Chapter III: Appendix: Great Precedence Question 287 (2)

Such were the conditions of this attack; and such the forces with which Napoleon expected “to conquer the world in London;” and his letters to Soult, to Bruix, to Déeres must convince the reader that he was in earnest in his scheme of “planting the tricolour on the Tower.” The problem for Napoleon to solve was how to transport across the Channel an army of 150,000 men, with horses, cannon, baggage, and equipments, in spite of the naval superiority of England. In these first preparations we must allow he succeeded beyond our worst expectations. Within fourteen months from the commencement of the war he had gathered within ten leagues of our coast, and had placed beyond the power of attack, a flotilla mounting 2000 guns, and able to transport his superb army, which, though numbering 150,000 men, could embark in less than a single tide, and were fully trained for a naval encounter.

So far, at least, as regards the Government, it must be confessed that our preparations to meet this attack were unequal to the danger. In the Channel especially--the point menaced--the naval arrangements made by the Admiralty were very faulty and even ridiculous. Such a Power as England should never have allowed the flotilla to assemble at Boulogne at all; and when it had assembled it should have been assailed by a mass of gunboats and light vessels, which we might have sent out in enormous numbers. Yet the Admiralty persisted in encountering the flotilla with 18 and 12-pounder frigates, which drew too much water to close the shore, and, at long range, were no match for their powerfully armed, though small antagonists; the result was that on no occasion were we able to damage the enemy seriously, and that on some we suffered severely.

In England as well as in France it was thought that the flotilla was to risk the passage unaided, its heavy armament suggesting the notion that Napoleon believed it a match for our fleet in the narrow strait between Dover and Calais. We now know, however, that this was an error, and that Napoleon never intended to embark unless supported by a covering squadron, which, having for a time the command of the Channel, would completely protect the flotilla and the army. In order to have the mastery of the Channel for the forty-eight hours required for the transit, the problem was so to manœuvre his fleets as to bring a superior force off Boulogne, in spite of the numerous English squadrons which watched or blockaded them in all their harbours. He devised a twofold scheme for this end, adapted to the circumstances of the seaboard, and which experience proved to be feasible.

This volume, however, proves sufficiently that, brilliant as were Napoleon’s designs, he could not inspire Villeneuve and Ganteaume with the daring energy of Nelson and Cochrane, or make British seamen of his sailors. The want of discipline, the timidity, and the inexperience, of which there are proofs, explain how Napoleon’s deep-laid designs were brought to an end on the day of Trafalgar.

However, in 1805, Napoleon renewed his invasion scheme, the details of which he thus narrates in the 11th volume of his _Correspondance_, 1863:

“I wished to bring together forty or fifty sail of the line
by operating their junction from Toulon, Cadiz, Ferrol, and
Brest; to move them all together to Boulogne; to be there for a
fortnight master of the Channel; to have 150,000 men and 10,000
horses encamped on the coast, with a flotilla of nearly 4000
vessels, and then, upon the arrival of my fleet, to embark for
England and seize London.... To secure a prospect of success
it was necessary to collect 150,000 men at Boulogne, with the
flotilla, and an immense materiel, to embark the whole, yet
to conceal my plan. I accomplished this though it appeared
impossible, and I did so by reversing what seemed probable.”

Thus, in the spring of 1805 Napoleon collected within ten leagues of our shores a flotilla of nearly 4000 vessels, which, moored under the batteries of Boulogne, and armed with very heavy cannon, had long repelled our attempts to destroy them. Encamped around lay the veteran legions which had been selected for the descent, and had been trained with such care to embark and expedite the passage, that Napoleon writes, “150,000 men with a due proportion of guns and horses could within four tides effect a landing.”

His plan was marked with much ingenuity. The aspect of an armed flotilla induced our Admiralty to think that Napoleon relied on it alone to cross; and they felt assured that when at sea, three or four ships would suffice to destroy it. Accordingly, our Channel fleet was reduced to a force of not more than six sail; and the mass of the British Navy was employed either in blockading the enemy’s squadrons or in distant expeditions on the ocean. Could, therefore, one of the blockaded fleets effect its junction with another, and penetrate into the unguarded Channel, a temporary ascendancy at sea might be gained, under cover of which the flotilla could cross and ferry over the French army.

It is only in this volume that we see how nearly Napoleon’s design succeeded so far as regards the descent, and also what were the causes of its failure. Whatever we may think of his project as a whole, it must be allowed that in August, 1805, when Villeneuve put to sea from Ferrol, the Emperor had good reason to expect that his Admirals would fulfil their mission:--

“The squadrons of Nelson and Calder have joined the fleet off
Brest, _and Cornwallis has been foolish enough to send twenty
sail to blockade the French fleet off Ferrol. On the 17th of
August--that is, three days after our squadron left Ferrol,
Calder left Brest for Ferrol with a northerly wind._ What a
chance was there for Villeneuve! _He could either, by keeping a
wide offing, avoid Calder, reach Brest, and fall upon Cornwallis,
or with his thirty sail-of-the-line beat Calder’s twenty, and
acquire a decided preponderance._ So much for the English, whose
combinations are so talked of.”

