereagh, “contain in themselves a principle of contradiction;” but he was not willing to trust to this principle alone!

Various laws were passed, tending to limit the right of discussion: men were forbidden to co-operate or correspond for the purpose of amending the existing constitution. Public meetings were placed at the disposal of a magistrate, who could prevent or disperse them as he thought proper. Finally, the “Habeas Corpus” Act was suspended.

Nothing could be more wanton or absurd than this last outrage on public freedom. The Ministers who were calling upon the country to defend our institutions, were for sweeping away their very foundations. In vain did Lord Grey, with even more than his usual eloquence, exclaim, “We are warned not to let any anxiety for the security of liberty lead to a compromise of the security of the State; for my part, I cannot separate these two things; the safety of the State can only be found in the protection of the liberties of the people.”

Having entered upon a career of terror, a new violence is daily necessary in order to guard against the consequences of the last; nor was the addition of 3,000,000_l._ of taxes, imposed at the close of 1819, well adapted to soothe popular irritation. In the meantime the meeting at Manchester, foolishly got up, and foolishly and barbarously put down, aroused a cry which only the utmost severity could hope to quell. Such severity was adopted in the Acts which prevented public and parish meetings; which punished offences of the press with transportation; which exposed the houses of peaceable inhabitants to midnight search, and deprived an Englishman of what was once considered his birthright--the right of keeping arms for his own defence. At the same time the bulk of the nation was declared to be sound and loyal, the country prosperous; and as a note which may perhaps be considered somewhat explanatory of these different declarations, came a demand for 10,000 additional troops. It was of no use to argue that the nation was quiet, and resolved only on constitutional means of redress. “Yes, sir,” said the figurative seconder of the Address (1819)--“yes, sir, there has undoubtedly been an appearance of tranquillity, but it _is the tranquillity of a lion waiting for his prey_. There has been the apparent absence of danger, but it is that of a fire half-smothered by the weight of its own combustible materials.” “The meeting at Manchester,” argued Lord Lansdowne (Nov. 30, 1819), “if it had not been disturbed by the magistrates, would have gone off quietly.” “Perhaps,” replied an orator who defended the Government, “that might have been the case; but why? in the contemplation of things to come, the peaceable and quiet demeanour of the disaffected, instead of lessening the danger, ought to aggravate the alarm--_ipsa silentia terrent_.”

XIII.

So because people assembled at a meeting which was likely to disperse peaceably might at some future time (and this was conjecture) act less peaceably, they were to be charged and sabred; while their constitutional conduct neither at this nor at any other period could be of the least avail; heat of language was not even necessary to procure them the treatment of rebels; for if men met and were _silent_, if they met and never uttered a word, their very silence, under the classical authority of three Latin words, was to be considered full of awful treason. Jury after jury denounced the conduct of the Government by returning verdicts which were accusations against it. Still the same system was persevered in. Ministers went through the country with a drag net, hauling up--not one or two influential persons (such, indeed, they could not find)--but whole classes of men. Spies also, as it appeared from the different trials, acted as incendiaries, contributing in no small degree to the marvellous plots that they discovered. In one instance, a fellow of the name of Oliver had gone about to all whom he imagined ill disposed, presenting Sir Francis Burdett’s compliments; a circumstance the more remarkable, since the only decent colour ever attempted to be given to these notions of insurrection was, that the names of respectable persons had been used in connection with them. In another case a government creature, by the name of Edwards, actually advanced money to a gentleman who may be considered the arch-traitor of the epoch, since he was the author of that famous conspiracy which included in its programme cutting off all the ministers’ heads.

This conspiracy--of which Mr. Thistlewood, supported by the aforesaid Mr. Edwards, Mr. Davidson, a man of colour, and Messrs. Tidd and Brunt, two shoemakers, were the leaders--closed the series of those formidable plots for putting an end to King, Lords, and Commons, which for three years disturbed the country; the Ministers affecting to consider that the wisdom of the policy they pursued was proved by the folly of those wretched men whom they delivered to the executioner.

Another circumstance is to be remarked in reviewing these times, and attempting to portray their spirit. The Government had not only been tyrannical at home, it had afforded all the assistance in its power to foreign tyrants. First was passed the Alien Bill; a measure which might have been defended in 1793, when France was sending out her revolutionary apostles; which might, with a certain plausibility, have been asked for in 1814, when, if the war were concluded, peace could hardly be considered as established; but which in 1816 could have no other pretext than that of enabling the minister of the day to refuse a refuge to any unhappy exile from the despotism of the Continent.

Shortly afterwards (1819) came the Foreign Enlistment Bill. That which Queen Elizabeth refused to Spain when Spain was in the height of her power, was conceded to Spain, now fallen into the lowest state of moral as well as political degradation. It was true that during the Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, and under the natural fears of Jacobite armies, formed on foreign shores, laws had been passed prohibiting British subjects, except upon special permission, from engaging in foreign service; and the pretext now put forward was insomuch plausible, that it pretended to place service in the armies of recognised and unrecognised states on the same footing--no law existing in respect to the last. But the law in existence had not been enforced. Spain, which had been hasty in recognising the independence of the United States, could not ask us to defeat rebellion in her own colonies. Those colonies had, in fact, been first instigated by us to revolt. The regulation, professing to be impartial, would only operate in reality against one of the parties; and with that party all our commercial interests were connected.

XIV.

It is impossible to look back to these years, and to consider the conduct of Mr. Canning without deep regret. The most eloquent and plausible defences of the un-English policy which prevailed were made by him. In his speech in favour of the Seditious Meetings Bill (Feb. 24, 1817), may be seen wit supplying the place of argument; argument rendered attractive by the graces of rhetoric, and forcible by the appearance of passion. He had now, indeed, nearly attained the perfection of his own style, a style which, as it has been said, united the three excellences of--rapidity, polish, and ornament; and it was the first of these qualities, let it be repeated, which, though perhaps the least perceivable of his merits, was the greatest.

“What is the nature of this danger? Why, sir, the danger to be apprehended is not to be defined in one word. It is rebellion; it is treason, but not treason merely; it is confiscation, but not confiscation within such bounds as have usually been applied to the changes of dynasties, or the revolution of states; it is an aggregate of all these evils; it is that dreadful variety of sorrow and suffering which must invariably follow the extinction of loyalty, morality, and religion; the subversion, not only of the constitution of England, but of the whole frame of society. Such is the nature and extent of the danger which would attend the success of the projects developed in the report of the committee. But these projects would never have been of importance, it is affirmed, had they not been brought into notice by persecution. Persecution! Does this character belong to the proceedings instituted against those who set out on their career in opposition to all law; and who, in their secret cabals, and midnight counsels, and mid-day harangues, have been voting for destruction of every individual, and every class of individuals, which may stand in their way? But the schemes of these persons are visionary. I admit it. They have been laid by these twenty years without being found to produce mischief. Be it so. Such doctrines when dormant may be harmless enough, and their intrinsic absurdity may make it appear incredible that they should ever be called up into action. But when the incredible resurrection actually takes place, when the votaries of these doctrines actually go forth armed to exert physical strength in furtherance of them, then it is that I think it time to be on my guard--not against the accomplishment of such plans (that is, I am willing to believe, impracticable), but against the mischief which must attend the attempt to accomplish them by force.”

Throughout the whole of this passage it can hardly be said that there is a full stop. However studiously framed, not a period lingers; a rush of sentences gives the audience no time to pause. Abruptly framed, rapidly delivered, the phrases which may have been for hours premeditated in the Cabinet, could not, in the moment of delivery, have the least appearance of art. The oratory of Mr. Canning was also remarkable for a kind of figurative way of stating common-places, which good taste may not approve, but which, nevertheless, is well calculated to strike and inflame a popular assembly.