In England the Whigs laughed at the idea of the invasion as a ministerial bugbear. “Can anything equal,” says Lord Grenville in 1804, “the ridicule of Pitt riding about from Downing-street to Wimbledon, and from Wimbledon to Cox-heath, to inspect military carriages, impregnable batteries, and Lord Chatham’s reviews? Can he possibly be serious in expecting Bonaparte now?” So also wrote Fox a year afterwards--“The alarm of invasion here was most certainly a groundless one, and raised for some political purpose by the Ministers.” Whatever the Whigs might then think, there is no doubt now as to Bonaparte’s intentions. “Let us be masters of the Channel for six hours, and we are masters of the world,” are his famous words. His design to invade this country was never relinquished, was cherished as the darling scheme of his life, until within a month or two before Pitt’s death, when the battle of Trafalgar destroyed his hopes for ever.--_Selected and abridged from reviews in the Times._

_Fate of the Duc d’Enghien._

While the First Consul was meditating the descent upon England, in 1804, his life and government were imperilled by the conspiracy of Georges, Moreau, and Pichegru. The Duc d’Enghien, as is well known, was the innocent victim of this affair, having been arrested on neutral territory, and shot in a ditch, without a trial, in order to strike the Bourbons with terror. While the printed account shows that the plot was a formidable one, that the death of Napoleon and a counter-revolution were really not remote contingencies, and that there were some slight grounds to suspect an intrigue between Dumouriez and the Duke, it also impliedly acquits that Prince of any share in the main conspiracy, and throws the guilt of his cruel fate exclusively on the First Consul. From the list of charges against the Duke, entirely in Napoleon’s writing, it is plain that he did not possess any proofs, sufficient even for the tribunal of Vincennes to convict the prisoner of a design against his life.

These monstrous charges speak for themselves, and accord well with the midnight dungeon, the irresponsible conclave, the undefended prisoner, and the grave dug before the trial for the victim! Moreover, the volume of Napoleon’s _Correspondance_ in which these details are given, has not a trace of the alleged over-rapidity of Savary, of the suppression of the Prince’s letter by Talleyrand, of the order said to have been given to Real to suspend the execution after the sentence, and to await the result of a regular examination--of the hundred and one excuses, in short, which have been urged for Napoleon by his apologists. On the contrary, from the following letter we infer that he wished to avoid discussion about a purpose already determined, and that he feared lest public opinion should condemn his design on the Duc d’Enghien. It is addressed to the Commandant of Vincennes:--

“A person, whose name is to remain unknown, will be brought to
the fortress confided to your care; you are to put him in a
vacant cell, and to take every precaution for his safe keeping.
The intention of the Government is to _keep all proceedings
concerning him most secret_. No question is to be put to him as
to who he is, or why he is detained. Even you are not to know who
the prisoner is. No one is to communicate with him but yourself;
no one else is to see him until fresh orders. He will probably
arrive this night.”

Napoleon’s Government, though very despotic, was not, however, usually cruel; and this great crime which, perhaps, was caused by the haunting dread of an assassin’s arm, was an exception to its general tenor.--_Times review._

_Last Moments of Mr. Pitt._

The news of Austerlitz was the last blow which killed Pitt. The gout, which had hitherto confined its attacks to his extremities, assailed some vital organ. He was not without hopes of getting better. Lord Wellesley found him in high spirits, though before the interview was over Pitt fainted in his presence. His last moments are described by the Hon. James Stanhope, who was present in the room when he died; so that at last we seem to have authentic information of a scene which has hitherto been very imperfectly described. “I remained the whole of Wednesday night with Mr. Pitt,” says Mr. Stanhope in a paper drawn up by him, and of which Earl Stanhope has availed himself in his _Life of Pitt_. “His mind seemed fixed on the affairs of the country, and he expressed his thoughts aloud, though sometimes incoherently. He spoke a good deal concerning a private letter from Lord Harrowby, and frequently inquired the direction of the wind; then said, answering himself, ‘East; ah! that will do; that will bring him quick.’ At other times he seemed to be in conversation with a messenger, and sometimes cried out ‘Hear, hear,’ as if in the House of Commons. During the time he did not speak he moaned considerably, crying, ‘Oh, dear! Oh, Lord!’ Towards twelve the rattles came in his throat, and proclaimed approaching dissolution.... At about half-past two he ceased moaning.... I feared he was dying; but shortly afterwards, with a much clearer voice than he spoke in before, and in a tone I never shall forget, ‘Oh, my country! how I leave my country!’ [referring, as it was natural for him to do, to the disastrous state of the continental war produced by the battle of Austerlitz.] From that time he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groan or struggle,” 23rd January, 1806. He received the Sacrament from the Bishop of Lincoln. Mr. Pitt gave his watch to his servant, who handed it over to Mr. Dundas, M.P., more than twenty years after Mr. Pitt’s death. That watch, a mourning-ring, and box containing the hair, were bequeathed to the Rt. Hon. R. N. Hamilton; and the watch is now preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, at Cambridge.