“The honourable gentleman,” Mr. Canning says of Mr. Calcraft (March 14, 1817), “attempts to ridicule these proceedings. He is in truth rather hard to be satisfied on the score of rebellion; to him it is not sufficient that the town had been summoned [N.B. it had been summoned by _one_ man], it ought to have been taken; the metropolis should not merely have been attacked, but in flames. He is so difficult in regard to proof that he would continue to doubt until all the mischief was not only certain but irreparable. For my part, however, I am satisfied when I hear the trumpet of rebellion sounded; I do not think it necessary to wait the actual onset before I put myself on my guard. I am content to take my precautions when I see the torch of the incendiary lighted, without waiting till the Bank and the Mansion House are blazing to the sky.”

XV.

But if there was much of eloquence, there was more of sophistry, in these pointed and painted harangues. The designs on foot were represented as so formidable that they required the utmost rigour to suppress them; and yet they were the designs of a few, of a very few, against whom millions were arrayed. These few were to be struck down at all hazards and by all means, in order that the millions might be in security. The anti-revolutionary statesman was simply borrowing from the revolutionary apostle. “What are a few aristocrats,” would Danton say, “to the safety of a nation? Strike! strike! It is only terror that can save the Republic!” For such principles, destructive of all liberty, peace, and order, every just man must entertain the deepest horror; and the dark shadow of those days still hangs over the party to whose excesses they are attributable, and obscures this part of the career of the statesman who defended them.

I do not, however, think that Mr. Canning acted on the cool systematic calculation by which I do think Lord Castlereagh might have been guided. Looking at all affairs with the excitable disposition of the poet and the orator, and having his attention more called by his office to the affairs of India than to those at home, it is not improbable that he allowed himself to be carried into the belief of dangers which the Government he belonged to had in a certain degree created, and in an enormous degree exaggerated; whilst the manner in which even calm and sensible men had their heads confused and their judgment biassed by the alarming reports put in circulation, and the constant arrests that were taking place, reacted upon the Government itself, and made it fancy that the fictions reflected from its fear were truths established by facts. At all events, whatever were the real opinions and convictions of Mr. Canning, as he was the most eloquent supporter of the policy in vogue, he gathered round himself the greatest portion of the unpopularity that attended it. Nor, though he assumed the air of defying this unpopularity, was he pleased with it.

XVI.

The very bitterness, indeed, which he manifested towards his opponents at this time, shows that he was ill at ease with himself. Linked with a set of men whom in general he despised, and by whom he was in a certain degree mistrusted, and accused, as he well knew, of accepting this alliance merely for the love of “office,” which the vulgar made to signify the mere “emoluments of place;”--possessing a mind, which, elevated by education, was inclined to liberality; careless of the praise of the fanatics of his own party, and careless also of the applause of those timorous spirits amongst the nation with whom he could feel no sympathy;--knowing he was detested by the great masses of the people, whose applause he could not with his temperament refrain from coveting;--knowing also that though supported by the love and admiration of a few able friends, he was confided in by no great political party, and that even if his duties imposed on him the necessity of struggling against existing difficulties, those difficulties might have been avoided or palliated by a more conciliatory and prudent policy; writhing under all these circumstances and agitated by all these feelings,--this able, ambitious, and excitable man may now be seen listening with ears almost greedy of a quarrel, for reproaches he could retort, and insults he could avenge. Mr. Hume, not very cautious in these matters, was called to account: Sir Francis Burdett, who had spoken disrespectfully, was made to explain; while to the author of an anonymous libel, in which the style and invectives of “Junius” were copied with doubtful success, was sent a note, eminently characteristic of the galled feelings and gallant spirit of the writer:

“SIR,

“I received early in the last week the copy of your pamphlet,
which you, I take for granted, had the attention to have
forwarded to me. Soon after I was informed, on the authority of
your publisher, that you have withdrawn the whole impression
from him, with the view (as was supposed) of suppressing
the publication. I since learn, however, that the pamphlet,
though not sold, is circulated under blank covers. I learn
this from (among others) the gentleman to whom the pamphlet
is industriously attributed, but who has voluntarily and
absolutely denied to me that he has any knowledge of it or its
author.

“To you, sir, whoever you may be, I address myself thus
directly for the purpose of expressing my opinion that _you
are a liar and a slanderer, and want courage only to be an
assassin_. I have only to add that no man knows of my writing
to you, and that I shall maintain the same reserve as long as I
have an expectation of hearing from you in your own name.”

To this letter there was no reply.

XVII.

During the eventful years over which this narrative has been rapidly gliding, the Heiress to the crown, who had already possessed herself of the affections of the British people, had expired (it was in Nov. 1817); and in 1820, as the Ministers, fatigued by their laborious efforts to excite alarm, began to allow the nation to recover its tranquillity, George III. (two years after his young and blooming grandchild) died also. The new King’s hatred, and Queen Caroline’s temper, rendering a more decent and moderate course impossible, occasioned the unhappy trial which scandalized Europe.

Nor was the question at issue merely a question involving the Queen’s innocence or guilt. The people, comparatively calm, as well on account of the recent improvement in trade, as in consequence of the cessation of that system of conspiracy-making or finding, which had so long kept them in a state of harassed irritation, were still for the main part thoroughly disgusted with the exhibition of fear, feebleness, and violence which, under the name of Lord Liverpool, and through the influence of Lord Castlereagh, had for the last three years been displayed. They detested the ministers of the Crown, and they were alienated from the Crown itself, which had been perpetually arrayed against them in prosecutions and almost as often stigmatised by defeat.

It was thus that Queen Caroline appeared as a new victim--as another person to be illegally assailed by the forms of law, and unjustly dealt with in the name of justice. Besides, she was a woman, and the daughter of a Royal house, and the mother of that ill-fated princess, whose early death the nation still deeply mourned. The people, then, took up her cause as their own, and rallied at once round a new banner against their old enemies.

On the other hand, the Government, urged by the wounded pride and uncontrollable anger of the Sovereign, consented to bring the unfortunate lady he denounced before a public tribunal, and were thus committed to a desperate career, of which it was impossible to predict the result.

Mr. Canning had long been the unhappy Queen’s intimate friend; but in adopting her cause, he must, as we have been showing, have adopted her party--the party of discontent, the party of reform--a party against which he had, during the last few years, been fiercely struggling. Here, as far as the public can judge from the information before it, lies the only excuse or explanation of his conduct; for it was hardly sufficient to retire (as he did) from any share in the proceedings against a friend and a woman, in whose innocence he said that he believed, when her honour and life were assailed by the most powerful adversaries, and by charges of the most degrading character.

He refused, it is true, to be her active accuser; but neither was he her active defender. He remained silent at home or stayed abroad during the time of the prosecution, and resigned office when, that prosecution being dropped, the Cabinet had to justify its proceedings.

The following letter to a constituent contains the account he thought it necessary to give of his conduct:

“Tuddenham, Norfolk, Dec. 22, 1820.