“Pitt is the most forgiving and easy-tempered of men,” says Lord Malmesbury. “He is the most upright political character I ever knew or heard of,” says Wilberforce. “I never once saw him out of temper,” says George Rose. One day, when the conversation turned upon the quality most needed in a Prime Minister, and one said “Eloquence,” another “Knowledge,” and a third “Toil,” Pitt said, “No; Patience.” It was an answer worthy of the great statesman, and recalls that of Newton, who said that he owed his splendid discoveries to the power of fixed attention. Pitt was wonderfully patient, and this which is commonly regarded as a slow virtue he combined with uncommon readiness and rapidity of thought. “What an extraordinary man Pitt is!” said Adam Smith; “he makes me understand my own ideas better than before.” The Marquis Wellesley has left this character of Pitt--a man of princely hospitality and amiable nature:

“In all places, and at all times, his constant delight was
society. There he shone with a degree of calm and steady lustre
which often astonished me more than his most splendid efforts
in Parliament. His manners were perfectly plain, without any
affectation; not only was he without presumption or arrogance, or
any air of authority, but he seemed utterly unconscious of his
own superiority, and much more disposed to listen than to talk.
He never betrayed any symptom of anxiety to usurp the lead or to
display his own powers, but rather inclined to draw forth others,
and to take merely an equal share in the general conversation:
then he plunged heedlessly into the mirth of the hour, with no
other care than to promote the general good humour and happiness
of the company. His wit was quick and ready, but it was rather
lively than sharp, and never envenomed with the least taint of
malignity; so that, instead of exciting admiration or terror,
it was an additional ingredient in the common enjoyment. He was
endowed, beyond any man of his time whom I knew, with a gay and
social heart. With these qualities, he was the life and soul of
his own society; his appearance dispelled all care; his brow
was never clouded, even in the severest public trials; and joy,
and hope, and confidence, beamed from his countenance in every
crisis of difficulty and danger.”--_Communicated to the Quarterly
Review._

This was “the Heaven-born Minister.” This was “the pilot to weather the storm.” This is he who stands forth as the greatest of our statesmen, and the story of whose life, as fitly told by Lord Stanhope, will have undying interest throughout the world.

Who would have supposed forty years ago that a day was coming when a Frenchman would unhesitatingly write the apology--we had almost said the panegyric--of William Pitt--_ce Pitt_, as the members of the Jacobin Club used to call him? And yet such is the case. By way of preface to a translation of Lord Stanhope’s last work, M. Guizot has given a very good estimate both of the political relation in which England stands to France, and also of the character of the great British statesman. He conclusively shows that Pitt was positively opposed to a war with France, and did all he could to prevent the inevitable catastrophe.

_What drove George the Third mad._

How strange is it to find, upon a close examination of the biography of Mr. Pitt, that early in the present century, the _mention_ of the measure which twenty-eight years later became the law of the land, had the effect of disturbing the reason of the Sovereign: yet so it was. “Pitt had become in a manner pledged on the union of the Irish with the British Legislature to provide for what has since been called the Emancipation of the Catholics. The probability is, that from the first he had underrated the King’s repugnance to the measure; but it has been suggested that had there been no treachery in the camp, and had he been the first to broach the subject to George III., he might have had his own way, and carried the acquiescence of the King. As it was, Lord Loughborough had, contrary to all rule, made the King aware of Pitt’s intentions, and had, for his own selfish purposes, sought to strengthen His Majesty in a most absurd view of his duty. So it happened that instead of Pitt breaking the subject to the King, the King, in a fit of impatience, breaks out upon Dundas. Referring to Lord Castlereagh, who had recently come from Dublin, he said, “What is it that this young lord has brought over which they are going to throw at my head?... The most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of! I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes any such measure.” “Your Majesty,” replied Dundas, “will find among those who are friendly to that measure some whom you never supposed to be your enemies.” The time for action had evidently come: it was necessary for Pitt to break the silence; he wrote to the King explaining his views, and pointing out that if they were not acceptable it would be necessary for him to resign. Pitt did resign; his successor was appointed, but before the formal transfer of office could take place, the King went mad, and it was this Catholic question that drove him mad. He recovered in a fortnight and told his physician to write to Pitt, “Tell him I am now quite well--quite recovered from my illness; but what has _he_ not to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all?” Pitt was deeply touched, and at once conveyed an assurance to the King through the same physician that never again during the King’s reign would he bring forward the Catholic question. Previous to that illness, Pitt had two clear alternatives before him--“Either I shall relieve the Catholics, or I shall resign,”--and he resigned accordingly. But after the illness all was changed. Any one attempting to relieve the Catholics would incur the risk of the King’s derangement. There was but a choice of evils, and it was natural that Pitt should regard it as the lesser evil to postpone indefinitely the settlement of the Catholic claims, which, nevertheless, he regarded as of the utmost importance.”--_Times review._

The Rt. Hon. George Rose, when Secretary of the Treasury, had frequent conversations with George III., whom he occasionally received at his house at Cuffnells. Evidently the King took the lion’s share in every dialogue. His remarks and his gossip must have been often amusing, and not always uninstructive. He invariably turned the conversation to personal subjects, and he commented freely on the numerous politicians whom he had in his time employed and baffled. He had a peculiar dislike to Lord Melville, he resented Lord Grenville’s pride, and he accurately described Lord Auckland as an inveterate intriguer. Of himself he said that he seldom forgot and never forgave, but that he always tried to believe the best of every man until he had proved his demerit. Many, he added, improved when they found that they had received more than justice; but it never occurred to him that his own opinion might not form an accurate and sufficient standard of merit.

During the latter part of the time, George III., notwithstanding the continuance of some delusions, was perfectly competent to understand the state of affairs, and there was every reason to suppose that he would become convalescent before his son could take his seat as Regent. For the remainder of his reign, his Ministers and his subjects regarded his occasional insanity as one of the ordinary contingencies of the Constitution. Mr. Pitt, during his second Administration, sometimes obtained from the physicians a written certificate of the King’s competence before he entered his presence for the transaction of business.