“MY DEAR SIR,

“I left town on Wednesday, a few minutes after I had written
to you, not thinking I should be quite so soon set at liberty
to make you the communication promised in my letter of that
morning. I had hitherto forborne to make the communication,
in order that I might not in any way embarrass others by a
premature disclosure; and I sincerely expected in return due
notice of the time when it might suit them that the disclosure
should be made. I have no doubt that the omission of such
notice has been a mere oversight. I regret it only as it has
prevented me from anticipating with you, and the rest of my
friends at Liverpool, the announcement in a newspaper of an
event in which I know your kind partiality will induce you to
feel a lively interest. The facts stated in the _Courier_ of
Wednesday evening, are stated in substance correctly. I have
resigned my office. My motive for separating myself from the
Government (however reluctantly at a conjuncture like the
present) is to be found solely in the proceedings and pending
discussions respecting the Queen. There is (as the _Courier_
justly assumes) but this one point of difference between
my colleagues and myself. Those who may have done me the
honour to observe my conduct in this unhappy affair from the
beginning, will recollect that on the first occasion on which
it was brought forward in the House of Commons, I declared
my determination to take as little part as possible in any
subsequent stage of the proceedings. The declaration was made
advisedly. It was made, not only after full communication
with my colleagues, but as an alternative suggested on their
part for my then retirement from the Administration. So long
as there was a hope of amicable adjustment, my continuance in
the Administration might possibly be advantageous; that hope
was finally extinguished by the failure of Mr. Wilberforce’s
address. On the same day on which the Queen’s answer to that
address was received by the House of Commons, I asked an
audience of the King, and at that audience (which I obtained
the following day) after respectfully repeating to his Majesty
the declaration which I had made a fortnight before in the
House of Commons, and stating the impossibility of my departing
from it, I felt it my duty humbly to lay at his Majesty’s feet
the tender of my resignation. The King, with a generosity which
I can never sufficiently acknowledge, commanded me to remain in
his service, abstaining as completely as I might think fit from
any share in the proceedings respecting the Queen, and gave
me full authority to plead his Majesty’s express command for
so continuing in office. No occasion subsequently occurred in
Parliament (at least no adequate occasion) for availing myself
of the use of this authority, and I should have thought myself
inexcusable in seeking an occasion for the purpose; but from
the moment of my receiving his Majesty’s gracious commands, I
abstained entirely from all interference on the subject of the
Queen’s affairs. I did not attend any meetings of the Cabinet
upon that subject; I had no share whatever in preparing or
approving the Bill of Pains and Penalties. I was (as you know)
absent from England during the whole progress of the bill, and
returned only after it had been withdrawn.

“The new state in which I found the proceedings upon my return
to England, required the most serious consideration; it was one
to which I could not conceive the King’s command in June to be
applicable. For a minister to absent himself altogether from
the expected discussions in the House of Commons, intermixed
as they were likely to be with the general business of the
session, appeared to me to be quite impossible. To be present
as a minister, taking no part in these discussions, could only
be productive of embarrassment to myself, and of perplexity to
my colleagues; to take any part in them was now, as always, out
of the question.

“From these difficulties I saw no remedy except in the humble
but earnest renewal to my Sovereign of the tender of my
resignation, which has been as graciously accepted, as it was
in the former instance indulgently declined.

“If some weeks have elapsed since my return to England, before
I could arrive at this practical result, the interval has been
chiefly employed in reconciling, or endeavouring to reconcile,
my colleagues to a step taken by me in a spirit of the most
perfect amity, and tending (in my judgment) as much to their
relief as to my own.

“It remains for me only to add that having purchased, by the
surrender of my office, the liberty of continuing to act
in consistency with my original declaration, it is now my
intention (but an intention perfectly gratuitous, and one which
I hold myself completely free to vary, if I shall at any time
see occasion for so doing) to be absent from England again
until the agitation of this calamitous affair shall be at an
end.

“I am, Sir, &c.,

“GEORGE CANNING.”

Thus in the years 1821-22, Mr. Canning took little part in the business of the House of Commons, residing occasionally near Bordeaux or in Paris.

He came to England, however, to speak on Mr. Plunkett’s motion for a committee to consider the Catholic claims (February 28, 1821), and in 1822 also he made two memorable speeches--one on Lord John Russell’s motion for Parliamentary Reform, and another in support of his own proposition to admit Catholic peers into the House of Lords.

These last speeches were made in the expectancy of his speedy departure from England; the Directors of the East India Company, in testimony of their appreciation of the zeal and intelligence with which he had discharged his duties as President of the Board of Control, having selected him as Governor-General of India, a situation which he had accepted.