_Predictions of the Downfal of Napoleon I._

Brialmont and Gleig, in their _Memoirs of Wellington_, relate--Mr. Pitt received, during dinner, when Sir Arthur Wellesley and other eminent persons were present, intelligence of the capitulation of Mack, at Ulm, and the march of the Emperor upon Vienna. One of the friends of the Prime Minister, on hearing of the reverse, exclaimed, “All is lost! there are no other means of opposing Napoleon.” “You are mistaken,” said Pitt, “there is yet hope, if I can succeed in stirring up a national war in Europe--a war which ought to begin in Spain. Yes, gentlemen, Spain will be the first nation in which that war of patriotism shall be lighted up which can alone deliver Europe.”

At a moment when the prestige of the Empire was accepted everywhere, Wellington not only expressed doubts as to the stability of that edifice, which seemed as if it must endure for ages, but pointed out distinctly the causes which must operate to throw it down, and the means by which its fall might be hastened. From that hour, whilst prosecuting the war in Spain, he took care as much as possible, to regulate his own proceedings according to the general state of Europe. Something told him that the little army on the Mondego had a mighty part to play in the sanguinary drama which agitated the world; and that not the fate of the Peninsula alone was at stake, nor yet the question of England’s supremacy, but the independence and liberty of all nations, menaced by the ambition of one man.

In December, 1811, Wellington wrote to Lord William Bentinck: “I have long considered it probable that we shall see a general resistance throughout Europe to the horrible and base tyranny of Bonaparte, and that we shall be called upon to play a leading part in the drama, as counsellors as well as actors.”

In a letter to Lord Liverpool, in 1811, Wellington wrote: “I am convinced, that if we can only hold out a little longer, we shall see the world emancipated.” And to Dumouriez, July, 1811: “It is impossible that Europe can much longer submit to the debasing tyranny which oppresses it.”

Brialmont and Gleig summarily observe: “It may truly be said that the Duke foretold in succession, the final success of the war in Spain--the influence which that war would exercise over public opinion in other nations--_the general rising of Europe against Bonaparte_--the fall of the Empire--the disastrous campaign in Russia--and the awakening of the public spirit in Germany.”

When, in 1807, Haydon dined with Sir George and Lady Beaumont, he met there Humphry Davy, who was very entertaining, and made a remark which turned out a singularly successful prophecy; he said, “Napoleon will certainly come in contact with Russia, by pressing forward in Poland, and _there_, probably, will begin his destruction.” This was said five years before it happened.

Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby, first raised Haydon’s enthusiasm for Wellington by saying, one day, at table, “If you live to see it, he will be a second Marlborough.”

_Wellington predicts the Peninsular Campaign._

The following is illustrative of the prophetic perception of Wellington at the outset of the contest:--“He dined in Harley-street one day in June, 1808, just before he set out in command of the expedition which was assembling in Cork harbour. The ladies had withdrawn, and he sat _tête-à-tête_ with his host, and was silent. On being asked what he was thinking of, he replied, ’To tell you the truth, I was thinking of the French whom I am going to fight. I have never seen them since the campaign in Flanders, when they were already capital soldiers; and a dozen years of successes must have made them still better. _They have beaten all the world, and are supposed to be invincible. They have besides, it seems, a new system, which has out-manœuvred and overwhelmed all the armies of Europe. But no matter, my die is cast. They may overwhelm, but I do not think they will out-manœuvre me. In the first place, I am not afraid of them, as everybody else seems to be; and secondly, if what I hear of their system of manœuvres be true, I think it a false one against troops steady enough--as I hope mine are--to receive them with the bayonet._ I suspect that all the continental armies were more than half beaten before the battle began. I, at least, will not be frightened beforehand.’”

_The Battle of Waterloo._

M. Thiers, in the 20th volume of his _Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire_, presents to his reader a tissue of intellectual illusions in his extraordinary account of the last struggle of Napoleon in Belgium. Common sense and history agree that that effort bears many traces of his hero’s genius, though marked by one characteristic mistake, and that it was baffled by the ability of his antagonists, who crushed him at last by superior numbers. This volume, however, has been written to prove that in every move in this famous contest Napoleon was an infallible commander; that victory must have crowned his standards had his inspiration been only understood; and that his final overthrow was due, not to Wellington’s skill or Blucher’s daring--not to British heroism or Prussian valour, but to the errors and fears of his subordinates. Deserting the region of fact and circumstance, M. Thiers leads us into a dream-land, where the Emperor, like a strategic Providence, holds his puny foes in the hollow of his hand, and predestinates his legions to conquest--where the French army performs prodigies beyond the energies of mortal men--where but for Ney, D’Erlon, and Grouchy, the downfal of its adversaries was certain--and where the inability of these satellites to launch the bolts of military fate was the only cause of the final issue. The above and the following remarks are from _The Times_ review,--

Why the issue of this campaign was so different from that of many of its splendid forerunners may be accounted for with perfect certainty. The Duke and Blucher were different men, of greater ability, and better united than the Generals of any previous coalition, and the large majority of their troops were capable of heroic exertions. The Duke was not the man to allow an accident of time to ruin an ally, and at the crisis of the campaign, on the 16th, he baffled the Emperor by his tactical skill and the intrepidity of his British infantry. Of the subsequent moves by which he won the greatest battle of modern times, it is enough to say that they defy criticism, while the heroism of two-thirds of his army has not been surpassed in military annals. As for the Prussian troops, their stand at Ligny and their subsequent rally and advance to Waterloo, are worthy of the highest commendation; and Blucher’s celebrated march from Wavre is said to have wrung from Napoleon himself the admission that “it was a flash of genius.” It was this combination of talent and valour, unlike anything he had encountered before, that brought the superior numbers of the allies to bear upon Napoleon at last, and involved him and his army in ruin.

As for the armies that met in this bloody strife, we Englishmen think it enough to say that, except the Belgian and Nassau levies, they all did their duty like soldiers. The weak falsetto of M. Thiers detracts from the manhood of that dauntless cavalry “who rode round our squares like their own,” and from the renown of that veteran infantry “who bore nine rounds before they staggered.” Nor will the heroism of Ligny be forgotten, nor the glory of England at Waterloo fade, because an historian chooses to write that the Prussian army “was well beaten,” and that the “English, excellent in defence, are very mediocre on the offensive.” At this time, surely, a French historian might describe the campaign of 1815 with a candid regard to truth alone, and without pandering to the ignoble worship of military despotism.

_Wellington’s Defence of the Waterloo Campaign._

Wellington would never have fought at Waterloo unless certain of the aid of Blucher; it is idle, therefore, to speculate on the chance of what the event of the day might have been had this support been unexpectedly wanting. French writers assert that he must have been crushed; but the Duke held a different opinion. The Rev. Mr. Gleig tells us that--

“After dinner the conversation turned on the Waterloo campaign, when Croker alluded to the criticisms of the French military writers, some of whom contended that the Duke had fought the battle in a position full of difficulty, because he had no practicable retreat. The Duke said: ‘At all events, they failed in putting it to the test. The road to Brussels was practicable every yard for such a purpose. I knew every foot of the ground beyond the forest and through it. The forest on each side of the chaussée was open enough for infantry, cavalry, and even for artillery, and very defensible. Had I retreated through it, could they have followed me? The Prussians were on their flank, and would have been on their rear. _The co-operation of the Prussians in the operations I undertook was part of my plan, and I was not deceived. But I never contemplated a retreat on Brussels. Had I been forced from my position, I should have retreated to my right, towards the coast, the shipping, and my resources. I had placed Hill where he could have lent me important assistance in many contingencies, and that might have been one._ And, again, I ask, if I had retreated on my right, would Napoleon have ventured to have followed me? The Prussians, already on his flank, would have been on his rear. _But my plan was to keep my ground till the Prussians appeared, and then to attack the French position; and I executed my plan._’”

It matters little whether it be a pleasing tradition or an historical fact, but it was commonly said that after the Peace, which crowned the immortal services of the Duke of Wellington, that great general, on seeing the playing-fields at Eton, said, there had been won the crowning victory of Waterloo.

_Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna._

By the publication of the _Supplementary Despatches of the Duke of Wellington_, vol. ix., the reputation of Lord Castlereagh will profit by such of his letters as had not appeared before. A writer in the _Saturday Review_ remarks:--

“Contemporaries saw that many small States were crushed by the arrangements of Vienna, and that one or two of the larger monarchies, especially that of Russia, were sensibly strengthened. Therefore they concluded that the aim and end of the Congress of Vienna was to aggrandise the greater monarchies, and that the English Minister, biassed by political prejudices or dazzled by royal condescension, had unworthily lent himself to the accomplishment of that object. As the confidential correspondence of that period makes its appearance bit by bit, we are learning to form a juster estimate of what Lord Castlereagh effected at the Congress. It is hard to set limits to the evils which would have been the result of greater facility or less caution on the part of the English plenipotentiary. That Alexander would, but for Lord Castlereagh’s obstinate resistance, have absorbed the whole of Poland into the Russian empire, and that Prussia would have indemnified herself by the annexation of the whole of Saxony, appears certain; and that France and Austria would have plunged Europe back into war, in their efforts to resist, seems not improbable. The greediness of the Powers who had met to divide the spoil threatened incessantly to bring them into collision; and it was on Lord Castlereagh that the ungracious task of moderating their extravagant pretensions fell. If he had failed, and the Congress had come to the abrupt and angry close which seemed more than once inevitable, Napoleon’s return would have been safe and easy. It was hard, but it was unavoidable, that those who only saw the result in a considerable accession to Alexander’s frontier, should have accused Lord Castlereagh of being his tool, when he had been, in reality, resisting Alexander’s pretensions up to the very brink of war.”

This late justice to the eminent diplomatic services of Lord Castlereagh, reaches us some forty years after his death; thus giving the lie to the coarse and unfeeling ribaldry of the so-called “Liberal,” upon the awful termination of the statesman’s life.

_The Cato-street Conspiracy._

Early in the year 1820--a period of popular discontent--a set of desperate men banded themselves together with a view to effect a revolution by sanguinary means, almost as complete in its plan of extermination as the Gunpowder Plot. The leader was one Arthur Thistlewood, who had been a soldier, had been involved in a trial for sedition, but acquitted, and had afterwards suffered a year’s imprisonment for sending a challenge to the minister, Lord Sidmouth. Thistlewood was joined by several other Radicals, and their meetings in Gray’s-Inn-lane were known to the spies Oliver and Edwards, employed by the Government. Their first design was to assassinate the Ministers, each in his own house; but their plot was changed, and Thistlewood and his fellow conspirators arranged to meet at Cato-street, Edgeware-road, and to proceed from thence to butcher the Ministers assembled at a Cabinet dinner, on Feb. 23rd, at Lord Harrowby’s, 39, Grosvenor-square, where Thistlewood proposed, as “a rare haul, to murder them all together.” Some of the conspirators were to watch Lord Harrowby’s house; one was to call and deliver a despatch-box at the door, the others were then to rush in and murder the Ministers as they sat at dinner; and, as special trophies, to bring away with them the heads of Lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh, in two bags provided for the purpose! They were then to fire the cavalry-barracks; and the Bank and Tower were to be taken by the people, who, it was hoped, would rise upon the spread of the news.

This plot was, however, revealed to the Ministers by Edwards, who had joined the conspirators as a spy. Still no notice was apparently taken. The preparations for dinner went on at Lord Harrowby’s till eight o’clock in the evening, but the guests did not arrive. The Archbishop of York, who lived next door, happened to give a dinner-party at the same hour, and the arrival of the carriages deceived those of the conspirators who were on the watch in the street, till it was too late to give warning to their comrades who had assembled at Cato-street, in a loft over a stable, accessible only by a ladder. Here, while the traitors were arming themselves by the light of one or two candles, a party of Bow-street officers entered the stable, when Smithers, the first of them who mounted the ladder, and attempted to seize Thistlewood, was run by him through the body, and instantly fell; whilst, the lights being extinguished, a few shots were exchanged in the darkness and confusion, and Thistlewood and several of his companions escaped through a window at the back of the premises; nine were taken that evening with their arms and ammunition, and the intelligence conveyed to the Ministers, who, having dined at home, met at Lord Liverpool’s to await the result of what the Bow-street officers had done. A reward of 1000_l._ was immediately offered for the apprehension of Thistlewood, and he was captured before eight o’clock next morning while in bed at a friend’s house, No. 8, White-street, Little Moorfields. The conspirators were sent to the Tower, and were the last persons imprisoned in that fortress. On April 20th, Thistlewood was condemned to death after three days’ trial; and on May 1st, he and his four principal accomplices, Ings, Brunt, Tidd, and Davidson, who had been severally tried and convicted, were hanged at the Old Bailey, and their heads cut off. The remaining six pleaded guilty; one was pardoned, and five were transported for life.

Southey relates this touching anecdote of Thistlewood’s last hours:--

“When the desperate and atrocious traitor Thistlewood was on the
scaffold, his demeanour was that of a man who was resolved boldly
to meet the fate he had deserved; in the few words which were
exchanged between him and his fellow-criminals, he observed, that
the grand question whether or not the soul was immortal would
soon be solved for them. No expression of hope escaped him; no
breathing of repentance, no spark of grace, appeared. Yet (it is
a fact which, whether it be more consolatory or awful, ought to
be known), on the night after the sentence, and preceding his
execution, while he supposed that the person who was appointed
to watch him in his cell was asleep, this miserable man was seen
by that person repeatedly to rise upon his knees, and heard
repeatedly calling upon Christ his Saviour to have mercy upon
him, and to forgive him his sins.”--_The Doctor_, chap. lxxi.

The selection of _Cato_-street for the conspirators’ meeting was accidental; and the street itself is associated but indirectly in name with the Roman patriot and philosopher. To efface recollection of the conspiracy of the low and desperate politicians of 1820, Cato-street has been changed to Homer-street.

_Money Panic of 1832._

When, in May, 1832, the Duke of Wellington was very unpopular as a minister, and _it was believed_ that he had formed a Cabinet which, _it was thought_, would add to his unpopularity, a few agitators got up “a _run_ upon the Bank of England,” by means of placarding the streets of London with the emphatic words:--

TO STOP
THE DUKE,
GO FOR GOLD.

advice which was followed to a prodigious extent. On Monday, May 14, (the bills having been profusely posted on Sunday!) the run upon the Bank for coin was so incessant, that in a few hours upwards of half a million was carried off: we remember a tradesman in the Strand bringing home, in a hackney-coach, 2000 sovereigns. Mr. Doubleday, in his _Life of Sir Robert Peel_, states the placards to have been “the device of four gentlemen, two of whom were elected members of the Reformed Parliament. Each put down 20_l._; and the sum was expended in printing thousands of these terrible missives, which were eagerly circulated, and were speedily seen upon every wall in London. The effect is hardly to be described. It was electric.” The agent was a tradesman of kindred politics, in business towards the east end of Oxford-street; and it must be admitted that he executed the order completely.

_A Great Sufferer by Revolutions._

King Louis of Bavaria, who abdicated after an insurrection in 1848, has seen his family extensively affected by the dynastic changes which have taken place since 1859. His second son is Otho, the ex-King of Greece, born on the 1st of June, 1815; his third, Luitpold, is married to the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; one of his daughters to the Duke of Modena; and one of his grandsons, or his youngest son Adalbert, was to have succeeded Otho on the throne of Greece. Lastly, the Queen of Naples and her sister, the Countess de Trani, belong to a collateral branch of the Royal family, that of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. The House of Wittelsbach has therefore suffered most materially from the revolutions of Germany, Italy, and Greece, and its members might give a second representation of the famous dinner at Venice mentioned in Voltaire’s _Candide_.--_Le Temps._

_Origin of the Anti-Corn-Law League._

The first hint of this great political Association is to be found in the writings of the very individual whose labours tended so much to crown its efforts with success. In the well-known pamphlet, entitled _England, Ireland, and America, by a Manchester Manufacturer_, Mr. Cobden says:

“Whilst agriculture can boast almost as many associations as there are British counties, whilst every city in the kingdom contains its botanical, phrenological, or mechanical institutions, and these again possess their periodical journals (and not merely these, for even _war_ sends forth its _United Service Magazine_)--we possess no association of traders, united together, for the common object of enlightening the world upon a question so little understood, and so loaded with obloquy, as free-trade.

“We have our Banksian, our Linnæan, our Hunterian Societies, and why should not at least our greatest commercial and manufacturing towns possess their Smithian Societies, devoted to the purpose of promulgating the beneficent truths of the ‘Wealth of Nations’? Such institutions, by promoting a correspondence with similar societies that would probably be organized abroad (for it is our example in questions affecting commerce that strangers follow), might contribute to the spread of liberal and just views of political science, and thus tend to ameliorate the restrictive policy of foreign governments through the legitimate influence of the opinions of its people.

“Nor would such societies be fruitless at home. _Prizes might be offered for the best essay on the corn question, or lecturers might be sent to enlighten the agriculturists, and to invite discussion upon a subject so difficult and of such paramount interest to all._”

The pamphlet from which the preceding extract is taken, was published in the early part of the year 1835, about four years before the formation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and at a time when, owing to the very low price of grain, and the prosperity of the manufacturing districts, the question of the Corn-laws scarcely attracted the slightest attention, either in Manchester or in any other part of the country.

_Wellington’s Military Administration._

Much misconception exists with respect to the military administration of the Duke of Wellington, who was, at the close of his life, commander-in-chief of the army. He is said to have been wedded to “Brown Bess,” but he is known to have encouraged the introduction of the Minié; and several of the reforms executed by Lord Herbert had been discussed by the Duke with approval. The celebrated letter of 1847 shows what were the thoughts of this great man in reference to our national defences, and they are not perhaps the least valuable legacy which Wellington has bequeathed to England. The following scheme of defence by the Duke, which Mr. Gleig for the first time published, is not perhaps the less interesting because it has been in part accomplished:--

“He considered the Channel Islands--Jersey, Guernsey, and
Alderney--to be the key of our outer line of defence. In each of
these he required that a harbour of refuge should be constructed
of sufficient capacity and depth of water to receive a stout
squadron; and then, with Portsmouth well guarded on one flank and
Plymouth on the other, he held that England would be perfectly
safe from invasion on a large scale.... If Government gave
him the _Channel Islands, Seaford, Portsmouth, and Plymouth,
all completely fortified, and ready to receive respectively
their squadrons_, then he was satisfied that, though it might
be impossible to prevent marauding parties from landing here
or there, England would be placed beyond the risk of invasion
on such a scale as to endanger her existence, or even to put
the capital in jeopardy.... Establishing then an outer line of
defence, he asked for men and material wherewith to meet an
enemy if he succeeded in breaking through that line. He would be
satisfied with an addition of 20,000 men to the regular army,
_provided such a force of Militia were raised as would enable
him to dispose of 70,000 men among the principal fortresses and
arsenals of the kingdom_; keeping at the same time two corps of
50,000 men in hand, one in the neighbourhood of London, the other
near Dublin. He should thus have open to him all the great lines
of railway, which would enable him to meet with rapidity any
danger, from whatever side of the capital it might threaten.”

If we read Volunteers for Militia, we shall see that Wellington’s plan of defence is nearly that contemplated in 1863.

_Gustavus III. of Sweden._

In a paper contributed to the Royal Society of Literature, Dr. Hermann has traced the eventful history of the Swedish monarch with great skill, from the period when he ascended the throne, in 1771, to his assassination by Ankerström at the masked ball in 1792. Dr. Hermann shows that Gustavus united in his own person and character most of those qualities, intellectual and moral, which distinguished the latter half of the eighteenth century. Thus, like Catherine of Russia and Frederick the Great, though not to the same extent, he was a believer in those doctrines whose chief expositors were Voltaire and the Encyclopædists; while, in the government of his country, he was ever striving after a system of optimism, which, however beautiful in theory, is wholly impracticable. The reign of Gustavus is chiefly remarkable for the spirit with which he broke down a tyranny of certain noble families, which had long usurped nearly the whole of the royal prerogative, and had thrown the monarch into the background; for the zeal with which he carried out many reforms of the greatest benefit to the more indigent classes of his people; for the remarkable rashness with which, unsupported by a single other European power, he rushed madly into a war with the Russian Empress; and for the extraordinary victory in which, at the close of his second campaign, in July, 1791, he destroyed the entire Russian fleet, in the Bay of Swöborg, and captured no less than 1412 Russian cannon.

The assassin, Ankerström, was discovered and executed: in his character and in his last moments, a striking similarity may be traced to Bellingham, who assassinated Mr. Perceval in 1812: both expressed the same fanatical satisfaction at the perpetration of the crime, and the same presumptuous confidence of pardon from the Almighty.

Gustavus, in his parting moments, strictly forbad, for _fifty years_, the opening of the chests at Upsal, in which his papers were deposited; and the injunction was strictly obeyed. On March 30, 1842, the chests were opened, in the presence of many spectators; but in neither was found, as was expected, any clue to the conspiracy of which Ankerström was the agent; but the king’s autograph instructions do not refer to any papers later than 1788, when the bequest was made. The Swedish instructions, in Gustavus’s handwriting, prove that the king enjoyed the reputation of being a great author without even knowing how to spell.--See _Curiosities of History_, p. 107.

_Fall of Louis-Philippe._

Sir John Herschel, in a paper on Humboldt’s _Kosmos_, in the _Edinburgh Review_, January, 1848, has the following sentence, which reads strangely now, for it was given to the public just before the catastrophe which overthrew the throne of Louis-Philippe, and led in a few months to the Italian and Hungarian wars. Herschel’s words are: “A great and wondrous attempt is making in civilized Europe at the present time--neither more nor less than to stave off, _ad infinitum_, the tremendous visitation of war.” The retrospect has been thus sketched:

Seventeen years Louis-Philippe sat on his elective throne: great increase of wealth and physical progress were the results of his reign at home, peace preserved abroad, and foreign policy alike successful; yet _the King was not popular at home_. He was hated alike by the Legitimist party, in whose eyes he was but a usurper, and by the revolutionists, who sighed for entire emancipation from kingly rule. Besides, there are deep and dark stains upon the reign of the “Napoleon of Peace,” as Louis-Philippe liked to be called. His reign was a period of corruption in high places, of jealousy and illiberal restriction towards his own subjects, of a fraudulent and heartless policy towards the allies of his country, whose good will he more especially forfeited by his over-reaching conduct in regard to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier to a Spanish princess. His downfal was long predicted by the leading journalists of England, where public opinion is unfettered by arbitrary laws. In France, too, it was understood that Louis-Philippe was, in great measure, restrained in his views by his sister, Madame Adelaide, who died Dec. 30, 1847. “Then it came to pass that the heart of the nation became alienated from their king; and when a trifling disturbance in February, 1848, was aggravated into a popular riot through the audacity of a few ultra-republicans, Louis-Philippe felt that he stood alone and unsupported as a constitutional king, both at home and abroad, and that the soldiery were his only means of defence. He shrank from employing their bayonets against his people: he fell in consequence, and his house fell with him. The King fled in disguise from Paris to the coast of Normandy, and taking ship again found a safe refuge on the shores of England, to which his family had already made their escape. He landed at Newhaven, March 3rd, 1848. The Queen of England--who, in 1843, had enjoyed the hospitality of Louis-Philippe at the Château d’Eu, his royal residence near Dieppe, and who had entertained him in the following year at Windsor, and conferred on him the order of the Garter--immediately assigned Claremont, near Esher, as a residence for himself and his exiled family. From the time of his arrival in England, his health began visibly to decline: he died on the 26th of August, 1850, in the presence of Queen Amelie and his family, having dictated to them the conclusion of his memoirs, and having received the last rites and sacraments of the church at the hands of his chaplain. He was buried on the following 2nd of September at the Roman Catholic chapel at Weybridge, Surrey, and an inscription was placed upon his coffin, stating that his ashes remain there, Donec Deo adjuvante in patriam avitos inter cineres transferantur” (_Saturday Review_). They have not been removed!

_The Chartists in 1848._

The Tenth of April, 1848, is a noted day in our political calendar, from its presenting a remarkable instance of nipping in the bud apparent danger to the peace of the country by means at once constitutional and reassuring public safety. It was on this day that the Chartists, as they were called, from developing their proposed alterations in the representative system, through “the People’s Charter,” made in the metropolis a great demonstration of their numbers: thus hinting at the physical force which they possessed, but probably without any serious design against the public peace. On this day the Chartists met, about 25,000 in number, on Kennington Common, whence it had been intended to march in procession to the House of Commons with the Charter petition; but the authorities having intimated that the procession would be prevented by force if attempted, it was abandoned. Nevertheless, the assembling of the _quasi_ politicians from the north, by marching through the streets to the place of meeting, had an imposing effect. Great preparations were made to guard against any mischief; the shops were shut in the principal thoroughfares; bodies of horse and foot police, assisted by masses of special constables, were posted at the approaches to the Thames bridges; a large force of the regular troops was stationed out of sight in convenient spots; two regiments of the line were kept ready at Millbank Penitentiary; 1200 infantry at Deptford, and 30 pieces of heavy field ordnance were ready at the Tower, to be transported by hired steamers to any required point. The Meeting was held, but was brought to “a ridiculous issue, by the unity and resolution of the Metropolis, backed by the judicious measures of the Government, and the masterly military precautions of the Duke of Wellington.”

“On our famous 10th of April, his peculiar genius was exerted
to the unspeakable advantage of peace and order. So effective
were his preparations that the most serious insurrection could
have been successfully encountered, and yet every source of
provocation and alarm was removed by the dispositions adopted.
No military display was anywhere to be seen. The troops and the
cannon were all at their posts, but neither shako nor bayonet
was visible; and for all that met the eye, it might have been
concluded that the peace of the metropolis was still entrusted to
the keeping of its own citizens. As an instance, however, of his
forecast against the worst, on this memorable occasion, it may be
observed that orders were given to the commissioned officers of
artillery to take the discharge of their pieces on themselves.
The Duke knew that a cannon-shot too much or too little might
change the aspect of the day; and he provided by these remarkable
instructions, both for imperturbable forbearance as long as
forbearance was best, and for unshrinking action when the moment
for action came.”--_Memoir_; _Times_, Sept. 15-16, 1852.

The Chartists’ Petition was presented to the Commons, on the above day, signed, it was stated, by 5,706,000 persons. The principal points of the Charter were universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, the division of the country into equal electoral districts, the abolition of property qualification in members, and paying them for their services. Chartism and the People’s Charter grew out of the shortcomings of the Reform Act. The Chartists then divided into the Physical Force and the Moral Force Chartists; and then arose the Complete Suffragists; the latter principally from the Middle Classes, the former from the working-classes; though their objects were very similar.

_Revival of the French Emperorship._